Microsoft is finally updating its long-standing kernel policy, which previously allowed old drivers with expired certificates to run and be trusted by the Windows 11 NT Kernel. This change means that Microsoft's early 2000s program for cross-signing root programs as valid will no longer function. This program had enabled NT Kernel-trusted code signing programs to execute even after their certificates expired. As a result, third-party driver developers, such as printer makers with their old printer drivers, could run old drivers on Windows 11 without a valid security certificate. However, this is coming to an end, as Microsoft will use its April update to instruct the Windows NT Kernel to only accept new drivers signed through the Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP).

The WHCP will ensure that each driver receives a valid security certificate that meets Microsoft's security standards. This update will be implemented with OS versions Windows 11 24H2, 25H2, 26H1, Windows Server 2025, and future releases. Despite this change, Microsoft will still allow Windows to load older, trusted drivers to maintain backward compatibility and its long-standing plug-and-play feature. The April 2026 Windows update will begin enforcing the new policy in evaluation mode on supported systems. During this period, Windows will monitor driver activity and only fully activate the policy once it determines that doing so will not cause compatibility issues. Microsoft is also maintaining a curated allow list of reputable cross-signed drivers, ensuring that widely used software and hardware can continue to function where necessary, easing the transition.

Apple has officially discontinued its high-end Mac Pro desktop computer, with no plans to refresh the model in the future. According to the company, which confirmed the decision to 9to5Mac, Apple had been selling the Mac Pro alongside other Mac options that were more aligned with its strategic goals. Initially launched with a redesigned casing in 2019, the Mac Pro was powered by Intel processors until Apple decided to switch to its M2 Ultra SoC in 2023. However, this model has gone a long time without any hardware updates. Apple even introduced an M3 Ultra chip last year but decided to pair it with the Mac Studio instead. The Mac Studio is a smaller, more compact machine that offers greater performance than the Mac Pro while being more practical for various work environments. Multiple Mac Studios can also be interconnected with Thunderbolt 5, making them a potential compute cluster.

For now, Apple will maintain the Mac Studio as its "pro" Mac option, with a refresh expected either this year or next. The current top configuration of the Mac Studio includes an M3 Ultra chip with a 32-core CPU and an 80-core GPU. This powerful setup is paired with up to 256 GB of memory and up to 16 TB of SSD storage. With the introduction of this model without updating the Mac Pro, it was clear that the Mac Pro's days were numbered. Surprisingly, Apple's future desktop computer strategy will focus on the Mac Mini and Mac Studio, complementing its extensive lineup of MacBooks, which includes the Pro, Air, and the newly launched Neo. As one of the largest Apple computer lineups ever, simplifying and removing some products makes sense for a company that is focused on custom silicon.

Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system officially has a dark mode, but many UI elements, menus, and applications from Microsoft still lack proper dark mode support. Microsoft is working to address this issue in the world's most widespread operating system. Since the introduction of WinUI, many releases and versions have been shipped with the operating system. For example, Windows 10 retains many UI elements from the Windows 7 era and earlier versions. However, Microsoft plans to modernize the entire UI ecosystem with more WinUI 3 for a modern look and feel, which will also enhance dark mode support. According to Marcus Ash, who leads Microsoft's Windows Design and Research team, the overhaul is near. When a user on X asked when dark mode support would come to Regedit, Marcus Ash responded:

We are pushing to get our tools and techniques to the point where we can implement the dark theme in more areas across Windows. No timelines to commit to yet for Regedit. As we make progress in various legacy system panels and dialogs, we will keep improving consistency.

When the rumor mill for Intel's "Arrow Lake Refresh" began, we expected three SKUs: Core Ultra 5 250K Plus, Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, and a flagship Core Ultra 9 290K Plus. However, we later discovered that Intel is not launching the flagship SKU and will only release the Core Ultra 5 and Core Ultra 7 models. Instead, Intel chose to focus on delivering value with its Core Ultra 7 270K Plus SKU, which features 8 P-Cores and 16 E-Cores with a maximum turbo boost of 5.5 GHz. For individual boosting frequency, P-Cores reach up to 5.4 GHz, with a base speed of 3.7 GHz. E-Cores have a maximum boost frequency of 4.7 GHz and a base speed of 3.2 GHz. The main reason for canceling the flagship SKU is product overlap, as the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus would have the same core configuration as the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, just with slightly higher clock speeds. Consequently, Intel decided not to launch this SKU. It has now been confirmed by Intel Germany for PC Games Hardware that Intel will definitely not introduce this SKU at any point in the future.

