JayzTwoCents (4.12M subscribers)

November 6, 2024

Video length: 27m 33s

The 7800X3D has been dethroned... the new Gaming CPU GOAT is here...

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I can tell you that extra cores and threads benefit raw productivity performance, but I'll always feel the temptation of a gaming-centric CPU that delivers boosted framerates, something AMD has repeatedly delivered with its -X3D chips.

It's a simple fact that consistently proves itself with each processor generation: gamers want the best performance for their money and will take any desktop boosts as a convenient side effect.

AMD has remained in the top-seller spot for most CPU retailers, with the previous-generation Ryzen 7 7800X3D sitting pretty as the gaming champion since its release.

If that were ever to change, it'd be with a direct successor, and that's the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, here at last.

Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Price, availability, and specs

Ryzen X3D processors come in skinny boxes without stock CPU coolers, so you'll need to provide your own AM5-compatible pick.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

At its launch, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the only Zen 5 processor in AMD's Ryzen 9000X3D range. More variants, presumably (but so far unconfirmed) a 9900X3D and 9950X3D, are expected to follow.

 

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is an 8-core, 16-thread APU (SoC) running at a 120W base TDP like its predecessor, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Its specs are also similar to AMD's Ryzen 7 9700X chip, which runs at a lower TDP with a reduced L3 cache, focused on productivity rather than gaming.

 

Officially launching with a $479 MSRP, which is $30 more expensive than the $449 Ryzen 7 7800X3D it replaces, actual store listings come relatively close with some minor inflation.

 

AMD has moved from a 4nm process to 5nm via TSMC's foundry but remains on the same AM5 socket with compatible 9000X3D motherboards and supports the same CPU coolers as its previous-gen Zen 4 (7000 Series) chips.

 

Upgrading from a Ryzen 7000X3D chip would be a straightforward process for enthusiasts. Still, it wouldn't provide as much of a performance leap as it would for those using a Ryzen 7 5800X3D or similar AM4 variants using now-incompatible DDR4 memory modules (RAM) as AM5 requires DDR5.

AMD Ryzen desktop processors

CPU	Cores	Threads	L3	Base / cTDP	MSRP
Ryzen 7 9800X3D	8	16	96 MB	120W	$479
Ryzen 7 9700X	8	16	32 MB	65W / 105W	$359
Ryzen 7 7800X3D	8	16	96 MB	120W	$449

 

Having previously tested AMD's Ryzen 7 7800X3D and Ryzen 8000 Series processors like the Ryzen 5 8600G and Ryzen 7 8700G, I already had access to a compatible AM5-socket motherboard with the ASUS ROG STRIX B650-A Gaming WiFi. However, AMD provided all-new samples to ensure compatibility with the latest BIOS software and EXPO-compatible RAM running at 6000MHz. Arctic sent its Liquid Freezer III 360mm AIO to help test a separate processor, but it still offers the best cooling performance here.

Testing hardware

Disclaimer

This review was made possible with review samples provided by G.SKILL, Samsung, and MSI via AMD alongside Arctic. The companies did not see the contents of the review before publishing.

Ryzen 7 9800X3D: CPU benchmarks

Geekbench 6 tests synthetic CPU burst performance.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

Cinebench 2024 forces a sustained CPU stress test.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

7-Zip tests archive compression and decompression speeds.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

CPU-Z tests single and multi core burst performance.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

No matter what a processor was designed for, it always passes my usual gamut of synthetic benchmarks that test single-core and multi-core performance in various productivity tasks. As fun as it would be to skip right to the gaming tests, it's important to see where the Ryzen 7 9800X3D ranks among its peers in burst processing and longer, sustained stress tests.

 

For burst processing tests in Geekbench 6, the 9800X3D scores above its lower-powered non-X3D sibling, the $359 Ryzen 7 9700X, in multi-core performance but below in single-core equivalents.

 

In synthetic productivity benchmarks, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D performed around 21-22% faster than its predecessor, the 7800X3D.

Of particular note is how far ahead Intel's $589 Core Ultra 9 285K pulls in multi-core tests, as by design, but there isn't much of a gap in the single-core category — remember this when I compare gaming performance next. Otherwise, there's about a 22% generational burst performance improvement over AMD's predecessor, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

 

Sustained stress tests with Cinebench 2024 show a similar story, with the 9800X3D scoring slightly ahead of the Ryzen 7 9700X as before while creeping on the heels of Intel's $309 Core Ultra 5 245K. In the long run, single-core performance falls in favor of Intel, with more of a lead gained by the Core Ultra 9 285K as it once again places miles ahead in multi-core equivalents, dominating productivity by a colossal degree. Again, a 21% generational sustained performance over the 7800X3D matches the burst tests.

Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Gaming benchmarks

AMD's 9800X3D pulls ahead of Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K in most games for FPS, with unusual data in

Forza Horizon 5 likely caused by temporary bugs.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

AMD's in-house claims for gaming performance vary between different games.

(Image credit: AMD)

 

In its official documentation for the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, AMD touts an average 8% performance improvement in gaming compared to the previous-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The amount depends on a range of engine-specific quirks that determine how CPU-bound or GPU-bound a title can be, though the percentage gap usually increases over time with post-launch driver updates. Nevertheless, the 7800X3D, until now, was the best gaming CPU available, so these improvements are no real surprise — so, it's far more interesting to compare the 9800X3D against Intel's top-end CPU: the Core Ultra 9 285K.

Disclaimer

While writing my Intel Core Ultra 9 285K review, no graphical setting changes would significantly increase my FPS in Forza Horizon 5. While it's likely a bug, this chart accurately represents the best framerate I can achieve at this time with the 'High' preset at 1080p.

 

Matching estimations, Black Myth: Wukong scores almost identically on AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K, while the "121.9%" gains promised in the CPU-centric title Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation didn't manifest in my testing, sticking around 6% instead. While not much of a surprise given its excellent performance on practically any hardware, Forza Horizon 5 scores an outrageous average of 387 FPS, which is perfect for anyone who uses those 360Hz 1080p gaming monitors. However, something clearly is bugged on Intel's side, so I'm skipping the implied percentage gain for Forza.

 

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in-game benchmark data.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

Black Myth: Wukong in-game benchmark data.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

Forza Horizon 5 in-game benchmark data.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

Cyberpunk 2077 in-game benchmark data.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation in-game benchmark data.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

Far Cry 6 in-game benchmark data.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

Moving from a disastrous launch to a patched-up marvel, Cyberpunk 2077 sees a 52% performance increase on the 9800X3D over Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K, proving far better of a pairing to NVIDIA's current high-end GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card. Far Cry 6 bumps up performance by 43% with the same GPU and DDR5-6000 RAM pairing, and the latest blockbuster Call of Duty entry enjoys a 41% lead as the 9800X3D earns extra frames in Black Ops 6.

 

So, while I'm testing a tighter scope of popular AAA titles on PC, I still saw around a 36% performance increase in gaming with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Naturally, my number would be lower if I only tested games closer to the 100% to 110% range of AMD's generational game performance chart, but seeing visually-rich megahits like Call of Duty and Cyberpunk 2077 score such significant increases is reassuring for the performance of a brand-new processor at day one.

Is the Ryzen 7 9800X3D good for gaming?

Cyberpunk 2077 running with the 9800X3D and an RTX 4090 GPU at 1080p.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

HWiNFO displaying everything it could detect from my test bench PC.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

CPU-Z has since been updated to officially support the 9800X3D with more accurate stats.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

Yes, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the best gaming CPU you can buy, taking over from its predecessor, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. 96MB of second-generation 3D V-Cache in the Zen 5 architecture helps push for higher FPS (frames per second) in games than Intel's top-end Core Ultra 9 285K, a rival processor that features more cores and threads, a higher clock speed, and slightly higher TDP. Ultimately, Intel's more expensive CPU offers better multi-core performance in productivity tasks and synthetic benchmarks, but AMD wins in gaming performance.

Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Competition

Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K is the productivity champion but a disappointing lateral move for gaming performance.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has three significant competitors, though only two would be taken seriously by anyone on a budget. Internally, Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K stands against AMD's gaming CPU simply because it's the most powerful chip in the latest Core Ultra Series 200S range. However, this 24-core, 24-thread carries a price tag of around $589 to $630 and targets an entirely different audience who prioritizes energy efficiency within a productivity-centric software suite.

 

Gaming performance on Intel's side remains relatively unchanged from its last-gen Core i9-14900K, which offered similar performance to its i9-13900K predecessor and suffered from an overarching microcode launch bug that was later fixed for the continued manufacturing of 14th Gen chips.

