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Team Group is indeed one of the more appealing brands to consider for your storage needs. While the company has offered an extensive lineup of NVMe SSDs, the X2 MAX is certainly a standout product, and we'll discuss why ahead. The manufacturer has been expanding its product portfolio for several years now, tapping into newer segments such as Gen4 and Gen5-based offerings. However, in the portable category, the company has a rather confined lineup. However, with the X2 MAX, that looks to change, as this marks Team Group's first initiative to integrate a portable SSD in a USB form factor […]
Read full article at https://wccftech.com/review/teamgroup-x2-max-2tb-portable-ssd-review/
Just as promised, the Nintendo Indie World Showcase took place yesterday, delivering 15 minutes of independent game announcements for the Switch and Switch 2 consoles. Despite only being 15 minutes long, a total of 18 games were shown, making for a very fast-paced set of announcements.
You can watch the full presentation below:
Here are all 18 games shown:
KitGuru says: Of all the games announced, which one are you the most interested in?
The post Nintendo announced 18 games in just 15 minutes during Indie World showcase first appeared on KitGuru.Asus's partnership with Noctua continues with the announcement of the Asus x Noctua RTX 5080, delivering a triple-fan cooler with Noctua's famously silent fans.
Asus and Noctua have been partnering on some graphics cards for a few years now but the 5080 variant seems to have the best cooler yet. The ASUS GeForce RTX 5080 Noctua Edition utilises three of the new NF-A12x25 G2 fans and a fully custom-developed heatsink that combines an extensive vapour chamber with seven 8mm and four 6mm heatpipes.
The fans are offset in speed in order to avoid undesired acoustic interaction phenomena due to beat frequencies such as periodic humming or vibrations. This highly sophisticated cooling setup enables the ASUS GeForce RTX 5080 Noctua Edition to run significantly quieter than ASUS’ TUF Gaming or ROG Astral models at the same temperatures.
The RTX 5080 Noctua Edition graphics card will be available via Asus starting this month.
KitGuru Says: The Asus x Noctua graphics cards have impressed but they do come with a price premium attached. Would you want to pick up a Noctua-cooled graphics card?
The post Asus RTX 5080 Noctua Edition announced with NF-A12x25 G2 fans first appeared on KitGuru.Mafia: The Old Country is now available and the game is doing well judging by the Steam reviews. At launch, the game sits at a Very Positive rating, based on over 1700 user reviews.
Mafia: The Old Country is a small prequel game that explores the origins of the Italian mob. It was developed with Unreal Engine 5, allowing the team at Hangar 13 to get familiar and comfortable with the new engine before diving into a new AAA-sized project.
On Steam, over 1700 user reviews have been posted, the majority of which are positive. Some of the top-rated reviews cite quality voice acting, good performance and a fast-paced story that doesn't overstay its welcome.
So far, the game appears to take around 10 to 12 hours to get from start to finish, so don't go in expecting a game the size of Mafia 3. The game is available now for PC, Xbox Series X/S and PS5.
KitGuru Says: This game has come out at a pretty bad time for me, as most of my weekend will be spent in the Battlefield 6 open beta. Will you be picking this game up, or will you be playing something else?
The post Mafia: The Old Country launches to ‘very positive’ reviews on Steam first appeared on KitGuru.Back at Computex, Thermal Grizzly gave us a preview of the der8enchtable, a modular, user-friendly benchtable featuring an integrated active PCB and D-RGB lighting. Now, the der8enchtable is ready to hit the market.
The der8enchtable is aimed at the hardware tinkerer and enthusiast, with features that simplify testing. It combines a classic benchtable frame design with integrated radiator and power-supply mounts—with an active PCB. Optimised for easy and fast reconfiguration during PC hardware testing.
Key features of the der8enchtable include:
• Professional benchtable with active PCB
• Developed in collaboration with ElmorLabs and der8auer
• 3+1 control zones for fans and AIOs
• Supports SSD, USB, or microSD for OS and test software
• Compact, modular, and user-friendly frame design
• Compatible with air and AIO coolers
• A-RGB lighting
Most notable are the fan and AIO controllers, which allow hardware testing under consistent conditions. Test software and operating systems can be loaded from solid-state drives (SSDs) or microSD cards. Input devices can also be connected directly to the der8enchtable. The der8enchtable’s PCB connects to the motherboard via a 9-pin USB header for data and is powered by the PSU via a 6-pin PCIe connector.
The der8enchtable is available to order directly through Thermal Grizzly starting today, priced at €229.90.
KitGuru Says: Are you considering getting one of these?
