New 3D V-Cache processor

The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell-on-earth yarn claiming that AMD has a Ryzen 5 5500X3D and a 7600X3D in the pipeline.

AMD is reportedly set to launch a new 3D V-Cache processor from its now previous-generation CPU line-up, the Ryzen 7000 series.

According to a leaker on X, Hoang Anh Phu AMD has a Ryzen 5 7600X3D in development. This is purported to be a 6-core processor expected to debut in early September, suggesting we could see this chip within the next two to three weeks.

No specific details on the specs have been provided. However, we can speculate that the general specifications will align with other chips in the 7000X3D range. It might feature 102MB of total cache, with 64MB being 3D V-Cache. Pricing will likely reflect this configuration.

Currently, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is available for $360 at Newegg and was priced as low as $330. It may drop further around Black Friday, especially if the 9800X3D is released beforehand, as rumoured. Intel likely dreads this scenario, as it could significantly impact the launch of Arrow Lake, expected in October.

Given the current pricing of the 7800X3D, it seems reasonable to assume that the Ryzen 7600X3D will be priced under $300 in the US.

This isn't the only rumour circulating about 3D V-Cache processors. There has also been talk of a Ryzen 5500X3D, which is expected to replace the limited 5600X3D which has since sold out.

If either the 5500X3D or the 7600X3D could become budget gaming CPUs for gamers seeking affordable, high-performance options.

Gets itself a UK Armed Forces and Intelligence Services consultancy

 Nortal has acquired 3DOT Solutions, a prominent UK cybersecurity consultancy and certified supplier to the UK Armed Forces and Intelligence Services.

Nortal said that this acquisition is set to enhance Nortal's presence in the UK and bolster its cybersecurity and defence operations across Europe, the US, and the GCC.

Established in 2012, 3DOT Solutions has built a reputation as a UK cybersecurity consultancy, delivering comprehensive cybersecurity solutions to private and public sector clients facing some of the most challenging cyber and IT security issues.

Its clientele includes central government departments, military agencies, and intelligence services.

Nortal CEO Priit Alamäe said: "The combination of long-term experience in the defence sector, a formidable reputation among its customer base, and strong cybersecurity expertise makes 3DOT Solutions an ideal partner for us. Importantly, with this acquisition, we will significantly enhance our cybersecurity capabilities and address the growing demand for cybersecurity services in the US, the GCC and across Europe, both in defence and other sectors."

The experts from 3DOT Solutions will join Nortal's global team of more than 2,000, expanding the company's services in the UK and meeting the increasing demand for cybersecurity services in Europe and the US. Together, Nortal and 3DOT Solutions will offer a comprehensive range of cybersecurity services, including information and security architecture consultations, cyber resilience and compliance, cybersecurity programme creation and execution, IT/OT security, and cyber range and R&D services, catering to businesses, national defence, and security organisations.

3DOT Solutions CEO Michael Hampson said: "Joining Nortal represents a new and exciting growth opportunity for the 3DOT Solutions team and an excellent chance to deliver greater value to our customers. We are excited to realise our shared ambition of increasing our presence in the UK and expanding our footprint into Europe, NATO countries, the 'Five Eyes,' and globally across new markets and geographies. The combination of Nortal’s existing success and 3DOT cyber and defence expertise creates a unique opportunity to service our customers’ needs now and in the future."

The global cost of cybercrime is estimated by Statista at $9.22 trillion, with the average cost of a data breach amounting to $4.35 million.

Hampson noted that this figure is expected to rise due to the accelerating pace of digitalisation and escalating geopolitical tensions.

"Our goal is to help government authorities as well as businesses from SMEs through to large corporates to build cyber-resilient organisations with robust digital cores, secure systems, and protected supply chains," said Hampson.

This is the end

Intel plans to slash costs in its sales and marketing operations by a staggering 35 per cent, indicating that things are getting increasingly desperate.

This will be achieved through layoffs and a move to "simplify programmes end-to-end."

For those not in the know, if a company makes cuts in its sales and marketing it is often on a death spiral. After all you can’t sell a product if you don’t have a sales team or partners.

Despite these drastic measures, in typically marketing language the team insists it will be ok and it remains "...deeply committed to the channel and will continue to prioritise the success of the entire Intel ecosystem."

