Computer Upgrade King demoed 2 new extremely powerful and colorful mATX gaming desktops at CES that release in Spring 2019. On display at Patriot's suite, they featured their Continuum Mini which has an intense infinity mirror front panel with large side vents to ensure excellent air flow. Inside, there was an NVidia RTX 2080 TI GPU and an Intel i9-9900K CPU with their own custom cooling system consisting of an RGB CPU water block, anodized brushed aluminum reservoir and pump combo, front mounted 240mm radiator and lotus style ARGB fans.

On display at AMD's suite, they featured their Stratos Mini which has a triple RGB fan front panel with metal blade design to ensure excellent air flow. Inside, there was a Gigabyte Vega 56 GPU, an AMD Threadripper 2950X CPU with their own custom cooling system, a Team Group T-Force Delta RGB SSD, and halo style RGB fans.

While AMD has enjoyed tremendous success in regards to their Ryzen, Threadripper, and EPYC processors penetration into the mobile market has been a bit slow. However, judging by the number of systems on display at CES 2019 that is about to change. Models from Honor, Acer, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, ASUS, and HP. The one that immediately caught our eye was the Acer Nitro 5 which packs an AMD Ryzen 5 2500U CPU and an AMD Radeon RX 560X GPU. It also comes configured with 8 GB of memory, 256 GB SSD, IPS display and a backlit keyboard. Overall it looks to be a reliable entry level gaming system.

Next up was Dell's two offerings which were the Inspiron 5000 15 and 5000 14 2-in-1. The Inspiron 5000 15 was equipped with a 4c/8t Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega 8 graphics (512 shaders). It was also fully kitted out with 32 GB of DDR4 memory, 512 GB SSD, and a 1TB HDD making it an excellent option for productivity and heavy multitasking. Meanwhile, the 2-in-1 was equipped with a Ryzen 7 3700U which is a 4c/8t processor with Vega 10 graphics (640 shaders). It also came loaded with 16 GB of DDR4, 2 TB HDD and a 256 GB SSD giving it plenty of memory and storage space considering its more compact size.

MSI, a world leader in gaming hardware, debuts an industry-leading selection of gaming products at CES 2019, including the brand new GS75 Stealth laptop with the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU and the PS63 Modern Prestige laptop, designed for business executives and content creators. "MSI is devoted to gaming and our new lineup reaffirms our position as an industry leader endorsed by gamers and eSports teams worldwide," said Charles Chiang, MSI's new global CEO. "We are honored to be recognized by the CES awards panel and will continue to push boundaries to achieve extreme performance, superior design, and maximum reliability." MSI will also be debuting exclusive gaming technologies with next-level interactive functions designed for full immersion. Partnering with Ubisoft, MSI will enrich the gaming experience of Assassin's Creed Odyssey with RGB light dancing synced to the game and haptic feedback underneath the palm to generate vibration upon in-game events such as gunshots.

GS75 Stealth: The Game Just Got Real
Experience extreme performance with realistic in-game lighting on the go with this thin & light 4-sided thin bezel gaming laptop. Equipped with the latest Intel Core i7 CPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, a 17.3" 144HZ IPS-level display, and an extra-large, highly responsive and accurate touchpad, the GS75 stuns in an impressive aluminum alloy body. Highlighted by an internal passive radiator that delivers earth-shaking audio with booming bass, the GS75 measures only 0.75 inches thick. The GS series breaks the stereotype of bulky and heavy gaming laptops, offering an exceptional and portable gaming experience. MSI will also be unveiling the revamped version of the award-winning GS65, a 15.6" gaming laptop armed with the latest CPU and GPUs while weighing less than 4.19 lbs.

CORSAIR, a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced the launch of a complete new range of its award-winning CORSAIR ONE all-in-one PCs, led by the immensely powerful CORSAIR ONE PRO i180. A CES 2019 Innovation Award Honoree, the CORSAIR ONE PRO i180 has been created in collaboration with Intel to exceed the demands of today's most ambitious content creators. Powered by a liquid-cooled Intel Core i9-9920X 12-core processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics, CORSAIR ONE PRO i180 puts the power and performance of a full-fledged workstation into a small form factor that occupies less than a third of the space of its larger, more traditional counterparts. Accompanied by the CORSAIR ONE i160 and i140, which share the all-new internal layout and compact form-factor, the new range of CORSAIR ONE and CORSAIR ONE PRO once again redefine how compact, stylish and powerful a PC can be.

