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We're continuing our TweakTown giveaways, rewarding our registered members and newsletter subscribers with top-tier hardware every week. For our latest giveaway, we've teamed up with MSI to give one lucky winner a premium gaming bundle worth a combined ~$895, featuring a special-edition World of Warcraft-themed GeForce RTX 5070 and an ivory wireless gaming headset.

There will be one winner in total, and the prize includes an MSI GeForce RTX 5070 12G World of Warcraft: MIDNIGHT LIGHT EDITION OC worth ~$770 and an MSI MAESTRO 500 WIRELESS Ivory headset worth ~$125.

The MSI GeForce RTX 5070 12G World of Warcraft: MIDNIGHT LIGHT EDITION OC is the centerpiece of this week's prize. Created as part of MSI's World of Warcraft: Midnight collaboration, the card combines special Light-inspired styling with NVIDIA's latest-generation Blackwell GPU architecture. It features 6144 CUDA cores and 12GB of high-speed GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit interface, along with support for NVIDIA technologies including DLSS 4.5, Multi Frame Generation, ray tracing, Reflex, and NVIDIA Studio.

With credible rumors pointing to Blizzard developing a new 'AAA' first- or third-person shooter set in the StarCraft universe, alongside the potential return of its genre-defining RTS action in StarCraft 3, it looks like we're only days out from finding out what's going on with Blizzard's dormant sci-fi franchise.

Right now, if you visit StarCraft's official site, which hasn't really changed since 2017's StarCraft Remastered, you'll notice that it briefly starts glitching as it attempts to display an "incoming transmission." Although it doesn't confirm any details about a new StarCraft game, fans have noticed hidden text in the website's code pointing to a major in-universe event in the year 2575.

This is about 70 years after the events of StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void, the third installment and last cinematic, narrative-driven release in the series. The text is also Terran-heavy, hinting that the unannounced StarCraft game rumored to be in development will let players take control of Terran soldiers.

AMD's new Threadripper Halo Station might look like a desktop PC. Still, it's actually a powerful AI workstation powered by the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9995WX processor and AMD Instinct-class HBM workstation accelerators that can handle trillion-parameter models. It offers up to 576GB of HBM3e GPU memory, up to 2TB of RDIMM system memory, and a CPU with 96 'Zen 5' cores.

As the demand for powerful local AI continues to increase, it makes sense that AMD would leverage its leadership in the processor and workstation GPU space to create the Halo Station. In fact, with the AMD Threadripper Halo Station on track for a 2027 release, it's set to go head-to-head with NVIDIA's recently announced DGX Station, which pairs an Arm-based 72-core NVIDIA Grace processor with an NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra (GB300 Superchip) and RTX PRO GPUs.

With a whopping 2.6TB of total system memory, AMD notes this is a 3.4X increase versus the NVIDIA DGX Station, with up to 16.4TB/s of total memory bandwidth (up to 16 TB/s on the GPU side and up to 410GB/s on the RDIMM/DDR5 side). AMD showcased a prototype of the Threadripper Halo Station at IFA 2026, where it said it will offer "datacenter-class AI compute in a single deskside workstation."

We went hands-on with the impressive Predator Atlas 8, a new gaming handheld powered by the Intel Arc G3 Extreme processor, at Computex 2026. With its integrated Intel Arc B390 graphics, it's easily one of the most powerful portable gaming GPUs out there, capable of playing modern games like Forza Horizon 6 at 1080p with High or even Ultra graphics settings thanks to XeSS 3.

The Predator Atlas 8 also sports an 8-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200-pixel) display with a 120Hz refresh rate with VRR support, 500-nit brightness, and 100% sRGB color coverage. That makes it sit on the larger side for a gaming handheld, which is probably why Acer has announced the more portable Predator Atlas 7. As the name suggests, it sports a 7-inch FHD touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate, VRR support, and 100% sRGB color coverage.

