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Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the premium tier of Game Pass, offering access to day one releases, EA Play membership, and the ability to play games on console, PC, and via the cloud. As we enter one of the biggest deals and sale seasons of the year, right now, you get 28% off an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: 3-Month Membership via Stack Social.

This deal is a pretty sizable discount from the usual $50.97 price point for three months of Game Pass Ultimate. The codes will work for both new and current users and are stackable, which means you can buy multiple 3-month codes for up to 15 months. Also, these are global keys, so they'll work in any country or region where Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is available.

One of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate's big draw cards is access to major Xbox first-party and third-party game releases on day one, like this week's highly anticipated S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl from GSC Game World. Here's a list of some of the biggest Xbox Game Pass Ultimate available or coming soon.

Black Friday is almost upon us and just like every year companies are already getting ahead of the wave of incoming deals by slashes prices across their range of products early.

Corsair is one of those companies, and according to its recent announcement, prices across a range of its All-In-One (AIO) CPU coolers will be severely reduced, with savings of up to $165 on select items. Corsair has really brought the savings here, with some discounts on products being as much as 50%, making it a great time to snag a good deal on a cooler for a current or future system.

Kicking this off is the iCUE LINK H150i, a three-fan setup that comes 360mm radiator, three QX120 RGB fans capable of spinning up to 2,400 RPM, a customizable LCD screen that can display performance metrics such as CPU temperature, images, GIFs and more, and compatibility with the latest Intel 1700 & AMD AM5 sockets.

Microsoft has confirmed that its latest Windows 11 24H2 update breaks some aspects of the operating system, such as USB audio, time and clock, and game playability.

Redmond confirmed the bugs within Windows 11 24H2 in a support document where it states some users who didn't have administrative privileges were experiencing difficulty changing the time zone in the Date & Time view. Microsoft writes that this issue is only limited to Date & time within the Windows Settings app, and that a workaround for afflicted users can be achieved through changing the timezone within the Control Panel.

That wasn't the only issue, as some users are reporting problems with the latest Windows 11 24H2 displaying the incorrect time after being awoken from Sleep. Additionally, reports state that some users are also seeing incorrect times after daylight savings have ticked over. Moreover, Windows 11 24H2 currently has a bug that causes audio devices to stop working entirely, and it's even more frequent with USB audio devices.

Thanks to the first wave of Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft and its partners featuring Qualcomm's Snapdragon X hardware, it's been a big year for Windows on Arm devices. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon expects big things from the company's expansion into new markets, with an additional $22 billion per year by 2029.

$4 billion of that new revenue would come from PC chips, Qualcomm Arm-based Snapdragon chips found in Windows laptops, mini PCs, or even desktops. This is a bold prediction because it would put the company's PC chip revenue close to AMD's consumer-based Ryzen business, which brings in 4-5 billion annually.

If Qualcomm manages to meet this expectation, it would be a remarkable achievement because its PC business is still relatively new. And by that, we mean brand-new because its Snapdragon X chips for Windows and Copilot+ PCs launched this year - starting from basically 0% market share.

Proton is the compatibility layer for Windows PC games to run on Linux, and Valve is leading its development. Valve's Linux-based SteamOS can be found on the popular Steam Deck gaming handheld and gaming PCs that want the freedom and customization of Linux - and none of that Windows bloat.

Valve has recently released a Proton Experimental update that fixes numerous bugs and performance issues while adding support for NVIDIA's DLSS 3 technology, which includes NVIDIA's Optical Flow API that enables DLSS 3 Frame Generation to run on modern GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards.

This update doesn't mean Valve will release Steam Deck 2 with an NVIDIA APU, but it certainly paves the way for precisely that. It finally lets GeForce RTX 40 Series owners running Linux enable Frame Generation, if nothing else.

NVIDIA spoke to investors during a recent call, which revealed that despite potential cooling issues with Blackwell GPUs, NVIDIA will continue to push "full steam" ahead.

