Gaming

Leaked SiSoft Sandra scores for Intel's Xeon LP DG1 indicate that the GPU runs far worse than expected: as much as 50 percent slower than the GTX 1050 Ti. The leak adds credence to rumors of corporate infighting at Intel over major issues with the Xe architecture.

The internal slides leaked on the Chinese forum Saraba1st reveal impressive specs for the upcoming 17-inch X170 gaming laptops, including redesigned chassis with improved airflow, bigger speakers, slim-bezel displays, RGB lighting, upgraded cooling systems that support the latest 10-core-20-thread desktop-grade Comet Lake-S CPUs, plus USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 support.

The Galaxy S20/Z Flip launch event also saw the announcement of a new level of collaboration between Microsoft and Samsung. It involves porting PC games to this OEM’s phones, starting with Forza Street. It will be exclusive to Samsung's own app store for a while after its release, as may others in the future.

Leaked slides reveal a beastly 400-500 W multi-chip GPU with 4 tiles coupled with HBM2e memory and sporting PCIe 4.0 compatibility. These are clearly meant for the compute / deep learning market, but it looks like Intel may have multi-chip variants for the gaming sector, as well.

The all-AMD affair of the Ryzen 7 3750H and Radeon RX 5500M certainly provides a powerful base on which to play the latest triple-A games, but the MSI Alpha 15 falls short of expectations in other areas. The device not only runs loudly but it also has incredibly short battery life. If you can survive 36 dB(A) fans when idling and around 4 hours battery life between charges, then the MSI Alpha 15 is a good option for those after a mid-range gaming laptop.

AMD’s Ryzen 7 4800HS APU has been spotted on the Time Spy benchmark, where it performed remarkably well judging on the reported score. Surprisingly, the chip with a 35 W TDP managed to overtake the 45 W Ryzen 7 4800H, which will undoubtedly delight future gaming-laptop buyers. Once again, Intel’s Core i7-9700K desktop CPU had to play catch up.

A retailer has posted preliminary listings for some upcoming Asus laptops. They do not contain product images, however, based on their model numbers and listed specs, they are clearly destined for the high-end gaming markets. For example, one of them appears to be for a Ryzen 9 4900H-powered Zephyrus G14.

Nvidia’s GeForce Now service has been spotted running tests on both Geekbench and Ashes of the Singularity. Although the results themselves are hardly mind-blowing, the Geekbench OpenCL score should give prospective PlayStation 5 buyers food for thought when considering the advantages of a cloud gaming service over console hardware.

Palit has released the GeForce GTX 1650 KalmX, a compact NVIDIA GPU with a large passive heatsink. The new KalmX is the first OEM available fanless Turing card, which could fill a niche for media server encoding or living-room gaming.

The Red Magic series of gaming smartphones is headed for an update, which is to be revealed at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2020. This has been confirmed by its maker Nubia, by way of a new Weibo post by its CEO, Ni Fei. The executive has also validated rumors that this device will have a 144Hz display.

The PlayStation 5 console still hasn’t been officially revealed to the world yet, and fans are now looking for any possible clue as to when the date of the first unveiling could be. Two new suggestions have been offered up, although one of them is actually a component of a somewhat brutal tease by SIE’s Head of Independent Developer Initiative, Shuhei Yoshida.

The Phantom Gaming Edition of GeIL's EVO SPEAR long-form-factor DDR4 memory kits is now available on Newegg. This RAM has been developed in partnership with ASRock, and has variants specifically optimized for Ryzen-compatible boards. It has speeds from 2400 to 3200MHz, and comes in 16 or 32GB SKUs.

Bethesda has finally announced when Fallout 76 players will receive Wastelanders, a free expansion for the game. The post-apocalyptic title will be extended on April 7 for all platforms, with the expansion featuring a host of new content. The release of Wastelanders coincides with the game finally reaching Steam too, but there are some caveats.

A financial services company has suggested that the current Wuhan coronavirus outbreak could end up forcing a delay on the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X next-gen consoles. Nintendo has also revealed that the virus has affected Switch console production. China is the world’s largest console hardware manufacturer.

The Realme C3 has become the first phone with a MediaTek Helio G70 processor, as it launches via Flipkart in India. It also has a 6.5-inch HD+ display with 3-4GB of RAM and up to 64GB of internal storage. It starts for INR 6999, or about US$98.

