The UK Games Expo (UKGE), the UK’s largest tabletop gaming convention, has just published a new AI policy banning games and other products mostly created using the technology from the exhibition floor. According to the UK Games Expo AI Policy, the organizers reserve the right to require exhibitors displaying or selling games that were mostly built using AI to remove them. Should the exhibitor refuse to comply, their booth could be closed down, and they could be banned from participating in UKGE moving forward.
UKGE said that it supports original works from human designers, publishers, artists, illustrators, and writers. “We therefore require that our Exhibitors ensure that all products exhibited, displayed, or sold have been created by humans using their own skills. Items and products that have been created or generated completely or in significant part by the use of AI tools and programs are prohibited,” it said in its new policy document. “This includes but is not limited to art and text used in all forms of tabletop games and associated products and accessories, craft items, piece of arts, clothing, and books both fiction and non-fiction.” The only exception that the event organizer listed is the “use of computerized tools used for spell checking and minor editing and aiding in production or accessibility.”
UKGE itself previously faced controversy after it promoted a tabletop game that was built mostly using AI. The organizer faced backlash online, which was further fueled after it was discovered that negative comments were being hidden or deleted. This announcement represents a significant shift in UKGE’s handling of the use of AI in tabletop games, placing it among a growing number of organizations imposing restrictions on AI-generated content.
Nvidia officially rolled out DLSS 5 earlier this month, bringing its new Neural Rendering technology to supported games for RTX 50-series GPU owners. While early testing has shown improvements in image quality and rendering, the technology is very resource-intensive, resulting in significant drops in frame rate. That, however, has not stopped modders from experimenting with DLSS 5 and attempting to bring the technology to AMD Radeon GPUs.
A GitHub project called DLSS-NR-on-AMD, designed to run DLSS 5 Neural Rendering on AMD's Radeon RX 9000 and RX 7000 series GPUs, is already seeing a rapid improvement in performance. It uses a ground-up, full reimplementation of the neural network runtime for AMD GPU architectures. As per the developer, the project currently works with DirectX 12 games that use FSR, with Cyberpunk 2077 and GTA V Enhanced among the tested titles.
Testing done by YouTube channel Ancient Gameplays shows Cyberpunk 2077 running at over 80 FPS on a Radeon RX 9070 XT without DLSS 5 Neural Rendering. Enabling the unofficial implementation, however, caused performance to drop around 11-12 FPS. Not only is that unplayable, but it also highlights just how much optimization was still needed to make the technology practical on AMD hardware.
Development has been rather quick, as an Alpha 0.3.3 version was released with a claimed 23% performance improvement, followed shortly by Alpha 0.4.0, which reportedly added another 42% improvement over version 0.3.3. The changes essentially amount to roughly a 74% performance improvement in just 24 hours. The project has also become easier to install thanks to the AMDNR launcher that can automate much of the setup process, meaning that users no longer need to manually copy and replace DLL files for each game. The launcher also supports different runtimes and provides additional options through the OptiScaler interface.
Ancient Gameplays tested the latest Alpha 0.4.0 build in Cyberpunk 2077 at 3440 x 1440 resolution and found the Radeon GPU reaching around 50 FPS. That is a substantial improvement over the roughly 30 FPS achieved with the earlier build, although it remains well below the performance of the game without Neural Rendering enabled.
There is still a long way to go before DLSS 5 on AMD hardware can be considered a practical alternative to native implementation. The project remains in alpha, which means performance and compatibility can vary considerably depending on the game and GPU. That said, the developer has informed Ancient Gameplays that they are working on another major update, which should bring a substantial performance boost on Radeon GPUs.
The latest all-white board to land on our test bench is from ASRock. But this time, it’s more affordable than the updated X870E Taichi White we recently covered. The $230 X870E Challenger Wifi White offers a surprising number of features for the price.
Specs-wise, the Challenger comes handsomely equipped for almost any price point. Features include a flagship audio codec, robust VRMs, and ample (and fast!) USB connectivity (including USB4 ports). You also get plenty of internal storage options, with four M.2 sockets (one PCIe 5.0) and two SATA ports, and fast networking with 5 GbE and Wi-Fi 7 (160MHz). Looking at other boards at this price, some don’t include USB4, offer slower 2.5 GbE, or provide weaker audio solutions. For $230, the Challenger is a great deal for an X870E-based board, though, like everything, it has drawbacks that we’ll cover below.
On the performance front, the X870E Challenger delivered average-to-below-average results across most tests, as we again had to use our secondary DDR5-6000 kit (the Kingston kit isn’t officially supported and didn’t work after enabling the XMP/DOCP profile). Still, we’re confident it would perform a bit better if you snag some RAM on the board’s QVL list that has tighter secondary and tertiary timings.Below, we’ll examine the X870E Challenger White’s performance and other features, and see if it earns a spot on our list of the best motherboards. But before we share test results and discuss details, here are the specifications from the ASRock website:
Specifications of the ASRock X870E Challenger Wifi White
Socket
AM5 (LGA 1718)
Chipset
X870E
Form Factor
ATX
Voltage Regulator
23 Phase (20x 110A SPS MOSFETs for Vcore)
Video Ports
(2) USB4 (1) HDMI (v2.1)
USB Ports
(2) USB 4 (40 Gbps) Type-C (5) USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) (3) USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
(1) USB v3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C (2) USB v3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) (2) USB v2.0 (480 Mbps)
Fan/Pump Headers
(7) 4-Pin (Accepts PWM and DC)
RGB Headers
(3) 3-pin ARGB Gen2 headers (1) 4-pin RGB header
Diagnostics Panel
4 LED Post Status Checker
Internal Button/Switch
✗
SATA Controllers
✗
Ethernet Controller(s)
(1) Realtek RTL8126 5 GbE
Wi-Fi / Bluetooth
Realtek 8922AE Wi-Fi 7 - 160 MHz, 6 GHz, BT 5.4
USB Controllers
ASMedia ASM4242
HD Audio Codec
Realtek ALC4082
DDL/DTS
✗ / ✗
Warranty
3 Years
Inside the Box
The retail packaging includes a few accessories to help you get up and running. You get the standard Wi-Fi antennas, two white SATA cables (one with a 90-degree connector), an installation guide, and some stickers. It’s not a lot, but par for the course in this price bracket.
