Intel has quietly rolled out a new mobile CPU in the Raptor Lake lineup, the Core i7-13645HX. The chip is built with Intel's 10 nm process and splits its 14 cores across six Performance cores and eight Efficient cores, just like the Core i7-13650HX. That means both share the same 20-thread count, 24 MB of Smart Cache, max turbo clock at 4.9 GHz, and power specs: 55 W base, 157 W peak. However, there are some differences. The i7-13645HX supports DDR5-5600, up from 4800 on its older sibling. With that comes also an increase in memory bandwidth to 89.6 GB/s, up from 76.8 GB/s. It also sports a more capable Intel UHD Graphics P730 with 32 execution units versus just 16 on the i7-13650HX. The older part still has a slight edge in efficiency: its E-cores can boost to 3.6 GHz, while this one tops out at 3.5 GHz. But for users who need faster memory and better integrated graphics, especially those running light gaming or video workloads, the new chip might be the better choice.

Compared to the i7-13700HX, which has eight P-cores, a higher boost clock (5.0 GHz), 30 MB cache, and slightly more power headroom, this one feels like something in between, less raw performance than the top-tier HX model but with better memory support. Intel rebranded Raptor Lake as Core 200 series in late 2024, positioning it for higher-end laptops. The i7-13645HX appears to be part of that push: a refined option for systems targeting mainstream performance without stepping up to the full HX stack. No official pricing yet, as this is likely to show up in select gaming and creator machines over the next few months. Remember that just this Tuesday, Intel rolled out its Core Ultra 200HX Plus mobile processors, including the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus. These processors add new features and architectural refinements, including support for the new Intel Binary Optimization Tool that can improve native performance in select games.

Jeff Kaplan's new game studio, Kintsugiyama, recently announced The Legend of California as its first title—a Western-inspired open-world, online FPS exploration game with shades of the survival-craft genre. Kaplan, who previously served as lead designer on Overwatch, said that The Legend of California was slated for a 2026 launch, but it now seems as though Kaplan was serious, with the game studio announcing a public alpha playtest in a new video on YouTube. The playtest will start on March 26 and end on March 30, while participants can sign up on the Steam store page and will be selected randomly via Steam sometime around March 25. The playtest will be online-only, and players will be able to play solo or in a squad of up to four players.

In the playtest announcement video, Kaplan admits that it will be a limited playtest, so not everyone who registers will get a slot to play. Kaplan calls it the "next important moment for the development of this game," suggesting Kintsugiyama will use the data and feedback gathered from the playtest for further improvement and development of the game. A FAQ on the game's Steam page claims that there will be another playtest "in summer," and that the game will launch in Early Access before getting a full release. The FAQ also addresses the game's minimum hardware requirements, which were seemingly added to the Steam page along with the playtest announcement. According to the FAQ, the minimum hardware specifications—an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Super 8 GB or AMD Radeon RX 6600 8 GB, 16 GB of RAM, and an Intel Core i7-10700K or AMD Ryzen 7 3700X—will target 30 FPS, while the recommended spec—an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800, 32 GB RAM, and an Intel Core i7 12700K or AMD Ryzen 7 5700X—will target 60 FPS.

Much has been said about NVIDIA's recent DLSS 5 announcement, with many criticisms of the tech stemming from how the neural rendering potentially alters the artistic vision and tone of the game. While NVIDIA insists that developers remain in full control, and that the game studios were involved in creating the promotional in-game imagery used to show off the neural rendering features, a new report from Insider Gaming suggests this might not have been the case.

According to game developers from both Capcom and Ubisoft who spoke to Insider Gaming, while the individual studios may have been involved in marketing DLSS 5, the teams who worked on them were just as surprised by the results as the rest of the gaming community. A Ubisoft developer is quoted as saying "We found out at the same time as the public," while developers at Capcom expressed similar sentiments, stating that it was surprising to see Capcom, who has generally been protective of its IPs when it comes to AI involvement, getting involved in the marketing for DLSS 5. Further, the Capcom developers expressed concern at how DLSS 5 might change how Capcom approaches generative AI and its role in game development.

During today's Future Games Show Spring Showcase, developer and publisher Nordcurrent revealed Defender of the Crown: The Legend Returns. The beloved 1986 strategy experience is coming to PC (Steam, GOG), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, and will include three modes: Retro Mode, Classic Mode, and Kingdom Mode. An Amiga hallmark, the title has been rebuilt to bring the Saxon-Norman conflict to a new audience with modernized visuals, refined mechanics, and an ambitious expansion of its classic formula.

England is a land of chaos where the crown has been stolen, and the King is dead. Players must step into the boots of a Saxon lord to outmaneuver rival Normans, raise armies, and reclaim the throne. This remake preserves the design of the original, while updating the experience with cleaner systems and meaningful quality-of-life enhancements.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) today announced results for its second quarter of fiscal 2026, which ended February 26, 2026.

Fiscal Q2 2026 highlights

• Revenue of $23.86 billion versus $13.64 billion for the prior quarter and $8.05 billion for the same period last year
• GAAP net income of $13.79 billion, or $12.07 per diluted share
• Non-GAAP net income of $14.02 billion, or $12.20 per diluted share
• Operating cash flow of $11.90 billion versus $8.41 billion for the prior quarter and $3.94 billion for the same period last year

Earlier this week we reported that the memory shortage was going to persist until late 2028, but news out of Korea now suggests it might stick around all the way until 2030. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won is quoted by The Korea Times saying that "The shortage stems from a lack of wafer capacity, and securing additional wafers takes at least four to five years," continuing "We expect the industry-wide supply shortfall to persist at over 20 percent through 2030."

The company is apparently looking at ways to stabilise pricing, but as to when this will happen, is anyone's guess at this point in time. In this specific case, it's down to SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung to try and resolve the immediate situation. SK Group doesn't seem interested in building fabs outside of South Korea either, as Chey also told The Korea Times that "Korea already has the infrastructure in place, allowing for a much faster response. That is why we are concentrating our efforts here." There is at least some good news here, as it doesn't seem like SK hynix will put its entire focus on HBM memory, as the company is aware that might lead to further shortages of DRAM, which will affect the broader tech industry.

Today, imec, a world-leading research and innovation hub in advanced semiconductor technologies, announces the arrival of the ASML EXE:5200 High NA EUV lithography system, the most advanced lithography tool available today. With this strategic milestone, imec reinforces its position as the industry's launchpad into the ångström era, giving its global partners ecosystem unparalleled early access to the next generation of chip-scaling technologies. Integrated directly with a comprehensive suite of patterning and metrology tools and materials, the High NA EUV system will empower imec and its ecosystem partners to unlock the performance needed to pioneer sub-2 nm logic and high-density memory technologies that will fuel the rapid growth of advanced AI and high-performance computing.

Luc Van den hove, CEO of imec: "The past two years have marked an important chapter for High NA (0.55NA) EUV lithography, with imec and ASML joining forces with the ecosystem in its joint High NA EUV Lithography Lab in Veldhoven (The Netherlands) to pioneer High NA EUV technology. With the installation of the EXE:5200 High NA EUV lithography system into our 300 mm cleanroom in Leuven (Belgium), we aim to bring these High NA EUV patterning technologies to an industry-relevant scale and to develop the next-generation High NA EUV patterning use cases. Its unmatched resolution, improved overlay performance, high throughput, and a new wafer stocker that improves process stability and throughput, will give our partners a decisive advantage in accelerating the development of sub-2 nm chip technologies. As the industry moves into the ångström era, High NA EUV will be a cornerstone capability, and imec is proud to lead the way by offering its partners the earliest and most comprehensive access to this technology."

AMD is preparing to launch its "Medusa Point" APU in early 2027. However, more benchmarks are emerging to showcase what the actual SoC can do as AMD and its OEM partners test the chip. In the latest Geekbench v6 run, AMD's 10-core, 20-thread "Zen 6" chip appeared with the AMD Engineering Sample number 100-000001713-21_N, achieving a 2,300 single-core and 13,002 multicore score while officially running at only a 2.4 GHz base frequency. In real-world operation, it ran within the range of 2.0-2.1 GHz during the benchmark. The most surprising factor is that this "Medusa Point" test system can match a 10-core, 20-thread AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 "Strix Point" APU that operates at more than double the frequency. When comparing the two, "Medusa Point" scores slightly lower in single-core performance, while the multicore score is surprisingly higher.

This phenomenon could be attributed to the fact that the "Zen 6" cores in the "Medusa Point" APU are much better performing and more optimized for the workloads that Geekbench tests. The IPC improvement target from "Zen 5" in "Strix Point" to the newest "Zen 6" could be a high single-digit to low double-digit gain on average. It is likely that the combination of new instructions and IPC improvements is what is pushing "Medusa Point" so high. Since the new APU also appeared in firmware running AVX-VNNI in FP16 precision, we might be seeing these workloads getting accelerated thanks to the lower precision of the floating-point operations. For now, the situation remains a mystery, at least until more benchmarks are available in the coming months. AMD is expected to launch this new APU around CES 2027, so we still have a lot of time before official and third-party benchmarks are released.

Microsoft has reportedly decided not to automatically install its Microsoft 365 Copilot App on Windows 11 by default, following significant user backlash against its AI integration into the operating system. What seemed to be a major initiative by the Redmond giant is now being reined in by a group of power users and enthusiasts who are resisting the "Copilot everywhere" strategy that Microsoft has recently promoted. According to a new update on the Admin 365 dashboard, Microsoft states, "Automatic installation of the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on Windows devices with Microsoft 365 desktop apps, planned for December 2025, is temporarily disabled. Existing installations remain unaffected. Admins can deploy the app via other methods and should await further updates."

For those who may not remember, the Microsoft 365 Copilot App is the rebranded version of what was originally called Microsoft 365 / Office Hub. This app version was introduced alongside the regular Copilot app on customers' Windows 11 systems. Back in September 2025, Microsoft planned to automatically install the Microsoft 365 Copilot App on Windows 11, along with the regular Copilot App, which meant users would receive two "AI-enhanced" applications automatically. This move sparked a significant backlash from the community, particularly from enthusiasts who saw little to no added value in Microsoft's AI integrations. Users made it clear that they wanted this enhancement to be optional, if not stopped altogether. Microsoft has recently commented that the company is focusing on what truly matters to consumers, such as fixing the bug-prone operating system and enhancing core features for a smoother user experience in Windows 11. They also mentioned stepping back from the "AI-everywhere" approach.

Today Quantum Machines launches The Open Acceleration Stack, a first-of-its-kind framework allowing users to integrate any classical processor (XPU) into their quantum control stack. This novel architecture allows quantum computers not only to be Quantum Error Correction (QEC)-ready and AI-ready, but also QEC- and AI-native.

The Open Acceleration Stack marks a significant expansion of Quantum Machines' Orchestration Platform, the industry's leading hardware and software framework for the control and operation of quantum processors. Using Quantum Machines' OPNIC (OPX Network Interface Card) and NVIDIA NVQLink, the framework enables an ultra-low, microsecond-level latency link between its proprietary Pulse Processing Unit (PPU) and high-performance accelerators, including GPUs, CPUs, FPGAs and ASICs.

Goodbye Desktop PC: The Tuxedo Gemini 17 - AMD represents the classic desktop replacement notebook. With a large 17.3-inch high-resolution screen, an absolute top-tier CPU, powerful graphics, and enhanced cooling for quieter operation, it delivers excellent stationary performance in a portable, subtly designed workstation - ideal for both work and play. While its Intel-based sibling with Core i9-14900HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is aimed at users with very high graphics requirements, the Gemini 17 - AMD primarily shines with its exceptionally fast high-end processor.

Solid Desktop Replacement Chassis with Classic Workstation Flair
With an overall height of just under 2.9 cm and a weight of 2.8 kg, this Linux desktop replacement is not designed for constant mobility, but still allows comfortable transportation over short to medium distances.

We recently visited 8BitDo at CES 2026, where we saw the Retro Wireless Receivers that enable wireless controller compatibility with retro game consoles. Now, 8BitDo has officially released both the Retro Wireless Receiver for the N64 and a modern wireless controller designed to work with a 2.4 GHz version of the same receiver. The Retro Wireless Receiver for N64 is available on Amazon and the 8BitDo eShop for $24.99, operates via BLE, and is compatible with a whole host of 8BitDo and first-party console controllers, including the Switch 64 Online, Switch Pro, and Wii U Pro controllers, seemingly any 8BitDo controller that supports BLE—like the Ultimate series and SN30 Pro series—Xbox One, Series, Elite Series controllers, and PlayStation's DualShock 4, DualSense, and DualSense Edge Controllers. The receiver also supports vibration and a built-in memory, with customization available via 8BitDo's Ultimate Software. 8BitDo also sells a mod kit to make the original N64 controller wireless, which is also compatible with the Retro Wireless Receiver.

The 8BitDo 64 2.4 GHz controller, on the other hand, is mostly just a rehash of the existing 8BitDo 64 Bluetooth controller repackaged to work with 2.4 GHz and paired with a Retro Wireless Receiver for N64 compatibility. The 64 controller uses modern controller design and ergonomics with a button layout adapted for the N64—specifically, it features large AB buttons where the right thumb stick would normally be on a game controller and a D-Pad where the usual ABXY face buttons would be. These design changes are to make the controller compatible with the Nintendo N64 console, but the internals are quite modern, featuring a Hall-effect joystick and support for Windows, via a wired connection, and the Analogue3D FPGA project's reimagining of the original N64, replete with vibration support on the latter. The 8BitDo 64 2.4 GHz controller is available on Amazon and 8BitDo's eShop for $39.99.

Intel is accelerating its advanced packaging push with a major move in Malaysia. According to reports from The Edge Malaysia, the company's new complex there, part of Project Pelican, is now 99% complete and set for full operations later this year. Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim confirmed he met with Intel CEO Tan Lip-Bu and executives to review the project progress. The first phase will launch assembly and testing capabilities for advanced packaging, marking a key step in Intel's foundry expansion strategy. The facility is designed to handle die sort, prep, and full production flows across both EMIB (Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge) and Foveros technologies, critical for supporting high-volume chiplet-based designs. As we reported in December last year, Intel values the project at approximately $7 billion and aims to transform Malaysia into a major regional hub for its advanced packaging operations. An additional $200 million investment has already been committed to finish the site.

Intel continues to advance its EMIB packaging approach. Unlike traditional silicon interposers used by NVIDIA in Blackwell, EMIB embeds conductive bridges directly into the substrate. This approach is cheaper, more efficient, and more suited for high-density chips. Intel is now aiming for 120 x 120 mm packages from the current 100 x 100 mm. These larger dies can support up to twelve HBM stacks, compared with eight in current designs. By 2028, Intel plans 120 x 180 mm packages capable of handling twenty-four HBM stacks. The company has also upgraded EMIB-T, its latest version incorporating through-silicon vias (TSV), to support next-gen HBM4 memory, now entering mass production. That is critical as AI chipmakers demand higher bandwidth and tighter integration. However, bigger isn't always easier. Scaling up package size increases warpage risk and yield challenges during manufacturing.

EK by LM TEK is proud to announce the EK-Pro GPU Water Block for NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition & MAX-Q Workstation Edition GPUs, a high-performance single-slot solution engineered for high-density AI server deployments and professional workstation applications. Designed for NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 GPUs, this full-cover EK-Pro block actively cools the GPU core, VRAM, and VRM, ensuring optimal performance, stability, and efficient heat dissipation.

The single-slot form factor maximizes GPU density, making it ideal for AI and server infrastructure. Integrated quick-disconnect fittings enable efficient maintenance without the need for disassembly or loop draining, reducing downtime and supporting scalable data center operations. The EK-Pro GPU Water Block for NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition and MAX-Q Workstation Edition is available through the EK Shop via our enterprise team. Please note this EK is not compatible with the reference RTX Pro 6000 Workstation Edition GPU.

If your workstation build has no budget limits, there's now a way to get 16 TB of NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD storage on a single M.2 2280 SSD. However, this small storage drive will set you back nearly $16,000, with Amazon listing a brand new Exascend PE4 16 TB M.2 SSD at $15,935. What makes this drive so expensive is the fact that you are getting 16 TB of NVMe SSD storage in a super-dense configuration that fits into a single M.2 slot on a motherboard, requiring no additional drives to achieve this capacity. The Exascend PE4 drive uses a PCIe 4.0 interface and can reach sequential read speeds of up to 3,270 MB/s, while write speeds can reach up to 2,980 MB/s, just shy of 3 GB/s. The drive uses TLC 3D NAND Flash storage modules from an unknown manufacturer.

The drive is designed to withstand a TBW of 16,640 TB written to it and about two million hours of MTBF, meaning its usable life is guaranteed to last through any known task, running 24/7 in systems where reliability is the number one factor. Interestingly, Exascend only offers a five-year warranty but claims its hardware will significantly outlast that. Rigorous testing and massive capacity justify the high price point, so some users might find the need for such a drive. Additionally, idle power consumption remains under 1.3 W, while this SSD can reach up to 7.2 W of active power when under full load, meaning that efficiency for such a drive is rather good.

AMD is preparing an update to its Ryzen 9000 series desktop processor lineup with the introduction of two new models, the Ryzen 7 9750X, and the Ryzen 5 9650X. Both these chips are non-X3D (lack 3D V-Cache), and implement the regular "Zen 5" CCD with 32 MB on-die L3 caches. The two are being designed with increased clock speeds and TDP, and their launch closely follows Intel's recent product stack refresh with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus.

The Ryzen 7 9750X is an 8-core/16-thread chip with a base frequency of 4.20 GHz with 5.60 GHz maximum boost frequency, a significant increase over the 3.80 GHz base and 5.50 GHz maximum boost frequency of the Ryzen 7 9700X. The 9750X comes with a 120 W TDP out of the box. In comparison, the 9700X comes with 65 W TDP out of the box, and AMD allowed motherboard vendors to provide a BIOS-based 105 W TDP mode that doesn't break warranty, designed to improve boost frequency residency. The 9750X not only comes with increased clocks, but also increases the TDP further, to 120 W from that BIOS-based 105 W TDP mode.

ASUS today announced the ExpertCenter PN55 Mini PC, a compact Copilot+ PC powered by the latest AMD Ryzen AI 400 Series processors with class-leading multithreaded performance and advanced XDNA 2 NPU delivering up to 55 AI TOPS. Integrated AMD Radeon 800M graphics provides prosumers and content creators with exceptional, incredibly detailed visuals. Despite its small footprint, ExpertCenter PN55 offers dual LAN and up to six USB ports, giving it the flexibility to take on a variety of tasks including AI-accelerated productivity, collaboration, and content creation. It also offers design features that enable tool-less upgrades.

Enhanced productivity with Copilot+
ASUS ExpertCenter PN55 Mini PC is powered by an up to AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 processor featuring up to 55 TOPS of XDNA2 NPU performance. This robust compute engine enables smooth generative AI tasks, allowing users to generate ideas, create content, and upscale images in seconds. Paired with up to 96 GB of DDR5 memory, ExpertCenter PN55 ensures rapid access to AI-accelerated workloads and supports seamless multitasking for everyday productivity tasks such as web browsing, presentations, and content creation. AI PCs accelerate everyday tasks by automating repetitive work, helping users save time and work more efficiently.

AMD today released a statement in China on the scandal involving Chinese notebook OEM Chuwi mislabeling Ryzen 5000 series mobile processor models as Ryzen 7000 series. You can read all about the scandal in our older article, but to summarize, the company was found selling notebooks with cheap Zen 2 Ryzen 5 5500U processors with the processor name strings modified in the BIOS to falsely show Ryzen 5 7430U, a Zen 3 chip released almost three years later. This attempt at deception also covered product marketing, and Ryzen 7000 series case badges on the notebook chassis.

AMD, in its Chinese-language statement to the Chinese press, as reported by Hong Kong-based HKEPC, came down hard on the malpractice by Chuwi. The company said that this behavior by Chuwi was in no form authorized by AMD; that the company has strict and legally-binding agreements with its OEMs over the handling of the AMD brand, product labels, or product promotion; and condemned the behavior, saying that such acts damage consumer confidence in AMD as a brand. It ended the statement saying that the company reserves the right to pursue legal action against those involved.The machine translated statement by AMD follows:

Thermaltake, a leading PC DIY brand for premium hardware solutions, introduces the TR200 Series, a compact microATX lineup designed to deliver high-end hardware compatibility, advanced cooling support, and modern visual customization within a minimalist form factor. The TR200 Series includes the TR200 and TR200 WS Micro Chassis, both available in Black and Snow, offering identical internal specifications with distinct front panel aesthetics to match different setup styles.

The TR200 WS features vertical real wood accents on the front panel, introducing natural warmth and refined texture while maintaining the same airflow performance and hardware compatibility as the TR200, which features a clean mesh front design. This allows builders to choose between a minimalist, modern aesthetic or a warmer, more decorative style that complements contemporary desk setups and living spaces.

Ahead of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach PC launch scheduled for March 19th, Sony has released a new PC version launch trailer called "No Rain, No Rainbow", as well as confirmed that the game will be getting support for NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS upscaling and frame generation technologies. Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will also support ray-traced reflections and ambient occlusion, where ray tracing will be used for surfaces like water and other reflections, while ambient occlusion should bring much more realistic shadows due to ambient lighting effects. Unfortunately, Sony did not include ray tracing in the previously released PC system requirements, so it is left to be seen how the Decima engine handles these effects in terms of CPU and GPU requirements. According to Sony, "these additional PC options are aimed at players with powerful hardware that want to push visual fidelity beyond the "Very High" graphics settings the game already offers."

In addition, the PC version of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach will also get uncapped frame rates, more extensive graphics settings options, super-ultrawide (32:9) and ultrawide (21:9) monitor support, full mouse and keyboard support with key binding, spatial sound support, and more. The PC version of the game will also get a new challenge with the "to the wilder" game mode, as well as some other new game features and content additions. Sony also released a new launch trailer for the PC version of the game, which you can check out below.

With the latest Arc 101.8626 WHQL graphics driver, Intel has extended its precompiled shader delivery service to Intel Arc B-series GPUs and Intel Core Ultra Series 3 and Series 2 SoCs with built-in Intel Arc GPUs. This enhancement aims to significantly reduce game loading times. Intel's service gathers game shaders in the company's private cloud infrastructure, where they are processed and precompiled. When you install the Intel Graphics Software App, the service identifies the games you play and downloads the precompiled shaders for those games, using the Intel app as a distribution service and creating a folder with the precompiled shaders. This approach allows games to load much faster, reduces stuttering on the first launch, and automatically updates shaders whenever they are revised, with Intel's service pulling the new shaders into the shared folder on your PC. For TechPowerUp, Intel confirmed the following:

IntelIntel Precompiled Shaders is custom built and run by Intel. We are also working with Microsoft's on launching Advanced Shader Delivery later this year. Together, both services will provide users of supported Arc GPUs with more game and game store coverage of technologies that reduce waiting times and in-game stutters due to shader compilation.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of edge computing solutions, industrial motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, is proud to introduce the new BITWL-IHT, a Thin Mini-ITX industrial motherboard engineered to deliver stable and scalable performance for modern intelligent infrastructure. Built to smoothly run with the Intel Alder Lake-N, Amston Lake, and Twin Lake series processors, the BITWL-IHT is designed to address the growing demand for reliable edge platforms across AIoT, industrial automation, HMI, kiosk, digital signage, and distributed edge computing environments where long-term stability and flexible integration are essential.

At its core, the BITWL-IHT supports Intel Processor N150, Intel Atom x7213E, and Intel Core i3-N305, offering adaptable processing performance across a wide spectrum of embedded and edge workloads. Combined with support for DDR5-4800 SO-DIMM memory up to 16 GB, the platform ensures responsive multitasking, efficient data handling, and improved power efficiency for continuous industrial operation. Its compact 170 mm x 170 mm slim Mini-ITX form factor enables streamlined system integration in space-constrained environments, making it ideal for slim kiosks, panel PCs, and embedded control systems.

Microsoft has finally released a second DirectX Ray Tracing (DXR) functional specification file that outlines what its ray tracing pipeline is expected to look like, the goals the company is pursuing, and what the technology does behind the scenes. In the original file, Microsoft described the ray tracing pipeline from ray shader generation, scheduling, and acceleration structure, all the way to the shading of the actual game. This time, the company has shared insights into areas such as clustered geometry, partitioned top-level acceleration structures (TLAS), and indirect acceleration structure operations.

Firstly, Microsoft introduces the concept of clustered geometry. Readers need to understand that the core graphics elements are triangles, which are the building blocks of the 3D worlds we have today. However, DXR clustered geometry treats groups of nearby triangles as common building blocks or multiple building blocks, allowing the GPU to build, move, and instantiate geometry in bulk. Instead of handling this separately with multiple calls for triangles, the GPU's task is now much more simplified. DXR even defines compact vertex encodings and predefined template formats to ensure that the GPU memory and bandwidth required to execute bulk geometry building and moving are sufficient. As a result, the GPU doesn't have to update or duplicate existing geometry, and DXR will help render foliage, crowds, and in-game props once, allowing them to be moved around easily. This reduces the GPU load and improves the performance of ray tracing in games.

Intel has released its latest 101.8626 WHQL Arc GPU graphics drivers, adding day-one support for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach and Everwind games, as well as introducing the new Intel Graphics Shader Distribution Service, which should improve first load times by up to 2x on Intel Arc B-series and Intel Core Ultra Series 3 and Series 2 CPUs with Intel Arc GPUs. The Graphics Shader Distribution Service is currently limited to a dozen games, so hopefully Intel will extend the list further with the future driver release. In addition, the new Intel Arc GPU 101.8626 WHQL graphics drivers also improve game performance in the Nioh 3 game on Intel Arc B-series GPUs by up to 9 percent at 1080p resolution with Ultra settings.

The new Intel Arc GPU driver release also fixes a couple of issues seen with previous driver releases, including an application crash with ray tracing enabled in the Naraka Bladepoint game, cinematic corruption in Hogwarts Legacy, and visual corruption in the viewport while resizing the window with HDR enabled in Davinci Resolve Studio. These issues are fixed on Intel Arc B-series GPUs and Ultra Series 3 CPUs with Intel Arc GPUs. Since it is a major WHQL release, Intel is listing all new known issues that are left to be fixed with future driver releases.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc Graphics Driver 101.8626 WHQL

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with AMD to expand their strategic collaboration on next-generation AI memory and computing technologies. The signing ceremony was held at Samsung's most advanced chip manufacturing complex in Pyeongtaek, Korea, attended by Dr. Lisa Su, Chair and CEO of AMD, and Young Hyun Jun, Vice Chairman & CEO of Samsung Electronics.

"Samsung and AMD share a commitment to advancing AI computing, and this agreement reflects the growing scope of our collaboration," said Young Hyun Jun, Vice Chairman & CEO of Samsung Electronics. "From industry-leading HBM4 and next-generation memory architectures to cutting-edge foundry and advanced packaging, Samsung is uniquely positioned to deliver unrivaled turnkey capabilities that support AMD's evolving AI roadmap."

MSI, a global leader in high-performance server solutions, today unveils its latest AI infrastructure portfolio built on NVIDIA's modular architectures, including the NVIDIA MGX platform and NVIDIA DGX Station technology. Designed to accelerate AI training, large-scale inference, HPC, edge, and next-generation data center workloads, MSI's expanded lineup delivers exceptional scalability, performance density, and deployment flexibility.

Scalable AI Infrastructure Built on NVIDIA MGX Architecture
Leveraging the modular design of NVIDIA MGX architecture, MSI has developed a comprehensive portfolio of 4U and 6U liquid-cooled servers supporting NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition and NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs. The NVIDIA MGX architecture enables flexible CPU selection, high-capacity memory configurations, and seamless integration of high-speed networking - empowering enterprises to deploy infrastructure tailored to diverse workload requirements, from data center deployments to edge applications.

Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Take-Two Interactive, has a somewhat complicated relationship with artificial intelligence, having previously expressed an interest in AI NPCs for more natural conversations while also having confirmed that GTA VI will feature no generative AI. Now, in a recent interview with The Game Business, Zelnick has once again commented on the capabilities and applications of generative AI. Addressing a question about Google's recent Project Genie showcases, Zelnick has dismissed the idea that generative AI could be used as a one-stop-shop for game development, saying that the gaming industry has always used technology to create great entertainment," adding that "an advance in technology that allows us to do our work better and quicker is great for us."

