Latest News - Page 430

Nothing is official about the GeForce RTX 5090, NVIDIA's upcoming flagship gaming graphics card for the GeForce RTX 50 Series. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang will host the company's live CES 2025 keynote on January 6. We're expected to get a full announcement, reveal, technical breakdown, release date, and pricing for the first batch of GeForce RTX 50 Series cards on that date.

However, this hasn't stopped a flood of leaks from various sources confirming the specs and relative performance that we can expect regarding the GeForce RTX 5090. With sources pointing to over 20,000 CUDA Cores, 32GB of GDDR7 memory, and next-gen Blackwell architecture, the RTX 5090 is rumored to deliver up to 60 to 70% more performance than the current GeForce RTX 4090 flagship.

One rumor that multiple sources have confirmed over the past several months has been the GeForce RTX 5090's power consumption. Rated at 600W, the RTX 5090 is rumored to draw over 33% more power than the RTX 4090.

Valve's Certified Refurbished program for its Steam Deck PC gaming handheld offers a more affordable alternative to buying a brand-new model.

Valve says each Certified Refurbished Steam deck undergoes over 100 tests covering everything from the display to controls, audio, and even battery life. The result is a unit that meets or "even exceeds the performance standards of new retail units."

With the Steam Deck OLED launching late last year, Valve has announced that the Certified Refurbished program for Steam Decks now includes OLED models. With pricing confirmed by Valve, picking up a refurbished Steam Deck OLED will be the cheapest way to grab one of the popular gaming handhelds and still be covered by Valve's one-year warranty.

Specs and information about the upcoming Lenovo Legion Go S gaming handheld leaked recently. This handheld would present a more budget-friendly option than the beefier Legion Go, with a Steam Deck competitive price point that could end up being as low as $399. Rumors are pointing to coming pre-installed with SteamOS, making it the first third-party handheld to ship with Valve's custom operating system.

According to a new report at The Verge, which includes the leaked images you see here, Lenovo is also planning to release a new full-sized Legion Go that could be powered by AMD's upcoming Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip that is expected to be announced or unveiled at CES 2025.

However, the big selling point for many will be Lenovo's decision to replace the Legion Go's large 8.8-inch IPS LCD screen with an OLED panel. As seen in the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck, an OLED screen can be a game changer in its own right, elevating visuals with increased color accuracy and unbeatable contrast.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the second chapter in the remake trilogy, will be released on January 23, 2025, for PC. Square Enix made the announcement during The Game Awards, with a trailer confirming that the PC version will include enhanced visuals compared to the PlayStation 5 release, including improved lighting, enhanced models and textures, and DLSS support.

Square Enix released the game's PC specs and hardware requirements in a follow-up post. If you want to play with the enhanced 'High' quality graphics in 4K at 60 FPS, you'll need a GeForce RTX 4080 or Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card. And no matter the resolution, you'll need 155GB of SSD storage to play.

On the plus side, the minimum 1080p spec only requires a GeForce RTX 2060, Radeon RX 6600, or Arc A580 - and overall, the CPU requirements are pretty light. However, the game doesn't support GPUs with DirectX 12 Ultimate capabilities.

The Premiere 8K is Samsung's latest flagship premium projector for home theaters. It's the first to receive 8K Association (8KA) certification for 8K projectors, a new standard implemented this month.

To obtain 8KA certification, a projector must meet a series of standards, including a proper 8K resolution (7680 x 4320), brightness, contrast, and color gamut ratings that meet a certain standard, high dynamic range (HDR) support, and the ability to upscale lower resolution content to 8K - also, immersive audio capabilities with support for the latest formats.

Samsung's Premiere 8K projector will debut at CES 2025 in January. It will have a world-first feature and bring "unmatched immersion to home cinema."

Lexar has just unveiled its new ARES DDR5-6000 CL26 memory, with its ultra-low latency said to be "ideal for 9800X3D". Check it out:

The new Lexar ARES DDR5-6000 CL26 ultra-low latency memory has an ultra-low timing delay as low as 55ns, which the company says "the lower the timing, the smaller the delay, and the more significant the 1% low frame improvements in the game. This fast response capability allows players to enjoy more stable picture performance at critical moments, reduce lags and frame rate fluctuations, and gain a competitive advantage".

We can expect not just improvements in the 1% FPS average, but also an overall 10% improvement in performance with the new ARES DDR5-6000 CL26 memory compared to the CL30 memory already on teh market.

Xbox first-party studio Obsidian Entertainment has two big single-player first-person RPGs coming in 2025: the fantasy-themed Avowed and the highly anticipated sci-fi sequel The Outer Worlds 2. Over the weekend, we got a new trailer for The Outer Worlds 2, showcasing some impressive visuals and action while confirming that the game will simultaneously debut on Xbox Series X|S, PC, and PlayStation 5.

There has been much confusion surrounding Microsoft's strategy for releasing games under its first-party Xbox Game Studios banner, which now includes games from Activision, Blizzard, and Bethesda. While titles like Starfield were exclusive to Xbox consoles and PC, others were not. Microsoft's gaming chief, Phil Spencer, recently said there were no "red lines" when it comes to bringing Xbox games to PlayStation.

