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Black Friday is closing in, and Amazon is already riddled with incredible deals on a variety of PC hardware, including SSDs.

Before the madness of the coming weekend of deals, Amazon has discounted a selection of SSDs across its marketplace, and some of the below models are discounted as much as 64%. For those wondering if this is a good time to buy an SSD, in general, yes, considering these prices.

But that is ultimately determined by your current storage solution. If you are looking to upgrade from an HDD or a SATA SSD to an NVMe M.2 drive, then this is a fantastic opportunity to snag a cheap M.2. Additionally, if you currently have one SSD, and you are able to have multiple in your system, it's recommended to pick another one up that's strictly dedicated for games. That way, your OS can be on one SSD, and all games can be installed on the other.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has inquired about purchasing MSNBC amid rumors that Comcast could be preparing to sell it.

The media stir about Musk possibly purchasing MSNBC began when Donald Trump Jr tagged Musk in an X post about Comcast being rumored to be quietly preparing the sale of MSNBC, with Trump Jr writing, "Hey Elon Musk, I have the funniest idea ever!!!". The inquiry from Musk comes after news broke that Comcast was rolling its media properties into a new company called SpinCo, which will sever those media assets from Comcast's NBC broadcast network.

Despite this severing, Comcast has said that none of its media properties are for sale, but that hasn't prevented speculation of sales on social media platforms, especially now that Musk has lit a fire. Musk replied to Trump Jr's X post with a similar response to what the Tesla CEO wrote when inquiring about purchasing Twitter back in 2017. "How much does it cost?".

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Brad Smith, the vice chair and top legal officer at Microsoft, said that he is hoping President Trump and his administration push back harder against foreign cyber attacks, particularly those that originate from Russia and China.

Cyber attacks from Russia and China have become more and more frequent, with Microsoft only recently confirming that Russian state-backed hacking group Midnight Blizzard infiltrated its servers. Microsoft has since implemented security updates to mitigate the likelihood of breaches, but attacks are still increasing and only becoming more sophisticated. Brad Smith, Microsoft's vice chair and top legal officer, has called upon the Trump Administration to "push harder" against cyber attacks, saying the issue "deserves to be a more prominent issue of international relations".

Smith has said he hopes Trump is prepared to send a "strong message" to Russia, Iran, and any other nation that is launching cyber attacks on the US. It was only earlier this month US authorities accused China of launching widespread cyber espionage campaigns against the US, with a recent Microsoft-led study finding that more than 600 million cyber attacks are launched at its customers every day. Moreover, Microsoft found that criminal gangs are now increasingly teaming up with "nation-state groups" to launch operations against targets and share hacking tools.

Dell has just announced its new IR7000 servers that support up to 480kW per rack of computing power with Direct Liquid Cooling. Check it out:

Dell CEO Michael Dell posted on X saying: "Our new IR7000 supports up to 480kW per rack of computing power with Direct Liquid Cooling. The flexible design allows for any combination of Cloud, AI and HPC. The system is engineered to capture nearly 100% of the heat produced within each rack".

Dell has three example configurations of its new IR7000 server racks:

There are leaks, and then there are leaks. Product shots and store listings for two Intel Arc B580 graphics cards from ASRock indicate an imminent release for at least one next-gen Intel Arc 'Battlemage' desktop GPU - the B580.

The retail listings for the ASRock Intel Arc B580 Steel Legend and ASRock Intel Arc B580 Challenger cards, both listed as OC models, also confirm some of the specs for Intel's next-gen Battlemage B580 card.

As the successor to the entry-level Intel Arc A580 that launched with a wallet-friendly price point of $179, the B580 is shaping up to be something that could shake up the budget GPU market for desktops with 12GB of VRAM.

SpaceX's exciting Starlink team has just enabled its direct-to-cell satellite communications, with a direct connection from Starlink satellites to your smartphone, bypassing traditional cell towers in areas with no coverage.

Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk said that Starlink's new satellite "enables internet connectivity for your mobile phone with no extras equipment or special app. It just works". The new direct-to-cell Starlink connectivity isn't available in every country, but it is available through particular carriers in the following countries:

It's an incredible move by Starlink, slowing webbing out their satellite communications technology with rocket launch after rocket launch, new satellite after new satellite. Personally I'm using Starlink here in South Australia, and enjoying 250-350Mbps where I can only get 50-60Mbps through fiber in my area.

STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl launched last week, and so far, the response from critics and fans alike has been mixed - with most of the criticism surrounding the game's bugs, glitches, performance issues, and inconsistent design and presentation. However, setting aside the rough edges and STALKER 2's mix of shooting, survival, exploration, and horror captures what made the original a classic.

Developer GSC Game World has announced that sales have already exceeded 1 million copies after a few days, which doesn't include all gamers playing on Xbox Game Pass on PC and console. It has also been confirmed that the game's first patch is arriving this week.

And it will be the first of many, with players hoping that support will arrive at a steady clip. "We want to reassure you once more that we will make every effort to constantly improve your S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl experience," GSC Game World writes. "We are truly grateful for your feedback and suggestions for improvement."

