Danh mục: Tin tức

Asus has started to sell some of the best graphics cards under the company’s Tianxuan (Heavenly Chosen) portfolio. Marketed under the TX Gaming moniker, the new trio of graphics cards encompasses the GeForce RTX 4070, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, and GeForce RTX 4060.

The Tianxuan series may be new to some since it’s one of Asus’ China-exclusive sub-brands. The company has launched many gaming laptops from the Tianxuan series but is extending the product portfolio to graphics cards, specifically the GeForce RTX 40-series parts.

The TX Gaming graphics cards spit images of Asus’ Atlas Shark (Megalodon) series. They’re using the same cooler but with a different color theme. While the Atlas Shark series cooler stick to a black and grey combination, the TX Gaming series arrives with a white and grey theme with teal accents. There aren’t any visible changes to the cooling solution. It’s still a thick shroud with three axial, dual-ball bearing cooling fans. The graphics cards also have a reinforced metal backplate that helps with cooling.

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Regardless of the model, the TX Gaming graphics card measures 12.48 x 5.35 x 2.13 inches (317 x 136 x 54mm), so we’re looking at a triple-slot design. The size of the cooler seems a bit overkill for the lower-tier SKUs, such as the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (160W) or GeForce RTX 4060 (115W). However, it looks like Asus didn’t want to waste resources redesigning the cooler for each SKU. Instead, the company used the same cooler for all three graphics cards.

As their part numbers insinuate, the TX Gaming graphics cards feature a factory overclock. However, Asus didn’t share this information on its product pages or online store. We only know that the graphics cards require one 8-pin PCIe power connector for external power. Many will be glad that Asus didn’t opt for the pesky 16-pin power connector. At any rate, you’d want a power supply with a minimum capacity of 650W for whichever model you pick up. Asus didn’t alter the design of the display outputs. Therefore, the TX Gaming graphics cards provide one HDMI 2.1 port and up to three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs.

Asus sells the TX Gaming GeForce RTX 4070 (TX-RTX4070-O12G-Gaming) for $733.54. Meanwhile, the TX Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 Ti (TX-RTX4060TI-O8G-Gaming) and TX Gaming GeForce RTX 4060 (TX-RTX4060-O8G-Gaming) retail for $526.91 and $386.82, respectively.

There’s seemingly no end to the number of gadgets in the world that are able to run Doom, and thanks to the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microprocessor, this number keeps growing. Today we’re sharing another fascinating Doom port, this one put together by Bob from TheKeebProject who’s managed to successfully run Doom inside of a custom keycap.

The project is built around a tiny custom PCB that features the RP2040 microprocessor. It’s small enough to fit inside of a keycap and is sealed within clear resin. The port is a customized fork of an existing RP2040 Doom port originally created by Graham Sanderson. A few modifications were made to enable support for both SPI and I2C display modules.

According to Bob, the goal of this project was to emulate Doom with as much of its original functionality as possible. Bob wanted to ensure stereo sound, the ability for network multiplayer, save/load functions and any other feature you’d expect from the original game including the original resolution of 320 x 200px.

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Is it practical to play Doom on a keycap? We would argue that’s subjective. Is it fascinating and worth creating a keycap that can play Doom? We think so and the end result is certainly worthy of a few bragging rights.

The only way to get the Doom experience he wanted in the form factor of a keycap was to create a PCB from scratch. It’s made just small enough to fit inside the keycap alongside a display module capable of supporting the 320 x 200px resolution. A USB port is included to allow for input as well as power to the Doom key.

Bob was kind enough to make the project open source for anyone interested in checking it out in greater detail. You can find his RP2040 Doom fork source code over at GitHub. There you can also check out the original RP2040 code it was forked from by Graham Sanderson to see how it works, as well.

If you want to see this Raspberry Pi project in action, the best place to see it is over at Instagram where Bob has shared a demo video of the keycap running Doom. You can also follow him for more updates and cool projects.

Gaming monitors are an ever-expanding and exciting category when it comes to computer hardware. Not only are promising panel technologies like Mini-LED and OLED coming to even lower price points, but we’re seeing refresh rates shoot through the roof for the most dedicated enthusiasts. Now, AOC is throwing down the gauntlet with its new Agon Pro AG276QZD, which features a 26.5-inch OLED panel that is certain to be a stunner among the best gaming monitors.

The AG276QZD has a QHD (2560 x 1440) resolution (110.8 pixels per inch) and a heady 240Hz refresh rate. As you might expect from a gaming-centric monitor, that 240Hz refresh rate is backed by Adaptive-Sync and Nvidia G-Sync compatibility. The use of OLED technology ensures incomparable contrast with inky blacks and improved color accuracy versus competing panel technologies (IPS, VA, etc.). AOC says that the AG276QZD can hit 98.5 percent of the DCI-P3 color space and 100 percent of sRGB.

AOC also boasts a 0.03ms GtG response time for the 10-bit panel (1.07 billion colors). For those wondering, the AG276QZD uses an anti-glare coating on the display rather than the glossy finish seen on some OLED monitors.