Zelnick dismisses the idea that AI projects like Genie are a threat to the gaming industry and to game developers, commenting that "it's quite obvious that creation tools are a benefit to our industry," and that the notion that "AI tools can somehow create big hits kind of doesn't stand to reason." He reasons that generative AI may help developers create game assets, but that creating a hit game requires human engagement and creativity. Zelnick rounds out the AI discussion by emphasizing that Take-Two's goal is to create engaging, entertaining games, and that this requires creativity, adding that "technology can assist with that mission, but technology on its own will not replace the fulfillment of that mission." The executive goes on to explain that "the notion that somehow new tools would allow an individual to push a button and generate a hit and bring it to many millions of consumers around the world, it's a laughable notion." It's worth noting that there have been recent layoffs, like those at EA, that have been attributed to or followed by an increase in AI adoption, indicating that, while AI may not be capable of replacing artists and developers from a technical standpoint, it does not necessarily mean there is no threat.

RPCS3, the multi-platform, open-source PlayStation 3 emulator that recently announced support for 70% of the PlayStation 3 game library, has just added a UX workflow to automatically add emulated games to your Steam library. This effectively works the same way as adding a third-party game to your Steam library from Steam, but it eliminates the extra step of opening Steam and manually adding the game launcher to your Steam library. Games added this way will automatically add the game's PS3 art included with the game files in the emulator, to boot.

It's a small UI change, in the grand scheme of things, but it should help simplify game emulation and make it easier for gamers to play their emulated games via RPCS3. Being able to add third-party games to a game library is a nigh-essential feature that even Microsoft recently added to the Xbox App for Windows. RPCS3 adopting support for seamless Steam library integration could effectively let Linux and SteamOS players go from cold boot to playing a game all from a controller using Steam Big Picture mode—no keyboard or mouse necessary.

Crimson Desert has had no shortage of hype leading up to its March 19 launch date, but research firm, Alinea Insights, has put a number on that hype. Based on Steam data and sales approximations, Alinea estimates that the new open-world action-adventure game has already surpassed $20 million in Steam revenue alone. This is based on an estimated 400,000 pre-orders ahead of launch. Currently, Crimson Desert sits at the top of Steam's Top Sellers charts, which ranks games by revenue earned, having beaten out long-standing chart-topper, Counter-Strike—at least in the US—and the more recent indie hit, Slay the Spire 2, which recently dropped from first to fourth place.

Likewise, according to SteamDB, at the time of writing, Crimson Desert is the fourth most-wishlisted game on Steam, boasting over 170,000 followers on Steam. The excitement leading up to the launch of Crimson Desert has been building for a good long while now, but the game, and its development team, earned a significant boost in its reputation online after a very forgiving set of minimum hardware requirements was announced for Crimson Desert in a time that games seem to be getting more demanding with every passing launch. Alinea attributes much of Crimson Desert's success to the studio's community building efforts and authentic, transparent approach to community engagement, much like the recent gameplay demo showed off on the PlayStation Japan YouTube channel.

At GTC 2026, NVIDIA announced its next-generation DLSS installment, version 5. However, after the community expressed significant backlash over the goals of DLSS 5, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang addressed the criticism surrounding the upcoming technology. In a Q&A session, NVIDIA provided Tom's Hardware with a response from a gamer's perspective about the objectives being pursued, as much of the negative feedback stemmed from the perceived visual downgrade in Resident Evil Requiem with the enhancements of DLSS 5. "Well, first of all, they're completely wrong. The reason for that is, as I have explained very carefully, DLSS 5 fuses the controllability of geometry, textures, and every aspect of the game with generative AI." What the CEO of the world's largest company is trying to convey is the controllability offered by DLSS 5 and how it provides developers with an option to enhance visuals.

For example, much of the criticism focuses on how DLSS 5 alters the visual definition of various in-game elements beyond the original developer's intention. Jensen Huang explains that DLSS 5 is not merely a post-processing tool for games but rather a system that gives developers generative control at the geometry level, not just a filter applied on top of the graphics processing pipeline. Huang noted that developers have complete control over what the technology does from the very beginning. DLSS 5 uses the game's color and motion vectors for each frame, and the model aligns with what the game developer originally intended for the image. Even the extent to which DLSS 5 enhances visual fidelity can be controlled, and it is entirely up to the developer to decide. "It's not post-processing, it's not post-processing at the frame level, it's generative control at the geometry level," iterated Huang.

There has been a lot of discussion about Marathon's gameplay, pacing, and potential shortcomings in the weeks since the game launched. One feature that has seemingly been requested all over since the game launched is a duos queue for squads of two players, and it looks as though Bungie is indulging in the fans' requests with an imminent experimental duos queue. According to an X post by Marathon's game director, Bungie will start testing for a duos queue on Wednesday, 18 March, at 10 AM PT. Given that Bungie is even testing a duos queue suggests that there is enough player feedback for the game studio to consider adding the feature to the game at large. There are still questions about how two-player teams will fare in a game that has notoriously high time-to-kill in non-PvP encounters, but that's perhaps one of the gameplay aspects that will need tuning and experimentation to nail down.

This is an experimental test that will be limited to the Perimeter zone, and there are a few minor details to note if you're planning to hop into the new game mode. For starters, and likely the most notable issue players might run into, the duos queue will not have any matchmaking, meaning duos will only be available to players already in a squad with two players. The director is also clear that "some things will be jank," suggesting this will be far from a polished experience for players, but he hopes that any data gathered during the testing can be used to expand the duos queue in the future. Players interested in joining the duos queue can select "Perimeter - Duos" from the zone selection screen, but this will not be the final UX flow, leaving Bungie with a lot of headroom to grow the Marathon duos gameplay experience going forward.

The PS5 release of Starfield has long been rumored for 2026, but it was unclear when exactly the game would launch for Sony's gaming platform, but Bethesda has now confirmed that Starfield will launch on the PS5 in April 2026. Specifically, the launch is slated for an April 7 release. Starfield's PlayStation 5 release will coincide with the launch of a free game content update and a new story DLC, all of which was detailed in a recent developer deep-dive on the Bethesda Softworks YouTube channel.

Bethesda says that the Free Lanes update was heavily guided by player feedback, and that it will be the biggest update since the game's launch. Free Lanes will add a new vehicle and spacesuit, as well as new weapons to find and POIs for players to explore and interact with. It also adds a cruise mode to speed up interplanetary travel and allow players to interact with their crew and ship on longer trips. There are also a new material to enhance weapons and ships, and an expansion to the progression system to give players more to do in space and on the planets they encounter. Enemies have also received an update to make enemy encounters more challenging and varied.

Following the recent early performance benchmarks of the Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, Intel's Arrow Lake-S Core Ultra 3 205T has broken ground on PassMark, and it's giving the Core Ultra 5 255 and Core Ultra 5 255T a run for their money, at least in single-core benchmarks. Multithreaded benchmarks paint something of a grimmer picture for the Core Ultra 3 205T, though—likely due to the reduced core and thread count of the 205T, which features just eight cores and eight threads, likely four P-cores and four E-cores.

The Core Ultra 3 205T scored a respectable 4,561 points in the single-core benchmark, beating out the Core Ultra 5 255 and 255T by 3.2% and 6.6%, respectively. When it comes to multithreaded tasks, however, the Core Ultra 3 205T falls behind. In PassMark's benchmarks, the 205T was nearly 15% behind the Core Ultra 5 225. Still, the Intel Core Ultra 3 205T comes in ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI 5 435 by a significant margin in both single- and multi-core tests, and the Core Ultra 3 205T seems to have been tested at a peak TDP of 35 W, all of which may make it worth considering for lower-end office builds.

The Xbox App has been undergoing an overhaul for some time, and the latest update now allows users to add apps, games, and virtually any third-party software to its library. Windows Central has tested this feature, providing a preview of the process. Although these third-party games and software are not linked to any Microsoft service, the Xbox App offers a centralized location for launching them as shortcuts. For example, Steam has offered a similar feature for years, allowing gamers to add games installed from third-party stores to the Steam Client, but only as shortcuts for launching, not as official sources. This means that any updates to third-party applications will still be managed by their respective apps or clients, with the Xbox App serving merely as a unified shortcut hub.

The process is quite simple. After opening the Xbox App on your PC, go to the "My Library" section, find the small "+" icon in the top right corner, and click it to see suggested additions. If your application isn't listed among the suggested files, the Xbox App enables you to use File Explorer to manually browse for files and locate what you want to display. Nearly any .exe file can be added, including games, productivity apps, or almost anything you can imagine. The only limits are your imagination or something that hasn't been tested yet. For users who want to use the Xbox App as a single app launcher, this feature allows you to embed any game or app within the same user interface, which is a nice option for those who enjoy the Xbox App's user experience.

NVIDIA has added another graphics card to its server lineup, this time in the form of a passively cooled, single-slot RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition GPU. The company positions this release as a highly efficient GPU for compute-dense environments. It comes with 10,496 CUDA cores, 82 Ray Tracing cores, and 32 GB of GDDR7 memory running on a 256-bit bus, providing 800 GB/s of memory bandwidth, all within a total graphics power of 165 W. This specification is similar to the current RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell with an active dual-slot cooler but saves a few watts of TGP, as the actively-cooled edition has a 200 W TGP. The difference in TGP is attributed to higher-binned "Blackwell" GB203 dies with better frequency tuning, resulting in a similar performance target for this GPU. This server edition SKU also reduces memory bandwidth, running the 32 GB GDDR7 modules at 25 Gbps effective, while the regular blower-style RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell uses full 28 Gbps modules.

This server edition SKU is designed for server configurations that require hyper-dense setups, where a single-slot solution will be cooled by high-RPM server fans. For example, server farms could install a dozen of these GPUs in parallel within a single system, stacking them as long as there are available PCIe slots. High airflow chassis would push air through the passively cooled GPU shroud, cooling the 165 W TGP. Interestingly, this is not even the most efficient GB203 bin with 10,496 CUDA cores, as NVIDIA offers a GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile GPU SKU with only a 95 W TDP. However, that comes at the cost of some clock speeds, which are still unknown for the newest RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell Server Edition GPU.

System76 has refreshed its Thelio Mira desktop series with a focus on better thermals, easier serviceability, and a cleaner overall design, while it's still all built in-house at the company's facility in Denver. The new chassis mixes aluminium, steel, and a tempered glass front panel, with a vertical control bar consolidating the power button and front I/O into one clean strip. System76 uses steel fasteners throughout, and the panels are designed for quick access when you need to get inside for upgrades or maintenance. On the cooling side, System76 made improvements, the company claims up to 19% higher sustained CPU clock speeds and temperature drops of up to 13.5°C thanks to liquid cooling and revised airflow.

System76 also made changes to the specs as it is built around an ASRock X870 Pro RS WiFi motherboard. Processor options top out at the Ryzen 9 9950X or 9950X3D, memory goes up to 192 GB of DDR5, and storage can reach 28 TB spread across NVMe and SATA drives. As for the GPU, you can choose a single graphics card up to an RTX 5090 or Radeon RX 9070 XT over PCIe 5.0. Connectivity includes USB4, 2.5 GbE, and Wi-Fi 7, with a mix of front and rear USB ports. PSU requirements start at 750 W and go up to 1000 W for the beefier GPU configs. As with other System76 products, the Thelio Mira carries open-source firmware elements and is built with long-term usability in mind.

Crimson Desert's official March 19 launch is just around the corner, and in the lead-up to the launch, PlayStation Japan and Pearl Abyss have shown off the upcoming action-adventure game running on base PS5 hardware with respectable image quality and performance. The presenters of the Play! Play! Play! broadcast play through the first few minutes of the game's prologue and show off a few tutorial scenes, and, although it's difficult to gauge image quality directly, there is some information to be gleaned from the broadcast. Overall, performance and image quality seem to align with the promises made by the minimum hardware requirements published earlier this month—even if there are some upscaling artifacts visible in finer textures, like character hair.

The most notable aspect of the gameplay footage is that there are no obvious framerate issues, texture pop-ins, or stuttering visible. Even at longer draw distances, image quality seems to be well controlled, and motion remains smooth, even during high-action scenes where the load would generally increase. The demonstration has been heartening for PS5 players, since there were suspicions that the PS5 gameplay footage was being kept under wraps ahead of the game's launch due to lackluster performance. The broadcast also serves to give players a taste of the challenging combat, puzzle-platformer mechanics, exploration, and atmospheric world they can expect from the game's launch.

Echo Foundry Interactive, an independent game studio focused on building the next generation of music and rhythm experiences and founded by industry veterans behind the Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and DJ Hero franchises, today announced that Sound System, the highly anticipated next-generation rhythm game, will launch on Steam on October 16, 2026 for $24.99.

Sound System revives the rhythm game genre with intense gameplay, built-in creator tools, and a community platform for artists and players to share music-driven creativity. Shred guitar, play bass, or sing vocals using keyboard, controller, compatible guitar controllers, or microphone. Enjoy local split-screen or online modes, including co-op band performances with shared multipliers and effects, and head-to-head competitive modes for stage control battles.

Supermicro, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI), a Total IT Solution Provider for AI, Cloud, Storage, and 5G/Edge, today unveiled one of the industry's first context memory (CMX) storage server as part of NVIDIA STX reference architecture announced NVIDIA GTC 2026. STX is a new modular reference architecture from NVIDIA which is designed to accelerate the full lifecycle of AI.

"Supermicro continues to be first to market with new rack scale architectures designed to exceed the needs of a rapidly evolving AI Factory customer base," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "Building upon last year's introduction of the Petascale JBOF (Just a Bunch of Flash), where we proved the feasibility of a JBOF powered by NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs, we have developed the CMX storage server. Our prototype of the latest storage architecture demonstrates the level of our collaboration with NVIDIA, and our commitment to be first-to-market with game changing technologies."

Dell has given its Alienware gaming laptop lineup a boost with Intel's newest Core Ultra 200HX Plus series processors, which are part of the Arrow Lake-HX Refresh. This update comes after Intel rolled out its new mobile chips, including the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus. These chips are designed to handle demanding gaming and workstation tasks, and they come with extra features like the Intel Binary Optimization Tool. The updated Dell lineup covers 18-inch and 16-inch laptops from the Alienware Area-51 series and Alienware 16X Aurora. The 18-inch model continues to target maximum performance, now configurable with up to the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, a 24-core chip with boost clocks reaching 5.5 GHz, while the Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus offers a 20-core option with boost up to 5.3 GHz.

The 16-inch models bring more notable changes. As previously announced in January at CES 2026, both the Alienware 16 Area-51 and 16X Aurora now feature anti-glare OLED panels, keeping the 2560 × 1600 resolution and 240 Hz refresh rate, but improving response time to 0.2 ms and increasing peak brightness to 620 nits, up from 500 nits on previous LCD configurations. The Alienware 16X Aurora also gets a GPU upgrade, now configurable up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, replacing the previous RTX 5070. Memory support stays the same, with the 16X Aurora maxing out at DDR5-5600, while storage choices go from 1 TB to 4 TB, with PCIe 4.0 support on some setups.

Corsair, a leading maker of performance gaming peripherals, announced the release of the 99% form factor, low-profile VANGUARD AIR 99 WIRELESS Optical-Mechanical Gaming Keyboard. Equipped with low-profile Corsair OPX optical switches, 8,000 Hz hyper-polling, FlashTap SOCD handling, versatile tri-mode connectivity, and an aluminium frame, it's built on a rock-solid foundation of gaming performance.

Premium gasket mounting, five layers of sound dampening, and a brilliant, integrated LCD screen solidify the VANGUARD AIR 99 WIRELESS as a formidable piece of competitive gaming gear that excels in all aspects of daily life. One of our thinnest keyboards ever made, it measures just a scant 18 mm, perfectly designed for modern aesthetic sensibilities. Equipped with Elgato Stream Deck integration and programmable SD-keys, it streamlines daily workflows into single button presses. VANGUARD AIR 99 WIRELESS is an elegant solution that effortlessly delivers high-performance gaming needs and optimizes productivity tasks.

Teledyne e2v is pleased to announce the start of full production of its 16 GB DDR4-X1 Flight Model (FM), expanding its portfolio of high-density, radiation-tolerant memory solutions for space applications. The new device is designed to support the growing processing and data storage requirements of AI-enabled satellites, large constellations, broadband Internet-from-Space, Direct-to-Device services, and optical inter-satellite communications. By combining high memory density, radiation resilience, and a compact footprint, the component enables spacecraft to handle increasingly demanding onboard computing workloads.

Initial samples of the 16 GB DDR4-X1 Flight Models were delivered to customers in October 2025, allowing early system integration and evaluation. The device supports data rates up to 2400 MT/s, provides single-event latch-up immunity above 43 MeV·cm²/mg, and offers radiation tolerance up to 35 krad TID, enabling reliable operation in mission-critical space environments.

Industry-leading embedded solutions provider AAEON (Stock Code: 6579) has announced the release of the ATX-Q870A, an ATX industrial motherboard supporting Intel Core Ultra Series 2 Processors (formerly Arrow Lake-S) and up to 256 GB of dual-channel DDR5-6400 system memory. Designed to accommodate up to 125 W CPUs from the new Intel CPU platform, the ATX-Q870A can leverage up to 24 cores and 24 threads of computing power alongside up to 36 TOPS of AI performance through the series' integrated CPU, GPU, and NPU. As such, AAEON has positioned the product as a foundation upon which compute-intensive applications such as industrial automation systems and high-performance workstations can be built.

Despite its impressive processing capabilities, it is the expandability offered by the ATX-Q870A that is most likely to catch attention. Of particular note are the board's two PCIe Gen 5 and five PCIe Gen 4 slots, which allow it to support high-spec GPUs and AI accelerators, NVMe storage, and task-specific modules like serial cards, sensor interfaces, and low-speed NICs simultaneously.

Taiwanese PC case specialist Antec and Austrian quiet cooling expert Noctua have teamed up to create a custom, further refined Noctua Edition of Antec's award-winning Flux Pro chassis. Upgrading the Flux Pro with Noctua's latest NF-A14x25 G2 and NF-A12x25 G2 flagship fans for even better low-noise cooling performance, the new Noctua Edition forms an ideal basis for ultra-quiet, high-end builds.

"Antec has been at the forefront of PC case design for more than two decades, and we're excited to collaborate with such a renowned, iconic manufacturer to introduce the very first Noctua Edition chassis," says Roland Mossig (Noctua CEO). "The Flux Pro has been rightfully praised for its exceptional quiet cooling potential, so it was an obvious candidate for the project. Once we integrated our latest flagship fans and saw how much further we could reduce noise levels while maintaining similar component temperatures, it quickly became clear that this is a worthy Noctua Edition."Editor's Note: Check out the TechPowerUp Review of this case.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) is proud to launch the 2026 ROG Strix G16 and Strix G18, two incredible gaming laptops featuring the latest hardware and technology to deliver incredible performance to gamers everywhere. Boasting the all-new Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU, these machines are built from the ground up for enthusiast gamers. Both the ROG Strix G16 and G18 feature the latest ROG displays, cooling, and tool-less chassis designs that allow gamers to seamlessly upgrade critical components. Later this year, the flagship ROG Strix SCAR 18 will also be unveiled, delivering flagship performance in an incredibly sleek ROG chassis.

Elite performance for every arena
The 2026 Strix G16 and G18 gaming laptops are engineered for players and creators who demand uncompromising performance across competitive esports titles, visually rich AAA games, and intensive content‑creation workflows. Both models feature the latest Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus processor, delivering exceptional multi‑threaded power and next‑generation AI capabilities.

Intel today announced the launch of its new Intel Core Ultra 200HX Plus series mobile processors, giving gamers and professionals new high-performance options in the Core Ultra 200 series family. Optimized for advanced gaming, streaming, content creation, and workstation use, the Intel Core Ultra 200HX Plus series introduces two new processors - Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and Intel Core Ultra 7 270HX Plus. These processors add new features and architectural refinements, including support for the new Intel Binary Optimization Tool, a first-of-its-kind binary translation layer optimization capability that can improve native performance in select games.

"With the introduction of the Intel Core Ultra 200HX Plus series, we're pushing mobile computing performance even further for the gamers, creators, and professionals who demand the best. With higher die-to-die frequencies and our new Intel Binary Optimization Tool, the new Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus and Ultra 7 270HX Plus deliver meaningful, real‑world performance gains so users can experience smoother gameplay, faster creation workflows, and more responsive workstation performance", Josh Newman, General Manager and Vice President of Product Marketing, Client Computing Group.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation, a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices, today announced that it will showcase a rich portfolio of differentiated enterprise SSD controllers and PCIe NVMe BGA boot SSD at NVIDIA GTC 2026, Booth #3015, purpose-built to meet the evolving requirements of the NVIDIA AI ecosystem. As AI models scale, inference architectures are extending beyond HBM and System DRAM into high-performance NAND storage tiers, as reflected in NVIDIA's ICMS initiative. In this new architecture, NAND-based Storage becomes a performance-critical layer that requires deterministic latency and quality-of-service differentiation.

Silicon Motion delivers a vertically integrated storage solution encompassing advanced SSD controller design, full firmware development, and compact Reference Design Kits (RDKs) aligned with leading enterprise form factors such as E1.S, E1.L, E3.S, E3.L, and U.2 for AI server deployments. The company also provides enterprise PCIe NVMe BGA boot SSD with strong endurance and long-term operational stability, deployed in AI systems.

Logitech G today announced the long-anticipated RS H-Shifter, the latest addition to the renowned Racing Series Ecosystem. Designed to deliver unmatched realism, tactile control, and game-changing durability, this advanced 7+R manual shifter is tailor-made for anyone passionate about authentic racing experiences. For years, racers have yearned for a product that combines modern engineering with the timeless precision of manual control, and Logitech G has delivered. From gripping rally runs in Assetto Corsa Rally to flawless drifting in Forza Horizon, the RS H-Shifter gives racers the tactile realism and precise control needed to dominate the virtual track.

"There's a strong demand from car enthusiasts worldwide for the connection and control that a manual shifter offers," said Richard Neville, Head of Product, Simulation at Logitech G. "The RS H-Shifter's engaging, racing gearbox feel, is engineered to reliably deliver the elevated experience that is expected from Racing Series and PRO products."

Yesterday, NVIDIA unveiled its latest DLSS 5 technology, offering gamers the first real-time neural rendering. However, even after the announcement, many questions arose about what DLSS 5 is capable of and how it will work with games. NVIDIA released a FAQ to address some common inquiries. The primary goal of DLSS 5 is to enhance visual fidelity through various techniques that create scenes with photorealistic lighting and materials. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is that DLSS 5 will honor the original artistic intent by using the game's color and motion vectors for each frame, anchoring the DLSS 5 model to the specific setting. This keeps the output in line with what the game developers originally envisioned for each frame. DLSS 5 will add visual enhancements that help each frame undergo an overhaul.

This overhaul is completed in several steps. The first is cinematic lighting, achieved through complex effect reconstruction for realistic skin glow, shadows, and more. Next is material depth—DLSS 5 applies micro-realism to the surface of any object, such as a rock or a wall, delivering a realistic texture that enhances the game. NVIDIA highlights that its latest DLSS installment offers temporal consistency, meaning the image quality is fine-tuned frame by frame to closely follow the game content, ensuring visual enhancements remain consistent. Interestingly, this technology will work alongside existing techniques like path tracing, where path tracing provides lighting accuracy, and DLSS enhances lighting photorealism. This means path tracing improves overall shadow behavior and reflections, while DLSS 5 makes them as realistic as possible.

Acer today announced refreshed Predator Helios Neo series gaming laptops equipped with the latest Intel Core Ultra 200HX Plus series processors and up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Laptop GPU, bringing the latest performance capabilities to gaming enthusiasts across a range of form factors and display options. The new Intel Core Ultra 200HX Plus series processors power a new class of gaming laptops with significant performance gains over the previous generation. These devices are built for split-second responsiveness, rock-solid FPS, smart tuning, and battery life that keeps players locked in across an extensive selection of games and apps.

Powered by NVIDIA Blackwell, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50 Series Laptop GPUs bring game-changing capabilities to gamers and creators. Equipped with a massive level of AI horsepower, the RTX 50 Series enables new experiences and next-level graphics fidelity. Multiply performance with NVIDIA DLSS 4.5 and generate images at unprecedented speed.

Giga Computing, a subsidiary of GIGABYTE and a leader in accelerated computing and infrastructure solutions, today announced new enterprise AI solutions that support NVIDIA Vera CPU and NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform, well as a new AI factory in Taiwan. The GIGABYTE booth at NVIDIA GTC shows scalable AI solutions that not only focus on performance and efficiency but also incorporate the software and infrastructure needed to build AI factories and other large GPU clusters. The GIGABYTE booth staff is ready to introduce the latest hardware and software for success in deploying accelerated computing.

Personal AI Supercomputers
With products spanning all segments of the supercomputer space, Giga Computing showcases professional desktop and deskside solutions that are ideal for AI development and accelerating AI training and inference workloads. These solutions are being used by data scientists and researchers in research institutions, government agencies, and enterprises.

As the era of pervasive AI reshapes industries worldwide, ASRock Industrial today announced the AI BOX-A395, a compact yet powerful AI box that brings the performance of an ultimate AI workstation into a single system. Powered by AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processors, delivering up to 50 TOPS of AI acceleration while integrating CPU, GPU, and NPU within a compact system. With support for up to 128 GB LPDDR5x-8000 unified memory, it enables large AI models and data-intensive workloads to run directly on-device, delivering responsive AI processing while reducing reliance on cloud infrastructure.

Designed for enterprises, developers, and system integrators, the AI BOX-A395 supports the AI everywhere ecosystem by translating large-scale AI capabilities into practical local deployment. By combining high compute density, integrated AI acceleration, and rich I/O connectivity, the system provides a scalable foundation for applications ranging from AI model and application development, engineering and 3D design, and high-resolution content creation and media production.

ASUS is proud to announce the launch of the 2026 TUF Gaming A16, F16, and A18 gaming laptops. The TUF Gaming A16 and F16 boast two impressive display options, either a gorgeous 2.5K 120 Hz OLED panel or an ultra-fast 2.5K 300 Hz IPS display. Both models feature advanced anti-reflection coatings on the panel for increased immersion, while the TUF Gaming F16 also comes equipped with the all-new Intel Core Ultra 9 processor 290HX Plus. The larger TUF Gaming A18 sports up to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU and a lightning-fast 2.5K 300 Hz IPS display for a truly impressive and immersive gaming experience.

16-inch upgrades
The 16‑inch TUF Gaming A16 and F16 receive major upgrades this generation, headlined by two premium new display configurations designed to elevate both immersion and competitive play. Users can choose between a stunning 2.5K 120 Hz OLED panel featuring a Corning DXC advanced anti‑reflection coating, or an ultrafast 2.5K 300 Hz IPS panel enhanced with ACR anti‑reflection technology for clearer visibility in bright environments. These advanced coatings significantly reduce glare while preserving color accuracy and contrast even when viewed at off angles, ensuring gameplay remains sharp and distraction‑free and increasing immersion across your entire gaming library.

Jeff Kaplan, formerly a Blizzard executive, recently announced both a new studio and a new game, The Legend of California, which is slated to launch in 2026. Since the game's launch, the reception has been somewhat mixed, but that seemingly hasn't dampened the spirits of the studio or its executive. In a recent 10-hour livestream of The Legend of California, Kaplan addressed some of the negative comments he'd seen online, mainly taking aim at players who were criticizing the game, but who he seems to think weren't the target market in the first place.

The specific demographic that spurred Kaplan's comments were Overwatch players who have had what he describes as a "nerd rage-out," and expressing their frustration at Kaplan's chosen genre, visuals, or game design for The Legend of California. In response to these players, Kaplan said "if a game comes out, and you don't want to play it, and you've never played it, shit the f**k up---no one cares. We don't need to hear that you aren't into it." He goes on to question the reasoning behind players voicing their opinions on a video game they're never going to play, asking "Who cares about my opinion if I'm not going to play it, and if I've never played it? Why does my opinion matter on that?"

MSI today announced the launch of XpertStation WS300 on NVIDIA DGX Station Architecture, a next-generation deskside AI supercomputer built to support the accelerating demands of large language models (LLMs), generative AI, and advanced data science workflows. Powered by NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip, supporting up to 748 GB of large coherent memory and dual 400GbE networking, the platform extends advanced AI infrastructure capabilities into a compact deskside deployment model and is available for order starting today.

