TechPowerUP NEWS

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Over the past three weeks, press outlets and the buying public have levelled heavy criticism at NVIDIA board partners. The launches of three GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" GPUs have—so far—been problematic; based on news reports and community feedback. Prior to release (on February 20), VideoCardz anticipated major price fluctuations for an all-custom portfolio of GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards. The publication did not hold back with its targeting of ASUS; one of Team Green's big time AIBs. Only a small selection of baseline MSRP ($749) conformant models were available on day one, and VideoCardz posited that manufacturers would implement price hikes soon after launch. A follow-up report continues their investigation into a lack of baseline MSRP options, as well as so-called "fake promotions."

VideoCardz repeated its belief that ASUS will jack-up the asking price for its PRIME GeForce RTX 5070 Ti model. When looking at Newegg's listing of baseline MSRP cards, the intrepid investigator stumbled up another notable absence: "we wrote three articles about the ASUS RTX 5070 Ti PRIME model not being listed as an MSRP card by retailers, which finally led ASUS to intervene (most likely for a limited time) to sell this card at the promised price. What we can immediately notice is the lack of the VENTUS 3X model from MSI, which was basically 90% of the MSRP card review coverage yesterday, as NVIDIA had no Founders Edition card for this launch and relied on board partners. In fact, the VENTUS 3X non-OC is not even included in the official launch, meaning that the card you saw yesterday in reviews is simply not available anywhere." It should be noted that TechPowerUp received an MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Ventus 3X OC sample unit for evaluation purposes (review guide pricing was $749); Newegg lists this particular model with a current $829.99 price point, but stock is unavailable (at the time of writing).

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On March 4, Grand Theft Auto V on PC is getting a free upgrade with sought-after features previously only available in the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of GTA Online—including all the latest vehicles and performance upgrades available at Hao's Special Works, animal encounters, and access to purchase a GTA+ Membership—along with improved graphics options, faster loading times, and more. All players who currently own GTAV on PC will be able to upgrade to this new version for free, with the ability to migrate your Story Mode and Online progress.

New Features on PC
Once upgraded, current PC players—along with anyone playing the game for the first time—will have access to a full suite of much-requested GTA Online upgrades previously only available on the latest consoles. This upgraded version of GTA V on PC also features all of our recent player experience improvements for GTA Online, including kernel-based anti-cheat protections and proactive voice chat moderation to help keep GTA Online fun for everyone.
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VideoCardz obtained AMD Radeon RX 9070 series specifications, which appear to be the official final configurations of the upcoming RDNA 4 GPUs. As we previously expected, the lineup consists of two models based on the Navi 48 GPU, which integrates 53.9 billion transistors on a 357 mm² die using a 4 nm (N5) process from TSMC. Both the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 utilize identical memory configurations: 16 GB of GDDR6 memory running at 20 Gbps across a 256-bit bus, delivering 640 GB/s bandwidth. Each card implements 64 MB of 3rd Generation Infinity Cache and supports PCIe 5.0 x16 interface standards. The RX 9070 XT features 64 RDNA 4 Compute Units, equating to 4096 Stream Processors, 64 Ray Accelerators, and 128 AI Accelerators. It operates at a 2400 MHz game clock and 2970 MHz boost clock, providing 48.7 TFLOPS of single-precision FP32 compute performance.

Power requirements include a 304 W TBP and a recommended 750 W power supply. The standard RX 9070 reduces specifications to 56 Compute Units (3584 Stream Processors), 56 Ray Accelerators, and 112 AI Accelerators. Clock speeds decrease to 2070 MHz game clock and 2540 MHz boost clock, with correspondingly lower power requirements of 220 W TBP and a recommended 650 W power supply. Since both SKUs use the same Navi 48 die, the separation between them is likely better binning for the XT version, and lower bins end up for the non-XT version. Both models support HDMI 2.1b and DisplayPort 2.1a UHBR13.5 outputs. AMD has confirmed the cards will launch exclusively through board partners with no reference designs planned and that the official unveiling will be in March. Earlier rumors have suggested a $699 price tag for the Radeon RX 9070 XT SKU, putting its expected price/performance near NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. AMD notes that 85% of gamers buy cards below $700, which the RDNA 4 series will focus on.

