More than 115,000 people have signed "Stand with Jensen," an open letter asking NVIDIA's board to bring back Jensen Huang as CEO. Huang resigned on November 12, with CFO Colette Kress stepping in as interim CEO. At the time of writing, the campaign site lists over 5,900 signers as current NVIDIA employees, about 1,100 as former employees, and more than 62,000 as shareholders. The site notes those affiliations are self-reported and unverified. Elon Musk said on X that he signed the letter, and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is also listed among the signers.

The letter asks the board to reinstate Huang while an independent investigation runs, give him a fair hearing, and publicly explain its decision. The organizers argue he was removed "without meaningful due process." The resignation came days after the board opened an investigation into reports that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort through a relationship with a suspected Chinese spy. Huang admitted to infidelity in a November 8 email to staff, and a second relationship with an NVIDIA executive was reported shortly after.

Base PS5 owners have six more games lined up for QSSR, Sony's lighter AI upscaler. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is the first of the batch, with an update that's live now and adds QSSR to both its Fidelity and Performance modes. Control Resonant follows in a December update, while No Man's Sky should get it "in the next few weeks." Embark Studios says ARC Raiders and The Finals are getting it soon, and Hell Let Loose: Vietnam will add it through an upcoming patch. Sony shared the list on the PlayStation Blog.

Sony introduced QSSR in October, starting with Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei. It's a cut-down version of the PS5 Pro's PSSR, developed through Project Amethyst with AMD. QSSR shares its interface with PSSR, which should make it fairly simple to add to games that already support the Pro upscaler. The developers mostly point to sharper and more stable images, and Remedy's Erik Jansson even compares the jump to what PSSR did for the PS5 Pro. It does come at a cost, though. In Digital Foundry's Marvel's Wolverine testing, QSSR took about 1.5 to 1.8 ms longer per frame than Insomniac's own upscaler when going from 864p to 1440p, and the cost climbed to roughly 4.4 ms with a 4K output.

GIGABYTE, a global leader in computer hardware and innovative technology solutions, will host its AI Partner Summit on November 13, 2026, at Pacific Palms Resort in Southern California. Centered around the theme "Build Your First Business AI Agent," the summit will bring together industry experts, business partners, and customers to explore practical applications of artificial intelligence and accelerate AI adoption across business environments.

The event will feature insights from NVIDIA, presentations from GIGABYTE, and real-world customer success stories highlighting how organizations are integrating AI into their daily operations. Attendees will gain valuable perspectives on emerging AI technologies and discover how GIGABYTE's AI solutions can help businesses unlock new opportunities for innovation and productivity.

TSMC has confirmed that personal data of some current and former employees was posted on an external website without authorization. The chipmaker disclosed the incident in a Form 6-K filing on November 12, the same day Taiwan's United Daily News reported that someone was selling roughly 46,000 employee records on DarkForums and BreachForums. Apparently, the asking price for the 6.9 GB dump is three bitcoin (about NT$7.4 million), and the seller threatened to publish all of it if no buyer turned up within a week.

A sample file shared with the listing reportedly holds 499 records with 19 fields each, including names, dates of birth, job titles, national ID numbers, home addresses, phone numbers, emails, bank details, and emergency contacts. The 46,000 figure hasn't been verified yet. TSMC says it has found nothing to suggest its own systems were breached. Its initial findings point to a cloud service provider instead, since the leaked data matches records stored with that vendor. The company hasn't named the provider or said how many people are affected.

AskAnyModel AI Pro Plan is now available for $39.99 (MSRP $499) for lifetime access through Nov. 8. The browser-based platform brings more than 50 AI models into one workspace, with tools for comparing responses, generating images, and switching models during a conversation.

Its main comparison feature sends one prompt to two to six selected models simultaneously. Responses appear side by side, along with response times and token counts. For writing, coding, research, or brainstorming, this lets users assess different approaches without repeating a question across separate services. Comparing answers can help identify useful differences.

Get the AskAnyModel AI Pro Plan Lifetime Subscription for $39.99 (MSRP $499).

Since the launch of the Steam Deck and the ensuing flurry of gaming-focussed Linux distributions, CachyOS has become one of the more popular Linux distros for gamers, thanks to its performance-oriented kernel and Arch base, but that same Arch DNA has been a deterrent for many first-time Linux users. It seems as though the developers behind CachyOS are aiming to address some of that and make the distribution less intimidating, announcing a new CachyOS Package Installer 2.0.

The new Package Installer 2.0 moves away from the largely text-based Octopi and more modern Shelly. CachyOS Package Installer 2.0 will launch with support for the AUR and Flatpak, alongside the regular CachyOS repos, and it will have a fresh new UI with a layout similar to Bazaar, the app store commonly used in Bazzite. Unlike Bazaar, CachyOS Package Installer 2.0 will have support for themes, with nine themes in total available at launch. It will also seemingly support proper app previews and more user-friendly descriptions. Alongside the new package launcher, the official CachyOS account on X also announced that a new CachyOS release is coming soon.

We have repeatedly seen generative AI divide the gaming industry in game industry worker surveys and in comments by game developers, and this is apparently still the case, according to the latest GDC State of the Game Industry: November 2026 survey. The organization surveyed over 2,600 game workers across different disciplines in the video game industry about a variety of topics, including the ongoing layoffs, hiring rates after being laid off, and the future of the gaming industry. When it comes to generative AI, 40% of game workers reported that they used AI in their work, with a more granular look revealing that 63% of workers in business operations or services used AI, while 51% of marketing and PR employees, and 48% of programmers used generative AI in their daily work.

