Latest News - Page 705

Cooler Master at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada, was quite busy for the most part. This time, showing some new watercooling gear, custom watercooling gear that is under the name of Mythril, with an expected launch of around June 2024. Starting with the header image, Cooler Master has made a good attempt at starting its lineup of custom water-cooling gear for the masses.

Next are the two CPU blocks, which are currently for mainstream sockets, Intel 1700 and AMD AM5, as well as a GPU block, which should be available for a variety of GPUs. The radiators weigh a metric ton; no kidding, they really do. Coming in 360mm thick or thin, 280mm thin, and 240mm thick, these radiators should be expanded in the future to include other sizes. Radiator colors are either silver or black and can be flipped to show off the desired color.

Next up, Cooler Master has created five opaque coolant colors: purple, blue, clear, white, and red. Also present in this picture is a pipe bending tool, an air pump with reverse vacuum, and something I missed until I looked at the photos: square tubing. Yep, Cooler Master has designed square tubing along with hardline fittings to go along with the tubing.

Max Payne Remixed (from developer Slasks Psykbunker) is a new mod that uses NVIDIA's RTX Remix platform to transform old games into RTX On showcases. The modding tool is set to be released into Open Beta with the arrival of the new GeForce RTX 40 SUPER Series later this month, but modders have been working with an early version to update classic games like Max Payne.

RTX Remix leverages AI to upscale texture while adding modern PBR or physically-based rendering to all lighting and materials. The results here is Remedy's Max Payne from 2001 with Path Tracing, or full real-time Ray Tracing enabled. It looks glorious, and you can download and check it out for yourself in demo form - the game's first level has been completed.

It requires some customization and installing RTX Remix to work, but it's worth it if you grew up with this absolute gem and are rocking one of the new GeForce RTX 40 Series cards.

Intel launched its new Core i7-14790F processor without much fanfare during CES 2024, with its new 16-core desktop CPU not on any of the official marketing slides for the Raptor Lake Refresh, but it does find itself home on the Intel website.

The new Intel Core i7-14790F processor features 16 cores and 24 threads of Raptor Lake Refresh CPU power, with boost speeds of up to 5.4GHz and a base TDP of 65W, while the maximum turbo power flowing through the processor tops out at 219W. This new CPU will only be available in China, hence why the company isn't talking about this gem of a chip all that much.

Intel's new Core i7-14790F sits between the Core i5-14600K and Core i7-14700 processors, with the Core i5-14600K offering 14 cores and 20 threads at up to 5.3GHz, the new Core i7-14790K with 16 cores and 24 threads at up to 5.4GHz, and then the higher-end Core i7-14700 with 20 cores and 28 threads at up to 5.4GHz.

The Corsair K70 CORE RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard is a great keyboard with switches that have a great feel - and the special edition model with retro grey and yellow keycaps we reviewed looks fantastic, too.

Over the holiday break, our friends at Corsair sent a White Cherry Blossom keycap and MM350 PRO mouse pad set (currently on sale for $79.99 USD) as a nice little gift - so I thought I'd see what sort of transformation it would bring to the Corsair K70 SE CORE RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard. As you can see, it looks completely different.

Replacing keycaps is becoming common in mechanical keyboards, as is having the ability to hot-swap switches. The Corsair K70 CORE doesn't have hot-swappable switches (Corsair's higher-end boards have this feature), but you can easily swap out the keycaps. It's not that I'd want to swap the switches; the pre-lubed Corsair MLX Red Linear switches are the star of the show.

MSI had multiple new laptops on show at CES 2024 last week, one of those being the new Stealth 18 AI Studio A1V laptop, balancing the worlds of thinness and performance with an updated look and style. Check it out:

The company is rolling out a gorgeous new 18-inch 4K Mini-LED display, with Intel's new flagship Core Ultra 9 185H "Meteor Lake" processor with an on-board NPU (Neural Processing Unit) for AI functionality on the laptop and up to NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU.

This is the world's first 18-inch 4K Mini-LED 120Hz display, joining the worlds of the native 4K resolution and super-smooth 120Hz refresh rate with a gorgeous Mini-LED panel. MSI says that it has DisplayHDR 1000 certification, with an AMLED panel powered by AUO.

AMD and NVIDIA are the two biggest players when it comes to discrete gaming GPUs, but with its dominant market share and recent innovations like DLSS Super Resolution, Reflex latency reduction, and DLSS 3 Frame Generation, the consensus by many is that NVIDIA leads while AMD follows.

