Coming This Week to Digital Foundry (Week 11, 2025) (Patreon)

Hello there - a little late, but welcome to the latest weekly update from the Digital Foundry team, or more specifically myself, Rich Leadbetter. It's going to be a slightly quieter week than the last, where we actually put out seven different videos. 21 if you want to include DF Clips!! There's a good reason for a less packed schedule this week, which we'll get to shortly.

Right now, I'm looking to polish off the long-in-development Intel B570 video and part of that video contains the 'budget GPU upgrade for a budget CPU' controversy that mired Intel post-launch. Does Intel have a driver overhead problem? My idea on this: run the GPUs on the fastest CPU money can buy, then on an actual budget rig... using our CPU benchmark suite, or rather key parts of it. You should expect to be CPU-limited, of course, because our tests spare no quarter. Per the image, you're hammered at 1440p. You're even hammered at 4K. But by comparing the differential between vendors you should get an idea of how much CPU time is given to the game and how much is sucked up by the driver. For future budget CPU reviews, I'm gonna add a Ryzen 5 5600X on a PCIe 4.0 board.

Anyway, on with the updates:

Rich (ie me) will be polishing off that B570 GPU review then moving onto any one of the videos I've been wanting to work on: SFF PC vs PS5 Pro, Switch 2 simulations, etc etc. Also intrigued by the Optiscaler stuff that sees FSR 4 (and hopefully XeSS 2?) running on DLSS only games.

Alex is working on the GTA 5 PC video! It should be done a little later in the week. Beyond that, it's on to Assassin's Creed Shadows where we are hoping to have something special lined up.

John will be our representative at GDC this year, but for now he's working on Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition on Switch.

Tom will be handling the triumvirate of consoles - PS5, Xbox Series S and X - for Assassin's Creed Shadows, but don't expect that this week.

Oliver is looking to polish off his much-promised 'Too Big For Steam Deck 2025' video, then moves onto a PS5 vs PS5 Pro Assassin's Creed Shadows video.

Will is looking to handle our review of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D - a CPU I'm quite keen on for my workstation upgrade... assuming I can find a motherboard with two PCIe x8 slots, one PCIe x4 and a ton of NVMe. Any recommendations?

So, yeah, Assassin's Creed Shadows - as it's not landing this week and we have a bunch of people working on it, that's why this week may seem a little less packed than usual. Anything you'd like us to take a look at? Any comments on the above? Do let us know in the comments box that - as usual - is 'below'.