Two weeks before Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth launches on PC, Square Enix shared an updated list of the full specifications to run the game at minimum, recommended, and ultra settings. Square Enix also recommended that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth players use a high-end graphics card with 12GB to 16GB of video memory to play the game using a 4K monitor. View the full article
Overwatch 2 is finally returning to China on February 19, with a technical test opening up for fans on January 8. After over two years, Overwatch 2 players in China will finally get to catch up on all the heroes, game modes, and other features from the 12 seasons they missed while their servers were unavailable. View the full article
Microsoft is introducing significant changes to Game Pass, including new ways for players to earn points and the addition of Quests for PC Game Pass. These changes are aimed at fostering “age-appropriate gaming experiences,” which means Game Pass Rewards will be available only to players 18 years and older. View the full article
Image: Acer Acer is announcing two new Nitro Blaze gaming handhelds at CES 2025, and one of them, the Nitro Blaze 11, is truly giant with a massive 10.95-inch screen. Seriously, it’s huge — just look at this photo of a person holding it! It’s absurd! Image: Acer [/url] In addition to that enormous screen — which is a 144 Hz WQXGA touch display that can top out at 500 nits of brightness — the Nitro Blaze 11 is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 8040HS processor, 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and up to 2TB of storage, according to a press release. The Nitro Blaze 11 also has detachable controllers, a built-in kickstand, Hall Effect joysticks, and two back buttons. (The original Blaze, announced last year with a 7-inch screen, lacked back buttons.) Image: Acer The Nitro Blaze 11 with its controllers removed. Acer’s other new handheld PC, the Nitro Blaze 8, is mercifully smaller, with an 8.8-inch screen. It has many of the same specs as the Nitro Blaze 11, though it lacks the detachable controllers and built-in stand. Both new Blazes will be available in Q2 2025, Acer says. The Nitro Blaze 11 will start at $1,099.99, while the Nitro Blaze 8 will start at $899.99. View the full article
Image: AMD AMD is unveiling its latest flagship desktop CPU, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, today at CES. After the 9800X3D wowed us with its gaming performance, we’ve been waiting to see what AMD’s second generation of 3D V-Cache technology could do with more cores and higher boost frequencies. AMD is now claiming the 9950X3D will be “the world’s best processor for gamers and creators.” The 9950X3D includes 16 Zen 5 CPU cores (32 threads), a max boost frequency of 5.7GHz, and 144MB of total cache. It has a higher TDP over the 9800X3D at 170 watts instead of 120 watts, but this extra power appears to translate to big improvements in creator benchmarks and gaming. Image: AMD AMD’s benchmarks against Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K. AMD says the 9950X3D should be around 8 percent faster on average than the previous 7950X3D, based on benchmarks run on 40 games at 1080p. The gaming performance should be similar to the 9800X3D, with AMD claiming it’s within 1 percent. AMD even claims the 9950X3D is 20 percent faster than Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K in those same games, but Intel is about to deliver a performance update for the 285K that could close that gap. In content creation tasks, the 9950X3D should be around 6 percent faster than the 7950X3D in Premiere Pro tasks and around 13 percent faster in Photoshop. On average, AMD says the 9950X3D will be 13 percent faster for creator tasks than the 7950X3D, based on 20 apps tested. The big claim from AMD is that the 9950X3D will be 10 percent faster than Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K, something that could make the 9950X3D an easy pick for anyone wanting great desktop and gaming performance in a single CPU. AMD is also launching a Ryzen 9 9900X3D processor with 12 cores (24 threads), a 5.5GHz max boost, 140MB of cache, and a 120-watt TDP. Much like the 9800X3D, both of these new X3D chips use the second generation of AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology that sees the cache now sit below the processor cores. This change allows the processor cores to have better access to cooling, and the cache is now less sensitive to high temperatures, allowing the CPU to boost to higher frequencies and deliver better performance in both gaming and creator tasks. AMD says both the 9950X3D and 9900X3D will be available at some point in March, but it’s not detailing pricing just yet. AMD is also announcing new “Fire Range” mobile CPUs today, which are the latest X3D-series laptop parts. You can read more about the flagship 9955HX3D laptop chip and other mobile-focused AMD announcements right here. View the full article
