Latest News - Page 790

Another big week of news and happenings in the tech, gaming, and science space, and Jak and Kosta are back with a new episode of The TT Show - TweakTown's official podcast. This week, they go all-in on AMD's answer to DLSS 3 called Fluid Motion Frames, talk about the latest game-changing and potentially troubling communication technology from Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, the insane Las Vegas Sphere, and more!

The duo also digs into the recent Meta Quest 3 announcement, which improves the processing power of the all-in-one VR solution and adds a dose of mixed reality via new color outfacing cameras.

Then there's a leaked roadmap from MSI showcasing no less than six new OLED displays coming soon, which begs the question - is OLED the future of gaming monitors? Plus, the longest astronaut in space, EK's crazy water-cooled PlayStation 5 solution, and Microsoft's plans to go nuclear.

If you're buying a new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra next year you might get the same chip inside, no matter where you buy it. Choose the Galaxy S24 or Galaxy S24+ and things will get a bit more complicated, however.

That's according to a new report which claims that Samsung will use a single chip in its range-topping smartphone, but it will offer two different types in the rest of its lineup. If true, buyers of the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ will get a different chip depending on where they happen to buy the device itself.

This is according to The Elec which says that the Galaxy S24 Ultra will use Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip no matter where it is sold, making for a consistent offering. However, it's thought that the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ models sold in Europe and South Korea will be equipped with Samsung's in-house silicon under the Exynos brand name.

If you wanted to get the iPhone 15 Pro Max's fancy new tetraprism camera but didn't want to go with the huge iPhone it's attached to, you're in luck. You're going to be able to get that same camera in next year's iPhone 16 Pro instead.

That's according to a new report by supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who had previously hinted that such a decision was in the cards for next year's top-line iPhones.

Right now, the tetraprism lens allows the iPhone 15 Pro Max to offer an improved 5x optical zoom capability, an improvement over the 3x that the iPhone 15 Pro can manage. It's thought that the sheer size of the iPhone 15 Pro Max was what gave Apple the chance to use the new lens there first, but it appears it will be able to shrink it down enough to squeeze it into the iPhone 16 Pro's diminutive frame.

If you've looked at the current X Premium subscription and been left unimpressed by what it offers, don't worry, you aren't alone. But there's another reason not to worry because it seems that X is getting ready to add to its subscription offerings with two new tiers. And one of those tiers will do something that X Premium should have done a long time ago.

While the X Premium subscription currently reduces the amount of ads that people see in their timelines, a new leak appears to show that X is getting ready to remove ads completely. Assuming you're willing to pay for it, of course.

That's all according to code found by the software code diver @aaronp613 on X after he found that there are new options for different tiers. According to a post by them, there will be new Premium Basic, Premium Standard, and Premium Plus offerings. Those tiers will have ads, half the number of ads, and no ads at all, respectively.

Apple's iPhone 15 Pro has now been around for a couple of weeks and people continue to report that they are experiencing a device that gets too hot during use. Apple agreed, so it released a new iOS 17.0.3 update to try and fix it. That update has now been installed on a ton of iPhones around the world, so how are things looking? Did the iPhone 15 Pro get cooler after installing iOS 17.0.3?

According to a ZDNET report, the news is good. The outlet used a thermometer to check how hot their iPhone 15 Pro was getting before installing the new software update and then ran through the same process again afterward to see how things panned out. According to the report, Apple nailed it and sure enough, the new iPhones are now cooler than they were thanks to the software update.

According to that report, the iPhone 15 Pro was reaching a temperature of more than 100F during fast charging, which is warm, to say the least. At one point it was 107.1F.

Apple's iPad Air is getting ready for an update according to a new report, but that isn't the most interesting part - that comes when we're told that there are two extra models being developed.

Apple is reportedly developing Wi-Fi and Cellular versions of the iPad Air 6 under the codenames J507 and J508 with 9to5Mac citing unnamed sources when making that assertion. However, there are reportedly two more iPad Airs that are being tested under the J537 and J538 codenames and it isn't yet clear what those devices are.

