Techreport

There have been multiple unconfirmed reports in several corners of the internet about the battery life on the 2016 Macbook Pros being lower than expected. Now, non-profit magazine Consumer Reports (CR) has posted a notice stating that it will not recommend the new machines. The magazine found that the laptops' battery duration varied wildly during testing and was often much shorter than expected, even after installing the macOS Sierra 10.12.2 update.Initial reports of the problem could be interpreted as a UI issue, since macOS would offer a remaining-time estimate instead of a percentage amount. This method can lead to over-confident estimates given that the machine's usage pattern ...Read more...

The smartwatch market is in a state of flux, but that's not stopping Google. The company is involved in the development of two flagship smartwatches in the first quarter of 2017, said Android Wear Product Manager Jeff Chang, in an interview with The Verge. These new devices will be the first to receive the Android Wear 2.0 operating system and the new features that come along with it. ...Read more...

It's that time of year again—time for the annual Steam Winter Sale. This deals-fest puts countless games on deep discount, including many of this year's most popular and most critically-acclaimed titles. The sale lasts up through January 2, so you can wait until that sweet Christmas cash starts rolling in before you start buying. ...Read more...

Greetings, fellow gerbils. It is with a heavy heart that we must inform you that the TR Santa won't be making any more deliveries. We received a note from the North Pole simply saying, "I'm too old for this (unreadable)," with a picture of Detective Murtaugh wearing a Santa hat. We fear our giveaways have been cut short, folks.Wait, what's this? We've been handed a large FedEx package, and it contains... a postcard. It's written in single-letter cutouts and just says "gotcha, suckers!" Sheesh, as if we didn't have enough wiseacres around here already. Let's dig deeper in the bag. Ooh, shiny! ...Read more...

Michael Larabel over at Phoronix keeps plugging away at testing the performance of PC hardware under Linux, and he's presented the open-source community with quite a holiday present: a comparison of OpenGL gaming performance of 31 different AMD and Nvidia graphics cards. In almost all cases, the Nvidia cards deliver superior performance to their standard AMD adversaries,

As the gamers in our audience know, multiple CPU cores help the most when software is written to take advantage of them. The fine folks at Mozilla have been working feverishly to improve multi-process support in the foundation's Firefox web browser, and today's Firefox 50 release represents a big step towards this goal. The Foundation says the improved support for multiple processes should make the browser more responsive, secure, and stable. ...Read more...

The Winter update for Civilization VI is now live, bringing new features alongside a variety of smaller fixes that promise to improve the gameplay experience. On top of this free update, Firaxis also released a pair of DLC packs that bring new civilizations with their own leaders and natural wonders....Read more...

Stanford University's Folding@Home client has been broken on GeForces since the release of the 373.06 drivers back on October 6, forcing fans of the distributed computing project to stick to older driver versions. Nvidia just issued GeForce hotfix driver 376.48 to address that problem. The driver set includes a workaround to fix the Folding@Home client, although it doesn't explain exactly what was causing the issue.Besides the folding fix, the new driver should resolve "random flashes" in Just Cause 3 , graphic corruption in Wargame: Red Dragon , and a couple of issues with Battlefield 1 . Since this ...Read more...

Evening's greetings and all that, dear gerbils. As we're sure you're aware by now, it's that time of the day when we await with bated breath for another delivery from the TR Santa to offer to an unsuspecting (or expectant) gerbil. We have our cameras pointed at the sky and... what's that? Northern lights? But this isn't exactly the place to... oh, wait, the lights are resolving to what appears a bright circle with a Santa head outlined in the middle. This is eerily familiar, but we can't quite pin it.We can spot the sled now, even in this dark sky. Santa apparently has a new paintjob, and he appears to have gotten himself a cape, too. The reindeer, meanwhile, all have dark leather armor, surely because of the cold. The sled's coming in pretty hot, though, and it's zipping past us! He's dropped a ...Read more...

If you haven't used VR, you could be forgiven for wondering why people invest so much time and money in technologies like 360-degree treadmills and spinny chairs. The thing is, physically moving around while in VR is a tricky prospect. Do it wrong, and it's disorienting; do it wrong enough and it's potentially nauseating. Software developer Cool Font thinks it has an answer for this conundrum in its PocketStrafe software. Load the app on your phone and your PC, stick your phone in your pocket, and start moving around. The app uses the phone's motion sensors to transmit positioning information to the PC....Read more...

