HW News - Intel Battlemage Appears, Open Source GPU, Xbox Handheld Rumors, $1400 Monitor

in the newss this week Intel Arc battle

mage rumors Sam bankman freed gets

sentenced to 25 years in federal prison

guess you could say he wasn't freed also

Microsoft gaming and Xbox CEO Phil

Spencer really wishes someone would do

something about that whole Xbox

experience thing and there's new am4

CPUs again this time we'll stop saying

it might be the last time they're making

am4 CPUs because

it's three times now so we'll just just

assume they're going to go forever

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first Sam bankman freed the Crypt

billionaire who definitely hasn't hidden

a seed phrase and a hardware wallet

somewhere has been sentenced to 25 years

in federal prison for his time running

FTX previously bankman freed was

convicted of stealing around $8 billion

this was during the whole FTX exchange

collapse and received a maximum uh

sentence ing guideline of 110 years

prosecutors ended up seeking 50 years

and SP spf's defense sought a maximum of

6 and2 years that'd be less than one

year per count of criminal convictions

of which he had seven Sam bankman freed

appeared for sentencing this week in

federal court in Manhattan stating that

he was quote selfish and quote threw it

all away which is probably one of the

most selfish ways to look at his

fraudulent past uh the judge stated that

defense was quote misleading logically

flawed and

speculative is he talking about was he

talking about like crypto or

just no he was talking about the defense

uh before handing down the 25 years

sentence now in the US there's always

cynicism about white collar crime

getting let off easy or out early and uh

our understanding is that federal prison

gives up to 54 days per year of credit

time served for good behavior I know I

like this is a Wikipedia one paragraph

thing so we're not experts in that

assuming that's how it works then he'd

be able to get out maybe in 21 or 22

years or something uh assuming that

there's not an appeal that gets him out

sooner which has happened in the past so

bankman freed here caused many lifetimes

worth of financial harm and considering

that this sentence might be light

consider that Bernie maid off who

famously ran a Ponzi scheme stole

anywhere from 20 to 6 5 billion

depending on how you count it he

received a 150e sentence and died in

prison enron's Jeff Skilling received a

24-year sentence for his golden

parachute in the early 2000s but was

released after 12 years from a

successful appeal he had been indicted

on 35 counts of conspiracy insider

trading and securities fraud more

recently Elizabeth Holmes of Theos

received a weak 11-year sentence after

working her way up to a $4.5 billion

doar net worth depending on who you

trust for that evaluation after

deceiving people of an advanced new

medical technology that would have

revolutionized treatment us attorney

general Merck Garland said that there

are quote serious consequences for

defrauding customers and investors

anyone who believes they can hide their

financial crimes behind wealth and power

or behind a shiny new thing they claim

no one else is smart enough to

understand should think twice he then

said but if you're bank it's fine before

asking Wells Fargo JP Morgan and Bank of

America if they'd like a side of money

with their money so maybe that's the end

of the FTX Saga for now other than the

wake of financial destruction and ruin

that they sort of left but SF will be

out of the news for a little while it

looks like Intel hasn't said much about

its upcoming battle mage gpus recently

but a Twitter user by the name of at mik

tdt uh saw a two new Intel GPU SK used

within the SI software standard database

and this potentially could be battl Mage

gpus looking into the benchmarking

database both SKS are currently equipped

with about 12 GB of vram they have 8

megabytes of L2 cache and they have

clocks listed at 1.8 GHz one skew

however has 192 cus listed according to

S software and posted a

72312 megapixel per second score the

other skew meanwhile is 60 cus and posts

a lower 6,030 megapixel per second score

Now intel doesn't use the terminology CU

or compute unit that's an AMD

terminology Intel instead might use euus

or execution units in this capacity it

also uses things like XC cores render

slices Vector engines they all have

their own names for this stuff the CU

equivalent is likely meant to be e so

for reference the a770 has 512 eus and

a750 has 44

so if these are indeed battle mage gpus

there's no telling how far in

development these graphics cards were at

the time the tests were conducted and

Driver optimization or lack thereof is

another aspect to take into account

which can have a big impact on

