Microsoft's gaming division faced an uncertain future back in 2021, according to an article published by The Information mid-week. The long-form piece mainly focuses on Xbox's current predicaments, but the wider gaming press picked up on surprising allegations from days past. The story goes that Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO's, presided over two paths: either keep Xbox Game Studios going, or mothball the whole operation. History shows us that he kept his company's gaming department alive—a series of acquisitions (during and since 2021) have expanded development and publishing operations—but Xbox's journey has been rocky in the ensuing years. Investors and industry analysts believe that Microsoft's $68.7 billion takeover of Activision/Blizzard/King—back in 2023—has not boosted overall revenues to expected levels.

Insider Gaming has managed to make contact with a Microsoft spokesperson—extracted comments have been published in an "exclusive" report. The brand ambassador insisted that Nadella remains resolute about his company being "all in on gaming"—the CEO never entertained the notion of Microsoft winding down "its games business entirely." Industry experts have also criticized Xbox's Game Pass business model—many believe that the service's reach has faltered. The spokesperson commented on these opinions—proposing that engagement on Xbox platforms is "at an all-time high," helped in part by the recent launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Additionally, Microsoft believes that its audience count is in a healthy spot, with: "well over 500 million monthly players and over the last year, we've seen consistent growth in monthly users on cloud".

In 2018, Kingdom Come: Deliverance's celebrated score played a crucial role in supporting Warhorse's unique vision for immersive RPG gaming. Composer Jan Valta returns for the sequel with an expanded, handcrafted score that delicately blends authenticity with the tastes of a modern world. This gentle approach matters. The medieval music of Henry's world was dominated by the spoken word, with the instruments assuming more of a background role. Time signatures ebbed and flowed with far more fluidity than modern mainstream ears are accustomed to - a story-focused form of jazz, if you like. "It didn't always go in four beats or four bars, and then another four bars," Jan explains. "In medieval times the music was led by the lyrics. It was led by the text which was usually sacred. It came from God, or from the Apostles, or from Jesus. The music was tamed by the lyrics."

Music to Your Ears
Jan instead prefers to view his final touches of authenticity as "seasoning", designed to elevate a more traditionally structured soundtrack. The score exists first and foremost to serve the narrative beats that drive Henry's adventure forwards, in other words, rather than authenticity for authenticity's sake. "Daniel Vávra (creative director) and I quickly came to a common ground, which was a symphonic soundtrack: film-like music, which is then spiced or seasoned with medieval times," he says.

It's 2025, and we're looking to digitize everything. Yes, even physical gadgets. Like that clunky scanner taking up valuable desk space… why do we have those again? Right, so they can work about half the time and do a subpar job of scanning our documents. We're ditching ours for the iScanner document-scanning app.

This iOS app can digitize anything—contracts, receipts, handwritten notes, and ID cards—and save them as PDFs, JPGs, and other file types. The app uses AI-powered tools to automatically crop the borders and straighten the scan for perfect images every time. It also includes a mobile PDF editor if you need to add a signature, mark up a document, or manage files.

Use code SCAN at checkout to get an iScanner lifetime subscription for $24.99 (reg. $199.90). That's the app's lowest price ever.

A moderator on the PC Games Hardware (PCGH.de) discussion board had disclosed worrying details regarding stock limitations—presumably affecting the upcoming GeForce RTX 50 series launch in Germany. In turn, this disclosure was picked up by PCGH's new department. The predicted circumstances will—reportedly—make matters most difficult for customers looking to acquire higher-end "Blackwell" GPUs. The forum moderator gathered damning evidence from his network of contacts: "I was able to learn from well-informed dealer circles, the available contingent of graphics cards will be extremely limited! This applies in particular to the GeForce RTX 5090. Accordingly, NVIDIA determines where and who exactly will offer graphics cards at market launch. B2B dealers and the entire local wholesale trade, which primarily also works with business customers, will most likely come away empty-handed."

A bit of humor was sprinkled in with this informative post—the moderator joked about customers resorting to "cheerful" repetitive pressings of their F5 keys. They posit that the online buying experience for flagship Blackwell GPUs will be tiring and frustrating: "...so anyone who wants to get a GeForce RTX 5090 or GeForce RTX 5080 at market launch will have to queue digitally at the end customer dealers together with waiting (private) customers. Scalpers and bots will probably also get involved here. The quantities that can be purchased are likely to be limited to a maximum of one unit." Several stores are listed as being prime sources of stock (see below)—they reckon that the likes of Amazon will be not be receiving initial batches. "Second, third, or even fourth" waves of stock are anticipated, with some retailers set to act as resellers—inevitably opening the door to predicted price gouging. It is not clear whether these alleged restrictions will come into effect in markets beyond German borders—additionally, the VideoCardz insider network has not discovered any behind-the-scenes information regarding Team Green's launch period supply strategy.

Jonsbo rolls out two new Mini-ITX cases that squeeze a lot of features into just 4.54 liters. The N10 and NV10 models make the most of tight spaces, with each box measuring 205×205×108 mm. These small cases made of aluminium, take different paths to use space. The N10 caters to people who need lots of storage, with enough space for four 2.5-inch drives, kept cool by two 40x20 mm fans at the back running at 5000 RPM. Its counterpart, the NV10, swaps drive and back-fan room for graphics muscle fitting half-height dual-slot GPUs up to 190 mm long and offering PCIe 4.0 extension cable support.

The twins boast top-notch build quality combining 3.3 mm aluminium alloy with 1.0 mm steel plating. This results in a strong yet light frame, N10 weights 1.6 kg, while NV10 just 1.5 kg. Both cases can fit 1U Flex power supplies under 150 mm and CPU coolers up to 38 mm in height. Flexibility is a key selling point, as users can place both models upright or on their side to match different desk layouts. Even with their tiny sizes, these cases manage airflow well enough to handle their intended tasks, whether as small workstations or specialized setups.

LUNAR fans, mark your calendars! The epic adventure to save the world from the forces of evil with old friends Alex, Hiro, and more, begins April 18, 2025. Wishlist it on Steam right now! Dive into the enchanting worlds of LUNAR: Silver Star Story Complete and LUNAR 2: Eternal Blue Complete, two beloved JRPGs that have captured the hearts of gamers for generations. LUNAR: Silver Star Story introduces Alex, an aspiring Dragonmaster who bands together with his friends to combat the perilous emergence of the Magic Emperor and stop him from taking over the world.

LUNAR 2: Eternal Blue picks up a thousand years later, and follows Hiro and his friends as they set out in search of the Goddess Althena alongside an enigmatic girl named Lucia. On this grand quest, fend off enemies like Borgan and White Knight Leo, who hunt down the group to eradicate what they deem to be the "Destroyer of Lunar." This definitive remastered edition features enhanced graphics, audio, and quality-of-life improvements that will satiate that hunger for 90s nostalgia--better than you remember! Embark on these two adventures with updated language support, now available in English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, French, and German.

Yesterday, Nintendo officially unveiled its Switch 2 handheld via a first look video presentation. Featured content did not come as a surprise to many gaming enthusiasts—a steady flow of leaks have already revealed outer and inner workings. Earlier today, the Digital Foundry team has offered their collective opinion on Nintendo's formal announcement. Their roundtable discussion first focused on the Switch 2's physical appearance—mainly a showcased physical increase in size, when lined up against the preceding (standard) model. Conversation quickly moved onto technical matters—a topic that Nintendo normally avoids discussing. The video presentation included in-game footage of a next-gen Mario Kart title—Oliver Mackenzie (a contributing DF video producer/writer) was not impressed by this short demo's visual fidelity. He noted an absence of DLSS image enhancement—surprising, given that the rumored NVIDIA Tegra T239 SoC is capable of deploying this graphics technology.

John, Rich and Oliver then moved onto discussing recently leaked clock speeds and performance figures (in handheld and docked modes)—overall, they reckon that these numbers seem fitting for a hybrid system. They noticed that the handheld GPU clock was lower than expected—based on their judgement of the Switch 2's fairly capable integrated cooling solution. In the past, Digital Foundry theorized that the NVIDIA-designed Tegra T239 will be an 8 nanometer part—rumored to be built on Samsung 8 nm DUV foundry node. Newer gaming community-generated proposals have suggested a shift to Samsung's 5 nm EUV node—mostly based on the chipset's physical footprint. In sharp contrast, the Digital Foundry guys are sticking with their 8 nm theory. Richard Leadbetter (DF's founder) has previously attempted to simulate Switch 2-esque performance on readily available Ampere-based hardware—he could revisit and perform tests on a laptop that sports Team Green's GeForce RTX 2050 mobile GPU. He believes that the leaked CPU and GPU clocks (across both modes) present plausible evidence of 8 nm-level performance, cross-referenced with his team's past analysis of the system's PCB. Debates will inevitably rage on, but Rich insists that the end result will be an example of "Occam's razor." The Tegra T239's four (long alleged) Cortex A78 cores appeared to be running at a higher frequency in portable mode than in docked—suggesting some unknown factors; perhaps a switching on or off of cores (situation dependent). Leadbetter and Co. will be looking forward to getting a proper hands-on experience at Nintendo's April to June launch events.

Multiple sources say an unidentified corporation is exploring the complete acquisition of Intel Corporation, according to tech publication SemiAccurate. The report points to an internal memo shared among a small group of top executives at the unnamed firm. A high-level insider confirmed the memo's legitimacy last week, reinforcing speculation that a purchase of Intel may be under serious consideration. SemiAccurate's report indicates that the prospective buyer has enough financial resources to acquire Intel outright, considering the company's current market valuation. Notably, this potential buyer has not been publicly identified in previous discussions about Intel's future, suggesting that planning has occurred behind closed doors. The memo's limited circulation hints that executives treat the proposal cautiously rather than engaging in casual exploratory talks.

Any attempt to purchase Intel would require extensive regulatory review, given the company's role in producing semiconductors for both commercial and government applications. Regulators would likely evaluate issues related to national security, supply chain stability, and competitive impact in the global chip market. While neither Intel nor the unidentified acquirer has issued an official statement on the rumor, we are watching for any signals of formal negotiations. Intel has long been a strategic source of the US semiconductor sector, and its potential ownership change would have to be domestic. If a deal does materialize, it would stand among the largest transactions in the technology field.

Intel Foundry has announced the onboarding of new defense industrial base (DIB) customers, Trusted Semiconductor Solutions and Reliable MicroSystems, as part of the third phase of the Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes - Commercial (RAMP-C) efforts under the Trusted & Assured Microelectronics (T&AM) Program in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD (R&E)). The RAMP-C project, awarded through the Strategic & Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems (S²MARTS) Other Transaction Authority (OTA), allows DIB customers to take advantage of Intel Foundry's leading-edge Intel 18A process technology and advanced packaging for prototypes and high-volume manufacturing of commercial and DIB products for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

"We are very excited to welcome Trusted Semiconductor Solutions and Reliable MicroSystems to the RAMP-C project we are engaged in with the DoD. The collaboration will drive cutting-edge, secure semiconductor solutions essential for our nation's security, economic growth and technological leadership. We are proud of the pivotal role Intel Foundry plays in supporting U.S. national defense and look forward to working closely with our newest DIB customers to enable their innovations with our leading-edge Intel 18A technology," said Kapil Wadhera, vice president of Intel Foundry and general manager of Aerospace, Defense and Government Business Group.

Marvelous Games has announced Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma. This new entry in the series will launch globally on the Nintendo Switch system and Windows PC via Steam on May 30, 2025. A new gameplay video showcasing Guardians of Azuma's action combat, relationship system, and seasonal village life is also now available to watch below. The latest entry in the popular action-RPG and life-simulation series introduces the Eastern territory of Azuma, a land of Japanese-inspired visuals and unique twists on familiar gameplay elements from the Rune Factory franchise.

Pre-orders for the Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma Limited Edition are now available at participating retailers here for an RRP of €99.99. This stunning collection comes in a custom outer box and includes a physical copy of the game, an original soundtrack CD, an art book, an Azuma-inspired folding fan, the "Seasons of Love" DLC bundle, additional DLC costumes for your protagonists and their divine sidekick Woolby, and a plush Woolby keychain. The standard edition of the game is also available to pre-order for an RRP of €59.99. Details on digital editions will be announced later.

PowerColor started its online marketing campaign for new Reaper graphics card family earlier this week—a rendered scythe graphic was posted on social media along with this cryptic message: "The Reaper has arrived. Everything is under your control. Will you be the Reaper or the one reaped?" The Taiwanese graphics cards company has already unveiled its opening salvo of new RDNA 4-based card designs—on the internet and in real life. For example, PowerColor's Radeon RX 9070 XT Reaper model was on display at CES 2025—where TechPowerUp spent a couple of minutes with an SFF-form-factor-friendly demonstration sample. Since then, more photo evidence has been posted on the AMD subreddit—a UK retailer appears to have units in-stock at their warehouse.

Team Red is seemingly operating in silent mode—they have not revealed concrete details about the upcoming launch of Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT) GPUs. Preliminary specification leaks and photos of boxed retail units have turned up this week—with yesterday's Reddit post indicating that Scan UK has received a big cardboard box containing PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 Reaper cards. Industry watchdogs reckon that AMD is still forming a release strategy—with board partners and retail/e-tail outlets waiting on and seemingly ready to receive new or finalized instructions.

Norwegian browser company Opera [NASDAQ: OPRA] is unveiling the Opera GX hub, a new feature designed to blend the universes of its users' favorite games directly into the browser. Starting with the Cyberpunk 2077 hub, this new addition to Opera GX brings players closer to their favorite titles than ever before, making it possible for them to use the web while never leaving Night City. They can now browse with the full Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack playing in the background, have webpages displayed in the dystopian Cyberpunk 2077 style, and get direct access to streams, modding guides, news from the game and much more - all within the browser.

The Cyberpunk 2077 hub in Opera GX is the first of its kind. It's a new integrated feature that connects the universe of a game with the user's browsing experience. It also gives fans access to essential game-related content and tools, making it easier for them to stay up-to-date with the game while browsing the web within a single space. This collaboration with CD PROJEKT RED is just the beginning: Opera GX will be working on more immersive game integrations in the future.

Unannounced AMD Threadripper 9000 "Shimada Peak" processor SKUs have once again appeared on leaked shipping manifests—a 96-core variant was uncovered under similar circumstances last summer. The latest discovery—courtesy of reliable investigator Everest/Olrak_29 combing through info published on NBD—reveals a Zen 5-based product stack that lists 16, 32, 64 and 96-core models. Until now, industry watchdogs have not spotted evidence of 32-core and 64-core SKUs—alongside prior leaks that only mentioned 16-core and 96-core parts.

Team Red has not officially announced that it is working on a follow-up to its current generation Zen 4-equipped Threadripper 7000 "Storm Peak" CPU series, but tipsters believe that fundamental similarities—based on leaked core counts and specifications—position "Shimada Peak" as the logical/inevitable successor. Speculation points to all the leaked Threadripper 9000 HEDT processors having a TDP rating of 350 W. Industry insiders propose that the highest-end variant—sporting 96 cores and 192 threads—will contain 12 CCDs (eight cores per CCD), 32 MB L3 cache (per CCD), and a lone I/O die. Wccftech theorizes that the 32-core model will be specced with four CCDs, while "the 64-core variant will come with eight CCDs." Insiders have whispered about a possible "later in 2025" launch window for "Shimada Peak."

The newly unveiled GMK G9 is not here to set any records in terms of raw performance. However, it does pack a different trick up its sleeve - impressive storage capabilities, allowing for its use as an affordable NAS. GMK has not revealed any price or availability details as of now, although Liliputing did manage to dig up a retailer listing which reveals that the G1 mini PC will start at an affordable $289 for the base variant with 12 GB of memory and no SSD storage, whereas the same unit with 512 GB of storage will command an extra $30.

The GMK G9 is powered by Intel's N150 processor - a slightly higher-clocked version of the N100, which packs a total of four cores and four threads, a boost clock of 3.6 GHz, and a modest 6-watt TDP. As mentioned previously, the G1 is by no means a performance system, and packs just enough computing grunt to function as a lightweight daily driver or a NAS. The system can be equipped with up to 12 GB of LPDDR5-4800 memory and 64 GB of eMMC storage. To justify its NAS credentials, the G1 packs a whopping four M.2 2280 slots, allowing for a maximum of 32 TB of SSD storage. The port selection is plenty decent as well, including a USB-C port, triple USB-A ports, dual HDMI ports, a 3.5 mm audio jack, and of course, dual 2.5G RJ-45 LAN ports. For the price and the features offered, the G1 sure does like a commendable choice for a nifty little home server.

LG Display, the world's leading innovator of display technologies, continues to lead the way in large-sized OLED technology by unveiling its fourth-generation OLED TV panel. 33% brighter than the previous generation and optimized for the AI TV era, it is the industry's first ever OLED display to achieve a maximum brightness as high as 4,000 nits (1 nit is the brightness produced by a candle).

