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MAXSUN has demonstrated a compact workstation built around a Z890 Mini-ITX motherboard that connects a discrete GPU by routing its PCIe 5.0 link through MCIO cabling rather than a conventional PCIe x16 slot. The system was shown at Intel Connection 2026 in China, highlighting how the high-density connector standard can provide greater flexibility for small-form-factor workstation designs.

MAXSUN officially announced the MS-Challenger MCIO ITX platform in June 2026, as part of an effort with Intel to expand the MCIO ecosystem. MCIO stands for Mini Cool Edge I/O, and can carry high-speed PCIe over cable instead of forcing the PCIe endpoint to plug directly into the motherboard.

The 74-pin MCIO 8i connector used by MAXSUN carries up to eight PCIe lanes, so the board uses two connectors to expose a full 16-lane interface. This raises an obvious question: how is it different from a conventional PCIe riser cable?

Radeon GPU users no longer have to wait for AMD's response to NVIDIA's DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, as modders have delivered significant performance gains and simpler installation. Thanks to modder Daniel Blanco's unofficial project DLSS-NR-on-AMD, Radeon users can now run DLSS-NR with significantly higher frame rates and a much simpler, one-click installation.

There are actually two major runtime implementations at play here: Kien's dlss5-on-amd-9070xt-porting and danielblnc's DLSS-NR-on-AMD. Both are ground-up implementations that use custom HIP kernels to run the DLSS 5 neural network on Radeon hardware rather than translating NVIDIA GPU code at runtime. Daniel's approach remains closed-source while Kien's alternative is open-source.

According to danielblnc, the Alpha 0.3.3 version achieved a 23% speed boost over previous builds. Alpha 0.4.0 then increased performance by around 42%, and Alpha 0.4.1 added another 8%, bringing the total to roughly 89% more performance than v0.3.2 across those three releases. That is a massive improvement in just 2 weeks.

A Reddit user says Walmart sent them four RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards after they paid for just one. The Redditor, posting as u/deadmanwonderland_23, ordered a single MSI GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB for $1,099, a price that beats most current listings for the card by over $100. Instead of one box showing up, four identical units apparently did.

The card in question looks to be MSI's Frieren Beyond Journey's End special edition, which sells for $1,259 on MSI's own store. Four of those would put the total value of the shipment north of $5,000, against a single payment of $1,099. It's not clear whether the buyer has told Walmart about the extras yet, or whether Walmart even knows.

Shipping mistakes that work out for the buyer aren't rare, and big retailers often just let people keep the extra units rather than deal with the hassle of getting them back. Walmart hasn't said anything about this particular case, so there's reason to hold off on drawing firm conclusions until more comes out. GPU prices have kept climbing through 2026, which probably makes a story like this more interesting than it would have been a couple of years back, especially for a card that already sits well above most people's budgets.

With GTA 6 launching November 19 on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S, the question of what platform it will go to next is already circulating. A PC port is widely expected, and rumors of a Nintendo Switch 2 version have been floating around for months. However, a former Rockstar developer has now come forward pushing back on the Switch 2 idea fairly directly.

Jérémy Hartvick, a former open-world designer at Rockstar who worked on GTA 6 from 2017 through 2020, told Kiwi Talkz that a Switch 2 port simply does not make much sense. "I don't believe it even makes sense, because I'm not sure the audience for GTA 6 is so much the audience for the Switch. If you're a GTA fan, you would probably buy a console on which GTA will come out," he said.

"Does it make sense for you to go out of your way to probably deliver a subpar experience, because it does not run exactly the same, when you know anyone will buy a PS5 to get your game? No." The argument is essentially that Rockstar's brand pull is strong enough that dedicated fans will buy whatever hardware they need to play, making an optimized Switch 2 port a difficult investment to justify for the return it would likely generate.

Intel's Raptor Lake architecture is getting a new desktop implementation, with ERYING introducing compact MoDT (Mobile-on-Desktop) motherboards built around its new embedded Core i7-13798HRE and Core i5-13598HRE processors.

At the heart of the two boards are Intel's Core i7-13798HRE and Core i5-13598HRE processors, both reportedly rated at 55W. The Core i7-13798HRE combines 6 P-cores and 8 E-cores for 14 cores and 20 threads, with boost clocks up to 5.0GHz and 24MB of L3 cache. The Core i5-13598HRE is its 12-core/16-thread sibling with 4 P-cores and 8 E-cores, 18MB of L3 cache, and boost clocks up to 4.8GHz.

