Danh mục: Tin tức

Intel and Synopsys this week extended their EDA and IP partnership to the company’s Intel 3 and Intel 18A manufacturing technologies. In line with the agreement, Synopsys is set to develop its standardized interface IP for Intel’s 3nm and 1.8nm-class production nodes, which will be beneficial for Intel Foundry Services (IFS) customers adopting these fabrication processes. Meanwhile, a standout aspect of this announcement is Intel’s intention to extend its 3nm-class node to a wider array of external clients.

While chip designers tend to invest a lot into differentiating their IP, most of them tend to license IP-like interfaces and memory controllers. To that end, the availability of an industry-standard IP portfolio of interfaces from Synopsys is crucial for the success of new process technologies, such as the upcoming Intel 3 and Intel 18A, as it enables chip developers to streamline their work and shrink the time-to-market. Unfortunately, it is unclear when exactly Synopsys is set to be ready with its IP for Intel 3, even though that is set to be ready for manufacturing this year. Intel 18A has a bit more time, as it’s set to be ready for production in 2H 2024.

The intriguing part is that Intel is now extending its IFS offerings to the Intel 3 fabrication process, which is a major refinement of its Intel 4 node and does not use any of the company’s ambitious innovations like gate-all-around RibbonFET transistors or the backside power rail called PowerVia. Compared to its predecessor, Intel 3 promises a 18% higher performance per watt, a denser high-performance library, reduced via resistance, and increased intrinsic drive current, which is beneficial primarily for datacenter system-on-chips. Indeed, Intel has announced zero Intel 3-based client products so far, but three datacenter SoCs: Xeon-branded Granite Rapids and Sierra Forest processors, as well as a custom SoC for a major cloud datacenter provider.

The extension of the IP partnership with Synopsys will enable Intel to make its Intel 3 node — a fabrication technology that Intel barely advertised as an offering for IFS customers — more accessible to a wider range of interested parties. That also implies that there are potentially such interested parties.

As for the Intel 18A node, this is a superior version of the company’s Intel 20A process technology that promises up to a 10% improvement in performance per watt, a refined RibbonFET architecture, and line width reduction, which implies a higher transistor density. It will be crucial for Intel 18A to have industry-standard interface IP readily available as soon as possible, as developing things like memory or PCIe controllers and PHY on a 1.8nm node is both expensive and time consuming.

If you own a 3D printer, you can fuel your passion for Minecraft games by downloading and 3D printing these interesting 8 designs.

One of the most exciting aspects of Minecraft is its unique visual style and all the details it contains. The marketplace is filled with Minecraft action figures, Legos and other toys. However, you don’t need to head to the store as there are numerous, free 3D models you can print at home.

If you search for “Minecraft” on leading design repositories such as Thingiverse or Printables, you’ll find hundreds of STL files available right now. However, not all of them are equally worthy of your time. These are the best 8 Minecraft prints we’ve seen. Just download the file(s), slice them in your slicer and send them to your printer, perhaps one of the best 3D printers.

1. Articulated Steve

Steve is an iconic character model that is the main protagonist in the game, and it features a blocky humanoid figure. It wears a light blue shirt, blue jeans, gray shoes, and a light brown beard stubble. Steve’s hair is dark brown, and his skin is a rich brown, with blue eyes.

The design comes with five parts: the arms, head, legs, pickaxe and torso. The designer 3D recommends printing the model at a resolution of 0.15mm and a 15% infill with supports. 

Designer and link to download: Kirby Downey via Myminifactory

Number of downloads: 4,074

2. Minecraft Creeper Mini Figure Kit

This is a quick-to-print and assemble design, and you can effortlessly detach the parts from the frame by simply twisting them without the need for cutters or clippers. You can use the kit as a display piece and a functional keychain ornament, and you can download the files, open them in any 3D modeling software or STL editor, and customize them based on your needs.

Despite its small size, the figure maintains the distinctive cubic body with its signature sad expression. It’s a great way to showcase your love for the game or add Minecraft flair to your keychain.

Designer and link to download: Chiz via Printables

Number of Downloads: 4,137

3. ESPADA

These Minecraft sword keychains provide a great way to showcase your love for the game while adding a touch of gamer style to your keys, and they can also spark a conversation when you meet with your fellow gamers. You can also download and 3D print them and give them to your closest friends, kids, or anyone who you know enjoys Minecraft games.

Designer and link to download: Youbit via Cults3D

Number of Downloads: 2,800

4. Textured Minecraft Grass Block Box

A textured Minecraft Grass Block Box is another attractive Minecraft design whose lid is designed to resemble the top face of a grass block, complete with the signature vibrant green color and coarse texture that players recognize from Minecraft’s blocky landscapes. 

The lid fits well, just like a puzzle piece, and it is removable. It is about 69 mm³, and the interior dimensions measure around 58 * 58 * 60 mm. You can 3D print the design and use it to decorate your desk or gaming setup. It can also serve as a great gift for a family member or friend with a gaming passion. The designer has provided STL files that anyone can download and customize based on their needs. It should be 3D printed with supports, especially the lid, but the base doesn’t require supports. 

Designer and link to download: MARCELWO41EDYNKI via Cults3D

Number of Downloads: 852

5. Minecraft Chess Set

Minecraft chess set not only offers the classic game of chess but also adds a delightful layer of Minecraft-themed strategy and fun. It’s an excellent way for fans of both chess and Minecraft to enjoy a unique gaming experience that combines the best of both worlds. 

Just like the rest above that we have described, this set makes for a fantastic gift, a collectible item, or a centerpiece for your gaming setup. It has eight parts, and the designer printed it with a layer height of 0.1mm and a 10% infill.

Designer and link to download: Guilbert Benjamin via Myminifactory

Number of downloads: 2,100

6. Minecraft Block Lamp

A Minecraft block lamp is a decorative piece replicating one of the game’s recognizable blocks, like the grass block we have just described above. The lamp emits a soft and comforting glow, making it a great bedside lamp. 

You can also place it on a desk, shelf, or any spot where you can emit the light well. Whether reading, gaming, or simply relaxing, the Minecraft block lamp creates a warm and inviting atmosphere with a nod to your favorite virtual world.

Once you 3D print the parts, you can use glue to stick the four faces together and you add an LED strip. The designer recommends using 100% infill, a layer height of 0.2mm, and no supports or rafts are required.

Designer and link to download: Bithur_Factory via Cults3D

Number of downloads: 827

7. Minecraft Portal Style Phone Charging Dock With Animation

The swirling pattern and vibrant colors of the Minecraft portal-style phone charging dock replicate the Nether portal from Minecraft. It adds a practical functionality of a phone charging dock and a touch of interactivity to your charging experience through the animations. 

You can put a phone measuring 80 x 165 x 12.8mm inside. If your phone is smaller, you can scale the design until you achieve the perfect size. You can use glue to stick the detachable pieces together. No need to use supports when 3D printing, and the designer recommends using 8% v-roid infill, four overlayers, and four underlayers. 

Designer and link to download: Impresoen3D via Cults3D

Number of downloads: 1,300

8. Minecraft Chest Single and Double

You can download and 3D print these Minecraft boxes and use them for storing your items and keeping them secure and organized. The single chest provides a single storage compartment with 27 available item slots. The double chest, on the other hand, is an expanded version of the single chest and provides a much larger storage capacity. 

You can 3D print each panel without a brim. When 3D printing the double chest, the designer recommends printing with an infill of 20%, 0.2mm resolution, and no need for rafts and supports.

Designer and link to download: Spradlinb via Printables

Number of downloads: 1,465

MORE: Best 3D Printers

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Frore Systems, the inventors behind the world’s first solid-state cooling devices, has unveiled a new 64TB U.2 SSD storage device cooled by the company’s AirJet Mini. Made in collaboration with OWC, the storage enclosure is known as the Mercury Pro and is the first storage enclosure to utilize Frore System’s technology.

For more details on Frore System’s solid-state cooling technology, check our previous coverage. The quick summary is that Frore System’s AirJet Mini and AirJet Pro coolers are the world’s first solid-state cooling devices featuring no moving parts. With a thickness of 2.8mm and a heat dissipation of 5W for the Mini and 10W for the Pro, respectively, the cooling capacity per mm is much higher than traditional cooling methods. Both devices can actively cool incredibly slim or compact devices that previously could only be cooled via passive cooling, or with weak active cooling solutions.

