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AMD has announced its mainstream RDNA 2-powered GPU, with the RX 6700 XT set to launch on March 18.

This is the most affordable GPU in the 6000 series yet, with specs that target 1440p for maximum performance. This pits it against Nvidia’s RTX 3070 and less powerful RTX 3060 Ti, with AMD nestling in between the two with its $479 MSRP. Of course, if the past few months have been any indication, that figure might not count for anything, considering the inflation of GPU pricing due to stock shortages.

If you can snag one at release for anywhere close to the recommend price, AMD is promising performance on par and, in some cases, exceeding that of the RTX 3070. In its internal benchmarks, AMD has the RX 6700 XT beating its Nvidia rival in many modern titles. What isn’t as clear in the image is that the benchmarks are making use of AMD’s Smart Access Memory boost for increased performance, a feature which Nvidia hasn’t yet rolled out to the RTX 3070.

That could skew metric somewhat, but benchmarks are only truly accurate once consumers start getting a hold of cards anyway. The RX 6700 XT is a powerful one then, sporting a core clock of 2424MHz, 12GB of GDDR6 memory, 40 compute units (just 20 shy of the 60 in the 4K-capable RX 6800 XT), and a TDP of 230W.

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AMD will be launching reference models with its familiar 6000 series dual-fan design, while AIB designs seem to mostly feature triple-fan configuration. Both will be available on March 18, with AMD promising that it will refresh stock on its own website weekly going forward. That might help with the price hikes, but only if AMD can supply enough to satiate demand.

AMD closed off today’s stream with a tease of 6000 series GPUs being prepared for laptops in the near future, so look out for an announcement on that soon.

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BDG’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/briandavidgilbert

You might know Brian David Gilbert as the host of Polygon’s Unraveled. If you’re not familiar with his work, he has taken on gargantuan tasks such as solving the Zelda timeline in 15 minutes. And by solving we mean taking everything that’s canon and isn’t and then putting it order.

I think most would agree that it’s a foolish endeavor. But foolish endeavors are exactly what internet sweetheart Brian David Gilbert is all about. He’s also read 337 Skyrim books, ranked over 200 Mega Man robots, attempted to make sense of Kingdom Hearts, and tried to make all 78 food recipes from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild in one day.

Naturally, it’s all fantastic to watch and, as host and creator, Brian David Gilbert approaches each challenge with charm, humor, and a frankly alarming level of earnestness. But what makes him tick? Do we know the real Brian David Gilbert? Why is he the way he is? We decided to find out by sitting him down and interviewing him.

Specifically, we asked him 27 of the most important questions that’ll help you truly get to know him. Like what is he doing now? What’s his five-year plan? Favorite dance move? In fact, where did he even learn to dance?

Find out more about Brian here: https://www.briandavidgilbert.com/ or follow him on Twitter @briamgilbert.

The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a popular cinema chain headquartered in Austin, Texas, has filed for Chapter 11. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the chain, which also has locations in states including New York, Virginia, and California, has a deal in place to sell its assets to Altamont Capital and Fortress Investment Group–which will allow Alamo to restructure its business and try to weather the storm of the coronavirus’s impact on its business.

“The transaction will provide the company with much-needed incremental financing to stabilize the business during the pandemic, which has had an unprecedented and outsized impact upon the movie theater and dining industries,” a statement from the company said (via the Austin American-Statesman). “More importantly, it will position Alamo Drafthouse to return to growth and continue executing on its long-term strategic vision.”

The Alamo was an early adopter of what became an emerging trend last year among movie theaters: Allowing patrons to rent theaters for private viewing parties. As this filing indicates, the novel manuever was not enough to buoy business.

Still, The Alamo is optimistic. “Because of the increase in vaccination availability, a very exciting slate of new releases, and pent-up audience demand, we’re extremely confident that by the end of 2021, the cinema industry–and our theaters specifically–will be thriving,” said Alamo Drafthouse co-founder Tim League. Take a look at our list of the biggest movies to watch in 2021 for a sense of what, maybe, just maybe, we will all be able to see in theaters later this year.

