First we had the leaks, but then there was the confirmation -- when GAINWARD unleashes its websites for the custom GeForce RTX 3090 and GeForce RTX 3080 Phoenix graphics cards.

GAINWARD will have the GeForce RTX 3090 Phoenix, which is joined by a higher-clocked "Golden Sample" (GS) model. The same applies for the GeForce RTX 3080 Phoenix, which also is joined by a GS variant that has slightly higher GA102 GPU clocks.

The websites have all been pulled, but not before the fine folks at VideoCardz were able to grab them.

If you are craving a new Lord of the Rings game to sink your teeth into, then add this one to your list, it's called Lord of the Rings: Gollum.

Daedalic Entertainment the developers behind the Lord of the Rings: Gollum have confirmed that the coming title will arrive on both next-gen consoles, PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch. Recently, a trailer for the title was released, marking its the first official "teaser" trailer.

So, what will the game entail for fans? According to Eurogamer, the coming Lord of the Rings: Gollum title will take players through a series of levels and hubs, as well as some open levels and linear missions. Players will also have the choice of alternative routes through some select levels. At the moment, there is no official release date for the title, but we do know it will be releasing sometime in 2021.

This past Saturday (August 29th), the launch of the newest US spy satellite was unfortunately delayed, and a new attempt at the launch won't be taken until a week's time.

According to Space.com, the launch of the new US spy satellite called NROL-44 was aboard the Delta IV Heavy rocket constructed by United Launch Alliance (ULA). United Launch Alliance said they had to abort the mission just three seconds before the planned launch due to a failure with the rocket's ignition sequence. A representative with the ULA said the team is currently reviewing all of the data to establish a correct path forward.

While the launch was aborted, ULA president and CEO Tory Bruno said on Twitter that "the bird is in good health", and that even though the mission was aborted, the system "functioned as intended to protect the vehicle and payload." As for the satellite itself, no one besides the National Reconnaissance Office and the US military knows what the exact purpose of the NROL-44 satellite is. The National Reconnaissance Office oversees all US spy satellite operations and has kept a very tight seal on NROL-44's mission and design.

Nimbus Data have just unveiled their latest SSD, which is now the world's highest-capacity QLC flash SSD in the new ExaDrive NL SSD.

The new ExaDrive NL offers an incredible 64TB in a single SSD, whcih the company says is aimed at companies who want to replace their existing mechanical HDDs (that are normally much larger than traditional SSDs) with their new ExaDrive NL with 64TB on-tap in SSD form.

Nimbus Data's new ExaDrive NL comes in a larger 3.5-inch form factor, just like any other enterprise hard drive -- and will work in virtually any 3.5-inch slot. This makes it easy for companies to replace their existing drives with a new, much, much faster drive without upgrading the core system.

Samsung has finally unveiled its next-gen 980 PRO SSDs that are now sliding into motherboards on PCIe 4.0 interfaces, offering some ridiculous speeds.

The new Samsung 980 PRO PCIe 4.0 SSDs come in 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB capacities -- offering up to a huge 7000MB/sec (7GB/sec) sequential read speeds, while writes are at 5000MB/sec (5GB/sec) on the 1TB model. The smaller sizes have lowered speeds.

Samsung's new 980 PRO SSD 500GB model has 6900MB/sec (6.9GB/sec) reads, while writes are at 5000MB/sec (5GB/sec) and then the 250GB model is slower again with 6400MB/sec reads (6.4GB/sec) while writes plummet -- but they're still a ridiculous 2700MB/sec (2.7GB/sec).

TSMC continues forging ahead to be the dominant leader in the industry, where Taiwan Semicondctor Manufacturing Company is so ahead of the competition it might take them to 2030, if ever, to catch up.

Well, it's not just there -- but the company teased its recent 3nm node with 3x the silicon density over 7nm, with 51% less power, and it is up to 32% faster than TSMC's current 7nm node. TSMC hosted its Technology Symposium last week, where all of these announcements flew out.

TSMC also teased what it has coming in 2023, where the industry leader will have 12-stack next-gen HBM on next-gen GPUs coming out of its fabs. How can it get better? Well, with all of this chip production for companies like AMD, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Intel, Apple, Huawei and many others -- it must be using most of the latest equipment to make next-gen chips, right?

The last few days have been absolutely hectic when it comes to news on NVIDIA's next-gen GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards -- and now we have another look at the ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3090.

