Category: 4. Technology

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Gaming can be a pricey hobby, but in 2025, AMD is attempting to flip the script. The new Radeon RX 9060 XT delivers outstanding performance for just $350, offering 16GB of VRAM, strong 1080p and 1440p gaming performance, and even competitive ray tracing capabilities, all at a price mid-range buyers can actually afford for their rigs.

While recent years have seen GPU prices spike due to crypto booms, supply chain chaos, and AI demand, the RX 9060 XT marks a return to accessible, high-value graphics cards. It’s not just affordable, it’s efficient, future-ready, and stacked with real-world performance gains. Choosing the AMD Radeon 9060 XT 16GB was a no-brainer, as its closest competitor in the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 is a tough sell, with only 8GB of VRAM buffer — among other issues. Here’s why AMD’s GPU is the go-to choice for budget-conscious gamers in 2025 looking to make an upgrade.

Radeon RX 9060XT 16GB: AMD’s new budget champion

Unlike its bigger brother GPU, which is aimed at enthusiasts and 4K gaming, the RX 9060XT is a solid mid-ranger with excellent 1080p and strong 1440p performance. AMD offers the RX 9060XT in both 8 GB and 16 GB flavors, but given the high VRAM demands of the latest games like “Avatar Frontiers of Pandora,” “The Last of Us Part 1,” and various other titles, getting a 16GB version is the obvious choice. That is, unless you’re running a 1080p setup and don’t care for high-quality textures, ray tracing, or ultra settings.

The MSRP of GPUs is a sensitive topic, as in the recent past, they have been more like rough guidelines than actual maximum retail prices. That being said, at the time of writing, the RX 9060XT 16GB is available for purchase and can regularly be found around its MSRP of $350 for in-store pick-up at Micro Center, and $380-$390 on Amazon and Newegg.

With their 18-game average, Hardware Unboxed discovered that the 9060XT manages an impressive $5 per frame at 1440p at MSRP, the lowest of any card. Meanwhile, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 8GB, RTX 5060 Ti 8GB, and RTX 5060 Ti 16GB average $5.45, $6.13, and $6.06 per frame, respectively. Intel’s ARC B580 is not included in this analysis, as it is unavailable at MSRP and faces compatibility issues in some games.

While AMD has traditionally trailed behind Nvidia significantly in ray tracing performance, the new RDNA 4 architecture marks a giant leap forward. The RX 9060XT comes with 32 second-gen ray accelerators and 64 AI accelerators. According to Tom’s Hardware, in a four-game average at 1440p with RT enabled, the 9060 XT manages an impressive average of 46.7 fps — just shy of the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB’s 51.5 fps. Even so, once MSRP is factored in, the AMD GPU comes out on top with a stronger $7.49 per ray-traced frame. Meanwhile, the 5060 Ti 16GB manages a $8.35 per frame, making it 11.5% more expensive than the Radeon graphics card.

More VRAM, Smarter Pricing, and Better Software

AMD’s Radeon RX 9060 XT stands out not just for performance, but for smart engineering choices. By sticking with GDDR6 memory, AMD delivers 16GB of VRAM — twice that of many similarly priced Nvidia cards — without inflating costs. That extra memory matters in today’s games, where high-res textures and larger frame buffers are the norm.

On the software front, AMD is catching up fast. FSR 4 introduces ML-powered upscaling similar to Nvidia DLSS, and the upcoming FSR Redstone (arriving late 2025) adds frame generation, neural radiance caching, and latency reduction, bringing AMD’s software ecosystem closer than ever to Nvidia.

Nvidia’s RTX 5060 Ti 8GB costs $380, offering half the VRAM for more money. The 16GB version is $430 — a $80 premium offering only marginal performance improvement over AMD’s 9060 XT, which is hard to justify at this price point. With more memory, lower power use, and fast-improving software, the RX 9060 XT isn’t just a good deal, it’s arguably the best value GPU you can buy today.

Grab your grill, your hot dogs, and your sparklers because it’s time to celebrate… Summer Games Done Quick 2025. The annual speedrunning charity marathon benefitting Doctors without Borders is back starting July 6th and finishes July 12th. Here’s how and most importantly what to watch as you enjoy the reason for the speedrunning season.

