Latest News - Page 432

AOOSTAR has just introduced its new Mini-PC based on AMD's new Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 "Strix Point" APU, it packs an OCulink port, and more. Check it out:

In a new post on X by leaker HXL, we're led to the Weibo forums where AOOSTAR has unveiled its new Mini-PC which packs the Strix Point APU, features 32GB of LPDDR5X-8000 memory, 1TB of SSD storage, and OCulink connectivity. The company has confirmed that the Mini-PC supports a 54W TDP, and Wi-Fi 7 too.

Inside, the new AOOSTAR Mini-PC features a custom vapor chamber cooling solution that the company says is "ultra quiet" while there are dual SSD slots in the system for upgrades if you need more storage. The OCulink port will allow you to hook up an external graphics card to the Mini-PC, just in case the RDNA 3.5-based integrated GPU doesn't have enough grunt for the games you're playing.

Google's CEO Sundar Pichai has weighed in on the recent conversation surrounding AI and its development - Are leading AI companies struggling to scale AI models due to a lack of high-quality training data?

Reports indicate that top AI development companies such as Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google will soon hit a wall that will hinder the explosive performance jumps of AI models such as OpenAI's GPT, or Google's Gemini. However, according to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, these assumptions about AI model scaling are unfounded, saying, "There's no evidence that the scaling laws have begun to stop. They will eventually stop, but we're not there yet."

These assertions that AI models will still continue to develop rapidly in the immediate future were subtly reiterated by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who wrote on X, "There's no wall". Current Google CEO Sundar Pichai joined in on the conversation at The New York Times' Dealbook summit, where he said, "I think the progress is going to get harder when I look at '25. The low-hanging fruit is gone. The hill is steeper." Pichai recognized there will be challenges ahead that simply can't be solved by throwing more compute at the AI model.

ASUS has shown off the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X processor passively cooled with a Noctua cooler, inside of the ASUS ProArt chassis, running at 95C under 220W of load.

In a new video posted by ASUS China General Manager, Tony Yu, we're seeing the new ASUS ProArt series chassis with wooden aesthetics (which looks oh-so-nice) which has been designed for workstation users and content creators, who seek quieter operation versus RGB bling.

Tony used the Ryzen 9 9950X processor rocking 16 cores and 32 threads of Zen 5 power, using the Noctua NH-P1 CPU cooler and keeping the 9950X at 95C passively cooled (look ma, no fans!). There are some pre-installed fans inside of the chassis, but the CPU itself is running a passively cooled unit with no fans blowing air onto the heatsink.

Microsoft beefs up its PC store competition by adding nearly 400 new games to the Xbox PC app storefront.

Xbox has quite the PC gaming ecosystem right now. Between Battle.net, the Microsoft Store, the web, and now the Xbox Windows app itself, there are a variety of different ways to buy Xbox-branded games and content on PC. The pressure to expand further onto PC propelled the $70 billion Activision buyout, and this pressure is also fueling Microsoft's ambitious multi-channel market competition plans.

Now we're seeing Microsoft beef up its digital games catalog with a swath of almost 400 titles to be added to the Xbox app. This will further mold the Xbox app into a more cohesive branching point within the ecosystem, brushing up against established launchers like Battle.net and Steam while filling out the content catalog along the way.

The Xbox app's new jump back in feature is a great addition for anyone playing PC games on their Lenovo Legion Go, ASUS ROG Ally, or other Windows handheld PC.

Microsoft is slowly but surely working its way up to a dedicated Xbox handheld. But before the hardware is ready, there's still lots of work to do on Xbox's native PC gaming presence, especially when it comes to adapting to a handheld's smaller screen.

On-the-go gaming is all about convenience. If you can pair that up with instant access, like, say, with Valve's innovative quick access button and suspend and resume feature, it's a potent combo for gamers. While the Xbox PC app doesn't have some sort of revolutionary built-in Quick Resume, it does have "jump back in," which is essentially a quick launch carousel of your recently played games.

The video games industry's uneasy Survive Till '25 mantra may have to get updated with a new number as industry figures believe Grand Theft Auto 6 is likely to be delayed beyond 2025.

Rockstar Games is no stranger to delays. Red Dead Redemption 2 was delayed twice, originally set to launch in Fall 2017, then pushed back to Spring and then Fall of 2018. GTA V was delayed once on consoles, and then three times on PC. Given this trend, the consensus is that the massively anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 will also be delayed.

