Large language models (LLMs) love large quantities of memory—so much so, in fact, that AI enthusiasts are turning to multi-GPU setups to make even more VRAM available for their AI apps. But since many current LLMs are extremely large, even this approach has its limits. At times, the GPU will decide to make use of CPU processing power for this data, and when it does, the performance of your CPU cache and DRAM comes into play. All this means that when it comes to the performance of AI applications, it's not just the GPU that matters, but the entire pathway that connects the GPU to the CPU to the I/O die to the DRAM modules. It stands to reason, then, that there are opportunities to boost AI performance by optimizing these elements.

That's exactly what we've found as we've spent time in our R&D labs with the latest AMD Ryzen CPUs. AMD just launched two new Ryzen CPUs with AMD 3D V-Cache Technology, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D, pushing the series into new performance territory. After testing a wide range of optimizations in a variety of workloads, we uncovered a range of settings that offer tangible benefits for AI enthusiasts. Now, we're ready to share these optimizations with you through a new BIOS feature: AI Cache Boost. Available through an ASUS AMD 800 Series motherboard and our most recent firmware update, AI Cache Boost can accelerate performance up to 12.75% when you're working with massive LLMs.

The wait is over! Our second Wicked Inside is complete. Join us; for an exclusive deep dive into the new content, features and improvements in The Breach Update as well as everything coming next for "No Rest for the Wicked." There are a few surprises along the way! Let us know what you think!

The Breach—our biggest update
You wanted more of our campaign, you wanted more story, more zones to play in, more enemies, more bosses… in short: more of everything. And that is exactly what we have been focusing on. The Breach will be launching on the 30th of April 2025. Watch our latest showcase for the detailed updates and fixes.

Hello Civ fans, Update 1.1.0 is here—our first major update to Civilization VII! This update includes a mix of both paid and free content, with many of the free additions influenced by community feedback. For these extensive Update 1.1.0 notes, we've separated PC and Console into two separate sections so you can easily read them for your preferred platform. As part of these update notes, we're introducing a Feature Spotlight section, where the developers will dive deeper into new features or improvements being made. The Update Notes will cover all the addressed issues and improvements, including changes to both the base game and DLC. And lastly, for those who are excited about paid content additions, a Collection section will showcase the newest civs, leaders, and Wonders included in the latest paid Content Collection.

This update also brings a number of addressed issues and improvements specifically for console players. Some of these changes may already be available to PC players, but now all platforms are fully up-to-date. This also means cross-play between PC has been restored across PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch, so you can once again enjoy cross-platform multiplayer between PC and these consoles with the latest version of the game. For a look into what else we're planning, take a look at our recently released Update Check-in detailing some of what you can expect in our next update, and some major features being scoped out for the future. As always, we're listening closely to your feedback, so please keep sharing your thoughts on the Steam Discussion forums or our official Civilization Discord Server.

Attention, for the Administration of New London bears tidings of utmost importance. Since the fateful September past, our City has endured, prospered, and expanded its dominion. In pursuit of greater foresight, our vigilant expeditionists have charted a course through the treacherous frostland. As fresh intelligence reaches us, we are pleased to provide an update on their tireless endeavors.

Moreover, scouts report that the arrival of Spring shall bring significant developments for the people of New London. They have also urged the Administration to observe a day of reflection on April 24th, in honor of the seventh anniversary of our first great expedition—an endeavor once guided by a departed leader of unwavering resolve. May light forever grace their steadfast soul.

On Feb. 28, 2025, Naga Chandrasekaran, executive vice president, chief global operations officer and general manager of Intel Foundry Manufacturing, sent a message to Intel employees in Ohio updating them on the latest planned construction completion dates for Ohio One Mod 1 and Mod 2 that are under construction in New Albany, Licking County, Ohio. I continue to be impressed by the progress you are driving on our Ohio One campus. We have come a long way since construction began, and I am grateful for all that you've accomplished to lay the groundwork for our future as we make Ohio one of the world's leading hubs of advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

Last quarter, we achieved our "go vertical" milestone when the "basement" level of the fab was completed - and work on the above-ground structure is now underway. The campus has been transformed in ways that bring Ohio's natural beauty to the site. You are also doing so much beyond our campus to support Ohioans in our neighborhood and across the state by creating education and workforce development initiatives, building local business partnerships, and volunteering and investing in the community. I am proud of the impact you are making.

