AMD’s new pitch: our old tech is so good you should just keep using it

The Verge » Games RSS Feed✍ Sean Hollister📅 June 1, 2026⏱ 3 min read(4 months ago)

Overview & Key Takeaways

Computex 2026 is underway in Taiwan, and we're expecting all manner of flashy computers with jaw-dropping pricetags (or no pricetags at all) as the entire industry navigates RAMageddon. But for desktop PC gamers, AMD has a different pitch. It's relaunching three old components alongside a big new promise: you won't need to buy a new […]

Computex 2026 is underway in Taiwan, and we’re expecting all manner of flashy computers with jaw-dropping pricetags (or no pricetags at all) as the entire industry navigates RAMageddon.

But for desktop PC gamers, AMD has a different pitch. It’s relaunching three old components alongside a big new promise: you won’t need to buy a new motherboard until 2030.

Today, AMD is promising it will keep supporting its AM5 desktop motherboard socket with new Ryzen processors through 2029, which likely means you can keep upgrading to newer CPUs till the end of the decade without changing your board.

Even if you’re still on the older AM4 socket, you may have one last upgrade left: it’s relaunching a “10th Anniversary” edition of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D to celebrate the 10th anniversary of that AM4 platform. That’ll be $349 on June 25th.

And if you decide now’s the time to switch to AMD or the AM5 socket, the company’s got a new old chip for that too: a $330 Ryzen 7 7700X3D, likely a binned version of the existing 7800X3D. The beefier chip costs $380 to $450, though can occasionally be found at $320. On paper, the 7700X3D looks only slightly slower:

Again, this is old tech: the 7800X3D came out in 2023; its 9000-series successor came out in late 2024. But the old chip was plenty powerful, as you can see in my colleague Tom Warren’s comparison review with the 9950X3D, 9800X3D, and 7800X3D from 2025. (Check out how much less power the 7800X3D used in his chart, too.)

Meanwhile in the GPU realm, AMD’s finally bringing its formerly China-exclusive Radeon RX 9070 GRE to other countries including the US, starting June 1st for $549.

That’s not quite as friendly for PC gamers to hear, as $549 was supposed to be the starting price for the notably more powerful RX 9070, not the cut-down GRE version which trails the RTX 5070.

But the RX 9070 was never broadly available at $549, despite what AMD claimed to us at the time — it launched amidst a GPU shortage, hit $549 once, but the price settled closer to $599 or $620 once that shortage ended. So this would be a bit cheaper.

AMD’s making an interesting pitch at a time that everything, especially gaming, is beginning to feel too expensive. Does it convince you?

✈ Read Original at The Verge » Games RSS Feed ← Back to All News

More in PC, Multi-platform

🖥 PC, Multi-platform

Wardogs Devs Are Watching Economy Cheaters Like Hawks

With the FPS Wardogs(https://www.gamespot.com/games/wardogs/) dominating the Steam charts, developer Bulkhead is paying close attention to the game's various systems. The studio recently dropped a new patch that makes some necessary changes(https://www.gamespot.com/articles/wardogs-patch-notes-scheduled-maintenance-and-patch-0-11/) for server stability, while confirming that the team has their eyes on cheaters and exploiters. As part of Patch 0.11(https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1867240/view/701027323413005176?l=english), which came out on September 14, Bulkhead announced that should any dogs of war take advantage of Wardogs' economy by farming servers, they'll find themselves either temporarily or permanently banned from the game. "As an early access game, we’re not perfect, and we never will be," Bulkhead said in the patch notes. "But if you do find something and take advantage of it, we have decided to come down hard." To be specific, Bulkhead outlined three different scenarios that will come with three different repercussions depending on the type of exploit you partake in. Scenario 1: Stockpiling money by abusing cash exploits and bugs will result in a timed ban, with the length determined by whether you were banned previously. Your cash and experience will get reset, too. Scenario 2: Showing economy exploits through tutorial content will be treated as "advertising cheats," resulting in a permanent ban. However, if you happen to stumble upon an exploit and share that with Bulkhead on Discord or social media, that'll be seen as an "alert," which prevents you from being permanently banned. Scenario 3: If you're farming experience via server exploits, which Bulkhead says will result in "the most serious bans," your account will get banned permanently. The studio clarified, though, that it's open to feedback on this policy, stating that these positions could change if enough people believe they're too harsh. "In the very early stages of finding these issues you may find yourself getting away with it, but it doesn't take long for our backend data to flag abusers," Bulkhead said, "Effectively, if you find something and you then keep doing it, over and over again, that is abuse of an exploit. If you figure something out and test it once or twice, no biggy, thanks for helping us QA." Wardogs is currently Steam's hottest game right now, with over 320,000 people playing at the time of writing. It didn't have the smoothest of starts(https://www.gamespot.com/articles/wardogs-has-a-massive-start-on-steam-but-players-face-brutal-sever-queues/), but the kinks are getting ironed out as the days go on. Players are a little riled up at the moment, though, particularly because people don't know how to close the door behind them(https://www.gamespot.com/articles/wardogs-players-really-want-you-to-close-the-doors-or-else/).

