Latest News - Page 367

How does $430 USD sound for a GeForce RTX 4060? What about $1,270 for a Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 7900 XTX or $760 for a Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 7800 XT? Or, if you're looking for something a little more current, like the brand-new GeForce RTX 5080 - how does $1,540 sound? Yes, the current state of the gaming GPU market is a little depressing as these prices are based on the current best-selling GPUs at the online retailer Newegg.

With NVIDIA launching four of its new GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs so far in 2025 and AMD rolling out the well-received Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT combo, we've not only seen these new cards sell out instantly - most models are premium designs with price points significantly higher than the MSRP. The GIGABYTE Gaming GeForce RTX 5080, available for $1,539.99 at Newegg, is being sold with a 54% markup over the $999 MSRP set by NVIDIA.

It's a similar situation at Micro Center, where select stores are currently selling GeForce RTX 5070s starting from $700 and GeForce RTX 5080s starting from $1400. The bad news is that the inflated prices also affect previous-generation cards like the GeForce RTX 4060.

"How do you upgrade the look of Minecraft without messing up 15 years of design?" That's Minecraft developer Mojang introducing the game's long-awaited visual overhaul that will arrive as part of a 'Vibrant Visuals' update to the iconic game. The new "graphical set of enhancements" includes directional lighting, volumetric fog, sub-based shadows, and reflections.

Minecraft is not a game about delivering realistic or intricately detailed visuals; the primitive nature of the game's look is directly tied to its mechanics and sandbox-style survival gameplay. The good news is that even though the Vibrant Visuals update will introduce dramatically more complex graphics effects to the game, the differences don't seem to detract from what makes Minecraft look like Minecraft.

Chief Creative Officer Jens Bergensten calls it "a new look that still stays true to our creative principles. " Mojang confirms that Vibrant Visuals will be backward compatible with old worlds and will run locally so that players can play together with or without the graphical enhancements enabled. It's purely cosmetic.

Last year, we reported on Arm announcing its new Arm Accuracy Super Resolution, or Arm ASR, upscaling solution for gaming on mobile devices. Based on AMD's open-source FSR 2.2, Arm brought its new ASR technology to GDC last week, announcing that it was now available for game developers to play around with.

The open-source Arm ASR Experience kit includes an Unreal Engine plug-in for the complete source code and various tutorials and samples. In the official announcement, Arm notes that a Unity engine plug-in will be available later this year.

"With Arm ASR, you can easily improve frames per second, enhance visual quality, and prevent thermal throttling for smoother, longer gameplay," the company writes. Based on AMD's FSR 2 technology, which considers motion vectors and data, Arm has developed ASR for upscaling from sub-1080p resolutions.

AMD launched its first pair of RDNA 4 GPUs earlier this month with the Radeon RX 9070 and Radeon RX 9070 XT. However, unlike previous Radeon GPU generations, the company didn't release a reference design, meaning that all cards made available to the public and media were partner models like various RDNA 4 GPUs we've reviewed from GIGABYTE, ASUS, Sapphire, ASRock, and others.

Promo material for RDNA 4 showcases what looks like a reference design with the disclaimer that it was "for presentation only and not available for sale. " It turns out that AMD did create a number of these reference models, including the one for the Radeon RX 9070 pictured here.

A user on the Chinese-based Chiphell forums (via Videocardz) recently showcased the model we see here. The dual-fan design is reminiscent of AMD's reference designs for the RDNA 3-powered Radeon RX 7000 Series. Various applications and benchmarking software also recognize the compact 2.5-slot thick GPU, including 3DMark TimeSpy and Furmark, which points to it being a pre-release sample created by AMD for OEM use.

MSI has just teased a new GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card with an upgraded 24GB of GDDR7, up from the 16GB on the regular RTX 5080, on its own website.

The new GeForce RTX 5080 24GB graphics card is listed on MSI's own website for VGA compatibility for its MAG X870 Tomahawk Wi-Fi motherboard: the RTX 5080 but with 24GB of GDDR7 instead of 16GB. This could be an easy mistake, a typo... but it's not the first time MSI has let slip about an RTX 5080 24GB variant.

