Latest News - Page 775

With a resolution of 1100 x 3840 pixels, the 14.1-inch capacitive touchscreen display on the new Y70 Touch case from HYTE makes it the first '4K' PC case we've seen. The latest edition to the company's slick Y-Series of cases puts a big display on one of the corners of the fishbowl-like see-through design.

The 10-point multi-touchscreen display with a 283 PPI pixel density and 60 Hz refresh rate arrives pre-installed on the HYTE Y70 Touch. Per the images provided, the HYTE Nexus Touch interface for the display is all about integrating handy features for users to play and engage with.

In addition to being able to monitor PC performance (naturally), there's even an option to display Twitch chat for streamers and viewers (that you can interact with), Google calendar features, weather reports, a notation system, and more. As far as fancy features for a PC case designed for gaming go - this is right up there!

Apple has been steadily making fantastic improvements on its in-house M-series processors, starting out as the M1 family, evolving into the M2 family, and on October 30 at Apple's just-announced "Scary Fast" event, we'll see the next-gen M3 family.

The company only recently held its iPhone 15 announcement, unleashing tens of millions of new iPhone 15 smartphones into the market. We had updates to the Apple Watch, AirPods Pro with a USB-C charging case, and more. But now, we're getting another event -- Scary Fast -- where we should see the new M3 chip unveiled... and used in a new Apple product, of course.

Apple could also unveil a new M3-powered iMac as well as an M3-powered MacBook Pro, both utilizing Apple's next-gen M3 in the best way possible: the highest-end Mac products that Apple sells. The iMac and MacBook Pro can be configured into higher-end specs and be quite damn powerful -- especially with the M2 Max + lots of RAM + lots of SSD -- so the M3 is only going to amplify that. We should see refreshes of the MacBook and MacBook Air in 2024 with the M3 processor, but this event should see the new iMac and MacBook Pro getting M3 upgrades.

Today has special significance in the world of Fallout, with October 23 being the day that the bombs fell and thermonuclear war broke out between the world's superpowers. When you look at it that way, it might not sound like a cause for celebration, but Bethesda has taken the opportunity to offer a Fallout Day Sale across storefronts like Steam and GOG.

With up to 80% discounts on games like Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, with the sales extending to the many bits of DLC that dropped post-launch - if you haven't played Fallout 4's Far Harbor or Nuka World expansions, now's the time - it's the perfect time to catch up on or jump into any of the many Fallout gaming experiences out there, which includes older titles like Fallout 2 and the iconic Fallout: New Vegas.

The biggest Fallout-related news of the day is definitely the word coming from Amazon, with confirmation that the highly-anticipated Fallout TV series will begin streaming on April 12, 2024.

NVIDIA has been reportedly working on making Arm-based CPUs that would run Windows, and not just Android-powered devices like the NVIDIA Shield. It shouldn't come as a surprise, given NVIDIA acquired Arm Limited back in September 2020 for a hefty $40 billion... they've been cooking.

A new CPU from NVIDIA that runs Windows would be quite a thing to see, instantly entering the central processing unit ring against AMD and Intel, which each make GPUs as well. NVIDIA won't be happy not dominating in a particular market, and I'm sure Jensen is flexing in his leather jacket at the fact that there's not NVIDIA dominating the CPU market success he wants.

It's a very strategic move that would only help the entire industry -- AMD and Intel with a serious competitor, and Microsoft, Arm, and NVIDIA all working together on a Windows-capable Arm-based CPU. Qualcomm has been playing in this space for a while now, recently announcing its new Snapdragon X Elite SoC which is a powerhouse new chip that's ready to do this exact thing in 2024. NVIDIA could be a huge contender to that, and it has me very, very excited. I truly miss the days of the NVIDIA chipsets on motherboards... flexing age here.