The AMD chips appear to be dominating the Intel and Nvidia counterparts when it comes to 3DMark's separate tests. Still, the Intel + Nvidia setup leads in the combined tests, showing that AMD might want to further optimize its chips for combo loads.

Rumour has it that Nintendo is not planning to host a new Nintendo Direct next week, despite claims that there would be two this month. While the first is supposedly about Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the second may be about some unannounced Nintendo Switch games.

PlayStation 5 watchers should be aware by now that Sony has published a landing page for the next-generation console. To nobody’s surprise, there were no new big reveals about the PS5, but fans can sign up to receive updates. In the meantime, there has been speculation that the console’s SSD could end up being a Samsung 980 QVO model.

After the success of The Witcher series on Netflix, you may want to dive deeper into the universe around Geralt von Riva. However, where should you start? Well, a fan of the series has now created an online calculator that not only calculates how many months to plan, but also the optimal order in which to plough through everything The Witcher.

For a short time, the popular Farming Simulator 19 can be downloaded completely free of charge. Better still, it can be kept forever. With over 300 true-to-life vehicles, you can try out one of Germany's most popular PC games as a modern farmer.

Until we get a comparison between the Intel DG1, Nvidia GTX 1650 and AMD's Radeon RX 570, the comparison with the iGPUs from laptop-grade processors will have to suffice. Of course the DG1 is dominating the graphics tests by a substantial margin, but the physics tests reveal quite a different story.

While the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X might not be a pure 1:1 competitor for the Intel i9-10900K, their similar price tier is quite enough to prompt a comparison in this case. The most important difference between the two CPUs is the core count and the boost clocks, and the latter is supposed to have a greater impact on the scores, but this is not particularly evident in the latest 3DMark scores.

Two more major game names have been associated with the PlayStation 5 lately that should have gamers even more excited about the upcoming next-gen console’s launch. Both The Sims and Ratchet & Clank have now been mentioned in the same breath as the PS5. Meanwhile, sales of the PlayStation 4 and its software have been unsurprisingly declining.

A new concept video for the DualShock 5 controller has been unleashed on YouTube by Snoreyn in conjunction with LetsGoDigital. The remarkable clip shows the impressive functionality the device would bring to PlayStation 5 users, affording such useful notions as interchangeable sticks, removable back paddles, and adaptive triggers with light pulls for intense gun battles.

AMD informed the world at CES 2020 that the Radeon RX 5700M and RX 5600M would be arriving in laptops in 1H 2020, but offered nothing in the way of other details about its flagship laptop GPUs. Now, the company has confirmed that both will feature 2,304 stream processors, 36 compute units and GDDR6 VRAM. There is a caveat with the latter though, and it could hand an advantage to NVIDIA. In short, AMD could have blown it with the Radeon RX 5700M and RX 5600M before they even come to market.

Some leaks have hinted that the next couple of major Xiaomi mobile device launches may lack physical locations. This may mean that the Mi 10 and Black Shark 3 events may be online-only. This may be due to the risks posed by the new coronavirus epidemic in China.

Fancy a new graphics card? Well, AMD is looking to tempt people in with up to three games and 3 months of Xbox Game Pass for PC with Radeon RX 5000 series purchases. The RX 5500 XT, RX 5700 and RX 5700 XT are included in the offer, as are older cards like the Radeon VII, along with the RX 500 and RX Vega series.

Contrary to recent reports, NVIDIA is planning to bring at least six new laptop GPUs to market next month. The refresh is not straightforward either, with there being two RTX 2070 SKUs and possibly a non-SUPER version of the RTX 2060.

Asus ROG India has issued an open letter to its fans expressing regret that they may face difficulty in buying this OEM's latest gaming phone. This "temporary shortage" is associated with the coronavirus outbreak in Asia, which is currently disrupting the relevant supply chains in the region. However, Asus is confident that its mobile-device stock levels will be back up "soon".

Realme has made the C3 official via its Twitter feeds. This phone will be powered by MediaTek's new Helio G70 chipset. This upcoming device will also have a 6.5-inch display and dual rear cameras, albeit ones that may improve over those found in the C2 in certain ways. The OEM has also revealed it will have a 5000mAh battery.

