However, in the following years, graphics processors would become one of the largest, most complex, and most expensive components that could be found in almost any computing device. …in the following years, graphics processors would become one of the largest, most complex, and most expensive components that could be found in almost any computing device. Something old, something new, plus a nice lawsuit to boot In 2014 we saw new architectures released by most of the major vendors, as well as a slew of products using older technologies....

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed introduced Darth Vader’s now fugitive apprentice, Starkiller, to the world. In the sequel, this unlikely hero returns with over-the-top Force powers and embarks on a journey to discover his own identity and to reunite with his one true love, Juno Eclipse. He is once again the pawn of Darth Vader, but instead of training his protégé as a ruthless assassin, the dark lord is attempting to clone his former apprentice to create the Ultimate Sith warrior....

Of course, we could point out the obvious and advice you to get a faster internet connection or choose the best ISP available in your area, however, assuming you’ve already maximized what you can afford or can get in your household, there are a few things you can try that can improve your existing connection. Let’s begin! Ping & bandwidth: How fast is your internet? Before making any changes, let’s start by checking the quality of your connection and find out what ping you can expect in games....

I’ll start with the positives. The lack of a touchscreen has led to the display receiving a matte finish, which means fingerprints and reflections are a non-issue. It also helps the panel remain visible in most conditions, despite a relatively low maximum brightness of 280 nits, although don’t expect to do a whole lot of work in direct sunlight. Viewing angles are pretty decent as you’d expect from an IPS display....

This week, The Elec reported that SK IE Technology won a deal to supply film for an LG foldable display, which will be used in HP’s first foldable laptop. SK IE might supply 10,000 units for manufacture starting in the third quarter of 2022. LG confirmed its work on a foldable OLED screen for 17-inch laptops at CES in January, which may end up in models from HP, Asus, and Samsung....

The base model is kitted out with an Intel Core i5-7200U processor, 8 GB of LPDDR3 RAM, and a 256 GB PCIe NVMe solid state drive. This model will currently set you back $1,049.99. Upgrades to the CPU, RAM and SSD are available as follows: Intel Core i7-7500U CPU (+$110) 16 GB of RAM (+$40, restricted to models with the i7-7500U) 512 GB SSD (+$100) 1 TB SSD (+$420)...

CPU performance around the operating system is very good - lag free like you would expect from modern day Android phones - although it’s not as speedy as systems powered by high-end chips such as Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 600 or Samsung’s Exynos 5 Octa. The One mini is a capable multi-tasker, switching apps very quickly, but not instantly. HTC’s UI appears to have no adverse effect on system performance, despite it being a relatively heavy skin, which is fantastic....

Many in the industry believe that HTC, which was once most beloved among Android fans, has fallen from grace. That the company has lost its way, its edge. I am here to tell you that those people are wrong. I offer as evidence the new HTC One X. The One X, the company’s new flagship Android smartphone, is the kind of phone that just leaves you breathless. Its single-piece polycarbonate body is unique in the Android world, and it is as comfortable to hold as it is drop dead gorgeous....

The web browsing results are particularly disappointing as the HTC One X9 falls behind the LG G5 in the LTE test. The handset is also well behind the Moto G4 Plus, which is a competing 5.5-inch smartphone with a 3,000 mAh battery. Clearly there is an efficiency issue at play here, possibly due to the display or MediaTek’s SoC. Charging times are also disappointing as the One X lacks fast charging support....

The key addition to the Kirin 970 is the Neural Processing Unit, or NPU, which is capable of 1.92 TFLOPS of FP16 operations. This is twice as high as the Neural Engine in the Apple A11, allowing the Kirin 970 to process neural network operations at a faster rate in a highly efficient fashion. How the NPU will be used in actual applications remains to be seen, but it is a key component of the Kirin 970....

Alongside excellent viewing angles, the Mate 9’s display produces over 600 nits of brightness at peak, which is a fantastic result that places this display among the best LCDs. Due to this high level of brightness, you’ll have little trouble viewing the Mate 9 in strong sunlight. The display’s contrast ratio is also respectable; it’s not at the level of AMOLEDs, but it does help make colors pop. Color accuracy out of the box isn’t terrible, but it’s not fantastic....

Warden of the Coast from Nexus Mods user TheBawb is a fully-voiced adventure inspired by the game mechanics of Dragon Age and Mass Effect. In it, you’ll travel to an isolated island to earn the loyalty of nine companions, prevent a daedric lord from reassuming power and close the gates to Oblivion once again - all while exploring two new worlds and 19 new interiors. Each companion has their own corresponding loyalty questline with over 9,000 lines of combined voice dialogue from 27 actors....

The new Armada gaming monitors from HyperX appear to be fairly normal, inside and out. There’s no fancy RGB lighting glowing out of the underside or the rear, and the specs won’t be breaking any display performance records. However, HyperX is trying to differentiate these models in a very crowded market by including a desk mount and ergonomic arm out of the box. Instead of a traditional monitor stand, which usually takes up additional space, the Armada 25 and Armada 27 can be snapped onto the provided desk mount, which supports c-clamp and grommet brackets....

However, of all the weird and wonderful cases we saw in 2013, In Win’s D-Frame remains the most memorable. Despite being largely impractical, fairly featureless and wildly expensive, it was nonetheless my favorite and still stands as a masterpiece in my mind. Given its radical design, most people were bound to either love it or hate the D-Frame on first sight. There was simply no way it could appeal to every enthusiast, both because of its unique look and because it was $400 – quite a hurdle for most prospective buyers....

Using Excel 2007 we can measure the performance of each processor using a highly complex spreadsheet. The AMD Phenom II X4 965 fairs very well in this particular test, beating even the Intel Core i7 960, which is impressive. Although the Intel Core i5 750 was not quite as imposing, it managed to match the Core i7 920 rather well. The above results are based on custom WinRAR compression tests....

Second, the Core i7-1065G7 does bring higher single-threaded performance, and crucially for today’s review, improved GPU performance. While we haven’t covered gaming yet, the new Gen11 GPU design has brought significant gains to GPU-limited and compute-heavy productivity apps, and makes Ice Lake a great choice for some workloads like Adobe Premiere. Third, it doesn’t greatly improve what’s been available in ultraportable form factors because you can also find discrete GPUs in 13-inch thin and light systems....

Clocked at just 2.6GHz or 25% lower than the i7-3770K, we recorded 20-25% less performance from the Core i7-3720QM, so we should see a similar trend when comparing mobile Ivy Bridge processors to their Sandy Bridge equivalents. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a Sandy Bridge Core i7 laptop on hand, but we were able to compare the i7-3720QM with enough processors to determine its capabilities. Unless backed by a discrete graphics solution such as the N56VM’s GeForce GT 650M, mobile Ivy Bridge machines have very limited 3D capabilities, as we found when testing the Core i7-3770K’s HD 4000 graphics engine....

As anticipated the Core i7-5775C delivers the same discrete GPU gaming performance as the Core i7-4790K or even the Core i5-4690K for that matter.