Latest News - Page 2410

It has barely been 48 hours with AMD's new Radeon RX 480 on the market, and we're already hearing rumors that NVIDIA will launch its new GeForce GTX 1060... next week.

Reports are surfacing that the company will launch the GP106-based GeForce GTX 1060 with a 120W TDP, 1280 CUDA cores on 10 SMs, with 80 TMUs and 48 ROPs. There'll reportedly be 3GB and 6GB models on a 192-bit memory interface rocking GDDR5.

NVIDIA already has two 16nm FinFET-based cards on the market in the form of the GeForce GTX 1080 and GeForce GTX 1070, but it will be hurting in the coming weeks in the mid-range market with AMD chewing up the $199-$239 market with its next-gen Radeon RX 480 video card. NVIDIA will need to maintain its market dominance in the mid-range, but it needs a new card to hit that market - so enter the GTX 1060.

AMD's next-gen Radeon RX 480 is finally here, and it rocks quite a lot of performance for $199 - but what about the CPU side of the business? Zen isn't going to be here for a little while yet, but the company has reached a milestone in its production.

AMD has started the rollout of its enterprise-class Naples processor, which is a 32-core beast with 64 threads of CPU power. Naples is the codename of AMD's next Opteron platform, which will support the 32-core CPU. Naples will reportedly be built into an 8-core base design, with 16- and 32-core chips being made in an MCM (Multi-Chip Module) format.

The new Naples processor was spotted on the Zauba shipping database, where it was noted to be shipped on June 20, listed as the Naples Test Board. AMD will be tapping the 14nm FinFET process for its Naples CPU, just like the Polaris architecture on the GPU side of things. It will support 8 memory channels, and up to 128 PCIe 3.0 lanes, and up to 32 x SATA/NVMe devices.

When AMD flew out the technology press to Macau for its huge unveiling of the Radeon RX family, including the Radeon RX 480 which we reviewed yesterday, one of the more exciting things was something I couldn't talk about... until now.

AMD teased that it had acquired HiAlgo, and while HiAlgo sounds like some random little company of no significance - it is of the utmost significance when you begin putting the pieces of the puzzle together. First off, what does HiAlgo do? HiAlgo, as it explains on their website; "developers apps for 3D games that improve [the] gaming experience". There are three different products HiAlgo has created; BOOST, CHILL, and SWITCH.

BOOST is a utility that HiAlgo says will make your "gameplay smoother, with smaller lag" during those intense moments. BOOST will lower the rendering resolution which in turn, improves the performance of the game. CHILL is a smart framerate limiter that prevents both the CPU and GPU from hitting its maximum temperature, while at the same time it saves power and provides a few additional minutes of battery life to your gaming notebook. SWITCH on the other hand is very interesting, as it allows you to change the game resolution from 100% to just 50% with a single push of the button, providing an instant performance boost.

Pokemon in itself is quite weird, but in a good way...at least sort of. And over the years the series has gotten weirder and weirder, bringing us to the bizarre assembly of Pocket Monsters revealed today.

Remember those wacky creatures shown in the recent Pokemon leak? Remember how everyone thought they were fake? Well, it turns out they're 100% real--yes, even that weird bug-type Charjabug that literally looks like a bus, and Bruxish the fish with lips--and all of them will be featured in the upcoming Pokemon Sun & Moon 3DS games.

The Pokemon Company released a new video showcasing each of the seven new Pokemon in all of their peculiar glory, and check below for pics and full BIOS of Drampa (hi Falcor!), Togedemaru, Vikavolt (not so bad), Cutiefly (okay this one is awesome), Bruxish (why is this even a thing?!), Charjabug (hilarious) and Tapu Koko (pretty neat). There was also an eighth snake/gem-like Pokemon revealed in the trailer, but so far no details have sprung up about it.

The Xbox business is looking pretty bright these days and has for some time, but it wasn't always roses. According to Xbox co-creator Ed Fries, at the initial proposal meeting Microsoft founder Bill gates started things off by throwing the Powerpoint deck from Fries' team on the table and saying, "This is a f***ing insult to everything I've done at this company."

Fries recalls in his retrospective interview with IGN that former Xbox executive James Allard was "in shock for a minute", and then himself stepped in only to be quickly shut down by Gates. Others attempted to reason with Gates but were unsuccessful, around which time then-CEO Steve Ballmer backed up Gates and stated the Xbox was financially unsustainable.

