Bitcoin has just reached a new record all-time high price of $125,700, while gold is trading at over $3880 per ounce, as the USD is on track for the "worst year since 1973" says an analyst.

The world's most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin (BTC), has had a tremendous rally in the last few months, with Trading View reporting that the value of Bitcoin has been driven by macroeconomic factors, including the recent US government shutdown, according to Fabian Dori, the chief investment officer at global digital asset bank Sygnum.

The US government shutdown started last Wednesday, closing down the operations of regulatory agencies and bureaucracies entirely, or partially forcing them to operate on a barebones budget, as well as minimal staff. In an article from CoinTelegraph, which reported on Nova Dius President Nate Geraci who posted on X saying: "Bitcoin hits new all-time high... and most people still don't even know what Bitcoin is", yet we're staring at $125,000+ USD for a single Bitcoin.

Intel will be introducing 12 new processors under its Panther Lake CPU family, with four of them being the newly-named "Core Ultra X", four of them will be regular Core Ultra branded chips, while four more will be U-series chips.

In a new leak on the Chiphell forums, we've heard what the Intel Panther Lake family of laptop processors looks like, with what appears to be only the new "Core Ultra X" flagship Panther Lake laptops CPUs getting the full 12 Xe3 "Celestial" GPU cores, leaving the rest of the Panther Lake chips only getting 4 Xe3 GPU cores.

The top three chips inside of the new Core Ultra X family include the Core Ultra 9 X388H, Core Ultra 7 X368H, and Core Ultra 7 X358H all featuring 12 Xe3 GPU cores (and the same 4+8+4 CPU configuration). The last of the Core Ultra X chips is the Core Ultra 5 X338H which drops down to a 4+4+4 CPU configuration, and down to 10 Xe3 GPU cores.

If you've been gaming since the 1990s or were a kid during the original PlayStation and Nintendo 64 era of gaming, then Duke Nukem 3D probably needs no introduction. Outside of id Software's iconic Doom, 3D Realms' Duke Nukem 3D is widely regarded as one of the first-person shooter genre's defining releases.

Released in 1996 for MS-DOS and later ported to Sony and Nintendo consoles in 1997, Duke Nukem 3D was built on the company's proprietary Build engine, which rendered detailed 3D worlds (for the time), alongside transporting players to real-world-inspired locations such as a theatre, bookstore, and strip club. It was also chock-full of movie references to classic films like Aliens, Evil Dead II, They Live, Full Metal Jacket, and more.

However, as a first-person shooter (FPS) from the mid-1990s, such as Doom, all in-game characters and effects, including fire, were presented as 2D sprites. That is, until now. Voxel Duke Nukem 3D, from modder Dan Peterson/Cheello, has spent the last three years converting "all monsters, babes, props and more" to 3D voxel models.

When it comes to the new AI era of edge computing, data centers, and cloud services, NAND-based flash storage sits alongside high-powered GPUs or graphics cards as two bits of hardware that are seeing unprecedented demand. In a recent interview, Pua Khein-Seng, CEO of Phison Electronics Corporation, a leader in all things flash storage, shared some insight regarding the forecasted NAND flash storage of 2026.

As seen over at the Taiwanese CommonWealth Magazine's tech column (via Tom's Hardware), Pua Khein-Seng notes that in addition to "severe shortages" next year, flash shortages "will be tight for the next ten years." That's a whole decade where it appears that buying SSDs and other NAND-based flash storage devices will become increasingly more expensive and difficult to source.

One of the reasons for the shortages stems from a shift toward HBM manufacturing for AI data centers and systems, where the margins are significantly higher. This leaves less room for older technologies, even though the demand for even PCIe Gen4 storage is increasing. Additionally, as companies shift toward more AI inference rather than training, the need for high-speed flash storage is rising.

Intel will be introducing its new Panther Lake CPU architecture on October 9, a new hybrid architecture that will show the "most refined" hybrid P-Core/E-Core setup for next-gen laptops.

We don't know everything we want to know about the hybrid architecture of Panther Lake just yet, but there are some teases from Intel engineers who have talked about the core improvement of the new architecture, and how Intel has made it a priority to make sure their P/E-core setup is optimal for the mobile laptop. We've got exciting things like a power island with low-power cores to run tasks, and Thread Director and OS scheduling that are just a couple of the exciting upgrades that Panther Lake has, that Lunar Lake doesn't.