Beyond the more compact 7-inch form factor, the Predator Atlas 7 should deliver performance similar to its larger 8-inch sibling, as it's also powered by the Intel Arc G3 Extreme processor with Intel Arc B390 graphics. As another Windows 11 handheld, it's also paired with an Xbox Game Pass subscription for immediate access to a wide range of titles.

As seen in our review of DLSS 5's official launch in NBA 2K27 last week, when you enable the impressive DLSS 5 3D-Guided Neural Rendering tech in the game, GPU power usage increases substantially. For the GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition, power usage climbed from around 465W with DLSS 5 off to a maximum of 575W with DLSS 5 on.

It's similar with DLSS 5 on a GeForce RTX 5080; power draw also increases by around 100W to hit the GPU's 360W power limit. With GeForce RTX 50 Series cards from the RTX 5070 up, all using the newer 12V-2x6 power connector, we've seen a steady stream of cases where the cables have overheated and melted, damaging cables, connectors, and even GPUs.

With the consensus that the higher the power draw, the more likely a cable is to overheat and fail, technologies like DLSS 5 that push GPUs like the RTX 5090 to their power limit may add another layer of risk. VideoCardz reports that one of its readers experienced exactly that when testing DLSS 5 in NBA 2K27 on their MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC graphics card.

At IFA 2026, Dell announced a new budget laptop set to go head-to-head with Apple's popular and affordable MacBook Neo devices. As an alternative to the impressive Dell XPS 13 (2026), check out our review of the Dell XPS 14 (2026) here: the new Dell 14S (2026) will arrive in multiple colorways, promising all-day battery life and performance for students and professionals, powered by Intel's 'Wildcat Lake' Core 5 and Core 7 Series 3 processors.

Although Apple's MacBook Neo series was able to hit its impressive price-to-performance target by repurposing iPhone processors, Intel's 'Wildcat Lake' series was explicitly designed for everyday use, all-day battery life, and multitasking performance. This means the Dell 14S (2026) series probably won't be great for PC gaming, but it will offer more than enough power for multitasking, running apps, video conferencing, and more.

Multiple Dell 14S (2026) configurations will also be available, with the entry-level variant set to run on the 6-core Intel Core 5 320 processor, 8GB of LPDDR5X memory clocked at 7,467 MT/s, and 256GB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage. At the high end, the more powerful Dell 14S (2026) models will sport the faster Intel Core 7 350 processor, 16GB of LPDDR5X memory clocked at 7,467 MT/s, and up to a 1TB PCIe NVMe SSD.

Gamers can use last-gen Xbox One consoles to authenticate current-gen game discs in the new disc-to-digital program.

YouTuber Austin Evans found an interesting quirk in Microsoft's new disc-to-digital initiative. The program essentially allows users to put a game disc into their console and unlock a free digital version of the game. It's a big deal right now, and reflective of the times, as Project Helix and PS6 are poised to be disc-less, digital-only consoles.

Gamers have favored the plan, seeing it as an extension of Microsoft's Play Anywhere--another initiative that seems primed for a digital-dominant landscape. Xbox consoles are now being used as authentication machines to digitize game libraries, and Evans discovered that gamers can put in current-gen Xbox Series X games into a last-gen Xbox One to unlock the entitlement.

The likelihood that the next-gen Xbox console will have a disc drive is slim, according to new reports from Digital Foundry.

New reports give potential insight into why Blu-ray game discs are being phased out. Sources recently told Windows Central that the supply chain for physical games is breaking down due to the scarcity of optical disc drives. Microsoft is having a tough time getting them, the report goes on to say, which could be why Xbox CEO Asha Sharma wouldn't confirm or deny Project Helix would have a disc drive.

"I was told it's less about the discs themselves and more about the supply chain around optical disc drives collapsing. Demand for optical disc drives revolves entirely around Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 right now, with laptops, Blu-ray devices, and other formats essentially phasing out the tech," Windows Central's Jez Corden said in the report.

Traveling today means packing lots of charging cables for the various devices we carry or use over 24 hours. For example, if you're on an overnight work trip and use each device heavily, you would need to pack your iPhone charger, Apple Watch charger, and AirPods charger. That is quite a lot of cables, not to mention the inability to charge each device simultaneously over the same port.