ERYING explicitly describes the Core i7-13798HRE as essentially a Core i7-13800HRE without integrated graphics. Based on its specifications, the i5-13598HRE appears to follow the same pattern: an i5-13600HRE-class part with integrated graphics disabled.

Nintendo says it has won a $4.5 million judgment against James Williams, known online as Archbox, a former moderator of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit. Williams was accused of running multiple pirate shops that offered extensive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games for free download. The US District Court for the Western District of Washington ruled by default, meaning Williams never responded to the lawsuit.

Nintendo originally filed suit in June 2024, accusing Williams of operating, overseeing, and driving several piracy shops since 2019. He also moderated r/SwitchPirates, a community that grew to nearly 190,000 members and regularly directed users toward unauthorized downloads and tools for bypassing Nintendo's protections. Williams reportedly solicited Nintendo eShop gift cards to buy games that could then be copied and distributed, and provided technical assistance to help users run pirated titles.

The $4.5 million figure comes from the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per title applied to 30 copyrighted games, including The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The court found the infringement was willful. A permanent injunction also bars Williams from distributing pirated Nintendo games, selling circumvention software, or encouraging others to obtain pirated content. It requires him to shut down all remaining piracy shops and associated social media accounts.

Microsoft has revealed its biggest overhaul of Copilot yet, and CEO Satya Nadella is framing it as something bigger than an assistant. In a post on X, Nadella said the company is building Copilot as a new OS for work that spans every model, every form factor, and every task.

The rebuilt app splits into three main pieces: Home, which merges the existing Chat and Cowork experiences and folds in full Word, Excel, and PowerPoint support; Code, a natural language app builder running on the same tech as GitHub Copilot; and Autopilot, a persistent agent that keeps working after the user closes their laptop.

Home and Code start rolling out to Microsoft's Frontier early access program over the coming weeks, with Autopilot moving into private preview by the end of September. Autopilot looks like a rebrand of Scout, the always-on agent Microsoft showed at Build in June, which could follow channels and resume abandoned projects without a fresh prompt. Pricing is now split into two lanes, with a flat per-user license for everyday use and usage-based billing for the heavier agentic work in Cowork, Code, and Autopilot.

Thermal Grizzly has launched the Mycro Pro Stainless Steel CPU water block, and the Intel version comes with support for Intel's LGA1954 socket, the platform expected for Nova Lake-S desktop processors currently targeting a Q1 2027 launch.

Alongside LGA1954, the block also covers LGA1700 and LGA1851, meaning buyers can use it with current and last-generation Intel platforms and carry it forward to Nova Lake-S when it arrives.

This is not the first signal that LGA1954 is approaching. Thermaltake's leaked installation guide and Noctua's FAQ update have both suggested that LGA1851 coolers should carry over to the new socket, and LGA1954 components have already appeared on AliExpress. Thermal Grizzly adding the socket to an official product listing is another sign that the platform is close enough for accessory makers to ship for.

Remedy Entertainment's contribution to gaming is well documented. Max Payne, Alan Wake, Control, Quantum Break, and now Control Resonant make a portfolio that, by any measure, should have the studio sitting comfortably. But critical acclaim and commercial success have not always aligned for Remedy.

Alan Wake 2 took over a year to turn a profit despite being a genuine Game of the Year contender, and that kind of outcome leaves a studio in a difficult position. Control Resonant needed to land differently, and so far, it has.

The game has become Remedy's most successful Steam launch on record, peaking at over 34,000 concurrent players and hitting first place on the Steam bestseller chart with an 88% positive review score. For context, the original Control peaked at around 9,100 concurrent players six years ago. Control Resonant has nearly quadrupled that figure.

Ubisoft has quietly released PC system requirements for Rayman Legends Retold on the game's Steam news page, and they're far friendlier than you'd expect from a game built on a completely new engine compared to the 2013 original.

To achieve 60 FPS at 1080p on low settings with FSR or XeSS upscaling set to Quality, Ubisoft only demands an NVIDIA GTX 1660 (6GB) or AMD RX 5500 XT (4GB), both low-end GPUs from 2019, paired with just 8GB of RAM and a Core i3-8100 or Ryzen 3 3100 processor. Upgrading to 1080p high settings at 60 FPS brings it to an RTX 2060 SUPER, RX 5700, or Intel ARC A750, which is still reasonable by modern standards.

At 1440p, requirements bump to an RTX 3070 or RX 6750 XT, and its 4K Ultra tier is a different ballgame entirely, asking for an RTX 4080 or RX 7900 XTX, showing that Ultra settings ramp up much more aggressively than the basic experience does.

