The Tech Report

Despite some missteps, there's little argument that Windows 10 is improving with time (some would say, like fine wine). Microsoft just published the Windows Insider Preview build 18298, and there are more than a few goodies in store.Although not all relevant in the grand scheme of things, the most obvious outward-looking change is a new icon for Explorer, now with bolder colors and a slightly adjusted design. ...Read more...

Do you find yourself looking at your blinkenlit build and disliking the gaping void left by unfilled RAM slots? Corsair is here to help with its Vengeance RGB Pro Light Enhancement Kit. ...Read more...

It's a pretty quiet news day, but over yonder in the Plains of Rumors there have been echoes of the words "Nvidia" and "RTX." Two rumors in particular made our ears prick up, so we figure you'd like a look too. Please, do keep the salt shaker handy.The first rumor we've spotted is probably the juiciest one of the two. It appears that laptops packing Nvidia RTX graphics chips might be peeking just around the corner. Twitter leaker @TUM_APISAK was browsing benchmark databases and spotted ...Read more...

Intel exec Murthy Renduchintala recently spoke at length about the company's future at the 39th Nasdaq Investor Conference, and the talk has been summed up in a transcript spotted by Anandtech. Renduchintala had much to say about the company's continuing plans for its 10-nm process technology and lifted the lid a bit on its plans for 7-nm production.As TSMC has begun volume production of chips on its 7-nm FinFET process (roughly comparable to Intel's 10-nm process in its claims for density) and Samsung claims to have won the race to EUV insertion with its own similarly-dense 7LPP node ...Read more...

Stop, it's HAMR time! (Come on guys, it's a slow day.) Remember the fancy heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) tech drive makers keep talking up? Seagate says it now has fully armed and operational 16-TB Exos HAMR 3.5" drives in the testing phase, apparently beating Western Digital and its MAMR drives to the punch. ...Read more...

What does it mean that, nearly two years later, I'm still more proud of this than any of my other work?

You may remember the Always Connected PCs we talked up a while ago. Those lean notebooks promised competent computing performance paired with constant cellular connectivity and particularly long battery life. Those machines were based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835—in other words, a smartphone SoC for laptop work. Qualcomm has now decided to up the ante with its next designed-for-laptops chip, the Snapdragon 8cx.The new Kryo 495 CPU is an 8-core big-little ...Read more...

Hello, folks. It's a somewhat peaceful day at TR HQ. There's an incoming review of a sweet motherboard, but generally there's not much going on in the hardware world. It's a good time as any to hunt down some discounted bits of kit, and we've picked out the best for you. ...Read more...

Are you planning on a Coffee Lake build and have a penchant for massive overclocking? EVGA would like to show you its Z390 Dark motherboard. If the massive heatsinks atop it weren't enough of a clue, this circuit slab is packed to the gills with power-handling goodies, and pro overclocker Luumi has already used it to break the eight-core Cinebench R15 world record by pushing a Core i9-9900K to 6.987 GHz. If you bleed liquid helium and live for overclocking records, read on.First up, the company says there's a 17-phase VRM sitting underneath all those heat sinks. The spice flows into it from a pair of eight-pin EPS connectors. There are only two DIMM slots sitting atop the CPU socket, likely to keep ...Read more...

Qualcomm's annual tech summit is underway this week in Hawaii, and the term that emerged from presenters' mouths every two seconds there was "5G." The next generation of mobile connectivity is set to arrive soon, and Qualcomm wants to ensure that designers of next-gen flagship phones choose its wares for that task—in this case, the Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform.That "mobile platform" is actually composed of two chips: the brand-new, 7-nm Snapdragon 855 SoC and Qualcomm's already-announced X50 5G modem. The Snapdragon 855 SoC is the star of the show here, so let's talk about it. The CPU portion of the chip has eight next-gen ...Read more...

With the thousands of laptops on offer these days, you'd think it would be easy to find that Goldilocks model that covers all the bases while offering a quality build. Machines fitting that exact description aren't all that plentiful, though, so the updated Razer Blade Stealth is a welcome sight. ...Read more...

This caption is dicey.

