Microsoft’s embarrassing Windows 11 printer fail finally gets fixed – but is it too late?

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Microsoft has officially marked a frustrating printer bug as resolved, and those folks who were being blocked from upgrading to Windows 11 22H2 due to the compatibility issue will doubtless be pleased to hear that.

You might recall this seriously troublesome bug that emerged in late September 2022, forcing printers to revert to their default settings. By default, many important features weren’t available – we’re talking about printing in duplex, higher resolutions, and maybe even color, which could obviously be major stumbling blocks.

The good news is that as Neowin spotted, Microsoft officially marked the issue as resolved just a few days ago (November 18). In actual fact, the safeguard blocking devices which could run into this bug was removed a week previously – therefore allowing those machines to update to Windows 11 22H2 – though it could still take some time for the upgrade to come through.

At this point, though, any machine with a connected printer that could fall prey to this bug should be able to go ahead and upgrade to 22H2 successfully without waiting.

Microsoft observed: “Any printer still affected by this issue should now get resolved automatically during upgrade to Windows 11, version 22H2.”

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Analysis: A rocky road, for sure

This has been a bit of a rocky road for those with an affected printer wishing to upgrade to Windows 11 22H2, of course, as the bug has hung around for quite some time. As noted, it was two months ago that it first came to our attention, so this has hardly been a quick fix.

With a lot of questions being asked about the prevalence of Windows 10 bugs in the past, and now Windows 11 apparently continuing with a worrying amount of problems in terms of quality assurance, the whole affair isn’t a great look for Microsoft. Yes, we’ve banged this drum many times, but we’ll continue to do so while bugs like this printer-related gremlin – or other flaws such as File Explorer crashing or slowing down Windows 11 PCs – are still popping up far too often for our liking.

If you’ve been suffering at the hands of a gremlin in the works with Microsoft’s latest OS, be sure to check out our guide to solving common problems with Windows 11.

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Asus details power demands of RDNA 3 GPUs – and they may not be as much as you think

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Asus has provided official power supply requirements for those buying a new RTX 4080 or 4090 graphics card from the company, and also the necessary wattages for those looking at purchasing an RX 7900 XT or 7900 XTX when those RDNA 3 cards emerge in December.

Bear in mind that the stipulated PSUs for these graphics cards do depend on what CPU you’re running them with, as these days, some processors can demand a whole lot of juice from the power supply too – so whatever combo you have in your PC, you must bear that in mind.

ASUS PSU TABLE pic.twitter.com/tpcvY7UQUENovember 16, 2022

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As @momomo_us reports on Twitter (via VideoCardz), Asus recommends that the RTX 4090 has at least an 850W power supply if running an Intel Core i5 or Ryzen 5 CPU. For those using a Core i7 or Core i9 chip, or Ryzen 7 or 9, that recommendation is pushed up to 1000W. For Intel HEDT (high-end desktop) or Threadripper CPUs, the PSU should be 1200W, no less.

For the RTX 4080, the base recommendation is 750W and that holds for Core i5 and i7 models, or Ryzen 5 or 7. For a Core i9 or Ryzen 9, it’s cranked up to 850W, and 1000W for Threadripper or Intel HEDT.

What about those recommendations for AMD’s incoming RDNA 3 graphics cards? Those wanting to grab an RX 7900 XT are looking at the exact same deal as the RTX 4080 – 750W for the Core i5 or i7 CPUs (and Ryzen 5 or 7), then stepping up to 850W for a Core i9 or Ryzen 9, and 1000W for an HEDT model.

For the RX 7900 XTX, you’re looking at 850W for a Core i5 or i7 (and Ryzen 5 or 7), and 1000W for when paired with a Core i9 or Ryzen 9 CPU. For an HEDT chip, the requirement is a lofty 1,200W, just as with the RTX 4090.

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Analysis: Compare and contrast with AMD’s current-gen

It’s interesting to see some official figures from a graphics card maker for RDNA 3 products, although there are no real surprises here. The RX 7900 XT and 7900 XTX in particular were never going to be anything less than pretty demanding on the PC’s power supply, but the AMD flagship does push things to the same kind of level as the RTX 4090 – with the notable exception of an easier time for those running Core i7 or Ryzen 7 CPUs (probably quite a few users, as not everyone feels the need to push to Core i9 or Ryzen 9).

What’s perhaps more instructive is to compare the incoming AMD graphics cards to their predecessor models, and it’s here we see that the RX 7900 XT actually notches things down from the 6900 XT. At least for Core i7/Ryzen 7 and Core i9/Ryzen 9 processors, where the 7900 XT demands 100W less and 150W less respectively; that’s quite impressive in comparison. (In fact, the 7900 XT has the same requirements as the 6800 XT, believe it or not).

