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8BitDo has announced what it's calling its "most advanced controller to date" with the new Ultimate 3E for Xbox and PC gamers. With a wide range of pro-grade controllers on the market, one feature that sets the 8BitDo Ultimate 3E apart is its hot-swappable ABXY Module. You can choose between face buttons with crisp, tactile micro-switches or a more traditional silicone membrane feel.

The 8BitDo Ultimate 3E is chock-full of customization, including the ability to switch between a four-way or circular D-pad and swap out the thumbsticks for different heights and feel. And speaking of the thumbsticks, in addition to being magnetic Hall Effect sticks for drift-free gaming, they also feature the latest Tunneling Magnetoresistance sensor technology for accuracy and power efficiency.

The magnetic Hall-Effect tech also extends to the Impulse Triggers, which you can adjust for a snappier response in shooters or an analog feel in racing games. The 8BitDo Ultimate 3E also includes two programmable rear buttons, or paddles, plus two additional shoulder buttons (L4/R4), offering more low-latency input options.

With the current memory crisis driving up consumer-grade DDR5 prices, any new product launch in this space will always raise the question: 'but at what cost?' That said, G.SKILL's Trident Z5 Royal NeoX Series DDR5 Memory definitely looks the part, adopting the Royal lineup's mix of silver, gold, and a crystalline light bar that looks like diamond jewelry with added RGB.

G.SKILL calls it luxurious and sophisticated, adding a touch of elegance to the brand's pristine reputation for overclocked performance. What makes G.SKILL's Trident Z5 Royal NeoX Series DDR5 Memory stand out is its support for the latest Ultra Low Latency technology for AMD EXPO, called EXPO ULL. Basically, it delivers lower latency at the same memory speed.

G.SKILL Trident Z5 Royal NeoX Series DDR5 Memory supports speeds of up to DDR5-6000 with memory sub-timings of CL 26-36-36-32, 28-36-36-32, 30-38-38-32, and 36-36-36-76. G.SKILL notes that the Trident Z5 Royal NeoX Series will be available in 32GB kits (16GB x 2), with stock expected to become available in various markets "in phases."

Although liquid cooling has become the go-to for many when it comes to CPU coolers, there's still an argument to be made for air coolers, especially when it comes to models like the new XERON NEX A61 ARGB air CPU cooler. With its single tower design, XERON notes that the NEX A61 ARGB has been custom-tuned and engineered for AMD's AM5-socket Ryzen processors.

Powered by dual silent ring-blade fans, the NEX A61 ARGB also features direct-touch heatpipes with "triple-parallel-pipe precision" coverage for improved heat transfer, plus a physical design that accounts for memory clearance for higher-profile RAM or DDR5 modules. The fans are set up in a push-pull configuration for increased airflow, too, with speeds up to 1800 RPM and noise levels as low as 29.9 dB(A) for quiet performance.

Although XERON notes that the engineering was based on AMD AM5-socket processors like the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, Ryzen 7 9850X3D, and Ryzen 9 9950X3D, the NEX A61 ARGB offers broad compatibility with Intel LGA 1851, 1700, and 1200 motherboards, plus support for AMD AM5 and AM4-socket boards.

R18+, including titles like Cyberpunk 2077, DOOM: The Dark Ages, and Resident Evil Requiem. Both Sony and Microsoft have implemented the check for Xbox and PlayStation gamers; however, with Valve now jumping on board with Steam, the whole process is causing a negative response from PC gamers in the country.

The reason is simple: Valve chose an age-verification method unlike other gaming platforms and services. Basically, if you want to access R18+ content, which includes opening a store page for a game, you're presented with the following message.

"Valve is required by the Age-Restricted Material App Distribution Services Code to verify that you are 18 or older before accessing mature content. If you wish to do so, please add a valid Australian credit card to your account and afterwards update the Mature Content Preferences. Add a credit card to this account."

Microsoft's games division tonight announced that it will publish Hideo Kojima's new stealth game PHYSINT as part of a widening partnership between Kojima Productions and Xbox. The game was previously set to be published by PlayStation.

Hideo Kojima's new Metal Gear spiritual successor game PHYSINT will now be published by Xbox. The project was first announced two years ago and was to be published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The project received more updates last year, where Kojima shared a teaser image for PHYSINT and confirmed various details like a cast of characters. At the time, Kojima said PHYSINT was a "next-stage tactical espionage action game" that will be "using technology even further than OD."

PlayStation shared a message, explaining that PS Studios "made the difficult decision" to end their involvement in PHYSINT. Sony goes on to say that their relationship with Kojima "remains strong after three decades of industry-leading, genre-defining creative cooperation" and that Sony also "looks forward to continued close collaboration" with Kojima in the future.

Xbox and Ikea's marketing deal has extended to free Skyrim mods, injecting actual Ikea products directly into Bethesda's best-selling RPG.