To solve that issue and make a jetsetter's life easier, KUXIU has debuted the X40 Turbo, a 3-in-1 Qi2.2 wireless charging station that can charge each of the aforementioned devices at the same time in one 64mm x 64mm x 18mm device. The X40 Turbo can also charge compatible iPhone models at up to 25W, while the Apple Watch and AirPods charging locations provide up to 5W each. This means the latest-generation iPhone models and any other Qi2-compatible device can reach their maximum charging speeds with the X40 Turbo.

The X40 Turbo is designed to simplify charging for someone who regularly travels with multiple devices, as it comes with a charging case, USB-C cable, and wall port. The idea here is to remove the need for multiple chargers or a bulky multi-device charging station. The X40 Turbo weighs just 148g and can fold down to about the size of a DSLR lens cap. Additionally, the phone can be adjusted to different viewing positions, giving you a helpful bedside StandBy display that continuously shows the time, date, etc.

Owners of Apple's latest iPhone generation, particularly those who are heavily using some of the device's most powerful features, such as the camera, navigation, and constant connectivity to other apps, services, or devices, may have noticed their battery being quite low before the end of the day. Obviously, a power bank is the solution, but most are bulky, heavy, or just awkward to handle.

INIU has released the SnapGo Air, a 10,000mAh battery that is designed to solve that exact issue. The SnapGo Air supports 25W charging via its Qi2.2 wireless charging protocol, so compatible devices can fast-charge without a cable. Additionally, INIU has squeezed this 10,000mAh capacity into a 13.7mm slim design, which is 57% thicker than the iPhone 17 Pro (8.75mm) and Pro Max (8.75mm), 72% thicker than the iPhone 17 (7.95mm), and 143% thicker than the iPhone Air (5.64mm).

So, when attached to any iPhone model this generation, the total width will be no more than 23mm, making the SnapGo impressive given its 10,000mAh capacity. That charging capacity breaks down as follows: iPhone Air = 2.0 charges, iPhone 17 = 1.8 charges, iPhone 17 Pro = 1.5x, and iPhone 17 Pro Max = 1.3x. Additionally, INIU claims, based on internal testing, which I can verify after testing the SnapGo, that it can charge an iPhone 17 Pro to 50% in around 33 minutes wirelessly.

Microsoft has reorganized its business into two segments: one focused on enterprise, Azure, and AI, and the other on consumer devices. Xbox now belongs to the latter.

The home of Xbox is changing how it is structured. Microsoft is shrinking its wider organization into two main segments: Agents & Infra (AI and cloud) and Devices & Consumer (Windows and Xbox). The company says no adjustments will be made to the metrics themselves, so Microsoft should keep revealing a scant amount of Xbox info every quarter.

"With these segment changes and to provide transparency to investors, we are updating our product and services reporting definitions to better represent the businesses as we manage them today, which will be used in our SEC filings going forward."

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated releases for cinephiles, and even the general public who haven't yet made it to the theatre to watch it. To showcase that anticipation, thousands of pirates downloaded several torrents titled "The Odyssey," only to be greeted with a movie that on IMDb is currently rated 1.8/10.

The torrent circulating on numerous popular torrent websites gained attention after it was uploaded under the familiar YTS/YIFY branding and was titled "The Odyssey (2026) 1080p WEBRip x264 5.1 YTS YIFY." The torrent weighed just 1.59GB, and on one torrent website I viewed, the file had 5,800 seeders and 4,597 leechers. However, the movie within the torrent wasn't Christopher Nolan's, but an 86-minute movie directed by Marcel Walz and produced by The Asylum, a studio known for releases called "mockbusters". Notably, Walz's The Odyssey stars Myrom Kingery and was released on July 3, 2026, while Nolan's version was released on July 17, 2026.

