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All Thuban-based processors feature the traditional Phenom II 6MB L3 cache, while each individual core receives its own 512KB L2 cache. That makes up for total cache of 9MB, which compares to the 8MB that Phenom II X4 processors have. Unlike the much more expensive Intel Core i7 980X, AMD’s six-core processors have not made the move to 32nm. As mentioned earlier, they are still 45nm parts. Despite this, AMD has specified a moderate TDP rating of 125 watts, even when operating at 3....

With 47fps at 2560x1600, the HD 7970 managed to match the GTX 590’s performance in Just Cause 2, while simultaneously dusting the HD 6970 by a 62% margin – impressive.

In all seriousness though, this release from AMD is disappointing to put it mildly. Essentially anyone who has purchased the Radeon HD 7870 or 7790 graphics cards basically already has the Radeon R9 270X or R7 260X. For over a year it’s been possible to purchase a factory overclocked 1.1GHz Radeon HD 7870, while 7790 cards running at 1075MHz have been around for the better part of 6 months. Only later this month we’ll get to the R7 290 and 290X which are true new products, even if only a fraction of gamers will set aside $700 to buy one....

Keep in mind again that the Sapphire card we tested was overclocked by 5% so our results are likely inflated by 2-3%, making the margin between the R9 285 and R9 280 even thinner. We couldn’t underclock the Sapphire card and this has been an issue since the Radeon 200 series popped up. If anyone knows a workaround please let us know (other than flashing the BIOS, which we couldn’t do in time)....

The RX 460 delivered similar performance to the R7 370 and GTX 950 in this department and we’re surprised to see such a small improvement in power efficiency. Less than a 10% reduction in total system power consumption was seen, so take from that what you will. Personally, I am not impressed, but also not surprised given what we saw from the RX 480 and RX 470. Similar numbers are seen when measuring power consumption in Call of Duty: Black Ops III, not much more needs to be said....

The Radeon RX 6800 is a very similar graphics card and GPU based on the RDNA2 architecture using TSMC’s 7nm process. The card packs 3840 cores, 240 TMUs and 96 ROPs across 60 CUs. The cores clock at up to 2105 MHz and with 16GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit wide memory bus, it has 512GB/s of memory bandwidth to play with. It’s rated at 250 watts total board power, and of course, supports PCI Express 4....

AMD’s CES 2022 event was packed with announcements of new hardware as well as software enhancements for existing and upcoming Ryzen and Radeon products. The company revealed a new top gaming CPU in the form of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, as well as Ryzen 6000 mobile processors based on a Zen 3+ architecture, a new budget Radeon RX 6500 XT graphics card, Radeon Super Resolution, and more. However, some Team Red fans are also interested in potential support for Ryzen 5000 series CPUs for older motherboards equipped with 300-series chipsets....

One reason for the dip could be the economic slump that China is currently experiencing. According to a note from Jefferies, iPhone 14 sales over the first three days of availability were down 11 percent in China compared to its predecessor a year earlier. Global economics including surging inflation and recession fears are also impacting the overall smartphone market. We went from an environment where supply constraints were pulling down the market to a demand-constrained market, said IDC research Nabila Popal....

In late 2021, Apple made an unexpected announcement. They were going to begin a program that would allow users to personally repair their devices, with genuine parts and tools provided by Apple. Apple stated that the service, titled the “Self Service Repair,” would launch with parts and tools to repair their iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 models, with Mac computers powered by M1 chips to follow shortly after. Consumers waited for an update on any potential launch dates until May 2022, when the service officially launched....

Wireless web surfing was also pleasant although there was a time or two when I seemed to lose my Internet connection as I transitioned from LTE to standard 3G service. I was back up and rolling in less than a minute but the transition certainly wasn’t seamless in my experience. Each iPhone 5 ships with a set of Apple’s new earbuds, now called EarPods. Apple spent three years working on the redesign and it shows....

