Latest News - Page 208

At TweakTown, we recently put together two new identical Gaming Rigs for deep dives into performance, gaming tech, and other hardware-related goodness. For the cooling, we chose the Corsair iCUE LINK TITAN 360 RX LCD Liquid CPU Cooler and iCUE LINK RX120 MAX RGB 120mm PWM fans. Putting the rigs together, this was the first time we used Corsair's iCUE LINK system and hub for a dedicated testing rig, and once it was all assembled, it's hard to go back to "the old ways."

The reason for this is simple: you're looking at a single cable for the radiator fans, a single cable for the AIO cooler, and a single cable for the system fans. In addition to Daisy-chain support for both cable management and an easy installation process, the iCUE LINK System Hub is a small magnetic box that can be placed out of the way. Plus, you've got intuitive software for controlling fan curves and settings system-wide.

This brings us to Corsair's latest modular high-performance PSU release, the new HXi SHIFT Series. In addition to ATX 3.1 and PCIe 5.1 support and certification, alongside Cybenetics Platinum certification for efficiency, thermal performance, and low noise, it's the first PSU series from Corsair to include an iCUE LINK System Hub inside the PSU, built into each model - available in 1000W, 1200W, and 1500W variants.

MAINGEAR, which is all about custom gaming PCs that you can customize and buy off-the-shelf, has just released a batch of limited edition DOOM EDITION desktop gaming rigs. And by limited edition, they mean it, as only 50 units will be available for purchase - starting today.

The star of the show here is the HAVN HS 420 DOOM: The Dark Ages Limited Edition Chassis, which is based on the award-winning HAVN HS 420 case. We recently reviewed the HAVN HS 420 VGPU variant, where it earned an Editor's Choice award for being "one of the best looking cases available, packed with features and great build quality." The case is paired with the TRYX 360 Panorama SE AIO cooler, featuring a curved LCD pre-configured with animation showcasing DOOM gameplay.

It's a fantastic-looking rig, thanks to the limited edition case and DOOM-themed cooling, and it's available in a few different configurations. The Hurt Me Plenty version, available for $2,999, includes a GeForce RTX 5070 GPU and Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU. The Ultra-Violence version, available for $3,999, includes a GeForce RTX 5080 GPU and the newer Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, while the Nightmare version, available for $5,999, features the beastly GeForce RTX 5090.

NVIDIA originally requested 9Gbps bandwidth for HBM4, with Samsung failing to hit 9Gbps with its 1b DRAM-based HBM4, but using its 1c DRAM and SF4 to HBM4, they could hit over 10Gbps... but SK hynix needed more voltage, and Micron said 10Gbps was impossible.

In a new post on X by leaker @Jukanrosleve, we're hearing that NVIDIA originally requested 9Gbps for HBM4, but once discovering that 10Gbps was achievable, NVIDIA then asked "why not try 11Gbps?" Jukan says that NVIDIA is known for making such demanding requests all the time, adding that in the long-term, he thinks the spec "will likely end up being set at 10Gbps".

This information and post on X was in response to another post the leaker did about half an hour prior, which reads: "NVIDIA has requested Samsung and SK hynix to raise HBM4 speed to 11Gbps, an additional increase from the previous 9Gbps to 10Gbps target".

NVIDIA has teased more details of its next-gen Kyber rack-scale AI server, which will house a huge 576 NVIDIA Rubin Ultra AI GPUs in 2027.

At the OCP Global Summit recently, NVIDIA showcased some of what to expect in the future from AI factories, with the company unveiling multiple interesting new developments. One of those is the work NVIDIA has put into its new Kyber rack-scale technology, replacing Oberon and would see the company scaling up to its NVL72 configuration, using 576 NVIDIA Rubin Ultra AI GPUs.

NVIDIA explains: "The OCP ecosystem is also preparing for NVIDIA Kyber, featuring innovations in 800 VDC power delivery, liquid cooling and mechanical design. These innovations will support the move to rack server generation NVIDIA Kyber - the successor to NVIDIA Oberon - which will house a high-density platform of 576 NVIDIA Rubin Ultra GPUs by 2027".

