Techreport

Biostar is adding a trio of motherboards to its lineup today under the Racing Series umbrella. The mobos are clad in a racing motif with checkered flags, LED lighting, and a bright red "R" that's suspiciously similar to Honda's Type-R logo.Aspiring racers get three choices of motherboard, each named after the chipset it's based on: Z170GT7, B150GT5, and H170GT3. All the models come with Intel I-219V Ethernet ...Read more...

Most Steam users are probably familiar with the flaky performance of the service during Valve's big sales. Unfortunately for Valve, the problems that hit the service on Christmas day weren't caused by legions of loyal fans. Instead, those issues were caused by a denial-of-service attack, and they were made worse by Valve's response to the attack.Around the time that issues with Steam arose, Valve stated that a configuration change caused a caching issue that resulted in some users randomly seeing pages that were generated for other users. According to the company, the situation lasted for about ...Read more...

Holy mother of heatsinks and SATA ports, we thank you for this motherboard we're about to cover. Asus has unleashed another Republic of Gamers motherboard it's calling the Maximus VIII Formula. This Z170 board is built for DDR4 memory and Skylake CPUs, but it also has enough cowbell to get Walken to groove and then some. ...Read more...

Gamers willing to pre-order the Oculus Rift are already getting a copy of EVE: Valkyrie, but Oculus is now bundling a free title for those who want to wait for the VR headset's release, too. The compnay announced today that Playful Studios’ Lucky’s Tale will come with every Oculus Rift sold. Lucky’s Tale is a cheerful, colorful platformer where players have to guide a bouncy fox to collect stars and jump on the heads of bad guys. Here’s a gameplay trailer:...Read more...

Today's graphics cards are often worth showing off, but our cases usually hide them from view. iBuypower’s new Revolt 2 case brings your video card out from the shadows and makes it the showpiece of your rig. ...Read more...

According to VentureBeat, Google is replacing its homegrown implementation of Java APIs in Android with Oracle's open-source OpenJDK. Google's Narayan Kamath let the cat out of the bag by making some interesting additions to the Android source code tree, under the label "Initial import of OpenJdk files." Google itself then confirmed the move to VentureBeat with the following statement:"In our upcoming release of Android, we plan to move Android’s Java language libraries to an OpenJDK-based approach, creating a common code base for developers to build apps and services. ...Read more...

Transcend might not be the most common name in the consumer SSD arena, but the Taiwanese company has an extensive portfolio of flash storage products nonetheless. The company is expanding that portfolio today with an interesting technology it's calling "SuperMLC" NAND. ...Read more...

2015 hasn't been kind to the Flash plugin. Adobe has released another emergency patch for its Flash products to address a critical vulnerability. Affected platforms include Flash for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer 10 and 11, and Linux. Adobe AIR products for Linux, Windows, Macintosh, Android, and iOS are also at risk.The Chrome and Edge browsers will be automatically updated, as will Internet Explorer for Windows 10 and Windows 8.x. Users of Linux, the Adobe ...Read more...

Samsung probably isn't the first name that comes to mind when you think of personal health technology, but the company appears to be making strides in that direction. The firm has unveiled a chip it calls the Bio-Processor, a product it claims is the industry's first all-in-one health solution chip targeted at wearables. ...Read more...

Earlier this year, we covered reports that Google was designing an "Enterprise Edition" of its Glass head-mounted computer targeted at businesses. A ton of information and images have now appeared on the FCC website about a device with the designation "A4R­GG1." This wearable could be the Enterprise Edition Glass. ...Read more...

Plextor plans to show off a new PCIe solid-state drive at CES next week. According to PCWorld, Plextor’s M8Pe drive takes advantage of a four-lane PCIe 3.0 interface and the NVMe protocol to offer 4KB random reads up to 270,000 IOPS and 4KB writes up to 150,000 IOPS. Plextor hasn’t indicated performance specifications for sequential read or write speeds, but if those random I/O numbers hold, the M8Pe could offer considerably higher performance than what one might get with today's SATA drives.Plextor hasn’t released information on available storage sizes, pricing, or release dates. We do know that the M8Pe will offer PlexTurbo RAM caching and PlexVault encryption support. PCIe SSDs ...Read more...

