iRocks x TechPowerUp Gaming Peripherals Giveaway: The Winners
Fri, 08 Dec 2023
TechPowerUp and iRocks, a stand-out brand with innovative gaming peripherals, announced a chance for our readers from around the world to grab some of their most advanced gear. From a pool of five lucky winners, the first one gets an iRocks care package with a flagship iRocks K75M gaming keyboard with silver keyswitches; an iRocks M36 Pure RGB gaming mouse with additional grip tapes; and an iRocks C45E RGB illuminated mousepad with a wrist-rest. There are four additional winners, for the four other iRocks keyboards up for grabs—a K75M Pink, a K71R Wireless RGB, a K73M, and a K74M White. We've drawn our lucky winners, and without further ado, here they are!
- Joao from Portugal, wins an iRocks Care Package that includes an iRocks K75M keyboard with Silver keyswitches, an M36 Pure RGB mouse with additional grip tapes, and a C45E illuminated mousepad.
- Julien from France, wins an iRocks K75M Pink keyboard
- Matthew from Canada, wins an iRocks K71R White keyboard
- Stefan from Bulgaria, wins an iRocks K73M keyboard
- Aaron from the United States, wins an iRocks K74M keyboard
Intel's upcoming Sierra Forest Xeon server chip has debuted on Geekbench 6, showcasing its potential in multi-core performance. Slated for release in the first half of 2024, Sierra Forest is equipped with up to 288 Efficiency cores, positioning it to compete with AMD's Zen 4c Bergamo server CPUs and other ARM-based server chips like those from Ampere for the favor of cloud service providers (CSP). In the Geekbench 6 benchmark, a dual-socket configuration featuring two 144-core Sierra Forest CPUs was tested. The benchmark revealed a notable multi-core score of 7,770, surpassing most dual-socket systems powered by Intel's high-end Xeon Platinum 8480+, which typically scores between 6,500 and 7,500. However, Sierra Forest's single-core score of 855 points was considerably lower, not even reaching half of that of the 8480+, which manages 1,897 points.
The difference in single-core performance is a matter of choice, as Sierra Forest uses Cresmont-derived Sierra Glen E-cores, which are more power and area-efficient, unlike the Golden Cove P-cores in the Sapphire Rapids-based 8480+. This design choice is particularly advantageous for server environments where high-core counts are crucial, as CSPs usually partition their instances by the number of CPU cores. However, compared to AMD's Bergamo CPUs, which use Zen 4c cores, Sierra Forest lacks pure computing performance, especially in multi-core. The Sierra Forest lacks hyperthreading, while Beragamo offers SMT with 256 threads on the 128-core SKU. Comparing the Geekbench 6 scores to AMD Bergamo EPYC 9754 and Sierra Forest results look a lot less impressive. Bergamo scored 1,597 points in single-core, almost double that of Sierra Forest, and 16,455 points in the multi-core benchmarks, which is more than double. This is a significant advantage of the Zen4c core, which cuts down on caches instead of being an entirely different core, as Intel does with its P and E-cores. However, these are just preliminary numbers; we must wait for real-world benchmarks to see the actual performance.
The difference in single-core performance is a matter of choice, as Sierra Forest uses Cresmont-derived Sierra Glen E-cores, which are more power and area-efficient, unlike the Golden Cove P-cores in the Sapphire Rapids-based 8480+. This design choice is particularly advantageous for server environments where high-core counts are crucial, as CSPs usually partition their instances by the number of CPU cores. However, compared to AMD's Bergamo CPUs, which use Zen 4c cores, Sierra Forest lacks pure computing performance, especially in multi-core. The Sierra Forest lacks hyperthreading, while Beragamo offers SMT with 256 threads on the 128-core SKU. Comparing the Geekbench 6 scores to AMD Bergamo EPYC 9754 and Sierra Forest results look a lot less impressive. Bergamo scored 1,597 points in single-core, almost double that of Sierra Forest, and 16,455 points in the multi-core benchmarks, which is more than double. This is a significant advantage of the Zen4c core, which cuts down on caches instead of being an entirely different core, as Intel does with its P and E-cores. However, these are just preliminary numbers; we must wait for real-world benchmarks to see the actual performance.
