Intel’s new Core Ultra 9 285K is finally here, promising a boost in performance with a significant reduction in power requirements, at least according to Intel. As you can read in my Core Ultra 9 285K review, Intel’s performance claims aren’t as rosy as reality, especially when stacked up against what is unequivocally the best processor for gaming you can buy: AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D.
I threw both processors on the test bench to pit them head-to-head, looking at performance across productivity and gaming apps, as well as thermals and efficiency. These CPUs target different users, but there are still a lot of interesting comparisons we can look at between them.
The Core Ultra 9 285K and Ryzen 7 7800X3D are radically different CPUs, and that becomes clear when you compare their specs directly. Although it’s generally not a good idea to compare specs between two CPUs in the same class, the gap in specs here is so large that we can make some interesting observations. The main thing that’s different between the two CPUs is core count.
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The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is a fairly straightforward chip in that regard. It comes with eight Zen 4 cores and a total of 16 threads, and it can boost up to 5GHz. That’s not what’s interesting about the CPU. It’s the 104MB of cache packed on top of the CPU die, split between 8MB of L2 cache and 96MB of L3 cache thanks to AMD’s 3D V-Cache packaging tech.
Core Ultra 9 285K
Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Cores/Threads
24/24 (8P+16E)
8/16
Boost clock speed
5.7GHz
5GHz
Base clock speed
3.7GHz
4.2GHz
Cache (L2 + L3)
76MB
104MB
TDP
250W
120W
Price
$589
$450
The Core Ultra 9 285K doesn’t have any fancy 3D V-Cache, but it still has a few tricks of its own. It’s a 24-core CPU, but unlike the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, it doesn’t come with simultaneous multi-threading (SMT). Each core only has a single thread. In addition, Intel uses its hybrid architecture, mixing together the Lion Cove P-core design with the Skymont E-core design. According to Intel, the E-cores are the main performance drivers here, unlike with the Core i9-14900K, where the E-cores were relatively weak.
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With more cores and higher clock speeds, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Core Ultra 9 285K has much higher power requirements. I’ll address efficiency directly a bit lower down in this comparison, but I can tell you now that, under a full load, the Core Ultra 9 285K indeed draws twice as much (or more) power than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D — though usually with much better performance.
The Core Ultra 9 285K and Ryzen 7 7800X3D force you to think about pricing because, depending on what you’re using your PC for, you can save quite a bit of money. The Core Ultra 9 285K is newer, and it’s the flagship chip from Intel’s latest range, so you’ll spend $589 if you want to pick it up now. The price will drop over time — the Core i9-14900K is about $450 a year after releasing — but until we see the next generation from Intel, you can expect to spend over $500.
The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is much cheaper at $450, though I’ve seen some strange price shifts with the CPU over the past several months. Just a few weeks before publishing this comparison, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D was sold out everywhere, and prior to that, you could commonly find it for around $320. Now, at the time of publishing, you’ll find it between $450 and $500, but I expect the price will drop very soon.
AMD has confirmed that its next-gen 3D V-Cache CPU is arriving on November 7, so depending on when you’re reading this, make sure to check in on the price of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. If the new CPU is out by then, I expect we’ll see the price drop to around $350 to $400.
Even with its higher price, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is significantly cheaper than the Core Ultra 9 285K — $139 cheaper, at least, and close to $239 cheaper if the Ryzen 7 7800X3D drops in price.
