Latest News - Page 59

ID Cooling showcased a long line of new products at Computex 2026, with many of the new cases falling within the aesthetically pleasing design language seen across a few of ID Cooling's product categories.

For example, the Flow 500 Wood White features an eye-catching wooden front panel that adds a level of sophistication and premium feel to the chassis. ID Cooling explained how the new case is paired with the company's latest fans. Additionally, the Flow 500 series is available in both wood and non-wood options, features a high-speed front USB-C port, supports a 360mm radiator, and has a detachable front grill.

To go with this wooden design aesthetic, ID Cooling debuted the DX360 Wood, which features wooden accents on the waterblock. ID Cooling also has wooden fans to match the waterblock, enabling a user to really lean into the wooden design flair in their new build. These wood-infused products really showcase a nice blend of natural materials within modern tech products, and I can imagine will be quite popular if their prices are competitive.

Formula V Line made its debut at Computex 2026, and to celebrate its entry into the PC hardware space, it showcased some interesting cases and particularly visually appealing cooling solutions.

What immediately caught my eye at the Formula V Line booth was the beautifully designed Ice Nova Pro 3, a new dual-tower air cooler featuring six heatpipes, two 120mm fans, and color options such as black, white, and gold. While the design is generally quite nice, I was particularly impressed with the "gold" variant, which looks much closer to brass than it does gold in person. I love the color of this unit, and I can see modders using the cooler as the foundation for an entire brass-themed, retro, perhaps even steampunk build.

Next is the Crystal U7, a new case from Formula V Line that supports ATX, MATX, and ITX. Additionally, the Crystal U7 features 1x USB-C port, 2x USB 3.0 ports, and 1x headphone jack. As for other connectivity options, the Crystal U7 supports 2x 3.5 "HDDs or 2x 2.5" SSDs. Cooling: Formula V Line has equipped the Crystal U7 with multiple fan mounting locations, enabling users to customize the U7 to their preferred cooling setup.

Computex 2026 has officially wrapped up, and amongst the thousands of new PC hardware we saw on the showroom floor, SAMA unveiled a selection of items that may be worth adding to your shortlist for potential PC upgrades.

Kicking things off, we have the S70, a particularly eye-catching case with its curved glass design that enables easy viewing of your juicy components within. Additionally, the S70 comes with BTF support for super minimalist design pursuits, along with a 60W GaN USB-C charger. SAMA informed me that the S70 comes with a bottom-mounted dust filter, paired with a really subtle, diffused, ambient floating light that projects onto the surface below the S70.

Next is the Q40 AIO liquid cooler, which has a particularly interesting design as the blades located around the CPU block infinitely rotate 360 degrees in an outer ring. There is also ARGB lighting, along with a thick 20mm integrated radiator. SAMA has the same thick radiator on its more premium model called the Q80, which differentiates itself with its dual swappable screens and large interactive 4-inch IPS display. The secondary pump-head display is included within the box, along with freeze thermal paste.

The upcoming Halo Campaign Evolved remake will have exclusive new missions where Master Chief basically crashes the Covenant's good time aboard a research/recreation ship.

Halo Campaign Evolved brings new missions to the classic Halo universe in a three-part story called Operation Meteorite. These prequel missions were co-written by sci-fi author Troy Denning, and one of them has a surprisingly humorous setup.

According to Halo Studios, the Operation Meteorite prequel missions center around Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson infiltrating a very specific Covenant ship--one we haven't actually seen in a Halo video game yet. According to games journalist Mr. Rebs, the ship is an agricultural research vessel that also acts as a kind of vacation ship for the alien invaders. It's a support ship that's not explicitly made for war, but instead a mix of business and pleasure, all while sinister things are going on underground.

At Computex 2026, MSI celebrated its 40th anniversary and, to commemorate the milestone, set up an interactive exhibition at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei City. A free public event, we had the chance to visit the spot during our week at the show and were immediately impressed by how MSI presented its long history in a way that was still fun and surprising.

Basically, the walkthrough exhibition was broken down into themed areas, from one that took a look back at the company's beginnings as a motherboard maker, through to deep dives into its manufacturing and design process, various partnerships, and a mock-up esports arena created to showcase the company's various PC gaming products and milestones.

Naturally, for those of us who have been in the industry for several years, it was cool to see motherboards, graphics cards, and other gear from the past. And with that, let's take a look at some of the old and new stuff from the exhibition, starting with these old motherboards from 1999, which include the K7 PRO. A motherboard designed for a now ancient AMD chipset.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is set to launch on July 28, 2026, for XBOX Series X|S, PS5, and PC, and it's a full remake of the original game's campaign rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5. It's also set to expand on the story with three new campaign missions focusing on Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson, with all three given a spotlight at the recent XBOX Games Showcase.

