Gaming

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Project Scarlett seem destined to be fierce competitors by the end of next year, and it appears to be rather tricky to divine which next-generation console is most likely to have the edge. We have compiled a comparison table populated by confirmed and rumored details about each console, just in time to report about new speculated launch prices that will make gamers giddy if they come true.

References to AMD X590 chipset were spotted in the BIOS code of a Gigabyte motherboard by a user on the Computerbase.de forums. This follows the tease of X590 by known Ryzen enthusiast Yuri Bubly on Twitter. Not much is known about the X590 platform but speculation is that it could feature even more number of PCIe Gen4 lanes than what X570 offers.

For smoother scrolling and fast motions, IPS is still the one to beat. IPS panels are getting better and better every year especially in terms of refresh rates where OLED is still limited to 60 Hz. Jumping from 60 Hz to 144 Hz or 240 Hz is a tangible upgrade even for untrained eyes.

It appears GPD has gone into marketing overdrive in preparation for its crowdfunding campaign for the GPD P2 Max pocket-sized laptop. The Chinese manufacturer is now calling the P2 Max the “world’s smallest Ultrabook” and is comparing it favorably with some of the industry’s major players. The company has also announced there will be a third variant that will come with a 1 TB SSD.

Sony and Microsoft are both working with AMD to provide 7 nm graphics for their next-gen consoles, but the results of which may not be equal. According to multiple reports and perhaps even AMD itself, the next PlayStation and Xbox will be a generation of graphics performance apart.

LG has revealed its latest gaming monitors and they are ground breaking. The company claims that its new UltraGear Nano IPS Nvidia G-Sync monitors are the first gaming monitors to achieve a 1ms response rate.

Huntkey is known as a maker of power bricks and other similar accessories. However, it also makes other devices, monitors included. Its latest model is the X2471C, which is a 1080p, 144-hertz (Hz) 23.6-inch 1800R-curved panel. This model has a white housing, 2 HDMI ports and 1 Display Port.

With NVIDIA apparently announcing its GeForce RTX 20 Super series next week, multiple insider sources are pointing towards a mid-July launch. Specifications for the three Desktop GPUs have now been confirmed too.

Smach has been showing off its much anticipated and delayed handheld games console at E3 2019, with promises that it will ship at the end of the year. 17 FPS in titles like Monster Hunter World for a starting price of US$699 though? No thanks.

A micro-display is a panel that may be made of conventional materials such as OLED or LCD, yet are 2 inches at most on the diagonal. They are incorporated into everyday devices such as digital cameras, and in emerging categories such as heads-up or head-mounted displays. The latest research suggests that their market will be worth US$3.42 billion in the next 6 years.

Fresh WCCFTech insider info reveals that the SUPER lineup is not a mere refresh for the existing RTX GPUs. There will be new Ti versions with completely new unlocked chips featuring more CUDA cores and faster GDDR6 memory launching later this summer, while the non-Ti SUPER versions are supposed to launch in late June, leading to considerable price cuts for the current RTX cards.

Xbox Chief Phil Spencer clarified that the next generation Xbox Project Scarlett will continue to feature an optical disc drive so as to cater to collectors and those who prefer buying physical media. Spencer also said that Microsoft would make sure there is enough clarity while marketing digital-only consoles like the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is not here yet, but a closed Steam beta test is set to start on June 18, when 1,500 eligible users will be chosen to join the battle. A larger wave of Age Insiders will be invited to take this 4K Ultra HD remake — which also features remastered audio — for a spin on June 24.

After some tests and number-crunching, Intel has concluded that the theoretical bandwidth for PCIe 3.0 x16 (126.4 Gbps) and even PCIe 3.0 x8 (63.2 Gbps) will be more than sufficient for 4K UHD HDR gaming at 144 FPS.

Nintendo announced a ton of games coming to the Switch this year and early 2020. Breath of the Wild will be getting a sequel soon, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Complete Edition will finally land on the Switch in the fall, and a few new titles in storied franchises will be coming out later on in the year. It's a good time to be a Nintendo fan.

