The Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is down to its lowest price ever, with Amazon slashing 34% off the list price to bring it down to $145. That's even cheaper than the lowest price we've seen on the Core Ultra 5 250KF. Despite being priced like an entry-level CPU, the 250K Plus ranks among our best CPUs for gaming.

• Check out this Core Ultra 5 250K Plus deal on Amazon

The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus originally launched for $200, but it didn't take long for its recommended price to climb to $220. That's likely because it punches far above what its price would suggest, even at full MSRP. It, along with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, was framed as a last-ditch effort to bring Arrow Lake to the masses after the failed launch of the original range.

And the refresh has worked. The Ultra 5 250K Plus is an 18-core CPU with a split between six Lion Cove P-cores and 12 Skymont E-cores. As with all Arrow Lake CPUs, the 250K Plus doesn't have Hyper-Threading, but having 18C/18T isn't too shabby, with its AMD arch rival offering 6C/12T. The chip comes with a maximum boost clock of 5.3 GHz, and a PL1/PL2 power of 125W/250W. As it's an unlocked K-series processor, you can overclock the chip, though you'll need to pair it with a more pricey Z-series chipset.

Although we almost always recommend a Z-series chipset with a K-series SKU, there actually isn't a locked version of the 250K Plus. Further, many of the OC improvements are baked into the chip, including a 900 MHz bump in die-to-die frequency and a 400 MHz increase in memory fabric speed. Overclocking is a big upside, though it's not strictly required, especially when we're looking at a $145 CPU.

Although the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is priced like an entry-level CPU, it performs much better than its current sales price would suggest, particularly in productivity workloads. You can see the results for the 250K Plus from our CPU benchmark hierarchy in the gallery below.

The 18 cores and threads help Intel's mid-ranger punch up in multithreaded performance. The chip is 33% faster in our multithreaded productivity geomean compared to AMD's competing Ryzen 7 9700X, despite Team Red's chip costing twice as much right now. Compared to the Ryzen 5 9600X that's in the same price bracket, Intel is a massive 80% ahead. Check out our Intel Core Ultra 250K Plus vs AMD Ryzen 5 9600X faceoff feature for more about that particular battle.

Intel's multithreaded performance here isn't a result of simply throwing a ton of weak cores at the problem. As you can see from our single-threaded rankings, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus came out ahead of every AMD offering we tested, including the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X. Last-gen's Core i9-14900K is slightly faster, though it also costs nearly three times as much.

Gaming is where Intel has started to take a backseat to AMD, and the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus slips some rankings. On average, the chip is about as fast as the Core i5-14600K. That's marginally faster than the Ryzen 5 9600X and about 3% behind the Ryzen 7 9700X. AMD's Ryzen 5 7600X3D is about 10% faster, though in this current Core Ultra 5 250K Plus sale, Intel's CPU is about $100 cheaper.

At under $150, just getting a competent CPU is tough — just see our list of the best budget CPUs — and the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is more than competent. Don't miss this deal on Amazon.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, gaming chair, or CPU Deals pages.

The past several months have been nothing but a pain in the wallet for anyone trying to buy RAM, storage, and graphics cards. Prices have shot through the roof since late 2025 and have, for the most part, only increased since. Today, we came across what is arguably one of the best deals on an RTX 5070 Ti we’ve seen in months: Gigabyte’s RTX 5070 Ti Windforce for only $1,099 after you click to get the promo code. All you need is a Newegg account to see the code. Click “Click to see the Extra discount,” select “Yes” to unlock it, confirm your Newegg email, and a pop-up will appear with the code.

The Windforce on sale is an all-black version that forgoes any RGB bling. Three large ‘Hawk’ fans dominate the front face, sending air through a sizable heatsink with copper heatpipes and a copper baseplate. The fans are relatively quiet and shut off at low loads and temperatures for quiet desktop operation. The Windforce is also good for small-form-factor builds, as it’s a dual-slot (50mm deep) card. However, the three-fan card is long (304mm), so it may not fit in all small-form-factor chassis.

• Check out this deal at Newegg

The Windforce 5070 Ti uses the ever-so-popular 12V-2x6 connector and includes a 2x PCIe 8-pin adapter if your power supply doesn’t use the 12V-2x6. Gigabyte recommends a 750W power supply for this card. Video outputs here typically include three DisplayPorts (v2.1b) and one HDMI (v2.1b). Base core clocks run at 2,497 MHz (a 45 MHz boost over reference), while the 16GB of GDDR7 runs at 28 Gbps across a 256-bit bus.

For performance, it’s great for high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, and it's 60 FPS-capable in 4K UHD. Turn on Nvidia’s DLSS and MFG, and you can get even more out of it. Check out the performance charts below for a great idea of average frame rates across the three main resolutions.

If you’re shopping around for graphics cards, the landscape is still bleak and hyper-inflated. But sometimes you just need to buy (let’s be frank, this pricing debacle isn’t going to end soon), and the Gigabyte Windforce RTX 5070 Ti 16GB at $1,099 (with a promo code) is the best deal on this mid-range video card.

With Amazon Prime Big Deal Days officially live, you've got the opportunity to splash a little cash on some of those really cool gadgets and tools that you won't immediately think of day-to-day, but when you see them, you'll know you've got to have them. That's exactly what you'll think when you see this SinLoon external power button, down to just $11.19 right now.

We don't have to mention a long list of specs with this item. It's an external power button for your PC. You get a two-meter header cable to hook into your PC's front panel, with a splitter that helps it work with your PC case's existing cables, as well as a pair of mechanical keyboard keys that act as the power-down or restart buttons.

● Check out this deal at Amazon

Look, it might seem gimmicky, but this is cool, and it's under $12. I've spent far more on far less useful items, and if your PC is stuck under the desk, it'll make switching it on or off much, much easier.

Don't think that the price means that there isn't a lot of detail here. The two mechanical keyboard keys look like they're from a top-spec gaming keyboard, featuring RGB lighting, giving you the full show-stopper for your desk. SinLoon reckons that these keys will last for 5 million keystrokes. That's far more than you'll ever need to switch your PC on or off in your lifetime, let alone your PC's.

