Gaming

Unveiled earlier this year at CES 2019 and still expected to hit the market, the EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti KINGPIN Hybrid graphics card has recently topped the 3DMark Portal Royal benchmark thanks to a massive overclock — 2.7 GHz core and 17 GHz memory — that resulted in a bandwidth of over 750 Gbps.

Qualcomm has successfully pressed its latest legal complaint against Apple in a San Diego court. Its jury has ruled that the Cupertino company did in fact use 3 patents that did not belong to it in the making of its 2016-2018 iPhones. Qualcomm can now collect the US$31 million that, as it asserts, Apple needs to pay for this infringement.

Xiaomi's new gaming phone, so far known as the 'Black Shark 2', has been listed by the online retailer JD.com. Although this page does not reveal its price, it allows potential buyers to reserve a unit ahead of its launch date (March 18, 2019). At this point, the final cost of the phone will presumably be revealed.

AMD has announced that the Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.3.2 installation package is ready for download. The package includes various fixes and support for games, and it is currently available for Windows 10 64-bit and Windows 7 64-bit (with SP1 or higher).

Dell has revealed the Alienware S5000 gaming chair on its website. The racing-style chair is currently available for pre-order and has a listed price of US$399.99. The S5000 is brimming with adjustable parts that should help make any hardcore gamer’s life more comfortable. Dell has also announced that the Area-51m RTX 2080 BIOS update is now ready to download.

These two 17.3-inch MSI and Asus gaming laptops are in direct competition with each other with the same Core i7-8750H CPU, same RTX 2070 GPU, and even the same retail price of $2200 USD. We go over the pros and cons of each model to see which one is right for you.

AMD could be planning on some serious product discounting soon. A Gigabyte Radeon RX Vega 56 GAMING OC 8G card has been priced at a very tempting US$279.99 on Newegg for limited time sales, and there has been an RX 590 Special Edition card from Sapphire available from the same retailer for US$219.99 – the same price as the cheapest new Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 cards.

Nvidia has officially announced the GeForce GTX 1660 graphics card, the latest addition to the company’s GTX 16-series. Like the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, the new product is based on Turing architecture and comes at the competitive price point of US$219, depending on provider. The GTX 1660 offers 1408 CUDA cores and a boost clock of 1785 MHz (base: 1530 MHz).

Since consoles can't keep up with the hardware developments, the future of gaming might involve streaming setups. Google already provides the best broadband infrastructure in the U.S., plus the company just finished the beta tests for its "Project Stream," and it also hired a few well-known gaming industry names, so all the signs are there.

Intel's latest updates for the Linux DRM kernel driver and coreboot reveal the upcoming Comet Lake CPUs that appear to be a 14 nm refresh of last year's Coffee Lake models. There will be ULV, mobile and desktop variants with up to 10 cores that are expected to be launched in mid-2019, before the anticipated 10 nm Ice Lake family.

Intel has kept its huge lead over AMD in Steam’s survey for processor usage. The blue team has even managed to slightly increase its share in systems utilizing a Windows OS, but AMD has taken a nibble out of Intel’s share on machines operating on Linux. Steam users have also shown a preference for high-end chips.

Leaked driver support information has given away some details about the little-known Intel Elkhart Lake SoC. According to the development work, the system-on-a-chip will come with the support of Intel’s Gen11 integrated GPU. The Gen11 has already appeared in some benchmarks, which apparently show it closing the gap between iGPUs and (entry-level) discrete GPUs.

A rumored launch date of August has been reported for the upcoming 7 nm Navi GPU series. The highly anticipated hardware from AMD has been surrounded in mystery, with details and specifications being comparatively thin on the ground. However, it seems Navi could be upon us right after AMD has finished with its Ryzen 3000-series launch.

The Oculus Rift virtual reality headset has been surveyed as the most popular VR hardware utilized by Steam users. The rival headset from HTC, the Vive, also has a commanding share of users, but it has seen the gap between itself and the Oculus Rift widen over the last month. Also getting a worthy mention is Windows Mixed Reality, which can be utilized by owners of Microsoft HoloLens smartglasses.

Steam has published its hardware and software survey for February 2019, and once again Nvidia dominates the PC video card usage charts. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070, 2080, and 2080 Ti have all enjoyed growth over the month. However, the RTX 2060 graphics card doesn’t even feature in the chart at all. The GeForce GTX 1060 is still the most used GPU in the survey.

Although Windows 7 still controls a noticeable share in the desktop market, many gamers were forced to upgrade just to fully enjoy various DirectX 12 titles. However, the latest update for World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth — patch 8.1.5 — is the first title to bring full DirectX 12 support to Microsoft's outdated operating system.

Microsoft is bringing back Halo to PC after 12 years since the last ported title. The new Halo: Master Chief Collection will be released on the Windows 10 Store, as well as the Steam platform and will include all 6 FPS titles of the franchise. Microsoft is also adding PC-specific features like seamless mouse and keyboard controls with remappable key bindings, plus support for different FOVs, resolutions and aspect ratios.

AMD has announced the availability of the Radeon RX 560 XT graphics card for just the Chinese market. The GPU bridges the wide gap between the Radeon RX 560 and RX 570 and offers a base clock of 973 MHz and a boost clock of 1073 MHz. The card comes with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory.

An Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation benchmark score for a supposed Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 graphics card has been reported. According to the result, the upcoming GPU managed to score 4200 points. It’s rumored the latest addition to Nvidia’s GeForce 16-series of graphics cards will be released on March 14.

Some new images of the upcoming GeForce GTX 1660 graphics card have found their way online. Various models from Gigabyte and EVGA are represented in the latest leak, although there is some speculation that the example from Gigabyte is possibly a fake or a hastily edited render of the GTX 1660 Ti due to a memory error spotted on the box.

