After the explosion of new tech from Computex 2024 last week, Jak and Kosta take a quick hardware break to review some of the most exciting game announcements from the recent summer showcase events. From the fantastic and totally metal DOOM: The Dark Ages to the surprise gameplay reveal for Metroid Prime 4 and the Unreal Engine 5 brilliance of the new Gears of War prequel.

The duo also discusses the recent news that NVIDIA has become more valuable than Microsoft and Apple. Although this is the direct result of the current AI gold rush and boom - it also translates to PC gaming. According to the latest Steam data and GPU shipment information, GeForce RTX is currently experiencing a monopoly-like grip on the PC gaming market.

In AI, Jak and Kosta look at the Copilot+ PC launch, which is missing Microsoft's controversial screenshotting 'Recall' feature (probably for the best). With Apple Intelligence, Apple's big AI push is finally given the spotlight, and the company will be leaving behind hundreds of millions of customers.

Back when EVGA made NVIDIA graphics cards, the firm produced certain high-end models with overclocker Kingpin - and these special edition cards are coming back to the GPU market, except with PNY this time.

Those who are familiar with the Kingpin brand will, of course, know that these are graphics cards built in conjunction with the high-profile overclocker of the same name (Vince 'Kingpin' Lucido).

As uncovered in an interview with Gamers Nexus (via VideoCardz), Kingpin's next move is to partner with PNY to produce graphics cards built for overclocking to fill the "huge hole in the enthusiast market."

The Minisforum DEG1 eGPU Dock is a very cool and minimal approach to hooking up an external GPU to a mini PC or laptop. It uses the OCuLink interface to deliver 64 Gbps of bandwidth, and the open-air design means you could hook up anything from a GeForce RTX 3060 to a GeForce RTX 4090 or the flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

There's an included signal amplifier to ensure a stable connection, though the $99 USD price tag means you'll need a PC ATX or SFX power supply to provide enough power to the GPU. It's an elegant approach, but it does mean that you'd probably need to shell out for a power supply - and in that case, you'd want the most compact and modular option to help maintain a minimal look.

It's a niche product, but with the rise of portable PCs with powerful hardware-including PC gaming handhelds - there's a definite market for it. In fact, with a few mini PCs currently sitting in my living room, I wouldn't mind one of these to play more than Hades 2 on my big-screen OLED.

With the arrival of Microsoft's new Copilot+ PC line-up powered by the new Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite chipset, a new era for portable Windows-based devices has begun. Even though we will see new Intel and AMD-powered Copilot+ PCs in the future, it's a big deal for Microsoft to go all in on Windows on Arm like this.

Early word on Copilot+ PCs is primarily positive for app performance and battery life, but gaming performance has been hit-and-miss. This is because there's an emulation component where x86 or x64 code must be converted to Arm64 without any work required from game developers.

PC gaming is a big part of the vision for Copilot+ PCs, as outlined by a new DirectX blog titled 'A Step Forward for Gaming on Arm Devices.' The article cites advances in Prism emulation, a key part of the Windows 11 24H2 update, unlocking "a large back catalog of games that work great on Arm under emulation." And Microsoft's only getting started.

Funcom has published another livestream dedicated to its upcoming survival MMO "Dune: Awakening" where players will embark on tenuous journeys throughout Arrakis.

Funcom's Dune: Awakening is a new open-world survival MMO from the studio behind Conan Exiles, and the upcoming title will take players to the desolate world of Arrakis. Just like in the movies, surviving the harsh environment on Arrakis will be paramount, which means players will be required to stay hydrated throughout their adventures and also use rocky/shady areas to their advantage.

Funcom revealed during the recent livestream the character creation menu, where players are able to change the appearance of their characters, provide their own backstory, and select their mentor specialization. What was likely the most exciting part of the livestream was the reveal of the world structure, where Funcom explained Dune: Awakening will connect various maps together to enable a seamless experience between different maps all within a single world.

Elon Musk's startup xAI has made a massive order with various hardware companies to create a powerful supercomputer that will be used to power Grok.

The CEO of Dell Technologies, Michael Dell, took to his personal X account to announce that Dell has partnered with xAI to construct a "Dell AI factory". Dell isn't the only company onboard with the supercomputer project, as NVIDIA will provide the horsepower with its powerful AI GPUs, and Supermicro will handle one-half of the total number of racks. Elon Musk clarified on his personal X account, "Dell is assembling half of the racks that are going into the supercomputer that xAI is building."

As for the horsepower, Musk stated earlier this month that xAI was on the verge of bringing 100,000 liquid-cooled NVIDIA H100 GPUs online, but Musk isn't totally thrilled with their efficiency, especially with NVIDIA's next-generation Blackwell GPUs on the horizon. Musk stated earlier this month, "Given the pace of technology improvement, it's not worth sinking one gigawatt of power into H100s. Next big step would probably be ~300k B200s with CX8 networking next summer."

Microsoft has announced it will be making a big appearance at Gamescom 2024, and its Xbox team will be showcasing a selection of upcoming titles.

In an announcement that surprised absolutely no one, Sony announced it will not be attending Gamescom 2024, which seemingly sparked Microsoft to share news of its commitment to the gaming tradeshow.

