Latest News - Page 138

Announced at CES 2026, MSI's new GeForce RTX 5090 LIGHTNING Z limited edition flagship GPU has more than lived up to its promise of being the world's most powerful PC gaming graphics card. As per our review, it performs more like a GeForce RTX 5090 Ti than an RTX 5090. As a card built for extreme overclocking, it's also the first RTX 5090 to ship with a dual-BIOS setup, including a default 800W OC mode and an insane 1000W Extreme mode.

When MSI announced the card, it also confirmed that a fully unlocked, experimental 2500W BIOS was available, which not only voided the warranty but would be provided only to extreme overclockers looking to set new world records with liquid nitrogen cooling. Jonathan Alva, an extreme overclocker and YouTuber from Indonesia, is one example - and his recent benchmarking with the 2500W XOC BIOS for the RTX 5090 LIGHTNING Z caused the "Blackwell" GB202-300-A1 GPU die to crack.

The good news is that, as Alva was one of the extreme overclockers that MSI worked with when developing the new RTX 5090 LIGHTNING Z, the GPU die cracking like a broken mirror was most likely due to an early version of the 2500W XOC BIOS, causing extremely high voltage in a short amount of time, leading to thermal shock. That, and apparently, he has three more RTX 5090 LIGHTNING Z cards.

Sony's next-gen PlayStation 6 console could be delayed through to 2029 according to new reports, and in a fresh leak, we're being told that the PS6 won't have the "full" RDNA 5 feature set.

We've known for a while now from leakers like Moore's Law is Dead what would be inside of the PS6 console, a new semi-custom SoC with AMD Zen 6 CPU cores and RDNA 5 GPU cores, but it won't be the "full feature set" of RDNA 5, some of that will be left for special sauce for the RDNA 5-powered Radeon RX graphics cards.

In leaks over that time we've also come to learn that the next-gen Xbox would be faster than the next-gen PS6, with the new Xbox featuring a larger 64 CUs of RDNA 5 with GDDR7 memory, while the PS6 is touted with 52-54 CUs of RDNA 5.

Intel's upcoming Nova Lake-S desktop CPUs with 52 cores will need to be used on the highest-end 900-series motherboards in order to unlock all of its performance... because they'll require 700-800W of power.

In some new information from leaker @Jaykhin on X, we're hearing that only "some boards" will support the full-power 52-core platform, while "other boards" will "limit the performance and power" of the 52-core platform.

Intel's next-gen flagship Nova Lake-S desktop processors will feature 52 cores in a dual compute tile setup, with each of the compute tiles featuring 8 P-Cores, 16 E-Cores, and a rumored additional 4 LPE cores on the chip itself.

Nikola 'NiKo' Kovac is widely considered one of the greatest Counter-Strike players of all time, with a professional career that spans well over a decade, covering every major release from Counter-Strike 1.6 to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Counter-Strike 2. Still playing today, NiKo recently earned his 10th HLTV MVP title during the recent BLAST Bounty 2026 Season 1 finals in Europe.

One of NiKo's most impressive performances saw him rack up a staggering 52 kills in a single CS Major map. This week, Razer has announced that it has collaborated with the Counter-Strike legend to create a custom Razer NiKo Collection of pro-grade PC gaming gear.

The collection includes a custom Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro NiKo Edition gaming mouse, a Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL NiKo Edition rapid trigger gaming keyboard (which we recently reviewed in its default look here), a Razer BlackShark V3 Pro NiKo Edition headset, and a Razer Gigantus V2 Pro NiKo Edition mouse pad.

Unity is a versatile cross-platform game engine that has been around since 2005, supporting console, PC, and mobile. Some of the more notable Unity-developed games released in 2025 span a wide range of genres and include Hollow Knight: Silksong, Megabonk, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, and Blue Prince.

During the company's recent earnings call, Unity CEO Matt Bromberg discussed its new, upgraded Unity AI technology, which will be unveiled at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) next month. According to Matt Bromberg, this technology will help democratize game development for millions by removing the need to code or understand coding. That means the ability to create entire games using prompts and natural language with no formal game development experience required.

