When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. For many PCs, an upgrade of the processor and motherboard is sufficient to continue using it with Windows 11. Although support for Windows 10 will not end in October 2025 after all, Microsoft's additional grace period extends its life by only one year. This means that many users will soon not only have to say goodbye to their operating system, but also to their computer in the near future. Even if its components are powerful enough for Windows 11, it may become electronic waste: This is because Microsoft has strict requirements for the hardware on which the new operating system can run -- especially when it comes to the processor.

Although support for Windows 10 will not end in October 2025 after all, Microsoft's additional grace period extends its life by only one year. This means that many users will soon not only have to say goodbye to their operating system, but also to their computer in the near future. Even if its components are powerful enough for Windows 11, it may become electronic waste: This is because Microsoft has strict requirements for the hardware on which the new operating system can run -- especially when it comes to the processor. Most PCs and laptops that are more than eight years old are therefore excluded from the upgrade -- even though they work without any problems under Windows 10 and would certainly do the same under Windows 11. However, you can make your computer officially fit for Windows 11 with small hardware upgrades: Whether this is worthwhile, whether it is even possible, and how much it costs depends on the specific PC or laptop.

Although support for Windows 10 will not end in October 2025 after all, the additional grace period is only one year. This means that many users will soon not only have to say goodbye to their operating system, but also to their computer. Even if its components are powerful enough for Windows 11, it may become electronic waste: This is because Microsoft has strict requirements for the hardware on which the new operating system can run -- especially when it comes to the processor. Most PCs and laptops that are more than eight years old are therefore excluded from the upgrade -- even though they work without any problems under Windows 10 and would certainly do the same under Windows 11. However, you can make your computer officially fit for Windows 11 with small hardware upgrades: Whether this is worthwhile, whether it is even possible, and how much it costs depends on the specific PC or laptop.

Consistency in the output of language models is critical for their reliability and practical utility. Due to their training objective, language models learn to model the full space of possible continuations, leading to outputs that can vary significantly in style and content, even for similar or repeated inputs. To address this, we propose a novel decoding algorithm that enhances response consistency across different prompts with no degradation in response quality. By incorporating a latent variable into the next-token sampling process based on the Gumbel reparametrisation trick, our method outperforms standard sampling by up to 10% across semantic and stylistic consistency benchmarks.

AI is being shoved into everything now, from laptops to kitchen appliances to celebrity gossip news. The term is so ubiquitous that it's fast becoming meaningless, just like "performative" or "green." So, I'd like to thank Cooler Master for taking the plunge and officially putting a bullet in AI as a marketing adjective with its new thermal paste. Yup, Cooler Master is advertising a thermal paste--the goo compound you squirt between your CPU and a cooler--as somehow infused with artificial intelligence. It's called Cryofuze 5, which the company is advertising on its Chinese site as "AI competitive thermal paste" (according to the Google translation).

Every time you think the PC industry is out of ideas, they come back with some new ones. CES 2024 offered a solid glimpse of where things are going. The AI hype train is running at full speed, of course, but we also saw some promising developments for PC gamers and some fresh takes on portable computing. It's a great time to be a PC user, and these emerging trends help prove it: With Intel heralding the "AI PC era" at CES, PC makers are eager to play up the AI angle on their latest laptops. Still, consumers will need to be savvy about what's actually new and useful here.

Of course, we knew that AI would figure prominently at this year's CES. But as CES veterans, we've seen such sparkling promises of the next big thing eventually fizzle. Thankfully there was plenty of meat-and-potatoes PC tech on display in Las Vegas to satisfy the cravings of PC enthusiasts here and now. Whether you're a road warrior, a PC builder, a lover of games both old and new, or a content creator, we saw some truly exciting products for PC users of every stripe, and, yes, some of it even includes AI. MSI could've left well alone with the MEG 321URX QD-OLED monitor.

And speaking of Christian iconography and angry women: Neon Genesis Evangelion! Asus has been pumping out some PC gear branded with the license of the classic anime for a few years now, most recently a ROG Z790 motherboard based on the fire engine red Eva Unit 02 giant mech design. But Asuka stans were shocked and outraged to find a prominent misspelling on their pricey bit of anime merchandise. One of the decorative shielding plates on the ROG Maximumus Z790 Hero EVA-02 Edition reads "Evangenlion" instead of "Evangelion." Anime fans drooling over every last millimeter of the design noticed the issue back in September, according to VideoCardz.com (translating from German site HardwareLuxx), but Asus is only now addressing the issue with an official statement after it was thrust into the spotlight via a JayzTwoCents tweet. The company offered recompense with a free replacement for those who ask, and an additional year of warranty coverage even for those who don't.

Code hidden inside PC motherboards left millions of machines vulnerable to malicious updates, researchers revealed this week. Staff at security firm Eclypsium found code within hundreds of models of motherboards created by Taiwanese manufacturer Gigabyte that allowed an updater program to download and run another piece of software. While the system was intended to keep the motherboard updated, the researchers found that the mechanism was implemented insecurely, potentially allowing attackers to hijack the backdoor and install malware. Elsewhere, Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky revealed that its staff had been targeted by newly discovered zero-click malware impacting iPhones. Victims were sent a malicious message, including an attachment, on Apple's iMessage. The attack automatically started exploiting multiple vulnerabilities to give the attackers access to devices, before the message deleted itself.

Computex is the most vital PC show of the year, every year. Just look at the name! Taiwan's trade show is where computer vendors large and small unveil their latest, greatest gear ahead of the crucial back to school and holiday shopping seasons. If CES is where the industry showcases its vision for the future, Computex keeps it real. Product cycles for the world's biggest chip vendors made this Computex feel somewhat muted.