News archive
August 2026
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65 articles
- August 7
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- Scientist says RAM pricing has reverted to normalized 2007 levels — memory prices have been falling exponentially for decades, but the AI shortage undid 20 years of progress in a matter of months
- Amazon cracks down on 'CPU waste' among engineers as agentic AI crunch intensifies — CPU demand makes low-utilization EC2 instances a hot commodity
- Protesters haul a guillotine to city council meeting about a potential AI data center, company rep cornered by protestors — ‘ it no longer felt safe to stay,’ developer escorted out by police
- This week on Tom's Hardware Premium: August 7, 2026 — Inside China's lithography efforts, co-packaged optics get a spotlight, and Samsung debuts next-gen memory tech
- Introducing Bench 2.0 — a revamped benchmark analyzer, exclusively for Tom's Hardware Premium subscribers
- Apple revealed the first Mac Pro 20 years ago today — its Intel Xeon-powered flagship desktop took the reins from the Power Mac G5
- Nvidia sells RTX 50-series GPUs at MSRP during QuakeCon 2026 — graphics cards sold at launch prices more than a year after release are now considered an attraction
- Elon Musk's massive Terafab chip-making facility starts to take shape — 100 million square feet of manufacturing space and $16.8B initial capital investment
- Claude Opus 5 mistakenly deletes dev’s entire profile directory during routine backup, responds with 'Sorry, typo' — AI tool mistakes user's home directory as temporary backup, proceeds to wipe everything to undo the error
- August 6
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- Pre-modded 22GB RTX 2080 Ti cards surface on eBay for $500 as VRAM-hungry local AI fans chase down every spare FLOP — Hong Kong-based seller offers AI-friendly memory mod for a reasonable price
- After severe 76% electricity price hikes due to AI data centers, Virginia requires firms to pay for all dedicated upstream electrical infrastructure — state regulators crack down, governor says move will save civilians ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’
- $1 billion of iPhone 18 Pro chips 'on the shelves awaiting packaging' due to DRAM shortages — memory shortages reportedly put a wrinkle in Apple's launch plans
- Nashville attempts to block controversial data center near zoo with eminent domain — city could force developer to sell the land for public use, rather than $700 million installation
- PC gamer vibe-codes a safeguard against RTX 5090 power connector failures — monitors per-pin power draw, shuts down system if it exceeds 9.5A for more than 15 seconds
- VPN provider built a script to block Microsoft's hidden GDID tracking on Windows — Windscribe's "deGDID" erases existing identifiers and blocks new ones from being created
- Rogue OpenAI models behind 'unprecedented cybersecurity incident' teamed up to break out of their testing environment — multiple agents left each other messages for months, communicating undetected
- Kentucky family snubs $26 million offer to convert their farmland into an AI data center — 'they call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we’re not,' says landowner
- August 5
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- Microsoft wants the next-gen Xbox Helix to play every Xbox game ever made as it urges publishers to opt in — New report also claims Xbox 360 games coming to PC soon
- $4,429 order for a ROG Astral RTX 5090 cancelled by Nvidia due to a 'late' price increase, with Asus blamed — marketplace buyer refunded after immediate $500 increase, with top-spec GPU now almost 2.5x higher than MSRP
- Microsoft quietly purges 32GB of RAM recommendations from its website — company reels from the effects of the memory shortage as it released 8GB base models for Surface laptops this year
- US military GPS jamming exercise suspected of contributing to civilian plane crash in New Mexico — medevac flight lost signal before flying into a mountain, killing everyone onboard
- Elon Musk says SpaceX will exclusively use Nvidia GPUs 'because they are the best' — says optimized Vera Rubin NVL72 will be launched into space next year
- Frore claims its LiquidJet can drop Nvidia Rubin GPU temperatures by 10°C — can also boost performance by 15% as hyperscalers eye using delidded GPUs in production environments
- Crazed modder turns NAS into a gaming PC with RTX 5060 hanging from the side, boosts frame rate by 828% — Frankenstein rig hides dedicated PSU in drive bay, breaks Time Spy world record for the onboard CPU
- August 4
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- AMD doubles data center revenue year over year, but gaming revenue plunged by 31% — CEO Lisa Su says prices have 'weighed on' consumer demand but is 'optimistic' about client market
- More GPU price hikes loom for Asia as Japanese distributor warns of new increases — CFD Sales signals 20% to 40% higher prices on Gigabyte graphics card orders starting this month
- US mulling ban on key Chinese networking tech in data center component crackdown — White House wants to impose restrictions in 2026, China says it will respond if necessary
- Texas slams on the brakes for 1,800 data centers, power grid requirements are five times higher than peak record demand — 474 gigawatts of power requests are now subject to new moratorium
- Kioxia and Sandisk demonstrate the world's highest-density 3D NAND flash — 332 active layers and up to 4,800 MT/s interface
- New HBF spec outlines tech that can give GPUs terabytes of extra memory — Sandisk and SK hynix unveil spec with up to 16-Hi NAND stacks, 3 TB/s bandwidth, UCIe
