Latest News - Page 411

AMD has confirmed that the first two RDNA 4 GPUs, the Radeon RX 8600 and Radeon RX 8800, will launch in early 2025. Both appeared in a recent update to AMD's ROCm (Radeon Open Compute) software libraries, and the GPUs were spotted in the codebase over at GitHub (which has since been removed).

To clarify, this isn't an official announcement from AMD representatives or a mention of these GPUs in a press release - but it's a clear indicator that RDNA 4 is going to get one or multiple SKUs in the Radeon RX 8600 and Radeon RX 8800 line-ups. If we had to take an educated guess, the actual SKUs would be the Radeon RX 8600 for the mainstream market and the Radeon RX 8800 XT for the mid-range market.

The references to "gfx12_rx8800," "gfx12_rx8600," and "nav4x arch" confirm that these are RDNA 4 cards in the next-gen Navi 4X series, which is expected to be formally announced at CES 2025. We've heard about the Radeon RX 8800 XT for a while, which makes the Radeon RX 8600 very interesting.

Jon Peddie Research has published its Q3 2024 GPU shipment report, seeing 73.6 million GPUs shipped in the three-month period, with PC CPU shipments increasing to 66.5 million units.

According to JPR, GPUs will have a compound annual growth rate of -1.9% from 2025 to 2028, reaching an install base of close to 3 billion units by the end of this period. Over the next 4 years, JPR predicts that the penetration of discrete GPUs inside of PCs will reach 17%.

Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research said: "A surge led to the jump in overall GPU and CPU shipments in Q3. AMD and Intel released new CPUs, and there was some pent-up demand for them. However, looking forward, we think that if the proposed tariffs are imposed, the PC market will suffer a recession due to increased prices and unmatched increases in income".

The release of Intel's new Core Ultra desktop processors has been a world record season for overclockers pushing DDR5 memory frequencies to insane new heights. In the past month or so, we've seen the record broken at least five times, and today it's two-time OC Champion of the G.SKILL OC World Cup and the Number 1 ranked overclocker on HWBOT, Splave's turn.

With G.SKILL Trident Z5 DDR5 memory, the incredible ASRock Z890 Taichi OCF motherboard, Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU, and what we're assuming is lots of liquid nitrogen (LN2) cooling, Splave managed to break the world record with an impressive speed of DDR5-12666.

Splave's world record memory frequency score is currently in first place at HWBOT, and it will be fascinating to see if it will stand the test of time.

Telsa could have 1000+ of its advanced Optimus robots on factory floors by the end of 2025 according to Wall Street analysts.

Bank of America analyst John Murphy has said that the "Optimus is real and development is poised to accelerate. Optimus is currently used by TSLA to sort 4680 cells with no intervention. TSLA is testing Optimus in various use cases (i.e., catching a tennis ball) to refine the robot and determine a final design".

Tesla plans to have 1000 of its Optimus robots by the end of 2025, most of them operating inside of its plant, with more robots in use the training will accelerate. Optimus makes up just a single-digit percentage of Tesla's compute, but BofA expects to see the resources made available to Optimus will grow as the "robotaxi technology matures".

The Lenovo Legion Go was designed as a premium PC gaming handheld with detachable controllers, a sizeable high-refresh-rate display, the latest AMD hardware, and fast storage and memory. With new renders of a new Lenovo Legion Go S gaming handheld surfacing at Windows Central, Lenovo plans to release a more affordable refresh very soon.

According to Videocardz, the handheld uses AMD's new Ryzen Z2 platform. However, the more entry-level Ryzen Z2G will pair 8 Zen 3+ CPU Cores with 12 RDNA2 Compute Units via integrated Radeon 680M graphics. It won't be a Hawk Point or Strix Point device; it'll be a blast from the part - Rembrandt. This decision looks to have been made to help keep the cost down.

In fact, with a rumored price point as low as $399, it could give Valve's Steam Deck a run for its money as one of the most affordable PC gaming handhelds on the market.

Microsoft's DirectStorage technology is designed to help games load faster, reducing the time it takes to get into the action to a handful of seconds. It works by cutting out the middleman, so to speak, by allowing game file access and decompression to be handled directly by the GPU. It's a technology designed for NVMe SSD storage with at least PCIe Gen4 speeds.

