General Gaming Article |
- John McAfee: We are 20-Years Behind China and Russia
- Newegg Daily Deals: Corsair Gaming K95 Mechanical Keyboard, Toshiba 3TB HDD, and More!
- Amazon Jacks Up Free Shipping Minimum to $49 for Non-Prime Shoppers
- Corsair Announces Void Line of Headsets for Multi-Platform Gamers
- HTC Vive Headset Pre-Orders Kick Off February 29 for $799, Ships in April
- Asus G752VT-DH72 Review
| John McAfee: We are 20-Years Behind China and Russia Posted: 22 Feb 2016 02:43 PM PST We had the chance to talk to John McAfee, computer security legend, about the issue surrounding the FBI and Apple. In case you weren't aware, the FBI and the DOJ have now demanded that Apple create a version of iOS that contains a backdoor, so that the iPhone belonging to the San Bernardino shooters can be hacked Apple has publicly stated that this undermines the very technologies that protect people and the country as a whole. John McAfee is also running for president, as a Libertarian.  McAfee founded several companies, including McAfee Antivirus—the first antivirus—which is now part of Intel Security. Recently, McAfee made a public statement that he would hack the iPhone for free and give the FBI the data they're demanding, so that Apple doesn't have to create a backdoor. We talk to John about the issues more deeply. The full conversation via phone call is transcribed below: Tuan: Why is the FBI not hacking the iPhone itself? Why does it need Apple to do it? McAfee: I don't believe the FBI has the capacity to do so. I think our government is illiterate in cybersecurity for the following reasons: Number one, it's become a massive bureaucracy, where no one is ever fired—you're just promoted. And the technology departments are out of date; they do not keep up with changing technology. And they have a life time job so, why should they care? Number two, they will not hire the only people who can help them; that is the hackers of the world. And why? Have you ever been to Defcon or Hack Miami or any hacking group? Well you see what people look like. Mohawks a half mile high, pierced ears, face tattoos. And every one of them is going to demand that they smoke weed on the job. Now, the government isn't going to hire those people. But I promise you, if you went to China, or Russia, and knocked on the doors of the Kremlin or the equivalent in China, and said, "I'm the world's greatest hacker, will you hire me," they'll say absolutely! And you say "Well wait a minute, I need to smoke weed," they'll say "Perfect, we'll put you in the basement and you can smoke as much as you want." Why? Because they're smart! We're stupid. We want everybody to look like the bureaucracy. To wear a three-piece suit, polish your shoes, blue tie, and look and act like everyone else. Well that's not hacking. And that is not creative. And it does not create a society that can keep up. We're twenty years behind the Russians and Chinese. Tuan: In terms of salary, is a $500K a year salary that Russia and China might be spending on a hacker or something that can be accepted as fact? McAfee: You can definitely set that as fact. Most of the hackers who attend Defcon, the white hat hackers, make their living from hiring themselves out to corporations who don't care what they look like, as long as they can tell [the companies] what the problems in their systems are [laughs]. So, yeah that's a hard number. Yeah, you can bet that the Russians and the Chinese are paying that. You pay the going rate for the commodity that you're buying. If you want oil, you've got to pay the going rate. If you want a true hacker that is a talented natural born hacker, someone who has innate perceptions, someone who can look at a screen full of ones and zeros and say, "oh, that's such and such and such," well, one person in a million can do that. So, yeah, they get what they want. Tuan: So do you think the Russians and Chinese already have the tools to decrypt the iPhone? McAfee: That's common knowledge in the hacking community—absolutely. And not just decrypt the phone! The Chinese and Russians have the ability to bring our society to its knees. With the push of a button, the Chinese can terminate our electrical production and put us permanently without power. This is a known fact in the hacking community. We are so far behind that it's incomprehensible that we still call ourselves a world power. Tuan: I read your piece on the OPM mission, and it said that the other countries easily penetrated our security systems. Out of all the possibilities, how high of a priority would it be to get access to our phones? McAfee: I would say that it's extremely high. And in fact, I guarantee you, that the Chinese and Russians are praying on their knees now, that Apple gives in. In fact, they probably would pay a hundred billion dollars to Tim Cook to cave in. Why? Because it would get them total access, total control, to everything in America. Now the FBI thinks that they have it. But the FBI and the NSA don't even have the data reduction capacity. Sure they can tap everybody's phone, but there's so much data they can't refine and use it. Trust me. The Chinese can. They're that far ahead. So, they would love for Apple to cave in. They would love for a federal judge to say, "Yes, [Apple], do this," because that means they just won the cyberwar. Why? Because every man and woman in America, carries [a smartphone]. Tuan: So the smartphone seems like the ultimate dormant weapon to America and its citizens. What about PCs? McAfee: Well you know, they're kind of going away aren't they? I haven't seen a personal computer in years [laughs]. Seriously, I do all my writing on my smartphone, I do everything on my smartphone. It's got more memory than my personal computer, it runs faster, and I can put it in my pocket. [PCs] are going away. Tuan: A recent 2000-page omnibus budget bill was announced at the end of 2015, but it contained the text of the Cybersecurity Information Act of 2015, about 1729 pages in. Why is there so much focus on internal spying and not security improvements? McAfee: That's because our government has become paranoid and sick and twisted. We have become the enemy. We are the enemy to the government. If you don't believe me, why don't you take a trip from wherever you are, to, some distant city, through the TSA, and while you're standing there with your belt in your hands and your shoes off, and your belongings are being closely scrutinized, and you have your hands in the air waiting to be frisked, you ask yourself—do you feel you're being protected? Or do you feel like, you're the enemy? Oh my god! I feel like the enemy. Therefore, we must be the enemy. Tuan: iPhone versus a major bank. Which is harder to hack? McAfee: A major bank? Tuan: Yeah. McAfee: A bank is probably easier because you've got more people to deal with in terms of social engineering. If you've got a hundred people, well, you can hack a bank in half an hour, if you've got a good social engineering team. The one iPhone belonging to a dead person, well, that takes a little bit longer. Tuan: Is the iPhone more secure than an Android phone? McAfee: Absolutely not. It's a closed architecture, how can it possibly be secure? History has proven over and over that closed architectures are ultimately the most insecure. You don't have enough people watching, that's the problem. Tuan: What about online services like Netflix, Amazon, and Steam? McAfee: Uh... I don't subscribe to those services for the very reason, that, I do value my privacy, and I do not want someone watching me. Tuan: Can I send you my iPhone for your team to decrypt? McAfee: No sir. We are so busy, we're running a campaign. I'd be happy to do it for half a million dollars, but no. Tuan: [Laughs] So you've said that Apple shouldn't put backdoors into the operating system. On the other hand, if your team is able to extract the data from the phone, couldn't the FBI simply ask your team to hand over the software you created? McAfee: We don't create any software [to hack the iPhone]. We use tools, standard tools to analyze and take phones apart. We don't write new software for that; we don't have the ability. We don't have Apple's source code. We don't have um, we would need Apple's programmers and engineers in order to write a backdoor. So, we're using standard tools. Here, let's say you have a Chevy and it breaks down. You take a mechanic, he throws some spare parts in it, and it's fixed. That's not like asking Chevy to redesign [the car] to do 300 miles an hour. Tuan: In your original post, you talked about social engineering your way into the iPhone. Would that mean you might try to breach Apple corporate itself, or would you go after— McAfee: Oh lord no. We would talk to his friends, contacts, acquaintances and so on—we would talk to those people. We would talk to them, because a person doesn't have to be alive to be socially engineered. He still has friends, contacts, relatives, that together, provide a great deal of information. Frequently we get a password from someone in a dinner conversation, and it's trivial. Social engineering is easy, and it's a first step. It also helps out the software engineers, and knowing which direction to go. Tuan: You mentioned that the FBI and the government are unwilling to be open minded and hire hackers, paying their asking salaries. What about Stuxnet, wasn't that US-developed? McAfee: It was. But we have a different thing. Stuxnet is old technology, and it was a single network. We're talking about a device, a cellphone, which