Latest News - Page 461

AMD's Ryzen 9800X3D CPU could be pricier than expected, if fresh clues dropped in the form of retailers jumping the gun with listings, complete with price tags, are anything to go by.

VideoCardz noticed said price tags from European retailers, and as always with prerelease pricing, we must be careful about putting too much store in it. After all, these are likely to be placeholder prices, and may not ultimately reflect the reality that AMD reveals when the Ryzen 9800X3D processor eventually launches - but they do offer a hint as to where the cost might be pitched.

PC21, a French retailer, had the Ryzen 9800X3D listed at €556 (including VAT), before the product listing was taken down (as is usually the case with these leaks, when someone realizes what's happened - though the more cynical may argue these might be pure publicity grabs in some cases).

Apple has missed its opportunity to improve upon the critically flawed design of the second-generation Magic Mouse, as the third generation has been unveiled, and it has the exact same issues.

The Magic Mouse has been one of Apple's more controversial product releases, as it has been widely criticized for two main reasons: having no ergonomics whatsoever and the location of its charging port. Both of these critiques are justified as the Magic Mouse design isn't ergonomic at all, as there is hardly any mouse for it to be ergonomic. The flat design makes it so a user doesn't have anything to rest their hand on, causing some strain over longer periods of use. I own a Magic Mouse, and I can speak to this last point from experience.

The second fatal flaw of the Magic Mouse is the location of the charging port. Someone needs to notify Apple that if they put the charging port on the bottom of the Magic Mouse, it means a user is unable to charge and use the mouse at the same time. There isn't any practical reason or utility to have the charging port located on the bottom of the mouse, and given the second generation Magic Mouse was released 9 years ago in 2015, one would think it would be about time to move it to the top of the mouse for improved functionality.

Elon Musk's gigantic Colossus AI supercomputer from his xAI startup is powered by 100,000 x NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs, and has just had an awesome walkthrough by our friends at ServeTheHome. Check it out:

Patrick from ServeTheHome notes that the engineering accomplishment from Elon and his team at xAI is "absolutely amazing". xAI only took 122 days to build out the insane 100,000 NVIDIA H100 AI GPU-powered Colossus AI supercomputer, something that normally takes many years... but not for Elon and xAI, which is why NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang recently called the SpaceX and Tesla boss "superhuman". More on that below:

Back to the xAI supercluster, with STH noting that the basic building block for Colossus is the Supermicro liquid-cooled rack, which features 8 x 4U servers each with 8 x NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs for a total of 64 x H100 AI GPUs per rack. 8 of these GPU servers + Supermicro Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) and required hardware make up one of these GPU compute racks.

In accordance with rumors sourced from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is preparing to announce its a refreshed line of Mac Mini's that will be powered by Apple's M4 chip and feature a slight redesign.

Gurman has previously stated that Apple's upcoming Mac Mini will be slightly smaller than previous generations and that it will come with M4 and M4 Pro chip options. It now appears that was completely accurate as Amazon has posted a listing for M4 Mac Mini's that Apple hasn't even announced yet. Previous estimations have now been verified by what appears to be an official image of the general specs of the systems, which state M4 and M4 Pro chip variants will come with up to a 14-core CPU, and 20-core GPU.

Additionally, the leaked chart reveals the new Mac Mini can come with up to 64GB of RAM, which is double the current 32GB limitation on already-announced models. As for storage, that appears to have the same limit as previous models with 8TB. The leaked image does confirm the previous rumor the new Mac Mini will get a redesign, as the M4-powered variants have two front-facing USB-C ports, and what could be a headphone jack located on its front. Moreover, the M4 Mac Mini appears much smaller than the Mac Studio, backing up claims from Gurman the new generation would be approximately the size of an Apple TV.

The upcoming Lord of the Rings animated prequel movie is scheduled to release in December, and ahead of the release, Phillipia Boyens, one of the movie's writers, has given some behind-the-scenes details on one of the characters, Saruman the White.

Boyens also co-wrote Peter Jackson's trilogy of Lord of the Rings films and is now, along with Peter Jackson, producing the War of Rohirrim. This animated prequel will take viewers back 183 years before the events of Jackson's trilogy, and will tell the story of Helm Hammerhand, a legendary kind of Rohan that is required to defend his people and family from the Dunlendings, a group of wild mountain people that are bitter foes to Rohan.

This story includes Saruman the White, and according to Boyen's Christopher Lee, he will post-humorously reprise his role as the character in the new animated movie. According to the writer, the team behind the project gained access to Lee's archive and was able to sample enough authentic voice recordings that it was possible for Lee to voice the character once again.

One of, if not the biggest achievement SpaceX has made so far is the success of the launch and catch of Starship, the world's largest and most powerful rocket.

Starship was launched, and its booster, Super Heavy, was caught by the launch tower known as Mechazilla. SpaceX officially called the event Flight 5, and it represented the company's highest-stakes launch yet in its quest to create a reliable, reusable method of transportation capable of putting humans on the surface of Mars. SpaceX has been somewhat quiet on the details of Flight 5, but SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk have seemingly inadvertently given the world a peak behind the curtain as to what SpaceX thinks about Flight 5.