Steam, being the most widely used games platform for the PC ecosystem, has proven weight on current hardware employed by gamers. While not wholly representative, let's just say it caters to enough of the PC gaming population that we can infer some broad strokes of the current state of the market. And for all the hailing for a newcoming of VR in 2018, it would seem that happened, with a doubling of the attachment rate for VR headsets on Steam's hardware surveys. If we're only speaking relatively, that is.

More interesting and important than the "doubling" in VR headset attachment rate to Steam's user's is the fact that this only increased said attachment rate to around 0.8% of Steam's user base. Of these 0.8%, 0.37% of Steam users who took part in the December survey carry an Oculus Rift, with HTC Vive close behind at 0.33%. The overall increase in usage for each of these headsets was 85% and 65% throughout 2018, respectively - still definitely a far cry from the kind of market penetration that was expected of this latest generation of VR. As for Windows Mixed Reality products? They make-up 0.07% of the Steam survey's results.

JOLED, a Japanese Display, Sony and Panasonic group, has announced new OLED solutions for PC monitors that are expected to enter the market in 2019. While OLED has become ubiquitous in both high-end smartphones and TV's, some of the technology's quirks (read: burn-in) mean that it has some more problems that need addressing compared to the other, more traditional display panel technologies. That's likely one of the reasons OLEDs are taking so long to enter the PC monitor market, even though some of their characteristics (such as the fact that the announced JOLED models can features repsosne times of 0.1 ms) are naturally gamer-appealing.

The market entries will start small, with 21.6" diagonals in both 1080p (geared for gamers in partnership with Japanese e-sports team Burning Core) and 4K (which should make its way to the market inside ASUS' Proart PQ22UC. For some reason, there's apparently a 27" panel that's being developed specifically for smart home applications, instead of for the gaming crowds. Go figure.

Fallout 76 has quickly been deemed one of the gaming failures of 2018, with the world of Fallout falling prey to a multitude of factors. You can count Bethesda's game engine and it's infinite amount of bugs, blatant misinformation in marketing campaigns, and monetization, monetization, monetization.

It would seem that in a bid to win back player's graces, Bethesda will be offering PC, PS4 and Xbox players of Fallout 76 that logged in to play the game during 2018 a copy of their Fallout Classic Collection, which includes Fallout, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, and Fallout 2. It's a holiday gift given in a pleading position, so to speak. An announcement that Bethesda would be developing a new game engine would likely be better received by the community as an apology, though.

Crossplay has become an interesting point of contention for the industry, with some very popular games and companies advocating for a unified, non-fractured player audience enjoying their games across different media consumption screens, and even gaming platforms. Microsoft has been pushing this kind of capability for some time now, launching their Xbox Play Anywhere initiative which aims to bring PC, Xbox (or both) gamers to parity - acquiring a game on one platform equals having it on both, with all game data being synced.

A new update in the Steam beta update code explicitly refers to Xbox, with an "Xbox_pairwise_id" being present, which could point towards exploration of a future feature. Microsoft adding keyboard and mouse support to their Xbox consoles, news of a new streaming-based console for Microsoft's xCloud efforts, and Steam already offering controller support are some of the little details that could make this a winning bet for both companies.

NieR:Automata on the PC platform is a love-hate affair, the former due to excellent gameplay and replayability via multiple "routes" and the latter no thanks to the game in need of performance enhancements and bug fixes that were promised nearly two years ago but yet to come to fruition. Overall, the game holds an overwhelmingly positive review feedback on Steam, and won many game awards from various video game publications last year. For those who were hoping, or just waiting, for a complete GOTY edition to come out, perhaps this news is for you.

Today, Square Enix officially announced the NieR:Automata Game of the YoRHa Edition that includes the full base game as well as the 3C3C1D119440927 Expansion DLC, four pod designs (Grimoire Weiss pod, Retro Grey pod skin, Retro Red pod skin, Cardboard pod skin), the Machine Mask accessory and two digital wallpapers. This releases February 26, 2019 for $39.99 for PC and the PS4, with the XBOX One having received a "Become As Gods" earlier this year that had brought with it performance improvements. It remains to be seen if the new edition gets a similar patch, which interested users must keep track of before committing to a purchase as many players today have had to resort to a third-party patch to get things smoothly running.

After what seemed to be a series of never ending bad news concerning Bethesda's latest game, Fallout 76 received a major patch today that aims to improve the gaming experience in more ways than one. For PC users, a welcome addition comes in the form of the much-needed FOV (field of view) slider that has already helped tackle some complaints as seen online after launch. This comes along with a depth of field slider to allow further customization of the in-game view, which should also have a graphics performance effect depending on your hardware and DOF setting.

