The seemingly sudden (but not really all that sudden) rise of AI has led to an industry-wide refresh of hardware and software solutions to ride the lucrative wave. We’ve seen new chips from the likes of AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA with dedicated neural processing units (NPUs), clever software tools, and upgraded desktop and laptop lineups from
The Alienware Area-51 is a massive tower that has finally returned to standardized parts, but performance increases aren’t huge over the last generation of desktops.
Nvidia’s GB200 NVL72 and GB300 NVL72 AI systems achieve 25 times greater energy efficiency and 300 times better water efficiency by using closed-loop direct-to-chip liquid cooling, at the cost of expensive data center redesigns.