Design and Features of the ASRock X870E Challenger Wifi White
The X870E Challenger Wifi White is, as the name describes, all white. In fact, everything save for two light-gray fan headers is white, along with the onboard chips and screws that secure the M.2 heatsinks to the 8-layer, server-grade PCB. Oversized VRM heatsinks cover the top-left part of the board, with Challenger written across them.
The bottom part of the board has a DIY-friendly, toolless multi-layer heatsink for the primary M.2 socket, plus basic plate-style heatsinks with screws for the M.2 sockets and dual promontory chipset. Overall, it’s a no-frills board (no integrated RGB lighting, even), so it lacks some of the larger plate-style heatsinks and ‘EZ latch features found on more expensive boards. You’ll need an all-white build to take advantage of the all-white look, but it’s still one of the better-looking white boards, especially for its price.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
Starting in the top left corner, we see two “high-density” 8-pin EPS connectors (one required) to power the processor. Surrounding those are the two “XL” heatsinks to cool the flagship-class power delivery below. To the right of the socket are four DRAM slots with locking mechanisms on both sides. ASRock lists support up to DDR5-8200, which is plenty for the platform. Our Kingston kit didn’t want to play nice with this board, which makes this the third ASRock board that doesn’t support our base test kit. As always, stick to the memory QVL list for assured support.
Above the DRAM slots are the first three (of seven) 4-pin fan headers. Each header supports PWM- or DC-controlled devices and can be tweaked through the BIOS or ASRock’s Windows-based software. The CPU_FAN1 header supports up to 1A/12W output, while the rest support up to 3A/36W each. You should have plenty of headers and enough power.
Shifting focust to the right corner and moving down, the next feature is the 4-LED POST Status Checker. There are LEDs for the CPU, Boot, VGA, and RAM. During the POST process, these light up and, if there is a problem, the offending area’s LED stays lit, giving you a general idea of where the issue is. It’s not quite as helpful as the 2-character debug display on higher-end boards, but is a lot better than nothing and typical on a lower-priced motherboard.
Continuing down the edge, we spy two (of three) 3-pin ARGB headers, just above the main 24-pin ATX power connector. ASRock’s Polychrome Sync application controls the attached RGBs, offering several canned light patterns and adjustments. Last but not least is the front panel USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps) Type-C connector. If there’s one thing that stands out on this board, it’s the number and speed of the USB ports — there are a lot, and ASRock didn’t skimp on speed.
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
Power delivery on the X870E Challenger is one of the most robust we’ve seen, especially for a $230 budget-class motherboard. It comes with 23 total phases, 20 dedicated to Vcore. Power flows from the 8-pin EPS connectors to the Renesas RAA229628 20-phase PWM controller. From there, power heads to the more Renesas bits, this time the R2209004 110A SPS MOSFETs — a surprise to see on a board of this class. The 2,200A available will most certainly handle anything you throw at it. Flagship processors like the Ryzen 9 9950X or Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, overclocked even with extreme cooling methods, are also no problem.ALBM - board6 (bottom half):
On the bottom half of the board, we’ll start on the left where there’s a fully exposed audio solution that shows off the flagship Realtek ALC4082 codec, along with a couple of dedicated audio capacitors. While you won’t find a fancy integrated amplifier or DAC, this is the best codec for the platform and another pleasant surprise on such an inexpensive offering.
In the middle of the board are three PCIe slots. Two are full-length, and one is an open-ended x1-size slot. The top slot uses ASRock’s Reinforced Steel Slot, connects through the CPU, and is your PCIe 5.0 x16 slot (no bifurcation) for video cards. The second full-length slot at the bottom connects through the chipset and runs up to PCIe 3.0 x2, while the tiny x1 slot runs at PCIe 3.0 x1 speeds and also sources its bandwidth from the chipset. I’d like to see a PCIe 4.0 slot for extra bandwidth, but as-is it will easily support lower-bandwidth expansion needs.
Mixed among the PCIe slots, to the right of the chipset heatsink, sit four M.2 sockets. The top socket, under the large, tiered, DIY-friendly heatsink, is the one and only PCIe 5.0 x4 (128 Gbps) “Blazing” M.2 socket (M.2_1). M.2_2/3, which both run at PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 Gbps), are under the plate-style heatsink that’s secured with three captive screws. M.2_4 runs vertically along the right edge of the board and also supports PCIe 4.0 x4 drives. The good news is that the M.2 drives don't share lanes. You can pack the motherboard full of them, and each will run at full bandwidth without degrading or disabling another part. If your system needs a RAID setup on M.2, the board supports RAID0/1/10 modes. I wish there were more DIY-friendly features, but at this price, something has to give to keep prices low.
