Latest News - Page 45

GTA VI could take over a day to download for millions of UK gamers, according to new broadband analysis from Uswitch, who looked at a range of UK internet speeds and revealed which will be waiting the longest to jump into Rockstar's highly anticipated GTA 6.

UK households using standard copper ADSL connections at 10Mbps could wait up to 6 days and 6 hours to download a 676GB file, or over a day for a 120GB version. With 90% of games now sold digitally, the potential for launch-day frustrations is high. Rumors are currently circulating that GTA 6 will be as big as 676GB, but those remain just rumors, and if history is anything to go by, it would be incredibly unusual for Rockstar to release a game that requires more than half a terabyte of storage.

Uswitch's broadband experts modeled download times across a range of UK internet speeds, revealing big differences between ultrafast and slower connections. The UK's average broadband speed of 170.2Mbps could result in around 1 hour and 34 minutes for the smaller 120GB file, but gamers with sub-100Mbps connections will be waiting for hours.

Sony is pulling the plug on PS3 and PS Vita storefronts starting next month as the company lays out plans for the PS6.

Sony made two bombshell announcements today: First, Sony confirmed that they would stop making physical PlayStation game discs for new games starting in 2028. The second bit of news concerns legacy hardware like the PS3 and Vita.

The company has confirmed that these older systems will be disconnected from the PS Store as soon as next month--starting in August, PS3 and PS Vita will lose PS Store access across Central America. All other global regions will lose access in July 2027, Sony has confirmed.

Sony is officially shutting down production of physical PlayStation game discs for new titles in January 2028, the company today announced.

It's happening: Sony is finally pulling the trigger to end physical disc production. The PlayStation 6 generation could be all-digital by default, forcing users to buy newly-introduced products in a digital format, which leads to higher margins for the PlayStation business. The news comes after Sony sold 70 million game discs in FY25, representing 22% of total sales.

"As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028," Sony writes on the PlayStation blog.

GTA 6 is not only the biggest game release on the horizon, but arguably it's shaping up to be the biggest game launch of all time when it debuts on November 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles. Of course, PC gamers will have to wait for the inevitable PC version, but it's starting to look like we can add Nintendo Switch 2 gamers to the mix.

Of course, the biggest hurdle or technical roadblock for bringing Grand Theft Auto 6 to the Nintendo Switch 2 would be its hardware. The handheld is powered by a custom NVIDIA chip with an Ampere GPU somewhat comparable to the GeForce RTX 3050. That said, with optimization and RTX technologies like DLSS, developers have already proven that PS5-era games can run on the console and deliver an impressive portable experience. Case in point, Capcom's Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata combo.

According to a new post from Nash Weedle, who first reported that a GTA 6 port for the Nintendo Switch 2 was in development late last year, the "technical hurdles" to bring the game to the handheld "have been overcome."

If you've been following the recent news surrounding the goings on at Xbox, you're probably aware that the situation for the developer, publisher, and hardware maker is pretty grim. In the past week, we've heard several rumors from multiple credible sources that Xbox is set to close or part ways with several of its first-party studios.

In the past day alone, we've heard that acclaimed developer Arcane, who's working on Marvel's Blade, is on the list, alongside Xbox cutting ties with IO Interactive by pulling funding on the fantasy RPG the studio was working on for Xbox Game Studios. IO Interactive has confirmed that last one, and according to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, the studio is now looking elsewhere for funding.

And when you add in studios like Compulsion Games, Ninja Theory, Double Fine, and Undead Labs into the mix of impending Xbox studio closures, you definitely get the impression that Xbox is looking to save money or turn around its recent financial downturn, where the Xbox division is reportedly only delivering a profit margin of 3%. However, in that same Bloomberg article, a Microsoft representative claims that the company isn't reducing its "overall investment in games."

An NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090D, in GALAX HOF OC LAB form, has become the first GPU in the RTX Blackwell lineup to break the 4 GHz barrier with a GPU core frequency of 4002 MHz achieved by Team OGS. As expected, this wasn't an out-of-the-box overclock, as it required an Elmor external clock board (ECB) and LN2 cooling to hit 4 GHz.

The world record has been verified and is already live on HWBOT, beating the previous record set by overclocker Splave at 3880 MHz on a GeForce RTX 5090. The GALAX HOF OC LAB variant of the GeForce RTX 5090D is a card built for overclocking, as it's rare for a GPU to ship with dual 16-pin power connectors and an impressive 36-phase power delivery design.