VideoCardz has the scoop on the new ASUS GeForce RTX 3090 ROG STRIX which sports a triple-fan cooler, and what appears to be a 2.5-slot (at least) card. It's big and chunky (and long) but if we're looking at 40-50% performance uplifts over the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti -- it'll be worth it.

We did have our first look at the flagship ROG STRIX graphics card from ASUS back in July, when it was being reported that the flagship card would be the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti ROG STRIX -- but things have changed, there is no GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and now we have ultra-insane GeForce RTX 3090 ROG STRIX.

Chadwick Boseman tragically passed away on August 29, after going through a huge 4-year battle with colon cancer.

Twitter has since confirmed that the last tweet on Boseman's account from his family, announcing he had passed away, has become the most-liked tweet in Twitter history. Boseman might have passed away, but what a way to go out as the King of Wakanda.

The obituary tweet quickly gained traction, with over 7.2 million likes -- and unfortunately, records like this shouldn't be broken with someones death. It's just so unfortunate, RIP Mr. Boseman -- King T'Challa of Wakanda.

TSMC is so ahead of the game that even Korean giant Samsung might not catch up until 2030, or ever (more on that here) -- but Beijing thought it could compete with TSMC with its own $20 billion fab plant in Wuhan.

Wuhan was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a partially-built factory sitting there doing nothing now in Western Wuhan. Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (HSMC -- because that's not obvious) was meant to be the "key part of a US$20 billion investment that turned the province into a chip manufacturing hub" reports South China Morning Post.

Construction on the new plant started in 2018 and was meant to make 14nm and 7nm chips, with HSMC expecting to make around 30,000 chips per month. Beijing offered a 10-year corporate t ax break to established companies that could make chips that were 28nm or smaller, but even with this help HSMC has failed with its new facility.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is shaping up to be one of the most fun, best-looking PlayStation 5 launch titles -- with some wicked gameplay here -- but now we know the game will run at 60FPS.

60FPS... but at a "lower resolution" explains developer Insomniac Games, during a recent interview with Japanese magazine Famitsu. The developer tweeted the news, confirming that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has an "option" for 60FPS on the PlayStation 5.

The developer explains that the game has one option for 4K 30FPS, while another option for 60FPS will be available but at a "lower resolution". I'm sure it'll be something like 1440p (or thereabouts) and be upscaled (and it will still look great) but at a much smoother 60FPS.

Sabrent has done it again: the company has just unveiled the next generation in storage technology with its latest Rocket 4 Plus that has absolutely insane speeds.

The new Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus NVMe SSD is powered by Phison's new E18 controller -- and comes in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities with read speeds that hit 7000MB/sec (7GB/sec) which is simply bonkers. Even the writes are equally insanely high, with Sabrent pushing a huge 6850MB/sec (6.85GB/sec) in sequential writes on its new Rocket 4 Plus.

You will need a PCIe 4.0-capable motherboard for this, where I would recommend a high-end AMD Ryzen 3000-series CPU and motherboard -- or if you're a content creator, an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3000-series CPU and motherboard. Either of these mixed with 1 (or more) Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus SSDs and you're in Storage Heaven.

Sony's PlayStation division is incredibly important for the company's total yearly earnings, and contributes double-digit percentage revenues.

Sony's latest 2020 Corporate Report is filled with all sorts of nifty tidbits. First there was confirmation that PS4 games will continue releasing on PC, then there was info on the PlayStation 5's custom data libraries. Now the company outlines just how important the PlayStation brand is for continued profits and revenues.

In less than 10 years' time, PlayStation has grown tremendously. The PS4 was the biggest driver for this expansion--the PS4 has sold 112.3 million units to date, and is the second best-selling PlayStation console of all time--thanks to massive console sales and even bigger game sales. Total PS4 game sales are now over 1.4 billion and Sony sold 91 million games in Q1'20, the biggest quarter ever.

Black Ops Cold War campaign dev Raven Software discusses some interesting new changes to the series, including character creation and some old-school throwbacks like multiple endings.

This year's Call of Duty is simultaneously combining new with old mechanics. The campaign in particular aims to be a more ambitious multi-decade story that spans the entirety of the Cold War, from pre-Vietnam in 1968 to the height of the espionage Communist scares of the 1980s.