OWC’s new Mercury Pro is the first external storage enclosure to use an AirJet cooler. In the past, Frore Systems advertised its AirJet Mini and Pro as CPU/SoC coolers specifically, but in this case, the AirJets have been adapted to cool storage devices instead, thanks in no small part to the AirJet Mini’s ultra-thin form factor.

The unit houses eight M.2 SSDs in a compact 3.5-inch U.2 enclosure, with four SSDs residing on the top while the other four are installed on the bottom of the case. Each SSD gets its own AirJet Mini, attached to the SSD with a copper heat exchanger and thermal pads. OWC’s variant comes with eight 8TB SSDs, yielding 64TB of capacity as a whole, with throughput of 2200MB/s and 2600MB/s for sustained sequential writes with the added cooling capacity.

Thanks to the AirJet’s cooling capabilities, the Mercury Pro is able to dissipate 40W of heat, in a form factor the size of a single SATA hard drive. If this same amount of cooling potential used conventional fans, the storage enclosure would have to be significantly thicker to accommodate the extra hardware.

Sadly, OWC and Frore Systems have not announce a potential release date for the enclosure, and it goes without saying that it targets enterprise customers. We suspect both companies need to do more testing to ensure the AirJet-equipped enclosure is reliable enough for extended run times. Frore System’s new AirJets appear capable, but the design methodology is still very new and mostly unproven in the real world. That will change, once more OEMs start using AirJet coolers in their systems — like Zotac’s AirJet-powered ZBox.

In 2020, Chinese chip champion Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. was two or three generations behind global leaders. Today, following several rounds of crippling U.S. sanctions against the Chinese semiconductor sector, the People’s Republic’s chip industry is at least five generations behind — and the gap can expand, according to Gerald Yin, chief executive of Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc., a wafer fab equipment manufacturer from China, reports DigiTimes.

The past two U.S. administrations have introduced 15 semiconductor-focused sanctions to keep China’s semiconductor production technologies generations behind the global leaders — namely Intel from the U.S., Samsung from South Korea, and TSMC from Taiwan. Back in 2020, SMIC was about to start making chips on its 7nm-class manufacturing process that featured a logic transistor density akin to that of TSMC’s N7 and Intel’s 10nm. At the time, SMIC was a couple of generations behind TSMC, which was gearing up to start production of chips on its N5 (5nm-class) node.

But the sweeping sanctions imposed by the U.S. government on October 7, 2022, and followed by Japan and the Netherlands in 2023, have set the Chinese semiconductor industry back by at least a decade. Wafer fab tools manufacturers need to obtain a special license to ship equipment that can be used to make logic chips with non-planar transistors on 14nm/16nm nodes and below, 3D NAND with 128 or more layers, and DRAM memory chips of 18nm half-pitch or less to a Chinese entity. This effectively limits China’s semiconductor industry to 28nm and thicker nodes — unless it can come up with its own wafer fab tools, or the export licenses are granted.

The ramifications of these restrictions are palpable in the Chinese semiconductor landscape. SMIC, a front-runner in China’s semiconductor domain, had once been vocal about its advancements with 14nm and 12nm nodes. Yet, by mid-2023, any mention of these technologies disappeared from its website and other official communications. Despite these setbacks, some insiders are optimistic, viewing the U.S. obstacles as an opportunity for China to bolster its domestic semiconductor equipment prowess.

If this does not happen, the gap between China’s semiconductor industry and the global leaders will expand even further, barring other changes in government policy.

The Raspberry Pi Zero form factor has launched a plethora of handheld Linux machines. For this project, pseudonymous maker IMBalENce has created Blackberry Pi, which pairs the Zero W with RIM’s Blackberry keyboard (remember those?) for a pocketable computing experience.

The Raspberry Pi Zero W is not the most powerful Raspberry Pi, as that accolade lies with the Raspberry Pi 4. But the Zero form factor does provide us with the Zero 2 W, a machine comparable to the Raspberry Pi 3B.

Blackberry Pi Bill of Materials (BoM)

• Raspberry Pi Zero W
• Composite LCD (320×240) Link
• Solderparty BBQ20KBD keypad
• Adafruit Powerboost 1000c power supply
• Raspberry Pi camera NoIR v2.1
• 5V fan for cooling
• 2500mAh LiPo battery
• (Optional) USB hub for external usb port
• (Optional) RTC clock
• (Optional) ADC ADS1015 battery voltage monitor

The 3D printed case was designed using Solidworks, and printed using a modified Creality Ender 3 3D printer, possibly one of the Ender 3 range that features on our best 3D printers page. IMBalENce cleverly used multi-color printing to add a rainbow accent to the case, emulating the Sinclair ZX Spectrum’s famous rainbow mark. Some 3D printer slicing software will detect multi-color prints and from there you can specify the point to change and purge the filament. If not, then you can write some G Code to make this happen.

The overall Blackberry design is accentuated by SolderParty’s BBQ20KBD keypad, which is a breakout for Blackberry keypads. The keypad is connected to the Pi via the GPIO, specifically the I2C interface as it draws less power than a USB hub. Want to use some of the best Raspberry Pi HATs with Blackberry Pi? Well you can! IMBalENce has added a GPIO breakout to the top of the case. You will need a breakout board, such as Pimoroni’s Black HAT Hacker, to access the connector, as otherwise you’ll obscure the screen. If you’re just connecting jumper wires, you are all good.

A series of brass inserts are located around the top of the unit to provide secure anchor points for future expansions. The brass inserts are melted into the 3D print using a soldering iron. The TS100, TS101 and Pinecil smart soldering irons have specialist tips designed for the task.

Around the back is a Raspberry Pi NoIR 2.1 camera. It’s a fixed-focus (well, you can break the glue on the lens to manually focus) camera that offers decent quality live video and images in low light conditions. Power is provided by a 2500 mAh LiPo cell via an Adafruit Powerboost 1000C, which provides a stable 1A output (2A or 2.5A for a short time) to power everything and enable the battery to be charged while in use. A 5V fan connected to the Powerboost keeps everything cool, not a massive issue for the Pi Zero W, but should IMBalENce choose to upgrade to Pi Zero 2 W, the extra cooling will be beneficial.

The 320 x 240 px screen is good enough for the size and IMBalENce chose to boot directly into the terminal and set the framebuffer to match the resolution. This means that the screen is easy to read and ready to go for some terminal action. 

IMBalENce Blackberry Pi is an impressive project. It crams a lot of tech into the Blackberry form factor. You can read more about the project here.

UL Solutions, the firm behind the well known 3DMark benchmarks suite, has just released 3DMark Solar Bay. This is a new cross-platform benchmark that’s designed to measure and compare ray tracing performance. At the time of writing the benchmark is available for both Windows and Android users, across a range of stores (e.g. Android Play, Windows Steam).

In a press release about Solar Bay, UL first describes the purpose and scope of ray tracing graphics technology, in case anyone has been living under a rock since the Nvidia Turing generation. It then indicates that ray tracing is quite mainstream in 2023, with dedicated GPUs in desktops and laptops having excellent ray tracing acceleration for several years, and both iGPUs and smartphones now boast some usable ray tracing frills. It thus sets the scene for why a benchmark like Solar Bay is now useful.

If you are more interested in PC ray tracing performance, and not so much cross-platform comparisons, UL reminds us that it already has “heavier ray tracing benchmarks” like Port Royal and Speed Way. That hasn’t stopped legions of 3DMark testers from running this new set of tests on their ultra-powerful RTX 4090 cards, though. Check out the 3DMark Solar Bay leaderboards on the official site.

3DMark Solar Bay passes the tested device through three stages, ramping up ray tracing workloads by 100%. The Vulkan 1.1 API built benchmark is said to take typical ‘bursty’ mobile games as its inspiration. At the end of the tests, users will be presented with four scores: an overall score, and a score for each ray traced section. Over a 20 minute test run, users can see how well their device performs, and by the end of the test see if there has been any thermal throttling — a phenomena that most often adversely affects SFF, laptop and mobile form factors.

If you are interested in giving Solar Bay a run on your PC, and you are already a 3DMark for Windows owner, you are in luck as it should become available to download within the app. If not, you can purchase the software directly from UL Solutions, or via Steam or the Epic Games Store. Android users can just download this benchmark for free via Google Play. We don’t know if this benchmark will be released for Mac or iOS users (like 3DMark Wild Life is, for example), though that seems likely.