performance previously in an interview

with PC World published on January 10th

Intel engineer Tom Peterson set a battle

mage quote it's coming I'm excited about

it I'd say about 30% of our Engineers

are working on battle mage mostly on the

software side because our Hardware group

is on the next thing so think of it as a

battle mage has already had its first

silicon in the labs which is very

exciting and there's more good news

coming but I can't talk about it right

now more recently when Tom Peterson

visited we asked him if if there's

literally anything he can share about

battle mage and he said quote battle

mage is coming so uh the the statement's

the same since January but at least

they're consistent up next Phil Spencer

has used many PC gaming handheld and in

an interview with polygon at GDC the

Microsoft gaming CEO said quote I want

my Lenovo Legion go to feel like an Xbox

I brought the legion go with me to GDC

I'm on the airplane and I have this list

of everything that makes it not feel

like an Xbox what hopefully that list

starts with the fact that it can turn on

on an airplane that's probably number

one doesn't feel like an XBox doesn't

require a TV or external screen might be

another one

doesn't require more power than the

inseat power socket can provide there's

a maybe another on the list small

doesn't require a full carryon bag to

bring I it's just it's a small list of

things uh we wonder where else in life

though he applies this logic like when

he's

eating when he's eating chicken nuggets

that he say I just I want my chicken

nuggets to feel like an Xbox and there's

just this list of things that make them

not feel like an Xbox Spencer continued

quote forget about the brand more like

are all of my games there do all my

games show up with the save files that I

want I'll tell you one game that doesn't

right now it's driving me crazy is

Fallout 76 it doesn't have cross save if

uh if only there were a person in a

position to try and do something about

that someone in a position where they

could unify these experiences someone

with a title like microsof soft gaming

CEO which also owns

Bethesda which made Fallout 76

just we just need that person to try and

unify the

experience but they don't exist he added

quote I want to be able to boot into the

Xbox app in a full screen but compact

mode and all of my social experience is

there like I want it to feel like the

dash of my Xbox when I turn on the

television except I want it on those

devices referring to the go fortunately

what Phil Spencer described exists it's

called Steam Big Picture Mode uh and he

just wanted to have a big green X

instead of the Steam logo so none of

this would be revolutionary the

conversation could basically be boiled

down into I want an Xbox steam deck

which is bolstered by these additional

comments maybe pointing towards a

Microsoft actual gaming handheld whether

or not it qualifies as Xbox a different

conversation quote the Xbox box Hardware

team is considering different Hardware

form factors and things that they could

go do that will allow people to play at

times when they couldn't go play before

I like the fact that valve Lenovo and

Asus went out and innovated on a new

form factor and I will say that when I'm

playing on those devices it almost feels

more like a console than a PC nine times

out of 10 the things that usually

frustrate me are more windows-based than

device based which is an area I feel

some ownership of like I want to be able

to log in with a controller got a list

of things we should go do he's right the

windows issues are definitely a

Microsoft problem the steam deck doesn't

have Windows though uh according to

publication Xbox era the next Xbox is

not being developed by the same exact

team including Jason Ronald who led the

development behind the Xbox series X

ands Hardware but instead it might be

led by the Microsoft Surface team

fueling rumors of an impending Xbox

handheld device now while Spencer

stopped short of actually announcing a

handheld he did tell polygon that quote

look at the real in ction points in our

industry like the Wii it was a hardware

Innovation that was linked with great

software Innovation handouts have been

around a long time of course the Game

Boy was probably the first famous

example of it in recent times anyway and

the switch in actually recent times kind

of defining this current generation of

handhelds uh Playstation has also been

involved Sony with the PSP the PS Vita

more recently the PlayStation portal to

the extent you can count it Microsoft

has not waited into those Waters yet

though now the

Xbox moniker might be the reason they

have haven't waited into those Waters

because it wouldn't make sense in this

form factor it's not really a box nor is

