Gaming

Without bringing any major changes to the gameplay or interface, World of Tanks 1.12 is now live and comes with (only four, unfortunately) rebalanced tier VIII premium tanks, interface improvements inspired by popular mods, a sneak preview of the reworked Steel Hunter mode, and more.

AXLE has announced the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 Classic Editions, which are seemingly the first customised Founders Edition cards. Unfortunately for AXLE, there are several signs that neither of these cards actually exist, not least because it claims that the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 have DVI ports.

ASUS tends to go big with its ROG Phone series, and the ROG Phone 5 will be no different. According to multiple Geekbench listings, the company plans to release the ROG Phone 5 with 18 GB of RAM, giving the device bragging rights over its contemporaries.

A new leak suggests that the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT could hit shelves sometime in the third week of March 2021. It will allegedly retail at US$479 or US$499. Lastly, there are two variants of the graphics card in the works.

The Ryzen 5 5600H CPU will readily outperform the common Core i7-10750H seen on most mid-range to high-end gaming laptops. This deal carries a lot of power and features for gamers on tight budgets.

The RedMagic line of Android phones are usually styled so as not to be mistaken for anything other than the mobile gaming powerhouses they are meant to be. Their latest 6 generation's design, officially outed by TENAA, is an evolution of the preceding 5S. They apparently come in some relatively sedate dark themes - except, of course, for the brand's rumored new foray into a vibrant pink-and-purple combo.

A series of exclusives, leaks, and rumours have recently pointed to some improvements in the compatibility and performance of Microsoft's xCloud game streaming. The PC client, touch support, and higher resolution would make it a strong GeForce Now and Stadia alternative.

It's rare to find a gaming laptop with OLED display options and it's even more rare to find one that's also on sale. This Dell system aims to satisfy both gamers and professionals who can appreciate the DCI-P3 colors.

With its Comet Lake octa-core processor and GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU, the Aorus 15P XC is able to display all current games smoothly. The other aspects are promising too: 32 GB of RAM (dual channel mode), space for two NVMe SSDs, and a responsive display (FHD, IPS, 240 Hz).

The Special Edition laptop is one of the only gaming laptops in the market to feature AMD SmartShift for higher performance. Overall performance is neck-to-neck with costlier GeForce RTX 2060 laptops.

A new video has demonstrated the effects of prolonged crypto mining on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Seemingly, stressing the Turing card for so long in this way causes noticeable in-game performance drops, including to average FPS, 1% lows and GPU clock speeds.

All is not well at CDPR, with the company having announced a delay to the release of Cyberpunk 2077 Patch 1.2. Originally due before the end of February, the second patch for the maligned game will now arrive in the 'second half of March' at the earliest. CDPR has blamed its recent hack and the scope of Patch 1.2 for its postponement.

NVIDIA has just announced updates for the RTX 3060 that bring Resizable BAR to the new GPU, as promised earlier. It is compatible with a range of relevant chipsets, processors, motherboards and cards - the new Aorus GeForce RTX 3060 Elite 12G included. This card reprises the brand's RGB three-ring design, and is also touted as designed for durability and performance.

Sony is reportedly going to activate the PS5’s SSD expansion slot at some point this summer, allowing owners to store more games onto an additional drive. At the same time, the firmware update for the PlayStation 5 will also enable higher speeds for the cooling fan to help deal with the extra heat brought by potentially pricey third-party SSDs.

A Videocardz report indicates that NVIDIA's upcoming CMP (cryptocurrency mining processors) will be variants on last-gen Turing parts. The CMP 40HX will be based on TU106, while the CMP 30HX will use the same TU116 GPU found in the GeForce GTX 1660 Super. However, CMP 50HX and CMP 90HX look like they could be built on Ampere.

The RedMagic 6 series of Snapdragon 888-powered gaming devices is slated to launch on March 4, 2021. Now, its maker Nubia has strongly hinted at an upgrade to 165Hz displays for these phones. They are also now slated to get 400Hz touch-sampling rates, which adds up to a potentially severe headache for Asus' ROG Phone 5.

