Latest News - Page 609

SK hynix has pledged another 20 trillion won (around $14.6 billion USD or so) in preemptively responding to "soaring demand" for HBM memory, which is a key part of AI GPUs.

The South Korean memory giant plans to complete the construction of its new fab in November 2025. Geared up and ready for early mass production, the fab will make major investments in enhancing AI memory market leadership and contributing to the domestic economy in South Korea.

SK hynix's board of directors has approved the plan, which will see the company building the new M15X fab in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, for a new DRAM production base, with an investment of around 5.3 trillion won (around $3.9 billion USD or so) for fab construction.

A flagship GPU rarely gets a significant price cut; when you get to the absolute high-end, the high-end performance drives interest, with price coming in second. Just look at NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090. It's an absolute monster of a GPU, but it is selling for around $100 - $200 more than its eye-watering $1,599 USD MSRP. And it's a popular option for PC gamers, according to the latest Steam Hardware Survey.

AMD's RDNA 3 flagship, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX, doesn't compete with the GeForce RTX 4090. Its closest NVIDIA counterpart is the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, released earlier this year. As the flagship RDNA 3 card with 24GB of GDDR6 memory and decent second-generation ray-tracing performance, it's still very much a 4K powerhouse for PC gaming.

This is why being able to pick one up for $849.99 is a great deal for PC gaming enthusiasts. Granted, this is limited to a single model, the PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 XTX, and a single retailer - Newegg. Members can get $100 off the regular $949.99 for a limited time by entering a code at checkout.

Tesla has just unveiled its new Model 3 Performance electric vehicle, with the company teasing a highly differentiated performance trip that uses Tesla's latest manufacturing and engineering capabilities to create what the company considers to be a "perfect, high-performance daily driver". Check it out:

The new Model 3 Perf ormance features Tesla's very latest Noise, Vibration, and Harshness (NVH) and comfort improvements of the new Model 3, as well as the bespoke chassis hardware the increases performance and stiffness while reducing mass, including adaptive dampers with hollow damper piston rods, multi-sectioned stabilizer bar, ultra-high strength steel springs, and stiffer suspension top mounts.

Tesla bakes in its latest-generation performance drive unit -- the Performance 4DU -- which unlocks even more torque, power, and improved efficiency of the new Model 3 Performance. Compared to the previous Model 3 Performance drive unit, the new Performance 4DU can delivery over 22% more continuous power, over 32% more peak power, and over 16% more peak torque delivery.

AMD will most likely announce its new line of Zen 5 desktop processors at Computex 2024 - and now we can confirm that the line-up will be called the AMD Ryzen 9000 Series thanks to GIGABYTE.

In preparation for AMD's not officially confirmed or announced next-gen Ryzen CPU launch, the big AM5 motherboard makers have started releasing BIOS updates to support future or next-gen Ryzen CPUs. Joining companies like MSI and ASUS, GIGABYTE has released an 'AM5 Next Gen' BIOS update for its GIGABYTE AM5 X670, B650, and A620 motherboards.

The announcement makes it very clear what this is for, stating that the update brings support "for the coming AMD Ryzen 9000 Series" of processors. It doesn't get any more clear-cut than that. Zen 5 is coming very soon, and the desktop line-up will be called the Ryzen 9000 Series.

Qualcomm has been trying for many, many years now to get its Windows on Arm chips up to scratch -- with very, very mixed results -- and now we're being introduced to the new Snapdragon X Elite, which Qualcomm calls the "world's fastest NPU for laptops".

The new Snapdragon X Elite laptop chip has the Qualcomm AI Engine with integrated Qualcomm Hexagon NPU (Neural Processing Unit) with 45 TOPS of AI workload performance. In comparison, Intel's current-gen Core Ultra "Meteor Lake" CPUs top out with 10 TOPS (pun not intended, but it works so well here), while AMD's new Ryzen 8040 "Hawk Point" APUs have 16 TOPS of AI performance.