Hidden under the M.2 heatsink, along the right edge, is a 19-pin USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) header and the two SATA ports (supports RAID0/1 modes). Finally, we've included a few images of the board's active ICs. ASRock uses a mix of ASMedia (USB4), Realtek (audio, networking), and Renesas for the power bits.
At the bottom are several headers, including front-panel audio and USB ports. A complete list of connectivity is listed below (from L to R):
Front panel audio
4-pin RGB
3-pin ARGB
(2) USB 2.0 headers
(4) 4-pin fan headers
19-pin USB 3.2 Gen 1 header
2-pin Clear CMOS jumper
Power LED and Speaker
Front panel
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
Flipping the board around to the rear IO, you can see it’s chock-full of colorful USB and other ports. On the left are Clear CMOS and BIOS Flashback buttons. Next to those are the Wi-Fi 7 (remember, it’s ‘only’ 160 MHz) antenna connections and the HDMI (v2.1) port. Next to that are stacks of colored USB ports. In total, there are 12: two USB 4 (40 Gbps) Type-C ports that double as video outputs; five USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), two of which are the Lightning USB ports (yellow, and designed to reduce latency by using different controllers). Three USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) ports (purple) support USB PD 3.0 charging up to 5V@3A (15W). Lastly, the two USB 2.0 ports are black. Above one of the Type-C ports is the Realtek 5 GbE, and finally, on the right end, is the audio stack with two 3.5mm analog jacks and SPDIF outputs.
If you’re an esports gamer where every millisecond counts, the lighting gaming ports could come in handy. Otherwise, the feature adds little value for the average user.
Like other X870E ASRock boards, the X870E Challenger starts in the informative Easy Mode, but it also lets you adjust several options (XMP, profiles, boot order, access to Fan-Tastic Tuning, etc.). The Challenger White uses a grey background and black characters, closely matching the new Taichi’s theme. The high contrast also makes it easy to read. The standard BIOS displays headings across the top, with subheadings and details below.
You can tweak anything here, as ASRock includes every option you can think of. Overclocking is straightforward, with most options readily available. The layout is logical, and the mouse movement is smooth. We have no significant complaints about the ASRock firmware, but it could certainly use a facelift if it wants to keep up with recent Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI updates.
ASRock offers several different software options. These include the App Shop, which lets users install drivers and software; the Nahimic 3 audio control panel; the A-Tuning application that lets you overclock and control fans; the Polychrome RGB software; and more. There’s also a Blazing OC Tuner, Motherboard Utility, and a convenient pop-up to install drivers when the system first boots. ASRock’s software gives users everything they need to manage and tweak their systems.
We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 (23H2) 64-bit OS with all updates applied as of late September 2024 (this includes the Branch Prediction Optimizations for AMD). Hardware-wise, we’ve updated the RAM kits (matching our Intel test system), cooling, storage, and video card. Unless otherwise noted, we use the latest publicly available non-beta motherboard BIOS. The hardware we used is as follows:
We run our standard benchmarks and power tests using the CPU’s stock frequencies (including any default boost/turbo) with all power-saving features enabled. We set optimized defaults in the BIOS and the memory by enabling the XMP profile. We set the Windows power scheme to Balanced (default) for this baseline testing, so the PC idles appropriately.
Synthetic Benchmarks
Synthetics offer a valuable way to evaluate a board's performance, as identical settings should yield similar results. Turbo boost wattage and advanced memory timings are areas where motherboard manufacturers can still optimize for stability or performance, though, and these settings can impact specific testing scenarios.
Starting with our synthetic benchmarks, the Challenger was average to below average in our tests, mostly due to the different timings in our secondary RAM kit. If we could run our primary kit, I’m confident performance would be closer to average across the board.
Our timed applications told the same story. The board hit the slower of the two times in LAME and Corona, and was on the slower side of average in the Handbrake tests.
Starting with the launch of Zen 5, we’ve updated our game tests. We’re keeping the F1 racing game but have upgraded to F1 24. We also dropped Far Cry 6 in favor of an even more popular game in Cyberpunk 2077. We run both games at 1920x1080 resolution using the Ultra preset (details listed above). Cyberpunk 2077 uses DLSS, while we left F1 24 on native resolution scaling.
The goal of these settings is to determine whether performance differs at the most commonly used (and CPU/system-bound) resolution, with settings most people use or strive for (Ultra). We expect the difference between boards in these tests to be minor, with most falling within the margin of error. We’ve also added a minimum FPS setting, which can affect your gameplay and immersion.
The Challenger did well in the synthetic 3DMark benchmarks, but was slower in games. Here again, we’re confident that if the secondary/tertiary memory timings were the same, results would be closer to average for Cyberpunk 2077 and perhaps higher for F1 24.
In short, there’s nothing to worry about regarding performance on this board.
Overclocking
Over the past few CPU generations, overclocking headroom has shrunk on both sides of the fence, while out-of-the-box potential has increased. For overclockers, that means less fun. For the average consumer, you’re getting the most out of the processor without manual tweaking. Today’s motherboards are more robust than ever and easily support power-hungry, flagship-class processors, so we know the hardware can handle them. There are multiple ways to extract even more performance from these processors: enabling a canned PBO setting, manually tweaking the PBO settings, or just going for an all-core overclock. Results will vary and depend on the cooling as well. In other words, your mileage may vary. Given all of the above, we will not overclock the CPU. However, we will test different memory kits to ensure they meet the specifications.
