Asus found itself facing accusations of a GPU-damaging connector design at the start of this year, thanks to claims that its Q-Release Slim PCI slot system could potentially scrape GPU pins over repeated use. Now it appears Asus may have quietly changed the design of the system, as a motherboard has been spotted with a distinctly different slot mechanism in newly-released product photos.
As spotted by Uniko’s Hardware, product photos of the Asus ROG Apex X870E motherboard show what looks like a Q-Release Slim design without the metal frame between the power and data lanes, which was thought to potentially contribute to early wear (via Videocardz).
x870e apex, c10a, $749 on neweggus preorder nowthanks to newegg we can see the real mobo that hasnt available on the asus product page.the q release slim slot got revised particularly on the bracket between peg and x16.it is still button-less, the metal piece inside the slot… pic.twitter.com/KqvUQXxi3pMarch 13, 2025
At the time of the claims, Asus released a statement in which it denied that Q-Release Slim slots caused much issue to a card’s function:
“In our internal testing and evaluation of the extremely small number of cases reported, we found no damage to the motherboard or graphics card that would affect functionality and or performance. However, it is important to emphasize that any type of PCIe add in card will exhibit signs of usage and wear marking after 60 continuous insertions and removals. Additionally, if the installation and removal are not performed according to the manufacturer’s recommendations, the likelihood of scratches and or wear may increase.
“Despite this, we have found no impact on the functionality of either the graphics card or the motherboard.”
However, Asus China’s customer support was spotted offering motherboard replacements for owners of any Asus motherboard equipped with PCIe Q-Release Slim slots. It noted that it would revise the design, too.
ASUS China “PCIe Q-Release Slim” Solution1. Compensation of 200 JD E-cards（~200 RMB）2. Free replacement of motherboards with improved “PCIe Q-Release” design.3.Additional compensation or warranty assistance will be provided for damage to the graphics card.@unikoshardware pic.twitter.com/QhsjPmGqoXFebruary 6, 2025
And now we have a slot design that looks significantly different from the previous iteration. Videocardz claims that early review sample pictures show the same motherboard with the older Q-Release design, suggesting it was revised quite late into the release process.
Regardless, the claims here have always been about increased wear over multiple GPU installation and removal cycles, not extensive damage, and those claims were not particularly widespread. It’s possible that Asus has simply changed the socket design at the last minute to prevent further allegations of undue wear, even if it didn’t find any evidence for it in its internal testing.
Still, it looks like Asus may have deemed the issue worthy of changes regardless, so it’s something worth looking out for if you plan on buying an Asus motherboard in the near future.
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We’ve got a fresh clue for today’s Wordle all written up and ready to go, happy to help whenever you feel your game needs a bit of a boost. Don’t worry about spoiling the fun either—it’s supposed to help, not give the game away. Of course that might be what you’re after, and if it is, you’ll want to click through to the March 14 (1364) answer.
Today’s Wordle was one of those that felt unfathomable most of the way down the board, and incredibly obvious once I’d found the answer. I quite enjoyed that chase around the alphabet, reorganising my letters as I went and eventually uncovering Friday’s winning word. Do make sure you take a look at our hint if you’re not having as much fun, it’ll help.
Today’s Wordle hint
Wordle today: A hint for Friday, March 14
A portion of something, of no particular size, shape, or cut. Usually used to describe cake or pie.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
Yes, there is a double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
A good starting word can be the difference between victory and defeat with the daily puzzle, but once you’ve got the basics, it’s much easier to nail down those Wordle wins. And as there’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day, here are a few tips to help set you on the right path:
- A good opening guess should contain a mix of unique consonants and vowels.
- Narrow down the pool of letters quickly with a tactical second guess.
- Watch out for letters appearing more than once in the answer.
There’s no racing against the clock with Wordle so you don’t need to rush for the answer. Treating the game like a casual newspaper crossword can be a good tactic; that way, you can come back to it later if you’re coming up blank. Stepping away for a while might mean the difference between a win and a line of grey squares.
