Latest News - Page 382

The recent rumors of Radeon RX 9070 prices expected to increase above MSRPs after the launch batch has been exhausted aren't true, or at least according to Frank Azor, the Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions and Gaming Marketing at AMD.

Concerns regarding the prices for AMD's recently launched RX 9070 models sharply increasing following the first batch of cards being exhausted began to circle yesterday when a retailer revealed AMD applied a restriction on retailers increasing the price of cards. According to the Swedish retailer, this restriction was only for the launch cards, and the following shipments would not be priced at MSRP.

However, that rumor has now been put to bed by AMD, as Azor stated in a recent X post that AMD is working with supply chains to make sure the MSRP price tag continues following the launch batch of cards. Azor writes that MSRP pricing is being encouraged for the new graphics cards, which is great for gamers that were looking to get their hands on either the RX 9070 or RX 9070 XT at the advertised price.

Apple has been rumored for quite some time to be working on a thin iPhone, and now, according to a new leaker, the company is planning on making its Pro Max model slated to be announced this year -- thicker.

The rumors come from Chinese leaker Ice Universe that Apple is planning to increase the thickness of the iPhone 17 Pro Max from 8.25mm to 8.725mm, with the leaker believing the thickness increase is related to Apple wanting to increase the battery capacity for the upcoming iPhone. As for other aspects of the rumored iPhone 17 Pro Max, Ice Universe states Apple will be sticking with the 6.9-inch display.

In conjunction with 17 Pro Max, Apple might release the iPhone 17 Air, a new smartphone designed to replace the iPhone Plus and be between 5.5 mm and 6.5 mm thick, making it the thinnest iPhone Apple has ever released. Additional rumors regarding the upcoming iPhone 17 lineup: Apple is reportedly going to have major design changes to the back of the smartphone, or at least for the standard iPhone and Air models.

The team from Battlefield Labs has shared their first community update, highlighting the key features they'll be testing in-game. As detailed in an X post, the first playtesting sessions will focus on gunplay and movement, while also gauging testing server stability and performance.

As outlined in the post, the team is focused on tuning core combat and movement systems early on. One goal is to ensure gameplay rewards complexity at higher skill levels while also making the gameplay experience intuitive and approachable for new players.

Some of the key changes include a reduced input delay for bullet registration, ensuring that shooting feels more responsive on a millisecond-to-millisecond basis. DICE also emphasizes that they are optimizing for a 60Hz tick rate across all platforms to improve hit registration, movement, and damage feedback.

It appears the stack of the Blackwell GPUs is growing larger as NVIDIA is reportedly preparing to launch an RTX 5050 graphics card that will be aimed at the entry-level of PC gaming.

The new RTX 5050 is rumored to sport 8GB of VRAM and rated at a TBP of 135W, according to a new report from WCCFTech, which broke the story. The publication writes the new card will be priced anywhere between $199 and $249, which puts it up against the Intel Arc B570/B580. Notably, the purported RTX 5050 will feature the same 8GB of VRAM as the RTX 5060, which is rumored to be announced within 10 days and launched sometime next month. The publication writes there isn't any news on the specific GPU NVIDIA is deciding to go with or the PCB.

As for release, WCCFTech writes that NVIDIA is planning on launching the RTX 5050 alongside the RTX 5060, with the possibility of it also coming in a non-Ti and Ti branding. Currently, there are three new rumored Blackwell GPUs in the works: the RTX 5060Ti, the RTX 5060, and now the RTX 5050. If the RTX 5060 is targeting the $299 mark and the RTX 5050 is real, we could see that card priced between $199 and $249, which means it will be aimed at the entry-level, leaving the mainstream to the RTX 5060 and RTX 5060Ti.

AMD has addressed the rumors that the only RX 9070 graphics cards we'll see at the MSRP (with entry-level boards, of course) were fleetingly offered at launch yesterday, and won't be witnessed again in the near future.

As you can see in the above post on X from AMD's Frank Azor, work is ongoing to restock RX 9070 models at retailers - going by the grapevine, we can expect a good deal more supply than NVIDIA is managing with RTX 5000 GPUs (admittedly, that's not difficult) - and at least some (entry-level) boards will come back in at MSRP.

Azor notes that: "MSRP pricing (excluding region specific tariffs and/or taxes) will continue to be encouraged beyond today."

Apple states the new MacBook Air is 23x faster than the last Intel-based MacBook Air, which featured a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM.

