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 MONTECH to give 12 lucky winners a new CPU air cooler, with both the NX400 and higher-end NX600 available in black and white.

There will be 12 winners in total, and each winner will receive one CPU cooler. The prize pool includes three MONTECH NX400 Black coolers, three NX400 White coolers, three MONTECH NX600 Black coolers, and three NX600 White coolers.

The MONTECH NX400 is designed as a compact single-tower cooler for builders who want strong air-cooling performance without committing to a particularly large heatsink. Its heatsink uses 52 fins aligned with four heat pipes to move heat away from the processor while maintaining a relatively streamlined 120 x 74 x 156mm footprint.

Amazon has officially confirmed its new Kratos. Former WWE superstar Dave Bautista is taking over the lead role in the God of War TV series, replacing Ryan Hurst after Hurst tore a bicep on set and needed surgery, according to a report from Variety.

Bautista had been rumored for the part for a few weeks, and the switch means production has to reshoot the four episodes already completed with Hurst in the role. Filming had been underway in Vancouver since February, and it'll continue there with Bautista stepping in as the lead.

Hurst had reportedly put on 40 pounds of muscle to fill out the part, and there aren't many actors who can walk onto a set with that kind of physical presence already built in. Bautista, a former WWE wrestler known for playing Drax in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, seems like a natural fit for the same reason, even after slimming down for other recent roles.

Take-Two Interactive has moved from DMCA takedowns to federal court in its hunt for the person behind the GTA 6 leaks. The company filed subpoenas against Microsoft and Discord on August 20, demanding user data tied to the leaker known as Cyberleek.

The filing states:

Both companies have until September 4 to comply. Microsoft is being asked to hand over business and investigative records related to its internal investigation of the 'Cyberleek' persona, along with account IDs, registration emails, IP addresses, phone numbers, and any linked Xbox or Google accounts.

A $600 PlayStation 6 handheld looks off the table. Notable AMD leaker Kepler_L2, posting on NeoGAF forums, said that price point "is definitely not possible right now," pointing to how expensive LPDDR memory has gotten.

The handheld was supposed to be Sony's more affordable entry point into the next generation, sitting below a pricier PS6 console. Kepler_L2 flagged LPDDR5X, the memory standard most consumer devices rely on, as the real issue. He said LPDDR is seeing some of the steepest price increases right now because it's also in heavy demand from AI data center hardware.

Of course, it is no surprise that gaming hardware is getting squeezed by the same memory shortage that's been driving up RAM and GPU prices all year. Moreover, that squeeze doesn't look like it's easing anytime soon.

AMD has now confirmed the full specs for the Radeon RX 9050 4GB, and it's looking rough. The OEM-only card ships with a 64-bit memory bus and just 16MB of Infinity Cache, half of what the standard 8GB model gets on both fronts.

AMD's own product page lists a 64-bit interface running 18 Gbps GDDR6, working out to 144GB/s of bandwidth. The regular Radeon RX 9050 8GB uses a 128-bit bus and hits 288GB/s, so AMD cut both VRAM capacity and bandwidth exactly in half for this variant. Infinity Cache took the same hit, dropping from 32MB to 16MB.

That's a lot of bottlenecks stacked on top of an already small 4GB frame buffer. Both cards share the same Navi 44 silicon, 16 compute units, and 1,024 stream processors, so the compute side is untouched. The memory subsystem is what got gutted here, and that's usually what decides how a budget GPU performs once VRAM fills up in a modern game.

Intel's upcoming 28-core Nova Lake-S chip with bLLC cache might pull a lot more power than its rated TDP suggests. Leaker Golden Pig Upgrade posted on Weibo that the chip's PL2 power limit sits at 296W, which is well above what was expected for this SKU.

The chip uses an 8P+16E+4LPE core layout, 28 cores total, paired with 144MB of Intel's new bLLC, or Big Last-Level Cache. It's Intel's answer to AMD's 3D V-Cache, built for gamers who want extra cache without giving up core count. Earlier leaks put this same configuration at a 125W TDP, so a 296W PL2 number is a pretty wild gap.

There's also some back and forth on whether 296W applies to PL1 or PL2. The original post framed it as PL1 equal to PL2, but leaker jaykihn0 pushed back, saying the figure is technically a PL2 reading. If that holds up, the chip probably only hits 296W in short bursts, with sustained draw sitting lower.

New evidence has exposed serious frame pacing issues with FSR 4 frame generation, and it is so bad that the technology is almost entirely unusable. Hardware Unboxed on YouTube published a video benchmarking FSR 4 frame generation frame pacing with slow-motion cameras, revealing that the generated frames from FSR barely have any time on screen in most of the games they tested, making them nearly invisible to the viewer.

