The RX 480 can be seen delivering performance that previously cost $300 plus in Star Wars Battlefront, as it exceeds the R9 390 and GTX 970 by a slim margin. Interestingly, while the R9 390 and R9 390X both dip quite low in this test the RX 480 doesn’t, which is interesting. Playing Battlefront at 1440p the RX 480 delivered an average of 52fps, placing it on par with the GTX 970 and just ahead of the R9 390....

The Dynamic Island is more or less an interactive notch. Instead of a static cutout for the front-facing camera and Face ID sensor, it’s a pill-shaped area that automatically resizes to display notifications, alerts and other activity. As Nilay Patel from The Verge highlighted in his review of the iPhone 14 Pro, Apple developed a dynamic sub-pixel anti-aliasing system that makes the edges of the Island up to three times sharper than all other animations in iOS....

Part of that equation deals with taking in more light which is accomplished by a larger aperture (f/2.2 versus f/2.4). There are also larger pixels in play (1.5µm vs. 1.4µm) which combine for a 33 percent increase in light sensitivity, Apple claims. There’s also a new auto image stabilization feature, burst shooting mode that can capture 10 images per second and improved panorama functionality. The latter feature is said to work faster but more importantly, it can adjust exposure on the fly as you pan around for the best possible image....

In my experience, the iPhone 6 Plus is able to lock focus a bit quicker than the iPhone 5s but not drastically so. As is typically the case with photos shot on a mobile device, they look really incredible until you transfer them over to a computer. It also probably doesn’t help that I’m accustomed to shooting images with a higher-end mirrorless camera and only rely on my mobile device if it’s the only option with me at the time, but I digress....

Benchleaks spotted the Geekbench 5 benchmark for the 20-core M1 Ultra, which is essentially two M1 Max SoCs linked together through Apple’s new UltraFusion technology. The results show it reaching a multi-threaded score of 24,055 points and a single-threaded score of 1,793. Comparing the M1 Ultra to some of the other top chips illustrates just how powerful Apple’s new SoC really is. The 28-core Intel Xeon W found in the top-spec Mac Pro is 56% slower in single-core performance (1,152) and 21% slower in multi-core (19,951)....

Typing on the Air’s keyboard is a pleasant experience, as is using the large touchpad which thankfully doesn’t get in the way when typing as I have experienced on some other notebooks. The touchpad did seem a little bit finicky in Windows but this can be chalked up to non-optimized drivers as it worked perfectly in OS X. Just don’t get your hopes up on improved trackpad Windows support as I understand this has been a constant for years now....

Gurman claims the 24 CPU core variant with 192GB of RAM is being actively tested within Apple’s walls. Sources say the system is running macOS Ventura 13.3. In related Mac news, Gurman has been told that new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros will arrive with M2 Pro and M2 Max configuration options. The latter will feature 12 CPU cores (eight performance cores and four efficiency cores) alongside 38 GPU cores and can be paired with up to 64GB of RAM....

Now we’re taking a look at another area of the PC market that’s experiencing healthy growth in recent times, comparing Apple’s 27-inch iMac to all-in-one alternatives from the likes of Dell, HP and newcomer Vizio. As we’ve said before, we don’t expect this comparison to be representative of the entire Apple Tax argument, but it will help paint a better picture as we contrast it with our previous findings. Right off the bat you’ll notice that when it comes to all-in-one desktops there are much cheaper alternatives to Apple’s iMac....

You might remember when Apple unveiled the new Mac Pro at its WWDC event in 2019. Designed for professionals, 3D artists, musicians, video editors, and other creatives, it starts at $5,999 but those who want the top specs can push that figure beyond $50,000. David Imel, a researcher for tech YouTube channel Marques Brownlee, tweeted that they tried pricing the $52,199 Mac Pros at the company’s office to determine their trade-in value....