"MSI has a strategic vision to advance AI-first computing," said Danny Hsu, General Manager of MSI's Enterprise Platform Solutions. "With NVIDIA, we are defining the next era of AI infrastructure, bridging centralized performance and distributed innovation, and enabling organizations to move from experimentation to production with greater speed, scale, and confidence."

HPE (NYSE: HPE) today announced significant innovations to the NVIDIA AI Computing by HPE portfolio focused on large-scale AI factories and supercomputers that enable customers to scale, deploy efficiently, and gain faster time-to-insight. The full-stack AI solutions with NVIDIA include tightly integrated compute, GPUs, networking, liquid cooling, software, and services designed for at-scale and sovereign environments. AI-forward organizations and leading research institutions, including Argonne National Laboratory, HLRS, Hudson River Trading (HRT), and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI), have chosen HPE AI infrastructure and AI factories with NVIDIA to advance innovation.

HPE brings NVIDIA AI solutions to its industry-leading supercomputing platform
Research laboratories, sovereign entities and large enterprises are rapidly adopting AI to enhance traditional high performance computing (HPC) workloads. For organizations seeking to significantly expedite scientific discovery, HPE is making the following NVIDIA products available on its second-generation exascale-class supercomputing platform designed to unify AI and HPC - the HPE Cray Supercomputing GX5000.

ASUS today unveiled its fully liquid-cooled AI infrastructure at NVIDIA GTC 2026 (Booth# 421), delivering a comprehensive, end-to-end solution powered by the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform. Under the theme Trusted AI, Total Flexibility, this customizable framework—from rack-scale AI Factories, desktop AI supercomputing, Edge AI to Enterprise AI solutions—enables enterprises and cloud providers to build high-performance, energy-efficient large-scale AI clusters with unmatched efficiency and dramatically reduced PUE and TCO.

As a provider of NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 and NVIDIA HGX B300 systems, the flagship ASUS offering is the ASUS AI POD built on the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform—a liquid-cooled, rack-scale powerhouse designed for massive AI workloads. Through strategic partnerships with leading cooling and component providers, ASUS offers diverse cooling modalities, tailored thermal solutions, and redundancy to meet any enterprise requirement. Proven by global client successes, ASUS provides expert consultation, a broad portfolio of AI and storage solutions, seamless infrastructure deployment, application integration, and ongoing services—combining scalability, and sustainability to drive business value and intelligence.

At NVIDIA GTC 2026, Micron announced it is in high-volume production of three products at once, all timed around and designed for the Vera Rubin platform. The headline is HBM4 with the 36 GB 12-high stack started shipping in volume in Q1 2026, built for NVIDIA Vera Rubin. It hits over 11 Gb/s pin speeds for more than 2.8 TB/s of bandwidth, 2.3 times what HBM3E offered, while also improving power efficiency by over 20%. Micron has also shipped early samples of a 16-high 48 GB variant to customers, a 33% capacity bump per HBM placement over the 12H stack. Micron also announced that its 192 GB SOCAMM2 memory modules are now in high-volume production. Designed for Vera Rubin NVL72 systems and standalone Vera CPU platforms, it enables up to 2 TB of memory and 1.2 TB/s of bandwidth per CPU, with the broader SOCAMM2 portfolio spanning from 48 GB to 256 GB.

On the storage side, Micron 9650, the industry first PCIe Gen 6 data center SSD designed specifically for NVIDIA BlueField-4 STX architecture, is in mass production as we already reported here. It boasts sequential read speeds of up to 28 GB/s and can handle 5.5 million random read IOPS, essentially doubling the read performance of its Gen 5 predecessor. Furthermore, it offers a performance-per-watt ratio that is twice as efficient.

SK hynix Inc. announced today that it is participating in GTC 2026, held from March 16 to 19 in San Jose, California. NVIDIA GTC is the global AI conference where business leaders and developers gather to share the latest breakthroughs and future trends in AI and accelerated computing. SK hynix memory solutions are designed to minimize data bottlenecks and maximize performance for both AI training and inference in NVIDIA AI infrastructure. Through its participation in GTC 2026, the company plans to demonstrate its competitive edge in memory technology—the core infrastructure of the AI era.

Under the theme "Spotlight on AI Memory," SK hynix will feature an exhibition space dedicated to the AI memory technologies and solutions. The booth will consist of three main areas: the NVIDIA Collaboration Zone, the Product Portfolio Zone, and the Event Zone. The exhibition is designed around interactive content to provide visitors with an intuitive understanding of AI memory technology.

Phison Electronics (8299TT), a global leader in NAND flash controllers and storage solutions, today announced its GTC showcase at booth 119, demonstrating how multi-tier memory architecture supports larger models and long-context inference on NVIDIA-powered local AI platforms. The industry is facing a growing memory constraint while demand for AI-ready platforms continues to surge. Fine-tuning and inference on proprietary data require massive compute and memory resources, creating investment challenges for organizations. These rising solution costs and workflow bottlenecks are slowing time-to-market for revenue-generating innovation. To address this challenge, Phison introduced aiDAPTIV technology for local and edge AI use cases. By leveraging Pascari SSDs as a new AI memory tier, aiDAPTIV technology intelligently extends and manages AI working memory across GPU memory, system RAM and flash.

Today's announcement showcases how aiDAPTIV applies these multi-tier memory architecture principles to local AI systems as NVIDIA AI infrastructure advances GPU memory capabilities to support inference workloads in data center environments. Built on high-endurance flash optimized for sustained paging and context retention, aiDAPTIV supports memory-intensive inference and fine-tuning workloads under fixed hardware configurations. The aiDAPTIV flash-based memory tier enables organizations to support these evolving workloads on local systems while maintaining data privacy and improving long-term infrastructure efficiency.

Lenovo introduces the next-generation of AI workstations optimized for on-device AI development, inference and creation, including the ThinkPad P14s i Gen 7, ThinkPad P14s Gen 7 AMD, ThinkPad P16s i Gen 5, ThinkPad P16s Gen 5 AMD, ThinkPad P1 Gen 9 and the powerhouse desktop ThinkStation P5 Gen 2.

Designed for students, engineers, data scientists and everyone in between, the new workstations pack unprecedented performance capable of tackling even the most demanding workflows, including CAD, BIM, data science, AI development and more. Part of Lenovo's new Hybrid AI Advantage solutions with NVIDIA, the systems accelerate AI adoption, boost business productivity, and bring faster ROI from AI deployments, reflecting Lenovo's commitment to deliver smarter, more adaptive solutions to meet modern challenges.

Samsung Electronics, a global leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced the comprehensive AI computing technologies it will showcase at NVIDIA GTC 2026 in San Jose, California, scheduled for March 16-19. As the industry's only semiconductor company offering a total AI solution spanning memory, logic, foundry and advanced packaging, Samsung will exhibit its full suite of products and solutions that enable customers to design and build groundbreaking AI systems. To learn more about Samsung's AI solutions, please visit the company's GTC 2026 booth (#1207).

The centerpiece of Samsung's showcase at NVIDIA GTC 2026 will be the new sixth-generation HBM4, which is now in mass production and is designed for the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform. Samsung's HBM4 is expected to help accelerate the development of future AI applications, delivering consistent processing speeds of 11.7 gigabits-per-second (Gbps), which exceeds the industry standard of 8 Gbps, and can be enhanced to 13 Gbps.

Penguin Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: PENG), the AI factory platform company, today announced the industry's first production-ready KV cache server that utilizes CXL memory technology to address the critical "memory wall" challenge in AI inferencing—Penguin Solutions MemoryAI KV cache server. This innovative solution delivers up to 11 TB of CXL-based memory engineered to optimize performance of enterprise scale inference, including agentic AI. The result is lower latency, higher throughput, increased efficiency of GPU clusters, consistent achievement of stringent service-level agreements (SLAs), and faster time-to-first-token (TTFT).

While model training and tuning is primarily compute-bound and occurs episodically, the continuous memory-bound and latency-sensitive inference workloads required for inference and agentic AI are complex and fundamentally different. Inference demands are typically 30% compute driven (GPU) and 70% memory driven (RAM), elevating the need for greater memory capacity and causing performance bottlenecks and GPU idle time. Accelerating memory-dependent AI processes, Penguin's MemoryAI KV cache server increases memory capacity by integrating 3 TB of DDR5 main memory and up to eight 1 TB CXL Add-in Cards (AICs).

Dell Technologies (NYSE: DELL) today announces support for NVIDIA NemoClaw and NVIDIA OpenShell, expanding its collaboration with NVIDIA to advance secure, autonomous AI agents. For developers working locally, Dell and NVIDIA are teaming up on NVIDIA NemoClaw—an open source stack that simplifies running OpenClaw always-on assistants, more safely, with a single command. As part of the NVIDIA Agent Toolkit, it installs the NVIDIA OpenShell, an open source runtime providing a secure environment for running autonomous agents, and open source models like NVIDIA Nemotron.

Dell Pro Max with GB10 and GB300 provide purpose-built desktop platforms that allow enterprises to build and run autonomous, self-evolving agents locally with frontier-level intelligence. As the first OEM to ship a desktop with NVIDIA GB300 Grace Blackwell Ultra Desktop Superchip, Dell brings 20 petaFLOPS of performance and 748 GB of memory directly to developers' desks.

HYTE, a leading manufacturer of cutting-edge PC components, is happy to reveal that its Firefly-themed product lineup inspired by the iconic Stellaron Hunter from HoYoverse's Honkai: Star Rail is now available for purchase at HYTE.com.

At the heart of the product lineup is the Official HYTE Y70 Firefly Case, which features a titanium silver colorway, 360-degree character artwork, and thematic elements and iconography inspired by Firefly and her S.A.M. armor throughout the chassis. In addition to the standard case, there are still limited-edition JP versions of the case that feature Kanji / Katakana branding for the Honkai: Star Rail logo. There is also an exclusive keychain based off Firefly's in-game phone case that can only be obtained by ordering either the US or JP PC case.

Kioxia America, Inc. today announced the development of its Super High IOPS SSD, a new type of SSD enabling the GPU to directly access high-speed flash memory as an expansion to High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) in AI systems. The new Super High IOPS SSD, the KIOXIA GP Series, is purpose-built to meet the growing performance demands of AI and high-performance computing, providing larger GPU-accessible memory capacity for faster data access to AI workloads. Evaluation samples of KIOXIA GP Series will be available to select customers by the end of 2026.

The NVIDIA Storage-Next initiative addresses the anticipated shift from compute-intensive to data-intensive workloads and the expanded need for GPU-accessible memory space, currently limited by HBM size. Expanding the GPU's usable memory space allows access to larger data sets and improves GPU utilization by moving more data closer to compute resources.

Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI), a Total IT Solution Provider for Cloud Computing, AI/ML, Storage, and 5G/Edge, today unveiled its upcoming system portfolio powered by the NVIDIA Vera Rubin platform. As data centers transform into AI factories, producing intelligence at massive scale, agentic reasoning, long-context AI, and Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) workloads are driving demand for an entirely new class of compute and storage infrastructure. Supermicro's NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72, NVIDIA HGX Rubin NVL8, NVIDIA Vera CPU systems are being designed and built with Supermicro's Data Center Building Block Solutions (DCBBS) advanced liquid-cooling technology stack to accelerate time-to-market for customers.

"We are entering a new era where every organization requires an AI factory to win in the marketplace, as the demand for inference workloads is reshaping what data center infrastructure must deliver," said Charles Liang, president and CEO of Supermicro. "Supermicro's DCBBS technology stack is being engineered to empower upcoming NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72, HGX Rubin NVL8, and Vera CPU systems to give our customers a fast, clear path to deploying next-generation AI factories, at scale. We are excited to provide an early look at these solutions as a testament to being first to market with the infrastructure that will power the next frontier of AI."

AMD, a leader in high-performance and AI computing, and Celestica Inc., a global leader in data center infrastructure and advanced technology solutions, today announced a strategic collaboration to bring the new "Helios" rack-scale AI platform to market. The collaboration pairs AMD computing leadership with Celestica's expertise in delivering leading-edge networking switch technologies. At launch, Celestica will undertake the R&D, design and manufacturing of scale-up networking switches in the AMD "Helios" rack-scale AI architecture, based on the Open Compute Project (OCP), Open-Rack-Wide (ORW) form-factor.

The scale-up switches will utilize advanced networking silicon to enable the high-speed interconnect of the next-generation AMD Instinct MI450 Series GPUs, enabling leading-edge computing, optimized for large-scale AI clusters. Consistent with the open standards-based design of the "Helios" platform, the networking switches will utilize the Ultra Accelerator Link over Ethernet (UALoE) architecture for scale-up connectivity. AMD "Helios" will be available to customers in late 2026.

Today at NVIDIA GTC 2026, Intel announced that Intel Xeon 6 is being used as the processor for NVIDIA DGX Rubin NVL8 systems. This highlights Xeon's role in providing architectural continuity and scalability for GPU-accelerated AI systems as workloads shift toward massive, real-time inference.

"AI is shifting from large-scale training to real‑time, everywhere inference-driven by agentic AI and reasoning systems," said Jeff McVeigh, corporate vice president and general manager, Data Center Strategic Programs at Intel. "In this new era, the host CPU is mission‑critical. It governs orchestration, memory access, model security, and throughput across GPU‑accelerated systems. Intel Xeon 6 delivers leadership performance, efficiency, and compatibility with the extensive x86 software ecosystem that customers rely on to scale inference workloads."

NVIDIA today announced NVIDIA BlueField-4 STX, a modular reference architecture that enables enterprises, cloud and AI providers to easily deploy accelerated storage infrastructure capable of the long-context reasoning required for agentic AI. Traditional data centers provide high-capacity, general-purpose storage but lack the responsiveness required for seamless interaction with AI agents that work across many steps, tools and sessions. Agentic AI demands real-time access to data and contextual working memory to keep conversations and tasks fast and coherent. As context grows, traditional storage and data paths can slow AI inference and reduce GPU utilization.

NVIDIA STX allows storage providers to build infrastructure that keeps data close and accessible at scale, so agentic AI factories can deliver higher throughput and responsiveness across inference, training and analytics. The first rack-scale implementation includes the new NVIDIA CMX context memory storage platform, which expands GPU memory with a high-performance context layer for scalable inference and agentic systems - providing up to 5x tokens per second compared with traditional storage.

NVIDIA today launched the NVIDIA Vera CPU, the world's first processor purpose-built for the age of agentic AI and reinforcement learning—delivering results with twice the efficiency and 50% faster than traditional rack-scale CPUs. As reasoning and agentic AI advances, scale, performance and cost are increasingly driven by the infrastructure supporting the models that plan tasks, run tools, interact with data, run code and validate results.

The NVIDIA Vera CPU builds on the success of the NVIDIA Grace CPU, enabling organizations of all sizes and across industries to build AI factories that unlock agentic AI at scale. With the highest single-thread performance and bandwidth per core, Vera is a new class of CPU that delivers higher AI throughput, responsiveness and efficiency for large-scale AI services such as coding assistants, as well as consumer and enterprise agents.

NVIDIA today unveiled NVIDIA DLSS 5, the company's most significant breakthrough in computer graphics since the debut of real-time ray tracing in 2018. DLSS 5 introduces a real-time neural rendering model that infuses pixels with photoreal lighting and materials. Bridging the divide between rendering and reality, DLSS 5 empowers game developers to deliver a new level of photoreal computer graphics previously only achieved in Hollywood visual effects.

"Twenty-five years after NVIDIA invented the programmable shader, we are reinventing computer graphics once again," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "DLSS 5 is the GPT moment for graphics—blending hand-crafted rendering with generative AI to deliver a dramatic leap in visual realism while preserving the control artists need for creative expression."

A fresh leak from Geekbench has surfaced listing an unannounced AMD processor with the OPN (Ordering Part Number) code 100-000001713-31. As for the platform, that is listed as Plum-MDS1, a somewhat direct hint to Medusa Point, AMD's next-gen mobile APU family based on Zen 6. The chip is a 10-core, 20-thread with a 2.4 GHz base clock, though actual test results show it running closer to 1.3-2 GHz, unsurprising for an engineering sample this early in development. Each core gets 1 MB of L2 cache, and the L3 comes in at 32 MB, up from 24 MB on Strix Point and 16 MB on Hawk Point. This is 50% more cache than the current 10-core parts like the Ryzen AI 9 365. The test system had 32 GB of memory installed, type unspecified. Benchmark numbers aren't worth reading into at this stage, as the chip spent most of the test hovering around 1.39 GHz and barely peeked above 2 GHz, well below what a final retail part on a 3 nm process would run at. Too early to draw any conclusions from the scores.

Shipping manifests from Planet3DNow linked to the "Medusa" codename suggest a 4C+4D layout, standard and density-optimized cores, though that doesn't exactly explain the 10-core count seen in Geekbench. One theory is that two additional low-power cores sit in the IO die, bringing the total to ten. The part is expected to be a 28 W TDP mobile chip for the FP10 socket. Medusa Point is shaping up to combine Zen 6 CPU cores with a mix of RDNA 5 and RDNA 3.5 graphics, plus an updated NPU. A launch around CES 2027 fits the AMD usual cadence, meaning there is likely a long wait ahead; however, this Geekbench entry confirms that testing is already happening, whether at AMD itself or at one of its early hardware partners.

As PC gamers and enthusiasts, we all know by now that there is a supply shortage of various silicon components in the personal computing market, with the blame largely falling on AI demand and NVIDIA's and AMD's pivots to AI data center supply. In a recent report by Money UDN MSI's General Manager, Huang Jinqing, predicts a 15-30% price increase for its gaming products across the board as a result of the current market conditions. Jinqing goes on to say that there is an NVIDIA GPU supply shortage on the order of 20%.

As a result of the current supply shortages, Jinqing suggests that the overall PC market will shrink by as much as 10-20%. Recent retailer reports paint a slightly grimmer picture, though, with Mindfactory's sales figures pointing to a more significant decline in GPU sales volume. In light of the recent shortages, especially of DDR5 memory, hardware makers have turned to older platforms, with ASUS announcing increased production for DDR4 motherboards. Now, it seems as though MSI will follow ASUS down that path, with Jinqing confirming that it has signed long-term contracts for memory and shifted production to increase DDR4 motherboard output.

Resident Evil Requiem only just launched to massive fanfare, having surpassed 5 million units in a matter of days, however, just over a week after passing the 5-million sales mark, Capcom has announced that Requiem has surpassed 6 million units sold in the 16 days since the game launched. According to the gaming giant's announcement, this officially makes it the fastest-selling Resident Evil game in the franchise's history.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth Resident Evil Handheld Performance review is now live]

In the post celebrating the achievement, Capcom also announced a celebration event for the franchise's March 22 30th anniversary, and revealed that it is developing additional content for Resident Evil Requiem, although it declined to elaborate what the additional content would be, beyond simply stating that "Going forward, Capcom plans to implement several measures, such as ongoing support and additional game content, so players can continue to enjoy the title longer." It seems likely that this "additional game content" will go beyond the already announced story expansion that Capcom recently revealed in a post on X.

It's undeniable that Palworld has had a successful Early Access period, even spawning a spinoff late last year in Palfarm and collaborating with some of the biggest games in the indie industry. Now, as the developer, Pocketpair is lining up to launch sometime in 2026, John Buckley, head of publishing and communications lead at Pocketpair, has made a few comments hyping up the launch during a GDC interview with GamesRadar+. Buckley says that, while survival crafting is a niche genre with a large player base on Steam, Pocketpair hopes that Palworld will be a game with something for everyone to enjoy. "There's so many incredible, incredible survival crafting games, but I think every survival crafting gamer has their like ideal version of what survival crafting should be, and we hope Palworld 1.0 will be that kind of something for everyone, lose yourself in this world, survival crafting game."

He goes on to suggest that the 1.0 launch will add polish to all of the game's mechanics and flesh out the mechanics that are still incomplete in addition to expanding the base content of the game for more advanced players "Now, a huge chunk of quote unquote end game content will be added. So if you really want to continue from where you left off, sure you're not missing out on the full experience, but you are missing out on some things. We've tried our best to expand everything. Not just the end game, but also improve the early game, add more to the early game, flesh out the middle game, kind of something for everyone, really."

NACON, a leader in premium gaming gear and parent of the RIG audio brand, today unveiled their latest release in their R-SERIES of headsets - the RIG R5 SPEAR MAX HD. Purpose-built for PC gaming, the R5 MAX HD features innovative GrapheneQ drivers from Ora, setting a new standard for studio-grade game audio.

"We're very excited to partner with Ora to bring their groundbreaking audio technology to our R-SERIES headsets," said Head of Audio Product at RIG, Michael Jessup. "The R5 MAX HD forms the next step in our mission to develop the ultimate range of headsets for competitive gamers."

AMD's hardware has generally enjoyed better support on Linux than its Intel and NVIDIA competition, although adoption and feature-parity to Windows can sometimes be a little slow. This has been the case with the AMD's APUs, which only just received power and usage monitoring via a pull request for Linux 7.1. The new AMDXDNA driver will expose power monitoring metrics for AMD Ryzen AI NPUs via DRM_IOCTL_AMDXDNA_GET_INFO, alongside new metrics to expose real-time NPU busy metrics to applications.

Both of these new metrics will presumably be used by those running and developing local LLMs and can be used to gauge hardware utilization and improve scheduling for AI tasks. These changes are expected to land in Linux 7.1, slated to release after 7.0, which is currently in development and is expected to launch sometime between April and May. Linux 7.0 itself is expected to introduce some significant performance improvements when it comes to cache and memory handling.

NACON and developer Eko Software are pleased to announce that Dragonkin: The Banished, the new Hack'N'Slash from the French studio, is now available on PC (Steam), as well as for all owners of the Digital Deluxe Edition on consoles in its final version. It will be available for all other players on March 19.

Developed by the Parisian studio Eko Software, known for its work on titles like Warhammer: Chaosbane and the How to Survive series, Dragonkin: The Banished benefited from a one-year early access period, launched on March 6, 2025, which allowed for the integration of community feedback. With 85% positive reviews on Steam since the game's last update, players can now access the ravaged world of Dragonkin: The Banished in its definitive version.

Cyber Acoustics, a trusted provider of technology solutions for education and business, today announced the WC-1000 webcam, engineered for high-quality video while eliminating features that create security risks and IT support challenges for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies, enterprises, and remote teams.

The WC-1000 is a purpose-built, video-only camera with no built-in microphone. By eliminating the mic entirely, Cyber Acoustics reduces common challenges for distributed teams and working professionals that already rely on dedicated headsets or speakerphones for audio.

Kingston Digital, Inc., the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, Inc., a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today announced the launch of the next-generation IronKey Locker+ 50 G2 (LP50 G2) hardware-encrypted USB flash drive. The drive provides enterprise-grade security with FIPS 197 and AES 256-bit hardware encryption in XTS mode. It also safeguards against BadUSB with digitally signed firmware and against Brute Force password attacks.

LP50G2 features a premium space grey metal casing and supports both Admin and User passwords with options for Complex or Passphrase modes. Complex mode allows 6-16 character passwords using at least three of four character sets. Passphrase mode supports PINs, sentences, word lists, or other memorable phrases from 10-64 characters. Admin can enable or reset User passwords as needed. To aid in password entry, the "eye" symbol can be enabled to reveal the typed-in password, reducing typos leading to failed login attempts. Brute Force password attacks protection locks the User password after 10 failed password attempts in a row and crypto-erases the drive if the Admin password is entered incorrectly 10 times in a row. Additional safeguards include virtual keyboard to protect against keyloggers and screenloggers and anti-fingerprint coating on the casing which helps with resisting scratches.

SilverStone Technology today announced the RM100, a 1U rackmount server chassis designed for space-constrained server environments. Despite its compact 1U form factor, the RM100 supports up to ATX motherboards, providing system integrators and enterprise users with a flexible and efficient platform for building rackmount systems.

The RM100 is engineered with system configuration flexibility in mind. Its reversible chassis design allows users to choose whether the I/O ports face the front or the rear of the rack, making it easier to adapt to different rack layouts and installation environments. The power supply position can also be adjusted to suit various deployment requirements. In addition, components such as the rail kit, handles, drive bays, and power module are designed to be reversible, offering greater convenience and adaptability during system integration and installation.

German retailer Mindfactory indicates that AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT is its top-selling GPU for weeks 9-11 of 2026 (meaning March 1-15), although it also indicated that there is a dramatic decrease in GPU sales during the same time period. According to the retailer data (shared by TechEpiphanyYT on X), AMD made up 55.6% of the outlet's sales for that time period, with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT in the lead as top seller with 25.6% market share and the RX 9060 XT following that up with 20.3%. The next five spots, though, are all NVIDIA GPUs—namely the RTX 5080 at 11.8%, the RTX 5070 Ti at 9%, the RTX 5060 and 5070 at 7% each, and the RTX 5090 at 5.3%.

The next-most-popular AMD GPU at Mindfactory was the Radeon RX 7600 in the eighth spot, with the RX 7900 XTX, 7900 XT, and 7700 XT following in 10th, 11th, and 12th place. Curious as it may seem to see AMD in the lead where NVIDIA usually dominates in most other markets, it follows trends set by previous Mindfactory reports. More concerning, GPU sales have also reportedly fallen to roughly a third of their usual numbers, likely as a result of stock shortages and skyrocketing hardware prices across the board. While recent reports indicate that GPU prices might be correcting slightly, at least on the AMD side, other component supply issues and the resulting high prices may be dissuading people from platform upgrades or fresh PC builds altogether.

Apple today announced AirPods Max 2, bringing even better Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), elevated sound quality, and intelligent features to the iconic over-ear design. Powered by H2, features like Adaptive Audio, Conversation Awareness, Voice Isolation, and Live Translation come to AirPods Max for the first time. The new AirPods Max also unlock creative possibilities for podcasters, musicians, and content creators, with useful features like studio-quality audio recording and camera remote. AirPods Max 2 will be available to order starting March 25 in midnight, starlight, orange, purple, and blue, with availability beginning early next month.

"With the incredible performance of H2, AirPods Max are upgraded with up to 1.5x more effective ANC for the ultimate all-day listening experience," said Eric Treski, Apple's director of Audio Product Marketing. "The sound quality is remarkably clean, rich, and acoustically detailed—and when combined with capabilities like Personalized Spatial Audio, AirPods Max 2 deliver a profoundly immersive experience."

Creative Technology today announced the Sound Blaster Audigy FX Pro, the newest addition to the Audigy FX series. Designed for PC builders and desktop users looking to move beyond standard onboard audio, it combines high-resolution playback, discrete 7.1 surround sound, built-in headphone amplification, and the debut of the all-new Creative Nexus app.

A Clear Upgrade for Modern Desktop Audio
In many desktop setups, audio remains one of the most overlooked upgrades. Users invest in graphics, displays, and peripherals, yet often continue relying on standard motherboard sound.

The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) has signed a contract with HPE to deploy HammerHAI - the first new, standalone supercomputer under its AI Factories initiative. Once installed at the High-Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) in Germany, the AI-optimized system will provide powerful new capabilities for artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science, strengthening European science, industry, small and medium-sized enterprises, and startups.

The new HammerHAI supercomputer will be manufactured and installed by HPE, based on the liquid-cooled NVIDIA GB200 NVL4 architecture. Combining NVIDIA Grace CPUs with NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and scaled with NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking, the NVIDIA GB200 NVL4 by HPE will offer more than 15 Exaflops of peak AI inference performance. It will integrate the VAST Data DASE storage architecture, which provides a unified data platform for AI and HPC workloads, as well as a partition based on AI-optimized inference engines and hardware accelerators from Netherlands-based Axelera AI. The HPE Morpheus Enterprise software will be used as a unified AI control plane, enabling automated provisioning, governance, and workload lifecycle management.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) today announced it has completed the acquisition and assumed ownership of Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation's (PSMC) P5 site in Tongluo, Miaoli County, Taiwan, under the acquisition agreement previously announced on January 17, 2026.

The new site will complement Micron's existing operations in Taiwan as an extension of the company's vertically integrated mega campus in Taichung, located approximately 15 miles away. The site includes approximately 300,000 square feet of existing 300 mm cleanroom space and will support Micron's efforts to expand supply of leading-edge DRAM products, including HBM, to meet growing AI-driven demand.

