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  • It’s time to switch to ultrawide gaming for a new outlook on your games, so we check out this 32:9 monster from Innocn

    It’s time to switch to ultrawide gaming for a new outlook on your games, so we check out this 32:9 monster from Innocn


    A new monitor is one of those purchases most people tend to make when their old one either packs in or they finally decide they want a bigger one.

    Over the years, I have had double-monitor and triple-monitor setups. I’ve toyed with portable monitors as a second screen and even projectors. Much of this has been led by my penchant for driving and flight simulations, where extra screen real estate can be beneficial. But the problem is, with working at the same desk as well, it also has to fit right for my writing needs, so that means dangling stuff at weird angles doesn’t always work for me.

    A couple of years ago, when the Samsung G9 came out, I really wanted one but simply couldn’t justify the cost – you can buy a first car for a teenager for that price – trust me, you can. As tech moves forward, though, we see a lot of prices coming down, especially in the TV and monitor spaces. The speed at which new panels are developed is pretty astounding. All this means that tech that was out of the price range of the masses not that long ago is now more than in reach.

    So, in this growing landscape of ultrawide monitors, the INNOCN 49Q1R stands out immediately — and not just because of its size. This is a 49-inch monitor aimed directly at users who want a huge, immersive workspace or gaming setup without the eye-watering price tag of some better-known brands. It’s still not exactly cheap, but compared to rivals like Samsung’s Odyssey G9 series, it’s priced pretty well at a good level. The big question is whether it delivers enough quality and performance to make it a worthwhile investment. The answer, after a couple of months of use for me, is a resounding yes, with a few caveats.

    Design and Build

    Unboxing the 49Q1R – and it is huge when it arrives. It’s not that it is heavy per se, but with the box and secure packing inside, a second pair of hands is useful to get it to its final resting spot. It’s hard not to be impressed, and possibly a little intimidated, by its sheer footprint.

    This is a 32:9 aspect ratio display with a resolution of 5120×1440, essentially two 27-inch 1440p monitors fused together by magic with no bezel gap. The curve (1800R) helps make that size manageable on a desk, though it still demands a fair amount of space — you’ll want a deep desk to get the full benefit without craning your neck. I have it on my Flexispot, and I dispensed with the previous monitor arm I was using and went with the included stand for ease – mainly because I couldn’t find an Allen key. This takes up a bit of desk real estate but is decent and allows height and swivel adjustment, and I had no problems getting it exactly where I wanted it.

    The build quality is solid enough. It’s not flashy — mostly matte plastic with minimal Innocn branding (while I’m on the subject, doesn’t it need an extra vowel – what do I know?) — but nothing feels cheap or flimsy.

    Ports are generous. You’ve got two HDMI 2.1 inputs, one DisplayPort 1.4, USB-C with 90W PD, and several USB-A ports for peripherals. The USB-C charging is a nice touch for laptop users, and it’s good to see full-fat HDMI 2.1 support for console gamers. They, like most monitors, are not the easiest to get to, and with the sense of this thing reaching around the back, it is not as simple as I would love it to be. A little breakout box would be a fabulous addition. I pre-empted future issues by attaching all the cables I might ever need before finishing the setup, but if I ever need to change it, it will be a pain, I know it will.

    As you can see in the image below, the screen is also backlit with some ambient lighting. This doesn’t change with what’s on screen and in practice, somewhat weirdly, even in a dark room, I don’t even notice it is on. I discovered it by accident when I was messing around the back a few weeks into this review. I don’t really understand how they are that dim.

    Image Quality

    This is where things get interesting. The 49Q1R is a low-cost OLED panel, and it delivers the sort of deep contrast you’d expect to pay a lot more for. Blacks are genuinely dark, and there’s decent colour pop out of the box. INNOCN rates it at 95% DCI-P3 coverage, and while we didn’t run lab-grade tests because nobody but the dorks really cares, it looks stunning in games that truly support the 32:9 aspect ratio on offer here.

