Gaming

SilentiumPC has announced its latest Midi Tower, the Armis AR7X TG RGB. The case costs around £125 (~ US$161) and includes tempered glass panels along with four Sigma HP Corona RGB 120 mm fans and enough space for up to 420 mm long GPUs.

The latest layoffs should help the company refocus its strategies. CEO Bobby Kotick admitted that Activision Blizzard underperformed in Q4 2018 and a new business plan needs to be implemented for 2019. Thus, the company will try to focus more on its major franchises and bring in more developers to help with this endeavor.

Those who missed the private beta stage of Ubisoft's upcoming title The Division 2 can join the open beta, which is scheduled to begin on March 1. Sadly, the open beta will only run for three days and the trial will end on March 4. The game will launch on March 15 on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

Despite its critical and commercial failure, the PlayStation Classic may be an attractive retro gaming device, especially given Walmart's latest price cut. The PlayStation Classic can be found at Walmart for a mere $40, 60% less than its original retail price. Additionally, those willing to hack or modify their PlayStation Classic may find the mini-console to be a suitable emulation box.

Reddit has just secured a large-scale investment in the form of round D funding to the tune of US$300 million. Tencent - a company whose home nation has blocked the social media platform - has contributed 50% of this figure. The move has sparked speculation that Reddit's new part-ownership may lead to adversity such as increased censorship on the popular website.

Razer has notified us that it has investigated a number of issues impacting a limited number of retail Blade Stealth units. If you're experiencing any of the following, then this new BIOS and EC update should do the trick.

A press release from Dell published in early January stated that the Dell XPS 15, Alienware m15, and Dell G7 15 laptops would be offered with OLED panel options starting in March. Unfortunately for those waiting to snap up a Dell laptop with this type of display, company executive Frank Azor has now stated that April is the current target.

2019 could be the year when the Smach Z handheld Windows gaming device finally becomes reality. Smach is still trying to hype things up, as it recently updated the official site with new prices and specs, plus it added a few videos showing various gaming sessions. There is no specific 2019 launch date mentioned, so delays may still occur.

Market intelligence analyst Sensor Tower has estimated that Fortnite has amassed over US$500 million in revenue in less than a year on iOS alone. The battle royale smash hit from Epic Games has been making about US$1.53 million a day since it was released on the App Store. Android gamers have contributed another US$100 million on top of that.

The GPU in the Razer laptop has a 22 percent faster base clock rate than the same GPU on the Gigabyte Aero 15 X9. The result? Consistently faster gaming performance on the Razer Blade 15 by 10 to 15 percent.

A new piece in Bloomberg has cited sources allegedly close enough to Activision Blizzard to allege that the gaming company will let "hundreds" of staff go. The firm is apparently taking this action to maximise profits and to "centralize functions". An announcement to this effect is expected on February 12, 2019.

AMD has released its final financial report for 2018. It shows that the company had made nearly US$6.5 billion for this year, which is a 23% increase compared to 2017. The company also claims to have posted a net income of $337 million, whereas it had made a net loss the previous year. Analysis has also shown that AMD has increased its share of server and PC markets.

Thanks to the votes of The Steam Community members, PUBG is now holding the Game of the Year Award for 2018. However, CD PROJEKT RED, the Polish company behind the successful Witcher franchise, was crowned as The Best Developer. PUBG competed for this prize against Monster Hunter World, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Hitman 2, and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

Respawn Entertainment’s Vince Zampella has posted some news on the Electronic Arts website to share information about how the new battle royale game Apex Legends is doing. Apparently, over 10 million people have now tried the game within its first 72 hours of release. Apex Legends is set in the Titanfall universe.

The first reviews for the 7 nm AMD Radeon VII GPU are out and they all seem to give an impression that AMD has managed to take the fight to the RTX 2080's pavilion. With a whopping 16 GB of HBM2 VRAM and a 1 TB/s memory bandwidth, the Radeon VII seems to focus more on raw power and compute performance versus niceties such as ray tracing or AI supersampling. Is the added power enough to move past the RTX 2080? The initial reviews seem to say, not just yet.

Previous rumors about launch supplies of 5,000 units might not be too far off, as new sources cite very limited Radeon VII availability at least for Europe. Overclockers UK cite 100 units available for Great Britain, while France and Spain would be getting only 20 units each. The reasons for reduced allocations seem to be the Lunar Year celebration in China and AIB partners not having enough time to come up with custom cards.

