7th November 2024
AMD 9800X3D Now Available:
The first desktop Zen 5 CPUs were disappointing in gaming, but the 9800X3D, which arrives on November 7th, makes some big improvements over the already-great Ryzen 7 7800X3D.And the clock speed increases have helped boost productivity performance, alongside the Zen 5 architecture. For the first time on an X3D chip, AMD is even supporting overclocking, which should mean we’ll see some even more impressive results from this processor.Over on the gaming side, AMD has extended its lead, especially against Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K.
These next gen AMD X3D CPU’S are the fastest in gaming and very good in productivity and blow Intel right out of the water.
1st November 2024
Intel Core Ultra Now Available:
Intel’s Core Ultra cpu range makes strong gains in productivity workloads, but it struggles to match its prior-gen counterpart in gaming performance. That leaves AMD’s competing chips as a better value for gaming, while low pricing on the previous-gen Core i9-14900K will provide competition from within Intel’s own lineup.Intel’s new ‘Arrow Lake’ Core Ultra 200S series, leading the charge with 24 cores melded into a completely new chiplet architecture that comes with plenty of new leading-edge tech, like 3D Foveros packaging, support for new DDR5 CUDIMM memory tech, and the first dedicated AI engine fused inside a desktop PC chip. However, Arrow Lake struggles to keep pace in gaming with Intel’s own previous-gen Raptor Lake Refresh processors, never mind AMD’s chart-topping Zen 4 X3D chips.
28 May 2024
Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office
Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office is a software package produced by Acronis International GmbH that aims to protect the system from ransomware and allows users to backup and restore files or entire systems from a backup archive, which was previously created using the software.
With Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, you can deliver integrated backup, disaster recovery, cybersecurity, and endpoint management at scale, while preserving your margins and streamlining your business operations with powerful automation capabilities and broad integrations.
22 Feb 2024
Microsoft begins forced updates to Windows 11 23H2 — targets PCs running 21H2 and 22H2
Those running a build of Windows 11 that is (or soon will be) EOL are now on notice.
Microsoft has a history of forcing PCs to use newer versions of Windows under certain circumstances. While a segment of the Windows 11 install base would prefer to control their own destiny regarding operating system updates, Microsoft wants to ensure that a significant portion of users are running recent builds of Windows 11. Such is the case with Windows 11 23H2, which is entering a broader rollout phase.
Microsoft explained in a support document that it will automatically update “eligible” devices to Windows 11 23H2. “This automatic update targets Windows 11 devices that have reached or are approaching end of servicing,” Microsoft stated.
In this case, the automatic updates to 23H2 will target systems currently running Windows 11 21H2 and 22H2. Windows 11 21H2 reach its end of life (EOL) on October 10, 2023, while Windows 11 22H2 will face its EOL on October 8, 2024. Those EOL dates are when Microsoft will stop delivering security updates and other improvements to those builds.
13 Feb 2024
Viewsonic latest 27-inch 240Hz OLED gaming monitor lands in the US — XG272-2K-OLED boasts 0.02ms response time
Viewsonic has launched its XG272-2K-OLED gaming monitor in the US (h/t DisplaySpecifications). The not-at-all catchy name at least makes some of the key specifications immediately apparent. Yes, this is a 27-inch OLED gaming monitor with a ‘2K’ resolution. Other features that will attract gamers include the monitor’s touted speedy performance, wide color gamut, USB-C connectivity option, a USB hub, and a fully adjustable ergonomic stand with built-in OSD remote and RGB lighting.
2024 seems like the first year that OLED monitors for PC gamers and enthusiasts are becoming truly mainstream. Viewsonic’s XG272-2K-OLED gaming monitor tickles many sweet spots for those looking to graduate from the 1080p LCD era. Here, you have a 26.5-inch diagonal flat OLED panel boasting 2560 x 1440 pixels (AKA 1440p, 2K, or QHD).
The OLED panel will undoubtedly deliver that gorgeous deep black and contrasty imagery that the panels are well known for. We also see that the Viewsonic XG272-2K-OLED covers 100% of the sRGB and 98.5% of the DCI-P3 color space for rich visuals. The typical brightness of 190 nits seems low, but the panel can ramp up to 450 nits in HDR mode (it is HDR10 certified).
