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More rumors concerning the purported GeForce GTX 1050 Ti are swirling about. Just like last time, someone over at ChipHell posted up some pictures of part of a retail package and the back of the card, as well as GPU-Z data and a 3DMark Fire Strike score.

Last week, a replacement Samsung Galaxy Note 7 issued through the company's recall program combusted on board a Southwest Airlines flight. That incident was just the first in a renewed round of bad news for the beleagured company, though. According to The Verge, four more replacement Note 7s have burned up since. In an apparent response to this renewed threat to consumers, Samsung has reportedly suspended production of the phone altogether, according to sources at Korean news agency Yonhap.The Verge says Samsung "has refused to confirm or deny" the Yonhap report , but United States wireless providers aren't waiting around for direction. Verizon , AT&T , and T-Mobile have all stopped selling the Galaxy Note 7 in the United States, ...Read more...

inXile Entertainment announced Wasteland 3 just a couple weeks ago, and very recently kicked off a crowdfunding campaign. Just three days after the campaign began, Wasteland 3 met its funding goal of $2.75 million and is beginning to push toward the stretch goals to add bonus content. At the time of writing, the campaign has passed $2.8 million with almost 25 days still left. This latest sequel to the long-running series sends the player and their party of Rangers to the previously-unexplored region of Colorado. Cooperative multiplayer is on the menu, too—a first for the series. ...Read more...

Cyberpunk sneaky-shooty game Deus Ex: Mankind Divided got another patch today. The new version, 1.9 build 582.1_P9, adds official support for the DirectX 12 API that's been in beta testing for a month. Developer Nixxes originally intended to fully launch the DX12 codepath on September 19, but as it turns out, that goal was a bit optimistic. ...Read more...

Now that the first Kaby Lake CPUs are out, everyone's got new versions of their toys to show off. Gigabyte is getting in on the fun by updating its popular Brix mini-PCs to the latest Intel processors. The company is debuting six new models based on three different Intel CPUs: the Core i3-7100U, Core i5-7200U, and Core i7-7500U. Each chip is getting a home in a corresponding pair of Brixes: one with room for a 2.5" storage device, and another, thinner version without. ...Read more...

Do you yearn for the simpler times of the mid-2000s, when anything from car wheels to stripper heels were just a little bit better if they were made from clear plastic? If so, Cooler Master has released the MasterKeys Pro L RGB Crystal Edition just for you. The Crystal Edition doesn't have both feet stuck in 2006, as oh-so-2016 RGB LEDs and Cherry MX Blue or Brown switches underpin the unprinted transparent keycaps. ...Read more...

If you want to build a home server or NAS with a whole bunch of redundant storage, Silverstone has the chassis for you. The CS380 case (from the company's "Case Storage Series") was originally shown last year as a micro-ATX concept design. Silverstone eventually decided to go bigger and presented the concept this year at CES, this time as a steel ATX mid-tower case of fairly standard dimensions and design. The interesting part of the case is its fan-cooled storage bay that can accept eight 3.5" or 2.5" devices in hot-swappable drive caddies. ...Read more...

The boutique workstation manufacturers and letter X enthusiasts at Boxx have announced the availability of the Apexx-series workstations packed with Nvidia Quadro P5000 and P6000 GPUs. For those unfamiliar with the Quadro nomenclature, the P5000 is based on the Pascal GP104 chip found in the GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080 cards. The even-faster Quadro P6000 employs the GP102 chip found in the 2016 GeForce GTX Titan X. ...Read more...

Good morning, fellow gerbils. We know you have a fever for hardware, and the cure for that is a good set of deals. We scoured the internet for the juiciest morsels, just for you. Here's what we found—have your credit card handy.That's all we got for today, folks. If you happened upon a good deal ...Read more...

If you're a game developer creating a game for multiple platforms—PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, usually—the last thing you want to do is give your PC gaming audience the notion that the game they're buying has been compromised to fit the needs of consoles. That's unfortunately just what developer Hangar 13 did with Mafia III. While the game isn't in the hands of players in many regions just yet, reviewers have started working with their copies. PC Gamer noticed pretty quickly that the 2K-published game is limited to a scant 30 FPS even on hardware that's worthy of much higher frame rates. ...Read more...

The PC gaming community has seen more that its fair share of discussion regarding VR's technical requirements and the implicit pricetags involved. Oculus' specs call on PCs to deliver a constant 90 FPS to its Rift headset (lest users throw up), which is a high bar to clear for the hardware in most people's homes. Those requirements may become more relaxed soon, however, thanks to Oculus' Asynchronous Spacewarp technology.Asynchronous Spacewarp purports to offer a 90-FPS-equivalent VR experience with only 45 FPS from the source hardware. The company says a machine fitted with an Intel Core i3-6100 or AMD FX 4350 CPU plus a GeForce GTX 960-class card should be up to that task. That lowers the price of ...Read more...

