If you've ever experienced a bricked GPU, that's not a pleasant experience, obviously - though you don't expect this to happen to a graphics card right out of the box.

More to the point, you don't expect to open the box of a brand new GPU that's just been delivered and find an actual concrete brick inside - but as Tom's Hardware reports, that's what happened to an Amazon customer as reported on Reddit (see above).

Redditor GlassHistorical5303 explains that this was supposed to be an RTX 5080 bought from the official PNY store on Amazon, and they've asked for a refund (unsurprisingly).

Activision has just released the official multiplayer trailer for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and it confirms the title will feature wall running.

The new multiplayer trailer was posted to the official Call of Duty YouTube channel and showcases a bunch of new weapons and mechanics players will be able to sink their teeth into on November 14 when the game releases.

Probably the biggest highlight of the trailer was the quick glimpse of the wall-running mechanic, along with the omnimovement system that was introduced in Black Ops 6. Alongside the new trailer is a blog post, which confirms which game modes will be available during the upcoming beta and launch.

NVIDIA and OpenAI have announced a new strategic partnership that involves NVIDIA investing $100 billion into the ChatGPT-creator to power the next generation of AI models it will be building.

In a new press release on the OpenAI website, it is stated that a new letter of intent to build "at least 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems for OpenAI's next-generation AI infrastructure". The new partnership will assist in the deployment of new datacenters and power capacity, with the first phase of the plan to come online in the second half of 2026. Notably, these new systems will be using NVIDIA's Vera Rubin platform, the company's upcoming next-generation GPU architecture.

In a nutshell, NVIDIA and OpenAI have partnered to facilitate the development of superintelligence AI and, ultimately, artificial general intelligence, which will be achieved through AI factory growth. According to the press release, NVIDIA and OpenAI will "co-optimize" their roadmaps for OpenAI's model and infrastructure software, along with NVIDIA's upcoming hardware and software.

Battlefield 6 is only a few weeks away, and the official launch times have been confirmed, revealing when gamers can sink their teeth back into the highly anticipated first-person shooter.

Battlefield 6 is arriving on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on October 10. The upcoming title will be dropping an entire month before the competing Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, which received quite a lot of criticism following its unveiling at Gamescom 2025, with the gameplay reveal trailer being hit with a staggering number of dislikes and vitriolic comments.

As for Battlefield 6, massive hype was built up during the open beta weekends that ran from August 9 to 10th, and from August 14 to 17th. While there was community feedback for the title, and many of those requests have been implemented, the general consensus was pretty good for Battlefield 6. Notably, there won't be a staggered release time for Battlefield 6, which means everyone will be able to jump into the action at the same time. While that is awesome to hear, it also raises concerns for server stability.

The MetaConnect 2025 keynote conducted on Wednesday gained quite a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons, as multiple demos failed in front of live audiences. Now, Meta's chief Technology Officer, Andrew Bosworth, has explained what happened behind the scenes to cause the failures.

For those who haven't seen the video circulating online, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attempted to make a WhatsApp video call with Meta's next-generation AI glasses on stage, but was unable to due to a bug. Zuckerberg said, "This, uh... it happens." Adding, "Let's try it again. I keep messing this up."

That wasn't the only demo that failed during the event; another involved content creator and chef Jack Mancuso, who asked Meta AI to help him make a steak sauce out of the ingredients he had in front of him. Meta AI went off script and was unable to fulfill the request. "You already combined the base ingredients," the AI told Mancuso, who was looking at an empty bowl and a table full of ingredients.

Apple has released its latest generation of iPhone, and with the new devices making their way into the hands of users around the world, one has found a considerable issue worth pointing out.

YouTuber JerryRigEverything, known for his teardown videos and durability tests of the latest smartphone generations, has discovered a flaw in the design of the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max. Apple has made many improvements to the 17th generation of iPhone, which includes scratch-resistant glass and a totally redesigned chassis. However, the redesigned chassis has a fatal flaw that will lead to scratching, which users won't be able to prevent unless they buy a case.

