With last year’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD turned its long-awaited 3D V-Cache technology into a reality. That innovation allowed the company to stack more cache onto its CPUs, something that’s particularly helpful for demanding tasks like games. Unfortunately, AMD wasn’t able to reach the same clock speeds as the original 5800X, which made the chip tough for some reviewers to recommend. Now, it appears that AMD has (mostly) solved that problem.
Today at CES, AMD unveiled its first Ryzen 7000 CPUs with 3D V-Cache, the 8-core Ryzen 7 7800X3D with 104MB of combined L2 and L3 cache, the 12-core Ryzen 9 7900X3D with 140MB of cache, and the king of them all, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D with a whopping 144MB of cache. What’s truly impressive about the 7950X3D and 7900X3D, though, is that they can also reach the full 5.7GHz and 5.6GHz boost speeds of their 2D counterparts. Their base speeds are a bit slower, to be clear, but they shouldn’t feel like the step down the 5800X3D was.
It remains to be seen how much of an upgrade these chips will be, but cache-hungry gamers will likely be intrigued. AMD says the new V-Cache CPUs will be available in February, but there aren’t any pricing details just yet.
AMD
AMD also rounded out its Ryzen 7000 desktop family, which initially launched last year, with a slew of 65-watt chips coming on January 10th. Those include the 12-core Ryzen 9 7900 ($429), the 8-core Ryzen 7 7700 ($329) and the 6-core Ryzen 5 7600 ($229). Not everyone needs 3D V-Cache, after all.
After taking a big swing at high-end desktop gaming with its RDNA 3 GPUs, AMD is bringing that technology down to laptops. At CES today, the company unveiled an array of Radeon RX 7000 mobile graphics cards. There’s the Radeon RX 7600M XT and 7600M, both targeted at high fps 1080p gaming, as well as the RX 7700S and RX 7600S, which are meant for thin and light notebooks. But that’s not all! There are also a few more mobile GPUs using AMD’s last-gen RDNA 2 technology, which will likely end up in more affordable laptops.
Let’s start with the RX 7600M XT, though, as it represents the pinnacle of AMD’s laptop gaming ambitions. It features 32 compute units, 8GB of GDDR6 memory, and it can use up to 120 watts worth of power. According to AMD, it soundly beats the desktop RTX 3060 GPU, which is notable since that card is faster than NVDIA’s laptop models. The 7600M XT can reach up to 184 fps in Hitman 3 with maxed out graphics settings, whereas the 12GB RTX 3060 hits 160fps. It’s not faster in every title, though, as AMD notes that the new GPU is 9fps slower than the 3060 in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (145fps vs 154 fps).
AMD
It’ll be more interesting to see how the RX 7700S and 7600S actually perform in thin and light machines. The 7700S features the same 32 compute units and 8GB of RAM as the 7600M XT, but it maxes out at 100W of power. AMD says the 7700S can reach up to 87fps in Cyberpunk 2077 and 147fps in Death Stranding with maxed out 1080p graphics.
Based on my review of AMD’s RDNA 3 GPUs, it’s clear the company has some powerful architecture. But those cards also lagged far behind NVIDIA’s when it came to ray tracing performance, especially once I enabled DLSS 3 upscaling. AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 3.0 upscaling just couldn’t compete. The company says it’s developed a new feature, dubbed Smart Shift RSR, which offers upscaling “decoupled from the GPU.” Details are a bit fuzzy, but it supposedly adds more performance. AMD says it’ll arrive sometime in the first half of 2023.
You can expect to see AMD’s Radeon RX 7000 GPUs in laptops next month. It’ll be featured in AMD Advantage editions of Alienware’s M16 and M18, as well as ASUS’s TUF Gaming A16. Almost as an afterthought, AMD also briefly noted the launched of several new Radeon 6000 GPUs, including the Radeon RX 6550M, featuring 16 compute units and 4GB of RAM. A wider variety of GPUs is ultimately a good thing for consumers, since it means you’re more likely to find a gaming laptop within your budget.
Sony is building a better PlayStation 5 controller with Project Leonardo, a kit that promises to make games easier to play for people with limited motor control. In initial images, Project Leonardo is a set of circular gamepads lined with buttons and directional input methods, all of it customizable. Sony says the system will work “out of the box” with the PS5, allowing players to craft their ideal gamepad by mapping buttons, swapping out hardware bits and creating distinct profiles.