If you use a mechanical keyboard around other people, chances are you've gotten at least one complaint about the noise. If folks around you can't bear the tak-tak-takking of your flitting fingers, keep an eye out for keyboards using Cherry's Silent MX keyswitches. Formerly exclusive to Corsair's Strafe RGB keyboard, the switches are now openly available stateside in Black and Red varieties. They're also available with clear switch housings for LED-backlit keyboards. ...Read more...

Thermaltake loves to add RGB LEDs to computer parts. The company already offers a power supply with an RGB LED-illuminated fan inside it, but it's now bringing rainbow-lit PSUs to a more affordable price point with its new Toughpower Grand RGB series. The new power supplies are available in 650W, 750W, and 850W varieties. All mobiles sport 256-color Thermaltake Riing 14 140-mm fans, fully modular cabling, and carry 80 Plus Gold certification. ...Read more...

Someone over in Dell's marketing department let the cat out of the bag a little early, then tried to stuff if back in. According to VideoCardz, the product page for a refreshed Dell XPS 15 9650 went live for a short time yesterday before someone replaced it with a generic placeholder. The now-absent spec sheet showed some predictable information, like the replacement of Skylake CPUs with Kaby Lake models. The now-gone product page had a bonus nugget, just in time for the holidays: the laptop will sport the as-of-now-unannounced Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 mobile graphics card with up to 4GB of graphics memory. ...Read more...

The magic of VR is its ability to transport us to new worlds and make us feel like we're really there. Any hitches to the VR experience, be it cords, lag, or a mischevious onlooker, can take us right out of the experience. It stands to reason, then, that all three of the major VR headsets are wired because they have to be. UploadVR had a chance to look at TPCast's wireless Vive kit, built in collaboration with HTC, and came away impressed. According to the site, wireless VR seems to really work. ...Read more...

Good afternoon, gerbils! The TR Santa was feeling quite cheery yesterday, and we have the cameras pointed at the snow in the distance, hoping he'll arrive with a smile again. Although, hm, it's been a while since the appointed time. We have to wonder if the reindeer didn't run out of pixie dust on the way here.Hold on, I think we can spot something in the distance, and it looks like... a moving box? Scratch that, it's several moving boxes, apparently just sliding across the snow. They're coming closer now, and I think we can hear some giggling. Oh dear, Santa sent his elves walking all the way from the North ...Read more...

Good afternoon, gerbils! The TR Santa was feeling quite cheery yesterday, and we have the cameras pointed at the snow in the distance, hoping he'll arrive with a smile again. Although, hm, it's been a while since the appointed time. We have to wonder if the reindeer didn't run out of pixie dust on the way here.Hold on, I think we can spot something in the distance, and it looks like... a moving box? Scratch that, it's several moving boxes, apparently just sliding across the snow. They're coming closer now, and I think we can hear some giggling. Oh dear, Santa sent his elves walking all the way from the North ...Read more...

The first update to AMD's Radeon ReLive software is here, in the form of the recently-released version 16.12.2. This new version can be described as a bugfix release, but in that regard, it's quite a big one. Major problems fixed include driver installation failures, issues with FreeSync on games in borderless fullscreen mode, and a problem with Chrome not being able to use accelerated VP9 decoding. ...Read more...

Crytek's been having a rough time of it lately. While the company's free-to-play shooter Warface has been a success in Eastern Europe and Asia, its last big-name title releast in the west, Ryse: Son of Rome, wasn't exactly a smash hit. (Reviews of the PC version are pretty good, though!) Crytek's biggest product, the hyper-advanced CryEngine V, has also faced stiff competition from Unreal Engine 4. Now, the company has issued a terse press release that says the company will be closing the majority of its development houses to "refocus on its core strengths." ...Read more...

Graphics card manufacturers might be sensing a developing retro craze in video cards. About a month ago, we reported on an Asus GeForce GTX 1060 card built using an older DirectCU II cooler. Now Gigabyte is doing its own spin on the new-card-old-cooler concept with its GeForce GTX 1080 G1 Rock graphics card. The new Rock Edition card is built using the GTX 1080 WindForce OC card's PCB design, coupled with the older Windforce 3X cooler last seen on the company's GeForce GTX 980 Ti. ...Read more...

G.Skill has its ticket into the RGB-LED-illuminated memory party with the Trident Z RGB Series memory modules. The company says the Trident Z RGB DIMMs require "no additional power connections," though it doesn't mention precisely how the LEDs are controlled. Nevertheless, the results look fairly good as these things go. The DDR4 memory sticks will be available in speeds up to a massive 4266 MT/s....Read more...

