MSI unveiled a brand-new GPU design at the recent Tokyo Game Show 2025 event, featuring a 16-pin power connector that is hidden inside a magnetically detachable back panel.

The design is reminiscent of SAPPHIRE's Radeon RX 9070 XT NITRO+ graphics card that we reviewed earlier this year. Not only is it one of a handful of RDNA 4 GPUs to adopt the new 16-pin power connector for power delivery, but it also introduced an innovative way of hiding the power connector inside a removable panel on the backplate.

The new MSI design, as seen here via Japanese YouTube creator @harucan5492, is for a new GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Ventus 3X model featuring a hidden power connector and a removable backplate. It's also a White Edition GPU, which is one of the most popular colors for graphics cards in the Asia region.

AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF) is the company's driver-based Frame Generation technology that adds the option to generate frames and boost performance/smoothness in thousands of games. As a driver-based tool that is a part of the Radeon Adrenaline Software's HYPR-RX suite, AFMF 2 launched last year, bringing improvements to latency, image quality, and stability.

The technology also pairs with AMD Radeon Anti-Lag or Radeon Anti-Lag 2 to reduce latency, with AMD touting the technology as a viable solution for boosting performance on mobile devices with lower-powered integrated Radeon graphics.

AMD has continued to update the technology, with AFMF 2.1 launching earlier this year, receiving generally positive feedback due to its further improvements in latency and image quality by reducing ghosting. And now, thanks to some driver sleuths over at the Guru3D forums, The Creator and ecffg2010, it appears that AMD is preparing to launch AFMF 3, also known as AMD Fluid Motion Frames 3.

If you ask fans of both the original and the sequel, Blizzard's StarCraft franchise has been missing in action for far too long. Unlike Warcraft, which has successfully transitioned from its RTS roots into the world of massively multiplayer games, mobile experiences, movies, and competitive card games, StarCraft has rarely moved beyond its RTS origins.

Which is why it's always exciting to see news from Blizzard with StarCraft in the title, even if it's the announcement that the sci-fi franchise is crossing over into the world of another Blizzard IP, Diablo. Yes, the studio has just released a batch of new premium paid-for skins for Diablo 4 inspired by the iconic characters, races, and units of the StarCraft universe.

'The Rebel Marshal' skin for the Barbarian sees the melee-focused character get a Terran makeover inspired by Jim Raynor. The 'Overqueen of the Swarm' skin for the Necromancer class takes its inspiration from Broodmother and the second-in-command of the Zerg Swarm, while the 'Queen of Blades' skin for the Spiritborn takes its inspiration from the Queen of Blades herself, Sarah Kerrigan.

In recent times, the idea of a new GPU being available for its launch MSRP (the recommended price point set by companies like NVIDIA or AMD) has become something of a myth for most people. With the launch of the new GeForce RTX 50 Series and Radeon RX 9000 Series earlier this year, although some MSRP models have been available, picking up a brand-new GPU for less than a 10 to 30% markup over the suggested retail price has been challenging.

As we head toward the holiday season, it's now possible to pick up a brand-new GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics card at or even below the MSRP price point. These price drops aren't limited to selected models either, as you can easily find GeForce RTX 5060, RTX 5060 Ti, RTX 5070, RTX 5070 Ti, and even RTX 5080 graphics cards for a decent price. At a time when the cost of all PC, console, and gaming hardware is on the rise due to the current economic climate and AI boom, this is both surprising and welcome.

Examining retailers like Newegg and Amazon, let's take a look at some of the GeForce RTX 50 graphics cards currently available at a price point that better reflects the launch-day MSRP, starting with the GeForce RTX 5060.

With several credible leaks from various sources in recent months, right now it's only a matter of time before NVIDIA officially announces the GeForce RTX 50 SUPER Series refresh. For those that need a refresher, the lineup includes three models: the GeForce RTX 5070 SUPER, RTX 5070 Ti SUPER, and RTX 5080 SUPER.

