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AMD / Nvidia / Intel CES 2023 Recap and Analysis: 3D V-Cache, “RTX 4090” for laptops, new affordable CPUs
This should be a good time for a CES 2023 news recap and analysis, with tons of PC hardware announcements as expected, and AMD having just concluded its presentation. So let’s run through all the interesting stuff and give our thoughts on what’s been shown…
AMD 3D V-Cache CPUs
Starting from the most recent reveal this morning, AMD’s new Ryzen 7000 3D V-Cache CPUs. V-Cache debuted on the popular Ryzen 7 5800X3D last year, stacking a cache die on top of the CPU chiplet to significantly increase L3 cache capacity from 32 to 96 MB. The same sort of technology is now being deployed to Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processors as well.
While before AMD only launched one V-Cache processor, with Zen 4 we are getting three new options. There’s the 7800X3D offering 8 cores and 16 threads, the 7900X3D offering 12 cores and 24 threads, and the 7950X3D with 16 cores and 32 threads. All are 120W parts and will be available in February.
There’s a couple of interesting things to note about these specs. First is clock speeds. With the 7950X3D we see the same 5.7 GHz max clock as the 7950X, and unlike with the 5800X3D vs 5800X there’s no reduction in turbo speed. However, to drop the TDP from 170W to 120W, base clocks are lower and we’d expect all core frequencies in typical applications to be lower than that of the 7950X. Same with the 7900X3D, which has the same 5.6 GHz max frequency as the 7900X.
However this isn’t the case for the 7800X3D, which lists just a 5.0 GHz max turbo clock. This is down from the 5.4 GHz max frequency we saw for the Ryzen 7 7700X. The large cache should offset this clock speed drop like we saw for 5800X3D vs 5800X, though the frequency reduction is larger with the Zen 4 8-core part compared to Zen 3.
Also interesting are the total cache figures. AMD lists both L3 and L2 cache combined, and the 7800X3D numbers make perfect sense. 32MB of on-chiplet L3 cache, 64 MB of 3D V-Cache and 8 MB of L2 cache, with 1MB per core with Zen 4. This totals 104 MB. With the Ryzen 9 parts though we have 140MB and 144MB of combined cache listed. This suggests only one of the two CPU core chiplets has received V-Cache. The 7950X already has 64MB of L3 plus 16MB of L2, or 80MB of total cache. To jump up to 144MB as seen here there must be just 64MB of additional V-Cache, which implies one set of V-Cache on one chiplet, while the other chiplet is just a regular chiplet with no V-Cache.
That’s an interesting configuration that seems gaming optimized, as most games avoid using more than one chiplet on AMD’s dual-chiplet Ryzen 9 parts. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to add V-Cache to a chiplet that won’t actually be used for gaming. But it also means that thread scheduling needs to be spot on for these parts, always allocating games to the CPU chiplet that contains V-Cache.
Otherwise these new Ryzen 9 V-Cache parts look ideal for people that use their systems for both gaming and productivity: something like the 7950X should offer excellent multi-thread performance while also having top-end speed for gaming enhanced through a huge L3 cache on one die.
AMD is claiming with their benchmarks — that you should definitely take with a huge grain of salt — that the 7800X3D is between 21 and 30 percent faster than the 5800X3D across a four game sample at 1080p using high image quality. That’s a substantial gain, and should push this part into the top spot on the gaming chart.
AMD is claiming a 13 to 24 percent performance lead over the Core i9-13900K with the 7950X3D, previously the 13900K has been the top gaming part, but AMD’s marketing is suggesting otherwise. No direct performance comparisons were shown pitting Zen 4 against Zen 4 V-Cache, but we know the 5800X3D, 13900K and Zen 4 are all quite competitive so these new X3D parts should be around 15% faster than Zen 4 – a similar uplift from V-Cache with the previous generation.
Hopefully this will breathe some life into the AM5 platform which has been struggling from low sales and interest compared to AM4.