Regarding connectivity, the AG276QZD features two HDMI 2.0 and two DisplayPort 1.4 ports. There’s also an integrated two-port USB 3.2 (Gen 1) hub and a 3.5mm headphone jack. For those who don’t want to be bothered with adding an external speaker setup, the AG276QZD features two built-in 5-watt speakers. Other features include a Kensington lock and a 100×100 VESA wall mount pattern.

Given that this is a gaming monitor, you won’t be surprised to learn that AOC has integrated Light FX RGB lighting in the AG276QZD. You can sync lighting with other AOC peripherals such as gaming keyboards and mice using AOC’s G-Menu software.

The AOC Pro AG276QZD is currently available, priced at $999 from Amazon. That price gets you a 4-year advance replacement and zero dead pixel warranty.

High-tech giants Amazon, Apple, Intel, Nvidia, and Samsung are looking forward to becoming anchor investors in Arm’s upcoming initial public offering, according to reports from Bloomberg and Nikkei, citing sources with knowledge of the matter. This IPO might amass up to $10 billion and elevate Arm’s valuation to a staggering $60 to $70 billion, according to Bloomberg’s estimates.

Arm, which is owned by SoftBank Group, is preparing for what will potentially be the year’s largest tech IPO, and has engaged with major customers for months regarding their participation. The company has held talks with key global chip designers about becoming anchor investors, and companies like Amazon, Apple, Intel, Samsung, and Nvidia are expected to invest in Arm upon its market listing (note that none of these companies have formally confirmed intention to buy an Arm stake, however). Arm’s strategy involves offering these processor developers medium- to long-term shareholding with the intention of ensuring stock price stability during the listing.

Arm’s global impact on chip designs is undeniable. In the smartphone sector, Arm-based SoCs command close to a 100% market share. They also command a sizeable share in the consumer electronics industry, and, thanks to the efforts of Apple and Qualcomm, Arm’s technology is gaining traction in PCs as well. Throughout the history of Arm, over 250 billion chips based on its architectures have been produced.

Apple, Samsung, Nvidia, and Qualcomm produce some of the world’s best known Arm-based SoCs, which is why Apple (who already has a stake in Arm), Samsung, and Nvidia have reason to invest in the chip IP designer. But Amazon seems to have a particularly good reason to invest in Arm: apparently, Amazon Web Services dominates the Arm server market, with over half of all Arm-based server CPUs globally deployed in AWS datacenters, according to a Bernstein Research report cited by The Register.

The Graviton system-on-chip family, introduced in 2018 and optimized for AWS powered around 20% of AWS CPU instances by mid-2022 — which is a significant portion. These SoCs, optimized for AWS’s requirements, have more cores per socket than competing x86 offerings, reduced power consumption, and significant cost benefits — partly because Amazon does not have to pay premium to AMD or Intel and to a large degree because of lower total cost of ownership and power consumption. The report asserts that in some cases AWS can achieve 20% to 70% lower costs at the same performance compared to competing x86 CPUs, though the details are unclear. 

Given the tangible advantages that AWS has with its Arm-based SoCs, it is evident that the company has invested massively in datacenter software ecosystem for Arm processors. Therefore, the company is likely more than interested in further development of the Arm instruction set architecture (ISA) in general and datacenter-oriented Neoverse CPU cores in particular. 

SoftBank, which acquired Arm in 2016 for $32 billion, tried to sell the company to Nvidia for about $40 billion in 2020 – 2022, but regulatory issues prevented the sale. In the aftermath, SoftBank chose to steer Arm towards an IPO. If the IPO reaches its peak valuation, it would rival the tech sector’s largest IPOs — such as Alibaba in 2014 and Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) in 2012.

Swiss researchers have found holes in AMD Ryzen processor security. AMD has outlined the newly uncovered “Inception” attack in its official CVE-2023-20569 bulletin. Like some of the most infamous CPU vulnerabilities, Inception is a speculative side channel attack, which can possibly lead to privileged data leakage to unprivileged processes. At the time of writing AMD is not aware of any Inception exploits outside of security research circles.

Unfortunately for AMD and its users, Inception affects the latest AMD Ryzen processor families based on Zen 3 and Zen 4 cores — across data center, desktop, HEDT, and mobile. However, we must be thankful that, as details of Inception go live, mitigations are in the pipeline.

In its security bulletin, AMD says that customers may have a choice between a standalone microcode patch or a BIOS update that incorporates the microcode patch. AMD CPU users may be familiar with the quite frequent AGESA microcode update releases, and some patches will be delivered this way later this month, while others might have to wait until December. Users are asked to check with their OEM, ODM, or MB for a BIOS update specific to their product.

To be clear, AMD says that users of products based on the Zen or Zen 2 CPU architectures don’t need any patching “because these architectures are already designed to flush branch type predictions from the branch predictor.” This is a little different from what the researchers from ETH Zurich say in their Inception paper (PDF), so we hope things will become clearer soon.