Workers at "older indie studios" were less likely to use AI, with only 29% of respondents confirming AI use, while workers working on premium games also showed lower rates of AI use, at 32% of respondents. The inverse was true for free-to-play games, with 58% using AI, and mobile studios, where 70% of workers reported using AI. Company AI policies are also interesting, with as many as 23% of respondents reporting that AI was banned at their studios, while only 1% were required to use them, 12% were allowed to use them at their own discretion, 11% were discouraged from using them, and 17% were encouraged to use AI tools.

GIGABYTE brings anime aesthetics and gaming performance together with the AORUS ARI Bundle, featuring the AORUS GeForce RTX 5060 ARI 8G graphics card and B850 AORUS ELITE-P ICE motherboard. Inspired by Ari, AORUS's original anime character, this exclusive bundle combines distinctive character artwork, sleek white hardware, and advanced gaming technologies to create a PC build that truly stands out.

At the heart of the bundle is the AORUS GeForce RTX 5060 ARI 8G, powered by NVIDIA's Blackwell architecture and equipped with 8 GB of GDDR7 memory. Featuring NVIDIA DLSS technology and advanced ray tracing capabilities, the graphics card delivers enhanced visuals and smooth gaming performance. GIGABYTE's WINDFORCE cooling system incorporates patented Hawk fans, server-grade thermal conductive gel, and composite copper heat pipes to optimize heat dissipation. Its reinforced metal backplate, featuring exclusive ARI artwork, combines long-term durability with a bold anime-inspired design.

Buy GIGABYTE AORUS ARI Bundle on Newegg!

AMD's share of desktop CPU shipments fell to 29.9% in the third quarter of 2026, according to new Mercury Research data, shared by PC Gamer. That's a five-point drop from the 34.9% AMD held in Q2, with Intel climbing back to 70.1%. It's also AMD's lowest desktop figure since early 2025, when it sat at around 28%. A year ago, AMD held 33.6% of the desktop market.

Mercury itself admits it isn't sure what caused the swing. Its best guess is that weaker laptop demand let Intel shift more chips to desktops, which usually see a seasonal bump in the third quarter, after Intel had been under-supplying that market earlier in the year. AMD, on the other hand, didn't seem to get that seasonal increase. Mercury also points to AMD's heavier reliance on PC gaming, a market it says has been hurt by supply constraints on gaming GPUs. On top of that, AMD has openly admitted that demand is running ahead of what it can ship, and Lisa Su recently called AMD a "data center first" company.

A new unannounced Intel CPU, the Core Ultra 7 260K, is now on sale, though only inside two of Newegg's in-house ABS gaming desktops. The Kaze II Aqua pairs it with an RTX 5060 for $1,699.99, while the Flux II Aqua steps up to an RTX 5070 for $1,999.99. Newegg confirmed the chip is exclusive to its ABS systems and won't be sold separately. Per Tom's Hardware, Intel has since described it as a "limited-availability" SKU with no boxed retail version, and its specifications should appear on Intel's website within a few days.

Going by Newegg's own buying guide, the 260K looks like a Core Ultra 7 265K with a slightly lower clock speed ceiling. It keeps the same 8P+12E core layout, 30 MB of L3 cache, 125 W base power, and DDR5-6400 support for up to 256 GB of memory, but the P-cores top out at 5.4 GHz instead of 5.5 GHz. That DDR5-6400 limit places it in the original Arrow Lake family rather than the Arrow Lake Refresh lineup, so it misses out on DDR5-7200 support and Intel's Binary Optimization Tool as well.

TechPowerUp partners with Formula V Line to bring our readers from all over the world a chance to win one of dozens of pieces of Formula V One cases, CPU coolers, and case fans! The star attraction here is the Formula V Line G10 case, A spacious mid-tower case with a unique front-panel design that allows you to louver airflow from the three intake fans individually. The case comes in three attractive 2-tone color trims—silvery white, copper black, and gray black. There are a total of ten lucky winners to be picked from the Giveaway:

The first lucky winner gets a Formula V Line G10 case, plus an Ice Nova Pro 3 CPU cooler, and a set of three Air Bridge VT Vision case fans. The second lucky winner gets a Formula V Line G10 case, and an Ice Nova Pro 3 cooler. The third lucky winner gets a Formula V Line G10 case. Winners 4th thru 10th get a selection of Ice Nova Pro 3 coolers and Air Bridge VT Vision 3-fan sets. Once again, the Giveaway is open worldwide (wherever legal); and open from today until November 20.

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PlayStation 5 exclusive Astro Bot now runs on Windows with DLSS Super Resolution, DLSS Frame Generation, and Reflex support, thanks to an unofficial port from GitHub user imnotsharingmyname. Technically, it's a port, not running through any PS5 emulator. AnyPS5 relinks the PS5 game's x86-64 code into a Windows executable and swaps in native versions of the console's system libraries, while a GPU layer borrowed from the KytyPS5 emulator translates the graphics work to Vulkan. Players have to supply their own decrypted dump of version 01.019.000, and no game files are included.

The port hooks Astro Bot's own temporal upscale pass at runtime and feeds its color, depth, and motion vector data into DLSS through NVIDIA's Streamline SDK. On a Ryzen 5 5500, RTX 5060, and 32 GB of RAM at 1440p, the developer measured 32 to 34 FPS in Sky Garden, the heaviest area tested, and roughly 37 to 53 FPS elsewhere. Frame Generation brings that to around 63 FPS on screen, while 4x Multi Frame Generation hits 124 to 128 FPS. Apparently, the game is heavily CPU-limited, with about 22 ms of each 30 ms frame spent submitting draws on a single thread, so lowering the resolution doesn't help much. Frame Generation needs an RTX 40 card, the 3x and 4x modes need RTX 50, and input latency hasn't been measured yet.

