AMD FSR 3 Is Coming To The Thaumaturge—a Gripping and Dark RPG. The Thaumaturge is a story-driven RPG with morally ambiguous choices, taking place in the culturally diverse world of early 20th century Warsaw. In this world, Salutors exist: esoteric beings that only Thaumaturges can truly perceive and use for their needs. The Thaumaturge launches February 20th, with AMD FSR 3. Watch the brand new story trailer below.

When it launches later this month, The Thaumaturge will feature AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 3. FSR 3 transforms gaming experiences with massive and responsive framerates in supported games using a combination of temporal upscaling technology, advanced frame generation, and built-in latency reduction technology.

As many of you know, two weeks ago, there were a series of changes made to the Overwatch team, as well as other teams across Blizzard. Writing a public blog is difficult in the wake of these events. I want to express gratitude for the absolutely amazing people who worked on our game that are no longer on our team. I want the community to feel informed, and I want to convey our excitement about what is to come in Season 9. To be honest, it's a lot to balance—but one of the things we've been most proud of is how we've kept lines of communication open between the team and our community, and we intend to continue that.

In that spirit, yesterday, we shared the exciting changes you are going to experience with Competitive starting in Season 9. I'd like to give a bit more insight into why we are making these changes. In our previous Director's Take, we talked about improving the game's core PvP experience. There are different ways that we look at improving the game, but one of the biggest is listening to your feedback. Season 9 starts in less than a week, and the two biggest and best changes coming to the season and a lot of it is driven by feedback from you - our players along with our team's vision to make the game more fun and challenging for everyone.

URCDKeys presents the February Super Sale—get genuine software at 30% discounts to the store's original prices, which are already some of the lowest in the industry. Grab Genuine Windows 11 Pro at just $20. Office 2021 Professional Plus can be had at just $86. Check out even bigger discounts on other editions of Windows, Office, and their combos, to save big. The developers among you might want to grab Genuine Visual Studio and SQL Server at special prices!

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The PC version of Helldivers 2 has shot up the Steam charts since yesterday's launch (also available on PlayStation 5)—according to tracking sites, peak player population sits at 151,927. Games industry watchdogs believe that this is Sony PlayStation's most successful launch title on PC platforms—24-hour peak telemetry has Helldivers 2 attracting 81,840 players versus God of War's 68,000 (January 14, 2022). An abundance of technical issues has prompted the submission of negative feedback—around 12,200 reviews have been left on the game's Steam Profile. Its current status is "Mostly Positive," but launch evening impressions were "Mixed" following 5300 review submissions. Eurogamer has summarized the problematic period: "Chief among criticisms are complaints about persistent crashes, while others have singled out server and matchmaking issues. Then there's ire directed towards PC optimization, and its kernel-level GameGuard anti-cheat software, which some feel is cause for concern, as well as complaints around Helldivers 2's monetization—which includes a battle pass and premium currency in-game shop, despite its £34.99/$39.99 price tag."

The development team at Arrowhead Game Studios implemented day-of-launch matchmaking fixes and addressed the most common crash problems. Helldivers 2 Game Director, Mikael Eriksson, stated that a patch was in the making: "If it's a success, we'll trigger a hotfix and get it out to the Steam community first, then roll it out to PS5 players as quickly as we can. Thank you—seriously—for your patience. We really want you all to have a blast playing this game. Bear with us, we're almost there." Arrowhead have followed up on their promise(s) today with another set of fixes pushed out to PC gamer population—Eriksson shared some good second day news: "We've uploaded a patch to Steam that should improve matchmaking for PC. The patch also includes some other crash fixes we've identified. We know there's more to solve, and we're working our way through it. Nevertheless, we hope this rapid patch goes a long way to making your experience better. Now go smash some bugs (and bots)!"

Grab your dueling pistols and dust off those adventurin' boots, because Lara Croft is back, baby! Get ready to embark on a journey down memory lane as the iconic Lara Croft makes her triumphant return in this lovingly remastered collection of the first three classic Tomb Raider games. The launch of Tomb Raider I-III Remastered brings these adventures to a new generation of gamers, featuring enhanced visuals, polished gameplay, previously exclusive expansions, and a surge of nostalgia to boot.

This time around, you'll be able to share your globetrotting adventures with your friends thanks to the new "Photo Mode" feature. Classic exploration meets modern creativity and every snapshot gives you a chance to tell YOUR story through daring escapades and unparalleled adventure. While you embark on legendary expeditions with Lara, capture your own moments of discovery and triumph.

Attention is now turning to the late February Mobile World Congress (WWC) 2024 trade show—following journos recovering from their recent CES gauntlet-esque ordeals. An exclusive Windows Report piece proposes that Lenovo representatives will be heading to Barcelona with a very special next generation laptop in hand. The publication has a outed a number of upcoming portable devices, two weeks prior to Lenovo's intended showcase (February 26 - 29)—we witnessed a similar occurrence last year with WinFuture leaking Microsoft's September Surface refreshes. Six notebook refreshes (ThinkPad and ThinkBook) are mentioned in the latest report, as well as Gen 2 version of Lenovo's ThinkVision M14T portable monitor.

The alleged headliner seems to be a concept model, that slides into the company's ThinkBook range—Windows Report has leaked heavily watermarked images, but little in the way of technical specifications: "Lenovo's transparent laptop features a bezel-less design, with the display being completely see-through. The deck also seems completely transparent, with the main components being housed in and under the chin, which is the area that's not transparent. There's also a non-transparent slim frame that surrounds the entire deck, probably housing the ports." An anonymous source reckons that the transparent OLED ThinkBook runs on Windows 11, and Lenovo's tried and trusted design language is very apparent (when in use).

Whether you're looking after your own data privacy or the privacy of your whole family, AdGuard may be the tool to get the job done, with Personal and Family lifetime plans available for $19.99 and $29.99, and you only have to pay once. The myriad of ad blockers and data privacy tools on the market makes it difficult to find one that works well without costing too much. Whether you're looking for yourself or to improve your whole family's digital privacy, AdGuard may be the simple solution. AdGuard cybersecurity software blocks ads and helps improve your privacy online. The personal plan covers three devices while the family plan lets you extend to nine. Both are on sale for a limited time for $19.99 (reg. $129) and $29.99 (reg. $59).AdGuard lifetime subscription for $19.99 (reg. $59)
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An AMD Athlon K7 "Pluto" processor has been examined by Fritzchens Fritz, a well known close-up photographer of CPU and GPU dies—his latest project has uncovered a decades old hidden secret. He posted this discovery to social media earlier this week, and made sure to include various images for context purposes: "AMD Athlon K7 Pluto Top Metal Layer. A revolver and Texas Map can be found in one of the four corners! And some explanations about the stone relief. The relief contains the AMD Athlon K7 Series from: Argon -> Pluto -> Thunderbird -> Palomino -> Thoroughbred -> Barton." Team Red's turn of the millennium mainstream processor family fought off Intel's Pentium III CPU architecture (1999 to 2000)—many contemporary reports have handed that time period's victory to AMD. Fritz's funny find received a lot of news coverage, with many authors expressing disbelief about the miniscule revolver and Map of Texas being hidden in (sort of) plain sight for nearly 25 years.

Phil Park, an AMD veteran—currently working in the memory systems department as a Fabric performance engineer—posted an insightful reply to Fritz's historical guesstimations (Greco-Roman themes via the stone relief). Another Team Red revelation was revealed: "The original Athlon naming scheme (Mustang, Thunderbird, Spitfire) had a different theme (cars), but the rumor was that some companies got wind of this, so we changed themes rather than get involved in dumb trademark battles over internal codenames. So it became horses." If we read between the very obvious lines, Park suggests that Ford, Chevrolet, and BMW were keeping an eye on AMD product naming conventions.

We are alerting users of online features, including Cross Progression and My Rewards, in CD PROJEKT RED games, as well as participants in platforms like the CD PROJEKT RED Forums. We are migrating these products to a new account system, owned and operated by CD PROJEKT S.A., effective from March 5th, 2024. This consolidation will involve the transfer of governance of personal data, including email address and username, from the GOG account system to the CD PROJEKT RED account system.

What does this change?
Starting March 5th, 2024, the above mentioned online features and services will be available through a new CD PROJEKT RED account system.

Do I need to take any action?
No, a new CD PROJEKT RED account will be created for you automatically based on your GOG Account information: user ID, username and email address. This will allow you to continue using features provided by CD PROJEKT RED with no interruption. No action is required on your end.

Scientists and engineers have been experimenting with hafnium oxide over the past decade—many believe that this "elusive ferroelectric material" is best leveraged in next generation computing memory (due to its non-volatile properties), although this requires a major scientific breakthrough to get working in a practical manner. Hafnia's natural state is inherently non-ferroelectric, so it takes some effort to get it into a suitable state—a SciTechDaily article explores past efforts: "Scientists could only get hafnia to its metastable ferroelectric state when straining it as a thin, two-dimensional film of nanometer thickness." Research teams at the University of Rochester, New York and University of Tennessee, Knoxville have presented evidence of an exciting landmark development. Sobhit Singh, assistant professor at UoR's Department of Mechanical Engineering, believes that the joint effort has created a lane for the creation of bulk ferroelectric and antiferroelectric hafnia.

His "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" study proposes an alternative material path: "Hafnia is a very exciting material because of its practical applications in computer technology, especially for data storage. Currently, to store data we use magnetic forms of memory that are slow, require a lot of energy to operate, and are not very efficient. Ferroelectric forms of memory are robust, ultra-fast, cheaper to produce, and more energy-efficient." Professor Janice Musfeldt's team at the University of Tennessee have managed to produce a ferroelectric form of hafnia—through an experimental high pressure process, based on Singh's exact calculations. The material remained in a metastable phase post-experiment, even in a pressure-relieved state. Musfeldt commented on the pleasing results: "This is as an excellent example of experimental-theoretical collaboration." Memory manufacturers are likely keeping an eye on Hafnia's breakthrough potential, but material costs are dampening expectations—Tom's Hardware cites shortages (going back to early 2023): "Hafnium (the key component in Hafnia) has seen a nearly fivefold price increase due to increased demand since 2021, raising its cost from about $1,000 per kilogram to about $5,000. Even at $1000 a kilogram, though, hafnium is by far more expensive than silicon, which measures in the tens of dollars per kilogram."

Hi everyone, we have received feedback from players about the quest progression of Enshrouded. Many of you are frustrated with the fact that it is currently mainly server-side instead of player-side. We have some good news to share. Put your reading hats on, this one's long...When designing this system, we believed that the best way to enjoy Enshrouded was with a group of friends who are all working cooperatively together. However, we know that having quests completed while one player is offline might feel bad for those who feel they are missing parts of the gameplay experience. We designed Enshrouded as a co-op game. While working on it, we envisioned one group of friends experiencing the world together—sharing bases, resources, crafting recipes, and loot.

Furthermore, we wanted players to be able to play together meaningfully with different groups of friends and on different servers. We developed a game environment where a new player could join a long-running server and jump into the same action as their friends. Skipping the "tutorial" server quests to instead learn through conversation and cooperation, uniting the group. Our reasoning was that players shouldn't feel forced to participate in quests. Our player base is diverse, after all. Not everyone is bound to enjoy our combat or puzzles as much as building a base or exploring. If some players in a group want to focus on building or farming, while others are going on adventures, both making meaningful progress for the group, that should be fine.

NVIDIA's decision to shave off $200 from its GeForce RTX 4080 GPU tier has caused a run on retail since the launch of SUPER variants late last month—VideoCardz has investigated an apparent North American supply shortage. The adjusted $999 base MSRP appears to be an irresistible prospect for discerning US buyers—today's report explains how: "a week after its release, that GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER cards are not available at any major US retailer for online orders." At the time of writing, no $999 models are available to purchase via e-tailers (for delivery)—BestBuy and Micro Center have a smattering of baseline MSRP cards (including the Founders Edition), but for in-store pickup only. Across the pond, AD103 SUPER's supply status is a bit different: "On the other hand, in Europe, the situation appears to be more favorable, with several retailers listing the cards at or near the MSRP of €1109."

The cheapest custom GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER SKU, at $1123, seems to be listed by Amazon.com. Almost all of Newegg's product pages are displaying an "Out of Stock" notice—ZOTAC GAMING's GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Trinity OC White Edition model is on "back order" for $1049.99, while the only "in stock" option is MSI's GeForce RTX 4080 Super Expert card (at $1149.99). VideoCardz notes that GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER and RTX 4070 TI SUPER models are in plentiful supply, which highlights a big contrast in market conditions for NVIDIA's latest Ada Lovelace families. The report also mentions an ongoing shortage of GeForce RTX 4080 (Non-SUPER) cards, going back weeks prior to the official January 31 rollout: "Similar to the RTX 4090, finding the RTX 4080 at its $1200 price point has proven challenging." Exact sales figures are not available to media outlets—it is unusual to see official metrics presented a week or two after a product's launch—so we will have to wait a little longer to find out whether demand has far outstripped supply in the USA.

Last week SK Hynix revealed ambitious plans for its next wave of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) products—their SEMICON Korea 2024 presentation included an announcement about cutting-edge HBM3E entering mass production within the first quarter of this year. True next-gen HBM development has already kicked off—TPU's previous report outlines an HBM4 sampling phase in 2025, followed by full production in 2026. South Korea's Pulse News believes that TSMC has been roped into a joint venture (with SK Hynix). An alleged "One Team" strategic alliance has been formed according to reports emerging from Asia—this joint effort could focus on the development of HBM4 solutions for AI fields.