It seems Intel's upcoming Kaby Lake processors will continue the tradition of using thermal compound rather than solder or liquid metal under the integrated heatspreader. Over at the Anandtech forums, users "Chrisch" and "RichUK" have popped the tops on purported samples of Intel's Core i7-7700K processors to apply aftermarket thermal compound with great success. Chrisch achieved 5 GHz with his popped chip, while RichUK got 5.3 GHz out of his. That's a pretty nice step up from the chip's rumored 4.2 GHz base and 4.5 GHz Turbo speeds. After delidding their CPUs, both RichUK and Chrisch saw drops in max core temperature on the order of 25° C, too. RichUK says that after a pass of Intel Burn Test at 5.1 GHz with a 1.376V core voltage, his core temperature never exceeded 72° C.

Samsung announced yesterday that it's refreshing its flagship Notebook 9 laptops in 13" and 15" sizes with Intel's Kaby Lake processors, just in time for the new year. The machines offers up a new look this time around (compared to the version unveiled back in January), alongside a few other features in an otherwise-standard lineup refresh. ...Read more...

Samsung announced yesterday that it's refreshing its flagship Notebook 9 laptops in 13" and 15" sizes with Intel's Kaby Lake processors, just in time for the new year. The machines offers up a new look this time around (compared to the version unveiled back in January), alongside a few other features in an otherwise-standard lineup refresh. ...Read more...

Howdy, gerbils! When we contacted the TR Santa asking for today's delivery, he sounded unusually cheery, especially in light of how surly he's been in the past few days. No matter, he should be arriving soon, and we have the cameras ready for the big moment. Here he comes, the flying sled is swerving a tad, and not going as fast as usual, and we see some wisps of smoke coming from the carriage. He's put the sled down, assuming one can call that a landing. We'll meet him up there and report back.Okay, that was odd. He was suspiciously happy despite the long trip. Rudolph was too, and I can't wonder if the redness in his eyes is just reflection from his light-up nose. Santa also didn't quite "partake" from the cookies we offered—he guzzled the whole thing down in what must have been three seconds flat, leaving with a beard-full of crumbs. ...Read more...

Nintendo first showed its upcoming Switch console back in October, but provided little technical information beyond confirming the rumors that the machine would carry an ARM-based Nvidia SoC at its heart. Eurogamer now claims to have info on the Switch's system specifications, including the critical CPU and GPU clocks of the Nvidia SoC that powers the unit. ...Read more...

Microsoft's DirectX 12 API gets more popular every day. The latest AAA title to add support for Redmond's low-level graphics API is Ubisoft's The Division. German hardware site Computer Base took some time over the weekend to run some performance analysis comparing different combinations of DX11 or DX12, Intel Core i7-6700K and AMD FX-8370 CPUs, and four different graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD. Roughly put, the results show that performance in The Division with DX12 is improved with all hardware combinations except for the Intel Core i7-6700K with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1060. ...Read more...

It's no secret that Microsoft has ambitions to lower the barrier to entry for PC VR experiences through reduced PC hardware requirements and affordable tethered VR headsets. According to Tom's Hardware, the company has now released more concrete information regarding the specifications of these upcoming cheaper head-mounted displays, designated as "Mainstream HMD (Low End)," as well as a higher-end variant predictably named "High End." The main difference between the low-end sets and the more expensive units is the refresh rate, which has been reduced from 90 Hz to a potentially smearier 60 Hz. ...Read more...

Greetings and good afternoon, gerbils. We're gathered here for today's edition of TR's 12 days of giveaways. Yes, yes, we know you're cheering loudly, begging for the TR Santa to show up. Let's use our long-range camera to take a peek. That's odd, there's no sign of Santa, and we see but a single reindeer. Judging by the nose, that's surely Rudolph, but he looks... grumpy? He's walking on his hind legs, has a cigarette in his mouth and he's apparently gone four days without shaving. His bloodshot eyes look none too friendly, either.He's closer now, and looks like he's carrying... nothing? This is getting weirder by the second, folks. He's probably a hundred yards away, and he's starting to spin. He's throwing something at us, like an olympic shot putter. The object's flying over, and he's arcing one of his front legs in a ...Read more...

Colorful isn't a company known for having a design department that follows Dieter Rams' school of thought. But perhaps the graphics card maker is onto something with its crazy designs, and it's just added another one to its arsenal: the "iGameGTX1070 X-TOP-8G Advanced Limited" graphics card. If you'll pardon us, we'll refer to it as iGame, for short.