Microsoft took to the official Xbox X, formerly Twitter, account to say it will be at Gamescom 2024, and fans can expect to see the following titles: Age of Mythology: Retold, Avowed, Ara: History Untold, Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, Diablo Immortal, The Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, Towerborne, and World of Warcraft: The War Within. Xbox also said that its booth at Gamescom 2024 will be "our biggest booth yet". You can expect to be able to play (probably a demo) the aforementioned titles at the Xbox booth.

A team of researchers has been awarded $1 million to construct a "quantum laser" for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

According to reports, DARPA has awarded Jung-Tsung Shen, associate professor in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering, with a two-year $1 million grant to construct what is officially called a "quantum photonic-dimer laser." The new quantum laser will be capable of creating a powerful and concentrated beam of light that can be tailored to specific types of atmospheric environments, such as fog.

Traditional forms of lasers would otherwise struggle in fog, but using the power of quantum entanglement, the new laser could be used for military applications such as surveillance and secure communications in unfavorable environments. So, how does it work? Quantum entanglement is the correlation between photons or light particles. When a photon travels through the atmosphere it damages them, but when they are entangled with another photon, they are able to protect each other more efficiently and thus retaining vital information.

AMD has just dropped the prices of its Ryzen 8000G series "Hawk Point" APUs across the range, with around $20 to $30 discount off each of the SKUs.

AMD launched its new Ryzen 8000G series "Hawk Point" APUs earlier this year, based on the Zen 4 CPU architecture and RDNA 3 GPU architecture on the AM5 socket. AMD launched the Ryzen 7 8700G, Ryzen 5 8600G, and Ryzen 5 8500G APUs, now all discounted.

The flagship Ryzen 7 8700G APU has dropped to $299 from its original $329 price, while the Ryzen 5 8600G has dropped to $199 from $229, and finally, the Ryzen 5 8500G has dropped to $159 from $179. Not bad savings across the board there, especially if you were about to buy one of these Hawk Point APUs.

Razer's DeathAdder is one of those iconic mouse shapes that you instantly feel at home with. Over the years, it has evolved into a high-end ultra-lightweight esports gaming mouse with the award-winning Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro. Today, Razer has announced the latest addition to the DeathAdder family, the new DeathAdder V3 HyperSpeed, which features a design inspired by the V3 Pro.

Like the V3 Pro, the HyperSpeed is described as an "ergonomic wireless esports mouse," which is backed up by its lightweight 55-gram build. It's actually 12% lighter than the DeathAdder V3 Pro and features a change to the iconic DeathAdder shape made in collaboration with professional esports players.

Like the Razer Viper V3 Pro Wireless we recently reviewed, the DeathAdder V3 HyperSpeed sports a smooth finish rather than a matte one. It is powered by Razer Optical Mouse Switches Gen-3 and Razer's Focus X 26K Optical Sensor and even supports 8K polling - though you'll need the Razer HyperPolling Wireless Dongle (sold separately) for that.

Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus and the creator of the popular Rift VR headset that kicked off the VR movement for PC gaming, has announced that he's working on a new head-mounted display (HMD) that is being "driven" by military requirements.

Details are a bit light, but he made the announcement during a casual fireside chat at the 2024 Augmented World Expo (AWE). "I'm actually building a new headset right now," Luckey said during the panel. "It's driven by military requirements, but it's also going to be used for non-military stuff. It's really cool, it's really something."

As a VR pioneer who created Oculus in 2012, which Meta/Facebook acquired for $2 billion in 2017, Luckey co-founded Anduril Industries, a military defense technology company, shortly after he departed from Facebook. By the sounds of it, the new headset is being built specifically for unknown military purposes.

Mobile chips are becoming increasingly powerful for gaming. For example, Ubisoft and Capcom are releasing modern Assassin's Creed and Resident Evil games for the latest Apple iPhones. With the recent launch of Microsoft's new Copilot+ PCs with mobile-like Arm-based Snapdragon chips, you might be interested in knowing how the flagship Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra fares when it comes to PC gaming.

YouTube creator ETA PRIME's latest video offers a deep dive into PC gaming on the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. However, as we're talking about an Android device, the games featured and tested are not running natively on the device, nor are they being streamed - they're running via the popular Winlator emulator (modded to support the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3).

Undertale, Far Cry, Bioshock, and Fallout 4 are the titles put to the test, and even though we're talking about older games - it's cool to see the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Bethesda's iconic RPG running on an Android phone.

TSMC is exploring a 'radically new' method of semiconductor chip packaging, as the world of AI is simply not slowing down and needs further advancements at every level to keep up.

TSMC Is reportedly working with equipment and material suppliers on its new method, according to "multiple people with direct knowledge of the matter", reports Nikkei Asia. The new approach would use rectangular panel-like substrates, compared to the conventional round wafers of today. This new method is called panel-level packaging, which would allow more chips to be placed on each wafer.

The research into panel-level packaging is still early, and it would be many years before we see chips made on it, but it represents a "significant technical shift by TSMC" reports Nikkei Asia, which the company previously viewed using rectangular substrates as "too challenging".