Reports from last November pointed to a possible SK Hynix and NVIDIA HBM4 partnership, with TSMC involved as the designated fabricator. We are not sure if the emerging "One Team" progressive partnership will have any impact on previously agreed upon deals, but South Korean news outlets reckon that the TSMC + SK Hynix alliance will attempt to outdo Samsung's development of "new-generation AI semiconductor packaging." Team Green's upcoming roster of—"Hopper" H200 and "Blackwell" B100—AI GPUs are linked to a massive pre-paid shipment of SK Hynix HMB3E parts. HBM4 products could be fitted on a second iteration of NVIDIA's Blackwell GPU, and the mysterious "Vera Rubin" family. Notorious silicon industry tipster, kopite7kimi, believes that "R100 and GR200" GPUs are next up in Team Green's AI-cruncher queue.

This week, Cisco and NVIDIA have announced plans to deliver AI infrastructure solutions for the data center that are easy to deploy and manage, enabling the massive computing power that enterprises need to succeed in the AI era. "AI is fundamentally changing how we work and live, and history has shown that a shift of this magnitude is going to require enterprises to rethink and re-architect their infrastructures," said Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO, Cisco. "Strengthening our great partnership with NVIDIA is going to arm enterprises with the technology and the expertise they need to build, deploy, manage, and secure AI solutions at scale." Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA said: "Companies everywhere are racing to transform their businesses with generative AI. Working closely with Cisco, we're making it easier than ever for enterprises to obtain the infrastructure they need to benefit from AI, the most powerful technology force of our lifetime."

A Powerful Partnership
Cisco, with its industry-leading expertise in Ethernet networking and extensive partner ecosystem, together with NVIDIA, the inventor of the GPU that fueled the AI boom, share a vision and commitment to help customers navigate the transitions for AI with highly secure Ethernet-based infrastructure. Cisco and NVIDIA have offered a broad range of integrated product solutions over the past several years across Webex collaboration devices and data center compute environments to enable hybrid workforces with flexible workspaces, AI-powered meetings and virtual desktop infrastructure.

You can now play the demo for 9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far in the Steam Next Fest. Start your first strategic steps into 9-Bit Armies with the Overlords campaign. Play the first three missions, each with unique objectives and unlocks to try. Can you get a perfect result against our new AI challengers? After you have established control of your new forces commander try our new challenge mode, each one comes with a unique set of goals and twists to the game. Come back for a new challenge as we update them over Next Fest and see if you can reach the top spot on the leaderboard. Be sure to wishlist us and prepare for the full release that will include the co-op campaign, skirmish and multiplayer modes, and new modding support going far beyond what the previous game could do. Now go blow something up commanders!

Retro Real-Time Strategy Cranked Up To 9!
From Real-Time Strategy veterans Petroglyph comes 9-Bit Armies: A Bit Too Far the sequel to their triumphant 8-Bit series of games. In 9-Bit Armies rally your military forces across a variety of battlefields and act out your strategy over land, sea and air. Deploy your airborne soldiers, destroy bridges, and aim your superweapons in a new kind of pixelated pyromania. Whether you are brand new to real-time strategy wargames or an experienced commander - 9-Bit Armies provides an extra bit of fun.

ASRock, ODM giant Pegatron's retail channel brand, built its reputation over its high cost/performance motherboards, and got into graphics cards rather recently (less than 5 years ago), beginning with AMD Radeon graphics cards, before expanding into Intel Arc GPUs. The company has shown with its high-end AMD Radeon cards that it can design complex custom-design graphics cards with heavy cooling solutions, especially given that AMD Radeon boards tend to have more elaborate power designs than NVIDIA. So then, where are the ASRock GeForce RTX graphics cards? Korean tech publication QuasarZone set to find out from ASRock.

Put simply, ASRock does not rule out making custom design GeForce RTX graphics cards in the future, but says that getting into that market right now, is "challenging." NVIDIA now commands the vast majority of discrete GPU market, and as such most of the top DIY PC retail channel brands (such as ASUS, MSI, GIGABYTE), sell both GeForce and Radeon products. They started making GeForce graphics cards decades ago, and have built market presence over the years. NVIDIA also has a set of board partners that exclusively sell GeForce—such as PNY, Palit-Gainward, Galax-KFA2, and Colorful, which make it all the more tough for ASRock to break in. On the specific question asked by Quasar Zone, here was ASRock's answer (machine translated to English by VideoCardz).

Zephyr and VK Valkyrie have collaborated on a very high-end custom GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics card model, as revealed in a teaser video posted to the former's Bilibili account. VK Valkyrie is a well regarded DIY brand in the Chinese PC gaming market, while Zephyr is a relatively young manufacturer—their unusual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Compact ITX design with a pink PCB was introduced last summer. TPU's June 2023 news report is featured prominently within their website's news section—greatly appreciated! The Zephyr x VK Valkyrie GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER will be a limited edition release—the two partners have been working together since last August, but a specific launch date and pricing were not revealed in Zephyr's teaser trailer.

Zephyr has, so far, only released air-cooled custom graphics cards—their upcoming VK Valkyrie collaborative model will mark a debut entry into liquid cooled territory. Their chunky 3-slot design consists of a substantial heatsink covered by an RGB-adorned silver shroud and metallic backplate, with an AIO liquid cooling solution. A 280 mm radiator (with 2 x 140 mm fans) is hooked up to the card via twin white braided tubes. A rear-firing 12VHPWR connector provides an elegant means of semi-concealing your 90-degree power cable, if need be. The promotional video includes benchmark results generated by 3DMARK Speed Way, Time Spy Extreme, and Fire Strike Ultra suites (check the relevant screenshot below). Zephyr claims that their limited edition GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER model was cool enough to not exceed 52 degrees Celsius during a heavy Furmark session. The company recommends that interested parties should check its social media accounts for further announcements. The Zephyr x VK Valkyrie GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER could arrive at some point after the Chinese Spring Celebration.Update Feb 9th: Valkyrie informed us that, for the moment, this collaboration is specific to the Chinese Market, but they are discussing options internally whether it makes sense to bring the card to the West, too."

Intel released the latest version of its Arc GPU Graphics Drivers, Version 101.5252 Beta. This graphics driver update is a Game On driver for Helldivers 2 and Skull & Bones games for Intel Arc A-series Graphics and Intel Core Ultra CPUs with Intel Arc Graphics, as well as a Game On driver for Banishers: Ghost of New Eden on Intel Arc A-series Graphics.

The new driver also brings several game performance improvements on Intel Arc A-series Graphics products compared to the previous driver release, including up to 4 percent performance improvement in Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (DX12), up to 5 percent in Palworld (DX12), and up to 71 percent performance in Snowrunner (DX11) game.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.5252 Beta

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti an now be found for as low as $699, which means it is now selling at the same price as the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT graphics card. The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti definitely lags behind the Radeon RX 7900 XT, and packs less VRAM (12 GB vs. 20 GB), and the faster GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is selling for around $100 more. The Radeon RX 7900 XT is around 6 to 11 percent faster, depending on the game and the resolution.

The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti card in question comes from MSI and it is Ventus 2X OC model listed over at Newegg.com for $749.99 with a $50-off promotion code. Bear in mind that this is a dual-fan version from MSI and we are quite sure we'll see similar promotions from other NVIDIA AIC partners.

NVIDIA has released a new GeForce Hotfix Driver Version 551.46 that should fix stuttering issues in some scenarios. According to the release notes, the new hotfix driver fixes micro-stuttering in some games when vertical sync is enabled, as well as stuttering when scrolling in web browser. It also fixes stuttering issues on Advanced Optimus Notebooks when running Red Dead Redemption 2 under Vulkan API, and stability issues in Immortals of Aveum under extended gameplay.

The new GeForce Hotfix Driver Version 551.46 is based on the latest GeForce WHQL driver, version 551.23. You can download the new GeForce Hotfix Driver Version 551.46 over at NVIDIA's support page.

A new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC) shows shipments of artificial intelligence (AI) PCs - personal computers with specific system-on-a-chip (SoC) capabilities designed to run generative AI tasks locally - growing from nearly 50 million units in 2024 to more than 167 million in 2027. By the end of the forecast, IDC expects AI PCs will represent nearly 60% of all PC shipments worldwide.

"As we enter a new year, the hype around generative AI has reached a fever pitch, and the PC industry is running fast to capitalize on the expected benefits of bringing AI capabilities down from the cloud to the client," said Tom Mainelli, group vice president, Devices and Consumer Research. "Promises around enhanced user productivity via faster performance, plus lower inferencing costs, and the benefit of on-device privacy and security, have driven strong IT decision-maker interest in AI PCs. In 2024, we'll see AI PC shipments begin to ramp, and over the next few years, we expect the technology to move from niche to a majority."

The global interposer and FOWLP market is expected to be valued at USD 35.6 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 63.5 billion by 2029; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.3% during the forecast period according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. The increasing demand for advanced packaging in AI and high-performance computing (HPC) are the key drivers fueling the expansion of the interposer and FOWLP market.

Interposer-based packaging is experiencing robust growth in the semiconductor industry, leveraging its ability to enhance performance and reduce power consumption by facilitating efficient connections between diverse chip components. This technology is increasingly adopted for its role in enabling high-bandwidth and high-performance applications, driving advancements in data centers, 5G infrastructure, and emerging technologies.

Hello there! Community Manager Katten here, we provided access to the Steam Next Fest Demo! So this Diary is here to get you caught up to speed to the question; What is Millennia? Millennia is a revolutionary turn-based 4X game developed by C Prompt Games, a team of experienced strategy developers known for their work on the Age of Empires franchise. This game introduces innovative elements such as alternate history, custom tech trees, and a focus on both economy and combat. Millennia stands out by redefining the 4X genre with dynamic historical progression, where your decisions shape the unfolding of different historical ages. Each age brings its own distinct gameplay challenges and opportunities, taking players on a journey from ancient civilizations to futuristic societies. With every choice holding significance, Millennia offers unparalleled replayability and strategic depth with its unique core pillars, so let's dive in!

Ages
A key innovation in Millennia is the Age-based design. There are ten Ages in a "normal" game, ranging from the Age of Stone to the near-future. Each Age provides the experience of the Age - the Age of Iron has Iron Age technologies, Iron Age units, Iron Age buildings, and rules specific to the conditions of the Iron Age. If you keep things within "normal" parameters, you might progress through 10 "standard" Ages, each delivering historical gameplay. However, Millennia allows history to go off the rails. If you make some different decisions, you might steer your timeline into alternate Ages. These Ages are still historically themed, but explore some "what-if" territory. The Age of Aether is based on a history where the internal combustion engine doesn't come about as soon as it did and steam-power develops further. The Age of Blood is based on a war raging out of control and spreading across the world. Ultimately, most of the things you have to use in a game come from the Ages, so you can end up with very, very different scenarios depending on the specific history and alternate history your timeline moves through.

The Walt Disney Company has announced a new collaborative venture with Epic Games—yesterday's press release outlined the creation of an upcoming "all-new games and entertainment universe that will further expand the reach of beloved Disney stories and experiences." Epic's Fortnite appears to be the first port of call for an expanded roster of Disney-owned characters and locales (perhaps for seasonal and time limited events)—new interactive projects will emerge at later time: "(our) persistent universe will offer a multitude of opportunities for consumers to play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more. Players, gamers and fans will be able to create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content with each other in ways that they love. This will all be powered by Unreal Engine." Additionally, the press briefing mentions a big money transaction: "Disney will also invest $1.5 billion to acquire an equity stake in Epic Games alongside the multi-year project. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals."

The Walt Disney Company's Chief Executive Officer—Robert A. Iger—stated: "Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney's beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe. This marks Disney's biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. We can't wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways." Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO and Founder also chipped in with: "Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite, and they use Unreal Engine across their portfolio. Now we're collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities." Disney's introductory piece includes a teaser image that shows an overhead perspective of a Fortnite-esque digital theme park—several circular floating islands are dotted with well known franchise graphics and company logos. A 43-second video montage also presents similar content, with the narrated message: "Discover a place where magic is Epic." Fortnite is listed alongside Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and Disney IPs.

IBM has announced IBM LinuxONE 4 Express, extending the latest performance, security and AI capabilities of LinuxONE to small and medium sized businesses and within new data center environments. The pre-configured rack mount system is designed to offer cost savings and to remove client guess work when spinning up workloads quickly and getting started with the platform to address new and traditional use cases such as digital assets, medical imaging with AI, and workload consolidation.

Building an integrated hybrid cloud strategy for today and years to come
As businesses move their products and services online quickly, oftentimes, they are left with a hybrid cloud environment created by default, with siloed stacks that are not conducive to alignment across businesses or the introduction of AI. In a recent IBM IBV survey, 84% of executives asked acknowledged their enterprise struggles in eliminating silo-to-silo handoffs. And 78% of responding executives said that an inadequate operating model impedes successful adoption of their multicloud platform. With the pressure to accelerate and scale the impact of data and AI across the enterprise - and improve business outcomes - another approach that organizations can take is to more carefully identify which workloads should be on-premises vs in the cloud.

iFixit has finally posted photos of the Apple Vision Pro's inner bits, following on from the release of a video teardown (uploaded last week)—the American e-commerce and how-to website spent plenty of hours exploring the expensive mixed reality headset's "creepy" features, before breaking seals and deconstructing the device's highly complex interior. The iFixit teardown team have often complained about Apple computer products being notoriously difficult to deal with—the Vision Pro is no exception, but they eventually managed to isolate the headset's logic board. The onboard M2 octa-core chipset is identified as a APL1109/339S01081E part, while its assistant R1 sensor co-processor sports an APL1W08/339S01186 identifier. Micron has supplied 8 GB of LPDDR5 SDRAM memory (MT62F1G64D8WT-031 XT), and Kioxia has Apple covered with its K5A4RC2097 256 GB NAND flash.