Epic Games is historically known for its Unreal Engine and more recently for a teeny-weeny game you may know called Fortnite. The company is now making a big play in the realm of digital downloads with its upcoming Epic Games Store, and it has Steam squarely in its crosshairs. ...Read more...

Hullo, good folks. I bet you're dying to know if the meaty RTX speed boost that Nvidia promised for the incoming Battlefield V update will pan out. We're rather curious too and meant to start looking into that, but the update's been delayed. We'll eventually see if smooth gaming with realistic reflections is feasible at decent frame rates, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here's the collection of deals we lovingly hunted down for you. ...Read more...

Citing anonymous sources, Windows Central reports that Redmond is forging ahead with a plan to replace or retool the Edge browser in Windows 10 with a Chromium-powered replacement. The project is apparently codenamed "Anaheim," though there's no telling whether Microsoft's new browser will keep or ditch the Edge branding. ...Read more...

Nvidia's letting the news cannon loose today, and the latest piece of information from the green team regards the release of the GeForce 417.22 WHQL drivers. The new release adds support for the incoming Battlefield V update and its much-needed improvements to RTX performance. There are a few other goods in store, too.The 417.22 release adds support for Rico Rodriguez's adventures in Just Cause 4 , as well as Nvidia Ansel and Nvidia Highlights mojo for Insurgency: Sandstorm . Those trolling the Battle for Azeroth in World of Warcraft will be happy to know that the updated Nvidia driver is ...Read more...

Our early performance testing for DirectX Raytracing effects in Battlefield V suggested that the tradeoff between frame rates and image quality with Nvidia's GeForce RTX cards was quite dear. We didn't write off the tech at the time, though, because a subsequent interview with DICE by Eurogamer suggested there were plenty of bugs to squash and plenty of low-hanging fruit to pick for RTX performance. We're glad we didn't, because today, Nvidia previewed just how much of an RTX speed-up gamers can expect from the first major update to Battlefield V....Read more...

Nvidia's Turing graphics cards may cost a pretty penny, but few people are going to argue with the performance of their massive arrays of tensor, RT, and CUDA cores. The green team thinks you may want even more, and it's just let loose its big gun: the Nvidia Titan RTX. ...Read more...

Every single time we write up a gaming monitor, there's always someone that says "oh this monitor would be great if it had X." Well, buckle up, then. Asus just came out with the ROG Strix XG32VQR, a display with a specs list as long as a CVS receipt. ...Read more...

Having a desktop PC in your office ensures you can easily delve into high-performance computing. In today's mobile world, though, some folks' primary machines may be laptops without the discrete graphics power needed to run demanding games or visualization apps. For those who want the best of both worlds, Sapphire's GearBox Thunderbolt 3 eGFX enclosure could prove an interesting new option. ...Read more...

Hello, indeed.

Real-time ray tracing may be the hottest buzzword of the moment in high-end graphics. The folks at UL Benchmarks (formerly Futuremark) want you to be able to test how big of a hit ray-traced effects will cause when you buy the graphics cards of today and tomorrow with its upcoming 3DMark Port Royal benchmark. ...Read more...

Hey there, folks. Here's today bit of irrelevant trivia. I've recently joined the rechargeable batteries club. See, ever since I started playing the metal, I got me a nice Line6 Relay G30 wireless pack. Problem is, that thing devours batteries like a politician handles a pork barrel. To scratch that itch and help the environment a little, I've enlisted a Golisi S4 smart charger and some Amazon high-capacity batteries. The charger is super-nice, and I'm eager to try the batteries on the G30 to see if they work as well as Eneloops. Oh, right, today's deals. Here they are. ...Read more...

Antlion Audio's ModMic can turn any pair of headphones into a high-quality headset, but that add-on has one unfortunate drawback: it adds another cable to any existing wires running back to its user's PC. The obvious solution to this problem is to get rid of the cord entirely, and that's just what the company has done with its ModMic Wireless. This add-on mic uses Qualcomm's aptX protocol to deliver 16-bit, 48-KHz low-latency audio with all the freedom of wireless connectivity. ...Read more...