Project Leonardo can be used on its own or paired with DualSense controllers — up to two Leonardos and one DualSense can be read as one gamepad by the PS5. This grants players flexibility and also allows other people to help control games.
Sony
The hardware includes four 3.5mm AUX ports to accommodate a variety of existing accessibility accessories and switches. The controller itself lies flat on a table or can be mounted on a tripod; it doesn’t need to be held. Sony partnered with a handful of organizations, including AbleGamers, SpecialEffect and Stack Up, while designing Project Leonardo.
With Project Leonardo, Sony is taking clear cues from Microsoft, which has been a leader in accessibility tech, particularly in the gaming space. Microsoft released the Xbox Adaptive Controller in 2018 and it had many of the same selling points as Sony’s new endeavor, but in a longer and flatter package. Microsoft has a new laboratory focused on building inclusive hardware and a five-year plan to improve the technology landscape for people with disabilities.
One of the major draws of the Xbox Adaptive Controller is its price, which was also designed to be accessible: $100. There’s no word on how much Project Leonardo will cost; there’s also no release window.
On the PlayStation Blog, Sony designer So Morimoto described Project Leondardo as follows:“Our team tested over a dozen designs with accessibility experts, looking for approaches that would help address key challenges to effective controller use. We finally settled on a ‘split controller’ design that allows near free-form left/right thumbstick repositionability, can be used without needing to be held, and features very flexible button and stick cap swapping.”
There was more positive news for the PS5 out of Sony’s CES press conference today — PlayStation head Jim Ryan declared an official end to the PS5 shortage, saying, “Everyone who wants a PS5 should have a much easier time finding one at retailers globally starting from this point forward.” That should is doing a lot of heavy lifting, of course.
Sony executives shared a few details about the upcoming vehicle including that it has 14 exterior cameras — 45 of them in total! — as well as a grille-mounted “Media Bar” that will display pertinent charging and vehicle information, “which allows intelligent mobility to express itself to surrounding people using light, enabling interactive communication between mobility and people,” according to Wednesday’s release. SHM also noted that online pre-orders will begin in mid-2025 ahead of deliveries scheduled for spring of 2026. We’ll have a hands-on from the show floor on Thursday, stay tuned!
So that’s what Gran Turismo is really about. The first Gran Turismo teaser shows off sleek cars and angles ripped straight out of the game franchise, all from the lens of District 9 director Neill Blomkamp. Blomkamp helped introduce the short video during Sony’s CES 2023 show, where executives played up their plans to adapt even more game franchises to film and television. Gran Turismo is due to hit theaters on August 11th.
The film is based on a true story, apparently — it follows a teenage Gran Turismo player who uses his sweet gaming skills to become a real-world racecar driver. The teenager is played by Archie Madekwe (Simon from Midsommar), and the movie also stars David Harbour (Stranger Things), Orlando Bloom (the early 2000s) and Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice).
The Gran Turismo movie has spent some time in development hell — much like the video game series itself, which has a reputation for being delayed. A version of the film was completely scrapped in 2018 after spending five years in development, and Blomkamp is the second director to be attached to a Gran Turismo project. However, things have moved quickly since development on the current movie started in May 2022, with filming wrapped by that December.
Gran Turismo isn’t the only game-film crossover project in the works at Sony. There’s a whole HBO series based on The Last of Us premiering January 15th, a Twisted Metal show heading to Peacock, and a film based on Ghost of Tsushima still to come.
It’s taken longer than we’d hope, but since October, the FDA finally established a framework for new category of hearing aids that don’t need a medical exam, prescription or a fitting by an audiologist. Unsurprisingly we’re seeing the first OTC products being announced at CES. Sennheiser, a mainstay of the consumer audio world, is tossing its proverbial hat into the ring with the Conversation Clear Plus.
As the name suggests, the focus appears to be on dialogue (rather than the holistic hearing experience). Sennheiser says the earbuds will make it easier to understand conversations in noisy environments. This, the company claims, is achieved in a number of ways. At the heart of the device is a Sonova chip. Sonova is behind some of the legacy names in hearing aids such as Phonak and Unitron and it also bought Sennheiser’s consumer audio business about 18 months ago.
The Conversation Clear Plus looks a lot like a pair of regular true wireless headphones which will go a long way to removing any stigma or association with conventional hearing aids. Unsurprisingly, they do share a lot of features with regular headphones too. That includes active noise cancellation, even if the application here is more focused on reducing background noise in relation to dialogue.
