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The biggest news from the stream is that Bloober Team, the Polish dev behind The Medium, is remaking horror classic Silent Hill 2, confirming last year’s rumors that came after the studio signed a strategic co-operation agreement with Konami. Silent Hill 2 already has a Steam page. While the release date is down as TBA, the required system specs are in place. As we’ve seen with other recent titles, this timed PC/PlayStation 5 exclusive comes with some high-end demands for the former system: Minimum requirements, which is low/medium quality in 1080p@30fps, asks for at least a Core i5-8400/Ryzen 3 3300X and a Radeon RX 5700 or GTX 1080....

Before we test the integrated GPU, we installed an extreme high-end discrete graphics card for an idea of what the CPU can deliver when uncapped and then we’ll get to the budget gaming stuff. So with the brakes off, the A12-9800 was good for just 40fps in this real-time strategy title and was 18% slower than the G4560 in what is a CPU-intensive title. Moreover it was 30% slower than the Ryzen 3 1200....

Gigabyte’s A75-UD4H offered the best results, reaching 3724MHz. The F1A75-V followed with a 3640MHz overclock and the A75 Extreme6 managed 3625MHz. Using the embedded Radeon graphics core, we recorded 95fps when running Far Cry 2 at 1280x800 using the overclocked A75-UD4H. The x264 HD Benchmark 4.0 also revealed a 23% performance increase in the first pass test with the overclocked A8-3850.

We should start with the name of the series: 9004, following on from 7003, 7002, and 7001. Why the nine? Not sure, but the trailing four is a reference to both the generation and the architecture, Zen 4. The codename for the series is/was Genoa, continuing AMD’s tradition of naming Epyc series after Italian cities, which in the past has included Milan, Rome, and Naples. AMD has also developed an affinity for the number five....

The Phenom II X2 550 was able to outperform the Core 2 Duo E7400 in CINEBENCH by a small margin in both the single core and multi-core tests. The Athlon II X2 250 was also faster than the Pentium processors. Intel processors always seem to score well in the CINEBENCH OpenGL rendering test and we believe this relates somewhat to their excellent gaming performance. The Phenom II processors have improved considerably in this test and as you can see the Phenom II X2 550 is able to match the performance of the Pentium E6300, while it is a bit slower than the Core 2 Duo E7400....

The Crysis 3 results are a return to the norm as the Radeon R9 380X was found to be 2% slower than the R9 280X. That said it was 13% faster than the R9 380 which would be impressive if it were not for the fact that it trailed the R9 390 by a 27% margin. Dragon Age: Inquisition is another game where we find the Radeon R9 380X trailing the older R9 280X by a slim margin....

As a recap, we heard a couple of weeks ago that some AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX MBA (Made By AMD) reference models are experiencing thermal issues involving GPU hotspot temperatures, or the maximum temperature read by the sensor, reaching as high as 110C. der8auer hoped to uncover the cause of the high temps, so he purchased four Radeon RX 7900 XTX cards to perform some tests. It was discovered that the installation orientation made a difference, with horizontal setups improving temps by 20 degrees, but the overhearing issue still reared its head after just one minute once the burn-in test started....

Since our first test, there have also been new relevant game releases and we suspect once you can actually buy it, the RX 6800 will be a popular graphics card choice. With so many of you using the still amazing Ryzen 5 3600, it makes sense to see how it performs with the new RDNA2 GPU – though right now we feel the Intel Core i5-10400F is a better value buy, so perhaps a comparison with that part in the coming weeks might be a good idea....

According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple has spent almost five years and billions of dollars on its efforts to design its own MicroLED displays; another company will likely produce the screens using Apple’s blueprints. The screens are set to arrive in the Apple Watch first, potentially as soon as next year, with other devices to follow. Apple had hoped to include the technology in large displays upon its arrival, but the high costs and technical challenges led to a rethink and a focus on the Apple Watch, at least initially....