Intel quietly added eight new processors to its December price sheet, including two desktop processors and six low-power mobile processors.The two chips destined for desktops are the Core i3-6098P and Core i5-6420P. The i3-6098P has the same suggested price ($117) as the i3-6100 we recommended in our recent system guide , but has a smaller cache (3MB instead of 4MB) and lower base clock (3.6 GHz instead of 3.8 GHz) than that ...Read more...

Despite some struggles in the phone market over the last year, Microsoft still has high aspirations for its mobile division. Chris Capossella, Microsoft’s chief marketing officer, threw out some interesting hints about an upcoming device in an interview for Windows Weekly. Capossella says this new phone will be “some sort of spiritual equivalent" for the company's Surface tablet "that doesn’t just feel like a phone for people who like Windows.”This apparent “Surface Phone” is still a ways off. As Capossela says, “We need time to actually go build that.” More broadly, as the install base for Windows 10 increases , Microsoft wants to offer hardware ...Read more...

Some mobo makers recently announced consumer-oriented models based on Intel's C232 chipset support, and ASRock is joining in on the fun. The firm just announced two motherboards with support for Xeon E3-1200 v5 series CPUs and ECC DDR4 RAM. Say hi to the ASRock Fatal1ty E3V5 Performance Gaming/OC, which can never sign its name right, and the much more sensibly-named E3V5 WS. ...Read more...

Wireless phone chargers are already on the market, but those devices require you to rest your phone on a dedicated base station. The future of wireless charging may not be so restrictive, though. Ukrainian startup XE claims to have created a device that can charge your phone from up to 16 feet (or five meters) away. ...Read more...

Intel recently completed its acquisition of FPGA producer Altera. The transaction began back in June. Intel shelled out a cool $16.7 billion for the company in a cash-and-shares deal.The FPGA experts will continue to operate as a new Intel unit called the Programmable Solutions Group. ...Read more...

All good things must come to an end, and that includes TR's 12 days of Christmas giveaways. The winner of our final giveaway—drum roll, please—is Jared Hohman. He's the proud new owner of a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 Xtreme Gaming graphics card and a GA-X99-UD3P motherboard. Congratulations, Jared, and look for a message soon from our business guy, Adam Eiberger, with instructions on how to claim your prize. Many thanks again to Gigabyte for helping us cap off our twelve days of giveaways with that great prize package.More thanks are in order, too. Our 12 days of Christmas giveaways was a huge event, and we're grateful to the sponsors that helped make it possible. Thanks again to AMD , ...Read more...

Happy day after Christmas, gerbils. We have one more gift for you. Adorama is giving TR readers an exclusive deal on Samsung's 850 EVO 500GB SSD. That drive is just $137.99 through tomorrow evening with the promo code TECHREPORT. That deal includes a free game code for Assassin's Creed Syndicate and free shipping. You must click through to Adorama using our link to the drive to get this deal. ...Read more...

It's Christmas day, and that means it's the grand finale of our 12 days of giveaways. Let's start the festivities by taking the wrapping off the winner of yesterday's EVGA's GeForce GTX 980 FTW GPU. It's an especially merry Christmas for Eric Schwarz, because that sweet card is all yours. Eric, look for a message soon from our business guy, Adam Eiberger, with instructions on how to claim your prize. Thanks again to EVGA for helping us spread some Christmas cheer.For our last day of giveaways, we have a mighty haul from Gigabyte . The final prize is an ...Read more...

TR's own Nathan Wasson, aka Gyromancer, has been spending some time recently with Warframe. This free-to-play, third-person action MMO is developed by Digital Extremes, and it puts you in the armor of a space ninja. Warframe's gameplay modes let you run through various missions with fellow ninjas as you discover more about the world you're immersed in. Once you feel confident with your ninja capabilities, you can try your hand at the game's various PvP modes.Watch Nathan's video for ...Read more...

