Latest News - Page 606

If you're an Apple TV Plus subscriber you're already very well aware of some of the top-notch TV shows, movies, and documentaries that are available for viewing on the streaming service. The streamer is well known for its awards wins, and now it's picked up four new ones alongside additional nominations.

Apple TV Plus announced the news via a press release, saying that Slow Horces and Silo had picked up four wins. Slow Horses won the Editing: Fiction category while it also picked up a win for the Sound: Fiction category. Fans of Silo will be pleased to learn that the show, based on the Wool bestseller, won the Production Design category as well as the Original Music: Fiction category.

Both Slow Horses and Silo have been well received by viewers with the former already offering multiple seasons for viewers to sink their teeth into. While Silo only has a single season available right now, more are on the way - the show has already been announced to have a further three seasons on the way with the final two set to be filmed back-to-back, likely to allow for a quicker release.

Shift Up's new PS5 hit Stellar Blade is climbing Sony's best-seller charts.

Things are looking good for Stellar Blade, the latest PS5 exclusive from Korean developer Shift Up. The game just launched yesterday, and in that time span, Stellar Blade has now broken the top 5 of the best-selling games on the PlayStation Store.

According to the listings, which are publicly available on any PlayStation 5 console that's connected to the internet, Stellar Blade is currently the #4 top best-selling game on the PlayStation Store in the United States. The game had previously been on the 25 best-sellers list, but had not previously broken the top 10. Now that Stellar Blade is out on the market--to strong reviews, no less--U.S. gamers are buying it up.

The Italian government has plans to invest around $10 billion into the semiconductor industry this year, where it plans to become one of the biggest microelectronics products in Europe.

Industry Minister Adolfo Urso told reporters in Pescara, where the ruling party Fratelli d'Italia met over the weekend: "Italy is preparing to become one of the largest microelectronics producers in Europe". Urso added: "I believe that in the coming weeks we will be in a position to make other equally significant announcements".

Urso announced a $3.4 billion investment into Singaporean startup Silicon Box, back in March 2024, which would see a new chip factory build in the north of the country. This announcement was born out of the Italian government's failure to convince Intel to invest, reports BNN Bloomberg.

TSMC is one of the biggest benefactors of the unstoppable AI market, with TSMC's AI revenue expected to exceed $10 billion for the first time this year, setting a new high and cementing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) as one of the biggest players in the AI industry.

TSMC said during a press conference this month that the Taiwanese chip maker is optimistic about revenues contributed by AI processors to more than double this year, expected to account for a low-teens percentage of TSMC's total revenue for 2024. Within the next 5 years, however, server AI processors are expected to have a compound annual growth rate of 50%, making up over 20% of TSMC's revenue in 2028.

The company is highly optimistic about the future of AI, with TSMC president Wei Zhijia revising the AI order visibility and revenue ratio during a statement this month. Order visibility has been extended from its originally expected 2027 date to 2028, with the company emphasizing that almost all AI chip makers are working with TSMC to solve AI-related needs of the never-ending demand for energy-saving AI computing power.

According to new reports from Board Channels (via Videocardz), the GeForce RTX 40 Series of GPUs is currently experiencing shortages, with the 60-class (the GeForce RTX 4060 and RTX 4060 Ti) being impacted the most. The GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is one of the most popular current-gen NVIDIA GPUs, and according to a post on Board Channels, it is facing a 'major supply problem.'

The report also indicates that GPU makers' needs for the RTX 4060 Ti, in particular, aren't being met, with companies having to deal with reduced shipments. This issue isn't limited to local suppliers (Board Channels is based in China) but also Taiwanese manufacturers like ASUS and MSI.

Videocardz, which first reported on the story, has confirmed with its own NVIDIA partner sources that the reduced supply of GeForce RTX 4060 Ti graphics cards is real. However, it might have little impact on global availability.

NVIDIA opened its first Asia-based AI R&D center in Taiwan two years ago, investing NT$24.3 billion ($715 million USD or so) and employing 400 people there. But now, the company is reportedly considering a second R&D center in Taiwan.

