The hardware in the GR8 II is great at each of the main price points, with Asus offering an Intel Kaby Lake Core i5 or Core i7 CPU along with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, up to 16GB of RAM, and up to a 512GB M.2 SSD. While not the most powerful mini PC going around, this hardware is well suited to 1080p 60 FPS gaming with quality presets ranging from high to ultra....
When looking at average figures across all the games I tested, there are some interesting things to note, particularly when comparing the Zephyrus with its GTX 1080 Max-Q to a GTX 1070 laptop with the same Core i7-7700HQ CPU inside. Here, the Zephyrus was typically around 10 percent faster, with the highest gains of 18 percent seen in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and the lowest in Watch Dogs 2, which was only about 6 percent faster....
Customers in Austin, Chicago, Dallas Ft. Worth, Detroit, Jacksonville, Houston, Orlando and parts of South Florida should soon have access to AT&T’s new 5G+ service. C-Band is a mid-band spectrum that sits between AT&T’s low-band (far reaching) 5G service and high-band (mmWave) offering, the latter being incredibly fast but has limited reach. As such, it is typically deployed in densely populated areas like entertainment districts, sports stadiums and other venues....
A big plus about the Radeon HD 5450 consuming so little power is that it doesn’t require an external power source. The PCI Express bus alone is capable of delivering enough current to this card. The Radeon HD 5450 also generates very little heat and as we mentioned before, it can be passively cooled. However, the sample we received from AMD used a tiny 40mm fan that cools an equally small 45mm x 45mm heatsink....
The Radeon HD 5970 does only use 26% more power than the Radeon HD 5870, which we found startling. The operating temperature of the Radeon HD 5970 is well within acceptable levels, with an idle temp of 60 degrees. Under load the card heated up to 87 degrees. This stress temperature placed the Radeon HD 5970 alongside the GeForce GTX 275 and the Radeon HD 5870. The surprising part is that under load the Radeon HD 5970 appeared to generate roughly the same amount of noise as the GeForce GTX 275 and Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards....
Now at 1440p the GTX 780 was just able to stay above a minimum of 30fps, which was just 2fps better than the GTX 960. This time the R9 290 was just 1fps on average slower than the R9 390 but it was 6fps slower when comparing the minimum frame rate. The R9 390 matched the R9 290X and the R9 390X delivered exceptional performance falling just short of the GTX 980....
The Totaltech program offers several perks to members, including 24 months of product protection, free delivery and installation, free Geek Squad tech support, and more. It also offers “Access to exclusive Totaltech member prices,” which appears to be where the locked GPUs fall under. Image credit: PCMag Twitter user @CameronRitz, who keeps track of graphics card and console restocks, yesterday noted that a restock of RTX 3000-series cards was coming into Best Buy, and that buying one meant signing up to the Totaltech program, adding $200 on top of the price....
On Monday, Blizzard said it was pulling two characters — Torbjörn and Bastion — from some game modes over issues that needed to be fixed. Kotaku noted that players could exploit Bastion to spam his ultimate ability at opponents. Likewise, players could use Torbjörn’s Overloaded ability twice in a row. These serious issues can ruin the game for players going up against these two heroes, and Blizzard was justified in removing them while it worked on a fix....
When running Borderlands 2 at 1680x1050, we found what looked like a rather severe CPU bottleneck – a surprise given that we’re using the Core i7-3960X. The frame rate would spike to around 120fps with the higher-end cards, however, out on the ice ledge where the majority of the test took place, the frame rate was limited to 75fps. As a result, the top 10 graphics cards starting with the GTX 480 were limited to an average of 75fps....
Right now you can purchase the MSI Ventus XS for $350 and that’s a match for the RTX 2060 base MSRP. However, there are plenty of options priced above that level, such as MSI’s premium Gaming Z which costs an additional $40, up to $390 making it still a good bit cheaper than the least expensive RTX 2070 graphics cards. It makes the Gaming Z ~11% more expensive which isn’t outstrageous and close to the cut-off where spending more money really starts to hurt the product’s value....
