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As we saw in Take-Two’s marketing budget last year, Grand Theft Auto VI might not launch until late 2023, but that won’t stop Rockstar from starting testing for the long-awaited new GTA 6 a few years earlier.

The well-known leaker ViewerAnon revealed a while ago that Rockstar Games had internally planned a release for the end of 2023, but even that date might be postponed, partly because of the COVID 19 pandemic that has been ravaging practically the entire planet for over a year now. Besides, the new consoles are already here, so the studio wants to take full advantage of the already announced release of GTA V for PS5 and Xbox X/Series.

However, that doesn’t stop the company from starting to test the highly anticipated title. In fact, The National reported that Rockstar Games has advertised three new game tester positions, at its game studios in Edinburgh, India, and Lincoln. In this role, the new employee would play the title to find, report and reproduce bugs through game logs, screenshots and videos.

There is also the possibility that Rockstar will hire testers to play GTA V on the new consoles, as the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 version is something that the developer needs to test extensively.

However, it’s more than clear that the company has been working on the new GTA for years, even if we still don’t know for sure which locale will be used. Earlier rumors said that Grand Theft Auto VI would be set in Virginia, others mentioned Miami, New York, and even Los Angeles again. What is certain is that we can expect a similar big change from GTA 2 to GTA 3.

Source: TweakTown

Following a huge series of rumors, Intel will finally announce this May 11 its new line of processors for laptops “Tiger Lake-H”, and we bring you exclusively the specifications and features of this new line that will allow you to take the latest from the blues wherever you go.

The new Tiger Lake-H line will be based on the Willow Cove architecture and will feature a 19% IPC increase over the Comet Lake-H. It will also be manufactured in 10nm and is the first 10nm processor to reach frequencies above 5.0GHz, showing the progress Intel has made with this new manufacturing node.

Tiger Lake-H will also feature 20 PCIe Gen4 lanes to fully utilize the GPU and a PCI-E 4.0 x4 SSD, as well as another 20 PCI-E 3.0 lanes for other peripherals. It will also feature integrated graphics based on the Xe architecture, Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 6E, and a host of new technologies that enable big advantages over Comet Lake-H.

Leading the lineup, as expected, is the Core i9-11980HK, which will be fully unlocked for overclocking via XTU and the various manufacturer tools. The various Tiger Lake-H-based laptops are accompanied by the latest generation of discrete graphics, and in the high-end models, we even find 1080p panels at up to 360Hz or 4K panels at up to 120Hz, giving us the latest desktop technologies in notebook PCs.

As for the different models we will find on the market, Intel will launch 5 models for consumers. The Core i9-11980HK will have 8 cores and 16 threads, a TDP of 65W, a base frequency of 2.6GHz, a maximum Turbo of 4.5GHz in its 8 threads, and a maximum Turbo of 5.0GHz in a single thread, making it a high performer for a notebook model. Also, as mentioned earlier, it will have an unlocked multiplier that will allow you to overclock it even more.

The other Core i9 we will find is the i9-11900H, which also has 8 cores and 16 threads, although it reduces its TDP to 35W and lowers its frequencies to 2.5GHz on the base frequency side, 4.4GHz on the multi-core boost side, and 4.9GHz on the single-core boost side.

Other models we find are the Core i7-11800H with 8 cores and 16 threads, and the i5-11400H and i5-11260H with 6 cores and 12 threads, offering proposals for all segments.

Compared to Zen 3, the i5-11400H, which is one of the cheapest models that Intel’s new Tiger Lake H line will have, will fight in games against the Ryzen 9 5900HS, which is the top model of AMD’s line. So we don’t have to spend a lot of money on a model with a Core i9 if we want to get good performance in games.

If you were wondering what the prices of the laptops will be that these products will have, we’ll tell you that you’ll be able to find economic models from U$S 699 to U$S 999 on the mid-range side, as well as high-end models for the most demanding that will start from U$S 999, and in some cases, they’ll even exceed the U$S 1999 limit.

As we expected, the Tiger Lake processors will be announced in exactly one week, on May 11, and on the same day we’ll see the first models from various manufacturers, so stay tuned if you’ve been looking for a new laptop to work and/or play with.

MSI unveils its new flagship motherboards, consisting of the MEG Z590 ACE GOLD EDITION, MEG Z590 UNIFY, and MEG Z590 UNIFY-X models.

MSI introduces MEG Z590 ACE GOLD EDITION, UNIFY and UNIFY-X motherboards

The three new motherboards are positioned at the top of ASUS’s motherboard lineup to accommodate Intel’s 10th and 11th generation Comet Lake-S and Rocket Lake-S processors.

This motherboard, as the name suggests, uses a rather eye-catching design with gold color accents combined with a predominant gray for the covers and a darker gray on the board. The design is very appealing, as are its capabilities.

The motherboard uses a 16-phase power supply system that can deliver 90A of current per stage. A large aluminum heatsink provides cooling for the M.2 slot all the way to the RAM DIMMs.

