TechPowerUP NEWS

[NextPowerUP]

Blood of the Dawnwalker is an upcoming open-world RPG being worked on by game studio, Rebel Wolves, and the former creative director of The Witcher 3, and if a recent interview with Eurogamer is to be believed, Blood of the Dawnwalker will set itself apart from the crop when it comes to storytelling. According to the game's director, Konrad Tomaskiewicz, one of the key goals of the game's story was to make it feel more like a traditional pen-and-paper RPG instead of the more linear experiences found in most games. To the development and design teams, this apparently meant omitting the idea of a main quest line. Instead, in Blood of the Dawnwalker, you will apparently know where the enemy is right from the start, and you can go in and attack them at any point, however, your success will depend on how you approach the game. "It's up to you if you want to do it by yourself, or if you want to build yourself, find the powerful items, develop your character, or do some quests and find allies to help you do it."

The game will not be aimless or without a time component. The game's protagonist, Coen, has 30 days and 30 nights to save his family, leaving players to balance the sense of urgency and the need to prepare and explore the world. So, it seems as though the game will take something of a sandbox game design approach to storytelling. To the credit of the developers, there also seem to be some interesting gameplay mechanics coming to Blood of the Dawnwalker, as well. For one, the main character, a half-human, half-vampire, is able to withstand exposure to daylight but effectively loses his vampirism during the daytime, making for some potentially interesting gameplay and storytelling moments. Blood of the Dawnwalker doesn't have an official release date yet, but there is a Steam store page for those interested in wish-listing or following along for updates.

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[NextPowerUP]

TITAN ARMY partners with TechPowerUp to bring our readers in the U.S. three jaw-dropping deals on their latest gaming monitors on Best Buy. The TITAN ARMY C27A1H is a 27-inch curved gaming monitor with Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution, and a blistering 300 Hz refresh rate with 1 ms GTG response time. The monitor features 1500R curvature, offering features such as 125% sRGB, VESA HDR, and AMD FreeSync. It uses a VA panel. Normally priced at $199.99, this monitor is yours for $139.99!

Next up, is the TITAN ARMY C24A1H, a cost-effective 24-inch gaming monitor with a 1500R curvature, Full HD resolution, an impressive 240 Hz refresh-rate, and 1 ms response time. The display offers 117% sRGB coverage and HDR. Normally priced at $139.99, the sale sees its price drop to $109.99. We've saved our best for the last! The TITAN ARMY P2712V is a 27-inch 4K Ultra HD planar monitor that can either do 4K Ultra HD (3840 x 2160) at 160 Hz, or Full HD (1920 x 1080) at 320 Hz. It is based on a Fast IPS panel, and offers DisplayHDR 400, along with VESA Adaptive Sync. Normally priced at $549.99, this display is going for a stunning $269.99!

Buy TITAN ARMY C27A1H at $139.99 (normally $199.99) | Buy TITAN ARMY C24A1H at $109.99 (normally $139.99) | Buy TITAN ARMY P2712V at $269.99 (normally $549.99)

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[NextPowerUP]

Valve has officially opened the nomination process for the Steam Awards 2025. The annual game awards ceremony will be held on January 3, 2026, but nominations will close on December 1, after which voting will commence to decide the winner. As with previous years, there are several categories to nominate games in, totaling 11 for this year: Game of the Year, VR Game of the Year, Labor of Love, Best Game on Steam Deck, Better with Friends, Outstanding Visual Style, Most Innovative Gameplay, Best Game You Suck At, Best Stoundtrack, Outstanding Story-Rich Game, and Sit Back and Relax.

The popular nominees for Game of the Year include some repeat visitors from The Game Awards, like Split Fiction and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, but there are also some interesting nominees, like Peak and RV There Yet? Dispatch also makes repeat appearances in the frequent nominees list, as do F1 26 and Marvel Rivals. Although there are some similarities between the recently revealed list of nominees for The Game Awards, the popular nominees featured on the Steam Awards page appear to be quite different to those that appeared in the other yearly game show.