During Oculus' Connect conference keynote today, the company announced pricing and availability for its hand controllers, along with the infrastructure one will need to enjoy room-scale VR with its Rift headset. Oculus' long-awaited Touch controllers will be available December 6 of this year for $199, and pre-orders will commence October 10. ...Read more...

Kaby Lake isn't coming to desktop systems until sometime next year, but Asus has already released UEFI BIOS updates for 87 of its LGA 1151 consumer desktop motherboards in anticipation of Intel's "optimized" 14-nm CPU line. More of the company's motherboards are likely to receive firmware updates in the future to that end, as well. ...Read more...

Samsung has decided to join the AI assistant party with its purchase of California-based Viv Labs, whose staff includes members of the team that created Apple's Siri. The eventual product of this acquisition is a platform to compete with Amazon's Alexa and Google's recently announced Assistant. ...Read more...

Nvidia has released a new GeForce graphics driver to go along with a few high-profile game releases, as it does. This latest Game Ready driver supports Gears of War 4, tomorrow's Mafia III, and next week's Shadow Warrior 2. Also returning in this release is the SLI profile for Battlefield 1, after its brief exile in driver version 372.70. ...Read more...

Here at TR, we've long considered multi-GPU rendering something of a false grail for graphics-performance scaling. Potent multi-GPU cards like AMD's Radeon HD 7990 and R9 295 X2 have tended to deliver world-beating average frame rates in our testing, but our Inside the Second frame-time measures usually put a big fat asterisk next to those cards' numbers. That's because issues with consistent frame delivery have often made those CrossFire-on-a-stick cards feel much less smooth in practice than their astronomical frame rates might suggest.

Laptop manufacturers around the world have eagerly refreshed their lineups to include Nvidia's Pascal GPUs. Lured by the promise of desktop-class performance in a notebook, Asus, Gigabyte, and Aorus all announced Pascal-powered laptops on the same day. Now, boutique builder Falcon Northwest has updated its DRX and TLX notebooks with Nvidia's latest GPUs. ...Read more...

AMD has released a new set of drivers for its graphics cards that adds support for some of the biggest upcoming games. AMD's Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.10.1 brings support for Gears of War 4 and Mafia III, and adds a CrossFire profile for Shadow Warrior 2 in DirectX 11 mode. ...Read more...

The full specs for the ZenBook 3 have hit the web, courtesy of the product page on Asus' site. Folks have been comparing this 12.5" ultraportable favorably to Apple's MacBooks lately. Given the listed specs, it's not hard to see why. Even the baseline ZenBook's Kaby Lake Core i5-7200U CPU far outstrips the MacBook's Core m5, and the optional Core i7-7500U unitshould leave Apple's machine well in the dust. ...Read more...

The full specs for the ZenBook 3 have hit the web, courtesy of the product page on Asus' site. Folks have been comparing this 12.5" ultraportable favorably to Apple's MacBooks lately. Given the listed specs, it's not hard to see why. Even the baseline ZenBook's Kaby Lake Core i5-7200U CPU far outstrips the MacBook's Core m5, and the optional Core i7-7500U unitshould leave Apple's machine well in the dust. ...Read more...

Samsung's official recall-and-replacement program for its troubled Galaxy Note 7 phone is finally in full swing. Despite promises that the company has fixed the combustible battery issue at the root of the fiasco, however, it appears the Note 7 isn't out of the woods yet. According to reports from USA Today and The Verge, a passenger on a Southwest Airlines flight from Louisville, Kentucky noticed that his replaced Note 7 was smoking, causing the flight to be evacuated on the tarmac.Samsung threw water on the claim that the phone involved was a replacement model in a statement to USA Today, but photos of the phone's box obtained by The Verge from the owner of the device show that it is, in fact, ...Read more...

Greetings, artistic-minded gerbils everywhere. We have some goodies for you today, courtesy of Wacom. The digital art gear company is proudly showing off the MobileStudio Pro, the successor to its Cintiq lineup of art-oriented tablet PCs. Besides some nifty specs, the machines can be configured with an Intel RealSense R200 3D camera for scanning purposes. ...Read more...

Motorola has released a list of 15 phones that will receive an update to the Android 7.0 Nougat release (not Android 7.1). Most Motorola smartphones released in the last year will receive the OS update. Android Central points out a couple of notable exceptions to this generalization: July 2015's Moto G (3rd Gen) and July 2016's Moto E3 Power phones will be stuck with Android Marshmallow. ...Read more...

