The Republic of Gamers (ROG) department at ASUS started to tease its lineup of official Evangelion tie-in products in late July, with a ROG Strix customized NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 card attracting some attention thanks to its very prominent red and black aesthetic. The marketing spiel revealed that: "the EVA Editions of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 come equipped with a myriad of performance-enhancing ASUS features, such as Axial-tech fans with reverse rotation and 0 dB technology, an exclusive vapor chamber design, top-shelf power delivery and a sleek metal exoskeleton for maximized rigidity. The expertly engineered fan shroud and right-hand side of the card now sport an EVA-02 color theme, and Asuka art takes over the backplate."

The ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 OC EVA-02 Edition was shown off at last month's Gamescom trade fair in Germany, but PC hardware enthusiasts in China will be getting first dibs on retail units. As reported by ITHome and VideoCardz, units can be pre-ordered via JD.com, with shipments starting tomorrow (September 5). The special edition livery and pack of themed accessories will set you back 17,999 RMB (~$2475) in the region. ASUS ROG has not revealed pricing for Western territories.

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Arm Prepares for IPO: Apple, NVIDIA, Intel, and Samsung are Strategic Partners
Arm's impending IPO, valued between $60 billion and $70 billion, has reportedly garnered substantial backing from industry giants such as Apple, NVIDIA, Intel, and Samsung, as per sources cited in a Bloomberg report. This much-anticipated public offering serves as a litmus test for investor interest in new chip-related stocks and could reshape the tech industry landscape. While the information remains unofficial, it underscores the significant support Arm has received from major licensees, including Apple, AMD, Cadence, Intel, Google, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Synopsys, with each potentially contributing between $25 million and $100 million, a testament to their confidence in Arm's future prospects. Originally, SoftBank aimed to raise $8 billion to $10 billion through the IPO, but a strategic shift to retain a larger Arm stake revised the target to $5 billion to $7 billion.

This IPO's success holds paramount importance for SoftBank and its CEO, Masayoshi Son, particularly following the Vision Fund's substantial $30 billion loss in the previous fiscal year. Masayoshi Son is reportedly committed to maintaining significant control over Arm, planning to release no more than 10% of the company's shares during this initial phase, aligning with SoftBank's recent acquisition of the Vision Fund's Arm stake and reinforcing their belief in Arm's long-term potential. Arm has enlisted renowned global financial institutions such as Barclays, Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Mizuho Financial Group to prepare for the IPO, highlighting the widespread interest in the offering and the anticipated benefits for these financial institutions.

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(PR) Bandai Namco Hails "Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon" Critical Acclaim
After 10 years, we return to fight once more. This is where your souls belongs. The reviews are in. Armored Core is back. Ready to take Rubicon by storm? Suit up, Ravens. Success in Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon comes from tinkering with highly customizable mech builds, a signature feature of the series, and learning the right strategies and techniques such as staggering enemies with the right weapons, combining ranged and melee attacks, and taking every advantage in battle.

A new action game based on the concept of the Armored Core series that uses the knowledge gained from FromSoftware's recent action game development. Combining FromSoftware's longstanding expertise in mech games with their signature action gameplay, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon brings a brand-new action experience to the series.
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AMD Ryzen 8000 "Strix Point" APU Leak Points to 16 RDNA 3.5 CUs
PerformanceDatabases has uncovered details relating to an alleged engineering sample of AMD's Ryzen 8000 "Strix Point" APU—likely insider sourced CPU-Z screengrabs from early last month revealed that the upcoming Zen 5-based laptop chip (in their words): "is built on a 4 nm Process and features the Big.Little CPU architecture with 4 Performance Cores and 8 Efficiency Cores. Both the P and E-Cores support hyper-threading. On the P-Core and E-Core, the L1 Data cache is 48 KB, while the L1 instruction cache is 32 KB. Each P Core boasts 1 MB of cache, and with E-Cores, it looks like there are 4 in a group, sharing 1 MB of L2 Cache. This setup is quite similar to Intel's design. Keep in mind, it's still in the engineering sample (ES) stage, so there's more to come. We'll keep you posted on any further updates!"

Another "AMD Strix - Internal GPU" example emerged late last week, this time in the form of a leaked HWInfo64 screen grab with some information completely covered up—the visible parts seems to point to this "Strix Point" APU featuring a core configuration as seen in the earlier leak, along with 1024 unified shaders. We can presume that the sampled Zen 5-based mobile APU possessing 16 RDNA 3.5 compute units (16 × 64 = 1024). Other details include a 45 W TDP rating, and the socket type being FP8 (as utilized by current Ryzen 7040U and 7040H(S) mobile SoCs). The 512 MB GDDR6 memory configuration is very likely an error—according to HWInfo64, the tested system was fitted with 32 GB of LPDDR5 memory. "Strix Point" looks to be the logical successor (in 2024) to AMD's current "Phoenix" lineup of mobile processors, as featured in gaming handhelds and laptops. PC hardware enthusiasts are expressing excitement about the upcoming APU series wielding impressive iGPU performance, with the potential to rival modern discrete mobile solutions.

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(PR) Mortal Kombat 1 Premium Edition Early Access Perks Revealed
Players who pre-order the Mortal Kombat 1 Premium Edition will get Playable Character Shang Tsung and have 5-day early access to the game beginning Sept. 14, 2023. Mortal Kombat 1 Premium Edition will be playable on September 14th at 10am PDT / 12pm CDT / 1pm EDT. Discover a reborn Mortal Kombat Universe created by the Fire God Liu Kang. Mortal Kombat 1 ushers in a new era of the iconic franchise with a new fighting system, game modes, and fatalities!

Mortal Kombat 1 is a brand-new title in the acclaimed Mortal Kombat videogame franchise that has sold more than 80 million units since its debut over 30 years ago. Developed by award-winning NetherRealm Studios, the upcoming game will introduce a reborn Mortal Kombat Universe that has been created by the Fire God Liu Kang, featuring reimagined versions of iconic characters as they've never been seen before. Mortal Kombat 1 is scheduled to release on Sept. 19, 2023, for PlayStation 5 (PS5 ), Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
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ASUS NUC Product Lineup is Official
The North American branch of ASUS has unveiled its NUC product lineup—this announcement arrives only a month and a half after making an agreement with Intel to transfer rights for the sales and manufacturing of NUC products to their Business Unit (NUC BU). Their X account tweeted out late last week: "Exciting News! ???? Starting September 1st, NUC becomes a proud member of the ASUS product lineup, setting off on an exhilarating journey ahead ???? Delve into NUC product specifics on the official ASUS website."

ASUS seems to have absorbed the current crop of 10th to 13th NUC series systems into its portfolio, although the emphasis appears to be placed on Raptor Lake-based units. Other news outlets anticipate that ASUS NUC 13 Extreme products (minus ROG livery) could hit the market soon. The ASUS marketing blurb outlines their ambitions going forward: "NUC-Powerful experiences in small packages. NUC-rhymes with luck-is the Next Unit of Computing that delivers incredible performance, rich l/O, high-end graphics capabilities, and sleek designs for everyone and every situation, including gaming and business." ASUS NUC BU will likely adopt upcoming Raptor Lake Refresh and Meteor Lake CPUs.

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