Latest News - Page 1030

Intel has hosted its Intel Tech Tour in Israel, where it's confirmed that the new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPU has been used to break world records with a CPU frequency of 8GHz.

It's not the first time Intel has had its flagship processor pushed to 8000MHz+ with the current 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" platform last year, but now the upcoming 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" platform is here with its own version of 8000MHz+ and thanks to its improved innards, well, we can't wait.

Intel's new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs will have up to 15% more single-threaded performance, and up to 41% more multi-threaded performance over the current-gen 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" CPUs. The news was confirmed during the Intel Tech Tour to those on tour, pun intended, with Intel confirming that Raptor Lake will be the first with an SKU that's offered at over 6GHz stock, but didn't nail down the details on which exact SKU that will be.

Ubisoft confirms that it will start charging the new $69.99 base pricing for all future big AAA games on newer systems.

As games publishers liked Activision-Blizzard and Take-Two Interactive started pushing base $69.99 prices for their games way back in 2020, Ubisoft has been holding out on raising the MSRP of its games in a bid to sell more copies. The plan has worked; Assassin's Creed Valhalla made over $1 billion in consumer spending and generated the largest revenues in the entire series thanks in no small part to its free cross-gen upgrades and regular discounts.

Skull and Bones is the first of Ubisoft's games to get the price hike, but it won't be the last. The pirate game is exclusive to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S generation consoles which apparently justifies the cost. It seems like it's only a matter of time before all video games publishers start charging $69.99 for new-gen titles (right now SEGA and Capcom are still holding out, though).

Earlier today gamers noticed that Assassin's Creed Mirage storefronts had listed an Adults Only rating from the ESRB, but Ubisoft has now stepped in to offer clarification.

The Xbox store page for Assassin's Creed Mirage had previously listed the game with an Adults Only rating due to "real life gambling." This was a mistake. Ubisoft says that Mirage will not feature lootboxes or gambling of any kind (but did not clarify whether or not the game would have microtransactions).

"Following the announcement of Assassin's Creed Mirage, some store pages displayed the game for preorders with an Adults Only ESRB rating. While the game is still pending rating, we want to reassure players that no real gambling or lootboxes are present in the game,"Ubisoft said on Twitter.

Assassin's Creed has sold 200 million copies worldwide since launch, and here's how that stacks up against other franchises.

The Assassin's Creed franchise has grown considerably over 15 years with hundreds of millions of game sales. The series has amassed an impressive 200 million copies sold since the first Assassin's Creed launched in 2007, pushing the series past big hits like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy, and EA's titanic life simulator The Sims.

The series has grown in terms of sales and revenues; Assassin's Creed Valhalla made over $1 billion in consumer revenue as of February thanks to its cross-gen release, multitude of monetization points, expanded content, and engaging gameplay. Ubisoft is also releasing more Valhalla content to round out 2022, and then Mirage, the latest Assassin's Creed, is set to launch in 2023.

343 Industries founder Bonnie Ross is leaving the studio due to family medical issues.

After 15 years with the Halo franchise and founding the current stewards of the series, Bonnie Ross is leaving the studio that she helped create.

"While I had hoped to stay with Halo until we released the Winter Update, I am letting you know I will be leaving 343 and attending to a family medical issue," Ross announced on Twitter.

CapFrameX has pushed out its latest update that includes support for AMD's new Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" and Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" CPUs, and oh-so-much more in the new CapFrameX 1.6.9 update.

The new CapFrameX 1.6.9 supports AMD's new Zen 4 and Intel's new Raptor Lake CPUs, as well,as Intel's upcoming Arc A-Series GPUs, and as usual it fixes the usual bugs and issues in previous versions of CapFrameX. The developer has also added new websocket URLs, where you can access the items of the sensor service -- useful for people who want to log specific sensors over longer periods of time, without needing to do a huge benchmark.

One of the URLs will show you all of the sensors at your fingertips, while the other will show you just the ones that you've got selected in the sensor tab.

If you don't know already: next-gen power supplies are coming thanks to next-gen PCIe 5.0 graphics cards that will need to chew down more power, much more power.

The new ATX 3.0 power supplies will include new PCIe Gen5 connector -- the new 12VHPWR power connectors -- and now the PCI-SIG organization is sending out emails to PCI-SIG members that it's concerned over "thermal variance" of using regular 8-pin PCIe power cables into 12VHPWR power adapters.

Why is this an issue? Well, until the last generation we were hitting around 300W maximum power consumption for most mainstream GPUs, while some cards were made to hit 450W like NVIDIA's last flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card. Even then, NVIDIA was using a new PCIe power connector that split from the 12-pin PCIe cable to 3 x 8-pin PCIe power connectors (150W per 8-pin PCIe power connector = 450W total) for its GeForce RTX 3090 Ti.

It seems it's the week for NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 4090 with multiple stories on the new graphics card, where we've seen 3GHz+ GPU clocks, a new rumored early/mid-October release, and now a listing for the new flagship Ada Lovelace GPU down in Australia.

