Latest News - Page 1220

A new analysis of the meteorite has been published in the journal Science.

The meteorite that landed on Earth from Mars is Allan Hills 84001 (ALH84001), and was discovered in the Antarctic in 1984. The new analysis by Andrew Steele from the Carnegie Institution for Science determined that organic molecules found within the meteorite were synthesized from interactions between water and rocks on the surface of Mars around four billion years ago.

ONEXPLAYER has just launched its new Mini gaming handheld, which packs an Intel 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake" CPU -- in fact, the flagship low-power Tiger Lake CPU in the Core i7-1195G7 -- and Iris Xe graphics.

Inside of the ONEXPLAYER Mini is the Intel Core i7-1195G7 processor, based on the 10nm node and rocking a quad-core configuration with CPU clocks at base 2.9GHz, and boost up to 5.0GHz. Power-wise, we're looking at tweaks of between 12W and 28W, but ONEXPLAYER hasn't been up-front about the default power settings just yet.

On the GPU side of things, we have built-in Iris Xe graphics, with the updated Xe-LP architecture that has 96 Execution Units (EUs) enabled. The GPU itself is clocked up to 1.4GHz, while there's a 7-inch 1920x1200 display with 323 PPI and 100% of sRGB coverage. ONEXPLAYER packs in a huge 10,455mAh high-capacity, a fast-charging battery inside of the Mini gaming handheld.

Intel's new Alder Lake CPU architecture is here and while you might be drooling over the flagship Core i9-12900K processor, the dual-core Celeron G6900 processor is a freaking amazing CPU.

The new Intel Celeron G6900 processor is a 2C/2T chip based on the 10nm ESF Golden Cove architecture, with its dual CPU cores clocked at up to 3.4GHz. Intel packs in 4MB of L3 cache, 2.5MB of L2 cache, and has it all for 46W TDP -- but the price, man the price -- is just $42.

At this cost, it's an amazing CPU for an entry-level gaming PC that doesn't require a ton of multi-threaded CPU grunt. Well, Intel's new Celeron G6900 processor installed into an ASRock Z690M Phantom Gaming 4 motherboard and CPU clocks of up to 4.4GHz -- obviously overclocked -- and it beats the two-gen previous flagship Intel Core i9-10900K (with up to 5.3GHz CPU clocks) in single-threaded performance.

I'm sure executives are sitting around laughing at seeing their Apple Watch wearable playing Prince of Persia from 1989, as it was recently ported to Javascript and hacked to work on the Apple Watch.

You can play Prince of Persia on any web browser by checking out princejs, where you can play the 1989 classic on virtually anything: a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or PC. You can't do this easily on the Apple Watch, so software developer Oliver Klemenz's Javascript port runs smoothly in browsers, and even the Apple Watch.

It's not easy to play as you don't have any controls on the Apple Watch to play Prince of Persia, but it is doable. The new flagship Apple Watch Series 7 has a display with a resolution of 396 x 484, while Prince of Persia runs at 280 x 192 -- impressive considering it was originally released for the Apple II back in the day.

NVIDIA is reportedly preparing a large stock of GeForce RTX 3050 graphics cards for the coming months, according to Chinese media outlets.

According to the latest reports, NVIDIA will have plenty of new GeForce RTX 3050 graphics cards -- and not the higher-end GeForce RTX 3060 and GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics cards -- ready for launch day. NVIDIA will be launching its new lower-end Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card on January 25.

January 25 is just days before Chinese New Year, which kicks off on February 1, and will disrupt graphics card (and many other products) supply. We are reportedly going to see a large first batch for the launch day on January 27, while we should see more batches dropping in the weeks after Spring Festival ends.

Intel's next-gen Xeon "Sapphire Rapids" CPU has been pulled apart, delidded by professional German overclocker and modder "Der8auer".

The Intel Xeon "Sapphire Rapids" CPU was purchased from eBay, and once the overclocker had it in his hands he does what he does best: rip it apart. The sample was labeled "Xeon vPRO XCC QWP3" and is an unreleased server CPU that rocks up to 56 cores and 112 threads.

There's no way to know, as the Sapphire Rapids CPU can't be used because there's no way to buy a motherboard that works with the Intel Xeon "Sapphire Rapids" CPU, period. The sample was pulled apart, delidded, but we don't know the configuration of this chip in question. We can see that there are 4 compute dies on the chip, connected through EMIB technology which der8auer took some beautiful photos under a microscope.

PowerColor is preparing a new custom Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card in tiny Mini-ITX form, with a single-fan cooler and small dual-slot design.