 

Still, listings for the Core i9-14900K sit around $440 as AMD's Ryzen 9800X3D is ready to launch, making it an attractive option since some of its best motherboards support an established LGA 1700 socket with wide DDR4 and DDR5 RAM support, bringing down the overall cost of a custom build.

 

AMD's previous-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D was the best gaming CPU until the 9800X3D took its place.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

 

The other major competitor is a call from inside Team Red's house, as the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D doesn't fall far enough behind the new 9800X3D to warrant an upgrade from anyone who already has one. On the other hand, those who already adopted the AM5 socket with all-new motherboards and DDR5 RAM could happily swap out their processor for this new replacement without buying any extra components, but dropping almost $500 on an 8-22% potential performance gain isn't so tempting.

 

So, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D stands as a more logical upgrade path for those using a Ryzen 7 5800X3D from 2022. Still, this lumps users with the mandatory motherboard and RAM upgrades, though most AM4-compatible CPU coolers will work with AM5 replacements, so it's not entirely damaging to your budget.

 

The bright side is that you'll feel a more significant boost if you upgrade from the 5800X3D, with compatibility for PCIe 5.0 (Gen 5), unlocking faster storage options with the CPU bump. Overall, it's a sticky situation because the only people who will see the most significant benefits are the ones doomed to spend extra cash on a total rig overhaul.

Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Should you buy?

AMD still uses the ugliest IHS design I've ever seen, but it doesn't hurt its ranking.

(Image credit: Ben Wilson | Windows Central)

You should buy this if ...

✅ You want the absolute best gaming CPU on the market.

✅ You crave the highest framerate count possible for high-FPS gameplay.

You should not buy this if ...

❌ You're already using a Ryzen 7 7800X3D or high-end 14th Gen Core i9.

❌ You rely on productivity apps that demand the best multi-core performance.

 

---

 

Make no mistake: the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the best gaming CPU, politely dethroning its predecessor as the new king of the hill as a cache-heavy monster. However, it's not winning any awards for productivity. It isn't worth installing into a PC that spends most of its time crunching numbers in Microsoft Office and Teams since the 9900X and 9950X dominate that category, but it's a far better pick for gamers than anything from Intel's modern productivity-centric offerings.

 

Unfortunately, those who'll benefit most will need to spend a sizeable amount of cash on a new motherboard and RAM upgrades, making the 9800X3D MSRP hike sting a little more than a cute $30. Nevertheless, this is the new meta for PC gaming, and nothing else can challenge its ability to deliver monstrous FPS counts if you can pair it with a capable GPU to enjoy the latest AAA titles loaded with visual luxuries.

 

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2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

Blizztracker, the service that keeps track of Blizzard's game updates and servers, suddenly received an entry with the name 'Warcraft II: Remastered Internal Alpha' earlier today. At the same time, Blizzard dataminer Stiven also managed to wrangle new images from the company's servers of this upcoming remaster.

Aside from the logo, the leaked key art shows off a naval theme, which is in line with the classic game's setting. Considering the leaked entry has the tag "Internal Alpha," though, we may not get a 2024 release even if Blizzard announces the project next week.

Here's a quick description of the classic RTS straight from the developer:

The kingdom of Stormwind lies in ruins. The king has fallen, and the survivors of the orcish onslaught flee across the ocean. The pursuing Horde, eager to plunge the world into chaos, sails its fleet to meet the defenders of Azeroth in battle. As the fate of the world hangs in the balance and the great tacticians of the Horde and the Alliance clash, only one thing is certain: Winning this war will demand unprecedented cunning, courage, and nerves of steel.

Blizzard already sells the Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition in its store and the DRM-free platform GOG. However, this is still the 1999-released collection that includes Tides of Darkness base game and Beyond the Dark Portal expansion, without many modern improvements. We will have to wait and see how Blizzard approaches this remaster and if fan reactions will be positive, considering the Warcraft III: Reforged launch debacle.

If Blizzard is preparing to announce the project, it will probably happen at the Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct presentation. The show kicks off on November 13, and the company is teasing multiple surprises. Find more details here.

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Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years.

2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

In many ways, the timing of Sony's 2016 launch of the PS4 Pro couldn't have been better. The slightly upgraded version of 2013's PlayStation 4 came at a time when a wave of 4K TVs was just beginning to crest in the form of tens of millions of annual sales in the US.

Purchasing Sony's first-ever "mid-generation" console upgrade in 2016 didn't give original PS4 owners access to any new games, a fact that contributed to us calling the PS4 Pro "a questionable value proposition" when it launched. Still, many graphics-conscious console gamers were looking for an excuse to use the extra pixels and HDR colors on their new 4K TVs, and spending hundreds of dollars on a stopgap console years before the PS5 served that purpose well enough.

Fast-forward to today and the PS5 Pro faces an even weaker value proposition. The PS5, after all, has proven more than capable of creating excellent-looking games that take full advantage of the 4K TVs that are now practically standard in American homes. With 8K TVs still an extremely small market niche, there isn't anything akin to what Sony's Mike Somerset called "the most significant picture-quality increase probably since black and white went to color" when talking about 4K TV in 2016.

Front view of the PS5 Pro. Note the complete lack of a built-in disc drive on the only model available.

Kyle Orland

 

The console comes with these two cheap plastic "feet" to stabilize it when laid horizontally.

Kyle Orland

 

The overhead view shows off the console's accordion-style racing stripe.

Kyle Orland

 

Instead, Sony says that spending $700 on a PS5 Pro has a decidedly more marginal impact—namely, helping current PS5 gamers avoid having to choose between the smooth, 60 fps visuals of "Performance" mode and the resolution-maximizing, graphical effects-laden "Fidelity" mode in many games. The extra power of the PS5 Pro, Sony says, will let you have the best of both worlds: full 4K, ray-traced graphics and 60 fps at the same time.

While there's nothing precisely wrong with this value proposition, there's a severe case of diminishing returns that comes into play here. The graphical improvements between a "Performance mode" PS5 game and a "Performance Pro mode" PS5 game are small enough, in fact, that I often found it hard to reliably tell at a glance which was which.

Is it just me, or does the Ps5 Pro look like a goofy puppet from this angle? The sloped mouth, the PS logo eye... you see it, right?

Kyle Orland

 

A newly designed vertical stand (sold separately) is very useful if you plan to stand the console on its edge.

Kyle Orland

 

Hot venting action.

Kyle Orland

 

The biggest problem with the PS5 Pro, in other words, is that the original PS5 is already too good.

Smooth operator

In announcing the PS5 Pro in September, Sony's Mark Cerny mentioned that roughly three-quarters of PS5 owners opt for Performance mode over Fidelity mode when offered the choice on a stock PS5. It's not hard to see why. Research shows that the vast majority of people can detect a distinct decrease in flickering or juddery animation when the frames-per-second counter is cranked up from (Fidelity mode's) 30 fps to (Performance mode's) 60 fps.

The extra visual smoothness is especially important in any reflex-heavy game, where every millisecond of reaction time between your eyes and your thumbs can have a dramatic impact. That reaction advantage can extend well past 60 fps, as PC gamers know all too well.

The PS5 Pro (left) cuts a much slimmer figure than the historically large original PS5 shell.

Kyle Orland

 

The side view highlights just how much bulk has been removed in the PS5 Pro (left).

Kyle Orland

 

I was a little worried that the original PS5 (top) was going to crush the PS5 Pro when setting up this shot.

Kyle Orland

 

But the other reason that Performance mode is so overwhelmingly popular among PS5 players, I'd argue, is that you don't really have to give up too much to get that frame rate-doubling boost. In most games, hopping from Fidelity mode to Performance means giving up a steady 4K image for either a (nicely upscaled) 1440p image or "Dynamic 4K" resolution (i.e., 4K that sometimes temporarily drops down lower to maintain frame rates). While some gamers swear that this difference is important to a game's overall visual impact, most players will likely struggle to even notice that resolution dip unless they're sitting incredibly close to a very large screen.

For the PS5 Pro, Sony is marketing "PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution," its buzzword for an AI-driven upscaling feature that adds further clarity and detail to scenes. Sony's original announcement of "Super Resolution" heavily used zoomed-in footage to highlight the impact of this feature on distant details. That's likely because without that level of zoom, the effect of this resolution bump is practically unnoticeable.

Spider-Man looks out over Coney Island on the PS5 (Performance mode)...

Sony

 

... and on the PS5 Pro (Performance Pro mode).