More importantly, Bethesda Game Studios has finally conceded that their current C.A.M.P system was far too broken. In particular, users were noticing their camp was lost entirely in between online sessions if someone else occupied the same space/location. This meant that a lot of resources were suddenly lost, and brought the online, multiplayer-only aspect of the game to be more similar to, say, State of Decay wherein players had to treat individual game sessions as possibly not having a point of resumption anymore. It added unnecessary frustration on top of what is frankly a bad video game by all records, and this is before we even get to the various bugs and monetary mishaps the game has seen since. Today's patch is a positive step, however, and hopefully this is one of many, many more that are needed before the game gets any real traction on the PC or console platforms alike. A full list of changes can be seen in the source linked in the full post.

With more and more companies creating their very own digital storefronts in the PC gaming space, it was only a matter of time until Epic Games threw their hat into the ring. With an announcement posted today, by Tim Sweeney the Epic Games store is now officially a reality. The new digital storefront will be made available for PC and Mac to start with, while other platforms will be added throughout 2019. In regards to games available on the platform, Epic will offer Fortnite alongside a set of hand-curated titles at launch. What those games might be is currently unknown.

Delivering a shot across the bow at Steam and their 30% revenue cut, Epic's game store will instead only take 12%, resulting in developers earning 88% of sales revenue. If they are using Unreal Engine the 5% engine royalty will be waived by Epic and instead is factored into their original 12% take. Putting that into perspective, an Unreal Engine based game released on Steam currently gives developers only 65% of the revenue with Steam earning 30% and Epic 5% due to engine royalties. Going from 65% to 88% is a significant increase in earnings, and it doesn't matter what game engine a developer uses, the revenue split will remain the same. This should leave developers quite happy since they are not limited by game engine choice and Epic benefits from a vastly increased selection of titles they can offer in their digital store.

For years Intel was able to maintain their endless tick-tock cycle however with the switch from 14nm to 10nm Intel realized all too late that they had bitten off more than they could chew. According to Robert Swan, Intel's Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, "we set out in the transition to 10 nm to attempt to scale much faster than we ever had at a time when I think most would argue the technology and the science and the challenges are more challenging they've ever been. So, we took a fairly aggressive scaling factor, roughly 2x of what the competitors do. So, we went for the analogy that a grand slam, I think, when the competition was hitting really solid singles."

Essentially Intel had hedged their bets that they could take a revolutionary step instead of the more typical evolutionary one thereby leaving their competition behind. Instead, it's resulted in the current situation that we are all very much aware of, that Intel is far behind their original predicted schedule. While that timeline has since been revised and they are now on course to release 10nm products in 2019, and 2020 Intel has also made it known that they plan to regain their leadership position as that transition begins.

World leading motherboard and mini PC manufacturer, ASRock, today announces the launch of new Z390 DeskMini GTX series mini PC. Supports latest Intel 9th Generation 8 Core LGA1151 processors, and up to 32 GB DDR4-4000 memory to provide extreme performance in a 2.7 Liter chassis. The new DeskMini GTX series featured with USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C and Type-A interface, delivering up to 10Gbps transfer rate. The built-in addressable RGB header allows connecting the LED strips to create unique lighting effects.

As Thanksgiving nears, Steam's Autumn Sale has officially started. Offering multiple deals to be thankful for, such as, Assassin's Creed Odyssey (33% off), NeiR: Automata (50% off), Monster Hunter World (34% off), Shadow of The Tomb Raider (50% off) and Civilization VI Gold Edition (69% off) just to name a few. Even virtual reality titles like Doom VFR, Skyrim VR, and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality are now on sale for (50% off). That said, PC gamers can breathe a sigh of relief as the latest Steam sale will run from November 21st until November 27th at 10:00 AM Pacific. Meaning you have plenty of time to spend all your hard earned money, so open up your wallets and let the shopping spree begin.

A few weeks ago we talked about Intel problems in the production chain. The semiconductor giant was facing a shortage of 14 nm CPUs probably due to Intel allocating volumes from the same 14 nm++ node for its upcoming 9th Generation Core processors. That caused a clear rise in the prices of processors like the Core i7-8700K, which had a launch price of $359 and was hard to find for less than $400 a month ago. Prices have relaxed since then, but are still higher than their launch ones.