AMD is expected to have a "full unveiling" of its next-gen RDNA 4 GPU architecture at CES 2025, with "at least" one new Radeon RX 8000 series graphics card hitting the market in late January.

We know that AMD's upcoming RDNA 4 GPU architecture is the last one before the company unifies its architectures into the UDNA architecture, expected to power next-gen GPU designs inside of graphics cards and APUs of the future. In January 2025 at CES, leaker Moore's Law is Dead says his sources say we can expect RDNA 4 at the show, and at least one SKU launching weeks later.

A bigger note here is that this source said they couldn't confirm if AMD will have its next-gen FSR 4 upscaling technology ready for RDNA 4 and CES 2025. NVIDIA will be stomping in with its next-gen GeForce RTX 50 series "Blackwell" GPUs led by the ultra-enthusiast flagship GeForce RTX 5090, and I'm sure, DLSS 4 upscaling to boot.

As of November 2024, the latest version of Valve's Steam PC client no longer supports or runs on Windows 7 or Windows 8 systems. Per the release and patch notes for the recent Steam Client Update from November 5, users with these older Microsoft operating systems will no longer have their Steam client automatically updated.

Valve warned users about the change, announcing quite a while ago that as of January 1, 2024, Steam would stop officially supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 operating systems. Steam will likely still work on these systems, but with no more updates, Valve will be "unable to guarantee continued functionality of Steam."

The good news is that only a fraction of PC gamers are affected. According to Valve's latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey results for October 2024, 96.26% of all PC gamers on the platform are running either Windows 11 or Windows 10 - with only 0.28% running Windows 7.

NVIDIA is "working as fast as it can" to certify Samsung's new AI memory chips -- HBM3E -- with CEO Jensen Huang himself telling Bloomberg TV.

Jensen talked with the press after attending a ceremony at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where the NVIDIA CEO was given an honorary doctorate in engineering. Jensen said that NVIDIA is looking at ways to purchase 8-layer and 12-layer HBM3E memory chips from Samsung, while as it stands, the company is acquiring most of its HBM chips used on its AI GPUs, from South Korean rival SK hynix.

Earlier this week during NVIDIA's Q3 2024 post-earnings call with analysts, the CEO didn't mention Samsung when talking about the company's major suppliers -- naming SK hynix and Micron -- but now, the company is "working as fast as it can" to get Samsung HBM3E certified.

Microsoft's big Windows 11 2024 Update, or Windows 11 version 24H2, is rolling out to users everywhere. With several improvements, optimizations, and new features added, the update has also caused a few compatibility issues with specific hardware and software configurations. According to Microsoft's "known issues and notifications" article for 24H2, it's also not playing nice with many Ubisoft games.

According to Microsoft, "these games might become unresponsive while starting, loading, or during active gameplay," with users getting black screens instead of loading into the games. Microsoft lists five games affected: Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Assassin's Creed Origins, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Star Wars Outlaws, and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

It's a significant compatibility issue, so much so that Microsoft is now actively blocking systems with any of these games installed from updating to Windows 11 version 24H2.

Black Friday is right around the corner, and to celebrate the incoming wave of deals, Magicycle has slapped some extremely heavy discounts on two of its E-bikes.

Magicycle has rolled out some crazy discounts on two of its E-bikes, the Cruiser Pro and the Ocelot Pro. Both of these E-bikes are discounted by $900 or more. The Cruiser Pro enables riders to effortlessly adjust the bike's power levels from 0 to 7. Each level is tailored to the rider's preferred riding speeds, with the option of additional customization from 1% through to 100% if the levels aren't to your liking. The Cruiser Pro is equipped with a 52V 20Ah power battery that is designed to provide the rider with the option of traveling long range, with Magicycle stating the Cruisier Pro can reach up to 100 miles off a single charge.

So, what is giving you all this power? Magicycle has equipped the Cruiser Pro with a 1500W motor that is able to provide a peak power output of up to 1500W, with 750W being nominal. With all this power, you need to be able to stop safely, which is why Magicycle has equipped hydraulic disc brakes that are designed to be responsive and reduce power with a flick of your fingers. Not only is safety at your fingertips, but also power, as the Cruiser Pro can reach a top speed of 28 mph and has a max load of 500 lbs. Check out the full deal on the Cruiser Pro here.

With CES 2025 around the corner, NVIDIA's upcoming Blackwell-powered GeForce RTX 50 Series line-up is starting to take shape. According to sources, the company will launch as many as four SKUs within the first few months of 2025, beginning with the flagship GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 in January.

In addition, NVIDIA is reportedly planning to quickly follow up its flagship duo with the GeForce RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti, with specs for both of these cards painting a clearer picture of how the Blackwell generation is going to stack up against the current Ada Lovelace GeForce RTX 40 Series.

Looking at the specs of the GeForce RTX 5070, which will feature a CUDA Core count of 6400, 12GB of GDDR7 memory, and a TGP of 250W, the mid-range GPU only features an 8.7% increase in its core count compared to the GeForce RTX 4070, with 10.7% fewer cores than the GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER refresh.

