davide marney writes: Orders for Alienware Aurora R12 and R10 gaming PC configurations placed in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, or Washington will not be honored because of power consumption regulations, reports PC Gamer. "Any orders placed that are bound for those states will be canceled," Dell states in a message.

"The Aurora R12 and R10 are built around the latest generation processors from Intel and AMD, the former featuring 11th Gen Core Rocket Lake CPUs and the latter wielding Ryzen 5000 series chips based on Zen 3," reports PC Gamer. "Unfortunately for both Dell and buyers who reside in affected states, the majority of Aurora R12 and R10 configurations consume more power than local regulations allow. There are exceptions, though [depending on the configuration you select]."

Valve expects that its recently announced Steam Deck portable gaming console will be able to run "really the entire Steam library" on its 1280x800 LCD screen at frame rates of 30 fps or higher. Ars Technica reports: That's according to a recent IGN video interview in which Valve Hardware Engineer Yazan Aldehayyat said that "all the games that we wanted to be playable had really good [performance], a really good experience" in Steam Deck testing. Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais expanded on that statement by saying that "all the games that we wanted to be playable" means "really the entire Steam library." "We haven't really found something we could throw at this device that it couldn't handle yet," he added.

Griffais said initial prototype testing for the Steam Deck focused on older games in the Steam catalog and that there were "games that were coming out last year that just couldn't really run very well on the previous types of prototypes and architectures we were testing." On the finalized version of the hardware, though, he said the company has "achieved the level of performance that is required to run the latest generation of games without a problem." "The entire Steam catalog is available to people who have this device," Aldehayyat added. "That's where we knew we had a product that was going to deliver the experience we were looking for."

Aldehayyat attributed Steam Deck's wide compatibility in part to "future-proofing" internals that include a custom APU incorporating AMD's latest generation of GPU and CPU technology, as well as 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM. Griffais added that the performance scalability of modern PC games helps Steam Deck achieve a playable frame rate at its native 800p resolution (which is relatively low compared to desktop gaming PCs). "If people are still valuing high frame rates and high resolutions on different platforms, I think that content will scale down to our 800p, 30 Hz target very well," he said. "If people start heavily favoring image quality, we might be in a position where we might have tradeoffs, but we're not in a position where we really see that yet." In a follow-up tweet late last week, Griffais clarified that the 30 fps target is the "floor" for what Valve considers playable: "games we've tested and shown have consistently met and exceeded that bar so far. There will also be an optional built-in FPS limiter to fine-tune perf[ormance] vs. battery life."

UnknowingFool writes: An engineering sample of Intel's next flagship processor, the i9-12900K, was shown to beat AMD's current flagship 5950X in Cinebench R20 by 18% in multi-core and 28% in single-core tests. The next generation of Intel processors is believed to use a hybrid big.LITTLE design where 8 of its 16 cores are for low power usage and 8 are for full power. The low power cores only run in single thread where the high power cores can run 2 threads. No official word on pricing or release date from Intel though but engineering samples and B600 motherboards are being sold in China for $1,250 and $1,150, respectively. According to leaker OneRaichu, the results for the 12900K were gathered using water-cooling and without overclocking, so it's possible the final score could be even higher. The rumors suggest the processor will come with 16 cores and 24 threads with a boost clock speed of up to 5.3GHz.

A new challenger has emerged in the gaming hardware category. Game distribution giant Valve today announced the launch of Steam Deck, a $399 gaming portable designed to take PC games on the go. From a report: The handheld (which has echoes of several portable gaming rigs of years past) features a seven-inch screen and runs on a quad-core Zen 2 CPU, coupled with AMD RDNA 2 graphics and 16GB of RAM. Storage runs 64GB to 512GB, the latter of which bumps the price up to $649. The built-in storage can be augmented via microSD.