It's a pretty easy process to get this kit set up, as long as you can access your PC's front panel headers easily. This'll make sense if you've built a PC before, as you'll have done this when you've hooked up your motherboard so that the power button works. It's a similar process here, and along with the cables for shutting it down or restarting it, you've got extra connectors for the power and disk access LEDs, too.

The keys sit in a smooth, black plastic case. The writing is black too, surrounded by glossy plastic, which extends from the back. The wire eventually splits into multiple colored cables, labeled so that you can figure out which port to plug them into.

A 1-into-2 splitter makes using this easy. The splitter lets you hook these cables, along with your PC's power and reset buttons, together. You aren't losing any functionality on your case. The adapter is physical, so even if you don't see the same pinout as you might expect, you can move the headers around to match until it fits. You can totally bypass your PC's power button, though, by just connecting these cables up to your motherboard instead.

This is the ultimate impulse buy. Most of you probably won't have thought about a desktop power button before. Why would you? But it looks cool. That's the point. It's not pointless; it has actual use, and it will turn your PC on or off. It's going to be exceptionally useful if you've got your PC in a difficult place and can't easily reach the power buttons each time.

A maker or builder is going to love it, too. If you're regularly testing components, like we do at Tom's Hardware, then there's a real benefit to a tool like this if you just have the motherboard with components built to it, with no case or power button. This SinLoon power button makes the whole process easier.

As things go, the $11.19 sale price for this SinLoon external power button is great. You don't need it, and it won't change your life, but it could make it just that bit easier to switch your PC on or off. It's cool to look at, with RGB lighting for a bit of personality. As a gift, or just for yourself, this cool desk feature is worth buying before it sells out or the price goes back up again.

If you're looking for a new graphics card over Prime Day, then you've no doubt got your fingers and toes crossed, praying that the universe aligns to actually offer some discounts on this much-sought-after bracket of PC hardware. One of the best deals we've spotted today is on a brand-new, current-generation, mid-range graphics card that packs 12GB of VRAM. The Asus ATS Radeon RX 9070 GRE GPU is available at Amazon for a deal price of $529.

Over the past 30 days, the price of this GPU has ranged from $529.99 to $589.99. The current maximum list price is $789.99, but that doesn't reflect the more realistic amount the card has actually been recently selling for. The MSRP launch price for the RX 9070 GRE was $549, so it's amazing to see a GPU that falls below that MSRP threshold in the current economic climate for PC components.

● Check out this deal at Amazon

With 12GB of GDDR6, the RX 9070 GRE sports bandwidth speeds of 18 Gbps on a 192-bit bus, producing 432 GB/s of memory bandwidth for speedy operation in both gaming and application use. Similar to the Radeon RX 9070 and RX 9070 XT, the Radeon RX 9070 GRE is still built on AMD’s RDNA 4 graphics architecture and uses the same Navi 48 GPU; however, the RX 9070 GRE features a cut-down version of the Navi 48 chip with 48 compute units compared to the RX 9070's 56.

AMD's Radeon RX 9070 GRE sits just behind Nvidia's RTX 5070 in our benchmarking results from our review of the RX 9070 GRE. We found the card to average around 120 frames-per-second at 1080p and about 86.6 FPS at 1440p across our 11-game raster-only test suite.

Combined with a modest power consumption of 220W total power draw, the Radeon RX 9070 GRE is a good GPU choice for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with ample VRAM for playing games on high settings at 1080p, but maybe pushing the limits of 12GB of VRAM when playing with higher settings at 1440p.

So if you're actively looking for a new GPU, then jump on the Asus ATS Radeon RX 9070 GRE for just $529.99; don't hang about, as these lower GPU prices will have the RX 9070 GRE flying off the shelves in the blink of an eye in the current PC component market. To see a graphics card on sale for under its launch MSRP is a very rare sight, and one of the best Prime Day GPU deals out there.

An unofficial GTA V port on a web browser went live and was taken down within hours. Alex St. Louis, the founder of Wonder Interactive, shared a clip of the in-browser gameplay on X, which he said was ported to WebAssembly using AI. It’s unclear what made the website become inaccessible in such short notice — people who tried to access the page received Cloudflare Error 1014 for some time, before the PlayGTA5.com page was replaced by a food ad from the ‘70s — but Take-Two would likely have raised copyright concerns if it saw the project. The game can still be accessed via online archives.

While Take-Two does not have the same reputation as Nintendo when it comes to litigation, it’s still quite protective of its intellectual property. It has previously shut down a similar browser port of GTA: Vice City and has even sent the creator of the GTA V Homebrew port on the Nintendo Switch a cease-and-desist letter. While Rockstar allows anyone to create mods for its games, it has strict guidelines on what they could and couldn’t do with these mods, with the guiding principle of “Respect Our Games.” While these ports show how far modern browsers and computing hardware have come, IP like GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 generally can’t be used to showcase these capabilities, even if the creators of the port don’t charge users, add a caveat, or even require players to own a copy of the game.

What’s quite interesting, though, is how AI may have helped accelerate its development, with St. Louis suggesting that the developer/s used the technology to build the GTA V port. It took Rockstar about five years to make the original GTA V, with development beginning in 2008. And even after it launched in 2013, Rockstar still took over a year and a half to launch the title on PCs. Although it’s unclear who made this short-lived GTA V port or how many were involved in the project, it seems that it was backed by a significantly smaller team compared to other AAA game studios.

Some gamers also asked this question: what’s the difference between game streaming and porting a game to a browser, and why don’t game developers and publishers use the latter instead? Game streaming services like GeForce Now run games server-side and then stream the video and audio output to users, while browser ports download or load the game assets into your browser while processing almost everything on the host device. While this removes most of the drawbacks of streaming, like latency or input lag and video compression artifacts, it also introduces a new host of challenges like performance issues, memory limitations, and compatibility constraints. So, for major commercial releases with huge budgets, it makes more sense to run games natively instead of relying on browsers that could break the game with just one bad update.

In case you didn’t get the memo, CD sales are surging, up a whopping 58.6% in the U.S. this year, according to the RIAA. And whether you’re looking to break your old disc collection out of the attic or closet, or you’re considering starting a new CD collection and ditching that algorithmically driven streaming service, there are plenty of options to choose from. Some can offer as good or arguably even better audio quality than a 90s-era Discman or hi-fi player, while others prioritize modern features, like Bluetooth, showcasing your spinning disc, novel form factors, or RGB lighting.