NVIDIA just wrapped up its Q3 2025 earnings call. The company touted the power of its coming Blackwell AI chips and how the massive popularity of its AI-centered chips will only fuel the company's revenue and profits further. Notably, NVIDIA moved to the top of the list of the world's most valuable publicly traded companies, passing the likes of Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon.

NVIDIA was able to achieve this through its AI data center business, which accounted for a staggering $30.7 billion of its quarterly earnings. By comparison, NVIDIA's gaming sector 'only' pulled in around $2-3 billion. Additionally, much of that quarterly revenue is profit for NVIDIA, with the company posting profit figures for the following quarters: Q1, $14.8 billion, $16.6 billion in Q2, and $19.3 billion in Q3. By comparison, Apple and Microsoft made $21.4 billion, and $24.7 billion profit this past quarter, respectively.

NVIDIA has posted its financial results for the third quarter that ended on October 27, 2024. With $35.1 billion in revenue, the company once again exceeded expectations. This figure is 17% higher than the previous quarter and 94% higher than the same period of last year, driven once again by AI and the company's Data Center segment. And with a gross margin of 74.6%, NVIDIA shows no signs of slowing down.

"AI is transforming every industry, company, and country," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Enterprises are adopting agentic AI to revolutionize workflows. Industrial robotics investments are surging with breakthroughs in physical AI. And countries have awakened to the importance of developing their national AI and infrastructure."

That's a lot of "AI" in one statement. Jensen Huang also said that the entire planet is shifting toward "NVIDIA computing," which is an incredibly bold thing to say, while confirming that its highly anticipated Blackwell chips are in full production for Data Center, Gaming, and AI PCs.

Xbox takes a reputation hit as Flight Simulator 2024 nosedives at launch.

Flight Simulator 2024 is being described as one of the worst game launches in recent memory. The game has been plagued by a myriad of frustrating issues at release, the most notorious of which freezes loading at 97% while another forces players to wait in login queues for an undetermined period of time. People simply can't get into the game they paid money for and they're making it known across multiple corners of the internet.

In a recent video, Asobo Studio, the developer behind Flight Simulator 2024, explains what went wrong. Quite simply, there were more people trying to play FS 2024 than Asobo had anticipated. The game's servers--which stream data from a huge asset database directly to consoles and PCs--were crushed under the collective weight of what could have been millions of people logging in at once.

After rumors of Sony reportedly being in talks to buy the parent company of critically acclaimed video game developer, FromSoftware, a new buyout offer has been confirmed by the parent company's CEO.

Reuters reported a few days ago that Sony was in talks to buy Kadokawa Corporation, the parent company of FromSoftware, the developers behind beloved and critically acclaimed releases such as Elden Ring and the Dark Souls franchise. At the moment Kadokawa owns approximately 70% of FromSoftware, with Sony owning just under 15% of the developer. If Sony acquired Kadokawa, it would become the majority shareholder and, therefore, be able to control the studio.

In a recent statement Kadokawa confirmed it was in talks with Sony about a possible merger, and that a letter of intent has been acquired. However, no final decision has been made "at this time." Essentially where we are at is Sony has put its cards on the table and offered to buy Kadokawa, in legal writing. Kadokawa's board now needs to review the offer and respond.

Google may be forced to sell off Google Chrome, the world's most popular internet browser that is home to 61% of all internet users.

The possibility of Google having to sever one of the arms of its core business comes from people familiar with the matter who recently spoke to Bloomberg, which reports top antitrust officials are planning on asking the court on Wednesday for Google to be forced to sell off Chrome, to bring fairness back to the browser market that has been heavily leaning in Google's favor for quite some time.

The changes to Google were proposed by the Department of Justice in a court filing last month and list other measures that would be a blow to Google's business, such as the requirement for data licensing, transparency for advertisers to see where the ads they are paying for appear, and guardrails for consumers to protect them against Google hoarding user data.

SpaceX has just wrapped up its sixth flight of Starship where the company once again expanded the envelop of what's possible with Ship and its booster Super Heavy.