The post Thermal Grizzly’s der8enchtable is now available first appeared on KitGuru.It looks like 512-bit AVX instructions are set to make a comeback on Intel's consumer desktop CPUs. The first concrete evidence has appeared in the latest release of Intel's oneDNN library, which adds early support for AVX10.2 with its full 512-bit width. This new feature explicitly targets “future Intel Core” processors, which many believe to be the Nova Lake architecture slated for 2026.
You might remember that Intel officially removed AVX-512 support from its consumer platforms with the launch of the 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs. The introduction of the hybrid architectures created a problem: the smaller E-cores lacked the hardware to run the wide-vector instructions. To avoid scheduling chaos and ensure software consistency, Intel chose to disable the feature across the board, even on the P-cores that could still support it. On the other hand, AMD has gone in the opposite direction. With the launch of the Ryzen 9000 series, the Zen 5 architecture now includes native, full-width 512-bit AVX-512 execution. This move has given AMD an advantage in specific high-performance and scientific workloads and has undoubtedly put pressure on Intel to respond.
Intel's answer appears to be AVX10.2, according to InstLatX64. This new, more flexible version of the instruction set is designed specifically for hybrid CPUs. It unifies the feature set and allows the same software to run across different core types by supporting 128-bit, 256-bit, and 512-bit operations. This means developers won't need to create separate code paths, solving the original problem that led to AVX-512's removal from the consumer stack.
The feature is not enabled by default in the new library and is clearly looking ahead to future hardware, which should include Intel Nova Lake and Diamond Rapids. This is the clearest sign yet that Intel is serious about bringing wide-vector processing back into the fold for its entire consumer lineup. For now, AMD holds the advantage, but it looks like that may change soon.
KitGuru says: When you're choosing a system or CPU, is 512-bit AVX instruction support essential to you?
The post AVX-512 support is reportedly coming to “future Intel Core” processors first appeared on KitGuru.Last night, it became clear that there was another casualty in the recent Xbox shake-up. Xbox has cancelled its publishing deal and funding for Avalanche's new game, Contraband. Now, Avalanche has confirmed that the project has been paused while the studio looks into its options.
Xbox announced Contraband as an Xbox Series X/S exclusive back in 2021. However, since then, the game has not been shown again. Initially, the title was expected to release in 2022, but that year came and went with no further mention of Contraband.
In a statement confirming the news that Xbox had cancelled the game's publishing deal, Avalanche Studios said: “Over the past several years, Avalanche Studios Group and Xbox Game Studios Publishing have collaborated on Contraband. Active development has now stopped while we evaluate the project's future”.
The statement ends by saying “we're thankful for the excitement we've seen from the community since we announced and will give an update on what's next as soon as we can”.
Contraband finding a new publisher likely hinges on how far along the project is. It is still unclear how close the game was to being finished and ready for release. If the game was only a year or less out though, then chances are Microsoft wouldn't have pulled out of the deal.
KitGuru Says: Contraband is another in a long list of major cancellations at Xbox since 2018. Hopefully Avalanche can figure things out and find a new publishing partner to finish this game up, rather than being scrapped entirely.
The post Avalanche gives statement after Xbox publishing deal cancelled first appeared on KitGuru.Amazon has revealed the next batch of free games for Prime subscribers. Through Prime Gaming, this month you'll be able to claim classics like Civilization 3: Complete Edition and Thief: Definitive Edition, as well as a dozen other games.
Starting today, Prime subscribers can head over to Prime Gaming to claim free copies of Sid Meier's Civilization 3 Complete, Thief: Definitive Edition and The Academy: The First Riddle. While Civ and Thief are GOG codes, The Academy is instead redeemed through the Amazon Games app.
On August 14th, four more games will be available to claim, including:
On August 21st, two more games will become available to claim – Labyrinth City (Amazon Games App) and Silver Box Classics (GOG). Finally, on August 28th, Prime subscribers can claim Heroes of Loot 2 (GOG),
KitGuru Says: If you are an Amazon Prime subscriber, make the most of your subscription by claiming all the free games.
The post You can claim over a dozen free games with Prime Gaming this month first appeared on KitGuru.AMD has quietly expanded its RDNA 3 professional graphics lineup with a new entry-level model, the Radeon Pro W7400. This new card slots in below the existing W7500, targeting low-cost, power-efficient workstation builds primarily for the OEM market.
The new Radeon Pro W7400 (via VideoCardz) is based on the same “Navi 33” GPU found in the W7500. As such, it features an identical hardware configuration with 28 CUs, which translates to 1,792 Stream Processors and 56 AI Accelerators. It's also equipped with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory running across a 128-bit memory interface.
So, how does the W7400 differ from the W7500? It all comes down to a trade-off between clock speed and power consumption. To achieve a very low TBP of just 55W, AMD has significantly reduced the GPU boost clock to 1.1 GHz (down from 1.7 GHz) and set the memory speed to 10.8 Gbps. This results in a peak FP32 compute performance of 7.9 TFLOPs, making it a much more power-friendly option than its siblings.
