The news, part two:

EU is about to launch an 'advanced probe' into the Microsoft Activision deal, sources say
https://www.pcgamer.com/eu-is-about-to-launch-an-advanced-probe-into-the-microsoft-activision-deal-sources-say/
Sources tell Politico that the European Commission plans to open an in-depth, "Phase 2" investigation into Microsoft's $68 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The commission is said to be launching the investigation after Microsoft decided against filing remedies—commitments that would satisfy the Commission's worries regarding the deal—before a deadline of midnight tonight.

Surprise! Hearthstone players are getting a free card expansion today
https://www.pcgamer.com/surprise-hearthstone-players-are-getting-a-free-card-expansion-today/
In an act of unprecedented generosity (or unprecedented hype-building, if you're more cynical), Hearthstone is bringing one of its most iconic card expansions back and giving every player free access. The Knights of the Frozen Throne set will be legal in the Standard format from today, and will remain so up until the release of the March of the Lich King set on December 6, at which point it will be banished back to Wild.

Hearthstone's next expansion will finally add Death Knight as a playable class
https://www.pcgamer.com/hearthstones-next-expansion-will-finally-add-death-knight-as-a-playable-class/
To the delight of everyone, with the possible exception of Monk mains, Hearthstone's next expansion will finally add Death Knight as a playable class. Blizzard has just announced that the new set, March of the Lich King, launches on December 6, and contains a whopping 203 new cards. That number is so high (sets are usually ~135 cards) partly because it includes 32 free core cards for Death Knight. In fact, the initial Death Knight collection comprises 68 cards—a substantial bump over the 45 that Demon Hunter, the last new class, launched with.

Saucy 'lost' Sega FMV game from the '90s is found
https://www.pcgamer.com/saucy-lost-sega-fmv-game-from-the-90s-is-found/
A long-lost and big-budget Sega Saturn game has been unearthed, and it's a slice of saucy history from the '90s console wars. Sacred Pools was a game in development by SegaSoft, an American studio, and was one of those FMV titles that accumulated around the early stages of CD-ROM technology.
The appropriately named website Gaming Alexandria has managed to secure several CD-ROMs of the never-released project, from former SegaSoft employee David Gray. Alpha builds for the game on Saturn, PC and, surprisingly, Sony PlayStation have now been uploaded online.

Cozy Grove studio Spry Fox now belongs to Netflix
https://www.pcgamer.com/cozy-grove-studio-spry-fox-now-belongs-to-netflix/
Spry Fox, the Seattle-based developer of games including Triple Town, Road Not Taken, and Cozy Grove, is now a Netflix studio. Netflix said the addition of Spry Fox to its stable of in-house studios "will help accelerate our creative development in another beloved genre and add to the growing variety of Netflix’s games catalog that will have something for everyone."

Three days after launch, Activision disables Modern Warfare 2 family sharing on Steam
https://www.pcgamer.com/three-days-after-launch-activision-disables-modern-warfare-2-family-sharing-on-steam/
Three days after its debut on Steam, Activision has disabled family sharing in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The change was made without notification, but SteamDB indicates that the feature was switched off at 12:21 ET on October 31.

Embracer shuts down Square Enix Montréal two months after buying it
https://www.pcgamer.com/embracer-shuts-down-square-enix-montreal-two-months-after-buying-it/
In August the all-devouring holdings company known as Embracer Group glommed up multiple Square Enix studios as part of a $300 million deal. It devoured Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montréal in a single bite, giving it access to the Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain, and Tomb Raider IPs. Just two months after the acquisition was finalized Square Enix Montréal is being shut down, Bloomberg reports.
>> Sad, but with already one studio in Montreal, it kind of makes sense to merge both of them.

A new Deus Ex is reported to be in 'very early' development at Eidos Montreal
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-new-deus-ex-is-reported-to-be-in-very-early-development-at-eidos-montreal/
Today's announcement of the closure of Studio Onoma came as a real surprise—the name was only given to the studio formerly known as Square Enix Montreal a few weeks ago. But amidst that unfortunate news was a very faint, distant spot of light for Deus Ex fans: According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, work on a new game in the Deus Ex series has begun.

EA plans to release a 'major' game before April, but won't say what it is
https://www.pcgamer.com/ea-plans-to-release-a-major-game-before-april-but-wont-say-what-it-is/
During an update for investors today, EA said that it plans to release a "major IP" sometime before March 31, 2023. For reasons I'll get into, there's a good chance it's Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the sequel to 2019 Respawn action adventure game Jedi: Fallen Order. First, though, a few words from EA CEO Andrew Wilson on why EA isn't being specific about what this "major IP" is.

Frontier acquires the studio behind Warhammer 40K: Daemonhunters with an eye to 'more ambitious future titles'
https://www.pcgamer.com/frontier-acquires-the-studio-behind-warhammer-40k-daemonhunters-with-an-eye-to-more-ambitious-future-titles/
Frontier Developments, maker of games in which you tinker with spaceships and games in which you tinker with race cars, has announced that it is acquiring Complex Games, the Canadian studio behind Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate — Daemonhunters. The deal is the first time Frontier has acquired a development studio, which is probably why it opted to buy one it had worked with before: Daemonhunters was published by Frontier Foundry, the company's publishing arm.