Greetings, Civ fans! Since launch, the team at Firaxis Games has been working quickly to address key areas of Civilization VII that we've prioritized and identified with the community's feedback and our own teams. Today, we wanted to provide a high-level overview of what you can expect in the next updates for Civilization VII.

Next Update Coming March 4
The next update for Civilization VII, Update 1.1.0, is coming on March 4, 2025, and will be deployed across PC & console. Cross-play between PC and consoles will be re-enabled with the deployment of this update. Please note: Update 1.1.0 release timing may differ on Nintendo Switch.

Hello gang! We heard you like Baldur's Gate 3 and breaking things. Well, we have good news for you: The Patch 8 Stress Test is now live and available to all Xbox Insiders who own the game! Not into breaking things but still want to know what this is all about? Read to the end to find out what's coming in Patch 8.

Patch 8 Stress Test
The final major patch for Baldur's Gate 3 is right around the corner, but with an update so packed full of bug fixes, new features, and additions, we're enlisting your help to go beyond our internal testing and help us catch things before release. Patch 8 is bringing cross-play to Baldur's Gate 3, allowing players on all platforms to join each other in multiplayer sessions! So grab your friends on other platforms and get ready to fight… over who will romance each companion.

We're happy to share that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is Steam Deck Verified! Experience two playable Spider-Men, traverse an expanded Marvel's New York and battle iconic Marvel Super Villains on your handheld device now! Be Greater. Together. The incredible power of the symbiote forces Peter Parker and Miles Morales into a desperate fight as they balance their lives, friendships, and their duty to protect in an exciting chapter of the critically acclaimed Spider-Man franchise on PC.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 PC—Patch 3 Release Notes
Patch 3 is available now for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 on PC! This week's update includes stability improvements and bug fixes based on player feedback. We've also implemented the latest version of the NVIDIA Streamline SDK and included dozens of small visual bug fixes related to various aspects such as reflections, ray-traced shadows and textures. We are actively working on more updates with additional bug fixes and performance optimizations. Thank you to everyone for playing Marvel's Spider-Man 2 on PC and for providing feedback to help us continue to improve the game!

Stalkers! Major Patch 1.2 is here! We are ready to present you Patch 1.2. A massive one, with over 1700 improvements and fixes to all aspects of the game: balance, locations, quests, blockers, crashes, performance, more A-Life 2.0 fixes, you name it. This work wouldn't have been possible without your feedback and comments on your personal experience with the Zone, thanks for sharing it here on Steam, Reddit, Discord, and other socials.

Thanks for staying with the Zone! As always, we will continue to listen to your feedback and comments, and share game updates as soon as possible. If you spot an "anomaly" that is not supposed to be in the game, please report it to our colleagues in Tech Support Hub. That will help us investigate potential issues faster.

Austrian PC cooling staple Noctua has revealed substantial timeline adjustments across its 2025 product portfolio, with several highly anticipated launches now facing multi-month delays. The company's flagship NH-D15 G2 CPU cooler in chromax.black variant has been pushed from Q2 to Q3 2025, while the next-generation 120 mm fan series has shifted from Q1 to Q2 2025. The comprehensive roadmap revision, with the next-generation dual-tower CPU cooler notably absent from the 2025 lineup, suggests a potential 2026 release window. The chromax.black version of the NF-A14x25 G2 fan has been rescheduled from Q1 to Q3, and the chromax.The black variant of the next-gen 120 mm fan is now slated for Q4, which represents a significant delay from its initial Q1 target. Despite these setbacks, Noctua has introduced new elements to its roadmap, including an LGA1851 offset mounting kit for the NH-D15 G2, designed to optimize thermal performance for Intel's latest socket configuration.

