This week on the TT Show, Lord of the Rings superfan (and also superfan) Jak and Kosta discuss Peter Jackson returning to The Lord of the Rings franchise with the new movie 'The Hunt for Gollum.' They discuss the potential story, timeline, and their hopes for a return to the magic of the original trilogy. And not, you know, The Hobbit.

Another big story this week is Apple's apologizing for its seemingly tone-deaf iPad Pro advertisement that quickly caused a massive wave of negative backlash. Is it as bad as some of the comments? As a fan of retro hardware who doesn't like seeing it get destroyed, Kosta thinks so, while Jak is more on the fence and 'meh.'

And it wouldn't be an episode of The TT Show without GPU news, with all of the latest GeForce RTX 50 Series, Radeon, and Intel graphics talk bundled into a new section of the podcast called 'GPU Corner.' Speaking of new sections, Jak and Kosta play a round of Guess the Headline for some fun.

Ninja Theory and Xbox Game Studios just released the sequel to the critically acclaimed Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, with Senua's Saga: Hellblade II now available on PC and Xbox consoles.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II was a highly anticipated release from Ninja Theory, as the game was in development for nearly five years and any trailer or screenshots showcasing the title left fans in awe at the phenomenal graphics - particularly the motion capture. But, with intense graphics there is a cost to performance, or framerate, and that is now being reported by players on the Xbox Series X|S.

According to an analysis by ElAnalistaDeBits, Hellblade II runs at a dynamic 2560x1070p with an average res of around 2304x963p on Xbox Series X and a dynamic 1920x803p with an average of 1472x615p on Xbox Series S. If you are wondering why the resolutions aren't familiar it's because Ninja Theory chose to run the game in a cinematic aspect ratio of 2.39:1, which means black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

A new report from Bloomberg has revealed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's leading semiconductor manufacturer, is prepared for China if the nation decides to take Taiwan by force.

In the event of Chinese military going boots on the ground in Taiwan, TSMC and Dutch company ASML, who makes the machines TSMC uses, have reminded their respective governments of their preparedness, as Bloomberg has learned from people "familiar with the matter" that both companies have built hardware-level kill switches into their machines that can be remotely activated.

The report states US officials approached ASML with concerns about a Chinese invasion, which ASML assured the officials that it's extremely valuable machines can be remotely disabled if required. Furthermore, the Dutch company is already running simulations of such an event to learn more about how a real-world scenario would play out if it ever occurred.

Elden Ring players will be glad to know that some new details have been revealed about the villain they will be facing in the upcoming DLC expansion titled "Shadow of the Erdtree".

The long-awaited expansion of the critically acclaimed FromSoftware title Elden Ring has just received a new story trailer that reveals some new details about the villain, Messmer the Impaler. Reports indicate the new villain is a powerful demigod that is linked to the characters from the original Elden Ring story. As for the story trailer, there are hints at what sent the demigod Miquella to the new land that she sacrificed himself for.

Additionally, the trailer ends with followers of Miquella joining forces and requesting new warriors fight for their cause to be rid of Messmer and his burning legions. Notably, the new story trailer may appear confusing to the casual Elden Ring player who didn't really pay much attention to the lore of the game and was just there for the extremely tight and rewarding gameplay, but for self-proclaimed Elden Ring scholars, the new story trailer is certainly a rich piece of information to obtain just a few months before the DLC releases.

GIGABYTE is preparing a huge wave of next-gen Z890 motherboards ready for Intel's next-gen Core Ultra 200 series "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors... most of them with AI, of course.

In a new leak from Persian news outlet Faceit.ir who sourced their data from a local GIGABYTE distributor, multiple new Z890 motherboards are in the works using the new LGA 1851 socket and ready for Intel's next-gen Arrow Lake CPUs. We should expect Intel to detail its new processors at Computex 2024 in just a couple of weeks time, as well as GIGABYTE (and other motherboard makers) unveiling new 800-series motherboards.

GIGABYTE has at least 8 new motherboards based on the Z890 chipset alone, with the new flagship GIGABYTE Z890 AORUS EXTREME AI TOP motherboard, as well as the new Z890 AORUS MASTER AI TOP motherboard, while the third board is the Z890 AI TOP. Notice a trend? AI, AI, AI, baby.