Apple's new MacBook Air features a 10-core M4 chip and 32GB of RAM, which is an astounding 23x faster than the Intel-based model. Notably, the comparison includes both models at their highest specifications. But is it really astounding? The Intel-based model was released in 2020, which means Apple is comparing the new MacBook Air to a laptop that was released five years ago.

The Apple nonsense doesn't stop there, as the purported 23x "faster performance" is a figure derived from a specific test that consisted of using the Super Resolution feature on a 4.4MB image within the image editing app Pixelmator Pro. How about other tasks? Apple writes in the fine print that the new MacBook Air beats the Intel-based model in spreadsheet calculation performance by up to 4.7x and is just 1.6x faster than the 13-inch MacBook Air with an M1 chip.

Since its release in 2022, Starfield has received a lukewarm reception from fans for a mainline Bethesda title. In fact, many believe the game's greatest potential lies in its suitability as a Star Wars experience.

A dedicated team of modders has been working to do just that - with Star Wars: Genesis - a total conversion mod that transforms nearly every aspect of the game into a Star Wars RPG. First released in August 2024, Genesis introduces an entirely new main story, new factions, NPCs, cities, adjusted voice lines, weapons, force powers, and more.

Footage of the mod shows off exactly how well Bethesda's open-world formula works in the Star Wars universe: blasting stormtroopers, hijacking TIE fighters, and bartering in Coruscant cantinas. It even improves on some of Starfield's biggest flaws, reducing loading screens, rebalancing combat, and adding more variety to the game's repetitive points of interest.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (2002) is widely considered one of the great precursors to the modern first-person shooter genre. Featuring a film-like (for its time) cinematic experience and influential designers like Vince Zampella and Adam West, the game fundamentally shaped the FPS landscape.

In a recent interview on the Old Dogs podcast, former Medal of Honor: Allied Assault developers Nathan Silvers and Benson Russell sat down to discuss their time working on the famous shooter. They didn't mince words on the chaos, long nights, and outright absurdity that went into developing one of the most influential FPS games of its era.

Kojima Productions, in collaboration with PlayStation, have scheduled a special panel for Death Stranding 2, which is set to take place at SXSW 2025 on March 9th in Austin, Texas, and will be available for live-streaming at 4 PM CDT.

The star-studded lineup features Hideo Kojima, Norman Reedus, Troy Baker, who'll be appearing on stage alongside musician Woodkid to discuss new details about the upcoming game, which is set to arrive on PS5 later this year. While it's unknown exactly what will be revealed at the show, the panel will provide some free-flowing discussion about the new title.

Five months ago at TGS 2024, Kojima and the Death Stranding 2 development took to the stage in Tokyo, showing off 9 minutes of footage - including cutscenes, 'photo shoot events', and an in-game motion capture performance. He also dived into more details about the characters and gameplay mechanics, emphasizing that it'll be "an even weirder game than [Death Stranding]."

Following a recent post on LinkedIn, Titanfall and Apex Legends developer Respawn Entertainment has reportedly scrapped yet another unannounced FPS title, adding to the acclaimed studio's growing list of canceled projects.

The post, which has since been removed, came from Emilee Evans, a former executive assistant at Respawn, who wrote:

SpaceX has recently wrapped up its eighth test flight of Starship, the world's largest and most powerful rocket, and while the launch was deemed an overall success it wasn't without it's hiccups.

The space fairing company explained on its official X account and website that Super Heavy, the booster half of Starship, successfully lit its 33 Raptor engines, and approximately two and a half minutes after liftoff, Super Heavy separated from the Ship half of Starship.

The Ship half then proceeded to ignite six of its Raptor engines and continue to its ascent, but prior to the end of its ascent burn an energetic event within the aft portion of Ship resulted in a loss of several Raptor engines. The loss of the engines meant the Ship began to lose altitude and then an eventual loss of communications with SpaceX, which resulted in the RUD protocol being initiated, or Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly -- boom. The last contact SpaceX had with Ship was approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff.

David Jaffe, the creator of God of War and Twisted Metal, has stepped up in defense of Starfield, taking to social media to voice his support for the 2022 title. He highlights that Starfield is undeserving of hate and that, in his eyes, the game is one of the best - if not the best - single-player narratives in gaming.