New affordable AMD CPUs: Non-X Ryzen 7000
The next major announcement from CES has been the introduction of new affordable processors from both AMD and Intel – we’ve got the 65W non-X Zen 4 parts from AMD, and the 13th-gen non-K lineup from Intel.
On the AMD side, the Ryzen 9 7900 is basically a 7900X with the max clock dropped from 5.6 to 5.4 GHz and lower multi-core clocks as the TDP drops from 170W to 65W. This part will come in at $430, down from the 7900X’s launch price of $550, although these days the 7900X can be found for around $460.
Similar story for the Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 5 7600. The TDP drop isn’t as dramatic here as both parts go from 105W to 65W, and clock speeds are down either 100 or 200 MHz in terms of boost clock.
The big improvement is pricing, with the 7700 sitting at $330 and the 7600 at $230, which are $70 discounts compared to the launch pricing of the X models. However like with the 7900 they’re less of a discount relative to current pricing, as the 7700X can be found for just $345, while the 7600X has occasionally fallen to $260.
When buying a non-X model you’ll also get a box cooler, the Wraith Prism for the Ryzen 7 and 9, and a Wraith Stealth for the 7600. Zen 4 CPUs previously did not come with a box cooler, but it makes sense that the more affordable budget models would go back to including these.
New Intel affordable CPUs: Raptor Lake non-K 65W
Intel has also announced a huge suite of new 13th-gen Core non-K CPU models for affordable systems. These include standard locked models with integrated graphics, as well as F models without graphics, most of which are 65W parts. There’s also the T series, which drops the TDP further to 35W, though these parts are mostly destined for pre-builts.
The core configuration is identical to Intel’s unlocked Raptor Lake models for the higher-end parts in the lineup. So, for example, the Core i7-13700 has 8 P cores and 8 E cores, which is also true of the 13700K. However, clock speeds are lower, dropping from 5.4 to 5.2 GHz on the P cores and 4.2 to 4.1 GHz on the E cores.
When run in its TDP limited state at the 65W default, all core frequencies will be a lot lower than the 125W unlocked models – however many motherboards will run these in a power unlimited state by default, reducing the margins and increasing performance.
While all of these parts are 13th-gen models, Intel is using a mixture of Raptor Lake and Alder Lake silicon, though it’s not 100% clear which CPUs use which architecture.
It’s expected that the Core i7 and Core i9 parts are Raptor Lake, while the Core i5s and below are refreshed Alder Lake. But that doesn’t mean we are seeing the exact same configurations as 12th-gen. For example, the 13400F is now a 10-core processor with 6 P cores and 4 E cores, while the older popular 12400F was just a six-core model, with 6 P cores and no E cores. That means the new Core i5 lineup now has E cores.
The Core i3 models are still quad-core processors though with no E cores and seem to be just higher clocked variants of 12th-gen parts.
Pricing has increased for these locked processors compared to the previous generation. For example, the Core i5-13400F is now $196 (RCP), compared to $167 for the 12400F at launch — has since increased to $184 in 2023. RCP is Intel’s “recommended customer price” which is not a true MSRP – the 13400F is actually listed for $210 at Newegg, pitting itself just $20 less than the Ryzen 5 7600 which should be an interesting battle.
Similarly, the Core i3-13100F is listed with an RCP of $109, but on Newegg it’s $125. The Core i7-13700F is $380, slotting between the Ryzen 7 7700 and Ryzen 9 7900, while the new Core i9-13900F comes in at $570, which is the exact same price as the Ryzen 9 7950X goes for these days.
Most of the manufacturer provided benchmarks, whether it’s Intel or AMD, isn’t that relevant as both are launching new models at the same time. What is relevant is seeing how these 13th-gen parts compare to the Zen 4 parts at the same price point, whereas Intel and AMD mostly focused on either gains compared to the previous generation, or comparisons to their competitor’s last-gen parts.
For example, AMD compared the Ryzen 5 7600 to the Core i5-13600K and made a point that their CPU is 65W while the 13600K is 125W. This is completely irrelevant now as there’s a Core i5-13600 at 65W. Of course, they couldn’t have tested each other’s unreleased CPUs when making these charts, so for these models benchmarking is going to be king and we’ll start to see those results very soon.