    The amazing Blade-Runner-esque city builder Distopika, which you haven’t heard of but you need to buy on Steam immediately, is mind-blowingly beautiful spread across all 49 inches of screen.

    Having said that, I’ll be honest, the HDR setting didn’t do it for me. It seemed to wash things out, and I much preferred the 49Q1R’s normal settings. Still, HDR support is there, and in practice, it makes a subtle difference in well-lit scenes and games — just don’t expect OLED-style contrast or blooming-free highlights because you won’t get them. Corners have had to be cut somewhere for the price, and this is an example of that, perhaps.

    Productivity and Workflow

    For work, this monitor is a dream. The pixel density is the same as a 27-inch 1440p monitor, so text remains crisp, and you’ve got acres of horizontal space for multiple windows. Whether you’re video editing, coding, or juggling multiple browser tabs, the workflow advantage is immediate. I have Windows tracking analytics, Google Docs, Discord, and Plexamp up and running with plenty of space to spare. Windows 11 is much better equipped for snapping your windows into place where you want them these days, so fiddly resizing is a thing of the past.

    The panel also supports Picture-in-Picture mode, which effectively turns it into two separate displays. This is genuinely useful if you’re working across two machines, like a desktop and a laptop — you can keep both onscreen at once without any external switchers. You might think who does that, but I did and had a Raspberry Pi 5 in one window and my main PC in the other.

    One minor gripe: while the on-screen display is functional, the controls (located underneath the bezel) can be fiddly to use. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it’s one area where more premium monitors offer a smoother experience. You are restricted to a single button, which takes you into the menu. You will mostly use it for on/off, but if you are messing around with PiP or input modes, it can occasionally frustrate.

    Gaming Performance

    The 49Q1R supports up to 144Hz refresh rate with Adaptive Sync, and gaming on this thing is undeniably immersive. The wide field of view in racing sims and FPS titles feels genuinely next-gen, and you get the smoothness benefits of high refresh, assuming your GPU can handle pushing 5120×1440 at those frame rates.

    Input lag is low, and response times are decent, if not blistering. This isn’t a monitor aimed at esports pros, but for most gamers, me included, it’s plenty fast enough. There is a bit of smearing in dark transitions, but my eyes are so bad these days I barely notice — but nothing that ruins the experience.

    If you’re on a PS5 or Xbox Series X, you’ll want to double-check game support for ultrawide resolutions. Most console titles will fall back to 16:9 and leave black bars on the sides. PC gamers, meanwhile, will get the full benefit in titles that support 32:9, which not all do. When you find something that does it well, though, you will want to show off your new toy, and settings for 32:9 are becoming more readily available out of the box. This is more of a monitor you will be interested if you game on a PC though.

    Verdict

    The INNOCN 49Q1R gets such a lot right it still makes me smile. It offers a massive ultrawide experience with strong contrast, good colour accuracy, and solid gaming credentials — all at a price that undercuts the big names in the space by several hundred of your local dubloons. It’s also on sale at the moment in this iteration. You can pick one up for $799 or £586 directly from the manufacturer.

    It’s not perfect: HDR is limited, occasional smearing is present, and the physical footprint may be a challenge for smaller desks. But for the price, it’s madness. In the arena of new screens, you shouldn’t be afraid of going with a brand you may never have heard of. You are paying a premium for certain name tags, and, if funds are more limited, or you are simply more frugal with your cash but still want a close approximation of what you get from a Samsung, the INNOCN 49Q1R is highly recommended.


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  • Is it time for players to tell the gaming industry that enough is enough? Do most people even care?

    Is it time for players to tell the gaming industry that enough is enough? Do most people even care?


    I am not sure anyone was shocked this week when a multi-billion-dollar company carved its way through the videogaming arm of its workforce, laying off thousands of people who, until that point, had been diligently coding the games it had approved.

