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There have been some reports of AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs being roasted in their sockets recently, but motherboard manufacturers like ASRock are working to correct any actual problems. ASRock has the most well-documented incidences of AMD AM5 X3D CPUs being killed, but it isn't the only one—many other manufacturers, including MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte,
Cramming PC components into classic game consoles is a time-honored tradition that's almost as common as stuffing modern hardware into the beige boxes of yesteryear. A modder that goes by the name of PhasedTech wanted a challenge for his own project and found the perfect candidate in the Xbox One S.
When the Xbox One launched in 2013 it
Ayaneo has officially unleashed the Next 2, its new flagship Windows handheld anchored by AMD's monstrous Ryzen AI Max "Strix Halo" APU and a gorgeous 9.06-inch OLED display. The system is a bold statement that pushes portable PC gaming toward console-class performance. The project page is live on Indiegogo, with prices starting around $1,799
The current console generation has been less than stellar for Microsoft’s Xbox, as its Series X and S devices have struggled to build a user base that’s comparable to that of Sony and Nintendo. This has caused the company to expand the platforms its games can be played on, bringing marquee titles to the PlayStation 5 and consequently causingThe PC memory industry's landscape is shifting as industry titans like Asus, Acer, Dell, and HP explore unconventional supply chains to keep their production lines moving. According to recent reports, these manufacturers are looking toward the Chinese memory maker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) as an alternative to the traditional trio of Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron.
According to Nikkei Asia (via Wccftech), this decision is being taken as a direct result of the ongoing global memory crunch, in which the dominant suppliers are prioritising high-margin High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for AI infrastructure, leaving the consumer PC market with a significant supply deficit.
Late last year, CXMT demonstrated its advancements by unveiling homegrown DDR5-8000 and LPDDR5X-10667 modules. These modules are said to offer competitive speeds that meet or even exceed official JEDEC specifications, potentially making them a viable drop-in replacement for standard OEM laptops and desktops. CXMT manufactures these chips on a 16 nm node, which is roughly 3 years behind the cutting-edge processes used by the “Big Three”.
Assuming these qualification phases are successful, many PC makers might start integrating CXMT memory into products for non-U.S. markets to avoid rising costs and shipping delays. While some analysts cite potential national security concerns or the possibility of future trade restrictions, for the average consumer, the source of the DRAM in their system is likely less important than whether the machine is actually available and affordable. With CXMT already shipping its 12 Gb and 16 Gb LPDDR5X modules, the company could become a “lifesaver” for the consumer electronics sector, which the AI boom has increasingly marginalised. However, Digitimes report suggests pricing might not be that much lower than what we've seen from the competition.
KitGuru says: It is fascinating to see how the AI gold rush is forcing even the most established Western PC brands to rethink how they operate. If Samsung and Micron continue to divert their wafer output toward HBM and enterprise contracts, we might soon find that Chinese memory becomes the standard for mainstream laptops and gaming rigs alike.
The post PC manufacturers are reportedly turning to Chinese memory as global shortage bites first appeared on KitGuru.The PC cooling market is reportedly bracing for a price adjustment. Alphacool and be quiet! have claimed that the rising cost of raw materials has reached a breaking point, with the former confirming that it will implement a 5% to 10% price increase across its product catalogue by the end of February. German manufacturer be quiet! also issued a statement, albeit more positive. Instead of climbing prices right away, it will only do so if the current cost of raw materials remains.
As Der8auer mentioned, the primary culprit behind this shift is the global surge in copper prices, which have reportedly risen from approximately $9,000 per tonne to over $13,000 per tonne over the past twelve months. Besides copper, tin also saw a 60-80% increase, depending on the currency used. On the other hand, aluminium and nickel prices have remained largely unchanged, while steel prices have actually dropped about 7%.
Because copper is the standard for thermal conductivity in premium PC components, forming the baseplates of water blocks and the fins of high-end radiators, cooling manufacturers are uniquely exposed to these market fluctuations. While both companies have supposedly spent months absorbing these extra costs to shield consumers, the sustained high pricing of industrial metals has made current margins unsustainable.
As some might have already concluded, the increase in raw material costs is due to the massive infrastructure required for AI data centres, which reportedly consume up to three times as much copper as traditional facilities for power and specialised cooling. With major copper mines in South America and Indonesia facing operational setbacks, a global deficit is expected to persist throughout 2026. For enthusiasts planning a new custom loop or a high-end air-cooled build, the next few weeks represent a final window before these adjustments hit retail shelves, with high-copper components like full-metal radiators and GPU blocks expected to see the most immediate impact.