In a new post by the China Times, the Technology Department of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said on April 26 that NVIDIA's current research and development (R&D) is "going smoothly" and it will "assist our manufacturers in AI application development". They're reportedly happy with the quality of talent in Taiwan, and are considering setting up a second R&D center in Taiwan.

The first R&D center that NVIDIA built in Taiwan mainly works on AI chip research and development, as well as GPUs. The R&D center also helped build Taiwan's biggest supercomputer -- Taipei-1 -- with the Taiwan government providing a NT$6.7 billion ($205 million USD or so) subsidy for NVIDIA's first R&D center project.

Intel 13th and 14th Gen Raptor Lake Core i9 processors have been making headlines recently due to widespread reports of crashing and instability, often while gaming. With CPUs drawing more and more power on the high-end, the issues are most likely related to thermal and power delivery on certain 600/700 Series motherboards - and the push to boost clock speeds, benchmark scores, and performance over stability.

ASUS has already addressed the issue with a BIOS update introducing a more sensible 'Intel Baseline Profile' for power limits using Intel's recommended settings. Other big board makers like MSI and GIGABYTE have followed suit with their own BIOS updates and revisions.

In a statement supplied to Igor's Lab, Intel blames motherboard manufacturers for disabling "thermal and power delivery safeguards designed to limit processor exposure to sustained periods of high voltage and frequency." It's a strange stance when the instability lies with the CPU.

AMD is reportedly not going to have any high-end RDNA 4-based Radeon RX 8000 series GPUs when they launch later this year, with news that the high-end Navi 4X GPU coming out recently... and it would've been great to see: with 50% more shader engines than the Navi 31 GPU inside of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

In some new patches for AMD's GFX12, leaker "Kepler_L2" spotted some of the upgrades we are missing out on with the flagship RDNA 4-based Navi 4X GPU, which would've been the successor to the Navi 31 GPU that powers the fastest Radeon GPU for gamers: the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.

In the patches, Kepler_L2 noticed that the GFX12 family is the codename for the RDNA 4 GPU family. The flagship Navi 4X or Navi 4C SKUs reportedly would've featured 9 Shader Engines, which would've been a 50% increase over the Navi 31 GPU, which features 6 Shader Engines.

With a steady stream of driver updates, bug fixes, and day-one game support, Intel's Arc graphics cards continue to improve. In our review of the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 TITAN OC Edition from earlier this year, we said it was a decent mainstream option for 1080p and even 1440p gaming thanks to the top Intel Arc A770 GPU featuring 16GB of VRAM.

Regarding Intel Arc GPUs, SPARKLE is right up there regarding build quality, style, and thermal performance. Until now, each model has had a distinct look thanks to bright 'Intel blue' for the shrouds and blue-colored PCBs.

SPARKLE's latest addition to its Intel Arc lineup is the SPARKLE Intel Arc A770 ROC OC Edition 16GB, available in Black and LUNA White. Sporting a more compact twin-fan design with a 2.5-slot thickness, the new ROC OC Edition features the same out-of-the-box overclock as the triple-fan TITAN OC Edition.

Corsair has officially teased its new One i500 compact gaming PC, which will be revealed on May 5 sporting "next-gen components". The official tease was posted on X by Corsair; check it out:

The company will be showing off a brand-new design with a tease of a sleeker chassis with beautiful LED lighting on the sides and bottom, but it's the next-gen component that I want to see. Hopefully we'll get some next-gen AMD Zen 5-based CPU goodness, alongside what I'm sure will be an interesting choice in GPU... Radeon, or GeForce?

We should see Corsair unveil its new One i500 compact gaming PC with Intel's new 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" CPUs, but the high-end Core i9 designs are very hot and very power-hungry, and they're not "next-gen". Alternatively, even AMD's current-gen Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series CPUs are wonderfully power efficient, while Zen 5 is a true "next-gen component" that AMD is teasing. Zen 5 inside of the Corsair One i500 gaming PC makes total sense.

Capcom's Dragon's Dogma 2, a massive open-world RPG, has been one of the years talked about and played games. On PC, the gameplay has been generally well received; however, poor performance and optimization for Capcom's impressive RE Engine going 'open-world' for the first time is one of the main reasons it's currently sitting on a "Mixed" user rating on Steam.

