Latest News - Page 502

Intel has announced it will no longer be using its in-house Intel 20A process node for its next-gen Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake" processors, and that it will use external nodes from partners... you know, TSMC.

TSMC will handle most of the Tiles on the Arrow Lake SoC -- CPU, GPU, NPU, I/O -- while Intel Foundry will handle the packaging of the manufactured chiplets into the final processor. Intel CFO Dave Zinsser said that the company would "skip over productizing" the 20A node to reduce capital expenditures and spending. Intel should save around $500 million from skipping its 20A process node.

Intel says that its upcoming 18A process node remains on track to launch in 2025, with the company shifting resources from 20A to the newer 18A. No more spending time and money on Intel 20A, everything is being poured into Intel 18A now, to bring the node to full production.

Intel has only just launched its new Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake" CPUs, but we're hearing morer and more details of its next-gen Core Ultra 300 series "Panther Lake" in new leaks.

In a post on X, leaker "Jaykhin" teased the final SKUs of Panther Lake with a more powerful Panther Lake-H processor that offers up to 18 cores of CPU power and up to 12 Xe2 "Celestial" GPU cores and a higher 45W TDP. This is a slight bump from the 16 cores total (Hyper-Threading died with Lunar Lake, and it isnt on Panther Lake) on the just-launched Lunar Lake CPUs, to 18 cores on Panther Lake-H.

The two Panther Lake-H processors that Jaykhin referred to as "pre-EDS" which stands for External Design Specification, which are a range of specifications that Intel releases externally to its partners. With this information, partners will know configurations, power, performance, I/O functionality, compliance, and other aspects companies need to know when developing a product based on that processor, in this case, Panther Lake.

Hero Games' Daniel Wu, the largest investor of Game Science, is confident that Black Myth: Wukong can break an astronomical sales milestone.

Chinese gaming sensation Black Myth: Wukong has taken the games industry by storm. According to new reports from Bloomberg, the AAA mega-hit has been in development for 6 years on a $70 million budget.

Wukong topped both Steam and the PlayStation Store for over a week, amassing 10 million sales shortly after launch. And the game has yet to release on Xbox platforms, presumably because of some sort of deal between Game Science and Sony Interactive Entertainment. In current sales, Wukong has managed to break 18 million global sales in just two weeks on PlayStation 5 and PC; that's almost as much as the latest Zelda game.

Sony has officially teased the new PlayStation 5 Pro console, confirming that the leaked design is in fact accurate.

Today, Sony published a PS Blog post discussing the celebration of PlayStation's 30th anniversary. The banner image in that post includes symbols and stylized designs for all previous PlayStation hardware, and right in the middle is a semi-transparent image of a brand new console: The 3-finned PlayStation 5 Pro.

The official teaser leans into the recent leaks that have exposed the PS5 Pro's overall shape. It's clear that the new PS5 Pro will be a part of this event in some way, and there's reports that Sony will unveil the system during a State of Play event later this month.

Sony's upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro console is rumored to be getting its big unveiling event at State of Play next week, running September 19-20.

If we do indeed see the new PS5 Pro unveiled, expect Sony to debut a bunch of first-party PS5 Pro Enhanced games and a potential "world premiere". This could, or could not be the big second trailer to GTA 6, with Sony rumored to have "locked down marketing rights" to GTA 6 for its PS5 Pro and PS5 consoles... this would be a huge State of Play event, and an even bigger launch event for the PS5 Pro.

Leaker "Lunatic Ignus" who was on the money with May's State of Play and Black Myth: Wukong's expansions, said today on their Discord server that the PS5 Pro could be unveiled on Tuesday or Wednesday, with a full reveal during the State of Play event later in the month.

NVIDIA's next-generation GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 graphics cards continue to get closer and closer, but designs of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 expected to be finalized this month.

In a new report, Benchlife chimes in on what is going on with NVIDIA's new Blackwell-based GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards, with the RTX 5090 pegged at 550W power and the RTX 5080 at 350W power according to Benchlife, compared to the 600W and 400W power numbers from leaker kopite7kimi.