So, what is the new Inception vulnerability? We already mentioned it’s a speculative side channel attack like the infamous Spectre. Processor makers thought they had eliminated the ability of attackers to snoop at the look up table used for accessing DRAM in Spectre mitigations. However, the ETH Zurich team discovered that, on Zen architecture processors, they could “make the CPUs manufactured by AMD believe that they had seen certain instructions before, whereas in reality that had never happened,” explained one of the researchers to EE News Europe. Another summary of Inception is provided by COMSEC.

Ultimately, Inception means that an attacker of an unpatched AMD Ryzen system can obtain leaked data from anywhere in the computer’s memory.

AMD says that it believes the Inception vulnerability is “only potentially exploitable locally, such as via downloaded malware.” Thus, it says good general system security practices should keep Inception dangers away from your PC. However, the researchers reckon Inception could be used by an attacker in the context of cloud computing, where several customers share the same processing hardware resource.

In case you missed it, AMD’s fiercest CPU-making rival, Intel, was also in the news just hours ago for a notable newly discovered security vulnerability — the Intel ‘Downfall’ bug, which affects architectures spanning from Sky Lake to Tiger Lake/Ice Lake.

Memory makers are ramping up production capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) due to rapidly surging orders from cloud service providers (CSPs) and developers of processors for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC), such as Nvidia, according to TrendForce. The market research firm estimates that annual bit shipments of HBM will grow 105% by 2024. 

TrendForce claims that leading DRAM producers like Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix supplied enough HBM memory in 2022 to keep pricing predictable. Yet, a rapid increase in demand for AI servers in 2023 led to clients making early orders, pushing production limits. TrendForce, the market research firm now projects that aggressive supplier expansion will raise the HBM sufficiency ratio from -2.4% in 2022 to 0.6% in 2024.

In addition to surging demand for HBM in general, analysts from TrendForce also note ongoing transition of demand from HBM2e (used on Nvidia’s H100 cards, AMD’s Instinct MI250X, and Intel’s Sapphire Rapids HBM and Ponte Vecchio products) to HBM3 (used on Nvidia’s H100 SXM modules, AMD’s upcoming Instinct MI300-series APUs and GPUs) The demand ratio for these is estimated at around 50% for HBM3 and 39% for HBM2e in 2023 and then HBM3 will represent 60% of shipped HBM in 2024. This burgeoning demand, coupled with a higher average selling price (ASP), is expected to significantly elevate HBM revenue in the coming year.

But to meet demand for HBM, makers of memory need to increase output of HBM. This is not particularly easy as in addition to making more memory devices, DRAM producers need to assemble these devices in 8-Hi or even 12-Hi stacks, which requires specialized equipment. To satisfy demand for HBM2, HBM2E, and HBM3 memory, DRAM makers need to procure additional tools to expand their HBM production lines and delivery and testing time for them is between 9 and 12 months, so tangible increase of HBM output is now expected sometimes in Q2 2024.

SK Hynix leads in HBM3 production with most of the output going to Nvidia, TrendForce claims, whereas Samsung mostly produces HBM2E for other processor developers and CSPs. Micron, which does not make HBM3, can only supply HBM2E (and Intel uses such memory on its Sapphire Rapids HBM processor, according to reports) while it is prepping to ramp up production of HBM3E (which the company calls HBM3 Gen2) in early 2024. Just yesterday Nvidia introduced the industry’s first HBM3E-based AI and HPC platform and given that demand for Nvidia’s products is overwhelming, it is likely that Micron will capitalize on the new GH200 Grace Hopper HBM3E-enabled platform.

Meanwhile, TrendForce anticipates that in 2023 ~ 2024 Samsung and SK Hynix will have nearly equal market shares, collectively comprising approximately 95%. By contrast, share of Micron is projected to be between 3% and 6%.

TrendForce observes a consistent decline of the average selling price for HBM products annually. To boost customer demand and respond to softening demand for previous-generation HBM types, suppliers are reducing HBM2e and HBM2 prices in 2023. Although 2024 pricing strategies remain undecided, there is potential for further price cuts for HBM2 and HBM2e due to increased HBM supply and suppliers’ ambitions to expand market share, according to TrendForce. 

 Nonetheless, HBM3 prices are expected to remain stable, and with its higher average selling price relative to HBM2e and HBM2, it could drive the HBM revenue to an impressive $8.9 billion in 2024, marking a 127% YoY growth.

SK Hynix late on Tuesday demonstrated its 321-layer TLC NAND memory at the Flash Memory Summit 2023. This new type of flash is going to enter mass production in 2025, but the company is already showing it off to demonstrate that it is ready for the future.

The demonstrated memory device has 1Tb capacity (128GB) and 3D TLC architecture. SK Hynix says that the 321-layer memory IC features a 59% improvement in productivity compared to a 512Gb 238-layer 3D TLC device, which indicates a tangible storage density increase. Meanwhile, the company does not disclose how it produces 321-layer NAND memory as well as approximate per bits costs compared to previous-generation nodes.

If SK Hynix’s lowest-capacity 321-layer NAND device can store 128GB of data, then it is reasonable to expect premium devices to feature larger capacity and enable SSDs with capacities way larger than what we have today.