Intel's processor shortage could continue in the coming months, and in fact Jerry Shen, CEO of Asustek Computer, explained how the problem will continue until at least the second quarter of 2019. In his words, "the continued CPU supply crunch, escalating US-China trade disputes, and increasing competition in the notebook segment in Europe have pressed down Asustek's "operational visibility" for the fourth quarter of 2018 to the lowest level of 20% compared to an over 50% seen in previous years".

ZOTAC Technology, a global manufacturer of innovation, is excited to officially announce the VR GO 2.0, the world's first VR Backpack PC refreshed from the ground up. The VR GO 2.0 improves the untethered VR experience with high-end performance repackaged into a more compact, ergonomic chassis.

UNLEASH NEW REALITY
The VR GO 2.0 is designed for unlocking the potential of VR across industries and businesses in entertainment, product development, medical practice, design, education, customer service, eSports, and much more. Integrating mobility and high-performance hardware, the revamped backpack solution empowers life-like immersion with zero compromises to latency and reduction in visual quality with today's leading VR headsets.

The system comes with the powerful and efficient NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 graphics with 8GB memory while an Intel Core i7 processor and 16GB DDR4 memory provides the horsepower and bandwidth to sail through intensive tasks, delivering an ultra-smooth experience. The VR GO 2.0 is further equipped with centralized ports and top mounted I/O ports dedicated for easy VR HMD connectivity.

A DRAM market pricing watch report from DRAMeXchange, a division of Trendforce, has just outed a prediction for DRAM price drops towards 2019 and into the same year. The report points to already-decreased by 10.14% pricing (US$34.5 in 3Q18 to the current US$31) for 4GB PC DRAM modules in the market, relative to the previous quarter, as a sign for continued drops. 8 GB DRAM module pricing has declined by 10.29%, signaling an increased inventory of those parts.

The report also states that suppliers have just reached the inflection point for oversupply, despite continued efforts from manufacturers to artificially decrease manufacturing to keep a strain on demand. The report further states that "The ASP in the whole DRAM market is forecast to fall by as much as around 20% YoY in 2019, according to DRAMeXchange's latest analysis. After reaching peak profit in 3Q18, DRAM suppliers are now optimizing their costs so that they will have a soft landing in 2019 as prices are marked down every quarter."

It's not Warcraft 4, but this news is still better than nothing to fans of the beloved RTS series. At Blizzcon 2018, Blizzard was met with backlash at the announcement of Diablo for mobile platforms, but news of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos getting a full remaster on the PC is helping fan down some of those flames. Titled Warcraft III: Reforged, the remaster is due to be released some time in 2019.

The official system requirements for the upcoming Battlefield V game have been outed, and there are three categories of such requirements now: Minimum, Recommended, and DXR. The minimum requirements are pretty steep as they are: DICE say at least an AMD FX-8350 or an i5 6600K CPU are required, alongside 8 GB of system RAM (on the graphics front, a GTX 1050 / RX 560 are mentioned).

The recommended system requirements do bring some interesting tables to the mix, though, with AMD's Ryzen 3 1300X and Intel's i7 4790 being hailed as good CPUs for the configuration. This is in stark contrast with the minimum requirements, but here's the gist: it appears that Battlefield V will be a well-paralellized game, though it will also require strong per-core performance (hence why the FX-8350 doesn't make the cut, and why a previous-gen i7 is higher on the list than the 6000 series i5 from Intel). Minimum RAM for the Recommended spec stands at a whopping 12 GB, though - I believe this is the highest I've ever seen for a game release. An RX 580 or a GTX 1060 round out the specs.

Insomniac Games' Sunset Overdrive first released as an XBOX One exclusive in 2014, and it was generally met with positive feedback from critics and users alike who appreciated the art style and gameplay of the third-person shooter. This was arguably the developer's biggest attempt at an open world action adventure game before they set off working on this year's hit Spiderman game for the Sony PS4 platform. As with just about any Microsoft console title these days, however, this too appears to be coming to the PC sooner than later. The first hint at this came from a Korean Game Ratings and Administration Committee notice earlier in May, and today we got word of the ESRB having a listing for the game as filed for the PC platform.

The game description can be read in the source link, which is NSFW in writing only, and everything points to a game release that does not appear to be nerfed in content thus far. We do not yet know if this is a straight port or more options are added in, and neither do we know whether this comes from the developer (who presumably are also busy handling post-game content for Spiderman) or delegated to someone else. All that can be said at this time is the release of Sunset Overdrive on the PC is now more of a matter of when and at what price point, rather than if at all.