That said, if you're looking for a mod that takes the game visuals to the next level, the Graphics Suite ALPHA mod from EXXXcellent (download it at Nexus Mods) unlocks a hidden developer menu for the game that includes a path-tracing renderer for the game that is not available in the retail version.

Path tracing (also called full ray tracing) covers indirect lighting, global illumination, shadows, and reflections - where anything related to light is ray-traced. Dragon's Dogma already includes RTGI or ray-traced global illumination, but as we can see in Digital Foundry's video on the path tracing mod, the difference is night and day.

NVIDIA is expected to generate $40 billion of revenue from AI GPU sales this year according to Bloomberg analysts, with competitors AMD and Intel in their dust.

AMD is estimated to generate around $3.5 billion in revenue from its new Instinct MI300X AI accelerator, while Intel will enjoy some loose change with its Gaudi AI accelerator, with analysts estimating just $500 million in sales. Both pale in comparison to $40 billion from NVIDIA, which is 80x more than Intel's estimated $500 million.

These numbers were discussed by Bloomberg Technology during an interview with Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, where he had no real answer to how Intel's new Gaudi AI accelerator will battle NVIDIA. When NVIDIA is making 80x your revenue -- and keep in mind, this is just AI GPU sales, not GeForce graphics cards or any other NVIDIA product -- it's hard to compete against the dominant force in AI.

We all know that applying thermal paste to CPUs isn't the easiest thing to do, squirt a little on... move it around, make it kinda even... but now there's an idiot-proof method of applying the perfect layer thermal paste with X-Apply... check it out:

Igor's Lab worked with DigitalBlizzard, who "came up with the whole thing" explains Igor, and with a little help from an "industrial partner" and a few suggestions from Igor, X-Apply was born. The new X-Apply stencil allows the formation of the absolutely ideal pattern of thermal paste, with a perfectly even distribution across your CPU.

Most regular methods of thermal paste applications are about the same, but your final thermal paste application will most likely be uneven because it's just placed in small clumps or a few lines across your chip. This means that part of the IHS (integrated heat spreader) on your CPU doesn't have enough thermal paste, or none at all. X-Apply won't allow that, as it will fill those gaps with its specially designed stencil.

MSI seems to have fully pulled back from making AMD Radeon GPUs, with the company confirming with HardwareLuxx that it is solely concentrating on making custom NVIDIA GeForce RTX series GPUs.

Hardware Unboxed posted on X saying: "Did I miss this story? MSI has been completely removed from AMD's Radeon 7000 series, all existing products have been discontinued and they never released a 7700 XT / 7800 XT. This all seems to have happened very quietly". HBU isn't wrong, this has happened very quietly indeed.

MSI told HardwareLuxx: "When it comes to graphics cards, our focus at the moment is actually more on RTX cards. Nevertheless, the collaboration with AMD is essential and extremely relevant for us. We see a very positive development, particularly in the area of motherboards".

Super Display Co (SDC) has just released its new SDC 27X1U monitor, featuring a 27-inch 4K Nano-IPS panel with a super-smooth 165Hz refresh rate and the latest DisplayPort 2.0 and HDMI 2.1 connectivity.

The new SDC 27X1U monitor costs just $415, but it features DP2.0 and HDMI 2.1, as well as a 4K 165Hz panel for that price, which isn't too damn bad at all. It's also another DisplayPort 2.0 monitor to add to the pile, which will only work on AMD Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs and Intel Arc GPUs... NVIDIA GeForce RTX series GPU owners miss out on DP2.0 fun.

SDC uses a flat 27-inch 4K Nano-IPS panel from LG (model LM270WR8), which is used in some of LG's in-house gaming monitors, with the SDC 27X1U supporting 10-bit color, HDR600 with a measured brightness of around 680 nits in HDR mode. There's also support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), it's compatible with VESA VRR, and AMD FreeSync, NVIDIA G-SYNC, and VRR functionality works on the PlayStation 5 (48 to 120Hz).