Last December, the steep depreciation of Nvidia's stock complicated the company's predicament to the point where its largest investor threatened to sell its entire stake. It looks like the green team could not convince the investor to keep its stake, and SoftBank went ahead completing the sale of shares worth US$3.6 billion in January.

Zotac has introduced the Zbox Magnus EC52070D, which is a new, and compact desktop PC. The company has made a few compromises to pack such a powerful GPU within a small form-factor case, but it remains a powerful pre-built system that has plenty going for it.

Unleashed upon Windows and macOS gamers earlier today, World of Tanks 1.4 brings a few wheeled vehicles to the French tech tree, a reworked map (Ghost Town), new tweaks to the Personal Missions, a few buffs to the Object 279 Early and Chimera special tanks, concurrent rendering support, and other changes.

Microsoft Studios has been renamed Xbox Game Studios. The announcement was made by the corporate vice president of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty, in a news post on the Xbox website. The idea is to bring all Microsoft and Xbox gaming-related business under a single brand, which is made up of 13 game development studios.

It has been reported that around 7.3 million units of Battlefield V have been sold since it was released in November last year. EA’s stock price fell after the company announced a cut in its revenue outlook, but the price rose later in the day and closed at a higher price than the previous day. For Q3 FY19, EA reported total net revenue of US$1.289 billion.

Latest report coming from RBC analyst Mitch Steves presents Nvidia misinforming its investors about revenues recorded during the crypto boom of 2017. We're talking about over US$1.3 billion that were not attributed to GPU sold to crypto miners. The report also claims that AMD's revenues at that time only amounted to US$234 million, which is unusual to say the least, as the Radeon cards were more efficient back then.

A 47 percent boost in performance with no loss in image quality seems almost too good to be true. Nvidia DLSS puts deep learning and AI to good use for gamers who may not yet be sold on the capabilities of ray-tracing.

Vince Zampella, one of the founders of Respawn Entertainment, has announced that the new battle royale game Apex Legends has broken the one million unique players mark in under eight hours. The impressive feat is testament to a combination of the genre’s popularity and the huge Titanfall fanbase. Apex Legends is set in the Titanfall universe.

NVIDIA has announced the release of a new GeForce Game Ready driver that brings support for new RTX laptops and also improves performance in the 3DMark Port Royal benchmark. 3DMark Port Royal has now added DLSS support, which offers a nice performance boost and improved image quality. The latest Game Ready 418.81 driver can be downloaded via the GeForce Experience app or directly from NVIDIA's website.

Wang Teng Thomas, Xiaomi’s product director, has written a post on Weibo indicating that a follow-up to the 2018 Black Shark Helo is on the way. The executive claimed to have seen this phone in the flesh, describing it as "too fast". However, no further details on this next-gen gaming device were discussed.

Microsoft has been receiving praise for the Xbox Adaptive Controller commercial that was shown this Super Bowl Sunday. The clip, which was called “We All Win,” gives some children with disabilities the opportunity to speak about their love of video gaming. The Microsoft device helps users create customized controllers, giving the kids an opportunity to “crush my friends” as one pleased young gamer admits.

Nvidia GTX Pascal gaming laptops are now at their cheapest for gamers on tight budgets. Get an Asus Zephyrus with GTX 1080 Max-Q graphics for $1650 or almost the same price as a brand new MSI GL73 with an RTX 2060 GPU.

A new game based in the Titanfall universe is expected to be announced and released on February 4, but apparently it won’t be a sequel to the critically praised Titanfall 2 title. The battle royale-style game is called Apex Legends, and it will be free to play and feature loot crates and microtransactions, but it won’t feature any Titans.

An image of an AMD Radeon VII graphics card being tested has been uploaded to TweakTown’s Twitter account. Clearly the photo is being used as a teaser for the site’s upcoming benchmarks for the much-anticipated GPU from the red team. LegitReviews has also announced that tests are underway on the world’s first 7nm gaming graphics card.

Contrary to previous rumors, it looks like Nintendo is ready to release a smaller and more affordable Switch version that may come with fewer features, possibly ditching the TV Dock altogether. Design-wise, a smaller frame would most likely mean smaller screen and side-controllers, as well. Additionally, Nintendo is rumored to launch a new online service with more classic titles.