Intel will be launching its new Panther Lake laptop processors as the Core Ultra 300 series, but with tweaked naming with the flagship reportedly called the Core Ultra X9 388H, with more members of the new SKUs revealed in HWMonitor. Check it out:

Intel formally announced its new Panther Lake CPUs with some details revealed at its recent Tech Tour 2025 event, but now CPU ID has added in support for the new Panther Lake CPUs and their naming convention being confirmed, and the SKUs to be launched.

HWMonitor v1.60 includes support for the Core Ultra X 3X8H, Core Ultra 3X5H, and Core Ultra 3X0U processors, with the new Core Ultra X series having four members:

Apple is expected to announce its next-gen M5 processor this week along with other product announcements, with news that the new M5 chip will be fabbed on TSMC's 3nm "N3E" process node.

In a new report from the Commercial Times, we have new details on Apple's next-gen silicon, where we can expect the next-next-gen M6 processors to be unveiled in 2026 and they could be Apple's first foray into the bleeding-edge 2nm process node for its next-next-gen MacBook laptops.

Apple's upcoming M5 processor will compete with other laptop processors including Qualcomm's newly-released Snapdragon processors and MediaTek's new chips. However, its competitors' chips are fabbed on the higher-end N3P process node, compared to the M5 reportedly fabbed on N3E.

Battlefield 6 is a huge success with over 6.5 million copies sold since launch, analyst firm Alinea Analytics predicts.

While the official verdict on Battlefield 6's numbers is still out, some analysts are making predictions and estimates on how well DICE's new shooter has done. EA hasn't shared any metrics about Battlefield 6's sales performance just yet.

Alinea Analytics has Battlefield 6 sales exceeding 6.5 million, with the majority of sales on PC. Battlefield 6 also raked in over $350 million in revenue, and raw math puts the game closer to the half a billion dollars mark, which, while staggering, is beaten by Call of Duty (Modern Warfare 2 holds the record with $1 billion in full game sales at launch).

The man responsible for the creative vision of the Assassin's Creed franchise has left Ubisoft.

Big changes are happening at Ubisoft. The company took a $1 billion investment from Tencent to stave off hostile takeovers and pay back debt. To make the deal happen, Ubisoft carved out its three biggest franchises and placed them in a separate subsidiary, Vantage Studios. Tencent has a 25% stake in Vantage Studios in exchange for its investment.

Ubisoft has formed the executive leadership structure for Vantage Studios, and by extension, the future of Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six. Vantage Studios will be led by Charlie Guillemot and Christophe Derennes, respectively the son and cousin of Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. This change-over is happening, and it's since been revealed that Assassin's Creed creative Marc-Alexis Cote won't be coming over to Vantage Studios to lead the billion-dollar franchise.

The best Aliens shooter ever made may be getting a sequel, but exact details haven't been revealed just yet.

Aliens Fireteam Elite 2 has been spotted on the ESRB website, where it had been rated M for Mature for blood, gore, and violence. The listing has since been taken offline or made private, yet archived versions remain. According to the info, Daybreak Games will publish Aliens Fireteam Elite 2 on PS5, Xbox Series, and PC. Focus Home had published the first game on PC, whereas Cold Iron Studios published the console versions.

Cold Iron had teased a new project in a studio update, saying that they were working on a fresh game for "fans to sink their teeth into," possibly a nod to the xenomorph's lethal bite.

The team behind Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yotei will continue taking their time and focus deliberately on one game project at a time.

As studios like Naughty Dog ramp up to work on multiple games at once, some PlayStation studios like Sucker Punch Productions are keeping things lean. The team's samurai slasher Ghost franchise has helped Sony continue its penchant for cinematic-quality productions, so it has a critical place within the PlayStation ecosystem.

Now in a recent interview with VideoGameChronicle, studio founder Brian Fleming says that Sucker Punch will continue its single-release cadence. That's partly because Fleming only wants to select the single best idea that the studio has for a new game. The other part is because developers want as much time to make their game look and play as best as possible, and having multiple projects can crowd the workcycle.