everybody—we all carry the computers with us, we all carry a "Stuxnets" in our pockets. And that includes government agents, the defense department, spies, everybody. We have them. And to mess with backdoors on something which every human has, is beyond belief. And Stuxnet was written by contractors, not by the US government. Tuan: Today's programmers seem to be chasing the next big app, the next Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder... Do you think this is happening because developing a unicorn app has the promise of huge monetary rewards and therefore there are fewer programmers working on security? McAfee: Well I mean you can create an app that is a security app. I write security apps and they're reasonable popular. There's nothing wrong with kids going after money. Nothing. But you need to understand something. The money today, is in security products, you have to believe me. I mean, it's a supply and demand thing. You know, you have a few security products, and a great need, and smart app developers can develop security products. Tuan: There seems like there's a big gap in terms of America's cyber-warfare capabilities. You're running for president, but it seems like cybersecurity is a non-partisan issue. What sort of advice would you give to the Democrat and Republican nominees? McAfee: I would give them minus numbers! Here's an example. I explained the Apple situation, that backdoors are the worst things we could ever do. We stopped using backdoors in the nineties—for anything, any purpose whatsoever. Because hackers immediately got access to them, and caused havoc. He wants to boycott Apple, to force Apple to put backdoors in their software. And he's running for president! It shows, an unbelievable lack of understanding, of the technology of cybersecurity. In a world where if you do not understand that, and we are approaching a cyberwar, why are you running for president? Tuan: When you say he, you mean Donald Trump? McAfee: Yes, I said Trump. Did I not? Yeah. Trump. Tuan: He's been very vocal about forcing Apple to create a backdoor. McAfee: That just shows you he doesn't understand. He's very short sighted. Maybe that will help the FBI catch more terrorists. But it will bring America to its knees in the face of its enemies. Tuan: There aren't really good formal ways of learning about security. For example, even the virtuosos of music were able to take piano lessons or violin lessons. McAfee: Oh, absolutely yes! You know, I was self taught. I mean, I have a degree. I have an honorary doctorate even in mathematics. But when I went to school, they didn't have computer science courses. They didn't exist. The computers didn't exist. I was self taught. And, I believe that this is the way to go. Because good heavens, we have the Internet. If you want to specialize in something, a school isn't going to provide that for you, in the field of computer science and cyber security. Go after your love. Read. Practice. Talk to people. I've mentored hundreds, literally hundreds of people, who came to me and said, "I'm getting a computer science degree from Stanford. I still feel like I don't know anything, can you advise me?" I say absolutely, sure. You know, computer science is still an art. It really is not a science, I wish it was. But it's an art. A very complex art form. And you need to know how to use a wide variety of brushes and palettes. And schools don't teach that. You've got just a smattering of everything and an understanding of nothing. Tuan: So what sort of advice would you give a school kid out there who's interested in learning about cyber security? McAfee: Study psychology first. Learn neurolinguistic programming. It has nothing to do with computers, but it really does—it has everything to do with hacking and security in the modern world, because ninety-nine percent of hacks are human-engineering hacks. I know great hackers who can't code. Literally. Tuan: What? McAfee: Because they're strictly human-engineering. It's the easiest thing in the world. I mean, some of the ideas they come up with are brilliant. The most brilliant is one they call the audit authorization letter. Now think of this: So, you have a team, and you put together a letter. Let's say you're going to audit the FBI. Let's do that for example. It's on the FBI letterhead, from Washington, from the assistant of someone, which you know, that these people in Georgia or Idaho, don't know. You put a phone number on it that looks like a legitimate FBI phone number. On the letter you say, this is an audit authorization letter. The bearers of this letter have authorization to audit all aspects of your procedures and operations, and please call this number to verify. You call that number, they've got a bank of operators standing