The Elon Musk-led company launched Starship from Starbase on November 19, 2024, with the massive Super Heavy booster engaging its 33 Raptor engines to push Ship to its designated altitude for separation. Once separation was complete, Super Heavy began the process of returning to the launch site for a catch attempt by the launch tower, as was proven possible in Flight 5.

However, during this phase, automated health monitoring checks were conducted on Super Heavy and the catch tower, resulting in risk mitigation processes being triggered, causing Super Heavy to abort the catch tower attempt.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl is one of the most highly anticipated PC game releases of the year, a sequel to one of the most groundbreaking first-person shooters ever made and a game that has been in development for several years over at GSC Game World. In it, you once again take on the role of a lone stalker, exploring the dangerous 64km-squared radioactive zone of post-apocalyptic Chornobyl.

Powered by Unreal Engine 5, the game's photorealistic seamless open world is set to test even the most high-end rigs. With the game launching with DLSS 3 and Reflex support, NVIDIA has provided internal benchmark results for gaming running on various GeForce RTX 40 Series graphics cards - and it looks like this is one game that requires Frame Generation to run with Max Settings.

At 4K, not even the mighty GeForce RTX 4090 can hit a native 60 FPS - it delivers an average frame rate of 52.4 FPS. However, turn on DLSS 3 (or go RTX On), and this number jumps to an impressive 123.9 FPS. Even the popular GeForce RTX 4070 manages to hit a respectable 73.6 FPS at 4K with DLSS 3.

Although we're still waiting for Intel to launch its second-gen Arc desktop 'Battlemage' graphics cards for desktop PCs, with the latest rumors pointing to a December 2024 launch, the Xe2 graphics architecture is already out there as part of the company's latest Lunar Lake Core Ultra 200V mobile chips.

According to a new benchmark listing, Battlemage-next or Xe3 is already being tested internally as part of Intel's upcoming Panther Lake chips. No matter what happens with Intel's ambitions in the gaming GPU space, it certainly looks like Arc graphics will continue to be developed as APUs become more prevalent in mobile devices and gaming handhelds.

As part of its latest Q3 2024 Earnings Call, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger noted that the future of Arc would involve fewer desktop SKUs and a greater focus on integrated graphics. It will be interesting to see if Intel releases an Xe3-powered desktop GPU or if the technology remains in the mobile space.

2024 is almost at its end, which means The Game Awards are getting close, and now the organization has officially unveiled the nominees for Game of the Year.

In a new live stream The Game Awards unveiled the contenders to win Game of the Year 2024, which comes after the organization announced it was changing its rules to recognize DLCs, expansion packs, new game seasons, remakes, and remasters across all categories. The recent announcement unveiled six nominees for Game of the Year, which include Black Myth: Wukong, Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirh, Metaphor: ReFantazio, Balatro, and Astro Bot.

The organization unveiled other nominees in its various other categories, such as Game Direction, Best Ongoing Game, Best Art Direction, Best Mobile Game, Best Narrative, Best Performance, Best Score & Music, Best Audio, Best Adaptation, Best Multiplayer, Best Independent Game, Best Role-Playing Game, and many more. Now the voting begins, with a jury set to select which game wins out of the ones that have been nominated, with fans being able to cast their own vote through to December 11.

In the land of high-speed DDR5 memory and PC enthusiast overclocking, it's currently world record season. We've seen the max frequency number hit some pretty insane levels. Beating their world record that we reported on a week ago, overclocker AKM has done it again, pushing the memory frequency to an incredible DDR5-12527MHz.

This new record looks captured using the same system, which pairs the latest flagship Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Processor, ASRock's Z890 Taichi OCF motherboard, and V-COLOR Manta XFinity DDR5 memory. The Z890 Taichi OCF motherboard is the common denominator, and it's certainly living up to its "Built for Extreme Overclocking" tagline.

ASRock notes that the Z890 Taichi OCF's design, which includes a 10-layer PCB, server-grade ultra-low-loss material, and ASRock's Memory OC Shield to reduce EMI noise, is tailor-made for enthusiasts and pro overclockers.

