Latest News - Page 1179

Apple has been going from stride to stride with its in-house M1 Max SoC already offering game-changing performance for its size, and now the company is jamming two of them together by introducing the M1 Ultra SoC.

The new Apple M1 Ultra SoC literally has two M1 Max SoCs combined together with Apple's newly-announced UltraFusion -- UltraFusion is an innovative packaging architecture that interconnects the die of each M1 Max chip to create a single, monster Apple M1 Ultra SoC -- impressive to see.

Inside, the M1 Ultra packs a huge 114 billion transistors (that's 114,000,000,000) which is the most ever in a personal chip. Apple has up to 128GB of high-bandwidth, low-latency unified memory that sits next to a 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, and 32-core Neural Engine.

AMD's new Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor will be launching on April 20, with a retail price of $449 -- at this price, it replaces the original price of the Ryzen 7 5800X -- and it's a helluva lot faster.

The news is coming from Disclosuzen, who is reporting the April 20 release + $449 price. As for the CPU itself, it is the first consumer CPU that rocks 3D V-Cache technology. This sees the Ryzen 7 5800X3D rocking a huge 100MB of cache, a huge increase from the Ryzen 7 5700X that sits below it in the 2022 updated CPU family from AMD, as that chip has just 36MB of cache.

3D V-Cache is a huge L3 cache that sits on top of the compute chiplet, where AMD is expecting around 15% more performance thanks to the stacked memory, which means the new Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor is actually faster than AMD's higher-end Ryzen 9 5900X in gaming. Not only that, but the new 5800X3D beats the Core i9-12900K in gaming which is what really matters.

Microsoft has only sold 2.3 million Xbox consoles in Japan over the last 20 years, data from Weekly Famitsu indicates.

Xbox isn't popular in Japan. The platform and its associated services pales in comparison to the mighty PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, which are leagues more popular in the region. While official console sales data is scarce (Microsoft doesn't report specifics any more), new estimations from Japanese gaming magazine Weekly Famitsu paints a rather desolate picture for Xbox in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Across a two-decade span, only one Xbox console has sold over 1 million units. The Xbox 360 sold over 1.6 million units in Japan through its lifetime. The original Xbox from 2001 is next in line with 472,000 units, and the Xbox One has moved little over 114,000 units. The Xbox Series X/S duo is already beating Xbox One's total lifetime sales with a whopping 142,000 units to date, which is 6% of the market's total 20-year console sales.

NVIDIA is going the whole hog with its upcoming Ada Lovelace GPU architecture, with the new GeForce RTX 40 series cards -- even in mid-range form -- expected to offer huge performance increases over the current-gen GPUs.

The new flagship AD102-based GeForce RTX 4090 and GeForce RTX 4080 graphics cards will be absolute behemoths, offering double the performance of the GeForce RTX 3090 and GeForce RTX 3080. NVIDIA will reportedly be outfitting its highest-end Ada Lovelace GPUs with next-gen GDDR7 memory, which begins its speed-run at 32Gbps (GDDR6X taps out at 21Gbps).

But it's the new mid-range AD103 GPU that will be really interesting... AD103 will power the GeForce RTX 4070 and GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics cards, and according to sources of Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead, the GeForce RTX 4070 should offer another 10-30% performance over the current flagship RTX 3090, and offer "2-3 tiers better" ray-tracing performance than the best Ampere GPU.

International sanctions from the United States and European Union have blocked payments to Russian Twitch streamers.

Early on in the Ukraine invasion, Western countries blocked Russian banks from SWIFT, the payment tracking system used by worldwide institutions. This has affected Russia's purchasing power as payment processors no longer accept payments to and from the region; Nintendo's eShop, for example, no longer accepts Russian rubles for online purchases.

Now Russian Twitch streamers are being affected. The California-based streaming company can no longer send payments to Russian influencers due to the sanctions. In the blink of an eye, streamers in Russia have been cut off from their monthly paychecks.

Gear up, Spartan! Catch the new Halo TV series on Paramount+ for just $2 a month.

The Halo TV series will premiere March 24 exclusively on Paramount+, and luckily the streamer is having a special promotion that steeply discounts monthly prices. Paramount is celebrating its one-year anniversary for the service and has dropped subscription costs to just $1/month for 3 months (or $2/month for commercial-free, which I highly suggest over the ad-based version). To get started, click here.

This promotion works even if you have already tried Paramount+ and I was able to re-activate and use the promo on an old existing account that I cancelled months ago.

Gamers are comparing Elden Ring to other open-world games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, but this comparison doesn't hold water on a business perspective.

There's a few memes floating around that poke fun at Assassin's Creed games with the humorous tag "if Ubisoft made Elden Ring," complete with tons of on-screen icons, guides, and interactive UI features. The memes have garnered lots of response and gamers are becoming more critical to Ubisoft's style of game development, namely with monetization and hand-holding. Those things are fair on a critical level, but on a business level, comparing Elden Ring to Assassin's Creed is apples and oranges.

