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Sony Raises PlayStation Plus Prices Again with Immediate Hikes for New Signups

Chris Harper — Tue, 19 May 2026 14:30:00 -0400

Unprecedented hardware market conditions are making a continuous impact on the gaming console space, and the latest service to feel that impact is PlayStation Plus. Fortunately, it's something of a minor change: PlayStation Plus' entry-level Essential subscription price is going up by $1 per month when purchased in one-month intervals (to

CrystalDiskInfo Fights Fake Samsung SSD Market With New Clone Detection Feature

Zak Killian — Tue, 19 May 2026 14:00:00 -0400

With a massive influx of terrifyingly convincing counterfeit Samsung 990 Pro drives hitting third-party marketplaces earlier this year, buying a high-end SSD lately has felt a bit like navigating a minefield. Now, one of the most essential pieces of software in any PC builder's arsenal is getting a killer upgrade to help fight back. Noriyuki

Microsoft Launches Xbox Player Voice Feedback Hub, Fans Immediately Vote for Return of Exclusives

Alan Velasco — Tue, 19 May 2026 13:40:00 -0400

Asha Sharma has been making her mark after taking over the reigns as CEO of Microsoft's Xbox gaming division, as she seeks to revitalize the sagging brand in preparation for its next generation console codenamed Project Helix. Early on in her tenure she has taken to the social media platform X to gather feedback from loyal fans, but this process

PlayStation Studios CEO Reportedly Halts Future Single-Player PC Ports

Chris Harper — Tue, 19 May 2026 13:00:00 -0400

Past rumors of Sony pivoting away from single-player PlayStation Studios-published games releasing on PC have reportedly been confirmed outright: per noted industry insider Jason Schreier, posting on BlueSky, PlayStation Studios CEO Hermen Hulst has confirmed the plan. This is something of a pity for PC players, since the platform often

Microsoft Refreshes Surface Business PCs With Panther Lake to Beat M5 MacBook Air Graphics

Paul Lilly — Tue, 19 May 2026 11:26:00 -0400

Microsoft is rolling out a new generation of Surface devices for enterprise customers, kitted with Intel's latest-generation Core Ultra Series 3 processors based on Panther Lake. In doing so, Microsoft claims both the retooled Surface Pro for Business and Surface Laptops for Business, as they're called, deliver up to 35% more graphics performance

Dell Launches Local ‘Deskside Agentic AI’ Workstations to Slash Cloud Token Costs

Tim Sweezy — Tue, 19 May 2026 10:55:00 -0400

Dell is pushing to bring AI agent workloads off the cloud and onto local hardware with Deskside Agentic AI introduced at Dell Technologies World 2026 today in Las Vegas. Built in collaboration with NVIDIA as part of the ongoing Dell AI Factory partnership, the lineup gives developers and workgroups a way to run advanced, multi-step AI agents

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D Leak: Budget 8-Core AM5 Chip Keeps Full 3D V-Cache Intact

Paul Lilly — Tue, 19 May 2026 10:34:00 -0400

AMD is out here like, 'You get 3D V-Cache, you get 3D V-Cache, EVERYONE gets 3D V-cache!', and we're all for it. The company's been cranking out new 3D V-Cache chips on platforms both newer (like the Zen 5-based Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition) and less new, and the latest leak suggests another entry is coming that will fall into the latter

Intel Nova Lake Samples Reportedly Begin Shipping With Huge Multi-Core Gains

Aaron Leong — Tue, 19 May 2026 10:26:00 -0400

Intel’s next desktop CPU family is apparently hitting shipping lanes, albeit as early engineering samples. Nova Lake is expected to be a much bolder reset than merely a routine refresh and could become Intel’s most aggressive swing at the high-end PC market in years, with performance claims that sound almost exaggerated until you remember