Musk posted a video to his personal X account showing off some Diablo IV gameplay, and in the background, you can hear Musk is on a call with SpaceX staff. The staffers begin by saying they want to be "upfront about the scary sh*t that happened" as focussing on that will help get SpaceX to the goal of Flight 6. The staffers go on to tell Musk that they were one second away from aborting the landing of Super Heavy as the team had "misconfigured gas support" that was only one second away from flight controllers aborting the landing on the tower.

AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor will be unleashed onto the market on November 7, with the company lifting the review embargo on November 6.

In a new post on X, leaker "HXL" simply said: "9800X3D Review: November 6 22:00 CST" according to his sources from undisclosed Chinese media. The mention of "22:00 CST" shouldn't be mistaken, as there is CST (Central Standard Time) for the US (around 9:00 AM), which translates to 15:00 Central European Time (CET).

AMD hasn't confirmed whether it's launching its new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor on November 7, so take it with a grain of salt, but with all of the reveals, deliddings, overclocking, and more of the 9800X3D... we can't be too much further away from it materializing into the world's best CPU for gaming when it drops.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7 9800X3D full specs revealed: 8C/16T of Zen 5, 120W TDP, next-gen 3D V-Cache, 96MB of L3 cache, and an unlocked multiplier... bring it on.

The specs of the 9800X3D are coming from Geizhals, which is a price comparison tool that European retailers use, listing the new AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D in all its glory. We now know that the 9800X3D will have a 4.7GHz base clock and up to 5.2GHz boost clock, with a 120W TDP and that glorious, uber-special next-gen 3D V-Cache technology.

The listing also confirmed that the new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor will be compatible with all AMD 600-series motherboards, including the lower-end A620 chipset and even PRO workstation series motherboards. The listing also shows that the 9800X3D has the same silicon as existing models labeled as "GNR-80" with another note as "Free Multiplier: Yes" which means the 9800X3D has an unlocked multiplier.

Apple is rumored to unveil its next-gen M5 family of processors by the end of 2025, powering a new wave of products including an M5-powered iPad Pro.

In his latest "Power On" newsletter on Bloomberg from Mark Gurman, we're learning that Apple's development of the M5 chip started in 2023 alongside the A19 Pro. Gurman expects Apple to unveil its next-gen M5 silicon by the end of 2025, with the chance that we should see the reveal of a new iPad Pro at the same time.

Gurman explained: "As for when to expect the next iPad Pro, the company has historically updated that device every 18 months or so. Given that the M5 chip is expected to arrive around the end of next year, it seems likely that the next iPad Pro won't debut until late 2025 or the first half of 2026. I would count out there being other major changes, since the current design is only six months old".

SK hynix vice president in charge of PKG Development, Lee Kang-wook, gave quite a keynote speech recently at the Semicon Korea 2024 event in Seoul, South Korea.

Lee Kang-wook said: "Packaging has evolved from enhancing the value of products in the past to creating new business opportunities. Next, it may determine the survival of companies. Packaging solves both technical and economic issues of semiconductors and drives industrial innovation".

He continued: "Previously, the law of addition applied, where packaging merely enhanced product value. Now, it's the law of multiplication. Even if a company excels in design and device manufacturing, without packaging capabilities, it cannot seize business opportunities".

According to a new report, Meta has been indexing the web for at least eight months. The company aims to have its own search engine that can be called on and integrated into Meta AI. This will give its chatbot and other generative AI tools an alternative to Google Search and Microsoft Bing while decreasing the company's reliance on the services of its competitors.

Meta has been using web crawlers for a while, which are part of Facebook and 'crawl' the content and information of links shared on Meta's social media platform. This is different in that it would be used primarily for AI search, and as such, it would need to scrape and crawl the entire internet for information and training.

The company has yet to detail its search engine plans formally. Still, it recently announced a multi-year partnership with a news outlet, Reuters, for the Meta AI chatbot to use the source with citations when answering questions.

Xbox Insiders have been granted a new version of the Xbox app to trial, and it's an update that revamps the Home or landing experience. According to the Xbox Wire post detailing the update, PC gamers can expect a faster app experience that is easier to navigate and find the latest content.

According to Tila Nguyen, Product Manager Lead, Xbox Experiences, this update is based on player and user feedback and arrives after "testing different designs internally over the last several months." The goal is to unify Game Pass and the Microsoft Store into a single interface without switching between tabs.

The Xbox app Home experience has four key components: featured content, deals and discounts, curated collections and recommendations, and a 'Jump Back In' section that will get you into the game as quickly as possible.

There are PC games that have lived on for decades thanks to mods, with customization, skill, and creativity leading to some truly impressive overhauls or brand-new experiences from a community that simply does it for the love of the game(s). Bethesda's The Elder Scroll V: Skyrim is one example, and Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V is another.

The modding community has embraced these games, and it feels like there's something new worth checking out every other week. Today, we want to focus on a couple of mods that are all about mashing together two iconic universes like you're in the middle of a comic book crossover or multiverse.

