Recorded just before they headed off to Taipei for the tech oasis that is Computex 2024, this week's episode of the TT Show sees Jak and Kosta discuss the latest news in gaming, tech, and science. Kicking off with Jak's impressions of Hellblade 2 (which he calls the best-looking game he's ever seen), the duo digs into Valve's next game - Deadlock.

Although it hasn't been officially announced, the next major release from the company behind Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, and Steam is significant news - even in leaked screenshot form. The game is described as a mix between the hero shooting of Overwatch and the MOBA lane-based gameplay of DOTA 2.

In the world of GPUs, AMD Anti-Lag 2 sees Team Red's latency reduction tech finally return after it was controversially disabled last year. This time, the tech requires game-specific integration, debuting in Counter-Strike 2 in Technical Preview form. In other Radeon news, FSR 3 Frame Generation makes its PS5 and Xbox Series X, bringing triple-digit performance to consoles.

Upgrading your computer can be an excellent way to enhance its performance and take full advantage of new features and improved security. For PC users looking to upgrade their operating system, Windows 11 Pro offers several benefits that can significantly elevate productivity and security. GoDeal24 is running a Mid-Year Big Sale where you can get the latest Windows OS at an attractive price. You can get Windows 11 Professional on sale for only $13.25 (reg. $199) from today.

Windows 11 Pro was upgraded with the hybrid working world in mind. It has new productivity, AI, and security features to help you do your best work. If you're an avid gamer, you'll appreciate DirectX 12 Ultimate, which improves the graphics of games to allow for a more immersive experience and 3D spatial sound, which makes the audio in whatever you're playing sound more realistic. Upgrading to Windows 11 Pro also means your system will continue to get future updates and features from MS, which Windows 10 won't get.

You can also snag a lifetime Microsoft Office Professional 2021 license for only $27.25 (reg. $299). That means you can create, organize, calculate, communicate, and more, all from this evergreen suite of apps for life, with no monthly subscription fees as you'd have with Microsoft 365. MS Office 2019 Professional is also at the lowest price this year - only $19.99 for lifetime use, which is great for those on a low budget. With your purchase, you'll get instant download and delivery of this suite on one PC, and lifetime updates are included.

TSMC is absolutely dominating, and we all know it. The big AI chip players are eating up its 3nm production into 2026, and now upstream IC design companies are reporting price increases.

NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, MediaTek, Apple, and Google are all working on getting chips made on TSMC's new 3nm process. Ctee reports that Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Gen4 processor is made on TSMC's new N3E process, and its quotation has increased by 25% compared to the previous generation, which Ctee reports "does not rule out subsequent price increases."

Another issue is that semiconductor competitor Samsung led the mass production of 3nm chips using the GAA (Gate All Around) process on June 22, but the first-gen N3 node "SF3E" was not successful at all. The yield rates of Samsung's in-house Exynos 2500 chips dropped, and Google Tensor processors are all made by Samsung. The current fourth-generation Tensor SoC uses Samsung's new 4nm process, but the rumored fifth-generation Tensor chip will switch to TSMC's new 3nm process.

The world of AI chips hasn't stopped, and won't stop, with advanced packaging production capacity in short supply.

TSMC's new CoWoS plant in Nanke Chiayi Park is entering the "environmental review stage," reports UDN, with TSMC now purchasing equipment to help speed up the construction of the new CoWoS advanced packaging facility. At the same time, the two new CoWoS advanced packaging factories were planned to be built in Nanke Chiayi Park, but they're "not enough," reports UDN.

TSMC reportedly sent personnel down to southern Taiwan to scout for land for a third CoWoS advanced packaging facility. UDN reports that the Chiayi County Government previously announced that TSMC's new advanced packaging plant will be located in Nanke Chiayi Park, covering an area of around 20 hectares. The first CoWoS advanced packaging plant was planned to take up around 12 hectares of space, will be completed by 2026, and will create 3000 jobs.

Reuters reports that Taiwanese chip design giant MediaTek is developing an Arm-based PC processor that will run Windows. " Three people familiar with the matter" say this.

We have been hearing whispers of MediaTek teaming with NVIDIA for a new Arm-based AI PC processor and comments from Dell CEO Michael Dell that we will see an NVIDIA-based processor released for a next-gen AI PC in 2025.

Microsoft also revealed its next-generation laptops with chips designed by Arm last month, its huge new Copilot+ PC push, and the huge relationship with Qualcomm and its Arm-based Snapdragon X series of processors that are inside Copilot+ PC systems running Windows. It seems Qualcomm has the exclusivity here, but that will run out in 2025 and we're going to see an absolute flood of Arm-based AI PC processors hitting the market.

ASRock has launched its new DeskMeet X600 Mini-PC that has a very cool trick up its sleeve: it features a PCIe extension cable that lets you use an external graphics card... which is something we don't see in a world dominated by Thunderbolt 4 and OCulink connectivity.

It's impossible to cram in a monster GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card inside a Mini-PC system, but with a full PCIe interface through an external PCIe extension cable, it just makes sense. ASRock has placed the PCIe connector hidden under a cover (because some users won't use an external discrete graphics card) that can be taken off and used at any time.