Corsair's new LX-R RGB Series of reverse-flow fans might be the perfect option for those putting together an RGB-lit PC gaming rig. Reverse-flow fans are useful for systems with radiator or case intake requirements, and since the Corsair LX-R RGB Series is compatible with the iCUE LINK ecosystem, they can be installed without anything obstructing the light show.

The Corsair LX-R RGB Series fans are available in Black or White and 120mm and 140mm sizes, in packs of two or three, or multi-pack starter kits with an iCUE LINK System Hub. As mentioned in the headline and introduction, these fans are all about that RGB, with each LX-R RGB fan featuring 18 individually addressable RGB LEDs spread across the inner and outer light loop.

The lighting is fully customizable via Corsair's iCUE software, or you can keep it in Time Warp mode, which the company says "creates mesmerizing optical illusions."

Scammers are always looking for new ways to take advantage of unsuspecting people, and according to Switzerland's National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) there is a rise in a new method of scamming, and it involves the use of QR codes and the traditional postage system.

In a new statement issued by the National Cyber Security Center, hackers are attempting a new scheme to get malware into as many devices as possible, and it involves sending fake letters, such as the one above, to residents that request they download a "Severe Weather Warning App" for Android via the provided QR code. The letters were faked to look like letters sent from the nation's Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology, and the app the scammers requested residents to download was designed to mimic the official Alertswiss weather app by using a similar name "AlertSwiss," and a slightly different logo.

The fraudulent app took users that scanned it to a third-party site and not the official Google Play Store, which, for those unfamiliar with the rules of the road when downloading apps - the general rule of thumb is don't download any application onto your device that isn't from the official app marketplaces. The scamming app contained a version of the Copper trojan, malware designed specifically for keylogging purposes, gathering two-factor authentication information, tracking notifications and SMSs, and stealing stored user credentials from other applications.

Only weeks after Apple unveiled its redesign of the Mac Mini line-up, Microsoft has unveiled a new mini PC that's even smaller than the Mac Mini and is scheduled to be released in April next year.

Microsoft has taken to its blog to announce the Windows 365 Link, which the company says is the "First Cloud PC devices for Windows 365". Microsoft states in the blog the upcoming device is strictly designed for cloud computing, and won't even have any local storage available to users. Moreover, Windows 365 Link measures just 4.72 by 4.72 inches and stands just 1.18 inches high, making it slightly smaller than Apple's Mac Mini.

As for connectivity, the Windows Links 365 will come with three USB-A ports, one USB-C port, an HDMI port, DisplayPort connections, an Ethernet port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Keeping to connectivity, Microsoft has added support for two 4K resolution monitors, along with Bluetooth 5.3, and Wi-Fi 6E. On the blog, Microsoft writes the device "takes seconds to boot" and "instantly wakes from sleep".

Microsoft has announced that it will release its own Mini PC in 2025, with the new Windows 365 Link - "the first Cloud PC device purpose-built by Microsoft to connect securely to Windows 365 in seconds." Yes, this means that it won't actually run apps like Word or Excel natively or even ship with Windows 11 - it's entirely cloud-based.

It's also a Mini PC designed for businesses adopting Windows 365 to offer a secure, efficient, and sustainable end-user experience for Cloud PC environments. Microsoft notes that it boots in seconds and "instantly wakes from sleep," with the devices supporting dual 4K monitors, Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, and four USB connections.

It has also been designed with sustainability in mind. The shell is constructed from 90% post-consumer recycled aluminum alloy and 100% pre-consumer recycled aluminum alloy. Even the motherboard contains recycled copper and tin solder.

ASUS has just unveiled its next-gen infrastructure solutions at SC24, with a product showcase that shows the company is working with NVIDIA and Ubitus/Ubilink to prove the "immense computational power of supercomputers, using AI-powered avatar and robot demonstrations that leverage the newly-inaugurated data center".

ASUS has revealed its new ASUS AI POD, a complete rack solution powered by the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 AI server platform, integrating GPUs, CPUs and switches in seamless, high-speed direct communication, enhancing the training of trillion-parameter LLMs and enables real-time inference.

The key points from ASUS at SC24 include: