Latest News - Page 454

Apple CEO Tim Cook has congratulated President Trump on his victory in the 2024 US elections, saying that he looks forward to working with Trump and his administration in the future.

Cook posted on X, saying: "Congratulations President Trump on your victory! We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help make sure the United States continues to lead with and be fueled by ingenuity, innovation, and creativity".

During his first term, President Trump praised Apple CEO Tim Cook for his communication skills, calling Cook a "great executive" as the Apple CEO always called President Trump directly to talk about serious issues. Other CEOs will use consultants, leaving Trump impressed with the personal touch by Cook.

The new PNY PRO Elite Prime microSD Flash Cards and PNY Performance Prime microSD Card Reader are designed for ultra-fast performance and users with high-demand workloads. With the latest high-speed flash memory technology, users can expect transfer speeds of up to 200 MB/s and write speeds of up to 150 MB/s.

With U3 technology and V30 Video Speed Class performance, alongside capacities that start at 64GB and go all the way up to a massive 1.5TB, the new PNY PRO Elite Prime microSD cards are perfect for high-quality photography, capturing 4K video, and running apps directly from the microSD card thanks to the A2 App Performance rating.

That last bit makes the PNY PRO Elite Prime microSD cards great for gaming handhelds like the Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and Nintendo Switch, reducing load times and improving performance.

Have you seen the new Unreal Engine 5-powered game Empire of the Ants from Microids and developer Tower Five? It's a real-time 'strategic' experience that takes place at the microscopic level with some truly stunning ant-sized wildlife visuals. Today, it's out for PC via Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store, with support for DLSS 3 Frame Generation, Super Resolution, and Reflex.

Another game out this week is Frontier Developments' Planet Coaster 2, the sequel to the popular theme park sim that lets you build and customize roller coasters while setting prices for things like corn dogs and giant cups of soda. It's another new PC game with DLSS 3 Frame Generation, Super Resolution, and Reflex support - with the addition of DLAA, the AI-based anti-aliasing mode for boosting image quality.

Although the game has received positive reviews from the press, the feedback from the PC community is mixed. Some claim that the UI and other elements like park density have been simplified or cut back due to the game launching simultaneously on consoles. If you're interested in picking it up, it's worth keeping that in mind.

We're on the cusp of a new GPU generation for PC gaming, and all signs are pointing to CES 2025 in Las Vegas in January as the place where we will see everything for the first time. NVIDIA is prepping to debut its GeForce RTX 50 Series, powered by the new Blackwell architecture, led by the GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5070.

AMD is set to announce its new line-up of RDNA 4-powered cards with what we assume will be the mid-range Radeon RX 8800 XT and Radeon RX 8700 XT combo. CES 2025 is also where many assumed Intel would debut its second generation of desktop Arc graphics cards with new mainstream Battlemage 'Xe2' products.

It's no secret that Intel's first Arc GPUs had a rocky launch regarding driver stability and performance and have failed to capture any meaningful market share from NVIDIA or AMD. A new leak suggests that Intel is prepping for a Battlemage debut in December, ahead of CES 2025.

Rockstar has been cooking when it comes to mission design in Grand Theft Auto 6, with recent leaks teasing next-gen NPC behavior, with mission designs being tweaked to provide gamers with more freedom than ever before in GTA 6 when it drops in 2025.

In the most recent episode GTVIoclock on YouTube, the team chatted with a former game designer at Rockstar Games, who said that GTA 6 will see Rockstar once again raising the bar with realism and NPC behavior. The ex-Rockstar developer also discussed GTA 6's new mission design, saying that it will be what makes the game good, and that players will have more freedom than ever before.

GTA 6 is reportedly in the bug-fixing phase of development, and with nearly a year passing since the massive GTA 6 official announcement trailer, here's hoping that we get a deeper look at the game (its mechanics, freedom, NPC behavior, graphics, and more) in the weeks leading into Christmas.

MSI has used its new MEG X870E GODLIKE motherboard and overclocked AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor to a blazing fast 7.241GHz, check it out:

AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D is now in the wild with its 8 cores and 16 threads of Zen 5 processing power + new 3D V-Cache, with the CPU recently used by ASUS and pushed to 6.9GHz seeing 1000FPS+ in Counter-Strike 2 and 2000FPS+ in Valorant... all the while, sipping just 100W of power.

MSI has taken it to another level, using its new MEG X870E GODLIKE motherboard, LN2 cooling, and an incredible 7.241GHz overclock on the 9800X3D chip.

AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor is here, and now a chip teardown has been performed with some truly beautiful results... the shiny, gorgeous blue of that new 3D V-Cache inside of the 9800X3D smiles for the camera. Check it out:

In the images above, you can see that beautiful shiny blue stack is the Zen 5 CCD, while that gorgeous gold part is the new 3D V-Cache stack. The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D features 8 cores and 16 threads of (blue) Zen 5 CCD goodness, as well as next-gen 3D V-Cache.