Sony

Tracing those rays

The other visual upgrade often inherent in a PS5 game's Fidelity mode is support for ray-tracing, wherein the system tracks individual light rays for more accurate reflections and light scattering off of simulated objects. Having ray-tracing enabled can sometimes lead to striking visual moments, such as when you see Spider-Man's every move reflected in the mirrored windows of a nearby skyscraper. But as we noted in our initial PS5 review, the effect is usually a much subtler tweak to the overall "realism" of how objects come across in a scene.

Having those kind of ray-traced images at a full 60 fps is definitely nice, but the impact tends to be muted unless a scene has a lot of highly reflective objects. Even the "Fidelity Pro" mode in some PS5 Pro games—which scales the frame rate back to 30 fps to allow for the ray-tracing algorithm to model more reflections and more accurate occlusion and shadows—doesn't create very many "wow" moments over a standard PS5 in moment-to-moment gameplay.

Entering a Demon's Souls cave on the original PS5...

Sony

 

... and on the PS5 Pro.

Sony

 

On the original PS5, I never hesitated to give up the (often marginal) fidelity improvements in favor of a much smoother frame rate. Getting that slightly improved fidelity on the PS5 Pro—without having to give up my beloved 60 fps—is definitely nice, but it's far from an exciting new frontier in graphical impact.

Which is which?

When testing the PS5 Pro for this review, I had my original PS5 plugged into a secondary input on the same TV, running the same games consecutively. I'd play a section of a game in Pro mode on the PS5 Pro, then immediately switch to the PS5 running the same game in Performance mode (or vice versa). Sitting roughly six feet away from a 60-inch 4K TV, I was struggling to notice any subjective difference in overall visual quality.

I also took comparative screenshots on an original PS5 and a PS5 Pro in as close to identical circumstances as possible, some of which you can see shared in this review (be sure to blow them up to full screen on a good monitor). Flipping back and forth between two screenshots, I could occasionally make out small tangible differences—more natural shine coming off the skin of Aloy's face in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, for instance, or a slight increase in detail on Ratchet's Lombax fur. More often than not, though, I had legitimate trouble telling which screenshot came from which console without double-checking which TV input was currently active.

Ratchet flies through the air on the PS5 (Performance mode)...

Sony

 

... and on the PS5 Pro (Performance Pro mode).

Sony

 

A crowd scene on the original PS5 (Performance mode)...

Sony

 

... and on the PS5 Pro (Performance Pro mode).

Sony

 

I'm a single reviewer with a single pair of eyes, of course. Your impression of the relative visual improvement might be very different. Luckily, if you have access to a PS5 already, you can run your own visual test just by switching between Fidelity and Performance modes on any of your current games. If you find the individual screens in Performance mode look noticeably worse than those in Fidelity mode (putting frame rate aside), then you might be in the market for a PS5 Pro. If you don't, you can probably stop reading this review right here.

Barely a bang for your buck

Even if you're the kind of person who appreciates the visual impact of Fidelity mode on the PS5, upgrading to the PS5 Pro isn't exactly an instant purchase. At $700, getting a PS5 Pro is akin to a PC gamer purchasing a top-of-the-line graphics card, even though the lack of modular components means replacing your entire PS5 console rather than a single part. But while a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti could conceivably keep running new PC games for a decade or more, the PS5 Pro should be thought of as more of a stopgap until the PlayStation 6 (and its inevitable exclusive games) hit around 2028 or so (based on past PlayStation launch spacing).

If you already have a PS5, that $700 could instead go toward the purchase of 10 full, big-budget games at launch pricing or even more intriguing indie releases. That money could also go toward more than four years of PlayStation Plus Premium and access to its library of hundreds of streaming and downloadable modern and classic PlayStation titles PS5 titles. Both strike me as a better use of a limited gaming budget than the slight visual upgrade you'd get from a PS5 Pro.

Young Aloy looks for berries in Horizon: Zero Dawn Remastered on the PS5 (Performance mode)...

Sony

 

... and on the PS5 Pro (Performance Pro mode).

Sony

 

A glowing monitor in a cave on the PS5 (Performance mode)...

 

... and on the PS5 Pro (Performance Pro mode).

Sony

 

Even if you're in the market for your first PS5, I'm not sure the Pro is the version I'd recommend. The $250 difference between a stock PS5 and the PS5 Pro similarly feels like it could be put to better use than the slight visual improvements on offer here. And while the addition of an extra terabyte of high-speed game storage on the PS5 Pro is very welcome, the need to buy an external disc drive peripheral for physical games on the new console may understandably rub some players the wrong way.

Back when the PlayStation 2 launched, I distinctly remember thinking that video game graphics had reached a "good enough" plateau, past which future hardware improvements would be mostly superfluous. That memory feels incredibly quaint now from the perspective of nearly two-and-a-half decades of improvements in console graphics and TV displays. Yet the PS5 Pro has me similarly feeling that the original PS5 was something of a graphical plateau, with this next half-step in graphical horsepower struggling to prove its worth.

Maybe I'll look back in two decades and consider that feeling similarly naive, seeing the PS5 Pro as a halting first step toward yet unimagined frontiers of graphical realism. Right now, though, I'm comfortable recommending that the vast majority of console gamers spend their money elsewhere.

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2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

"At today's Corporate Management Policy Briefing, we announced that Nintendo Switch software will also be playable on the successor to Nintendo Switch," Nintendo posted in a social media update attributed to company president Shintaro Furukawa. "Nintendo Switch Online will be available on the successor to Nintendo Switch as well."

In the full policy briefing referenced in that post, Nintendo adds that it "believe(s) that it is important for Nintendo’s future to make use of Nintendo Account and carry over the good relationship that we have built with the over 100 million annual playing users on Nintendo Switch to its successor." The company also makes the (perhaps obvious) clarification that "in addition to being able to play Nintendo Switch software they currently own, consumers will be able to choose their next purchase from a broad selection of titles released for Nintendo Switch [on its successor]."

A crucial feature

Nintendo offered broad, vague hints on its next console's backward compatibility well over a year ago, saying at the time that "as for the transition from Nintendo Switch to the next-generation machine, we want to do as much as possible in order to smoothly transition our customers, while utilizing the Nintendo Account." In recent months, we've gotten multiple reports that this kind of backward compatibility was already in the works via supply chain and game development sources.

In confirming backward compatibility for its next console before announcing any other details about the hardware, Nintendo is acknowledging that carrying over access to thousands of distinct Switch games is likely to be a decisive factor in the success of its next console. The fact that "more software has been played on Nintendo Switch than on any other Nintendo hardware," as Nintendo revealed in its policy briefing, may have something to do with why clarifying that compatibility is so important.

But Nintendo still has yet to clarify any details about how that backward compatibility will work, including whether or how it will extend to physical game cards. "Further information about the successor to Nintendo Switch, including its compatibility with Nintendo Switch, will be announced at a later date," Nintendo said.

Portable Nintendo consoles in the Game Boy and Nintendo DS/3DS lines have all offered full backward compatibility with the previous generation of hardware in a line stretching back to the 1990s. For console hardware, that line of backward compatibility extended from 2001's Gamecube to 2012's Wii U. Both trends were broken by the Switch, a console/portable hybrid that also cut off access to individual, downloadable Virtual Console games on the Wii and Wii U.

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2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

Zhangzhonghao, a known hardware leaker from Chiphell (via VideoCardz), confirmed earlier speculations that 3D V-Cache is coming to Threadripper processors. Users discovered that a manual for one of ASUS' WRX90 motherboards mentions 3D V-Cache-related settings.

Since WRX90 motherboards do not work with EPYC and Ryzen processors and no existing Threadripper has Stacked 3D V-Cache, the discovery led to speculation about AMD expanding the technology to more processor lineups and its HEDT solutions.

Also, better L3 cache is reportedly coming to APUs, which are regular processors with beefier integrated graphics. However, as the report claims, that feature might be initially limited to high-end laptops, not desktop processors.

Here is the translated message from the Chiphell forums:

Today, I saw news that ASUS's TRX motherboard BIOS manual mentioned Vcache, so I checked with the supply chain, and it's true that it will be released. Additionally, the next generation will start stacking 3D on the APU (to enhance the CPU and GPU). The technology and costs are already in place, but current information suggests this will be limited to laptops, specifically for high-end models.

AMD is getting ready to launch the first processor with the second-generation 3D V-Cache. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D will be available on November 7, offering users more cache and slightly better gaming performance. Also, for the first time since the introduction of Stacked 3D V-Cache in the Ryzen 5000 series, AMD will allow you to overclock the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

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2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts

RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend  

Today, Bethesda announced Starfield update 1.14.74. Available now to Steam users in beta form ahead of its public release, the update touts a whole lot of bug fixes related to gameplay and quests.