Tech experts have spent time poring over iFixit's latest set of snaps, as laid out in their teardown guide—one such enthusiast, Yining Karl Li, posted an intriguing Apple Vision Pro Logic Board observation to social media: "There's this interesting shot of the main logic board (in Step 1). The R1 chip (in the red box) has interesting lines all over it dividing the surface into sub-boxes. Is the R1 chip using a chiplet design?" A small debate erupted from this quick inspection—one commenter believes that the co-processor is not all that fancy: "(it is) likely sporting low-latency fan-out memory," citing the presence of very faint horizontal and vertical lines. As pointed out by Wccftech, Li also presented a chiplet design example (for comparison purposes)—a close-up shot of Intel's Ponte Vecchio Xe-HPC GPU. The lines are a lot more pronounced on Team Blue's chip design.

The GeForce NOW anniversary celebrations continue with more games and a member-exclusive discount on the Logitech G Cloud. Among the six new titles coming to the cloud this week is The Inquisitor from Kalypso Media, which spotlights the GeForce NOW anniversary with a special shout-out. "Congrats to four years of empowering gamers to play anywhere, anytime," said Marco Nier, head of marketing and public relations at Kalypso Media. "We're thrilled to raise a glass to GeForce NOW for their four-year anniversary and commitment to bringing AAA gaming to gamers—here's to many more chapters in this cloud-gaming adventure!" Stream the dark fantasy adventure from Kalypso Media and more newly supported titles today across a variety of GeForce NOW-capable devices, whether at home, on a gaming rig, TV or Mac, or on the go with handheld streaming.

Gadgets Galore
Gone are the days of only being able to play full PC games on a decked-out gaming rig. GeForce NOW is a cloud gaming service accessible on a range of devices, from PCs and Macs to gaming handhelds, thanks to GeForce RTX-powered servers in the cloud. Dive into the cloud streaming experience with the dedicated GeForce NOW app for Windows and macOS. Even on underpowered PCs, gamers can enjoy stunning visuals and buttery-smooth frame rates streaming at up to 240 frames per second or at ultrawide resolutions for Ultimate members, a cloud-gaming first.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) posted better than expected fourth quarter 2023 financial tallies, but issued a warning with a downward revisement of near future gross margin expectations. According to DigiTimes Asia and TrendForce, China's leading pure-play semiconductor foundry has experienced an overall decline in net profit due to various cited factors including: "the industry downturn, weak market demand, high industry inventory, and fierce competition among peers, all contributing to reduced capacity utilization and decreased wafer shipment for the group." The DigiTimes report focuses mainly on a significant SMIC shares plunge—stock prices are reported to have dropped by ~20% in early 2024, indicating a loss of confidence in the foundry's prospects.

TrendForce laid out the financial nitty gritty: "SMIC International saw a revenue increase of over 3.5% to more than USD 1.678 billion, marking the only quarter of revenue growth last year. Net profit plummeted by 54.7% to nearly USD 175 million. The gross margin of 16.4% was almost halved compared to the same period in 2022 and experienced a significant decline from the previous three quarters, reaching its lowest point of the year. In the full year of 2023, SMIC International experienced a revenue decline of over 13% to USD 6.3 billion, with a net profit decrease of 50.4% to USD 900 million. The gross margin was approximately halved to 19.3%." Many industry watchdogs believed that SMIC was in a comfortable position, thanks to an uptick in demand for natively developed AI GPUs—their flagship Shanghai plants are reportedly churning out 7 nm wafers for Huawei's Ascend 910B model. Insiders also claim that high profile smartphone clients are pushing for 5 nm production lines—a significant challenge for the foundry's existing collection of (less than cutting-edge) equipment.

CableMod issued a statement—just before the last Christmas holiday—detailing a safety recall of 16-pin 12VHPWR angled adapters, version 1.0 and 1.1. This announcement received widespread media coverage (at least in tech circles), but some unfortunate customers have not yet received the memo about faulty adapters—CableMod's 90° angled and 180° hard connectors can overheat and in worst case scenarios, actually melt. HotHardware, amusingly named given this context, was the first hardware news outlet to notice that the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) had published a "GPU Angled Adapter" recall notice to its website earlier today, under "Recall number 24-112."

The US government body's listing outlines aforementioned hazardous conditions, along with an estimated 25,300 affected unit count. The CPSC's recommended "Remedy" advice is as follows: "Consumers should immediately stop using the recalled angled adapters and contact CableMod for instructions on how to safely remove their adapter from the GPU and for a full refund, including cost of shipping, or a $60 store credit for non-customized products, with free standard shipping. Consumers will be asked to destroy the adapter and upload a photo of the destroyed product to cablemod.com/adapterrecall/. The instructions on how to safely remove the adapter are also located on that site. Once destroyed, consumers should discard the adapter in accordance with local laws." The Safety Commission has gathered some customer feedback intelligence on this matter: "The firm (CableMod Ltd., of China) has received 272 reports of the adapters becoming loose, overheating and melting into the GPU, with at least $74,500 in property damage claims in the United States. No injuries have been reported."

Hello, Commanders—we hope you all have been enjoying your first-time going hands-on with Homeworld 3 during our public demo of War Games. Watching you share your experiences, exchange and debate strategies, and give us constant feedback has been incredible. This was our first time seeing the game played at scale, which is always an equally thrilling and nerve-wracking moment. We also recently gathered a dedicated group of players from outside our organizations to play through the full game. This resulted in additional insights and perspectives that will be incorporated to make Homeworld 3 the best experience possible.

After careful analysis of feedback, we made the decision to delay the global launch of Homeworld 3 until May 13, with advanced access set for May 10, to ensure that we're making the final tweaks needed to deliver at the level of quality that we strive for and you deserve. To say that you as a community of players have been waiting patiently for this next installment would be an understatement, and we are deeply appreciative of that. We will continue to keep you updated on our progress. As always, you're welcome to send your feedback via social channels, the Homeworld Universe Discord, and through our support page.

Phoronix head honcho, Michael Larabel, has noticed another set of interesting updates for AMD Graphics on Linux—albeit in preparation for next generation solutions: "engineers on Monday (February 5) posted a few new patch series for enabling some updated IP (intellectual property) blocks within their open-source AMDGPU Linux kernel graphics driver. This new IP is presumably part of the ongoing hardware enablement work for their next-gen RDNA 4 graphics." Team Red GitHub patches for "GFX12" targets appeared online last November, again highlighted by Larabel's investigative work—AMD engineers appear to be quite determined with their open-source software endeavors, as seen in LLVM-Project notes regarding GFX1200's enablement.

The new "IP block" updates included patches for the enabling ATHUB 4.1, LSDMA 7.0, IH 7.0, and HDP 7.0—presumably for next generation Radeon graphics solutions. Larabel provided a quick breakdown of these components: "ATHUB 4.1 is needed for clock-gating / power management features, LSDMA 7.0 is the latest IP for Light SDMA for general purpose System DMA (SDMA) on the GPU, IH 7.0 for the Interrupt Handler on the GPU, and HDP 7.0 for the Host Data Path support for CPU accessing the GPU device memory via the PCI BAR. As far as code changes, the big chunks of the work are from the auto-generated header files." He believes that AMD's engineers have largely moved on from current generation tasks: "The big version bumps for these IP blocks all the more are likely indicative of these bits being for next-gen RDNA 4 as opposed to further iterating on RDNA3 or similar." The patches could be merged into the upcoming Linux 6.9 release, possibly coinciding with a Radeon RX 8000 series rollout.

The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and the State University of New York (Stony Brook and Buffalo campuses) have pitted NVIDIA's relatively new CG100 "Grace" Superchip against several rival products in a "wide variety of HPC and AI benchmarks." Team Green marketing material has focused mainly on the overall GH200 "Grace Hopper" package—so it is interesting to see technical institutes concentrate on the company's "first true" server processor (ARM-based), rather than the ever popular GPU aspect. The Next Platform's article summarized the chip's internal makeup: "(NVIDIA's) Grace CPU has a relatively high core count and a relatively low thermal footprint, and it has banks of low-power DDR5 (LPDDR5) memory—the kind used in laptops but gussied up with error correction to be server class—of sufficient capacity to be useful for HPC systems, which typically have 256 GB or 512 GB per node these days and sometimes less."

Benchmark results were revealed at last week's HPC Asia 2024 conference (in Nagoya, Japan)—Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and the State University of New York also uploaded their findings to the ACM Digital Library (link #1 & #2). BSC's MareNostrum 5 system contains an experimental cluster portion—consisting of NVIDIA Grace-Grace and Grace-Hopper superchips. We have heard plenty about the latter (in press releases), but the former is a novel concept—as outlined by The Next Platform: "Put two Grace CPUs together into a Grace-Grace superchip, a tightly coupled package using NVLink chip-to-chip interconnects that provide memory coherence across the LPDDR5 memory banks and that consumes only around 500 watts, and it gets plenty interesting for the HPC crowd. That yields a total of 144 Arm Neoverse "Demeter" V2 cores with the Armv9 architecture, and 1 TB of physical memory with 1.1 TB/sec of peak theoretical bandwidth. For some reason, probably relating to yield on the LPDDR5 memory, only 960 GB of that memory capacity and only 1 TB/sec of that memory bandwidth is actually available."

Intel has begun rolling out software binaries compiled with support for upcoming Advanced Performance Extensions (APX) and Advanced Vector Extensions 10 (AVX10) instruction set extensions in their Clear Linux distribution, ahead of any processors officially supporting these capabilities launching. Clear Linux is focusing first on optimized APX and AVX10 versions of foundational software libraries like glibc and Python. This builds on Clear Linux's existing support for optimized x86-64-v2, v3, and v4 code paths, leveraging the latest microarchitectural features of each Intel CPU generation. The rationale is to prepare Clear Linux to fully leverage the performance potential of next-generation Intel Xeon server processors, code-named Granite Rapids, expected to launch later this year.

Granite Rapids will introduce AVX10.1/512 instructions as well as the new APX capabilities, which are currently not well documented implementation wise. By rolling out APX/AVX10 support in software now, Clear Linux aims to have an optimized ecosystem ready when the new processors officially ship. Initially, APX and AVX10 support is being added using the existing GCC compiler. Still, Clear Linux notes they will transition to using the upcoming GCC 14 release with more mature support for these instruction sets. The goal is to eventually have many Clear Linux packages compiled with APX/AVX10 code paths to maximize performance on future Intel CPUs. This continues Clear Linux's strategy of leveraging Intel's latest hardware capabilities in software.

Steam Next Fest is here and we're thrilled to have you join us to play the first-ever public demo of Stormgate! The Steam Next Fest demo includes full access to the current closed beta phase, codenamed "Elephant." (Each Stormgate playtest build is named after a classic RTS unit, in alphabetical order.) Here are some key insights into the current game state and what you can look forward to during the playtest.

How to Play With Friends
While our party system is still under construction, you can easily play with friends by creating custom games, either public or private, and sharing the Lobby ID. Crush that smack-talkin' Major Galt together in our 3P co-op map, WRECK HAVOC!

Sennheiser has launched its brand-new open-back HD 490 PRO reference studio headphones, purpose-built for producing, mixing and mastering. The circumaural, dynamic headphones feature highly precise sound reproduction and a very wide and realistic sound stage. This superior accuracy and range give producers, mixing and mastering engineers, as well as musicians, the transparency they need for critical mixing decisions and for confidently resolving any panning placement issues. The HD 490 PRO and HD 490 PRO Plus (includes additional accessories) are available now.

"If you compare today's music productions with that of ten, 20 years ago, you will notice how the massively increased computing power and complex parameter automation have changed the way in which music is made," shares Jimmy Landry, Category Market Manager for MI at Sennheiser. "In every genre, engineers and music creators are continuously pushing boundaries, creating extremely complex mixes that can be prone to so-called 'audio blind spots'. Mixes can be crowded and muddy, with too many instruments sitting at the same position and their frequencies competing. For the engineer or musician, it becomes difficult to hear each individual instrument or voice distinctly. This goes to show the importance of a good pair of studio headphones."

AGON by AOC—one of the world's leading gaming monitor and IT accessories brands - expands its AOC GAMING line-up by adding a QHD model to their G4 series, successor to their award-winning G2 series. The 27" (68.6 cm) AOC GAMING Q27G4X features a Fast IPS panel, high sharpness thanks to its QHD (2560x1440) resolution, an impressive 180 Hz refresh rate, up to 1 ms GtG response time, and Adaptive-Sync for a competitive-level gaming experience. Its stealth-aircraft-inspired design, makes the recently introduced G4 line sleeker than ever. Sitting at today's sweet spot in terms of size and resolution with a great value proposition, the Q27G4X will surely attract a variety of mainstream and aspiring competitive gamers. Thanks to the Fast IPS panel with accurate colours and wide viewing angles, the Q27G4X excels at day-to-day tasks, too.