Florian Maislinger, Tech Communication Manager, Intel GermanyIntel is excited to deliver exceptional value with our Intel Core Ultra 200S Plus series processors. The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus are positioned to deliver outstanding gaming performance and incredible value compared to our competition. Our objective was to maximize performance for the desktop SKUs that are most widely available. As a result, Intel is not launching a U9 290K Plus SKU.

NVIDIA has officially released its second hotfix driver this month, GeForce 596.02 Hotfix, addressing the stuttering issue found in the previous 595.97 WHQL, which was released just yesterday. According to the official driver changelogs, the only game experiencing stuttering was Arknights: Endfield, which was apparently severe enough for NVIDIA to issue a complete hotfix driver. No other changes have been included in this hotfix release. NVIDIA notes that the quality of hotfix drivers is usually unknown, as they go through a much shorter quality testing pipeline than WHQL drivers. These hotfix drivers are designed to provide quick iterations and changes so that gamers who installed the new game-ready or regular WHQL drivers aren't left dealing with game stutters while waiting for the next driver release. Finally, NVIDIA advises that if you aren't experiencing any issues with your current 595.97 WHQL driver, it's best to wait for the next WHQL release to ensure your system remains as stable as possible. The next WHQL release will integrate the changes from the 596.02 Hotfix driver, so you won't have to worry.

DOWNLOAD: NVIDIA GeForce 596.02 Hotfix Beta.

Last week, we reported that Intel is preparing to increase CPU prices by 10% across its client PC sector. However, a new report from Nikkei Asia suggests that AMD is also joining this trend, with plans for a PC CPU price hike as well. Reportedly, AMD Ryzen CPUs could see prices rise by 15% compared to the same time last year, when prices were typically around the MSRP at retailers. Now, as CPU demand has depleted inventories and the focus remains on server and data center CPU production, capacity for the client segment has been significantly reduced, leading to little to no inventory for PC enthusiasts. Large OEMs like HP and Dell are among the first to feel the pressure from the dwindling supply chain and have reported a significant gap between demand and supply for their PC systems.

Nikkei also notes that both AMD and Intel have informed their clients that CPU price increases will take effect by the end of March and into April, which should start to manifest very soon. What used to be a one or two-week wait from order to CPU shipment has now stretched to a process lasting eight to twelve weeks. This means that a CPU batch ordered in April might not arrive until June. This period is expected to be the worst in terms of supply in the second quarter of this year. Even if OEMs are willing to pay extra to secure CPU supply, availability is lacking. The CPU shortage is worsening daily, coinciding with the ongoing memory and storage shortage we are already experiencing.

Alongside "Arrow Lake Refresh," Intel released a new Binary Optimization Tool, available for Core Ultra 270K Plus and 250K Plus SKUs. However, since the tool essentially changes the way .exe applications run, scores on popular benchmarking applications may be deemed invalid. According to Primate Labs, the developer behind Geekbench, the use of Intel's binary optimization tool will result in a special flag on Geekbench scores. Reportedly, as the tool modifies the instruction sequence that the CPU exhibits, benchmark scores will deviate from the standard range. In a standardized benchmarking environment, this is a massive negative consequence, as the inner workings of the Binary Optimization Tool are unknown and resemble a black box that benchmark makers like Primate Labs have to deal with. To combat the use of this tool, Geekbench will now display the message "This benchmark result may be invalid due to binary modification tools that can run on this system" as a warning.

In TechPowerUp's own testing of the Binary Optimization Tool, we found that Intel's Binary Optimization Tool boosts Geekbench v6 single-core performance by 8.2%, while the multi-core score has risen by 7.8%, resulting in about an 8% average uplift in Geekbench testing. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 experience smaller uplifts, while some select titles like Shadow of the Tomb Raider can see up to a 22% increase using the Binary Optimization Tool. In reality, Intel only supports 12 games for now, which will expand further as the company labs release more optimizations. For gamers, this is fantastic news as the performance uplift is essentially free without any drawbacks, but for benchmarks, it is a potential issue as it represents an execution mystery since no one outside Intel knows exactly how the tool runs and how the code paths get modified.

PC pricing in Taiwan may see a significant increase next quarter, as ASUS Joint Technology Systems Division General Manager Yi-Hsiang Liao has announced a planned 30% price hike across the company's entire product line. He explains that the extremely high costs of DRAM and SSD storage, combined with a shortage of CPUs, are driving this increase. ASUS also claims that this issue is not limited to their company, as every Taiwanese PC maker will face similar challenges. Reportedly, ASUS did not comment on whether the price increase will affect overseas markets or remain exclusive to Taiwan. However, it seems likely that rising component costs in Taiwan will also impact Western markets, which have already experienced significant price increases in recent months.

