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x2 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 Asrock 890GX Extreme4 (AMD 890GX) - AMD Radeon HD 4290 (AMD 890GX) OCZ GameXStream (700 watt) Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA 3Gb/s) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - ATI Catalyst 10.10 Asrock Core 100HT-BD System Specs: Hardware - Intel Core i3 330M x2 2GB Elixir DDR3-10600 Asrock HM55-HT (Intel HM55) - Intel GMA HD Graphics Seagate Momentus 5400.6 2.5" 500GB (Serial ATA 3Gb/s) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - Intel Graphics Driver 15....

Although the Athlon II X2 255 gave the AMD 890GX chipset a significant advantage in Far Cry 2, the AMD E-350 was still 32% faster than the Atom 330/Nvidia Ion. When testing with Company of Heroes at 1024x768 using low quality settings we found the GPU performance of the AMD E-350 to be severely limited by the CPU. Nonetheless, the AMD E-350 was 61% faster than the Atom 330/Nvidia Ion....

GPU performance once again heavily favored the AMD platforms, this time when testing with CINEBENCH R11.5 which saw the 890GX beat the H55 with an 81% performance margin. Now we should point out that this test measures the performance of the graphics engine and not the processor. This is puzzling as both platforms were using the Radeon HD 5870 with the same drivers yet AMD has a significant advantage here....

In S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky the Radeon HD 5670 lost by an embarrassing 19% margin when compared to the GeForce 9800 GT. It was able to beat the GeForce GT 240 by just a single frame per second, and was 25% slower than the old Radeon HD 4770.

Backblaze’s 2022 mid-year review on storage failure rates shows that SSDs may indeed be more reliable than HDDs over time. The new report paints a better picture for SSDs than the same company’s analysis from last year. As a cloud storage and backup provider, Backblaze heavily relies on both SSDs and HDDs and it’s been their custom to record and report on the drives’ failure rates which are always interesting to follow....

Battlefield 3, the latest in a long line of Battlefield titles is likely the most anticipated game of 2011. Using the new Frostbite 2 engine the game promises to deliver jaw dropping visuals coupled with fast paced action packed fun. The gorgeously crafted video teasers have certainly helped the cause throughout the year. Battlefield 3 has huge momentum behind it and the cross-platform beta will hopefully serve developers towards a solid release next October 25th....

Using Cinebench R11.5 to measure single and multi-threaded performance produced some interesting results. Despite being quad-core parts, the Athlon 5350, 5150 and Sempron 3850 all scored below Intel’s desktop dual-core Celeron G1820 and G3220 parts because the single thread performance of those Intel CPUs was considerably greater. In fact, in this test the Celeron G1820 was almost as fast using one core as the Sempron 3850 was using all four....

Despite the very poor showing in the file copy tests the Samsung SSD 840 120GB did the unexpected and completed the Red Orchestra 2 installation in just 104 seconds based on an average of three installs. This made it slightly faster than the 106 seconds it took the OCZ Vertex 4 128GB and considerably faster than the 132 seconds it took the Crucial m4 128GB. Again the Samsung SSD 840 120GB was the fastest SSD tested despite its poor showing in the file copy tests....

To keep the results as consistent as possible all systems have been tested using the same quality settings. In this case all setups were tested with maximum quality settings except features such as anti-aliasing which have been kept as low as possible. Obviously these settings are unrealistic of how those gaming with an APU would play, but it does show the difference between integrated and discrete graphics performance. Those wondering how the APUs perform using medium to low quality settings should check out our A8-7600 review....

At 2560x1600 we see that it takes a Radeon HD 7950 to break the 60fps barrier, while the GeForce GTX 660 Ti came very close with 59fps. The Radeon HD 7870 also did well with 55fps and the age old GeForce GTX 580 managed 54fps. For just over 40fps the Radeon HD 6950, 5870, 6870 or GeForce GTX 480 are required, while budget graphics cards such as the GeForce GTX 650 Ti and Radeon HD 7770 couldn’t deliver at this extreme resolution....