It's been talked about for a few years as a game-changer; however, only a handful of titles support the technology compared to other gaming technologies like DLSS. This week, UL Solutions announced that it has updated its popular 3DMark benchmark suite with a new 3DMark DirectStorage feature test as part of its Storage Benchmark DLC.

The 3DMark DirectStorage benchmark captures the speed of decompression and gives a detailed breakdown of the difference DirectStorage makes and how well it runs on your current hardware configuration.

TSMC is reportedly in discussions with NVIDIA to make its Blackwell AI GPUs in the USA, producing the world-leading AI chips at its new Fab 21 plant in Phoenix, Arizona.

In a new report from Reuters, we're learning that TSMC is "already making preparations to start production" in early 2025, according to Reuters' sources. NVIDIA unveiled its new Blackwell AI GPUs in March, and are now making their way into tech companies' hands in the form of B200 and GB200, with GB200 NVL72 AI server cabinets insanely popular.

If the agreement between TSMC and NVIDIA is made, it would see the Taiwanese contract manufacturer securing another high-profile client for its US semiconductor manufacturing. TSMC is already preparing to make next-gen chips for the likes of Apple and AMD on US soil, so if NVIDIA joins the party... it's going to be a rather big deal to have some of the most advanced AI chips made in the United States.

SpaceX has just launched 20 Starlink satellites with its recent Falcon 9 launch, with the first Starlink satellite direct-to-cell (DTC) phone constellation now complete.

In a new post on X, Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk said that the "first Starlink satellite direct to cell phone constellation is now complete. This will enable unmodified cellphones to have Internet connectivity in remote areas. Bandwidth per beam is only ~10Mb, but future constellations will be much more capable".

The official SpaceX account posted on X, announcing that "Falcon 9 launches 20 Starlink satellites, completing the first orbital shell of our Direct to Cell constellation".

Elon Musk's xAI startup has promised to expand its Colossus AI supercomputer by 10x its computational power, with over 1 million GPUs in total... yes, 1,000,000+ AI GPUs.

xAI built Colossus in just 3 months earlier this year, with the world's largest AI supercomputer featuring over 100,000 x NVIDIA IA GPUs operating at once, training Grok for X, and more. The expansion project has already started, with the first step being increasing the size of the facility in Memphis, Tennessee.

NVIDIA, Dell, and Supermicro are going to establish operations in Memphis in order to support xAI's extension of Colossus, while FT reports that the chamber of commerce saying that it would establish an "xAI special operations team" in order to "provide round-the-clock concierge service to the company".

Amazon is set to launch its video game-inspired anthology series on Prime Video on December 10, and to increase hype for the show, the company is handing out free games.

Secret Level, the new 15-episode-long anthology series from the team behind Love, Death and Robots, will cover legendary video game characters that have been pulled from popular franchises. Notably, the series will feature original stories set in within the worlds of the characters, and it will include adaptations from popular franchises such as God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Dungeons and Dragons, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Concord, and others.

The new anthology features a star-studded cast, with some of the names attached to the project including "Arnold Schwarzenegger ("The Terminator" Franchise), Kevin Hart ("Jumanji"), and Keanu Reeves ("John Wick"), among others. As for the free games, Amazon is offering a selection of free games for Prime members, with many of the games inspired by episodes in the TV show. Below is a full list of all the free games, along with a code for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II in the Amazon Games App, becoming available on December 12.

Almost every week there is a new Nintendo Switch 2 rumor as fans of the extremely popular Nintendo Switch wait patiently for any news of the successor console.

The latest in the Nintendo Switch 2 rumor mill comes from Juan A. Fonesca at Nintenduo, who claims that members of at least six development studios have confirmed to him that titles currently in development are scheduled to launch for Nintendo's next-generation platform between June and July next year. If this is true, that means Nintendo's next-generation console, presumably called the Nintendo Switch 2, will have already been released, or these games will be released alongside it.

