Latest News - Page 23

Another AMD AM5 processor has reportedly failed with a visible physical deformation, this time a Ryzen 9 9900X. Reddit user TheImmigrantEngineer posted about the incident, describing how their PC suddenly stopped working, with a Code 00 error displayed, and the red CPU debug LED visible on an MSI MAG X870E Tomahawk WiFi motherboard.

After removing the cooler and CPU to investigate, the owner found a small physical bump on the underside of the processor near the center of the contact pad area. The integrated heat spreader showed no visible damage, and the thermal paste spread appeared normal. The damage was between the silicon and the substrate beneath it, invisible from the outside until the chip was removed.

The system was less than a year old and was running a Corsair RM1000X power supply and a 240mm DeepCool AIO cooler. The PSU was tested in another system without issues, ruling it out as the cause. No manual overclocking or voltage tuning was applied, though Precision Boost Overdrive was enabled in the BIOS, meaning the system was not running a fully stock configuration. The BIOS in use was from early 2026 and was flashed sometime between late January and early February, which rules out any early AM5 launch BIOS issues as a contributing factor.

Valve knows dataminers are reading its code, and now it's poking fun at them. A new variable discovered in a recent Dota 2 update by dataminer Gabe Follower is named "m_bHackWhyAreYouGuysReadingOurVariableNames." This means that Valve's developers are fully aware of the community combing through every Half-Life 3 update for references.

The variable does not confirm anything about Half-Life 3. It does, however, show how closely dataminers are tracking Valve's codebase, with even trivial internal labels being examined for possible HLX references across Dota 2, Counter-Strike 2, and Steam updates.

For context, HLX has been the reported internal codename for a new Half-Life project. Dataminers have linked various references in Valve titles to a revamped physics engine featuring dynamic destruction, realistic vehicle behavior, and AI NPCs that react to environmental changes. None of this has been confirmed by Valve, and the company has not commented on the matter.

Sources at Bungie tell Forbes' Paul Tassi that the current Destiny 2 situation isn't the result of some kind of revenge-based culture war against the developer, and that what's happening with Destiny 2 is just business and not necessarily personal.

Recent reports said that Sony could be clashing with Bungie behind the scenes, and that Destiny 2's retirement is a result of the fallout. That's not the case. Sources tell Bungie expert Paul Tassi that what's happening with Destiny 2 is financially motivated, principally due to a major reduction to the value of its games.

"This is almost entirely financial. Destiny 2 simply cost more than it made. Math--cruel math, but math. No one at Bungie has any belief this is some revenge idea," Tassi said.

AMD's next-gen Zen 6 architecture just got a lot more interesting. Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) has shared details from an alleged AMD insider who claims to have seen internal documentation with some lofty goals. Apparently, AMD's Zen 6 is targeting boost clocks of at least 7 GHz on at least one product.

Critically, this wasn't an aspirational goal from months ago, as the source confirms AMD was still targeting those speeds in Q1 2026. This suggests that the number is being taken seriously as we head into the final stages of silicon production. It is worth noting this covers at least one Zen 6 product, so the 7 GHz figure likely applies to the highest-end SKU, possibly an X-suffix flagship or a future X3D variant at launch.

This jump in clock speed would be historically significant. Previous leaks have already pointed toward AMD aiming for 7 GHz with Zen 6, and the process node making that possible is TSMC's N2P (2nm). Zen 6 CCDs skip the 3nm node entirely, jumping from Zen 5's 4nm to 2nm, which represents the same kind of multi-node leap AMD used when going from Zen 3 to Zen 4.

Halo Campaign Evolved won't get DLC content in the future, and there's no plans to add in major franchise features like Theater, the developers at Halo Studios have confirmed.

A bit ago, I identified an interesting trend that Halo Studios--and Xbox--might be able to capitalize on. The idea was simply to add new content to old games (well, newer versions of old games, to be exact). That's what Halo Studios is doing with the new Halo 1 remake, and they've added in three prequel missions that tell new storylines that have never been seen or played before.

Unfortunately, this trend won't continue. Halo Studios says there are no plans to add more prequel missions to Halo CE...or any DLC, for that matter. That means no Firefight, no Forge mode, no expanded story content. There isn't even a theater mode, and Halo Studios won't be adding one in. This is actually a big deal for hardcore Halo enthusiasts who do challenging speed runs and survival runs in the game, as theater playback allows gamers to study their plays and sessions for improvement.

No one knows how much GTA 6 will cost at launch, but the recent $90 listings aren't real--at least that's according to gaming's most renowned leaker.