It has long been predicted that the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI would have an outsized impact on the gaming industry when it launches on November 19, but what might not have been as widely anticipated is how it would impact the sales of its 13-year-old predecessor, Grand Theft Auto V. According to recent data published by Alinea Analytics's Rhys Elliott, Grand Theft Auto V has sold a total of 150,000 copies in the first 13 days of November 2026 and garnered 16 million monthly active users to date for November, across all three platforms where it is available.

According to Elliott, 54.2% of new GTA V sales were on PS5, while 25.2% were on Steam, and an additional 20.6% were on Xbox. This follows a legendary run in Q2 2026, during which Take-Two Interactive says GTA V sold over 5 million copies, bringing its grand total to over 235 million sales and $10 billion in revenue. Previous estimates put the budget of the upcoming GTA VI at as high as $3 billion on salaries alone, suggesting the actual budget to be over $5 billion.

Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2026 is available for just $29.97, compared with an MSRP of $499.99. The development environment combines tools for writing, debugging, testing, and collaborating on code, with support for multiple application types and deployment targets.

Built as a 64-bit IDE, Visual Studio Professional 2026 is designed to handle large solutions and complex workloads. Developers can build cross-platform mobile and desktop applications with.NET MAUI, or create responsive web interfaces in C# using Blazor. Development, debugging, and testing tools support.NET and C++ applications targeting Windows, Linux, and containers.

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Xbox is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary, during which it announced 21 new games coming to the Xbox Backwards Compatibility program, and, as part of its anniversary celebrations, Microsoft and Xbox are giving PC gamers 25 Xbox Game Studios games for free when they register a new Windows 11 PC. The deal is valid in the US, and it is only valid for PCs purchased until December 31, 2026.

Some of the highlights in the game bundle include Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, Doom and Doom II, The Outer Worlds, and Gears of War: Reloaded. While Microsoft has been vague about the eligible devices, it includes select PCs with Windows Home or OEM and NVIDIA Spark PCs with Windows Pro. There is also a page on the Microsoft online store that lists eligible PCs, which include everything from the Microsoft Surface Pro 2-in-1 to the HP OmniDesk AI and the Dell Alienware Aurora desktop. PCs purchased from authorized retailers will also be eligible, and the announcement deliberately calls out gaming handhelds, like the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally.

Following the departure of now-former NVIDIA CEO, Jensen Huang, a new report by The Wall Street Journal (via Wccftech) has emerged alleging that NVIDIA artificially inflated the ongoing GPU and memory shortage by investing in AI startups that would go on to buy NVIDIA GPUs and build data centers. The reason behind this was to maintain the perception of ongoing high demand and to move an oversupply of semiconductors from TSMC.

The WSJ report cites an August meeting between Huang and his senior finance team, including NVIDIA's CFO and acting CEO, Colette Kress, during which Kress pushed for a reduction in circular financing agreements, in response to which Huang allegedly lay into Kress, calling her a "deer in the headlights," after she had pushed to scale back NVIDIA's $250 billion deal with OpenAI. Jensen's push for further investment into small-scale cloud providers was seemingly in response to the changing tide that saw AI hyperscalers move away from off-the-shelf components in favor of custom solutions.

The world of DIY mechanical keyboards is full of niche devices with unique designs, and more than a few gimmicks. Keybytes, a new project by a modder who goes by notaroomba on GitHub via KBDnews, falls somewhere between the former and the latter, and mostly serves as an interesting proof of concept. Keybytes a modular mechanical keyboard project designed for ultimate customization. The basic idea is to have single mechanical keyboard sockets with full-height MX mechanical switches, aka Keybits, each with their own PCB and magnetic connectors that allow them to snap together, effectively creating an infinitely reconfigurable keyboard.

The whole project hinges on the Keyword, a motherboard of sorts that contains the USB Type-C port, battery charging circuitry, and a STM32WB55 MCU. That motherboard connects to each Keybit, each of which also has its own RISC-V CH592F MCU and some clever tricks that allow the bits to connect in a rotation-agnostic way. There are also alternative PCB options, including one with a 3-axis Hall sensor, which would allow for something like a joystick or Hall effect switch implementation, and there are also spacer Keybits with power passthrough in 1u, 0.75u, and 0.5u units. In the latest design revision, each of the Keybits also has six magnets per side and automatic polarity detection, meaning switches can be arranged in-line or at 25%, 50%, or 75% offsets.

Colorful has launched the iGame X870E Senna V14, an ATX Socket AM5 motherboard for AMD Ryzen processors. It features a themed heatsink design, extensive M.2 storage support, and Wi-Fi 7 networking. The board measures 305 x 244 mm and uses an eight-layer PCB. It features Colorful's Qi Xiaoxi character on the heatsink armor, rear I/O cover and backplate. Power delivery is well represented with a 16+2+1 phase design and 80 A DrMOS components. The four DDR5 slots support up to 256 GB of RAM with speeds up to 8,400 MT/s (OC). For expansion, it offers one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot and one PCIe x16 slot. Storage consists of five M.2 slots, three PCIe 5.0 x4, two PCIe 4.0 x4, and four SATA ports. Networking is handled by a Realtek RTL8126-CG 5 GbE controller and a MediaTek MT7925 Wi-Fi 7 module with Bluetooth 5.4. Audio comes from a Realtek ALC1220 codec.