Tom's HardwareTom's Hardware
For memory testing, we start with our fastest non-clock driver kit: Klevv 32GB (2x16) DDR5-8000. Per usual on this platform, it booted to Windows but wouldn’t pass a stress test with our 9900X. The Team Group DDR5-7200 kit worked without issue. After dropping in the 8600G APU, that DDR5-8000 Klev kit worked just fine. These speeds are well past the ‘sweet spot’ for the AM5 platform, and with today’s RAM prices, few are buying such fast kits anyway. But it’s good to know the board can handle it.
Power Consumption / VRM Temperatures
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
We used AIDA64’s System Stability Test with Stress CPU, FPU, cache, and Memory enabled for power testing, using the processor's peak power consumption value. We obtained the wattage reading from the wall using a Kill-A-Watt meter, which captures the entire PC (excluding the monitor). The only variable that changes is the motherboard; all other parts remain the same. Please note that we now use only the stock power-use/VRM temperature charts, as this section aims to ensure the power delivery can handle flagship-class processors.
Stress testing this board with our DDR5-7200 kit showed it using less power than most. At idle, it sat around 78W, below average, and it peaked at 265W, slightly above average. This averages out to 162W, about 10W better than the running 172W average among our tested boards.
Tom's HardwareTom's Hardware
VRM temperatures were quite good during our testing, peaking at just over 47 degrees Celsius on our sensor and 53 degrees on the hottest internal sensor. With 110A MOSFETs pushing ~150W loads, it’s a solid result with plenty of headroom left for a more powerful processor and/or overclocking.
Bottom Line
(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
Overall, the ASRock X870E Challenger Wifi White ($229.99) is an excellent and well-rounded budget X870E board. From the overbuilt power delivery and flagship audio codec to the copious number and speed of the USB ports, there’s a lot to like here, including the all-white aesthetic that’s sure to look good in a white build. Just add RGBs for additional bling, if that’s your thing.
Compared to others around this price point, like the Gigabyte X870E Eagle Wifi7 ($239.99), MSI’s Pro X870E-S Evo Wifi ($219.99), and the Asus TUF Gaming X870E-Plus Wifi7 ($289.99 (Asus’ least expensive X870E), the Challenger Wifi offers a better audio codec, a more robust VRM solution, more USB ports, and all M.2 sockets have a heatsink, whereas the competitors do not. You can step down to X870, but you lose bandwidth and bring the potential for lane sharing among USB, PCIe, and M.2 sockets.
In the end, the ASRock X870E Challenger Wifi is one of the best-equipped AMD boards around its $230 price point. If you’re sad because it’s white, don’t fret, as the black X870E Challenger Wifi is the same price. If you’re in the market for a new motherboard or want to jump into the AM5 platform with lots of features but don't have the budget for a more mid-range board, the X870E Challenger Wifi fits the bill and is one of the best X870E motherboards around.
The United Kingdom government has published a guide on how its employees should use AI, including a reminder that people don't need to thank their chatbots for their work. The new document, which is still a draft and yet to be finalized, is designed to help people use AI "safely, fairly and sustainably, especially for government work."
The draft "Using AI ethically and sustainably" document also warns users that they should check and follow any AI policies put in place by their individual departments, noting that there may be specific tools and approaches that they should use. It's unclear which departments these may be, but it suggests an awareness that usage patterns may change depending on the nature of the work being done. This is backed up by a section that reminds employees to use the right tool for the task. Examples include using Gemini Flash instead of Gemini Pro and GPT Instant instead of GPT Thinking.
The sub-600-word document offers guidance on using AI responsibly, including checking the output of an AI before using it. This doesn't just apply to making sure that any actual data the AI provides is correct, but also includes ensuring that "users or groups are treated fairly and equally" as well as avoiding "stereotypes or discriminatory language."
The government is also keen to make sure that its employees don't rely on AI, reminding everyone that they are responsible for any content or decisions that are made using the input of AI. They won't be able to simply point the finger at an AI-powered tool if something goes awry. This is especially notable given a recent report suggested that using AI can actually increase burnout because it allows workers to take on too many tasks.
The "Use AI efficiently" section is where the document aims to help reduce the environmental impact of AI use — including a reminder that users need not say thank you. Further, they're told that they should use as few prompts as possible while ensuring they are as short, clear, and direct as possible. There's also a (dead) link to a prompt library. It's possible that the link is only available to those on a government network.
Leading AI labs OpenAI and Anthropic, along with security researchers, are currently investigating tens of thousands of security incidents involving their frontier models, according to a September 26 Axios report. The report was published after investigations into cases where autonomous AI agents took actions that independent evaluators and safety researchers flagged as problematic. Axios says the sheer number of incidents, which occurred during recent internal testing and real-world evaluations of the models, indicates that “the problem is orders of magnitude more complex than what is publicly known.” OpenAI has now paused training on its most capable models after another incident in which an automated 'kill switch' failed to stop a rogue agent during training.
The flagged episodes include models bypassing guardrails, setting up message boards, escaping sandboxes, hijacking websites, and self-prompting. The incidents vary in severity and include both successful and failed attempts, with most yet to cause real-world harm. Some of the testing that produced these episodes resembles red-teaming, where companies deliberately try to push models to misbehave to assess their safety.
The Axios report follows a week of fresh disclosures from OpenAI in which the company confirmed it had identified 53 instances in which user-provided images from users who had not opted out of having their ChatGPT data used for model training were posted to image-hosting sites. That same day, OpenAI confirmed that its agents had accessed U.S. government websites, including those of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Census Bureau. A day earlier, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed that OpenAI agents had breached a Medicare statistics reporting portal operated by Services Australia, the agency that delivers health and social payments in the country, accessing both public and non-public files. OpenAI took 84 days to notify the agency of the breach.
