NVIDIA's RTX 4080 Super has been cut to its lowest price yet, with the GPU that was introduced at the start of 2024 now down to $949.

VideoCardz was on the ball enough to notice that at Newegg in the US, PNY's RTX 4080 Super Verto graphics card has had its price chopped again. Although you may notice the sticker price, as it were, is $979 - you need to apply a discount code at checkout which reduces it by a further $30 to get the board down to $949.

Previously, this PNY model has been below the MSRP of $999, and was spotted at $969 recently, but this is a fresh - and welcome - low for the cost of the Verto model.

Elden Ring fans are sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for the timer to tick down until tomorrow so they can jump straight into the highly anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.

With most of the attention on the contents of the DLC, which looks absolutely fantastic in both the teaser trailer and the recently released official trailer, there hasn't been much focus on the new update that was revealed alongside the new trailer.

Heading to Bandai Namco's website, the publisher outlines patch 1.12, which will include support for the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion, new map functions, new inventory features, a new "recent items" tab, and the ability to summon the spectral steed during the Elden Beast boss battle. Additionally, FromSoftware will also be adding PvE balance changes to weapons, skills, Incantations, and balance adjustments for PvP and PvE interactions. Those adjustments will come in the form of damage increases, attack speed increases, and more.

Asteroids are windows into the ancient history of the galaxy and our solar system, making them one of the most valuable astronomical objects to observe.

The process of asteroid formation is dust particles slamming into each other over and over again until they form a bigger mass. This mass is floating around a larger mass object, such as our Sun or a large planet. The constant collisions with more particles eventually form what we now call an asteroid, and from those asteroids colliding with other asteroids around a local star, we get planets.

Now, researchers from Johns Hopkins University announced on June 10, 2024 they captured evidence of a massive asteroid collision within the Beta Pictoris star system located approximately 63 light-years away from Earth - which is the equivalent of how far away next door is in terms of galactic scale. The discovery was made using data obtained by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the world's most powerful space telescope, and data from Spitzer.

The first official expansion for Elden Ring releases tomorrow and ahead of its launch publisher Bandai Namco has released the official trailer for highly anticipated DLC.

Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree will be released globally tomorrow, and to celebrate the launch, Bandai Namco has taken to its YouTube channel to drop the official trailer, which spans three lengthy minutes. The trailer teases players with incredible new environments, enemies, weapons, bosses, and much more. Within the description of the trailer, it's written, "Witness the birth of a God. The coming of a Lord. And follies better left forgotten. In that forsaken place, blood must spill."

It was only a few days ago that we got the official PC requirements for Shadow of the Erdtree, and the good news is that if you were able to comfortably play Elden Ring, you will be able to comfortably play the DLC as well. There isn't any difference between the Shadow of the Erdtree Minimum and Recommended hardware specifications and the Elden Ring specifications - besides 20GB of extra storage space.

Apple recently wrapped up its WWDC where it showcased what it has planned for iOS 18, which is expected to release later this year.

Since the presentation, Apple has been under fire from its customers after its announcement about Apple Intelligence, Apple's foray into the emerging technology, seemingly being integrated into every facet of technology, would only be accessible to users that purchased its latest generation iPhone. As for Mac's, Apple made Intelligence available to M1-powered devices and above. However, the only iPhone's compatible with the new technology are the iPhone 15 Pro models, not even the standard iPhone 15.

There are a few reasons for gatekeeping, and Apple customers were quick to accuse the company of gatekeeping Apple Intelligence as a scheme to drive more sales of its soon-to-be-released new generation of products, specifically the iPhone 16 line. Apple said its new AI-powered feature requires a powerful NPU and substantial RAM capacity. The only two iPhones that meet the required specifications are the iPhone 15 Pro models.

A new study published in the Geophysical Researchers Letters by researchers from the University of California examined the impact that satellites in Earth's orbit have on the ozone layer when they plummet to their demise.

