Latest News - Page 890

NVIDIA's RTX 4070 graphics card sales are flagging more than expected, if a new report is to be believed.

IT Home, a regular source of leaks from China - but one that must be treated with some caution in our books - claims it has heard that NVIDIA is extending the pause on the manufacturing of RTX 4070 chips for longer than originally intended.

That original plan had been to take a break from shipping RTX 4070 GPUs to Chinese graphics card makers for one month, to let unexpectedly sluggish levels of sales catch up with the existing stock out there (and the graphics cards coming through already in the pipeline).

SEGA and Capcom are among the last video game publishers not to increase the price of their games to $70, but how long will they hold out?

We've discovered that the new $70 price tag for AAA games seems to be affecting overall game sales, especially on the PlayStation platform. Sony recorded fewer games sold but higher revenues during its FY22 yearly period, which indicates that gamers are buying less games but spending more money on the titles they do buy. Our consumer survey also indicates that most people feel $70 is too much to pay for a new game and that the price increase has affected purchasing decisions in an unsure macro-economic environment.

The question remains: Do publishers set a $70 price for games and accept potentially lower sales for the possibility of higher revenues? Some game-makers like Capcom have indicated they won't raise the price of their games to $70 in an effort to eventually sell 100 million copies a year. So what about SEGA--will they follow the industry and move to $70 games?

Microsoft has finally got round to fixing a bug that broke Spotify integration with its Focus Sessions feature on Windows 11.

That feature is something Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer, and VP Microsoft Devices, tweeted very enthusiastically about back in 2021.

Indeed, Panay called Focus Sessions (fired up via the Windows Clock app) a "game-changer," with Spotify integration being part of what made it so great.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was "very surprised" when the CMA chose to block the Microsoft-Activision merger, and delivers a cryptic response as to whether or not Microsoft will sell ABK games in the UK on a post-merger basis.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella shares interesting comments on the Microsoft-Activision merger.

The CMA has blocked the merger on grounds of anti-competitive effects in the cloud gaming segment--so what happens if Britain's Competition Appeals Tribunal chooses not to overturn the CMA's decision, and the merger remains blocked in the UK? Will Microsoft choose not to sell Activision Blizzard King products and games in the UK? Nadella gives a neutral response:

NVIDIA's RTX 3060 Ti is about to exit stage left, with Team Green planning to cease production of the GPU imminently - the GA104 chip, specifically - if chatter from the grapevine is correct.

Benchlife brings the news that NVIDIA no longer supplies GeForce RTX 3060 Ti chips to its graphics card manufacturing partners (with the Chinese tech site hearing about this directly from those Add-in board makers).

As you likely realize, time is being called on production due to the incoming RTX 4060 and 4060 Ti models (the latter will supposedly come in 8GB and 16GB variants).

Solidigm's latest flash memory storage solution for mainstream and read-intensive workloads is the Solidigm D5-P5430 QLC SSD. Designed and optimized for read-intensive apps - your virtual desktop infrastructures and communications - the PCIe Gen4 QLC SSD offers substantial storage density while delivering read performance perfect for mainstream workloads.

Solidigm describes these workloads as typically 80% reads, with massive amounts of data at high throughput, covering everything from content delivery to video-on-demand, object storage, decision support systems, and email.

The new Solidigm D5-P5430 QLC SSD are also designed as drop-in replacements for existing compatible leading TLC NAND-based PCIe SSDs, offering an increase in storage density, 18% lower energy costs, and up to 14% more lifetime writes - some impressive stats to be sure, which all help to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

KIOXIA has launched a new line of data center NVMe SSDs, the first EDSFF drives (Enterprise and Datacenter Standard Form Factor), using PCIe Gen5 technology for improved speed and performance. The new KIOXIA CD7 E3.S SSDs are shipping on select Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Systems.

The new CD7 SSDs present cutting-edge flash storage optimized for server and rack configuration and power efficiency.

