Welcome to the first week of March, which kicks off with a major release from Bungie, that is not part of its Destiny universe, but rather part of a series that the company first released back in 1994 and is the fourth game in the series. If first-person shooters aren't your thing, then maybe running your own tavern is more your style? Or how about breeding and training horses in ancient Mongolia? Maybe hunting monsters in the fellowship of a cursed hat? Maybe a relaxing deck builder is more your cup of tea? Or finding lost items in a cozy world?

Marathon / This week's major release / Thursday 5 March
Infil into the dark sci-fi world of Tau Ceti IV: A derelict colony rife with rival Runners, hostile UESC security forces, and unpredictable environments. As you scavenge its zones for valuables with a crew or alone, tense moments of exploration break into fast-paced PvP combat where gunplay is responsive, supplies are finite, and preparation is rewarded. Steam link

Ubisoft has been clear that it is working on "several" new games in the Assassin's Creed franchise. One of those games is Assassin's Creed Hexe, a new open-world AC game that has been in development at Ubisoft Montreal in some form or another since 2022. Now, according to Tom Henderson on the Insider Gaming podcast, the combat for Assassin's Creed Hexe is being reworked, with a contortionist coming in to record the motion capture scenes. He also adds that the game looks to be launching sometime in 2027, despite the combat reworks. Ubisoft Montreal, the studio in charge of Hexe, was also leading the development of the recently cancelled Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake, although it seems unlikely that Hexe would be cancelled this late into development, especially since it seems to follow the established Assassin's Creed format rather closely.

Recent teasers released by Ubisoft suggest that the new game will feature themes of witchcraft and sorcery, with a distinct horror influence, and it seems like it will be set in Germany. Hexe was being directed by Clint Hocking, of Far Cry 2, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory fame, but recent changes to Ubisoft's structure resulted in his departure from the company and the project. Despite this, Ubisoft has assured gamers that Hexe has survived the tumultuous reshuffling that has seen so many other projects delayed. However, the news of the reworked combat may mean that it will need more time in the oven than originally intended.

Lenovo has officially launched the ThinkBook 16+ in China, officially kicking off its LPCAMM2 rollout to mainstream laptop after it launched the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 with the new RAM standard as far back as 2024. LPCAMM2 is a new memory standard that allows all of the performance of LPDDR5X with the upgradeability of a regular SODIMM. The ThinkBook 16+ appears to be Lenovo's first consumer device to feature LPCAMM2, launching with up to 32 GB of LPDDR5X-8533 memory backing up an Intel Core Ultra X7 385H and its Arc B390 iGPU.

Specs for the ThinkBook 14+ are not completely listed on Lenovo China, but the rest of the ThinkBook 16+'s specs impress, featuring Wi-Fi 7, 165 Hz display with 100% DCI-P3 coverage and support for VRR, and a 99.9 Wh battery. The laptop also features 2× Thunderbolt 4 ports, 2× USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, and 1× USB 2.0 Type-B port, a 3.5 mm audio combo jack, and a 4-in-1 SD card reader for SD, SDHC, SDXC, and CMMC cards. Lenovo has also equipped the ThinkBook 16+ with a Windows Hello-compatible 1080p webcam with a physical shutter as well as support for Lenovo's Magic Bay accessory ecosystem, which has started expanding to more laptops in 2026. The new ThinkBook series also features Lenovo's pressure-sensitive Forcepad, which also integrates haptic feedback and multitouch support. In China, the ThinkBook 16+ 2026 comes in at RMB 8499 ($1,240) while the ThinkBook 14+ 2026 starts at RMB 8299 ($1,210) with all of the same internal specifications. At the time of writing, though, there is no indication that these laptops will launch outside of China, although another laptop series will likely take their place in international markets.

In early February, Intel finally updated its HEDT sector with the latest "Granite Rapids-WS" Xeon 600 Series processors for workstations. The company has now published a detailed table of turbo frequencies that provides specifics on each core's boost frequency in workloads like SSE, AVX2, AVX-512, and AMX, showing how much these workloads allow the CPU cores to boost. This means that during a continuous workload like AMX, these CPUs can only run at a sustained frequency defined in the tables below. At the very top of the new "Granite Rapids-WS" stack is the Xeon 698X, featuring 86 cores and 172 threads, backed by 336 MB of L3 cache. The chip runs at a 2.0 GHz base clock, boosting up to 4.8 GHz with Turbo Boost Max 3.0, or 4.6 GHz under Turbo Boost 2.0. This CPU is fully unlocked, allowing overclocking, which is still relatively rare in the Xeon workstation space.

In non-AVX workloads, this CPU can boost up to 4.8 GHz, while its lowest-performing core, numbered 86, sits at 3.0 GHz. However, AVX2 turbo frequencies cause a significant frequency downgrade, as the base frequency drops to 1.7 GHz, and the slowest core drops to 2.9 GHz when boosting across its 86-core design. Following this are the AVX-512 turbo frequencies, which see this flagship SKU running at a base clock speed of only 1.3 GHz and only 2.5 GHz across its 86 cores. Perhaps the most demanding turbo frequency testing occurs when AMX is enabled, resulting in a base frequency of only 1.1 GHz and only 2.0 GHz across all cores at once. This significant reduction comes from the demanding scenarios of these vector and matrix instruction processing, which are very heavy on the CPU.More information about other SKUs and details in AVX2, AVX-512, and AMX turbo frequencies follow.

We recently reported on news that Sony will all but stop releasing PC ports of its single-player games on PC, and while those previous reports were from Jason Schreier, a journalist previously shown to have reputable insider sources, another insider has corroborated these claims, adding additional context in the process. According to NateTheHate2 on X, Sony made the decision in 2025 to shift its release strategy, with the result of launching fewer first-party single-player games on PC. The leaker adds that this means there will be "fewer single-player games" on PC from Sony, implying both that Sony may still port single-player games to PC—only significantly fewer of them—and that this new policy may not apply to live-service and multiplayer games.

He also mentioned that there are still single-player PC ports in development at Sony, which may eventually launch, depending on how far they are in the development process, but that these ports are no longer a priority for the Japanese gaming giant. Addressing questions about the justification for the strategy shift, NateTheHate2 commented that, while there have been a few commercially successful PC ports, they haven't been a huge revenue driver for Sony. Looking at the Steam charts data for Insomniac Games, one of Sony's most notable first-party studios, the data lends credence to these comments. The best-performing PC port from the studio is Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, which peaked at 66,436 players on Steam. Meanwhile, the next-best performer is Marvel's Spider-Man 2, which peaked at 28,189. Nixxes Software, the studio responsible for many Sony PC ports, has seen similar successes, with the likes of Ghost of Tsushima topping the charts at 77,154 peak concurrent players, ahead of the aforementioned Spider-Man Remastered, with Horizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us Part II Remastered bringing in peaks or 40,462 and 30,690 players, respectively.

Minisforum is known for making powerful mini PCs, like the Core Ultra 9 285H-powered M1 Pro we recently reviewed, and the latest entry into the company's line-up is the MS-A2, an upgrade to 2024's MS-A1. The new mini workstation is marketed as a small form factor desktop server for programming, business, and home lab use cases, and it seems to have the specs to back that up. The whole package measures just 196×189×48 mm, or 1.78 L, making it seriously compact. Official US pricing for the MS-A2 with the Ryzen 9 9955HX starts at $799 with no RAM or storage or $1,199 with 32 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD. The mini PC with 96 GB of RAM and 2 a 2 TB SSD costs $1,919 on the Minisforum store.

The MS-A2 uses AMD's Ryzen 9 9955HX mobile CPU—with a claimed 100 W turbo TDP—paired with up to 96 GB of DDR5-5600 memory and up to three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, for up to 12 TB total capacity, as well as support for U.2 NVMe 22110 drives, bringing total storage capacity up to 23 TB. Networking is also impressive, thanks to dual 10 Gb SFP+ ports and dual 2.5 Gb Ethernet ports. The MS-A2 also sports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity, and it has more than enough ports for proper workstation use. The front of the mini PC has dual USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a USB 2.0 port, and a 3.5 mm audio combo jack, while the back has 2× USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports with DisplayPort 2.0 Alt mode support, 1× HDMI 2.1, 2× 2.5 Gb RJ45 ports, 2× 10 Gb SFP+ ports, 1× USB 3.1 Gen 2, and 1× USB 3.1 Gen 1 port. The Ryzen 9 9955HX has a pretty weak Radeon 610M iGPU, which will get the job done for most productivity tasks, but the MS-A2 also has a built-in full-length PCIe 4.0 ×8 slot for GPU or IO upgrades, and that slot supports can be split into two PCIe ×4 connections.

Intel's flagship "Bartlett Lake-S" processor—Core 9 273 PQE—has reached enthusiasts who are testing whether any consumer motherboard can boot the CPU and utilize its 12 P-Core gaming performance. According to Overclock.net user "Talon2016," who managed to obtain a sample of the LGA-1700 flagship CPU SKU, the processor won't boot using a consumer ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Apex motherboard. These CPUs are designed for edge and embedded deployments with specialized platforms that lie outside the consumer sector. This high-TDP PQE variant has a base power of 125 W, powering a 12 P-Core variant with 24 threads and a base frequency of 3.4 GHz. This model can boost all 12 cores to 5.3 GHz, while a single thread can reach up to 5.9 GHz independently for tasks requiring intensive single-threaded performance. It is equipped with 36 MB of L3 cache and an integrated GPU with 32 EUs of Xe-LP graphics.

Unfortunately, regardless of the SKU or consumer motherboard choice, the platform will not work, and the CPU will not boot, as Intel has restricted "Bartlett Lake-S" to keep it away from consumers. Companies like ASRock have confirmed that the "Bartlett Lake-S" Core 200E will not be available for consumer motherboards and will only be used in the embedded and edge computer sector. This means you can technically buy and use this CPU for any Windows or Linux task, including gaming, but you will have to go through a process of acquiring an industrial-grade motherboard or a mini-PC that suits this platform. This means gaming support will be limited, as Intel explicitly will not bring any optimizations like APO/IPO to the platform for gaming. Instead, it will be treated as a generic x86-64 Intel CPU, just like any other processor. Extracting the maximum gaming performance could also be problematic, as there could be compatibility issues, given that Intel has envisioned other applications for this platform.

If you were in or around the PC building space in 2020, you'd have at least heard about the fire risk related to the PCIe riser cable on the original NZXT H1 mini ITX case, which eventually resulted in a recall and replacement PCIe riser kits being sent out. Since NZXT has launched the newest iteration of the SFF case, the H2 Flow—which TechPowerUp has reviewed—the PC case maker has seen fit to publish a blog post explaining the engineering changes it has made to the new H2 Flow's riser cable to avoid the same issues from popping up again. NZXT starts things off by reminding us that the problem with the original H1's PCIe riser cable was that the mounting screw made contact with an internal power plane in the riser cable's PCB, resulting in a short circuit that could lead to a fire.

The brand goes on to explain that the issue has been avoided in the new PCIe riser cable with two safety measures. First, there is a physical boss, or "shoulder" that extends into the PCB through-hole to protect the PCB from the screw threads and to ensure that there is a consistent and guaranteed gap between the screw and the PCB. Secondly, NZXT has changed the design of the PCB such that there are no power planes or traces surrounding the screw hole—every trace around the screw is grounded, and that ground plane extends externally to a copper screw pad on the top and bottom of the PCB, adding another layer of protection. NZXT notes that the screw pad may be missing in some early review samples, which is something you can observe in our review of the H2 Flow, but it is included in the final mass production versions of the case. NZXT claims that these measures have eliminated the failure mode that caused issues with the original H1 chassis.

Resident Evil Requiem just launched as the latest game in Capcom's long-standing horror game franchise, and almost immediately upon launching, it skyrocketed its way to the top of the Steam Top-Sellers chart and pulled impressive player counts. At its launch day peak, there were 320,056 concurrent players in the game, and, at least at the time of writing, the player count has not dropped below 230,000, according to SteamDB. Since its peak, player counts have been steadily fluctuating between 260,000 and 290,000 players.

With those player counts, it is by far the most successful Resident Evil game on Steam, surpassing the runner-up, Resident Evil 4, by almost 100% and scoring a 114,000-player lead on Resident Evil Village. It is also entirely possible that there will be another player-count spike over the weekend, since it is a game series that even many older gamers resonate with. It's worth noting that this massive player count is on Steam alone, and Requiem launched on just about every platform possible, from the PS5 and Xbox Series to the Nintendo Switch 2 and even Epic Games on PC. Requiem even reportedly runs at acceptable frame rates on the Steam Deck's humble internals, with some players even reporting as much as 60 FPS on low quality settings. In our in-depth handheld performance review of Resident Evil Requiem, we called it "one of the best AAA games in terms of PC handheld performance," thanks to its compatibility with a number of systems and its lack of visual compromises to achieve solid performance.

The gaming mouse market is currently being flooded with lightweight wireless gaming mice with flagship sensors from Chinese manufacturers who have caught onto the forged carbon fiber and magnesium alloy construction trends. The latest installment in this recent trend is the newly announced WLMouse Ying Magnesium, which takes inspiration from the industry-leading Endgame Gear OP1. We have seen this shape from WLMouse before in the Ying Carbon Fiber gaming mouse that launched in 2025, but more than just the shell material has changed for the WLMouse Ying Magnesium series.

The Ying Magnesium Alloy offers the same Omron Optical switches as the carbon fiber Ying, but it also features the option of TTC Nihil Transparent Black Dot switches for a slightly heavier click feel. The Ying Magnesium series will also feature the Nordic 52840 MCU and PixArt PAW3950 sensor, with 8 kHz polling and wireless connectivity, as is to be expected from a modern gaming mouse. WLMouse cites the weight of the WLMouse Ying Magnesium mice as 47 g (±2), and the magnesium shell will apparently be available in seven colorways, ranging from regular silver, white, and black to a baby blue and bright red versions of its Nekko patterns, a white watercolor koi fish theme, and a deep purple colorway. No pricing has yet been announced, but that is expected to be revealed alongside the full launch on March 10, 2026.

We recently reported on a Lenovo MWC leak that claimed Lenovo would show off a Legion Go Fold at Mobile World Conference in Barcelona in early March. Now, a new leak shared by evleaks on X has shown off what Lenovo will apparently call the "ThinkBook Modular AI PC Concept." The leaker didn't provide much information other than the name and two images of the device, but the combination of the word "modular" in the name and the clues from the images provide a pretty clear idea of what's going on.

From the looks of it, the ThinkBook concept will have a traditional clamshell design, but the space where the keyboard deck would usually be on a traditional laptop will instead be a space for modular accessories. The accessories shown off in the leaked renders of the device are a laptop keyboard and a display equal in size to the main display in the top of the clamshell. This looks to be an iteration of devices like the Lenovo ThinkBook Flip, although the ThinkBook Modular AI PC Concept could achieve a similar effect, especially in terms of screen real-estate and possibly ergonomics, although likely with significantly lower costs, thanks to a simpler design without a flexible OLED panel. The new concept would also offer users more flexibility—you could just leave the lower display at home or pack both displays and a mechanical keyboard and mouse for better ergonomics and all the other benefits better peripherals offer.

The Orange Pi Neo is a Linux-powered gaming handheld that was announced way back in 2024 with the goal of launching sometime in 2026. It was to be powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 7840U with 16 GB of RAM or 8840U with 32 GB of RAM, and it would run Manjaro Linux natively. Now, the developer behind the project has posted on the development log hosted on the Manjaro forum that the Orange Pi Neo-01 will be delayed due to high memory and storage prices. Originally, the handheld was meant to be priced at $450-550, depending on the CPU and memory, which is very competitive, given the 1080p, 120 Hz display, dual trackpads, and dual USB4 ports. The skyrocketing prices of DDR5 memory and storage would likely result in massive price increases or vanishingly thin margins for the Orange Pi Neo-01, so it makes sense to delay the project until things calm down. The developer does mention that FCC and CE compliances were complete and that a number of improvements had been made to Manjaro Gaming Edition in the meantime—although this means it will be challenging to update the internals if the launch is pushed back too far. Currently, it's unclear when the Orange Pi Neo-01 will launch, but it seems unlikely that the RAM crisis will end soon.

Due to high prices of DDR5 RAM and SSDs the project is currently on ice. Certifications for CE and FCC are now complete. Also a lot of improvements around the Manjaro Gaming Edition had happened. We are now waiting for a good time to launch the product.

Corsair acquired Drop in December 2023 in an effort to expand its peripheral business beyond the basic gaming keyboards and audio gear it offered at the time, and it has since adopted some of Drop's keyboard expertise into its new Corsair MAKR 75 DIY keyboard kits. Now, Drop has announced that Corsair will be fully absorbing Drop, closing down the online storefront and turning Drop.com into a showcase for all of the collaborations Drop has done in its time making premium peripherals.

The announcement makes it clear that Drop.com will no longer be an operational storefront by March 31, and anyone looking to place an order on Drop will need to do so by March 25. The announcement states that "many Drop products will continue to be offered directly from Corsair and partner channels," and while Drop says that buyers can "expect exclusive announcements, limited runs, and products shaped by partnerships and creativity," it seems like Drop's operations will be scaled back as a result of the change—by how much is unclear, though.

Razer, the leading global gaming lifestyle brand, today unveils the Razer Kraken Kitty V2 - Hello Kitty Edition, an elegant rose gold headset created in collaboration with Sanrio. Building on Razer's longstanding partnership with Sanrio, the new Target-exclusive introduces a new metallic finish to Razer's lineup of iconic Hello Kitty gaming headsets, continuing a series known for pairing character-led design with gaming-grade performance.

Style, Sound, and Sparkle
The Kraken Kitty V2 - Hello Kitty Edition features sleek metallic pink outer earcups with a soft rose gold shimmer, paired with plush pearlescent pink leatherette cushions and headband for all-day comfort. Hello Kitty's iconic ears and Razer Chroma RGB lighting complete the signature design, adding a subtle, whimsical glow that captures the timeless charm of Hello Kitty while delivering the performance and build quality synonymous with Razer.

Nintendo has officially announced Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves as the latest installment in its never-ending creature-capture series. The two new games will introduce Generation 10 Pokémon and be available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch 2 sometime in 2027. It will be the first Pokémon game exclusive to the Switch 2, and there's no word on whether it will launch for the original Switch or Switch OLED later down the line. An exact launch date was not revealed, although late 2027 seems likely based on previous launches.

The reveal trailer—which is not actual gameplay footage—shows a continuation of the 3D aesthetic, revealing the usual selection of biomes, including oceans, grasslands, rock outcroppings, dungeons, and forests. The trailer also gave us a glimpse at the three new starter Pokémon, Browt, the Grass type, Pombon, the Fire type, and Gecqua, the Water type. The trailer also teased underwater exploration, and what looks like an island resort or town sort of in the style of hut-over-water buildings typically found in calm tropical waters.

It was revealed in January that the PlayStation 5 Pro would get an upgraded PSSR 2.0 scaler in Q1 2026, finally unlocking the full hardware potential of the PS5. It was announced in a recent PlayStation Blog post that the aforementioned PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) update would start rolling out to the PS5 Pro globally starting on February 27, with Resident Evil Requiem being the first game to use the more advanced PSSR version. Sony says that the upgraded PSSR scaler will soon also be usable with any of the over 50 games that have so far implemented the original PSSR games. A system update will be shipped in March that will let players enable an option titled "Enhance PSSR Image Quality," to apply the upgraded model to older games.

Sony says that the new PSSR "takes a very different approach to not only the neural network but also the overall algorithm," and Masaru Ijuin, Capcom's Senior Manager of Engine Development Support Section, R&D Foundational Technology Department, explained that "With Resident Evil Requiem, we focused on enhancing the presentation quality of the protagonist through an upgraded version of RE Engine to deepen the player's immersion in horror. For example, each individual strand of hair and beard is rendered as a polygon, allowing it to move realistically in response to body motion and wind," going on to explain that the level of fidelity Capcom was able to achieve was made possible by the upgraded PSSR features, since things like hair and similar fine textures are difficult to upscale.

The hype for Marathon has been building leading up to the free server slam event on February 26-March 3, with all that excitement coming to a head at the start of the Marathon free test weekend, which kicked off with a sizeable peak player count of 143,621 players just under two hours after the start of the event. Given that the server slam event started on a Thursday, it seems likely that many of the players who have since stopped testing the new extraction shooter had real-world responsibilities to attend to. Those numbers also only represent the game's Steam market share. Accounting for players on Xbox and PlayStation 5 would likely lead to significantly higher player count figures.

