NVIDIA surprised us all with the launch of the new, new TITAN Xp - and the new $1200 graphics card has already been picked up by a Reddit user, and benchmarked.

The new TITAN Xp is fast - super-fast, with 3DMark Fire Strike (the 1080p run) providing a score of 31,956 - up from the 28,000 or so that MSI's overclocked GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X 11G graphics card. The new TITAN Xp is around 11% faster than the GTX 1080 Ti, which costs $699 - so you're paying $500 more for 11%, which doesn't seem worth it at all.

I don't really know why NVIDIA released the new TITAN Xp, as the GTX 1080 Ti and TITAN X were already good enough - if it was using HBM2 and had ridiculous 4K and beyond numbers, then that would be a different story. But 10% gain over GTX 1080 Ti, for $500 more? What.

We've seen Project Scorpio push games like Forza 6 to native 4K 60FPS at only 66% GPU power, but Forza is Xbox's cream of the crop. What about other games? Not surprisingly, Xbox One games that use DirectX 12 have the potential to perform amazingly well on the Project Scorpio Engine.

Microsoft has ingeniously baked in DirectX 12 into the Project Scorpio's GPU's command processor to significantly reduce instruction sets and thus dramatically improve the instruction command processing sent by the highly customized 2.73GHz Jaguar evolved CPU. Essentially Project Scorpio's direct hardware-based DX12 integration should substantially improve game-to-GPU communication and actively reduce CPU overhead. This streamlined efficiency is half of the magic that makes Scorpio tick, and sees the console's components in a kind of uniform synergy.

"We essentially moved Direct3D 12. We built that into the command processor of the GPU and what that means is that, for all the high frequency API invocations that the games do, they'll all natively implemented in the logic of the command processor-and what this means is that our communication from the game to the GPU is super-efficient," Microsoft told Digital Foundry.

After revealing Project Scorpio's specs and confirming the console can rock native 4K 60FPS to the world, it's only natural for Microsoft to toot their own horn a bit. After reporting on the subject for so long, I have to say it's pretty amazing that the company actually hit the performance they promised, and the Xbox team is stoked.

The entire Xbox team is excited about Project Scorpio, but exec Albert Penello declared what Xbox fans around the world must be thinking: the console actually lives up to the hype. "There is so much more to Project Scorpio than just the numbers. It's a huge leap ahead of any other console," Penello said on Twitter.

After digging through reams of Digital Foundry's technical data, I can earnestly say I agree. Project Scorpio is more than its parts, more than its 6 TFLOPs Polaris-derived GPU, more than its highly customized Jaguar evolved CPU, more than its 12GB of unified GDDR5 memory at 326GB/sec: it's about how those parts come together in a truly next-generation harmony that eclipses anything we've seen from the console market thus far, it's about the union to highly efficient hardware and intelligent software to make a "beast" of a system.

Gearbox messes up quite a bit. Between terrible games like Duke Nukem: Forever and abominations like Aliens: Colonial Marines, the studio just can't catch a break--it's really it's own worst enemy. Now the latest screw up has turned into a PR nightmare, and Gearbox is desperate for a way out.

Gearbox Software recently signed a deal with extremely controversial games merchant key reseller G2A.com to release a collector's edition for Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition, aka the massively overpriced remaster that no one asked for. YouTuber Total Biscuit caught wind of this deal, and announced a boycott of all Gearbox games from his coverage if the studio didn't dissolve the deal with G2A. Gamers everywhere spread the news, and with every share Gearbox's rep tanked--tanked further, that is.

So Gearbox did the logical thing and worked on an exit strategy. And it found a strategy that pretty much ensured it would have a justified means of escape from a situation it had dug itself into, and by escape, I mean Total Biscuit would continue covering their games and gamers would approve of the move. The studio-turned-indie-game-publisher told G2A that it would have to basically re-organize its business structure within 30 days or else Gearbox would pull its deal and back out of the agreement.

Since Project Scorpio can hit 4K 60FPS in games like Forza 6 and even 4K 60FPS Ultra with DirectX 12 optimizations, the console clearly shares little with its Xbox One S sibling in terms of raw power. But Project Scorpio may actually share something else in common with its svelte predecessor: size.