The company cites quality optimization as a factor in the timeline adjustments, though specific causes remain undisclosed. One bright spot in the announcement is the confirmation that the Seasonic PRIME TX-1600 Noctua Edition power supply will maintain its original restock schedule for Q1 2025. This collaboration product, which launched in late 2024, features Titanium efficiency certification and ATX 3.1 compliance, catering to high-performance systems utilizing current-generation graphics cards like the RTX 5090 and 4090. Noctua plans to showcase its upcoming product lineup at Computex Taipei, where additional details about the revised release schedule and hints of specifications are expected to be revealed. Now, just a few months away, the Computex 2025 looks like one of the most enjoyable shows ever, with the TechPowerUp crew roaming halls looking for interesting products.

ASUS has released version one of a BIOS update tool for its ultra-premium air-cooled ROG Astral graphics cards, OC and standard flavors. Yesterday's update advertises an improved "Quiet Mode," that implements a "more silent fan curve." TechPowerUp reviewed the quad-fan configured ASUS ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 OC Edition cards late last month. Resident GPU evaluator, W1zzard, awarded the astronomically-priced flagship model with an "Editor's Choice" badge, but simultaneously pinned on a "But Expensive" honor. The lesser (GB203-based) Astral did not receive any accolades. Both models have courted criticism for louder than expected operation; W1zzard did not enjoy listening to the Astral GeForce RTX 5090 OC Edition's collective fan concerto. "Out of the box" settings were not great, and the quiet BIOS mode did not "help much" in reducing the highest-end Astral's cacophony.

TPU's GPU guru elaborated further: "the second BIOS runs a more relaxed fan curve, but it's not much quieter and achieves 36.5 dBA with 70°C. Sure, good temperature, but isn't the point of a 'quiet' BIOS that isn't quiet, even if temperatures are higher? MSI's Suprim lineup does much better noise-wise, with temperatures that aren't that much higher." The ASUS ROG Astral RTX 5080 OC Edition seems to be a less noisy prospect, given that its cooling solution is not dealing with the largest "Blackwell" GPU die. Its sound signature was less offensive, but W1zzard reckoned that there was room for improvement. On this subject he stated: "with the default (performance) BIOS, temperatures are extremely low, but noise levels are a little bit on the high side with 36 dBA. I would have preferred a more balanced setting. Good thing that ASUS includes a secondary quiet BIOS with their card. Now the card runs whisper quiet, emitting only 26 dBA, which is highly impressive for a card in this performance segment. It is not the quietest card though, the MSI Suprim SOC is a tiny bit quieter, and it is so out of the box, without requiring a manual BIOS switch change." ASUS has seemingly absorbed initial feedback from review outlets (plus early adopters)—yesterday's update arrived just under two weeks from launch time. Watch out for possible upcoming reassessments.

TSMC has unveiled today its board meeting decisions, the chip giant has greenlit a massive US$17 billion investment to boost production capacity. According to TSMC, to meet long-term capacity plans based on market demand forecasts and TSMC's technology development roadmap, the board approved capital appropriations of approximately US$17.14 billion for installation and upgrade of advanced technology capacity, installation and upgrade of advanced packaging, mature and/or specialty technology capacity, fab construction, and installation of fab facility systems.

Previous reports by MoneyDJ suggested that TSMC might unveil plans for a third Arizona fab, a potential fourth fab, or its first advanced packaging plant after the board meeting. However, no updates have been confirmed yet. Industry sources suggested that TSMC's second Arizona fab, featuring 3 nm, will likely go ahead of schedule, providing a temporary response to U.S. pressures. According to the same report, TSMC's second Arizona fab is expected to begin equipment installation in mid-2026, with mass production expected by 2027. Notably, this progress would exceed TSMC's projections which expected the second plant to start 3 nm and 2 nm production in 2028, with a third plant potentially for the 2 nm process by the late 2030s. The MoneyDJ report further notes that initially, TSMC's second Arizona plant will offer 25K-30K 3 nm wafers per month. TSMC's first Arizona plant, initially slated for 2025, started 4 nm production ahead of schedule in Q4 2024.