Some Example Scores

The 3DMark Solar Bay benchmark is only just out, but you may be wondering about how the best graphics cards for PCs perform, and how much faster they are compared to iGPUs and smartphones. Luckily, there is already a leaderboard to explore and search for scores. For example, the top ranked overall score today is 228,491 by LunerK9 using a GeForce RTX 4090.

Product Manager of 3DMark at UL Futuremark, Christian Klass, also shared his results on Twitter/X. As you can see, his modest GTX 1070 desktop card scored 14,380. The best score we could see today for an AMD Radeon was 155,445, for an RX 7900 XTX owned by Andybuc/Schwarzbacke. Meanwhile, the most recent Nvidia Ada Lovelace GPU, the GeForce RTX 4060, could only muster a score of around 50,000, at best.

What about smartphone and integrated graphics users? We couldn’t find any smartphones listed in the official rankings, sadly. But an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D using the 2 CU integrated graphics turned in a result of 3,210. That GPU should still beat the one in the Samsung Exynos 2200, if you’re wondering, thanks to its higher clocks. AMD’s latest Radeon 780M (integrated into the Ryzen 9 7940HS) meanwhile chalked up a best current result of 13,148, while for reference the Intel Arc A380 has a single result of 10,008.

One of the most extraordinary things about today’s gaming laptops is that it’s hard to find an absolute dud. OEMs have stepped up their game in recent years, and we’re seeing laptops that deliver higher frame rates, last longer per charge, and have better screens than we could have imagined just a few years ago. And more importantly, gamers don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to get decent performance these days.

That is the case with the Lenovo Legion Slim 5, a 16-inch gaming laptop sporting a QHD+ display, an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS processor, 16GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU. The laptop has an MSRP of $1,529.99, but it sells for as low as $1,149.99 on sale, making it an excellent bargain among the best gaming laptops. 

Lenovo Legion Slim 5 Specifications

Design of the Lenovo Legion Slim 5

The design of the Legion Slim 5 is similar to others in Lenovo’s gaming line, like the Legion Pro 5i. In other words, you’ll find a plastic chassis finished in onyx grey and an understated aesthetic. It is a gaming machine, but it wouldn’t look out of place sitting on a desk in an office.

Thin bezels surround the display, although a slightly larger protrusion at the center of the top bezel houses the 1080p webcam. The webcam doesn’t have a physical privacy shutter like some other gaming laptops, but a physical switch on the right side of the chassis turns off the webcam when it is not needed. The only other port residing on the right side of the chassis is the full-size memory card reader. Switching to the left side, there are two USB-C ports and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The back panel features two USB 3.2 (Type-A) ports, gigabit Ethernet, and a proprietary jack for the power adapter.

The Legion Slim 5 measures 14.16 x 10.25 x 0.99 inches, which is similar in footprint to the Legion Pro 5i, although the former is slightly lighter (5.29 versus 5.6 pounds). The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 is also within spitting distance for size and weight (5.79 pounds), while the Razer Blade 14 has a much smaller footprint due to its 14-inch display and is over a pound lighter than the other three laptops (4.05 pounds).

Lenovo Legion Slim 5 Gaming Performance

The Legion Slim 5 uses an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS, an 8-core/16-thread processor. The base clock in this laptop is 3.8 GHz, while the maximum boost clock is 5.1 GHz. The processor is paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 and 16GB of DDR5-5600 memory (2 x 8GB).

The competitors I have lined up for the Legion Slim 5 match closely in specs, apart from the Razer Blade 14 (Ryzen 9 7940HS, RTX 4070, 1600p), which has a smaller display and more powerful GPU. The other two competitors are a more even match, including the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i (i7-13700HX, RTX 4060, 1600p) and the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (i7-13700HX, RTX 4060, 1600p).

I played Cyberpunk 2077 on high settings with ray tracing enabled, DLSS Balanced, and DLSS frame generation enabled, averaging 94 frames per second (fps) at 1200p. Increasing the resolution to 1600p saw the performance dip to around 62 fps.

Kicking off our gaming benchmark suite, I turned my attention to Shadow of the Tomb Raider (highest settings). The Legion Slim 5 hit 96 frames per second (fps) at 1080p and 55 fps at 1600p. This performance put it just slightly behind the Predator Helios Neo 16 by 1-2 fps but well behind the similarly-equipped Legion Pro 5i.

Grand Theft Auto V (very high settings) testing saw the Legion Slim 5 slide into second place with 91 fps at 1080p and 52 fps at 1600p. However, the rankings were very tight across the board at 1080p and 1600p for the competitors. Only the Legion Pro 5i ran away from the competition at 1080p resolution at 97 fps.

Far Cry 6 (ultra settings) also saw a tight grouping of the laptops. While the Legion Slim 5 technically came in last place at 1080p with 83 fps, we wouldn’t exactly call that a poor showing versus the 85 fps for the Blade 14 and 88 fps for the Predator Helio Neo 16. The Legion Slim 5 put up a respectable 62 fps at 1600p.

Moving on to Red Dead Redemption 2 (medium settings), the Legion Slim 5 tied the Predator Helio Neo 16 for third place, achieving 65 fps at 1080p and 39 fps at 1600p. However, the Blade 14 led the field with 73 fps at 1080p and 45 fps at 1600p.

Borderlands 3 again showed how evenly matched the Legion Slim 5 and Predator Helio Neo 16 are, with each garnering around 80 fps at 1080p and just over 50 fps at 1600p. The Blade 14 again showed its muscle, delivering 98 fps at 1080p and 64 fps at 1600p.

Rounding testing out with the Metro Exodus Benchmark (RTX settings), the Legion Slim 5 ran through 15 loops at 1600p resolution. The Legion Slim 5 hit 49.96 fps averaged across the 15 runs. During the run, the Ryzen 9 7940HS averaged 3.93 GHz at 70.67 degrees Celsius (159.2 degrees Fahrenheit). The GeForce RTX 4070 GPU ran at an average of 2.12 GHz and measured 70.53 C (158.95 F).

Lenovo Legion Slim 5 Productivity Performance

The Legion Slim 5 features an AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, 16GB of DDR5-5600 memory and a 512GB SSD.

The Geekbench 5 synthetic CPU benchmark saw the Legion Slim 5 running neck and neck with the Raptor Lake-based competitors in single-core performance (1,893) and slightly behind the Blade 14, which uses the same Ryzen 9 7940HS processor. However, both the Legion Slim 5 and the Blade 14 were clobbered in the multi-core benchmark, with the latter delivering a score of 11,046 compared to 14,967 for the first-place Legion Pro 5i.

Moving to the file transfer test, which involves shuttling 25GB of files, the Legion Slim 5 garnered 1,733.97 MBps, putting it just shy of the first-place Legion Pro 5i.

In the Handbrake test, where we transcode a 4K video to 1080p, the Legion Slim 5 completed the task in 4 minutes and 34 seconds, nipping the Blade 14 by 11 seconds. However, neither matched the Legion Pro 5i, which completed the task in just 3 minutes and 39 seconds.

Display on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5

The Legion Slim 5 comes standard with a 16-inch FHD+ (1920 x 1200) IPS display, but our review sample arrived with an upgraded QHD+ (2560 x 1600) IPS panel with a 165 Hz refresh rate.

I spent a lot of time playing Overwatch 2 and Cyberpunk 2077. Given that this is an IPS panel (with an anti-reflective coating applied), the display had excellent viewing angles, and the colors were reasonably vibrant. However, you won’t find OLED levels of color here, and darkened areas in Cyberpunk 2077 looked more like a dark grey as the LED backlight shined through.

For video performance, I turned my attention to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which was recently released on Disney Plus. As was the case when I watched the movie in theaters, I fought back tears during the gut-wrenching scenes detailing Rocket’s origins. It also gave me a chance to scope out the generally good color performance of the display, particularly when the Guardians arrive at Orgocorp headquarters in their brightly-colored spacesuits (yellow, red, orange, blue and green). While there was a noticeable drop-off in color compared to the Mini-LED display on my daily driver laptop, the performance here for a laptop retailing below $1,500 was admirable.

In our tests, the Legion Slim 5 fell behind its Legion Pro 5i stablemate across the board. Based on our colorimeter, it hit 78.1 percent of the DCI-P3 and 110 percent of the sRGB color space. The display was also the least bright in this field at 318 nits, compared to 349 nits for the Legion Pro 5i and 499 nits for the Predator Helios Neo 16.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5

The keyboard on the Legion Slim 5 was instantly recognizable to me, as it is essentially the same unit found in the Legion Pro 5i that I reviewed earlier this year. The keys are all in the same place, the handy number pad remains, and even the centrally-positioned power button (right above the F9 and F10 keys) is unchanged.