    Minutes later came the mealy-mouthed soundbites about restructuring, innovating, and an exciting future for all. All released to the background of thousands of resumes being hurriedly and worriedly emailed to the recruiters of the three jobs that are available.

    “We continue to implement organizational changes necessary to best position the company and teams for success in a dynamic marketplace.”

    10,000 jobs cut in 2023, another 9,000 now. How’s that positioning going Microsoft?

    Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer was also at it, “I recognize that these changes come at a time when we have more players, games, and gaming hours than ever before. Our platform, hardware, and game roadmap have never looked stronger. The success we’re seeing currently is based on tough decisions we’ve made previously.”

    The desks were emptying at studios such as Rare, King, and Bethesda, among many others, as he spoke.

    The elephAInt in the room

    Executive Producer at Xbox Game Studios, Matt Turnbull, will be wishing he hadn’t posted his advice on LinkedIn to those booted out to load up ChatGPT and get it to help you with the recruitment process. He’s now removed it, and I feel a bit sorry for him as he was trying to be helpful. And LinkedIn is a dumpster fire at the best of times, but still, if you still have your job when colleagues are losing theirs, my advice would be to keep your head down.

    It’s not clear if or indeed any of the job cuts are as a direct result of Microsoft’s love-in with Artificial Intelligence. It would be silly to presume there is no connection, and this is the way the world is headed wither way. But we don’t have to like it

    The thing is, and I have said this vociferously before when industry layoffs occur, that all that ever happens is that you get a few media outlets – many themselves often under constant fear of staff cuts, highlighting the problem, and then some bleating on Reddit from players who were looking forward to a particular game coming out that has now been canned, and that’s it. Rinse and repeat.

    Seemingly ad infinitum.

    Nothing new

    I interviewed a long-standing CEO of a prominent publisher not long back – an interview you will be able to read in full on The Escapist in the near future and he told me he thought the games industry had always been a mess. And he has been in the game for decades.

    He also said that perhaps it is time to start looking at things the way the movie industry does. There, you don’t so much work for a company but on a project. When the project is complete – ie, the movie gets released, that’s it. Job done, and you move on to the next one. If a movie gets canned, same thing.

    It’s just a different perception and maybe the way things are already going, even if it’s not being outwardly stated.

    Do most people care that the gaming industry is so dysfunctional?

    Nobody objects for more than a few hours. Nobody is held to task. Corporations gonna corporation, and we just accept it. There’s no, “well, you sacked all those Perfect Dark devs, so we will hit you in the pocket by letting you stick your next Call of Duty where the sun don’t shine”.

    Speaking of Perfect Dark, that’s another area where we should be outraged. I, like you, saw the gameplay trailer only a few months back and thought, yeah, that looks pretty cool. Now the game is canned for being in “poor shape,” and we are thinking, ‘but hang on, it looked alright to me.”

    The cancelled Perfect Dark

    Now we find out that “demo” was somewhere between a fake and a load of sections frantically duct-taped together to hold it in one piece for the one minute the trailer lasted before presumably bursting into flames the second recording stopped.

    Just stop lying to your audience.

    Or at least if you continue to lie to us, and we find out, then there will be consequences for your profit and loss sheet. Which, let’s face it, is all they really care about. If it’s a “vertical slice”, tell us it is. But the push to see all the latest trailers at the same old games festivals means that companies feel the need to do this stuff.

    Should we be bothered?

    In the main, the games industry is not a cosy cottage industry. It is a behemoth full of corporations and money guys trying to extract the most cash from you. Some of you may be young enough not to remember it being any different, but it was. And it was better for it. But that version of the games industry couldn’t exist today. It is naive to think it could.

    The cottage industry aspect survives in the form of (some) indie studios, but the world of the triple A (or even the AA or, just the bloody A) can be found north of Disaster Town. And then these companies have the gall to tell us we don’t own the games, only rent them. What happens? We complain for a few hours, then pre-order the next one so we can play it 48 hours early.

    Maybe it really is all our fault in the first place.


