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September 9
- SiFive 2nd Gen Intelligence Family Launched
➀ SiFive launched its 2nd Gen Intelligence Family of RISC-V CPUs tailored for AI applications, featuring smaller sizes, lower power consumption, and enhanced accelerator IP integration;
➁ The new series includes X100/X200/X300/XM models with RVA23 standardization for improved software compatibility, and introduces dual interfaces (SSCI/VCIX) to optimize accelerator control;
➂ Architectural innovations like configurable cache hierarchy and optimized exponential functions aim to boost performance for AI accelerators while maintaining flexibility in embedded and large-scale systems.
September 8
- Thank You For the Supercomputers Google Predictions for the Next Phase of AI at Hot Chips 2025
➀ Noam Shazeer, co-lead of Google Gemini, emphasized at Hot Chips 2025 that larger-scale computing resources (e.g., FLOPS, memory, bandwidth) are critical for advancing LLMs;
➁ Training AI models has evolved from 32 GPUs in 2015 to hundreds of thousands of accelerators today, requiring dedicated supercomputing infrastructure;
➂ Future AI hardware demands include enhanced compute density, memory hierarchy optimization, and network scalability to support increasingly complex models.
September 7
- STH Weekly Newsletters You Want to Subscribe in Q3 2025
➀ ServeTheHome (STH) highlights its weekly newsletter summarizing key articles and industry trends for IT professionals, prioritizing reader convenience;
➁ Introduces a paid Axautik Group Substack for in-depth analysis and market insights, targeting enterprise subscribers;
➂ The newsletter format includes weekly recaps, top stories, and upcoming content previews, avoiding intrusive promotion methods.
September 6
- Picking Servers CPUs for Databases in 2025 is Still Complex
➀ Choosing server CPUs for databases in 2025 remains complex due to performance factors like core count, cache, and memory hierarchy, alongside database licensing costs;
➁ High licensing fees for enterprise databases (e.g., Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, SAP HANA) are often tied to CPU cores or memory, making CPU selection critical for cost optimization;
➂ AMD EPYC CPUs exemplify the trade-off between performance and licensing expenses, as vendors design chips to balance database workloads and license-driven cost constraints.
September 1
- MiTAC G8825Z5 AMD Instinct MI325X 8-GPU Server Review
➀ The MiTAC G8825Z5 is an 8-GPU server featuring AMD Instinct MI325X accelerators with 2TB HBM3E memory, powered by dual AMD EPYC Turin CPUs;
➀ The 8U chassis employs a modular design with separate GPU and CPU trays, 15 hot-swappable fan modules, and six 3.3kW Titanium PSUs for optimized cooling and redundancy;
➂ The server emphasizes serviceability, offering 12 PCIe slots for expansion and a rear-agnostic I/O design preferred in data center environments.
August 30
- Crucial X6 2TB Portable USB SSD Review
➀ The Crucial X6 2TB is a cost-effective, compact USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gb/s) external SSD, priced lower than competitors like the Crucial X9 Pro and Samsung T7 Shield.
➁ It offers a read speed of up to 800MB/s and includes shock resistance, vibration-proofing, and drop resistance up to 6.5 feet, with a lightweight design and bundled Type-C cable.
➂ While its sequential write speed is unspecified, it caters to budget-conscious users prioritizing affordability and portability over peak performance.
August 29
- Dell Precision 3240 Compact Mini PC with PCIe Card Slot Overview
➀ The Dell Precision 3240 Compact is a small-form-factor PC gaining popularity in the second-hand market for homelab use, featuring support for Intel Xeon CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs;
➁ It provides a low-profile PCIe slot for expandability (e.g., NICs or GPUs) and includes multiple high-speed USB ports (up to 10Gbps);
➂ The system lacks native tower orientation but offers labeled rear ports, optional vPro management, and refined cooling for a compact design.
August 27
- NVIDIA Outlines GB10 SoC Architecture at Hot Chips 2025
➀ NVIDIA disclosed the architecture of its GB10 SoC at Hot Chips 2025, a multi-die solution combining a Blackwell-based GPU and MediaTek's 20-core Arm CPU, both fabricated on TSMC's 3nm process;
➁ The GB10 powers NVIDIA's DGX Spark workstation, offering FP4 support for AI workloads and enabling scalable cluster configurations;
➂ Designed for high-performance computing, the chip emphasizes collaboration between NVIDIA and MediaTek, targeting advanced AI inference and training applications.
