TT Show Episode 50 - Our Big NVIDIA GeForce RTX Interview
The TT Show's 50th episode is here, and to celebrate the milestone (more like the timing lined up perfectly), we sit down with NVIDIA's Jacob Freeman, GeForce Evangelist, to talk about all things PC gaming. From DLSS to RTX Remix to Half-Life 2's impressive remake to the success of Black Myth: Wukong, and more.
It's a lengthy and great discussion worth tuning into. Jacob offers insights into how NVIDIA engages with game developers and sees AI evolving and changing how we all play. Ahead of that, though, it's your usual TT Show programming as Jak and Kosta go through all of the big stories that have cropped up in the PC, gaming, and tech space over the past week.
This week on the TT Show, the duo talks about the PlayStation 5 Pro's imminent reveal, thanks to Sony finally teasing the upgraded console and what to expect regarding games and performance.
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Millennials vs. Boomers: How familiar are they with technology?
Technology has evolved at a breakneck pace over the past few decades, transforming from clunky computers to powerful smartphones and from basic internet connections to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and smart devices. For older generations, like Baby Boomers, the analog world was the norm for most of their lives, with rotary phones, snail mail, and typewriters shaping their daily routines. Meanwhile, Millennials grew up during the tech boom, embracing new tools like email, instant messaging, and social media with ease.
The shift toward a hyper-connected, digital world has been more natural for Millennials, who saw the birth of smartphones, Wi-Fi, and social media in their formative years. In contrast, Baby Boomers, who had to adapt later in life, often find technology more daunting. Despite this gap, both generations are now fully immersed in the digital landscape, but their comfort levels and usage patterns reveal some striking differences.
A recent survey from ExpressVPN sheds light on the vast generational gap in tech familiarity. The survey, which included respondents from the U.S., UK, France, Spain, and Italy, reveals that while Millennials generally have a solid grasp of technology, Baby Boomers struggle to keep up.
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Sony's new PlayStation 5 Pro official: 45% faster, 2-3x faster in RT, launches Nov 7 for $699
PS5 lead system architect Mark Cerny has officially confirmed the beefed-up PlayStation 5 Pro console, which is exactly what the leaks said: 45% faster in rendering, up to 2-3x faster in RT, and it features AI-based upscaling tech called PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution).
The new PS5 Pro will be launching on November 7, 2024 and priced at $699.99 with a similar, but slimmed-down look of the PS5. Inside, there's up to 45% faster rendering, 2-3x performance improvements in ray tracing, and some heavy performance upgrades thanks to PSSR on the PS5 Pro.
Sony offers two rendering modes on the standard PS5: Fidelity Mode (30FPS) and Performance Mode (60FPS). The higher fidelity mode renders at a higher resolution and graphics quality, but drops down into the 30FPS mark which isn't good to play with. Performance Mode drops the rendering resolution and detail quality, but increases the performance to 60FPS. Cerny notes that PS5 gamers are choosing Performance Mode around 3/4 of the time.
OpenAI could skyrocket ChatGPT subscription to $2000 per month for next-gen Strawberry AI model
OpenAI is reportedly considering heavily increasing the cost of its subscription-based services for its AI chatbots, with the current $20 monthly fee for its ChatGPT Plus service possibly seeing a new ceiling of $2000 per month for its next-gen AI model Strawberry.
In a new report by The Information, we could see OpenAI charging as much as $2000 per month for its AI chatbots, especially if we see some radical upgrades out of Strawberry, its latest AI model. Its new Strawberry model has been referred to as "GPT-Next" and should roll out before the end of 2024, according to the latest reports (more on that below).
Strawberry will reportedly have "System 2 thinking" which will allow GPT-Next to take the time to deliberate and reason through problems, versus just predicting longer and longer sets of tokens to complete its responses. System 2 thinking has impressive results: scoring over 90% on the MATH benchmark, a collection of advanced mathematical problems.
AMD confirms new Krackan APU for early 2025: Zen 5 CPU + RDNA 3.5 GPU, ready for new handhelds
AMD has confirmed it will have its new "Krackan" APU launching in early 2025, aiming at the $799 notebook market ready for Copilot+ in 2025.
The big difference between the just-launched Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" APUs and the new "Krackan" (also rumored as "Kraken Point") is that it will drop down to 8 cores of Zen 5 (4 x Zen 5 + 4 x Zen 5c) and a heavily cut-down 8 CUs of RDNA 3.5 GPU (compared to 16 CUs of RDNA 3.5 on Strix Point, and 40 CUs of RDNA 3.5 on Strix Halo).
AMD's upcoming Krackan APU will feature the same Zen 5 CPU + RDNA 3.5 + XDNA 2 NPU, so we have Copilot+ ready for 2025, with enough TOPS (45-50 TOPS) for AI workloads of the future (and to compete against Intel Lunar Lake and Qualcomm Snapdragon X).
PS5 Pro journey was only 19 months from prototype to release, no missed deadline says insider
Sony reportedly took just 19 months from prototyping the upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro console to its release, according to insider Tom Henderson.