SK Hynix yet has to disclose how it has managed to achieve 321 active layers. While it is more than likely that the company used string stacking technique that places one or more 3D NAND devices on top of each other and connects them, the question is whether it stacked two or more 3D NAND devices on top of each other.

Traditionally, SK Hynix labels its multi-layer NAND memory as ‘4D NAND’ as it uses CMOS under Array (CuA) architecture that places NAND logic under the 3D NAND memory cells array to reduce die size and costs. Meanwhile, similar layout is also used by Micron, which uses the term ‘3D NAND.’

Speaking of NAND logic, it is noteworthy that SK Hynix did not share interface speed supported by its 321-layer NAND memory, possibly because it is too early to set them as the company only plans to start mass production of such flash sometimes in the first half of 2025.

“With another breakthrough to address stacking limitations, SK hynix will open the era of NAND with more than 300 layers and lead the market,” said Jungdal Choi, head of NAND development at SK Hynix, said during a keynote speech. “With timely introduction of the high-performance and high-capacity NAND, we will strive to meet the requirements of the AI era and continue to lead innovation.”

Is LK-99, the new substance that has taken the scientific community by storm, the world’s first room-temperature superconductor, a regular superconductor or a non-discovery? As more time passes since the release of Sukbae Lee et al.’s original paper, more researchers are trying to synthesize their LK-99 samples and test them for diamagnetism and superconductivity. New studies from groups in Mainland China, Taiwan and India claim that there’s no breakthrough and that the material may not even be diamagnetic. 

In summarizing the findings of these three research groups, the University of Maryland’s Condensed Matter Theory Center tweeted, “With a great deal of sadness, we now believe that the game is over. LK99 is NOT a superconductor, not even at room temperatures (or at very low temperatures).”

However, these dispositive studies are far from the final word, particularly since each group made its own LK-99-like substance, which may not have been identical to what Lee et al. created. We also still have studies from other sources who claim they have replicated some of Lee et al.’s claims. 

Kapil Kumar et al., a group of scientists from India’s CSIR National Physical Laboratory, released a paper explaining that an LK-99 sample they created in the lab had no evidence of superconductivity at any temperature and was “highly resistive” as well. This result is exactly the opposite of what you’d want to see. The sample was apparently diamagnetic at 280K (6.85 degrees Celsius), but that doesn’t necessarily correlate with LK-99 being a superconductor.

A separate group from National Taiwan University (NTU) ran LK-99 experiments in a live video broadcast on YouTube but failed to show superconductivity. Wang Limin, a professor of physics at NTU, told Liberty Times that on the fifth evening of testing, the material was found to have diamagnetism, but it was not a superconductor. However, he also said that the research continues. 

Diamagnetism occurs when both magnetic poles repel a substance. In the last week or so, we’ve seen several videos which show a tiny black substance, claimed to be LK-99, floating above or below a magnetic field. Superconductors exhibit diamagnetism, so these videos imply that the magnetic levitation proves LK-99 to be a superconductor. However, as the Condensed Matter Theory Center pointed out in a tweet, “NO, diamagnetism is NOT interesting, many materials (e.g. Pb, Cu, P going into LK99) are diamagnetic. It is a run-of-the-mill property.”

Meanwhile, Kaizhen Guo et al., researchers at Peking University’s International Center for Quantum Materials, published a paper claiming that LK-99 actually has some soft ferromagnetic components which cause it to “half levitate” (levitate while still partially touching supporting materials). However, the group stated that they didn’t detect the Meissner Effect or zero resistance, both required for superconductivity.

These three studies certainly suggest that LK-99 could be more useful for powering a hype machine than superconducting electricity. But it’s important to note that each of these groups synthesized its own substance, meaning the material they tested may not have been identical to the sample that Sukbae Lee et al. used in their experiments.

One solution: get LK-99 samples directly from the group in Korea that’s making the superconductivity claims and test those. Apparently, that is happening. According to the Flat Hat, a student newspaper from the College of William and Mary, Korean researchers are sending some LK-99 samples directly to physics professors at Virginia University. So stay tuned.

A new security vulnerability, called Downfall, was revealed today by Intel and the researcher who discovered it, Daniel Moghimi. The new attack uses Gather Data Sampling to steal data and other sensitive information from other users on a computer with Intel processors from 2015 through 2019 ranging from sixth gen Skylake through eleventh gen Rocket Lake and Tiger Lake.

Intel has posted about the vulnerability in a security advisory, INTEL-SA-00828, and has reserved CVE-2022-40982.

Moghami, a senior research scientist at Google (and formerly of the University of California San Diego posted details on downfall.page.

“The vulnerability is caused by memory optimization features in Intel processors that unintentionally reveal internal hardware registers to software,” Moghami wrote. “This allows untrusted software to access data stored by other programs, which should not be normally be accessible. I discovered that the Gather instruction, meant to speed up accessing scattered data in memory, leaks the content of the internal vector register file during speculative execution.”

