No. 102 · 40 stories · 4 sources
Silicon, servers and the state of the bench
Sunday 25 October 2026
This week’s most consequential developments
ICY Dock's ExpressSlot Elite adapter fits two 9.5 mm E1.S NVMe drives into one full-height PCIe x8 slot, aimed at servers, workstations and edge systems.
Why it matters Offers dense removable storage for server and workstation builders who lack spare drive bays.
Newegg's ABS-branded prebuilt pairs an RTX 5070 Ti and Ryzen 7 9800X3D with 32GB of DDR5 and a 2TB SSD, reduced by $450 to $2,549.99.
Why it matters Presents a discounted ready-made option for those seeking a 4K gaming machine without building one.
We test the cheap ADT R27A-BK3 card to see what the U.2 SSD to PCIe card slot adapter offers, and how the cooling works The post ADT R27A-BK3 U.2 to PCIe Adapter Review appeared first on ServeTheHome.
Power management, ACPI and thermal control updates have been merged for Linux 7.4, adding support for upcoming AMD Zen 6 and Intel Panther Lake processors.
Why it matters Signals that Linux will be ready for next-generation laptop and desktop chips when they arrive.
AMD is reportedly working on official Ryzen overclocking controls for Linux. Per Phoronix, AMD engineer Shyam Sundar S K has posted a three-patch series for a new driver called AOD, short for AMD Overclocking Driver, to the platform-driver-x86 mailing list. It is a WMI driver that talks to the same…
Newegg is selling a bundle of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 32GB of DDR5 and a Gigabyte X870E board for $1,029.99, with the combined parts saving over $238.
Why it matters Gives budget-conscious builders a discounted route to a 4K gaming platform, provided the bundle suits their needs.
AMD's $100 Ryzen 5 5500F moves from the Cezanne-based 5500 to Vermeer silicon, with a 200 MHz higher boost and a PCIe 4.0 upgrade.
Why it matters Shows whether AMD's cheapest current chip is worth buying for a budget gaming build.
A Reddit user reported that two AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition chips bought from Amazon, sealed and with matching markings, contained an Intel CPU underneath the heat spreader.
Why it matters If confirmed, it points to counterfeit or swapped processors reaching buyers through a major retailer, which would matter to anyone buying high-end chips online.
Work is under way to add x86 kernel shadow stack support to Linux, extending hardware-enforced control-flow protection that user space already uses.
Why it matters Would help defend Linux systems against return-oriented programming attacks on recent Intel and AMD chips.
A leaker on X claims Intel's Core Ultra 9 4995HX will be the fastest Nova Lake laptop chip, with 28 CPU cores in an 8+16+4+2 layout.
Why it matters If accurate, it would give laptop buyers four more CPU cores than the current Arrow Lake-HX generation, though the claims remain unconfirmed by Intel.
AMD has released Adrenalin 26.10.1 WHQL graphics drivers, adding FSR 4.1 upscaling support for Radeon RX 6000 cards and several Ryzen AI processor families.
Why it matters Users with the listed Radeon cards and Ryzen AI chips can now install a certified driver that enables the new upscaling option.
Axiomtek has launched the MANO330, a Thin Mini-ITX industrial motherboard built around an Intel N97 or N150 processor with DDR5 memory.
Why it matters The board targets embedded and industrial deployments where compact size and low power draw matter more than raw performance.
A new AMD Gainsborough APU, possibly destined for a Steam Deck 2, has appeared in OpenBenchmarking with six cores and twelve threads, half as many again as the current chip.
Why it matters The leak is an engineering sample found in a public database, so the final specification and launch timing remain uncertain.
A leak on Weibo suggests AMD's Ryzen AI 7 HX 455 will have eight cores, 16 threads and a 16-CU Radeon graphics unit, closely resembling the existing Ryzen Z2 Extreme.
Why it matters If accurate, it would give thin laptop buyers a modest upgrade in integrated graphics without a dedicated GPU.
ORICO, best known for storage and connectivity products, is entering the laptop market with the Obook 15 AI, built on AMD's eight-core Ryzen 7 6800H processor.