There isn’t a direct comparison for the 7900 XTX, but it does keep things the same as the 6950 XT (all but in HEDT turf where the new graphics card does require considerably more, 200W to be precise – but those are more niche cases).

Overall, then, this is decent news for those looking at a new AMD RDNA 3 GPU down the line, especially given Nvidia’s current troubles with melting cables and the RTX 4090 (with question marks over whether this problem will affect the RTX 4080, too).

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Intel Raptor Lake mobile CPUs leaked – could these be the future of laptops?

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Intel’s upcoming Raptor Lake laptop CPUs have been leaked, and the line-up looks pretty enticing, indeed.

This comes from regular hardware leaker Raichu on Twitter (as flagged up by Wccftech), who provided full specs for the range of HX chips, starting with the Core i9-13900HX with 8 performance cores, 16 efficiency cores, and a boost of up to 5.4GHz (the base clock is 3.9GHz).

i9-13900HX 8P16E max 5.4/3.9i7-13700HX 8P8E max 5.0/3.7i7-13650HX 6P8E max 4.9/3.6i5-13500HX 6P8E max 4.7/3.5i5-13450HX 6P4E max 4.6/3.4Max DRAM support up to DDR5-5600/DDR4-3200（Part SKU just 4800）.DRAM/Freq/Ring/PL OCNovember 14, 2022

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Next up, we have the Core i7-13700HX – remember, take all these with a fistful of seasoning, as ever with the rumor mill – which supposedly runs with 8 performance plus 8 efficiency cores, and boosts up to 5GHz (3.7GHz base clock).

A slight step down from that is the Core i7-13650HX processor which drops to 6 performance cores (keeping 8 efficiency ones), with boost of up to 4.9GHz (and a 3.6GHz base clock).

Then there’s the Core i5-13500HX which keeps the same core count as the 13650HX but drops that boost to 4.7GHz (3.5GHz base). And finally, Raichu tells us that there’s a Core i5-13450HX with 6 performance cores plus 4 efficiency cores, and a boost of up to 4.6GHz (and a base clock of 3.4GHz).

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Analysis: Raptor ready to pounce

That Raptor Lake HX flagship looks something quite special, with no fewer than 24-cores (8 performance cores) and being capable of boost of up to 5.4GHz. It’s a big step up from Alder Lake laptop chips and, along with those extra cores and faster clock speeds, you can also count on bigger cache sizes for the Raptor Lake silicon. On top of that, better overclocking is promised with 13th-gen laptop chips, so it’s fair to say they’re waiting in the wings to make quite an impact.

When can we expect Team Blue to launch these mobile processors? Intel has said we’ll witness their appearance before 2022 is out but, realistically, these chips will be in more laptops come early 2023 (doubtless with some potent pairings alongside RTX 40 series laptop GPUs).

Perhaps the worry here is not performance, which appears to be present in abundance, but rather how these HX chips may hit battery longevity. That’s where AMD could score a key victory in terms of better efficiency with Zen 4 laptop silicon when it arrives – but exactly when that’ll be, we’re not sure. But we do know Raptor Lake mobile chips will be out in full force before AMD comes to market, and as mentioned, 13th-gen laptop silicon is not far away now. Exciting times, indeed.

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Intel Launches Raptor Canyon: Desktop Raptor Lake Sizzles in NUC13 Extreme

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Intel is officially taking the wraps off the first member of their Raptor Lake-based NUC13 family today. The NUC13 Extreme (like the three previous Extreme NUCs) caters to the gamers and content creators requiring leading edge performance and high-end discrete GPU support. Unlike the mainstream NUCs which have been consistently maintaining an ultra-compact form-factor profile, the Extreme family has slowly grown in size to accommodate flagship CPUs and discrete GPUs. These systems integrate a motherboard in a PCIe add-in card form factor (the Compute Element) and a baseboard that provides additional functionality with PCIe slots and other I/O features. As a refresher, Intel created the NUC Extreme category with the introduction of the Ghost Canyon NUC family in 2019. This was followed by the Tiger Lake-based Beast Canyon NUC in 2021 and the Alder Lake-based Dragon Canyon NUC earlier this year. The latest member of this family is today's introduction - the Raptor Canyon NUC based on the Shrike Bay Compute Element.

The NUC Extreme family has grown in physical footprint with each generation, and the NUC13 Extreme is Intel's biggest one yet. Coming in at 317mm x 129mm x 337mm (13.7L), this is more of a traditional tower desktop than the NUCs that the market has grown accustomed to. However, this size has allowed Intel to integrate flagship components. The Shrike Bay Compute Element supports socketed LGA 1700 processors with a PL1 of 150W and PL2 of 250W (tau of 28s). The vertical centering of the baseboard within the case enables plenty of isolation between the Compute Element on the top and the discrete GPU on the bottom. Triple-slot dGPUs up to 12.5" in length are supported.