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[NextPowerUP]

Anyone who's ever worked an office job has probably used or encountered Microsoft's Excel app. The spreadsheet tool is handy, but it's not necessarily easy to navigate—in fact, you may have even nearly pulled your hair out trying to figure out how to manipulate Excel functions.

Instead of struggling with using spreadsheets and wasting precious time, learn how to use Excel with these e-learning courses. You could just become an Excel master—and Google Sheets, too—once you learn these tips and tricks. Grab lifetime access while it's available for only $34.99 (reg. $140).

Want to become proficient in Excel? Grab this seven course Excel training bundle for just $34.99 while supplies last.
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The Polish industrial memory manufacturer will once again be showcasing its product range at Embedded World, which takes place in Nuremberg, Germany, from 11 to 13 March. The company will be showcasing its latest solutions for industrial, defense, data center and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Goodram Industrial offers DRAM modules, SSDs and Flash memory for use in demanding industrial environments. Manufacturing in Poland, full memory testing and an in-house R&D department underpin product quality. Goodram Industrial memory is characterized by reliability, long life and resistance to extreme operating conditions. The range includes customized solutions for automation, robotics, transportation, medical, security systems, energy and telecommunications.

This year's launches include DDR5 CUDIMM/CSODIMM memory modules. These offer not only high capacity but also increased speed and stability of operation. Another interesting innovation is a microSD card with pSLC-Boost technology, which offers up to 100,000 program/erase cycles, far exceeding the standard parameters.
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KONAMI, a legendary name in the gaming industry, sought a partner who could breathe new life into one of its most iconic franchises—SILENT HILL. Bloober Team was selected for their expertise in horror and atmospheric storytelling, and in 2021, both companies signed a partnership agreement. In October 2022, during the official SILENT HILL Transmission livestream, it was announced that Bloober Team was working on a remake of SILENT HILL 2, widely regarded as one of the best psychological horror games in history.

The success of the remake proved that Bloober Team had perfectly captured the atmosphere and depth of the original while introducing crucial innovations. The game was well-received by players, earning an 86/100 rating on Metacritic and an 88/100 on OpenCritic, along with numerous awards, including Game of the Year 2024 from IGN Japan and Best Horror Game of the Year from the IGN Community Awards.
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[NextPowerUP]

Framework has finally introduced its next-generation Framework Laptop 13, now powered by the extremely potent Ryzen AI 300 "Strix Point" APUs. The product is already available for pre-order on Framework's website, with prices starting from $899 for the Do-It-Yourself variant, and $1,099 for the fully assembled variant. From the outside, the design of the product has been left mostly unchanged, which may appear somewhat disappointing at first, although an unaltered design likely indicates compatibility of components between the two laptops, which is undoubtedly one of the primary selling points for the Framework Laptop.

As mentioned, the biggest upgrade that the new Framework Laptop brings to the table is the new selection of processors, with the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU sitting at the highest-end. Unsurprisingly, the Strix Point APUs allow for excellent performance improvements to both CPU and GPU side of things. With 12 cores (4 Zen 5 + 4 Zen 5c) and 24 threads, the highest-end Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU performs admirably well in benchmarks as well as real-life workloads. The Radeon 890M iGPU is among the fastest available on the market, trading blows with the Arc 140T iGPU in synthetic benchmarks. Of course, the 50 TOPS NPU allows for CoPilot functionality, for those who care. The Windows variant ships with a dedicated CoPilot key as well, while the DIY variant does not.
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Baya Systems, a leader in system IP technology that empowers the acceleration of intelligent compute, and Semidynamics, a provider of fully customizable high-bandwidth and high-performance RISC-V processor IP, today announced a collaboration to boost innovation in development of hyper-efficient, next-generation platforms for artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications.