The key takeaway is that these GPUs are expected to offer a substantial 50% increase in VRAM capacity. Alongside increases to clock speeds and some modest specification increases for the GeForce RTX 5070 SUPER 18GB GPU, overall performance boosts compared to the non-SUPER variants will likely be modest, and in the 5-10% region. Unless, of course, you're looking at a workload that takes advantage of the massive boost to VRAM capacity.

The only real question right now is when we can expect to see them. The latest rumor, which originated from Benchlife (via Videocardz), suggests that the GeForce RTX 50 SUPER Series may arrive later in 2026 than initially expected.

NVIDIA's Audio2Face technology is a part of its push to create lifelike or realistic 3D avatars powered by generative AI. As part of the pipeline, Audio2Face enables the creation of realistic digital characters that can be used for games or even customer service agents by leveraging generative AI for real-time facial animation. You can see it in action in the video below.

Audio2Face works by taking a speech audio track to create an animation by analyzing speech patterns and sounds, as well as the emotion or intonation. The latter is crucial, as it helps separate Audio2Face from simple lip synching, as the animation attempts to capture and visualize the emotional intent or details in the speech audio track.

For game developers, Audio2Face could become an invaluable tool for animating numerous digital characters - speeding up development time and opening the door to a new level of fidelity for smaller teams. And with that, NVIDIA has announced that it is open-sourcing the Audio2Face models and SDK so that "every game and 3D application developer can build and deploy high-fidelity characters with cutting-edge animations."

Samsung will be unleashing monster-fast Gen6 SSDs onto the market in 2027, teasing it'll have new Gen6 SSDs in 512TB capacity in less than two years.

During the GMIF Innovation Summit 2025 event in Shenzen, China, SSD manufacturers have come out of the woodwork teasing their next-gen SSD technologies. The enterprise and HPC server segments will see multiple new technologies unleashed in 2026/2027 that will help unlock even higher speeds across the board (CPU, GPU, networking, storage) with PCIe Gen6 SSDs being a big part of that.

Samsung VP & Chief Technology Officer of its Memory Business Unit, Kevin Yoo, said that his firm is working on next-gen CXL 3.1 and PCIe 6.0 CMM-D products which should be available next year. Yoo teased that Samsung's next-gen PM1763 Gen6 SSD solution will be launching in early 2026, offering double the performance, improved power efficiency, and 25W power consumption. The company is also preparing its 7th Gen Z-NAND with GIDS for 2026, too.

Electronic Arts just announced plans to go private in the largest leveraged buyout in gaming history. EA CEO Andrew Wilson, who will stay on to lead the publisher after the deal, tells employees this is a "new era of opportunity."

EA will soon be under private ownership. Saudi Arabia's PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners raised $55 billion to buy all Electronic Arts shares at a $210 premium, and if approved, the deal would take EA private.

One of the conditions of the deal was that Andrew Wilson would continue as CEO. A new memo from Wilson may give clues on the direction that this new EA will take moving forward, as Wilson's words can typically add vital context into what's on the horizon (for example, EA's four main business tenants, Play, Watch, Create, and Connect, were first revealed by Wilson).

Middle-earth Enterprises is working on a new game that aims to do for Lord of the Rings what Hogwarts Legacy did for Harry Potter.

A new Lord of the Rings video game is in development at the transforming Embracer Group, sources tell Insider Gaming. The production is said to be a third-person action game, but official details are light on whether or not RPG elements will be involved.

Stakeholders have big plans for the project, and hope that it can rival Hogwarts Legacy. This game may be separate from the Lord of the Rings MMO in development at Amazon Games.

Windows 11 is bringing another exclusive feature to Copilot+ PCs, and this time it's about organizing your photo collection - at least partially.

Many of us have an expansive collection of photos on our computer, and it may be tricky to find what you need amongst that sprawl.

This is where the new feature comes in for the Microsoft Photos app in Windows 11, although it's only in preview at the moment, and the extent of the functionality is rather limited.

Microsoft's Xbox Series S is a capable machine when it comes to processing, but more developers are saying the memory is a problem.