As always, I visited keyhero.com to measure my typing speed and managed 85 words per minute with 95 percent accuracy. This essentially mirrored my performance on the Legion Pro 5i. (What a shocker!)

The keyboard features four-zone RGB lighting, which is controlled via the Lenovo Vantage software. You’ll find the settings under Lenovo Spectrum, where you’ll find several effects to choose from, along with options for changing the speed and brightness of the RGBs. However, you won’t find per-key controls on the Legion Slim 5.

The plastic touchpad, while not as large as some of the behemoth control surfaces in the laptop world, was easy to use and had a nice “click” sensation. With that said, I spent most of my time with the laptop using a Razer Atheris mouse wirelessly connected via Bluetooth.

Audio on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5

The Legion Slim 5 uses a pair of 2-watt speakers with Nahimic audio. Nahimic audio software allows you to tweak settings to dial in sounds to your tastes. However, after playing around the presets, I didn’t notice enough of a difference to change my mind about the audio quality.

Voices in Cyberpunk 2077 sounded a bit muffled, which was a bit of a disappointment given the dialog-heavy nature of the game. Gunfire, explosions and vehicle engines sounded slightly better, but I’d stick with headphones while gaming anyway.

When listening to music, I turned to “Stranger” by Hooverphonic, from their The President of the LSD Golf Club album. Geike Amaert’s ghoulish vocals landed flat with the Legion Slim 5’s speakers, as did the bass guitar. The keyboard was the only part of the track that survived unscathed, leaving me underwhelmed.

Upgradeability on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5

Like most Lenovo laptops, gaining access to the internals is simple. Ten Philips head screws stand between you and access to the Legion Slim 5’s upgradeable bits. In this case, you can see that the battery is replaceable, and there are two SO-DIMM slots for future memory upgrades. However, note that both slots are currently occupied in this 16GB DDR5-5600 configuration.

The Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo card is also readily accessible, as are the two M.2 slots for SSDs. One M.2 slot is pre-populated by the 512GB SK hynix SSD, and another is free for additional storage if you so choose.

Battery Life on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5

The Legion Slim 5 was no slouch in the endurance category. As we saw with the Blade 14, the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS is a highly efficient chip. In our testing, which involves web browsing, light graphics work and video streaming while connected to Wi-Fi with display brightness set at 150 nits, the Legion Slim 5’s battery lasted for 7 hours and 21 minutes. While that couldn’t top the Blade 14’s performance (8:34), it left the Raptor Lake competition in the dust.

As we saw in the gaming benchmarks, the Legion Pro 5i, with its Core i7-13700HX, led the way in several benchmarks. However, the Legion Slim 5 has a clear advantage regarding battery life.

Heat on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5

While running our Metro Exodus stress test, the dual fans in the system kicked into high gear (as we would expect for a gaming laptop). However, the rush of air was not objectionable while gaming. While it was ever-present in the background, it didn’t intrude on my gaming experience once I cranked up the volume to about 40 percent. It would be a non-issue if you’re using a pair of the best gaming headsets.

We measured degrees 22.22 degrees Celsius (72 degrees Fahrenheit) on the touchpad and 39.88 C (103.8 F) between the G and H keys during the Metro Exodus stress test. The hottest spot on the underside of the chassis (near the far-left corner) was 50.11 C (122.2 F).

Webcam on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5

Like most new laptops introduced today, the Legion Slim 5 uses a 1080p webcam, a notable step up from the 720p units that have long been standard equipment.

Image quality was on par with other laptops in this class, delivering realistic skin tones, good detail and low noise. I’d happily use this camera for my Google Meet work calls or when chatting with family over Skype. As I mentioned earlier, there is no physical shutter to block the webcam. Instead, a little switch on the right side of the chassis (next to the SDXC slot) quickly enables/disables the camera.

Software and Warranty on the Lenovo Legion Slim 5

Four branded apps are installed from the factory on the Legion Slim 5. Legion Arena allows access to your games across Battle.net, Epic Games, Steam, Xbox, and Ubisoft services. Lenovo Hotkeys gives you a rundown of function shortcuts available on the system and Lenovo Voice provides controls for the microphone and text-to-speech functionality.

The most important of them all, however, is Lenovo Vantage. This is Lenovo’s command center for controlling and monitoring most aspects of the Legion Slim 5’s hardware. You can oversee system vitals for the GPU, CPU and SSD, change power profiles, and overclock the GPU (among other things). You can also access RGB settings for the keyboard within this app and perform system updates (drivers, software, BIOS, etc.).

Other installed apps include Nahimic (audio controls), X-Rite Color Assistant (display color profiles), Dolby Vision and a Lenovo-sponsored Dropbox promo. Of course, you’ll also find Microsoft’s usual smattering of junkware shortcuts to apps like Netflix, and TikTok sprinkled through the Start menu.

The Legion Slim 5 comes backed by a one-year manufacturer’s warranty.

Lenovo Legion Slim 5 Configurations

I’ve only found two configurations for the Legion Slim 5, with the base system available direct from Lenovo. It features an AMD Ryzen 5 7640HS processor, 16GB of DDR6-5600, a 512GB SSD, a GeForce RTX 4050 and a 16-inch 1920 x 1200 display for $1,019.99. That same configuration is $1,349.99 at Best Buy.

Our review unit is available as a Best Buy-exclusive and carries an MSRP of $1,529.99. That price includes a Ryzen 9 7940HS processor, 16GB of DDR5-5600, a 512GB SSD, a GeForce RTX 4060 and a 2560 x 1600 display. However, at this time, the laptop is on sale for $1,149.99 at Best Buy, representing a $380 discount. That is a lot of kit for less than $1,200, making the Legion Slim 5 a knockout bargain. However, if the laptop were priced closer to its $1,529.99 MSRP, the Legion Pro 5i would likely be a better choice.

Bottom Line

The Lenovo Legion Slim 5 didn’t dominate our gaming benchmark suite, but it was in the running or at least mid-pack in all the tests. It turned out solid productivity numbers, including high marks for its storage performance. However, the laptop was a real trooper regarding endurance, lasting over seven hours per charge in our tests. That was nearly two and a half hours longer than the Legion Pro 5i.

I would have liked for the screen to have been a bit brighter, but it is by no means a deal-breaker. The speakers are rubbish, but which is more of a concern if you plan on gaming with headphones. If you want a much brighter display and slightly better audio, the Acer Predator Helio Neo 16 is an option worth considering.

However, what’s most impressive about this laptop is the pricing. While its MSRP of $1,529.99 would give me a bit of pause, considering the generally superior performance of the Legion Pro 5i, the sale price of $1,149.99 makes the Legion Slim 5 a true bargain that can’t be ignored.

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The generative AI boom is driving sales of servers used for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC), and dozens of companies will benefit from it. But one company will likely benefit more than others. Nvidia is estimated to sell over half of a million of its high-end H100 compute GPUs worth tens of billions of dollars in 2023, reports Financial Times.

Nvidia is set to ship around 550,000 of its latest H100 compute GPUs worldwide in 2023, with the majority going to American tech firms, according to multiple insiders linked to Nvidia and TSMC who spoke to Financial Times. Nvidia chose not to provide any remarks on the matter, which is understandable considering FTC rules.

While we don’t know the precise mix of GPUs sold, each Nvidia H100 80GB HBM2E compute GPU add-in-card (14,592 CUDA cores, 26 FP64 TFLOPS, 1,513 FP16 TFLOPS) retails for around $30,000 in the U.S. However, this is not the company’s highest-performing Hopper architecture-based part. In fact, this is the cheapest one, at least for now. Meanwhile in China, one such card can cost as much as $70,000.

Nvidia’s range-topping H100-powered offerings include the H100 SXM 80GB HBM3 (16,896 CUDA cores, 34 FP64 TFLOPS, 1,979 FP16 TFLOPS) and the H100 NVL 188GB HBM3 dual-card solution. These parts are sold either directly to server manufacturers like Foxconn and Quanta, or are supplied inside servers that Nvidia sells directly. Also, Nvidia is about to start shipping its GH200 Grace Hopper platform consisting of its 72-core Grace processor and an H100 80GB HBM3E compute GPU.

