The “AI tax” on PC hardware is spreading beyond silicon. After the cost increase for RAM and SSDs, the industry is now bracing for a significant price hike in other fundamental parts of a build: power supplies and cooling solutions. According to a warning issued by Guangzhou Xinhong Zhengdian Electronic Technology, a leading Chinese electronics firm, the surging cost of raw materials, specifically copper, silver, and tin, is forcing an immediate adjustment across the supply chain.

According to the letter shared by MyDrivers (via NotebookCheck), these increases are a direct side effect of the global AI infrastructure boom. While memory makers are busy reallocating wafer capacity to HBM, the construction of massive AI data centres has sent the price of industrial minerals to historic highs. Copper, the primary conductor in PSU transformers and cooler heatpipes, reportedly broke through the $13,000/tonne barrier in early January. Combined with surging silver and tin prices, manufacturers are no longer able to absorb the ballooning production costs.

As such, PSUs will see a 6% to 10% increase, while CPU coolers are slated for a 6% to 8% jump. Upstream suppliers reportedly stopped accepting orders at previous price points as of January 6th, meaning that any stock currently entering the channel is already being calculated at the new and higher rates.

Perhaps more concerning for the average consumer is the impending “promotional purge”. The notice from Guangzhou Xinhong Zhengdian states that all current promotional pricing and vendor discounts will terminate on February 1st. After this date, over 90% of products in these categories are expected to revert to a higher “standard” MSRP, with some products also subject to additional per-item surcharges. This creates a narrow window for builders to secure current inventory before the 2026 pricing baseline resets across the board.

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KitGuru says: We've already seen the impact of the AI boom on the high-end GPU and memory markets, but seeing it trickle down into copper-heavy components like PSUs and air coolers is a grim sign for the 2026 DIY market.

The post PSUs and CPU coolers could be the next victims of the AI boom first appeared on KitGuru.

Microsoft's strategy to bring its established first-party library to competing hardware appears to be working. While Forza Horizon 5 originally served as a flagship showcase for the Xbox Series X|S and Windows back in late 2021, its eventual arrival on the PlayStation 5 in April 2025 has proven that the appetite for high-quality arcade racers remains high across all ecosystems. 

According to data shared by Rhys Elliott (via Eurogamer), Forza Horizon 5 has officially surpassed five million copies sold on the PlayStation 5. This performance is particularly noteworthy given its age at the time of its port. Moving five million units of a late 2021 game certainly suggests that the Forza brand has resonated with the PlayStation audience.

Moreover, Elliott reports that the PlayStation 5 version has generated approximately $300 million (£223 million) in revenue to date. This figure reinforces the narrative that Microsoft's multi-platform pivot might be pretty lucrative. The port's success was foreshadowed as early as July last year, when Alinea Analytics noted that the game had become the top-selling new release on PlayStation 5 in 2025, and that sales momentum has clearly persisted into the current year.

This commercial success sets a strong precedent for the franchise's future. Playground Games is currently working on the next instalment in the series, which is scheduled to arrive on Windows and Xbox Series X|S in 2026. While a PlayStation 5 version of the upcoming sequel is confirmed to be in development, no specific release window has been announced yet. Given the significant revenue generated by the current port, it is highly probable that the gap between the Xbox and PlayStation release dates for the next title will be narrower than what we saw with this generation.

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KitGuru says: Have you played Forza Horizon on the PS5? Do you think Xbox should consider launching Forza Horizon 6 for all platforms simultaneously?

The post Forza Horizon 5 crosses 5 million sales on PlayStation 5 first appeared on KitGuru.

The dispute between Qualcomm and Apple in the field of energy-efficient high-performance processors continues with the latest round of benchmarks. In several synthetic CPU and GPU tests, the Snapdragon X2 Plus was unable to outperform the Apple M4, which has been available for some time. According to the available measurement results, Qualcomm’s current SoC lost […]

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In a recent ruling, the Federal Court of Justice clarified that the legally permissible minimum contract term of a maximum of two years for fiber optic connections begins as soon as the contract is signed. The court has thus put an end to a widespread practice in the telecommunications industry whereby providers linked the start […]

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The global chip industry is currently experiencing a distortion that has rarely been seen even in previous boom cycles. Taiwanese contract manufacturer TSMC is at the epicenter of this development. Demand for advanced manufacturing processes is so high that customers are apparently willing to pay up to a 100 percent premium just to secure production […]