There are solid, affordable, sub-$150 options that deliver the best of old and new, though. Below is a list of some of the best and most interesting new CD players, starting with a couple that I own and enjoy myself.

Most of my old CDs are housed semi-permanently in a large Sony CX555ES 300-disc CD changer I picked up, refurbished and serviced, from eBay in early 2025. But my whole collection (roughly 450 discs at this point) doesn’t fit in that machine, and I often want to listen to my more recent purchases someplace other than my living room.

That led me to buy the Fiio DM13 last year, around the Black Friday deals season. If you haven’t heard of Fiio, it’s a Chinese consumer electronics company that has made a name for itself over the last decade-plus, churning out all manner of audio gear that typically sounds and performs well for its price bracket.

The DM13 has a nice metal frame and sounds great, thanks to dual CS43198 DACs and a SGM8262 op-amp, and sports a USB-C rechargeable 3750mAh battery that lasts a solid 7-8 hours. It also supports Bluetooth 5.2 (SBC, aptX, aptX Low Latency, and aptX HD) for wireless connectivity, and has a balanced input for high-end headphones.

I briefly considered the more premium FiiO DM15 R2R (better DAC and Bluetooth chip, and a better screen, plus a disc window — but it didn’t feel different enough, and I didn’t really want to spend $250-plus on a (second) portable CD player. That’s when I heard about the recently announced Fosi Audio DISC Nano CD player. And mere moments after seeing it (and reading that it was priced at $99), I knew I wanted one.

Yes, it’s a CD player that’s smaller than a CD, with two edges of the disc exposed while it’s playing. Yes, Sony did this with its D-88 Discman in 1988. Yes, it’s mostly a gimmick. But yes, I still bought one and (mostly) love it.

• Fosi Audio DISC Nano CD Player ($99.99)

Fosi Audio is a newer company (founded in 2017, also in China) that typically makes budget-focused gear. I’ve been using the company’s $89 Audio Box X4 Phono Preamp for going on four years, and it’s performed flawlessly.

The Nano’s display is a simple two-digit design, and the battery life is short, at around two hours of listening between charges (via USB-C). But it also has a magnetic back for attaching to accessories. And so far (I’ve only had it for a few days), I’ve enjoyed popping it onto my fridge while listening through my various Bluetooth speakers, and have no complaints about the sound output or pairing.

It does have an old-school slide switch for turning the player on and off (there is no auto-off), which feels a bit crude. But for me at least, the unique design and magnetic back make it fun to use.

There are, of course, several other modern desk, desktop, and portable CD players on the market. And several are on sale for Prime Day. Below are some of the more interesting and affordable options we could find.

Japanese semiconductor lithography tool maker Gigaphoton has developed a novel neon gas recycling system named hTGM for its argon fluoride (ArF) excimer lasers. The method has demonstrated a 50% recycling rate, with hopes that it can be improved dramatically with adjusted configurations, Business Wire reports. This could help fill a gap in the chip supply chain caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Before 2022, Ukraine shipped up to 50% of the neon gas used in the semiconductor industry, but its major producers had to stop exports, raising concerns over chip supply. 70% of global neon production is used in semiconductor manufacturing, particularly in advanced DUV processes.

In the aftermath, China, Taiwan, and South Korea all increased their own domestic Neon production efforts, but various chip manufacturers also integrated recycling systems at various points during the fabrication process. Gigaphoton's more efficient ArF lasers with neon recycling could further help close those loops, reducing material costs and further reducing reliance on global supply chains.

It's not the only company pushing this technology forward, either. At the start of September, Japanese environmental protection company Kanken Techno demonstrated its own Neon gas recycling system for excimer lasers at SemiCon Taiwan. It demonstrated a recycling rate of over 90%, suggesting there is considerable headroom to improve this process in the future.

What makes Neon so scarce?

Neon is one of a handful of noble gases, making it inert under standard conditions and easy to handle. However, the ease with which it vaporizes and its limited bonding ability mean it is relatively scarce in Earth's atmosphere, making it scarce. It is most efficiently obtained through fractional distillation of super-cooled air, making it most affordable to obtain as a byproduct of other processes. For decades, Ukrainian steel-mill air-separation units produced crude neon from large-scale air-separation units (ASUs), and then refined it in-country via a pair of key companies.

That meant that when Russia escalated its war against Ukraine into a full-scale invasion in 2022 and Ukrainian neon refiners shut down production, there was an immediate global response.

As SFA Oxford explains, South Korea accelerated domestic production and implemented a large-scale, national neon recycling initiative focused on in-fab recovery. Taiwan installed purification systems in existing blast-furnace ASUs, developing its own domestic supply chain. By utilizing its national infrastructure, it targeted complete self-sufficiency in neon gas production within a few years.

China integrated neon gas purification into many elements of its industrial base, twinning it with steel and petrochemical production facilities. The U.S. also responded with the development of new ASUs at Gulf-coast petrochemical hubs, but those aren't expected to meaningfully improve American neon supplies until near the end of the decade.

Lithography accounts for around 70% of global neon use, particularly in more advanced DUV processes — though crucially, not in EUV lithography, which uses a tin-plasma laser instead. With global DUV-produced semiconductor supply rapidly advancing in the wake of the AI buildout, neon supply is an important component in the chip supply chain, which has rapidly evolved to become a key asset within strategic defence and global trade.

Working with what you've got

For individual companies that can't directly control their supply chains, recycling has been a much more immediate focus. The first neon gas recycling systems were qualified for use with Cymer excimer ArF lasers at the end of 2023, and Samsung and SK Hynix became the first of the major memory makers to implement neon gas recycling in 2024.

Gigaphoton previously offered neon recycling with KrF (krypton fluoride) lasers, but has now extended that recycling capability to ArF lasers as well. It claims a single hTGM for ArF unit can reduce neon gas consumption by up to 470 kilotres per year, representing substantial material cost savings, as well as reducing company reliance on a global supply chain that has been sufficiently unstable in recent years.