by—phony. They say oh yes, are they there yet? You tell them, that Mr. Smith wants that information by tomorrow morning, or they're all fired. Okay? So now, that works in one hundred percent of the cases. Think about it. Just think about it. So then, the FBI who has called the secretary for so and so, who has verified them, and they have on government stationary, and it's an audit authorization letter, so the people who get it are afraid. They say good god man, the auditors are on the way, get out of our way because we're on the way, we've got to get this done. [laughs] Well, you can walk off with, if you want, the Apple backdoor if they made one. You can walk off with everything. That's human-engineering, do you understand? Tuan: Totally. Do you have any advice for our readers and the public in general. How should we secure our phones and laptops and desktops? McAfee: Don't worry about your laptops and desktops. There are very few people who hack these anymore. On your smartphones, every time you download an app, look at the permissions that it asks for, and read them. And if it's a Bible reading app, and late at night you're too tired to read, and you turn the lights off and you ask it to read Genesis to you... all it needs is access to the microphone. Let's face it. And if that app, and all of them do, ask permission to [access] the camera, to read your emails, to read your text messages, to make phone calls on your behalf, to read your contacts, then don't use that app. I don't care how good the app is. That's my advice. That's how we screw ourselves, every time. Tuan: To finish up with a bigger picture. Taking a look back at your career, what accomplishments are you most proud of? McAfee: You know, that's a difficult question. I don't look back. I really don't. Most proud of... I don't know. I think Tribal Voice, where we invented instant messaging, and some of the most dynamic software in the world, which was ten years ahead its time. We sold it to CMGI for seventeen million dollars. They canned it after a year because, basically, the basic infrastructure was not there. We were also the first to invent internet voice communications. At that time, a T1 line was about the largest any company could get, and it did not have the capacity to support it. So... Tribal Voice was my finest hour, even though we were ahead of our time and foolish to build software that had [laughs] no hardware support [laughs]. Tuan: That's all the questions I have. Do you have anything else you want to say? McAfee: Yes! Visit mcafee2016.com, and donate. We have an uphill battle against the two major parties that are machines that destroy the soul, of not just the candidates but of all America. And they are powerful beyond belief. We need help. Tuan: Okay. McAfee: mcafee2016.com. Thank you sir. Tuan: John, thank you. It was a pleasure. Ciao. [Alan B.C. Dang contributed to this report.] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Newegg Daily Deals: Corsair Gaming K95 Mechanical Keyboard, Toshiba 3TB HDD, and More! Posted: 22 Feb 2016 10:50 AM PST Top Deal: Ack! Is that a membrane keyboard you're typing on? Cut that out, your fingers deserve better! Much better, and they'll get it with a mechanical keyboard. If you've never typed on a mechanical plank before, you're in a for treat. And if you're looking for one that's both quite and offers tactile feedback, then check out today's top deal for a Corsair Gaming K95 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - White LED - Cherry MX Red Switches for $100 with free shipping (normally $127). Cherry MX Red key switches are popular among gamers, and this particularly model adds amenities like dedicated macro/gaming keys, LED backlighting, dedicated media controls, and more. Other Deals: Adata Premier SP550 2.5-inch 240GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for $116 with free shipping (normally $230) Toshiba 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5-inch Desktop Internal Hard Drive Retail Kit for $85 with free shipping (normally $110) Corsair CX 600W v2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply for $65 with $3 shipping (normally $80; additional $10 Mail-in rebate) Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Intel i7 Dual Core 2000 MHz 240Gig SSD 8192mb (NO OPTICAL DRIVE) 14.0-inch WideScreen LCD Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit Laptop Notebook for $485 with free shipping (normally $550) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Amazon Jacks Up Free Shipping Minimum to $49 for Non-Prime Shoppers Posted: 22 Feb 2016 10:33 AM PST Pushing shoppers towards Prime Are you planning to build or upgrade a PC to handle the glut of VR games that will no doubt follow the release of HTC's Vive and Oculus' Rift