In the case of DLSS, AMD's FSR or FidelityFX Super Resolution took a while to hit the market - with FSR 2 proving to be a success regarding image quality. In the case of FSR 3, which includes frame generation and super-resolution upscaling, it took almost a year after the arrival of DLSS 3 for AMD's equivalent tech to appear in a few select games.

Unlike NVIDIA's DLSS 3, FSR 3 works on all GPUs - Radeon and GeForce alike - but still requires per-game implementation by developers. The company's latest endeavor, HYPR-RX, brings upscaling and frame generation versions to drivers - meaning they can be instantly enabled in hundreds of games. And with this, AMD believes it now has the edge over NVIDIA.

ASUS has its flagship ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics card listed by European retailers for upwards of £1,350 in the UK, which works out to $1700+ USD.

OverclockersUK has five different options when it comes to new GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER graphics cards, while there are four each of the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER and RTX 4080 SUPER when it comes to new custom models from AIB partners.

There's no real sticking to NVIDIA's tighter MSRP, but you can get the ASUS RTX 4070 SUPER DUAL graphics card for £599 at OverclockersUK. If you want the faster RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, there's the TUF variant for £899, while if you want the best the new SUPER cards have to offer, there's the ASUS TUF Gaming RTX 4080 SUPER for £1199.

USB4 2.0 is kinda here thanks to Microsoft testing the new 80Gbps standard with its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview build, offering next-gen 80Gbps transfer speeds for future devices.

The new USB4 2.0 standard with 80Gbps of bandwidth was teased in September 2022, but it's only in the first few weeks of 2024 that the new specification is stretching its wings. Microsoft testing the new USB4 2.0 standard with 80Gbps speeds in Windows 11 is great to see, with the new USB4 2.0 standard offering double the 40Gbps of bandwidth delivered by USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4. We're seeing Thunderbolt 4 more and more, and now it's time for USB4 2.0 to shine.

USB4 2.0 is backward compatible with previous USB4 cables offering 40Gbps passive, but it will support up to the huge 80Gbps of bandwidth with new 80Gbps Type-C active cables. If you want huge speeds in the 8GB/sec vicinity, USB4 2.0 is here to deliver.

Alienware revealed its beefed-up M18 R2 gaming laptop at CES 2024, packing the Intel Core i9-14900HX processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics. Check it out:

The new Alienware M18 R2 gaming laptop features an Intel Core i9-14900HX processor with 24 cores and 32 threads that clock up to 5.8GHz, alongside up to 64GB of DDR5-5600 memory and up to 8TB of NVMe M.2 SSD storage support. You can configure the M18 R2 gaming laptop with up to NVIDIA's fastest GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU.

Dell is including a couple of different display options with the Alienware M18 R2 gaming laptop, with the 18-inch panel coming in a QHD+ option with 2560 x 1600 native resolution, a 165Hz refresh rate, and 3ms response time. There's another display option with FHD+ offering 1920 x 1200 resolution and super-fast 480Hz refresh rate, with the same 3ms response time.

Microsoft has found a fix for the disastrous glitch that's wiping saved games in Baldur's Gate 3 on Xbox.

The Baldur's Gate 3 save bug will soon be eliminated as early as tomorrow. Apparently, the save glitch was caused by a firmware issue, and requires a firmware update in order to address.

Microsoft will release a new update for Xbox Series S and Series X consoles that users can manually download and install tomorrow, January 16. Larian further notes that this particular fix has not been verified by the studio.

NVIDIA's RTX Super refreshes might be grabbing all the limelight right now, but there's a budget move afoot (in theory) that's much more under the radar with the old RTX 3050.

Rumors have been circulating for a while now about a new take on Ampere's RTX 3050 which has 6GB of VRAM (rather than 8GB), but a new leak suggests that the spec could be cut down more than just having the video memory reduced.

This isn't the first time we've heard theorizing that the RTX 3050 6GB might be reined in quite a bit, disappointingly for gamers on a budget, but the new specs here are quite a drop down indeed.

Former director of the Witcher 3 reveals Dawnwalker, a new dark fantasy RPG from his recent indie studio.

In 2022, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz left CD Projekt and opened a new indie studio called Rebel Wolves. The Polish game dev's resume was impressive--he had worked on mega-hits at Cyberpunk 2077, serving as director of The Witcher 3 and co-director of Cyberpunk 2077--and he went on to recruit other former CD Projekt workers including Cyberpunk writer Jakub Szamalek.

Now Rebel Wolves have revealed their first game. It's called Dawnwalker, and if the key art is anything to go by, we could see a kind of dark Jekyll and Hyde approach with the main character. When I first saw the image, it immediately reminded me of Blade, Geralt of Rivia, and Corvo Attano wrapped into one occultish package.