The rear I/O panel includes 2x USB4 ports, 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports, and 2x USB 2.0 ports. It also includes HDMI output, two Wi-Fi antenna connectors, two analog audio jacks, optical S/PDIF, a BIOS update button, and a CMOS clear button. An onboard debug display and dual-BIOS recovery switch are also included. RGB lighting can be controlled via iGame Center software. The motherboard is listed in China for RMB 2,399, approximately $330. Colorful has not announced international pricing or availability.

Intel has added Razor Lake and Coral Rapids to the November edition of its Architecture Instruction Set Extensions Programming Reference, the document developers use to prepare software for upcoming chips. Revision 063 gives Razor Lake four new model values under family 18 (12H), the same family as Nova Lake, with 12_06H and 12_0AH covering desktop parts and 12_07H and 12_09H covering laptops. The Coral Rapids Xeon family gets 13_08H, following Diamond Rapids at 13_01H. InstLatX64 spotted the update and shared it on Bluesky.

The new feature entries are fairly small. Razor Lake picks up SSBD_PSFD_U_S, which seems to allow separate user-mode and supervisor-mode control over certain speculative memory behavior, while both families gain APIC-Timer Virtualization for virtual machines. Coral Rapids also gets a new instruction called VPMLDSABFLYDQ, aimed at ML-DSA, the quantum-resistant digital signature standard. According to Intel's GCC patches, posted this week, Razor Lake carries the same ISA feature set as Nova Lake, which should mean AVX10.2 and APX carry over, though the reference itself doesn't list Razor Lake under those rows yet. Coral Rapids sticks with AVX10.2 rather than the newer AVX10.3, at least for now.

GlobalFoundries (Nasdaq: GFS) (GF) today joined U.S. and Japanese government officials, state and local leaders, customers, partners, employees and community members to break ground on the first new semiconductor manufacturing facility planned for its Malta, New York, site under a landmark U.S.-Japan initiative. The groundbreaking marks the start of construction on a new 300 mm fab and a first-of-its-kind model that brings together Japanese investment with GF's technology and manufacturing expertise to expand trusted U.S. semiconductor capacity and support growing demand across automotive, industrial and connected infrastructure markets.

The groundbreaking follows GF's Oct. 14 announcement that it was selected as the technology provider and operator for two new fabs at its Malta site under a U.S.-Japan initiative providing up to $21 billion in funding. Japan will provide the investment, while GF will contribute its differentiated technologies, manufacturing expertise and proven operational capabilities. An initial investment of approximately $10 billion, supported with $570 million in incentives from New York State is accelerating construction of the first fab, which is expected to come online in 2029. An additional investment of approximately $10 billion will support a second fab as the project advances.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick doesn't think physical games are finished, though he expects them to shrink into a niche much like vinyl records in music. Speaking with Christopher Dring of The Game Business, Zelnick said some form of physical business will always exist, just a very small one. The comments arrive less than a week before GTA 6 launches on November 19, with its boxed edition shipping a download code instead of a disc. Here's what he said:

Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two CEOIt may not be the end, but listen, we've been talking, you and I, for a long time. I predicted that digital distribution would be well over 90% of the business more than 10 years ago. I don't always get it right, but this one I got right. Will there always be some physical business? Yes, in the same way that there's still a vinyl business in recorded music. But it's going to be a very small part of the business.

Outlook, Teams, and Copilot users are now into the second day of a Microsoft 365 outage that started on Thursday, November 12. The trouble began with Exchange Online, Microsoft's email backend, and within roughly an hour Downdetector was logging reports from 74 countries and territories, with around 130,000 Outlook reports at the peak. Microsoft's service health page still lists a service degradation, and its latest update says engineers are working through "residual impact" while checking that recovery holds up.

There is no official root cause yet. Microsoft has blamed a number of servers becoming "unexpectedly unavailable," and Charles Lamanna, executive vice president of Copilot, Agents, and Platform, said on X there is "no indication" of malicious or cyber activity. Australia's home affairs minister Tony Burke went a step further, saying Microsoft likened it to the 2024 CrowdStrike incident, in which an update went wrong, though Microsoft hasn't confirmed that publicly. Anything that depends on Exchange Online is affected, including Copilot's access to mail, calendars, and files, while core Teams calls and chats have largely kept working. OpenAI and Anthropic also reported broken Microsoft 365 connectors for ChatGPT and Claude.

Crimson Desert launched in March 2026, after which the game received sizeable backlash, due to its inclusion of AI-generated assets in the final version of the game. While Pearl Abyss later removed those assets, claiming that they were placeholders that accidentally slipped through the cracks, the studio does not appear to be deterred from using generative AI in its games going forward. This was confirmed in a recent earnings report, in which Pearl Abyss explained that it is using AI across the board for game development.

Additionally, we are integrating AI technologies to enhance development productivity and overall quality. AI is being utilized across various stages of development—including the automation of repetitive tasks, content creation support, and test optimization—and we are expanding its implementation throughout our entire development pipeline.

The last Rainbow Six: Vegas game launched as far back as 2008, and the series has more or less been dormant since then. However, a recent report out of Insider Gaming claims that an insider at Ubisoft has confirmed that a new Rainbow Six: Vegas game is in the works.

Not much is known about the new Rainbow Six: Vegas game other than that it is in development and that Ubisoft is developing the game in its new Vantage Studios subsidiary, which is partially owned by Tencent. The new game in the Vegas series is known internally by the codename "Spades," and it is one of three new games Ubisoft is working on at Ubisoft Montreal. This also isn't the only Rainbow Six game in development, after Ubisoft's August reveal of Rainbow Six Tactics.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced the Razer Soma Pro and the Razer Soma Sensa HD Haptics, two gaming chairs with wireless connectivity that bring haptics into the seat, with the Soma Pro adding THX Spatial Audio and Razer Chroma RGB for a complete immersive experience.

