TweakTown News - Page 1

The CrowStrike Windows outage will go down in history as one of the biggest ever seen, as millions of PCs tied to industries like travel, healthcare, and government services experienced the dreaded Blue Screen of Death or BSOD last week.

Still fresh in everyone's minds, Jak and Kosta spend a big chunk of this week's episode of The TT Show talking about the CrowdStrike Windows outage, what caused it, and how the simple fix of manually booting into Windows Recovery turned out to be a massive undertaking when you're looking at millions of computers and a finite number of tech support specialists.

In this week's massive episode, it's not all CrowdStrike. Jak and Kosta also discuss Intel's ongoing CPU troubles and the controversy surrounding the flagship Core i9 13th and 14th Gen desktop processors. Intel has released an official statement, but is it enough?

This week on the TT Show, Jak and Kosta discuss the ongoing saga with Intel's 13th and 14th Gen CPUs, specifically the flagship 13900K and 14900K models that have been plagued with instability issues for several months. Over the past week, things have fired up with reports of game developers switching servers over to AMD and data showing that these Intel CPUs are failing at an alarming rate.

Speaking of AMD, the company announced its new game-specific tech that can reduce install sizes by up to 70% - and yeah, Jak and Kosta cannot wait for this to become available. For reference, that would bring Call of Duty's install size down from 150 GB to under 50 GB.

In the world of AI, it's come to light that companies like Apple and NVIDIA have been using YouTube videos from popular channels and creators for AI training, which goes against Google's terms of service. Also, Microsoft has confirmed that it has created an AI voice generator that sounds indistinguishable from the real thing - and for that reason, it won't be released.

This week on The TT Show, Jak and Kosta discuss the week in tech, science, and gaming. They start with a new report outlining that almost half of all internet traffic comes from bots - and most are malicious. Also, a friendly PSA to always be on top of your passwords, especially in light of last week's password leak - the biggest in hacking history.

In the hardware world, it's been a busy week of teases, leaks, and rumors as Kosta goes through everything we know about next-gen Radeon and RDNA, from performance to release timing to how it could shake up the GPU market. Then there's Palit teasing a new flagship GPU design for later in the year, which has to be the GeForce RTX 5090.

We've also got some early benchmark results for this month's launch of Zen 5 and AMD's new Ryzen 9000 Series of CPUs. In the world of Microsoft, Jak and Kosta discuss the elusive bloatware-free Windows 11 'Government Edition,' the rocky Copilot+ PC, and a promising new patent from the company.

This week on the TT Show, Jak and Kosta go through a range of tech, gaming, science, and AI-related stories - including an AI chatbot 'Skeleton Key,' that lets users bypass any security checks and measures in place. Plus, Nintendo's stance on the generative AI boom equates to "our games are way better than anything AI could come up with, so no thanks."

On the GPU front, the duo discusses Micron's comments on next-gen GDDR7 memory that will be used in the GeForce RTX 50 Series and how the speed increase alone will lead to a 30% increase in gaming performance. Very cool.

Also, this past week saw the arrival of AMD's FSR 3.1 in several first-party PlayStation Studios games on PC. The latest version of AMD's DLSS competitor is a little hit-and-miss. There are a lot of game-related stories, too, including Ubisoft's plan to remake classic games in the Assassin's Creed franchise, Valve's impressive new Steam Game Recording Feature, and the original Splinter Cell getting the RTX Remix treatment. Kosta weirdly sides with Ubisoft, while Jak doesn't. It gets heated, so be sure to tune in.

This week on The TT Show, after the tech explosion of Computex 2024 and the new game explosion of Summer Game Fest, the latest news from the world of tech, gaming, and science returns to its regular broadcasting.

Jak and Kosta open the episode by discussing the notoriously litigious record industry's new lawsuit against AI music generators and what this could mean for generative AI and media going forward. They also discuss the future of VR gaming as Sony seemingly pulls the plug on PlayStation VR 2. Is VR destined to remain a niche corner of the gaming industry?