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What is emerging here is not a theoretical simulation, but a very real market shift with side effects. NVIDIA’s next AI platform, known internally and externally as Vera Rubin, could single-handedly tie up millions of terabytes of NAND flash, triggering a new storage shortage. Not sometime in the future, but starting in 2027. The technical […]

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In a current pre-release version from Microsoft, the manufacturer is testing a new option to specifically remove the Copilot app from managed computers. The feature is part of an insider version of Windows 11 and is aimed exclusively at IT administrators in professional and institutional use cases. The goal is to enable more control over […]

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Researchers say they have solved a technical challenge that for decades was considered virtually impossible. They have developed a fully integrated robot with a computer, sensors, and drive system, whose overall dimensions are less than one millimeter, making it smaller than a grain of salt. The development was the result of a collaboration between the […]

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Many users know FSP primarily as an established power supply manufacturer rather than a supplier of eye-catching lifestyle components. With the AE36, FSP is deliberately positioning itself in the segment of performance-oriented 360-millimeter AIO water cooling systems. The focus is clearly on functionality, thermal efficiency, and technical traceability rather than visual gimmicks. The central question […]

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Microsoft is committed to transforming Windows into an AI native operating system, even if a significant portion of its user base hasn’t fully bought into the idea. It’s next move looks to fully integrate its Copilot assistant into File Explorer, according to a few resourceful users who have gone digging into a recent Windows 11 preview build. Copilot

Well, well, well. It turns out AMD does have another Ryzen 9000X3D processor on the way besides the one it didn't announce at its CES 2025 keynote. "Yeah Zak," you're thinking. "It's the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2." That chip is probably still on the way, but it's not the topic of today's post. Instead, we're looking at something Mr. Gray spotted over

Welcome to 2026 where PSUs that provide over two kilowatts of power are no longer rare.  There are several models to choose from, including the Prime PX-2200 from Seasonic.  It sports a…

If you were looking for interesting technology at CES 2026, your best bet was to keep an eye on companies showing off new monitors.  The release of RGB-stripe OLED monitors from…

Detroit: Become Human is the latest game from French studio Quantic Dream. Released back in 2018 for PS4 (and PC one year later), the story-focused title saw a mixed reception, with many loving it and others not so much. Despite this, the game has gone on to be a big success for the studio. While fans continue to wait for the studio’s Star Wars Eclipse, Detroit: Become Human has quietly been selling millions more copies – with the title having now surpassed 15 million units sold.

Making the announcement via LinkedIn, the official Quantic Dream page wrote: “We are proud to announce that Detroit: Become Human has surpassed 15 million units sold worldwide;” confirming that the title is now “Quantic Dream’s best-selling game to date.”

For context, Detroit: Become Human reached 8 million copies sold back in January of 2023. This then rose to 9 million by December of the same year – with the game hitting the 10 million mark in October of 2024. Finally, the most recent figures put the game at 11 million copies sold as of February 2025 – meaning it sold a further 4 million copies in less than a year.

Given the game’s relatively mixed reception, it is interesting to see Detroit: Become Human continuing to sell this well so many years later. That said, considering the fact that we are still waiting for the next project from Quantic Dream to be released, it is fortunate for them that the now 7 year old title is continuing to find millions of new players.

KitGuru says: What do you think of Detroit: Become Human? Are you surprised by its continued success? How many more years do you think we’ll have to wait for Star Wars Eclipse? Let us know down below.

The post Detroit: Become Human hits new milestone with 15 million copies sold first appeared on KitGuru.

The rumor mill is spinning once again, and if what we've heard is true, we could soon see a pricing increase of 6-10% for CPU coolers and power supplies. While this thankfully isn't in the same ballpark as the ongoing RAM crisis or developing NAND shortage, it's still not great news if it proves true. That's still a huge if, though, since

Apple's open-source on-device AI model instantly turns images into scenes, and Vision Pro owners can try it out in the app Splat Studio.

Since visionOS 26, Apple's own Photos app has included a one-click feature to almost instantly turn any image into a 'Spatial Scene'. It's essentially a volumetric photo with a limited area of viewing freedom, which you can slightly lean around to "peak" into.

Meanwhile, over the past year or so multiple open-source and proprietary AI systems emerged that can go much further, turning a photo into a scene that you can freely explore, even walk around. For example, Marble lets you do this in your headset's web browser and explore the scene in WebXR.

Marble Turns An Image Into A WebXR Volumetric Scene In Minutes

Marble, an AI model from World Labs, can turn a single image into a volumetric scene that you can view in WebXR in a matter of minutes.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Marble is a computationally expensive server-side model, however, that takes minutes to produce its result. And that's what makes Apple's SHARP particularly interesting.