GIGABYTE is gearing up to launch a new version of its small-form-factor mini PCs called BRIX, now featuring Intel's "Panther Lake" and up to 128 GB of CSO-DIMM DDR5-6400 memory. The new BRIX GB-BRU9-386H is powered by the Intel Core Ultra 9 386H SoC with a 28 W TDP, offering a total of 16 cores distributed across four P, eight E, and four LPE core clusters (4P+8E+4LPE). It includes only four Xe3 GPU cores running at 2.5 GHz, delivering 40 TOPS. This is one of the less powerful iGPU configurations in the "Panther Lake" lineup, as the flagship Core Ultra X9 388H features 12 Xe3 cores, likely requiring better cooling for the additional GPU power. The strength of GIGABYTE's BRIX mini PC lies in its compactness, making it suitable for any work environment where GPU power isn't the main focus. With dimensions of just 112.6 x 34.4 x 119.4 mm, the volume of this tiny PC is only 0.47 liters.

Despite its small size, it is quite feature-rich, including one M.2 2280 slot for a PCIe Gen 5 SSD and another M.2 2280 slot for a PCIe Gen 4 SSD. As these BRIX PCs are barebones models, users need to add memory and storage. For storage, GIGABYTE offers a choice between two slots that support either two SO-DIMM DDR5 modules with speeds of up to 5,600 MT/s and a maximum capacity of 96 GB, or CSO-DIMM DDR5 modules running at up to 6,400 MT/s with a maximum capacity of 128 GB. The front panel includes a headset jack, two USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A ports, and a USB4 port. The back panel is equipped with two HDMI 2.1 ports, a USB4 port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C with power delivery input, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port, a USB 2.0 Type-A port, and an RJ45 Ethernet connector. Pricing and availability are still not listed, but GIGABYTE is showcasing this model on its website which means that launch is imminent.

Memory manufacturers are forecasting that memory shortages will persist until the end of 2028, when the supply chain balance is expected to be restored and memory will once again reach its commodity status. However, according to the South Korean Chosun Biz newspaper, memory manufacturers are reconsidering their expansion plans to ensure they don't overinvest in building new capacity after demand cools down. Reportedly, Samsung's internal projections indicate that demand for DRAM in forms like HBM and regular DDR will peak in the next few quarters, up until the end of 2028. This is the point where Samsung expects industry-wide demand to cool down and balance to be restored.

When the AI expansion began, memory manufacturers received massive orders from hyperscalers around the world, ordering DRAM supply months in advance. With no end in sight, SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung started ordering more lithography tools from ASML to expand their wafer manufacturing capacity to meet their customers' needs for more HBM, DDR, and GDDR memory. According to ASML, the company estimates that in 2027, based on current order information and demand, it will deliver 56 Low-NA EUV scanners. This includes seven units for Samsung and as many as 20 units for SK Hynix, specifically for memory and storage. According to South Korean media, SK Hynix plans to install 20 Low-NA EUV units in the next two years, all designed for HBM memory and advanced storage solutions. However, as the demand is expected to stay in line with previous expansion plans, this is stopping memory makers from considering taking the fab capacity expansion further than initially planned.

Microsoft has experienced a few months of relatively smooth Windows 11 updates, but the March update has reportedly caused inaccessible C: drives, widespread system BSODs, and freezing. According to multiple reports from Reddit and other online communities, including Microsoft's Q&A forum, the Windows 11 March 2026 KB5079473 update is causing headaches for users. They are encountering issues such as being unable to access their C: drives, system freezing, random reboots, and an overall laggy user experience. While the official March update page shows no known widespread issues, users report that the update is indeed causing trouble in everyday use and increasing the risk of instability. Some Samsung Galaxy Book owners have reported that this update completely blocked access to the C: drive on their devices.

Microsoft has confirmed that the "C:\ is not accessible - Access denied" issue has been acknowledged, and the company is working on a solution. Microsoft reportedly claims that the Samsung Galaxy Connect application is responsible for the inaccessible C: drive and the issue didn't occur solely because of the Windows 11 March update but coincidentally happened at the same time as other issues that had accumulated earlier. Windows maker claims that the problem affects Samsung Galaxy Book 4 and Samsung Desktop models with Windows 11 versions 24H2 and 25H2, including models with codenames NP750XGJ, NP750XGL, NP754XGJ, NP754XFG, NP754XGK, DM500SGA, DM500TDA, DM500TGA, and DM501SGA. For now, it is unclear if all affected users with inaccessible C: drives are Samsung Galaxy Book owners. It's possible that users experiencing issues are using other OEMs for their laptops or desktop PCs, so we are still waiting for more information. For now, Microsoft claims that only Samsung user are affected, and both are working on a fix.

AMD is refining its RDNA 5 architecture, which is likely in its final stages of design. Thanks to a submission to the LLVM compiler, we are learning that AMD's upcoming RDNA 5/UDNA architecture features architectural changes that will enhance compute utilization, resulting in significantly higher game shader performance. The codename for RDNA 5 is GFX1310, and it now implements a full Dual-Issue VALU pipeline for Wave32. This allows vector operations (VOPs) to be issued simultaneously to the GPU's X and Y arithmetic logic unit (ALU) lanes. The new design expands the range of fused multiply-add (FMA) and other VOP instructions eligible for dual-issue and relaxes some register constraints, enabling compilers and shader code to perform more intensive floating-point work in Wave32 mode. This means the FP32 compute utilization of RDNA 5 can be much higher than before, greatly benefiting applications that are FP32-heavy, which means gamers are about to see a significant performance boost.

AMD originally implemented Dual Issue VALU in the RDNA 3 architecture with the Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards. However, the pipeline was not fully functional, as the dual-issue implementation supported only a limited subset of VOP instructions, excluded several important FMA variants, required Wave32 mode and strict register-bank separation, and was often bypassed by compilers and not fully exposed to drivers. As a result, many shaders could not exploit X/Y pairing, and measured FP32 throughput often fell well below the hardware's theoretical peak. This was detrimental to performance and reduced compute capability, especially in applications that rely heavily on FP32 compute. This is particularly true for modern games that process vertex and pixel shaders primarily using FP32 compute. With the new RDNA 5 design, gaming performance should align more closely with theoretical compute performance.

Welcome to week 12 and a jam cram packed week of rather big new releases. We kick off this week with a AAA release which is an open-world action-adventure that supposedly takes place in a desert, yet apparently not at all. This is followed by a very blocky looking RPG, several deadly sins, a cube of some kind, a walking simulator that apparently takes place on a beach and finally an ARPG that takes place after an asteroid destroyed the world. There are some additional games this week as well, as there were just too many releases this week.

Crimson Desert / This week's AAA release / Thursday 19 March
On the continent of Pywel, the rival factions of Pailune maintained a tense balance. At Kliff's side stood his steadfast Greymane comrades, but a devastating ambush in the deep of night by their sworn enemies the Black Bears leaves members of the Greymanes dead or scattered across the continent. Kliff—having lost his family in all but name—is determined to reunite with the survivors and rebuild the faction. Steam link

Keychron's recent move to the HE 8K line of analog keyboards has seen it launch a number of new high-performance gaming keyboards with the new Ultra-Fast Lime switches and wired-only connectivity. Now, the keyboard maker has announced the C0 HE 8K as the latest installment in that line-up of gaming keyboards. The C0 HE 8K is a left-handed gaming-oriented wired Hall effect gaming keyboard with a built-in wrist rest and an aggressive angular design. The Keychron C0 HE 8K is launching at $59.99 on Keychron's online store and on Amazon. The Keychron C0 HE 8K is an affordable take on a one-handed gaming keyboard, so there is no gasket mount or wireless connectivity to be had, although it does have many of the same features of Keychron's higher-end keyboards.

The C0 HE 8K has 35 keys in total, making it technically a 35% keyboard, although it's only the left half of the keyboard, replete with the num row and F row. The keyboard's chassis itself is made of ABS plastic, while the keyboard features an aluminium plate and a tray-mount design. The keycaps are double-shot shine-through ABS in the OEM profile, which should feel familiar with many gamers coming from a standard gaming keyboard. Like all of Keychron's other HE keyboards, the C0 HE 8K offers customization of everything from the switch actuation distance to SOCD, DKS, Rapid Trigger, and Mod Tap through Keychron Launcher. The C0 HE 8K's Ultra-Fast Magnetic Lime switches feature a very lightweight 25 g actuation force, 3.35 mm of travel, and an all-POM construction. One of the stranger aspects of the C0 HE 8K is its "ergonomic angled space bar," that Keychron says is designed to align with the natural curvature of human fingers. The C0 HE 8K also features a built-in silicone palm rest for improved comfort. While the C0 HE 8K is largely marketed at gamers, Keychron also pitches it as a control surface for creative workflows.

Microsoft Gaming Copilot has been out in the open and available as a beta for PC, mobile, and the ROG Xbox Ally since October 2025, but at a recent GDC conference, Sonali Yadav, Xbox Gaming AI partner group project manager, commented that Gaming Copilot would be landing on current-gen Xbox Series X|S consoles before the end of 2026. Gaming Copilot purports to help its users "get to the fun, faster," with gaming recommendations based on what you play, "get help without leaving your game," by providing players with advice based on their current place in the game, and "brainstorm strategies and get tips or insights with personalized coaching." The service operates similarly to Microsoft's original Copilot service in that it takes screenshots of your gameplay and analyzes them to provide the aforementioned recommendations.

I'm excited to announce that later this year, we will bring Gaming Copilot to the current-generation consoles, and we will continue to bring it to more services that players are playing.

AMD has published a guide for running OpenClaw locally on Windows through two distinct hardware paths it calls "RyzenClaw" and "RadeonClaw," both built around its own silicon and designed to keep AI agent workloads off the cloud entirely. The push is part of AMD's broader "Agent Computer" narrative, where it argues that not every AI workload belongs in a data center, people and businesses want control over their data, affordable always-on AI without usage limits, and the confidence that their models are running locally rather than on someone else's infrastructure. The setup runs through WSL2 with LM Studio handling local LLM inference via llama.cpp, and supports Memory.md through local embeddings, no cloud dependency required. AMD says the environment can be configured in under an hour, targeting early adopters and developers experimenting with personal AI agents.

The RyzenClaw path is built around a Ryzen AI Max+ system with 128 GB of unified memory, AMD specifically recommends reserving 96 GB as variable graphics memory for this use case. Running the Qwen 3.5 35B A3B model, that configuration delivers around 45 tokens per second, processes 10,000 input tokens in roughly 19.5 seconds, supports a 260K token context window, and can run up to six agents concurrently. AMD is positioning this as capable of "agent swarm" experimentation on consumer hardware. RadeonClaw takes a different approach, pairing OpenClaw with the Radeon AI PRO R9700, a workstation-class card with 32 GB of VRAM. That setup is considerably faster, around 120 tokens per second with the same model, and 10,000 input tokens processed in about 4.4 seconds. The tradeoff is a smaller 190K token context window and support for only two concurrent agents, compared to six on the Ryzen AI Max+ path.

Epomaker recently showed off its typewriter-style Glyph mechanical keyboard at CES 2026, although there was no word on when the keyboard would launch, the exact specifications, or what the price would be. Now, the keyboard maker has officially released the Glyph keyboard in all its retro glory, alongside three other keyboards: the $119 Luma100, which we covered previously, the RT100 Pro, and the Epomaker x Aula F75 Ultra.

The Epomaker Glyph is a 75% mechanical keyboard with 83 keys, a programmable knob, a 2.79-inch full-color TFT screen, and a built-in tablet stand. The highlight of the Glyph is mostly its retro design, which is emphasized by the round, uniform-height keycaps that look a little like bottle caps. The keyboard itself is made of ABS plastic, while the keycaps are dye-sublimated PBT, and the plate is made of aluminium. The Glyph comes with either Epomaker Wisteria V2 switches, which are linear switches with a 45 gf operating force, POM+PTFE stems, PC top housings, and PA66 bottom housings. It also features 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth connectivity and an 8,000 mAh battery. The Glyph is available on Epomaker's website for $139.

Microsoft has released its latest Windows 11 builds, 26100.8106 and 26200.8106 (KB5079387), to Insiders in the Release Preview Channel. This update notably introduces support for monitor refresh rates exceeding 1,000 Hz, marking the first time Windows 11 officially supports four-digit refresh rates. Over the years, gaming monitors have rapidly progressed from double-digit to triple-digit refresh rates. However, reaching four-digit levels so quickly was unexpected, as the general gaming audience has been limited by current technology's ability to output such high frame rates. With modern GPUs capable of running hundreds of frames per second in FPS titles, it's logical for Windows to prepare for future advancements.

For instance, Philips and AOC have introduced the first gaming monitors capable of supporting 500 Hz at 1440p and 1,000 Hz at 720p. The Philips Evnia 27M2N5500XD and AOC AGON Pro AGP277QK monitors were showcased in China on December 6 and appear to be built around the same 27-inch panel. Both models are QHD 500 Hz displays that can switch to a lower-resolution 720p mode, doubling the refresh rate to 1,000 Hz. Generally, this resolution is required to achieve frame rates above 500 FPS, but modern GPUs like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 can easily reach these numbers in games like Counter-Strike 2. At 1080p, we observed about 726 FPS, indicating that 720p gaming can fully utilize the 1,000 Hz display.

The popular CPU-Z utility for monitoring and hardware diagnostics has received an update in the latest version 2.19 release, bringing preliminary support for Intel's upcoming "Wildcat Lake" Core 300 series processors. This indicates that Intel's Core 300 series is on the horizon, and Intel might bring the same technology powering the Core Ultra 300 series "Panther Lake" processors to the embedded/edge sector. This lineup serves 12-25 W TDP applications with six processor cores, consisting of two "Cougar Cove" P-cores, zero "Darkmont" E-cores, and four low-power efficiency cores (2P + 0E + 4LPE). This CPU configuration is paired with two Xe3 GPU cores, which clearly shows that the product is aimed at lower-tier configurations. Additionally, the tool now includes support for AMD's Ryzen AI 7/PRO 450G/E, AI 5/PRO 440G/E & 435G/E, and AI 9 HX 470 processors. Finally, the tool now reads four-ranked CUDIMM memory in CQDIMM version.Below is the complete changelog.

The journey begins today as Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is now available on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. Players can dive into the latest installment in the beloved RPG series, featuring the vibrant world of Monster Hunter shaped by the bonds between Riders and monsters.

A Tale of Two Kingdoms and Twisted Fates
Set two centuries after the Rift War, the kingdoms of Azuria and Vermeil stand divided. Twin Rathalos unexpectedly hatch from a single egg, igniting a story of forbidden lands and twisted destinies. A mysterious Crystal Encroachment emerges, threatening ecosystems and habitats across the land and causing conflicts between monsters. Along the journey, players will meet companions including vice-captain Gaul, monster expert Ogden, Ranger Squad co-founder Kora, the protagonist's best friend and confidante Simon, the brand-new member of the Rangers Thea, and Eleanor the Princess of Vermeil. As the protagonist, players take on the role of Prince/Princess of Azuria, and captain of the Ranger Squad to protect endangered eggs, restore ecosystems, and confront powerful monsters. Players can also customize their protagonist's appearance to fully step into the roles.

GMKtec unveiled its next-generation EVO-T2 Desktop AI Supercomputer Series during Intel's 3rd-Generation Core Ultra processor launch event in Shanghai. Powered by Intel Core Ultra X9 388H and X7 358H processors based on the Panther Lake architecture, the EVO-T2 delivers up to 180 TOPS of AI computing power, positioning it as one of the most powerful desktop AI mini PCs available.

The system integrates Intel's latest 18A (1.8nm-class) manufacturing technology, featuring RibbonFET gate-all-around transistors and PowerVia backside power delivery, marking a major milestone in Intel's semiconductor roadmap.

8BitDo is adding another variant to its Retro R8 mouse lineup, this time drawing inspiration from the Commodore 64. Like the previous R8 models, the C64 Edition keeps the same internals: a PAW 3395 optical sensor with six DPI levels between 50 and 26,000 DPI, and polling rates up to 8,000 Hz over wired and 4,000 Hz over 2.4G (Bluetooth is capped at 125 Hz). The symmetrical design supports both left and right-hand use, and four programmable side buttons can be configured through the 8BitDo Ultimate Software. The switches haven't been specified for this variant. The NES-inspired N Edition uses Kailh Sword GM X micro switches, but 8BitDo hasn't confirmed whether the C64 Edition carries the same.

The mouse ships with a charging dock that doubles as a wireless signal extender, which is a nice touch. Battery life is rated at 100 hours over Bluetooth or between 26 and 105 hours on 2.4G depending on polling rate, with a full charge taking around 2.5 hours. All three connection modes are supported: Bluetooth LE 5.3, 2.4G wireless, and wired USB. The 8BitDo Retro R8 C64 Edition mouse is priced at $49.99, in line with the existing NES-inspired N Edition.

Red Thread Games and Megabit Publishing today shared some fresh details about their highly anticipated survival mystery Hello Sunshine at the Future Games Show Spring Showcase. This latest look at Hello Sunshine focuses on the systems that drive the players' journey through a scorched, war-torn world and the relationship that they'll build with their giant robot companion along the way.

In Hello Sunshine, there is one simple rule: stay out of the sun. Step outside the robot's shade during the day and players will find that the punishing heat will eventually kill them; remain close, and they might last until nightfall.

To overcome the thermal barriers limiting AI performance, Frore Systems today unveiled LiquidJet Nexus, a new integrated liquid cooling system designed for the AI era. As AI compute densities surge, heat is emerging as a primary constraint, elevating what experts are calling the "AI Thermal Stack" - the infrastructure responsible for extracting heat from advanced computing systems and rejecting it into the atmosphere. The AI Thermal Stack is increasingly determining the compute density, system efficiency, and overall performance of AI Data Centers.

LiquidJet Nexus is designed for liquid cooling ½ U compute trays like NVIDIA Kyber, directly cooling GPUs, CPUs, DPUs, NICs, DC-DC power converters, and VRs. It integrates multiple multi-stage 3D short-loop jetchannel liquid cooling LiquidJet coldplates into a unified system. LiquidJet Nexus delivers 75% higher heat transfer efficiency, keeps components 8°C cooler, eliminating hoses, connectors, and manifolds, and reducing thermal stack weight by 65%. This unified system addresses the thermal demands of next-generation AI hardware.

Turtle Beach Corporation (Nasdaq: TBCH), a leading gaming accessories brand, today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025 and provided full year 2026 guidance for net revenue and Adjusted EBITDA.

"Our team operated with strong discipline in 2025, executing our strategic initiatives to sharpen our competitive edge," said Cris Keirn, Chief Executive Officer of Turtle Beach Corporation. "Although our fourth quarter and full-year results were below guidance due primarily to softness in North American gaming accessories markets and a lighter holiday sell-through environment, we took steps to manage costs, protect our brand position, and prepare the Company for renewed growth."

Supermassive Games unveiled a brand-new live-action couch co-op trailer for its upcoming sci-fi survival horror adventure, Directive 8020, during today's Future Games Show. The trailer showed a group of friends playing couch co-op Movie Night Mode, intercut with in-game moments of split-second quick-time actions, narrative decisions, and alien mimics.

Survive Together, Don't Play Alone
Complementing its gripping single-player experience, Directive 8020 allows up to five players to play through the story together in local couch co-op via the returning Movie Night Mode. Each player takes control of a crew member aboard the Cassiopeia, passing a single controller between each other as the story unfolds. It's up to the player and their friends on who lives and who dies; every choice matters, every mistake can be fatal, so players must work together to survive alien infiltrators, deadly dilemmas, and catastrophic system failures! Don't Play Alone, and trust no one - not even your friends! Directive 8020 will also support five-player online multiplayer in a free post-launch update, mirroring the couch co-op experience and bringing it online, with more information coming soon.

The widespread adoption of AI inference workloads in 4Q25 significantly raised requirements for data storage systems, according to TrendForce's latest findings on the enterprise SSD market. Meanwhile, enterprises accelerated upgrades to their general-purpose servers, while shortages in HDD supply pushed some demand toward SSD solutions. These factors together drove combined revenue for the world's top five enterprise SSD vendors up 51.7% QoQ to more than US$9.9 billion.

Among leading vendors, Samsung retained its top position, reporting nearly $3.66 billion in revenue in 4Q25, up 49.7% QoQ. The company demonstrated the strength of its vertically integrated business model. As concerns grew over potential DRAM shortages, many customers turned to Samsung because it can rely on its own DRAM and NAND Flash production to ensure stable SSD supply.

Colorful Technology Company Limited, a leading brand in gaming PC components, gaming laptops, and Hi-fi audio products, proudly introduces the new iGame GeForce RTX 50 Ultra Series graphics cards. The Ultra Series continues the brand's signature hip-hop art-inspired design language, blending bold aesthetics with high-performance gaming hardware, now presented in a striking black color scheme.

While the white iGame Ultra W Series emphasizes futuristic purity, the iGame Ultra Series adopts a black colorway that delivers a more aggressive personality and deeper character. Gradient accent colors transition from dark into vibrant neon pink, complemented by dynamic gradient lighting effects that resemble flowing neon trails in the night. The result is a design that radiates rebellious street-style energy while maintaining the distinctive Ultra identity.

Glorious Model O was once held in high regard in the realm of gaming peripherals, but that design has since been surpassed by more modern designs with lighter shells and more responsive, accurate sensors. Apparently there is still a market for the original Glorious Model O gaming mouse, at least according to Glorious, who recently announced the Glorious Model O Classic. The Model O Classic is a rehash of the 2019 Glorious Model O design, replete with the RGB strips, original sensor hardware, and even the original honeycomb design that's largely fallen out of use except for in the most lightweight gaming mouse designs.

The Glorious Model O classic features the same BAMF sensor, based on the Pixart PAW 3370, as the original—although it's now simply called the "19K Optical Gaming Sensor," which means it has a maximum wireless polling rate of 1 kHz, tops out at 19,000 DPI, 400 IPS, and 40 G acceleration. Despite the honeycomb shell, the Model O Classic still weighs in at 69 g, whereas many solid-shell gaming mice released in the last year or two come in at 40-50 g, with some, like the Corsair Sabre V2 Pro even dipping into the mid-30s. Glorious also still uses the Glorious Core software to customize the Model O Classic, meaning customization requires installing software that is only available on Windows. The Model O Classic wireless gaming mouse is available on the Glorious online store at $89.99.

Hot on the heels of Valve's critical public response to the New York State attorney general's lawsuit against the gaming giant over its in-game monetization and loot boxes, the Pan European Game Information (PEGI) ratings body has updated its rating system to address similar concerns over in-game monetization and "interactive risk categories." As of June 2026, new games registered in Europe and rated by PEGI will be subject to additional scrutiny surrounding "purchases of in-game content, paid random items, communication features, and features that incentivize players to continue playing," according to the announcement. In essence, this will examine daily rewards, loot boxes, in-game cosmetics and premium currency purchases, and in-game chat moderation and content control. Chair of the PEGI Council, Beate Våje, says that "with the updated set of age rating criteria, PEGI aims to make parents aware that certain features in games should be carefully assessed, and that parental tools can be a very helpful assistant when doing that."

Under the new criteria, games that feature in-game purchases, specifically those with quantity- or time-limited sale mechanics, will be rated 12+, while games that use NFTs and other blockchain tech will be rated PEGI 18. Games with "random items" will be PEGI 16 by default, although they will be PEGI 18 in some cases. Games with what the ratings body calls "play-by-appointment" mechanics—things like daily quests or login rewards—will be rated PEGI 7, while games that punish players for not playing daily will receive a PEGI 12 rating. Lastly, PEGI is enforcing age restrictions on "safe online gameplay," which will result in games with entirely unrestricted communication receiving a PEGI 18 rating. Conceivably, games with proximity voice chat that cannot be disabled will also fall into this last box, although PEGI specifies that there needs to be a way to block or report users, so it's possible that being able to mute proximity chat may not be enough to escape a PEGI 18 rating on the grounds of online safety.

Pearl Abyss's Crimson Desert is just over a week away from its March 20 launch, and in a recent Steam News post, the studio behind the game has provided additional information about the release, while the Steam Store page now reflects that the game will launch with Denuvo DRM. The news update confirms that players jumping into the world of Pywel will be able to preload the game 24-48 hours ahead of the official launch, starting on March 17 or 18, depending on which part of the world they're in—the game goes live on March 19 at 10 PM UTC, so the exact launch date differs by region. Pearl Abyss also confirmed that Crimson Desert will not support cross-platform save, and there appears to be no plan to add it in at a later date. While Crimson Desert will be playable completely offline, Pearl Abyss warns that the game will need an internet connection on day one in order to install a day-one patch.

It's unclear how the addition of Denuvo DRM will affect gameplay, especially since Pearl Abyss set a pretty low barrier to entry with the minimum hardware requirements that it published earlier this week. Denuvo, and other DRM services, have, in the past, been known to cause performance degradation, even on higher-end hardware, but if the game was tested for the minimum requirements with the DRM in place, players can likely expect little to no performance hit. While Denuvo doesn't necessarily lock Linux users out of Crimson Desert, its use is generally frowned upon by the Linux gaming community. Pearl Abyss has not mentioned Steam Deck or Linux compatibility in any of its communications surrounding Crimson Desert.

Imagine buying a laptop, thinking you're getting a model with your desired CPU specifications, only to find a completely different model inside, cleverly concealed so you wouldn't notice without further investigation. According to an investigation by Notebookcheck, the Chinese electronics maker Chuwi is engaging in specification fraud. Users have discovered a different CPU SKU compared to what was advertised. In a review of the Chuwi CoreBook X and CoreBook Plus, Notebookcheck found that Chuwi had listed these laptops with an AMD Ryzen 5 7430U processor, but they actually come with an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U. This means that Chuwi is actively advertising these models on their website, on the laptop box, with laptop stickers, and even with BIOS modifications to make it seem as if they feature the newer Ryzen 5 7430U SoC with "Zen 3" CPU microarchitecture and Radeon "Vega 6" SoC. In reality, the company is shipping a processor that is a few generations old, with "Zen 2" CPU cores and Radeon Graphics 448SP.

Notebookcheck discovered this during a review of the Chuwi CoreBook X. The unit's performance was rather lackluster, prompting further investigation. Initially, they thought single-channel RAM was causing the subpar performance. To determine the true cause, they opened the unit and found the older Ryzen 5 5500U SoC with its corresponding part number 100-000000375. Additionally, other differences were noted in the SoC specifications, such as the L3 cache. Chuwi even went a step further by using a modified BIOS version to show that the unit features the AMD Ryzen 5 7430U. This led software diagnostic tools to display the advertised specification, while the lower-tier SoC was actually inside. This issue didn't occur just once with the Chuwi CoreBook X but also with a separate CoreBook Plus, which Notebookcheck also confirmed to feature the older SoC. Instead of the newer AMD Ryzen 5 7430U processor, both of these laptop models actually come with the AMD Ryzen 5 5500U, as verified through performance testing, and the OPN number that corresponds to a specific AMD chip.

The Optical Compute Interconnect (OCI) Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) group today announced its formation, led by founding members AMD, Broadcom, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA and OpenAI. This industry consortium marks a pivotal shift toward a hyperscaler-driven open ecosystem to enable the development of a multi-vendor supply chain for optical scale-up interconnects. By aligning on an open specification, the OCI MSA members are promoting a robust optical ecosystem which will ensure that the future of AI interconnects is built with a flexible, multi-vendor foundation to meet the optical interconnect needs of modern AI infrastructure.

The Physics and Power Mandate
As large language models (LLMs) advance toward super intelligence, traditional copper-based connectivity is reaching limitations in physical reach which are impacting AI cluster scale-up domain architectures. OCI will enable migration from copper-based to optical-based scale-up architectures, alleviating copper interconnect bottlenecks.

Last year, Lisuan Technology introduced its Lisuan LX 7G106 graphics card, one of the most promising GPU technologies for gamers emerging from China. Today, during the AWE 2026 stream on the Chinese BiliBili platform, the company announced that its GPUs will ship on June 18, with pre-orders starting on March 17. The 7G106 GPU is powered by a monolithic die manufactured at TSMC's facilities using the older 6 nm DUV node. This N6 node is approved for Lisuan to utilize TSMC's mature node capacity. Designed for gaming, this GPU accelerates games and 3D applications with broad API support, including DirectX 12, Vulkan 1.3, and OpenGL 4.6. While it supports DirectX 12, it does not include ray tracing, meaning there is no DirectX 12 Ultimate. However, it will support DirectX 12 games, and Lisuan notes that some of these titles include popular games on Steam, such as Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, and Resident Evil 4 Remake.

