Latest News - Page 698

NVIDIA's Blackwell graphics cards should be a considerable step forward, or that's the latest nugget from the GPU grapevine - and we've had some theoretical pricing sketched out, too.

As Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) outlines in a new video, NVIDIA will be beefing up its GeForce range considerably with these next-gen graphics cards.

What will end up as the RTX 5000 series of GPUs, most likely, should be around a 30% to 60% performance uplift throughout the range compared to Lovelace.

Starfield received its "biggest update yet" last week, and now players who have downloaded are taking to the game's subreddit to showcase the visual improvements.

Reddit user DinDisco took to the Starfield subreddit to showcase ten before and after images of the areas within the game that received massive graphical improvements. One of the biggest graphical improvements was the lighting, and before Starfield received this update, it was common for many of the game's areas to feel clinical through stark ambient white light beaming down from above. The update has reduced the brightness levels of these lights while also adding individual lights around the room.

The update has seemingly been very well received by Starfield players on the subreddit, with user p13t3rm writing, "Holy crap, this isn't just minor adjustments and some light position tweaks. This affects the entire mood and feel of some of these areas." Another user, Greathorn, wrote, "They really did go in and manually move light sources around, that's pretty nice. Sauvage's doesn't feel like a hospital anymore."

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed the company's plans to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), an artificial intelligence-powered system comparable to human-level intelligence.

In a new post published to Zuckerberg's Instagram account, the Facebook founder outlined the company's ambition to become a leader in the race to develop the world's first AGI. According to Zuckerberg, Meta will be betting big on its plan to develop an open-source AGI, with the company's CEO saying it will be purchasing an astonishing 350,000 NVIDIA H100 AI GPUs, which are each priced at approximately $30,000 ($10.5 billion total).

Additionally, Zuckerberg said that overall, nearly 600,000 H100-equivalent of compute power would eventually be established if you count all of the other GPUs the company will have under the hood. The announcement from Zuckerberg has many researchers worried about the repercussions of releasing an open-source AGI before ways of regulating it have been developed.

OpenAI launched the GPT Store a few weeks ago, and since then, it has gained some popularity through users wanting to take advantage of the company's custom Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPTs).

However, not everything is sunshine and rainbows, at least not for OpenAI, the creators of the intensely popular AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT, as the store is littered with GPTs designed to act as an artificial "girlfriend" to users that interact with it. These "AI girlfriends" are strictly prohibited by OpenAI's own usage policies of its GPT Store, with the company writing on its website that "We also don't allow GPTs dedicated to fostering romantic companionship or performing regulated activities."

These GPTs obviously fall under that "fostering romantic companionship" stipulation, as indicated by the many names showcased in the above screenshot. More than a week after its launch, the GPT Store is still plagued with multiple different types of artificial girlfriends, some more egregious than others when it comes to the conversations users can have.

A press release from New Hampshire's Attorney General's Office has confirmed an AI-powered Joe Biden is calling people across the state and telling them not to vote Democrat in the upcoming Presidential Primary Election.

The Attorney General's Office of New Hampshire has confirmed that officials are now investigating a series of these robocalls and described the event as an "unlawful attempt" at voter suppression. According to the press release found on the New Hampshire Department of Justice website, the voice that reportedly sounds like the voice of President Biden informed recipients, "Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday."

Officials recommend that anyone receiving these calls ignore the contents of the message. NBC contacted Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who responded to the publication with "the campaign is actively discussing additional actions to take immediately." Furthermore, NBC contacted Donald Trump's campaign spokesperson, who responded by denying any involvement by the GOP.

Cooler Master has just announced its new V Platinum V2 power supply units (PSUs) for high-power applications like machine learning, advanced workstations, and AI.

The new Cooler Master V Platinum V2 PSU sets a new benchmark in PSU performance, with models including 1100W, 1300W, and 1600W. This PSU is ready for an enormous amount of high-power products inside of a PC, including high-end CPUs and GPUs. This isn't aimed at gamers, but more so advanced users that need huge amounts of stable power.

Jimmy Sha, Cooler Master CEO explained in the press release: "Cooler Master is committed to pushing the frontiers of technology, and the V Platinum V2 is a testament to this pursuit. By integrating noise reduction and thermal management features, we've created a PSU that's not only incredibly efficient but supremely quiet, making it an ideal choice for professionals and enthusiasts seeking the utmost in performance".

James "Jimmy" Donaldson, more commonly known as MrBeast, is the biggest YouTuber in the world, and now reports indicate he's in talks for a massive deal over at Amazon.

Donaldson is known for his philanthropy and often out-of-this-world videos, such as spending 50 hours in prison, 7 days buried alive, recreating the viral Squid Game series, and so much more. With MrBeast being such a massive name in the entertainment industry, it's no surprise that everyone wants in on the action. According to a new report, MrBeast is currently in the final stages of a deal with Amazon to bring his content to the streaming service Prime Video for a whopping $100 million.

The deal was first reported by Puck News, which mentions that MrBeast will continue to make YouTube content with part of the deal for the series to have the first episode air on MrBeast's YouTube Channel before it moves over to Prime Video. Currently, it is unclear if that will continue throughout the entire series or if this is a once-off just for promotion, though we will get more information when the series is officially announced.