In a promotional video, MSI showed off its new GeForce RTX 5080 Vanguard graphics card with "24GB GDDR7" on the side of the retail packaging... yet it was never seen again, and every RTX 5080 has launched with 16GB of GDDR7. MSI also lists the RTX 5090, RTX 5070, and RTX 5070 with their correct VRAM amounts, but the RTX 5080 listing has 24GB with no 16GB variant mentioned, leaning into that belief that this is a typo.

Hardware makers are always trying to find innovative ways to differentiate their products from the other offerings out there, some of which are bold and clever ideas, and others - well, not so much.

So, here's a new one in the world of GPUs: fragrance.

Yes, in a similar idea to the built-in fragrance dispensers that ASUS has been incorporating into some laptop models, and indeed peripherals, Yeston has equipped its new RX 9070 XT Sakura Atlantis graphics card with faint hint of sea breeze.

Assassin's Creed Shadows sales data has been acquired by various outlets, revealing solid engagement figures for the new game.

Ubisoft has officially confirmed AC Shadows had reached 2 million players at release, beating out both Assassin's Creed Origins and Assassin's Creed Odyssey. That's not all the data Ubisoft has on Shadows, though. Any game-maker has robust tracking tools that show sales and engagement data across a plethora of platforms and networks. Some of this info has been acquired byInsider Gaming and VGC, and the tracking data leaks show that Shadows has earned a silver medal for the series.

According to the data, which was not authorized for release by Ubisoft, Assassin's Creed Shadows is second behind Valhalla in terms of players on day 1 of launch, but Shadows is ahead of Odyssey. There's also a few numbers associated with the games, too; Valhalla managed to get over 2.55 million players on day one, and Odyssey had nearly 1 million.

Apple's upcoming foldable 'iPhone Ultra" will reportedly adopt a style similar to Samsung and its Galaxy Z Fold series of foldables, while sharing many of the same technologies expected inside of the ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air.

In his new PowerOn newsletter on Bloomberg, insider Mark Gurman says that Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold smartphones are a "dream device" for things like work tasks and watching videos, and it's a category that "Apple can't ignore". Gurman says that he believes that Apple will launch a foldable iPhone in 2026 that will have a "similar design" to Samsung's foldable Galaxy Z Fold.

Inside, Apple's new purported iPhone Ultra will have many technologies shared with the company's also purported ultra-thin iPhone 17 Air, with Gurman noting the foldable iPhone should cost around $2000. He says that we can expect to wait a while before Apple ships its foldable iPhone Ultra in any large numbers, but the company has been severely lacking a foldable device, and it seems 2026 is when we'll see it happen.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has published a new filing against Google that reaffirms its position that Google currently holds a monopoly over the search engine market and demands the company begin selling off Chrome.

The DOJ hasn't held back in these claims, with the regulatory body stating in the filing that a part of its "Revised Proposed Final Judgement" (RPF) is calling for Google to be prohibited from making search-related payments to Apple and non-Apple search distribution partners to make Google the default search engine on iPhone.

Google is also called for to be prohibited from making "exclusive agreements with content publishers" that include bundling, typing, or commingling its general search engine or search access point with any other Google product, along with the prohibition of Google entering into agreements that are related to the distribution of general search services. And the big one, Google Chrome to be sold.

Microsoft has finally lifted a block preventing some Windows 11 users from installing the 24H2 update that applied to one particular game, a restriction that's been in place since the upgrade was first released.

In other words, it has taken very nearly six months - Windows 11 24H2 arrived at the very start of October 2024 - to resolve this compatibility block, albeit to be fair to Microsoft, the PC game in question is far from high-profile affair.

It's Asphalt 8 (Airborne), which was released well over a decade ago now (for Windows 8, in fact, in 2013). This game was prone to freezing up with an exception error under Windows 11 24H2, which could happen during gameplay, or while exiting a session (the latter being a scenario that was a good deal less annoying no doubt).