In a recent Kinda Funny Games Daily podcast, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier shared his thoughts about GTA 6 launching in 2025. While this is Schreier's own thoughts, and not based on insider information from sources as per usual of his reporting, Schreier has extensive knowledge on the trends and goings-on in the industry, and has been reporting on GTA 6 specifically for many years.

Another slew of glorious OLED gaming monitors has been announced ahead of CES 2025, which is undoubtedly going to be inundated with the incredible pixel technology in various forms.

ASRock has taken to its website to unveil three new OLED gaming monitors, the PGO32UFS, the PGO27QFS, and the PGO27QFV. The company's latest flagship gaming monitor is the PGO32UFS, which is a 32-inch flat WOLED panel that sports a 4K resolution and a native 240Hz refresh rate. However, the PGO32UFS is a dual-mode monitor, meaning it's capable of dropping its resolution down to 1920 x 1080p and increasing its refresh rate to 480Hz.

The idea behind this new mode, which is becoming more prominent among gaming monitor companies, is to enable a gamer to seamlessly switch between 4K (high fidelity) and 1080p (Performance). A gamer that flexes between graphically intensive, slower, RPG-like titles would want the 4K monitor for the graphics, while a competitive gamer that plays first-person-shooter games will opt for the high refresh rate display. Dual-mode monitors seek to provide the best of both worlds. Announced alongside the PGO32UFS was the PGO27QFS, a 27-inch monitor featuring a WOLED panel, a QHD resolution, and a 240Hz refresh rate.

Cyberpunk 2077 just got a big update, and it seemingly ushers in a major performance boost for those with a new Intel Arrow Lake CPU in their PC.

Doubtless you haven't missed the controversy around the launch of Core Ultra 200S (desktop) processors, which underperformed compared to the expectations Intel built up in the prerelease marketing phase.

Gaming performance turned out particularly shaky in terms of the generational uplift on 14th-gen CPUs, and Intel has acknowledged this, and is preparing microcode updates to boost frame rates (while also fixing apparent issues with Windows, too, that are slowing down Core Ultra 200S chips).

The latest in what seems like a never-ending line of Nintendo Switch 2 rumors is what very well could be the first look at Nintendo's next-generation console.

Nintendo's next-generation console, presumably called the Nintendo Switch 2, considering the immense success of the Nintendo Switch, has been hinted at by Nintendo several times, with the company confirming via financial reports that a successor console was on the way, and that the company will ride the original Nintendo Switch out until the end of this fiscal year in March 2025. However, Nintendo did confirm that it will announce the successor console this fiscal year, which means any time now Nintendo could reveal the highly-anticipated handheld.

It was only earlier this month that six development studios confirmed to a publication that titles being worked on for the next-generation Nintendo console will be released between June and July next year, meaning the Nintendo Switch 2 will have already been announced and on shelves. The latest rumor about this elusive console comes from Satisfye, a company dedicated to creating accessories for gaming consoles.

When Microsoft first unveiled Windows Recall, it was met with heavy criticism for its intrusive nature on a PC, along with the potential security risk as a result of the feature working as intended.

For those that don't know, Windows Recall works by indiscriminately taking screenshots of a user's desktop and then storing those images within a folder. Users are able to "recall" what they were doing on a PC earlier in the day by simply asking via natural language or scrubbing through the time. While at face value, that seems like an interesting tool, but the word "indiscriminately" should be emphasized here, as Recall will capture everything on the desktop, meaning passwords, sensitive data, confidential information, and any other personal digitized information. A hacker gaining access to the folder containing screenshots of a session could prove a catastrophic security risk for that individual.

Microsoft has since added more layers of security to Recall in its re-release of the new app, which has also seen Recall become available on Copilot+ PC hardware. Since the re-release, Windows Insiders with Copilot+ PC hardware have been reporting issues with Recall, some of which have been officially recognized by Microsoft, who will address them in future updates. The expansion of Recall continues with Redmond announcing via its Windows Blog that Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26120.2510 (KB5048780) to the Dev Channel contains support for AMD and Intel-powered Copilot PCs.

Quantum computing, much like the acronym AI (artificial intelligence), has been caught in the lexicon as a piece of technology we will much more widely integrate into society sometime in the future. Today, that future just took a much bigger than anticipated step closer to the present, as Google has unveiled "Willow," the company's most advanced quantum processor.