[...] Flanking the 1280 x 800 touchscreen are a pair of trackpads and thumb sticks. A built-in gyroscope also uses movement to control the gaming experience. There's a single USB-C port for charging, peripherals and connecting to a big screen, while a 40Wh battery promises between 7-8 hours of gameplay, by Valve's numbers.

During an interview, AMD CEO Lisa Su reiterated that the current chip supply shortages would continue to adversely affect makers' ability to meet consumer demands until the end of 2021. From a report: The interview also gets into the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on AMD, with Su also mentioning the chipmaker's plans after its $35 billion purchase of Xilinx. Su discussed how tightly pressed supply chains have been, stating that over the past 12 months, "demand had far exceeded even our aggressive expectations." This is an understatement as consumers have felt the impact of supply shortages in the scarce availability of everything from graphics cards to CPUs.

Neowin: Microsoft today released the first-ever Windows 11 build to Insiders in the Dev channel, bringing build 22000.51. While most of the announced features made it to the build, there are a few missing ones such as support for Android apps. The firm also posted a few known issues for the release. In addition to the build, the company has also posted clarification about the confusion surrounding the minimum system requirements.

The firm starts off by acknowledging that there has been confusion caused by the PC Health Check tool, something that was updated late last week after negative feedback from users about the lack of clarity on Windows 11 compatibility. It says that the tool was "not fully prepared to share the level of detail or accuracy you expected from us on why a Windows 10 PC doesn't meet upgrade requirements," which is why the company is taking down the tool to address the feedback, adding that the tool will be "back online" later in the fall, closer to the general availability of Windows 11. In a blog post, the company adds: [...] Using the principles above, we are confident that devices running on Intel 8th generation processors and AMD Zen 2 as well as Qualcomm 7 and 8 Series will meet our principles around security and reliability and minimum system requirements for Windows 11. As we release to Windows Insiders and partner with our OEMs, we will test to identify devices running on Intel 7th generation and AMD Zen 1 that may meet our principles.

"Linus Torvalds has just released the Linux 5.13 kernel as stable," reports Phoronix: Linux 5.13 brings initial but still early support for the Apple M1 with basic support but not yet accelerated graphics and a lot more to iron out moving ahead. There are also new Linux 5.13 security features like the Landlock security module, Clang control flow integrity support, and optionally randomizing the kernel stack offset at each system call. There is also AMD fun this cycle around FreeSync HDMI support, initial Aldebaran bring-up, and more. Intel has more work on Alder Lake, a new cooling driver, and more discrete graphics bring-up. There are also other changes for Linux 5.13 around faster IO_uring, a generic USB display driver, and other new hardware enablement.
"5.13 overall is actually fairly large," Linus Torvalds posted on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, calling it "one of the bigger 5.x releases, with over 16,000 commits (over 17k if you count merges), from over 2,000 developers. But it's a "big all over" kind of thing, not something particular that stands out as particularly unusual..."

Slashdot reader thegarbz writes: While a lot of focus has been on the TPM requirements for Windows 11, Microsoft has since updated its documentation to provide a complete list of supported processors. At present the list includes only Intel 8th Generation Core processors or newer, and AMD Ryzen Zen+ processors or newer, effectively limiting Windows 11 to PC less than 4-5 years old.

Notably absent from the list is the Intel Core i7-7820HQ, the processor used in Microsoft's current flagship $3500+ Surface Studio 2. This has prompted many threads on Reddit from users angry that their (in some cases very new) Surface PC is failing the Windows 11 upgrade check.
The Verge confirms: Windows 11 will only support 8th Gen and newer Intel Core processors, alongside [Intel's 2016-era] Apollo Lake and newer Pentium and Celeron processors. That immediately rules out millions of existing Windows 10 devices from upgrading to Windows 11... Windows 11 will also only support AMD Ryzen 2000 and newer processors, and 2nd Gen or newer [AMD] EPYC chips. You can find the full list of supported processors on Microsoft's site...