The first mod is Hitman Contracts for Skyrim from MagicaLess, which, as the name suggests, brings Agent 47 from the Hitman universe to the world of Skyrim. In the mod, you take control of the iconic bald assassin, decked out in Skyrim's version of a black suit and red tie, and are tasked with taking out five targets.

Google will be updating its Gemini AI model with a more powerful version later this year, which is to be expected. However, according to a new report (via The Information and Reuters), the update will include 'Project Jarvis'. It's not the AI butler that serves Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it's close.

According to the report, Project Jarvis is a new AI agent set to become part of Google's Chrome web browser. It can browse various websites for you, summarize the content, fill out web forms, and even make purchases. Now, if it can do all that, you'd have to assume that it could solve those "I'm not a robot" tests where you're tasked with finding buses and traffic lights in the internet-age equivalent of Where's Waldo.

Naturally, if it can go online and buy you a new pair of socks or an OLED TV, you can fine-tune its behavior and set restrictions.

Apple just announced a new Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard, plus a Magic Trackpad, alongside the new iMac 24-inch for 2024 which is its first M4-toting Mac - and there's some good news here, but also a very annoying development.

The positive news is that the new magic peripherals - which come bundled with the iMac M4, or the mouse and keyboard do - now have USB-C charging ports, as opposed to Lightning connectors.

So, we can all breathe easy on the charging front, as the proprietary nonsense gets shoved thankfully to one side, and you can use any old USB-C cable to juice up the new Apple peripherals.

Apple has revealed its new iMac 24-inch with M4 CPU in the first of its Mac-related announcements that are set to run throughout this week (likely up to Halloween).

With the M4 chip inside, Apple tells us that the new iMac is up to 1.7x faster for productivity, and just over twice as fast (2.1x) for demanding workflows (such as photo editing) in comparison to the iMac with M1. Gamers can also expect much better performance with double the frame rates, again compared to the iMac with M1 silicon.

As ever, Apple prefers to compare the newest model to the last release but one, rather than the last-gen iMac (with M3), to ensure that the upgrade looks like a more compelling leap forward. And twice as fast, broadly, certainly is a huge improvement on the iMac M1.

A new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, a known Apple insider and industry analyst, claims the Cupertino company is working on a new health app designed to monitor blood sugar levels.

According to Gurman's trusted Apple employees were given access to the new application that was described as "highly secretive". This new application was also described as a food-logging app, and Apple selected some employees who were prediabetics, requiring them to submit their blood sugar measurements and food intake. Presumably, the logging of the food will inform the user when their blood sugar levels are spiking/crashing.

Ideally, Apple wants to be able to create a noninvasive method of monitoring blood sugar levels, and according to Gurman, the company has been working on it for more than 10 years. However, it's reportedly not ready as Apple is suffering from issues with shrinking the size of the monitor while also keeping it operational without overheating.

Apple has been blocked from selling its bread and butter product, the iPhone, and its multiple variations, according to the Indonesian Ministry of Industry.

According to reports, Apple has been officially blocked from selling iPhones domestically following its failure to abide by the 40% local content requirement for smartphones, which requires at least 40% of all parts within a product to be manufactured locally. The iPhone 16 has unfortunately fallen short of this requirement, meaning Apple Indonesia hasn't fulfilled the requirement of obtaining a local content certification and now, therefore, cannot sell the latest generation of iPhone.

At the moment, Apple has no manufacturing facilities in Indonesia, but since 2018, the company has been establishing developer academies throughout the country, in which they have invested approximately $101.8 million. Indonesia isn't a small region for Apple either, as the country has more than 350 million active mobile phones among its 270 million residents, meaning there could be quite a lot of potential iPhone customers waiting for the latest generation iPhone.

A former developer of Halo 5 has spoken out about a PC port that, at one point, was being worked on at the studio but was ultimately never released.

Tyler Owens, an engineer for Apex Legends, who also previously worked on Halo 5, replied to an X user on his post highlighting Halo 5. The user mentioned they wanted a PC port for Halo 5, to which Ownes replied, "Never going to happen," in his opinion, and went on to explain the port that was originally being considered was scrapped due to "significant-tech hurdles." It appears these tech hurdles led to Microsoft ultimately canceling a PC port.

Reports have speculated the reason for the PC ports cancelation is to do with Halo 5's framerate being linked to its in-game physics and the difficulties of porting that to PC. However, that was never confirmed by Microsoft or 343 Industries, the development studio behind the project. Unfortunately, Owens didn't specify exactly what the technical issues were that stopped the PC port.

Those of you who have taken the plunge with an Intel Arrow Lake CPU in a Z890 motherboard need to be aware there's an issue with this hardware when updating to Windows 11 24H2 - a serious flaw, in fact.

Spanish tech site El Chapuzas Informatico first reported on those with Z890 motherboards encountering nasty issues with random crashing and reboots after updating to Windows 11 24H2.

This is seemingly due to a conflict between the Arrow Lake CPU's integrated graphics, and the discrete graphics card in the PC (so will only affect those who have a discrete GPU - the majority of folks no doubt).