Intel says there is an essential focus on dedicating the Lunar Lake platform for OEM adoption, where companies like Microsoft, Lenovo, and other laptop makers are "excited" to use an Intel product again. Intel's Jim Johnson, GM & VP of Client Computing Group, says that with Lunar Lake, the idea Intel had was to provide an "exquisite mobile phone-like fashion" product, but with Panther Lake, the focus is on beefing up hybrid compute.

As part of its ProArt lineup of gear and hardware designed for creators and professionals, ASUS's new ProArt PA401 Wood Edition PC case is undoubtedly a looker. Although the all-black variant presents a more traditional and minimal style-focused chassis that includes some wood panelling on the front reminiscent of the popular Fractal Design North case, the ProArt PA401 Wood Edition Beige edition is something you'll either love or, well, hate.

The chosen beige color isn't quite the same tone as classic PC hardware from the 1990s, but the all-beige finish (including the wood panelling on the front) presents a striking, minimalist RGB-free look. Personally, I'm a fan, although it wouldn't precisely align with the PC gaming focus of our new TweakTown gaming rigs, which are built for benchmarking, in-depth gaming, technology analysis, and guides.

Although built for creators, ASUS has designed the ProArt PA401 Wood Edition Beige edition for optimal airflow, ventilation, and "exceptional cooling performance." It comes equipped with dual 160mm front fans, a 120mm rear fan, and supports 240mm radiators, as well as GPUs up to 315mm in length.

Valve has published the Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for September 2025, and we've already reviewed the latest developments in the discrete GPU space. Check out our analysis here for a look at how NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 Series, led by the GeForce RTX 5070, is proving to be the most popular brand-new GPU option for PC gamers in 2025.

Yes, Radeon RX is still a distant second to GeForce RTX, even after receiving strong reviews and community sentiment surrounding RDNA 4 cards, such as the Radeon RX 9070 XT and the new mainstream Radeon RX 9060 XT. However, if you take a look at the CPU side of the latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey results, AMD is rapidly gaining ground and taking market share directly from Intel with its 8-core and 16-core Ryzen lineup.

According to the data, Intel CPUs still make up the majority of systems jumping onto Steam, with a 57.68% share compared to AMD's 42.32%. However, examining the trend over the last five months of Steam data, AMD's market share has increased by over 2%, while Intel's has decreased by the same amount.

MaxSun has just unveiled its new AI workstation PC that has a quad-GPU setup, featuring 4 x Intel Arc Pro B60 48GB Turbo graphics cards inside of an interesting inverse case.

Chinese hardware maker MaxSun and its new AI workstation system features its W790 motherboard, and a bunch of PCIe x16 slots for graphics cards for intensive AI workloads, with 7 x PCIe x16 slots. MaxSun teamed with PC case manufacturer, Abee, to make sure MaxSun's flagship AI workstation PC components were installed easily, while keeping the great functionality and thermal performance of a high-end system with a row of GPUs installed.

Inside, the new MaxSun AI workstation PC can use up to 4 x Intel Arc Pro B60 48GB Turbo GPUs, which provides a gigantic performance uplift across the board, not to mention the massive pool of 192GB of combined VRAM, one of the key aspects of AI workload performance. High-end content creators and enterprises will also make use of that 192GB of VRAM.

A few months ago, in June 2025, Microsoft announced a new multi-year agreement with AMD for the development of AI-powered gaming chips. "I'm thrilled to share we've established a strategic, multi-year partnership with AMD to co-engineer silicon across a portfolio of devices, including our next-generation Xbox consoles," Xbox President Sarah Bond said at the time.

The specific mention of 'next-generation Xbox consoles' can mean only one thing: Microsoft is actively developing a next-generation Xbox console or consoles to replace the existing Xbox Series X|S combo. Or is it? Fast-forward to today, a new rumor from a credible source suggests that Xbox is leaving the hardware business for good to become a third-party publisher.

Now, you'd think that this rumor would be viewed through a skeptical lens. However, based on the past couple of years of Xbox brand realignment and behavior that seemingly points to it becoming a software-first Microsoft division, this rumor has firmly taken root. To the point where Microsoft has had to release a statement confirming that it's still committed to designing, engineering, and building Xbox hardware.

NVIDIA's next-gen Rubin Ultra AI GPUs will reportedly consume quite an insane 2300W of power or so, with rumors swirling that NVIDIA is switching to a totally new cooling solution for its bleeding-edge AI chips.

