As more businesses continue to adopt hybrid work arrangements, it’s becoming increasingly important for company endpoints to be secured and protected against threats and malicious actors. Whether it’s company-issued laptops or the data stored therein, taking a proactive approach to protecting these endpoints helps keep businesses safe from data breaches or costly cyberattacks.
Fortunately, various endpoint detection and response solutions are available in the market today — specially designed to monitor user devices, detect threats of all kinds, and offer strong remediation and response capabilities to thwart these threats.
In this article, we take a look at the best EDR software available today.
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Best EDR software for businesses: Comparison table
CrowdStrike Falcon Insight XDR: Best overall EDR for businesses
Image: Crowdstrike
Considered one of the market leaders in the EDR space, I recommend CrowdStrike’s Falcon Insight platform for most businesses. It offers top-tier AI-powered detection capabilities, a lightweight and unified agent, and the ability to automate enterprise-scale tasks for improved efficiency and security.
In July 2024, CrowdStrike found itself in controversy as a faulty update to its Falcon Sensor software caused a global IT disruption affecting millions of Windows users. You can learn more about this in TechRepublic’s coverage of the CrowdStrike outage.
Despite the incident, I found that many users still trusted CrowdStrike as a top EDR provider. In a post found in the Cybersecurity Reddit community, one commenter said “CrowdStrike is and will continue to be by far the most effective EDR platform in existence.” This was in response to someone asking if they would continue to use CrowdStrike following the outage.
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In 2023, CrowdStrike was named a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms and garnered the top spot in both the Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision criteria among 15 other solutions. These two markers mean that CrowdStrike’s EDR solution is best in class in terms of its product development, innovation, and customer base.
Users have also lauded the CrowdStrike platform for being light on resources and providing very low false positive rates.
Detections listed within the CrowdStrike dashboard. Image: CrowdStrike
Why I picked CrowdStrike Falcon
I chose CrowdStrike Falcon as my best overall solution due to its industry-leading features, performance, and strong customer reviews. Not only does CrowdStrike perform well in independent tests, it also receives high praise from its user base and is commonly tagged the “go-to” EDR software provider today.
While many EDR solutions can offer tons of features in their software, I think the real test is how many actual users recommend the product to other companies. In this aspect, CrowdStrike succeeds — even with its more expensive price tag.
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Pricing
CrowdStrike’s Falcon EDR solution can be purchased through its Falcon Enterprise and Falcon Elite subscription plans. Below is a quick overview of pricing and features for each:
Falcon Enterprise: $184.99 per device; includes EDR, XDR, and next-gen antivirus.
Falcon Elite: Contact sales for pricing; includes EDR, XDR, IT hygiene, and identity protection capabilities.
Features
AI-powered detection system.
Threat intelligence with 230+ adversaries included.
Real-time response to threats.
Pros
Very reliable detection.
Lightweight; not resource-intensive.
Intuitive user interface.
Cons
SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint: Best for small businesses
Image: SentinelOne
For small businesses, I suggest trying SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint. While not as robust as CrowdStrike, SentinelOne offers more affordable pricing while still providing high-quality detection and response services. It includes static and behavioral detection, automated responses, and one-click remediation, making it easier for IT and security teams to keep infrastructures and endpoints secure.
I particularly like SentinelOne’s Storyline feature that automatically correlates and contextualizes all software events in real time, offering a holistic view of threats that arise.
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A screenshot of SentinelOne Singularity’s desktop interface. Image: SentinelOne
Why I picked SentinelOne Singularity
SentinelOne carved its name on this list for being a competent alternative to CrowdStrike, especially for smaller businesses that may not have the largest cybersecurity budgets to use for an EDR.
Like CrowdStrike, SentinelOne Singularity Endpoint also receives good marks from the community. In particular, users highlighted SentinelOne Singularity’s easy-to-use console and affordable overall pricing.
Pricing
SentinelOne offers its EDR solution through four subscription tiers, with varying feature inclusions for specific business sizes and needs. Below is a quick overview of each tier, with their corresponding pricing and feature differences:
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Singularity Control: $79.99 per endpoint; includes EDR, role-based access control, and multi-tenant management.