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  • Inventory sorting indie roguelike Backpack Hero is yours for free if you’re fast

    Inventory sorting indie roguelike Backpack Hero is yours for free if you’re fast


    Even beloved games like Baldur’s Gate 3 make inventory management a fuss, so it’s been wonderful watching the trend of indies striving to transform that busywork into something you want to do. Backpack Hero, the turn-based RPG roguelike from developer Jaspel, is just such a treat. It holds the highest rating among its run-based peers on indie site Itchio and boasts an 86% positive Steam rating from nearly 7,000 user reviews, and now you can get a copy for nothing thanks to this week’s Epic Games Store free games lineup.

    Backpack Hero puts you in the shoes of a young rodent venturing into dangerous dungeons in an attempt to gather resources and rebuild their hometown of Haversack Hill. Strapped on your back is the eponymous magical sack, which gradually expands to offer slots for the various weapons, armor, items, and consumables you find along your way. This Resident Evil 4-style inventory Tetris is Backpack Hero’s ‘deckbuilding’ core, delivering a battle system that stands out even among our best roguelikes.

    YouTube Thumbnail

    The way you lay out your gear determines their effects in battle. A basic wooden sword deals seven damage to a single target, for example, while a machete swings to deliver three damage to all your enemies. The soldier’s buckler grants block on use, but also increases the potency of any adjacent weapons for the remainder of the encounter.

    Armor poses particular problems, as you need to place it in appropriate positions to maximize the benefits – helmets up top, boots down below, and so on. Manage to sort your gear correctly, however, and you’ll be able to overcome any foe that comes your way. If you fall, simply return to the village, where you can use your gathered materials to buy and sell items, conduct research, and unlock additional playable heroes, challenges, and quests, gradually restoring the world to its former glory.

    Backpack Hero is free to keep on the Epic Games Store until Thursday July 10. Be sure to claim it while you can. You can also get the hand-drawn, musical action-adventure game Figment for free during the same period.

    For more of the best free PC games, take a look through our current recommendations. If you’ve been considering a GPU upgrade to make them shine even better, we’ve picked out the best graphics cards in 2025 as well.

    You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.



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  • Looking for engaging standard deck card games for 2 players [closed]


    I’m looking for 2 player card games that need only a standard deck of 52+3. Something with a bit of strategy and conning would be perfect.

    I enjoy playing Texas Hold’em poker in larger groups but poker scales terribly down to 2 players. I’m looking for something with a similar charm — with complex strategy that involves fooling your opponent.

    Also would like a game that’s easy to bet on. I mostly play socially with acquaintances, so let’s not make the game too convoluted to explain to someone, and let’s allow conversation to flow in a slower paced game.



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  • Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is the top-rated game ever on ‘Letterboxd for games’

    Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is the top-rated game ever on ‘Letterboxd for games’



    If you don’t know about Backloggd, maybe you should check it out. The basic pitch is Letterboxd for games. Its simple interface and robust social media features make it a fun place to track what games you are playing and to learn about new ones from friends. A new feature has officially crowned Clair Obscur Expedition 33 the highest rated game on the website.

    Backloggd recently made an official top 100 list and the critically acclaimed RPG has now overtaken Baldur’s Gate 3 in the top spot (the Dungeons and Dragons game is still holding strong at number two). Though there are some retro classics, like Chrono Trigger and Silent Hill 2, the list definitely tends toward more recent games. Disco Elysium and Red Dead Redemption 2 are both in the top ten. The ascendancy of Clair Obscur Expedition 33 is evidence of this bias, even if it is one of the best turn-based RPGs ever. Backloggd is far from the only website of its kind with this bias; soon after release Everything Everywhere All At Once was the top-rated film on Letterboxd.

    Nevertheless, a lot of different people with different tastes use Backloggd (it’s also low-key where some of the most interesting and insightful games criticism is happening). There are some unusual picks in the top 100. Visual novels like Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth and The House of Fata Morgana round out some of the more off-the-wall picks. Paid members can see the working version of the top 100 list right now. A public version will be part of a future site update.

