Latest news with #Videocardz
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Yahoo
Intel's next batch of CPUs might still be called Core Ultra 200S, possibly because the Arrow Lake refresh won't be much of a boost
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Over the years of producing CPUs, Intel has a long history of refreshing its current architecture, rather than wholesale replacing it. The updates typically offer higher clock speeds and occasionally a new feature or two, but they've always involved a new name for the processors. However, for the Arrow Lake refresh, it's being claimed that the tweaked chips will still be called Core Ultra 200S. Admittedly, it's just the one person making the claim, X-user Jaykin (via Videocardz), but they have a good track record when it comes to tech leaks and rumours. Jaykin also suggests that the Arrow Lake refresh will involve an updated NPU (neural processing unit), courtesy of a larger SoC tile. Both desktop and mobile variants of Arrow Lake (ARL-S and ARL-HX, respectively) will still have the same package size and, in the case of the former, will still use the LGA1851 socket. While that doesn't automatically mean your current Z890 or B850 motherboard will support the refreshed chips, there's a good chance it will. In previous years, when Intel launched a refreshed CPU line-up, it has always renamed the chips. So why would Team Blue stick with Core Ultra 200S? I suspect that it's because there will be no changes that affect their fundamental performance, such as higher clock speeds, more cores, or a faster memory system. If the only thing that's being improved is the NPU (possibly to ensure that Intel's chips now meet Microsoft's requirements for its Copilot AI PC ecosystem), then the new processors would perform no better than the current ones do in games, content creation, and general use. Then again, the recently launched Core 200S Boost feature showed there is some scope for improving the performance of Arrow Lake without having to change various internal components. In other words, Intel could tweak all of the internal clocks and timings, plus add a larger NPU, and have a big enough difference in performance to warrant calling them Core Ultra 300S. After all, it was happy to refresh its Raptor Lake-powered Core 13th Gen series, call it Core 14th Gen, and barely change anything other than the boost clocks and power consumption. I suspect that Intel wants to keep Core Ultra 300S for its next generation of CPU architectures, namely Panther Lake for mobile platforms and Nova Lake for desktops, both targeted for release in 2026. Your next upgrade Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and gaming motherboard: The right graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest. These are expected to be significantly better in performance than the current Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake processors, and given the lacklustre reception the latter received, it makes sense to keep the new name for something that's (hopefully) a lot better. One concern that I have is whether the Arrow Lake refresh is going to be the last processor that supports Intel's LGA1851 socket. If it is and the refreshed chips aren't any better in gaming, for example, then it would be really disappointing to see. AMD was still releasing CPUs for its AM4 socket last year, a good eight years after it first appeared, and while Intel is well-known for changing its sockets every couple of processor generations, you'd think it would take a leaf from Team Red's book of design and make something that lasts. Of course, changing the socket forces OEMs and system builders to push out entirely new platforms, which in turn helps Intel shift a whole heap of processors. Hopefully, the Arrow Lake refresh does offer more than just a larger NPU because, as things currently stand, I wouldn't recommend that any PC gamer buy a Core Ultra 200S chip. It's not bad, but regardless of what your budget is or what your use scenario for the processor is, there are far better CPUs out there to choose from.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Yahoo
Intel's next batch of CPUs might still be called Core Ultra 200S, possibly because the Arrow Lake refresh won't be much of a boost
