Executives of Loongson Technology, a subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said at a recent conference that the next-gen Loongson 5000-series processors were on track to be released this year. The new MIPS64-compatible CPUs are aimed at client PCs as well as multiprocessor servers. Interestingly, the new chips may be the last high-end MIPS64 offerings from the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
The chips in question are the 2.50 GHz quad-core Loongson 3A5000 for client PCs and 16-core Loongon 3C5000 for servers with up to 16 processors. Both chips are set to be made using a 12nm process technology (most likely one of TSMC’s nodes), reports CnTechPost, citing a small conference that was held earlier this year. Both CPUs are said to be based on a new internal architecture that is compatible with the MIPS64 instruction set, feature enlarged caches, and a new memory controller.
Based on some previous reports, the 3A5000 was taped out in April 2020, which is why it is due in the coming months; whereas the 3C5000 was taped out in August, 2020, so it will be released towards the end of 2021 if everything goes as planned.
(Image credit: HKEPC)
One interesting thing about Loongson Technology is that the company is reportedly ‘looking forward to join the open-source instruction consortium.’ The consortium mentioned by Loongson’s executives is almost certainly RISC-V International, which essentially means that going forward, the company will focus on RISC-V.
Loongson has historically developed MIPS-compatible CPU cores, so switching to RISC-V should not be too challenging for the company as the architectures have many similarities. Meanwhile, the adoption of RISC-V means that Loongson’s upcoming processors (or cores) will be supported by a broad ecosystem of software and hardware, something that will inevitably make them more competitive.
Developing new RISC-V-compatible microarchitectures and cores will take several years, so for now, Loongson will have to promote its 3A5000 among PC makers and its 3C5000 among server and HPC customers.
Albert Marin has taken some very specific vacations. In Wales, he visited Raglan Castle to snap pictures of its stone wall. At the Palau Güell in Barcelona, he took meticulous photos, not of the building itself, but of the marble floor and its unique veins.
His trips followed in the steps of Capcom, which put bits of real-world architecture found across Europe into Resident Evil 4, which was originally released over 16 years ago. “I collected a great number of locations the game’s developers use as source material,” Marin told The Verge.
Fast forward to 2021, and Marin is now seven years into a project to remaster Resident Evil 4’s blurry GameCube-era graphics into crisp HD, in part using high-resolution photos he’s taken of everything from surfaces and doors to general architecture that seemed to have made their way into the original game. Even though Capcom published its own PC remaster in 2014, it wasn’t Marin’s idea of a true HD version of the game, so he and a small team have been poring through the game’s files to faithfully update every texture.
Screenshots showing the original Resident Evil 4 and the improved graphics of the HD Project.“,”image_left”:{“ratio”:”*”,”original_url”:”https://rondea.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/echo/CHAPTER5_043A_resultado.jpg”,”network”:”verge”,”bgcolor”:”white”,”pinterest_enabled”:false,”caption”:null,”credit”:null,”focal_area”:{“top_left_x”:0,”top_left_y”:0,”bottom_right_x”:1920,”bottom_right_y”:1080},”bounds”:[0,0,1920,1080],”uploaded_size”:{“width”:1920,”height”:1080},”focal_point”:null,”asset_id”:22342336,”asset_credit”:”Albert Marin”,”alt_text”:””},”image_right”:{“ratio”:”*”,”original_url”:”https://rondea.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/echo/CHAPTER5_043B_resultado.jpg”,”network”:”verge”,”bgcolor”:”white”,”pinterest_enabled”:false,”caption”:null,”credit”:null,”focal_area”:{“top_left_x”:0,”top_left_y”:0,”bottom_right_x”:1920,”bottom_right_y”:1080},”bounds”:[0,0,1920,1080],”uploaded_size”:{“width”:1920,”height”:1080},”focal_point”:null,”asset_id”:22342338,”asset_credit”:”Capcom”,”alt_text”:””},”credit”:”Albert Marin and Capcom”}” data-cid=”apps/imageslider-1615569713_4848_4611″>
Screenshots showing the original Resident Evil 4 and the improved graphics of the HD Project.Albert Marin and Capcom
In some cases, they work with what Capcom already made, sharpening the images with a mix of off-the-shelf apps and custom-built tools. Other times, Marin is making hand-crafted textures based on high resolution stock photos or pictures that he’s taken himself. If you own the Ultimate HD version of the game on Steam, you can actually test out an in-progress version of the texture pack right now. Eventually, every rock, wall, button, and dial will have been retouched by this small team of modders.
The fan-funded Resident Evil 4 HD Project is almost at the finish line and should be wrapped up later in 2021. Marin says he’s amassed over 4,500 Photoshop files and put in more than 9,000 hours of work (just on his part) to get to this point.
I spoke with Marin over email about his experience tackling a project of this scale, balancing expectations from fans who are just as passionate about the game, how the team was able to deconstruct the game’s files, and more.
How exactly do you remaster the visuals? Do you redraw textures from the ground up, or have a specialized way to increase the resolution of the original without degrading their quality?
Most textures are re-created from scratch using some texture library images as a base. The original textures need to be analyzed several times in order to make sure the new source images match in terms of color, lighting, and even the material.
For example, a rock texture: It may sound like an easy challenge, and it is, if you don’t have an original texture you need to be faithful to. You can’t imagine how complicated it can be to find a rock surface that matches with the original among the hundreds of different kinds of rocks nature has to offer!
Screenshots showing the original Resident Evil 4 and the improved graphics of the HD Project.“,”image_left”:{“ratio”:”*”,”original_url”:”https://rondea.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/echo/CHAPTER5_084A_resultado.jpg”,”network”:”verge”,”bgcolor”:”white”,”pinterest_enabled”:false,”caption”:null,”credit”:null,”focal_area”:{“top_left_x”:0,”top_left_y”:0,”bottom_right_x”:1920,”bottom_right_y”:1080},”bounds”:[0,0,1920,1080],”uploaded_size”:{“width”:1920,”height”:1080},”focal_point”:null,”asset_id”:22342346,”asset_credit”:”Albert Marin”,”alt_text”:””},”image_right”:{“ratio”:”*”,”original_url”:”https://rondea.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/echo/CHAPTER5_084B_resultado.jpg”,”network”:”verge”,”bgcolor”:”white”,”pinterest_enabled”:false,”caption”:null,”credit”:null,”focal_area”:{“top_left_x”:0,”top_left_y”:0,”bottom_right_x”:1920,”bottom_right_y”:1080},”bounds”:[0,0,1920,1080],”uploaded_size”:{“width”:1920,”height”:1080},”focal_point”:null,”asset_id”:22342345,”asset_credit”:”Capcom”,”alt_text”:””},”credit”:”Albert Marin and Capcom”}” data-cid=”apps/imageslider-1615569713_8656_4612″>
Screenshots showing the original Resident Evil 4 and the improved graphics of the HD Project.Albert Marin and Capcom
What sorts of applications and tech do you use to accomplish your goals with this project?