We've exhaustively covered Project Scorpio's internals and capabilities, so let's talk about its shape and form for a bit. Now Microsoft's officially released hardware diagram shows that Project Scorpio's components fit together like a glove. The power supply, 4K UHD Blu-ray disc drive, and vapor chamber cooling assembly all snugly conform to the motherboard that houses the system's extremely intelligent 16nm Scorpio Engine SoC silicon. The components themselves are arranged in a kind aesthetic harmony, not unlike the way the console's flexible software pipeline brain is synergized to its brawny 6TLOP GPU muscle.

More and more phone manufacturers choose to feature dual cameras on their phones, usually on the back of the phone with some exceptions. However, Alcatel decided to manufacture a phone with a dual camera on both front and the back.

The Alcatel Flash has two 13MP cameras on the back that allow users to capture 4K video. On the front of the phone, there is one 8MP camera and another 5MP camera sensor, with autofocus and dual-tone flash.

The 5.5-inch display phone is powered by a deca-core Mediatek MT6797 Helio X20 and comes with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage expandable with a microSD card.

In an effort to make Project Scorpio games as mind-blowing as possible, Microsoft is giving developers even more access to the console's built-in hardware. Devs can harness the raw power of Project Scorpio's 6TFLOPs of compute power and 1172MHz of Polaris-derived GPU clock speeds, the custom 8-core x86 "Jaguar evolved" CPU, and 67% of the system's beefy 12GB of unified GDDR5 RAM to help optimize their games in a variety of different ways.

According to Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter, developers will have access to 67% of Project Scorpio's total unified RAM system memory, or 8GBs of Project Scorpio's total 12GB of GDDR5 RAM. For comparison's sake, devs only have access to 5GB of Xbox One's RAM, and the same amount on PS4 Pro. This extra 3GB of accessible memory is a tremendous advantage that can facilitate boosts across the board for a multitude of optimizations, including resolution enhancements, tighter frame rates, and dramatically faster loading times by treating the extra RAM as an IO cache.

Project Scorpio's system memory isn't just brawny, at 12GB of GDDR5 RAM, but also has the bandwidth to back it up. Scorpio's 12GB of GDDR5 RAM--made up of 12x 6.8GHz modules--is clocked at a respectable 326 GB/sec bandwidth speeds over a 384-bit bus. Remember Scorpio's memory is unified, not dedicated, so both video and system RAM are running through the bandwidth pipeline.

Microsoft has nixed a key game emulator from the Windows Store an in effort to crack down on piracy.

Game emulation is widespread across PC and Android, and even the Windows Store has its sources. But Microsoft is making an earnest effort to push game emulation off the Windows Store, and has since removed apps like NESbox's popular Universal Emulator from the storefront.

Not content with just removing the infringing app, Microsoft now deigns emulators as breaches in the Windows Store terms of service. "Apps that emulate a game system are not allowed on any device family," reads the revised policy mandate.

G.SKILL today announced a new ultra high-capacity 128GB kit of its extreme enthusiast-grade TridentZ RAM that's outfitted with RGB LEDs.

"Since the widely-acclaimed launch of Trident Z RGB memory series in December 2016, G.SKILL focused heavily on bringing high performance DDR4 16GB RGB modules to the Intel X99 platform. Now, the Trident Z RGB is available in full sets of 8 modules for a total of 64GB (8GBx8) or 128GB (16GBx8) capacity, along with lighting control software support for the Intel X99 platform from most major motherboard vendors," reads the press announcement.

G.SKILL's latest TridentZ RGB kits come with eight DDR4 16GB modules at 3333MHz frequency, with CL timings of 16-18-18-38 and 1.35V of power.

Microsoft's new 'monster' 4K-ready Project Scorpio console is fully compatible with all existing Xbox One games, but what kind of performance boosts can we expect? Will all Xbox One games hit full 1080p 60FPS right off the bat? Can we just pop in a game and expect improvements without any updates and patches? Let's find out.

