Techreport

It's time to run with the devil. Enter the PowerColor Devil 13 Dual Core R9 390, a triple-slot card packing (you guessed it) two Radeon R9 390 GPUs. ...Read more...

Toshiba has introduced its Q300 and Q300 Pro series of solid-state drives. Both models feature adaptive SLC write caches, and they're available in a 2.5" SATA form factor. ...Read more...

Asus has crafted the follow-up to its ZenWatch, the ZenWatch 2, and it comes in two face sizes: 1.63" and 1.45". The company not-so-subtly indicates that the bigger version is meant "for him," while the more petite one is "for her." There's no accounting for taste, but both watches look stylish enough to my eyes:...Read more...

A liquid-cooled laptop wasn't the only insane thing Asus unveiled at IFA today. The company is hopping on the curved gaming monitor bandwagon in a big way with its 34" Republic of Gamers PG348Q display. That expansive vista holds a 3440x1440 IPS panel with G-Sync baked in for smooth fragging. The PG348Q's housing and stand are undeniably unique, too: it's like a Wankel rotor connected to a fusion reactor. ...Read more...

Although we've covered the Fiji GPU and the Radeon R9 Nano graphics card closely since it was first announced, I've just been informed that AMD has chosen not to provide TR with a product sample for review. The reasons behind this decision aren't clear to me, but whatever.Here's the deal: we are in need of an R9 Nano card to review. If you're in the industry and somehow have access to one, please contact me at damage@techreport.com . I only need to borrow ...Read more...

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 SoC is an ambitious one. We already know that the company is targeting 40% improvements for graphics performance and power consumption with the chip's Adreno 530 GPU. Today, the company is throwing us another bone with details of the chip's custom CPU block, called Kryo.Kryo is a 64-bit, quad-core processor built on a 14-nm FinFET process, and Qualcomm says it'll be able to reach speeds up to 2.2GHz. What's more, Kryo is supposed to deliver twice the performance of the Snapdragon 810 ...Read more...

MSI has expanded its portfolio of all-caps GAMING motherboards with mainstream models based on Intel's H170 and B150 chipsets, with support for Skylake CPUs. ...Read more...

At IFA, Sony showed off its Xperia Z5 family in small, medium and large sizes. The biggest of the bunch is the Xperia Z5 Premium, and it's equipped with an eye-popping 4K display. ...Read more...

Acer has revealed its take on Skylake-infused gaming laptops under its Predator brand. Available in both 15" and 17" sizes, this new breed is powered by Intel Core i7-6700HQ Skylake CPUs, graphics cards as powerful as Nvidia's GeForce GTX 980M, and up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM. All Predator notebooks are Nvidia G-Sync-enabled, and their display resolutions range up to 3860x2140 (4K). ...Read more...

Toshiba has announced what it calls the world's first 12.5" convertible with a 4K screen. The Satellite Radius 12 is a svelte machine with a 12.5" 3840x2160 IPS screen. This panel can reproduce 100% of the Adobe RGB color gamut, which could make this Satellite a good choice for color-critical work. ...Read more...

Hi, all. We have a number of stories related to Intel's official Skylake launch today, but I'm working on a larger write-up of the changes from Broadwell to Skylake at the SoC level. Trouble is, the start of allergy season has pretty much nuked my reserves of energy and focus. I am working my way through it, but I just didn't get it finished on time. I'm hoping to produce something coherent before too long.Happily, we should have a good Skylake discussion on this week's podcast live stream. David Kanter is going to join me again to talk about Intel's new CPU now that we ...Read more...

Acer has added a quartet of G-Sync monitors to its Predator lineup at IFA in Berlin. ...Read more...

The full Skylake CPU lineup is here, and Asus isn't wasting any time getting Intel's latest chips into its Republic of Gamers notebooks. ...Read more...

MSI is stepping up its game by adding Skylake CPUs to its gaming-oriented notebooks. The refreshed MSI gaming notebook lineup has Skylake Core i7 CPUs, DDR4 memory, Geforce GTX GPUs, and a host of other interesting features.All the machines come with SteelSeries RGB LED-backlit keyboards with "silver lining print," which is supposed to let the backlight shine while reducing eye strain during long gaming sessions. Surround-sound virtualization is handled by Nahimic's Audio Enhancer ...Read more...

Hot on the heels of Intel's full Skylake launch, Asus is ready with a slate of motherboards based on Intel's more mass-market H170, B150, H110, and Q170 chipsets. Many of the same features found in the company's Z170 boards have made the journey down to the lower end of the lineup, which may make them the perfect companion to your new best friend, the Core i3-6320. Much like its lineup of Z170 boards, Asus has two mobo families for the new chipsets: Signature Series and Pro Gaming. ...Read more...

Eight is Enough

The Core M processor is coming soon to Intel's tiny, Chromecast-inspired Compute Stick systems. During a recent briefing on its Skylake processors, Intel revealed that it has a version of the Compute Stick in the works based on a powerful but energy-efficient Core M processor. ...Read more...

