I wrote a couple of weeks ago about my personal homebrew Steam Machine, a self-built desktop under my TV featuring an AMD Ryzen 7 8700G processor and a Radeon 780M integrated GPU. I wouldn’t recommend making your own version of this build, especially with RAM prices as they currently are, but there are all kinds of inexpensive mini PCs on Amazon with the same GPU, and they’ll all be pretty good at playing the kinds of games that already run well on the less-powerful Steam Deck.

But this kind of hardware is an imperfect proxy for the Steam Machine that Valve plans to launch sometime next year—that box will include a dedicated GPU with 8GB of dedicated video memory, presenting both benefits and possible pitfalls compared to a system with an integrated GPU.

As a last pre-Steam Machine follow-up to our coverage so far, we’ve run tests on several games we test regularly in our GPU reviews to get a sense of how current versions of SteamOS stack up to Windows running on the same hardware. What we’ve found so far is basically the inverse of what we found when comparing handhelds: Windows usually has an edge on SteamOS’s performance, and sometimes that gap is quite large. And SteamOS also exacerbates problems with 8GB GPUs, hitting apparent RAM limits in more games and at lower resolutions compared to Windows.

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And it’s making us even more excited for the rumored PlayStation 6 handheld.

When Valve announced its upcoming Steam Machine hardware last month, some eagle-eyed gamers may have been surprised to see that the official spec sheet lists support for HDMI 2.0 output, rather than the updated, higher-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 standard introduced in 2017. Now, Valve tells Ars that, while the hardware itself actually supports HDMI 2.1, the company is struggling to offer full support for that standard due to Linux drivers that are “still a work-in-progress on the software side.”

As we noted last year, the HDMI Forum (which manages the official specifications for HDMI standards) has officially blocked any open source implementation of HDMI 2.1. That means the open source AMD drivers used by SteamOS can’t fully implement certain features that are specific to the updated output standard.

“At this time an open source HDMI 2.1 implementation is not possible without running afoul of the HDMI Forum requirements,” AMD engineer Alex Deucher said at the time.

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On Wednesday, Micron Technology announced it will exit the consumer RAM business in 2026, ending 29 years of selling RAM and SSDs to PC builders and enthusiasts under the Crucial brand. The company cited heavy demand from AI data centers as the reason for abandoning its consumer brand, a move that will remove one of the most recognizable names in the do-it-yourself PC upgrade market.

“The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage,” Sumit Sadana, EVP and chief business officer at Micron Technology, said in a statement. “Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments.”

Micron said it will continue shipping Crucial consumer products through the end of its fiscal second quarter in February 2026 and will honor warranties on existing products. The company will continue selling Micron-branded enterprise products to commercial customers and plans to redeploy affected employees to other positions within the company.

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PC component prices are really out of control right now.

By Valve’s admission, its upcoming Steam Machine desktop isn’t swinging for the fences with its graphical performance. The specs promise decent 1080p-to-1440p performance in most games, with 4K occasionally reachable with assistance from FSR upscaling—about what you’d expect from a box with a modern midrange graphics card in it.

But there’s one spec that has caused some concern among Ars staffers and others with their eyes on the Steam Machine: The GPU comes with just 8GB of dedicated graphics RAM, an amount that is steadily becoming more of a bottleneck for midrange GPUs like AMD’s Radeon RX 7060 and 9060, or Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 4060 or 5060.

In our reviews of these GPUs, we’ve already run into some games where the RAM ceiling limits performance in Windows, especially at 1440p. But we’ve been doing more extensive testing of various GPUs with SteamOS, and we can confirm that in current betas, 8GB GPUs struggle even more on SteamOS than they do running the same games at the same settings in Windows 11.