Nvidia dies not publish prices of its H100 SXM, H100 NVL, and GH200 Grace Hopper products as they depend on the volume and business relationship between Nvidia and a particular customer. Meanwhile, even if Nvidia sells each of H100-based product for $30,000, that would still account for $16.5 billion this year just on the latest generation compute GPUs. But the company does not sell only H100-series compute GPUs.

There are companies that still use Nvidia’s previous generation A100 compute GPUs to boost their existing deployments without making any changes to their software and hardware. There are also the China-specific A800 and H800 models.

While we cannot make any precise estimates about where Nvidia’s earnings from the sale of compute GPUs will land, nor the precise number of compute GPUs that the company will sell this year, we can make some guesses. Nvidia’s datacenter business generated $4.284 billion in the company’s Q1 FY2024 (ended April 30). Given the ongoing AI frenzy, it looks like sales of Nvidia’s compute GPUs were higher in its Q2 FY2024, which ended in late July. The full 2023 fiscal year is set to be record-breaking for Nvidia’s datacenter unit, in other words.

It’s noteworthy that Nvidia’s partner TSMC can barely meet demand for compute GPUs right now, as all of them use CoWoS packaging and the foundry is struggling to boost capacity for this chip packaging method. With numerous companies looking to purchase tens of thousands of compute GPUs for AI purposes, supply isn’t likely to match demand for quite some time.

When we think of Raspberry Pi robotics we typically think of wheels and motors but with the advancement of technology we now have quad and bipedal robots powered by our favorite single board computer, the Raspberry Pi. 

The Elecfreaks CM4 XGO Robot Kit is a $749 quadruped robot that looks like a dog, or a cat if you prefer. But this creature has a sting in its tail, a grabber arm that protrudes from its back. The face of the robot is a 2-inch screen with a camera placed above. The plastic shell contains the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, in this case a model with 2GB RAM and a 32GB micro SD card. 

When we think of Raspberry Pi robotics we typically think of wheels and motors but with the advancement of technology we now have quad and bipedal robots powered by our favorite single board computer, the Raspberry Pi. 

The Elecfreaks CM4 XGO Robot Kit is a $749 quadruped robot that looks like a dog, or a cat if you prefer. But this creature has a sting in its tail, a grabber arm that protrudes from its back. The face of the robot is a 2-inch screen with a camera placed above. The plastic shell contains the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, in this case a model with 2GB RAM and a 32GB micro SD card. 

Can we train this dog to respond to our commands, or are we barking up the wrong tree? To learn this and more we’ll need to grab the leash and take a trip to the dog park.

Elecfreaks CM4 XGO Robot Kit Specifications 

Getting Started with Elecfreaks CM4 XGO Robot Kit 

Unboxing doesn’t form part of the review, but we have to say that the kit comes in a heavy-duty. Inside the case we find plenty of padding and a robot dog taking a nap. In the upper lid, hidden under the padding, are a series of balls, charger and tools for the robot.

The packaging is exceptional, and something we would expect given the $750 price tag. Taking the robot out of the case and we are extremely impressed with the build quality. This is an all-metal robot dog, no plastic joints and everything is held in place with machine screws. The battery needs to be charged before use. It may have some charge in it, but the instructions specify that we shouldn’t let the battery drop below 20%. 

A DC jack on the belly of the robot provides a means to charge the battery which is safely encased inside of an aluminum case. We did notice that the wall wart got a little hot when charging the robot. In fact, we would say it was uncomfortably hot at around 45 degrees Celsius. The wall wart is an 8.4V 1A unit, an unusual voltage choice but there are units available. Just make sure that it is center positive. 

We also note that the green LED of the wall wart remains lit when the power supply is connected to the robot, but not the wall. This means that there may not be a diode to prevent the battery from discharging when left in this state. So after charging, remove the power supply!

Once charged up we are ready to power on the robot, the button for which is back the back legs. Keep your fingers clear of the legs otherwise you get a nasty nip. Powering up will take a minute or so. The Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 will take a moment to boot and run the main menu. 

The onboard screen has three options. Program, RC and Demo. Using the top left and top right buttons we can navigate the menu, then press the bottom right to select. The demo section should be your first port of call. It has a selection of demo projects that show off what the robot can do: face tracking, color tracking, dancing etc. 

The robot can also understand simple voice commands; it takes a little practice to get it to understand my accent though. Face recognition can detect a person’s face, obviously, but the “Emotion” demo uses OpenCV and AI to determine your mood. It said that I looked sad, but rarely did I see “happy”. The detected emotion triggers the robot dog to whimper and shake, eliciting concern from the target human. 

We played around with the demos and this also proved that the robot was working to spec, ready for us to start programming. We noted that the servos were jitter free, the result of using serial servo motors over cheaper servos that use PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) to generate the pulses necessary to set the position.

Before we jumped into programming the robot we decided to have a little fun with an RC app. We installed the Android app and then set the robot to RC mode and connected via Bluetooth by shaking the device over the robot. This works 80% of the time, sometimes it fails to connect and this means we have to reset the connection, a common occurrence with Bluetooth devices. 

The RC app has basic controls for moving the robot, an advanced controls scheme for precision, arm control and a demo mode. The demo mode is largely the main demo broken down into user selectable options. After exercising our robot dog, it was time to start training our cyber pooch.

Programming Electreaks CM4 XGO Robot Kit

There are two supported ways to write code for the robot. Both of which are via a web browser. The first is via XGO-CM4, a block based editor which provides an easy introduction to writing code. The second is Python 3. The steps to reach this part of the review took a little back and forth with Elecfreaks. The instruction manual and website links pointed us to resources that were either incomplete or incorrect. 

After receiving this link from Elecfreaks we opened the link, chose the XG0-CM4 block editor for our first coding projects and this is where we hit another stumbling block. The code editor is hosted on an external IP address, http://47.252.22.82:8088/ and after selecting the blocks editor we have to give it the IP address of our robot. This is no problem, as selecting Prog from the robot’s screen will connect the robot to our network. Or it will do if you use Mozilla Firefox. Apparently “other browsers need to set up cross domain settings separately, which is quite troublesome”. We were able to use Firefox and everything worked but It just feels a little clumsy considering the quality of the hardware and its price tag.

The Python library has an unusual level of abstraction. Sometimes it abstracts the task, other times it does not. That said, once you get used to it, the XGO Python library is easy to use. The Educational library is a bit of a mixed bag when used outside of the web based editor. It does work, but you need to get your head around how it works, and a modicum of patience is required as it loads. 

On the whole, the software side of things is “good enough” but it brings down the quality of the product. It could be down to our workflow, but the stumbling blocks that we encountered will likely catch others out. In the end we chose to SSH into the robot and write our code in a text editor, referencing the documentation to create a simple demo project which involved our robot dog dancing to Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” which we can’t share for copyright reasons, and for shame.

Boston Dynamics’ robots are famed for navigating the world around them. From simple stairs to assault courses, these robots can’t be stopped. That can’t be said about our robot dog. We constructed a simple staircase from audio CD cases and using the blocks editor we set the robot to walk forward for five seconds. Using the normal walking settings, the feet of the robot cleared both sets of steps (with audio CD cases measuring 10mm on average).

Changing the gait to “trot” or “highWalk” meant that the robot dog was unable to clear even the first row of CD cases. You can manually set the height for each foot, by tweaking the x,y,z servos. This means that in order to navigate a rough terrain we would either have to run through the terrain, changing settings on the fly, or create a loop that will exaggerate the leg motion of the robot. Navigating a ramp is possible; we found that a plastic ramp, raised 30mm tall (using CD cases) was possible, but 40mm was not. The reason for this is grip. The ABS plastic feet of the robot have no grip on plastic / tiles / wooden desks. Putting some rubber boots on the feet will aid grip, we wonder why this wasn’t done in the factory?

Calibrating the legs isn’t possible via the Blocks editor (that we can see). But they can be calibrated using the remote app, well sort of. Under “Enhanced options” we can set the gyroscope status and use that to “right” the robot according to the terrain it is on. This helps RC controllers to keep the robot dog upright according to the limitations of the servos for each leg. 

Absolute precise control is possible using the Python module and it is best used when starting up the robot. The Python module’s calibration function will return the robot to the default position, legs folded and the robot laying on the ground. From there the user can either follow a pre-scripted sequence, or write their own Python code to control the robot. We looked around the documentation pages for more calibration options but sadly found many pages were not created (404 errors). Still this is far superior to the situation with the Petoi Bittle robot dog where we had to do a lot of manual leg calibration and had to repeat the process many times.