From a visual perspective, it's a massive upgrade over the 2001 original, with more detailed characters, environments, and special effects. Microsoft's official store page for the game also mentions ray tracing; however, there's no word on whether this is limited to, say, shadows or will be all-encompassing and include an RTGI solution. Either way, with the release around the corner, we've now also got Halo: Campaign Evolved's PC requirements for playing the game at 1080p, 1440, and 4K with a smooth 60 FPS presentation.

Based on what we see, the game should scale well across a wide range of hardware, but Halo: Campaign Evolved will be demanding, as the Minimum spec calls for either a GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER or a Radeon RX 6600 graphics card. Interestingly, the specs list 4K 60 FPS with High settings as the Recommended spec, and for that you'll need a fairly powerful GPU, such as a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti or Radeon RX 9070.

The new HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari AI PC is not your everyday laptop; it's the result of a multi-year collaboration between the Ferrari Design Studio and HP's own design team. Based on the specs and its stylish red finish, the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari AI PC is certainly a luxury item, with a bottom surface made of a carbon fiber-glass mix to showcase the hardware.

There are several impressive design touches, from a full glass palm rest to a haptic touchpad that lights up on contact. The CNC precision-milled chassis features a zirconium bead-blasted surface finished in Ferrari's Rosso Magma deep red to evoke the feel of molten lava and metallic particles. The laptop also ships with a custom Poltrona Frau leather sleeve, made from the same Italian leather used in Ferrari interiors.

Even the cooling includes airflow and a vent design that leans into Ferrari's expertise when it comes to heat management. As for the hardware, you've got an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H processor with integrated Intel Arc B390 graphics and a premium 3K Tandem OLED+ touch display.

If we didn't have the current memory crisis and storage crunch brought on by the AI boom and the age of data centers becoming AI factories, the mid-generation GeForce RTX 50 SUPER Series would have released earlier this year. Based on credible leaks we've received about what the SUPER Series would bring to the table, the big thing would be more VRAM, thanks to newer 3GB GDDR7 modules.

Now, it's worth noting that the GeForce RTX 50 SUPER Series was never formally announced, so the delay and scrapped launch are still technically rumor. And with that, there's a new report over on Benchlife (via VideoCardz) that says the GeForce RTX 50 SUPER Series is back on the menu, so to speak, with NVIDIA planning on announcing the lineup at CES 2027, with the launch to happen soon after.

As for the lineup, previous reports have pointed to a GeForce RTX 5070 SUPER with 18GB of memory, alongside a GeForce RTX 5070 Ti SUPER and a GeForce RTX 5080 SUPER with 24GB of memory. The good news is that with 3GB chips the memory interface won't have to change, so it should be a fairly easy upgrade for NVIDIA's partners. Interestingly, with this new report, there's also a fresh bit of information/rumor with the lineup set to include a GeForce RTX 5060 SUPER 12GB.

COLORFUL unveiled a pair of new flagship gaming laptops at Computex 2026: the iGame M15 and M16 Origo. However, at first glance, the physical design of these devices definitely falls into the sleek and lifestyle category thanks to the slim 19.9mm profile and subtle use of lighting. The naming scheme covers two variants: one with a 15-inch display and one with a 16-inch display; however, both are powered by the fully unlocked 115W GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop GPU.

In either size, both are 2.5K 16:10 displays with a 300 Hz refresh rate, 500-nit brightness, and 100% sRGB color accuracy. Outside of the display, the iGame M15 Origo is powered by the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor, while the iGame M16 Origo is powered by the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H processor. The latter is a 16-core processor from Intel's new Panther Lake family, featuring 16 cores, a 4-core Intel Xe3 integrated GPU, and an NPU for local AI.

Among Windows-based gaming laptops, one of the more interesting features of the iGame M15 and M16 Origo laptops we saw was their integration with the new COLORFUL Netsite app for Android. Basically, if you install this on your smartphone, you can set it up so the laptop automatically unlocks and locks when you're close. It's a small but nice little security feature that extends to AI-powered voice commands, remote access, and multi-device management.

Apple kicked off WWDC 2026 by addressing one of the most consistent pieces of user feedback from the past year: Liquid Glass. The translucent design language that debuted across Apple's software ecosystem last year had users divided, with many users finding the transparency effects difficult to read.

While Apple improved things over the years, it is finally adding a new slider that lets users control exactly how much Liquid Glass they want. Rather than a simple on/off toggle, the slider moves between fully opaque and completely clear, giving users genuine control over the look rather than forcing a single default.

Apple said, "Since everyone's preference varies, we're adding a new slider and settings to adjust Liquid Glass, so you can set it anywhere from ultra clear to fully tinted." Beyond the slider, Apple is updating how Liquid Glass is rendered across the system. The goal is to improve contrast and readability by increasing visual separation between content layers, so that buttons and toolbars stand out more clearly against the background.