After several hours, both Gates and Ballmer softened when an observer asked, "What about Sony?" and explained that allowing the company to dominate the living room could be a "future threat to Microsoft." This seemed to flick a switch, and shortly after the plan was approved. Even more, Fries and his team were given "full approval to do Xbox" and to work independently from Microsoft.

The NVIDIA Shield 3.2 update promised last month is here at last, complete with support for a variety of exciting new features, particularly if you're heavy into video content.

On the media end, you get support for Netflix HDR (making Shield the first standalone device to feature it), 4K and 60FPS YouTube watching, and 4K Vudu (a Walmart-owned movie streaming service). As well, Plex (which organizes and streams all of your content), can use the Shield to run a Plex Media Server directly from the set-top box.

Audio-wise, there's support for Dolby Atmos surround sound pass-through when using Vudu, MX Player, SPMC, or the Photos & Videos app.

eBay is currently holding a promotion that gives you $15 off for every $75 spent, and we've found an ingenious way to use it in tandem with Best Buy to rack up some serious savings.

Right now eBay's new Flash Sale cuts $15 off any $75 or more PayPal purchase when using the code CRUISEN2SUMMER, offering a nice incentive for a huge array of purchases from games, Steam gift cards, video cards, tech and more. Remember all the items in your cart have total up to at least $75, you have to check out with PayPal, and the code only works once per transaction per PayPal account.

So you could pick up a $100 Steam Wallet card for $85, or 2x $40 and a single $50 ($90 in Steam Wallet cash) for $75. If you're an Xbox One gamer, you could pick up some Xbox Store gift cards to prepare for Microsoft's upcoming Xbox Summer Sale.

I recently wrote about popular stock photo company Getty creating their own VR group and breaking it in by sending their photographers to the 2016 Rio Olympics. Well, Samsung and NBC are delivering the kind of Olympics experience we VR enthusiasts have all been craving: 85 hours of sportsing awesomeness viewable in virtual reality.

"The world's greatest sporting event is always a showcase for cutting edge technology, and we're thrilled to partner with Samsung and OBS to bring our viewers even closer to compelling Olympic action with virtual reality," said Gary Zenkel, President, NBC Olympics. "Olympic fans can be transported to iconic venues such as Maracana Stadium for an unprecedented view of the Opening Ceremony, and Copacabana Beach for an immersive beach volleyball experience in the sport's ultimate setting."

The 85 hours of content will be viewable exclusively on Samsung phones compatible with the Gear VR headset (Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note 5), via the NBC Sports app. As for the specifics of the programming, we'll be treated to the opening and closing ceremonies, men's basketball (including the semifinals and final), gymnastics, track & field, beach volleyball, diving, boxing, and fencing.

id Software's new arena-style shooter Quake Champions is all about blistering-fast FPS action, and is being made with "inhuman" enthusiast pro PC gamers in mind. The devs affirm that Quake Champions will rock an uncapped frame rate with up to 120Hz monitor refresh speeds--in other words, gaming experiences that are completely out of consoles' league.

In a recent interview with Gamespot, id Software creative director Tim Willits discussed why it's absolutely imperative that Quake Champions hits a consistent streamlined 120Hz at all times: "Most of us, and even me, I can't really tell the difference. But there are some players who are inhuman. And we can't come out and say we're going to make a game for them and not run ridiculously fast. Because if we lose the pro guys, we're in trouble. That's why it's a PC game. No excuses. No limitations."

During Quake Champion's official E3 2016 reveal, id Software promised that the multiplayer-only game is "aimed at hardcore fans" and provides the "challenge and rush you'd expect from our games," but the game won't be a true arena shooter for one big reason: classes. In an apparent attempt to make the game more accessible to new gamers, id is including classes which are made up of "diverse warriors with unique attributes and abilities."

Buying a smartphone today typically entails putting up with a lot of things you don't want to put up with, or being bothered to find a way around those things. The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge ($669 and $769, respectively), though, come with no such conditions and instead respect the customer in that they come unlocked and free of difficult-to-get-rid-of bloatware.

