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Apple announced its new M3 family of processors alongside new M3-powered MacBook Pro laptops in both 14-inch and 16-inch sizes, with the larger 16-inch MacBook Pro maxed out costing a whopping $7199.

The Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch features the Apple M3 Max processor with a 16-core CPU and 40-core GPU, a gigantic 128GB of unified RAM, and an equally impressive 8TB of SSD, all costing you $7199. 128GB of RAM is a huge amount of memory, with the 128GB version of the laptop taking 2-3 weeks to ship. There are 48GB and 64GB of unified RAM options, which would drop the price by $1000 and $800, respectively.

The previous-gen Apple M2 Max processor was limited to 96GB of RAM, so the new M3 Max supporting up to 128GB of RAM is a nice upgrade for new MacBook Pro laptops powered by the new M3 chip. Another upgrade is that the M3 Max has 12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores on the CPU side of things, which is a big upgrade from the 6 performance and 6 efficiency on the M2 Pro and the 4 performance and 4 efficiency on the base M3 chip.

The Polish studio might not be a household name, but indie developer and publisher 11 bit studios have quietly been creating and releasing a string of impressive games over the years. Internally 11 bit has created the critically acclaimed The War of Mine and intense city builder Frostpunk while publishing games like Moonlighter, Children of Morta, and most recently, the first-person sci-fi thriller The Invincible - which is out November 6.

The Invincible looks to be the beginning of a technology partnership between 11 bit studios and AMD, where the two companies will "work together to optimize 11 bit games for performance and with open source technology" across PCs, laptops, handhelds, and consoles.

And yes, this means using AMD's FSR 3 tech to improve performance, as seen in the 8K gameplay footage of The Invincible running on a PC equipped with an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPU.

Blizzard recently held its Blizzcon 2023 event, where we got some more details about what to expect in Overwatch 2's new Season 8, as well as new heroes, new maps, modes, and more for the game.

The developer teased its new tank, "Mauga," as well as a new damage hero and new support hero that is on the way, as well as a new game mode, "Clash," and a new map called "Hanaoka." As for the new tank hero, Mauga's primary and secondary weapons both deal out virtually the same power, with a 300-round ammo supply each, but they both have different mechanics that will work best when used together.

The first is the Incendiary Chaingun, which will light your enemies on fire when enough shots hit them -- you need to hit your enemies 10 times from the looks of things -- while the second is the Volatile Chaingun, which deals critical damage to burning enemies. So, you'd use the primary weapon to set them on fire and the second to deal out critical damage... that works. Standing within melee distance of Maura as he's about to unleash would be a fatal move.

At the company's recent Scary Fast event, Apple announced new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models that would use the brand-new M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips - the first chips to hit the home PC market using the cutting-edge 3nm or N3 process node from TSMC. However, based on leaked benchmark results, the jump from M2 Pro to M3 Pro might not be worth it.

It's worth highlighting that we're only looking at a single Geekbench 6 result (spotted by the YouTube channel Max Tech), but it shows that the M3 Pro is only 6% faster than the M2 Pro regarding multi-core performance. In single-core performance, the M3 Pro is up to 14% faster than the M2 Pro - more impressive though still underwhelming results.

Is there a reason why moving to TSMC's cutting-edge 3nm process hasn't yielded more impressive results for the M3 Pro? Yes, it probably has more to do with the M3's architecture than the process itself.

The AI industry is absolutely booming worldwide, with the likes of NVIDIA sold out of its Hopper H100 AI GPUs for the next 6 to 9 months at the least, and now we're hearing HBM3 memory makers SK hynix and Samsung are sold out of HBM3 memory until 2025.

The news is coming from ZDnet in Korea, which reports that because of the non-stop need for AI GPUs that use super-fast HBM3 memory, Samsung and SK hynix are celebrating. Why? Because they're the only two companies making HBM3, it's completely sold out to AMD and NVIDIA through the entire of 2024 and into 2025.