To add even more confusion, a YTS mirror listing has appeared and includes details from Christopher Nolan's version, including Nolan as the director, a synopsis of the plot, and actors such as Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Zendaya. That mirror torrent offers a movie length of 86 minutes, the same as Walz's version of The Odyssey. To spur things along even further, comments have taken to these torrents to encourage users to download them, with some even writing that the acting from Damon, Hathaway, and others was superb.

After just one month, the PS5 emulator known as KyTyPS5 has been spotted successfully running Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 5, indicating significant progress in getting PS5 games unofficially working on PC.

Footage highlighted on X by eXtas1s shows Grand Theft Auto 5 running the North Yankton prologue mission, and the player progressing through the mission as per normal, albeit with considerable graphical concessions. Assets, lighting, and other graphical elements are extremely unstable, flickering in and out of view. However, the game runs relatively stably, with gameplay pulling between 40 and 60FPS through the KyTyPS5 emulator.

The original footage was posted by BrutalSam, who captured the gameplay on a system equipped with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Radeon RX 79000XT. What makes this demonstration particularly interesting is that, back in July, I reported the KyTyPS5 emulator had only managed to boot GTA 5 to its main menu and settings, as the campaign was completely inaccessible. Now, less than two months later, we have a "playable" version that renders 3D gameplay up to 60FPS.

Acer has unveiled its first compact PC based on NVIDIA's RTX Spark platform, aiming to challenge systems like the Mac Studio with 128GB of unified memory and a full petaflop of AI compute.

The Acer SFF RTX Spark features an NVIDIA Blackwell GPU and a Grace CPU, delivering up to 6,144 CUDA cores and 1 petaflop of FP4 AI compute. The new system is designed for local AI workloads, content creation, and gaming, with Acer saying it supports NVIDIA's CUDA and RTX technologies.

Acer showed the system at IFA 2026, though it is calling it a design concept rather than a finalized product, which is a nice way of saying Acer is currently in the process of gauging the public reaction to the released specifications and design before it initiates any production on the new system.

Discord is reportedly preparing to reintroduce global age verification under the codename "Tiny Bronco," according to a recent Wumpus Central post.

The news has sparked privacy concerns among users who point to past trust violations, such as Discord exposing 70,000 government IDs. The new system is said to impose stricter access controls for users under 18, including restrictions on adult-only servers, stage channels, and sensitive media. Here's how it will work. You click into a server, and a prompt appears asking you to prove you are an adult; if you don't, you won't be able to see the content within that server.

Additionally, Message requests would also become mandatory, and users could face blurred content in direct messages. These changes come as Discord attempts to combat its large platform, privacy concerns, and the implementation of systems designed to protect teens using Discord. Walking the line between intuitive age verification security systems, and non-intrusive, consumer-focused privacy is proving a difficult challenge. Not just for Discord, but any other company in a similar set of shoes.

NVIDIA has officially confirmed that DLSS 5 will be introduced to previous-generation RTX 40 series GPUs. NVIDIA issued a statement (reported by TechPowerUp), clarifying that Ada Lovelace would get DLSS 5, but noted that support will not arrive until the company further optimizes DLSS 5 performance on Blackwell GPUs. NVIDIA is planning to introduce new DLSS 5 models this fall, so development work on 40 series enablement won't come until after those models are complete.

The news comes days after NVIDIA launched DLSS 5 with NBA 2K 27, when the company initially announced DLSS 5 would be RTX 50 series exclusive. NVIDIA even went so far as to say there is no fallback path for RTX 40 series GPUs, seemingly suggesting that they were not going to make a version of DLSS 5 for Ada Lovelace.

However, the modding community already confirmed prior to DLSS 5's launch that DLSS 5's hardware limitation was purely artificial. A couple of days before NBA 2K 27's launch, modders were able to use DLSS 5 early through a DLSSNR DLL found in an early access version of NBA 2K 27. After modders successfully injected DLSS 5 into Control, the mod spread like wildfire across the internet, with a number of gamers and tech influencers testing DLSS 5 across dozens of titles.

