Latest News - Page 2199

Thermaltake have introduced their latest RGB radiator for advanced watercooled gaming systems; the Pacific RL360 Plus RGB Radiator.

Built for 120mm high-static pressure fans, this 360mm radiator is manufactured from premium-quality German zinc alloy aluminium and aerospace-grade materials that provide exceptional performance, unrivaled reliability.

The exclusively designed LED strip utilizes cutting-edge thermal techniques with a 16.8 million colours LED that is controlled by the Riing Plus RGB Software and an exclusively designed mobile app. This software is not only capable of customize the lighting effect, users can also monitor fan performance and track CPU temperature. Integrated G1/4" threads allow for a pleasurable installation, while rigid connections ensure leak-resistant measures are in place.

Lian Li have unleashed their flagship full-tower PC case, the PC-V3000. This case certainly lives up to Lian Li's vision of being the ultimate aluminium and tempered glass full-tower case. The PC-V3000 takes full advantage of Lian Li's traditional dual chamber design and is the first Lian Li chassis that is capable of housing four radiators, bringing its liquid cooling capacity to an unrivaled level for its class.

The PC-V3000 exudes the true style of a high-quality class-leading chassis without holding back on features or functionality. External panels are made of high-quality brush aluminium featuring Lian Li's patented rivet locking mechanism for easy installation or removal of panels while combining Lian Li's largest tempered glass panel to date .

As you can imagine, the PC-V3000 is not short on space, in fact this case can house up to twelve drives, nine of them being removable 3.5" drives in addition to three 2.5" drives. Designed for E-ATX motherboards, the PC-V3000 also features subtle RGB lighting and access to HDMI and USB 3.1 Type-C through the front panel connectors.

With the recent announcement of Age of Empires IV, Microsoft continued the good news for RTS fans by announcing a release date for the upcoming Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, October 17 2017.

This coincides with Age of Empires 20th year anniversary, which graced our PC's back on October 15, 1997.

Age of Empires: DE will be a fully remastered version of the original with enhanced 4K graphics, remastered soundtrack and improved gameplay including attack move commands, increased population cap, contextual rally points, unit queuing and right-click scrolling.

Gamescom continues to deliver for the gaming community. This time it's Corsair announcing the release of their new VOID PRO gaming headset range.

The VOID PRO gaming headset line-up consists of three different models all sharing the same custom-tuned 50mm neodymium speaker drivers and Dolby® Headphone 7.1 surround sound. This creates an immersive, detailed audio that pulls you right into the action. The improvements don't stop there from Corsair, with improved comfort and a lightweight and durable aluminium construction to complement the improved audio quality.

The top of the range VOID PRO RGB WIRELESS gaming headset boasts a wireless range of up to 40 feet, integrated RGB lighting and up to 16 hours of battery life. The VOID PRO RGB USB is exactly as its name portrays, a USB version of the headset. While the VOID PRO SURROUND takes aim at the more diverse market with multi-platform capability (PC, Xbox One, PS4 and mobile devices).

Frontier Developments have announced their upcoming release, Jurassic World Evolution. Along with this exciting news, Frontier also included an announcement trailer for your enjoyment.

Frontier explain how every choice impacts the game by leading the player along different paths. You will also be responsible for every aspect of your Jurassic World including construction of attractions, containments and research. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is being responsible for bio-engineering of new dinosaur breeds, this could explain the 'spectacular challenges' Frontier have mentioned.

All this chaos will take place on the legendary island of Isla Nublar and the surrounding islands of the Muertes Archipelago. Information is rather limited at present, with only PC, PS4 and Xbox One releases scheduled for summer 2018.

Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene teased a new image of Battlegrounds upcoming new map, which rocks an awesome-looking desert style, and a dense city center with a heap of buildings that are up to eight stories tall.

The development team at Bluehole have been working on Battlegrounds' new maps for a while now, with an earlier work-in-progress sketch including a look at the entire map.

The new map will change the dynamics of Battlegrounds up, offering players more vertical gameplay inside of the buildings. Or on the outside, or on top, or inside the buildings and working their way up, or down. It's going to be a fun ride, but we don't know when the new map will go live just yet.

FIFA 18 is going to be a kick ass game on the Nintendo Switch, with a FIFA producer confirming FIFA 18 will run at 1080p 60FPS when the Switch is docked, and 720p 60FPS when it's in portable mode.