UDN, Machine TranslatedYesterday, ASUS, in partnership with Qualcomm, held a press conference for its new Zenbook A16 laptop. During an interview, Liao Yi-hsiang, General Manager of ASUS United Technology Systems Business, revealed that ASUS has confirmed that PC prices in Taiwan will increase by 25% to 30% or more in the second quarter, with varying increases across different models.

AMD's RDNA 4m graphics might be the company's most mysterious GPU IP, as they are reportedly rebranding some of their RDNA 3.5 IP to fit INT8 data types and support FSR 4 technology. We previously reported that AMD designated the GFX1170 target for RDNA 4m. However, in the latest merge request for the LLVM compiler, AMD added two new software IDs: GFX1171 and GFX1172 GPUs. These targets are not true RDNA 4 GPUs, which belong to a GFX12 branch, but rather extensions of RDNA 3. What was thought to be RDNA 3.5 has now evolved into RDNA 4m, which will power AMD's Ryzen 500 "Medusa Point" series of APUs. With RDNA 3.5 / RDNA 4m expected to be used by AMD until 2029, it makes sense for AMD to adapt RDNA 3.5 into RDNA 4m with support for FSR 4 upscaling technology.

In contrast, "Medusa Halo" will utilize AMD's next-generation RDNA 5 / UDNA GPU microarchitecture. "Medusa Point" will introduce a desktop-exclusive RDNA 4 with the new RDNA 4m variant. Although we initially lack comparisons between the two, some instruction set extensions, such as WMMA and SWMMAC instructions, indicate support in the new "GFX1170" GPU, which should be associated with the GFX11 generation, also known as RDNA 3. Currently, this is believed to be an upgraded RDNA 3 with many RDNA 4 modules, enabling FSR 4 support even on the less powerful "Medusa Point" APU.

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced a ban on all new Wi-Fi routers made outside the "land of the free." With a clear goal of eliminating external supply chain vulnerabilities, the FCC has been collaborating with the White House to prohibit the sale of foreign-made Wi-Fi routers in the domestic market. Reportedly, the FCC claims that having foreign Wi-Fi routers in American homes has been a significant loophole for other countries to exploit, as Wi-Fi routers are one of the most critical points of security in any home network. These devices have long been targets of foreign attacks, which have disrupted security and introduced supply chain risks by creating points of failure that the U.S. government cannot control or prevent. These routers were sold openly to telecommunication companies or purchased by consumers independently. Additionally, foreign routers have been implicated in cyberattacks targeting vital U.S. infrastructure, such as Volt, Flax, and Salt Typhoon.

Interestingly, this decision does not affect any routers that consumers have already purchased. "Consumers can continue to use any router they have already lawfully purchased or acquired," notes the FCC. Furthermore, the FCC will allow any previously approved router models to continue being sold and imported. Only new router models will need to undergo FCC approval, which is a separate procedure coordinated with the Department of War (DoW) or the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Both DoW and DHS grants of Conditional Approvals are honored by the FCC to ensure that devices receiving this approval can continue to be sold without posing a national threat.

Ayaneo, a well-known handheld gaming PC maker, has suspended its preorders for the Next 2 gaming handheld PC due to what the company describes as unsustainable pricing of its materials, making manufacturing and sales impossible. In an update on its Indiegogo page for the Next 2 device, Ayaneo states that the cost of storage has been higher than the company anticipated, surpassing an already inflated price quote. However, after the Chinese New Year, suppliers began providing quotes that exceeded every reasonable level, making Ayaneo's original lowest price of $1,999 for a device with an AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 processor, 32 GB of LPDDR5X memory, and 1 TB of SSD storage unfeasible. While the company offered more expensive variants with up to a Ryzen AI Max+ 395 SoC, 128 GB of RAM, and 2 TB of storage, even a price tag of $4,299 was insufficient to offset the losses from the costly components. The expensive RAM, very expensive NAND Flash, and AMD SoCs meant Ayaneo would be selling these handheld PCs at a massive loss.

This is where the advantage of larger OEMs comes into play, as they can secure slightly better contracts with memory and storage manufacturers, allowing them to get memory pricing into a somewhat decent range and even absorb losses until they can no longer sell their new PCs. Smaller makers like Ayaneo are not in such a position, and the company was forced to stop offering the Next 2 handheld for sale.

Today, at HP Imagine 2026, HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) announced its next evolution of high-performance gaming with the new HyperX OMEN MAX 45L, HyperX OMEN 35L, expanded OMEN AI game support, and new OMEN Gaming Hub capabilities. Together, these innovations combine advanced hardware, intelligent optimization, and creative tools to elevate how gamers play, compete, and create. The lineup brings HyperX's vision for the future of play to life across hardware and software, enhancing both player and machine capability to unlock greater potential. From elite desktop power and modular expandability to AI-driven optimization, HyperX continues to deliver high-end gaming experiences that are more adaptable, more personal, and more capable.

