USB 3.0 is the next major revision of the ubiquitous interface. Dubbed SuperSpeed USB, this new version promises a tenfold leap forward in transfer speeds as well as improved capabilities, all while maintaining compatibility with USB 2.0 devices. In the following few paragraphs we’ve rounded out all the relevant information that you as a consumer should know about the next-generation USB standard. Some quick facts about USB 3.0 It’s fast....
So, while USB 2.0 has a theoretical maximum of 480Mb/s (60MB/s), real-world data transfer rates are actually closer to 280Mb/s (35MB/s). It’s impossible to know with absolute certainty what to expect from USB 3.0 devices without first putting a few to the test, but even if only a 25% of the maximum is attainable at launch, as some have suggested, we are still looking at an average read and write speed of 1....
Diablo Immortal has proved controversial since it was revealed back at BlizzCon 2018. Unveiling an FTP mobile Diablo famously led to an audience member asking if the whole thing was an “out of season April fool’s joke.” But its arrival has brought some fairly positive reviews with one huge caveat: the monetization is on a whole new level of bad. YouTube channel Bellular News (via Game Rant) latest video looks at the game’s Legendary Gems, one of its three progression pillars alongside XP level and equipment level....
For me, a big incentive to go with Ryzen was the AM4 platform, though it’d seem quite a few didn’t agree with that 3 or 4 years ago. AMD did promise platform support until at least 2020 and bar a small hiccup that was quickly reversed, it’s been mostly smooth sailing for those who bet on Ryzen early and had a clear upgrade path in subsequent generations. The plan as we understood it back in 2017 when Ryzen first burst onto the scene was that those investing in a 300-series AM4 motherboard would be able to upgrade to a 2nd or 3rd generation Ryzen CPU, or any other chip released up until 2020....
As anticipated, it looks like Windows 10 offers little to no performance advantages over previous versions when it comes to DX11 gaming, at least not in BioShock. Surprisingly Windows 10 provided consistent gains in Metro Redux with the GTX 980. This could simply be an issue with the drivers though. Performance slightly drops off in Hitman when moving from Windows 7 to 8.1 and then to 10. Tomb Raider delivered the exact same performance across all three Microsoft operating systems....
Even though we made this difference abundantly clear and focused on cost per frame when drawing comparisons, some of you were genuinely interested in why that comparison was made and felt the 5700 XT would have been a better matchup given the identical pricing. Fair enough. Coming from that article however, it should be said, it was the more affordable AMD GPU that offered the better value by a slim margin....
The DIMM slots look as though they back onto the primary PCI Express x16 port, offering just enough room to allow for the installation and removal of memory modules with a graphics card installed. Furthermore, the SATA ports are lined up above the primary PCI Express x16 port in two rows. Although they are not mounted at a 90-degree angle like we usually prefer, at least they won’t conflict with the graphics card in this position....
Using Prime95 to stress all cores, the Asrock P67 Extreme6 provided the best results with the entire system consuming 185 watts. The ECS P67H2-A2 provided similar results with 186 watts as did the Asus P8P67 Deluxe at 188 watts. Although the MSI P67A-GD55 consumed the least at idle, it was the second most power hungry board in our test with the total system consumption rising to 195 watts. The Gigabyte P67A-UD7 chugged even more power at 199 watts....
But as it stands right now, the typical asking price for the GeForce RTX 3080 12GB is $1600 to $1800 in the US, while the Radeon RX 6900 XT is around $1500 to $1600. In other regions however like Australia, they’re a close match. So if you have a large wad of cash you’d like to part with in exchange for a graphics card, which one should you buy?...
At first we were impressed by how much room there was between the four DIMM slots and the primary PCI Express x16 slot. This extra space has been made available due to the fact that the ECS P55H-A features just two PCI Express x16 slots instead of three. There’s also one PCIe x1 slot and one PCIe x4 slot along with a pair of conventional PCI slots at the bottom of the board....
Despite offering a fairly smooth 60fps at all times, the GTX 780 was the slowest card tested in Titanfall 2. The GTX 1050 Ti is surprisingly fast in this title and as a result the GTX 780 came in last place. Moving to 1440p allowed the GTX 780 to claw its way out of last place, if only just. It’s worth noting, however, that performance here was competitive across most of the graphics cards tested....
Moore’s law isn’t dead just yet, and it could soon get a new lease on life thanks to groundbreaking research by an international and multi-institutional team of scientists. Looking for new methods to develop 2D materials, the researchers have seemingly developed a “promising” growing process that could power next-generation electronics. Intel and other technology companies are hard at work to manufacture the first chip containing a trillion transistors, and they are all looking at new single atom-thick (ie “2D”) materials and compounds as a possible alternative to silicon for the production of said transistors....
Editor’s Note: Guest author Sven Taylor is the editor behind Restore Privacy, a blog dedicated to inform about best online privacy practices, secure your electronic devices, unblock restricted content and defeat censorship. In short, these are international surveillance alliances representing various countries around the world. These alliances work together to collect and share mass surveillance data with each other. Beginning with the UKUSA agreement and Five Eyes intelligence sharing, these networks have been spying on people for decades, with established policies going back to World War II....
With this in mind, I wanted to get some hands on time with this gaming laptop to see where Acer has cut corners and whether the laptop is actually worth your cash. After all, whenever a laptop strives to be the most affordable in any category, sacrifices are often made to get there. In this case, the Predator Helios 300 doesn’t compromises on specs. Some gaming laptops ditch the SSD in their budget variants, but the Helios 300 packs a 256GB SSD in its base model....
I’m not going to spend a lot of time discussing the pure CPU performance of the i7-8550U as I’ve already covered that a couple of times in the past. The key observation here is despite the use of just passive cooling, the Switch 7 has no problems matching other i7-8550U devices; it doesn’t thermal throttle significantly or underperform relative to the active-cooled, standard-performance Razer Blade Stealth. Amazingly, it’s actually faster than the HP Spectre x360 in most tests, sometimes by significant amounts....
We’ve previously seen AU Optronics show off 480Hz laptop and desktop displays, and now Alienware is offering the same refresh rate with a 3ms response time on its new m17 R5 and x17 R2 gaming laptops. This insane figure is mostly about bragging rights for those of us who aren’t deeply into twitchy, esports shooters. However, competitive players are likely going to appreciate whatever millisecond advantage they can squeeze out from their hardware....
Asrock FM2A88X Extreme6+ Compared to some of the recently reviewed Intel Z87 motherboards, Asrock’s FM2A88X Extreme6+ isn’t exactly bursting with features. That said, at $105 it isn’t nearly as expensive either. It’s important to note that Asrock’s most extreme A88X motherboard costs a little over $100. Pair that with the $190 asking price of the AMD A10-7850K and you have the makings of a killer budget system. The highlights of the FM2A88X Extreme6+ include support for up to quad CrossFireX along with Asrock Purity Sound, 7 SATA 6Gb/s ports, eSATA and dual PCI Express 3....
HandBrake’s results weren’t exactly inspiring as the A8-7600 was the slowest processor tested, landing 6% behind the A10-5800K and 11% behind the A10-6800K. The AMD A8-7600 did manage to outperform the A10-5800K in x264 HD Benchmark and its frame rate of 29.17fps in the first pass test was comparable to the A10-6800K. AMD’s A8-7600 completed the TMPGEnc Video Master Works test in 521 seconds, 6% faster than the A10-5800K and 6% slower than the A10-6800K....