Singularity Complete: $159.99 per endpoint; all Control features plus XDR and 14-day data retention.
Singularity Commercial: $209.99 per endpoint; all Complete features plus 30-day data retention, threat-hunting, and identity threat detection and response.
Singularity Enterprise: Call sales for pricing; all Commercial features plus network and vulnerability management, digital forensics, training, and guided deployment services.
Features
Storyline context builder for all OS relationships and events.
Automated threat resolution.
Historical EDR data retention of up to three years.
Pros
Affordable starting plan.
Automated responses.
Customizable automations.
Cons
Customer support could be improved.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint: Best for Microsoft-centric businesses
Image: Microsoft Defender
For businesses already deep into the Microsoft ecosystem, I find Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, or MDE, to be a no-brainer. It utilizes AI-based systems to stop cyber and ransomware attacks, includes automated investigation and remediation capabilities, and has access to a global threat intelligence database.
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint’s advanced threat hunting tool. Image: Microsoft Learn
Why I picked Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
I picked Microsoft Defender for Endpoint because of its strong integration with other Microsoft 365 products and its accessible inclusion in Microsoft’s E5 enterprise subscription. This makes it easy for pro-Microsoft businesses to integrate a proper EDR solution with their security setup, especially if they already have Microsoft licenses as part of their portfolio of software tools.
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Pricing
Microsoft Defender for Endpoint is split into MDE P1 and P2 plans. MDE P1 includes next-generation antimalware and endpoint firewall capabilities. Meanwhile, MDE P2 includes full EDR functionality, with automated investigations and remediation, among others.
For businesses that want Microsoft’s full-fledged EDR solution, I recommend using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint P2 or MDE P2. Right now, MDE P2 is bundled with the Microsoft 365 E5 enterprise software bundle:
Microsoft 365 E5 (no Teams): $54.75 per user per month; includes MDE EDR, Microsoft Office software, scalable business analytics, and advanced security capabilities.
Features
Simplified endpoint management dashboard.
Copilot for Security.
Global threat intelligence and analytics.
Pros
Bundled with Microsoft 365 E5.
Integrates well with other Microsoft security tools, like Intune and Defender for Office.
Affordable, given additional software included.
Cons
Can be resource-intensive.
Trend Micro Vision One: Best for extensive security coverage
Image: Trend Micro
A veteran of the space, Trend Micro is still a good pick for businesses that want an all-in-one type of security software. Its Vision One solution provides tools to protect endpoints, emails, and networks via a single platform. It features broad extended detection and response, or XDR, sensor coverage, and analyst contextualization tools. It is built upon zero-trust networking principles.
Vision One recently received high marks in the Forrester Wave Endpoint Security Q4 2023 evaluation, wherein Forrester named the company a Leader in the endpoint security industry. In particular, Trend Micro’s “consistent protection of endpoints” and “granular application control platform” were highlighted in the assessment.
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Vision One’s Suspicious Object list section. Image: Trend Micro
Why I picked Trend Micro Vision One
While not strictly an EDR solution, Trend Micro Vision One presents good value as an XDR that can provide comprehensive protection to multiple layers of an organization’s infrastructure. This means that Vision One protects not only endpoints but also other aspects of a technology ecosystem, such as the cloud, emails, and the like.
I have Trend Micro on this list, given its full focus on offering extended protection to businesses, moving from only endpoints with EDR to a wider scope with XDR.
Pricing
In terms of pricing, I suggest contacting Trend Micro directly via its official channels to get a clear estimate of costs. It has an accessible Contact page on its official website for more information, as well as free trials and video demos of its Vision One solution.
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You can also book a meeting with Trend Micro through its website, allowing you to learn more about both pricing and Vision One’s feature set.
Features
AI-powered XDR system.
Single pane of glass for detection, investigation, and response.
Custom playbooks and case management.
Pros
Wide visibility across various layers.
Flexible deployment options.
Consolidates multiple security tools into a single platform.