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Steam's November 2025 survey shows Linux gaming climbed to its highest share in a decade "thanks to the success of the Steam Deck, the underlying Steam Play (Proton) software, and now further excitement thanks to the upcoming Steam Machine and Steam Frame," writes Phoronix's Michael Larabel. From the report: A decade ago in the early Steam days the initial use was around 3% and back then the Steam user-base in absolute terms was much smaller than it is today. Back in October Steam on Linux finally re-crossed that 3% threshold after for years being stuck in a 1~2% rut. Now the Steam Survey results were published minutes ago for November and they continue an upward trend for Linux. Steam on Linux is up to 3.2%, an increase of 0.15% for the month. One year ago Steam on Linux was at 2.03% last November, 1.91% for November 2023, and a decade ago for November 2015 was at just 0.98%. [...] Due to AMD APUs powering the Steam Deck, AMD CPUs continue to power nearly 70% of Linux gaming systems. Meanwhile under Windows, AMD has around a 42% CPU marketshare.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Really, we need a new affordable option for gaming processors.

Modern PCs can set you back by a considerable amount, so it makes sense to protect your hardware from heat and excessive voltage. Over the past few years, there’s been a noticeable rise in CPU failures linked to overvolting on default motherboard settings. What’s causing this, and is there a way to prevent it?

When it comes to PCs, Westerners are most most familiar with x86/x64 processors from Intel and AMD, with Apple Silicon taking up a significant market share, too. However, in China, a relatively new CPU architecture is on the rise. A fabless semiconductor company called Loongson has been producing chips with its LoongArch architecture since 2021. These chips remain rare outside China, but some in the West have been benchmarking them.

[Daniel Lemire] has recently blogged about the performance of the Loongson 3A6000, which debuted in late 2023. The chip was put through a range of simple benchmarking tests, involving float processing and string transcoding operations. [Daniel] compared it to the Intel Xeon Gold 6338 from 2021, noting the Intel chip pretty much performed better across the board. No surprise given its extra clock rate. Meanwhile, the gang over at [Chips and Cheese] ran even more exhaustive tests on the same chip last year. The Loongson was put through typical tasks like  compressing archives and encoding video. The outlet came to the conclusion that the chip was a little weaker than older CPUs like AMD’s Zen 2 line and Intel’s 10th generation Core chips. It’s also limited as a four-core chip compared to modern Intel and AMD lines that often start at 6 cores as a minimum.

If you find yourself interested in Loongson’s product, don’t get too excited. They’re not exactly easy to lay your hands on outside of China, and even the company’s own website is difficult to access from beyond those shores. You might try reaching out to Loongson-oriented online communities if you seek such hardware.

Different CPU architectures have perhaps never been more relevant, particularly as we see the x86 stalwarts doing battle with the rise of desktop and laptop ARM processors. If you’ve found something interesting regarding another obscure kind of CPU, don’t hesitate to let the tipsline know!

It’s not a bad time to upgrade your gaming PC. Graphics card prices in the 2020s have undulated continuously as the industry has dealt with pandemic and AI-related shortages, but it’s actually possible to get respectable mainstream- to high-end GPUs like AMD’s Radeon RX 9060 XT and 9070 series or Nvidia’s RTX 5060, 5070, and 5080 series for at or slightly under their suggested retail prices right now. This was close to impossible through the spring and summer.

But it’s not a good time to build a new PC or swap your older motherboard out for a new one that needs DDR5 RAM. And the culprit is a shortage of RAM and flash memory chips that has suddenly sent SSD and (especially) memory prices into the stratosphere, caused primarily by the ongoing AI boom and exacerbated by panic-fueled buying by end users and device manufacturers.

To illustrate just how high things have jumped in a short amount of time, let’s compare some of the RAM and storage prices listed in our system guide from three months ago to the pricing for the exact same components today. Note that several of these are based on the last available price and are currently sold out; we also haven’t looked into things like microSD or microSD Express cards, which could also be affected.

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Intel, AMD and Nvidia have published security advisories describing vulnerabilities found recently in their products.

