This digest compiles the latest from Tech Spot.
Today’s Tech Spot Roundup
Nvidia may have ended its Open Price Program that incentivized MSRP, "massive" GPU price increases expected
Claims that Nvidia has ended OPP come from Roman ‘Der8auer’ Hartung and HardwareLuxx. In a video on his YouTube channel, Der8auer describes the initiative as “basically like a cashback thing where Nvidia tried to actively influence the AIBs and the pricing to make sure that some cards happen on the…
Gemini now offers free SAT practice tests with instant scoring
Typing a simple request, such as “I want to take a practice SAT test,” triggers the creation of a full exam interface, complete with clickable answer options, score-visualization charts, and automated grading. Once a practice session ends, the chatbot summarizes performance metrics and highlights subject areas that need additional attention.
AMD's 9850X3D locks in the $499 sweet spot for gaming CPUs
That price puts the new chip $20 above the original launch price of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and roughly $30 higher than many current listings, leaving AMD with a modest premium for what it describes as a small uplift in frame rates rather than a generational jump.
Apple and AMD now each hold about 20% of the laptop CPU market
According to recent data from Mercury Research and Bernstein Research obtained by Citrini Research, Apple’s laptop CPU market share has reached approximately 20%, matching AMD’s. Combined, the two companies have dragged Intel’s share down by over 20% since 2018. A similar situation has occurred in the desktop sector, although AMD’s…
Asus addresses Ryzen 7 9800X3D failure reports on 800-series motherboards
There have been at least five documented cases over the last two weeks of Ryzen 7 9800X3D systems that have stopped posting on Asus AM5 boards, including B850 and X870E models – though some reports go back to the 9800X3D’s launch.
Blue Origin targets enterprise networks with a 5,400-satellite megaconstellation
In an announcement that caught even seasoned industry watchers off guard, Blue Origin said TeraWave will deliver aggregate global throughput of up to 6 terabits per second, using a hybrid network of 5,408 optically interconnected satellites distributed between low and medium Earth orbits.
Elon Musk says aging is a "very solvable problem" during surprise World Economic Forum debut
Musk made his WEF debut yesterday for an interview with BlackRock CEO and interim WEF cochair Larry Fink. The world’s richest man has long criticized the organization for “increasingly becoming an unelected world government.”
TikTok's long-running US saga ends with a deal that averts a ban
The deal, first announced in December, transfers control of TikTok’s US operations to a new entity majority-owned by American investors, including cloud-computing giant Oracle, private-equity firm Silver Lake Management, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX.
Nvidia DLSS 4.5 vs DLSS 4: Good But Not Flawless
Nvidia DLSS 4.5 arrives with a new transformer model promising better image quality, but not without performance trade-offs. We test DLSS 4.5 vs DLSS 4 to see where this latest upscaler genuinely improves.
End of today’s Tech Spot roundup.