Remember that Thermaltake Core P3 wall-mounted case? The open nature of its design means it offered lots of airflow, which is exactly what you need for a purely-passive cooling system. Calyos is bringing its full silent-cooling expertise to bear on the Core P3 with a special "NSG" passive cooling module that attaches to the back of the workbench-like chassis. The company says the NSG module can dissipate up to a whopping 400W of heat.

Howdy, gerbils! We're a little over a week away from Christmas, and you know what that means. Shopping rushes, the smell of eggnog all around, and more blinkenlights than you can shake an RGB LED keyboard at. Of course, being a member of the techie commitee, you'd never stoop so low as to actually go out and shop, right? Staying at home, clicking a few buttons, and seeing the goodies pop up at your doorstep a couple days later is much more fun. Let's see what's available with just a few clicks, shall we?That's all for today, folks. If we missed any deals, ...Read more...

MSI has taken the short jump from selling laptops and all-in-one machines to selling stand-alone monitors. The company's Optix G27C is a 27" 1920x1080 gaming monitor with a 144-Hz refresh rate and a 1.8m curvature radius. The Samsung VA panel inside offers 178° viewing angles. The black-and-red color scheme should fit in nicely next to one of MSI's boldly-styled Aegis gaming desktop systems. ...Read more...

Beyerdynamic, the high-end headphone maker hailing from Heilbronn, Germany, has allowed a sneak peek at a pair of new gaming-focused headsets in advance of a formal unveiling at CES 2017. The Custom Game headset is a modular set of cans that appears to be focused at content creators who also game on their PCs, while the revised MMX 300 headset is more gaming-oriented and ready to use with PCs or consoles. ...Read more...

Samsung announced last week that it would be rolling out an update for the few remaining Galaxy Note 7 phones that would disable its wireless radios and ability to recharge. Verizon, after initially refusing to pass along the update to its customers, has now reversed its stance and will be rolling it out early next year on January 5, 2017. ...Read more...

Ho ho ho... and a bottle of rum after this, probably. These darn kids are making me come back day after day packing all this stuff. I swear, in all my years as a Santa, I've never had to deal with such incessant begging for computer parts. Back in my day, we'd be happy to get an abacus. On top of that, they want me to deliver this to... gerbils, of all things? What are they going to do with these, use those "chips" to make a nest? Whatever, I've given up on understanding today's youth. Things were simpler back then, I'd just fly around, deliver some wooden cubes with letters, and kick back eggnogg with Rudolph. There, the bag's down, it's their problem now.[Camera pan] ...Read more...

CES is only three weeks away, folks, and tech companies are starting to talk about what they'll be showing in lovely Las Vegas. For its part, LG will be showing off the 32UD99, a 32-inch 4K IPS monitor that the company says supports the HDR10 display standard. ...Read more...

The latest beta of the Unity game engine is now available. Version 5.6 packs some interesting goodies: support for the Vulkan API and Google Daydream VR, in addition to a host of more fine-grained technical features. Vulkan support is the headlining feature, and Unity claims developers can get "a rendering performance improvement out-of-the-box up to 60%" without getting into the nitty-gritty details of the Vulkan API. Unity's Vulkan support is cross-platform, too. The beta version currently running on Windows, Linux, and Android. The company says Samsung's Tizen OS will also be supported in the final release. We're sure at least two people on Earth are excited about that last bit. ...Read more...

Howdy, gerbils! As we're sure you're aware, TR's 12 days of giveaways have just started. Besides handing out community awards (the first of which was offered yesterday), we'll also be giving away prizes by random draw. Between the community prizes and random draws, we have roughly $4,500 of hardware to give away. How's that for a hardware giveaway?Fill out the form below and answer the question in it, and you stand a chance of getting some sweet hardware in the mail during the coming weeks, courtesy of the TR Santa. Don't worry, we won't be using your information for any ...Read more...

Asus has been toying with the concept of external boxes for desktop graphics cards for laptops for a long time. The company has been showing the ROG XG Station 2 at trade shows since its January 2016 CES debut. A second peek at the XG Station 2 at Computex this past summer revealed that the proprietary connector had been replaced with a Thunderbolt 3 port. Now, Asus has now announced final specifications and a release window for the external graphics dock.The final revision of the XG Station 2 retains the Thunderbolt 3 connector, but augments that 40 Gbps link with an extra USB Type-B connection for increased bandwidth between the host machine and the Station. The dock can be connected and ...Read more...

PC case and cooling purveyor Cooltek announced this week its newest case, the TG-01. This chassis' release marks the company's entry into the tempered-glass chassis market. Besides the now-common glass panel on the left side of the case, the TG-01 offers a front panel with a tempered-glass sheet sitting in front of three LED-lit fans. ...Read more...

