The Moore Threads MTT S80 first attracted wider media attention last summer due to it being introduced as the world's first PCIe Gen 5 gaming graphics card. Unfortunately, its performance prowess in gaming benchmarks did not match early expectations, especially for a 200 W TDP-rated unit with 4096 "MUSA" cores. Evaluators discovered that driver issues have limited the full potential of MTT GPUs—it is speculated that Moore Threads has simply repurposed existing PowerVR architecture under their in-house design: "Chunxaio." The Chinese firm has concentrated on driver improvements in the interim—mid-February experimentations indicated 100% performance boosts for MTT S80 and S70 discrete GPUs courtesy of driver version 240.90. Germany's ComputerBase managed to import Moore Threads MTT S80 and S30 models for testing purposes—in an effort to corroborate recently published performance figures, as disclosed by Asian review outlets.

The Moore Thread MTT S80—discounted down to $164 last October—was likely designed with MMO gamers in mind. VideoCardz (based on ComputerBase findings) discussed the card's struggles when weighed against Team Red's modern day integrated solutions: "S80 falls short when compared to the Ryzen 5 8600G, featuring the Radeon 760M iGPU with RDNA 3 graphics. A geometric mean across various titles reveals the S80's lag, but there are exceptions, like DOTA 2, where it takes the lead in framerate. It's clear that MTT GPUs (have a) less emphasized focus on supporting AAA titles." ComputerBase confirmed that DirectX 12 API support is still lacking, meaning that many popular Western games titles remain untested on the Moore Threads MTT S80 graphics card. The freshly launched entry-level MTT S30 card produced "1/4 of the performance" when compared to its flagship sibling.

Sometimes Dota gameplay patches are small. Sometimes they can get pretty big. This one... is huge. It's got all the things you were probably expecting - balance changes, new items, hero reworks, UI improvements. But we also included a few changes you probably weren't expecting, like a new hero attribute type and - brace yourself - the map is now 40% bigger.

But all these new gameplay features won't matter if the match you get into isn't a good one. So we're also shipping some much-needed matchmaking improvements. Excited? Confused? Head on over to the New Frontiers update page for all the details. But don't head over just yet, read this sentence first: The Berlin major is on April 26th, and Fantasy/Player Cards are now available. Okay, now go. Here's the link again.

Just three weeks after having an all-time high number of 28 million concurrent players, Steam has managed to break another record and provide its services to 29.2 million gamers across the globe. According to the data from SteamDB, there were 29,201,174 concurrent gamers were utilizing Valve's Steam platform and playing their favorite game without realizing that they were breaking a world record. And of course, the highest contributor to this record are online multiplayer games such as Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which achieved 900K and 787K active players in the last 24 hours. This shows an excellent trend for Valve's Steam platform, and we are just a shy away from seeing 30 million concurrent gamers playing "side by side."

We are thrilled to announce The International 10 - Dota 2 Championships will be held this October in Bucharest, Romania, and the epic battle for the Aegis of Champions will fittingly unfold inside the country's largest stadium—Arena Nationala. Group Stage will run October 7 - 10, with Main Stage play kicking off on October 12. Then on October 17, the two finest Dota 2 teams in the world will face off for the Aegis and their shares of the $40,018,195 prize pool that awaits. Additional information on ticket sales will come shortly.

We are grateful for the partnership we have formed with Romania and the city of Bucharest, and very much look forward to gathering with the global Dota 2 community, both in-person and virtually, to celebrate the elite players and amazing fandom at The International. Prepare yourselves. At long last, the battle begins.

AMD has today updated its Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition version 21.5.1 drivers, bringing many features on board as well as fixing a lot of issues that have appeared in the past. Starting with support for the Resident Evil Village PC game, AMD promises to deliver up to 13% better frame rate at 4K maximum settings, while using the Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card. The comparison was conducted with a reference to the previous driver, 21.4.1, which didn't allow the card to reach as high FPS as it is now possible with the proper support for the game. Another game that is added to the support list is Metro Exodus PC Enhanced Edition. Some fixes have been implemented, as the incorrect performance metrics that may have incorrectly reported temperatures on Ryzen 5 1600 series processors. For a detailed list of bug fixes, please take a look at the list below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 21.5.1

Gabe Newell who is currently residing in New Zealand has recently confirmed in a new interview that his company Valve "definitely has games in development that they're going to be announcing". With the positive release of Half-Life: Alyx the company plans to create further single-player games and Gabe noted that there is a lot of momentum within Valve to do so.

