For this build we went with the Intel Core i7-6700K processor, Asrock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K6+ motherboard, G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3400 16GB memory, Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850w power supply, Gainward GTX 980 Ti graphics card and the Silverstone Tundra Series TD02 liquid cooler. For storage the Samsung SSD 850 Evo 2TB and a pair of WD 4TB hard drives were installed. First up we installed the Be Quiet!...
Thankfully Nvidia just updated their “System Tools” software, which did allow us to easily overclock the board. However unlike software provided by Inno3D’s rivals, we were unable to adjust the card’s voltage, which hampered the overclocking potential. With standard voltages we managed to increase the graphics clock speed for fixed function units from Inno3D’s 720MHz to 850MHz, an 18% frequency increase. The memory was also boosted from the 950MHz overclock Inno3D put in place to 1010MHz....
Intel’s Arc (Alchemist) GPUs are still shrouded in mystery, and the expectations around them have been tempered by the ongoing chip shortage and rumors of slow progress on driver development. The company says we’ll see the first models in laptops starting next month, but outside of a few odd leaks and the occasional small teaser from Raja Koduri, details about the upcoming GPUs have been scarce. Thanks to a review done by SiSoftware on pre-release hardware, we now have a slightly better idea on what to expect, at least when it comes to the entry-level “A380” graphics card in the Alchemist lineup....
At its Innovation event on this week, Intel announced pricing and availability of its flagship Arc A770 desktop GPU. Today, the company is giving us more details about the rest of its A700 lineup including the A770 Limited Edition and the A750. First up, Intel confirmed that the Arc A770 Limited Edition has an MSRP of $349, just $20 more than the standard A770. Both feature 32 Xe cores and a 225W TDP, but the LE comes with memory chips with twice the capacity and nine percent higher clock speeds, resulting in a total of 16GB of GDDR6 and 560GB/s of bandwidth....
Looking at the 1080p data we see that the Core i7-4790 was 2% slower than the i5-4690 and just 2% faster than the i3-4160. Downgrading to the GTX 960 does nothing to change the margins. The Core i7-4790 was still 2% slower than the i5-4690 and 2% faster than the i3-4160. Tomb Raider is far from a CPU dependent game and the results show this. Given that we saw little to no difference in performance between the various processors using the GTX 980, it isn’t surprising that we find the same with the GTX 960....
Time to do some gaming. As we saw previously with the 8700K, these high-end Intel CPUs are actually limited by the GTX 1080 Ti at 1080p using the ultra quality preset in Battlefield 1. Therefore the Core i5-8400 delivered the same 137 fps minimum and 157 fps average. We’ll look at 720p performance in a moment, before that let’s check the Vega 64 results. Moving to Vega 64 Liquid Cooled the Ryzen 5 1600 is much more competitive and is now just 5% slower than the Core i5-8400....
The i7-11370H is weird in the sense that it’s basically the same silicon used for ultraportable laptops, but overclocked. It uses the same 4 core, 8 thread layout, but bumps up the default power limit from 28W to 35W, and increases the base clock from 3.0 to 3.3 GHz relative to the Core i7-1185G7. There’s also 12MB of L3 cache, an Iris Xe GPU with 96 execution units, and the same memory support as Tiger Lake UP3....
Using Prime95 to stress the Core i7-5775C we see that it matched the Core i5-4690K while consuming 17% less than the Core i7-4790K. This time when testing with Hybrid x265 the Core i7-5775C consumed 21% less power than the Core i7-4790K. Again we see a 20% reduction in power consumption when comparing the Core i7-5775C to the i7-4790K. The Core i7-5775C consumed 23% less power than the Core i7-4790K when measuring multi-threaded performance and just 10% less in the single thread test....
Here we see an impressive 30% increase in Cinebench R15 multi-threaded performance over the 5960X, as the 6950X reached 1803pts. As expected, the single-threaded performance wasn’t anything impressive at just 147fps. The 6950X was outdone by our 16-core Xeon E5-2670 build by a decent margin. AnandTech’s Ian Cutress created the 3D Particle Movement benchmark quite a few years ago now and it’s a great tool for measuring CPU performance. The 6950X scored 1626pts in the multi-threaded test, making it 30% faster than the 5960X and 102% faster than the 6700K....
