Yea longevity wise, it probably won't last but I do like the concept

Watching the Intel conference now, and it seems like they really can't come without cheating.

They speak so much about vPro, not mentioning that you need an Enterprise OS version (Win 10 Pro doesn't have the necessary software) to really utilize it and needs to be configurated by hand to actually make real use of it.

The comparison between the new pentium and the Mediatek 8183 is very cringeworthy and pretty much damning the Pentium by faint praise. Not only is the Mediatek chip from 2019, it was outdated back then already, sporting 4 A73 @ 2GHz plus 4 A53 @2GHz when there were already much more modern and performant ARM hardware available. And unlike Samsung, Qualcomm or Apple, Mediatek's ARM chips are pretty much run-off-the-mill. Also, it took Intel "just" 4 years to get a new Atom chip out and go from Goldmont to Tremont...

Intel faster than AMD in AI on Laptops, a workload which is normally made on a Desktop or server as there it's done in seconds, not to mention AI is generally looped, so even just a couple seconds slower can pile up quickly. So okay, who cares? Nobody? Moving on then.

Also, their constant mention of "Real Life Performance (TM)"

Finally, only 14% IPC improvement from Skylake to Rocket Lake? I sure was expecting a bit more, that won't be enough to keep AMD at bay on the long run.

No, 1.3x faster than PS5 is 100% + 130%.

1.3x as fast as PS5 is 100% + 30%

Come on, English isn't that hard, folks...

You might be right, or maybe not, but I once again realized how much I hate English (mainly due to its incoherency). 'Two times faster' is obviously twice as fast, but '50% faster' is 1.5 times as fast, no? And 50% corresponds to 0.5, so you can probably see where I'm getting confused. I think 1.3 times faster is actually correct here, but I'm going to refrain from using that because there's much less room for confusion when saying '1.5 times as fast' (or, in this case, '1.3 times as fast'). I'm glad this got cleared up though! (As an added bonus, there's a related but different kind of confusion in my native language, which doesn't really help in my case.)

No, the specific inclusion of "times", which is hidden in the X, means that there is multiplication happening. You always multiply with what you have, so 1.3x faster than is 30% faster, because you multiply the value exactly with 1.3.

If you leave out the X it would be that 130% increase, but nobody talks that way because in colloquial speech you do not refer to percentage values without using the percentage suffix.

If you say "as fast as" that means you suddenly have an equation with 2 sides on your hand. Y = 1.3X. So you get the same result.

To get a 130% increase you will have to either say "130% faster" or "1.3 faster" because in that case both values represent percentages. 1.3X on the other hand is not a percentage and rather a multiplication factor.

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This contest is limited to UK and Europe ONLY.

The Wednesday news:

SALES /PLAYER COUNT & DEALS

GOG has a new sale and three new releases:

• The new Midweek Sale brings games from several genres up to 80% off until Saturday: https://www.gog.com/promo/20210113_midweek_sale
• The game Yaga launches on the store with a 40% discount until January 19: https://www.gog.com/game/yaga
• And two games from the Bridge Constructor series, Playground and Stunts lands on the store and, to celebrate it, the whole series is on sale, up to 60% off until the 20th of January: https://www.gog.com/promo/20210113_launch_promo_bridge_constructor

Steam has a new daily deal and the Midweek Madness deals:

• The daily deal is 112 Operator, 50% off: https://store.steampowered.com/app/793460/112_Operator/
• The first Midweek Madness deal is Void Bastards, 60% off until the 15th: https://store.steampowered.com/app/857980/Void_Bastards/
• DRAGON BALL FighterZ gets a 84% discount until Friday 15: https://store.steampowered.com/app/678950/DRAGON_BALL_FighterZ/
• And publisher Gamera Games has its games on sale, up to 80% off until January 24: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/GGN_202101

And Fanatical has a new Star Deal: Chris Sawyer's Locomotion, 83% off for the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/chris-sawyers-locomotion

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-Empty-

MODS, EMULATORS & FAN PROJECTS

Call of DOOM: Black Warfare Mod releases later this month, gets a launch trailer
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/call-of-doom-black-warfare-mod-releases-later-this-month-gets-a-launch-trailer/
Modder ‘Arrowood’ announced that his Call of DOOM: Black Warfare Mod will release later this month. In order to celebrate this announcement, the modder also released a launch trailer for this mod that you can find below.

GAMING NEWS

Bethesda and MachineGames are working on a new Indiana Jones game
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/bethesda-machinegames-new-indiana-jones-game/
Bethesda has just announced that MachineGames is currently working on a new Indiana Jones game. This game is a collaboration between Bethesda and Lucasfilms Games, and it’s – obviously – an official Indiana Jones game.

NVIDIA reveals new games that will support Ray Tracing and DLSS
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/nvidia-reveals-new-games-that-will-support-ray-tracing-and-dlss/
NVIDIA has announced a number of games that will add support for Ray Tracing and/or DLSS. According to the team, two new games will support Ray Tracing and four games will support DLSS. Moreover, two competitive games will support NVIDIA Reflex.

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey has been delayed until Spring 2021
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/elite-dangerous-odyssey-has-been-delayed-until-spring-2021/
Frontier Developments was originally planning to release Elite Dangerous: Odyssey in early 2021. However, the team has just announced that this expansion has been delayed until Spring 2021.

