Gigabyte has just confirmed Intel’s plans to introduce new processors compatible with existing LGA 1700 motherboards, with an expected launch in early 2027. According to a press release, Gigabyte is rolling out a new BIOS update to extend support for the upcoming processors across its entire lineup of Intel B760 and H610 motherboards. Owners of supported boards will be able to flash the latest BIOS and upgrade to the new CPUs without replacing their motherboards.

The most interesting bit is that the update covers both DDR4 and DDR5 variants of these motherboard families, allowing existing systems to remain compatible with the upcoming processors. The continued availability of DDR4 compatibility is particularly relevant as rising memory prices have increased the overall cost of building and upgrading a PC. Notably, the announcement does not include certain motherboard series like the Z690, Z790, and B660, which also feature the same LGA 1700 socket.

Gigabyte has not disclosed SKUs, specifications, or pricing of the upcoming processors. However, the early 2027 launch window aligns with previous reports about Intel's rumored Raptor Lake Next lineup. According to previous coverage, Intel is preparing a third refresh of its Raptor Lake architecture based on the LGA 1700 socket, which debuted with the 13th-gen Core desktop processors and was succeeded by the 14th-gen lineup.

Intel’s Robert Hallock, vice president and general manager of Intel’s enthusiast channel business, told Tom’s Hardware Premium in an interview back in August, “LGA 1700 is still a good socket. Lots of people are still interested in DDR4, so we’ll keep offering, and you'll see pricing smooth out over time. It'll come back to normal. That's the plan.” By extending support for the LGA 1700 platform, Intel could potentially give budget-conscious PC builders another option for reusing existing memory and motherboard hardware instead of moving to a completely new platform.

In a separate report, it has been speculated that Raptor Lake Next could adopt Intel's Core 200 branding, spanning across Core 3, Core 5, and Core 7 models. According to leaked specifications shared by tipster Jaykihn, the range could include a 20-core Core 7 model with 8 Performance cores and 12 Efficient cores rated at 65W; a 16-core Core 5 with 8 P-cores and 8 E-cores rated at 125W; a 10-core Core 5 with 6 P-cores and 4 E-cores rated at 65W and equipped with 24MB of L3 cache; and an entry-level, four-core Core 3 featuring only P-cores, also rated at 65W.

Walmart Deals are still going strong, and some of the best hardware, including gaming laptops, is available at very good prices. Top-tier gaming laptops like the TUF Gaming A16, TUF Gaming F16, and Cyborg A15 AI are available for up to $800 off.

• Check out the Asus TUF Gaming A16 deal on Walmart
• Check out the Asus TUF Gaming F16 deal on Walmart
• Check out the MSI Cyborg A15 AI deal on Walmart

The TUF Gaming A16 is a great choice for casual gamers on a tight budget. The Ryzen 7 260 and GeForce RTX 5050 make a solid combo for smooth 1080p (1920x1080) frame rates. The gaming laptop is well equipped in other areas, too, with 16GB of memory and a fast 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD.

Other notable features on the TUF Gaming A16 include a 16-inch 2.5K (2560x1440) IPS panel with a 165 Hz refresh rate, Wi-Fi 6E connectivity, a backlit keyboard, and a full-sized numeric keypad.

The TUF Gaming F16 caters to gamers who want to take their 1080p gaming experience to the next level. With a Core i5-14450HX and a GeForce RTX 5060, this gaming laptop delivers exceptional 1080p performance. Like the TUF Gaming A16, this SKU also has 16GB of memory and a 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD.

While it retains a 16-inch IPS panel, the TUF Gaming F16 has a slightly lower resolution and refresh rate than the TUF Gaming A16. The former outputs at FHD+ (1920x1200) at 144 Hz. Otherwise, the feature set is similar, with Wi-Fi 6E, a backlit keyboard, and a numeric keypad.

The Cyborg A15 AI is the biggest steal with a significant $800 discount. The gaming laptop has a Ryzen 7 260 alongside a GeForce RTX 5070. There is also 16GB of memory and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD.

MSI equiped the Cyborg A15 AI with a 15.6-inch FHD (1920x1080) IPS display that flaunts a 144 Hz refresh rate. The GeForce RTX 5070 has more than enough firepower to push buttery-smooth gameplay at that resolution. Like the Asus models, the Cyborg A15 AI also comes with RGB backlit-keyboard, numeric keypard, and Wi-Fi 6E.

At discounted prices, the difference between the TUF Gaming A16, TUF Gaming F16, and Cyborg A15 AI is just $100. They are all great gaming laptops, but ultimately your budget dictates which is the better buy for you.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Microsoft just made a major change to its storage policy affecting Microsoft 365 subscribers with shared accounts. According to the company, the Microsoft 365 Family, Premium, and Pro plans will move from an assigned 1TB of cloud storage for each user to a shared 2TB for all users. This means that a subscription shared across six users will have its total cloud storage capacity slashed by 66.6%. This change will take effect on subscription renewals after May 2, 2027, unless the subscribers change their plan earlier. Some affected subscribers might also receive bonus storage when their account switches to the share limit model, although the company did not mention its eligibility requirements.