Sennheiser
Like most wireless headphones you’ll have the option to adjust the amount of noise reduction and there’s a companion app for further tuning your hearing experience. Sennheiser says there are three main prestets: Relax, Communication and Streaming. Those are all fairly self explanatory, but the last one marks a key difference between this category and legacy hearing aids — the ability to stream music and audio from your phone. Some hearing aids can do this, but it’s often a sub-optimal experience given that it’s not what they were primarily designed for. Given Sennheiser’s credentials in the headphone world, it seems likely streaming will be comparable to its consumer headphones.
On a more practical note, the Conversation Clear Plus offers a nine hour battery life per charge, with an additional 27 hours/three charges available via the case.
One of the big promises with OTC hearing aids was a significant reduction in cost. Typically a set with a fitting from an audiologist would cost several thousand dollars, the Conversation Clear Plus will retail for $850. The experiences between the two different product categories will obviously be somewhat distinct, given the different form factor, but the modern, gadgety design will appeal to a lot of folks that might otherwise be turned off by the clinical design of classic hearing aids.
The Conversation Clear Plus will be available for pre-order starting Jan 5 and will go on general sale Jan 20.
EV’s are notorious for losing range in cold weather in part because energy that would otherwise be used to propel the vehicle forward is instead diverted to warm the vehicle cabin. Prototype “heat belts” (oh I get it, a pun) from ZF could help eliminate that thermal waste by using the same principle as an electric blanket.
Essentially, instead of trying to warm all of the air in the cabin, ZF’s 70W heat belts warm up just the front of the driver’s torso and pelvis. “In combination with heated seats, the heated seat belt has the potential to provide occupant comfort quickly,” wrote ZF’s Andreas Neemann on Wednesday. “Reducing the amount of battery current used to heat the interior of the vehicle, may enable a range gain of up to 15 percent.”
The seatbelts conduct heat because they also conduct electricity through tiny heating elements woven into the belt’s fabric. The company asserts that these elements will not impact the seat belt’s crash performance, and both feel and look identical to existing belts. Unfortunately, details are scarce beyond that. The company has not revealed how warm they get, when they’ll be available or on what vehicles.
One of the biggest reasons I don’t have a wall mount for my TV is because I don’t want to deal with the mess of installation. The dust, the drilling, the permanence — all of that gives me stress (I know, I know, I’m more sensitive than most people). So when I heard that the Displace wireless TV can be attached to any wall or surface without a mount, I was very excited. This is a 55-inch 4K OLED screen that uses active-loop vacuum technology to suction itself into place, and the company built handles into the frame to make it easier to hoist. The Displace also has four onboard batteries that eliminate the need for a power cord, and they’re hot swappable so you don’t have to wait for one to recharge before you can watch your TV again.
Because the prototypes we saw in Vegas were custom designed for CES, the company says details about battery size and charge time aren’t available yet. But they did say that they expect users to get a month of runtime if they watch six hours of TV a day. Part of the reason the Displace can do without a power cord is because it doesn’t do very heavy processing onboard. It’s basically streaming media from a base station that comes with the device and performs the rendering.
My favorite thing about the Displace TV is the ease of setup. I wasn’t allowed to try this out myself since the prototypes were fairly precious, so I could only watch as the company’s CEO slid his hands into the two slots and lifted the screen. According to Displace, each unit weighs less than 20 pounds, which is impressively light.
The CEO took the TV over to a window, and when the vacuum loops on the back detected it was in contact with a surface, the mechanism whirred to life and began sucking itself onto the glass. After about 8 seconds, it was quiet, which indicated that it had affixed itself and was secure. I was then able to try jiggling the unit and see if I could pry it out of place. I didn’t try very hard, since I was afraid of damaging the prototype, but I will say the screen seemed pretty securely attached. I’d say I used the equivalent force of opening a refrigerator door to try and get the suction to budge and it did not.
To dismount the TV, you’d have to press and hold a button on either side, and wait for the vacuum loops to slowly disengage. The company said this mechanism works with any flat surface — even if there is some slight texture like drywall. We tried to put the demo unit up on another wall, but couldn’t find a spot wide enough to accommodate the 55-inch panel.
The Displace TV also has a pop-up 4K camera built into the top of the frame, and it doesn’t just facilitate high-res video calls. The company’s custom software powering the TV also allows for some gesture control, which is the only way to interact with the TV as there isn’t a separate remote. For example, holding up your palm during playback will pause your show, while using two hands to mimic a stretching action can zoom in and out of items on the screen. If you have multiple Displace TVs, you can arrange four of them into a square and zoom into the feed from a specific quarter, for example.