    If you are curious about what our staff think should top a list like this, you can check out our picks for the best PC games. If this ranking has gotten you curious about the RPG-of-the-moment, take a look at the best Clair Obscur Expedition 33 builds.

    You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.



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  • Rainbow Six Siege X is live, and it’s already sparked a surge for Ubisoft’s FPS

    Rainbow Six Siege X is live, and it’s already sparked a surge for Ubisoft’s FPS


    It’s been nearly a decade since Ubisoft first launched Rainbow Six Siege. In the time since, the multiplayer FPS has improved enormously, attracting a devoted audience and cementing itself as one of the best options in a genre that also includes PUBG, Valorant, and Marvel Rivals. To keep that momentum going into its tenth year and beyond, Ubisoft has put out a sweeping overhaul of Siege with today’s launch of Rainbow Six Siege X. Even though it’s only been out for a few hours, this decision seems to have been a good one, as the game’s already attracted a massive player base and strong reviews on Steam.

    Rainbow Six Siege X takes the long-running FPS game‘s foundation and revitalizes it with a number of changes. Most immediately noticeable is a rework of its visuals, applied to five maps at the time of launch, and tweaks to the core design of the game, including the ability to shoot and destroy objects like pipes and fire extinguishers. The relaunch also offers a new 6v6 mode called Dual Front and allows previous Siege players to carry over their progress, receive rewards based on how long they’ve been playing, and keep their ability to get into modes from before X launched.

    So far, Siege X is going over well with players. Not only have its user reviews shot upward in the hours since launch, but it’s also hit its highest player count in more than a year. At the time of writing, the game has 134,366 active players, down from a 24-hour peak of 142,025 earlier today. That 24-hour peak represents the most active players since April, 2024, which reached 156,080.

    Rainbow Six Siege X is out now. You can download it for free on Steam right here.

    YouTube Thumbnail

    Or, you can find more like it to play with our picks for the best co-op games and best multiplayer games on PC.

    You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.



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  • Ludology 335 Who’s This For?

    Ludology 335 Who’s This For?


    Welcome!

    Welcome to Ludology, an analytical discussion of the hows and whys of the world of board games. Rather than news and reviews, Ludology explores a variety of topics about games from a wider lens, as well as discuss game history, game design and game players.

    We post a new Ludology episode every other week. In these episodes, hosts Erica Bouyouris and Sen-Foong Lim deep-dive into a single topic within game design, often with a well-regarded guest from the game industry. We generally focus on tabletop game design (mainly board games and RPGs), but we often pull in experts from all forms of games, from video games to escape rooms to slot machines.

    On weeks where there is no flagship Ludology episode, we will alternate between two smaller mini-sodes. Erica and Sen are happy to announce that Sarah Shipp of Shippboard Games and Stephanie Campbell of TTRPGKids will be joining us for the next year, providing additional content between our longer episodes.

    Sarah’s segment, Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, is a monthly feature that dives deeper into the other aspects of games beyond the dice and cards we’re all familiar with.

    Stephanie’s segment, TTRPGKids, explores how parents and teachers can use role playing games with children in the home and in the classroom.

    We hope you enjoy the additional content!

    Our History

    We aim for most Ludology episodes to be timeless, so you are welcome to explore our entire catalog. Most of it should age quite well. The podcast was started in 2011 by Geoff Engelstein and Ryan Sturm, with Mike Fitzgerald taking over for Ryan in 2015. Gil and Scott joined the show in 2017 when Mike stepped aside, and Emma joined in 2019 when Geoff ended his tenure as host. Emma left in 2021, and Erica and Sen joined us. Since then, Scott stepped down in 2022 and Gil will be hanging up his mic in 2023, leaving Erica and Sen to carry on this amazing legacy.

