Easier installation? Yes, that’s why it’s done. Daisy-chaining fans using contacts in their frames is great, but it often also comes with pitfalls that reduce “cooling efficiency”. Manufacturers deal with this in different ways. One does it technically one way, another differently. In any case, they know that a frame that is too thick means less space for the blades. And that does not improve airflow per unit of noise. Read more “Fan frame daisy-chaining trend. When is it (not) helpful”
Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan initially seemed to doubt efforts to turn around the company’s own fabs and warned that Intel’s 1.4nm process could be the last one, but the company’s stock is now ironically rising thanks to hopes placed in the fabs rather than the products, in part due to investor hopes for contracts with Elon Musk and Apple. And it now appears that Intel’s manufacturing process technology once again have a future. Read more “Intel confirms work underway on 1.0nm and 0.7nm process nodes”
Arctic has expanded its fan portfolio with new P12 Pro (A-RGB) models carrying the “LN” suffix in their designation. This stands for “low-noise” and in practice mainly means that maximum speeds are capped lower than on the original (P12 Pro/A-RGB) fans. However, the aerodynamic design itself remains unchanged, with the primary difference being the motor. At the same time, these are still affordable fans. Read more “Primarily quieter operation: Arctic P12 Pro (A-RGB) LN fans”
Gamers definitely know the experience: You want to launch a game, but it starts to compile shaders, which can take several minutes. The reason is that shaders have to be built from code specifically for your hardware. And the compilation must be repeated after every GPU driver update, so you can end up seeing this waiting screen quite frequently. But Windows is now getting an improvement that should largely eliminate this waiting. Read more “Advanced Shader Delivery on AMD: No more waiting for compilation”
Too inaccessible for “ordinary” readers? That is how our fan testing is sometimes described, and we understand why. That is exactly why the following initiative exists—we will try to ensure everyone can quickly orient themselves around which of the many available fans makes the most sense under specific circumstances. More expensive, cheaper—there is room for everything. And of course, you can also ask questions. Read more “Which fan to choose—and when? From premium to budget models”
When AMD launched the FSR4 AI-based upscaling technology for games last year, it was exclusively available for the new Radeon RX 9000 generation GPUs using the RDNA 4 architecture. This was despite the fact that a version using INT8 compute compatible with older GPUs had leaked out, apparently by accident. But owners of older Radeon cards are finally in luck now: FSR 4.1 is coming to RDNA 2 and RDNA 3 as well. Read more “FSR 4.1 AI upscaling finally coming to older Radeon GPU users”
For a while, we’ve been seeing reports that Apple could become one of the key major customers Intel signed up for chip production in its Foundry fabs—a critical factor in Intel’s long-term effort to turn the fab division around. At first, this may have been little more than Intel shareholder’s wishful thinking, but it appears the contract may indeed happen, with Intel set to manufacture Apple chips—for laptops as well as mobile phones. Read more “Future Apple Silicon processors will be fabbed by Intel Foundry”
They promised, collected money from people, and it has now actually been nearly five years since the Gamers Nexus team announced uncompromising fan testing. Yet those tests still have not materialized, and public questions on the subject are often ignored by the creators. As always, there are multiple possible scenarios as to what may have happened. In the following article, all that remains is speculation about how things may be unfolding. Read more “Why is Gamers Nexus “stringing” its audience? Possible reasons”
Last summer, it was reported the PCI-SIG consortium is working on PCI Express 8.0 technology to succeed PCI Express 6.0 and 7.0 and deliver transfer speeds eight times higher than today’s PCI Express 5.0. Deployment is still a long way off, but work on the draft has now advanced to version 0.5. PCIe 8.0 could prove to be a major turning point in PC development, because it may involve changes to connectors and slots. Read more “PCI Express 8.0 may introduce incompatible slots and connectors”
For users who do not like the original brown-and-beige color scheme, Noctua is releasing NF-A12x25 G2 fans in the chromax.black variant. This combines more visually attractive styling with the exceptional aerodynamic properties associated with top-tier positions in charts measuring relative airflow per unit of noise. Yes, the foundation remains the highest possible cooling performance at the lowest possible noise level. Read more “Noctua NF-A12x25 G2 PWM fans now also available in black”
The problem with new video formats is their performance requirements as that they generally assume playback via dedicated hardware. The catch is that it often takes years before such decoders appear in GPUs and processors, leaving all devices purchased before then without support. Fortunately, the new AV2 format should remain accessible even on older devices thanks to the work of open-source developers behind the VLC media player. Read more “AV2 video for everyone: Dav2d decoder will play it even on older PCs”
AMD is expected to launch the first Ryzen desktop CPUs based on the new Zen 6 architecture either in autumn this year or early next year. Until now, there had been no indications that these CPUs would also bring the arrival of new chipsets. However, it now appears that a new wave of AM5 socket motherboards for these processors is in preparation. These models could come equipped with new capabilities and potentially a new chipset. Read more “AMD reportedly preparing new AM5 boards or chipsets for summer”
Longtime rivals AMD and Intel have established a joint consortium seeking to make their x86 processors and their future extensions more compatible instead of using the differences and exclusive features as (anti)competitive advantages. In autumn they settled on several extensions to be made standard: AVX10/AVX-512, APX, ChkTag, FRED, and also the ACE matrix extension for AI compute, about which very little had been known until now. Read more “x86 ACE Instructions: AMD Zen 7 core’s AI acceleration detailed”
It has been quite a while since we learned details about the upcoming LPDDR6 and DDR6 technology—new generations of random access memory which are expected to be a significant shift, likely moving to “non‑binary” channel widths to increase RAM bandwidth. Originally, it seemed these memory types might arrive relatively soon. But at least for DDR6, it now appears we’ll be waiting considerably longer, according to current reports. Read more “DDR6 memory is still far away: 2028–2029 at the earliest, or later”
You’ve already seen the tests of the Endorfy Corona 120 fans, and now we’re adding results for the “reverse” variants. The aerodynamic design is essentially the same—just… reversed. The emphasis on visual appeal is therefore even stronger. The colorful lighting is complemented by an element intended to make the result even more striking. You won’t see the stator struts interfering with the appearance. Read more “Endorfy Corona 120 Reverse: Attractive mainly visually”
Valve’s incoming Steam Machine gaming PC/console drew new attention to one long‑standing weakness of the Linux ecosystem: HDMI 2.1 support. It works with Nvidia hardware (thanks to closed‑source drivers and firmware), but the open‑source drivers used for Radeon GPUs could not support it because the HDMI Forum did not allow HDMI 2.1 support in open‑source code. However, it looks like this problem may finally be coming to an end. Read more “Radeon GPU drivers for Linux will finally get HDMI 2.1 support”
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