The company said it made this change so that the cloud storage allocation for Microsoft 365 subscribers will automatically go where it’s needed, and that individual users are less likely to hit individual storage limits. Aside from that, it also said that unused storage can benefit the entire family, and that any additional storage that the main subscriber purchases will benefit everyone.

This new setup is indeed advantageous for subscribers who only have one power user that uses up the majority of the cloud storage capacity, while all the rest take up a fraction. It would also be cheaper for an individual who intends to use more than 1TB of cloud storage to just switch to the Microsoft 365 Family plan (which costs $129.99 annually) instead of getting the Microsoft 365 Personal plan ($99.99 annually) and paying an extra $9.99 per month or $119.88 per year to bring their total cloud storage capacity to 2TB. However, if you have four users under one account using 500GB each, you will be forced to purchase additional capacity, starting at $1.99 per month for 200GB.

While Microsoft hasn’t increased the prices of its subscription, this move simultaneously reduces the burden on its storage servers while forcing accounts with multiple large users to purchase storage separately. This seems like a reaction to the storage shortage hitting the industry, with hard drive prices surging by 46% from September 2025 to January 2026. Enterprise SSDs have been hit hard, too, with 30TB drives now costing $22,600 while supply remains sold out until 2027.

Affected users could change their cloud storage providers, but even Google has been affected, with the company cutting the free cloud storage limit from 15GB to 5GB pending extra security measures. Even Backblaze, which offers “unlimited” backups, updated its terms of service to potentially throttle or terminate accounts that exceed “typical usage patterns” or “places an undue burden.” Users who have grown tired of paying monthly to secure their data could alternatively set up a NAS and populate it with the best hard drives — although this might be pricey in the short term and requires some setup, it could potentially save you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in the long run.

PC shipments globally have dropped by 20.1% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2026, a decline of 15.8 million units. According to research firm IDC Global, this marks a steeper decline compared to the 3.8% year-over-year decrease that the market experienced last quarter. It’s also down 9.1% from the second quarter of this year. Many research firms have been warning about this since late last year, with IDC warning that the PC market could shrink up to 9%, with the budget sector being hit the hardest. Some experts estimate that the situation isn’t expected to improve until 2029, with Tom’s Hardware readers saying that they won’t upgrade their systems in the next two years.

These price increases have been directly caused by the boom in AI data centers, with hyperscalers pouring massive amounts of money into the crucial HBM needed to support AI GPUs. This has led to memory manufacturers pivoting toward this technology, leaving less production capacity for consumer memory. One good example of this is Micron, which killed the Crucial RAM and SSD brand in late 2025 so that it can focus on data center production. As PC makers fight for a shrinking supply of memory chips, we saw memory prices climb by as much as 500%, with 128GB of DDR5 now costing as much as $3,399.

Manufacturers didn’t sit idly by and let the market take its course, though. Many of them stocked up on inventory in the second quarter of 2026 to try and head off the projected higher prices caused by the shortage, which directly led to the reduced shipments being reported. “What we’re seeing is the result of the strong first half pull-in. Vendors and channels loaded up on inventory early in the year to get ahead of price hikes, and that has thrown off the usual seasonality, where Q3 is typically larger than Q2,” said IDC consumer devices research director Jitesh Ubrani. “Channels are now worried about carrying too much inventory into a market where high prices are suppressing demand. That could translate into promotions and some short-term relief for consumers, but we don’t expect pricing anywhere near what it was a year ago. Prices will remain elevated. With macro conditions worsening, the risk is that the outlook for the next few quarters gets worse before it gets better.”

The top three PC vendors suffered the most, with Lenovo shedding 22.6%, HP shipping 30.9% fewer units, and Dell shipments contracting by 25%. On the other hand, Apple’s shipments shrank by 11.3%, while Asus’s numbers fell by 8.6%, with the rest of the market shipping 14% less year-over-year. Despite being hit the hardest, Lenovo, HP, and Dell still maintained their lead at 23.8%, 16.5%, and 12.1% market share, respectively.

Even though other industry leaders, including Micron, say that the situation will not improve for the next few years, Acer CEO Jason Chen went against the grain and said that these fears are just being hyped to protect the margins of memory chip makers. He estimated that PC prices will decline by the latter half of 2027 as Chinese memory chip capacity comes online, with only high-end parts like LPDDR5X-9600 and niche CPUs such as the Nvidia N1 and N1X remaining in short supply.