"At HP, we put gamers first in everything we build," said Josephine Tan, Senior Vice President and Division President of Personal Systems Gaming Solutions at HP Inc. "With the new HyperX OMEN desktops, OMEN AI, and OMEN Gaming Hub experiences, we're bringing together powerful hardware and intelligent software to deliver more performance, simpler optimization, greater control, and more fun."

Today, at HP Imagine 2026, HP Inc. announced a new generation of HP Z Workstations, and AI solutions to give people world-class high-performance compute, while also helping IT organizations modernize their infrastructure for a hybrid future. Across industries, power users such as engineers, architects, product designers, AI developers, and professional creators are facing unprecedented pressure as workflows grow more complex and performance demands accelerate. At the same time, IT leaders must balance these needs against cost, security, and manageability. HP's latest Z portfolio addresses both challenges and delivers uncompromising performance, future‑proof design, and solutions that help customers deploy the right compute in the right place at the right time.

"Technology and high-performance workflows are evolving faster than ever," said Jim Nottingham, SVP and Division President, Advanced Compute Solutions. "HP Z workstations are built to equip the best and brightest professionals with the tools they need for specialized workflows and AI at the edge, while giving IT decision makers the ability to scale performance responsibly."

Microsoft is renaming its Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE) to the simpler "Xbox mode" to make the feature more appealing to a broader audience. Announced at this March's GDC 2026 conference, Microsoft confirmed that Xbox FSE is gradually being rebranded as Xbox mode, branded with a lower-case "m". This mode has been shown to enhance performance and reduce RAM usage, making it attractive to handheld console gamers and enthusiasts who plan to use it on their PCs to boost performance by minimizing background task load. In CPU-intensive games, this mode can provide a few extra frames per second and overall lower RAM usage, resulting in a smoother experience. According to the ASUS ROG Ally Life account on X, this feature has started rolling out to the Xbox Insider program with application version 2604.1000.30.0.

We have already observed that Xbox FSE, now called Xbox mode, enhances performance by using less system RAM than the standard Windows 11 desktop mode, as confirmed by MSI. Recently, Microsoft introduced this feature to regular Windows PCs, allowing them to play games using Xbox mode. MSI has confirmed that its handhelds running Windows 11 can significantly benefit from this feature. In standard Windows 11 desktop mode, the system uses 8.6 GB of RAM. However, with Xbox mode enabled, RAM usage drops to 7.8 GB, a 9.3% reduction. MSI describes this as a 5% difference based on the total system capacity of 16 GB, rather than the difference between the two usage figures. This reduction in background usage is what Microsoft is aiming for on a larger scale with the regular Windows 11 operating system, promising a smoother user experience and lower RAM usage. Xbox mode demonstrates that this is possible.

Microsoft has quietly removed a registry hack workaround that enabled faster NVMe SSD speeds by activating a native NVMe software stack. Late last year, Microsoft gradually introduced native NVMe SSD support in Windows Server 2025 as an opt-in feature. This was significant news for Windows Server users who had been dealing with non-native NVMe SSD processing, which was emulated through a series of commands. For instance, Windows converted NVMe drive commands into SCSI commands, resulting in processing latency and overhead, which slowed down read/write speeds in typically high-performing storage configurations. With native NVMe support, the entire stack and I/O processing have been redesigned to achieve optimal SSD performance, running at native speeds.

Within the Windows enthusiast community, there were a series of registry hacks that allowed the system to run native NVMe processing through various unofficial OS modifications. Below is the old method, which Microsoft has now blocked. Perhaps the reason for blocking this hack is that Microsoft is preparing to launch native NVMe SSD processing with the upcoming Windows 11 25H2 update for everyone and the 26H2 update for Windows-on-Arm devices. For now Windows 11 doesn't support the native NVMe SSD processing, and instead relies on the older drive commands conversion into SCSI.

Imagination Technologies has demonstrated 3DMark Fire Strike running on its D-Series GPU using the DirectX 11 API. While this might seem like a minor achievement, it is a significant milestone for the company. Imagination Technologies aims to make its entire GPU IP family compatible with the Windows ecosystem and support Windows gaming seamlessly. Since DirectX is the most influential graphics API, the company is focused on achieving full DirectX 11 support, which has now been successfully implemented on D-Series GPUs based on the PowerVR architecture. For those unfamiliar, the PowerVR GPU architecture was initially used in Apple SoCs, which later evolved into a fully custom Apple solution. This GPU architecture is one of the most influential, alongside AMD's GCN and NVIDIA's CUDA.