Bitdefender GravityZone: Best for basic endpoint protection
Image: Bitdefender
If all you’re looking for is basic endpoint protection, consider Bitdefender GravityZone. This option specializes in protecting against common attacks such as fileless attacks, ransomware, and phishing. It provides a single console for simple endpoint security management, advanced anti-exploit capabilities, and top-tier anti-malware protection.
This is confirmed in independent evaluations, with Forrester Wave’s Endpoint Security Q4 2023 tests finding that Bitdefender offers a “near-relentless focus on stopping threats” via its high-quality prevention engine.
Outside of GravityZone’s endpoint protection, I really like its flexible licensing and subscription model, letting businesses customize their plan according to their needs.
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GravityZone Small Business Security’s summary section. Image: Bitdefender
Why I picked Bitdefender GravityZone
I chose Bitdefender GravityZone for its strong threat prevention and highly customizable subscriptions. The fact that you can provide the exact number of devices or endpoints you want to be included in your GravityZone subscription is very user-friendly — particularly for businesses that want to save as much money as possible with their security solutions.
Pricing
Bitdefender GravityZone offers several subscriptions that can be customized depending on the number of devices and the length of the contract.
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For its small business category, GravityZone is split into three solutions: GravityZone Small Business Security, GravityZone Business Security, and GravityZone Business Security Premium.
Below is a quick overview of each tier’s pricing:
Small Business Security: Starts at $199.49 for 10 devices for 1 year; includes security overview of all endpoints, ransomware, and web-based attacks protection.
Business Security: Starts at $258.99 for 10 devices for 1 year; includes all Small Business features plus web access control, device control, and endpoint risk analytics.
Business Security Premium: Starts at $570.49 for 10 devices for 1 year; includes all Business Security features plus tunable machine learning capabilities, sandbox analyzer, and fileless attack defense.
Features
Ransomware mitigation.
Defense against fileless attacks.
Purchasable security add-ons.
Pros
Numerous subscription options for various business sizes.
Straightforward user interface and deployment.
Low impact on machines.
Cons
Reporting could be more granular.
What are EDR solutions?
EDR software comprises security solutions designed to continuously monitor endpoints for suspicious behavior, identify potential threats or cyberattacks, and effect remediation techniques to address these issues.
With EDR software, businesses are protected from both known and unknown threats — as they utilize behavioral analytics to sniff out suspicious activity and maximize threat intelligence to counter known attacks. Some common threats addressed by EDR software are ransomware attacks, data exfiltration, fileless attacks, and zero-day exploits, among others.
In the business setting, EDR can help secure your employees’ devices, company laptops and smartphones, servers, virtual machines, and other relevant devices. This is especially impactful for organizations with a hybrid workforce, as EDRs provide a strong level of security despite having an IT infrastructure with endpoints scattered in different locations.
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Key features to look for in top EDR tools
EDR software can vary quite a bit depending on the features they carry. Some are integrated with existing software ecosystems, like MDE with Microsoft. A few cater to smaller businesses with lower starting prices, like SentinelOne.
No matter the EDR vendor, there are key features everyone can expect out of most EDR solutions. Here’s each key EDR feature and what it provides for organizations:
Endpoint data collection
EDRs are purpose-built to gather security data on all endpoints connected to a network. This includes things such as files accessed or transferred, processes used, and connections established.
Endpoint data collection gives EDRs a bird’s eye view of an organization’s IT infrastructure, enabling visibility into possible vulnerabilities or threats within a system.
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Threat detection and response
EDR solutions track down any suspicious activities within a network by looking at peculiar events, hidden vulnerabilities, or questionable items. One big difference between EDRs and traditional antivirus solutions is that EDRs can also look into fileless attacks, such as patterns and behaviors in a system, for possible threats.
EDRs also utilize advanced algorithms and machine learning technologies to look for indicators of compromise, hunting down both known and unknown threats. Once an EDR detects a threat, you can set it to have an automated response that will trigger an appropriate action.
