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GlobalFoundries VP Sudipto Bose outlined the company's FDX Fusion technology, an FD-SOI-based process using advanced planar transistors to reach 7nm-class performance without EUV lithography. Bose said the process offers 8nm-class logic density, with commercial production planned to start in 2028 and high-volume manufacturing targeted for 2030.
Ampere's Architecture & Performance team has released Panthera, the cycle-accurate software model it uses internally to evaluate prospective CPU features and microarchitectural tradeoffs for its cloud processors. The company published a user guide covering how to build and use the model and its associated tooling, allowing outside researchers to run workloads against it.
Microsoft announced optimizations to Windows 11 aimed at devices with only 8GB of RAM, claiming the system is now up to 20% more responsive and 40% faster at multitasking in its own lab tests. The company says it achieved this through memory compression that keeps up to 2GB more active data in RAM, reduced background indexing during active use, and efficiency tweaks including a 33% faster Edge browser launch.
A reader poll of more than 1,200 respondents found over 60% believe Google Gemini's performance has declined in recent months, with complaints of misunderstandings and degraded output. Excluding non-users, nearly two-thirds of respondents reported dissatisfaction, while about 20% said they saw no decline and 14.6% were unsure. Commenters described Gemini as frustrating and said rival assistants now outperform it for everyday tasks.
Enclosed cabinets, often used for a tidy entertainment center look, can trap heat around gaming consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation. This restricted airflow can degrade performance or shorten the lifespan of the hardware, according to the report.
A technical blog post explains that a CPU showing 100% utilization may not actually be fully working, because much of that time can be spent waiting on memory accesses rather than executing instructions. It breaks down the latency gap between CPU cores and memory tiers, noting RAM access can take 50-100ns versus roughly 1ns for L1 cache, meaning a CPU could execute 400-800 instructions in the time it takes to fetch data from RAM once.
Beats is ending its launch discount on replacement cushion sets for the Beats 360 headphones today. Performance Knit cushions, available in six colors, and UltraPlush cushions, available in two colors, have both been priced at $9.99 instead of their normal $50 since the headphones launched about six weeks ago. The Beats 360 headphones themselves remain available separately for $349.99.
Canada has agreed to join the European Union's EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, a consortium that pools supercomputing resources across member states. The arrangement would give Canadian researchers access to shared high-performance computing infrastructure alongside European partners.
A commentary piece contends that the mental traits driving business success—pushing through discomfort, sustaining focus under pressure, and executing despite obstacles—do not automatically transfer to managing personal health and fitness. The author argues that caring for one's body requires a distinct mindset separate from the drive that makes someone excel professionally.
Tom's Hardware is building an internal benchmark to measure how CPU and memory performance affect agentic AI loops, isolating these components from the AI accelerator. The outlet says it has prototyped the test and settled on a core design, but acknowledges the methodology is unfinished and the results aren't yet reliable enough for publication.
Corsair has released the Warthog, a mid-tower PC case styled after a military jerry can and built as a successor to its 2012 Vengeance C70. The chassis includes an InfiniRail fan mounting system, a pegboard motherboard tray for cable management, support for massive GPUs, and room for up to three 360mm radiators. Tom's Hardware reviewed the case, praising its rugged looks and airflow but noting a higher price and noisier GPU cooling performance.
Apple has launched a new entry-level iMac powered by its M6 chip, following the processor's earlier debut in the Mac mini and Mac Studio. The chip brings up to 12 CPU cores, 12 GPU cores, a dual 16-core Neural Engine and 170GB/s memory bandwidth, with memory configurations starting at 16GB and scaling to 32GB.