Gabe Newell has been living with his family in New Zealand since early 2020 when they decided to stay in the country after a holiday due to the countries successful management of COVID-19. He has now been granted New Zealand residency in principle and is actively considering transferring Valve operations and major events to the country. This includes hosting the companies DOTA 2 and CS:GO annual esports tournaments which had to be canceled in 2020 and "strong interest" from employees for relocation.

MSI, a world leader in gaming hardware and computing solutions, announces an online DOTA 2 tournament: MSI Stadium of Spoils. This is your chance to team up with talents like, Jake "SirActionSlacks" Kanner, Kevin "Purge" Godec, Jorien "Sheever" van der Heijden, and Owen "ODPixel" Davies. The first batch of matches will take place on 27 June 2020 Saturday 4PM PST, and the second will go live the following weekend on 4 July 2020 Saturday 8PM CEST.

In this difficult time, MSI and its partner SEAGATE would like to do their part to try and help lift spirits in the face of this global pandemic. To brighten up your day as much as we can, we offer a unique gaming experience to all DOTA 2 fans - by organizing a one-of-its-kind showmatch between two squads led by big names in the DOTA 2 scene. What's more, not only will there be a ton of fun, but there are also some awesome prizes to give away.

In case you didn't know, Valve Studio Orchestra is the group behind the iconic soundtracks of many Valve games including DOTA 2 and Team Fortress 2. This week, the soundtracks for both DOTA 2 and Team Fortress 2 became available to stream on Spotify, Valve Studio Orchestra has also hinted the Left 4 Dead soundtrack may soon be joining them.

The soundtrack for Valve's Portal series already exist on Spotify, as do tracks from Valve's Half-Life series. You can find the Valve Studio Orchestra Spotify page here.

Steam, an online platform for gaming, has seen some incredible numbers in terms of usage last night. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that many people are in quarantine/self-isolation mode, the number of concurrent users of the platform has skyrocketed. Beating all the previous records of 18 million and 20 million concurrent users, Steam saw as much as 23 million concurrent users last night. Precisely 23,572,311 of users online, setting a new record-high number. The most played games were Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. For more statistics, please see here.

Not long ago, the Netherlands ruled that loot boxes in games are gambling, and have been designed to get people addicted, in order to spend more money. Gaming companies had until June 20 (yesterday) to either change their game mechanics accordingly or to apply for a gambling license.

This has now caused Valve to disable trading of items on CS:GO and Dota 2, as the current interpretation of the law has a little loophole that considers loot boxes as gambling only, when the in-game goods are transferable between players.

Researchers at the University of York have discovered a link between young people's ability to perform well at two popular video games and high levels of intelligence. Studies carried out at the Digital Creativity Labs (DC Labs) at York found that some action strategy video games can act like IQ tests. The researchers' findings are published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

The York researchers stress the studies have no bearing on questions such as whether playing computer games makes young people smarter or otherwise. They simply establish a correlation between skill at certain online games of strategy and intelligence. The researchers focused on 'Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas' (MOBAs) - action strategy games that typically involve two opposing teams of five individuals - as well as multiplayer 'First Person Shooter' games. These types of games are hugely popular with hundreds of millions of players worldwide.

AMD, in an interview with Forbes, confirmed that it is working to improve DDR4 memory support of its Ryzen series processors, to enable higher memory clocks. AMD Ryzen users find it difficult to get DDR4 memory clocks to run above 3000 MHz reliably. With memory clock being linked with the chip's Infinity Fabric clock (the interconnect between two CCX units on the "Summit Ridge" silicon), the performance incentives for higher memory clocks are just that much more.

AMD confirmed that its AGESA update for May improves DDR4 memory compatibility, although it also stressed on the need for motherboard manufacturers to improve their board designs in the future, with more PCB layers and better copper traces between the DIMM slots and the SoC socket. The company assures that more updates to AGESA are in the pipeline, and would improve performance of Ryzen processors at various levels. The AGESA updates are dispensed through motherboard vendors as BIOS updates.

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,

AMD today rolled out the Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.9.1 Beta drivers. The drivers add optimization for the DirectX 12 renderer of "Deus Ex: Mankind Divided," and adds an AMD CrossFire profile for the DirectX 11 renderer of "DOTA 2." The drivers also address flickering on certain 144 Hz displays, and some rare game crash bugs on "DOOM," "Total War: Warhammer," "DiRT Rally," and "GTA V." Grab the drivers from the links below.DOWNLOAD: AMD Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.9.1 for Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 32-bit | Windows 8.1 64-bit | Windows 8.1 32-bit | Windows 7 64-bit | Windows 7 32-bit

AMD today unleashed the new Radeon RX 460 graphics card, engineered from the ground up for eSports gamers who demand pristine HD gaming, extraordinarily smooth beyond-HD streaming capabilities, and a distinguished assortment of future-proof gaming technologies. With an ultra-quiet cooling solution and sub-75W power footprint, the Radeon RX 460 brings this wide array of enthusiast class features with a stunning SEP starting at $109.

