Ashes of the Singularity (AotS) Benchmark numbers for the upcoming GeForce RTX 3070 graphics card surfaced, strengthening NVIDIA's performance claims for the card being "faster" than the previous generation flagship, the RTX 2080 Ti. According to the benchmark numbers dug out by _rogame and compiled by VideoCardz, the RTX 3070 ends up being 1% faster than the RTX 2080 Ti at 1080p with the "Crazy" preset. This lead extends to 2.3% at 1440p, albeit with a custom preset of which details aren't known.

At 4K UHD with the "Crazy" preset, however, the RTX 3070 ends up about 2.4% slower than the RTX 2080 Ti. These numbers suggest that the RTX 3070 should still be a formidable 4K UHD gaming option, with moderate RTX effects. It should allow you to game at 1440p with RTX maxed out; and should enable 1080p high refresh-rate AAA gaming; but for those seeking 4K UHD with RTX maxed out, the RTX 3080 should be the one to buy. Then again, AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series is just around the corner, and could take a swing at this segment, with a full DirectX 12 Ultimate feature-set, and plenty of muscle.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7 3800XT 8-core/16-thread processor was put through "Ashes of the Singularity" (AotS) benchmark, as uncovered by HardwareLeaks (_rogame). Paired with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card, the processor is able to put out CPU frame-rates of 113.2 FPS (averaging all batches); 135.9 FPS in the normal batch, 115.31 FPS in the medium batch, and 95.49 FPS in the heavy batch, with preset level set to "Crazy_1080p." An older article points to the 3800XT ticking at 4.20 GHz base with 4.70 GHz maximum boost (compared to 3.90 GHz base and 4.50 GHz boost of the 3800X), which means AMD aims to shore up gaming performance of its 3rd gen Ryzen processors with the XT series.

Thai PC enthusiast TUM Apisak posted a screenshot of an alleged GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Ashes of the Singularity (AoTS) benchmark. The GTX 1660 Ti, if you'll recall, is an upcoming graphics card based on the TU116 silicon, which is a derivative of the "Turing" architecture but with a lack of real-time raytracing capabilities. Tested on a machine powered by an Intel Core i9-9900K processor, the AoTS benchmark was set to run at 1080p and DirectX 11. At this resolution, the GTX 1660 Ti returned a score of 7,400 points, which roughly compares with the previous-generation GTX 1070, and is about 16-17 percent faster than the GTX 1060 6 GB. NVIDIA is expected to launch the GTX 1660 Ti some time in Spring-Summer, 2019, as a sub-$300 successor to the GTX 1060 series.

Today, Stardock released a v2.6 update for its massive-scale RTS game, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. In addition to the new tutorials, the update includes several improvements, a new Quantum Upgrade, a rework of air production for the Substrate faction, adjustments to the way players repair their forces, and more.

"My biggest goal for this update was accessibility," said Callum McCole, lead designer for Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. "Our old tutorial wasn't great at introducing new players to the basics and showing them how to play effectively, so we made it into a set and changed it to be more targeted and easier to follow."

Yesterday, we covered how Ryzen's performance has seen a needed lift-up through an upcoming update to Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation. Performance improvements of up to 30% do wonders in bringing up the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 1800X's performance up to speed with its svelter gaming enemy, the 4-core, 8-thread i/ 7700K. And through a community update, AMD has now shed some light on the ongoing crusade for adapting an entire ecosystem to its Ryzen line of processors architecture features. Case in point: BIOS updates and game patches,

Some outlets are reporting that Stardock's Ashes of the Singularity is about to receive the much-referred-to patch that allows for improved performance on AMD's Ryzen line of processors. If you remember, rivers of ink flowed regarding AMD's Ryzen performance in gaming, with its monstrous, high-performance 8-core, 16-threaded design sometimes delivering performance below expectations. At the time, AMD clarified how Ryzen is a distinctive CPU architecture, similar yet fundamentally different from Intel's x86 implementation, promising upcoming patches from game developers that would allow Ryzen's architecture to truly deliver.

After Creative Assembly and Oxide Games vouched to improve Ryzen support, Oxide seems to be the first developer with a patch available (from version 25624 to 26118) that improves performance by up to 30%. Reportedly, it took the developers around 400 work-hours to improve the game code in respect to its execution on AMD hardware.