Summer Games Done Quick 2025 starts on Sunday July 6th at 1:30 PM ET on Twitch. Games Done Quick’s YouTube channel will have VODs up typically within a few short hours after the run completes so don’t worry if you miss anything live. There’s interesting runs every day during primetime so always check the schedule for what’s going on. You should also check in during off-hours and in the middle of the day because that’s how you find the hidden gems like LRock617’s run of Batman Forever: The Arcade Game at AGDQ 2025.

As for runs I’m excited about, there’s a Blue Prince race late Monday night July 7th, a Titanfall 2 race on Wednesday July 9th, and a Balatro run I will be seated for on Friday July 11th. For this year’s finale on Saturday, there will be a bonus run of Mario Kart World Knockout races and Deltarune Chapter 1 and 2. With the way I know GDQ works, I have a sneaking suspicion there will be a bonus incentive to donate towards that, if met, will unlock a run of Deltarune Chapter 3 and 4 as well. I hope I’m right.

With all the tumult going on in the video game industry right now it’s helpful to have something positive to turn to. That’s what Summer Games Done Quick is for. And this year, it’s needed more than ever as something to remind us that despite everything, video games, the people who make them, and the community, are pretty dang cool.

Microsoft sparked about a dozen different headlines when 9,000 person layoffs at the company hit Xbox in part, causing job losses, entire studio closures and game cancellations. That’s sparked many debates about the company, its future and its strategies, but it’s rare to see the developers in the trenches speak all that openly about it.

The ex-founder of the currently Microsoft-owned Arkane Studios and current President & Creative Director of WolfEye Studios, Raphael Colantonio, took to Twitter to point out the “elephant in the room” when it comes to many issues at Xbox, Xbox Game Pass. Here’s what he said about the subscription model, which offers a large number of “free” games when players subscribe:

“I think Gamepass is an unsustainable model that has been increasingly damaging the industry for a decade, subsidized by MS’s “infinite money”, but at some point reality has to hit. I don’t think GP can co-exist with other models, they’ll either kill everyone else, or give up.”

The conversation drew in Larian (of Baldur’s Gate 3 fame), Director of Publishing Michael Douse:

“What happens when all that money runs out?” is the most vocal concern in my network, and one of the main economic reasons people I know haven’t shifted to its business model. The infinite money thing never made any sense.”

Douse and Colantonio then launched into a conversation about how Game Pass very much does hurt game sales despite Microsoft previously indicating the opposite. Douse says he prefers Sony’s “lifecycle management strategy.”

The idea behind Xbox Game Pass is, at its core, the ability to give players the opportunity to play day one, first-party releases on Xbox if they subscribe. Even in an era of Xbox games moving to PlayStation, those are paid copies or on a time delay, so Microsoft thinks that still holds appeal.

That gets more complicated when it’s third party developers who are swept into the concept of Game Pass launches, a practice that feels like it’s happening with less frequency in time. This is where the “infinite money subsidization” Microsoft pays to offset lost sales comes in, but many view this as unsustainable, which is now coming up with these layoffs and closures.

Microsoft has leaned hard into Xbox Game Pass subscriptions in recent years, pushing the concept harder than its hardware sales, which have declined precipitously. Game Pass experienced a huge surge of sign-ups during the COVID years, but growth has tapered, and a ceiling has to be in sight. Microsoft is still very much viewing Game Pass as its primary appeal, but as you can see, it is starting to get harder and harder to get non-first-party developers on board. We’ll see if that can change or if the issues are set in stone.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy

Wide performance spectrum

In terms of performance, users can expect a lot from the Magic V5, as it features the same 8-core Snapdragon 8 Elite processor found in traditional smartphones, unlike the Oppo Find N5, which has to make do with a 7-core chip. Nevertheless, the results on Geekbench are still very inconsistent so far, ranging from a measly 800 points in single-core to a respectable 3,023 points (see screenshot below). The Oppo Find N5 acheived an average of 2,888 points in our tests, and in the multi-core test, the Honor Magic V5 outperforms its Oppo counterpart by an average of 8,890 points.
 

Processors are usually one of the most expensive line items when purchasing or upgrading a PC so it is worth waiting for major sale events such as Prime Day or Black Friday in an effort to secure the best prices.

Right now, Amazon is offering the Ryzen 5 9600X at its all-time lowest price, which is quite a plummet from the $279 that it commanded for months at a time. This Prime exclusive deal brings the price down to a mere $165 which is a massive 41% saving. With Prime Day kicking off early this weekend, now’s the perfect time to get your hands on one of the highest-rated processors (4.8 out of 5 on Amazon) out there before it sells out.