Listings for GTA 6 were recently spotted on a Portuguese retailer's inventory in the FNAC marketplace, complete with a range of prices: €89.99, €119.99, €199.99, and even a SKU exceeding €200. This indicated that GTA 6 could cost $90 at launch, causing a wider discussion on video game prices, which already saw a baseline +$10 price hike in this generation.

Rockstar hasn't confirmed anything, and well-known leaker billbil-kun says that these prices aren't real, and instead represent arbitrary figures.

AMD has been in the news lately with its RDNA 4 lineup, but the focus is already shifting to what comes next. A new leak from Moore's Law is Dead (MLID), sourced from an unnamed major OEM partner, points to a mid-2027 launch window for RDNA 5-based Radeon desktop GPUs, with that source adding they would "be shocked" if the cards didn't arrive in 2027.

Importantly, this lines up with reports from Computex 2026, where OEM partners were already expecting an RDNA 5 release in the mid-to-late 2027 timeframe, adding credibility to the claim.

The timing also makes a lot of sense given the broader AMD roadmap. Both the next-gen Xbox "Project Helix" and the PlayStation 6 are reportedly powered by RDNA 5 semi-custom APUs, and both consoles are targeting a 2027 launch window as well. If the silicon is ready for console production, desktop Radeon cards are a natural follow-on.

The price of Grand Theft Auto 6 has been one of the most debated topics in gaming over the past two years, and a new listing from a major European retailer may have finally answered the question. Portuguese branch of FNAC, a multinational retail chain spanning France, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, and several other markets, has reportedly listed GTA 6 at €89.99 for the base edition, as first spotted by user fdst1983 on the ResetEra forums.

The listing also shows a Premium Edition at €119.99 and what appears to be a Collector's Edition at €199.99. The screenshot reveals several Rockstar Games SKUs, all tied to the confirmed launch date of November 19, 2026, which adds some weight to the leak's credibility. That said, the listing is unofficial, and Rockstar has not confirmed any pricing yet. The real numbers will come when pre-orders officially open on June 25.

We've been tracking GTA 6's pricing situation for a while. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter was among the first to suggest a $100 price point, while Bank of America predicted an $80 launch price that would set a new industry baseline. Even Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick hinted at a $70 to $80 range, stopping well short of the three-figure mark many gamers feared.

Assassin's Creed Hexe has been in troubled waters recently, but a new rumor suggests that things may finally be getting back on track. According to leaker Rogue Tx on X, Ubisoft has reportedly accelerated development of the game, with an internal target now set for June 2027 rather than a holiday window later in the year.

The shift comes after a decidedly rough stretch for Hexe. We covered the game's development struggles extensively at TweakTown, starting with the back-to-back director departures in early 2026. Creative director Clint Hocking left in February, followed shortly by game director Benoit Richer, who departed to co-found an indie studio. That's two key creative leads gone within two months.

Then things got worse when the game's new creative director, Jean Guesdon, reportedly removed 50 developers from the project as a cost-cutting measure. Moreover, reports emerged that the new creative director also brought with him a new creative vision. Apparently, this meant reworking core elements deemed too ambitious, such as the player's cat companion. This led to speculation that Assassin's Creed Hexe was moving away from what it once promised to be.

NVIDIA's open-source NVK Vulkan driver just closed a major gap with the company's proprietary Linux driver. Developers have merged initial DLSS support into Mesa 26.2-devel, meaning NVK can now offload AI upscaling in compatible Vulkan games running on Linux and Steam Play.

For context, NVK is the community-built Vulkan driver for NVIDIA GPUs developed within the Mesa graphics stack. It launched back in 2022 with the goal of giving Linux users a fully open-source alternative to NVIDIA's official driver, without sacrificing support for modern Vulkan features.

NVIDIA has not open-sourced DLSS itself. The upscaler still depends entirely on NVIDIA's own binaries and SDK. What changed is that NVK now implements VK_NVX_binary_import, a Vulkan extension that lets applications load and run NVIDIA's CuBIN binaries, prebuilt CUDA files, directly on supported GPUs. In simple words, that gives NVK a path to load the DLSS components bundled with games or the DLSS SDK, rather than reimplementing DLSS from scratch.

A user on a Taiwanese hardware forum reported that their ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 left visible discoloration on the PCH heatsink of an ASUS ProArt X870E-Creator WiFi motherboard after about 6 months of use. The system was installed entirely in ASUS hardware, including an ASUS ProArt PA602 case, making the incident particularly awkward for the company.