5 Feb 2024
10 overlooked Windows 11 features you need to try
No operating system is without its merits, and that includes Windows 11, even as much as I complain about Microsoft’s latest operating system. Its handful of useful features continues to grow as time goes on, with more and more being teased for future release (like native RGB lighting controls).
But with helpful utilities and settings trickling out slowly, it’s easy to miss a few here and there, especially when the flashier features hog the news headlines. We’ve pulled out 10 features that we don’t think get enough love—if you’ve heard of them and haven’t tried them yet, now’s the time
Notepad actually predates Windows, but it’s still fully relevant (and useful!) today. The streamlined app lets you open a window to make quick notes. And in Windows 11, you can now manage and navigate between open files in a single window, thanks to the addition of tabs. It’s far tidier than opening a new instance of Notepad for each file—and combined with the new dark mode, it makes the app look and feel modern.
Snap is one of our favorite features in Windows—being able to automatically resize and align windows saves time and makes working a lot easier. And not only do you get more layouts to choose from in Windows 11, but you can access them faster, too. Just hover your mouse over the maximize button in the upper right-hand corner of any window. A small pop-up menu will appear showing six different template options. Roll your cursor over any of the grids, and your current window will get sent to that position. Keyboard users can instead tap Win + Z, then the number of the layout they want.
Microsoft didn’t just add tabs to Notepad. File Explorer got the upgrade, too. You no longer need third-party software to enable the feature (like Stardock’s excellent Groupy). All your numerous Explorer windows can now be grouped as tabs in a single container. Just click the “+” button in the top-most menu bar (or hit Ctrl + T on your keyboard)—each new tab will appear along the top of the window, just like a web browser.
If your loved ones can manage unfamiliar but basic interactions with a PC, a Windows Pro license isn’t necessary to provide them remote support. You can have them fire up Quick Assist instead. (Remember this app from Windows 10? It’s still around in Windows 11.) Once in the program, they’ll log in to their Microsoft account, and then generate a six-digit code to send to you. You’ll input that code into Quick Assist on your PC, at which point you can then see what’s happening on their end, and even request full control of their PC
Previous versions of Windows had a Snipping Tool app, but you could only take screenshots. In Windows 11, screen recording finally gets added—and unlike Windows’ Xbox Game Bar’s recording feature, you can use it to capture specific parts of your screen. If you serve as informal tech support for family and friends, this feature can make your life a lot easier when explaining how to tinker with an app or in Windows. (Note: You’ll have to open the full Snipping Tool app for screen recording—it doesn’t appear in the Win + Shift + S keyboard shortcut overlay.
Windows 11 makes a wealth of info available with just one mouse click (or quick tap of Win + W). Right now you can get weather, stock prices, sports updates, and entertainment news, and those cards are slowly being joined by new additions, like for Xbox Game Pass. It’s a much easier way to stay up to date than fully shifting to a browser and poking around in your tabs. And if we’re lucky, cards available in preview builds of Windows 11—like Messenger, Phone Link, and PC performance monitoring—will make it to general release.
Energy costs keep climbing—and in some parts of the world, they’re still at record prices. While you can of course switch your power plan in Windows to something lighter, Windows 11 has a few specific settings you can turn on to reduce idle power consumption. (After all, why pay for the higher electricity use when you’re not active on the PC?) You’ll find these under Settings > System > Power & battery > Energy recommendations. You can then turn on one or more of the suggestions. These more stringent settings will help extend battery life on laptops, too.
This feature might be one of the most underrated in Windows. Virtual desktops, which first launched in Windows 10, let you spread your active apps and windows among different home screens—it reduces clutter and makes your primary desktop less overwhelming. Some people use their virtual desktops to separate out work from play (or research from daily tasks), while others separate programs by category or function. Navigating between your desktops is as fast as clicking on the Virtual Desktop taskbar icon or tapping Win + Ctrl + Left/Right Arrow.
Davinci Resolve is great if you need deep video editing capabilities, but Microsoft has an alternative free option that’s easier to jump into. Clipchamp can handle quick cuts, fades, and media insertions with ease, and the interface is far less intimidating. It also handles direct uploads to services like YouTube and TikTok, as well as cloud saves for OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox. Combine this program with the built-in recording features in Windows (i.e., Xbox Game Bar or Snipping Tool) and you can be on your way to internet fame quickly.