AMD has its new Instinct MI300X AI GPUs in its first deployment, with LaminiAI getting the first bulk order of Instinct MI300X AI accelerators late last week.

LaminiAI posted that the "next batch of LaminiAI LLM Pods" will feature AMD's latest CDNA 3-based AI accelerator, the new Instinct MI300X. In her post on social media, LaminiAI CEO and co-founder Sharon Zhou said: "The first AMD MI300X live in production. Like freshly baked bread, 8x MI300X is online. If you are building on open LLMs and you are blocked on compute, let me know. Everyone should have access to this wizard technology called LLMs. That is to say, the next batch of LaminiAI LLM pods are here".

LaminiAI will be using the vast amount of AMD Instinct MI300X AI GPUs to run large language models (LLMs) for enterprises, with the AI company partnering with AMD for AI hardware, so it should be expected that the company would have priority access to new AI accelerators like the Instinct MI300X.

The new 2024 Lincoln Nautilus will feature a huge 48-inch 4K screen that will cover the entire dashboard. It will join its 11-inch center panel, with the company explaining its new system will have increased flexibility and efficiency while maintaining safety.

Ford places the 48-inch panel under the windshield so that it minimizes the distance that drivers need to shift their eyes to look at the display, which minimizes distraction. You won't be reaching over to touch it, as the 2024 Lincoln Nautilus' new 48-inch display isn't touch-capable.

All the controls are on the steering wheel, and the middle 11-inch display contains all the important driving information you need to see.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER and GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER graphics cards aren't quite yet released, but some gamers have already got their hands on fresh SUPER graphics cards. Check them out:

One Reddit user has a new GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER graphics card two days before launch but without drivers... it's useless right now. Redditor "LightMoisture" tried testing the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER in synthetic benchmarks, which actually worked... but no gaming benchmarks without working GeForce drivers.

We can expect the upcoming GeForce 551.15 drivers to support the upcoming GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, which will launch on the day NVIDIA launches its new RTX 4070 Ti SUPER: January 24, so we're not far away now. Reviewers will have their hands busy right now with early drivers and their fleets of RTX 4070 Ti graphics cards to review, so having an RTX 4070 Ti early doesn't really help if you're not a reviewer with internal drivers.

Samsung announced back in November 2023 that it was collaborating with Google on a new 3D spatial audio technology, which is called Immersive Audio Model and Formats (IAMF), and will fight Dolby Atmos technology.

The company has now confirmed that its new IAMF audio format will be rolling out later this year for TVs, soundbars, and more. Samsung's new Immersive Audio Model and Formats audio technology will compete with Dolby Atmos, where IAMF-capable devices will just need a firmware upgrade before it rolls out as a standard on new devices.

Dolby Atmos, on the other hand, requires Atmos-capable sound hardware that has royalties attached to it, while Samsung's new IAMF is royalty-free and open-source. IAMF will work on previous-generation TVs and legacy sound systems after a firmware update, but there's no word on how far back this will go.

Intel's next-gen Arrow Lake processors will come in the form of Arrow Lake-S on the desktop for higher-end and mainstream CPUs later this year, as well as Arrow Lake-U for low-power, thin, and light laptop designs later this year and into 2025.

Intel's big upgrade for low-power systems is going to be its next-next-gen Lunar Lake CPU family, which will be inside of laptops later this year, but its upcoming Arrow Lake CPU architecture is coming for desktops, laptops, handhelds, and Mini-PCs of the future.

Arrow Lake is being aimed at the high-end and mainstream CPU markets, where we'll see the likes of the Core i9-15900K from the Arrow Lake-S side of Intel's new SKUs, while Arrow Lake-U will be a cheaper alternative to the upcoming Lunar Lake-powered laptops later this year.

AMD's new Ryzen 8000G "Phoenix" APU desktop processors launch next week, acting as the first update to AMD's APU series since the Ryzen 5000G series a few years ago.

The older-gen Ryzen 5000G series was powered by the Zen 3 architecture, while the new Ryzen 8000G series is based on the Zen 4 architecture, the newer AM5 platform, and supports faster DDR5 memory. AMD is using both Zen4 and Zen4c cores on the Ryzen 8000G series, with different CPU clock frequencies.

The larger Zen4 and smaller Zen4c cores will share the same instruction support, with the Zen4c cores not optimized for high frequencies, and also feature less cache. At first, AMD will introduce the Ryzen 5 8500G and Ryzen 3 8300G, but the Ryzen 3 8300G won't be making it to the DIY market at launch. AMD's new Ryzen 5 8500G will see its Zen4c cores with a 3.2GHz base CPU clock and will boost at up to 3.7GHz.

The HBM market is one of the most important markets in the world right now, with the meteoric rise of AI powered by vast amounts of AI GPUs powered by HBM memory... including HBM3, HBM3e, and soon the next-gen HBM4 memory standard.