Mistral launched its trillion-parameter Large 4 (ML4) model this week, saying it “pushes the frontier of open-weight performance.” Artificial Analysis (AA), an independent AI benchmarking firm, ranked Mistral's Large 4 as the best model available from outside the U.S. and China in its index. The mixture-of-experts model, trained on Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell GPUs, scored its personal best in AA’s CyberGym-E2E-AA end-to-end cybersecurity measure, although several Chinese open models beat it overall.

ML4 scored 38 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.3.2, which AA says makes it the “most intelligent model from outside the US and China." At least five Chinese open models scored higher on the index: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (max) at 39, GLM-5.3-Flash at 42, Kimi K3 (max) at 44, GLM-5.3 (max) at 45, and MiMo-V2.6-Pro at 46. While MiMo-V2.6-Pro is comparable in total size to ML4, GLM-5.3-Flash is about one-third the size at 320B parameters total and 18B versus ML4’s 49B–52B active. Unlike the rest, ML4 isn’t open yet: Mistral says its weights are due “by the end of the month.”

Cost is a different story. ML4 comes in at $1.13 per AA task at list price, or $0.57 at the 50% discounted launch price. This compares to $0.13 for MiMo-V2.6-Pro and $0.25 for GLM-5.3-Flash. Although comparatively expensive, ML4 scored what AA calls its “strongest result” and Mistral calls “the highest of any model” with an 81.7% score on CyberGym-E2E-AA, compared with GLM-5.3-Flash’s 74%, from a model whose post-training run Mistral claims is “still in flight.”

While the score is impressive, it is only one of three tests in the Cyber Index; ML4 only scores 16% in DeepsecBench-AA and 51% in CWE-Bench-AA. However, AA’s projection is that, once the weights ship, it “will rank among the top three open weights models on the Cyber Index.” This leaves the door open for ML4 to apply to narrower tasks.

Mistral bets on this, saying ML4 is “state-of-the-art among open models” on enterprise workloads such as “cybersecurity, finance and law,” and that in visual grounding, where its 1.6B-parameter vision encoder comes in, it can go as far as “surpassing even frontier closed models.” On AA’s Cyber Index, Mistral says, ML4 ranks “among the top five models globally,” and it solves 93% of Cybench, a set of 40 challenges drawn from security competitions.

CEO Arthur Mensch went further in Abu Dhabi, saying the model is “above the Chinese models on certain aspects, including cyber,” Reuters reported. Mistral’s other figures include DeepSWE v1.1 at 61.7%, Coding Agent Index at 49.8%, AutomationBench at 59.9%, and Dense 200 at 42%; AA’s own chart puts ML4 at 27% on Terminal-Bench 4.0.

ML4 does, in fact, beat OpenAI’s closed GPT-6 Luna (max) on CyberGym-E2E-AA, but Luna matches ML4’s 38 on AA’s index at about one-sixteenth of the cost per task ($0.07). Mistral says frontier models such as Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Astra “score near zero on the same test because they refuse to perform the task,” and AA’s chart marks both as declining some tasks on safety grounds.

Outside of that test, Mistral says ML4 also beats DeepSeek V4 Pro 0813 and Qwen3.8 Max on the Coding Agent Index; per AA, it is cheaper than the latter. Overall, AA’s index-vs.-cost chart puts ML4 below the Pareto line and just outside the “Most attractive quadrant.”

The cost comes from needing 200 million output tokens to run AA’s index, against a median of 81 million. As for speed, ML4 generated 116.1 tokens per second, with 1.46 seconds to the first token. This puts ML4 at about 33% faster than its tier median and 2.6x faster to the first token. AA’s speed is measured on Mistral’s own API, which Mistral says runs on the same hardware the model used for training.

ML4 was “trained from scratch on 3,800 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs in Mistral’s own datacenters in Europe,” the company said. This is up from 3,000 Nvidia H200s used to train Large 3, released last year, which was smaller at 675B total parameters with 41B active. The training occurred over “roughly two months,” as reported by VentureBeat.

Mistral raised a €3 billion Series D in what the company calls “the largest equity round ever raised by a European technology company” in its post. Mistral Compute has planned for 18,000 Grace Blackwell chips, as announced with Nvidia last year. Mistral says it is “significantly scaling up our compute capacity in our own European datacenters,” and that ML4 will become the base for “a new generation of specialized and optimized Mistral models.” The model’s open weights, once released, will be able to run on a private cloud or on-premises.

The weights, architecture details, and additional benchmarks are expected before the end of October. Artificial Analysis lists the preview as proprietary until the weights arrive. Once it does, the model may be re-scored, and Mistral’s claims will be held to task. For the first two weeks following release, ML4 can be used via API at a discounted rate.