NVIDIA has announced it has released new GeForce Game Ready Drivers for a selection of upcoming titles, providing new features and optimizations.

The latest GeForce Game Ready Drivers are available to download and include support for ARC Raiders, Pax Dei, The Outer Worlds 2, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, along with a bunch of other titles that now have DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation. NVIDIA took to its blog to share details on each of the titles, explaining that by downloading the drivers, players will get a more optimized in-game experience, and have the latest NVIDIA technologies at their disposal to increase performance.

It's highly recommended that if you intend to play any of the titles listed below, you update your drivers via the NVIDIA App or download the specific driver manually, as performance will be significantly improved if you have the up-to-date driver installed. Moreover, suppose you are a GeForce RTX 40/50-series owner. In that case, you will be able to take advantage of NVIDIA's upscaling technologies, such as DLSS, and RTX 50-series owners will be able to utilize DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation for significant performance gains.

While Bloodborne on the PC continues to progress - by which I mean the emulator version, of course - rumors about a remake of the game are still rumbling on, the latest of which is a wispy clue from Bluepoint Games.

As Eurogamer reports, this comes in the form of a job advert for a position of senior combat designer at Bluepoint - or it did, but that ad has now been taken down, perhaps unsurprisingly given the stir this has created on the gaming grapevine.

Of course, all the details have been preserved, and the position mentioned that someone was needed for Bluepoint's "next great title" and that they'd be working on the combat, and should have a "solid understanding of combat systems and mechanics for third-person melee action experiences".

Discord recently confirmed that approximately 70,000 users had sensitive information compromised from an unauthorized third party, with the voice communication platform saying it wasn't Discord itself that got hacked, but one of its third-party customer service companies.

However, Discord's story has now had a wrench thrown into it as that third-party customer service company has now denied it was "hacked". Here's what happened. Discord confirmed that it was hacked, with reports stating the unauthorized party stole 1.5 terabytes worth of age verification images from the customer service company. Discord refuted these claims, saying the purported 2 million images that were stolen weren't an accurate figure, and that the hackers made off with "limited" personal information.

Discord outlined the personal information that was stolen, including names, Discord usernames, emails, and other contact information, along with limited billing information, such as payment type, last four digits of credit card numbers, purchase history, IP addresses, messages with customer support agents, and limited corporate data, such as training materials and internal presentations. Furthermore, the platform said it had immediately severed its connection with the third-party customer service company once it was made aware of the hack.

A new scientific paper has discovered if an AI is rewarded for completing tasks on social media such as boosting likes and other online engagement metrics, the AI exponentially participates in unethical behavior, such as lying, spreading misinformation, and abuse.

The findings were published by Stanford University researchers, who explained in a recent paper how they created three digital online environments, and then used the following AI models as agents to interact with the audiences within the environments: Qwen, developed by Alibaba Cloud and Meta's Llama model. The three digital environments included: online election drives directed at voters, social media posts intended to maximize engagement, and sale pitches for products aimed at consumers.

Here's what happened. In the social media environment the AI would share news articles to online users, who would then provide feedback on the article by engaging with it through likes and emote. Once the AI received feedback from these online users it began to sway more toward what the researchers are calling "misaligned behavior," despite the AI model being explicitly instructed to remain truthful and grounded.

NVIDIA has a new graphics driver out for its GeForce GPUs and it cures some seriously annoying bugs, including frustrating glitches with Madden 26 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

VideoCardz noticed the release of the fresh driver which also incorporates support for ARC Raiders, The Outer Worlds 2, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2, all of which get DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation.

The bug fixes will be what many PC gamers will be after, though, and one of these is the solve for an odd issue with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 where the game suffers from either driver crashes or bad bouts of graphical corruption after the PC wakes from sleep.

As you've no doubt seen, today is the official end of support for Windows 10, and Microsoft has managed to break the Media Creation Tool (MCT) for those thinking of making the upgrade to Windows 11.