Despite this success, online discussions surrounding the new shooter seem to be surprisingly divided, with players both praising and criticizing Marathon for everything from its art style and UI design to the gunplay, lack of tension and PvP action, and the NPC AI being challenging. Character balance was also a common topic that featured in critical reviews, with some players complaining that certain characters are too overpowered while others are not capable enough. While some of these complaints, like the UI being difficult to read and certain performance issues, seem to be somewhat more widespread and valid, the Marathon development team at Bungie has responded to and acknowledged almost all of the common complaints in a recent post on X, either offering some advice to improve the player experience or requesting more detailed feedback so that issues can be dealt with ahead of launch or in post-launch patches.

Blaze Entertainment has today announced the next entry in the award-winning line of Super Pocket handheld retro gaming consoles from its brand, HyperMegaTech! - Rare!

This new handheld features 14 built-in games from the history of Rare, one of the UK's most prolific game developers, and responsible for globally renowned titles, many of which are included on this handheld console. The Rare Edition of the Super Pocket will feature titles from many different consoles and, for the first time on a Super Pocket - 64-bit console and home computer titles!

OpenAI and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced a multi-year strategic partnership to accelerate AI innovation for enterprises, startups, and end consumers around the world. Amazon will also invest $50 billion in OpenAI, starting with an initial $15 billion investment and followed by another $35 billion in the coming months when certain conditions are met.

Partnering to bring new advanced AI capabilities to enterprises worldwide
OpenAI and Amazon are jointly developing a Stateful Runtime Environment powered by OpenAI's models, which will be available through Amazon Bedrock.
Stateful developer environments are the next generation of how frontier models will be used, seamlessly enabling models to access elements like compute, memory, and identity. A Stateful Runtime Environment allows developers to keep context, remember prior work, work across software tools and data sources, and access compute. They're designed to handle ongoing projects and workflows.

Rapidus has closed a 267.6 billion yen ($1.7 billion) funding round, pulling in money from both the Japanese government and a broad group of private companies. On the public side, 100 billion yen ($641 million) came from the Information-Technology Promotion Agency (IPA), following a formal selection process run by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry last autumn. Rapidus applied and was picked as the designated operator in November 2025, and the investment followed from there. The remaining 167.6 billion yen ($1 billion) came from 32 private-sector companies, a list that reads like a who's who of Japanese industry: Canon, Fujitsu, Sony, NTT, SoftBank, Honda, Kioxia, Denso, and Toyota are among the names involved, alongside banks, trading companies, and various tech firms (i.e., IBM Japan). Combined with the 7.3 billion yen raised at the company's founding, Rapidus now has a total stated capital of just under 275 billion yen ($1.76 billion).

Rapidus has already taped out a 2 nm GAA test chip using ASML EUV tools in August last year. The company's 2HP process is shaping up to be genuinely competitive, claiming a transistor density of 237 MTr/mm². The goal hasn't changed: get from R&D to full mass production of 2 nm chips by 2027 at the IIM-1 fab in Chitose, Hokkaido, located in northern Japan with around 25,000 wafers per month. Rapidus says it will keep raising money through a mix of public and private sources as it works toward that target.

It was recently revealed by Komodo Station, Valve's official retail partner for Steam hardware in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, that prices for the Steam Deck OLED prices will increase by as much as 17% in March. However, as the storefront explains in the announcement, these price increases are as a result of "increases in logistics costs and increased exchange rate volatility," not as a result of the ongoing memory shortages and price increases. It specifically notes that prices in Hong Kong remain unchanged, which should be a positive indication for western audiences that Steam Deck prices aren't about to skyrocket—yet.

While neither Valve nor Komodo has provided any indication that prices are about to increase for the Steam Deck, it has been revealed that Valve's supply chain is affected by the current memory crisis as much as any other hardware company. The gaming giant recently postponed announcing pricing for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame due to increased uncertainty and skyrocketing memory prices. The Steam Deck may still be somewhat exempt from these price increases because of Valve's pricing structure that follows the typical console model instead of a PC pricing strategy—that is to say that Valve has priced the Steam Deck very competitively in order to attract buyers to its platform and storefront. However, if Valve is already eating the cost of inflated Steam Deck memory and storage costs, it almost seems inevitable that it will eventually have to increase the price of the Steam Deck. Currently, even Nintendo is considering price increases for the Switch 2 after its LPDDR5X cost price increased by as much as 41%.

Microsoft has partnered up with ASUS and Dell to bring back the "dumb terminal," or at least something that very much reminds of it. Back in 2024 Microsoft launched its Windows 365 Link cloud PC which largely went unnoticed outside some corporate usage. Now the company has decided that it's time to let its partners get a slice of the action with the announcement of the ASUS NUC 16 for Windows 365 and the Dell Pro Desktop for Windows 365.

Based on the specs of equivalent models from ASUS and Dell, the hardware could still prove to be decent, with ASUS' coming soon page point towards DDR5 memory, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 and 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, as well as USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C connectivity. Nothing is really known about the Dell Pro Desktop, as it appears to be a new model of its current hardware, based on the picture provided by Microsoft. What makes these two devices "dumb terminals" is that they run Windows 365, which is a stripped down OS that launches you straight into Office 365. The devices aren't expected until the third quarter of this year, but are a clear sign of things to come, where Microsoft wants to push the corporate PC to be a cloud only device. This might work for some businesses that don't require any other software for their staff, but it's hard to see how this will replace the traditional PC.

She travelled across space and time to fulfil the prophecy bestowed upon her. Now Reva takes her place amongst the legendary OcUK TechForge Gaming PC range with the brand new REVAlution Gaming PC. Built to travel the universe and facilitate high-performance gaming, the OcUK TechForge REVAlution harnesses the latest gaming hardware to delivered 4K AAA gaming with ease.

Hardware built to defy destiny
Reva's Shatterclaws aren't the only tech designed with performance and strength in mind, as under the hood the OcUK TechForge REVAlution houses the very best hardware. Powering the system is AMD's brand new Ryzen 7 9850X3D, the fastest gaming CPU on the market. With 32 GB of Patriot Viper RGB XTREME 5 DDR5 RAM and Kioxia's EXCERIA 2 TB SSD NVMe M.2, the OcUK TechForge REVAlution spared no expense on its journey across space and time.

JAPANNEXT has introduced the JN-282IPS4KP-HSP monitor, a simplified follow-up to its earlier JN-282IPS4KP-HSP-C90W. The new model retains the uncommon 28.2-inch 3840 × 2560 resolution IPS panel with a 3:2 aspect ratio, but drops several connectivity features from the original. The previous HSP-C90W variant included a USB Type-C port with 90 W power delivery and USB-A ports enabling KVM functionality. The JN-282IPS4KP-HSP removes Type-C and KVM support altogether, trims maximum brightness slightly from 350 nits to 340 nits, and makes minor adjustments to the stand's range of motion. The 3840 × 2560 resolution, often referred to as "4K+", provides roughly 18% more vertical space than standard 3840 × 2160 16:9 4K. The 3:2 aspect ratio is more suited for productivity workloads specific to developers, writers, spreadsheet users, and anyone who can benefit from reduced vertical scrolling and a taller workspace.

The glossy IPS panel covers 100% sRGB and 95% DCI-P3, with 178° viewing angles, 1200:1 contrast, and 340 cd/m² brightness. It features support for HDR and Adaptive Sync, along with a 5 ms GtG response time. The monitor sports two DisplayPort 1.4 ports running up to 3840×2560 @ 60 Hz, and two HDMI 2.0 ports @ 50 Hz at native resolution. The rest of the package is fairly complete, PIP/PBP support, flicker-free backlight, blue light reduction, a pair of 3 W speakers, VESA mounting and a stand with height, swivel, and pivot support. The JN-282IPS4KP-HSP monitor is listed on the JAPANNEXT official site at 40,980 yen, roughly $263.

According to news out of Taiwan, NVIDIA has overtaken Apple, to become TSMC's largest customers based on revenue. Although TSMC never mentions specific customers in its financial reports, but rather goes with terms like "client A" and "client B", NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang let slip that NVIDIA is now TSMC's "top customer". This would mean that NVIDIA is now client A in TSMC financial reports.

This also means that NVIDIA contributed NT$726.9 billion in revenue for TSMC in 2025, or US$23.2 billion if you prefer, which is over twice that of 2024. That doesn't mean that NVIDIA is producing twice as many chips at TSMC, since the most advanced node always costs more than the previous production node and this most likely includes other services like chip packaging, testing etc. As for client B, also known as Apple, they provided a not insignificant NT$645.1 billion or US$20.5 billion in revenue for TSMC. As a share of TSMC's revenue, NVIDIA stood for 19 percent—up from 12 percent in 2024—and Apple for 17 percent, down from 22 percent in 2024.

NVIDIA is raising the MSRP of the DGX Spark AI development standalone to $4,700, which represents a $700 increase from its launch price, or a 17.5% increase. This increase in pricing adjusts for industry-wide shortage of DRAM and NAND flash, which impact the prices of the 128 GB LPDDR5X unified memory the machine uses. "The MSRP for DGX Spark (Founders Edition) has been adjusted from $3,999 to $4,699 due to memory supply constraints," NVIDIA said in a statement on its Developer forums. The new price is set to go into effect later this week. This should also impact prices of custom-design variants of the DGX Spark released by various partners.

While Xbox seems to be completely behind the idea of multi-platform day-one game launches, Sony has had a number of hit single-player games come out on PS5 in recent years, only for them to mosey over to PC years later. Now, according to notable gaming journalist, Jason Schreier (via the Triple Click podcast), even these slow PC ports may take a back seat going forward. Schreier, who is notable for his frequent insider insights, says that Sony's strategy for PC seems to hinge on its live-service games, adding that "I think the sense I'm getting is that they're backing away from putting their exclusive console stuff like traditional single-player stuff on PC." This news comes in spite of recent comments from former Sony executives who clearly believe that there is money to be made from PC ports and Sony's own planned Cross-Buy feature that would go a long way to unify game libraries across PS5 and PC.

He goes on to say that he believes that major upcoming future single-player titles may not make it to PC at all. When asked about the upcoming Wolverine game, slated to launch on September 15, he said that he "wouldn't be surprised if it never came to PC, but even if it does, you have a strong idea of what that is, and that you need a PlayStation to play it, at least for the indefinite future." Schreier, commenting on the commercial success of the PC ports we have seen come out of Sony, said that "I'm not sure how super successful those PC releases were," implying that Sony may not miss out on a lot of profit as a result of ditching PC ports. He would later take to the ResetEra forum to comment that his statements in the podcast were not speculation, saying that "I mean, it's not speculation, but sometimes topics come up on the show before I'm quite ready to publish a story about them. More to come soon I'm sure." Schreiers implication that the commercial success of PC ports may have been limited does hold some water. Aside from some of Sony's biggest hits, it's easy to see how interest in a game would wane after it has already been on the market for over a year—as much as that may be self-inflicted on Sony's part. Additionally, he mentioned in the podcast that Sony, unlike Microsoft, has never made any commitment to cross-platform game releases.

Highguard's abysmal launch and rapidly declining player counts are well documented at this point, but it recently came to light that Wildlight was not the indie darling it was portraying itself to be. According to a report by Game File, Wildlight, and by extension Highguard's development, was being funded by TiMi Studio Group—whose Montreal studio working on unannounced open-world AAA games was recently shut down. Now, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reports that Tencent pulled funding from Wildlight shortly after the game's launch, with management breaking the news of the pulled Tencent money to staff in a meeting on February 11.

This sudden loss of funding may explain why Wildlight was forced to lay off as much as 80% of the Highguard dev team so soon after the game's launch—the studio simply no longer had the financial backing to work on a game that was not an immediate success. According to inside sources, staff were under the impression that continued funding would only be guaranteed if certain player count and retention metrics were met. Former Wildlight developers put the onus for the game's failure on management, citing hubris and a misguided belief that Wildlight would be able to emulate Apex Legends's success, since the management team had previously been involved in that launch.

Surgent Studios, the game studio behind EA's acclaimed platformer, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, has revealed its latest game, FixForce, a 3D "extraction platformer." As the developer's genre-bashing description of the game suggests, FixForce is a co-op platformer that puts players into a bright, post-apocalyptic world and makes them solve environmental and movement puzzles, fix broken machines with nearby scrap and parts, and get back to the repair van before the character's battery or time runs out. The only dangers in FixForce are the water and rogue bots that either undo your work or outright attack you, and if you happen to take enough damage, your head pops off, whereupon other players can simply retrieve it and pop it onto a new body, so that you can finish the job.

The developer is targeting the same group of players who love "chaotic co-op games," like Peak and Lethal company, as well as gamers who appreciate classic physics games, like Portal, Garry's Mod, and Ratchet and Clank. FixForce features simple colors and graphics, and the minimum spec echoes that, asking for a Ryzen 5 2600 or Intel Core i7-6700K and a GeForce GTX 1060, Radeon RX 580 8 GB, or Intel Arc A580. Each round can feature up to six players in co-op. The game was originally meant to launch under Pocketpair Publishing, but the founder of Surgent Studios said that "We saw the pure chaos and hilarity FixForce unleashed as it came together, so we made the decision to move quickly and publish it ourselves," adding that FixForce is unlike anything the studio has worked on before, since it's all about chaos and fun whereas the previous two games the studio was responsible for were about abuse and grief. FixForce will launch on Steam and Epic games on March 12 in early access.

RedOctane, a relatively new game studio started by rhythm game veterans with the mission to "to bring rhythm gaming back with more power, more precision, and a deeper connection than ever before," has officially announced its first game, Stage Tour, which is slated to release on Steam and begin alpha testing in "summer 2026," or sometime around June or July. Console support is also planned, but there have been no concrete announcements of specific platforms or release dates. Stage Tour will feature instrument designs from Gibson—specifically the Gibson, Epiphone, and Kramer brands—with whom the studio says it has a multi-year partnership to license and feature designs.

Stage Tour follows the typical note highway rhythm game style that was popularized by games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The game studio says that Stage Tour is being developed as a "love letter to rhythm gaming," and that it is meant to "feel familiar and authentic," while also evolving the genre in what it calls "the right way," by using modern technology. The announcement itself doesn't make mention of custom peripherals beyond calling out plastic instruments, but there is a FAQ page that confirms that players will be able to buy the game bundled with a Gibson Kramer guitar controller, which has been a popular design in the rhythm game space—it's unclear if the Kramer's hardware will be updated for the game's launch. RedOctane is also actively recruiting for music to add to the game, although it has not revealed what music will feature in Stage Tour, aside from a mention of a "variety of music around the Rock and Metal genres."

Riot Games, the developer behind massive games like League of Legends and Valorant, recently suffered a round of layoffs after the middling console launch of 2XKO, its new 2v2 fighting game. Now, just over two weeks later, the studio has confirmed to Game Developer that it has laid off "around 12" more employees, this time in its publishing division. This round of layoffs doesn't only affect a single team after an ailing launch though, with the publication reporting that three teams have been affected by the layoffs.

Riot Games has been owned by Tencent since 2015, and it was recently revealed that Tencent shuttered a newly formed studio, TiMi Montreal, which was working on AAA, open-world, cross-platform games, but had yet to release or even announce any of those games. Tencent's other hulking Chinese rival, NetEase, also recently implemented a round of layoffs at another studio that had yet to announce or release any games, and it seems like that studio may not be in it for the long haul, if the employees posting about those layoffs are to be believed.

Windrose, formerly Crosswind, is an upcoming PvE co-op pirate survival crafting game that recently made waves during the Steam Next Fest, attracting over 22,000 concurrent players during its demo period. The Discord server for the game also ballooned to well over 20,000 members, and the hype for the game's expected release date reveal was so intense that the development team felt the need to temper expectations when it released the Raging Seas trailer for IGN Fan Fest. In the announcement following the trailer release, the developer behind the game explained that the game's potential scope made it impossible to announce a realistic launch date at the time, adding that "the full EA version of the game could be several times bigger in content and scale than the demo. Like x10 islands, x10 points of interest, more ships, enemies, crafting and building, etc."

In short, the developer asked fans to "let us cook more," explaining that the priority needs to be delivering a quality experience and shipping the game "on time and in best condition possible." The message goes on to promise fans that a release date will be revealed as soon as the development team is confident that it can deliver on all of its goals without having to delay the game. Windrose combines crafting mechanics, adventures on the high seas, and Souls-like combat in an ambitious new project. The demo offered players access to three islands, a ship and crew, early quests and boarding, and a limited selection of weapons, enemies, and survival mechanics. Obviously, the game has a pretty vast scope, and it's being developed by an indie team, so it makes sense that the developers would ask players to be patient for the release date and other information.

Razer, the global leading lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced the Razer Laptop Sleeve 16" with Wireless Charging for Devices, a new addition to its lifestyle accessories lineup that blends premium protection with built-in wireless power. Designed for gamers, creators, and professionals who move between setups throughout the day, the sleeve reduces the need to carry additional cables or chargers while keeping essential devices powered and protected wherever the day leads.

At the core of the Laptop Sleeve 16" are integrated wireless charging pads housed in the sleeve's cover flap. Featuring two MagSafe-compatible charging zones, the sleeve connects to an external power source via USB-C to charge multiple devices (such as a smartphone and wireless earbuds) simultaneously. Magnetic alignment helps keep devices securely in place for consistent and efficient power delivery.

Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) announces financial results for its fiscal 2026 fourth quarter and full year ended January 30, 2026. The company also provides guidance for its fiscal 2027 first quarter and full year.

Full-Year Summary

• Record full-year revenue of $113.5 billion, up 19% year-over-year
• Record full-year diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $8.68, up 36% year over year, and record full-year non-GAAP diluted EPS of $10.30, up 27%
• Record full-year cash flow from operations of $11.2 billion
• Announcing a cash dividend increase of 20% and $10 billion increase in share repurchase authorization
• FY27 guidance: Full-year revenue growth of 23% at the midpoint, diluted EPS growth of 33% at the midpoint, and non-GAAP diluted EPS growth of 25% at the midpoint

The head of Intel Foundry, Kevin O'Buckley, is leaving the company to join Qualcomm. He will take on the role of Executive Vice President of Global Operations and Supply Chain at Qualcomm, effective March 2, 2026. At Qualcomm, O'Buckley will oversee global semiconductor operations, including manufacturing engineering, foundry and supplier partnerships, supply chain, and procurement. He joins after less than two years leading Intel Foundry, where he served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel Foundry Services. Previous to joining Intel, O'Buckley was working at IBM, GlobalFoundries, and Marvell. At Qualcomm, he will be responsible for scaling manufacturing partnerships and overseeing how the chip designs transition into volume production.

Intel Foundry will now be led by Naga Chandrasekaran, who steps into an expanded role overseeing both technology development and manufacturing operations. As Chief Technology and Operations Officer and head of Intel Foundry, Chandrasekaran will supervise next-generation process node development, advanced packaging, test technologies, and day-to-day execution across Intel's global fabrication and assembly network. Chandrasekaran previously led front-end process technology development and manufacturing, already overseeing both the Technology Development (TD) organization and the Foundry Manufacturing and Supply Chain (FMSC) group since mid-2024. Navid Shahriari will continue to manage packaging development and operations within Intel Foundry.

Running With Scissors, the (in)famous creator of the POSTAL series, which has amassed millions of fans over nearly three decades, announces its first-ever spinoff title. Flesh & Wire, a dark and violent return to POSTAL's original theme and setting, will arrive on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam and GOG in 2027, as revealed in the IGN Fan Fest showcase.

Join forces with Angel, a seemingly normal college student suddenly swept up in a fever dream of conspiracy, blood, and vengeance. Along with her loyal sphinx cat Solomon, Angel runs afoul of the law, military, and an ominous cult. Discover the truth about her connection to the events of the first POSTAL game - and seek revenge on the series' protagonist, a man dubbed the Postal Dude.

The build-up for Bungie's new survival extraction shooter, Marathon, may be coming to its peak ahead of the upcoming server slam event and imminent launch in the following week. The new game has built up so much hype ahead of the play test that Marathon has officially blown past all of its similar competition in the Steam bestsellers chart. At the time of writing, Marathon sits in third place in Steam's official chart, which ranks game sales based on revenue earned. To reach that, it had to climb 58 places in the last week alone, surpassing both Arc Raiders and the ever-popular Warframe.

SteamDB reports that Marathon is the 35th most wishlisted game, which may not sound like a lot, but it also reveals that over 10,000 people have added Marathon to their wishlists in the last seven days. If Marathon continues on its trajectory, it will have come a long way since its early 2025 lukewarm reception, which resulted in a delay from its original September release date to March 5. Players will be able to test Marathon in an upcoming server slam event on February 26-March 2.

