Corsair released its AI-focused AI Workstation 300 Desktop PC line last year, with the compact devices sporting powerful Ryzen AI MAX hardware with integrated Radeon graphics, and up to 128GB of unified LPDDR5X memory. The 128GB is for the 'Strix Halo' Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 variant, AMD's most powerful AI-ready APU that also includes an integrated Radeon 8060S GPU.

However, with memory prices increasing exponentially since Corsair introduced its AI Workstation 300 Desktop PC lineup, it appears this is now reflected in the total cost to consumers. And with that, the flagship Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 model with 128GB of memory has seen its price increase to $3,399.99 USD on Corsair's official store, a massive $1,100 increase over its $2,299 launch price.

This model also features 4TB of internal storage, which is another sector, like memory, that has seen a seismic shift in pricing in recent months. The good news is that the lower-tier model with the Ryzen AI MAX 385 chip, Radeon 850S graphics, and 64GB of unified LPDDR5X memory has only seen a $100 increase, bringing its price to $1,699.99.

It's no secret that the memory and storage crisis and rising hardware prices are directly affecting the PC gaming hardware market. From Valve delaying the launch of its new Steam Machine and Steam Frame devices, through to smaller boutique gaming hardware brand Ayaneo recently announcing that it was no longer taking orders for its next-gen flagship 'Strix Halo' gaming handheld.

And now, via The Verge, it looks like Lenovo is significantly raising the prices for its flagship Legion Go 2 gaming handhelds. According to the Best Buy listing for the top AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme model with 32GB of LPDDR5X memory and 1TB of internal storage, it now costs $1,999.99 USD, a massive $650 price increase from its original $1,349 price point.

Even the lower-tier AMD Ryzen Z2 non-Extreme model with 16GB of LPDDR5X memory and 1TB of internal storage now costs $1,499.99 USD at Best Buy, a $400 price increase over its original $1,099 price point. Interestingly, the flagship Ryzen Z2 Extreme-powered ROG Xbox Ally X gaming handheld still costs $999.99, with an ASUS representative telling The Verge there's "no price increase on the horizon" for it.

Recently, several people noticed that Microsoft's Copilot Terms of Use page for its AI tool, which has become increasingly embedded in the company's Windows 11 operating system and Microsoft 365 Office suite, included several notable disclaimers.

"Copilot is for entertainment purposes only," one reads. Adding that "it can make mistakes," "may not work as intended," and that users should not "rely on Copilot for important advice." And to top it all off, there's a final "Use Copilot at your own risk." Naturally, this statement makes it sound like Copilot should not be used in any formal or business-facing capacity, which runs counter to the company's AI push to get its vast customer base to use Copilot for everything from search to summarizing documents, and even when firing up Paint or Notepad.

To make matters worse, the disclosure also states that Microsoft makes "no guarantees" that Copilot will operate as intended, which kind of makes it seem more experimental than practical. Again, this contradicts Microsoft's big Copilot marketing push across all its software offerings, as well as the arrival of Copilot+ PCs, which include dedicated NPUs to run local AI Copilot tools.

It looks like Intel was tired of the leaks and speculations surrounding its "mystery" Arrow Lake-HX CPU. As we recently reported, the Core Ultra 7 251HX was spotted on listings for laptops from vendors MSI and Lenovo. Now, only a few days after the report, Intel has silently made the Core Ultra 7 251HX official without any announcement.

The Core Ultra 7 251HX is part of the Arrow Lake lineup, and slots in just under the Core Ultra 7 255HX. Instead of having 20 cores and threads like its sibling, the 251HX has 18 cores and 18 threads, of which 6 are performance-focused P-cores, and 12 are E-cores. With this core configuration, the Core Ultra 7 251HX sits between the 14-core Ultra 5 245HX and the 20-core Ultra 7 255HX.

The aforementioned laptop listings also had some unconfirmed specs that have now been made official. As mentioned in the listings, the Core Ultra 7 251HX indeed has a 2.9 GHz P-core base clock and a 55W TDP. Of course, the maximum turbo power can reach up to 160W, depending on the type of workload and available thermal headroom.

Ubisoft is facing down a lawsuit on its home turf for the controversial delisting and discontinuation of The Crew.

In March 2024, Ubisoft pulled The Crew from all stores and announced the game would be going offline for good. As an online-only game, that meant consumers who bought The Crew would effectively no longer be able to play. The game, which sold over 2 million copies in less than a month, was a financial success for Ubisoft, leading to a big-budget sequel.