Halo Infinite's rumored battle royale spin-off may have been cancelled.

Back in 2022, reports circulated that Halo Infinite would get its own special BR mode. Well, mode is a bit of a misnomer--the project, codenamed "Tatanka" and potentially referring to the Lakota word translating to bison--was said to be something bigger than just a gametype. It could potentially be something like Halo's own version of Warzone. Neither Xbox nor Halo steward 343 Industries has announced Tatanka, but reports said that long-time Halo partner Certain Affinity was working on the BR.

Reports promised that Tatanka would be a grand 100-player experience complete with bots and its own ring of fire-like shrinking map. There'd even be multi-objective missions where you'd be able to capture flags, infiltrate/exfiltrate areas, kill high-profile targets, and king of the hill to boot.

Retroware, the publisher behind the Angry Video Game Nerd games, is helping make a parody platformer based on the NES game that started it all.

Simon's Quest. It's a game that inspired the first The Angry Video Game Nerd episode, and lives on as one of the most infamous NES titles of all time. It's a cryptic, tough, and generally interesting Castlevania that helped set the stage for greats like Symphony of the Night.

Whatever you think about Konami's controversial classic, they say that imitation is the best form of flattery. Game dev Programancer has teamed up Retroware (publisher of the AVGN games) to make their own Castlevania II clone, complete with a retro style that perfectly matches the old NES era.

Microsoft could be planning a Copilot Pro subscription service if a fresh leak is anything to go by.

Currently, the Copilot AI is free, but that might change if some hidden code that Android Authority unearthed (via TechRadar) turns out to indicate the direction Microsoft is going to head in.

The code is for a 'Copilot Pro' in Edge which is paywalled and requires a subscription. The text provided says the paid version has the following benefits:

MSI only just revealed its Claw handheld - a Steam Deck rival, but a Windows-powered one in the vein of many others like the ASUS ROG Ally - at CES 2024, but already the firm is talking about its sequel, and indeed beyond.

In an interview with IGN, MSI's System Product Managing Director, Clifford Chun, was quizzed about the lifespan of the Claw, replying that:

Microsoft has acknowledged a problem with the latest Windows 10 update and the company has said it's working on a fix.

As we reported last week, the issue lies with the KB5034441 security update - which is piped to Windows 10 PCs alongside the cumulative update for January 2024 - which fixes a flaw that potentially allows an attacker to bypass BitLocker encryption.

The long and short of it is that the odd error caused by KB5034441 - which consists of an unhelpful stop code - is apparently due to the recovery partition (WinRE) in Windows 10 not being large enough.

Alienware announced a redesigned M16 R2 gaming laptop at CES 2024, something that is a little more travel-friendly, where it's 15% smaller than its predecessor.

The new Alienware M16 R2 gaming laptop has seen the company removing the rear end of the laptop, which, when the M16 R2 is up against the M16 R1, shows the new laptop has a 14% reduction in depth, making it fit into a laptop bag, your actual lap, a smaller desk, or on the lounge easier than before. Dell refers to the back end of its laptops as the "thermal shelf," and now it's gone on the M16 R2 laptop.

Dell has crafted its new Alienware M16 R2 as a new laptop that's for users who want to play games on their laptop but use it as a "regular laptop" all the other time without its unique design that glows brightly and sounds much louder than it really should be.

MSI unveiled a plethora of new products at CES 2024, including its new Cyborg 14 gaming laptop with a transparent chassis that certainly catches your eye. Check it out:

MSI's new Cyborg 14 will be a budget gaming laptop that packs a decent punch in the specifications department. where we can expect the Cyborg 14 gaming laptop configured with an Intel Core i7-13620H processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 to be priced at $1099.

This wouldn't be a new laptop without something AI (artificial intelligence) oozing out of it, with MSI pumping its new laptops full of AI. We've got MSI Intelligent Technology being capable of providing whole new AI features, taking automatic tuning to a whole new level says MSI.

The next-generation Battlefield game is currently in development with Ripple Effect, which was previously known as DICE LA, where we're being teased that it will feature "the most realistic and exciting destruction effects in the industry".

EA hasn't spilled much at all on the new Battlefield after the disaster of Battlefield 2042. But... now we've got Tech4Gamers spotting a new job listing for a VFX Director at Ripple Effect... and we're hearing about what the next-gen Battlefield game could offer when it comes to destruction technology, something the franchise has been known for (greatly) in previous installments.

"Ripple Effect, an evolution of Battlefield's DICE LA, is a Los Angeles and Vancouver-based game studio on a mission to build community-first experiences through continuous innovation and boundary breaking technology".