Following the debut of the Soma Chroma, Razer's first RGB gaming chair, the Soma Pro and Soma Sensa HD Haptics complete a line built on one idea: immersion has evolved through sight and sound, yet the chair often stayed on the sidelines. Both chairs turn the seat into an active part of every session - built for gaming first, and just as immersive for movies, music, and streaming.

The color black is deeply rooted in the world of professional audio - minimalist, focused and uncompromising. With the PRO X LIMITED BLACK EDITION models, the German audio specialist beyerdynamic brings this approach to four of its professional studio headphones. The DT 770 PRO X LIMITED BLACK EDITION, DT 990 PRO X LIMITED BLACK EDITION, DT 700 PRO X LIMITED BLACK EDITION and DT 900 PRO X LIMITED BLACK EDITION offer an exclusive all-black design and the 'Made in Germany' quality standard, combining their strengths for various professional applications. These special editions will be available in limited numbers from 13 November 2026.

Far more than just a visual detail
The all-black design is proven to be more than just an aesthetic choice by its professional use at LITTLE BIG BEAT STUDIOS in Liechtenstein. The studio is renowned for its elaborately produced headphone concerts featuring international musicians. The black version of the DT 770 PRO X was developed in response to a specific production requirement for the STUDIO LIVE SESSIONS produced there.

Plenty of Windows 11 PCs upgraded from Windows 10 could find Memory Integrity switched on after this month's Patch Tuesday. The November security update, KB5132061, carries over a change from the optional October 28 preview (KB5127936) that lets Windows enable Memory Integrity, also called Hypervisor-Protected Code Integrity (HVCI), on eligible devices during the update. Microsoft first announced the plan in September, and the change applies to Windows 11 25H2 and 26H2 as a gradual rollout. PCs where a user or IT admin already turned the feature off are left alone.

Memory Integrity depends on Virtualization-Based Security (VBS), with driver verification handled inside a hypervisor-managed environment, so malware that takes over the kernel still can't sneak in an unverified driver. Windows runs readiness checks on hardware, drivers, and performance first, and also enables VBS on PCs that lack it. It looks like eligible systems need at least an 8th Gen Intel or AMD Zen 2 processor. The performance cost hasn't gone away, though. Tom's Hardware's 2023 testing with a Core i9-13900K and RTX 4090 showed an average drop of around 5% in games, up to 10% in some titles. Microsoft told gamers in a 2022 support article, since pulled, to disable it for better performance, which is a bit awkward next to its promise to make Windows the best place to play.

ESGAMING is spotlighting its ZERO MAX gaming PC case, available in black and white, which features an innovative 8° tilted bottom airflow structure that directs cool air toward the GPU area. With 270° panoramic tempered glass, clearance for graphics cards up to 415 mm, and flexible cooling configurations, the ZERO MAX offers high-performance custom PC builders a solution that balances thermal layout, hardware display, and component compatibility. The ZERO MAX has already posted solid sales in markets including South America and the Middle East, and ESGAMING continues to expand its global network of distributor partnerships.

Lexar, a global leader in memory and storage, today announced the new Lexar Professional DIAMOND CFexpress 4.0 Type A Card, an ultra-performance storage solution engineered for professional cinematographers, filmmakers, and commercial creators demanding uncompromising speed, capacity, and endurance. Leveraging cutting-edge PCIe Gen 4 and NVMe protocols alongside dual Video Performance Guarantee (VPG) certifications, the card delivers industry-leading stability for capturing high-bitrate cinema-quality video while dramatically accelerating post-production workflows.

Lizette Lynch, Director of Brand Marketing at Lexar North America"Modern productions are pushing boundaries with high-resolution video and rapid-fire RAW photos, requiring storage that eliminates bottlenecks both in-camera and on set," "We engineered the Professional DIAMOND CFexpress 4.0 Type A Card to meet the demands of today's filmmakers which has earned dual VPG certification, blazing-fast sustained write speeds, and proprietary thermal management so filmmakers and photographers can capture cinema-grade 8K and 12K RAW footage without missing a frame."

Corsair Gaming, Inc. ("Corsair" or the "Company"), a leading global provider and innovator of high-performance products for gamers, streamers, content-creators, performance PC builders, and SIM Racing enthusiasts, has joined the Ansys Technology Partner Program, part of Synopsys, to deliver HPC systems that accelerate and simplify deployments.

At the center of the collaboration is Corsair Pro, Corsair's high-performance workstation platform, running Ansys engineering applications locally and bringing powerful simulation and visualization capabilities directly to engineers.

It's been a busy week at Xbox Game Studios, with the gaming giant celebrating its 25th anniversary with a slew of new additions to its Xbox Backwards Compatibility on PC program, but it seems as though Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma, had one more trick up her sleeve, announcing late on November 12 that Wolfenstein 3 is in development, with id Software also announcing a new game in the works.

The news was shared in a post on X, where she confirmed that Machine Games would again be heading up development of the third game in the franchise reboot. Not much else has been revealed about the game other than a snippet of game script that seemingly reveals the return of Fergus, who kicks off a scene interrogating a prisoner.

Valve has been seemingly working non-stop on developing SteamOS in order to deliver a competitive advantage over alternatives like Windows, with recent updates frequently polishing the overall user experience and fixing annoying bugs. The most recent update to the SteamOS beta channel, SteamOS 3.9.6, has just been pushed, with improvements to VRR, high framerate games, and high refresh rate monitors.