The report notes that the only other device in Apple's tablet lineup that follows a similar pattern is the iPad Pro thanks to its two screen sizes. That means that there are always four iPad Pros in development thanks to each screen size also needing a Wi-Fi and Cellular option. Is that the case with the iPad Air that's currently in testing? Could we see the iPad Air ship in two screen sizes?

Right now, Baldur's Gate 3 is only available to buy as a digital version, on PC and PS5, but it would appear that a physical copy for the PS5 may not be out of the question.

At least based on a tweet that popped up on X recently from the Director of Publishing at Larian, Michael Douse, which you can see above.

Douse bumped a recent tweet from a site that covers the PS5 which asked: "Would you buy a physical version of Baldur's Gate?"

Intel is days away from launching its 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" family of CPUs, and Moore's Law is Dead is leaking out details on not just the next-gen Arrow Lake CPU platform, but the Arrow Lake Refresh CPU platform... oh boy, check it out:

Intel's next-next-gen Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs will be named differently to the CPUs that Intel has on the market today, as the branding is changing completely. We will see Intel's new Arrow Lake Refresh family of processors debut as the Core Ultra 300 series, while the Core Ultra 200 series will be the original Arrow Lake processors.

What's different about the Arrow Lake Refresh and Arrow Lake? Well, according to the leaks we should see the first-gen Arrow Lake CPUs arriving with up to 32 cores in tow, while the Arrow Lake Refresh CPus will feature up to 40 cores. This is split between P-Cores and E-Cores as usual, with both Arrow Lake and Arrow Lake Refresh featuring Lion Cove P-Cores, and Skymont E-Cores. We have no idea about clock speeds, but Moore's Law is Dead is predicting for around 6.4GHz to 6.5GHz, which is going to be mighty awesome to see running (and how much power they'll use, too).

Intel is just days away from finally releasing its 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" family of processors, and now we've got Tom from Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) leaking out some details on the next-gen Arrow Lake CPU family.

The next-gen Intel Arrow Lake CPUs will be launching in Q4 2024 -- or "very late 2024" as Tom adds in his video -- which should make up the first Core Ultra 200 series of Intel CPUs. We should expect to see 24 or 26 cores (depending on how you count them) with 8 x Lion Cove P-Cores and up to 16 x Skymont E-Cores, while we'll also see 2 x Skymont E-Cores within the SoC die itself. This is where the core-count gets a bit tricky, if you don't count them then it's a 24-core CPU, if you do count those two additional Skymont-based E-Cores, then it brings the total core count up to 26 cores.

What should we expect in terms of performance from Arrow Lake? Moore's Law is Dead teases that Intel's next-gen Arrow Lake should beat Raptor Lake "by at least" 25% in single-threaded performance, but he adds that this number could be closer to 30-35% while underlining that none of his sources think it will be above 40%.

Astronauts exploring the surface of the moon will want to send back items back to Earth, especially those discovered on the lunar surface. But how can that be done safely? NASA proposes a "lunar freezer".

The space agency has taken to the federal contracting website SAM.gov with a request for information regarding a "freezer" that will be used to safely transport materials from the lunar surface back to Earth.

According to NASA, this freezer design will need to reach a myriad of requirements for it to be considered, such as having capabilities of transporting "human biological/physiological samples collected during the missions," which will be analyzed by researchers in an attempt to measure the impact of prolonged lunar stay on astronauts' bodies.

The ASUS ROG Ally is an absolute champion of a gaming handheld, but now ASUS is getting down to the nitty gritty when it comes to 720p and 1080p gaming benchmarks. The company has run a test between the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme version of the ROG Ally, and the Z1 non-Extreme in both 720p and 1080p with some rather interesting results.

First off, the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU is part of the Phoenix family of products, with the Z1 Extreme featuring 8 x Zen4-based CPU cores while the Z1 non-Extreme features 2 x Zen4 and 6 x Zen4c cores. It might not look like much, but there's a big difference when it comes to gaming performance, as you can see in the benchmarks above (1080p results) and below (720p results).

ASUS is using the Z1 Extreme in its higher-end ROG Ally gaming handheld, which features an RDNA 3-based GPU with 12 Compute Units, versus the 4 x Compute units in the Z1 non-Extreme... hence the big performance gap between them. Still, even with the big cull in Compute Units, the Z1 non-Extreme version of the ROG Ally still has some rather decent performance.