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[NextPowerUP]

Amazon has shared new hardware and service details for its Leo satellite network (formerly Project Kuiper) as it gets closer to commercial launch. With more than 150 satellites now in orbit, Amazon is launching an enterprise preview program for select customers ahead of a broader rollout in 2026. The highlight is Leo Ultra, Amazon's new enterprise-grade user terminal. The flat-panel phased-array antenna delivers up to 1 Gbps download and 400 Mbps upload, making it the fastest production terminal Amazon has announced. The unit uses custom Amazon silicon and RF processing to reduce latency and support full-duplex operation. The design has no moving parts and is built to handle extreme weather.

Besides Leo Ultra, Amazon will offer two lower service tiers: Leo Nano uses a compact 7-inch antenna delivering download speeds up to 100 Mbps, while Leo Pro uses a standard 11-inch antenna supporting speeds up to 400 Mbps. Amazon is positioning Leo for organizations that operate beyond the reach of terrestrial connectivity, including industrial, government, and remote operations environments. The service supports network management tools, end-to-end encryption and priority support. It also integrates directly with AWS and other private networks bypassing traffic over the public internet.
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[NextPowerUP]

Intel's next-generation "Nova Lake" desktop processor generation will arrive with a 6th-generation Neural Processing Unit (NPU) design. However, we now have preliminary performance details about it thanks to a well-known hardware leaker @jaykihn0 on X. The latest leak indicates that the "Nova Lake-S" desktop configuration will carry an NPU on one of its tiles that deliver 74 TOPS of INT8 performance, which is significantly higher than anything Intel previously shipped in its desktop segment. As of now, Intel ships NPU 3 with "Arrow Lake-S," which came out in 2023 with "Meteor Lake" and offers 11.5 INT8 TOPS. Intel's current highest-performing NPU is the NPU 5 scheduled for "Panther Lake" in early 2026, which will carry up to 50 TOPS for Copilot+ AI PCs.

Intel's decision to upgrade the NPU IP with "Nova Lake" has been known since late last month, when compiler patches confirmed the inclusion of a new NPU 6 in the next-generation desktop chips. However, the exact performance target was unclear until now. Since Intel is enhancing its NPU IP on the same microarchitecture, we can expect the NPU in Nova Lake to have a larger TOPS budget while maintaining software compatibility. This is excellent news for software that incorporated NPU acceleration in previous generations, as the performance improvements will be seamlessly integrated.

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[NextPowerUP]

Minix, makers of mini PCs, industrial PCs, and consumer electronics, brings you the 2025 Black Friday Sale via Best Buy. Get three of the company's latest products on deeply discounted prices! The Minix Z300-0dB is a fanless mini-PC suitable for a plethora of use-cases thanks to there being no moving parts. It is powered by Intel N300 "Alder Lake-N" processor, backed by 16 GB of RAM, and 512 GB of SSD storage, besides networking and display options suitable for client, IPC, and AIoT use-cases. Normally priced at $369.99, our sale sees this wonder box go for $349.99.

Want to bring the awesome power of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay to your car? The Minix CP89-HD does just this! Just pop it on top of your dash or windshield, connect to a USB power source, and connect its 3.5 mm audio output to your old car stereo's aux input. That's it, you now have a modern infotainment system with an 8.9-inch touchscreen that brings modern apps from your phone to your car! Normally priced at $249.99, you can have it for $199.99! Have a fairly new car infortainment system that has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability, but missed out on Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto? Grab the Minix wired-to-wireless infotainment adapter. It plugs into the USB input of your infotainment system that's needed for wired CarPlay/Auto, and then you pair your phone to this device, EZ-PZ! Yours for $39.99.

Buy Minix Z300-0dB Mini PC at $349.99 (normally $369.99) | Buy Minix CP89-HD infotainment module at $199.99 (normally $249.99) | Buy Minix Wired to Wireless CarPlay/AA adapter at $39.99 (normally $59.99)

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[NextPowerUP]

Chieftec has officially announced The Cube, a new compact microATX case that seems almost specifically designed to blend into a living room gaming setup or serve as a home-theater PC build. The Cube CI-03B-OP, as it is formally known, has a front intake grill and a smooth matte black finish that makes it look like a subwoofer in a speaker setup instead of like a loud, garish PC setup. The whole chassis measures in at just 385 × 265 × 355 mm, and features a healthy helping of front I/O, including 1× USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, 2× USB 3.0 Type-A ports, and a 3.5 mm audio combo jack. The motherboard is curiously positioned horizontally inside the case, even when the case is upright, a design that might result in a starved GPU in some situations, since there is no ventilation on the GPU fan side.