However, its claims of a 50% recycling rate aren't exactly groundbreaking. Cymer's excimer laser neon recovery system demonstrated that same level of efficiency in 2015, and Gigaphoton's own testing suggested a potential peak for ArF recovery of over 90% in 2017.

That suggests it should be able to ramp up its efforts to a higher percentage quite swiftly. Especially since fellow Japanese firm Kanken Techno recently unveiled a neon recycling system with over 90% efficiency. Kanken works with both major ArF laser developers and is currently going through the certification process, with expected approval in the near future.

A temporary fix?

With neon gas recycling during chip production effectively solved, it may be that the supply of neon for the chip industry has proved to be a temporary problem. But it may be a temporary solution too, as the use of neon within the industry may be set to shrink dramatically in the years to come.

EUV lithography can build far more complex chips than DUV, and offers a future path beyond the need for neon gas usage in excimer lasers as newer electronics adopt the more capable chip designs. On top of that, alternative technologies to DUV are being developed which could produce the same DUV light to generate advanced semiconductors, but without the need for noble or toxic gases.

Solid-state laser technologies have been rapidly developing in recent years, though last year's Chinese efforts are still below required industrial power thresholds. Nanoimprint lithography also holds promise as a DUV alternative, as well as cutting costs by a comparative 90%.

There are still huge hurdles in performance and certification, as well as integration with existing fabrication plans and supply chains. But the potential to move beyond the need for neon gas within semiconductor lithography is there. Over the coming years, the combination of laser neon recycling systems and alternative manufacturing techniques could reduce the need for international neon sources to a fraction of existing levels.

EV charging firm Xeal plans to use its existing U.S. network to deploy the “world’s first edge inference compute network using idle EV charging capacity.” The big idea is that it already has 1,600+ locations and 200MW of permitted, installed electrical infrastructure, so it aims to “deploy over 100,000 NVIDIA GPUs” at these sites. Thus it has developed Latient Pods (pictured), with each containing up to 48 Nvidia Hopper or Blackwell Ultra GPUs. We hope charging location security will be adequate to keep thieves away from these cabinets, as they are probably worth $2M+ each.

Nikhil Bharadwaj, co-founder and CEO of Xeal, explained that Latient Pods can deliver inference compute today while new data centers are still being built. “Latient is the fastest way to bring new compute online, tapping already permitted and grid-connected, yet idle energy capacity, located right where it's needed for ultra-low latency, with no water hookup requirements,” highlighted the exec. Grid interconnect is said to be one of the trickiest things for those looking to bring new compute online, but Xeal’s EV charging sites, which “typically operate at less than 10% of permitted capacity,” can deliver processing power via a distributed network across a metropolitan area.

An Nvidia rep also praised the upcoming Latient Pod network for being an innovative way to bring low-latency inference closer to users while making better use of infrastructure that has already been built.

In the rendered image from Xeal, a Latient Pod looks quite a lot like a broadband fiber cabinet that you might have on your street. A pod will boast the following specs/features:

• Powered by idle EV charging capacity
• Up to 48 Nvidia Hopper or Blackwell Ultra GPUs
• Self-contained independent cooling, no water hookup required
• Quiet operation at less than 65 dBs (comparable to a washing machine)
• Fixed rental or ancillary revenue for site owner
• Adds up to $1 million in property value for little-to-no investment
• All power bills covered as a tenant pass-through
• Potential savings for EV charging customers
• Built to withstand the outdoors, NEMA 4 enclosure
• Installed and running in hours

If Xeal has 1,600+ locations, and one Latient Pod has up to 48 GPUs, its touted purchasing target of 100,000 Nvidia GPUs suggests some sites will have more than a single pod at the location. Or perhaps it intends to build more EV sites, up to nearly 2,100 in total.

It claims that the location of its pods around metro areas, a feature dubbed Metro Edge, offers sub-20ms latency, a significant speedup over inference located in a distant data center.

We’ve previously reported on EVs and distributed computing, but in a slightly different context. Last year we discussed Elon Musk’s proposal to make use of the untapped asset of the millions of Tesla cars out there. He called it “100 gigawatts of inference” that could be used when the vehicles are “bored.”

Meanwhile, we must remember that EV charging stations are already being targeted by thieves. We reported about a ‘plague’ of electric car charger cable thefts driven simply by the copper scrap value of the hefty cables used at the sites. Imagine the security that would be required if/when Latient Pods are deployed, stuffed with extremely expensive GPUs. 48 Blackwell GPUs would be worth around $2,000,000 according to 2024 figures – so surely much more by now.

The first Latient Pod will be online by the end of the year, says Xeal.

The resurgence of physical media has been in full swing in the alternative music scene for a while. Nowadays, likely as an effect of streaming services' shenanigans, even mainstream audiences are catching on to the tactile experience and ownership offered by a CD or a vinyl record. We covered the Syitren RM1 CD player frame only a few weeks ago, and now the concept is back in full-system form thanks to Trettitre's Retro Ambient Sound System (RASS).

The spiffy-looking setup comprises a vinyl turntable with RGB backlighting, a compact disc player, and a cassette player — all atop a magnetic metal rack complete with a phone holder. The star of the show is the record player, a unit packing an actual Audio-Technica AT-3600L phono cartridge, a self-balancing tone arm, and even a manual speed knob for up to ±5% adjustment. There's Bluetooth support with high-end AptX, AptX HD, and AptX Adaptive codecs, as well as an auxiliary 3.5 mm output.

The physical controls appear to be both simple and reassuringly sized — no menus or touchscreens here. Hi-fi vinyl player units do spend a large portion of their mechanical design on ensuring full vertical stability, however. The vertical orientation of this TTT-LP3 unit is almost a worst-case scenario for this task, so the self-balancing tonearm has its work cut out for it. It's worth noting that since all the components are magnetic, you can just pick them up and put them on a table.

The units are all fully wireless and attach to their frames magnetically, though there's no combined charging mechanism or power supply — each unit has its own battery, USB-C charging port, and Bluetooth connection. The TTT-LP3 record player does have the ability to charge wirelessly with the included T-shaped adapter.