LG UltraGear 25G590B Debuts as World's First Native 1000Hz 1080p Gaming Monitor

Paul Lilly — Tue, 19 May 2026 09:12:00 -0400

LG claims its upcoming UltraGear 25G590B gaming monitor is the first Full HD 1080p display ever built to offer a native 1,000Hz refresh rate for a competitive edge in esports. Designed for fast first person shooter (FPS) titles, the blistering-fast display is confirmed to feature an In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel rather than a Twisted Nematic

GTA 6 Review Lockdown May Force Journalists to Travel to Secret Locations

Chris Harper — Mon, 18 May 2026 15:20:00 -0400

Last week, an e-mail went out to Best Buy Creators promising that Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders would open today, May 18th. While the legitimacy of the Best Buy email leak has been repeatedly confirmed by various insiders, the big day has arrived without the promised pre-order availability, and now a rumor is circulating that pre-launch review

Open‑Source Layer Brings NVIDIA Reflex and AMD Anti‑Lag 2 to Any GPU on Linux

Zak Killian — Mon, 18 May 2026 13:40:00 -0400

Technologies like NVIDIA's Reflex and AMD's very similar Anti-Lag 2 provide real input latency benefits by modulating the timing between game render frames and game simulation frames. On Windows, anyway; on Linux, these features have historically not been supported due to missing driver-level support. A developer named Korthos Software decided

Apple’s Siri Overhaul: Private, Auto-Deleting AI Conversations Coming to iOS 27

Alan Velasco — Mon, 18 May 2026 12:40:00 -0400

Apple’s Siri digital assistant has fallen far behind the competition, and users have mostly relegated it to simple tasks like setting timers or home automation. The introduction of Apple Intelligence was supposed to change all that, with bold promises of an AI-powered Siri capable of far more than prior iterations. According to Bloomberg’s

The Confidence Trap: Why People Overestimate the Accuracy of Smooth-Talking AI

Tim Sweezy — Mon, 18 May 2026 11:31:00 -0400

As more people begin to use AI in new ways, one group of researchers looked at why humans seem to trust the answers provided by AI more than other humans, even though AI can still be unreliable and inaccurate. What the study revealed was AI's lack of emotion and visible cues may be the underlying reason. AI is constantly evolving, with

ASUS Unveils Jaw-Dropping Cyberpunk 2077 Custom ROG Ally X Handheld Console

Aaron Leong — Mon, 18 May 2026 11:01:00 -0400

A custom collaboration between ASUS and AK Studio has resulted in the one-off ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X Cyberpunk 2077 Edition. From the drab, grease- and finger-magnet black chassis, comes a vibrant, piece of art that looks more like it was pulled directly from the streets of Night City. Take the future of Night City into your hands with this

Dell 15 Laptop With a 6-Core Intel CPU and 512GB SSD Drops to $399.99

Paul Lilly — Mon, 18 May 2026 10:54:00 -0400

While everyone waits for an influx of lower cost laptops based on Intel's Wildcat Lake platform to land at retail (which is already happening in China), there are deals to be found on existing models. One of those deals is a $240 discount on Dell's 15 laptop with a 6-core CPU, which brings the starting price down to an affordable $399.99. Dell

Starlink and Satellite Megaconstellations Accused of Creating an Unregulated Climate Experiment

Aaron Leong — Mon, 18 May 2026 10:15:00 -0400

A new study is drawing a sharper line between the booming satellite economy and the atmosphere above it: the same launch wave powering Starlink missions is also pumping soot, metal oxides, and ozone-depleting chemistry into the upper air. And so far, nothing is regulating that. Besides the finding that, collectively, satellite launches

Gigabyte's Overclocked Radeon RX 9070 XT Plummets to $629 in Limited Time Deal

Paul Lilly — Mon, 18 May 2026 09:59:00 -0400

In a deal that is listed at "selling fast," Gigabyte's factory-overclocked Radeon RX 9070 XT Gaming OC graphics card is more than $100 below its regular price, bringing it down to nearly AMD's elusive MSRP. Yes, we're in an era where getting a flagship-tier graphics card at or even close to MSRP is considered a deal, and you may have to be

Intel Wildcat Lake Unleashed: Laptops Starting at $449 Take Aim at Apple's MacBook Neo

Paul Lilly — Mon, 18 May 2026 09:26:00 -0400

The first laptops built around Intel's Wildcat Lake chips are starting to show up at retail in China at comparatively aggressive price points ranging from around $449 to $675 when converted to U.S. currency. And on paper, these laptops deliver better specifications than Apple's MacBook Neo, which costs $599 for the base model or $699 for a

ASUS Is Showing Off Its First High-Speed ROG Memory Kit Ahead Of Computex

Chris Harper — Sun, 17 May 2026 13:16:00 -0400

Following the reveal of its retro-inspired ROG Crosshair 2006 X870E motherboard, Asus is showing off some ROG-branded, Hynix-based DDR5 RAM running at 8800 MT/s with the powerful AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU. It's an impressive overclock, though CAS Latency is increased to CL34 from CL26 in exchange for the big boost from the base 6000 MT/s specification.

Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus Drops Below MSRP and Other Great PC Component Deals

Zak Killian — Sat, 16 May 2026 14:15:00 -0400

If you've followed any coverage of Intel's Core Ultra 200S "Plus" processors, you'll be well aware that they're a significant improvement over the original recipe in most tasks, and especially gaming. The upgraded chips feature raised "uncore" (NGU) and "die to die" (D2D) clock rates that radically raise real-world memory performance, and

Microsoft Capitulates: Massive Taskbar Overhaul and Customizable Start Menu Are Coming

Chris Harper — Sat, 16 May 2026 13:38:00 -0400

It only took the better part of five years, but Microsoft is finally listening to Windows users and restoring desired Taskbar functionality to Windows 11 and addition some customization options to the Start menu too. The Taskbar used to freely allow position changes and other customizations on previous version of Windows, but Windows 11 launched

ASUS Unveils ROG Crosshair 2006: A Retro-Themed 20th Anniversary X870E Masterpiece

Alan Velasco — Fri, 15 May 2026 14:43:00 -0400

Retro hardware remains hot, with some awesome recreations of classic systems, and ASUS is looking to ride the wave with a motherboard celebrating the 20th anniversary of its Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand. The ROG Crosshair 2006 motherboard has a design language that’s reminiscent of what was dominant when the company launched its first gaming

Microsoft Launches Windows Driver Quality Initiative to Reduce BSOD Crashes

Chris Harper — Fri, 15 May 2026 14:32:00 -0400

Microsoft's initiative to improve Windows 11 is in full swing and the company just announced an overhaul to how system drivers are handled. In Taipei at WinHEC 2026, Microsoft announced the Driver Quality Initiative (DQI), which is described as a comprehensive, ecosystem-wide effort to improve driver quality across Windows. The initiative

ASUS ROG XREAL R1 240Hz Micro OLED Gaming AR Glasses Open for Preorder at $849

Zak Killian — Fri, 15 May 2026 14:00:00 -0400

ASUS and XREAL have opened pre-orders for the new ROG XG Mobile... wait, wrong expensive gaming accessory. The companies' new ROG XREAL R1 gaming glasses are now available to pre-order for $849, promising a virtual 171-inch display with a 240 Hz refresh rate aimed squarely at handheld PC gamers and laptop users. The new ROG-branded glasses

Xbox Elite Series 3 Leak Points to Dual Scroll Wheels and Swappable Battery

Chris Harper — Fri, 15 May 2026 11:59:00 -0400

It's a great time for fans of premium controllers: not only did the new Steam Controller just release to high sales and critical acclaim, but now leaked photos confirm the existence of an Xbox Elite Series 3 controller. The first Elite Series controller released in October 2015 well into the Xbox One's lifespan (ahead of One X), while Elite