The TT Show is back for another big week of news and happenings in the tech, gaming, and science space with Jak and Kosta. This week, the duo dives into the OpenAI saga that continues to unfold (at the time of recording, we were at the "Sam Altman joins Microsoft stage"), the GeForce RTX 4090 ban in full effect, Valve's confirmation that it's working on the Steam Deck 2, and a lot more.

Jak and Kosta also break down The Game Awards 2023 nominations and agree that the top nod is between Baldur's Gate 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, how someone turned a ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4090 OC Edition GPU into a skateboard, the latest on SpaceX and Starship, as well as Microsoft creating its very own GPUs for AI acceleration.

The latest episode of TweakTown's official podcast is brought to you by the new Performance 1 FT PC case from ANTEC.

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Nintendo's latest Q2 earnings report delivers updates on Switch console shipments, showing the system has no signs of slowing down.

The FY24 period marks the 8th fiscal year that the Switch has been on the market. Despite this long period (console cycles typically last for 7 years), the Switch is still performing quite well, even when relative to prior periods.

As of Nintendo's Q2 FY24 period, which ended September 30, 2023, the company has shipped a cumulative total of 132.46 million Switch consoles across the entire hardware family (includes 2017 launch model, Switch Lite, and OLED).

The Super Mario Bros. film has helped Nintendo rake in over $300 million from its royalties and smartphone business, and it's also had a direct affect on Mario game sales.

Nintendo's transmedia plan has worked. The Super Mario Bros. movie is a smash success, helping Nintendo rake in millions and sparking massive interest in its games and content. While the company does want to make money from film royalties, the main goal with the Mario movie was to spread mass-market interest in Nintendo's video games (as if Nintendo, one of the most recognizable brands in history, needs help in this regard).

The success of the Super Mario Bros. movie has translated into a direct rise in Mario game sales. This was the biggest part of the plan all along--the hope was that the film would make consumers want to buy Switch consoles and Mario titles. Taking a look at Nintendo's latest Q2'24 earnings report, we can see that's exactly what happened.

AMD has launched its new Ryzen Threadripper 7000 and Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7000 series CPUs, with TRX50 and WRX90 motherboards now out in the wild. TRX50 motherboards are what HEDT systems will be built with, and now we have some US pricing on the ASUS, ASRock, and GIGABYTE TRX50-based boards.

ASUS has its new PRO WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI motherboard at the higher-end of the TRX50 motherboard pricing spectrum, with a cost of $899. Under that, we've got the ASRock TRX50 WS motherboard for $799, and finally, the GIGABYTE TRX50 AERO D motherboard for $599.

You can buy AMD's monster new Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series CPUs already, but the motherboards won't be launching until December. If you want the even higher-end WRX90 motherboards, then you'll be waiting a little while longer again. The Ryzen Threadripper 7980X flagship 64-core, 128-thread CPU will cost you $4999... meanwhile, the TRX50 motherboards max out with the $899 ASUS PRO WX TRX50-SAGE WIFI.

Capcom is developing a new chapter of its next-gen RE Engine in an effort to keep up with demanding games.

Japanese games developer Capcom turned heads with 2017's release of Resident Evil 7, a game that utilized its brand new RE Engine technology. Since then, the RE Engine has matured and evolved significantly, delivering high-end visuals and smooth frame rates across numerous Resident Evil remakes, including RE2, RE3, and the most recent RE4 remake, and it's best-selling Monster Hunter World MMORPG.

Now the company is preparing for the future. A recent video from Capcom's R&D YouTube channel outlines the current state of the engine and what's on the horizon. Details and specifics are vague, but Capcom is working on a new iteration of the RE Engine that's codenamed REX (RE neXt Engine).

Whenever you see a cool Instagram Reel and want to save it for later, the chances are that you have always had to just save it to Instagram. That is, unless you live in the United States where people have been able to download Reels ever since June. However, that's all changing now with the news that Instagram is rolling out downloadable Reels to everyone all around the globe.

The new change was announced by Instagram chief Adam Mosseri in a post to his Instagram channel and comes after months of only those in the United States having the option to physically download Reels.