The TTT-DP3 CD player's interface looks to be straightforward. There are physical buttons with individual shapes, and a small OLED screen for displaying track information. The dust cover atop the disc is also magnetic, which is quite a nice touch. Oddly, though, the specs do not list high-end audio codecs for this unit, a strange choice given that CDs have by far the widest sonic range of the physical media types on offer.

As for the TTT-CP3 cassette player, there's not much to say, in a good way. The buttons are decidedly chunky and inviting — one can only hope they elicit the same satisfying clunk as in old-school hi-fi units. As with the CD player, there's no mention of high-end audio codec support, but cassette tapes aren't known for low noise floors or pristine treble, anyway.

You can preorder Trettitre's Retro Ambient Sound System at Kickstarter for $399 if you're quick, with $76 shipping, under the "late pledge" or "early bird" headers. After that, the unit will set you back $429. The individual components are also available if you don't want to grab the entire setup.

Cyberattacks using AI agents against several of the largest South Korean banks, including Hana Bank, KB Kookmin Bank, and Shinhan Bank, are currently being investigated by South Korean authorities. According to The New York Times, at least 25,000 Shinhan Bank customers had their personal credit information leaked last week, while 99 customers and 20 current or former employees of Kookmin Bank have been affected. 89 Hana Bank customers were also affected by the hacks, which led to their information being stolen.

South Korea’s National Office of Investigation is looking at all three cases, which has also caught the attention of President Lee Jae Myung. The South Korean president said that there were signs that the hackers behind these incidents used AI models, “causing considerable public concern and anxiety,” and that he has instructed his cabinet to confirm the situation and to ensure that the damage from these incidents is minimized. “It’s now become possible to use AI to hack with ease even without specialized skills,” Lee said during the livestreamed cabinet meeting.

AI models are becoming more powerful with every release, and bad actors are taking advantage of them to find weaknesses in secure systems and exploit them. Anthropic reported the first instance of an AI-orchestrated cyberattack in November 2025, which was allegedly orchestrated by a Chinese state-sponsored group. A few months after that, a cybersecurity firm said that Taiwan was targeted by the first-ever end-to-end autonomous cyberattacks by China-linked hackers. Even AI labs that built these AI models aren’t immune from the AI-powered hacks, as security researchers breached OpenAI using Claude and gained access to its internal codebase.

There has been no indication yet of who’s behind the attacks on South Korea’s banking industry — speculation may focus on Seoul’s regional adversaries, but it can be difficult to trace and attribute hacks, especially if the actors know how to cover their tracks. Aside from that, AI agents are known to conduct unintentional cyberattacks on their own, with the Australian government complaining that it took OpenAI 84 days to inform it of a hacking incident involving Australia’s national health portal.

While the leading AI labs are believed to be putting safeguards in place to help prevent their models from being used in illegal and unethical ways, some hackers exploit hallucinations and trick AI agents into running malware. Aside from that, many open-weight and open-source models lack similar guardrails, making it easier for hackers to use them in their activities. While AI models haven’t replaced skilled attackers yet, they have made planning, reconnaissance, and attack execution so much easier and could serve as a force multiplier, allowing hackers to act more quickly and efficiently.

Private data center construction spending is up over 73%, from $49.05 billion to $84.95 billion, year over year (YoY), according to the Census Bureau’s detailed construction spending tables for August. Spending is at a record annual pace, and growth is the fastest since April 2025’s +88.2%. Data center buildouts are now about 63% of all private office construction. The report, released last week, uses Census definitions that exclude any value of “racks or servers in data centers” from its construction spending numbers. It also does not speculate on any cause of the spending increase.

The Census data covers the Value of Construction Put in Place, measured monthly, to calculate what a full year would total at that month’s pace. Data center construction is defined as “[including] buildings that contain the hardware needed for storing, processing, and transmitting digital information,” a subcategory of private office. Power plants and transmission lines built to meet data center power demand fall under Census’s separate power category.

The $39.1 billion gap between general office and data center construction spending is the widest in the series since Census data begins in January 2014. The former is at $45.8 billion, down 9.7% YoY and 34.8% since Jan. 2023. Data centers have, in fact, beaten the general office every month since Sept. 2025.

Data center construction now sits at over nine times its Jan. 2021 level of $9.26 billion. Data center construction has become the majority of private office construction, about 63% versus 47% a year earlier, and with forecasts for data center power use still climbing, that is likely to remain the case moving forward.

Private nonresidential construction was at $773.0 billion, down 1.0% YoY, or $688.1 billion and down 5.9% YoY if data centers are excluded. Of the $8.0 billion monthly rise in private nonresidential spending, $5.9 billion or 74% was for data centers. Manufacturing, down 19.8% YoY, fits the same pattern, and data center construction is now about half its size.

Power construction, up 9.7% YoY, is the other big gainer. Taken together, the picture painted is that the construction industry’s growth depends heavily on data center projects. This follows Associated Builders and Contractors chief economist Anirban Basu’s statement in a Sept. 1 release that July’s nonresidential gain was “entirely due to data centers,” and that power’s growth was boosted by their electricity needs.

Growth has gotten faster for four months now. In addition to August’s reported gain, May was +36.3% YoY, June was +55.2%, and July saw +65.3% by our math. As the numbers do not include server spend, which is also growing due to rising hardware costs from AI demand, the Census only shows part of the picture. The acceleration in construction is nevertheless a strong indicator of where things are headed. September’s results are expected on Nov. 2 and may continue the trend.

Dell/Alienware has long made excellent monitors, and the company's OLED screens in particular have stuck out in recent years for a combination of price and performance. And today, thanks to Amazon's Big Deal Days, you can snag a swift 27-inch, 360 Hz option or a 280 Hz 34-inch ultrawide for the lowest prices ever.

You can't go wrong with either of these screens, as we've tested both and both got our Editors' Choice for their performance. The AW2725DF is an older model from 2024, while the AW3426DW launched in the middle of this year and therefore has a newer panel. But both are made by Samsung and feature vivid colors and inky blacks.

On the AW3426DW in particular, our color testing showed that the screen was accurate out of the box, and like most QD-OLED screens, the panel was colorful and well-balanced. If you do, though, want to make a couple of minor adjustments, you can achieve 105% coverage of the DCI-P3 space.