AMD's Ryzen 9000HX lineup of "Fire Range" Zen 5 mobile processors is due for release within a vague March to April window, with the upcoming 3D V-Cache-equipped Ryzen 9 9955HX3D SKU touted to become a top choice for manufacturers of ultra high-end gaming laptops. The latest version of CPU-Z is ready (in advance) with support for Team Red's incoming product line; CPUID's patch notes (published on February 8) have revealed previously unannounced models. AMD's official introduction of Ryzen 9000HX series CPUs included an opening salvo of Ryzen 9 9955HX3D (16-core), 9955HX (16-core) and 9850HX (12-core) models.

According to CPU-Z version 2.14, three additional "Fire Range" SKUs are seemingly on the way. Starting off with the Ryzen 9 9950HX3D—a (presumably) slightly less potent 3D V-Cache-sporting model—its nomenclature suggests that it will sit just below the series flagship. The 9950HX model is expected to slot just under the already announced 9955HX chip. The newly revealed 9845HX SKU could become the lowest 12-core offering within AMD's "Fire Range" product stack.

25 years ago, The Sims made history with the first instalment of a legendary series that would go on to be one of the best-selling of all time. Few simulation games have enjoyed the success and longevity of The Sims—and the freedom and creativity to play with life however you want has afforded the series near-unrivalled appeal in the years since. This week, Electronic Arts is celebrating this milestone and the history of the series in a big way, which includes a huge The Sims 4 Free Content Update containing new Create a Sim options, clothing, Build/Buy Items and much more. The festivities will also include the limited-time Blast From The Past Event, which lets players earn revamped versions of iconic items from the original The Sims game via in-game goals.

We had the opportunity to chat with Kevin Gibson, Production Director for The Sims at EA. Gibson has been working in production roles across the franchise since 2003, and has first-hand experience of how the series has evolved in that time. The studio is abuzz with excitement about the franchise's birthday, and Gibson shares that digging deep into the series' past to rediscover nostalgic highlights has been extremely rewarding. "Our incredible players have shown us that no one does life like The Sims, and we wanted to celebrate this journey we have been on together," Gibson says. "25 years ago there was a game with an idea that made big a splash at E3, and look where we are today! We've been part of multiple generations and touched millions of lives.

Our next Developer Livestream is now confirmed for Wednesday, February 5 at 10:30am PST (18:30 UTC). Follow our official Twitch channel to receive a notification when our panel of Jorg, Seb, and Martial go live to discuss the future development plans for Microsoft Flight Simulator and answer the most frequently asked questions the community submitted to our web form over the past few weeks. As always, the panel will also answer live questions from Twitch viewers, so be sure to tune in if you didn't have a chance to pre-submit a question!

Thank you to everyone who has downloaded the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Sim Update 1 pre-release beta test build! Since its launch in January, our team has been very carefully reading your feedback and bug reports on the forums. A new pre-release build with more fixes and improvements is coming soon for beta testers. If you would like to enroll in the beta to help test the next major release of MSFS 2024, you can find instructions (for PC-MS Store, PC-Steam, and Xbox Series X|S) here.

The HWiNFO development team are prepping for the upcoming release of an NVIDIA upper mid-range "Blackwell" GPU—their popular system diagnostics tool will be updated with support for GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (GB203-based) graphics card models. Team Green flagship and sub-flagship SKUs were sent to market this week—with mixed results—industry experts believe that stock shortages will be in effect for many months post-release. Volatile retail conditions could force potential buyers—of next-gen graphics technology—into considering options from lower down in NVIDIA's new product stack. The GeForce RTX 5070 Ti ($749 MSRP, with no Founders Edition) and GeForce RTX 5070 ($549 MSRP) GPUs could be tempting alternatives—as stopgaps or permanent fixtures. Press outlets believe that a February 20 product launch is pencilled in.