Quantum computing has been around since the 1990s, and engineers, physicists, and scientists alike have been battling one big but tiny problem with implementing the technology: the number of errors it generates. Firstly, quantum computing is completely different than classical computers, which conduct calculations based on whether a bit is a 0 or a 1. However, quantum computing changes things, as it uses tiny pieces of information called qubits, or quantum bits, which can be on, off, or both.

Moreover, quantum computing also introduces quantum entanglement, an observable phenomenon that connects two particles together, synchronizing their states. The quantum entangled particles aren't restricted in distance, as their connection can stretch as far as the other side of the universe. But what does that all have to do with computing? Quantum computers are designed to exploit the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the study of how physical matter exhibits the properties of both particles and waves, but there are a few problems that need to be worked out first.

It was only last week Microsoft clamped down on the hardware restrictions of Windows 11 by requiring systems to have TMP 2.0 for Redmond's latest operating system. Now, the company has seemingly changed its mind with a new blog post detailing the process of how to get Windows 11 onto a machine with hardware that doesn't meet Windows 11's hardware requirements.

Microsoft explained in its recent blog post that it doesn't recommend running Windows 11 on hardware that doesn't meet its specifications, as it means the machine won't receive critical security updates, making the system exponentially more vulnerable to progressively sophisticated cyber attacks. However, Microsoft writes that if the OS needs to be installed on an older machine, it can be, but a watermark is added to the Windows 11 desktop, along with a notification displayed in Settings to notify the user the hardware requirements haven't been met.

For those wondering if getting Windows 11 running on an outdated machine will cause more headaches than leaving it on Windows 10, don't worry, there is always the option of rolling back the machine to the older generation OS. Microsoft writes users can do this by going through the system recovery process. Right-click on the Start menu and select Settings > System > Recovery.

Microsoft recently took to its blog to announce that Copilot has become available for Windows Insiders and that the new software is "native" to Windows 11. However, that doesn't seem to be the case.

According to recent reports, Microsoft appears to have mistakenly labeled Copilot's new app as "native" to Windows 11, as the new Copilot loads copilot.microsoft.com. The difference between the new and old versions of Copilot is Microsoft's new AI companion no longer uses Microsoft Edge's Progressive Webb System (PWA) but still uses the rendering engine that powers Edge, WebView 2. Notably, WindowsCentral reports that the only part of Copilot that is "native" to Windows is the menu in the title bar and the About screen.

It's likely that Microsoft is referring to the new hotkey functionality as being "native" to Windows, as Windows Insiders are able to press Alt+Spacebar keys to bring up a new quick view interface for Copilot. However, this is still the Copilot website, just in a smaller window. Additionally, this new feature adds Copilot to Windows' System Tray. It should be noted that Copilot is still in preview, meaning many of these problems or lack of features will be added to or fixed before Copilot becomes available to the wider public.

Marvell has just unveiled its new custom HBM compute architecture, enabling XPUs to have even higher levels of compute performance and memory density.

The new HBM compute architecture is available on all of its custom silicon partners, with Marvell collaborating with its cloud customers and leading HBM manufacturers SK hynix, Samsung, and Micron to develop custom HBM solutions for next-generation XPUs.

Will Chu, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Custom, Compute and Storage Group at Marvell, said: "The leading cloud data center operators have scaled with custom infrastructure. Enhancing XPUs by tailoring HBM for specific performance, power, and total cost of ownership is the latest step in a new paradigm in the way AI accelerators are designed and delivered. We're very grateful to work with leading memory designers to accelerate this revolution and, help cloud data center operators continue to scale their XPUs and infrastructure for the AI era".

NVIDIA's vision of the future of AI compute has been teased: the AI GPU leader sees the use of a silicon photonics interposer, 3D stacked DRAM, and GPU 'tiers' that tease GPU on GPU tech in the future.

In a new post on X from Ian Cutress, NVIDIA's vision of the future of AI compute has many different layers: module level cooling with a cold plate, die-to-die and tier-to-tier electrical connect, 3D stacked fine-grained DRAM, vertical power delivery, integrated silicon photonics, and an advanced package substrate.