Monitors can outlast many other PC components, so choosing a future-proof, attractive gaming monitor proficient for any work, study, or gaming task one can throw at it, should be a no-brainer. The AOC GAMING Q27G4X is a perfect candidate thanks to its 27" Fast IPS panel that combines high colour accuracy and a large gamut coverage with a high refresh rate of 180 Hz and low response times up to 1 ms GtG. Thanks to its 10-bit panel, the monitor achieves a large gamut by reproducing 1.07 billion colours. Certified with VESA DisplayHDR 400, the Q27G4X can receive HDR10 signal and reproduce HDR content, upping the game and video visuals with extra brightness and punchy colours. Greater clarity in text as well as sharper edges and details in games are ensured thanks to its 109 ppi pixel density. Current mainstream GPUs are already capable of achieving high refresh rates on QHD resolution for most contemporary games, allowing users to enjoy a smoother gaming experience from day one. The benefit of rich and true colours will shine when watching movies or playing games but also when producing content such as light image/video editing or whilst livestreaming.

Officially, support for resizable BAR on the Intel platform begins with the 10th Gen Core "Comet Lake," and for AMD, the Ryzen 3000 "Zen 2." It is a PCI-SIG feature that allows the software to see the entire amount of video memory on your graphics card as a single contiguous addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures—a workaround for the original PCI Express specification as the industry was transitioning to it from AGP. The PCI-SIG had introduced resizable BAR way back during the PCI-Express 2.0 specification (late 2000s), although none of the GPU or platform vendors of the time bothered to implement it. Resizable BAR is known to have a positive impact on performance for modern GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD; although its most profound performance impact is on the Intel Arc "Alchemist" GPUs, which suffer a large performance penalty without it.

ReBarUEFI by xCuri0 is a UEFI DXE driver mod, which requires you to know how to modify the UEFI firmware of your motherboard. The ReBarUEFI mod calls for a motherboard that implements UEFI, the older legacy BIOS won't do. The industry transitioned to UEFI in the early 2010s, roughly around the time of Intel "Sandy Bridge." UEFI DXE drivers provide basic support for the various hardware on your system. The ReBarUEFI driver informs software that the platform is capable of resizable BAR. Some motherboards may require you to enable the "Above 4G Decode" setting. The author claims that users on platforms as old as 2nd Gen Core "Sandy Bridge" have had success in getting resizable BAR to work.

According to Financial Times, a regional court in Düsseldorf, Germany, created a significant setback for Intel on Wednesday, issuing an injunction prohibiting sales of some of its processors due to allegations they infringe on a patent held by R2 Semiconductor. R2, a technology firm based in Palo Alto, California, accused Intel of violating its patent related to processor voltage regulation. The ruling applies to Intel's 10th, 11th, and 12th generation Core processors, known as Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, and Alder Lake, as well as its Ice Lake Xeon server SKUs. Newer processors generations (13th, 14th, etc.) don't infringe the patent. Even though Intel noted that it plans to appeal the decision, the ramifications could extend beyond the company itself. Industry experts warn the court order could lead to a sweeping ban on products containing the disputed Intel chips, including laptops and pre-built PCs from major manufacturers like HP and Dell. R2 has waged an ongoing legal fight across multiple jurisdictions to defend its intellectual property.

After initially filing suit against Intel in the United States, R2 shifted its efforts to Germany and other European countries after its patent was invalidated stateside. Intel strongly denied R2's patent infringement claims, alleging the company's entire business model relies on extracting legal settlements through serial litigation. Intel believes the injunction serves only R2's financial interests while harming consumers, businesses, and the economy. The two firms traded barbs in official statements about the case. R2's CEO, David Fisher, rebuffed Intel's characterization of his company, saying it has only targeted Intel for infringement of its clear IP rights. As the war of words continues, the practical impact of the German court's decision remains uncertain, pending Intel's appeal. However, the preliminary injunction demonstrates the massive financial consequences at stake in battles over technological patents.

Retailer specific discounts are creating quite the pileup of graphics card options between the $300 to $500 mark. With enough time spent finding the right deal, you could potentially buy a much faster graphics card that you'd planned for, at a given price. Hot on the heels on a recent Best Buy deal that brought the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8 GB down to $344, or within just $15 of the Radeon RX 7600 XT, we're hearing about a couple of Newegg deals that see the Radeon RX 7700 XT down to just $353, or $9 more than the RTX 4060 Ti, and $24 more than an RX 7600 XT.

At $353, the RX 7700 XT changes the game, as it is a firmly 1440p-class GPU, compared to the 1080p-class RTX 4060 Ti and RX 7600 XT. In our testing, the Radeon RX 7700 XT is an incredible 17% faster than the RTX 4060 Ti at 1080p for just $9 more; and 19% faster than it at 1440p. Compared to the RX 7600 XT, the RX 7700 XT is a staggering 39% faster at 1080p, and 44% faster at 1440p. Even with ray tracing enabled, the RX 7700 XT dominates the RTX 4060 Ti. At 1080p with ray tracing enabled, the RTX 4060 Ti averages just 2% faster than the RX 7700 XT, but at 1440p, the RX 7700 XT in fact ends up 14% faster than the RTX 4060 Ti thanks to its much heavier SIMD engine, and 50% higher memory bandwidth. The Newegg deal doesn't even cover a cheap custom design, but the mighty PowerColor RX 7700 XT Hellhound and Fighter.

ZOTAC USA Inc., a leading manufacturer of innovative gaming hardware solutions, is thrilled to announce the market launch of three new MEK HERO pre-built Gaming PCs: the MEK HERO A7647S, A7647STI, and A7748S built using the latest ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER Twin Edge OC, ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER Trinity OC White Edition, and ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Trinity Black Edition Graphic Cards. These are teamed up with AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and Ryzen 7 7700X processors, offering stunning 4K graphics for unprecedented gaming performance with AI-accelerated DLSS 3.5 and Real-Time Ray Tracing, bringing gamers an immersive gaming experience. This new series of MEK HERO offers 3 years of warranty coverage, specifically for the included ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 40 SUPER Series Graphics Card component.

The MEK HERO A7647S, A7647STI, and A7748S Gaming PCs feature 16 GB DDR5 system memory and NVMe M.2 SSD storage, elevating PC gaming and the visual content creation process to new heights. Each MEK HERO Gaming PC undergoes meticulous assembly and hand-testing in the United States, ensuring the highest build quality. Crafted for optimal performance, durability, and an unmatched experience, MEK HERO Gaming PCs with GeForce RTX 40 SUPER Series Graphics Cards are tailored to meet the demands of hardcore gamers and content creators alike.

The World AI Cannes Festival (WAICF) is set to be the epicenter of artificial intelligence innovation, where the globe's top 200 decision-makers and AI innovators will converge for three days of intense discussions on groundbreaking AI strategies and use-cases. Against the backdrop of this premier event, GIGABYTE has strategically chosen to participate, unveiling its exponential growth in the AI and High-Performance Computing (HPC) market segments.

The AI industry has witnessed unprecedented growth, with Cloud Service Providers (CSP's) and data center operators spearheading supercomputing projects. GIGABYTE's decision to promote its GPU server portfolio with over 70+ models, at WAICF is a testament to the increasing demands from the French market for sovereign AI Cloud solutions. The spotlight will be on GIGABYTE's success stories on enabling GPU Cloud infrastructure, seamlessly powered by NVIDIA GPU technologies, as GIGABYTE aims to engage in meaningful conversations with end-users and firms dependent on GPU computing.

The games industry rumor mill has been generating plenty of Microsoft Xbox conjecture over the past week or two—it all kicked off when Tango Gameworks/Bethesda's Hi-Fi Rush and Rare's Sea of Thieves were linked to possible launches on Sony's PlayStation 5 home console. High profile tipsters—including Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb and Game File's Stephen Totilo—have produced plenty of noise about the Xbox Game Studios catalog going multiplatform. Bethesda's open-space action RPG Starfield (2023), upcoming Indiana Jones and the Great Circle game (courtesy of developer MachineGames), and The Coalition's Gears of War series are counted as another set of big first party titles on the alleged "offering table." Microsoft Games chief, Phil Spencer, responded to all of the noisy chatter with a February 5 social media announcement: "We're listening and we hear you. We've been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox. Stay tuned."

This declaration prompted noted leakster, Nate the Hate, to reveal his own deck of insider cards: "People are making wild assumptions that EVERY first party Xbox game is going multiplatform—which is not the case. Nor is Microsoft going to exit the (home console) hardware industry. The (rumored) multiplatform approach is a slight shift in strategy, in which SOME titles go multiplatform. Microsoft will keep high profile games exclusive." Wccftech noted that Nate has a solid Xbox leak track record—concentrating mostly on his history of revealing Starfield information (pre-official announcement). The highly-prized Call of Duty series will remain a multiplatform prospect for the next decade—involved parties agreed on a legal stipulation that was presented during Microsoft's hard fought acquisition battle, for the Activision, Blizzard + King group. Additional "big" IPs could be introduced on rival hardware during next week's Xbox "business update" event, but Nate the Hate's latest claim has tempered expectations somewhat.

The Helldivers universe is one of noble soldiers, heroic deeds, and heartfelt, unflinching patriotism in the face of giant acid-spewing bug monsters. Stephen Flowers, Game Writer, Arrowhead Game Studios: "I personally love writing for a game with opportunities for comedy, and that doesn't take itself too seriously. I hope I can find a game like that soon…" If you want to catch up with the story of Super Earth and her valiant defenders before Helldivers 2 launches tomorrow (on February 8), read on. Plus, we share the first news that the story will continue in post-launch Helldivers 2 updates.

Since Helldivers 1…
Helldivers 2 takes place a century after the events of the first game, with Super Earth having emerged victorious against its adversaries - the deadly, bug-like Terminids, the grotesque Cyborgs and the inscrutable Illuminates. With its foes vanquished and the Galactic War won, an era of peace and prosperity ensued. The Helldivers, Super Earth's elite task force, were dismissed. The same faster-than-light travel technology, heroically liberated from the Illuminates, that gave Super Earth access to the galaxy, has since been used to colonize it. This period has come to be known as The Great Democratization. FTL technology is reliant on a steady supply of the precious substance E-710 which, luckily, can be found in decomposing Terminid bodies. So naturally, Super Earth has been farming Terminids on an industrial scale.

DigiTimes Asia has reached out to insiders at fabrication toolmakers in an effort to delve deeper into claims made by industry analysts at the start of 2024—both SemiAnalysis and China Renaissance have proposed that TSMC is unlikely to adopt High-NA EUV production techniques within a five year period. The latest news article explores a non-upgrade approach for the next couple of years: "TSMC has not placed orders for high-numerical aperture (High-NA) extreme ultraviolet (EUV) tools and is unlikely to use the technology in 2 nm and 1.4 nm (A14) process manufacturing." Intel Foundry Services (IFS) will be one of the first semiconductor manufacturers to go online with ASML's latest and greatest machinery, although no firm timeframes have been confirmed. Team Blue's Taiwanese rival (and occasional business partner) is seemingly happy with its existing infrastructure, but industry watchdogs propose that cost considerations are key factors behind TSMC's cautious planning for the next decade.

The DigiTimes insider sources believe that TSMC will not budge until at least 2029, possibly coinciding with a 1 nm production node—analysts at China Renaissance reckon that High-NA EUV machines could be delivered in the future when facilities are readied for an "A10" codenamed process. TSMC published a very ambitious "transistor count" product timeline in early January (see below)—the first "1 nm" products are supposedly targeted for a 2030 rollout, but this schedule could change due to unforeseen circumstances. Intel is expected to "phase in" its fanciest ASML gear collection once the 18A process becomes old hat—Tom's Hardware thinks that 2026 - 2027 is a feasible timeframe.

Chad Pralle, Principle Technical Program Manager at Microsoft's Windows AI NPU division has introduced the DirectML 1.13.1 and ONNX Runtime 1.17 APIs—this appears to be a collaborative effort—Samsung was roped in to some degree, according to Microsoft's announcement and a recent Team Blue blog entry. Pralle and his team are suitably proud of this joint effort that involved open source models: "we are excited to announce developer preview support for NPU acceleration in DirectML, the machine learning platform API for Windows. This developer preview enables support for a subset of models on new Windows 11 devices with Intel Core Ultra processors with Intel AI boost."

Further on in Microsoft's introductory piece, Samsung Electronics is announced as a key launch partner—Hwang-Yoon Shim, VP and Head of New Computing H/W R&D Group stated that: "NPUs are emerging as a critical resource for broadly delivering efficient machine learning experiences to users, and Windows DirectML is one of the most efficient ways for Samsung's developers to make those experiences for Windows." Microsoft notes that NPU support in DirectML is still "a work in progress," but Pralle and his colleagues are eager to receive user feedback from the testing community. It is currently "only compatible with a subset of machine learning models, some models may not run at all or may have high latency or low accuracy." They hope to implement improvements in the near future. The release is limited to modern Team Blue hardware, so NPU-onboard AMD devices are excluded at this point in time, naturally.

AMD FSR 3 comes to Starfield in our latest Steam Beta. Those of you playing on Steam can opt into the Beta to see the improvements brought to the game before this update becomes available to all our PC Starfield players. This new feature allows for a combination of upscaling as well as advanced frame generation, boosting your framerate for better performance. While AMD's FSR 3 works for a wide range of video cards, you will want to verify that your system supports it so that you get the best experience. It is also recommended to use FSR 3 with VSync ON and with a VRR monitor for the best experience.

For those participating, you can enable FSR 3 by heading to Display Settings and accessing the Upscaling options. From there you will be able to cycle through the option best suited for your experience. As with any update, we look forward to reading your feedback and seeing you share your experiences. Thank you for your support and see you in Starfield!