A talented modder and coder, “Son of Persia,” helped us a lot: He developed most of the tools I use to edit 3D models, lights, effects, collision data, and much more. I found out how some files work, but I needed to edit in a hexadecimal editor manually. This means a single light/effect would take hours to edit.
“Son of Persia” took all my findings about these files and generated automated tools that would make this work way easier. And he also deciphered how other files of the game work and what they do, and he generated the needed tools to edit these kinds of files as well.
We also use Photoshop, 3ds Max, and dozens of custom tools courtesy of “Son of Persia” and other modders. These tools unpack and convert all the game files into editable data (mostly understandable .txt files and 3D files that can be opened with most 3D editors). Once the data is edited it can be repacked again with the same tools. But I have to admit sometimes I manually edit a few things in a hexadecimal editor, too.
Is it intimidating to make certain adjustments to a game that has such a passionate fanbase, or are you confident in your changes?
We are on the safe side because one of the main goals of this project is to be faithful to the original. And here is where subjectivity plays an important role: Low resolution textures leave a lot to the imagination, and you know… every person’s imagination is different!
Sometimes we receive complaints even when we use the exact same texture, but in HD resolutions, because the low-res textures looked like it was dirtier or muddy or something like that. But the HD re-creation looked too clean in comparison, depending on what the person interpreted when looking at the low-res surface.
And then we have all the lighting and effects changes I’ve done. Most of them are well-received, but I’m aware my personal taste is playing a role to some degree, so I’m always open to feedback and this is the reason I post all those videos and comparison images.
I’ve changed a lot of things because of the feedback we receive!
Albert Marin standing in front of Raglan Castle, specifically, in front of the wall he says is used in a few Resident Evil titles. Photo: Albert Marin
What are some of the biggest and smallest changes your team has made to RE4 during this project?
The biggest change by far is an entire piece of area created from scratch in the Separate Ways mini-game. The transition between one room and the other made no sense. I combined the 3D structure of the connecting areas and I found out a portion of the path was missing.
The smallest changes are any small texture and small 3D improvement done here and there. In fact, there are hundreds of small edits I’m sure most people won’t ever notice.
As an example, I remember some design changes in certain ammo boxes. This PC port has a HD textures option. The HD textures are 95 percent an upscaled and filtered version of the original [GameCube] textures, but some of the textures are redone or slightly adjusted.
Marin’s team restored some of Capcom’s original texture work that had been lost in later ports, then enhanced it.Image: Albert Marin
In the image (above) you can see how they altered the TMP ammo box design. The “J” and the wolf drawing on the side are different. So, while I was upscaling that texture I took the opportunity to restore the original design from previous versions of the game.
What have been your favorite sections of the game to upscale textures for?
The castle area, by far, because I used a lot of pictures I took myself during the trips I did around Spain and Wales. It was really satisfying to identify and improve all those architectural surfaces!
The Raglan Castle-inspired wall as it appears in the original game (left), and the team’s version based on photography (right).“,”image_left”:{“ratio”:”*”,”original_url”:”https://rondea.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/echo/254700_20210224200505_1.png”,”network”:”verge”,”bgcolor”:”white”,”pinterest_enabled”:false,”caption”:null,”credit”:null,”focal_area”:{“top_left_x”:0,”top_left_y”:0,”bottom_right_x”:1920,”bottom_right_y”:1080},”bounds”:[0,0,1920,1080],”uploaded_size”:{“width”:1920,”height”:1080},”focal_point”:null,”asset_id”:22342355,”asset_credit”:”Albert Marin”,”alt_text”:””},”image_right”:{“ratio”:”*”,”original_url”:”https://rondea.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/echo/254700_20210224200321_1.png”,”network”:”verge”,”bgcolor”:”white”,”pinterest_enabled”:false,”caption”:null,”credit”:null,”focal_area”:{“top_left_x”:0,”top_left_y”:0,”bottom_right_x”:1920,”bottom_right_y”:1080},”bounds”:[0,0,1920,1080],”uploaded_size”:{“width”:1920,”height”:1080},”focal_point”:null,”asset_id”:22342358,”asset_credit”:”Capcom”,”alt_text”:”The improved version, based on Albert’s photography.”},”credit”:”Albert Marin and Capcom”}” data-cid=”apps/imageslider-1615569713_6067_4613″>
The Raglan Castle-inspired wall as it appears in the original game (left), and the team’s version based on photography (right).Albert Marin and Capcom
What section(s) of the game required the most amount of work to remaster?
The laboratory and factory areas on the island are probably the most time-consuming in terms of texture and 3D retouching, because there are tons of weird and blurry control panels, medical and military devices, and cables. Any small inaccuracy becomes really apparent, unlike the organic textures of the village or the old architectural surfaces in the castle.
Is your HD project focused strictly on visuals, or has there been work done to the sound quality and other parts of the game as well?
Unfortunately I do not have enough sound knowledge to remaster the game’s audio. Although I fixed some bugs, mostly related to wrong sounds playing in the wrong moment or low quality sounds during the Separate Ways campaign (shipped as part of the PS2 port and all ports following it).
I also fixed some stage collision issues here and there.
AI upscaling looks far better than the original texture, but not as good as what Marin and the team eventually accomplished manually.Image: Albert Marin
You currently accept donations to help fund the RE4 HD project, but do you plan to sell the finished project once it releases?
No, it will be for free. Modding and remastering this game is also a game for me.
What sort of reception have you gotten from this project, and who do you hope to reach with it?
It surpasses anything I’d imagined. I guess some people, sites, and communities have spread its existence. But after all, Resident Evil has a huge fanbase, so I guess it’s quite understandable a few thousands of this fanbase is interested in the remaster process of one of the best games of all history.
About our target audience, I’d say, everyone who likes the remasters for the sake of the visual pleasure; or playing their favorite game you like with no trace of blurriness, or simply the people who like this kind of fan project but don’t like the game at all!
Because this project is more about the journey than the final result. After all, it can’t compete with any next-gen game in terms of visuals, no matter how crisp the textures are or how round the models look.
One of Resident Evil 4’s laboratory environments, with upscaled textures applied. Image: Albert Marin
Have you worked in any capacity with Capcom (or any of its current or former employees) on this project?
No. We were in contact with them at the beginning. Someone at Capcom was interested in our project, and he took the time to send a planning document, but I guess the other Capcom people in Japan were not interested because the communication ended there. Other than that, there was no help on making the project.
Given that Capcom recently released the RE3 remake, it’s likely that an RE4 remake is in development. Does your team worry about Capcom eventually stealing your thunder, so to speak, with an improved version of the game?
No, the remakes are really different games. Even now, the original Resident Evil 2 & 3 receive their own mods and visual improvements (Resident Evil 2 and 3 HD Seamless Project) They are different and complementary experiences. Just think about any Hollywood remake. Most of them don’t hurt the original movie, and they are alternative visions of the older title.