HWiNFO's incoming 8.21 build is being readied with support for GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards, but the GeForce RTX 5070 (non-Ti) GPU is notably absent from the suite's "upcoming changes" list. An investigative VideoCardz news piece points to HWiNFO being the first bit of software to publicly acknowledge (in advance) support for Team Green's 8,960 CUDA core-equipped model. As reported earlier this week, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is based on NVIDIA's GB203 GPU—also present on a larger sibling: "RTX 5080 maxes the silicon out, enabling all 84 SM, the RTX 5070 Ti is slightly cut down, with 70 out of 84 SM being enabled, resulting in 8,960 CUDA cores, 280 Tensor cores, 70 RT cores, 280 TMUs, and an unknown number of ROPs. The memory size is 16 GB, across the chip's full 256-bit GDDR7 memory interface... Its TGP is down to 300 W compared to the 360 W of the RTX 5080."

Hello! No Man's Sky is a game that we all genuinely truly love. Last year we released Worlds Part I and I remember thinking at the time that this is just the beginning. We can't wait to show people what we've been working on! There's new solar systems, new planets with more variety, new terrain types, even new Gas Giants, and of course new adventures. Our next update is called Worlds Part II. Full patch notes are available here.

Worlds Part II allows us to push the boundaries of our engine with new technology. Across the universe we're adding billions of new solar systems and trillions of new planets, and introducing new biomes and terrains without changing what people already love about the game. It's now so far beyond what we ever thought was possible when we started out.

ASRock has quietly updated its CPU Support List with entries for the upcoming AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D desktop processors—starting off with motherboard BIOS versions 3.15 and 3.16. The Taiwanese manufacturer seems to be the very first company to add these "Zen 5" models to public-facing motherboard compatibility databases—according to yesterday evening's VideoCardz report, the likes of MSI, GIGABYTE, and ASUS have not yet followed suit (at the time of writing). The appearance of Team Red's "Granite Ridge" 16-core and 12-core 3D V-Cache-equipped processors on ASRock's website has set off chatter across PC hardware discussion communities.

AMD has not officially revealed a specific launch date (or pricing details) for its Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D CPUs—instead, a loose March window has been marked down on this year's calendar. Industry watchdogs believe that ASRock's freshly updated database is proof of an imminent launch—a couple of insiders predicted a January rollout, but this seems unlikely to occur by the end of this working week. Given the reported scarcity of Team Red's already released and highly-praised Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming processor, many folks will welcome the addition of two alternative options. Team Red has already set expectations for the (presumably) more expensive models—recently, a product manager disclosed that their "new chips will provide similar overall gaming performance" to the current champion.

The Xbox Insider program has outlined a major upcoming feature upgrade for their home console lineup—Tuesday's Alpha Skip-Ahead Ring (2502.250120-2200) release notes reveal newly implemented support for larger capacity external hard drives. Naturally, inside program members get to play around with this early build—we presume that support will eventually trickle down to public level in the near future. The major announcement stated: "we are enabling support for external USB drives larger than 16 TB, so you can be sure your favorite games are always ready to play! Newly formatted drives that are larger than 16 TB will be formatted with multiple partitions to utilize all available space for games and apps. These will appear as multiple devices in the storage devices list."

Xbox-licensed external storage devices are only available with a maximum capacity of 12 TB—Western Digital's WD_BLACK D10 model wears the crown here. Console gaming enthusiasts—with a penchant for storing a huge library of titles on hard disk drives (HDD)—are best served by not selecting official Xbox-branded storage devices. Manufacturers do offer products with 18 TB to 28 TB capacities, but potential buyers will be greeted by hefty asking prices. There are a couple of caveats—for owners of 16+ TB drives—as noted in the Alpha Skip-Ahead Ring notes: "drives greater than 16 TB that have already been formatted will be unaffected by this change and would need to be reformatted to take advantage of the updated support for larger drives. Please be aware that we have identified an issue with formatting drives larger than 16 TB, and we're working on a fix." Interestingly, the notes do not disclose information regarding a new upper limit for compatible storage devices.

Hey everyone, I've got some sad news today to ring in 2025. Late last month, Noel and I made the difficult decision to cancel Earthblade. Yes, we are opening the year with a huge, heartbreaking, and yet relieving failure. I want to outline in this post what lead to this decision, and what it means for the future of EXOK.

