Latest News - Page 214

EA has confirmed there will be a day-one patch for Battlefield 6 when it launches on October 10, with developer Battlefield Labs writing in a new Community Update that Battlefield 6 is the most tested and iterated Battlefield game in the history of the franchise, and since the open beta, some changes have been made.

The Community Update reveals that with more than 30 Battlefield Labs sessions successfully completed, and a total of 92,351,578 hours played during the Open Beta for the title, vital data has been gathered that has made Battlefield 6 the most tested and iterated Battlefield game in the history of the franchise, and at the heart of the title, remains the players. The Community Update explains all of the changes that will be made to the game within the update, such as the inclusion of playlists for different game modes.

Other changes include movement "feeling more responsive" as changes have been made to "pacing," along with issues fixed in order to keep gameplay smooth. Gunplay has been altered as well, with the developers writing that recoil has been rebalanced on automatic weapons to make long-range gunplay more characteristic, and to reward tap firing and burst control. Other changes include audio being cleaned up so pings are easier to hear, weapons and vehicles sound sharper, and improvements have been made to the netcode, which has reduced desync and made time-to-death feel fairer.

Discord has confirmed in a recent press release that one of the company's third-party customer service providers was breached by an unauthorized party, which gained access to information about users.

The press release states that one of Discord's third-party customer service providers was breached by an "unauthorized party," and that this party accessed information on users, such as conversations they have had with Customer Support or Trust & Safety agents. Discord writes that it immediately revoked the customer support provider's access to its ticketing system as the company continues its investigation into the situation.

Discord states this unauthorized party only gained access to the third-party customer service provider, and not Discord itself. Furthermore, Discord states the impact of the breach is only a "limited number of users," and once the breach was detected, it severed the third-party's connection to its ticketing system, began working with a leading computer forensics firm to support its investigation, and engaged with law enforcement.

The release of Battlefield 6 is right around the corner, and it seems at least one lucky player has received their copy of the game early.

In a recent Reddit post, user grecea_vlad shared an image of a physical copy of Battlefield 6 for the PlayStation 5, and according to the poster the copy actually works as well, meaning they are able to jump into the servers right now. The question is, who are they playing against if the servers are available? Perhaps reviewers and the media have gotten an early access key from EA? I can neither confirm nor deny that is taking place right now...

While it might be difficult to find a multiplayer game, the owners of the rogue copy of Battlefield 6 can at least begin playing the campaign. Battlefield 6 is one of the most anticipated games of 2025, and if the multiplayer beta numbers are anything to judge it by, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is going to have its work cut out for it as the release for Battlefield is ahead of the next Black Ops game, and hype for Battlefield 6 seems to be eclipsing that of Black Ops 7. EA has scheduled the release of Battlefield 6 for October 11, 2025, check out the official Steam Store listing here.

A new game has taken a place in Steam's top 20 currently most-played games list, as it has attracted more than 100,000 players who want to face endless waves of enemies and grow absurdly powerful.

The game is called Megabonk, and according to SteamDB, the title has reached an all-time peak player count of 117,336, putting it right behind Stardew Valley in the 24-hour peak category. Megabonk was released on September 19 by developer and publisher Vedinad, which is seemingly Danidev just spelled backwards. It appears Danidev is a solo developer and has been working on this game for about a year, with the developer explaining in a YouTube video posted in February 2025 that he had been working on Megabonk for "4 months so far."

Notably, Vedinad said he was inspired to create Megabonk by enjoying Vampire Survivor, a title similar to Megabonk, but 2D. After playing Vampire Survivors, Vedinad decided to try to create a similar game, but in 3D, with more focus on movement. The developer said Megabonk evolved past adding more movement and eventually became a mix between Vampire Survivor, Risk of Rain, DmD, Halls of Torment, and other roguelikes he enjoys.

Microsoft set the internet ablaze last week when it announced it was raising the price of Xbox Game Pass by 50%, resulting in many subscribers abandoning the Ultimate tier to move down one.

Lina Khan, the former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, has commented on the recent price hike, saying Microsoft's decision to increase prices is part of its dominance as a company, and that it's simply become "too-big-to-care" about any consequences from its customers since it has so many. Notably, Khan was the chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at the time of Microsoft's $67 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which the FTC opposed by claiming it would "harm competition in multiple dynamic fast-growing gaming markets".

Khan gave her statements in an X post where she responded to a post outlining the rising cost of Game Pass Ultimate since it was released. The original poster cites Microsoft stating in 2023 that subscription prices would not increase as a result of the Activision Blizzard acquisition. However, the FTC's challenge to prevent the merger was rejected by Judge Scott Corley.

OpenAI and AMD have announced a multibillion-dollar partnership that involves AMD powering the next generation of OpenAI's AI infrastructure with AMD Instinct MI450 GPUs.

The partnership was announced by both companies via press releases, and includes AMD supplying OpenAI with 6 gigawatts of power through its AMD Instinct GPUs, with the first gigawatt to be deployed in the second half of 2026. In addition to signing on for multi-generational hardware upgrades from AMD, OpenAI will be acquiring up to 160 million shares of AMD common stock, which have been structured to vest as specific milestones are achieved.

The first tranche of the stock is set to vest after the initial gigawatt is successfully deployed, and further tranches are scheduled to vest as more AMD GPUs are purchased by OpenAI, eventually reaching the point of 6 gigawatts. Notably, vesting is also tied to AMD reaching specific share price targets and OpenAI achieving the technical and commercial milestones required to enable AMD deployments at scale.

Activision has responded to the reports of numerous cheaters in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 with a statement posted to the @CODUpdates X account.

The post states that "cheaters were expected" and that the Black Ops 7's anti-cheat software, known as "RICOCHET," has "hit the ground running" in the early access beta. Notably, Activision writes that the frequency of cheaters being caught was "faster than ever" due to its "automated systems" and "TPM 2.0" checks. As for those who managed to bypass the automated checks, Activision writes they weren't around for very long as "97% of cheaters were stopped within 30 minutes of their first sign-in."

Additionally, Activision claims that "fewer than 1% of cheating attempts reached a match, and those who did were removed within minutes." Furthermore, Activision writes that major cheat vendors, which are platforms or websites that sell cheats for games, are now labelling many of their most-popular cheats as "unusable" or "detected" thanks to RICOCHET, and many of these vendors are "acknowledging they have no reliable products to offer for Black Ops 7."

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.