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite chip has 75 TOPS of AI performance across the CPU + GPU + NPU and micro NPU, while it's made on the 4nm process by TSMC. On the CPU side of things, we've got the Arm-baed Oryon CPU with 12 cores on the Snapdragon X Elite, or 10 cores on the Snapdragon X Plus.

Capsule toy vending machines, or 'gacha' machines, can be found all over Japan. They dispense random toys and collectibles for a small fee, with themed machines covering everything from popular anime franchises to Hello Kitty to stuff as simple and pure as dinosaur toys. Now, we can add Intel CPUs to the list, as someone has spotted a capsule toy machine in Japan that dispenses random Intel CPUs.

Over on X, user @LaurieWired posted a link and YouTube clip from Sawara-San (which is in Japanese) showing that they managed to snag an Intel Core i7-8700 CPU for just 500 Yen (which is around $3 USD) from this CPU Gacha machine. The machine is located outside 1's PC, a store that sells new and second-hand PC parts and things like cameras.

The Intel Core i7 8700 is not that old, with the eighth-generation Coffee Lake from 2018 closely matching the performance of the flagship Intel Core i7 8700K. It's old by 2024 standards for mid-range CPUs, but for around $3, it's a bargain. It's a 6-core 12-thread CPU with a 4.7 GHz Boost Clock - not too shabby. Except, this random 'gacha' version ran into issues.

NVIDIA has announced that Japan's new quantum supercomputer will be powered by NVIDIA platforms for accelerated and quantum computing.

Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) is building a hybrid cloud system of quantum computers and supercomputers called ABCI-Q. Quantum computers are still capable of making a lot of errors if they're operating solo, with supercomputers needing to solve the mistakes and make those complex operations smoother.

NVIDIA is providing the AI GPUs for the new ABCI-Q quantum supercomputer and quantum computing software through its cloud service. NVIDIA will provide over 2000 of its H100 AI GPUs in 500+ nodes interconnected by NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand, the world's only fully offloadable, in-networking computing platform.

TSMC has said that its new chip manufacturing technology -- A16 -- will enter production in the second half of 2026, where it will be in a semiconductor battle with Intel for the world's fastest chips.

During a news conference in Santa Clara, California, on Wednesday, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) executives said that AI chip makers will be the first adopters of its new A16 process technology rather than smartphone makers like Apple.

Intel came out banging its chest in February this year, saying that with its new High-NA EUV lithography machines from ASML, the company would make the world's fastest chips in the coming years with its new Intel 14A process node. TSMC's senior vice president of business development, Kevin Zhang, told reporters that TSMC has developed its new A16 process node quicker than expected, thanks to the insatiable demand from AI chip companies like NVIDIA.

Putting together a small form factor (SFF) gaming PC, or productivity PC, can be a lot of fun, as you can fit some serious hardware inside sleek and stylish cases like the Fractal Design Terra.

As one of the premier brands for high-performance and stylish cooling, Noctua has introduced a new low-profile CPU cooler designed specifically for SFF builds: the Noctua NH-L12Sx77. It's an improved (and taller) version of its acclaimed NH-L12S cooler, offering improved thermal performance and more clearance for RAM modules and motherboard heatsinks.

Like the previous model, it includes a Noctua fan preinstalled underneath the fin stack. The fan blows upwards, which Noctua describes as "ideal in compact cases that typically have a perforated panel right above the cooler." With that in mind, Noctua says the NH-L12Sx77 is perfect for smaller chassis like the Fractal Design Terra, SilverStone Milo MILO 12, and Louqe RAW S1.

Gray Zone Warfare is a new Unreal Engine 5-powered realistic tactical FPS set on a mysterious island in Southeast Asia that is coming soon to PC (via Early Access on Steam). Described as "a vast MMO open world with PvEvP and PvE gameplay, it's currently one of the most wish-listed games on Steam.

As part of its weekly DLSS update, NVIDIA has confirmed that the game will launch with DLSS 3 Frame Generation, Super Resolution, and NVIDIA Reflex support. This will be useful because the game features real-time ray tracing via Unreal Engine 5's Lumen lighting system.