- PC cooling outfit Arctic reverses tariff-era price hikes after US government refund — lowers prices across lineup, including coolers and case fans
- At least 37 people arrested in 2026 so far for protesting against data centers, most for breaking 'petty rules' — most taken into custody acted peacefully
- ‘Apple is getting this wrong,’ says OpenAI — startup blasts iPhone maker over lawsuit alleging it stole confidential information through ex-Apple employees
- Chinese ship spotted lurking over Taiwan-US undersea cables — 'research vessel' seen loitering above the 8,000-mile Pacific Light Cable Network fiber-optic system
- 16GB GPUs and 8-core CPUs officially become the most popular configs on Steam — Latest hardware survey shows modern gaming's growing hunger for more resources
- Three major PC makers now using Chinese memory to fight 'unprecedented memory shortage,' report claims — HP, Asus, and Acer using 'small amounts' of CXMT chips in limited number of notebooks for non-US market
- China cracks down on copycat chip designs with new regulations and penalties — new guidelines enforce originality and independent development
- August 3
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- New Micron lawsuit reignites fight over New York fab — complaint alleges 'forever chemicals' will flow into Oneida River
- In a troubling sign, Nvidia RTX 50 series prices jump up to 30% in South Korea — TSMC wafer hikes and $20 GDDR7 modules push RTX 5090 past $5,100
- Drone flyover reveals rapid progress at Elon Musk’s new ATCF chip fab — Texas site prepares for all-in-one logic, memory, and packaging facility
- Lexar lists 32GB DDR5 memory with homegrown Chinese chips — 3,999 Yuan ($592) price undercuts hopes for cheaper CXMT-powered RAM
- Microsoft raises European Xbox prices by up to £200 — RAMpocalypse and component shortages force major console markups
- Gaming on the 4GB Radeon RX 6500 XT and GTX 1650 Super in 2026 — upscaling makes low-end GPUs viable for esports and internet cafes
- AI enthusiast unlocks and mods BIOS with Claude Code — AI defeats RSA-2048 signature checks and unlocks 55 hidden settings
- GPU prices keep surging in 2026 — Lack of sale discounts and rising VRAM costs keep current-gen prices sky-high
- World’s smallest GPU silicon passes real-world testing — 240,000-transistor TinyGPU v2.0 renders 3D graphics at up to 15 FPS while v3.0 prepares for 2026 release
- Hideo Kojima unveils a Death Stranding 2-themed wireless CD player — Limited edition device costs ~$160, comes with Bluetooth 5.3 & exclusive artwork
- Ten years later, the iconic GTX 1080 Ti still holds up in 1080p gaming, but not without showing its age — Redux testing highlights the wonders of 11GB VRAM & the woes of time
- August 2
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- Errant SpaceX rocket stage set to smash into the moon at 5,400 mph, seven times the speed of sound — NASA and South Korean orbiters prepare to track 3-ton TNT impact
- Microsoft Paint used as a 'monitor' to run Doom at up to 35 fps, project released by firm's Azure CTO — runs actual Doom engine and loads real shareware DOOM1.WAD
- Iran suspected of conducting cyberattacks on US water suppliers in 45 municipalities — small towns mostly targeted, with utilities switching to manual control
- Commemorative golden Doom floppy disks go up for pre-order — pair of limited edition dummy ‘imitation gold plating’ disks and a box are $30 at GameStop
- AMD's upcoming Zen 6 processors could fix microstutters and improve 1% lows in games — Next-gen CPUs tipped to feature per-core optimizations for thermal and power budgets
- First open-source firmware for AM5 officially launches — Dasharo v0.9.0 brings Coreboot and openSIL to Zen 4 APUs on MSI B850
- SpaceXAI says it will remove all 69 of its unpermitted turbine power generators, but expects process to take a year — trailer-mounted generators to be replaced by 1.2GW power plant
- RTX 5060 Ti survives car crash after being bent in half — short PCB saves the day, single memory chip resolder restore full performance
- Gem Mint signed 1983 Steve Jobs business card opens at $70,000 — second signed card from that era after $180,000 record sale
- Prolific Team Fortress 2 collector is selling his in-game case arsenal for an estimated $100,000 — 1.7 million items collected over 10 years are enough to fund a house purchase
- August 1
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- Dell founder shows how a $100 billion empire started 42 years ago — CEO says ‘This one page changed my life’
- Microsoft vows to make Windows 11 fly on 8GB RAM amid memory shortage — optimizations to reduce OS memory footprint have begun
- Anthropic's Claude hacked three real-life companies during security capabilities test — test environment with internet access and unwitting targets' lax cybersecurity practices led to bots running rampant
- 'Nozzlegate' erupts as Prusa CORE One 3D printer kits arrive with soft steel nozzles — Bondtech admits machining flaws with no quick fix (Updated)
- Sony doubles down on axing physical game discs — CFO reiterates 'we’re going to cautiously move this forward'
- 97 untouched Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. cartridges worth thousands discovered in retro shop storage room — never-before-seen version of popular NES games include five perfect 10 PSA items
- Lost one-of-a-kind Nintendo DS cartridge hits eBay for $9,100 — PokePark Fishing Contest designed to delete itself after 12 hours, game so rare it was only distributed to theme park attendees in 2005