According to the satellite tracking website Orbiting Now, there are approximately 9,900 satellites in Earth's various orbits, and that number is growing every day as Earth becomes more reliant on technology and space becomes more accessible. When a satellite has ceased all of its operations and been deemed out of commission, it's typically disposed of by being forced to reenter Earth's atmosphere, where it burns up. But what impact do satellite fumes have on Earth's upper atmosphere?

The team behind the study looked at the small particles given off by a satellite burning up and found Starlink, along with many other satellites, release aluminum oxides upon reentry. Between 2016 and 2022 the number of oxides in Earth's atmosphere increased by eight, and these oxides negatively impact the ozone layer.

The new Fractal Mood PC case is the company's next minimal, stylish, and compact case. It sports a 'pillar design' and a removable cover made of breathable fabric. Available in black or grey, the low-volume design was created to minimize the PC's overall footprint but still offer enough room to install a 280mm radiator and a graphics card up to 325mm in length.

The GPU's airflow looks pretty good here. It connects via a PCIe Gen 4 riser cable to the board and is mounted on one side with fans facing the breathable fabric to improve thermal performance. The case also comes with one of Fractal's 180mm Dynamic fans designed to move air "up through the case."

Compatibility-wise, as an SFF case (a tall one at that), it supports mITX motherboards and SFX or SFX-L power supplies. Still, there's plenty of room for cooling and even additional storage, including a 3.5-inch drive and two 2.5-inch drives. Fan-wise, in addition to the 180mm fan, there's room for two 120mm fans and two 140mm fans.

NASA has approved a $19.5 million mission to put an artificial star in Earth's orbit that will enable scientists to unlock a deeper understanding of the universe.

Astronomers typically observe extremely large objects that are very far away, but that is about to change as a portion of researchers will soon be turning their gaze to an artificial star in Earth's orbit. NASA has approved the nearly $20 million Landolt Space Mission that involves launching a mini satellite, approximately the size of a bread box, into Earth's orbit where it will act as an artificial star.

Here's how it works. The mini-satellite, officially a CubeSat, will be placed exactly 22,236 miles away from Earth in a region of space that puts it in geosynchronous orbit, meaning its orbit matches the speed of Earth's spin. The reason for getting the CubeSat into geosynchronous orbit is so the CubeSat always appears in the night sky in the exact same location. Once that has been achieved, the CubeSat called Landolt will fire lasers with a specific number of light particles directly at ground-based telescopes operated by astronomers.

Micron Technology, a US semiconductor manufacturing company, is being sued by South Korean company Mimir IP for infringing on its patents.

Mimir IP has filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC) and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Notably, Korea Economic Daily (KED) described Mimir IP as a non-practicing entity (NPE), which translates to a patent troll - a company that solely exists to purchase patents, hold them, and then sue companies or any entity that infringes on them.

Mimir purchased approximately 1,500 patents from SK Hynix in May, which it then used to file lawsuits that involve "circuits, voltage measurement devices, and non-volatile memory devices." The lawsuit, if it concludes in Mimir IP's favor, could earn the patent troll up to $480 million, and authorities could even force defendants to sign licensing agreements with Mimir.

A hacker has claimed to have breached Apple security and extracted the source for three internal Apple tools, only a day after the same hacker claimed to have breached AMD.

BreachedForums user "IntelBroker" announced yesterday they infiltrated AMD and stole customer databases, upcoming product specifications and plans, internal financials, source code, firmware and ROMs, and information on employees - names, user IDs, phone numbers, and other sensitive information. Notably, this isn't the first time IntelBroker has claimed responsibility for a high-profile hack.

Europol, Home Depot, and the Pentagon all admitted to experiencing a breach this year, all of which IntelBroker claimed responsibility for and placed the hacked information onto the dark web for sale. However, it's one thing to claim responsibility for a hack and another to have actually hacked who you are claiming and extracted valuable data.

NVIDIA still hasn't signed on with Samsung for its HBM memory chips, something that will need to be resolved by NVIDIA because it requires Samsung's silicon interposers and advanced chip packaging.