With the arrival of the GeForce RTX 40 Series, NVIDIA has leaned into technology that delivers breathtaking visuals alongside upping raw horsepower. The GeForce RTX 4090 is an absolute beast in that department, but with dedicated RT and AI hardware, we've been treated to the stunning DLSS 3.5 images in games like Cyberpunk 2077. And now it's time to add Remedy's Alan Wake II to the list.

Much has been said about the game's intensive hardware requirements, with the game set to feature fully ray-traced graphics (i.e., path tracing) alongside a suite of cutting-edge DirectX 12 technologies. Remedy pushing in-game graphics is no secret, and even though it sounds like the game will struggle running on an old GeForce GTX GPU - a new deep-dive from NVIDIA shows that if you've got any of the new GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs - you're golden.

On the high-end, the GeForce RTX 4090 can push 130+ FPS in 4K with DLSS 3.5 (Frame Generation, Ray Reconstruction, and Super Resolution), full ray-tracing, and max settings. Incredible.

IBM Research has spent the last 8 years working on its first-ever AI-dedicated chip, which it just unveiled as NorthPole, with the tech giant saying it is 22x faster than any other industry offering.

IBM's new AI accelerator, codenamed NorthPole has one aim: passing the computing performance of the industry leaders and meeting the insatiable demand for all-things AI. IBM is doing something a little different with its new NorthPole AI chip when compared to competitors in NVIDIA, AMD, and others.

The NorthPole project's leader, Dharmendra Modha, can see a bright future with the chip architecture being different. IBM Research has said that it is combining inference architectures into the chip itself, which is how Modha can refer to NorthPole as a "human brain". It has efficient CPU interconnectivity with an all-digital architecture that allows for inter-communication being much faster... which is where the dominance in AI processing comes from IBM's new NorthPole chip.

Recently, the U.S. government updated its list of graphics hardware that is effectively banned from being exported or sold to China without a government license, including many of NVIDIA's most popular AI GPUs like the A100, A800, H100, and H800.

A new filing from NVIDIA outlines that the new ban is "effective immediately," meaning that sales and exports for these GPUs have been shown a bright red light.

Bad news for AI in the region, but good news for PC gamers? As previously reported, the ban was about restricting hardware sales for GPUs and hardware exceeding a certain performance threshold - which, in a testament to its raw power, included the GeForce RTX 4090. The most powerful gaming GPU on the planet was on the cusp of being banned in one of the biggest PC gaming markets in the world.

Intel's new Core i9-14900K is now out in the wild, available on Amazon and Newegg for around $600 or so -- Newegg is cheaper, $599 right now -- and into Der8auer's hands for some ultra-cool testing.

Before Der8auer delidded his new Core i9-14900K processor, he created a baseline using a CPU at stock settings cooled by a 360mm AIO liquid cooler from Corsair. He proceeded to fix the fan speeds and core frequencies, using the same DDR5-7600 XMP memory profile the entire time. Core settings were locked at a 56 ratio, with a fixed v-core at 1.39V. Der8auer also used a power calibration setting of load level 5, which is what you'd use for a little overclock.

Intel's new Core i9-14900K before it was delidded, running on the 360mm AIO liquid cooler, saw peak CPU power consumption of 294W. Once the 14900K was delidded and liquid metal was applied, peak power consumption came down 10W to 284W. Der8auer was expecting temperature drops, but not to this level, and to reduce power consumption by 10W, too. But once it was delidded... that's when the fun began.

As we predicted, Starfield's breakout launch propels Xbox earnings to new heights.

Microsoft just broke new barriers with its Xbox games division. Xbox pulled in a record-breaking $3.919 billion in revenues during Q1'24, representing a +9% year-over-year increase, or a jump of about $309 million dollars over last year's results. Starfield's significant launch helped kick off Microsoft's new Fiscal Year 2024 timeline with a big earnings milestone.

To put this number into perspective, Xbox made more in this Q1 period (July - September, 2023) than any other non-holiday period in the platform's entire 22-year history. Like its competitors Nintendo and PlayStation, Xbox makes most of its earnings from the critical year-end holiday timeframe. Starfield was undoubtedly a big part of these results, with the game becoming the top-earning premium title of September 2023 and amassing 6 million players shortly after launch.

