Latest News - Page 156

AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition AI Bundle is an optional update for Radeon GPU owners that simplifies setting up local AI. Designed as an almost one-click to install feature, the AI Bundle offers AMD Radeon and Ryzen AI-powered systems the "essential tools needed to begin building and running AI workloads."

Announced at CES 2026 as part of AMD's AI announcements, the company has since taken to social media to confirm that the AI Bundle update is set to arrive on January 21, presumably as part of the latest AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition driver release for Radeon graphics cards.

With a streamlined installer that sets up local applications and models for tasks like image generation, the AI Bundle also includes new support for PyTorch on Windows, opening the door for Radeon owners to start exploring AI development locally on their PCs.

The current DRAM crisis is affecting all aspects of the PC industry, and right now, the rising cost of components like DDR5 memory is making the prospect of building a new rig or upgrading out of the question for many. And with GPU prices expected to rise in the coming months, there's a sense that PC gamers are going to have to make do with what they've got or can pick up for a reasonable price.

Yesterday, we reported on a rumor that NVIDIA would focus on delivering more 8GB GPUs, such as the GeForce RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti, to the market this year. The big concern here is that 8GB will remain a bottleneck for gaming with higher graphics settings; however, the arrival of RTX Neural Texture Compression could be the relief the VRAM-constrained PC gaming market needs.

Part of NVIDIA's RTX Neural Shaders SDK for developers, the RTX Neural Texture Compression SDK leverages AI to "significantly" compress textures while maintaining image quality. And the latest 0.9 update from NVIDIA has sped up encoding by a factor of 6X, while reducing latency and saving up to 7X the memory footprint allocated for high-resolution textures.

Announced at CES 2026 and immediately made available as part of a Beta branch of the NVIDIA App, DLSS 4.5 has quickly exited its preview phase and is now available for all GeForce RTX gamers with the latest NVIDIA App update. DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution includes a second-generation Transformer model, five times as powerful as DLSS 4, that delivers notable improvements to lighting, motion clarity, and image detail.

NVIDIA notes that the app's DLSS Override mode has been updated with a new 'Recommended' setting that overrides Preset M with DLSS 4.5 Performance mode, and Preset L changes to DLSS Ultra Performance mode for 4K gaming. Due to the performance hit from using the newer, more complex model, NVIDIA notes that both the older and newer Transformer models are supported in both Quality and Balanced modes.

Although available for GeForce RTX 20 and RTX 30 Series graphics cards, DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution has "a heavier performance impact for these GPUs" due to the lack of native FP8 support. Although it's great to see this level of detail and control over which DLSS models to use for Super Resolution, there is a sense that the complexity will mean users will need to experiment to find the right balance between image quality and performance.

PS5 Pro owners, set your phasers to stun - as in a renewed and hopefully stunning level of image quality - because the next-gen version of PSSR is set to land in the next couple of months according to a new rumor.

As Wccftech spotted, the latest chatter on the subject of PSSR2 comes from Gust_FAN on X, who posted to say that the "update will be available between January and March".

In other words, Q1 2026, and this marries with what we've previously heard from another source, YouTuber Moore's Law is Dead. Gust_FAN is a Japanese insider and a generally reliable source with something of a track record, as Wccftech points out, and the same holds true for Moore's Law is Dead (at least in my book, although not everyone agrees on Reddit, ahem).

Rockstar Games may be testing a 32-player mode for GTA 6's online component, new court documents reveal.

The first details of GTA 6's online mode may have been inadvertently revealed as part of an ongoing court case. Rockstar North recently fired multiple employees for allegedly divulging information in a Discord chat room. The employees brought the matter before the courts, and it appears some of what was said by the fired employees has been revealed.

According to the court documents, which were viewed by People Make Games, one fired Rockstar employee had mentioned doing a playtest session of 32 players in the Discord. channel. The developer said: "Absolutely no idea, they mentioned the large session we did today 'being difficult to do' but that was 32 players, not sure how that was difficult."