it an X so we would propose something

different like

the X rectangular

controller with a screen

attached name needs some work but moving

on at an AI PC Summit in China AMD

revealed that it'll be releasing new am4

CPUs with its 5000 XT series vide

cards.com reports that the zen3 CPUs

based on the vermier silicon and that

AMD has extended am4 support well into

2025 unfortunately details on the 5,000

XT are slim with no specific Skuse

announced the last time we saw the XT

naming in AMD CPU lineup was with the

company's 3000 XTS which came out in

2020 and offered like a 100 MHz boost

over the non-xt counterparts fun fact

that was also to my memory the first

time we debuted and coined the phrase

waste of sand it was with the 3000 XT

series CPUs I specifically remember

feeling like I had wasted massive

amounts of time uh working on those when

the review basically could have been

it's the

same uh 5000 XT hopefully will be a

little different from that but we'll see

new ryzen 8000 processors were also

spotted at this event that's maybe the

more interesting news here the board

vendors are prepping for it that means

it's imminent at this point we wouldn't

be surprised if this is something like

maybe a computex launch that would be

June this year

and we'll be at that event namely the R7

8700 F and R5 8400f were the ones shown

at the recent AI Summit in China and uh

and so it's getting near at this point I

next some AI market share stuff so

recently when we covered the Nvidia

keynote from the last couple weeks we

talked about how companies like Amazon

Google and anyone else relying on

nvidia's GPS for their AI Ventures

whether you know they're actually

Innovative or they're just kind of

chasing the Tulips

uh the the one concern we brought up was

for these Mega corporations was that

Nvidia is sort of at the end of the road

no matter which one you take and as

Jimmy who who has been writing some of

these news episodes recently said it's

like no matter which path you take all

roads lead to Nvidia for AI right now so

that has been a sort of concern in this

virgin in Market another concern though

is that all of the AI server Solutions

basically point to one place as well

which is Taiwan and then of course

Taiwan semiconductor at sort of the

heart of everything that hasn't really

changed other than uh now it's got AI

attached to it so a recent briefing the

Taiwanese government informed leaders

from the ICT that It produced the vast

majority of AI servers across the globe

Digi times reported on the event and

Digi times wrote this quote Taiwanese

manufacturers dominate over 90% of the

global AI server shipments and All

American brand vendors are expected to

Source their AI servers from Taiwanese

partners and quote similar to how the AI

World relies again on Nvidia if AI is

the future then nearly all roads also

lead to Taiwan semiconductor and it

looks like a lot of the server

manufacturers there the interesting part

of this is that in that Digi Times

report they talk about cost a little bit

so Digi times indicated that uh AI chip

substrates are selling for apparently 10

times their General server

counterparts which maybe gives us some

perspective on how crazed the world is

over two letters right now

uh because that's crazy but it's also

kind of what we knew with the h100 from

Nvidia and the many tens of thousands of

dollars it cost to get one and the years

of wait time up next AOC has launched a

new monitor and this one is called the

aegon pro

ag4 56

ucz

D

there another letter on pap the uh AOC

Aon Pro AG 456 U czd has a 21 by9 aspect

ratio with generally impressive specs

it's 442 in 3440 X 1440 coupled with an

OLED screen and 240 HZ refresh it's also

supports free sync and AOC boast a 0.03

millisecond grade to grade response to

compensate for the large screen it also

features a relatively tight 800 radius

curve the monitor also has USBC

connectivity and uh none of this comes

cheap because the aegon pro AG g456 ucz

D will set you back $1,400 you're

wondering about the price it's because

the amount of letters and numbers they

have in the product name drives the ink

price up a lot for the cardboard box

they printed on up next orange pie Neo

is potentially a new competitor in the

handheld gaming space and it's launched

in China the orange Pine Neo is

interesting because like the steam deck

before it it'll use Linux but it'll run

on mangar's gaming Edition OS I look

forward to you telling me how I

mispronounced that in the comments the

orange P Neo launched with two processor

options the base unit is equipped with

amds 7840 U processor and the higher-end

one is equipped with the 8840 U which is

basically the same except for uh the AI

marketing attached to it the main hook

that they have for this is that it