In a new report from TheElec, the huge bottleneck for NVIDIA's current-gen Hopper H100 and H200 AI GPUs is now a shortage of TSMC's CoWoS advanced packaging capacity, with an interposer shortage on the horizon. The interposer is another important key part of AI chips, with the interposer integrating multiple chips into a single package.

NVIDIA's advanced AI GPU itself, HBM memory chips, and more. H100's interposer is 3.3x the size of a lithography mask, and only 9 can be cut form a 12-inch silicon wafer (on the 40nm process). However, the more advanced GPUs like NVIDIA's new Blackwell B100 and B200 AI GPUs are even bigger, and by 2026, with Rubin R100 AI GPUs, interposers will need to be 5.5x the size of a mask... by 2027, we're looking at 8x.

Yesterday, Nintendo unveiled the highly anticipated Metroid Prime 4. Fans have been waiting seven years to see some gameplay, and the two-minute trailer didn't disappoint - it looks like a modern take on classic Prime gameplay. Technically impressive, too, the game runs at a rock-solid 60 FPS with even more impressive visuals than last year's brilliant Metroid Prime Remastered.

However, what we saw was running on the current Nintendo Switch hardware rather than the Switch 2 successor set to launch sometime in 2025 (alongside Metroid Prime 4: Beyond). Nintendo is clearly holding its Switch 2 cards close to its chest, so we won't get details on games and hardware specs until we're much closer to release.

In my write-up of Metroid Prime 4, I noted that the low-resolution look of the footage made it clear that the gameplay trailer featured current-gen Switch gameplay. According to a new Metroid Prime 4 technical breakdown from Nintendo World Report, the game runs at 720p docked. Yikes.

A couple of visually impressive games have launched on PC this week, and both are pushing the GeForce RTX 4090 to its limits. The highly anticipated MMO sandbox Pax Dei has launched into Early Access, and its mix of realistic visuals with supernatural elements is fantastic - though when playing in native 4K with max settings, the GeForce RTX 4090 only manages an average performance of 51.7 FPS, followed by the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER with 38.6 FPS.

These numbers come directly from NVIDIA. The second half of the story is Pax Dei launching with full DLSS 3 and NVIDIA Reflex support. Turn on Super Resolution and Frame Generation, with Reflex to lower system latency, and the performance increases by a massive factor of 3X to hit 145.6 FPS on the RTX 4090 and 118 FPS on the RTX 4080 SUPER. Even the mid-range RTX 4070 hits 72.1 FPS at 4K.

This brings up an interesting topic (discussed in this week's episode of The TT Show): are technologies like upscaling and frame generation a crutch? Shouldn't the RTX 4090 have no issues running any game at a native 4K 60 FPS if it's properly optimized?

Microsoft's new Copilot+ PCs are here. The AI-powered Windows 11 laptops ditch traditional x86 CPUs (for now) for Qualcomm's new Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite chip. Many have been waiting for reviews to find out how these new 'Windows on Arm' machines stack up to the competition.

However, with software delays and the controversial Recall feature being pulled at the last minute, reviewers haven't had much time to explore the new Copilot+ PC line-up.

That said, several reviews with benchmarks and battery information are now available - many of them focusing on the ASUS Vivobook S 15. It doesn't feature the most powerful version of the Snapdragon X Elite chip, but we've got our first taste of what to expect.

Samsung isn't in the Gen5 SSD business right now, but the South Korean company has just filed for two new trademarks on what could be Gen5 SSDs.

The two trademarks that Samsung has filed for include the 990 EVO Plus and 9100 Pro SSDs, which could be new Gen5 SSDs that push upwards of 14GB/sec (14,000MB/sec) reads like currently available Gen5 SSDs that are already on the market.