Then again, if you were after the best of the best, the Core i9-12900K delivered, beating the Ryzen 9 5950X in a number of productivity benchmarks while owning gaming. Fast forward to this day, AMD is set to strike back soon with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and its fat 96 MB L3 cache. AMD is claiming a 10 to 15 percent performance boost in gaming, so they could topple the 12900K or at the very least trade blows....
The Z87 Professional first caught our eye as it includes a huge amount of special features, such as dual-stack MOSFETs, multi filter caps, hi-density power connector, 15u gold finger expansion slots, creative sound, 2oz copper PCB and much more. The board itself also looks very impressive, featuring a black PCB with black and red connectors. This is a Fatal1ty series board, though Asrock don’t throw that in your face too much and spoil the design....
No special software support is necessary for Turbo Boost to work and the feature can be enabled/disabled from the BIOS or the Operating System. Compared to previous generation products, Intel Turbo Boost Technology will increase the ratio of application power to TDP. Turbo Boost was first introduced on the Nehalem architecture (Core i7 920, Core i7 940 and Core i7 965 EE), however this implementation only increased the clock frequency by two turbo bins when using a single core....
Intel will release its new “Unison” app this holiday season. Unison introduces several features that should make sharing work between a Windows PC and an iPhone or Android device effortless. It will initially be exclusive to Intel Evo laptops. After a quick, one-time setup, users can take a photo or video on their phone and immediately edit it on their PC, seamlessly transferring files between the devices. They can also use the PC to send and receive text messages or voice calls....
The Asrock DeskMini 110 featured for comparison throughout this review costs just under $500 fully configured while the NUC6i7KYK will set you back more than twice that amount. Granted, the NUC is smaller, sleeker and better looking, but once you get under 2L, does the size of a desktop PC really matter? The NUC6i7KYK sacrifices storage options compared to the DeskMini 110, not to mention that it runs louder and hotter under load....
So if you really want to make sure that the Z690 motherboard you buy is not hot garbage – as we found with the previous generation Z590 motherboards, yup that happened – here comes our VRM testing. On that note, there are no Asrock motherboards featured in this roundup and that’s not because we’re ignoring Asrock, but rather because we’re still blacklisted by the company for accurate and honest reporting on the performance of their products....
The EVGA Z97 FTW provided the best USB 3.0 performance in the AS SSD Benchmark sequential read test with a throughput of 256MB/s. The slowest Z97 motherboards were the Asrock Z97 Extreme9 and MSI Z97 MPower Max AC with just 244MB/s, while the Asus Z97-Deluxe was a fraction faster with 245MB/s. The AS SSD Benchmark sequential write results show quite a large variation in performance. Gigabyte’s Z97X-UD5H-BK sat on top ahead of the EVGA Z97 FTW, which also performed well, while Asus’ Z97 motherboards failed to break 220MB/s and the Asrock Z97 motherboards got over 230MB/s....
It Takes Two managed to beat the likes of Resident Evil Village and Deathloop to grab the coveted Game of the Year prize at the 2021 Game Awards, thanks to its wildly entertaining gameplay, which, while mostly platforming, covers several genres—it was one of our Best PC Games (You Should Be Playing) last year. As with many popular games, it appears that It Takes Two is making the jump from game to film or TV show....
Diving into CPUs, AMD bounced back after suffering a decline in user numbers in December, which marked the first time it failed to steal share from Intel since August 2021. In January, 0.25% more survey participants were using team red’s processors, pushing its overall share to 30.96%. In the graphics card section, many of the trends we’ve seen over the past few months weren’t present in January’s results. The RTX 3000 desktop cards that have been increasing their user share didn’t have the best time, with the 3070, 3060, and 3060 Ti all losing users....
If you’re wondering what that good thing is, check this out: The new open-world game from Avalanche Studios captures the thrill of flight in a way that very few games manage. I’ll whiz through a mountain pass and buzz oh-so-close to a clutch of pines, the sound of wind in my ears and a grin on my face. In those moments, it’s possible to forgive Just Cause 3 its many shortcomings....
Kardashian posted an Instagram Story last year to her 278 million followers about Emax tokens, the crypto asset security offered by EthereumMax, which has no connection to Ethereum. While the influencer added a tiny disclaimer noting that it was a paid advertisement, she claimed in the post—which didn’t look like an ad—to have heard about the coin from friends. Kardashian also failed to disclose that she was paid $250,000 to publish the post....