Interestingly, one of the major changes in the update is about re-enabling the uncapped frame rate option for players on the Xbox Series X console. While the beta is only for Steam users, this will be a useful feature again for the console fanbase once it's out.

Here are all the changes available in the new Steam beta:

General

 

• General performance and stability improvements.
• The uncapped frame rate option is available again for Xbox Series X users.
• The Message of the Day now displays more consistently on the Xbox.
• Addressed an issue where some console commands did not disable certain achievements.
• Shattered Space will now show ownership correctly for Steam users.

 

Gameplay

 

• The Annihilator Particle Beam damage-over-time effect no longer triggers companion reactions.
• Resolved a Leadership skill issue that could cause companions to not speak up.
• Improved function of the stealth bar while around crowd NPCs.
• Addressed an issue where destroyed ships could load in without collision.
• Addressed an issue where loading a save the relied on missing content could place the player in an undesirable location.
• Trackers Alliance - Roach will now accurately track the number of completed bounties.
• Trackers Alliance - Bounty targets will now appear in Akila, Gagarin, and Cydonia.
• Trackers Alliance - Fixed an issue where the player could receive additional credits by extorting the target and then killing them.
• Trackers Alliance - Bounty targets should now have a larger variety of appearances.
• Trackers Alliance - Bounty targets will now be removed after being dealt with and leaving the area.
• Trackers Alliance - Extorting or bribing a bounty target is no longer a guaranteed success.

 

Quests

 

• The Starjacker - The correct quest objective will display when the player boards the Junker Watchdog.
• Legacy of the Fang - Addressed an issue that could cause the key to no longer open the door if the player had left the area.
• The Duel - If the player attacks Danika and gets arrested, they are now able to speak to her afterwards to complete the quest.
• The Scaled Citadel - Anasko’s ID Key is now flagged as a quest item.
• What Remains - Addressed an issue where having certain creations installed could make the hatch on The Oracle non-interactable.
• What Remains - The Engineering Bay Access Card is now flagged as a quest item.
• A House Divided - The doors in the Radiology center will stay unlocked during this quest if the player exits the area and returns.
• A House Divided - The player can now obtain the keycard from Madri after the quest is completed.
• Zealous Overreach - Fixed an issue that could occur if the Va’ruun Zealots at the exterior of Shadow Station Epsilon were killed before receiving the quest.
• Zealous Overreach - Addressed an issue that could prevent the player from speaking to Razma or Viktor if the quest “Conflict in Conviction” is started at the same time.
• Zealous Overreach - Vortex Phantoms will no longer spawn close enough to interrupt the negotiation scene.

Starfield players on Steam can now jump into this build of the RPG by navigating to the game's Properties, then selecting the [beta] option from the "Betas" dropdown. This will launch an update to the game with the above changes.

If everything is deemed good to go by Bethesda, expect the Starfield 1.14.74 update to hit all PC and Xbox players in a couple of weeks' time.

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Metacritic is one of the spaces hit with the tactic. The popular review aggregate website's Dragon Age: The Veilguard reviews for the PlayStation 5 version sees critic average score hovering at 83 or Generally Favorable. This is after 57 reviews from critics and major creators. However, the same platform's user reviews section shows a drastically lower score of 3.8/10 after almost 2,000 reviews.

Similar numbers can be seen on the game's other platform pages on Metacritic, with PC user score sitting at 2.3/10, and Xbox Series X|S at 3.9/10. Many of the negative reviewers seem to be putting 0 or 1 as their scores for the game, stating it is "woke" propaganda by BioWare.

At the time of writing, Steam reviews, which can only be set by those who have purchased the game unlike on Metacritic, has Veilguard's user rating balancing at 74%, or 'Mostly Positive'. This rating has been achieved after over 13,000 reviews have been submitted by players.

When inquired about the review bombing of Veilguard on Metacritic by Eurogamer, a spokesperson for its parent company Fandom had said:

"We take online trust and safety very seriously across all our sites including Metacritic. "Metacritic has a moderation system in place to track violations of our terms of use. Our team reviews each and every report of abuse (including but not limited to racist, sexist, homophobic, insults to other users, etc) and if violations occur, the reviews are removed."

EA and BioWare are yet to reveal the launch sales performance of Dragon Age: the Veilguard, but it did break the publisher's previous Steam records for a single-player release. Development has concluded though, as the studio is now working on the next Mass Effect entry.

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The built-in Steam Game Recording feature-set lets players capture their games using either background recording for quickly securing highlight clips when needed, or manually using record and stop, both via hotkeys. Even the duration and quality levels can be tweaked on a per game basis, with a "Do Not Record" option being also an option.

Using the Steam Overlay, Valve is also offering a replay option. This lets Steam users quickly rewind and scrub through their most recent recordings to see what happened earlier in their games.

Some games come with official support for timeline and event markers. Here, the recording automatically shows important events like kills, while also highlighting time spent in lobbies and menus to remove them easily from clips. For now, it's unclear how many games outside of Valve's own Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 support this Timeline-enhanced function, but an SDK and API are available for third-party developers to implement it onto their games.

Regarding what sort of performance players can expect to lose by using the recording feature, Valve said this:

Steam Game Recording has been designed with the goal of taking as little computer resources away from the game you are playing as possible. It takes advantage of NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards to remove most of the performance cost of creating video recordings. When run on systems without those graphics cards, the systems CPU is used to create video recordings which may cause a noticeable performance impact on those systems.

For editing recorded clips, Valve has built-in tools available too, which can be found in the new Recordings and Screenshots interface on Steam.

During the stay in beta, Valve has expanded the options available for saving and sharing recorded clips. Straight from Steam, players are able to export clips as MP4 files, send it to another device (like to a PC from a Steam Deck) of the user, share it to mobile devices via a QR code, and even make a temporary link to directly view it via Steam for anyone.

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What you need to know

• Microsoft's AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman recently indicated AI progression could lead to the greatest boost to productivity in history within the next couple of decades.
• However, he warns the progression could destabilize how we understand the world, including raising fundamental questions about what it means to be human.
• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently indicated AGI will "whoosh by" within the next 5 years, dwindling its societal impact to "significantly little" than expected.

As generative AI advances and scales greater heights, it's becoming more difficult to determine its impact on the future and society. It has heavily influenced sectors, including medicine, computing, education, and entertainment.

However, there are critical concerns about AI's rapid progression, especially with the lack of elaborate measures and regulations to help mitigate issues abound if/when it veers off the rails. Perhaps more concerning, AI researchers and experts claim AI will eventually spell inevitable doom on humanity with a 99.9% probability.

Interestingly, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman shares the same sentiments about the progression of generative AI (via @tsarnick on X). In a recent interview on the Young and Profiting YouTube Channel, the executive shared some interesting insights on the trajectory of AI and its possible implications for humanity.

"It is true that this AI moment is going to deliver the greatest boost to productivity in the history of our species, in the next couple of decades. That, to me, is unquestionable. I don't think that makes me an optimist, I think that makes me a good predictor of the underlying trends."

While the anticipated boost in productivity could change how people view work and enhance efficiency and effectiveness, it could also feature major drawbacks. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman says it could create the most change in a disruptive way we've ever seen:

"It's going to be destabilizing to the way that we currently understand the world to be, the way that we work, and the way our politics operates. Fundamentally, even what it means to be human."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman indicated that the company might hit the AGI within the next 5 years with the current hardware. Interestingly, the executive claimed the benchmark would "whoosh by" with "surprisingly little" societal change.

The MP700 ELITE is a standard M2 2280 SSD with a PCIe Gen 5 x4 controller. Corsair says the drive can reach up to 10,000 MB/s sequential read and 8,500 MB/s sequential write speeds. These speeds are notably slower than the MP700 PRO SE, which tops at 14,000 MB/s. However, the new model is more affordable, with the 1TB version costing $145 and the 2TB version priced at $255.

In addition to the latest PCIe interface, the Corsair MP700 ELITE uses 3D TLC NAND memory chips for "performance and endurance." The drive is also compatible with Microsoft DirectStorage APIs, which improve loading times in games thanks to direct communication between a graphics card and a drive.

Besides offering two storage configurations, Corsair allows speccing the new MP700 ELITE model with or without the heatsink. The first option will come in handy if your motherboard has no built-in heatsink for SSDs. The second option is primarily aimed at those who want to install the drive in a laptop or another device with no space for a heatsink.