The Xbox Series S has been controversial right at launch; what appeared to be a low-cost entry point to Xbox was discovered to be a significantly weaker console that's a lot less powerful and a lot slower than the Xbox Series X. Cross-platform parity meant devs had to scale their games to work on both systems despite the discrepancy.

Interestingly enough, it's not really the processing power that developers are having the most trouble with. The Series S only has 10GB of unified GDDR6 RAM, meaning both the GPU and system pull from the same memory--there's no dedicated video RAM separated out. That's nearly 40% less than the Series X's 16GB of RAM. It's not just the capacity, though, but the speed of the memory itself. The Series S' system memory is much slower than the Series X, with the Series S RAM reaching 224GB/sec max speeds compared to the Series X's maximum of 560GB/sec.

Daniel Houser, the founder and creative lead of Rockstar Games, has confirmed that Grand Theft Auto 6 is the first GTA game he wasn't involved in writing.

In a recent interview with IGN, Houser confirmed that he has no involvement in GTA 6, but he is certain the game is going to be exciting and great. For those unfamiliar with Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar Games was a lead writer on every GTA game since GTA: London 1969, and also wrote both Red Dead Redemption games, along with other Rockstar titles such as Bully and Max Payne 3.

Houser departed from Rockstar in 2020, but past rumors indicated he oversaw the development of multiple GTA 6 story drafts, which were later discarded.

AMD's Zen 6 architecture is expected to come with major power efficiency and latency improvements as Team Red seems to have implemented a new chiplet architecture that has already been showcased in the company's Strix Halo APUs.

The discovery was made by YouTuber High Yield, who pointed out in a recent video the architectural difference between AMD's Strix Point APUs and Zen 2,3,4, and 5 CPUs. Here's what was found. AMD currently uses what is called "SERDES PHYs" on the CCD (Core Complex Die) edges, the part of the CPU that contains the CPU cores. On the edge of these CCDs are high-speed serial lanes, which are used to communicate across the substrate, or the material that is beneath the dies.

SERDES PHYs is a serializer/deserializer, and AMD has been using this technique to communicate between chips since Zen 2. However, it appears that it will soon be changed. But first, here's how SERDES PHYs work in a nutshell. Data from the CPU cores is serialized into high-speed bitstreams, sent across the substrate, and then deserialized again on the other side. While this technique has worked well since Zen 2, it has two major downsides: it consumes extra power because the hardware has to encode/decode, clock recovery, and latency, as the data needs to be converted back and forth.

Electronic Arts has been acquired by a consortium of private equity firms and Saudi Arabia's PIF for $55 billion.

One of gaming's biggest publishers will soon be privately owned. Today, EA announced an agreement to sell to a trio of investors in a massive all-cash transaction valued at $55 billion.

The group, which offered $210 per share, consists of Saudi Arabia's PIF sovereign wealth fund, Silver Lake, and Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners. EA's board of directors approved the deal, and the acquisition is expected to close in Q1 FY27 (April 2026) pending shareholder approval.

China is just "nanoseconds behind" the United States in chip development according to NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang.

US companies like NVIDIA have been working to compete in China for a while now, which benefits both Beijing and Washington, as Chinese companies have been working around the clock to be "NVIDIA-free". The US government should allow its technology industry to compete around the world -- including China -- to "proliferate the technology around the world" so that it can "maximize America's economic success and geopolitical influence" says Jensen.

The NVIDIA founder said that China is "nanoseconds behind" the US, adding "so we've got to compete". Jensen said during a podcast hosted by tech investors Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley: "This is a vibrant, entrepreneurial, hi-tech, modern industry".

The ROG Xbox Ally and ROG Xbox Ally X gaming handhelds are set to launch on October 10 (check out our report on pricing and availability here), and they will debut with a custom version of Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system optimized for Xbox and PC gaming.

This collaboration between ASUS and the Xbox team has been in development for a considerable time. It marks a shift toward a future where Xbox hardware will encompass everything from a console to PC, gaming handheld, and mobile device connected to the cloud. With ROG Xbox Ally gaming handhelds right around the corner, Sandisk has announced that it's releasing two officially licensed storage expansion options for the handhelds.