Sabrent has just kicked off a new build/upgrade bundle that gives you 20% off when you order a new Rocket 4 SSD, a Rocket DDR5 RAM module, and an SSD enclosure. You can save 20% with Sabrent's new Build/Upgrade bundle here.

The Sabrent bundle includes their Rocket 4 1TB and 2TB SSDs, Rocket DDR5 16GB SO-DIMM and U-DIMM memory modules (both at $39.99 each), and their USB 3.2 Type-C tool-free enclosure for M.2 PCIe NVMe and SATA SSDs. If you purchase at least one of each, you'll get 20% off at the end.

Sabrent's Rocket 4 2TB SSD, Rocket DDR5-4800 16GB U-DIMM, and a USB 3.2 Type-C SSD enclosure come to $279.97, but with 20% off, you're reducing that to $223.97. That's not bad at all, a savings of $50 on that bundle alone.

LG revealed its 32-inch OLED sporting a 480Hz refresh rate back at CES 2024 in January, and the gaming monitor is now imminent, with the manufacturer having announced that it's in mass production.

The monitor offers a 480Hz refresh rate - providing your GPU can cope with that - at 1080p (which that lower resolution will help your graphics card with, of course). However, this is a switchable monitor, allowing you to transform it to 4K resolution with a 240Hz refresh rate for when you want detail rather than superfast frame rates.

While LCD monitors have gone as high as 540Hz, LG notes that at 480Hz an OLED panel complements that refresh rate with a faster response time and smoother overall feel to the picture as a result. That response time is rated at 0.03ms (GtG).

While the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro might be the flagship Google phones that everyone turns to and the Pixel Fold is the one that captures a ton of attention, the Pixel 8a could be the most important of them all. It's a phone that will offer a budget option for people who want a solid Android experience without spending huge sums. And it's leaking in a big way of what is expected to be a release next month.

In a leak shared via Android Headlines that detailed a number of different aspects of the new and as-yet unconfirmed Pixel 8a, we learn that Google has plans to make sure that the phone lasts as long as possible. According to what appears to be marketing material for the phone, the Google Pixel 8a will come with seven years of security updates, ensuring that the phone remains as safe and secure as possible for a long, long time. That isn't something that people have always been able to say about Android devices at all.

That is of course excellent news, although there is one question left open. The leak doesn't appear to confirm how long Google will offer Android OS updates for this particular device which means that it could end much sooner than those seven years. For comparison, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro now come with seven years of Android updates, so it would stand to good reason that the Pixel 8a will as well. We'll await confirmation one way or another.

Following months of reports that suggested Apple has had a significant fall from grace in China, new smartphone sales figures suggest that there is no sign of a resurgence. Not yet, at least. In fact, things have gotten so bad that Apple now finds itself in fifth place in the Chinese smartphone market.

That will be particularly galling for Apple considering the company was once the number one smartphone company in China, and it's a problem that it will want to arrest as soon as possible.

The news comes via analytics company Canalys whose latest report covers the first quarter of 2024. The figures have Apple sitting in fifth spot behind other companies that are competing for sales in China, a vitally important part of the world for Apple.

When you buy a new iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air, and the entry-level MacBook Pro, all of those computers will have one thing in common. That thing isn't the Apple logo, and it isn't the fact that they're all powered by Apple silicon, either. The common trait is that they all have just 8GB of RAM as standard, although you can of course choose to pay extra and upgrade to 16GB or more, depending on the machine in question.

Now, it seems that the decision to stick to 8GB of RAM at the low-end is once again making headlines. Apple had previously justified the decision by saying that more simply isn't needed for what most people use these Macs for. It also noted that the M-series chips that are used in modern Macs mean that the computers are performant enough to be perfectly fine with just 8GB of RAM. But whether or not you go along with that assertion, it seems that we might be able to blame CEO Tim Cook for the lack of RAM as well.

A chart put together by Mastodon user David Schaub, reported by the Accidental Tech Podcast recently, and now shared by MacRumors, charts the base RAM in Apple's computers from 1984 onwards. The graphs show that Apple often increased the base RAM every two years or so but that all changed when Steve Jobs left and was replaced by current CEO Tim Cook. Since Cook took over from Jobs there has only been a single base RAM increase.