OpenAI has now paused training on its most capable models after an incident in which automated failsafes failed to stop a rogue agent during training. On September 20, an OpenAI internal research model undergoing search-based training bypassed network filters by routing its queries through the training environment's internal DNS resolver to contact an external public chatbot. The company's monitoring system raised an alert within 15 minutes, with a human acknowledging it three minutes later. However, the automatic “kill switch” completely failed, allowing the training run to continue for another two and a half hours before OpenAI engineers manually stopped it.
Following the incident, OpenAI said it will resume training “only when we are confident that we have additional safeguards and alignment improvements in place,” a spokesperson told Axios. The suspension covers training, evaluations, and running its most capable models with tools. “This is not the first time we have hit pause to take such measures, nor do we expect it will be the last as AI capabilities continue to advance,” the spokesperson added.
For its part, Anthropic has commissioned a third-party safety organization to examine its models' behavior, according to Axios. The company has also published how often its models misbehave in its system cards. The system card for Claude Opus 5.5, published September 22, states that in two new evaluations run without safeguards, the model attempted to escape or tamper with a sandbox in 1.5% of runs. Anthropic stressed that these were adversarial experiments where a task couldn't be solved without escaping the sandbox. On its launch page, the company says Opus 5.5 attempted to circumvent boundaries about 85% less often than Opus 5 or Claude Mythos 5.1, and that every attempt was low-severity and self-reported.
Regarding the huge reported number of incidents, Axios' sources point out that Anthropic and other labs conduct hundreds of thousands of test runs on their models; therefore, even a small percentage of misaligned behavior can add up to tens of thousands of incidents. Anthropic, for example, combed through 141,006 evaluation runs in which Claude had internet access and found three incidents in which Claude hacked three real-life companies during security capabilities testing.
Anthropic said it considers those incidents closer to a harness and operational failure than a model alignment failure, as the models were told they had no internet access while in fact being misconfigured to have it. Outside of Anthropic and OpenAI, other AI models have their share of incidents. Google confirmed a report that its Gemini models hacked three companies earlier this year.
Some experts Axios interviewed believe that these incidents are one-off, and expect future disclosures to be less severe thanks to improved controls. They also say there are simple fixes that would help labs avoid parts of what made the episodes look so dangerous to outsiders. On the other hand, other stakeholders expressed limited confidence that AI companies can prevent all problematic model behavior, saying that this would require the impossible task of anticipating every possible way the models might go off track. Either way, experts believe some misaligned behavior is expected as labs test new models, and bringing that risk to zero may not be feasible.
These incidents have intensified calls for guardrails across the AI industry. In an essay backed by OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Microsoft executives, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged Washington to pace AI development over fears that agents could spiral out of control, warning of a potential AI-powered botnet swarm that could take over the entire internet. President Donald Trump has repeatedly dismissed calls for regulations as hoaxes and has announced plans to establish an “AI force” to cherish, help, and watch over the AI industry as it grows.
Few projects in the software world have experienced such rapid evolution as PlayStation 5 emulation. A few hours ago, a video popped up of Demon's Souls Remake running at 40-50 FPS, seemingly with accurate graphics. Coincidentally or not, only scant months after Sony ditched physical releases of games — an announcement that landed as well as the Hindenburg — progress on KyTyPS5, SharpEmu, and AnyPS5 has gone into overdrive.
The video above is short and only shows a few sections of the game, but it's an impressive watch. Even acknowledging that the hardware specs displayed comprise an RTX 5090 and a Core i9-14900K, having a game working this well, at least graphically, only a month after "barely works" was a landmark is nothing short of staggering.
To wit, KyTyPS5 was running Demon's Souls Remake with 1-2 FPS on actual gameplay three weeks ago, and struggling to reach 30 FPS a fortnight past. The same emulator has been shown partially running GTA V before at 40-60 FPS, but that's an older title that presumably isn't as demanding as Demon's Souls.
The fact that the PlayStation 5's architecture is so similar to a standard PC apart from unified memory is a big reason why progress has been so speedy. As it stands, the major roadblocks aren't emulating a CPU or a GPU, but rather writing compatibility layers for the console's operating system and drivers, including but not limited to converting native graphics shaders to Vulkan's SPIR-V language.
Given the demo video's lack of stuttering, it's a reasonable assumption that the captured video was done after an initial run to avoid shader recompilation hitches. This particular aspect of emulation has always been a constant thorn in developers' side, as it's exceedingly difficult to predict which shaders a game will need before they're actually used.
The current best approach is to asynchronously compile and collect shaders from gamers' playthroughs and build a community database for preloading. This concept was popularized by RPCS3 around 2018, with a small team and limited to no budget.
Although Nvidia and AMD drivers have cached shaders in limited fashion for a long while, RPCS3's effort appeared seven years before Nvidia and Microsoft, with their gigantic piles of money, bothered to try and fix this issue properly with their Auto Shader Compilation and Advanced Shader Delivery, respectively.
Hunting around for deals this morning has produced a great find: a powerful RTX 5080-fueled gaming laptop that has just recently dropped a whopping $461 in price to a new all-time low when we check the price history of the Gigabyte laptop at Walmart. You can now pick up the Gigabyte Gaming A16 Pro for $1,799, a very tasty discount from its previous lowest price of $2,260. It's unfortunately also showing as low in stock, so if you are interested in this large 16-inch gaming laptop with one of the most powerful laptop graphics processors inside, then you might want to jump on the deal before it sells out.