The Dog With Two Brains

Inside of the robot dog there are two brains. The face of the dog contains the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and a breakout board which provides a camera, microphone and sensors used to keep our robot dog upright. The other brain lies deep in the chassis and is an ESP32, solely there to control the many servo motors.

The ESP32 is no stranger to being a co-processor. Arduino’s latest board, the Uno R4 WiFi also features this chip, a chip that is an incredible microcontroller in its own right. The CM4 and the ESP32 communicate using a serial connection, a four pin cable that runs from the face into the body of the robot. This connection does mean that there is a small delay when we start our code as the serial connection is made.

Who is Electreaks CM4 XGO Robot Kit for?

At $749 this is a big investment and probably prices a few people out, but let’s put this kit into context. For the price we get a quadruped robot with a similar form factor to Boston Dynamics’ robot dog. So our small dog comes with a smaller price tag than the big dog! We can see the robot kit being a big hit in education but not so much in the home.

Could this be your faithful robot dog telepresence unit? Well sure it could, but Elecfreaks doesn’t directly support this out of the box. The challenges faced in this endeavor are that we need to stream live video and audio from the dog. This is possible using the Picamea Python library, and performance is decent.

Don’t expect crystal clear video as you move around the office. We’ve used streaming video from a Raspberry Pi 4 in a project and sometimes the video can corrupt (think cable TV levels of image distortion) but it generally corrects itself. Audio pickup via the microphone is also possible, but that would require another Python module to handle audio. The XGO Python module has a function for audio playback, which we used to make the robot dog dance to Britney Spears.

The biggest obstacle to using it as telepresence unit would be controlling the robot while all of this is happening. Face tracking would handle locating the person that you wish to speak to, but navigating the world would be slow and require some form of manual control. It is possible, you could make an Anvil app which remotely interacts with the robot dog, but the effort versus reward would be imbalanced. Lastly, the strain of streaming, tracking, audio, walking would be immense on the battery. How long would it last before you need a recharge?

Bottom Line

You’ll need deep pockets to purchase Electreaks CM4 XGO Robot Kit, but for the money you get a lot of great hardware in an incredibly well made package. The software is decent, but falls below the quality of the hardware. That said, the software is relatively easy to use, both the Python and block coding.

We’re not especially keen on the Mozilla Firefox only browser restriction. Sure we can install another browser, they are free after all. But it is another barrier to entry, and may be troublesome for educators with locked down equipment.

Lenovo has started selling its latest Yoga Slim 7 Gen 8 laptops in Europe and Yoga Air 14S in notebooks in China based on customized versions of AMD’s Ryzen 7040-series accelerated processing units (APUs). According to IT Home, the new Zen 4-based processors come in FP8 packaging to enable better connectivity and performance while retaining their low power consumption. 

The new 14-inch Lenovo Yoga machines (which are called differently in China and Europe) use AMD’s Ryzen 7840U processor in the FP8 packaging (instead of the FP7r2), which is why it is called the Ryzen 7 7840S but retains eight Zen 4 cores clocked at 3.30 – 5.10 GHz and Radeon 780M RDNA3-based GPU with 768 stream processors. At this point configurable thermal design power of the Ryzen 7 7840S is unclear, but it could be different from the original version. 

Meanwhile, VideoCardz reports that some of Lenovo’s Yoga Slim and Yoga Air machines can also use AMD’s custom Ryzen 5 7640S in the FP8 form factor. In fact, the website says that Lenovo will exclusively use the Ryzen 7 7840S and Ryzen 5 7640S, though we would expect this exclusivity to last for a few months only.

AMD’s Ryzen 7040-series processors come in three types of packages: compact FP7 (LPDDR5X) and FP7r2 (DDR5) optimized for thinner designs that need a high-performance APU as well as larger FP8 that is designed to deliver the highest functionality and performance. The FP8 package is notably larger than its FP7 counterparts. It is designed to support higher-performance interfaces, such as AMD’s MIPI CSI, a high-speed interface to connect advanced cameras to host SoCs.

Indeed, Lenovo’s Yoga Slim 7 Gen 8 laptop is not the most compact and lightweight system around: they are 13.9 mm thick and weigh 1.35 kilograms, but it offers quite formidable performance and feature set. The machine comes with a 14.5-inch OLED display with a 2944×1840 resolution with up to 400 nits luminance, 16 GB of LPDDR4X-6400 memory, and a 512 GB M.2-2280 SSD with a PCIe 4.0 interface. The notebook has everything one expects from a high-end PC in 2023, including Wi-Fi 6E 2×2 and USB Type-C connectivity.

If you’re on the hunt for a replacement controller for your games console or perhaps a new gamepad for your PC, then take a look at the Sony PlayStation 5 controller at $49— that gives you an awesome $20 discount. With haptic feedback and a built-in microphone, the Sony controller is a great choice for gaming if a mouse and keyboard doesn’t suit the game.

Pick up 2TB of storage with this excellent price on Crucial’s P3 SSD for $74. This Gen 3 SSD can reach read/write speeds of 3500/3000 MB/s and is a great option for a budget drive for your games library. It’s an older SSD and may not be the best SSD on the market, but its price-to-performance ratio is a winner. 

And for only a few dollars more than the above offering, you can upgrade to a 2TB Gen 4 Crucial P3 Plus SSD for just $79. This newer drive offers an increase in performance with speeds of 5,000 MB/s sequential read and 4,200 MB/s write. This is a great price for an SSD for your games, or if you’re looking to upgrade the storage in a laptop.

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Glorious is mostly known for its hole-filled, ultra-lightweight mice, such as the 2.05oz (58g) Model O Minus. Its newest mouse, the Model I 2 Wireless, might actually be its heaviest mouse to date, even if it’s still ultra-light at just 2.65oz (75g). 

The Model I 2 Wireless is an interesting pitch: a lightweight, hole-filled mouse with bright RGB light strips and nine programmable buttons — including four side buttons, two of which are swappable. Glorious says the mouse is ideal for MOBAs and MMOs, thanks to its many buttons — and while the Model I 2 Wireless has significantly more buttons than Glorious’ other mice, it’s hardly breaking records. Still, if you’ve been looking for a great gaming mouse that’s lightweight without being extremely stripped down, the Model I 2 Wireless — which features Glorious’ latest BAMF 2.0 sensor, 2.4-GHz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity, and onboard storage for 3 profiles — might be one of your only options.  

The Model I 2 Wireless is available now for $99.99, and is available in both black and white colorways.

Design and Comfort of the Model I 2 Wireless

The Model I 2 Wireless is a right-handed wireless mouse with a lightweight, hole-filled chassis and nine programmable buttons. It has an ergonomic, contoured shape with split main buttons that curve lightly to hug your fingers, and a shallow thumb rest. It’s on the larger side, measuring 5.08 inches (129mm) long by 2.83 inches (72mm) wide at its widest point — minus the thumb rest, it’s only 2.44 inches (62mm) wide — and 1.65 inches (42mm) high.

It’s slightly smaller than the similarly-sized Razer Basilisk V3 Pro (5.11 x 2.96 x 1.67 inches / 130 x 75.4 x 42.5mm) and the Logitech G502 X Plus (5.17 x 3.12 x 1.62 inches / 131.32 x 79.25 x 41.15mm), though this is still a mouse that’s best-suited for someone with medium- or large-sized hands. The DPI switch button is located closer to the body of the mouse than it is on the Basilisk V3 Pro and the G502 X Plus, however, so someone with smaller hands at least won’t be straining for any buttons on the Model I 2 Wireless.

The Model I 2 Wireless is also significantly lighter than both the Basilisk V3 Pro and the G502 X Plus, weighing just 2.65oz (75g) (both the Basilisk V3 Pro and the G502 X Plus weigh 3.74oz / 106g). I’m not sure how much of the Model I 2 Wireless’ diminutive weight can be attributed to its chassis (as opposed to internals — both the Basilisk V3 Pro and the G502 X Plus have quite a few features the Model I 2 Wireless lacks), which is made of plastic and is full of holes. I’m not a particularly big fan of the holes, but at least they let some of the mouse’s RGB shine through. The mouse has two RGB lightstrips on either side of its body, which are semi-programmable via the Glorious Core software.

The Model I 2 Wireless has nine programmable buttons: left/right click, scroll wheel click, two buttons above the scroll wheel, and four side buttons (three thumb buttons and a DPI shift button). Two of the four side buttons (the third thumb button and the trigger button) are swappable; the mouse comes with five alternate button shapes — three for the DPI shift button and two for the thumb button. It also comes with a sim card tray eject tool, which you can use to pry the buttons out for swapping (this is pretty easy, if not quite as intuitive as using the tool for ejecting a sim card tray).