    Erica and Sen are working to bring new voices to Ludology and have some great things to announce as gaming expands to include even more people!

    Contact Us 

    Have your own thoughts about our topics? We encourage you to visit us at our guild on Boardgamegeek to get involved in a continuing discussion.

    You can also email us at hello@ludology.net.

    Ludology is part of The Dice Tower Network, the premier board game media network.

    If you have questions that you’d like answered on Ludology, let us know by filling out this Google Form; you can also leave an audio question that we can use on the show, if you wish! 

    Burning Questions for Ludology

    Burning Question

    Support the Show

    Ludology is made possible through the support and donations of listeners like you.

    We currently have 3 “First Listen” series that will go out to Patrons well in advance of the audio being released to the wider audience.

    • The Memories that Made Us (monthly) – memories about gaming experiences that helped shape the people that bring modern games to life
    • Tales from the Designer Toolbox (monthly) – tips and tricks from industry pros learned from both success and failure
    • Ludology Live – recordings from conventions around the world

    Patrons will also get extra consideration for any giveaways that we might have!

    Become a Ludology Patron

    Become a patron

    You can also make a one-time or monthly donation here. The link will take you to Erica’s account. People who donate in this way will not have access to the Patreon page – sorry!





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  • Ludology 336 Roll For Learning

    Ludology 336 Roll For Learning


    Welcome!

    Welcome to Ludology, an analytical discussion of the hows and whys of the world of board games. Rather than news and reviews, Ludology explores a variety of topics about games from a wider lens, as well as discuss game history, game design and game players.

    We post a new Ludology episode every other week. In these episodes, hosts Erica Bouyouris and Sen-Foong Lim deep-dive into a single topic within game design, often with a well-regarded guest from the game industry. We generally focus on tabletop game design (mainly board games and RPGs), but we often pull in experts from all forms of games, from video games to escape rooms to slot machines.

    On weeks where there is no flagship Ludology episode, we will alternate between two smaller mini-sodes. Erica and Sen are happy to announce that Sarah Shipp of Shippboard Games and Stephanie Campbell of TTRPGKids will be joining us for the next year, providing additional content between our longer episodes.

    Sarah’s segment, Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, is a monthly feature that dives deeper into the other aspects of games beyond the dice and cards we’re all familiar with.

    Stephanie’s segment, TTRPGKids, explores how parents and teachers can use role playing games with children in the home and in the classroom.

    We hope you enjoy the additional content!

    Our History

    We aim for most Ludology episodes to be timeless, so you are welcome to explore our entire catalog. Most of it should age quite well. The podcast was started in 2011 by Geoff Engelstein and Ryan Sturm, with Mike Fitzgerald taking over for Ryan in 2015. Gil and Scott joined the show in 2017 when Mike stepped aside, and Emma joined in 2019 when Geoff ended his tenure as host. Emma left in 2021, and Erica and Sen joined us. Since then, Scott stepped down in 2022 and Gil will be hanging up his mic in 2023, leaving Erica and Sen to carry on this amazing legacy.

    Erica and Sen are working to bring new voices to Ludology and have some great things to announce as gaming expands to include even more people!

    Contact Us 

    Have your own thoughts about our topics? We encourage you to visit us at our guild on Boardgamegeek to get involved in a continuing discussion.

    You can also email us at hello@ludology.net.

    Ludology is part of The Dice Tower Network, the premier board game media network.

    If you have questions that you’d like answered on Ludology, let us know by filling out this Google Form; you can also leave an audio question that we can use on the show, if you wish! 

    Burning Questions for Ludology

    Burning Question

    Support the Show

    Ludology is made possible through the support and donations of listeners like you.

    We currently have 3 “First Listen” series that will go out to Patrons well in advance of the audio being released to the wider audience.

    • The Memories that Made Us (monthly) – memories about gaming experiences that helped shape the people that bring modern games to life
    • Tales from the Designer Toolbox (monthly) – tips and tricks from industry pros learned from both success and failure
    • Ludology Live – recordings from conventions around the world

    Patrons will also get extra consideration for any giveaways that we might have!