After multiple patches and expansions, Cold Iron Studios is sunsetting Aliens: Fireteam Elite...but a new Alien game could be in development.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is comfortably the best Alien shooter ever made. The game has great gunplay, impressive visuals, and chaotic action-packed gameplay that keeps you on the edge of your seat--not to mention that it pays respect to the classic franchise's lore while expanding it further.

Now it looks like gamers could be getting another Alien shooter from the same developer. In a recent Facebook post, Cold Iron announced that Aliens: Fireteam Elite would be getting smaller quality-of-life changes moving forward, and that the team was working on the next big game.

Spider-Man 2 is the latest first-party PlayStation game to achieve blockbuster status.

With Spider-Man 2's spectacular success, Insomniac has proven lightning can strike in the same place twice (three times including Miles Morales). The successful sequel has garnered a 90 on Metacritic and has now unlocked game sales to match the hype.

Sony has confirmed that Spider-Man 2 is now the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game of all time. This is an impressive feat to be sure, but it's hard to match the webslinger's performance with other first-party record-holders like God of War Ragnarok, the original Spider-Man from 2018, and The Last of Us Part II.

Square Enix once again goes meta with its mega-popular MMORPG, adding in a new in-game crossover with another game in the series.

The worlds of Valisthea and Eorzea will soon clash as Square Enix prepares an official Final Fantasy XVI x Final Fantasy XIV collaboration event. The two games will cross-over with a special experience called The Path Infernal, and will see players fight alongside FF16's protagonist hero Clive Rosfield against the fiery eikon Ifrit, who is also lifted directly from the PlayStation 5 mainline hack-and-slash game.

At the official Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest 2023 event in London, Yoshi-P gave an update on the cross-over event, confirming a Torgal mount and other content:

The Evil Within is one of the free games on offer from the Epic Games Store this week, to give you a dose of horror and get you in the mood for Halloween.

There are two freebies, in fact, and the second game to be given away is a very different kind of puzzler, Eternal Threads.

Head on over to the store to scoop these up now, and don't hang around, as they'll only be available for a couple of days (until October 26).

Criterion Games joins the ensemble of studios working on Battlefield, but a new Need For Speed game is also in preliminary stages of planning.

In a bid to optimize budgets, reduce spending, and tighten up its gaming business, Electronic Arts recently splintered its gaming business into two parts: EA Sports, the label that develops and publishes heavy-hitters like Madden and the newly-released EA FC24, and EA Entertainment, the division that essentially develops everything else, ranging from Battlefield and the Jedi series to The Sims and Apex Legends.

This split has seen a variety of studios gravitating towards certain projects and labels. Naturally, studios like Criterion (and BioWare, for that matter), are now a part of EA Entertainment. In a recent announcement post, EA's Vince Zampella confirmed that Criterion would join 3 other studios and work on the Battlefield franchise. Right now DICE, Ripple Effect, and the newly-launched Ridgeline studio run by Halo veteran Marcus Lehto are working on the future of Battlefield, which is believed to include an inter-connected webwork of titles and experiences ranging from dedicated a dedicated campaign to a free-to-play mobile title.

A sword which was supposedly dropped from Elden Ring (among other cut content) has been discovered in the game - though don't get too excited (we'll come back to why in a moment).

However, the finding of the blade is a definitely a cool story, as it was only known to exist in Elden Ring thanks to data miners who had previously stumbled across unused icons, one of which was the battered and aged looking sword.

As GamesRadar (via TechRadar) points out, the weapon was discussed in a YouTube video by Ziostorm, who then flagged on X (formerly Twitter) that a player had actually found the blade in the Lands Between.

A group of astronomers have detected an ancient radio burst that is now the most powerful ever intercepted of its type.

