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According to a presentation from Intel on Tuesday, which weirdly debuted Microsoft's "requirements for an AI PC," vendors will need three specific components if they want to advertise their new machines as such. One, "NPU, CPU, and GPU powered silicon." Since that presumably includes integrated GPUs like Intel's Xe systems, the NPU (neural processing unit) is the new hotness in question.
What exactly is an NPU? That's a bit nebulous at the moment. An NPU is a distinct (if not necessarily discrete) processor designed for specific tasks, very much like a GPU for visuals, but it's for "AI." Another term for an NPU is "AI accelerator." But again, exactly what it does isn't exactly clear. For the live demos I've seen, the most interesting thing it's doing is blurring the background in video calls somewhat more efficiently than existing chips.
Microsoft also demands that an AI PC include its Copilot assistant…which is built into Windows 11. So, that's basically a given. And also that there be a dedicated Copilot button on the keyboard, generally replac
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Apple today announced that three more Apple Arcade games will be available on the Vision Pro headset starting this Thursday, March 28.
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I've poured out my love for this game and its predecessor before, bemoaning the fact the publisher EA and developer Respawn seem to have abandoned it in favor of Star Wars and battle royale. But to save you some reading time: it has a fantastic single-player campaign that's worth the price of admission alone. Fast-paced, parkour-infused FPS action in "pilot" mode contrasts with stomping around in your robot pal for big action set pieces. The sci-fi buddy cop story is decent and the level design is occasionally jaw-dropping.
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In part, that's because they've had to run via emulation, a way of translating the X86 code into instructions that can be understood by the Arm processor. Qualcomm claims that performance won't be a problem for its upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processors and the PCs they run on. But the company also unveiled a pretty major caveat to that, too.
According to The Verge, Qualcomm executives told a Game Developer Conference audience that the company believes that most of the games in Steam's list of the most popular games should run at close to full speed on Snapdragon X Elite.
Qualcomm engineer Issam Khalil told the audience that game developers could port their games over to Arm, or they could create an Arm64EC app, a hybrid approach where Qualcomm's drivers run natively but the rest of the app is emulated. They could also just let Windows on Arm's emulation shoulder the load. Khalil said he believes most games are GPU-bound, meaning that the performance of the emulator won't have a big impact.
There are some problems, though. Games with kernel-level anti-cheat drivers simply won't work via emulation, as will games that use AVX instructions, Khalil said. The latter is the subject of a
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If you're not sure where to begin your quest for a budget-friendly machine, don't sweat it. We did the heavy lifting for you. (Note that laptop prices can fluctuate and there might be times when the price of one of our picks hovers over $1,000.) For more recommendations on gaming laptops, see our roundup of the best gaming laptops across all prices, or take a look at our roundup of the best laptop deals.
Why you should trust us: Hey, it's in our name! PCWorld prides itself on laptop experience and expertise. We've been covering PCs since 1983, and we now review more than 70 laptops every year. All of the picks below have been personally tested and vetted by our experts, who've applied not only performance benchmarks but rigorous usability standards. We're also committed to reviewing PC laptops at every price point to help you find a machine that matches your budget.
Updated March 21, 2024: We added the recently reviewed Acer Nitro V 15 as the best connectivity pick. Not only does it have a ton of ports, but it also offers good game performance and build quality for the price. We also updated our list of recently reviewed laptops.
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