DDR3 motherboards are making a comeback, and if you think the world is going insane, well, the RAM price crisis is certainly crazy enough - and this apparent shift in China is the result of all the memory-related chaos.

VideoCardz reports that according to the Board Channels forum in China, sales of DDR3 motherboards have increased by two to three times - or possibly more than trebled - while bundles featuring these old mobos and past-gen Intel CPUs (6th to 9th-generation) are also selling well.

The post in question observes that the driving factor here is likely to be "a rebound in demand for lower priced builds", which is a translation, and it makes some sense that people might be seeking alternatives that allow them to avoid extremely pricey DDR5 or DDR4 RAM.

MSI's new GeForce RTX 5090 32G LIGHTNING Z, announced at CES 2026, is not only a liquid-cooled RTX 5090 built for overclocking, but with its dual 16-pin PCIe configuration and custom PCB, it ships with an impressive 1000W OC mode to make it the most powerful PC gaming graphics card we've seen to date.

Limited to 1300 units globally, the GeForce RTX 5090 LIGHTNING Z has already broken 17 world records thanks to the hidden 2500W XOC BIOS, exclusive to extreme overclockers. The GPU is also a looker with the cover including a large 8-inch display alongside a sturdy carbon fiber backplate.

On top of this, the next-gen AIO cooler includes a new pump and radiator design designed to increase air pressure and liquid flow by up to 45% and 71%, respectively. At CES, MSI told us that the new LIGHTNING was not only the most powerful gaming GPU, but it's one of the quietest and coolest cards in the company's lineup. MSI is offering one lucky fan the chance to win one of the 1300 limited edition MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G LIGHTNING Z GPUs as part of a new Break Your Limit giveaway.

After several months of rumors, spec leaks, and reliable insider information, it wasn't that long ago that we were planning for and expecting a GeForce RTX 50 SUPER Series refresh announcement and unveiling at CES 2026. Of course, the SUPER lineup was a no-show, and, according to the latest report, has been 'delayed indefinitely'.

The reasons for NVIDIA pulling the GeForce RTX 50 SUPER Series are clear, as the lineup reportedly focused on increasing VRAM capacity by 50%, leading to a GeForce RTX 5070 SUPER with 18GB and an RTX 5070 Ti SUPER and RTX 5080 SUPER with 24GB of VRAM.

And as we're talking about fast GDDR7 memory, the current memory crisis has raised a big question mark about whether we'll see a mid-generation GeForce RTX 50 SUPER Series refresh at all. According to a new report from the Chinese-based Board Channels forum, the indefinite delay (which is company-speak for 'cancelled') of the SUPER series comes down to three things.

The current memory crisis is affecting all corners of the PC market, and for gamers, that includes graphics cards from AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel. In recent months, we've reported on and heard that the increased costs and potential shortages of memory and VRAM (both GDDR6 and GDDR7) will lead to higher prices and a realignment by the big players on which cards will make it to market.

A new report from Board Channels, via Videocardz, claims that NVIDIA has adjusted its GeForce product strategy for 2026, with a focus on 8GB GPUs in the GeForce RTX 50 Series lineup. This would mean more GeForce RTX 5060 8GB and GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 8GB GPUs and fewer GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB and GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB cards hitting the market.

Board Channels is widely considered a reliable source of partner or AIB-level information on NVIDIA and GeForce RTX; however, as it's focused on the Chinese market, the information is primarily regional. However, as the current memory crisis is global, the expectation is that this realignment would apply to the broader international market.

A new report from International Data Corporation (IDC) indicates that global PC shipments grew by an impressive 9.6% year over year in Q4 2025. With shipments estimated at 76.4 million units, the big winners were Lenovo, HP, Dell, and ASUS, all of which experienced double-digit growth compared to the same period in 2024. Lenovo led the quarter with 25.3% market share.

The growth is attributed to several factors, including increased demand driven by the holiday season, Windows 10 officially reaching the end of life, and early 2025 tariff concerns, which led to more inventory hitting the market. Another factor that drove growth in Q4 2025 was the upcoming memory shortages that are expected to hit all aspects of the PC market as we head into 2026.

And so, even though 9.6% year over year is definitely good news, the overall outlook for 2026 isn't so bright. In fact, IDC predicts that the PC market will look very different in 12 months based on "how quickly the memory situation is evolving."

A shipping manifest for a Dell 16 Premium laptop has appeared online, listing NVIDIA's mysterious upcoming Arm-powered N1X APU for consumer PCs and mobile devices. The listing also states that it's an engineering technical sample for "R&D purposes," suggesting it's a laptop powered by the unreleased NVIDIA N1X chip.

Also, the addition of the 'DVT' text, which stands for Design Validation Test, points to this notebook being a fully realized or hardware and feature complete version of a new laptop powered by NVIDIA's new Arm-based APU that is said to include an integrated GPU with up to RTX 5070 levels of performance.

However, as this particular manifest dates back to November 2025, this Dell 16 Premium laptop appears to be last year's model, which has since been superseded by the recently announced return of the Dell XPS brand in 2026. So this provides more evidence that the NVIDIA N1X chip is very real, but also suggests its launch has been delayed.

The president of Nintendo, Shuntaro Furukawa, has been questioned on the RAM pricing crisis and how that might affect the Switch 2 - and the swift answer is it won't, at least for the time being.

Furukawa was interviewed by Kyoto Shimbun, a daily newspaper in Japan (Kyoto, as you might guess) on a range of topics related to Nintendo, in a paywalled article translated by VGC (as flagged by TechRadar).

The Nintendo president was asked about the challenges posed by the lower profit margin on the Switch 2 compared to its predecessor, and noted that these things depend on "component procurement conditions" as well as the impact of global currency fluctuations and tariffs.

Call of Duty could be available on the Nintendo Switch 2 sooner than gamers had hoped, and it might debut on the handheld imminently based on a fresh rumor.

We know that Call of Duty is inbound for the portable, the main question is the timeframe, and apparently it's closer to hand than expected based on some fresh revelations courtesy of data mining.

As Eurogamer reports, Reality posted on X (see above) to say that the game is imminent for the Switch 2, and should be part of the next round of Nintendo announcements.

The long-rumored and leaked Intel Arc B770 desktop graphics cards were on our list of potential announcements and reveals at CES 2026. It was also on our list for Computex last year, and after leaked shipping manifests and its "BMG-G31" GPU appearing in various software updates in recent months, it was finally looking like Big Battlemage's time was near. But it was another no show.

With some outlets asking Intel about the Intel Arc B770 GPU, which would be the more powerful mid-range 16GB variant to the current Intel Arc B580, the company's representatives essentially said that they weren't commenting on any unreleased products. At CES 2026, Team Blue's big focus was the debut of its new Panther Lake mobile chips, which include next-gen integrated Arc graphics.

Even so, it's been made public that a pre-release Intel driver package for an HP 'Panther Lake' Core Ultra Series 3 laptop included firmware files for the "BMG-G31" GPU (via Reddit), aka the Intel Arc B770. This points to the GPU being real and consumer-facing, but with no CES announcement, one has to wonder whether the Intel Arc B770 GPU is still coming.

Valve's Steam just set a new concurrent player record with over 42 million users (42,042,778 to be exact) logging into the platform on January 11, 2026. Breaking the previous record of 41.6 million set in October 2025, this new milestone isn't tied to any specific game release, so, outside of it occurring during the tail-end of the holiday season, it's indicative of Steam's continued growth as the premier PC gaming platform.

Naturally, the record was set over the weekend, when most gamers jump in to play. The latest figures and records come from SteamDB, which also showcased Steam's growing user base mapped over the past decade. The chart shows that Steam's popularity has effectively doubled since 2020, rising from around 20 million concurrent users to over 40 million.

According to the report, out of the over 42 million users logged into Steam, over 13 million were playing games at the time.

