"Alan Wake II," released earlier this week, is the latest third person action adventure loaded with psychological thriller elements that call back to some of the best works of Remedy Entertainment, including "Control," "Max Payne 2," and "Alan Wake." It's also a visual feast as our performance review of the game should show you, leveraging the full spectrum of the DirectX 12 Ultimate feature-set. In the run up to the release, when Remedy put out the system requirements lists for "Alan Wake II" with clear segregation for experiences with ray tracing and without; what wasn't clear was just how much the game depended on hardware support for mesh shaders, which is why its bare minimum list called for at least an NVIDIA RTX 2060 "Turing," or at least an AMD RX 6600 XT RDNA2, both of which are DirectX 12 Ultimate GPUs with hardware mesh shaders support.

There was some confusion among gaming online forums over the requirement for hardware mesh shaders. Many people assumed that the game will not work on GPUs without mesh shader support, locking out lots of gamers. Through the course of our testing for our performance review, we learned that while it is true that "Alan Wake II" relies on hardware support for mesh shaders, the lack of this does not break gameplay. You will, however, pay a heavy performance penalty on GPUs that lack hardware mesh shader support. On such GPUs, the game is designed to show users a warning dialog box that their GPU lacks mesh shader support (screenshot below), but you can choose to ignore this warning, and go ahead to play the game. The game considers mesh shaders a "recommended GPU feature," and not a requirement. Without mesh shaders, you can expect a severe performance loss that is best illustrated with the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT based on the RDNA architecture, which lacks hardware mesh shaders.
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(PR) Alphacool Unveils Single-Slot ES H100 80GB HBM PCIe Water Block for NVIDIA H100 GPU
Alphacool expands the portfolio of the Enterprise Solutions series for GPU water coolers and presents the new ES H100 80 GB HBM PCIe. In order to dissipate the enormous waste heat of this GPU generation in the best possible way, the cooler is positioned close to the components to be cooled in an exemplary manner. Alphacool uses only copper for all water-bearing parts. Copper has almost twice the thermal conductivity of aluminium, making it a much better choice of material for a water cooler. The fully chrome plated copper base makes it resistant to acids, scratches and damage. The matte carbon finish gives the cooler a classy appearance. At the same time, this makes it interesting for private users who want to do without aRGB lighting.

The water cooler is specially designed for use in narrow server cases. To save space in width and height, the connections have been moved to the back. This also allows for easier hosing inside the server rack. Thanks to the very compact design, only 1 slot is required for mounting the cooler in the server rack instead of 1.5 slots as before. This further reduction of required space is a strong argument for the use of the ES Copper/Carbon GPU watercooler. Smart and efficient.
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(PR) ASUS Announces Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE and Pro WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI Motherboards
ASUS today announced the Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE and Pro WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI workstation motherboards featuring the new AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs. Designed for professionals in AI training, deep learning, animation, 3D rendering, and media production, these two motherboards feature expandable graphics, extensive storage, impressive connectivity, along with exceptional performance and reliability. Centralized management software also makes them an efficient and cost-effective option for IT administrators.

The Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE and Pro WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI are also perfect for creative professionals looking for a high-performance platform. workstation motherboards featuring the new AMD Ryzen Threadripper CPUs. Designed for professionals in AI training, deep learning, animation, 3D rendering, and media production, these two motherboards feature expandable graphics, extensive storage, impressive connectivity, along with exceptional performance and reliability. Centralized management software also makes them an efficient and cost-effective option for IT administrators. The Pro WS WRX90E-SAGE SE and Pro WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI are also perfect for creative professionals looking for a high-performance platform.
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Anker's Pro Guide 101: How to Clean a USB C Port Properly
Everyday use inevitably leads to your all-important USB C Port collecting dust and debris, which might disrupt its performance. Mastering the art of regular cleaning can be a small yet crucial act that ensures smooth and uninterrupted use of your devices. This article will go deep into the answer to 'How to clean a USB C port?', highlighting why keeping this port clean should be your regular routine, sharing a practical step-by-step guide taking you through the cleaning process, and providing useful tips that will help you with ongoing maintenance.
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CORSAIR Marketing Head Harry Butler Leaves Company After a Decade's Association and 500+ Product Launches
CORSAIR has had a long and eventful journey from being an enthusiast PC memory brand to one that covers nearly every aspect of the modern gaming PC except the processor, motherboard, and graphics card. The company is hence rightfully listed as CORSAIR Gaming. Over the decades, CORSAIR built a distinct and sublime brand identity, which for consumers stands for quality, longevity, and stability; and much of the force behind this brand building has been Harry Butler, senior director for corporate communications at the company. Harry announced his departure from CORSAIR, after a decade of association, over 500 product launches, over 12 new product lines that the company wasn't involved in a decade ago, six company acquisitions, four new brand identities, and over 350 media communications that Harry oversaw, leading up to the company's IPO.