Aside from the usual line-up of bug fixes for edge cases, the update notes directly mention improved frame timing when using a combination of VRR and the framerate limiter, a change that will likely be noticeable in how games feel to play; improved frame timing without VRR and with the framerate limiter enabled, with specific mention of games with capped frame rates; and more consistent performance after CPUs waking from deep CPU idle states. Games capable of running at high refresh rates will also no longer run at low refresh rates on 240 Hz displays. The beta also corrects issues with Remote Play on NVIDIA GPUs and fixes SDR saturation with HDR10 output on non-wide gamut displays.

It's been well documented that the rise of AI coding agents has resulted in an influx of new submissions to open-source and Linux projects. One recent study found that as much of 25% of new pull requests were reported to be "AI slop." Maintainers of other projects, like Godot, have also lamented the flood of AI-generated code to their projects. More recently, Lorenzo Stoakes, a long-time contributor and reviewer for memory management in the Linux kernel, has officially announced that he will be stepping away from many of his responsibilities due to an increase in AI code submissions, stating that he can no longer reliably review code in areas where he isn't directly maintaining code.

As per his announcement in a new patch series, Stoakes will be stepping away from reviewing memory management code and Rust code in the Linux memory management domain. This comes not too long after Linus Torvalds reportedly changed his position on AI-written code in the Linux kernel, moving away from his previously cautious approach and leaning into entirely AI-generated code, both in his own contributions and encouraging Linux developers and maintainers to embrace AI with his comments thereafter.

Kioxia and Dell have managed to fit a massive 157 PB of raw flash storage into a single 42U server rack. The configuration runs Dell's software-defined ObjectScale object storage platform on 16 PowerEdge R7725xd servers, which together carry 640 of Kioxia's 245.76 TB LC9 Series SSDs. Kioxia calls it the industry's first 157 PB single-rack object store, a claim it bases on its own market survey. Each 2U server holds 40 of the E3.L drives, the same setup the two companies showed off in May at 9.8 PB per server, so the 16 servers take up 32U and leave 10U of the rack free.

The LC9 drives are PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSDs built on Kioxia's eighth-generation BiCS FLASH QLC with a 32-die stack. The full 245.76 TB capacity is limited to the E3.L form factor, though, since the 2.5-inch and E3.S versions top out at 122.88 TB, which would roughly halve the rack to about 78.6 PB. Dell's George Papadopoulos says customers can "consolidate more data into fewer systems and racks" while cutting down on cabling, power, and cooling.

Applied Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMAT) today reported results for its fourth quarter and fiscal year ended Oct. 25, 2026.

Fourth Quarter Results
Applied generated record revenue of $10.41 billion. On a GAAP basis, the company reported gross margin of 50.4 percent, record operating income of $3.66 billion or 35.1 percent of revenue, and earnings per share (EPS) of $3.40. On a non-GAAP basis, the company reported gross margin of 50.6 percent, record operating income of $3.68 billion or 35.3 percent of revenue, and record EPS of $4.16. The company generated record cash from operations of $3.30 billion and distributed $2.42 billion to shareholders through $2.00 billion in share repurchases and $421 million in dividends.

AMD's next big Halo APU might ship with two separate memory pools, if a new leak from Gotou_3rd on X is accurate. In a short post on November 12, the leaker wrote that "Siren Halo has dedicated GD7 VRAM." When asked whether that meant unified GDDR memory, like on consoles, or separate pools, Gotou clarified that LPDDR system memory would still be there. He also claimed that Siren Halo follows Medusa Halo, that Siren Point is basically a Medusa refresh, and that the new name exists because AMD won't have a fully new Halo design in 2027. There's no word on capacities, bus widths, or launch timing. AMD already added GDDR7 support to its Linux driver in September, a change widely tied to RDNA 5.

This would be quite a change for the lineup. Strix Halo and its Gorgon Halo refresh use a single LPDDR5X pool shared by the CPU and GPU, with the Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495 supporting up to 192 GB, of which up to 160 GB can go to graphics. That shared pool is a big reason these chips are popular for running LLMs locally. Dedicated GDDR7 should give the iGPU far more bandwidth for gaming, though it's unclear how much memory AI workloads would get. The leaker also suggested Siren Halo could be related to Magnus, the AMD chip linked to Microsoft's Project Helix, though that is speculation at this point. AMD hasn't confirmed Siren Halo at all, so it's best treated as a rumor for now.

Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel can now change common system settings straight from the taskbar search box, in many cases without opening the Settings app. The new Windows Search, which Microsoft first showed off in October, is gradually rolling out with Build 26320.9876. That build also moves the Beta Channel to Windows 11 26H2 through an enablement package, though Microsoft says the version bump alone doesn't change much. The headline feature is what Microsoft calls inline actions. Typing something like "turn on dark mode", "turn on Bluetooth", "mute", or "dim my screen" gives a result that carries out the task right there, and it can also arrange open windows, for example snapping two apps side by side.

The new interface is built on WinUI 3, and Microsoft says it is faster and more efficient than the old one, with a single list of results that's easier to scan. Search is also apparently getting better at handling typos and synonyms, and Microsoft plans to keep tuning that over the coming weeks. There are a few limits for now. English is the only supported language, and the new experience only shows up when searching from the taskbar, since searching from the Start menu still opens the old interface. Microsoft says bringing it to the Start menu is planned for next year, and actions for a connected phone, such as sending a text, are also on the way.