This was in direct response to the new Halo teaser we recently got, where he was asked if the next Halo game would also launch on PlayStation. According to industry insider Jez Corden, the days of Xbox Game Studios exclusives for Xbox consoles and PC are effectively over.

ASUS has a lot to share at CES 2025 in a few weeks' time, announcing not one but two events for the show: ASUS ROG on January 6, and Always Incredible on January 7.

The company has announced the two new events with individual countdowns, but the ASUS ROG event should be the star of the show for enthusiasts and gamers. We can expect new waves of gaming laptops, desktops, graphics cards, motherboards, and everything in between. ASUS always unveils slews of new products, including prototypes that we sometimes see in the future, and sometimes not at all.

AMD and Intel are expected to announce new processors at the event aimed at laptops, with the Ryzen AI 300 series "Krackan" APUs, "Strix Halo" and "Strix Max" APUs for workstation and higher-end laptops. Intel will have its new Core Ultra 200H series debut at CES 2025, and ASUS should have motherboards, laptops, and more for them.

Intel launched its first 'Battlemage' GPU last week, with the new mainstream Intel Arc B580 card priced at a competitive $249.99 USD. As seen in our reviews of the Intel Arc B580 Limited Edition and ASRock Intel Arc B580 Steel Legend OC variant, Intel's second-generation desktop Arc Graphics is a winner.

Not only has the Arc team resolved most of the driver, compatibility, and stability issues that plagued the first-gen launch back in 2022, but it has brought some real competition to the mainstream GPU market with a product that is cheaper and more powerful than both the GeForce RTX 4060 and Radeon RX 7600. In fact, with excellent ray tracing performance and 12GB of VRAM, it makes the Radeon RX 7600 look irrelevant.

This is great news for PC gamers looking to create an affordable rig; however, it is not so great when it's sold out at major retailers like Newegg and Amazon - with resupply not expected until January 2025.

Apple's future-gen iPhone 18 Pro smartphone is expected to rock its next-gen A20 Pro chip, which will be fabbed on TSMC's fresh 2nm process node.

In a new post from UDN, we're learning that future iPhones will be more expensive because of the TSMC 2nm process node, with the price-per-chip rising from $50 up to $85. One analyst advised NOT taking the price estimates too seriously, as the A18 Pro chips made on TSMC 3nm are variously estimated from $45 all the way up to $135.

Apple has been TSMC's largest customer for close to a decade now, with the company becoming TSMC's first 2nm client in 2025 with its new iPhone 17 next year. We reported back in May 2024 that a few of Apple's high-level executives 'secretly' met with TSMC to seucre its first batch of 2nm production capacity (which would be used for the iPhone 17) and would mature in 2026 for the iPhone 18 Pro, and its beefed-up A20 Pro chip.

The introduction of the next-generation HDMI 2.2 standard is expected to happen at CES 2025, launching alongside next-gen gaming GPUs.

In a new report from ComputerBase, we're hearing that the HDMI Licensing Administrator has announced it will be unveiling a "breakthrough" technology without naming HDMI 2.2, but we all know what to expect. HDMI 2.2 will deliver higher bandwidth, high refresh rate support, higher resolutions, and new cables across the board.

HDMI LA explained: "The HDMI Forum will announce a new version of the HDMI specification. The new specification, featuring next-generation HDMI technology and higher bandwidth, will enable a variety of higher resolutions and refresh rates and will be supported with a new HDMI cable. New technologies are enabling higher quality options for content producers such as television, film and game studios now and in the future, while also enabling multiple distribution platforms".

Blizzard has just announced its latest Overwatch 2 collaboration, introducing Overwatch 2 x Avatar: The Last Airbender, which drops into the game on December 17. Check it out:

The developer has multiple new skins in the theme of Avatar: The Last Airbender, with new skins for Mei, Zenyatta, Orisa, Venture, Genji, and Kiriko. Not only are there new skins, but you can complete challenges to earn themed sprays, voice lines, and player icons.

The upcoming Overwatch 2 x Avatar: The Last Airbender runs between December 17-30, so gather your Gaang and summon the strength of water, earth, fire, and air in Overwatch 2.

Apple's new flagship Watch Ultra smartwatch will reportedly have non-emergency satellite messaging capabilities, just like the iPhone received earlier this year.

In a new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, the new Apple Watch Ultra will also be adding the long-rumored blood-pressure monitoring feature. We've heard about satellite messaging on the Apple Watch Ultra before, but Gurman reports that it would work like it does on the iPhone, allowing wearers to send text messages from their Apple Watch Ultra without a 4G/5G or Wi-Fi connection.

Apple is also reportedly removing the Intel cellular modem out of the Watch Ultra, and in its place will use a MediaTek chip, with the new cellular chip expected to be included in "at least some models" in 2025. The new blood-pressure monitoring feature has been in the works for a while, but will be great to see materialize next year.

Apple has announced the debut of iOS 18.2, an expansion of Apple Intelligence that arrived in a barebones form in late October.

