Just a few days after LG announced its CES 2025 lineup of monitors, Samsung is doing the same. The company just introduced several new models, and perhaps the most impressive among them is the Odyssey OLED G81SF. It’s a 27-inch 4K monitor with a maximum refresh rate of 240Hz, 0.03ms response time, a glare-free display, and rear-core lighting with 52 color options. Samsung is also including a number of burn-in protection measures to ensure that the Odyssey G81SF’s screen looks pristine for years to come. The G8 is likely to be using the latest and greatest OLED panel from Samsung Display.

 

Next up is the Odyssey OLED G60SF — also a 27-inch OLED monitor — with a QHD resolution and an impressive 500Hz refresh rate that Samsung says effectively “eliminates lag and motion blur for ultra-smooth gameplay during critical moments.”

 

In 2025, Samsung is also finally shipping the Odyssey 3D monitor it first teased at least year’s CES. It lets you experience 3D visuals without any special glasses by using a lenticular lens on the front panel. “Eye tracking monitors the movement of both eyes using a built-in stereo camera, while view mapping continuously adjusts the image to enhance depth perception,” Samsung said in its press release. The Odyssey 3D only comes in a 27-inch 4K size; the larger 37-inch display mentioned last year has apparently been scrapped. The company says it offers “a rapid 1ms gray-to-gray response time, and a 165Hz refresh rate.”

 

Samsung’s Smart Monitor series is making the switch to OLED.

Image: Samsung

 

That does it for the gaming-focused monitors, but Samsung is also announcing two others that are more focused on everyday productivity. The SmartMonitor series is finally going OLED with the new Smart Monitor M9. And this year, Samsung is throwing in a ton of AI capabilities including AI Picture Optimizer. Like on its TVs, this feature “analyzes input signals to determine the type of content being viewed — such as gaming, video, or productivity applications — and automatically adjust the display settings for the best visual experience.” This also works for gaming and can detect the genre of what you’re playing.

 

AI Upscaling Pro can make lower-res content look crisper at the M9’s 4K resolution, and the monitor has a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz. That’s a significant upgrade from the M8, which topped out at 60Hz. Samsung says moving to OLED also allows for a new “ultra-slim” design for the Smart Monitor M9 that should take up considerably less desk space.

 

The last monitor being announced (at least for today) is the new 37-inch ViewFinity S8. It’s got a 16:9 aspect ratio, built-in KVM switch, 90W USB-C passthrough charging, and covers 99 percent of the sRGB color gamut. Peak brightness for this 4K LCD display tops out at 350 nits, which should be perfectly suitable for anything you’ll be doing at a desk.

 

Pricing and release dates are still to come, but The Verge will be in Las Vegas for CES 2025 in a matter of days. So you won’t have to wait much longer for some first-hand impressions of Samsung’s new monitors.

 

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The search giant released many new products, features, and changes in the generative AI space. Let's recap major Google Gemini features and changes introduced throughout the year. In your free time, check out various products and services Google discontinued in 2024 and the Instagram features wishlist.

Note: The list is not exhaustive and may not include all the Gemini features released in 2024.

Renaming Bard chatbot to Gemini

One of the biggest changes we saw earlier this year was Google rebranding Bard to Gemini, bringing the naming scheme in sync with its pre-existing Gemini models. The company also tagged the freshly-baked Gemini 1.0 Pro model along with it and introduced Gemini in over 40+ languages and 230 countries globally.

A Google engineer later revealed "Why Gemini is called Gemini" and said that the AI model has a two-fold meaning behind its name. Its ability to handle different data types aligns with the dual-natured personality of the Gemini zodiac sign. The name also draws inspiration from NASA's early moonshot program called Project Gemini.

Mobile apps, paid version of Gemini, support for Chromebook Plus

Google also introduced the Gemini app for Android in February, eventually replacing Google Assistant as the default voice assistant for Android. At the time, iOS users could access the Gemini chatbot via the Google app.

In the same month, the search giant launched a paid subscription for its AI chatbot called Gemini Advanced, which gives users access to the most capable Gemini models, such as Gemini Ultra 1.0, 1.5 Pro, and experimental stuff such as Gemini-Exp-1206.

Furthermore, it brought various Gemini features, such as "Help Me Write," to the Chromebook Plus laptops, accessible via a dedicated Gemini button on the home screen app shelf.

Support for Google Maps

The capabilities of the Gemini AI chatbot can be enhanced with the help of Gemini extensions. In March, Google updated Gemini with support for Google Maps, allowing users to issue commands to trigger navigation from within the chatbot.

For instance, you can issue commands like "Navigate me to [X]," Gemini will display data such as distance, estimated time, and a link to Google Maps. The navigation will automatically start after a few seconds.

Vids

As the name suggests, Vids is a new Gemini-powered video creation tool Google launched in April this year to easily create training videos, presentations, updates, or marketing content. It offers a timeline-style user interface to assemble video assets from Google Drive or elsewhere, record voiceovers, or film yourself directly from the app.

You can collaborate with others and control who can edit, comment, or view your videos. Note that Google Vids is part of the Workspace suite and is a paid offering.

YouTube Music extension

Another add-on for the chatbot was a new YouTube Music extension in May. It allows Gemini users to connect YouTube Music with the chatbot to search their favourite songs, play radio, discover new artists and playlists, and more.

Gemini version updates and new models

The year 2024 saw several updates to Gemini models as well. Gemini 1.5 Flash was introduced in May as a lightweight LLM, which excelled "at summarization, chat applications, image and video captioning, data extraction from long documents and tables, and more."

This was followed by a smaller variant of 1.5 Flash (known as Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B); a new Gemini 1.5 Pro model with improved coding and complex prompt performance; and a new Gemini 1.5 Flash model with significant improvements.

Last month marked the debut of Gemini 2.0. Google announced the experimental Gemini 2.0 Flash model with support for natively generated images mixed with text and steerable text-to-speech (TTS) multilingual audio.

Ask Photos assistant

Google I/O 2024's limelight might have shadowed the Ask Photos assistant for Google Photos announced at the conference. The digital assistant powered by Gemini AI models can be used to pull photos/videos from your gallery, generate personalized captions, explain what's going on in them, or create trip highlights after a vacation.

Expanding Gemini to the education sector

In May, Google also expanded Gemini for Workspace into the education sector by introducing two new add-ons: Gemini Education and Gemini Education Premium. The latter allowed access to features like AI-powered note-taking and summaries in Meet and AI-enhanced data loss prevention.

Gemini side panels for Workspace apps

Google's pursuit of putting its AI chatbot everywhere possible paved the road for Gemini side panels for Workspace apps. In June, the search giant launched Gemini side panels for its web apps, including Google Docs, Slides, Drive, and Gmail.