The EDSFF E3.S NVMe SSDs are the next evolution of the standard 2.5-inch form factor, providing more densely layered deployment (1.5 to 2X) in the same rack unit compared to more conventional 2.5-inch drives. KIOXIA notes that the smaller size also improves the cooling and thermal characteristics of the storage setup.

AMD's RDNA 3 flagship GPU can match its Lovelace rival, the RTX 4090, just about, as a new experiment with the Radeon RX 7900 XTX proved - but there are some weighty caveats here.

PC Gamer spotted that an intrepid 7900 XTX owner conducted a test inspired by the question: "What could the 7900 XTX do if AMD didn't handicap it with highly restrictive power limits?"

That person, Jedi95, then detailed the results of juicing up their ASUS TUF Radeon RX 7900 XTX to the max on Reddit, and it makes for very interesting reading.

World of Warcraft Classic is getting a hardcore server, meaning that when you play, if your character dies, that's it - they are permanently dead.

While there are already mods out there to let you experience this take on WoW, official support is a different kettle of fish.

However, the reveal wasn't such a big surprise seeing as the existence of a hardcore mode had previously been leaked (see the above tweet).

Steam has kicked off a new idea for game trials, starting with the Dead Space remake from EA.

This allows would-be purchasers to jump into the game and play for 90 minutes, no strings attached.

There are no restrictions on how far you can go in the game and the content you can see, just that time limit of an hour and a half. (Cue some speed-running antics).

With ASUS being one the leading suppliers of AM5 motherboards, the recent Ryzen 7000 CPU burnout issue brought the question of warranty to the fore regarding what's covered in terms of beta BIOS updates, AMD EXPO, and Intel XMP overclocking profiles. For the Ryzen issue, a string of BIOS updates and new specifications from AMD has aimed to resolve the issue of potentially catastrophic failure by limiting SoC voltage and improving thermal protection for CPUs.

ASUS, specifically, has been called out by prominent tech-oriented YouTube channels like Gamers Nexus for its handling of the issue highlighting the frantic updating of BIOS revisions, bugs, and Ryzen 7000 SoC voltages remaining at potentially unsafe levels.

There was also the question of whether something as simple and straightforward as enabling an AMD EXPO memory overclocking profile voids a motherboard's warranty - something that also applies to Intel XMP overclocking. Today's statement from ASUS is welcome news; you can read it in full below.

Patriot Group is teasing an upcoming reveal for a new super-fast PCIe Gen5 SSD it plans to showcase at Computex, the Patriot Viper PV553. Based on the specs seen so far, it could end up being one of the fastest PCIe Gen5 x4 M.2 SSDs on the market, with a sequential read speed of 12.4GB/s and a sequential write speed of 11.8GB/s.

Computex 2023 kicks off in a few weeks and will see tech companies from across the globe get together to showcase new products, announce partnerships, and lift the lid on a few surprises. The Patriot Viper PV553 will be on hand at the California-based company's booth alongside new memory kits with Viper Xtreme 5 DDR5 extreme performance and mainstream performance memory.

Outside of the reported speed, there's not a lot of other information currently available for the new Patriot Viper PV553 SSDs. We don't have info on what controller or NAND technology will be used.

The new ASUS ROG Ally might be positioned as a more powerful competitor to Valve's Steam Deck, but being a native Windows 11 device does mean that it features native support for the Xbox app.

A Game Pass subscription immediately offers owners access to a huge library of games, including first-party titles from Xbox Game Studios like Forza Horizon 5 and Sea of Thieves, and popular third-party and indies to boot.

From Microsoft's perspective, looking at the ROG Ally as a portable PC gaming handheld makes it as close to being a console as it is a desktop gaming rig. And with that, Roanne Soanes, Microsoft's Head of Xbox Software, brought up a specific Xbox console feature that could be making its way to Windows - Quick Resume.

A leaked roadmap from Giga Computing, GIGABYTE's server and enterprise division, outlines what the next generation of data center technology from Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA will look like regarding power-draw. And when it comes to cooling data center hardware like CPUs and GPUs, it's looking like that could become a serious problem by 2025.

