Techreport

We're still working up our discussion of the architecture behind Nvidia's GeForce RTX graphics cards and their Turing GPUs, but I'm taking a short breather to show you the GeForce RTX Founders Edition cards themselves. Say hello to the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition, fresh from its box: ...Read more...

Ahead of the September 20 launch of Nvidia's GeForce RTX graphics cards with Turing GPUs inside, more and more game developers are signing up to take advantage of those cards' unique capabilities. Today, the company reports that nine more games have joined the Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) fold. DLSS promises crisp image quality from Turing graphics cards with lower performance impacts than multisampled antialiasing or other similar techniques. Here's the list of the latest round of games that will support DLSS, courtesy of Nvidia:That list joins 16 titles that have ...Read more...

My image options for today were the pits.

AMD is getting its graphics cards ready for Shadow of the Tomb Raider with Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.9.1. Along with support for the ultimate entry in the rebooted Tomb Raider trilogy, AMD's latest software is also optimized for Stardock's Star Control: Origins, "a space role-playing game in which you command Earth's first interstellar starship on a mission to save the Earth from hostile alien empires." SC:O arrives September 20, and as one of the games that comes bundled with recent AMD graphics cards, there are doubtless more than a few Radeon gamers raring to gear up for it. ...Read more...

Hello there, folks! First off, you can start by clicking this link here for a live stream before immediately hitting the mute button. Join us in marveling at the effect hurricane Florence is having on a camera at the Frying Pan Shoals light. The sight is scary but impressive. Oh, and by the way, you're okay to tell me "happy birthday." Here are my gifts to you in return. ...Read more...

At his GTC Japan keynote, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang noted that AI inferencing—or the use of trained neural network models—is set to become a $20-billion market over the next five years. More and more applications are going to demand services like natural language processing, translation, image and video searches, and AI-driven recommendation, according to Nvidia. To power that future, the company is putting the Turing architecture in data centers using the Tesla T4 inferencing card and letting models run on those cards with the TensorRT Hyperscale Platform.

Along with its refreshed iPhones, Apple debuted its latest Apple Watch today. The Apple Watch Series 4 introduces larger displays in new 40-mm and 44-mm models, a faster system-in-package for more responsive wrist computing, a case that's both thinner and better-suited to letting cellular transmissions and other radio waves through, and a sophisticated heartbeat-sensor array that can keep an eagle eye on just how well your ticker is ticking. ...Read more...

Are you tempted by that nifty A12 Bionic chip that Apple put inside its iPhone Xs and Xs Max, but don't have a wallet as fat as Tim Cook's? Well, surprise, surprise. That cutting-edge silicon is also inside a third, not-quite-so-high-end model: the iPhone Xr. This iPhone is priced aggressively against Samsung's Galaxy S series of phones and others of its ilk. While the phone's name sounds a lot like a variant of Xanax​​​​​​, the specs are anything but calm-inducing. Let's take a deeper look. ...Read more...

Among the many things it announced at its special event today, Apple revealed the iPhone Xs (say ten-ess) and iPhone Xs Max, its new flagship smartphones. As "S" devices, these new iPhones build on the design that Apple introduced last year with the iPhone X. The iPhone Xs sticks with the same 5.8" edge-to-edge screen design as the iPhone X, while the iPhone Xs Max crams a 6.5" edge-to-edge display into what Apple calls the biggest-screened iPhone yet. ...Read more...

I'm a mechanical keyboard nerd from way back. I learned to type on TRS-80s and IBM Model Fs. However, my very first Cherry MX-style mechanical keyboard was a Cooler Master QuickFire Rapid tenkeyless model equipped with red switches. That was a good while ago—in 2011 or thereabouts—and so it's well past time that I checked in with CM to see what's going on. As it happens, the company recently released the first keyboards in its new CK series. Let's have a look at the Cooler Master CK552 mechanical gaming keyboard. ...Read more...

I never make my bed, the dogs just dig it up anyway.

As promised last week, I took some time to record the process of taking my recently delivered Xbox Adaptive Controller out of its packaging—otherwise known as an unboxing video. As advertised, the packaging made it extremely easy to access the controller. The box kind of just melted out of the way, even though it was obviously protecting the contents well. I'm hard-pressed to find anything to complain about. See for yourself.Yeah, I think I'm going to stick to writing. ...Read more...