Cutress reports that NVIDIA teased the silicon photonics interposer, SiPh intrachip and interchip, 12 SiPh connects wth 3 per GPU tile, 4 GPU tiles per tier, GPU 'tiers' as the image above shows, and 3D stacked DRAM with 6 per tile, fine-grained.

Steam set a new record for concurrent players on December 8, with 39,205,447 people logging in and playing games. This broke the previous record of around 38 million set in September 2024, which probably means it's only a matter of time before Valve's PC gaming platform hits 40 million concurrent players. Will it be another three months before the record is broken again? Time will tell.

The new record was set because some major PC releases dropped simultaneously, including Path of Exile 2, Marvel Rivals, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Path of Exile 2, the highly anticipated action-RPG sequel launched into Early Access, hit an impressive 578,569 peak concurrent player count on December 8, while Marvel Rivals' big free-to-play 1.0 launch hit 480,990 concurrent players. Both games are proving to be popular on the streaming platform Twitch, where they are climbing up the charts.

In addition to new titles, existing PC powerhouses like Counter-Strike 2, PUBG: Battlegrounds, and DOTA 2 saw massive player counts on December 8. Valve's games continue to be popular on the platform, including classics like Team Fortress 2. Here's a look at the current top 25 most-played games on Steam as of December 11, 2024.

FIPS 140-3 Level 2 Validation, or the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS), refers to the cryptographic module found in enterprise SSDs. These standards and security requirements laid out by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are used as a metric for companies and federal agencies to obtain hardware that meets stringent and specific government requirements.

KIOXIA's CM7 Series NVMe SSD brings PCIe 5.0 speed and performance to servers and storage applications, covering everything from AI to high-performance computing and transaction processing databases. Meeting the latest FIPS 140-3 standard makes them an excellent choice for all industries and federal agencies.

Compared to the FIPS 140-2 requirements, FIPS 140-3 includes stronger authentication and higher security standards for SSDs.

AMD's upcoming flagship Strix Halo APU has been spotted, with the new Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor getting churned through Geekbench, ahead of its CES 2025 reveal.

The new AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 "Strix Halo" APU was spotted on Geekbench with the full name of "AMD RYZEN AI MAX+ 395 w/ Radeon 8060S" confirming that the flagship Strix Halo includes the "Max+" naming scheme, dropping the "9" that we saw with Strix Point APUs.

AMD's new Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor will feature 16 cores and 32 threads of Zen 5 CPU power, with the largest amount of integrated GPU cores with 40 RDNA 3.5-based Compute Units. We should also see 32MB of L3 cache per CCD, for a total of 64MB of MALL cache. We'll see up to 96GB of RAM supported on the flagship Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, too.

AMD Ryzen 9 9800X3D is the undisputed gaming champion - you can read about it in our in-depth review of Team Red's first Zen 5 X3D chip. After a string of somewhat lackluster CPU launches from both AMD and Intel this year, at least when viewed from the perspective of a PC gamer, the 9800X3D arrived on the scene like Duke Nukem 3D - ready to kick butt and chew some bubblegum.

With AMD's 3D V-cache technology, it's a CPU designed for gaming performance. However, its 8-core and 16-thread design also brought non-gaming performance improvements to the X3D line-up. This presents a best-of-both-worlds option to consumers, which has led to the AMD Ryzen 9 9800X3D CPU selling out in several locations.

Currently, demand for the 9800X3D exceeds supply, and AMD is working to alleviate this. However, even though new CPUs are being sent to retailers every week, you might have to wait until 2025.

Dell's next-gen Pro Max 18 and 16 Pro Max workstation laptops have been leaked, powered by Intel's new Core Ultra 200HX "Arrow Lake-HX" processor, and NVIDIA's current-gen Ada-based workstation RTX 5000 series GPU, and Thunderbolt 5 connectivity.

In some new leaks, we're learning that the new Dell Pro Max 18 and Pro Max 16 workstation laptops will feature 170W to 200W for the CPU + GPU combo for the 18-inch and 16-inch laptops, respectively. Dell's new laptops will feature the industry's first 3-fan mobile workstation setup, with up to 256GB of CAMM2 memory, and up to 16TB of SSD storage on the 18-inch model, up to 12TB of SSD storage on the 16-inch model.

Dell will have the ultra-fast Thunderbolt 5 standard offering 80-120Gbps of bandwidth, with a Tandem OLED display option up for grabs, built-in Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4 5G WWAN for connectivity.