HBM3 memory is one of the keys of high-end and next-gen AI GPUs because of the huge transfer speeds, faster bandwidth, increased memory capacities, and lower power consumption. SK hynix is making most of the HBM memory, but it might not be for long because Samsung is trying its best to catch up with its new HBM3e "Shinebolt," recently announced.

NVIDIA has just pushed out a new hotfix driver, which tackles the issues with Alan Wake 2 and its stability and performance degradation in the form of the GeForce Game Ready 546.08 Hotfix drivers.

We see hotfix drivers over time, with NVIDIA engineers finding an issue in its drivers that is something important -- in this case, issues with Alan Wake 2, which shines on GeForce RTX series GPUs -- and so we get a quicker hotfix driver release. We will see a WHQL release in the coming days if you don't like using hotfix drivers.

The only issue in games that these new GeForce Game Ready 546.08 Hotfix drivers fix is Alan Wake 2, so if you're using a GeForce GPU and featuring any stability and performance issues, then you'll want to use these hotfix drivers. You can download the new GeForce Game Ready 546.08 Hotfix drivers here (669MB download).

AMD unveiled its new Radeon RX 7900M mobile GPU a few weeks ago, with the Navi 31-powered GPU now being tested in 3DMark TimeSpy, where it is 4% faster than the competing NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU.

The new AMD Radeon RX 7900M uses the Navi 31 GPU with 4608 Stream Processors, with a Game Clock of 1825MHz and a Boost Clock of up to 2090MHz. It is being directed right at NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop GPU, with the RX 7900M packing. 16GB of GDDR6 memory clocked at 18Gbps on a 256-bit memory bus, while the Total Graphics Power (TGP) sits at up to 180W.

AMD is really pushing the limits with 180W TGP and up to 200W using SmartShift Max technology, while NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU with 16GB GDDR6 memory also has a TGP of 150W but can hit up to 175W with Dynamic Boost technology. AMD is pushing the power available to its RX 7900M, so I'm keen to see real performance-per-watt numbers from reviewers in the coming weeks.

GALAX teased its new GeForce RTX 4090 20th Anniversary Edition graphics card not too long ago, and now we're hearing some new information: it will be the first desktop graphics card to have an HDMI retimer chip, which allows for longer HDMI cables, something that's actually really handy.

Why is this useful? HDMI retimers have multiple functions and can be installed on not just graphics cards but the receiving end or repeater devices. They will eliminate noise and jitter from signals -- something that's needed for the much higher bandwidth that's being driven through HDMI 2.1, especially important with 4K 120FPS -- over longer HDMI cables.

Personally, one of my systems is plugged into a large 77-inch 4K 120Hz LG OLED TV and an HDMI 2.1 cable, and there's only a certain length I can go up to and maintain the best connection quality. Not that you'd buy this graphics card purely for the HDMI retimer, but it's an enthusiast GPU, so this small touch actually stands out from the rest of the RTX 4090 cards, which is why it's being pointed out. Nice touch, GALAX.

NVIDIA has its flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card on the market with 24GB of GDDR6X memory, but there was a prototype GeForce RTX 4090 Ti made with a gigantic quad-slot design... and that I/O shield has just hit eBay.

We previously saw the GeForce RTX 4090 Ti prototype quad-slot cooler hit the Chinese black market, and now we've got the RTX 4090 Ti quad-slot I/O bracket. It features the regular 3 x DisplayPort 1.4 connectors and a single HDMI 2.1 port. VideoCardz reports that we're probably seeing the suppliers that made these RTX 4090 Ti quad-slot I/O brackets wanting to offload them because they're useless -- NVIDIA won't release the GeForce RTX 4090 Ti, it seems -- to make some money.

They're actually not badly priced at $25 with free shipping, making for quite the collector's item on the cheap: an unreleased graphics card -- and not just something mid-range, but what would've been a powerful GeForce RTX 4090 Ti -- and while it's only an I/O shield, it's also only $25. Not bad.

Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer reveals some very interesting stats on the growth of the Japanese video games market.

