The highest-end version of Arrow Lake CPUs for laptops (Core Ultra 9 275HX) will have up to 24 processing cores split into eight high-speed performance cores and 16 efficiency cores. On the lower end side of things (Core Ultra 5 245HX) will, on the other hand, feature 14 cores split into eight performance cores and eight efficiency cores.

The Core Ultra 9 275HX will be able to boost up to 5.4GHz. In comparison, the mid-range Core Ultra 7 265HX (with eight performance cores and 12 efficiency cores) will boost up to 5.3GHz, and the Core Ultra 5 245HX will boost up to 5.1GHz. The performance of the NPU on all of these CPUs will match the desktop variants at 13 TOPS (trillion operations per second).

With Intel having just announced the Core Ultra 200HX CPUs, we will likely start seeing hardware partners unveiling laptops powered by these new CPUs in the coming months.

A report published by Reuters claims that Sony is at work on the PS6, and that the console will be using an AMD chip, similar to the PS4 and PS5. The report claims that Sony was in extensive discussions with a number of chip manufacturers, with Intel and AMD emerging as the two frontrunners.

However, the decision was ultimately made by 2022 to continue working with the latter, with Sony wanting to prioritize backward compatibility. In discussions with Intel, it emerged that maintaining backward compatibility with past-gen consoles while using an Intel chip instead of an AMD one would prove too costly and require too many additional resources. Disagreements over profit sharing also contributed to talks between Sony and Intel falling through.

In a statement provided to Reuters, Intel said, “We strongly disagree with this characterization but are not going to comment about any current or potential customer conversations. We have a very healthy customer pipeline across both our product and foundry business, and we are squarely focused on innovating to meet their needs.”

The PS5 is set to turn four years old this November, which would mean it’s a little more than halfway through its lifecycle. That work on Sony’s next console is already underway certainly makes sense in context of the timeline, especially with past reports having claimed that Sony was tentatively targeting a 2028 release for its next-gen machine.

“That’s part of the reason that we believe the overall semiconductor shortage will now drift into 2024, from our earlier estimates in 2023, just because the shortages have now hit equipment and some of those factory ramps will be more challenged.” Though the CPU manufacturer’s Q1 fiscal earnings and revenue surpassed expectations, it provided a comparatively lighter forecast for its second quarter.

This follows a recent report by Nikkei which stated that Nintendo Switch sales in fiscal year 2022 would be impacted by supply constraints and semiconductor shortage. Shortages have had a huge impact on the games industry over the past few years, leading to less stock for consoles (which persists till today). The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in the same year that the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S launched, is mostly to blame especially as more people spent time at home and demand grew.

Stay tuned for more updates on the same in the coming months.

PSVR2

Sony has now officially unveiled and named PSVR2, boasting impressive techs and design improvements, along with new controllers that should enhance VR gameplay even further. An official release date hasn’t yet been confirmed, and we don’t yet know what the headset itself is going to look like either, but with leaks claiming that PSVR2 will enter production soon ahead of a Holiday 2022 launch, there’s a chance that we don’t have to wait too long for this one.

Recently, for instance, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said in an interview with CNBC that though things will begin to get incrementally better where the semiconductor shortage is concerned, it will likely continue to be an issue until as late as 2023.

“We’re in the worst of it now, every quarter next year we’ll get incrementally better, but they’re not going to have supply-demand balance until 2023,” Glesinger said.

Recently, AMD CEO Lisu Su suggested that the chip shortage would begin winding down by the second half of 2022. Xbox boss Phil Spencer has also previously suggested that console shortages will continue into next year.

In fact, you could argue we’re already starting to get to that point with file sizes outgrowing hard drives quicker and quicker, video game resolutions starting to be less and less noticeable to the human eye, and so on. Plus there is always the validity of the point that good graphics don’t even necessarily make a game fun to play anyway. No matter how amazing a game looks, once that novelty inevitably wears off, it will ultimately be judged by how it feels to play and whether or not it’s an engaging experience.

Still yet, we are seeing leaps in visual representation technology that are truly impressive for what they are popping up all over the world, as teams of artists and programmers continue to collaborate and hone their crafts. One such advancement is the new image enhancement network currently being worked on by the folks over at Intel Labs that, to put it simply, takes already great looking games and uses their baseline information to dictate how it can be enhanced based on real-world data sets – creating some truly impressive results.

The example that we are given to look at on their website and in their videos is what they’ve been able to pull off with footage from Grand Theft Auto V. While  Grand Theft Auto V is obviously still a great looking game, they have certainly been able to turn things on their heads and bring it up to an entirely different level of realism with this technology. By passing Grand Theft Auto V gameplay through their image enhancement Network and cross-referencing it with other footage of city streets from their database they’ve been able to generate some truly outstanding images that anybody who’s interested in this sort of thing would surely find fascinating to look into.

Reflections on cars and objects are more vivid, sources of light are more dynamic and subtle when needed, and colors are more realistic with less saturation and more appropriate amounts of vividness for any given situation. It might be hard to spot at first, especially in a vacuum, but when compared to the original footage from the game there is ultimately no contest. The game might be more fun to look at and more striking in some ways but in terms of pure realism the system of tools created by the team at Intel Labs have completely outdone themselves with creating a realistic image full of advanced, life-like enhancements and protocols. What’s even more impressive is that apparently it’s able to run the process over its images fast enough that it’s an “interactive rate” as they call it. Meaning, it may not be a buttery smooth frame rate, but it is playable in real-time, so perhaps with some future tinkering it could be implemented into actual video games one day.