Bethesda has taken to its official YouTube channel to share a new trailer for Indiana Jones and then Great Circle, confirming the release date for the PS5 version of the game.

PlayStation 5 owners will be able to pick up the iconic whip and hate of Indiana Jones on April 17, or for those who pre-order the title, April 15, with developer MachineGames and Bethesda confirming the release date via a recently released trailer seen above.

The trailer features voice actors Nolan North and Troy Baker, who discuss what it means to voice iconic video game characters with a comedic undertone. For those who don't know, North was the voice behind Naughty Dog's lead character in its Uncharted series, Nathan Drake, and Baker was the voice behind Indy.

Samsung has just unveiled three new gaming monitors for gamers to feast their eyes over, and the first we will be taking a look at is the new Odyssey 3D.

Samsung has taken to its website to share details on the Odyssey 3D, a new 27-inch 3D gaming monitor that doesn't require glasses to experience 3D gaming. According to the press release, the Odyssey 3D, or the G90XF, uses advanced eye-tracking technology that has been paired with Samsung's proprietary lenticular lens system to create high-definition 3D images.

The feature is accessible through the Reality Hub app, and according to the press release, Samsung is currently working with "major game developers" to make the most of this new 3D technology. The first game to utilize the new technology will be The First Berserker: Khazan, scheduled to launch on March 28.

Visual intelligence could be heading to Apple's smartwatch line up as the company is exploring its implementation into the wearable devices with the additional of cameras.

In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman explained that Apple is exploring the idea of adding cameras to its smartwatches, which would be paired with visual intelligence features, illustrating Apple's overall intention to integrate AI into its catalog of devices. Gurman explains the main idea of Apple Watches gaining cameras and visual intelligence would be to enable users to query their watch about the surroundings of the user.

The smartwatch feature would be similar to the new Visual Intelligence feature on iPhones, where users can long press the camera button and be presented with a new interface that lets them choose if they want to take a picture of something and have it analyzed by Google Search or ChatGPT. This feature isn't very well known or used due to it currently being locked to the iPhone 16 series, but it's expected to be adopted further when Apple releases iOS 18.4 next month, and it becomes available on the iPhone 15 Pro.

Dune: Awakening is the highly anticipated new survival game from Conan Exiles developer

Funcom will launch on PC on May 21. It will debut in full Version 1.0 form, with no Early Access period or subscription model. Pre-orders for the game will open this week, and the developer has detailed the full hardware requirements.

This is good news for those with older hardware, as the recommended GPU for playing using 'High' settings at 1440p 60 FPS is the GeForce RTX 3070. For those pushing 4K 60 FPS with 'Ultra' settings, you'll need a GeForce RTX 4070 or Radeon RX 7800 XT. The absolute minimum spec is the GeForce RTX 1060, which only covers playing using the 'Low' quality preset at 1080p 30 FPS.

According to established leaker wxnod, we have a date and time for NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5060 Ti launch. The post, which went live over the weekend, states that the 8GB and 16GB variants will launch on April 16 at 9 p.m. (which we assume is based in Asia). NVIDIA has yet to announce the GeForce RTX 5060 series; however, this information aligns with the leak/rumor we reported last week that said the RTX 5060 Ti was coming in mid-April.

According to that source, the baseline GeForce RTX 5060's launch has been delayed to mid-May, so the RTX 5060 Ti will arrive first. As seen with the GeForce RTX 30 and ERX 40 Series, it's also expected that NVIDIA will create a Founders Edition model for the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti.

In the past couple of days, we've also seen the full specs for the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti leak out from its 4,608 CUDA Cores to its Boost Clock speed of 2572 MHz. With up to 16GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti will offer significantly more memory bandwidth than the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti. However, as we get down to the mainstream cards for the RTX Blackwell generation, pricing will be a key factor in determining the card's overall value.