Today’s Wordle answer
What is today’s Wordle answer?
One win, ready to go. The answer to the March 14 (1364) Wordle is PIECE.
Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Past Wordle answers can give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle-solving fresh. They are also a good way to eliminate guesses for today’s Wordle, as the answer is unlikely to be repeated.
Here are some recent Wordle answers:
- March 13: CHASE
- March 12: MANGO
- March 11: TRACK
- March 10: SPITE
- March 9: GREED
- March 8: NAVEL
- March 7: TROOP
- March 6: ALERT
- March 5: SCRUM
- March 4: CHECK
Learn more about Wordle
Wordle gives you six rows of five boxes each day, and you’ll need to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them to keep up your winning streak.
You should start with a strong word like ARISE, or any other word that contains a good mix of common consonants and multiple vowels. You’ll also want to avoid starting words with repeating letters, as you’re wasting the chance to potentially eliminate or confirm an extra letter. Once you hit Enter, you’ll see which ones you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
Your second guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.
After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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Roblox Corporation co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki has said that parents worried about their kids using Roblox have a fairly simple option open to them: “My first message would be, if you’re not comfortable, don’t let your kids be on Roblox.”
Speaking to BBC News, Baszucki went on to say “that sounds a little counter-intuitive, but I would always trust parents to make their own decisions.” It’s so nice he trusts us to think about our kids once in a while.
Baszucki’s message is “a bit of a get out,” said Ellie Gibson of Scummy Mummies. “It’s much easier said than done, especially when all their friends are playing it.”
Roblox is one of the most popular platforms in the world, with 79.5 million daily active users and a long-term goal (I kid you not) of making that 1 billion daily active users. Roblox Corporation is now worth $41bn (£31bn). It bleeds into the real world in all sorts of ways, such as when the BBC used it last year to explain the UK’s general election to children.
Nevertheless the platform remains dogged by accusations it doesn’t do enough to protect young users in particular. The horrifying case of a paedophile who abducted a 15 year-old girl after meeting her on Roblox is one of many, with data reported by Bloomberg showing US police have arrested two dozen people since 2018 “accused of abducting or abusing victims” they’d met on Roblox.
Then there are the accusations it exploits young users and has effectively built an empire on the back of child labour (which Roblox denies). Turkey has just straight-up banned Roblox for “child exploitation.”
For its part Roblox always emphasises the number of people who have “amazing experiences” on the platform, and highlights the many tools and parental controls it offers.
“We do in the company take the attitude that any bad, even one bad incident, is one too many,” says Baszucki. “We watch for bullying, we watch for harassment, we filter all of those kinds of things, and I would say behind the scenes, the analysis goes on all the way to, if necessary, reaching out to law enforcement.”
Last year the company did announce new rules for under-13s following a scathing child safety report, and has AI systems that monitor communications. “We don’t condone any type of image-sharing on our own platform, and you’ll see us getting more and more, I think, way beyond where the law is on this type of behaviour,” says Baszucki.
For my part, I raise my kids on a diet of Nintendo, dad-authorised PC games, and Minecraft without the online features. I would say I’m fairly liberal generally about their exposure to various media but there are lines, and one of them for sure is Roblox. I don’t want my kids on it.
Things get slightly off-piste later in the interview, as Baszucki compares the experience of building Roblox to how Walt Disney must have felt when building Disney into what it is. “[The job is] a little like having the opportunity he had a long time ago when he was designing the Magic Kingdom.”
If that isn’t grandiose enough for you, Baszucki is asked to describe Roblox in three words and goes for four: “The future of communication.”
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Solve your daily Wordle with ease—the answer to today’s Wordle is only a quick click away now you’re here. Or if that’s a bit much to start off with, why not spend a while reading through our tips, or using our clue for the March 13 (1363) game to guide your guesses instead? However you like to win, we can make it happen.