NVIDIA has officially pulled its latest GeForce 595.59 WHQL Game Ready driver from the downloads page as user reports of stability issues continue to pile up. Reportedly, users are experiencing fan detection issues on their GPU coolers, with only a single fan working. Some issues like clock stability have also occurred. On NVIDIA's official GeForce Forums, users have been complaining about driver stability, and the company has advised users to roll back the driver version to the previously stable 591.86 WHQL driver if they are experiencing any symptoms. The GeForce 595.59 WHQL Game Ready driver was launched as an optimization package to get Resident Evil Requiem and Marathon games running smoothly, which turned into a disaster that the community has reported.

NVIDIAFebruary 26th, 11am PT Update: We have discovered a bug in the Game Ready and Studio 595.59 WHQL drivers and have removed the downloads temporarily while our team investigates. For users that have already installed this driver, and are experiencing issues with fan control, please roll back to 591.86 WHQL. NVIDIA app users can reinstall their previous driver by clicking the three dots in the Drivers tab.

Update 06:57 UTC: We have removed the broken driver version from our downloads section.

Microsoft today released DirectX Shader Model 6.9 alongside a host of new Direct3D 12 enhancements. The company had been previewing SM 6.9 since 2025, which now attains general release. Microsoft released the update as part of Agility SDK 1.619 and the complementary DirectX Shader Compiler (DXC) version 1.9.2602.16. The company also released Agility SDK 1.719-preview, which introduces a fresh set of experimental features. At the heart of the Agility SDK 1.619 release is Shader Model 6.9, bringing powerful new processing tools to graphics developers. A standout new feature is "Long Vector" support, allowing developers to load, store, and seamlessly perform element-wise operations on HLSL vectors up to 1024 elements in length. The update also extends specialized HLSL functions, such as IsNan, IsInf, and the newly added IsNorma, to fully support 16-bit floats. Lastly, previously optional hardware capabilities, like 16-bit and 64-bit shader operations, are now strictly required.

Besides Shader Model upgrades, some key DirectX ray tracing (DXR) 1.2 features are officially exiting preview, such as OMM and SER. Opacity Micromaps (OMMs) enable hardware to handle complex alpha-tested geometry far more efficiently, bypassing costly shader invocations. The feature was announced way back in 2022 with NVIDIA's Ada Lovelace architecture. Meanwhile, Shader Execution Reordering (SER) empowers applications to dynamically sort rays for highly optimized parallel execution. Microsoft has directly addressed developer feedback by integrating several targeted quality-of-life updates. Highlights include Revised Resource View Creation API, as well as new CPU Timeline Query Resolves that eliminate unnecessary GPU overhead. The table below compares hardware support for Shader Model 6.9 across the three GPU brands.

Early access to AMD Radeon Software's "Vanguard" driver testing program has reportedly revealed a new Radeon FSR 4.1 DLL file, which is the next update for AMD's FSR 4 technology. According to the latest leak, AMD is preparing the FSR 4.1 update, which should bring some visual or performance enhancements, or both. Some Reddit PC enthusiasts are applying workarounds to run the file on RDNA 3 hardware, even though AMD officially doesn't support FSR 4 on the RDNA 3 generation due to some missing instructions on the older microarchitecture. Running these files can produce visible quality gains but are experimental, varying widely by title and system setup. Even when a leaked DLL carries a digital signature, running unofficial binaries can trigger instability, break driver integrity checks, or conflict with future official updates.

However, the enthusiast community has run the experiment and confirms that early side-by-side comparisons show small improvements in fine detail and edge definition when the leaked FSR 4.1 binary is forced into titles that previously used FSR 4.0.3. Testers describe sharper foliage and fabric textures and less ghosting. Other users report inconsistent results and artifacts, suggesting that the update is still a work in progress. We could have expected the update to land alongside AMD Software Adrenalin 26.2.2 WHQL drivers that launched today, as the DLL file was found in the beta test of the 26.2.2 driver, but since the update is still experimental, maybe the next Adrenalin update will bring the FSR 4.1 update as an official package.

Quantic Dream today opens a new chapter as Spellcasters Chronicles enters Early Access on Steam, now available to players worldwide. Spellcasters Chronicles is a free-to-play, 3v3 team-based action strategy game built around aerial combat and strategic deckbuilding. Players wield the power to soar across the battlefield, cast devastating spells, and summon powerful creatures and Titans to shift the tide of the battle.

The game's Early Access represents an open Workshop, a collaborative space where players are invited to actively shape the evolution of the game alongside the development team as a living, evolving experience shaped by community feedback. Unlike previous Closed Beta tests focused on performance work and technical stability, this phase shifts the focus toward gameplay depth, balance iteration, progression systems, and long-term feature development.

Aside from its recent side-quests, like the new K2 HE Concrete and Resin Editions, Keychron has been updating its Q- and V-series mechanical keyboards with the new Ultra designs, featuring new ZMK firmware and Silk POM switches, and the latest installments in that series are the V10 Ultra and the V0 Ultra, which have just been released with those same enhancements. The Keychron V10 Ultra, an Alice layout mechanical keyboard, retails at $124.99, while the V0 Ultra, a standalone wireless mechanical num pad, is launching at $69.99. Being part of the V-series means that both the V10 Ultra and V0 Ultra are made of ABS plastic, and, being part of the Ultra family means they will both feature 8K polling—although the usefulness of this is debatable on a mechanical keyboard. The V0 Ultra is a standard num pad with a row of four macro or navigation keys above the 10-key portion and a column of five macro keys to the left of it. It also has a programmable knob in the top left corner.

The Keychron V10 Ultra 8K features a 75% Alice layout, which is meant to improve ergonomics by allowing users to angle their hands inwards, opening up the chest and shoulders, and it has an additional column of macro keys and a programmable knob along the left edge of the keyboard. Both the V10 Ultra and V0 Ultra have south-facing per-key RGB backlighting, and the V10 Ultra has a claimed 660 hours of battery life from a 4,000 mAh battery on 2.4 GHz with the backlighting disabled. The V0 Ultra packs a smaller 1,800 mAh battery but still claims up to 360 hours of battery life with the backlighting disabled. Both the V10 Ultra and V0 Ultra feature double-shot PBT keycaps in the OSA profile, and they are available with Keychron Silk POM Red linear, Brown tactile, and Banana tactile switch options. Both keyboards are also hot-swappable with any Cherry MX-style switches. Both of the new releases also use poron gasket mounts, which help reduce negative auditory feedback and soften the typing feel. Both the keyboard and the num pad also offer Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C wired, and 2.4 GHz connectivity.

AMD today released the latest version of AMD Software Adrenalin drivers for AMD Radeon GPUs and integrated graphics solutions. Version 26.2.2 WHQL comes with optimization for "Resident Evil: Requiem" and "Marathon." The drivers fix an intermittent application crash or driver timeout when playing "Roblox Player" in the Car Zone Racing and Drifting, when task-switching on machines with Radeon RX 7000 series GPUs. A texture flickering or corruption issue noticed on Windows applications with Instant Replay and Record Desktop enabled on machines with RX 7000 series GPUs has also been fixed. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Software Adrenalin 26.2.2 WHQL

Despite recent concerns about driver updates, Lenovo's Legion Go has been a staple in the handheld gaming space since it launched, thanks to a large 8.8-inch display and the detachable controllers. Still, that large display can't compete with devices like the 11-inch OneXPlayer 2-in-1 devices as a portable general computing device. A new foldable Legion Go concept, leaked by Windows Latest, may be in development to potentially address users who want a handheld that can pull double duty as a handheld gaming device and a laptop. According to the leak, the Legion Go Fold will use a foldable POLED display that unfolds from a 7.7-inch form factor to 11.6-inches. The controllers will also allegedly connect wirelessly, enabling the display to be used in 7.7-inch mode in landscape mode or in either portrait or landscape mode while attached to the controllers in 11.7-inch mode—such a portrait mode display could conceivably be split to function somewhat like a Nintendo DS. Of course, there will also be a detachable keyboard accessory to use the Legion Go Fold as a mini laptop in 11.7-inch mode.

The specifications for the Legion Go Fold will also be nothing to sneeze at, featuring an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V, 32 GB of memory, and a 48 Wh battery. Lenovo will also keep the vertical FPS mode from the Legion Go and Legion Go 2 for the Legion Go Fold Concept. While the Legion Go Fold may launch as nothing more than a concept, Lenovo is one of a few laptop makers that brings these foldable compute concepts to market, with recent examples of this including the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 Rollable. So it's not entirely impossible that Lenovo will bring something like a Legion Go Fold to market at some point. That said, it would be a niche within a niche, so it doesn't seem entirely likely that we will see a commercial version of the foldable handheld at any point soon. Regardless, Lenovo will allegedly show off the concept at MWC 2026 on March 2, 2026.

Awekeys, one of very few companies making metal keycaps for mechanical keyboards, has just announced the Awekeys Air as its latest addition to the line-up. The Awekeys Air keycaps are low-profile keycaps designed for slim mechanical keyboards, like the Iqunix Magi65 Pro, NuPhy Air series, and even split ergonomic keyboards, like the ZSA Voyager and MoErgo Go60. The Awekeys Air series is available for both cross stems—for Choc V2 and Gateron switches—and Choc V1 stems, which are common on niche low-profile split keyboards, and Early Bird Kickstarter pricing starts at $109 for a 68-key DIY kit, $139 for a 95-key 80% Base kit, and $159 for a 113-key 100% kit. These prices are only for the Ivory White and Obsidian Black, with the Titanium Black and Satin Copper coming in slightly more expensive and the limited edition Satin Silver and Satin Gold costing as much as $249 for the 80% Base kit. These prices will also increase when the keycaps hit retail. The Kickstarter campaign lists MSRP of the Ivory White and Obsidian Black 100% kit colorways as $249, but keyboards and accessories often cost less than anticipated when moving from a Kickstarter to regular retail.

The Awekeys Air keycaps come in six different colors—Titanium Black, Ivory White, Obsidian Black, Satin Copper, Satin Silver, and Satin Gold—and Awekeys is offering a hand-finished brush finish on the Gold, Silver, Copper, and Titanium colorways. The keycaps themselves are made from a recycled alloy called cupronickel, which is predominantly copper and nickel, which resists corrosion, offers some anti-microbial benefits, and is considered low allergy risk—although you may want to avoid it if you have a known nickel allergy. The keycaps are also available with legends or as blanks, and the profile has a uniform height with spherical tops and a total height of 5 mm.

Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO), a global technology leader that designs, develops and supplies semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions, today announced it has begun shipping the industry's first 2 nm custom compute SoC built on its 3.5D eXtreme Dimension System in Package (XDSiP) platform. A proven modular, multi-dimensional stacked die platform, 3.5D XDSiP combines 2.5D techniques and 3D-IC integration using Face-to-Face (F2F) technology.

3.5D XDSiP is foundational to next-generation XPUs. With 3.5D XDSiP, consumer AI customers can deliver the most advanced XPU with unparalleled signal density, superior power efficiency and low latency to meet the massive computational demands of gigawatt-scale AI clusters. Broadcom's XDSiP platform allows compute, memory and network I/O to scale independently in a compact form factor, enabling high-efficiency, low-power computing at scale.

NVIDIA today released its latest GeForce 595.59 WHQL Game Ready driver, adding day-one support for Resident Evil Requiem and Marathon. The update also addresses several gaming-related issues, particularly affecting GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs. Fixes include intermittent black bar flickering in The Ascent, green artifacts in Total War: Three Kingdoms, and crash issues in Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age following recent driver updates. NVIDIA also resolved image corruption problems in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and a significant performance drop in Act 4 Part 1 of Quantum Break.

On the general fixes side, the 595.59 driver resolves an AV1 decode crash affecting certain workflows in Blackmagic Design applications when handling multiple OBUs (Open Bitstream Unit) within a single packet.

Update Feb 27th: We have removed the GeForce 595.59 WHQL driver from our Downloads section. Please clean-install an older version of the driver. NVIDIA released this statement:

We have discovered a bug in the Game Ready and Studio 595.59 WHQL drivers and have removed the downloads temporarily while our team investigates. For users that have already installed this driver and are experiencing issues with fan control, please roll back to 591.86 WHQL.

Update Feb 26 20:38 UTC: NVIDIA has pulled its GeForce 595.59 WHQL driver after users reported stability problems, including faulty fan detection leaving GPU coolers running on a single fan and clock speed issues. The company is pointing affected users back to the previous 591.86 WHQL release for now.

GeForce NOW's anniversary celebration reaches a chilling crescendo as Capcom's Resident Evil: Requiem creeps into the cloud - and the horrors look better than ever on a GeForce NOW Ultimate membership. To mark the occasion, a special launch bundle rises from the shadows, pairing the game with a yearlong Ultimate membership for a limited time. It's not a celebration party without treats. GeForce NOW is also offering members a new reward to use in Delta Force. Suit up and grab it alongside 11 new games joining the cloud this week.

The Nightmare Returns in the Cloud
A new era of survival horror dawns with Resident Evil: Requiem, the iconic Capcom series' most immersive entry yet. Follow FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft and veteran agent Leon S. Kennedy as their stories and playstyles intertwine in a chilling, emotional fight for survival. Return to Raccoon City, the ruined heart of a 1998 bioweapon disaster now buried in government secrecy. Grace investigates her mother's mysterious death while Leon, hardened by years of battling outbreaks, uncovers a new bioterror threat spreading through the Midwest. Classic Resident Evil survival horror returns with tense combat and clever puzzles - now enhanced with seamless switching between first‑ and third‑person views for a more personal nightmare.

TCL CSOT, a global leader in advanced display technologies and a subsidiary of TCL Technology (000100.SZ), is setting the tone for the industry ahead of Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2026. Under the theme "Super Pixel Beyond Limits", TCL CSOT will debut its groundbreaking Super Pixel technology on the global stage, alongside a spectrum of future-shaping products including advanced FMM OLED, inkjet-printed OLED (IJP OLED) and MLED applications. Guided by its core APEX philosophy, the company is delivering immersive, sustainable, next‑generation experiences across smartphones, tablets, notebooks, monitors, and beyond.

Introducing Super Pixel: Seeing Beyond Limits
At the forefront of TCL CSOT's showcase is Super Pixel technology, an innovation poised to redefine next-generation display performance. It delivers a powerful trifecta of benefits:

• High Clarity: Achieves sharpness comparable to WQHD SPR. By increasing sub‑pixel quantity by approximately 1.8%, it renders images that are more accurate, clear, and finely detailed.
• Smart Power Use: Optimized data processing reduces power consumption by up to 25% while maintaining image quality.
• Rapid Refresh: Leveraging a Real RGB pixel layout, Super Pixel requires less bandwidth than SPR, enabling refresh rates up to 40% higher.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of its highly anticipated JESD220H and JESD223G: Universal Flash Storage 5.0 and UFS Host Controller Interface (UFSHCI) 5.0. Designed for mobile applications, automotive and computing systems that demand high performance with low power consumption, UFS 5.0 will deliver faster data access and improved performance compared to its predecessor while maintaining compatibility with UFS 4.x hardware.

UFS offers high-performance, embedded storage with low power consumption, making it ideal for use in applications where power efficiency is essential. This includes computing and mobile systems like smartphones and wearables, as well as an expanding role in generative AI, automotive applications, edge computing and gaming consoles. Its high-speed serial interface and optimized protocol enable significant throughput for power-efficient system performance.

Phanteks today announces the 360M25-LCD AIO, a high-performance 360 mm liquid CPU cooler featuring an ultra-large 6-inch high-resolution IPS LCD as its centerpiece, combining powerful cooling performance with advanced hardware-level system customization. Built for high-end Intel and AMD platforms, the 360M25-LCD AIO features a pure copper cold plate and a 360 mm radiator paired with three M25 Gen 2 D-RGB fans, delivering strong airflow, efficient heat dissipation, and low noise under demanding workloads.

The 6-inch high-resolution (1480x720) IPS LCD offers sharp visuals with a smooth 60 Hz refresh rate and wide viewing angles while maintaining ample clearance for motherboard components and tall RGB RAM modules up to 51 mm in height. Multiple orientation options allow seamless integration across different system layouts. Customization is powered by the NEXLINQ App for Windows, enabling users to personalize the LCD with real-time system telemetry, temperatures, clock speeds, media, animations, and custom graphics. The display operates directly on the hardware, minimizing CPU overhead while ensuring smooth performance.

Supermicro, Inc., a Total IT Solution Provider for AI, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, is announcing the launch of the industry's first and highest-density blade server platform powered by the latest AMD EPYC 4005 series processors. Designed with a flexible, density-optimized blade architecture, Supermicro's new MicroBlade platform is designed for longevity and versatility. By including the latest AMD EPYC 4005 series processors, along with previous versions, the system provides seamless scalability and long-term investment protection, allowing organizations to expand and upgrade as compute requirements evolve.

"Our flexible blade architecture enables customers to mix different node types with different CPUs within a single enclosure and can incorporate up to 320 server nodes in a standard 48U rack," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "Supermicro continues to lead the industry in delivering advanced, energy-efficient platforms to market that maximize scalability, lower total cost of ownership, and protecting data center investments for the long term."

NVIDIA CFO Colette Kress confirmed that the gaming sector may struggle during the company's latest Q4 earnings call. In a short but very important note, she stated, "Looking ahead, while end demand for our products remains strong and channel inventory levels are healthy, we expect supply constraints to be the headwind to Gaming in Q1 and beyond." This sentence is rather vague but conveys the message that supply constraints will definitely impact the GeForce RTX 50 series lineup in the current quarter and possibly beyond. NVIDIA's current product inventory is in good shape, meaning that both silicon from TSMC and secured GDDR7 memory are sufficient for the time being, but once the inventory levels start to deplete, availability will become a problem.

Team Green has massive capacity secured at TSMC's facilities for manufacturing "Blackwell" GPUs, meaning that no production issues stem from that end. However, memory makers, with whom NVIDIA collaborates, are supply constrained in delivering their GDDR7 memory solutions, leaving NVIDIA with little to work with outside its high-margin server sector. As NVIDIA supplies its AIC partners with both memory and GPU dies, having no memory modules to bundle with the GPUs becomes a supply bottleneck, leaving the company waiting for weeks without a fresh inventory of memory modules. Hence, NVIDIA now expects that demand will continue to be strong among gamers, but the situation may be getting slightly worse as inventory levels start to deplete.

Intel has released its latest 101.8531 Non-WHQL Arc GPU graphics drivers, offering day-one game support for titles like Marathon, Resident Evil Requiem, and the World of Warcraft: Midnight DLC expansion pack. Intel notes that with this driver version, users of Intel Arc "Battlemage" and Arc "Alchemist" integrated and discrete GPUs will experience support and some performance improvements across other games, which are now being further optimized. For example, for "Panther Lake," this beta driver delivers a 35% FPS increase in Witcher 3 at 1080p with high settings, while Arc "Alchemist" sees a Resident Evil Requiem FPS boost of up to 40% on average at 1080p with ultra settings. Interestingly, Intel is optimizing new games for its older products, which is a promising sign for anyone considering purchasing the newer "Panther Lake" chips for gaming. With Intel planning to launch Core Ultra G3 SoCs for handhelds in a few months, consistent driver optimization is quite noteworthy.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc Graphics Driver 101.8531 Beta.

TrendForce's latest findings reveal that the expansion of AI applications from LLM training to inference has prompted CSPs to broaden data center build-outs beyond AI servers to include general-purpose servers. This shift has extended memory procurement beyond HBM3e, LPDDR5X, and high-capacity RDIMMs to RDIMMs across multiple densities. Aggressive additional orders have driven a sharp increase in conventional DRAM contract prices, lifting total DRAM industry revenue to $53.58 billion in 4Q25, up 29.4% QoQ.

Across segments, buyers have struggled to secure sufficient supply amid a widening supply-demand gap. This has significantly strengthened suppliers' pricing power. Conventional DRAM contract prices rose 45-50% QoQ, while blended contract prices for conventional DRAM and HBM increased 50-55%, marking an accelerated upswing across all product categories.

HighPoint Technologies, Inc., the leading provider of high-performance PCI Express (PCIe ) switching and storage expansion solutions, is proud to announce the launch of HighPoint's External CopprLink PCIe Architecture. Anchored by the PCI-SIG CopprLink standard, this groundbreaking architecture establishes a new benchmark for disaggregated AI, HPC, and professional media workflows, delivering a massive 64 GB/s of native throughput with unprecedented interoperability.