Even after brushing off the handful of crashes and stability issues, being able to play one of the most demanding PC titles available on an otherwise low-power Ultrabook is a real treat. The performance-per-dollar is still extremely unfavorable leaving this solution appropriate for enthusiasts only.

War Thunder 1.87 "Locked On!" is a massive update to Gaijin Entertainment's popular vehicular combat title and — just like its predecessors — has a suggestive name. The game now features French helicopters, new cruisers, rank VII ground vehicles, advanced supersonic jets, complex radar systems, and more.

Dataminers have been busy exploring the code for Apex Legends, and it seems there could be some interesting developments coming soon for the battle royale hit. NPCs could be making an appearance in the game, as could flamethrowers. Arguably the most-exciting rumor for Titanfall fans is the possible introduction of wall-running.

Since 3D glasses have mostly been replaced by VR headsets and TV makers already removed all 3D features from their products, Nvidia has decided that its 3D Vision tech is not cutting it anymore. The last driver to support this technology will be released with the GeForce Game Ready suite this April.

Xiaomi doesn't plan on giving up on its Black Shark gaming phone series anytime soon, and the company is set to release another iteration, the Black Shark 2. The Black Shark 2 appeared on AnTuTu a few days ago, with the listing giving us a better idea of what to expect from the third-gen device.

Some companies have developed transparent displays to the point where they may be the immediate future of head-mounted, heads-up and state-of-the-art shopfront technology. A new analysis has shown that their market may be worth US$2.591 billion by 2023. This market will be made up of see-through OLEDs and LCDs in a range of display sizes.

Jay Frechette, the Community Manager for Respawn Entertainment, has shared information about the company’s battle against cheaters, specifically in the smash-hit battle royale game Apex Legends. Apparently, over 355,000 players have already been banned from the PC version, and the game developer is busy working on additional methods to combat cheating.

Microsoft has recommended that Windows 10 users suffering from problems with graphics or mouse performance degradation in certain games should uninstall the latest update for the ubiquitous operating system. KB4482887 was rolled out for “quality improvements” but has ironically affected quality in a number of crucial areas.

References to an unknown AMD GPU, AMD 66AF:F1, have popped up in the CompuBench benchmark site leading to speculation that this could be one of the Navi SKUs. From the initial numbers, we get to see that this GPU offers improved numbers in several memory-intensive compute tests over the Vega 56 but still trails behind the Vega 64. However, this GPU does seem to have significant leads over the Vega 64 when it comes to graphics performance.

Anthem, the new action RPG game from BioWare, is apparently causing hard crashes on PlayStation 4 consoles. A growing number of gamers are taking to both Reddit and Electronic Arts’ Answers HQ to complain about issues with PS4 shutdowns while playing the game. Apparently, the critical bug is also affecting PC users and Xbox owners, too.

Some renders of a game controller based on a patent application made by Google have been met with considerable derision by the online community. Although the renders themselves have been expertly created, the majority of the negative comments have been aimed at Google’s actual design. The tiny analog sticks, the wide handles, and the ergonomics have all been singled out for criticism.

Some images of MSI variants of an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 graphics card have been leaked, along with alleged specifications, pricing, and release date. The non-Ti version of the Turing-based 16-series card will have slightly higher base and boost clocks than the GTX 1660 Ti, but it will have lower memory bandwidth due to the use of GDDR5 memory. It is expected to launch on March 14 at a price of US$219.

The Ryzen 5 3550H and Ryzen 7 3750H are comparable to the Intel Core i5-8300H. It's up to laptop makers now to pair these Zen+ processors with Nvidia GPUs for potentially cheaper prices than the usual Intel-Nvidia offering.

Although Nvidia mightn’t have sold as many RTX 20-series GPUs as it would like, it is still running rings around its chief competitor, AMD. The latest analyst estimates show that for every 4 GPUs Nvidia sells AMD only sells one.

The POWKIDDY X18 is a cheap Android handheld games console that features a 5.5-inch touchscreen along with numerous physical controls including two joysticks, a d-pad and Y, B, A and X buttons. The X18 has a 5,000 mAh battery, while its design may remind you of some Japanese handheld games consoles...

An alleged video of Firestorm, the battle royale mode for Battlefield V, has been uploaded to YouTube. The clip is configured as an introduction and tutorial, showing off the huge battleground and the numerous weapons and vehicles that will be at a player’s disposal. Firestorm is expected to be officially revealed soon, possibly even within the next couple of weeks.

Hong Kong-based manufacturer Manli has announced two new variants of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card. The Manli GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and Manli GeForce GTX 1660 Ti Gallardo both come with twin cooling fans and two composite copper heatpipes. The Gallardo variant of the card is overclockable.

In a new blog post, Nvidia has highlighted that players of battle royale games like Fortnite, PUBG, and Apex Legends can improve their kill-death ratio by a considerable percentage by utilizing a graphics card from the RTX 20 series, especially the GeForce RTX 2070, RTX 2080, and RTX 2080 Ti.

Thanks to the latest update for the PlayStation 4 and the addition of an officially supported app in the Apple App Store, the PS4's Remote Play is now available on compatible iOS devices. However, since iOS doesn't natively support the PS4's DualShock 4 controllers, gamers will have to resort to on-screen controls or a supported third-party solution.

A thin majority - 52% - of all households with broadband connections in the US now watch content that can be found, bought or sourced online on their connected TVs. These findings have been reported by Parks Associates. They have also discovered that this activity is now more popular among such households compared to other leisure pursuits - even gaming.

Multiple new entries for the same device - a 'blackshark AAA' - have appeared on the Geekbench 4.3 database. They are all powered by the same SoC, which is likely to be the Snapdragon 855. Interestingly, all but 2 of the 10 listings specify 12GB of RAM.