    Become a Ludology Patron

    Become a patron

    You can also make a one-time or monthly donation here. The link will take you to Erica’s account. People who donate in this way will not have access to the Patreon page – sorry!





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  • Grab an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB for a bargain price, if you’re in the UK

    Grab an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB for a bargain price, if you’re in the UK



    While GPU prices are a bit of a lottery in the US right now, PC gamers in the UK are often enjoying plentiful stock and falling prices. The latest new GPU to get a price drop is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, which is currently going for just £379.99 at Overclockers, saving you £20 on the MSRP, and enabling you to pick up a decent graphics card with plenty of VRAM.

    I recently tested this GPU for my Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 Ti review, and found that in some ways it was an even better buy than the more expensive RTX 5070, thanks to its extra 4GB of VRAM. This Nvidia GPU already offers reasonable value at MSRP, but it’s a really good deal for £379.99, especially for the 16GB version. There’s now competition from the cheaper AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT, of course, but the Nvidia GPU is quicker, and worth the extra money at this price.

    One of the main benefits of this GPU, of course, is its support for the Nvidia DLSS 4 ecosystem, with the latest upscaling tech now featuring in many of the latest games, much more so than AMD’s competing FSR 4 tech, and enables you to vastly improve the frame rates in your games with minimal impact on image quality. In particular, new games such as Doom The Dark Ages and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle run great on the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, and you can even get them running at 2,560 x 1,440 as well as 1,920 x 1,080.

    You can also happily max out demanding games such as Cyberpunk 2077 on this GPU, including the full Overdrive ray tracing mode. In my tests, I found you could enable this setting at 1080p, then enable DLSS on the Quality setting (which still looks great with DLSS 4), and it would average 56fps. That’s a solid enough starting point to then enable Nvidia’s new multi frame gen tech, which uses AI to insert extra frames between the ones rendered by your GPU, pushing the average frame rate all the way up to 179fps.

    Best of all, though, is the price of £379.99, which is great value for this GPU with 16GB of memory, buying you a Gainward RTX 5060 Ti Python III card. You just need to click on this link here to take you to the deal.

    If you can’t quite run to that price, you can still buy an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB for £314.99 from the same retailer. It’s not as fast as the RTX 5060 Ti, but it’s still a big upgrade over the RTX 5060, and a decent GPU for the money. Check out my AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT review to see how the competition copes with our game benchmark suite.

    For more GPU buying advice, check out our guide to the best graphics card, where we run you through all our favorite options right now, as well as our GPU install guide, which takes you through the graphics card upgrade process.

    You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. In addition, we have a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.



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  • Sony wheels out Ghost of Yotei just to tease a dedicated State of Play for it in July

    Sony wheels out Ghost of Yotei just to tease a dedicated State of Play for it in July


    When we first got confirmation of this week’s State of Play, Sony’s official description provided little to go on. PlayStation’s first-party output is quite slim this year, but some of us expected the company’s biggest game in 2025 – Ghost of Yotei – to make some sort of appearance.

    After all, for a game coming out this October, we’ve seen very little gameplay to get us excited about its big release this fall.

    The good news is that Ghost of Yotei, did, indeed show up during the State of Play showcase. It was so brief, however, you may have missed it. Developer Sucker Punch treated us to a small teaser that left everyone wanting more.

    And more certainly is on the way, because the point of that teaser was to announce a special State of Play presentation dedicated entirely to the Ghost of Tsushima sequel. Sadly, we’ll have to wait until sometime in July for that.

    The July showcase will offer an extended look at Yotei’s “evolved” gameplay mechanics, exploration, combat and more, according to the PlayStation Blog. Hopefully that episode is scheduled for early July, rather than later in the month.

    Watch on YouTube

    Ghost of Yotei arrives October 2 on PS5, and no doubt two or so years later on PC.



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