ASUS has officially announced the ROG Ally X, an updated, refined, and more powerful version of its Windows PC gaming handheld that debuted last year. The big hardware revisions boost performance outside of the AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor, which remains unchanged. And it begins with double the battery capacity to an impressive 80 Wh.

The ROG Ally X will ship with 24GB of LPDDR5X-7500 memory, which is not only larger in capacity but also faster. ASUS notes that as the Ryzen SoC with RDNA graphics shares the same pool of memory as the full system, the increased capacity and speed deliver better GPU performance when gaming.

Storage is also getting an upgrade, with 1TB of SSD available using the common M.2 2280 form factor found in gaming desktops. This offers an easy and more affordable upgrade path for gamers who need to install several Call of Duty-sized titles. The motherboard has been redesigned to accommodate the change in the storage form factor, a philosophy that applies to the entire handheld.

At Computex 2024, AMD's big Radeon announcement wasn't RDNA 4 or the next-gen desktop Radeon RX 8800 XT for PC gaming but a new dual-slot GPU for workstations and generative AI workflows. The AMD Radeon PRO W7900 Dual Slot (with blower fan) is a sleek and powerful unit with 48GB GDDR6 and up to 864 GB/s of bandwidth.

This is a smaller version of the triple-slot Radeon PRO W7900, making it a better fit for workstations with limited space and unlocking the full potential of RDNA 3 and the Navi 31 GPU. Other specs include 192 RDNA 3 AI Accelerators, 123 TFLOPS of FP16 peak half-precision performance, and a 295W Total Board Power rating. As a two-slot GPU, the length is 280mm, the same as the previous triple-slot edition.

Performance-wise, AMD is touting up to 52% better performance per dollar (this thing has an MSRP of $3,499 USD) than the NVIDIA RTX 6000 ADA GPU - partly because NVIDIA's AI monster costs around $6,800, almost double.

AMD has announced its new chips for Copilot+ AI PCs, the latest AMD Ryzen AI 300 Series, at Computex. These chips deliver 50 TOPS of AI performance with next-gen Zen 5 CPU Cores and beefed-up RDNA 3.5 graphics. The latter will make these chips great for PC gaming on compact machines - especially handhelds!

As part of its presentation comparing the performance between the flagship Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the Snapdragon X Elite Arm-based SoC with built-in GPU, AMD notes a 60% performance increase in favor of Ryzen using the 3DMark Night Raid Graphics benchmark.

This is partly due to the fact that it's an x86 chip without an emulation layer, but the performance increase also comes from the 16 Compute Units, up from 12 CUs in the previous gen Ryzen 7040 Series and Ryzen 8040 Series.

With the new Ryzen 9000 Series, led by the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X, AMD is introducing the new X870 and X870E motherboard chipsets. These are expected to launch alongside the new Zen 5 CPUs in July, with several board partners on board (heh) to deliver the latest in AM5 platform technology. So, what's new?

With X870 and X870E, USB 4 and PCIe Gen 5 storage and graphics are now standard. More importantly, for PC gamers and enthusiasts, X870 introduces and expands AMD EXPO memory overclocking to support faster DDR5 speeds.

"We learned some lessons with the 600 Series [of motherboards]; memory technology has come a lot further, so we should be able to clock a little higher." Unfortunately, no specifics, supported overclocked speeds, or timings were given - this will come later.

AMD's AI processing for laptops and portable devices is leveling up big time with the new Ryzen AI 300 Series, powered by Zen 5, XDNA 2, and RDNA 3.5 graphics. Described as the 'World's Best Processor for Copilot+ PCs,' they launch in July with two models - the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 and the Ryzen AI 9 365.

Yes, the new naming for AMD's SoCs is real and works like this: Ryzen AI is the new brand name denoting a powerful dedicated NPU (here, it's the third-gen XDNA 2), 300 is the series, and the 9 HX stuff is the model info that AMD traditionally puts at the end of Ryzen CPU model naming.

With AMD's third-generation XDNA 2 NPU technology, Ryzen AI 300 Series processors are Copilot+ ready. The impressive 50 TOPS of AI performance push them past the Snapdragon X Elite, Intel's next-gen Lunar Lake, and Apple's M4 chips. This is a massive increase from the 10 TOPS for the Ryzen 7040 Series and 16 TOPS for the Ryzen 8040 Series.