The other game getting DLSS 3 support this week is the DLC for the popular co-op looter shooter Remnant II. The launch of the Remnant II: The Forgotten Kingdom DLC/expansion supports DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, boosting performance by up to 3.5X.

Halo Infinite fans aren't happy with the new free operation pass.

Halo Infinite's new Operation: Banished Honor battle pass rolls out on April 30, bringing a new 20-tier track of digital goods for gamers to unlock. Only...the tiers are a bit lackluster compared to previous passes. There's a big reason for that: 343 Industries wants to make sure you have enough UNSC space bucks to spend on bonus trinkets.

The devs just announced that Spartan Points are coming to Halo Infinite. That's not a premium currency--Infinite already has credits, which are sold for real money. Instead, Spartan Points are a "soft" currency that can be earned by playing the game. SP will roll out alongside the new Banished Honor pass, but there's just one issue: Spartan Points--which are free--apparently make up a big proportion of the free operation pass.

Spartan Points are coming to Halo Infinite, but thankfully they're still free.

343 Industries today announced some changes coming to Halo Infinite's cosmetic rewards. The developer will be introducing Spartan Points to Halo Infinite as part of the Operation: Banished Honor event on April 30, a new type of "soft" currency that isn't sold for real money. Halo Infinite will soon have Credits as the premium currency, and Spartan Points as the soft currency.

Spartan Points were originally introduced to the Halo Master Chief Collection in 2022, and back then, 343i had originally wanted to charge money for the points and sell them as premium currency. Massive backlash forced the studio to abandon these plans. The system is similar to the cR economy found in Halo Reach.

New PlayStation exclusive Stellar Blade appears to get a sales lift from positive reviews.

Reviews for Shift Up's new femme fatale action game are in, and the dust has settled on a strong 82 out of 100 on Metacritic. It looks like these positive reviews may have boosted Stellar Blade's game sales in the United States.

Stellar Blade has enjoyed a boosted position on the PlayStation Store's top 25 best-selling games. The Korean hack-and-slash is now in the #12 spot, beating out Overwatch 2 and Fallout 76 while brushing up against the mighty Roblox. At #12, Stellar Blade is higher today than it has been since I started tracking sales data a week ago. Just yesterday, Stellar Blade was at #17 - on April 17, Steller Blade was #21.

Apple TV+ has announced a new trailer for The Big Cigar, a new upcoming limited series that will see André Holland star as Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton. The show will also star Alessandro Nivola, Tiffany Boone, P. J. Byrne, Marc Menchaca, Moses Ingram, Rebecca Dalton, Olli Haaskivi, Jordane Christie and Glynn Turman.

The Big Cigar will make its global debut on May 17 with the first two episodes made available to stream on Apple TV+ around the globe. From there, viewers can expect new episodes to be made available every Friday through to the season's conclusion on June 14.

The six-episode show is based on the magazine article of the same name by Joshuah Bearman who also happens to serve as the show's executive producer. The show tells the true story of what Apple calls Hollywood revolution meeting social revolution. It tells the story of Black Panther founder Huey P. Newton escaping from the FBI to Cuba with the assistance of famed producer Bert Schneider. Amazingly, the whole plan involved a fake movie production and the escapade did not go according to plan. In fact, Apple says, it went wrong in every way that it possibly could.

There once was a time when the iPhone could do no wrong and Apple couldn't make them quickly enough to keep up with demand, but those times are now few and far between. According to a new report by the researchers at CIRP, Apple's share of the US smartphone activations has taken a tumble despite the fact that the report believes that Apple's installed user base is still higher.

The number of smartphone activations for Apple topped out at 40% in the first and second quarter of 2023, the report notes, But Apple experienced a new smartphone activation decline to 33%, a full third of all smartphone activations, in the United States during the first quarter of 2024. You don't have to be too great at maths to know that the figure means that two-thirds of all smartphone devices are not iPhones - and that means that they're all running Android.

The reason for that isn't always easy to come up with, but CIRP believes that Apple may be a victim of its own success. The latest iPhones are so good and they last for so long that people simply don't see the need to update so often.