The new study has been published in the journal Science and details the detection of a Fast Radio Burst (FRB), a mysterious radio signal that currently doesn't have an entirely agreed-upon explanation. Astronomers have detected FRBs before, but according to the recently published study, the one dubbed FRB 20220610A that was discovered in June last year by the ASKAP radio telescope array is by far the biggest.

The team traced back the radio signal to its source and found it traveled 8 billion light years before reaching Earth and likely originated from a cluster of merging galaxies home to many newly born stars. So, where does the radio signal actually come from? One theory suggests they are created by neutron stars, the collapsed dead remnants of stars once like our Sun. Notably, this particular FRB generated the same amount of power the Sun generates over 30 years, but in a millisecond.

NASA has taken to its website to share a new infographic that reveals a bunch of statistics regarding near-Earth asteroids (NEOs).

The space agency explains that any comet or asteroid that is 32 feet in diameter and orbits within 30 million miles of Earth is defined as an NEO. With that in mind, the above graphic states that NASA has identified 32,412 near-Earth asteroids of various sizes, and of that total, it has found 853 asteroids bigger than 3,280 feet in diameter. While these numbers seem positive, there is also a major red flag that should be highlighted.

Of the 10,541 near-Earth asteroids NASA has found that are larger than 459 feet in diameter, it still estimates there are 14,000 left to be found, which means the space agency believes it has found less than half of the total number of asteroids greater than 459 in diameter. These asteroids are capable of wiping out an entire city if one were to collide with Earth. More alarmingly, NASA's graphic states it still expects to find another 50 asteroids greater than 3,280 feet in diameter.

A specific type of bacteria that lives in the strangest places on Earth may be the answer to providing a sustainable oxygen supply to colonists living on the surface of Mars.

NASA, along with a select few private companies, are working toward the ultimate goal of creating a colony on the surface of the Red Planet. There are many problems that need to be overcome for this dream to become a reality, one of which is the lack of oxygen within the Martian atmosphere. A team of researchers has proposed using plants with a biocoating of a specific bacteria called Chroococcidiopsis Cubana, which consumes CO2 and produces oxygen.

The team created the biocoating by taking all of the necessary prerequisites for the bacteria to survive on the surface of Mars while also making sure the biocoating was durable and porous enough for cell transportation within the bacteria. The team monitored the new biocoating for 30 days and measured oxygen output, and found the paint-containing bacteria produced 0.4 grams of oxygen per day, which remained consistent over the entire month. For every 35 ounces of paint, the paint can produce 400 grams of oxygen.

AMD might have a couple of fresh top-end Ryzen processors for laptops inbound which will sit just under the current Dragon Range top dogs.

The rumor, which comes from Golden Pig Upgrade, a regular leaker on Bilibili - a source that must be treated with some caution (though any rumor should be, really) - claims Ryzen 9 7840HX and Ryzen 9 7940HX CPUs are incoming.

Those processors will sit under the current Ryzen 9 7845HX and Ryzen 9 7945HX mobile chips, carrying the same spec, but with one change: The clock frequencies will be adjusted down slightly.

For many years, there have been theories circulating about Planet Nine, a mysterious planet that orbits the Sun once every 10,000 or 20,000 years, and now physicists are suggesting it may not even be a planet at all.

A new study has looked at the Planet Nine data acquired in the past and applied the gravitational model called Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), which is a model that enables researchers to accurately understand the gravitational behavior of galaxies. Typically, this model isn't used on smaller scales such as Planet Nine, but physicists Katherine Brown of Hamilton College and Harsh Mathur of Case Western Reserve University, decided to give it a try, and the results have seemingly thrown a new contender into the mix for the origin of Planet X.

Researchers have theorized Planet Nine's existence through gravitational anomalies that were traced back to strange orbital clustering in the outer Solar System. Within that region are large quantities of small icy rocks, which were clumping together, suggesting they were being influenced gravitationally by a large astronomical body, such as a planet.