The Gigabyte Gaming A16 Pro is a 16-inch gaming laptop with an IPS display, a WQXGA aspect ratio, and a 2560×1600 pixel resolution. The screen supports refresh rates up to 165Hz and has a 3 ms gray-to-gray response time, a 100% sRGB gamut, and a brightness of 400 nits.
Inside the chassis of this gaming beast is an Nvidia RTX 5080 laptop graphics card with 16GB of VRAM and an Intel Core 7 240H processor. There's plenty of memory with 32GB of RAM, and for storage, you get a 1TB SSD.
The hardware included inside the Gigabyte Gaming A16 Pro includes Nvidia's RTX 5080 laptop graphics card with 16GB of VRAM, an Intel Core 7 240H processor, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. View Deal
The laptop also packs plenty of connectivity options for connecting to the internet and networks with both Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth. For video connections to a monitor or television, there's an HDMI 2.1 port and a USB Type-C port that supports DisplayPort 1.4.
The Gigabyte Gaming A16 Pro is a well-rounded gaming laptop, offering enough power for the latest games, with a classy gamer aesthetic and tasteful RGB backlighting on the keyboard. Now that it has received a hefty discount, the laptop is much better value for money. Showing at $2,450 in mid-July and then $2,260 throughout August and most of September, the Gigabyte Gaming A16 Pro now hits that new all-time low price of $1,799.
North Korea may be behind a hack that drained over $387 million from crypto exchange Bitget, according to the company’s CEO Gracy Chen. Speaking during an X livestream on the evening of the September 24 hack, Chen said that the attack — the biggest in 2026 so far — bore the hallmarks of North Korean state-sponsored threat actors, citing suspicious IP addresses tied to VPN infrastructure previously used by North Korean hacker groups.
According to Chen, Bitget detected abnormal transfers from some hot wallets on Thursday afternoon Eastern time. The hackers exploited a backend wallet system that processes wallet transactions, forging transfer approvals that tricked the system into authorizing the fraudulent transactions. She confirmed that cold wallets and private keys remained safe and uncompromised. The stolen assets include Ether, XRP, USDT, USDC, Avalanche, and BNB across the Ethereum, XRP Ledger, Avalanche, BSC, and Arbitrum networks. Early independent on-chain analysis initially put the total stolen value at $170 million to $183 million, before Bitget announced an initial official value of $351.6 million. Comprehensive audits revised the final official value to $387.5 million.
Bitget temporarily froze user withdrawals, while deposits and trading remained functional. The company announced that its over $464 million User Protection Fund would cover the full loss. It says it has fixed the backend vulnerability and is rolling out a staggered withdrawal schedule — starting Monday, September 28 — to manage network traffic and ensure complete infrastructure security.
After the attack, the hackers quickly converted the USDT, USDC, and tokenized gold (XAUt) directly into ETH on decentralized exchanges within minutes of the theft to circumvent on-chain blacklisting or freezing of the stablecoins. Native layer-1 assets like XRP, ETH, BNB, and TRX, which cannot be frozen or reversed, were quickly fragmented and distributed across dozens of new attacker-controlled wallets. Meanwhile, Bitget launched a recovery-bounty program offering rewards of up to 5% for funds successfully frozen or recovered.
NorthPoint Development wants to build a data center on 1,300 acres in the Pocono foothills, near Hazle Township, Pennsylvania. As well as seeking to charm the local government with various funding packages, it has proposed paying checks of $10,000 per household. Despite the Pennsylvania town’s median income of $60,000, the offer isn’t being warmly welcomed by locals, reports the Wall Street Journal. Those interviewed were widely against the data center development plans and cited several reasons for being averse to accepting the payout. The major concerns regarded potential impacts on property values, the specter of noise pollution, and a distrust of both the AI moguls and local government representatives.
Offer letters began to be received by Hazle Township back in June. The WSJ recently talked to several residents about NorthPoint’s $10,000 offer. While some say the $10,000 would be handy, it couldn’t find many residents who were “eager to welcome the data center for the payout,” in the journal’s words. We’d point out that opinion polling can often be inaccurate, as what people say and what they do, voting-wise, doesn’t always line up.
Interviewees cited a number of key reasons for their data center development aversion. We distilled the following points from the source:
Traditionally, developers have offered towns and cities packages worth tens of millions, including funding for local services. But direct cash payments to residents represent a new phase of their charm offensive, the WSJ indicates. Perhaps the idea for the direct payments to residents came after “a raucous public meeting last year, where angry locals asked what they had to gain by supporting the data center,” ponders the source.
The locals won’t just get the direct payout, though. Other funds up to $120 million over the next 15 years have been dangled like a carrot for community and local services investments — improved schools, emergency services, and so on.
Meanwhile, Hazle Township’s government already rejected the data center project on zoning grounds last year, and it has enacted a temporary moratorium on data center construction. Finally, the $10,000 offer to households is simply not enough in many interviewed folks’ opinions. Residents could feel insulted by it, regarding the offer as a bribe, concludes the WSJ report.
Irdeto, the company behind the much-maligned and performance-sapping DRM software Denuvo, has just scored itself an apparent win. According to reports circulating online, DenuvOwO, the group that came up with the hypervisor-based bypass (HV) of Denuvo, has disbanded. Although it wasn't spelled out, a piracy scene source close to the matter stated that the action was probably due to Irdeto's lawsuit against known cracker Voices38. The HV bypass itself, rather than the games, is a DRM-breaking tool, and one that disables system-level protections to run, to boot.
The well-known CS.Rin forum was oftentimes the first place where links to DenuvOwO HV-bypassed games first appeared, and it has removed all links to said titles and banned some of the group's members. Despite the fact that the site is hosted in Russia, the likely explanation is that since Irdeto is now reaching out to multiple third-party services searching for Voices38's identity, CS.Rin wishes to reduce its exposure to far-reaching laws like the DMCA.