When paired with the Elmor ECB, the stock 27 MHz was increased by 6.3% to 28.7 MHz, which then flows on to all GPU frequencies. The Elmor ECB board can also increase GDDR7 speeds, but this record is all about the GPU core frequency. The 4 GHz record was validated using the GPUPI v3.3 - 32B synthetic benchmark, which means the completion time of 35 seconds and 377 milliseconds is the new record to beat.

With DRAM a critical component of graphics cards, gaming GPUs have been under fire for their prices due to the current memory crisis. According to a new post on the Board Channels forum (via VideoCardz), AMD has begun informing its partners that a 10% price increase for Radeon GPU bundles is coming in July.

Board Channels is a well-known forum and source for leaks and rumors about GPU pricing and availability, as it regularly features first-hand information from several add-in-board (AIB) partners close to AMD and NVIDIA. As we're talking about AMD, the companies affected would be Sapphire, XFX, ASUS, ASRock, and others. The post states that AMD is increasing its supply price for bundles due to "tight global supply" of memory chips and rising GDDR6 prices.

As AMD bundles GPUs with memory, for example, Radeon RX 9070 XT orders get the GPU and 16GB of GDDR6 memory, the supply price for these is increasing by 10%. However, there is a positive side to this rumor: the price increase applies only to new orders, so it will take time to filter down to the consumer market.

GTA 6 pre-orders went live on June 25, and scalpers were on eBay within hours. But what makes this particular wave of scalping unusual is that there is genuinely nothing to scalp. GTA 6 is a digital-only launch at release, meaning supply is effectively unlimited, yet confirmed sold listings show people paying well above the $79.99 retail price anyway.

The standard edition of GTA 6 is available digitally right now at $79.99 with no stock limit from the PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store, and major retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, GameStop, and Target. The Ultimate Edition is $99.99 and available directly from the platform stores. A physical boxed version also exists for both editions on PS5 and Xbox Series X, but that box contains a download code and no disc. Rockstar appears to be sticking with a digital-only release, with the latest reports suggesting a December 2026 physical edition is no longer happening.

Despite all of that, completed eBay listings tell an odd story. One buyer paid $120 plus $9.54 in shipping for a standard PS5 copy. Some listings were spotted asking as high as $168 for the same thing. UK listings are similarly absurd, with some asking £156.70 for a game that retails for £69.99.

Titan Army has showcased a new 27-inch gaming monitor, the M27E6V-3D, which it advertises as a glasses-free 3D monitor. It unveiled the display at the 2026 Nuclear Fusion Game Carnival in Shenzhen this weekend. The 27-inch monitor is built around a BOE ADS Pro panel with 4K resolution, a 190Hz refresh rate, and a peak brightness of 2,000 nits in XDR mode.

The M27E6V-3D uses a third-generation liquid-crystal resin prism optical design and a binocular eye-tracking module mounted below the screen. The module uses two cameras and two infrared fill lights to track the viewer's eyes with what Titan Army claims is a millisecond-level response time. Paired with a binocular 3D imaging algorithm, the monitor keeps image crosstalk below 2%, reducing the ghosting and visual discomfort that have historically made 3D displays a bad investment.

For gaming compatibility, Titan Army has partnered with Tencent WeGame to optimize several titles for native 3D output. An AI depth estimation algorithm also handles real-time 2D-to-3D conversion for games and media that lack native support, though the quality of that conversion will naturally vary by title and scene.

AMD introduced EXPO Ultra Low Latency at Computex 2026 as an updated memory profile standard, promising tighter timings and around 4% better gaming performance over standard EXPO. AMD also suggested pricing would stay close to existing EXPO kits. But the first retail listings from G.Skill show that unlocking those gains will cost you.

G.Skill's Trident Z5 NeoX RGB series has appeared on Newegg in 32GB DDR5-6000 configurations with EXPO ULL support. The premium over the standard Trident Z5 Neo kits ranges from 10% to as high as 79%, depending on the timing tier.

The C26 NeoX kit is listed at $1,099.99, compared to $699.99 for the standard C26, translating to about a 57% premium. The C28 NeoX is $999.99, compared to $559.99 for the standard version, which amounts to a 79% premium for a kit with two fewer CAS cycles. The gap narrows considerably at looser timings, with the C30 NeoX at $619.99 running 14% above the standard C30, and the C36 NeoX at $549.99 sitting just 10% higher. In other words, the price jumps are steepest where the latency gains are most aggressive.