In a new post from @QQ_Timmy on X, we're hearing that NVIDIA is contacting cooling solution partners to integrate "direct-to-chip" cooling through microchannel cold plates for its beefed-up Rubin Ultra AI GPUs. This would be quite the move from conventional liquid cooling solutions, and keep the up to 2300W of thermals in check to hit those performance numbers that NVIDIA wants.

The market previously rumored that cooling for Rubin AI GPUs with a 2300W TDP would use a microchannel cover plate (MCL) but @QQ_Timmy's post suggests that there has been high mass production difficulty for these cover plates. Additionally, the leaker has learned that NVIDIA has reportedly requested Asia Vital Components to design a microchannel cold plate (MCCP) for Rubin Ultra (launching in 2027).

Update: Microsoft has replied to these rumors, with a statement reading: "We are actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox". You can also read a new story on the topic right here.

Microsoft has reportedly killed off its Xbox hardware business according to new rumors, with reports that the "hardware production has ceased" on any future Xbox consoles.

In a new post on the NeoGAF forums, leaker "SneakersSO" who had previously leaked the initial plans for porting Xbox games to other consoles, says that there were indeed plans to make a next-gen Xbox console that went from "really concrete" to being "up in the air" because the time to pull the trigger on the manufacturing of a new Xbox wasn't that far.

An ultra-rare engineering sample of an unreleased Pentium 4 has hit the internet, with a purported Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 980 clocked at 4.0GHz turning up on Reddit. Check it out:

Reddit user diegunguyman is the owner of the purported Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 980 processor, sharing some images of the ES chip both on the front, and back.

The Redditor posted on multiple subreddits to try and get an answer at what he was looking at, as he explained: "the only text on the CPU itself was written in Sharpie, just the model number and clock speed, 4GHz". There was no official documentation to reference, so the Redditor posted on r/pcmasterrace and r/Intel looking for answers.

HP has just unveiled its new compact AI workstation with the introduction of the new ZGX Nano G1n system, powered by NVIDIA's powerful new GB10 Superchip.

The new HP ZGX Nano G1n compact AI workstation measures just 15 cm x 15 cm x 5 cm, making for a tiny system with huge computing power courtesy of the powerful NVIDIA GB10 Superchip, delivering both powerful Grace CPU cores and a Blackwell-based GPU.

HP does something a little special with its ZGX Nano G1n workstation system with its ZGX Toolkit, which is a software stack that runs on NVIDIA's AI Stack (DGX OS) that provides a smoother development experience. HP's new mini AI workstation packs 1000 TOPS of AI compute power thanks to the NVIDIA Blackwell GPU, connected to the 20-core NVIDIA Grace CPU through NVLink-C2C chip-to-chip interconnect.

Alienware is flexing a little more into custom LEGO sets, with the introduction of its new Alienware Brick Kit Desk... a small gaming desk with Alienware's latest hardware including peripherals and a monitor, for the best LEGO full battle station gaming PC in the world.

The company released its super-popular Alienware Area-51 Desktop Brick kit made with Authentic LEGO bricks, but now it's back with the Brick Kit Desk that features a desk with an Alienware Pro Mouse, headset and keyboard, all in a brick build, with the keyboard profiled to mirror Alienware's recently released Aurora FX package.

Each of the kits will feature a sticker pack that features some of Alienware's newly-released wallpapers (which you can download here). The Alienware technology sits on a custom brick desk... that get this... has height-adjustable legs, which the company says "should allow you to fit the kit in places with varying heights" like shelving, etc.

Intel will only be detailing its next-gen Panther Lake CPU architecture at its big October 9 reveal event, with no detailed specifications being released, and we won't see reviews until after CES 2026 in over three months' time.

That's right... we won't be seeing anything really juicy about Panther Lake until 2026, according to Chinese leaker "Golden Pig Upgrade" who said that the release of Panther Lake on October 9 is "only related to the architecture analysis, the detailed specifications and reviews will have to wait until after CES next year. Good things come to those who wait, so wait patiently, 18A".

18A is in reference to Intel's new 18A process node built in-house at its semiconductor fab, compared to its previous generation CPUs being fabbed in Taiwan at TSMC. The embargo lift on October 9 will see tech media, YouTubers, and influencers discuss the Panther Lake CPU architecture. This means we'll get the nitty-gritty on the new Cougar Cove Performance and Darkmont Efficiency cores, as well as some details for its next-gen Xe3 "Celestial" GPU for the first time, as Xe3 debuts in Panther Lake.