The group asserts that the initiative is "all about building a stronger Intel for the future" and emphasises that "our partners are integral to our future plans."

Remaining employees will now be tasked with their own duties as well as approximately a third of their former colleagues' responsibilities.

This situation has led to a more significant potential issue, as the well-known—or perhaps notorious—analyst Jim Cramer recently commented that the problems at Intel have now surpassed CEO Pat Gelsinger’s ability to address them effectively. Cramer remarked, "There is a sense that the company is in much worse straits than we realised."

There is also news regarding the Raptor Lake Refresh chip line, which may prove problematic for Intel. The new chips reportedly consume up to 30 per cent more power than their AMD counterparts, which could concern some users. Intel does not need any additional factors that might alienate its customers at this juncture, which could certainly be one of those factors.

Backlash on case was a PR disaster

Mickey Mouse outfit Disney has backed down on what must have been the worst court advice ever from a PR standpoint.

For those who came in late, Jeffrey Piccolo, the husband of a 42-year-old woman who died last year due to an allergic reaction that occurred after eating at a restaurant in the Disney Springs shopping complex in Orlando, sued Disney. Disney replied that he could not take the case to court because he had once signed a trial membership for Disney+. This meant that rather than going to court, he had to go to arbitration.

The case gained widespread media attention after Piccolo's legal team challenged Disney's motion to dismiss the case, arguing that a forced arbitration agreement Piccolo signed was effectively invisible.

Disney has now agreed that a wrongful death lawsuit should be decided in court.

The ironically titled, Disney Experiences chairman Josh D'Amaro said: "With such unique circumstances as the ones in this case, we believe this situation warrants a sensitive approach to expedite a resolution for the family who have experienced such a painful loss. As such, we've decided to waive our right to arbitration and have the matter proceed in court."

It seems anything is suddenly better than Nothing

A British startup is hauling its employees back to the office full-time in the "quest for growth."

In a lengthy email full of management speak which disparaging remote work, which had been a tenet of Nothing CEO Carl Pei's workplace policy since its creation four years ago, Pei explained why his 450 employees needed to come to the office five days a week.

"Remote work is not compatible with a high ambition level plus high speed," Pei said in an email to staff, which he shared on LinkedIn.

Pei gave three reasons for the strict return-to-office mandate. First, he said, the logistics of developing a smartphone, where design, engineering, and manufacturing departments collaborate, weren't conducive to remote working.

He added that creativity and innovation worked better in person, allowing the company to do more with fewer resources.

Third, Pei said Nothing's ambitions to scale to become a "generation-defining company" wouldn't be achievable with remote work.

According to Pei's email, the new mandate will take effect in two months, and he intends to hold a “town hall” in London to answer employees' questions.

In his email, the Nothing CEO also suggested that employees who could not commit to five days in the office look for other employment.

"We know it's not the right type of setup for everybody, and that's okay. We should look for a mutual fit. You should find an environment where you thrive, and we need to find people who want to go the full mile with us in the decades ahead."

Harder to avoid.

Television manufacturers are devising ways to sell your data and place compulsory advertising on your screen as a way to stem falling profits.

According to ArsTechnica, companies such as LG, Samsung, and Roku are now placing greater emphasis on ad sales and user tracking capabilities within their televisions.

Automatic content recognition (ACR) technology, which scrutinises viewing habits, is becoming a pivotal tool for advertisers. TV manufacturers are collaborating with data firms to bolster targeting capabilities, with LG recently sharing data with Nielsen and Samsung enhancing its ACR technology to monitor streaming ad exposure.

This evolution raises concerns about privacy and user experience as televisions become more commercialised and data-centric. Industry experts foresee a "shoppable ads" surge and a deeper integration between TV viewing and e-commerce platforms.

Omdia practice leader of consumer electronics analyst Patrick Horner said that the trend of smart TV advertising revenue surpassing hardware revenue (along with ad sale margins exceeding those of hardware) is currently confined to the US. However, it shows no signs of waning.

OLED technology has become a staple in the TV market, and until the next significant display technology emerges, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are scrambling to generate revenue in a saturated market brimming with budget options. Selling ads is an obvious strategy to bridge the gap until the advent of the next major innovation in television technology.