The company does miss a huge opportunity, though: ASRock doesn't include a high-quality PCIe extension cable with its new DeskMeet X600 Mini-PC. This means you'll need to find one yourself, and if you have problems, it's not ASRock's issue. ASRock, you should've included the PCIe extension cable with the system.

AMD has one of the best gaming processors on the planet with its Ryzen 7 7800X3D and its second-gen 3D V-Cache technology. However, it looks like the 7800X3D will be a faster gaming CPU than the next-gen Zen 5-based Ryzen 9 9700X, and that's coming directly from AMD.

In an interview with Tom's Hardware, AMD's Senior Technical Marketing Manager, Don Woligroski, said: "Is it the fastest in gaming? It's faster than the competition in our tests. X3D is still the king of the hill, but by a much smaller margin than typically between X3D and non-X3D. So a 7800X3D would, yes, be faster than 9700X, but maybe not by as much as you would expect".

In an interview with PCGamer earlier this week, Donny said: "The X3D stuff, we have a lot to say about it. The best part about it is we're not just resting on laurels. We're improving what we can do with X3D, it's really exciting and I'm super looking forward to talking to people about that. It's not like, hey, we've also added X3D to a chip. We are working actively on really cool differentiators to make it even better. We're working on X3D, we're improving it".

NVIDIA's next-generation flagship GeForce RTX 5090 has some new leaked specs, with the GB202 GPU configuration being leaked onto X by kopite7kimi:

GB202 is going to be an absolute freaking beast, offering 33% more CUDA cores than the AD102 GPU inside of the GeForce RTX 4090, with GB202 rumored to pack in an incredible 24,576 CUDA cores. AD102 has just 18,423 CUDA cores in comparison. GB202 will power the new ultra-enthusiast flagship GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, which is rumored to have a monster 512-bit memory bus with ultra-fast, next-generation GDDR7 memory.

SK hynix is far ahead of its HBM competitors, but they're simultaneously behind their GDDR7 memory competitors, where the South Korean memory giant won't have GDDR7 memory ready until Q1 2024.

The last time we heard about SK hynix's GDDR7 memory was back at NVIDIA's GTC 2024 event (GPU Technology Conference) where we saw GDDR7 modules at 16-24Gb, up to 40Gbps speeds, and up to 160GB/sec memory bandwidth per module. The baseline of GDDR7 memory is 32Gbps and 128GB/sec bandwidth per module, so SK hynix has a rather nice 25% bandwidth improvement for future variations of GDDR7 memory.

Last week at Computex 2024, SK hynix said that its GDDR7 memory will enter mass production in Q1 2025, which should be after NVIDIA launches its GeForce RTX 5090 and GeForce RTX 5080 graphics cards. If mass production is coming in Q1 2025, then we should expect that SK hynix is already sampling customers (namely NVIDIA) right now.

The Paint app in Windows 11 is going to offer smart new powers for AI-powered image generation, and we've just learned more about the requirements to benefit from this.

The Cocreator feature originally debuted in Paint as a typical text-based prompt, as seen in many incarnations across various AI offerings, late on last year as you may recall.

However, the functionality is being pepped up with the ability to sketch in a side-by-side panel to further refine the AI's creation (with a slider to allow Cocreator a freer rein if required, departing more from the sketch into its own ideas).

Up until now X users could see what other content users have Liked on the platform, but that is all about to change according to a recent announcement from the company and it's owner Elon Musk.

In the past, public personalities and politicians have been caught with their pants down, Liking content that was considered by some to be inappropriate or, at the very least, unsavory. This outing of some X users resulted in the individuals in question being attacked online, and according to X, that is going to stop as the company has now launched the ability to hide user Likes. However, this new feature is locked behind the X Premium paywall.

When the feature was announced, X took to its official account to write, "Keep spicy likes private by hiding your likes tab," and provided an image of the new profile customization feature. The social media platform further explained that users will still be able to see posts they have liked, but others won't be able to. Additionally, Like count and other metrics for your own posts will still appear under notifications. Furthermore, the author of a post will be able to see who Liked their post.

Computex 2024 featured many announcements from AMD regarding its incoming next-generation Ryzen 9000 series CPUs, and with many excited about the performance uplift in specific tasks, gamers shouldn't be, or at least if you have a specific previous-gen CPU.

Toms Hardware interviewed AMD's Senior Technical Marketing Manager for Consumer Processors, Donny Woligroski. In the interview, he told the publication that the difference between AMD's new Ryzen 9000 series CPUs and the Ryzen 7000X3D chips in gaming is very little.

Woligroski stated that while its coming Ryzen 9000 series chips won't be the Ryzen 7000X3D chips in gaming, they will still be top-of-the-line CPUs for gaming, but the difference between chips will be extremely small. However, the Ryzen 9000 series CPUs will still beat the 7000X3D chips in non-gaming tasks, meaning the Ryzen 9000 series will be the overall better CPU in terms of overall performance.