Tom's Hardware

New EU packaging regulations spark misplaced fear of CPUs ditching stock coolers

Old AMD Ryzen Threadripper packaging. (Image credit: AMD) Two days ago, on the PCMR subreddit, Reddit user redmera highlighted an upcoming change in EU regulations that would ban “ridiculous CPU packaging” like what used to be found on Intel’s Core i9 and AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, among others. Subsequently, NikTekOfficial on Twitter declared, based on… Read more

Western Digital to unveil 44TB HAMR HDDs in 2026, 100TB in 2030

Western Digital this week outlined its future hard disk drive technology roadmap and revealed plans to adopt heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) for its HDDs beginning in late 2026. HAMR will enable the company to build 80TB–100TB HDDs by 2030. Western Digital’s first HAMR-based HDDs will be introduced sometime in 2026, with a 36TB capacity for… Read more

An ‘unfortunate incident’ hits latest Ubuntu 24.04 point release

According to Canonical’s Utkarsh Gupta, we’ll have to wait a little longer for the next update to the current Ubuntu 24.04 release. It seems that the latest images are missing something beneficial to more recent hardware. Originally scheduled for a February 13 release, Ubuntu 24.04.2 is a point release, a refreshed release that includes all… Read more

Anti-Lag 2 removed from Spider-Man 2 PC port due to game crashes on Radeon GPUs

AMD’s original Anti-Lag technology was infamous for causing problems in the video games it “supported,” and AMD’s second generation Anti-Lag 2 appears to be following in its predecessor’s footsteps. The developers behind the Spider-Man 2 PC port revealed in their latest patch notes for the game, that the Anti-Lag 2 SDK has been removed from… Read more

AMD announces RX 9070 event on February 28, shoots down rumors of 32GB model

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) AMD has announced a February 28 announcement date for its RX 9070 series GPUs. Rumors of a 32 GB variant of the upcoming AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU were also shot down by Frank Azor, AMD Chief Architect for Gaming Solutions. Azor replied to a post on X (formerly Twitter)… Read more

How to Convert Texts into 3D Models

(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware) You can turn texts into 3D models using two main methods: 3D modeling software or using AI tools. With 3D modeling software, you can design any 3D model of your liking when you have the time and expertise. However, when it comes to turning texts into 3D models, it’s only limited… Read more

Nvidia’s new WHQL driver squashes some game-crashing bugs, adds support for Avowed and Civ VII

Nvidia has released the GeForce Game Ready Driver 572.42 WHQL. The new software delivers day-one support for Avowed (Feb 18), Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, an Indiana Jones and the Great Circle DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation (MFG) update, and the Wuthering Waves DLSS Frame Generation (FG) update. It also claims to fix some gaming… Read more

Official RTX 4090 power cable found melted by reviewer 2 years later — card functioned fine despite hidden melted connector

Nvidia’s decision to use the 16-pin (12VHPWR) power connector for its highest-powered GPUs has been popular for all the wrong reasons this week. Reports of melting cables in RTX 5090 GPUs are reaching a fever pitch. Greek PC gaming site Dark Side of Gaming checked its last-gen RTX 4090 power connector for signs of melting… Read more

Nvidia confirms RTX 5070 Ti release date for February 20, starting at $749

After multiple sources indicated a February 20 launch for the RTX 5070 Ti, Nvidia has finally confirmed that the new mid-range Blackwell gaming GPU will arrive on that day. Nvidia published on X that the RTX 5070 Ti will launch on the 20th at 6 AM Pacific Time, with cards released from AIB partners and… Read more

Maker creates Raspberry Pi-powered thermal fusion night vision goggles

Night vision camera support on the Raspberry Pi is nothing new but this crazy thermal fusion night vision helmet put together by maker and developer Angus Logue is absolutely something different. Using our favorite SBC, he’s blown our expectations out of the water by merging different night vision technologies together to make a prototype of… Read more

Increased Linux kernel timer frequency delivers big boost in AI workloads

At the weekend, a Google engineer proposed raising the default Linux kernel timer frequency from 250 Hz to 1,000 Hz. Linux-centric tech site Phoronix has quickly stepped up and assessed what the change might mean to users with a suite of A/B testing. Spoiler alert: The most notable benefits were seen in AI LLM acceleration…. Read more

RX 9070 XT leaked specs point to 4,096 shaders and 16GB VRAM — 3.1 GHz boost clocks and PCIe 5.0 support

We finally have more details on AMD’s soon-to-launch flagship RX 9070 XT, with a new leak alleging 4096 Stream Processors and 16GB of GDDR6 memory via HKEPC at X. The tipster’s shared GPU-Z screenshot corroborates previous rumors. Moreover, the leak includes a real-world benchmark of the RX 9070 XT; however, frame generation leaves little room… Read more

AMD’s beastly ‘Strix Halo’ Ryzen AI Max+ matches the RTX 4060 laptop in leaked 3DMark tests

(Image credit: AMD) A leaked benchmark of the Radeon 8060S, powering the graphics engine of AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 “Strix Halo” flagship is shown to match Nvidia’s dedicated RTX 4060 mobile GPU in a leaked 3DMark Time Spy result. A Chinese user at Baidu (via HXL), shared a couple of screenshots with what appears to… Read more

AMD gained consumer desktop and laptop CPU market share in 2024, server passes 25 percent

(Image credit: AMD) AMD continued to gain unit and revenue x86 CPU market share in 2024 across both consumer and server segments, according to recently released data by Mercury Research that was provided by AMD. But while the company gained an additional 4% unit share on the consumer PC market, its server winning spree slowed… Read more

Intel’s 18A and TSMC’s N2 process nodes compared: Intel is faster, but TSMC is denser

(Image credit: TSMC) TechInsights and SemiWiki have published key details that Intel and TSMC disclosed about their upcoming 18A (1.8nm-class) and N2 (2nm-class) process technologies at the International Electronic Devices Meeting (IEDM). According to TechInsights, Intel’s 18A could offer higher performance, whereas TSMC’s N2 may provide higher transistor density. Analysts at TechInsights believe that TSMC’s N2 offers a… Read more