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An enclosure like Cooler Master’s new Elite RC-130 lets you cram an enormous amount of hardware into a 18L case that weighs just 6.8lbs (3.08kgs) and costs $50. This box can accommodate a full-length graphics card as well as a 120mm radiator in the front, four 3.5" drives and a 2.5" SSD – essentially a modern enthusiast rig. The Elite RC-130 isn’t alone in its ability to squeeze high-end hardware in a tiny footprint, but like so many Mini-ITX cases, it’s not exactly exciting to look at....

If you use a password manager, you should definitely check the setting that controls how quickly it clears copied text from the clipboard as grabbing information from this location is a common tactic of malicious actors. Some password managers like Bitwarden and Keeper never clear the clipboard on their default settings. That means that once you use a password with either of those managers, your username and password sit in the clipboard indefinitely, accessible to any other application on your system....

The University of Waterloo research team explains that smart devices automatically respond to contact attempts, even on a password-protected network. So they developed a drone they call “Wi-Peep” that sends out several signals as it flies and then measures the response times. This technique allows it to triangulate network devices to within a meter of their position and can also be used to track moving devices like cell phones. “The Wi-Peep devices are like lights in the visible spectrum, and the walls are like glass,” explains Dr....

Those of you who made the transition from Windows XP to Vista will probably remember the introduction of “User Access Control” (UAC) or “Mandatory Integrity Control” (MIC). The security feature prompts you when software tries making changes to your system and rests at crux of why applications sometimes require “elevated” access. UAC remains a fundamental component of Windows 10’s security to mitigate the impact of malware, although the overall experience has been relaxed and improved in subsequent releases....

As a quick refresher, Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1080 Ti was released back in early 2017 for $700 (see our original review), which at the time was considered an enormous amount of money for a gaming graphics card. Oh, how times have changed. Despite the price tag though, the 1080 Ti still offered gamers impressive value, packing unrivaled performance and a fat 11GB VRAM buffer. If we take a look at our most recent benchmark data used across our GPU reviews, including the GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, RTX 3080 Ti and Radeon 6600 XT, we see that the GTX 1080 Ti remains a capable gaming graphics card at 1440p, delivering 93 fps on average across the 12 games used for day one reviews....

The pad’s joysticks are more sensitive than a standard controller and the buttons offer less resistance so they are easier to press. The Lite SE works with Android, Raspberry Pi and Nintendo Switch, and features vibration, a motion sensor and a customizable turbo function. Its 480mAh Li-on rechargeable battery affords up to 18 hours of runtime with a 1-2 hour charging time. The gamepad measures 4.72 inches x 2.59 inches x 1....

And yet, it feels slower for everything else. The M5 has a 500GB 5400RPM HDD but relies on 20GB of flash and Intel’s Smart Response Technology (SRT) to boost performance. This is evident when resuming from hibernation, but general usage (launching apps and such) is noticeably slower than a true SSD. Personally, I’d rather drop the DVD drive and put the savings toward a 120GB mSATA SSD for Windows instead of relying on SRT....

The Android OS home screen is fully customizable with everything from live wallpapers to browser bookmarks and a complete taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Acer has preloaded a few of their apps on the tablet. The first is Clear.fi which acts as a hub for sharing media files across multiple devices on your network. To use Clear.fi, you need a home network (wired or wireless) and devices with the Clear....

Once again, there’s really no surprises here when it comes to gaming performance. The GTX 1060 performs basically exactly as expected, and there’s no real difference between the Helios 300 and a range of other laptops with the same hardware in new-ish titles. This is great news for those that want to save a few hundred dollars compared to other GTX 1060 gaming laptops: you’re not sacrificing game performance. The cooling solution is decent as well, which surprised me a bit considering its single exhaust vent design....

The Predator X27 ticks basically every box in my HDR monitor checklist, including great brightness support of 600 nits sustained and over 1000 nits peak. Brightness accuracy is decent, so when content requests say 700 nits be displayed, the X27 gets pretty close to that mark with its default settings. I also achieved around 1100 nits maximum from a 10% window or smaller, which is great. Contrast is excellent thanks to a full array local dimming backlight with 384 zones, which is fast and produces no visible afterglow after bright objects disappear from view....