Benchlife reports: "This news is indeed a bit confusing. According to information from the module manufacturer, there was indeed a 400W NVIDIA cooling module case earlier, but it is currently in the cancellation or suspension stage. As for the 600W cooling module case, it has never stopped from the beginning until now".

MSI has officially unleashed its beast MEG X870E GODLIKE motherboard, designed for enthusiasts to enjoy the pinnacle of PC building, overclocking, and performance. Just marvel in its beauty:

The new MSI MEG X870E GODLIKE motherboard is an absolute beast, ready for AMD's new Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 series "Granite Ridge" CPUs. MSI is using its awesome Dynamic Dashboard in its third-gen now, with a 3.99-inch LCD screen on the motherboard, with MEG X870 GODLIKE mobo owners able to use Dynamic Dashboard III to monitor your hardware, troubleshoot your issues, check BIOS update status, display a clock, and more personalization.

MSI is taking cable management seriously with the MEG X870E GODLIKE motherboard, with EZ Link design handling most of the front panel headers, fan headers, and RGB headers into the EZ Bridge and EZ Control Hub, making for a super-clean look.

Sony's upgraded PlayStation 5 Pro will release later this year, offering performance levels of the desktop AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT graphics card, according to a leaker.

In a reply on X, leaker "Kepler" said that the PS5 Pro will have the same rasterization performance as the Radeon RX 7700 XT, while having more ray tracing performance (thanks to parts of the RDNA 4 GPU architecture, and some nice trickery AMD is using with the new semi-custom chip for the PS5 Pro).

Funny, I reported that the PS5 Pro would have RX 7700 XT levels of performance back in May 2022, over two years ago now, with TCL hosting a conference saying that the PS5 Pro would be out in 2024 and that the console would be ready for 4K 60-120Hz and 8K 60-120Hz, with performance of the RX 7700 XT GPU.

ASUS has just launched its new NUC 14 Pro AI codenamed Lunar Canyon, featuring Intel's just-released Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake" processors, and it even has a dedicated Copilot+ button on the front.

The new ASUS NUC 14 Pro AI features up to Intel's new flagship Core Ultra 9 288V processor, with up to 32GB of LPDDR5X-8533 on-package memory (no more SO-DIMM, Lunar Lake shifts RAM to on-package with the Lunar Lake SoC). A huge step backwards, because the ROG 14 Pro+ featured an Intel Core Ultra 100 series "Meteor Lake" CPU and supported up to 96GB of DDR-5600 SO-DIMM memory. The new NUC 14 Pro AI is limited to only 32GB of RAM.

ASUS hasn't been too upfront about the specs of its new NUC 14 Pro AI system, but we do know it has Xe2 "Battlemage" integrated graphics with 50% more gaming performance over Meteor Lake, M.2 2280 SSD support, 2.5GbE ethernet, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

MSI has officially unleashed its latest next-gen AI+ laptops with gaming as well as business and productivity laptops featuring Intel's latest Core Ultra 200V series "Lunar Lake" CPU and AMD's latest Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point' APU.

MSI's next-gen AI+ laptops include the Prestige and Summit -- for business and productivity -- powered by Intel's new Lunar Lake CPU, offering up to 120 TOPS of combined AI performance (CPU + GPU + NPU). MSI's new Prestige laptops come in 13, 14, and 16-inch sizes with ultra-light designs, larger batteries, and longer battery life.

Additionally, MSI also unveiled its new Stealth A16 AI+, Summit A16 AI+, Prestige A16 AI+ and Creator A16 AI+ which are all powered by AMD's new Ryzen AI 300 series "Strix Point" APUs. The new Stealth A16 AI+ and Creator A16 AI+ were specifically designed for gamers and content creators, packed with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series Laptop GPUs providing "unprecedented computing power in a remarkably thin and light magnesium-aluminum Alloy chassis, enabling users to have a smooth and remarkable experience".

There was a time, during the era when all desktop PCs were beige colored, that if you went into a store to buy a peripheral like a keyboard or mouse, you only had two options- Logitech or Microsoft. It's been a few years since Microsoft designed and developed PC hardware, but the company released several iconic and beloved products over the years. The Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard and the Intellimouse come to mind.