I didn’t mind seeing an almost-but-not-quite-a-win four green letters turn up early today, instead of the five I was hoping for. Mostly because with those in place, there was literally only one other word left for me to try. Less a close miss, and more of a comfortable guide towards Thursday’s winning word. I’ll take it.
Today’s Wordle hint
Wordle today: A hint for Thursday, March 13
Pursuing someone or something quickly, with the aim of catching up to them, could be described using today’s answer.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
No, there is not a double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If you’re new to the daily Wordle puzzle or you just want a refresher after taking a break, I’ll share some quick tips to help you win. There’s nothing quite like a small victory to set you up for the rest of the day.
- A mix of unique consonants and vowels makes for a solid opening word.
- A tactical second guess should let you narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- There may be a repeat letter in the answer.
You’re not up against a timer, so you’ve got all the time in the world—well, until midnight—to find the winning word. If you’re stuck, there’s no shame in coming back to the puzzle later in the day and finishing it up when you’ve cleared your head.
Today’s Wordle answer
What is today’s Wordle answer?
All the help you need. The answer to the March 13 (1363) Wordle is CHASE.
Previous Wordle answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
Keeping track of the last handful of Wordle answers can help to eliminate current possibilities. It’s also handy for inspiring opening words or subsequent guesses if you’re short on ideas for the day.
Here are the last 10 Wordle answers:
- March 12: MANGO
- March 11: TRACK
- March 10: SPITE
- March 9: GREED
- March 8: NAVEL
- March 7: TROOP
- March 6: ALERT
- March 5: SCRUM
- March 4: CHECK
- March 3: SPEAR
Learn more about Wordle
Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes every day and the aim is to figure out the correct five-letter word by entering guesses and eliminating or confirming individual letters.
Getting off to a good start with a strong word like ARISE—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters—is a good tactic. Once you hit Enter, the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
Your second guess should compliment the starting word, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer. With a bit of luck, you should have some coloured squares to work with and set you on the right path.
After that, it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used, you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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Intel has a new CEO: Lip-Bu Tan. Once a member of Intel’s board of directors, Tan joins from his current position as chairman of Walden International and Founding Managing Partner at Walden Catalyst Ventures.
If all of that means nothing to you, he also once won the same award as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su. How’s that for context?
Yep, Tan won the Robert N. Noyce Award in 2022, which is aptly named to honour the memory of the Intel co-founder. Previous winners included Huang in 2021, Su in 2020, Morris Chang of TSMC fame in 2008, Gordon Moore of Moore’s law fame in 1994, and AMD founder Jerry Sanders in 1998. So you could say it’s a hot list.
Tan brings some experience to the role, then. Both as a big tech investor and from previously working as CEO of Cadence Design Systems, a company that makes or licenses products for designing other semiconductor products.
Tan is taking over the role from interim co-CEOs David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus. Though, saying that, Holthaus will remain CEO of Intel Products, which deals with the non-manufacturing side of the business. Zinsner will stick around as CFO.
It’s not going to be an easy first year for Tan, however. Intel is in a bit of a state, as it was for most of previous CEO Pat Gelsinger’s time, with more rumours about who might be buying it than leaks for its next-generation products right now. The current rumour is Intel Foundry competitor TSMC, trying to convince Nvidia, AMD, and Broadcom to go splitsies with it. That feels like a long-shot, but massive mergers and buyouts hardly ever make much sense to me.
Whether Tan has any interest in selling any part of Intel off is what to look out for in the coming months, and potentially years. The board might like Tan for his potential to take Intel back into big profits, but just as easily Tan might be the sort of character to cut their losses and spin out or sell a part of the business in the face of a good deal. We just don’t know yet.
We do know what the Intel board think: “Lip-Bu is an exceptional leader whose technology industry expertise, deep relationships across the product and foundry ecosystems, and proven track record of creating shareholder value is exactly what Intel needs in its next CEO,” says Frank D. Yeary, who was the acting executive chair for Intel’s board while searching for a new CEO.