Shadow of the Tomb Raider arrives this week, and Nvidia is ready with version 399.24 of its Game Ready drivers. The final entry in the rebooted Tomb Raider trilogy features a great deal of Nvidia-powered eye candy, and the title will eventually serve as a showcase for real-time ray-traced shadows, courtesy of GeForce RTX cards, with a post-launch patch. For now, though, gamers who have pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe Edition or Croft Edition of the game can get their systems ready to roll for their 48 hours of early access to Lara Croft's trek into Mayan legend....Read more...

Feeling fine, fair folks of this fantastic publication? There must have been something in the watercoolers at most e-tailer's offices, since I can't recall in recent memory a day where I've collected so many potential deals. The major task was picking out the Best of the Best from all the contenders. Here's our top selection. We're pretty darn sure you'll be pleased. ...Read more...

AMD announced two new second-generation Ryzen CPUs this morning. The Ryzen 5 2500X and Ryzen 3 2300X bring Precision Boost 2 and XFR 2 to quad-core Ryzens without integrated graphics, but there's a catch: these chips appear to be available exclusively to system integrators and OEMs for use in prebuilt systems. AMD is debuting the Ryzen 5 2500X in cooperation with Acer in the form of the Nitro 50 desktop PC.AMD says the Ryzen 5 2500X and Ryzen 3 2300X each use a single enabled core complex (or CCX) from the two available on Pinnacle Ridge Zeppelin dies to get their four cores. Recall that the Ryzen 5 1500X instead used two cores from each CCX to ...Read more...

We deemed HyperX's Alloy FPS keyboard worthy of a TR Recommended award when we reviewed it thanks to its solid steel frame and fat-free bezels. Now, the company has a version of the board that lets lighting aficionados have their fun. The Alloy FPS RGB offers per-key blinkenlighting in any of 16.7 million colors. ...Read more...

Intel's delayed transition to the 10-nm node means that every time the company wants to add a leading-edge product to its portfolio, that chip has to be made on its 14-nm process, and the company is already making a ton of 14-nm silicon. If a new report by Digitimes is correct, the company could be reaching a breaking point on fab capacity.The site says Intel is bumping some of its low-end desktop chipset production out of its own fabs and into TSMC's to free up fab time for server CPUs and chipsets. The site reports that Intel ...Read more...

We all have that one thing, or maybe even several things, that we're insufferable about. "It's just coffee!" an exasperated spouse might say in response to your attempts to roast your beans at home, or maybe your friends can't understand why you're dragging them to your favorite microbrewery when a few pints of Bud Light would do just fine.Perhaps you're helping out a reticent PC builder who won't spend more on a high-quality CPU heatsink that won't sound like a helicopter taking off. "It's just $10!", ...Read more...

Just as Nikon and Canon are beginning to take the mirrorless camera market seriously, long-time mirror-free adherent Fujifilm is updating its popular and long-running enthusiast body. The result is the X-T3. ...Read more...

The march toward real-world 5G connectivity continues. Qualcomm announced yesterday that it used a test device with its Snapdragon X50 5G modem and RF modules inside to complete an over-the-air data call in the 39 GHz band of mmWave spectrum, using the 5G non-standalone (NSA) mode of the New Radio (NR) specification.

When Microsoft announced its Xbox Adaptive Controller late this spring, I was not only impressed, but genuinely excited. As some of you know, my oldest daughter Ellie has Cornelia de Lange syndrome and just about every physical and mental challenge that comes along with it (plus some bonus features). I've long pondered hacking together something for her out of a HID-emulating breadboard and arcade cabinet buttons that would've resembled a much less elegant Xbox Adaptive Controller.

Sounds like a good plan for tomorrow.

On the heels of an in-depth analysis at Anandtech, UL Benchmarks (formerly Futuremark) has delisted Huawei's P20, P20 Pro, Nova 3, and Honor Play devices from its public 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme benchmark database. The delisting comes after Anandtech's discovery that Huawei's customized version of the Android operating system was cheating on common benchmarks by engaging a "Performance Mode" that artificially increased clock speeds and power consumption to deliver inflated scores.

Have we ever talked about Two Point Hospital? Well, it's out now and pretty much as its name implies, it's what Theme Hospital 2.0 would have been. I've played a bit yesterday and it's pretty much everything I hoped for, even if it doesn't exactly tread new ground. And hey, now you can have non-square rooms, and you can... move them. You heard right. Right now, though, our task is filtering the multitude of deals on hand. We therefore present you the finest six of the lot. Enjoy. ...Read more...