Why it matters A storage specialist's first laptop is a hardware choice worth noting, though the six-year-old chip is not a current-generation part.
Also moving, worth a read
The Linux 7.4 block/storage and IO_uring updates were merged today for the ongoing merge window. With the breadth of Linux hardware support, the pull request varies from fixes to Linux's floppy driver to enabling support for NVMe storage on Apple M4 devices...
The Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI combines a 240 Hz QHD+ OLED display with Intel’s 24-core Core Ultra 9 processor and Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti graphics, and Best Buy is offering discounts of up to $800.
OptiScaler is a community-driven project that seeks to bring the benefits of upscaling and frame-generation across brands of GPUs, so gamers don't miss out on playability if the game doesn't feature the upscaler/frame-gen tech provided by their GPU vendor. The community successfully modded AMD FSR…
Gigabyte's $209 Z890M Aorus Elite WiFi 7 Ice is a Micro ATX Intel board with an icy-white finish and full heatsink coverage.
AMD's Zen 6 just got one of its first rough per-clock comparisons against Zen 5, and the early numbers look good. Leaker HXL spotted a Geekbench 7.1.0 listing for the 256-core EPYC 9996, the flagship "Venice" chip AMD launched in July, scoring 2,847 points in single-core on a Dell…
A security firm has identified 32 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra B300 AI chips inside China Telecom's network, though their physical location remains unclear.
A Linux patch correcting under-reported TLB sizes for AMD Zen 5 and newer processors has been merged into the Linux 7.4 kernel.
We give you a glimpse at some of the biggest stories we've published over on Tom's Hardware Premium this week, including reports on TP-Link's struggles over sales of its Wi-Fi 8 routers, FADU's new SSD, and how to juice better gaming performance from RTX Spark.
Wondering why RTX 5090s are so hard to find? Leaked footage shows thousands of consumer GPUs, including Founders Editions, being torn apart for AI servers.
AMD's HIPRT 3.2 release lists three GPU architecture IDs for the integrated graphics of its unreleased Zen 6 Medusa processors.
Slab allocator updates merged for Linux 7.4 bring little visible change for most users, though one tweak raises a memory benchmark's throughput by 24%.
A preview driver from ASUS adds FSR 4.1 upscaling to the ROG Xbox Ally X and Ally X20, delivered through Armoury Crate SE's preview channel.
Cooler Master's stainless steel QUBE 540 supports ATX boards and graphics cards up to 415mm without front fans, with flexible orientation options.
ServeTheHome reviews MSI's XpertStation WS300, a local AI system built on NVIDIA's DGX Station platform, assessing its performance for on-premises workloads.
Micron's G11 3D NAND exceeds 400 layers and reaches 42 Gb/mm², roughly doubling bit density, with a 5,400 MT/s interface for faster SSDs.
The UXL Foundation has released oneDNN 3.14, an update to the deep learning library used by PyTorch, TensorFlow and OpenVINO, adding ACE support and early AMD Zen optimisations.
Merged changes to the PCI and PCIe subsystem for the Linux 7.4 merge window are reported, alongside a hibernation improvement aimed at meeting energy certification requirements.
A request for comments on the Linux mailing list proposes cleaning up AMD Zen microarchitecture detection, with AI tools reportedly assisting the effort.
Xiaomi has confirmed a 2027 Redmi Book 14 with an Intel Wildcat Lake processor and a 2.8K display, and has announced a launch date.
Durabook's R12 rugged tablet, built on Intel Core Ultra Series 3, is presented as an edge AI platform, according to a company announcement.
The x86 single-board server pairs an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H with Arc B390 graphics, aimed at running AI workloads in embedded products.
Police have identified three airport employees accused of stealing the RTX 5090 shipment, and one of the stolen cards has since been listed for sale online.
Thermaltake, a PC case and component maker, has announced a full range of AI workstations and gaming PCs, according to a company press release.
A Valve patch for Mesa's RADV driver, due in Mesa 27.0 and a stable backport, extends Steam Play compatibility on older Polaris-class AMD GPUs.
TrendForce forecasts server CPU shipments to rise 31% in 2026 and over 40% in 2027, with Arm-based products gaining market share.