Techreport

While Scott is busy fondling reviewing his R9 Nano, we've taken a look at the card's stock status for those who dare to buy one without TR's seal of approval. The good news is that Nanos are in stock mostly (but not only) at Newegg, at prices close to AMD's suggested amount of $649.99. The slightly bad news is that most cards are selling a bit over retail price, but if you're dishing out $650, we don't think another $20 or so is going to break the bank.The cheapest price we could find, which is $649 flat, is at Amazon. There's not much choice of board partners, though—right now you can only get the Sapphire Radeon R9 Nano , but the price is right and shipping is free. NCIX ...Read more...

Gigabyte has announced a new gaming-oriented product line, and a new card to kick things off. Folks, I present you with the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 950 Xtreme Gaming: ...Read more...

Jeeves, fetch me the sea salt. Fudzilla is rumor-reporting that Microsoft is eyeing AMD as a potential buyout. Personally, all I can say is I've had worse ideas. According to the site, the companies "have been in talks for a while". The deal arguably makes sense for Microsoft, since AMD supplies the APUs for the Xbox One console. Fudzilla suggests Microsoft could be looking to use AMD's APUs for its iPad Pro Surface lineup, too. ...Read more...

It's Friday, Friday, time for another round of deals on Friday. Unlike a certain topical song, these deals are the cream of the crop. Here are the best discounts we could find this week.That's it for this week—be sure to share any worthy deals we ...Read more...

German accessory manufacturer Aqua Computer is showing off its latest graphics card water block, which can turn a Radeon R9 Nano into a single-slot solution. The company claims the water block can chill the Fiji GPU down to 35ºC while running Furmark (with the coolant at 27º C), which isn't really impressive—merely typical German efficiency. ...Read more...

After a splashy debut, it seems like the OnePlus 2 smartphone has been on a bumpy road to buyers' hands. According to a post on its official forums, the company delayed shipments of the phone worldwide for several weeks last month. Yesterday, OnePlus posted a mea culpa on its forums, admitting that "we messed up the launch of the OnePlus 2."It seems that despite the company's invitation-only purchasing system, which is supposed to help it manage demand, OnePlus 2 phones ...Read more...

Researchers from ESET are warning US Android device users about a new strand of ransomware called "Android/Lockerpin.A." As the name implies, this particular nasty will lock the device with a random PIN, making the device useless without performing a factory reset, gaining root access, or using some sort of device management utility. Users are told they can pay the attackers $500 to unlock their device, but paying up actually won't help at all.The malware comes in the form of a fake "Porn Droid" app, which isn't available in Google's Play Store. Users can obtain it in third-party app markets or piracy sites, though. After the victim installs the app, an "Update patch installation" ...Read more...

Nvidia has unleashed a torrent of firmware updates for all of its Shield devices. Buried within each update are security updates and minor changes. The next time owners wake up each device, they should be prompted to download and install the updates.The Shield Tablet is the only device that explicitly gets a fix for the Stagefright vulnerability, perhaps because it's the only Shield with cellular connectivity as an option. Software upgrade version 3.1.1 includes ...Read more...

The TR Podcast live stream has started. This evening, we're welcoming Jacky Huang of Zotac, the man behind the Zbox mini-PCs. We'll get him to explain the art of cramming a powerful and quite PC into a tiny box. I expect we'll also talk about the Apple announcements and this week's other happenings. Come join the chat:...Read more...

Intel has released updated drivers for its integrated graphics processors, which introduce support for Skylake-series CPUs with Intel HD Graphics 500 series IGPs. Perhaps most importantly, Intel has had this driver set certified for the OpenGL 4.4 API, for the IGPs in the Skylake and Broadwell families of CPUs. Download links are here for 64-bit and 32-bit Windows (7, 8.1, or 10.)The drivers also fix a handful of issues, most notably display flicker after sleep with DisplayPort 1.2 displays, graphics corruption with ...Read more...

Yesterday, Apple showed up fashionably late to the smart TV micro-console party with a substantially-upgraded Apple TV. Today, Nvidia took to its blog to compare the Shield Android TV micro-console to Cupertino's latest. ...Read more...