Originally, Microsoft noted that CPU generation requirements are a "soft floor" limit for the Windows 11 installer, which should have allowed some older CPUs to be able to install Windows 11 with a warning, but hours after we published this story, the company updated that page to explicitly require the list of chips above.

Many Windows 10 users have been downloading Microsoft's PC Health App (available here) to see whether Windows 11 works on their systems, only to find it fails the check... This is the first significant shift in Windows hardware requirements since the release of Windows 8 back in 2012, and the CPU changes are understandably catching people by surprise.

Microsoft is also requiring a front-facing camera for all Windows 11 devices except desktop PCs from January 2023 onwards.
"In order to run Windows 11, devices must meet the hardware specifications," explains Microsoft's official compatibility page for Windows 11.

"Devices that do not meet the hardware requirements cannot be upgraded to Windows 11."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCGamesN: Microsoft has finally debuted Windows 11, and it's not just packing auto HDR and native Android apps. The long-teased DirectStorage API that's meant to cut down loading times on gaming PCs much in the same way the Xbox Velocity Architecture speeds things up on Microsoft's consoles is on its way, and it won't be coming to Windows 10 like we originally thought. The Windows 11 exclusive feature improves communication between your storage device and graphics card, allowing assets to load quicker without having to pass through the CPU first. Naturally, this means more time spent gaming and less time reading the same hints as you move from area to area.

It'll work best with systems that are dubbed 'DirectStorage Optimized', containing the right hardware and drivers for the job. If you're more of the DIY type that prefers to build the best gaming PC yourself, requirements demand an NVMe SSD with 1TB of storage or more. PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs and the latest GPUs from Nvidia and AMD will offer a better experience, but DirectStorage will still work with older standards like the third generation PCIe 3.0 -- you won't have much luck with 2.5-inch SATA drives, though. DirectStorage will only work with games built using DirectX 12, so there's no telling how many titles will support the feature when you upgrade to Windows 11 for free later this year.

MojoKid writes: AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) PC graphics up-scaling technology is ready for prime-time and the company has allowed members of the press to showcase performance and visuals of the tech in action with a number of game engines. AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution is vendor-agnostic and doesn't require specialized hardware to function like NVIDIA DLSS, which relies on Tensor cores on-board NVIDIA Turing or Ampere GPUs to accelerate neural network models that have been specifically trained on game engines. In contrast, AMD FSR utilizes more traditional spatial upscaling to create a super resolution image from a single input frame, not multiple frames. AMD FSR then employs a library of open-source algorithms that work on sharpening both image edge and texture detail. In game testing at HotHardware, frame rates can jump dramatically with little to no perceptible reduction in image quality, and the technology even works on many NVIDIA GPUs as well. There are currently 19 titles that are available or planned with support for AMD FSR, but with the open nature of the technology and cross-GPU compatibility, game developers theoretically should have significant incentive for adoption to breath new performance into their game titles.

According to ComputerBase, graphics card prices have begun to drop as much as 50% in Europe. From a report: Availability has also improved significantly, with sales of most GPU models from both AMD and Nvidia doubling month-over-month. This report comes on the heels of ASRock, a GPU maker, noting that GPU pricing is easing as demand from Chinese cryptocurrency miners wanes. More budget-oriented cards like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT are seeing the most positive results, with a near 50% drop in price compared to last month. For flagship cards like the RTX 3080 and RX 6800 XT, however, prices haven't moved as much. They have dipped a respectable 10-15% which is still a very positive change considering the shortage issues plaguing the technology industry. In the United States, GPU pricing is slowly catching up to Europe, but it's still going down nonetheless.

