Techreport

SteelSeries has a new mouse out, and it promises a lot of features for an affordable price. Meet the Rival 100. ...Read more...

SteelSeries has a new mouse out, and it promises a lot of features for an affordable price. Meet the Rival 100. ...Read more...

AMD has a fresh batch of Catalyst beta drivers for Radeon owners. The Catalyst 15.10 beta brings DirectX 12 optimizations for Ashes of the Singularity, along with plenty of other fixes.While the focus of this release is AoTS , Catalyst 15.10 also fixes issues with the Star Wars Battlefront beta on mobile devices with switchable graphics, as well as problems with the Unreal Engine 4 DirectX benchmark. Playback problems with Cyberlink ...Read more...

"I am the sword in the darkness." That may have been the quote MSI was thinking about when it christened the Nightblade barebones series, which welcomes a couple new members today: the Nightblade X2 and the Nightblade MI2. These systems now offer support for Skylake CPUs, M.2 SSDs, and a host of other small improvements. ...Read more...

Intel has turned in its financial results for the third quarter of 2015. The company took in $14.5 billion in revenue, down less than one percent versus a year ago, and it enjoyed $4.2 billion in operating income, down about 8% year-over-year. Earnings per share were 64 cents, down two cents compared to a year ago.The Client Computing Group took in $8.5 billion in revenue, down 7% year-over-year. According to the company's CFO commentary , desktop platform volume (accounting for both processors ...Read more...

Acer already sells a 34" curved FreeSync monitor, the XR341CK, but a G-Sync equivalent has been absent until today. The Predator X34 combines a curved 21:9 IPS display with Nvidia's take on variable-refresh-rate technology. ...Read more...

Apple made Retina-display goodness available on its entire iMac lineup this morning. A refreshed 21.5" model can be had with a 4K display, while every 27" iMac now uses the same 5K panel as the former top-end model. ...Read more...

Many PC manufacturers seem to be building Surface-alikes these days. Toshiba's take on the formula is the dynaPad, a Windows 10 convertible tablet with a Wacom active stylus and Intel's Cherry Trail SoCs inside. ...Read more...

Microsoft released a new beta version of Windows 10 for Windows Insiders in the fast ring today. The biggest change this time around: you'll be able to use your Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 product key to activate Windows 10 directly.This change stems from the fact that some users couldn't activate Windows 10 online after upgrading. When this new build goes live, users will be able to enter their old ...Read more...

Ever wanted an all-in-one PC that can be taken on-the-go in a pinch? Normally we would call those PCs laptops, but Acer's Aspire Z3-700 is truly an all-in-one desktop PC with a five-hour battery in it.

Roughly a year ago, Nvidia sued Samsung and Qualcomm, accusing them of infringing seven of its patents. The graphics company sought to ban imports of the infringing products into the U.S., but its lawsuit hit a rough spot last week. The U.S. International Trade Commission issued an initial determination in Samsung and Qualcomm's favor.The initial determination says that Samsung and Qualcomm did not infringe two of Nvidia's patents. While the commission did find that the pair infringed a third patent, Judge Thomas Pender also ruled that patent invalid, on grounds that it was not a new invention. ...Read more...

Gaming notebooks don't have to be back-breaking monstrosities any more, and MSI's GS40 Phantom is an example of the svelte new breed. This laptop packs a GeForce GTX 970M graphics chip with 3GB of RAM into a chassis that's less than an inch thick and only weighs 3.5 pounds. That graphics chip drives a 14", 1920x1080 "IPS-level" display. ...Read more...

Dell has announced that it will acquire business storage and services giant EMC Corporation in a deal the companies estimate to be worth $67 billion. Dell says the acquisition "will create the world's largest privately-controlled information technology company."By combining Dell's small- and medium-business expertise with EMC's large-business know-how, the companies expect to create a firm that can serve the IT needs of customers ...Read more...