SHARP runs on typical consumer devices, with general CPU support as well as Nvidia CUDA and Apple Silicon Metal hardware acceleration, taking less than a second to complete on most hardware.

In a rare move from Apple, SHARP is free and open-source, with the code available on GitHub. You can easily download and run it on a Mac, for example.

As with almost all of the remarkable advancements in 3D reconstruction over the past few years, it generates a Gaussian splat, fitting millions of semitransparent colored blobs (Gaussians) in 3D space so that arbitrary viewpoints can be rendered realistically in real-time. You receive the result as a .ply file that can be rendered in any standard 3DGS viewer.

For Apple Vision Pro owners, Portugal-based developer Rob Matwiejczyk built a visionOS app that integrates Apple's SHARP model into an easy-to-use graphical interface and eliminates the need to use a Mac or PC.

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Called Splat Studio, the app is available for free on the App Store, and runs entirely on-device. Just choose any image from your Photos library and it instantly gets turned into a 3D scene floating in front of you, which you can rotate, move, and scale with your hands.

I tested Splat Studio on the M5 Apple Vision Pro, using the same Steam Dev Days 2014 VR room I used to test Marble. For comparison, I also turned the same image into a Spatial Scene in the visionOS 26 Photos app. You can see footage of the Splat Studio result above, and of the Spatial Scene below.

The Splat Studio app turned the image into a scene in around 20 seconds, compared to the near-instant result of Apple's Photos app, but it's unclear how much of this is truly due to the SHARP model compared to any overhead the Splat Studio app may add.

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As for the result, while the Apple Photos Spatial Scene lets you peer into the scene, the degree to which you can move in each direction is relatively limited. Meanwhile, the SHARP result in Splat Studio lets you freely move around the scene. The tradeoff, as with many generative AI results, is some detail loss, as well as hallucinated details the further you go from the original perspective of the image.

AQIRYS Magellan is a dynamic microphone with USB and XLR connectivity, a bundled boom arm, and real-time monitoring. It delivers a warm, broadcast-style sound with good background noise rejection at close range, making it a good value choice for streaming and podcasting setups.

One of the biggest video game successes in recent years has been Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3. Released back in 2023, the RPG took the industry by storm, winning countless awards and selling over 20 million copies. With the Switch 2 launching last year, many have been hoping to see the RPG come to Nintendo’s platform at some point. Unfortunately, Larian have given a seemingly definitive answer.

As part of a recent AMA conducted by Larian Studios on Reddit, roughly a dozen developers from the studio were present to answer fan questions regarding Baldur’s Gate, Divinity or whatever else came to mind.

Responding to one user who asked “Baldur’s Gate 3 for Switch 2? Is it even possible?” Larain’s CEO Swen Vincke offered some disappointing yet interesting details, stating: “We would have loved to but it’s (sic) wasn’t our decision to make.”

Though we unfortunately did not get any further details, Vincke’s wording seems to suggest that the decision to not make a Switch 2 port came from higher-up the ladder – namely the D&D IP owners Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro.

Of course, that’s not to say that a port for Switch 2 could never happen. After all, money talks and assuming the IP owners think that a port of BG3 would make them more money then it could still materialise down the line – perhaps when the Switch 2 has further matured.

We will have to wait and see, but don’t expect Baldur’s Gate 3 to come to the Switch any time soon…if ever.

KitGuru says: Are you disappointed by this confirmation? Would the Switch 2 be able to handle BG3? Why do you think Hasbro / WotC said no? Let us know down below.

The post Larian confirms Baldur’s Gate 3 won’t be coming to Switch 2 first appeared on KitGuru.

Following some slight teasers, Microsoft officially confirmed that they would be hosting their annual Xbox Developer Direct Showcase this month – with the stream set to go live on the 22nd of January. Said to focus on Forza Horizon 6, GameFreak’s Beast of Reincarnation and the highly-anticipated Fable reboot, the latter is reportedly planned to launch day-one on PS5 according to insiders.

In the lead-up to 2026’s Xbox Developer Direct, known industry insider Andy Robinson of VGC offered some early details on the upcoming showcase, claiming that the long-awaitied Fable will be announced as a day-one release for PS5 alongside its expected Xbox launch – stating:

“Fable is day and date (on PS5), that's what I've been told[…] I know they have been targeting PS5 for a while.”