Bernstein analysts have just lifted their price targets for TSMC's Taiwan and US-listed shares, with the new price target hitting NT$1080, up from NT$900, while US-listed shares have new price targets of $200, up from $150.

The analysts expect TSMC to surpass its 2024 guidance, which is driven by two factors: high-end smartphone demand and advanced technology nodes used by virtually every major US tech company: Apple, AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and more.

TSMC's continued data center AI revenue continues to climb, but an "unexpected boost" reports Investing.com, comes from AI's influence on smartphone upgrades. We've already got Samsung with Galaxy AI on its new Galaxy S24 smartphones, and Apple has ChatGPT-powered "Apple Intelligence" coming later this year.

MAINGEAR has just unveiled its new ML-16 gaming laptops, powered by Intel's new Core Ultra 100 series "Meteor Lake" CPUs and NVIDIA's current-gen GeForce RTX 40 series "Ada Lovelace" GPUs. Check it out:

MAINGEAR has crafted the new ML-16 gaming laptop to deliver "next-level productivity and gaming performance at home and on the go". The ML-16 gaming laptop has been collaboratively engineered for impressive speed, seamless multitasking, and long-lasting battery life.

Inside, the new MAINGEAR ML-16 gaming laptops rock the new Intel Core Ultra 7 155H "Meteor Lake" CPU, and the choice of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4070 or RTX 4060 Laptop GPUs. There's a large 80Wh battery inside, so you're going to get plenty of battery life out of the ML-16, with three power modes to choose from (and a dedicated turbo mode for maximum performance).

South Korean lawmaker and former Samsung Electronics president Ko Dong-jim has tabled a special bill to establish and support a government-level semiconductor industry strategy that has been referred to as an "All-Out War" for South Korea and the semiconductor industry.

Ko Dong-jim is a lawmaker from the People Power Party in South Korea, Ko submitted to the National Assembly the "Special Art on Enhancing the Competitiveness of the Semiconductor Industry," which includes an establishment of a "Presidential Semiconductor Industry Competitiveness Enhancement Committee".

The "All-Out War" bill for the semiconductor industry was picked up by Business Korea, which reports that the proposed legislation aims to centralize the semiconductor industry regulations through the future committee, and fast-tracking for expedited permits.

SK hynix is expediting its HBM roadmap that includes HBM4 and HBM4E memory, which were originally planned for mass production in 2026 and 2027, respectively.

Now, the timelines have been moved up, and HBM4 is set for mass production in 2025, while HBM4E will enter mass production in 2026, according to sources from Business Korea. The adjustments "align" with NVIDIA's accelerated AI accelerator release cycle, which has shortened from two years to one year.

NVIDIA's current-gen Hopper GPU architecture with the H100 and beefed-up H200 are already dominating, with the new Blackwell GPU architecture with the B100 and B200 AI GPUs sporting faster HBM3E memory. But, then NVIDIA teased its next-gen Rubin R100 AI GPU, which will feature HBM4 memory and drop in Q4 2025.

Neuralink's very first human patient to receive the company brain-computer interface (BCI) has sat down for an interview with Joe Rogan, where he explained the whole process of receiving a brain chip and his experience with it so far.

29-year-old Nolan Arbaugh became Neuralink's first patient to receive a BCI, and the extraordinary technology has enabled the individual who became paralyzed from the neck down following a diving accident to control digital devices with his thoughts. Arbaugh has already been shown controlling a computer cursor, playing Mario Kart, and more. However, the BCI procedure wasn't without its problems.

At the beginning of May, Neuralink posted an update on Arbaugh explaining that a malfunction occurred within the first weeks after the procedure. The company gave a somewhat detailed response on the issue, but now Arbaugh has explained himself. On the Joe Rogan Experience, Arbaugh explained there are 64 "threads" thinner than a human hair implanted into his brain with 16 electrodes on them each (1,024 electrodes total), and over the course of a month, "a lot of the threads retracted."

Bethesda's Todd Howard talks about how the team thinks about operating both singleplayer and live games in parallel with each other without too much impact on missed sales.

Bethesda's live games are doing very well right now. Fallout 76 recently passed 20 million lifetime players and The Elder Scrolls Online broke 24 million users earlier this year. Does this mean that less people are buying and playing Bethesda's actual singleplayer games? Apparently not.

In a recent interview with Mr. Matty Plays, Bethesda's Todd Howard assuages worries that the live games will negatively impact new singleplayer games like The Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout 5.

Embracer Group reveals plans to incorporate artificial intelligence tools to develop new games, but the publisher doesn't want the technology to actually replace its workers.

With thousands of layoffs wracking the video games industry, AI is a hot-button topic. The tech has been criticized because its automation processes could put even more people out of work at a time when jobs are already scarce. While pretty much every games publisher plans to utilize AI in some way--lest they miss out on the AI gold rush and somehow get farther behind competitors--these companies are trying to find ways to do so in a more acceptable way.

That's the case with Embracer Group, the once-decentralized group that itself had laid off over 1,300 people in the last year. Embracer wants to use AI to help accelerate game dev, but not at the cost of human capital. At least that's what the company says in its recent year-end report.