The flaw is located on the new camera plateau, specifically with the colorful exterior aluminum oxide layer, which is present on the majority of the iPhone 17 Pro chassis. JerryRigEverything explains that this aluminum oxide layer is a level nine on the hardness scale, second only to diamonds, which are a level ten.

NVIDIA is reportedly preparing its own in-house self-driving taxi project, Robotaxi, that will be announced in the very near future.

In a new report from UDN picked up by insider @Jukanrosleve on X, we're hearing that NVIDIA's new self-driving robotaxi project should be announced shortly after an upcoming all-hands meeting. UDN reports that the industry believes that sensor components and lens applications are "crucial" for NVIDIA's self-driving robotaxi development, with Taiwanese companies including Tong Hsing Electronics and Yanguang to "benefit greatly".

Industry sources report that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang plans to assign the important self-driving robotaxi project to his senior director, Ruchi Bhargava, with the project to be based on NVIDIA's new DRIVE AGX Thor system, and will adopt a new, one-step technology route.

The PC gaming market is in a healthier position than it has been in many years according to a new report from Jon Peddie Research, which reports that there has been a record 35% growth in 2025 with $44.5 billion in sales.

The firm reports that the PC gaming hardware market is poised to reach a record 35% growth for 2025, which would mean $44.5 billion in sales for the PC hardware segment alone from gamers, with JPR expecting to keep the $40B+ gravy train trend to continue through to 2028.

JPR's research is based on the sales of PC gaming hardware that includes desktop and laptops, AIB partners, and gaming peripherals. One of the key reasons for the big increase from $33 billion in 2024 to $44.5 billion in 2025 is because of Windows 11, which has new hardware requirements that are pushing PC gamers to either upgrade their existing systems with new hardware, or buy a pre-built gaming PC with new hardware.

PCI-SIG announced the next-next-gen PCIe 8.0 specification last month, but now the body that controls the PCIe standard has released PCIe 8.0 specification, version 3.0 to its members.

The next-next-gen PCIe 8.0 standard won't be for consumers and gamers right away but it is being tailor-made for super-intensive workloads like AI, quantum computing, and more. Right now, PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 5.0 are more than enough for virtually all gamers as the latest GPUs don't fully saturate the bandwidth available to PCIe 5.0.

Meanwhile, Gen4 SSDs still pump over 7GB/sec and Gen5 SSDs pump an even faster 14GB/sec+, which is way more than enough for gamers and average users. PCIe 6.0 isn't coming until after 2030 and by then, more users will be on the Gen5 standard without a need to do 32GB/sec+ reads from their SSDs let alone GPUs using the full bandwidth of a PCIe 6.0 x16 port.

BenQ has just released three new QD-OLED gaming monitors in its growing MOBIUZ family, with two offering 4K 240Hz and another offering 1440p @ 500Hz. Check them out:

Starting with the new BenQ MOBIUZ EZ321UZ, which is a 32-inch gaming monitor featuring Samsung's 4th Gen QD-OLED panel, it offers 4K 240Hz, DisplayPort 2.1 connectivity, and up to 1000 nits of brightness. BenQ also has the EX271UZ which is a 27-inch variant with the same 4K 240Hz but only DP1.4 connectivity.

Both of the new MOBIUZ QD-OLED gaming monitors feature 4K 240Hz with a super-fast 0.03ms response time and BenQ's in-house Color Shuffle mode which improves picture quality in AAA games. Both of the new monitors also feature HDMI 2.1 so they can connect to consoles for 4K 120Hz gaming, as well as USB-C with 90W Power Delivery, a built-in KVM switch, and HDMI 2.1-related features including ALLM and eARC.

Apple's new iPhone Air is finally in the wild and early users are reporting that they're seeing condensation forming inside of the camera lens, with fogged-up lenses within just a few hours of use.