Today brings the official introduction of Intel's broad lineup of Skylake processors. This is the launch that brings us more affordable chips to go along with the Core i7-6700K and i5-6600K, which were released early.As a result, we now know how the entire lineup of socketed desktop Skylake processors looks. There are a bunch of them beyond the ...Read more...

You may recall that the surprise star of our recent Core i7-6700K review was the Core i7-5775C, a chip based on the prior-generation Broadwell architecture with a novel configuration.You see, the Core i7-5775C is a socketed desktop processor, but it's derived from a mobile-focused product that incorporates 128MB of eDRAM on the package with the CPU. The eDRAM is present mainly to act as an accelerator ...Read more...

When Motorola announced the Moto X Style, it promised flagship-class performance and a world-beating camera at a price way below those of its flagship-class competitors. The company will begin accepting pre-orders for the Moto X tomorrow morning in the USA, starting at a tantalizing $399.Tomorrow, make a date to pre-order the new #MotoX Pure Edition. Learn more at ...Read more...

We've been aching to get our hands on Star Wars Battlefront ever since EA released the game's first trailer. The subsequent gameplay videos left us wanting more. Now, EA says players will be able to dive into a Star Wars Battlefront beta in early October. Count us in. ...Read more...

Seagate is broadening its business-oriented product lineup today with some 8TB drives. The newcomers are members of the company's Enterprise Capacity, Enterprise NAS, and Kinetic product families. ...Read more...

Seagate is broadening its business-oriented product lineup today with some 8TB drives. The newcomers are members of the company's Enterprise Capacity, Enterprise NAS, and Kinetic product families. ...Read more...

Got a jailbroken iPhone with the Cydia app store installed? Better watch out. Approximately 225,000 Apple accounts have been stolen by malware hidden in untrusted Cydia repositories. The malware and the account information were discovered by researchers from Palo Alto Networks, with help from WeipTech, a group of technically-minded enthusiasts. Palo Alto Networks believes this is the largest theft of Apple accounts ever caused by malware.The researchers call the malware family KeyRaider, and they've uncovered 92 variants of the bad apps. As far as the team can tell, KeyRaider only spreads through Cydia repositories from Weiphone , one of the largest Apple fan websites in China, ...Read more...

SSDs may be the hottest thing in storage right now, but that doesn't mean Seagate is letting its mechanical hard drives languish.The company says it's made a breakthrough in areal density that will allow it to pack as much as 2TB of mechanical storage into 7-mm 2.5" drives, with 1TB per platter. (Current 2TB mobile ...Read more...

AMD is jumping into the virtualized GPU market. At VMWorld, the red team showed off what it claims is the first hardware-based GPU virtualization solution, AMD Multiuser GPU (PDF).Up to 15 users can use a single Multiuser GPU, though per-user performance will decrease as more guests are provisioned on a card. AMD says those users will benefit from more predictable performance regardless of how busy the host graphics card is. The company also claims that the Multiuser GPU is more secure than software-based ...Read more...

We were intrigued by Corsair's Bulldog mini-ITX barebones when it debuted back at Computex, but we also wondered whether the system's assertive red-and-black paint job and angular, skeletal feet were a little much for most folks' living rooms—the turf where Corsair expects this dog to prowl. It seems others wondered the same thing, since Corsair debuted a stealthier, more refined version of the Bulldog this past weekend at PAX Prime 2015. ...Read more...

Samsung tends to do its own thing, and its approach to the smartwatch market is no different. The phone giant has long eschewed the Android Wear platform in favor of its own Tizen-based wearable software. Today, Samsung announced a pair of Galaxy Gear wearables for its platform—the Gear S2 and the Gear S2 Classic. ...Read more...

Square/Enix has come up with a novel pre-order scheme for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. The concept is called "Augment your Preorder", and allows prospective gamers to "customize [their] Deus Ex experience from the very beginning." You can watch the video ad below:...Read more...

Apple and Cisco have announced a strategic partnership with the goals of "[creating] a fast lane for iOS devices" in businesses with Cisco networks, and improving interoperability between the two companies' gear and software. In a statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook says that the company is "all in on the enterprise" and called the Cisco collaboration the "Holy Grail" of partnerships. ...Read more...

Hot on the heels of Nvidia's GeForce 355.82 release, AMD has taken the wraps off its Catalyst 15.8 beta drivers. The company has added support for version 0.7 of the Oculus SDK in this release. Furthermore, Batman: Arkham Knight gets some "performance and stability updates," while Ashes of the Singularity gets some love in the form of "performance optimizations for DirectX 12."Since this is a beta release, there are some minor issues to be aware of. AMD warns that the driver installation process may halt "on some systems with an AMD 990FX chipset and AMD CrossFire enabled." As a workaround, the company suggests ...Read more...

In the Great Smartwatch Wars of 2015, an impassable line was drawn in the sand. Android phone owners could only use Android Wear devices. iPhone owners could only use an Apple Watch. Ne'er the twain shall meet—until now. Google has broken down barriers and opened up the Android Wear platform to those toting iPhones. ...Read more...