Add in the controversial decision to remove the venerable 3.5mm headphone jack as well as a major change in the new Home button and you have the making of a familiar iPhone that feels somewhat foreign. Apple unveiled the iPhone 7 and its bigger brother, the iPhone 7 Plus, on September 7 at a media event in San Francisco. The phones went on sale a little over a week later in your choice of rose gold, gold, silver, black and jet black with 32GB, 128GB or 256GB or local storage (yes, Apple has finally retired the 16GB option)....

Customers can also configure a Retina system with up to 16GB of RAM and 768GB of flash storage, versus a maximum of 8GB of RAM and 512GB of solid state storage on a standard Pro. But hey, who are we kidding, the only reason that most people are going to dish over the extra cash for Apple’s latest and greatest is the 2880 x 1800 resolution goodness of the Retina display....

If that sounds familiar, then you’re probably thinking of Microsoft Surface devices. Microsoft markets the Surface Pro as a more capable version of the iPad Pro in their awkward but funny ads. iPad proponents say that Apple’s device is better at what it does, even if it’s slightly less versatile. A new iPad based on this patent would reverse that paradigm. It would have a genuinely clamshell form factor. Apple’s existing Magic Keyboard is more of a folding case and keyboard hybrid than a pure keyboard attachment....

Apple expects to unveil its mixed reality headset sometime in January 2023, and the rumor mill has been abuzz with hints about it in recent months. For one, the Cupertino giant will supposedly lean on the Chinese market for the new device to improve its chances of success. Presumably, Chinese consumers have a higher appetite for exotic, aspirational products like AR/VR headsets. Renowned analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims the company has high hopes for this mysterious device as it plans to ship around 1....

Bloomberg reports that Cook made his remarks during an internal meeting in Germany with local engineering and retail employees as part of a recent tour of Europe. “We’ve already made a decision to be buying out of a plant in Arizona, and this plant in Arizona starts up in ‘24, so we’ve got about two years ahead of us on that one, maybe a little less,” Cook said. “And in Europe, I’m sure that we will also source from Europe as those plans become more apparent....

Igor Wallossek of Igor’s Lab writes that he has spoken to some dealers, potential distributors, and manufacturers in the European area about Intel’s Arc cards, and there was little interest to be found. It’s claimed that, unlike Nvidia and AMD, Intel either could not or would not give any price guarantees, and its policies relating to RMAs and returns were significantly worse than those of its competitors. Wallossek notes that Intel appears to be focusing on system integrators and OEM customers for its Alchemist cards and making the retail market much less of a priority (or not a priority at all)....

Compared to the Atom, we found the E-350 to be much more powerful. The E-350 was more responsive than the Atom 330 for basic use, while the Radeon HD 6310 trumped the Nvidia Ion in virtually every 3D application we tested. Furthermore, the E-350 offers more features than the Atom/Ion combo as well as support for full DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD bitstreaming. Motherboards such as the Asus E35M1-M Pro have a full-length PCIe x16 slot with x4 bandwidth, but we don’t recommend installing a beefier graphics card....

World in Conflict showed the GTX 580 to be 4% faster than the Radeon HD 5970, while 46% faster than the Radeon HD 5870. Moreover, it was 23% faster than the GTX 480.

For our real-world application tests we ran a small and a large calculation using Microsoft Excel 2007. The P7P55D Deluxe and the MSI P55-GD65 delivered exactly the same result in the former, while the P7P55D Deluxe took 12 seconds longer to complete our large calculation test. Although the built-in WinRAR test didn’t show a significant difference between the P7P55D Deluxe and the other P55 motherboards, our custom compression test was more extensive....

The dock is largely made of strong, metallic-patterned plastic, with rubber used for the base. When the dock is attached to the tablet and the ’lid’ is shut, the base provides a strong protective cover for the display; there’s little chance the important tablet part will get seriously damaged if you drop the unit. The hinge is strong and provides a good range of angles to use, making it easy to use the Transformer on a desk or a lap....