The side panels are customized according to the app. For instance, Gemini in Gmail can summarize emails, suggest responses, and summarize email threads. Meanwhile, it can generate new presentation slides in Google Slides and create custom images.

In November, the Gemini side panel was also added to Google Chat. Like other apps, it can summarize conversations and save users from the pain of reading the entire thing.

Gemini Live

In August, Gemini Live was launched at the Pixel hardware event to give smartphone users a natural conversation experience with the AI chatbot. You can talk to Gemini like a normal back-and-forth chat, leave the conversation at any time, and continue it later.

You can also continue the discussion with Gemini while the app is in the background or your phone is locked. Gemini Live was initially included with Gemini Advanced, but now it's available through the Gemini app on Android and iOS. The feature was later expanded to add support for over 40 languages.

Custom Gems for Gemini

Custom Gems lets you create versions of the Gemini chatbot tailored for specific use cases. For instance, you can brainstorm ideas for an upcoming event, remember detailed instructions, or create a learning coach.

The premium feature was rolled out to Gemini Advanced, Business, and Enterprise users in over 150 countries. You can go to the Gem manager to access pre-made gems or create new ones by clicking the "+ Add Gem" button and typing its purpose and goal.

Imagen 3 and Whisk image generator

Google's highest-quality text-to-image model, Imagen 3, was launched in October following its announcement earlier this year. The latest image generation model works with Gemini apps for users in all supported languages.

Imagen 3 better understands natural language and the intent behind the prompt. Users can write prompts to generate photorealistic landscapes, textured oil paintings or whimsical claymation scenes, and issue subsequent commands to refine it further.

Earlier this month, Google used Imagen 3 to power a new generative AI tool called Whisk, which takes images as input to generate new images.

Gemini in Opera browser, Snapchat integration

Opera joined hands with Google Cloud to leverage Gemini's capabilities for its in-browser AI known as Aria, which already utilizes the power of multiple large language models (LLMs). The partnership brought Google's text-to-voice and image generation capabilities to the Opera browser.

Meanwhile, Snapchat was another third-party platform that gained access to Gemini's features in 2024. The social media giant partnered with Google to make the My AI chatbot smarter than before and offer a multimodal experience. The search giant claimed that Gemini's integration with My AI improved user engagement within the US by 2.5x.

Deep Research

If you use Google's generative AI chatbot for extensive research sessions, a new AI-powered assistant called Deep Research can help with your exploration. It is designed to cut down hours of research by doing in-depth document analysis, document summarization, and pulling key insights from large amounts of information.

Note that Deep Research is a part of Gemini Advanced (a paid offering) and is available in over 45+ languages in 150+ countries globally.

Natural language search in Google Maps

In a new update to its navigation app, Google added a Gemini-powered search feature to Google Maps. In other words, you can type natural language queries in the Google Maps search bar. For instance, you can find new places by typing "things to do with friends at night." The chatbot creates summarized reviews about places you read to get an idea about them.

Play songs from Spotify

Not just YouTube Music, Gemini also added support for the rival music streaming app Spotify. The AI chatbot can play Spotify music on your Android device without the need for any app-switching.

You can use the Gemini chat interface to request songs, browser playlists, and search for music through lyrics, among various features. However, you need a Spotify Premium account for the integration to work.

Gemini controversies

It's not just new features, Google's generative AI chatbot has landed in several controversies as well. In February, Gemini's image generation feature was in hot waters after showing bias in generating images of people. As a result, the image generator was temporarily halted, and Google had to explain the unexpected behavior.

An X user claimed Gemini summarized a PDF file automatically and without explicitly being asked to, noting that the required setting was already disabled.

Another report claimed that Google hires contractors to rate Gemini's responses based on qualities like accuracy, clarity, and safety and compare the responses with those from Anthropic's LLM Claude. The contractors noticed similarities between the responses from the two platforms. While comparing models isn't uncommon, the report didn't receive a satisfactory response from Google.

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The top award has been taken by Black Myth: Wukong, with it beating Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl, and Balatro. The Game Science-developed title has also taken the Best Game You Suck At and Outstanding Story-Rich Game awards from the list too.

As for other awards, God of War: Ragnarok and Helldivers 2 have taken Best Game on Steam Deck and Better With Friends awards, respectively, both from Sony's camp.

One of the interesting winners is Liar's Bar, which has taken the Most Innovative Gameplay award this year. The Steam community also chose the recent PC release of Red Dead Redemption as the game with the Best Soundtrack.

Here are all the awards and their winners:

• Game of the Year: Black Myth: Wukong
• VR Game of the Year: Metro Awakening VR
• Labor of Love: Elden Ring
• Best Game on Steam Deck: God of War: Ragnarok
• Better With Friends: Helldivers 2
• Outstanding Visual Style: Silent Hill 2
• Most Innovative Gameplay: Liar's Bar
• Best Game You Suck At: Black Myth: Wukong
• Best Soundtrack: Red Dead Redemption
• Outstanding Story-Rich Game: Black Myth: Wukong
• Sit Back and Relax: Farming Simulator 25

Only a Steam account is required to nominate and vote in Steam Awards, meaning users do not need to own the games for which they are voting.

Check out how these winners stacked up to The Game Awards 2024 selections by heading here. Don't forget that Valve revealed what games took home the most money in 2024, too, with titles like Black Myth: Wukong and Helldivers 2 also appearing there.

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January 1, 2025 (Happy New Year everyone)

Video length: 24m 42s

Gaming Monitors can be confusing and it is EASY to overspend... today we talk about Monitor technology and what should and SHOULDN'T matter to you!

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New Copilot+ PCs performance details just dropped. Microsoft updated a post this week that compares Copilot+ PCs to MacBooks and that explains how Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon processors stack up against other systems. The Copilot+ PC performance details webpage has been around for months, but it only discussed Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs until recently. It now shows details about Copilot+ PCs with Intel and AMD chips as well.

Microsoft has an uphill battle when it comes to selling Copilot+ PCs. Many people don't know what a Copilot+ PC even is, and the fact that the best AI PCs and the best Copilot+ PCs roundups aren't identical lists doesn't clear things up. Additionally, Copilot+ PCs were exclusively Snapdragon PCs for much of this year, but the Copilot+ PC designation now refers to some Intel and AMD devices as well. Even that rollout can be confusing to everyday users since some features are only in testing for Intel and AMD-powered Copilot+ PCs.