While European models still have a lot to prove, based on previous performance and ML4’s showing with an 8-point gap versus a similar-size Chinese model that’s also a lot less expensive, Mistral has demonstrated resolve and produced a model with, at least, niche application, as the basis to eventually close that gap.

This week's sales period may have ended for most retailers, but you can still find plenty of deals if you look in the right places. One of the best places to find a bargain right now is gaming monitors, with prices actually declining, unlike RAM or Storage. Available at Newegg is this fantastic 4K OLED gaming monitor with a special feature that allows dual-resolution modes. The 32-inch ASRock PGO32UFS Phantom Gaming Monitor is down to just $596, from its previous $899 list price, a saving of $303. This is a very good price for a 4K OLED gaming monitor, especially as it also supports esports gaming with its dual-mode refresh rate and resolution switching.

● Check out this deal at Newegg

The ASRock PGO32UFS Phantom Gaming is a flat-panel gaming monitor with dual-mode refresh rate and resolution profiles. You can choose to game in 4K with a high refresh rate of 240Hz, or if you play competitive ranked esports titles, you can dial-up the refresh rate to a staggering 480Hz with a Full-HD resolution. The response time for this OLED panel is a mere 0.03ms, the de facto standard for most OLED panels, which makes in-game movement and motion incredibly smooth.

The OLED panel sports a very high contrast ratio of 1,500,000:1, which produces true blacks and highlights the eye-popping colours from your favorite games. This monitor is compatible with both AMD FreeSync Premium Pro for ultra-smooth, tear-free visuals and is also DisplayHDR True Black 400 certified.

ASRock's superb OLED monitor also comes with an array of connectivity. You can connect a host of devices to this screen, including your favorite game consoles like the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, plus laptops, docks, and anything else with a compatible video port. There are 2 x HDMI 2.1 ports, 2 x DisplayPort 1.4, and 1 x USB-C (DisplayPort Alt Mode).

Back in June, Apple hiked prices for all of its entire line-up of MacBooks and iPads, with the MacBook Air rising by $200. Thanks to Amazon, you can pick up the 2026 MacBook Air with M5 chip with that $200 price rise removed, bringing the price down to just $1,099 for its 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD model. It's also dropped the 16GB / 1TB model to $1,399, with the 24GB / 1TB model costing $1,599, both receiving the same $200 price drops. We saw these prices during the Prime Day sales earlier this week, but Amazon doesn't look like it's raised its prices on these models just yet.

● Grab this Apple MacBook Air deal at Amazon

Few can rival the MacBook for build quality and design: that's why they're so popular. The Air is its lightest laptop design, with this base-edition 13.6-inch model shipping with 16GB of memory and a 512GB SSD for storage. This latest M5 chip from Apple uses a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU, giving you incremental gains in performance and speed compared to the last-gen M4.

These ultra-light and slim-line laptops get the N1 wireless chip for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 connectivity, along with that 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display, giving you stunning clear images. You also have a 12MP Center Stage camera for video calls, along with Touch ID for biometric security.

Other specs are available, including the 16GB/1TB model that we mentioned for $1,399 and the 24GB/1TB model for $1,599.9. They're identical in design to the $1,099 model, with the same price available for the Sky Blue, Starlight (yellow), classic Silver, and Sky Blue colorways, all featuring the same M5 chip. You're just paying more for extra storage or memory, depending on whether you need it or not.

Amazon does like to tempt buyers with small discounts on Apple products from time to time, but these $200 discounts on the latest MacBook Air models are a good sign. Apple only raised its prices back in June, with Amazon's pricing following shortly afterward. You can't get them at these prices from Apple directly, either.

Whether you go for the $1,099 16GB/512GB MacBook Air, the $1,299 16GB/1TB upgrade, or the higher-spec 24GB/1TB edition for $1,599, these are great deals for a new Apple laptop in the current market. Don't expect them to be around for long, though. The $1,099 edition is already limited stock in the Sky Blue colorway, for instance, and Apple could raise its prices at any time.

Kioxia introduced its LD4-series solid-state drives (SSDs) in an E1.L form factor with capacities up to 122.88TB designed for high-density storage deployments in hyperscale data centers on Friday. The new drives use proven BiCS8 3D QLC NAND and are aimed at read-intensive workloads like AI data repositories and object storage, according to the manufacturer.

Kioxia's LD4-series SSDs rely on the company's proprietary platform complying with the NVMe 2.0e specification and featuring a single-port configuration along with select requirements of the Open Compute Project Datacenter NVMe SSD specification 2.6. Although Kioxia lists PCIe 5.0 compliance, the drives operate at PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds of up to 16 GT/s per lane, which provides a theoretical maximum bandwidth of approximately 7.88 GB/s in each direction. While the company currently offers capacities of up to 30.72 TB, it has validated an architecture capable of supporting 122.88 TB drives, though it never revealed when such drives are set to be available, something not surprising in a world where 3D NAND memory is sold in advance.