The slide shows a substantial increase in CPU power consumption from Intel and AMD, with 500W and 600W CPUs due sometime in 2024-2025. Compared to 2022 general-purpose CPU hardware, this is essentially a 2X increase.

PCIe-based GPUs will also see a power consumption increase, with GPUs from NVIDIA set to hit 500W with GPUs from AMD set to hit 400W. Things get a little crazier when it comes to different sets of hardware, with the slide mentioning NVIDIA Grace CPU Superchip and Grace Hopper Superchips that could feature SKUs with power consumption going all the way up to 1000W.

European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager comments on the Microsoft-Activision merger approval, says the remedies that Microsoft offered were able to solve a problem in a pro-competitive way.

Today the European Commission (EC) announced that it had cleared and approved the $68.7 billion Microsoft-Activision merger under specific conditions. Microsoft's proposed 10-year remedy, or promised adjustment that aims to satisfy concerns of anti-competitive effects from the merger, was enough for the EC. Microsoft has committed to making all existing and future Activision-Blizzard games available on "any cloud streaming service, on any device," including multi-game subscriptions.

In a recent interview with CNBC, the Commission's EVP Margrethe Vestager had some interesting things to say about the merger and the games market:

A new leak about AMD Ryzen 8000 (Granite Ridge) processors fills in a good deal more info about the next-gen chips (bring your own salt), but it may disappoint because it puts forward a later timeframe for arrival than previously expected.

Let's get that nugget out of the way upfront, with a new report from Hilbert Hagedoorn at Guru3D claiming that the Zen 5 release date will be the second half of 2024.

Previously, we'd heard chatter from the rumor mill - courtesy of YouTube leaker Moore's Law is Dead - that Zen 5 desktop chips might be out in the first half of next year, and quite possibly Q1 2024.

The European Commission has officially approved the Microsoft-Activision merger under specific conditions, and now the CMA weighs in with their own response.

The Microsoft-Activision merger has been cleared in as many as 10 jurisdictions, and today's greenlight from the European Commission carries significant weight. Not all regulators agree that the merger is pro-competition, with the FTC in the U.S. and Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the UK choosing to block the merger.

The differences between the European Commission and CMA are particularly interesting given the UK was once part of the EU, and now the CMA has also issued its own statement on the European Commission's merger approval. The CMA essentially believes the approval will allow Microsoft to control a key part of the cloud segment's growth via the sheer power of Activision-Blizzard titles.

The European Commission has approved the Microsoft-Activision merger under specific conditions, and the agreement seems like great news for gamers and cloud gaming providers.

In order to get the Activision merger cleared in Europe, Microsoft has made substantial wide-sweeping promises that could help catalyze the un-profitable cloud gaming segment. Microsoft has made commitments to bring all current and future Activision-Blizzard games that are available on PC and consoles to cloud game streaming services if the merger closes.

This essentially means that every Activision-Blizzard game sold on consoles and PC will also be streamable via cloud gaming services like NVIDIA GeForce, Boosteroid, and of course Xbox Game Pass Ultimate's xCloud platform.

NVIDIA's RTX 4080 graphics card is falling fast in price over in Asia, giving us hope that it'll drop by similarly hefty percentages compared to the MSRP in the US.

As Wccftech points out (via VideoCardz), the Manli Gallardo model of the RTX 4080 can now be had for 7399 RMB in China, representing a 22% drop from the suggested retail price of 9499 RMB.

The same level of price drop in the US would mean you could get an RTX 4080 for $1,060, which, as Wccftech observes, is about $50 cheaper than the lowest price tag seen so far.

The European Commission has approved the Microsoft-Activision merger.

Today regulators at the European Commission have decided to clear and approve the Microsoft-Activision merger, with the EC saying that the deal "represents a significant improvement for cloud gaminga s compared to the current situation."

Regulators require Microsoft to uphold its specific 10-year remedies, which offer a free license to all consumers in the European Economic Area to stream all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games across any cloud game streaming service of their choice.