Panels with both high brightness and energy efficiency are essential for AI TVs, as they use upscaling that analyzes content in real time to deliver ultra-high picture quality of up to 8K. The industry also considers higher brightness to be a key picture quality factor because it enables more vivid images that are akin to natural human vision.

Cue the iconic FINAL FANTASY fanfare because we can confirm that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is officially Steam Deck Verified! Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun da duuuuun! That means upon launch on January 23, you'll be able to play the critically acclaimed RPG on a train, on a plane, swaddled up in bed, in the bathroom… wherever you want. It's fine - we won't judge.

Of course, you can also play on your desktop, where depending on your rig you'll be able to benefit from frame rates of up to 120 FPS and a range of visual enhancements, including refined lighting, improved environment detail, more detailed textures. You'll also potentially be able to experience enhanced framerates and image quality with NVIDIA DLSS. VRR is also supported. You can get a sense of the PC enhancements in the new trailer (below), and check out our previous article for more details.

AMD's Radeon RX 6750 GRE GPU is an (RDNA 2) Chinese market exclusive—Board Channels members reckon that this model is facing imminent discontinuation. The "GRE" affix denotes "Golden Rabbit Edition." Western graphics card enthusiasts will be familiar with this slightly odd moniker due to Radeon RX 7900 GRE-based (RDNA 3) cards heading to European and North American territories around early 2024. Sadly, this mid-to-high tier GPU is rumored to be reaching an end-of-life (EOL) phase—the latest speculation now points to Team Red's Radeon RX 6750 GRE being quietly withdrawn from China's PC hardware market.

Two Radeon RX 6750 GRE Navi 22-based SKUs—with 10 GB or 12 GB video memory configurations—were created specifically to fill a gap not occupied by AMD's Radeon RX 7600 XT model. The affordable-tier Golden Rabbit Editions are said to be highly popular with Chinese system integrators and budget-minded gamers, but Team Red and its board partners have (apparently) declared that the 10 GB variant is now discontinued. A Board Channel member posited that an "inventory digestion phase" is already underway, with an end date set in March. AIBs are reportedly waiting on "replacement plans from February to March." The Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB variant is reported to be sticking around for the moment, but a new candidate could be appearing in the near future. VideoCardz believes that AMD is considering a rollout of the—not yet announced and oft-delayed—Radeon RX 7650 GRE as a potential modernized substitute.

The RTX 50-series fever continues to rage on, with independent reviews for the RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 dropping towards the end of this month. That does not stop benchmarks from leaking out, unsurprisingly, and a recent lineup of Geekbench listings have revealed the raw performance uplifts that can be expected from NVIDIA's next generation GeForce flagship. A sizeable chunk of the tech community was certainly rather disappointed with NVIDIA's reliance on AI-powered frame generation for much of the claimed improvements in gaming. Now, it appears we can finally figure out how much raw improvement NVIDIA was able to squeeze out with consumer Blackwell, and the numbers, for the most part, appear decent enough.

Starting off with the OpenCL tests, the highest score that we have seen so far from the RTX 5090 puts it around 367,000 points, which marks an acceptable jump from the RTX 4090, which manages around 317,000 points according to Geekbench's official average data. Of course, there are a plethora of cards that may easily exceed the average scores, which must be kept in mind. That said, we are not aware of the details of the RTX 5090 that was tested, so pitting it against average scores does seem fair. Moving to Vulkan, the performance uplift is much more satisfying, with the RTX 5090 managing a minimum of 331,000 points and a maximum of around 360,000 points, compared to the RTX 4090's 262,000 - a sizeable 37% improvement at the highest end. Once again, we are comparing the best results posted so far against last year's averages, so expect slightly more modest gains in the real world. Once more reviews start appearing after the embargo lifts, the improvement figures should become much more reliable.

The journey begins now: Assetto Corsa EVO Early Access is live on Steam! Imagine sitting behind the wheel of your dream car, the engine roaring, with the track stretching out before you. Feel the changing light as you accelerate, the road alive beneath your tires. This isn't just a game—it's the start of your driving journey.

For the next two weeks, until January 30th, join Assetto Corsa EVO Early Access at 20% off. By joining now, you'll receive all the content featured in version 1.0 for free. This is your chance to be part of the game's evolution at the lowest price of the entire EA program—immerse yourself in every thrilling lap and turn while shaping the future of the game.

It is no secret that NVIDIA's RTX 50-series launch was welcomed with a mixed reception. On one hand, DLSS 4 with Multi-Frame Generation has allowed for obscene jumps in performance, much to the dismay of purists who would rather do away with AI-powered wizardry. A recent YouTube video has detailed what the RTX 5090 is capable of in Cyberpunk 2077 with Path Tracing at 4K, both with and without the controversial AI features. With DLSS set to performance mode and 4x frame generation (three generated frames), the RTX 5090 managed around 280 FPS. Pretty good, especially when considering the perfectly acceptable latency of around 52 ms, albeit with occasional spikes.

Turning DLSS to quality, the frame rate drops to around 230 FPS, with latency continuing to hover around 50 ms. Interestingly, with frame generation set to 3x or even 2x, the difference in latency was borderline negligible between the two, right around 44 ms or so. However, the FPS takes a massive nosedive when frame generation is turned off entirely. With DLSS set to quality mode and FG turned off, the RTX 5090 barely managed around 70 FPS in the game. Taking things a step further, the presenter turned off DLSS as well, resulting in the RTX 5090 struggling to hit 30 FPS in the game, with latency spiking to 70 ms. Clearly, DLSS 4 and MFG allows for an incredible uplift in performance with minimal artefacting, at least in Cyberpunk 2077 unless one really looks for it.

PCI-SIG, the consortium that governs the PCI Express I/O interconnect, released draft specification version 0.7 for the upcoming PCI-Express 7.0 standard (or PCIe Gen 7). An early-2025 release of this draft could indicate that PCIe Gen 7 gets finalized into specification version 1.0 by the end of 2025, from where implementers can pick it up to design their devices around. We are now at 32 Gbps per lane per direction with PCIe Gen 5, and PCIe Gen 6 doubles it to 64 Gbps, which would mean PCIe Gen 7 will double that further to 128 Gbps per lane per direction. PCI-Express 7.0 x1 would offer the same bandwidth as PCI-Express 3.0 x16. We could realistically expect the first computing platforms implementing PCIe Gen 7 to come out around 2027 or even 2028. PCIe forms the physical layer for a number of derivative standards, such as CXL, Thunderbolt, USB (USB 3.0 onwards), NVMe, SDexpress, CFexpress, and DMI.Many Thanks to Tumble George for the tip

Thermal Grizzly's Duronaut thermal paste stands out due to its combination of exceptional long-term stability and excellent thermal conductivity. Its outstanding performance in heat transfer is further enhanced by the ability to apply Duronaut in an extremely thin layer. This is made possible by its unique composition of aluminium microparticles and zinc oxide nanoparticles, optimized for particle shapes and sizes. These features ensure excellent adhesion of the paste to the surface. The powders are mixed into a specially developed silicone oil, resulting in extraordinary long-term stability.

For optimal application, the high-end thermal paste comes with the new TG Spatula Pro. The redesigned spatula allows for more pressure to be applied to the surface during application, enabling the paste to be spread more efficiently in a thinner layer. Duronaut is available in 2-gram and 6-gram packaging options.

ASUS today announced the refreshed Marshmallow Keyboard KW100—now featuring a new Copilot key for one-press access to the Microsoft Copilot app for enhanced Windows experiences, along with Iridescent White and Rose Clay color options. This compact and versatile wireless keyboard is ideal for everyday computing, boasting durable 10-million-keystroke switches, scissor keys, and two-level adjustable kickstands. A pair of system-switch keys enable effortless switching between Windows and ChromeOS, and between macOS, iOS, and iPadOS modes.

Distinct colors
ASUS Marshmallow Keyboard KW100 is now available in eye-catching Iridescent White and Rose Clay finishes, as well as the original Oat Milk and Green Tea Latte options. The four color schemes provide an eye-catching look that stands out against the black, beige, or gray keyboards typically seen in the market. In addition, essential keys such as Enter, Esc and the space bar are in a contrasting shade for better visibility. These unique colors give ASUS Marshmallow Keyboard KW100 a smart, youthful look that perfectly complements ASUS Fragrance Mouse MD101, as well as modern laptops, PCs, and tablets.

Parallels has announced the introduction of x86 emulation support in Parallels Desktop 20.2.0 for Apple Silicon Macs. This new feature enables users to run x86-based virtual machines on their M-series Mac computers, addressing a longstanding limitation since Apple's transition to its custom Arm-based processors. The early technology preview allows users to run Windows 10, Windows 11 (with some restrictions), Windows Server 2019/2022, and various Linux distributions through a proprietary emulation engine. This development particularly benefits developers and users who need to run 32-bit Windows applications or prefer x86-64 Linux virtual machines as an alternative to Apple Rosetta-based solutions.

However, Parallels is transparent about the current limitations of this preview release. Performance is notably slow, with Windows boot times ranging from 2 to 7 minutes, and overall system responsiveness remains low. The emulation only supports 64-bit operating systems, though it can run 32-bit applications. Additionally, USB device support is not available, and users must rely on Apple's hypervisor as the Parallels hypervisor isn't compatible. Despite these constraints, the release is a crucial step forward in bridging the compatibility gap for Apple Silicon Mac users so legacy software can still be used. The feature has been implemented with the option to start virtual machines hidden in the user interface to manage expectations, as it is still imperfect.

At the RTX "Blackwell" Editor's Day during CES 2025, NVIDIA pulled back the curtain on one of its most powerful tools: a dedicated supercomputer that has been continuously improving DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) for the past six years. Brian Catanzaro, NVIDIA's VP of applied deep learning research, disclosed that thousands of the company's latest GPUs have been working round-the-clock, analyzing and perfecting the technology that has revolutionized gaming graphics. "We have a big supercomputer at NVIDIA that is running 24/7, 365 days a year improving DLSS," Catanzaro explained during his presentation on DLSS 4. The supercomputer's primary task involves analyzing failures in DLSS performance, such as ghosting, flickering, or blurriness across hundreds of games. When issues are identified, the system augments its training data sets with new examples of optimal graphics and challenging scenarios that DLSS needs to address.

DLSS 4 is the first move from convolutional neural networks to a transformer model that runs locally on client PCs. The continuous learning process has been crucial in refining the technology, with the dedicated supercomputer serving as the backbone of this evolution. The scale of resources allocated to DLSS development is massive, as the entire pipeline for a self-improving DLSS model must consist of not only thousands but tens of thousands of GPUs. Of course, a company making 100,000 GPU data centers (xAI's Colossus) must save some for itself and is proactively using it to improve its software stack. NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang famously said that DLSS can predict the future. Of course, these statements are to be tested when the Blackwell series launches. However, the approach of using massive data centers to improve DLSS is quite interesting, and with each new GPU generation NVIDIA release, the process is getting significantly sped up.

Thermaltake, a leading PC DIY brand for premium hardware solutions, is proud to launch the Toughpower TF3 1300 W - TT Premium Edition, the 80 Plus Titanium certified and full modular PSU that is designed to power up high-performance and overclocking systems. The Toughpower TF3 1300 W is built to comply with the ATX 3.1 specification and comes with PCIe Gen 5.1 connectors, it ensures superior reliability and future-ready compatibility for high-end hardware including the latest RTX50 series graphics cards.

The Toughpower TF3 1300 W meets ATX 3.1 standards, supporting up to 200% total power excursion, 300% GPU power excursion, and reaches 60% efficiency at low load. Its two native PCIe 12 V-2X6 modular interfaces are compatible with advanced PCIe 12+4pin connectors, providing up to 600 W for the next-gen PCIe 5.1 graphics cards. To reduce installation errors, the 12+4pin cable comes with a dual-color design in matcha green and black, allowing users can easily verify proper connections.

NVIDIA's upcoming RTX 5090 and 5080 graphics cards are maintaining similar L1 cache architectures as their predecessors while introducing marginal improvements to L2 cache capacity, according to recent specifications reported by HardwareLuxx. The flagship RTX 5090 maintains the same 128 KB L1 cache per SM as the RTX 4090 but achieves a higher total L1 cache of 21.7 MB thanks to its increased SM count of 170. This represents a notable improvement over the RTX 4090's 16.3 MB total L1 cache, which features 128 SMs. In terms of L2 cache, the RTX 5090 sees a 33.3% increase over its predecessor, boasting 96 MB compared to the RTX 4090's 72 MB, with SM count going up by 32.8%, so there is a slight difference.

However, this improvement is relatively modest compared to the previous generation's leap, where the RTX 4090 featured twelve times more L2 cache than the RTX 3090. The RTX 5080 shows more conservative improvements, with its L1 cache capacity only marginally exceeding its predecessor by 1 MB (10.7 MB vs 9.7 MB). Its L2 cache maintains parity at 64 MB, matching the RTX 4080 and 4080 Super. To compensate for these incremental cache improvements, NVIDIA is implementing faster GDDR7 memory across the RTX 50 series. Most models will feature 28 Gbps modules, with the RTX 5080 receiving special treatment with 30 Gbps memory. Additionally, some models are getting wider memory buses, with the RTX 5090 featuring a 512-bit bus and the RTX 5070 Ti upgrading to a 256-bit interface.

Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce has announced that CHIPS National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program (NAPMP) has finalized $1.4 billion in award funding to bolster U.S. leadership in advanced packaging and enable new technologies to be validated and transitioned at scale to U.S. manufacturing. These awards will help establish a self-sustaining, high-volume, domestic, advanced packaging industry where advanced node chips are both manufactured and packaged in the United States.

These awards include:

• A total of $300 million under the CHIPS NAPMP's first Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for advanced substrates and material research to Absolics Inc., Applied Materials Inc., and Arizona State University. This follows the previously announced intent to enter negotiations on November 21, 2024
• $1.1 billion to Natcast to operate the advanced packaging capabilities of the CHIPS for America NSTC Prototyping and NAPMP Advanced Packaging Piloting Facility (PPF). This follows the previously announced CHIPS R&D Facilities Model on July 12, 2024, and planned site selection for the PPF on January 6, 2025

AMD is rumored to be building its next-generation CCD (core complex die) that implements the "Zen 6" microarchitecture, on the 3 nm TSMC N3E foundry node. This is part of a set of rumors from ChipHell forum, which got past rumors on AMD right. Apparently, AMD will also refresh the I/O dies for its next generation process, building them on the 4 nm foundry node, likely the TSMC N4C. The TSMC N3E node offers a 20% speed improvement, over 30% power savings, and approximately 60% logic density increase over TSMC N5, whereas the TSMC N4P node that the company uses for its current "Zen 5" chiplets only clock minor increases in logic density and power over N5. The N3E node relies on EUV double-patterning to achieve its logic density increases.

Perhaps the most interesting piece of news is the new-generation I/O dies. AMD is building these on the 4 nm node, which is a significant step up from the 6 nm node its current I/O dies are built on. On the client side of things, 4 nm will enable AMD to give the new cIOD an updated iGPU, probably based on a newer graphics architecture, such as RDNA 3.5. It will also give AMD the opportunity to integrate an NPU. The company might also update its key I/O components, such as the DDR5 memory controllers, to support higher memory speeds unlocked by CUDIMMs. We don't predict any updates on the PCIe front, since AMD is expected to carry on with Socket AM5, which determines that the cIOD puts out 28 PCIe Gen 5 lanes. At best, the USB interface put out from the processor could be updated to USB4 through an on-die host controller. Over on the server side, the new-generation sIOD will bring much needed increases to the DDR5 memory speeds enabled by clock drivers.

Kiwi Ears, a brand known primarily for its IEMs, decided CES 2025 is the perfect time to show off its upcoming series of closed-back headphones. We already saw a couple of more budget-friendly DJ/monitoring-style headphones from the brand late last year, and Kiwi Ears followed up on this with two different ANC wireless headphones to appeal to the more mainstream crowd. The Aventus uses a 50 mm dynamic driver, and the Ardor ups the ante by using two dynamic drivers—a 10 mm DD on top of the 50 mm DD in the Aventus—for a novel driver configuration in headphones. Both of course have RGB lighting in the ear cups to further appeal to the mainstream market, and will be launching later this month. The dual driver headphones theme continued with the Kiwi Ears Atheia, which foregoes the plastic RGB ear cups in favor of machined wood and now goes for a 50 mm DD + 14 mm planar magnetic driver hybrid configuration. This seems similar to the Noble Audio Apollo from last year, which uses a similar driver setup and adds wireless ANC connectivity on top. The Atheia is also expected to launch later this month, so Kiwi Ears is set to have a busy few days ahead.