5 Feb 2024
AMD confirms Zen 5 is due soon with ‘Strix Point’ Ryzen laptop chip
AMD may have just launched the Ryzen 8000 series of mobile processors, but company executives confirmed that its next mobile processor, Strix Point, will make the leap to the next-generation Zen 5 architecture.
The disclosure was made by Dr. Lisa Su, AMD’s chief executive officer, during the company’s fourth-quarter 2023 earnings report. They reported a net income of $667 million, up 3,076 percent from $21 million in profits a year ago. Revenue climbed 10 percent to $6.168 billion.
AMD launched its Ryzen 8000 mobile lineup in December and Su said Tuesday that the chips will begin shipping in notebooks in February. But AMD is already looking ahead to Strix Point, the next-generation mobile chip scheduled to launch later this year. Like the recent Intel 14th-gen Core HX, the Ryzen 8000 series is very similar on paper to its predecessor, the Ryzen 7000 mobile chips.
“We are aggressively driving our Ryzen AI CPU roadmap to extend our AI leadership, including our next-gen Strix [Point] processors that are expected to deliver more than three times the AI performance of our Ryzen 7040 series processors,” Su said, according to a transcript provided by Marketbeat. “Strix combines our next-gen, Zen 5 core with enhanced RDNA graphics and an updated Ryzen AI engine to significantly increase the performance, energy efficiency and AI capabilities of PCs. Customer momentum for Strix is strong with the first notebooks on-track to launch later this year.”
Last year, AMD disclosed that Strix Point would offer triple the generative AI performance of the Ryzen 7040 series, launched in January 2023. (Interestingly, benchmarks like the UL Procyon series do not recognize the presence of the NPU inside the chip based on PCWorld tests, which AMD executives have said they’re working to fix.) However, AMD has not formally linked Strix Point to Zen 5. AMD has also not formally disclosed the graphics technology within its Zen 5 chips, reportedly using RDNA 3.5.
Su said that 2024 revenue was projected to grow more in the second half of the year, which is in line with normal seasonal expectations. “We continue to see strong growth opportunities for our client business as we ramp our current products, extend our AI PC leadership and launch our next wave of Zen 5 CPUs,” Su added.
AMD’s Strix Point will challenge Intel’s Meteor Lake and Lunar Lake, its next-gen mobile architecture that Intel says will also triple the performance of the NPU’s AI performance.
25 January 2024
The PC’s greatest nemesis was born 40 years ago today
The Apple Macintosh was unveiled on this day 40 years ago, but ignoring the PC/Mac feud it’s an awesome piece of tech worth celebrating.
The Apple Macintosh is 40 years old today. Far from the first home computer, the Macintosh has become one of the most well-known. Announced back in January of 1984, the Macintosh became famous as a personal computer that could compete with the IBM-compatible PCs that were so prevalent at the time. Or perhaps it was the George Orwell 1984 inspired Super Bowl ad that drew in the crowds—Apple sure does know how to make its products appear desirable.
“On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984’,” the ad read.
To understand the Macintosh, you have to understand what Apple was working with in the early ’80s. The California-based company had introduced a graphical user interface with the Apple Lisa, and a man by the name of Steve Jobs was particularly interested in the Lisa’s GUI. Though the Lisa itself never really won over the market. It was an expensive machine—costing nearly $10,000 in its first incarnation and even in a cheaper form a year later demanding $3,500, according to Alex Wiltshire’s Home Computers: 100 Icons that Defined a Digital Generation.
That wasn’t going to cut it if Apple was going to compete with the IBM PC, introduced in 1981, which would begin a wave of IBM-compatible PCs powered by Microsoft software.
Steve Jobs would talk up the Macintosh in his famous style, too, which would later become even more popular with the invention of the iPhone. The line? IBM is the bad guy, big blue, big brother and Apple is the only one that can stop it with its cool, independent, exciting Macintosh.
