Reddark, Iran's supposed 'quantum processor', and an Intel patent palaver.

Among companies like Gigabyte pulling out smart new solutions for GPU power connectors, and Zephyr dropping the first graphics card with a pink PCB, I'm almost less disappointed in the world of GPUs this week… almost. Why would I need a graphics card anyway, when the ROG Ally just went on sale. It feels like I'll never go back to gaming at my PC, especially in this heat. Oh yeah, Cities: Skylines 2 is coming out this year. Ignore me.

Intel and VLSI have been going at each other for years over alleged patent infringement. For the most part, it had appeared that VLSI would get its way and Intel would be forced to cough up billions in damages, but the tide appears to be turning in Intel's favour.

This is a surprise: a discount on the best RTX 4080 laptop I've tested. It's a fantastic notebook, offering performance that can often match and sometimes beat an RTX 4090-based system. There's a high-performance CPU to back it up, a decent, bright 1600p screen, and a fair amount of storage. All with a discount.

Another cheap PC from Skytech that's technically not on sale. The company is keeping the cost down with an affordable, yet still great-for-gaming, Ryzen 5 5600X processor. Paired with the RTX 4060 Ti you shouldn't have trouble at 1080p or 1440p. And for that price I've no complaints, even on the side of supporting components.

Here's our pick for the best budget 4K gaming monitor, but now it's even cheaper. That's a deal we can't pass up. It's a gloriously simple panel, too, with a no-frills look paired with a speedy refresh up to 144Hz and a handy USB hub. Our Jacob uses this panel daily, and he's had no complaints with it so far.

I'm a big defender of writing about technological innovation on the PC Gamer site. I know you love a bit of science, and I'm always desperate to break new discoveries so my fellow PC gamers can be excited about humanity's evolution. So, of course I was raring to go when the Imam Khomeini University of Marine Sciences and Technologies (RA) unveiled the so-called "first product of the quantum processing algorithm."

They're calling it Reddark—a Reddit rebellion in which thousands of subreddits are going dark, in protest of potential for the site to start charging for third-party apps.

Intel is making big branding changes to its CPUs from its next-gen Meteor Lake chips onwards. From that generation onward, there'll no longer be an 'i' in 'Core i5' or 'Core i7', etc, and instead there'll also be a new 'Ultra' brand to signify the most advanced chips of the generation.