Samsung's last SSD released was the 990 PRO, a super-fast Gen4 SSD with speeds of up to 7.45GB/sec (7450MB/sec). The Samsung 990 PRO features an RGB-LIT heatsink, and is the flagship SSD from the company. However, Samsung has enterprise and datacenter-class Gen5 SSDs on the market, but consumers and gamers are stuck with Gen4 SSDs from Samsung... for now.

Dell has officially announced a partnership with NVIDIA on constructing an AI factory that is designed to super-boost Grok training, the AI model created by Elon Musk's company, xAI. Dell CEO Michael Dell announced the news on a post on X, check it out below:

Grok is a generative AI chatbot created by Musk's xAI company, based on a large language model that process visual information like documents, diagrams, charts, screenshots, paragraphs and more, as well as its lengthy text capabilities.

SpaceX, Tesla, and xAI founder Elon Musk posted on X about the AI factory news, saying: "To be precise, Dell is assembling half the racks that are going into the supercomputer that xAI is building". In response to which other company xAI is working with, to which Musk replied "SMC" which is Super Micro Computer. Super Micro confirmed with Reuters that it's working with xAI.

Counter-Strike is officially 25 years old, with the game first hitting the PC as a mod for Half-Life hitting public beta on June 19, 1999.

I still remember being at a LAN with my friends and brother when Counter-Strike first dropped in 1999, pumping unimaginable hours into it amongst Half-Life, Quake, Quake II, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem 3D, Need for Speed II: SE, and so many other 90s classics on the PC.

Counter-Strike was officially released as a standalone game after being a Half-Life mod on November 8, 2000, and became the foundation for competitive first-person shooters. Now that Counter-Strike is celebrating its 25th anniversary, CS players are hoping that Valve steps up and does something well and truly above and beyond any other celebration of previous games hitting major birthday milestones.

Micron Technology is building new test production lines for advanced HBM in the US, while also considering manufacturing HBM chips in Malaysia for the first time, to capture more demand from the AI boom.

In a new report from Nikkei Asia and "sources briefed on the matter," the US-based memory chip company aims to triple its market share for HBM, one of the most crucial parts of AI chips, into the "mid-20" percentage range by 2025. There were reports on this just days ago, but it looks like Micron is full steam ahead now.

This is about the same level of Micron's market share for conventional dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips, with TrendForce data showing Micron sits at around 23-25% market share of DRAM. Micron is also expanding its HBM-related research and development facilities, including production and verification lines, at its headquarters in Boisa, Idaho, USA, according to "two people with knowledge of the matter".

A senior US official will visit both Japan and the Netherlands to ask the countries to agree to new US restrictions to curb China's semiconductor industry. This time, they want to place bans on HBM memory needed for AI chips.

US Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, Alan Estevez, will press his counterparts in both Tokyo and the Netherlands to tighten the activities in China by Dutch supplier ASML (the makers of EUV lithography machines to make the best chips on the planet) and Japan's Tokyo Electron Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter, reports Bloomberg.

Estevez's requests are part of an "ongoing dialogue with allies" that will target Chinese chip factories that are developing HBM chips, with ASML and Tokyo Electron machines used to make HBM chips. Chinese companies working on creating HBM chips include Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a subsidiary of China's leading memory chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., according to China's corporate data provider Qichacha. Huawei Technologies Co. and ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc. are also reportedly developing HBM.

If you're in the market for one of the best Gen5 SSDs you can buy, Sabrent has your back with a limited-time deal of 10% off its industry-leading Rocket 5 4TB SSD.

Sabrent's ultra-fast Rocket 5 4TB SSD has an MSRP of $729.99, but with the limited-time 10% discount, that drops down to just $656.99. If you've got a new PC with a motherboard with a Gen5 slot ready for an ultra-fast SSD, then the Sabrent Rocket 5 4TB is for you... ready to pump an incredible 14GB/sec reads all day long, all without a heatsink.

The latest games, high-end applications, and large-project file operations will "never be the same again" says Sabrent, and they're right. Enhance your desktop experience with a carefully designed, DirectStorage-optimized Gen5 SSD that will blow your PC (and your mind) away.