(Editor's Note: Now isn't this beautiful. We could likely coin a "single player gaming isn't dead" hashtag right out of this one, for sure. What's more impressive is that this particular Rockstar release has only targeted current-gen consoles, leaving out a huge, booming slice of the market - PC Gaming. Let's forget the fact that it isn't all that hard to have a more powerful PC than any of the top consoles on the market today... But well. let's not be salty. here's hoping that Rockstar taps into our own PC gaming market so we can have a shot at Red Dead Redemption 2 as well. Kudos for the company for the apparently amazing world they've built.)

Rockstar Games is proud to announce that the critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption 2 has achieved the single-biggest opening weekend in the history of entertainment. With over $725 million in worldwide retail sell-through during its first three days, Red Dead Redemption 2 is the second-highest grossing entertainment launch of all time next to Rockstar Games' previously released title, Grand Theft Auto V, which achieved over $1 billion in retail sell-through in three days.

Microsoft launched Xbox Game Pass in June 2017. This video game subscription service allows users to install and play Xbox games (not just Xbox One ones, there are titles from the Xbox 360 and even the original Xbox) , with over 230 games currently available, a number that is constantly growing. Often called 'The Netflix of video games', the service has been improving its offering, but now the project will go beyond it's initial focus. Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, announced during an investor meeting that Xbox Game Pass will come to PCs soon.

Nadella gave no further details, so we still don't know what games will be included on that service or the subscription price (currently $9.99/month), but the announcement is promising and another sign that the company is moving forward to expand their reach and, of course, their earnings. On the latest earnings release (FY19 Q1) Microsoft pointed out how gaming revenue "increased 44% with Xbox software and services revenue growth of 36% mainly from third-party title strength". This move could make that growth go even higher, and it joins other recent announcements that could improve Microsoft's role in this market.

LucidSound , the fastest growing gaming headset brand, announced today the shipping of the LS31 Wireless Gaming Headset. Announced at E3 2018 and compatible with PlayStation4, Xbox One and PC, the new LS31 serves as a follow-up to the LS30 headset, LucidSound's top selling headset.

Re-built, re-engineered and re-imagined for an ever-evolving gaming marketplace, the new LS31 delivers uncompressed wireless audio, and features a host of upgrades designed to keep the LS31 ahead of the competition.

Bethesda sure is testing their fan base in more ways than one with the upcoming Fallout 76 game. First, we learnt that it was an online experience with no single-player campaign. Then came the news of an exclusive (at least at launch) use of the Bethesda.net launcher rather than Steam for the PC platform. Interest in the game was mediocre at best, if online gaming communities are anything to go by, and today we got to know about the Fallout 76 Platinum Edition that costs a whopping $115 USD but does not even include the actual game!

That's right, Bethesda in their infinite wisdom are selling this alongside the standard $60 edition, a $80 Tricentennial Edition, and an even more expensive $200 Power Armor Edition. The other editions all include the game, because why not, but this $115 edition is sold as a gear and comes with goodies galore for the hardcore Fallout fan. If you wanted to shell out the cash for a guide to the game universe, a collector's case, a numbered art print, mini journals, postcards, maps and more, you can find the link in the source. For everyone else, hold on to your horses and see how the game is received by the media before even deciding if the base game itself is worth it. Bethesda is setting a dangerous precedence here with physical goodies for pre-order based off an online game that is not even out yet, and all we can do with vote with our wallets by keeping them shut.

According to preliminary data published by Gartner, worldwide PC shipments totaled 67.2 million units in the third quarter of 2018, which marks a 0.1 percent increase from the third quarter of 2017. The study shows how the global market "has shown modest stability for two consecutive quarters" something quite impressive given that for some time now PC shipments have relentlessly decreased. Lenovo has surpassed HP and has secured the top spot driven by its joing venture with Fujitsu, says Gartner. Only those companies and Dell have managed to grow compared to the same quarter last year, while Acer, Asus, and Apple have reduced their shipments in this quarter.

Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at gartner, mentioned the possible impact of Intel problems in the short term: "the Intel CPU shortage could influence the PC market moving forward with price increases and changes to the vendor landscape. While this shortage will have some short-term impacts, Gartner does not see any lasting impact on overall PC demand." In fact, this analyst points out how Intel will prioritize high-end CPUs and business PCs CPUs, with AMD picking up if Intel cannot supply enough CPUs.