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Unsurprisingly the R9 390 handles overwatch at 1080p with ease delivering a silky smooth 155 fps on average and 165 fps once overclocked. It might have been a bit slower than the GTX 970 in this title but with over 100 fps at all times, it hardly matters. Moving to 1440p we do see frame rates drop as you would expect and now the GTX 970 isn’t much faster than the 390, in fact the minimum frame rates are very similar indeed....

The G1.Sniper2 was not as quick as the Extreme4 when measuring the Z68 chipset’s performance in our file copy test, providing a maximum throughput of 297MB/s versus 321MB/s. Nonetheless, the Z68 chipset was considerably faster than the Marvell 88SE9172 which maxed out at just 215MB/s, making it the slowest SATA 6Gb/s solution tested. Gigabyte’s new board rebounded in our game copy test, delivering a maximum throughput of 389MB/s – 9MB/s ahead of the Extreme4....

The GeForce GTX 570 loses out to the GTX 480 for the first time when testing Far Cry 2 at 1920x1200. Still with just a 6% margin Nvidia’s newest card was not a great deal slower. While it also trails the GeForce GTX 580 by a 16% margin, the card was able to trump the GeForce GTX 470 and Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards by a 23% performance margin. Aliens vs....

The downside to this setup is that Gigabyte had to use five small 40mm high-speed fans to circulate air over the enormous heatsink (this is marketed as its “WindForce 5X” design). These fans are configured to suck air through the heatsink using a pull rather than push system, which Gigabyte says is much more efficient for this design. The company also claims that despite using five tiny fans, its design is much cooler and quieter than AMD’s reference....

Lemoine, also an ordained Christian mystic priest, made headlines worldwide last month after claiming LaMDA was sentient. The conversations he published included the bot’s views on Isaac Asimov’s laws of robotics, its fear of being shut down (which it likened to death), and a belief that it wasn’t a slave as it didn’t need money. Google vehemently denied Lemoine’s claims, calling them “wholly unfounded” and noting that LaMDA was merely an algorithm designed to mimic human conversations, like all chatbots....

Google had plenty to share regarding the present state and future ambitions for Android this week. In a blog post, Google highlighted existing and upcoming Android features, like instant setup and pairing between Chromebooks and Android phones, locking/unlocking devices with Wear OS smartwatches, and digital car key support for BMWs with Ultra-Wideband-enabled phones. The more interesting part of Google’s announcement came at the end, where it revealed plans for deeper integration of Android devices with Windows PCs....

On a more technical note, the Exmor RS sensor used is the new IMX179, which is a 1/3.2" 8-megapixel unit with 1.4 µm pixels: larger than previous Exmor RS sensors, and on-par with the Nokia Lumia 925. It’s combined with an f/2.4 lens with autofocus, optical image stabilization powered by a two-axis gyroscope, and an LED flash. Complementing the photography package is a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera and 1080p video recording capabilities....

Firstly, you’ll want to change the video codec under the Video tab from H.264 to H.265 (x265). Also, change the container from MP4 to MKV so that you can embed subtitles if you want to. Input the file you want to be transcoded by clicking the large Source button and then File (clicking Folder allows you to easily set up batch encodes). Then set a destination by browsing to whatever folder you desire....

The HIS Radeon HD 6850 IceQ X Turbo was slightly slower with an average of 30fps making it 3% faster than the GTX 460 and a standard HD 6850. When compared to the GTX 560 Ti, HIS’ overclocked HD 6850 was 23% slower and 6% slower than the HD 6870. The HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ X Turbo X performed very well in Crossfire when testing Just Cause 2 at 2560x1600, averaging 46fps....

It’s still unusual to see AMD silicon inside slim, light laptops after years of Intel dominance, but there’s plenty to recommend AMD these days. The red team’s processors are faster and more efficient than they have been in years. The Envy x360 is powered by a Ryzen 5 4500U, a low-power, six-core chip that can operate at different TDPs, which means that manufacturers can specify what sort of performance you should expect from the silicon – Intel employs a similarly versatile approach to TDP on its mobile CPUs for the most part....