On the page, Moghami shows demos stealing 128-bit and 256-bit AES keys from other users, as well as spying on typed characters and taking data from the Linux kernel. He suggests that even if you don’t own an Intel powered-device, Intel’s dominance in the server market means that everyone on the internet is affected, and that “in cloud computing environments, a malicious customer could exploit the Downfall vulnerability to steal data and credentials from other customers who share the same cloud computer.”

Intel is releasing microcode for its affected chips. The company “recommends that users of affected Intel Processors update to the latest version firmware provided by the system manufacturer that addresses these issues.” If you’re not using Intel SGX, a hardware-based memory encryption technology from Intel, you can load it from the operating system.

The overhead, per Moghami and Intel, could be as high as 50% depending on if a workload uses Gather. Notably, Intel will have an “opt-out mechanism” in the microcode that allows the mitigation for Downfall to be disabled in order to “avoid the performance impact on certain vectorization-heavy workloads.”

The researcher recommends against opting out: “This is a bad idea. Even if your workload does not use vector instructions, modern CPUs rely on vector registers to optimize common operations, such as copying memory and switching register content, which leaks data to untrusted code exploiting Gather.”

Moghami will present Downfall at the BlackHat USA conference on August 9 and USENIX Security Symposium on August 11. His technical paper can be found here.

Newer Intel chips, like 12th Gen Alder Lake, 13th Gen Raptor Lake, and Sapphire Rapids server chips aren’t affected. 

X is giving advertisers new ways to have some control over what type of content can appear near their ads. The company formerly known as Twitter new “sensitivity settings” that allow advertisers to choose between different types of content filtering for their ads.

The new controls arrive as X is increasingly desperate to win back advertisers. The company’s ad revenue has dropped since Elon Musk took over as brands cut spending on the platform amid concerns about the rise of hate speech and other unsavory content. Since then, watchdog groups have reported several instances of ads from major brands being placed near accounts, and other users.

With the new tool, X says it “will use machine learning to reduce adjacency to varying levels of content according to a brand’s sensitivity threshold in an upcoming campaign.” For now, the two settings available to advertisers include “conservative” and “standard.” The company notes that all rule-breaking content is meant to be excluded from ads regardless of what advertisers have opted into.

X

Under the most restrictive “conservative” setting, ads would be excluded from appearing near “targeted hate speech, sexual content, gratuitous gore, excessive profanity, obscenity, spam and drugs” in the “for You” timeline. The “standard” option would avoid the same topics, but allow spam and drug-related content, according to an example shared by X. The company also plans to add a “relaxed” setting for advertisers who want to “maximize reach” of their ads with the fewest limits on what can appear nearby.

The update isn’t the first time X has introduced tools to promote brand safety. The company previously added other keyword-based that were also meant to limit ad-buyers’ exposure to problematic content. But those changes, introduced in December, seem to have had little effect on X’s ad business. 

Though the company has repeatedly claimed that it has successfully the reach of hate speech on its site, researchers have said otherwise. Last month, Bloomberg that researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) indicating hate speech has surged, both in terms of sheer volume and in engagement, since Musk’s takeover of the company. X the findings and is now CCDH, alleging the group “illegally” scraped data.

A mouse pad might seem unnecessary these days, especially when optical mice will work on just about any desk surface. But a good mouse is critical for serious gamers — a level, consistent surface optimized for smooth, accurate movements might be just what you need to stay ahead of the competition. 

Gaming mouse pads come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some are pretty standard, designed to fit under your best gaming mouse, and that’s it. Others are enormous, and can easily pad the space under your best gaming keyboard and more. Some might even be bigger than your desk, so double-check those dimensions before you buy. 

Many gaming mouse pads also feature RGB lighting, which might seem a little frivolous — but you’re adding a peripheral anyway, and it doesn’t hurt to have it coordinate with the rest of your rig, right? But all RGB isn’t the same, so if pretty lights are a priority, you’ll want something with bright, consistent colors and enough RGB zones to create seamless effects.

We’ve tested dozens of mouse pads over the years. These are the best gaming mouse pads, whether you want something for just your mouse or your entire desk.

The quick list

The Best Mouse Pads You Can Buy Today

Best Mouse Pad for Most People

If you don’t need RGB (does anyone need RGB?), the SteelSeries QCK Heavy is an extra-thick, non-RGB cloth mouse pad that comes in three sizes. SteelSeries also makes a standard QCK mouse pad that’s one-third as thick as the QCK Heavy, but we feel the slight extra cost is worth the extra durability and more stable surface you get with the QCK Heavy.

Both the QCK Heavy and the regular QCK feature a micro-woven cloth surface that makes for easy but precise sliding, and are hand-washable. Decoration is light — a small SteelSeries logo in the bottom left corner is the only thing that might distract you from your game. The mouse pad has a non-slip rubber base that keeps it firmly rooted to your desk — it didn’t budge no matter how hard our reviewer moved their mouse. 

