Gaming

A new video on Xbox's official YouTube channel imagines the state of gaming consoles in 2042. Among other things, it would use Quantum-powered hardware capable of 1 quintillion floating-point operations per second (FLOPS), a holographic UI and a personal AI. Games would be playable at a resolution of 32K, 480 FPS.

Most of the specs from previous leaks are confirmed, including the enticing price points. As far as performance goes, the i9-12900K is up to 30% faster in select games compared to the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, and up to 100% faster in content creation applications compared to the i9-11900K.

Intel's new 12th gen Alder Lake platform brings with several notable changes on the architecture side. Alder Lake processors use a heterogeneous ISA with a shared L3 cache and an intelligent Thread Director that helps the OS in proper scheduling of threads. The CPU brings support for DDR5-4800 RAM and PCIe Gen5, but the Z690 chipset supports only PCIe Gen4 and Gen3.

Age of Empires IV developers World's Edge and Relic Entertainment have unveiled a new 'Min Spec Mode'. It compromises the visual quality, resolution, and number of people you can play with at one time. The mode is tailor-made for users running older, less powerful PCs.

Lenovo will be introducing a mid-cycle refresh of the Legion 7i soon. Called the Legion Y9000K 2021 Exploration Edition, the laptop features largely similar internals as the Legion 7i but may now come with liquid metal thermals and a DisplayHDR1000-certified mini-LED display option. Availability details are not yet known.

The latest 16-inch gaming laptop from Asus has been discounted to a more reasonable final price considering the GPU involved.

Steam games are now playable on Xbox consoles thanks to GeForce NOW support for the Microsoft Edge browser. Compatability remains in beta, so do not expect the smoothest of experiences for the time being.

The Apple M1 Pro and M1 Max SoCs have been thoroughly tested by AnandTech with some dramatic but also unsurprisingly familiar results. While the M1 Max rubbed shoulders with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop GPU and AMD’s Radeon 6800M in synthetic benchmark testing, both it and the M1 Pro were left floundering in game tests.

Third-party retailers have started selling the Redmi G (2021), a gaming laptop that Xiaomi launched last month in China. The 16.1-inch machine is available with either a Core i5-11260H and a GeForce RTX 3050 or a Ryzen 7 5800H and a GeForce RTX 3060.

With Halo Infinite set to arrive in just two months, Microsoft finally decided to take the wraps off the campaign: the new campaign will show the first single-player footage we've seen in over a year since Craig the Brute's infamous debut.

Yuzu's resolution scaling feature recently received a massive update. Alongside a more effective texture scaling solution, Yuzu developers added in support for AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling feature, making 4K Breath of The Wild more accessible than before.

Rockstar recently released the official minimum and required specifications for the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy remasters. Calling for an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 at minimum, alongside a quad-core processor, the 20 year-old games actually require beefier hardware than Assassin's Creed: Odyssey to run.

The OEM Asus has outlined its timeline for the roll-out of its version of Android 12, and which devices are counted into this schedule. It contains some good news for owners of newer flagship devices from this company, if less so for those with older ROG Phone- or ZenFone-series smartphones.

Youtuber @Cycu1 put together a comparison video of gameplay footage for God of War’s PC port with the existing PS5 enhanced version. The video highlights broad parity between the two, but with minor improvements on PC to shadowing and ambient occlusion.

Krafton has officially revealed the launch date for PUBG: New state. The game succeeds the company's crown jewel, PUBG Mobile. PUBG: New State will hit Android and iOS devices on November 11, 2021 and bring forth several improvements, such as improved graphics and new gameplay mechanics.

RPCS3, one of the most popular PlayStation 3 emulators, can now boot every single PlayStation 3 title ever made. This does not mean that every PS3 game is playable on the emulator, but it is a major accomplishment and a significant step toward complete compatibility.

Gigabyte hasn't opted for an ultra-slim or extremely compact case for the A7 X1, which actually brings several advantages with it.

Microsoft has unveiled two new Seagate expansion cards for the Xbox Series S|X. The 512GB variant will cost US$140, and it is available for pre-order in the United States. On the other hand, the 2TB version costs US$399 and will be available for pre-order sometime in November 2021.

Razer has launched four new products for PC building enthusiasts. They include the Razer Kunai RGB fans, Razer Hanbo AIO liquid cooler, Razer Katana power supply and a Razer-branded fan controller. The RGB fans and controller are available for purchase now, while the remaining parts will hit shelves later in the year.

MonsterLabo's Beast case is able to maintain max temperatures of 89 °C for an Intel i9-10900K running at 4.5 GHz and 1.13 V on all 10 cores, while the RTX 3080 GPU required a bit of tinkering to prevent power leaks above 80 °C.

Gigabyte envisions a future where gaming PCs combine fast 5G connectivity with modular design. The Aorus Project Cielo features a main PC module with integrated 5G antenna, and users can add a battery module for increased mobility plus a Bluetooth speaker module for entertainment purposes.