A Vendor-Neutral Foundation for PCIe 5.0 and PCIe 6.0 Technology Interoperability
As AI and data-intensive workloads continue to outpace the thermal and power thresholds of conventional server chassis, the need for a standardized external expansion framework has become mission-critical. HighPoint's new connectivity fabric is built upon the PCI-SIG CopprLink (CDFP) specification (SFF-TA-1032) to facilitate a truly vendor-neutral hardware environment. By adhering to this open industry standard, HighPoint ensures that today's PCIe 5.0 technology investments are fully forward-compatible with the emerging PCIe 6.0 specification, providing a sustainable, long-term ROI for data centers and enterprise IT architects.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today introduced its latest Galaxy Buds4 Pro and Galaxy Buds4, redefining what premium earbuds can deliver in both superior Hi-fi audio and everyday wearability. Built to sound as good as they feel, the Galaxy Buds4 series pairs exceptional sound quality with a more refined, computationally designed fit, bringing Samsung's most advanced audio and wearability innovations together in one seamless experience. For the first time, Buds4 Pro features a Super Wide Woofer, combined with enhanced Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and an enhanced Adaptive Equalizer (EQ), to supply full-spectrum sound true to the original recording—while intelligently adapting to real-world conditions. Thoughtful design updates, intuitive hands-free controls, and deeper AI integration further underscore Samsung's commitment to earbuds designed for how people listen, move, and live throughout the day.

"Samsung understands that a truly premium audio experience combines technical sound quality with how that sound feels throughout a user's day," said Ikhyun Cho, Corporate VP of Mobile Enhancement R&D Team, Mobile eXperience. "With the Galaxy Buds4 series, our design philosophy was uncompromising, providing all-day comfort without sacrificing audio performance, because these are what consumers value most. We engineered our most powerful Hi-fi audio and our most secure, ergonomic fit to enhance one another, delivering the best and most satisfying listening experience we've ever created."

NVIDIA reported its full-year 2025 results with massive revenue of $215.9 billion, with $68.1 billion coming in the fourth quarter. The company's earnings call after the results were published contained some interesting information and confirmed that the first "Vera Rubin" VR200 racks are shipping to customers as samples, with volume shipping to commence in the second half of 2026. NVIDIA confirmed that the upcoming platform, which includes the Vera CPU, Rubin GPU, NVLink 6 switch, ConnectX-9 SuperNIC, BlueField-4 DPU, and Spectrum-6 Ethernet switch, will be powering the next-generation trillion-parameter models with only one-fourth of the GPUs compared to the previous-generation "Blackwell" and will reduce inference costs by up to 10 times.

NVIDIA CFO Colette KressWe shipped our first Vera Rubin samples to customers earlier this week, and we remain on track to commence production shipments in the second half of the year. Based on its modular, cable-free tray design, Rubin will deliver improved resiliency and serviceability relative to Blackwell. We expect every cloud model builder to deploy Vera Rubin.

February was a big month as we launched a lot of new features and updates, all with one thought in mind: improving your Xbox gaming experience. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members can now stream their favorite games at up to 1440p resolution on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One X and Xbox One S consoles. On the Xbox PC app, we've added new sounds to help improve your controller navigation responsiveness. We've also listened to your feedback and added several new updates to the ROG Xbox Ally, including the ability to easily format your removable storage.

And, in case you missed it, we recently released Postgame Recaps to Xbox Insiders, which provides a recap of your recent gameplay on your PC, and the updated Xbox Cloud Gaming web experience is now in public preview for Insiders. Read all about these exciting updates, including new game additions, below.

AMD and Nutanix today announced a multi-year strategic partnership to jointly develop an open, full-stack AI infrastructure platform designed to power agentic AI applications everywhere. This agreement aligns to both companies' commitment to an open ecosystem for AI, providing customers with choice and easy-to-deploy, production ready, high-performance and efficient solutions that are optimized for Agentic AI, at the edge, inside enterprises, and across the cloud.

The partnership aligns silicon innovation, open runtime software and enterprise cloud orchestration technologies for AI to deliver scalable, production-ready agentic AI platforms across data centers, hybrid and edge environments. By optimizing the Nutanix Cloud and Nutanix Kubernetes Platforms on AMD EPYC CPUs and AMD Instinct GPUs and integrating the AMD ROCm software ecosystem and the AMD Enterprise AI platform into Nutanix AI full-stack solutions, the companies are developing an open solution for Agentic AI platforms using high-performance infrastructure and supported by a broad set of OEM partners.

Team Group Inc. today announced its strong return to Embedded World 2026, one of the world's premier events for embedded technologies, following its Embedded Award-winning presence at last year's exhibition. Building on this momentum, Team Group will focus on two core themes, "Edge to Action" and "Military", highlighting AI-driven intelligent applications alongside mission-critical data security solutions for highly sensitive environments.

The showcase will feature a comprehensive portfolio spanning high-performance embedded storage and military-grade physical destruction technologies, demonstrating Team Group's continued commitment to advancing efficiency, stability, and security across industrial and defense-related sectors while delivering end-to-end solutions that seamlessly connect edge computing with real-world deployment. Embedded World 2026 will take place from March 10-12 at the NürnbergMesse Convention Center in Nuremberg, Germany. Team Group cordially invites visitors to Hall 3 / Booth 3-349 to explore its latest embedded breakthroughs designed to enable more precise, trusted, and secure intelligent applications.

Sony is one of the gaming giants that's still stubbornly holding onto the idea of console exclusives, and Gran Turismo is one of the franchises that still sticks to Sony's living room gaming console. This isn't due to a lack of time or technical know-how, though, as is evidenced by a tidbit recently shared by industry insider, Jeff Grubb, on his podcast, Jeff Grubb's Game Mess. According to Grubb, Sony has an internal version of Gran Turismo 7 that runs on the Nintendo Switch 2, although it will seemingly never be released on Nintendo's newest handheld gaming console. This echoes previous rumors that there were other versions of Gran Turismo games with internal builds running on Windows and Linux as well as a version of Gran Turismo 6 with full VR support.

Speculation suggests that these internal, non-commercial builds of games like Gran Turismo are likely to be testing platforms for Sony's own future hardware endeavors, which the hardware and game development teams can use to gauge things like minimum required hardware specs, optimization, and even graphical fidelity options for smaller screens. The timing of this information lends credence to the existence of GT7 on the Switch 2, since Sony has allegedly been working on a full-fledged gaming portable console that is slated to launch alongside the PS6 somewhere between 2027 and 2029, depending on the state of the ongoing PC hardware shortage.

AMD announced its Ryzen AI 400 series "Gorgon Point" mobile APUs based on Zen 5 and Zen 5c cores at CES 2026 earlier this year, simultaneously showing off the AM5-based Ryzen AI 400-branded desktop APUs at the same show. Now, according to a new leak by Moore's Law is Dead on X, AMD will allegedly launch the new Ryzen AI 400-series desktop processors for AM5 in the first half of 2026. MLID adds that the launch may even happen as early as Q1. He also released what he claims to be a short promotional video of an AMD Ryzen AI 400 Pro processor in an AM5 socket to lend credence to his leak.

Exact specifications for the AM5 APUs are unconfirmed, but if they're anything like the laptop counterparts, it is expected that the new APUs will launch with the same silicon as Strix Point but with adjusted power management and increased clock speeds. This means we can expect to see the Ryzen AI 400 desktop processors top out with a 12-core (4× Zen 5; 8 × Zen 5c) CPU cluster tied to a 16 CU RDNA 3.5 iGPU, and a 60 TOPS NPU.

LG Display, the world's leading innovator of display technologies, today announced that all of its large-sized OLED panels, including those for TVs and monitors, have been recognized for their "perfect dimming technology" - earning the industry's first "100% dimming consistency" verification from UL Solutions, a global leader in applied safety science. This performance, as validated by UL Solutions, objectively demonstrates the superiority of OLED's pixel-level dimming.

Dimming consistency refers to a measurement method that evaluates, in percentage terms, how effectively a display reproduces content based on its brightness performance. A reference area is set in the center of the screen and is gradually reduced from 1/10 of the panel to 11/1000, 5/1000, and finally 2/1000. The results are expressed as a percentage: if the maximum and minimum brightness values remain the same throughout the process, dimming consistency is 100%. Conversely, as the value decreases, it means that there is light intensity variation within the same screen. In such cases, brightness differs depending on the position of the light source, even for the same color.

EA's Full Circle studio published the hotly anticipated Skate, a free-to-play live-service installment in the popular franchise, just six months ago, and to a booming 134,901 peak concurrent players. However, those figures quickly dropped to the little-over-2,000 daily players we see today, and it seems as though the dwindling player count may have been an indication of what's to come. According to a recent blog post put out by Full Circle, the studio will be "reshaping" itself, making changes to better support Skate's long-term future, and those changes mean that "some roles will be impacted," which is to say that the studio is laying off staff.

Neither EA nor Full Circle have commented on how many developers or team members are being laid off, but the studio says that these are individuals who helped build the foundation of Skate, suggesting that they were part of the core development and art teams. This announcement comes not too long after EA was bought out by a group consisting of PIF, Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, who subsequently announced a cost-savings plan that would see EA pivot to AI in order to increase efficiency, manage debt, and cut operating costs. The news of layoffs is also only the latest in a recent slew of layoffs and studio closures across the ailing gaming industry, which has seemingly hit the live-service genre particularly hard.

The State of New York's attorney general, Letitia James, has officially taken gaming giant, Valve, to court in a state court in Manhattan, alleging that the combination of games like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, and Dota, wherein players can earn and use real money to buy loot boxes, and Steam's Community Market, where rare skins and items can be sold, often for exorbitant prices, amount to "quintessential gambling." There are reports of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive skins selling for as much as $2.5 million, with the game touted as having the biggest in-game economy of any video game. Valve previously adjusted the way it presented loot boxes and their rewards to players, seemingly specifically to avoid EU gambling regulations.

The lawsuit, spotted by Reuters, alleges that "Valve's loot boxes are particularly pernicious because they are popular among children and adolescents," going on to state that these mechanics put children at risk of becoming addicted, with the complaint adding that children are four times more at risk of becoming addicted to gambling in adulthood if they are exposed to gambling before the age of 12. The lawsuit seeks restitution for players and a fine of three times Valve's earnings from any activities deemed to be illegal. Loot boxes are largely looked down on by gamers and lawmakers alike, because players are encouraged to spend money on them, and they provide no guarantee of any return or specific value. If James succeeds against Valve in the lawsuit, it could set a precedent that may result in sweeping changes across both Steam and the gaming industry at large.

SK hynix Inc. and Sandisk Corporation held "HBF Spec. Standardization Consortium Kick-Off" event at Sandisk Headquarters in Milpitas, California on the 25th (local time) announcing global standardization strategy of next-generation memory solution HBF (High Bandwidth Flash) aimed at the AI inference era. SK hynix said, "By making HBF an industry standard, together with Sandisk, we will lay the foundation for the entire AI ecosystem to grow together. A dedicated workstream under OCP will be launched with Sandisk to begin standardization work."

Recently, the AI industry is shifting from training which focuses on creating Large Language Models (LLMs) to inference, which accelerates actual AI services to users. Fast and efficient memory is essential as the number of users using AI services increases rapidly. However, the existing memory structure cannot meet the high capacity data processing and power efficiency at the same time in the inference stage and HBF technology is designed to address these limitations. HBF technology is a new memory layer between ultra-fast memory, HBM and high-capacity storage device, SSD. HBF technology can fill the gap between HBM's high performance and SSD's high capacity and ensure both capacity expansion and power efficiency required for AI inferencing. While HBM handles the high level bandwidth, HBF technology serves as a supporting layer in the architecture.

NuPhy is known for making some of the best mid-range low-profile mechanical keyboards, having recently launched the Node series, a $99.95-109.95 low-profile mechanical keyboard family shortly after releasing the V3 update for its Air series keyboards. Now, adding to its growing list of accessories for its aforementioned low-profile keyboard collection, NuPhy has released a NuPhy x Riel Aquarium nSA profile keycap set, which is available on the NuPhy site for $49.95.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the NuPhy Air 60 HE is live]

NuPhy designed the Aquarium keycap set in collaboration with Riel, and the set will be manufactured by KeyTok, but it uses NuPhy's low-profile, uniform-height nSA profile, which can also be found on its pre-built low-profile keyboards. The keycap set employs a whimsical sea-life theme, featuring various shades of blue and off-white alphanumeric and modifier keys and orange navigation accent keycaps. There are also alternative white and blue modifier keycaps featuring aquarium doodles. The Aquarium nSA keycap set is made of five-sided dye-sublimated PBT, and the set has a total of 159 keycaps. Given that nSA is a uniform-height keycap set, compatibility with ortholinear and small form factor keyboards with split spaces should actually be quite high.

Back at CES 2026, we got a brief look at Keychron's resin and concrete K2 HE Special Edition wireless TMR keyboards, but the company has officially launched both the Concrete Edition and Resin Edition K2 HE keyboards, with both keyboards launching via Keychron's direct-to-consumer online store for $199.99. Both keyboards are based on the K2 HE, which has been one of Keychron's more popular models since it launched, and there isn't much by way of technical improvements over the original K2 HE aside from the design update. The resin edition features a smoky translucent case with an almost marbled aesthetic that shifts in the light, while the concrete edition has a simpler brutalist design, with color-matched keycaps and a solid gray aesthetic.

Both the K2 HE Concrete and Resin Editions are based on the same MCU, TMR sensor, and switch architectures as the original K2 HE, meaning they use the same Gateron Double-Rail Magnetic Nebula switches as the original—with 4 mm total travel and enabling all the typical analog features and online customization via Keychron Launcher—and feature the same 1 kHz polling rate and wireless connectivity via Bluetooth 5.3 and 2.4 GHz. It also goes without saying that both keyboards have the same 75% layout as the previous K2 HE keyboards. The material changes have also resulted in different dimensions. The K2 HE Resin Edition measures 321.13 × 131.3 mm, with a 27.06 mm listed front height and 4° typing angle, while the Concrete Edition comes in at 322.13 × 132.13 mm with a 27.39 mm front height and 4° typing angle. Both also use an aluminium switch plate and have a tray-mount design.

NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) today reported record revenue for the fourth quarter ended January 25, 2026, of $68.1 billion, up 20% from the previous quarter and up 73% from a year ago. For fiscal 2026, revenue was $215.9 billion, up 65% from a year ago.

For the quarter, GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins were 75.0% and 75.2%, respectively. For fiscal 2026, GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins were 71.1% and 71.3%, respectively.

Today during IGN Fan Fest 2026, Swedish indie publisher Raw Fury and developer Christoffer Bodegård announced that their fantasy CRPG, Esoteric Ebb, will launch on March 3 for PC. Players will soon be able to step into Esoteric Ebb's isometric, Disco-inspired TTRPG-turned-CRPG gameplay, which features deep, branching dialogue and staggering player choice, in a richly imagined Arcanepunk fantasy world.

In Esoteric Ebb, the player is the Cleric, one of many menial laborers of the city of Norvik. Tasked to solve the mystery of an exploded Tea Shop, players will roll dice against the voices in their head, explore a fantasy city on the brink of its first-ever election, and strive to become a hero of legends. Or completely ruin the campaign.

There has been a lot of talk about the new Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma, since it was announced that she would be taking over from Phil Spencer, and she has even made a handful of statements about her intent for the future of the Xbox platform—even if some of those have simply led gamers and commentators to the conclusion that she is there to usher Xbox into the night. However, in a recent interview with Windows Central, Sharma and the new Xbox CCO (Chief Content Officer), Matt Booty, have commented on the immediate future of Xbox and what Sharma previously referred to as the "return to Xbox."

According to the two executives, the next steps revolve around the next-gen Xbox hardware platform, which is rumored to launch around 2028 as a PC-console hybrid, and Microsoft's first-party development efforts. Sharma said "For me, the spirit of 'Return to Xbox' is about returning to the spirit that the team was founded on... It's that spirit of surprise, it's the spirit of building something nobody else is willing to try," going on to explain that "I think that our core Xbox fans and players have invested up to 25 years of themselves in these universes and our console. I want to make sure everybody knows I'm committed to Xbox, starting with the console. We're going to keep meeting players where they are—the world continues to evolve and change. We're going to make sure Xbox is a great place for developers and players. We want to invest in reducing the artificial divide between different types of devices that they want to use with us. I think that's going to mean a lot more investment in breaking down the barriers, in helping developers build once and show up across different hardware experience."

Samsung Electronics today announced the Galaxy S26 series, powered by the most intuitive, proactive and adaptive Galaxy AI experiences yet and designed to simplify the tasks people do on their phones every day. From managing plans and finding information to capturing and refining content, Galaxy S26 reduces the effort and number of steps required to get things done. As Samsung's third-generation AI phones, Galaxy S26, S26+ and S26 Ultra handle complex tasks in the background, allowing users to focus on results rather than how the technology works.

The Galaxy S26 series was engineered with Samsung's most advanced capabilities working together as one: incredible performance, an industry-leading camera system and Galaxy AI. This provides a strong foundation that gives Galaxy S26 users the confidence to depend on their phone throughout the day without compromising security or privacy.

The leading system integrator iBUYPOWER is pleased to announce the official launch of its new Gen 10 series of prebuilt and custom gaming PCs. Built for those that demand cutting-edge gaming performance with contemporary aesthetics, iBUYPOWER is evolving its prebuilt computers by redefining how a modern gaming system should look and perform. To learn more, please visit: https://www.ibuypower.com/gaming-pcs/signatures/gen-10-series

iBUYPOWER's Trace X and Element Pulse X cases are at the heart of its Gen 10 lineup, as both cases feature refreshed, architectural-inspired designs that emphasize clean lines, panoramic views into your system, and eye catching RGB aesthetics. Both cases are also performance optimized, supporting high-end components like large GPUs, PSUs, and air coolers, and are backed by iBUYPOWER's comprehensive three-year labor and two-year parts warranty and nationwide Micro Center service support.

Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) introduces the Dell PowerEdge XR9700 server, a first of its kind closed-loop liquid-cooled, fully-enclosed, ruggedized server engineered to run Cloud RAN and edge AI workloads in unprotected outdoor environments. Designed to mount on utility poles, rooftops and building exteriors, the PowerEdge XR9700 brings high performance computing into dense urban areas, remote locations and space-constrained facilities where traditional data center infrastructure cannot reach.

Why it matters
Telecommunications operators and those working at the edge often struggle to deploy compute due to lack of power and space. The PowerEdge XR9700 solves this, delivering high performance compute directly at the point of need in an ultra-compact, zero-footprint IP66-rated enclosure that's sealed from the elements. For telecommunications operators, it provides a flexible, software-defined alternative to traditional RAN solutions, supporting Cloud RAN and Open RAN processing at the cell site. At the same time, the platform can run edge and AI applications directly where data is created and consumed.

Valve has steadily been adding features to SteamOS and the Steam Client since the release of the Steam Deck and leading up to the Steam Machine, but the latest Steam Deck Beta client update aims to address two main issues that have apparently been prevalent in the Steam Hardware Survey, which should result in more accurate GPU data reporting. The first change fixes incorrect VRAM reporting on some GPUs, although Valve doesn't provide any explanation about which GPUs are affected by this bug, while the second change makes it so that the Steam Client automatically detects the display adaptor with the most VRAM—therefore likely the most performant or the least likely to be an iGPU—when collecting Steam Survey information.

Aside from weird edge cases, like users running both a workstation GPU and a gaming GPU in one system, these changes should result in more accurate data from the Steam Hardware Survey. It's unclear how widespread these reporting issues were or how far back they go, but the changes are unlikely to have an effect before a wider roll-out, and it's unclear when the wider roll-out will happen. The beta client update also includes two minor updates to Steam Input. The update adds a multi-button selector for the button chord activator, which Valve says will improve compatibility with extra grip buttons on modern controllers. Valve has also changed the way the Gyro to Joystick Camera output works, matching the Gyro to Joystick Deflection behavior, which it says is useful for "identifying a game's internal joystick deadzone." Polishing both the Steam Hardware Survey results and Steam Input might be steps to prepare for the launch of the Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and Steam Frame.

ACEMAGIC's K1 Mini PC, powered by Intel's 12th Gen Core i5-12600H, is currently available at a substantial discount on Amazon US. Originally priced at $579.99, the system is now listed at $399.99, with an additional 10% off promo code bringing the final price down to $359.99. The promotion runs from February 4, 2026 (04:00 PST) through March 31, 2026 (23:59 PST).