"At the Game Developer Conference in March, we'll be unveiling a beta of the new upgraded Unity AI, which will enable developers to prompt full casual games into existence with natural language only, native to our platform," Matt Bromberg said. "So it's simple to move from prototype to finished product."

Nintendo may punctuate the anniversary of its newly-released Switch 2 console with a price hike--a rare occurrence that characterizes the volatility of the tech market.

More evidence has surfaced that reinforces a Switch 2 price hike in 2026. Sources close to Nintendo's business plans tell Bloomberg that the games-maker is mulling over a Switch 2 price adjustment. It's unclear whether or not the price hike would be global or targeted, and if prices would be affected in the Americas, a region that represents over 40% of Nintendo's quarterly earnings.

Specifics on what the new prices might look like were not provided, however analyst firm Niko Partners also predicts that Nintendo could bump up the Switch 2's price tag throughout 2026. The firm expects the Switch 2 could now retail for $499 in countries like the United States.

AI could be the reason that the PlayStation 6 is delayed until 2029, sources tell Bloomberg.

AI continues to accelerate faster and faster, and companies are struggling to feed teeming datacenters. AI has driven up the prices of consumer electronics to all-time highs, as critical chips like RAM, flash storage, and GPU/CPUs are being diverted to lucrative AI contracts. As a result, entertainment companies like Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo may now have to pay more to produce their unreleased next-gen gaming systems--and possibly even raise prices again in the meantime.

New reports from Bloomberg indicate that Sony may push back the release of its next-gen PlayStation 6 console by multiple years due to market conditions. Sony could release the PS6 in 2028 or even 2029 because of the AI chip squeeze.

Samsung has unveiled its next-generation QD-OLED technology for premium displays called 'QD-OLED Penta Tandem.' This brand-new, proprietary tandem technology features a five-layer organic light-emitting structure that the company says will be not only a game-changer but also unique to its QD-OLED panels.

Samsung's QD-OLED panels are found in some of the most impressive gaming monitors and TVs on the market. The company notes that as the number of organic material layers increases, overall brightness and efficiency improve. That means the same display can deliver a brighter image at the same power level as a standard QD-OLED display.

With a 1.3X improvement to luminous efficiency, Samsung believes that this also extends the lifespan of the 'QD-OLED Penta Tandem' display by a factor of 2X. And when it comes to peak brightness, these new displays will be impressive, with 4,500 nits for TVs and 1,300 nits for monitors.

Sharing data from the PC component research and analysis firm Mercury, AMD has announced that the latest Q4 2025 'Processor Shipment Report' is basically all great news for the company. And sure, AMD EPYC Server CPUs have helped the company's server revenue share reach new heights, but thanks to its Ryzen desktop lineup, AMD's desktop revenue share has grown by an impressive 14.6% year over year.

AMD attributes this to strong demand for its Ryzen products, including popular models such as the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the Ryzen 5 9600X. According to Mercury, as 2025 began, AMD's processor shipment revenue share for its desktop Ryzen CPUs was sitting at 28%. Fast-forward to 2026, and that desktop CPU revenue share has climbed to 42.6%.

It's an impressive result, and although AMD's mobile and notebook revenue share isn't at that level, it increased 3.3% year over year to 24.9%. AMD's Client CPU (Desktop and Mobile) revenue share is now 31.2%, while Server CPU revenue share is 41.3%. Again, this is great news for AMD as it continues to erode Intel's market share. "These meaningful share gains across every major compute segment underscore strong execution and customer confidence in AMD's leadership products across the data center and client businesses," the company says.

Corsair has posted its latest financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025 and the full calendar year, reporting strong double-digit revenue growth of 12% and a 30% increase in profit. With Corsair and Elgato's strong lineup of products covering all aspects of hardware for PC gamers, creators, and streamers, the company has highlighted "growth in memory and components" as a key component of its success in its Gaming Components and Systems segment.