Delidding the 9800X3D isn't something everyone will do, while this teardown was performed with a heat gun to remove to melt away the solder under the IHS before it is tool apart. Once the 9800X3D is delidded, the CCD and IO die are the only two chiplets on this chip.

AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor is here, and it's already been overclocked to 6.9GHz and achieving an incredible 1000FPS+ in Counter-Strike 2 and a mind-blowing 2000FPS+ in Valorant.

The new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor was chilled with LN2 cooling and pushed to 6.9GHz (Elon Musk would be proud of this) by ASUS China General Manager Tony Yu. Being ASUS, Tony used the ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Gene motherboard (yeah, not the X870E variant) with the 9800X3D pushed to between 6.7GHz and 6.9GHz.

Tony ran the 9800X3D overclocked on the ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Gene motherboard with 32GB of DDR5-6000 (CL30) memory and NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card. Running the 9800X3D through Cinebench R23 saw the overclocked 6.9GHz chip pushing 30,513 points which is a 36% increase over the PBO scores from the 9800X3D.

AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU has gone on sale, but the CPU has vanished from shelves in the US (and in other countries).

If you look at Newegg, the Ryzen 9800X3D is out of stock already, and that's also the case at Amazon.com.

Some people who have managed to place an order with Amazon already are saying that they've been told the processor won't arrive until later in November, a couple of weeks from now. Furthermore, scalpers, in the form of third-party marketplace sellers, are already selling the CPU at much-inflated prices on Amazon.

Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro is out today, and the developer of No Man's Sky has praised the new console in no uncertain terms, while observing how good the game looks in the new 8K @ 30FPS mode in the PS5 Pro enhanced version (an alternative to a 4K @ 60FPS option).

Yes, thanks to a new (free) upgrade that's just arrived for the game, those with an 8K display can enjoy what promises to be a relatively smooth 8K experience given the amount of pixels and detail on offer here, thanks to PSSR upscaling, naturally.

Wccftech reports that Hello Games called the PS5 Pro an "incredible feat of engineering" and singled out PSSR as a definite highlight here, as part of a press release about the cross-save update for No Man's Sky that also covered the PlayStation 5 Pro patch.

AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D has again been the subject of a leak, and this time, the CPU has been aired in a gaming benchmark - but don't get excited about that part of the spillage.

We'll come back to why shortly, but the real news here is that the Ryzen 9950X3D has been spotted in FactorioBox - which is the benchmark database for the game Factorio - and so the processor exists (add seasoning as appropriate), and it's in testing. That's what to focus on here, rather than the actual benchmark result.

Of course, this isn't your typical Ashes of the Singularity or 3DMark gaming-related rumor - Factorio very much isn't the source of your average leak (or indeed any leak we've seen before). Although it's a pretty good game (created by some stand-up devs) going by the reviews (some of which are fanatical about how great it is, notably).

Apple's new M4 Ultra processor will reportedly come with double the GPU cores that the M4 Max features -- up to 80 GPU cores in total -- and in estimated benchmarks, will beat NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card.

In some estimated benchmarks, Yadim Yuryev from YouTube channel Max Tech, the Apple M4 Ultra processor will feature a Geekbench 6 compute score of 333,000. This is compared to the 192,812 that the Apple M4 Max spits out, with Yuryev saying that the "GPU scaling from the leaked M4 Pro score to the M4 Max chip is 78 percent higher performance".

Yuryev played it safe accounting for Apple to hit just 70% scaling for the M4 Ultra over the M4 Max, with a maximum expectation of seeing 385,624 points, while in comparison the RTX 4090 hits 317,162 points and a Vulkan score of 262,907. If Apple does indeed hit a home run with scaling on the M4 Ultra, it will top the RTX 4090 in this test at least, but not everything across the board.

It's official: Nintendo has confirmed that the Nintendo Switch successor, the Nintendo Switch 2, will be backwards compatible. This means it will be able to play all current and existing Switch games, including digital purchases.

Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa took to social media to make the announcement. He also confirmed that Nintendo Switch Online, the company's online service that includes access to classic games from retro Nintendo hardware, will be available on day one.

"At today's Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch," Shuntaro Furukawa wrote. "Nintendo Switch Online will be available on the successor to Nintendo Switch as well."

Blizzard is hosting a special Warcraft Anniversary Direct next week on November 13 (10:00 am PT, 1:00 pm ET) to celebrate the franchise's 30th anniversary. The broadcast will be streamed live on Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok and will feature several Warcraft developers "reflecting on the last 30 years" of the iconic franchise and a look at what's in store for the future.

Per Blizzard's announcement, the focus will be on current games - World of Warcraft, Classic, Hearthstone, and Warcraft Rumble. However, a new data leak from Blizzard's internal servers has revealed that the studio is currently testing 'Warcraft II: Remastered Internal Alpha.' With employees playing the game, the odds are that it will be announced and possibly released during next week's Warcraft Anniversary stream.

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and its expansion Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal were released for MS-DOS in 1995 and 1996, respectively. Both games presented the finest real-time strategy (RTS) gameplay of the early PC gaming era.