Intel’s new 13th-gen models are available now, while the Zen 4 non-X chips are debuting on January 10th, so look out for our reviews soon.
New laptop hardware: High-end mobile CPUs
All three big hardware vendors are launching new laptop chips in the first quarter of 2023, we have new CPUs from Intel and AMD, plus new GPUs from Nvidia and AMD. Let’s run a quick breakdown…
Starting with CPUs at the top, both AMD and Intel have the best silicon on offer that’s destined for high-end gaming and creator laptops. For AMD that’s the Dragon range, featuring up to 16 Zen 4 CPU cores, DDR5 memory and 5nm process technology.
These processors are designated into the Ryzen 7045 HX series, and appear to be using the same silicon as desktop Ryzen 7000 processors — in other words, the multi-die design with an I/O die and up to two CPU core chiplets. These are meant for laptops running in the 45W+ TDP range, or 55W+ for the flagship model.
The top chip in this line is the Ryzen 9 7945HX that offers 16 cores, 32 threads, 80MB of L3+L2 cache and up to a 5.4 GHz boost clock. This is basically a Ryzen 9 7950X power limited to a laptop form factor with slightly lower clock speeds. But there’s also three other models encompassing the Ryzen 9 7845HX with 12 cores, Ryzen 7 7745HX with 8 cores and Ryzen 5 7645HX with 6 cores. These are designed to be paired with discrete graphics. All will be available starting February.
On the Intel side, they plan to compete at the high-end with the Alder Lake HX series. This is similar to what AMD is doing: bringing the top specs of the desktop platform to laptops in a more power limited configuration. Intel is offering more SKUs, but the basic configurations are similar, and all come with a base power rating of 55W indicating they are designed for larger form factor devices.
At the top, the Core i9 range features 24 cores, split into 8 performance cores and 16 efficient cores. This is the same configuration as the Core i9-13900K, but slightly lower clocks topping out at 5.6 GHz, as well as lower operating frequencies due to the lower TDP and max turbo power.
More laptop hardware: Intel and AMD mid-range offerings
As we move down the stack, we get the Core i7-13850HX with 8P cores and 12E cores, and then two other Core i7s, one with 8P and 8E cores, the other with 6P and 8E cores. It seems that from the Core i7-13700HX and down, Intel are using Alder Lake dies similar to the split we saw with new 13th-gen desktop processors where the lower tier models are using older silicon.
The tiers have shifted though, the old Core i9-12950HX effectively becomes the 13700HX with a frequency boost, so that should bring this performance to new price points. Then further down the stack we have the Core i5s with 6P cores and either 8 or 4 E cores depending on the model.
The next tier down from these HX series processors are the H series from both brands. On the AMD side that’s the Ryzen 7040 series, a new monolithic APU that combines Zen 4 technology with RDNA 3 integrated graphics and a new AMD XDNA AI engine all using TSMC’s N4 node, a derivative of their 5nm tech.
AMD has decided to ditch the regular H series and only offer HS series parts which are generally intended for slimmer, more portable 14 and 15-inch laptops. These all have a TDP range of 35-45W, and include three models: the Ryzen 9 7940HS and Ryzen 7 7840HS, which are both 8 core CPUs, and the Ryzen 5 7640HS with six cores. Clock speeds are increased here, the flagship model jumps from 4.8 to 5.2 GHz, and there’s more cache, now with 32MB L3 up from 16MB in the previous generation, which matches the desktop lineup in cache capacity, a decent step forward for their monolithic APU option.
On top of this, the 7040 series offers up to 12 RDNA 3 compute units, replacing the 12 RDNA2 compute units in the previous generation Ryzen 6000 APUs. There’s also a new AI engine that AMD spent some time talking about, which they claim is more efficient and faster than the Apple M2 AI engine. These HS series models, codenamed Phoenix, will be available starting in March.