AMD seems to be convincing more and more laptop OEMs to include Ryzen options across all price points, especially with the launch of the new Ryzen 5000 APUs. Even Dell is now rumored to include Ryzen APU options with the launch of the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition lineup that may replace the current Intel-powered m15 R3 models.

The rumored new PUBG title is real and it is called PUBG: New State. The game features everything gamers have loved about the original title, but is set in 2051 with more advanced weapons and technology necessitating new tactics to survive.

AMD has confirmed that the Radeon RX 6700 series will arrive in just a week, contrary to previous reports. The March 3-bound cards will have a dual fan design and will be based on Navi 22 GPUs, AMD has also confirmed.

According to a new report, Intel's upcoming Rocket Lake-S processors will be available to pre-order in under three weeks. However, reviews about 11th-generation desktop processors are apparently bound by an NDA until March 30.

The last generation budget gaming laptop still has some life left in it especially for gamers who are satisfied with playing the latest titles at 1080p and aren't aiming for 2K or 4K resolutions.

The PlayStation 5 has already entered the top 30 list of the world’s best-selling consoles in barely three months since launch, as well as amassing over one million members on a popular subreddit. Sales figures should climb even higher by the second half of the year as PS5 production has started “ramping up steadily”.

Sony announced that Days Gone would be leading the charge as a number of PlayStation exclusives are set to arrive on PC later in the year. Days Gone min specs were revealed and the game requires surprisingly reasonable GPU and CPU configs: The GeForce GTX 1060 and Ryzen 5 1500X are recommended, with the min spec calling for the R9 290 or GTX 780.

HP has just confirmed it has secured "a definitive agreement" to buy HyperX, heretofore best known as Kingston's gaming-accessories division. That company's co-founder and CEO, John Tu, calls the move "a brighter future for HyperX", while its new owner is "thrilled" to admit it to its "family".

A side-by-side video comparing the original Diablo 2 and Diablo 2 Resurrected has shown up online. It highlights UI changes, redesigned textures, character models and several other improvements that the remastered version could have in store for us.

The Asus ROG Strix G15 is one of the latest gaming laptops equipped with an RTX 3000 GPU and a Ryzen 5000 CPU. The combination promises high performance that can be used optimally in games with the 300 Hz display. In the test, the Strix G15 reveals massive performance that is not limited to the graphics card.

The Philips Momentum 559M1RYV is the follow-up to last year's Momentum 558M1RY, which already included plenty of features. However, the Momentum 559M1RYV takes things further with a 144 Hz refresh rate, HDMI 2.1 and USB Type-C Power Delivery. All the good features of last year's model remain too, including 1,200 nit peak brightness, AMD FreeSync, NVIDIA G-Sync and Philips Ambiglow.

A Sony executive has just confirmed that the PlayStation 5 (PS5) is getting its own virtual reality (VR) system after all. It will consist of a next-gen headset and controller, which will apparently be informed by everything the OEM has learned since debuting this form of gaming on the PS4. Furthermore, the controller may also be DualSense in nature.

The MSI PCB includes a 8+6-pin power connector instead of an 8-pin one, which should provide more stability for the overclocked core. Despite the increased boost speeds, the TGP matches the reference 170 W. The number of inductors appears to be modified as well, and the PCB supports 8 VRAM slots, of which only 6 are populated. Unfortunately, we will not be seeing 16 GB versions, due to the limitations imposed by the 192-bit memory bus.

Realme has officially teased its upcoming Snapdragon 888-powered phone, the GT 5G, at MWC Shanghai 2021. The event has seen its "Racing Yellow" variant set in stone, and also hints at a novel "Stainless Steel VC" cooling solution. The OEM has also unveiled its new, "Dual-platform, Dual-flagship strategy". It apparently entails a second premium series that is, unlike the new GT, camera-focused.

Black Shark is Xiaomi's line of high-end gaming phones that is thought to have vanilla and Pro variants coming in 2021. They have both been approved by the Chinese authority 3C, which reveals that both of them will have the OEM's top charging speed currently seen in the Mi 10 Ultra: 120 watts (W). Like this phone, the upcoming devices have been registered alongside a compatible power brick.