The post Chipmaker Patch Tuesday: Over 60 Vulnerabilities Patched by Intel appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Credit: John Burek

(Photo: John Burek)If you’re an executive at Intel or AMD and in charge of sales forecasts, you likely projected some big numbers for the end of 2022. Both companies had unveiled their new platforms, promising next-gen performance and features. Since many people could not upgrade their PCs during the pandemic, all the ingredients of a booming holiday sales period were present. Added to the mixture were all-new, high-powered GPUs as well. Overall, it seemed like the perfect time to build or buy a new PC. Oddly, that did not come to pass. Instead, Q4 ended up being the worst period for CPU sales in 30 years, according to Mercury Research.

The market analysis company’s president, Dean McCarron, discussed the somber news with our colleagues at PCMag this week. CPU sales declined year-over-year by 34% and quarter-over-quarter by 19%. Those are the biggest declines for both metrics Mercury has ever tabulated in its 30 years of existence.

The reasons for the decline include excess inventory and low demand for CPUs. Intangible factors may also be at play, such as global economic uncertainty. The numbers mirror those from IDC, which also posted a gloomy Q4 report recently for PC shipments. IDC’s numbers from 90 countries showed a 28.1% decline year-over-year. That drop-off was twice as high as in Q3, making Q4 a particularly bloody quarter for the PC industry.

In response to the turbulence, Intel and AMD are now under-shipping CPUs. Both companies’ CEOs admitted to this in their recent earnings calls. AMD’s CEO said it would do less of it in Q1, though. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said his company’s “Q4 under shipping [was] meaningfully higher than full year.” Despite this strategy, CPU shipments for both laptops and desktops suffered dramatic declines in what is normally a robust quarter. Intel also suffered from its decision to announce price increases in Q3. That caused some of its partners to buy stock before the price went up in Q4.

Despite the dour report, it’s not all bad for the PC market. In 2022 overall, CPU shipments and revenue were down 21 and 19%, respectively, from previous years. However, that was the pandemic era, a magical time of record profits for all semiconductor companies. Despite the decline, the numbers in 2022 were still better than the pre-pandemic years. Although the red ink is projected to continue to flow for another quarter or two, a turnaround is expected later this year.

One unexpected result from this volatility is it’s allowed AMD to claw market share away from Intel. According to IDC’s report via HotHardware, AMD now has over 30% of the x86 market. While Intel still has more than twice that market share, it lost 5.6% over the past year.

Now Read:

• Nvidia Announces Record $7.1 Billion Q3 Revenue
• IDC: Global PC Shipments Declined 15 Percent in The Second Quarter
• Semiconductor Industry Forecast Projects Huge Gains for AMD, Losses for Intel and Sony

(Photo: AMD)Things move fast in the world of PC hardware. One day you’re sitting on the top of the throne; the next, you’re an also-ran. Such is the case with AMD’s fledgling Zen 4 mobile CPU, the “Dragon Range” Ryzen 9 7845HX. Earlier this week, it appeared out of the shadows and leaped to the top of Passmark’s mobile CPU rankings. Now, just several days later, it’s been usurped by Intel’s Raptor Lake mobile. Those CPUs officially launched this week alongside Nvidia’s RTX 4090 and 4080 laptop GPUs. All is not lost for AMD, though, as it’s yet to launch the flagship SKU, which could even the score.

Two Intel CPUs now stand atop the PassMark mobile benchmark leader boards care of @9550Pro: the Core i9-13980HX and 13900HX. They were both stuffed into expensive, heavy, and powerful next-gen laptops, which were reviewed this week. Each of the CPUs shares the same 8P-core, 16E-core design, offering 32 threads in a mobile CPU for the first time. The 13980HX’s maximum boost frequency of 5.6GHz is 200MHz higher than that of the 13900HX. Its E-cores can also boost 100MHz higher to 4GHz.  Otherwise, the two CPUs are basically the same and share a 55W TDP base power consumption. That can go as high as 157W or as low as 45W.