Intel’s competition to this is the H series, including a huge range of processors. These are 45W models in contrast to AMD more targeting the 35W range, so we’ll probably see them in a slightly higher tier, and in more gaming-focused models. The Core i7 and Core i9 models mostly feature 6P core and 8E core configurations, with some models featuring nearly identical specifications. As we move down the stack we have the a few outliers such as the Core i7-13620H that cuts the E cores in half, and then the Core i5 range which brings 4P cores, either 8 or 4 E cores, and lower frequencies.
There’s a lot of segmentation at the higher end of the mobile CPU stack with multiple offerings depending on the exact type of system an OEM wants to build.
The HX series is likely where we’ll see a lot of interest for top end gaming laptops as the CPU die features more cores and less integrated graphics, while the H and HS series from either brand drops the core count in favor of a beefier iGPU. The idea is to offer more dedicated designs that fit better with the type of system being built, after all, a gaming laptop with discrete graphics doesn’t have any need for the larger RDNA3 iGPU found in AMD’s Phoenix APU, for example.
We’re steering clear of some of the performance comparisons made by companies because most of what is discussed isn’t relevant to the laptop landscape in 2023. AMD compared their parts to Alder Lake, and Intel compared their parts to Ryzen 6000. But 13th-gen and Zen 4 will compete against each other and both will land to market at a similar time. There’s a few interesting tidbits in here looking at generational gains for gaming performance and comparisons to Apple hardware, but with laptop benchmarking we’re really going to have to test this for ourselves to see how it plays out.
As we get further down the stack, AMD has the Ryzen 7035 series, models designed for thin and light notebooks in the 28W range, though AMD is sticking with U series designation. These parts are a refresh of Ryzen 6000 U-series which used AMD’s Rembrandt die; in the 7035 series, it’s Rembrandt-R, so a very similar use of Zen 3+ CPU cores and up to 12 RDNA2 compute units.
The 7035 series for U-series will largely be competing with Intel’s 13th-gen P series processors, which are similar to 12th-gen Alder Lake in design. This could be why AMD are focusing on Rembrandt-R here rather than going to Zen 4. The 13th-gen P series includes 4 models designed for 28W class notebooks, the top end model being the Core i7-1370P with 6P and 8E cores, the same design as the Core i7-1280P but with a small increase to clock speeds. There’s also another three CPUs that go with 4P and 8E cores.
Both Intel and AMD didn’t spend a lot of time discussing the new thin and light processors for this generation, so it seems most of the exciting laptop releases will be for larger gaming and productivity systems. Both companies are using a mixture of new silicon and refreshed silicon across the lineup, probably the most refreshed hardware seen in some time for a new generation of laptop processors.
We think these lineups are very confusing on both sides.
We think these lineups are very confusing on both sides. AMD has the 7045 HX series, 7040 HS series, 7035 U series and 7030 U series all using different dies, and the possibility for crossover between 7035 and 7040 in HS and U series.
Intel has the HX, H, P and U series with different configurations and power targets plus plenty of SKUs. This is great for OEMs that can pick a specific part they want, but terrible for consumers in terms of figuring out what chip they are buying and what performance it will deliver.
New laptop GPUs: Nvidia RTX 4000 and AMD RDNA3
The big news in the laptop GPU front is the launch of Nvidia’s entire Ada Lovelace RTX 4000 series product stack, including the RTX 4090, RTX 4080, RTX 4070, RTX 4060 and RTX 4050. All of these are laptop GPUs and despite the identical naming to desktop cards (but with “Laptop GPU” slapped on the end), performance will be lower than their desktop counterparts as we’ve seen time and time again with previous generations.
The RTX 4090 Laptop GPU isn’t even too close to the RTX 4090. It features 9728 CUDA cores clocked up to 2.04 GHz in the 150W configuration, alongside 16GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus. The desktop RTX 4090, the proper one, features 16384 CUDA cores clocked up to 2.52 GHz, and uses 24GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus. There’s nothing similar between these two parts despite both being called RTX 4090, which is highly misleading. Even the Ada Lovelace die isn’t the same, the RTX 4090 for desktop uses AD102 whereas on laptops you’re getting what appears to be AD103, which is used for the desktop RTX 4080.