Before I get into it however, I want to acknowledge that this news will likely come as a shock to fans who have been eagerly anticipating the game. We made this decision in December and felt it best to wait until now to announce it. For us on the inside we've had some time to process, grieve, and work toward accepting this, although that process is nonlinear and still ongoing. For those only reading this now who might be emotionally invested in this project, we're sorry to disappoint you.

At Xbox, we're continuing to improve how we design, build, distribute, and use our products to reduce our environmental impact and help us reach Microsoft's goal of being a zero waste, carbon negative, and water positive company by 2030. Finding ways to reduce the environmental footprint of gaming not only helps the environment but also creates benefits for our collective community of players.

We've heard from players that they want more options for support when their Xbox consoles need repair. Today, we're expanding our repairability program, giving players even more options to get their Xbox Series X|S console options—the Xbox Series S—1 TB in Robot White, Xbox Series X—1 TB Digital Edition in Robot White, and Xbox Series X—2 TB Galaxy Black Special Edition—fixed should they ever need to, while also reducing and preventing waste.

Dear Operators. With Season Starfall on the horizon, we want to update you on the Black Hawk Down campaign. We deeply appreciate your enthusiasm and understand how much you're looking forward to it. Your expectations drive us forward to deliver the best possible experience. To ensure the campaign meets our shared standards, we'll need a bit more time for final polishing and optimization. As such, Black Hawk Down will now launch during Season Starfall. We'll share the new release date soon. Thank you for your patience and support—it means everything to us!

Prepare to take part in the ultimate Delta Force mission. Our Black Hawk Down campaign faithfully reimagines both the revered 2001 Ridley Scott movie and the classic Delta Force series campaign—resulting in the definitive retelling of the infamous Mogadishu operation. Playable solo or co-op, and built using the latest Unreal Engine 5 technology, our Black Hawk Down campaign has been designed from the ground up to deliver next-level immersion while remaining optimized.

Today, Delta Force developer Team Jade revealed their plans for continuing content updates coming to the game in 2025, as well as gave an update on the release of the mobile version of Delta Force. Delta Force has a bold plan for bringing its players fresh new content in 2025, including five new operators, seven new maps, new gadgets, new vehicles and more. For a full breakdown, please check out the Delta Force 2025 roadmap.

Team Jade will be sharing more when these seasons are dropping in the game soon, in the meantime, please visit the game's official website for more information about Delta Force. Team Jade also provided an update on the release window for the much anticipated mobile version of the game. In a message to Delta Force Players by Game Director Shadow Guo, the team is committed to delivering the top tier experience that players deserve, and to do that means moving the release of the mobile version to the Summer of 2025.

The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA)today announced that it is working with members to introduce new DP80LL ("low loss") ultra-high-bit-rate (UHBR) cables that enable up to four-lane UHBR20 link rate support - a maximum throughput of 80 Gbps - over an active cable up to three meters in length. The spec for these new cables will be a key highlight of DisplayPort version 2.1b, which will be released in the spring of 2025. As a result, the DisplayPort 2.1b update will provide for up to 3X the cable length for UHBR20 GPU-to-display connections compared to existing VESA certified DP80 passive cables. VESA certified DP80LL cables are expected to roll out into the market within the next several months.

UHBR20 and DP80LL Product Demos at CES 2025
VESA will showcase samples of pre-certified DP80LL cables alongside product demonstrations of DisplayPort 2.1 UHBR20 - the highest-performance UHBR tier in the DisplayPort 2.1 spec - as well as other VESA standards at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), taking place this week in Las Vegas, January 7-10.

NVIDIA has released the newest v11.0.1 update for its NVIDIA App, and according to the release notes, it comes with a single new update that disables Game Filter by default. Previously, NVIDIA has released an official statement looking into reported performance issues related to Game Filter options in the NVIDIA App.

The NVIDIA app comes as a replacement for GeForce Experience software, which went out of the beta phase and became the default NVIDIA software application since the GeForce 566.33 driver update. Before the update, users were left with an option to manually disable Game Filter options in Settings > Features > Overlay > Game Filters and Photo Mode. Now, users are left with an option to manually enable the option in the same settings menu.