YouTuber Luke Miana shared a photo of his brand-new iPhone Air with condensation inside of the camera on day one, with another X user "Dongle" sharing a number of images of his iPhone Air, saying: "my iPhone Air has condensation in the camera... maybe this is widespread". Meanwhile, another person posted on Reddit but deleted the image shortly after, with the same condensation issue on his new iPhone Air.

We don't know how widespread this issue is, but multiple people are reporting back on their new iPhone Air having condensation in the camera, which isn't some easy fix... and it shows that Apple could have some long-term issues with the iPhone Air in the weeks and months (and years) ahead.

Pimax has just unveiled three new VR headsets using Sony's next-gen micro-OLED technology, with ultra-high pixel density, near-infinite contrast, beautiful blacks, and more.

We'll start with the flagship Pimax Crystal Super micro-OLED, with Sony's new micro-OLED panels sporting 3840 x 3552 pixels per eye with ConcaveView pancake optics, and a 116-degree FOV. This is the widest FOV achieved so far with micro-OLED panels on a VR headset. Pimax is using interchangeable optical engines that are compatible with 50 PPD, 57 PPD clarity-focused, and ultrawide QLED models.

Pimax's new high-end Crystal Super micro-OLED headset provides users with the flexibility to change between maximum immersion and maximum sharpness, with the new VR headset priced at $2199.

For the second time this year, Microsoft is raising the price of Xbox console hardware in the United States, leading to a generation with an $800 video games system.

Microsoft is planning another price hike for its Xbox Series X/S console duo, the company has confirmed. The most eye-catching part of this update is that Microsoft now has an $800 console with its Xbox Series X 2TB Galaxy Black edition, which has gone up by $70 since the summer price hike.

The new prices go into effect on October 3 in the United States, and see increases on all systems. The Xbox Series S is now $399, up from $379, with the 1TB model also increasing by $20 to $450. The disc version of the Xbox Series X is now baseline $649, up $50. The all-digital Xbox Series X is now $599, the same price that Sony attached to its unpopular PlayStation 3 in 2006.

PC gaming's largest storefront will stop being supported on legacy 32-bit Windows machines at the turn of the new year.

Valve has officially confirmed that it will be ending support for Steam on PCs running Windows 32-bit installs. Starting January 1, 2026, Steam will no longer support Windows 10 32-bit (the only such OS in use on its platform). This deadline is months after Microsoft's own impending Windows 10 cut-off in October. Interestingly enough, as The Verge points out, the current version of Steam is actually 32-bit but future versions after the end support date will be 64-bit.

Valve confirms that the launcher itself will still function "in the near term" on 32-bit, but won't receive security updates nor can Steam Support help 32-bit users with technical issues they may face.

Microsoft has announced that it has built the "world's most powerful AI datacenter" and the largest and "most sophisticated" AI factory that it's built to date. Called Fairwater, the facility is located in Wisconsin, US, and Microsoft has plans to construct identical Fairwater data centers across the country.

"Fairwater is a seamless cluster of hundreds of thousands of NVIDIA GB200s, connected by enough fiber to circle the Earth 4.5 times," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella writes on social media. "It will deliver 10x the performance of the world's fastest supercomputer today, enabling AI training and inference workloads at a level never before seen."

To give you a sense of scale, the Fairwater data center spans a massive 315 acres, comprising three large buildings that offer 1.2 million square feet of data center space. Fairwater is distinct from most data centers in that it's designed to function as a single, massive AI supercomputer, utilizing interconnected NVIDIA GB200 servers and the latest NVLink and NVSwitch technologies, which offer bandwidth measured in terabytes per second.

Borderlands 4 has been one of the biggest releases of the year, but its PC debut has been met with mixed reviews at best. When it comes to the core gameplay experience and the 'looter shooter' action of the series, the game has been widely praised for being a return to form and a modern extension of the iconic Borderlands 2. When it comes to performance, well, that's a different story.

