Latest from Tom’s Hardware All the latest content from the Tom’s Hardware team
- AMD shares first official benchmarks for EPYC ‘Venice’ CPUs, targets Nvidia — company claims 256-core chip is more than twice as fast as Nvidia Vera, 96-core model 20% faster per-coreby Jake Roach on September 18, 2026 at 9:51 pm
AMD has released several benchmarks for its EPYC ‘Venice’ CPUs in a clear shot at Nvidia.
- Details about Intel’s next-gen Nova Lake CPUs keep leaking — an attempt to establish a timeline based on what we know so farby Jake Roach on September 18, 2026 at 7:45 pm
Over the past two weeks, we’ve seen an uptick in leaks and rumors about Intel’s upcoming Nova Lake CPUs. Here, we piece together what we’ve heard to try and establish a plausible release timeline.
- Save up to 40% on Elegoo 3D printers during its September sale, from just $159 — Elegoo Day deals mean you can save on a new FDM or resin printer, with big bulk discounts on consumablesby Ben Stockton on September 18, 2026 at 3:45 pm
Get yourself a new 3D printer this September from Elegoo during its Elegoo Day sales, with up to 40% off right now.
- China’s premier memory maker CXMT eyes producing flash for SSDs, report claims — 3D NAND research and development line rumored for its second manufacturing facility near Beijingby ashilov@gmail.com (Anton Shilov) on September 18, 2026 at 3:34 pm
China’s DRAM champion CXMT is reportedly planning to enter 3D NAND production as it plots 3D NAND research programs and pilot line at its future fab near Beijing.
- House passes act to make AI data centers pay for grid upgrades to minimize impact on residents — measure directs states to consider adoption of federal standard within two years of passingby editors@tomshardware.com (Jowi Morales) on September 18, 2026 at 3:20 pm
This Ratepayer Protection Act will make data centers pay for grid upgrades made in their name. However, it still has to go through the senate and the White House, before being considered by individual state regulators for adoption.
- NOR Flash and SLC NAND production are under threat as capacity gets routed to more profitable products — ‘severe undersupply’ threatens everyday electronicsby Chris Stokel-Walker on September 18, 2026 at 2:38 pm
NOR Flash and SLC NAND are the latest products to be impacted by the ongoing AI buildout, with capacities tightening and production being routed to more lucrative chips.
- Hackers breach OpenAI using Claude tools, gaining access to employee accounts and the company’s internal codebase — attackers initiated a ‘harmless’ pull request as proof of the hackby Etiido Uko on September 18, 2026 at 1:45 pm
A team of white-hat hackers from cybersecurity startup Hackron AI has successfully hacked OpenAI using Claude tools.
- AI developer vibe codes DLSS 5 onto Intel CPU’s integrated graphics — Intel Arc 140T runs neural rendering in 360p at 10 frames per secondby Zak Killian on September 18, 2026 at 1:15 pm
Using AI tools, a new developer has managed to get DLSS 5 neural rendering running on Intel Lunar Lake’s integrated Arc graphics, albeit with abysmal performance.
- Control Resonant PC performance tested: 28 GPUs take us back to the Oldest House and a warped Manhattan cityscapeby Jeffrey Kampman on September 18, 2026 at 1:01 pm
Control Resonant’s warped Manhattan cityscape pushes graphics cards to the max thanks to path-traced lighting effects and full support for Nvidia’s DLSS 4.5 technologies. We put it to the test to see how it performs on 28 graphics cards from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel.
- Prusa CORE One L+ review: More preciseby editors@tomshardware.com (Denise Bertacchi) on September 18, 2026 at 1:00 pm
Prusa Research makes its large CORE One a tiny bit better in a very important way.
- Microsoft director called AI scraping ‘the largest theft of labor in human history,’ while OpenAI head brands ChatGPT an ‘existential threat’ to publishers — revelations come from legal briefs filed in NYT lawsuitby editors@tomshardware.com (Jowi Morales) on September 18, 2026 at 12:49 pm
The NYT filed a legal brief revealing potentially damaging statements from Microsoft and OpenAI regarding the copyright infringement case it brought against the two companies. The publication is now seeking a summary judgment from the court, almost three years since it started the case.
- US frontier AI companies warn authorities over sophisticated distillation attacks — China warns of ‘countermeasures’ if America tries to constrain domestic AI modelsby Jon Martindale on September 18, 2026 at 12:20 pm
U.S. AI companies and the government are increasingly concerned about the effectiveness of international competition using distillation attacks to glean valuable data from frontier models to train cheaper, faster alternatives overseas.
- Modder gets Nvidia’s DLSS 5 working in a web browser using WebGPU — 147MB browser port runs on non-Nvidia GPUs and macOS but takes two seconds per renderby Shane Downing on September 18, 2026 at 12:00 pm
A developer’s live WebGPU demo runs Nvidia’s DLSS 5 neural rendering in a web browser, but also apparently runs on macOS.