Then there's the return of overclocker Vince 'Kingpin' Lucido and a new partnership with PNY that will see the return of high-end flagship GeForce 'Kingpin Edition' graphics cards. In the aftermath of EVGA's exit from the GPU business, this is great news for enthusiasts looking to pick up the best GeForce RTX 5090 when it launches later this year. Or early 2025, or whenever.

After the explosion of new tech from Computex 2024 last week, Jak and Kosta take a quick hardware break to review some of the most exciting game announcements from the recent summer showcase events. From the fantastic and totally metal DOOM: The Dark Ages to the surprise gameplay reveal for Metroid Prime 4 and the Unreal Engine 5 brilliance of the new Gears of War prequel.

The duo also discusses the recent news that NVIDIA has become more valuable than Microsoft and Apple. Although this is the direct result of the current AI gold rush and boom - it also translates to PC gaming. According to the latest Steam data and GPU shipment information, GeForce RTX is currently experiencing a monopoly-like grip on the PC gaming market.

In AI, Jak and Kosta look at the Copilot+ PC launch, which is missing Microsoft's controversial screenshotting 'Recall' feature (probably for the best). With Apple Intelligence, Apple's big AI push is finally given the spotlight, and the company will be leaving behind hundreds of millions of customers.

Computex 2024 took place in Taipei last week, and once again, it was the place to be for all things tech and PC gaming hardware - with the added spin of 'everything AI.' Jak and Kosta were there for the entire week catching up with all the latest from AMD, NVIDIA, ASUS, MSI, Zotac, ASRock, Ducky, Aero Cool, Thermal Grizzly, Phison, Phanteks, and more.

For this week's jam-packed Computex 2024 wrap-up, the duo reviews all 15 TweakTown's Best Tech of Computex 2024 winners, covering everything from impressive new cases to high-end GPUs, Copilot+ PCs, OLED displays, memory tech demos, and even some impressive AI demonstrations from NVIDIA.

Jak and Kosta also discuss all of the big AMD announcements from the show, including the new Zen 5 power Ryzen 9000 Series desktop CPUs and the impressive Ryzen AI 300 Series for laptops, which feature the most powerful NPUs to date for Microsoft's new Copilot+ PC line-up.

Recorded just before they headed off to Taipei for the tech oasis that is Computex 2024, this week's episode of the TT Show sees Jak and Kosta discuss the latest news in gaming, tech, and science. Kicking off with Jak's impressions of Hellblade 2 (which he calls the best-looking game he's ever seen), the duo digs into Valve's next game - Deadlock.

Although it hasn't been officially announced, the next major release from the company behind Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, and Steam is significant news - even in leaked screenshot form. The game is described as a mix between the hero shooting of Overwatch and the MOBA lane-based gameplay of DOTA 2.

In the world of GPUs, AMD Anti-Lag 2 sees Team Red's latency reduction tech finally return after it was controversially disabled last year. This time, the tech requires game-specific integration, debuting in Counter-Strike 2 in Technical Preview form. In other Radeon news, FSR 3 Frame Generation makes its PS5 and Xbox Series X, bringing triple-digit performance to consoles.

This week on the TT Show, Jak and Kosta examine Microsoft's new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop devices running on the Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite chipset and the beginning of the Copilot+ AI PC era. Hardware-wise, it all sounds impressive, with Windows on Arm coming along nicely, but the Copilot+ AI side is a different story.

Microsoft's latest AI tool for Windows users is called Recall. It apparently takes screenshots and snapshots of your PC at regular intervals to build up a searchable database of everything you've seen or done. It sounds like the most invasive piece of software ever created, and Jak and Kosta discuss how it might work and whether there's even a use case for such a feature.

This week, the duo also discuss NVIDIA getting in on the Arm-based CPU business and pairing it with GeForce hardware for a potential gaming handheld to rival the ROG Ally and Steam Deck.

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.