CNET News : We'll let Razer have its 5 minutes of E3 glory for the "world's fastest 14-inch gaming laptop," the Razer Blade 14. Razer's simply the first to announce one this size with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX -- also Razer's first AMD CPU in the Blade line -- and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 crammed inside. But a svelte, small, no-compromise (well, minimal compromise) gaming laptop from Razer is always welcome. Along with the laptop, the company launched a new wall charger, based on Gallium Nitride rather than silicon, its USB-C 130W GaN Charger. No weird names for that one. The last 14-inch Razer Blade debuted in 2017, and it makes sense that Razer would revive it for the 14-inch laptop renaissance that began around 2020. The 2021 Blade 14, as you'd expect, looks like a somewhat shrunken version of the 15-inch, though it's roughly the same thickness as the 15-inch at 16.8mm.

There will be three models of the Blade 14 at launch. All use the Ryzen 9 5900HX, with the same 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM and 720p webcam, as well as Razer's THX Spatial Audio, HDMI 2.1 and other ports and so on. The entry-level $1,800 model incorporates a 144Hz 1080p screen and an RTX 3060 GPU; for $2,200 you upgrade to an RTX 3070 with a 165Hz 1440p display, and $2,800 bumps that to an RTX 3080. The SSD is upgradable but the RAM is soldered to the motherboard, which is kind of a bummer. The screens support FreeSync Premium adaptive refresh through G-Sync compability mode. Razer rates the battery life at up to 12 hours, though it's likely in the ballpark of 10 hours based on what we've seen elsewhere. As you'd expect, the RTX 3080 isn't being pushed to the max in this system; the GPU power draw can range anywhere from 80 to 150 watts, and Razer takes the middle road at 100 watts. In comparison, the hefty 15-inch Asus ROG Strix Scar we're testing pulls down 130 watts.

Long-time Slashdot reader Dputiger writes: Go looking for the difference between x86 and ARM CPUs, and you'll run into the idea of CISC versus RISC immediately. But 40 years after the publication of David Patterson and David Ditzel's 1981 paper, "The Case for a Reduced Instruction Set Computer," CISC and RISC are poor top-level categories for comparing these two CPU families.
ExtremeTech writes:
The problem with using RISC versus CISC as a lens for comparing modern x86 versus ARM CPUs is that it takes three specific attributes that matter to the x86 versus ARM comparison — process node, microarchitecture, and ISA — crushes them down to one, and then declares ARM superior on the basis of ISA alone. The ISA-centric argument acknowledges that manufacturing geometry and microarchitecture are important and were historically responsible for x86's dominance of the PC, server, and HPC market. This view holds that when the advantages of manufacturing prowess and install base are controlled for or nullified, RISC — and by extension, ARM CPUs — will typically prove superior to x86 CPUs.

The implementation-centric argument acknowledges that ISA can and does matter, but that historically, microarchitecture and process geometry have mattered more. Intel is still recovering from some of the worst delays in the company's history. AMD is still working to improve Ryzen, especially in mobile. Historically, both x86 manufacturers have demonstrated an ability to compete effectively against RISC CPU manufacturers.

Given the reality of CPU design cycles, it's going to be a few years before we really have an answer as to which argument is superior. One difference between the semiconductor market of today and the market of 20 years ago is that TSMC is a much stronger foundry competitor than most of the RISC manufacturers Intel faced in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Intel's 7nm team has got to be under tremendous pressure to deliver on that node.

Nothing in this story should be read to imply that an ARM CPU can't be faster and more efficient than an x86 CPU.

After being announced in 2017, the Atari VCS game console finally has a launch date: June 15th. HotHardware reports: However, pricing for the Atari VCS might leave many scratching their heads, especially considering that it is retro-centric and uses seriously underpowered hardware compared to modern gaming consoles from Sony and Microsoft. The base Onyx system is priced at $299, while an Onyx or Black Walnut All-in Bundle includes a wireless Classic Joystick and a wireless Modern Controller. Unfortunately, that bundle will set you back an eye-popping $399.