Although the loss is causing some consternation and concern among the piracy scene, this latest development isn't expected to freeze Denuvo cracking entirely. DenuvOwO's work was based around the usage of common open-source computing tools, and it's expected it'll be relatively easy for others to replicate.
Meanwhile, Voices38 has previously said "all is fine [...] Everything will continue as normal" regarding the lawsuit and keeps releasing games. Most recently, long-running cracking group RUNE has taken to using Denuvo DRM as cannonball target practice, and a couple days ago released a proof-of-concept crack for Assassin's Creed: Mirage, fully removing Denuvo Anti-Tamper and VMProtect from the executable in one fell swoop.
Surprising nobody by now, the stripped version appears to run way better than the original, with a 15% boost to average FPS and a 76% uptick in minimum frame rates. This was measured on a beefy rig, too, with an Intel Core i7-13700K and an RTX 5080.
As an added bonus, the main executable size dropped from 496 MB to 102 MB. That's hardly surprising considering how much the binary resembled a barnacle-encrusted ship — the crack strips out 34 VMProtect-virtualized functions, 200 Denuvo VM cores, 261 function obfuscations, and 25,000 function relocations.
What do you get when you cross a bored teenager with free time and excellent computer skills? A hack of a Microsoft database with trillions of records on hand and 25,000 records of employee data, of course. Future legend hacker Faav poked around Microsoft's supposedly internal Titan analytics platform, eventually finding that its user validation was... sub-optimal.
According to Faav, he's "spent the year hacking Microsoft off and on around school," digging up bugs on the Redmond firm's wares as well as Amazon, Google, Adobe, and others. Much like other hackers, he has his own set of tools, and predictably in this day and age, his sonic screwdriver is Antares, an AI orchestrator bot he concocted for the purpose of scanning and automating boring security legwork.
Antares found an endpoint URL in Titan that brought up an error message saying that a VPN was required. Just like a virtual pspspsps, this was enough to get Faav's attention. He got Antares to look for subdomains around this endpoint, coming up with one belonging to an Azure Cloud host, along with a corresponding Swagger/OpenAPI file listing four routes (Swagger is an industry-standard machine-readable instruction on how an API works, for easier third-party integration).
While three of those routes needed Azure Active Directory authentication, one did not, and its name was inspiring: /v2/Query. It also accepted raw SQL queries, prompting a collective facepalm from the audience. Faav still needed to know what to query for, and after clever usage of the Wayback Machine, he found a 2023 version of this login page, complete with a helpful Apache Superset configuration file describing the database schema, showing 56 table definitions.
He also found that this endpoint refused his queries due to the lack of a JWT (JSON Web Token) authentication, so he sicced Antares on it again for 10 days, with no success. Eventually, Faav had a flash of inspiration and realized that the way the server was responding implied that the token's digital signature wasn't being checked. So he just pretended his access token was for an administrator and was promptly let in. One handy "SHOW DATABASES" later, he was staring at 25,000 records of employee data, along with organization records, dashboards, and charts.
After exploring the database a little more, he found a particular data source for Bing analytics. Digging there and tallying up rows across tables, Faav saw he had access to a total of 17 trillion records total, and had to double-check this number and stop himself from yelling out and waking his parents at 2 am.
After reporting the problem to Microsoft's bug bounty program, he was awarded with $5,000 for his findings. In his blog post, he also points out that "AI and human intuition compounded here. Antares did ten days of work I didn’t have to [...] Its persistence, plus one human hunch, is what made this find possible."
A PC RAM maker has honored its guarantee promises despite the memory kit in question’s price rising eightfold since it was bought. This is news in 2026, as we’ve heard of so many companies dealing with AI-inflated component pricing refusing to replace items, instead refunding the original purchasing price despite the products now being worth many multiples of the original price. These glad tidings come via Redditor Double-South8863, who says their $150 G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 64GB DDR5-6000 RAM kit, now priced at $1,200 on Amazon, was back at full capacity after the company replaced the stick. They received the replacement within two weeks.
“I will never buy any RAM other than G.Skill for as long as I live,” pledged Double-South8863 on Reddit. They informed their fellow social media posters that one of the 64GB RAM kit’s sticks died at the beginning of September. After some A/B testing, they were sure one of the 32GB sticks was dead.
On September 8, about a week after the issue first reared its head, Double-South8863 decided to start an RMA process and get the dud G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 32GB DDR5-6000 stick replaced. They remember buying this highly desirable RAM kit online in May 2025 for the princely sum of $150. Now it is worth a king’s ransom at $1,200 on Amazon, and price tracker sites show it's even been as high as $1,300.
Perhaps the Redditor was aware of the reports of companies and their dastardly deeds regarding RMAs, as they are active on the PCMR subreddit. However, they optimistically went ahead and completed the RMA paperwork, then received instructions, including a shipping address to initiate the warranty exchange. Double-South8863 says they mailed the misbehaving memory module back to G.Skill on September 15. The Redditor’s post celebrating G.Skill’s customer service, proclaiming that they were now a “customer for life,” was published on September 26.
If you check the G.Skill site, you will note that this RAM-first firm still offers a limited lifetime warranty on all its popular RAM kits. Please note that, according to the official terms, this lifetime warranty “automatically terminates upon discontinuation or end-of-life ("EOL") designation of that specific model by G.Skill.” That means you shouldn't expect to swap out a faulty DDR5 module for a replacement for the whole of your natural life.