Additionally, Nintenduo commented on the price for the rumored console, stating it would be anywhere between 400 and 500 Euros, making it around $419 to $524 US. As for what is officially known about Switch 2, Nintendo confirmed during its financial report that it will continue with the current Nintendo Switch until the end of the financial year, April 2025. This means that it's extremely unlikely Nintendo will launch a new console before March next year. However, that doesn't mean Nintendo won't announce a new console this fiscal year.

Famed video game director Hidetaka Miyazaki has sat down for an interview with Game Watch, where he revealed FromSoftware is currently working on multiple projects.

The interview was translated, and it revealed the studio is handling "multiple projects" that cover a "wide range of genres". Miyazaki revealed that not all of the titles are under his direction, and that some are "handled by other people". Additionally, the video game director teased that a new future is ahead of FromSoftware through these titles, so much so that Miyazaki believes, "I think we'll be able to show you a new FromSoftware in many different ways".

Miyazaki didn't reveal what the studio is working on specifically or any details about any of the titles currently in development. However, fans speculate the next game to come out of FromSoftware will be an Armored Core title, which would be helmed by Miyazaki. Unfortunately, that is just wishful speculation at the moment, as nothing has been confirmed. As for FromSoftware, the Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree was nominated for Game of the Year 2024 by the Game Awards, making it the first DLC for a game to be in the running for Game of the Year.

Microsoft has just shattered any hope that older machines that don't meet the requirements for Windows 11 will get some leeway leading into the official ending of the world's most popular operating system.

Windows 11 was released three years ago, and when the new operating system became available, users were faced with a slew of hardware requirements in order to upgrade. One of the biggest hurdles for users to get around was the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) hardware requirement, which is a hardware-based security requirement that resides within a motherboard or CPU processor. Most modern PCs shipping today automatically ship with TPM 2.0, making them Windows 11 eligible, but that doesn't help millions of machines with older hardware that don't meet the specification.

Microsoft explains in a recent blog post that TPM 2.0 will be required for how it integrates into the security side of a system, with The Verge explaining features such as Windows 11 like Credential Guard and Windows Hello for Business, BitLocker disk encryption, and Secure Boot, are all being helped by TPM 2.0. Microsoft even goes as far as to write, TPM 2.0 will be "a non-negotiable standard for the future of Windows," which means Microsoft won't be going back on any of its hardware requirements for Windows 11.

Bitcoin has finally officially reached the $100,000 mark, a celebratory milestone for all those who have been following the journey of the world's most valuable cryptocurrency.

The US$100,000 mark was hit on December 5, which is only a few weeks after Bitcoin smashed through the $90,000 psychology ceiling, spurring speculation that $100,000 was inbound - it appears that speculation was correct. At 3:08 am UTC, Bitcoin reached its all-time high of $104,000, which means it gained 125% since January and $31 billion in net inflows across spot exchange-traded funds in the US.

The increase can be attributed to Donald Trump's US presidential election victory, as speculation circulated that Trump will adopt BTC into the US national reserve, along with assisting in further integrating and legitimizing Bitcoin in the corporate space. Moreover, Trump recently appointed cryptocurrency advocate Paul Atkins to replace Gary Gensler as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair, which sparked speculation that regulatory hurdles preventing the further adoption of cryptocurrencies will solved.

A former boss of PlayStation has given a small bleak detail into the future of gaming consoles, with the former PlayStation boss saying consoles may have reached their peak when it comes to performance.

In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Shawn Layden was asked about the current state of the gaming industry, along with what he thinks the future will look like for consoles and how the war between PlayStation and Xbox will continue. According to Layden, to properly evaluate the future, we must look at the past. The jump between the PS1 and PS2 was dramatic in terms of graphics fidelity.

The same goes for the jump between the PS2 and the PS3. However, from PS3 to PS4, the performance increase wasn't as noticeable as previous generations. Layden says we are reaching the end specifications for a console, and we will never see a jump in performance equivalent to the PS1 to the PS2. Additionally, Layden points out that there is very little difference between the hardware in both PlayStation and Xbox consoles, as AMD powers both. Layden suggests this could be the end of the console war between both platforms and provides the example of Betamax vs the VHS format, where Sony eventually caved to the VHS format as the industry standard.