Interestingly, Kioxia did not disclose any actual performance characteristics of its LD4-series SSDs, including sequential read and write speeds, random read and write IOPS, or latency. The company also did not reveal their endurance ratings in drive writes per day (DWPD) or total bytes written (TBW), nor did it specify their power consumption. These characteristics are particularly important for hyperscale operators evaluating the cost, performance, and longevity of storage infrastructure.

The key selling point of Kioxia's LD4-series and its E1.L form factor — 318.75 mm length × 38.4 mm height × 9.5 mm thick — is its ability to house numerous 3D NAND flash packages on an elongated printed circuit board, thus enabling multiple drives to be installed in a thin 1U server, offering vast capacities. This enables system manufacturers among those who build OCP-compliant servers to maximize storage capacity without increasing rack space requirements, which is particularly important for large-scale storage deployments.

Kioxia is currently sampling 15.36 TB and 30.72 TB LD4 drives to select customers. The company has not disclosed when 122.88 TB configurations will become available or when the series will enter mass production. The drives will be demonstrated at the OCP Global Summit in San Jose in mid-October.

The publisher behind Arc Raiders is now training in-house AI models to detect cheating as the arms race escalates with persistent cheaters. Cheating on online games is a perennial problem, and it only gets worse the more a title becomes popular, which is why the Arc Raiders developer released an update on its anti-cheat measures. According to Arc Raiders executive producer Aleks, Embark Studios has been working on the issue, and it has deliberately been scant on details to make it harder for cheat engine makers to adapt. However, this stance has been frustrating some players, which is why the company finally gave some details of what it has been working on behind the scenes.

Embark Studios said that it’s already using kernel-level anti-cheat from Denuvo, and that it also detects cheaters using Anybrain’s AI service. But aside from those third-party providers, the company said that it’s also using artificial intelligence to build in-house models to help detect cheating. “In addition to kernel-level protection from Denuvo and detections from Anybrain, we’re using a growing set of in-house models built around machine-learning and other data,” Aleks wrote. “These systems work together to identify suspicious behavior and build confidence before action is taken, while allowing us to continue improving detection as new cheats emerge.”

Aside from building and using anti-cheat tools, the developer is also tightening its enforcement of anti-cheating rules. A permanent ban is now the standard sanction for anyone caught cheating, and it will not give any warnings or second chances to offenders. It has also started associating copies of the game to accounts accused of cheating, so cheaters can’t simply make a new account using the same game license to get back into the game. Other accounts linked to a banned copy of the game will receive the same permaban, as well.

Aleks also said that Embark Studios is working on a hardware ban to cut the number of repeat offenders, and that it hopes to implement this solution later this year. This may be the biggest move that Embark Studios will make, but it also risks other players who buy used hardware that’s been previously flagged and get their account banned, too. One unfortunate Valorant player experienced this recently, but since Riot’s bans are temporary, they could get back into the game after a few months. This might be a different case for Arc Raiders, though, since the game enforces permabans, so this is something that it must consider so it doesn’t prosecute innocent gamers.

All these changes might seem harsh, but it seems that the crackdown is driven by complaints from the game’s burgeoning community. Aleks even noted some players’ frustrations, especially when they see streamers boasting their cheats, but said that the company is careful so that it doesn’t incorrectly ban legitimate players.

Anti-cheat technology is a game of cat and mouse between developers and cheaters, and Aleks said, “it will never fully go away.” Embark Studios is trying to make it as difficult as possible, though, and has employed these strict measures as a deterrent to prevent players from even thinking about cheating. It’s also not the only developer trying to clamp down on cheating, with an individual researcher even building a technique to fingerprint players using their mouse and keyboard inputs and track cheaters across accounts and hardware.

A quarter century ago today, AMD launched its AMD Athlon XP processor family. These were highly performant processors based on the firm’s latest Palomino core, but ran at lower raw clock speeds than Intel rivals. Facing a marketing imbalance between perceived and actual performance, AMD mounted a serious campaign to explode the 'megahertz myth' with this generation of CPUs. Thus, it introduced new Athlon XP processors with a Performance Rating (PR) designation, alongside a slogan insisting “Performance matters more than MHz.”

Intel, with its Pentium 4 processors, was clearly winning the MHz race at the time, while a CPU’s clock speed had long been established by marketers as a key performance metric. Unfortunately for AMD, its CPUs of the era didn’t hit such high clocks, even though the application and gaming performance was just as good (if not better) than Intel's.