Also at the show was yet another wooden ear cup set, although this currently uses the same body as the Atheia. This unnamed model—feel free to suggest a name for Kiwi Ears in the comments—is also closed-back in nature, and is using a single large planar magnetic driver. This is arguably the toughest type of headphones to get sounding correct, at least in the ~$400 price range that Kiwi Ears is aiming for. There's still work to be done with the tuning, and I provided feedback which is hopefully going to help the brand out. I used all of these headphones with my phone thanks to an upcoming Kiwi Ears dongle-style DAC/amp, the Allegro Pro, which connects directly to the Type-C port on your phone. It uses a customized DAC and a dedicated amplifier section, offers both 3.5 mm SE and 4.4 mm BAL outputs, and even has three onboard EQ profiles you can toggle through a button on the underside. The Kiwi Ears Allegro Mini should be launching within the next month or two, helping wrap up a great showing for Kiwi Ears at CES.

Samsung's native foundry operations have wrestled with the 3 nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process—these problems have persisted since the first reports of "missed production targets" emerged late last year—online speculators floated a very disappointing yield figure: only 20%. Last December, industry moles proposed that the South Korean technology giant had devised plans to form an Exynos-centric "multi-channel partnership" with rival chipmakers. Speculation pointed to TSMC being the only valid ally. Semiconductor industry tipster—Jukanlosreve—believes that negotiations have taken place, and the answer was a firm "no." TSMC's most advanced node process order books are likely filled up with more important customers—industry watchdogs reckon that Apple usually gets first dibs.

Taiwan's top semiconductor manufacturer leads the market with its cutting-edge lithography techniques. Insiders believe that Samsung was impressed by TSMC's 2 nm trial production runs achieving (rumored) 60% yields. The higher-end Exynos chipsets are normally produced with the best node process available, but missed manufacturing goals have caused Samsung to drop in-house tech. In the recent past, Qualcomm's most powerful Snapdragon mobile chipsets have been deployed on flagship Galaxy S smartphones. Jukanlosreve believes that TSMC rejected Samsung's proposed Exynos deal due to a fear of revealing too many "trade secrets." Potentially, the South Koreans could have learned a thing or two about improving yields—courtesy of TSMC's expert knowledge.

Protectors of the Light, it is time! Age of Darkness: Final Stand has officially launched, marking the end of over three years in Early Access and the introduction of one of your most requested features: Co-operative Multiplayer. We cannot wait for you to jump in and try it out. Importantly, we are celebrating the full release of Age of Darkness: Final Stand with our biggest discount yet—available now at 65% off for a limited time only! There really is no better time for you or your friends to jump into the game (and you have our permission to bug them until they do).

If you are new to the AOD community—welcome! In addition to the new Multiplayer Mode, you also have Survival Mode and the gripping Campaign to experience, and they are a great place to start when learning the ropes. Take advantage of the game's range of difficulty settings if need be - there is no shame in playing on Easy! But if you are a Veteran RTS player and want to grab a friend to defend humanity against the forces of the Veil, do not be afraid to jump into Multiplayer and challenge yourselves with its increased intensity and faster pacing. The game truly has something for everybody!

To be honest, it is rather tiresome to look for mini PCs with adequately powerful graphics. Of course, AMD's Strix Halo is all set to change that narrative with the help of its powerful integrated graphics that rivals discrete cards, but those stuck with last-gen systems have no option but to opt for an eGPU. Thankfully, the options are plenty on the market, and prominent mini PC brand GMK has now arrived with its own solution as well.

Dubbed the GMK AD-GP1, the eGPU sports the decently powerful AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT graphics card with a measly 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. While that would have been enough 4 or 5 years ago, 8 GB of VRAM is hardly sufficient for modern titles, especially at higher resolutions. Making matters worse, the GMK AD-GP1 does not feature a replaceable GPU, which means that its buyers will be stuck with the RX 7600M XT that its ships with. That said, the system is undeniably rather compact at 16.3 x 11.0 x 3.9 cm, and sports a visually appealing design.

PowerColor has updated its website with a Radeon RX 9070 XT Red Devil product page—this is the first example of an RX 9000 series model being officially listed alongside their existing selection of (exclusively) AMD GPU-based graphics cards. The Taiwanese brand has not published any technical specifications—Team Red RDNA 4 NDAs are likely still in effect—but a pleasing number of Radeon RX 9070 XT Red Devil promotional images have been uploaded. A limited edition package (with alleged bundled extras) seems to be in the pipeline—VideoCardz has provided visual evidence of a fancy container (see below).

Teaser images appeared online at the start of this year—close-ups of glowing signature red parts were accompanied by an ominous message: "every edge shines like a gem. Every second burns like fire. If power was in your hands, how would you use it?" Days later, TechPowerUp inspected a fully unveiled Red Devil demonstration sample at CES 2025—new Hellhound and Reaper designs were also within reach. PowerColor's freshly uploaded images reveal one major difference—VideoCardz adeptly points out the presence of two 8-pin power connectors on the promos, while the CES example possessed three physical inputs. They theorize that renders of PowerColor's Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT) Red Devil model have appeared on the XT's product page. Beyond discrepancies in connector counts, the overall design matches that of the Las Vegas showcase model.

SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada, the mecha-based PvPvE extraction shooter from Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc., is available beginning today for consoles and PC. In the game, players take on the role of Drifters, pilots of nimble mecha called CRADLECOFFINS exploring and battling through the ruins of Amasia, a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by poisonous rain. They must rely on their AI companions, called Magus, to help them wage combat in an environment plagued by twisted mutant creatures and other players with unpredictable loyalties to retrieve valuable resources for their own survival.

SYNDUALITY Echo of Ada is now available via Early Access to those players who pre-ordered the Deluxe or Ultimate editions of the game on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with PC via Steam. The game will launch in all editions on January 23. Find out more about the game and Early Access on the official website.

Fps Vn—a gaming hardware YouTube channel—has managed to get their hands on an early sample of Lenovo's Legion Go S handheld system. This lower cost model was officially introduced at last week's CES trade event—with a notable specification shared across SteamOS and Windows 11 variants: AMD's Ryzen Z2 Go APU. This processor sits at the bottom of Team Red's latest line of "Strix Point" and "Phoenix Point" gaming-oriented SoCs. The Ryzen Z2 Go chipset—featuring Zen 3 processor and RDNA 2 graphics technologies—is based on Team Red's older "Phoenix 2" silicon. Fps Vn decided to compare this lower-end 4-core/8-thread APU with a widely available sibling: the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme (a Zen 4 and RDNA 3-based processor).

Their Lenovo Legion Go S sample model (Ryzen Z2 Go) was lined up against the ASUS ROG Ally X (Ryzen Z1 Extreme)—tests were performed in Black Myth: Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077 and Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut. Gaming benchmarks indicate an overall 9 to 10% performance deficit for the budget-friendly APU. The results are quite impressive; given that the Ryzen Z2 Go SoC utilizes an older processor technology (Zen 3 vs Zen 4), sports a lower core count (four vs. eight), and is only capable of boosting up to 4.3 GHz (Z1 Extreme hits a maximum clock of 5.1 GHz). Reflecting on these early performance results, potential customers are invited to inspect the gulf in pricing. Leaks indicate that the Legion Go S SteamOS model being priced at $499, while an alleged $100 upcharge grants access to a Windows 11 variant ($599). The price-to-performance ratio favors Lenovo's upcoming entry-level models, but ASUS could reduce the ROG Ally X's entry fee in the coming months—this flagship device originally launched with an MSRP of $799.

In celebration of the announcement of the Nintendo Switch 2, NACON, premium gaming accessories designer, is pleased to introduce its new range of products dedicated to the console, all of which will be available at launch.

Protection solutions for the whole console
To safeguard your console against accidental damage, NACON has designed a range of solutions to protect it from knocks and drops, including cases, protective shells, pouches and travel bag, all equally useful when playing or on the move.

AI agents are poised to transform productivity for the world's billion knowledge workers with "knowledge robots" that can accomplish a variety of tasks. To develop AI agents, enterprises need to address critical concerns like trust, safety, security and compliance. New NVIDIA NIM microservices for AI guardrails—part of the NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails collection of software tools—are portable, optimized inference microservices that help companies improve the safety, precision and scalability of their generative AI applications.

Central to the orchestration of the microservices is NeMo Guardrails, part of the NVIDIA NeMo platform for curating, customizing and guardrailing AI. NeMo Guardrails helps developers integrate and manage AI guardrails in large language model (LLM) applications. Industry leaders Amdocs, Cerence AI and Lowe's are among those using NeMo Guardrails to safeguard AI applications. Developers can use the NIM microservices to build more secure, trustworthy AI agents that provide safe, appropriate responses within context-specific guidelines and are bolstered against jailbreak attempts. Deployed in customer service across industries like automotive, finance, healthcare, manufacturing and retail, the agents can boost customer satisfaction and trust.

Supply chain insiders reckon that stock of NVIDIA's "Ada Lovelace" generation GeForce RTX 4070 GPU will be depleted by the end of this month. This revelation emerges on the cusp of Team Green's GeForce RTX 5000 series of "Blackwell" GPUs heading to market (on January 30). The popular Chinese hardware forum—Board Channels—is a reliable source of product "supply and demand" information. Industry insiders believe that Team Green's mid-tier SKU will be completely sold—by the closing of this month—across several unnamed regional markets. NVIDIA's incoming GeForce RTX 5070 SKU (baseline $549 MSRP) appears to be the natural alternative, given that GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER offerings are priced within the range of $550 to $600—according to market research performed by VideoCardz.

A board member disclosed details and prophesized changes up and down NVIDIA's current-gen product stack: "The inventory for NVIDIA RTX 4070 and higher models is expected to be completely cleared by January. Starting from February, major AIC brands are anticipated to have stock remaining only for the RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4060 series, which still need to be digested. However, since NVIDIA's Q1 begins in February, these two models will essentially enter the final stock phase." VideoCardz anticipates a March launch window for the GeForce RTX 5060 series—this could be well-timed given circumstances surrounding Team Green's (alleged) limiting of GeForce RTX 4060 Ti GPU supplies and the insider's predicted cessation of RTX 4060 (non-Ti) production.

Happy New Year, and welcome to a fresh and tasty Dev Diary from the team at The Chinese Room. We are starting the year by talking about the player character, Phyre, and how you can shape their legend and add to it as you play. As you'll see below your story will start wearing rags, but will it end in riches? Seattle's fate is in your hands.—Project Creative Director Alex Skidmore

An Elder of your choosing
As our game starts, an Elder that some call the Nomad wakes up in an abandoned building in Seattle. They don't know where they are or how they got there, but they are quick to adapt - the Nomad is old, and they have survived for a long time. It is clear that they have experienced the deathlike sleep of torpor. The last they remember was a smile and a piercing pain in the chest, delivered in their Haven in Tunis at the start of the 20th century. Now they are awake. What happened to them in their long slumber, and who woke them? Why does their Blood lack the strength and power they are used to? And why is their body carved with arcane sigils?

AMD's keynote presentation—at last week's Consumer Electronics Show (CES)—did not include a segment that covered their next-gen Radeon RX 9000 GPUs. This omission caused quite an uproar across PC hardware communities—Team Red soon responded with its reasonings. Board partner Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 (non-XT) custom models were available for "hands-on" inspections in Las Vegas, but technical specifications and performance figures remained under lock and key. Unofficial leaks and accidental product listings have painted an incomplete picture of the first wave of RDNA 4 products, but AMD seems to be preparing a dedicated launch event.

A recent "Meet the Experts" webinar attracted many queries from curious GPU enthusiasts (including a VideoCardz staffer) regarding Team Red's plans for the initial pair of Navi 48-based graphics cards. Donny Woligroski, AMD's senior processor technical marketing manager, did not provide a concrete answer on an exact launch date—certain leaks have pointed to January 24 as a possible candidate. A special presentation is seemingly on the cards—Woligroski stated: "All I can say about Radeon (9000) is that what we have said is what we can say. We think it deserves its own time in the spotlight, and at CES, things can get kind of washed under a massive amount of information. So stay tuned; it won't be a long time before you'll be hearing more about it in the near future." Industry watchdogs believe that Team Red is strategizing RDNA 4's rollout with eyes trained firmly on Team Green's upcoming new-gen offerings.

Intel today released the latest version of the Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.6458 WHQL comes with support for the new Arc B570 graphics card the company launched today. The drivers also add support for the Xe-LPG iGPU of Core Ultra 200H series "Arrow Lake-H" mobile processors. For Core Ultra 200-series iGPUs, the drivers add an up to 6.8% performance uplift in "Call of Duty: Black Ops 6." The drivers address an issue with "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle" where the game exhibits inconsistent performance and memory usage. "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" saw an intermittent application crash and display corruption in the game menu with XeSS enabled, which has been fixed. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.6458 WHQL

Nintendo Switch 2, the successor to the Nintendo Switch system, will be released in 2025. Today Nintendo offered a first look at Nintendo Switch 2 in a video introducing the hardware. Nintendo Switch 2 plays Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive games, as well as both physical and digital Nintendo Switch games. Certain Nintendo Switch games may not be supported on or fully compatible with Nintendo Switch 2. Details will be shared on the Nintendo website at a later date.

For more details on Nintendo Switch 2, please tune in for the "Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 - 4.2.2025" which will air on Wednesday, April 2. Nintendo will also hold Nintendo Switch 2 Experience events, where consumers can go hands-on with Nintendo Switch 2, in cities around the world.

Time to suit up, members. The multiverse is about to get a whole lot cloudier as GeForce NOW opens a portal to the first season of hit game Marvel Rivals from NetEase Games. Members can now game in a new dimension with expanded support for virtual- and mixed-reality devices. This week's GeForce NOW app update 2.0.70 begins rolling out compatibility for Apple Vision Pro spatial computers, Meta Quest 3and 3S, and Pico 4 and 4 Ultra devices. Plus, no GFN Thursday is complete without new games. Get ready for seven new titles joining the cloud this week, including multiplayer online battle arena game SMITE 2.

Invisible No More
Eternal night falls for Marvel Rivals, the superhero, team-based player vs. player shooter that lets players assemble an ever-evolving all-star squad of Super Heroes and Super Villains battling with unique powers across a dynamic lineup of destructible maps from the Marvel Multiverse. The Fantastic Four will be playable in season one of the game. For Eternal Night Falls, Invisible Woman and Mister Fantastic will be released in the first half of the season, followed by Human Torch and The Thing in the second. Season one will also feature three new maps, special events and an all-new Doom Match game mode.

Yesterday, the Dutch government announced that it had amended its export rules regarding sanctioned semiconductor equipment—this is another adjustment that seems to align policy closer to North American terms. Equipment manufactured by ASML—the nation's crown jewel photolithography system specialist—is included on a list of sanctioned items. According to a Bloomberg New report, the export of the manufacturer's latest advanced measurement and inspection hardware will be affected by new policy. The Dutch trade ministry stated that only a "very limited" number of technologies will be safeguarded—ASML's customers will be required to apply directly for export licenses with the Dutch government (rather than the USA).

The Hague's announcement did not explicitly state that the latest adjustments were made in conjunction with US government policies, but insider sources reckon that some cross-pollination has occurred. Last December, the White House declared a new wave of restrictions—further constricting semiconductor exports to China. According to an article published by a Netherlands-based legal newspaper, the updated licensing requirements will limit the export of advanced equipment that is utilized to discover small defects in wafers, plus systems that enhance measurements after the deposition and etching phases have been completed.

Following the spectacular success of Endorfy Fera 5 and Endorfy Fortis 5 series, Endorfy is expanding its portfolio by announcing black versions of the air coolers. As a result of immense popularity of Endorfy Fera 5 Black (launched earlier 2024), the brand introduces three new products - Endorfy Fera 5 Black ARGB, Endorfy Fortis 5 Black and Endorfy Fortis 5 Black ARGB. The all-black design perfectly fits various computer builds and workstations.

The coolers vary according to the parameters of heatsink, fan and heatpipes - additionally, two models offer optional ARGB backlighting, making them easy to customize. Each of the launched products are also compatible with the latest AMD and Intel sockets, allowing users to enjoy the silent operation as well as low CPU temperature even when the PC is working at full power.

Intel today formally launched its second graphics card from the Arc "Battlemage" family, the Arc B570. This card is being launched at $220, or $30 cheaper than the Arc B580 from last month. With it, the company is looking to disrupt several products around the $200-mark, and probably even wage price wars below that mark. The card is designed to offer a 1080p AAA gaming experience enhanced with ray tracing, and the XeSS 2 feature set (super resolution, frame generation, and low-latency). Given that there is no RTX 3050 successor from NVIDIA, or anything from AMD around this price point, except older generation RX 6600-series products, the B570 could be poised to grab a chunk of the value-ended gaming PC market share.