Well, there's good news for fans of the classic Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard (sorry, Intellimouse fans, we might have to wait a bit longer for that classic to return): the company has partnered with Incase to release a line of 'Incase Designed by Microsoft' PC peripherals, which are on track for release later this year.

This new Incase Designed by Microsoft line-up will be pretty big, with 23 products, including 12 keyboards, five mice, three Teams Certified headsets, two Bluetooth speakers and dock combos, and a webcam.

Cooler Master's Shark X design, by Inony from Thailand, is an impressive mod and custom case and build that first debuted at the 2019 Cooler Master Case Mod World Series. Just like the Cooler Master custom Sneaker X PC, the Shark X design is being put into production, and pre-orders are now open.

Hardware-wise, it includes the Intel Core i7-14700F processor, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER graphics, 64GB of DDR5 6000 memory, 2TB of PCI Gen4 NVMe SSD storage, and a B760I DDR5 WIFI motherboard. Now, at $6,999.99 USD, it's an expensive rig, and for that price, you'd probably expect a flagship CPU and GPU combo: a 14900K and GeForce RTX 4090.

However, like with the Sneaker X, a lot of the money here comes down to Cooler Master being able to manufacture several Shark X rigs, where every aspect comes from a custom mod, so there's nothing really off-the-shelf about the chassis. Also, there are limitations in what can be installed due to size restrictions, as it's as much of an art piece as a PC.

MSI is already planning to release a follow-up to its Claw PC gaming handheld: the new MSI Claw 8 AI+, powered by the recently announced Intel Core Ultra processors (Series 2), aka Lunar Lake. The new architecture and Xe2 GPU (Battlemage) deliver a notable efficiency improvement over the first-gen Core Ultra-powered Claw and a performance boost.

The MSI Claw 8 is named that way because it features a sizeable 8-inch display (1200P, 120 Hz, VRR), and the new Core Ultra 200V processor offers improved AI performance. IFA conference attendees in Germany are currently going hands-on with the MSI Claw 8 AI+, and the company is demonstrating its PC gaming performance with the critically acclaimed Xbox title H-Fi Rush.

In addition to upgraded and 'next-gen' Intel hardware, the MSI Claw 8 AI+ includes several improvements over the original. MSI confirms that it has 'actively listened to user feedback' and used that to implement changes.

Intel's 2024 has been defined by bad news. One of the biggest stories in the PC gaming community has been reports surrounding faulty 13th and 14th-Gen Core CPUs - primarily Core i9-14900K and Core i9-13900K processors. This issue has been ongoing for months, with Intel and its motherboard partners releasing a BIOS or microcode update that 'fixes' the problem last month.

However, the voltage issues have led to numerous faulty CPUs with irrevocable damage. Intel has opted not to issue a product recall and confirmed that the problem affects all 13th and 14th Gen CPUs, including the lower-power 65W models. What it has done is extend the warranty for all affected CPUs while offering a no-fuss replacement program for its customers experiencing issues.

According to several sources, the RMA process for affected 13th and 14th Gen CPUs has been fast, smooth, and reliable in recent weeks. For others, it has been slow going. One Reddit post by 'Towel4' shows that Intel sent him a notification that they have run out of replacement Core i9-14900K and Core i9-13900K processors and that it's going to take "4 to 5 weeks or more before our stocks are replenished."

Before launching its new Copilot+ PC range, Microsoft pulled one of its flagship Windows 11 AI features, 'Recall.' The search tool leveraged the Copilot+ NPU to search your PC history to 'recall' or find things you've looked at or worked on. An example could be asking Recall to find that funny YouTube video you watched three days ago.

The only problem was that Recall worked by constantly taking screenshots of your desktop without any security or filters. From there, the AI builds a searchable index with everything categorized without regard for privacy.

Once this became known, the controversial AI feature made headlines, and it continued to make headlines until Microsoft pulled it from the Copilot+ PC launch to retool its functionality and security features. Well, it's coming back, and you won't be able to uninstall Recall once it does.

