Future Technology[Hardware Weekly] The GPU that makes Nvidia look overpriced
If you were about to buy a new GPU, stop. The card that makes the most sense in the £250-350 bracket just launched three weeks ago, and most people haven't heard of it yet.
The Big 3
AMD's RX 9060 XT gives you 16GB of VRAM for $349. Nvidia charges $429 for the same.
The Radeon RX 9060 XT launched on June 5 and AMD did something refreshing: they let reviewers publish on day one. No embargo games, no managed press cycle. Just benchmarks. The verdict was good. The 8GB base model starts at $299 (around £235), matching the RTX 5060's price. But the 16GB version is only $349, compared to $429 for Nvidia's RTX 5060 Ti 16GB. That $80 gap for the same amount of VRAM, with 15-20% better rasterisation performance than the RTX 4060 Ti, is a meaningful difference.
The card uses AMD's RDNA 4 architecture on the Navi 44 die and runs at 150W, comfortably within what a decent 650W PSU handles. At 1440p with high texture settings, 16GB of VRAM is starting to matter. Not in every game today, but in enough that paying the extra £40 over the 8GB model is the right call if you're planning to keep this card for three or four years. Third-party AIB versions from Sapphire and XFX are landing in the UK at £285-310 for the 16GB.
Should you care: If you're building a new mid-range gaming PC or upgrading from an RTX 2060 or GTX 1080 era card, the RX 9060 XT 16GB is the clearest recommendation in this price bracket right now. If you're on an RTX 3060 Ti or newer, the performance gains don't justify the spend.
Sony put a headphone jack and microSD slot on a 2026 flagship. The audiophiles are very pleased.
The Sony Xperia 1 VIII launched in Europe from June 19 at £1,399 (1,499 euros) and it does something no other 2026 flagship does: keeps the 3.5mm headphone jack, the microSD card slot, front-facing stereo speakers, and a dedicated camera shutter button, all on the same device. Running Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, no less. The camera system has been overhauled with a triple 48MP array, including a telephoto sensor that's roughly four times larger than last year's, which should translate into genuinely better optical quality at 70mm.
Pre-orders came with a free pair of Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones bundled in, worth around £350 on their own. That sweetened the deal considerably for the phone's target audience, which is: people who care about audio quality, shoot a lot of video, and find the camera apps on Samsung and Apple slightly too automated. Sony's Pro camera mode is still here for full manual control.
Should you care: If the headphone jack is a dealbreaker for you, or if you've been waiting for a Xperia with a serious sensor upgrade, this is the one. Note that Sony confirmed no US launch, so North American readers are out of luck on official channels.
OpenAI built its first chip in nine months. That's either impressive or alarming, depending on how you look at it.
OpenAI and Broadcom unveiled Jalapeño on June 24: OpenAI's first custom AI inference chip, designed from scratch to run ChatGPT and future LLMs more efficiently. The part that raised eyebrows in the chip world is the timeline. Initial design to tape-out in nine months, which Broadcom says may be the fastest ASIC development cycle ever achieved in high-performance semiconductors. OpenAI used its own AI models to accelerate parts of the chip design process, which gives the story an interesting recursive quality.
Jalapeño is a reticle-sized ASIC built for inference, meaning it handles the "responding to your prompts" side of AI rather than the training side. Early tests suggest it delivers substantially better performance-per-watt than current best-in-class hardware. Prototype deployment starts in late 2026, scaling through 2027, with full capacity in the first half of 2028. This puts OpenAI alongside Google (TPUs), Apple (Neural Engines), and Meta (MTIA) in the custom silicon club, and signals that Nvidia's grip on AI compute is genuinely loosening at the top end of the market.
Should you care: Not directly for consumers, not yet. But every dollar OpenAI saves on compute is a dollar that doesn't have to come from subscription prices. Custom silicon is how the AI labs protect their margins as models become commoditised.
Quick Hits
Honor Watch 6: 35-day battery, £149 launch price. Honor's new Watch 6 hit UK shelves on June 18 at an early-bird price of £149.99, rising to £229 after mid-July. The headline is the battery: 35 days claimed in endurance mode, 17 days in regular use. The 1.46-inch AMOLED display hits 3,000 nits, NFC payments are included, and it covers 120 sports modes. Reviews from Trusted Reviews and Tech Advisor say the software is solid but limited compared to Wear OS. If you need a watch that survives a fortnight without a charger, this is currently the most affordable way to get there. Read more →
GPU prices are still a mess in 2026. The RTX 5090 launched at $1,999. It's selling for over $4,000 in some stores. The broader GPU market is being squeezed by AI demand pulling the same components that go into consumer graphics cards. AMD's RX 9060 XT (above) is one of the few bright spots in terms of reasonable launch pricing. If you're planning a GPU upgrade, buying at or near MSRP requires patience and quick reflexes. More on mid-range GPU options →
Snap's AR glasses Specs priced at $2,195, shipping this autumn. Snap announced pricing for its AR glasses, called Specs, at $2,195 with a fall 2026 ship date. That's firmly in developer/enthusiast territory. The Xreal R1 AR glasses are cheaper at $849 and start shipping in July, but they're a different product category. If you're tracking the AR wearables space, 2026 is starting to look like the year it stops being prototype territory. Wearables overview →
South Korea committed $880 billion to chips and AI over the next decade. Samsung and SK Hynix are anchoring four new chip fabs in South Korea's southwest as part of the government's 1,350 trillion won investment plan. The memory chip side matters for hardware buyers: HBM memory, the kind that makes AI accelerators useful, is South Korea's speciality. More fab capacity could ease the supply pressures that are keeping GPU and AI chip prices elevated. Don't expect it to move prices in the next 12 months, but it matters for the second half of the decade. Full story →
Pick of the Week
Google Pixel 10 Pro at around £614-649 (down from £999 at launch)
The Pixel 10 Pro has hit its lowest price since launch. Powered by Google's Tensor G5 chip built specifically for on-device AI, it handles call screening, photo editing, and Live Translate faster than anything running Qualcomm with AI features retrofitted on top. The camera system is excellent. Seven years of OS updates means you won't be scrambling for an upgrade any time soon.
Best for: Android users who want a clean software experience, great cameras, and long-term support, and don't want to spend flagship money. This is the price where it becomes genuinely competitive against phones that cost £200 more.
Honest caveat: Some user reviews flag minor software stability issues, and the Pixel 11 series will likely arrive in autumn 2026, which means another price drop is coming. If you can wait until October or November, you'll probably see it under £550. If you need a phone now, the current price is fair.
Worth Waiting For
If you're considering a GPU upgrade and the RX 9060 XT isn't quite what you're after, AMD's RDNA 5 desktop GPU generation could arrive earlier than expected, with leakers suggesting mid-2027 rather than the late 2027 timeline that had been circulating. That's still a year away, so it's not a reason to delay a purchase today, but it's worth knowing the timeline before buying a top-end RDNA 4 card. On the other end of the waiting game, Xreal's R1 AR glasses start shipping in July 2026 at $849. They've been one of the more interesting preorder stories in wearables this year.
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