starts at $500 so it's competitively

priced comes with 16 GB of RAM along

with 512 GB of storage there are options

to scale RAM and storage up to 32 GB and

2 terab respectively in terms of display

the orange Pine Neo comes with a 7in

1920x 1200 resolution 120 HZ screen for

battery it employs a 50w hour solution

the company's advertising device as more

than just a portable gaming device

saying quote it's also a slim desktop

personal computer in terms of design you

can get it either in black or white it

comes equipped with RGB light lighting

also the company also pushes the fact

that there are no exposed screws on the

body they say now to us that is a

massive downside if it affects the

repairability and the ease with which

the device can be opened and almost

certainly it does because not many other

Solutions you can use like a press fit

kind of like the what's it

the the stadia controller I'd forgotten

the name or the other solution would be

the plastic snaps you find on laptop so

hopefully they haven't built it in a way

where it just falls apart if you open it

uh more concerning is that we see no

orange pies here so the entire company's

name is a lie after four years of

part-time stealth development software

engineer Dylan Barry has launched his

Fury GPU graphics card not to be

confused with the AMD Fury and the card

is based on a zyink fpga Design This is

actually super cool so the Card's

website reads Fury GPU is a real

Hardware GPU implemented on a zyink zinc

Ultra scale Plus fpg a built on a custom

PCB and connected to the host computer

using pcie supporting Hardware featur is

equivalent to a high-end graphics card

of the mid 90s and a full modern Windows

software driver stack it can render real

games of that era end quote visually the

card looks like it's from that era as

well in a complimentary way has an

exposed green PCB definitely reminiscent

of that time and it does however come

with one big change which is modern

amenities like display port and HDMI

terms of real world performance Barry

asserts that the fury GPU is able to run

Quake at 60 FPS at 720p which is

actually incredibly impressive coming

from a basically as we understand it

single person team with open source

plans as well according to Tom's

Hardware Barry was inspired to bring

Fury GPU to fruition when he saw Ben eer

build his own programmable 8bit computer

also according to Toms Barry got a start

by obtaining and playing around with an

fbga Packaging rdd development board the

publication elaborated quote Barry

taught himself the system verog Hardware

description and Hardware verification

language and the Kad Eda Electronics CAD

software suite Thomas quoted him as

saying that a Herculean effort was

needed to design the schematic for the

fury GPU with four lane pcie that it has

today even with fpga circuitry built

into the S so and quote Barry described

the most painful aspect unsurprisingly

maybe as building up Windows drivers for

this though he does have the advantage

of working on the softer side of

Graphics uh and Graphics rendering

within the gaming industry to make it

hopefully a little bit easier he

initially set out to Leverage The Fury

GPU to render quote a simple spinning

Cube demo but cranked up the Ambitions

and eventually moved the target to run

Quake on the cart after working on the

Windows drivers and writing a custom

graphics API along with uh writing

Windows kernel drivers for audio and

video he claims to have gotten the

graphics card again to run Quake at

60fps very plans on open sourcing the

GPU saying quote I'm intending on open

sourcing the entire stack PCB schematic

layout all the HDL Windows wddm drivers

API runtime drivers and Quake afforded

to use the API at some point but there a

number of legal issues he wrote on a

Hacker News Post elaborating on the

positioning though he also wrote this

quote let's be clear this is a toy this

is not going to change the GPU landscape

or compete with any of the commercial

players it is however super cool and I

would like to buy one just to mess

around with uh if they go up for sale

and probably a lot of people feel the

same way just cuz it's it's neat to see

uh gpus are not easy to make obviously

uh so as we've talked about in the past

making one that's capable of even

decades old

processing uh or performance

expectations is impressive especially in

this capacity so great work on the fury

GPU here and hopefully we can do

something with it in the future but it

looks like the RTX 590 is safe for now

until the fury GPU 2 and of last a quick

update on Intel's present Monon 2 closed

beta that we've been testing out because

there's some cool stuff to share on it

and actually some good progress and Bug

fixes too we've kind of discovered or

integrated at least with Dragon's Dogma

2 not not dragas do and that name has

stuck after I misspoke it in the video

that one time and we left it in but uh

present mon 2 is the utility we used for

that and the cool thing that we've been

working on is simulation time error is

now functioning and there's a row a

column for it in the spreadsheet so I'll

talk about that for a second here where

basically this is the key element that

when Tom Peterson engineer uh at Intel

joined he talked about how there's us

frame times which everyone has kind of

accepted now uh and then there's one

more Step Beyond that that's been

missing which is simulation time errors

and simulation time error is really the

key difference in terms of what just

feels bad when you're playing a game but

the frame times look otherwise

acceptable and it's that difference that

your brain perceives in when the

animation is happening uh versus the

actual present time of the frame and so

we kind of talked about that in an

interview and Engineering discussion

with Tom previously present mon two is

an updated version of present of course

the the latter having been around for

many years now but the second iteration

is currently in a I think closed beta

which we have I think it's going to open

Beta soon has got an interface and

anyway part of what we've been working

on the past week sort of silently behind

the scenes is trying to get the

simulation time error stuff to present

an actual chart of some kind that we can

put on the screen in the videos and talk

about okay we feel this animation error

there's a disconnect between what's

being drawn and when uh and what you

think should be happening based on the

trajectory of the object your your brain

is tracking and we can see it we can

perceive it what we wanted was a chart

and so anyway I used Dragon's Dogma 2 to

generate some csvs and captures sent it

to Tom Peterson and said this game feels

terrible to play under these conditions

uh but the frame times look okay I think

it's simulation time error can you take

a look so he looked through it and he

found a couple of areas where it is

actually just really off for the

simulation time versus the frame time

and uh to the extent that for example

one of the frame times was something

like 48 milliseconds and the simulation

time error was 42 another one it was an

8 millisecond frame time simulation time

error was far in Access of that the

frame Drew too fast whereas if it had

been held a little longer the game

actually might have looked better

despite having a technically lower FPS

for that instant in time so that's the

really cool stuff we've been working on

uh we're probably going to do a full

video on it not sure if it'll focus just

on Dragon's Dogma that is the right name

or if we'll add other games to it but I

wanted to update you on all that uh so

uh other things from that video so the

present mon 2 Clos beta uh we've got the

simulation Time eror stuff we're working

on we are also working on some latency

testing for Dragon's Dogma 2o because

there was a bug in the uh present Monon

2 interface where they have this click

to Photon metric that they've introduced

and Tom talked about it in the

interviews this is the the part that

Intel's been working on building in and

that click to Photon takes

I think an etw event or something like a

Windows USB event trigger uh and tracks

until some point in time that is

relatively close to Photon but in

reality you can never truly be clicked

to Photon without a physical Hardware

capture so they're trying to get as

close as they can to it similar to what

Nvidia has been doing with frame view

where they insert these markers uh to

track latency so closed beta present mon

2 and this is why it's in a beta right

now uh had an error where for the click

to Photon binning if you were doing a

histogram it was also averaging the

zeros and zeros happen in Click to

Photon latency uh if you are not

providing input so they fixed that as

well it's cool it's cool to see like the

rapid development of this utility and so

what our next steps are as basically

beta testers for this thing that we

think uh everybody should be using

because it's open source and it does a

lot of really Advanced tracking of the

performance in game

uh what we're going to do for our next

beta testing is some lat or Nvidia lat

latency testing probably using Dragon's

Dogma because it's such a good test case

right now because it is so absolutely

atrociously optimized and built uh and

we're also hopefully going to use

Intel's LMT which is their future Tob

open sourced latency tracking and then

finally we're going to do some softare

measurements probably with frame View

and with present mon 2 and then we'll

have a whole bunch of cool latency