Alder Lake-H Performance in a Compact Form Factor
The ACEMAGIC K1 is built around the Intel Core i5-12600H, a 12-core (4P + 8E) / 16-thread processor based on Intel's Alder Lake architecture. With boost clocks up to 4.5 GHz, the chip offers significantly higher multithreaded performance compared to typical low-power U-series mini PC CPUs, and even outpaces processors such as the i5-12450H in many workloads.

To purchase from the United States, visit this page (Amazon link).

To purchase from Canada, visit this page (Amazon Canada link).

Micron chose to unveil its latest developments in graphics memory via a blog post titled "The new performance bottleneck: How more GPU memory unlocks next gen gaming and AI PCs" which explains that its latest GDDR7 memory will allow for graphics cards with as much as 96 GB of VRAM. Micron isn't the first company with 24 Gbit or 3 GB density GDDR7 memory chips, as Samsung sampled partners back in November of last year.

Samsung's 3 GB GDDR7 chips are also offering 36 Gbps bandwidth, so Micron doesn't stand out here either and this might be why the company snuck out the details of its new product in a blog post rather than putting out a press release. Micron claims that its new GDDR7 chips offer improved efficiency, but doesn't go into any details as to what this means. The rest of the blog post is mostly about the benefits of GDDR7 at higher density and speeds and the benefits it will bring to graphics cards, AI PCs and what not. The chips aren't listed on Micron's website as yet, despite the blog linking to Micron's GDDR7 product page.

The CP152-1 is a concept PCIe storage adapter card designed to explore market demand for a compact, rear-swappable 2.5" SATA SSD/HDD solution with built-in RAID 1 functionality. By utilizing a dual-slot PCIe form factor, the CP152-1 enables the installation of two 9.5 mm 2.5" SATA drives with RAID 1 or JBOD support, delivering a simplified approach to data protection and storage expansion without the need for traditional drive cages or backplanes.

The CP152-1 adopts a rear-accessible removable tray architecture, allowing system integrators to evaluate alternative service workflows and chassis layouts while maintaining a clean, cable-free PCIe installation.

Blizzard's recent rebrand of Overwatch 2 to just Overwatch also saw the game studio announce a series of new heroes coming in the first season of Overwatch's new era, one of which is Jetpack Cat, who quickly became a fan favorite. In a recent appearance on The Omnic Podcast, Overwatch's associate director, Alec Dawson, said that the popularity of Jetpack Cat, and other unorthodox characters, has led the development and design teams to consider more "oddball" heroes for future releases. Blizzard has promised to add one hero to the game every season for the first year—meaning a new hero every two months—but there was no word on whether the plan was to continue at this cadence indefinitely. In the podcast, though, Dawson clarifies that this is the goal as long as it's sustainable and there's no big gameplay event or similar to get in the way. He also says that this release cadence also gives the developers "a lot more opportunities to take some chances" on gameplay differentiation, different roles, and "something a little bit different" so that players can find characters they enjoy playing with or whose design they enjoy. He adds that the response to Jetpack Cat has been heard in the Overwatch team, and it "helps us think about what sort of characters and heroes we want to do in the future, as well."

At the same time, in a recent interview with PCGamesN, Dawson commented that Jetpack Cat is the most banned character in Overwatch at the moment, and that is a situation Blizzard would like to address so that she can be used more frequently in competitive matches. "We love the cat, but we are going to tone down a little bit of her aggression," he continued to explain that Jetpack Cat's ability to dive a backline will likely be somewhat suppressed in an upcoming nerf: "When she gets both her minor perk, Claws Out, and her major perk, Territorial, the combination allows her to be an absolute menace that's diving backlines and taking 1v1s. So we're going to tone that down just a little bit and see how that goes, but the cat won't be scratching as much as she is currently." He added that the hero ban feature has been helpful to guide the balance and development of heroes, which will likely only become more complicated with the new hero release cadence. Notably, Blizzard has also been responding to community feedback on topics like hero design, as was the case with another new hero, Anran, who was criticized for looking generic after her announcement.

AMD has announced its EPYC 8005 series server processors, codenamed "Sorano". These new CPUs are filling the gap between the EPYC 9005 high-end Zen 5 lineup and the lower-tier EPYC 4005 parts. The new 8005 series succeeds the EPYC 8004 "Siena" family and targets single-socket (1P) platforms with an emphasis on telecom, edge, and vRAN (Virtual Radio Access Network) workloads. Built on the Zen 5 architecture, EPYC 8005 is designed around performance-per-watt and performance-per-dollar rather than peak multi-socket scalability. With these new server CPUs, AMD is targeting the telco sector where power and space-constrained environments are key factors in cell sites and distributed edge locations. AMD has not yet published a full SKU list or detailed specifications about the EPYC 8004 CPUs. However, the company says the lineup will scale up to 84 cores in a single-socket configuration, with SKUs operating in power envelopes up to 225 W.

AMD is also highlighting wide thermal operating ranges and support for NEBS (Network Equipment-Building System) compliant platforms. For vRAN specifically, EPYC 8005 adds targeted LDPC (Low-Density Parity Check) decoding optimizations to improve Layer 1 acceleration for 5G workloads. AMD claims improved uplink throughput and more efficient forward-error-correction processing, while maintaining the deterministic behavior required in RAN environments, thanks to the updated Zen 5 execution pipeline and vector capabilities. The EPYC 8005 "Sorano" CPUs should become available in the following months, with more details about the platform and performance likely closer to launch.

The disappointing launch of Highguard has been well documented by now, but the game has just hit a new low, despite recent developer efforts to keep things afloat following a round of layoffs. According to SteamDB, Highguard's player count has continued to trend downwards, reaching a new low of just 743 peak concurrent players in the 24-hour period preceding publication. February 23 marked the first time the game dipped below 1,000 peak concurrent players in a 24-hour period—down from a launch peak of 97,249—and player counts haven't recovered since then.

No Man's Sky had a similar launch trajectory, releasing with a massive 212,000+ peak player count which quickly dwindled to just over 1,000 in 2018 before the game's surprise resurrection—it now sits at around 20,000 peak concurrent daily players. Highguard's dwindling player count is despite recent content updates reportedly bringing a bit more excitement to the gameplay—recent reviews show an uptick in positive feedback and a reduction in negative reviews.

A few days ago, we reported that AMD is seemingly ending driver support for its Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC, just two and a half years after its launch. Since Lenovo issued product guidance that the company will no longer provide updates, and ASUS's own ROG Ally handheld console had not received an update in over six months, the situation was dire. However, ASUS today released a new driver update for its ROG Ally handheld console, which had been stuck with six-month-old SoC drivers from August 2025. This changes the situation from the platform being completely abandoned for half a year to a periodic update window that will likely continue unless gamers encounter a surprise change.

Initially, we couldn't determine the "blame" for this irregular driver update cycle, as it could have been either AMD or OEMs being slow with the driver updates. As AMD offers configurable TDP (cTDP) for the Z1 Extreme with values ranging from 9 to 30 W, this means that OEMs can get SoCs in various configurations, each needing to be tested and verified before distributing an official driver. To add more to the mess, Lenovo Korea has confirmed that their own driver update plan for the product has stopped, leaving users to switch to other platforms or use Linux-based operating systems that carry their own drivers for these platforms to extract maximum longevity. Hence, the entire situation is now more complicated.

Distant Shore is proud to announce the launch of the Distant Shore: BRETAGNE demo during Steam Next Fest! You can download this free taste of the Distant Shore: BRETAGNE world on Steam and prepare for the full release.

Distant Shore: BRETAGNE landed with a bang during its breakout reveal at the first edition of the New Game+ Showcase. We can't wait to share Distant Shore: BRETAGNE for the first time publicly during the Steam Next Fest. It's a major milestone for us, and we're excited to see how the community reacts. Distant Shore: BRETAGNE is a first-person parkour physics based game, where you wield your magnetic gauntlets to move, bend and break metal obstacles. Navigate through a ravaged world to complete the mission given by your employer.

Samsung is officially ending the production of its 2D NAND flash storage this year, and the company will be repurposing its old production lines to better fit the AI-driven demand. According to The Elec Korea, Samsung plans to officially stop 2D NAND production at its Hwaseong site, with Line 12 being the one carrying this aging technology. Instead of completely abandoning this facility, which houses plenty of chip-making tools, Samsung will repurpose them for DRAM metallization, which is the process of applying actual pathways within the DRAM itself to connect memory cells. Interestingly, the Hwaseong Line 12 holds a monthly wafer production capacity of 80,000 to 100,000 12-inch wafers. This is a significant number of wafers, which are now only used for 2D NAND Flash, a technology that is no longer needed in the wake of 3D NAND Flash technology.

Continuing the Line 12 legacy will be Samsung's 6th-generation 10 nm-class 1c DRAM, a technology used for HBM4, and Samsung expects the total wafer capacity for 1c DRAM to reach about 200,000 wafers per month in the second half of the year. Adapting the old 2D NAND Flash production site will definitely help, and Samsung will run this production along with Pyeongtaek Line 3 and Line 4.

Just ahead of CES, LG announced a range of new monitors and now, the biggest one of the new models, the UltraGear EVO 52G930B is available for pre-order. Back then, LG didn't reveal much in terms of details about its 52-inch giant, but the company did reveal the 5120 x 2160 pixel resolution, the 240 Hz refresh rate and the 1000R curvature. Now we know that the 52G930B will also support DisplayHDR 600 and 95% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. The panel is likely to cause some disappointment, as it's a VA panel with a contrast ratio of 4000:1 and a 1 ms grey to grey response time. Unfortunately LG doesn't provide any details with regards to what type of backlight is being used, but HDR600 doesn't require FALD. The 52G930B also has AMD FreeSync Premium support and a range of built in gaming features.

Somewhat disappointingly, the LG 52G930B only sports a single DisplayPort 2.1 input, but the two HDMI 2.1 ports also support the full resolution and refresh rate on offer here. The USB Type-C port seems to still be limited to DP 1.4 with DSC and possibly lower chroma subsampling, as even though it can support the full resolution, it tops out at 200 Hz. The monitor also has a pair of USB 3.0 Type-A ports and a headphone jack that supports DTS Headphone:X. There's also a pair of built in stereo speakers and some RGB lights around the rear. As with many other of LG's more premium monitors, KVM support and Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture is supported. Finally the stand is height adjustable and the display can be tilted and swiveled. LG is asking for US$1999.99 and the monitor is said to start shipping around the 22nd of March.

In Yongin, South Korea, the towering frame of a semiconductor fab has emerged, reaching the height of a 50-story apartment building to form the massive Yongin Semiconductor Cluster. With construction gaining momentum, SK hynix announced Feb. 25 that it has decided to invest approximately 21.6 trillion KRW (15 billion USD) in the new facility for the first fab by the end of December 2030. This brings the total investment for the construction of the first fab to approximately 31 trillion KRW (approx. 21.5 billion USD), which includes the approximately 9.4 trillion KRW (approx. 6.5 billion USD) facility investment previously announced in July 2024.

This investment comes from a strategic decision to proactively address rapidly growing global customer demand and further strengthen supply system stability. With the expansion of advanced industries such as AI, data centers, and high-performance computing (HPC), the demand for high-performance and high-density semiconductors is also experiencing structural growth. To keep pace with these changes, SK hynix aims to expand production capacity ahead of schedule and establish a foundation to ensure a stable supply of products for customers when they require it.

The all-white SAPPHIRE PURE X870A WIFI 7 returns with Wi-Fi 7, PCIe 5.0, SAPPHIRE CORE BIOS, and TriXX-M software, delivering high performance and striking design for gamers and PC builders.

Next-Gen Performance Meets Sleek Design
SAPPHIRE Technology today launches the SAPPHIRE PURE X870A WIFI 7, a fully white AM5 motherboard designed for gamers, system builders, and modders who want exceptional performance and standout aesthetics. Powered by the AMD X870 chipset and supporting Ryzen 7000, 8000, and 9000 Series processors, the SAPPHIRE PURE X870A WIFI 7 delivers speed, stability, and reliable gaming performance in a crisp, unified white design. SAPPHIRE PURE has always embodied a coordinated, minimalist aesthetic, and the X870A continues this legacy. Every detail, from heatsinks to layout, has been designed to create a bright, cohesive look that complements modern white-themed builds, appealing to users who value both style and substance.

HP Inc. and its subsidiaries ("HP") announced fiscal 2026 first quarter net revenue of $14.4 billion, up 6.9% (up 5.2% in constant currency) from the prior-year period.
"We are pleased to report a strong first quarter, highlighted by robust growth in Personal Systems, including the continued momentum in AI PCs. Our performance reflects the strength of our portfolio and our disciplined execution of our Future of Work strategy, even as we navigate industry-wide headwinds," said Bruce Broussard, Interim CEO, HP Inc.

• First quarter GAAP diluted net earnings per share ("EPS") of $0.58, down 1.7% from the prior year period
• First quarter non-GAAP diluted net EPS of $0.81, up 9.5% from the prior year period
• First quarter net revenue of $14.4 billion, up 6.9% from the prior-year period
• First quarter net cash provided by operating activities of $383 million, free cash flow of $175 million
• First quarter returned $0.6 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends

The popular hardware diagnostics utility HWiNFO launched its latest v8.42 version on February 24th. Interestingly, one of the main features of this release is the improved support for Intel "Nova Lake" processors, despite this CPU generation being months away from commercial launch. This means that the tool can now distinguish between different Intel processors and even run diagnostics on engineering samples of "Nova Lake-S," despite the processor not being commercially available for another few quarters. It is possible that the utility is now raising a flag when detecting "Nova Lake," which has its own unique processor ID, and this could be found in some early compiler patches for GCC and LLVM that are enabling these processors before launch. With the launch of v8.42, the tool also gains NPU stress testing, but only in the Pro version.Below is the complete changelog.

One of the simpler solutions manufacturers have come up with to mitigate the ubiquitous 12v-2×6 GPU power connector meltdowns is colored cable terminations that simply give the user an indication that the GPU power connector is properly connected. According to a recent post on r/MSI_Gaming, those colored connectors are both doing their jobs and causing concerns among MSI PSU users. The original poster shared an image of the stock 12v-2×6 power cables of an MSI MPG A1000GS ATX 3.1 PSU that had slowly been creeping out of both the PSU and PNY RTX 5080 GPU connectors over the course of two months, exposing the colored yellow connector end that is meant to serve as a warning against thermal meltdown events.

While the slowly loosening connector had not yet resulted in a meltdown, it had seemingly started causing instability in the user's system during heavy gaming loads. What's more concerning is the multitude of comments in the Reddit thread echoing the OP's story, saying that they had properly connected both ends of the cable until there was a positive click, but despite this, the cable seemed to be creeping out at one or both ends. Some commenters hypothesized that part of the reason for these meltdown events that happen so long after the system was first built is that repeated thermal cycling causes the plastic connector to expand and contract, resulting in the cable slowly coming loose. The redditor was eventually told to request a replacement unit through Amazon, but if the number of similar reports in the same thread are anything to go by, the issue appears to be at least somewhat widespread with MSI's cables.

Sony's upcoming Horizon Hunters Gathering three-player co-op game was revealed earlier this month, but it seems as though Sony is deeper into development than it let on during the announcement, because the gaming giant is apparently already ready for its first Horizon Hunters Gathering closed beta test. Sony announced the beta test via a post on the game's official X account, linking to a website where you can register to try out the game ahead of its official launch. The Horizon Hunters Gathering closed beta will take place from February 27 to March 1 for both PS5 and PC players (via Steam).

The closed beta will be limited to three playable hunts—Axle, Rem, and Sun—two game modes—Machine Incursion and Cauldron Descent—and just one environment—Colorado Springs, and only players from the USA, Canada, and much of Europe will be eligible for the closed beta, and the US play test will be limited to 4 PM-7 PM PST, while EU players will be allowed to play at 7 PM-10 PM CET. Players will also be subject to selection by Sony, so applying via the PlayStation Beta Program will not guarantee access to the beta. PlayStation players will be allowed to bring along two friends, for a full party of three, but PC players looking to test the beta with friends will need to apply separately—no free invites for friends on Steam. The play test will also be under strict NDA, which means players will not be able to share any gameplay or opinions outside of Sony's beta tester Discord server, nor will they be allowed to share screenshots or stream gameplay.

Shortly after Discord announced a plan to expand its use of Persona age verification globally as part of its new "teen-by-default" account settings, it has confirmed in a recent FAQ page update that it will not require age verification for "90%+ of users" after facing significant backlash. The social media platform explains that it will be going ahead with its teen-by-default, but that most users just don't access age-restricted content or because the internal age verification systems will be able to automatically determine age without any user action. Discord's CTO, Stanislav Vishnevskiy, said in a blog post that "we knew this rollout was going to be controversial. Any time you introduce something that touches identity and verification, people are going to have strong feelings," but effectively explained that the original announcement was misinterpreted or explained badly. He goes on to say that Discord was evaluating Persona for biometric age verification data in an experiment in January, but has since decided not to proceed with the Persona partnership because it did not meet the bar of requiring on-device verification. He does, however, say that Discord will require age verification via k-ID in countries like Australia, Brazil, and the UK, where laws require it and do not allow Discord's internal estimation system. Discord will also be introducing a new "spoiler" channel option, which will allow communities to stop using age-restricted channels to avoid discussions about spoilers and politics.

At the same time, however, it was revealed in a post on Bluesky that Twitch has adopted Persona as an age verification system for Twitch Partners in order to receive payment. The age verification process required users to submit a selfie along with an image of a government ID card, passport, or driver's license. This report of mandatory Persona age verification on Twitch comes shortly after it was reported that hackers had discovered an exposed frontend for Persona that both demonstrated the platform's lackluster security and revealed ties to the US government and a potential mass-surveillance apparatus, although these were partially explained as an upcoming partnership with the government to verify the identities of remote federal workers. It's unclear how widespread Twitch's use of Persona is at this point in time, but a number of creators have made their voices heard via an open letter in Twitch's User Voices feature in light of the recent controversies surrounding Persona.

Apple is preparing a massive refresh cycle for its 2026 MacBook Pro laptops, with the major redesign being at the very center of the laptop. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, one of the most reliable sources of Apple news, the company is preparing to implement its Dynamic Island feature on its MacBook Pro 14 and MacBook Pro 16 versions, both of which will carry the new feature. Alongside Dynamic Island, which is replacing the traditional notch we have on MacBooks today, Apple is also implementing OLED display technology that will replace the current Mini LED display found on the current generation of MacBooks.

For the Dynamic Island, Apple will bring over much of the functionality from its iPhone models, which includes status updates and a front camera cutout, but in a different shape. As the iPhone uses the Dynamic Island to host Face ID sensors, the MacBook Pro version should only include a camera sensor cutout with software support from the OS. However, the most interesting part of the announcement should be the touchscreen ability with OLED panels. Apple is reportedly optimizing its new operating system to unlock new gestures for touch, where each touch will invoke a new panel or a new interface. This design will reportedly not be similar to the iPad, but just another sensory aid to the current input method with a keyboard and a mouse.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach is slated to launch on March 19 for PC after almost nine months as a PS5 exclusive, and Nixxes and Kojima Productions just revealed the minimum PC hardware requirements, as well as the supported upscaling and graphical enhancement options, in a PlayStation Blog post. According to the blog post, the absolute minimum spec, which gets you 30 FPS as 1080p with low settings, requires an AMD Ryzen 3 3100 or Intel Core i3-10100, 16 GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8 GB. Medium, or 1080p with medium settings, requires an RTX 3060 12 GB or Radeon RX 6600, and an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 or Intel Core i5-11400. Stepping it up to High (or recommended specs), which gets you 1440p at 60 FPS with high settings, requires an AMD Radeon RX 6800 or NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 and an AMD Ryzen 7 5700X or Intel Core i7-11700. Very High, or 4K resolution at 60 FPS with very high settings, calls for an upgrade to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 or Radeon RX 9070 XT, while the CPU and memory specs remain the same as for the High tier. All spec tiers require 16 GB of memory, Windows 11 or Windows 10 1909 or up, and at least a 150 GB SSD.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will also offer PC players support for both 21:9 and 32:9 ultrawide aspect ratios, and players with 16:9 displays can simulate a cinematic experience by opting for a 21:9 aspect ratio with black bars on the top and bottom of the display—this option will also be introduced for PS5 at the same time as the PC release. PC players will also get support for upscaling tech from all three GPU manufacturers: NVIDIA DLSS 4, AMD FSR 4, and Intel XeSS 2, with both frame generation and upscaling options available. These upscaling options can be used in conjunction with Dynamic Resolution Scaling, and players will be able to adjust upscaling quality. The game will also see the debut of Pico—Progressive Image Compositor—on PC. This is the upscaling technology used by Death Stranding 2 on PS5 and developed by Guerrilla Games for the Decima engine, and it can also be used alongside all available frame generation options and on all available graphics card manufacturers. The game will also offer native AA options for those not interested in upscaling.