The somewhat rare approach means you can choose from most carriers (also nice if you spend a lot of time in foreign countries), likely get updates faster, and not be bogged down by difficult-to-get-rid-of and performance-taxing apps and services. On the latter point, you will still see some Google apps but just the "top tier" stuff; as for Samsung apps, those are entirely optional at setup.

While the minimalist approach to smartphone offerings has been happening a little more in recent times, it's a deviation for Samsung. And given it's the leading Android phone manufacturer, the shift could pave the way for even more choice from competitors going forward.

Irrational Games today announced the BioShock: The Collection remastered trilogy, prompting a good portion of existing owners to ask about free upgrades. Luckily the studio will offer a free upgrade program for PC gamers, but console players are out of luck.

If you already own BioShock 1 or 2 and/or the Minerva's Den DLC on PC, then you'll get a free version of that remastered game on PC. You won't get the full collection, of course, but you will get an upgraded remastered port of whichever game you own--so if you own the original BioShock, you'll get a free copy of BioShock from the remastered trilogy. If you own both, then you'll get both. BioShock: Infinite won't be remastered on PC, however, as Irrational says the game "already meets current-gen console standards and runs smoothly on high visual settings." Since the trilogy includes all singleplayer DLC, I'm assuming you'll only get a free copy of the base game, not all of its DLC; so if you own BioShock 2 and no DLC, you'll likely only get BioShock 2 remastered free.

"If you already own BioShock, BioShock 2, and/or Minerva's Den on Steam, you will be able to upgrade to the remastered version of the respective title(s) for free after release. It's a circus of values!" reads the official announcement page on Steam. Right now both BioShock games are deeply discounted to just $3.99 as part of Steam's Summer Sale, so if you want a remastered version be sure to pick them up.

After months of teasing, leaks, and filibustering, 2K Games has finally announced the BioShock Collection, an all-in-one remastering of the original BioShock trilogy for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

The BioShock Collection features upgraded visuals and enhancements of BioShock, BioShock 2 and BioShock: Infinite, but 2K didn't say whether we can expect 1080p 60FPS on console flavors. The publisher did say that only BioShock 1 & 2 would be remastered on PC, as BioShock: Infinite "already meets current-gen console standards and runs smoothly on high visual settings." Sadly, BioShock 2's mutltiplayer isn't included. Along with touched-up ports of the original games, the remastered collection comes packed with all singleplayer DLC for each game (check below for a list) and even little behind-the-scenes featurettes with Irrational's Ken Levine.

Hopefully the remaster doesn't jam all three games on a single disc. Based on the absolutely failure that was Halo: Master Chief Collection and Gearbox's janky Borderlands: Handsome Collection, packing in three high-def ports on a single Blu-ray disc is a recipe for disaster. The BioShock Collection will launch September 13, 2016 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

AMD changed things up with its new Radeon RX series, moving away from the Radeon R7/R9 naming system - towards something that will hopefully stick this time. The new Radeon 400 series is split into two subseries; the RX 400 and 400.

The Radeon RX parts will offer 1.5 TFLOPs or more of performance with at least 100GB/sec memory bandwidth - but for cards that don't have that type of speed, we can expect them to rock the Radeon 400 branding. AMD has also confirmed it will be using XX5 revisions, where we might see faster versions of the cards over time - especially as yields improve, leakage is minimized, or AMD wants to hit NVIDIA again with higher-clocked versions of their cards.

AMD says there are 9 tiers that are split into five groups, where Tier 6 (46X cards) might appear with both the RX 460 and non-RX 460. Tier 9 is the most exciting, where we can see higher than 256-bit memory bus with 4K gaming being the focus point here, which has me thinking - will the Radeon RX 490/495 be a Polaris-based design, or will AMD save this for the Vega architecture?

With the release of the new Radeon RX 480, AMD has released the Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.6.2 drivers that include support for the new Polaris 10-based video card.

The new drivers also include a new Crossfire profile for World of Tanks, and so much more. Notably, we have support for AMD's new Radeon Wattman - which is the company's new utility within Radeon Software that provides users with more control than ever before over their GPU. One of the big things that I'm happy to see is that there's now a Crossfire toggle, which allows you to enable Crossfire support globally for all games, instead of picking and choosing the games you want Crossfire enabled for.