GameSpotNewsabout 6 hours ago

🖥 PC, Multi-platform

Wardogs Players Really Want You To Close The Doors … Or Else

The hottest game on PC right now is Wardogs(https://www.gamespot.com/games/wardogs/), the Battlefield-like mass multiplayer FPS by developer Bulkhead that's soaring up the Steam charts. While it may not be as hot as the game itself, the game's subreddit is full of hotheads demanding you do one teeny-tiny thing. Close. The. Doors. Behind. You. Released in a closed beta state in August 2026 before entering early access in September 2026, Wardogs has taken PC gaming by storm. It's not only the number-one trending game(https://steamdb.info/stats/trendingfollowers/) according to SteamDB, with an all-time peak of 428,666 concurrent players on September 13(https://steamdb.info/app/1867240/charts/), but it's also the fourth-most-played game on Steam(https://steamdb.info/charts/), trailing behind Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PUBG: Battlegrounds. Folks can't get enough of being a dog of war. Something folks would love to get enough of, though? Players leaving those gosh-darn doors and gates open when venturing out onto the battlefield. All over the official Wardogs subreddit are a ton of players decrying the carelessness of other players when it comes to not closing doors and gates behind them. Redditor demonmit1 posted on September 14(https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/comments/1wfvgws/stopbuildingsomanygates/), pleading for people to stop building so many gates and close the ones they open. "If you're helping build a FOB, please… We only need one air locked gate for logistics," demonmit1 said. "No one closes them anyways, so adding more is not good. Stop it. If someone wants to leave the base, they can jump over a wall. They don't need to leave through a door they'll forget to close." https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/comments/1wdpm7n/closeyourfobgatesplease/ "PSA: stop leaving my doors and gates open at my fobs," wrote Redditor novastar17 on September 12(https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/comments/1we3cmr/psastopleavingmydoorsandgatesopenatmy/). "i have been trying to build mortar complexes and random allies come open doors and let enemies in to just wipe all of us while im busy building. stop that, thanks." "There should be upgraded doors / gates that auto shut after a few seconds," user GOpencyprep suggested on August 23(https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/comments/1vwmx4f/spendingsomuchtimebuildingupafobonlyto/) in a very potty-mouthed Reddit post. "Or teammates who forget to close the door behind them should be fired into the sun...one or the other. Seriously though this is a problem." What these FOBBs, or Forward Operating Base builders(https://www.gamespot.com/articles/what-is-a-fob-in-wardogs-and-why-do-you-need-one/), are talking about are the doors and gates you can add when constructing bases that act as central operating hubs for your team. These FOBs allow you to create fortified defenses, as well as construct weapons and other armaments to keep your team ready for when the fighting gets particularly intense. Unfortunately, because the doors and the gates don't close behind you once opened, this gives the enemy team the opportunity to waltz in, shoot up the place, and leave as if they were invited in the first place. Even though only you and your teammates can open and close doors and gates, meaning the enemy can't just pry your FOB open, leaving any access point open leaves you, ahem, open to a raid. You can imagine how frustrating this would be. https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/comments/1wf7gwf/friendlytutorialonhowtoclosedoors/ "While Servers are down CLOSE THE DAMN DOORS," Redditor xMrStonex put it bluntly on September 14(https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/comments/1wfxm4d/whileserversaredownclosethedamndoors/). "Title. Thank you." "I get killed so often when using mortars or working on the FOB, because lazy people can't be bothered to close the door when they leave the FOB," AutomaticReach32 suggested on September 14(https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/comments/1wfdd2x/paypeopleforclosingdoors/). "You can't force people to close the doors, but I think this could be helped with some monetary encouragement. Pay people if they close the door behind them! Nothing game changing, something modest like the revive / heal tips, $15 to players who close the door, reward good behavour!!" "I just have to say one thing," Icy-Sock-2388 said in the title of their September 5 Reddit post(https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/comments/1w8fihl/ijusthavetosayonething/). "CLOSE THE FING DOORS! Countless times now I've meticulously spent tens of thousands to rapidly build a mortar, AA, and respawn fob...only for it to be taken by the enemy because they casually walked through the front door, past the multi-layered airlocks, into the tower airlock, and then into the fob airlock room because EVERY one of those doors was open." There have been some threats in the subreddit(https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/comments/1wbhwt7/theonlyrealwayoffixingtheproblemofpeople/), too! It's really just people announcing that, if you leave a FOB door or gate open, you'll get a chest full of lead from your own team(https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/comments/1wdpm7n/closeyourfobgatesplease/) if the enemy team hasn't pumped you full of it already. Clearly, no one wants to let the AC out and the enemies in. Speaking of being let in, Wardogs suffered brutal server queues(https://www.gamespot.com/articles/wardogs-has-a-massive-start-on-steam-but-players-face-brutal-sever-queues/) once it entered early access. Thankfully, Bulkhead released a hotfix that kinda-sorta addresses the long server wait times, but you may still encounter the dreaded WD-L014 Error Code. We've broken down how to get past that(https://www.gamespot.com/articles/how-to-fix-the-wardogs-wd-l014-error-code/) so you can be a dog of war again.

GameSpotNewsabout 7 hours ago

🖥 PC, Multi-platform

The World's Coolest New Indie Gaming Showcase Officially Returns Next Month

After a successful spring outing, Evil Empire's Triple-i Initiative Showcase will return this fall, promising 'No ads, no host, just games.'

PolygonIndie, Newsabout 8 hours ago

← Back to GameSky Home