We've previously covered Virtuix's Omni One, a full-body VR system that offers 360-degree movement because you're on a treadmill. It solves one of the key issues of VR gaming: being able to move around freely when confined to limited space.

The Omni One, priced at $3,495, is a complete system that includes a Pico 4 Enterprise headset with an impressive 4K 4320 × 2160 (1200 PPI) resolution, 90Hz refresh rate support, and the Snapdragon XR2 chipset. It is an all-in-one system, ala the Meta Quest, with its games, storefront, and library, while also being able to connect a PC and access SteamVR.

That brings us to the Omni One Core, which brings the same immersive full 360-degree movement and freedom as the Omni One system for PC gamers who already have a VR headset with controllers.

A new report from Bloomberg has revealed that SpaceX is in talks to sell off private shares held by employees at a price higher than expected.

Bloomberg cited people familiar with the matter, who informed the publication that SpaceX would be valued at approximately $350 billion, a stark increase from the previous estimation of $255 billion conducted earlier this year. The deal is noted as a tender offer and makes SpaceX the world's most valuable private company, putting it alongside mega-companies such as TikTok owner ByteDance. However, if you want to compare apples to apples, SpaceX stands alone in terms of valuation within the space industry, as there isn't another company that even comes close to the $350 billion mark.

This isn't surprising as SpaceX is far and away the leader in providing a reliable, reusable means of transportation to orbit. Its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets have become the workhorses for the company, delivering payloads to the International Space Station (ISS), various orbital altitudes, and a means of ferrying astronauts to and from the ISS. Additionally, SpaceX has had quite a lot of success with its Starlink internet access program, having more than 5 million monthly customers across 114 countries.

An OpenAI safety researcher has shared a message on her Substack saying she is quitting her position at the company as she believes her goal of implementing humanity-protecting policies into the development of AI can be better achieved externally.

OpenAI has seen a selection of pivotal staff members leave the company recently, and now another has been added to the list. Rosie Campbell joined OpenAI in 2021 with the goal of implementing safety policies for AI development, and now, according to a Substack post, the AI safety researcher is departing the company, citing several internal changes such as workplace culture and the ability to perform what Campbell believes is the most fundamental part of her job - AI safety.

Campbell wrote in the Substack post that she was a member of OpenAI's Policy Research team, where she worked closely with Miles Brundage, a senior staffer who worked at OpenAI's Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) team, a team dedicated to making sure the world is prepared for AGI when it's achieved. Notably, Brundage left OpenAI in October and published a letter on Substack citing concerns with OpenAI's internal policies regarding AGI safety and writing there are "gaps" in the company's readiness policy.

Corsair has just officially announced its new Vengeance RGB DDR5 CUDIMM memory modules, available in up to 96GB capacities and speeds (at first) of up to 9600 MT/s.

The company has engineered its new Vengeance RGB DDR5 CUDIMM memory modules for optimal performance with Intel's latest Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake-S" processors and flagship Z890 motherboards while maintaining backward compatibility with earlier DDR5 motherboards.

Corsair is selling its new Vengeance RGB DDR5 CUDIMM memory in kits of 48GB and 96GB, with the 48GB kits (2 x 24GB sticks) coming in 8000, 8200, 8400, and 8800 MT/s with varying latencies depending on the kit (CL38, CL40, CL42, and CL44, respectively).

OpenAI has just announced its new "Shipmas" period, with new features, products, and demos for the next 12 days starting December 5.

The ChatGPT creator is expected to debut its much-anticipated text-to-video service codenamed Sora, as well as a new reasoning model according to sources "familiar with OpenAI's plans" according to The Verge. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed the 12 days of "Shipmas" event on-stage at The New York Times' DealBook conference on Wednesday morning, but didn't elaborate.

Leading up to the launch, OpenAI staffers were teasing some of the upcoming releases on X, with one of them posting "What's on your Christmas list?" while another posted "Got back just in time to put up the shipmas tree". Sora boss Bill Peebles responded to a staffer who said that OpenAI is "unbelievably back" to which he replied with a single word: "Correct".