Like other PCIe Gen 5 SSDs, the MP700 ELITE is backward compatible with Gen 4 and Gen 5 motherboards. Still, the fastest speeds are only possible with motherboards and processors that support the latest interface.

As for endurance, Corsair promises up to 1200 TBW (600 TBW in the 1TB model) and 1,600,000 hours of mean-time between failures. Also, each drive has a limited five-year warranty.

The Corsair MP700 ELITE is now available directly from Corsair's official website and various retailers.

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Besides new cars, Update 14 changes the competitiveness of AI for "more intense" oval racing, adds rolling starts to multiplayer racing (important for NASCAR events in multiplayer), reduces the likelihood of getting a false-positive penalty assignment, and brings advanced ghosting to multiplayer.

Advanced ghosting is a new mechanism to prevent collisions and off-track scenarios from significantly affecting the multiplayer experience. For example, cars will be ghosted when a high-velocity collision is imminent, during dangerous returns to the track after getting off-road, stopping on a track, or driving the wrong way. Developers say the change will safeguard players from griefers and egregious drivers.

Also, look out for improved car sound for the 2010 Lamborghini Murcielago LP670-4 SV, the 2019 Lamborghini Sian FKP 37, and the 2013 McLaren P1.

Other changes and fixes in the update include the following:

• The global reflection probe for the track is now captured at the camera location and includes the track itself. This allows reflections to appear more accurate and prevents visual pops in the reflections by smoothly fading over time.
• Fixed an issue on Mugello and other tracks where hitting curbs could cause sporadic, uncontrollable spins. This would occasionally occur when one or more tires rapidly accelerated or decelerated while unloaded during cornering. While curbs can naturally affect car balance, this fix ensures more predictable handling in these scenarios. As in real life, drivers should still approach curbs with caution, as they can disrupt vehicle stability.
• Fixed an issue where the game will sometimes crash when attempting to reset Free Play Setup settings to default after changing the Game Type to Multi-Class.
• Improved performance when navigating between Vinyl Groups and Liveries menu.
• Fixed an issue where a car's upgrades would also be reset if the player reset its tuning.
• Fixed an issue where the mini leaderboard wasn't sorting players correctly in Drift events.
• Fixed an issue where existing UGC could not be overwritten in Save Livery, Tuning, or Photo menus.
• Added a ‘Sort by Overall’ / ‘Sort by Group’ button to Event Results for Multi-Class Races allowing players to compare how they did against the overall driver list.
• Fixed a bug where tire wear was not correctly affecting grip of Drivatar AI opponents in races.
• Improved Drivatar AI pitting logic, especially in Endurance Races.
• Adjusted track wall friction on Eaglerock Speedway, Daytona, Homestead, and Indianapolis to more accurately reflect physical material properties.
• Autosaved tunes no longer apply to a player's tune save limit.

Forza Motorsport Update 14 is available today. New cars and in-game events will be available on November 6, 4 PM PT time. You can find more information about the update here.

The next update, Australia Month, will bring Mount Panorama Circuit and celebrate "the diverse racing heritage of cars from the land down under."

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On Friday, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that AI chipmaker Nvidia will replace Intel in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, marking a seismic shift in the semiconductor industry and ending Intel's 25-year run on the prestigious stock market index. The change takes effect on November 8.

"The index changes were initiated to ensure a more representative exposure to the semiconductors industry," wrote S&P in a press release.

Intel's stock has dropped 54 percent this year, making it the worst performer on the Dow, and the company now holds a market value of under $100 billion for the first time in three decades, Reuters reported. Analysts expect Intel to post its first annual net loss since 1986.

The change reflects a dramatic shift in the semiconductor industry's power dynamics. Intel, whose chips drove the personal computer revolution from the 1970s to the 1990s, has been on shaky business ground recently. The chipmaker has lost its manufacturing leadership to Taiwan's TSMC and reportedly missed opportunities in the growing market for AI processors.

Meanwhile, due to the demand for AI accelerator chips, Nvidia's market capitalization has soared to $3.32 trillion, making it the second most valuable company in the world. The company's graphics processing units (GPUs) power many AI systems today, including generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, driving the company's stock price up more than 100 percent this year alone.

Changing winds in the tech industry

The Dow Jones Industrial Average serves as a benchmark of the US stock market by tracking 30 large, publicly owned companies that represent major sectors of the US economy, and being a member of the Index has long been considered a sign of prestige among American companies.

However, S&P regularly makes changes to the index to better reflect current realities and trends in the marketplace, so deletion from the Index likely marks a new symbolic low point for Intel.

While the rise of AI has caused a surge in several tech stocks, it has delivered tough times for chipmaker Intel, which is perhaps best known for manufacturing CPUs that power Windows-based PCs.

Intel recently withdrew its forecast to sell over $500 million worth of AI-focused Gaudi chips in 2024, a target CEO Pat Gelsinger had promoted after initially pushing his team to project $1 billion in sales. The setback follows Intel's pattern of missed opportunities in AI, with Reuters reporting that Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya questioned the company's AI strategy during a recent earnings call.

In addition, Intel has faced challenges as device manufacturers increasingly use Arm-based alternatives that power billions of smartphone devices and from symbolic blows like Apple's transition away from Intel processors for Macs to its own custom-designed chips based on the Arm architecture.

Whether the historic tech company will rebound is yet to be seen, but investors will undoubtedly keep a close watch on Intel as it attempts to reorient itself in the face of changing trends in the tech industry.

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Raspberry Pi has announced the availability of the Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2, a successor to the 2015 Raspberry Pi Touch Display. The new Touch Display 2 is now on sale at the same price of $60, but offers a higher resolution of 720 x 1,280 pixels, compared with its predecessor's 800 x 480, and a "slimmer form factor."

The key specs outlined by Raspberry Pi of its new Touch Display 2 are as follows:

• 7″ diagonal display
• 88mm × 155mm active area
• 720 (RGB) × 1280 pixels
• True multi-touch capacitive panel, supporting five-finger touch
• Fully supported by Raspberry Pi OS
• Powered from the host Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi says that the new Touch Display 2 is compatible with all Raspberry Pi computers from Raspberry Pi 1B+ onwards, with the exception of the Raspberry Pi Zero series, which doesn't have the necessary DSI port.

The Touch Display 2 securely attaches to Pi computers with four screws. It's powered by an included power cable and connects with data cables that are compatible with standard and mini FPC connector formats. Another new thing about the Touch Display 2 is that it integrates the display driver PCB into the display enclosure itself, helping to deliver the slimmer form factor.

Raspberry Pi said that the original Touch Display will remain in production for the foreseeable future but will not be recommended for new designs powered by Pi computers. The Touch Display 2 will be in production until 2030 at the earliest. It said this will give embedded and industrial customers time to build it into their products and installations with more confidence.

Explaining why it took nine years to refresh the display, Raspberry Pi stated that it's a significant accessory and it wanted to take the time to get it "just right." It's now looking forward to see how it's used in new projects.

Source: Raspberry Pi

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Paul's Hardware (1.49M subscribers)

11 hours ago

November 3, 2024

Video length: 10m 55s

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - Nov 3, 2024

1:54 Intel Core Ultra 200S Desktop CPUs Disappoint, Sales Bad

4:36 AMD’s 9800X3D Specs and Launch Date Announced, Nov 7 for $479

TECH BRIEFS

7:12 Nvidia's Arm-based PC chips for consumers to launch in September 2025

8:02 Supermicro's stock plummets 35% in one day after accounting firm resigns

8:50 Apple’s Mac Computers now come with at least 16GB of RAM

9:25 What a Cute Jensen Huang Halloween Costume

10:06 Even this Cake GPU avoids the 12VHPWR connector

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Table of contents:

1. Windows 10 and 11 news
2. Windows Insider Program
3. Updates are available
4. Gaming news
5. Great deals to check

This week's Microsoft Weekly starts with the latest financial report from Microsoft. The company announced over $65.5 billion in revenue, $24.7 billion in operation income, and $3.30 earnings per share. The company's CFO said that "strong execution by our sales teams and partners delivered a solid start to our fiscal year."

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.

The biggest story of this week was Microsoft's announcement of yet another Recall delay. This time, the company plans to start its public testing somewhere in December. The initial plan was to launch the feature in June, but it was delayed until October, and now it is all the way to December. Here is what Microsoft said about the delay:

We are committed to delivering a secure and trusted experience with Recall. To ensure we deliver on these important updates, we’re taking additional time to refine the experience before previewing it with Windows Insiders. Originally planned for October, Recall will now be available for preview with Windows Insiders on Copilot Plus PCs by December.