G.SKILL, a leading manufacturer of high-performance memory and PC gaming peripherals, has teamed up with Micro Center to offer a specially priced PC hardware combo deal featuring the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor, G.SKILL Ripjaws S5 DDR5 memory, and GIGABYTE Z890 EAGLE WIFI7 PLUS motherboard. This hardware bundle offers PC enthusiasts, gamers, and content creators an opportunity to build or upgrade their systems with high-performance components while enjoying substantial combo savings.

The bundle pairs the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor, featuring 24 cores (8 Performance-cores and 16 Efficient-cores) and a maximum turbo frequency of up to 5.5 GHz, with the GIGABYTE Z890 EAGLE WIFI7 PLUS motherboard and a 32 GB (2x16GB) G.SKILL Ripjaws S5 DDR5-6000 CL36 memory kit. Together, these components provide a foundation for a high-performance Intel desktop system.For more information and to explore this combo deal, visit the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and G.SKILL Ripjaws S5 bundle page at Micro Center.

Xbox announced earlier in 2026 that it was bringing some of its classic Xbox games to PC in a new Xbox Compatibility program, although it initially only launched four games in that announcement. Now, as part of Xbox's 25-year anniversary celebration, Microsoft has announced that it will be releasing 21 additional classic Xbox games on PC. These games will also be playable on the Xbox Series and Xbox One consoles.

In addition to the new games, which are listed below, Xbox has also announced that it will be adding support for achievements in select Xbox games in the Backwards Compatibility program. At the time of writing, the list of games that support achievements on PC is short: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II—The Sith Lords, BLiNX: The Time Sweeper, and Conker: Live and Reloaded. It has also stated that more games in the program would be getting support for achievements further down the line.

NVIDIA has released the latest version of GeForce Game Ready drivers, version 621.24, which brings significant optimizations and game-ready support for multiple titles. Notably, it includes game-ready support for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV and Assetto Corsa Rally. Additionally, the driver introduces neural rendering capabilities with 3D guidance of DLSS 5 for the game Where Winds Meet. As for the typical bug fixes included with such a driver release, NVIDIA has addressed a few issues, such as the NVIDIA OptiX Denoiser failing at higher resolutions in Chao Vantage. Another fix in this package resolves incorrect colors during DJI D-Log H.265 video playback in Windows Photos and Media Player. There are no known issues with this update, making it more of a game-ready enhancement than a major feature update. Please let us know in the comments if you've updated and how it's working for you.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 621.24 WHQL

Not long ago, Keychron announced Zephyr Gaming Mouse as an upcoming open-source firmware project for gaming mice. More recently, the peripheral maker announced MKF (Magnetic Keyboard Firmware), an open-source firmware project designed for TMR and Hall effect gaming keyboards. The project has yet to feature any public code contributions, but there is a landing page that outlines what Keychron aims to do with the project.

MKF is meant to serve as "an open firmware foundation for magnetic gaming keyboards, with room for the project and its community to grow," and its current feature outline includes support for the obvious, like 8 kHz polling, adjustable actuation, Rapid Trigger, and SOCD, but it will also apparently support custom response curves, PDO—sending more keypresses the deeper a key is held—and controller emulation. It currently seems as though only wired connectivity is planned for the initial release, but the project will be open to new features and use cases outside of competitive gaming.

AMD has reportedly cut its gaming GPU supply in China by at least 20% to 50% since the start of the fourth quarter in October. According to a November 12 post on Board Channels spotted by Videocardz, AMD's shortage is now comparable to NVIDIA's, with very few gaming chips going to add-in board (AIB) partners. Their monthly allocations are apparently still shrinking, and the source expects supply to remain extremely tight until January.

The same source describes Radeon prices in China climbing every quarter, with smaller increases month to month within each quarter, and puts that down to rising memory and GPU costs. AMD is reportedly raising the price of its GPU and GDDR6 kits again this month, after an earlier increase in October. Things aren't much better on the green side either, with an NVIDIA partner saying in late October that it couldn't buy RTX 5090 GPU and GDDR7 kits anymore, while RTX 5090 and 5080 prices continue to skyrocket. Graphics cards were already selling 44% above MSRP on average in October, so a smaller pool of Radeon cards is unlikely to help matters.

AMD's Adrenalin 26.11.1 optional driver is now available with the promised fix for the Radeon bug that kept system drives writing in the background. According to the release notes, the update addresses excessive writes to the system drive while the PC is idle on Radeon RX 7000 series cards and newer. It also fixes a related case where excessive writes could show up while moving or resizing application windows.

AMD confirmed the problem earlier this week, tracing it to the External Events Client Module (atieclxx.exe) in the 26.10.1 and 26.10.2 drivers. User reports put the write rate anywhere from 0.3 MB/s to 5 MB/s, which works out to roughly 26 GB to 432 GB a day on a machine that's doing nothing. Until now, affected users had to disable the External Events Utility, turn off Resizable BAR, or use a community-made open-source tool that blocks the writes. The release notes only mention RX 7000 and newer for the idle fix, so it isn't clear whether older Radeon cards were affected at all.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 26.11.1 Optional

The Witcher 4 has been voted Most Wanted Game at the Golden Joystick Awards 2026, beating the likes of Fable and Resident Evil Veronica. CD Projekt Red production director Małgorzata Mitręga accepted the award near the end of the November 11 show, just before Resident Evil Requiem was crowned the night's big winner. It's a step up from last year, when The Witcher 4 came in a close second in the same category with 16.68% of the vote against GTA 6's 18.03%. GTA 6, which launches on November 19, wasn't on this year's ballot. Here's what Mitręga said on stage:

This is a huge, huge honor for us, but it's also a great responsibility. We all know it. We are working hard, giving heart and soul there, all the skills we have, passion we have, and moments like that are such a boost for us, for the stamina, to (keep) it going, to deliver (for) you when the time is right.