Threat hunting and forensic analytics
EDRs typically include threat hunting and forensic investigation functionality, taking a proactive approach to defending against threats. EDRs are designed to understand past weaknesses, identify patterns, and proactively hunt down threats or malicious actors in the future.
This includes having smart forensics analytics, which helps security teams learn how certain threats become successful and subsequently make adjustments against them afterward.
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Reporting and prioritization capabilities
Most EDRs also include extensive reporting and prioritization features. With EDR solutions, IT analysts can generate reports and summaries of an organization’s current state and security performance. These can be used for compliance and regulation reporting, eliminating the legwork needed to gather large volumes of security data.
EDR software also comes with alert prioritization capabilities, ensuring only the most urgent alerts are brought forward and reducing overall analyst fatigue.
Benefits of using EDR solutions
If you’re on the fence about investing in an EDR, it may be good to consider what benefits they can bring to your organization. Here are a few advantages to integrating EDR into your security suite:
Offers extensive visibility of your endpoints
With EDR, you have wide visibility of everything happening with your endpoints in real time. This includes file transfers or downloads, user behavior, network connections, and browsing history, to name a few.
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With this collection of data points, your IT team will have an abundance of information to work with in strengthening your company’s security posture.
It can deal with complex and advanced cyberthreats
Since top EDR solutions use a combination of global threat intelligence and real-time information from endpoints, they’re able to combat more sophisticated attacks that are specifically designed to fly under the radar.
Through various technologies like behavioral analysis, AI and machine learning, and automated response, EDRs can handle a diverse range of attacks and threats, no matter the level of complexity.
Provides insight into how an attack happened
Your organization can also use EDR to track down the root cause of an attack and implement appropriate measures to prevent it from happening again.
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This enables your business to adopt a proactive approach, both in preparing for similar threats and patching up existing vulnerabilities.
How to pick the right EDR solution for your business needs
With a number of quality EDR providers to choose from, choosing the best EDR solution for you may be confusing. However, there are a few things you can consider to help pick the right solution for you and your organization.
Consider company size and number of endpoints
The first thing to consider is the size of your company and how many endpoints you need to cover with an EDR.
Having a ballpark number of your endpoints will drastically reduce the amount of decision time needed, especially since some solutions and EDR subscriptions cater to specific business sizes over others.
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Check your existing security infrastructure and tools
It’s also important to consider what types of security tools and infrastructure your organization currently has. This means looking into whether you only need an EDR solution or if your organization requires other security software as well.
This can help with your purchasing decision since most EDR providers offer other security solutions as well. In this situation, purchasing a bundle of security products may get you better deals in terms of net pricing and licenses.
Look into security reputation and independent test results
Another big consideration is an EDR provider’s security reputation and performance in independent testing. While many EDR solutions will advertise themselves as the “best product” available, checking independent evaluations from third-party firms is a great way to have a less biased view of how an EDR performs.
Additionally, researching an EDR vendor’s security reputation won’t hurt. Have they had any significant security incidents, like data breaches or major vulnerabilities? Are they trusted by their customers and user base?
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In this regard, reading real user feedback is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to evaluate a product or service. This provides us with an idea of the real-world performance of these EDR solutions.
Maximize free trials and demos
You should also make the most of any free trials or product demos that these EDR vendors provide. Given the time and money commitment tied to buying and deploying these products, you want to ensure they’re the right fit for your organization before you move forward with a software purchase.
Both free trials and product demos can better understand whether an EDR meets your organization’s needs and requirements.
Keep in mind, however, that most enterprise-level EDRs will require some back and forth between you and the vendor’s sales team, so a bit of waiting time should be expected.
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Explore integrations with third-party products
Finally, it’s a good idea to check if the EDR of your choice works well with third-party products already in your company’s product suite. You don’t want to invest in a solution that won’t jive well with the other tools in your workflow, but you eventually realize that it’s not a good fit for your needs after all.
Luckily, there are a fair number of integration resources and support documents available online that show which third-party software integrates with specific EDR solutions.
Methodology
My rundown of the best EDR solutions for businesses in 2024 involved an in-depth evaluation of each EDR solution’s security features, pricing, and overall value for money.