Apple's capable Pencil should have put that Steve Jobs line about styluses to bed long ago, but its $100 price tag and curious charging design have drawn questions about its sharpness.Logitech's Crayon is the first aftermarket writing instrument that works with Apple's iPads, and it doesn't awkwardly protrude ...Read more...

AMD is bringing Athlons back. This morning, the company announced the Athlon 200GE, a two-core, four-thread Zen CPU with three Radeon Vega compute units. The 200GE is designed to light up low-cost PCs with reasonable performance and capable integrated graphics for basic desktop tasks. ...Read more...

MyDigitalSSD has made a name for itself as a purveyor of high-performance solid-state drives at low prices, and its latest BPX Pro SSDs could continue the trend. These NVMe gumsticks use Phison's E12 controller paired with Toshiba's BiCS3 3D NAND flash memory. Other sites, including Anandtech, have already had access to Phison reference SSD designs using that particular combo, and the results are encouraging. ...Read more...

PC users might think of discrete digital-to-analog converters as audiophile mysticism, but SteelSeries wants to bring the concrete improvement in audio quality those converters can provide to gamers in search of better sound, as well. The company is making its GameDAC USB external sound card available separately from its Arctis Pro headset for folks who want a shot at improving the sound quality of any company's cans. ...Read more...

As part of our visit to Samsung in New York yesterday, the company shed some new light on Z-NAND, its high-performance, low-latency non-volatile storage product. Z-NAND is meant to compete with the 3D Xpoint memory that Intel uses to build its Optane SSDs and non-volatile DIMMs.

It's full-frame mirrorless camera season, and Canon is going hunting with its new EOS R body and RF lenses. Like Sony, Nikon, Fuji, Panasonic, and Olympus cameras before it, Canon has dropped the flipping mirror from the EOS R to allow its lens designers greater freedom to produce smaller, higher-performance lenses and allow for better communication between body and glass. ...Read more...

Tonight, at my house, sushi will count as desert.

We've already seen what be quiet!'s mantra of continuous improvement can do in the form of the Dark Base Pro 900, and now the company is bringing a round of refinements to its Silent Base 601 mid-tower. ...Read more...

Howdy, gerbils! We hope y'all enjoyed Labor Day, probably with some some judicious BBQing. Around here, I joined the festivities of the Zigurfest music festival during the weekend and helped out at one of the stages, but I spent Labor Day Monday doing little of use except unclogging the dishwasher drain. Basically, I did nearly nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be. Today, though, it's back to full-bore work, and we have some sweet deals for you. ...Read more...

SSDs are displacing hard drives in the data center just as they are for desktops and notebooks, and Samsung is introducing four sets of data-center SSDs today to ride that wave. The 860 DCT, 883 DCT, 983 DCT, and 983 ZET families cover a wide range of solid-state bases for the modern data center. Before we dive into each of these drives' raisons d'être, have a rather intimidating table with all of their vital specs.Starting out, the 860 DCT family of SSDs is meant to offer solid-state performance and a lower total cost of ownership compared to hard drives in read-heavy applications. Samsung envisions the 860 DCT as a workhorse in content ...Read more...

While I was writing about Huawei's Kirin 980 launch this morning, I was wowed a bit by that SoC's CPU cores and graphics-processing chops, courtesy of ARM's latest core IP. I was also impressed a bit by the potential of its dual neural network processors and blazing-fast LTE modem, among its other specifications. I also found myself wondering just how much of the thing's power I would ever use were it inside my personal device. ...Read more...

Many American gerbils are likely winding down in preparation for the long weekend here in the States, and what better way to celebrate Labor Day than spending some of your hard-earned cash on deeply discounted PC hardware? Here's what we found in our follow-up search to yesterday's best. ...Read more...

AMD's Ryzen Threadripper 2950X earned a TR Editor's Choice award from yours truly when we reviewed it, and that CPU is now available to those planning new high-end system builds. Newegg now has the Threadripper 2950X in stock, and the chip is also available at Amazon. ...Read more...

Three years ago at the late Intel Developer Forum, we broke the story that Intel planned to support the VESA Adaptive Sync variable-refresh-rate display standard, better known as AMD FreeSync, in its integrated graphics processors (or IGPs). That news was potentially earth-shaking for the standard, since Intel's IGPs push the vast majority of pixels to desktop and notebook screens alike.Intel told us we would still have to wait for the technology a year later on the eve of the Kaby Lake launch , though, and the Gen9.5 graphics processor that shipped with Kaby Lake still powers the ...Read more...