Asus has a tradition of cramming as many goodies as it can into its top-end Mini-ITX motherboards, and the ROG Maximus Impact VIII carries that torch for the Z170 chipset. Like the Maximus VI Impact before it, the Maximus VIII includes heavy-duty power circuitry and high-end onboard audio components on daughter cards to maximize the goodness-per-square-inch factor. ...Read more...

Asus has teased us with previews of its PG279Q and PG27AQ G-Sync monitors for months, but the wait is over now. This dynamic duo of variable-refresh displays got an official introduction last night at the company's "ROG Unleashed" event in San Francisco, and they remain some of the most drool-worthy gaming monitors we've seen to date. ...Read more...

Watch out, BlackPhone, there's a newcomer in town. Archos and Sikur are getting into the secure phone business with the GranitePhone. ...Read more...

Time for the red ink to flow again. According to a report by Gartner, worldwide PC shipments totaled 73.7 million units in the third quarter of 2015, a 7.7% drop versus the same time last year. The report says desktop PC shipments saw a "high-single-digit" decline, while notebooks and "premium ultramobiles" experienced a low-single-digit drop.It's not all doom and gloom, though. Gartner also reports the U.S. market for notebooks and ultramobiles saw positive growth. One of the main reasons for the year-on-year slump is the U.S. dollar's sharp rise against many other currencies, particularly those from weaker economies. The company's analysis ...Read more...

Qualcomm is making a move on the server market. Yesterday, the company took the wraps off its Server Development Platform (or SDP), a system based on a 24-core ARMv8-A SoC. The SDP is aimed at "hyperscale data center customers" and infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, big data, and machine-learning workloads. Qualcomm says it's sampling SDPs to "tier-one data centers" now.The 24-core prototype chip inside the SDP doesn't have a catchy name, but Qualcomm says it's built on a FinFET process and includes server-class PCIe and storage interconnects. The company demonstrated the SDP with a software ...Read more...

Happy Friday, gerbils. Last week, our deals were all about SSDs, and this week, they're (almost) all about monitors. Check out these displays for PC users of every stripe:Those are the best deals we could find this week. As always, if you uncover a ...Read more...

Eight is Enough

Nvidia just refreshed its mobile Quadro workstation graphics lineup with Maxwell GPUs, and MSI has wrapped those chips up in some powerful mobile workstations. The company's WS60 notebook puts Quadro M2000M graphics in a thin-and-light body, while the desktop-replacement WT72 houses Quadro M4000M and optional M5000M chips. ...Read more...

Do you want a big, FreeSync-infused screen that can turn a few heads? Look no further than HP's Envy 32 Media Display. ...Read more...

Want to build your own settlement, craft finely-tuned instruments of destruction, and jetpack around the wastes of post-apocalyptic Boston in Fallout 4? Bethesda has provided some minimum and recommended system specifications in advance of the game's November 10 release so that would-be vault dwellers can prepare. Here are the nuts and bolts:Minimum ...Read more...

HP wants to give you some green—in the form of its updated Pavilion gaming notebooks, anyway. These laptops are powered by Intel Skylake CPUs and GeForce GTX 950M graphics. The refreshed Pavilions come dressed with green backlit keyboards and an equally retina-searing honeycomb motif on the palm rest—a finish HP describes as a "reptilian pattern." ...Read more...

Dell's XPS 13 notebook is a popular choice among Windows laptop buyers these days, thanks to its sleek design and ultra-thin bezel. Today, Dell is refreshing its larger XPS 15 notebook with the same "infinity display" design. Both the XPS 13 and the XPS 15 are now powered by Skylake CPUs, too. The company is also introducing the XPS 12, a convertible tablet that can be configured with a 4K display. ...Read more...

Back in the not-so-good old days, data was carried around on floppy disks and rewritable CDs. The adventurous would perhaps lug around a portable hard drive. This kind of file transfer is colloquially called the "sneakernet," and the practice generated a mantra: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." Now, Amazon is redefining that concept with its Snowball data transfer device, targeted at serious Amazon Web Services users. ...Read more...