PmsProxy, a partnered Twitch streamer who has 147,000 followers, was tired. Tired of streaming Grand Theft Auto roleplay, and of streaming herself playing games more generally — something she’d been doing nearly every day for around six years. “I didn’t just want to sit and play games all day, I realized,” she says when I reach her by Discord. “I want to either tell a story through roleplay or just do something that made it feel fulfilling, and roleplay wasn’t that.” So she decided to make a change: instead of streaming herself playing games, she’d stream herself making things for her business.
That business was leatherworking. Proxy made the jump from full-time game streamer to full-time crafting streamer at the beginning of this year; it was a nerve-wracking but ultimately necessary step. “It’s been unbelievably different in the best way possible,” she says. “My viewers have gone up, my subs have gone up. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that my community members are seeing me be happy, right? They’re seeing me do something that I love.” The people who stayed, she says, want to buy her work and learn how she makes it.
Twitch is usually thought of as a place for streaming video games. And while that reputation is deserved — yes, a lot of people stream their gaming on Twitch — the site also has a surprising breadth of channels. Makers & Crafting is one of them; the category was created in 2018, after Twitch renamed “Hobbies & Crafts” to better represent the many pros who streamed in it (in their words). According to Twitch Tracker, a website that logs Twitch statistics, the category averaged 520 viewers in September 2018, the month it was created. As of January 2021, Makers & Crafting was averaging 1,520 viewers, or about three times more.
The people who stream in the category do everything from embroidery to woodworking; it’s mesmerizing to bounce among them. Makers & Crafting is a warm, welcoming category that feels a little intimate. The streams can run long — I mean, they’re making physical goods — but every streamer I’ve seen seems to vibrate at a slightly different frequency than the people who stream on the rest of the site. They’re calmer. Less frenetic. The vibe is aggressively wholesome. In other words: it’s about as close to an oasis as you can get online.
Streaming anything is difficult. In every broadcast you have to be a host, producer, audio engineer, and video technician — all at the same time. Streaming your crafts, however, is harder: making things for an audience is a special kind of difficult, especially if the products you’re making are eventually going to be sold. What’s perhaps more interesting is how learning crafts has changed with the accessibility of the internet. Proxy and another streamer and woodworker I spoke to, WorkedLettuce3 — whose handle was chosen by the Xbox gamertag gods — both learned their crafts from the internet.
“I watched a lot of YouTube videos,” he says. “I just never thought it would be something I would take up. Because, you know, a lot of woodworking YouTubers in particular, they like to flex their shop, they like to flex all the hundreds of thousands of dollars they spent on their tools, right? And, yeah, I mean, that was never gonna be me.” Even so, he found a channel that he says motivated him to be a woodworker — one that emphasized that you didn’t need tons of gear to pick it up as a hobby. “I’m very, very glad I found it because I’ve been loving just messing around woodworking, hanging out with people in the garage like we’ve been doing now,” he says.
Proxy also learned some of the tools of her leatherworking trade from the internet. Her foray into the Makers & Crafting section coincided with the first time she tried her hand at leatherworking. “I started leather crafting January of this year. Like my first time really getting my hands on my own stuff was in January,” she says. “But I spent the last year researching. So starting in 2019 and all through 2020, I did nothing but watch YouTube videos and Instagram videos. I did tons of research.” Proxy says she’s always been gifted in working with her hands. Leatherworking is just the most recent outlet. (She also went to art school.)
Lettuce is in a similar position; before six months ago, he’d never sawn a board in half.
He’d never streamed before, either. His first streaming setup was just streaming directly to Twitch from his phone; these days, he’s got a dedicated PC in his garage, a couple webcams, and the TV from his living room to read chat on. And his chat is important: among his viewers are veteran woodworkers and other crafters, along with people who’ve just stopped by to watch. The woodworkers help him when he’s stuck; he says there are people there who have coached him through his entire woodworking career. That kind of interaction is unique to Twitch, and to the Makers & Crafting section in particular.
Even so, he says he finds woodworking on stream scary sometimes. “Like, before the first time I turned my table saw on, I was terrified. Before I turned my router on for the first time, I was terrified. Before I ran a circular saw for the first time, I was terrified,” he says. And he did fall into some bad habits — like reading chat from his phone while working on things. “My chat would see me reading the chat from my phone. And a couple people in there just like stepped in and they were like, ‘Yo, like, for real. You can’t be doing that.’” He credits chat with keeping him honest.
“No one is coming in to backseat you,” says Proxy. “They’re not like, ‘Oh, you should go here and you should do this. And oh, you didn’t kill my favorite boss.’” Viewers are there to watch someone make something, and maybe learn a little in the process.
Proxy also makes just about everything in her store live on stream. Which she says is intimidating but also rewarding — because viewers (who are also buyers) can see exactly how much labor goes into making what they’ve bought. “They get to see what work is actually being put into this,” she says. “It’s not just, you know, a quick two hours, and it’s done. It’s a grueling two hours. Like everything is hand cut, and hand stitched and glued and stamped.”
Not everyone sells what they make on stream. Another crafter I spoke to, LaserGeekCreations, says that he doesn’t usually create the things that show up in his shop on stream. “Mainly because a lot of the stuff that’s on my Etsy shop is like, quick and easy to make,” he says. “It’s kind of boring to make a lot of the time.” (He assuages this boredom by creating things like a giant wooden dinosaur, which he also destroyed on stream.) LaserGeekCreations also happens to be the streamer who raided Lettuce when he was just starting out — which gave Lettuce his first real start on Twitch.
It’s not all fun and games on Twitch. The larger viewer community can sometimes be brutally toxic to people who don’t fit its notions of who can and can’t be a streamer; recently, Twitch partner Negaoryx lamented, at Twitch’s 2020 Participation Ceremony event, that the chat was targeting presenters with tons of hate speech.
There’s more than 42,000+ viewers watching the Twitch Participation Ceremony on the offical @Twitch channel now. Users in chat are spewing hate speech & harassing the guest streamers. 3 mod names in the chat list but since I’ve been watching, have seen ZERO messages get deleted.
— negaoryx (@negaoryx) January 23, 2021
Makers & Crafting feels different, though. It’s smaller, for one thing. But all the people I’ve spoken to who’ve been involved with the category think it’s a uniquely welcoming space nestled within the larger Twitch community. “It was almost like — it’s gonna sound fucking hilarious — but it was almost like walking into a warm hug,” says Proxy. “It was just like everyone was so welcome.” During her first week in the section, Proxy says she went from getting around 100 viewers to getting more than 500. They were leatherworkers and other crafters; they dropped tips and ideas and support.
Lettuce had a similarly warm experience. “The Makers & Crafting community is — I’m gonna say in my opinion, but I’m pretty sure it’s a fact — that they’re the most welcoming and loving community-minded community I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” Once the pandemic is over, Lettuce says, he’s considering driving from Las Vegas, where he lives, to New Jersey, where his parents are, and visiting his friends from Twitch on the way.