However, there is still going to be a catch. As TechCrunch points out, Reels that are downloaded from Instagram will have a watermark that has the Instagram logo and the account's name. That isn't new of course, because we already see the same thing done by TikTok and YouTube and it's obvious why - it's to ensure that anything ripped from one service shows where it came from if it's uploaded somewhere else.

Internet trolls have struck again, this time hitting one of the best-known faces in gaming.

Ned Luke, the actor who played the irascible bank robber Michael De Santa in Grand Theft Auto V, was recently swatted while live streaming to fans. A clip of Luke being interrupted by a phone call was spotted by Dexerto:

Intel's next-gen Meteor Lake CPUs will launch in a couple of weeks, but after that, we'll have Arrow Lake, which will arrive in 2024... featuring slightly upgraded integrated graphics as well as new XMX units that will be used for AI acceleration.

In some new leaks from "Coelacanth-Dream" we're being told to expect Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake CPUs that will feature Arc Xe-LPG GPU that's a little better than the Xe GPU on the upcoming Meteor Lake CPUs. The new Arrow Lake CPUs will also feature improved AI acceleration, which is thanks to the inclusion of new XMX units, which also alters the branding of iGPU to Xe-LPG Plus, while Meteor Lake is called Xe-LPG.

Intel's new Arrow Lake Arc Xe-LPG Plus GPU has also been added to the latest IGC patch, which means the same features and functionalities of the integrated graphics on Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake can be expected. The upgraded parts are with the new XMX units (Xe Matrix Extensions) that are featured on Arrow Lake but not Meteor Lake, with Intel saving space on Meteor Lake by removing XMX units from the Xe-LPG Render Slices and moving to the traditional DP4a instructions.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is going to break records when it comes out, it's one of the most anticipated games of all time... and there are gamers out there that will go to great lengths to play it... including going cold turkey from smoking cigarettes.

A particular GTA 6 fan has posted on Reddit, picked up by Dexerto that claims that he's given up smoking because of the impending release of Grand Theft Auto 6. The reason? This gamer wants to not be sick from any cigarette-related illness or miss out on playing GTA 6 at launch because he's stuck in the hospital over something that could've been prevented.

The post reads: "I've been a fairly heavy smoker for a while now. Lately I've been coughing a lot more and just feeling like shit from the cigarettes but addiction is a hell of a thing. I'm so hyped for GTA 6 the thought of being in hospital or on heavy medication as the result of cigarettes has got me to quit cold turkey. I will not miss out on this game and want to be in my best possible health for it. Today is 10 days free. Thanks Rockstar!"

NVIDIA's revenues spike by 206% on the back of strong demand for AI compute solutions.

NVIDIA's latest Q3 FY24 results have been supercharged by AI, with the company reporting an incredible 200%+ jump in overall earnings. In the quarter from August - October, NVIDIA raked in a record-breaking $18.12 billion in total revenues across all segments, helping push total nine-month revenue to a whopping $38.81 billion.

NVIDIA's data center segment pulled in the lion's share (80%) of earnings, delivering $14.5 billion revenue on the back of strong demand for AI solutions. Cloud service providers made up half of these earnings whereas internet providers and enterprise comprising the latter half.

ASUS recently teased its GeForce RTX 4060 Ti DUAL SSD graphics card with an M.2 slot on the back, but now the team at ASUS have been toying with it... using the M.2 slot to make a GeForce RTX 4090 act as an external GPU, as well as throwing a Gen5 M.2 SSD inside and rocking huge speeds through the GPU.

We've got ASUS China Product Manager, Tony Yu, playing with the ASUS RTX 4060 Ti DUAL SSD... where he not only used the aforementioned RTX 4090 as an external GPU, but plugged in both a Gen4 and Gen5 M.2 SSD into the back side of the GPU and ran some storage tests... with some rather surprising results, I've got to admit.

The Crucial T700 Gen5 SSD was installed into the M.2 slot, because ASUS has tweaked the PCB and included a Gen5 connector on the card. The RTX 4060 Ti itself uses the Gen4 standard, but the M.2 slot on the back is ready to rock and roll with those 12GB/sec+ glorious speeds that only Gen5 can do. With the Crucial T700 Gen5 4TB SSD installed, ASUS proudly showed off an incredible 12.4GB/sec reads, and 11.7GB/sec writes... all from the back of its RTX 4060 Ti DUAL SSD graphics card.