While North America and Europe are the predominant regions for gaming, Japan represents an untapped market for Xbox in particular. Domestic giants like Nintendo and PlayStation have traditionally dominated the Japanese console gaming sector with Xbox on the outer fringes. Xbox gaming CEO Phil Spencer is eager to change things and have Microsoft capture more of the Japanese region, and Xbox Game Pass may represent the gateway to capturing more of Japanese players.

In a recent interview with Famitsu, Phil Spencer listed some interesting metrics for Japan. Spencer believes that Game Pass PC will be a key asset in improving Xbox's presence in Japan. According to the gaming boss, Japan's PC market has doubled and the amount of Japanese users subscribed to Game Pass' PC plan are up by 4x.

Fortnite OG is more popular than even Epic Games could have anticipated.

Fortnite's latest season takes players back to the past--to the halcyon days of 2018, before the pandemic, and back when the battle royale sensation was on top of the world. Similar to WoW Classic, Epic's new Fortnite OG Chapter 1 season essentially resurrects the BR as it was six years ago, almost like players are opening up a time capsule and jumping into Fortnite's best-ever year (during 2018, Fortnite generated over $5 billion in revenues, more money than it ever has before).

Now Epic has announced some incredible stats for their mega-hit sensation. According to the latest metrics, Fortnite OG Chapter 1 has helped the game absolutely smash engagement records. Over 44.7 million players played Fortnite yesterday, which is the "biggest day in Fortnite's history." Gamers also played 102 million hours worth of BR action.

Sony's latest acquisition should influence and propel its game streaming capabilities, and potentially help solidify PS Plus game streaming delivery to mobile devices.

Sony Interactive Entertainment will soon purchase iSIZE, a UK-based company that has developed technologies centered around making video delivery more efficient. iSIZE's proprietary tech leverages AI deep learning across three solutions: Bitsave, Bitclear, and Bitgen. The company's tech slide deck reveals more info about what's involved. Sony plans to leverage iSIZE's three-pronged advancements to better optimize its video and streaming services.

While SIE's official announcement is more basic and generalized, we can analyze this in a more broader scope to see how this could affect different facets of Sony's interactive division. This acquisition isn't just for video streaming services like the Sony Pictures Core subscription (now included with PS Plus Premium), but it also has implications for video game streaming via PS Plus (formerly PS Now) as well.

Bungie management is said to have explored all other options before choosing to lay off 100 workers, including pay reductions for executives.

Destiny is often mired in controversy, but this time things are different. After it laid off 8% of its employees, including Destiny and Halo composer Michael Salvatori, Halo vet Lorraine McClees, and even Destiny's own community manager Liana Ruppert (yes, Destiny currently has no CM), Bungie is now facing near-universal pushback from all sides ranging from its faithful players to workers in the video games industry. It's rough situation for Bungie and everyone involved.

A new report from Forbes' Paul Tassi reveals more info on what went on behind the scenes, including the measures that Bungie management took before the decision was made to lay off about a hundred people from its staff. Based on what Bungie told Forbes, it sounds like layoffs were the last resort. Bungie executives including CEO Pete Parsons are said to have given up and relinquished their annual bonuses in an effort to help stave off the controversial decision to reduce its workforce.

Sony's new PlayStation 5 "slim" revision is a lot smaller than previous models, but the system hasn't received a node shrink.

A bit ago, there were rumors that the new PS5 slim duo could feature a new 5nm SoC refresh to accompany the system's various form factor changes--smaller case, modular hot-swap disc drive, etc. This trend isn't abnormal, and most console hardware revisions also benefit from a die shrink. That isn't the case with the latest PS5 models.

Having looked into TSMC's node processes and family structure while working on TweakTown's PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X reviews, I didn't think the jump from 6nm (N6) to 5nm (N5) was very likely. A new teardown from Linus Tech Tips confirms our suspicions: The PS5 slim uses the same 260mm² die as the most recent PS5 revisions, which indicates a 6nm chip. This means the PS5 slim is effectively the same as the PS5 CFI-1202 models introduced in 2022.