Intel Releases Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.5074 Beta
Fri, 08 Dec 2023
Intel today released the latest version of Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.5074 Beta adds optimization for "Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora," with an up to 8% performance uplift seen at 1080p with Ultra settings, as measured with an Arc A770 GPU. The drivers fix a handful of game-specific issues. Total War: Pharaoh exhibits display corruption upon changing game resolution on certain displays; which has been fixed. Application crashes with the original "Alan Wake" (DirectX 9) has been fixed. A colorful pixed corruption with "Cyberpunk 2077" has been fixed. Flickering pixels during gameplay with 4x MSAA enabled for "Counter Strike 2" has been fixed. A sporadic application crash with "Gostrunner 2" has been fixed. An application crash with "Far Cry 3" has been fixed.
DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.5074 Beta
DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.5074 Beta
AMD over the past months has been releasing periodic updates to its Fluid Motion Frames preview drivers. These are off-trunk drivers that serve to demonstrate the capabilities of Fluid Motion Frames (FMF), a technology that enables near-doubling of frame-rates for every game, through interpolation techniques, similar to what you find in consumer televisions. The tech works on DirectX 12 and DirectX 11 games, on Windows 10 and Windows 11 machines, and for Radeon RX 7000 series and RX 6000 series GPUs. The December 7th update is based on the Adrenalin 23.12.1 drivers (i.e. includes all changes and improvements AMD introduced with those drivers), plus enablement for FMF, although the driver isn't WHQL certified. With this release, AMD says that it introduced several application stability improvements for FMF. The company also reduced stutter and improved frame-pacing. Grab the driver from the link below.
DOWNLOAD: AMD Fluid Motion Frames Preview Driver—December 7 Update
DOWNLOAD: AMD Fluid Motion Frames Preview Driver—December 7 Update
It's a fortuitous GFN Thursday with 17 new games joining the GeForce NOW library, including The Day Before, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and the 100th PC Game Pass title to join the cloud - Ori and the Will of the Wisps. This week also marks a milestone: over 500 games and applications now support RTX ON. GeForce NOW Ultimate and Priority members can experience cinematic ray tracing on nearly any device thanks to NVIDIA RTX-powered gaming rigs in the cloud. Check out the RTX ON game row in the GeForce NOW app to play even more titles featuring this stunning graphics technology.
Stayin' Alive
The Day Before, Fntastic's new open-world horror massively multiplayer online game, is a uniquely reimagined journey of survival set on the east coast of the present-day U.S. after the world has been overrun by zombies. Priority and Ultimate members can stream the game on nearly any device with support for RTX ON. Explore the beautifully detailed New Fortune City, filled with skyscrapers, massive malls and grand stadiums, with a variety of vehicles. Fight against other players and those infected by a deadly virus. Survive by collecting loot, completing quests and building houses - all on a day-and-night cycle. Help rebuild society from the comfort of the couch and across devices, streaming from the cloud. Priority members can build and survive at up to 1080p and 60 frames per second. Ultimate members can take advantage of longer session lengths, gain support for ultrawide resolutions and stream at up to 4K 120 FPS. Both memberships offer support for real-time ray tracing, bringing cinematic lighting to every zombie encounter.
Stayin' Alive
The Day Before, Fntastic's new open-world horror massively multiplayer online game, is a uniquely reimagined journey of survival set on the east coast of the present-day U.S. after the world has been overrun by zombies. Priority and Ultimate members can stream the game on nearly any device with support for RTX ON. Explore the beautifully detailed New Fortune City, filled with skyscrapers, massive malls and grand stadiums, with a variety of vehicles. Fight against other players and those infected by a deadly virus. Survive by collecting loot, completing quests and building houses - all on a day-and-night cycle. Help rebuild society from the comfort of the couch and across devices, streaming from the cloud. Priority members can build and survive at up to 1080p and 60 frames per second. Ultimate members can take advantage of longer session lengths, gain support for ultrawide resolutions and stream at up to 4K 120 FPS. Both memberships offer support for real-time ray tracing, bringing cinematic lighting to every zombie encounter.
Fractal's Hannes Wallin Resigns as CEO, to Continue as Chairman
Thu, 07 Dec 2023
Fractal's Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Hannes Wallin, in a LinkedIn post, announced that he is resigning as CEO of the company with effect from January 1, Fractal's board has selected current VP of Sales, Jonas Holst, to succeed him as CEO on that date. Wallin will continue as Chairman of the company, and stated that he remains the company's largest shareholder, to reassure everyone that he remains interested in the growth of the company. He stated that his decision to resign as CEO is of his own accord, and that he believed it to be in the best interests of the company.