MSI has added a GeForce GTX 980 Ti to its Lightning series of hot-clocked graphics cards. The new GTX 980 Ti Lightning's GPU comes cranked up to 1,203 MHz base and 1,304 MHz boost clocks, and the card's RAM gets a slight speed bump, as well: 7096 MT/s, instead of the regular 7000 MT/s. ...Read more...

Nvidia has released a minor update to its GeForce graphics drivers, and today's winning version number is 355.82. The updated driver brings support for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Mad Max. Alongside support for the new titles, Nvidia has updated some SLI profiles, most notably for Batman: Arkham Knight, World of Tanks, FIFA 16, and Rocket League.If you're one of the 75 million Windows 10 users and counting , you can download the updated drivers here . If you're still sticking with ...Read more...

PAX 2015 happened in Seattle over the weekend, and the TR staff was sadly not in attendance. I've decided recently that I travel too much and for the wrong reasons. I need to be attending things like PAX, where I can get the chance to meet readers, instead of just industry-only events. I'm mulling over how to change that fact.Happily, we still have a first-hand account of some of the goings-on at PAX 2015 courtesy ...Read more...

Eight is Enough

Microsoft has drawn our ire on recent podcast episodes for its decision to prevent consumers from opting out of automatic Windows updates. While it doesn't seem to be reversing that policy just yet, the company has made one concession: the Windows Store now allows users to turn off auto-updating for apps purchased through the marketplace. ...Read more...

Grid isn't just for gaming—Nvidia's graphics-streaming solution is also targeted at business looking to run their professional 3D apps in the cloud. At VMWorld in San Francisco, Nvidia pulled back the curtain on Grid 2.0 and a pair of Maxwell-based Tesla cards—one for rack systems, the other for blade servers. The company also announced support for Linux guest virtual machines.With Grid 2.0, Nvidia says it's doubled the number of users per Grid server. Now, 128 users can use virtualized 3D apps at a time. The company also claims those users will enjoy "twice ...Read more...

We recorded our latest podcast this past Thursday, and the video version of the result is now available on YouTube. We chatted about the Radeon R9 Nano, Intel supporting FreeSync VESA Adaptive-Sync, the CoolerMaster MasterCase 5, and more....Read more...

Eight is Enough

3D Realms is arguably going back to its roots. Its newest title is Bombshell, an isometric action shooter featuring a protagonist with a chip on her (bionic) shoulder—and lots of guns. Although the game is making a few waves at PAX Prime with a new gameplay trailer and a hands-on demo, the original E3 trailer is more illustrative. Check it out....Read more...

And now for something a little different. Calvino Noir is a stealth-based adventure platformer, if you have to label genres. So far so old, but check out the video below, and things should become both clearer—and darker....Read more...

Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan held a brief presentation today at PAX Prime to talk about some new hardware and some updates to the company's Nabu X fitness tracker. Tan introduced the company's take on a tournament-grade Xbox One controller, called the Razer Wildcat. He also took some time to talk up the "Designed by Razer" NZXT S340 microATX case and version 2.0 of the companion app for the Nabu X. ...Read more...

Cliff Bleszinski is back with a new multiplayer FPS called LawBreakers. Set on a futuristic Earth whose gravity has been irreversably corrupted by the destruction of the Moon (an event the game describes as "The Shattering"), LawBreakers is supposed to reward "skill, not streaks." I'll plead ignorance of which game that dig is targeting, but the first gameplay trailer is certainly action-packed:...Read more...

Psychonauts developer Double Fine has announced its latest oddity, Headlander, at Pax Prime today. Hang onto your hats heads, because the trailer is here:...Read more...

It's Friday morning, and you know what that means: time for another round of deals from the vast world of online retailers.That's it for this week. If we missed a good deal, be ...Read more...

Web users around the world, rejoice. Google will be skewering most Flash ads with prejudice come September 1. The company has announced that Chrome will begin automatically pausing resource-hogging Flash ads, in a bid to improve PCs' performance and battery life.This move was announced last June , but the deadline is now looming. AdWords already converts most Flash ads to HTML5 automatically, and Google encourages ...Read more...

Valve is not a company known to rush its products to release, so much so that the company's release dates are now half-jokingly said to be in Valve Time. Now this space-time warp has claimed another victim: the company's Vive VR headset, designed in partnership with HTC.According to Gamesindustry.biz , a Valve press statement made during PAX Prime indicates the headset will be delayed. Only "a limited quantity of community and developer ...Read more...

Not content to make intentionally-terrible videos and an enormous luggable PC, Alienware has updated the rest of its gaming notebooks and its diminutive X51 desktop with newer CPUs and more I/O options. Since the full Skylake line of CPUs isn't available just yet, these systems' updated spec sheets look a tad familiar. ...Read more...

We're recording The TR Podcast live on Twitch right now. Tune in as we talk about AMD's Radeon R9 Nano graphics card, Cooler Master's MasterCase 5, and a variety of other topics. You can also toss some questions our way in the Twitch chat, and we'll do our best to answer them as we go....Read more...