Discrete sound cards may not be as essential to getting decent analog audio output as they once were, but Asus seems to think gamers will find a competitive advantage by adding one to their PCs' arsenals. The company is expanding its discrete audio lineup with a trio of Strix cards: the Strix Raid DLX, the Strix Raid Pro, and Strix Soar 7.1. Behold: ...Read more...

Discrete sound cards may not be as essential to getting decent analog audio output as they once were, but Asus seems to think gamers will find a competitive advantage by adding one to their PCs' arsenals. The company is expanding its discrete audio lineup with a trio of Strix cards: the Strix Raid DLX, the Strix Raid Pro, and Strix Soar 7.1. Behold: ...Read more...

We have a special guest joining us on the TR Podcast live stream this evening: Jacky from Zotac, who heads up product design for the Zbox series of mini-PCs and barebones systems. ...Read more...

Roughly a month after the frightful Stagefright Android vulnerability was disclosed, Zimperium's security researchers have published sample code for exploiting the bug. As a refresher, Stagefright is a critical vulnerability in Android that allows attackers to perform remote code execution, and it affected 95% of Android handsets at the time it was reported. For the nitty-gritty, you can watch this Black Hat conference video.Since the disclosure, Google has published updated versions of its Hangouts and Messaging apps, plugging the worst of the attack vectors—a booby-trapped MMS could provide root access to an attacker, oftentimes with no indication to the user that something funky was happening. Zimperium notes that MMSs are only one of over ten attack vectors, though, ...Read more...

Local multi-player gaming is something of a lost art these days. Asteroid Base is trying to change that with Death Star simulator Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. Let's take a look at the release trailer, shall we?...Read more...

Lian-Li has added another Mini-ITX case to its arsenal, dubbed the PC-Q21. This tiny all-aluminum chassis accepts Mini-ITX motherboards and SFX PSUs alongside dual-slot graphics cards up to 6.7" (or 170 mm) long. ...Read more...

Update: See below for an update to this story.I've been too busy covering other things to follow most of the fallout from AMD's decision to exclude us and certain other publications from Radeon R9 Nano reviews. Honestly, I have better things to do. We'll ...Read more...

I've been too busy covering other things to follow most of the fallout from AMD's decision to exclude us and certain other publications from Radeon R9 Nano reviews. Honestly, I have better things to do. We'll just buy a card if we want to review it, assuming the supply is sufficient. I have no expectation that we as a publication should expect review samples of every product we want.But I think this editorial at the HardOCP sheds some light on ...Read more...

We learned from today's announcements that Apple has produced a couple of new, high-end mobile SoCs for its iPad Pro and iPhone 6S products, and the company made some pretty serious claims about the performance of those devices. Let me outline for you what we know, and then it will be clear how much is missing.First, the iPad Pro is powered by the A9X SoC. Apple says its CPU is as much as "1.8x faster" than the triple-core "Cyclone++" processor in the A8X chip onboard the iPad Air 2. That enhanced version of the Cyclone core was already one of the most potent mobile CPUs cores anywhere. The firm also ...Read more...

After spending quite a bit of time and energy showing off the new iPad Pro in today's presentation, Apple then very briefly made a passing mention of another new iPad: the mini 4. This little tablet may not grab too many headlines given that it's a refinement of an existing product, but in reality, it's a huge upgrade.That's true in part because the iPad mini 3 wasn't. Apple offered folks the chance to pay more for a Touch ID sensor and not much else compared to the mini 2. That's a shame because, in my view, Apple's little iPad still has the ...Read more...

Apple capped today's presentation in San Francisco by revealing the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, the latest takes on its smash-hit smartphone formula. As is usually the case with iPhone "S" models, these phones aren't a huge departure from last year's iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, but the company made a mountain of small changes that should make the iPhone experience better.First and foremost is a new input method called "3D Touch." Sort of like the Force Touch trackpad on Apple's MacBook notebooks, 3D Touch is ...Read more...

Apple TV may have finally shaken off its "hobby" status today at the company's press event. Tim Cook told the crowd that "the future of TV is apps" before taking the lid off the next generation of Apple TV.Gone is the Apple TV software of old: the iOS-based tvOS has taken its place. Siri is the centerpiece of this Apple TV, and the digital assistant has a lot of tricks up her sleeve. Apple's demo included some serious filtering and context awareness. The company's demo started with ...Read more...