The discoloration appeared in the area of the motherboard directly below the graphics card. The user said the mark could be partially removed with a wet cloth and some pressure, but the heatsink could not be restored to its original condition. The graphics card itself showed no visible issues and continued working normally. The risk becomes even greater in systems where airflow around the card is not optimized.

The RTX 5090 is known to push extreme power figures, with typical load consumption around 700W and peak figures reportedly approaching 1,000W in certain scenarios. While motherboard heatsinks are usually coated with heat-resistant paint, heat radiating downward onto nearby components can still become a genuine concern at those power levels.

Nothing has confirmed that the successor to its CMF Phone 2 Pro will not be launching this year, with the company pointing directly at skyrocketing memory prices as the reason. Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis broke the news on X.

"We were working on a successor but with memory prices where they are right now, we can't build a phone that feels like a genuine step forward at a price that makes sense for CMF. As a result, we've decided not to launch a new CMF phone this year."

To put the price impact in perspective, the CMF Phone 2 Pro launched in the US in 2025 at $279, with the base model starting at around Rs. 18,999, roughly $200, in India. Evangelidis said that launching the exact same hardware today would push the price to somewhere between $318 and $370, before accounting for any actual hardware upgrades a true successor would need.

More samples of Intel's Core 300 "Wildcat Lake" CPUs are starting to appear on PassMark. Interestingly, the Intel Core 3 304 just pulled off something nobody expected from the bottom of the Wildcat Lake stack. Recently, a third PassMark entry was submitted for the entry-level Wildcat Lake chip, and it shows it matching the Apple A18 Pro in single-threaded performance, both landing at exactly 3,982 points.

That's a notable jump, especially for a chip that sips just 15W of power. The previous best for the Core 3 304 was 3,632 single-thread points, so this third sample pushed it meaningfully higher. With only three samples in the database, the chip's current average sits at 3,676 points, putting it around 8% behind the A18 Pro overall, but the individual peak score tells a different story.

Multi-threaded performance is also competitive, with the 304 sitting at a CPU Mark of around 11,543 versus the A18 Pro's 11,804, which is remarkably close given that the Core 3 304 has one fewer core. On average, the Core 3 304 is about 8% slower than the Apple A18 Pro in single-threaded performance, while being only 2.2% slower in multi-threaded results.

We may have official confirmation of Sony's stance on PC ports, but Sony didn't hold a press conference for this one. The company recently filed its 2026 annual business strategy report, and we noticed that some important bits were missing. The 2025 version of this document explicitly stated that Sony would "continue its efforts to deploy its first-party titles to multiple platforms such as PC." That sentence is completely gone from the 2026 filing, with no replacement.

What took its place is a brand-new section dedicated to AI. Sony now says it is "utilizing AI to unleash the creativity of studios," framing AI-powered tools as a way to boost developer productivity and free up time for building richer game worlds. Now, we have previously known of Sony projects that have at least been assisted by AI, so this stance is not that new, all things considered.

There's more to it than just the development pipeline: Sony also plans to use AI to personalize PlayStation Store recommendations and route transactions more efficiently. This is a big change in tone from Sony's previous public stance, in which its leadership emphasized that AI should support creators rather than replace them. Now, it looks like Sony is using AI across much of its development pipeline, including software development, 3D modeling, and animation.

UPDATE: Halo Studios made the announcement in error. PS Plus is not required to play split-screen co-op on PlayStation 5.

Microsoft, Sony, and/or Halo Studios have kicked off another controversy during a time when absolutely none of them need it.

Unfortunately, it's now been revealed that Halo's 25th anniversary will be marred by what feels like an unnecessary hurdle for gamers. Halo is coming to PlayStation for the first time ever with the new Halo Campaign Evolved remake, but instead of just having a normal release that boosts sales, the game requires some extra steps in order to play with friends on PlayStation.

An enthusiastic RTX 5090 owner attempted to install a second 12V-2x6 power connector on their flagship Blackwell graphics card in a desperate attempt to reduce the chance of the connector melting. Unfortunately, the owner ended up bricking the graphics card as a result of the mod and was forced to send the card to a repair shop to get the GPU fixed. YouTube channel northwestrepair covered the story and showed how the 5090 owner was able to install a second power connector on their card. Luckily for the owner, the card was saved after the technician transplanted the GPU and memory to a new PCB.