Like a tout at a county fair, Nvidia took the opportunity to announce that its free VR Funhouse carnival game simulator will support Oculus' Touch controllers at the VR headset manufacturer's Connect 3 developer conference in San Jose, California. The green team has also taken this opportunity to show off the two new mini-games it added to the VR experience: Wall Walker Toss and HotShot Basketball....Read more...

The problem with home Wi-Fi, as Google sees it, is that many people use a single router to provide coverage for an entire house. For too many users, walls, odd construction quirks, and distance conspire to create dead zones and slow down connection speeds. Yesterday, Google announced Google Wifi (sic), an expandable system of mesh routers intended to simplify and improve home Wi-Fi connections. ...Read more...

Peripheral designer SteelSeries is known for the sleek, stylish designs of its gaming gear. Today the company announced its new Arctis line of headsets, continuing that design legacy but without the price tag we're used to seeing on premium headsets. Despite the name, the Arctis 3, 5, and 7 are all 7.1-surround-sound headsets. All three pack the same pair of 40-mm neodymium drivers that the company uses in its more expensive headsets. SteelSeries claims these drivers "deliver a detailed, balanced soundscape with ultra low distortion." On top of that, the Arctis 5 and 7 offer DTS Headphone:X audio via USB. ...Read more...

CCP Games has released the first trailer for EVE: Gunjack 2 - End of Shift, the sequel to its 2015 VR shooter EVE: Gunjack. The first game in the series worked with the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Samsung Gear VR, but the sequel will be released exclusively for Google's newly announced Daydream VR. As of now, the Google Pixel is the only smartphone compatible with Google's new VR platform. Check out the video below....Read more...

Google's release of its first home-designed smartphone is making a few waves around the internet. A few journalists at today's Google event tried out the Pixel handset and came away fairly impressed. They also noticed an interesting detail: the Pixel is running Android 7.1. According to a report by The Verge, this marks the official announcement of the new version of Android. ...Read more...

Back at its I/O conference earlier this year, Google unveiled its own vision for a mobile VR reference platform called Daydream. That headset-and-remote concept wasn't actual hardware at the time, but the company has been hard at work since then transforming the idea into a product. ...Read more...

Google launched the Chromecast Ultra at the company's hardware event in San Francisco today. The new device supports 4K and HDR video streams in both HDR10 and Dolby Vision formats. Google says the Ultra can start 1080p video streams 1.8 times faster than the regular Chromecast, too. The majority of that speed boost comes by way of 802.11ac Wi-Fi connectivity. ...Read more...

If you've been following along Google's history of hardware, you could probably describe it as "checkered." The colorful company has made excellent devices like some Nexus tablets and phones, but some of its other efforts have been a little hit-or-miss. Google now claims to be "in it for the long run" and getting serious about the entire hardware and software stack. The first device born from this newfound focus is the Pixel phone. ...Read more...

Good morning or afternoon, everybody, whatever your case may be. It's Google special presentation time, and we expect to hear about a pair of new Pixel phones, at the very least. Google may also be announcing its own VR hardware and possibly even more gizmos. Whatever Google has to show us, we'll be here to see it....Read more...

We sort-of-thought the GTX 1080 was a done deal, and that everyone had shown their cards. As it turns out, Gigabyte's not done yet. The company has released another card, the GTX 1080 Turbo OC 8G. Unlike the rest of its stable of top-end GeForces, the new card wears a blower fan. Despite the airflow disadvantage this presents versus the other cards, the Turbo OC card is still rated for 1797 MHz boost clock in OC mode, and 1771 MHz in Gaming mode. ...Read more...

When we build PCs, we have just one goal in mind. No, not "build a working, powerful PC." The most important goal, of course, is hiding all the cables. To help solve that problem, EVGA announced this week that it will be giving away its PowerLink adapter to owners of its GeForce GTX 10-series cards who register their products through the company's website. That means both new owners and folks who bought their cards a while back can get in on the deal—at least, so long as EVGA has stock. ...Read more...

This week in lovely Barcelona, Spain, the Canalys Channels Forum is hosting representatives from virtually every major company in technology. AMD took the opportunity today to announce that HP and Lenovo are selling business-oriented desktops equipped with Bristol Ridge and Stoney Ridge-derived 7th-generation "PRO" APUs. ...Read more...

Cougar Gaming announced today its newest piece of hardware, the Revenger RGB gaming mouse. The Revenger purports to offer "absolute accuracy," and is the highest-DPI mouse in Cougar's lineup. Although the overall shape and look of this mouse are almost identical to Cougar's 500M and 550M mice, the Revenger has some surprises in store. ...Read more...

Owners of HTC's Vive VR headset now have a new source for Vive-compatible software, thanks to the HTC Viveport app store. Viveport first opened for Chinese Vive owners all the way back in April, and is now available to users in over 30 countries around the world. The store offers a variety of VR content including games, educational, and creative titles. ...Read more...