Keychron is one of the better-known independent keyboard makers, and at CES 2026, it presented one of its latest limited-edition luxury designs: the Keychron Q16 HE 8K ceramic and marble 65% wired magnetic keyboard. And we're talking about the real stuff, too, with polished ceramic keycaps and a marble body.

These are the sorts of materials you'd expect to find in a high-end kitchen or bathroom, not on a PC peripheral. And yes, the end result is heavy for a keyboard. Although we couldn't quite get a sense of the thocky typing sound as we saw this at Keychron's booth at CES, the typefeel and the shiny ceramic keycaps both had a distinct premium feel.

As for the underlying hardware, you've got the company's flagship pre-lubed Keychron Ultra-fast Lime magnetic switches with Tunnel Magnetoresistance (TMR) sensors and per-key adjustable actuation. This custom Keychron Q16 HE 8K ceramic and marble keyboard is built for gaming, making it a great option for those firing up Arc Raiders in a luxury Italian villa.

At CES 2026, we were reminded that many companies make a wide range of keyboards for productivity, gaming, and more. One of the companies in the sea of PC peripheral-focused brands we saw creating some of the most impressive and stylish keyboards is NuPhy.

Having reviewed a few NuPhy keyboards, like the NuPhy Air75 V3, it's clear that its focus on blending retro-inspired designs with modern hardware and a fantastic-feeling typing experience is continuing as we head into 2026. At the show, we got a closer look at a pair of new keyboards from the brand: the productivity-focused NuPhy Node100 and the gaming-focused NuPhy WH80.

Although it will be available in three colorways, alongside a 75% TKL variant, the NuPhy Node100 in its beige form has the look of PC gear from the 1990s - albeit with the option to add a few bright, colorful keycaps. The full-sized variant has all the keys you expect, supports Mac and PC, and features a customizable touch bar running across the top of the keyboard.

With the Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for December 2025 available, we can take a look at the current state of the discrete GPU market for PC gaming as we head into 2026. Of course, Steam is only a single source, but Valve's PC gaming platform is far and away the place most PC gaming takes place.

Interestingly, Valve has had to amend the data for December 2025 due to a discrepancy, which means that AMD's RDNA 4 lineup briefly appeared on the list for the first time, with the Radeon RX 9070 appearing toward the bottom of the list before it was removed and placed back into the 'Other' category. So it seems that we're still waiting, more or less, to see RDNA 4 GPUs make the cut.

Without a Radeon RX 9000 Series GPU on the list, the December 2025 data shows that NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 Series launch has been a resounding success. Specifically, the GeForce RTX 5070, which has cracked the Top 10, making it one of the most popular discrete PC gaming GPUs.

Micron says that the DRAM memory shortages will NOT be improving before 2028, even with billions of dollars being invested right now. I had a chat with one of my industry sources on the floors of CES 2026 who told me the DRAM crisis would be here until 2031... which is even worse.

In an exclusive chat with our friends at Wccftech, Micron's VP of Marketing, Mobile and Client Business Unit, Christopher Moore, talked about the DRAM shortage. The chat with Moore centered on how much Micron is expanding its production capacity, and what impact this will have on consumers and the AI segment in the future.

Moore said that Micron's semiconductor fab expansion plans won't have any meaningful effects until 2028, with the buildout and customer certifications needing a lot of time, and that AI customers require perfection in terms of technology and yield rates, meaning setting up new fabs has become a much more extensive (and much more expensive) process.

Chinese chip maker Innosilicon has announced it has provided its domestic customers with its new LPDDR6/5X memory controller IP.

Innosilicon's new LPDDR6/5X PHY + IP Controller combo has been designed using an advanced FinFET process technology, allowing for low-power operation, high bandwidth, and low latency in a multi-packaged controller with multiple other core advantages.

The company says that its expertise with other DRAM technologies including GDDR6, GDDR6X, GDDR7, HBM3E, and even HBM4, allowed Innosilicon to develop a robust LPDDR6/5X solution for the mass market.