The Supervising Producer on FIFA 18 told website Nintendo Everything: "We spent a lot of time actually understanding what the console is. In dock, what we're seeing right now, for example, is 1080p run running at 60 frames per second", confirming a 1080p resolution in docked mode. "When you plug out and you play in handheld it's 720p".

The team spent considerable time nailing optimizations to hit 60FPS in both handheld and docked modes, with the FIFA 18 producer adding: "We spent a lot of time making sure that transition happens seamlessly and you still get 60 frames per second".

If the scandals surrounding Radeon RX Vega 64 pricing weren't bad enough already, with AMD announcing it for $499 and then jacking the price up to $599... well now retailers are coughing up over $675 for the card.

A new report from TPU states that San Jose-based Ma Laboratories Inc. are charging $675 per Radeon RX Vega 64 air cooled card to computer stores. Now remember that AMD themselves launched RX Vega 64 @ $499... allowing retailers to make profits. But at much higher cost prices, retailers are going to be hurting significantly. I worked IT retail selling consumer PC components for 10 years, and if this were the case for my store - I would simply not stock Radeon on the shelves until the prices settled down.

Miners can't be blamed for this, as even with the new crypto-specific drivers and the Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid Cooled Edition, I'm only getting 40MH/s of Ethereum mining performance. This is a good result, but considering I'm chewing close to 600W to do it... yeah, it's not good at all... and very unstable.

EA released their 4K 60FPS footage of Need for Speed: Payback running on a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti powered gaming PC from Gamescom 2017 yesterday, and now we're getting some 4K 60FPS footage of Forza 7 from Gamescom, and it looks great... for a console.

It was all captured from an Xbox One X console, and for an APU-powered small console, the 4K 60FPS goodness is still great. It doesn't look as good as a high-end PC would, with the obvious textures popping up and Medium-like graphics... but then we can blame YouTube compression, and more.

Developer Turn 10 have been pumping some serious work into Forza 7, so you can expect support for UltraWide 21:9 resolutions, a built-in benchmark (THANK YOU, Turn 10) and more when it launches on October 3:

NVIDIA is strengthening its position with gamers, offering up their new GeForce 385.41 drivers which are Game Ready and optimized for what will surely be one of the biggest releases of the year: Destiny 2.

There are also some major improvements to ARK: Survival Evolved, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, F1 2017, Quake Champions, and more. Here's what to expect from NVIDIA's new GeForce 385.41 drivers, which you can download right here - or through GeForce Experience.

Feature Changes

Square Enix has provided us with an official statement that specialization requirements for Final Fantasy XV's incoming Windows Edition on PC were published in error.

Earlier we reported that Square Enix is tailoring Final Fantasy XV's PC version for enthusiast hardware. The specifications, which the publisher informs us were erroneously posted on the initial press release, incorrectly stated that the game recommends high-end hardware like an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, 16GB of RAM, an Intel Core i7 or Ryzen 7 1700 CPU, and a whopping 170GB of HDD space.

"The recommended specs text that accompanied the Windows Edition trailer were posted in error and have since been removed," a Square Enix representative told us. "The specs listed were not final as the game is still in development. We will officially publish both minimum and recommended specs for the game once we finish development, so that they are fully accurate."

Square Enix and Ubisoft have teamed up for a surprise crossover promotion, a move which improves visibility and engages players on the respective IPs.

The new promo sees a special Assassin's Festival event being injected into Final Fantasy XV, adding key Assassin's Creed franchise content into the game in a free timed event. Gamers know that FFXV is no stranger to in-game advertisements--ahem Cup Noodles--and some may see this move as Square Enix "selling out." But these cross-overs are mutually beneficial for sure: Ubisoft arguably needs no help advertising Assassin's Creed: Origins, as it's the triumphant return of the beloved franchise, but this promo reminds FFXV players about the game while engaging them with new content to boot. In a sense, Square Enix has hit two birds with one stone: achieved an interesting new partnership with one of the most powerful forces of the games industry while providing new content that will pull players back into game, and possibly even spark game sales.

But what about Final Fantasy XV? Surely there will be magical in-game content and weapons crossing over to ancient Egypt too, right? Ubisoft has yet to confirm that AC: Origins will have FFXV-related content, despite the reveal art showing the game's protagonist, Bayek, wielding weapons inspired from the series. I've already predicted that Assassin's Creed: Origins will be monetized via loot-based microtransactions, and it's possible this cross-over could extend into that monetization path. I expect some items will be free, and more premium cross-over items will be monetized in loot boxes in some form.