headsets? If you're buying your parts from Amazon and aren't a Prime member, you now need to spend a minimum of $49 to qualify for free shipping. Hey, no problem if you're upgrading or a building a VR-capable PC from scratch, you'll blow past that amount in no time. But for less pricey orders, like buying a USB flash drive or some play toys to for your cat, you'll need to fill your cart with $49 worth of qualifying items to get free shipping—that's a lot of catnip for little Whiskers. Prior to the price hike, the minimum order amount for free shipping was $35. And prior to 2013, it was $25, so Amazon's effectively doubled the minimum amount in three years. There are two exceptions. First, Prime members still benefit from free shipping on millions of qualified items (plus a host of other beneifts), and secondly, the minimum order when buying books is $25. Why the hike? Simple put, Amazon's cost of doing business is going up, particularly related to shipping—Amazon's shipping costs jumped more than a third to $4.17 billion in the last quarter of 2015. And as a percentage of sales, shipping costs rose to 12.5 percent, up from 10.9 percent a year earlier, The Wall Street Journal reports. The minimum order hike can be avoided with a Prime membership, which runs $99 per year after a 30-day free trial. If you're a student, Amazon cuts the price in half and bumps the free trial period to 6 months. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Corsair Announces Void Line of Headsets for Multi-Platform Gamers Posted: 22 Feb 2016 09:58 AM PST Platform agnostic headsets It doesn't matter if your gaming platform of choice is a Windows PC or if you prefer to frag on an Xbox One or PlayStation 4 console, Corsair's new universally compatible Void Surround and Void Wireless RGB headsets don't discriminate between the three. "Most gamers don't play on just one platform, so we wanted to build a headset that can be used anywhere," said Corsair's Product Manager for Gaming Headsets, Joshua LaTendresse. "With Void Surround, that's exactly what we created: the unrivaled comfort and epic immersion of Void is now universally compatible with any gaming platform." Offering a headset that is compatible with multiple platforms isn't exactly as rare as finding a unicorn horn with dried blood from a tussle with a leprechaun, but there are a large number of headsets designed primarily for single systems, be it a PC or console. That's not the case here. The Void Surround comes with a USB Dolby 7.1 sound card for use in PCs, plus it sports a mobile-compatible 3.5mm connector that works with PS4, Xbox One, and mobile devices. It's equipped with large 50mm neodymium drivers nestled underneath memory-foam ear pads wrapped in microfiber, while cast aluminum construction keeps everything from falling apart. Corsair's Void Wireless RGB is similarly, but sports RGB lighting and 2.4GHz wireless connectivity with a range of up to 40 feet. According to Corsair, it can withstand around 16 hours of gaming before needing to be recharged. Both headsets feature a noise-cancelling microphone. The RGB version kicks things up a notch with LED status indicators that alert users to remaining battery life, whether or not it's muted, EQ settings, and more. The Void Surround ($80) and Void Wireless RGB ($130) are available now. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| HTC Vive Headset Pre-Orders Kick Off February 29 for $799, Ships in April Posted: 22 Feb 2016 09:30 AM PST Sticker shock? HTC announced that it's opening pre-orders for the first Consumer Edition of its forthcoming Vive headset on February 29—a week from today—starting at precisely 10:00 AM Eastern. Full commercial availability will follow in early April, which is when the initial batch of pre-orders will ship, though it remains to be seen if the Vive will see the same level of early interest that Oculus did when opening up pre-orders for its competing Rift head gear. Where HTC is at a disadvantage is price—the company announced that it's charging $799 for its Consumer Edition kit, which is $200 more than the Rift. Helping to soften the blow, HTC is including two wireless controllers, plus room scale movement sensors, two free virtual reality titles (Owlchemy Labs' Job Simulator and Northway Games' Fantastic Contraption), and of course the Vive headset itself. As an added bonus, the Consumer Edition will ship with an updated head strap and integrated phone functionality, the latter of which will enable Vive owners to answer incoming calls, respond to text messages, and more directly through the headset. HTC's collaboration with Valve is another selling point. "From the beginning, Vive has been at the forefront of virtual reality, with HTC pioneering several ground breaking technologies," said