We at TechPowerUp thank our friend Harry for the excellent comms we had with CORSAIR over the years under his steady and reassuring leadership. This covers nearly the entire spectrum of products, including memory, SSD, flash storage, power supplies, PC cooling, gaming peripherals including keyboards, mice, headsets; and other gaming lifestyle products. Every new product launch from CORSAIR under Harry's leadership has been a PR masterclass, with well detailed releases, a comprehensive set of image assets in the highest possible resolution and in lossless image formats (this matters a lot to me personally), and prompt two-way communications with CORSAIR to clarify things. Harry is our must-hug at Computex each year, ideally at the legendary CORSAIR Computex parties that we always look forward to. We cannot thank Harry enough for being a firm bridge between CORSAIR and TechPowerUp, and we can't wait to see what's next for him!

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(PR) Intel Reports Third-Quarter 2023 Financial Results
Intel Corporation today reported third-quarter 2023 financial results. "We delivered a standout third quarter, underscored by across-the-board progress on our process and product roadmaps, agreements with new foundry customers, and momentum as we bring AI everywhere," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. "We continue to make meaningful progress on our IDM 2.0 transformation by relentlessly advancing our strategy, rebuilding our execution engine and delivering on our commitments to our customers."

David Zinsner, Intel CFO, said, "Our results exceeded expectations for the third consecutive quarter, with revenue above the high end of our guidance and EPS benefiting from strong operating leverage and expense discipline. As demonstrated by our recent portfolio actions, we are highly focused on being great allocators of our owners' capital and unlocking value for shareholders."
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Intel "Raptor Lake Refresh" Confirmed for Mobile Segment Launch as i7-14700HX Surfaces
Intel is confirmed to be bringing the 14th Gen Core series to the mobile segment, with the Core i7-14700HX surfacing on leaked PugetBench online database. This would be a repeat of how Intel handled its 10th Gen Core series, with the technologically older "Comet Lake" silicon with its higher core count being confined to the mainstream -H, and enthusiast -HX market segments, with the then contemporary "Ice Lake" silicon handling the thin and light -U and -P segments. Intel is close to launching its "Meteor Lake" silicon, which it will likely address the -U, -P, and some tiers of the -H segments with. These could feature a newer Core and Core Ultra product branding, while "Raptor Lake Refresh" retains the more recognizable 14th Gen Core processor model numbering scheme similar to that of its desktop cousin.

Besides the Core i7-14700HX that now surfaced on PugetBench database, there have been leaks about at least two other models from the "Raptor Lake Refresh" mobile pedigree—Core i5-14650HX, and the i9-14900HX. It's very likely that the flagship "i9-14980HK" part is based on "Raptor Lake Refresh," featuring an unlocked multiplier, and power limits rivaling the desktop i9-14900, for notebooks that are really just desktop replacements. The Intel prototype notebook from the i7-14700HX leak features a discrete Arc A570M GPU, and 64 GB of DDR5-4800 SO-DIMM memory. If the power limit convention is carried over from the 13th Gen, you're looking at 55 W processor base power, and 157 W of maximum turbo power (or burst power). What we don't yet know about the i7-14700HX is its core-configuration. The current i7-13700HX features an 8P+8E configuration, and it remains to be seen if the i7-14700HX gets an 8P+12E config similar to its desktop counterpart.

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Moore Thread's MTT S80, World's First PCIe Gen 5 Gaming Graphics Card, Now Priced at $164
The Moore Thread's MTT S80 discrete graphics card is now available as part of a special 11-11 (Single's Day) promotion in China, for the equivalent of USD $164, making it both the world's first PCIe Gen 5 gaming graphics card, and the most affordable one to feature 16 GB of memory. Moore Thread's is a Chinese GPU manufacturer that has been aiming to build a contemporary GPU to grab a slice of the entry-mainstream gaming market in China for a few years now.

Much of the PC gaming scene in China doesn't involve AAA productions in need of the fastest GPU out there, but rather GPUs from the mainstream performance tier—Moore Thread's knows this, and has been reinventing many wheels in the absence of the kind of graphics IP cross-licensing entanglement that exists among NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. The company's fastest GPU is the MTT S80 launched in late 2022, which has the bragging rights to be the world's first with a PCI Express Gen 5 bus interface. Does it need this kind of bandwidth? We honestly don't know, after seeing how sensitive to PCIe interface and resizable-BAR even mainstream Intel GPUs can be. At launch the performance level of the MTT S80 made it more of a novelty than anything, with performance barely matching a Radeon RX 6400, making it about as fast as the iGPU of AMD's Ryzen 5000G "Cezanne" desktop APUs. This is just enough for China's homebrew MOBAs and MMORPGs that are designed to maximize market reach, and hence tend to contain a lot of pre-baked content.
Image Courtesy: Expreview
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(PR) Valve Launches SteamVR 2.0
Today we are excited to ship SteamVR 2.0 to all users! In this release we're bringing all of what's new and exciting on the Steam platform into VR. This is our first big step in a larger ongoing effort to better unify the Steam ecosystem for all users, providing a more consistent experience across devices. This update also allows us to add new Steam features in the future much faster and more frequently.

Some things you'll discover today:
  • Most of the current features of Steam and Steam Deck are now part of SteamVR
  • Updated keyboard with support for dual-cursor typing, new languages, emojis, and themes
  • Integration of Steam Chat and Voice Chat
  • Improved Store that puts new and popular VR releases front and center
  • Easy access to Steam notifications


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