Ubisoft's actions kicked off a controversy that birthed the growing Stop Killing Games movement. The goal was simple: SKG ultimately wants to ensure games that are bought and paid for can continue being played. SKG wanted to drum up enough attention to bring the matter before European Parliament, leading to an effective signature campaign. Now the movement has caught the attention of French watchdog group UFC-Que Choisir, who has filed a lawsuit against Ubisoft in the hope of changing games industry practices.

Netflix's recent price hike is starting to make sense now: The company today announced Netflix Playground, a new standalone app that offers games for kids.

Netflix Playground is a new app centered around kid-friendly experiences, bringing eight playable games based on popular kid shows and properties. The wholesome lineup includes games based on Dr. Seuss, Peppa Pig, and Sesame Street.

All of the games hosted on Netflix Playground are completely ad-free and don't require any extra purchases--there are no microtransactions or value-added content. This makes it similar to Netflix's principal video games strategy, which allows subscribers to download select premium mobile games to play for a set period.

Microsoft is rolling out a new version of Copilot for Windows 11, and users are starting to realize the app isn't quite what it claims to be. Those who dug into its files discovered that opening Copilot actually launches Microsoft Edge, making it less of a standalone AI assistant and more of a rebranded browser wrapper.

If you don't have Copilot yet, searching in the Microsoft Store shows a new "Microsoft Copilot" listing with a download button, even if Copilot is already installed. The download completes almost instantly because it only downloads an installer, similar to Microsoft Edge's process.

The Store even flags that you need to take action in another window, making it clear the download is no longer handled directly through the Store. Once installed, the old native Copilot app built on WinUI automatically disappears, and the new version takes over.

Saudi Arabia grows its stake in one of gaming's oldest companies--Japanese entertainment giant Capcom.

As per new filings on Japan's EDINET financial platform, Saudi-owned and -operated group Electronic Gaming Development Company (EGDC) has upped its stake in Capcom, from 5.03% to 6.04%.

The filings show that the EGDC currently has over 32 million shares in Capcom (32,186,900 to be exact). This treasure trove is worth an estimated 107.5 billion yen, or $673 million. At the time of writing, Capcom has over 533 million outstanding shares (533,011,246).

A new update from hardware sleuth Jaykihn on X (formerly Twitter) suggests that Intel's next-generation Nova Lake family will not feature the Xe4 "Druid" architecture after all. While earlier rumors pointed to a hybrid Xe3/Xe4 setup, it appears the platform is sticking entirely to the Xe3 family.

Nova Lake is set to be Intel's next major architecture launching across the desktop and mobile segments of the market next year. The lineup is expected to debut Coyote Cove P-cores and Arctic Wolf E-cores, which should bring about a sizeable boost in IPC (Instructions Per Clock Cycle). Nova Lake reportedly marks a return to a Conroe (Core 2 Duo) style shared L2 cache hierarchy for its P-cores. This, along with the use of a dual Compute Tile layout, allows configurations to reach 52 cores on desktop and 28 on mobile, paired with specialized bLLC (Big Last Level Cache) to tackle AMD's X3D family.

The update suggests Nova Lake's integrated GPU will use the Xe3-LPG architecture, similar to Panther Lake's B390. This is technically classified as a Battlemage GPU, though with some small refinements.

The Super Mario Galaxy movie has beaten opening ticket sales estimates by tens of millions of dollars, signaling yet another big hit for Nintendo and Illumination.

Super Mario Galaxy proves lightning can strike in the same place twice, as Nintendo has captured another marquee busting release with its new film adaptation. New reports indicate that the Super Mario Galaxy film has made $372 million in combined opening ticket sales so far, overshooting the original $350 million estimate.

The phrasing of this data is a bit confusing; initial box office numbers are reported in "opening week" periods, which typically includes two timelines: 3-day opening weekend sales, and 5-day week ticket sales. The new $372 million figure refers to Super Mario Galaxy's 5-day ticket sales in North America combined with the global 3-day opening weekend ticket sales.

Illumination and Nintendo have a novel approach to video game movie adaptations: Actually involving the people who designed and made the games.

Looking closely at the most successful game movies and TV shows, we see a few common elements: Passion, dedication, and continuity. The adaptations that do best are the ones that pay close attention to the details of the source material, often involving original creators, designers, and game developers that have been involved for years to help lead the charge. The Fallout TV show is a prime example of this, but nothing stands higher than the Mario movies.