Microsoft Gaming CEO and the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, took the stage at BlizzCon 2023 this weekend, weeks after the company acquired Activision Blizzard in a record deal worth $69 billion. Blizzard and its franchises, including Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and StarCraft, are some of the biggest in the industry, and Phil Spencer praised the studio's history while addressing the crowd.

"Now that Blizzard is part of Xbox, we will nurture the essence of what makes Blizzard unique," Spencer said, name-dropping StarCraft in a move that brought some hope to the idea that we might get another game in the iconic RTS series at some point. "The future of Blizzard is brighter than ever," Phil added.

Seeing Phil Spencer at the event was fun, though he wasn't the only Xbox presence at the show.

If you're planning on picking up the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra when it is announced in January 2024, you're going to get at least one thing that will remind you of the iPhone 15 Pro whether you like it or not.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is set to be the next big flagship phone announcement when it debuts during an expected January 17 unveiling, but it's going up against the iPhone 15 Pro - the flagship that arrived in September of this year. Now, a new report claims that Samsung is set to borrow from Apple's design by making the Galaxy S24 Ultra out of titanium.

That's according to a new report by The Elec, backed up by X leaker @Tech_Reve. This also isn't the first time that we've heard suggestions that Samsung is looking into titanium, but the next part is new - Samsung only recently decided to go this route.

If you own a Mac running macOS Sonoma 14.1 you might want to be even more careful than usual when you have liquid around it, especially if you're hoping to have Apple repair it should the worst happen.

While Apple has long had Liquid Contact Indicators (LCI) in its devices, including the iPhone, to allow it to know when devices have gotten wet, a new addition to the latest Mac software takes things a step further, according to a new 9to5Mac report.

That report claims that macOS Sonoma 14.1 has a new daemon called liquiddetectiond which runs and monitors the computer to see if it has been exposed to liquid. It runs in the background and analyses the moisture in every one of the computer's USB-C ports, we're told.

World of Warcraft is set to celebrate its 20th anniversary next year, which is an incredible milestone for a game that is still being played by millions and receiving new expansion content and regular updates, with WoW and Blizzard veteran Chris Metzen returning to shepherd "the next 20 years of adventure," World of Warcraft is set to kick off a major storyline called the Worldsoul Saga. And there was a heartfelt cinematic trailer with heroes Anduin and Thrall to set the scene.

"The Worldsoul saga is so epic it cannot be contained within any single expansion," Chris Metzen said, introducing three new World of Warcraft expansions. "It is built to play out over multiple expansions over the next few years. We are working on multiple ways to deliver this adventure to you a little faster than you're used to."

"We are moving with purpose," Chris Metzen added with Blizzard, confirming that World of Warcraft: The War Within, World of Warcraft: Midnight, and World of Warcraft: The Last Titan are the next three major expansions coming to the popular online role-playing game with The War Within launching in 2024.

At BlizzCon 2023, the Diablo IV team took the stage to celebrate this year's launch of the highly anticipated game, dropping stats like players spending over 1.5 billion hours in Sanctuary and how the current (and positively received) Season of Blood produced 14,000 words of Patch Notes driven by community feedback.

Expansions and Diablo go hand-in-hand, but it seems that Diablo IV will be taking a more WoW-like approach in that multiple expansions will be released - and the very first got announced alongside a teaser trailer confirming that it's on track for a late 2024 launch.

Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, as previous leaks have suggested, continues the story laid out by Diablo IV's main campaign, with the main villain looking to be Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred. The teaser trailer was light on details, but it has confirmed the expansion's setting - the lush jungles of Torajan. A location last seen in Diablo II.

The direction of Destiny 2's future may rely on the success of The Final Shape expansion.

Bungie recently laid off 8% of its staff, or about 100 people, in an effort to lower costs as it navigates an incredibly challenging period where revenue is missing projections by nearly half, and the player base is falling. In a new eye-opening report, sources close to Bungie have told Forbes' Paul Tassi a lot of new info about the going-ons of the studio, the current state of Destiny, and why the layoffs were made

According to the report, The Final Shape's performance could determine the fate of Destiny as a whole. Bungie is doubling-down on the expansion and wants it to go far and beyond any previous Destiny content, even The Taken King.