This pushes the RTX 4080 Laptop GPU down a notch as well to using AD104 and specs well under the RTX 4080 on desktop, in fact, the 4080 doesn’t even match the RTX 4070 Ti in CUDA core count.
Of course, you just can’t put the RTX 4090 into a laptop form factor considering the 450W TDP and high power consumption. Laptops can’t handle that sort of power, with higher tier laptop models typically sitting in the 120 to 150W range. But rather than adjusting the name to account for this — calling it the RTX 4090M or something — Nvidia is just calling it the RTX 4090.
The majority of benchmark “numbers” compared RTX 4000 to previous generations but with features like DLSS 3 enabled exclusively on the newer GPUs, which is not an apples to apples comparison and therefore useless.
We do plan to benchmark these and compare them to their desktop models to see what the gulf is in performance, because on the naming side it just seems to be growing with each generation. Back in the RTX 20 series days, yes there was a difference in performance between laptop and desktop due to clock speeds and power limits, but at least you were getting a similar core configuration. These days the laptop and desktop configurations are nothing alike.
It’s also impossible to preview what these new GPUs will bring to the table into laptop form factors as Nvidia didn’t provide many realistic performance figures. The majority of benchmark “numbers” compared RTX 4000 to previous generations but with features like DLSS 3 enabled exclusively on the newer GPUs, which is not an apples to apples comparison and therefore useless. We did see two games included that didn’t have this stuff enabled, which shows approximately a 50% performance uplift which would be quite good considering that laptops aren’t able to increase power much further than they are already sitting at.
Aside from performance we’ll be seeing all the other advantages of Ada Lovelace brought to laptops, such as AV1 video encoding and DLSS 3 support. Nvidia also touted new Max-Q technologies designed to improve efficiency for these laptop models, such as lower voltage GDDR6 and on-chip memory.
What we do know is the RTX 4080 and RTX 4090 for laptops will start to become available February 8th in laptops priced above $2,000.
The other models from the RTX 4070 through RTX 4050 will be available starting February 22nd in the $1,000 to $2,000 range.
Mobile GPU news are not particularly exciting on the AMD side, as they’re only launching a couple of mid-range SKUs using RDNA3, the Radeon RX 7600M XT and RX 7600M plus the S variants.
Oddly, the 7600M XT becomes the 7700S.
Specifications are very light for these Navi 33 designs, the only real info we have is 8GB of GDDR6 and a 128-bit memory bus, plus some FP32 numbers that aren’t very useful.
AMD are expecting the 7600M XT to deliver between 20 and 40 percent more performance than the RX 6600M, which would put it above the level of Nvidia’s desktop RTX 3060. These 7600 series GPUs will be available starting in February.
Airlines, banks, hospitals and other risk-averse organizations around the world chose cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to protect their computer systems from hackers and data breaches.
But all it took was one faulty CrowdStrike software update to cause global disruptions Friday that grounded flights, knocked banks and media outlets offline, and disrupted hospitals, retailers and other services.
“This is a function of the very homogenous technology that goes into the backbone of all of our IT infrastructure,” said Gregory Falco, an assistant professor of engineering at Cornell University. “What really causes this mess is that we rely on very few companies, and everybody uses the same folks, so everyone goes down at the same time.”
The trouble with the update issued by CrowdStrike and affecting computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system was not a hacking incident or cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, which apologized and said a fix was on the way.
But it wasn’t an easy fix. It required “boots on the ground” to remediate, said Gartner analyst Eric Grenier.
“The fix is working, it’s just a very manual process and there’s no magic key to unlock it,” Grenier said. “I think that is probably what companies are struggling with the most here.”
While not everyone is a client of CrowdStrike and its platform known as Falcon, it is one of the leading cybersecurity providers, particularly in transportation, healthcare, banking and other sectors that have a lot at stake in keeping their computer systems working.