Thomas Pabst's view

Our tests from October 2001 noted that AMD wisely undersold its chips, using the newly devised PR naming system. Anything less and it would have faced strong opposition and derision. Our tests clearly showed that a new “AthlonXP 1800+ is able to beat Intel's flagship Pentium 4 2 GHz in the majority of benchmarks,” wrote the original Tom, Thomas Pabst, in a 13-page feature about AMD’s newest CPUs. Moreover, it was observed that “AthlonXP at 1533 MHz is able to reach or even beat Pentium 4 running at an almost 33% higher clock speed.” Pabst concluded that AMD’s clocks/performance situation forced this concerted stand against the MHz myth.

As we broke the news about AMD’s Performance Rating system, some almost straight-away alluded to it being a ‘Pentium Rating’ system, but it was very early days. We didn’t know whether it would become a long-term success. It was known that AMD planned to establish an independent institution to create a new performance measure that is fairer and more realistic than the current MHz system in the following year. But, of course, Intel wouldn’t be interested in validating that. Pabst concluded that “I might not like it too much,” but admitted AMD had little alternative marketing-wise in the Pentium vs. Athlon era at the beginning of the millennium.

Please stop, it hertz

The AMD PR system would be abandoned roughly five years after it was initiated. Subsequent AMD (and Intel) architectures stopped the rating from making practical sense as the market evolved. For example, Intel’s big MHz advantage was lost in the transition from Pentium 4 Netburst to Pentium M/Core chips. Then, the Athlon 64 was so well received by reviewers and enthusiasts that AMD probably felt it might be wise to finish with its inferiority complex PR system that tied it to its obvious rival. Lastly, by the end of the AMD PR era, the marketing fight was clearly going multi-core. CPU marketing and naming completely sidelined any hint at CPU clock speeds later in the noughties.

GlobalFoundries and TSMC have entered into a five-year manufacturing agreement valued at $2 billion under which GlobalFoundries will produce silicon interposers for TSMC's CoWoS advanced packaging technology. The arrangement will establish a U.S.-based manufacturing source for these components, which will enable TSMC's clients to brand their products as completely made and packaged in America. Volume production is scheduled to ramp up in the first half of 2028.

"By providing manufacturing service using GF's trusted U.S. manufacturing footprint, we are creating a secure, scalable source of essential advanced-packaging elements that will help customers accelerate innovation and strengthen the semiconductor supply chain," said Ed Kaste, senior vice president of CMOS Business at GlobalFoundries.

GF and TSMC team up

Under the agreement, GlobalFoundries will expand manufacturing capacity at its fabrication facility in Malta, NY, to produce silicon interposers used in TSMC's CoWoS-S packaging ecosystem. Such interposers are custom pieces of silicon that provide high-density connections between logic chiplets and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) stacks and enable the creation of complex multi-die processors for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications. The companies have not disclosed the production capacity to be installed, but the agreement provides a framework for additional expansion depending on demand.

Silicon interposers used for TSMC's CoWoS-S packaging technology are customized for particular processor designs, as their configurations depend on the number, dimensions, and placement of logic chiplets and HBM stacks, as well as the interconnections between them.

In addition, interposers must meet the power-delivery requirements of specific processors, including power distribution networks and embedded deep trench capacitors (DTC), and their designs must account for signal integrity, power integrity, and thermal characteristics. Furthermore, large interposers may exceed the maximum lithographic reticle size and therefore require stitching, so it remains to be seen how well GlobalFoundries will stitch such interposers for extra-large system-in-packages (SiPs).

While certain manufacturing processes and structural elements can be standardized, the resulting interposers are generally application-specific. GlobalFoundries will not be a TSMC supplier, but a subcontractor that will manufacture multiple customer-specific interposer designs rather than standardized components that require close cooperation with TSMC. Specifically, GlobalFoundries will need to ensure compatibility between its design rules, manufacturing processes, and qualification procedures so that interposers produced by GF can be used in TSMC's CoWoS packaging flows. It remains to be seen how the companies will handle ownership and protection of intellectual property, as interposer layouts may incorporate technologies and production methods specific to TSMC and its customers.

By transferring some interposer production to GlobalFoundries, TSMC could free up some of its own manufacturing resources and increase availability of components required for advanced packaging.

Manufacturing silicon interposers is only one part of the CoWoS-S production process. The technology also requires attaching logic chiplets and HBM stacks to interposers using high-precision bonding equipment, assembling the resulting structures onto organic substrates, and then performing electrical testing. These operations require dedicated manufacturing capacity, which the agreement between the two companies does not address.

Becoming a part of TSMC's CoWoS ecosystem

Following its exit from development of leading-edge process technologies in 2018 and consequent inability to produce leading-edge AI and HPC accelerators, GlobalFoundries is now becoming a part of TSMC's advanced packaging supply chain in the U.S. that will supply custom components for AI and HPC processors.