Intel’s 24-thread, 32-core CPUs went up against the Ryzen 9 7845HX, which is also a 55W CPU. However, it is a 12-core, 24-thread SKU with a maximum boost frequency of 5.2GHz. Clearly, the odds are stacked in Intel’s favor here. Overall, in single-threaded performance, Intel’s CPUs are faster than the AMD 7845HX by 9% and 14% for the 13900 and 13980HX, respectively. In multi-threaded performance, Intel’s CPUs hold an advantage of 11% and 16%, as noted by Videocardz. It should also be noted that AMD has not officially launched its Zen 4 mobile CPUs, so take AMD’s numbers with a grain of salt.

For now, Intel better hold off popping the cork on that champagne bottle. That is, assuming it hasn’t auctioned it off on eBay yet after its most recent earnings report. AMD still has an ace up its sleeve in the form of the Ryzen 9 7945HX. That is the 16-core, 32-thread Dragon Range CPU with a maximum boost clock of 5.4GHz. That’ll put it alongside the Core i9-13900HX on the spec sheet for clocks and threads. Intel still has a small advantage in core count at 24 total. Not to mention Intel also has the Core i9-13980HX with even higher clocks. Still, we expect this battle to be a nail-biter.

AMD is expected to launch notebooks featuring its Dragon Range CPUs this month. It should also be unveiling its RDNA 3 mobile GPUs in them too. Intel and Nvidia have already laid down a heavy marker with their latest hardware. It’ll be interesting to see if AMD can compete and whether it can leverage its AMD Advantage technology to leapfrog its rivals. Its Dragon Range CPUs are also the first mobile CPUs with a chiplet design, so that adds a spicy twist to the proceedings.

Now Read:

• AMD Reveals Ryzen 7000 V-Cache Pricing and Availability
• Rumored AMD RDNA4 Specs Indicate 3.5GHz Clocks, Double RDNA3 Performance
• AMD Attempts to Pour Cold Water on Nvidia’s RTX 4080 Launch

(Credit: AMD)

AMD has published a new blog post attempting to convince people of its status as a GPU industry leader. Along the way, it seems to have inadvertently admitted its older GPUs are a better value than the newest models. It reminds us of the oft-used online phrase, “An attempt was made.”

The gist of the blog is boilerplate PR about how AMD Radeon GPUs are the best at every resolution and price point. It notably does not compare its GPUs against Intel or Nvidia with numbers. Anyway, with many AAA titles out currently and more on the way, AMD wants people looking to upgrade to buy an AMD GPU. To help convince them, it provides a handy chart showing the fps-to-dollar ratio for its entire 7000 and 6000 lineups across six games at 1080p: Apex Legends, Valorant, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, The Callisto Protocol, GTA V, and Overwatch 2.

All games were tested at “Max” settings, aside from the entry-level RX 6400, which ran these games at a “Medium” preset. It’s in this chart that it shows its 7900 GPUs offering the worst bang-for-the-buck value of its entire product stack.

If you just pay attention to the grey bars, you’ll note how they start out small at the top. They then proceed to get wider and wider, all the way to the bottom as it ticks through the 6000 series. This essentially shows that as you go down the product stack, fps-per-dollar only goes up. It means that every 6000 series GPU offers more fps-per-dollar than its most recent GPUs.

We’re not sure why AMD’s marketing team felt compelled to point this out. Perhaps it is just stating the obvious, that its newest GPUs have an early adopter tax built into their pricing. Maybe AMD is still happy to be selling RX 6000 series GPUs. We imagine Nvidia is in the same camp, as it needs to clear out its Ampere GPUs to pave the way for more Ada Lovelace purchases. Still, AMD seems to be faring well so far with its RDNA3 GPUs, vapor chamber issues aside.

As we reported previously, the RX 7900 XT is currently the top-selling GPU in Germany. You can insert a David Hasselhoff joke here, but the numbers show it’s been a success so far.

We reached out to AMD to help us understand why it’s pushing this angle, as it paints its older GPUs in a more favorable light than its newer models. We’ll update this article if and when we hear back.

Now Read:

• AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX: Powerful, but Lacking in Ray Tracing
• The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Is Much Smaller Than the RTX 4080
• AMD Attempts to Pour Cold Water on Nvidia’s RTX 4080 Launch