Of course, Apple would end up being by far the more closed off ecosystem next to Microsoft, which made its software widely available to all manner of PCs—the Macintosh marks the beginning of a product line that remains to this day designed by Apple itself. The irony…
Though, while this machine would eventually lead to the Mac vs PC debate and years of tribalism, I’m not here to give Apple a good kicking. The Macintosh, like many other computers of its time, was a seminal moment for the industry, and it proved that a GUI is much, much better than some command-line interface (sorry, hardcore Linux users). Without it, I still think we’d have a GUI like we’re used to today, but maybe it wouldn’t be quite the same as we know it now.
24 January 2024
Intel’s Arrow Lake specs break cover: Say hello to DDR5-6400, wave goodbye to DDR4 and possibly Hyper-Threading
The 800-series motherboard chipset will get lots of goodies like USB4, DP2.0, and HDMI 2.1
Intel’s 14th generation of desktop Core CPUs. Fast as you could possibly want, sure, but only a few percent better than the previous gen, and still just as power hungry and hot as ever. It was to be expected, though, considering that it wasn’t a new architecture. What we’re all waiting for is to see what the real successor, Arrow Lake, will be like and the first hints of it have come to light: Basically, it’s like a Raptor-like version of Meteor Lake. Oh.
Well, that’s according to a relatively old Intel document, leaked on X (via Wccftech). It provides some details on a pre-alpha Arrow Lake (ARL-S) processor, plus the motherboard socket and chipset it will use. The very fact that it’s pre-alpha means that it’s a very early engineering sample, which is why the document states that the sample question should only be used with the P-cores disabled!
But there’s still lots of interesting stuff to read. For example, the desktop chip has eight P-cores, 16 E-cores, and 1 Low Power E-core, written in the short form of 8+16+1. Arrow Lake will be a tiled structure, just like Meteor Lake, and the biggest one of those has six P-cores, eight E-cores, and two LP E-cores.
One thing that immediately stands out though is that the new P-cores are stated as ‘8 IA cores/8 threads’, which potentially means that Intel is removing Hyper-Threading support. This feature lets one core take on two threads at a time, but not processed in parallel. Think of processor cores being like a long production line, with many stages in them; threads aren’t running on all of the stages at once, so those that are ideal can be allocated to another thread.
There’s no indication that this is what all Arrow Lake CPUs will be like but Intel has patented a technology it calls Rentable Units. This involves scanning threads and checking out the relative workloads in the list of instructions. Demanding stuff is then sent to the P-cores, and the easier stuff is shipped over to the E-cores. Essentially, it’s a thread scheduler but one that’s a lot more advanced than in current Intel chips.
This pre-alpha processor has the same 125W TDP/PL1 as current top-end Core chips but there’s nothing about the PL2, aka the maximum power limit that can be sustained for a while. That’s far more important than the base level and it can ramp up to over 250W in the case of the i9 14900K.
Reading between the lines, Arrow Lake is looking rather like a Raptorised version of Meteor Lake, but earlier rumours suggest that 15th gen Core chips will still be pretty beefy, with 3MB of L2 cache per P-core and up to 32 E-core configurations.
We’ve also been given a sneaky peek into the Arrow Lake socket and 800-series motherboard chipset, too. The former will take an LGA-1851 format (the current one is LGA-1700) and support up to DDR5-6400, with DDR4 being dropped altogether. That’s a big increase in memory speed, as 14th gen CPUs only support up to DDR5-5600, by default.
Joining the improvements are the number of PCIe lanes in the CPU and chipset. The former will have 24 in total: 16 PCIe 5.0 for the graphics slot, four of the same version for NVMe storage, and four more lanes of PCIe 4.0 (which will probably also be for an SSD). Motherboards sporting the forthcoming 800-series chipsets will have up to 24 PCIe 4.0 lanes, with eight of them set aside for M.2 drives.
The rest are for other devices, such as expansion cards in PCIe x4 or x1 slots. USB4 support is finally there, along with up to ten USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 ports, which can be combined into Gen 2×2 ones, to a maximum of four. Oh, and monitors are getting a bit of love too, with DisplayPort 2.0 (UHBR20 mode), HDMI 2.1, and Thunderbolt 4 all in the mix.