Only had a 0.8% market share of PCs sold in Q3 of 2024 and just 720,000 PCs sold in that quarter had Snapdragon X chips. Things will likely get better in that category as new chips come out and more app developers embrace Arm computing, but the rollout of Intel and AMD-powered Copilot+ PCs should buoy the entire Copilot+ PC platform significantly.

AMD and Intel Copilot+ PCs

Like the current N processor lineup, all four Twin Lake processors will feature four or eight efficiency cores (no P-cores to retain their low TDP between 6 and 15W) based on the Alder Lake architecture, which debuted in the 12th-generation Intel Core chips. The main difference between the two Intel N lineups is turbo clock speeds and higher GPU clocks.

The N355, N350, and N250 chips have an extra 100 MHz to their turbo clocks, while the bottom-end N150 model enjoys a more hefty 200 MHz boost. As for the graphics, Intel reportedly increased the clocks from 1.25 GHz to 1.35 GHz in the N355 and N350 models, while the N250 and N150 were bumped from 750 MHz to a more impressive 1.25 GHz and 1 GHz, respectively.

@jaykihn0, who posted the specs on X, also added that, like with the Alder Lake N processor, Intel does not plan to RMA any Twin Lake N-based products that exceed their rated TDP. These chips are intended for systems with light loads, so Intel will wash its hands in case something goes wrong when pushing these products beyond their rated capabilities.

Source: @jaykihn0 on X

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Bluesky saw a massive surge in users in 2024. The social media platform has become one of the primary destinations for those leaving X (formerly Twitter). This year, 22.9 million people signed up for Bluesky. Over half of those new users (over 13 million) joined the platform in just the last month and a half.

Those figures come courtesy of Bluesky's 2024 in Review piece, which went up just before the end of the year. In that blog post, Bluesky highlighted other milestones, such as the platform transitioning from invite-only to being open to the public. "At launch, Bluesky had an early community of 3M people. One week later, over a million new users had signed up," said Bluesky.

2024 also saw Bluesky meet its goal to implement federation, which makes an interconnected social network possible. As a result, people can run personal data servers rather than relying on Bluesky's infrastructure.

This time one year ago, Bluesky provided a bare-bones experience. This year the platform added support for hashtags, direct messages, video sharing, and trending topics. Those are all standard features on major social media platforms, so rolling them out was important to make Bluesky a viable alternative to sites like X.

Bluesky also shipped support for starter packs in 2024. That feature, which is surprisingly unique, allows people to create a list of accounts to follow. For example, we have a Windows Central starter pack that includes all our members of staff that are on the platform.

With many leaving X or looking for a social media platform that's less toxic than X, Instagram, and Facebook, Bluesky gained millions of users. There are even a pair of third-party Bluesky apps on Windows 11 (Beeskie and DarkSky), as well as deck.blue site that has a similar interface to TweetDeck.

Below are all the new features from 2024 highlighted by Bluesky.

About a month ago, Taiwan based DigiTimes (translated), via Tom’s Hardware reported that China’s leading DRAM chipmakers Changxin Memory (CXMT) and Fujian Jinhua are dumping cheap DRAM chips in the market.

The DRAM market has 3 big names. South Korea based SK Hynix, Samsung and US based Micron. These three make the best memory chips in the world and have high market share. To counter that, the likes of CXMT has started selling DRAM chips at a 50% cheaper price than their South Korean counterparts. This especially applies to DDR4 RAM, causing an oversupply of it.

CXMT reportedly produced 70,000 wafers per month in 2022. This year, that figure has increased to 200,000 wafers per month and it wants to increase it further to 300,000 wafers per month. By doing this, it wants to capture above 10% of world’s DRAM market share. All this is thanks to the active support of the Chinese government through its policies and subsidies, allowing DRAM makers to ignore profits for now and concentrate on dominating both local and international markets.

Not only that, Chinese companies are trying to put their DRAM chips into RAM sticks made by Taiwanese companies and sell them to Indian markets to avoid public suspicion thanks to relatively bad recent geopolitical issues between both India and China in recent times.

The result of this is that the prices of DDR4 RAM have fallen by almost 10% this quarter. Because of it, South Korean DRAM chipmakers are now moving their production from DDR4 RAM towards DDR5 and HBM3. HBM3 is used mostly in AI hardware and these Chinese DRAM makers don’t have that big an expertise on it. Not to forget, making DDR5 RAM isn’t easy either, thanks to the requirements of higher expertise and restricted tech.

The long AI craze which ensured that RAM prices go up is now settling due to dumping on DRAM chips. Going forward, RAM prices are going to get even cheaper.

DRAM Chips To Become Cheaper Due To Lack Of Demand

Taiwan based TrendForce (via Tom’s Hardware) reports that DRAM is likely to become even cheaper in first quarter next year, that is 1Q25. This is due to low consumer demand and increased production of Chinese DRAM makers, allowing it to flood the market with low-priced DDR4 chips.

The PC DRAM market is going to see the biggest decrease in prices. The prices of DDR4 are expected to go down by 10-15% in 1Q25, whereas DDR5 will get cheaper by 5-10%. The server RAM market is expected to see a similar trend.

Mobile DRAM chips, which already saw 13-18% decrease in LPDDR4X and 5-10% decrease in LPDDR5X of prices in 4Q24, is expected to further see a decrease in 1Q25. The prices of LPDDR4X are expected to get cheaper by 8-13%, while LPDDR5X is likely to be cheaper by 3-8%.

It’s not DRAM alone which is expected to get cheaper. Even Graphics DRAM, that is VRAM, is expected to get cheaper. With current-gen GDDR6 expected to get cheaper by 8-13%, while next-gen GDDR7 likely to become cheaper by max 5%. But don’t expect graphics cards makers like Nvidia and AMD to give that benefit to the consumers. For two reasons. They (Nvidia) want to keep their high profit margins and two, they have likely signed a long time deal with VRAM makers. Means price decrease of graphics cards will only follow the usual trends, not anything unusual.

The reason for all this is simple, lesser demand of computers, mobiles, notebooks and datacenters worldwide. This has ensured that the prices go down everywhere.

Conclusion

As always, if the prices of products go down, it’s consumers that benefit, not the companies. Something that most people ignore is that balance of both is important, not as the cost of each other.

While it’s always the consumer which suffers due to the high costs of products, DRAM chips getting cheaper means that chipmakers aren’t going to like it. Take DDR4 RAM chips being dumped by China, for example. It has ensured that SK Hynix and Samsung reduce their production of DDR4 DRAM chips to maintain profitability.

DRAM is not a simple chip, either. It requires advanced production capabilities. Also, a badly made RAM stick can make the whole computer work badly. Though that’s mostly in the case of overclocked RAM. But still, don’t expect a guarantee of high quality chips from Chinese DRAM makers. So while consumers are going to benefit with this for sure, let’s not forget quality.