I don't think it's a surprise to anyone out there who keeps up with the latest leaks and news in the technology industry, the secret? Intel is launching its new 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" CPUs on October 14, and now GIGABYTE is coming to the party with some new Z790 motherboards that confirm Intel's new 14th Gen Core processors.

GIGABYTE has been requesting that reviewers don't show any details of Intel's upcoming 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" processors on the packaging or the motherboards themselves. But, the internet being the internet means that didn't happen exactly how GIGABYTE would've hoped, and now we have some leaks confirming Raptor Lake Refresh chips aren't too far away at all now.

You can see in the image above that Overclock3D has the new GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS PRO X motherboard in-house, but they've hidden the 14th Gen Core CPU part out of the top right.

Intel has shown off an incredible feat for integrated GPU technology, with its upcoming Meteor Lake iGPU and its low-power E-Cores running some mighty impressive 8K 60FPS video playback. Check it out:

The next-gen Intel Meteor Lake CPUs will be the 1st Gen Core Ultra CPUs through its new rebranding process, packing a bunch of IPs and architectures into Meteor Lake. The tiled architecture approach boasts a wide range of technologies inside, with Intel showing it off the advantages that Meteor Lake will deliver. The company showcased its new Meteor Lake iGPU and its low-power E-Cores running high-bitrate 8K 60FPS video.

8K 60FPS video isn't easy on anything really, even your internet connection needs to be 100Mbps+ to not have to buffer on YouTube pumping out 8K 60FPS. Intel is using an upgraded Alchemist GPU architecture to get this running, with the beefed-up Alchemist GPU tile on the Meteor Lake CPU handling high-bitrate 8K 60FPS video playback with ease. Intel showed off a demo using a high-bitrate 8K 60FPS stream at 120Mbps using the HEVC codec.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the best-looking games you can play on the PC, and it's an even more gorgeous game with some mods applied. But, this new video from Digital Dreams running Red Dead Redemption 2 with over 100 mods -- including the new Vestigia mod with the ReShade raytracing preset -- running at 8K looks absolutely beautiful. Check it out:

You can see Red Dead Redemption 2 running at 8K 60FPS looks truly mind-blowing, with the environment never looking better with the various mods applied. The new Vestigia mod for RDR2 overhauls a bunch of things in the game, including HDR compatibility, 5 new weather times, and oh-so-much more.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is running on NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, the only one that's capable of driving the native 7680 x 4320 resolution at 60 frames per second. 8K 60FPS isn't easy, but hot damn does it look -- and run smoothly -- on Red Dead Redemption 2. There's nothing like it, with 8K gaming a huge step up from 4K gaming, something I'm sure that Sony's next-generation PlayStation 6 console will struggle to do. The current PlayStation 5 console can't do native 4K 60FPS+ without upscaling, so it would be awesome to see 8K 60FPS+ even if it's with some FSR-style upscaling on the PlayStation 6.

TSMC is working directly with NVIDIA and Broadcom to super-speed R&D efforts into the next step in the semiconductor industry: silicon photonics.

First, what are silicon photonics? The semiconductor industry is moving into the world of silicon photonics as its next-gen approach to traditional copper transmission cables, which sees the combination of laser and silicon technology that pumps high data transfer speeds. Silicon photonics will have conventional "electricity" delivery with light, meaning we're in for a world of seamless, quicker, secure transmission.

ChinaTimes reports that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company -- TSMC -- pumping 200 new R&D specialists into the arms of silicon photonics use in the AI industry. This is why TSMC is teaming with NVIDIA and Broadcam, as the Taiwanese giant is currently walking into Compact Universal Photo Engine (COUPE) that will usher in an energy-efficient solution that will be the big push into its large-scale adoption. GlobalFoundries is also working on silicon photonics, but TSMC is ahead of GlobalFoundries... which shouldn't surprise anyone who knows how much further ahead TSMC is above the competition.

Intel is about to launch its new 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" CPUs and like the rumor mill does each time, we get news of future generation processors in the lead-up to the latest ones launching. Now we're hearing about Intel's next-gen client CPU in the form of "Lunar Lake", after years of persistent rumors on the new processors.