Harvestella will offer a non-binary pronoun option
https://www.pcgamer.com/harvestella-will-offer-a-non-binary-pronoun-option/
Harvestella, the upcoming farming sim from Square Enix, will offer a non-binary gender option in its character creator.
It was first revealed a couple of weeks ago, when the developer shared some screenshots of its character creator on Twitter. It showed separate pronoun and body options as well as standard hair and eye colours. The gender selection in particular stood out, and now Harvestella's producer has offered some more insight into the decision behind it.

Level Zero is a terrifying sci-fi asymmetrical horror where aliens stalk in the dark
https://www.pcgamer.com/level-zero-is-a-terrifying-sci-fi-asymmetrical-horror-where-aliens-stalk-in-the-dark/
I'm terrified of the dark and giant killer monster aliens, so new asymmetrical multiplayer horror Level Zero is doing a great job of playing into my deepest, darkest fears.

The Past Within, a 'real-life escape room experience' for two players, is out now
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-past-within-a-real-life-escape-room-experience-for-two-players-is-out-now/
One of the most intriguing demos I played during the Steam Next Fest back in February was The Past Within. It's an asymmetric co-op puzzle game set in the deeply weird world of Rusty Lake, which until now has been exclusively a singleplayer realm. Despite the move to multiplayer, The Past Within retains all the hallmarks of the series, including unsettling music, creepy narration, and simplistic yet somehow deeply disturbing graphics.

Well, they may not be leading but following what Nvidia has done before, but at least they're adding some of those features. And you've mentioned some of them as selling points to choose Nvidia over AMD in the past, so it's good that they're following suit.

Guys. I ordered a gpu. Could be real price or price error. Let's see if it ships.

It is AMD 6750 XT. $435 CAD tax in. Around $318 usd.

Less ray tracing and such but i've never had ray tracing, so won't know what am missing.

Impressive price and congrats. That's cheaper than a lot of vanilla 3060s so you would have gotten similar RT performance anyway. The raster performance on 6750xt should be crazy tho.

Most NVidia cards are also way overpriced right now, especially on the lower end.

For the price of a 3050, you can get a 6600XT

For the price of a 3060, you can get a 6700XT

For the price of a 3060Ti, you can get a 6800XT

Yea Nvidia GPUs are certainly not price competitive but that is also reflected in the used market from what I have seen. I was going to sell my Strix 3080 which I bought for $1250 CAD during launch, now it's selling for $850-$900 in the used market. AIB 6800XTs are selling for around $700-$750 in comparison, sometimes less. If you don't care about Nvidia goodies like RT/DLSS/Reflex, then it's pretty easy to recommend going with Radeon.

Even of you care about those, it still makes more sense recommending the AMD GPUs over the similarly-priced NVidia variants right now.

Due to the performance disparity, the gap in Raytracing is very narrow at that price tag, and DLSS has FSR as an AMD counterpart that has catched up enough to make both virtually indistinguishable from each other in movement. Which just leaves Reflex as an advantage that NVidia GPUs still have at those price tags, but that one's not big enough to fill the gap in raw performance.

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-is-now-selling-ryzen-7-5800x3d-for-329

Apparently, we're going to have some sweet new prices for the Ryzen 5000s.

Ryzen 9 5950X: $799 → $549 ($250 discount)
Ryzen 9 5900X: $549 → $349 ($200 discount)
Ryzen 7 5800X3D: $449 → $329 ($120 discount)
Ryzen 7 5800X: $449 → $249 ($200 discount)
Ryzen 5 5600X: $299 → $159 ($140 discount)

Those are crazy good prices, that will hurt Intel much more than anything Zen 4 can do for now until they get their own X3D versions. Plus you get Uncharted as a free game with all of those CPUs.

Sadly, the site gives me automatically the prices in Euro, which are not quite as good. Though maybe that's because VAT is included. To get the US prices from the Euro prices, simply multiply by 0.8 and you're there.

It also shows that the 5700G and 5600G also had quite the price drop, and if I calculated the dollar prices correctly, they stand at $199 and $129 respectively. For someone who's just gaming on an integrated GPU, the latter is especially interesting right now. Too bad AMD never made desktop versions of the Ryzen 6000 chips - though maybe they'll announce those tonight.

Yea like I said, Nvidia GPUs are certainly not price competitive currently. It's more so if you managed to buy a Nvidia GPU during launch, your GPU would have retained a higher value when it comes to selling it. But if you are buying a new GPU now, Radeon does win in the value argument by quite a lot.

Very juicy prices. Makes spending extra money to buy zen 4 pretty pointless with that 5800X3D price. And if you haven't bought Alder Lake, not much reason to invest into getting Raptor Lake either.