Specifically, Hardware Unboxed saw their RX 9070 XT displaying one frame around roughly four times longer than the next consecutive frame. The result was massive jittering on-screen, with real-world usability reportedly feeling like a 60FPS experience in a situation where FSR 4 Frame Generation is outputting a 120FPS experience with a 60FPS base frame rate.

This issue was prevalent in the vast majority of games Hardware Unboxed tested, with none of the games the channel tested exhibiting perfect frame pacing. God of War Ragnarok, Cyberpunk 2077, Mafia: The Old Country, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, Resident Evil Requiem, Alan Wake 2 and Crimson Desert exhibited the issue the worst. Borderlands 4 and Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight exhibited the issue less (but the problem is still there in the right situations).

STALKER 2 just received its largest patch to date with a boatload of changes improving the game's performance, including a switch to a newer version of Unreal Engine 5, version 5.5.4. Rock Paper Shotgun reports that the improvements made in patch 2.0 have improved the game's performance by over 30% in demanding areas.

The outlet tested the game on an RTX 5080, Steam Deck, and Steam Machine in Rostok town and the Zalissya woods. In Rostok, the RTX 5080 saw a massive 33% performance uplift from patch 1.7 to patch 2.0, jumping from an 83 FPS average to 110 FPS average. In the Zalissya woods, performance improved by 8% from 106 FPS to 114 FPS with patch 2.0.

On the Steam Machine, performance improved by 28% in Rostok with patch 2.0, but in the Zalissya woods performance was within the margin of error between the two patches. The Steam Deck reportedly saw a massive improvement with patch 2.0, moving from unplayable performance to a roughly 30 FPS average with aggressive FSR upscaling, though Rock Paper Shotgun reports that the game won't provide a minimum 30 FPS experience on the Deck.

Sandisk has announced a new lineup of storage solutions purpose-built for modern NAS environments, including the Sandisk NAS 800 NVMe SSD, which delivers PCIe Gen5 sequential read/write speeds of 14,900/13,200MB/s. Impressive as that performance is, what makes the Sandisk NAS 800 NVMe SSD stand out is its endurance rating of up to 14 PBW (for the 7.68TB model), making it the sort of SSD that can handle 24/7 operation and performance-intensive workloads.

Rounding out the Sandisk NAS 800 NVMe SSD's performance, you've also got up to 2.3M/2M IOPS random read/write speeds (for the 3.84TB model), with the physical design engineered for extended operation even with up to 85°C temperatures. Built with Sandisk's TLC 3D NAND technology, capacities range from 960GB to 7.68TB, and the company notes the lineup has been extensively tested in leading NAS systems with M.2 2280 compatibility.

For more traditional NAS systems with HDD support, there's the Sandisk NAS 600 SATA SSDs. Sandisk notes that this offers a seamless solid-state upgrade path for existing prosumer NAS setups. Available in the standard 2.5-inch SATA form factor, these high-endurance SSDs come in capacities from 500GB to 4TB.

RayNeo has announced its next-generation AR lineup of consumer smart glasses: the RayNeo iO Smart Glasses and RayNeo GT Series. The former is designed for all-day use and productivity, weighing only 33 grams, with AI capabilities that include live translation, an auto-teleprompter, and the ability to summarize meetings and conversations.

Meanwhile, the new RayNeo GT Series (available in GT and GT Max models) is designed to deliver a cinema-grade experience. The flagship GT Max model offers a wide 59-degree field of view (FOV), with its 5.5th-gen Tandem MicroOLED display delivering a dynamically scaling virtual screen up to 307 inches. The GT Series can also be paired with RayNeo Pocket TV Pro to create the world's first AR glasses system with Dolby Vision playback, including AI-powered SDR-to-HDR.

The new RayNeo GT Series is also designed for an at-home or on-the-go cinematic experience for watching movies and playing games, with modes that include anchoring the virtual screen in a 3D space as well as a Steady Mode designed to filter travel bumps and movement while traveling. Audio-wise, there's also a quad-speaker system with head-tracking and Bang & Olufsen Spatial Audio.

IQUNIX has quickly earned a reputation for creating impressively well-made keyboards, largely because it uses CNC anodized aluminum cases to deliver a rigid, weighty, durable feel across its lineup. This is evident in the IQUNIX Magi96 Pro Aluminum Low Profile Mechanical Keyboard we recently reviewed, and in the new IQUNIX EC75 Hall Effect Gaming Keyboard 75%, now available.