"The Radeon RX 460 delivers the perfect balance of price, power, performance and package size, the four key pillars of modern GPUs," said Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect, Radeon Technologies Group, AMD. "The Radeon RX Series is built on architecture designed for extraordinary power efficiency and is especially well suited to desktop gaming PCs targeted at mainstream price points. Radeon RX 460 users will enjoy an optimized software and hardware graphics card solution ideal for both eSports and iCafé systems."

SteelSeries, the global leader in professional-grade gaming peripherals, announced the Dota 2 Headset is available for pre-order on the SteelSeries Web Shop. Gamers that pre-order now until the product's official launch in early November will be automatically entered to have a chance to play with four team members of Na'Vi's legendary lineup.

Available for $119.99/?119.99 MSRP, the Dota 2 Headset is based on Valve's online action game and the award-winning Siberia v2 design. The Dota 2 Headset features "Dota Red" illumination with six different modes, a USB sound card providing virtual 5.1 surround sound, and SteelSeries' signature retractable microphone. Included with each purchase, gamers will find the Scythe of Vyse, an exclusive in-game item for Nature's Prophet.

GIGABYTE, the world leader in high-performance gaming hardware and system has been already known for famous eSports events. In partnership with NVIDIA, GIGABYTE today announces the Summer Cup for DOTA 2, with a $1,500 total cash prize purse. GIGABYTE has partnered with Rapture Gaming Network, one of South Asian premier eSports organizers, to initiate and run the online tournaments. The 1st country qualifier will begin on Tuesday 10th Sept, 2013.

"GIGABYTE has always been committed to delivering the very best to gamers. By teaming up with RGN for DOTA2, GIGABYTE is supplying the very top-of-notch hardware right where it's needed, giving gamers a completely immersive gaming experience," said Eddie Lin, GIGABYTE Graphics Cards Sales & Marketing Division Director.

Perfect World Co., Ltd.("Perfect World"), a leading online game developer and operator based in China, and Valve, a leading entertainment software and technology company based in the United States, today announced an agreement granting Perfect World exclusive rights to operate Dota 2 in mainland China. In development at Valve, with design lead "IceFrog," Dota 2 promises to expand on the unique mix of action, RTS, and RPG gameplay that has made Dota one of the most popular online games in the world and a leading title at professional e-sport competitions.

"Valve is one of the best developers of online games in the world. We are very excited to partner with Valve in bringing Dota 2 to Chinese gamers," commented Mr. Robert Hong Xiao, Co-CEO of Perfect World. "Dota 2, a refined work by the developers at Valve, has received great attention from players worldwide. With our years of expertise in delivering quality games in China, we are confident that adding this action strategy game to our diverse portfolio of games will bring additional world-class entertainment and premier gaming experiences to our players in China."

SteelSeries, the leading global manufacturer of gaming peripherals, today announced co-licensed product line-ups for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2, which are anticipated Valve games targeted for release later this year. Created in collaboration with Valve Corporation, the peripherals for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive include a co-branded SteelSeries Siberia v2 Headset, SteelSeries Kana Gaming Mouse and SteelSeries QcK mousepad.

In addition, SteelSeries is also introducing the SteelSeries Dota 2 Limited Edition Mouse Bundle. Glossy black and sporting the red Dota 2 logo, the mouse is optimized and perfected with the help of professional gaming teams including the award-winning Dota International team, Natus Vincere. The bundle will include the optical, 6-button mouse, the Dota 2 branded SteelSeries QcK Mini mousepad, and an exclusive Dota 2 in-game item.

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today confirmed that Dota 2 will be free to play and announced the Dota Store in preparation for the game's release.

Upon its opening, the Dota Store will offer items created by Valve and members of the community that may be used immediately and carried over after the public launch of the game. Early Access to the game is not required to purchase items before launch. However, gamers may get into the game now by purchasing the Dota 2 Early Access Bundle of items.

SteelSeries, the leading global manufacturer of gaming peripherals, today introduced the first in a series of co-licensed products with Valve Corporation, creator of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source). The SteelSeries QcK+ DotA 2 Edition provides players with a smooth and consistent glide surface and a non-slip rubber base that keeps the mousepad in place regardless of the gaming environment. Optimized to achieve precision and accuracy for optical and laser technology, the oversized mousepad is 17.7 x 15.7 x 0.08 inches and features the vibrant colors of the Dota 2 black and red game logo.