So what to make of all of this? I think it’s still too early to tell what the final Arrow Lake specifications are going to be like, but the improvements to the memory controller and the significant overhaul of the motherboard chipset are very encouraging. I can’t imagine that any of this will come cheap, but if AMD’s Zen 5 appears around the same time, then a nice price war will be very handy indeed.
23 January 2024
Researchers demonstrate liquid metal RAM, bringing us closer to flexible, implantable hardware – and to our Terminator 2 nightmares
FlexRAM is currently limited in speed and durability, but breakthrough bodes well for the future of flexible tech.
Glancing at the trippy colors in the image above, you might be convinced you’re looking at a Dali-inspired riff on The Persistence of Memory. This flash photo of melting metal is quite real and just as fantastical an achievement, though, since it’s depicting the first example of working, liquid metal RAM.
This liquid metal RAM, called FlexRAM, stems from research done by researchers at Tsinghua University in China. As reported by IEEE Spectrum, FlexRAM is the first fully flexible resistive RAM device. Its main components involve droplets of liquid metal gallium (charge used for 1/0 binary memory values) suspended and injected into Ecoflex, which is a stretchable biopolymer.
According to Jing Liu, one of the researchers at Tsinghua who worked on FlexRAM, this offers “a theoretical foundation and technical path for future soft intelligent robots, brain-machine interface systems, and wearable/implantable electronic devices.” While this is a revolutionary achievement and may indeed put us closer to a sci-fi future, it’s important to contrast this with the actual performance of FlexRAM today.
11 January 2024
Announcement of soon to be release GeForce RTX™ 40 SUPER Series of GPUs
NVIDIA today announced the GeForce RTX™ 40 SUPER Series family of GPUs — including the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER and GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER — which supercharge the latest games and form the core of AI-powered PCs.
This latest iteration of NVIDIA Ada Lovelace architecture-based GPUs delivers up to 52 shader TFLOPS, 121 RT TFLOPS and 836 AI TOPS to supercharge gaming and creating — and provide the power to develop new entertainment worlds and experiences.
PC gamers demand the very best in visual quality, and AI-powered NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) Super Resolution, Frame Generation and Ray Reconstruction combine with ray tracing to offer stunning worlds — just a click away in titles such as Diablo IV, Pax Dei and Horizon Forbidden West. With DLSS, seven out of eight pixels can be AI-generated, accelerating full ray tracing by up to 4x with better image quality.
An AI-Powered Leap in PC Computing
The new GeForce RTX SUPER GPUs are the ultimate way to experience AI on PCs. Specialized AI Tensor Cores deliver up to 836 AI TOPS to deliver transformative capabilities for AI in gaming, creating and everyday productivity. The rich software stack built on top of RTX GPUs further accelerates AI.
NVIDIA TensorRT™ is software for high-performance deep learning inference, which includes a deep learning inference optimizer and runtime that delivers low latency and high throughput for inference applications. TensorRT-LLM for Windows is an open-source library that accelerates inference performance for the latest large language models. In AI workloads, the GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER generates video over 1.5x faster and images over 1.7x faster than the RTX 3080 Ti.
For games, AI-powered DLSS provides greater in-game immersion. Meanwhile, generative AI applications like Adobe Photoshop take advantage of Tensor Cores to speed productivity and keep creative workflows moving. And for productivity, NVIDIA Broadcast can remove background noise and provide seamless virtual backgrounds.
With GeForce RTX SUPER GPUs, users can unlock the full potential of AI on Windows PCs.
A 4K Monster: The GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER
The GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER powers fully ray-traced games in 4K resolution. At 1.4x faster than the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti without DLSS Frame Generation, the RTX 4080 SUPER delivers blistering performance with traditional rasterization. With 836 AI TOPS, DLSS Frame Generation delivers an extra performance boost, making the RTX 4080 SUPER twice as fast as the RTX 3080 Ti. The RTX 4080 SUPER features more cores and faster memory for a performance edge.
Precision Gaming: The GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER
The RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is the ideal GPU for maxing out games at super-high frame rates at 1440p, and up to 4K. Compared to the RTX 4070 Ti, it has more cores, an increased frame buffer to 16GB, and a 256-bit memory bus, providing a significant memory bandwidth increase to 672 GB/sec. It is 1.6x faster than a RTX 3070 Ti and 2.5x with DLSS 3.