If our peripheral staff picks didn't have a keyboard or headset to catch your eye, MSI might have something more to your taste. The DS502 Gaming headset and GK-701 Gaming keyboard are specially lit up for those who like any color as long as it's black with red dragon accents. ...Read more...

When we last checked in with Soft Machines about a year ago, the company had just announced its VISC CPU architecture, along with some surprising performance claims. Today, the company presented some more details about the VISC architecture, along with a roadmap for VISC CPUs and SoCs, at the 2015 Linley Processor Conference. We spoke with Soft Machines founder and CTO Mohammad Abdallah and the company's VP of marketing and business development, Mark Casey, to learn more about these chips.The VISC architecture

The latest desktop in HP's Envy lineup could certainly stir up some verdancy in the heart of a beholder. Meet the HP Envy 34 all-in-one and gaze upon its 34 inches of curved display, six side speakers, and Skylake-powered internals. ...Read more...

Microsoft said yesterday when it announced its Lumias and Surfaces that many of its partners would be releasing fresh Windows 10 devices of their own. First up is HP, which has a pair of interesting tablets: the Spectre X2 and the Envy-Note. ...Read more...

In June, AOC pulled back the curtain on a couple of FreeSync-infused gaming displays: the 24" G2460PF and the 27" G2770PF. We learned how much those displays will cost today, and if you're in the market for a gaming-oriented monitor, you may be in for a treat. The G460PF will cost just $270, while the G2770PF will sticker for $360. For reference, the 24" model is a whole $115 cheaper than the Acer XB240H, which is the most affordable G-Sync monitor on Newegg at $385.As a quick refresher, both monitors are 1080p TN units with 144Hz refresh rates and 1-ms response times. They also ...Read more...

Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 has arguably been a success, and the company wants to keep that momentum going with the Surface Pro 4. This latest "tablet that can replace your laptop" packs Skylake CPUs and a host of other improvements. ...Read more...

After gathering years of experience building Surface tablets, Microsoft has put its own spin on the traditional laptop with the Surface Book. This notebook blends an innovative-looking hinge with a high-quality screen, keyboard, and trackpad. The 13.5" display is built around the same ultra-thin PixelSense display stack as the Surface Pro 4's. Six million pixels serve as the canvas for Windows 10. ...Read more...

Microsoft took the wraps off its Windows 10 flagship phones this morning: the Lumia 950 and 950 XL. These Lumias pack 5.2" and 5.7" screens with six- and eight-core Qualcomm processors, along with equally high-end cameras. The phones run Windows 10 with Continuum support. ...Read more...

During today's Windows 10 Devices presentation, Microsoft showed off some new tricks for HoloLens—wearable holograms. The company will also be taking applications soon for HoloLens development kits, too. ...Read more...

Be Quiet is expanding its Silent Base case family to mid-towers with the Silent Base 600. This smaller sibling of the Silent Base 800 comes in windowed and non-windowed variants in black, silver-on-black, and orange-on-black color schemes. Be Quiet promises the same silent treatment of the larger case in a package that's smaller under the desk and lighter on the wallet. ...Read more...

Dell is going after the professional photography and cinema market with its latest PremierColor Ultrasharp monitors. These displays all have 10-bit-per-pixel color depth, and their fancy panels feature 178º horizontal and vertical viewing angles. Dell also calibrates these displays at the factory to claimed delta-E values of less than two. A 31.5" model offers 4K (3840x2160) resolution, while 27" and 25" flavors run at 2560x1440. ...Read more...

You don't have to wait for Google to begin shipping devices with Android 6.0 Marshmallow, like the Nexus 5X and 6P, to get that gooey OS upgrade goodness. Just as the company promised last week, Android 6.0 Marshmallow has started rolling out to recent Nexus devices.If you have a Nexus 5, 6, 7 (2013), 9, or Nexus Player, you can start mashing the "check for updates" button in the Settings app today. Google warns that ...Read more...

