The news, part two:

Welcome to Storm Point, Apex Legends' sun-soaked new map
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/welcome-to-storm-point-apex-legends-sun-soaked-new-map/
Last week, Apex Legends introduced us to next season's bloody summer holiday with a flashy cinematic trailer. Today, we got a proper look at what Respawn has packed for this unseasonable vacation—and where better to start than with the tropical new location itself?

Activision Blizzard's attempt to halt lawsuit rejected
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/activision-blizzards-attempt-to-halt-lawsuit-rejected/
Activision Blizzard's request to pause its ongoing lawsuit has been rejected.
The developer and publisher tried to put the suit on hold following an ongoing battle between the Department for Employment and Housing—the state department currently suing Activision Blizzard for discrimination and sexual harassment—and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC had also brought a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, which was settled on the same day it went public for $18 million (thanks, Law360).
>> dx11332sega has made a thread about this.

Phasmophobia's Nightmare update delivers four new ghosts and a haunted campground
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/phasmophobias-nightmare-update-delivers-four-new-ghosts-and-a-haunted-campground/
Phasmophobia's big Nightmare update has arrived, bringing us the game's first outdoor map, a bunch of new ghost types, and a rework of the difficulty levels that includes the new Nightmare mode, "a challenge mode for those seeking the most intense gameplay Phasmophobia has to offer."

God of War PC port isn't being developed by Sony
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/god-of-war-pc-port-isnt-being-developed-by-sony/
Sony announced last that the previously PlayStation-exclusive god-and-fatherhood sim God of War will be coming to PC, which was very big news indeed. But the PC port won't actually be developed by Sony, which told Ars Technica that the project is being "overseen" by Sony Santa Monica, but developed by Jetpack Interactive.

A Wu-Tang Clan action-RPG is rumored to be in development
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/a-wu-tang-clan-action-rpg-is-rumored-to-be-in-development/
A new Windows Central report says that a Wu-Tang Clan-themed action RPG may be in development at Brass Lion Entertainment, a studio founded in 2017 by industry veterans Manveer Heir, Bryna Dabby Smith, and Rashad Redic.

Battlefield 2042 introduces non-binary character, a first for the series
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/battlefield-2042-introduces-non-binary-character-a-first-for-the-series/
Emma “Sundance” Rosier, one of Battlefield 2042’s playable specialists, is non-binary, making them the very first character who identifies as such in EA’s long-running series. Sundance’s bio uses gender-neutral they/them pronouns on the shooter’s official website, which led one fan to ask on Twitter if they identified as non-binary. Adam Freeman, EA’s Lead community manager confirmed in a reply, "Yep. Sundance is non-binary."

Step into a hand-painted watercolour village in this stunning indie adventure
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/step-into-a-hand-painted-watercolour-village-in-this-stunning-indie-adventure/
Great paintings take time. And while the artists behind the gorgeous watercolour adventure Dordogne had planned to release this year, the lovingly hand-painted adventure will now release in 2022.

Deep Rock Galactic adds robo baddies and a big data heist as it launches a free Season Pass
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/deep-rock-galactic-adds-robo-baddies-and-a-big-data-heist-as-it-launches-a-free-season-pass/
I was prepared for this to be bad news. One of the things I appreciate about Deep Rock Galactic is that it gets new, fun updates every few months without desperately clinging to players the way so many of today's live service games do. It's a great game to hop into co-op for a week or two, then set aside for a few months until the urge to go mining and bug exterminating strikes again. When Deep Rock's developers told me they were switching to a seasonal model and introducing a battle pass, I assumed it was following the Fortnite model: pay for the privilege to grind every day to unlock a whole bunch of cosmetic fluff. I'm happy to be wrong.

Final Fantasy's creator is addicted to Final Fantasy 14
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/final-fantasys-creator-is-addicted-to-final-fantasy-14/
I cannot get enough of the utterly fantastic Final Fantasy 14 right now and apparently, neither can the man who birthed the entire series in the first place.
Hironobu Sakaguchi has been extensively documenting his journey with the MMO on Twitter, and it's been a joy to comb through his timeline. The father of Final Fantasy picked up the game at the end of September, creating an adorable lalafell paladin.

Ubisoft blames Skype, MSI Afterburner, Discord and more for possibly causing performance issues in its games

i can understand certain ingame overlays causing issues, I had some with the overlay for the old addon installer (can't remember the name), but i assume thats more hardware related.

Certainly does remind me of the Fermi days. While the Nvidia driver measuring averages is quite nonsense, it should also be up to the AIBs to choose their VRMs and set their own trigger point for OCP which really should be the ultimate failsafe. There are VRMs that are certainly designed to handle such loads for long term but there are certain VRMs that are also not designed to either and I think that + shitty OCP limits + driver doing averages is where we see some 3090s get affected more so than others.

I think it all stems from Nvidia not giving AIBs enough time to make proper coolers back during Ampere launch. I remember there were a few articles about it and it was one of the reasons why Asus launched the Strix later than Evga's FTW3 and such. It will be interesting to see the longevity of these cards but I think something like a Strix or Kingpin that have high quality VRMs/PCB designs will last a long time while some like FTW3 or Gigabyte ones are gonna continue to get rekt.

Of course as next generation comes with 500 Watt Lovelace and 400 Watt RDNA 3... Things gonna get even more hectic.

Intel Core i5-12600K CPU-Z validations confirm 50% higher performance than i5-11600K in multi-thread test

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-core-i5-12600k-cpu-z-validations-confirm-50-higher-performance-than-i5-11600k-in-multi-thread-test

Take it with a grain of salt but Alder Lake certainly looks to be fap worthy

ASUS Z690 ROG Maximus and ROG STRIX motherboards to feature PCIe slot quick release feature

https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-z690-rog-maximus-and-rog-strix-motherboards-to-feature-pcie-slot-quick-release-feature

DDR5 is FINALLY HERE... and I've got it

He does a good job at explaining many of the features of DDR5 as we get ready for the next generation of PC platforms.

Nice vid, thanks. I still wonder what kind of effect will that latency have, but I understand that this is something that will be covered in reviews once Alder Lake launches and they can test them with both DDR4 and DDR5.

Also, that Noctua GPU teasing...

More PlayStation games rumoured for PC
https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/mustafa-mahmoud/more-playstation-games-rumoured-for-pc/
Though these should both be taken with a grain of salt, new rumours are suggesting that the next set of PlayStation games finding their way onto the PC platform are Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima and Bluepoint Games’ Shadow of the Colossus.

Ghost of Tsushima is pretty much guaranteed at this point. But I'm quite doubtful about Shadow of the Colossus. Then again, that game took many years to develop and, if the port is cheap to do, I'm sure Sony would be happy to try to recoup a bit more money from it.

Quite interested to see how initial DDR5 modules stacks up against mature DDR4. If I had to guess there's not going to be much in it due to high latency of first  batches, much like previous gen crossovers. There's a video that Linus did several years ago for DDR3 vs 4.

Still its makes sense to go DDR5 if you plan on going for a new build with ADL.

Cool video, but these guys must work for Volkswagen, or did. jk

Fan has a huge gap between it and the case, no heatsink, case is way too enclosed, etc. Making the case flow do a 90 degree turn already isn't great, but making it do a 180 and exit where air is trying to enter the side is just asking for poor results.

Passive heatsinks have existed for a quite a while now and would be totally fine for many users with one large side fan in a fairly open case. In a higher end rig where it's being pushed, you'd almost certainly want a CPU fan still, even if the case was very open all around like I said. It may not give you the absolute max possible performance, but it would likely be good enough for those who'd sacrifice a bit for next to silent operation.