GTA 6 will level up realism for players with several new systems that track Jason and Lucia's ongoing health. The game will punish poor sleep and unhealthy habits, with Jason and Lucia's well-being now confirmed to directly tie to in-game performance.

Rockstar North co-studio head Rob Nelson confirmed that a built-in health app tracks sleep, diet, and even weight. "It will say whether you're well rested or not," Nelson said. "That will have some effect on regen of certain attributes." If you neglect your in-game health, your character might start to suffer, and not just visually; Nelson saying "certain attributes" implies there will also be an impact on other aspects of the character.

On the other side of the coin, if players decide to work out constantly with Lucia or Jason, or both, each protagonist will gain muscle and additional attribute bonuses. However, if the player suddenly stops working out, Nelson said they will lose these bonuses, and they won't maintain their muscles.

After 17 years, Activision has finally addressed the dangerous Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on PC. The update, released this week, claims to have solved all known exploits that had plagued the 2009 title for years.

In a statement to Windows Central, Activision confirmed that the team has patched the vulnerabilities and is actively working to support legacy titles. The studio encouraged players to report any remaining issues through its Bug Bounty Portal, which you can access if you are interested or have recently encountered a bug and want to report it here. For PC players, this is a long-awaited fix, as RCE exploits allowed malicious actors to upload malware during multiplayer sessions and, in some instances, take over PCs completely.

The RTX 5090's infamous 12V-2x6 power connector has struck again - this time on Hardware Unboxed's test bench, where a cable hit a scorching 175°C under load.

The incident involved an ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5090 paired with a Be Quiet! Dark Power 13 PSU. Host Steve discovered the problem after touching the cable and feeling a burn, which thermal imaging later confirmed. A Thermal Grizzly WireView Pro revealed an extreme current imbalance: one wire pulling 22A while others carried almost none. The damage was worse at the PSU end, and Steve noticed after using pliers to pull the cable out that the wires that weren't carrying any current were completely melted at the PSU end.

Steve added that the cable was perfectly seated in the power supply beforehand, and that he isn't specifically blaming Be Quiet! or the Dark Power 13 PSU, as there have been numerous reports of melting with a variety of PSU and graphics card combinations. However, the one common denominator is the 12V-2x6 power connector.

Rockstar Games' GTA 6's PC release may come faster than most expect, driven by rising console prices and shifting market dynamics.

Rockstar Games has yet to confirm a PC launch date, but industry analysts such as VGC's Andy Robinson suggest the company may release the PC version within a year of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S debut. Notably, that would be extremely unlikely considering Rockstar's latest flagship titles, such as GTA 5, which took 1 year and 6 months to arrive on PC, and Red Dead Redemption 2, which took 1 year and 10 days. So, anything under a year would be extremely unusual.

However, we are living in unusual times: the gaming industry is feeling the pinch as hardware costs rise, with companies diverting manufacturing capacity toward AI-focused hardware and leaving less supply for consumer-focused electronics. E.g., consoles, graphics cards, components, etc.

GTA 6 could run at 4K 60FPS on PlayStation 5 Pro, according to Leaked PlayStation 5 Pro Enhanced guidelines that suggest developers must target a stable 60FPS frame rate and 2160p resolution.

According to the requirements leaked by Moore's Law is Dead, developers must follow these guidelines to receive a PlayStation 5 Pro Enhanced tag. However, developers have a choice in direction, as the PS5 Pro Enhanced tag can be awarded to a title that increases its target resolution from its original base PS5 resolution. Furthermore, a PS5 Pro Enhanced tag can be given to a game with a higher maximum resolution target, a higher framerate target, or the addition of new or higher-quality ray-tracing effects.

Rockstar is reportedly using the PS5 Pro's improved GPU to push GTA 6 to 4K, likely using the latest version of PSSR. However, achieving a stable 60 FPS on the system's modestly upgraded Zen 2 CPU seems unlikely, with 40 FPS a more realistic performance ceiling, especially if Rockstar is already leaning toward increasing visual fidelity through the addition of further refinements to the implementation of graphical technologies such as ray-traced lighting, textures, shadows, and more.