Cher Wang, chairwoman and CEO, HTC. "Since announcing Vive this time last year, we have worked tirelessly with Valve to deliver the best VR experience on the market, winning multiple awards and receiving critical acclaim from media, consumers and the industry. With the Vive consumer edition we are now able to realize our ultimate vision; bringing Vive into homes around the globe so that people can experience immersive virtual reality in a way that fires the imagination and truly changes the world." The Vive is powered by Valve's SteamVR so consumers can expect robust support. Including dual wireless controllers is also a fairly big deal, but is it enough to warrant a $799 price tag? Like the Rift, the Vive must be tethered to a relatively powerful PC, and of course that's a separate cost. There aren't any recommended specs yet, but with pre-orders kicking off next week, we suspect HTC will divulge that information soon. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 22 Feb 2016 12:00 AM PST At a Glance[+] Galactic Empire: Good performance; G-Sync display; attractive styling; not too hot or loud. [-] Rebel Scum: Poor battery life; large and heavy; small 128GB SSD; middling M.2 SSD performance. Give yourself to the Dark SideYou can almost picture the scene: the Dark Lords of technology showing off their wares, urging Asus to join the forces of Maxwell and Skylake to rule the mobile gaming universe. Unlike in the movies, Asus takes the bait and delivers their updated G752VT notebook. It's a technological marvel that's impressive on many levels, though you still have to watch out for that exhaust port weakness. Asus routinely offers true gaming notebooks—and by "true" we mean they go with the fastest graphics cards available, not lower tier parts with names that belie their performance (we're looking at you, GTX 950M/960M). Having been a player in this arena for so long, you'd expect the well-oiled Asus machinery to crank out improvements every year. That was the goal with the G752, and it mostly succeeds… mostly. 
You are not a Jedi yetPacked inside this mobile Star Destroyer—the Death Stars of the notebook world use GTX 980 or at least 980M, after all—we have Intel's i7-6700HQ, 16GB memory, and a GTX 970M. The 6700HQ is plenty fast for a laptop, though it's technically the slowest of Intel's quad-core i7 offerings and runs at 2.6-3.5GHz. Asus also loses a few points by opting for the 3GB model of the 970M instead of the 6GB version; it's not a huge issue, however, since the GPU isn't really potent enough to properly utilize that much VRAM. But where we really take issues with the configuration we received is in the storage department. It's 2016; can't we expect 256GB SSDs as standard on any notebook that costs more than $1000? 128GB SSDs are so 2013, and it's a shame to see such a small OS drive. There are higher spec models of the G752 series with larger SSDs, but then you're looking at a $200 price increase (that's MSRP—at retail, it's more like a $350 price difference!), and all you're getting is a 256GB SSD and 8GB more memory. In other words, do the SSD upgrade on your own if you're looking for more storage. To make matters worse, while the SSD does support NVMe, this is Samsung's lowest-performance model, and it's only slightly faster than a good SATA drive. The PM951 uses TLC V-NAND, and that apparently puts the kibosh on raw performance. The 512GB PM951 would perform better, but the 128GB model definitely struggles. Not like it really matters, since 128GB is barely enough room for Windows 10, the periodic updates, a moderate collection of apps, and all your usual documents and downloads. Be prepared to routinely flush out the trash compactors to clean up your C: drive, or suffer the consequences.
Performance is as you'd expect, with the exception of ProShow Producer that doesn't seem to appreciate Skylake much. The G752 is faster than previous generation notebooks, and Asus' G752 is easily able to hold its own. Note that the G752 can't use Nvidia's Optimus Technology (thanks to G-Sync—more on that in a moment), and unlike the MSI GT72S, the GPU is always enabled. Despite a decent 66Wh 6-cell battery, the G752 checks out at 2.35 hours. Notebook gamers may not expect all day battery life, but GT72S offers twice the battery life of the Asus—note that you do need to reboot to turn its GPU off, however.  We're not really pushing things very hard in the above table, especially for a gaming notebook. Let's look at a wider collection of games, at both 1080p "Medium" and "Ultra" settings. The "Ultra" settings are the same values we use for our desktop GPU testing, while "Medium" is a pretty sizable drop in quality in order to boost frame rates—it's mostly for slower notebook GPUs, as you'll see below.