First, there's the Sandisk microSD Card for ROG Xbox Ally (X), available in 512GB ($69.99 MSRP), 1TB ($149.99 MSRP), and 2TB ($299.99 MSRP) capacities, which allows gamers to store and play games directly off the card. With support for up to 50 modern AAA-sized games and read speeds of 200MB/s, these microSD Cards also ship with a lifetime limited warranty and are designed to withstand shocks, drops, and x-rays.

ENDORFY's new Thock V2 series of stylish 'Alt Gray' and bright blue keyboards has launched with no less than 17 models. Now, this might seem like a lot (and it is), but this covers four different size options, wired and wireless versions, three different layouts (ANSI US, ISO CZ, ISO DE), and two switch types - basically, every style of keyboard. Expanding on the four different sizes offered, you've got 100% full-sized, TKL, 75%, and Compact.

The new ENDORFY Thock V2 series is all about delivering premium build quality and features at a price point that won't cause damage to your digital wallet. "We redesigned the construction, added hot-swap support, refined switches and stabilizers, and introduced advanced acoustic treatment," ENDORFY's Rafal Zaniewski says of the new V2 design.

One of the big focuses for the team when it came to the design was the overall acoustics and comfort of the typing experience. Both the wired and wireless variants include three layers of acoustic foam, including PORON and IXPE, with silicon dampeners underneath the space bar.

ASRock and Capcom have partnered to release a custom Monster Hunter-themed gaming GPU with the arrival of the new Radeon RX 9070 XT Monster Hunter Wilds Edition 16GB. The physical design looks to be based on the company's impressive Steel Legend line-up, albeit presented in a very different light, thanks to the "Arkveld" design inspired by one of the game series' most iconic monsters.

With a mix of silver and blue tones, it also includes a custom metal backplate with both Arkveld and the Monster Hunter Wilds logo joining the 'AMD Radeon' branding. Like ASRock's Steel Legend design, there's a dedicated ARGB switch, with premium cooling that includes high-quality striped ring fans, a nickel-plated copper base for maximum GPU contact, and a phase-change thermal pad.

Outside of the GPU, the Radeon RX 9070 XT Monster Hunter Wilds Edition 16GB ships with a limited edition "Arkveld" packaging and a custom Monster Hunter-themed version of ASRock's POLYCHROME SYNC software. Interestingly, this custom GPU variant isn't an OC model as it ships with the Radeon RX 9070 XT's reference Boost Clock speed of 2970 MHz.

Valve has updated Steam, revamping the storefront UI with a new menu system designed to make it easier to find games and access the areas you visit most often. The most notable aspect of this update is that the top blue menu bar has effectively merged with the left column to create a unified menu system featuring tabs that expand to display large buttons, icons, and graphics, which disappear when inactive or outside the mouse pointer's reach.

The updated UI also adds the new menu and Steam search bar "on more pages across the Store" for easier access. Dramatically changing the navigation flow of Steam, an app that has been around for decades, might seem like a bold move on Valve's part. But the revamped Steam UI has received a generally positive response from the community.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the improved Search Panel, as it now includes quick access to the genres of games that make up most of my playtime, alongside recently viewed items and some of the most popular current community searches. That, and the new Ways to Play tab that offers quick access to Steam Deck-enhanced, controller-friendly, and VR titles.

In the AI era, it's not uncommon to consider petabyte-sized storage capabilities in a wide range of data centers, designed for running AI workloads and cloud-based computing. However, when it comes to petabyte-sized storage capabilities orbiting the Earth, on the Lunar surface, or somewhere in deep space, it is no longer the realm of science fiction.

Axiom Space and Spacebilt Inc. have announced that they are collaborating with a range of technology leaders to bring "optically-interconnected orbital data center (ODC)" infrastructure and technology to the International Space Station, or ISS, in 2027.

One of the partners for this exciting and ambitious project is Phison Electronics, where Pascari enterprise-grade SSDs will deliver over one petabyte of storage to the Axiom Orbital Data Center Node (AxODC). These will be paired with PIC64-HPSC processors from Microchip to enable AI acceleration and high-end computing in space.