The next-gen Intel "Lunar Lake" processors won't be a high-end gaming CPU architecture but instead will lean towards new low-power devices. The new Lunar Lake CPUs will most likely be released either alongside, or after Intel's new Arrow Lake CPUs, which will be the replacement for Meteor Lake and Raptor Lake CPUs from the company.

We've got some more news on the next-gen Lunar Lake CPUs courtesy of them being spotted on the SiSoftware Sandra database, where the work-in-progress CPUs are referred to as "Intel 0000", while the platform name is Lunar Lake (LNL-M LPP RVP1). This identifies it as a Lunar Lake CPU that supports LPDDR5 memory.

We all know there are countless DDR5 memory options out in the wild now, with v-color teasing its new DDR5 memory kit for some truly extreme performance. The new unparalleled DDR5 memory specification is designed to push the boundaries of what's possible with low-latency performance, with v-color's new DDR5-5600 and DDR5-5800 memory kits.

The new v-color ultra-low latency kits come in 32GB and 64GB kits (32GB = 2 x 16GB and 64GB = 2 x 32GB sticks) with latencies of CL26, which will usher in super-fast performance for gamers and enthusiasts alike. The new v-color Ultra-Low-Latency XSky series DDR5 memory kits are operating at 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 5600MHz CL26-36-36-76 1.4V, 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 5800MHz CL26-36-36-76 1.4V and 64GB (2x32GB) DDR5 5600MHz CL26-36-36-76 1.4V.

The company explains that its dedication to technological innovation is evident in the new Ultra-Low-Latency XSky series DDR5 memory kits, with its CL26 latency, setting new benchmarks in the DDR5 memory performance landscape. V-Color's new DDR5-5600 CL26 and DDR5-5800 CL26 memory kist showcase their performance in action by working seamlessly with Intel's Core desktop CPU family, and Intel's range of chipsets across a family of motherboards.

Intel is poised to launch its new 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" family of processors on October 14, and with it is going to be a huge new wave of 700-series motherboards, with the new flagship Z790 motherboards getting an upgrade across the board (pun not intended) from the likes of motherboard makers including ASUS.

ASUS has already had its new ROG Maximus Z790 Formula motherboard teased with its sleek black-and-white design, but now we're seeing more Z790 motherboards leaked from the Taiwanese gaming giant. ASUS has provided some teaser photos of its new wave of Z790 motherboards, including the upcoming ROG Strix Z790 Wi-Fi II and Z790-F Wi-Fi II motherboards to join the leaks on the ROG Maximus Z790 Formula and ROG Apex Z790 Encore motherboards.

Once ASUS has released all of its new Z790 motherboards, the company will have a grand total of 27 different motherboards available in a variety of shapes, sizes, and designs. This includes Mini-ITX, regular ATX, the bigger E-ATX form factors as well as black-and-white aesthetic choices, RGB lighting, water-cooling goodness, and oh-so-much more.

Last month, Sony raised the prices of its three-tier PlayStation Plus subscription. Now we know why. Well...sort of.

Sony has announced a new value-oriented offering to help justify its controversial PlayStation Plus price hike. In September, Sony Interactive Entertainment drastically increased the cost of PS Plus Essential, Extra, and Premium by 33% across the board. Consumers were confused because there wasn't any extra content or bonuses to complement the price jump.

Now Sony has announced some extras that help balance out the hike. All PlayStation Plus Premium (known as Deluxe in other countries) subscribers will now get access to up to 100 ad-free movies from the new Sony Pictures Core storefront. Sony Pictures Core will replace the existing Bravia Core service and deliver access to over 2,000 movies to rent or buy directly from PlayStation consoles.

Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a live action adaptation with some of TV's most seasoned producers attached to the project.

CD Projekt today announced a ton of info about its latest sci-fi franchise, confirming sales figures, budgets and costs, and new transmedia initiatives like a live action Cyberpunk 2077 adaptation is currently in the works.

The games-maker has teamed up with Anonymous Content, the producer of hits like True Detective, Mr. Robot, and Revenant starring Leonardo DiCaprio, for the new project. Management says the live action adaptation may not follow the games and instead "tell a brand-new story set in the world of Cyberpunk 2077."