Here’s some quick proof that the Core Ultra 9 285K and Ryzen 7 7800X3D are in completely different weight classes. As you can see from Cinebench R24 above, the Core Ultra 9 285K is much faster than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D — it’s not even close. Intel says this CPU is particularly strong in a ray-traced renderer line Cinebench, but even if you dropped 10% or 15% of the performance from the Core Ultra 9 285K, it would still be miles ahead of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
For more of a mixed-use benchmark, take a look at Geekbench 6. The Core Ultra 9 285K still runs away with multi-core performance, but the single-core delta is much smaller. And despite the clear lead in multi-core performance, that gap is smaller, too. Throughout my testing, one thing became clear — the Core Ultra 9 285K is really fast in certain applications, but that performance doesn’t apply everywhere.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
A great example of that is Photoshop. You’d assume that the raw multi-core advantage of the Core Ultra 9 285K would mean it obviously wins against the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, but that’s not the case. In fact, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is faster in Photoshop based on my testing. That’s not good considering the price and spec gap between these two CPUs. You’d expect the Core Ultra 9 285K to mop the floor with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D across all productivity applications.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
In Premiere Pro, the Core Ultra 9 285K reclaims a dominant spot, but it really shouldn’t be this close. Not only is the Core Ultra 9 285K a much more capable CPU, it also has access to QuickSync in Premiere Pro, which speeds up performance significantly. The fact that these two CPUs are even competitive in Premiere shows how the performance of the Core Ultra 9 285K can be disappointing in certain apps.
Gaming performance is where we see a more consistent divergence. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D crushes. Across the 10 games I tested, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D didn’t lose a single one. Sometimes it’s only showing a minor performance improvement, but in games like F1 22 and Cyberpunk 2077, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D provides a transformative uplift in gaming performance.
Not all games respond well to the additional cache on the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. As you can see from titles like Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Black Myth: Wukong, there’s some other factor limiting the performance of the processor — in most cases, your graphics card. However, other games can leverage the additional cache in quite a big way, as shown off by Final Fantasy XIV, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, and even Red Dead Redemption 2.
For the Core Ultra 9 285K, it can only hope to match the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and in most games, it’s not even close to doing that. If you’re focused mainly on gaming, there’s really no contest here. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D absolutely crushes the Core Ultra 9 285K, and it’s significantly cheaper.
Another area where the Ryzen 7 7800X3D leads is efficiency. It not only has much lower rated power, it can also deliver higher performance in games while consuming less power. You can see that in action in the chart above. Looking solely at peak power draw during these games, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D stayed much more efficient under a heavy workload.
That’s not be critical of Intel. As you can see from the Core i9-14900K, Intel made massive efficiency improvements this generation, and it’s often able to deliver similar performance under 100 watts. But it’s still more power than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which rarely goes above 50 watts in games.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
Temperature is a different story. On average, the Core Ultra 9 285K was a bit cooler than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D while playing games. It’s not a massive difference, but I tested with a 360mm all-in-one liquid cooler. In a small form factor PC, those temperature differences can really add up, and the Core Ultra 9 285K is set up to handle a more thermally constrained environment better.
It’s important to remember the design of 3D V-Cache CPUs. The cache is stacked directly on top of the cores, serving as an insolating layer between the cores and the integrated heat spreader (IHS). That’s why the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and other 3D V-Cache CPUs, tend to run a bit hotter and why they aren’t unlocked for overclocking.
There’s really no contest here if you’re a gamer — the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is the way to go. It’s much faster, and it’s cheaper, and although productivity performance lags, the CPU still puts up a surprisingly impressive fight in apps like Premiere Pro and Photoshop.
The natural counter to that is productivity performance. If that’s what you care about, the Core Ultra 9 285K is the way to go. However, the inconsistent performance I saw with Intel’s latest CPU is worth keeping in mind. If you want good productivity performance and gaming in equal stride, I’d push you toward Intel’s Core i9-14900K or AMD’s latest Ryzen 9 9950X instead, the former of which is available for around $450.
Landmark Admin, a third-party administrator (TPA) specializing in administrative support services for life insurance and annuity companies, has confirmed suffering a serious ransomware attack recently.
The company revealed the news in a filing with the Maine Office of the Attorney General, in which it said that people’s data was stolen in an attack which took place in mid-May 2024.
Following the breach, Landmark Admin shut down its IT systems and remote access to its network to contain the effects, and brought in third-party security experts, who found the personal information of 806,519 people had been stolen.