An emergency update is being pushed for Surveillance Center in response to a severe vulnerability detected in the software that could potentially allow an attacker to gain control elevated privileges to execute code on ADM to install malware. This update fixes this underlying vulnerability. ASUSTOR strongly urges all users of Surveillance Center for ADM to install the latest version as soon as possible to protect themselves and to minimize the risk of malware infection. ASUSTOR also recommends taking additional security measures to guard against the potential harms of malware in accordance with previously announced protective measures.

ASUSTOR strongly recommends taking the following actions to ensure your data is secure:

• Change your password.
• Use a strong password.
• Change default HTTP and HTTPS ports. Default ports are 8000 and 8001 respectively.
• Turn off Terminal/SSH and SFTP services and other services you do not use.
• Make regular backups and ensure backups are up to date.
• Turn on and update snapshots if available.
• Enable the AbuseIPDB risk detection greylist.

Huawei's Ascend 910B AI GPU is reportedly in high demand in China—we last learned that NVIDIA's latest US sanction-busting H20 "Hopper" model is lined up as a main competitor, allegedly in terms of both pricing and performance. A recent Reuters report proposes that Huawei is reacting to native enterprise market trends by shifting its production priorities—in favor of Ascend product ranges, while demoting their Kirin smartphone chipset family. Generative AI industry experts believe that the likes of Alibaba and Tencent have rejected Team Green's latest batch of re-jigged AI chips (H20, L20 and L2)—tastes have gradually shifted to locally developed alternatives.

Huawei leadership is seemingly keen to seize these growth opportunities—their Ascend 910B is supposedly ideal for workloads "that require low-to-mind inferencing power." Reuters has spoken to three anonymous sources—all with insider knowledge of goings-on at a single facility that manufacturers Ascend AI chips and the Kirin smartphone SoCs. Two of the leakers claim that this unnamed fabrication location is facing many "production quality" challenges, namely output being "hamstrung by a low yield rate." The report claims that Huawei has pivoted by deprioritizing Kirin 9000S (7 nm) production, thus creating a knock-on effect for its premium Mate 60 smartphone range.

Skull and Bones, launching on February 16, will transport players to the Indian Ocean during the Golden Age of Piracy, where they'll battle ships in fast-paced naval combat, plunder ports, and take on contracts to grow their Infamy and eventually rise to the top as a pirate kingpin. It's a co-op open world pirate action RPG, where players can do everything from hunting crocodiles and harvesting jute fiber to battling ghost ships and sea monsters. In a multiplayer game of this size and scope, it's especially important to make sure that it can be experienced by as many players as possible. To find out more about Skull and Bones' accessibility, we spoke with Project Manager Samuel Soh at Ubisoft Singapore and Production Manager Yurii Martynchyk at Ubisoft Kyiv.

Skull and Bones is a huge PvE open world with PvP activities and lots to do. What kinds of considerations go into ensuring that it's accessible to a broad spectrum of players? Has it presented any specific challenges?
Yurii Martynchyk: In addition to "classic" accessibility features - remapping, colorblind options, subtitles, etc. - Skull and Bones also includes gameplay-related accessibility options, like the ability to disable camera shakes when you're sailing, and to automate the harvesting minigames and QTE sequences. In my opinion, it is very important to keep an eye on possible balancing issues when introducing accessibility features, and our team is working closely with colleagues from Singapore to ensure an equitable playing field for all players.

EK, the premium liquid cooling solutions manufacturer, is launching a wide range of EK-Loop OmniLink cables to support its fans, pumps, D-RGB, and 12 V and 5 V power distribution connections. EK's OmniLink solutions allow daisy chaining of multiple fans, reducing cable clutter and greatly easing cable management. These cables perfectly complement EK-Loop FPT and EK-Quantum Impulse fans and all products with standard D-RGB and 4-pin fan connectors. This product series contains splitters, extenders, and cables with specific requirements that act as replacements for PSU cables.

EK-Loop OmniLink 6-Pin Power (Dual PWM) cable is the starting point of the OmniLink cable harness with the necessary 6-Pin power, D-RGB, and dual 4-Pin PWM connectors. The OmniLink cable allows for easy transmission and distribution of +12V and +5V Power, PWM, TACHO, and D-RGB signals. The cable features a black ribbon style for easy build integration and cable management.

This week in its earnings call, Samsung announced that its foundry business has received a significant order for a two nanometer AI chips, marking a major win for its advanced fabrication technology. The unnamed customer has contracted Samsung to produce AI accelerators using its upcoming 2 nm process node, which promises significant gains in performance and efficiency over today's leading-edge chips. Along with the AI chips, the deal includes supporting HBM and advanced packaging - indicating a large-scale and complex project. Industry sources speculate the order may be from a major hyperscaler like Google, Microsoft, or Alibaba, who are aggressively expanding their AI capabilities. Competition for AI chip contracts has heated up as the field becomes crucial for data centers, autonomous vehicles, and other emerging applications. Samsung said demand recovery in 2023 across smartphones, PCs and enterprise hardware will fuel growth for its broader foundry business. It's forging ahead with 3 nm production while eyeing 2 nm for launch around 2025.

Compared to its 3 nm process, 2 nm aims to increase power efficiency by 25% and boost performance by 12% while reducing chip area by 5%. The new order provides validation for Samsung's billion-dollar investments in next-generation manufacturing. It also bolsters Samsung's position against Taiwan-based TSMC, which holds a large portion of the foundry market share. TSMC landed Apple as its first 2 nm customer, while Intel announced 5G infrastructure chip orders from Ericsson and Faraday Technology using its "Intel 18A" node. With rivals securing major customers, Samsung is aggressively pricing 2 nm to attract clients. Reports indicate Qualcomm may shift some flagship mobile chips to Samsung's foundry at the 2 nm node, so if the yields are good, the node has a great potential to attract customers.

Supply chain insiders have claimed that Intel is working on extending the lifespan of its LGA 1700 platform—a BenchLife report proposes that the "Bartlett Lake-S" processor family is due soon, courtesy of Team Blue's Network and Edge (NEX) business group. Only a few days ago, the rumor mill had placed "Bartlett Lake-S" CPUs in a mainstream desktop category, due to alleged connections with the Raptor Lake-S Refresh series—the former is also (supposedly) based on the Intel 7 processor process. BenchLife believes that DDR4 and DDR5 memory will be supported, but with no mention of possible ECC functionality. Confusingly, chip industry tipsters believe that the unannounced processors could be launched as 15th Gen Core parts.

BenchLife has a history of discovering and reporting on Intel product roadmaps—apparently Bartlett Lake-S can leverage the same core configurations as seen on Raptor Lake-S; namely 8 Raptor Cove P-Cores and 16 Gracemont E-Cores. An insider source claims that a new pure P-Core-only design could exist, sporting up to twelve Raptor Cove units. According to a leaked Bartlett Lake-S series specification sheet: "the iGPU part will use (existing) Intel Xe architecture, up to Intel UHD Graphics 770." The publication alludes to some type of AI performance enhancement as a distinguishing feature for Bartlett Lake-S, when lined up against 14th Gen Core desktop SKUs. Folks salivating at the prospect of a mainstream DIY launch will have to wait and see (according to BenchLife's supply chain insider): "judging from various specifications, this product belonging to the Intel NEX business group may also be decentralized to the consumer market, but the source did not make this part too clear and reserved some room for maneuver."

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the newest installment in the Final Fantasy VII remake project and one of 2024's most-anticipated games, tells the tale of main protagonist Cloud Strife and his loyal companions who explore a massive world outside Midgar, the city of Mako, as they pursue Sephiroth, one of the most iconic antagonists in video game history.

Ahead of the full game's release on February 29, the demo releasing today allows you to not only take control of the protagonist, Cloud, but take full control of the legendary swordsman Sephiroth in battle. You will be able to play as Sephiroth as part of the extended flashback section, as Cloud recalls an earlier mission in his career as a Soldier - the Nibelheim incident. Taking place several years before the events of the game, this will set the stage for several important moments within Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. What's more, we're planning to release an update later this month that will allow you to explore part of the Junon region before the release of the full game on February 29. We hope you'll take this opportunity to venture into the world of Final Fantasy VII!

In Win Development Inc. (InWin), a leading innovator in PC enthusiast and gaming hardware, has launched its D5 E-ATX mid-tower PC chassis for PC builders looking for optimized airflow, sensible layout, and versatile hardware installment. With tool-less quick-release panels, a rotatable PCI-E mounting bracket, and optimized cable management, the D5 offers a PC building experience that unlocks build convenience and unparalleled performance.

The full mesh front and top panels ensure optimal cooling for the internal components. Inside is a removable cable shield on the motherboard tray, which not only discretely and effectively manages cable clutter, but also is designed to channel and concentrate airflow towards the main hardware. Offering mounting areas for a total of three front fans, three top fans, and one rear fan. There are excellent air-cooling opportunities, and liquid cooling support for both 360 mm and 280/360 mm radiators. Matching the all-black chassis aesthetic, InWin bundles a Neptune AN120 ARGB fan as a starting point for PC builders that often prefer to choose their own fans. The AN120 offers an exceptional performance-to-noise ratio at just 20.5 dBA nominal and up to 60 CFM airflow.

SilverStone today introduced its premium air based CPU cooler, the Hydrogon D140 ARGB (model: SST-HYD140-ARGB). As its name might suggest, this is a D-type (dual fin-stack) cooler that uses fans as large as 140 mm for ventilation, and hence fits into the large+heavyweight category of air coolers, targeting the segment of the market that really wants to avoid AIO coolers. The cooler uses a mirror-finish nickel-plated copper base, through which six 6 mm-thick heatpipes pass, which skewer the two fin-stacks on either of their ends. The two fin-stacks are capped off by a top-plate.

There are two fans involved in ventilating the heatsink, meant to be installed in a push-pull configuration. The "push" fan is a 120 mm, while the "pull" fan, located between the two fin-stacks, is a larger 140 mm spinner. Both fans come with addressable RGB LED illumination, and feature hydraulic bearings. The 120 mm fan turns at speeds ranging between 500 to 2,200 RPM, pushing up to 83.68 CFM of airflow at up to 4.01 mm H₂O static pressure, and up to 35.5 dBA of noise. The 140 mm fan, on the other hand, turns between 400 to 1,750 RPM, pushing up to 93 CFM of airflow at 2.24 mm H₂O static pressure, and up to 30.8 dBA of noise. With its fans in place, the cooler measures 140 mm x 160 mm x 136 mm (WxHxD), weighing 1.22 kg. Among the CPU socket types supported are LGA1700, AM5, LGA1200, AM4, and LGA2066. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Recently, MINISFORUM updated the CPU of V3 to AMD's latest Ryzen7 8840U on its official website. Previously, the preview page for V3 went live on January 3rd. It is understood that MINISFORUM is expected to hold the V3 and Spring New Product Launch Event at the end of March 2024. MINISFORUM V3 is the world's first high-performance AMD AI 3-in-1 tablet, featuring AMD's latest Ryzen7 8840U, built on a 4 nm process, with Zen 4 CPU and RDNA3 GPU architecture, 8 cores 16 threads, a base frequency of 3.30 GHz, and a maximum boost frequency of 5.10 GHz, with a TDP of 15-30 W, and a 16 MB L3 cache. It integrates Radeon 780M graphics. V3 also boasts a dual-fan and four-copper-pipe cooling system, achieving 28 W sustained performance release, providing sustained power for AI model training, graphic rendering, video editing, and gaming entertainment.

The AMD 8840U is also paired with a proprietary XDNA AI processor, with NPU computing power up to 16TOPS and processor computing power up to 38TOPS. Based on this, V3 is equipped with a new AMD Ryzen AI, creating an AI Windows triple-in-one tablet PC with the highest security level from Microsoft, supporting Microsoft Real-time Communication, and hardware design supporting Microsoft Copilot, which can be called upon with a single click, providing real-time intelligent suggestions and assistance, helping users easily complete tasks in various scenarios for efficient office work.

TSM, Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation ("SSS"), DENSO Corporation ("DENSO") and Toyota Motor Corporation ("Toyota") today announced further investment into Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing, Inc. ("JASM"), TSMC's majority-owned manufacturing subsidiary in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, to build a second fab, which is scheduled to begin operation by the end of the 2027 calendar year. Toyota will also take a minority stake. Together with JASM's first fab, which is scheduled to begin operation in 2024, the overall investment in JASM will exceed US$20 billion with strong support from the Japanese government.

In response to rising customer demand, JASM plans to commence construction of its second fab by the end of 2024. The increased production scale is also expected to improve overall cost structure and supply chain efficiency for JASM. With both fabs, JASM's Kumamoto site is expected to offer a total production capacity of more than 100,000 12-inch wafers per month starting from 40, 22/28, 12/16 and 6/7 nanometer process technologies for automotive, industrial, consumer and HPC-related applications. The capacity plan may be further adjusted based upon customer demand. With both fabs, the Kumamoto site is expected to directly create more than 3,400 high-tech professional jobs.

Patriot Memory, a leading manufacturer of high-performance enthusiast memory modules, SSDs, flash storage, and gaming peripherals, proudly introduces the Viper PV553 M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 5 x4 SSD. This groundbreaking SSD is designed with the core idea of delivering next-gen performance, featuring an innovative active cooling system.

The PV553 introduces a revolutionary cooling solution as Patriot's first SSD with a blower fan design. Patriot Memory's cutting-edge advancements ensure active thermal dissipation, providing consistent cooling even during extended usage for intense gaming sessions. Crafted with premium materials and a slim 16.5 mm aluminium heat shield, the PV553 incorporates an embedded thermal sensor, guaranteeing unwavering high performance. With a 5-year warranty, this SSD exemplifies quality and reliability.