A new listing on Computers Perth in Western Australia (just to the west of me, I'm personally based in South Australia) has the custom GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 4090 GAMING OC graphics card listed for $4270 AUD (incl. GST which is 10%) which drops it to around $3900 AUD.

Converting that to USD, we're looking at around $2600 or so, which makes it over twice as expensive as the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, which it -- and the rest of the RTX 30 series GPUs -- have enjoyed health price reductions in recent months. We saw listings of close to $5000 with custom GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards like the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3090 Ti being listed for $4577 at the time.

The last we heard on the GPU clock speed of NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 4090 had the AD102 GPU pegged at 2750MHz+ but now we're hearing it'll be closer to 3GHz which is kinda crazy for NVIDIA.

NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card is now getting some juicy new leaks on the Chiphell forums, where the alleged (lots of salt for these rumors) where 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme has been benchmarked. The graphics score hits an astonishing 20,192 points... which is a huge upgrade up from the 11,300+ on the GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, and 10,000+ on the GeForce RTX 3090.

The GPU clocks on the AD102 GPU were reportedly hitting 3015MHz which is just 15MHz over 3GHz, but it counts... NVIDIA's current flock of Ampere GPUs can't wish to do that without the use of a heavily-binned GPU and the use of LN2 cooling to keep it stable at 3GHz. The last we heard from the GPU rumor mill was that the GeForce RTX 4090 would have 2.75GHz+ GPU clocks, but now if these rumors are true, 3GHz+ shouldn't be too hard for the RTX 4090.

NVIDIA is gearing up to tease what should be the next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU architecture and new GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards at its Project Beyond event later this month... and now we have an updated release schedule.

We are looking at an early/mid-October release for the flagship NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, while the GeForce RTX 4080 and the GeForce RTX 4070 (or RTX 4070 Ti) are launching in early/mid-November, according to leaker Moore's Law is Dead.

The last we heard was from old rumors from months ago, where NVIDIA was meant to launch the GeForce RTX 4090 by now... previous rumors had RTX 4090 launching in August and the RTX 4080 + RTX 4070 in September. Well, spoiler alert... it's now September and there are no cards, but we do have the "Project Beyond" event and should expect the RTX 4090 in October, and RTX 4080 + RTX 4070 in November.

NVIDIA is reportedly preparing new versions of its mid-range GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards, launching in October -- which should see the new mid-range Ampere GPUs launching alongside NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs.

The rumors on the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti are coming from leaker "MegaSizeGPU" while VideoCardz reports that their source has "now confirmed that at least two of the models are planned, and they should be expected by the end of October".

The new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti will reportedly be getting better VRAM, with NVIDIA rumored to be using GDDR6X memory on the new GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. The current GeForce RTX 3060 Ti has 8GB of GDDR6 memory at 14Gbps bandwidth on a 256-bit memory bus with up to 448GB/sec of memory bandwidth, while the new RTX 3060 Ti will have the same 8GB framebuffer, but with beefed up GDDR6X -- the "X" is big here.

Windows 11 and Office 2021 are currently the latest versions of Microsoft's operating system and its suite of office applications. Both feature many innovations in security and ease of use, making them more popular than previous versions. Windows 11 includes all the latest security features designed by Microsoft engineers, and among the most interesting innovations in Windows 11 is definitely Quick Layout, an aid that can significantly speed up and simplify your workflow.

On Office 2021, the look and feel are largely the same, but some features are better or cleaner. For example, it is now easier to collaborate on an open document, conveniently showing the user who is working on the file, and many other similar details.

When you think about buying Windows 10 and Office 2021, the first thing that probably comes to mind is Microsoft's official website. But the official price of Office 2021 Pro is as high as $439.99, which is pricey for a lot of people. On the Keysfan website, the same license can be purchased in a legal and guaranteed way, resulting in significant financial savings. The security of your purchase is guaranteed, and you can save up to 90% compared to the official price. Windows 10 from as low as $6.14, and Windows 10 can also be upgraded to Windows 11 for free! Office 2021 is only $14.13! You can share it with your friends or family!

Ubisoft reveals tons of new details about its upcoming Assassin's Creed Mirage game that's coming in 2023.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is a true return to form. The game is a smaller experience--about the same size as AC Rogue--set in the more condensed city of Baghdad. Instead of featuring RPG elements that are meant to keep you playing for 100s of hours like Origins, Odyssey, or Valhalla, Mirage puts most of its emphasis on action and parkour and is more like the old classic AC games.

Mirage is more basic and it sounds all the better for it. Meant to be a stop-gap to fill in the empty space between Valhalla and the new Assassin's Creed Infinity platform, Mirage was originally a DLC that morphed into a full game. Gamers will play as Basim, the quickest and most agile assassin in the series, and take on challenging black box infiltration missions while also expanding the lore and exploring the exotic vibrancy of 9th century Baghdad.

Ubisoft officially confirms Assassin's Creed Infinity isn't a game, but a platform hub that will connect all future games in the series.

