Tom's Hardware

The week in chip news: Nvidia’s GTC 2025 blitz, new NVMe HDDs and watercooled SSD, Intel’s restructuring begins

(Image credit: Nvidia) Nvidia’s GTC 2025, an annual event where the company lays out its roadmap of new products and vision for the coming year, created a flood of news as the company extended its roadmap out to a four-year horizon with plenty of mind-bendingly powerful new AI GPUs and systems. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang… Read more

Data suggests RTX 5090 prices are slowly stabilizing — The average selling price on eBay has dropped to $4,000

(Image credit: Nvidia) Since launch, Nvidia’s scarce GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card has been almost impossible to secure unless you’re willing to hand 2-3x the MSRP to scalpers. The same trend extended to other GPUs in the Blackwell family, reminiscent of the pandemic-struck days. A user at r/nvidia has aggregated data on RTX 5090 Founders… Read more

Nvidia RTX 5060 Ti final specs and launch day allegedly leaked

(Image credit: Nvidia) According to a well-known hardware leaker, wxnod, Nvidia and graphics card makers will reportedly release the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti graphics cards on April 16 at 9 p.m. to compete against the best graphics cards. Meanwhile, VideoCardz has allegedly received and published the final specifications of Nvidia’s first mainstream Blackwell-based GPUs today…. Read more

GPU compatibility dilemma as more high-end power supplies ditch 8-pin connectors in favor of new 16-pin

(Image credit: MSI) Since the 16-pin connector was introduced and later revised, melting adapters and PSU/GPU-side connectors on some of Nvidia’s mainstream GeForce gaming GPUs have been rampant. Two of MSI’s recently launched high-wattage PSUs interestingly feature two 12V-2×6 connectors while providing only one standard 8-pin connector (via OC3D). Unless you get a 12V-2×6 to… Read more

Nvidia RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell GPU is listed for $8,565 at US retailer — 26% more expensive than the last-gen RTX 6000 Ada

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) Nvidia’s newly announced RTX Pro Blackwell GPU listings have gone live at Connections, a US-based IT retailer targeting enterprise customers. Prices start as low as $700 (via Videocardz). The retailer’s website also lists a wide array of unannounced Blackwell GPUs, like the RTX Pro 2000 and RTX Pro 4000 SFF Blackwell,… Read more

‘Frequently returned item’ warning slapped on Snapdragon X-powered Surface Laptop 7 at Amazon

Amazon (via Windows Central)has flagged Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 7 as a “frequently returned item,” cautioning potential buyers to check customer reviews before purchasing. The label suggests that the device has a higher return rate than similar products, though Amazon does not specify the reasons behind it. One likely factor is the laptop’s use of Qualcomm’s… Read more

Chinese scientists create solid-state DUV laser sources for lithography equipment used in chip manufacturing

According to SPIE, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have created a solid-state deep ultraviolet (DUV) laser emitting coherent 193-nm light used for semiconductor photolithography in a lab. If the light source technology can be scaled, this device could be used to build lithography tools that make chips using advanced process technologies. However,… Read more

EU preps Chips Act 2.0 to stregthen semiconductor industry after original program reportedly flopped

(Image credit: TSMC) A group of European countries led by the Netherlands is setting the groundwork for the European Chips Act 2.0 after the original one failed to achieve its goal of strengthening the European semiconductor industry, reports Reuters. The group aims to deliver concrete proposals by summer to work closely with the European Commission…. Read more

AMD launches Gaia open source project for running LLMs locally on any PC

Running large language models (LLMs) on PCs locally is becoming increasingly popular worldwide. In response, AMD is introducing its own LLM application, Gaia, an open-source project for running local LLMs on any Windows machine. Gaia is designed to run various LLM models on Windows PCs and features further performance optimizations for machines equipped with its… Read more

Enthusiasts report Gigabyte X870E Aorus Xtreme chipset temps exceeding 100°C

Gigabyte’s X870E Aorus Extreme AI TOP motherboard is suffering from high chipset temperatures, as suggested by several reports on Reddit. Chipset temperatures north of 100 degrees Celsius led a user to disassemble the motherboard, revealing poor heatsink contact on one of the two daisy-chained Promontory 21 chipsets. Now, if this does end up being a… Read more

‘Pi Tin’ retro gaming handheld is minty fresh thanks to a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

We love Raspberry Pi handhelds and they just keep getting cooler — in this case, it’s minty cool. Makers Jackw01 and Soaporsalad have created a really cool Pi-powered gaming handheld they call the “Pi Tin“. This tiny gaming handheld uses a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and is designed to fit in a case small… Read more

Kioxia shows off new 122.88 TB SSD — PCIe 5.0 LC9 packs a whole lot of QLC NAND

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) Nvidia’s GTC conference has focused heavily — almost exclusively — on AI this year. Everything shown seems to have an AI connection. And one thing we know about AI is that it needs a lot of memory, and a lot of storage to hold the increasingly large models. That’s where Kioxia’s… Read more

Zen 5-based Threadripper 9000 CPU shipping manifest hints at imminent launch

As the launch of AMD’s Zen 5-based Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000-series processors, codenamed Shimada Peak, is getting closer, more of these CPUs are spotted in various databases and shipment manifests. This week, blogger Everest noticed 24-core and 32-core Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000-series processors in shipping manifests in the Global Trade Data and Customs Database. This… Read more

Intel’s technology development chief Ann Kelleher to retire, sparking leadership overhaul ahead of 18A production start

(Image credit: Intel) Dr Ann Kelleher, the executive vice president at Intel responsible for developing Intel’s fabrication technologies since 2020, announced plans to retire sometime later this year after three decades at the company, Intel told Tom’s Hardware. The announcement comes five months after the company had announced a succession plan. Kelleher will stay on… Read more

How to Restart Windows Explorer in Windows 11

Sometimes the UI for your Windows 11 system just needs a fresh start. You might have changed a setting in the registry that affects the UI — extending the Windows context menu, for example — and you need to restart Windows Explorer to see the change. Or maybe something has gone haywire in your system… Read more