The reality is Ubisoft and Bandai Namco are two very different companies. To put it quite simply, Bandai Namco--and FromSoftware's owner, Kadokawa--have a different goals than Ubisoft.

Grand Theft Auto V is currently cheaper on PlayStation 5 than it is on PlayStation 4.

Pre-orders for the next-gen version of GTA V are now live, and the game is surprisingly affordable. GTA V won't cost $69.99 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S as we had predicted. Instead, the game is only $9.99 right now on PlayStation 5 (only buyable on-console), which is cheaper than the $14.99 PS4 premium edition (this isn't an upgrade price as I don't currently own or have ever owned GTA V on PS4).

The full GTA V edition is $19.99 on Xbox Series X/S consoles, which is double the price of PS5. Why is that? Here's a refresher: Rockstar is splitting GTA Online from GTA V and selling it as a standalone game. There's now two SKUs, or versions, of Grand Theft Auto V: The Story Mode, which is erroneously named because it includes both story mode + GTA Online, and GTA Online standalone. GTA Online retails for $19.99, but is discounted to $9.99 on Xbox Series X/S until June 14, 2022.

NVIDIA's next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU will be powering the GeForce RTX 40 series graphics cards later this year, with rumors already circling that power numbers will be Fermi levels of high -- fresh rumors are here -- so prepare your power bills.

In his latest video, Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead has said that his sources are saying "we were told 400W+ is going to be the new norm for enthusiast products. However, we have been given no indication of anything close to 800W". Another source said: "NVIDIA has told us power consumption is going way up. I expect at least 450-550W".

Another two sources added: "500-600W is the current expectation" and "AD102 will use at least 450W, and I think 600W is doable on air".

Intel is preparing to launch its Arc Alchemist GPUs in the next few months, with a new report suggesting a (really wide) launch window of May 8 to June 5, 2022.

In this time period we'll have Computex 2022 between May 24-27, which normally takes place in Taipei, Taiwan. Intel usually has a gigantic Computex 2022 keynote, and now we're hearing from Igor's Lab that Intel is gearing up to launch its desktop Arc Alchemist GPUs sometime before, during, or after Computex.

Igor writes: "Several different sources have told me of another Intel card postponement, at least as far as SKU 1 to 3, the three performance models, are concerned. There are currently consistent rumors that the first models will be released between May 2, 2022 and June 1, 2022".

AMD will have its refreshed RDNA 2 graphics cards out in the coming months, with a reveal expected next month in April -- with the new flagship Radeon RX 6950 XT leading the way -- packing faster GDDR6 memory at 18Gbps.

The new rumors are coming from Enthusiast Citizen, with a post on Chiphell where he explained (through machine translation): "4/20 or ‍4/21 Several new cards, RX 6950XT, RX 6750XT, RX 6650XT, will be a little more expensive than the current ones without 50. All three cards have been upgraded to 18Gbps, and the performance has also been slightly improved. There is a low-end bright machine card RX 6400".

We're to expect a refreshed Radeon RX 6950 XT, Radeon RX 6750 XT, and lower-end Radeon RX 6650 XT. AMD will be utilizing faster 18Gbps GDDR6 memory, up from the 16Gbps GDDR6 memory on the current Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs. There'll be additional performance on top, which will be interesting to see if it's enough to match NVIDIA's new flagship GeForce RTX 3090 Ti which is now expected on March 29.

Russian forces have already attacked and captured the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

The target of the latest attack was the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology (KIPT), resulting in the destruction of the lab and its neutron generator. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, says the inventory of radioactive material was small, and no radiation release has been detected following the site's destruction.

The lab was used for research and provided medical isotopes for health care workers. Grossi has said he is ready to meet with Ukrainian and Russian officials to ensure the safety of atomic sites as the war escalates. Other facilities are at risk of damage in addition to any one of Ukraine's fifteen nuclear power plants, such as nuclear-waste storage sites in Kyiv that have already been damaged.

The Punisher drone is made by UA Dynamics, which is also accepting cryptocurrency donations to "protect Ukraine from Russian occupiers."

UA Dynamics was launched by combat veterans who fought Russian forces during the annexation of Crimea. They have since designed and developed the "Punisher" drone, with the "cheapest mission cost in the world," according to the UA Dynamics website. It has a strike range of 45 kilometers (28 miles), cruising speed of 20 meters per second (39 knots), combat payload of 2+ kilograms (4.4+ pounds), a precision of 4 meters (13 feet), and time to start of 7 minutes.

According to Business Insider, over 60 successful missions have been carried out with Punisher drones during the current conflict in Ukraine against Russian forces. The drone has been used to fly behind enemy lines to disrupt supply lines, targeting fuel and ammunition stocks as well as electronic warfare systems without jeopardizing its own troops' safety.