Comcast announced on its blog this week that its engineers have successfully tested a DOCSIS 3.1 cable modem on a residential network for the first time. DOCSIS 3.1 has the potential to enable download speeds as fast as 10 Gbps. Best of all, this standard is backwards-compatible, meaning those next-gen speeds are possible over the hybrid fiber-coaxial networks already in use by multiple Internet service providers. As Comcast says, "all we needed was a new modem, a software upgrade to the device that serves that neighborhood, and a few good engineers."The blog post neglected to mention if the Philadelphia test actually achieved gigabit speeds or higher, although Comcast noted more than once that ...Read more...

It's Christmas Eve, and that means it's day 11 of TR's 12 days of giveaways. Before we announce the sweet prize we have today, we need to wrap up yesterday's unfinished business. Congratulations are in order for Nathanael Rebiger. He's the proud new owner of Gigabyte's GA-970-Gaming motherboard and AMD's FX-8370 CPU. Nathanael, look for a message soon from our business guy, Adam Eiberger, with instructions on how to claim your prize. Thanks again to Gigabyte and AMD for hooking us up with all that great gear. ...Read more...

2015 has been a big year for photonics. In May, IBM announced a silicon photonics transceiver fabricated using standard silicon fabrication processes. Now, researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have unveiled a microprocessor that can talk to its main memory with light. This processor uses traditional electronic circuits in conjunction with 850 optical input/output components to demonstrate the advantages of light-based signaling. It's also worth noting that this chip was produced using traditional silicon manufacturing processes. ...Read more...

Passwords are a universally hated method of authentication, but they're ubiquitous and pretty secure if used correctly. There's a problem with that last bit, though. A substantial number of users use, shall we say, suboptimal passwords, and very often reuse them across multiple services. The underlying problem is that a good password is either complex, long, or both. Conjuring one up and typing it in every time is an annoyance, to say the least. Google wants to put an end to that.The search giant has begun a limited test of a security feature that allows user to login simply by clicking "yes" on a notification sent to his phone. If this rings a little familiar, it's because it's akin to what Yahoo is doing with its Account Key service. This is a sort of one-factor authentication method, ...Read more...

ASRock isn't the only manufacturer allowing builders to overclock locked Skylake CPUs on its Z170 boards. Today, Biostar announced a BIOS update that enables this type of overclocking on four of its motherboards. For example, the company boasts that it's pushed a $65 Pentium G4400 up to 4.48Ghz—with the usual caveat that your results may vary. Owners of Biostar's Gaming Z170X, Gaming Z170T, Gaming Z170W, and Hi-Fi Z170Z5 motherboards should keep an eye out for this update soon.This overclocking strategy is possible because of changes to the base clock domain in Skylake processors. Since Skylake's base clock is ...Read more...

It's not been a good month for Nvidia when it comes to courts of law. After the US International Trade Commission determined Samsung didn't infringe on the graphics chip maker's IP, the news came in today that Samsung was partially victorious in its counter-suit—at least for now.An ITC judge found that Nvidia infringed on the three Samsung patents at issue in the lawsuit ( US6147385 , US6173349 , and US7804734 ). In a public statement ...Read more...

TR's 12 days of giveaways has reached double digits. To kick off day 10, we're happy to announce that Jason Kwong​ is the winner of yesterday's Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI motherboard. Congratulations, Jason. Look for a message soon from our business guy, Adam Eiberger, with instructions on how to claim your prize. A big thanks to Gigabyte for making yesterday's giveaway possible. ...Read more...

Just when I thought my Christmas shopping was over, Valve launched this year’s Steam winter sale. This deals extravaganza runs until January 4. Though it doesn’t include the daily deals and flash sales of previous years, the upside is that any discounts should remain the same throughout the event. Some triple-A releases headline the list, but as always, there are a few indie titles worth considering, too. Here are just a few of the discounts on more popular titles:There are a total of 10,019 games on sale, so if you spot something that we missed, please let us know ...Read more...