The Atari VCS [...] uses a rather pokey AMD Ryzen R1606G embedded APU. [...] However, Atari says that the VCS can also function as a full-fledged PC. You can even install Windows 10 or Linux on it, turning it into a versatile multimedia computer. The hardware is reportedly capable of running 4K videos and includes a built-in "Vault" containing 100 retro Atari 2600 and arcade games. That's all well and good for those with a penchant for retro gaming, but remember that we're talking about games that debuted roughly 40 years ago. That nostalgia could run a bit thin when you're talking about a device that costs $299 and up. Atari says over 11,000 of its original Indiegogo campaign backers have already received their consoles. Everyone else will have to purchase directly from Atari or a third party.

MojoKid writes: AMD just took the wraps off its new line of Radeon RX 6000M GPUs for gaming laptops. Combined with its Ryzen 5000 series processors, the company claims all-AMD powered "AMD Advantage" machines will deliver new levels of performance, visual fidelity and value for gamers. AMD unveiled three new mobile GPUs. Sitting at the top is the Radeon RX 6800M, featuring 40 compute units, 40 ray accelerators, a 2,300MHz game clock and 12GB of GDDR6 memory. According to AMD, its flagship Radeon RX 6800M mobile GPU can deliver 120 frames per second at 1440p with a blend of raytracing, compute, and traditional effects.

Next, the new Radeon RX 6700M sports 36 compute units, 36 ray accelerators, a 2,300MHz game clock and 10GB of GDDR6 memory. Finally, the Radeon RX 6600M comes armed with 28 compute units and 28 ray accelerators, a 2,177MHz game clock and 8GB of GDDR6 memory. HotHardware has a deep dive review of a new ASUS ROG Strix G15 gaming laptop with the Radeon RX 6800M on board, as well as an 8-core Ryzen 9 5900HX processor. In the benchmarks, the Radeon RX 6800M-equipped machine puts up numbers that rival GeForce RTX 3070 and 3080 laptop GPUs in traditional rasterized game engines, though it trails a bit in ray tracing enhanced gaming. You can expect this new breed of all-AMD laptops to arrive in market sometime later this month.

Two years after announcing plans to bring AMD graphics to Samsung Exynos mobile chips, it looks like the first of those chips could be ready to launch soon. From a report: During a Computex keynote, AMD's Lisa Su said that Samsung's "next flagship" mobile system-on-a-chip would feature custom graphics from AMD featuring the company's RDNA 2 graphics architecture. What does that means for mobile devices powered by the chip? The kind of graphics horsepower that had usually been associated with discrete GPUs. Su says that the upcoming Exynos chip will support features including ray tracking and variable rate shading. While that wouldn't make it the first ARM-based chip with those features (Apple's M1 processor also supports ray tracing), it could still be enough to help give Samsung an edge over rival Qualcomm.

"In the niche world of customers for high-end semiconductors, a bitter feud is pitting bitcoin miners against hardcore gamers," reports Quartz: At issue is the latest line of NVIDIA graphics cards — powerful, cutting-edge chips with the computational might to display the most advanced video game graphics on the market. Gamers want the chips so they can experience ultra-realistic lighting effects in their favorite games. But they can't get their hands on NVIDIA cards, because miners are buying them up and adapting them to crunch cryptographic codes and harvest digital currency. The fierce competition to buy chips — combined with a global semiconductor shortage — has driven resale prices up as much as 300%, and led hundreds of thousands of desperate consumers to sign up for daily raffles for the right to buy chips at a significant mark-up.

To broker a peace between its warring customers, NVIDIA is, essentially, splitting its cutting-edge graphics chips into two dumbed-down products: GeForce for gamers and the Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP) for miners. GeForce is the latest NVIDIA graphics card — except key parts of it have been slowed down to make it less valuable for miners racing to solve crypto puzzles. CMP is based on a slightly older version of NVIDIA's graphics card which has been stripped of all of its display outputs, so gamers can't use it to render graphics.