The Radeon Pro W7400 looks to be a sensible addition to the bottom of AMD's professional GPU stack. While AMD has not yet announced official pricing, it is expected to be the most affordable entry point into the RDNA 3-based Radeon Pro family.
KitGuru says: The specifications show that the Radeon Pro W7400 is not aimed at demanding rendering or simulation workloads. Instead, its primary market will be pre-built OEM systems for enterprise and business users who require a certified professional graphics driver for CAD applications and support for multiple high-resolution displays, all within a tight power and thermal budget.
The post AMD introduces Radeon Pro W7400 graphics card first appeared on KitGuru.
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Here's a modded build you never saw coming, instead of a normal reservoir this PC has a General Electric drip coffee maker attached to the side of it. That coffee maker…
Following the latest suite of mass lay-offs at Xbox a couple months ago, the console maker is seemingly not done cancelling projects, with Avalanche Studios’ Contraband said to be the latest title to be canned. Fortunately, it seems as though Hideo Kojima’s much-anticipated experimental title OD remains safely in development…for now.
Following a report by known industry insider Jason Schreier which revealed that Xbox / Avalanche Studios’ Contraband has now been cancelled, the leaker offered a small update on one of the console maker’s remaining announced-but-yet-to-be-released titles, taking to BlueSky to say:
“OD, the collaboration between Xbox and Hideo Kojima, is still in development, a Microsoft spokesperson tells me.”
Of course, at this point Microsoft’s word can’t be trusted, with many of the recently cancelled projects having confirmed to have been going well just months prior to being shut down – including the likes of Everwild, Blackbird and most recently Contraband.
That being said, Kojima is easily one of the most well-known and trusted creatives in this industry, and so Microsoft would be foolish to cancel OD.
Given just how many mad moves the console maker has made over the past year or so however, I won’t be holding my breath in anticipation.
KitGuru says: Are you looking forward to OD? Could you see Microsoft cancelling Kojima’s project eventually, or would it create too much ill-will? Let us know your thoughts down below.
The post Kojima’s Xbox exclusive OD is still safe from cancellation according to insiders first appeared on KitGuru.It is competition time again! This month we are teaming up with KIOXIA to give away not one, not two, but THREE PCIe 5.0 M.2 2TB SSDs! Three winners will walk away with a new KIOXIA EXCERIA PLUS G4 SSD, powered by a speedy Phison controller and KIOXIA's 218-layer 3D TLC NAND.
At the heart of the EXCERIA PLUS G4 is a Phison PS5031-E31T 4-channel controller paired up with KIOXIA's BiCS8 218-layer 3D TLC NAND. KIOXIA rates the Sequential performance as up to 10,000MB/s for reads and up to 8,200MB/s for writes for the 2TB model. The write speed drops down to 7900MB/s on the 1TB model. Both are rated for up to 1.3M IOPS. We reviewed this SSD back in April, so if you want to see how it performs across a range of benchmarks, be sure to check that out.
So we've established that the EXCERIA PLUS G4 is a great PCIe 5.0 upgrade for those in need of a speedy new drive, but how do you go about winning one? That part is simple, all you need to do is head over to our competition posts on Facebook or X and reply with an answer to the following question – how big is your current SSD?
Winners will be picked randomly and announced within two weeks of the competition closing.
Terms and Conditions: This competition is open worldwide, starting at 12PM BST on August 8th and ending at 12PM BST on August 22nd. In compliance with GDPR, we will not collect or store any personal information as part of this competition. Once the winner has been contacted and their prize received, personal details will be deleted from our email servers. Your details will not be shared, we respect your privacy.
KitGuru Says: Good luck to everyone entering, we'll be back in a couple of weeks to announce the winners!
The post Win one of three KIOXIA EXCERIA PLUS G4 2TB SSDs! first appeared on KitGuru.As with pretty much every digital storefront, there comes a time when the cost of running servers exceeds the revenue earned from said storefront. Though this hopefully isn’t what’s happening in this instance, the PlayStation Store on PS3 has been inaccessible for the past day – leading to fears of its impending closure.
As reported by the preservation-focused publication Delisted Games, the PlayStation Store on PS3 in particular has been suffering from recent outages, with players attempting to purchase titles being met with the pop-up message “This service is currently undergoing maintenance” – before shutting down the application.
Interestingly, the issue appears to me somewhat inconsistent, with users being able to reach various parts of the store before being booted out. Perhaps more curious is the fact that the PS Vita store is currently still accessible despite the two systems’ online services being linked together in various ways.
While likely to be just an odd bug which will hopefully be resolved soon, it does bring back to light discussions surrounding game preservation and ownership in this digital age.