The collaboration integrates Semidynamics' family of 64-bit RISC-V processor IP cores, known for their exceptional memory bandwidth and configurability, with Baya Systems' innovative WeaveIP Network on Chip (NoC) system IP. WeaveIP is engineered for ultra-efficient, high-bandwidth, and low-latency data transport, crucial for the demands of modern workloads. Complementing this is Baya Systems' software-driven WeaverPro platform, which enables rapid system-level optimization, ensuring that key performance indicators (KPIs) are met based on real-world workloads while providing unparalleled design flexibility for future advancements.
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TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the handy graphics sub-system information, monitoring, and diagnostics utility. Version 2.64.0 comes with support for the upcoming GeForce RTX 5070 graphics card. Support is improved for the upcoming Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070. Among the issues fixed are incorrect TMU/ROP/shader counts displayed for Intel Arc B570; and when a message pops up "This service has been marked for deletion" comes up, a hint has been added which says that restarting the machine solves the problem. GPU-Z no longer checks for PhysX acceleration on non-NVIDIA GPUs, which should speed up startup.

We have an update relevant to the recent Blackwell missing ROPs controversy. On machines with no NVIDIA graphics drivers installed, and an RTX 50-series GPU such as the RTX 5090, RTX 5090D, RTX 5080, or RTX 5070 Ti installed, the ROP count is now shown as "unknown." NVIDIA drivers need to be installed for GPU-Z to read the actual ROP count of the card. This is important, because without drivers, previously, GPU-Z displayed a fallback hardcoded value for ROPs (reference spec), so we changed that to list "unknown" instead, to avoid causing confusion.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z 2.64.0
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AMD is launching new Socket AM4 processor SKUs well into 2025, eight years into the platform's lifecycle. The company just launched six new processor models under the Ryzen 5005G series. These span the Ryzen 7, Ryzen 5, and Ryzen 3 tiers, and are all desktop APUs based on the 7 nm "Cezanne" monolithic silicon that combines up to 8 "Zen 3" CPU cores with an iGPU based on the "Vega" graphics architecture, featuring up to 8 compute units (CU). There's nothing [much] to report about the 5005G series, except that they are iGPU speed bumps of existing SKUs. These are not meant to be confused with the 5000GT series, which were CPU speed-bumps of the chips AMD launched in 2024.

Among the six new SKUs, the top-spec part is the Ryzen 7 5705G, which maxes out the silicon, enabling the full 8-core/16-thread "Zen 3" CPU with 512 KB of L2 cache per core and 16 MB of shared L3 cache; and the iGPU with all 8 CUs. This chip comes with CPU clock speeds of 3.80 GHz base with 4.60 GHz boost, with 2.20 GHz max engine clock for the iGPU. The CPU clock speeds are unchanged compared to the Ryzen 7 5700G, but the iGPU gets a 10% increase in max engine clock. The Ryzen 7 5705GE is an energy efficient variant with 3.20 GHz base and 4.60 GHz boost for the CPU to achieve a 35 W TDP, but the iGPU engine clock gets the same 200 MHz speed bump.
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Late last week, we reported that NVIDIA is investigating a software-level bug with certain GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" graphics cards exhibiting black screen and BSOD errors. The black screens appear at random, there's no set way to reproduce to cause for the bug. The display head goes black, and sometimes the OS could even run into a bluescreen of death (BSOD) halt. NVIDIA earlier this week released a video BIOS update through its add-in card (AIC) partners, which should be distributed in the support sections of the brand websites. For those without such a VBIOS update, NVIDIA says that later this week, the company will release a GeForce Game Ready driver update that applies the same VBIOS update.