Image: AMD AMD is previewing its next generation of GPUs at CES today, based on its latest RDNA 4 architecture that includes AI-powered FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 (FSR 4) upscaling. The Radeon RX 9070 XT and Radeon RX 9070 will both be available in Q1 from a variety of video card manufacturers, but AMD isn’t detailing specifications, pricing, or exact release dates just yet. The announcement is light on concrete information. AMD says it has built this architecture from the ground up and that the GPUs built on RDNA 4 will include “a significant boost in AI.” AMD has optimized the compute units in RNDA 4, improved its ray-tracing engine and performance, and upgraded its media encoding quality. Built on a 4nm process, the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 cards will include AMD’s second-generation AI accelerators, third-generation ray-tracing accelerators, and second-generation radiance display engine. Image: AMD AMD is only providing small details about its RDNA 4 architecture. This RDNA 4 architecture will also enable AMD to launch FSR 4 with these 9000-series GPUs. FSR 4 is a machine learning-powered update to AMD’s upscaling and frame-generation technology that’s been developed specifically for RDNA 4 and its dedicated AI accelerator hardware. That means you’ll only be able to get FSR 4 with a Radeon RX 9070-series graphics card right now, and it will be supported in games with FSR 3.1 already integrated. Matt Booty, president of game content and studios at Microsoft, appeared on stage at AMD’s CES keynote earlier today to confirm FSR 4 will be available in Call of Duty: ****** Ops 6 later this year. AMD hasn’t hinted at how FSR 4 will compare to Nvidia’s DLSS technology or what type of performance uplift or image quality improvement we should expect to see with this next generation of FSR. It’s also not clear exactly what performance the RX 9070 series of GPUs will deliver against the competition, but in a branding slide for RDNA 4, AMD appears to suggest the 9070 series will offer similar performance to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4070 Super. Nvidia is expected to announce its RTX 50-series GPUs later today. Image: AMD FSR 4 will use dedicated AI accelerators on next-gen GPUs to upscale games. AMD is also adding new AI-powered features to its Adrenalin software. These include the ability to generate images with AI models, summarize local documents, and ask an AMD chatbot questions about graphics settings and more. If you’re wondering why AMD has jumped from the Radeon 7000 series straight to 9000-series GPUs, the company says it will use the 8000-series branding for RDNA 3.5 mobile GPUs. AMD is only previewing FSR 4 at CES and promises to provide more details on the upscaling technology and its latest RDNA 4 GPUs ahead of the Q1 launch. View the full article
Image: Dell Dell has made its latest UltraSharp 4K monitors more attractive to PC gamers by doubling the previous generation’s 60Hz refresh rate. The 27-inch and 32-inch 4K UltraSharp Thunderbolt displays announced at CES have been updated with new IPS panels that provide 120Hz refresh rates alongside features designed to enhance visual comfort. The UltraSharp line is a popular choice for working professionals who need a no-frills 4K monitor that supports Windows, macOS, and multi-monitor setups — the 27-inch model in particular tops a lot of lists for best 4K monitor. 120Hz refresh rates are usually targeted toward gamers who can benefit from higher frame rates and smoother, more responsive gameplay, which now makes the 27-inch UltraSharp 4K in particular a decent solution for people who want a single display that’s suitable for both work and play. The improvements come at a cost though: the 27-inch UltraSharp 4K is increasing to $699.99 (up from $639.99 for the 60Hz model), and the larger 32-inch UltraSharp 4K now costs $949.99 (up from $919.99). Both will be available to buy globally starting February 25th, according to Dell. Image: Dell Here’s a look at what the new 32-inch Dell UltraSharp 4K monitor looks like from the front. Dell introduced several 120Hz monitors to the UltraSharp lineup in 2023 and 2024, but this is the first time that the popular 27-inch 4K model has seen a similar refresh rate boost. Other improvements for the new UltraSharp 4K models include up to 140W power delivery via USB-C (up from 90W), and a 3,000:1 contrast ratio, thanks to its use of “enhanced IPS ****** technology” that provides 47 percent deeper ******* compared to conventional IPS panels, according to Dell. The prior version of IPS ****** offered a 2,000:1 contrast ratio. A comparison showing improvements in contrast ratio can be seen in this YouTube video. Image: Dell Besides some changes to the port selection and a new ventilation grill, the new UltraSharp 4K monitors look visually similar to the previous models. Dell says the monitors include an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts brightness and color temperature to help reduce eye fatigue. Otherwise, the 27-inch and 32-inch 4K UltraSharp share near-identical designs with their predecessors. The new models include VESA DisplayHDR 600 and ports for USB-A, USB-C, Thunderbolt 4, HDMI, and DisplayPort, with ventilation grills now surrounding the ports located on the back of the monitors. View the full article