It's an early Merry Christmas for owners of Shield K1 tablets. Nvidia has released a software update that brings Android 6.0 Marshmallow to this gaming slate. Nvidia runs a mostly-stock version of Android on its devices, with only a couple touches of its own. The release notes cover both stock and Nvidia features alike. ...Read more...

It's an early Merry Christmas for owners of Shield K1 tablets. Nvidia has released a software update that brings Android 6.0 Marshmallow to this gaming slate. Nvidia runs a mostly-stock version of Android on its devices, with only a couple touches of its own. The release notes cover both stock and Nvidia features alike. ...Read more...

This summer, AMD's Lisa Su showed the world a dual-GPU Fiji card. That card, codenamed "Gemini," was apparently meant to have launched by the end of this year, but that release has now been pushed back to "early Q2 2016."In a statement to Hardware.fr (Google translation here ), AMD says that it intended to launch Gemini around the same time that Oculus and its competitors were to ...Read more...

According to Korean news site etnews, AMD has contracted with Samsung to fabricate chips on the Korean company's 14-nm FinFET process. The site reports that Samsung will start producing AMD’s next-gen GPUs in the second quarter of 2016, and its Zen CPUs later in the year.etnews claims that AMD made the move because of issues with yield and supply from TSMC at the 28-nm node. ...Read more...

In a milestone for the space industry, SpaceX's Falcon 9 unmanned rocket has successfully taken off and returned to Earth in a controlled landing, all in ten minutes' time. The Falcon 9 isn't the first time that an unmanned spacecraft has ever taken off and landed successfully, but it's a first for an orbital rocket....Read more...

Nvidia has released an updated version of its Game Ready drivers: version 361.43. These WHQL-certified drivers now support the GameWorks VR 1.1 SDK, which brings VR SLI support to OpenGL apps. The latest Oculus SDK is supported, too. Nvidia also added SLI profiles for a handful of games: 64-bit Elite: Dangerous, Hard West, Bless, and Dungeon Defenders 2.As far as bug fixes go, the most notable is that graphics cards with GM200-series GPUs shouldn't run at elevated clock speeds when sitting on the desktop at 144 Hz refresh rates or ...Read more...

Welcome to day nine of TR's 12 days of Christmas giveaways. The first order of business is, of course, to announce the winner of the PC care package that Corsair helped us give away yesterday. Congratulations, Rui Yan Matthew Loh. You're the winner of a Carbide Series Air 540 Silver Edition case, a Hydro Series H110i GTX 280mm liquid CPU cooler, and a RMx Series RM750x PSU. Look for a message soon from our business guy, Adam Eiberger, with instructions on how to claim your prize. Thanks again to Corsair for making yesterday's giveaway possible. ...Read more...

If you want to fuel your productivity with a Xeon E3-1200 v5 processor without also sacrificing your gaming thrills, Asus has a Christmas gift for you: the E3 Pro Gaming V5 motherboard. Asus designed this board around Intel’s workstation-oriented C232 Express chipset, but this isn’t your typical business mobo. ...Read more...

The Khronos Group will not release its Vulkan graphics API this year. While the specification is complete, according to a recent press release, the group says it's still receiving implementation feedback and that a legal review needs to be completed. Khronos does claim that the release is “imminent,” although they have not indicated a new release date.Created by the team behind OpenGL, Vulkan attracted attention at this past March’s Game Developers Conference. Vulkan promises to give developers a new “close to the metal” programming standard that's ...Read more...

If you remember our Samsung SM951 SSD review, you may recall how that drive encountred thermal throttling under sustained workloads. Likewise, AnandTech questioned whether similar throttling behavior might have occurred with the Samsung 950 Pro in its review. Those questions can only be answered by adding a heatsink to the drive, and AnandTech just got an opportunity to try one out. ...Read more...