“They’re usually risk-averse organizations that don’t want something that’s crazy innovative, but that can work and also cover their butts when something goes wrong. That’s what CrowdStrike is,” Falco said. “And they’re looking around at their colleagues in other sectors and saying, ‘Oh, you know, this company also uses that, so I’m gonna need them, too.’”
Worrying about the fragility of a globally connected technology ecosystem is nothing new. It’s what drove fears in the 1990s of a technical glitch that could cause chaos at the turn of the millennium.
“This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it’s actually happened this time,” wrote Australian cybersecurity consultant Troy Hunt on the social platform X.
Across the world Friday, affected computers were showing the “blue screen of death” — a sign that something went wrong with Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
But what’s different now is “that these companies are even more entrenched,” Falco said. “We like to think that we have a lot of players available. But at the end of the day, the biggest companies use all the same stuff.”
Founded in 2011 and publicly traded since 2019, CrowdStrike describes itself in its annual report to financial regulators as having “reinvented cybersecurity for the cloud era and transformed the way cybersecurity is delivered and experienced by customers.” It emphasizes its use of artificial intelligence in helping to keep pace with adversaries. It reported having 29,000 subscribing customers at the start of the year.
The Austin, Texas-based firm is one of the more visible cybersecurity companies in the world and spends heavily on marketing, including Super Bowl ads. At cybersecurity conferences, it’s known for large booths displaying massive action-figure statues representing different state-sponsored hacking groups that CrowdStrike technology promises to defend against.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz is among the most highly compensated in the world, recording more than $230 million in total compensation in the last three years. Kurtz is also a driver for a CrowdStrike-sponsored car racing team.
After his initial statement about the problem was criticized for lack of contrition, Kurtz apologized in a later social media post Friday and on NBC’s “Today Show.”
“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption,” he said on X.
Richard Stiennon, a cybersecurity industry analyst, said this was a historic mistake by CrowdStrike.
“This is easily the worst faux pas, technical faux pas or glitch of any security software provider ever,” said Stiennon, who has tracked the cybersecurity industry for 24 years.
While the problem is an easy technical fix, he said, it’s impact could be long-lasting for some organizations because of the hands-on work needed to fix each affected computer. “It’s really, really difficult to touch millions of machines. And people are on vacation right now, so, you know, the CEO will be coming back from his trip to the Bahamas in a couple of weeks and he won’t be able to use his computers.”
Stiennon said he did not think the outage revealed a bigger problem with the cybersecurity industry or CrowdStrike as a company.
“The markets are going to forgive them, the customers are going to forgive them, and this will blow over,” he said.
Forrester analyst Allie Mellen credited CrowdStrike for clearly telling customers what they need to do to fix the problem. But to restore trust, she said there will need to be a deeper look at what occurred and what changes can be made to prevent it from happening again.
“A lot of this is likely to come down to the testing and software development process and the work that they’ve put into testing these kinds of updates before deployment,” Mellen said. “But until we see the complete retrospective, we won’t know for sure what the failure was.”
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Associated Press writer Alan Suderman in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.
Transport providers, businesses and governments on Saturday are rushing to get all their systems back online after long disruptions following a widespread technology outage.
The biggest continuing effect has been on air travel. Carriers canceled thousands of flights on Friday and now have many of their planes and crews in the wrong place, while airports facing continued problems with checking in and security.
At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to scores of companies worldwide. The company says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, noting that the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.
Here’s the Latest:
Microsoft: 8.5 million devices on its Windows system were affected
Microsoft says 8.5 million devices running its Windows operating system were affected by a faulty cybersecurity update Friday that led to worldwide disruptions.
A Saturday blog post from Microsoft was the first estimate of the scope of the disruptions caused by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike’s software update.
“We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines,” said the blog post from Microsoft cybersecurity executive David Weston.
“While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services.”
Weston said such a significant disturbance is rare but “demonstrates the interconnected nature of our broad ecosystem.” Windows is the dominant operating system for personal computers around the world.