Starting tomorrow, March 4, CBS All Access will go by a new moniker: Paramount+. The revamped streaming service will feature all of CBS All Access’ content as well as a wealth of new content, including original shows and movies. While it’s too early to say if Paramount+ will truly compete with services such as Netflix and HBO Max, there’s a stellar deal on a 12-month subscription that’s hard to pass up. Until the end of today, March 3, you can save 50% on a 12-month Paramount+ subscription, dropping the price to as low as $30.

The deal applies to both the ads-supported plan and ad-free premium plan. You can get Paramount+ for $30 with ads or $50 without ads. That breaks down to $2.50 per month or roughly $4 per month for the ad-free plan, which is quite the bargain. If you snag the deal, you’ll technically be signing up for CBS All Access before it changes to Paramount+ branding tomorrow.

Once the service goes live tomorrow, the ad-free plan will cost $10 per month. The basic plan with ads will be available for $5 per month, but you won’t be able to subscribe to this monthly tier until June–unless, of course, you already have a CBS All Access subscription.

ViacomCBS has said that 50 original shows will be available on Paramount+ within two years, including the upcoming Halo adaptation and new Avatar: The Last Airbender content. New Paramount movies, such as A Quiet Place Part II, will be available to stream 45 days after their theatrical release.

For more on the rebranded streaming service, check out our roundup detailing everything you need to know about Paramount+.

Before his roles in Ant-Man and the Wasp, The Interview, and Always Be My Maybe, Randall Park had a small role on The Office–which he completely forgot about.

Speaking to Conan O’Brien, the actor, who now appears in WandaVision, recalled that he filmed his brief opening scene for the Season 9 episode of The Office in just an hour. He left the set in a good mood but then completely forgot about it when the episode actually aired.

Park played the character “Asian Jim” as part of Pam’s prank on Dwight. Because Park forgot he filmed this scene, he thought he was the victim of a hate crime when people yelled out to him, “Asian Jim!,” when they saw him on the street.

“I was in and out in an hour and I thought, ‘That was really fun.’ And then I just completely forgot about it. And then, several years later, I’m like walking down the street and this car drives by and a guy yells, ‘Asian Jim!” and drives off. And I’m thinking, ‘Is this some racist thing that I don’t know about?'” Park said.

“I thought it was a hate crime because I had forgotten about my appearance on The Office. People would be walking up to me and saying, ‘What’s up, Asian Jim?’ And I’d be like, ‘F**k you!'”

Park’s latest role is Agent Jimmy Woo on WandaVision. The show’s final episode of Season 1 is set to premiere on Friday, March 5.

Nvidia believes that the popularity of its latest Ampere-powered GPUs isn’t solely due to the popularity of cryptocurrency mining during its latest earnings quarter.

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress participated in the Raymond James Institutional Investors Broker Conference Call, explaining that the demand for the company’s latest range of GPUs would have affected supply as much as it has even if mining didn’t become as profitable again as it has.

“Our quarter for gaming, for example, probably would have been the same with or without crypto because we’re supply constrained,” Kress explained, via WCCFTech. “So we’ll continue to watch this. We believe that our CMP product will allow us better visibility for understanding the size of crypto within our quarter.”

Nvidia is keenly aware of the demand for mining focused GPUs, however, with the company announcing a whole new range of hardware specifically for that market. CMP GPUs will be specifically designed for mining popular currencies such as Ethereum, while hashing rates on the just-released RTX 3060 have been reduced to try and ensure that only gamers are picking them up.

That won’t help stock issues in the short term, with Nvidia and AMD expecting supply to be problematic at least until the second half of 2021. How Nvidia plans to supply its GeForce customers and now its new CMP customer base has yet to be determined.

The classic French comic book The Adventures of Asterix is being turned into an animated Netflix series. The show will be released worldwide in 2022.