Jaffe is no stranger to hot takes. Last year, he shared his opinions on the modern reboot of God of War, describing Kratos' son Atreous as a 'terrible character', while critiquing the tendency for modern game developers to 'smell their own farts'. Whether his takes on Starfield are intentionally contrarian or reflect his genuine viewpoints is up for debate. However, one thing's clear - Starfield has been a divisive launch.

Starfield currently holds an 83 on Metacritic. Despite a generally favorable score among critics, the sentiment isn't quite shared among fans. Commonly cited criticisms relate to the excessive loading screens, uninspired gameplay, and the over-reliance on procedural generation. While Bethesda is working towards reversing the trend, releasing Shattered Space in 2024 and with future updates planned for 2025, the sentiment among fans has some way to go before becoming a Cyberpunk 2077 or No Man's Sky-style redemption story.

By all accounts, AMD's RDNA 4 launch has been a success, from our review of the AORUS Radeon RX 9070 XT ELITE to reviews from other outlets, the reaction from the PC gaming community, and day one sales. AMD's new RDNA 4 architecture delivers a massive boost to ray-tracing performance. The new AI-powered FSR 4 (exclusive to the latest GPUs) finally offers a worthy DLSS competitor.

Like others, we found the Radeon RX 9070 XT's performance slightly below the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. The real kicker is that AMD's MSRP of $599 for the Radeon RX 9070 XT is significantly lower than NVIDIA's MSRP of $749 for the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. This aggressive pricing makes the Radeon RX 9070 XT the best 'bang for your buck' mid-range or enthusiast-level GPU release in a long time. That is, if you can find one for this price.

As we've seen with the GeForce RTX 50 Series, premium and overclocked Radeon RX 9070 XT cards are sold for significantly more than $599. The AORUS Radeon RX 9070 XT ELITE we reviewed carries a price tag of $759.99, a 27% increase over the MSRP. AMD supplied this model for review, and this pricing was not communicated to us before the launch. It gets worse, the XFX Mercury AMD Radeon RX 9070XT OC carries a price tag of $849.99 - a whopping 42% increase over the MSRP.

The launch of NVIDIA's Blackwell GPUs have been one of the most tumultuous GPU launches in recent memory, between the missing hardware, black screen reports, questionable pricing versus performance, and now what was briefly an official product recall.

However, that statement has now been retracted. Here's what happened. UK publication Kitguru received a message from a reader who told the publication that a retailer they purchased an MSI RTX 5090 Suprim from wasn't able to furfil the order due to NVIDIA issuing an official recall on several RTX 5090 GPUs. The retailer stated to Ben, the reader, NVIDIA was recalling the cards it has in stock due to "various safety issues," and more specifically, "due to an increased fire hazard".

Kitguru launched an investigation into this matter and contacted the retailer Your Game Specialist's CEO, Jeroen Vukkink, based in the Netherlands. The retailer confirmed that Ben purchased an MSI RTX 5090 Suprim on January 30, 2025, for 3,399 Euros. Ben provided Kitguru with images of the money being taken from the bank account and the dates to go with it. As for the email chain with Your Game Specialist, while the screenshots could be faked Kitguru writes it received the original email from the retailer customer service representative Robbe that informed Ben of the recall.

Ubisoft is gearing up for the release of Assassin's Creed Shadows and has taken to its official YouTube channel to showcase the stealth and combat mechanics of both protagonists.

The video showcases the differences between the two characters, with Naoe being the true assassin type with agile movement, quieter footsteps, slick assassinations of enemy NPCs, and parkour abilities, while Yasuke is more of a hardened, brutalist samurai who assassinates his enemies with savage finishers, carries a long bow instead of kunai knives, and really struggles with climbing and staying quiet, but makes up for this lack of mobility with his adept fighting skills.

The idea of the video is to demonstrate the differences between each of the protagonists' playstyles ahead of the scheduled launch on March 20th, as players will now have a solid idea of who they want to play before they are presented with the choice in-game. Naoe uses the shadows to her advantage while also taking down enemy combatants through cloak-and-dagger strategies, such as utilizing heights, kunai, and stealth mechanics. As for Yasuke, his methods, while still by definition involving stealth, are much more brutish and likely to attract attention from other enemies.

Want to take your connectivity to the next level? And in style as well? Well, here's the Adonis cable, a USB-C cable with USB4 2.0 support that enables both intense speeds and ultra fast charging.