Toshiba is navigating in troubled waters. The company has forecast a $4.5 billion operating loss for its fiscal 2015, and it's planning to cut 7,800 jobs and several of its businesses. The firm notified stockholders of the operating loss and the consequent lack of a stock dividend for March 2016, chiefly because of an accounting scandal that unfolded this year.The beleaguered company has lost roughly half its market value since March, and now plans to restruture its business operations. To that end, it's ...Read more...

Today brings us to day eight of TR's 12 days of giveaways. First, though, we'll announce the winner of yesterday's Monoprice bundle. Brian Davis, you're the proud new owner of a Monoprice Enthusiast Backlit Full Size Red Switch Mechanical Keyboard and a XL Precision Gaming Surface. Congratulations, Brian. Look for a message soon from our business guy, Adam Eiberger, with instructions on how to claim your prize. Thanks again to Monoprice for making yesterday's giveaway happen. ...Read more...

Welcome to day seven of TR's 12 days of giveaways. Before we talk about what's up for grabs today, we need to announce yesterday's winner. Anyone who isn't David Case also isn't the lucky winner of an OCZ Vector 180 480GB SSD. Congratulations, David, and look for a message soon from our business guy, Adam Eiberger, with instructions on how to claim your prize. Our thanks to OCZ for making yesterday's giveaway possible.You shouldn't despair if you didn't win, though. Monoprice has given us a third great keyboard bundle to give away today, and I have a joke to go with it. How should Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer control his nose? I'll give you a second to think about it. Give ...Read more...

Yesterday was the fifth of TR's 12 days of Christmas giveaways, and entrants were vying for a flashy bundle generously provided by Corsair. That bundle comprised a Strafe Silent RGB keyboard, a Scimitar RGB gaming mouse, a Void RGB headset, and an MM300 Extended mouse mat. The winner of yesterday's bundle is Christopher Casale. Congratulations, Christopher—your desk will soon be visible from space. Thanks again to Corsair for helping us brighten our readers' holiday season.For today's giveaway, we're offering up another one of OCZ's Vector 180 480GB SSDs . I don't know anyone who couldn't use more high-speed ...Read more...

Happy Friday, gerbils. Our deals post was delayed a bit today by some technical difficulties with Newegg. The retailer appears to have sorted out its issues, so we're back to smooth sailing. Enjoy these pre-Christmas deals, some of which would make great last-minute gifts for the PC enthusiast.That's it for today's deals. If we missed a good bargain somewhere, be ...Read more...

It’s always such a hassle when Santa puts a workstation processor in my Christmas stocking without leaving an appropriate motherboard under the tree. MSI is here to help. The company has announced two motherboards built around the C236 chipset, designed specifically for Intel’s Xeon E3-1200 v5 product family. ...Read more...

"Bigger and better" seems to be G.Skill's motto. Not content with releasing DIMMs clocked at an insane 4133 MT/s, the company is now working on pairing speed and capacity in the same kit. Behold the TridentZ DDR4 3200 MT/s 64GB kit, comprising four 16GB modules. ...Read more...

AMD has given us a little gift ahead of the holidays next week. Radeon Software Crimson Edition version 15.12 is out now, and this WHQL-certified driver fixes quite a few issues for Radeon owners. The company claims to have resolved flickering issues in Star Wars Battlefront, performance issues with Crossfire setups in Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, and perhaps most importantly, unexpected fan speed behavior for users who had a manual fan profile configured in Overdrive.If that all sounds a bit familiar, it's because AMD already released a Crimson Edition beta, 15.11, that provided these fixes for those who needed them right away. Still unresolved in this update are a number of issues with Just Cause 3 , flickering on ...Read more...

On our fourth day of giveaways, the fine folks at EVGA gave us an X99 FTW motherboard to give away to one lucky gerbil. Jake Parker, you're taking home that sweet board. Check your email soon for a message from our business guy, Adam Eiberger, for more information on how to claim your prize. Congratulations, Jake, and thanks again to EVGA for making that giveaway possible.Those of us that grew up in cold climates have likely received advice from a parent to "dress in layers" or maybe "bundle up" before heading out into the winter weather. ...Read more...