It’s not the RAM prices alone which is to be excited about. In the far future, we are likely to see DRAM chips being stacked on each other with 3D X-DRAM, allowing RAM sticks as large as 1TB. But in the near future, we might see an entirely new RAM form factor called CAMM2 coming to computers. Changing how RAM works in computers.

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It's the end of the year, which means it's time to look back on all the things that Microsoft makes that it now (or intends to soon) no longer make. Every year, Microsoft deprecates or kills a number of apps, services, brands, and devices, and 2024 was no different.

While this year wasn't as savage as 2023, there were still a whole bunch of things that Microsoft decided to end support for this year. Everything from the Surface Duo 2 and HoloLens 2 to Microsoft Start and Windows 11's Suggested Actions. Here's the rundown of all the Microsoft products that won't see the light of day in 2025.

Surface Duo 2

I'd describe myself as a skeptic of the generative AI revolution—I think the technology as it currently exists is situationally impressive and useful for specific kinds of tasks, but broadly oversold. I'm not sure it will vanish from relevance to quite the extent that other tech fads like the metaverse or NFTs did, but my suspicion is that companies like Nvidia and OpenAI are riding a bubble that will pop or deflate over time as more companies and individuals run up against the technology's limitations, and as it fails to advance as quickly or as impressively as its most ardent boosters are predicting.

Maybe you agree with me and maybe you don't! I'm not necessarily trying to convince you one way or the other. But I am here to say that even if you agree with me, we can all celebrate the one unambiguously positive thing that the generative AI hype cycle has done for computers this year: the RAM floor for many PCs and all Macs is now finally 16GB instead of 8GB.

Companies like Apple and Microsoft have, for years, created attractive, high-powered hardware with 8GB of memory in it, most egregiously in $1,000-and-up putative "pro" computers like last year's $1,599 M3 MacBook Pro or the Surface Pro 9.

This meant that, for the kinds of power users and professionals drawn to these machines, that their starting prices were effectively mirages; "pay for 16GB if you can" has been my blanket advice to MacBook buyers for years now, since there's basically no workload (including Just Browsing The Web) that won't benefit at least a little. It also leaves more headroom for future software bloat and future hobby discovery. Did you buy an 8GB Mac, and then decide you wanted to try software development, photo or video editing, CAD design, or Logic Pro? Good luck!

This wouldn't have been as big an issue in another era of computing, where people could add more memory after the fact if they discovered they needed it later. But soldered-down memory is the norm in most systems, which means paying whatever manufacturers want for RAM up-front, and that you need to guess how much RAM you'll need to stay happy with your system over its entire useful life. Some PC makers would also bundle RAM upgrades with CPU and storage upgrades, imposing hundreds of dollars worth of price increases on people who just wanted more memory. And as someone who has reviewed hardware for years, I'll tell you that the review samples we get from companies are basically never the entry-level models, helping to obscure the shortcomings of the cheaper versions.

AI to the rescue?

Microsoft's Copilot+ program was announced in May, with the promise of additional locally processed generative AI features that went above and beyond the Copilot chatbot that Microsoft has been pushing aggressively (and changing constantly) for the last two years. To meet the requirements for Copilot+ label and the marketing push behind it, PCs must have a recent high-end processor, at least 16GB of memory, and at least 256GB of storage. The flagship Copilot+ PC—Microsoft's Surface Pro X—has a higher starting price is higher than the Surface Pro 9's (at least when it's not on sale, which it currently is), but you can at least buy it confident that you'll get a decently capable and future-proof PC.

Apple's face-turn on the RAM question—its first bump to the Mac's base amount of RAM in 12 years—didn't come tied to any specific feature. All of the Apple Intelligence stuff that has been announced or released so far will work on Macs, iPads, and iPhones with just 8GB of RAM (one Xcode feature briefly required 16GB of RAM over the summer, but Apple dropped that requirement). But the across-the-board upgrade to 16GB came alongside the first wave of Apple Intelligence features, which were all featured prominently in all of Apple's marketing materials for the new models.

It does at least seem likely, then, that Apple is laying the groundwork for future AI-powered features that either work exclusively on Macs with more RAM, or work best on Macs with more RAM. Whatever the reason, something that had been a flat $200 upgrade to any Mac for years and years was suddenly included in the base price, lowering the prices for all other RAM upgrades by $200 as well.

The reason I like a RAM upgrade is that it's broadly useful even if you actively dislike generative AI and plan to try as hard as you possibly can to keep it off of your computers entirely. Adding a better GPU is of limited usefulness if you don't play games; making a CPU faster is likewise not super necessary if all you're doing is browsing or doing hobbyist-level content creation; adding an NPU to a system does basically nothing at all for the vast majority of users at this point. But adding more memory to your system will help with everything you do, even if you're just loading a bunch of basic-but-RAM-hungry web apps and modern webpages in a browser.

The 8GB-to-16GB bump doesn't fix things at the low end of the PC market, where most PCs still come with 8GB of memory (and some of the cheapest still come with 4GB). But it is now somewhat less likely that I will buy a $1,200 computer with the same memory capacity as a $500 computer. Given the proliferation of ads, spammy notifications, and other signs of endemic platform rot that Windows users in particular have been dealing with the last few years, I believe this is the kernel of good that comes with the pile of bad.

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LG isn’t waiting until CES begins to reveal its new collection of gaming monitors. The 2025 lineup is led by the UltraGear OLED Bendable Gaming Monitor, which LG claims is the “world’s first 5K2K-resolution bendable OLED display.” That strikes me as extremely specific, but hey, it’s always worth bragging when you’re first, I suppose. The 45-inch monitor has an expansive resolution of 5120x2160, so you’re getting the same vertical pixel count as a typical 4K screen but a much wider canvas to game on.

 

And with a 21:9 aspect ratio, LG believes it provides “a immersive gaming experience than standard 16:9 displays, while maintaining better content compatibility than 32:9 monitors.” This format also makes the display a great fit for productivity work when you’re not immersed in gameplay.

 

The UltraGear OLED Bendable Gaming Monitor (model 45GX990A) can transition from completely flat to a 900R curvature, and the latest version of LG’s Dual-Mode feature “allows users to switch effortlessly between resolution and refresh rate presets, and customize the aspect ratio and picture size.” It’s certified for Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, but the press materials don’t specify a maximum refresh rate. I’ve asked for more details there.

 

Both 45-inch monitors have a 5K2K resolution of 5120x2160.