3DMark Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark, so getting it to run on the D-Series is a promising indication that the GPU IP can handle real desktop-style workloads and gaming, rather than just lightweight or embedded graphics tasks. Imagination has described DXD as its first D-Series product with hardware-based DirectX 11 Feature Level 11_0 support. The company aims to demonstrate that its GPUs can manage demanding DirectX workloads in actual silicon. Imagination states that DXD is designed for desktop graphics and cloud gaming, supporting DirectX 11, DirectX 12, Vulkan 1.4, OpenGL 4.6, and OpenCL 3.0. This gives it a much broader software target compared to older mobile-first GPU designs. Imagination also offers E-Series GPU IP, which includes DirectX 12 Feature Level 11_0 support. This suggests that we might see more DirectX 12 enablement once most of the DirectX 11 functionality is complete.

AMD has released its official FSR Software Development Kit version 2.2, which includes the latest set of FSR technologies. This release features FSR Upscaling 4.1 and Ray Regeneration 1.1, showcased late last week as part of the Adrenalin Edition 26.3.1 WHQL driver. The updated FSR "Redstone" SDK v2.2 introduces a much improved FSR 4.1 upscaling technology for the RDNA 4 family of graphics cards. The transition from FSR 4.0 to FSR 4.1 demonstrates that the latest version provides much finer details of game scenery, especially when objects are in motion. In the Crimson Desert game demo, grass moved by the wind appears much more detailed with FSR 4.1 compared to FSR 4.0, which previously applied a somewhat blurry effect to the grass. This improvement brings the visuals closer to native rendering.

Additionally, AMD has included Ray Regeneration 1.1 in the FSR SDK 2.2. AMD's FSR Ray Regeneration processes the noisy output that ray tracing naturally produces and cleans it up in real time, resulting in noticeably sharper and more polished visuals without requiring developers to overhaul their existing pipelines. With the update to version 1.1, it delivers much better and deeper shadows, immersive lighting, and more. You can check out the images below for comparison. The latest SDK also includes AMD FSR Frame Generation 4.0.0 in its vanilla version, as well as AMD FSR Radiance Caching 0.9.0, which is now in technical preview.

Semiconductor manufacturing is arguably one of the greatest marvels of the modern world, with only a few companies competing for the top spot. Recently, Elon Musk announced an ambitious project called "TERAFAB," which he plans to build on Tesla's campus in eastern Travis County, Austin, Texas. This initiative will be a joint effort involving Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI. Musk introduced this idea during a livestream on X as a practical solution to the growing gap between his companies' future chip needs and the current pace of global chip production. The project could become one of the most engineering-intensive tasks these companies have ever undertaken, with some estimates placing the capital expenditure at $20 billion.

As Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI require substantial computing power to support their expanding user base, relying solely on external suppliers is insufficient for the scale of growth Musk envisions. Tesla is known for utilizing TSMC, Samsung, and even some of Intel's manufacturing and packaging capabilities to support its chip production. However, with the creation of TERAFAB, these companies aim to gain more control over the entire chip development process. The plant is expected to integrate several stages of semiconductor production at one site, including logic fabrication, memory, packaging, testing, and mask production. This setup is unusual, as these steps are typically spread across multiple specialized facilities. Musk believes that consolidating these processes could accelerate development by enabling engineers to design, test, and revise chips with fewer delays.

After the controversy surrounding the open-world fantasy game "Crimson Desert" not being supported on Intel Arc GPUs, to the extent that the game wouldn't even launch on systems with these GPUs, Pearl Abyss has faced pressure from the gaming community. As a result, the game now officially boots on Intel Arc GPUs, with full optimizations to follow. In a statement on Friday, Intel claimed they had offered Pearl Abyss assistance in delivering full optimization for Intel GPUs, which the studio did not utilize. "Over the past several years, we've reached out to Pearl Abyss many times to help test, validate, and optimize support for Intel graphics, providing early hardware, drivers, and engineering resources across multiple generations, including Alchemist, Battlemage, Meteor Lake, and Lunar Lake."

As the controversy spread and the studio noticed the comments circulating online from millions of Arc GPU users, the situation improved. Pearl Abyss is now allowing Intel Arc GPUs to boot the game, with further performance optimizations to come. Previously, the Crimson Desert FAQ stated that there was no current support for Intel Arc graphics cards, but it has been updated to indicate that support is now present, with optimizations being added. The studio asks gamers to be patient. "We apologize for any confusion our previous FAQ wording regarding playability on Intel Arc GPUs may have caused. Please regard this as our latest official news on the subject," says Pearl Abyss.