Built for performance, in addition to its aluminum top case, the IQUNIX EC75 is powered by 'Diamond Pro' Hall Effect magnetic switches built for both gaming and smooth everyday typing. The switch design combines a light 35±5gf initial force with a 50±5gf bottom-out force, plus a 750GS max magnetic flux for precise magnetic sensing. The direct result is 0.01mm Rapid Trigger alongside a 0.01 - 3.1mm adjustable actuation range.

Yes, 0.01mm actuation is not something you see every day, and it's a feature that makes the IQUNIX EC75 and its custom switches stand out from the pack. As a wired gaming keyboard, the IQUNIX EC75 also supports 8,000Hz polling for low-latency input, with an 80-key 75% form factor that includes a full function row and arrow keys.

AVerMedia is expanding its diverse lineup of capture devices with the new GC531 Streamer Ultra (Black) and GC535 Streamer ULTRA 2.1 (White), two professional-grade external HDMI capture cards designed to be paired with DSLR or mirrorless cameras. These portable devices are built to slot seamlessly into existing video workflows, supporting streaming and capture with a focus on high-quality, reliable output.

Both models support RGB24 True Color Capture to deliver improved color accuracy and image fidelity when compared to traditional compressed capture formats. AVerMedia notes that this makes them suitable for product and other commerce-like showcases, ensuring that everything appears as intended. As for the differences between the two models, the GC535 supports capture of up to 4K30 with RGB24, while the GC531 supports capture of up to 2K30 with RGB24.

As the flagship model, the GC535 Streamer ULTRA 2.1 also supports 4K144 HDR/VRR pass-through in HDMI 2.1 mode while capturing up to 4K60. The pro-grade GC531 and GC535 capture devices also include enhanced EMC/EMI shielding and ESD protection to maintain signal integrity and deliver reliable performance even during 24/7 broadcasts.

The German engineers at Beyerdynamic have delivered audio solutions for 100+ years, and the company has announced two new additions to its gaming headset lineup: the MMX 100 wireless and MMX 130 wireless. Built on the company's long-standing tradition of delivering studio-grade sound, these new additions offer gamers a more affordable entry point to immersive audio without sacrificing comfort or reliability.

The difference between the MMX 100 wireless and MMX 130 wireless comes down to design: the MMX 100 features a closed-back design that offers passive noise cancellation while minimizing sound leakage. In contrast, the MMX 130 features an open-back design for a wider, more spacious soundstage for cinematic games.

Both the MMX 100 wireless and MMX 130 wireless feature a custom-tuned 40mm driver, with the MMX 130 adding a titanium coating for enhanced spatial audio performance. Both headsets support tri-mode connectivity, including low-latency 2.4GHz wireless, Bluetooth 6.0, and analog options, plus up to 80 hours of battery life for PC, console, smartphone, and handheld devices.

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 26.8.1 is available now, and the latest Radeon graphics driver for games and PC enthusiasts is a must for those looking to jump into the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Open Beta, which kicks off this weekend for those who've pre-ordered the game or are subscribed to PC Game Pass. It also adds support for a brand-new RDNA 4 graphics card, the Radeon RX 9050 4GB.

This 4GB variant of AMD's new entry-level Radeon RX 9000 Series GPU is reportedly built for system integrators, with the existing Radeon RX 9050 8GB card being the one that you'll find on retail shelves. In terms of performance, online benchmarks suggest the Radeon RX 9050 falls short of the GeForce RTX 5050, despite its $279 USD launch price.

Interestingly, the driver's Release Notes state that because Cyberpunk 2077 recommends a minimum of 6GB of VRAM, in-game graphics settings will need to be set to low or turned off completely for those "experiencing issues." Basically, the note is almost an admission that 4GB of VRAM isn't enough for modern PC gaming.

Described as the "world's first low-profile analog optical esports keyboard," the wired Razer Huntsman V3 Pro Low-profile Tenkeyless 8KHz pairs low-profile keycaps and switches with performance built for competitive gaming. With its new Razer Low-profile Analog Optical Switches, it supports gaming features like Rapid Trigger, Razer Snap Flex, Snap Tap, and 8,000Hz (8K) polling for ultra-low-latency performance.

The slim design and reduced travel distance mean the analog switches offer 0.1 mm to 2.8 mm adjustable actuation, with adjustments available in 0.1 mm increments. And when you pair this with Razer's True 8000Hz HyperPolling, you're looking at a snappy response with a reported 0.39 ms average latency. Razer notes this is a 52% improvement over the "nearest competing keyboard," though it doesn't specify the model tested.