Image: LG

 

LG is also releasing a non-bendable model with a permanent 800R curve. Otherwise, it’s the same 45-inch size, same aspect ratio, and same 5K2K resolution. LG’s press release says you can expect “sharp, lifelike images with the stunning colors and exceptional contrast LG OLED products are known for.” Shared specs between both monitors include a 0.03ms (GtG) response time and support for DisplayPort 2.1, HDMI 2.1, and USB-C with 90W power delivery. The 45GX950A uses a RGWB subpixel layout to improve readability of text on the screen and make the aforementioned productivity work easier on your eyes.

 

Along with these two monitors, LG is also introducing the curved UltraGear 39GX90SA, a webOS-powered “home entertainment hub” with easy access to streaming services — just like LG’s TVs. It seems like the company has taken some cues from Samsung’s smart monitors here. At 39 inches, this one’s a bit smaller than the other GX9 displays, but it retains the 21:9 aspect ratio and 800R curve. “Equipped with USB Type-C ports, it offers convenient connectivity, and incorporates LG’s ergonomic and space-saving L-shaped stand for a clutter-free desk setup,” LG said in tonight’s press release.

 

As per usual with CES news, pricing and a specific release date are still to come later in 2025. But we’ll be getting our first in-person look at the UltraGear GX9 series in Las Vegas, so stay tuned for impressions early next month — along with an avalanche of stunning screens from many other companies, too.

 

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Table of contents:

1. Windows 10 and 11 news
2. Windows Insider Program
3. Updates are available
4. Reviews are in
5. Gaming news

Windows 11 and 10

Here we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And of course, you may find a word or two about older but still supported versions.

Microsoft issued a warning that Windows 11 version 24H2 installations made with certain media, such as flash drives created between October 8 and November 12, might stuck in a non-serviceable state, unable to install any security updates. If you plan to clean-install Windows 11 version 24H2, make sure your media includes December 2024 security updates.

There are also scattered reports about Windows 11 22H2/23H2 December 2024 updates causing various issues with the Start menu, Wi-Fi, and more.

Windows 11 users who are not satisfied with the current state of the Start menu and taskbar can download the latest version of StartAllBack. This lightweight customization tool received an update to version 3.9, which brought new taskbar options and the ability to restore classic drive grouping in File Explorer.

Windows Insider Program

Nothing in the Windows Insider program this week due to the holiday season.

Updates are available

This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties.

In a surprise holiday announcement, Microsoft revealed that PowerToys Run is getting a major update. Version 2.0 is coming in 2025 with a reworked user interface, more powerful extensions, and other changes to supercharge the launcher.

WritingTools, a neat small app that uses Gemini 2.0 Flash to bring Apple Intelligence-like features to Windows users, received a big update with new summarization features, improved settings, a new default LLM model, and other improvements. The app is free and open-source, and you can download it from GitHub.

Remember the last week's story about Microsoft 365 apps losing their activation? Good news: Microsoft finally resolved all those issues. The engineering team deployed a patch to fix product activation with no action required from end users.

Other notable updates include the following:

• Microsoft plans to deploy in-house models to reduce its reliance on OpenAI for Copilot.
• PST support will be available for Outlook on Windows and Mac in 2025.

• Microsoft and OpenAI redefine the meaning of AGI with a focus on profits.

   

And here are the newest drivers released this week:

• Nvidia released a hotfix driver to resolve intermittent stutters in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

Reviews are in

Here is hardware and software we reviewed this week

This week, Robbie Khan reviewed a rather unconventional device for Neowin: an e-bike with an automatic gearbox and over 150 miles of electric range. There are some notable cons, so check out the ENGWE P275 Pro review here.

On the gaming side

Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts and more.

Following the Steam Replay 2024 recap for gamers, Valve published "Best of 2024," a list of games that made the most money on the platform this year. They include Counter-Strike 2, PUBG, Palworld, Elden Ring, Black Myth: Wukong, and others.

Electronic Arts reportedly rejected a Dead Space 4 pitch from Visceral Games earlier this year. However, there might be some hope for fans of the franchise as there are rumors that EA might consider Dead Space 4 or a Dead Space 2 remake from a studio other than Visceral Games.

Nvidia and its GeForce NOW streaming service finishes 2024 with three new games you can stream from the cloud. The latest additions include Headquarters: World War II (Steam), Supermarket Together (Steam), and Ys X: Nordics (Steam).

The Epic Games Store continues its daily giveaways, but if you want to find more deals and specials, check out this week's Weekend PC Game Deals issue.

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The Surface Laptop 7 is one of the best Windows laptops available right now.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

 

Microsoft is increasingly focusing on Windows AI features like Recall.

Image: Microsoft

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In just a few months from the time of this writing, Monster Hunter Wilds will be unleashed upon the world.

In this upcoming installment of Capcom's popular Monster Hunter series, players will embark on a perilous journey into uncharted lands to master new hunting gameplay mechanics and slay horrific new monsters. Preorders for the game have already gone live, with three editions (packed with differing amounts of content) to choose from.

To help you make an informed decision, we have rounded up all the information on every version of Monster Hunter Wilds available to preorder in one convenient place so you can more easily choose which one to purchase.

Monster Hunter Wilds' Physical Editions Vs Digital Editions

Goodnight Lightning.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Pictograms showing whether a charger is or is not included in the box. Although companies can choose their

own design, these icons will have to be shown for every relevant purchase.

Image: European Commission

A new pictogram will help buyers understand the charging characteristics of their new device. It will vary

slightly by manufacturer so long as it communicates the basics.

Image: European Commission

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What a year.

I'll hardly be alone in saying that 2024 has been a lot, with some fantastic games and amazing news mixed in with the frustrating and the incompetent alike. We saw developers reach the heights of their craft, putting together wonderful experiences that'll help define this decade. We also also saw mass cuts, layoffs, and short-sighted moves, the true damage of which won't really be known for years to come.

With the holidays here, as I take some time off to read, paint my figurines, and maybe play a game or two, I wanted to look back and reflect on some of the biggest stories that have defined this year, reflecting seriously out of the ordinary situations, cautionary tales, trends, and even a bit of hope for the future.

Here are five of the most interesting stories that defined the gaming industry throughout 2024:

5. Black hole games have a vice grip on players' time

Image: Atlus

Image: Playstack

Image: Team Asobi

Image: Capcom

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According to The Bell, Samsung had a near monopoly on producing Qualcomm's chips until 2021, when it produced the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Subsequent issues led Qualcomm to switch over to TSMC to Samsung's detriment.

Samsung put in a bid to produce the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 chip using its 3 nm process, but it is now reported that Qualcomm will still go with TSMC. With companies under more pressure to deliver for shareholders in more difficult economic conditions, Qualcomm likely doesn't want to take a chance on Samsung, given the issues it had in the past.