The creators of The Division are working on a new Star Wars game
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-creators-of-the-division-are-working-on-a-new-star-wars-game/
Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment have announced that they are working on a brand new official Star Wars game. The teams will collaborate with Lucasfilm Games for an open-world game set in the Star Wars universe.
>> Well, there goes the EA exclusivity.

Part two of the news:

The Capcom hack may have affected just under 400,000 peoples' data
https://www.pcgamer.com/capcoms-data-breach-may-have-hit-up-to-390000-people/
Thousands more people may have been affected by last November's ransomware attack on Capcom than first thought, the studio announced today.
(...)
But besides sales data and other financial data, last year's breach also compromised the personal information of 9 current and former Capcom employees. In a new press release (via GamesIndustry.Biz), however, the studio has since verified an additional 16,406 compromised individuals—reckoning the maximum number of potentially affected people could be as high as 390,000.

Play Call Of Duty: Cold War's zombies mode for free all week
https://www.pcgamer.com/play-call-of-duty-cold-wars-zombies-mode-for-free-all-week/
Call Of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War will let you mow down hordes of ramblin' shamblin' undead fascists for a free week, starting this Thursday.
Beginning January 14, you'll be able to download a standalone version of Cold War's Zombies from the Battle.net launcher as part of the game's Zombies Free Access Week. The free trial lets you stick it out on Die Maschine, Cold War's debut zombies map, across two different modes.

The Sims 4 is getting a Paranormal Pack just in time for 3 months after Halloween
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-sims-4-is-getting-a-paranormal-pack-just-in-time-for-3-months-after-halloween/
Want some more Phasmophobia in your Sims' lives? The Sims 4 Paranormal Stuff Pack arrives this month, and with it you can build haunted houses, commune with the dead by performing seances, and start a new career as a paranormal investigator. I think that career has some promise, considering the trailer above is stuffed with more ghosts than that scene from Ghostbusters when the jerk from the EPA shuts off the containment unit.

Mundaun, a hand-pencilled tale of horror in the Swiss Alps, is coming in March
https://www.pcgamer.com/mundaun-a-hand-pencilled-tale-of-horror-in-the-swiss-alps-is-coming-in-march/
The first three months of 2021 might be a quiet stretch, but there are some interesting things happening. One of them will hopefully be Mundaun, a "hand-pencilled horror tale" announced last summer that one-man studio Hidden Fields announced today will be out on March 16.

The ESA pauses political contributions following US Capitol attack
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-esa-pauses-political-contributions-following-us-capitol-attack/
The Entertainment Software Association has announced that it will pause contributions made by its Political Advisory Committee after an attempted coup in the US Capitol by far-right insurrectionists.

Tim Schafer has wrapped up work on Psychonauts 2's script
https://www.pcgamer.com/tim-schafer-has-wrapped-up-work-on-psychonauts-2s-script/
Say what you will about Double Fine's back-catalogue, but you can almost always expect plenty of witty rapport from the studio's characters. This week, Psychonauts 2 closed the book on its own script, as Tim Schafer announced that he'd penned his last line of dialogue for the brain-invading sequel.

Overwatch has a new Tokyo-inspired map and Hanzo challenge
https://www.pcgamer.com/overwatch-gets-a-new-tokyo-inspired-map-and-hanzo-challenge/
Blizzard released a new free-for-all map for Overwatch on Tuesday, Kanezaka, which comes with its own challenge and cosmetic rewards. The Kanezaka challenge runs from January 12 - 25, with an icon, spray, and the Hanzo skin being rewarded for winning three, six, and nine games respectively. The games can be won across various Overwatch modes—Quick Play, Competitive Play, and Arcade.

Dead Cells' Fatal Falls DLC has a homicidal pet sword that flies, and a new trailer
https://www.pcgamer.com/dead-cells-fatal-falls-dlc-has-a-homicidal-pet-sword-that-flies-and-a-new-trailer/
Dead Cells' upcoming DLC, Fatal Falls, has a trailer showing off the two new biomes it'll add to the excellent roguelike, as well as the weapons and enemies therein. Due for release on January 26, developer MotionTwin notes that this marks the 22nd major update to the game since its early access release in 2017, and is only the second expansion to have an asking price ($4.99/£4.99). Most importantly, it will let you Praise the Sun.

TrendForce: TSMC to Mass-Produce Select Intel Products, CPUs Starting 2021

https://www.techpowerup.com/277229/trendforce-tsmc-to-mass-produce-select-intel-products-cpus-starting-2021

"According to a market analysis from TrendForce, Intel's manufacturing efforts with TSMC will go way beyond a potential TSMC technology licensing for that company's manufacturing technology to be employed in Intel's own fabs. The market research firm says that Intel will instead procure wafers directly from TSMC, starting on 2H2021, in the order of 20-25% of total production for some of its non-CPU products. But the manufacturing deal is said to go beyond that, with TSMC picking up orders for Intel's Core i3 CPUs in the company's 5 nm manufacturing node - one that Intel will take years to scale down to on its own manufacturing capabilities.

According to TrendForce, that effort will scale upwards with TSMC manufacturing certain allotments of Intel's midrange and high-end CPUs using the semiconductor manufacturer's 3 nm technology in 2022. "

A 3nm Intel. Next year is going to be a slaughter house lol. At least for gaming performance.

Unless Zen 4 brings big improvements.