We saw similar results in our testing of the smaller AW2725DF, which again proves that either option is excellent. If you're looking to upgrade your screen for gaming or gaming and productivity, these are two of the best options available -- especially at these record-low price points.

Qualcomm will pay Huawei for patent rights under a multi-year cross-licensing agreement that highlights both 5G and AI technologies, and will buy some of Huawei’s U.S. patents outright, the firm announced. The joint announcement comes 25 years after Huawei began to pay Qualcomm for patents, a reversal that reportedly has Qualcomm paying for the first time. The agreement also covers compute and networking patents, and the patent purchase will close once it receives regulatory approval.

The two companies’ licensing ties date back to 2001, when Huawei, then a Chinese telecom-infrastructure supplier, took a royalty-bearing license to build CDMA network equipment. Qualcomm, which once supplied chips for some Huawei phones, stopped counting royalties from Huawei in its revenue in early 2025.

The “broad patent license agreement” allows “cross licenses” and reflects both companies’ commitment to intellectual property rights and to licensing consistent with “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) principles.” The deal involves no other business cooperation, Huawei said, according to SCMP; this implies no chip sales are involved. The deal follows a settled back royalty dispute in 2020, the U.S. revoking Qualcomm’s license to sell some hardware to Huawei in 2024, and the expiration of Huawei’s license by early 2025.

Qualcomm’s patent purchase covers compute, AI, networking, and “other technologies,” according to the announcement, but the number of patents was not disclosed, nor was any value figure. Each company credits the other’s portfolio. This suggests that the two are trading official recognition of each other’s patents.

Huawei says that, with the Qualcomm deal, the total value of its patent-licensing contracts will top $6.9 billion, counting from its first licensing income from Motorola in 2011. Since 2021, it says, its licensing business has brought in more than the company pays for other firms’ patents. In August, the company signed a multi-year Wi-Fi patent cross-license with HP and, as of 2025, the company held 165,000 active granted patents worldwide.

Huawei has also gone to court to enforce its patents, as in a 2024 lawsuit against MediaTek. It halted royalty payments to Qualcomm in 2018, and its general counsel testified for the FTC about Qualcomm’s licensing terms in the agency’s 2019 antitrust trial against the chipmaker. Huawei can now take some satisfaction in leveling the playing field with Qualcomm.

No timetable has been given for closing the patent purchase. Qualcomm’s Q4 report is expected next month, but its fiscal year ended before the announcement, so the deal will not make it into those numbers. The company also renewed its Apple license last month, effective April 1, 2027, after the current extension ends. Qualcomm’s relationship with Huawei is now on the other side, as Qualcomm reportedly becomes the one that pays.

Nvidia's highly advanced DLSS 5 photographic realism injector has been discussed to death and back. The internet has largely made peace with what the technology is and what it isn't, but that's not stopping anyone from adding DLSS 5 in places where it definitely wasn't meant to go: old DOS games like the original 1991 Duke Nukem, and even the 1972 Pong.

Valery Kryzhanovsky is the man who embarked on a mission to use the tech with old games, and the results are visible on his YouTube channel. His testing comprises most every type of game ranging from 2D platformers and RPGs, up to contemporary titles like The Witcher 3 and Marvel's Spider-.Man. If you want to try your hand at the same activity, he provides a blog post with instructions and some downloadables.

As you can see in the video below, Duke Nukem's gameplay actually looks interesting in parts, despite the amusing intro sections with race-changed characters. In the actual platforming, rectangular visual elements get embossed, adding a sense of depth, and the filter does a decent job of detecting objects like the player, enemies, and bullets, and not messing too much with inner portions of said sprites. Predictably, if the filter is applied too strongly, the results quickly start looking like an acid trip.

To inject the filter into 2D titles, Kryzhanovsky ran them in DOSBox, then used the popular ReShade filter to add DLSS 5 on top. The UI for configuring the parameters comes by way of RenoDX.

In a second blog post detailing what's happening and how, Kryzhanovsky explains that since DLSS 5 was never meant to be used on 2D static images or dumped into unsuspecting 3D titles — thus without motion vectors, object selection, and associated sundries that would inform it — it's important to choose at which rendering level it's injected: the render stage, after upscaling, or final output.

The injection point is as important as choosing the strength of the filter, which of the three color presets to use, or the number of passes. The techie notes that, for example, injecting DLSS 5 at the render stage in a 3D game changes actual face geometry, as he came to find when trying out RBDOOM-3-BFG.

Kryzhanovsky concludes that force-injected DLSS 5 works best with still images, a fact illustrated by the surprisingly consistent results he got with Heroes of Might and Magic. He believes the technology is promising but quite undercooked, and the lack of a temporal element (it only analyzes the one current frame) is currently one of its key drawbacks.

OpenAI and Synopsys have signed a multi-year agreement to jointly develop GPT-Synopsys, a specialized model optimized for semiconductor design using Synopsys's electronic design automation (EDA) tools. According to the September 30 announcement, the partnership “brings together OpenAI's advanced AI capabilities with Synopsys's industry-leading EDA tools and agentic AI capabilities to revolutionize the design of semiconductors.”

Engineers would delegate to agents that run the tools and execute the required processes until the work is ready for review. The companies say this would allow design teams to evaluate more options and deliver more sophisticated chips. Under the preferred partner agreement, OpenAI is licensing Synopsys's tools to develop the model — which will run on OpenAI-hosted infrastructure — after which the companies will jointly release the product and share revenue. The announcement did not disclose a release date or a pricing structure.

AI in chip design so far

Engineers use EDA tools to design and verify chips before manufacturing. This multi-step process begins with writing the hardware description in register-transfer level (RTL) code and using synthesis software to convert it into logic gates. Next, physical design tools lay out the circuit elements and route the connections between them. Lastly, designers close timing, verify functionality, and ensure manufacturing compliance before tapeout for fabrication.

Each of these stages requires several iterations — repeatedly running various tools and troubleshooting issues — to balance critical trade-offs: power, performance, and silicon area (PPA). Synopsys, Cadence, and Siemens EDA have dominated this market for these tools long before the current AI boom. Given the technology's capabilities, it is only natural that AI has found its way into the chip design process, creating a sort of “silicon designing silicon” loop.