At Computex 2024, AMD has formally announced its next-generation desktop CPUs, the new Ryzen 9000 Series, which will launch in July with four models. Powered by the next-gen Zen 5 architecture, AMD noted in its presentation to the press that this was more than a "trivial update" for Zen but a "sweeping update" with advances that deliver 2X data and instruction bandwidth and, of course, big performance gains for AI.

AMD says there's an average 16% IPC uplift compared to Zen 4, with the chart outlining the improvement across a range of gaming, rendering, and other CPU workloads. Far Cry 6 sees a 10% uplift on the low-end, and Octane and Cinebench R23 are in the middle with 16% and 17%, respectively. On the high-end, you've got Blender with an impressive 23% uplift and Geekbench 5.4 with a massive 35%. Zen 5 is a definite step up from Zen 4.

The four models that are set to debut in July are AM5 ready: the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, Ryzen 9 9900X, Ryzen 7 9700X, and Ryzen 5 9600X. One of the other big things with Zen 5 is that the performance increases come with an improvement in power efficiency, with the Ryzen 9 9950X (16 Cores/32 Threads) featuring a 170W TDP, which is on par with the Zen 4 Ryzen 9 7950X.

Computex 2024 - ID-COOLING has some fantastic new products being shown off this year at Computex 2024, starting with the prototype HUNTER DUET GOLDEN LINING (HUNTER GDL).

The new ID-COOLING prototype HUNTER GDL cooler features dual water flow circulations with not one, but two 360mm radiators. The new HUNTER DUET GDL aims to provide the best cooling performance for enthusiasts and overclockers, with the hassle-free all-in-one cooling solution.

HUNTER DUET GOLDEN LINING (HUNTER GDL) prototype:

In a new interview with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick, we get to find out about the PC version of GTA 6... but we're also teased with GTA 7, which is probably another 10+ years away.

The interview took place during the TD Cowen 52nd Annual Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, the host of TD Cowen estimated that since its launch, GTA V has made $10 billion in bookings. Zelnick agreed, saying it was close, adding it's "simple math," and then into GTA 6.

Zelnick was asked: "When you think about GTA VI and what you've seen they're working on, are you confident that this franchise can take another leap forward in terms of its revenue and its reach?" In response, the Take-Two CEO said: "The world is a different place than when we did launch GTA V. What came before at that point was IV, we had some downloadable add-on content, there was no online version".

The GeForce Rewards program is part of the GeForce Experience and NVIDIA App (which is still in Beta), and on June 4, if you log in, you'll be able to redeem three months of PC Game Pass. This is the Windows PC version of the popular Xbox Game Pass subscription service, which offers gamers access to a library of over 130 games to download and play.

PC Game Pass includes all first-party Xbox games, including the recently released Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, which looks incredible when running on a high-end GeForce rig. You've also got access to hits like Starfield, Forza Motorsport, Palworld, and more.

This free PC Game Pass access deal also applies to GeForce NOW subscribers, NVIDIA's cloud gaming platform that lets you stream PC games to any device with low latency and up to GeForce RTX 4080 levels of visual fiedlity. The PC Game Pass GeForce Reward starts on June 4, and here's how you claim it.

DLSS Ray Reconstruction, supported by all GeForce RTX GPUs, improves the image quality of ray-traced reflections and lighting with AI. The technology will be available in Star Wars Outlaws, which launches on August 30th. It adds detail and delivers a crisper image.

This is going to be a treat for Star Wars fans with GeForce RTX hardware, as the game features a range of RT effects, including ray-traced reflections, ray-traced shadows, NVIDIA RTX Direct Illumination (RTXDI), and ray-traced global illumination. The game looks stunning with max settings and DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction, improving the image quality.

Star Wars Outlaws supports the entire line-up of in-game RTX technologies, including NVIDIA DLSS 3 Frame Generation (this is limited to the GeForce RTX 40 Series) and NVIDIA Reflex latency reduction. Plus, it will launch into GeForce NOW with GeForce NOW Ultimate subscribers getting access to all high-end RT visual features, including DLSS 3.5.