“I don’t think I’ll ever leave Twitch. I mean, live-streaming and the community in general,” he says. “The stream will still be a thing, but I think interpersonal communication and hanging out and, you know, giving someone a firm handshake is my end goal.”
LaserGeekCreations has been streaming crafting for longer than Lettuce and Proxy, and he confirms their assessments of the community. “The makers community is such an amazing community. I think you’ve probably heard that from other people already,” he says. “Because it doesn’t matter what you’re making. We’re all makers, we all like seeing what other people are doing. Everyone’s so supportive of each other.”
That kind of supportive community feeling can be invaluable if you’re trying to finish something. As anyone who’s tried to make anything knows, creating things is hard because going from idea to reality requires a number of steps, which sometimes aren’t particularly obvious. On Twitch, the Makers & Crafting community makes it just a little easier.
Gigabyte’s AORUS Z590 Extreme Waterforce is one of the craziest motherboards that you’ll be able to buy soon for Intel’s Comet Lake and Rocket Lake SKUs, and could very well at some point find its way onto our best motherboards list. The board is designed for custom liquid cooling from the start, featuring a large monoblock cooling the CPU and power delivery components. There’s also a fully liquid-cooled chipset heatsink, as well as liquid-cooled M.2 heatsinks to keep your high-speed storage devices extra cool.
Aesthetically, the board looks like something designed to draw attention on a CES showroom floor. The entire PCB is covered in matte black and metal, with the chipset and monoblocks featuring RGB illumination. Naturally, there’s an RGB-illuminated AORUS logo on top of the rear I/O.
(Image credit: Gigabyte)
To top it all off, the monoblock features digital water and CPU temperature gauges right on top of the block, and build-in leak protection that will automatically shut down your PC in-case that situation occurs. The monoblock is connected to an internal USB Type-C port to interface with the motherboard’s firmware.
As one of Gigabyte’s flagship motherboards, the amount of features it has is almost uncanny. For power delivery, the board comes with a 20+1 VRM solution with 100A power stages. This is a very high-end VRM system, with the bonus of being liquid cooled by the board’s monoblock. So you should have no problems with the motherboard when overclocking and overvolting Intel’s highest core-count CPUs.
(Image credit: Gigabyte)
For connectivity, you have basically everything you can ask for. Dual Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C ports, Intel WiFI 6E and Bluetooth 5.0 for wireless support, one Aquantia 10Gb ethernet port, plus an Intel 2.5Gb LAN port, and over eight USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, counting both internal USB headers and rear I/O.
We don’t know how much this board will cost, but given the number of features included, the price will be high. However, this board is targeted towards consumers who want the best of the best you can get from a motherboard. For those looking for similar features at a more mid-range price, take a look at the MSI MPG Z590 Carbon EK X, which we just took an in-depth look at.
Razer’s Tomahawk ITX values form over function. And although it looks great for a Mini-ITX chassis, it has design flaws that keep it from being worth its steep price.
For
+ Easy to work in
+ Thermally capable
+ Minimalistic looks
+ Built like a (small) tank
Against
– Very expensive
– Doesn’t get dust filtration right
– Ineffective front intake
– Doesn’t include fans
Specifications and Features
When Razer reached out asking if I wanted to review the Tomahawk ITX, I of course said yes. After all, it’s the first time Razer is delving into the ITX chassis market. And I have to admit, it’s a good looking case with a simple but purposeful desing.
Razer wouldn’t disclose who its production partner was, but the chassis closely resembles that of the Lian Li TU150, albeit with a few changes. Given the collaboration history between the two companies, a collaboration with Lian Li wouldn’t be surprising.
Whether this compact Razer case deserves a spot on our Best PC Cases list remains to be seen.Let’s dig into the Razer Tomahawk ITX’s design and performance to find out.
Razer Tomahawk Specifications
Type
ITX Tower
Motherboard Support
Mini-ITX
Dimensions (HxWxD)
8.46 x 9.72 x 14.49 inches (215 x 247 x 368 mm)
Max GPU Length
12.6 inches (320 mm)
CPU Cooler Height
6.5 inches (165 mm)
Max PSU Length
SFF, SFF-L
External Bays
None
Internal Bays
3x 3.5-inch
Expansion Slots
3x
Front I/O
2x USB 3.0
1x USB Type-C
Mic, Headphone
Other
Chroma RGB Controller
Front Fans
None (Up to 1x 120mm)
Rear Fans
None (Up to 1x 120mm)
Top Fans
None (Up to 2x 120mm)
Bottom Fans
None (Up to 2x 120mm)
Side Fans
x
RGB
Yes, Razer Chroma Underglow
Damping
No
Warranty
1 Year
Features
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Touring around the chassis, there’s not much to mention of any significance – the Tomahawk ITX is shaped like a shoebox on its side, with dark tinted tempered glass panels on each side and a closed front. There is some semblance of intake mesh on the side of the front panel, but the perforation is tiny and likely won’t do much for cooling.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
At the bottom of the case you’ll spot two Chroma RGB strips between the front and back feet. These provide Chroma underglow lighting, which we’ll demonstrate later in the review. With diffusers, they should handsomely light up the area underneath the chassis.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The case’s side panels swing open on hinges, making it really easy to open and show off your system without the hassle of unscrewing and removing a panel. That said, there’s not a lot of space for cable management behind the motherboard tray, and without anything to hold the cables in place, it might become a challenge to keep the panel closed later on, as it’s only held shut by a magnet.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Top IO comprises a USB Type-C port, discrete microphone and headphone jacks and two USB 3.0 ports. Power and reset switches are naturally also present.
Internal Layout
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
After removing the glass panels, because I don’t want them swinging around during the build process, we reveal the interior of the case. There is space for up to Mini-ITX motherboards, an SFX power supply near the front, and large 3-slot graphics cards.
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(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Cooling
Despite being a $189 chassis, Razer does not include any fans with this case. You can install up to a 240mm AIO at the top of the case, two 120mm fans at the bottom, along with single 120mm spinners at the front intake and rear exhaust.
CPU coolers can be up to 6.5 inches (165 mm) tall, and GPUs up to three slots thick and 12.6 inches (320 mm) long.
However, air filtration is bound to be problematic in this case. There is a front intake filter, but the mesh design is so restrictive here that I doubt the case will pull much air through this filter. As a result, this can only turn into a negative-pressure case that draws unfiltered air in from the bottom and rear of the chassis.
Storage
An SSD mount is present on the side tray and the bottom also supports another two. There are no 3.5-inch HDD mounts.
Does it fit an RTX 3080?
Yes, the case fits triple-slot GPUs up to 320mm (12.6 inches) long.