Samsung and LG are forging substantial deals with analytics firms and other brands centring their business models around advertisements, the industry's fixation on ads is set to intensify.

TV commercials, which have become more frequent over time, once the advertising genie is out of the bottle, it tends to expand rather than retreat. One consequence already noted by Horner is "a proliferation of more TV operating systems."

While increased choice is often beneficial for consumers, it is crucial to consider whether new options from companies like Amazon, Comcast, and TiVo genuinely enhance the smart TV experience for users.

OS operators' financial success is linked to the number of hours users spend viewing content on their platforms.

In May, Roku's senior director of ad innovation, Peter Hamilton, mentioned to Digiday that his team collaborates closely with Roku's consumer team, "whose goal is to drive total viewing hours." Consequently, many smart TV OS operators focus on simplifying content navigation through artificial intelligence.

Wants to keep the band together 

Nvidia has announced a strategic shift that aims to preserve G-Sync as a distinct technology while eliminating the need for costly additional hardware.

The company has partnered with chipmaker MediaTek to integrate G-Sync capabilities directly into scaler chips that MediaTek is developing for forthcoming monitors.

Traditionally, G-Sync modules have replaced these scaler chips with separate boards featuring expensive FPGA chips and dedicated RAM. The new MediaTek scalers will support all the features of current dedicated G-Sync modules.

Nvidia has revealed that three G-Sync monitors equipped with MediaTek scaler chips will debut "later this year": the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQNR, the Acer Predator XB273U F5, and the AOC AGON PRO AG276QSG2. These are all 27-inch, 1440p displays with maximum refresh rates of 360 Hz.

In 2013, Nvidia unveiled G-Sync, a technology designed to eradicate screen tearing and stuttering, while also reducing input lag in PC gaming. This was achieved by synchronising the display's refresh rate with the game's frame rate. Since then, similar variable refresh rate (VRR) technology has become ubiquitous, even in budget monitors and televisions.

However, Nvidia's G-Sync hasn't been the primary driver of this widespread adoption. The technology has always necessitated additional dedicated hardware within displays, thereby inflating costs for consumers and manufacturers.

Most low-end to mid-range screens today use royalty-free alternatives like AMD FreeSync or the VESA Adaptive-Sync standard. These alternatives offer the essential features of G-Sync without extra hardware.

 Nvidia admitted this in 2019 when it introduced the "G-Sync Compatible" certification for FreeSync monitors. The roster of G-Sync Compatible screens now far exceeds that of G-Sync and G-Sync Ultimate displays.

Initial sales struggle as discounts aim to boost uptake of the latest CPU range

AMD's newly launched Ryzen desktop processors are experiencing early price reductions, with over seven percent slashed off prices in an effort to stimulate sales following less-than-stellar reviews.

Launched earlier this month, the Ryzen 9 9900X and 9950X, released as recently as 14th August, showed performance improvements over their predecessors, lower launch prices and reduced power consumption in multi-threaded applications. However, the new 9000-series CPUs, featuring the Zen 5 architecture, failed to deliver the significant gains seen in previous AMD releases and lagged behind in gaming performance compared to the 3D V-Cache models.

It has been suggested that some of the issues might be due to a fault with Windows 11 but that might take a while to fix. AMD may introduce a BIOS update to increase the power limits of some Ryzen 9000 CPUs, potentially boosting performance.

As a result, any performance enhancements did not justify an upgrade from the previous generation, many of which offered better value due to recent price cuts.

This has led to poor initial sales. In Germany, with a high concentration of retailers, competition for early sales has already driven prices down.

Typically, price drops for new CPUs are not seen until well into their launch cycle, often in the final months before the next generation is introduced. However, websites such as Hardware & Co and Videocardz have noted that prices in Germany were already discounted from launch day prices compared to those provided to German reviewers in Euros.

The Ryzen 9 9900X, which should retail for 539 EUR, was listed on price comparison websites for as low as 499 EUR, a reduction of over seven per cent from the launch price. The Ryzen 7 9700X saw a similar drop, retailing at 379 EUR compared to its 399 EUR launch price, a decrease of around five per cent.