While swappable side buttons are an interesting concept — albeit, not at all unique — Glorious’ implementation is… underwhelming. There are only two alternate buttons for the third thumb button — one juts out a little further (to make it easier to press for those with less flexible thumbs, I assume), while the other is a button delete. There are three alternate buttons for the DPI shift button: one flips the button so the raised portion is closer to your thumb, one is lower and less pronounced, and one is a button delete.

While I did find the buttons to be different enough that they each gave the mouse a distinct feel, that feel wasn’t necessarily good. The alternate button for the third thumb button and the flipped alternate for the DPI shift button both jutted out from the mouse far enough that I found them uncomfortable to use.

The only alternate I can see users readily using is the DPI shift button delete — since the DPI shift button is right under your thumb and will almost certainly get accidentally clicked if you ever pick up your mouse. The third thumb button delete felt a little unnecessary because of the button’s location (although I did accidentally click that button several times when I had the alternate button in — but it seems like you could just get rid of both the alternate and the delete and be fine).

It’s not that big of a deal, but it does feel a little messy, especially since you end up with a bunch of tiny, easy-to-lose parts. I definitely prefer the way Logitech implements its button-swapping on the Logitech G502 X Plus, which has a 2-in-1 reversible DPI switch button that doesn’t require a tool to remove, as well as a button delete.

On the bottom of the mouse you’ll find six small 100% PTFE skates, a power switch that toggles between 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth, and a DPI light. The DPI light simply changes color to indicate which DPI step you’re on (they’re color-coded in the software), and would probably be more useful if it weren’t on the bottom of the mouse.

The mouse comes with a 2.4-GHz wireless USB-A dongle, a USB extender, a 6.5-foot (2m) USB-C to USB-A charging cable, five swappable button alternates, and a button swapping/sim card ejection tool. The mouse’s charging cable is lightweight, flexible, and relatively drag-free, so you can use the mouse in wired form without losing too much movement freedom.

Specs

Performance of the Model I 2 Wireless

The Model I 2 Wireless sports the Glorious BAMF 2.0 sensor, which has a maximum sensitivity of 26,000 DPI and a maximum speed of 650 IPS, and can handle up to 50 G’s of acceleration. This is on par with other high-end mouse sensors, and the mouse was precise, accurate, and responsive in my testing — and it worked well on a variety of surfaces, including hard-surface, soft-surface, and glass mouse pads. The main buttons feature Glorious’ own switches, which are tactile and clicky (if a little on the loud side), and are rated for 80 million clicks. 

Glorious keeps calling this an ideal mouse for MOBA and MMO games, and while it does have more than the standard two extra buttons, I think that’s a stretch. The nine programmable buttons include the two buttons behind the scroll wheel, which are located pretty far back on the mouse and not very easy to press, as well as things like the scroll wheel click (at least they’re not including the scroll wheel directions as programmable buttons, which is what Razer likes to do). 

But I love mice with millions of buttons, and the Model I 2 Wireless is definitely on the lower side, button-wise — it doesn’t even have a tilt wheel. I don’t think this mouse is “ideal” for MOBAs/MMOs — I’d call it an all-purpose gaming mouse that’s probably better for gamers who lean toward having fewer, rather than more, buttons.

The Model I 2 Wireless is extremely lightweight, and that helps it fly across your mouse pad. It’s not the lightest mouse on the market, but it’s much lighter than most similarly-sized (and similarly-shaped) mice. Of course, if it’s designed for MOBA and MMO players, that light weight isn’t necessarily going to be as appreciated as it would be if the target audience were FPS and eSports players. But the light weight definitely makes for a comfortable gaming experience, regardless — I’m not sure if the mouse had a particularly ergonomic design or if it was just so lightweight that it didn’t matter, but I definitely didn’t feel any wrist or arm fatigue while playing approximately 700 hours of Baldur’s Gate 3.

I did find the scroll wheel to be a little stiffer than I preferred, however. Those of you playing Baldur’s Gate 3 know that the default controls involve a lot of scroll wheel action, and the Model I 2 Wireless’ scroll wheel is slightly on the tough side for both scrolling and clicking.

Features and Software of the Model I 2 Wireless

The Model I 2 Wireless works well out of the box, but you’ll need to download Glorious’ universal peripheral software, Glorious Core, to customize lighting, program buttons, and adjust the mouse’s DPI presets and performance settings. The mouse has onboard memory and can store up to three profiles.

Glorious Core isn’t the worst peripheral software I’ve used, mostly because it’s relatively simple. Of course, this means the mouse is not quite as customizable as mice from Razer or Logitech, especially when it comes to lighting. Glorious only allows you to pick from eight lighting effects, most of which are either spectrum or single color. There are two lighting effects that let you customize beyond a single color, but they’re both transitioning effects (a dual-color flashing effect and a six-color breathing effect), so you’re essentially working with single-zone RGB.

This may not be a big deal to some (especially since the Model I 2 Wireless’ lighting is a pretty big battery drain), but I think it’s worth knowing that you won’t be able to create multi-zone effects like you can with the Logitech G502 X Plus.

The key mapping part of the software is much more robust. It allows you to program the mouse’s buttons with various functions, multimedia settings, shortcuts (such as opening a program or a website), and has a built-in macro recorder. It also lets you program a second layer of functionality (you’ll need to program a button as the layer shifting button, of course). In the performance menu, you can adjust the DPI stages, as well as lift-off distance, debounce time, and polling rate.

Wireless Experience and Battery Life of the Model I 2 Wireless

The Model I 2 Wireless offers three forms of connectivity: low-latency 2.4-GHz wireless, Bluetooth, and wired via USB-C. I didn’t have any issues with the 2.4-GHz wireless connection, though the mouse did start to act a little weird when it got to below 10 percent battery life (which is not unexpected). Glorious rates the Model I 2 Wireless’ battery life at 210 hours over Bluetooth and 110 hours over 2.4-GHz wireless, which is on the higher end of average for premium gaming mice these days. 

This is with the lighting turned off, of course. I found the battery drained shockingly quickly with the lighting turned on high — it went from 100% to flashing red as a low battery warning in less than a day — and I wasn’t even using the mouse at the time. This was with the “Glorious Mode” lighting effect turned up to full brightness. I’m not sure what I expected, but it seemed exceptionally quick considering it was just sitting on my desk and not even moving. There is an option in the software to set separate brightness levels for wired versus wireless modes, which is a nice touch.

Bottom Line

The Model I 2 Wireless isn’t a bad gaming mouse — it’s got a lot going for it, and it’s one of few lightweight mice on the market with more than two extra buttons. But it seems to be sort of in between categories: it doesn’t really have enough programmable buttons for hardcore MOBA/MMO players, nor is it light enough or small enough for hardcore FPS players. 

It looks like some of the best all-purpose gaming mice, but it lacks a lot of the features found in mice like Razer’s Basilisk V3 Pro and Logitech’s G502 X Plus (such as programmable tilt wheels, dual- or multi-mode scrolling, and game-specific profiles). And while it has great battery life with the lighting off, it has awful battery life with the lighting on (case-in-point: the battery just dropped from 100% to 93% in the 20 minutes it took me to write this last section — and I wasn’t even using the mouse, I was typing). 

If you’re looking for a lightweight mouse that’s larger and has more buttons than something like the Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro or the Logitech G Pro X Superlight, then the Model I 2 Wireless might be the perfect mouse for you. But considering one of its stronger points is how pretty the lighting is, you may want to stick with one of Glorious’ wired mice — like the Model I, which is almost half the price.  

Tesla, Inc., the clean-energy company that’s about more stuff than just some of the world’s most desired electric cars, is seemingly on the lookout to improve its datacenter infrastructure. According to a new job listing on Tesla’s corporate website (spotted by Elektrek), the company is looking to hire a “Sr. Engineering Program Manager, Data Centers.” That hire is usually a good step for any company planning to operate datacenters built on custom or proprietary silicon – perhaps Tesla is looking to build a dojo for its Dojo AI accelerators?

“This role will lead the end-to-end design and engineering of Tesla’s 1st of its kind Data Centers and will be one of the key members of the factory engineering team.”