They also go into detail about other methods that are similar to this one and why those other methods don’t produce the same sorts of results that we are seeing from this one. Previous iterations of this technology seem to integrate artifacts into the visuals by accident, and hallucinate objects from the data sets that aren’t actually in the game, causing an odd and off-putting look. This is important for them to point out as it underlines just how solid their own technology is, since it doesn’t really have those problems.

A quick look at their website will show you multiple examples of the technology working and allow you to contrast it with original footage from the game yourself. Multiple interactive pictures with sliders that you can move from left to right will expose the difference between base footage from Grand Theft Auto V and the new version that they made. Doing so will illustrate just how high the level of detail is that this technique is able to achieve.

The city roads, the grass, the trees, and the mountains in the background are all noticeably more realistic and more densely packed with details that you might not notice on a regular basis but are unavoidable if you actually look for them. Trees actually have more leaves on them, grass is far more dense and populated with blades, and the mountains all show far more variety with their topography. Character models themselves don’t really get a chance to shine in this particular demonstration, however, so I would be rather interested to see just how those fare in a future presentation.

Given the small amount of variety of images that were shown, and the limited data sets that the team appears to be working with, it’s probably fair to assume that this technology still has a good ways to go before it’s anything remotely close to being in an actual video game, but that’s not to say it couldn’t still have applications in other areas right now. High-end presentations for land development or real estate firms could certainly use this as it is,  which would give the technology an immediate application and also an opportunity to continue to sharpen it’s abilities.

While it is true that we are reaching a point of diminishing returns when it comes to graphics and visual presentation on the whole, it’s hard to not find developments like this rather interesting. The potential for what this sort of tech could produce within the next few short years in the gaming space is nothing short of thought-provoking, so I’d say it’s definitely a good idea to keep an eye on this, and other things like it, going forward. You never know how things like this could end up impacting us one day.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

PC Gamer has confirmed that its annual PC Gaming Show will be taking place on June 6th. A recent addition to E3, the event was in doubt following the cancellation of E3 2020, not to mention the lack of any dedicated online event from the organizer. Nevertheless, it will take place and be livestreamed on Twitch and the like.

The show will feature new titles, “never-before-seen gameplay footage” and announcements. Partners include the likes of Frontier Developments, Humble Bundle, Perfect World Entertainment, Tripwire Interactive, Epic Games Store and Intel. We may also see updates on titles like Chivalry 2, Evil Geniuses 2: World Domination and so on which featured in last year’s showcase.

With E3 2020’s cancellation, many publishers have discussed the possibility of having digital presentations. Microsoft and Ubisoft expressed interest, with the former rumored to be having two events – one in May, the other in June. Xbox boss Phil Spencer even indicated recently that it wouldn’t be much longer for game reveals. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

Xbox “Duke”

For the record: original Xbox controllers were not Frisbees. After all, throwing a Frisbee at someone wouldn’t knock them out cold like “The Duke”, such was the weight and thickness that the OG Xbox controller possessed. If nothing else, it was solid and suited incredibly large hands. And really, there was nothing else. At least Microsoft redesigned the controller to be smaller and more comfortable down the line.

As players, it’s easy to forget that actual people are behind the video games we play and the hardware we play them on. That’s why it’s interesting to note when someone who was a big figure in designing game hardware goes and changes careers. In this case, it’s the chief designer of the Xbox One, Xbox One X, as well as the upcoming Xbox, dubbed Project Scarlett, John Sell.

People noticed that Sell had changed his Linkin page to identify his employer as Intel. Not long after that, Intel made an official press release to announce the acquisition. He was at Microsoft a total of 14 years, meaning he was there during two generations of Xbox consoles, and he also previously worked for Apple and 3DO.

Sell is part of a string of high profile hires by Intel, such as Manisha Pandya, a 10 year veteran at Apple. The company is definitely making some aggressive moves, so it’ll be interesting to see what all that talent produces. We wish Mr. Sell the best.

Intel’s problems with the 10nm fab process for its chips are well documented. The company announced an intent to try and more than double the transistor count using the 10nm process, an aim that proved far too ambitious, and led it to scale back. Currently, Intel is due to release its 10nm chips in the back half of 2019, according to a statement they themselves released last. However, a Semi Accurate report claims that this will not happen.

Per this report, the yields on Intel’s 10nm batch are so low that they are just going to skip it and cut their losses, instead jumping to the 7nm fab process. Semi Accurate is citing internal sources saying the process is currently untenable.

Unusually enough, the report has provoked a direct denial from Intel, who posted on their official Twitter account that the report is false, and that the 10nm project at Intel is underway, and will be released in the back half of 2019, as scheduled. While we don’t have any reason got doubt their word right now, they definitely have had a lot of trouble with 10nm chips. For now, the official word is that they are still on track for the 10nm chips coming out as they promised, but we’ll know more either way at their next earnings report on Thursday.

Media reports published today that Intel is ending work on the 10nm process are untrue. We are making good progress on 10nm. Yields are improving consistent with the timeline we shared during our last earnings report.

— Intel News (@intelnews) October 22, 2018