At the Super Mario Galaxy movie premiere in Kyoto, Tokyo, Illumination boss Chris Meledandri explains that the secret to the Mario movie duo's success lies in Nintendo's unique ability to preserve its teams. It's all because of Illumination's close collaboration with Nintendo's creative minds, Meledandri says, many of which have been working on Mario franchises for decades.

If you rewind the clock, one game you would find everyone talking about was Fortnite. While games come and go, Fortnite managed to keep the hype alive, whether through bringing back OG Fortnite or the never-ending stream of item shop collaborations. And it felt like nothing could bring Epic Games down while it had one of the biggest battle royales in gaming in its pocket.

That sense of invincibility is starting to crack. Epic recently cut over 1,000 jobs, citing a downturn in Fortnite engagement, and has raised V-Bucks prices due to tough economic conditions. Reports indicate that Disney is watching for the right moment to acquire Epic Games and Fortnite to gain a significant foothold in gaming. Now, analyst Joost van Dreunen, co-founder of a leading analytics firm, argues the situation is more serious than it appears.

In his latest newsletter, spotted by Wccftech, Van Dreunen writes that the company is in the "middle of collapse." He argues that games like Fortnite, often branded as "forever games," don't last as long as people assume. "Forever games, it turns out, aren't," he wrote, before drawing a comparison to Roblox, which, despite giving users the power to create their own content, remains financially unstable.

Sony takes back control of its PlayStation Store's top downloads with a first-party game in the #1 spot.

Sony recently revealed the top downloaded PlayStation 5 games in March 2026 for North America and Europe, showing some key differences in regional consumer tastes.

MLB The Show 26 took the #1 top spot in the US, but was completely absent from Europe's top downloads. Sony and MLB have seen great success with their annualized sports releases, and these games typically see high rankings even on Xbox. On the US list, Sony had 3 games, beating Microsoft's 2 games, however the top spot goes to Electronic Arts, who had 4 titles on the list. Crimson Desert, Pearl Abyss's breakout hit that has sold 4 million copies in 12 days, is at #2 on the US list.

Intel launched the Core Ultra 200S Arrow Lake CPUs in 2024, but they didn't see the success the Blue Team had hoped for. Then came the newer Core Ultra 200S Plus "Arrow Lake Refresh" lineup, which looked more competitive at launch but has recently seen price hikes. As a result, many users are turning back to Intel's Raptor Lake CPUs, with the 13th and 14th-Gen chips still offering strong multithreading and gaming performance even by today's standards. However, finding a CPU like the Core i5-14600K at a reasonable price is not easy right now, and that is exactly what Intel is looking to fix.

In light of the ongoing memory shortage and rising demand for DDR4-compatible CPUs, Robert Hallock, VP and GM of the Enthusiast Channel at Intel, told Club386 that Raptor Lake is "an extremely fast product and is not going away any time soon." He added that Raptor Lake is a "big part of our strategy, and will continue to be abundantly available."

This is welcome news for those who couldn't make the jump to DDR5 in time, as Intel is not closing the door on its DDR4-compatible LGA1700 platform. Raptor Lake desktop chips on LGA1700 give builders the choice between DDR4-3200 and DDR5-5600, keeping them relevant for anyone who wants to reuse existing memory rather than move to a more expensive DDR5-only platform.

With the recent launch of the Intel Arc Pro B70, the company finally released its 'Big Battlemage' graphics card for consumers, albeit in a form aimed at the AI crown and workstations. Powered by the BMG-G31 graphics processor, the Arc Pro B70 features 32 Xe Cores (with Ray Tracing Units), 256 XMX engines, and 32GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 608 GB/s of memory bandwidth.

Although it's not a gaming-focused model, we know the DirectX 12 GPU can deliver gaming performance and would make for an impressive Intel Arc B770 if the price is right. That said, with Intel's reference Arc Pro B70 design priced at $949 USD, the card's AI performance and 32GB of VRAM have already made it popular among AI enthusiasts.

Per Newegg's listing for the Intel Arc Pro B70, it's currently the number one best seller in the Workstation Graphics Cards category. It's a card built for AI inference, and with its attractive price point and performance, it looks like its launch has been a success.

All the major players in the PC gaming hardware space, alongside Microsoft with DirectX, are actively investing in neural rendering technologies designed to benefit developers and gamers alike. Intel's Texture Set Neural Compression was demonstrated last year; however, an updated version was shown at the recent GDC event, and Intel noted it plans to make it available later this year.