The Arc B570 is based on the same 5 nm "BMG-G21" silicon that also powers the B580. It has 18 Xe cores enabled across five Render Slices, giving it 112 EU (execution units), or 2,240 unified shaders. Other key specs include 144 XMX cores for AI acceleration, 18 ray tracing units, 144 TMUs, and 60 ROPs. Perhaps the biggest differentiator between the B570 and B580 is memory, the B570 gets 10 GB of it, over a 160-bit wide GDDR6 memory bus, on which it runs 19 Gbps memory to yield 380 GB/s of memory bandwidth. With a total board power of 150 W compared to the 190 W of the B580, the B570 makes do with a single 8-pin PCIe power connector on even the factory overclocked parts. Intel has set a $220 baseline price, however, there is no reference design card, and the cheapest custom design cards start at $230, with an included factory overclock. We reviewed two such cards today, you can find them in the links below.

Read the TechPowerUp Reviews of the ASRock Arc B570 Challenger OC and the Sparkle Arc B570 Guardian OC.

SK hynix has sped up its HBM4 development plans, according to a report from ZDNet. The company wants to start shipping HBM4 samples to NVIDIA this June, which is earlier than the original timeline. SK hynix hopes to start supplying products by the end of Q3 2025, this push likely aims to get a head start in the next-gen HBM market. To meet this sped-up schedule, SK hynix has set up a special HBM4 development team to supply NVIDIA. Industry sources indicated on January 15th that SK Hynix plans to deliver its first customer samples of HBM4 in early June this year. The company hit a big milestone when it wrapped up the HBM4 tapeout in Q4 2024, the last design step.

HBM4 marks the sixth iteration of high-bandwidth memory tech using stacked DRAM architecture. It comes after HBM3E, the current fifth-gen version, with large-scale production likely to kick off in late 2025 at the earliest. HBM4 boasts a big leap forward doubling data transfer ability with 2,048 I/O channels up from its forerunner. NVIDIA planned to use 12-layer stacked HBM4 in its 2026 "Rubin" line of powerful GPUs. However, NVIDIA has moved up its timeline for "Rubin" aiming to launch in late 2025.

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.

Axiomtek - a world-renowned leader relentlessly devoted to the research, development, and manufacture of innovative, highly efficient, and reliable industrial computer products - is thrilled to unveil an electrifying upgrade that its AIE100, AIE110, and AIE900 series edge AI systems are going to gear up to support NVIDIA's game-changing Super Mode for NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano and Orin NX series modules, launching this year with the NVIDIA JetPack 6.2 software development kit release.

This enhancement catapults performance to new heights, supercharging groundbreaking applications like local AI chatbots, real-time computer vision, and advanced robotics. Axiomtek's commitment to pioneering edge AI solutions just got even stronger, marking another milestone in its strategic collaboration with NVIDIA, as a Preferred member of the NVIDIA Partner Network with an Embedded Compute competency.

With the PlayStation 5 Pro taking the gaming world by storm, Taiwan's leading gaming peripheral brand, Brook Gaming, is back with a groundbreaking new product—Wingman FGC 2 Converter. Designed exclusively for PS5 and compatible with the entire library of PS5 games, this adapter redefines gaming freedom with seamless cross-platform and cross-generation controller support for over 150 wired controllers.

At Brook Gaming, we believe every gamer deserves the freedom to play their way. The Wingman FGC 2 gives players total control over their favorite controllers and fight sticks, eliminating hardware limitations so you can take full command of your gaming experience.

As a leading brand in PC case innovation, MONTECH proudly presents the Heritage, an exquisite blend of luxurious leather and durable metal. With a distinctive suitcase-style handle, this compact yet spacious PC case redefines portability and capacity, delivering unmatched elegance and practicality.

Where Luxury Meets Practicality
The Heritage PC case redefines sophistication by seamlessly blending premium leather with durable metal for a timeless, luxurious design. Signature triangular accents reflect the brand's distinct identity, while a suitcase-style leather handle adds both elegance and portability. Designed for users who value both style and functionality, the Heritage delivers a striking aesthetic and unmatched convenience.

Alphacool presents the Apex 1, the first CPU water cooler in the Apex series. It combines maximum cooling performance, exceptional design, and a high-quality selection of materials. The Apex 1 integrates the proven cross-slot technology with the new 3D-Jetplate 2.0, ensuring optimal cooling performance for both AMD and Intel processors of the latest generation. A pre-chamber in front of the 3D-Jetplate 2.0 smooths the incoming water flow and evenly distributes it across the Jetplate and the copper base's cooling fins. Both the copper base and the brass connector part are precisely CNC-machined to guarantee top-notch manufacturing quality.

Alphacool offers two versions of the cooler. The AMD AM5 version features an offset cooler base, which does not sit centrally on the CPU. Instead, it is positioned to direct the water injection right above the CPU hotspot. The Intel version has a centrally positioned cooler base that covers the entire CPU. Both versions ensure outstanding cooling performance. The cooler's design is made to fully cover the CPU socket and mounting holes. This does not affect the installation, which remains incredibly simple. Additionally, the coolers come equipped with aRGB lighting, positioned both on the top and on the side towards the RAM, perfectly complementing the design.

ASUS today announced the ExpertBook B3 series, an all-new lineup of AI-powered laptops that offers extensive customization to empower daily business needs. Equipped with up to the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 processor (Series 2) with Intel vPro, Intel AI Boost NPU and Intel Arc graphics, ExpertBook B3 delivers solid performance to tackle a wide range of tasks seamlessly. These new laptops also feature powerful AI tools such as ASUS AI ExpertMeet], Microsoft Copilot and AI noise-canceling technology, delivering unmatched productivity experiences.

With a build that's as lightweight as 1.4 kg, a 180° lay-flat hinge, military-grade durability, comprehensive connectivity, and advanced security features, the latest ExpertBook B3-series AI PCs ensure flexibility and efficiency on the go. In addition, with long battery life, exceptional visuals and audio, and an eco-friendly design, ExpertBook B3 series supports streamlined workflows - keeping employees productive, wherever they work.

AVerMedia Technologies, a global leader in digital audiovisual solutions, is thrilled to announce the worldwide launch of two groundbreaking additions to its GO Series product line: the ELITE GO GC313Pro Charging Capture and the CORE GO GC313 Charging Dock. Designed with mobility, versatility, and performance in mind, these devices empower users to work, play, and create wherever they go, embodying the series' tagline: "Your Essential Go Anywhere."

"The GO Series reflects AVerMedia's mission to deliver tools that combine portability and performance seamlessly," said Michael Kuo, President and CEO of AVerMedia Technologies. "The ELITE GO GC313Pro and CORE GO GC313 exemplify this vision. We are confident these products will enhance how users connect, create, and consume content, whether for gaming, professional tasks, or media streaming."

ASUS IoT, a global leader in AIoT solutions, today announced that ASUS IoT edge AI computers powered by the NVIDIA Jetson Orin platform have been upgraded to enable the new Super mode. This upgrade increases AI TOPS by up to 1.7X, memory bandwidth by up to 1.5X, and Gen AI model performance by up to 2X.

Up to 1.7X AI TOPS and extensive compatibility with Super mode
Since it enhances AI TOPS by up to 1.7X, Super mode enables a wide range of Gen AI models, including large language models (LLMs), visual language models (VLMs), and vision transformers (ViTs). Jetson Orin modules support popular machine learning frameworks such as Hugging Face Transformers, Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM, MLC, NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM, and more. This makes them excellent options for edge applications, robotics, and multimodal systems.

Logitech today introduced Rally Camera Streamline Kit, a comprehensive USB Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ) video solution designed for hyflex learning environments and modern workspaces. As higher education institutions strive to meet the evolving needs of their audiences, the demand for lecture capture content has never been greater. Whether engaging with content in-person, online or asynchronously, audiences require seamless experiences tailored for their preferences. Built around Logitech's flagship Rally Camera, the kit enables easy switching between preset camera views, installation and troubleshooting.

"PTZ cameras with speaker tracking for lecture capture are often overly complex and expensive, adding unnecessary hardware to standard USB AV setups while creating unpredictable and distracting user experiences," said Michele Hermann, vice president and general manager of Logitech for Education. "The Rally Camera Streamline Kit is an accessible and easy-to-install solution that minimizes setup complexity while enhancing both user experience and content delivery."

ADATA Technology, the world's leading brand for industrial-grade embedded storage, has officially launched its latest industrial-grade DDR5 6400 CUDIMM and CSODIMM memory. Both products have built-in advanced clock driver (CKD) chips, provide multiple storage capacity options of 8 GB, 16 GB, and 32 GB, and are fully compatible with Intel Arrow Lake series and other mainstream brand processors. They are an exemplar of ADATA's technological innovation, development strength, and product compatibility.

ADATA Industrial DDR5 CUDIMM and CSODIMM use high-quality ICs and have undergone rigorous reliability tests to ensure their ultra-high-speed data transfer capability of 6400 MT/s. This equates to a 15% performance increase compared with traditional DDR5 memory. This breakthrough not only brings new performance options to high-performance computing platforms and high-end workstations, but also lays a solid foundation for the rapidly developing field of artificial intelligence (AI) applications.

TSMC (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) today announced consolidated revenue of NT$868.46 billion, net income of NT$374.68 billion, and diluted earnings per share of NT$14.45 (US$2.24 per ADR unit) for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2024. Year-over-year, fourth quarter revenue increased 38.8% while net income and diluted EPS both increased 57.0%. Compared to third quarter 2024, fourth quarter results represented a 14.3% increase in revenue and a 15.2% increase in net income. All figures were prepared in accordance with TIFRS on a consolidated basis.

In US dollars, fourth quarter revenue was $26.88 billion, which increased 37.0% year-over-year and increased 14.4% from the previous quarter. Gross margin for the quarter was 59.0%, operating margin was 49.0%, and net profit margin was 43.1%. In the fourth quarter, shipments of 3-nanometer accounted for 26% of total wafer revenue; 5-nanometer accounted for 34%; 7-nanometer accounted for 14%. Advanced technologies, defined as 7-nanometer and more advanced technologies, accounted for 74% of total wafer revenue.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR) reports that shipments of integrated and standalone GPUs exceeded 251 million units in 2024, marking a 6% year-over-year rise. This growth continues to outpace the shipment figures for client CPUs, given that most desktop and laptop processors include built-in graphics, and that leading suppliers such as AMD and NVIDIA also provide tens of millions of discrete GPUs annually. Thanks to some earlier per-quarter data, we find that in the desktop segment, JPR shows that manufacturers shipped about 18.2 million discrete graphics cards in the first half of 2024—a 46% increase compared to the same period in 2023. However, shipments slowed in the third quarter, falling to 8.1 million units, down from 8.9 million units in Q3 2023.

Analysts partly attribute this dip to inventory adjustments at AMD, along with the end of product cycles for Ada Lovelace and RDNA 3 GPUs. Typically, the fourth quarter sees a boost in discrete GPU purchases as gamers gear up for new software releases. Yet it is not entirely clear whether that trend held through late 2024. Early indications suggest that total graphics card shipments for the year lightly exceed the totals from 2023, thanks primarily to strong demand in the first half. We still need data from Q4 of 2024 to see the trend in its final months of the year, despite knowing that the year-over-year growth is 6%. Nonetheless, current levels appear unlikely to approach the elevated peaks observed in 2021 or 2022.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading brand of performance overclock memory and PC components, is announcing the release of low latency DDR5-6400 CL30-39-39-102 memory specification in high-capacity kit configurations, up to 96 GB (2x 48 GB) kit capacity. This high performance memory kit specification will be available under the Trident Z5 RGB and Trident Z5 Royal series, with Intel XMP 3.0 memory overclock profile support.

The G.SKILL DDR5-6400 CL30 memory kit at 96 GB (2x 48 GB) combines high-capacity and low-latency to enable higher performance for memory intensive platforms and uses. The screenshot below shows this 96 GB (2x 48 GB) memory kit operating at DDR5-6400 CL30-39-39-102 with the ASUS ROG Maximus Z890 Hero motherboard and Intel Core Ultra 7 265K desktop processor.

MSI has provided a detailed look into its motherboard production facilities through a new interactive webpage. The company has outlined the 15-step manufacturing process that transforms bare circuit boards into complete motherboards. The process begins with solder paste printing, where a precise layer of conductive paste is applied to the bare PCB. This is followed by automated inspection using imaging systems to verify proper paste placement. High-speed machines then position electronic components onto the board before they move through reflow ovens that permanently bond the components. Multiple inspection stages are integrated throughout the assembly line, including automated optical systems that check both sides of the board. Specialized machines handle routing, component insertion, wave soldering, and alloy welding.

Each board undergoes circuit testing and receives mechanical components through automated screw-locking systems before final functional testing and molding. The complexity of modern motherboard manufacturing requires rigorous quality checks and final power tests before the motherboard leaves manufacturing facilities. For interested enthusiasts, MSI's new landing page is here. The manufacturing reveal accompanies MSI's launch of two new motherboard series—Z790 and B860. To celebrate this launch, MSI has announced promotional events running from January 20 to March 31, 2025, including Steam game codes with select product purchases. A new reward program offers points for product reviews and referrals.

The wait is over! Heroes of Hammerwatch II is now officially available for purchase! A massive thank you to everyone who played the demo, shared feedback, and reported issues—your incredible support and enthusiasm have been invaluable. Don't forget to drop a review and join us on Discord to keep up to date with the latest information. Now it's time to jump into the adventure!

Embark on a new adventure in Heroes of Hammerwatch II
A rogue-lite action RPG brimming with randomly generated levels, deep customization, and rich persistent progression. Battle your way through the perilous Dark Citadel, collecting powerful equipment and trinkets that unlock game-changing upgrades and abilities. This unique mix of permanent equipment in the style of action RPGs along with run-defining rewards from its rogue-lite roots results in a compelling experience where you are sure to get something new out of every run, always progressing in some way, with no two runs the same.

AMD's board partners flaunted their new Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 custom models at last week's CES trade event, but no one expected to see retail units pop up anytime soon after the concluded Las Vegas showcase. Earlier today, a brave soul uploaded compelling new evidence on Team Red's subreddit—they claim that they were surprised to see the "early" delivery of Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics card stock. Uploaded photos seem to show several boxed Sapphire Pulse models sitting in an Israeli computer store's stockroom. This leak has semi-ruined Sapphire's staggered Pulse-oriented marketing campaign—yesterday, a teaser image emerged via an official social media post.

Industry watcher, momomo_us, has gathered proof of GIGABYTE Radeon RX 9070 XT GAMING OC 16G and Radeon RX 9070 GAMING OC 16G model stock reaching Danish shores. According to VideoCardz, Føniks Computer's online store had at least four units available for purchase and immediate shipping (same business day). Entries for the two models have also appeared on Geizhals—this German price comparison engine lists January 24 as a market launch date. This information could be subject to change—AMD is likely still working on finalizing release window parameters. After all, recent pre-launch leaks have contained incomplete data and errors. It should be noted that NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series is set to hit international markets on January 30—is Team Red planning to pre-empt this rollout?

Join the Battleground of the Gods: SMITE 2 is Now Free-to-Play! Step into the all-new SMITE 2 Open Beta and experience the next evolution of third-person action MOBA combat—now powered by Unreal Engine 5. If you crave challenging competition, intense gameplay, ability-driven team fights, and godly mythological themes, it's time to see why over 40 million players are hooked on SMITE. Become a God today!

THE Third-Person Action MOBA
No other game offers combat that feels like your favorite hero shooter, crossed with the deep strategy you can only find in a 5 vs. 5 MOBA. Feel the impact of every shot, sneak up on enemies, and combo abilities with teammates to take down the enemy Titan in Conquest mode, or defeat waves of minions and enemy Gods to secure victory in Arena mode.

Apple's top-end M4 Ultra desktop-class chipset is allegedly going to feature on upcoming Mac Pro and Mac Studio refreshes—new product unveilings could be on the company's schedule (WWDC 2025). Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has divulged intriguing M4-series information within his latest newsletter. The M4 Ultra SoC—codenamed "Hidra"—was previously believed to be the most powerful processor option available on both next-gen Mac Pro and Mac Studio platforms. Now, Gurman believes that Apple engineers have created a distinct custom chipset design—exclusively designed for the Mac Pro workstation product stack—that sits above their M4 Ultra SoC.

Somewhat confusingly he suggests that "Hidra" is the codename for this top-of-the-line processor. Rumors swirled last month about the cancellation of an alleged "Extreme" model, so there is a degree of uncertainty surrounding unannounced M4 SKUs. Potential customers could choose Apple's (potentially) more powerful "Hidra-equipped" Mac Pro workstation over the highest-end M4 Ultra-based Mac Studio model. Industry experts propose that "Hidra" will arrive with an increased number of CPU and GPU cores—exceeding the M4 Ultra's speculated makeup of a 32-core CPU and an 80-core GPU.