Bing users who would rather skip the AI answers now have two official ways to do it, according to a new post on Microsoft's Bing Search Blog. The first is the Microsoft Bing AI Search Choice extension for Chrome and Edge, which adds a single toggle for AI-generated answers that applies to every Bing search. The second needs no install: adding "-ai" to the end of a query removes the AI answer for that one search. Microsoft says its research shows users want "to choose whether or not AI is involved in every session," though it hasn't published that research.

Installing the extension also makes Bing the browser's default search engine, and there doesn't seem to be a way to get one without the other, so it looks like a play for Chrome users as well. It's also still labeled a preview, and it isn't new, since Microsoft's head of search, Jordi Ribas, first announced it back in June. Bing doesn't appear to have a matching switch in its own settings either, so anyone on another browser has to type the operator every time.

What's the News? AMD today announced AMD Versal tamper-resistant ("TR") devices, designed to protect security-critical information against sophisticated physical attacks while delivering the high-performance heterogeneous processing capabilities of AMD Versal AI Edge Series Gen 2. Versal TR devices are the industry's first adaptive SoC or FPGA-based devices providing built-in protection against physical attacks on the silicon backside. A sensor-based protection die is bonded to the main compute die using 3D active-on-active technology, shielding the entire backside of the device, protecting sensitive information, detecting physical attacks and preventing boot if the protection die is tampered with or removed. Combined with embedded CPUs, AI Engines and programmable logic, Versal TR devices help customers strengthen the protection of security-critical information without compromising system performance, size, weight, power or time to market.

Why It Matters? Protecting sensitive information from sophisticated physical attacks is a priority across markets and embedded applications. From data center networking and fintech applications to defense systems and critical industrial infrastructure, customers seeking higher levels of device security today typically build custom solutions in-house using mechanical enclosures, ASICs and other components, adding development cost, specialist resources, verification effort and re-spin risk. Versal TR devices integrate heterogeneous processing with enhanced security features including backside physical attack protection in a single device. This reduces the need for separate compute, security and enclosure-based protection components. This approach can save board area and simplify board design versus custom solutions while giving customers access to AMD tools, technical support and a broad partner ecosystem.

Alphacool is known for its high-end PC case and cooling components, and its latest product, the Apex Benchtable, is no exception. The Benchtable is an open-air case built for flexibility and rapid assembly and disassembly, and it supports everything from Mini-ITX to E-ATX form factors, as well as radiators up to 360 mm and a smorgasbord of water cooling accessories. The Apex Benchtable comes in at €449.98 on the Alphacool online shop.

The Apex Benchtable is a modular frame consisting of CNC corner components connected by carbon fiber tubes. Owing to that modular design, the included 120 mm, 240 mm, and 360 mm fan and radiator mounts can be easily moved and repositioned to accommodate various hardware configurations or setups. It ships with a repositionable front I/O module with 2x USB 3.0 ports, a power button, and separate 3.5 mm mic and headphone jacks.

Penguin Solutions, Inc., the AI Factory Platform Company, today introduced the SMART CXL-8F2W-D4, an eight-DIMM DDR4 Compute Express Link (CXL) memory add-in card that enables organizations to adapt DDR4 memory for use in AI systems. Using DDR4 as an alternative to newer-generation DDR5 memory provides an innovative approach offering performance, sourcing, and economic benefits for the buildout of AI infrastructure.

According to TechInsights, Inc., AI data centers account for 34% of DRAM demand in 2026, a figure expected to climb to nearly 50% by 2029. This rapid growth is driving up memory costs and putting increasing pressure on infrastructure budgets. For organizations deploying new servers, whether as part of a technology refresh or a new data center buildout, the rising cost of memory presents a significant challenge, underscoring the need for more cost-effective ways to expand memory capacity.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices, today announced that it will showcase its PCIe Gen 5 and PCIe Gen 6 MonTitan enterprise SSD controllers and reference platforms designed to address the evolving storage demands of AI factories, Agentic AI, and large-scale inference deployments at Supercomputing 2026 (SC26), taking place November 16 to 19 in Chicago, Illinois, at Booth #6816. The company will also highlight its enterprise PCIe NVMe boot drive solutions, including a demonstration featuring the NVIDIA DPU platform, alongside its Ferri-eMMC embedded storage solution with the ASPEED AST2600 BMC, showcasing storage technologies for AI servers and next-generation data center infrastructure.

Alex Chou, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Storage & Display Interface Solution Business at Silicon Motion"As AI infrastructure evolves to support multi-agent and increasingly complex agentic workloads, storage performance is becoming a critical factor in overall system performance and efficiency," "Our PCIe Gen 5 and Gen 6 enterprise SSD controllers are designed to address these challenges by delivering high performance, low latency, scalable capacity, and power efficiency, helping customers build the next generation of AI infrastructure."

GIGABYTE, the world's leading technology brand, announced that the AORUS C510 GLASS INFINITY Chassis has received 2027 CES Innovation Award in recognition of its innovative design, practical engineering, and functionality. Featuring a built-in 16-inch display, flexible placement, efficient cooling, and upgradability, the award-winning chassis redefines how a desktop PC can be configured and used.

Designed to support an all-in-one PC setup, the AORUS C510 GLASS INFINITY integrates a 16-inch high refresh rate gaming display directly into the chassis. The display can serve as the system's primary screen, a secondary monitor, or a dedicated display for additional content. It can be mounted on either side of the chassis or detached and placed on its own stand for independent use, allowing users to adapt the display configuration to different environments and workflows.