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Impressive Rating, Powerful Processor

The Ryzen 5 9600X is one of the most powerful processors in its class and it currently holds the best rating on Amazon with an impressive 4.8 out of 5 from hundreds of users. To access this deal, you’ll need to be a Prime member but Amazon offers a free 30-day trial if you’re not already signed up. Given how quickly these deals can disappear, it’s not a bad idea to act fast if you want to grab this all-time low price.

This Ryzen 5 processor is that it’s a great gaming and multitasking machine: Fueled by AMD’s next-gen Zen 5 architecture, it boasts 6 cores and 12 threads for silky-smooth gameplay with over 100 frames per second in the most demanding games in the world. Whether you’re gaming or creating demanding creative workloads, the Ryzen 5 9600X provides you with the kind of speed and responsiveness you crave. The boost clock of 5.4 GHz maximum offers scorching-fast processing and the unlocked platform lets you overclock it for even faster performance if you want to push your system to the next level.

The Ryzen 5 9600X is designed for the next-gen Socket AM5 platform so it’s ready for DDR5-5600 memory and PCIe 5.0 on some motherboards. This proactive design ensures your system will be future-proofed to handle the quickest storage and RAM out there so your PC will remain at the forefront of performance for years to come. The 38 MB cache helps speed up data access and reduces latency, and contribues to smoother overall performance whether you’re gaming or working with large files.

For gamers, the Ryzen 5 9600X is a dream come true: It’s engineered to deliver pure gaming performance, and achieves high frame rates even in demanding titles. If you desire a system capable of playing today’s games smoothly, this AMD processor is the perfect option. It’s also great for creators who need ample processing power to edit video, render 3D, or have heavy multitasking.

Don’t wait too long: deals like this don’t last, and stock is sure to go fast during Prime Day.

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SAVE 40%: As of July 6, you can get the Hisense 55-inch Class U6 Series Mini LED 4K UHD Smart Fire TV (55U65QF) for $477.99, down from $799.99. That’s a 40% discount and a $322 savings.

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Fourth of July has come and gone, and now we’re gearing up for Amazon’s annual Prime Day sales event, where you can find thousands of items on sale, including TVs. This year, Amazon isn’t being stingy with its pre-Prime Day TV deals, as we’re already seeing some models get major price cuts, with some hitting new all-time lows.

On June 30, the price for this Hisense TV dropped to an all-time low, and the deal is still live. As of July 6, you can get the Hisense 55-inch Class U6 Series Mini LED 4K UHD Smart Fire TV (55U65QF) for $477.99, down from $799.99. That’s a 40% discount and a $322 savings.

The Hisense 55-inch Class U6 Series Mini-LED 4K UHD Smart Fire TV (55U65QF) is a 2025 model TV, so you’re really lucking out with this deal. It features Mini-LED technology, which uses smaller LEDs to create a brighter, more realistic picture (deeper blacks and brighter whites). It has a built-in subwoofer, is compatible with WiFi 6, and supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+.

Mashable Deals

It’s also a Fire TV, so the smart home screen will feel familiar and has all the streaming apps you’d expect. For movie lovers, there’s a cool Filmmaker Mode that disables the TV’s extra processing effects, letting you see the film exactly as the director intended.

This LiDAR-guided mosquito air defense system may seem like overkill, but with how annoying those little bloodsuckers can be during the summer, you won’t catch me complaining.

That’s the pitch behind the “World’s First Portable Mosquito Air Defense,” dubbed the Photonmatrix, a crowdfunded gadget from Changzhou, China. It uses a LiDAR scanner to track any mosquito buzzing in a 6m (19.7 ft) radius and zaps them with a galvanometer-directed laser before they can bite. The Photonmatrix can be powered by a smartphone power bank for up to 16 hours and even works in the dark.

Well well well — one month with the Switch 2, and we’re still swimming in eShop games. Yep, it’s time for eShop Selects for June 2025!

Who needs Mario Kart World when you’ve got backwards compatibility, eh? Just because we have a new console, doesn’t mean we’re just looking at Switch 2 games. And going forward, eShop Selects will be looking at eShop games on both consoles.

So, let’s run down the rules quickly; Game Key-Card and Code In Box releases won’t be included here, only eShop exclusives (at least in the West). Where a digital-only game has a Switch 1 and Switch 2 version, we’ll be focusing on the Switch 2 version. And we know some of these are and might get a limited physical down the line, but for now, they’re digital only, so they do count.