The tablet market—and more specifically, the iPad—have both faltered a bit in recent quarters. Apple's response to that slowdown: go big. The company introduced a bigger, more powerful iPad today, called the iPad Pro, that packs a 12.9" screen and the company's latest A9X processor. The Pro also gets a keyboard cover and a pressure-sensitive stylus, called the Apple Pencil, that allows for precise drawing and annotation. ...Read more...

Big changes are happening at AMD. For the first time since its acquisition of ATI nine years ago, the company has given responsibility for its graphics business to a single leader. The firm today announced that it has promoted Raja Koduri to senior vice president and chief architect of the Radeon Technologies Group.The newly formed Radeon Technologies Group will be responsible for the graphics technology used in discrete GPUs, APUs, and semi-custom products like the chips used ...Read more...

Fujitsu is proudly showing off a prototype wireless receiver that's sensitive to frequencies as high as 300 GHz, which allows it to accept data at "several tens of gigabits per second" over short ranges. Critically, this receiver is rather svelte at only 0.75 cubic centimeters, which could make it practical for use in smartphones and other mobile devices. The company claims its technology is the first of its kind in such a small package. ...Read more...

Want to give your CPU cooling power a boost without strapping on a giant tower heatsink? Cryorig's C7 cooler could be a contender. This chiller is only 47 mm tall, which (as Cryorig points out) is only two millimeters taller than recent Intel stock heatsinks. ...Read more...

Samsung has unveiled what it claims are the world's first 12Gb LPDDR4 RAM chips. The more capacious RAM is built on a 20-nm process, and the company claims that it can hit speeds of 4,266 MT/s, a 30% speed improvement over previous 8Gb chips. Power usage is said to be 20% lower when compared to regular DDR4, too.The new chips make 3GB and 6GB RAM packages possible (using two and four chips, respectively), which Samsung says ...Read more...

Gigabyte tends to be quick out of the gate with motherboards supporting Thunderbolt, and its Skylake motherboards are no exception. The company has announced what it claims to be the world's first Z170 motherboard with Thunderbolt 3, the Z170X-UD5 TH, which uses Intel's Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt and USB 3.1 controller chip. ...Read more...

Capcom has announced that Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, best described as one part Dark Soulsand one part Devil May Cry, is getting a PC release. The trailer below, from the game's console launch, is entirely in Japanese. Action knows no language, though....Read more...

I know exactly what you're thinking. So I'm going to let the numbers speak for themselves: Football Manager 2015 is the 4th most played game on Steam, and has been in the top games forever. According to the people who play it (some of which are good friends of mine), Football Manager is quite addictive, and deeper than a Kardashian behind. Like any competent drug lord, Sega is looking to capitalize on that addictiveness. The company has announced Football Manager 2016, which comes in three flavors.

Cooler Master has a thing for backlit keyboards with Cherry MX switches and minimalist designs, and it's continuing that trend with its latest keyboard, the Quick Fire XTi. Get a good look at what this mechanical keyboard has to offer in the "video manual" below....Read more...

Dell has long partnered with Microsoft to ship Windows on its PCs, but that cleanly divided relationship between hardware and software makers is about to get a little weirder. Microsoft is kicking off a program called the Surface Enterprise Initiative, in which Dell and other companies will sell Redmond's Surface tablets with the backing of their own business-oriented services and support.According to Microsoft, this program is born out of businesses' desire to "buy Surface[s] from one partner, in one transaction and have devices deployed all over the world." To that end, ...Read more...

Nice Seagate wireless hard drive you have there. Shame if anybody on your network had full access to it. Unfortunately, that's exactly what can happen, thanks to vulnerabilities found in some models of the company's external hard drives. A CERT report details the problem, which affects Seagate Wireless Mobile Storage, Seagate Wireless Plus Mobile Storage, and Seagate-powered LaCie Fuel drives.First and foremost, these drives have "undocumented Telnet services" enabled by default, which can be accessed with the "root" username and a default password. That's enough for anyone on the same network as the drives to ...Read more...

Remember that fuel-cell-powered iPhone we talked about a couple weeks ago? Seems like Apple was already on the fuel cell game before that. The Cupertino company has filed for a patent on fuel cell technology for powering "portable electronic devices for days or even weeks without refueling." The patent application was filed back on March 19 and published a few days ago. ...Read more...