Ho ho ho! That sound means the TR Santa is arriving, and he's got a lumpy, sort-of-squarish bag on his shoulder. Wait, he's getting closer... yes, that's correct, it looks like he's carrying a big box of some sort. He's stepping closer, a bit huffy, probably tired from all the exertion. He's dropped the bag on the snow with a thump and looks none too happy, so we'll just, uh, take it from here. Yes, thank you Santa, bye Santa, please don't put coal in our stockings.Okay, let's open the bag. Ooh, what's this? Antec? That's always a good label to see on hardware. It's... a fancy-looking case, and a power supply! The bundle ...Read more...

Do you pine for the glory days of 16-bit gaming? Your newswriter here was a Sega kid, but if you're dearly missing the Super Nintendo, Hyperkin Labs has the keyboard for you. Named the "Hyper Clack Tactile Mechanical Keyboard," this USB mechanical keyboard uses Gaote Blue tactile keyswitches and comes in a retro-style color scheme that's reminiscent of the U.S. edition of the old Super Nintendo console. ...Read more...

The folks at the Asus labs had a sound idea. The company revised its Xonar U7 7.1 USB sound card and labeled it the Xonar U7 MkII, in true audiophile fashion. The box delivers playback at a 192kHz sampling rate with 24-bit resolution, and this time around it's powered by a C-Media 6632AX chip. A built-in headphone amplifier helps the unit drive high-end cans without breaking a sweat. ...Read more...

Nvidia's driver team has a fresh new release, but it doesn't include the usual grab-bag of optimizations and features. Instead, the GeForce 376.33 drivers focus primarily on security. This release fixes multiple low-level security vulnerabilities, including one that could allow a rogue piece of software to gain administrator access in Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 machines. Nvidia addressed a handful of other issues, including a video corruption problem that occurred when users attempted to watch two YouTube videos at the same time in the Chrome browser.Other issues remain unresolved, like Dead Rising 4 crashing when launched with the low or medium graphics presets enabled. Nvidia also disabled the SLI profile for ...Read more...

Greetings, fellow gerbils. 'Tis the season of giving, and you know what that means: gifts for you. There were supposed to be three wise men, but since there are none to be found among the TR staff, you're unfortunately stuck with us. Common tradition also dictates the offerings should be given in reverence, but we also have our own standards to uphold, and so we shall be a little silly about it—for varying amounts of "a little."The season's traditional offerings are of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Thankfully, the market for essential oils and aromatic resins is good enough that we ...Read more...

Asus' routers generally enjoy a good reputation, and the product line keeps expanding. The latest entry is the BRT-AC828 router, a device targeted at small businesses but packing a number of features that may interest gerbils with unique networking needs. The AC828's highlights include dual gigabit Ethernet WAN ports, 802.11ac Wi-Fi with a 4x4 antenna array and MIMO support, and a built-in M.2 slot for service as a miniature NAS. ...Read more...

Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe has been with the company since its inception, having launched its original Kickstarter project alongside co-founder Palmer Luckey back in 2012. Now, with the Rift headset and Touch controllers on the market, Iribe is looking to get back to basics. The Oculus CEO announced on the company's blog this week that his charge will be splitting into separate PC and mobile groups, and that he'll be stepping down as CEO to "dive back into engineering and product development" as head of the PC division. Former Microsoft and Qualcomm exec Jon Thomason will lead the mobile side of things. Meanwhile, the search is on for a new leader for Oculus itself. ...Read more...

If you read our peripherals guide back in October, you're already aware of the Cooler Master MasterMouse Pro L. As it happens, the L in the name stands for "Large." Some folks like a miniature mouse, though, and to that end Cooler Master is now offering a downsized version called the MasterMouse S. The new rodent measures in at 4.6" x 2.5" x 1.5" (or 11.7 x 6.4 x 3.8 cm). ...Read more...

NVMe storage is the must-have Christmas item this year. Go into a Macy's or Dillard's and I suspect you will have a hard time finding an M.2 storage device on the shelf. Corsair has pushed its lineup of its Force Series MP500 drives into this hot market segment, in 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB capacities. ...Read more...

A while back, Adata announced the Ultimate series of SSDs as the 3D NAND-equipped versions of its budget Premier SSD series. We already reviewed the SU800 and found it to be a pretty good value, with strong real-world performance. Now, Adata has launched the Ultimate SU900, the high-end model in the series. The SU900 SATA SSDs take the same Silicon Motion 2258 controller present in the SU800s, but Adata pairs it with 3D MLC flash memory in order to achieve superior durability. ...Read more...