To achieve this, laptops must meet a list of requirements including instant wake up, powerful internal hardware, long battery life, fast network connectivity, and a small form factor. The goal is to assure consumers that the laptop they are buying will meet their expectations. Let’s see how that translates in the real world with the Swift 3. The Basics The Acer Swift 3 starts at $579 with base specs, but the review sample we received is the Swift 3 SF313-52-78W6 which retails at Costco for $1,099, and comes with a number of noteworthy upgrades....

Most of the color issues come down to an incorrect average color temperature of 7163K, which should be closer to 6500K. As a result, we get a greyscale deltaE average of 3.04, a saturation average of 2.53 and a ColorChecker average of 2.49. It’s not an ideal sub-1.0 or even a largely accurate sub-2.0 value, but many laptops push well above average deltaEs of 3.0 or 4.0 in a lot of these tests, so comparatively the Switch 7’s display is quite good....

Looking at its front side with the lid closed we see a 5-in-1 card reader (SD, MMC, MS, MS PRO, xD) and a battery indicator light which shows amber when the battery is charging and blue when it is fully charged. Moving to the right side I was pleasantly surprised to find a tray-loading optical drive on such a slim system. There’s also a single USB 2.0 port, as well as an Ethernet port, DC-in jack and a Kensington lock slot....

AWS debuted several new computing options, some based on its own new custom silicon designs, as well as a staggering array of data organization, analysis, and connection tools and services. The sheer number and complexity of many of the new features and services that were unveiled makes it difficult to keep track of all the choices now available to customers. Rather than being the outcome of unchecked development, however, the abundance of capabilities is by design....

Using HandBrake to measure how many frames per second each processor can render we see that the AMD A10-6800K averaged 137.2fps, making it just 4% slower than the FX-4350. This was also was 37% slower than Core i5-3450. The A4-4000 took 43.9 seconds, making it 14% slower than the Celeron G1610 and 23% slower than the A4-5300. The A10-6800K rendered 30.1fps in the first pass test and 8.8fps in the second pass test for the x264 HD Benchmark....

It’s a little confusing to see the company pitching an updated version of a product range that was never properly launched but on the bright side, AMD’s Kaveri update seems a little more substantial than Intel’s recent Haswell refresh, if only for the fact that the A8-7600 is finally set to appear at retail. Along with the A8-7600 due to arrive for $100, AMD is also shipping the $77 A6-7400K and $155 A10-7800, the latter of which being noteworthy because it has 45/65W TDP modes like the A8-7600 except it gets a full-blown R7 GPU featuring 8 CUs with 512 SPUs and 32 TAUs like the unlocked A10-7850K....

The AMD A4-5000 struggled in our HandBrake test delivering just 57.9fps. This made it 46% slower than the Intel Pentium 2117U and 39% slower than the Celeron 1020M. The AMD A4-5000 also had a rough time with the x264 HD Benchmark, delivering just 10.7fps in the first pass and 3.1fps in the second. This was 42% slower than the Pentium 2117U in the first pass but 7% faster in the second....

This also means that Athlon 3000G is just a refresh of the Athlon 240GE, which as many of you will know is a slightly higher clocked version of the $55 200GE. When compared to the 240GE, the 3000G still has 2 cores with SMT support for 4 threads, it operates at the same 3.5 GHz base frequency, packs 5 MB of cache and a Vega 3 graphics engine with 192 cores....

While Unreal Tournament 3 does appear to utilize quad-core technology quite well, the Athlon II X4 620 was not able to overcome the Phenom II X2 550 simply due to the fact that it is clocked 500MHz slower. Still, despite this obvious disadvantage, the Athlon II X4 620 was just 5fps slower at 1920x1200 and 1024x768. It was also a single frame faster than the Core 2 Quad Q6600 at 1920x1200 and 3fps at 1024x768....

At $245 the Phenom II X4 955 remains to this day AMD’s flagship desktop processor, offering top performance for a competitive price. And from there you can tell that the rest of AMD’s desktop offerings belong to the mainstream or value sectors. With the arrival of the X4 955 last April, the older 940 and 920 CPUs received a heavy price cut with both selling for around $190. The triple-core Phenom II X3 range is made up of the 720 ($140) and 710 ($120) models which come clocked at 2....