Another big announcement is related to Windows 10. Microsoft finally revealed how much it would cost for consumers to continue receiving Windows 10 security updates past its end-of-support date in October 2025. Get ready to pay the company $30 to keep your Windows 10 in supported state.

However, unlike enterprises, which will be able to use the Extended Security Program for three years, consumers are only entitled to twelve months of additional updates.

Microsoft also confirmed a bunch of various bugs in its operating system. For starters, it fixed non-working apps on Windows 10. The bug hit users trying to launch certain apps from non-admin accounts. Affected programs included Quick Assist, Microsoft Teams, Windows Narrator, and many more. Fortunately, it was fixed in no time, thanks to the Known Issue Rollback feature.

What is not yet fixed is Windows 11 24H2's Task Manager, which incorrectly reports zero running apps and background processes. The bug occurs on Windows 11 version 24H2 with the latest non-security update, which was released by the end of October.

Another bug is hitting Azure Virtual Desktop users on Windows 10. Microsoft says that recent Windows 10 updates caused long black screens when connecting to AVD, connectivity issues in Office apps, and more. The company is working on fixing the problem in a future update.

Next, we have some fresh stats about Windows 10 and 11. Statcounter reported that Windows 11 is increasing its adoption rate speed. According to the latest data, Windows 11 holds over 35.5% of the Windows market, with a monthly increase of 2.13 points.

The OS is also doing well among gamers, according to Valve. The Steam Hardware and Software Survey for October 2024 says Windows 11 is installed on nearly 52% of all Windows PCs on the platform.

AMD announced details about its upcoming Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor and shared performance improvements it will bring on Windows 11 over rivals, such as the Intel Core Ultra 285K, Intel Core i9-14900K, and even the previous-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Windows Server 2025 is now generally available. Microsoft announced the launch of its next-gen Server operating system alongside System Center 2025. The company also shared the complete list of supported processors, which includes some pretty low-end models, such as Intel Pentium.

To finish the Windows section, here is a useful guide that will help you turn on folder sizes in Windows 11's File Explorer without resorting to third-party file managers. It involves installing a small open-source mod.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft Released this week for testing in the Windows Insider Program:

If one of your computers is enrolled in the Insider program and it received the Super Resolution feature despite having a "traditional" PC, that is because of a bug. Microsoft confirmed that the feature was mistakenly rolled out to non-Copilot+ PCs, and it is now fixed. No more image upscalers for those with x86 Intel and AMD computers.

Another missing feature is the ability to unlink a phone in Windows 11's Phone Link app. So far, there is no info on why Microsoft removed it.

Sadly, we are not done with features that are no longer available. In the release notes for the latest Windows 11 Beta build, Microsoft confirmed that the new gamepad keyboard for Windows 11 is no longer available. That applies not just to preview builds but also to stable Windows 11 24H2 releases (the keyboard was released as part of the October 2024 non-security update).

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.

On November 1, Microsoft announced the winners of the Microsoft Store Awards 2024. Fourteen applications from the Microsoft Store (submitted by developers and regular users) received special recognition in 14 different categories.

Microsoft Teams is getting a revamped chat and channel experience, which now features new filters, an updated mention view, improvements for the favorites section, channel updates, and more. In addition, Teams now lets you choose a skin tone for emojis and reactions for better self-expression.

Microsoft's text editor, Word, marked its 41st anniversary this week, and the company celebrated the occasion with a new blog post outlining new features that Microsoft implemented based on user feedback.

Outlook, another app from the Office suite, received an update on mobile devices to boost privacy for businesses and consumers. Microsoft is also changing how to enable or disable New Outlook for Windows and the Web.

By the way, if you do not want the new Outlook on your PC, check out this simple trick. You might also want to do some tricks to fix Classic Outlook hanging when copying text on certain systems.

As usual, we also had a lot of browser updates this week. Starting with Opera, its Android version received new features, such as AI image recognition, QR code sharing, and more. Next, Mozilla released Firefox 132 for all platforms, bringing 4K DRM video streaming support, a wider color gamut support, and other changes.

Google prepared some neat upgrades for Chrome users as well. The company announced new performance controls to improve the browsing experience, such as the ability to release memory from inactive tabs, performance issue notifications, and more.

Microsoft Edge 132 arrived in the Dev Channel with profile improvements and fixes for various crashes. In the Stable Channel, Edge received fixes for the STATUS_BREAKPOINT error and two security patches. Microsoft also reminded users that MDAG and its APIs are no longer available in Windows 11 version 24H2.

On the third-party side, Windows users have a new app coming straight from macOS and iOS. Fantastical, a popular feature-packed calendar, is now available in the Microsoft Store.

There is another piece of Apple ecosystem that is now available on Windows (sort of). Parallels released a new version of its hypervisor to enable Apple Intelligence features in Windows-based virtual machines.

OpenAI also updated its ChatGPT app for Windows with support for the Advanced Voice mode, which makes it possible for Chat GPT to respond to audio inputs with incredibly short delays (average of 320 milliseconds).

Other notable updates include the following:

• Microsoft announced a new Bing experience for the 2024 US presidential race.

• Ex-Meta VP Jay Parikh joined Microsoft.

• Microsoft released Visual Studio Code 1.95 with various new features and improvements.

• Steam now requires games to disclose the use of kernel mode anti-cheat systems.

• Microsoft and A16z offer policy ideas for AI startups.

   

And here are the newest drivers released this week:

• AMD 24.20.19.05 Beta with Dragon Age: The Veilguard support and a single fir for The Crew Motorfest.
• Surface Go 4 received new firmware with display flickering fixes, faster Wi-Fi, and more.
• Surface Laptop 5 received battery improvements and fixes for random shutdowns.

On the gaming side

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

If you wonder why Microsoft has not ported Halo 5 to PC, a new report will make things a bit clearer. A former 343 Industries (now Halo Studios) developer revealed that the port was scrapped due to "significant tech hurdles."

Halo Studios also announced a bunch of Halo 2 maps and third-person Firefight mode coming to Halo Infinite next week to commemorate 20 years of Halo 2. The update will be available on November 5.

Treyarch announced a massive Season 1 update for the recently launched Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. It will start on November 14, with Infected mode and Nuketown arriving first. By the way, there is already a patch available that fixes black screen issues and other bugs.

Forza Horizon 5, another Microsoft-owned game, is getting a lot of the latest Porsche vehicles as part of the new Track Day update. In addition, Event Lab creators will be able to equip their maps with a horde of new Halo-themed props.

A big update also arrived for Payday 3. The game now has a server browser, cross-platform voice chat, new masks, a revamped user interface, and other quality improvements.

Rockstar also had some great news for PC gamers this week. The studio finally launched the original Red Dead Redemption on PC, alongside its additional content, such as Undead Nightmare. You can purchase the game on Steam and the Epic Games Store for $49.99.

In addition, Rockstar announced graphics updates for GTA V on PC. They arrived on consoles first in 2022, and PC games will be able to enjoy improved graphics somewhere in 2025. Sadly, no exact dates were provided.

On the Xbox Insider side, Microsoft is testing a redesigned Xbox app for Windows users. The updated UI features a new Home page with games, deals, recommendations, and other useful content.

For non-insiders who stick with stable Xbox updates, Microsoft released an Xbox OS update under version 10.0.26100.2499. It introduced Natural Language Search and thumbstick calibration for the Wireless Elite Controller.

Nvidia announced new games for the GeForce NOW cloud streaming service. The latest additions include Life is Strange: Double Exposure, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Resident Evil 4, VRChat, and 18 more titles that will be available in November 2024.

Deals and freebies

This week, we have quite a lot of specials and discounts. Valve, for one, is hosting its annual Steam Halloween Sale, where you can claim thousands of spooky games with big discounts. It runs through November 27, so you still have plenty of time to buy some scary titles.

The Epic Games Store is giving away Tango's Ghostwire: Tokyo, a creepy game about a dead city filled with ghosts and other spooky stuff. You can get the game for free until the next Thursday.

Another giveaway is happening in GOG. The store lets everyone have a classic horror game for free until November 4. The game in question is Return of the Phantom, a MicroProse-developed point-and-click adventure that was released all the way back in 1993.

But even that is not everything. If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can claim two games right now and over 20 more for free over the course of November.

If you want more, check out this week's Weekend PC Game Deals, which is full of various discounted games.