The new PowerColor Radeon RX 6500 XT ITX rolls out in a small dual-slot design, with a single 90mm fan and just 165mm long. There's a single 8-pin PCIe power connector by the looks of things -- at least from the specification sheet -- as the pictures suggest the card has a single 6-pin PCIe power connector.

There's up to 150W TBP through the connector and PCIe slot, while the card actually has a 170W TBP. We don't know what GPU clocks PowerColor will have, but we should expect reference GPU clocks and not overclocked as the card doesn't seem to be factory overclocked.

Samsung was meant to unveil its next-gen Exynos 2200 SoC which has a custom AMD RDNA 2-based GPU, but the event was canceled out of nowhere and looks to be coming in the next few weeks.

The company teased it would be unveiling its new Exynos SoC with the "new GPU born from RDNA 2" that would make the gaming marketplace "get serious" -- yeah, serious enough to pull out at the last second, Samsung -- and even launched a social media campaign with a dedicated site for the RDNA 2-based Exynos SoC.

Just 24 hours later, Samsung rescheduled the event and didn't say why... but a company representative did say: "We are planning to unveil the new application processor at the time of launching a new Samsung smartphone. There are no problems with the AP's production and performance".

GIGABYTE has just unleashed a bunch of custom GeForce RTX 3080 12GB graphics cards, with new AORUS, GAMING OC, and EAGLE series cards for sale.

If you have a custom loop water-cooled PC, GIGABYTE has the new AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 XTREME WATERFORCE WB 12G, with an all-in-one and open-loop water-cooled solution. The wicked new AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 XTREME WATERFORCE WB 12G has a patent-pending "leak detection" technology, with this being the flagship RTX 3080 12GB from GIGABYTE.

The new flagship air-cooled AORUS GeForce RTX 3080 MASTER 12G has GIGABYTE's in-house MAX-Covered cooling system, which rocks 3 unique blade fans with a "wind claw design and alternate spinning to deliver optimal airflow across the entire heat sink". The huge heat sink and vapor chamber pack multiple composite heat pipes that push the heat from the GPU and VRAM quickly.

AMD will be unleashing its next-gen Zen 4 architecture later this year, with the new CPU architecture powering the company's next-gen Ryzen 7000 series processors.

The new AMD Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael" CPUs will be based on the Zen 4 CPU architecture and will be using the new AM5 platform and flashy new LGA 1718 socket we've been hearing more and more about lately. But in a new interview with AnandTech, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su talked about the new 5nm process node from TSMC that the company is building its new Zen 4 chips on.

AMD will be tapping a "specially optimized variant" of TSMC's new 5nm process node, which has been designed for high-performance computing. The interview with AT reads: "Dr. Su stated that AMD is continuing to innovate in all areas. For AMD it seems, leading the chiplet technology has helped to bring the package together".

Micron has just announced it's now shipping the industry's first 176-layer QLD NAND flash (quad-level cell) for SSDs, with the new Micron 2400 SSD PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD now shipping to customers.

The new Micron 2400 SSDs ship in various form factors: M.2 22x30mm, M.2 22x42mm, and M.2 22x80mm with 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities available in each form factor -- even the tiny 22x30mm form factor. The new 176-layer QLC NAND flash inside of the Micron 2400 SSDs has up to 33% faster I/O throughput, and up to 24% less read latency.

Micron's new flagship 2400 SSD in 2TB offers up to 4.5GB/sec (4500MB/sec) reads, and up to 4GB/sec (4000MB/sec) writes while random reads are at 650K IOPS, while random writes hit 700K IOPs.

Microsoft has officially retired Xbox One family console production, and the last-gen system will no longer be manufactured by the company.

All systems in the Xbox One console lineup--including the original Xbox One, Xbox One S, and Xbox One X systems--are no longer being produced and manufactured by Microsoft. The company actually stopped making Xbox One systems in 2020, and is instead exclusively producing its new Xbox Series duo.

"To focus on production of Xbox Series X / S, we stopped production for all Xbox One consoles by the end of 2020," Xbox console marketing exec Cindy told The Verge.

A new report from Games One reveals the top-paid gaming CEOs of 2020, and Bobby Kotick didn't top this list this time.

The latest report from Games One highlights total compensation from gaming's top CEOs, showing how much executives earned throughout the games industry's historical 2020 boon period. It's worth noting the figures herein include salary, bonuses, and overall share/stock compensation plans.

Playtika CEO Robert Antokol makes the top spot with over $372 million in compensation through 2020. Playtika is known for its billion-dollar casino and casual games and launched an IPO in January 2021 worth $469.3 million.

Halo Infinite's free-to-play multiplayer could get expanded storylines, new 343 Industries job listings indicate.