Amazon and Walmart are currently offering the Sony PlayStation Classic micro-console for US $30, its lowest price ever. The console is pre-loaded with 20 original PlayStation titles but can be easily modded to load several other retro emulators. Sony has also cut prices on controllers and several games.

No special coupon needed for this one, but there is limited stock. B&H has discounted the top of the range version of the Alienware 17 R5 heavily. Grab the 17.3-inch gaming laptop while you can at US$1,450 off its retail price.

Atari's VCS game console is now available for pre-order from Atari, Walmart, and GameStop. The console starts at US $249 and comes in a two models with three different designs (depending on retailer). Walmart and GameStop are expected to ship pre-orders in March 2020.

Socket AM4 has proven to be hugely successful for AMD primarily due to the compatibility it offers with all Ryzen CPUs to date including the new Ryzen 3rd generation processors. AMD says that the AM4 socket will continue for the foreseeable future until there is a major inflection point in the platform.

The design of the RX 5700 has received a mixed response online with its squashed housing. AMD seems proud of its design though and has announced a 50th Anniversary edition of the Desktop GPU to celebrate being half a century old. It is more than just a paint job though.

As expected, AMD introduced the 16-core 32-thread Ryzen 9 3950X at E3 2019. The Ryzen 9 3950X offers HEDT-level performance for mainstream gamers and content creators with a boost clock of 4.7 GHz and a TDP of 105W. AMD also showed off some performance numbers for the 3950X that can give quite a complex for Intel's HEDT offerings.

The Intel Gen11 GPU is also expected to outperform the Radeon RX Vega 10 by 4 percent and 11 percent in Rocket League and World of Tanks, respectively. Since Ice Lake-U laptops have yet to launch, however, AMD still has the chance to update its drivers to try and close the narrow performance gap.

Confirmed specifications and expected MSRPs for the Ryzen 3 3200G and Ryzen 5 3400G have apparently been leaked. The latest APUs from AMD may not be as spectacular as their Ryzen 3000 desktop CPU AM4-series counterparts, but they come at very attractive price points and are based on AMD’s Zen+ microarchitecture and feature tweaked Vega graphics technology.

Bethesda is asking gamers to sign up for a beta test program for DOOM 2016 on iOS. The program is designed to test Bethesda's new Orion framework for game streaming. Selected users will be able to stream DOOM 2016 on their iOS devices free of charge later this year.

Just ahead of AMD's Next Horizon E3 2019 keynote, gaming benchmarks of the Radeon RX 5700 XT have leaked online in what appears to be an official slide from the presentation. Dubbed 'the best GPU for 1440p gaming', the RX 5700 XT seems to be ahead of the RTX 2070 in most games. However, the dual 8-pin power connector of the reference card does raise some eyebrows.

Microsoft has announced that it is bringing a remastered version of Age of Empires II to PC this fall. The new version celebrates the 20th anniversary of the famous real-time strategy game and is newly presented in 4K Ultra HD and features remastered audio as well.

Microsoft announced a new Xbox Game Pass for PC at its E3 2019 keynote that offers curated games for PC gamers for just US$10 a month. The company also announced a new Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription that brings together Game Pass for console, Xbox Live Gold, and Game Pass for PC for a combined price of just US$15.

Microsoft has teased an all-new instalment of its venerable Flight Simulator series and it looks absolutely breathtaking. The new version of the game is coming in 2020 and is powered by both GPS data and Microsoft's cloud-based Azure AI with native 4K support.

Microsoft has announced that its xCloud-based game streaming service will be arriving in October. The platform will allow Xbox One gamers to play the games they own anywhere, whether on PC, TV, tablet or smartphone in or out of the house.

Microsoft has launched its all-new Xbox Elite gaming controller at E3. The new Series 2 model offers 30 new features and improvements including introducing adjustable thumbstick tensioning for precision movement and control.

Nvidia’s Super range of graphics cards could soon be upon us and there has been some speculation about how much the new products could cost. Along with that, there is a rumor that the current GeForce RTX 20-series cards will receive price cuts to help make them more competitive in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Specifications for Radeon RX 5700XT, AMD's upcoming 7 nm Navi GPU, have leaked. 8 GB GDDR6 VRAM, over 9 TFLOPs of performance and a base clock higher than the boost clock of the Radeon RX 590. What more could a gamer ask for?