Austrian doctors’ group calls for better data protection for patients
In Austria, a leading doctors organization said the global IT outage exposed the vulnerability of health systems reliant on digital systems.
“Yesterday’s incidents underscore how important it is for hospitals to have analogue backups” to safeguard patient care, Harald Mayer, vice president of the Austrian Chamber of Doctors, said in a statement on the organization’s website.
The organization called on governments to impose high standards in patient data protection and security and on health providers to train staff and put systems in place to manage crises.
“Happily, where there were problems, these were kept small and short-lived and many areas of care were unaffected” in Austria, Mayer said.
Germany warns of scams after major IT outage
BERLIN — The German government’s IT security agency says numerous companies are still struggling with the consequences of a far-reaching technology outage.
“Many business processes and procedures have been disturbed by the breakdown of computer systems,” the BSI agency said on its website.
But the agency also said Saturday that many impacted areas have returned to normal.
It warned that cybercriminals were trying to take advantage of the situation through phishing, fake websites and other scams and that “unofficial” software code was in circulation.
The agency said it was not yet clear how faulty code ended up in the CrowdStrike software update blamed for triggering the outage.
European airports appear to be close to normal
LONDON — Europe’s busiest airport, Heathrow, said it is busy but operating normally on Saturday. The airport said in a statement that “all systems are back up and running and passengers are getting on with their journeys smoothly.“
Some 167 flights scheduled to depart from U.K. airports on Friday were canceled, while 171 flights due to land were axed.
Meanwhile, flights at Berlin Airport were departing on or close to schedule, German news agency dpa reported, citing an airport spokesman.
Nineteen flights took off in the early hours of Saturday after authorities exempted them from the usual ban on night flights.
On Friday, 150 of the 552 scheduled inbound and outbound flights at the airport were canceled over the IT outage, disrupting the plans of thousands of passengers at the start of the summer vacation season in the German capital.
German hospital slowly restoring its systems after widespread cancellations
BERLIN — The Schleswig-Holstein University Hospital in northern Germany, which on Friday canceled all elective surgery because of the global IT outage, said Saturday that it was gradually restoring its systems.
In a statement on its website, it forecast that operations at its two branches in Kiel and Luebeck would return to normal by Monday and that “elective surgery can take place as planned and our ambulances can return to service.”
Britain’s transport system still trying to get back on track
LONDON — Britain’s travel and transport industries are struggling to get back on schedule after the global security outage with airline passengers facing cancellations and delays on the first day of summer holidays for many school pupils.
Gatwick Airport said “a majority” of scheduled flights were expected to take off. Manchester Airport said passengers were being checked in manually and there could be last-minute cancellations.
The Port of Dover said it was seeing an influx of displaced air passengers, with hourlong waits to enter the port to catch ferries to France.
Meanwhile, Britain’s National Cyber Security Center warned people and businesses to be on the lookout for phishing attempts as “opportunistic malicious actors” try to take advantage of the outage.
The National Cyber Security Center’s former head, Ciaran Martin, said the worst of the crisis was over, “because the nature of the crisis is that it went very wrong very quickly. It was spotted quite quickly and essentially it was turned off.”
He told Sky News that some businesses would be able to get back to normal very quickly, but for sectors such as aviation it would take longer.
“If you’re in aviation, you’ve got people, planes and staffs all stranded in the wrong place… So we are looking at days. I’d be surprised if we’re looking at weeks.”
Germany airline expects most of its flights to run normally
BERLIN — Eurowings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, said it expected to return to “largely scheduled” flight operations on Saturday.
On Friday, the global IT outage had forced the airline to cancel about 20% of its flights, mostly on domestic routes. Passengers were asked to take trains instead.
“Online check-in, check-in at the airport, boarding processes, booking and rebooking flights are all possible again,” the airline said Saturday on X. “However, due to the considerable extent of the global IT disruption there may still be isolated disruptions” for passengers, it said.
Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates have canceled hundreds of flights
DALLAS — Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates canceled more than a quarter of their schedule on the East Coast by midafternoon Friday, aviation data provider Cirium said.
More than 1,100 flights for Delta and its affiliates have been canceled.
United and United Express had canceled more than 500 flights, or 12% of their schedule, and American Airlines’ network had canceled 450 flights, 7.5% of its schedule.
Southwest and Alaska do not use the CrowdStrike software that led to the global internet outages and had canceled fewer than a half-dozen flights each.
Portland, Oregon, mayor declares an emergency over the outage
PORTLAND, Ore. — Mayor Ted Wheeler declared an emergency Friday after more than half of the city’s computer systems were affected by the global internet outage.
Wheeler said during a news conference that while emergency services calls weren’t interrupted, dispatchers were having to manually track 911 calls with pen and paper for a few hours. He said 266 of the city’s 487 computer systems were affected.
Border crossings into the US are delayed
SAN DIEGO — People seeking to enter the U.S. from both the north and the south found that the border crossings were delayed by the internet outage.
The San Ysidro Port of Entry was gridlocked Friday morning with pedestrians waiting three hours to cross, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Even cars with people approved for a U.S. Customers and Border Protection “Trusted Traveler” program for low-risk passengers waited up to 90 minutes. The program, known as SENTRI, moves passengers more quickly through customs and passport control if they make an appointment for an interview and submit to a background check to travel through customs and passport control more quickly when they arrive in the U.S.
Meanwhile, at the U.S.-Canada border, Windsor Police reported long delays at the crossings at the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
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European Union accuses Microsoft of breaching antitrust rules by bundling Teams with office software
LONDON (AP) — Microsoft violated European Union antitrust rules with “possibly abusive” practices by tying its Teams messaging and videoconferencing app to its widely used business software, the bloc said.
The European Commission said Monday it informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that the U.S. tech giant has been “restricting competition” by bundling Teams with core office productivity applications such as Office 365 and Microsoft 365.
The commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, said it suspects Microsoft might have granted Teams a “distribution advantage” by not giving customers a choice on whether to have Teams when they purchased the software. The advantage might have been widened by limits on the ability of rival messaging apps to work with Microsoft software, it said.
“We are concerned that Microsoft may be giving its own communication product Teams an undue advantage over competitors, by tying it to its popular productivity suites for businesses,” Margrethe Vestager, the commission’s executive vice-president for competition policy, said in a statement.
“And preserving competition for remote communication and collaboration tools is essential as it also fosters innovation on these markets.”
The commission took aim at Microsoft a day after accusing Apple of breaching the bloc’s new digital competition rulebook, in a flurry of regulatory action underlining Brussels’ leading role as a watchdog for Big Tech companies.
Microsoft made some changes last year in an effort to head off an penalty, including offering the software packages without Teams for European customers. But the commission said Tuesday the changes are not enough to address its concerns and that it needs to do more to “restore competition.”
“Having unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability steps, we appreciate the additional clarity provided today and will work to find solutions to address the Commission‘s remaining concerns.” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a prepared statement.
In April, the company also gave customers worldwide the option to get Microsoft 365 and Office 365 without Teams. The two software suites include programs like Word, Excel and Outlook.
Microsoft now has a chance to respond to the accusations, formally known as a statement of objections, before the commission makes its final decision. The company could face a fine worth up to 10% of its annual global revenue, or be forced to carry out “remedies” to satisfy the competition concerns.
The commission opened its investigation in July 2023 after rival Slack Technologies, which makes popular workplace messaging software, filed a complaint with Brussels. Alfaview, which makes videoconferencing software, also filed a separate complaint.
Slack, owned by business software maker Salesforce, had alleged that Microsoft abused its market dominance to eliminate competition — in violation of EU laws.
“The Statement of Objections issued today by the European Commission is a win for customer choice and an affirmation that Microsoft’s practices with Teams have harmed competition,” Salesforce President Sabastian Niles said. “We appreciate the Commission’s thorough investigation of Slack’s complaint and urge the Commission to move towards a swift, binding, and effective remedy that restores free and fair choice and promotes competition, interoperability, and innovation in the digital ecosystem.”