There’s also a very Minority Report-esque gesture that involves “grabbing” the content from one screen and “throwing” it at another one nearby. And if you point the thumbs up gesture at the camera, it activates a mode that has your content follow you as you walk around your house into different rooms. Since they’re all streaming from the same base station, the multiple screens can pick up your content where you left it in a different room.
Cherlynn Low / Engadget
If you’re feeling baller, you can put four Displace TVs together to create a 110-inch 8K TV. In that scenario, the relatively thin bezels here can help minimize disruption when four screens are playing as one. But Displace told Engadget it was also working on future models that could be bezel-less to eliminate the borders altogether. The company also has many plans, including exploring potential partnerships to build in some form of wireless charging, as well as releasing an API to allow third-party developers to create applications for the hardware.
For now, though, I’m already pretty impressed by the concept and want one. At $3,000, though, the Displace TV is fairly pricey. Only 100 units are available for pre-order at the moment, and the company said they’ll start shipping in December. I’m anxious to get one to see how well the vacuum system holds up over time — the last thing I want is to wake up to the crash of a $3,000 TV breaking my furniture, hopes and dreams.
EA gave Madden NFL 23 players an unwanted gift last week: corrupted save files. The publisher said on Saturday that anyone who tried to access the game’s Connected Franchise Mode (CFM) during a server outage has a 60 percent chance of losing their saved data forever.
The initial server issues occurred on Wednesday, December 28th and stretched into the following day. As a result, EA says files were corrupted for anyone who logged into franchise leagues during that period. (Save files should be unaffected for anyone who didn’t.) Unfortunately, EA’s development team estimates it will only recover 40 percent of the corrupted franchises.
Making matters worse, EA tweeted on December 28th that “users should now be able to play CFM without issue” — three days before delivering the bad news about lost saves. After apologizing, it encouraged affected gamers to “start a new franchise as the mode is up and running.” The publisher also directs customers to follow the Madden franchise account on Twitter for further updates.
Update!
After todays maintenance users should now be able to play CFM without issue. If you continue to have trouble please contact EA Help or let us know in this thread. Thank you!
The Madden series’ franchise mode first appeared in Madden NFL 99, with the rebranded CFM arriving in 2013. (The latest version lets you control a player, coach or owner throughout a simulated career.) Considering how many hours it can take to build your league, it’s hard to imagine gamers with borked saves being content with EA’s advice to start a new file.
JBL revealed five new soundbar models at CES 2023, but the Bar 1300X sits at the top of the lineup. The 11.1.4-channel speaker is capable of 1,170 watts of output with Dolby Atmos and DTS:X onboard for immersive 3D sound. Inside, there are 21 total drivers, six of which are upfiring. That half dozen is three times more than some companies offer, a decision JBL says is meant to make the most out of its MultiBeam spatial audio tech.
In 2020, JBL first debuted a soundbar with detachable rear satellite speakers. On the Bar 1300X those units pack in one upfiring speaker each and can last up to 10 hours on a charge (they charge when you reattach them to the main bar). Being completely wireless, you’re free to position them wherever you like. They also double as Bluetooth speakers, both individually or a stereo pair. Once you remove the speakers, there are snap-on covers included as you’ll expose side-pointing tweeters you’ll want to protect. In terms of connection, there’s one HDMI/ARC to connect to your TV and three additional HDMI inputs.
During my demo, I was able to watch a chaotic chase scene from Ready Player One. With the rear speakers detached and situated behind me, I was impressed by how immersive the audio was from the 1300X. The footage was loud with lots going on, but the audio remained crisp and clear, and most importantly, the directional audio enhanced the viewing experience. There was also plenty booming bass from the 12-inch wireless subwoofer.
JBL’s PureVoice is available across its entire 2023 lineup to enhance dialogue when other loud sounds are also part of a scene. This feature is impressive as well, boosting spoken words without taking away from everything else that’s going on. The tech performs equally well on the $400 entry-level Bar 300 too, an all-in-one option that musters great immersive audio from a single speaker. The 300 is the one model in JBL’s 2023 lineup that doesn’t come with a sub, though it does have integrated woofers. The company says you can’t add a wireless sub either as the Bar 300 isn’t compatible with them even if you purchase it separately.
The $1,700 Bar 1300X, like the rest of JBL’s new soundbars, will be available February 19th.