ASRock releases new BIOS for Intel 600/700 series motherboards, the updated BIOS is able to drastically improve CPU performance on 14th gen non-K series processors up to 10% with I7-14700 by Cinebench R23. The performance gain is benefit from Intel's latest microcode and ASRock is the first to implement this new update before Chinese New Year, the new BIOS for Z790 series motherboards are as below, 600 & B760 series will be updated shortly!

You can find the full list of motherboards and BIOS versions in the table below.

JLab, leading tech company and number one true wireless brand in the US, is pleased to announce the launch of new and most premium true wireless product to date, its Epic Lab Edition earbuds. The best sounding and first earbuds to feature the Knowles Preferred Listening Response Curve, they leverage dual drivers and have an industry-first technology design to provide an elevated listening experience. The JLab Epic Lab Edition is now available from JLab, Amazon and Argos for £199.99.

The Epic Lab Edition earbuds boast a hybrid dual-driver design, incorporating a dynamic driver for rich bass and low frequencies, and a Knowles Balanced Armature driver for exquisite high frequencies. The earbuds are the first true wireless earbuds to feature the Knowles Preferred Listening Response Curve (Knowles Curve), a treble expanded sound signature designed with extensive feedback from a broad range of music listeners. Designed for the modern music listener, its features include smart active noise cancelling, Hi-Res Audio, spatial audio, and Bluetooth LE capabilities.

Intel is reportedly pitching Microsoft to work on an "all American" semi-custom SoC for Microsoft's next Xbox generation that succeeds the Series X/S. The company's main pitch to Microsoft is the fact that the chip would be made entirely in the US, including its silicon fabrication and packaging. Microsoft currently relies on AMD for its SoC, which combines an AMD "Zen 2" CPU with a powerful RDNA2 iGPU that meets DirectX 12 Ultimate requirements.

Intel's semi-custom chip could be functionally the same, albeit based on its next generation CPU and graphics microarchitectures. Strengthening Intel's case is the fact that it now has a contemporary high performance gaming graphics architecture in Xe "Alchemist," and is on course to launch its successor, the Xe² "Battlemage," later this year. The company also made huge strides with chiplet-based SoCs as demonstrated with "Meteor Lake." Intel's semi-custom SoC for Microsoft could combine any of its upcoming CPU microarchitectures, such as "Lunar Lake," or "Panther Lake," and an iGPU based on "Battlemage" or Xe³ "Celestial." This chip could also integrate a next generation NPU if the platform calls for one. This wouldn't be Intel's first rodeo with powering a console; in fact the very first Microsoft Xbox was powered by a Pentium 3 "Coppermine" CPU, paired with a discrete GeForce 3 GPU supplied by NVIDIA.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reached a significant milestone, overtaking Intel and Samsung to become the world's largest semiconductor maker by revenue. According to Taiwanese financial analyst Dan Nystedt, TSMC earned $69.3 billion in revenue in 2023, surpassing Intel's $63 billion and Samsung's $58 billion. This is a remarkable achievement for the Taiwanese chipmaker, which has historically lagged behind Intel and Samsung in terms of revenue despite being the world's largest semiconductor foundry. TSMC's meteoric rise has been fueled by the increased demand for everything digital - from PCs to game consoles - during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and AI demand in the previous year. With its cutting-edge production capabilities allowing it to manufacture chips using the latest process technologies, TSMC has pulled far ahead of Intel and Samsung and can now charge a premium for its services.

This is reflected in its financials. For the 6th straight quarter, TSMC's Q4 2023 revenue of $19.55 billion also beat Intel's $15.41 billion and Samsung's $16.42 billion chip division revenue. As the world continues its rapid transformation in the AI era of devices, TSMC looks set to hold on to its top position for the foreseeable future. Its revenue and profits will likely continue to eclipse those of historical giants like Intel and Samsung. However, a big contender is Intel Foundry Services, which is slowly starting to gain external customers. If IFS takes off and new customers start adopting Intel as their foundry of choice, team blue could regain leadership in the coming years.

AMD's newly announced Ryzen 8000G "Hawk Point" desktop APUs do not support ECC memory, contrary to what the specifications on the AMD website had initially shown, Reddit users found out. The company has since quietly edited its product pages to remove the bit about ECC support. For the overwhelming majority of desktop client use cases, including enthusiast PCs, ECC memory support is irrelevant. That said, the memory controllers of "Phoenix" in Ryzen PRO 7000 mobile processors for commercial notebooks support ECC memory, and so it stands to reason that upcoming Ryzen PRO models for both commercial desktops and notebooks might feature it.

The AMD Ryzen 7 8700G and Ryzen 5 8600G are based on the 4 nm "Hawk Point" monolithic silicon, with a more overclocker-friendly set of DDR5 memory controllers than the ones found in the Ryzen 7000 "Raphael" processors. Besides support for several high-frequency DDR5 modes, the memory controller technically supports ECC (at least "Phoenix" does, on the Ryzen PRO 7000 mobile processors). The memory controller also supports a maximum of 256 GB of memory, or 64 GB dual-rank memory modules per slot. It also supports 24 GB and 48 GB DIMM densities.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (NasdaqGS: SIMO) today announced its financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2023. For the fourth quarter of 2023, net sales (GAAP) increased sequentially to $202.4 million from $172.3 million in the third quarter of 2023. Net income (GAAP) increased to $21.1 million, or $0.63 per diluted American Depositary Share of the Company ("ADS") (GAAP), from net income (GAAP) of $10.6 million, or $0.32 per diluted ADS (GAAP), in the third quarter of 2023. For the fourth quarter of 2023, net income (non-GAAP) increased to $31.3 million, or $0.93 per diluted ADS (non-GAAP), from net income (non-GAAP) of $21.1 million, or $0.63 per diluted ADS (non-GAAP), in the third quarter of 2023.

"Our fourth quarter results exceeded expectations as demand across the majority of our products increased sequentially, driven by holiday season demand and normalizing channel inventory," said Wallace Kou, President and CEO of Silicon Motion. "Both eMMC+UFS and SSD controller demand grew strongly in the quarter. We are confident that our teams' ongoing commitment to deliver controller solutions that enable our customers to service a broader range of markets will continue to drive share gains for us and be the foundation for strong growth in 2024 and beyond."

Nintendo has published its quarterly financial results for the period ending March 31 (2024)—the numbers indicate that their trusty Switch hybrid console has continued to sell surprisingly well, despite industry watchdogs anticipating a sharp decline in late 2023. A Bloomberg Japan report has extracted crucial information from an important corporate investor call—Shuntaro Furukawa, the current company president, announced another sales milestone. The Switch has reached 139.36 million units sold (as of 31st December 2023) since its original rollout back in March 2017—it has the potential to outsell Sony's classic PlayStation 2 home console. Nintendo's CEO adhered to his company's strict script and did not address the big red elephant in the (conference) room—the highly anticipated Switch successor is an industry open secret—instead focusing on the current iteration being their "main business" going into FY2024-2025.

Despite recent "better than expected" financial figures, the Nintendo Switch is on a sales decline (going back several years)—the gaming community expected improved hardware to arrive at some point before 2024, but the House of Mario is in no rush to take on current generation Sony and Microsoft home console models. Furukawa-san stated that Nintendo will discuss its plans for the financial future during a May earnings briefing—this is largely in line with past declarations, the "Switch 2" is not arriving before Spring 2024. The latest reports suggest that the next Nintendo Direct presentation is scheduled for next week—perhaps February 15. Microsoft's Phil Spencer has teased a major Xbox "business update" announcement within the same timeframe.

Prices of the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT graphics card hit new lows, with a Sapphire custom-design card selling for $699 with a coupon discount on Newegg. This puts its price a whole $100 cheaper (12.5% cheaper) than the recently announced NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER. The most interesting part of the story is that the RX 7900 XT is technically from a segment above. Originally launched at $900, the RX 7900 XT is recommended by AMD for 4K Ultra HD gaming with ray tracing; while the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is officially recommended by NVIDIA for maxed out gaming with ray tracing at 1440p, although throughout our testing, we found the card to be capable of 4K Ultra HD gaming.

The Radeon RX 7900 XT offers about the same performance as the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, averaging 1% higher than it in our testing, at the 4K Ultra HD resolution. At 1440p, the official stomping ground of the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER, the RX 7900 XT comes out 2% faster. These are, of course pure raster 3D workloads. In our testing with ray tracing enabled, the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER storms past the RX 7900 XT, posting 23% higher performance at 4K Ultra HD, and 21% higher performance at 1440p.

AI is reshaping industries, society and the "very fabric of innovation"—and Canada is poised to play a key role in this global transformation, said NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang during a fireside chat with leaders from across Canada's thriving AI ecosystem. "Canada, as you know, even though you're so humble, you might not acknowledge it, is the epicenter of the invention of modern AI," Huang told an audience of more than 400 from academia, industry and government gathered Thursday in Toronto.

In a pivotal development, Canada's Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne shared Friday on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Canada has signed a letter of intent with NVIDIA. Nations including Canada, France, India and Japan are discussing the importance of investing in "sovereign AI capabilities," Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Canada. Such efforts promise to enhance domestic computing capabilities, turbocharging local economies and unlocking local talent. "Their natural resource, data, should be refined and produced for their country. The recognition of sovereign AI capabilities is global," Huang told Bloomberg.

CD Projekt has been on a recruitment kick in the USA and Canada—"Project Orion"—AKA a sequel to 2020's Cyberpunk 2077—is in the early stages of development at the company's Boston studio (according to earlier reports). An official announcement—issued a few hours ago—outlines a series of new hirings destined for their New England and Vancouver, BC offices. Additionally, multiple members of the original Cyberpunk 2077 development team have moved from CD Projekt Red's principal Warsaw location to the East Coast NA operation—most notably game director Gabriel Amatangelo, associate director Paweł Sasko, and creative director Igor Sarzyński. The company's executive team confirmed (last month) that their Poland office(s) will preside over the embryonic "Project Polaris"—the next mainline entry in their Witcher franchise.

CD Projekt Red North America's hiring of Anna Megill's has received the most press coverage—she will become the Cyberpunk sequel's Lead Writer. The company press release documented her work history: "narrative contributions to such titles as Control (Remedy), Dishonored: Death of The Outsider (Arkane), Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (Ubisoft Massive), Guild Wars 2 (ArenaNet), and the upcoming Fable (Playground Games)." The Executive Producer position will be filled by Dan Hernberg, previously Head of Production at Amazon Games and Panic Button, as well as Lead Product Manager at Blizzard Entertainment—his CV includes "contributions" to New World, Apex Legends, and Diablo III. Ryan Barnard has been hired as Design Director, his past credits include: "Game Director at Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft, as well as Gameplay Director at Hitman developer IO Interactive." Alexander Freed (a former BioWare lead writer) will be contributing additional plot content. Cyberpunk multiplayer elements have been teased by CD Projekt leadership, so it would make sense to have several MMO-experienced senior staffers onboard.

DLSS is available in both Enshrouded and Palworld, 2024's two breakout hits that already boast over 20 million combined players. Now, you can try the demo of Stormgate, one of the next Steam hits. Developed by RTS veterans, a Kickstarter campaign concluded last week with over $2.2 million pledged, making it the top gaming Kickstarter of 2023, and 2024 to date. With such interest, Stormgate is primed to be the year's next hit game, and you can already get the definitive experience in the demo thanks to the inclusion of DLSS 3. Additionally, DLSS 3 is available today in the new Atomic Heart: Trapped In Limbo expansion, and in Call of Duty: Warzone Season 2, which begins tomorrow. And rounding out this bumper crop of releases is The Inquisitor, launching later this week with DLSS 2.

Stormgate Demo Available Now With DLSS 3
Stormgate is the upcoming free-to-play real-time strategy game from the team at Frost Giant Studios, featuring developers who've worked on some of gaming's most popular RTS games, including Warcraft III and StarCraft II. Stormgate's recent crowdfunding campaign was the most successful video game Kickstarter of 2023 and the highest-earning real-time strategy game Kickstarter of all time.

Creating quality content requires quality gear - whether you're editing your latest video review or streaming your favorite games on Twitch. The ROG Carnyx is a professional-grade condenser gaming microphone that delivers detailed, high-fidelity audio with minimal setup, making it a good microphone for gaming and streaming that lets you can do what you do best: playing games, streaming, and creating content.

Crystal clear sound through the Carnyx gaming microphone
The Carnyx features a 25 mm condenser capsule and 192 kHz / 24-bit sampling rate, meaning every detail of your voice will come through in a clean, uninterrupted recording. Our high-pass filter enhances vocal clarity, the microphone's built-in pop filter to minimize vocal plosives, and the entire unit suspended onto a premium metal shock mount with a high quality elastic cord to reduce external vibrations and produce crystal-clear sound.

AMD today announced the launch of AMD Embedded+, a new architectural solution that combines AMD Ryzen Embedded processors with Versal adaptive SoCs onto a single integrated board to deliver scalable and power-efficient solutions that accelerate time-to-market for original design manufacturer (ODM) partners. Validated by AMD, the Embedded+ integrated compute platform helps ODM customers reduce qualification and build times for faster time-to-market without needing to expend additional hardware and R&D resources. ODM integration using Embedded+ architecture enables the use of a common software platform to develop designs with low power, small form factors, and long lifecycles for medical, industrial, and automotive applications.