Underneath the 7G106 features a SIMD engine capable of running calculations with FP32 and the new INT8 data type. The GPU has a maximum throughput of 24 TeraFLOPS in FP32, placing it high in compute. The primary compute language is OpenCL 3.0. Internally, the SIMD engine is supported by a large raster graphics pipeline, with up to 192 TMUs and 96 ROPs on the silicon. In terms of memory, it offers 12 GB of GDDR6 across a 192-bit wide memory bus, although the company has not yet finalized the exact memory frequencies. The 7G106 is equipped with a modern video acceleration engine, capable of hardware-accelerated AV1 and HEVC decoding at resolutions up to 8K at 60 FPS. It also supports hardware-accelerated AV1 encoding at 4K at 30 FPS and HEVC encoding at 8K at 30 FPS. For monitor connectivity, it includes four DisplayPort 1.4 outputs with support for DSC 1.2b. The GPU does not feature HDMI outputs, likely due to the licensing costs required by the HDMI Consortium for each installed HDMI port.

Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment are proud to unleash the official Launch Trailer for John Carpenter's Toxic Commando, available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, on Steam and Epic Games Store. Built on Saber's cutting-edge Swarm Engine—the technology powering World War Z: Aftermath and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2—this co-op shooter throws players headfirst into waves of grotesque zombie hordes and towering bosses ripped straight from the nightmares of a grindhouse legend. Fans of over-the-top '80s action-horror have been waiting for this one. Welcome to the apocalypse!

"The game is finally out. Play it," said John Carpenter. "It's good and it's fun. You may not be ready for these ghouls to attack you but when they do you better learn fast! They will overwhelm you. These ghouls are out for business! Time to kick ass!"

Jeff Kaplan, of former Blizzard fame, having worked on Overwatch and World of Warcraft, has officially announced the first game in development at his newly formed Kintsugiyama studio. The Legend of California is a Western shooter with online co-op and PvP gameplay. The Legend of California is set in an alternate timeline version of California in which the state is discovered as an uninhabited island off the coast of the mainland USA. It will feature a hand-crafted world featuring real-world landmarks, like Yosemite and Death Valley, but interspersed with dynamic points of interest that will move around depending on the generated world seed.

In a recent appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast, Kaplan explains that he wants the game to feel like a world that you can live in, with gameplay mechanics often limited to survival games, like mining, exploration, crafting, and hunting. He says that the goal of the game is not to be historically accurate, but that the development team wanted to remain authentic to the aesthetic and feel of the historical gold rush time period. In terms of gameplay, Kaplan commented that the map will feature four difficulty levels, with different regions and POIs each getting a difficulty level assigned each time the world is generated anew. The Legend of California will launch in Steam Early Access in 2026, and it's so far unclear if there will be a console version.

Unity game engine is finally getting native integration and support across more gaming platforms, according to James Stone. What we are getting now is the first actual native port instead of the emulation we've been dealing with until now. Game developers using the Unity engine have been shipping Unity games on Steam. However, Steam was never an official Unity platform, and developers used Steamworks in the past to make it happen. That's now a thing of the past, as Unity is officially supporting one of the biggest gaming platforms in existence. Additionally, we are seeing ports to Steam Deck and Steam Machine, which run on the SteamOS operating system; these previously relied on the Wine and Proton translation layers to transform Unity's API calls and make Unity games work.

Now Unity is enhancing its Linux integration further to create native runtimes and reduce reliance on the translation layers that have been doing the heavy lifting. This is a positive sign for the growing recognition of the Linux gaming world, which has been steadily rising as gamers encounter Windows-related issues. Adding native integration with the Valve ecosystem is helping Unity extend its influence across the gaming community, alongside Valve hardware such as the Steam Deck, Steam Machine, and the Steam Controller. For more details and updates from Unity at GDC 2026, check out the video below.

Meta has laid out an aggressive, inference-first roadmap for its in-house accelerators, announcing four Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) generations developed with Broadcom and due to be integrated into its data centers over the next two years. The family spans MTIA 300, 400, 450, and 500, with early units already running ranking and recommendation workloads and later designs optimized for real-time model serving. Since Meta runs some of the largest social platforms on the web, developing a fast inference accelerator is required to make social media browsing and recommendation algorithms instant. Rather than pursuing raw peak arithmetic alone, Meta emphasizes memory throughput and inference efficiency. According to the specification table, HBM bandwidth and capacity rises substantially across the series while compute grows more linearly. This means that Meta's point is increasing on-package bandwidth and capacity which can cut latency and power costs for production inference.

The MTIA chips also include hardware support for attention primitives and mixture-of-experts layers, along with low-precision formats tailored to inference to reduce conversion overhead. Software compatibility was a stated priority. Meta says the stack runs natively on common frameworks, so existing production models can be deployed on both GPUs and MTIA without major rewrites, which should ease adoption. Multiple MTIA generations are built to share the same chassis, rack, and networking, allowing upgrades by swapping modules rather than refitting data center infrastructure. That modularity helps explain Meta's fast release cadence compared with the industry norm, considering that Meta's data centers span millions of chips. MTIA chips are already running at kilowatt power budgets and PetaFLOPS of compute, so MTIA accelerators are also competing with industry-leading solutions from NVIDIA, AMD, and other hyperscalers.

As PC hardware continues to grow more powerful, builders are no longer hiding their systems under desks. The new SAMA V62 is designed for users who want their build on display, combining curved panoramic glass, bold integrated lighting, and strong cooling support in a clean, builder-friendly chassis. With seven pre-installed ARGB fans and support for large radiators, the V62 delivers both visual impact and thermal performance straight out of the box.

A Clear 270° Panoramic View
The V62 features a curved tempered glass panel that creates a sweeping panoramic view of the system's interior. The smooth curve removes harsh edges and visual breaks, offering a clean, uninterrupted look that highlights modern components and lighting setups. It's a design typically found in higher-priced showcase cases, now made more accessible for everyday builders.

Samsung is reportedly planning to bring its 2 nm process to the base die of HBM4E, its 7th-generation high-bandwidth memory. This comes just a month after the company shipped the industry's first commercial HBM4, and alongside a separate effort to redesign the HBM4E power delivery network to handle the increase in power bumps from 13,682 to 14,457 within the same footprint. Until HBM3, the base die had a somewhat passive role, sitting at the bottom of an HBM stack and handling power and signal control. Starting with HBM4, it took on a more active role by handling some compute tasks directly, making the underlying process node increasingly important. For HBM4, Samsung already had an edge here, using 4 nm logic base dies from its own foundry paired with its latest 1c DRAM, well ahead of the 12 nm (N12) process SK hynix sources from TSMC. Moving to 2 nm for HBM4E would extend that lead further, improving power efficiency, thermal management, and area utilization.

The other key players in the industry are also focusing on custom HBM4E as the next battleground, with TSMC stating it plans to use its 3 nm process for custom HBM4E, and SK hynix also working on its own variant. With its latest 2 nm node push, Samsung appears to be making a deliberate move to stay a step ahead on process technology. Standard HBM4E is expected mid-year, with custom product tape-in following in the second half of the year. The Business Korea report also points to the foundry angle. Producing HBM base dies internally helps Samsung Foundry keep fab utilization high, and the 2 nm node is expected to play a major role in ramping production at the Taylor fab in Texas. There, equipment installation is already underway, with the first wafer tape-in targeted before year-end.

Imec, a world-leading research and innovation hub in advanced semiconductor technologies, has launched a first of its kind consortium with 26 European university groups that will jointly work on the technology roadmap beyond CMOS scaling (CMOS 2.0). This initiative will focus on design automation and chip architecture research for the next generation of chips. The consortium will benefit from the NanoIC pilot line, turning academic insights into industry-focused innovations. In the future, similar consortia will be set up around advanced materials and alternative compute systems.

CMOS 2.0 refers to a new paradigm, introduced by imec, that expands the chip making toolbox beyond traditional transistor scaling and its associated scaling challenges. CMOS 2.0 allows for more design flexibility by exploiting fine-grain wafer stacking technology to improve on-chip connectivity and offer higher technology heterogeneity to the system. It will result in tailored chips comprising multiple 3D-stacked layers that fulfil smartly partitioned functions. In that way, CMOS 2.0 will provide advanced, versatile 3D stacked platforms that push the boundaries of compute performance.

Microsoft has released its latest DirectStorage 1.4 update, focusing on the technicalities behind game asset streaming. Today, the company introduced new compression and decompression technology called Zstandard (Zstd), which should improve game loading times and bring much faster game asset streaming than what was previously used. Microsoft originally developed its DirectStorage in DirectX 12 to take advantage of the quick NVMe SSDs. Powerful consumer GPUs need game assets to load incredibly fast, and DirectStorage devleopment has cut out the middle-man, the CPU, in the process of streaming these assets from storage to the GPU. Traditionally, this has been done over CPU, causing delays and latencies across teh stack.

To push Zstd even further, Microsoft has developed the Game Asset Conditioning Library (GACL), a companion tool that developers run on their assets before a game ships. The idea is that instead of simply compressing textures, GACL first conditions them to be more compressible, allowing Zstd to squeeze files down by up to 50% more than it otherwise could. It does this through a few different techniques. Shuffling rearranges data inside texture files so repeating patterns cluster together, giving Zstd more to latch onto. Block-Level Entropy Reduction (BLER) and Component-Level Entropy Reduction (CLER) then reduce texture complexity at the block and color-channel level, using perceptual quality as a guide so any changes remain invisible to the player. CLER takes this a step further by incorporating machine learning to identify exactly where that reduction can be applied without anyone noticing.

Acer Inc. (TWSE: 2353) announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2025 and fiscal 2025 ended December 31. In the fourth quarter, Acer reported consolidated revenues of NT$74.36 billion, up 12.6% YoY; gross profits of NT$8.59 billion, up 23.6% year-on-year (YoY) with 11.6% margin; operating income of NT$1.87 billion, up 82.3% YoY with 2.5% margin; and net income of NT$1.07 billion with earning-per-share (EPS) of NT$0.36.

For the full year of 2025, consolidated revenues reached NT$275.63 billion, up 4.1% YoY; gross profits of NT$29.99 billion, up 7.1% YoY with 10.9% margin; operating income of NT$5.14 billion, up 5.5% YoY with 1.9% margin; and net income of NT$3.78 billion with earning-per-share (EPS) of NT$1.26.

Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (NasdaqGS: SIMO), a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices, today announced the launch of the SM8008, a PCIe Gen 5 x4 NVMe enterprise SSD controller purpose-built for data center boot drives and power-sensitive enterprise storage applications.

As hyperscale and enterprise data centers expand server deployments, boot SSDs have become a critical infrastructure component across every system node. The SM8008 addresses this growing demand with a controller architecture optimized for power efficiency, predictable performance, and enterprise-grade security at scale, while supporting the OCP Hyperscale NVMe Boot SSD Specification to meet production-ready enterprise deployment requirements.

JBL is redefining the party experience and transforming any song into a seamless karaoke experience with the expansion of its AI-powered EasySing technology across the new JBL PartyBox On-the-Go 2 Plus, JBL EasySing Mics & JBL EasySing Mic Mini. By integrating real-time AI vocal removal, pitch support and intelligent vocal enhancement directly into the brand's latest PartyBox speaker and microphones, JBL is putting fans at the center of the music they love like never before.

From a powerful party speaker to ultra-portable microphones, JBL's EasySing ecosystem uses advanced on-device AI to separate vocals from any track in real time, giving listeners the freedom to reduce or remove original vocals at the touch of a button. Combined with Voice Boost high-pitch support, natural reverb, echo and noise suppression, new EasySing technology gives users the power to effortlessly customize their experience, putting them at center stage.

JBL announces the JBL Live 780NC over-ear and JBL Live 680NC on-ear headphones, built for all-day listening without compromise. The new JBL Live series makes its official debut at SXSW inside the JBL Livebrary at 3TEN at Austin City Limits Live, a reimagined library concept designed around headphone-first listening. Within the space, guests can explore curated artist collections and dedicated demo stations that put the JBL Live series at the center of the SXSW experience.

A soundtrack for the day-to-day
Featuring 40 mm dynamic drivers for excellent audio performance, the new Live headphones bring any playlists and podcasts to life with clearer, more detailed sound. Listen uninterrupted with True Adaptive Noise Cancelling 2.0. Real-time noise filtering and upgraded processing power deliver improved noise reduction, turning down even more distractions than before.

For the past half-decade, PC enthusiasts and audiophiles like me have been fighting a phantom war inside our systems. The enemy isn't audio fidelity, which has been democratized by Realtek by serving up codecs with SNRs well above 110 dBA; it is Deferred Procedure Call (DPC) latency. As the industry rapidly shifted toward complex, heterogeneous CPU architectures, and motherboard vendors simultaneously abandoned robust audio interfaces for cheaper USB routing, we inadvertently built a latency trap.

We are currently relying on brute-force host processing and software band-aids to fix a hardware routing problem. But there is a way out. It is entirely possible to build discrete sound cards with native signal processing to bypass these DPC gremlins once and for all.

Senior editor and tech reporter Anthony Garreffa of TweakTown suffered a serious stroke late February, and is recovering in hospital, we have learned from a TweakTown report. He has been receiving care in the hospital's stroke ward, and battling certain additional complications with his case, however, he is on the path to recovery, being able to speak a little, understand communication, and resume some movement on his right side. His recovery process is expected to be long, requiring significant rehabilitation. Garreffa's association with TweakTown spans decades, with over 29,000 content pieces for the site. As long time compatriots of TweakTown, we wish him a speedy recovery.

Please consider giving to this fundraiser set-up by Garreffa's family.

As ransomware attack methods become increasingly sophisticated, the traditional 3-2-1 backup rule faces new challenges. With this in mind, we here at ASUSTOR are changing our messaging to actively promote the new 3-2-1-1-0 backup principle for increased data security. With 3-2-1-1-0, you still need at least three copies of data, on two different types of media with one offsite, but additionally, one copy must be offline or immutable while ensuring backups are verified with zero errors. With MyArchive, easy backup methods, WORM immutable storage technology, forward-looking post-quantum cryptography technology, and advanced RAID configurations, your ASUSTOR comes with maximum hardware resilience to keep your data safe. ASUSTOR helps you implement the latest and greatest cybersecurity standards, ensuring the safety of digital assets even in extreme environments.

To achieve the extra one and zero in 3-2-1-1-0, ASUSTOR provides strong hardware support. For those who require high end performance, the Lockerstor R Pro Gen2 series prioritizes performance and security. New to ASUSTOR is support for RAID 50 and RAID 60 configurations for combining efficient transmission and even higher or dual protection. This ensures stable and uninterrupted operation even in extreme situations involving massive data transfers.

As more gamers move toward AMD Ryzen series platforms for modern DDR5 gaming builds, v-color Technology Inc. is introducing a smarter and more flexible upgrade option with its new 1+1 DDR5 Memory and RGB Filler NON-DRAM Solution. Designed for gamers who want a more accessible way into DDR5, each kit includes one active DDR5 memory module and one matching RGB Filler module. This gives users real DDR5 performance today while keeping the clean dual DIMM RGB look that many builders want in their systems.

The concept is especially well suited for AMD Ryzen gaming systems, including the widely recognized Ryzen 7 7800X3D as well as the high-end processors such as the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. With AMD X3D architecture, single module DDR5 configurations remain a practical option for gaming focused users. This allows builders to start with one module now, lower their upfront cost, and upgrade later with a second memory module when needed.

TrendForce's latest research on the semiconductor foundry industry reveals that advanced-node demand remained strong in 4Q25, driven by the tight supply of AI server GPUs and Google TPUs. Furthermore, the launch of new smartphones boosted wafer orders for mobile application processors (APs), supporting solid shipment performance.

On the mature-node side, PMIC orders related to servers and edge AI continued to keep 8-inch fabs running at high utilization rates, with some suppliers even considering price increases. Meanwhile, utilization rates at 12-inch fabs remained largely stable. Together, these factors pushed the combined revenue of the world's top ten foundries up 2.6% QoQ to nearly US$46.3 billion in 4Q25.

Alphacool International GmbH from Braunschweig is a pioneer in PC water-cooling technology. With one of the most comprehensive product portfolios in the industry and over 20 years of experience, Alphacool continues to expand its portfolio. With the new Apex Stealth Metal fans in the 140 mm version, Alphacool expands the Stealth series with another powerful option. The fans combine uncompromising performance with high quality and are available both with impressive aRGB lighting and as a subtle non-aRGB variant.

The metal frame ensures maximum stability and highlights the characteristic Apex design, while the patent-pending decoupling technology effectively isolates vibrations. Thanks to their high static pressure, the Apex Stealth fans are ideal for use on radiators while also performing excellently as powerful case fans. The durable HDB bearing guarantees a long service life and consistently high performance.

ASUS Republic of Gamers (ROG) today announced ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG Gen2 (XG27AQDMGR), XG27ACDMS, and XG27AQDMES monitors, the latest additions to the Strix OLED range. As the undisputed No.1 OLED monitor brand, ROG continues to lead the market by making premium panel technologies more accessible to a broader spectrum of gamers, delivering breathtaking visuals, lightning-fast response times, and incredible immersion that only OLED can provide. Gamers now have a choice between the striking TrueBlack Glossy WOLED panel in the XG27AQDMG Gen2 and the semi-glossy QD-OLED panel of the XG27ACDMS and XG27AQDMES. These premium value Strix OLED monitors serve as accessible entry points with absolutely no compromises on quality. Gamers can enjoy the high-end features more commonly found in top-tier ROG OLED monitors, including a custom heatsink, comprehensive OLED Care suite with Neo Proximity sensor, Extreme Low Motion Blue (ELMB) technology, intuitive ASUS DisplayWidget software, and more.

Dare to take on the chaos in John Carpenter's Toxic Commando! From March 12 to April 12, 2026, purchase select MSI Power Supplies and receive a FREE John Carpenter's Toxic Commando game key, while supplies last! Blast through relentless zombie hordes with friends in this co-op FPS from Saber Interactive and Focus Entertainment.

MSI's MEG, MPG, and MAG series are built to serve different PC builders, each offering a clear balance of performance, features, and design. In this promotion, MSI power supplies across the MEG, MPG, and MAG lineups are included, allowing users to choose the right PSU while staying within a unified product family.

Synopsys, Inc. today announced advancements across its leading hardware-assisted verification (HAV) portfolio, including new hardware platforms and capabilities to support the ever-expanding demand for AI chip verification from the data center to the edge. Synopsys HAV platforms, powered by the company's unique software-defined capabilities, set new performance, scalability, and use case benchmarks for verifying the world's most sophisticated multi-die and AI chips amidst compounding design complexity and time-to-market requirements.

AI chip verification complexity is escalating rapidly as large language models continue to double in size roughly every four months, and interface data rates advance at a 2x rate every three years. Simultaneously, edge AI architectures are driving aggressive throughput, latency, and power‑efficiency targets that further expand the design and validation workload. To keep pace, the industry requires HAV solutions to support broader application coverage and run quadrillions of verification cycles, enabling first‑time‑right silicon and a seamless ability to integrate heterogeneous AI systems.

Redragon has just announced two new affordable wireless gaming mice: The Taipan Pro M810, a right-handed conventional ergonomic gaming mouse, and the Impact Elite M913, an MMO mouse with 12 programmable side buttons. The Taipan Pro M810 is a fairly conventional gaming mouse shape, falling squarely within the same category as the likes of the Razer Basilisk or Logitech G502 shapes, with its left-side thumb shelf, fairly high front, and mid-hump design. The Taipan Pro has eight buttons in total, including middle click, thanks to the two shortcut keys on the left side, two buttons on the top behind the scroll wheel, and a button to the left of the left click.

Redragon markets the Taipan Pro as an FPS mouse, but it doesn't specify the mouse's weight, and it uses the PixArt PAW3311 sensor, which tops out at 12,000 DPI and 35 G acceleration, while the polling rate maxes out at 1 kHz. It uses Huano mechanical switches with a 20-million click MTBF rating, although there is no specific mention of a switch model or actuation force. The Taipan Pro features both 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth wireless connectivity, and Redragon claims it can manage up to 188 hours on a single charge with the RGB accent lighting off and 29 hours with the accent lighting on. Both the RGB lighting and the button mapping are customizable in Redragon's software suite for Windows. By far the most attractive part of the Redragon Taipan Pro 810M is its price, at $39.99 for the white version and $42.99 for the black version from the Redragon web store.

Logitech G305 fans who are looking for something a little lighter with more modern specifications might not have to wait much longer, if the VXE V3 turns out to be anything like the brand's other gaming mice, at least. The VXE V3 gaming mouse recently showed up in a number of leaks on social media sites, like Reddit and X, revealing an egg-like design and purple colorway nearly identical to Logitech's G305 and G203 gaming mice.

Exact specifications have not been made public yet, but ATK Gear has teased the V3 in a post on X, noting that the mouse is "coming soon," although no specific launch date has been announced either. ATK did confirm that it will be a quad-mode gaming mouse, though, which means it will feature the usual wired, Bluetooth, and 2.4 GHz connectivity, with the addition of NearLink, which was also recently featured in the VXE Dragonfly R1. If the R1's internals are anything to go by, the V3 will likely use the HiSilicon Nearlink MCU and something like the PixArt PAW 3950 or 3395 sensor. Given the Logitech G305 is already an affordable mouse, often retailing for as little as $26.99, it makes sense that the VXE V3 will also be a budget mouse, like the Dragonfly R1, which retails at just $18.99.

The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, recently announced that she was taking Valve to court over what she called "quintessential gambling" via loot boxes in games like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, and Dota, stating that these loot boxes target children and adolescents, and that they put children at risk of becoming addicted to gambling when they reach adulthood. On March 11, Valve published a response to this lawsuit in a dedicated Steam Support page, stating that it does not believe the mystery boxes violate any New York state laws, defending its loot box economy by likening it to real-world blind boxes, and criticizing the attorney general for taking Valve to court while turning a blind eye to the aforementioned real-world examples.

Valve says that it had previously met with the attorney general and explained that these mystery box systems are widely used "not just in video games but in the tangible world as well," likening loot boxes to real-world products like baseball cards, Magic: The Gathering cards, Pokémon cards, and even Labubus. Valve adds that "players don't have to open mystery boxes to play Valve games," and it insists that most gamers never do. According to the gaming giant, it has been cooperating with the NY attorney general's investigation and has shut down a number of accounts found to be using loot box cosmetics on gambling sites, citing that it has closed over a million accounts for this reason. Building on its example of baseball cards, Valve criticizes the NY attorney general taking issue with the fact that the in-game items are tradable and transferrable, suggesting that if trading physical goods, like baseball cards, isn't prohibited, neither should trading in-game cosmetics be.

Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business is $139.97 (regularly $249.99) for a lifetime license on Mac or PC. Subscription fatigue is real, especially when it comes to software you use every day. Microsoft 365 costs $69.99 to $99.99 annually, which means you'll easily spend $200-$400 within a few years just to keep using Word and Excel. The Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business lifetime license eliminates the subscription cycle entirely. One payment installs the classic desktop apps directly on your Mac or PC with no recurring fees.

Microsoft Office 2024 Home & Business Lifetime License is $139.97 (regularly $249.99).

Asha Sharma, the new CEO of Xbox, recently announced that the next-gen Xbox gaming console is called the Xbox Helix—at least for the time being—and hinted that more information would be revealed about the upcoming Xbox at GDC 2026. Now, GDC is here, and Xbox has delivered on that hint, with Xbox VP of Next Generation, Jason Ronald, divulging more information about Project Helix in a panel. The most notable piece of information that emerged about the console is that alpha versions of Helix dev kits would start shipping to customers as early as the end of 2027. This more or less confirms the recently rumored 2027-2028 launch window of the next-gen Xbox.

Ronald also reiterated that the next-gen Xbox is "designed to play your Xbox console and PC games," although it's still somewhat unclear if Helix will be a full-fledged console-PC hybrid à la Valve's Steam Machine—although rumors suggest that this will be the case. The executive also confirmed that it is working with AMD on a slew of new machine learning-powered tech, including FSR Diamond, which AMD also announced at GDC, and that the new AMD SoC would be designed around upcoming DirectX versions for improved ray tracing, performance, and efficiency. He also confirmed that the Helix will continue the backwards compatibility trend that Xbox has become known for, promising that Xbox will continue to play games made for the last four generations of consoles. Presumably, this means that the Helix will be able to play games from the Xbox Series, Xbox One, and Xbox 360 generations as well as games designed for the Xbox Helix.

AMD is reportedly developing a next-generation FSR update, codenamed "FSR Diamond," for the upcoming Xbox project "Helix" gaming console. With the Project Helix console expected to launch in 2027, the details of "FSR Diamond" remain a mystery. It's unclear what AMD aims to achieve with this AI-powered video generation technology, but it likely builds on previous advancements like Radiance Caching and Ray Generation, adding a new dimension to the company's graphics capabilities. We might see an AMD equivalent of the multi-frame generation technology found in NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs and Intel's XeSS 3.0. Since Project Helix is anticipated to feature RDNA 5 / UDNA graphics IP, this feature could be exclusive to that generation, as AMD tends to tie its latest technologies to the current RDNA IP.

AMD already differentiates its latest FSR "Redstone" suite of technologies, with features like Ray Regeneration and Radiance Caching exclusive to RDNA 4 hardware in the Radeon RX 9000 series of GPUs. Other basic technologies, such as upscaling and frame generation, are supported on older RDNA 3/2/1 generations but use an FSR 3.1 fallback, with no FSR 4 support currently available. However, since INT8-based FSR 4 exists, it may only be a matter of time before the company extends this capability to older GPUs, though the expected performance might not be optimal. For multi-frame generation and potentially dynamic multi-frame generation, "FSR Diamond" would need specialized hardware. Even NVIDIA, with its MFG 6x mode and Dynamic MFG, keeps those features exclusive to the GeForce RTX 50-Series "Blackwell," which uses hardware flip-metering available only on the newest GPU generation. Similarly, RDNA 5 / UDNA could incorporate these hardware components as well.

SolidRun, a leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance system-on-module (SOM) solutions, single-board computers (SBC) and network edge solutions, announced its new P100 COM Express Type 6 module family, powered by AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P100 processors. Designed for real-world edge deployments where systems don't sit still, the P100 COMx6 series targets mobile platforms as well as harsh, mission-critical environments across industrial automation, transportation, medical systems, and robotics.

"Edge AI is moving out of controlled environments and into the real world, like mobile platforms, harsh industrial sites, and mission-critical deployments where serviceability, and longevity matter as much as raw compute," said Dr. Atai Ziv, CEO of SolidRun. "Our new P100 COM Express Type 6 modules are built to deliver powerful AI performance at the edge while improving the mechanical durability and serviceability product developers need to deploy confidently in demanding environments."

NVIDIA has officially confirmed the ROP count for its Pro-Viz RTX PRO 5000 "Blackwell" graphics card, listing it at 160 ROPs for this GPU. Reddit user "xmikjee" posted on the NVIDIA subreddit that his recently purchased RTX PRO 5000 "Blackwell" graphics card with 48 GB has 160 ROPs instead of the 176 that our database and several online sources initially suggested. However, NVIDIA has confirmed for TechPowerUP that this is an error and that the card officially comes with 160 ROPs, as detected by our GPU-Z software. GPU-Z reads the ROP count on the GPU as soon as the driver is installed. This means that "live data" is shown and read using NVIDIA drivers that are probed by the GPU-Z utility, which then reports the ROP count. Coincidentally, another user in the thread mentioned that his card also runs with 160 ROPs as detected by GPU-Z.