The position is based in Austin, Texas, where the company has several facilities focused on manufacturing and R&D. However, that doesn’t mean that its effects will only take effect in Austin – especially considering reports that Tesla has taken over some number of X’s (formerly Twitter) datacenters back in Sacramento. It’s also unclear whether Tesla is just being hyperbolic regarding how “first of their kind” these datacenters will be. There are multiple ways to fit that definition that doesn’t involve as much engineering work as one would expect.

Tesla originally announced its Dojo D1 (it seems the product name has since changed to Dojo V1) in 2021, even as it promised to increase the amount of processing power available for the company to train its self-driving AI systems. At the time, these Dojo ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated-Circuit) were meant to carry up to 50 billion transistors each, delivering around 362 TeraFLOPs of power per custom chip.

It’s unclear whether Tesla has toyed with the design in the meantime (although we’d say that’s likely). What is unclear, however, is that Elon Musk has clarified that the first generation ship won’t include general AI processing and will instead focus on accelerating “video training” for the firm’s computer vision systems. According to Musk, V2 of Dojo will address these limitations and eventually become a full-fledged, general AI processor not unlike NVIDIA’s hot-of-the-presses A100, H100, and its DGX GH200 supercomputing system. 

Tesla has already purchased a number of GPU accelerators from Nvidia. The company already bragged about it even when it “only” deployed 7,360 A110 accelerators. But that number has already increased; the company aims to have as many as 100 ExaFLOPs on-hand by October 2024 (already counting the deployment of its Dojo supercomputer).

Tesla designing and ordering its own custom ASICs and general-purpose AI accelerators should give the company increased control over feature-sets and reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for its datacenters. But then again, all companies designing silicon these days mostly take honey from the same TSMC-branded pot; and there’s only so much capacity to go around. 

So while Tesla is likely to enjoy several benefits by designing and integrating its own High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems, it’s unlikely that Elon Musk will find fewer reasons to complain that “everyone and their dog” is buying GPUs. There are only so many wafers to distribute across the cadre of TSMC clients, and most would also love to stay at the cutting edge of fabrication.

A new PC builder website has cropped up that helps gamers and professionals build a potent bang-for-buck system with the power of artificial intelligence. Known as pcbuilderai.com, the site aims to take the guesswork out of building an effective PC parts list and give users the best possible parts list with the best components for the price. But, despite the site’s modern and simplistic UI, some of the parts it recommends are out of whack with today’s market prices.

The creators behind PC Builder AI is a company known as AE Studios. According to the company’s Indeed page, the company has no venture capital, no outside shareholders, and is apparently focused on creating tech for the development of humanity. The company has already built several AI-generated programs, including games, image generators, and text-based AI generators.

To test the effectiveness of the PC Builder AI parts list generator, we grabbed three of our Best PC Builds for Gaming parts lists, priced at $500, $1500, and $3600, respectively, and compared them to the three parts lists the AI-accelerated site generated with the same prices.

Starting at the $500 price class, the PC Builder AI site generated a moderately decent gaming machine featuring a Ryzen 3 3200G. Still, it’s nothing special, and some components are overpriced. The biggest offender is the memory, which is $40 more expensive than the kit we recommended, which has the same capacity and speed. The storage configuration is also bizarre, consisting of a separate 1TB HDD and a tiny 120GB SATA 3 SSD reminiscent of pre-2020 era systems. With the Best SSDs priced at an all-time low right now, you can find 1TB M.2 drives for the same price as the SSD and the HDD combined. This would yield a far better gaming experience and significantly increase the storage speed overall.

The lack of a graphics card is also unfortunate for the AI generator. In our build, we could squeeze in a significantly faster Core i3 CPU and an Arc A310 discrete GPU, which will be much more capable than what the 3200G can provide.

Sadly, the $500 system was the best machine the PC Builder AI website could generate. The $1500 price bracket reveals many pricing problems with the AI system, leading to terrible component choices.

The AI generator’s most absurd component choice was the GPU, choosing a $600 RTX 3060 Ti. If you know anything about the GPU market today, you’ll know that paying $600 for a previous-generation mid-range 60 series card is utterly ridiculous. You can get a current generation RTX 4070 for that price, which is substantially faster than the 3060 Ti. If you want to step it up further, you can get an RX 6950 XT for that same price. It is AMD’s flagship graphics card from the same generation as the 3060 Ti and one of the Best GPUs for gaming.

The CPU choice is also horrible. For some reason, the AI generator chose another previous generation product, a Ryzen 5 5600X, priced at $280. In today’s market, that CPU is going for nearly half that price, and a modern Ryzen 5 7600 is still $40 cheaper. For $280, you can get a current generation i5-13600KF — one of the Best CPUs —that can run circles around the 5600X in gaming workloads and heavily multithreaded applications.

The rest of the system is also not great; the motherboard, memory, cooler, and storage options could be much better. Even though the CPU and GPUs are wildly overpriced, we could put in more storage capacity, memory capacity, a higher wattage PSU, and a better cooler in our $1500 build recommendation while spending the same amount of money on the CPU and GPU.

The same pricing errors also appear in the $3600 build, where the CPU and GPU are incredibly overpriced. The PC Builder AI generator opted for a $800 Ryzen 9 5950X and a $1200 RTX 3080 Ti in this price class. Right now, a 5950X is going for as little as $450, and a 3080 Ti class performance is going for as little as $600 in the form of a Radeon RX 6950 XT. If you want an Nvidia counterpart, the RTX 4070 Ti is roughly $800 and generally outperforms the 3080 Ti.

Thankfully, the rest of the components are not too bad for a $3600 build and have decent quality/performance for the money, but it’s not perfect. The SSD choice, in particular, is very strange, with the AI opting for a PCIe Gen 3 970 EVO Plus 1TB SSD. For just $10 more, you could get a 990 PRO that is PCIe Gen 4 capable with 2TB of storage, or opt for a 1TB Crucial T700 with PCIe Gen 5 support. The 64GB RAM option is also strange but somewhat appropriate for a $3600 build. We suspect the AI is targeting the $3600 price point with streaming in mind, which would explain the capacity choice.

Overall, the results AE Studio’s PC Builder AI is generating is very bizarre, and it is not a site we can recommend you use for sound guidance on PC part selection. The site never recommended a current-generation CPU or GPU and priced the graphics card options from the GPU shortage in 2021. We are unsure what AI system the site uses, but it possibly uses 2-3-year-old information, which would explain the bizarre component choices.

If you want good advice on good parts to choose for your next computer, check out our forums or our AI Chatbot, which will generate far better results.

Intel’s proposed acquisition of Tower Semiconductor has been approved by regulators across the world except in China, which is why the deal has not closed nearly 19 months after its announcement in mid-February of 2022. The deadline for Intel to close the deal after another extension is tomorrow, August 15, 2023, but the two companies cannot close it without approval from China. Meanwhile, it is unclear whether the companies will extend the closure period and refile with other regulators.

When Intel originally announced plans to take over Tower Semiconductor, it said that it would close the transaction in 12 months, by mid-February, 2023. But because China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) had not approved the deal, the companies extended the acquisition period until mid-June and then extended it again to August 15. So far, SAMR has not formally greenlit the transaction and if it does not OK it by tomorrow, Intel and Tower will either have to extend the closure period one more time, or call the deal off.

Pat Gelsinger, chief executive of Intel, recently flew to China in a bid to convince Chinese regulators to approve the deal, but the outcome is currently unknown. Since Chinese semiconductor sector is suffering from major sanctions from the U.S. government, China’s government is not really inclined to support Intel’s plan to acquire Tower and its dozens of customers and mature fabrication processes. Tower competes against China-based contract makers of chips, such as SMIC and Hua Hong, whereas Intel Foundry Services (IFS) division is barely competing against these foundries. Yet, once Tower becomes a part of Intel, the new entity will be a formidable rival for Chinese chipmakers.

To that end, SAMR is slowing down approval of the deal, even though it does not create a monopoly of any kind. In theory, companies can agree to extend the closure period of an acquisition for as long as they mutually decide. However, in practice, there are several factors that limit the feasibility of indefinitely extending the closure period.  

For example, in many jurisdictions, regulatory bodies approve mergers and acquisitions for certain periods. If companies keep extending the closure period, it might raise red flags or lead to additional scrutiny. It is possible that to prolong the closure periods, Intel and Tower will have to refile their proposals with regulators in the USA or Europe if the transaction is not approved in China by August 15.

Intel has one day left to close the Tower Semiconductor acquisition, extend the closure period, or cancel plans to take over the contract maker of chips.