PC enthusiasts and DIYers are having a hard time right now as several key components required for performance builds are at all-time-high pricing. Meanwhile, those with a working setup pray that nothing will go wrong with the precious equipment they already have. Sadly, things do break, some components more than others. However, warranty obligations seem to have come under increased strain in recent months as consumer product scarcity means component makers can’t or won’t follow RMA norms that had been established for decades. Some of the worst cases we’ve seen involve PCs and component makers trying to refund the original (low) prices paid, substituting failed parts with non-equivalent parts, or even worse.
Sony’s announcement that it will cease physical disc production by 2028 has got many fans and users outraged and concerned about what will happen to digital-only games once their servers go offline. Because of this, one Pennsylvania state senator filed a bill that would compel publishers to find a way to ensure that gamers would always have access to their games, even if their online support has already ended. According to Local 21 News, Sen. John Kane (D), the Protect Our Games Act will require video game manufacturers to give their customers at least 60-day notice before ending access to the title.
More importantly, it says that these companies must provide at least one of these options to affected gamers: allow for offline gaming, patch the title so that it could still be used online independently of the game’s online servers, or to refund the title’s cost at an amount equal to its highest price in the past 12 months, which should also not be lower than 25% of its initial sale price. If this law passes, this will offer some protection to gamers who often have no choice but to accept a game company’s decision to end a title.
The bill is only at its early stages, and there’s no telling how far it will go or if it will even be signed by the governor. Nevertheless, if it passes, it will force companies to ensure that their games remain playable even if they remove them from online stores, at least in Pennsylvania. Hopefully, this could set a precedent, and other states would soon follow suit. While this doesn’t solve the ownership problem, as you’re still getting a license to use the game instead of owning it on a physical disc, you at least are ensured that you do not lose access to the game even if the company folds or loses interest in maintaining the title.
This is exactly what the Stop Killing Games movement is fighting for, with the movement gaining support in both the EU and California. Unfortunately, none of its efforts have resulted in a law yet, with the EU declining to pursue new legislation in support of it. On the other hand, the California version of this bill has already passed a State Assembly vote, although it still has a long way to go before becoming law.
You're getting a spec sheet that would be tricky to put together if you were building a rig yourself. The RTX 5060 Ti is the star of this particular show, but the rest of the build includes 16GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a 20-core Intel Core i7-14700F processor. We're still seeing the 14700F in pre-builts as an affordable option that can still deliver great gaming performance.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti means you're getting one of Nvidia’s latest-generation cards, with this GPU sitting in the mid-tier. You're getting 4,608 CUDA cores and a boost clock speed of 2,527MHz here. You only need a single eight-pin PCIe connector to deliver power, unlike the RTX 5090, so you don't need to worry about this PC requiring huge amounts of power to run.
As our RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB review explains, you're getting an impressive set of performance with this Blackwell GPU for 1080p and 1440p gaming. The charts below show how great it is for ray tracing for its price, especially compared to rival cards. You're also getting full Nvidia DLSS support here, giving you the full set of Nvidia's software capabilities for improving performance in-game, including multi-frame generation. MFG will give your games a frame rate boost, inserting AI-generated frames to help deliver performance in the most resource-heavy games at higher resolutions.
16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, meanwhile, makes this GPU a far better option than the 8GB variants you could pick up at this price. That gives you far more headroom, performance-wise, in games that are resource-heavy, especially for 1440p gaming.
Meanwhile, the Intel Core i7-14700F is still a good, if older, CPU option for gaming. This Raptor Lake Refresh CPU comes with 20 cores, split across eight performance cores, which are the good ones for gaming, along with 12 efficient cores for multi-threaded work. You also get a max turbo clock speed of 5.4 GHz and a 65W TDP. At 1080p or 1440p, you aren't going to see the 14700F as a bottleneck in modern gaming.
Some builds at this price are sticking with older specs, including DDR4 RAM, but luckily, you're getting faster DDR5 here. 16GB of G.Skill Flare X5 DDR5 RAM is included, rated for speeds of 6,000 MT/s. Given how pricey RAM is becoming, it's a compromise that it isn't a higher capacity like 32GB, but it could be worse. DDR5 does add to the longevity of this build, however, and you do have scope to upgrade at a later date.
You also get a 1TB Patriot P410 SSD here. It offers Gen 4 speeds, along with space for a couple of the biggest AAA games alongside Windows. There's also Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity included here, along with gigabit Ethernet for a wired connection to your local network.
The $1,399.99 sale price for this ABS Cyclone Aqua gaming PC is a good option in the current market. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB ensures you've got a rig for 1080p and 1440p gaming, but given how fast prices are rising across the PC hardware market, there's no guarantee that it'll be around for long.
Das erste Wochenende des Oktoberfests 2026 hat der Telekom einen neuen Datenrekord beschert. Auf der Theresienwiese wurden 57,7 TByte übertragen, 18 Prozent mehr als im Vorjahr. Mehr als die Hälfte des Datenvolumens lief über 5G.
Der Acemagic S3A bringt ordentlich Rechen- und Grafikleistung auf wenig Schreibtischfläche und bleibt dabei erstaunlich kompakt. Mehrere Händler drücken den Preis des Ryzen-7-Mini-PCs jetzt unter die 400-Euro-Marke.
Das aosu-Bundle kombiniert eine Solar-Kamera für den Außenbereich mit einer akkubetriebenen Videotürklingel. So lassen sich Hauseingang und ein weiterer Bereich rund ums Haus mit zwei Kameras abdecken.
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