One subtlety of the Windows 10 October Update (also known as version 1809) that may have been lost among its many growing pains is that it's the first widely-released version of Windows 10 that requires the use of Windows Modern Drivers (an initiative that might also go by the name of Universal Windows Drivers, or UWDs). The benefit of WMDs, according to Microsoft, is that a device maker such as Intel can write a base driver that can be certified and deployed to every machine with a given piece of hardware—including OEM systems—via Windows Update.OEMs can still add customization of their own to a WMD, but those customizations are the only thing an OEM is responsible for validating. That way, Microsoft can ...Read more...

Google's contract-free Project Fi wanted to be a refreshingly simple kind of cellular service when it launched back in 2015. Carrier partnerships with both Sprint and T-Mobile allowed Project Fi subscribers to get the best network connectivity wherever they were, and a simple pricing model of $20 per month for baseline service and $10 for every gigabyte of data offered clarity about just what subscribers were getting for their money. Project Fi has apparently been a success, as Mountain View is graduating the service to Google Fi and expanding the handsets it'll work with today. ...Read more...

The world can always use more free, quick-to-run, cross-platform benchmarks for the latest methods in graphics programming, and Basemark is improving its benchmark utility for those who want a repeatable, common frame of reference for graphics performance across devices. Basemark GPU 1.1 adds support for the DirectX 12 API, as well as a cleaner launcher, Flatpak distribution for Linux users, and other minor fixes. ...Read more...

I want to go to there.

Elgato's Cam Link dongle is a handy way to turn any camera with clean HDMI output capability into a platform for streaming video, but some might have found the original Cam Link's 1920x1080 maximum resolution restrictive. That all changes today with the Cam Link 4K, whose upgraded internals can push 3840x2160 video at 30 FPS in addition to the 1920x1080-at-60-FPS that the original Cam Link offered. ...Read more...

Howdy folks! Black Friday and Cyber Monday are gone, but we still have deals to bite into. Just like turkey and gravy are juicy and tasty in the days following Thanksgiving, there's a few filling deals to be had on this fine Tuesday. We've picked out the tastiest morsels just for your pleasure. ...Read more...

Nvidia has released a minor driver update this morning in preparation for Darksiders III. Version 417.01 gets GeForce owners Game Ready for that title, and it also fixes a few bugs....Read more...

Happy Cyber Monday, gerbils. The deals just don't stop coming this holiday season, and we're filtering through the mountain of dross out there to find the gold within. Keep refreshing this post for more deals as we find them.There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with ...Read more...

Hey, everybody. Hope you're shaking off the turkey torpor this morning, because we're going to be perusing hundreds of PC hardware deals and bringing you the cream of the crop. Keep refreshing this post throughout the morning to see what we've found.There's a chance you're looking for something we haven't covered. If that's the case, you can help The Tech Report by using the following referral links when you're out shopping: not only do we have a partnership with ...Read more...

Hey, folks. As it's turkey day in the United States, we won't be publishing today. The Tech Report staff would like to wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving, and if you're not in the US of A, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming come tomorrow. ...Read more...

Topre's Realforce and PFU's Happy Hacking keyboards enjoy near-mythical status among keyboard enthusiasts thanks to their unique capacitative key switches, but those products apparently haven't had an official importer in the United States—at least, until now. Fujitsu Computer Products of America, the venerable Japanese firm's stars-and-stripes arm, is bringing these boards to our shores under its own banner soon. ...Read more...

Battlefield V's performance with Nvidia's RTX effects enabled has sparked plenty of heated discussion about the merits of the technology over the past few days. If you're still on the fence about the potential of Turing cards' hybrid approach for ray-tracing and rasterization, the green team is making it easier to see for yourself just how well the tech works. ...Read more...

Mornin'. Black Friday is almost here, and we're going to dispense with the usual pleasantries. After all, you know what the deal is around here—just the finest hardware discounts for you. Here are today's picks. ...Read more...

We often call RGB LED-bedecked hardware "blingy," but few PC hardware companies have pursued that style as literally as G.Skill has for its Trident Z Royal RGB LED memory. ...Read more...

