U.S. Department of Commerce withdraws draft export rule for AI accelerators that would give the U.S. government ultimate power over export controls and mandate investments of foreign firms in the U.S. AI sector.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Kunal Khullar) on (#74803)
The case builds on the standard Flux Pro design with enhanced cooling hardware, mesh airflow panels, support for large radiators, and Noctua's well-known brown color scheme.
Manufacturers have said that prices for key chipmaking metals have doubled, and gallium has climbed sharply, as disruptions from the ongoing Middle East conflict pile onto supply constraints.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Jowi Morales) on (#74805)
U.K. fiber network provider Openreach used startup firm Lightsonic's technology to detect leaks in Affinity Water's service area, helping save over 2 million liters of drinking water daily.
Notebookcheck has uncovered yet another case of a Chuwi laptop allegedly featuring a processor different from the one advertised, intensifying concerns over CPU authenticity.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Jowi Morales) on (#747YW)
YouTube creator ScuffedBits re-did their experiment and was able to eke out 30 minutes of game time (and a benchmarking session!) while running their desktop PC on 64 AA batteries.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Hassam Nasir) on (#747NG)
Microsoft says "monitors can now report refresh rates higher than 1000 Hz" in the patch notes for its latest Windows 11 Insider builds. These updates are part of the Release Preview channel, which means they're very close to final, public release. On the other hand, Nvidia has also pushed the first update for its G-Sync Pulsar displays.
by sayem.ahmed@futurenet.com (Sayem Ahmed) on (#747JX)
AMD, Nvidia, Microsoft, Broadcom, and Meta have formed an Optical Compute Interconnect Multi-Source Agreement (OCI MSA) to develop a standardized optical interconnect for AI data centers, with the aspiration to build a PHY capable of handling speeds of up to 3.2 Tb/s.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Hassam Nasir) on (#747G5)
At GDC 2026, Nvidia held a presentation somehow aimed at gamers and not data center clients. Still, it was sprinkled with AI pat-on-the-backs, with the company touting that its future gaming GPUs will offer 1,000,000 better path tracing performance. And the current-gen Blackwell family is apparently already 100,000x better due to dedicated Tensor and RT cores.
As global oil prices spike due to the ongoing pseudo-blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, other shortages are looming, and they could hit the chip and AI industries dramatically. Aluminum and helium for chip production have been impacted, but shortages of LNG could also cause problems for gas turbines powering many AI data centers.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Kunal Khullar) on (#747G7)
Auto Super Resolution, an OS-level AI upscaling feature for Windows 11, is heading to the ROG Xbox Ally X and could deliver noticeable frame-rate improvements.
Elegoo's Spring sale has just started, slashing prices on its FDM and resin printers by up to 31% until March 26, with bulk-buy deals on filament, too.
The Creality Sermoon P1 is a standalone 3D scanner that allows users to go through the entire scanning workflow without having to touch a computer. The 22 crossed laser line mode is surprisingly fast, and the single laser line mode was able to scan deep holes during testing. The NIR (near-infrared) mode is capable of scanning without requiring any markers, and the on-device editing allows users to make on-location edits without needing to stop. The Sermoon P1 handled everything we threw at it, but the color texture was the only disappointing part of the testing.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Jowi Morales) on (#747AE)
Meta is delaying work on the Pearls section of its Africa2 network after its contracted cable-layer, Alcatel Submarine Networks, declared force majeure due to the risk of getting hit during the Iran conflict.
Nvidia says it is permissible for ByteDance to use AI clusters outside of China to develop its AI prowess as long as these clusters are built in compliance with the U.S. export controls.
SteelSeries' Elite Arctis Nova wireless gaming headset is discounted by over 40. This audiophile-grade headset features the world's first Hi-Res audio certification in a wireless gaming headset.
Score on a great combo deal with AMD's Ryzen 7 9850X3D, Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Apex, 32GB Corsair DDR5-6400 RAM for $1,187.99 - it's $436 off retail, effectively making the RAM free.
If you're shopping for a new external SSD, you might want to buy a drive soon, and something that was released before the AI demand seemingly gobbled up all the good flash.
China's central government warned state enterprises and agencies not to install OpenClaw on office computers this week as multiple government bodies moved to rein in the AI agent.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Hassam Nasir) on (#7475S)
Several games on Steam that were secretly carrying malware now seem to be under active investigation by the FBI. The department is looking for victim information tied to these games; anyone who installed and played an infected game and was harmed is being urged to step forward and share more info to help with the investigation.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Aaron Klotz) on (#746PY)
Phoronix tested Ubuntu 26.04 on an RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 and found that the new version performs up to 12% better on the 5090 compared to Ubuntu 25.10.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Hassam Nasir) on (#746PZ)
The G100 lineup from Lisuan Tech now has an official release date, with the LX G7106 being the gaming SKU with 12 GB of VRAM and a purported RTX 4060-like performance. The "LX" series of professional GPUs, likely using the G7105 silicon, were also revealed with three SKUs offering up to 24 GB of ECC VRAM.
Under the new agreement, the focus will shift to validating full process flows for nanosheet and nanostack device architectures and backside power delivery.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Kunal Khullar) on (#746KR)
Although the savings are modest, Amazon's $50 discount across most of the 2026 MacBook lineup makes these newly launched laptops slightly cheaper than buying directly from Apple.
This spring sale discount knocks the price of an Acer Nitro V15 gaming laptop, with a 10-core Intel CPU, RTX 5060, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD, to just 799.99, one of the most affordable options with these specs available right now.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Jowi Morales) on (#746DS)
Stryker, a Fortune 500 medical technology company, has been hit with a massive cyberattack that allegedly saw over 200,000 devices wiped clean, affecting employees and operations across the globe.
Acer's Swift 16 AI blends a premium design, an OLED screen, and the latest Intel silicon, though its massive haptic touchpad isn't the selling point it's made out to be.
Grab a huge 31% discount on this TP-Link 5-port unmanaged Ethernet switch to upgrade the wired connectivity in your home or office with gigabit speeds, down to only 8.97 in Amazon's UK Spring Sale Days event.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Hassam Nasir) on (#7461V)
The first official hardware details for Project Helix have been confirmed and Microsoft seems to be heavily leaning toward neural rendering, going as far as to unveil the next-gen FSR "Diamond" stack. Along with the AMD co-developed custom SoC, FSR will enable a significant bump in raytracing performance in the upcoming Xbox.
by editors@tomshardware.com (Kunal Khullar) on (#74600)
Using Precision Boost Overdrive and Curve Optimizer, you can fine tune your processor's voltage and power limits to achieve better efficiency and sustained boost speeds.
Following rampant and rapid adoption and proliferation of the agentic AI tool OpenClaw, Chinese authorities have warned government-run institutions and companies not to install the tool - and warned everyone about its potential security implications
by editors@tomshardware.com (Aaron Klotz) on (#745TV)
Minisforum has announced it is readying a new NAS that comes with OpenClaw pre-installed. The NAS will be powered by AMD's flagship Ryzen AI Max+ 395 to help accelerate AI workloads that users program OpenClaw to execute.