This week on the TT Show, Lord of the Rings superfan (and also superfan) Jak and Kosta discuss Peter Jackson returning to The Lord of the Rings franchise with the new movie 'The Hunt for Gollum.' They discuss the potential story, timeline, and their hopes for a return to the magic of the original trilogy. And not, you know, The Hobbit.

Another big story this week is Apple's apologizing for its seemingly tone-deaf iPad Pro advertisement that quickly caused a massive wave of negative backlash. Is it as bad as some of the comments? As a fan of retro hardware who doesn't like seeing it get destroyed, Kosta thinks so, while Jak is more on the fence and 'meh.'

And it wouldn't be an episode of The TT Show without GPU news, with all of the latest GeForce RTX 50 Series, Radeon, and Intel graphics talk bundled into a new section of the podcast called 'GPU Corner.' Speaking of new sections, Jak and Kosta play a round of Guess the Headline for some fun.

3DMark Steel Nomad is here, and it's free for all users. Check out our news story to see the 4K and Light versions of the new benchmark in action running on a GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER. Steel Nomad is the new Time Spy, a non-raytracing benchmark designed to push PC gaming hardware while showcasing modern visual effects and rendering technologies.

UL Solutions, the developers and publishers behind 3DMark, confirm that the new 4K 3DMark Steel Nomad benchmark is "roughly three times heavier for your PC than Time Spy, and almost seven times heavier than Fire Strike." Like 3DMark Time Spy, it's a cross-platform benchmark with support for Windows and Windows-on-Arm using the DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs, Android using Vulkan, and iOS using Metal.

Alongside the launch of Steel Nomad, UL Solutions announced that since Time Spy debuted in 2016, the benchmark has been run almost 48 million times (runs from results submitted online). We also learn that average GPU performance has quadrupled in the eight years since Time Spy debuted.

3DMark Steel Nomad is the latest benchmark for joining the 3DMark suite. It's free for all current users and owners, including the free 3DMark Demo version. It's a milestone release from UL Solutions, following the popular Time Spy benchmark that launched in 2016.

3DMark Steel Nomad arrives in two versions: the baseline 3DMark Steel Nomad, which runs natively in 4K and is designed for 'high-end gaming PCs', and 3DMark Steel Nomad Light, which is for lightweight gaming PCs. Steel Nomad is a non-ray-tracing benchmark that includes new technologies like volumetric skies and procedural grass. It also includes advanced ambient occlusion and depth-of-field effects. UL Solutions notes that it's "roughly three times heavier for your PC than Time Spy, and almost seven times heavier than Fire Strike."

Watch the video above, captured with a GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics card, to get a sense of the demo. As you'll notice, it's a definite GPU stress test as the high-end GeForce RTX GPU only manages to deliver frame rates in the 65-70 FPS region.

Noctua and its earthy-toned products are well-known among PC builders and modders. Noctua has created premium, quiet, stylish fans, and cooling solutions for many years. Noctua gear is highly sought after, and this has led to collaborations with companies like ASUS to create Noctua Edition GeForce RTX graphics cards and Drop to create Noctua-themed keyboard accessories.

Noctua's new HOME product line is a little different. It's designed for everything besides a PC, with "home, office, and multi-purpose ventilation" via two fan sets and nine modular accessories. This means you can install the new pivoting NV-FM1 Noctua fan mount with Noctua fans as a desk fan to keep you cool in the summer months or even mount it in the ceiling or on a wall.

One of the accessories is the new NV-AA1-12 airflow amplifier, designed for focused ventilation. The NV-MPG1-12 is a multi-purpose gasket for Noctua 120x25mm fans that the company says is ideal for "placing a fan on top of A/V receivers, DVRs, video game consoles, stereo equipment, routers, home radiators, or other devices."

G.SKILL is set to make another big splash in extreme overclocking at Computex 2024. Its booth will host the 10th Annual OC World Record Stage 2024, where high-end Intel motherboards from ASRock, ASUS, GIGABYTE, and MSI will be paired with G.SKILL DDR5 memory and plenty of liquid nitrogen (LN2).

The world's top overclockers will do their thing in front of a live audience (we'll be there!), attempting to achieve as many overclocking records as possible. G.SKILL has released the 10th Annual OC World Record Stage 2024 schedule (see it above), which kicks off on June 4 and runs through to June 7.