Okay. Other than that, things are basically the same — we ask our writers and contributors to pick their top three eShop games from June 2025 from what we reviewed, and the games with the highest total scores will make our top three. It’s a strong month this time around, too.

Windows Terminal is a modern replacement for the classic PowerShell and Command Prompt consoles, offering features that significantly enhance the command-line experience. Unlike the standard PowerShell console, which was quite limited in both interface and functionality, Windows Terminal provides a more advanced, customizable, and feature-rich environment.

Microsoft introduced Windows Terminal as a terminal emulator in 2019, during the Windows 10 era. It can emulate the behavior and functionality of command-line shells, including Command Prompt and PowerShell, while offering features that make it superior to both.

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Work in multiple tabs

No more juggling multiple windows

One of the most useful upgrades in Windows Terminal is its support for multiple tabs within a single window. In standard PowerShell, you’re limited to one session per window. If you need multiple sessions, you have to juggle several separate windows. Windows Terminal addresses this by allowing you to open new tabs for different sessions within the same window, much like a browser.

For example, you can run multiple instances of Command Prompt alongside PowerShell, Bash, or Azure CLI, all within the same window. This level of flexibility simply isn’t possible with the classic PowerShell console.

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Split panes for side-by-side tasks

See beyond tabs

Beyond tabs, Windows Terminal also introduces split pane functionality, which the standard PowerShell interface lacks. Split panes allow you to view multiple console instances side by side within the same window.

This is especially useful for real-time comparisons and monitoring. For example, a developer might run a build process in one pane while tailing a log file in another. Similarly, a system administrator could run PowerShell in one pane and Bash in another to execute commands simultaneously.

Instead of manually resizing and arranging separate windows, as you would with the classic console, you can split the Terminal screen using a simple keyboard shortcut.

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Multiple profiles

Windows Terminal is a central hub for all command-line tools

Windows Terminal works like a central hub for all your command-line tools. You can set up different profiles for different shells and launch them easily in the same window. Right out of the box, it supports PowerShell, Command Prompt, and any WSL distributions you have installed. So you can open an Ubuntu Bash session, fire up Azure Cloud Shell, or even connect over SSH in new tabs without ever leaving Windows Terminal.

The old PowerShell console, on the other hand, is pretty limited. It mostly sticks to just PowerShell or cmd, with no real way to bring in other environments easily. Switching between setups in Windows Terminal is super simple, and you can even give each profile its own color scheme or icon so you can tell them apart at a glance.

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Better customization and theming options

Take full control over how things look and feel

No one really asked for themes and customization in command-line tools, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth having. Windows Terminal gives you full control over how things look and feel. You can change the color scheme, pick custom fonts, adjust text size using Ctrl plus scroll, and even set background images or transparent acrylic effects.

Standard PowerShell is pretty barebones in comparison. You’re stuck with basic colors and a fixed font. Windows Terminal, on the other hand, makes it easy to create or import clean, polished themes. All the settings are stored in a JSON file, so you can tweak things exactly the way you want, and it’s not just about looks. Customization can help with usability, too. For instance, you can assign a specific color profile to admin sessions to avoid mixing them up with your regular ones.

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You get Unicode support and other handy features

UTF support, Quake mode, and more

Windows Terminal has strong Unicode and UTF-8 support, which means it is much better at handling international text and special symbols. PowerShell also has Unicode and UTF support, but you may run into problems with encoding issues, such as bugs and limitations with specific characters.

Windows Terminal handles Unicode by default, so scripts like Chinese or Arabic, mathematical symbols, and emoji display properly without any extra setup. This is especially helpful if you work with non-English data or use cross-platform tools that output Unicode.

Plus, Windows Terminal introduces several conveniences that the standard PowerShell does not offer. One popular feature is Quake mode. Inspired by the drop-down console in games like Quake, it lets you pull down a terminal window from the top of your screen with a single key press.

It also includes a command palette that allows you to search and run commands from a simple pop-up, similar to what you find in Visual Studio Code. There is also a focus mode that hides the title bar and tabs for a cleaner, distraction-free workspace.

Embrace the command-line

Command-line tools like Command Prompt and PowerShell can help you get more done in less time. For example, these six PowerShell commands are useful for troubleshooting Windows issues, while others can help automate tasks and speed up your workflow.