Even though the omnipresence of wireless headphones could lead you to conclude that the market no longer has room for wired models, you’d be wrong. Wired headphones, such as the Creative SFXI Trio, still very much have an audience. Anyone who can’t be bothered with such nuisances as battery charging and the potential loss of one of the headphones is likely to pick up a wired pair of in-ears. Let’s not forget about mobile gamers either, or at least those among them looking for zero-lag mobile gameplay, which makes wired headphones a must.
The Creative SXFI Trio in-ear headphones are equipped with a USB-C cable and as such connect directly to Android phones and the Nintendo Switch. Creative didn’t leave you hanging even if you’d prefer to connect them to your desktop PC, laptop, or PlayStation as a simple USB-C to USB Type-A adapter is included. The SXFI Trio in-ear headphones have two distinctive features: As their name implies, they’re equipped with three speaker drivers per earpiece and include SXFI Wire, essentially a more compact version of the excellent SXFI Amp (read our review here), a $150 mobile DAC and headphone amplifier that also includes a powerful DSP with the Super X-Fi headphone holography technology. Coming in at $140/€130, the Creative SXFI Trio in-ear headphones are by no means cheap, so let’s find out if they have what it takes to justify the price, and present themselves as a viable option in a world where wireless headphones absolutely dominate.
Facebook has nearly 10,000 employees in its division working on augmented reality and virtual reality devices, according to a report in The Information based on internal organizational data. The number means the Reality Labs division accounts for almost a fifth of the people working at Facebook worldwide.
This suggests that Facebook has been significantly accelerating its VR and AR efforts. As UploadVR noted in 2017, the Oculus VR division accounted for over a thousand employees at a time when Facebook’s headcount was 18,770 overall, indicating a percentage somewhere north of five percent.
Since then, Facebook has shifted its VR focus away from Oculus Rift-style tethered headsets by releasing the Oculus Quest and Quest 2, which are standalone wireless devices that don’t require a PC. The $299 Quest 2 was preordered five times as much as its predecessor, with developers seeing a boost in sales of their existing titles.
“Today, most of what Facebook does is…we’re building on top of other people’s platforms,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg told The Information in an interview this week on Facebook’s VR and AR ambitions. “I think it really makes sense for us to invest deeply to help shape what I think is going to be the next major computing platform, this combination of augmented and virtual reality, to make sure that it develops in this way that is fundamentally about people being present with each other and coming together.”
The latest Windows update has been causing problems for some printer owners, according to a report from Windows Latest(via Gizmodo). Users are reporting that they’re getting a blue screen when they try to open the print dialogue from Notepad, Office, or other programs. (You know that annoyingly ambiguous error message that’s like “Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart”? It’s that one.)
Microsoft is aware that attempting to print in certain circumstances can blue screen your PC, and has listed the bug on the Windows 10 Support page. The company doesn’t appear to have issued a fix at this time. “We are presently investigating and will provide an update when more information is available,” that website currently reads.
It’s not clear how widespread the issue is, but Windows Latest says it has “seen numerous reports of error popping up here and there.” The bug appears to impact multiple printer brands including Kyocera, Ricoh, and Zebra. “Have had at least 20 confirmed cases from 4 different clients already and it’s only been an hour into the day,” one reader told the publication.
Windows users are complaining across Reddit as well. “This issue was confirmed across four computers,” said one Reddit user. “We just got 3 calls from clients all experiencing this same issue,” another commenter said.
Getty Images
If you’re encountering this problem, the easiest fix is to roll back the latest Windows update. To do this, open Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > View Update History > Uninstall Updates > Uninstall, or remove the patch manually in Command Prompt. Some Reddit users confirmed that this fixed their problem.
A user claiming to be a Microsoft employee has also posted two temporary workarounds on Reddit, which commenters have confirmed to work. You can enable direct printing in the Command Prompt, or you can use the Compatibility Administrator tool to apply a fix, depending on the application you’re running. Both processes are complicated, so your best bet is to go read that Reddit comment closely if you want to try them.
Facebook has nearly 10,000 employees in its division working on augmented reality and virtual reality devices, according to a report in The Information based on internal organizational data. The number means the Reality Labs division accounts for almost a fifth of the people working at Facebook worldwide.
This suggests that Facebook has been significantly accelerating its VR and AR efforts. As UploadVR noted in 2017, the Oculus VR division accounted for over a thousand employees at a time when Facebook’s headcount was 18,770 overall, indicating a percentage somewhere north of five percent.
Since then, Facebook has shifted its VR focus away from Oculus Rift-style tethered headsets by releasing the Oculus Quest and Quest 2, which are standalone wireless devices that don’t require a PC. The $299 Quest 2 was preordered five times as much as its predecessor, with developers seeing a boost in sales of their existing titles.
“Today, most of what Facebook does is…we’re building on top of other people’s platforms,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg told The Information in an interview this week on Facebook’s VR and AR ambitions. “I think it really makes sense for us to invest deeply to help shape what I think is going to be the next major computing platform, this combination of augmented and virtual reality, to make sure that it develops in this way that is fundamentally about people being present with each other and coming together.”
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic closed most offices, more and more official papers were being turned into PDF documents. (PDF stands for Portable Document Format; it is a standard created by Adobe in the early 1990s that allows paper documents to be turned into exact digital copies.) These days, hard copy paperwork is fast becoming the exception rather than the rule. However, even digital documents have to be signed. You can do it the long way — print those documents out, sign them, and then scan them back into your computer — or you can create a digital signature and place it directly on the PDF.
Unfortunately, while Windows doesn’t offer a built-in PDF signing feature the way a Mac does, there are third-party apps you can download that will give you the same ability. In this case, I’m using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, which is Adobe’s free PDF reader. Here’s how to set it up and use it to sign your PDF documents.
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. Adobe has the unfortunate tendency to encourage people to download excess apps, so make sure you uncheck all the additional installations that may pop up on the page: in my case, it was two McAfee apps and Acrobat’s Chrome extension. (You can install this last one later if you think it might be useful.)
After you click on “Download Adobe Reader,” you can start the install by clicking on the downloaded .EXE file.
It’s a good idea to uncheck Adobe’s promotional offers before downloading Acrobat Reader.
At the end of the installation, Acrobat Reader DC will ask if you want to make Adobe Acrobat Reader your default PDF application. Up to you.
Once it’s installed, Acrobat Reader will open. Look for “Fill & Sign” in the main window. Click on that and then click on “Select a File” to choose a PDF file to work on.
Start by selecting “Fill & Sign,” and then choosing the PDF file you want to work with.
Alternatively, you can open the file first (by going to “File” > “Open”) and then select the “Fill & Sign” feature from the app’s right-hand column. (If you don’t see any labels under the icons, it’s the one that looks like a pen in the act of writing.)
A new window will ask “What do you want to do?” Click on the “Fill and sign” button under the left-hand picture.
Select “Fill and sign.”
Your document will come up in Acrobat. Click on the “Sign” icon (another pen) in the top line.
Click on “Add Signature.” (If you already have added a signature, you can use the “Add Initials” choice to save a second signature, if you wish.)