For those that don't know, Apple will be rolling out Apple Intelligence features in stages, with iOS 18.1 being the first in a long process of slowly familiarizing users with a new suite of AI-powered features. In iOS 18.1, users were introduced to several new features, such as Writing Tools, an overhauled Siri, the Photos App becoming intelligent, the Clean Up tool, and other prioritization features.

iOS 18.2 is an expansion of iOS 18.1, with improvements being made in some of the previously announced features, such as the Photos app becoming even smarter, proofread, rewrite, and summarise text being added to Writing Tools, and ChatGPT being integrated into Siri. There are also other additions in iOS 18.2 that warrant being highlighted, and below, you will find a brief explanation of each.

It's time to get rid of that uncomfortable chair you've been sitting in for much longer than you should have. Go out and get yourself a chair designed with ergonomics in mind.

In the post-COVID-19 world many people have found themselves working from home, and when it comes to a home office, it's important to create a comfortable work environment that benefits your work, and one of the best ways to do that is to make the thing you are sitting on for several hours of a day an enjoyable and healthy experience. The Doro S100 from Sihoo fits this description perfectly, with the Doro S100 coming with a split lumbar support that's designed to adjust support with back movements, providing a sitter with personalized lower back comfort.

For those wondering for some quick specifications about the Doro S100, Sihoo states on its website that the seat depth is 15.15" - 17.12", with a max hip width of 20.07", and a maximum recommended weight of 300 lbs. As for features, Sihoo has equipped the Doro S100 with an accommodating backrest that is able to provide a seat depth adjustment range of 1.97 inches, which can be easily altered for people of varying heights, making the Doro S100 perfect for any sized individual.

Windows 11's Recall feature is back in play - in testing, and it just expanded to include AMD and Intel x86 Copilot+ PCs - but the controversial functionality has run into yet more trouble.

As you're doubtless aware, Recall is a supercharged AI search that uses regularly taken screenshots to find stuff on your PC. Those so-called 'snapshots' are not supposed to include any screen that has sensitive information on it, such as credit card details as an obvious example.

Tom's Hardware has been testing Recall in this respect, though, and found out that the results are hardly ideal in terms of maintaining cast-iron privacy for your more sensitive data.

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is coming to PC in early 2025, Square Enix has announced at The Game Awards 2024.

While currently facing disappointing game sales, Square Enix could have an uplift at the tail-end of its fiscal year thanks to sales of a mainline Final Fantasy game. The publisher revealed that FF7 Rebirth will release on PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store on January 23, 2025.

Gamers can pre-order Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth's PC version now and get a -30% discount, dropping the $69.99 price tag down to a more manageable $48.99. Now here's the real interesting part of Square Enix's promo: You can buy both FF7 and its sequel, FF7 Rebirth, for $69.99. That's essentially a 2-for-1 deal now that Square Enix is pricing its PC games at $69.99 MSRP.

The epic fantasy world of George R.R Martin's Game of Thrones is being returned to in an officially licensed action RPG that features Jon Snow, white walkers, The Wall, and much more.

The Game Awards 2024 has just wrapped up, and among the selection of new game announcements was a trailer for Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, developed by Netmarble. The new action RPG game is brought to fans by HBO and Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment and will take gamers to the events that take place in the critically acclaimed TV show. According to the official title description from Netmarble, King Robert Baratheon is now dead, and the Lannister family is desperately clinging to the Iron Throne.

Additionally, King Robert Baratheon's brother, Stannis Baratheon, is currently gathering his forces to reclaim the Iron Throne while simultaneously, the North is bubbling at the fallout of the Red Wedding. The game will seemingly put players into the role of a Northman who journeys to The Wall, where he meets Jon Snow, whose character model is based on Kit Harrington from the Game of Thrones TV show. The trailer shows the protagonist fighting against white walkers, the undead, giants, and much more.

CD Projekt Red brought a stunning six-minute cinematic reveal trailer for The Witcher 4 to The Game Awards, which you can watch below in 4K. We've known for a while that the talented studio was moving away from its internal Red Engine for the next Witcher, with the highly anticipated game utilizing Unreal Engine 5.

The Witcher IV - Cinematic Reveal Trailer

For those who noted the text at the bottom of the frame, CD Projekt Red notes that the pre-rendered trailer was created in Unreal Engine 5 with an "unannounced NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU." Although not rendered in real-time, the action is incredibly detailed, with stunning art direction and characters.

Naughty Dog's critically acclaimed The Last of Us Part II Remastered will be released on April 3, 2025, on PC. Nixxes and Iron Galaxy are working alongside Naughty Dog on the port. The game is based on the enhanced PS5 version released earlier this year and will include "the high performance and robust features that PC players expect."

"We're all thrilled to bring The Last of Us Part II to the PC audience, including all the great new features we added in the Remastered version for PS5," The Last of Us Part II Remastered Game Director Matthew Gallant said. "We hope players enjoy the captivating story, rich combat mechanics, extensive behind-the-scenes commentary, and test their skills in the roguelike mode No Return."

The game will be optimized for PC, and although we don't have details on platform-specific features outside of full PlayStation DualSense controller integration, the studios behind The Last of Us Part I for PC are at the helm and should be adding similar features and support to the game.