The only minor gripe with the QCK Heavy is that it’s so thick that it can take a bit of extra time to flatten out when you first take it out of the box. This isn’t too much of an issue if you don’t plan on moving it a lot, but be careful not to keep it rolled up too long when traveling. We suggest placing a heavy book or weight on top of it overnight before the first use. 

Both the QCK Heavy and the QCK should fit most desks, thanks to the various size options. Our reviewer tested the large size (17.7 x 15.7 x 0.24 inches / 450 x 400 x 6 mm), but the QCK Heavy also comes in medium and XXL, while the regular QCK comes in small, medium, large, 3XL, 4XL, and 5XL. 

Best RGB Mouse Pad

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If you’re looking for RGB, the Razer Firefly V2 has it in spades. This ultra-colorful mouse pad has a whopping 19 customizable zones and its bright LEDs visibly outshine the competitors (despite the relatively thin lighting strips).  

The mouse pad has what Razer calls a “micro-textured” plastic surface that’s fit for competitive gaming. It feels slightly rough and enables speedy mouse movements, but it easily gathers fingerprints and smudges. The Firefly V2 is only 0.12 inches (3mm) thick, but its rubber base prevented any movement during our tests. It has a cable catch, which might seem like a small detail, but it successfully kept our mouse’s wire in check. 

RGB tweakers have full reign over the 19 lighting zones through Razer Synapse 3. You get brightness controls, seven presets (including a reactive one that works with supporting Razer mice), and you can sync the lighting with other Razer peripherals and devices. We also appreciated the toggle to “switch off lighting when the display is turned off.” The software’s Chroma Studio is where the more advanced customization occurs, with numerous effects layers and the ability to control effects’ cycling speeds, duration, and intensity — but its complexity means it takes longer to master than simple apps. 

Best Budget-Friendly RGB Mouse Pad

If you don’t want to spend much on a mouse pad but you also don’t want to give up flashy RGB, the Cooler Master MP750 (M) features RGB lighting and can usually be found for $20 – $35, though the price fluctuates. According to Cooler Master,  the finely textured cloth offers a “slick texture and smooth maneuverability,” but while it was sufficient for the average game session during our testing, it didn’t otherwise feel particularly special. It does, however, have a spill-resistant coating: we spilled water on it and the large droplet rolled off and was easy to clean up with a tissue. It also features a detachable cable for when you don’t need RGB. 

The MP750 (M)’s RGB border shines pretty brightly. A handy button lets you cycle through static colors without opening software. Unfortunately, black stitching interrupts the RGB frame, and we’re a little worried about getting things (such as jewelry) caught between the loops and causing damage. 

Since there’s only one RGB zone, there’s not that much to do in the Cooler Master Master Plus software. There are four lighting modes — Color Cycle, Static, Breathing or off — and five speed settings via a toggle. Static and Breathing modes offer a color picker, but it wasn’t always accurate. For example, we tried to make  a peach/white breathing effect, and ended up with a white-ish purple flickering. The MP750 also comes in large and extra large versions.

Best Hybrid Surface Mouse Pad

The Razer Strider Chroma has a hybrid surface — harder and slicker than a cloth mouse pad, but with enough texture for controlled, precise movements. It’s the best of both worlds, perfect for gamers who need both speed and control, and it’s water-resistant and easier to keep clean than most cloth mouse pads.

The Razer Strider Chroma only comes in one size — extended, which is large enough to hold both your keyboard and mouse without covering your entire desk. The Strider Chroma has a thick, no-slip rubber base and looks fantastic on your desk with seamless edges (no visible stitching) and 19 zones of bright, Chroma-infused RGB lighting that can be customized in Razer’s Chroma Studio with different colors and effects (including audio-reactive effects). 

The main downside to the Strider Chroma is its price — with an MSRP of $130, it’s practically like buying a keyboard or a mouse. But it’s so beautiful it just might be worth it.

Best Hard Surface Mouse Pad

If speed is your top priority, a soft, cloth mouse pad is not for you — and even a hybrid mouse pad will slow you down. You need a hard, smooth, low-friction surface made of plastic, ceramic, aluminum, or glass, like our favorite hard surface mouse pad, the Razer Atlas. 

The Atlas is Razer’s first tempered glass mouse pad, and it’s entirely analog — no RGB, no Razer Synapse, nothing. Its smooth, matte surface is micro-etched with 2μm texturing that’s designed to work with optical sensors, and features an easy-to-clean oleophobic coating. The Atlas felt amazing and tracked perfectly with every laser and optical mouse we threw at it — though Razer recommends using a mouse with a Razer Focus Pro 30K Optical Sensor, such as the DeathAdder V3 Pro, of course. Its oleophobic coating offered just the right amount of friction (read: none) for maximizing speed without sacrificing precision. 

Our main issue with the Atlas was its size — at 17.72 x 15.75 x 0.19 inches (450 x 400 x 5mm), and made of rigid glass, it’s a little too large to easily fit on the average desk, as it can’t be placed on uneven surfaces, nor are you supposed to put heavy, rough, sharp, hot, cold, etc. objects on top of it. Even just a little smaller would make this mouse pad an easier fit for the more deskspace-challenged.