Select “Add Signature.” Once you’ve saved your signature, it will appear on this drop-down menu.
A pop-up window will give you three ways to sign your document: type your name (Adobe supplies you with several handwritten-looking fonts), draw your signature (either using your touchpad or directly on a touchscreen), or upload an image of your signature.
However you create your signature, if you will want to use it in the future, make sure the “Save signature” box is checked. Then click on “Apply.”
There are several ways you can create a signature.
Once you’ve hit “Apply,” your PDF document will be back. Place your new signature where you want it on the document and left-click. You can then change the size or placement of the signature if you wish.
Now you can place your signature where you want it.
And you’re done! Now, if you want to add your signature to a PDF, just open your document using Adobe Acrobat Reader and click on the “Sign” icon. You can then select your saved signature and place it where you need it on your PDF document.
Your signature is now available whenever you need it.
Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is, of course, not the only app that you can use to read and / or edit a PDF document. There are a variety of other apps out there with free versions that will let you do basic PDF work, such as HelloSign, Smallpdf, and Docsketch. However, most of those free versions come with limitations — for example, both HelloSign and Docsketch let you sign up to three documents a month, while Smallpdf lets you process up to two documents per day. Adobe Reader doesn’t have any limitations on your ability to sign documents, but if you want to create a PDF, or export it to another format, you’ll have to get the Pro version.
Puget Systems recently shared sales data showing that its sales of AMD-powered systems have now passed the 50% mark, unseating Intel from its previously-dominating 100% share of the company’s sales. This win comes even though Puget Systems previously stopped selling AMD systems back in 2015 because Team Red was no longer competitive on the performance front. Still, after resuming building AMD systems again in 2017, Puget has seen explosive growth in the number of AMD systems it ships.
Puget Systems is a boutique system vendor specializing in higher-performance systems that range from smaller system builds to the highest-end workstations. Hence, the data strongly implies that AMD’s gains in the higher-end desktop PC and workstation markets are accelerating.
(Image credit: Puget Systems)
Puget’s sales of AMD-powered systems took quite some time to accelerate, with the lion’s share of its sales growth occurring after November 2019 when AMD began shipping its Ryzen 3000 series processors. That makes a lot of sense, as the Ryzen 3000 processors marked the debut of 12- and 16-core processors for mainstream desktop platforms. Those platforms lend themselves to lower price points than competing Intel HEDT processors but come with enough horsepower to match Intel’s expensive HEDT chips in many workloads.
The debut of AMD’s Threadripper 3000 series in early 2020 obviously helped accelerate AMD’s gains in the workstation market, and Puget’s sales of AMD-powered systems started a long uptick at the beginning of 2020. Naturally, those processors are a good fit for the highest-performance PCs, falling right into Puget’s target audience. Intel’s Cascade Lake processors, like the Core i9-10980XE, aren’t in the same class as the Threadripper processors, and Intel hasn’t refreshed its HEDT lineup in more than a year.
Fast-forwarding to the November 2020 debut of AMD’s beastly Ryzen 5000 processors, like the Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X, and AMD began its final push to unseat Intel as Puget’s top-selling CPU brand. That makes plenty of sense, as the Ryzen 5000 processors have completely unseated Intel’s competing processors in pretty much every metric that matters, and you can see the explosive gains in Ryzen sales right at the 5000-series launch. This isn’t surprising, the Ryzen 5000 chips have taken over the top spots on our CPU Benchmarks hierarchy by substantial margins, giving AMD a commanding performance lead. As you can see, currently there’s a pretty even split between Puget’s Ryzen 5000 and Threadripper sales, but that could change in the coming months now that Threadripper Pro has finally come to market.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
AMD’s return to prominence in the desktop PC market is well known, but despite its remarkable turnaround, the company still only holds 19.3% of the overall desktop PC market share. As you can see in the chart above, which plots data from industry analyst firm Mercury Research, AMD still has plenty of room to grow.
Intel still holds a huge advantage in the mainstream OEM markets with the types of systems we see sold at big box stores, but given the trends we see at Puget Systems, we can expect AMD to begin taking over that segment, too. At least once it can work out its supply issues. Ultimately, supply is AMD’s biggest current constraint, but recent trends suggest that the company is working out the kinks as more Ryzen 5000 series processors are becoming readily available at retail. Of course, that leads one to wonder just how much more lopsided the situation at Puget would be if Ryzen chips were fully available.
You know the graphics card market is in a bad place when vendors resort to rereleasing five-year old graphics cards. Kuroutoshikou, a Japanese vendor, has announced that its GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (GF-GTX1050Ti-E4GB/SF/P2) will hit the domestic market in mid-March.
In reality, the GF-GTX1050Ti-E4GB/SF/P2 is a rebranded version of Palit’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti StormX. Based on the GP107 (Pascal) silicon, the graphics card is equipped with 768 CUDA cores with a 1,392 MHz boost clock and 4GB of 7 Gbps GDDR5 memory. The GeForce GTX 1050 Ti is rated for 75W so it doesn’t require any external PCIe power connectors, making it a good plug-n-play option for entry-level gamers, even though it is no longer among the best graphics cards.
The GeForce GTX 1050 Ti’s revival isn’t a coincidence though. It was Nvidia itself who decided to replenish its partners with Pascal GPUs in the middle of the ongoing graphics card crysis. Nvidia’s actions also paved the way for other vendors to get rid of their old Pascal stock, including Palit who might launch new specialized GeForce GTX 1060 models for cryptocurrency mining.
We’ve already started seeing more GeForce GTX 1050 Ti availability here in the U.S. Sadly, the pricing leaves much to be desired. While Kuroutoshikou’s GeForce GTX 1050 Ti will arrive in Japan with a price tag of ￥20,727 (~$190.97), custom models in the U.S. market currently retail between $330 and $600. That’s pretty insane since the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti has five years under its belt now and had launched for $139.
With how ridiculous pricing is right now and the graphics card shortage, picking up a pre-built PC, especially one of the best gaming PCs, suddenly doesn’t sound like a bad idea anymore.
Apex Legends is the latest major cross-platform Switch port. After years of availability on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, EA has finally brought the battle royale shooter to Nintendo’s handheld console, adding a fresh wave of players to the mix and a new, on-the-go option for existing Apex Legends fans. But there’s a glaring issue with the Switch port: right now, there’s no cross-progression, making the Switch port effectively a nonstarter for dedicated players.
At launch, the new Nintendo Switch version of Apex Legends offers cross-platform gameplay — meaning that you can play with and against players on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC in addition to other Switch players. But any progress or purchases that players have made on those other platforms won’t carry over. Effectively, Apex Legends players on the Switch are starting from scratch.
Despite the “Season 8” branding that covers Apex Legends, there’s no continuity for players on the Switch version — so much so, that players have to replay the tutorial before they’ll actually be able to drop into a full match.