To understand why the ROP count on the RTX PRO 5000 "Blackwell" matters, it's helpful to know how NVIDIA structures its GPUs. The chip is built in layers, starting with Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs) at the top, breaking down into Texture Processing Clusters (TPCs), and then into Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), which are the cores doing the actual work. ROPs follow this same hierarchy, with each GPC contributing 16 ROPs. On a fully loaded "Blackwell" GB202, that totals 192 ROPs across 12 GPCs. The RTX PRO 5000 "Blackwell" takes an interesting path. With 14,080 CUDA cores, pointing to just under 7 GPCs worth of compute, you might expect a leaner configuration. However, NVIDIA used 10 fully active GPCs on the card, leaving some SMs off. This results in a ROP count of 160, which is notably strong for a professional card at this tier. It suggests that NVIDIA was quite generous with the silicon it left enabled and indicates the segmentation the company is doing within the GB202 SKU. Considering the very expensive RTX PRO 5000 "Blackwell" professional graphics card that NVIDIA lists for $5,099 on its Amazon store, this is a valid compromise.

Framework has taken a remarkably transparent approach to recent RAM price increases that affect the pricing of both its laptops and its standalone RAM sales, sticking to monthly price updates throughout the ongoing RAM shortage and maintaining a blog post with monthly updates on the industry situation. Framework's March memory pricing update will see prices on DDR5 SODIMMs increase to as much as $13-18 per GB, with lower capacity sticks seemingly trending towards the higher end of that price bracket. The price increases in question have also affected the Framework Desktop and some pre-built SKUs of the Framework Laptop 16.

Framework also confirmed that it has "started to deplete" its stockpile of low-cost SSDs that were sitting in inventory, and the company predicts that prices for the Laptop 12, 13, and 16 will continue to trend upwards in the coming months as a result of both the storage and RAM price increases. For the time being, the OEM still has supply of 2, 4, and 8 TB SN850X SSDs that are priced below market averages. The impacts of the DRAM crisis on silicon fabrication have also begun to become apparent, since the Intel Core i5-1334U in the Framework 12 is in limited supply.

Avalue Technology Inc. (TPEx: 3479.TWO) has officially launched the new EAX-R680BP ATX industrial motherboard, which is centered around a highly expandable platform architecture. Supporting the next-generation Intel Core Series 2 processor, it offers flexible dual PCIe Gen 5 card configuration capabilities. Designed for AI inference, high-performance computing, and data-intensive storage applications, the EAX-R680BP empowers system integrators and enterprise users to build computing platforms that balance performance, scalability, and long-term stability.

As edge AI, smart manufacturing, and data-driven applications continue to grow, the need for high-bandwidth expansion and computational acceleration in system architectures becomes ever more apparent. The EAX-R680BP industrial-grade motherboard from Avalue features an ATX form factor design that fully leverages the advantages of expansion flexibility and versatility. When combined with the Intel Core Series 2 processors, the EAX-R680BP motherboard provides a stable and scalable hardware foundation for a variety of applications. Thanks to its PCIe Gen 5 high-speed channel design, the motherboard can support the simultaneous operation of multiple GPUs or high-performance expansion cards, meeting the performance density demands of next-generation AI and edge computing.

One of the most important categories for a game to be Steam Deck Verified is that the game's UI must scale well on the device's small screen. When it was earlier confirmed that Valve would be loosening the requirements for the Steam Machine Verified program, we speculated that the display scaling and resolution might be one of the areas Valve would relax its requirements. Now, at GDC 2026, Valve has confirmed that this is the case, providing additional guidelines for the Steam Machine and Steam Frame Verification process. According to the document, the Verified program will be split into Steam Deck, Steam Machine, and Steam Frame Standalone—the latter being labelled "Standalone" because the Steam Frame can also operate connected to a PC or Steam Deck.

According to Valve's presentation, all Steam Deck Verified games will be Verified for the Steam Machine, but not all Steam Machine Verified games will necessarily be Verified for the Steam Deck—this is largely a result of the Machine's claimed performance. At a minimum, games must be able to run at 1080p, 30 FPS, with the same controller support and input expectations as the Steam Deck—meaning full support for controller-only input. Games with controller compatibility issues—for instance, requiring a mouse and/or keyboard to play or interact with the UI—will be rated Steam Machine Playable. Any games that are unsupported on Deck because of SteamOS will get the same rating on the Steam Machine, and any games that are unplayable on Deck because of performance issues will be re-evaluated for the Steam Machine in new testing.

ASRock, the global leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, mini PCs, gaming monitors, power supply units and AIOs, today announced that its Intel Z890, B860, and H810 series motherboards fully support the newly launched Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus processors, including the Ultra 7 270K Plus, Ultra 5 250K Plus, and Ultra 5 250KF Plus. With this support, gamers and creators can fully leverage the performance improvements of the latest processors, delivering enhanced gaming experiences and improved productivity.

Intel today introduced three new Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus processors, including the eight-core Ultra 7 270K Plus, as well as the six-core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Ultra 5 250KF Plus. Featuring increased E-core counts and updates through the Intel Platform Performance Package (IPPP), these processors deliver improved gaming performance and stronger multitasking capabilities. To further simplify installation, ASRock has integrated the IPPP driver into its Auto Driver Installer (ADI) utility on all 800 series models. Users only need to download the installation tool from the official support page to quickly enable the IPPP and enjoy noticeably improved gaming performance.

The full release of Fedora Linux 44 is drawing near, and, as such, the Fedora Project has officially made Fedora 44 Beta available for download for those who want to test the upcoming version of the workstation Linux distribution. Fedora 44 has a long changelog, but some of the biggest changes are simply newer versions of the included defaults, like the move to Gnome 50 and KDE Plasma 6.6 as well as an update to Linux 6.19. Like many distributions that use KDE, the Fedora 44 KDE Desktop edition officially makes the move from SDDM to Plasma Login Manager as the default. In general, Fedora 44 also improves things like the installer, which no longer automatically and unnecessarily creates network profiles for devices not involved in the initial configuration. This makes it easier to configure these devices later when necessary.

Fedora 44 also adds support for Budgie 10.10, which is itself migrating from X11 to Wayland, Fedora changes the build infrastructure to make package builds more predictable and reproducible. Wayland support and the built-in emojis are also now better supported thanks to the upgrade to IBus 1.5.34, and various other frameworks and programming languages have been updated to improve security and modernize the OS. Fedora 44 launches officially on April 14, 2026, but beta ISOs for Fedora Workstation (with Gnome) and Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop can be downloaded ahead of the official launch. There are also the usual ISOs for server, cloud, and IoT versions.

MSI proudly introduces its latest generation of motherboards, purpose built to pair seamlessly with the new Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus Series processors. MSI 800 Series (Z890/B860/H810) motherboards are engineered to unlock the full potential of the newest desktop architecture, delivering and improved overall performance compared to the existing Intel Core Ultra Series 2 desktop processors. This ensures you can build a powerful, reliable system tailored to your needs.

"MSI bridges the gap between Intel's cutting-edge architecture and the high-speed demands of modern users. By pairing Intel's new Core Ultra 200S Plus Series Processors with its increased core counts and 5.5 GHz clock speeds, MSI's robust 16-phase Duet Rail Power System on the MAG Z890 TOMAHAWK WIFI II, we've created a platform that doesn't just run the latest games; it masters them. This is the definitive foundation for the next generation of high-performance computing", said James Yeh, VP, Computing & Display Group, MSI.

MSI today announces that its AI gaming desktops, the MEG Vision X AI and MPG Infinite X3 AI, are now equipped with the latest Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus Series processors (Arrow Lake-S Refresh). Featuring up to the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus with 24 cores (8P+16E) and a 5.5 GHz max boost clock, these updated systems deliver faster gaming performance and significantly improved multitasking.

Performance Refined with Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus Series
The Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus Series brings targeted but meaningful upgrades over its predecessor—adding 4 more cores on both the Ultra 7 and Ultra 5 CPUs, a +200 MHz bump on P-Core all-core frequencies, and official DDR5-7200 MT/s memory support. The result is approximately 9% faster gaming performance compared to the previous generation, alongside massive leaps in multithreaded workloads—making these systems a compelling choice for gamers and creators who multitask heavily across streaming, editing, and gameplay simultaneously. The processors remain fully compatible with Intel 800 Series chipsets, meaning users get a meaningful performance uplift without any platform overhaul required.

Leading gaming accessories maker Turtle Beach Corporation (Nasdaq: TBCH), today revealed its newest variants in its award-winning line-up of Victrix fighting game gear, the new Victrix Pro KO Leverless Fight Stick - Street Fighter II: Champion Edition. The fully customizable Victrix Pro KO Leverless Fight Stick - Street Fighter II: Champion Edition is officially licensed by Sony Interactive Entertainment and Capcom and emblazoned with a bold new look celebrating the golden era of gaming. The Street Fighter II: Champion Edition design features the legendary Street Fighter Player Select screen as well as its iconic fighters Ryu and Chun-Li on the faceplate. And whether you choose Ryu, Chun-Li, or other favorite characters, you're still equipped to claim more victories in your chosen arena.

The Victrix Pro KO Leverless Fight Stick was named as the "2024 Best Tech" at the EVO Awards ceremony that recognizes excellence within the global fighting game community. Today, it remains the choice of gaming champions because it's designed and crafted to the highest standard with premium features and components. Hot swappable Cherry MX Speed Silver RGB switches, customizable RGB lighting, a removable aluminium top plate, and up to 16 moveable and mappable buttons give players total control over their gaming experience.

Elgato, a Corsair brand, today announced a major expansion of its partnership with Voicemod, bringing their creative voice and audio tools directly to Elgato platforms. Gamers can now apply professional voice changers to their microphone in Wave Link as VST effects, without needing to run the Voicemod app. Creators, meanwhile, can install full soundboards to Stream Deck and route them to any audio mix in Wave Link—now free to use with any microphone or interface. Both are available today on Elgato Marketplace.

"For the first time, Voicemod's voice technology is running natively inside the tools creators already rely on," said Jaime Bosch, Co-Founder and CEO of Voicemod. "Elgato gives people the control layer for their audio setup, and Voicemod adds the creative layer, so your voice can become part of your identity online. We've always believed everyone should be able to express themselves through sound, and this partnership makes that easier than ever."

Display specialist AOC introduces the AOC 16T20E2, a compact and lightweight portable monitor designed for professionals, digital nomads, and hybrid workers who demand visual clarity and flexible connectivity wherever they work. Featuring a 15.6" (39.6 cm) Full HD IPS panel with wide 178°/178° viewing angles and a 1000:1 contrast ratio, the 16T20E2 delivers sharp, colorful visuals in a sleek, ultraportable form factor.

Ultraslim, ultra-light, ultraportable
At just 9 mm thin and weighing approximately 1 kg without its magnetic cover, the AOC 16T20E2 is one of the slimmest and lightest portable monitors on the market. It fits effortlessly into any backpack, laptop bag, or carry-on, making it the ideal companion for users who need a reliable second screen on business trips, at co-working spaces, in hotel rooms, or during client presentations. The display surface features 3H hardness for scratch resistance, ensuring durability even on the go.

Intel today announced the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus desktop processors in the Socket LGA1851 package. These chips are drop-in compatible with existing Intel 800-series chipset motherboards, with some boards needing UEFI firmware updates. Both chips are based on the current "Arrow Lake" microarchitecture, and are carved out of the "Arrow Lake-S" disaggregated silicon that uses TSMC N3B (3 nm) foundry node for its Compute tile containing the CPU cores, TSMC N5 (5 nm) for its Graphics tile, and TSMC N6 (6 nm) node for its SoC and I/O tiles.

Both the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus ($199) and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus ($299) processor models are designed to push the current Core Ultra 5 245K and Core Ultra 7 265K, respectively, down from their current price-points. The two come with increased E-core counts, larger L3 caches, slightly increased P-core maximum boost frequency, and a 900 MHz faster die-to-die I/O frequency among the Compute and SoC tiles, which essentially makes these chips have "200S Boost Mode" out of the box. The new Core Ultra 5 250K Plus comes with a 6P+12E core configuration compared to the 6P+8E of the Core Ultra 5 245K. Its shared L3 cache has been enlarged to 30 MB, up from the 24 MB on the 245K. The P-core maximum boost frequency is up to 5.30 GHz from 5.20 GHz.

Minisforum's to-be-launched AI NAS N5 MAX, has been confirmed to successfully run the built-in OpenClaw in local AI LLMs. Equipped with AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395, the self-developed MinisCloud OS unleashes full power of integrated AI NAS, fulfilling diverse user needs running data locally.

With more safety handling personal data on private platform, N5 MAX is the first AI NAS in the world to integrate OpenClaw with local computing, marking a revolution in the industry.

Silicon Power (SP) proudly announces that its XPOWER Cyclone DDR5 RGB gaming memory module has been honored with the iF Design Award 2026, one of the world's most prestigious recognitions, for outstanding product design. The award highlights the Cyclone's successful fusion of high-performance engineering and bold, minimalist aesthetics designed for gamers, overclockers, and PC enthusiasts.

Performance-Driven Design for the Next Generation
The XPOWER Cyclone DDR5 RGB series represents Silicon Power's next step in high-performance gaming memory, including the company's first Clocked Unbuffered DIMM (CUDIMM). Designed to meet the demands of modern gaming systems and performance computing, the modules support ultra-fast speeds of up to 9200 MT/s for smoother gameplay, faster data processing, and improved system responsiveness.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of edge computing solutions, industrial motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, is showcasing its latest IPC and edge AI computing solutions at Embedded World 2026, currently taking place from March 10 to 12 at NürnbergMesse in Germany. Visitors can explore BIOSTAR's newest industrial computing platforms, including edge AI systems powered by Intel Core Ultra processors, NVIDIA Jetson-based AI solutions, and advanced industrial networking technologies. Built to support high-performance edge processing and reliable industrial deployment, these platforms enable intelligent computing for applications such as smart manufacturing, smart cities, and smart retail. Attendees can experience BIOSTAR's latest innovations at Hall 3, Booth 3-456.

Among the technologies on display at Embedded World 2026 is BIOSTAR's next-generation edge AI platform based on Intel's Panther Lake platform, powered by the latest Intel Core Ultra Series 3 AI processors. The MT PRO-U325 platform is designed to deliver strong AI processing capability and efficient edge computing performance for industrial environments. Supporting real-time data processing and AI-driven analytics at the edge, the platform enables a wide range of embedded applications and edge AI deployments across areas such as smart manufacturing, smart city infrastructure, and smart retail environments.

Game development teams are working across larger worlds, more complex pipelines and more distributed teams than ever. At the same time, many studios still rely on fixed, desk-bound GPU hardware for critical production work. At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) this week in San Francisco, NVIDIA is showcasing a new approach to bring together disparate workflows using virtualized game development on NVIDIA RTX PRO Servers, powered by NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs and NVIDIA vGPU software.

With the RTX PRO Server, studios can centralize and virtualize core workflows across creative, engineering, AI research and quality assurance (QA) - all on shared GPU infrastructure in the data center. This enables teams to maintain the responsiveness and visual fidelity they expect from workstation-class systems while improving infrastructure utilization, scalability, data security and operational consistency across teams and locations.

Patriot Memory, a global leader in high-performance memory and storage solutions, is pleased to announce its participation in Embedded World 2026. Under its dedicated industrial and embedded brand, ACPI, Patriot Memory will showcase a comprehensive portfolio of next-generation hardware designed for AIoT, edge computing, and 5G infrastructure. Highlighting the display are the new M2PDR-8LP PCIe Gen 5 x4 SSD, the high-capacity Enterprise NVMe SSD series, and high-speed DDR5 RDIMM modules featuring wide-temperature support.

As industrial applications transition toward data-heavy workloads involving AI training and autonomous systems, the demand for extreme bandwidth and thermal stability has reached a critical point. ACPI's latest offerings are engineered to address these challenges by combining cutting-edge interface standards with industrial-grade reliability.

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. This week, both High On Life 2 and Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties are launching with support for DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation. And REANIMAL launches February 13th with DLSS Super Resolution. And our Resident Evil Requiem GeForce RTX 50 Series Bundle is available now. Read on for all the details.

Resident Evil Requiem GeForce RTX Bundle Available Now
In Resident Evil Requiem, prepare to escape death in a heart-stopping experience that will chill you to your core. 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 to deliver the most immersive entry yet in the iconic Resident Evil series.

Gaming has largely been split into two camps: mouse-and-keyboard gamers and controller gamers, and while devices like the Lenovo Legion Go and the new Joy-Cons on the Nintendo Switch 2 blur those lines, the Phase project, recently shown off by a new startup called Pixelpaw Labs, is attempting to blur those lines even further. The Phase is a split game controller that combines using magnets and pogo pin connectors to become a standard PC mouse. The goal behind the project is to "bridge the gap between a mouse, a mobile gamepad, and a controller," all in one device that can be carried with you when you might do both work and play away from home. Phase has not yet launched, although Pixelpaw Labs aims to launch the project as a Kickstarter, and it is currently offering a $20 refundable pre-launch deposit, which also guarantees a 15% discount when the Phase launches on Kickstarter. Kickstarter launch pricing is slated to start at $159 or $188 with the Phasegrip accessory.

Given that this is Pixelpaw Labs's first product and the fact that there is an inherent risk to Kickstarters, it would be impertinent to not mention that there is non-zero chance that the project never makes it to production. That said, the design and concept are interesting, as are some of the workarounds that the designers behind the project came up with for some unexpected problems. For one, the Phase doesn't have a scroll wheel when the two controller halves are in mouse mode—instead, the whole left click button is a touch-sensitive surface. The mouse connects wirelessly or via USB-C while in mouse mode, and it features a 16,000 DPI sensor—likely something like the PixArt PMW 3389 or PAW 3335, both of which are commonly found in gaming mice, even if they are somewhat outdated.

One of the Epomaker keyboards we spotted at CES 2026 was the charming little Luma40, which is apparently being followed up by its polar opposite, at least in terms of the layout and form factor. The recently announced Epomaker Luma100 is a 96% wireless mechanical keyboard that packs much of the benefits of a full-size mechanical keyboard into a slim, compact form factor. The Luma100 is not yet available on the Epomaker site, but the product page has launched, giving us a good idea of what to expect from the new low-profile mechanical keyboard. The Luma100 measures in at 37.1 × 12.85 cm with a stated 23 mm front height—presumably with keycaps installed. Aside from the low-profile design, all-aluminium chassis, and the 96% layout that preserves the num pad in a more compact footprint, the Luma100 has a number of interesting features that might interest potential buyers.

The most obvious difference between the Luma40 and the Luma100 is the layout, but the Luma100 also has a gasket mount, as opposed to the tray mount of the Luma40. The Luma100 also uses much more conventional keycaps, with ABS DSA low-profile keycaps with shine-through legends to match the Luma100's north-facing RGB backlighting. Additionally, the Luma100 follows a much more conventional row-staggered layout, ditching the Luma40's ortholinear design. The switches in the Luma100 are similar to the Luma84's, though, being that they seem to be based on the Gateron Low-Profile 2.0 switch standard, although it seems as though Epomaker has commissioned a custom switch for the Luma100, since the switches shown off in a recent unboxing video are unlike other Gateron switches, featuring clear PC housings and a light green stem.

Sonos today introduced Sonos Play and Sonos Era 100 SL, two new speakers that reflect a renewed focus on strengthening the Sonos system. Designed to deliver powerful, room-filling sound, they make it easier than ever to start and expand it room by room—creating a connected listening experience that grows with you over time.

"Much of consumer tech promises innovation, yet too often delivers isolation—new devices replacing old ones instead of building on what already works," said Tom Conrad, Chief Executive Officer of Sonos. "We believe a great sound experience shouldn't reset every time you add something new. It should get better. Sonos Play and Era 100 SL are a clear expression of what Sonos does best—creating products that feel simple on the surface, but are deeply powerful because of the system behind them."

A $2.7 billion (£1.97 billion) lawsuit against Sony has gone to trial in London, on behalf of around 12 million UK PlayStation users. Sony is accused of abusing its dominant market position by forcing digital game and add-on purchases exclusively through the PlayStation Store, keeping prices artificially higher than physical alternatives. The case is being heard at the Competition Appeal Tribunal and is led by Alex Neill, who has stated that "gamers have paid too much and they should get some money back." The claim was previously valued at up to $6.7 billion (£5 billion) before being revised down to its current figure. The case follows a similar pattern to other recent UK tech lawsuits. A comparable class action against Steam on behalf of 14 million users was cleared to proceed last month, and Apple was found in October to have abused its dominant position over App Store commissions, a ruling it is currently appealing.

Sony is fighting back, arguing it has invested years and billions into an integrated gaming platform that operates in a competitive market alongside Nintendo and Xbox, both of which use similar closed storefronts. Its lawyers contend that the margins earned on digital game sales aren't excessive and that the lawsuit fails to account for Sony's costs and the value of its platform. The company also frames the claimants' position as essentially demanding that third parties be allowed to sell on PlayStation while free-riding on the Sony infrastructure. If successful, the roughly 12.2 million eligible users, anyone who bought a digital PlayStation game or in-game download over the past ten years, would receive an estimated $217 (£162) each, on an opt-out basis.

Advantech (2395.TW), a global leader in industrial IoT, today announced an expanded collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. to accelerate the deployment of generative AI (GenAI) at the edge. This collaboration centers on Advantech adopting the Qualcomm Dragonwing AI on-prem appliance solution, powered by Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 Ultra accelerator into the Advantech SKY-641E3 4U high-performance edge server. By utilizing a specialized PCIe switch backplane, this solution provides the high-bandwidth connectivity required to unlock the full potential of high-density AI inference for enterprise and industrial verticals.
Unmatched Inference Density for Massive Concurrency

Unlike standard dual-slot GPU servers, the SKY-641E3 is architected specifically for maximum inference throughput. By supporting up to 12 single-slot FH/FL accelerators within a single 4U chassis, it offers a superior density-to-footprint ratio. This configuration is optimized for high-concurrency edge workloads, such as city-wide intelligent video analytics or large-scale retail AI agents, allowing for the simultaneous processing of hundreds of real-time data streams without the thermal overhead of power-hungry training GPUs.

Crimson Desert, the upcoming open-world action-adventure game from indie studio, Pearl Abyss, is finally closing in on its March 19 launch date, and as part of the lead-up to the launch, Pearl Abyss has officially published the minimum hardware requirements for both PC and console, including a proper dedicated handheld spec sheet that should give owners of the ASUS ROG Ally and Xbox Ally handheld gaming PCs an idea of what to expect. On the Xbox Series X and the Sony PlayStation 5, players can choose between Performance, Balanced, and Quality graphics settings, all of which with their own framerate targets and render quality settings. Performance targets 1080p resolution with 60 FPS, VRR or VSync enabled and ray tracing set to low.

Balanced bumps up the resolution to 4K upscaled from 1280p with FSR 3 and targets 40 FPS with Vsync, while Quality scales 1440p to 4K with FSR 3 and targets 30 FPS with Vsync enabled. The PS5 Pro steps up all quality settings to 4K, with Performance and Balanced using Upgraded PSSR upscaling to upscale 1080p and 1440p with 60 FPS and 48+ FPS with VRR, respectively. Quality mode on the PS5 Pro goes straight for 4K native at 30 FPS with Vsync and ray tracing on ultra. For the Xbox Series S, there are only two quality settings: Performance, at 720p, 40 FPS with Vsync and RT off, or Quality, at 1080p, 30 FPS with RT off. The Xbox Series X, on the other hand, offers Performance, with 1080p at 60 FPS with VRR or Vsync and RT set to low; Balanced, with 4K upscaled from 1280p with FSR 3, at 40 FPS with RT on low; and Quality, which is 4K upscaled from 1440p with FSR 3, at 30 FPS with RT set to high.

NACON and the Spiders studio are pleased to announce that the narrative RPG GreedFall: The Dying World is now available on PC (Steam), as well as for all owners of the digital Deluxe Edition on consoles. A new video also shows players everything they need to know in under two minutes. The title will be officially released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S this Thursday, March 12.

The story of GreedFall: The Dying World takes place three years before the events of the first opus. The Old Continent of Gacane is in agony, ravaged by a mysterious disease and incessant conflicts. Torn from your native island of Teer Fradee and taken prisoner, you must navigate this world of rival factions to regain your freedom. Use cunning, diplomacy, or combat, explore vast lands, and forge alliances with companions who can become friends, lovers, or rivals. Your choices will shape the course of your adventure and seal the fate of two worlds.

Intel's upcoming "Nova Lake-S" has been spotted in the wild for the first time. During the Embedded World 2026 event, German media outlet ComputerBase spotted an Intel Core Ultra 400 series "Nova Lake-S" mini-PC, featuring Intel's upcoming B960 chipset and support for DDR5 memory running at 8,000 MT/s. This suggests that Intel is upgrading its integrated memory controller on the "Nova Lake" platform to support these DDR5 speeds before any XMP and factory-overclocked memory are used. The support for higher-speed memory indicates that even Intel's current memory controller, which reportedly achieves DDR5 speeds of 7,200 MT/s in the upcoming "Arrow Lake Refresh," will receive an upgrade alongside the new core IP and configuration.

Speaking of configurations, ComputerBase confirmed that the 52-core top SKU of "Nova Lake" will have a TDP of 175 W, while other configurations with a TDP of 65 W will also be available. This is a significant boost of the base TDP rating that Intel is delivering, as the current flagship "Arrow Lake" Core Ultra 9 285K carries a base TDP of 125 W, a whole 50 W less. As this CPU is a 52-core model in its top-configuration, boost frequencies are going to push the power usage much higher as the processor runs a heavier load. Graphics output is powered by Xe3P GPU IP, as previously rumored, confirming that Intel's next-generation graphics is there. For AI capability, "Nova Lake" will deliver more than 100 TOPS using the 8-bit INT8 data type, thanks to the onboard NPU and the powerful Xe3P GPU IP.

Two Cakes Studio announced that Tactical Turn-based RPG Fight Life: Vanguard in a pixel-art dark fantasy world developed by StartImpulse, is coming on Steam April 10, 2026. In honor of this, the final playtest is launching with expanded content and invites players to participate. The playtest will be available until April 1, 2026.

This playtest will include the latest demo build, additional content, and a continuation of the story of the squad that accepted the challenge of a powerful Necromancer, offering 60-90 minutes of gameplay. This gives you enough time to master the combat system, experience the tactical depth, develop strategies around character abilities, and get genuinely invested in the story.

Acer today unveiled a new lineup of TravelMate Copilot+ PCs that empower organizations of all sizes to unleash the full potential of AI. The new TravelMate P4 14 AI, TravelMate P4 Spin 14 AI, TravelMate P2 16 AI, and TravelMate P2 14 AI business laptops are powered by up to the latest Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors with Intel vPro, delivering real-world performance, long battery life, enterprise-grade security, and simplified manageability.

From SMBs to the public sector, the new lineup delivers a combination of performance, productivity, and security. The devices also represent the first Copilot+ PCs in the TravelMate P4 and P2 series, underscoring Acer's commitment to offering a robust commercial portfolio of AI-ready devices.

Pragmata is an upcoming fresh original sci-fi action-adventure IP out of Capcom, and if the studio's claims are to be believed, there is a lot of hype for an interesting new game franchise in a world full of remakes and copycats. According to a recent post on X by the Pragmata Japan account, the game's demo has been downloaded over 2 million times, and over 2 million players have added Pragmata to their wish lists.

According to independent data on SteamDB, Pragmata currently ranks 15th in the Steam Wishlist charts, just ahead of the Valve Steam Deck and behind Total War: Warhammer 40,000. Curiously, the Pragmata Sketchbook Demo's SteamDB page only records a peak concurrent player count of 7,932 players, although Pragmata will be a cross-platform launch, so there's likely decent interest on the PlayStation 5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series consoles. Pragmata is slated to launch on all aforementioned platforms and on PC via Steam on April 17, 2026. Pragmata also already has a Platinum ProtonDB rating, meaning it should play well with Linux and the Steam Deck.

NVIDIA has released GeForce driver version 595.79 WHQL, adding Game Ready support for Crimson Desert and Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. On the bug fix side, three game-specific crashes are resolved. Crimson Desert and Star Citizen were both crashing on launch, and Resident Evil Requiem had a white glowing dots issue when Subsurface Scattering was enabled. Two general fixes are also included in this release. First is the one addressing GPU voltage being incorrectly capped when overclocked (previously resolved in GeForce Hotfix Display Driver version 595.76), and another fixing intermittent crashes or driver timeouts when playing multi-key DRM content in a browser on HDCP 1.x monitors.