- Huawei Presents UB-Mesh Interconnect for Large AI SuperNodes at Hot Chips 2025
➀ Huawei introduced its UB-Mesh interconnect technology at Hot Chips 2025, targeting large-scale AI SuperNodes with up to a million chips;
➁ The architecture employs a unified protocol and hybrid topology to reduce costs, improve scalability, and ensure reliability for data center-scale deployments;
➂ Key innovations include resilient optical links and hierarchical redundancy to address high error rates and node failures in gigaWatt AI data centers.
- Marvell Shows Dense SRAM Custom HBM and CXL with Arm Compute at Hot Chips 2025
➀ Marvell showcased advanced memory technologies at Hot Chips 2025, including dense 2nm SRAM with 17x higher bandwidth density than standard IP, leveraging TSMC's 2nm process and optimized Vmins for lower power consumption;
➁ The company introduced custom HBM solutions using die-to-die interfaces to reduce on-chip area and power, collaborating with major HBM suppliers to enhance AI accelerator compatibility;
➂ Marvell also demonstrated high-capacity DDR memory expanders with integrated Arm Neoverse v2 CPUs and hardware security, improving latency and bandwidth for large-scale AI workloads.
- NVIDIA Co-Packaged Optics with Silcion Photonics for Switching and Spectrum-XGS Scale-Across
➀ NVIDIA unveiled its co-packaged silicon photonics switches and Spectrum-X Ethernet technology at Hot Chips 2025, targeting gigawatt-scale data center networks for AI workloads;
➁ Spectrum-X reduces network jitter and improves NCCL performance, enabling efficient multi-tenant AI training with 1.9x better scale-out performance compared to traditional Ethernet;
➂ The Spectrum-XGS "scale-across" solution extends AI training across multiple data centers through distance-aware algorithms, with CoreWeave likely being the first deployment partner.
August 26
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and the Age of Neural Rendering at Hot Chips 2025
➀ NVIDIA showcased its Blackwell architecture at Hot Chips 2025, emphasizing advancements in neural rendering and machine learning (ML)-based graphics to enhance realism while optimizing compute efficiency;
➁ The RTX 5090 features GDDR7 memory for higher bandwidth, FP4 precision for ML workloads, and an AI Management Processor to dynamically balance graphics and AI tasks;
➂ New techniques like shader execution reordering and frame-generation via ML reduce power consumption, while Universal MIG enables efficient GPU resource partitioning for multi-client scenarios.
- AMD RDNA 4 GPU Architecture at Hot Chips 2025
➀ AMD presented its RDNA 4 GPU architecture at Hot Chips 2025, highlighting enhancements in raytracing, AI/ML capabilities, and media/display engines, with a focus on future gaming workloads;
➁ Raytracing performance doubled through BVH throughput improvements, hardware instance transformation, and oriented bounding boxes, achieving ~2x gains over RDNA 3;
➂ New features include dynamic register allocation for efficient resource use, AV1 B-frame encoding, FP8 support for AI workloads, and modular SoC design for flexible GPU configurations.
- Microsoft Azure Hardware Security to Help Thwart the World’s 3rd Largest GDP
➀ Microsoft unveiled its Azure hardware security architecture at Hot Chips 2025, emphasizing protection for multi-tenant cloud environments through decentralized Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) integrated into every server;
➁ The company introduced custom ASIC-based Azure Integrated HSMs to eliminate centralized TLS handshakes, alongside its Secure Future Initiative and open-source Caliptra 2.0 silicon root of trust;
➂ With cybercrime projected to exceed $10T in 2025, Microsoft highlighted its 34,000 security engineers and global infrastructure (70+ regions, 400+ data centers) as critical defenses against this economic-scale threat.
- Intel Xeon Clearwater Forest with 288 Cores on Intel 18A at Hot Chips 2025
➀ Intel unveiled its next-gen 288-core Xeon Clearwater Forest processor at Hot Chips 2025, built on Intel 18A process and 3D packaging technology, significantly outperforming the Sierra Forest generation with enhanced cache, E-cores, and memory bandwidth.
➁ The processor utilizes an all-E-core design for power-efficient multi-threaded workloads, featuring architectural upgrades including a 9-wide decoder (up from 6-wide), doubled execution ports (26 ports), and a 17% IPC uplift in SPECint 2017 benchmarks.
➂ Leveraging 3D stacking (Foveros Direct 3D) and advanced power delivery (BSPDN), Clearwater Forest boasts 1300GB/s DDR5-8000 memory bandwidth per socket and claims a 3.5x rack-level performance-per-watt gain over Sierra, targeting data center power efficiency.
August 25
- NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit Hands-on Blackwell for Robotics
➀ The NVIDIA Jetson AGX Thor Developer Kit brings Blackwell architecture to robotics with 25x AI performance improvement over previous gen;
➁ Features 4x 25GbE via QSFP28, advanced cooling, and 1TB SSD with dedicated heatsink, but omits PCIe slot from prior models;
➂ Targets robotics developers with $3,499 kit for prototyping before deploying module-based systems.
- Rebellions REBEL-Quad UCIe and 144TB HBM3E Accelerator at Hot Chips 2025
➀ Rebellions unveiled its REBEL-Quad AI accelerator at Hot Chips 2025, featuring four ASICs with 144GB HBM3E memory and UCIe chiplet interconnects.
➁ The PCIe Gen5 accelerator demonstrated live inference of Llama 3.3 70B models at 35.5ms/token using Samsung SF4X and CoWoS-S packaging.
➂ This marks a significant commercial implementation of UCIe technology, showcasing inter-chip communication advancements in AI hardware design.
August 23
- InnoDisk Shows DDR5-12800 MRDIMMs at FMS 2025
➀ InnoDisk showcased DDR5-12800 MRDIMM samples at FMS 2025, targeting future server platforms;
➁ The MRDIMMs offer capacities up to 128GB and are designed to address memory bandwidth bottlenecks in high-core-count servers;
➂ Intel's current Xeon 6 processors support MRDIMMs, with next-gen platforms expected to double throughput via DDR5-12800 and 16-channel configurations.
August 21
- ASUS ESC A8A-E12U 8x AMD Instinct MI325X GPU Server Review
➀ The ASUS ESC A8A-E12U is a 7U server featuring dual AMD EPYC processors and eight AMD Instinct MI325X GPUs with a total of 2TB HBM3e memory, designed for high-performance AI workloads;
➁ The system supports up to ten NVMe SSDs, eleven PCIe slots, and employs a 5+1 redundant 3kW PSU design, alongside a streamlined air-cooling system with ten hot-swappable front fans;
➂ It offers modular tray-based serviceability for GPUs and PCIe components, with front I/O including dual 10Gbase-T ports and a Q-Code display for diagnostics.
August 18
- Samsung 256TB MVP NVMe SSD at FMS 2025 and More
➀ Samsung showcased its 256TB MVP NVMe SSD at FMS 2025, featuring redesigned architecture for higher capacity and improved performance;
➁ HBM4 memory was highlighted as a critical component for next-gen AI accelerators, alongside CXL-based memory modules (CMM-D) to address server memory bandwidth challenges;
➂ The company also demonstrated flexible storage solutions like the PM9G3 SSD series, emphasizing innovation in NAND stacking and form factor adaptability.
August 17
- Phison Pascari D205V 122.88TB NVMe SSD at FMS 2025
➀ Phison unveiled the Pascari D205V PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSD at FMS 2025, featuring a massive 122.88TB capacity and delivering up to 14.7GB/s read and 3.2GB/s write speeds with 0.3 DWPD endurance.
➁ The SSD is offered in both U.2 2.5" and E3.L 1T form factors, with the latter enabling higher storage density for servers and AI clusters requiring multi-petabyte configurations.
➂ As the industry transitions toward PCIe Gen6, the E3.L form factor is positioned to replace U.2, accommodating future high-capacity SSD designs and supporting AI-driven demand for large-scale storage solutions.
August 16
- ASRock Rack AMPONED8-2T BCM AmpereOne Motherboard at FMS 2025
➀ ASRock Rack unveiled the AMPONED8-2T/BCM motherboard at FMS 2025, supporting Arm-based AmpereOne CPUs for servers;
➁ The motherboard features eight DDR5-5200 RDIMM channels, six PCIe Gen5 x16 slots, dual 10Gbase-T ports via Broadcom BCM57416, and a CEB form factor for chassis compatibility;
➂ Targets users seeking PCIe Gen5/DDR5 platforms as an upgrade path from older Ampere Altra systems.
August 14
- GigaPlus GP-S25-1602 Review A Cheap 16-port 2.5GbE and 2-port 10G Switch
➀ The GigaPlus GP-S25-1602 offers 16x2.5GbE ports and 2x10G SFP+ ports as an unmanaged silent switch priced at $160-170;
➀ Its internal design uses four switch chips providing 120Gbps total capacity, differing from typical single-chip configurations;
➂ While functional for basic use, its unique architecture may impact performance in high-demand scenarios.
- GigaPlus GP-S25-1602 Review A Cheap 16-port 2.5GbE and 2-port 10G Switch
➀ The GigaPlus GP-S25-1602 is a budget-friendly 16-port 2.5GbE and 2-port 10G SFP+ switch with low power consumption and silent operation;
➀ Its internal design uses four daisy-chained 30Gbps switch chips connected via 10Gbps links, explaining its 120Gbps switching capacity but revealing performance limitations in specific traffic scenarios;
➂ Performance tests show acceptable throughput in optimal configurations but significant bottlenecks when crossing chip boundaries.
August 13
- Blackmagic Cloud Store Mini Review A M.2 SSD NAS Made Too Simple
➀ The Blackmagic Cloud Store Mini is a compact 8TB NAS featuring four pre-installed M.2 SSDs, designed for portability and simplicity;
➁ It offers multiple connectivity options, including USB-C for direct computer access, dual Ethernet ports (10GbE and 1GbE), and an HDMI output for system monitoring;
➂ Despite its user-friendly approach, the device introduces enhanced security features, addressing feedback from earlier models.
August 12
- NVIDIA RTX Pro 4000 SFF Blackwell Edition and RTX Pro 2000 Blackwell Announced
➀ NVIDIA announced two new workstation GPUs: RTX Pro 4000 SFF Blackwell Edition (dual-slot, low-profile) with 24GB GDDR7, 8960 CUDA cores, and 70W TDP;
➁ The RTX Pro 2000 Blackwell offers 16GB memory, 4352 CUDA cores, and reduced NVENC/NVDEC engines for cost-sensitive applications;
➂ Both target SFF workstations, with the Pro 4000 Blackwell emphasizing compute performance and the Pro 2000 serving display/output needs.
August 11
- Kioxia Shows LC9 for 8PB or More in 2U and 32-Layer Die Stacked NAND at FMS 2025
➀ Kioxia showcased its 245TB LC9 SSD, enabling 8PB+ storage in 2U server chassis, and demonstrated 32-layer stacked BiCS 8 NAND technology at FMS 2025;
➁ A cross-section view of the 32-die stacked BiCS 8 package highlighted advancements in high-density NAND production;
➂ Kioxia's CM9 PCIe Gen5 SSD was shown supporting five NVIDIA H100 GPUs, exceeding typical Gen5 SSD performance for AI workloads.
August 10
- PCIe 8.0 Announced by the PCI-SIG Will Double Throughput Again
➀ PCI-SIG announced PCIe 8.0, targeting a 2028 release, which will double the throughput compared to PCIe 7.0;
➁ A PCIe 8.0 x16 link will offer 1TB/s bandwidth, a significant leap from PCIe 5.0's 128GB/s;
➂ The rapid evolution of PCIe standards is driven by growing demands from AI and high-performance computing applications.
August 8
- Microchip Adaptec SmartRAID 4300 A New Era of NVMe RAID Controller Without Drive Connectivity
➀ Microchip unveiled the Adaptec SmartRAID 4300 at FMS 2025, a PCIe Gen4 x16 NVMe RAID controller without onboard drive connectivity, marking a departure from traditional designs.
➁ The controller performs XOR parity calculations on-device, allowing data to flow directly from the CPU to NVMe SSDs, bypassing traditional bottlenecks and improving performance (e.g., 27M+ IOPS in Linux).
➂ This approach aligns with industry trends adopted by GRAID and Pliops, leveraging PCIe efficiency and requiring colocation with SSDs on the same CPU for optimal latency reduction.
- CWWK X86-P6 NAS Review an Intel N355 M.2 SSD Mini NAS
➀ The CWWK X86-P6 NAS is a compact, low-power device powered by Intel N355 or N150 processors, featuring dual M.2 SSD slots for storage;
➁ It includes dual 2.5GbE ports, USB 3.0, and an external USB fan for cooling, emphasizing quiet operation and portability;
➂ The review highlights its suitability for travel and unexpected performance insights between the N355 and N150 variants.