In recent weeks, we've received details on NVIDIA's upcoming mid-range GPUs, the GeForce RTX 5060 and RTX 5060 Ti. According to leaks, the GeForce RTX 5060 Ti is set to arrive in two flavors: one with 8GB of GDDR7 VRAM and one with 16G on a 128-bit bus. Like the mid-range RTX 5070 series, it's set to see competition from AMD with the RDNA 4-powered Radeon RX 9060 XT.

According to new product listings from the South Korean Radio Agency (via @harukaze5719 on X), the Radeon RX 9060 XT will also arrive in two flavors: 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM and 16GB - on a 128-bit bus. However, as AMD's new RDNA 4 GPUs all use older GDDR6 technology, the overall bandwidth will be slower than NVIDIA's cards with the latest GDDR7.

The new product listings cover various Radeon RX 9060 XT cards from ASUS. Only the premium variant will arrive with 16GB of VRAM. Both the ASUS Dual and Prime models will ship with 8GB of memory, in OC and non-OC form, with the ASUS TUF Gaming model set to ship with 16GB of memory, also in OC and non-OC form.

At the DirectX State of the Union at GDC 2025 last week, Microsoft announced DirectX Raytracing (DXR) 1.2 alongside a suite of new technologies that will usher in the "next evolution in graphics." Partnering with AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm. DirectX Raytracing (DXR) 1.2 is set to bring a "game-changing" boost to performance in games with ray-tracing enabled.

This is excellent news as ray-tracing is one of the most cutting-edge and demanding forms of lighting and effects in games. According to Microsoft, the massive performance boost will arrive thanks to two technologies: opacity microamps (OMM) and shader execution reordering (SER).

Opacity micromaps (OMM) are set to improve performance in path-traced games by up to 2.3X thanks to enhanced efficiency and reduced "shader invocations" without compromising visual fidelity. Path tracing is the endgame for ray-tracing as it replaced all lighting, shadows, global illumination, reflections, and more with realistic ray-tracing. As seen in the recent Half-Life 2 RTX demo, Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, it's a game-changer for image fidelity.

If you haven't heard about it, the Nintendo PlayStation is the stuff of videogame legend. In the early 1990s, when the CD-ROM multimedia age of gaming kicked off, Nintendo was looking to partner with Sony to create a CD add-on for the then-popular Super Nintendo console.

According to legend, around 200 units were produced, with the attachment set to boost the Super Nintendo's processing power and storage capacity in a big way.

PlayStation co-creator Ken Kutaragi, often called the father of PlayStation, was a key leader and engineer in developing the hardware and features of the original PlayStation, the PlayStation 2, and the PlayStation 3. In a recent photoshoot with Julian Domanski, Kutaragi showed off his very own Nintendo PlayStation console, tucked away in a closet - in pristine condition.

Less than 24 hours after reports began surfacing about the Australian Ratings Board (ACB) banning the sale of Silent Hill f across the country because its contents failed to meet criteria, the ACB has removed its classification.

It was only yesterday I reported the ACB classified Konami's upcoming Silent Hill f as "RC," which translates to "Refused Classification". The regulatory body of Australia that hands out ratings for media deemed the contents within Silent Hill f exceeded its guidelines, with the ACB stating on its website that any media with the RC classification "cannot be sold, hired, advertised or legally imported in Australia."

AMD's next-generation Sound Wave APU is reportedly a new Arm-based chip that will feature RDNA 3.5 GPU cores, MALL cache, and compete in the Windows on Arm market against Qualcomm, Intel, and soon NVIDIA in 2026.

In a new video from leaker Moore's Law is Dead, we're hearing AMD's next-gen Sound Wave APU will feature 2 x P-Cores and 4 x E-Cores of Arm-based CPU that won't deliver powerhouse performance, but instead will have fantastic battery life as Windows on Arm laptops do.

AMD is expected to use 4 x GPU cores based on the RDNA 3.5 GPU, but with improved ML (machine learning) performance that could be more of an "RDNA 3.5+" GPU instead. Sound Wave is expected to feature 16MB of MALL cache, a 4th Generation AI engine, a 128-bit LPDDR5X-9600 memory controller and 16GB of RAM expected to be the "standard" for the new Arm-based Sound Wave APU.