// TOM'S HARDWARE US — HARDWARE & GADGET
This week on Tom's Hardware Premium: August 22, 2026 — foundries, supercomputers, China, and how to not overpay on a motherboard
New roadmaps and essential advice in the modern market
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This week, Tom's Hardware Premium published a swath of new features, new roadmaps, and deep industry insights. And if you haven't subscribed to Tom's Hardware Premium yet, you'll have the opportunity to access our Hot Chips 2026 content for free for a limited time with a free Tom's Hardware account, no payment required.
With that out of the way, here's what you've been missing out on.
First off, PC components expert Joe Shields lays down the law when it comes to shopping for a new motherboard. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know component pricing has skyrocketed over the past 12 months. If your current motherboard has recently kicked the bucket, or if you're looking to change platforms, you don't want to overpay on a component that, in all likelihood, you'll never use to its full extent. With memory pricing the way it is, overspending on other components that are less crucial for juicing performance is a one-way ticket to spending too much on stuff you just don't need.
Within the article, Joe details exactly what you might want to pay for — and the things you don't need to focus on, like fancy 20+ phase MOSFET VRMs, or that slick RGB shroud, which pretty much just sits there looking pretty while other components do the real work. So if you're in the market for a new motherboard, or if you want to learn more about them in general, Joe's article is a fantastic, detailed read on exactly what you should be looking for, more important the reasons you shouldn't be splashing over $500 in the current market.
With all of the hubbub around AI and massive gigawatt-scale data centers, focus has shifted from the not-so-humble supercomputer. In June, China's Lineshine officially became the world's fastest ... but does that really matter anymore, in an era where AI systems built for training and inference exist? That's the question columnist Chris Stokel-Walker poses for us in his latest Special Report, where he interviewed Julian Kinkel, professor of high-performance computing at the University of Göttingen and deputy head of high-performance computing at GWDG, and Jack Dongarra, one of the TOP 500 founders and emeritus professor at the University of Tennessee.
The outlook for traditional supercomputers, which are benchmarked using the High Performance Linpack benchmark (HPL), remains mixed, as compute workloads continue to diversify amid shifting trends and demands, splintering the supercomputer race.
This week's hardware roadmap examines the status of Samsung's global foundries, from the long-delayed Taylor, Texas, facility, all the way to the flagship Pyeongtaek facility and associated R&D complexes. We examine the status of each of the locations, in addition to what processes and products each focuses on. But all that glitters is not gold: We also review the foundry's yield woes and the pressure to deliver on its lucrative deal with Tesla to manufacture the company's AI6 chips.
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