Marvel's Wolverine has been on Sony's release roster for ages, with Sony having released a brutal trailer for the game as far back as September 2025. Insomniac Games, the Studio at the game's helm, just confirmed on X that Wolverine will launch on September 15, 2026, which is right in the middle of the previously promised "fall 2026" release window. Unfortunately, as expected, Marvel's Wolverine appears to be a console exclusive, at least at launch. There is no mention of a PC or Xbox launch date anywhere on the PlayStation Store or in the release date trailer.

Marvel's Wolverine will follow the titular character as he "searches for answers about his past," and the trailer reveals that players will revisit Logan's complex history as an anti-hero, fighting against and potentially alongside the likes of Sabretooth and Mystique, with scenes from the trailer teasing locations ranging from the American west to Japanese back alleys. The PlayStation Store page also confirms that Marvel's Wolverine will be single-player only and will feature offline play. Marvel's Spider-Man 2, another Marvel game developed by Insomniac for the PS5, initially launched on PS5 in October 2023, but only made it to PC in January 2025; if that game is any indication, it'll be a little over a year after launch before Marvel's Wolverine makes it to PC.

NVIDIA has posted multiple job openings, which give us several hints about the company's plans for gaming on Linux and what the possible plan could look like. According to the now-removed listing, NVIDIA is hiring engineers to diagnose CPU and GPU performance bottlenecks on Linux when running the Proton compatibility layer and Vulkan graphics API. This suggests that NVIDIA is either refining its product support for the massive wave of gamers transitioning to Linux or preparing for an entirely new platform. For example, as NVIDIA is currently preparing N1/N1X SoCs for laptops, the company could create dedicated handheld chips for devices like Valve's Steam Deck, which currently runs on AMD's SoC. There are multiple handheld vendors now, and NVIDIA could be powering a new handheld with its laptop N1/N1X chips under Linux.

The job descriptions clearly indicate that the work will cover everything from the game engine and translation layers, such as Proton, to drivers and hardware interaction. This focus suggests that efforts will not be limited to profiling but will also include proposing API usage changes, building repeatable test cases, and collaborating with translation-layer and distribution maintainers to implement fixes. Anyone using NVIDIA graphics under Linux will also be impacted, as the company's polishing of the software stack will bring a definitive quality of life improvement to games. This can include fewer stutters, better frame pacing, and reduced CPU overhead in titles that rely on Vulkan or run under Proton, which translates Windows-specific API calls and optimizes games to run on Linux.

Shortly following the recent announcement that Phil Spencer would be leaving as the head of Xbox Gaming, the division's new CEO, Asha Sharma, released a long statement expressing her distaste for AI slop and her belief that, although "AI has long been part of gaming and will continue to be," games "are and always will be art, crafted by humans and created with the most innovative technology provided by us." Many gamers have been skeptical of these and similar statements now and in the past, but it seems as though industry veteran and founder of Xbox, Seamus Blackley, seems to be convinced that those are empty words, whether Sharma believes it or not. In a recent interview with GamesBeat, Blackley said about Sharma that he believes "her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night," going on to say that assurances like the aforementioned one by Sharma are "just what occurs to people to say when they bring in someone from an outside business into games."

In Blackley's view, Microsoft's bet on AI will result in a lot of the non-AI businesses being sunsetted, and that is what is happening to Xbox under the new CEO. He says that, just like AI has taken over "everything else," it will take over gaming as well, at least at Microsoft, going on to say that "Asha's background is entirely in software as a service and AI. The implicit thing here is that games is going to be AI-driven software as a service." Part of his justification for this belief is that, despite gaming industry veteran, Matt Booty, acting as Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer, Sharma is an outsider to the gaming industry and doesn't necessarily understand the industry. His concern is that such an outsider, especially one coming from an AI background, can only see gaming in an abstract way. That said, he does admit that there have been outsiders that have succeeded in gaming, but those that have understood that gaming is a content business. He also jokingly says that her statement about the future of Xbox "reminded me of that meme 'Hello, fellow kids!'" and that she would have to figure out what's interesting about gaming.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today announced two new colorways for its next‑generation creator webcams, the Razer Kiyo V2 and Razer Kiyo V2 X. Now available in Quartz and White, the stunning new finishes join classic Black to give creators more ways to build a setup that reflects their personal style.

Razer Kiyo V2 gets smarter with AI Face Retouching
Alongside the new color options, the Kiyo V2 introduces AI Face Retouching via Camo Studio for instant, studio-ready polish. Designed to look natural on camera, the adjustable feature subtly smooths imperfections, while adapting to lighting and environmental changes in real time. Users can enable this new AI tool by updating to the latest version of Camo Studio.

We previously covered how enterprising gamers managed to bypass AMD's FSR 4 restrictions to get Redstone frame generation tech working on older RDNA GPUs with OptiScaler. Now, it seems as though OptiScaler has managed bypass another one of AMD's limitations that restricted FSR 4 implementations to DirectX 12 games. According to the build notes uncovered by a Reddit user u/eduhfx, OptiScaler is testing adding Vulkan support in a new test build v0.9.0-pre10. Notably, OptiScaler is using a compatibility tool to work around FSR 4's lack of Vulkan support, similarly to how Linux translates DirectX, calls to Vulkan with DXVK or VKD3D. This also means that FSR 4 on Vulkan should work on Linux systems, as well, where games often run better under Vulkan than DX12—although at the time of writing, FSR 4 w/DX12 currently has issues running on Linux due to a Mesa issue that seemingly cannot be solved by the OptiScaler team.

Added Vulkan w/DX12 support - FSR 4 VK w/DX12, FSR 2.1 VK w/DX12

Currently, known issues:
FSR 4 VK w/DX12 has issues on Linux due to missing Mesa extensions
Not interested in reports as nothing we can fix on our side as far as we know

ORIGIN PC today announced the launch of the new NEURON, marking the most dramatic evolution of the platform since its debut and redefining what a showcase desktop can look like. The new NEURON introduces a fully panoramic glass design and advanced airflow engineering that elevates both presentation and performance for gamers, creators, and hardware enthusiasts. First unveiled at CES 2026, the NEURON is now available for customers who want high-end components to be seen and kept cool under demanding workloads.

The updated NEURON features a wraparound single piece glass panel that provides near 360-degree visibility of the interior. A spacious modular layout, improved routing channels, and compatibility with today's largest GPUs allow users to create clean, presentation ready systems that highlight every component.

Endorfy is expanding portfolio with its first-ever microATX computer cases. Inspired by the popular Signum 300 series, the Signum M30 line is designed for users who want the full functionality of a modern PC in a compact mini-tower form factor.

The lineup includes two models - Signum M30 ARGB and Signum M30 Air - striking an ideal balance between compact dimensions and extensive configuration options. Both cases support graphics cards up to 345 mm in length, radiators up to 240 mm, and up to seven fans. As a result, they provide a versatile foundation for powerful gaming rigs, modern workstations, or office PCs built around microATX, Mini-ITX, or Flex ATX motherboards.

Each week, new games and apps integrating NVIDIA DLSS, NVIDIA Reflex, and advanced ray-traced effects are released or announced, delivering the definitive PC experience for GeForce RTX players.

DLSS 4.5 is our latest upgrade to the ever-improving DLSS Super Resolution, adding a second generation transformer model that further enhances image quality. Via the NVIDIA app, you can apply DLSS 4.5 Super Resolution to your game library on all GeForce RTX PCs and laptops, instantly upgrading clarity and quality.

Just last week, we reported on the closure of Spliced, a newly formed NetEase game studio that suffered layoffs even before it had announced or released any games. Now, that same misfortune has come for TiMi Montreal, a division of TiMi founded in mid-2021 to create AAA, open-world, multi-platform games. The studio's closure was revealed in a now-removed LinkedIn post (via Game File) by a programmer at the studio, who said that "Today, TiMi Montreal is officially closing its doors," and goes on to lament the fact that the "the public will never get to experience what this team was capable of producing."

While TiMi Studio Group has been responsible for a number of high-profile mobile and cross-platform titles, including Call of Duty Mobile, Delta Force, Arena of Valor, and Age of Empires Mobile, among others, TiMi Montreal had not even announced any projects. The studio and its parent company, Tencent, also have yet to address the alleged closure, but several other employees sounded off in the comments of the original LinkedIn post, suggesting that the news of the closure is more than just hearsay. This news also comes shortly after Sony shuttered Bluepoint games, serving as yet another indication of an ailing gaming industry. Of course, without an official statement or more information, it's difficult to know how many employees were affected by the closure or how many will go on to work internally at Tencent or other TiMi studios, for example.

Rise of Piracy is now available in Early Access on Steam. Developed as a passion-driven project, Rise of Piracy blends action, exploration, and real-time strategy into a sandbox pirate experience where players carve their own path across a fully hand-crafted world of open seas, rival factions, and large-scale warfare.

Starting their journey at sea and growing into the commander of a formidable fleet, players can trade, explore, conquer islands, engage in diplomacy, or dominate through naval firepower and coordinated land assaults. The Early Access launch delivers a complete and replayable campaign foundation, designed to expand further with community feedback.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) is proud to announce a collaboration with world-renowned game studio KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS, as well as the launch of the ROG Flow Z13-KJP along with a new lineup of KJP peripherals. ROG and KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS are driven to create products and experiences tailored for gamers.

Cutting-edge gaming hardware meets visionary storytelling
At the heart of this collaboration is 'Ludens'—the belief that humans are not only thinkers, but also players and creators. The collaboration combines the spirit of the ROG motto For Those Who Dare with KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS' vision From Sapiens to Ludens. Ludens are the ones who experiment, mod, create, and challenge what games—and gaming hardware—can be. By uniting cutting-edge ROG hardware with KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS' visionary storytelling, this partnership is a tribute to that spirit: everything we build, every detail we design, is for gamers everywhere—For Ludens Who Dare.

The MIPI Alliance, an international organization that develops specifications that standardize wired interfaces for mobile and other connected ecosystems, today announced major updates to two of its foundational specifications. MIPI UniPro v3.0 and MIPI M-PHY v6.0 offer significant performance, latency and power-efficiency improvements for next-generation JEDEC Universal Flash Storage (UFS 5.0) solutions to support greater edge AI workloads in smartphones, tablets, PCs, gaming consoles, automotive and industrial applications.

"For more than a decade, M-PHY and UniPro have served as the interconnect layer for JEDEC UFS, enabling high‑performance, low‑power flash storage across a broad range of devices," said Hezi Saar, chair of MIPI Alliance. "These latest releases build on that foundation with advances in speed and efficiency to enable emerging edge AI workloads where low‑latency, high‑bandwidth and power‑efficient data access, processing and storage are increasingly essential."

AIDA64 8.25 continues refining the modern 64-bit foundation introduced in the 8.xx generation. This update focuses on deeper hardware integration, more flexible display customization, and improved automation tools. With revamped SensorPanel monitor pinning, native NVMe support, new PSU monitoring capabilities, and expanded LCD compatibility, AIDA64 becomes even more precise and adaptable across enthusiast setups and enterprise environments.

We are also introducing the new AIDA64 Command Line Builder, an online utility that helps generate correct command line switches quickly and easily for our business line products. Whether you automate reports, deploy AIDA64 across networks, or integrate it into scripts, the builder reduces configuration errors and simplifies setup. It is accessible directly from our website. Please note, that command line options are available exclusively in our business product line.

DOWNLOAD: AIDA64 Extreme v8.25

Sandisk today announced the next generation of its portable SSD portfolio, introducing a three-tier lineup designed to support larger file sizes, AI content, and the increasingly demanding digital workflows of everyday users, creators, and professionals. The portfolio includes the Sandisk Portable SSD, Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD, and Sandisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD. Delivering nearly twice the speed of its predecessor and enhanced durability, the Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD is available today, with the full portfolio of products rolling out later this year.

"Whether at home, in the office, or on the go, this new generation of portable SSDs support customers across their storage needs," said Heidi Arkinstall, Vice President of Consumer Marketing at Sandisk. "From everyday users, to creative enthusiasts, to production professionals, the Sandisk portable SSD portfolio balances performance, portability, and durability to give people storage they can depend on as their needs evolve."

Apple today announced a significant expansion of factory operations in Houston, bringing the future production of Mac mini to the U.S. for the first time. The company will also expand advanced AI server manufacturing at the factory and provide hands-on training at its new Advanced Manufacturing Center beginning later this year. Altogether, Apple's Houston operations will create thousands of jobs.

"Apple is deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing, and we're proud to significantly expand our footprint in Houston with the production of Mac mini starting later this year," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "We began shipping advanced AI servers from Houston ahead of schedule, and we're excited to accelerate that work even further."

SambaNova today introduced their SN50 AI chip, which boasts a max speed that's 5X faster than competitive chips. The company also announced a planned collaboration with Intel to deliver high‑performance, cost‑efficient AI inference solutions, and more than $350M in investment from new and existing investors.

Positioned as the most efficient chip for agentic AI, the SN50 chip offers enterprises a 3X lower total cost of ownership - a powerful foundation to scale fast inference and bring autonomous AI agents into full production. The SN50 will be shipping to customers later this year.

AMD and Meta today announced a 6-gigawatt agreement to power Meta's next generation of AI infrastructure across multiple generations of AMD Instinct GPUs. This agreement expands on the companies' existing strategic partnership and aligns roadmaps across silicon, systems and software to deliver AI platforms purpose-built for Meta's workloads. The first deployment will use a custom AMD Instinct GPU based on the MI450 architecture to deliver AI platforms that are optimized for Meta's workloads at gigawatt-scale. Shipments supporting the first gigawatt deployment are scheduled to begin in the second half of 2026 powered by the custom AMD Instinct MI450-based GPU and 6th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs, codenamed "Venice," running ROCm software and built on the AMD Helios rack-scale architecture. AMD Helios was developed jointly by AMD and Meta through the Open Compute Project to enable scalable, rack-level AI infrastructure.

"We are proud to expand our strategic partnership with Meta as they push the boundaries of AI at unprecedented scale," said Dr. Lisa Su, chair and CEO, AMD. "This multi-year, multi-generation collaboration across Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs and rack-scale AI systems aligns our roadmaps to deliver high-performance, energy-efficient infrastructure optimized for Meta's workloads, accelerating one of the industry's largest AI deployments and placing AMD at the center of the global AI buildout."

NVIDIA is reportedly preparing its long-awaited new consumer laptop processor for launch in the first half of 2026, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The chip uses a system-on-chip approach integrating CPU, GPU, and NPU into a single package. Systems based on those chips could first ship from OEMs such as Dell and Lenovo within months of launch, though no products have been confirmed. These systems are expected to focus on thin-and-light designs with an emphasis on efficiency and battery life. The report says NVIDIA is working with MediaTek on the processor, which will use the Arm architecture rather than x86. Internal names mentioned include N1 and N1X. The report also references a separate project involving Intel. That design would combine an Intel x86 CPU with NVIDIA graphics and neural processing technology, targeting improved graphics in slimmer laptops without a discrete GPU.

NVIDIA has not formally announced either chip, meaning specifications, pricing, and final configurations remain undisclosed. However, we reported in January that NVIDIA's Arm-based N1 and N1X laptop chips were getting closer to launch, with Lenovo accidentally confirming several upcoming models, including Yoga and Legion designs, through a since-deleted support page listing. Dell was also spotted testing the N1X, with a November 2025 shipping manifest surfacing a "Dell 16 Premium" powered by an N1X engineering sample. According to initial leaks, both chips are based on the same GB10 Superchip found in NVIDIA's DGX Spark AI mini PC, with the N1X reportedly packing 20 Arm CPU cores and a 48-unit iGPU. Despite expectations, NVIDIA skipped CES without any official announcement, and earlier rumors of delays pushing the launch to late 2026 hadn't been fully ruled out at the time. With NVIDIA GTC 2026 just a few weeks ahead (March 16-19), that's likely the event where those new mobile processors could be announced.

GXTrust puts high-quality sound at the forefront with the Emita II microphones, featuring a premium 16 mm condenser capsule, delivering studio-quality sound that brings every word to life. With a cardioid recording pattern, they're perfectly tuned to pick up the user's voice while minimizing background noise, making these microphones ideal for any kind of streaming setup.

The Emita II includes pop and wind filters reduce plosives and distortion, ensuring clean vocals and a smooth, polished result every time. A robust metal alloy casing offers improved acoustics, while its external shock mounts block unwanted vibrations to enhance sound quality even further.

Innodisk, a leading provider of industrial-grade memory solutions, announced the CXL Add-in Card (AIC), a major addition to its CXL product portfolio. Innodisk developed this CXL-based expansion card in response to rising memory demands in next-generation computing and the limited scalability of current motherboard designs. Connecting via the widespread and mature PCIe interface, the CXL AIC delivers fast memory access without occupying system DIMM slots. It also provides greater flexibility in memory usage and allocation. Its HHHL form factor, paired with Innodisk's compact DDR5 RDIMM/RDIMM VLP, unlocks new possibilities for microdata centers and edge systems, especially in latency-critical scenarios such as 5G networking, high-frequency trading, and smart medical imaging.

Flexible Memory Expansion Up to 256 GB
The Innodisk CXL AIC features two onboard RDIMM sockets that provide flexible memory expansion up to 256 GB (128 GB x2), allowing easy capacity adjustment by swapping RDIMM modules based on system needs. By connecting through PCIe slots, it not only preserves the system's native DIMM slots but also delivers an additional 32 GB/s of bandwidth via its PCIe Gen 5 x8 interface. This minimizes latency when the CPU accesses shared memory, enabling faster data flow for bandwidth-intensive applications such as AI inference and edge processing.

Kioxia Corporation, a world leader in memory solutions, today announced that it has begun shipping evaluation samples of embedded flash memory compatible with the next-generation UFS standard, UFS 5.0, which is currently being standardized by JEDEC.

UFS 5.0 is a new standard for embedded flash storage currently being developed by JEDEC to meet the performance requirements of next-generation mobile devices such as high-end smartphones equipped with on-device AI functions. It utilizes MIPI M-PHY version 6.0 for the physical layer and UniPro version 3.0 for the protocol. M-PHY version 6.0 introduces the new HS-GEAR6 mode, theoretically supporting an interface speed of up to 46.6 Gbps per lane; with 2 lanes, UFS 5.0 can achieve approximately 10.8 GB/s of effective read/write performance.

ASUS today announced ASUS Optimized Liquid-Cooling Solutions and a strategic partner framework designed to address the escalating thermal, power, and density challenges of next-generation AI and high-performance computing data centers.

ASUS Optimized Liquid-Cooling Solutions for next-generation AI compute density
As AI and HPC workloads push compute density and power consumption beyond the capabilities of traditional air cooling, optimized liquid-cooling solutions by ASUS will provide the critical thermal management required for the next-generation NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 system based data centers. By efficiently dissipating heat from high-performance CPUs, GPUs, and accelerator-dense racks, ASUS significantly reduces energy consumption, lowers PUE, and optimizes TCO while supporting unprecedented rack density.

Shortly after news broke that Ubisoft is, in fact, working on "several" Assassin's Creed launches after its controversial Creative Houses reshuffle, the company has published an official Reddit post detailing the newly appointed lead for the Assassin's Creed franchise as well as giving gamers a taste of what's in-store for the future of the franchise. The most notable take-away from the announcement is that the Assassin's Creed franchise will be led by Martin Schelling as Head of Brand, Jean Guesdon as Head of Content, and François De Billy as Head of Production Excellence.

All three members of the Assassin's Creed leadership team have previously worked on Assassin's Creed games: Schelling was Producer and Senior Producer of Black Flag, Origins, Revelations, and Valhalla; Guesdon was Creative Director of Black Flag and Origins, among other franchise credits; and De Billy served in a number of roles on Revelations and Black Flag and as Production Director on Origins and Valhalla. Ubisoft says the new team "marks the beginning of an exciting and ambitious new chapter" for the franchise, although it will be picking up where previous leaders left off in the aforementioned Assassin's Creed projects Ubisoft already has in the works. Appropriately, given the history, it seems as though the first Assassin's Creed project that will be released after the new leaders take over is the Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake. That said, the remake is likely all but complete, especially when it comes to more meaningful gameplay and artistic elements, meaning the new team likely won't have contributed much to that, if anything.