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of The Cube is now live]

The Cube supports up to a 240 mm radiator and comes with a single 200 mm PWM fan pre-installed. Some other neat features include a "fold-open mechanism," which basically allows you to easily remove the front and top panels of the case quickly for improved access to build in the case. Internally, things are tight, with CPU cooler clearance limited to just 160 mm and video cards similarly limited to 355 mm. Aside from the pre-installed 200 mm front intake fan, The Cube supports up to a single 120 mm rear exhaust fan and dual 120 mm fans, a single 200 mm fan, or a 240 mm radiator on the top panel. It also supports a full size ATX PSU up to 160 mm in length and two 3.5-inch HDDs and two 2.5-inch SSDs, providing reasonable expansion options. It's unclear if The Cube will be available in the US at any point, but it is currently priced at €69.90 in the EU.

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[NextPowerUP]

The Xbox Full Screen Experience (FSE) is a new system performance enhancement to use less system RAM than the standard Windows 11 desktop mode, as confirmed by MSI. Recently, Microsoft introduced this feature to regular Windows PCs, allowing them to play games using Xbox FSE mode. MSI has now confirmed that its handhelds running Windows 11 can significantly benefit from this feature. When the system operates in standard Windows 11 desktop mode, it consumes 8.6 GB of RAM. However, with Xbox FSE enabled, RAM usage drops to 7.8 GB, a 9.3% reduction. MSI describes this as a 5% difference based on the total system capacity of 16 GB, rather than the difference between the two usage figures.

Users with the Xbox app installed can access Xbox FSE by navigating to Game Bar > Settings or pressing Win + F11. This feature can take over the screen at startup, hiding the desktop and minimizing background tasks, creating a console-like experience. The interface is minimalistic, with game tiles filling the entire display. Navigation is controlled by a game controller, and typical Windows elements are hidden to maintain focus on the game. Microsoft states that this mode also pauses maintenance activities and mutes notifications to ensure consistent frame delivery. This is demonstrated with Cyberpunk 2077, which can achieve up to 8.6% higher FPS. All of this occurs with 9.3% less RAM usage, meaning Xbox FSE reduces background load, allowing the handheld to achieve better performance.
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[NextPowerUP]

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) announced that Zyphra has achieved a major milestone in large-scale AI model training with the development of ZAYA1, the first large-scale Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) foundation model trained using an AMD GPU and networking platform. Using AMD Instinct MI300X GPUs and AMD Pensando networking and enabled by the AMD ROCm open software stack, the achievement is detailed in a Zyphra technical report published today.

Results from Zyphra show that the model delivers competitive or superior performance to leading open models across reasoning, mathematics, and coding benchmarks—demonstrating the scalability and efficiency of AMD Instinct GPUs for production-scale AI workloads.
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[NextPowerUP]

The Microsoft Store is undergoing a functional overhaul, now offering direct access to application uninstallation. This feature has been highly requested by the community, as users who installed applications from the Microsoft Store previously had to remove them through "Add or remove programs" in the main system settings. However, starting with Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220.7271 (KB5070307), released to the Dev and Beta channels, this feature is integrated into the Microsoft Store's front-end design. For Windows Insiders on all channels using Microsoft Store version 22510.1401.x.x and above, this improvement will be activated.

Until then, users must continue using the traditional method of adding and removing apps through the system settings. Microsoft appears to be working towards making its storefront a more functional app. It is possible that the Store will soon manage app lifecycle tasks directly, including per-app update controls, uninstallation, storage usage details, and contextual actions on each app's page. These enhancements could help reduce friction for everyday users, bring the Microsoft Store closer to competing ecosystems, and simplify device management for IT administrators. Insiders will have the opportunity to test these features and provide feedback during this preview phase. If the validation is successful, Microsoft may expand the rollout in a future update.