Xbox One games will benefit from Project Scorpio's improved hardware and highly synergized Windows 10 software toolset in five key ways:

We already know that Xbox One games will natively run better on Project Scorpio right out of the box. Xbox One games won't need any updates, enhancements or Forward Compatibility patches to tap the 4K Xbox's new Scorpio Engine. Just pop in the game and the console will scale its hardware to improve performance accordingly. This native optimization is similar to the PS4 Pro's new Boost Mode feature.

Valve will make some key changes to Steam's trading card economy in an effort to stop "asset flippers" from making cash on badly optimized game clones.

Steam's digital trading card economy is quite lucrative. Instead of making their money from actual game sales, a portion of Steam Greenlight indie developers actually make their cash from trading cards. In fact, some developers go so far as to create "asset flips," or multiple versions of the same game with subtle variations, and release them onto the platform for the lowest price as possible. Steam users then grab the game simply for its trading cards and sell the cards onto the market, generating a little kickback for the devs.

According to Jim Sterling, the internet's favorite D-list video games pundit who recently took a trick to Valve's offices to preview Steam's new changes, Valve has known about this practice for quite some time, and plans to do something about it.

I'm one of the biggest advocates of UltraWide monitors, so when Samsung announced they're working on 32:9 aspect ratio gaming displays, my excitement meter reached its end - and luckily I also have an UltraWide excitement meter.

Samsung teases its massive 49-inch 'mega-wide' panel with its 32:9 aspect ratio, something the company refers to as the "Grand Circle" format. It will rock a 3840x1080 resolution (which Samsung refers to as DFHD, or double full HD), on VA panel technology and a super-curvy 1800R curvative. The new 3840x1080 resolution panels will support up to 144Hz, with options for both AMD FreeSync and NVIDIA G-Sync.

The next monitor Samsung announced was the 'double 24.7-inch' which comes in at 44 inches, and a 29:9 aspect ratio. It is built from 2 x 24.7-inch displays, which end up being 44 inches in diagonal size. This new 44-inch monitor is meant to replace dual 24-inch displays, offering the higher 3840x1200 resolution.

AMD launched its next-gen Ryzen CPUs with a huge marketing train, but the gaming performance on Ryzen hasn't been so great so far - but, AMD have been quick on their 'Community Update' rollouts, with the third one now out.

AMD first launched Ryzen with tweaks to the High Performance power plan in Windows 10, and now with the third Community Update, AMD made tweaks to the Ryzen Balanced plan, which can be download here. AMD says that with the new Ryzen Balanced plan, there should be performance close to that of the High Performance setting - with AMD providing a graph that shows there's only a few percentage points between the Balanced and High Performance plans.

In the near future, AMD will make this new Balanced power plan part of the chipset drivers for Ryzen CPUs - while the power plan changes sometimes providing less performance in games - but AMD states "there are enough [affected] games to warrant a change".

It looks like Apple is pushing into its next-gen iMac in a big way, with Apple's Phil Schiller teasing the new improvements Apple are making to the iMac.

Schiller said: "With regards to the Mac Pro we are in the process of what we call 'completely rethinking the Mac Pro'. We're working on it. We have a team working hard on it right now, and we want to architect it so that we can keep it fresh with regular improvements, and we're committed to making it our highest-end, high-throughput desktop system, designed for our demanding pro customers".

The new iMac Pro will reportedly feature an Intel Xeon E3-1285 V6 processor, with 16GB (upgradeable to 32GB or 64GB of ECC memory), the latest NVMe-based SSD (up to 2TB) and AMD's latest GPU technology (most likely Vega, or the fastest Polaris at least). Thunderbolt 3 will be included, USB Type-C connectivity, and drum roll... a new keyboard.

NVIDIA's new GeForce 381.65 WHQL drivers are here, with optimizations for Quake Champions, support for Windows 10 Creators Update, and Dolby Vision support for games. You can grab the new drivers right here.

Inside, the new GeForce 381.65 drivers include DTS X and Dolby Atmos support for 5.1.2 speaker setups, and NVIDIA Ansel for Snape Pass and Kona. There are the usual bug fixes as well, with Battlefield 1's shimmering issues on grass/trees with SLI owners and in-game TAA enabled being fixed, as well as GTX 980 Ti owners getting stuck in low power state when they Alt-Tab from a game, and the new drivers also fix the flickering issues in Serious Sam HD when V-Sync is enabled.

They also include support for the newly-announced TITAN Xp graphics card, with the full list of release notes below:

Microsoft detailed its mid-cycle Xbox refresh console, Project Scorpio, teasing that the new 6TFLOPs beast was a huge leap in technology and performance over the Xbox One - and even the PS4 Pro.

Microsoft's upcoming Project Scorpio console rocks a custom x86-based 8-core processor at 2.3GHz, with a GPU that rocks 40 CUs based on Radeon GPU technology at 1172MHz - a huge leap of the 12 CUs of Radeon GPU tech found inside of the Xbox One (at 853MHz) and the 36 CUs found in the PS4 Pro at 911MHz.

As it stands, it's the best showing of AMD's awesome APU technology inside of Project Scorpio - and the advancements that have been made since the 28nm design inside of the Xbox One, and the refreshed Xbox One S console with the 14nm FinFET tech being used. The new APU inside of Project Scorpio is nothing short of impressive, with both Microsoft and AMD putting in the hard yards to get it right. Microsoft has made some stellar choices with the architecture and design work in Project Scorpio, and AMD is able to perfectly showcase its APU prowess inside.

Samsung hasn't even got its new Galaxy S8 or S8+ smartphones in the hands-on consumers yet, and we're already reporting on the new Galaxy S9 that is reportedly in production already.

According to the latest reports, Samsung is working in phases on the development of the Galaxyh S9 - with the first phase of the S9 development being the display. Sources have said: "Since late last month, a display team for the S9 has started the development work with aims to supply samples from mid-April. About a month after the display, other key parts such as modules are expected to develop in phases".

Samsung recently secured a huge OLED display order from Apple, who wanted 160 million OLED displays, which saw Samsung invest a massive $9 billion into OLED production.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy - NVIDIA has just announced its new TITAN Xp graphics card - without any leaks, without any pre-release details - the first high-end/enthusiast level graphics card to arrive without major leaks.

NVIDIA's new TITAN Xp is the world's most powerful graphics card, with NVIDIA bumping up a few of the specs of TITAN X - so we have 3840 CUDA cores (up from 3584 CUDA cores on TITAN X). There's still 12GB of GDDR5X, clocked at 11.4Gbps (compared to 10Gbps on TITAN X) on a 384-bit memory bus, which provides a huge 547.7GB/sec of memory bandwidth (up from the 480GB/sec on TITAN X).

NVIDIA has also thrown in 4 more SMs (60 SMs, up from the 56 SMs on TITAN X) while the GPU clocks hit 1582MHz (up from 1531MHz on TITAN X).

CD Projekt RED recently caught flak for trademarking the word "cyberpunk" to accommodate it's massive upcoming game Cyberpunk 2077. Now the studio clarifies exactly why it made the trademark, and promises not to use the trademark as a sledgehammer to smash other games and studios.

"We want to protect our hard work and we don't plan on using the trademark offensively. It's a self-defense measure only," CD Projekt RED writes in their official explanation.

The devs have spent an incredible amount of time, money and effort into the project so far, and the game itself will be the biggest project they've ever taken on--much bigger than The Witcher 3. The studio will spend the next four years working on the game, dedicating a huge portion of its staff--some several hundred people--to the goal, all while incorporating high-end next-gen technologies.

ZTE has officially unveiled the Nubia Z17 mini, and the earlier rumors proved to be true.

The phone has a 5.2-inch display, and it comes in two versions. First one is powered by Snapdragon 652 and comes with 4GB of RAM, while the other one is powered by Snapdragon 653 and has 6GB of RAM. Both configurations have 64GB of internal storage expandable with a microSD card.

The ZTE Nubia Z17 mini comes with dual camera setup (13MP) and a 16MP selfie shooter. Other features include a fingerprint sensor and a 2,950 mAh battery.