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.

Microsoft recently unveiled a suite of new PCs integrated with its new artificial intelligence, Copilot+. The first batch of new PCs are coming in the form of AI laptops, and the ones available are powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite SoC. It's expected Intel and AMD will release their own versions later this year.

The X Elite was recently put up against Apple's MacBook Air M3 by benchmarking and analysis company Signal64. Ryan Shrout, a former Intel employee and President & GM of Signal65 headed the report, which was commissioned by Microsoft. A common move by companies that want to legitimize the claims they are making about their products.

The report found the X Elite outperformed Apple's M3 silicon in a variety of different tests, with the X Elite-powered Surface Laptop surviving over 21 hours in a local video playback test, which is 15% longer than a MacBook Air M3 and twice as long as the Surface Pro 9. Notably, the X Elite did lose to the M3 silicon in single-core performance in both Cinebench and Geekbench by approximately 15%. However, in multi-core performance, the X Elite was found to be more than 30% faster than Apple's M3.

OpenAI hasn't revealed when it will be releasing its next-generation AI model under its GPT branding, but when it does it will make all the company's previous generation look inferior.

The artificial intelligence development company has been at the forefront of the AI industry since the release of its intensely popular AI-powered tool, ChatGPT. Since then, OpenAI has released various other AI-powered products, with the latest being GPT-4o, a new AI model that is significantly better at coding than its predecessors, and is capable of reasoning across audio, vision, and text in real-time. While GPT-4o is certainly impressive, it's apparently nothing compared to GPT-5.

In a recent interview, the Director and GM of Redpoint, Logan Bartlett, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman touched on future AI developments, saying an advanced AI base model could be like a "virtual brain" and may exhibit "deeper 'thinking' capabilities". As for GPT-5, Altman has previously said OpenAI's next model will make GPT-4 look "mild embarrassing at best" as it's significantly more powerful, capable, and intelligent.

A gaming industry insider who has previously been correct about the Kingdom Hearts series coming to Steam has said the next installment in the series might be coming to Nintendo's next console.

The insider is Midori, who took to X, formerly Twitter, to share some details about a tip they received back in February. According to Midori, they received a message in February that informed them about Missing Link, Kingdom Hearts 4, and the Kingdom Hearts series coming to Steam. Midori said they didn't believe the information from the source at the time, but the news was confirmed on May 21 via the official Kingdom Hearts X account that announced the series will arrive on Steam on June 13.

Midori revealed further details about what the source told them, writing the Steam ports have been in development since last summer. As for Kingdom Hearts 4, the source said it has some "small online features" and that it "looks very different from the first trailer".

On average NVIDIA has released new GPU architecture every two years, but due to the overwhelming demand for new chips to power AI models the company is accelerating its manufacturing schedule and therefore the time between generations.

NVIDIA recently reported its first-quarter earnings where the company revealed it made an astounding $14 billion in profit from its dedicated AI chips, which have been in extremely high demand since the AI boom. Companies such as Meta, Amazon, Google, and OpenAI want NVIDIA's advanced GPUs to train and power their new artificial intelligence models. NVIDIA plans on meeting this overwhelming demand by increasing the frequency it releases new GPU architecture generations.

Notably, NVIDIA released new architecture approximately every two years, with Ampere releasing in 2020, Hopper in 2022, and Blackwell in 2024 (rumored to release at end of the year). But NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang announced, "after Blackwell, there's another chip. We're on a one-year rhythm." Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported earlier in the month that NVIDIA was planning on releasing its next-generation GPU architecture codenamed "Rubin" in 2025, which would likely produce an R100 AI GPU that will be released sometime next year.

NVIDIA, the world's leading GPU manufacturer, has just wrapped up its first-quarter earnings report, announcing it has completely exceeded sale expectations, pushing the company's stock above the $1,000 per-share mark.

The new financial report unveiled a remarkable achievement for NVIDIA. The company's revenue for the first three months, which concluded in April, soared to an impressive $26 billion, surpassing the $24 billion expectation set in February. This is the third consecutive quarter where NVIDIA has tripled its sales from a year earlier, a testament to the company's meteoric rise.