"In automated systems, sensor data has diminishing value with time and must operate on the freshest information possible to enable the lowest latency, deterministic response," said Chetan Khona, senior director of Industrial, Vision, Healthcare and Sciences Markets, AMD. "In industrial and medical applications, many decisions need to happen in milliseconds. Embedded+ maximizes the value of partner and customer data, with energy efficiency and performant computing that enables them to focus in turn on addressing their customer and market needs."

TrendForce's latest findings reveal global monitor shipments declined 7.3% in 2023 down to 125 million units—a figure below pre-pandemic levels. Looking ahead to 2024, given the low shipment base in 2023, alongside the potential for a gradual economic recovery and the typical 4 to 5-year PC replacement cycle, PCs purchased during the pandemic are expected to be upgraded between the second half of 2024 and 2025. This is anticipated to drive a 2% increase in global monitor shipments in 2024, reaching approximately 128 million units.

The top three commercial monitor brands experienced over twenty percent decline in shipments
A surge in unfulfilled business orders in Europe and America in the first half of 2022 elevated the shipment baseline for commercial brands that year. However, by 2023, commercial market demand saw a significant contraction, leading to a YoY shipment decrease of 20.4% for Dell, 20.7% for HP, and 21.4% for Lenovo—each dropping by over twenty percent.

War Games mode fuses Homeworld's RTS gameplay with roguelike inspiration, charging commanders to take on a randomized series of fleet combat challenges. Claim powerful Artifacts that augment your ships with more power, speed, and, of course, weapons. Based on your results, you'll unlock new fleets to shake up your strategy. This demo, available to all Steam players starting February 5 at 10am PT until February 12 at 10am PT, supports up to three players as they engage waves of hostiles in a series of increasingly challenging encounters. Players can find teammates through Quick Match or create a lobby to team up with friends online.

It's important to note that any Fleets or Artifacts you unlock in the War Games demo will carry over when Homeworld 3 launches. For players not using Steam Cloud Saves, make sure you don't delete your demo files as we'll be sharing info on the exact transfer process later. Each level presents a greater challenge and new modifiers to your next War Games run. This demo will feature four different maps and a slew of things to unlock as you continue to play, including different starting fleets (maybe even an extra special one!) plus new Artifacts and more.

Intel's Core i9-14900T processor was "officially" released last month alongside an expanded population of "Raptor Lake Refresh" products—the T-class alternative to Team Blue's flagship desktop Core i9-14900 CPU is a less glamorous prospect, hence almost zero press coverage and tech reviews. Its apparent lack of visibility is not helped by non-existent availability at retail, despite inclusion in Team Blue's second wave of 14th Generation Core processors (Marketing Status = Launched). The Core i9-14900 (non-K) is readily obtainable around the globe, as a lower-power alternative to the ever greedy Core i9-14900K, but their T-class SKU sibling takes frugality to another level. TPU's resident CPU tester, W1zzard, implemented six distinct power limit settings during a i9-14900K supplemental experiment, with the lowest being 35 W—coincidentally, matching the i9-14900T's default base power.

His simulated findings were not encouraging, to say the least, but late last week BenchLeaks noticed that a lone test system had gauged the T-class part's efficiency-oriented processing prowess. Geekbench 6.2.2 results were generated by an ASRock Z790 PG-ITX/TB4 build (with 64 GB of 5586 MT/s DDR5 SDRAM)—scoring 3019 in the overall single-core category, and 16385 in multi-core stakes. The latter score indicates a 22% performance penalty when referenced against Tom Hardware's Geekbenched i9-14900K sample. The publication reckons that these figures place Intel's Core i9-14900T CPU in good company—notably AMD's Ryzen 9 7900 processor, one of the company's trio of 65 W "non-X" SKUs. Last March, W1zzard was suitably impressed by his review sample's "fantastic energy efficiency"—the Geekbench 6 official scoreboard awards it 2823 (single-core) and 16750 (multi-core) based on aggregated data from multiple submissions.

Palit has kind of gone against the 12VHPWR grain with its GeForce RTX 4080 Super GamingPro OC graphics card—PC SIG's 16-pin power connector is the default standard for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 series, but an outbreak of technical snafus has caused many to question the format's future. A new 12V-2x6 connection standard is touted as 12VHPWR's natural successor, but PC parts manufacturers continue to produce products that utilize the latter. HXL discovered a MaxSun custom GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER design that sported two completely bog standard 8-pin PCIe power connectors (in lieu of 12VHPWR), but a follow up report indicates that the Chinese board partner has scrubbed the offending item from its web presences.

Jisakuhibi Japan's review of the Palit GeForce RTX 4080 Super GamingPro OC model included close-up shots of the card's PCB—the publication's social media account noted an intriguing yet empty section: "(Palit's) board seems to be able to natively set the auxiliary power supply to PCIe 8-pin x 2 instead of 12VHPWR." The unoccupied area sits just south-east of the standard 12VHPWR connector—the provisional positioning of pin holes suggests that Palit's PCB could be designed for a separate professional graphics card solution. The company is unlikely to divulge its original intent with the placement of older auxiliary power connectors—ultimately 12VHPWR is the way forward.

Hi, your local game slinger here (Megan Spurr, Community Lead), back to add more to your "to be played" collection! Maybe you want to simulate some football before the big game; simulate running from horrors, or simulate moving things a little to the left without having to actually organize your things… we have some games for you. Claim your Perks, check out some updates, and get ready to pre-install some games!

Available Today:
Anuchard (Cloud, Console, and PC)—The kingdom of Anuchard has fallen. Generations after the collapse, its surviving descendants have chosen you to become The Bellwielder of the magical Audros Bell. Go forth, battle monsters, solve puzzles, and restore Anuchard to its former skyward glory!

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) is preparing new semiconductor production lines at its Shanghai facilities according to a fresh Reuters report—China's largest contract chip maker is linked to next generation Huawei SoC designs, possibly 5 nm-based Kirin models. SMIC's newest Shanghai wafer fabrication site was an expensive endeavor—involving a $8.8 billion investment—but their flagship lines face a very challenging scenario with new phases of mass production. Huawei, a key customer, is expected to "upgrade" to a 5 nm process for new chip designs—their current flagship, Kirin 9000S, is based on a SMIC 7 nm node. Reuter's industry sources believe that the foundry's current stable of "U.S. and Dutch-made equipment" will be deployed to "produce 5-nanometer chips."

Revised trade rulings have prevented ASML shipping advanced DUV machinery to mainland China manufacturing sites—SMIC workers have reportedly already repurposed the existing inventory of lithography equipment for next-gen pursuits. Burn Lin (ex-TSMC), a renowned "chip guru," believes that it is possible to mass produce 5 nm product on slightly antiquated gear (previously used for 7 nm)—but the main caveats being increased expense and low yields. According to a DigiTimes Asia report, mass production of a 5 nm SoC on SMIC's existing DUV lithography would require four-fold patterning in a best case scenario.

Galax did a rather unique custom-design take on the GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB, NVIDIA's new entry-level GPU. Called simply the RTX 3050 6 GB LP White, the card is an ode to the white color scheme not just for its cooler shroud and fan impellers, but even the PCB itself. That's right, the card features an all-white PCB to go with its aluminium monoblock heatsink that uses an extruded aluminium design, with a pair of 40 mm fans ventilating it.

Another surprising design choice with this card is that it provides four display connectors within its half-height PCB, without a breakout connector. Display connectors include two each of DisplayPort 1.4a and HDMI 2.1 ports. The card sticks to the reference speeds of the RTX 3050 6 GB, especially taking advantage of its 70 W TGP, which means it does away with power connectors, and extends its heatsink across much of the PCB's topside. Despite this, the card offers a tiny factory overclock of 1485 MHz, compared to 1470 MHz reference. The four display connector setup in particular should appeal to the non-gaming crowd that needs a graphics card for multiple displays. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Hey everyone! About 4 years ago I started working on this game and it was just a small random project like any other I was working on on the side. After one of those "what am I doing with my life" evenings I thought I might as well just give it a shot and send a mail to Devolver. I'm glad I did. Because now this Demo is out! I feel incredibly lucky with all the support I got from everyone involved. Including everyone at Devolver, Aidan Baker, who did the audio, Nil Vendrell making the cutscene art, Stephen Cavalier editing the cutscenes and helping with the story, Maria de la Puente and Rocío Valentín helping with the level art, Brainwash Gang with their game design and art help, Juan de la Torre being a great producer and friend, and of course my wonderful girlfriend Vendy.

Thanks to all of you! It's a cliché thing to say, but I could not have pulled it off without any of them. I don't expect everyone to be into this, but I hope some of you find joy in this experience. I'm looking forward to reading everyone's feedback. It's been a crazy and exciting time for me working on this and I'm excited about what's going to happen. Thank you all very much for your time!

• René | @primaerfunktion

PowerColor, a leader in innovative graphics card solutions, is proud to announce the launch of its latest marvel in the gaming world: the PowerColor RX 7900 XT Hellhound - Spectral White Edition. Following the overwhelming success of the 7800 XT Spectral White model, this new release brings the same unique design elements to the powerful Radeon 7900 XT series.

Spectral White Edition: A Symphony in White
The RX 7900 XT Hellhound Spectral White Edition is a testament to PowerColor's commitment to exceptional design and engineering. It features an all-white PCB, heatsink, and cooling solution, setting a new benchmark in graphics card aesthetics. This card is not just a performance powerhouse; it's a statement piece for any gaming setup, offering a pristine, unified look that white PC build enthusiasts will adore.

With its latest free update, Patch 1.5 "Larry", the critically acclaimed turn-based strategy game Jagged Alliance 3 introduces new content in the form of optional and variable rule sets, enriching your campaign in Grand Chien with fresh challenges and opportunities. Among the examples of how to intensify the trials for your Mercs are features like "Body Count," where your fellow warriors confront larger enemy squads, "Hard Lessons," which prolongs the time needed for a Merc to level up, and "Ammo Scarcity," as the name suggests, introduces scarcity of ammunition.

Conversely, players can also leverage rules such as "A.I.M Legendary Deals," which reduce the starting salaries of elite and legendary Mercs, aiding their strategic endeavors. Players have the liberty to combine these rules as they see fit, shaping their challenges as they embark on their mission to liberate Grand Chien! Moreover, update 1.5 empowers dedicated modders with extensive tools to modify, enhance, and even rebuild most aspects of the game. We eagerly anticipate the release of outstanding mods in the upcoming weeks and months.

Ugreen, a global leader in consumer electronics and charging technology, is pleased to announce the launch of its Revodok Series Hubs & Docking Stations. Under the banner "Expand Your Creativity," these new products cater to diverse user demands and comprise of three distinct series: Revodok Max Series, Revodok Pro Series, and Revodok Basic Series. The Revodok Max 213 is available from Ugreen and Amazon US for £399.99/$399.99, the Revodok Pro 313 is available from Ugreen and Amazon US from £129.99/$129.99 and the Revodok Pro 210 is available from Ugreen and Amazon US for £69.99/$69.99.

The Revodok Max 213, the premier product of the Revodok Max Series, is specifically tailored for professionals in fields such as media, data/financial analysis, photography, audio/video production, engineering, and design. It epitomizes "Ultra-high Speed and Ultra-high Efficiency", facilitating seamless collaboration and productivity in multi-device offices and high-performance equipment settings.

During a January 31 Earnings Call, Cristiano Renno Amon (President and CEO of Qualcomm) discussed the upcoming launch of his company's Snapdragon X Elite processor—an ARM-based SoC that is built "for AI" on next generation tablets, notebooks and ultra-slim laptops. The twelve onboard custom Oryon cores are part of a package that will become (in marketing terms): "the most powerful, intelligent, and efficient processor ever created for Windows in its class. With cutting edge responsiveness, navigate demanding multi-tasking workloads across productivity, creativity, immersive entertainment, and more..." Amon and his executive colleagues are targeting a middle-of-2024 launch of Snapdragon X Elite-powered devices, he also mentioned a next-gen version of Microsoft's operating system in the same sentence: "We're tracking to the launch of products with this chipset tied with the next version of Microsoft Windows that has a lot of the Windows AI capabilities. We're still maintaining the same date, which is driven by Windows, which is mid-2024, getting ready for back-to-school."

The rumor mill has "Windows 12" marked down for a summer 2024 launch period—last December, Taiwan's Commercial Times reported on a number sources within the PC manufacturing industry—alluding to a June release date. Intel Chief Financial Officer Dave Zinsner relayed a similar schedule to a Citi interviewer (reported by PC Gamer): "We actually think '24 is going to be a pretty good year for client, in particular, because of the Windows refresh. And we still think that the installed base is pretty old and does require a refresh and we think next year may be the start of that, given the Windows catalyst. So we're optimistic about how things will play out beginning in '24."

It's time for Classic and Modern Sonic to reunite in a remastered collection of iconic 2D and 3D Sonic levels! We unveiled Sonic X Shadow Generations during State of Play—the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog platformer delivering blistering platforming challenges at speeds only Sonic and Shadow can deliver. It's a greatest hits playlist of iconic 2D and 3D Sonic levels from Sonic Generations, both remastered and expanded for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. But that's not all—Sonic X Shadow Generations also introduces an all-new standalone campaign for Shadow the Hedgehog, making this the definitive blend of Classic Sonic, Modern Sonic and Shadow gameplay.