In an interview with Nintendo Life, Chad Grenier (Respawn’s game director for Apex Legends) said that cross-progression is planned for the future, but with the caveat that “we’re a ways out from being able to offer that.”
Grenier explains that there are a mix of issues preventing Respawn from offering cross-progression, with contractual, legal, and technical problems that need to be sorted out. “It’s a complex challenge of multiple accounts existing for various users that we have to resolve or merge, there are legal and contractual things to navigate with purchasing on other platforms and having those carryover and also some technical challenges.”
Apex Legends is by no means the first mainstream game to run into this issue. Unfortunately, the lack of cross-progression is more common than not for most cross-platform games, both on the Switch and on other platforms.
Overwatch, for example, has been struggling with the lack of cross-platform progression and gameplay for years, despite the emphasis that Blizzard puts on cosmetic content unlocks.
Control has been ported to plenty of platforms since its launch, including Amazon’s Luna, a cloud-based version for the Nintendo Switch, and a next-gen version for PS5 and Xbox One. But there’s no crossover for saves between those titles — if you started Control on a PS4, then that’s where your save is stuck forever, even if you want to try streaming it from an internet service or playing with fancier graphics on a next-gen console.
Obviously, there are real technical and legal issues here. Overwatch’s skins are heavily tied to its loot box economy, which are all purchased through the platform-specific stores, which can complicate things. Control’s lack of next-gen saves are tied to updates to the game engine that prevented Remedy from offering continuity for existing players.
But there’s also a wealth of games in 2021 that show that a better way is possible. Fortnite and RocketLeague are the gold standard here: simply log into Epic’s free-to-play games on your platform of choice, and all your stuff is there waiting for you. You can play with friends on any platform (well, except iOS), from any platform, with all of your skins, emotes, items, and unlocks.
And even recent Ubisoft games have added cross-play and cross-progression through Ubisoft Connect, letting players start playing sprawling RPGs like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on one system and continue on another.
In 2021, offering cross-progression and cross-play is increasingly becoming table stakes for major games. With massive titles that can take dozens, if not hundreds of hours of players’ time, locking down progression to a single console or platform just doesn’t make sense.
And that’s doubly true for free-to-play games like Apex Legends, which live or die on the strength and size of their multiplayer community and the money that they can make off selling cosmetic items. When your game is free to download on any platform, it’s critical that the time and money that players invest into getting those digital rewards be consistent across those platforms, because the collection of those items is the main reward structure of those games.
Bungie figured that out a while ago, back when it transitioned Destiny 2 to a free-to-play title — it nowallows players to sync their in-game items to whatever platform they’re playing on (even if Bungie is still working out cross-platform gameplay).
The whole point of putting a game like Apex Legends on the Switch is to offer players another avenue to play the game. Sure, it may attract some new players, but for many others it’s a way to spend even more time with a game they already love. But by locking things like hero characters or items that players have painstakingly unlocked through time or money to a single platform, the game is still stuck in an outdated model of game design.
Players have a finite amount of time. And why would you open up Apex Legends to unlock all your old gear again when you pick up your Switch when you could make progress on your Fortnite battle pass — a far more substantial unlock that isn’t tethered to a single system — instead?
The Miami Heat has suspended Meyers Leonard indefinitely after he used an anti-Semitic slur during a Twitch stream on Monday.
“The Miami Heat vehemently condemns the use of any form of hate speech,” the NBA team wrote in a Twitter statement on Tuesday evening. “The words used by Meyers Leonard were wrong and we will not tolerate hateful language from anyone associated with our franchise.”
In a statement apologizing for his actions posted to Instagram, Leonard says he wasn’t aware of the meaning of the slur when he said it.
“While I didn’t know what the word meant at the time, my ignorance about its history and how offensive it is to the Jewish community is absolutely not an excuse and I was just wrong,” he said. “I am now more aware of its meaning and I am committed to properly seeking out people who can help educate me about this type of hate and how we can fight it.”
The NBA also issued a statement, saying it “unequivocally condemns all forms of hate speech,” a spokesperson told ESPN.
Twitch has suspended Leonard, the company tells The Verge. “We do not allow the use of hateful slurs on Twitch,” Twitch said in a statement. “The safety of our community is our top priority, and per our guidelines we reserve the right to suspend any account for conduct that we determine to be inappropriate, harmful, or puts our community at risk.”
Other organizations have distanced themselves from Leonard as well. Gaming and esports organization FaZe Clan, which Leonard had invested in, said on Tuesday evening that it had severed ties:
And sponsors Origin PC and Scuf Gaming, which are both owned by Corsair, have also said they are ending their working relationships with Leonard.
While stars saying inappropriate things on stream is relatively new territory for NBA players who dabble in streaming, it’s an unfortunately common problem for the biggest names on Twitch. Turner “Tfue” Tenney, for example, was suspended in 2018 for using a racial slur on stream, though the platform did not take action when he said a different slur in 2019. And Fortnite pro Daniel “Dubs” Walsh was banned from Twitch and suspended from FaZe Clan after saying a racial slur in February 2020. (He has since been reinstated.)
Other celebrities who have tried their hand at streaming have faced real-world consequences for hurtful language as well. NASCAR driver Kyle Larson was fired by his team in April for using the n-word during a sim racing stream, while musician Joel Zimmerman, who you might know as deadmau5, deleted his Twitch channel in 2019 after he was suspended for saying homophobic slurs.
Sales of PCs increased sharply in 2020 as people needed new desktops and notebooks to work and learn from home. As a result, shipments of GPUs (graphics processing units) also increased compared to 2019, mostly because the majority of today’s CPUs (central processing units) come with integrated GPUs. But while many people were hoping to pick up one of the best graphics cards or best CPUs, availability was severely limited, particularly in the second half of the year. The surprising result is that, despite record demand for gaming PCs and hardware, sales of dedicated GPUs were not exactly exceptional in 2020. Data from Jon Peddie Research (JPR) confirms what we experienced, but let’s look at the details.
As PC Sales Increase, Intel’s GPUs Eat AMD’s and Nvidia’s Lunch
According to Gartner, PC shipments increased 10.7% year-over-year to 79.392 million units in Q4 2020. Quarter-over-quarter, PC sales increased by 11.2%. For the year, they totaled 274.147 million units, up 4.8% from 2019. JPR says that shipments of both integrated and discrete GPUs in the fourth quarter were up 20.5% quarter-over-quarter, as some chips are sold well before actual systems become available. That sounds good, but the actual GPU sales aren’t quite as impressive.
(Image credit: Jon Peddie Research)
Since Intel remains the leading supplier of CPUs, it’s also the No. 1 supplier of GPUs. In Q4 2020, Intel actually managed to solidify its lead by increasing its market share to 69%. Meanwhile, the three GPU vendors posted mixed results in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter: AMD’s shipments were up 6.4% and Intel’s sales increased 33.2%, while Nvidia’s unit shipments decreased by a rather significant 7.3%.
