Tom's Hardware Steam Giveaway: 'XCOM 2'

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Hey everyone! We've got another great Steam giveaway for you!

Up for grabs are three (3) copies of XCOM 2. As always, one will be awarded via the raffle (linked here) and two will be given away to participants who answer the discussion prompt located in the giveaway thread.

XCOM 2 is the sequel to the award-winning strategy game, XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Twenty years have passed since humanity lost the war against the alien invaders, and a new world order now exists on Earth. After years of lurking in the shadows, XCOM forces must rise and eliminate the alien occupation.

And now, for the discussion prompt:

Will AMD's next-gen Zen core microarchitecture live up to the hype?

The Steam Giveaway will run until 12pm EDT on Friday, September 9. The game will be awarded to the winners as a Steam gift. A Steam account is required to receive the prize and play the game.

Good luck and happy gaming!

Joshua Simenhoff
12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • commander raj
    That depends on what 'hype' you are referring to. If you mean, will it actually show up and stomp intel's current offers, like AMD is suggesting? Probably not. I can't think of a time where a pc parts maker has lagged behind as far as AMD is, and then suddenly showed up with a platform on parity or surpassing it's competition.

    Now, separate from the hype, focusing more on what consumers want, will AMD become competitive again (especially in the enthusiast market)? Take a look at some of the i7-6X00K reviews. They aren't glowing. Intel's in a transition period since its tick-tock pattern has finally faltered and the mobile industry straight up ignored them, so I'd say the opportunity is there for AMD to jump back into the mix.
    Reply
  • snurp85
    Assuming that the hype is referring to the claim that the Zen architecture will be competitive against Intel's higher end core i5's, then YES I do think it will live up to the hype. I think we will see AMD's new line be within 5% of intel's current processors in terms of benchmarks and will be priced aggressively. I dont think it will straight up beat intel's current processors, but it will be close enough to help AMD gain some market share back.
    Reply
  • unphazeable
    AMD hasn't beaten Intel since the Athlon 64 days. I think it'll be difficult for AMD to leap frog Intel (in terms of performance) since AMD has been playing catch up for quite some time. I can only hope that Zen will make things competitive enough so that we can see some type of market shake up.
    Reply
  • Gnom
    I don't believe it. AMD engineers are smart, but it's unlikely they can compete with the sheer numbers Intel can throw at their products.
    Reply
  • Nicholas Steel
    The Raffle link is the same as the Give Away Discussion link.
    Reply
  • bandrei
    Is not the first time when AMD brag, they display some nice graphics (for investors) with incredible (more or less) performances, and when times come, the real life tests are not as expected, or we wish to be.
    Maybe our hopes are too high, to have a good competition on CPU market, like is on video cards, where we see some nice/exciting releases every year, and we see prices changes, better performances, improved thermal solutions ...
    Reply
  • ChooFoolio
    Nothing can live up to it's hype. As hype is necessarily vague, will dream of unachievable goals as a reaction to hype. Hype's real purpose is in generating awareness of a product and is a marketing tool. In that sense it serves its purpose.

    Zen's impact on the processor market is a better question. Will it blow Intel out of the water? Little to no chance. Will it be competitive enough to get Intel more aggressive and be competitive in its own right? I hope so, but the information we have at this time doesn't point one way or the other. The Hype is of no help for answering that question.
    Reply
  • Stoneraaron1
    I would have to say no. Intel will probably have an answer(either as a response to Nvidia's 10 series or Volta architecture) soon after AMD's Zen launches.
    Reply
  • wizyy
    I do believe it will be AMD's best CPU in a long, long time... Therefore at least somewhat worth the hype. Won't beat the best Intel has to offer, but at least we'll have a very good alternative.
    Reply
  • ron baker
    pound for pound amd will lag intel by 5-8pct but this will be ignored a they will triumph in enough benchmarks to clain equality. Its all about pricing and power consumption, and lets see how the APU'S shape up.
    Reply