Research for this article was done through extensive analysis of official product documentation, independent test results and performance, and value proposition per product. In addition, I took heavy consideration of real user feedback and user testimonials found on reputable review sites to gain a better understanding of how each EDR solution fares during real-world usage.
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Finally, I accounted for what type of business or organization would benefit most from each EDR solution listed above. Through this, my aim is to help businesses quickly find the EDR provider that best fits their current needs and circumstances.
Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,000 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today – or scroll down further for the answers.
Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc’s Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
Quordle today (game #1094) – hint #1 – Vowels
How many different vowels are in Quordle today?
• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.
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* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
Quordle today (game #1094) – hint #2 – repeated letters
Do any of today’s Quordle answers contain repeated letters?
• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 2.
Quordle today (game #1094) – hint #3 – uncommon letters
Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?
• Yes. One of Q, Z, X or J appears among today’s Quordle answers.
What letters do today’s Quordle answers start with?
• S
• T
• W
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• E
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.
Quordle today (game #1094) – the answers
(Image credit: New York Times)
The answers to today’s Quordle, game #1094, are…
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Very happy to check out after seven turns – especially as today featured a rare outing for the letter Z.
WOOZY was my final word and although I was impressed with myself and dusting imaginary dust from my shoulders, the truth is that, after deducing that the word had to include a double-O, there were only two choices – WOOZY or BOOZY, one of which you experience after being one of the other. For once in Quordle, I guessed the right one.
How did you do today? Let me know in the comments below.
Daily Sequence today (game #1094) – the answers
(Image credit: New York Times)
The answers to today’s Quordle Daily Sequence, game #1094, are…
“President Trump is trying to downsize the WHO, and the question is whether other high-income nations like those in Europe, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere, pick up some of the slack,” says Vermund. “Will the Gates Foundation, which has been a very generous donor, pick up some? It’s conceivable that others will tide things over until we have a new administration that might be more friendly to the WHO, but I’m dubious that they can pick up the entire chunk of the WHO budget which is paid for by the US.”
And it isn’t just money that the US provides to the WHO, but staff and expertise too. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has seconded a number of staff to the WHO, and I would predict that the Trump administration, with a new CDC director, will call those folks home,” says Vermund. “That would create quite a gap, because WHO funds do not pay for those individuals. So I think you’d have an almost immediate reduction of workforce and removal of critical professionals within the WHO organization.”
According to Gostin, a lot of the money the US provides to the WHO is core mandatory funding, which all members are required to give, but some funds are particularly earmarked for causes in which the US has a vested interest, such as polio eradication, HIV/AIDS, and the process of identifying and controlling disease outbreaks before they spread and reach American shores. Without US funding, Gostin says that these programs wouldn’t completely disappear, but they would be significantly weakened.
“Polio could come surging back,” says Gostin. “Remember we had polio in the wastewater in New York just a couple of years ago, and our kids are not being immunized. And we’ve had other real health scares in the United States, not just Covid-19, which killed more than a million people. We’ve had Zika, and the next health emergency might be just a mutation or two away. Maybe it’s already here in the form of avian influenza, and we’re going to need WHO to help us with that.”
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Both Gostin and Vermund fear that withdrawing from the WHO will place the US at the back of the line when it comes to receiving critical information such as pathogen samples and genomic sequencing data, which pharmaceutical companies require to generate effective vaccines. Gostin cites how the US relies on WHO data every year to effectively update the seasonal influenza vaccine, while Vermund explains that financially speaking, it is far more efficient for the US to fund the WHO to help “snuff out” diseases at their source, rather than trying to tackle them when they arrive in the country.
“We spent over $2 billion preparing for Ebola to hit US shores in 2014 and 2015, and since we only had five or six cases, that was very cost-ineffective,” says Vermund. “So that’s a typical example of how when the US goes it alone, it will be very inefficient compared with contributing to a multinational response to control a disease in the country of origin.”
President Donald Trump says he’d be open to his buddies Elon Musk or Larry Ellison buying TikTok.