Along with the Galaxy Note8 and the iPhone 8, Google's Pixel 2 and Pixel XL 2 are certainly among the most anticipated smartphones that are yet to be unveiled this year.

It was rumored that the Pixel 2 would be the first device to feature Qualcomm's yet-to-be-announced Snapdragon 836 platform. Evan Blass has now confirmed this information.

Blass also stated that Google's second-generation Pixel phones would be unveiled on October 5th.

HTC may sell off its VR business in order to stabilize losses from its smartphone division, sources say.

HTC's beleaguered smartphone division has caused the company to weigh specific options that may lead to an outright sale or spin-off of its Vive virtual reality business, anonymous sources have told Bloomberg. The Tawainese smartphone-maker reported its eight straight consecutive loss in May, with losses of $66 million in first quarter of the current fiscal year.

Anshel Sag, analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, told us that spinning off the VR division may have been planned all along, and if so, it won't be hard for HTC to accomplish. "HTC's smartphone business continues to struggle. The company has lots of valuable IP in that business and decent products but has failed to compete with the Chinese manufacturers and Samsung. Their VR division is already a whole owned subsidiary so spinning off Vive shouldn't be hard at all and I believe was part of a long term plan."

Huawei has unveiled the first official image of the upcoming Mate 10. The phone will be launched on October 16th, the company has confirmed.

The photo shows the back of the phone compared with the recent Huawei phones and teases dual camera setup, once again made in cooperation with Leica.

The Huawei Mate 10 is expected to arrive with an edge-to-edge screen, although recent rumors suggest that only Mate 10 Pro will have this type of screen while the Mate 10 should stick with the conventional one.

Ubisoft today announced its sixth Rainbow Six: Siege expansion, Operation Blood Orchid will be delayed until September 5. Siege's latest update was scheduled for an August 29 release.

However, Ubisoft will instead release Operation Blood Orchid onto the Technical Test Server on August 29 with the official release one week later. To soften the pain, Ubisoft announced that Rainbow Six: Siege will be free to play this weekend for all platforms (PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) and on sale at a discounted price.

With the Ubisoft's previous announcement to focus on performance, stability and improving the base game in May, this led to Ubisoft's previous update, Operation Health. Despite the feedback regarding lack of new operators, gadgets and maps, Operation Health was deemed a success.

Overwatch's season 5 of competitive play concludes on August 28, meaning competitive season 6 will be upon us very soon, August 31 at 5PM PDT to be exact.

A new season means new and improved changes, with Blizzard releasing a Developer Update in which Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan elaborates on the major changes that will impact Season 6. Blizzard have noticed that as a season progresses, player engagement and competition declines.

Blizzard has decided to decrease the season length from three months, to two months, with Kaplan saying that the team will continue to monitor feedback regarding season length and this could lead to further tweaks in future seasons. With a shorter season length, this means end of season competitive points will be less.

KFC has come out swinging with marketing ideas lately, with their own smartphone that they partnered with Chinese smartphone giant Huawei on, and now they have their very own VR training game.

In the KFC VR training app, it provides potential employees with a chicken cooking simulation - in a way that has never, ever been done before. You're stuck in a room, and need to escape - but how do you do that? Oh, you will learn how to cook chicken, and that's your only way out. Yeah, weird, isn't it?

The Colonel says in the KFC VR training game: "This game will teach you how to make my Original Recipe chicken ... the hard way. Until you learn how to make my chicken right, you will not be allowed to leave!"

Quake Champions has hit Steam Early Access, offering up the first-person gibfest for $29.99 - even though it's a free-to-play title. What do you get for $30? Well, you get access to all of the upcoming fighters through to the end of 2018, and a little more.

The $30 entry price into Quake Champions on Steam Early Access will get you the aforementioned Champions through to the end of 2018, but you'll also get an exclusive look at Ranger, and three boxes that you can open for cosmetic items, yay.

What you'll get in the Sample Package:

Bungie is showing that PC gamers really are important, working with NVIDIA very closely on making the PC version of Destiny 2 the best version on any platform.

The new video showcases the Inverted Spire Strike mission in Destiny 2, something that will be featured in Destiny 2's upcoming PC beta which kicks off on August 28 for those on Early Access, and August 29 for everyone else.

Destiny 2 is launching onto the PC in its best form, offering up HDR support, as well as SLI for those with multiple GeForce graphics cards. UltraWide display owners will enjoy 21:9 aspect ratio support, and more when Destiny 2 launches on the PC on October 26.