Identity theft
“The forensic investigation determined that data was encrypted and exfiltrated from Landmark’s system,” the company said. “However, there was insufficient evidence available to identify which files had been compromised. The unauthorized activity occurred between May 13, 2024, and June 17, 2024.”
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When the investigation concluded, the company understood that the information grabbed by the hackers included first name/initial and last name; address; Social Security number; tax identification number; driver’s license number/state-issued identification card; passport number; financial account number; medical information; date of birth; health insurance policy number; and life and annuity policy information.
“Please note that the information above varies for each potentially impacted individual. Affected individuals will be notified by mail of information that was impacted,” Landmark said.
So far, no threat actors assumed responsibility for the attack, so we don’t know if there were any ransom demands.
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Since the information stolen is highly sensitive, users are advised to be extra vigilant for potential phishing attacks, social engineering, or possible wire fraud. Landmark is offering credit monitoring and identity theft protection services through IDX, which include 12 months of credit and CyberScan monitoring, a $1,000,000 insurance reimbursement policy, and fully managed id theft recovery services.
The Call of Duty series is one of the best-selling games in history
It has been eagerly anticipated, but this year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has finally dropped for gamers to get stuck into.
The Call of Duty (CoD) series is one of the best-selling in history with more than 425 million lifetime sales and has made billions of dollars.
But this latest edition comes with a bit of a difference, with it being available straight away to subscribers of Microsoft’s Game Pass service – a first for a game of this size.
It means those with the existing Netflix-style subscription do not need to pay anything extra to play.
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Game Pass, like Sony’s rival PlayStation Plus service, lets Xbox and PC players play hundreds of video games for a monthly fee.
Earlier this year, Microsoft raised prices for all subscribers and added a tiered system.
As it’s the first mainline CoD game to be released since Microsoft completed its takeover of maker Activision Blizzard in the gaming industry’s biggest ever deal, there’s naturally a lot of focus on this approach.
Some experts feel it could bring more subscribers to the Game Pass service, but at the expense of actual game sales, with its true impact only being revealed in the coming months.
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CoD content creator BennyCentral feels Game Pass is “one of the biggest elements this year”.
“The fact that it’s going to give people so much access, whether they’re playing on Xbox or they’re playing on PC, they’re going to be able to play the full game as part of that subscription,” he says.
Benny
BennyCentral loves the fast-paced nature of CoD
Benny, who has Game Pass, tells BBC Newsbeat it will “widen the player base” of people that may not have played Black Ops in the past.
“They might be more likely to kind of hop on and try it for the first time.”
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Fellow creator OllMS, who uses the Battlenet platform instead, agrees and thinks this approach by Microsoft can make the game “more accessible to a wider range of audience”.
“Especially younger people who may not be able to buy the game straight away, who would maybe wait until Christmas to get the game given to them by their parents.”
CoD has regularly topped PlayStation charts for its top-selling game, and Microsoft signed a 10-year deal to keep the game on Sony and Nintendo gaming platforms.
But while there have been some concerns around what it could mean for PlayStation users, who still have to pay the full price, OllMS thinks it’s also a boost from the perspective of content creators.
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“It’ll be really exciting to be able to make content for even more people right from the launch.”
Microsoft Activision Blizzard
Benny and OllMS are fans of the omnimovement in the new game
The CoD Black Ops spin-offs are generally well-regarded by fans for their single-player campaigns and the developers will be hoping this one lands well after the poor reception of last year’s Modern Warfare 3.
Benny and OllMS, who both had access to the beta version, are excited for the game because of some of the newer features.
With Black Ops 6, Benny points to omnimovement as a feature he is excited for, saying he feels it could “revolutionise how CoD is played”.
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“The fact that you’ve got that complete 360-degree movement, is going to give players a huge opportunity to shoulder opponents, kind of bait people in and create some incredible plays,” he says.