- US chip fabs face massive 157,000 worker shortfall, mere 3% of US engineering grads enter chipmaking — despite six-figure salaries, US chip manufacturers are in dire need of engineers and techniciansby editors@tomshardware.com (Jowi Morales) on September 18, 2026 at 11:30 am
As many semiconductor fabs and facilities go online in the 2030s and beyond, a global consulting firm said that these sites will need thousands of engineers and technicians that the U.S. will be hard-pressed to fill.
- ASML snubs Elon Musk-backed particle accelerator chipmaking tech — firm doubles down on 1,000W laser-produced plasma systems for chipmaking toolsby ashilov@gmail.com (Anton Shilov) on September 18, 2026 at 11:00 am
With progress that ASML makes with its LPP EUV light sources for its scanners, the company is barely interesting in adopting particle accelerator-based FEL sources.
- Save $300 on this 4K gaming PC with a 9800X3D and RTX 5070 Ti, now $2,599 — powerhouse ABS Stratos II rig ships with 32GB DDR5 and a 2TB SSDby Ben Stockton on September 18, 2026 at 10:56 am
A 4K-capable gaming machine from ABS, featuring the powerful RTX 5070 Ti, AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 32GB DDR5, and a 2TB SSD, all for $2,599.99.
- Hacker turns 25 cents into 46 billion fake Bitcoins to steal $770,000 — Symbiosis DeFi exchange bit by lack of basic bounds checking in smart contractby editors@tomshardware.com (Bruno Ferreira) on September 18, 2026 at 10:30 am
Symbiosis DeFi network gets hacked for at least $770,000 worth of Bitcoin — DeFi exchange bit by lack of basic bounds checking in smart contract
- Huawei details AI accelerator roadmap, pulls in next-generation Ascend NPUs by several quarters — FP4 performance of the Ascend 960PR doubles expectationsby ashilov@gmail.com (Anton Shilov) on September 18, 2026 at 10:30 am
Huawei’s mimics Nvidia’s approach to AI factories, unveils details about next-generation Ascend NPUs, Kunpeng CPUs, scale-up and scale-out connectivity solutions.
- Man arrested for selling $50 3D-printed machine gun conversion kits to undercover cops — ‘Glock switches’ turn pistols into fully-automatic weaponsby editors@tomshardware.com (Jowi Morales) on September 18, 2026 at 10:00 am
Emani Rey Justavino of Jacksonville, Florida, was arrested for selling more than 50 ‘Glock switch’ converters that gives the pistols fully automatic capabilities. The suspect claims that he 3D-printed the entire batch overnight and offered them all at a discount to an undercover ATF agent.
- Balatro fan claims they trained Google fruit fly brain simulation to beat the game — reinforcement learning currently has the model at 20% success rateby Jake Roach on September 17, 2026 at 3:26 pm
One Balatro player says they’ve taken Google’s mapped fruit fly brain and trained it to play Balatro, currently at a 20% success rate with plans for further refinement.
- Acer Swift Air 14 review: Wildcat Lake and lots of ports at $699by Andrew E. Freedman on September 17, 2026 at 2:15 pm
The Acer Swift Air 14 is an aluminum budget system with lots of ports and long battery life. But it sports a lesser display than its competitors, and tons of bloatware.
- Investigative report details how export-restricted Nvidia AI chips reach China — public records reveal how Chinese entities skirt US sanctionsby editors@tomshardware.com (Bruno Ferreira) on September 17, 2026 at 12:00 pm
American nonprofit C4ADS, a monitoring organization funded mostly by the U.S. government, produced a report shedding light on the many ways that American AI accelerators reach China.
- New York State recommends demanding AI data centers pay $1 million in community investment per megawatt — framework advises towns to plan for maintenance costs, site abandonment, and other contingenciesby editors@tomshardware.com (Jowi Morales) on September 17, 2026 at 11:44 am
The Community Investment Framework puts forward recommendations that towns and municipalities could follow when negotiating with data center developers. This includes charging $1 million per megawatt of demand, among other suggestions.
- Hackers find encryption keys stored on stolen Flock camera despite company’s denials — group extracts more than 27,000 clips, 1.6 million images captured in a span of 21 days from the deviceby editors@tomshardware.com (Jowi Morales) on September 17, 2026 at 11:30 am
Hacking group stegan0gram got its hands on a Flock camera and broke into its systems to see how it worked. It turns out that these devices store thousands of clips and captures millions of images, and could also detect people, aside from cars, motorbikes, and license plates.
- Get an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D for only $320 — 2-item Newegg combo saves $149 and nets one of the fastest gaming CPUs and a quality MSI X870E motherboard for only $578by Joe Shields on September 17, 2026 at 11:28 am
Newegg’s 2-item combo pairs the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with MSI X870E Gaming Max Wifi motherboard for only $578 – the $149 savings makes this the cheapest way into the AM5 platform with one of the fastest gaming CPUs around.
