In March 2020, Synopsys launched DSO.ai (Design Space Optimization AI), a reinforcement learning tool that explores and learns from previous design optimizations to improve PPA. The company then launched Synopsys.ai Copilot in November 2023 — its first integration of generative AI — through a collaboration with Microsoft, integrating the Azure OpenAI service to provide natural language assistance within its engineering tools.

The company’s current direction is Agentic AI, first revealed at the Design Automation Conference in July, where it showed an autonomous verification workflow built on Nvidia's Agent Toolkit and Nemotron 3 Ultra model. On September 28, two days before the OpenAI deal, Synopsys announced its Autopilot platform and AgentEngineer, a portfolio of seven long-horizon agents covering verification, implementation, analog, manufacturing, meshing, combustion, and EMC analysis. The company reported more than 50 engagements, with availability planned for late 2026.

As detailed in our State of agentic AI in chip design tools roadmap, the move to agentic AI is not exclusive to Synopsys; Cadence and Siemens are also pitching autonomous design agents. Meanwhile, OpenAI, in collaboration with Broadcom, unveiled Jalapeño in June, the company’s first custom inference accelerator. OpenAI said the accelerator's design and optimization process leaned heavily on its AI models, allowing it to go from initial design to tape-out in just nine months. Now, GPT-Synopsys turns that internal experiment into a product.

GPT-Synopsys

According to the announcement, GPT-Synopsys will combine OpenAI's frontier models with Synopsys’s EDA software and domain expertise, allowing the model to reason about chip design and verification and operate Synopsys tools directly. Engineers would hand the model objectives such as PPA optimization, timing, and verification closure, while the agents run the tools, interpret the results, implement changes, and iterate toward verified outcomes for an engineer to review.

In other words, the model would be capable of making engineering judgments involved in using Synopsys software. The companies describe it as learning to operate the tools like an expert engineer, interpreting their outputs and using the results to guide further changes. This is the proposed specialization that takes the model beyond connecting a general-purpose model to a set of tools.

Synopsys’s EDA engines would perform the calculations and checks, with the model interpreting results and the agent software managing execution. GPT-Synopsys will run on OpenAI-hosted infrastructure and is intended to integrate with Synopsys.ai and Autopilot, as well as work with customers’ own agent harnesses. Autopilot already provides services such as memory and governance.

Synopsys says early technology engagements are underway with leading semiconductor customers, but didn't name any. The immediate audience is professional semiconductor-design teams, with companies developing their own custom silicon also likely to use it. Although the announcement covers semiconductor design generally, OpenAI has a particular interest in improving the hardware that runs its models. “By helping them build better chips, we can build better AI and bring it to more people,” said Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president and co-founder. Whether the service also makes advanced design more accessible to smaller teams will depend on pricing and the expertise still required to supervise it.

Questions and concerns

The recent announcement leaves a couple of questions and concerns unaddressed. First, hosting the model on OpenAI infrastructure raises concerns about how confidential designs are handled. The companies say customer data will be excluded from model training, encrypted at rest and in transit, and governed by configurable retention, audit, and permission controls. However, the release does not identify hosting regions or default retention periods. It also provides no contractual terms for ownership of generated outputs, use of third-party licensed design IP, or indemnities. The service's terms will likely address these questions.

Another question is the practical economics for users. The industry has realized that handing over everything to AI doesn't always result in cost savings, at least for now. Sometimes the reverse is the case. Earlier this year, Uber’s CTO and an Nvidia executive said AI was more expensive than human workers, although many companies are reportedly fine with the extra cost. For GPT-Synopsys, advanced engineering reasoning and faster design-to-tapeout could justify the service, but model calls, EDA runs, integration, and human review all consume resources. The announcement did not include a pricing structure. It also didn't specify a launch date.

Meanwhile, Synopsys’s main rival Cadence launched its ChipStack AI Super Agent in February for front-end design and verification, built on frontier LLMs. In April, the company announced a collaboration with Google to optimize ChipStack with Gemini on Google Cloud. At Computex, it extended ChipStack to what it calls Level-5 autonomy, powered by Nvidia's Nemotron models, with early access expected in the second half of 2026. The main difference is that while ChipStack is Cadence’s own agent software running on other companies’ general-purpose models, GPT-Synopsys will be an OpenAI model specifically trained to operate Synopsys’s tools.

GameStop has increased the price of refurbished PS Pros from $800 to $1399.99, meaning used units cost 55% more than their list price for brand-new consoles, and well over double the PS5 Pro's original MSRP. A Redditor working at the retailer has leaked a memo telling employees that the higher price of used consoles versus new ones is intentional. A r/GameStop subreddit moderator has confirmed the validity of the post, saying that the original poster has been properly vetted. The leaked prices are now showing on the GameStop website.

Brand-new PS5 Pro units have an MSRP of $899.00, which has already increased from $749.99 earlier this year because of chip shortages. It’s unclear whether Sony requires retailers to sell brand-new PS5 units at or close to the MSRP, but they generally have more freedom in setting the prices of pre-owned devices. Unfortunately, it seems that there’s a shortage of new PS5 Pros across several retailers. Sony, GameStop, and Target, which list the consoles at $899.99, are out of stock. While new consoles are available on Best Buy and Walmart, they’re priced at $1,496.01 and $1,554.99, respectively. Gamers who find these prices too rich might want to take their chances on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, but the situation there isn’t any better. New sealed PS5 Pros are going for more around $1,300 or more on these platforms. While they might be cheaper, you’ll miss out on some of the protections and peace of mind that retailers with brick-and-mortar stores provide.

Many people blame the AI-driven memory chip crisis for the PS5 Pro shortage. AI data centers’ appetite for HBM and willingness to pay top dollar for these chips meant that DRAM manufacturers have pivoted most of their capacity towards this more lucrative market, with manufacturers of consumer goods fighting over a smaller pie of DRAM production. The situation has led to a 500% increase in RAM prices in the past 12 months, with the shortage now starting to spill over into other industries like smartphones and automotive manufacturing.