It is a known fact that the Switch 2 is by no means planning on being a performance beast. Nintendo's focus has always been on their ecosystem, and not on raw performance, which will continue being the case. As such, the Switch 2 is widely expected to sport an NVIDIA Tegra SoC paired with 12 GB of LPDDR5 system memory and an Ampere-based GPU. Now, a fresh leak has detailed the docked and handheld mode performance that can be expected from the widely anticipated Switch successor, and the numbers seem to fall right around what was initially expected.

The leak, sourced from a Nintendo forum, reveals that in docked mode, the Nintendo Switch 2's GPU will be clocked at 1000 MHz, up from 768 MHz for the soon-to-be previous generation Switch, allowing for 3.1 TFLOPS of performance. In handheld mode, unsurprisingly, the GPU clock will be limited to 561 MHz, allowing for 1.71 TFLOPS of raw performance. These numbers are far from impressive for 2025, although Nintendo will likely make up for the lack of raw horsepower using upscaling technologies similar to DLSS, allowing for a vastly improved experience than what its otherwise unimpressive hardware could have afforded.

It's a fantastic start to our campaign, thanks for your support! It took only 15 hours to reach 50% of our goal, much more than we expected. We're on a good path to succeeding and delivering you the most anticipated game feature, according to your feedback. The first-person combat will be a massive expansion of the existing gameplay mechanics and allow you to switch between two totally different camera systems, depending on your preferences.

Anytime in the game, you'll be able to change the perspective from a natural, first-person, very immersive point-of-view to a third-person camera, where you can control the environment with more focus on any of its aspects. In this way, we'll be much closer to the other best post-apocalypse action RPGs, where you can experience the same situations from different points of view and customize your playing style.

The majority of AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU-related leaks have emerged thanks to insiders playing around with pre-launch PowerColor RDNA 4 sample models. During and since CES, Team Red and its board partners have kept mum about specifications and performance figures—but happy accidents have allowed tech enthusiasts to pore over NDA-busting information. As reported by VideoCardz yesterday, Overclockers UK (OCUK) published a landing page that provided a brief look at basic Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 (non-XT) specs—the British retailer has since scrubbed this entry from its site.

Leaks have revealed alleged core counts—4096 for XT, and 3584 for non-XT—but Overclockers UK's charts listed a count of 4096 for both Navi 48 GPUs. They both sport 16 GB GDDR6 VRAM and 256-bit memory buses, and the leak reveals another shared trait: a 260 W TDP rating. VideoCardz reckons that this is an error—based on previous clock speed insider info, the Radeon RX 9070 non-XT's power consumption figure should be rated lower. The accidentally published clock speeds appear to be sourced from overclocked examples—AMD is reportedly not going to release full/finalized information until closer to launch, so OCUK could have relied on preliminary product guides. The FAQ section states that Team Red's RDNA 4 generation is sticking with a PCI-Express 4.0 x16 host interface—PCIe 5.0 systems are "thankfully" backwards compatible. NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50 series will be leading the way into PCIe 5.0 spec territories.

GEEKOM, the Green Mini PC Global Leader, is going to release a new model named the A6 on January 17th, 2025. This mini PC is already available for pre-order on GEEKOM's official website. Priced at $449, it may just be the new best mini PC under $500.

According to the official information, the GEEKOM A6 mini PC employs a well-ventilated aluminium chassis which measures only 0.47 liter, but it packs enormous power under the hood, thanks to the perfect combination of a beefy processor, high-bandwidth DDR5 RAM, and a fast PCIe Gen 4 SSD.

The Decima Engine has not been widely utilized outside of Guerrilla Games-developed titles—their Horizon series has mostly showcased this (Sony Interactive Entertainment-owned) proprietary technology. Kojima Productions (Death Stranding 1 & 2) and Supermassive Games (Until Dawn) are notable development houses that have licensed Guerrilla's very capable engine—naturally, both outfits are very invested in the PlayStation eco-sphere. Twisted Voxel has combed through Guerrilla staff profiles on LinkedIn and a certain job description caught their investigative eye. The online publication's reportage focused on a senior producer's role of: "managing communication and relations with other PlayStation Studios interested in or using the Decima engine."

Industry insiders believe that Guerrilla Games is deeply involved in overseeing development at other first-party PlayStation development studios—the Netherlands-based outfit is well-versed in creating epic open world adventures, and this expertise is a hot commodity given current market trends. It is not very surprising to hear about the possible sharing of proprietary engine tech between internal PlayStation teams—Decima would be an ideal candidate for other open world PlayStation projects. Twisted Voxel mentioned Bend Studio—this developer is located in Oregon, USA—best known for producing Days Gone (2019). A former senior game designer's LinkedIn profile lists experience of using the Decima toolset. Bend Studio's unannounced "open world" title is apparently due for launch this year.

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.

ZOTAC's website has been updated with technical specifications for its GeForce RTX 5090 GPU-based custom models—the Hong Kong-based hardware company is perhaps the first NVIDIA board partner to publicly disclose these details. According to VideoCardz, this discovery was made by a loyal reader—product pages for SOLID, SOLID OC and AMP Extreme INFINITY seemed to have appeared online within the past couple of days. A resultant report suggests that Team Green has only recently communicated (potentially) finalized specs with its AIBs.

The aforementioned discoverer of ZOTAC's GeForce RTX 5090 spec sheets noticed an unusual memory clock figure on the SOLID OC model's listing—30 Gbps instead of 28 Gbps. This was an error—ZOTAC has since amended that particular data point (see VideoCardz's screenshots below)—their presumably more expensive AMP Extreme INFINITY card's memory clock spec is set at 28 Gbps. Interestingly, ZOTAC's upcoming flagship is the first example of an NVIDIA GPU configured with a power consumption rating of 600 W. It is not immediately apparent whether this TDP figure is an out-of-the-box default—VideoCardz reckons that the GeForce RTX 5090 AMP Extreme INFINITY will arrive with dual-BIOS functionality. A high-performance mode could be user selected. Will rival flagship GeForce RTX 5090 custom cards roll out with similar TDPs? TechPowerUp anticipates the emergence of pre-launch technical details—from other brands/manufacturers—over the next two weeks.

Quantum computing is one of the most exciting areas in computer science, promising progress in accelerated computing beyond what's considered possible today. It's expected that the technology will tackle myriad problems that were once deemed impractical or even impossible to solve. Quantum computing promises huge leaps forward for fields spanning drug discovery and materials development to financial forecasting.

But just as exciting as quantum computing's future are the breakthroughs already being made today in quantum hardware, error correction and algorithms. NVIDIA is celebrating and exploring this remarkable progress in quantum computing by announcing its first Quantum Day at GTC 2025 on Thursday, March 20. This new focus area brings together leading experts for a comprehensive and balanced perspective on what businesses should expect from quantum computing in the coming decades—mapping the path toward useful quantum applications.

The latest news reports suggest that Apple is currently verifying the quality of TSMC Arizona-made chips—the process has reached a "final test stage" with samples from an initial batch being compared to "Made in Taiwan" product. TSMC's native foundries—utilizing the latest cutting-edge technologies—are accustomed to pumping out plenty of high-quality and advanced chips. Nikkei Asia believes that an approval—if USA-made silicon passes muster—will result in commercial mass-produced chips being delivered as soon as Q1 2025. This would be a significant victory for TSMC's relatively new Arizona fab—reported teething problems have caused delays and budgets to balloon. Apple could be the first of TSMC's customers to send products to market that have Arizona-manufactured silicon onboard.

Taiwan's chip-making industry is facing an uncertain future due to regional political tensions—in reaction, the nation's government has started shifting its stance on guarding TSMC's most advanced production processes. Leading-edge process technologies could be heading overseas, with new investments being considered at the Arizona campus. TSMC and Amkor are working on setting up advanced packaging and test facilities at the Peoria location, so current logistics are not ideal—US-made product has to be sent to an Amkor packaging facility in Taiwan. TSMC USA's future looks quite promising—AMD and NVIDIA are reportedly the next in line to receive locally produced samples for verification. Industry moles reckon that Team Green's advanced "Blackwell" AI GPUs could be produced in Peoria—based on alleged partnership negotiations from late last year.

Supermicro, Inc. (SMCI), a Total IT Solution Provider for AI/ML, HPC, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is showcasing the latest solutions for the retail industry in collaboration with NVIDIA at the National Retail Federation (NRF) annual show. As generative AI (GenAI) grows in capability and becomes more easily accessible, retailers are leveraging NVIDIA NIM microservices, part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform, for a broad spectrum of applications.

"Supermicro's innovative server, storage, and edge computing solutions improve retail operations, store security, and operational efficiency," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "At NRF, Supermicro is excited to introduce retailers to AI's transformative potential and to revolutionize the customer's experience. Our systems here will help resolve day-to-day concerns and elevate the overall buying experience."

Lenovo has unveiled a groundbreaking collaboration at CES 2025 with the launch of the Lenovo Yoga Slim 9i (14" Intel) Laptop, featuring TCL CSOT's 4K PureSight Pro OLED display. This innovative device features the world's first Camera-Under-Display Screen in mid-sized display product, powered by TCL CSOT's cutting-edge flexible OLED screen technology.

The new laptop showcases TCL CSOT's advanced Camera-under-panel (CUP) technology, achieving an astonishing 98% screen-to-body ratio on its 14-inch display. This technological breakthrough not only delivers a truly immersive viewing experience by seamlessly integrating the camera beneath the screen surface but also empowers content creators with an unprecedented canvas for their work. The borderless design removes traditional constraints, offering content creators and designers a more expansive and inspiring workspace.

Hey Riders! It's finally time to buckle your boots. Lonely Mountains: Snow Riders, our "ski-quel" to Lonely Mountains: Downhill, is coming to Steam and Xbox on January 21st! The game will feature 2 to 8 person cross-platform multiplayer with a competitive racing mode, as well as a cooperative team mode that's perfect for hanging around with your friends on cold winter nights. Of course, it's also fully playable in single player—with lots of challenges and extensive leaderboards.

If you're just looking for some relaxed carving, the game also has a new "zen" mode that lets you free-roam the mountains and place your own checkpoints. If you want to do some ski gymnastics and hone your skills before release, the single player demo is still online. And of course we would be super grateful if you could wishlist the game so we can climb the upcoming list on Steam!

According to a well-known industry analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, NVIDIA has restructured its "Blackwell" architecture roadmap, emphasizing dual-die designs using CoWoS-L packaging technology. The new roadmap eliminates several single-die products that would have used CoWoS-S packaging, changing NVIDIA's manufacturing strategy. The 200 Series will exclusively use dual-die designs with CoWoS-L packaging, featuring the GB200 NVL72 and HGX B200 systems. Notably absent is the previously expected B200A single-die variant. The 300 Series will include both dual-die and single-die options, though NVIDIA and cloud providers are prioritizing the GB200 NVL72 dual-die system. Starting Q1 2025, NVIDIA will reduce H series production, which uses CoWoS-S packaging, while ramping up 200 Series production. This transition indicates significantly decreased demand for CoWoS-S capacity through 2025.

While B300 systems using single-die CoWoS-S are planned for 2026 mass production, the current focus remains on dual-die CoWoS-L products. From TSMC's perspective, the transition between Blackwell generations requires minimal process adjustments, as both use similar front-end-of-line processes with only back-end-of-line modifications needed. Supply chain partners heavily dependent on CoWoS-S production face significant impact, reflected in recent stock price corrections. However, NVIDIA maintains this change reflects product strategy evolution rather than market demand weakness. TSMC continues expanding CoWoS-R capacity while slowing CoWoS-S expansion, viewing AI and high-performance computing as sustained growth drivers despite these packaging technology transitions.

While the Ryzen 5 7500F was the least expensive Raphael AM5 Zen 4 CPU that you could find, AMD has now silently launched the Ryzen 5 7400F, a new 6-core/12-thread SKU. Similar to the Ryzen 5 9600 (non-X) that was silently introduced during CES 2025, the Ryzen 5 7400F was not officially announced, but rather just showed up on AMD's product pages. Unlike the Ryzen 5 7500F, which was available only to OEMs and system integrators (SIs), the Ryzen 5 7400F will apparently be available in retail/e-tail as well.

As said, the Ryzen 5 7400F is a Raphael architecture CPU with Zen 4 CPU cores and fits into an AM5 socket. It is a 6-core CPU with support for AMD Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT), so it packs 12-threads and has the same 32 MB of L3 cache. The base clock is set at 3.7 GHz, with a maximum boost clock of 4.7 GHz. The TDP is still at 65 W. As with the rest of the lineup, it is an unlocked CPU, so overclocking is possible, and it supports AMD EXPO Memory Overclocking technology, as well as Precision Boost Overdrive. In the boxed version, it comes with an AMD Wraith Stealth cooler.

Simply NUC, a global leader in customized computing solutions, proudly announces the launch of the NUC 14 Essential - Mill Canyon, designed to deliver powerful yet affordable performance for everyday computing needs. Whether used in retail kiosks, collaborative workspaces, streaming environments, or digital signage, the Mill Canyon NUC offers the flexibility and reliability required for modern applications.

The NUC 14 Essential is powered by the latest Intel N-series processors with Twin Lake technology, offering a range of options ensuring top-tier performance across various workloads. Mill Canyon delivers the performance needed for day-to-day operations without breaking the budget, featuring up to 8-core Intel Core 3 processors, 16 GB DDR5 memory, and support for up to 8 TB of NVMe and 2 TB SATA storage.

Intel Corporation ("Intel") today announced its intention to separate Intel Capital, its global venture capital arm, into a standalone fund. The new fund will bring Intel Capital's corporate structure into alignment with other leading venture firms, enabling greater autonomy and the flexibility to attract external capital. Intel will remain an anchor investor in the new company.

"The separation of Intel Capital is a win-win scenario as it provides the fund with access to new sources of capital to expand its franchise while allowing both companies to continue benefiting from a productive long-term strategic partnership," said David Zinsner, interim co-chief executive officer and chief financial officer of Intel. "This step supports our broader strategy to maximize the value of our assets while driving greater focus and efficiency across the business."

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, PC peripherals, and IPC solutions, introduces the B850MT-E PRO motherboard, designed to deliver exceptional performance for office professionals and casual use. The BIOSTAR B850MT-E PRO motherboard is designed to meet the diverse needs of various users, offering a perfect blend of performance and reliability. Built on AMD 's B850 chipset, this motherboard combines superior features at an affordable price. It supports the latest AMD Ryzen 9000, 8000, and 7000 series processors, enabling seamless multitasking and efficient power management.

The B850MT-E PRO is expertly engineered for versatility, making it the definitive solution for office professionals, small businesses, and system integrators. It guarantees stable and efficient performance for everyday tasks and document management. With BIOSTAR's renowned 55 A Dr. MOS and Digital PWM technology, you can expect steady power delivery that ensures consistent performance and enhanced durability, even during extended work sessions.

Infortrend Technology, Inc., the industry-leading enterprise storage provider, introduces the latest additions to its high-density 4U 90-bay HDD solutions: unified storage EonStor GS 5090 and expansion enclosure JB 4090. The large capacity and high throughput performance of the solutions make them ideal for applications like High-Performance Computing and Media & Entertainment.

EonStor GS 5090 is a high-availability unified storage solution with a dual redundant controller design, ensuring uninterrupted operation. With its new hardware powered by the Intel Xeon Scalable Processor, the GS 5090 delivers ultra-high performance, achieving 45 GB/s read and 20 GB/s write—around three times the performance of the previous top-performing model, the GS 4090. The GS 5090 introduces ultra-fast 200GbE connectivity, setting a new benchmark for data transfer speed while simplifying deployment and management to meet the demands of today's high-performance enterprise workloads. It also supports SAS 24G expansion, doubling throughput compared to SAS 12G. Additionally, the GS 5090 features four dedicated U.2 NVMe SSD slots for cache, providing fast data access while fully leveraging the ample capacity of its 90-bay storage.

ADLINK Technology Inc., a global leader in edge computing, unveiled its new "DLAP Supreme Series", an edge generative AI platform. By integrating Phison's innovative aiDAPTIV+ AI solution, this series overcomes memory limitations in edge generative AI applications, significantly enhancing AI computing capabilities on edge devices. Without increasing high hardware costs, the DLAP Supreme series achieves notable AI performance improvements, helping enterprises reduce the cost barriers of AI deployment and accelerating the adoption of generative AI across various industries, especially in edge computing.

Lower AI Computing Costs and Significantly Improved Performance
As generative AI continues to penetrate various industries, many edge devices encounter performance bottlenecks due to insufficient DRAM capacity when executing large language models, affecting model operations and even causing issues such as inadequate token length. The DLAP Supreme series, leveraging aiDAPTIV+ technology, effectively overcomes these limitations and significantly enhances computing performance. Additionally, it supports edge devices in conducting generative language model training, enabling them with AI model training capabilities and improving their autonomous learning and adaptability.