For GlobalFoundries, the agreement represents an opportunity to participate in the manufacturing of advanced AI processors without producing their leading-edge logic dies. Although the company abandoned the development of leading-edge process technologies eight years ago, its manufacturing capabilities remain suitable for producing certain components used in sophisticated multi-chip packages, including CoWoS-S interposers. It remains to be seen though whether it can also participate in TSMC's CoWoS-L supply chain.

The agreement with GlobalFoundries is particularly important considering TSMC's plans to establish advanced packaging operations in Arizona. The company intends to introduce CoWoS and 3D-IC packaging capabilities in the state before 2029 and has signed a 10-year agreement with Amkor Technology, which is building an advanced packaging facility in Peoria, Arizona, that is scheduled to begin production in early 2028.

As GlobalFoundries ramps up interposer production in New York in the first half of 2028, TSMC could potentially establish a largely domestic CoWoS supply chain that comprises logic dies manufactured in Arizona, silicon interposers produced in New York, and advanced packaging and testing performed by TSMC and/or Amkor in Arizona. For a while, HBM stacks would still have to be sourced from memory manufacturers in Asia, though both Micron and SK hynix intend to bring HBM assembly facilities to the U.S. already this decade, so it is safe to say that the U.S. will have a vertically integrated supply chain for production of advanced AI processors by 2029 – 2030.

There is a catch, though, as GloFo and TSMC have not disclosed how CoWoS assembly operations will be divided between TSMC and Amkor, or whether GlobalFoundries' interposers will be used in Arizona at all. Yet, GF's wording about a trusted U.S. manufacturing footprint strongly implies that its interposers will be primarily aimed at SiPs fabricated entirely in the U.S. Meanwhile, expanding interposer production alone will not increase the number of finished AI processors unless sufficient chip-on-wafer assembly and testing capacity is available.

Some things remain unclear

The initial agreement covers five years and establishes a mechanism for further capacity additions. However, the companies have not disclosed the planned manufacturing volumes, capital expenditures associated with the expansion, or the breakdown of the $2 billion agreement. Furthermore, we yet have to find out how GF's manufacturing capabilities are aligned with CoWoS-S' advancements.

During a Thursday announcement, Vice President JD Vance said that well-known tech companies Microsoft and Adobe are now blocked out of the PERM program — one of the possible paths for the firms' H-1B workers to eventually evolve to green card status. The move was triggered by alleged fraud and abuse. IT outsourcing firms Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini also got slapped with suspensions.

The companies involved have not yet commented.

The administration is not going to process any new or pending Permanent Labor Certification applications for the companies. In a press conference, Vance had harsh words about Microsoft in particular, stating that "There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more." He added that "if you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants."

According to Vance, Microsoft fired 6,000 workers while simultaneously benefiting from 6,300 H-1B approvals and nearly 3,000 green cards. The VP said the company filed 3,682 PERM applications, 1,000 of which were for positions that seemingly overlapped with those of laid-off workers. Both Microsoft and Adobe's PERM privileges were cut "due to multiple active federal investigations," as stated by Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling.

A move so swift and harsh is unusual, but it comes against a backdrop of the U.S. government putting a tighter grip on the H-1B program. Last July, the Labor Department launched a nationwide investigation into fraud and human trafficking in H-1B and PERM programs. The inquest focuses on fraudulent applications, wage kickbacks, coercion, below-wage labor, recruitment abuse, and benching — when a company keeps the H-1B employee on the books but doesn't assign them work or pay them.

In September, President Trump signed an executive order aiming to curb abuse of the H-1B program. Cognizant also had its green card filings suspended during that month. The H-1B lottery rules had already changed to reportedly favor highly skilled, highly paid workers.

According to the National Foundation for American Policy and reported estimates, Amazon had the most approved H-1Bs in fiscal year 2025 with 4,644 visas, followed by Meta at 1,555, Microsoft with 1,394, and Google at 1,050.

Pre-orders for the Atari-licensed THE 800XL began today. This is a modernized yet claimed-to-be-faithful recreation of the classic 8-bit home computer, popular in the early 1980s. While it comes with era-appropriate features like built-in Atari BASIC and a working cartridge slot, this remake should be elevated by its mechanical keyboard, 25 built-in games, save states, quartet of USB ports (controllers, storage, power), and HDMI connectivity. Sadly, Atari / Plaion / Retro Games Ltd has stuck with the glaringly unergonomic CX40 joystick design for the bundled THECXSTICK, guaranteed to leave a lasting impression on your palm's tendons. THE 800XL’s pre-order price is a rather steep $219, and it isn’t going to ship until April 23, 2027.

“What I love most about THE 800XL is that it captures an entire way of experiencing technology,” said Namer Merli, the Senior Product Marketing Manager at Plaion. “Real keys, real cartridges, a proper joystick, BASIC programming, games, secrets and discovery.” Indeed, it does these things, with enough modern niceties (USB, HDMI, built-in game, etc.) to make it both accessible to newbies and appealing to Atari 8-bit computer veterans still maintaining ancient hardware.