Microsoft recently announced a plethora of changes coming to Windows 11 to reshape the operating system into a completely stable and enjoyable experience. Today we learn that Microsoft plans a major background usage overhaul with future updates, focusing on RAM usage and overall memory management, so even configurations with less RAM can enjoy the benefits of a smooth operating system. For example, the minimum requirement for Windows 11 is a system with 4 GB of memory, while Copilot+ PCs require a minimum of 16 GB. When a PC has 8 GB of RAM installed, standard Windows 11 versions like Home or Pro will take up a majority of that, leaving only about 2 GB free. Even with 16 GB installed, regular Windows allocation goes beyond 10 GB.

However, Microsoft plans to change this with better background memory management. For example, OS overhead is a significant performance and memory hog, which impacts the user's overall experience on the PC. Apple recently launched a MacBook Neo with 8 GB of memory, and reviews confirmed that users will be able to get a relatively smooth user experience with only 8 GB, while a comparable Windows-based machine would struggle. This has pushed Microsoft to think about memory management more, and the company now promises that the entire operating system will implement new background policies that will help with resource management. While the exact implementation is unknown, we suspect that doing something like Xbox Full Screen Experience, which is proven to increase performance and lower RAM usage, will be implemented on a wider scale. When the numerous background tasks disappear, memory is freed for other things like excessive Chrome browser tabs.

Microsoft has released the KB5085516 out-of-band (OOB) update to address sign-in issues caused by the Windows 11 March update on certain applications. These issues included sign-in failures in the free version of Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Microsoft Edge, Excel, Word, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. In Windows 11 versions 24H2 and 25H2 with the March update KB5079473, OS Build 26100.8037, users experienced problems when trying to sign in to their Microsoft accounts. Now, the company is distributing the OOB update for OS Builds 26200.8039 and 26100.8039. Microsoft claims there are no known issues with this OOB update, suggesting that most concerns have been resolved and users can safely apply the update again.

The problem originally occurred when a device entered a specific network connectivity state that the Windows 11 March update did not handle well, causing some Microsoft applications to mistakenly identify the device as offline. Initially, Microsoft advised users to simply restart their devices to fix the issue, but the connectivity state where Microsoft accounts wouldn't sign in would often return. There was a significant chance that the device might revert to this specific networking state, resulting in repeated sign-in errors. However, now this has been resolved with the KB5085516 OOB update, which fixes networking states, so your device can continue running smoothly.

We are reportedly just days away from the launch of Intel's big "Battlemage" BMG-G31 GPU, specifically the professional graphics card SKU known as Arc Pro B70. Today, we get our first look at the official renders of Intel's Arc B70 GPU, thanks to a leak from VideoCardz. Pictured below is a reference design Intel GPU, which will also be available on the market and not just serve as a render. Intel will offer these GPUs in their reference design form, but add-in card partners will have their own custom designs to match, enhance, or perhaps surprise us with something like a dual-die configuration on a single GPU board, similar to what MaxSun did. Intel is set to launch the Arc B70 Pro, along with its smaller rumored sibling—the B65 Pro—on March 25, which is just two days away from the time of writing.

The B70 Pro will feature 32 Xe2 cores, 32 GB of ECC GDDR6, and a 256-bit memory bus with a TGP range of 160-290 W. Intel's TBP for the reference design will be 230 W. The B65 Pro, on the other hand, is expected to launch with the same VRAM configuration but will have only 20 Xe2 cores, effectively making it a B60 Pro with more VRAM. The B65 Pro is also expected to have a peak TGP of 200 W. In terms of performance improvements, the Intel-tested B70 AI system showed about a 1.49x performance increase in the geometric mean of testing under SLA constraints and a 1.13x improvement at a fixed batch size, compared to the Intel Arc Pro B60 using the BMG-G21. Please note that VideoCardz upscaled the last pair of pictures, and distortion in the images is a natural consequence. We will be receiving official renders and images in a couple of days.

Microsoft's Windows 11 March update has a confirmed issue affecting Windows 11 versions 25H2 and 24H2 with KB5079473. This issue causes sign-in failures in some Microsoft applications, including the free version of Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Microsoft Edge, Excel, Word, and Microsoft 365 Copilot. After installing the Windows 11 March update, you might encounter a message saying, "You'll need the Internet for this. It doesn't look like you're connected to the Internet," even when your device is connected. This problem occurs when a device enters a specific network connectivity state that the Windows 11 March update does not handle well, causing some Microsoft applications to mistakenly identify the device as offline. It's important to note that this issue only affects Microsoft accounts.

To resolve this issue, Microsoft recommends simply restarting your device. This should fix the connectivity state that causes the connection to Microsoft accounts to fail. However, there is a significant chance that the device might return to this specific networking state, resulting in repeated sign-in errors. Microsoft is working on a fix, which is expected to be released in the coming days. As the week ends, the release will likely be early next week. No server platforms are affected by this issue; it only impacts Windows 11 versions 24H2 and 25H2 with the March update KB5079473, OS Build 26100.8037.