And when it comes to PC hardware, Corsair reports it's now the market leader in the US for DRAM (covering its DDR4 and DDR5 memory), PSUs, and cooling. On the memory front, Corsair reports 24% year-over-year growth in its memory business and has secured sufficient supply to meet the "robust global demand" for its memory lineup.

"The Corsair team was able to successfully navigate a constrained global semiconductor market to secure supply for the robust global demand we saw for our memory products during the quarter, underlining our leadership position in the performance memory market," the financial report says. And it's expecting to continue this momentum in 2026, with "strategic inventory investment."

Valve's Steam Deck is widely considered one of the best handheld gaming PCs on the market, with the SteamOS interface and rock-solid user experience that make it feel more like a console than a desktop PC. With the Steam Deck currently sold via the Steam platform in countries like the US and Australia and through partners like Komodo in Asia, late last week, gamers began to notice an 'Out of stock' message in several regions where the handheld is sold.

The 'Out of stock' can be seen on the Steam Deck's official store page in the U.S., covering all three available models: the Steam Deck 256GB LCD, the Steam Deck 512GB OLED, and the Steam Deck 1TB OLED. With all three models unavailable for purchase, the only option for prospective buyers is to add the handheld to their wishlist.

However, since Valve no longer produces the 256GB LCD model of the Steam Deck, only the two OLED models are expected to be sold once stock becomes available. And on that note, there's no indication of when this might be, which is causing many to wonder if the Steam Deck is the latest bit of PC gaming hardware to be affected by the memory crisis brought on by the AI boom.

Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft's AI CEO, recently sat down with the Financial Times to discuss all things AI, and he had a few words to say about AI one day taking over and making jobs and employment a thing of the past. In fact, when it comes to white-collar jobs that involve sitting at a computer day in and day out, Suleyman has set a timeline of 12 to 18 months for those jobs to become redundant and "fully automated by an AI."

"I think we're going to have a human-level performance on most, if not all, professional tasks," Mustafa Suleyman says. "White-collar work, where you're sitting down at a computer - either being, you know, a lawyer, or an accountant, or a project manager, or a marketing person - most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months."

Suleyman notes that this will be due to AI achieving "human-level performance" on nearly all professional tasks, regardless of industry. He adds that this AI advance has already reached the software engineering sector, where he says "AI-assisted coding" is now a mainstay.

Western Digital has said that it has run out of HDD capacity, while its consumer share has dropped to just 5% as enterprise and AI eats up storage as if it were oxygen in a tiny room.

We all know about the insane AI demand that has been eating up all of the DRAM supply, but we've been warned for months that mechanical HDDs would be affected... where we wrote a story just a few months ago that HDD prices surged to their highest point in 2 years with demand coming out of the US and China alone.

WD CEO Irving Tan said during the Q2 earnings call: "As we highlighted, we're pretty much sold out for calendar 2026. We have firm POs with our top seven customers. And we've also established LTAs with two of them for calendar 2027 and one of them for calendar 2028. Obviously, these LTAs have a combination of volume of exabytes and price".

If you are anywhere near Norway and planning on having a baby in the next 9 months or so, then Norwegian retailer Komplett will give you a FREE copy of Grand Theft Auto 6 if your baby is born on launch day: November 19, 2026.

In a new promotional run on Instagram and in-store ads, Komplett said (translated) that: "Life hack: Lie together today, get GTA 6 free from us in 9 months", adding "this is actually not [a joke], GTA 6 is released in 9 months, and if you have a baby on the launch date, we'll give you the game for free". The retailer honoring this promotion would have to accept a birth certificate (we guess) in order to validate a customer's claim that their baby was born on GTA 6 launch day.

I can't imagine a couple talking to each other and discussing this deal, thinking that they would have a child (right now) and hopefully time it perfectly to have a baby on November 19... just to get a free copy of Grand Theft Auto 6. Stranger things have happened, but imagine being that child and going to school in the future "yeah I was born because my parents wanted a free copy of GTA 6".

Micron has started mass production of the world's first PCIe Gen6 SSD, offering an eye-watering 28GB/sec read speeds and in both air, and liquid-cooled models.