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[NextPowerUP]

NVIDIA is preparing a late-March 2025 launch of the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti following its early-March RTX 5070 launch. The card will reportedly come with 16 GB and 8 GB memory variants, much like its predecessor, the RTX 4060 Ti, with the 16 GB variant launching late-March, and the 8 GB variant in April. A Wccftech report sheds light on a few interesting specs of the RTX 5060 Ti. Apparently, the card comes with a total graphics power (TGP) of 180 W, which should make it possible for partners to sell cards with single 8-pin PCIe power connectors. NVIDIA is looking to target the $400 to $500 price segment with the RTX 5060 Ti series, but a lot will depend on how AMD addresses this space with its lean new "Navi 48" silicon that could probably be cut down to create SKUs that square off against the RTX 5060 Ti.

The GeForce RTX 5060 Ti, much like the RTX 4060 Ti, will come with a 128-bit wide memory bus, however, NVIDIA will give the GPU a massive upgrade in bandwidth with 28 Gbps GDDR7, giving it 448 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is a 55% increase over the 288 GB/s that the RTX 4060 Ti has. The GB205 (or GB206?) GPU that the RTX 5060 Ti is based on could implement PCI-Express 5.0, which means that should NVIDIA opt for an 8-lane PCIe host interface to save board costs, the GPU could still enjoy bandwidth comparable to PCI-Express 4.0 x16 on systems with Gen 5 PCIe.

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Samsung aims to create 1,000-layer NAND by 2030 relying on its new "multi-BV" NAND design. The Bell reports that this plan involves stacking four wafers to overcome structural limits. Wafer bonding technology plays a crucial role in this progress and Samsung intends to use it to break the 1,000-layer barrier. Samsung Electronics DS division CTO, Song Jae-hyuk, pointed out that wafer bonding allows separate production of peripheral and cell wafers before joining them into one semiconductor. The Bell says this technology will likely appear first in Samsung's 10th-gen NAND (V10), while industry experts think a single wafer can hold about 500 NAND layers when implementing only cell structures. In the past, Samsung has used the COP (Cell on Peripheral) technique, a method that places the peripheral circuit on one wafer, with NAND cells stacked on top. However, as NAND layers grow, the lower peripheral parts face more pressure potentially affecting reliability.

Samsung's plan involves working with China's YMTC, which should offer a hybrid bonding patent for V10 NAND. ZDNet reports that the South Korean tech company will start making its V10 NAND in large quantities in the second half of 2025, with about 420-430 layers. Besides wafer bonding, Samsung adds other technologies to its NAND plan. The Bell points out that cold etching using molybdenum, and other new ideas will start with 400-layer NAND and play a key part in growing to 1,000 layers. Samsung isn't alone in trying to create ultra-high-layer NAND products. Japan's Kioxia also wants to reach this goal through its "multi-stack CBA" (CMOS Bonded to Array) technology. The company's plan is even bolder hoping to sell 1,000-layer 3D NAND by 2027.

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In today's fast-paced office environment, efficiency and productivity are key. Shuttle's latest innovation, the XPC nano Barebone NA10H7, is a compact yet powerful AI-PC that enhances everyday office operations with intelligent computing and seamless multitasking.

Smart Performance in a Compact Form
Measuring just 1 liter in volume, the NA10H7 is powered by the AMD Ryzen 7-8845HS APU with Zen 4 microarchitecture. With 8 cores, 16 threads, and integrated AMD Radeon 780M graphics, this AI-enhanced system accelerates workloads and optimizes daily office tasks. Additionally, it features an integrated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) that delivers 16 TOPS AI performance, contributing to a total AI acceleration of 39 TOPS (NPU+CPU+GPU combined). This makes the NA10H7 particularly adept at handling AI-driven workloads such as intelligent automation and predictive analytics.
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Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC) announced the successful completion of the planned separation of the company's Flash business. Earlier this month, Western Digital held its Investor Day event where the company shared its vision, strategy and plan to enable its customers to unleash the power and value of data. Looking ahead, Western Digital Chief Executive Officer Irving Tan shares how the future of HDDs begins now here in his latest blog post.
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