KitGuru says: As if the memory shortage alone wasn't enough, the rising price of copper in 2026 is an unfortunate reality for a market already suffering.
The post Copper scarcity now forcing price hikes in the PC cooler market first appeared on KitGuru.Nvidia might not launch any gaming GPUs in 2026, according to recent reports. Unsurprisingly, due to the ongoing global memory crisis, the company is reportedly reallocating its entire supply of high-performance RAM to its significantly more profitable AI server accelerators. This shift has apparently resulted in the cancellation of the long-rumoured RTX 50-series Super refresh, which were previously expected to debut with substantial VRAM upgrades.
According to The Information (via Tom's Hardware), the delay reportedly extends into the next generation of hardware as well, with the GeForce RTX 60-series supposedly being pushed back. While the Blackwell successor was originally aimed at a mass-production start in late 2027, the current bottlenecks in GDDR7 and HBM supply mean we are unlikely to see a launch until sometime in 2028.
This potential four-year gap between generations would mark the longest drought in modern gaming history, leaving the current RTX 50-series as the primary enthusiast offering for the foreseeable future.
To further complicate matters for PC builders, previous reports also indicated that both AMD and Nvidia are to focus their gaming production on 8GB cards moving forward in an effort to navigate memory shortages. For the RTX 50 series, this would mean less supply for the RTX 5070 Ti and up, but an increased number of RTX 5070 and RTX 5060 graphics cards on shelves.
KitGuru says: The news that Nvidia might skip 2026 entirely is a bitter pill for gamers to swallow, but from a purely financial perspective, it makes sense. When the operating margins for AI chips are considerably higher than for gaming, and every stick of VRAM is precious, it was only a matter of time before the enthusiast market took a back seat.
The post Nvidia GeForce RTX 60 debut might be delayed first appeared on KitGuru.Intel is reportedly thinning out its upcoming Arrow Lake-S Refresh (Core Ultra Series 2 Plus) lineup before it even hits the shelves. According to recent reports, the previously rumoured flagship Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has been cancelled. Despite earlier Geekbench leaks suggesting a 10% performance jump over the current 285K, Intel has supposedly decided to scrap the “halo” chip to simplify its product stack and focus on more distinct upgrades within the series.
According to VideoCardz, the primary driver of this cancellation is product overlap. The 290K Plus was expected to feature the same 24-core (8P+16E) configuration as both the existing Core Ultra 9 285K and the supposedly upcoming Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. Differentiating three nearly identical top-end SKUs solely by minor clock-speed bumps would have been complicated, particularly when the performance difference between a 270K Plus and a 290K Plus would likely be minimal for the average consumer.
With this potential flagship chip out of the picture, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus reportedly becomes the new star of the refresh. This chip is expected to be a significant upgrade over the non-refresh 265K by adding four additional efficiency cores to match the 24-core count of the i9 tier. Leaked specifications suggest the 270K Plus will feature a maximum turbo boost of 5.5 GHz, with P-cores reaching 5.4 GHz and E-cores hitting 4.7 GHz. Beyond the core count, the refresh's main selling points appear to be improved platform tuning, including native support for DDR5-7200 memory and advanced “Intel Performance Optimizations” (IPO).
This approach also aligns with Intel's broader 2026 roadmap. With the massive Nova Lake architecture expected for a late 2026 launch on the new LGA-1954 socket, a leaner Arrow Lake Refresh allows Intel to maintain momentum on the current LGA-1851 platform without over-investing in a generation that will only be relevant for a few months.
KitGuru says: Launching a “KS” flagship so close to the end of a socket's lifespan rarely makes sense, especially when the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus already offers the same core density.
The post Intel reportedly axes Core Ultra 290K Plus to avoid overlap first appeared on KitGuru.Fallout 76 came out just before the entire multiplayer games industry shifted towards multi-platform systems. As a result, Fallout 76 is still behind, with no crossplay features, but Bethesda is finally looking to change that.
In a recent interview with Polygon, Fallout 76 Creative Director, Jon Rush, said that the team is “looking into” implementing cross-platform multiplayer for Fallout 76. However, it is not an “immediate” plan, as the team still needs to “scope out” how much work implementing it would take.
Bill LaCoste, the production director, added that there are “huge technical hurdles” that would need to be tackled before cross-platform multiplayer could be rolled out to the masses.