The RTX 5090 owner had an air-cooled AORUS variant with a second 12V-2x6 slot on the PCB, making it possible to solder on a second power connector to the card. At first glance, the existence of this slot makes it seem as if the card can support two connectors, but unfortunately, northwestrepair revealed that the card is not wired from the factory to support two connectors simultaneously. Specifically, the card reportedly lacks any shunt resistors wired up to the second power connector slot, making it impossible for the PCB to monitor and regulate power coming from the second connector. As a result, when the owner went to power the card with the secondary plug connected, the card overheated and burned a hole through the PCB.

The unfortunate RTX 5090 owner was likely inspired by existing RTX 5090 graphics cards with dual 16-pin connectors and modders who have successfully installed a second power connector on RTX 5090s. Earlier this year, reports surfaced that a modder had successfully added a second 12V-2x6 power connector to a GIGABYTE AORUS Xtreme Waterforce RTX 5090, which coincidentally has the same PCB layout as the AORUS RTX 5090 repaired in this story. MSI's RTX 5090 Lighting Z and Galax's RTX 5090 HOF are also cards that come equipped with two 16-pin power connectors from the factory.

Activision has an interesting strategy to get past Sony's lack of native PlayStation 3 backwards compatibility on modern PlayStation consoles.

In an unprecedented move that's rarely seen in the video games industry, Activision has announced it will re-release Black Ops and Black Ops II on PS4 and PS5. The publisher confirms that these will just be ports, not remasters, and will have campaign, multiplayer, and zombies. Black Ops II remains the fastest-earning Call of Duty game in history with $500 million made in just 1 day of sales.

The strategy here feels obvious; Xbox is bleeding profits with a paltry 3% margin and needs more higher-margin earnings. These gen 7 Call of Duty games are still popular and Microsoft/Activision hope to capitalize on nostalgia as well as pent-up demand for these classics, as Sony has underserved PS3 games to its PS4 and PS5 generations because there's no direct PS3 software compatibility for today's PS consoles.

It looks like GPU prices just will not catch a break in 2026. NAND and DRAM prices have already gone through the roof thanks to the AI boom, and now GPUs are not far behind. According to Gazlog, which picked up the report from Chinese board channel sources, AMD is gearing up for another Radeon RX 9000 price increase of around 10-15%, expected to kick in during Q3 2026, possibly as early as July.

The reason behind the price hike is thought to be the rising GDDR6 VRAM costs. Since AMD bundles GPU dies with VRAM before shipping kits to its AIB partners, any jump in memory procurement costs gets passed straight down the chain. The spot price of GDDR6 has ballooned since late 2025, and AI data center demand shows no sign of letting up. As memory gets more expensive, graphics cards get more expensive too.

We've been covering this trend for a while. TweakTown reported the first confirmed RX 9000 price bump back in December 2025, followed shortly by AMD's broader price-hike announcement. Even AMD's own VP David McAfee, when we interviewed him at CES 2026, wouldn't rule out further increases. So the pattern here is pretty well established.

Black Myth Wukong has now sold more than 30 million copies, beating out entire video game franchises--a feat that few video games can pull off except for Minecraft, Call of Duty, or maybe Grand Theft Auto V.

A new document published by China's Belt and Road initiative--an infrastructure strategy focused on bolstering economic trade--has revealed some surprising sales figures for Black Myth Wukong. According to the figures, Game Science's myth-infused action game has sold an astounding 30 million copies in less than 2 years on the market.

To put those numbers into perspective, Call of Duty games used to sell tens of millions of copies upon release, and Vanguard, which was largely believed to have missed expectations, still sold 30 million copies in a similar timeframe. Other titles like Grand Theft Auto V typically ship 5 million or so units per quarter, leading to roughly 20 million copies shipped per year.

The new Steam Controller launched on May 4 at $99 and was gone in under 30 minutes. Valve's payment systems buckled under the load almost immediately, and before the dust settled, scalpers had already flooded eBay with units priced at $300 or more, with some listings climbing past $550. It was a chaotic launch by any measure, and Valve acknowledged the frustration pretty quickly.

The company moved fast and introduced a reservation queue shortly after, modeled on the system it used for the Steam Deck. To keep scalpers out, Valve capped purchases at one per account and locked out any account created after April 27, 2026, or accounts with payment disputes or bans. It was a reasonable fix for the chaos, but, as it turns out, the queue itself has become a much bigger problem.

Valve has now updated the Steam Controller page with three estimated delivery windows: by September 2026, by December 2026, or in 2027. New reservations placed today land squarely in that last bucket. The company says demand exceeded expectations when the controller launched last month. While reservations remain open, the current queue already exceeds Valve's production capacity for the rest of the year.