With the campaign, Raven had two major goals: To connect Cold War with Black Ops in as many ways as possible, and to give new player freedoms. That includes character creation and choice-driven paths that allow unique endings.

Sony re-confirms its plans to bring more first-party PlayStation 4 console exclusive to PC, but this move will be supplemental to its console-first business.

Horizon: Zero Dawn's PC release marks the first exclusivity break for Sony's wholly-owned first-party games. In its recent 2020 Corporate Report, Sony said PC ports will continue, but didn't outline specifics.

Sony is empowering game developers by creating data libraries that're optimized for PS5's advanced next-gen rendering techniques, including ray tracing.

In its recent 2020 Corporate Report, Sony briefly mentions how it's helping game devs streamline data and asset management on the PS5. The next-gen PlayStation 5 SSD storage hardware is monumentally fast, and is capable of blasting uncompressed data at 5.5GB/sec speeds across a 6-channel memory controller and PCIe 4.0 x4 interface.

The SSD can feed data to RAM, GPU, and CPU components at never-before-seen levels for consoles, leading to instantaneous loading sequences, global illumination techniques like ray tracing, variable rate shading optimizations to significantly improve frame rates, and bigger, more robust worlds.

SPOILER WARNING:We'll be talking about Doom Eternal spoilers in this article, so if you haven't beaten the game or are not familiar with Doom 2016's or Doom Eternal's lore, then you may want to close the page.

Doom Eternal's latest Ancient Gods expansion is full of tantalizing new developments in the epic trans-dimensional sci-fantasy series. The new trailer revealed nifty little tidbits including the face of Samur, the seraphim that transformed Doom Guy into the Doom Slayer using the divine purity reserved for the Makyrs. Up until now we didn't know what the mysterious red-robed figure looked like.

The new trailer finally showed Samur's face, and further solidified his connection with Samuel Hayden. It's believed that Hayden is Samur.

Avengers has a fair and innovative monetization scheme where battle passes pay for themselves.

Like any live game, the new Avengers game exists for one primary purpose: To make money from online-driven engagement. Avengers is built to be infinitely replayable and grindy with materials, resources, currencies, and progression systems that keep you playing. The more you play, the more likely you are to pay. Avengers has a forked monetization system that innovates on the traditional battle pass model.

So how will you pay? Avengers has two major monetization paths centered around a premium currency called Credits. These Credits can be bought with real money in ratios like $5 for 500 Credits.

Doom Eternal's new Ancient Gods expansion is taking an novel approach to DLC, and could signify big changes from Bethesda.

Doom Eternal's latest Ancient Gods Part I expansion is a completely standalone episode that can be purchased on its own and played without the base game. Anyone can buy it and play it even if they don't own the full Doom Eternal release. The news was confirmed in a press release: The expansion will also come with Battle Mode lumped in for free, which makes a lot of sense for Bethesda.

"For players who don't own the Year One Pass, The Ancient Gods, Part One will be available to purchase separately and will include free access to BATTLEMODE. Players do not need to own DOOM Eternal to purchase and play The Ancient Gods, Part One," reads the press release.

Valve, ever the mysterious games company, recently teased a new content update for Left 4 Dead 2--a game that hasn't been touched for years.

The Last Stand is apparently coming to Left 4 Dead 2 in some form, complete with the creepy foggy environs of a coastal lighthouse refuge. The Last Stand was originally a mini-campaign DLC for the original Left 4 Dead's survival mode, which saw gamers trying to defend against endless swarms of undead (basically a horde mode).

According to Valve News Network's Tyler McVicker, the new Last Stand content drop is more than a simple update. There's a lot more to it than The Last Stand simply being adapted into Left 4 Dead 2, McVicker says. Valve confirms the L4D modding community is leading the charge on the content release, but official details on features, length, or platforms are light.

It has been an absolutely insane 24 hours for leaks on NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards -- so much so that I can't even keep up and I'm glued to my desk nearly 18 hours a day.

Well, thankfully it pays off sometimes like seeing VideoCardz posting GAINWARD's leaked GeForce RTX 30 series Phoenix-branded graphics cards. In the specifications you can see above, it lists that the process node is 7nm -- not the 8nm that we've been hearing for a couple of months now.

This is an interesting note, and something that might just seem like a number -- but a simple change from 8nm to 7nm can mean the world. It opens up various questions that need to be answered: were the 8nm rumors ever true, or has NVIDIA used Samsung's 7nm for its first wave of cards?