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The affordable SB-E chip performed well in our custom WinRAR compression test, delivering virtually the same performance as the 2600K and marginally less than the 3960X. The 3820 was only slightly slower than the 2600K when testing with Adobe Photoshop CS5 while trailing the 3960X by a 24% margin. The 3820 landed far behind the 3960X in the Fritz Chess 13 benchmark with a kilo nodes per second of 14184, but it was still 7% faster than the 2600K....

Under full load the 4.8GHz overclock did see the CPU reach 90 degrees though it remained stable. Here are some quick results. Unfortunately we didn’t have a heap of time to really mess around with overclocking the 6700K. The L2 cache performance was boosted by 22% thanks to the overclock while the L3 cache only enjoyed a 7% performance bump. The Cinebench R15 multi-threaded score was increased by 18% thanks to the 4....

Both the 5960X and 6950X were tested using DDR4-2666 memory and unsurprisingly we received the same 53GB/s memory bandwidth result. This is around 77% more bandwidth than the Skylake 6700K using the same memory. The 6950X is considerably faster than the 5960X when comparing L2 and L3 cache performance. Here the Broadwell-E processor was 41% faster when comparing L2 cache performance and 32% faster when comparing L3 cache. Interestingly, however, this meant the 6950X was still a good bit slower than our budget dual-Xeon build....

3DMark’s Cloud Gate test measures both CPU and GPU performance with two graphics tests as well as a physics test that is run on the CPU. The dual-core Intel Pentium G3258 struggles with the physics test and this is why it scores so poorly in stock form. At its standard 3.2GHz frequency, the G3258 is much slower than an AMD A10-7850K for the simple fact that it doesn’t have enough threads....

The Intel Core i7 2600K averaged 45.1fps at 1360x768 when testing with Resident Evil 5 making it 89% faster than the Core i5 655K and over 3x faster than the Phenom II X4 970/Radeon HD 4290 (890GX) combo. The Core i5 2500K was 10% slower than the Core i7 2600K, but with 40.6fps at 1360x768 it was able to deliver playable performance using the low quality in-game quality presets. The popular Battlefield Bad Company 2 game is a tall order for IGP solutions, even when using the lowest possible quality settings....

The NUC6i7KYK might be aimed at gamers but it has already proven to be an impressive productivity device and it shows this once again in our Excel test, taking just 4.4 seconds to complete the workload. This time the NUC6i7KYK and its Core i7-6770HQ processor were shown up by the Asrock DeskMini and its Core i5-6500 processor when testing with PowerPoint. That said the margin was slim at best and with just 0....

We hope to get our hands on the smaller 120GB version of the OCZ Vertex 3 as it’s said to be considerably slower than the 240GB model we’ve tested and this would level the playing field a bit. Until then, it’s going to be difficult to make an accurate comparison of these two products. Both drives are very competitive in terms of pricing. The OCZ Vertex 3 120GB is fetching $2....

Unlike a complex general purpose CPU or GPU, an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) is a type of chip designed for a specific type of task - in this case, Bitcoin mining. They do only one job, but they’re very good at it. Raja Koduri, SVP and GM of the Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) Group at Intel, said in an interview last month that being able to do much more efficient blockchain validation at a much lower cost with much less power is a pretty solvable problem....

The German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) issued the warning following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “A Russian IT manufacturer can carry out offensive operations itself, be forced against its will to attack target systems, or be spied on as a victim of a cyber operation without its knowledge or as a tool for attacks against its own customers,” the BSI writes (via the BBC, which translated the message). The BSI recommends Kaspersky antivirus products be replaced with alternatives....

While all of this is really neat technology, I couldn’t help but keep returning to the question of “why do I need this?” It seems more like a novelty than an actual productive addition to a desktop computer when you realize that having to lean forward to physically interact with the machine, as opposed to just using a mouse, starts feeling like too much work after a bit. Moreover, the on-screen keyboard was far from perfect and entering in text took a long time....

On the right side of the machine is a 5-in-1 card reader (MMC, SD, MS, MS-Pro and xD), a microphone / headphone jack, two USB 2.0 ports and the power connector. The back of the system carries the same metallic band used to unify and frame the system, while on the left we find a Kensington lock slot, ventilation slots, VGA and HDMI ports, an Ethernet jack and another USB 2....