As far as market share goes, Intel controlled 69% of the PC GPU market in Q4 2020, Nvidia’s share dropped to 17%, and AMD’s share fell to 15%. We’ve been talking about graphics card shortages since the Ampere launch back in September, but it’s good to have hard numbers.
Both Intel and AMD sell loads of CPUs with integrated graphics, and last year the companies released quite successful 11th-Gen Core ‘Tiger Lake’ chips as well as Ryzen 4000-series ‘Renoir’ processors for laptops and compact desktops. To that end, it isn’t surprising that the two companies increased GPU sales as shipments of notebooks boomed. Meanwhile, note that when counting CPU shipments, some of these devices may be sold to fill in backlog, or to sit in the inventory of PC makers.
Unlike AMD and Intel, Nvidia supplies only discrete GPUs and its unit shipments decreased because it suffered severe shortages of its desktop products in Q4. Despite the drop in unit sales and the deficit, Nvidia’s position as the leading discrete GPU supplier didn’t suffer. More on that later.
Sales of Desktop Graphics Cards Hit by Shortages, but ASPs Set Records
Unit sales of desktop discrete graphics cards were down 3.9% sequentially in Q4 2020. Jon Peddie Research reports that around 11 million add-in-boards (AIBs) were sold during the quarter.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Generally, approximately 11 million graphics cards sold in the fourth quarter looks like a rather modest result (it’s below Q4 2019, Q4 2017, Q4 2016, and Q4 2015), but keeping in mind how significantly average selling prices of AIBs increased recently, 11 million GPUs mean a lot of money for AMD, Nvidia, and their AIB partners. Meanwhile, since it’s extremely hard to get a new graphics board these days, it becomes rather evident that there is a great undersupply.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Overall, the market shipped around 41.5 million discrete graphics cards for desktop PCs in 2020, which is about 3 million more than 2019 but still below sales in prior years. Jon Peddie Research reports that the AIB market reached $14.8 billion last year, which means that an average graphics card cost $360 last year.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
In recent months we saw numerous reports and videos about cryptocurrency mining farms using hundreds or thousands of graphics AIBs to mine Ethereum. While there certainly are mining farms using loads of GPUs, it doesn’t appear that they somehow substantially increased the total available market of video cards. Most probably, they have had added to the deficit of graphics cards on the market, but neither miners nor scalpers are the key reasons for the shortages.
Nvidia has been leading the desktop discrete GPU market since the early 2000s, and in Q4 2020 it actually captured its highest unit market share ever. Last quarter the company controlled 83% of the shipments. By contrast, AMD’s share hit an all-time low of just 17%.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Throughout the fourth quarter, Nvidia complained about shortages of GPUs and other components. However, it still managed to ship over 9 million standalone graphics processors for desktops throughout the quarter, which is its best result in two years. We do not know the share of Nvidia’s Ampere GPUs in its shipments in Q4 2020, but previously the company indicated that it was draining its Turing inventory for a couple of quarters, so the GeForce RTX 30-series was probably sold in noticeable quantities in Q4.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
AMD’s desktop discrete AIB market share in the fourth quarter 2020 dropped sharply by 6% sequentially. The company commanded 17% of shipments and sold about 1.87 million standalone GPUs for desktops in Q4 2020, 780 thousand less than in Q3 2020, according to Jon Peddie Research. For AMD, this is the worst result in two years.
During the last quarter, AMD launched its latest Radeon RX 6800/6900-series graphics cards based on the Navi 21 GPU that were sold out as soon as they reached store shelves. The company also complained about shortages of components. In addition to its desktop discrete GPUs, AMD also had to ramp up production of its Ryzen 5000-series processors as well as system-on-chips (SoCs) for the latest game consoles in Q4, which naturally decreased the number of pre-allocated wafers it could use for the Radeon products.
Nvidia Solidifies Positions as Leading dGPU Supplier
Although Nvidia’s unit sales dropped by 7.3% quarter-over-quarter in Q4 2020, the company still managed to post massive gaming revenue gains and actually increased its discrete GPU market share (which includes graphics processors for both desktops and laptops) to 82%, based on data from Jon Peddie Research.
(Image credit: Jon Peddie Research)
In recent years, Nvidia has outsold AMD 7:3 or 4:1 in the discreet GPU market, which is a significant lead. Nvidia has also long dominated the standalone GPUs market for laptops with gaming GPUs for laptops. Historically, this market was small, but it grew by 7X in seven years, according to Nvidia. So far, the company has sold 50 million mobile GeForce graphics processors for gaming, which is a lot.
“Laptops right now, gaming laptops, is probably the fastest-growing gaming platform that is out there,” said Colette Kress, CFO of Nvidia, at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Broker Conference (via SeekingAlpha). “It is up 7 times in just 7 years. Q4, for example, was our 12th consecutive quarter of double-digit year-over-year growth in our overall laptops. Our GeForce RTX 30 series laptops launch was one of our largest launches ever with more than 70-plus different devices. […] We have got 50 million GeForce laptop gamers at this time.”
Summary
(Image credit: Jon Peddie Research)
Demand for PCs is booming, which helps AMD and Intel sell tens of millions of CPUs every quarter. Over 274 million systems were sold in 2020, which means these two companies supplied over 274 million client processors throughout the year, and most of these CPUs featured an integrated GPU. In contrast, the situation looks different when it comes to discrete GPU sales.
(Image credit: MSI)
Traditionally, GPU sales increase when new GPUs and new games arrive, or at least stay at high levels. Both AMD and Nvidia started shipments of their new AIBs based on the latest RDNA2 and Ampere architectures in Q4 2020. Several new AAA games were released during the quarter as well, including Cyberpunk 2077, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Marvel’s Avengers, and Microsoft Flight Simulator. However, despite new hardware and game launches, actual discrete GPU shipments dropped in Q4 vs Q3, which was almost certainly caused by component shortages.
Nvidia sold over 9.13 million of desktop discrete GPUs in Q4 2020, which was a bit up from the prior quarter, but the shipments were constrained. With its Radeon RX 6800/6900-series graphics cards based on the Navi 21 GPU, AMD’s Radeon products turned out to be competitive against Nvidia’s in the lucrative enthusiast segment for the first time in years. Unfortunately, the company’s market share and unit shipments declined sequentially because of the shortages and because the company had to ramp up production of other products, which lowered its ability to produce enough Radeons for the market.
In general, discrete desktop GPU shipments in 2020 totaled approximately 41.5 million units and exceeded shipments of graphics cards in 2019. That’s likely due to AMD and Nvidia both selling out of previous generation cards, rather than significant numbers of the latest generation GPUs. Shortages constrained and continue to limit AIB sales, and it’s difficult to estimate just how high the actual demand for standalone desktop GPUs was in 2020. Looking forward, there’s still unmet demand, and the GPU and graphics card makers would need to produce plenty of products to keep up in 2021. Unfortunately, that’s likely not possible, as the shortages continue to plague the industry.
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