Musk believes that increasing nuclear energy output is "critical to national and international security."

Musk also went on to taunt "those who (mistakenly) think this is a radiation risk" by asking them to say what they thought was the worst location, and that he would then go there and eat locally grown food on television. Musk mentioned going to Japan shortly after the Fukushima nuclear disaster and doing the same thing, and claimed the radiation risk is significantly lower than most people believe.

The tweet has come in the days following a Russian attack on Europe's largest nuclear power plant, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which meets 20 percent of Ukraine's energy needs alone. According to the World Nuclear Association, 440 nuclear power plants across 33 countries generated 2553 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2020, accounting for roughly 10 percent of the global energy consumption.

A study on the brain changes titled "SARS-CoV-2 is associated with changes in brain structure in UK Biobank" has been published in the journal Nature.

Researchers found that, on average, middle-aged and older adults who had been afflicted with COVID-19 had tissue shrinkage in areas of the brain related to the sense of smell. Another effect most prevalent among older adults was increased difficulty in completing complex mental tasks after having COVID-19, compared to individuals who had not contracted the disease.

The researchers had access to brain scans before and after people became infected with COVID-19, allowing them to distinguish between expected brain changes and those resulting from COVID-19.

Elon Musk expects "slight delays" on the road to Starship's first orbital test flight.

It is not the first time Starship has been delayed, with previous delays coming from an ever-shifting deadline for a programmatic environmental assessment (PEA) conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The expected delay comes after Musk has redirected SpaceX resources to assist Ukraine in its ongoing defense against the Russian invasion.

Musk has been in contact with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy since sending Starlink equipment to Ukraine to help the country maintain an internet connection amidst the conflict.

NVIDIA's next-gen Ada Lovelace GPU architecture is going to buck heads with AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 GPU architecture later this year, but now the rumors on the Ada Lovelace GPU side of things really heated up.

In his latest video, Tom @ Moore's Law is Dead said that the next-gen AD102 GPU -- and other GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs -- could support next-gen GDDR7 memory. Tom said "the memory controllers in Lovelace dies are vastly improved over Ampere, with AD102 being built to support GDDR7 memory speeds, and possibly GDDR7 itself".

The source continued, adding that the "AD102 memory controller was designed to handle GDDR7 memory speeds (32Gbps) and possibly built around an early 0.x GDDR7 specification. It is unlikely GDDR7 will be ready for Lovelace's initial launch, but either way NVIDIA will be able to use the fastest GDDR chips on the market in Q3. They will also have a pathway to a full refresh in 2023 with vastly higher memory bandwidth if they need to rush out an RTX 5000 series after defeat... just like Fermi...".

If you're living in Russia right now, I can't imagine how it must feel being cancel cultured out of civilized society so quickly... but now rumors are flying that Russia is going to "disconnect from the global internet".

Belarus-based media outlet Nexta tweeted: "#Russia began active preparations for disconnection from the global Internet. No later than March 11, all servers and domains must be transferred to the #Russian zone. In addition, detailed data on the network infrastructure of the sites is being collected".

Now, I don't want to sit here and write doomsday clickbait BS when it comes to a topic like this... but Russia has been toying with disconnecting from the "global internet" for a while now. Back in July 2021, Russia "managed to disconnect itself from the global internet during tests in June and July", not even a year ago, reported Reuters at the time.

Nintendo refreshed its portable gaming system last year with the introduction of the Nintendo Switch OLED, packing a beautiful OLED display that acted as enough of an upgrade over the original Switch, and now that OLED panel has been put through a burn-in torture test.

Now when I say burn-in torture test, I really do mean it: we're talking about a huge 3600-hour burn-in (3600 hours works out to 24/7 for 150 days). This is years of regular use crammed into less than half a year, with the OLED showing a bright scene the entire time (a static shot of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Link looking into the sun).

After the 3600 hours of being at full brightness, the Nintendo Switch OLED display had only just had ghosting appear... which isn't even that much really. The reality of burn-in has changed so much from the fear-driven panic of early Plasma and LCD TVs, but with OLED panels it really isn't that much of an issue.

Sony is currently in talks with Amazon to produce a live action TV series based on Sony Santa Monica's 2018 God of War game.

Sources tell Deadline that Amazon is currently in discussions to make a God of War TV show adaptation. The series would premiere on Amazon's Prime Video streaming service and is reportedly being helmed by Expanse showrunners Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, alongside The Wheel of Time producer and Uncharted film writer Rafe Judkins. Sony's own PlayStation Productions and Pictures Television branches are also involved.

This would mark the sixth major video game adaptation production from Sony, with other projects including 2022's Uncharted film, a new Jak and Daxter film, an upcoming Ghost of Tsushima movie, and TV shows based on The Last of Us (HBO) and Twisted Metal (NBC's Peacock).