WinRAR also relies on CPU power and the Core i5 2520M dominated again, taking just 159 seconds to compress the 700MB file while the AMD A8-3850 took 243 seconds and the Vision 3D took 293 seconds. Photoshop CS5 utilizes both CPU and GPU power, though our test primarily uses the CPU. The CoreHT took only 49.3 seconds, slightly faster than the AMD A8-3850 and much quicker than the Vision 3D....

We were particularly impressed with their audio solutions, dual Ultra M.2 slots, USB 3.1 Type-C and Type-B, Intel LAN, Nichicon 12K black capacitors and reinforced PCIe slots which also improves EMI shielding. Given how similar the boards are overall, the Z270 Extreme4 is clearly the better bargain, but we wouldn’t talk you out of buying the Fatal1ty model either. Each comes in a fairly complete package with all the M....

Between the chip shortage, scalpers, and cryptocurrency miners with an appetite for industrial GPU mining, it’s been two long years since we’ve seen mid-range and high-end graphics cards anywhere close to their manufacturer suggested retail price. Things have been improving as of late, albeit at a pace that makes everyone long for a time when MSRP was more than an arbitrary number that’s thrown around in marketing materials. Availability is much better today than it was a year ago, and prices for both AMD’s and Nvidia’s GPUs are generally hovering at around 40 percent over MSRP....

Asus unveiled laptops with 3D OLED screens at CES this week. The displays are autostereoscopic – meaning they create the 3D effect without requiring special glasses. The company is advertising the technology for content creation, watching movies, and gaming. Spatial Vision promises a 3D effect that holds up from multiple viewing angles. The Verge writes that two people could see a 3D image on the screen simultaneously. Asus achieves this through two cameras above the display that track users’ eyes to continually adjust the 3D image, even as their viewing angle changes....

“By all accounts the GeForce GTX 480 is not the beast we were hoping it would be. It’s main competitor, the Radeon HD 5870 is no slouch, so beating it in almost every test is a real accomplishment, however in many cases it wasn’t a great deal faster which makes it harder to justify a price step up against the 6 month old Radeon.” Nvidia was able to improve the performance of both, the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 over the following months, which did improve their position....

Frame rates in Far Cry 2 were very low across the board, much they were when testing with Crysis Warhead. We should note however that for this test 8xAA is enabled, which has a significant impact on performance. As a result the Radeon HD 5830 averaged just 36fps at 1680x1050 and 20fps at 2560x1600. This meant that the card was 29% slower than the Radeon HD 5850 and GeForce GTX 285....

While most students are enjoying their summer break right now, it’s never too early to start planning for a return to the classroom. Studying can be stressful; thankfully, there’s plenty of technology out there that can make school life a lot easier. In this guide, we look at educational essentials such as laptops and backpacks, along with those tech products that no dorm room should be without—we don’t just mean Midea mini fridges, we’re also talking streaming sticks, projectors, fitness accessories, monitors, and more....

There are many interesting results at 1080p that we need to discuss. Starting near the top of our graph we see the GTX 780 averages a solid 64fps with a minimum of just 49fps while the R9 290 performs exceptionally well, delivering an average of 70fps and a minimum of just 51fps, arguably being the best value high performance GPU for playing Arkham Knight at 1080p. The new R9 390 was just a single frame faster than the R9 290 while the R9 390X was just 2fps faster than the R9 290X and both delivered the same minimum frame result....

After ditching FXAA for the better looking and far more demanding MSAAx8, performance fell across the board with the GTX 660 averaging 54fps (from 102fps with FXAA), for example. To exceed 60fps with MSAAx8 at this resolution, you’ll need at least the R9 270X, HD 7950 or GTX 760. Jumping up to 1920x1200 requires the GTX 760, GTX 670 or HD 7950 Boost for 60fps, though the vanilla GTX 660 delivered a very playable 45fps and the HD 7870 was even faster at 47fps....

In a previous benchmark feature, we already took a look at DDR4-3600 vs. DDR5-6000 memory across 41 games and found that the newer and more expensive DDR5 memory was a mere 4% faster on average, though it was up to 20% faster in a few select titles. Both the DDR4 and DDR5 memory used in that testing was very expensive, so today we want to compare a range of memory kits covering a wider range of price points, all of which have been supplied by Corsair....