First, the good news: The GTX 970M matches up very well with the notebook's 1080p display, and what's more, the display offers G-Sync so you can run all of our test titles at more than 30 fps and not have to worry about tearing. A few of the more demanding titles can still benefit from dropping a few settings down a notch, but overall this is a great result. The bad news is that after playing around with something like the GTX 980 for notebooks, the GTX 970M looks pretty anemic. Then again, you could buy two G752VT notebooks for the price of the fully loaded GT72S.
Dropping to Medium quality, we see just how much legroom the 970M has—all of the games are running smoothly, and six are hitting the 75Hz display's maximum refresh rate. Compared to the GTX 960M in the Acer V17, we're looking at a sizeable 55 percent improvement in performance. Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer!The G752VT is powerful, but what happens when the rebels decide to blow it up—you know, by doing something crazy like running a game? This is where thin and light laptops show their weaknesses; shields quickly fail, resulting in a combination of loud fans and scorching hot spots. The G752 meanwhile keeps humming along with only a moderate increase in fan speeds. The fans stay under 36dB, with thermals mostly below 35C, though the exhaust area can reach a warm 45C under load. You can see several images in the above gallery taken with an FLIR One infrared camera; these were snapped after the notebook had been running a game for over an hour, and it's still doing quite well.    Elsewhere, the gesture-enabled touchpad still offers two discrete buttons, and the keyboard supports 30-key rollover anti-ghosting technology—so unless you grow several extra appendages or manage to seat more than three people around the keyboard, you'll never miss a keystroke. There's no multi-colored lighting, so if you were hoping more for Jedi blue or green instead of Sith red, that might be a problem, but otherwise the user facing elements are good. There are plenty of USB ports, including a Type-C USB 3.1 port, so connectivity shouldn't be an issue. The display is also great, and it's not just about G-Sync. Yes, variable refresh rates are present and work as expected, but even when you're not gaming, colors are reasonably accurate and the IPS panel has good contrast. After years of seeing otherwise great laptops saddled with mediocre displays, we've finally turned the corner. I also appreciate that Asus elects to keep all connectors on the sides, keeping the back clear so it can do things like expel heat.  The only oddity is the rubber grommets that come installed on the rear exhausts. Their purpose is something of a mystery, as they don't really seem to do much. The idea is that the cooling has some extra venting area with fewer obstructions, helping to prevent dust buildup, and that's not a bad thing (assuming it works—we generally aren't able to use laptops long enough to have problems with dust). But the rubber stoppers are attached by plastic strings and they just look silly when they're dangling from the system. We suspect most users will cut the plastic cables for the stoppers within the first few weeks of owning the G752, if not sooner. Or maybe they prevent X-Wings from making a run on the exhaust port, causing the whole notebook to self-destruct? Only at the end do you realize the power of the dark side…The GTX 980's ability to destroy benchmarks may impress, but it's insignificant compared to the power of a balanced platform. The GTX 970M remains potent, it's far more affordable, and G-Sync is arguably more useful on a notebook that can't routinely hit 75+ FPS. Some of the extras do increase the price, and the lack of a 256GB SSD is disturbing, but provided you're okay with the lackluster battery life, there are no show stoppers. Those who prefer raw power can still opt for Death Star notebooks sporting GTX 980 or 980M, but the Star Destroyer G752VT is no pushover. Bottom line? Any Sith Lord would be proud to carry this weapon into battle, with its aggressive lines, red/orange accents, and powerful weaponry. Despite the flashy looks, the notebook doesn't attract any unwanted attention, slashing apart foes while hardly breaking a sweat. Yes, the force is strong with this one. It's so close to greatness, and with a bit more training (as in, an upgrade to a larger SSD after purchase), it could one day rule the universe. Without that training, however, it's more of a fearsome apprentice than an actual master—still dangerous and worth a look, but with a few shortcomings. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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