As a compact board, the 19.5mm front height makes it notably slimmer than its full-sized counterpart, but it still sports an angled layout to support natural wrist placement and finger movement. Under the hood, it also features foam dampening for acoustics and a smooth typing experience, plus lubrication for the Low-profile Analog Optical Switches.

The GTA 6 leak saga has taken another turn, with multiple game developers now suggesting the leaked footage is running on a PC build rather than a console devkit.

The claim began to spread after creator TheRavenHelm posted on X that multiple game developers had been in touch with them about this speculation, all pointing to the same conclusion.

The reasoning is technical but straightforward. Console devkits for PS5 and Xbox Series X are restricted and license-locked hardware that's hard to access outside of official channels. A PC build, on the other hand, can apparently run through internal debug executables on regular PC hardware, which lines up with what people are seeing in the leaked clips.

It looks like Xbox is barely a footnote in the physical games market this year. According to analyst firm Circana, only about 4% of new physical video games sold in the US in 2026 have been for Xbox, a small sliver compared to Nintendo and PlayStation.

Circana's monthly report puts Nintendo platforms at 63% of new physical game sales this year, with PlayStation taking 32%. Analyst Mat Piscatella told Kotaku that the remaining share includes some PC collector's editions, like those for 007 First Light and Assassin's Creed: Black Flag: Resynced, leaving Xbox with just over 4%.

A few things likely explain the gap here. Nintendo fans have historically bought physical copies at a much higher rate than PlayStation or Xbox players, so it's not surprising that the platform holding the majority is Nintendo.

Samsung has raised prices on some of its advanced contract chipmaking services by as much as 15% for new orders, according to a Reuters report citing two people familiar with the matter. The increases took effect in July and are driven by a surge in AI chip demand, which is tightening capacity across the industry.

The hikes center on Samsung's 4nm SF4 process, where customers in China and the US saw price increases of 10 to 15% compared to the previous month. Taiwanese customers got a smaller bump of 5 to 10%. Samsung's 5nm SF5 line also rose 10 to 15%, while the older 8nm node climbed closer to 10%.

Chinese customers are reportedly accepting the steepest increases. US export restrictions on advanced chipmaking equipment have limited what Chinese firms can access domestically, pushing more of them toward foreign foundries like Samsung. With fewer alternatives at the leading edge, they have less room to push back on pricing.

Doom running on anything and everything has been a running joke for a while, and now Doom has found another unexpected host. Developer Bas Lichtjaar, known online as lauris-nl, has built a playable port of the 1993 classic for the Canon EOS 550D, a 16-year-old entry-level DSLR also sold as the Rebel T2i and EOS Kiss X4.

The port runs through Magic Lantern, an open-source firmware add-on for Canon cameras that's been around since 2009 and normally adds things like RAW video recording and expanded ISO ranges.

The camera's own hardware handles everything. Its DIGIC 4 processor runs the game, while the directional buttons control movement, the SET button fires, PLAY opens doors, and the rear wheel switches weapons. Zoom buttons double as run and strafe controls when held. There's even sound, mixing Doom's original effects with synthesized music through a 48KHz mono output using the camera's built-in speaker.

Valve's Steam Frame just leaked itself. An update to the ARM version of the Steam client briefly included eight finished setup and unboxing videos for the headset, and dataminers grabbed them before Valve could pull the update.

The videos were spotted by the Steam Hardware Updates account on X and cover unboxing, IPD adjustment, controller pairing, the wireless streaming adapter, and even a spacer for glasses wearers. One clip also shows a previously unannounced Ergonomic Accessories Kit, apparently including hand straps for the controllers and an extended light blocker for a tighter seal around the nose.

Nothing here looks like a render or a mockup. These are polished, narrated clips in the same style Valve used for the Steam Machine and Steam Controller overview videos, and they were sitting inside the actual client software that will eventually serve them to real customers.

Shader Compilation is common in modern PC gaming: a process that runs during the initial load and also re-runs whenever a game or graphics card driver is updated. The process can take several minutes, which is why, no matter how fast your SSD or storage is, getting into that first area or match takes a while.

It's necessary because it configures how everything from textures to surfaces and lighting renders on your GPU, reducing or eliminating stutters and performance issues when shaders are processed or loaded into a scene for the first time. With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, Activision and the development teams are changing how this works in Call of Duty, calling the process Shader Preloading.

According to Activision, Modern Warfare 4 will begin preparing shaders before you even launch the game. Players will see a "Shader Pre-Loading Will Start" message after installing the game. This will also run after each major update, and Shader Preloading will be included in the upcoming Modern Warfare 4 Beta and run in the background.