Each motherboard maker and a group of overclockers will be given their day in the sun (or is that LN2 fog), with OC legends like HiCookie and Splave set to appear. The 8th Annual OC World Cup 2024 Competition will also take place live at the G.SKILL Computex 2024 booth, with overclockers going head-to-head with G.SKILL DDR5 memory and 14th Gen Intel Core processors - and yes, even more LN2.

Samsung has announced the new Head of Device Solutions Division, part of Samsung's semiconductor business, with Young Hyun Jun taking over.

Jun will be officially named President and CEO of Samsung once the approval from the board of directors and shareholders comes through. Remember, Samsung has a dual-CEO system, with one CEO looking after the semiconductor business, and the other looking after other device experiences (displays, phones, etc).

Jun has a big task ahead of him, with his primary objective to Samsung is to "strengthen its competitiveness amid an uncertain global business environment". Jun replaces Samsung President Kyehyun Kyung, leaving his previous role at the Future Business Division.

Microsoft seems pretty hungry after its Activision acquisition, with a fresh (and very hot, prepare your salt) rumor that the Windows and Xbox giant is preparing a $16 billion offer to buy Valve. Yes, that Valve, from Gabe Newell.

Dior is a gaming-focused content creator in the Counter-Strike gaming community, posting on X that Microsoft is reportedly preparing a $16 billion offer to buy Valve Corporation, which would include the absolutely gigantic Steam store... by far, the most popular PC gaming platform on the market, and stars in the eyes ($$$) of Microsoft.

The rumors of NVIDIA making a next-generation Arm-based processor seems to be gaining traction, with both the CEOs from Dell and NVIDIA teasing a new NVIDIA Arm-based processor inside of a new Dell AI PC in 2025.

During a recent chat with Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow, Dell CEO Michael Dell was asked about NVIDIA's place in the huge AI PC market, to which the Dell CEO said: "come back next year," while NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said "exactly".

We know that the Windows-on-Arm AI PC market is going to absolutely explode in the next 12 months, with Microsoft launching its new Copilot+ PCs powered by Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus processors. NVIDIA has all of the ingredients to create a monster Arm-based processor: Arm general purpose cores, GeForce GPUs, Tensor Cores for AI, networking, and more hardware.

Samsung is speeding into the world of next-gen 3D RAM, the future of compact RAM, something we're learning from its presentation during IMW 2024 this week.

VCT (vertical channel transistor) DRAM is one of the first achievements towards this goal, with Samsung expected to complete the initial development of VCT DRAM in 2025, with 3D DRAM hitting the market by 2030. IWM 2024 is an international conference for computer memory companies, where Samsung teased its developments in DRAM innovation.

ZDNet Korea reported on the story, with Samsung Vice President, Lee Si-woo, speaking during Samsung's research in 4F Square VCT DRAM and 3D DRAM. Lee said: "Industrial developments such as hyperscaler AI and on-demand AI require a lot of memory processing ability. On the other hand, the microprocessing technology of existing DRAM is limited". While, in the future, Lee predicts "new innovations are expected to occur in the structure of cells".

A new website is aiming to be the go-to resource for Windows on ARM gamers who are trying to suss out which games will run well on their Copilot+ PC.

If you've missed the fuss this week somehow, Copilot+ PC is Microsoft's new terminology for its AI PCs, only this category of devices requires a much more powerful NPU.

Indeed, the only chip that qualifies to power a Copilot+ PC right now is the Snapdragon X Elite, but it won't be long before NPUs with 45+ TOPS appear from Intel and AMD as well (Lunar Lake, Strix Point).

There have been a ton of new rumors floating around in the last few weeks that suggest the upcoming iOS 18 iPhone software update will be a big one, bringing with it a slew of new AI-powered features. Now, a new report has shared more details about what IOS 18 will have to offer and for once, it isn't something to do with Apple's newfound focus on AI.

AppleInsider has been sharing various tidbits about the expected iOS 18 features of late and now a new report suggests that Apple is planning some new changes to the way the Music app works on iPhones.

The report, which cites unnamed people familiar with Apple's pre-release software, claims that a new audio passthrough feature is coming to Apple Music and QuickTime player. It will only be available on supported hardware and nobody knows what that hardware will be just yet, and details are also unclear as well. The report says that it appears to relate to spatial audio.