Strix Halo is here. | Image: AMD AMD promised eventual “mobile gaming dominance” back in 2022, and it feels like we’re getting closer every day. Today, the company is announcing not one, not two, but three different families of chips designed to take it there, including final confirmation of the long-rumored “Strix Halo” and “Fire Range” laptop chips. The former is now known as the Ryzen AI Max and Ryzen AI Max Plus, boasting the most powerful graphics AMD’s ever put in a chip, with up to 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units, 16 Zen 5 CPU cores, and a new memory interface with 256GB per second of bandwidth. AMD claims the highest-end AI Max Plus 395 has over 1.4x the graphics performance and 2.6x the 3D rendering performance of Intel’s highest-end Lunar Lake chip, the Intel Core 9 288V — and enough power to frequently beat Apple’s M4 Pro MacBook Pro. As you can see in the chart above, not all AI Max parts are equal — but they all consume up to a monstrous 120W of power, making them most suitable for machines that’ll be plugged in and / or docked. HP will offer a Z2 Mini G1a desktop and a ZBook Ultra G1a laptop, while Asus will offer the ROG Flow Z13 gaming tablet with the new parts. Fire Range, meanwhile, is AMD’s codename for its new HX- and X3D-series laptop parts, which don’t come with their own groundbreaking integrated GPUs but are designed to be paired with discrete ones. They do, however, contain the new version of its flagship gaming laptop chip with the 3D V-Cache that’s been so popular for boosting frame rate in AMD’s desktop chips. Previously only available in the 7945HX3D, the new 9955HX3D has the same incredible 144MB of cache, though there are a couple of lower-end parts, too: AMD is also announcing two new X3D desktop chips today, declaring that it now has a CPU that’s “the world’s best processor for gamers and creators.” You can read more about the new Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D here. Last and possibly least are AMD’s Z2 Extreme chips for handheld gaming PC competitors to the Steam Deck, which, strangely, raise the low-end TDP up to 15W from just 9W with previous-gen parts and each contain a different generation of GPU: RDNA 3.5 on the Z2 Extreme, RDNA 3 on the Z2, and RDNA 2 on the Z2 Go. Image: AMD AMD hasn’t yet offered any concrete idea of performance from its Fire Range or Z2 chips, or of battery life from any of these chips in its prerecorded briefing for journalists, though it did promise the Z2 will offer “more performance and capabilities than prior generations” and with “hours and hours of battery life.” View the full article
A prominent Marvel Rivals leaker has shared new details about The Invisible Woman's ability kit in the popular hero shooter. The Invisible Woman, otherwise known as Sue Storm, is one of four new characters coming to Marvel Rivals in Season 1: Eternal Night Fall. She will be joined by the rest of The Fantastic Four, which includes Mister Fantastic, Human Torch, and The Thing. View the full article
Dell has just unveiled two new business-oriented UltraSharp displays that use LG's latest version of its IPS LCD panel technology called IPS ******. Thanks to this panel tech, the Dell UltraSharp U2725QE and U3225QE boast native contrast ratios of 3,000:1, which is triple what a typical IPS panel provides and 50% higher than previous generation IPS ****** panels. This brings a new level of depth and richness to their image that means even though they're not really meant as such, these could be tempting Dell gaming monitor options for some buyers. With the explosion in popularity of OLED gaming monitors, it's no surprise that when we asked Dell at the unveiling of its new UltraSharp displays whether the new IPS ****** panels were intended for gaming, they said they weren't as such. However, while OLED is clearly the best gaming monitor choice for purely gaming, there are still several reasons why many buyers might want to stick with an LCD screen, and given these new displays can hit 120Hz while delivering their stunning 3,000:1 contrast, these could be the ideal choice for some. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Run an RTX 5090 gaming GPU on nearly any laptop or handheld thanks to Asus Lenovo Legion Go 2 is official and it's using the AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme Acer's newest Steam Deck rival is enormous with Nintendo Switch like controllers View the full article
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The AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme is official. AMD has taken the wraps off its highly anticipated handheld gaming CPU that is potentially set to power future versions of the Asus ROG Ally, and Lenovo Legion Go, and it looks set to bring big gains in gaming performance and battery life. However, despite the Steam Deck appearing in a slide to announce the new chip, a Valve developer has said the Z2 won't be used in a future Steam Deck. The new CPU is a follow-up to the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme, which is already used to power the Asus ROG Ally X and Lenovo Legion Go, and it looks as though future handhelds are now about to become a whole lot more powerful. While it looks as though the new chip won't be used in the Steam Deck 2, though, there's nothing to stop other companies making SteamOS handhelds using the Z2. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT gaming GPU is finally here to take on the RTX 5070 AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D gaming CPU unveiled, 20% faster than Intel Core Ultra 285K AMD Ryzen AI Max Strix Halo announced as PS5-beating gaming laptop CPU View the full article