Hyper Light Breaker, a new 3D indie platformer we reported on previously has finally launched to early access on Steam, and despite the surprising success of its predecessors, Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash, Hyper Light Breaker isn't looking like the break-out indie hit of the month. While the game has garnered a solid 5,230 peak concurrent players just five hours after launch, the Steam reviews are hardly anything to write home about so far.

According to SteamDB, Hyper Light Breaker has a review rating of just 35.5%, with 31.4% of the reviews giving the game a positive rating, while 68.6% of Steam reviewers gave it a negative score. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, it looks like most of the issues with Hyper Light Breaker stem from the game's early access status. Early reviews on Steam report that the game's core mechanics and gameplay loop are satisfying, but that the game, overall, seems like it needs more time in the oven. Some of the more serious complaints when it comes to Hyper Light Breaker relate to the game's combat being somewhat difficult to grasp, progression feeling unsubstantial, initial difficulty being too high, and a steep learning curve. Others pointed out that there appears to be a lot of missing content. That said, as some reviewers have pointed out, the game is in early access. If we look at the likes of Windblown—or No Man's Sky for an example on a longer timeframe—it's easy to see the value in an early access period and community feedback. If Heart Machine, the developer behind Hyper Light Breaker, uses its community feedback properly and implements fixes to issues as they arise, it seems like it could be a game enjoyed by many indie gamers.

We recently reported on the Good Old Games's Game Preservation Program's success, with the storefront preserving two 30-year-old Warcraft games. Now, however, GOG is partnering with the European Federation of Game Archives, Museums, and Preservation Projects (EFGAMP) for future preservation efforts. EFGAMP is "the largest organization in Europe dedicated to preserving video games as cultural heritage," giving GOG's commitment to game preservation a lot more weight than previously. The partnership could also help GOG work within and with European governmental and non-governmental institutions, like museums and other organizations, in order to further the game preservation cause.

Perhaps more interestingly, as a game distribution platform with some development talent behind it, GOG actually brings something to the table that was previously missing from EFGAMP as a foundation. In the announcement, the foundation and GOG claim that 2024 was something of a tipping point for consumers when it comes to both the erosion of game ownership and game preservation as a whole. The subject of game ownership was a recurring theme in 2024, with games like The Crew joining the aforementioned Warcraft games in being delisted from stores—at least with the GOG delisting, the games are still maintained for existing owners. The goal of both GOG and EFGAMP is to preserve the history of gaming culture, allowing future generations to experience and learn about important moments in gaming history.

More than 700 games and applications feature RTX technologies, and each week new games integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players. On January 30th, DLSS gets even better with the launch of DLSS 4. Featuring improvements to all existing DLSS technologies, and our new DLSS Multi Frame Generation performance multiplier, DLSS 4 delivers supreme speed and superior visuals, powered by AI. Ahead of DLSS 4's release, there are another 5 DLSS games available to play this week: Assetto Corsa EVO, DYNASTY WARRIORS: ORIGINS, Honkai: Star Rail, SMITE 2, and Tankhead.

NVIDIA DLSS 4 With Multi Frame Generation Available January 30th
NVIDIA DLSS is a suite of neural rendering technologies powered by GeForce RTX Tensor Cores that boosts frame rates while delivering crisp, high-quality images that rival native resolution rendering. On January 30th, we're upgrading DLSS once again with the release of DLSS 4, featuring DLSS Multi Frame Generation for GeForce RTX 50 Series graphics cards and laptops, and upgrades to all other DLSS technologies.

Leiyin Audio, the same brand that had kindly invited us to attend the 18th Shenzhen International Audio Show last year, had a large booth at CES where Moondrop also had a presence thanks to its new Moondrop Global company that is now responsible for all operations outside China. There was a large showing from Moondrop thus, with most recently launched products from the past year to be found here. Our eyes were caught on the recently released Meteor, a 1 DD +2 BA +4 planar magnetic tribrid driver set that uses a relatively large 13 mm dynamic driver fit into a large faceplate protrusion that is capped by, as the name suggests, a piece of genuine meteorite fragment. It uses Moondrop's new XTM crossover technology and promises good quality bass as part of a balanced tuning for an asking price of $500. Expect a full review on TechPowerUp, as the CES sample was already impressive despite the noisy show floor conditions.

Also at the booth was Moondrop's immensely popular Robin, a true wireless stereo (TWS) set developed in collaboration with Honkai: Star Rail, an even more popular video game. Robin is a playable character in the game, and you will see it adorned on the TWS set too. To no surprise, this is right up Moondrop's marketing alley given how much it likes to use female artwork to attract customers, although at least here we do get a legitimately well-tuned set of TWS IEMs—quite rare even in 2025—with app support for customizable tonalities and touch controls too. The carry case further builds upon the theme and, at $99, the Moondrop Robin has already proven to be a huge commercial success less than a month into its global launch.

Yeston's social media accounts have revealed upcoming NVIDIA "Blackwell" GPU-based Sakura Atlantis, Sakura and Game Ace models—a single teaser image shows off three different cards that will eventually contain GeForce RTX 50 series graphics hardware. Yeston has deployed common aesthetic traits across the three ranges—notably white PCBs and I/O brackets. Yeston previously revealed their new Sakura Atlantis shroud design with its recent announcement of an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT model. Today's product unveiling does not include any information about specific Team Green GPU SKUs, but it would be safe to assume that the upper-echelon models will sport Sakura Atlantis livery.

The older Yeston Sakura and Game Ace designs have been rolled out across a number of current-gen "Ada Lovelace" GeForce RTX 40 series GPUs. A quick analysis of Yeston graphics card product hierarchies shows lower-end GPUs (GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and 4060) sporting the Game Ace shroud. The Sakura design is available across a selection of mid-tier GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and 4070 models. VideoCardz proposes that the Sakura Atlantis cooling solution could be robust enough—based on the Radeon RX 9070 XT's rumored 300 W TBP—to take on GeForce RTX 5080 (360 W) and 5070 Ti (300 W) GPUs. TechPowerUp expects Yeston to make further announcements closer to NVIDIA Blackwell's market debut at the end of this month.

NC America announced today Blade & Soul NEO, the modern reinterpretation of Blade & Soul's signature fantasy universe, is coming soon to PC in North America and Europe. Featuring a beautiful visually enhanced experience, the original, well-crafted storyline, Infinite Windwalk (the "glide" ability), and a handful of enticing gameplay features, Blade & Soul NEO fulfills players' desire to re-live that pure MMO action fantasy experience they once knew.

Offering an exclusive pre-registration package, available today -- including a cosmetically enhanced character outfit, in-game currency, and more -- NC America will actively roll out new information, community activities and more on its revamped website between today and launch. Pre-register here now.

Intel product change notification documents—published on January 6—have revealed the planned "End of Life" (EOL) phasing out of 12th Generation "Alder Lake" mobile processor models. Tom's Hardware has pored over the listed products/SKUs and concluded that the vast majority of Team Blue's mobile-oriented Alder Lake selection are destined for retirement. Team Blue's HX series is being kept alive for a little while longer. Two documents show differing "discontinuance timelines" for their respective inventories—including lower-end Celeron and Pentium Gold SKUs, as well as familiar higher-up Core i3, i5, i7, and i9 families. U, P, H and HK-affixed models are lined up for the chopping block.

Intel's 13th Generation "Raptor Lake" mobile processor selection—comprised of Core 100 (series 1) and Core 200 (series 2)—offers similar silicon makeup. Many equivalent alternatives to older generation "Alder Lake" chips reside here—Tom's Hardware presented a key example: "i5-1235U, which is designated for thin and lightweight laptops. OEMs can instead opt for the i5-1335U, the Core 5 120U, or the Core 5 220U, as they're just better bins of the 1235U on the same FCBGA1744 socket." A significant number of Alder Lake mobile SKUs will be available to OEMs for ordering up until 26 April, with final shipments heading out on 25 October. The rest have been assigned a July 25 order cut-off date, with final shipments scheduled on 26 January 2026.

Ultra Accelerator Link Consortium (UALink) has announced the expansion of its Board of Directors with the election of Alibaba Cloud Computing Ltd., Apple Inc., and Synopsys Inc. The new Board members will leverage their industry knowledge to advance development and industry adoption of UALink - a high-speed, scale-up interconnect for next-generation AI cluster performance.

"Alibaba Cloud believes that driving AI computing accelerator scale-up interconnection technology by defining core needs and solutions from the perspective of cloud computing and applications has significant value in building the competitiveness of intelligent computing supernodes," said Qiang Liu, VP of Alibaba Cloud, GM of Alibaba Cloud Server Infrastructure. "The UALink consortium, as a leader in the interconnect field of AI accelerators, has brought together key members from the AI infrastructure industry to work together to define interconnect protocol which is natively designed for AI accelerators, driving innovation in AI infrastructure. This will strongly promote the innovation of AI infrastructure and improve the execution efficiency of AI workloads, contributing to the establishment of an open and innovative industry ecosystem."

NVIDIA is focused on forward momentum—Jensen & Co. pounded the showroom floor at last week's CES trade with their next-gen "Blackwell" GPUs in hand. Team Green's GeForce RTX 50-series was one of the headline acts, but the preceding RTX 40 "Ada Lovelace" family made occasional appearances. Hardware enthusiasts were not expecting the re-emergence of an older unreleased model at CES 2025, but a YouTuber discovered the supposed RTX 4090 "TITAN" prototype's cooling solution frame. TechPowerUp's reported on this rare beast last month, and Gamers Nexus obtained an example for analysis (view their video feature below).

Industry experts believe that an unnamed contract manufacturer was tasked with producing the TITAN's quad-slot cooling solution—informed sources say that it was designed to temper the full-force of Team Green's unlocked AD102 GPU. This contract company reportedly displayed various NVIDIA-related component parts in Las Vegas last week. RTX 40-era Founders Edition font was evident on the TITAN's frame—a VideoCardz news piece highlights the component's silver/magnesium color scheme. This presents further proof of inclusion within that Founders Edition generation.

The list of mini PCs available on the market has grown quite a bit in the past few weeks, with a bunch of such systems getting unveiled at CES 2025. Now, Gigabyte clearly does not wish to be left out of the party either, and has unveiled its Brix Extreme mini PC powered by a last-gen, but decently powerful AMD "Hawk Point" APU and a plethora of connectivity options in a compact package.

The system, as mentioned, boasts the 28-watt Ryzen 7 8840U PRO APU, which sports 8 Zen 4 cores and 16 threads. Performance should be identical to its non-PRO counterpart, which should put it roughly in the same class as the Intel Core Ultra 256V "Lunar Lake" CPU. The APU is paired with up to 64 GB of DDR5-5600 memory. Dual M.2 2280 slots take care of storage requirements, both of which are user-accessible.

In the past few weeks, all eyes have on NVIDIA's and AMD's next-gen GPU offerings, and rightly so. Now, it's about time to turn our attention to what appears to be the third major player in the GPU industry - Intel. This is, of course, all thanks to the Blue Camp's wildly successful Arc B580 launch, which propelled the beleaguered chip giant to the favorable side of the GPU price-to-performance line.

Now, it appears that a fresh leak has revealed how its soon-to-be sibling, the Arc B570, is about to perform. The leaked performance data, courtesy of Geekbench OpenCL, reveals that the Arc B570 is right around 11% slower than the Arc B580 in the synthetic OpenCL benchmark, which makes complete sense, because the card is also expected to be around 12% cheaper than its more powerful sibling, as noted by Wccftech. With a score of 86,716, the Arc B570 is well ahead of the RX 7600 XT, which manages around 84000 points, and well behind the RTX 4060, which rakes in just above 100000.

Samsung Display will begin mass production of the world's first rollable OLED screen for laptops starting in April 2025. Samsung Display announced its rollable screen for the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus G6 Rollable laptop at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., Lenovo also showcased the laptop and announced its plans to globally launch in June.

The ThinkBook Plus G6 Rollable laptop features a screen underneath the keypad, where the screen expands vertically by almost 50%, offering a unique mobile computing experience. When rolled in, the screen supports a 5:4 aspect ratio on a 14-inch display. When rolled out, the aspect ratio shifts to 8:9 on a 16.7-inch display, providing an enhanced view for efficient multitasking.

The market for compact gaming handheld is expanding at an unprecedented rate, thanks to the popularity boom that handhelds have received in recent months. The GPD Win Min (2025) is one such offering, sitting alongside the rest of interesting gaming products that GPD is known for. The Win Mini is now available for pre-order on Indiegogo, with a starting price of $769 (backers only), and a retail price of $839. Of course, interested buyers are encouraged to be mindful of the risks associated with crowdfunding campaigns, although GPD has mostly had a complaint-free track record.

Unfortunately, and rather unsurprisingly, the entry-level variant does not ship with the latest AMD Strix Point chips, but rather the older Hawk Point offerings, specifically the Ryzen 7 8840U with the Radeon 780M iGPU with 12 CUs. The higher-tier variants ship with Strix Point APUs, starting at the Ryzen AI 9 HX 365 APU, going all the way up to the 12-core Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with the powerful Radeon 890M iGPU. To accommodate the new APUs, GPD has reworked the thermals, and has added room for full-sized M.2 2280 SSD drives as well. The product packs hall-effect joysticks, plug-and-play grips, and a bunch of useful ports including USB4, USB 3.2 Type-C, an SD Card slot, an audio jack, as well as a good old USB-A port. The 7-inch 1080p display ramps up to 120 Hz, and the system can be equipped with up to 64 GB of memory and 2 TB of PCIe 4.0 storage, and a 44.24 Wh battery is also present.

Before Call of Duty, before Battlefield, before even Medal of Honor, there was Delta Force. Released in October 1998, NovaLogic's FPS was one of the original tactical shooters. Arriving just two months after Red Storm Entertainment's Rainbow Six, Delta Force put players in the role of a Tier 1 Operative, challenging them to complete 40 missions in various modern military settings. Though it shared some similarities with Rainbow Six, Delta Force was defined by its radical Voxel Space technology, enabling it to simulate warfare on battlefields far larger than any FPS that came before.

Delta Force was sufficiently successful to spawn a sequel, and ultimately became a series—including its most famous entry, the 2003 game Delta Force: Black Hawk Down. Yet as Call of Duty and Battlefield took the popularity of real-world shooters to stratospheric heights, Delta Force struggled to keep up. The final game in the series, Delta Force: Xtreme 2, reviewed poorly, and as the world went wild for Modern Warfare, NovaLogic quietly exfiltrated the modern military shooter scene. Now Delta Force is back, though. Developed by Chinese studio Team Jade, the reboot is bigger, broader, and more comprehensive than any prior entry in the series. Featuring classic team-based multiplayer battles, a more modern extraction mode where players compete to scavenge loot in open-ended combat zones, and a co-op/single player campaign inspired by the series' legacy, Delta Force has its sights set squarely on the two FPS franchises that have dominated multiplayer shooters for over a decade.

Last November, Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council indicated that it was considering a relaxation of "legal restrictions on transferring leading-edge process technology overseas." TSMC is the nation's most prized chip foundry, but new manufacturing operations are spreading across the globe. The very best node processes—currently TSMC's advanced 2 nm (N2)—have been restricted to home turf, yet global tensions have prompted the Taiwanese government to reconsider its guarded approach. A freshly published Taipei Times report has focused on an important announcement made at a recent government press conference. Taiwan's Minister of Economic Affairs of Taiwan, J.W. Kuo, stated that TSMC is now allowed to manufacture 2 nm chips on foreign soil—according to him, the foundry behemoth is "cautiously" evaluating an investment of roughly $28 to 30 (USD) billion into 2-nanometer production facilities Stateside.

His colleagues have worked hard—in the past—on preserving the country's "Silicon Shield," but fresh adjustments are sweeping in. Kuo commented: "those were old-time rules. Times have changed." TSMC's—allegedly costly—North American hub is reportedly marked down for a "by 2030" push into 2 nm process territories. Taiwan's Economic Affairs minister continued with his reasonings: "Private businesses should make their own business decisions based on their own technological progress...The basic principle is that businesses can make profits from their overseas investments. TSMC is building factories in the US with the aim of serving its US customers, as 60 percent of the world's chip-designing companies are based in the US." He also downplayed concerns regarding possible upcoming shifts in US trade policy making—Taiwan's "strong technological capabilities" are expected to weather the storm. Newly implemented US trade tariffs are expected to have only a "minor impact."

NVIDIA's new GB200 "Blackwell" racks are running into trouble (again). Big cloud companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta Platforms are cutting back their orders because of heat problems, Reuters reports, quoting The Information. The first shipments of racks with Blackwell chips are getting too hot and have connection issues between chips, the report says. These tech hiccups have made some customers who ordered $10 billion or more worth of racks think twice about buying.