But then of course we have to think about power and heat output. The Akasa Euler supports a maximum TPD rating of just 35 watts, completely ruling out any Core i7 CPU which range between 45 and 77 watts. Even most of the Core i5 Ivy Bridge range is rated above the 65 watt mark, leaving Core i3 processors as the only viable option, with the low power Core i3-3220T and 3240T rated at 35 watts....
The Fatal1ty 990FX Professional is currently retailing for $190, which is very affordable for a high-end motherboard. The price is especially impressive considering the included features, such as USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s, 8-channel audio, dual Gigabit LAN with Teaming function, 12 + 2 power phase design as well as Quad Crossfire and SLI support. Despite being a Fatal1ty-branded product, we like the look and design of Asrock’s premium board. It has an excellent layout and UEFI BIOS interface....
The Bundle for Ukraine brings together work from more than 700 creators and consists of nearly 600 video games, more than 300 analog tabletop RPGs, and dozens of asset packs, books, zines, comics and soundtracks / music. As an indie bundle, it’s likely that most of the content here will be new to you. In fact, itch.io said more than 600 of the products on offer have never been in a major bundle before....
Despite my interest in the early games, I haven’t entirely kept up with the franchise. I played some of Black Ops’ single-player campaign last year, but I skipped right over the multiplayer experience. Likewise with 2009’s Modern Warfare 2. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that they’re horrible games, in fact they remain extremely popular but in my book they’re just not particularly innovative. As you’ve undoubtedly heard, Modern Warfare 3 launched this week and, well, what can we say?...
One such example is ASML, the Dutch multinational corporation that makes lithography machines used in the production of advanced semiconductors. Their machines are used to etch circuits into silicon wafers and according to at least one tech analyst, ASML is the single most critical company in the semiconductor supply chain. ASML CEO Peter Wennink told the Financial Times that they will be shipping more machines this year than last year, and more machines next year than this year....
Updating one of its existing designs, Cooler Master recently launched yet another enthusiast-friendly CM Storm chassis, the Scout 2, which is priced at just $90 – slightly less than the venerable HAF 922. Despite its relatively low price, the Scout 2 has plenty to offer, including ergonomic steel-reinforced carrying handles, USB 3.0 support and room for up to two SSDs, nine fans and any graphics card around. Although we reviewed several Cooler Master enclosures in 2012, it’s been a year since we laid hands on a new CM Storm-branded case....
Granted all this hardware is getting old now, but the Phenom II X6 1100T and Inno3D GeForce GTX 580 certainly pump out a lot of heat which makes them useful for such a test. The Corsair Carbide Series 600C kept the CPU cool at 71 degrees, which is only a few degrees higher than some of the best results we have recorded using cases such as the RVX01, D-Frame and HAF X....
Using an intelligent tool-less design, the 5.25" drive bays offer an ultra-quick and reliable way to install and remove devices. While the majority of the tool-less designs we’ve used are clumsy and impractical, this design actually works very well. In fact, we think Corsair’s implementation is about equal with Cooler Master’s. The 3.5" drive cage supports two drives and features quick release cradles that support both 3.5" and 2.5" drives....
Following another turbulent weekend for the major cryptocurrencies, Celsius announced it was freezing account withdrawals and transfers. “We are taking this necessary action for the benefit of our entire community in order to stabilize liquidity and operations while we take steps to preserve and protect assets,” it wrote. The company never said when customers could expect to make withdrawals again. There are reports that Celsius transferred $320 million worth of crypto to the FTX exchange right before announcing the account withdrawal/transfer freeze....
Players will be able to transfer their progress from the base game to the Director’s Cut, we’re told. Details on how to do so will be shared closer to launch. Minimum and recommended specs for the Director’s Cut are as follows: Minimum: OS: Windows® 10 Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-3470 or AMD Ryzen™ 3 1200 Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: GeForce GTX 1050 4 GB or AMD Radeon™ RX 560 4 GB DirectX: Version 12 Storage: 80 GB available space Sound Card: DirectX compatible...