Given that Forza Horizon 5 was only ported to PS5 relatively recently, there was not much of an expectation that its sequel would arrive day-and-date with the Xbox release. Even so, Robinson offered some additional details on this matter, claiming: “As for Forza the explanation I was told by someone who was there was it just wasn't ready.”

Between Forza and Fable, having the latter as a day-one release makes the most sense, not only due to the fact that Horizon 5 is still relatively new to the PS5 platform, but also due to the upcoming RPG likely needing as much help as it can get sales-wise (especially compared to Forza).

Regardless, we should hopefully learn all about these two upcoming titles when the Xbox Developer Direct goes live on the 22nd of January.

KitGuru says: Are you looking forward to the Direct? Which of the confirmed games are you most excited to learn more about? Would you rather Fable or Forza launch day-one across multiple platforms? Let us know down below.

The post Fable reportedly launching day-one on PS5 according to insider first appeared on KitGuru.

While Steam is easily the biggest platform for gaming on the PC side of things, Valve’s storefront continues to find new players on a consistent basis. Just a few months on from their last major milestone, Steam has officially reached a new peak concurrent player count of over 42 million users.

As published by the tracking site SteamDB, Sunday the 11th of January saw Valve's platform reach a new milestone figure, with over 42 million users all online at the same time (42,042,778 to be exact).

As mentioned, this marks a notable increase over the previous record, which saw Steam hit 41 million back in October of last year. That said, the platform has been growing quite quickly for the past few years now, with it hitting 34 million concurrents for the first time back in March of 2024.

Since then, Steam seems to have been on a roll, with the platform hitting 36 million just a few weeks later; surpassing 37 million by August 2024 – and reaching 39 million by December.

While 2025 was slightly slower, we still saw record player numbers multiple times, with Steam hitting 40 million concurrents in March of 2025 and then 41 million by October.

Of course, concurrent users is but one metric which can be used to determine a service’s success – with daily active users, monthly active users and more being arguably more useful metrics. Still, having over 42 million people active on Steam at the exact same time is impressive. It will be curious to see whether the platform ever manages to reach 50 million concurrents.

KitGuru says: Were you online this past Sunday? Is concurrent players a useful metric? How long do you think it’ll take for the platform to hit 50 million? Let us know down below.

The post Steam breaks concurrent player record with over 42 million users first appeared on KitGuru.

The Division is one of Ubisoft’s more interesting franchises. While the first game disappointed many due to a number of visual downgrades when compared to its pre-release materials, the series did find a dedicated audience who enjoyed the gameplay loop. That said, it’s now been almost 7 years since The Division 2’s launch and while fans await the previously-announced 3rd entry, Ubisoft have offered some slight teasers, claiming it to be “shaping up to be a monster.”

During the New Game+ Showcase, The Division 3’s executive producer Julian Gerighty offered an update on the long-awaited threequel.

While we did not get any footage of the title, according to Gerighty: “It’s shaping up to be a monster. I can’t really say anything more than that. But this is within these walls in Massive. We are working extremely hard on something that I think will be as big an impact as Division 1 was.”

As mentioned, while The Division as a series does have its problems, the first game did indeed make a big impact back in the day – especially in its pre-release period where the game served as a bit of a then-next-gen showpiece.

Given that we’ve seen nothing from The Division 3 yet, it is possible that Ubisoft are planning to line the title up with the next-gen PS6, which would make for quite a notable upgrade over 2019’s Division 2. Regardless, here’s to hoping that when The Division 3 is shown off that Ubisoft are more honest in their presentation of the title.

KitGuru says: Are you excited for The Division 3? How different do you expect it to be when compared to the previous two entries? Will it be a next-gen launch title? Let us know your thoughts down below.

The post The Division 3 is “shaping up to be a monster” according to Ubisoft first appeared on KitGuru.

Microsoft has officially retired the traditional phone-based activation system for Windows and Office that served as a reliable fallback for users for over two decades. Indeed, the "slui 4" command has up until now been served PC builders, privacy advocates, and IT administrators well since the days of XP. It allowed users to activate a

Panic over soaring memory costs in the second half of last year didn't stop the PC market from rebounding in a big way, with global shipments of desktops, laptops, and workstations surging 10.1% to 59 75 million units in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to Omdia. The last-quarter surge propelled the full-year tally to 279.5 million units

A massive database purportedly containing the personal information of over 17 million Instagram users has surfaced on a popular hacking forum, sparking widespread concern over the security of the social media giant’s infrastructure. Meta denies this "leak" is anything to be concerned about and says it's merely from a compilation of older data. Forum