The Korean news outlet says that Samsung will try to get back into the game with the production of its Exynos 2500 chip, which will be available for high-end phones in 2025, possibly including the Galaxy Z Flip 7. If it does a good job, it could attract the likes of Qualcomm back.

Samsung is expected to put in a bid for the Snapdragon 8 Elite 3, which is scheduled for 2026. That chip, whoever produces it, will be made using the 2-nanometer process. Samsung's Taylor Foundry plant in the US will be focused on the 2-nanometer process and could begin operating as early as 2026, in time to take orders from Qualcomm if it opts to use Samsung.

Interestingly, while Qualcomm hasn't tapped Samsung for its projects in years, Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S25 lineup is suggested to be launching entirely with Snapdragon chips. The Galaxy S25 lineup is expected to be unveiled by Samsung at an upcoming Unpacked event in early 2025.

Source: The Bell via Jukanlosreve

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More than 18,500 games will have been released onto the PC gaming platform Steam in the year 2024, according to SteamDB. Dividing that by the number of people covering games at Ars, or the gaming press at large, or even everybody who games and writes about it online, yields a brutal ratio.

Games often float down the river of time to us, filtered by friends, algorithms, or pure happenstance. They don't qualify for our best games of the year list, but they might be worth mentioning on their own. Many times, they're better games then they were at release, either by patching or just perspective. And they are almost always lower priced.

Inspired by the cruel logic of calendars and year-end lists, I asked my coworkers to tell me about their favorite games of 2024 that were not from 2024. What resulted were some quirky gems, some reconsiderations, and some titles that just happened to catch us at the right time.

ConcernedApe; Basically every platform

After avoiding it forever and even bouncing off of it once or twice, I finally managed to fall face-first into Stardew Valley (2016) in 2024. And I've fallen hard—I only picked it up in October, but Steam says I've spent about 110 hours playing farmer.

In addition to being a fun distraction and a great way to kill both short and long stretches of time, what struck me is how remarkably soothing the game has been. I'm a nervous flyer, and it's only gotten worse since the pandemic, but I've started playing Stardew on flights, and having my little farm to focus on has proven to be a powerful weapon against airborne anxiety—even when turbulence starts up. Ars sent me on three trips in the last quarter of the year, and Stardew got me through all the flights.

Hell, I'm even enjoying the multiplayer—and I don't generally do multiplayer. My cousin Shaun and I have been meeting up most weekends to till the fields together, and the primary activity tends to be seeing who can apply the most over-the-top creatively scatological names to the farm animals. I've even managed to lure Ur-Quan Masters designer Paul Reiche III to Pelican Town for a few weekends of hoedowns and harvests. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Paul was already a huge fan of the game. And also of over-the-top creatively scatological farm animal names. Between him and Shaun, I'm amassing quite a list!)

So here's to you, Stardew Valley. You were one of the brightest parts of my 2024, and a game that I already know I'll return to for years.

— Lee Hutchinson

Grounded

Obsidian; Windows, Switch, Xbox, PlayStation

My favorite discovery this year has probably been Grounded, a Microsoft-published, Obsidian Entertainment-developed survival crafting game that was initially released back in 2022 (2020 if you count early access) but received its final planned content update back in April.

You play as one of four plucky tweens, zapped down to a fraction-of-an-inch high as part of a nefarious science experiment. The game is heavily inspired by 1989's classic Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, both in its '80s setting and its graphical design. Explore the backyard, fight bugs, find new crafting materials, build out a base of operations, and power yourself up with special items and steadily better equipment so you can figure out what happened to you and get back to your regular size.

Grounded came up because I was looking for another game for the four-player group I've also played Deep Rock Galactic and Raft with. Like Raft, Grounded has a main story with achievable objectives and an endpoint, plus a varied enough mix of activities that everyone will be able to find something they like doing. Some netcode hiccups notwithstanding, if you like survival crafting-style games but don't like Minecraft-esque, objective-less, make-your-own-fun gameplay, Grounded might scratch an itch for you.

— Andrew Cunningham

Ground Shatter; Windows, Switch, Xbox, PlayStation

I spent a whole lot of time browsing, playing, and thinking about roguelike deckbuilders in 2024. Steam's recommendation algorithm noticed, and tossed 2021's Fights in Tight Spaces at me. I was on a languid week's vacation, with a Steam Deck packed, with just enough distance from the genre by then to maybe dip a toe back in. More than 15 hours later, Steam's "Is this relevant to you?" question is easy to answer.

Back in college, I spent many weekends rounding out my Asian action film knowledge, absorbing every instance of John Woo, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Flying Guillotine, Drunken Master, and whatever I could scavenge from friends and rental stores. I thrilled to frenetic fights staged in cramped, cluttered, or quirky spaces. When the hero ducks so that one baddie punches the other one, then backflips over a banister to two-leg kick the guy coming up from beneath? That's the stuff.

Fights gives you card-based, turn-by-turn versions of those fights. You can see everything your opponents are going to do, in what order, and how much it would hurt if they hit you. Your job is to pick cards that move, hit, block, counter, slip, push, pull, and otherwise mess with these single-minded dummies, such that you dodge the pain and they either miss or take each other out. Woe be unto the guy with a pistol who thinks he's got one up on you, because he's standing right by a window, and you've got enough momentum to kick a guy right into him.

This very low-spec game has a single-color visual style, beautifully smooth animations, and lots of difficulty tweaking to prevent frustration. The developer plans to release a game "in the same universe," Knights in Tight Spaces, in 2025, and that's an auto-buy for me now.

— Kevin Purdy

Bethesda; Windows, Xbox

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind always had a sort of mythic quality for me. It came out when I was 18 years old—the perfect age for it, really. And more than any other game I had ever played, it inspired hope and imagination for where the medium might go.

In the ensuing years, Morrowind (2002) ended up seeming like the end of the line instead of the spark that would start something new. With some occasional exceptions, modern games have emphasized predictable formulae and proven structures over the kind of experimentation, depth, and weirdness that Morrowind embraced. Even Bethesda's own games gradually became stodgier.

So Morrowind lived in my memory for years, a sort of holy relic of what gaming could have been before AAA game design became quite so oppressively formalist.

After playing hundreds of hours of Starfield this year, I returned to Morrowind for the first time in 20 years.

To be clear: I quite liked Starfield, counter to the popular narrative about it—though I definitely understood why it wasn't for everyone. But people criticized Starfield for lacking the magic of a game like Morrowind, and I was skeptical of that criticism. As such, my return to the island of Vvardenfell was a test: did Morrowind really have a magic that Starfield lacks, even when taken out of the context of its time and my youthful imagination and open-mindnedness?