Back in June 2021, Halo creative head Joseph Staten said Halo Infinite's multiplayer would tell a story. That hasn't really happened just yet. Infinite's season 1 battle pass very lightly pays homage to the Heroes of Reach and there's no real narrative outside of a great-but-hollow season 1 cinematic. The F2P multiplayer is held together by chaotic action, not story beats. That could change soon.

343 Industries is currently hiring a Halo Infinite writing director that will oversee and help create "serial narrative content" for Infinite's free-to-play multiplayer.

Multiple video game market securities analysts predict Grand Theft Auto VI could release by 2024.

With the help of Zynga, Take-Two Interactive plans to deliver record bookings in FY2024. The company, which will soon merge with Zynga in a huge $12.7 billion deal, plans to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% in the three-year period between FY21 and FY24. This implies $9 billion in net bookings for FY24. For perspective, it took Take-Two five years to hit its current 17% CAGR from FY17 to FY21.

It's believed that GTA 6 will be the main driver for these earnings, at least on Take-Two's part. Zynga's contributions will be from a litany of mobile titles. Two securities analysts have seemingly corroborated predictions that I made back in May 2021 surrounding GTA 6's release--the hugely anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 could release by March 31, 2024.

God of War is now available on the PC after being a PlayStation exclusive for many years, and while that is being enjoyed by gamers across the world on the PC -- the very best version of the game -- God of War 3 has been tweaked, run at 8K with ray tracing, and more. Check it out:

YouTuber Giulio Guglielmi, aka MassiHancer, has tweaked the latest MassiHancer mod to work with RPCS3 settings (the PlayStation emulator) so that it can run 8K (7680x4320) more stable. He's using NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card, a dedicated ReShade preset -- which includes Pascal Gilcher's Screen Space Ray Tracing Global Illumination shader.

The game looks good on its own, but man... at 16x the pixels of 1080p and 4x the pixels of 4K, I don't think God of War 3 could look any better at 8K. But when you add in the reflections that ray tracing provides, adding in Global Illumination, you've got God of War 3 looking, unlike anything the next-gen consoles could ever wish for.

AMD has one of the most interesting processors with some of the most bleeding-edge technology inside with its upcoming Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU, rocking its flashy new 3D V-Cache technology... but there are issues, which should come at no surprise at this point.

The new AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor will be made on TSMC's current 7nm process node, just like the other Ryzen 5000 series desktop CPUs -- but adding in AMD's exciting new 3D V-Cache is proving to be a problem. DigiTimes is reporting that the 3D SoIC technology from TSMC uses is very new, and isn't at volume production.

3D packaging technology is very new, and with AMD set to launch its new Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor in spring 2022 -- production issues could spell disaster. We are already in an everything shortage, so with one of the most exotic processors ever made using the very latest 3D packaging technology -- AMD's debut of the first processor with 3D V-Cache technology -- it'll be like finding a needle in a haystack while Leonardo DiCaprio looks at his spinning top.

TSMC will be making Intel's next-gen processors in the coming years, with new reports suggesting TSMC will be building the bleeding edge chips at its latest facility in Baoshan, north of Hsinchu.

Intel's next-gen 3nm processors will be built by TSMC at this new facility, where Baoshan has access to a reservoir of water that these massive fabs require. TSMC is in Taiwan and while it's surrounded by water, water shortages across the country have been wreaking havoc at multiple chip-making facilities.

Making the next-gen 3nm chips at this new facility means TSMC can handle the production volume required, as it will have no shortages of water. The Baoshan facility is also close to the main TSMC campus, which is another tick in the box for 'positives' for TSMC to make this move. Intel will have its future-gen Core i3 processors built on the new 3nm process node at TSMC -- as TSMC has its facility gearing to go, while Intel would take many more years to have a next-gen 3nm fabrication plant on US soil.

A research article on the making of the chip was published in the journal Advanced Materials.

A team of researchers led by the University of Melbourne used a technique to implant singular phosphorus atoms onto a silicon wafer. Previously, embedding atoms in silicon has involved showering a wafer with phosphorus, becoming implanted randomly across it.

The temperature was achieved in China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) nuclear fusion reactor.

The reactor recently achieved a sustained temperature of 70 million degrees Celsius (126 million degrees Fahrenheit), maintaining it for 1,056 seconds, a record-breaking length to maintain superheated plasma. France's Tore Supra tokamak set the previous record in 2003, which contained plasma at similar temperatures for 390 seconds.

In May 2021, the EAST reactor set another record by achieving a temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius (216 million degrees Fahrenheit), holding this temperature for 101 seconds. For comparison, the sun's core reaches temperatures of around 15 million degrees Celsius (27 million degrees Fahrenheit), making the reactor's peak temperature achieved so far eight times hotter than the sun.