A user on Reddit has posted about his 9800X3D processor dying for the SECOND time, installed into an ASRock motherboard, a brand he says will not recommend to people, and will never use another ASRock motherboard ever again.

In the post on Reddit, user "ShendonZ" said his first AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor died earlier this year in June, that AMD gave him another CPU but he RMA'd the motherboard back to ASRock for them to say the motherboard would be fine with the latest BIOS update. But two and a half months later, and the same thing has happened in about the same amount of time it was used.

ASRock's recommendation of updating the BIOS is something that happened over burned AMD processors on their motherboards, but it seems that didn't help... let's hope this isn't a (new) sign of things to come with dying Ryzen CPUs installed into ASRock's motherboards.

Intel and NVIDIA announced a partnership not too long ago, which would see GeForce RTX GPU chiplets installed onto future Intel processors, and AMD is unfazed by it, at least according to an executive who says the company's roadmap will remain "disruptive".

In a new chat with CRN and AMD corporate vice president and general manager of client OEM, Jason Banta, said AMD is "very confident" in its ability to compete with two massive rivals, pointing to one product in particular. Banta said: "we're very confident in our road map. We've done some very exciting things. You've seen 'Strix Halo' products that are really category-defining products. We want to continue to provide disruptive technology".

Strix Halo is the codename for its powerful new APU, which AMD unveiled earlier this year in January as the "most advanced mobile x86 processor ever created". AMD said at the time that its Strix Halo APU with its fast 16C/32T CPU, RDNA 3.5-powered GPU, and NPU, as well as its ability to allocate 96GB of system memory to the GPU alone, allowed AMD to compete against the best chips from its competitors like Intel, Apple, and NVIDIA in areas like 3D rendering and AI inferencing.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 early access multiplayer beta has gone live, and I have put it to the test across a range of graphics cards to evaluate in-game performance.

We have managed to gain early access to the multiplayer thanks to Activision, and have decided to see what kind of performance players will be getting at 4K and 1440p at native, with DLSS on no Frame Generation (FG), and with FG x 2 enabled. I tested the GeForce RTX 5070, 5070 Ti, and 5080 across 4K and 1440p, each test ran for 3 minutes and was done with the Extreme graphics preset enabled. Notably, all these tests were conducted using an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

If you don't want to dive through the charts below, here's what we got in a nutshell. A GeForce RTX 5080 averaged 124FPS at 4K native, with impressively high minimums at 80FPS. By comparison, toggling on DLSS and keeping the same Extreme preset enabled, the RTX 5080 pushed up to 153FPS average, but strangely, minimums dropped down to 74FPS. With Frame Generation x 2 enabled, the RTX 5080 hit an average of 214FPS, but minimums were drastically reduced, down to just 23FPS.

The high-end NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 series cards like the flagship RTX 5090 push that new 12V-2x6 power connector to its limit, flowing 575W+ of power through it, so adding an additional layer of protection could be a good move, and that's why this new $79 device can do.

Aqua Computer has introduced the new AMPINEL, a small dedicated hardware device for the 12V-2x6 power connector that both measures power, but also balances current flow and is capable of shutting down the GPU if those limits are exceeded. AMPINEL will continuously monitor all 6 lines of the connector, so that if the current rises on a single pin by above 7.5A, the device kicks in, redistributing load in real-time using a hybrid analog/digital control system (this is the hardware solution itself).

The new AMPINEL uses a six-layer PCB with thick copper traces for minimal loss, paired with black-anodized aluminum housing that double as a heatsink, while the connector itself is encapsulated for a stronger mechanical fit on your high-end GPU.

China has some very interesting custom and modded graphics cards, with a new one appearing: an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics card with 32GB of GDDR6X, double the VRAM as the RTX 4080 SUPER ships with 16GB of VRAM.

These custom graphics cards are not official in any form, and they're not even made by legitimate manufacturers, with the sole purpose of their creation to unlock additional memory on graphics cards, when they're not used for gaming. This expanded VRAM capacity allows Chinese "startups" and AI farms to make cheaper RTX series GPUs for AI training, with more VRAM than their gaming counterparts.

NVIDIA released the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER in January 2024 launching with 16GB of GDDR6X memory, the same VRAM capacity as the RTX 4080 non-SUPER, but the newer RTX 4080 SUPER uses faster GDDR6X memory chips with 23Gbps on the RTX 4080 SUPER and slightly slower 22.4Gbps G6X chips on the RTX 4080 non-SUPER. However, the new SUPER card has more CUDA cores and an increased TDP over the non-SUPER card.