Going from just 2.5GHz up to 4.50GHz, which is an 80% increase in frequency, only resulted in a 14% increase in performance when using the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics card at 1920x1200. Therefore, while there is some performance to be gained overclocking a Core i7 processor it isn’t an effective way of boosting Black Ops II performance. When going from 2.5GHz to 4.5GHz with the AMD FX-8350 we only saw a 12% increase in performance, going from 94fps to 105fps....

The teenager suspected of being behind this week’s massive Grand Theft Auto 6 leak is in custody in the UK. The City of London Police arrested a 17-year-old Oxfordshire resident suspected of hacking Rockstar and Uber. Police officials say they were aided by the UK’s National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU). According to sources of former Reuters reporter Matthew Keys, the unnamed teen is suspected of belonging to the hacker group known as “Lapsus$....

Our progressively digital lifestyle has only fueled the desire for instant gratification. Streaming providers, app operators and other digital service providers are increasingly aware that consumers’ patience for latency is razor thin. Simply put, if service isn’t snappy enough, customers will take their business elsewhere. Tech companies on the leading edge are thinking long and hard about how they can offer the same level of service regardless of where a user lives or works, and in many instances the solution is to build nodes in urban areas that seamlessly blend in with the environment as part of a concept known as edge computing....

To recap, Microsoft was awarded a $480 million contract to provide the US Army with Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) headsets in 2018. The devices combine high-resolution night, thermal, and soldier-borne sensors into a heads-up display. Powered by Microsoft Azure cloud services, they also leverage augmented reality and machine learning to enable a life-like mixed-reality training environment. The initial agreement was expanded in March 2021, ensuring Microsoft would provide finalized production versions, parts, and support in a deal potentially worth billions across a decade....

Corsair Gaming is having a bit of a privacy nightmare right now. Owners of the Corsair K100, an expensive mechanical keyboard aimed at gamers, comes equipped with several “extra” features but users are reporting that their peripherals have started to behave like a weirdly malfunctioning keylogging device. The first issues with the K100 were reported on Corsair’s official forum in August, while the latest ones are just a few hours old....

Bitcoin is down more than 6% so far this week. Ethereum, the second-largest crypto by market cap, dropped from $1,678 on Tuesday to $1,493 a few hours ago. It seems the crypto winter that followed the collapse of TerraUSD in May is showing no signs of ending. The crypto market fell below $1 trillion following the TerraUSD incident. A slight resurgence followed, but it’s back below the milestone. It’s a far cry from November 2021, when Bitcoin hit its peak price of $69,000 and the global cryptocurrency market peaked at $2....

The costs of cyberattacks will soon become so high that insurance companies will not be able to do business with the affected parties anymore. According to Mario Greco, chief executive of Zurich Insurance Group, cyber-risks will soon take the place of pandemics, climate change and other natural disasters as systemic risks which are essentially “uninsurable.” For the second year in a row, 2022 is ending with more than $100 billion-worth of claims for natural catastrophes, but according to Greco, cyber is the true risk to watch....

We’re looking at a convertible laptop with a 360-degree hinge. You can use it as a giant 15.6-inch tablet, or in more useful stand and tent modes. At this size, I don’t find the 2-in-1 aspect of this laptop all that useful; most convertibles I stick to using as a laptop anyway, but when we’re talking about a 15-inch system, the size makes some of those other usage modes less practical....

The best stable frequency we’ve been able to get from this processor is 4.20GHz, and both the LANParty motherboards were able to achieve this frequency while maintaining complete stability. Besides testing for maximum clock frequency, we also checked the maximum base clock frequency. The LANParty JR X58-T3H6 was limited to 214MHz which is still an impressive result, while the LANParty UT X58-T3eH8 was happy at 220MHz. The end result saw us use a 200MHz base clock frequency with a 21x clock multiplier which got us the 4....