Read: Razer Atlas Hands-On 

Best XL Cloth Mouse Pad

With how big mouse mats are, it’s important that they don’t just provide your mouse with a good surface to slide around on, but also your wrists with a comfortable surface to rest on. The Corsair MM350 knocks this out of the park. While it does come in a smaller, more pad-shaped size, we’re recommending the mouse mat-sized, XL Extended version here so you can get the most out of that luxurious feel while not being too bothered by the seams at its edges.

While the mat’s surface feels great — almost like a cooling pad — it does come decked out with a battle-damaged gunmetal gray pattern that won’t be for everyone. This is a shame, as it’s easily our favorite non-RGB mouse mat, and folks who are already avoiding RGB might prefer to have a plain version available.

Still, the slick-but-not-slippery surface and large size make it an excellent buy for function alone.

Best XL Cloth Mouse Pad with RGB

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The HyperX Pulsefire mouse mat is HyperX’s first RGB mouse mat in its rectangular XL size, and is easily the company’s best RGB mouse pad for larger desks. At a spacious 35.43 x 16.54 x 0.2 inches, it’s a little too big for some setups, but it’s also a great way to cover as much of your desk as possible if you have the space. And at $50, it’s got a cheaper MSRP than similar rectangular options from the likes of Steelseries and Thermaltake.

Construction is solid across the board here, with a textured cloth surface that gives you plenty of grip without feeling uncomfortable on your wrists and arms. The silicone shielding around the RGB-lit edge also means this mouse pad’s corners aren’t likely to fray anytime soon. Plus, the textured rubber on the mouse pad’s underside means it won’t slip around with your sweeping arm movements while you’re gaming.

The RGB is a little less robust than we’d like. There are only two zones, and while you can select from a wide variety of patterns and colors, there’s no integration with Discord and the list of games with special integration for HyperX’s RGB software is pretty sparse. Still, the mouse pad’s RGB touch sensor is a nice bonus, allowing you to easily cycle through 3 RGB presets without needing to dive into software.

Make sure to measure your desk before getting this mouse pad so it doesn’t end up hanging over the edge!

Best Mouse Pad Accessory

Quick Shopping Tips

Mouse pads aren’t that complicated, but there are some variables to keep in mind while you shop:

• Material: Hard, plastic surfaces are more slippery, so your mouse will glide rapidly with little force from your hand. These are best reserved for more competitive gamers (or at least players with a mouse featuring DPI control). Soft, cloth mouse pads offer more precise pointer control, but may not be as quick as you’d like. You can also find hybrids, which are, well, hybrids. Hard and hybrid mouse pads will wear down skates more quickly than soft mouse pads.
• Size:  Mouse pads start small but come in a few sizes — the largest ones will take up your entire desk. Do you need a gigantic mouse pad? If you play games that require extreme precision and control — such as first-person shooters — you might want to consider a larger pad; precision is generally attained with a lower DPI, and a lower DPI means bigger hand/arm movements. You definitely don’t want to run out of room when you’re lining up a headshot.
• RGB: RGB mouse pads are pretty, but they’re powered via USB. This doesn’t necessarily need to plug into your PC, unless you want to customize the pad’s RGB with software (or have it coordinate with your other peripherals). Also, not all RGB is created equal. The number of RGB zones (not the same as the number of LEDs) will determine how complex the light show can get.
• Cleaning: If you do more than just occasional snacking at your desk, make sure any mouse pad you choose is easy to clean. Smooth, slippery surfaces are easy to wipe down, while cloth pads usually need more care (although some are treated to be spill-resistant). You’ll need to take extra care with RGB mouse pads.

Finding Discounts on the Best Mouse Pads

Whether you’re shopping for one of the best RGB mouse pads or considering a model that isn’t on our list, you may find some savings by checking out our lists of the latest Best Buy promo codes, Newegg promo codes and Micro Center coupons.

Nvidia on Tuesday unleashed a revamped version of its next-generation Grace Hopper Superchip platform with HBM3e memory for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. The new version of the GH200 Grace Hopper features the same Grace CPU and GH100 Hopper compute GPU but comes with HBM3e memory boasting higher capacity and bandwidth. 

The new GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip is based on the 72-core Grace CPU outfitted with 480 GB of ECC LPDDR5X memory as well as the GH100 compute GPU that is paired with 141 GB of HBM3E memory that comes in six 24 GB stacks and uses a 6,144-bit memory interface. While Nvidia physically installs 144 GB of memory, only 141 GB is accessible for better yields.

Nvidia’s current GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip comes with 96 GB of HBM3 memory, providing bandwidth of less than 4 TB/s. By contrast, the new model ups memory capacity by around 50% and increases bandwidth by over 25%. Such massive improvements enable the new platform to run larger AI models than the original version and provide tangible performance improvements (which will be particularly important for training).

According to Nvidia, Nvidia’s GH200 Grace Hopper platform with HBM3 is currently in production and will be available commercially starting next month. By contrast, the GH200 Grace Hopper platform with HBM3e is now sampling and is expected to be available in the second quarter of 2024. Nvidia stressed that the new GH200 Grace Hopper uses the same Grace CPU and GH100 GPU silicon as the original version, so the company will not need to ramp up any new revisions or steppings.