The surge is largely attributed to the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence-powered systems by tech giants like Google, Meta, Amazon, OpenAI, and more, further solidifying NVIDIA's position as a key player in this domain.

Microsoft recently announced its Copilot+ artificial intelligence-powered tool that will be arriving on a range of new AI-powered laptops, and one the features of the new AI implementation is a Windows 11 feature called Recall.

The new Windows feature gives the PC a "photographic memory," which enables the user to travel back to a specific time on the PC. Turning on Recall will let a user retrieve their past activities on their PC, but for this feature to work, the user has to opt into Windows, taking a screenshot of their desktop every few minutes.

With these screenshots, or as Microsoft calls them, snapshots, users will be able to access the specific points in time, which Copilot+ will provide additional context on in the form of identifying objects within the screenshot, providing additional information, and more. Essentially, the tool is web browsing history, but for your whole PC. Notably, Microsoft states all of the screenshots the AI takes will be stored locally on the PC and won't be accessed by the company. Furthermore, users are free to delete any of the screenshots.

GALAX recently launched a single-slot GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB GPU that turned a few heads because it was so small and compact for a modern GPU in 2024. Now, the hardware maker and NVIDIA partner are back with a pair of 'Classic' branded compact GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER and RTX 4070 Ti SUPER graphics cards.

Like the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB, these GPUs feature a minimal, almost data center-like all-black design with a single blower fan - a throwback to the GPUs of yesteryear. This is probably why they are being called 'Classic' GPUs.

The dual-slot design makes these stand out, with both variants including the same cooling and physical design. Unlike other blower-fan designs, including GALAX's recent RTX 4060 Ti 16GB model, the heatsink looks to be partially exposed - so it's not a fully enclosed design with all air being pushed through the outtake vents on the rear.

If you've got an ASUS ROG Ally gaming handheld, you might want to check out the new Sabrent USB Type-C 3-Port Gaming Hub, which expands the device's on-the-go capabilities for just $16.99 USD.

It connects to the ROG XG Mobile Interface and USB Type-C combo port on the top of the handheld, giving you immediate USB expansion options with up to 100W USB-C upstream power delivery.

The Sabrent USB Type-C 3-Port Gaming Hub connects to the ROG Ally and includes two USB-A ports for connecting additional portable storage to the handheld or an extra device like a keyboard or mouse. In fact, as a powerful Windows 11 gaming handheld, you can connect a USB controller to play with the ROG Ally on a desk or table - like the Switch with detached JoyCons.

CD Projekt RED has launched the REDkit for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on PC, free for all owners of the game. The editor and toolset allow modders and players to create, edit, and modify various aspects of the game. From control over models and environments, there are even detailed cinematic tools and the ability to create brand-new questlines.

The Witcher 3 has a vibrant modding community on Nexus Mods, but this new update takes everything to the next level. It also adds Steam Workshop support so players can download and enable mods from the popular platform. Check out the tutorial video embedded below for a guide on installing The Witcher 3 mods via the Steam Workshop.

Having a complete game editor in the REDkit brings The Witcher 3 closer to Bethesda's iconic Skyrim in terms of what's possible. Skyrim's popularity has endured for over a decade, and the arrival of the RED Kit for The Witcher 3 could lead to a similar situation.

Valve, the creators of the iconic Half-Life, Portal, DOTA 2, and Team Fortress 2, release games so infrequently that if there's even a rumor on what it might be cooking up next - consider that major PC gaming news. Over the last few days, we've seen the PC gaming community come alive thanks to screenshots and information leaking for Valve's next big game - an Overwatch-style third-person shooter called Deadlock.

The game hasn't been officially announced, and Valve hasn't responded to the leaks or requests from outlets to confirm if the information is accurate. According to multiple sources, the 6v6 'hero shooter' is currently in the Closed Beta phase, so what we're seeing comes from an early version of the game and from players who are most likely breaking their NDA agreement with Valve.

Today, we've got our first look at the game in action, with a short clip showcasing Deadlock gameplay.