“We saw a few in the beta already, with people doing some incredible things with sniper rifles.”
OllMS is also a fan of some of the weapons, which he says were in earlier versions and have been brought back, such as the AS VAL – a type of assault rifle.
“Which is going to be fun to use, in combination with the omnimovement,” he says.
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“There’s going to be ways of making content and making plays that people have never seen before.”
OllMS
OllMS is looking forward to getting his hands on weapons like the AS VAL
Going back several decades for its setting is something Bennie is a fan of, particularly as he likes Black Ops games which contain things happening “behind the curtain”, and wants to see how that will play into this setting.
“It will be nice to see what kind of elements that they use, because it’s not an era where we’ve got smartphone technology.
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“It’s the way that world is built up, and how they’ve built up the missions.
“Every single mission is supposed to be a unique experience that you’re going to take away and be like ‘wow’.”
But with regular yearly releases, is there such a thing as too much Call of Duty which could dull excitement?
Not for OllMS.
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“I don’t think there can be too many CoD games that come out, because it’s something brand new,” he says.
“It’s something that a lot of young people and older people can get invested in, whether that’s playing with friends or playing solo.”
And they both think the game will continue to generate excitement because of what it means to gamers.
Benny says he loves Black Ops “especially because of the fast-paced nature of the game”.
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“There’s incredible score streaks and kill streaks.”
OllMS meanwhile loves teaming up with people online.
“And I think especially with Warzone, being part of a squad of four and making memorable plays with your friends, that you absolutely love is just one of the best things.
“And you can make content out of that so easily, because you’re doing something you enjoy,” he says.
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The next generation of nuclear technology could be moving closer to becoming a reality, driven by the tech sector’s growing demand for electricity to power artificial intelligence. Small modular reactors (SMRs) promise to reduce capital costs and accelerate construction timelines that typically plague nuclear plants, but the technology has struggled to reach the commercial stage. The difference now is the appetite of tech companies for fossil-free fuel. Amazon and Google, a unit of Alphabet , made back-to-back announcements this month putting real money behind these reactors. “In the absence of these tech companies, no one was going to build an SMR in the public utility world,” Paul Zimbardo, managing director at Jefferies, told CNBC. Demonstrating its faith in the technology, Google agreed to buy power from Kairos, a private developer of small modular reactors. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. Amazon is investing more than $500 million in the development of advanced reactors across several projects. As a result, the outlook for SMRs is improving and the potential market is far larger than appreciated, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco wrote in a research report to clients on Wednesday. The market for SMRs could grow by two gigawatts to five gigawatts by 2035 assuming big tech companies make up a majority of the demand, Percoco said. That would represent between 6 and 17 reactors if each SMR averages 300 megawatts. Tech as a catalyst Utilities themselves have been reluctant to invest in SMRs due to the high costs associated with building a first-of-a-kind project, Zimbardo said. They have a responsibility to shareholders to make prudent decisions at the lowest cost, he added. The tech companies, meanwhile, need reliable, carbon-free electricity to power AI data centers and are increasingly willing to pay a premium for nuclear-fueled power as a consequence. Microsoft , for example, agreed to pay $130 per megawatt hour for electricity from the mothballed Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania that Constellation Energy is restarting, according to Percoco. “The cost of an SMR is highly uncertain but could potentially be feasible [at that] price level,” the Morgan Stanley analyst said. Investor options limited Investors who want exposure to SMRs have limited options right now. “There are not really large, liquid companies involved in SMRs,” Zimbardo told CNBC. The small, pure-play advanced reactor companies NuScale and Oklo are options, but their stocks are volatile and business outlook uncertain. NuScale, with a market value of $4.7 billion, is up 54% in the past month, while Oklo, worth about $2.5 billion, has more than doubled. Neither are involved in the Google and Amazon power deals. NuScale tried to deploy SMRs at a site in Idaho but the project was canceled last year as the price tag ballooned due to inflation and high interest rates. Oklo is promising to build microreactors that range in size between 15 megawatts and 100 megawatts. The startup, backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, hopes to have its first reactor up and running, also in Idaho, in 2027. GE Vernova offers some exposure to SMRs, albeit inside a sprawling business mostly focused on gas- and wind powered turbines. The company is slated to start construction on its BWRX-300 small modular reactor in Ontario next year, with the plant scheduled to come online in 2029. But GE Vernova doesn’t expect SMRs to become “a meaningful part of our income statement with revenue and growth until early into the next decade,” Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Parks told investors during the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Wednesday. SMR OKLO 1M mountain NuScale Power has climbed 54% and Oklo by 117% in the past month.