The flagship Ryzen 9 9950X was available for just 699 EUR, down from its launch price of 709 EUR, while the entry-level Ryzen 5 9600X was priced at 299 EUR, a reduction from its launch price of 309 EUR. Other countries in the region have not been as fortunate, with the UK seeing prices in line with those at launch and no significant price cuts reported in the US.

The Ryzen 9000 series was always going to be a tough sell, with Ryzen 7000 pricing dropping significantly and the Ryzen 7000 3D V-Cache models outperforming the Ryzen 9000 series in most games.

A range of Ryzen 9000-series 3D V-Cache models is expected in the coming months. This could further marginalise the initial Ryzen 9000 CPUs, making them less attractive for those building gaming PCs.

Core Ultra 200 series to compete with AMD's Ryzen 9000 lineup.

Intel is set to launch its new desktop processors, codenamed Arrow Lake-S, on 10 October.

The new Core Ultra 200 series will follow AMD's recent Ryzen 9000 launch, with gaming-focused processors featuring 3D V-Cache expected to debut around the same time.

Intel's new naming scheme introduces the Core Ultra family of high-performance processors, including Core Ultra 9, Core Ultra 7, and Core Ultra 5. The flagship Core Ultra 9 285K will feature eight P cores and 16 E cores, maintaining the current maximum of 24 cores. The maximum frequency under Thermal Velocity Boost for the flagship model is 5.7GHz, lower than the current Core i9-14900K and Core i9-14900KS, which can reach 6GHz and 6.2GHz respectively.

The performance benefits of the new CPUs stem from the underlying architecture rather than just core counts and frequencies. The Core Ultra 9 corresponds to the old Core i9, Core Ultra 7 to Core i7, and Core Ultra 5 to Core i5.

 Unlike AMD, which will launch multiple CPU ranges, Intel will introduce a single range of CPUs for gaming and content creation. The new Core Ultra CPUs will compete with AMD's existing 3D V-Cache models and the upcoming Zen 5 architecture.

Intel's new CPUs are already seeing suspected price cuts in specific markets. However, introducing a new processor socket will require users to purchase new motherboards. AMD introduced its new socket two years ago.

Intel has faced stability issues and had to release a potentially performance-impacting microcode fix. With AMD's Ryzen 9000 series' disappointing start, enthusiasts are eagerly anticipating Intel's Core Ultra launch and AMD's Ryzen 9000 3D V-Cache models for their next PC upgrades.

Affordable high-performance computing.

Raspberry has added a new member to its flagship Raspberry Pi 5 family.

 Priced at just $50, the new 2GB variant continues the mission to make high-performance general-purpose computing accessible to the broadest possible audience.

Its performance level is approximately 150 times greater than that of the original Raspberry Pi launched in 2012, which, to be fair, is no great thing to be proud of even on a board as simple as a Raspberry.  Keeping the price down, though, is a clever feat. Some components have inevitably become more expensive. Until now, the lowest-cost Raspberry Pi 5 was the 4GB variant, priced at $60.

The new 2GB Raspberry Pi 5, built on a cost-optimised D0 stepping of the BCM2712 application processor, is now available for $50.

The 4GB and 8GB variants of Raspberry Pi 5 are built around two key chips: the RP1 I/O controller, developed by Raspberry Pi, and the BCM2712C1, a 16nm application processor from Broadcom.

The BCM2712C1 is a powerful device featuring a quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 processor running at 2.4GHz and the latest iteration of the VideoCore multimedia platform. While it includes functionality for other markets, this 'dark silicon' is disabled in the chips used for Raspberry Pi, reducing cost.

The new D0 stepping removes unnecessary functionality, retaining only the essential features. For users, it remains functionally identical to its predecessor, with the same fast processor, multimedia capabilities, and PCI Express bus. The cost savings from this streamlined design, combined with halving the memory capacity, have allowed for a $10 reduction in the final product price.

Raspberry said that building the Raspberry Pi OS in-house allows for optimised resource usage, delivering a better user experience on devices with less memory and processing power. This optimisation remains a key goal, ensuring the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS runs on older products.

This results in a lightweight operating system for modern hardware compared to most general-purpose Linux distributions. While demanding users may prefer higher memory-capacity variants for tasks like driving dual 4Kp60 displays or compiling complex software, many will find the new, lower-cost variant perfectly adequate for their needs.