In one of the most unpredictable and truly bizarre moves that we've seen in modern gaming, somehow, some way, Ikea has a talking shelf mod for Skyrim. Microsoft and Ikea recently teamed up to bring Xbox into the real world with products like analog stick decorations and D-Pad pillows. But no one expected Kallax Storageborn.

So...what exactly is going on? Ikea sells a brand of shelves called Kallax, and for some reason, Bethesda has created an official Skyrim mod that adds a talking Ikea Kallax shelf into the game as a fully-voiced companion with a unique quest. Kallax Storageborn has tons of inventory space, too. It gets even weirder: Matt Berry, the comedian from hit TV series What We Do in the Shadows, does the voice for Kallax Storageborn.

The NEOGEO AES+ console has been pushed back and delayed by a year, and will now release on September 16, 2027.

SNK and Plaion are resurrecting the classic NEOGEO from the 1990s, complete with authentic hardware, joysticks, and even accurate cartridge repros. While pre-orders went live back in April for $250, promising a November launch, the system has now been delayed to September 2027. The reason? Component shortages, the same thing that's driving up PS5, Xbox Series, and Switch costs.

"We're sorry to say that the worldwide release will not take place on September 16, 2027," Plaion wrote on Twitter. "Global component supply constraints mean we simply cannot manufacture enough systems to deliver the worldwide launch our community deserves."

It's another day, and gamers have figured out yet another way to use DLSS 5 in a way NVIDIA does not officially condone, thanks entirely to the modding community. Bang4BuckPC gamer on YouTube showed off a new method of tuning DLSS 5's neural renderer for maximum image fidelity, beyond what DLSS 5 does in its default configuration, by running the neural renderer twice per frame.

In testing with an RTX 5090 in Rise of the Tomb Raider, running DLSS 5 with two passes resulted in a subtle but noticeable improvement to image quality at a severe cost to performance. Switching from single-pass to dual-pass neural rendering with DLSS 5 saw slight improvements to texture clarity and lighting fidelity on Lara Croft's character and the environment around her.

Using the second neural rendering pass in Rise of the Tomb Raider incurred a 73% performance penalty, dropping the game's frame rate from 350 with DLSS 5 off down to 95 with DLSS 5 on. It's worth mentioning that the YouTuber is running DLSS 5 with a performance optimization despite the huge performance drop-off, by running the neural renderer before the upscaling pass to gain back performance. If the YouTuber ran two-pass rendering with DLSS 5's neural renderer rendering the game after the upscaling pass (which is how DLSS 5 runs by default), performance would be even lower than 95 FPS.

Unionized Blizzard workers have secured their first-ever contracts with the publisher, and the terms ensure wage increases, protection against just cause terminations, and other guaranteed workplace changes.

After two years of negotiations, Blizzard's unionized staff across Diablo, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and more have ratified historic contracts with the company. The new contracts directly address key concerns like pay rates, termination processes, remote work and disability accommodations, and hybrid workweek schedules. There's also a provision for 4 weeks of extra severance for union workers.

The contracts even force Blizzard to discuss, evaluate, and directly bargain with CWA union members over how AI tools are used when doing business. Another interesting part of the contracts: Workers now have the right to be "recalled" into positions that open in unionized groups for 14 months after their layoff date--meaning that open positions at union teams can be filled by union workers rather than being filled by outside parties.

Hello Games has announced another major content drop for No Man's Sky that celebrates the game's 10th anniversary with overhauls and new features, including being able to travel to the center of a star system and build a space station.

No Man's Sky Cosmos, the latest free content drop from Hello Games, updates the game to v7.0 with big redesigns. Cosmos is the capstone to 10 years of space sim evolution and makes some key changes to navigation, including a new system map that "reinvents" exploration. The star systems feel more alive because they're now filled with emergent and interactive moments, and players can now venture right to the sun of each system for the first time ever.

"With Cosmos we wanted to make space feel truly alive. We've added asteroid belts, space hulks, outposts, missions, strange anomalies, and tons of mystery to explore. There's so much to do in space that we've added a beautiful map to plot and keep track of every system," Hello Games' Sean Murray said on the PlayStation Blog.

We are not exactly new to dynamic pricing. The most recent example would be Sony testing dynamic pricing on the PlayStation Store, with game prices adjusted based on user data like playtime and location. However, we have never really seen Microsoft use it for Xbox Game Pass. That seems to be changing, at least according to reports in a Reddit thread.

In a photo uploaded to the platform, one user shared the subscription screen showing Xbox Game Pass Ultimate discounted from the usual $22.99 to $16.09 a month, locked in for an entire year unless the user cancels early. "Been looking for an annual subscription for years," the poster wrote. "$16.09 a month for one year Ultimate. I'll take it."