Known issues still present include missing terrain in some areas of Enshrouded and occasional stutter in Arknights: Endfield. The release also adds G-Sync support for a batch of new monitors from Acer, AOC, ASUS, GIGABYTE, LG, MSI, Philips, and ViewSonic.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 595.79 WHQL

Applied Materials, Inc. today announced it is working with Micron Technology to develop next-generation DRAM, high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and NAND solutions that increase the energy-efficient performance of AI systems, bringing together advanced R&D capabilities from Applied's EPIC Center in Silicon Valley and Micron's state-of-the-art innovation center in Boise, Idaho to strengthen the semiconductor innovation pipeline in the United States.

"Applied Materials and Micron have a long-standing partnership focused on driving higher performance and more energy-efficient advanced memory chips by pushing the boundaries of materials engineering and manufacturing innovation," said Gary Dickerson, President and CEO of Applied Materials. "We are excited to deepen our collaboration with Micron as a founding partner at the EPIC Center as next-generation memory technologies play an increasingly vital role in the future of AI systems."

Wolfspeed, Inc. (NYSE: WOLF), a global leader in silicon carbide technology, today announced that its 300 mm silicon carbide (SiC) technology platform could serve as a foundational materials enabler for advanced AI and high‑performance computing (HPC) heterogeneous packaging by the end of this decade.

"As AI workloads continue to increase package size, power density, and integration complexity, we believe new materials foundations will be increasingly important to extend advanced packaging roadmaps," said Elif Balkas, Chief Technology Officer at Wolfspeed. "Our 300 mm silicon carbide platform is designed to align SiC's material advantages with industry‑standard manufacturing infrastructure and expand the solution space for next‑generation AI and HPC packaging architectures."

As OpenClaw gains global traction, AI agents are reshaping productivity. Yet, many users face technical hurdles in deployment, from system setup to driver configuration. Beelink bridges this gap with a full-stack AI solution: ranging from exclusive "Lobster Red" models with preinstalled OpenClaw to dual-OS switching versions and plug-and-play SSD upgrade kits. This comprehensive lineup meets diverse user needs while significantly lowering the barrier to AI deployment.

1. New Hardware: Preinstalled OpenClaw Series—AI-Ready Out of the Box
Featuring a premium all-metal chassis in exclusive Lobster Red, these new models offer a distinctive look built for the AI era.

During the development of GTA VI, Rockstar was hacked and had its data—much of it related to GTA VI—stolen by the aforementioned hacker, and although the hacker was arrested and is currently serving time for the hacks of both Rockstar and numerous other companies, he claims that the GTA VI source code he obtained during his raid is still being kept by someone external to Rockstar. According to @videotechuk_ on X, the hacker who cracked Rockstar's security in 2022, Arion Kurtaj, has managed to smuggle a smartphone into the UK prison where he is being held and has been using it to communicate with the outside world via WhatsApp. In one message thread, Kurtaj claims that the Grand Theft Auto VI source code was successfully stolen and is still being held by "someone" external to Rockstar.

The hacker is apparently surprised that the source code has not yet been made public—the hacker, aka Lapsus$, stole 90 unreleased GTA VI clips, some of which were released, but he never did publish the game's source code. Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two Interactive have been taking aggressive measures to prevent leaks surrounding GTA VI, with it being speculated that the company's recent return-to-office mandate and a series of contested layoffs were both attempts to catch or prevent leaks of the hotly anticipated installment in the GTA franchise.

NVIDIA at the 2026 GDC announced the first implementation of RTX Mega Geometry. Announced alongside its GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" generation, Mega Geometry is a technology that seeks to significantly increase geometric complexity of objects or surfaces with ray tracing elements. A distant analogue of Mega Textures, Mega Geometry leverages nested triangle clusters to reduce video memory footprint as well as the hardware cost of ray intersection. The RT cores in "Blackwell" GPUs have hardware-level readiness for Mega Geometry.

At GDC, NVIDIA showed us two distinct examples of Mega Geometry, the first one is "Alan Wake 2," where it is shown boosting Path Tracing performance, with tens of thousands of ray traced objects on the scene with a 5-20% frame rate improvement versus conventional ray tracing methods, and a 300 MB video memory footprint reduction from the nested triangle clusters model. Next up, is a demonstration of Mega Geometry foliage system in the upcoming "The Witcher 4" title. A pre-release demo (not indicative of actual gameplay) shows Mega Geometry render a forest with thousands of trees with millions objects on the scene, each with its own unique animation. Besides cluster triangles, the scene also implements Opacity Micromaps that NVIDIA introduced with RTX 40-series "Ada."

At GDC, NVIDIA announced a suite of tools designed to streamline local AI video generation for concept development and storyboarding. These updates specifically target rendering workflows running on NVIDIA RTX GPUs and the DGX Spark AI development desktop. ComfyUI, a popular generative AI tool known for its highly customizable but complex interface, is receiving a major accessibility update. To make the software more approachable for artists unfamiliar with visual programming concepts like node graphs, ComfyUI introduced App View. This new, simple interface allows you to generate content simply by entering a text prompt and adjusting basic parameters. The traditional, complex workspace remains fully available as Node View, and you can toggle seamlessly between the two modes depending on your need for granular control.

Generating high-quality 4K Ultra HD video locally entails balancing three constraints, generation speed, video memory limits, and overall control. Artists typically generate smaller, faster previews before upscaling them, a process that traditionally took minutes for just a 10-second clip. To accelerate this pipeline, NVIDIA released RTX Video Super Resolution as a node from directly within ComfyUI, enabling rapid upscaling to 4K. AI developers can access this upscaling technology through a free Python package available via the PyPI repository. The tool takes advantage of Tensor cores on GeForce RTX GPUs.

NVIDIA revealed several updates for its GeForce NOW cloud gaming platform during its GeForce ON event along the sidelines of GDC 2026. The announcements focus on software improvements, VR performance upgrades, and upcoming game additions. To simplify game discovery, NVIDIA is introducing in-app labels for users who connect their Xbox or Ubisoft+ accounts to the service. These labels will appear directly on game art within the GeForce NOW app, allowing users to see exactly which titles are available to play through their active subscription services. Account linking capabilities are expanding, with NVIDIA planning to add GOG account linking and library syncing in the coming months, which follows the Gaijin single sign-on integration announced earlier at CES.

For VR users, NVIDIA is increasing the streaming frame rate for supported devices. Starting Thursday, March 19, Ultimate users utilizing headsets like the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest will see streaming rates increase from 60 FPS to 90 FPS. This upgrade is intended to enhance the responsiveness and smoothness of VR sessions. The GeForce NOW library is also growing, with new high-profile releases scheduled to be available via the cloud at launch. Upcoming games include "Control Resonant," an action-adventure role-playing game from Remedy that combines supernatural powers with a cosmic threat in a warped Manhattan. Also joining the service at its PC launch is "Samson: A Tyndalston Story," a gritty action brawler developed by Liquid Swords. Lastly, the platform's Install-to-play feature is adding select Xbox games, such as Double Fine Productions' "Brutal Legend" and Compulsion Games' Contrast, giving users the flexibility to download and install specific owned titles. Further updates will be shared during regular GFN Thursday announcements.

NVIDIA at its GDC 2026 GeForce ON community update, announced that its DLSS 4.5 Dynamic Multi Frame Generation feature, first unveiled in January 2026, will be generally available from March 31. The feature lets GeForce RTX 50-series "Blackwell" gaming GPUs dynamically adjust the rate of DLSS Multi Frame Generation (MFG) rate between 0 (no frame-gen), and 6x, depending on a target frame-rate determined by the display's capability. The feature is meant to be enabled through the NVIDIA App, specific to supported games. NVIDIA had earlier announced 6x MFG for RTX 50-series GPUs, going up from 4x MFG that the company launched alongside the GPU family in early 2025.

Multi Frame Generation allows the GPU to draw up to five frames succeeding every conventionally rendered frame completely using AI, effectively multiplying framerates. RTX 50-series which debuted alongside DLSS 4, could originally do up to 4x MFG, but NVIDIA increased this to 6x MFG with its 2025 DLSS 4.5 update that introduced a new 2nd generation Transformer AI model that's more accurate, and can more accurately predict motion vectors allowing NVIDIA to increase MFG factor to six. Frame generation comes with latency costs, and so Dynamic Multi Frame Generation allows the driver to opportunistically lower MFG factor to improve whole-system latencies. At GDC, NVIDIA announced that DLSS 4.5 is coming to at least 20 of this year's most hotly anticipated AAA game titles.

Dynabook Americas, Inc., the gold standard for long-lasting, professional-grade laptops, today announced the new Portégé X45W, a premium 14-inch 2-in-1 convertible laptop designed to deliver productivity and flexibility across modern work environments. The Portégé X45W expands Dynabook's AMD-powered portfolio of mobile computing products, giving customers more choice with AMD Ryzen processing and integrated AMD Radeon graphics.

"Portégé X45W reflects Dynabook's commitment to delivering professional-grade devices that people can count on, while continuing to expand AMD processor options across our portfolio," said James Robbins, General Manager, Dynabook Americas, Inc. "With a versatile 2-in-1 design, strong everyday performance, and a security-forward foundation, Portégé X45W is built to help organizations standardize on a flexible device that supports productivity and collaboration across business, education, healthcare and public sector environments."

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, today unveils Dynamic Haptics, a new dual-source haptic system that unifies developer‑authored Razer Sensa HD Haptics effects with Audio‑to‑Haptics (A2H). Dynamic Haptics delivers a richer and more consistent haptic landscape across both handcrafted gameplay moments and the ambient world.

A New Level of Haptic Detail
For decades, immersion in games has been defined by what players see and hear. Higher resolutions, faster refresh rates, and spatial audio have pushed realism forward, but often stop short of one critical element: physical sensation.

At Embedded World, MediaTek unveiled a range of new Genio platforms ideal for powering a wide variety of IoT products and applications: MediaTek Genio Pro, Genio 420 and Genio 360. The Genio Pro series is MediaTek's premium offering for high-performance IoT and embedded offerings, while Genio 420 and Genio 360 bring efficient system-level edge AI performance to smart home, retail, industrial, and commercial IoT devices.

With its impressive AI, multimedia, and display capabilities, along with rich OS support, Genio Pro enables OEMs to develop the next generation of autonomous mobile robotics, commercial drones, edge AI devices, machine vision systems, and transportation and logistics platforms.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Lam Research Corp. (NASDAQ: LRCX) today announced a collaboration aimed at developing new processes and materials to support sub-1 nm logic scaling. Building on a long record of successful partnerships, the new agreement will focus on the joint development of novel materials, fabrication processes, and High-NA EUV lithography processes to advance IBM's logic scaling roadmap.

IBM and Lam have collaborated for more than a decade to advance logic fabrication, notably enabling early generations of 7 nm, nanosheet, and EUV process technologies. Under this new five-year agreement, the companies intend to extend logic scaling to the sub-1 nm node. The work will focus on developing new materials, advanced etch and deposition capabilities for increasingly complex device architectures, and new High-NA EUV lithography processes to enable next-generation interconnect and device patterning and accelerate industry adoption.

Leading gaming accessories maker Turtle Beach Corporation (Nasdaq: TBCH), today revealed two new Mario themed peripherals for Nintendo fans -- the new Turtle Beach Rematch Wireless Controller: Mario & Luigi - for Nintendo Switch 2 and Turtle Beach Airlite Fit Wired Gaming Headset - Mario Star for Nintendo Switch 2. Mario is a well-known character from Nintendo, - and the Mario & Luigi Rematch Wireless RGB Gaming Controller and Mario Star Airlite Fit Wired Gaming Headset represent the grandest combination to date of technological gaming excellence and iconic character fun in Turtle Beach's growing catalogue of officially licensed by Nintendo gaming accessories.

The Mario & Luigi Rematch Wireless RGB Gaming Controller features TMR thumbsticks, four dynamic RGB modes that ignite Super Mario, motion control, and a C button for quick access to GameChat, and all-day gaming comfort. On the audio side, the Mario Star Airlite Fit Wired Gaming Headset has 40 mm speakers for immersive audio, over-ear jersey knit cushion earpads, and a noise-canceling flip to mute mic. Both the Mario & Luigi Rematch Wireless RGB Gaming Controller and Mario Star Airlite Fit Wired Gaming Headset are available for pre-order at www.turtlebeach.com and participating retailers worldwide The controller has an MSRP of $64.99/£54.99/€64.99 and the headset's MSRP is $27.99/£19.99/€24.99 and both arrive in stores globally on March 30, 2026.

The Liquid Freezer WS360 is an all-in-one CPU water cooler engineered for high-end workstation processors, including AMD EPYC, Ryzen Threadripper PRO, and Intel Xeon. Its enlarged copper cold plate ensures full CPU coverage and efficient heat transfer, making it ideal for demanding workloads. Reliable Cooling for Continuous Operation Built for 24/7 use, the Liquid Freezer WS360 combines pre-mounted ARCTIC P12 Pro PST CO fans with a high-density 38 mm radiator for efficient heat dissipation. Two grams of included MX-7 thermal paste ensure clean and effective application, while the robust, maintenance-free design provides stable cooling even under the most demanding workloads.

SK hynix has successfully developed new LPDDR6 memory modules with a 16 Gb capacity on the sixth-generation 10 nm node, known as 1c. The South Korean giant has confirmed that mass production of this memory is scheduled for the first half of the year, with the product reaching customers in the second half. Additionally, SK hynix claims that the speed of these LPDDR6 modules exceeds 10.7 Gbps, suggesting that the company is preparing some overclocked versions as well, surpassing the initial speed specifications of this LPDDR6 generation from JEDEC. If the previous International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2026 show in San Francisco was an indication, SK hynix is preparing modules that will run at speeds of up to 14.4 Gbps, delivering a significant throughput boost over the previous-generation LPDDR5X memory. The company claims a 33% improvement over LPDDR5X, which topped out at 10.7 Gbps, aligning with the 14.4 Gbps figure for LPDDR6.

SK hynix is also expecting significant power efficiency optimizations exceeding 20% thanks to the new technologies enabling LPDDR6 to run. This generation of low-power DDR memory uses a sub-channel structure that allows the memory channels to operate selectively and only process necessary data paths, meaning not all channels need to be engaged when unnecessary. Additionally, LPDDR6 incorporates Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS), which optimizes power consumption and performance by dynamically adjusting the voltage/frequency curve depending on the scenario. SK hynix notes that during applications like gaming, DVFS will scale the frequency to achieve maximum bandwidth, while standard applications will see lower frequencies to balance power consumption.

ASUS today announced ExpertCenter P700 Mini Tower (PM700MG) with AMD Ryzen AI 400-series processors, a refreshed 15-liter business desktop designed to deliver exceptional performance, scalability, and reliability for professional creators, engineers, and small businesses. With cutting-edge hardware, business-grade security, and comprehensive manageability, ExpertCenter P700 Mini Tower is engineered to be the trusted backbone of business-critical workloads.

Blending next-generation AI performance with whisper-quiet thermal design, P700 Mini Tower is built to tackle modern professional tasks with ease—from generative AI and content creation to advanced data analysis. As Copilot+ PCs, these new desktops bring intelligence and creativity to the forefront of everyday business, while the exclusive ASUS MyExpert all-in-one AI platform boosts productivity in multiple innovative and flexible ways. They also benefit from ASUS ExpertGuardian, providing all-around protection for sensitive data, plus military-grade durability to ensure long-term reliability.

ASRock, the global leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, mini PCs, gaming monitors, power supply units and AIOs, proudly announces a new overclocking World Record achieved with its flagship X870E Taichi OCF motherboard.

Professional overclocker Alex2305 successfully pushed system performance to a new level using the ASRock X870E Taichi OCF paired with the powerful AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D processor, achieving an incredible PCMark 10 Express score of 14290 marks, securing the World Record 1st Place on HWBOT.org.

ASRock, a global leader in motherboards, graphics cards, gaming monitors, small form factor PCs, power supply units, and AIO liquid coolers, today highlights the gaming performance potential of the DeskMeet Series platform when paired with the Intel Arc A380 Challenger ITX 6GB OC graphics card.

As GPU and memory prices continue to fluctuate, gamers are looking for smarter ways to build high-performance systems without exceptional value. ASRock recommends the DeskMeet Series platform paired with the Intel Arc A380 Challenger ITX 6GB OC graphics card, delivering a balanced configuration that achieves strong performance and outstanding value for mainstream gaming.

MSI is proud to announce a new collaboration with Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, unveiling an exclusive line of limited-edition products inspired by the anime's themes of companionship, memory, and the enduring journey. The collection includes the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16G FRIEREN EDITION OC, FORGE TKL WIRELESS FRIEREN EDITION, VERSA WIRELESS FRIEREN EDITION, and AGILITY FRIEREN EDITION.

Through refined design and powerful performance, MSI brings the emotional depth of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End to Life—crafting hardware that resonates with modern adventurers. From the moment the system powers on and the lights come alive, the experience evokes a quiet sense of magic, inviting users to begin a new chapter of their own journey.

MSI, a global leader in gaming and high-performance computing, has won four prestigious 2026 iF DESIGN AWARDs through AI integration and material innovation. These achievements highlight MSI's ability to redefine tech aesthetics and elevate the digital user experience. Outperforming over 10,000 entries from 68 countries, MSI's success—determined by a jury of 129 international experts—reinforces its unwavering leadership in design excellence across the business, gaming, and hardware sectors.

"Winning the iF DESIGN AWARD 2026 validates MSI's dedication to balancing extreme performance with intuitive user connection," said Sam Chern, MSI Vice President of Marketing. "Design is about solving problems and creating value. Whether through AI-driven user optimization or exquisite craftsmanship that grants hardware its unique identity, our goal is to integrate technology into life in an elegant and functional manner. MSI will continue to push traditional boundaries to create innovative solutions that offer both sustainable value and aesthetic excellence."

Alphacool International GmbH from Braunschweig is a pioneer in PC water cooling technology. With one of the most comprehensive product portfolios in the industry and more than 20 years of experience, Alphacool is expanding its lineup with the new ES RTX 6000 Pro Workstation / RTX 5090 Founders Edition and ES RTX 6000 Pro Server Edition - 1-Slot Design GPU coolers.

The Alphacool ES GPU water cooler for the RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition is designed for performance-optimized server and workstation systems. Its compact 1.5-slot design and rear-mounted ports allow easy integration even in systems with limited space. The top cover is made of lightweight and durable carbon, reducing weight while providing a clean and premium appearance. The cooling block features an optimized cooling channel structure and is made entirely of chrome-plated copper. This particularly robust surface reliably protects against corrosion, scratches, and mechanical stress during continuous 24/7 operation.

ASUS today announced NUC 16 Pro Mini PC, a compact Copilot+ PC offering versatile AI-accelerated performance to handle a wide range of needs. Powered by up to the latest Intel Core Ultra 9 Series 3 processor and boasting onboard LPDDR5x memory, the NUC 16 Pro delivers up to 1.5X faster 3D graphics processingi, 20% faster performance, and 50% less power consumption over previous-generation NUC models. Built-in Intel WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 wireless connectivity, along with dual 2.5G LAN ports, make the NUC 16 Pro ideal for hyper-connected workspaces. In addition, select models include fTPM for enterprise-grade security and management.

Next-generation Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors with built-in Intel Arc GPU
The NUC 16 Pro Mini PC easily tackles AI workloads. Featuring up to an Intel Core Ultra X9 processor with built-in Intel Arc B390 GPU and a 50 TOPS NPU delivering up to 180 Platform TOPS for real-time Edge AI inference and machine learning tasks. This compact Copilot+ PC is an Edge AI-ready system that enables secure, low-latency on-device intelligence to support AI-driven applications for videoconferencing, analytics, language translation, and enhanced team collaboration.

Worldwide shipments of desktops, notebooks and workstations in 2026 are expected to decline by 12% to 245 million units, according to the latest outlook from Omdia. This forecast is grounded in sharp increases in memory and storage prices - particularly the expected minimum 60% rise in 1Q26. Further upward price pressure is anticipated throughout the remaining quarters of the year, though subsequent increases are expected to be more moderate. Since 1Q25, the costs of mainstream memory and storage configurations have risen by between US$90 and US$165, placing substantial financial pressure on PC vendors and forcing them to reduce promotions, raise product prices, and adjust configurations. The impact across PC product categories is expected to be broadly consistent. Desktops are set to decline by 10% to 53.2 million units, while laptops will decline by 12% to 192.2 million units.

Considering how quickly the situation is evolving, Omdia has conducted a multi-scenario analysis of the impact. Based on the latest available information and market signals, the forecast carries a higher downside risk, namely a widening of shortages for both memory and storage and increasingly steep price hikes. This could further suppress consumer demand and tighten PC vendors' supply, pushing PC shipments toward a 15% decline or potentially worse. In addition, the recent outbreak of conflict in the Middle East has introduced substantial uncertainty for international transportation and regional market growth, although it remains to be seen whether this situation will persist.

The OfficePal KB70W takes your typing experience to a new level: With its gasket-mount design, polycarbonate positioning plate, PU damping and durable PBT keycaps, the keyboard offers smooth, quiet typing with keys that are pleasantly cushioned, yet highly responsive - just what you need for everyday use in the office. Thanks to the dual-mode operation, hot-swap switches and support for the VIA open-source software, it also adapts to the way you work—and not the other way around.

The gasket-mount design of the OfficePal KB70W significantly reduces noise and provides a typing feeling that is particularly smooth and comfortable. The OfficePal KB70W supports wired or wireless operation for maximum flexibility. Its long battery life ensures uninterrupted work for many hours. The abrasion-resistant PBT keycaps of the OfficePal KB70W are manufactured using the double-shot process and are therefore especially durable. In addition, the south-facing ARGB illumination ensures a uniform illumination of the keys.

Cooler Master, a global leader in PC components and tech lifestyle solutions, today announced that four of its products have received the iF DESIGN AWARD 2026, one of the world's most respected design honors presented annually by iF Design in Hamburg, Germany. The award recognizes outstanding achievement in product design, innovation, and user experience. For Cooler Master, the recognition highlights a design philosophy that combines engineering performance with builder-focused creativity.

The award-winning products include the COSMOS Alpha, MasterFrame 360 Panorama, Custom GPU Fan Cooling Kit, and MasterFan A120, each representing a different dimension of Cooler Master's design approach, from modular chassis architecture to advanced thermal engineering.

The global notebook market is expected to face dual pressures from weak demand and rising component costs in 2026, according to TrendForce's latest research on the notebook industry. In addition to rapidly rising memory prices, CPU pricing has also begun to move higher. TrendForce estimates that to preserve existing margin structures for both notebook brands and distribution channels, the retail price of a mainstream notebook with an original MSRP of US$900 could rise by nearly 40%.

TrendForce notes that since the start of 2026, supply for notebook DRAM and NAND Flash has tightened significantly. Prices have surged, and shortages of certain components have become more pronounced, increasing uncertainty for notebook brands as they plan their procurement strategies.

NVIDIA is reportedly preparing to update its GeForce RTX 5050 GPU with a new variant featuring 9 GB of GDDR7 memory. A well-known leaker on X, @kopite7kimi, confirmed that the upcoming card will maintain the same 130 W TDP and thermal envelope as the current GeForce RTX 5050, which has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. The current RTX 5050 uses 8 GB of 20 Gbps GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 320 GB/s of bandwidth. The new model is expected to use three modules of GDDR7 memory, each with 3 GB of capacity, resulting in a total of 9 GB across a 96-bit memory bus. While the narrower bus decreases the interface width, the switch to new 28 Gbps GDDR7 memory would increase total memory bandwidth to 336 GB/s, a roughly 5% improvement, along with a 12.5% boost in VRAM capacity. The new leak also claims that NVIDIA is using GB206 as a GPU base, while the older RTX 5050 8 GB with GDDR6 used GB207 die. However, the core count remains at 2,560 CUDA cores, suggesting that lower-binned GB206 dies found in RTX 5060 and other mid-range SKUs are repurposed for the new RTX 5050.

NVIDIA's switch to GDDR7 memory likely helps the company manage supply chain procurement better, as memory modules are in short supply. Instead of using four GDDR6 modules with 2 GB capacity each, NVIDIA is switching to three modules of GDDR7 with 3 GB capacity each, reducing the number of memory modules needed for this GPU. Interestingly, memory makers like Samsung, Micron, and SK hynix could now produce more of the 3 GB GDDR7 modules, with GDDR6 being in much shorter supply, forcing manufacturers to focus on the newer memory technology while GPU makers have to adapt. This has resulted in a situation where procuring three modules of 3 GB GDDR7 memory is now easier than finding a sufficient supply of GDDR6 modules, which NVIDIA needs to secure for each RTX 5050 GPU. As we approach Computex 2026, this GPU is expected to arrive sometime during that period.

ASUS recently announced the NUC 16 mini PC at CES 2026, with the NUCs confirmed to feature Intel's Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs, LPDDR5X-9600 RAM, and Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics. When the NUC Pro 16 was revealed, pricing and availability were somewhat nebulous, but that information has been partially revealed ahead of launch thanks to @realVictor_M on X.

According to the leaker, who cites what appears to be leaked Chinese press materials, the NUC 16 Pro with the Intel Core Ultra X7, 32 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of NVMe storage will cost RMB 10,999, which converts to roughly $1,600 ($1,591.50 exactly, at the time of writing). Part of this high pricing is likely to be a direct result of the current memory crisis caused by AI center demand, but it should also be noted that international pricing is rarely ever as simple as a currency conversion, so expect prices to be somewhat higher than that $1,600 when the mini PC launches internationally. It's also notable that ASUS originally cited the Intel Core Ultra X9 as the high-end CPU spec for the mini PC, and the pricing cited by the leak is for the X7 version. Currently, the Chinese launch looks to be scheduled for March 11, so an international launch should follow shortly thereafter.

Valve has been working to improve SteamOS since the launch of the Steam Deck, and the latest SteamOS and Steam Client updates out of Valve combine a whole host of bug fixes that were previously fed into the testing streams. Most notably of the lot are the changes to the accessibility and Steam Input options, but Valve also fixed a few issues that have been part of the SteamOS experience for some time, including flickering UI elements, low-resolution thumbnails on the Recent Games screen of the game library, and issues with button mapping and Switch Pro controller LEDs coming on when they're not supposed to. There are also some additional improvements to features like family sharing and high contrast theme options, but the most interesting addition comes by way of the generic SteamOS 3.7.20 release.

SteamOS 3.7.20 officially merges the NTsync driver from a previous beta release into the mainline OS version, which is a change that could see some games get notably higher performance in some instances. NTsync is a Linux kernel driver that's been in a stable state for a little over a year, but in essence, it aims to increase performance by more closely matching Windows NT synchronization when using the Proton compatibility layer. Other versions of Proton and WINE have had NTsync for a while as a performance booster, but now Valve has added official support for it to the kernel, leaving less development work in the hands of the community and Valve itself. NTsync promises performance uplifts in some games, although not all of them, and it won't always necessarily offer better performance than the existing Fsync, but it gives Linux gamers another option to use when they're tinkering with Proton settings to eke out that last drop of performance.

Heart Machine, the studio behind Hyper Light Drifter, its spiritual successor, Solar Ash, and its actual successor, Hyper Light Breaker, recently implemented a round of layoffs following the launch of Hyper Light Breaker, and it appears this round of layoffs—the second in recent memory—has not been taken lightly by the remaining developers at the studio. According to a recent report by Game Developer, employees at Heart Machine have officially joined the CWA (Communication Workers of America) in a voluntary bargaining agreement in the name of job security and workers' rights. The union members are reportedly currently evaluating their priorities and what they plan to bargain for, but the developers at the studio say that the justification for joining the union is to be able to protect the craft and the creative collaboration that enables game designers and video game workers to create "something they'd want to play themselves." According to an announcement by The CWA, a majority of workers at Heart Machine signed the unionization agreement, meaning contracts at the studio will now be drawn up with CWA representation.

Unionization has been something of a trend in recent years in the video game industry, with video game voice actors joining the protracted
SAG-Aftra strike in 2024 and 2025 seeking protections against the exact sorts of layoffs that previously affected Heart Machine developers, in addition to protections against the AI systems currently taking over the gaming industry. 2025 also saw the launch of the United Video Game Workers' Union, which seeks similar protections against practices like layoffs in the name of profit. A recent video game industry survey also indicated that as many as 82% of video game workers support unionization, with younger workers responding even more positively. The news of Heart Machine joining the CWA also follows the announcement that EA is cutting an unspecified number of jobs at its Battlefield 6 studios.