NVIDIA is expected to unveil its next-generation GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards at CES 2025, officially launching and being excitedly installed into their desktop gaming PCs in late January 2025.

In a new video from leaker Moore's Law is Dead, we're learning that an NVIDIA retail partner source tell him that they were told that the unveiling "will be at CES" with a launch "likely to follow weeks (not months) later". Another source corroborated that, saying that the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 would be announced at CES 2025.

The biggest takeaway for me here is that the second source told MLID that RTX 5090 pricing "might be priced on the lower end of the leaked spectrum". NVIDIA's ultra-enthusiast GeForce RTX 5090 in previous price leaks at somewhere between $1999 and $2499, so the "lower end of the spectrum" there suggests $1999 (or so) pricing.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI is reportedly considering developing a web browser that would compete directly against Google and its popular Chrome browser, combining its AI chatbot and "separately discussed or struck deals to power search features".

In a new report from The Information picked up by Reuters, we're learning that OpenAI has spoken about the search product with website and app developers including Conde Nest, Redfin, Eventbrite, and Priceline according to people who have seen the prototypes or designs of the products.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is going in a different direction with the company, establishing itself firmly into the search engine market to defy Google's dominance with the likes of SearchGPT. We all know that Google is the undisputed leader of the search industry, as it's in our everyday speaking terms that we say "I'll Google it" without a second thought, so OpenAI would have an uphill battle (that is worth fighting for).

Ubitium has just revealed that it is developing the first Universal Processor, with the RISC-V startup combining CPU, GPU, DSP, and FPGA into a single chip that could change up the market.

Where this new universal processor from Ubitium is different, is that instead of APUs and AI GPUs and accelerators from AMD and NVIDIA, the approach by Ubitium will see each and every transistor on the Universal Processor to be reused for everything. There are no "specialized" cores like CPUs and GPUs, each transistor is capable of whatever it needs to do... universal.

Ubitium emerged from stealth status this year, with the developers on the team including semiconductor veterans who have worked for some of the most important tech companies in the US: Intel, NVIDIA, Texas Instruments, as well as smaller places like PACT XPP Technologies.

AMD's mobile-focused Radeon RX 7800M has been tested over USB4 and OCulink, with up to 28% more performance using OCulink versus USB4.

The Radeon RX 7800M is a Navi 32-based GPU with 3840 Stream Processors, which is the full configuration of the Navi 32 GPU for the desktop. The big change there is that it doesn't feature the full memory bandwidth, limited to a 192-bit memory bus and just 12GB of GDDR6 memory.

Our friends over at HotHardware tested the Radeon RX 7800M over both USB4 and OCulink, as the 7800M supports both of those connectivity standards. USB4 is limited to Thunderbolt 4/3 speeds at 40Gbps, while OCulink pumps at the full PCIe 4.0 x4 bandwidth of 64Gbps... so how does that additional bandwidth help the 7800M? Pretty decently, actually.

AI servers of the future are expected to use over 1000 kW of power, with the rise of NVIDIA's next-gen Rubin Ultra AI GPU and its new HBM4 memory coming that will see a rise in power consumption of AI servers.

The current best AI servers and clusters with a rack density of 130 kW to 250 kW of power according to an analyst by data center firm Vertiv. But these numbers are going to skyrocket with Blackwell Ultra and Rubin AI servers using between 250 kW and 900 kW of power with up to 576 GPUs in a single rack expected in 2026-2027.

After that, NVIDIA will have its future-gen, beefed-up Rubin Ultra AI GPUs inside of new AI servers in 2028-2029+ that will use 1000 kW or more. Vertiv notes that "densification roadmaps point to extreme peak rack densities of 1mW+ resulting in estimated new build average rack density increasing across varying workloads applications and market segments".

AMD is preparing its higher-end Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D processors for a CES 2025 unveil, and late January launch on shelves.

The new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor is already on the market and has been very well received, but the 8-core, 16-thread 9800X3D processor is soon to be joined by the Ryzen 9 9900X3D with 12 cores 24 threads, and then the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D with a huge 16 cores and 32 threads with the exciting new second-gen 3D V-Cache technology on-board.

In a new post on X by leaker Hoang Anh Phu we're told that the 9950X3D and 9900X3D processors will launch in late January 2025, with the new dual CCD (Core Complex Die) processors to NOT have a 3D V-Cache stack on each chiplet. AMD is using the same design as the 7950X3D and 7900X3D, where there is an extra 64MB of 3D V-Cache for a single die only.

NVIDIA will reportedly launch 4 different GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs in Q1 2025, with new information teasing we'll see the RTX 5090, RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070 all released in early 2025.

The new information is coming from Benchlife, which reports that its sources from the AIC and "various passive component agents" that NVIDIA will "launch a complete GeForce RTX 50 series graphics card in the first half of 2025". The list included a rundown of the launches, with the 4 higher SKUs launching in Q1 2025, and the others are "TBC" right now.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 series "Blackwell" GPU release rumors: