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Microsoft has provided game developers with Xbox One X GPU benchmarks for nine different games, and that information has since been published to give players an idea of what the new 4K console "beast" can do.

Eurogamer's Richard Leadbetter got a hold of the Xbox One X GPU benchmarks list and has compiled a ton of data, insights, and explanations in a jam-packed article. The nine benchmarked games are anonymous, but Leadbetter has a few guesses on what they could be.

The data is based on GPU frame time captures from PIX, Microsoft's Performance Inspector for Xbox which captures game profiles that allow for developer-side optimizations. PIX samples are captured from games running on original Xbox One consoles to make a performance profile. The profile is then passed through the Xbox One X's Scorpio Engine to "port" the game to 4K resolution in the most basic way possible. Remember that the Xbox One X will natively boost performance of all Xbox One games by default without tapping any of the new hardware, similar to the PS4 Pro's Boost Mode. Leadbetter affirms the GPU benchmarks via PIX didn't tap additional console hardware features, and the data exists outside of gameplay so "30 or 60FPS caps are irrelevant."

Samsung recently launched its this year's flagships, the Galaxy S8 and S8+, and while we are waiting for the Note8, it seems that the company is preparing another smartphone - the Galaxy S8 mini.

According to reports, the Galaxy S8 mini will feature a 5.3-inch screen, although it might feel smaller due to the extra wide aspect ratio (18.5:9). The device is rumored to be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 821, the same processor used in LG G6.

The Galaxy S8 mini should come with 4GB of RAM, same as the Galaxy S8, and 32GB of internal storage. It should also feature a fairly high-end feature, an iris scanner.

Nintendo currently has no plans to bring its games to desktops or laptops.

The House of Mario has changed dramatically over the years and is now a big success again. The company spent years swimming against the current with its stubborn attachment to a clandestine business model, but has since turned everything around by embracing market trends. Nintendo traditionally has tried to make trends instead of follow them, and this approach worked quite well over the years until it hit a brick wall with the Wii U.

Now that the Kyoto-based games-maker has evolved by embracing a new age of technology and market trends, it's successfully done both: it's changed the game with its massively popular new Switch handheld-console hybrid, and swims with the current by bringing its world-class IP to smartphones for the first time.

There's a significant rumor on AMD's upcoming Radeon RX Vega graphics card, with WCCFTech reporting that there's a new listing of RX Vega with the code 687F:C1, showing details on RX Vega's GPU clocks, HBM2 clocks and memory bandwidth.

As previously rumored, AMD will reportedly launch the Radeon RX Vega with 8GB of HBM2, featuring memory bandwidth of 484GB/sec. The GPU will be clocked at 1630MHz, which is a big jump over the 1200MHz GPU clocks in previous rumors. The 8GB of HBM2 is also clocked higher than previous rumors, from 700MHz up to 945MHz.

Performance wise, it seems to be dropping right into where I expected it to hit: a competitor to NVIDIA's refreshed GeForce GTX 1080 with its 8GB of GDDR5X clocked at 11Gbps. AMD's new Radeon RX Vega hits 31,873 graphics score in 3DMark 11, which is around 4000 more than the GTX 1080 and double the score of the GTX 1070. The GTX 1080 Ti is still much faster, but I think we'll see another competitor in a few months for the GTX 1080 Ti in Vega form. For now, GTX 1080 11Gbps performance is great... for AMD, as FreeSync gaming displays are significantly cheaper than their G-Sync counterparts.

Despite only releasing in March, the Nintendo Switch has topped Japan's domestic hardware sales and rallies the country's total console sales for the first half of 2017.

Nintendo's new Switch handheld-console hybrid has had a tremendous effect on Japan's console gaming segment. The new system, which launched in March and combines both handheld and console form factors, has only been available for four out of the total six-month sales aggregation period and has still managed to dominate Japan's 1H 2017 video games hardware sales.

Mobile gaming reigns supreme in Japan, but the Nintendo Switch has managed to spark growth in the country's console hardware market. Japanese games website Famitsu tracked hardware and software sales for the last 26 weeks from December 2016 to June 2017, showing substantial growth in hardware sales for the first half of 2017.

With a population that far exceeds 1 billion, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that China is the largest gaming market in the world, and is expected to be a $29 billion industry this year.

Gamasutra reported from IHS Market Technology that while consoles were illegal in China until 2014, mobile and PC gaming is massive in the country with 51% of the market. Xbox One and PS4 sales have only hit 500,000 - but will continue to grow, as they've only been on the market for just over 3 years now.

IHS said in the report: "This slow adoption is a reflection of having to compete with the entrenched PC and mobile games markets and existing grey market console imports from Hong Kong and Japan, which are often cheaper than the official versions of the consoles. Sony has experienced a mild increase in sales momentum in 2017 and will be further helped by the recent launch of the PS4 Pro, which has been priced aggressively to compete with grey market imports. The company also benefits from a well-established brand and its entrenched console lead versus Xbox in most Asian territories".

Project CARS 2 is looking to be one of the most expansive and detailed car games ever made, with Bandai Namco and developer Slightly Mad Studios announcing that Project CARS 2 will be home to 180 cars from 35 elite brands that are fully licensed models, approved, and tested.

The publisher adds that the car list will reflect 9 disciplines of motorsport, and 29 motorsport series in-game. Each in-game car has been selected to represent a specific moment in time, and has been built to exacting standards, with the architecture of the car approved by each and every carmaker. The handling has been tested and approved by a handful of real-world professional drivers.

The full list of cars for Project CARS 2 can be found right here, and if you want to compare against the first game, the original Project CARS had just 65 cars compared to the 180 in its successor. Project CARS 2 launches in September.

In the quest for GPU dominance, we'll see both NVIDIA and AMD shifting away from increasingly larger GPU dies, to many smaller GPU dies. NVIDIA has recently talked about building a MCM package (Multi-Chip-Module package) that is a collection of chips (GPU/CPU/memory/controllers) onto the same chip interposer (similar to GPU/HBM on the interposer of Fiji/Fury X and Vega/RX Vega) that are interconnected through ridiculously fast I/O lanes.

This has already been done, but not on the consumer side of NVIDIA's GeForce graphics cards. AMD is ahead of the game here, as they're using their next-gen Infinity Fabric link between EPYC CPU dies, with 8 cores per die that are interconnected through Infinity Fabric. AMD will be using this same method for their next-gen Navi GPU architecture, which should debut sometime later this year or in 2018.

NVIDIA is proposing that their MCM design might be very different to the traditional design of massive GPU and a couple of DRAM dies on the package, changing it over to MCM and using smaller versions of their GPUs - but just many more of them, as well as much more DRAM dies. The GPU and DRAM dies would be connected through I/O and the controller chipset on-die, versus on-chip.

Blizzard has announced the official PC requirements of StarCraft: Remastered, with some tame requirements compared to the AAA games of today. You won't need a beefy PC at all, but StarCraft is also not a crazy high-end game either.

You'll need at a minimum, an Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor with 2GB of RAM and a GeForce 6800 or ATI Radeon X1600 Pro with 256MB of VRAM, and 2.8GB of HDD space. Recommended requirements are bumped up to an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ or better, 4GB of RAM, and the same 2.8GB of HDD space.

StarCraft: Remastered Requirements:

With the Ethereum mining boom exploding and creating a black hole for all Radeon RX 470/480 and RX 570/580 graphics cards, AMD has a massive inventory of Radeon RX 460 graphics cards that the company will be upgrading to the purported Radeon RX 560D.

The news is coming from MyDrivers, which is reporting that the Radeon RX 560D will have 896 stream processors, meaning the RX 560D is a simple rebrand of the RX 460. MyDrivers says that the new Radeon RX 560D will use up to 50% less power than the RX 560, which could make it perfect for mining. If you had 6 x RX 560Ds per machine and had many of those machines... well... that could be a cheap little power efficient beast for ETH mining.

Fortnite isn't too far away now, with Epic Games revealing what resolution and frame rate it will be running at on both the Xbox One X coming in November, and the PS4 Pro - oh, and PC.

Epic Games changed things up with Fortnite, which blends the elements of sanbox, construction and survival into a game where you have to team with othe players to prepare your fortress during the day, for the monsters that will attack at night.

In an interview with GamingBolt, Fortnite Producer Zak Phelps talked about the graphics performance across the platforms, saying that the PC version will look the best if you have the hardware to enable all of the settings and ensure a smooth frame rate. He added: "Resolution and frame rate is all dependent on your PC and what you can run. PS4 Pro, Xbox X, it's going to look really good in 4K. We're going to allow the resolutions that we can support and frame rate at 30 frames per second. We've turned on several key PC pieces on Epic settings. We're able to run the game on Xbox One X, and PS4 Pro".

Back in January, HTC announced that they would announce only six to seven new devices this year because they want to focus on quality instead of quantity. They already unveiled the U Ultra and U Play, followed by their this year's flagship, the HTC U11.

It seems that the company might launch another smartphone soon. According to a report, HTC is working on a device codenamed Ocean Life.

The mid-range device should be powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 660 and feature a 5.2-inch 1080p display.

Earlier this week, Samsung relaunched the Galaxy Note7 under a new name, the Galaxy Note Fan Edition, and we aren't far from the launch of the new member of the Note family - the Note8.

The phone is rumored to be powered by Qualcomm's yet to be announced Snapdragon 836 and come with dual rear camera setup. We've also heard rumors that the phone might come with 8GB of RAM, which is double from 4GB of RAM what the Galaxy S8 has.

Read also: Samsung relaunches the Galaxy Note7 priced at $600

It seems that the fingerprint sensor could become a part of history, at least when it comes to Apple's iPhones.

According to a new report, Apple might not even try to embed the fingerprint scanner under the display. Instead, they might ditch it altogether.