Other interesting stories from the gaming world this week include the following:

• Bungie published an update on Marathon development, with playtest expanding in 2025.
• Homeworld 3 developers removed Denuvo DRM from the game.
• The next Mass Effect installment will retain the mature tone of the original trilogy.
• EA removed Apex Legends Linux and Steam Deck support to stop cheaters.
• DayZ creator announced a new space sim to take on Kerbal Space Program.
• Paradox Interactive warned about malware in a popular Cities: Skylines II mod.

This link will take you to other issues of the Microsoft Weekly series. You can also support Neowin by registering a free member account or optionally subscribing for extra member benefits, along with an option for an ad-free tier.

Microsoft Weekly image by AcatXlo on Pixabay.

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Speaking to Rolling Stone, creative director John Epler revealed that after finishing its work with Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the studio is no longer focusing on making any new content for the RPG. The next Mass Effect now has the company's complete attention.

While not many details have been revealed about the highly-anticipated Mass Effect game since its announcement in 2020, its project director recently gave a hint at the tone it's targeting. Unlike Veilguard's new visual style, which hasn't been received well by some fans, the latest Mass Effect is going to keep the "mature tone of the original Trilogy." He went on to say that "Mass Effect is photorealistic and will be as long as I'm running it."

It's already known that The Veilguard had originally started as a multiplayer project before going on to being a single-player experience. “We were alienating parts of our fan base that had been with us for a long time, and not successfully bringing in anyone else through the multiplayer side of things,” Epler says. “The reception to Anthem was very clear in that we needed to get back to those aspects that we did well, and multiplayer became an obstacle in the way of doing just that.”

As for whether the studio might work on another multiplayer project in the future, Epler explains that while games like Final Fantasy XIV deliver on the narrative aspects, "when it comes to crafting these worlds and crafting the experiences, I love the focus that single-player can give you."

A few years ago, BioWare delivered Mass Effect fans a remastered collection titled Legendary Edition. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Dragon Age fans will soon be getting a collection like that. According to Epler, the different engines that the series used — Eclipse Engine for Dragon Age Origins and 2 and Frostbite for Inquisition — are a major obstacle. Meanwhile, the Mass Effect trilogy used Unreal Engine all the way through, making the remastered collection an easier job to develop.

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It seems Ubisoft is keen to change the sentiment gamers have towards the company and its games going forward, though, and Shadows is in the middle of that plan. As reported by Eurogamer, at a BAFTA event speech, Assassin’s Creed franchise executive producer Marc-Alexis Coté has said that "Ubisoft's portfolio has faced criticism in recent years for a perceived inconsistency in quality."

"Players expect more polish, more innovation and deeper engagement from the games we release, and they're not shy about letting us know when they feel we have fallen short," he says. "Assassin's Creed Shadows represents our opportunity to change that narrative, not just for Assassin's Creed, but I think for Ubisoft as a whole."

According to Coté, the Assassin's Creed Unity backlash from 2014 for its bug-ridden launch is something the company doesn't want to be repeated, which had been one of the reasons for the Assassin's Creed Shadows delay decision.

"After much reflection and analysis, I recommended to our top management to delay the release of Assassin's Creed Shadows," Coté continued. "Our playtests and team feedback made it clear Shadows had immense potential, but I felt we needed more time to ensure it fully meets the high expectations of our players.

Coté says that the latest installment is the company's most ambitious game ever due to its complex use of new mechanics, narrative elements, and technologies. The extra time the developers are getting is reportedly being used to polish the experience as much as possible, which is making Ubisoft spend an additional $20 million in development costs.

Assassin's Creed Shadows is currently slated to land on February 14, 2025. It is coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. Ubisoft has also ditched all timed exclusivity plans on PC, with it releasing on Steam day one alongside other stores like Ubisoft Connect and Epic Games Store.

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The M4-powered MacBooks are now available for preorder, but the shipment begins next year on November 8. Meanwhile, both M4 Pro and M4 Max have already appeared on the Geekbench benchmark website, giving us a sneak peek into the performance of Apple’s latest offering.

According to Geekbench, the Apple M4 Pro processor ( aka Mac16,7) has scored 3,925 in single-core and 22,669 in multi-core tests. The alleged chip has 14 cores and is clocked at 4.51 GHz with 48GB of RAM, which matches the M4 Pro specification.

Assuming this information is correct, the M4 Pro can smoothly outperform Mac Studio with the M2 Ultra. Despite boasting 24 cores, the Apple M2 Ultra has scored 2,777 in single-core and 21,471 in multi-core tests.

When it comes to Apple M4 Max, the figures get even better. As Geekbench suggests, the M4 Max processor (aka Mac16,5) has scored 4,060 in single-core tests, making it the first production CPU to achieve over 4,000 mark in Geekbench 6. As for the multi-core test, the chip sits at 26,675, which is again a significant leap compared to M2 Ultra. The tested chipset features 16 cores and 128GB of RAM.

For now, we should take this information with a pinch of salt as they’re not official yet and might be fake. We could have a better judgment once we get our hands on the M4 Mac devices in November. However, the specifications do seem to align with Apple’s promises and claims during the announcement.

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Some of my favorite games deny me the thing I think I want most. Elden Ring refuses to provide manageable save files (and I paid for it). Balatro withholds the final math on each hand played (and its developer suggests avoiding calculators). And the modern X-COM games force me to realize just how much a 98% chance to hit is not the same as 100%.

Dystopika (Steam, Windows) is a city builder in maybe the strictest definition of that two-word descriptor, because it steadfastly refuses to distract you with non-building details. The game is described by its single developer, Matt Marshall, as having "No goals, no management, just creativity and dark cozy vibes." Dystopika does very little to explain how you should play it, because there's no optimal path for doing so. Your only job is to enjoy yourself, poking and prodding at a dark cyberpunk cityscape, making things that look interesting, pretty, grim, or however you like. It might seem restrictive, but it feels very freeing.

Dystopika launch video.

The game's interface is a small rail on the left side of the screen. Select "Building" and a random shape attaches to your cursor. You can right-click to change it, but you can't pick one. Place it, and then optionally place the cursor near its top to change its height. Making one building taller will raise smaller buildings nearby. Reaching certain heights, or densities, or something (it's not explained) will "unlock" certain new buildings, landmarks, and decorations.

You do get to pick out "Props," like roads and trams and giant billboards and hologram objects and flying carports, but the game is similarly non-committal on what you should do with them, or most anything. You put things down, or delete them, expand them, connect them, and try things out until you like how it looks.

There's a lot to unlock in Dystopika, so pace yourself. (Please click these images for a bigger view, you owe it to yourself.)

Voids Within

 

Okay, let's meet for drinks on 37th street, down by the giant blue butt.

Voids Within

 

You feel bad for all the people in your eco-stripped city, but gosh, it just looks so neat.

Voids Within

 

Your author takes a shot at a pretty-looking city, realizing he needs to look into some color filters.

Kevin Purdy

 

And things can end up looking quite nice. This game takes its photo mode seriously. A raft of sliders let you adjust all the typical dystopian-corpo-city visual effects, like lens dirt, lots of glare and glow, fog, distant mountains, amounts of airborne car traffic, and such. You can export shots at up to 4K resolution and never want for a new desktop background again.

You'll pick up more about how things work as you play, but there is no rush. This game isn't "cozy" because it has you making friends in a riverside town of anthropomorphic creatures—which, to be clear, has its merits. It's "cozy" in the sense of letting you enjoy it at whatever level you like. You can absolutely leave this game running in the background and chill out to its impressively on-point synth soundtrack. You can't run out of money or have the transportation advisor get fuming mad at you.

Dystopika is not labeled as Early Access, but it is continually improving, with the developer providing regular roadmaps and updates, and there's a Discord where fans are showing off impressive screenshots in community challenges and suggesting fixes and features. For $7 (at the moment), this dystopian toybox will let you play with the visually impressive parts of dark, urban sci-fi and refuse to make you consider their deeper implications. For all you know, the people down there are having just as good a time as you are.

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The Forza Horizon 5 Track Day update is all about Porsche racing cars. During the four-week series, you will be able to earn the following vehicles:

• 2023 Porsche 911 GT3 RS
• 2023 Porsche 911 Rallye
• 2023 Porsche 911 GT3 R

Completing a championship in the final season of the update will also earn you the 2023 Porsche 911 Turbo S.

In addition to new cars, the update brings a set of Halo-themed props for Event Lab creations. Creators can use 71 props, such as Covenant Barricade, UNSC Barricade, Energy Shield, Barrel, Health Pack, Covenant Crate, Totem Ring Chunk, and a lot more. Also, there are three Halo soundtracks to make racing more epic. Those include Halo Theme Gungnir Mix (feat. Steve Vai) for the Horizon XS station and Installation 04 and The Trails for the Radio Eterna station.