The days of Dell Inspiron, Latitude, Optiplex, XPS, and more are over as Dell has ditched the lot in favor of a vastly simplified new naming scheme. From now on, all its products will fall under just three main categories: Dell, Dell Pro, and Dell Pro Max. As a maker of some of the best gaming PCs and best gaming laptops around, Dell is one of the biggest names in PCs. However, its products have long had a confusing mass of product names. Its this legacy that the company is looking to shed, but while the new naming convention seems pleasingly simple and straightforward at first, the company has actually made this rather confusing in some ways, at least based on the reaction from media and other attendees of the company's announcement. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: AMD Ryzen Z2 Extreme announced as future Steam Deck processor Alienware debuts stunning new 27-inch, QD-OLED, 4K gaming monitor The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT gaming GPU is finally here to take on the RTX 5070 View the full article
AMD presented their CES 2025 Keynote today to announce multiple new processors with a few bits of exciting news there. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Freedom Wars Remastered showcased its gameplay and new additions in a trailer recently released by Bandai Namco. In addition to its enhanced visuals, the action RPG has modified the game's balance, added a new difficulty level, and updated various other features. Freedom Wars Remastered launches on January 10 for PS4, PS5, Switch, and PC. View the full article
2K has permanently discontinued online services for WWE 2K23. The game, which was released for consoles and PC in March 2023, was delisted from digital marketplaces in November 2024. And 2K announced last September that the title would be “getting its final takedown” when its servers went offline on January 6, 2025. Read More... View the full article
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a multiplayer game that has players fighting both Tyranids and other players in various modes. However, those PvE and PvP modes can be frustrating to join, as many players focus heavily on one class and have to drop from a lobby if that class is taken. The matchmaking process seems to be problematic where that is concerned, but there is one way to fix it. View the full article
The rumored Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion remake may be in active development, according to a developer's LinkedIn page. A remake or remaster of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion has been hinted to be in the works for some time, with a number of recent leaks seeming to corroborate its existence. View the full article
Image: Net Ease Games With the Marvel Rivals train firmly on its way, it’s time to start the game’s first official season. In a short trailer, Marvel Rivals developer Net Ease has announced that season 1 begins later this week on January 10th. According to the trailer, season 1 features the arrival of Dracula who plunges New York City into eternal night by *checks notes* teaming up with Dr. Doom to tamper with the moon’s orbit. (Hey, it’s a comic book game, weird nonsensical stuff is supposed to happen.) Apparently Dracula has imprisoned Dr. Strange in a pocket dimension and has also unleashed a horde of vampires because messing with the moon just wasn’t enough. To fight against this nefarious plot, Rivals will add four new characters to the game’s roster — The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic, and The Thing — the hero collective known as The Fantastic Four. Throughout the week leading up to season’s launch, players will be get a first look at the new heroes and their abilities starting January 7th. The addition also has a bit of synergy with the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe as The Fantastic Four movie starring Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby releases in July of this year. Season 1 Kickoff Awaits! Join Emiru, xQc, and their creator friends for a thrilling sneak peek of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman! Tune in live on January 7th at 2 PM PST. Don't miss the action! Catch the streams here: xQc: [Hidden Content] Emiru:… [Hidden Content] — Marvel Rivals (@MarvelRivals) January 6, 2025 Marvel Rivals appears to be scratching the hero shooter itch reminiscent of the early days of the original Overwatch. Developer Net Ease announced that the game has surpassed 20 million players shortly after the free-to-play game’s launch in early December. View the full article