The Snapdragon 810 is the first SoC from Qualcomm to be produced on a 20nm HPm node, which is a more efficient node than 28nm, used for the company’s previous flagship chips. The increased performance of the 810 will negate some of the gains from the node shift, though we should still see lower power consumption in low intensity tasks including standby, as well as when using non-performance SoC blocks such as the media codec and wireless radios....

A new Spectre class speculative execution vulnerability, called Branch History Injection (BHI) or Spectre-BHB, was jointly disclosed on Tuesday by VUSec security research group and Intel. BHI is a proof of concept re-implementation of the Spectre V2 (or Spectre-BTI) type of attack. It affects any CPU that is also vulnerable to Spectre V2, even if mitigations for Spectre V2 have already been implemented; it can circumvent Intel’s eIBRS and Arm’s CSV2 mitigations....

The Core i5 661 performed well in Street Fighter IV, delivering the best result at 1920x1200 with 184fps. Then at 1024x768 the Core i5 661 matched the Core i5 750 with 236fps, making it 13% faster than the Phenom II X4 945. The last game we tested with was Far Cry 2. At 1920x1200 the Core i5 661 does very well with an average of 70fps. At 1024x768 the story was a little different, as the Core i5 661 was slightly slower than the Phenom II X4 945, and falling 15fps behind the Core i5 750....

As expected the 7700K was just 6% faster than the 7600K in our Excel 2013 benchmark while the 7600K was just 4% faster than the 6600K. The gains seen when testing with 7-Zip are even smaller. Here the 7700K was just 5% faster than the 6700K while the 7600K was 1% faster than the 6600K. Testing with Adobe Photoshop CC we find that the 6600K and 7600K completed the task in the same 18....

When it comes to power consumption it looks like Kaby Lake uses a few watts less, not bad given that it’s clocked higher but not exciting either. The 7700K was about 2% faster in the Hybrid x265 benchmark and here we see it consumes around 4% less power, so a minor improvement in efficiency then. Here Kaby Lake saved 2-3 watts – again, not particularly exciting.

This is an obvious exception to the rule for pretty much any component that’s been on the market for over 12 months, and no doubt a current owner pleaser. To further augment this situation, Intel has just recently enhanced the investment that Core i7 customers made in the LGA1366 platform by providing an even more powerful upgrade alternative. Back in 2008 when we reviewed the first batch of Core i7 processors, we noted that an upcoming architecture code-named “Westmere” would feature 6 cores and would be built using the 32nm design process....

As it turns out, this is not the case. In spite of featuring more cores and cache the Core i7 980X Extreme is more compact and fuel efficient. With an aggressive 3.33GHz clock speed, the chip flies along no matter if it is running applications that can only utilize one or two cores, especially when Turbo Boost is enabled. When time comes to work with applications that can utilize all six cores, the 980X Extreme enters a league of its own....

The Intel DH61AG machine pulled just 25 watts at idle whereas the Asrock Z68M-ITX/HT consumed 40 watts. The difference likely comes down to the power supplies used as the DH61AG was armed with a 150W Liteon power brick which is more efficient at these lower wattages. That margin was diminished to only 8 watts once under load, but there was still a noticeable difference between the compact Intel platforms and AMD’s Fusion offerings....

The new Intel chipsets include the P67, H67, B65 and Q67 which are all quite similar in terms of specifications. All chipsets offer six SATA 3Gb/s ports, while the P67, H67 and Q67 support SATA 6Gb/s using two of these ports and the B65 just one. The P67 and H67 which you will likely become more familiar with in the near future are the consumer oriented chipsets. The B65 is aimed at the small to medium business segment and the Q67 is designed for corporate use....

Earth is dying. Devastated by a pole shift, the planet’s oceans have evaporated and its cities reduced to rubble. In its struggle to survive, mankind has split between two warring factions: the Scavengers, savage marauders hell-bent on claiming the world’s remaining resources, and the Resistance, freedom fighters working to restore civilization. With humanity undergoing its greatest test, where will your loyalties lie? Currently in beta (keys given away at the end of the interview), Ravaged is the brainchild of Boris Ustaev and his crew at 2Dawn Games, who have spent the last few years toiling away on a fast-paced post-apocalyptic multiplayer shooter with a strong focus on skills, teamwork, vehicular combat and most importantly, fun....