A new study published in the scientific journal Environment International has analyzed radio wave exposure to the human brain to see if it causes any form of brain cancer in hopes of putting to bed the widespread concern smartphones and other radio-wave-emitting devices cause brain cancer.

The widespread concerns that wireless devices cause cancer can be traced back to many different sources, particularly one study from 2011 that resulted in the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifying radio waves as a carcinogen or cancer-causing. However, the new study published in Environment International used a much larger data set than the 2011 study, leading the researchers to be much more confident in their conclusion, which was that radio-waves wireless technologies, including smartphones, don't cause cancer and cause no physical harm to human health.

Notably, the study was a review of previous studies commissioned by the World Health Organization. In the final analysis, 63 studies on the same subject were included, and the aforementioned conclusion was reached-wireless technologies don't cause any physical harm to humans. Moreover, the team found that even if a human used a smartphone for more than 10 years with an increased call rate that resulted in the device being placed near the head, there was still no association between smartphones and brain cancer.

There are many objects out in deep space that humans have yet to discover, but NASA can add one more to the "discovered" list and that is a fossil lurking millions of light years away from our planet.

The newly discovered object is called the Tucana Dwarf Galaxy, and it's located approximately 3 million light years away from Earth. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has honed its extremely sensitive instruments on the location of the galaxy, revealing some of its contents, which are believed to be groups of billions of old stars.

Now why would old stars be of any use to astronomers? NASA explains this galaxy is referred to as a dwarf spheroidal galaxy, which a smaller galaxy that contains stars that aren't very bri due to their old age. Additionally, these galaxies contain a small quantity of dust, making visibility much easier for optical space telescopes such as Hubble. Notably, the Tucana Dwarf Galaxy is approximately 3.6 million light years away from the center mass of the Local Group of galaxies, which includes our own Milky Way galaxy.

Instagram users will soon be able to comment directly on Instagram Stories, rather than a comment being sent directly to the account that posted the Story via private-message.

The new feature will enable people to interact with Instagram Stories more publicly, as the comments on Stories will be displayed to other users, unlike the previous setup where comments were sent directly to the posters private messages. However, users will only be able to comment on a story if they follow the account posting and if that account follows them back.

Additionally, the comments on Stories will only last 24 hours and users will be able to choose to turn Stories comments on or off for each Story. It appears Instagram is leaning more towards providing new features for users to enjoy that promote user engagement. In other Instagram related news, Meta was recently associated with "Active Listening" software through a leaked pitch deck from one of its partners.

Although it might be a little late to the party, Acer is joining the PC gaming handheld market with the new Acer Nitro Blaze 7, which it's calling an 'AI-powered' handheld thanks to the AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS chip. However, the Ryzen 7 8840HS's 38 TOPS of AI performance falls short of Microsoft's Copilot+ PC minimum of 40 TOPS. Still, it's enough to run rudimentary AI workloads.

The Acer Nitro Blaze 7 will be the latest Windows 11 gaming handheld to feature a Ryzen chip with integrated Radeon 780M graphics, so performance should be on par with the ROG Ally. No pricing has been set for the Acer Nitro Blaze 7, but its specs and features outside the Radeon 780M graphics sound impressive.

The handheld ships with a 7-inch 1080p IPS display with a 144 Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness, 100% sRGB coverage, and AMD FreeSync Premium technology. Although not OLED, the display sports a relatively low 7ms response time and doubles as a 10-point touchscreen.

Acer debuted a very cool concept at the IFA conference in Germany, the Acer Project DualPlay gaming laptop. As the images showcase, the large touchpad doubles as a game controller that pops out - where, after flipping it around, you've got a traditional gamepad. Another interesting feature is that it includes 5-watt pop-out speakers on either side of the laptop to create a more immersive audio experience.

"This Predator concept embraces the latest gaming trends, unleashing a new dimension of versatile and shared PC gaming experiences that converge in one powerful device," Acer writes in the press release. As a potential Predator gaming laptop, we'd love for this to get an actual release, as the integrated controller concept is fantastic.

The controller is wireless and charges when you pop it back onto the laptop's 'electromagnetic lock.' It can also be separated Nintendo Switch style and turned into two controllers.