An RTX 5090 owner's run-in with PNY's warranty process after a power connector failure has raised eyebrows across the gaming community. User Melodic_Initial_1767 posted the exchange on Reddit, claiming his PNY RTX 5090 died while idle, with both ends of the 12VHPWR cable melted on the card side and the PSU side, leaving the system unable to detect the GPU at all.

According to the owner, the card was connected to an ASRock PG-1600G power supply using the native 12V-2x6 cable that shipped with that PSU, not an external cable or splitter. He also added that the VBIOS was stock, the card had never been overclocked, and the power limit had been set below the default output.

Despite this, PNY rejected the claim the same day it was filed, stating that only PNY-branded cables or adapters are covered under warranty. The company said it doesn't cover damage caused by any third-party cable, adapter, or PSU-supplied cable involving melting, burning, or overheating.

Following feedback from 007 First Light's latest path-tracing update, the game's developers have published two hotfixes that improve the game's performance with path tracing enabled. The latest hotfix, version 1.2.2, fixes a plethora of graphical issues in the game relating to path tracing and improves path tracing performance in two levels.

Arguably the biggest improvements surround the path-tracing performance updates the developers added to Chapter 6 and Chapter 8. Both levels have received a performance fix where performance could drop 5 to 10 FPS on an RTX 5070 GPU. Chapter 6's update fixes a performance drop when entering the Gala area and looking towards the crowd, and Chapter 8's update fixes an issue where performance can drop during camera zoom in the "Smoking Gun" scene.

All of the other fixes surround graphical glitches, including fixes to overly bright reflections, shadow flickering, textures, and areas where ambient lighting should or should not be visible to the player.

TSMC's next-generation 1.4nm process, known as A14, is reportedly moving closer to trial production, according to Taiwanese media citing industry sources.

The reports say A14 is on track to enter trial production in 2027, with pilot production already starting at TSMC's Fab 20 in Hsinchu's Baoshan science park before shifting to Fab 25 in Taichung. Mass production remains targeted for 2028, in line with what TSMC has said publicly for a while now.

According to the same reports, TSMC's yield progress on A14 is apparently running ahead of schedule. Test vehicles are said to be hitting close to 90% of the target device performance, and 256Mb SRAM yields are reportedly nearing 90% as well. That's a solid position for a node still a couple of years from mass production, though yield figures this early can still shift.

Microsoft's latest Windows 11 release preview update KB5124010 has received user complaints that the update is causing certain games to crash. Reported by Neowin, multiple user reports claim that Windows 11's latest preview update is causing Battlefield 6, WARDOGS, and some other games with anti-cheat support to crash.

Neowin pointed to several Reddit posts and Steam posts showing users complaining about Battlefield 6, WARDOGS, and EAC games crashing. Some users report just Battlefield 6 crashing on their PCs; others report WARDOGS crashing on their PCs, and some others also reported Battlefield 2042 and Fallout New Vegas crashing with the update.

The workaround is to completely uninstall KB5124010, which reportedly helped several gamers fix their game-crashing issues. There's still no full confirmation that anti-cheat issues are causing these games to crash, but it appears all of the games that are proving problematic with the Windows update do have some form of anti-cheat, whether that be Easy Anti-Cheat or another anti-cheat system.

Meta is introducing generative AI tools that let users quickly and easily create, share, and play customized 2D and 3D games.

Meta has introduced new disruptive technology that could have long-reaching effects on the entertainment industry. The company has revealed specifics on its new Horizon Create and Studio tech, a suite of software tools that use generative AI to instantly create playable games. The interactive slices can then be shared on Facebook and Instagram.

"Horizon Create and Horizon Studio put all your workflows in one place. No exporting, no importing, no switching apps, no separate pipelines. It's a place where you can play what others have built and start creating in the moment,"said Horizon VP Saxs Persson.

NVIDIA's new and impressive DLSS 5 3D-Guided Neural Rendering is now available in a single title, NBA 2K27, and unofficially in every PC game thanks to modders. As discussed in our deep dive into DLSS 5, beyond a hefty FPS cost, enabling the technology also pushes GPUs to their power limit. And on high-end cards like the GeForce RTX 5090, a sustained 100% power draw at 575W with spikes for gaming is a genuine cause for concern after multiple ongoing reports of overheating and cables and connectors melting that date back to the GeForce RTX 40 Series.

Korean outlet QuasarZone has decided to test this side of DLSS 5 on Founders Edition models of the GeForce RTX 5080 and GeForce RTX 5090. The outlet tested it by playing a modded Cyberpunk 2077 with DLSS 5 on both GPUs. For the GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition, average power draw rose from 298W to 350W, while the GeForce RTX 5090's average power draw rose from 509W to 575W.