Ahead of the game's launch, everything from the high 'recommended' PC system requirements to NVIDIA's DLSS 4 benchmarks painted the picture of another heavy Unreal Engine 5-powered release. However, once the game launched and several reports of poor performance and stuttering emerged, Borderlands 4 development studio Gearbox Software boss Randy Pitchford began responding to criticism (and that's putting it mildly) by stating that the PC version was already in an 'optimal' state.

He went on to add that GeForce RTX owners should enable DLSS and Frame Generation in the game to ensure a smoother experience. Our own in-depth analysis of the game's performance is set to go live soon, and we conclude that, in its current state, it's essentially the first AAA PC game that requires upscaling and frame generation. But, there's good news.

MediaTek is working on next-gen WiFi 8 wireless technology, with research and development (R&D) work on the new Wi-Fi 8 standard, preparing to release new WiFi 8-ready products in the future.

In a new report from Taiwanese media outlet Ctee picked up by @DanNystedt on X, we're hearing that the release of the WiFi 8 white paper is key to leading the advancement of wireless connectivity, with MediaTek diving directly into the next-gen WiFi 8 standard, and more.

With network communication industry insiders believing that the penetration rate of WiFi 7 will hit 30% to 40% in 2026, we'll continue to hear more and more about the next-gen WiFi 8 standard, with its new speeds, features, and bandwidth, which speed up the development of AI, AR/VR/XR applications, and more.

In the tech world, it has easily been the biggest story this week (and this month, for that matter), with NVIDIA and Intel announcing a deal where Team Green is investing $5 billion in Team Blue for the development of data center and client/consumer CPUs that will feature NVIDIA's NVLink technology and GeForce RTX graphics.

This is significant news because it will mark the introduction of the first x86 system-on-chip (SOC) to hit the market, featuring a brand-new architecture that combines Intel's CPU hardware with NVIDIA's GPU hardware. Separate from NVIDIA's recent ARM-based CPU efforts for the AI space, an x86 offering for data centers will open the door for a new tier of NVIDIA (and Intel) hardware built for the AI era.

That said, this partnership is also going to be huge for the consumer space, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang confirming that, with the notebook and laptop market accounting for around 150 million sales each year, this partnership will "address a vast majority of that consumer PC market, consumer PC notebook market."

Techland's Dying Light: The Beast is out today, and like the well-received Dying Light 2, the PC version features a suite of ray-traced lighting and effects covering ambient occlusion, global illumination, reflections, and shadows. And as the headline release in NVIDIA's weekly DLSS round-up, we've got 1080p, 1440p, and 4K benchmarks for the game running with max settings.

These come from NVIDIA's GeForce RTX team, so the numbers include DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation (4X) enabled. This includes DLSS Super Resolution using the Performance preset with the new 'Transformer' model, and in 4K with the Ultra preset and all ray-tracing effects enabled, the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 averages 336 FPS, with the GeForce RTX 5080 averaging 227 FPS.

NVIDIA notes that with DLSS 4, performance is increased by an average of 7.6 times at 4K; however, according to the chart, you will need at least a GeForce RTX 5070 Ti to play the game at this resolution.

Samsung Electronics has finally passed NVIDIA's strict HBM3E 12-Hi memory qualification tests for use on its AI GPUs, with the South Korean memory giant ready to supply 10,000 units.

In a new report from AlphaEconomy picked up by insider @Jukanrosleve on X, NVIDIA recently signed a supply contract for its HBM3E 12-Hi memory to NVIDIA, where the contract will see Samsung supply around 10,000 units of its qualified HBM3 12-Hi product. Samsung commented, saying that everything is "progressing as scheduled".

In previous rumors, Samsung's new HBM3E 12-Hi memory supply was confirmed, but this seems more solid and now a contract is in place, after fellow South Korean memory rival SK hynix has been exclusively supplying NVIDIA with all of the high-end HBM3 and HBM3E memory it needed.