A new image of what is allegedly the final version of the PlayStation 5’s user interface has been shared online. The picture itself isn’t particularly revealing, but it is in line with what could be expected from a PlayStation console UI. Rumors from another source claim the PS5 could come with a 2 TB SSD and there’s yet another release date suggestion.

Nintendo has dealt a blow for those who were hoping to see the company release a new Nintendo Switch this year. While it does not preclude Nintendo from bringing a Pro SKU of the console to market in the near future, you can rule out it arriving before the end of the year.

Nubia president already unveiled that the upcoming Nubia Red magic 5G will feature a 144 Hz screen and rear triple-cam setup and his latest spoiler now shows that the handheld will benefit from 80 W ultra-fast charging. Other rumored specs include a Snapdragon 865 SoC and up to 16 GB RAM.

SEGA Europe has pledged to use nothing but recyclables in the original packaging for its hard-copy products in the future. This will take effect with the release of its new PC title, Total War: ROME II. The material in question will eschew plastic in favor of cardboard; even the shrink-wrap will be eco-friendly.

While CES 2020 showed us the in-game potential of a Tiger Lake and Xe DG1-powered laptop, another X1 DG1 product seemingly went under the radar. Now, that possible product has been spotted on Geekbench, hinting at a twin-track approach by Intel to take on AMD and NVIDIA in the laptop GPU market.

The upcoming KaiXian KX-6780A octa-core CPUs should be launched this March, but they will only be available as part of pre-built budget gaming systems, as the chips themselves are soldered and require special motherboards. Preliminary performance tests prove that the Chinese CPUs still lag behind Intel's i5-7400 models.

The Outer World's will be released on the Nintendo Switch on March 6th 2020. It will retail for $59.99 and will only be available in digital format. Physical copies of the game will just be a piece of plastic with a download code on it.

An interesting tweet by an “industry insider” has stirred the pot once more in regard to the performance capabilities of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. It seems overall that the next-gen console from Sony will offer better performance than Microsoft’s effort, with the PS5 also having a superior SSD and RAM. However, the Xbox Series X has the all-important GPU advantage.

2019 brought the highest revenues in six years for AMD and the red team expects increased 7 nm CPU adoption for 2020 together with increased demand for custom embedded solutions via the release of the next gen consoles. CEO Lisa Su confirmed that the RDNA architecture is getting a refresh and the second half of 2020 should also bring new data center GPUs.

In addition to the long-awaited dual-barreled tanks that have been added to the Russian tech tree (namely the IS-2-II, IS-3-II, and the ST-II), World of Tanks 1.7.1 also comes with the Demount Kit feature that allows players to send complex equipment to the depot without spending gold. However, this kit can only be gained from Reward for Merit drops.

A well-known leaker recently claimed that Capcom was focusing on potential remakes rather than pursuing development of Resident Evil 8. However, a new rumor sent to Biohazard Declassified’s tipline has stated that there will be a Resident Evil 8 of sorts, but it won’t actually have that specific name. Zombies and werewolves are expected to make an appearance.

Microsoft has already confirmed that it will be releasing the Xbox Series X later this year, but there has been talk of the company having another lower-end next-gen console in development too. Now, _rogame has spotted some mysterious 3DMark listings of an AMD Ryzen APU that could be a glimpse at Microsoft's cheaper next-gen offering.

Apparently a rather basic arcade fighting game, Shadow Brawlers allows you to bring some friends for offline multiplayer battles that cover quite a few different modes and has the potential to keep you busy for a very long time — definitely a title that many will enjoy for years to come.

Nintendo has officially ended its Wii repair program in the United States. Additionally, Nintendo will no longer accept Wii consoles for repair in Japan after March 31, 2020. While this may present some worry for owners of older Wiis, it should be noted that the Wii has had few (if any) major hardware problems since its release in 2006.

The RTX 20 SUPER refresh for laptops is right around the corner, and initial benchmarks show what the RTX 2070 SUPER could offer. The card, which will NVIDIA's third most-powerful laptop GPU of 2020, offers up to 10% better performance the current RTX 2070 and will launch on March 16 alongside the rest of the company's refreshed roster.