Qualcomm has announced that in collaboration with Microsoft, the new Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows, a compact form-factor PC powered by the flagship Snapdragon X Elite, specifically designed for developers creating or optimizing apps and experiences for the next-generation of AI PCs under the new Copilot+ PC ecosystem.

Inside, the new Snapdragon Dev Kit features Qualcomm's new flagship Snapdragon X Elite processor, running at a TDP of up to 80W. There's also 32GB of LPDDR5X memory (not upgradeable), and 512GB of SSD storage. There are 3 x USB4 ports with Type-C, 2 x USB 3.2 ports with Type-A, a single Ethernet jack, 3.5mm headphone and HDMI.

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon Dev Kit is priced at $899.99, but remember that these aren't for everyone... they're for developers who reach out to Qualcomm to get their hands on a Snapdragon Dev Kit.

AMD's new EPYC 4004 processors are launching, using the AM5 socket aimed at Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMB) and hosting businesses.

The new AMD EPYC 4004 processor will feature up to 16 cores and 32 threads of Zen 4 processing power, made for single-socket operation with a boost clock of up to 5.7GHz. The new EPYC 4004 processor supports DDR5-5200 memory with ECC support, with a maximum capacity of up to 192GB of DDR5 memory. The I/O dies contain PCIe Gen5 and DDR5 controllers, with a built-in RDNA 2-based GPU.

These new processors are using the 40x40 LGA-1718 socket, otherwise known as the AM5 socket, with AMD confirming that the new EPYC 4004 processors even support AM4 cooling solutions, which will be a huge cost-saving factor for SMB customers. The new AMD EPYC 4004 processors have the same TDP range as the regular gaming-focused Ryzen CPUs: between 65W and 170W.

Microsoft will soon have AI upscaling technology available at the operating system level with Automatic Super Resolution (Auto SR) technology... which will debut with new Copilot+ PC laptops powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite processor.

Microsoft has officially announced that Automatic Super Resolution technology will be integrated into Windows, and will "automatically enhance the framerate of games in real-time". The only issue here is that it won't work on regular gaming systems, rather it's exclusive to Copilot+ PCs running Qualcomm's new Snapdragon Elite X processor... for now.

There's no support for x86 CPUs or even the Snapdragon X Plus processor, only the Snapdragon X Elite. There's also another limitation in that there are only particular games that will work with AutoSR + Snapdragon X Elite, something Microsoft calls a "curated set" of games.

Just as the PC market is pushing heavily into DDR5 memory, we're hearing more about both DDR6 and LPDDR6 memory.

In a new JEDEC presentation, we're hearing about DDR6, LPDDR6, and new CAMM standards for memory. LPDDR5 for example is already 5 years old, and while we've seen mid-product update refreshes including LPDDR5X and LPDDR5T, they won't be good enough for the years to come.

DDR6 memory will reportedly start off at 8800MT/s of bandwidth, up to a huge 17,600MT/s of bandwidth with a "possible extension" to an incredible 21,000MT/s of bandwidth. Keep in mind that DDR5 ranges from between 4000MT/s and 8400MT/s, while DDR4 was stuck down at 1600MT/s through to 3200MT/s.

HP has just announced its killing off its Spectre, Envy, and Pavilion brands with the start of its new Copilot+ PCs launching today, introducing the new OmniBook X and EliteBook Ultra G1q laptops.

The new 14-inch HP OmniBook X is available for pre-order right now starting from $1199, packing the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor, with an on-board NPU (Neural Processing Unit) for AI workloads, with up to 45 TOPS of AI performance.

There's up to 32GB of LPDDR5X-8448 memory, up to 2TB of Gen4 SSD storage, while the 14-inch 2.2K display features a 2240 x 1440 resolution, with an IPS panel and up to 300 nits of brightness. HP is claiming its new OmniBook X Copilot+ laptop features a "record-breaking 26 hours of battery life".

Grand Theft Auto V has now sold-in more than 200 million copies worldwide, Take-Two Interactive has announced.

Over a decade later, GTA V is still selling incredibly well on all platforms. The game has now shipped 200 million copies worldwide as of March 2024, up 5 million units since the previous quarter. This is quite the eponymous trend for GTA V: The game has shipped 5 million copies in 11 of the last 16 quarters.

Total Grand Theft Auto franchise sales are now at 425 million, and GTA V makes up nearly half of those sales, or about 47%.