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Earlier this month, an anonymous overclocker delidded an engineering sample from the upcoming Ryzen 7000 CPU lineup and revealed the bare dies in all their glory along with the first new integrated heat spreader (IHS) design change in years. Normally, this procedure is only done by enthusiasts looking to reduce operating temperatures without the use of exotic cooling hardware. For obvious reasons, the Ryzen 7000 series processor delid was only a tease meant to showcase how AMD is working around some of the problems of moving to an LGA socket for the new CPUs....

To be perfectly honest, the N3200XXX isn’t the most impressive looking NAS device we’ve had the pleasure to lay eyes on. It looks rather cheap compared to the recently the reviewed LG N2A2 and sitting it next to any of Synology’s latest products doesn’t do it any favors either. Fortunately for the N3200XXX, we don’t consider a NAS device’s aesthetics to be of high importance for our needs. Nonetheless, it’s worth noting our first impressions of the device’s appearance considering how many people choose to store their NAS in plain sight, such as a living room....

The Secure Data Recovery service surveyed 2,200 Americans across several states about how often and in what manner they break their devices. Breaking a phone and having to replace it is something 76% of participants admitted to—this writer experienced such a nightmare with a new Galaxy S7 Edge in 2016. If destroying a handset wasn’t bad enough, 31% of those surveyed said they also completely lost the data it contained....

Japanese researchers, alongside a company specializing in industrial jewel components, have developed a new method of mass-producing 2-inch diamond wafers. Dubbed Kenzan Diamonds, these could be used to store up to 25 exabytes of data, which is 25 million terabytes or the equivalent of 1 billion Blu-Ray discs. Unfortunately, these diamond wafers won’t be replacing the SSDs in our PCs anytime soon as they act as quantum memory. It uses a defect in diamond, called the nitrogen-vacancy center, to store a quantum bit....

Overall, Ryzen offers great options with core-rich CPUs at compelling price points. For new builds we generally recommend the Ryzen 3600/5600X for best all-round value. The Ryzen 9 5900X and 5800X are great for those that require full-on productivity and workstation levels of performance with top-of-the-line gaming output. Then, of course, the Ryzen 9 5950X is a 16-core beast which is the fastest CPU you can get on a mainstream platform....

This writer has hazy memories of enjoying the original Torchlight and Torchlight 2 around a decade ago. There was a third entry in the series back in 2020, made by Echtra Games rather than the since-shuttered Runic Games, but it received mixed reviews from critics and consumers alike. With Shanghai-based XD Inc now at the reins, it appears that the new Torchlight, called Torchlight Infinite, is going down the same path as Blizzard by releasing on both PC and mobile while being free-to-play....

This week, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced the start of a market investigation into Apple’s and Google’s rules concerning iOS and Android web browsers, respectively. The CMA will also delve into Apple’s refusal to allow cloud gaming apps onto its App Store. Apple iPhone and iPad users have plenty of web browser options besides Apple’s Safari. However, the Cupertino gatekeepers require them to run on Safari’s WebKit browser engine....

The USB Promoter Group announced the USB4 Version 2.0 specification, a significant update that will enable data rates up to 80 Gbps over USB-C cables and connectors. For comparison, both Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 Version 1.0 only support a maximum bandwidth of 40 Gbps bidirectionally. A new physical layer (PHY) architecture enables the standard’s increased data rates, which will reportedly work using existing 40 Gbps USB Type-C passive cables and newly-defined 80 Gbps USB Type-C active cables....

Last year, Sammyuri, a Minecraft redstone builder, created a virtual computer inside Minecraft. Using the power of redstone – one of the more advanced elements in Minecraft - they were able to build an entirely working computer, named “Chungus 2”, featuring an 8-bit processor with a 1 Hz clock speed and 256 bytes of RAM. Despite the specs, it was capable of playing games such as Tetris, Snake, and Connect Four, albeit at a 32x32 resolution....

Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess told the Financial Times (paywalled, via EuroNews) that they are basically sold out of electric vehicles in the aforementioned regions. “And in China, it’s really picking up,” Diess added. Volkswagen is the parent company of several well-known automotive brands including Porsche and Audi as well as Czech manufacturer Škoda Auto. The publication’s report notes Volkswagen delivered 99,000 EVs globally in Q1 2022. For comparison, Tesla in its most recent earnings report said it delivered 310,048 vehicles in the first quarter of this year....

The highlight of Apple’s Peek Performance Spring event is likely to be a new iPhone SE. It’s expected to look the same as the 2020 model but is said to feature 5G connectivity. There’s also an LCD screen, an A15 chip, 64GB of base storage, and an updated camera. There’s still debate over whether it will continue to be the only iPhone with Touch ID or if it will upgrade to Face ID, though the former seems more likely....

Another key indicator that caught our attention were user reviews. There are over 4,000 of them, giving it a 4.6 star average which is solid, so we’ll have to see how it holds up in our testing. On paper, the specs also make this an enticing buy below $100. We’re looking at a 22-inch 1080p IPS panel with a 75 Hz refresh rate. Now if you’ve been following our monitor reviews, this is not in the same realm as the usual 1080p and 1440p 144Hz stuff we look at....

In 1998, Yahoo! was the most visited site on the web, with an index of recommended websites, an email service, chat rooms, and more. Instant messaging had already been made popular by ICQ and AIM in the previous two years, but the market was still growing along the internet itself. Creating a competitor based on Yahoo! Chat was easy and destined for success. Yahoo! Pager was launched in 1998, with notifications when friends came online or when a Yahoo!...

Wizards of the Coast was ready to refresh its old Open Game License (OGL) for Dungeons & Dragons-inspired tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPG). However, the updated document leaked and turned the TTRPG world upside down. Gamers, streamers, and creators canceled their game subscriptions en masse and forced WotC to change its plans accordingly. The new OGL 1.1 document, which leaked at the beginning of the month, was poised to significantly restrict how TTRPG creators and the whole community could adapt the base rules of Dungeons & Dragons in their works....

Launched as a development arm of Xerox Corporation in 1970, PARC has played an instrumental role in the engineering of laser printing and many of the technologies that compose the personal computer – most famously the graphical user interface (GUI) used in the Xerox 8010 Star Information System in 1981, followed by the Apple Lisa. The team included many of the world’s top computer scientists, not least of which were former employees of the Stanford Research Institute....

The Mali-T880 MP4 clocked at 700 MHz is a reasonable match for the Adreno 510 in the Snapdragon 650, clocking in just a few percent slower than Qualcomm’s offering. The Redmi Pro is significantly faster in GPU workloads than Snapdragon 410 and 617 devices, while the Kirin 955 in the Huawei P9 is 7% faster. Like with the Snapdragon 650 and Kirin 955, there are no issues with gaming at 1080p on this handset, and graphics performance is pretty good from this mid-range SoC....

TechRax rigged up a Mercury Grand Marquis with a crude remote-controlled setup to plow the car into stationary targets – junkyard-grade vehicles. An iPhone 14 Pro was fastened to the back of the driver’s seat headrest and the car was outfitted with a GoPro to record the action. The YouTuber said everything was filmed “in a safe and controlled environment” but after watching the video, you’ll probably disagree with this statement....

Read on to see which ones are the best for graphics card calisthenics and what settings you should use to pummel that processor! When max doesn’t always equal max Before we get started, it’s worth taking stock of a few things. First of all, if you’re actually trying to have your graphics card pushed to its maximum capabilities, there’s a good chance will it also be running at a really high temperature....

Rumor has it that game publisher 2K Sports has signed a multigame contract to release at least three Lego-branded sports games. Sources with knowledge of the deal told Video Game Chronicle that Sumo Digital is already poised to launch a football/soccer game later this year. Sumo is the studio behind Sackboy: A big Adventure and Team Sonic Racing. A second title is slated for release sometime in 2023 and will be a racing game....