Can you feel it? There's tension in the air, like a massive coiled spring ready to pop in a flash. Black Friday is coming up, and everyone's credits card are preemptively attending PTSD support groups. There's a ton of computer hardware deals already on the air, and we've picked out the best for you. Three days out to Black Friday, and stuff is already looking this good. Check'em out. ...Read more...

Obviously, this needs no explanation.

Radeon cards may not be tracing rays in Battlefield V, but they can still benefit from even more software refinement for the game ahead of its release to the general public tomorrow. Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.11.2 is reporting for that duty, and it apparently builds on the Battlefield V support that rolled out in version 18.11.1. ...Read more...

Razer needs no introduction for its gamer gear, but RGB LED-bedecked hardware isn't going to fly in every setting. For folks who want the feel of Razer keys under their fingers without advertising that fact to the world, the company has just the thing. The Blackwidow Lite keyboard uses Razer Orange keyswitches for tactile but quiet operation, and it wraps those switches up in a discreet-looking tenkeyless board with an aluminum top plate and single-color white backlighting. ...Read more...

Nvidia reported its financial results for the third quarter of its fiscal 2019 today. The company brought in revenue of $3.18 billion, up 21% from this time last year, and operating income of $1.06 billion, up 18% from a year ago. The company also posted net income of $1.23 billion, up 47% from a year ago, and diluted earnings per share of $1.97, up 48% from this time in 2017. Gross margin rang in at 60.4%, up 0.9 percentage points from this time last year. The company's stock fell about 16% in after-hours trading on those numbers, thanks to a miss on Wall Street analyst estimates.Nvidia unsurprisingly continues to make the lion's share of its revenue from its GPUs. Across all of its GPU-related businesses, the company brought in $2.77 billion in revenue, up 25% from a year ...Read more...

Technically, they're in a freezer, but I do need to talk to my sister about getting her corpses out of my garage.

Mmmm, I love the smell of fresh graphics cards in the morning. Unless your accommodations reside underneath a boulder, you're probably aware that the Radeon RX 590 has been released. We took a long, hard look at the card, and it got a TR Recommended award. Its price could be just a hair more inviting, but there's always the chance that the winds of discounts will soothe that particular itch. In the meantime, Black Friday is coming up, and the deals are ever-flowing. Check out today's selection. ...Read more...

Along with the arrival of Intel's refreshed Core X CPUs, a number of motherboard makers are releasing refreshed motherboards to help take those chips to their limits. Asus' Prime X299-Deluxe II is one such example of the fresh class of X299 boards hitting the market, and the company has sent over an example of that mobo to let us play with. Behold: ...Read more...

Vega Mobile lives, and we now know just how much it'll cost for the privilege of adding Radeon Pro Vega 16 or Radeon Pro Vega 20 power to Apple's MacBook Pros. The company has updated the listing for its highest-end portable system to include those graphics options, as spotted by The Verge. ...Read more...

Hot on the heels of the 416.81 release, Nvidia just pushed a new graphics driver out, with good reason. The 416.94 release is WHQL-certified and ready for Battlefield V, Fallout 76, and Hitman 2. There's a related bit of news regarding Battlefield V that's actually of bigger import, though: the game now has Nvidia RTX effects enabled for those lucky enough to own one of the green team's GeForce RTX cards. This also pins Battlefield V as the first-ever widely-available game with those ray-tracing effects, so write that one down in the history books....Read more...

As the debut of Turing on board Quadro RTX 8000, RTX 6000, and RTX 5000 cards proved, gaming isn't the only area where a blend of real-time ray tracing and rasterization could prove handy. Nvidia is expanding the range of Turing products for rendering and visualization pros with the more attainable Quadro RTX 4000. This card sports a fully enabled TU106 GPU with 2304 shader ALUs, 288 Turing tensor cores, and 36 RT cores. Pro-viz users can harness those real-time ray-tracing resources using Nvidia's OptiX API, as well as the DirectX Ray Tracing (DXR) and Vulkan APIs. ...Read more...

Be kind, feline.