Obviously, Fallout 76 in itself was an experiment built on top of Fallout 4, so there are likely a lot of factors to consider in a programming sense. Whether or not cross-play ever happens remains to be seen, but hopefully they can figure it out in order to capitalise on the game's more recent popularity.
KitGuru Says: Fallout 76 is a bit behind other major multiplayer games due to its lack of crossplatform multiplayer. Hopefully they can figure out a way to close the gap.
The post Bethesda is looking to bring cross-platform multiplayer to Fallout 76 first appeared on KitGuru.
Oldheads will remember the Pentium G6950 and the Intel Upgrade Service that came with it. What you may not realize is that Intel actually did the same thing with its 4th- and 5th-generation Xeon processors, codenamed Sapphire Rapids and Emerald Rapids. These chips have "Intel On Demand", which "allows" you to enable specific features of your
Coming in hot just in time for Valentine's Day is a round of discounts on Apple's newest generation smartwatch, the Apple Watch Series 11. The latest discounts see the wearable drop back down to an all-time low price. In addition, we found some bargains on a few other Apple devices. That doesn't mean you skip the chocolates and flowers, but
YouTube Music has ended the era of unrestricted free sing-alongs by moving song lyrics behind a Premium paywall, forcing non-paying listeners to decide if words is worth a monthly fee. Shame, shame, Google.
The money grab change, which is beginning a worldwide roll-out this month, heralds the end of a recent Google experiment to monetize
A fresh rumor claims NVIDIA is readying a new graphics card that will be faster than its flagship GeForce RTX 5090 (pictured above), and it's purportedly not related to any GeForce RTX 50 Super series models that may or may not still be on the roadmap. Instead, it's said the new card could materialize as a GeForce RTX 5090 Ti or an RTX Titan
A new round of hardware leaks suggests that Sony’s next-generation PlayStation 6 and its accompanying handheld will feature a massive surge in memory capacity and speed: think 30GB for the PS5 and 24GB for the handheld..
According to a series of technical disclosures from industry insider Kepler_L2 (first spotted by eagle-eyed Video Cardz),A couple of weeks ago, two rumours surfaced, one indicating that a Nintendo Direct would be happening in early February and another claiming that a PlayStation State of Play would be happening later in the month. The Nintendo Direct rumour proved true last week when Nintendo went live with a slew of new game announcements. Now, Sony has also officially announced its State of Play plans as well.
Just as rumoured, Sony will be holding its latest State of Play stream this month. The stream will be taking place on Thursday, February 12th. Unfortunately, it will be happening quite late for those of us here in Europe, as the stream will be happening at 10PM GMT / 11PM CEST.
The stream is going to be a big one, with over an hour of game announcements planned. This one isn't ‘partner' focused either, so there is likely to be a mix of both third-party game announcements, along with new first-party games from Sony's studios.
Two titles immediately spring to mind as potential first-party reveals. The first is Bungie's Marathon, which is finally dropping in March after a couple of delays. The other is Saros, the latest game from Housemarque, the studio behind Returnal, which went on to become an early-generation hit on the PS5.
KitGuru Says: What are you hoping to see announced at the State of Play this week?
The post Sony announces hour-long State of Play for new PS5 games first appeared on KitGuru.Last week, ASRock issued its first statement following reports that several users suffered no-boot scenarios while using Ryzen 9000 series processors in a number of ASRock motherboards. Today, ASRock is issuing its first beta BIOS update to address the issue.
The new BIOS is now available, labelled as V4.07.AS01, using the latest AGESA 1.3.0.0a version. This bios should improve system stability for AMD systems, as well as optimise memory compatibility and crucially, resolve a boot failure occurring with certain CPUs. That last note should fix the issues users were reporting on Reddit and get their systems back up and running.
“This update is specifically designed to address system no-boot scenarios, including cases where systems may fail to boot after being used for a period of time. Users who encounter such behavior are recommended to update to this BIOS version to help restore normal system boot functionality.”
The new BIOS update can be found HERE. If you need a guide on how to update your BIOS, ASRock has one that can be found HERE.
ASRock says it will continue to monitor the situation and aid users through its technical support team, while working with AMD to ensure product quality and platform stability.
KitGuru Says: If you've had any issues recently with an ASRock motherboard and a current-gen AMD processor, then this BIOS update should help.
The post ASRock issues BIOS update to address boot failure on AMD systems first appeared on KitGuru.
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