Hot on the heels of huge success in designing its own custom chips for use in Macs, iPhones, iPads, and more, Apple is now reportedly turning its attention to designing the chips that will power its future AI endeavors. Apple is strongly thought to be working on new AI features for the iPhone and its other platforms and while some of the large language models and other components will run on those devices, a server in the cloud will also be required for some features. Now, it's thought Apple is working to design the chips that will power those servers.

That's according to a poster on the Weibo Chinese social network, at least. The user is said to have 25 years of experience in the integrated circuit industry, including work on the famous Intel Pentium chips, and suggests that the new AI server chips will be based on TSMC's 3nm manufacturing process. That process is already used to produce Apple's M3 Mac and future iPad chips as well as the A17 Pro that powers its best iPhones.

TSMC has long been a key partner in Apple's supply chain and is already producing some of its most important chips, including those that power the new Apple Vision Pro spatial computer. That means it's the obvious choice to produce future AI server components as well, and it's easy to see why Apple might want to go that route. By designing its own chips Apple can ensure that it has full control over what they can do and how they work. It's a process that has stood Apple in good stead in other products, and there is little reason why it won't do the same server-side.

The next non-Ultra Apple Watch may be thinner than previous models if a new report suggesting a thinner logic board turns out to be accurate. It's reported that the new Apple Watch will use resin-coated copper, a move which will allow Apple to make the wearable's logic board thinner than previous iterations.

Resin-coated copper is a thin layer of copper foil coated with a resin and while it's thought that such a move would have multiple benefits to the Apple Watch, the ability to make the logic board thinner is one that could be particularly notable.

By making the logic board thinner Apple could theoretically open up extra space within the wearable's chassis, allowing that space to be used for other things. The most obvious use would be to allow Apple to make the Apple Watch's battery larger, improving battery life. But it's also possible that Apple could simply make the overall Apple Watch thinner, a move that would be well received by some. However, with Apple thought to be working on new sensors that could monitor blood pressure and glucose levels, it's also possible that the saved space could be taken up by those sensors.

If you're yet to treat yourself to a new Apple Watch Series 9 and have been waiting for a way to get one and save money at the same time, you're in luck - especially if you happen to live in the United States. The watch, which was only released in September of last year, is now available in various configurations in Apple's refurbished store. All you have to do is place the order to save money.

First spotted by MacRumors, the refurbished Apple Watches start from $339 with savings of around 15% compared to the price you'd pay when choosing a brand-new model. These Apple Watches are only likely to be available for a limited time, however, with stocks often very fluid. Don't see the model that calls to you? Keep checking, these stock levels are likely to change regularly.

Refurbished Apple Watches are all checked thoroughly to ensure that they are working and they're cleaned so as to appear as if they were brand new. Products sold via the Apple refurbished store tend to be some of the best, arriving in condition so good that you'll be hard-pressed to spot a difference between it and a new model.

With Apple having already confirmed that it will be holding a new event on May 7 we were already pretty sure that we knew what the company intended to show off. Now, it seems increasingly likely that all of the rumors were right - the event will focus on new iPads and yes, a new Apple Pencil.

That's the assumption that we can now make after Apple CEO Tim Cook shared a post on the X social network that hinted as much. The post, embedded below, mentions the Apple Pencil and includes a gif of of one, essentially confirming the news.

The rumors over the last few months had told us to expect a raft of new iPads and accessories to be announced within weeks, and those rumors had started to settle on May being the big month. Now Apple has confirmed that it will stream ane vent on May 7 and while it hasn't said what it will be about, there are surely few doubts as to its content.

NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR aren't the only upscaling techs in town, lest you forget that Intel has its XeSS rival too - and Team Blue is continuing to push support for it.

To that end, VideoCardz picked up on the fact that Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora just had XeSS upscaling added with a new patch. This is update 3.2 which weighs in at a 3GB download on PC - and a similar size on consoles, where it adds something else: support for a 40 FPS mode.

Horizon Forbidden West also just received a new patch v1.3 via Steam and the Epic Games Store, and this improves XeSS, delivering support for the newest version.