Digital Foundry has weighed in again on GTA 6's console performance, and the outlook for 60 FPS isn't improving. Analyst William Judd argues that the level of detail Rockstar has shown so far, particularly the simulation-heavy elements such as traffic, NPC density, and physics, would be extremely difficult to scale down for a smooth 60 FPS experience on current hardware.

The PS5 Pro doesn't change much here. Judd notes the console barely improves on CPU performance over the base PS5, with most of its upgrade coming from a stronger GPU, better ray tracing, and PSSR upscaling support. None of that helps with the kind of CPU load GTA 6 is expected to demand. So even on Sony's most powerful console, a 30 FPS or 40 FPS mode looks far more realistic than a true 60 FPS option.

This lines up with what TweakTown has reported since 2024, when Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter made a nearly identical CPU-bottleneck argument. A former Rockstar animator also said something similar last year, expecting Rockstar to lock the game at 30 FPS and worry about higher frame rates after launch, much like it did with GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Microsoft may close up to five Xbox studios as part of next month's brutal layoffs, sources tell The Verge's Tom Warren.

Following years of underperformance, and a disastrous annual 3% profit margin, Microsoft is making extreme cuts to try to save its business. Gamers and fans just didn't know how bad things were at Xbox, but the new guard is exposing hard truths: Xbox has to change or die. High levels of cost cutting are expected, and reports say that Xbox may shut down, spin off, or sell five game studio groups in a mass layoff starting July 6--Compulsion Games, Undead Labs, Double Fine, Ninja Theory, and Arkane could be affected.

Sources tell The Verge's Tom Warren that these five game developers are being targeted in Microsoft's aggressive cost-cutting. There's been rumblings that the cuts will be a "bloodbath" for Xbox, and management has commented with a memo issued on June 10 that strongly indicates layoffs are part of Xbox's new process.

Thanks to the AI boom, Valve has opted to ship the Steam Machine with a single 16GB DDR5 SO-DIMM to offset supply issues in the current memory market. Sadly, this configuration also causes performance regressions due to the Steam Machine's memory sub-system not running in a dual-channel configuration. Gamers Nexus on YouTube benchmarked the performance difference between the Steam Machine's out-of-the-box single-channel setup and its dual-channel configuration by filling both slots. They found performance improvements of up to 20% from the extra bandwidth afforded by the extra RAM stick.

Gamers Nexus tested the Steam Machine with the two aforementioned memory configurations in a variety of benchmarks, including some non-gaming-related tests. 7-Zip file compression showed the strengths of the dual-channel DDR5 configuration the most, with a 19% performance improvement with two sticks compared to a single stick. This behavior was reversed, however, with file decompression, where the two configurations were essentially tied.

In Baldur's Gate 3, the dual-stick configuration was 15% faster, achieving 69.4 FPS vs 60.2 FPS. In Resident Evil 4, the dual-stick configuration was 10% faster, achieving 129.9 FPS vs 118.1 FPS. In Black Myth: Wukong, Stellaris, and Final Fantasy XIV, performance was essentially tied between the two memory configurations. In The Outer Worlds 2, the dual-stick configuration was 14% faster, and in Starfield, the two-stick configuration was 3% faster.

NVIDIA's rumored RTX 5050 9GB might not happen at all. According to leaker MEGAsizeGPU, the card is "canceled, or permanently delayed," and board partners say they haven't gotten any fresh info on it either. The same source claims NVIDIA reissued the GeForce RTX 3060 12GB for that exact segment, which makes a new 5050 variant pretty redundant for now.

This isn't the first time MEGAsizeGPU has called this one correctly. Back in April, the leaker said NVIDIA was pausing the RTX 5050's bump from 8GB to 9GB because the RTX 3060 12GB was coming back in June. That part already checked out, the RTX 3060 12GB has started showing up at retail, spotted in China around $325 to $347, and in parts of Europe for more than its original $329 launch price.

The rumored 9GB 5050 always looked like an awkward card anyway. It would have swapped GDDR6 for GDDR7 but cut the memory bus from 128-bit to 96-bit, so bandwidth barely moved (336GB/s versus 320GB/s) for just 1GB of extra VRAM. Bringing back a 5-year-old Ampere chip on Samsung's 8nm node looks like the easier move for NVIDIA, especially with GDDR7 supply and TSMC's 4nm capacity tied up by RTX 40 and 50 series production during the ongoing memory crunch.

