Welcome back to tech news. This week, AMD’s Zen 6 rumors, god tier speeds that might outpace your coffee jitters. Steam OS is itching to turn your old grandpa’s PC into a gaming beast. And Microsoft, in a move straight out of a slapstick reel, accidentally nuked the co-pilot app, leaving the internet howling at Redmond scrambles to figure out which intern fatfingered the delete key. So grab your snacks because we’re diving right in. So I’ve got to confess the PC industry vibe lately has been about as thrilling as a funeral for a dialup modem. It’s tough to muster any excitement when the latest generational upgrades are like 5% faster and cost twice as much. But hopefully that will change soon with leaks about Zen 6 processors turn out to be true. with performance boosts so insane it makes the Zen 1 to Zen 2 jump look like a drunk snail racing a sloth. While Intel’s trying to glue two Celerons together and call it innovation, new Zen 6 could be one of the biggest generational jumps that we’ve seen in a long time. Leaks suggest that Zen 6 will feature a 12 core CCD. That’s a huge jump over the 8 core CCD in Zen 5. for dual CCD processors. This could be a Ryzen 9 with 24 cores and 48 threads. I wonder though, does that mean the Ryzen 5 will finally get more than six cores? I mean, an 8 to 10 core Ryzen 5 would be pretty awesome, wouldn’t it? We’re also looking at a substantial increase in L3 cache with Zen 6 CCDs rumored to be offering 48 megabytes per CCD, up from 32 megabytes in Zen 5. This could potentially rival the performance edge of AMD’s 3D vcash, making essentially every chip a 3D vcash chip. Or possibly with the increased core count of the CCDs, it might just be necessary to feed them all because remember that cache is shared between all 12 cores in the CCD. Zen 6 is rumored to be using the 3nanmter process as the baseline. Some speculation even suggests that a possible shift to 2nmter for some parts of the architecture. Leaks also indicate that Zen 6 could introduce a refined chiplet architecture with faster interconnects and a next generation Infinity fabric in reducing latency between the CCDs and improving multi-core performance. And earlier leaks from 2023 peg Zen 6 at a 10% IPC uplift from Zen 5, but more recent speculation has them hints at even higher gains, possibly due to the higher rumored clock speed exceeding 6 GHz and the increased cache configuration. Desktop and mobile Zen 6 chips will feature upgraded APUs based on either RDNA 5 or even a new UDNA architecture. performance could approach entry-level discrete GPUs like the RTX 3050. I mean, we have to use the 3050 as an example because there is no 4050 or 5050, is there? But either way, it means gaming performance on onboard video will actually be enjoyable. At this point, I don’t think we can call them APUs anymore. They’re just integrated GPUs. Now, obviously, there’s no hard numbers yet, but based on rumors, these chips could seriously be a gamecher. and Zen 6 is expected to retain compatibility with the AM5 socket, aligning with AMD’s promise of supporting it through 2027. So, we’ll be able to just drop them into our current motherboards. But you know what? Take notes, Intel. Don’t just respond with a rebranded space heater. Respond with something good. Because with the lack of competition AMD’s been getting lately, there’s not much need for innovation. Release estimates vary with some leaks suggesting it could be as early as later this year. However, it’s more likely that we’ll see Zen 6 in 2026 or even early 2027. This week’s sponsor is me. floating around that Steam OS might be finally coming to the desktop. Call me cautiously intrigued, at least for the moment, because with Windows choking on its own bloatware and nagging me to buy more cloud storage and Linux also isn’t changing any hearts and minds with its fix it yourself after hours of following bad advice vibe and a neverending cage match of which version is least likely to make you hurl your keyboard out the window. And you know how many comments I’m going to get for using the word version and not DRO? It won’t be zero. But you know what? Spare me the sermon about open source purity while I’m spending hours on Google trying to install GPU drivers. And don’t call me a Windows shill either because I made fun of it, too. Steam OS could be a great option for gaming, but I’m not sure it’ll do much beyond that. Valve’s got a knack for shiny ideas that don’t really stick the landing sometimes. Or they just completely give up on things that would have been epic. It’s been 21 years since HalfLife 2, Valve. It’s literally old enough to drink. It’s about time for HalfLife 3, don’t you think? But no, let’s make an operating system instead. Leaks indicate that Valve may be close to releasing Steam OS as a standalone operating system. This may be just for third party handhelds, but some suggest Steam OS could soon target desktop PCs. It’s a move that’s seen as Valve’s attempt to compete in the gaming OS space. But to all those who have been eagerly awaiting this, we’ve been waiting for HalfLife 3 for 21 years. So stop complaining. If nothing else, it would be great to have options because right now it’s just Windows or hours of banging your head against the wall trying to get Linux to display your CPU temperature. True story. That’s how I spent part of my week. And in other news, in a stunning display of corporate brilliance, Microsoft accidentally axed its co-pilot app, sending shock waves of sarcastic glee through the tech world. Sources say that the blunder occurred when an intern tried to impress the team with a juggling act using three coffee mugs and his wireless mouse fumbled spectacularly, dragging the co-pilot folder into the trash. Unfortunately for us, though, no one emptied the recycle bin. Or at least that’s how I’m sure it went down. something like that. Like Microsoft’s BR team scrambling to issue a statement that read, “Oops, our bad.” While Microsoft CEO was reportedly spotted stress eating a bagel at a corner cafe. Tech experts predict this glorious gaff will be celebrated for years, or at least until the next update. Seriously though, I made all that stuff up. On March 11, Microsoft encountered an unexpected issue with one of its commun communive updates that inadvertently uninstalled the Copilot app from some Windows 10 and 11 systems. Microsoft acknowledged the issue, stating that the removal was unintentional and not part of any planned feature change and assured users it would be working on a resolution. See, like I said, sounds like a juggling intern, right? But you know what? Seriously though, on behalf of the PC community, I would just like to say to Microsoft, you don’t have to fix it. We are cool the way it is. This error, turns out, is the resolution we were looking for all along. Microsoft advised users to reinstall the C-pilot app manually from the Microsoft Store and repin it to the taskbar if they desired. Yeah, we’ll get right on that. But that’s all I got for you today. My script probably would have been longer, but I had to write it myself this time because it turned out the Copilot app just disappeared from my desktop. Not sure what happened, but it’s just gone. But at least though, I didn’t have to recompile it from source and then find out that it needs the kernel headers. And then after downloading those, I have to spend three hours chasing down conflicts and dependencies until finally I just give up and install the Windows version with always, you guys have a great day.