Some are putting off their orders until NVIDIA has better versions of the racks. Others are looking at buying older NVIDIA AI chips instead. For example, Microsoft planned to set up GB200 racks with no less than 50,000 Blackwell chips at one of its Phoenix sites. However, The Information reports that OpenAI has asked Microsoft to provide NVIDIA's older "Hopper" chips instead pointing to delays linked to the Blackwell racks. NVIDIA's problems with its Blackwell GPUs housed in high-density racks are not something new; in November 2024, Reuters, also referencing The Information, uncovered overheating issues in servers that housed 72 processors. NVIDIA has made several changes to its server rack designs to tackle these problems, however, it seems that the problem was not entirely solved.

Qualcomm is becoming serious about its server CPU ambitions. Today, we have learned that Sailesh Kottapalli, Intel's former chief architect for Xeon server processors, has joined Qualcomm as Senior Vice President after 28 years at Intel. Kottapalli, who announced his departure on LinkedIn Monday, previously led the development of multiple Xeon and Itanium processors at Intel. Qualcomm's data center team is currently working on reference platforms based on their Snapdragon technology. The company already sells AI accelerator chips under the Qualcomm Cloud AI brand, supported by major providers including AWS, HPE, and Lenovo.

This marks Qualcomm's second attempt at entering the server CPU market, following an unsuccessful Centriq effort that ended in 2018. The company is now leveraging technology from its $1.4 billion Nuvia acquisition in 2021, though this has led to ongoing legal disputes with Arm over licensing terms. While Qualcomm hasn't officially detailed Kottapalli's role, the company confirmed in legal filings its intentions to continue developing data center CPUs, as originally planned by Nuvia.

At yesterday's J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference NVIDIA announced new partnerships to transform the $10 trillion healthcare and life sciences industry by accelerating drug discovery, enhancing genomic research and pioneering advanced healthcare services with agentic and generative AI. The convergence of AI, accelerated computing and biological data is turning healthcare into the largest technology industry. Healthcare leaders IQVIA, Illumina and Mayo Clinic, as well as Arc Institute, are using the latest NVIDIA technologies to develop solutions that will help advance human health.

These solutions include AI agents that can speed clinical trials by reducing administrative burden, AI models that learn from biology instruments to advance drug discovery and digital pathology, and physical AI robots for surgery, patient monitoring and operations. AI agents, AI instruments and AI robots will help address the $3 trillion of operations dedicated to supporting industry growth and create an AI factory opportunity in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Finland's Proshop has listed eight GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5080 custom design graphics card models, complete with prices in Euros—please note that value added tax (VAT) is included. Team Green's CES 2025 "Blackwell" announcement revealed an MSRP of €1229 (without VAT: €979) for the GeForce RTX 5080 Founders Edition (for Finland, and other European countries). Board partners usually tack on extra charges for their custom interpretations—fancier variants commonly demand a premium upcharge. The VideoCardz sleuthing network has discovered that GIGABYTE's launch selection errs more towards the upper-end—Proshop's premature listing reveals only a single model coming in at Team Green's baseline MSRP. As always, these figures are subject to change—we are still in a pre-launch holding pattern.

The GIGABYTE RTX 5080 WINDFORCE OC card is the only listed model that adheres to NVIDIA's standard MSRP—VideoCardz has kindly crunched the numbers (refer to their diagram below) and reckons that the seven other options demand premiums across a range of 15% to 35%. Recent GIGABYTE press material places every model in a premium tier, even the entry-point SFF-Ready WINDFORCE OC model. An upcharge of 440 Euros is applicable with GIGABYTE's range-topping AORUS Xtreme WaterForce option. One step above Team Green MSRP baseline bags you the GeForce RTX 5080 GAMING OC model—an extra investment of 190 Euros goes into a larger cooling solution and shroud design (featuring RGB lighting). TechPowerUp anticipates further price leaks to emerge—from other manufacturers—as we close in on launch day: January 30.

Thanks to the informative breakdown by Chips and Cheese, we are learning that AMD's latest Ryzen AI processors for laptops, codenamed "Strix Halo," utilize a parallel "sea of wires" interconnect system between their chiplets, replacing the SERDES (serializer/deserializer) approach found in desktop Ryzen models. The processor's physical implementation consists of two Core Complex Dies (CCDs), each manufactured on TSMC's N4 (4 nm) process and containing up to eight Zen 5 cores with full 512-bit floating point units. Notably, the I/O die (IOD) is also produced using the N4 process, marking an advancement from the N6 (6 nm) process used in standard Ryzen IODs on desktops. The key change lies in the inter-chiplet communication system. While the Ryzen 9000 series (Granite Ridge) employs SERDES to convert parallel data to serial for transmission between chiplets, Strix Halo implements direct parallel data transmission through multiple physical connections.

This design achieves 32 bytes per clock cycle throughput and eliminates the latency overhead associated with serialization/deserialization processes. The parallel interconnect architecture also removes the need for connection retraining during power state transitions, a limitation present in SERDES implementations. However, this design choice necessitates additional substrate complexity due to increased connection density and requires more pins for external connections, suggesting possible modifications to the CCD design compared to desktop variants. AMD's implementation required more complex substrate manufacturing processes to accommodate the dense parallel connections between chiplets. The decision to prioritize this more challenging design approach was driven by requirements for lower latency and power consumption in data-intensive workloads, where consistent high-bandwidth communication between chiplets is crucial.

TSMC is reportedly making decent progress with its advanced 2 nm (N2) node—industry news pieces from earlier this month pointed to the initiation of production lines across three fabrication sites. Taiwan's Economic Daily News has kept close tabs on these trial runs—insiders have indicated that TSMC's Kaohsiung plant is capable of matching the Baoshan location's targeted manufacturing output (5000 wafers per month, 60 percent yield). Reports suggest that the Kaohsiung 2 nm trial production will start up later this month—much earlier than anticipated.

The Taiwanese chip foundry giant is taking on the challenge of meeting "greater than expected" demand for its new generation 2 nm product—TSMC chairman C.C. Wei has previously stated that its latest and greatest is more popular (pre-launch) with customers than older 3 nm lines. Apple is rumored to be first in line—not a big surprise since TSMC has (supposedly) rolled out the VVIP red carpet for them in recent times. The Economic Daily News article also mentions Qualcomm and MediaTek being next in the queue for N2. TSMC's best foundries are expected to initiate mass production by the end of 2025.

Details of ASUS' next generation BTF 2.0 (BTF stands for Back to the Future) platform have appeared online, courtesy of Andreas Schilling from HardwareLuxx. The editor posted pictures from an ASUS presentation over at Bluesky that details one major change to the power connector design, which will make the BTF 2.0 graphics cards compatible with non BTF systems. This suggests that ASUS might consider offering more graphics cards with BTF 2.0 support, since they can be used in any system with the proposed changes.

As you may or may not know, the first generation BTF graphics cards ended up with a power connector at the rear, bottom edge of the graphics cards, placed somewhat behind the PCIe gold fingers. The cards also lacked any other power connectors, which made them exclusive for BTF builds. To solve this conundrum, ASUS moved its GC-HPWR PCB power connector up on the PCB, making sure it clears any motherboard components. However, instead of increasing the height of the motherboard BTF 2.0 connector, the company provides a small adapter that plugs in between the motherboard and graphics card, to make its new BTF 2.0 cards compatible with any system.

Sapphire has half revealed its new PULSE graphics card design—yesterday's social media post provided an early look at the signature black/gray shroud adorned with red lines. This seems to be Sapphire's first push into marketing their upcoming AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT and 9070 (non-XT) custom designs. TechPowerUp handled and inspected a new Sapphire PURE model at last week's CES trade event—this particular sample was included in a round-up of Team Red's partner custom designs—but the newly revealed PULSE card was not showcased.

According to a VideoCardz report, Sapphire's new Radeon RX 9000-series NITRO+ model has been teased in AMD's CES-oriented marketing material. The Hong Kong-based tech graphics card specialist chose to not send their Navi 48-based flagship over to Las Vegas—industry experts believe that AIBs are eagerly waiting on Team Red to settle on and announce an official release date. Marketing campaigns are expected to fully kick in closer to RDNA 4's launch window.

Lam Research Corporation today announced that its innovative dry photoresist (dry resist) technology has been qualified for direct-print 28 nm pitch back end of line (BEOL) logic at 2 nm and below by imec, a leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies. An advanced patterning technique introduced by Lam, dry resist enhances the resolution, productivity and yield of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, a pivotal technology used in the production of next-generation semiconductor devices.

"Lam's dry photoresist technology provides unparalleled low-defectivity, high-resolution patterning," said Vahid Vahedi, chief technology and sustainability officer at Lam Research. "We are excited to offer this technology to imec and its partners as a critical process in the design and manufacturing of leading-edge semiconductor devices."

Exciting things are happening in the world of memory right now. Many of the headlines are being claimed by a new variety of DIMM, called Clock Unbuffered DIMM (CUDIMM). Featuring an integrated clock driver on the memory stick itself for improved reliability and stability, CUDIMM kits are already shattering speed records. But perhaps you're more concerned with memory capacity than with raw speed. We have some good news for you. The trusted memory professionals at Kingston have cooked up a 64 GB memory module that you'll be able to purchase soon: the Kingston Value RAM DDR5 6400 MT/s 64 GB CUDIMM.

64 GB of DDR5 RAM on a single stick opens intriguing new possibilities. A 128 GB one-DIMM-per-channel (1DPC) configuration is rather tempting. We suspect that many enthusiasts will be tempted by the prospect of installing four of these modules, a move that puts a stunningly large 256 GB (4 x 64 GB) pool of memory at their disposal—without having to venture into quad-channel workstation hardware.

WEROCK Technologies GmbH, innovative manufacturer of industrial computer technology, announces the launch of two new rugged high-performance notebooks. According to the manufacturer, the laptops have been designed for professional, industrial use with complex tasks in a wide variety of locations where strong performance is required. They are delivered with Intel Core Ultra processors of the Meteor Lake generation, Intel AI Boost, Arc Graphics, with up to 16 cores, a 4.8
GHz turbo clock frequency and up to 64 GB RAM. Pioneering AI and machine learning functions including AI assistants set the course for modern computing and fast performance.

The new Rockbook X540 G3 and Rockbook X550 G3 laptops have been developed for field service professionals in numerous industries. They have numerous modern communication functions - including options for 4G LTE or 5G, have a dedicated uBlox GPS/GNSS sensor, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and also offer numerous other interfaces such as Thunderbolt 4, USB ports, HDMI and a serial port.

DEAR VR WASHERS. I am so sorry to let you know that we won't be continuing support of PowerWash Simulator VR. We absolutely love and believe in VR, so this doesn't mean that we won't support it in the future—but we aren't able to continue with support right now.

We have been faced with a cross roads situation: we have a truly excellent and kind VR team who were working on a platform which costs us more than it makes, while also having a list of job openings that we are looking to be filled on other projects. FuturLab took the decision to redeploy our VR team into those other projects/roles. Whilst I would love to live in a world where we could support PowerWash Simulator on every platform going, I will always choose job security for my team. Every time.

ASUS today announced ASUS NUC 14 Essential, an ultracompact, entry-level mini PC powered by the latest Intel Core N-series processor. Designed for exceptional performance and enhanced power efficiency, the capabilities of NUC 14 Essential are further boosted by a versatile array of ports including Bluetooth 5.3 and Intel Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+). Support for up to three 4K displays provides users with smooth multitasking experiences, allowing them to stream videos, create content, and analyze data with ease.

Energy-efficient performance in a compact package
The latest Intel Core N-series processor enables ASUS NUC 14 Essential to make light work of daily office tasks. Featuring up to eight E-core architectures, the processor offers a perfect balance of energy efficiency and performance, offering a 42% improvement over previous-generation processors. NUC 14 Essential lets users browse the web, attend videoconferences, stream videos, or create content with ease, making it ideal for office workers and students.

Under the full Wolf Moon, Rebel Wolves revealed the first look into the world of THE BLOOD OF DAWNWALKER, its action RPG. The studio, co-founded by Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, director of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, set the game in an alternative 14th century, where feudal lords have been overthrown by a clique of powerful vampires. In this narrative sandbox players will forge their own story about saving their family… or taking whatever path their choices lead them down. THE BLOOD OF DAWNWALKER is developed by Rebel Wolves in Unreal Engine 5 and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc., for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam. Players can follow the game's latest developments on the official website.

14th century Europe. Bloody conflicts sweep the lands, and the Black Death comes for the survivors. In the wake of the disasters claiming thousands of lives, the decimated human population struggles for survival. It's a moment of weakness. In Vale Sangora, somewhere in a forgotten corner of the Carpathian Mountains, vampires seize their opportunity to walk out of the shadows, overthrow the feudal lords and claim what they've been denied for centuries: freedom, and ultimate power that comes with it. Legends turn into reality, and history as we know it will never be the same.

ENERMAX is proud to be launching its new workstation-level CPU AIO cooler: LIQTECH XTR. Specifically designed for the AMD Ryzen Threadripper and Intel Xeon W series processors with a cooling capacity of over 550 W. LIQTECH XTR AIO cooler debuted at Computex 2024 with a live demo, achieving a cooling capacity of over 550 W. The LIQTECH XTR 360 mm CPU cooler features an enlarged cold plate design on its water block, fully covering the IHS area of both AMD Threadripper and Intel Xeon W series processors. Thanks to ENERMAX's high-efficient EP1 pump with a 450L/h flow rate and 3000 RPM radiator fans, LIQTECH XTR can provide more than 550 W cooling capacity on both AMD and Intel platforms.

LIQTECH XTR AIO cooler is also the first ENERMAX CPU cooler to implement the magnetic, fully rotatable, real-time status digital display. Users can manually adjust the LED screen on the water block to set their preferred digital direction. The additional software, ENERMAX's tuner, can further provide a real-time data showing on the water block. ENERMAX's LIQTECH XTR AIO cooler is the perfect cooling solution for workstations that need to perform heavy duty tasks such as 3D rendering, product visualization & simulation, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning acceleration. It fully supports AMD socket sTR5/SP6/sWRX8/sTRX4/TR4/SP3 and Intel socket LGA 4677.

Shokz revealed its brand new OpenFit 2 model at last week's CES trade event—naturally, this second generation open earbud plays successor to the original OpenFit model and will exist alongside the already released OpenFit Air (a cheaper alternative). Shokz's OpenFit series utilizes air conduction rather than bone conduction technology (as used by the OpenRun models) to deliver audio into a wearer's ear canals.

The new Open Fit 2 features a Shokz-designed DualBoost driver system—an "extra-large" 17.3 mm composite material dynamic driver produces lower/bass frequencies, while an independent high-frequency unit takes care of its namesake and mid-frequencies. TechPowerUp inspected and handled Shokz's new flagship and enjoyed the feel of its signature "Ultra Soft-Silicone 2.0" outer layer. Shokz has revised the Open Fit 2 earhook design—they believe that its updated shape should provide a better fit for the majority of owners.

AMD's official announcement of new RDNA 4 generation of GPUs—comprised of Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070—listed several manufacturing partners. YESTON did not join the likes of ASRock, PowerColor, Sapphire and XFX in showcasing custom designs "in-person" at CES, but their official social media accounts have unveiled a new Team Red GPU-based Sakura Atlantis edition card. YESTON has once again deployed its signature baby blue and pink color scheme—quite refreshing when compared to the slew of black/gray custom designs presented at last week's trade show.

Yeston was the first AMD AIB to publicly reveal Radeon RX 9070 XT's video memory allocation online—their social media post confirms the presence of 16 GB VRAM. Team Red partners in attendance at CES 2025 were not allowed to divulge this information, but a number of press outlets read model/name text on certain sticker attachments—corroborating previous leaks that listed 16 GB. Yeston's post outlines a white-lit breathing effects, as well as support for ARGB lighting. The new Sakura Atlantis shroud design is quite unconventional—breaking away from boxy aesthetics. Flowing lines and curved surfaces attract the eye, along with a pleasant pearlescent finish. Shell and starfish motif stickers adorn the card's three cooling fans. VideoCardz reports that Yeston has provided additional details—their Radeon RX 9070 XT-16G Sakura Atlantis model will feature an all-white PCB design and a white-colored I/O bracket. No surprises here, given the company's past choices.

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January 17 will bring Dynasty Warriors: Origins, a thrilling new addition to the Dynasty Warriors series to PC, PlayStation 5 & Xbox, and we recently had the opportunity to play the tactical hack-and-slash action ahead of its release.