After lots of digging and waiting and anticipation, Google Fiber has arrived in Damage Labs. Just finished the installation, and the Google router happily plugged into my existing Asus RT-AC86U router, so no real changes were required on my part.Here's a speed test result from just ...Read more...

Blink and you'll miss it. Silverstone's PT18 case is an all-aluminum chassis perfect for any Intel NUC. Best of all, it's totally fanless. ...Read more...

Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX) is a CPU instruction set that allows applications to set aside private memory regions for code and data. SGX was first introduced with the Haswell CPU architecture, but the instructions weren't enabled for Skylake CPUs that sold at launch. Future batches of chips will have SGX enabled, though. Intel has posted a Product Change Notification (PDF) to notify partners that updated Skylake CPUs with SGX will be available later this month.The CPUs affected by this change are the Xeon E3-1200 v5, Core i5, and Core i7 families. Processors with SGX enabled will have a different S-Spec code for easy identification purposes, but will otherwise be ...Read more...

4K video, wider color gamuts, and high-dynamic-range media are all coming to a living room near you within the next few years, and the HDMI 2.0 specification is designed to provide the extra bandwidth those advancements will need—18Gbps, to be exact. Another critical piece ...Read more...

After being acquired by Intel eight years ago, Havok is changing hands once more. Microsoft announced that it's purchased the 3D physics software provider from Intel today. Redmond says the acquisition puts another arrow in its quiver of tools for game development, alongside DirectX, Visual Studio, and Azure.For the uninitiated, Havok is the physics engine beneath a huge range of titles, including Half-Life 2 , Assassin's Creed , Call of Duty , Halo , and ...Read more...

Hot on the heels of Nvidia's mobile Quadro announcement, AMD has released some new mobile workstation graphics cards of its own. Foremost among the new FirePro W-series mobile offerings is the W7170M, a Tonga-based card clocked at 723MHz with 4GB of memory and a 256-bit memory interface. Dave Baumann, a member of AMD's product team, confirmed this card as a Tonga derivative on Twitter. ...Read more...

Happy Friday, gerbils. Pickings were slim for deals this week, but we've still found a couple bargains worthy of your hard-earned dollars today.That's it for this week—if we missed anything in our search for bargains, be ...Read more...

We know that TSMC and Samsung each manufacture versions of Apple's A9 SoC for the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, and thanks to an enterprising developer, we might be learning more about how the sourcing of those chips is divided. According to data released by developer Hikaru Wang, it seems TSMC has made the majority of A9 chips in iPhones sold so far.Some caveats: only users who have installed the developer's app are being counted, so there's no way this is a complete tally of iPhones. The developer hasn't said how many phones have participated in these shenanigans. Furthermore, ...Read more...

Our discussion last night was wide-ranging. After a rough start due to technical issues, we took on a bunch of your questions while addressing some hot topics in the world of tech. We talked about the new iPhones and the apparent excellence of the Apple A9 SoC, and then we touched on the recent AMD news and what it means for that company. Afterward, we looked at Google's new slate of Nexus devices alongside the funky Pixel C....Read more...

Nvidia has released its lineup of Maxwell-based Quadro graphics cards for Skylake-powered mobile workstations. The new cards are separated into two families aimed at different sizes of laptops. ...Read more...

Bloomberg reports that by the end of October, Amazon will no longer carry or allow its third-party sellers to sell Google's Chromecast or the Apple TV. The news went out in an email to third-party sellers yesterday. Amazon says it's making the move because the Chromecast and Apple TV don't "interact well" with Prime Video.Other living room boxes are apparently safe. All three current-generation consoles—the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii—have apps for Prime Video. Blooomberg says Roku's streaming boxes will stay, ...Read more...

After some technical problems, we are streaming The TR Podcast live on Twitch. Behold:...Read more...