Most gerbils probably know Biostar more from its motherboards than anything else. We covered the company's high-end Racing brand before, but today that brand is getting a NUC-like mini-PC. The Racing P1 comes with a two-watt Atom x5-Z8350 SoC, 4 GB of soldered-down DDR3L-1600 memory, and 64GB of eMMC storage. ...Read more...

Kingston has released the HyperX Cloud Stinger, an affordable entry-level gaming headset in its popular HyperX product line. The Cloud Stinger sports a 50-mm speaker in each of its memory foam-lined ear cups. An adjustable steel slider mechanism attaches to those ear cups via a pair of 90° swivels. Kingston says the swivels allow more comfortable fit in long gaming sessions as well as making it easy to fold the headphones and put them away. ...Read more...

Kingston has released the HyperX Cloud Stinger, an affordable entry-level gaming headset in its popular HyperX product line. The Cloud Stinger sports a 50-mm speaker in each of its memory foam-lined ear cups. An adjustable steel slider mechanism attaches to those ear cups via a pair of 90° swivels. Kingston says the swivels allow more comfortable fit in long gaming sessions as well as making it easy to fold the headphones and put them away. ...Read more...

We've been hearing word through the grapevine that Nvidia is preparing more Pascal processors for upcoming graphics cards. A deleted post on ChipHell had a GPU-Z screenshot seemingly confirming the existence—and some of the specifications—of a GP107 chip that rumors say is bound for the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. Meanwhile, at the other end of the market, rumors abound regarding a GP102-based GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. ...Read more...

Alphacool is showing off the Eisbrecher, an addition to its radiator lineup, and an update to the Nexxxos GPX line of graphics card waterblocks. The Eisbrecher focuses on looking good and staying quiet, while the new GPX coolers bring the Nexxxos line up to date with support for some Nvidia 10-series cards. ...Read more...

Just the other day I was sitting at the corner of 79th and 1st, minding my own business, when somebody accuses me of doing shady deals. Must have been the trenchcoat that tipped'em off or something. Except I'm not selling drugs. I am doing some deals, but they aren't in any way shady. In fact, come over here, see what I have to show you.There's a chance you're looking for a deal on something we didn't feature here. 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 ...Read more...

Thermaltake's latest Engine 27 CPU cooler uses a radial fin arrangement to cool CPUs with 70W TDPs in a low-profile package that fits in a 1U server chassis. The "Engine 27" comes from its its 27-mm (1.06") height. The heatsink's contact plate is made from nickel-plated copper, while the aluminum heatsink fins are arranged around a 60-mm fan with 40 blades. Thermaltake claims the aluminum fan construction allows heat transfer into the fan itself. ...Read more...

Swiss computing peripheral juggernaut Logitech announced the C922 Pro Stream webcam as a successor to its popular C920 Pro model. The C922 is capable of recording or streaming 1080p video at 30 Hz, or 720p at 60 Hz. Performance-obsessed streamers can relax in the knowledge that the camera's onboard H.264 video compression should help reduce CPU utilization while recording. On the audio front, the C922 packs a pair of omni-directional noise-cancelling microphones for stereo audio recording. ...Read more...

Today MSI announced that it's issuing BIOS updates for all of its Intel 100-series motherboards to add support for the company's upcoming Kaby Lake CPUs. Leaks and rumors aside, this bit of news from MSI is the first official confirmation we've had that the Kaby Lake desktop chips will be using the same LGA 1151 socket as used by Skylake CPUs.The rumor mill says Intel is preparing a new 200-series chipset to go with Kaby Lake's launch, as well. Assuming that's true, it's possible that using a Kaby Lake CPU on 100-series boards may cause builders to miss out on any of the new features in that platform, ...Read more...

Razer is revamping its line of Kraken headsets in time for this fall's big rush of games. The company's engineers are bringing bigger audio drivers, a new body design, and some other tweaks aimed at the competitive gaming scene to both the Razer Kraken V2 and the Razer Kraken 7.1 V2. ...Read more...

Remember those flashy Corsair Vengeance LED memory modules? In case you missed the news, Corsair once again sells RAM with—yes—LEDs on top, this time with DDR4 memory chips inside. The first Vengeance LED release included modules with red LEDs (to match all that red-and-black gamer gear) and another version with white LEDs. Perhaps sensing an underserved market, Corsair now has memory with blue LEDs available, too. ...Read more...

Adata announced today the SX8000, a new M.2 SSD in its XPG lineup of performance drives aimed at gamers looking for a fast storage solution. The SX8000 is a NVMe 1.2-certified drive based on a Silicon Motion SMI2260 controller coupled with 3D MLC NAND flash memory. ...Read more...