G42, a leading AI-based firm in Abu Dhabi, UAE, has announced the upcoming launch of NANDA, a Hindi Large Language Model (LLM), designed predominantly for Hindi speakers in India.
The announcement was made in the presence of His Highness Sheikh Khaled bin Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi during the UAE-India Business Forum in Mumbai on September 10, 2024.
NANDA was named after Nanda Devi, second-highest mountain in India, after Kangchenjunga. The program is a 13-billion parameter model trained on approximately 2.13 trillion tokens of language datasets, including Hindi, English and Hinglish.
The project is a collaboration between Inception (a G42 company), Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (the world’s first graduate research university dedicated to AI) and Cerebras (an American artificial intelligence company based in Sunnyvale, California, with an office in Bangalore).
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Manu Jain, the CEO of G42 India, has said that India has solidified its position as a “global technology leader”, with many initiatives like ‘Digital India’ and ‘Startup India’ emerging under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.
As the country stands on the brink of AI-powered growth, G42 is proud to contribute to this journey with the launch of NANDA in support of India’s AI ambitions,” says Jain.
Dr Andrew Jackson, Acting CEO of Inception, says that, “G42 has a strong track record in the development of language and domain-specific LLMs. With NANDA, we are heralding a new era of AI inclusivity, ensuring that the rich heritage and depth of Hindi language is represented in the digital and AI landscape. NANDA exemplifies G42’s unwavering commitment to excellence and fostering equitable AI.”
Earlier this year, leading software company Microsoft, invested $1.5 billion in G42, hoping to advance AI’s capabilities and broaden its reach.
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This is not the first time that G42 has created a language model AI. Back in 2023, they launched an Arabic LLM called ‘JAIS’, the first of its kind.
“JAIS set a new standard for linguistic AI which G42 now seeks to replicate for other regions whose languages are still underrepresented,” the company said.
Building on the success of JAIS, the release of NANDA hopes to empower India’s scientific, academic, and developer communities while at the same time growing the Hindi language AI ecosystem.
A tiny soft lithium-ion battery made from droplets
University of Oxford
The smallest soft lithium-ion battery ever made consists of just three tiny droplets formed from a silk-based hydrogel. The droplet battery can deliver defibrillator electric shocks to beating mouse hearts, along with providing pacemaker-style control – but it may eventually power biomedical implants and wearable electronics for humans.
“Potentially, our tiny battery could be used as an implantable microrobotic battery, which can be moved to target locations by a magnetic field and then release its energy for medical treatments,” says Yujia Zhang at the University of Oxford.
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Zhang and his colleagues designed the tiny batteries as three connected droplets that can self-assemble in a liquid solution, after the various ingredients are injected into the liquid by micro-syringe. One droplet contains lithium manganese oxide particles and acts as the battery’s negative electrode, while a second droplet contains lithium titanate particles and represents the positive electrode. A central droplet filled with lithium chloride separates these electrodes. UV light activates the battery by rupturing the layers separating each droplet and allowing lithium ions to flow freely between them.
The droplet batteries are 10 times smaller in length than previous soft lithium-ion batteries. At just 600 micrometres, it is about six times the width of a human hair. The batteries are also 1000 times smaller in volume than similar flexible lithium-ion batteries. And because the central droplet can incorporate magnetic nickel particles, the batteries can be controlled remotely via an external magnetic field.