The announcement that premiered last week shows off a glimpse of the title with action-packed footage to get fans excited for the new additions to come. The original Sonic Generations provided an unforgettable experience to Sonic fans old and new, as it combined nostalgia from the early days of Sonic with the latest modern Sonic gameplay at the time. The story centers around Sonic and friends as their universe is thrown into chaos when an ominous power appears, creating "time holes," which take Sonic and his friends back in time. While in the past, Sonic runs into some familiar faces including a classic version of himself! Together, they must team up to defeat enemies, save their friends, and find out who is behind this diabolical deed.

ASUS today announced the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Noctua OC Edition graphics card, designed for gamers and creators who seek cutting-edge performance that operates at whisper-quiet noise levels. Building on the class-leading design of the ASUS GeForce RTX 3070, RTX 3080, and RTX 4080 Noctua Edition variants, this premium graphics card achieves near-silent operation thanks to the Noctua fans, an ASUS custom-built vapor chamber and a massive heatsink.

The ASUS GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Noctua Edition incorporates a pair of Noctua's state-of-the-art NF‑A12x25 fans to move air over an extra-large heatsink. These fans were developed in a partnership between the ASUS thermal R&D team and engineers at Noctua. The design involved tuning the fin density and heat pipe arrangement of the heatsink, optimizing each for the airflow characteristics of the NF-A12x25 fans. To prioritize low noise levels, a smooth acoustic signature and high cooling performance while making room for the pair of 120 mm fans, ASUS expanded the card's total volume to occupy 4.3 slots of space. The card also comes with a Dual BIOS switch, with Quiet mode enabled by default to minimize acoustics right out of the box.

Raijintek over the weekend debuted the Ampere series of fully modular ATX 3.0 power supplies. The lineup currently only has a 1200 W model, but the company is working to add more variants based on wattage. This is Raijintek's first PSU series to meet 80 Plus Platinum and Cybenetics Platinum 230 V switching efficiency ratings. Although there's just the 1200 W variant, there are two color options, black and matte white. These impact not just the color of the PSU's body, but also the included modular cables. The PSU meets ATX 3.0 and PCIe Gen 5 specifications, and includes a 600 W-capable 12V-2x6 modular cable. This is a more durable successor to the 12VHPWR connector that maintains compatibility with it.

Besides the 600 W 12V-2x6, and a 24-pin ATX, you get four 6+2 pin PCIe power, two 8-pin EPS, eight SATA power, three Molex, and one Berg. Under the hood, the Raijintek Ampere features a single +12 V rail design, with active PFC, LLC, and DC-to-DC switching. Protections are included against over/under voltage, overcurrent, overpower, and short-circuit. The PSU uses a 120 mm fluid dynamic bearing fan that can stay off up to 40% of +12 V load. The PSU measures 14 cm in length, which should play well with mid-tower cases, especially given its 1200 W wattage. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Thermaltake, a leading PC DIY brand for premium hardware solutions, is excited to announce that the Pacific SR Radiator and the new-colored Pacific SF Fittings are ready for purchase. A high-quality water cooling system should include components with maximum modification capability and visual attractiveness. The Pacific SR Radiator features detachable side panels for you to customize painting more easily, and the Pacific SF Fittings now come in three colors - silver black, matte black, and white, ensuring a comprehensive selection to meet all your needs.

Pacific SR280/360/420 Radiator - Black/Snow Edition
The Pacific SR Radiator is a slim radiator with 28 mm thickness, and its compact size can offer enormous placement flexibility. This series has 3 models: the Pacific SR360 that fits 120 mm fans, and the Pacific SR280 and Pacific SR420 that fit 140 mm fans. The Pacific SR Radiator has black and snow editions to choose; contributing to the modular design, you can take off the detachable side panels of the radiator and paint them in any color you like. Furthermore, this radiator is crafted with flat tubes and 17 FPI fin density, paired with high-static pressure fans can offer an exceptional cooling solution.

Nubis Communications, Inc., provider of low-latency high-density optical inter-connect (HDI/O), and Alphawave Semi (LN: AWE), a global leader in high-speed connectivity and compute silicon for the world's technology infrastructure, today announced their upcoming demonstration of PCI Express 6.0 technology driving over an optical link at 64GT/s per lane. Data Center providers are exploring the use of PCIe over Optics to greatly expand the reach and flexibility of the interconnect for memory, CPUs, GPUs, and custom silicon accelerators to enable more scalable and energy-efficient clusters for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (ML/AI) architectures.

Nubis Communications and Alphawave Semi will be showing a live demonstration in the Tektronix booth at DesignCon, the leading conference for advanced chip, board, and system design technologies. An Alphawave Semi PCIe Subsystem with PiCORE Controller IP and PipeCORE PHY will directly drive and receive PCIe 6.0 traffic through a Nubis XT1600 linear optical engine to demonstrate a PCIe 6.0 optical link at 64GT/s per fiber, with optical output waveform measured on a Tektronix sampling scope with a high-speed optical probe.

NVIDIA is giving finishing touches to a new feature called RTX TrueHDR. This was discovered by a user on NexusMods, who went ahead and published a mod based on it. This is essentially a driver-level utility that converts SDR games to HDR in real-time by leveraging the generative AI capabilities of GeForce RTX GPUs and their Tensor cores. From the looks of it, it appears to be a derivative of RTX Video HDR enhancement, except it works with the lossless output of a game. A vast selection of gaming monitors these days come with at least DisplayHDR 400 capability and the ability to display HDR content; which gives NVIDIA a sizable market to address with RTX TrueHDR. There's no word on when NVIDIA plans to release this feature, but it could only be a matter of time (weeks, if not months), given that NVIDIA drivers are already capable of SDR-to-HDR conversion technologies.

Kioxia Corporation and Western Digital Corporation announced today that their joint venture manufacturing facilities at Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants have been approved to receive an up to 150 billion yen subsidy, including facilities that will produce its latest generation of 3D flash memory based on the innovative wafer bonding technology and future generation advanced nodes. The subsidy will be granted under a designated government program aimed at facilitating corporate investment in cutting-edge semiconductor production facilities and securing stable production of semiconductors in Japan. This marks the second time that Kioxia's and Western Digital's joint venture manufacturing facilities are receiving this subsidy from the Japanese government. Previously, the joint venture manufacturing facility at Yokkaichi was approved to receive up to 92.9 billion yen subsidy from the Japanese government in 2022.

Leveraging an over 20-year joint venture partnership, Kioxia and Western Digital will continue to enhance the development and production capabilities of cutting-edge flash memory at the Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants in Japan. In addition, the two companies will contribute to the development of semiconductor-related industries and talent.

It turns out that the 60-core Xeon W9-3595X leak from last week is part of a 14-SKU mid-lifecycle refresh of the Xeon W LGA4677 series targeting the workstation and HEDT markets. The underlying microarchitecture and silicon at the heart of these is "Sapphire Rapids Refresh," it's essentially the same as "Sapphire Rapids," but with CPU core-count increases across the SKUs. If you recall, the "Sapphire Rapids" MCM has a maximum core-count of 60-core/120-thread which is maxed out in Xeon Scalable server processors, but only hit up to 56-core/112-thread with the original W3400 and W2400 series HEDT/workstation chips. This unused 4-core headroom, combined with increases in clock speeds, is how Intel plans to create these 14 SKUs across the new W3500 and W2500 product lines.

As with the original W3400 and W2400 series; what set the W3500 series chips apart from the W2500 series, is the I/O. The W3500 series gets 8-channel DDR5 memory and 128 PCIe Gen 5 lanes, while the W2500 series chips get 4-channel DDR5 memory and 64 PCIe Gen 5 lanes. As we mentioned, this refresh is all about increasing the CPU core counts at existing price points. The top W9-3595X is a 60-core/120-thread chip, compared to the 56-core/112-thread W9-3495X it's replacing. The new W9-3575X gets a massive 8-core uplift, and is now a 44-core/88-thread processor, compared to the 36-core/72-thread W9-3475X. The W7-3565X is 32-core/64-thread, compared to the 28-core/56-thread W7-3465X.

MSI, the world's leading manufacturer of true gaming hardware, is proudly expanding the hardware possibilities for all gamers. While OLED panels have become the preferred choice for high-end gaming, the OLED burn-in issue has consistently been a major concern for all users. MSI is proud to introduce an exceptional solution that effectively addresses the dreaded OLED problem.

MSI's Pledge: 3-Year Warranty for OLED Monitors
To further enhance the longevity of your panels, we are proud to introduce MSI OLED CARE 2.0. This cutting-edge technology is designed to safeguard your OLED panels, providing enhanced protection and contributing to an extended lifespan. In a commitment to our valued gaming community, MSI guarantees a 3-year warranty on OLED panels. Our 3-year warranty extends beyond typical coverage—it includes protection against the burn-in issue. MSI understands the importance of providing comprehensive support, ensuring our users enjoy gaming without any concerns.

NVIDIA's latest RTX 40 series graphics cards feature impressive new technologies like DLSS 3 that can significantly enhance performance and image quality in games. However, owners of older 20 and 30 series NVIDIA GeForce RTX cards cannot officially benefit from these cutting-edge advances. DLSS 3's Frame Generation feature, in particular, requires dedicated hardware only found in NVIDIA's brand new Ada Lovelace architecture. But the ingenious modding community has stepped in with a creative workaround solution where NVIDIA has refused to enable frame generation functionality on older generation hardware. A new third-party modification can unofficially activate both upscaling (FSR, DLAA, DLSS or XeSS) and AMD Fluid Motion Frames on older NVIDIA cards equipped with Tensor Cores. Replacing two key DLL files and a small edit to the Windows registry enables the "DLSS 3" option to be activated in games running on older hardware.

In testing conducted by Digital Foundry, this modification delivered up to a 75% FPS boost - on par with the performance uplift official DLSS 3 provides on RTX 40 series cards. Games like Cyberpunk 2077, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and A Plague Tale: Requiem were used to benchmark performance. However, there can be minor visual flaws, including incorrect UI interpolation or random frame time fluctuations. Ironically, while the FSR 3 tech itself originates from AMD, the mod currently only works on NVIDIA cards. So, while not officially supported, the resourcefulness of the modding community has remarkably managed to bring cutting-edge frame generation to more NVIDIA owners - until AMD RDNA 3 cards can utilize it as well. This shows the incredible potential of community-driven software modification and innovation.

Team Group, the global memory provider of top-of-the-line storage solutions, today announced the release of the MagSafe-compatible Team Group PD20M Magnetic External SSD. It is one of the lightest and thinnest MagSafe-related products on the market. Weighing merely 40 g and measuring only 0.82 cm, the PD20M is easy to grip and take on the go. You can attach it to a mobile device without any additional accessories, and its elegant curved design allows you to comfortably hold it in your hands.

The Team Group PD20M Magnetic External SSD has a magnetic strength of over 0.8 kg, making it able to snap on a mobile device instantly. The stylish and portable design allows users to store valuable data on their phones in a variety of situations. The PD20M Magnetic External SSD uses the USB Type-C interface and is compatible with most devices that use it. These include the Apple iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max smartphones, which have a maximum transfer speed of 10 Gbps. Able to store data in a flash, the PD20M delivers performance and convenience, making it the ideal solution for expanding storage capacity.

The Sharkoon Rebel C70 RGB is a new ATX mid-tower case that features a Norwegian wood design element along its front panel. Unlike the Fractal Design North that does the same thing with floating wood slats surrounded by a metal frame; the Rebel C70 RGB uses flattened flats that extend to the edges of the panel, with a contrasting matte black accents toward the sides. Behind the slats is a mesh intake for the three front fan mounts, which come with pre-installed 120 mm RGB fans that, along with the rear 120 mm exhaust, light up in a warm white (2700K) color out of the box, to pair well with the aesthetic, although to can configure it to pretty much any color. An 8-channel ARGB controller is included with the case, which can sync with a 3-pin ARGB connection with your motherboard, and contain its own 22 lighting presets that you can cycle between with a button on the case.

Inside, the case provides room for ATX (or smaller) motherboards with 7 expansion slots; graphics cards up to 40 cm in length (maximum clearance); and CPU coolers up to 16.5 cm in height. A graphics card reinforcement brace comes included, which counteracts PCB bending over time. There are an impressive 11 fan mounts in all. These include three 120 mm or 140 mm along the front; three 120 mm along the side; three 120 mm or 140 mm along the top; one 120/140 mm along the bottom; and the 120 mm rear exhaust. Storage options include three 3.5-inch bays and three 2.5-inch mounts. Front-panel connectivity includes a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10 Gbps) type-C; three USB 3.0 type-A, and a 4-pole 3.5 mm headset jack. The case measures 47.9 cm x 23 cm x 49.5 cm (LxWxH), dry-weighing 9.3 kg.

SK hynix announced today that it has established a roadmap to actively utilize recycled and renewable materials in production, marking the first case that a semiconductor company lays out such mid- to long-term plan. "In order to achieve Net Zero, or Carbon Neutrality, establishing a circular economy system centered on resource recycling has become an important task for countries and companies around the world," SK hynix said. "In line with this trend, we have decided to preemptively establish and faithfully implement the goal of increasing the use of recycled materials in stages."

Through this roadmap, SK hynix aims to raise the proportion of recycled materials used in the products currently manufactured by the company to 25% by 2025 and more than 30% (based on weight) by 2030. As part of the plan, SK hynix will start with essential metals for semiconductor production, such as copper, tin, and gold, and replace them with recycled materials. Industry experts point out that metal materials are the most effective when it comes to resource circulation as they account for a large proportion of the weight of finished memory products and are difficult to replace with other materials.