The Adonis cable comes with bi-directional 80 Gbps and unidirectional 120 Gbps transfer rates, which is ideal for content creators that are transferring large 4K video files from one device to another. Moreover, the Adonis Cable comes with PD 3.1 (Power Delivery), which means users are able to take advantage of 240W of ultra-fast charging capabilities. Future writes that using an Adonis Cable users are able to charge a MacBook Pro up to 56% in just 30 minutes.

Not only are content creators able to transfer large files in blazing fast speeds, but the Adonis Cable also comes with dual 8K at 60Hz display support, or 4K at 240Hz. The features don't stop there as AOHi has equipped the Adonis Cable with Thunderbolt 5 compatability and support for next-gen AI/AR/VR connectivity. What's under the hood that's powering all this juicy performance? A 16-core coaxial design with an E-Marker smart chip.

Apple launched a flurry of new products this week, with its new Mac Studio powered by its new M3 Ultra processor, and boy, what a chip it is.

The new Apple M3 Ultra processor combines 2 x M3 Max chips together, where they act as one: doubling the CPU core count, GPU core count, and performance through the roof, rivaling its new M4 processor. Apple's new M3 Max processor features up to 32 cores of CPU (24 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores) which is the highest number of CPU cores on a Mac to date (inside of the new Mac Studio powered by M3 Max).

Not only that, but the M3 Ultra chip has up to 80 GPU cores ensuring top-tier Mac gaming performance, and the most amount of GPU cores on Apple Silicon, ever. 96GB of unified RAM is the norm on the Apple M3 Max chip, but you can configure (for much more money) up to 512GB of unified RAM (!!!) while SSD storage can be ballooned up to 16TB inside of the new Mac Studio.

Apple's first-gen foldable iPhone is in the headlines again, with reports that it'll be a "true AI-driven iPhone" that will be a "top-tier iPhone" with the first foldable iPhone expected to be priced at between $2000 and $2500 when it launches in late-2026.

In a new post on Medium, insider Ming-Chi Kuo predicts what we'll see with Apple's first foldable iPhone. The insider says it'll be a true AI-driven iPhone -- hopefully, as Apple has well and truly fumbled AI with Siri and Apple Intelligence failures -- with multimodal functionality and cross-app integration being the trends in AI device use cases.

The larger screen enhances the AI experience says Kuo, enabling scenarios like chatting with a chatbot about travel plans while viewing a full map app at the same time. Apple's first foldable will be a "top-tier iPhone" that will leverage the iPhone's status as a must-have device and Apple's loyal fanbase, are expected to generate strong replacement demand -- no matter the price -- provided that Apple meets quality standards.

Here we go again: NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 50 Laptop GPU series are reportedly going through the missing ROPs saga as well, with new reports suggesting next-gen gaming laptops could be delayed.

In a new report from German outlet Heise who has been in contact with multiple laptop manufacturers, companies are working overtime to make sure all RTX 50 Laptop GPUs are tested before shipping out to customers. NVIDIA reportedly instructed these laptop manufacturers to inspect already-made laptops to ensure all ROPs are on those new Blackwell laptop GPUs.

Heise reports: "as we have learned from several notebook manufacturers, they are currently working overtime in the Far East to prevent the drama from escalating into the next act: NVIDIA has instructed manufacturers to inspect already-produced notebooks with the new mobile GeForce RTX 5000 graphics chips. The focus is on GPUs where fewer ROPs are active than specified in the datasheet. This can lead to potentially significant losses in 3D performance".

Sabrent has just unveiled its first massive-capacity SSD with the introduction of the Rocket Enterprise PCIe 4.0 U2/U.3 NVMe SSD which has been designed for the enterprise with high-intensity workloads.

The new Sabrent Rocket Enterprise SSD comes in capacities of between 1.92TB up to a huge 30.72TB, with up to 7GB/sec (7000MB/sec) sequential reads and up to 6.8GB/sec (6800MB/sec) sequential writes, with up to 1600K IOPS for 4K random reads. It has everything you need for AI workloads, server applications, and large-scale data management.

Sabrent's massive 30.72TB SSD is built to withstand up to one drive write per day (DWPD) at up to over 56PBW with the 30.72TB model. UBER is at <1 sector per 10^18 bits read with an MTBF of 2.5M hours. The drive is also durable to survive various environments. This is not your usual retail consumer SSD. It supports E2E metadata protection, namespaces, and power loss protection (PLP) as well as NVMe-MI over SMBus and VPD. The drive also has intelligent thermal management to protect data.