Ubisoft's most valuable Assassin's Creed project isn't actually a game. Assassin's Creed Infinity is the next big thing in the franchise, and as we guessed many moons ago, Infinity is a kind of games launcher that will host new games and content. Think of it like a new Ubisoft Connect launcher exclusively for Assassin's Creed games--and more importantly, one that can appear on consoles. I've coined the term games-as-a-platform to describe this trend, and this is something 343 Industries aspires to do with Halo Infinite.

"Infinity is not a game per se, it's going to the single entry point for our fans into the Assassin's Creed franchise into the future," said Ubisoft's Marc-Alexis Cote. "Infinity is going to be a hub that will unite all our different experiences and our players together in meaningful ways."

Activision's new Call of Duty Warzone Mobile will support as many players as the base game and may even feature full cross-progression with the current console and PC battle royale.

Warzone Mobile looks to be every bit as big as the current BR mega-hit. According to a metadata description listed on the Call of Duty Warzone Mobile site, the free-to-play smartphone version will sport a massive 120 players and have shared progression systems. This description has been modified and altered but here's the original metadata:

"Pre-register for Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile for a chance to unlock rewards at launch. The next generation of mobile battle royale is here, featuring authentic COD gameplay, shared progression, and up to 120 player count matches on mobile!" the pre-altered site metadata reads, as per links archived on the Wayback Machine.

Yet another one of Disney's classic SEGA Genesis games is getting remastered.

Disney is bringing back the darkly enchanting Gargoyles franchise in gaming form with an incoming remaster of the retro Gargoyles game from the SEGA Genesis era. The 1990s franchise was among the most interesting series on the Disney Afternoon block of programming--if you grew up in the 90s, odds are you tuned in to shows like Darkwing Duck, Tales Spin, Duck Tales, and Gargoyles after school.

The original Gargoyles game was launched in 1995 during the franchise's heyday to much acclaim from gamers and reviewers alike, providing a stylish and enjoyable platformer with engaging combat. It was developed by Disney's in-house game development studio (which has since been abandoned), and the remaster will be developed by Empty Clip Studios, a group of indie developers who are well-versed with retro remasters and re-releases.

Oh boy... here we are... back again with Intel Arc GPU department doom news. The last time I did this was the end of July, and I've had quite a few clicks, and phone calls and my personal Twitter has exploded since I reported that Intel's Arc GPU is so, so bad that it would be canceled altogether.

Well, here we are once again... and we have leaker Moore's Law is Dead reporting (once again, but this time with more meat, or should I say salt for the rumor mill) that Intel's desktop Arc GPU is so bad that, that Intel has canceled discrete Arc GPUs internally. MLID says it's not because Intel doesn't have the balls to hit the GPU market and compete against AMD and NVIDIA... but rather from a financial perspective (and I'm sure a lot more behind the scenes) they just can't do it.

As Tom says, it doesn't make him happy to tell his audience this news... as a third entry into the GPU market would be great for his channel. Great for me personally as a nerd and enthusiast, professionally as I cover GPUs professionally here for TweakTown (and now for over 12 years). But... Arc Alchemist, Tom wishes would compete against AMD and NVIDIA and that Battlemage would come in and smash it... but he knows it won't.

Apple has recently revealed the new iPhone 14, and according to Apple's "Far Out" event presentation, the new device supports satellite connectivity for the first time.

The iPhone 14 is the very first Apple product to support satellite connectivity, and the company is marketing the connectivity as an emergency feature that is only meant to be used in dire situations. Apple says the feature isn't designed to replace cellular connectivity, but that hasn't stopped speculative questions such as a possible partnership between SpaceX and its Starlink satellite internet service and Apple.

Twitter user Zack tweeted, tagging SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on his personal Twitter account, and said that he was hopeful that Apple eventually partners with SpaceX to assist this new emergency SOS feature, which sparked a reply from Musk, who confirmed that SpaceX has had "promising" conversations with Apple about Starlink connectivity. The SpaceX CEO also praised Apple's iPhone team, describing them as "super smart".

The SEGA Dreamcast turns 23 years old today, and to celebrate we take a look back at the system's legacy and it how it helped innovate the video games market.

The Dreamcast is 23 years old today. The system was one of the most interesting game consoles of all time thanks to its online connectivity with games like Phantasy Star Online and an actual web browser, and its awesome VMU memory cards that acted as storage as well as portable handhelds. The Dreamcast's VMUs interacted with specific games like Sonic Adventure, offering a separate playable mini-game called Chao Adventure that could translate over to the main game.

The Dreamcast was a big success at launch. SEGA had originally hoped to make about $41 million in sales, but managed to more than double that--the Dreamcast sold-through $97 million worth of consoles, games, and peripherals (source: The Baltimore Sun). In fact, the SEGA Dreamcast was so successful that it set a world record as the largest retail entertainment sales in U.S. history (source: Peter Moore).

Valve has opened its official Steam Deck repair centers and is ready to start fixing malfunctioning handled-PC hybrids.

Valve has announced that its Steam Deck fix-it-quick facilities are now operational and that gamers with faulty units can start requesting repairs. The company says that it will fix any and all repairs as long as the Steam Deck is covered by the system's one-year warranty (we've outlined some things that will void your warranty in a list below.