The new Micron 9650 Gen6 SSD features its in-house G9 NAND flash, aimed at high performance and low latencies for data center servers. Micron's new family of three SSDs uses vertical integration and its in-house G9 NAND, DRAM, and firmware to ensure that its new SSDs pack leading performance for servers, high capacity, high speeds, lower latencies, all while consuming less power.

Micron's new 9650 Gen6 SSD has up to 28GB/sec of sequential read speeds -- twice that of the 14GB/sec capable in Gen5 SSDs -- and up to 14GB/sec in sequential writes. This means that Micron's new 9650 Gen6 SSD has the fastest speeds out of the box, but does it with 25% improved efficiency at random writes, and up to 67% better efficiency at random reads.

Diablo 2's new Warlock class has been broken to deliver one of the most ridiculously overpowered builds ever made.

Diablo 2 recently got its first new playable class in 25 years as part of the new Reign of the Warlock expansion. The new class, the titular Warlock, can convert demons to his side and has some nifty eldritch attacks that copy his equipped weapon. And yes, the Warlock has already been broken to an absurd degree.

YouTube and Diablo 2 expert Coooley has broken the Warlock class, leading to a build that can dish out 79K damage while fully equipped, slaughtering even the hardest enemies in D2R's Terror Zones. It gets crazier, though: The build still works even if you don't have any gear equipped other than a main-hand weapon.

Xbox is paring down features that players don't use as Microsoft continues iterating on its conjunctive next-gen Xbox-Windows hybrid.

Microsoft has announced that Social Clubs on the Xbox platform will be removed in April 2026. The feature was originally introduced all the way back in 2016 as Clubs on Xbox LIVE, and transformed into Social Clubs, which are basically user-created and user-moderated mini-forums where people can gather together.

It turns out not enough people used the feature, so Microsoft is nixing it. "This update is part of ongoing platform updates to focus on the social experiences players use most today," an Xbox support post explains. The Official Clubs for individual games will remain intact.

LPCAMM2 LPDDR5X memory is on the way, with a recent 96GB kit at 9600 MT/s transfer speeds entering mass production in the near future.

The new LPCAMM2 memory form factory has been designed to save PCB space on mobile and laptop form factors, but until now, LPCAMM2 memory has used LPDDR5 memory modules, but it also supports faster LPDDR5X memory. Samsung looks to be close to starting mass production of its faster LPCAMM2 memory modules.

Lenovo's China manager has posted a picture of Samsung's upcoming LPCAMM2 "LPDDR5X" memory module, with the module listed with a huge 96GB of capacity in a "2D8Rx8 PC5" configuration, with speeds of up to 9600 MT/s. However, the only platform on the market that takes the new specifications and speeds is Intel's just-launched Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" CPUs, which support up to 9600 MT/s speeds.

Savvy Games Group, the interactive entertainment division owned by Saudi Arabia, is ready to make another billion-dollar gaming acquisition.

Sources tell Reuters that ByteDance is ready to sell its Moonton Technology division, and that a deal with Saudi-owned Savvy Games Group is in advanced discussions. Both companies are said to have agreed to preliminary deal proposals.

Moonton has a multi-billion dollar valuation thanks to the success of its top mobile hit, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. The acquisition is said to be worth between $5 - 7 billion. With over 1.5 billion downloads and 110 million active players logging on every month, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is among the leading smartphone games on the market today.

Xbox fans, rejoice: Metal Gear Solid 4 will finally break its decades-long exclusivity to the PlayStation 3 and release on an Xbox platform.

Konami has officially announced Metal Gear Solid Master Collection vol. 2, and predictably, the new bundle comes with Metal Gear Solid 4, the next mainline game in the series. This is noteworthy news because from 2008 until 2026, MGS4 Guns of the Patriots was exclusive to the PlayStation 3. Now it'll be available to other PlayStation consoles, and to Xbox for the first time.

The second volume will cost $50 and comes with three games: MGS4 Guns of the Patriots released on the PS3 in 2008, MGS Peace Walker which was originally launched on the PSP in 2010, and Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, an old title that Konami released on the Game Boy back in 2000.