The mysterious Ryzen 9 CPU that beat the Intel Core i9-9980XE could well be the Ryzen 9 3950X, and its performance may be better than expected. 16 cores and a 4.7 GHz boost clock should whet most gamer's appetites.

Microsoft has been busy wowing the audience with its E3 2019 Xbox briefing. A lot of people will be very interested in what the company has got planned and will share in regard to the Xbox Scarlett console family. However, it seems some Xbox Scarlett devkit specifications have already been leaked, and they are not going to disappoint expectant fans.

The CBS-owned tech outlet has a beef with how YouTube gamers and influencers are "riling up the crowd" with their rants and negativity toward game publishers.

Microsoft has embedded Easter eggs in its Xbox E3 countdown videos that combine to form the RGB code for Scarlett, the codename for the next generation of Xbox consoles. Microsoft is expected to talk about Scarlett and also reveal 14 first-party games for the Xbox along with new developments on Windows 10 gaming and Project xCloud.

Nvidia has released a remastered version of the classic FPS Quake II designed to take advantage of its RTX series graphics cards. The new version of the game is the first in the world that is fully path-traced giving it unprecedented levels of lighting realism.

Slightly cooler, slightly quieter, slightly smaller, and slightly faster — the little things all add up for a more favorable experience on the Razer Blade 15.

The NVIDIA "Something super is coming..." video has been watched over 325,000 times in just over two weeks. Unfortunately, multiple sources have pointed towards the Super series being little more than a minor RTX 20 series refresh.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold has not been heard of officially for about a month now. However, a recent Korean news report has dropped hints that it may see an actual release in July 2019. While this cannot be confirmed outright, Samsung has also stated that it will hold an event later this month (June 2019) to announce the Galaxy Fold's real launch date.

The findings are based on 3DMark Fire Strike averages taken from almost two dozen laptops equipped with GTX and RTX Max-Q graphics. The Turing series is better optimized for newer DX12 games where the performance benefits are much greater.

Fans of gaming smartphones will be pleased to learn that Asus is prepping a sequel to its first ROG Phone. The ROG Phone 2 is expected to land in July, around 12 months after the original debuted, and will being with it updated internal specs including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855.

Sega released the full list of games that will be on the Sega Genesis Mini console, which is set to release in September. The list includes 42 classic 16-bit Sega games, exactly twice as many games as the SNES Classic Edition. There is a good mix of recognizable classics and hidden gems.

To celebrate an event in which more information on its first cloud gaming platform was released, Google has prepared a "Stadia Founder's Edition". It consists of a Stadia Controller in an exclusive Night Blue colorway and a Chromecast Ultra. It may help play the range of Stadia titles that were confirmed today.

The latest Insider's Preview version of Windows 10 (Build 18912) has updated from 19H1 to 20H1. This preliminary OS fixes some bugs found in its predecessor, but may also be associated with some new ones. It also adds a new ability for Windows Narrator: the ability to read and relay the URLs behind click me-type links.

Since Sony is not going to present anything at E3 2019, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan went ahead and revealed a few more PlayStation 5 features to hype up the fans until the official announcement scheduled later this summer. The rumored custom SSD is now confirmed to be the default storage option, while the 7 nm AMD hardware will offer support for 4K @120 Hz, and there will also be a "cross-generational play" feature.

Ampere was initially rumored to launch as the RTX 2000-series in early 2018, but sources now confirm that this new architecture will be featured in Nvidia's 2020 GPUs. No details regarding differences between Turing and Ampere for now. Interestingly enough, the Ampere GPUs will be manufactured by Samsung on the 7 nm EUV node, as TSMCs 7 nm foundries appear to have been overbooked by Apple and AMD.

Dragon Quest Walk, an adventure AR game in the same vein as Pokemon Go, was announced earlier this week. Though details are sparse, the game seems to have players travel to real-world locations to battle monsters from the Dragon Quest universe. The title is set to release only in Japan for iOS and Android.