Such miniature batteries also deliver an unprecedented amount of energy given their tiny size, says Wei Gao at the California Institute of Technology. “This energy density is notably higher than what has been achieved in other similar-sized batteries,” he says.
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The droplet batteries were tested in mouse hearts that were removed from the animals’ bodies. They successfully acted as defibrillators to restore a normal heartbeat and pacemakers to regulate heartbeats. Additional testing showed that the batteries retain 77 per cent of their original capacity after 10 charge and discharge cycles.
The simplicity and scalability of such droplet batteries could represent a potential advantage over traditional battery manufacturing in the future, says Gao. He suggested that such batteries can power minimally invasive biomedical implants and biodegradable medical devices.
“What impressed me most was how this soft battery mirrors the aqueous environment of human tissue by being hydrogel-based,” says Gao. “However, we still need to consider the safety and biocompatibility of the materials used in this battery, especially as we move toward commercialisation or further research applications.”
The showcases in 2024 gave us a ton of upcoming games to look forward to. From Doom: The Dark Agesto Perfect Darkand Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, plenty of new entries to beloved franchises are on the way. However, nothing gets us quite as excited as a new game set in a mysterious world we’ve never seen before. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 comes from a new developer but has the promise to be one of the best games in a stacked year already. With so much to discover, join us on our expedition to learn everything there is about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
As of right now, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 only has a rough release window of spring 2025. That could be as early as March but could be April or May as well if there are no delays.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will be available on all current-gen platforms including PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | Reveal Trailer – Xbox Games Showcase 2024
We got our introduction to Clair Obscur during the Xbox Games Showcase in 2024. The trailer shows a twisted and broken world with a massive tower in the distance with a glowing 34 on its surface. The narrator, who we later learn is named Gustave, explains that a mysterious painter reduces the number by 1 every year. Anyone who is that age will vanish into thin air, which will eventually lead to the extinction of humanity. However, each year an expedition is sent to try to stop her. Our journey will take place one day before the number 33 is to be painted in a final effort to end the cycle of death.
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We don’t know the details of what this expedition will be or what challenges await, though part of it will involve discovering the fates of some of the previous 32 expeditions and why they failed to stop the painter.
The game and world are said to be inspired by the art of Belle Epoque-era France, which is apparent in the many references to French architecture. The trailer shows a diverse range of environments we will travel through, including warped cities, snowy mountains, and even the ocean floor.
Our cast of characters on this expedition includes an outsider named Verso, Renoir fighting for his family, the engineer Gustave, Lune the mage, warrior Sciel, and the young orphan Maelle.
Clair Obscur is a turn-based RPG, but with real-time elements. Most commands will be issued via menus at your own pace, but button prompts to deal additional damage, dodge, or parry will appear that require quick reflexes and for the player to stay engaged. On the other hand, missing the button prompt or opportunity to react will result in you dealing less damage or taking more. Gear will play a part, as you would expect in an RPG, along with various status effects and elemental attacks.
The gameplay first look gives us a nice slice of the game to see how it all works. We can see how we will control one character as they roam around an environment, though the entire party is implied to be there. Enemies will appear in the world and allow you to attack them to gain an advantage in combat, which implies that the opposite could also occur.
Besides your usual options for items, skills, and attack, there is also an aim option where you can freely target an enemy with a ranged attack.
A turn order is displayed on the left side of the screen so you know exactly when the enemy’s turn will come, but it looks like some actions could influence the order.
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There are also bonuses you can achieve for more XP after combat, such as +20% more XP for winning without taking damage.
We only know the expedition will begin sometime in spring 2025 for now, so preorders aren’t ready just yet. If you’re eager, you can still wishlist the game on any platform to be notified when preorders do go live. Of course, we will also keep this post up to date with all the latest information as it becomes available.
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