The gripping tale of a "nameless hero"
Dynasty Warriors: Origins follows the drama surrounding China's Three Kingdoms period, from the Yellow Turban Rebellion to the Battle of Red Cliffs. At the beginning of the game, the protagonist gets caught up in a battle with Guan Yu against the troops of corrupt officials. The Yellow Turban Rebellion was never portrayed in detail in previous installments of the series. Still, this game goes into depth around the origins and woes of the Yellow Turbans, as well as the perspectives of each general belonging to the defeated troops.

Whispers of a brand new high-end Arm-based mobile processor—rumored to be in the works at NVIDIA HQ—emerged late last year. Data miners have since actively searched for any emerging details—initial bits of evidence have seemingly arrived earlier today, courtesy of Hoang Anh Phu (@AnhPhuH) and WalkingCat (@_h0x0d_). An intriguing Lenovo job listing was uncovered—this entry mentions that the candidate will be tasked with "new SoC NV N1x in-house HW design and development." WalkingCat believes that an upcoming Lenovo Yoga 2-in-1 16-inch (2025) model could emerge with an NVIDIA chipset onboard—they deciphered this through Lenovo's "platform code" naming system (see screenshot below).

Further speculation points to a possible N-series reveal around Computex 2025—Qualcomm rolled out similar announcement timing last summer with its Snapdragon X processor series. NVIDIA is reportedly collaborating with MediaTek on this new endeavor—high-end N1x and mid-tier N1 (non-X) chipsets are reported to be built on Team Green's recently unveiled Blackwell architecture. Tech watchdogs believe that a TSMC 3 nm node process is on the cards. Anh Phu proposes that the new SoCs are performant enough to hit a performance range of 180-200 AI TOPS. Additional industry rumors point to a potential launch window around the fourth quarter of this year, with roughly three million units ready at the starting line.

Today Airborne Empire finally takes flight and is live on Steam! We—at the Wandering Band—are super excited for players to get their hands on the game, to celebrate there will be a 10% discount on the game for a limited time. While we celebrate this milestone today we know there is much more to come. We plan on working on the game for at least a year (most likely a little longer) and we've posted a very early + rough roadmap below.

Right now it's just a list of things we plan on doing. The idea is to expand on this roadmap with your input. We have a big game with a lot of cool features, we're happy with what we have, but our goal is to make something great. We need your help; we need to know what you like, what you don't like and what types of additional content you want to see. If you would like to provide feedback, or discuss the game with the team directly, please join us on our Discord. If you find a bug while playing the game please report it with the in-game bug reporting tool (in the pause screen).

Nanya Technology Corporation, today announced its results of operations for the fourth quarter, ended December 31, 2024. Nanya's quarterly sales revenue was NT$ 6,575 million, a 19.2 percent decrease compared to that in the third quarter of 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2024, average selling prices (ASP) decreased by low-teens percent and bit shipment decreased by high-single digit percent quarter over quarter.

Gross loss of the quarter was NT$ 695 million; gross margin was -10.6 percent, a 13.8 percentage points decrease from that in the previous quarter. Operating loss of the quarter was NT$ 2,812 million; operating margin was -42.8 percent; a 12.0 percentage points decrease from that in the last quarter. Non-operating income of the quarter was NT$ 900 million. The Company had net loss of NT$ 1,574 million, with net margin of -23.9 percent. Earnings per share (EPS) was NT$ -0.51 in the fourth quarter (based on weighted average outstanding shares of 3,099 million).

AMD enforced strict conditions upon its manufacturing partners at the recently concluded CES trade event—various custom Radeon RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 (non-XT) models were showcased, but technical details were not revealed. The TechPowerUp team had a hands-on look at PowerColor's selection of Red Devil, Hellhound cards and newly debuted Reaper design—certain information could be pertained from labels and stickers (cough: 16 GB VRAM) yet brand reps remained tight-lipped about technical nitty gritty under-the-hood. News outlets have relied upon less-than-official sources—such as the Chiphell forum—to obtain performance figures. VideoCardz's working weekend session has produced alleged details about PowerColor's planned boost clock speeds—the headline being that a 3.0 GHz barrier has been broken.

The site's insider network proposes that PowerColor's top-flight Radeon RX 9070 XT Red Devil model is ready for launch with an OC BIOS set to boost matters up to 3060 MHz, while the silent performance mode shaves off fifty—bringing things down to a (still impressive) 3010 MHz. The more middle-of-the-pack Hellhound design is reported to achieve a 3010 MHz boost via its OC BIOS mode, and its silent operation is reported to be 2970 MHz. Additionally, a VideoCardz source reckons that game clocks are somewhere in the region of 2460 to 2520 MHz for both models. The "more affordable" PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 XT Reaper variant seems to lack BIOS switching, so its single operational mode is allegedly capable of boosting up to 2970 MHz.

Pwnage, a leader in premium gaming peripherals, proudly announces the launch of the Trinity CF gaming mouse. This groundbreaking device sets new standards in performance, durability, and versatility, catering to gamers seeking the best lightweight gaming mouse on the market. The Trinity CF is now available for purchase at Pwnage.

Engineered for Precision and Comfort
The Trinity CF features a symmetrical shape that accommodates all grip styles and hand sizes, ensuring ergonomic comfort and precision for every gamer. Weighing just 37-39 grams, it stands as one of the lightest gaming mice available, providing swift and effortless movement during intense gaming sessions.

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.

IQVIA, the world's leading provider of clinical research services, commercial insights and healthcare intelligence, is working with NVIDIA to build custom foundation models and agentic AI workflows that can accelerate research, clinical development and access to new treatments. AI applications trained on the organization's vast healthcare-specific information and guided by its deep domain expertise will help the industry boost the efficiency of clinical trials and optimize planning for the launch of therapies and medical devices—ultimately improving patient outcomes.

Operating in over 100 countries, IQVIA has built the largest global healthcare network and is uniquely connected to the ecosystem with the most comprehensive and granular set of information, analytics and technologies in the industry. Announced today at the J.P. Morgan Conference in San Francisco, IQVIA's collection of models, AI agents and reference workflows will be developed with the NVIDIA AI Foundry platform for building custom models, allowing IQVIA's thousands of pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device customers to benefit from NVIDIA's agentic AI capabilities and IQVIA's technologies, life sciences information and expertise.

Over the past weekend, an Intel Arc GPU enthusiast has picked up a pair of embargo-busting ASRock Arc B570 Challenger 10 GB OC graphics cards. Intel has mandated an official launch at retail on January 16, yet Redditor genxontech presented photo proof of his two Arc Battlemage purchases and claimed that their local Micro Center store had stock available on shelves. The lucky customer stated that he was not willing to experience post-Thursday shortages or dreaded price gouging over limited supply: "I'm upgrading my son's PC from a GTX 1080 and the other one is for me. I work, I don't need to scalp it."

Team Blue's Arc B580 GPU series (starting price: $249) launched mid-December and retail units were snapped up swiftly—budget-conscious hardware enthusiasts have oft complained about a lack of choice/value within their market segment of choice. The incoming Intel Arc B570 GPU family is priced $30 below the slightly more capable B580, so it will be interesting to see how the two tiers perform against each other in 2025. Meanwhile, genxontech has toyed around with the latest Arc Drivers—official software is not available until this Thursday, so mixed results have been documented: "My workstation/server/gaming rig now sees the Arc B570 as a B80. Crazy, right?"

Dear Rivals, exciting news for Season 1! Marvel Rivals is now supported on NVIDIA GeForce NOW, NVIDIA's cloud gaming service. Transform nearly any device into a high-performance, GeForce-powered gaming rig. Two new maps have been added for first half of season 1 for the Empire of Eternal Night in New York City: Sanctum Sanctorum and Midtown.

Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum stands as the last beacon of hope in a city consumed by darkness. Protected by ancient wards and powerful magic, it serves as a refuge for those battling the chaos unleashed by Dracula and his legion. Explore its eerie corridors and powerful secrets as you prepare to face the chaos unleashed by Dracula's dark forces.

Halo 5: Guardians has remained exclusive to Microsoft Xbox gaming systems since launching back in October 2015, during the Xbox One era—an approaching ten-year anniversary has fans wishing for a possible port over to PC platforms. Hopes were elevated late last week due to an intriguing image popping up on Lenovo's Legion Go S product page. A certain promo image depicts screen content featuring a Steam menu session with an entry for Halo 5. This discovery (courtesy of Rebs Gaming) prompted much online chatter about the possible PC port being unveiled at the next Xbox Developer_Direct—scheduled for broadcast on January 23.

343 Industries (now Halo Studios) has ported five titles over to PC—neatly compiled in the form of Halo: Master Chief Collection—but the absence of Guardians has been a lingering sore spot. Over the past weekend, Lenovo senior community manager—Ben Green—dampened expectations. In a curt response to a query (on social media) regarding the alleged leak, he shot down the notion that Lenovo had inadvertently leaked the existence of a Halo 5: Guardians PC port. It is possible that Lenovo's marketing department had mocked-up the image in error. Microsoft's gaming division has committed to spreading its most visible IPs to "rival" platforms, so the upcoming Xbox Developer_Direct could harbor a surprise or two.

Sparkle debuted its new eGPU Studio-G 850 enclosure at last week's CES trade event—sporting a clear upgrade, obvious when inspecting the nearby product placard: a bump up to Thunderbolt 5 connectivity. The Hardwareluxx team managed to get the scoop on this one during their visit to Sparkle's Las Vegas suite—the latter's latest development joins the already released Thunderbolt eGPU Studio-G 750 (black finish) model, that makes do with Thunderbolt 3. The newer standard (offering up to 120 GB/s upstream/downstream) is emerging across a number of new products (mostly premium-tier laptops), but industry experts believe that adoption rates are relatively slow—Intel revealed the TB5 "Barlow Ridge" specification back in September 2023.

Sparkle's newly unveiled white-shelled eGPU Studio-G 850 is generously proportioned (403 x 200 x 237 mm) enough to house 3.5-slot discrete desktop graphics cards—taking a different approach to the likes of ASUS ROG and their XG Mobile model. An integrated handle grants a modicum of portability. Reports from CES suggest that Sparkle did not divulge any details about pricing or upcoming launch windows, but the demonstration sample seemed to be in finalized form. As the model's moniker denotes, the pre-installed internal power supply is an 850 W unit featuring 16-pin connectivity.

For decades, leadership in computing and software ecosystems has been a cornerstone of American strength and influence worldwide. The federal government has wisely refrained from dictating the design, marketing and sale of mainstream computers and software—key drivers of innovation and economic growth. The first Trump Administration laid the foundation for America's current strength and success in AI, fostering an environment where U.S. industry could compete and win on merit without compromising national security. As a result, mainstream AI has become an integral part of every new application, driving economic growth, promoting U.S. interests and ensuring American leadership in cutting-edge technology.

Today, companies, startups and universities around the world are tapping mainstream AI to advance healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, education and countless other fields, driving economic growth and unlocking the potential of nations. Built on American technology, the adoption of AI around the world fuels growth and opportunity for industries at home and abroad. That global progress is now in jeopardy. The Biden Administration now seeks to restrict access to mainstream computing applications with its unprecedented and misguided "AI Diffusion" rule, which threatens to derail innovation and economic growth worldwide.

Although it wasn't present at the CES 2025 when we were around, ASUS has officially announced the new ASUS ROG NUC, pairing it up with Core Ultra 200HX CPUs and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU. According to ASUS, the new ROG NUC will also get an upgraded cooling system, a better "easy-to-upgrade" toolless chassis system, and a slightly different design, all packed in a 282.4x187.7x56.5 mm (bottom: 146 mm) 3L chassis.

As far as the CPU goes, the ROG NUC will get a Core Ultra 9 Series 2 ARL-HX CPU, although it is possible that we will see an SKU with Core Ultra 7 200HX CPU as well. The GPU is NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU with 16 GB of GDDR7 memory, and it supports up to 96 GB of DDR5-6400 memory in two SO-DIMM slots. It supports up to 2 TB of SSD storage in M.2 slot, and comes with one Thunderbolt 4 Type-C port, a couple of USB 3.2 10 Gbps Type-A and one USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C port, two DisplayPort 2.1 and two HDMI 2.1 outputs.

Intel has launched its first wave of Bartlett Lake processors, introducing hybrid-core models specifically designed for embedded systems, with pure performance-core (P-core) variants scheduled to follow later. The initial release, unveiled at CES, showcases the processors through congatec's new COM-HPC modules. The flagship Core 7 251E leads the embedded lineup with 24 cores (8P + 16E) and impressive clock speeds reaching 5.6 GHz boost. Intel claims this processor outperforms the i7-14700 by 6% in single-core and 8% in multi-core benchmarks, despite maintaining a modest 65 W TDP. The series also includes the Core 5 211E with 10 cores (6P + 4E) and the Core 3 201E featuring 4 P-cores. However, the more intriguing development lies ahead.

Earlier sources indicate that Intel plans to release pure P-core variants of Bartlett Lake in Q3 2025, targeting desktop users. These processors will introduce a more traditional approach by replacing E-core clusters with additional P-cores, resulting in configurations of up to 12 P-cores in the upcoming Core 9 series. The pure P-core models will maintain compatibility with existing LGA1700 motherboards, potentially offering an attractive upgrade path for current Intel platform users. The lineup is expected to include 8-core, 10-core, and 12-core variants under the Core 5, 7, and 9 brands respectively, with TDP options ranging from 45 W to 125 W. While the current embedded models focus on specialized applications like medical imaging and edge computing, the future P-core variants seem positioned to appeal to gamers. The processors are expected to utilize Raptor Cove cores, though rumors suggest Intel might consider backporting Lion Cove architecture to the platform.

While Intel is busy with its new Core Ultra 200S series of "Arrow Lake-S" processors for desktops, the start of 2025 is brining some interesting news for the last-generation Intel Core i9-14900KF CPU. The "Raptor Lake" CPU, without a working iGPU has officially broken overclocking world record and reached further into the 10 GHz dream. Achieved by an overclocker named "Wytiwx", the new world record is now sitting in at 9121.61 MHz, beating the previous 9117.75 MHz record held by "Elmor" by 3.8 MHz. This officially breaks Elmor's rule which started in 2022 and currently holds second, third, fourth, and fifth place in the leaderboard. We are curious if the new overclocker will maintain his lead, or if someone new will try to come out on top. Interestingly, for the new world record, Wytiwx used ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 APEX motherboard with CPU cooled by LN2. The run was validated on Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, which is an interesting choice for overclockers as previous records have also been set using Windows 7.

YUNZII has introduced its latest mechanical keyboard, the AL65 QMK/VIA aluminium keyboard, at CES 2025. The AL65 features a CNC-anodized aluminium frame and a distinctive hollow side-cut design that enhances both its aesthetics and RGB lighting effects. The keyboard is equipped with south-facing LEDs capable of displaying 16.8 million colors, with transparent PC keycaps to amplify the lighting. It supports QMK/VIA, allowing users to remap keys, create macros, and adjust lighting on both Windows and macOS systems. The AL65 offers tri-mode connectivity with wired, Bluetooth, and 2.4 GHz wireless options, powered by an 8000mAh battery for extended use. Its gasket-mounted structure reduces typing noise and provides a softer feel while sound-dampening foam layers minimize vibrations. A hot-swappable PCB supports both 3-pin and 5-pin switches, enabling users to customize the keyboard with different mechanical switches easily. With its robust build, versatile connectivity, and customizable features, the AL65 is designed to cater to a wide range of users, from typists to gamers.

During CES 2025, THIEAUDIO showed off its most ambitious creation yet: the Valhalla in-ear monitors. This flagship model, priced at $1999, represents an engineering marvel in personal audio technology, combining significant driver configuration with meticulous handcrafting. The Valhalla's most striking feature is its remarkable 38-driver architecture, with 19 balanced armature drivers positioned in each earpiece. It incorporates premium components from renowned manufacturers Knowles and Sonion, enabling the IEMs to reproduce sound with exceptional precision across the entire frequency spectrum. At the heart of Valhalla's innovative design lies the proprietary Precision Bass System (PBS), which helps with low-frequency reproduction in IEMs. By housing multiple bass drivers within a specially engineered resonance chamber, the PBS delivers subwoofer-quality bass response reaching down to 5 Hz while minimizing listener fatigue.

The production process of each Valhalla unit is equally complex. A single engineer dedicates an entire day to handcrafting each set, carefully measuring and matching drivers before assembly. The implementation of a sophisticated 4-way passive crossover network, combined with advanced acoustic tubing, helps seamless frequency transitions and optimal tonal balance throughout the audio spectrum. Complementing the Valhalla's acoustic prowess is the EliteNoir cable, which features silver-plated LCOFC wires that maximize signal integrity and durability. This premium cable enhances the IEMs' already impressive soundstage and imaging capabilities. Preorders are now open, and production times are estimated at 2-3 weeks. The design is equally interesting, and you can see it in the pictures below.