“Larry, let’s negotiate in front of the media,” Trump said at a press conference with the Oracle co-founder, SoftBank CEO Masa Son, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to announce a $500 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure investment. “What I’m thinking about saying to somebody is, buy it, and give half to the United States of America. Half, and we’ll give you the permit. And they’ll have a great partner, the United States.”
“Sounds like a good deal to me, Mr. President,” Ellison said.
TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance still has other offers on the table, including from billionaire Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty and now, apparently, from YouTube creator MrBeast — whose investor group is receiving legal counsel from a team that includesthe brother of Trump’s attorney general pick.
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As he was leaving the briefing, a reporter asked Trump if he has TikTok on his phone. “No, but I think I might put it there,” Trump responded. “I think I’ll get it right now.”
Microsoft was once the exclusive provider of data center infrastructure for OpenAI to train and run its AI models. No longer.
Coinciding with the announcement of Stargate, OpenAI’s massive new AI infrastructure deal with SoftBank, Oracle, and others, Microsoft says it has signed a new agreement with OpenAI that gives it “right of first refusal” on new OpenAI cloud computing capacity. That means that, going forward, Microsoft gets first choice over whether to host OpenAI’s AI workloads in the cloud — but if Microsoft can’t meet its needs, OpenAI can go to a rival cloud provider.
“OpenAI recently made a new, large Azure commitment that will continue to support all OpenAI products as well as training,” Microsoft said in a blog post. “To further support OpenAI, Microsoft has approved OpenAI’s ability to build additional capacity, primarily for research and training of models.”
OpenAI has blamed a lack of available compute for delaying its products, and compute capacity has reportedly become a source of tension between the AI company and Microsoft, its close collaborator and major investor. In June, Microsoft, under shareholder pressure, permitted OpenAI to ink a deal with Oracle for additional capacity.
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In the blost post, Microsoft reiterated that “key elements” of its longstanding partnership with OpenAI remain in place through 2030, including its access to OpenAI’s IP, revenue sharing arrangements, and exclusivity on OpenAI’s APIs.
That assumes, of course, that OpenAI doesn’t achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) under the two companies’ agreed-upon definition before then. When OpenAI develops AI systems that can generate at least $100 billion in profits, Microsoft will lose access to the company’s technology, according to a reported agreement between the firms.
OpenAI is said to be considering nullifying the agreement in a possible bid to secure more Microsoft funding.
“The OpenAI API is exclusive to Azure, runs on Azure and is also available through the Azure OpenAI Service,” the blog post reads. “This agreement means customers benefit from having access to leading models on Microsoft platforms and direct from OpenAI.”
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We’ve reached out to OpenAI and Microsoft for more information and will update this post if we hear back.
There’s plenty to be excited about when building a business. Filing your taxes is more of a chore. If you want to make the process less stressful and max out your deductions, H&R Block Deluxe can help.
This powerful tax software lets you file both federal and state taxes online with ease. It also comes with free audit support and a massive library of 13,000 tax articles. Through February 11, you can get it for just $39.99 over at TechRepublic Academy.
Image: StackCommerce
April might feel a long way off, but April 15 will come around sooner than you think. That’s the last day to file your taxes unless you fancy a big bill. According to the IRS, the process requires 13 hours of work in total — the best part of two whole working days.
H&R Block Deluxe allows you to spend your time on something more productive. Available on PC and Mac, the software shows you how to claim 350 credits and deductions through step-by-step tutorials. That means fewer hours spent reading PDF documents written in legalese.
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You also have that huge library of articles for reference, along with FAQs and tips from expert accountants. If you need to pause while preparing your filings, you can easily save your work and start where you left off. Once you have run the numbers, H&R Block Deluxe gives you five federal e-files and unlimited federal prep.
Previously used TurboTax? No problem. You can import all your data to H&R Block Deluxe with a couple of clicks.
It’s easy to see how the software has earned glowing reviews. Earning 5 out of 5 stars on BestBuy and 4.5 on Amazon’s Choice, it shows it’s one of the best tax filing software on the market right now.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is already shaping up to be a beast of a GPU, given the specs unveiled at CES 2025, but if a new report is correct, it could have been even more of a monster.