Zotac has been making tiny PCs for a long time, and today, the company has updated its Zbox E-series of gaming blades. The company's Zbox Magnus EN970 packs a Broadwell CPU and an unusual graphics configuration into a little barebones box. ...Read more...

Eight is Enough

It's official. Support for RC4, a stream cipher used by browsers for securing connections (among other things), will be dropped sometime in early 2016 by Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft. The cipher is vulnerable to several concerning attacks, and its design dates from 1987.RC4's deprecation isn't entirely unexpected. The Internet Engineering Task Force had already published an RFC document in February of this year prohibiting the use of ...Read more...

Razer's Diamondback mouse has a heritage stretching all the way back to 2004, and it seems that the company was feeling a little nostalgic for this particular reptile-rodent hybrid. A brand-new Diamondback is coming, and it has all of the trappings that we've come to expect from Razer hardware of late. Chroma RGB LED lighting, a ridiculous sensor, and programmable buttons combine with the Diamondback's ambidextrous shape to make for a modern take on a classic design. ...Read more...

We recorded the latest episode of The TR Podcast last night. Special guest David Kanter joined Scott to go deep on Intel's Skylake CPU and graphics architecture, and they also addressed some questions about the recent controversy surrounding differences between Nvidia's and AMD's differing approaches to DirectX 12 asychronous compute shaders. Listen to their discussion and become enlightened:...Read more...

It's Labor Day weekend, gerbils. Perhaps that means it's time to spend some of your hard-earned cash on some deeply discounted PC hardware. Let us help. We've collected the best deals we can find from our favorite online retailers, so let's get started.Whew. We've almost certainly missed some deals in the Labor Day deluge, so be sure to share any ...Read more...

You may remember Amnesia - The Dark Descent. The 2010 horror adventure game struck a chord with its ambience and psychological manipulation. One player described the game's requirements as "a PC with some RAM, a video card, hard disk drive and a defibrillator." Frictional Games isn't done messing withour collective heads, though. Watch the trailer for SOMA, the studio's latest, in full screen:...Read more...

Looks like Batman: Arkham Knight PC gamers are getting the patch they need, though perhaps not the one they deserve. WB Interactive has released an "interim patch" for the game, making good on a promise made a few weeks ago.WB has added more graphics configuration options and claims to have reduced frame rate hitches in this update. Overall performance has reportedly been improved "on all GPUs," as well, and problems with ...Read more...

Do you like Lego and building or customizing computers? You'll love Acer's Revo Build M1-601 PC, then. The Revo Build is Acer's approach to building a modular computer, and it looks pretty simple, in the best possible way. If this all sounds a little familiar, it may be because of Razer's Project Christine. ...Read more...

Chrome version 45 is out the door, and you could say it's found a new focus in life. It's ditching its old ways of gobbling up as much RAM as it can. Instead, it's doing its best to shed weight and save energy.To fulfill these goals, Chrome developers have taken three steps. First, the browser's JavaScript garbage collection has gotten some aggressive tuning . Chrome will detect and take advantage of idle processing time in a webpage to clear previously-used memory, all while actually improving responsiveness. ...Read more...

We're loaded with Skylake architecture info, we have a ton of reader questions, and we have David Kanter of Real World Tech and The Microprocessor Report cornered. What happens next can only be awesome. Come join the chat:...Read more...

Lian Li hasn't been afraid to mix it up when it comes to its PC enclosures. While the company's PC-V33 isn't an entire desk, this aluminum ATX cuboid is at least a little different from tower-style ATX cases. Thanks to a novel door design, the PC-V33 looks easy to build in, too. ...Read more...

Huawei is stealing some thunder from Apple's September 9th event, where we may see an iPhone 6S with Force Touch onboard. The Chinese company has unveiled its Mate S handset, and it packs more force sensitivity than that Skywalker dude. ...Read more...

We're having a special episode of the TR Podcast live stream tonight at 6:30 PM PT/9:30 PM ET. David Kanter will be joining us to talk about this week's Skylake news—and especially about the CPU architecture changes in Intel's new processor.If you have questions for us to address on the show, you can ...Read more...