The NUC13 Extreme Kit comes in three flavors, while the Shrike Bay Compute Element itself has six variations. These allow system integrators and OEMs to offer a wide variety of systems targeting different market segments. The table below summarizes the key differences between the three NUC13 Extreme kits.

Intel NUC13 Extreme Kits (Raptor Canyon)
Model		NUC13RNGi9	NUC13RNGi7	NUC13RNGi5
CPU		Intel Core i9-13900K Raptor Lake, 8P + 16E / 32T 5.8 GHz (Turbo) / 5.4 GHz (P) / 4.3 GHz (E) 125W TDP (Up to 253W)	Intel Core i7-13700K Raptor Lake, 8P + 8E / 24T 5.4 GHz (Turbo) / 5.3 GHz (P) / 4.2 GHz (E) 125W TDP (Up to 253W)	Intel Core i5-13600K Raptor Lake, 6P + 8E / 20T 5.1 GHz (Turbo) / 5.1 GHz (P) / 3.9 GHz (E) 125W TDP (Up to 181W)
GPU		Intel UHD Graphics 770 (300 MHz - 1.65 GHz)	Intel UHD Graphics 770 (300 MHz - 1.60 GHz)	Intel UHD Graphics 770 (300 MHz - 1.50 GHz)
Memory		2x DDR5-5600 SODIMMs (up to 64GB)
Motherboard (Compute Element)		295.3mm x 136.5mm x 46.1mm (Custom)
Storage		1x CPU-attached PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 2280 1x PCH-attached PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 2242 / 2280 1x PCH-attached PCIe 4.0 x4 / SATA M.2 2242 / 2280 2x SATA 6 Gbps (on baseboard)
I/O Ports		2x USB4 / Thunderbolt 4 (Type-C) (Rear) 6x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A (Rear) 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (Front) 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (Front)
Networking		Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E AX1690i (2x2 802.11ax Wi-Fi inc. 6 GHz + Bluetooth 5.2 module) 1× 2.5 GbE port (Intel I226-V) 1x 10 GbE port (Marvell AQtion AQC113C)
Display Outputs		2x DP 2.0 (1.4 certified) (via Thunderbolt 4 Type-C, iGPU) 1x HDMI 2.1 (up to 4Kp60) (rear, iGPU)
Audio / Codec		7.1 digital (over HDMI and Thunderbolt 4) Realtek ALC1220 Analog Audio / Microphone / Speaker / Line-In 3.5mm (Rear) USB Audio 3.5mm combo audio jack (Front)
Enclosure		Metal Kensington lock with base security
Power Supply		FSP750-27SCB 750W Internal PSU
Dimensions		337mm x 317mm x 129mm / 13.7L
Chassis Expansion		One PCIe 5.0 x16 with triple-slot GPU support up to 317.5mm in length
		Customizable RGB LED illumination on chassis underside CEC support for HDMI port Power LED ring in front panel 3-year warranty

Each kit SKU corresponds to a NUC13SBB Shrike Bay Compute Element. In addition, Intel is also readying the NUC13SBBi(9/7/5)F variants that come with the KF processors - those Compute Elements do not have any Thunderbolt 4 ports. The HDMI port / graphics outputs are also not present. The three KF SKUs also forsake the 10GbE port.

The block diagram below gives some insights into the design of the system in relation to the I/O capabilities. Note that the system continues to use the Z690 chipset that was seen in the Dragon Canyon NUC.

PCIe x16 bifurcation (x8 + x8) is possible for the Gen 5 lanes. However, the baseboard design in the Raptor Canyon NUC kits does not support it. This is yet another aspect that OEMs could use to differentiate their Shrike Bay-based systems from the NUC13 Extreme.

Intel has provided us with a pre-production engineering sample of the flagship Raptor Canyon NUC (augmented with an ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 3080Ti GPU) for review, and it is currently being put through the paces. The 150W PL1 and microarchitectural advances in Raptor Lake have ensured that the benchmark scores are off the charts compared to the previous NUC Extreme models, albeit at the cost of significantly higher power consumption. On the industrial design side, I have been very impressed. By eschewing a fancy chassis and opting for a simple cuboid, Intel has ensured that all the I/O ports are easily accessible, installation of components is fairly straightforward, and cable management is hugely simplified. The increased dimensions of the chassis are well worth these advantages over the previous NUC Extreme models. Stay tuned for a comprehensive review later this week.

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