The Intel Core i9-8950HK represents the top of the line, but users with tighter budgets can opt to get one of the variants sporting Core i5-8300H / i7-8750H / Xeon E-2176M CPUs. All models may be equipped with up to 32 GB of DDR4-2666 RAM and up to 1 TB of NVMe SSD storage, plus there is room for a 2.5-inch HDD as well. With a standard issue CPU cooler, these mini PCs will be anything but quiet.

HP is currently promoting a deal that will give gamers a chance to properly test out a system that includes an Nvidia GeForce 20 series GPU. The manufacturer is giving away either Battlefield V or Anthem with qualifying PCs that have an RTX 2070, while both titles can be obtained for free if an RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 Ti gaming desktop computer is purchased.

Get your next Asus GeForce RTX gaming laptop from Cukusa.com and save a few bills in the process. We plan on reviewing each of these systems in the coming weeks to see how much of a performance gain users can expect if upgrading from the Pascal generation and if other characteristics like battery life or fan noise are impacted.

This article provides a comprehensive list of laptops that feature the newly announced NVIDIA "Turing" GeForce RTX 2080 GPU. The RTX 2080 comes in both Max-Q and non-Max-Q variants and is expected to perform better than the "Pascal" GTX 1080. This list will be updated as and when new laptop models featuring the RTX 2080 are announced.

This article provides a comprehensive list of laptops that feature the newly announced NVIDIA "Turing" GeForce RTX 2070 GPU. The RTX 2070 comes in both Max-Q and non-Max-Q variants and is expected to perform similar to the "Pascal" GTX 1080. This list will be updated as and when new laptop models featuring the RTX 2070 are announced.

This article provides a comprehensive list of laptops that feature the newly announced NVIDIA "Turing" GeForce RTX 2060 GPU. The RTX 2060 is currently available as a non-Max-Q variant and is expected to perform similar to the "Pascal" GTX 1070. This list will be updated as and when new laptop models featuring the RTX 2060 are announced.

Samsung has been pushing for foldable devices in the past year, but it looks like the company is also considering the gaming handheld market. This latest patent is consistent with what was revealed about the Flex display in late 2018. What is interesting about this patent is the lower edge of the device that folds upwards to reveal gaming buttons like a directional pad and six buttons.

Jumping from the GTX 1080 to the RTX 2080 will cost users an extra $250 USD. Eurocom is proving that the MXM form factor is here to stay even in the face of Dell's proprietary DGFF solution for the Alienware Area-51m.

Although it cannot match the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 in Final Fantasy 15 — a title that features some technologies exclusive to the RTX series — the AMD Radeon VII appears to be a much better choice for 4K gaming, scoring higher than its competitor in the Fire Strike Ultra benchmark. The Radeon VII will hit the market on February 7.

The Wii Shop Channel finally closed its doors today, marking the end of Nintendo's first digital distribution platform. The Shop Channel was home to the Virtual Console, Nintendo's massively successful digital storefront that housed a myriad of retro titles. The Shop Channel's closure also sounds the final death knell of Nintendo's most popular non-handheld console, the Wii.

Check here to see how much of a performance gain you can expect over the GTX 1060, 1070, and 1080 Pascal series if you purchase a rand new laptop with GeForce RTX 2060, RTX 2070, RTX 2080, RTX 2070 Max-Q, or RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics.

The new MateBook 13 has an unlikely competitor because of its full-power 25 W GeForce MX150 GPU. It's unquestionably faster than the average Ultrabook, but can it beat the $1600 Razer Blade Stealth?

Prices for RTX 2060 laptops are reasonable, but be prepared to pay well over $2000 for anything with an RTX 2070 GPU. As expected, both MSI and Asus have the widest selections of RTX laptops available.

TSMC confirmed that around 10,000 wafers were compromised, but the Taiwanese company has yet to make an official statement about the full extent of the damages and the exact circumstances of the incident. The unfortunate event could create AMD / Nvidia GPU shortages and artificial MSRP increases in the coming months.

The mobile versions of Fortnite (those that work on the Android and Apple platforms) now allow the use of Bluetooth controllers rather than on-screen controls. This new level of support comes with the 7.30 patch update, which also adds the 60Hz support for select Android devices. It also offers the Chiller grenade, a new, seasonal, ranged weapon.