NVIDIA's goal in splitting its product offerings is to incentivize miners to only buy CMP chips, and leave the GeForce chips for the gamers. "What we hope is that the CMPs will satisfy the miners...[and] steer our GeForce supply to gamers," said CEO Jansen Huang on a May 26 conference call with investors and analysts... It won't be easy to keep the miners at bay, however. NVIDIA tried releasing slowed-down graphics chips in February in an effort to deter miners from buying them, but it didn't work. The miners quickly figured out how to hack the chips and make them perform at full-speed again.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Video game and hardware studio Valve has been secretly building a Switch-like portable PC designed to run a large number of games on the Steam PC platform via Linux -- and it could launch, supply chain willing, by year's end. Multiple sources familiar with the matter have confirmed that the hardware has been in development for some time, and this week, Valve itself pointed to the device by slipping new hardware-related code into the latest version of Steam, the company's popular PC gaming storefront and ecosystem.

On Tuesday, SteamDB operator Pavel Djundik spotted the change in Steam's code, which pointed to a new device named "SteamPal." The name is a derivative of a previously discovered code term, "Neptune," which began appearing in September of last year and came with a "Neptune Optimized Games" string. At the time, curious code crawlers thought this discovery referred to some type of controller. Technically, that's true. The "SteamPal," whose name we're putting in scare quotes because we do not have confirmation of the device's final name, is an all-in-one PC with gamepad controls and a touchscreen. In other words, it looks and functions like a Nintendo Switch (albeit without removable "Joy-Con" controller functionality).

The SteamPal will [feature] a system on a chip likely coming from either Intel or AMD, not Nvidia. (The aforementioned Switch-like PC manufacturers have leaned on both AMD and Intel for their products.) It's unclear whether Valve will release multiple SKUs to offer customers a choice of power level, battery life, and other specs, as other Switch-like PCs have offered over the past year. At least one SteamPal prototype version is quite wide compared to the Nintendo Switch. This extra width accommodates a slew of control options. No, Valve is likely not slapping an entire QWERTY keyboard onto its system, but the company has packed in a standard array of gamepad buttons and triggers, along with a pair of joysticks and at least one thumb-sized touchpad (in addition to the device's touch-sensitive screen). The SteamPal's touchpad is likely smaller than the pair of touchpads that came standard on every Steam Controller. The SteamPal's Switch-like properties will include the option to "dock" to larger monitors via its USB Type-C port, but I don't have firm details on exactly how that connection will work or whether Valve has any plans for an eventual SteamPal dock.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PC Gamer: According to a tweet from Executable Fix, a well-known leaker, AMD will finally move away from PGA to LGA with the shift to AM5, the new socket set to replace AM4. They say the new socket design will be LGA-1718 -- the number representing the number of pins required for the package. They also note that a coming generation of AMD chip will support DDR5 and PCIe 4.0 with a 600-series chipset.

When we talk about PGA, we're most often discussing processors with pins sticking out the underside of a chip that slot into a motherboard with a compatible socket. An LGA design will instead see a flat array of connection points on the processor, which will align with pins within the motherboard's socket. Either way you look at it, you're getting some very bendable, if not breakable, pins. But in my opinion it's much easier to bend those pins on the CPU. While a shift to LGA may seem somewhat trivial, the change will mark a major shakeup in AMD's desktop lineup.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Reuters reports that TSMC -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the chip foundry making advanced processors for Apple, AMD, and Qualcomm -- is beefing up its plans to build factories in Arizona while turning away from an advanced plant in Europe. Last year, TSMC announced that it would invest $10-$12 billion to build a new 5 nm capable foundry near Phoenix, Arizona. According to Reuters' sources, TSMC officials are considering trebling the company's investment by building a $25 billion second factory capable of building 3 nm chips. More tentative plans are in the works for 2 nm foundries as the Phoenix campus grows over the next 10-15 years as well. TSMC's focus on the US rather than Europe may have a lot to do with the company's market -- in Q1 2021, 67 percent of its sales were in North America, 17 percent were in Asia Pacific, and only 6 percent came from Europe and the Middle East. The majority of TSMC's European clients are auto manufacturers who buy cheaper and less-advanced chips.