Apple is poised to unveil an ultra-slim iPhone 17 Air in 2025, and now it looks like smartphone competitor Samsung will join with its rumored Galaxy S25 Slim smartphone.

We're hearing about the new Samsung Galaxy S25 Slim smartphone from Korean leaker "yeux1122" said in a recent blog post that the South Korean giant might launch the new ultra-slim Galaxy S25 Slim in April 2025. We're also being teased about the Galaxy Z Flip SE and Galaxy Z Fold 7 smartphones being unveiled at about the same time.

TheElec also reported a couple of weeks ago now that Samsung was considering making a slim Galxay S25 smartphone, so the Galaxy S25 Slim feels like the best name for it. Samsung beating Apple to the punch with an ultra-slim smartphone ahead of the iPhone 17 Air will be another move like the company did with its foldable smartphone range starting with the Galaxy Fold, and then into the Galaxy Z Flip family of foldables.

NVIDIA is reportedly already redirecting orders away from Super Micro Computer, (SCMI) after the company has found itself embroiled in controversy... its accounting firm resigning on the spot, and a DOJ investigation.

SCMI's biggest client is NVIDIA, and its second-biggest client is an entity backed by NVIDIA... pretty much forcing NVIDIA to start redirecting orders away from SMCI to other suppliers. In a new report from DigiTimes, we're learning that NVIDIA has started redirecting its orders placed with SCMI, to other suppliers.

SCMI is now looking at allegations of financial malfeasance, a preliminary DOJ investigation, and the sudden resignation of its accounting firm Ernst & Young which was in the process of auditing SCMI. NVIDIA shifting orders for its new B200 and GB200 AI servers away from Super Micro Computer, with Team Green being its biggest client... isn't looking good at all.

ASUS has just launched its new TUF Gaming A2 SSD enclosure, which can take 4TB SSDs and handle up to 20Gbps of bandwidth through USB-C. Check it out:

The new ASUS TUF Gaming A2 SSD enclosure is a rugged portable SSD solution with high-speed transfers, capable of 20Gbps through USB-C 3.2 Gen 2x2, making it perfect for content creators, gamers, enthusiasts, and others who crave fast external SSD storage.

ASUS has built the TUF Gaming A2 SSD enclosure with durability at the forefront, with high-grade silicon rubber used in the exterior, which is capable of absorbing shocks and extreme temperatures. The enclosure even meets MIL-STD-810H standards which means it can survive a drop from 1.22 meters, with IP67-rated water and dust resistance, and data protection from potential static and electrical disturbances.

MSI is getting in on the action with discounted NVIDIA RTX 4000 GPUs - as Lovelace prepares to be succeeded by new Blackwell graphics cards - and there's a tasty offer on an RTX 4070 Ti Super.

MSI's RTX 4070 Ti Super Expert model is now on sale direct from the company at $729.99, which represents a chunky discount. This GPU normally retails at $849.99 from the MSI store, so you're getting $120 off.

As you might expect, there's limited stock, but there is still inventory available at the time of writing.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has sat down for an interview on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast, where he discussed, among other topics, how he was a top Diablo IV player.

At the beginning of the podcast, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk discuss the benefits of playing video games, which Musk attributes to the difficulty of the game he playing. Musk says that when he's playing a difficult video game, it takes 100% of his focus, and by performing an activity that forces him to consume 100% of his focus, he is able to alleviate other stresses in his life. Rogan compares the experience to bowhunting and the many moving parts of the bow and how it requires all of his focus to perform the action correctly, and through this intense focus comes a sense of mental clarity.

During this conversation, Musk mentions that he is one of the world's best Diablo IV players and points to the leaderboard rankings, which states his name in position 20 for the fastest precise time of The Pit. For those that don't know, The Pit is end-game level content in Diablo IV that puts players up against some of the toughest hoardes of monsters in the game. The goal is to beat The Pit and reap the rewards in the form of gear upgrades. Completing a Pit run in the fastest time possible is an indication of Diablo IV competency, and Elon Musk's time of 2 minutes and 45 seconds is currently the 20th-best time in the world, according to Helltides.com.

The Nintendo Switch is undeniably a juggernaut, one of the most successful consoles ever. However, before the Switch's meteoric rise, Nintendo's most successful home console was 2006's Wii - which introduced the world to motion controls as the primary way to interact with a game.

On YouTube, Gaming enthusiast Tech By Matt has posted a deep dive into his latest creation, turning an original Nintendo Wii console into a gaming PC. One that is powerful enough to (ironically) emulate and play Nintendo Switch games like Super Mario Odyssey at a playable frame rate.

For those with a Nintendo Wii, you might recall that it was a pretty small console - too small to fit an ITX motherboard. So Matt decided instead to use the components from a mini PC - the Minisforum UM773 Lite with a Ryzen 7 7735HS APU. The best part is that the original power button turns on the PC, and the GameCube ports still work when you plug in the original GameCube controllers.