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[NextPowerUP]

The Icy Dock EXLink MB308A is a high-performance PCIe 4.0 x16 adapter card featuring two Slim SAS 8i (SFF-8654) ports for direct NVMe connectivity. Engineered with an integrated redriver IC and PCIe clock buffer, the MB308A maintains signal integrity across longer cable runs, ensuring stable PCIe Gen 4 speed and reliability. Validated with ICY DOCK NVMe mobile racks and enclosures, the MB308A provides a dependable foundation for servers, workstations, and validation labs where consistent NVMe storage performance is mission-critical.

Optimized PCIe 4.0 x16 Connectivity for NVMe Storage
With a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface delivering up to 256 Gbps of total bandwidth, the MB308A is designed to work with motherboards that support lane bifurcation (x4, x4, x4, x4). When enabled, this feature allows the adapter to connect up to four NVMe SSDs across its two Slim SAS 8i ports. If the motherboard does not provide bifurcation, only a single SSD may be recognized.
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[NextPowerUP]

The TG Caliper is an affordable digital caliper made of high-hardness, rust-resistant ABS plastic that sufficiently covers the most important measuring functions in the PC DIY segment. The measuring range is up to 150 mm / 6 inches. An ergonomically textured thumb wheel makes handling the caliper easier. The measured values are displayed on the LCD in either the metric or imperial system, with a resolution/readout of 0.1 mm / 0.01 inch and an accuracy of ±0.2 mm / 0.01 inch. A zero function allows two measurements to be compared easily. The device is powered by an LR44 battery, and two of them are included in the scope of delivery. The caliper is dust- and splash-resistant (IP54).

Features

• Display on LCD in mm/in
• Outside, inside, step, and depth measurements
• Made of high-hardness ABS plastic
• ZERO function & ergonomic handling
• Dust- and splash-resistant (IP54)
• Batteries included

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[NextPowerUP]

CXL Consortium, the industry standard organization developing and promoting an open coherent interconnection for heterogeneous memory and computing solutions, today announced the release of the Compute Express Link (CXL) 4.0 specification to meet the increasing demands of emerging workloads placed on today's data centers.

"The release of the CXL 4.0 specification sets a new milestone for advancing coherent memory connectivity, doubling the bandwidth over the previous generation with powerful new features," said Derek Rohde, CXL Consortium President and Treasurer, and Principal Engineer at NVIDIA. "This release reflects our member companies' commitment to driving open standards that empower data center innovation, support compliance and interoperability, and enable the entire industry to scale for future usage models."
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[NextPowerUP]

Samsung Electronics today announced that TM Roh was officially named Head of Device eXperience (DX) Division and appointed as CEO, joining Young Hyun Jun, Vice Chairman and Head of Device Solutions (DS) Division, as co-CEOs of the Company. President Roh will continue to oversee the Company's mobile business as Head of Mobile eXperience (MX) Business, while Vice Chairman Jun will remain as Head of Memory Business.

To strengthen Samsung's technology leadership, the Company named Janghyun Yoon as President, Chief Technology Officer of DX Division and Head of Samsung Research, and Hongkun Park as Head of Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT). President Yoon was previously the CEO of Samsung Venture Investment. Prior to Samsung Venture Investment, he was responsible for software platforms as well as IoT and Tizen development at the MX Business. Park is currently the Mark Hyman Jr. Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics at Harvard University, and a renowned researcher in the fields of nanoscience, quantum science and engineering.

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[NextPowerUP]

In September 2025, the nickel-plating process was switched to an electroplated bright-nickel method. As a result, the AM5 High Performance Heatspreaders of the 3rd generation now look similar to those of the 1st generation. The new batches using the updated process offer the same performance within measurement tolerance as the previously matte-nickel-plated High Performance Heatspreaders (2nd generation). At present, it is still possible that matte-nickel-plated High Performance Heatspreaders will be shipped. High Performance Heatspreaders with the original nickel plating (1st generation) should no longer be circulating in retail.

The same applies to the Mycro Direct-Die Pro water coolers. Here as well, the process has been changed to the electroplated bright-nickel method, meaning mixed inventory with matte-coated coolers may appear in retail. Performance has also not changed here within measurement tolerance.
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