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Over the years of producing CPUs, Intel has a long history of refreshing its current architecture, rather than wholesale replacing it. The updates typically offer higher clock speeds and occasionally a new feature or two, but they've always involved a new name for the processors. However, for the Arrow Lake refresh, it's being claimed that the tweaked chips will still be called Core Ultra 200S. Admittedly, it's just the one person making the claim, X-user Jaykin (via Videocardz), but they have a good track record when it comes to tech leaks and rumours. Jaykin also suggests that the Arrow Lake refresh will involve an updated NPU (neural processing unit), courtesy of a larger SoC tile. Both desktop and mobile variants of Arrow Lake (ARL-S and ARL-HX, respectively) will still have the same package size and, in the case of the former, will still use the LGA1851 socket. While that doesn't automatically mean your current Z890 or B850 motherboard will support the refreshed chips, there's a good chance it will. In previous years, when Intel launched a refreshed CPU line-up, it has always renamed the chips. So why would Team Blue stick with Core Ultra 200S? I suspect that it's because there will be no changes that affect their fundamental performance, such as higher clock speeds, more cores, or a faster memory system. If the only thing that's being improved is the NPU (possibly to ensure that Intel's chips now meet Microsoft's requirements for its Copilot AI PC ecosystem), then the new processors would perform no better than the current ones do in games, content creation, and general use. Then again, the recently launched Core 200S Boost feature showed there is some scope for improving the performance of Arrow Lake without having to change various internal components. In other words, Intel could tweak all of the internal clocks and timings, plus add a larger NPU, and have a big enough difference in performance to warrant calling them Core Ultra 300S. After all, it was happy to refresh its Raptor Lake-powered Core 13th Gen series, call it Core 14th Gen, and barely change anything other than the boost clocks and power consumption. I suspect that Intel wants to keep Core Ultra 300S for its next generation of CPU architectures, namely Panther Lake for mobile platforms and Nova Lake for desktops, both targeted for release in 2026. Your next upgrade Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and gaming motherboard: The right graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest. These are expected to be significantly better in performance than the current Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake processors, and given the lacklustre reception the latter received, it makes sense to keep the new name for something that's (hopefully) a lot better. One concern that I have is whether the Arrow Lake refresh is going to be the last processor that supports Intel's LGA1851 socket. If it is and the refreshed chips aren't any better in gaming, for example, then it would be really disappointing to see. AMD was still releasing CPUs for its AM4 socket last year, a good eight years after it first appeared, and while Intel is well-known for changing its sockets every couple of processor generations, you'd think it would take a leaf from Team Red's book of design and make something that lasts. Of course, changing the socket forces OEMs and system builders to push out entirely new platforms, which in turn helps Intel shift a whole heap of processors. Hopefully, the Arrow Lake refresh does offer more than just a larger NPU because, as things currently stand, I wouldn't recommend that any PC gamer buy a Core Ultra 200S chip. It's not bad, but regardless of what your budget is or what your use scenario for the processor is, there are far better CPUs out there to choose from.
Engadget
07-05-2025
- Engadget
ASUS and Microsoft's Xbox-branded handheld appears in leaked FCC photos
New photos leaked from the FCC appear to confirm that an Xbox-branded handheld gaming console is coming soon. A listing shows two versions of ASUS's ROG Ally 2 handheld, a dark model with a dedicated Xbox labeled button at the top left and a white version with the same button blacked out. The latter could carry a different function or be removed altogether from the production model, according to the leak (related to Wi-Fi modules) from Videocardz seen by The Verge . The models otherwise look identical but carry different specs, according to other parts of the listing. Both have 7-inch 120Hz displays, but the ROG Ally 2 Xbox version (RC73X1) will come with an AMD 8-Core 36W Ryzen Z2 Extreme and 64GB LPDDR5X memory, while the regular model (RC73YA) will pack an AMD 4-core 20W AMD Aeirth Plus chip (memory unknown). Compared to the ROG Ally, the Rog Ally 2 has a thicker design and more rounded grips. It also offers a pair of USB-C controllers, along with HDMI and 3.5mm connectors, according to the rear view. It's not yet known what the Xbox button will do, but Microsoft is expected to add features like support for the Xbox Game Bar, Play Anywhere functionality and Game Pass Ultimate. It could go even deeper, possibly launching the Xbox app on Windows, according to Videocardz . Some peripherals like the Backbone One already carry an Xbox button to open up the Xbox guide, show available games and more. We'll have to wait and see more details, but as Engadget's Sam Rutherford put it, "the case for an Xbox handheld seems so obvious it's kind of surprising Microsoft didn't announce one years ago."