Here's a full list of what to expect:

Sony isn't about to let Microsoft have all the console-upgrading fun: the Japanese gaming giant may reveal a new PS4 Slim model alongside its upgraded 4K-ready PS4 Neo in September.

According to Macquarie Securities analyst Damien Thong, Sony will unveil two new PlayStation 4 consoles at this year's Tokyo Game Show: a slimmer PS4 and the new upgraded PS4K that's built on AMD's new 14nm Polaris GPU technology for 4K upscaled gaming.

"Macquarie Securities analyst Damian Thong said Sony might also introduce a slimmer version of the PlayStation. Sony declined to comment on that possibility. The new variations of the console might be released at a game show in September, Mr. Thong said," reads a report from the Wall Street Journal.

To say Microsoft has been aggressive with encouraging users to upgrade to Windows 10 would be an understatement. Finally though, it says it will tweak the prompts to be more straightforward. By the sounds and looks of it, declining the offer will actually decline the offer now, instead of scheduling it without you knowing.

"Since we introduced a new upgrade experience for Windows 10, we've received feedback that some of our valued customers found it confusing," says Windows chief Terry Myerson. "We've been working hard to incorporate their feedback and this week, we'll roll out a new upgrade experience with clear options to upgrade now, schedule a time, or decline the free offer."

The cynic in me says this is Microsoft's calculated attempt at buying back some of the goodwill it's lost in recent months over this issue just before they were about to stop the prompts anyway, but hopefully it's a genuine move. In any case, be sure to keep an eye out this week for the change.

If E3 2016 taught us anything, it's that there's some awesome games coming this year and in 2017. We have titles like Dishonored 2, Watch Dogs 2, Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2 and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided all coming to PC. Normally I'd advise against pre-ordering games before reviews come out, but if you've already decided, be sure to save some cash with the deals listed below.

UK key distributor Funstock Digital is currently holding an attractive sale on some of the hottest yet-to-be-released PC games, knocking down the usual $64 price tag to $37 for most games. Sure you pre-order these games on Amazon and get 20% off with Prime, or even grab them on Best Buy with your Gamer's Club Unlocked, but those all require extra fees.

Check below for a list of games and their sale prices, and note that these are all PC digital downloads across various stores like Origin, uPlay and Steam.

The wait is over: if you signed up for Battlefield Insider, you may have your Battlefield 1 Closed Alpha invite in your inbox now, as we've received ours, as have some others. Likely the invites will be slowly rolled out, so if you don't see one yet, just keep checking over the coming days. Not everyone who signed up for Insider is necessarily guaranteed to receive one, however, so you may have to wait until beta to try the game for yourself.

Unfortunately, the game isn't downloading for some, presumably due to the high demand, but the errors should stop once the Origin team get everything sorted.

Rumor has it console players will be able to get in on the action too, so if you don't play on PC, still keep an eye out.

PlayStation 4 gamers will have to wait an undetermined amount of time to get Fallout 4 mod support.

Bethesda has officially delayed Fallout 4 mod capability on Sony's PS4 console. "We regret to say that the PS4 Mods Beta for Fallout 4 has been delayed. We will update everyone when we can," the studio wrote on Twitter.

PS4 owners were supposed to get mod support right about now, but the studio has faced tons of unexpected issues on the platform including performance and memory issues. This is particularly interesting given the PS4's sizable power boost over Microsoft's Xbox One, but the console utilizes an entirely different hardware configuration. Meanwhile, Xbox One players have access to an ever-expanding suite of Fallout 4 mods, and the console's tight integration with Windows 10 could have something to do with that.

Nintendo has begun preparations for the manufacture new NX console ahead of its March 2017 launch.

In the latest Nintendo Investor Relations meeting, company director Hirokazu Shinshi revealed that the company is about to flip the switch on the NX's manufacturing. Nintendo outsources the creation of its products like the new NX console to automated fabless manufacturing facilities in China, and the company is currently trying to pinpoint an exact amount of NX consoles that should be manufactured for its launch.

"Manufacturing automation has long been practiced in Japan, and is now done in China. While making the same product for a long time, the amount manufactured changes based on things like the Christmas season," Shinshi said during the meeting. "It's easy to automate unchanging production amounts, but it's difficult when they do change. We're thoroughly communicating with our partners to make adjustments. As for the #NX, manufacturing is being prepped. We're considering how much to automate."