The public is still learning more about DLSS 5 technology, and NVIDIA is gradually revealing additional details. In a conversation between YouTuber Daniel Owen and NVIDIA's GeForce Evangelist Jacob Freeman, we discover that DLSS 5 essentially takes 2D frames and motion vectors as input, applying its generative AI model to output frames in a 2D context rather than 3D. This means that while the model is trained on materials that might appear 3D, its actual work is based on 2D imagery. It identifies each frame's motion vectors and anchors the model to them, operating in a 2D space instead of a full 3D environment. This approach to handling graphics is much more computationally efficient, as achieving complete photorealism in 3D would require more GPU power than is currently available. No underlying geometry is changed. Instead, 2D images and motion vectors serve as input, a generative AI model processes textures and applies scene photorealism, resulting in the final output that NVIDIA promotes as DLSS 5.Below, you can see the complete Q&A exchange between Daniel Owen and Jacob Freeman, which was nicely compiled by VideoCardz. Numbers represent questions from Daniel Owen, while answers are provided by NVIDIA's Jacob Freeman.

Valve has just introduced a preview of its SteamOS 3.8 operating system, designed for the Steam Deck and other upcoming hardware. This version marks a significant step toward enabling the future Steam Machine, as the SteamOS 3.8 preview build includes initial support for it. This update comes with a host of improvements, such as better support for third-party handhelds, reduced input latency of handheld controllers, optimized graphics drivers with performance and stability fixes, a new KDE desktop environment build, and support for a wider range of Intel and AMD SoCs. For the upcoming Steam Machine, we anticipate optimizations for a semi-custom six-core AMD "Zen 4" processor with 28 compute units of RDNA 3 graphics. Valve claims the PC can achieve 4K gaming at 60 FPS with ray tracing and FSR support. It features 16 GB of DDR5 system memory and 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, powering a semi-custom GPU that may be closer to AMD's RDNA 3.5 than pure RDNA 3.A complete changelog of added features follows.

With the latest Adrenalin Edition 26.3.1 WHQL, AMD introduced an updated version of its FSR 4.1 upscaling technology for the Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards. The latest update focuses on several key quality improvements that AMD gamers have long wished for, and AMD is finally delivering. In a demonstration of the technology in the Crimson Desert game, AMD showed what Ray Regeneration 1.1 and FSR Upscaling 4.1 are capable of in real-world games. For example, comparing FSR 4.0 and FSR 4.1 clearly shows that upscaling in the latest version provides much finer details of the game scenery when there are objects in motion. In the Crimson Desert game, grass moved by the wind is much more detailed now with FSR 4.1 than it was previously with FSR 4.0, which applied a kind of blurry image effect on the grass. This has been improved to reflect scenarios similar to native rendering.

Additionally, AMD showcased what its Ray Regeneration 1.1 looks like. AMD's FSR Ray Regeneration processes the noisy output that ray tracing naturally produces and cleans it up in real time, resulting in noticeably sharper and more polished visuals without requiring developers to overhaul their existing pipelines. Now, with the update 1.1, we see it delivering much better and deeper shadows, immersive lighting, and more. You can check out the images below for comparison.

Intel has reportedly informed its major PC clients of a planned 10% price increase on its consumer CPUs. According to industry sources cited by ET News, this price hike will affect Intel's Core Ultra family of processors, which power hundreds of millions of PCs worldwide. As a result, PC OEMs may need to alleviate the increased material costs by promoting their AI PCs and premium devices more aggressively. To maintain positive margins, these OEMs will likely have to raise prices further and emphasize their higher-end AI PC offerings to capture better margins.

PC gamers have faced challenges over the past year, with memory and storage prices climbing rapidly, reaching exorbitant levels for simple RAM kits. The high demand from data centers has depleted memory and storage inventories months in advance. GPUs have also been affected, as gamers have struggled to purchase them at MSRP, instead facing inflated prices due to the shortage of GDDR memory (VRAM) used in these GPUs. Now, CPUs are joining this trend, with Intel targeting its consumer CPU sector first. This price increase will impact everything from pre-built systems and DIY PCs to laptops and other consumer CPU variants. For example, the 10% increase will significantly affect PC pricing, depending on the CPU's share of the bill of materials. We are waiting to see how these changes will affect popular retailers like MicroCenter, Amazon, Newegg, and others before drawing further conclusions.

Apple has designed a new framework to keep its operating systems secure and up to date with modern protection technology without relying on major OS updates for essential security improvements. Called Background Security Improvements, this framework spans all of the company's operating systems that power iPhones, iPads, and Mac computers, used by hundreds of millions of users globally. For example, whenever a security issue arises in the Safari browser, WebKit framework, or any other software with an internet-first connection, security becomes the top priority. Instead of waiting to bundle these security updates with a new version of an operating system, Apple provides ongoing patches between major updates to address any security issues.