The 3D animated Asterix show will be produced in France. The showrunner will be Alain Chabat, who wrote and directed 2002’s live-action movie Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, which stands as the third highest-grossing feature film in French history. The show will be co-produced with publishers Les Editions Albert René.

The series will be based on writer René Goscinny and artist Albert Uderzo’s classic book Asterix and the Big Fight, in which the Romans organize a brawl between Gaulish chiefs, and attempt to fix the results with a magic potion. The 1971 book was previously adapted as an animated film in 1989.

In a statement, Netflix’s director of original animation Dominique Bazay said, “I have been talking with Celeste Surugue at Albert Rene for years about how to bring Asterix to Netflix. We built a great relationship of trust and mutual respect around our love for these characters.

“I’m French Canadian, and like most Francophones around the world, I grew up with Asterix, his sidekick Obelix, and loyal companion Dogmatix. I watched the animated specials and read the books religiously. If you’d told the 8-year-old me that one day I’d help bring these characters to life… I wouldn’t have believed you!”

The first Asterix book, Asterix the Gaul, was published in 1961. There were 23 books published prior to Goscinny’s death in 1977, and the series has continued with different writers and artists over the years since. There have been numerous live-action and animated films, the most recent being 2018’s Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion.

Microsoft has announced the full lineup of additions to Xbox Game Pass in March, and they include some very high-profile games.

Coming to Game Pass this week include Madden NFL 21, Football Manager 21, and NBA 2K21, while players can look forward to Star Wars: Squadrons later in the month. In April, the professional ice hockey game NHL 21 will come to Game Pass on console.

Additionally, Microsoft announced that five games are leaving Game Pass on March 15, including The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Bloodstained, and Kona. You can see the full lists of the games that are coming to Game Pass and leaving down below.

Xbox Game Pass New Additions

Week of March 1:

• Madden NFL 21, March 3 (Console)
• Football Manager 2021, March 4 (PC)
• Football Manager 2021 Xbox Edition, March 4 (Console and PC)
• NBA 2K21, March 4 (Cloud and Console)

Coming Soon:

• Star Wars: Squadrons, March (Console)
• NHL 21, April (Console)

Leaving Xbox Game Pass March 15

• Alvastia Chronicles (Console and PC)
• Astrologaster (PC)
• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Console and PC)
• Kona (Console)
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Console)

Oculus Quest 2 will almost certainly receive support for 120Hz refresh rate in a future update, it’s only a matter of when (via TechRadar). Vice President of Facebook Reality Labs, Andrew Bosworth, confirmed by giving a thumbs up response during an Instagram Q&A to a query about whether or not Quest 2 will get the 120Hz upgrade.

UploadVR then spotted a 120Hz Refresh Support section in the Quest platform roadmap, a guide available to Quest developer accounts. It’s labeled as experimental and while the feature’s target release date is listed as March 2021, Oculus attached a medium confidence tag to the section. That means a delay could happen, and it’s uncertain when exactly Quest 2 users will get to test out 120Hz on the headset.

John Carmack, Oculus VR’s consulting CTO, confirmed on Twitter that only a couple of existing games would be modified for 120Hz and new titles could “consider it an option in their design phase.”

From Quest 2’s launch refresh rate of 72Hz, 120Hz marks a not-so-insignificant uptick in the headset’s refresh rate. In the interim, Quest 2 also received support for 90Hz in November 2020. A higher refresh rate allows for smoother and more fluid graphics, resulting in a more immersive virtual environment.

Mark Zuckerberg called Quest 2 “on track to be the first mainstream virtual reality headset” during Facebook’s Q4 2020 earnings call, citing strong Quest 2 holiday sales.

In GameSpot’s Quest 2 review, Mat Paget praised the new device for being a great improvement from Quest 1. He commented, “While it doesn’t match up with the beefiest of VR-ready PCs, it’s still able to compete with them in the experience it provides, thanks primarily to the wireless freedom it grants its user.”