A well-regarded rumor miller, HXL, shared a post on the Chinese hardware forum ChipHell that claims to show the PCB for an early prototype RTX 5090, along with some rather eye-watering specs well beyond those for the production model RTX 5090 due out next week.
According to the poster, the prototype was an engineering sample produced in mid-July 2024 and was sent to AIB partners to help them prepare their own versions of the GPU. How the user got their hand on the prototype – assuming it’s real, which is not at all certain, so take everything with a heap of salt – they did not say, but they did provide some of the supposed specs on the sample.
This includes the GPU SKU of GB202-200-A1, a CUDA core count of 24,576 (or about 13% more than the 21,760 in the production RTX 5090), a slightly higher clock speed of 2,100MHz base and 2,514MHz boost, and slightly faster GDDR7 memory modules clocked at 32Gbps (compared to the 28 Gbps chips in the production RTX 5090). These would have pushed the card’s memory bandwidth to 2TB/s rather than 1.79TB/s for the production 5090.
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Given the CUDA core count, we can also extrapolate that there would have been 192 SMs for the GPU, so 192 ray tracing cores and 768 Tensor cores for AI workloads.
The most incredible spec, however, is the 800W TDP, which is almost double the power draw of the RTX 4090 and about 40% more than the RTX 5090. As such, it would require two 12VHPWR connectors to supply enough power for the card.
Could it be a Blackwell Titan RTX?
As our buddies over at Tom’s Hardware note, this card could also fit the specs of a Titan RTX card built on Blackwell or an RTX 5090 Ti. We haven’t seen a Titan RTX since the Turing era, though the argument can be made (and has) that the RTX 3090 and RTX 4090 graphics cards are the successors to the Titan RTX cards of old, and it’s definitely possible that an RTX 5090 TI could sport these kinds of increased specs.
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Personally, if the GPU posted to ChipHell is legitimately an early engineering sample of the RTX 5090 that has made its way to production, I think it is simply that: a sample. It’d be analogous to a first- or second-draft GPU before refining the architecture down to the RTX 5090 that will go on sale next week.
While it’s interesting to see some behind-the-scenes engineering compared to the actual production model, ultimately, it probably isn’t much more than that.
It was an opportunity too good for Meta to ignore: On January 19, TikTok, one of its biggest social media rivals, was set to go dark across the United States when a new national security law went into effect. In the days and weeks before the ban, as millions of Americans were scrambling to find a suitable alternative to TikTok, Meta found ways to promote Instagram and Facebook as the answer. The tech giant made a flurry of design tweaks, rolled out new features, and ran advertisements that all positioned its platforms—and especially its video product, Reels—as direct competitors to TikTok.
Instagram has scaled back its in-app shopping initiatives in recent years, but on Friday, Meta showed off a new feature that appears to be directly ripped from TikTok Shop, TikTok’s widely successful ecommerce platform. In a promotional video, two shopping creators working for Meta explained how influencers can now “more prominently display” products they are marketing in Reels. Instead of putting an Amazon or Walmart link in the comments, they can add a banner directing viewers to click on the item at the bottom of their videos—just like how it works on TikTok Shop.
Some of Meta’s other efforts were just as pointed. Right before TikTok stopped working for roughly 14 hours on Saturday, some people reported that among the last things they saw on the platform were sponsored posts for Instagram. “Unsurprisingly, as TikTok goes down tonight, Meta is flooding my FYP with ads for Instagram,” one person said in a Bluesky post, referring to TikTok’s AI-powered For You Page feed. “In my last hour of TikTok I saw ads for instagram,” another person said on Threads.
TikTok’s Ad Library, a transparency tool that allows anyone to search what paid campaigns are running on the platform, shows that Meta ran dozens of sponsored videos about Instagram and Reels in January that were collectively viewed by millions of users. But the tool includes data from only a select number of countries—mostly in Europe—and doesn’t cover what ads TikTok users may have seen in the United States. Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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On Facebook, a number of people reported seeing a different promotion appear on their news feeds last week, encouraging them to link their TikTok accounts to their Facebook pages. “Build your social presence across apps by showing your TikTok profile link and follower count on your Facebook Page,” one version of the message read.