The company is gradually enhancing the quality of life on its platforms, and this is another significant step forward. Background Security Improvements begin with iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, and will continue with future versions of these operating systems across supported devices. Interestingly, Apple also publishes Background Security Improvements by date, component patched, and CVE number, so you can understand what the update addresses, why it was necessary, and have peace of mind that your OS remains safe from the growing number of online exploits targeting unpatched systems.

NVIDIA's latest DLSS 5 technology has faced a significant community backlash, with its approval rating dropping considerably. On the published YouTube video, NVIDIA's official DLSS 5 announcement has received an overwhelming 83.7% dislikes, with only 16.3% likes. This is a substantial negative rating, with 16,107 likes and 82,515 dislikes (and counting) on a video with 1,527,915 views at the time of writing. Other videos published by the NVIDIA GeForce YouTube channel have also recorded surprisingly low approval from the community. The Resident Evil Requiem video only scored a 14.9% positive rating, while Starfield had an 18.2% positive ratio of likes to dislikes. Other demos such as Hogwarts Legacy and EA Sports FC saw positive ratings of 18.7% and 14.5%, respectively. The best rating is now exclusive to a tech demo, not even a real game, which is the Zorah Unreal Tech Demo with a 37% positive ratio.

Gamers' reactions are shifting negatively towards the technology, while NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang famously noted that gamers are "completely wrong" because these games offer massive programmability and controllability in how DLSS 5 is applied, keeping the artistic intent intact. However, 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, which has generally been protective of its IPs when it comes to AI involvement, getting involved in the marketing for DLSS 5. Furthermore, the Capcom developers expressed concern about how DLSS 5 might change Capcom's approach to generative AI and its role in game development.

If you are a long-time Counter-Strike player, you know how magazine reloading works. Whenever you reloaded in a Counter-Strike game, any leftover ammunition from your magazine would be returned to your reserve supply. However, Valve is now changing this rule after decades of Counter-Strike gameplay. With the latest update, Counter-Strike 2 is introducing a change where reloading will discard your remaining magazine, essentially depleting your ammunition supply. This alters what used to be a standard procedure for gamers. Even after firing a single bullet, players would reload to keep their supply high in case of nearby combat. However, this has now changed in CS2 to make the experience feel more realistic and to introduce higher stakes for both sides. Careful planning, ammunition purchasing, and balancing will now better represent a real-world scenario.

ValveWhen you reload in CS2, the leftover ammo in your magazine is dumped back into an essentially endless reserve supply. And so the decision to reload has never offered significant trade-offs—in a safe position with enough time, you might reload after firing a single bullet, or half a mag, or after firing down to empty, and the rest of the round would be unaffected. We think the decision to reload should have higher stakes, so in today's update reloading has been redesigned. Now, when you reload, you'll drop the used magazine and discard all of its remaining ammo. Instead of 'topping off' your weapon with a few bullets, a new full magazine will be taken from the reserves whenever you reload.

Laptops powered by Intel's latest Core Ultra 200HX Plus mobile processors won't arrive all at once but will instead be released in stages, according to PC World. Intel is supplying its OEM partners with these chips in waves. Some OEMs are receiving the chips first, while others will have to wait weeks before their shipments arrive. For example, Lenovo and Razer are the only OEMs that can immediately ship their new laptops based on the Core Ultra 200HX Plus chips. Customers of other brands, such as Dell, will have to wait until the end of March, while MSI laptops will ship in the second quarter of this year. Perhaps the most delayed is ASUS, whose laptops will hit the market in late May, allowing ASUS fans and customers to get the new "Arrow Lake-HX Refresh" CPUs.

When considering the reasons for such limited availability at launch, we need to examine Intel's supply chain for the "Arrow Lake-HX." Since TSMC manufactures this generation, Intel's capacity allocation is limited to what the company set months ago. As a result, Intel is supplying these CPUs in waves as they come out of TSMC's fabs. If the process were internal to Intel, the company would likely manage manufacturing more easily with a predictable supply. If the launch involved a server-grade processor or something with a higher margin, Intel would likely allocate more TSMC capacity beforehand. However, since this generation serves the lower-margin mobile market, the current allocation is working adequately, just with a bit of a delay. Below is a complete list of design wins that Intel has secured from OEMs and its partners for Core Ultra 200HX Plus processor family.

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.

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.

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. If this sounds familiar—Microsoft is working on a similar mechanism called "Advanced Shader Delivery," for release later this year. Intel's approach is separate and independent. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.