A new patent application by Sony may provide players with an alternative to pausing a game that would ostensibly prevent halting gameplay execution by putting the game into an alternate gameplay state while players deal with momentary distractions or decide whether they want to fully pause the game to deal with something like a message. The patent, (US20260021411) filed with the USPTO, explains a number of potential ways to achieve this, seemingly with the idea that different games and genres could implement different versions of Soft Pause. Sony touts Soft Pause as particularly useful for VR use cases, in which a jarring pause and cut to a menu screen may cause nausea or dizziness

The Soft Pause concepts include everything from having the game slow down while the feature is active, making the game easier, guiding the player towards objectives or enemies, boosting player assist features—features like aim assist or stretching time windows for certain inputs—or even having a machine-learning tool take over from the player entirely while Soft Pause is active. It's unclear if that ML model would be trained on player data or if it will offer more generic support. It remains to be seen if or when this will be implemented at all, and, realistically, it could go either way. If it is implemented, it will also be interesting to see how each game implements it, especially in competitive games. Currently, being AFK in a competitive game can be disastrous, and, while something like Soft Pause might be able to provide something of a solution to short AFK moments, although games like Paladins already have an AI that takes over gameplay when players are disconnected. Other recent Sony patents include an adaptive controller of sorts that puts all controls into a touch interface.

Fosi Audio and TechPowerUp bring you the Fosi Audio C3 gaming DAC Giveaway. It's been up over the week, but entries close on February 26. Open worldwide, the Giveaway gives 10 lucky winners a chance to bag a Fosi Audio C3 external sound card (DAC + headphones amp) that's optimized for PC gaming. It packs an analog kit that's perfectly suited for various gaming genres, giving you crystal clear audio and a competitive edge in online multiplayer gaming. nlike traditional gaming sound cards that rely on fixed EQ boosts, the C3 uses AI models to recognize key in-game sounds, such as footsteps, gunfire, reloads, and directional cues, and dynamically enhance what matters while reducing irrelevant or distracting noise. Rather than simply making certain frequencies louder, the system is designed to identify and prioritize important sounds depending on the gameplay context. Sounds good? Drop your hat in before February 26!

For more information and to participate, visit this page.

With Marathon and its upcoming server slam event almost literally just around the corner by now, details have started to emerge about the game's server and anti-cheat configurations. In a new post on the @MarathonTheGame official X account, Bungie has explained the details of Marathon's anti-cheat system. Aside from both kernel- and user-level anti-cheat on clients, it was confirmed that Marathon will have server-side fog of war that will protect against wall hacks, ESP cheats, and loot revealers. The game will also use dedicated servers with authority on key combat and looting actions, meaning the servers will be protected against client-side interference. The anti-cheat announcement also mentions that in the case of a crash or connection loss, players will be able to rejoin the game as soon as the connection is re-established, although they will have to rely on teammates to protect their character.

Most notably, though, Bungie announced that any cheaters caught cheating in Marathon will receive a permanent ban from the game. While an authoritative stance has been well received by the community, there are concerns over BattlEye potentially tagging false positives and banning players who weren't guilty of cheating—an issue that was recently brought up by the Apex Legends community when a player was falsely banned after the new Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike seemingly triggered a ban threshold for gameplay automation.

Mozilla announced in early February that it had implemented its "AI kill switch" in a nightly build after severe community backlash, with the full release slated for Firefox 148. As of February 23, Firefox 148 is officially available for download via the download server ahead of the officially announced February 24 launch date. According to Mozilla, the AI features will remain disabled through updates once they have been disabled via the kill switch.

The AI kill switch isn't the only new change coming to Firefox 148, with Mozilla also slated to add features like a split view and HDR video streaming on Windows, with both features seemingly leaving experimental in build 148. Hardware acceleration is also expected to speed up PDF load times, and the sidebar will be getting a visual update with convenient access to bookmarks, history, AI tools, and the settings menu. As with other Firefox UI elements, the new sidebar is fully customizable in the settings menu.

Sidekick Publishing and developer Randwerk are excited to announce their partnership on the highly-wishlisted open-world roguelike WANDERBURG, with a surprise playable demo launching Today as part of Steam Next Fest. WANDERBURG landed with a bang during its breakout reveal at the 2025 PC Gaming Show, with a trailer that has since racked up over 470,000 views. The game has since received over 250,000 wishlists and saw 126,000 participants during the recent closed playtest.

Inspired by Mortal Engines and Howl's Moving Castle, WANDERBURG is a minimalist open-world roguelike in an ecosystem of Castles on Wheels. Consume, grow bigger, upgrade your modules, and survive! Unlock new weapons, build your castle, and discover a procedurally generated map.

ASML says it has boosted the light source power in its EUV lithography systems to 1,000 watts, up from roughly 600 W today. According to a Reuters report, the company claims the increase could enable up to 50% more chip output by the end of the decade. More source power translates directly into higher throughput. ASML says customers could process around 330 wafers per hour by 2030, compared to about 220 wafers per hour today, lowering the cost per chip. EUV light at a 13.5 nm wavelength is generated by firing a CO₂ laser at microscopic droplets of molten tin, creating plasma that emits EUV radiation. The light is then collected and directed through precision optics supplied by Carl Zeiss AG. To reach 1,000 W, ASML doubled the droplet rate to roughly 100,000 per second and shifted to a two-pulse laser shaping approach instead of a single pulse. The company says there is a path toward 1,500 W and potentially even 2,000 W over time.

ASML is the only supplier of commercial EUV scanners, used by major chipmakers including TSMC, SK Hynix, and Intel. The tools are considered critical to advanced node production and have been subject to export restrictions to China. The move is aimed at maintaining ASML's lead as U.S. companies, such as Pat Gelsinger's xLight EUV startup and Chinese efforts to develop competing lithography systems continue to ramp. Chinese companies have reportedly been sourcing parts from older ASML machines through secondary markets. Huawei is leading the charge, working to build a homegrown AI supply chain as a way around foreign tech restrictions. The company set up a large semiconductor manufacturing facility in Guanlan focused on 7 nm chips for its own processors. The Chinese government had initially aimed to have a working prototype from this effort by 2028.

The AMD VEK385 Evaluation Kit provides a fast, feature-rich, and scalable path to evaluating AMD Versal AI Edge Series Gen 2 XC2VE3858 devices. With heterogeneous compute, high-performance I/O, comprehensive memory bandwidth, ready-to-run workloads, and robust bring-up tools, engineers can quickly assess system performance and accelerate the path from prototype to production.

Designed for Embedded AI, Control, and Vision Workloads
The VEK385 Evaluation Kit enables engineers to evaluate embedded AI, vision, and control systems through multiple, industry-standard interfaces:

• HDMI RX/TX and USB3/DP for 4K/8K vision pipelines
• PCIe x8 edge connector for Gen 5 x4 and Gen 3/4 x8 support
• QSFP28 and SFP28 connectors for 25-100 Gb/s high-speed Ethernet applications
• FMC+ for I/O expansion
• CAN-FD with PL/PS Ethernet for deterministic robotics and industrial control

GameSir today announced the launch of the GameSir G7 Pro 8K PC Aimlabs Edition, a new flagship controller designed specifically for competitive PC gaming. Built to meet the demands of high-level esports play, the G7 Pro 8K PC combines ultra-low latency performance, deep customization, and premium components with a distinctive Aimlabs-inspired visual identity. The GameSir G7 Pro 8K PC Aimlabs Edition Game Controller is available for $79.99/£89.99 on the GameSir website, Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Developed in collaboration with Aimlabs, the industry-leading FPS training platform, the G7 Pro 8K PC Aimlabs Edition is an officially licensed accessory. The controller reflects Aimlabs' iconic cyan aesthetic while adhering to professional performance standards trusted by competitive gamers. This partnership unites precision hardware with a training-driven design philosophy, delivering a controller built to support skill development and tournament-level play.

AMD recently added "Crimson Desert" as an official Ryzen and Radeon game bundle partner, so it should come as little surprise that the game implements nearly the full FSR 4 "Redstone" gaming technology feature-set. This includes the ML-based upscaling AMD introduced with FSR 4, and the two new features the company introduced this year—ML-based ray regeneration, and ML-based frame generation. All three features use machine learning models that leverage the new AI acceleration capabilities introduced with AMD RDNA 4 graphics architecture, benefiting Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs.

Retail DDR5 prices in Germany have finally shown a small sign of cooling down after the steep climb in the past months. The decline is small and not yet uniform across models, but it is the first sustained easing many DIY PC enthusiasts and small shops have noticed since prices began to spike in late 2025 and reached astronomical levels recently. A widely shared community chart tracking an average 32 GB DDR5 kit across the European Union captured the climb from autumn into early February and then a late-period dip. That chart is useful as a broad signal, but it leaves open important details such as the exact kit measured, which countries were included, and whether listed prices include taxes.

To add more context, independent checks of historical listings on Amazon Germany using CamelCamelCamel show that several mainstream 32 GB DDR5 kits have dropped from their highs. Two of the larger declines were visible on popular models from Corsair and Kingston, while other brands recorded smaller pullbacks. There are a few likely reasons for the softening. Buyers may be pausing upgrades after a period of rapid price increases. Some retailers could be cutting prices to move stock and reduce inventory risk. It is also possible that a small amount of additional supply has filtered through the distribution chain, away from the AI supply chain. However, any of these explanations still need more substance. For a complete return to normal pricing, we will probably need to see clearer improvements in production capacity or a sustained drop in demand, and this improvement could only be a short term correction.

Lenovo expanded its ThinkEdge portfolio with a new generation of AI-driven edge computing solutions, including the compact and reliable ThinkEdge SE10n Gen 2, the AI-ready ThinkEdge SE30n Gen 2, the AI-powerhouse ThinkEdge SE60n Gen 2, and Lenovo's first industrial all-in-one (AIO) Panel PC, the ThinkEdge SE50a.

As enterprises push intelligence closer to operations to improve resilience, reduce latency, and keep sensitive data local, edge computing has become a critical layer between devices, infrastructure, and cloud. Lenovo's ThinkEdge solutions are purpose-built, industrial-grade edge systems designed to run reliably in harsh, space-constrained environments where traditional servers or PCs are impractical.

Samsung Foundry has struck gold as its utilization rate has jumped to an impressive 80% this quarter. This comes after many years of struggling to achieve a good utilization rate, while competitors like TSMC have consistently led the adoption of newer nodes and gained a massive customer base. However, the situation has now changed, and Samsung's foundries are now operating at about 80% of total capacity, consistently producing silicon, with the Pyeongtaek Campus P2 and P3 leading the charge. Previously, these lines were only achieving a 50% booking rate last year and even struggled with insufficient production volume in the second half of 2024. Samsung uses these sites to manufacture 4 nm, 5 nm, and 7 nm nodes, which are now considered "mature," as the leading edge shifts to sub-3 nm production.

Part of the foundry revival is attributed to the strong demand for its 6th-generation HBM, coming in the form of HBM4 with a custom base die manufactured on the 4 nm node. While competitors are making HBM4 base dies on older nodes, Samsung is using a 4 nm custom base die that provides higher design density for any logic that ASIC makers want to implement. This can include some data processing that will aid the main accelerator in AI workloads. This has translated into high demand for Samsung Foundry products from external customers, who are now keeping production at high capacity.

According to the latest job listings, we learn that Intel is planning the return of a unified core architecture, something we haven't been accustomed to in the last few years. Starting with the 12th Generation "Alder Lake" processors, Intel began selling hybrid core processors that combine "Golden Cove" performance cores and "Gracemont" efficient cores. These became commonly known as P and E-Cores, which are now being used across Intel products in hybrid designs or P/E-core-only Xeon processors, of course, with the latest designs and iterations. However, as the new job listings suggest, Intel is assembling a team of engineers for its "Unified Core" design group that will deliver the new microarchitecture to power the next generation of processors.

Separating the core design into P-Cores and E-Cores has yielded Intel the desired results that the company hoped for. This includes product separation and many goals across platforms. For example, in the consumer sector, E-Cores run a lot of side and background tasks in the operating system, while P-Cores power main applications like games. To extract maximum performance, Intel has a dedicated Thread Director that makes the entire process work and dictates just what application goes to which core, in tandem with the operating system. Intel also provides P-Core-only and E-Core-only Xeon server processors that serve either performance sectors like HPC and AI or the cloud sector that needs many cores with somewhat lower performance, but in a dense 100-core+ package.

ASRock listed one of the first branded mobile-on-desktop platforms based on the latest Intel Core Ultra Series 3 "Panther Lake" processors, barely two months into the launch of the new processor generation. The new NUC Box-358H, NUCS BOX-358H, NUCS BOX-325, and NUC BOX-325 are powered by "Panther Lake-H" (mainstream laptop) variants of the chip, and are marketed by the Industrial sub-brand of ASRock that deals with IPCs and IIoT products. All four models are TAA-compliant. The NUC Box-358H and NUCS BOX-325 come with a thicker chassis measuring 117.5 mm x 110 mm x 49 mm (WxDxH), while the NUCS BOX-358H and NUC BOX-325 come in a slimmer chassis measuring 117.5 x 110 mm x 38 mm. All four feature active fan-based cooling for the SoC, and are barebones that exclude memory and storage.

For memory, all four models offer two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots, and support the latest CSODIMMs besides regular SO-DIMMs. For storage, all four offer two M.2-2280 slots, one of which is Gen 5. Intel BE200 Wi-Fi 7 WLAN adapters are standard. The thicker models come with two Intel 2.5 GbE wired Ethernet interfaces, while the thinner ones come with just the one. All four offer quad display outputs, including two HDMI 2.1, one DisplayPort 2.1 passed through a 40 Gbps USB4/Thunderbolt 4 port, and a second DisplayPort 1.4a passed through a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 type-C port (alternate mode). All four come with 19 V, 120 W power bricks.

Welcome to the last week of February and this week we kick off with a AAA release from a franchise that started 30 years ago and it's the 9th major game about an umbrella manufacturer that turned evil or something like that. As for this week's other releases, we have a game about vermin, but they want to be royalty, a bunch of pirates that want your bounty, a chance of experiencing life in the medieval times, a new take on spellslining where everyone's flying and finally a remake of an action JRPG.

Resident Evil Requiem / This week's AAA release / Friday 27 February
A new era of survival horror arrives with Resident Evil Requiem, the latest and most immersive entry yet in the iconic Resident Evil series. Experience terrifying survival horror with FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft, and dive into pulse-pounding action with legendary agent Leon S. Kennedy. Both of their journeys and unique gameplay styles intertwine into a heart-stopping, emotional experience that will chill you to your core. Steam link

The Stop Killing Games initiative announced not too long ago that it had accrued and validated the necessary number of signatures to be heard out by the EU parliament via the Stop Destroying Videogames EU citizen's initiative. According to a new video put out by activist and spokesperson for the movement, Ross Scott, key players in the movement have been hard at work in the background since that announcement, and that there has been progress since that update, although not all of it positive. The first important note is that the Stop Destroying Games citizen's initiative already has a date secured to present its case to the EU Commission, but despite this, it seems to have already had an impact on EU lawmakers.

According to Scott, in October, it seemed as though the EU was considering adding protections for videogames to the Digital Fairness Act, which is a new set of laws that aim to regulate digital ethics and consumer rights—however, it seems as though video game industry lobbyists had gotten to lawmakers first, since they parroted arguments about discouraging small indie developers, who would ostensibly have a hard time keeping games running indefinitely, but this allowed the movement to clarify to the EU that the movement doesn't seek to force publishers to maintain games indefinitely, but only to provide a way for gamers to play the games they have purchased after support is ended. Despite this, the representatives at the meeting seemed to think that the commission didn't favor adding laws surrounding gaming to the Digital Fairness Act.

AMD has reportedly stopped driver updates for its Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU solution for handheld consoles, according to the latest Lenovo Korea update. This means that only after 2 and a half years, AMD is pulling support for its SoC, leaving many enthusiasts in a difficult spot. Confirmation from multiple sources are piling up as Reddit users and customers of other handheld consoles are stating that support for their specific devices, based on the Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC, are also stuck using drivers that are several months old. For example, a user has commented that his ASUS ROG Ally non-X version based on the Ryzen Z1 Extreme SoC has been stuck with six-month-old SoC drivers from August 2025. This means that AMD has effectively placed the Ryzen Z1 and Ryzen Z1 Extreme chips into a periodic update window, with no latest driver support coming to this 2023 SoC.

However, the situation is quite complex. OEMs like Lenovo and ASUS receive drivers from AMD and test them for their specific configurations. AMD offers configurable TDP (cTDP) for the Z1 Extreme with values ranging from 9 to 30 W. This means that OEMs can get a SoC with reduced clocks and power settings to match their desired handheld designs, or simply run the most aggressive 30 W configuration that will sacrifice some battery life but deliver overall higher CPU and GPU clocks. Hence, drivers must be tested to ensure they work properly on the specific TDP configuration by the OEM before they are installed by the user. Finding the "blame" is proving to be difficult, as it could be that AMD is not bothering with new updates, or OEMs are not eager to test their specific configurations.

In a new letter to channel partners, Lenovo has stated that the company expects PC price hikes in March amid the memory crunch affecting the industry. The letter, obtained by CRN, notes that Lenovo's North America channel chief, Wade McFarland, mentioned there will be some pricing changes to certain products and configurations that Lenovo offers, which will be communicated later with the exact specification changes. In the letter, Wade McFarland noted that there have been some changes to the ordering policy for the Intelligent Devices Group (IDG), responsible for PCs like desktops, notebooks, and tablets, while the Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) unit responsible for server solutions is also experiencing the same changes. Lenovo's North American president, Ryan McCurdy, noted that "we've absolutely had to adjust and continue to adjust [pricing]. There's no way around it."

However, the company has advised its partners to submit orders while it is still February, as that will lock in the pricing at which Lenovo can supply PCs before the price hike expected in March. "Pricing is influenced by both order timing and fulfillment timing, and Lenovo reviews pricing periodically in response to evolving market conditions," notes Wade McFarland, adding that Lenovo's memory suppliers have been good and that the company has been informed of every pricing change in advance so that it can effectively communicate with its clients and warn them before any changes happen. That way, clients don't experience pricing shocks that may impact their purchasing decisions, as Lenovo sells millions of PCs every month. A slight, unexpected price change may result in a significant change in purchasing decisions, so communication with clients is key.

It was revealed in a recent leak that the next-gen AMD Zen 6 Ryzen CPUs would be delayed until 2027, and it has now emerged, that the upcoming Intel "Nova Lake-S" Core Ultra Series 4 CPUs may be joining AMD for an early 2027 launch, when previous reports placed the launch in late 2026. The news comes by way of ubiquitous leakers, HXL on X and Golden Pig Upgrade on Weibo, who say that a CES 2027 launch seems likely for both new CPU generations.

Previously, we got a taste of what to expect from Nova Lake-S in a series of leaks and rumors, which pointed to increased NPU performance as well as core counts that range from 12 on the low-end (4 P-cores, 4 E-cores, 4 LP-cores) to 52 on the high-end (16 P-cores, 32 E-cores, 4 LP-cores). Obviously, these are early leaks, and the official launch is still a way out, so dates may still change, but it seems as though the current silicon and DRAM shortages may result in the lengthening of product launch cycles across the PC industry in general—an outcome that was previously predicted.

It was recently revealed that Xbox Gaming's long-time CEO, Phil Spencer, would be leaving Microsoft after nearly 40 years at the company, with Asha Sharma taking over as CEO of Microsoft Gaming after her role as chief of the company's CoreAI platform. Shortly after the announcement of his departure, Sharma released an internal statement with comments about the future of Xbox Gaming and her views on topics like AI, monetization, and art. In short, Sharma says she wants to prioritize creating "great games" with unforgettable characters, stories that resonate, and creative, innovative gameplay. In the latter part of the statement, she addresses the inevitable questions and concerns about a former AI leader taking over the gaming division. She makes a number of comments about AI and the future of gaming, stating that "As monetization and AI evolve and influence this future, we will not chase short-term efficiency or floor our ecosystem with soulless AI slop. Games are and always will be art, crafted by humans, and created with the most innovative technology provided by us."

Later, in a statement to Variety, Sharma reinforced these statements, stating that she wants to "earn the right to be trusted by players and developers," and noting that "AI has long been part of gaming and will continue to be." She again emphasized the importance of "deep emotional resonance" in games, and reiterated her stance that she has "no tolerance for bad AI." It's worth noting that CoreAI, the platform Sharma was previously in charge of at Microsoft, is a suite of AI-powered developer tools designed for "the AI era," with a significant focus on agentic AI. If Sharma's statements are to be believed, it seems reasonable to assume we will be seeing more AI trickle into first-party Xbox games, but it may not be the AI-first approach that companies like EA have recently adopted in the name of efficiency.