Other users have reported similar experiences, with u/Much_Comfortable_378 offered around $18 per month for twelve months and u/modemman11 receiving an offer of $20. The exact price differs per person, and there is no guarantee you will see a special offer at all, even after cancelling. In fact, if you head to the Xbox website right now, chances are you'll likely see the standard $22.99 rate.

Ongoing component shortages have been driving up prices on everything from RAM to consoles, and CPUs are no stranger to the trend either. We've already seen both AMD and Intel hit consumers with CPU price hikes of up to 15%. Sadly, that wasn't the end of the story, as gamers hoping for cheaper hardware are now facing yet another CPU price hike from Intel.

According to a new report from Chinese outlet Digitimes, Intel is reportedly planning to raise its CPU prices again, with the increase potentially landing as soon as October.

The report doesn't explicitly name which processor families would be affected, nor does it clarify whether the adjustment would apply equally to desktop and mobile CPUs. What is known is that the move is said to be part of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan's push to improve profitability within the company's PC CPU business.

NVIDIA has released another GeForce driver this month, version 616.92, featuring game-ready support for 007 First Light's path tracing update, Active Matter, Aniimo, PUBG: BATTLEGROUND's DLSS update, and WARDOGS. Critically for many gamers, the update also includes the previous display flickering fix temporarily resolved in NVIDIA's previous hotfix driver update.

The bug fixes feature three non-gaming-related fixes: intermittent flickering in browsers when navigating to certain websites, an issue where virtual displays could not be created, and a fix for Remote Desktop where RDP sessions could trigger a black screen for users after updating to driver 616.56.

The display flickering issue is arguably the most impactful fix of the entire update; when driver 616.56 launched just last week, a plethora of user complaints exploded on Reddit and the NVIDIA forums, reporting flickering and black screen issues on monitors caused by the driver. The issues with driver 616.56 were so bad that NVIDIA released a hotfix driver days after release to get all three of the aforementioned fixes introduced to NVIDIA users as soon as possible.

DLSS 5 has taken up the bulk of attention from the upscaling modding community as of late, but there are modders who are still paying attention to FSR and adapting the latest version to work on older GPUs. Discovered by Ancient Gameplays, Optiscaler modders have ported FSR 4.1.1, the latest version of FSR, to RDNA 2 GPUs ahead of AMD's official support of FSR 4 for RDNA 2 GPUs.

The mod reportedly improves shimmering and ghosting effects compared to the previous FSR 4.0.2c patch while using the upscaler in-game. The mod also implements a bypass for FSR 4's INT8 hardware check to ensure that FSR 4.1.1 always runs and does not fall back to a version of FSR 3 when running on RDNA 2 GPUs. The only downside is that this mod can trigger anti-cheat warnings, and as a result, the modder warns that RDNA 2 owners should avoid using this mod in any games with anti-cheat.

In-game Ancient Gameplays noticed a slight performance improvement ranging from 2% to 5% in-game depending on the title. Image quality was also reportedly better, though YouTube compression made it difficult to notice any visual differences between FSR 4.1.1 and 4.0.2c in the YouTuber's image comparisons between the two models. It's worth mentioning that most of the comparison footage was done with slow-motion gameplay footage, which fails to show off all of FSR 4.1's improvements over FSR 4.0, which mostly surround improved image quality in scenes with lots of motion.

With the official release of DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, it's clear that NVIDIA's new tech is a big step toward actual photorealistic lighting in games. Although it's only officially available in a single title, NBA 2K27, with DLSS 5 leaking ahead of its debut, modders and PC gamers have been going a little DLSS 5 crazy, tweaking and modding it into just about any game you can think of.

That said, when it comes to DLSS 5, enabling it comes with a massive performance cost - to the tune of around 60%, even on the flagship GeForce RTX 5090. Although NVIDIA has confirmed it's still working on improving DLSS 5 performance, modders are already coming up with their own solutions. The latest is a blast from the past: offloading DLSS 5 to a second GPU.

Developer Marcelo Guibout has seemingly brought back the SLI and CrossFire multi-GPU era, connecting two GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB cards to the same motherboard (via PCIe 5.0 x8). You can probably guess where this is headed: one GPU renders the game, while the second GPU handles the final DLSS 5 render pass. This isn't really like an old-school SLI setup where both GPUs work together, since each GPU works independently, but it's still impressive.

We've seen a few mods that unlock Frame Generation on older GeForce RTX 30 Series cards; however, they mostly replace NVIDIA's DLSS Frame Generation with AMD's inferior FSR Frame Generation, which still suffers from frame-pacing and image fidelity issues. As per a new report over at VideoCardz, there's a new mod project called 'DLSSG SM86' that has actually managed to get DLSS Multi Frame Generation in 2X and 4X modes running on a GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3080 Ti.