In a case of very unfortunate timing, Windows Latest reports that Microsoft admitted that the latest spin on the Windows 11 MCT - which is used to create a bootable USB (or DVD) to install the newest OS - has gone awry.

Microsoft said:

It has been leaked and hinted at that Ubisoft is planning to release Assassin's Creed Shadows on the Nintendo Switch 2, and now reliable leaker billbil-kun has posted a new report revealing the release date.

According to the report, Ubisoft intends to release the Switch 2 version of Assassin's Creed Shadows on December 5, 2025, and that it will be arriving as a physical version as well, albeit it will be a "Game Key Card" version. Notably, rumors about Shadows coming to the Nintendo Switch 2 were sparked when the official PEGI website, the European video game rating organization, quietly added a Switch 2 listing to the Assassin's Creed Shadows page.

That was quickly followed by French retailer Auchan, which accidentally made the product page public on October 10, even revealing the box art for the game. The retailer leak was also when we first heard about the "Game Key Card" version being released. It should be noted that billbil-kun was unable to obtain information regarding the exact date for the pre-order, and also the pegged December 5 release date is for France, but is presumed to be global.

Microsoft officially severs support from Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, marking the End-of-Life phase for the popular operating system, as it will no longer receive security updates, new features, bug fixes, or necessary patches.

While Windows 10 is more than a decade old, the operating system still has a substantial user base of hundreds of millions of people, who are now faced with the decision of upgrading the machine they currently have with the necessary hardware to run Windows 11, buy a completely new Windows 11 capable PC, abandon Windows altogether for competing operating systems such as MacOS, or simply run the risk of their current machine exponentially being prone to security breaches since Microsoft is no longer providing vital security updates to malware hunting software.

There is another option, albeit it is a band-aid fix for the situation, as Microsoft offers one-year extended security updates for Windows 10 users, but that will require a payment of $30 per system, or logging into Windows 10 with a Microsoft account to sync your settings. It should be noted that Microsoft is officially ending support for all versions of Windows 10, which means Home, Pro, and Enterprise.

Intel and AMD have partnered to introduce new improvements to the x86 instruction set, with the two competing companies coming together in a joint initiative to strengthen the future of x86 computing.

The joint initiative was formed in October 2024, and today marks a one-year anniversary, with Intel and AMD outlining a bunch of new standardizing features for x86. The goal of the initiative is to enhance compatibility, predictability, and consistency across x86 processor-based productions, which includes everything from supercomputers to handheld gaming devices.

The advisory group has outlined key technical milestones to include as features in upcoming x86 processors, which have been outlined below. One of the announced features is FRED, or Flexible Return and Event Delivery, which AMD and Intel intend to reduce latencies and increase software reliability with a "modern interrupt model." Additionally, AVX10 is the next-generation vector and general-purpose instruction set extension, designed to boost throughput and enable portability across client, workstation, and server CPUs.

NVIDIA has unveiled when it will begin shipping the world's smallest AI supercomputer, with the company taking to social media to showcase NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang hand-delivering one of the first devices to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

The NVIDIA DGX Spark is a new class of computer that is aimed at researchers, engineers, teams of scientists, and even consumers who are interested in running custom AI models. The DGX Spark is built on NVIDIA Grace Blackwell architecture and integrates NVIDIA GPUs, ARM CPUs, networking, CUDA libraries, and NVIDIA AI software, creating a device capable of running 200 billion parameter AI models.

The DGX Spark delivers a petaFLOP of AI performance and 128GB of unified memory, enabling developers to run 70 billion parameters locally - all within a footprint that's about the size of your outstretched hand. More specifically, the DGX Spark's 1 petaFLOP of performance is accelerated by a NVIDIA GH10 Grace Blackwell Superchip, NVIDIA ConnectX-7 200 Gb/s networking, and NVIDIA NVLink-C2C technology, which enables 5x the bandwidth of fifth-generation PCIe and 128GB of CPU-GPU coherent memory.