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Yahoo
More affordable sub-$1,000 RTX 50-series laptops likely coming in May as RTX 5060 and RTX 5050 models spotted online
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Following hot on the ray-traced heels of that leak covering off the RTX 5050, RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti desktop GPUs comes news that the mobile versions of the RTX 5050 and RTX 5060 should be available in laptops from May. The kicker here is that it should enable RTX 50 laptops to dip below the $1,000 mark and according to Videocardz some RTX 5050 and and RTX 5060 laptops have been spotted on Acer Hong Kong's website and will be available in May. The caveat? We don't know the full specs of these GPUs, while the broader Nvidia Blackwell RTX 50 family is generally proving not to be a dramatic advance on the outgoing RTX 40 family. Anyway, no official specs are known for either GPU. But given that Nvidia has revealed full details of the RTX 5070 laptop chip, we can safely assume that represents an upper limit. The 5070 laptop, unfortunately, is an 8 GB GPU with a 128-bit memory bus. So, it's likely the 5050 and 5060 will likewise offer no more than 8 GB. Similarly, the 5070's 4,608 CUDA cores represent an upper bound. The new GPUs will come in lower than that. How much lower isn't known, but laptop GPUs tend to align with the desktop, but one tier lower. We also have the recent rumour of the desktop RTX 5060 offering 3,840 cores and the desktop RTX 5060 TI rocking the same 4,608 cores as the laptop RTX 5070. The confounding factor here is there appears to be no RTX 5060 Ti laptop chip. So, hopefully, the RTX 5060 laptop will get the same 3,840 cores as the desktop, just with lower clocks. If so, it would be a decent step over the RTX 4060 laptop chip and its 3,072 cores. That would leave the RTX 5050 laptop to align with the RTX 5050 desktop, which is rumoured to have 2,560 cores. Anyway, the broad point here holds. These new GPUs should enable a tranche of new lower-cost gaming portables to rank among our favourite gaming laptops. Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and gaming motherboard: The right graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Yahoo
AMD's 'official' performance figures for RDNA 4 leak out early, with the RX 9070 XT claimed to be 42% faster than the RX 7900 GRE at 4K
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. After a relatively muted 'launch' at CES 2025, AMD's next-generation GPU architecture, RDNA 4, has been left to leaks and rumours, as to how much better it's going to be compared to previous Radeon iterations. One tech site, however, is claiming that it has the real deal—AMD's own performance claims—and depending on what you were hoping for, you might be excited or disappointed. The site in question is Videocardz and it claims AMD announced the performance figures at a press briefing, to which it wasn't invited, but managed to scoop the details anyway. We already know a fair amount about RNDA 4 and the Radeon RX 9000-series, such as the number of compute units, VRAM amount, and rough clock speed figures. However, translating all of that into actual gaming performance is difficult to do because we don't know what other changes AMD has implemented under the GPU hood. That will eventually become clear once the new cards fully launch but for now, we'll just have to trust that Videocardz really does have AMD's performance numbers. Starting with the RX 9070 XT, it's purportedly 42% faster than a Radeon RX 7900 GRE (RDNA 3) and 51% faster than a RX 6900 XT (RDNA 2). That's at 4K, averaged across more than 30 games, using 'Ultra' quality settings. The latter is over four years old, so one should hope the RX 9070 XT is considerably better, but a 42% mean uplift over a 7900 GRE is not to be sniffed at. In our review of a Sapphire RX 7900 GRE, we found that the RX 7900 XT was on average just 18% better at 4K, so if this 42% increase is genuine, it marks a substantial improvement for AMD. However, the devil is in the details and the horned one in question here is ray tracing. Videocardz has separated AMD's claimed gaming figures into standard rendering and ray-traced rendering games, and in the case of the former, the average uplift is 37%—still impressive but not quite 42%. However, averaging the improvements in the games with ray tracing puts the RX 9070 XT at 53% better than the RX 7900 GRE. The standard RX 9070 is quite a bit slower than the 9070 XT, with an average uplift of 21% against the 7900 GRE. That's half as good as the XT version and I find that to be puzzling, given that all the rumours we've had about the two card's specifications have pointed to them being separated purely by clock speeds. Your next machine Best gaming PC: The top pre-built gaming laptop: Great devices for mobile gaming. Something clearly isn't right but exactly what's incorrect isn't known—either Videocardz's numbers are incorrect, the rumoured hardware specifications for the cards are wildly incorrect, or AMD's marketing figures have errors in them. All three scenarios could be true, as well. One thing that really puzzles me is, if the RX 9070 XT really so much better than the 7900 GRE, why didn't AMD compare it to the 7900 XT—currently it's second most powerful gaming graphics card? At least we don't have long to discover the truth of the matter, as the RX 9000-series is getting revealed at the end of this month, with retail sales starting in early March. One thing is certainly true, though: AMD likes to keep us guessing.