Given the timing, “this feels a bit passive aggressive,” one user wrote on X along with a screenshot of the banner. “Facebook is trolling users by suggesting we add our TikTok accounts to our Facebook pages,” joked another person.
The prompt appears to be connected to a feature Meta launched last month that allows users to display their YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram handles and follower counts on Facebook. However, the banner that people reported seeing in recent days mentioned only TikTok by name. The feature makes it easier for creators’ followers on other platforms to find and follow them on Facebook.
A plan to build a system of data centers for artificial intelligence has been revealed in a White House press conference, with Masayoshi Son, Sam Altman, and Larry Ellison joining Donald Trump to announce The Stargate Project. Their companies, Softbank, OpenAI, and Oracle (respectively), along with MGX are listed as “initial equity funders” for $500 billion in investments over the next four years, “building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States.”
According to a statement from OpenAI, “Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI” are the initial tech partners, with a buildout “currently underway” starting in Texas as other sites across the country are evaluated. It also says that “Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will closely collaborate to build and operate this computing system.”
Separately, Microsoft announced an update to its partnership with OpenAI, saying that the key elements of their deal remain in place through 2030, covering “our access to OpenAI’s IP, our revenue sharing arrangements and our exclusivity on OpenAI’s APIs all continuing forward.”
In a press conference announcing the project, which has been rumoredsince early last year, Son and Altman spoke directly to Trump, insisting that the project only happened because of his election victory.
With data centers expected to consume as much as 12% of electricity in the U.S. by 2028, it’s no surprise that tech companies are looking for power no matter the source, whether it be nuclear, renewables, or something else entirely. But solar produces a very different type of electric current from a nuclear plant, and integrating various power sources can be challenging.
“We’ve got about 90 gigawatts [of data centers] globally in 2023, and that’s going to increase to over 185 gigawatts by 2028, so it’s only just around the corner,” Gary Lawrence, CEO of Amperesand, told TechCrunch.
Today’s equipment, the transformers that convert power from one format to another, are up to the task, but Amperesand is betting that its technology can do it better and more efficiently.
At its core, Amperesand’s technology replaces the iron cores that define old transformers with silicon carbide. Existing transformers follow the same basic design that has worked well for over a century, but they have their shortcomings. For one, they aren’t good at regulating surges and dips in voltage or frequency. Plus, they have to be tailored to the specific format of electricity they’re looking to transform.
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Solid-state transformers made with silicon carbide promise to change that. “The solid-state transformer platform is multi-port by design, it’s modular,” said Brian Dow, Amperesand’s new chief product officer.
“We can make different AC phases, AC to AC, AC to DC. You can natively integrate DC sources like photovoltaic [solar] and batteries. You can integrate with turbines, small modular reactors. And you can basically seamlessly transition between them, so if the grid has an issue, you can back up but also you can come back online.”
Amperesand is in the process of raising a Series A round after it landed a $12.5 million seed round last year, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. “We’ve just kicked off a Series A, and it’s moving really quickly,” said Phil Inagaki, managing partner at Temasek’s Xora Innovations. The company is targeting EV charging and grid applications in addition to data centers, and the solid-state nature of the technology makes it easier to control with software. It demonstrated a 6 megawatt transformer last year.
Xora incubated Amperesand, and Inagaki led the company through its initial formation. Recently, with some funding and a firm strategy in place, he handed the reins to a new leadership team, including Lawrence, Dow, and Tommy Joyner, the company’s new chief technology officer.
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The Singapore-based startup is also in the process of opening an office here in the U.S. to be closer to the massive market and to tap local talent. Dow and Joyner, for example, both did stints at Tesla and Generac.
“The U.S. is still where there’s amazing talent that we can capture,” Inagaki said. “We have some in Singapore, but we won’t be able to scale that quickly. So definitely, that talent angle was a big factor.”
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