A new leak suggests that Nvidia could launch a 6GB variant of the GeForce RTX 3060 graphics cards soon. The Palit-branded graphics card showed up on the South Korean National Radio Research Agency website alongside other SKUs. However, Nvidia is yet to officially acknowledge the existence of such a GeForce RTX 3060 variant.

The GeForce RTX 3060 has arrived on the Ashes of the Singularity database, where it has outscored the RTX 2060 and the RTX 2070. The RTX 3060 appears to offer comparable performance to the RTX 2070 SUPER, despite having a US$170 lower MSRP.

More leaks in regard to the oft-rumored Nintendo Switch Pro, which is more likely going to end up being called the Nintendo Super Switch, have started appearing in online forums. It seems the Super Switch will have similar capabilities to the PS4 and will utilize Nvidia’s DLSS technology. One supposed insider claims the Nintendo Super Switch might be announced in 2021.

Currently, it looks like only the upcoming RTX 3060 will be affected by NVIDIA's recent move to limit hash rates via drivers and firmware. NVIDIA recently launched dedicated CMP cards for miners seemingly to put more GeForce cards in the hands of gamers, but that move may not be really end user-friendly in the long run once the present cryptocurrency boom goes bust.

The ASUS ROG Phone 5 officially arrives on March 10, but DxOMark has gone early by revealing a marketing render of the device. The website has, in the process, confirmed that the ROG Phone 5 will have an AniMe Matrix display, a Snapdragon 888 SoC and a 3.5 mm jack with an ESS Sabre DAC.

A new report has shed some light on how much some custom Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 models could cost upon launch. At US$484.99 MSI's Ventus X2 is the most affordable of the lot. On the flip side, the MSI Gaming X Trio will cost an eye-watering US$514.9. We should know for sure on its February 25 launch date.

Rumors from early last year on the ResetEra forum appear to have been lent further credence by a forum moderator stating that tipster MarsipanRumpan's claim of a Sony's upcoming Bluepoint acquisition is accurate and "only a matter of when."

Three Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 cards have appeared for sale on a Belarusian online marketplace days before the boards are officially launched. The asking price for the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 Eagle OC cards is 2,800 Belarusian rubles, which is roughly about US$1,080/€891/£770. The Nvidia MSRP for the GeForce RTX 3060 is US$329.

AMD's official Reddit account has posted requesting reports from users about an increasingly well-publicized issue in which USB devices installed in or attached to 500-series chipset motherboards disconnect randomly and without warning. It seems to be fairly constant across this range and across board manufacturers.

Nubia has asserted that its upcoming RedMagic 6 gaming flagship phones will "race ahead" in 2021. To this end, it has just pre-empted Asus' ROG Phone 5 by announcing that this new series will debut on March 4, 2021 - right after Asus set its own event for March 10. The first launch is expected to usher in Snapdragon 888-powered devices with improved cooling, Tencent branding and up to 120W charging.

An IGN report indicates that Indian PlayStation 5 fans, already dealing with a US$700 MSRP are actively working to shut down scalpers, both by pressuring Sony and by reporting and initiating takedowns of scalper listings on eCommerce sites.

Just because GeForce RTX 30 laptops are available doesn't mean older RTX 20 models are suddenly useless. Users in the market for a new gaming laptop ought to keep an eye out for the inevitable sales on last year's top GeForce RTX 20 sellers.

Realme has announced that its second-gen Buds Air will launch in India on February 24, 2021. It has also confirmed multiple leaks about these TWS earbuds in teasing their specs prior to this event. They include the (expected) ANC, as well as the fact that they will have 10mm "Diamond class" drivers, improved battery life and a low-latency Gaming Mode.

Koei Tecmo’s Souls-like finally received some PC love with the addition of DLSS 2.0 support. While cards like the GeForce RTX 3080 were already capable of hitting 4K/60, DLSS 2.0 opens up that possibility to a wider range of RTX cards.

Microsoft's FPS Boost for Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X consoles uses Direct3D-level adjustments to deliver improved framerates, according to a new report. Digital Foundry has also shown that FPS Boost can improve framerates by up to 4x in some cases, with the Xbox Series consoles able to maintain these higher framerates consistently, too.