For years now, Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass has set itself apart by offering subscribers launch-day access to new first-party titles in addition to a large legacy library of older games. That important "day one" perk is now set to go away for all but the highest tier of Game Pass' console subscribers, even as Microsoft asks for more money for Game Pass across the board. Let's start with the price increases for existing Game Pass tiers, which are relatively straightforward: - "Game Pass Ultimate" is going from $16.99 to $19.99 per month. - "Game Pass for PC" is going from $9.99 to $11.99 per month. - "Game Pass Core" (previously known as Xbox Live Gold) is going from $59.99 to $74.99 for annual subscriptions (and remains at $9.99 for monthly subscriptions). Things get a bit more complicated for the $10.99/month "Xbox Game Pass for Console" tier. Microsoft announced that it will no longer accept new subscriptions for that tier after today, though current subscribers will be able to keep it (for now) if they auto-renew their subscriptions.

PowerColor has come up with an interesting use for neural processing units (NPUs) in modern CPUs. At Computex 2024, it displayed so-called "Edge AI" technology that pairs a graphics card with an NPU to lower power consumption in games. The thing works by linking an AMD graphics card with a neural processing unit via "PowerColor GUI," resulting in rather impressive efficiency gains. The manufacturer claims Edge AI managed to lower power consumption in Cyberpunk 2077 from 263W to 205W, which is a 22% improvement. In Final Fantasy XV, the result was also impressive at 18%. But it is not just energy efficiency, something hardcore PC gamers often dismiss as irrelevant when you need to push frame rates to the very limits. Visitors confirmed that the use of an NPU by PowerColor's software increased frame rates by 10% when compared to a "dumb" system without a neural processing unit.