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Foxconn’s facility manufactures the overwhelming majority of iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max devices. Operations were disrupted in mid-October following a Covid outbreak that put the factory and its 200,000 workers into a “closed loop” lockdown. It’s claimed that 20,000 workers have been put in quarantine on-site. There have also been reports of food shortages, leading to mass walkouts by workers. Bloomberg reports that many were replaced by new employees who rebelled against pay and quarantine practices....

The dual speaker configuration on the iPad Air is a step up from previous generations. Apple still missed the mark with placement, yet audio quality is very good for such a small device. Music remained crystal clear even at maximum volume although the speakers don’t get terribly loud. If you’re serious about your music or movies, a pair of headphones would certainly be an asset. The Air is also a much cooler running tablet than say, the third generation iPad I last reviewed....

AirDrop options allow users to receive files from everyone, contacts only, or turn off the feature. The latest update to Apple’s operating system limits how long people can receive drops from everyone to 10 minutes. After that time limit elapses, AirDrop reverts to ‘contacts only’ until a user switches back to ’everyone for 10 minutes.’ The change will likely be welcomed by many Apple users who sometimes forget to disable the ’everyone’ option for AirDrop, but making the time limit available only in iPhones in China—for now—has raised eyebrows....

Arm announced a new flagship mobile GPU as part of a roadmap of upcoming CPUs and GPUs this week. Called Immortalis and sporting at least 10 cores, it will bring hardware-based ray tracing and a new execution engine to high-end Android phones. It will also feature Variable Rate Shading (VRS) to save performance and battery life. Ray tracing requires significant horsepower which initially kept it out of the mobile space, but mobile hardware appears to be rising to meet that challenge....

The SPECviewperf v10 Maya and 3dsMax tests use both CPU and GPU. The Gigabyte GA-GC230D is lacking in both CPU and GPU departments, and as such was unable to complete this test. The Asrock Ion 330HT-BD with the help of the onboard GPU managed 6.61fps in Maya and 2.18 in 3dsMax. The Asrock Ion 330HT-BD was 84% faster than the Gigabyte GA-GC230D in CINEBENCH R10 when testing multi-core performance.

We also tested CPU utilization using a 1080p .mkv copy of Avatar (converted from a 1080p Blu-ray source). Again, the overhead is slightly lower for the Asrock Mini PCs, but the CPU utilization of our Phenom II X2 560 system actually increased to 32%.

In a few tests the single-GPU Radeon HD 5870 was able to outgun the mighty GeForce GTX 295, while in most it managed to match or improve upon the Radeon HD 4870 X2. As you are likely aware, both of these products carry dual GPUs, which bring a number of implications, not to mention bigger price tags. Looking forward we knew Nvidia would have no immediate response to the new Radeons, while on the other hand ATI was not done unleashing its full series of products....

The frame time performance of Crossfire and SLI technology is excellent in Battlefield 4, as both technologies offer noticeable improvements over single card configurations. The HD 7970 GHz Edition cards were particularly impressive, delivering similar frame time performance as the R9 290X.

The latest demo video showcasing Atlas’ talents illustrates how far the robot has come and the potential for its practical uses. The bipedal machine could barely walk when it first arrived. By 2017, it was performing parkour and backflips. A year later, Atlas was jogging, leaping over logs, and bounding from one 40cm step to another, using its legs, arms, and torso to drive its jumps and for balancing. It progressed to full-on gymnastics in 2019....

Even the dual-core Phenom II X2 555 and Core i3 540 deliver similar average frame rates to those of the Core i7. It is only on the minimum frame rates where we see some tangible impact.

During a Halloween presentation this week, Capcom shed some light on the Resident Evil 4 remake and unveiled details for the expansion pack to last year’s Resident Evil Village. The new footage of the remake remains faithful to the original 2005 version but reveals many subtle changes along with a tremendous leap forward in graphics. Capcom showed off the earliest section of Resident Evil 4. It should look familiar to those who’ve played earlier editions of the game, but it also significantly expands in some areas....

The tech community thrives on the difference of opinion, where some passionate individuals usually bring out the pitchforks, keenly typing away their responses in debates around pros and cons of a particular operating system, CPU/GPU brand, or any other piece of computer hardware/software and associated IT practices. However, one practice that’s universally accepted and encouraged in tech is keeping a backup of all your important data, and doing it regularly....

The USB Implementers Forum were showing off some abilities of the new AV specification for USB 3.0, as well as some exciting upcoming USB 2.0-based technologies. First we saw a USB 3.0 monitor displaying a 2560x1600 picture with a 1080p movie running windowed. Incidentally, that movie is streaming from a USB thumb drive. You might typically think of HDMI as the multimedia standard for streaming high definition video. The USB Forum hopes that the new AV specification for USB 3....

Increasing the processor’s frequency from 2.0GHz to 4.0GHz (in 200MHz steps) greatly affected performance, jumping from 27fps through 52fps. Clearly, Civilization V is very CPU dependent as we rarely see such varying results on a game when using such a powerful desktop processor.

AMD Phenom II 555 X2 BE MSI 870A Fuzion motherboard Dynatron Genius G950 CPU cooler 2x2Gb Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3-1600 XFX 9600GSO 768M 500Gb Seagate 7200.10 Sony Optiarc 24x DVD+/-RW Ultra X3 800W PSU The only issue I ran into was with the power supply installation. The Ultra X3 800 is 7.5" (190mm) in length, certainly not the longest power supply we’ve tested but admittedly longer than most standard ATX class units....

Although this may seem concerning, it’s probably only an issue for heavy overclockers who don’t prioritize noise reduction anyway. For everyone else, the Silencio 650 is an attractive, feature-packed chassis that muffles high-end hardware running at max while maintaining safe, albeit less-than-ideal temps. As noted in the intro, the Silencio 650 should go for about $140 to $150 in the US, which puts it in direct competition with some of the finest mid-tower cases available....

When set to low, the Storm Trooper is barely audible. While making almost no noise the Trooper provided our lowest hard drive results keeping the WD drive at just 20 degrees. The processor results were equally impressive as the idle temperature of 25 degrees was better than Corsair Obsidian 650D. Unfortunately, the Trooper’s GPU results were somewhat mediocre as it kept the GTX 580 around 41 degrees at idle. Increasing the fan speed to high reduced GPU temperature to 38 degrees, putting Cooler Master’s enclosure on par with the Lian-Li Lancool PC-K63....

The inverted ATX layout came at no real advantage but we enjoyed what felt like a more simplistic build and it was nice to see the graphics cards facing upwards. The wide stance also let large tower coolers fit with room to spare while leaving loads of space behind the motherboard tray for excess cabling. Despite our affection for the Carbide 600C, many of you didn’t care for the case’s top mounted power supply, magnetic front door, vertical top mounted I/O panel and, well, just the inverted ATX layout in general....

Like many other SSD vendors, Corsair launched a PS5-ready SSD to increase the console’s storage capacity. Available with 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and even a whopping 4TB, Corsair’s new PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD features a compact built-in heatsink designed to fit inside the PS5 that should offer enough cooling capacity to prevent thermal throttling. To be compatible with the PlayStation 5, an SSD must meet specific requirements. These include having a PCIe 4....