This reinforces our analysis from testing the official DLSS 5 release in NBA 2K27, but with a thermal camera, QuasarZone found that with DLSS 5 on the GeForce RTX 5090, the hottest temperatures don't come from the GPU or memory, but from the 16-pin connector. Capturing temperatures on both sides of the connector, the outlet reaches a maximum of 91.7 degrees Celsius, up from 80.9 degrees with DLSS 5 turned off.

Poorly optimized PC games are not uncommon, and they're a real concern when they lead to a sub-optimal gaming experience that leaves performance on the table or outright blocks certain rigs and hardware from achieving playable performance. Poor optimization can also cause stuttering, frame-pacing issues, and sudden frame-rate dips and spikes, even on the most high-end rigs running cards like the GeForce RTX 5080 or RTX 5090.

As Respawn First spotted, NVIDIA has filed a new patent that uses AI to analyze GPU performance and identify the root cause of issues. What makes it stand out is that it follows a standard "LLM-based chat interface" that connects directly to GPU performance tools, letting users interact in plain language.

For a game developer, it could ask a general question about frame-time issues in a particular scene, and the AI tool could then create a custom script to run code and extract detailed hardware and diagnostic information to help find the root cause. It's a general-purpose solution that would apply to all GPU-related workloads, not just PC gaming, and looks more like a tool than something that would automatically try to fix the issue.

The new Razer Kiyo V2 Pro is a "professional 4K webcam" for gamers, streamers, and creators, with its standout feature being the ability to capture and stream 4K video at 60 FPS. It joins the company's existing Razer Kiyo lineup as the flagship pro-level offering, priced at $299.99 USD, on par with the impressive Elgato Facecam 4K, which also offers 4K60 capture.

The Razer Kiyo V2 Pro is powered by the Sony STARVIS 2 sensor. This back-illuminated image sensor captures more detail in dimly lit or low-light environments with advanced noise reduction and "One-Click Image Enhancement." This pairs with AI-powered auto-framing, pan, tilt, and zoom controls that can track movement and keep you in the frame during calls, streams, and recording sessions.

Razer also notes that users have access to professional webcam settings on the Razer Kiyo V2 Pro, including customizable ISO, shutter speed, exposure, gain, Ultra-High Dynamic Range (UHDR), and more to create a DSLR-like experience. These features are available in the Camo Studio app, with each Razer Kiyo V2 Pro shipping with a complimentary Camo Pro subscription for users to unlock these advanced controls.

Two prominent developers are using an unusual mix of technologies to hit a 60 FPS performance target in their Nintendo Switch 2 ports. Basically, the teams are combining NVIDIA's custom version of DLSS Super Resolution to hit 30 FPS, and then AMD's FSR 3.1 Frame Generation to run their games in an interpolated 60 FPS mode. The two games in question are Stellar Blade from Shift Up and Dragon's Dogma 2 from Capcom.

In Stellar Blade and Dragon's Dogma 2, Shift Up and Capcom both offer 30 FPS and 60 FPS modes. Digital Foundry discussed this in the latest Q+A episode of its DF Direct podcast, noting that the Nintendo Switch 2's Stellar Blade demo features this 60 FPS mode that blends DLSS with FSR Frame Generation, and the results are mixed at best.

They note that, naturally, the combination doesn't deliver an experience that feels like playing the game at 60 FPS, and it introduces issues with particles and animations rendered at 30 FPS that are then put through Frame Generation. Also, because the game is still technically rendered at 30 FPS, the controls and input latency still feel like you're playing at 30 FPS, and performance stutters and issues are more noticeable with Frame Generation than without.

Microsoft introduced the Copilot+ PC branding back in 2024 alongside the arrival of the first Windows on Arm devices powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processors. The branding refers to hardware that meets a minimum AI performance threshold to run local Copilot+ AI tools.

At the time, Microsoft touted its flagship tool, Recall, as a game-changer for Windows users. However, because Recall reportedly took screenshots of your PC environment with little regard for privacy and minimal security for AI-powered historical search, it drew its fair share of criticism. One could argue that the Recall feature, delayed and then quietly released months later, harmed the Copilot+ PC brand before it had a chance to take off.

Cut to 2026, and a new report at Windows Central highlights that Microsoft's Surface PC for 2026 has ditched the Copilot+ PC branding. Speaking with a Microsoft Surface executive at this year's Snapdragon Summit, where the latest Qualcomm-powered Surface PCs were shown, they said that even though these new devices "meet all the requirements of our previous bar for what Copilot+ devices are," "these are not called Copilot+ PCs."