Like NVIDIA's Neural Texture Compression (NTC), one of the benefits of Intel's Texture Set Neural Compression is its ability to leverage AI and new technologies to significantly reduce the VRAM or memory footprint of traditional textures that use "block compression." AI-powered texture compression offers a fundamentally different approach, which is why Texture Set Neural Compression can compress textures by up to 18X compared to the original format.

Texture Set Neural Compression (TSNC) is planned to be made available as a standalone SDK that takes standard BC1-compressed textures, the industry standard for texture compression in games, and compiles them for modern GPU and even CPU decompression.

Valve has previously expressed its desire to build and release a follow-up to its popular Steam Deck PC gaming handheld, and on more than one occasion has said that it would only release a follow-up if it could deliver a significant increase in performance at the same or similar power as the current Steam Deck's semi-custom AMD SoC.

Earlier this month, industry insider and known leaker of GPU-related information, KeplerL2, said that Valve was targeting a 2028 launch window for the Steam Deck 2 and that it could arrive without a semi-custom SoC. This would mean that, like the ROG Xbox Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go 2, it would arrive with an existing AMD SoC, such as the Ryzen Z2 Extreme. However, if Valve is looking for an SoC with notably more performance than this, there's currently nothing on the market that fits the bill.

Looking ahead, however, the 2028 release window could align with AMD's rumored "Medusa Point" and "Medusa Halo" SoCs, which will feature RDNA 4 (called RDNA 4n) and RDNA 5 architectures. These chips will most likely support AMD's AI-powered FSR 4 Super Resolution and Frame Generation technologies, which could be the secret ingredient in delivering a notably more powerful Steam Deck 2.

Neural Rendering is slowly taking shape in the world of gaming, where new AI technologies will accelerate visual fidelity and push traditional rendering to new heights on modern GPUs and next-gen console hardware. At the recent NVIDIA GTC 2026 event, a lengthy presentation titled 'Introduction to Neural Rendering' was conducted, covering a full range of new neural rendering technologies; however, the stand-out has to be Neural Texture Compression, which could be a game-changer on PC.

As the name suggests, Neural Texture Compression (NTC) offers an alternative to texture streaming and rendering in games. Currently, most games use BCn Texture Compression, or "block compression," which breaks a texture or image into chunks or blocks that are compressed and then decompressed by the GPU. This allows GPUs to decompress parts of images or textures as needed.

Neural Texture Compression (NTC) is very different because it encodes the latent features and data of a texture into a compact format that the neural network on a GPU, i.e., Tensor Cores on a GeForce RTX card, can reconstruct. NVIDIA is clear that this isn't generative AI but deterministic, in which the AI essentially rebuilds and recreates the texture in real time.

Okay, so NVIDIA's big DLSS 5 reveal trailer from its GTC conference last month has been one of the most talked-about PC gaming-related announcements for all of the wrong reasons. The AI rendering tool, which applies an almost post-processing filter to games like Resident Evil Requiem to deliver 'photorealistic' lighting and visuals, has come under fire from seemingly every corner of the gaming community.

And although the effect on in-game environments is impressive, it's the difference it makes to character faces that has stirred the most controversy. The backlash has been so vocal that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang responded to criticisms multiple times in recent weeks, while reiterating that game developers control how DLSS 5 looks and that it's designed to maintain a game's artistic vision or art direction.

And now, here we are in April, and NVIDIA's DLSS 5 announcement trailer is no longer available to watch on YouTube on the company's official GeForce channel. And no, it's not because NVIDIA is responding to the feedback and retooling the technology for a re-reveal or re-announcement; it's now blocked on "copyright grounds."

We all know how vague official system requirements for games can be. They hardly provide any useful information about what performance level you can expect from a game based on your system specifications. If you're lucky, you may get a hint as to whether you can even run the game on your PC in the first place. Well, it looks like that may be about to change very soon with a new feature that Valve is working on.

Recently, user Dex3108 on the ResetEra forums spotted a line in the Steam Client code that wasn't there before. The line read "Select an App and a PC config to get a chart of estimated frame rates, based on the frame rates of other users." This line suggests that users may be able to use a Steam Store tool to get estimated performance data for each game based on their system specifications.

If that feature becomes publicly available, it will be a huge benefit to PC gamers and even users of the Steam Deck and the upcoming Steam Machine. It will most likely put an end to the "recommended system specifications" that are posted by game developers. Instead, users will be able to get a good idea of the performance level that they can expect in the game that they're looking to buy.