Will a 130 W TGP GPU actually draw 130 W when gaming? What about a 165 W TGP GPU? The GPUs in some gaming laptops can miss their specified TGP targets by moderate margins.

Nvidia has dominated the laptop high-end segment for a long time. With the Radeon RX 6700M and the Radeon RX 6800M, AMD has finally introduced worthy competitors to the market. We were able to examine the MSI Delta 15 as one of the first laptops to feature the RX 6700M.

Sony has officially announced that God of War (2018) will be available on PC soon. It includes several improvements such as ultra-wide (21:9) support, Nvidia DLSS, and unlocked framerates. The game is up for pre-order now and will be playable on January 15, 2022.

Multiple sources have indicated that Ubisoft is working on a new Splinter Cell game. It is in the early stages of development and could be shown off sometime in 2022.

An Intel Alder Lake-P Core i9-12900H has been spotted in the Ashes of the Singularity database. The Core i9-12900H is a mobile Alder Lake part sporting 14 cores and 20 threads with six Golden Cove P-cores and eight Gracemont E-cores. Alder Lake-P will supplant the current Tiger Lake-H45 SKUs.

Sony has taken issue with Dbrand selling Darkplates side plates for the PlayStation 5. In response, Dbrand has released Darkplates 2.0 in three colours.

Nanoleaf has released Lines, light strips from which users can create unique designs for their living space. These lights have many features, including lighting synced with your music, movie or game.

Microsoft has come through on its commitment to release the Xbox Series X Mini Fridge in time for Christmas. Officially called the Xbox Series X Replica Mini Fridge Thermoelectric Cooler, the mini fridge will be available to pre-order in Europe, the US and UK from next week for two-figure sums.

ViewSonic has announced availability of the Elite XG320U gaming monitor that was first revealed back in August. The XG320U is a 32-inch 4K 144 Hz gaming monitor targeted at Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and PC gamers. The display supports HDMI 2.1, AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, and a 1 ms MPRT.

The Ryzen 7 APU and GeForce RTX 3050 Ti laptop GPU allow playing all the current games smoothly on the matte FHD display of the G15. The laptop offers space for two NVMe SSDs and also has an excellent battery life. Only the display won't win any prizes.

In a recent policy change, Valve decided that the Steam platform would no longer support games built on blockchain technology that let users receive or exchange crypto or NFT assets, raising questions about the future of player-owned NFT assets.

The surprisingly high specifications, with a GeForce GTX 970 as the recommended GPU, raise questions about optimisation and how significant Rockstar’s remastering efforts are.

Alienware has announced the latest iteration of its popular Aurora gaming desktop. The redesigned model has been launched to coincide with the 25th Anniversary of the Alienware brand.

Moore's Law Is Dead is back with quite the allegation. Unnamed sources of his are claiming that Nvidia may try to halt the production of all its RTX 3000 gaming GPUs in late October in order to keep street prices as high as possible until next year, when refreshed models could make these inflated prices the norm. This move might also be planned in order to mitigate a possible price crash caused by miners dumping many GPUs after Ethereum goes full POS.

Gamers can expect an exciting fall season, as another leaked benchmark of one of the new Core i5 Alder Lake CPUs suggests that Intel's upcoming generation of processors is serious competition for its aspiring rival AMD.

miHoYo has announced a new chapter for its flagship game Genshin Impact, coming to iOS via a new update. This 2.2 iteration adds a number of new assets and stories - not to mention 120fps support for "some devices". Meanwhile, the same feature remains missing from the title's PC and console versions.

It turns out that Nintendo has made quite a few changes to the Switch with the new OLED model. A major one relates to the cooling system, which is smaller than the LCD model.

Early benchmarks of the upcoming Intel 12th gen Alder Lake Core i9-12900K in combination with AMD's just announced Radeon RX 6600 GPU were posted on Chinese social media. The results show good gains for the Core i9-12900K compared to the Ryzen 9 5900X, Ryzen 9 5950X, and the Core i9-11900K in 3DMark CPU tests. However, real-world gaming benchmarks do not seem to show very high differences, especially when paired with DDR4 RAM.

Crytek employees showcased Crysis 2 gameplay on Twitch, with the game slated to arrive on October 15th. A detailed list of new enhancements was also shared: Crysis 2 will be receiving SVOGI, hardware ray-tracing, and a raft of other features. However, RT will be limited to PC.

G.SKILL's new Trident Z5 DDR5-RAM for gamers offers frequencies of up to 6400MHz, low CL timings and supposedly has enough headroom for further overclocking.

According to reports, NVIDIA is working towards releasing the GeForce RTX 3050, RTX 3050 Ti and a new RTX 3080. All will feature different GPUs, with only the RTX 3050 relying on the lowly GA107.

Acer's new L811 laser-powered device is directed at those wishing to project their own 4K HDR10-compatible movies at home. For those who would prefer a monitor that could also support some image-editing work, there is the 27-inch CB273U IPS monitor. For more "serious" display needs, however, the OEM has now also announced pricing and availability for the Nitro XV272U KF.