SM86 is the internal CUDA architecture code for the GeForce RTX 30 Series, and this mod is impressive because it doesn't replace the original DLSS models associated with a game's files or mess with the rendering pipeline. It works by creating an SM86-compatible backend or proxy for GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs that runs alongside the game, redirecting calls to its own DLSSG 310.1 implementation, which is the DLSS 4 Frame Generation runtime library.

The GitHub page for 'DLSSG SM86' confirms that the mod is limited to DLSS Multi Frame Generation 4X, which leverages AI to generate three additional frames. Game settings still determine the mode, as this isn't a mod that forces or overrides anything. With one Redditor posting footage of Cyberpunk 2077 running on their GeForce RTX 3080 12GB card alongside DLSS 5 Neural Rendering, we're hoping this means NVIDIA is looking to expand Multi Frame Generation support to more generations of GeForce RTX GPUs.

As far as premium controllers go, the new SteelSeries Aeon Pro is certainly up there in terms of features, design, and innovation. On the latter, the SteelSeries Aeon Pro borrows a page from its premium audio solutions, like the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Omni wireless headset we recently reviewed, with its black-and-white OLED display, dock, and QuickSwitch System.

Connecting your PC and Xbox console to the dock lets you seamlessly switch between both gaming devices directly from the controller, with the integrated display making the process intuitive. And with the SteelSeries Aeon Pro's hot-swappable battery design, with two batteries included so one is always ready to go on the dock, you'll basically never run out of wireless juice while gaming.

As for the controller, SteelSeries calls it a "luxury" design, and it ticks the right boxes for a premium, pro-grade controller. It features Hall Effect thumbsticks with contactless sensors and replaceable caps for convex, concave, or standard grips. The triggers are customizable; it's got programmable back buttons, and each button uses a mechanical switch for snappy response and reliability.

Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo GameCube is one of the most seminal fighting games ever released. Created by Masahiro Sakurai, the Nintendo mascot and character brawler began on the Nintendo 64 and was last seen on the original Switch with the acclaimed Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. However, it's the GameCube's Melee that turned the series into a fighting and competitive gaming staple.

In fact, Melee is the reason why Nintendo and third parties still create GameCube controllers. For Smash Bros. fans, Melee's blend of accessible gameplay and deep mechanics has made it a go-to game that's still played today. So yeah, the idea that Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo GameCube is on track to get an unofficial PC port is pretty big news.

Although there's no timeline for when it's set to arrive, it's now on the cards because a complex six-year Super Smash Bros Melee decompilation project has finally been completed. With Super Smash Bros Melee decompiled, its code can now be converted to C to create a faithful, native PC port of the original.

Razer has announced and launched one of its most affordable and customizable mechanical gaming keyboards to date with the new Razer Reclusa X Mini 65%. Priced at $49.99 USD, it's the first keyboard in a new Reclusa lineup focused on customization, performance, and aesthetics.

The tri-tone design helps it stand out from other Razer keyboards, alongside the customization on offer. The Razer Reclusa X Mini 65% features a hot-swappable PCB compatible with 3-pin and 5-pin mechanical switches. Although it comes pre-installed with Razer Orange Tactile Mechanical Switches Gen-3, the hot-swappable design and touches like south-facing LEDs make it compatible with a wide range of switches and keycaps.

Although it sits on the affordable side for a mechanical gaming keyboard from Razer, the Razer Reclusa X Mini 65% is still tailor-made for enthusiasts. Construction-wise, it features two silicone damping layers to enhance acoustics and stability, while still supporting gaming-first features like Razer Snap Tap, Snap Flex, and Dual-Keypress Priority - stuff that you normally find on gaming keyboards with magnetic switches.

The new SRhonyra RTX 3060 Low Profile Graphics Card, available on Newegg for $495.59 USD, is a GeForce RTX 3060 12GB graphics card that isn't really built for PC gaming. It's a low-profile, single-slot design that differs from most RTX 3060 GPUs on the market, mainly because it doesn't feature a PCIe power connector. The 70-watt TDP makes this a bus-powered RTX 3060, a considerable reduction from the 170W of every other GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card.

Naturally, this makes it more of an entry-level GPU for running local LLMs, even though the product description mentions ray-tracing and DLSS for PC gaming. This custom bus-powered GeForce RTX 3060 12GB GPU design looks similar to one recently spotted on the Chinese social media platform Bilibili. There, we learned that the 70-75W power limit required a shunt mod to fool the GPU into accepting the lower power draw.

As for performance, with that model's GPU clock speeds barely crossing 900MHz, the card's 3DMark Time Spy score failed to match the GeForce GTX 1060. According to the SRhonyra RTX 3060's specs, its Boost Clock speed is listed at 1320MHz, still substantially below the 1777MHz reference spec; however, with 100W less to work with, gaming performance will undoubtedly suffer.