Fortnite has a massive roster of stylish skins to choose from which means you can essentially play as anyone you want whether it be your favorite celebrity or a wacky original character. There are also lots of iconic superheroes you can unlock including many DC Comics characters. DC Comics skins are some of the toughest ones to get since many of them haven’t been seen in years. While not all of them are guaranteed to return, most of them can still be obtained which means you need to know how to get every DC Comics skin in Fortnite so you can be ready to grab them as soon as possible. View the full article
Nearly two years ago, AMD announced its first Ryzen Z1 processors. These were essentially the same silicon that AMD was putting in high-end thin-and-light laptops but tuned specifically for handheld gaming PCs like the Steam Deck and Asus ROG Ally X. As part of its CES announcements today, AMD is refreshing that lineup with three processors, all slated for an undisclosed date in the first quarter of 2025. Although they're all part of the "Ryzen Z2" family, each of these three chips is actually much different under the hood, and some of them are newer than others. The Ryzen Z2 Extreme is what you'd expect from a refresh: a straightforward upgrade to both the CPU and GPU architectures of the Ryzen Z1 Extreme. Based on the same "Strix Point" architecture as the Ryzen AI 300 laptop processors, the Z2 Extreme includes eight CPU cores (three high-performance Zen 5 cores, five smaller and efficiency-optimized Zen 5C cores) and an unnamed RDNA 3.5 GPU with 16 of AMD's compute units (CUs). These should both provide small bumps to CPU and GPU performance relative to the Ryzen Z1 Extreme, which used eight Zen 4 CPU cores and 12 RDNA 3 GPU cores. Read full article Comments View the full article
AMD's batch of CES announcements this year includes just two new products for desktop PC users: the new Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D. Both will be available at some point in the first quarter of 2025. Both processors include additional CPU cores compared to the 9800X3D that launched in November. The 9900X3D includes 12 Zen 5 CPU cores with a maximum clock speed of 5.5 GHz, and the 9950X3D includes 16 cores with a maximum clock speed of 5.7 GHz. Both include 64MB of extra L3 cache compared to the regular 9900X and 9950X, for a total cache of 144MB and 140MB, respectively; games in particular tend to benefit disproportionately from this extra cache memory. But the 9950X3D and 9900X3D aren't being targeted at people who build PCs primarily to game—the company says their game performance is usually within 1 percent of the 9800X3D. These processors are for people who want peak game performance when they're playing something but also need lots of CPU cores for chewing on CPU-heavy workloads during the workday. Read full article Comments View the full article
Air strikes. Sticky grenades. Homing missiles. A macho dude wearing shades. It all sounds very Call of Duty, if you ask me. However, this is actually a description of the new Valorant agent, Tejo, who will be kicking off 2025 as the tactical shooter's 27th character. Act 1 of this year's brand new season also introduces a totally new cosmetic type called a Flex, which will let you taunt and flaunt in a fresh way with a focus on "spamability." Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: With Valorant's help, this AI VTuber just beat a massive Twitch world record Best Valorant crosshair codes used by pros in 2025 LoL and Valorant esports teams can soon partner with betting platforms View the full article
Marvel’s fantastic universe of heroes and villains contains a mixture of original characters, along with several inspired by mythology, and several of them, including Dracula, can be found in the popular hit Marvel Rivals. Dracula exists in the Marvel universe alongside other mythological and literary figures, similarly to Norse gods Odin, Thor, Hela, and Loki, or Greek gods like Ares, or Zeus and his demigod son Hercules, though his existence may be a surprise to those who aren’t well-versed in Marvel just yet. View the full article
A Disney Dreamlight Valley player successfully proved that a hidden code from Hades' Friendship Quest can be redeemed for in-game rewards. Disney Dreamlight Valley often offers limited-time codes with new patch releases, but only a handful remain permanently active. View the full article
The story in Hogwarts Legacy is quite short, or at least shorter than expected given the scope of the game. While completing absolutely everything will take a fair amount of time, the actual main story is only about 25 hours. The game then depends on players wanting to do a fair amount of exploration to get their time investment on the game in, which is a little unfortunate. View the full article
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Microsoft is introducing significant changes to Game Pass, including new ways for players to earn points and the addition of Quests for PC Game Pass. These changes are aimed at fostering “age-appropriate gaming experiences,” which means Game Pass Rewards will be available only to players 18 years and older. View the full article