The first image of an Intel Nova Lake-S desktop CPU has leaked online, giving us our earliest look at the processor that will sit in Intel's new LGA-1954 socket. Posted on X by user PoTAToOOOO, the image shows the pad side of the chip, labeled simply as "NovaLake-S LGA1954."

The photo confirms several details about the new platform. The notch placement on Nova Lake-S has moved from the left side, where it sits on current Arrow Lake-S processors, to the right side, making the chip physically incompatible with older sockets. The overall package size also differs, so there is no question of backward compatibility. The leaker notes that the front side of the package looks almost identical to Intel's Alder Lake 12th Gen processors in terms of general layout, though the socket has moved from LGA-1700 to LGA-1954.

The pad layout on the backside shows at least 35 capacitors, compared to 36 on the current Core Ultra 9 285K, with more contact pads distributed along the edges than on current-generation offerings. The chip will support both single-lever and dual-lever ILM socket configurations.

Telltale Games made a surprise appearance at Summer Game Fest 2026 with a double announcement for The Wolf Among Us series. After nearly a decade of silence, Telltale Games unveiled a new trailer for The Wolf Among Us 2. The game now has a 2027 release window, along with a remastered version of the 2013 original arriving this holiday season.

The Wolf Among Us 2 takes place approximately six months after the first game's events, with players returning to Fabletown as Bigby Wolf. "Return to the role of Bigby Wolf, sheriff of Fabletown, as a deadly conspiracy tears apart the precarious peace among the exiled Fables. Betrayed, framed, and exiled, Bigby must work from the shadows to save a city consumed by corruption, vengeance, and fear."

The game is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. At the same time, the remaster brings back all five episodes of the original game with updated visuals, an improved UI, and accessibility upgrades, along with over an hour of bonus content, including deleted scenes, cast interviews, behind-the-scenes videos, and image galleries.

The 50% Game Pass price hike damaged the Xbox brand on a substantial level, and current CEO Asha Sharma says that the business still is not healthy...yet.

Last year, Microsoft made one of the most unpopular moves in gaming history by raising the price of Game Pass Ultimate from $20 to $30 a month. Game Pass' subscriber counts were scorched in the aftermath, with multiple millions of users leaving the service and not renewing their memberships.

The not-so-surprising info was revealed by new Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball, who told The Game Business that Microsoft lost millions of Game Pass subscribers after the steep price jump. No current Game Pass subscriber counts were provided, but as of February 2024, months before Ultimate was hiked to $19.99 per month, the service had 34 million subscribers. An update in June 2025 said Game Pass was at 35 million.

Exclusive games are back at Xbox, and leadership now says exclusivity is here to stay in a radical business shift aimed at fortifying the core value of the Xbox platform.

Yesterday, Microsoft surprised fans by announcing not one, but two Xbox console exclusive games: Gears of War E-Day, coming in 2026, and Clockwork Revolution, coming in 2027. But these aren't the only exclusives that Xbox plans to withhold from PlayStation and Nintendo--management says fans can expect more Xbox console exclusives in the future. And apparently Microsoft has already made a decision on what they will be.

Xbox's new chief strategy officer Matthew Ball offers more info and insight on the exclusivity plans, confirming that more games would be included in an effort to bolster the brand. "This is the start of a program," he said.

XERON made its debut at Computex 2026 and unveiled a new line of intriguing PC cases, power supplies, coolers, and accessories.

XERON gave us a tour of their booth,, and the first product that stood out amongst the rest was the S Lab series, which features a large S-shaped, lightweight suspension design, along with an integrated sheet-metal frame that adds more aesthetic flair and leans more into the "Art Gallery" design language.

The case arrives in both black and white, with glass panels on both the front and side panels. With all this glass, XERON has equipped an innovative unobstructed air intake channel for the CPU, GPU, and PSU, and the top of the case features a removable mesh dust filter. On the front of the case are 2x USB-A ports, 1x USB-C port, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Nintendo has announced a new Direct showcase will be held tomorrow, Tuesday, June 9, 2026 at 7AM PST/10AM EST with nearly an hour of reveals and updates.

On the heels of Summer Game Fest, the Xbox showcase, and various events like IGN Live and the PC Gamer Show, fans are eager to see what Nintendo has in its hand of cards. The show begins tomorrow morning and is expected to include big reveals to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the group's heaviest-hitting franchises, including Mario and Zelda.

Rumor has it that Nintendo will release a new Zelda Ocarina of Time remake for the Switch 2 in celebration of the big four-oh. That project is believed to be coming this year, whereas a new mainline 3D Mario game isn't expected until 2027.