Here is the list of fixed issues:

• Fixed an issue causing player’s level to reset after a match of Hide & Seek
• Fixed an issue where game crashes could break a player’s completion streak in Hide & Seek
• Fixed an issue in Hide & Seek where sometimes players could cross outside the border area of the Playa Azul Map
• Fixed the “Missing Required Keybinds” bug in the Wheel Settings menu
• Added the 2021 Toyota GR Yaris to the Homologation Heroes category

Finally, players can nominate their favorite creators for Golden Tank Awards 2024 in four categories: EventLab Creation of the Year, Most Creative Event, Best EventLab Island Event, Best Race Event, and Best Photo Location. Voting will start next month.

The next Forza Horizon 5 update will be announced by the end of November or early December. Look out for some holiday decorations, new reward cars, clothing items, and more.

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According to Steam data, Dragon Age: The Veilguard's day-one concurrent peak reached 70,414 players. As of writing, the current number stands at just over 30,000. There's a good chance the peak will rise to much higher heights once the weekend rush on Steam hits the game.

For comparison, EA's second biggest single-player launch on Steam, Respawn Entertainment's Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, saw an all-time best peak of 67,855 players jumping into the game on at launch.

While starting off at mixed, Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Steam user reviews are steadily climbing up too. Many of the complaints seem to be stemming from a crashing issue being experienced by some players, who can't get passed the shader cache building stage. Hours later, the rating is currently sitting at 79% "Mostly Positive" state with almost 3,500 user reviews, and is soon about to reach "Very Positive".

The title's lower price point on PC, $60 compared to $70 on consoles, lack of EA App integration on Steam (allowing the game to run natively), and already being Steam Deck verified are helping the game gain traction with the PC crowd as well. Don't forget that third-party DRM formatas like Denuvo is not a part of the game either.

We will have to wait and see if EA shares any player or sales numbers across all platforms once the weekend numbers come through.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is now available on PC (Steam, EA App, Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S, as well as PlayStation 5.

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While Amazon's revenue growth is decent, the most impressive numbers were around operating income. The overall operating income increased to $17.4 billion, compared to $11.2 billion in Q3 2023. Even the previously money-losing international segment posted an operating income of $1.3 billion, compared to an operating loss of $0.1 billion in Q3 2023. Finally, the AWS segment posted a record operating income of $10.4 billion, compared to an operating income of $7.0 billion in Q3 2023. Overall, Amazon's net income increased to $15.3 billion, compared to $9.9 billion in Q3 2023.

The upcoming quarter's numbers will be even better according to Amazon's own guidance. Amazon is expecting revenue to be between $181.5 billion and $188.5 billion, or to increase between 7% and 11% compared to Q4 2023. And operating income is expected to be between $16.0 billion and $20.0 billion, compared to $13.2 billion in Q4 2023.

Andy Jassy, Amazon President & CEO, said:

"As we get into the holiday season, we're excited about what we have in store for customers. We kicked off the holiday season with our biggest-ever Prime Big Deal Days and the launch of an all-new Kindle lineup that is significantly outperforming our expectations; and there's so much more coming, from tens of millions of deals, to our NFL Black Friday game and Election Day coverage with Brian Williams on Prime Video, to over 100 new cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities that we'll share at AWS re:Invent the week after Thanksgiving."

During the earnings call, Jassy mentioned that the AWS AI business is a multi-billion-dollar revenue run-rate business that continues to grow at a triple-digit year-over-year percentage. Also, he highlighted that it is growing more than three times faster at this stage of its evolution than AWS itself grew.

With its strong financial performance, strategic investments in AI, and focus on customer experience, Amazon is well-positioned for continued success in the years to come.

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The company, however, has little to worry about in the CPU space as rival Intel is struggling, as its Arrow Lake-S desktop CPUs have not exactly been able to impress the community with what it is offering. It is especially disappointing after a rather promising single-thread performance benchmark of the Ultra 9 285K in the PassMark synthetic test had leaked. Still, real-world apps and games have shown that it is struggling to perform even though Intel claimed earlier that Windows is optimized for this new non-hyperthreaded approach.

Today, AMD has announced its new Ryzen 9800X3D processor. AMD's X3D chips incorporate a special sauce called the 3D V-cache (vertical cache) that stacks a ton of cache vertically on top of each other to drastically increase the amount of last-level cache (LLC) or L3 in a rather small footprint as workloads like games absolutely love it. On the new 9800X3D, there is 96 MB of this new 2nd Gen 3D V-cache for a total cache capacity of 104 MB.

Thus, for a couple of generations now, starting from the Ryzen 5800X3D, AMD chips have generally topped the gaming performance charts compared to corresponding Intel chips, and this time, as well, the company says it's no different.

Aside from a new 3D V-cache, AMD has also modified the way the cache is laid out, which the company claims is helpful in improving the cooling performance of the part. Thus, it is also the first X3D CPU to be unlocked for overclocking.

The company has also explained the performance uplift users can expect from previous generations of AMD parts like the Ryzen 7800X3D and Intel competition. For example, the new 9800X3D is, on average, 20% faster than Intel's 285K and 8% faster than the 7800X3D. AMD also says that some games will exhibit even better performance. The chip has also been measured against Intel's 14900K.

Another area of improvement is gaming smoothness, as the company expects much better minimum frames for the 9800X3D. AMD says:

The 64MB cache memory has been relocated below the processor, which puts the core complex die (CCD) closer to the cooling solution to help keep the “Zen 5” cores cooler, delivering high clock rates and providing up to an average 8% gaming performance improvement compared to our last-gen generation and up to an average 20% faster than the competition.

 

Combined with the advanced “Zen 5” processor architecture, the AMD 3D V-Cache technology works to attain the highest processor gaming performance on the market. While the generational uplift in average FPS is about 8%, many games such as Star Wars Outlaws will experience double-digit percentage improvements generationally.

 

What’s more, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor can demonstrate substantial generational improvements in minimum frame rates even when average frame rates are similar, providing the user with an experience that feels smoother, with less stutter – for instance, in The Last Of Us: Part 1, where the Ryzen 7 9800X3D has a similar average frame rate compared to the competition, but a 31% higher 1% low frame rate

AMD has disclosed that the new Ryzen 9 9800X3D was tested against the other CPUs on Windows 11 Pro with an Nvidia RTX 4090 as the discrete GPU. Speaking of Windows 11, VBS or virtualization-based security was enabled, which is known to lower performance even on version 24H2.

In terms of specs, the new 9800X3D, like the 7800X3D and 5800X3D, is also an 8-core 16-thread processor. The chip comes with a higher 120W TDP compared to the predecessors, with a fairly high base clock of 4.7 GHz and a rated boost of 5.2 GHz.

AMD, however, has not announced the pricing of the CPU today. We will likely know more about it closer to November 7th, when the chip will launch.

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In the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year (remember, fiscal and calendar years are not the same), Microsoft generated $65.6 billion of revenue, a 16% increase over the same period one year ago. Operation income increased by 14% and totaled $24.7 billion. Overall, Microsoft reported a $3.30 earnings per share, which, again, is a 10% increase over the same quarter from 2024. The company also acknowledged a 12% operating expenses increase ($14.9 billion) due to the Activision purchase and investment in cloud engineering.

Amy Hood, executive vice president and CFO of Microsoft, said the following about the company's latest report:

Strong execution by our sales teams and partners delivered a solid start to our fiscal year with Microsoft Cloud revenue of $38.9 billion, up 22% year-over-year.

Microsoft's latest financial report is divided into three categories: Productivity and Business Processes, Intelligent Cloud, and More Personal Computing. Productivity and Business Processes generated $28.4 billion in revenue (12% up and 15% up in constant currency), with the following highlights:

• 13% increase in Microsoft 365 Commercial products and cloud services
• 5% increase in Microsoft 365 Consumer products
• 10% increase in LinkedIn revenue
• 14% increase in Dynamics products and cloud revenue

Intelligent Cloud, which includes Microsoft's server products, such as Azure, generated $24.1 billion in revenue, a 20% year-over-year increase. The More Personal Computing category, which includes Windows OEM, Xbox, and search business, generated $13.2 billion in revenue, a significant increase of 17%. Gaming revenue grew 43% thanks to the Activision acquisition, while Xbox hardware revenue declined 29%.

Microsoft also reported that it had returned $9 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases in the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year.

You can find more information about Microsoft's first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year on the official website.

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