Sony clearly tells consumers that it won't take major losses with its next-gen PlayStation 6, potentially preparing users for sticker shock.

New reports suggest the PS6's bill of materials, or BOM, is now close to $1,000, fueling speculation of a high-priced Gen 10 console from Sony.

While nothing has been officially confirmed regarding pricing, Sony management has put out a new Q&A with PlayStation boss Hideaki Nishino that briefly discusses what gamers can expect from the future. In short, Sony has no plans to heavily subsidize the PlayStation 6, meaning Sony doesn't want to produce its next-gen console at a major loss.

The console rumor mill is abuzz with the idea that Nintendo could be using a new panel for the Switch 2, leaving some gamers hopeful that maybe it might address the complaints around ghosting issues with the handheld.

As it stands, the Nintendo Switch 2 reportedly has an Innolux panel, but as VideoCardz highlighted, based on a post by Nintendo Patents Watch‬ on Bluesky, there could be a different one, made by Sharp, being used now.

Or at least the model number indicates it's manufactured by Sharp, with a Chinese reseller showing the LCD on its site. As Nintendo Patents Watch pointed out, the "exposed circuit, connector, and cables are significantly different" compared to the Innolux panel. That suggests this isn't a small revision, but a fully updated design that could pack some meaningful changes.

WhatsApp is implementing a major change in rolling out new usernames for accounts, allowing for better levels of privacy as a result - and you'll be able to reserve yours soon enough.

The move means that instead of having to give out your mobile phone number when adding somebody to your contacts, you'll be able to provide a username to them instead. That's obviously a preferable situation when it comes to privacy.

TechRadar reports that Meta has announced that usernames will be rolling out to over three billion WhatsApp users during the "coming months", and that you'll be able to reserve your preferred name.

It seems like every day we find a new Amazon customer complaining about their order being mixed up or their components not being what was advertised. After we broke the news of a user receiving a Core i9-10900K in a 9800X3D box in our TweakTown exclusive, many affected customers reached out to us.

One particular email we received was especially shocking: a buyer had ordered a Samsung 990 PRO SSD but instead received a 970 EVO with stickers to make it look like a 990 PRO. He had ordered the SSD on June 19th and received it early the next morning. At first sight, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

The box itself was of a 990 PRO, sealed normally, and the SSD would have passed a visual inspection, but our contact noticed something was off about the sticker application. It seemed sloppy, and peeling off from the right end, not what you would expect from a Samsung product. He thought nothing of it and installed it in his PC to format it. Then the first red flag became apparent: the drive's capacity was only 1TB.

Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology are being sued in federal court for alleged collusion and price-fixing in the memory market. The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California, alleging that these three companies have deliberately engineered DRAM scarcity in the consumer and commercial markets to inflate prices.

If you've been following recent news about Apple, Xbox, and other companies increasing the cost of their consumer-facing technology products due to the rapid, exponential rise in memory (and flash storage) prices, you might be nodding in agreement. The current situation, born of the memory crisis, is that consumer technology pricing will continue to rise with no real end in sight. Lenovo is calling it the "new normal" and that this trend is set to continue through 2030.

As the three big players in the memory space, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology have all transitioned their manufacturing and production capacities to producing High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), specifically for the booming AI and data center markets. And with that, the lawsuit claims that production of legacy technologies like DDR3 and DDR4 has been wound down to pursue higher profits. And with demand for commodity DRAM still there, prices have increased by around 700% over four years. The lawsuit even references the name many have given the situation: the "RAMpocalypse."

As home to two of the world's largest memory makers, Samsung and SK Hynix, the South Korean economy is definitely benefiting from the current memory crisis, which has seen prices and profits hit unforeseen levels. Long story short, in the AI era of LLMs, agents, inference, and cloud-based computing, the demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has reached a point where supply would take years to catch up.

And with that, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has announced a $520 billion USD public and private investment to expand the chipmaking capabilities of Samsung and SK Hynix so the country can remain a leader in the AI race and the memory market. And the announcement was made in a televised address with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won.

According to the announcement, the majority of the $520 billion will be put toward the construction of four new fabs, two for Samsung and two for SK Hynix. The two plants will reportedly be built outside Seoul, in a mostly rural area. They will focus on producing lucrative HBM for the AI and data center markets rather than memory for the consumer technology market.