HW News - Valve Improves VRAM Usage, NVIDIA N1 CPU Spotted, Data Center Tax Parasites, GPU Prices

This week's tech news recap covers a range of topics, from industry shifts and new product releases to right-to-repair issues and government initiatives. The PC industry is facing a significant downturn, with numerous companies reporting substantial revenue drops, some as high as 70%. This decline is linked to a DRAM crisis, impacting sales figures and leading to unfortunate layoffs across the industry. This situation is prompting a major investigative series, involving travel to California and Taipei to interview various companies and gather insights into the causes and effects of this collapse. The rising cost of freight, exacerbated by increasing oil prices, is also contributing to the industry's challenges. In product news, an engineering sample of an Nvidia N1 laptop motherboard, intended for an upcoming ARM-based SOC collaboration with MediaTek, was spotted online. This board reportedly features 128 GB of LPDDR5X memory. Dell and Lenovo are expected to integrate this Nvidia-MediaTek chip into their laptops, with initial models potentially arriving in the first half of this year. Nvidia has publicly acknowledged its partnership with MediaTek and hinted at a major announcement around Computex, which aligns with this timeline. AMD has announced the pricing and release date for its 9950 X3D2 "dual edition" CPU. Slated for release on April 22nd at $900, this 16-core, 32-thread processor builds on its predecessor by stacking 3D V-cache onto both chiplets, increasing the L3 cache from 128 MB to 192 MB. This design aims to simplify chiplet prioritization for tasks, as both are now identical. The CPU boasts a max boost clock of 5.6 GHz and a 200-watt TDP. Price increases are a recurring theme across the tech sector. Microsoft has raised prices for its Surface PCs, with some models seeing hikes of up to $500, attributed to rising RAM costs. For example, a 13-inch Surface Pro with 16 GB of memory and 512 GB of storage, which cost $1,200 in 2025, now retails for $1,500. Similarly, ASUS has increased prices on its RX 970 XT GPUs by 16% to nearly 32%, with no specific reason provided, though silicon, VRAM, inflation, and shipping costs are likely factors. The semiconductor industry faces challenges from helium supply issues. Helium, a byproduct of natural gas liquefaction, is crucial for chip manufacturing. Geopolitical tensions, particularly concerning the Strait of Hormuz, are impacting the supply of helium and liquefied natural gas (LNG), with Taiwan's semiconductor industry, including TSMC, being particularly vulnerable. Taiwan's Semiconductor Industry Association (TSIA) is calling for strategic stockpiling of resources and diversification of energy and material supplies, noting that Taiwan currently has only about 11 days of LNG reserves and no helium stockpiles. The TSIA also supports reopening nuclear power plants for stable energy. In other news, Texas's tax exemptions for data centers are under scrutiny. A 2013 bill granted these exemptions, which initially cost the state $5 million to $30 million annually. However, with the AI data center boom, these exemptions are projected to cost Texas $3.2 billion in sales tax revenue over the next two years, and $1.8 billion annually by 2030. This policy, enacted before the AI surge, exempts qualifying data centers from the state's 6.25% sales tax, including costs for cooling systems and electricity. A recent poll indicates that 65% of adults oppose the construction of AI data centers in their communities, and even the original author of the tax exemption bill suggests revisiting the policy. A Colorado bill, SB26-090, aims to weaken right-to-repair laws by exempting "critical infrastructure" information technology equipment from consumer repair rights. Backed by companies like Cisco and IBM, who cite cybersecurity concerns, critics argue the true motivation is financial. The bill's definition of "critical infrastructure" is a major point of contention, as it allows manufacturers to self-declare products as critical infrastructure. This could potentially limit a consumer's ability to repair a wide range of products. The bill has advanced out of committee and awaits Senate and House approval. On a positive note, an independent contractor working with Valve, Natalie Vach, claims to have improved VRAM utilization for Linux gaming, particularly benefiting 8 GB GPUs and below. She leveraged Linux cgroups, a kernel feature, to prioritize game processes over background applications, leading to more efficient VRAM allocation. This dynamic prioritization ensures foreground applications receive optimal VRAM. The improvements are expected to work on Intel and AMD GPUs, but not on Nvidia GPUs due to their proprietary kernel modules. Users can try this fix by using specific kernel patches and utilities, with Cache OS with KDE as a recommended option. South Korea is implementing initiatives to address computer affordability amid rising costs, especially for DRAM. The government plans to reuse and donate more previously junked computers and provide subsidies to low-income students for PC purchases. This move is part of broader countermeasures to stabilize consumer prices, as global DRAM prices have surged. The South Korean government expects memory prices to remain high for a considerable period, with PC and laptop prices increasing by over 10% in the last seven months. South Korean companies like Samsung and SK Hynix, which control over two-thirds of the global DRAM market, are benefiting from the AI data center buildout. Finally, a Brazilian modder, Paulo Gomez, successfully resurrected a damaged MSI RTX 4090, albeit with 20 GB of memory instead of 24 GB. The card was damaged due to GPU sag, with physical traces connected to one of the memory channels destroyed. Gomez flashed a modified BIOS to disable the faulty channel and rerouted damaged power rails, restoring functionality. He demonstrated the card working with 20 GB of memory. In a humorous anecdote from the Artemis 2 moon mission, commander Reed Weisman reported issues with Microsoft Outlook, leading to an expletive-laden reaction from mission control captured on audio.