Overall, the design appears to maintain the look and feel of the original, though we’d need to test it to confirm feelings about the build. Purchasers will also likely appreciate the immediate power-up-and-play capabilities of this recreation. There’s an instant software library, built in, and among the games I can see is Star Raiders II - the Atari 8-bit computer ‘killer app’ sequel. Of course you get versions of some Atari arcade/console classics too, like Asteroids, Centipede, Battlezone, and Missile Command. As well as the 25 instantly accessible games, there are two more - Castle Crisis and Super Breakout – that are only unlocked when you plug in an analog controller (not included).

With its cartridge port, obviously the new 800XL can use a range of cartridges that also worked with the original. Specifically, the product page mentions that “most Atari 400, 800, XL, and XE cartridges” are supported by the new system.

The original Atari 800XL was powered by the MOS Technology 6502B processor, supported by Atari's custom ANTIC, GTIA, and POKEY chips, which handled graphics, sound, and input duties to raise the audio-visual abilities of this machine up a peg or two. This predecessor to the Atari ST 16-bit home computer shipped with 64KB of RAM. We don’t have any technical details about the hardware/software in THE 800XL.

Specifications:

• Faithful design features a working cartridge slot and full-size mechanical keyboard.
• 25 built-in games, including Centipede, Missile Command, M.U.L.E., and Battlezone.
• The cartridge slot supports most Atari 400, 800, XL, and XE cartridges.
• Also features support for software created for 8-bit computers and the Atari 5200 console.
• Load your own games and software from USB flash drives with cartridge, disk and cassette image support.
• 4 save slots per game.
• Rewind feature allows you to skip back up to 40 seconds.
• Built-in Atari BASIC.
• HDMI output with PAL (50Hz) and NTSC (60Hz) support, authentic 4:3 and pixel-perfect display modes, plus optional CRT filters.
• Choice of 12 display frames.
• Includes updated THECXSTICK, a modern recreation of the joystick with eight buttons.
• Connect additional controllers and USB storage devices via four USB-A ports.

The original Atari 800XL launched in November 1993 at $299 in the U.S. and £249 in the UK, so enthusiasts could get them under the TV for Christmas. The revamped model is available for pre-order now for USD $219.99, GBP £199.99, EUR €219.99, and AUD $349.99.

U.S. Semiconductor Manufacturer Wolfspeed Inc. has received a conditional 30-year, $1.5 billion loan commitment letter from the U.S. Department of War (DoW) through its Office of Strategic Capital (OSC), as the country continues its push to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing. According to an official press release on Oct. 7, Wolfspeed — which specializes in silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) materials and devices — will use the long term-financing to upgrade its GaN epitaxy capabilities and to develop radiation hardening capabilities for current SiC and future GaN products.

The company says SiC and related technologies are “critical to next generation power and radio-frequency applications across defense, aerospace, AI, critical infrastructure and other strategic commercial markets,” and that it will focus on U.S. national security applications, including communications infrastructure and electronic warfare systems. “SiC and GaN have critical national security applications,” said Wolfspeed CEO Robert Feurle. “With this financing, the company would be well positioned to not only continue to serve the DoW but also expand its capabilities for the benefit of U.S. national security as a whole,” he continued.

Under the terms of the loan — which is subject to final agreements — Wolfspeed is required to issue the DoW warrants to buy up to 7.5% of its fully diluted equity. The warrants would be priced off the stock's volume-weighted average price (VWAP) and handed over in proportion to each tranche of the loan as it's funded. As of this report, the loan remains conditional, pending the OSC’s completion of its due diligence. Wolfspeed also needs to secure government approvals and appropriations, as well as the consent of its existing lenders. The company itself warns there's no guarantee the financing will go through.

“This conditional 30-year commitment represents another significant milestone in our ongoing efforts to optimize Wolfspeed’s capital structure and improve our financial foundation,” said Wolfspeed CFO Gregor van Issum. “Subject to the satisfaction of diligence, negotiation of definitive agreements, and other financial, legal, and investment conditions, the broader commitment is expected to provide additional long-dated capital to support our strategic priorities, improve financial flexibility, and further position Wolfspeed for long-term value creation.”

The announcement marks the U.S.’s latest move to onshore critical semiconductor manufacturing and strengthen the domestic supply chain, combining direct capital subsidies, major tax incentives, and strict regulatory changes. Through the $54.2 billion CHIPS and Science Act, the U.S. government has injected billions into massive fabrication facilities for industry leaders like TSMC, Intel, GlobalFoundries, and Micron, while simultaneously utilizing the Section 48D Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit to offer a 25% tax credit that has led to over $827 billion in private sector announcements.