In a new post on X, Henderson posted: "from prototyping to release, Mark Cerny and the PlayStation hardware team took 19 months in total, and they never missed a single deadline. Impressive stuff". Cerny is about to take the stage a few hours from now for the PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation, where we should be introduced to the new PS5 Pro console.
I wouldn't expect a huge deep dive as Sony isn't into that at its announcement of consoles, but we know to expect around 45% more performance from the PS5 Pro over the standard PS5. Not only that, but wicked new AI-powered PSSR technology (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) and AMD's new RDNA 4-based GPU tricks that provide 2-3x the RT (ray tracing) performance.
Rambus unveils industry-first HBM4 controller IP, ready to super-speed next-gen AI workloads
Rambus has just unveiled the industry-first HBM4 controller IP that will accelerate next-generation AI workloads.
The new Rambus HBM4 controller enables a new generation of HBM memory deployments for cutting-edge AI accelerators, graphics, and HPC applications. Rambus' new HBM4 controller supports the JEDEC spec of 6.4Gbps, supporting operations of up to 10Gbps with a throughput of 2.56TB/sec to each memory device. The new Rambus HBM4 controller IP can be paired with third-party of customer PHY solutions to instantiate a HBM4 memory subsystem.
Neeraj Paliwal, SVP and general manager of Silicon IP, at Rambus, said: "With Large Language Models (LLMs) now exceeding a trillion parameters and continuing to grow, overcoming bottlenecks in memory bandwidth and capacity is mission-critical to meeting the real-time performance requirements of AI training and inference. As the leading silicon IP provider for AI 2.0, we are bringing the industry's first HBM4 Controller IP solution to the market to help our customers unlock breakthrough performance in their state-of-the-art processors and accelerators".
TSMC expecting its first state-of-the-art High-NA EUV lithography machine from ASML this month
TSMC will get its very first High-NA EUV lithography machine from ASML later this month, after saying it didn't want or need ASML machines to make future chips, the Taiwan semiconductor giant will now get its first High-NA EUV machine and have installation begin by the end of September 2024.
According to Taiwanese media, TSMC will get its first High-NA EUV lithography machine later this month, so it can continue its dominance over South Korean semiconductor rival, Samsung. Intel has been receiving and setting up -- as well as paying billions of dollars with ASML -- its new High-NA EUV lithography machines, and now TSMC is joining the High-NA EUV fray.
ASML's new TwinScan EXE:5000 High-NA EUV lithography machines cost approximately $380 million USD per machine, but TSMC will have no problems ponying up the cash as it is swimming in it with its semiconductor dominance worldwide.
Here's how and where to watch Sony's unveiling event for the PlayStation 5 Pro
Sony has officially announced an exciting new "PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation" hosted by the PS5 architect himself, Mark Cerny... so expect the beefed-up PS5 Pro unveiling in just a few hours time, and here's how to tune in when it happens:
Sony posted to its official PlayStation account on X to tune into their PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation hosted by Mark Cerny, which will be a 9-minute stream that begins on September 10 at 8AM PST / 4PM BST. We've got some more time zones for you to tune in wherever you live across the world, as I'm sure there will be some gamers who want to stay up late -- or get up early -- for the PS5 Pro announcement.
As for where to watch it, you can tune into the PS5 Pro reveal event aka "PlayStation 5 Technical Presentation" on the official PlayStation YouTube account below:
iPhone 16 Pro Max vs iPhone 16 Pro vs iPhone 16 - What are the big differences?
Apple has just wrapped up its Glowtime event, where it unveiled its newest generation of iPhone devices, along with a bunch of other Apple products such as the Apple Watch Series 10, AirPods 2, and AirPods Max.
The star of the show was definitely the three new iPhone models that will be available for pre-order this Friday. But what are the differences you should know about? This year Apple has closed the specification gap between the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, with the only major differences in the devices being in the following categories: battery, screen size, and starting storage capacity. That is it.
Last year, Apple introduced the 5x Telephoto lens that sported Tetraprism technology to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, while the iPhone 15 Pro was limited to 3x. This year, the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max have the exact same camera array. The screen size on the iPhone 16 Pro comes in at 6.3 inches, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max has a 6.9-inch display. Battery life is slightly more severe in terms of a difference between the two devices, as the iPhone 16 Pro will last up to 27 hours when playing a video compared to 33 hours on the iPhone 16 Pro Max.
AI mysteriously starts crying out loud like a human confusing a user
AI music generators have become all the rage since the explosion in popularity of AI-generation tools, but now we are starting to hear the oddities that can come out of AI generation.
A Reddit user has posted a short clip that was created using the music generation software known as Suno. The user wrote that with the 24-second clip, the AI sounded like it was crying at the end of the video and that this crying wasn't part of the prompt that created the clip. The user wasn't alone, as another commented that an AI-generated song that has since been posted on Spotify features an outburst at the end where users can audibly hear "No!".
So, what could be causing these strange and seemingly emotional outbursts? Well, these AI systems are designed to create music based on the keywords provided in the user's prompt. It appears that Suno is attempting to create a human-esc outro, which can often feature fading pieces of audio and sometimes single words or sounds.
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