The number of M.2 slots is four, so you can put together a rig with plenty of ultra-fast NVMe SSD storage capacity. There’s also Wi-Fi 6E AX210 wireless connectivity and about eight USB ports, as well as two Thunderbolt 4 ports.

The Z590 Unify and Unify-X models are here and one of them, the Unify-X, has hit the world record for DDR4 memory overclocking at 7200 MHz.

Both motherboards feature a powerful 16+2+1 phase power supply that comes with intelligent 90A power stages. With these features, overclocking capabilities are the order of the day with an Intel Core processor. Both also include four M.2 slots for storage and 12 USB ports.

Aesthetically, we find a design in more classic colors in matte black used on almost the entire surface of the Unify models.

We do not know the price and when they will be available in stores.

We have a leak about the possible release date of Zen 4, AMD’s next-generation processor codenamed “Raphael”.

AMD Zen 4 “Raphael” would launch in Q4 2022

According to source @sepeuwmjh, the Zen 4 architecture is expected in the second half of 2022. The plan would be to announce the Raphael processors in Q3 2022 and launch them a few months later.

With this information, AMD would no longer have an answer to Intel’s Alder Lake launching later this year, unless they launch another CPU series later this year that updates the current Ryzen 5000 “Vermeer”.

It was recently reported that the Ryzen 6000 Warhol processors would be canceled. However, this source insists that Warhol is on its way and is the stepping stone before the Zen 4-based Raphael is released next year.

Raphael had already appeared on an earlier roadmap alongside other next-gen AMD CPUs, such as Warhol itself. So we know that Raphael was slated for early 2022, and Warhol was due for desktop release later this year.

At the moment, we don’t know exactly what AMD’s plans are for the successor to the Ryzen 5000 “Vermeer” processors, whether there will be a successor this year or we’ll have to wait until next year.

Zen 4 is supposed to offer a big improvement in IPC performance and make the leap to a 5nm process node according to the leaked roadmap.

The first rumors about RDNA 3 begin to leak courtesy of KittyYuko, a reliable source that reveals information about the Navi 33 chip.

Navi 33 based on RDNA 3 is said to have 80 UE and 5,120 cores

The Navi 33 chip, based on an RDNA 3 architecture, would have similar specifications to the Navi 21, which is the high-end chip of the current RX 6000 generation. If we assume that the Navi 33 chip belongs to the mid-range, the mid-range performance of the RDNA 3 would be the same as an RX 6800 XT or RX 6900 XT.

According to the leak, the GPU has a total of 80 processing units and 5,120 cores.

It is rumored that it will be dual chips with 80 compute units, and each chip would have 5,120 cores. This means that the complete RDNA 3 chip could have 160 processing units and 10,240 cores. So a hypothetical Navi 32 would have between 120 and 140 compute units in a multi-chip design.

With this information, the expected performance jump for the RX 7000 series would be pretty significant, as would the step forward with a 5nm process node from TSMC. The new multi-chip design would also benefit from a new integrated cache to further improve performance.

As for the flagship Navi 31 chip, earlier rumors claimed that it would have an MCM multi-chip fusion architecture that includes two compute chips and offers a total of 160 compute units and 10,240 stream processors. If the news is true, the Navi 32-core that sits in the middle is expected to have 120-140 CUs, also with an MCM multi-chip architecture. This means that the next generation of mid-range graphics cards will have similar sexual capabilities to the current RX 6900XT.

The first RDNA 3 GPUs are expected to hit the market in 2022, just in time to compete with Nvidia’s first MCM-designed (Ada Lovelace) GPUs.

Source

On the Geekbench database, a rumored Intel Core i9-11950H has surfaced, a variant that will sit between the i9-11980HK and i9-11900H in terms of performance.

Intel Core i9-11950H ‘Tiger Lake-H’ is listed on Geekbench

This model appears to be a souped-up version of the i9-11900H, with the base clock increasing from 2.5 to 2.6 GHz, while the boost clock is 4.89 GHz. The lack of the “L” nomenclature suggests that this model would not be unlocked, however, it would be the fastest model with 45W locked.

The processor is used in the HP ZBook Studio 15.6 G8 Mobile, a notebook for workstations, 3D design, and general content creation.

The laptops in this series use Quadro RTX GPUs and Intel Core processors. So far, the i9-11950H chip has only been seen in this laptop, so we think it might be an HP exclusive.

If we analyze the performance, the processor is slightly slower than the i9-10885H used in the current generation of HP Zbook Studio laptops, with a score of 1365 points in single-core and 6266 points in multi-core.

The next series of Intel Tiger Lake-H processors would be announced on May 11. With the official announcement will also come a variety of new notebooks that will use the 11th generation Tiger Lake-H series.

Source

The chip shortage is a reality that affects more and more companies. Apple managed to get the problem under control in the second quarter of 2021 (January, February, and March), but the company warns that the third quarter will be more complicated. The supply shortages will impact the iPad and Mac supply chain.

Announcing its financial results, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company has done its best to fill orders, despite industry-wide chip shortages and record demand for iPad and Mac.