The situation is likely compounded by the anticipated launch of GTA VI this coming November, which started pre-selling in June 2026. While Rockstar isn’t targeting 60 FPS for the game at launch, it seems that gamers are willing to pay top dollar just to ensure that they can get the best possible performance when the game finally arrives after years of waiting.

It seems that buyers who have saved just enough cash to buy a PS5 Pro are out of luck as retailers are taking advantage of the shortage and jacking up prices, even for used models. The basic PS5 Digital (Slim) and Disc (Slim) editions are still priced at or close to the MSRP, though, so those who want to get their hands on a PlayStation right now without overpaying scalpers would have to settle for these instead. Gamers who are specifically buying a console just to play GTA VI at launch could also settle for an Xbox Series X instead, which is a bit cheaper than the PS5 Pro at MSRP while offering more performance than the base PS5, or they could experiment with the open-source AnyPS5, which runs PS5 console games natively on PC.

Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceXAI will change its name to SpaceXSI, to reflect the new moniker “Super Intelligence” coined by President Trump as a replacement for “Artificial Intelligence.” In an X post on September 4, Musk wrote, “Yes, we will make that change,” in response to an X user’s question about renaming the AI company. Musk had earlier posted, “No more AI. SI. It’s better,” following up the post with a photo of the cover page of Nick Bostrom's book, “Superintelligence.”

President Donald Trump signed the executive order to officially rebrand “Artificial Intelligence” to “Super Intelligence” on September 29, 2026, during a high-level technology summit at the White House dubbed “Super Intelligence Luncheon.” The administration argued that “artificial” implies something fake and that “super intelligence” better captures the technology's true scale and potential. Several Federal agencies have already implemented the rebrand.

Six days after the summit, President Trump formally launched the “Super Intelligence Force” (SIF) through a presidential mandate and public announcement via Truth Social on Sunday, October 4, following up on his earlier promise to launch a force that will “cherish” the technology and “help it grow.” The Force will report directly to the White House and will oversee domestic AI policy, ensure American AI dominance over global rivals like China, and interface directly with the private tech sector.

Regarding the rebrand, it is unclear how the numerous American AI companies with “AI” in their names and products intend to proceed. Furthermore, the total number of registered .ai domains has officially surpassed 1 million globally. Registrations had reportedly generated an estimated $96.4 million for the 2026 budget of Antigua — a tiny Caribbean island nation with “.ai” as its country-code top-level domain — accounting for nearly half of total government revenue.

Following the announcement, speculators are frantically buying up .si domains, often registering look-alike domains mirroring existing .ai sites. Musk has yet to implement the “SI” nomenclature across his companies, with the X.ai domain still featuring “AI” and “Artificial Intelligence” in all copies sitewide, as of this report.

A TechTuber, disappointed with a 1980s VHS tape-based gaming video console, decided to brew up a superior system backed by modern tech such as a DE1-SoC FPGA board and a Raspberry Pi RP2350 MCU. The video below documents Throaty Mumbo’s frustrations with the old ActionMax (1987) VHS-connected system and his progress in building a modern VHS-based FMV-enhanced gaming system that plays versions of Super Mario Bros. and Doom.

NSFW alert. Video includes frequent swearing.

Mumbo, a self-described “weird and impractical tech” lover, begins the video by tinkering with an ancient VHS-based entertainment system which, after much effort in setting up, is ultimately disappointing. The interactivity on offer using the ActionMax and its peripherals is so limited and imprecise that it is a clear dud, and though it sounds fun, it truly lacks novelty in 2026. However, the ActionMax wrangling time wasn’t wasted, as it inspired Mumbo to remake a VHS-video gaming system augmented by some of the widely accessible modern maker tech that is available nowadays.

On the journey, we learn how the old ActionMax worked and how an FPGA-powered SBC improves the VHS 'gaming' experience. At its heart, as demonstrated in the Doom version on the system, the FPGA powers overlay graphics and switches to one of eight simultaneous video streams being played by the VHS deck. In every new scene, your timely interaction selects another of the eight streams. Meanwhile, a counter tallies your timely pressing of the correct button on the controller and keeps score. This on-rails game is nothing like the original Doom in terms of gameplay but feels close in the audio/visual department.

The version of Super Mario Bros. offers a different take on FMV in games. Here, the SBC plays a faithful-looking version of the Nintendo classic, but the game backdrop is replaced by some snazzy VHS-taped imagery. I think a similar technique was sometimes used in early CD-ROM games to raise their visual appeal above the standard computer or console version of the game upon which they were based.

Mumbo was last seen on Tom’s Hardware running Sega games off vinyl records. This was a pretty straightforward adaptation of how software used to be loaded from a cassette on a wide range of retro computers.

The Corsair Xeneon Edge touchscreen display was a viral sensation during Amazon Prime Day in the summer, with PC enthusiasts flocking to add the unique peripheral to their setups. Now, the deal is back in all five colors, meaning you can score one for just $199 at Corsair, a $50 saving on the usual price.

• Check out this deal on the Corsair website.

The Xeneon Edge is a unique and multi-faceted touchscreen display. You can use it on your desk as a standalone unit, much like an Elgato Stream Deck or a tablet. However, you can also mount it to any metal surface using magnets, or you can integrate into the side of some of Corsair's PC cases.

Since we last covered this deal, Corsair has shuffled out two new colors, so there are now five options to choose from. The display itself is a 2650 x 720 resolution display with a 60Hz refresh rate. At just 14.5 inches, that's plenty of pixel density.

You can connect the display using HDMI or USB-C, and orient it either horizontally or vertically. Check out the video below for a look at its capabilities.

So what exactly is the Xeneon Edge useful for? Really anything you can use a normal monitor for, besides gaming, of course (unless you're really into 2560 x 720). It can be used as a touchscreen media control center for your music, or as a control panel for your voice communication on Discord. If you're a streamer, you can even use it as a screen for comments and chat, or as a virtual 'Stream Deck' to control your broadcast.

Thanks to iCUE integration, it can also serve as a PC monitoring nerve center. It will display data from all the points monitored on your rig, be it CPU and GPU temperatures or anything else. There's a detachable magnetic stand for standalone use, or you can even 3D-print your own accessories.

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