What we should maybe hope for from Tan is a commitment to gaming graphics cards (don’t let us down, Tan) and to get Intel’s desktop CPUs back up to speed with the competition. AMD’s X3D chips are killing it, but there’s hardly enough to go around.
And here’s what Tan has to say:
“Intel has a powerful and differentiated computing platform, a vast customer installed base and a robust manufacturing footprint that is getting stronger by the day as we rebuild our process technology roadmap,” Tan continued. “I am eager to join the company and build upon the work the entire Intel team has been doing to position our business for the future.”
Also, Tan mentions some stuff about shareholder value, which crops up a lot in the Intel press release announcing the move. That will be a big priority for any Intel CEO now, as Intel’s share price has plummeted where other similar companies’ (Nvidia, AMD) have skyrocketed. That’s not that interesting to me though—bring me more affordable GPUs!
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Monster Hunter WIlds has cast off more than a few of its shackles to become the most streamlined experience the series has seen, for better or worse. It’s got its downsides, as Lincoln noted in his Monster Hunter Wilds review: “It can feel like a wonder, but it’s not a wonder without a cost. In providing as much monster hunting as possible, Wilds has given up some of Monster Hunter’s charms.”
That’s certainly true, but there is one thing I’m glad to see Capcom taking its shears to: Those gimmicky arena fights that were undeniably the worst part of Monster Hunter: World and Monster Hunter Rise.
If there’s a series I feel stands to benefit from dropping the frilly game modes that take the core combat and twist it into a different side beat, it’s Monster Hunter. Yet World was full of those—partly via the Zorah Magrados story quest that had me scaling up the monster, shooting cores, firing off canons all in a highly-scripted manner, all the kind of stuff I didn’t want to be doing, but also via its gathering hub arena quests.
They were, to put it bluntly, massively unfun. Pre-determined equipment, rankings, no meal benefits. It takes everything about Monster Hunter and puts it on its head, and not in any way that was enjoyable or rewarding. After all, the gear grind is half the fun, and what use is that if you can’t actually then take advantage of your builds in a challenge?
Rise went ahead and cooked up something even more diabolical in the form of Rampage mode. Capcom’s butchered idea of a tower defense mode was slow, frustrating, and worst of all, mandatory at a few points in the story.
Hell, at least you could avoid World’s gathering hub arena stuff if you wanted to, and Zorah Magrados was long but relatively autopilot by the end of it. But Rampage needed me to run around, manage different artillery and actually pay some kind of attention. I’d happily take a big Rey Dau shock to the face before being tossed into another Rampage fight.
I do have to give props to Capcom for trying different things and getting a little wacky and wild with it, but they’re concepts that I feel don’t work and aren’t exactly something Monster Hunter fans were even asking for in the first place.
It’s why I’m so damn grateful that, over 100 hours into Wilds, it’s been almost entirely driven by hunting monsters my own way, without any gimmicky faff on top. I mean, there is still a small portion of it that exists in Wilds, but it’s so minor I keep forgetting it’s there.
Ruins of Wyveria is home to the Wounded Hollow, a giant arena split by a fence. It’s only necessary for a couple of quests, with the remaining optionals being so few in number I’ve yet to exhaust myself on it. I still wasn’t totally sold on its split arena premise—raise the fence for short periods of time before the whole thing goes on cooldown and you’re forced to deal with two angry monsters for a bit—but it wasn’t so frustrating that I was dreading every time I had to dive into one.
But hey, I can still take in all my own gear, and the hunts still clock in at roughly the same amount of time I spent fighting them out in the open world. I fear that Capcom will end up making more use out of the Wounded Hollow down the line. I couldn’t help but feel like the whole thing was a little too underutilised—not that I was complaining—and I do wonder if future updates will see more fights taking place down there.
For now, though, I can celebrate this small victory. Not all streamlining is good but sometimes, it’s exactly what I need. Please, Capcom, never make me do another Rampage fight for as long as I shall live.
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