I was surprised to find that the result was a strong affirmative. I still like Starfield, but its cardinal sin is that it is unimaginative because it is derivative—of No Man's Sky, of Privateer and Elite, of Mass Effect, of various 70s and 80s sci-fi films and TV series, and most of all, of Bethesda Game Studios' earlier work.

In contrast, Morrowind is a fever dream of bold experimentation that seems to come more from the creativity of ambitious designers who were too young to know any better, than from the proven designs of past hits.

I played well over a hundred hours of Morrowind this year, and while I did find it tedious at times, it's engrossing for anyone who's willing to put up with its archaic pacing and quirks.

To be clear, many of the design experiments in the game simply don't work, with systems that are easily exploited. Its designers' naivety shines through clearly, and its rough edges serve as clear reminders of why today's strict formalism has taken root, especially in AAA games where too-big budgets and payrolls leave no room at all for risk.

Regardless, it's been wild to go back and play this game from 2002 and realize that in the 22 years since there have been very few other RPGs that were nearly as brazenly creative. I love it for that, just as much as I did when I was 18.

— Samuel Axon

Kertis Jones; Itch.io, coming to Steam

If you ask someone to list the most addictive puzzle games of all time, Tetris and Minesweeper will probably be at or near the top of the list. So it shouldn't be too surprising that Tetrisweeper makes an even more addictive experience by combining the two grid-based games together in a frenetic, brain-melting mess.

Tetrisweeper starts just like Tetris, asking you to arrange four-block pieces dropping down a well to make lines without gaps. But in Tetrisweeper, those completed lines won't clear until you play a game of Minesweeper on top of those dropped pieces, using adjacency information and logical rules to mark which ones are safe and which ones house game-ending mines (if you want to learn more about Minesweeper, there's a book I can recommend).

At first, playing Tetris with your keyboard fingers while managing Minesweeper with your mouse hand can feel a little unwieldy—a bit like trying to drive a car and cook an omelet at the same time. After a few games, though, you'll learn how to split your attention effectively to drop pieces and solve complex mine patterns nearly simultaneously. That's when you start to master the game's intricate combo multiplier system and bonus scoring, striving for point-maximizing Tetrisweeps and T-spins (my high score is just north of 3 million, but pales in comparison to that of the best players).

While Tetrisweeper grew out of a 2020 Game Jam, I didn't discover the game until this year, when it helped me clear my head during many a work break (and passed the time during a few dull Zoom calls as well). I'm hoping the game's planned Steam release—still officially listed as "Coming Soon"—will help attract even more addicts than its current itch.io availability.

— Kyle Orland

Digital Anvil; Windows

What if I told you that Star Citizen creator Chris Roberts previously tried to make Star Citizen more than two decades ago but left the project and saw it taken over by real, non-crazy professionals who had the discipline to actually finish something?

That's basically the story behind 2003's forgotten PC game Freelancer. What started as a ludicrously ambitious space life sim concept ended up as a sincere attempt to make games like Elite and Wing Commander: Privateer far more accessible.

That meant a controversial, mouse-based control scheme instead of flight sticks, as well as cutting-edge graphics, celebrity voice actors, carefully designed economy and progression systems, and flashy cutscenes.

I followed the drama of Freelancer's development in forums, magazines, and gaming news websites when I was younger. I bought the hype as aggressively as Star Citizen fans did years later. The game that came out wasn't what I was dreaming of, and that disappointment prevented me from finishing it.

Fast-forward to 2024: on a whim, I played Freelancer from beginning to end for the first time.

And honestly? It's great. In a space trading sim genre that's filled with giant piles of jank (the X series) or inaccessible titles that fly a little too far into the simulation zone for some (Elite Dangerous), Freelancer might be the most fun you can have with the genre even today.

It's understandable that it didn't have much lasting cultural impact since the developers who took it over lacked the wild ambition of the man who started it, but I enjoyed a perfectly pleasant 20–30 hours smuggling space goods and shooting pirates—and I didn't have to spend $48,000 of real money on a ship to get that.

— Samuel Axon

CD Projekt Red; Windows, Xbox, PlayStation (macOS in 2025)

Can one simply play, as a game, one of the biggest and most argued-over gaming narratives of all time? Four years after its calamitous launch sparked debates about AAA gaming sprawl, developer crunch, game review practicalities, and, eventually, post-release redemption arcs, what do you get when you launch Cyberpunk 2077?

I got a first-person shooter, one with some interesting ideas, human-shaped characters you'd expect from the makers of The Witcher 3, and some confused and unrefined systems and ideas. I enjoyed my time with it, appreciate the work put into it, and can recommend it to anyone who is okay with something that's not quite an in-depth FPS RPG (or "immersive sim") but likes a bit of narrative thrust to their shooting and hacking.

You can't fit everything about Cyberpunk 2077 into one year-end blurb (or a 1.0 release, apparently), so I'll stick to the highs and lows. I greatly enjoyed the voice performances, especially from Keanu Reeves and Idris Elba (the latter in the Phantom Liberty DLC), and those behind Jackie, Viktor Vektor, and the female version of protagonist V. I was surprised at how good the shooting felt, given the developer's first time out; the discovery of how a "Smart" shotgun worked will stick with me a while. The driving: less so. There were moments of quiet, ambient world appreciation, now that the game's engine is running okay. And the side quests have that Witcher-ish quality to them, where they're never as straightforward as described and also tell little stories about life in this place.

What seems missing to me, most crucially, are the bigger pieces, the real choices and unexpected consequences, and the sense of really living in this world. You can choose one of three backgrounds, but it only comes up as an occasional dialogue option. You can build your character in myriad ways, and there are lots of dialogue options. But the main quest keeps you on a fairly strict path, with the options to talk, hack, or stealth your way past inevitable shootouts not as great as you might think. Once you've brought your character up to power-fantasy levels, the larger city becomes a playground, but not one I much enjoyed playing in. (Plus, the idea of idle wandering and amassing wealth, given the main plot contrivance, is kind of ridiculous, but this is a game, after all).

Phantom Liberty, in my experience, patches up every one of these weaknesses inside its smaller play space, providing more real choices and a tighter story, with more set pieces arriving at a faster pace. If you can buy this game bundled with its DLC, by all means, do so. I didn't encounter any game-breaking bugs in my mid-2024 playthrough, nor even many crashes. Your mileage may vary, especially on consoles, as other late-coming players have seen.