Screen Full disclosure: high PPI displays (i.e. Retina equipped iPads, Nexus 10) have ruined my objectivity for low pixel density screens. For a 10.1-inch 1366 x 768 display though, Lenovo’s got it going on. Despite its relative pixel deficiency, it’s as sharp as you’d expect with good contrast and fantastic brightness. It’s an IPS panel and definitely looks the part, boasting excellent viewing angles and vivid colors: no complaints here. Relative to its size, the 768p panel delivers a decent work area at a usable size, particularly for users blessed with good vision and ample digit precision....

The keyboard on the X1 is one of the best I’ve seen on a ThinkPad. It starts with the chiclet keys that feel great as you type. Lenovo has managed to work in a backlit keyboard in addition to the spill-resistant design carried over from previous iterations. Key layout is good as well with Lenovo implementing their “legacy reduced” key delete and typical Fn / Ctrl placement. I can also report that the touchpad is much improved over the X220’s implementation....

While CPU performance remains somewhat near other current-generation SoCs, the G6 unfortunately falls behind by a considerable margin in GPU workloads. The Galaxy S8+ is a good 32 percent faster on average in GPU-limited workloads, and manages to be twice as fast in Basemark’s intensive U-Boat test. The Mate 9 is only 10 percent faster, though its GPU isn’t as strong. The Snapdragon 835’s GPU is more powerful than either of these GPUs, so LG is missing out on top-end graphics performance by sticking with the S821....

Project CARS featured a pre-configured setting, so everything was mapped and to my delight worked perfectly. However, I actually started with F1 2015, which turned out to be a mistake. Getting both the G29 and G920 setup was a bit of a headache. Having now done it, the required tweaks are quite easy to make, though I spent quite a lot of time working them out. Although there is a pre-configured setup for F1 2015, it doesn’t work correctly and we were unable to use the foot pedals properly....

Wired reports that since 2019, Kytch has sold a phone-sized device designed to be installed inside McDonald’s ice cream machines. It works by intercepting the internal communications and sending them to a web or mobile interface so owners can remotely monitor and address any problems, of which there are many. But the dream of making every ice cream machine work, thereby ruining an internet full of memes, turned sour in November 2020 when McDonald’s sent out emails asking all franchises to remove Kytch’s devices as they violated the machines’ warranties and intercepted “confidential information....

Like most businesses, Meta is suffering the effects of the economic slowdown that has seen advertisers spend less on marketing, which makes up most of Meta’s revenue. Its net income in Q3 was down 52% to $4.4 billion, lower than analysts’ estimates of $5 billion, while revenue was down 4% to $27.71 billion, which was higher than expected. In addition to the falling revenue, Meta has been worrying investors with the amount of money being poured into its VR/MR ambitions, aka the metaverse....

Those looking to play The Phantom Pain at 1080p will get away with relatively low-end/dated hardware. The nearly four year old HD 7950 averaged 48fps with a minimum of 38fps (very playable) while the new GTX 950 provided a strong average of 52fps with a minimum of 40fps . Nvidia has a clear advantage in this title at the moment and that can be seen when making numerous comparisons. The GTX 950 for example was 33% faster than the R7 370 when comparing minimum frame rates and the GTX 970 was just a single frame slower than the R9 390X....

Windows 11 hasn’t had the smoothest first year, but your mileage will vary. Early on AMD processors were affected, sometimes losing nearly 15% of its performance, but that only lasted for a couple of weeks right after launch. A number of Nvidia buyers noticed significant frame drops following the recent 22H2 update in September. And overall, some people believe Windows 11 simply feels less “snappy” than Windows 10 did (myself included)....

During my time using the Surface 3 over the course of a few weeks, I found the tablet’s battery life to be acceptable. While I don’t think the Surface 3 is the sort of device you’ll sit down and use for an entire day, I did achieve around seven hours of typical usage between charges. This isn’t spectacular for a 10-inch class tablet, where I would like to see at least 10 hours of usage from a full charge, but at the same time I didn’t think that seven hours of life was inadequate by any means....