The report states that Apple's next iPhone could have a feature that lets you unlock your device using your face instead of a fingerprint.

ASUS has announced a new member of the ZenFone family - the ZenFone 4 Max.

The phone comes in two versions - powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 430 and Snapdragon 425. The device has up to 4GB of RAM and 16/32/64GB of internal storage.

The ZenFone 4 Max features a 5.5-inch 1080p screen and runs on Android 7.0 with ZenUI.

GIGABYTE has announced their new mini-ITX motherboard ready for AMD Ryzen processors, with their new AB350N-Gaming Wi-Fi motherboard that is ready for AMD's "performance-class" B350 chipset.

This means we have most of the functionality of the flagship X370 chipset, but is cut down slightly. The table above explains it easily.

Moving onto the board itself, the GIGABYTE AB350N-Gaming Wi-Fi looks great with its black and silver style, with 2 x DIMM slots and a single x16 PCIe slot. There's some overclocking headroom on the board with GIGABYTE deploying an advanced all-digital six-phase VRM with an International Rectifier controller, IR PowIRstage ICs and solid state capacitors. LN2 cooling even works on the AB350N-Gaming Wi-Fi, with GIGABYTE including 4-pin hybrid fan headers that are specific to LN2 cooling... so expect mITX boards to play with the big boys in LN2 records.

If you're feeling a bit nostalgic and don't have much to spend on a new smartphone, HMD Global has announced they're launching the Nokia 6 smartphone in the US in the next few days.

The new Nokia 6 will be available in two colors, and exclusive to Amazon for the time being, with two more colors and an extended range of places to buy the Nokia 6 in the coming weeks. The US version of the Nokia 6 is a lesser-specced handset than what is available in China, with less RAM and NAND flash storage. But I'm also sure you've been wondering who the hell HMD Global is, and why they're selling Nokia smartphones in the US.

HMD and FIH Mobile (which happens to be a subsidiary of Foxconn) have worked together on designing the Nokia 6 smartphone, along with Nokia itself providing some tips. For now, all Nokia smartphones run a stock version of Android 7.1 with all of the upgrades, and no bloat on top.

ASUS has surprised with the release of the first consumer-grade 10GbE card at a very reasonable price of just $99, and thanks to its PCIe 3.0 x4 connection, it will fit into most modern PCs.

ASUS taps the Aquantia silicon for its XG-C100C adapter, which supports 10/5/2.5/1Gbps networking standards as well as 100Mbps (why, oh why) through normal RJ45 and Cat5e/Cat6 cabling. ASUS uses the Aquantia AQtion AQC107 controller that supports five networking standards (100M, 1G, 2.5G, 5G, and 10G) through PCIe 3.0 x4, and has LEDs for network activity and connection speeds so you're not in the dark over your 10GbE speeds.

The new 10GbE network adapter is capable of pushing 1GB/sec over your network, if it's feeding into another 10GbE machine or a 10GbE-capable NAS or switch. ASUS has its new XG-C100C available at US retailers for $99, which is a freakin' steal. Aquantia sells its own AQC107-based cards for $130, so it's actually cheaper to buy the ASUS XG-C100C, which is powered by the identical chip.

We know that Samsung is working on its own standalone VR headset, but now VR eye-tracking company Visual Camp, has teased Samsung's secret new standalone VR headset prototype called Exynos VR III.

Samsung's purported Exynos VR III headset is powered by a 10nm SoC with Mali G71 graphics, and can power dual "WQHD+" displays (2560x1440 or so) at 90Hz, or a single 4K panel at 75Hz. Samsung's secret new VR headset sports gaze tracking, as well as hand tracking and facial expression recognition. With enough sensors, Samsung could have inside-out motion tracking which is the bleeding edge for new mobile VR headsets.

What exactly does the gaze tracking do, you ask? Well, Samsung's new headset - and I'm sure Qualcomm and others are working on similar tech, is actually foveated rendering. This means that with gaze tracking, the headset will push rendering power to where your eyes are focused. You can see in the image above, the gaze point is to the upper right - so why should the headset render everything to the left and under it in 100% quality... that's not how your eyes work, so rendering power saved is a huge win.

It appears that Skynet wants us all on Big Pharma drugs, with British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) looking to AI to design better, more efficient - and I'm sure, more profitable drugs.

GSK announced a new partnership with Exscientia, a British company that specializes in drug design. The two will work toegther to use Exscienta's AI-enabled platform to discover new, high-quality drug candidate-quality molecules. GSK has tasked Exscientia to work on 10 specific disease-related targets, and if they hit those targets, GSK will write a cheque for $43 million in research payments.

The partnership will see the companies tapping into the power of supercomputers and machine learning in order to see how new compounds will behave, and by speeding this process up with the help of crazy amounts of computing power aided by AI, it will save the company both time and money. Human researchers are nowhere near as efficient as AI and supercomputers working every second of every day with a billion things going on at once, which could mark a very big change for medicine.