Because of the dominance of AI GPUs, the HBM memory business is expected to double in market revenue in 2025 as there are more and more next-gen AI GPUs released. We've got the just-announced AMD Instinct MI300X AI GPU, as well as NVIDIA's beefed-up Hopper H200 AI GPU and their next-gen Blackwell B100 AI GPU coming out this year... all of which are powered by HBM.

Market research outlet Gartner reports that the HBM market will rocket up to $4.976 billion in revenue by 2025, which is close to double the HBM revenue of 2023. Right now, these numbers are based purely on current and anticipated demand from the industry, but things can change very quickly. Just look at the AI GPU demand right now; it's insatiable, and the big driver behind AI GPUs getting faster and faster is high-speed HBM memory.

Riot Games officially announces it will lay off 530 workers.

League of Legends creator Riot Games today confirmed it will lay off over 500 employees across all divisions, primarily focused on non-development roles. Similar to other companies, the Tencent-owned Riot Games is making this decision as an effort towards "sustainability," which typically refers to cost-cutting measures that are made in order to stay profitable.

Riot Games CEO Dylan Jadeja said this in the update: "Today, I'm sharing a decision we hoped we would never have to make at Riot. We're changing some of the bets we've made and shifting how we work across the company to create focus and move us toward a more sustainable future. This decision means we're eliminating about 530 roles globally, which represents around 11% of our workforce, with the biggest impact to teams outside of core development."

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has been doing the rounds in Asia, recently visiting Beijing where he checked out the festivities with the Beijing New Year, meeting with multiple Chinese clients of NVIDIA, including Alibaba and Tencent, to further concrete NVIDIA's dominance in AI GPU technology.

Huang then took a flight over to Taiwan, where the NVIDIA founder met with multiple Taiwanese companies, including TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) and Wistron, some of the key firm suppliers NVIDIA uses and will greatly need for its next-gen AI GPUs. Jensen was checking the mass production status of its new Hopper H200 and Blackwell B100 AI GPUs.

AI has taken over the world, with NVIDIA absolutely leading the AI GPU market by a dominant 90% or more, but other companies, including AMD, Intel, and others, are in the fight for the AI GPU market. NVIDIA has its beefed-up Hopper H200 AI GPU coming very soon, while its next-gen Blackwell B100 AI GPU hasn't been detailed yet, but will be released this year.

Palworld is the success story that keeps on gathering momentum, it seems, and the latest news is it has grabbed third position for all-time peak concurrent player numbers on Steam - while the flipside of the coin is a really nasty bug that's present in the game.

As announced on X (formerly Twitter), Palworld has exceeded 1.5 million concurrent players on Steam, securing third place in the all-time peak rankings as mentioned (beating out Lost Ark which is now in fourth on 1.3 million). Only Counter-Strike 2 (1.8 million) and PUBG (3.2 million) have ever done better.

At the weekend, Palworld passed the 1 million mark, but is swiftly gathering momentum - it also just hit 5 million sales.

Apple's Vision Pro headset is now available for preorder and that means that people can finally put their name down to get one of Apple's fancy new spatial computing headsets. But there is no denying that, starting at $3,499, the headset isn't a cheap thing to buy. In fact, it's quite a costly one but amazingly it's easy to turn that figure into a rather astounding one if you start adding the upgrades.

That $3,499 asking price gets you the base 256GB configuration, but if you upgrade that to the fully maxed-out 1TB configuration you'll pay an extra $400. Add AppleCare+ and some ZEISS lenses and the figures soon start to get into silly figures. In fact, by the time you're done adding the essentials you can expect to pay a brain-breaking $4,795.95.

Those are the figures put together by MacRumors and they're quite staggering. Alongside the 1TB upgrade, insurance, and optical lenses, the setup the outlet put together includes the Apple Vision Pro Travel Case which costs an additional $199. There's a battery holder as well, although that's a snip at just $49.95 considering the figures we're talking about here.

Apple's Vision Pro is now available for preorder in the United States but there is no indication of when the spatial computing headset will be made available for purchase internationally. That has led some people to import a headset from the United States rather than wait, and it seems that those people should expect problems when it arrives.

That's after MacRumors reported that Apple's Vision Pro preorder web page says that there are a number of things that people need to keep in mind including the fact that they will need to have a US-based Apple ID in order for the device to work. What's more, AppleCare will not be offered internationally, although that will likely change once the Vision Pro officially drives in more countries.

According to MacRumors, the following caveats need to be considered.

Apple's Vision Pro launch in February will be just the beginning of a slew of new hardware releases it seems, with one new report suggesting that laptop cans will be able to choose between two new M3-powered models.

That's according to a new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, writing in the paywalled version of the weekly Power On newsletter that was later picked up by MacRumors. According to that report, Apple will unveil new M3-powered 13- and 15-inch MacBook Air laptops in either March or April of this year.

Gurman reportedly said that Apple plans to release multiple MacBook Air laptops with M3 chips this spring, suggesting that it will be both the 13- and 15-inch models that are updated. This would be the first time that the two differently sized laptops have been released at the same time, with Apple previously staggering the two throughout the year. However, a simultaneous release does make sense especially when tied to the company's own in-house chip roadmap.