“We had no component supply shortages in the second quarter. In the end, all the buffers and offsets collapse. This is happening throughout the supply chain, but it’s allowing us to get ahead of what we expected to sell at the beginning of the quarter.”

While Apple reported record results for Q2 2021, he expects supply constraints to negatively impact Q3 results. He predicts a $3 billion to $4 billion drop in revenue due to supply issues.

Cook mentioned in a virtual meeting with shareholders that one of the main drawbacks lies in “legacy nodes.” These use “older” manufacturing processes compared to Apple’s high-performance silicon chips.

While the Apple CEO did not specify which components are expected to be in short supply, the “legacy nodes” could be some of the chips that power the display, serve power management, decode audio or control Wi-Fi, and 5G communications antennas.

“The biggest part of our problem is licensing these legacy nodes. There are a lot of different people not only in the same industry but in other industries that are using legacy nodes,” Cook said.

While Apple designs its products in California, the production relies more or less heavily on outside suppliers. These include historic chip supplier TSMC and various assemblers such as Foxconn Technology Group, Compal Electronics Inc, Pegatron Corp, and Wistron Corp.

This situation comes amid the arrival of new versions of iMac and iPad Pro. Pre-orders for these products will begin on April 30. Although detailed availability information has not yet been announced, shipments are expected to begin in the second half of May.

AMD has released its financial results for the first quarter of 2021 (Q1 2021), revealing that the company grossed $3.445 billion, a 93% increase over the same period in 2020.

However, this represents a 69% decline from Q4 2020 ($1.781 million) and reveals the serious bottleneck issues the company is experiencing by relying solely on TSMC.

“Our business continued to accelerate in the first quarter, driven by our best-ever product portfolio, strong execution, and solid market demand,” said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD’s president, and CEO.

“We had exceptional year-over-year revenue growth across all of our businesses, and data center revenue more than doubled. The increase in our full-year guidance underscores the strong growth we expect across our business, based on increasing adoption of our high-performance computing products and growing customer relationships,” Su added.

A breakdown shows that the Computing and Graphics sector generated $2.1 billion, up 46% from Q1 2020, while the Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom sector generated $1.345 billion, up 286% and obviously influenced by the launch of next-gen consoles.

After the release of these figures, the stock value of AMD increased by 243% and profit margin by 94% to $1.587 billion.

Source

Another company, the US manufacturer Crucial, begins production of the first DDR5 modules.

DDR5 memory, still 4800 MHz modules @ 1.1 V

DDR5 memory technology is no longer exclusive to Chinese manufacturers. A photo of Crucial’s DDR5 modules is a testament to the fact that next-generation RAM modules are already making their way to the world’s leading memory manufacturers.

Crucial is developing DDR5 RAM for desktop and notebook PCs. The SODIMM modules have a capacity of 32GB with a clock speed of 4800MHz and a voltage of just 1.1V. The specifications are the same for UDIMM modules used in desktop PCs. The difference between the two is that UDIMM modules require fewer chips to achieve the 32GB capacity, about four chips of 8GB each. Both modules have a CAS latency of 40 cycles, which seems to be a standard latency for all DDR5 memory so far.

DDR 5 memory will enable twice the bandwidth currently offered by DDR4 modules, with clock speeds that will exceed 8400 MHz in the future. Right now, we know that the first DDR5 memory will have speeds of 4800 MHz at a voltage of 1.1V. However, the speed of this memory will increase over time, as was the case with DDR4 modules. It is believed that speeds of 10 GHz can be reached by the end of the cycle.

Intel’s 12th generation Intel Core Alder Lake processors will support it on the desktop and AMD’s upcoming Zen 4 chips are expected to support it as well. We’ll keep you posted on the latest news.

Currently, the Tiger Lake series is divided into four groups, but according to reports from AnandTech, this list will grow to five groups with the inclusion of Intel Tiger Lake-R (Refresh).

Intel Tiger Lake-R would be released later this year for notebooks

The Tiger Lake-R processors will be released as an update to the current Tiger Lake-U processor series and will offer higher clock speeds. This series is the only series of processors (Tiger Lake-U) that would receive such an update. This is the information from the folks at Anandtech, but it is not out of the question that Intel will update its other series with “refresh” models for its H35 series or the Intel Core for the desktop.

What we do know at this point is that the Tiger Lake-U series of processors should be coming in the third quarter of this year, so the Tiger Lake-R variants could land by the end of the year.

We recently learned that the Tiger Lake-H (45) series will launch in two weeks, and the first notebook manufacturers have already started announcing their products with these chips.

The Tiger Lake series represents a big upgrade for Intel in the notebook segment to give strong competition to the Ryzen 5000 APU chips. The same goes for the current Rocket Lake-S on the desktop in relation to the Ryzen 5000 processors.

Finally, the support for LPDDR5 is also mentioned. With LPDDR5-5600 memory, the maximum memory bandwidth would be 89.6 GB/s, which is 75% higher than DDR4-3200 memory or 31% higher than LPDDR4X-4267 memory. This will also lead to an improvement in the graphics performance of the Iris Xe.

Source