In late 2025, ASUS announced the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti Dual Evo graphics cards, which touted a slimmer, shorter design for improved compatibility with small form factor PC builds. Now, it has silently expanded the Dual Evo line with the ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 5070 Evo and Evo OC, both of which stuff an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 12 GB GPU into a package measuring just 229 × 120 × 50 mm. ASUS has not yet publicly announced the GPUs, and they don't seem to be available via retail channels just yet, but the spec sheets and product pages are available in full on the ASUS site. As such, pricing is not yet available at the time of writing.

The OC model steps up the standard boost clock from 2,512 MHz to 2,542 MHz and the OC mode clock speed from 2,542 MHz to 2,572 MHz. Both GPUs feature the same 2.5-slot shroud and cooler design, and it seems unlikely that the OC Edition has any additional changes other than a slight vBIOS tweak to achieve the higher clocks, suggesting that you can likely get similar clock speeds with a bit of tuning in GPU Tweak III. This 2.5-slot design is thicker than the 2.0-slot design of the 5060 series Dual Evo cards, but still notably thinner than most other RTX 5070 models, like the 3.2-slot ROG Strix GeForce RTX 5070. The GPU shroud design is also somewhat more reserved than some of ASUS's recent designs, with just an angular, black, dual-texture shroud housing dual axial fans, while the GPU heat sink has a flow-through design for the rear fan. Much like the 5060 variants of the same series, the PCIe power plug is located almost centrally on the side of the GPU, instead of the traditional rearward position.

With the launch of Resident Evil Requiem merely a week away, it's expected that gameplay and story leaks would start to show up online and subsequently be shared online. Capcom, however, has taken to social media platform, X, to decry the early gameplay and story leaks, asking players not to share the leaks. The gaming giant says that it wants "everyone to enjoy the game's story and experience as much as possible." Capcom adds that its legal department is working to issue DMCA take-downs of any leaks posted online, "in order to preserve your day-one experience."

The gameplay leaks in question have revealed major plot points and twists, as well as potential endings to the latest installment in the Resident Evil franchise. One Reddit thread—which fortunately is covered with spoiler tags—has collated the vast majority of the leaks, including gameplay footage of part of the game's ending. It's easy to see why a game studio would want to keep a lid on such extensive leaks about a story-driven game. Another post in the subreddit was removed by the moderators, so it looks like Capcom's take-down requests or social media plea has had some effect already.

Given the similar form factors, it's unsurprising that many gamers turned to their Steam Decks to emulate Nintendo Switch games, but that era seems to be drawing to a close, as RetroDECK, a Linux emulation platform capable of emulating multiple game systems, has just confirmed that it will be removing support for Ryubing, a fork of the now-infamous Ryujinx Switch emulator, from its available emulators. The developer behind the emulator explained in a February 19 blog post that Switch emulation would be removed in a minor update. This comes after support for Ryubing was added in a November update.

The blog mentions two main reasons for the removal of Ryubing, stating that "Switch emulation has consistently been the source of the most issues within the project, generating the highest volume of warnings, bans, toxicity, and support tickets," and adding that the questionable legality of emulators like Ryubing and Nintendo's aggressive protection of its intellectual property exposes the volunteers and community involved in the RetroDECK project to undue legal exposure. As of an upcoming update, indicated in an edit to an old blog post to be 0.10.4b, Switch emulation will be removed from RetroDECK "forever," and discussions about Switch emulation will also be banned from all of RetroDECK's communities and social platforms effective immediately.

The name synonymous with Xbox—Phil Spencer—is leaving Microsoft after nearly 40 years at the company. He started as an intern back in 1988 and has been with the Xbox team since 2001, helping the project thrive in the following decades. According to the announcement, Microsoft is overhauling its Gaming division with some new names, while the old executive team has left the company. In addition to Phil Spencer, Xbox president Sarah Bond has also left the company. From now on, Asha Sharma, who currently serves as the company chief for the CoreAI product, will be taking on the new role as the CEO of Microsoft Gaming. Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella shared a memo with all Microsoft employees about the status of this update.

Satya NadellaLast year, Phil Spencer made the decision to retire from the company, and since then we've been talking about succession planning. I want to thank Phil for his extraordinary leadership and partnership. Over 38 years at Microsoft, including 12 years leading Gaming, Phil helped transform what we do and how we do it.

Yves Guillemot recently made an appearance in an interview with Variety, in which the Ubisoft CEO spoke about both the ongoing cost-cutting measures and in-development projects at the French gaming giant. When asked about upcoming projects in the Assassin's Creed and Far Cry franchises, Guillemot responded that there are "several" Assassin's Creed titles in development at Ubisoft, and that those titles will involve both single-player and multiplayer gameplay. Similar is true for the Far Cry franchise, in that Ubisoft currently has two Far Cry projects in development, although Guillemot declined to specify any further on what those projects were. One of the upcoming Assassin's Creed projects is almost certainly the much-rumored Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake that is slated to launch sometime in 2026.

This interview and the promises of new Far Cry and Assassin's Creed games comes the same week as Ubisoft confirmed a round of layoffs at its Toronto studio as part of its heavily criticized company-wide restructuring and cost-savings plan that will likely see up to 18% of the company laid off in order to save €200 million in five years. That same plan has seen Ubisoft divide development efforts into five creative houses, each of which will be responsible for a handful of IPs. When asked about this and the necessity for the cost reduction, Yves Guillemot blamed rapid post-COVID growth and flat-lining demand where continued growth had been anticipated. He goes on to say that "our priority today is to build a more focused, agile company, with stronger teams that strike the right balance between senior expertise and young talent and who are well positioned to deliver the highest quality games." If recent game cancellation trends at Ubisoft are anything to go by, nothing is set in stone, and the projects that have been in the pipeline for the longest seem to be the most likely to be cancelled or delayed, as was the case with the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake.

Thanks to a new table specification matrix published by a known leaker Jaykihn on X, we are seeing the final specifications of Intel's long-rumored "Bartlett Lake-S" Core 200E family of CPUs with P-Cores only. This platform is designed to fit inside Intel's LGA-1700 socket, but from a consumer standpoint represents a non-existent product that will not reach their hands, as Intel has abandoned the plan to launch this highly anticipated gamer CPU. Instead, Intel will only offer it for its edge and embedded products. At the top of the stack is the Core 9 273 PQE SKU, which is a 12 P-Core variant with 24 threads and a base frequency of 3.4 GHz. This model can boost all of its 12 cores to 5.3 GHz, while a single thread can go up to 5.9 GHz independently for tasks that require intensive single-threaded performance. It is equipped with 36 MB of L3 cache and an integrated GPU with 32 EUs of Xe-LP graphics.

Interestingly, the entire lineup is separated into three categories. One is a high-TDP PQE with a base power of 125 W, while the middle PE models are 65 W designs with lower clocks. The weakest models are the PTE SKUs that have a TDP of 45 W, which are more ideal for edge deployments where power/efficiency is the most important factor. Across the lineup, there are versions with 8, 10, and 12 cores, all with Hyper-Threading for 16, 20, and 24 threads. Some SKUs from the PE and PTE lineups do not enjoy Intel vPro and ECC memory support, while the PQE high-power SKUs are all equipped with vPro and ECC memory support. You can check out the complete table comparison and product segmentation below for more specific information on different models.

Akasa, a leading provider of thermal solutions, introduced the Euler CMX, a compact, aluminium, fanless case designed for Mini-ITX motherboards. The Euler CMX supports Intel Core (8th-14th Gen) and Core Ultra (15th Gen) processors up to 35 W TDP and integrates a 220 W DC-to-DC power converter, delivering reliable performance in space-constrained environments while ensuring long-term durability for industrial automation, point-of-sale (POS), kiosk, digital signage, surveillance or other commercial systems.

This case is compatible with Mini-ITX motherboards with Intel LGA1851, LGA1700, LGA1200 or LGA115X sockets, supporting Intel Core (8th-14th Gen) and Core Ultra (15th Gen) processors up to 35 W TDP.

Thermal Grizzly announced its TG Delidded CPUs, which would see the company sell delidded AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs for enthusiast use with direct-die cooling solutions. The program started with the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and has since expanded to include the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, with the latest addition being the recently released AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D. The delidded 9850X3D comes in at $876.33 on the Thermal Grizzly store, which is a marked increase over the $500 MSRP, but it also includes a warranty in the case of any manufacturer defects or issues that might arise during the delidding process. The aforementioned warranty is valid for two years and covers material defects of the CPU and even extends to overclocking within manufacturer spec, as long as adequate cooling is provided. It does not cover any physical or liquid damage to the silicon, SMDs, or the PCB.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is now live]

Roman Hartung, aka Der8auer, famous overclocker and CEO of Thermal Grizzly, published a YouTube video demonstrating the delidding process and documenting potential performance and thermal improvements as a result of delidding and direct-die cooling. In the video, Hartung tests the 9850X3D in Cinebench R23, demonstrating a 90.2° C peak temperature on one CCD, with the average die temperature getting as high as 88.1° C with a peak power draw of 182.35 W in the 10-minute CPU benchmark run. Individual peak CPU core temperatures ranged from 78 to 88.2° C, whereas after applying liquid metal and a direct-die cooling solution resulted in peak CPU core temperatures of 66.1-75.3° C and a peak average CPU temperature of 75.3°C—temperatures were down around 15° C across the board following the delid. Power draw was slightly lower during this test, at 178.09 W peak package power, although the same settings were applied in BIOS ahead of the tests. Hartung also goes on to test the overclocking capabilities of the delidded CPU on the direct-die cooling solution, which can be seen in the video below.

Luckfox, a small Chinese company mostly known for its development boards and kits, expanded its portfolio with two new 16-inch 4K (3840 × 2400) and 2K (2560 × 1600) portable touch monitors. The 4K model uses an IPS panel with a pixel pitch of 0.0897 mm, 120 Hz refresh rate, and HDR support. Brightness is rated at 350 cd/m² while the 178° viewing angles are typical for a standard IPS panel. The display uses optical bonding and supports 10-point capacitive touch through a toughened glass surface. Connectivity includes Mini HDMI and USB Type-C for display input, plus a USB touch interface. A 3.5 mm audio jack and built-in Hi-fi speakers are also present. The enclosure is CNC-machined, and the monitor supports VESA 75 mm mounting. It ships with a detachable magnetic protective case that doubles as a stand with two viewing angles. The 4K model is priced at $319.99.

Luckfox also offers a more affordable 2K variant that keeps the IPS panel, HDR support, optical bonding, and 10-point touch, but increases the refresh rate to 165 Hz. It comes with the same magnetic case and multi-device compatibility, including support for full-featured USB-C PCs and smartphones, as well as boards such as Raspberry Pi and Jetson. Worth mentioning that both monitors are powered via USB-C with support for 20 W PD. The 2K version is listed at $189.99.

AMD's next-generation Ryzen "Olympic Ridge" desktop processors are rumored to have been delayed to 2027. Company roadmap slides point to a debut of the "Zen 6" microarchitecture in 2026. This could be a signal that AMD is prioritizing "Zen 6" chiplets for EPYC server processors as the enterprise market has a better-secured supply of memory, and enterprise customers are more likely to stick to their procurement roadmaps for CPUs, in stark contrast to the client segment, which has been grappling with acute shortages of DDR5 memory.

With PC memory selling at prices 5-8 times above normal, 2026 may not present an ideal environment for AMD to debut a new Ryzen desktop processor generation, especially given that AMD processors tend to be heavily favored by the DIY retail channel compared to Intel, which retains a hold over the pre-built OEM market. Besides increased IPC and an updated ISA, "Zen 6" is expected to see AMD increase CPU core counts, as well as update the client I/O die. This new cIOD, likely built on 4 nm, is expected to come with updated DDR5 memory controllers that support higher speeds and have a greater degree of parallelism for dual-channel DDR5, likely with each controller addressing two 40-bit sub-channels from different channels, an approach similar to Intel's with "Arrow Lake." If your best feature is, say, DDR5-9000 support with CUDIMM optimization, you rather hold off when a 32 GB >9000 MT/s CUDIMM kit costs upward of $800.

French developer and publisher Don't Nod has presented a new trailer for Aphelion, its upcoming third-person action-adventure game soon to be launched in Spring 2026, at the Convergence Showcase. This gameplay deep dive shows more of what awaits Ariane and Thomas on Persephone: anomalies, dangers surfacing during the planet's exploration, an unknown facility full of questions (and blood), and more tense encounters with the Nemesis.

Aphelion is a sci-fi action-adventure on the edge of the solar system. In the shoes of ESA astronauts Ariane and Thomas, players will explore and survey the uncharted planet Persephone, and solve the mystery of the crash, all while trying to survive in the terrifying presence of a hostile and unknown lifeform.

Wildlight Entertainment, the studio behind ailing free-to-play raid shooter, Highguard, has had a rough time since the game's launch and middling reception, with mass layoffs casting doubt on the game's future, despite the studio's assurances that there is content planned for the future. In a recent post to X, Wildlight announced that it will soon be releasing the first content update for the game since the aforementioned layoffs. The update, which is slated to launch the same week as the announcement, will almost certainly include bug fixes and changes to the game, but Wildlight has highlighted two important new pieces of content coming to the game.

The first bit of content is a new base, Cloudreach, which is an airship base with an airship docked high above the ground and the Anchor Stone target inside the airship itself. Players will face off in and around the airship, where gameplay will range from long-ranged sniper engagements to close-quarters combat in tight corridors. The update also introduces the Lockpick, a new Raid tool that fires darts at doors and windows to open them, temporarily disable them, and give control to your team. The Lockpick will use a new ammo type, Darts, and the tool itself can be equipped in the start loadout menu or found in red chests.

Hot on the heels of the MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Lightning Z launch, it seems as though the hardware maker is planning yet another special edition GPU launch. MSI recently teased in a Bilibili post on its official GPU account that it is planning a limited edition launch in collaboration with popular fantasy anime, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. It may also be the case that the GPU is part of a special edition bundle, although there's no evidence to back this up. Given that it is a limited edition, it seems reasonable that the GPU will be an RTX 5090 or 5080.

Not much else is known about the upcoming launch, although speculation suggests that the new GPU will be based on one of the brand's designs with a white shroud and a Frieren-inspired theme, purely because white is a consistent color for the character in the anime. It's also almost guaranteed to be an NVIDIA GPU, since MSI only makes GeForce GPUs. This is hardly the first GPU design or collaboration to lean into non-gaming properties, with the recent ASUS x Hatsune Miku Astral GPU and hardware series being a notable example of one such collaboration. Frieren has also been featured in a Starforge prebuilt PC design, which was also an almost entirely white build.

PMM is a mouse mod maker that provides commercially available custom ultra-light shells for popular gaming mice, like the Razer Viper V3 Pro and the Endgame Gear OP1 8K, often shaving off upwards of 15 g from the stock weight. The latest mouse on the PMM mod radar is the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike, which weighs in at a hearty 60 g in stock form. The custom shell designer revealed in a post on X that an ultra-light G Pro X2 Superstrike shell is in development, asking for community feedback on a target weight and design in the process.

Throughout the thread, there are implications that the mouse modder may be able to get the mouse weight as low as 35 g, with PMM going so far as to comment that 39 g may even be possible with a solid shell with no weight-reduction holes. Replies to comments also indicate that a final weight as low as 29 g—over 50% reduction from stock—may be possible, if somewhat challenging, while 33 g would be "ambitious" while also retaining the battery. PMM also suggests that a mod kit with a different battery position could solve the forward weight bias that some users have complained about. It will likely be a while before PMM actually launches a mod kit for the Superstrike, since the design process involves 3D scanning an existing mouse and then optimizing the design from there.

Slay the Spire is a beloved single-player indie roguelike deck-builder that debuted on Steam in 2019 and has somehow maintained an active community of over 24,000 concurrent daily players, even seven years after its initial launch. The game's sequel, Slay the Spire 2 has been hotly anticipated, and, according to an update to the game's Steam Store page, the developer will be adding four-player co-op to the game. The updated Steam Store page also revealed that the game now has a launch date of March 5, 2026 and a new Early Access trailer.

The original game's format and unique hand-crafted world will make a return in the sequel, but the world has evolved for the second installment, offering new monsters, characters, abilities, and secrets to discover. The four-player co-op mode is likely the biggest change to come to the game, though, and according to the description of the multiplayer features, there will be team-specific cards and team synergies to explore and test out. Of course, the classic single-player mode will also be an option for players who prefer to go alone or simply need to play at their own pace. The total roster of playable characters will also grow to five, offering players some added flexibility in how to approach the gameplay. Slay the Spire 2 will be launching in Steam Early Access initially, so expect the game to change as community feedback is submitted.

It's no secret that GPU prices have skyrocketed lately as a result of increased AI data center demand. This has been especially true for any GPU featuring more than 8 GB of VRAM, like AMD's Radeon RX 9060 and 9070 series. However, while AMD GPUs were previously seen as a viable alternative when NVIDIA GPUs were unaffordable or unavailable, that increased demand resulted in price spikes of up to 40% by December 2025. This is based on Japanese data collected by Gaz:Log, who also found that, since that massive price hike, reduced demand has forced retailers to drop prices for both the RX 9070 XT and RX 9060 XT 16 GB GPUs by as much as 15% and 20% respectively.

Obviously, this is just one market, and it can't be guaranteed that events will play out similarly in other regions, but it is an indication that hardware pricing may be reaching a tipping point, after which we may see prices stabilize or fall slightly in response to reduced demand. It's also worth noting that AMD and NVIDIA have both been rumored to be planning to effectively increase MSRP in early 2026, which would result in price increases of at least 10% across the board. This is on top of a late 2025 price increase of $20-40 on both 8 and 16 GB GPUs.

Hardcore PC users tend to think of privacy risk as something that happens to other people: the careless, the click-happy, the ones who reuse passwords or fall for obvious scams. Power users, by contrast, optimize. They tweak BIOS settings, benchmark GPUs, curate mod lists, and participate deeply in the ecosystems that make PC culture what it is.

That's the problem.

For highly engaged users, having their personal data exposed is rarely the result of negligence; it's the unfortunate side of visibility. The more you understand and participate in gaming communities, online forums, and similar spaces, the more you will create an enduring, discoverable identity footprint.

This blog isn't about fearmongering over privacy, but rather about practical digital hygiene for people who are already technically savvy.

In a rather unfortunate throwback to the early days of the Hall effect gaming keyboard boom, it seems as though the new Haptic Inductive Trigger System in the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike gaming mouse is resulting in players getting permanently banned from Apex Legends for cheating. This is according to a new post on X by Iaroslav Mamalat, who shared a screenshot of an Apex Legends ban report that claims the player used gameplay enhancements.

An email received by the same player reads: "We observed: Gameplay enhancement. This means using unauthorized methods to enhance in-game performance by removing gameplay constraints or improving in-game abilities (e.g. weapon, movement, or item enhancements)." This potentially refers to the use of rapid trigger technology in the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike, but there are other reports in the replies to the X post that suggest it may simply have been a false ban, since similar has happened to other players who weren't using the new Logitech gaming mouse. Curiously, EA doesn't actually ordinarily ban rapid trigger keyboards in Apex Legends, but it isn't uncommon for game studios to ban SOCD, especially in competitive FPS games. Some theories online suggest that EA's anti-cheat may be using timing as a way to detect macro inputs, and that rapid trigger on the Superstrike may be resulting in click spamming that exceeds that timing threshold, resulting in a ban.

Update Feb 23rd: It has been confirmed by a Respawn team member in the r/apexlegends subreddit that this was a false ban, although it was seemingly still the result of the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike triggering a minimum threshold.

Microsoft ended support for Windows 10 last year, and if your computer is still running it, then your data is at risk. If you want an easy way to upgrade, right now, you can get Windows 11 Pro on sale for only $12.97 (reg. $199). Windows 11 Pro adds security tools that help protect your files and accounts in ways Windows 10 simply doesn't. BitLocker can encrypt your drive so someone who gets your laptop can't just pull the data off it. Smart App Control can block unknown or suspicious programs before they run, which is helpful if you download software from different places. Windows Defender works in the background to scan for threats without a separate antivirus subscription.

There are also changes that make it easier to work on a crowded desktop. Snap layouts let you click a layout and drop apps into neat side-by-side or grid views instead of dragging windows around. Virtual desktops help you keep work, personal tasks, and side projects in separate spaces on the same computer. When you plug back into a monitor or dock, Windows 11 Pro does a better job of putting windows back where they were instead of stacking them on one screen.

Right now, it's only $12.97 to get Windows 11 Pro, but it won't stay that way.