Without a GeForce RTX 50 SUPER Series refresh this year (thanks to the current memory crisis and AI boom), or any new models on the horizon, we're basically in that period of waiting for the next-generation to arrive. However, this doesn't mean we won't see anything new, as at Computex 2026 we got to see a couple of prototype designs from INNO3D for a pair of new premium and flagship GeForce RTX 50 Series cards that could come to market sooner or later.

Now, it's worth reiterating that these designs are prototypes and not finalized, but we were told they would be paired with higher-end models in the GeForce RTX 50 Series lineup, such as the RTX 5070 Ti, RTX 5080, and RTX 5090. The first design immediately caught our attention, as it features a dual-fan push-and-pull cooling design reminiscent of NVIDIA's Founders Edition models that debuted with the RTX 40 Series.

Basically, you've got one large fan on either side of the card, with INNO3D noting that the minimal all-metal design took inspiration from the Founders Edition lineup. Albeit, here you've got a cooler designed for overclocked performance, with a few interesting touches like a fin stack featuring an almost 3D checkerboard pattern, and the 12V-2x6 connector located on the rear of the GPU rather than the side. Available in black or white, it's definitely stylish and something we'd love to see paired with a GeForce RTX 5080.

The MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ is the latest and arguably the most impressive version of MSI's gaming handheld to date, and not just because it's been upgraded to feature the new Intel Arc G3 Extreme processor. At Computex 2026, we got to go hands-on with the new Claw 8 EX AI+, playing through the opening mission of Battlefield 6's campaign, and yeah, like our hands-on with Acer's new G3 Extreme Atlas 8 handheld playing Forza Horizon 6, it's extremely impressive.

Seeing this level of fidelity and 60+ FPS fluidity on a PC gaming handheld with in-game settings set to 'High' is pretty remarkable. It's a level of clarity that can rival modern-day consoles when viewed on a portable display, and thanks to Intel's latest Panther Lake architecture and next-gen Arc Graphics, the G3 Extreme processor takes full advantage of XeSS 3 and its AI-powered suite of Super Resolution and Multi Frame Generation (MFG) technologies.

In fact, with a more capable GPU and XeSS, handhelds with a G3 Extreme processor easily outperform handhelds with AMD's Ryzen Z2 Extreme processor and its integrated RDNA 3.5 graphics. Thankfully, the Arc G3 Extreme processor is just one part of what makes the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ an impressive handheld, as the company has gone to great lengths to deliver a premium-feeling device.

NVIDIA introduced DLSS 4.5 at the beginning of the year, with a new second-generation transformer model that delivered a notable improvement in image fidelity when using DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution upscaling or DLSS 4.5 Frame Generation to boost smoothness. More than an incremental update, it even restored details that were otherwise lost when using similar technologies or the already-impressive DLSS 4.0. In a way, it lived up to the DLSS promise of delivering 'better than native' image quality more so than anything we had seen to date.

However, there was a missing piece. Without a new and improved DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction, the full benefits of DLSS 4.5 are absent in titles with heavy ray-tracing and path-tracing modes. Thankfully, that's about to change, as NVIDIA has confirmed that DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction is coming in August as part of a new GeForce Game Ready and NVIDIA App update, and will be immediately available in all of the 25 to 30 games with native DLSS Ray Reconstruction support.

At Computex 2026, we got to see DLSS 4.5 Ray Reconstruction in action in Remedy's Alan Wake 2, Capcom's Pragmata, and Machine Games' Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, with NVIDIA providing several side-by-side examples to showcase the benefits compared to the existing Ray Reconstruction. But before we go through that, here's a quick primer of what exactly Ray Reconstruction is and what the new DLSS 4.5 version brings to the table.

Hideo Kojima, creator behind genre-defining titles like Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding, has been vocal about his stance on AI on numerous occasions. The boiled-down summary is that he believes AI belongs in the room as a tool, not at the table as a creator. But that position came under scrutiny recently when an AI-generated promotional film featuring Hideo Kojima sparked a wave of reactions online.

The film was created for the Satellites II exhibition, a collaboration between Kojima and Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, presented as part of Prada Mode New York. The six-minute short depicts the pair as space travelers crash-landing on an alien planet, and Refn confirmed it was made using AI. For many fans, seeing Kojima appear in AI-generated content felt at odds with the themes running through his games, particularly the Metal Gear Solid series, which has long warned against over-reliance on technology and AI-driven systems of control.

In response to the online discussion about the ad, Kojima reiterated his views on AI. Speaking with The Washington Post (via Kotaku) for a profile tied to the Satellites II exhibition at New York's Hotel Chelsea, he stated he does not believe AI will create meaningful art within his lifetime. "Art is life," Kojima said. "But in 50 years, 100 years, I don't know. Maybe AI could create art, but while I live, I don't think I'll see it. I'm not interested in it."