(PR) QNAP Launches TS-hx77AXU-RP Series Enterprise ZFS NAS with Revolutionary AMD Ryzen 7000 Series Processors
Thu, 07 Dec 2023
QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, and storage solutions innovator, today unveiled the new high-capacity TS-hx77AXU-RP ZFS NAS series, including 12-bay TS-h1277AXU-RP and 16-bay TS-h1677AXU-RP rackmount models powered by AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors based on the cutting-edge AMD Socket AM5 platform. By integrating robust hardware and diverse I/O including DDR5 RAM, M.2 PCIe Gen 5, PCIe Gen 4 slots, and redundant power supplies, the TS-hx77AXU-RP series unleashes enterprise-level performance and delivers ultra-high bandwidth, futureproof expandability, and trusted reliability for performance-demanding Tier 2 storage, virtualization, 4K video editing, and PB-level storage applications.
"The whole new TS-hx77AXU-RP series ZFS NAS provides enterprises with superb performance and large storage capacity to tackle business-critical workloads and storage-demanding applications. The AMD Ryzen 7000 Series multi-core processors further unlocks the key performance of DDR5 and M.2 PCIe Gen 5," said Alex Shih, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "Paired with the ZFS file system that's most suited for business applications, the TS-hx77AXU-RP series stands out as the top choice for storage solutions that require uncompromising data integrity."
"The whole new TS-hx77AXU-RP series ZFS NAS provides enterprises with superb performance and large storage capacity to tackle business-critical workloads and storage-demanding applications. The AMD Ryzen 7000 Series multi-core processors further unlocks the key performance of DDR5 and M.2 PCIe Gen 5," said Alex Shih, Product Manager of QNAP, adding "Paired with the ZFS file system that's most suited for business applications, the TS-hx77AXU-RP series stands out as the top choice for storage solutions that require uncompromising data integrity."
MINISFORUM Outs a Desktop M-ITX Motherboard with Core i9-13900HX Hardwired Processor
Thu, 07 Dec 2023
MINISFORUM released the AR900i, an MoDT (mobile on desktop) motherboard in the Mini-ITX form factor that comes with a hardwired Intel Core i9-13900HX mobile processor and a pre-installed cooling solution. The board is priced at $560 on Amazon, with a limited-period $70-off coupon. This is good value, considering that the i9-13900HX is a maxed-out "Raptor Lake" based mobile processor that features all 8 P-cores, all 16 E-cores, and all 36 MB of shared L3 cache physically present on the "Raptor Lake" silicon. The P-cores boost up to 5.40 GHz, and the E-cores up to 3.90 GHz. The only catch with this processor compared to something like a desktop i9-13900, is its power specs that were originally designed for the power constraints of notebooks, with 55 W base power, and 157 W of maximum turbo power, compared to 225 W of the socketed i9-13900.
Since the Core i9-13900HX is a mobile BGA1964 package that remains hardwired to the board, it is not upgradable. MINISFORUM has designed a cooling solution specific to the processor, which uses a large aluminium fin-stack heatsink that relies on an 80 mm case fan for ventilation. There's a secondary fan-heatsink that provides cooling to two M.2-2280 slots north of the processor. Each of these two M.2 slots has a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 wiring, and using either of them subtracts 8 PCIe lanes from the board's sole expansion slot, a PCI-Express 5.0 x16. The board features an M.2 E-key slot that you can pair with your own WLAN card, it comes with provision for dual-MIMO ready antennas. The processor is wired to two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 96 GB of memory. The board draws power from a 24-pin ATX and a single 8-pin EPS, which should prove sufficient for this processor.
Since the Core i9-13900HX is a mobile BGA1964 package that remains hardwired to the board, it is not upgradable. MINISFORUM has designed a cooling solution specific to the processor, which uses a large aluminium fin-stack heatsink that relies on an 80 mm case fan for ventilation. There's a secondary fan-heatsink that provides cooling to two M.2-2280 slots north of the processor. Each of these two M.2 slots has a PCI-Express 5.0 x4 wiring, and using either of them subtracts 8 PCIe lanes from the board's sole expansion slot, a PCI-Express 5.0 x16. The board features an M.2 E-key slot that you can pair with your own WLAN card, it comes with provision for dual-MIMO ready antennas. The processor is wired to two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 96 GB of memory. The board draws power from a 24-pin ATX and a single 8-pin EPS, which should prove sufficient for this processor.
NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Professional GPU Surfaces in Driver Changelogs
Thu, 07 Dec 2023
NVIDIA dropped the first mention of its upcoming RTX 5880 Ada Generation graphics card. Targeting professional visualization applications, NVIDIA's RTX pro-vis GPUs get features such as ECC-enabled memory, and certifications for nearly every content creation application out there, along with prioritized product support. The latest RTX Production Branch driver, version 537.99 WHQL lists support for the RTX 5880 Ada Generation GPU as the top item in its "new features" section.
At this point, one can only speculate what the specs of the RTX 5880 Ada Generation could be, given that the company already has the RTX 5000 Ada Generation covering the upper-mid segment its pro-vis portfolio. Although based on the "AD102," the RTX 5000 Ada Generation uses a narrower 256-bit ECC GDDR6 memory interface driving 32 GB of memory. NVIDIA has given this SKU 100 SM (streaming multiprocessors), which goes above the 80 available on the "AD103." Positioned above the RTX 5000 Ada Generation is the RTX 6000 Ada Generation, featuring 48 GB of ECC GDDR6 memory across the full 384-bit memory bus of the "AD104," with 142 out of 144 SM enabled. The RTX 5880 Ada Generation probably fills the gap between the two with a higher SM count, and a wider memory bus, with more memory.
At this point, one can only speculate what the specs of the RTX 5880 Ada Generation could be, given that the company already has the RTX 5000 Ada Generation covering the upper-mid segment its pro-vis portfolio. Although based on the "AD102," the RTX 5000 Ada Generation uses a narrower 256-bit ECC GDDR6 memory interface driving 32 GB of memory. NVIDIA has given this SKU 100 SM (streaming multiprocessors), which goes above the 80 available on the "AD103." Positioned above the RTX 5000 Ada Generation is the RTX 6000 Ada Generation, featuring 48 GB of ECC GDDR6 memory across the full 384-bit memory bus of the "AD104," with 142 out of 144 SM enabled. The RTX 5880 Ada Generation probably fills the gap between the two with a higher SM count, and a wider memory bus, with more memory.
ZenTimings 1.3.1 Released with Ryzen 7045 "Dragon Range" Support
Thu, 07 Dec 2023
ZenTimings is a lightweight utility created by Ivan Rusanov, which detects memory timings and readable memory sub-system voltages of your AMD Ryzen machine. The utility comes particularly handy to look up sub-timings specific to AMD Ryzen processors that you otherwise won't find on Intel systems, but prove critical in stabilizing your memory overclock. With version 1.3.1, ZenTimings adds support for Ryzen 7045 series "Dragon Range" mobile processors. The utility also gets support for VDDIO reading on Ryzen 7000 series and 6000 series processors that use DDR5 memory. Issues with detecting the power table on some machines, has been fixed. Grab the latest ZenTimings from the link below.
DOWNLOAD: ZenTimings by Ivan Rusanov v1.3.1
DOWNLOAD: ZenTimings by Ivan Rusanov v1.3.1
NVIDIA is preparing to launch the GeForce RTX 4090 D, or "Dragon" edition, designed explicitly for China. Circumventing the US export rules of GPUs that could potentially be used for AI acceleration, the GeForce RTX 4090 D is reportedly cutting back on overclocking as a feature. According to BenchLife, the AD102-250 GPU used in the RTX 4090 D will be a stranger to overclocking, as the card will not support it, possibly being disabled by firmware and/or physically in the die. The information from @Zed__Wang suggests that the Dragon version will be running at 2280 MHz base frequency, higher than the 2235 MHz of AD102-300 found in the regular RTX 4090, and 2520 MHz boost, matching the regular version.
Interestingly, the RTX 4090 D for China will also feature a slightly lower Total Graphics Power (TGP) of 425 Watts, down from the 450 Watts of the regular model. With memory configuration appearing to be the same, this new China-specific model will most likely perform within a few percent of the original design. Higher base frequency probably indicates a lack of a few CUDA cores to comply with the US export regulation policy and serve the Chinese GPU market. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D is scheduled for rollout in January 2024 in China, which is just a few weeks away.
Interestingly, the RTX 4090 D for China will also feature a slightly lower Total Graphics Power (TGP) of 425 Watts, down from the 450 Watts of the regular model. With memory configuration appearing to be the same, this new China-specific model will most likely perform within a few percent of the original design. Higher base frequency probably indicates a lack of a few CUDA cores to comply with the US export regulation policy and serve the Chinese GPU market. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D is scheduled for rollout in January 2024 in China, which is just a few weeks away.