Of course, the PlayStation 3 is pretty much two decades old at this point, and as mentioned, PSN traffic on this generations-old console is likely to be minimal.
Still, with so many games still stuck on the PS3, hopefully Sony manages to solve whatever the issue may be sooner rather than later.
KitGuru says: Have you encountered this issue in the past couple days? Will Sony eventually shut down the PS3’s online store? When do you think this will officially happen? Let us know down below.
The post The PlayStation Store on PS3 is currently inaccessible first appeared on KitGuru.While the console had a bit of a slow start due to supply issues as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the PlayStation 5 has been rather quickly rising up the ranks of the all-time best-sellers list. As part of the company’s latest fiscal report, it’s been revealed that the PS5 has now sold over 80 million units – beating out the iconic PSP.
As collated by Gematsu, Sony recently revealed during the console maker’s latest fiscal earnings report that the PlayStation 5 had reached a new sales milestone – officially shipping over 80.3 million units as of the 30th of June.
For context, this puts the PS5 just outside of the top 10 best-selling consoles of all time; currently positioned neatly between the PSP (80 million) and the Game Boy Advance (81.51 million).
Beyond physical console sales, the rest of PlayStation also appears to be doing quite well, with operating income (profit) increasing by a massive 127%; software sales rising by 23% year-on-year and even a small bump in monthly active users from 116 million to 123 million.
As mentioned, 80 million consoles sold puts the PS5 in a great position. While the system is currently the 11th best-selling system of all time, in another quarter or two the 9th-gen console could very well leapfrog its way closer to the top 5 – surpassing the likes of the Xbox 360 (84 million) and PS3 (87.4 million).
Whether the system will manage to reach the exclusive 100 million consoles mark, we will have to wait and see. That said, even if PS5 sales were to fall off a cliff from tomorrow, it’s safe to say that Sony has had a rather strong generation.
KitGuru says: What do you think of these latest figures? Where do you think the console would be if its first years weren’t hampered by supply issues? Will the PS5 reach 100 million unit sales? Let us know down below.
The post The PS5 is about to become the 10th best-selling console ever first appeared on KitGuru.Earlier this Summer Microsoft shocked everybody when they announced that a ton of their ongoing Xbox projects would be cancelled, with just some of the victims including Perfect Dark and The Initiative; Rare’s Everwild; Zenimax Online’s Project Blackbird and Turn10 – to name a few. One project which was said to be safe from all this was Avalanche Studios’ Contraband. Unfortunately, it seems as though it too has now been cancelled.
As reported by known industry insider Jason Schreier via BlueSky, “Xbox is canceling Contraband, announced in 2021 from Avalanche Studios (Just Cause), after four years of radio silence.”
While perhaps in and of itself not a surprise given the sheer number of recent cancellations, following the mass lay-offs in June it was revealed that Contraband was still in development – with the team at Avalanche actively hiring roles for the project.
As with many of Microsoft’s recent moves, it appears as though the publisher / console maker may have been trying to spread out the bad news over a longer period of time.
That said, the cancellation of Contraband appears to have been another surprise announcement from Microsoft, owing to the aforementioned job listings from just a few weeks ago.
At this point, it feels as though Xbox has cancelled more games than it is releasing. Hopefully we learn more about the ill-fated Contraband and why exactly it was ultimately cancelled. Knowing Microsoft however, it’s probably so they can continue to invest further in AI or something.
KitGuru says: Were you surprised that Contraband wasn’t canned during the previous wave of lay-offs? Why do you think they waited till later to cancel the project? What other upcoming Xbox titles are you concerned about? Let us know down below.
The post Microsoft cancels Avalanche Studios’ Contraband first appeared on KitGuru.be quiet! is well known for its low noise approach to PC cooling, but what happens if you combine the Light Base 900 DX case, a 420mm Silent Loop 3 closed loop CPU cooler, a Pure Power 12 M PSU and a bunch of be quiet! Silent Wings Pro 4 140mm fans? Well, you end up with a virtually inaudible PC perfect for anything from gaming to workflow scenarios. Join us to see how we got on…
Case: be quiet! Light Base 900 DX – Available to purchase now from Scan priced at £164.99 HERE.
Specifications
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Silent Loop 3 420mm – Available to purchase now from Scan priced at £124.99 HERE.
Specifications
Fans: 140mm be quiet! Silent Wings Pro 4 PWM – Available to purchase now from Scan priced at £29.99 HERE.
Specifications
Power Supply: be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850W – Available to purchase now from CCL priced at 109.99 HERE.
Specifications
Build Specification:
KitGuru says: If you want a virtually silent high spec gaming PC, then check out what the be quiet! guys have to offer!
The post be quiet! ASMR Build Featuring Silent Wings Pro 4 first appeared on KitGuru.
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