Waiting on this game a good bit certainly helps me grade it on a curve; nobody today is losing $60 on something that looks like it's playing over a VNC connection. When CD Projekt Red carries on in this universe, I think they'll have learned a lot from what they delivered here, much like we've all learned about pre-release expectations. It's okay to take your time getting to a gargantuan game; there are lots of games from prior years to look into.

— Kevin Purdy

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The newly shared Best of 2024 Steam page has multiple tabs to sort through, offering looks at the gross revenue of the biggest games, most played titles, top games played on Steam Deck, VR, and more.

The most interesting group is arguably the gross revenue section, which divides the games into Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze.

Here are the 12 games from that made the most money on Steam in 2024, in no specific order:

• Counter-Strike 2
• Dota 2
• Palworld
• PUBG
• Elden Ring
• Black Myth: Wukong
• Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
• Apex Legends
• Helldivers II
• Baldur’s Gate 3
• Destiny 2

Interestingly, only five games from these actually launched in 2024.

Meanwhile, if we move to the games-released-in-2024-only section, the 12 titles with the most gross revenue are these:

• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl
• Path of Exile 2
• Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO
• Black Myth: Wukong
• Dragon’s Dogma 2
• NBA 2K25
• Helldivers 2
• Manor Lords
• Palworld
• Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
• EA Sports FC 25

Keep in mind that while the top sellers category grades games on their gross revenue earned in the whole of 2024, when it comes to new releases, only the gross revenue of the first two weeks since launch has been counted.

The company does not share revenue specifics with the public, so these categories are all we get. Find the complete list of 2024's biggest games on Steam here. Don't forget that the 2024 Steam Winter Sale is still active, which is offering discounts for many of these titles, too.

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Gamers Nexus (2.36M subscribers)

December 26, 2024

Video length: 33m 02s

00:00 - Recapping the Week

01:46 - Der8auer GPU Raises 182,852 Dollars

03:43 - RTX 50 Series Rumors

09:12 - Corsair Responds to Our Review

16:54 - Rumor: AMD R5 9600

17:52 - Rumor: AMD RX 7900 GRE Production Stop

19:22 - Rumor: AMD RX 9070

21:59 - Intel Arc Driver Update

22:48 - Intel B580's Strong Sales

26:18 - Ex Intel CEO Sued

30:33 - Bakery Uses Commodore 64

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It was a bright and wonderful year in the world of consumer tech, increasingly dominated by AI technologies and innovations in that vein.

The splash of yellow from Nothing’s Ear (a) earbuds is a fun departure from the norm.

Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 can now function as clinical-grade hearing aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss.

Sony’s 1000X series is due for an update in 2025.

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It was rumored from a year now that AMD’s next-gen series of desktop graphics cards will be named RX 8000 and it won’t come with top range flagship models.

However, just a day ago, VideoCardz reported how the most expensive graphics card in the next-gen AMD Radeon RX lineup will not be RX 8800 XT. Instead, it would be RX 9070 XT. This suggests a branding rename.

Later, well known leaker @All_The_Watts has revealed the model names of the next-gen AMD Radeon RX 9000 graphics cards. Which basically confirms the renaming.

The multiple tweets reveal that AMD is going to launch at least of 5 graphics cards in the RX 9000 series for desktops:

• AMD Radeon™ RX 9070 XT Graphics
• AMD Radeon™ RX 9070 Graphics
• AMD Radeon™ RX 9060 Series Graphics
• AMD Radeon™ RX 9050 Series Graphics
• AMD Radeon™ RX 9040 Series Graphics

In a followup tweet, it’s also revealed that AMD is planning to release at least two new models are a refresh in the current RX 7000 series for desktops:

• AMD Radeon™ RX 7750 Series Graphics
• AMD Radeon™ RX 7650 Series Graphics

In yet another tweet, it’s revealed that:

• RX 9070 XT is going to be slower than RX 7900 XT.
• RX 9070 XT will equal or will be faster than RX 7900 GRE.
• RX 9070 will have similar performance as that of RX 7800 XT.
• RX 9070 XT will have a bus-width of 256-bits.
• RX 9070 will have a bus-width of 192-bits.
• The lower powered Navi 44 GPUs will come with a bus-width of 128-bits and 96-bits.
• Navi 48 graphics cards (RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT) will cost min $449 to max $649.
• Navi 44 graphics cards (RX 9060 XT and lower) will cost min $179 to max $349.

RX 9070 XT Performance

In another tweet, @All_The_Watts has shared possible benchmark results from 3DMark TimeSpy.

Going by that data, Tomasz Gawroński has shown that RX 9070 XT is likely to be:

• 12% faster than RX 7800 XT
• 2% faster than RX 7900 GRE
• 16% slower than RX 7900 XT
• 6% faster than RX 6950 XT
• 16% faster than RX 6800 XT
• 1% faster than RTX 4070 Ti
• 5% slower than RTX 4070 Ti Super
• 5% faster than RTX 3090 Ti
• 9% faster than RTX 4070 Super

RX 9000 GPU Series To Launch With FSR 4 & 9000X3D CPU

Another well known leaker, @AnhPhuH has shared something important too.

The tweet reveals that the RX 9070 XT, which is possibly going to be the first graphics card in the RX 9000 series and is expected to release in early January next year, is going to launch with FSR 4.

We had reported earlier that AMD is already working on FSR 4 and it’s going to be AI based. Unlike current-gen FSR 3 and FSR 2 that mostly rely on the GPU’s processing power alone to run it. So while FSR 4 releasing so early might be a surprise for many, it’s not unexpected.

The other thing that the tweet reveals that the RX 9070 XT graphics card is going to launch along with R9 X3D CPU. With Ryzen 9800X3D already launched with good reviews, we expect the CPU to be Ryzen 9900X3D or Ryzen 9950X3D or both.

Conclusion

AMD renaming the RX 8000 series to RX 9000 series is fine. After all, it matches the CPU series.

Problem is that they have renamed the models too. The RX 9070 XT should have been RX 9700 XT. But AMD went the Nvidia way in naming the models.

This is bad marketing. Especially because the series which follows the RX 9000 series might have an entirely new series name. So shifting the model names like this for just one series makes no sense.

As for performance and price. It’s said that there are no good or bad graphics cards. There are good or badly priced graphics cards. If AMD wants to compete with Nvidia, it has to price them aggressively. Something we don’t see AMD doing here.

FSR 4 is much welcome. It’s likely that it will be exclusive to the RX 9000 series due to it being AI based. But it’s to be seen what AMD can do with it.

Meanwhile, VideoCardz has reported how AMD has already mistakenly revealed the images of the RX 9070 XT in an advertisement posted online.

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2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of November): 5,298 news posts

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