Nightdive Studios—renowned video game remaster developer and subsidiary of Atari—is thrilled to announce that SiN: Reloaded, the long-awaited remaster of the 1998 cult classic FPS, will launch in 2026 for PC and consoles. This faithful new edition of SiN boasts enhanced remastered visuals, modernized control schemes, and includes the Wages of SiN extra mission pack. It's time to pay for your sins, #$!%&!

Set in a near-future dystopian world, SiN: Reloaded puts you in control of security consultant Colonel John R. Blade as you take on the seductively evil Doctor Elexis Sinclaire. When Elexis, CEO of SinTEK Industries, begins injecting the streets with a DNA-altering drug, it's time to reassess the laws of morality by facing off against Elexis' unholy army of genetically-engineered mutants. Known for pushing the Quake II engine to its limits, the original SiN was lauded for introducing a groundbreaking amount of interactivity in every level. Players can hack their way into computer terminals using DOS-style code, use elevators and security cameras to wreak havoc, and traverse levels using a variety of vehicles, including a forklift, a patrol boat, and a helicopter. Your actions have consequences, creating branching paths as the game progresses.

Not too long ago, Colorful released its iGame Lab Vulcan NVIDIA GeForce RTX 50-series GPUs, which feature a clean white design language. Now, the GPU maker has announced a new Mini-ITX case to go with those GPU designs. The Colorful iGame Lab Vulcan Armor chassis is a 617 × 186.6 × 210 mm, or roughly 24 L in volume. Colorful specifically lists compatibility with its iGame RTX 5070 Ti Vulcan W OC, 5080 Vulcan W OC, 5090 D v2 Vulcan W OC 24 GB, and 5090 D Vulcan W OC 32 GB, since those are the GPUs that feature the shroud design that fits into the dedicated cutout on the side of the chassis, which exposes the GPU intake fans to fresh air.

The chassis offers support for up to 240 mm radiators—and comes with a 240 mm radiator, rated at 240 W TDP, with slim fans pre-installed—and SFX PSUs up to 110 mm long. While the chassis is technically designed for Colorful's own GPU shrouds, it technically fits 3-slot GPUs up to 373.2 mm long—an enterprising modder could likely fairly easily 3D print a bracket to fill make up for any discrepancies between the case cutout and the GPU shroud on third-party designs. The case also sports a magnetic attachment base on the top panel for attaching things like the Colorful Vulcan screen. Front I/O consists of a USB 3.2 Type-C port and dual USB 3.0 ports. International pricing and launch dates have not yet been confirmed at the time of writing.

AMD has released Ryzen Chipset Driver version 8.02.18.557, a maintenance update focused on bug fixes and restoring a couple of components that went missing in a previous package. Specifically, support for the AMS Mailbox driver and the S0i3 filter driver are back, both needed for power management and system communication on supported Ryzen platforms. A few known issues are still present. Users on chipset installer version 7 can't directly roll back to version 6 or older. If you need to do that, you'll have to uninstall the newer installer first, delete the Qt_Dependencies folder, and then install the older package.

Other minor fixes include driver names showing up in English on non-English operating systems, occasional failures when installing or upgrading the Ryzen PPKG component, and some compatibility issues with the AMS and S0i3 filter drivers on non-English OS environments.

DOWNLOAD: AMD Chipset Software 8.02.18.557

At Embedded World 2026, Intel launched the Intel Core processor Series 2 with P-cores, an industrial-ready platform engineered for mission-critical edge applications. Intel also announced its latest Edge AI suite for Health & Life Sciences, providing validated reference pipelines and benchmarking tools for AI-powered patient monitoring solutions.

"Intel continues to lead in edge computing, which remains one of our fastest-growing business segments," said Dan Rodriguez, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the Edge Computing Group. " With the introduction of Core Series 2, our CES launch of Core Ultra Series 3, and our expanding Edge AI Suites, we continue to deliver comprehensive platforms that meet diverse edge customer needs with breakthrough performance, reliability, and integrated AI acceleration."

The latest in a long line of layoffs and budget cuts affecting the gaming industry comes by way of EA, who has just been confirmed to be laying off developers across all four studios that worked on Battlefield 6—those being Criterion, Dice, Motive, and Ripple Effect. This is according to a report by IGN, although it's unclear how many employees will be affected by the layoffs. Battlefield 6 has seemingly been one of the most successful Battlefield game so far, allegedly topping 7 million unit sales in the first three days following the October 2025 launch, making it a big revenue driver for record profits in Q3 2025. As of the time of writing, Battlefield 6 has peaked at 747,440 concurrent players on Steam, with daily concurrent player counts peaking at around 65,000-70,000 players. Part of EA's justification for the layoffs is "feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs," so perhaps part of the reason for the layoffs is players moving from Battlefield 6 to the free-to-play Battlefield RedSec.

When asked for comment by GameIndustry.biz, EA said that "We've made select changes within our Battlefield organization to better align our teams around what matters most to our community. Battlefield remains one of our biggest priorities, and we're continuing to invest in the franchise, guided by player feedback and insights from Battlefield Labs." This round of layoffs comes mere weeks after EA laid off an unknown number of developers at Full Circle, the studio behind Skate. These layoffs are seemingly part of EA's plan to cut costs following a recent acquisition by a consortium of investors in late 2025.

Intel has launched its official XeSS 3.0 software development kit (SDK), which allows game developers to incorporate the latest binaries into their games and integrate XeSS 3.0 into game engines. Interestingly, Intel has released this version as a binary, pre-compiled file, rather than the open-source XeSS version the company promised a long time ago. This promise has remained unfulfilled for four years, with each XeSS release being closed-source, only available on GitHub under the Intel Simplified Software License as of the October 2022 revision. This binary is provided as a DLL file for Windows operating systems, meaning that Linux users cannot run this SDK on their systems without a translation layer. For users wanting to update older XeSS 2.x versions, you simply need to replace the libxess.dll, libxell.dll, and libxess_fg.dll files with those from the newest XeSS 3.0 ZIP folder.

Intel promotes XeSS 3.0 with its main feature being multi-frame generation (MFG). This version integrates up to three generated frames between two rendered frames, resulting in up to a fourfold frame increase using MFG, similar to NVIDIA's DLSS MFG technology. Intel is joining the AI-generated frame insertion trend, which seems to be gradually expanding. Interestingly, Intel also added a feature that allows XeSS 3.0 to use external memory heaps. This means the Intel XeSS SDK can now utilize GPU memory allocated by the game engine itself, allowing XeSS and the engine to operate on the same VRAM blocks instead of each reserving separate ones. This helps developers avoid duplicate buffers and fragmentation, gives them direct control over allocation and residency, and makes integrating XeSS into an existing render pipeline cleaner and more efficient.

Xiaomi's upcoming Book 14 laptop has leaked online, revealing the expected specifications for the upcoming thin-and-light productivity laptop. According to Digital Chat Station on Weibo, the Xiaomi Book 14 will feature Intel's Panther Lake Core Ultra Series 3 CPUs, specifically the Core Ultra 5 325 and Core Ultra X7 358H, with either 24 GB or 32 GB of memory and 1 TB of storage. This means that the Xiaomi Book 14 will be available in at least one configuration with Intel's impressive new Arc B390 iGPU, which has proven itself in both gaming and creative workloads aside from the usual productivity fare.

Following DCS's post, Aura Pig also posted on Weibo about the upcoming MacBook competitor, stating that the both the build quality and battery life of the Xiaomi Book 14 were impressive. The 14-inch display is also touch-enabled, although the laptop is purportedly squarely in the premium category, suggesting a high price. The current-gen Xiaomi Book 14 tops out at 16 GB of memory and is only available with Intel's 12th-Gen CPUs and up to 512 GB of storage, so the new model will be a significant upgrade in terms of performance and convenience if the leaked specifications are any indication. Weight on the new Book 14 will be slightly lower than the old model, at around 1 kg compared to the 1.37 kg in the current Book 14.

MONTECH, a global leader in PC cases, power supplies, and cooling solutions, proudly announces the launch of SKY 3, the next evolution of its iconic SKY series PC cases. SKY 3 introduces a reimagined modular internal architecture and integrated horizon lighting, designed to meet the demands of next-generation hardware while delivering a remarkably clean and adaptable build experience. With support for back-connect motherboards and next-gen GPUs, SKY 3 blends future-ready performance with refined, modern aesthetics.

Adaptive Modular Bottom Chamber
At the heart of SKY 3 is an innovative adaptive modular bottom chamber, featuring a fully swappable PSU compartment and bottom fan bracket that allow builders to customize internal layouts based on cooling priorities. In GPU Mode, intake fans are positioned directly beneath the graphics card to maximize static pressure and cooling efficiency. In CPU Mode, airflow is redirected toward the motherboard area, helping dissipate heat from VRMs and surrounding components while supporting stable CPU operation. This flexible design empowers users to tailor airflow behavior to their specific system configuration.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the Montech Sky 3 is now live]

Akasa, a leading provider of thermal solutions, announced the Pascal MX, an IP65-rated dust-tight and water jet resistant aluminium fanless case designed for Mini-ITX and Thin Mini-ITX motherboard systems operating in industrial, outdoor or mission-critical environments. The Pascal MX addresses one of the core challenges in harsh-environment embedded computing: maintaining system reliability where conventional fan-cooled cases fail due to dust ingress and moisture. For engineers and system integrators attending Embedded World 2026 in Nuremberg from 10 to 12 March, the Pascal MX will be on display at Hall 1, Booth 640, alongside Akasa's wider range of fanless cases, CPU coolers, heatsinks, and thermal solutions.

At the heart of the Pascal MX is Akasa's patented spring-loaded CPU mounting system, which maintains consistent, uniform contact pressure across all supported sockets (Intel LGA1851, LGA1700, and LGA1200). This enables the same chassis to support Intel Core processors from 10th-14th Generation and the latest Intel Core Ultra (15th Gen) processors, all at up to 65 W TDP. Heat from the CPU and M.2 2280 SSD is conducted into the aluminium chassis via dedicated thermal modules, dissipating passively through the external fins. With no fans and no moving parts, the Pascal MX eliminates the primary sources of mechanical failure and particulate ingress that limit system uptime in demanding deployments.

Samsung Electronics America today shared its plan to expand support for glasses-free 3D gameplay on the Samsung Odyssey 3D gaming monitor at GDC Festival of Gaming 2026 in San Francisco. Samsung will spotlight Hell is Us and Cronos: The New Dawn as part of its expanding 3D gaming ecosystem, demonstrating how leading titles are embracing immersive displays without the need for special glasses.

"The Odyssey 3D is designed for gamers who want to experience their hobby in a way that feels like they're completely embedded in the action," said Kevin Lee, Executive Vice President of the Visual Display (VD) Business at Samsung Electronics. "Through partnerships with leading gaming studios, we are committed to creating an ecosystem of top-tier titles, making great games extraordinary."

At this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, NVIDIA has prepared a special GeForce ON community update scheduled for tomorrow, where the company will address its gaming audience. While we have no official expectations for this GeForce ON update, NVIDIA might preview either new technologies that the company is developing for its gamers or new implementations in games and game engines. Usually, this centers around technologies like Deep Learning Super Sampling, Ray Tracing, Path Tracing, GeForce NOW expansion, gaming monitors like the Big Format Gaming Displays, or something entirely different. Interestingly, NVIDIA might also preview potential product launches for its GTC 2026, which starts just a week from now, on March 16 and lasts through March 19. We are eagerly anticipating any formal announcement, and you can check out the video link that starts the premiere tomorrow, below.

Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe today announcedEchoes of Aincrad, a new action RPG set in the breathtaking floating castle of Aincrad from the Sword Art Online universe where every battle could be your last. Players will get to create their own hero and dive into the game, facing the many challenges ahead by mastering dodges, parries and well-timed attacks. Echoes of Aincrad will launch on 10 July 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam.

Echoes of Aincrad invites adventurers into a dynamic and vibrant world filled with challenges and unforgettable encounters, becoming a "player" in the game through an extensive avatar customization will place them as the true hero of this story. As the story progresses through quests and missions, players will be able to adapt and upgrade their equipment, weapons, and attributes, and select special skills to match their preferred playstyle while growing stronger as they level up. But they will not journey alone, the outcome of real-time combat will also rely on the chosen partner for each outing, deciding the stance they should take during fight, more aggressive or supportive, and as that bond deepens, players will unlock their partner's powerful abilities.

Factory automation, physical AI in mobile robotics, and other AI-driven edge applications are rapidly evolving and driving the need for computing platforms that provide real-time AI processing, deterministic performance, and long-term reliability in always-on environments.

To meet these needs, AMD is expanding its AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P100 Series processor portfolio. New processors feature up to 2x higher CPU core counts, up to 8x higher graphics processing unit (GPU) compute, and an estimated 36% higher system tera operations.

ASRock Industrial announces new industrial motherboards supporting AMD EPYC 4005/4004, Ryzen 9000/8000/7000, and Ryzen Embedded 9000/7000 Series processors, expanding its platform portfolio across IMB-A1700, IMB-A1302, IMB-A1003, and IMB-A1002. Powered by AMD EPYC 4005 Series processors with up to 16 cores and 32 threads, delivering high-performance and energy efficiency for edge servers and enterprise workloads, alongside Zen 5-based Ryzen 9000 Series for exceptional computing power and Ryzen Embedded 9000 Series for long-term availability in reliable edge computing. Supporting ATX, microATX, and Mini-ITX form factors, these platforms feature DDR5 memory, PCIe Gen 5 expansion, multi-display capability, and rich industrial I/O to enable flexible system designs for computer vision, video analytics, AI-enhanced workloads, software development, gaming platforms, and professional-grade productivity systems.

IMB-A1700 Series: ATX Motherboard for high-performance
The IMB-A1700 ATX motherboard supports AMD EPYC 4005/4004, Ryzen 9000/8000/7000, and Ryzen Embedded 9000/7000 Series processors, delivering robust computing performance for demanding workloads. The board features four DDR5 5600 MHz ECC/non-ECC U-DIMM slots supporting up to 256 GB of memory, providing a stable foundation for high-throughput and multitasking environments. Expansion capability includes two PCIe x16 (Gen 5) slots, configurable as either one PCIe x16 (Gen 5) or two PCIe x8 (Gen 5), one PCIe x4 (Gen 4), and four PCIe x1 (Gen 4) slots, enabling flexible integration of GPUs, AI accelerators, and add-on cards. Storage support includes one M.2 key M for NVMe SSD and four SATA3 ports with RAID 0/1/10 support, enabling high-speed storage deployment. I/O connectivity is comprehensive, featuring seven USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, and six COM ports, complemented by three 2.5G LAN and one 1G LAN. Supporting quad-display output via HDMI 2.0b and DisplayPort 1.2++ and built in an ATX form factor (12 x 9.6 inches), the IMB-A1700 is well-suited for AI-driven video analytics platforms, computer vision servers, high-end development systems, and performance-focused computing deployments.

Ahead of Embedded World, Arduino announced the upcoming launch of its newest platform to democratize edge AI, Arduino VENTUNO Q. Named after the Italian word for twenty-one, VENTUNO Q builds on the iconic legacy of the popular Arduino UNO family and embodies the company's coming of age as it prepares to celebrate its foundation's 21st anniversary, later this month.

At the Edge of Intelligence: Where AI Takes Action
VENTUNO Q unites high‑performance AI compute with deterministic real‑time control, enabling systems that don't just interpret the world—they interact with it.
The board builds upon a dual-brain architecture similar to Arduino UNO Q, yet significantly upgrades capabilities leveraging the Qualcomm Dragonwing IQ8 Series for both traditional and generative AI workloads, supported by NPU acceleration delivering up to 40 dense TOPS, as well as a dedicated STM32H5 microcontroller for low‑latency actuation and motor control. In addition, VENTUNO Q comes with 16 GB RAM—able to handle concurrent inference and complex multitasking—and an expandable 64 GB of storage.

The GEEKOM A5 Pro 2026 Edition arrives as one of the most compelling compact desktops to date, earning its position as the best $600 mini PC in 2026 thanks to a rare blend of high performance that breezes through all daily tasks, solid build quality that withstand at least 5 years of intensive use, and a 3-year warranty for long-term peace of mind. Its launch further strengthens GEEKOM's reputation the global leader in small-form-factor computing.

At the heart of the A5 Pro 2026 Edition is AMD's Ryzen R5 7530U, a 6-core, 12-thread processor capable of boosting up to 4.5 GHz. Paired with Radeon graphics, dual-channel memory, and fast SSD storage, the system delivers smooth performance across daily office tasks, home entertainment, creative workloads, and even light gaming.

Global high-performance computing and industrial embedded platform leader MSI will showcase a complete Edge AI ecosystem at Embedded World 2026, integrating edge computing platforms and vertical industry solutions to demonstrate industrial-grade Edge AI computing and on-site deployment capabilities.

As artificial intelligence applications increasingly extend from the cloud to field environments, MSI leverages industrial-grade reliability and platform integration expertise to help enterprises build intelligent systems with long-term operational stability, accelerating digital transformation across transportation, manufacturing, retail, agriculture, and UAV applications.

Following Sandisk's new naming scheme for NVMe SSDs, it now looks like Seagate is ready to announce a shift to a new naming for some of its SSDs as well. In a leak that at least in part appears to be thanks to a spec sheet uploaded by Best Buy, Seagate's upcoming FireCuda X series has leaked and the first model in the new series looks to be the X1070. That's a pretty big jump in model numbers, as Seagate's current top of the range FireCuda NVMe SSD is the 530R. Unlike the Barracuda 540, the FireCuda X1070 isn't a PCIe 5.0 drive and it does in fact not even trump the FireCuda 530R in terms of performance, despite the new model name suggesting it would.

The X1070 offers a max sequential read speed of 7200 MB/s, down from 7400 MB/s for the 530R and max sequential write speed of 6000 MB/s for the 1 TB SKU and 6500 MB/s for the 2 and 4 TB SKUs, where the 530R ranges from 6800-7000 MB/s. The random IOPS are also lower at around 900k vs. 1.3 million. The TBW rating is also about half that of the 530R, somewhat depending on the SKU, but Seagate still offers a five year warranty. The only good news is that the power usage is down by around 3-4 W, again depending on SKU, but this suggests we might be looking at a DRAM-less model here. We'll have to wait for the actual launch to find out the pricing, but it looks like the current FireCuda 530R is a better option over the X1070, unless you need an SSD that is more power efficient and hopefully produces less heat.

MaxSun has introduced two additional GPU variants to its Arc Pro B60 Dual GPU lineup. Each card features two of Intel's Arc Pro B60 GPUs, offering a total of 40 Xe2 cores and 48 GB of GDDR6 memory. The first variant is a passively cooled model designed for dual-slot configurations, ideal for server setups with high-airflow chassis that direct air across the card. This design allows any server case with high-RPM fans to accommodate multiple GPUs in parallel for AI inference and local development. However, the standout model is the liquid-cooled edition, measuring 300 x 110 x 20 mm and occupying a single slot. This compact profile is a distinct advantage of the water-cooled design, allowing several cards to be installed close together in dense enclosures without the need for strong airflow.

With the liquid-cooled edition, the card's TDP remains at 400 W, similar to the passive and fan-equipped versions. However, overall performance is expected to be slightly higher due to the increased stability that liquid cooling provides. The compact liquid-cooled unit was developed in collaboration with abee, and the company reports peak GPU temperatures around 61°C when integrated into a cooling loop, although other loop characteristics are unknown. It is assumed that standard industry loop measurements were conducted. Two hose barbs and a 12V-2x6 power connector are located on the rear edge, along with a fan header for auxiliary cooling control. A single-slot bracket offers one DisplayPort 1.2 and one HDMI 2.1a connector for each GPU, resulting in four display outputs in total. In a workstation, you could fit a few of these GPUs and quickly multiply the compute and memory capacity, creating a capable system even without a high-end GPU.

During MWC, Fujitsu partnered with networking equipment maker 1FINITY to unveil the first silicon wafers and an engineering sample of its "MONAKA" CPU. Scheduled for release in 2027, the initial Fujitsu MONAKA CPU utilizes the Armv9-A architecture and a 3D chiplet layout that combines a core die with separate SRAM and I/O dies. A single chip features 144 cores, and two-socket configurations can scale up to 288 cores per node. The platform supports 12-channel DDR5, PCIe 6.0 with CXL 3.0, and Arm SVE2 for AI and HPC workloads. Fujitsu has chosen TSMC to manufacture this chip using the 2 nm node, paired with Broadcom's 3.5D eXtreme Dimension System-in-Package (XDSiP) packaging architecture. This packaging allows MONAKA to become a 144-core design featuring four 36-core chiplets. These chiplets are stacked face-to-face with SRAM tiles through hybrid copper bonding, utilizing TSMC's N5 process for the cache layer.

In the pictures below, we can see the silicon complex in its early sample packaging, which shows a large central I/O die, HBM memory around the CPU, and the new packaging technology. Reportedly, this CPU has already reached a working version, with Broadcom shipping the CPU to Fujitsu in late February this year. After initial testing and early performance validation, Fujitsu plans to ship these processors to customers around summer, with mass shipping to commence in 2027. The company envisions this SoC as a powerhouse for AI inference, simulation, and large-scale data processing. It will sell these systems to external customers, who showed great interest in Fujitsu's A64FX when the Fugaku computer came online. Fugaku was the most powerful supercomputer back in 2020, achieving 415.53 PetaFLOPS of FP64 and an impressive HPL-AI score of 1.421 ExaFLOPS using lower FP16 precision. Hence, we expect the new MONAKA CPU to enable much greater speeds and some efficiency improvements as well.

Apple could name its upcoming laptop MacBook "Ultra" as the ultimate portable Mac from the Cupertino-based giant. According to Mark Gurman in the latest PowerOn newsletter, Apple is giving the MacBook a long-rumored "Ultra" overhaul, this time as an addition to the existing MacBook lineup, not as a product replacement. This model is expected to be Apple's first MacBook with an OLED touchscreen and a dynamic island instead of the traditional notch found on today's MacBook displays. It will sit above the new M5 Pro and M5 Max-powered MacBook Pro 14 and MacBook Pro 16, making Apple's new Mac lineup one of the most diverse in the company's history, especially with the recent launch of the MacBook Neo.

While March was reserved for the regular MacBook Pro devices, Apple is scheduling its MacBook Ultra overhaul for the end of this year, when we are also likely to see new chips powering the ultimate design. Pricing is expected to increase as well, as we have historically seen Apple introduce a price premium whenever a new OLED panel was installed on a device, similar to when the iPad received an OLED upgrade. These MacBook Ultra devices are codenamed K114 and K116 and are breaking with Apple's design philosophy, which has been critical of touchscreen devices for years. Apple's legendary co-founder Steve Jobs once called the touchscreen laptop experience "ergonomically terrible," but the competitive landscape has changed significantly over the past few years. To stay competitive, Apple is adapting to these industry changes slowly but surely. Interestingly, Gurman is not certain that Apple will definitely call it MacBook Ultra, it could also retain some Pro model naming, with clear differentiators for this model to sit at the top of the MacBook line.

Chinese NAND Flash maker Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) has introduced its first client M.2 NVMe PCIe 5.0 SSD, named the PC550. As many PC OEMs face challenges in acquiring storage solutions at reasonable prices, YMTC aims to assist with its inaugural PCIe 5.0 NVMe model. The M.2 2242 and 2280 modules feature a PCIe Gen 5 x4 link combined with the NVMe 2.0 protocol and YMTC's X4-9070 3D NAND, built on Xtacking 4.0. YMTC designed the PC550 with a four-channel architecture, which the company claims reduces power consumption and thermal output compared to the more common eight-channel designs. The lineup includes capacities of 512 GB, 1 TB, and 2 TB, with no pricing on the official website. Consumers can contact YMTC, or wait for distribution channels to start offering these SSDs.

YMTC rates the largest variant at up to 10,500 MB/s for sequential reads and up to 10,000 MB/s for sequential writes. These speeds surpass most Gen 4 drives but fall short of some Gen 5 offerings that reach nearly 15,000 MB/s, suggesting a less powerful SSD controller. Random performance scales with capacity. The 512 GB model is listed at up to 880,000 random read IOPS and 1,100,000 random write IOPS, with an endurance rating of 300 TBW. The 1 TB and 2 TB models achieve approximately 1,300,000 random IOPS for both read and write, with endurance ratings of 600 TBW and 1,200 TBW, respectively. Idle power consumption is quoted at under 3 milliwatts, and active consumption is under 6 watts, making these figures suitable for notebook use.

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 is making a comeback, expected around mid-March. For this, NVIDIA will once again use Samsung's 8 nm DUV node, as it has in the past. This has been confirmed by the Korean media outlet Hankyung, which reports that Samsung is restarting its 8 nm node production to meet NVIDIA's needs. Originally, Samsung manufactured these GPUs back in 2021. The entire NVIDIA "Ampere" architecture lineup was produced on the 8 nm DUV node, and we didn't anticipate its return after several years. However, since NVIDIA has transitioned to TSMC for manufacturing its "Ada Lovelace" and latest "Blackwell" GPUs, and has become TSMC's largest customer, utilizing the 5 nm node, this move is intriguing.

We still lack concrete information about which version of the RTX 3060 will be reintroduced—whether it will be the original 12 GB model with a 192-bit wide memory bus or the newer 8 GB variant with a 128-bit bus. Additionally, the decision to use a two-generation-old GPU architecture in 2026 is puzzling, as the reason NVIDIA has chosen the RTX 3060 instead of a newer model like the RTX 4060 remains unclear. Speculatively, it could be because the RTX 4060 is based on the same NVIDIA 4N (5 nm-class) node at TSMC as the current RTX 5060, while the RTX 3060, along with the rest of the GeForce "Ampere" generation, is built on the Samsung 8N (8 nm DUV) foundry node, which would leave the 5 nm capacity for "Blackwell" and its enterprise variants. Finally, it is worth pointing out that when GPU IP design is done, it is usually hard-linked with the node it has been prepared for, so NVIDIA is sticking with Samsung again to avoid any potential upfront costs of adapting this GPU for a different node.

As we enter the second week of March, we got plenty of new games launching once again. We kick off the week with a John Carpenter game that doesn't include vampires as this week's major release. As for the other games, we kick off the week with a friendlier theme where you have to make a dead planet alive again, followed by taking on the job as a park ranger. Next up we have a game about a wolf and princess, which is followed by a magical, turn-based tactical RPG. Next up you get to hunt some monsters and finally we have a Saturday release that puts you in charge of a tank. We also have a couple of additional games at the end that didn't quite make the list.

John Carpenter's Toxic Commando / This week's major release / Thursday 12 March
Pick a character and team up with three friends 'cause it's time to save the world. Experience intense FPS action as you obliterate hordes of terrifying monsters! You may not be on the best team of mercenaries, but you are… a Toxic Commando. Steam link

GIGABYTE over the weekend introduced the Z890 AORUS Elite WiFi7 Plus and Z890 Eagle WiFi7 Plus motherboards. The two boards are timed to launch alongside Intel's new Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus "Arrow Lake-S" processors later this month, and come with out-of-the-box support for the new chips. Both boards come with GIGABYTE's Ultra Turbo Mode automated boost frequency and voltage offsets that are applied on top of Intel 200S Boost, on Core Ultra Series 2 "K" and "KF" unlocked processors. An interesting cost-cutting measure with both these boards is that they lack a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports normally expected of Z890 motherboards, and instead wire out just a single 40 Gbps USB4 port.

The Z890 AORUS Elite WiFi7 Plus is the more premium model among the two, offering a 16+1+2 phase CPU VRM with 60 A DrMOS; while the Z890 Eagle WiFi7 Plus offers a 14+1+2 phase VRM. The AORUS Elite WiFi7 Plus offers 5 GbE wired LAN using a Realtek-sourced controller, while the Eagle WiFi7 offers a 2.5 GbE from a Realtek controller. Both boards offer Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 using Intel WLAN modules, with the AORUS Elite WiFi7 Plus offering a 320 MHz Intel BE200NGW, while the Eagle WiFi 7 Plus offers a 160 MHz Intel BE202 (BE200NGW-M). Both boards offer a fairly decent onboard audio solution using a Realtek ALC1220 HDA codec and WIMA capacitors. Also, common to both boards are convenient SMD buttons on the rear I/O shields for power, reset, clear CMOS, and USB BIOS flashback. Both boards are expected to be priced around the $250-mark.

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