Given the huge growth in the mobile gaming market over the last several years – according to Arm, mobile gaming now represents more than half (52%) of all gaming revenue worldwide – it makes complete sense that Arm would focus much more of their attention on the graphics side of the client story this year. The fact that a staggering 8 billion Arm Mali GPU-based designs have already shipped also indicates the incredibly important, but often overlooked, role that Arm plays when it comes to gaming....

So how has Asrock accomplished such a feat? By keeping things dead simple. The DeskMini is a stark contrast to the custom molded plastic exterior and compartmentalized design of the MSI Cubi 2 Plus. Instead, you get a metal box with a removable motherboard tray that slides out on a pair of rails. Asrock has maximised the available space by creating a plain box. From a practical stand point, it makes this little computer extremely flexible, and dead easy to work with....

This drive supports 2x Blu-Ray read speeds and 24x CD read speeds. The maximum write speed for DVD+/-R media is 8x and 4x for DVD+/-R DL and DVD+/-RW media, while CD-R media can be burnt at 16x and CD-RW media at 10x. The drive features a 4.5MB buffer with access times of 320ms for Blu-Ray, 200ms for DVDs and 190ms for CDs. Apart from a dual-core Intel Atom 330 processor clocked at 1....

The GR8 II is designed for those who want a compact gaming system for a desk or living room, but would rather something more powerful than an Xbox One or PlayStation 4. This system is similar in size to current-generation consoles, however its use of high-end Intel Kaby Lake processors and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphics leads to a much faster experience. This extra performance does come at a price: a GR8 II plus controller will set you back at least $1,000, whereas you can currently purchase a PlayStation 4 Pro for just $400....

Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research laid out the scenario in a recent editorial highlighting Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s willingness to jettison projects that aren’t working out. The chipmaker announced plans to sell its NAND business to SK Hynix in late 2020 for $9 billion and no longer operates its aerial drone business. Last month, Intel said it will be shutting down its Optane memory business. Since rejoining Intel, Gelsinger has scrapped six business units, saving the company around $1....

In case you are left wondering, the 24 month old Radeon HD 3850 can still be bought in the ~$80 range.

In a recent public service announcement from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), the agency warned of an increase in the number of complaints received regarding the use of deepfakes and stolen personal information to apply for remote and work-from-home jobs. While deepfakes have come a long way in a relatively short period of time, there are still some rough edges that attentive employers can occasionally pick up on....

We saw heavy CPU utilization across quad-threaded processors, while those with eight threads spread the load evenly. The Core i3 was a real surprise here, delivering comparable performance to the Core i5 and even Core i7 processors. The dual-core Pentium G3258 didn’t fare too poorly either and when overclocked it matched the FX-6350 while falling just short of the FX-8350. The overclocked G3258 also crushed the overclocked Athlon X4 860K when comparing both average and minimum frame rates....

It’s the minimum frame rates that often take the biggest hit and even Pascal GPUs paired with an overclocked i7 are much slower when using DX12 versus DX11, and there isn’t much to be gained by opting for DX12 on AMD GPUs either. After running our own benchmarks, Battlefield 1’s performance is certainly interesting and we’re not shocked to see a heap of controversy among users regarding the game’s DX12 performance....

The good news, of course, was that Hardline could be played on fairly modest hardware using the ultra-quality pre-set, which enables 4xMSAA and allows 60fps+ at 1080p with either the GeForce GTX 770 or Radeon R9 280X. Developed by Visceral Games and published by EA, the retail version Battlefield Hardline is now available and we are back to rerun all the beta tests along with others to see how the frame rates have changed from beta to retail....

Several countries in Europe started imposing additional sanctions on Russia last week in response to its invasion of Ukraine, prompting some in the semiconductor industry to look for alternative suppliers for materials and gases needed at their chip manufacturing facilities. US companies are also facing mounting pressure to restrict access to their services from Russia, not to mention the possibility of cyberattacks on their infrastructure similar to what government institutions in Ukraine have seen over the past few days....