Nvidia says that the original GH200 with HBM3 and the improved GH200 with HBM3E will co-exist on the market, which means that the latter will be sold at a premium given its higher performance enabled by the more advanced memory. 

“To meet surging demand for generative AI, data centers require accelerated computing platforms with specialized needs,” said Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia. “The new GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip platform delivers this with exceptional memory technology and bandwidth to improve throughput, the ability to connect GPUs to aggregate performance without compromise, and a server design that can be easily deployed across the entire data center.”

Nvidia’s next-generation Grace Hopper Superchip platform with HBM3e is fully compatible with Nvidia’s MGX server specification and is, therefore drop-in compatible with existing server designs.

Valve is now selling refurbished Steam Decks, dropping the prices for the devices, which now start at $319. The used Decks will be available both on Steam and, in limited quantities, at GameStop locations.

The company says that “Each Certified Refurbished Steam Deck has been thoroughly tested to the same high standards as our retail units,” though they may have some “cosmetic blemishes.” (Specifically, Valve says these aesthetic issues are small scratches or imperfections on the case — not the screen — that may have resulted from previous use). 

Valve’s site for refurbished Steam Decks claims that over 100 tests are performed on these models, including assessing the battery and checking the screen and controls. Each unit is factory reset and gets the latest set of performance updates.

On Steam, the 512GB model sees the biggest drop-off, at $130 off compared to a new model. It’s $519 compared to a new $649 top-end Steam Deck. Meanwhile, the 256GB version cuts $110 off the price, bringing it to $419. The 64GB starting Steam Deck drops $80 to $319.

Each refurbished Steam Deck has the same one-year warranty as a brand new one (or longer, as some countries have more lengthy warranty requirements). The power supplies, too, are refurbished and may have a bit of cosmetic damage but should work just fine.

GameStop is selling the refurbished Steam Decks exclusively to Pro users. In the US, at least, this is the first time the Steam Deck has been sold at a retail store. On the 64GB and 512GB models, it charges an extra 99 cents, but its 256GB price tag is $10.99 higher than Valve’s. That’s the price of getting to take it home the same day, I suppose. You can see if a GameStop near you has the Steam Deck in stock with GameStop’s store searcher.

Valve notes that the GameStop refurbished Steam Decks are different than its own; “GameStop’s refurbished Steam Decks have been refurbished in their own facilities, and they will come with a different warranty provided by GameStop,” it wrote in an FAQ.  GameStop’s website doesn’t list its refurb process.

Everything else, from the AMD Zen 2 “Aerith” APU to the 1280 x 800 display and 16GB of RAM should be the same. No specs have changed here, just that they’ve been fixed up and reset.

These models may go in and out of stock. The company claims that these units come from returns that have met precise testing requirements, so the availability will depend on how many are returned and which of those can be resold.

Videocardz reports that Sparkle, one of Intel’s AIB partners, is reportedly creating a new lineup of low-profile graphics cards called the Genie series, including low-profile flavors of the Arc A380 and A310. These new cards will target the mainstream consumer market, featuring dual-fan cooler designs.

It might be strange to see new low-profile GPU options in a world where many mini-ITX cases can now support massive triple-slot gaming GPUs. However, many newer and older systems still support the compact PCIe standard. As a result, there is still demand for these low-profile GPUs since these cards provide the only way to increase GPU horsepower with low-profile machines.

Sparkle’s new low-profile graphics cards will come with a respectably sized dual-fan, dual-slot cooler design extending to the end of the PCIe connector. The dual-slot design will make the card a bit thicker than single-slot solutions, but the cooler’s short length should make it fit in any case that supports a 16-lane device. Once we get these cards in for review, we’ll know how well their cooling performance is, but expect good performance anyways since Sparkle’s dual-slot cooler design is substantially beefier compared to its industrial low-profile A310 graphics card that is equipped with a much skinnier single-slot single-fan cooling solution.

The new Genie cards also come with three display outputs, including a single HDMI connection and two Mini-DisplayPort connections, making these GPUs an excellent solution for powering several additional monitors.

Don’t expect serious gaming performance out of the Arc A380 and A310. Both GPUs are part of Intel’s entry-level GPU segment featuring just 8 Xe cores and 6 Xe cores, respectively. We’ve covered Arc’s A380 several times before, but if you haven’t heard of the Arc A310, it is a newish entry-level GPU option Intel quietly launched late last year. The A310 is even less powerful than the A380, featuring a cut-down ACM-G11 die with 6 enabled Xe cores, 4GB of GDDR6 memory, and a 64-bit memory bus. It is essentially Intel’s version of the GT 1030 but with a much newer GPU architecture and AV1 encode/decode support. (Albeit it is faster as well.)

The only unfortunate news is that Sparkle did not announce any release date for these GPUs. Hopefully, the Intel AIB will release these cards sooner than later, but there’s no guarantee.