Apple and Qualcomm might get the lion's share of attention for their smartphone SoCs, but Huawei and its HiSilicon arm have long been making leading-edge mobile processors of their own. At IFA, Huawei revealed the HiSilicon Kirin 980, its next-generation flagship SoC.

Howdy, folks. Bruno is on vacation today, but I've taken up his deal-sniffing mantle to find you the best discounts around on PC hardware right now. Here's what I found. ...Read more...

Thanks to Shortbread, I now know that I share a birthday with Mary Shelley.

ThinkPads might be famous for their design, but they're not necessarily machines designers and other creative types use all that often. Lenovo wants to change that with the ThinkPad X1 Extreme. This thin-and-light, 15.6" slice of black hides Coffee Lake six-core mobile CPUs and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q graphics inside its 0.7" (17.8 mm)-thick shell. The entire machine weighs 3.75 lb, according to The Verge.

Flash prices have been plummeting like a rock of late, and that's a problem for budget SSDs trying to compete with higher-end options on sale. For its part, Crucial is staying in the game with its BX500 series of drives. These SSDs come in 120-GB, 240-GB, and 480-GB capacities, and they promise typical-for-SATA 540 MB/s sequential reads and 500 MB/s sequential writes across the board. ...Read more...

Apple typically announces new iPhone hardware in the fall, and it appears that fact will be as constant as the seasons themselves. Members of the press have received an invitation to the company's headquarters in Cupertino, CA for a September 12 presentation that will presumably cover new iOS hardware.Apple event invite just arrived! Sept ...Read more...

The popularity of Chromebooks seems to be rising all the time, and Acer's intent on capitalizing on it. At IFA in Berlin, the company's showing off its nifty Chromebook 514. This 14" machine looks and likely feels like a premium affair thanks to its metal chassis and trackpad covered with a slice of Gorilla Glass. ...Read more...

Dell's making a bunch of announcements at IFA today. The company has a whole list of new laptops for home and business users, as well as a few new displays at the show. Arguably the most interesting of the new machines are the new Inspiron 7000 2-in-1 laptops. Dell is offering these machines in flavors with 13", 15", and 17" displays. Let's have a gander at 'em.

A wise man once said, "happiness is a good monitor, but a DisplayHDR model makes you happier still." That's the case with Dell's S2719DC, a 27" pixel slab with a resolution of 2540x1440 and DisplayHDR 600 certification. The IPS panel inside the display's thin bezels has a 1000:1 contrast ratio, maximum brightness of 600 cd/m², and should be able to cover 90% of the DCI-P3 color space. The maximum refresh rate is only 60 Hz, but there's FreeSync support on tap. ...Read more...

Intel's Whiskey Lake and Amber Lake CPUs are here, and Dell is putting them to good use in its XPS 13 2-in-1. The pint-size XPS convertible is fishing two eighth-generation Intel CPU options from Amber Lake: a Core i5-8200Y with a 1.3-GHz base clock and a 3.9-GHz peak Turbo speed, plus a Core i7-8500Y option with a 1.5-GHz base clock and a 4.2-GHz peak Turbo speed. Those options supplement the Kaby Lake Core i5-7Y54 and the Core i7-7Y75. ...Read more...

Acer's IFA onslaught continues with updates to its Aspire family of notebooks. At the top end of its lineup, the company has tapped Intel's Kaby Lake-G CPUs to power the Aspire 7 conventional notebook. This 15.6", all-metal machine has Core i7-8705G and Core i5-8305G CPU options, both paired with Radeon RX Vega M GL graphics. The i7-8705G has four cores and eight threads running at a 3.1-GHz base clock and a 4.1-GHz Turbo Boost peak, while the i5-8305G keeps the same core and thread count but drops back to a 2.8-GHz base clock and a 3.8-GHz peak speed. ...Read more...

Acer isn't saving all of its gaming-monitor fun for Nvidia graphics-card owners this morning. The company is also introducing a brand-new, high-end FreeSync display at IFA called the Nitro XV273K. This 27" panel offers a 4K resolution, 144-Hz refresh rates, and 90% DCI P3 coverage, just like its G-Sync sibling. The XV273K has one other trick up its sleeve for FreeSync users, though. A feature Acer calls Visual Response Boost reduces "moving picture response time" to a claimed 1 ms. ...Read more...