General Gaming Article

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• This Week's Hottest Reviews on TechRadar
• Build a PC: Recommended Builds (May 2013)
• MOBAs Dominate Raptr’s List of Most Played Games of April 2013
• Nvidia's Revenue Slips 14 Percent, GPU Maker Eyes Return to Growth in Second Half
• Intel Haswell Chip Cranked to 5GHz at Just 0.9V
• Global Smart Mobile Device Shipments Topped 300 Million Last Quarter
• Newegg Daily Deals: Rosewill Power Supply Bonanza

This Week's Hottest Reviews on TechRadar Posted: 10 May 2013 03:24 PM PDT We've got a ton of new reviews this week on TechRadar. We've reviewed new cameras, new phones, and the new Nook HD. Come take a look for the latest from the latest reviews and hands-on coverage.    Nook HD review  The lightest, highest resolution 7-inch tablet, but is it any good? Just barely would be our answer.   Huawei Ascend Mate review  The Ascend Mate is a phone of compromises. It has a great screen and outstanding battery life, but is the uncomfortable size and weight a sensible trade-off?   Updated: HTC One review  And lastly, we've reevaluated the HTC One in light of a new update that improves its battery life. Was the additional juice enough to goose the rating? Spoiler alert: yes.  Other reviews on TechRadar this week: Cameras Olympus XZ-10 review Hands on: Olympus PEN E-P5 review Olympus TG-2 review Aztech WIPC402 Wireless-N Pan/Tilt IP Camera review Laptops Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D review Samsung Series 5 Ultratouch review Hands on: Acer Aspire R7 review Hands on: Acer Aspire P3 review Phones Huawei Ascend Mate review Portable speakers Pure Jongo S3 review LightwaveRF review Software CyberLink PowerDVD 13 review Storage Corsair Voyager Air review Tablets Hands on: Acer Iconia A1 review Televisions Sony KDL-55W905A review Samsung UE46F7000 review

Build a PC: Recommended Builds (May 2013) Posted: 10 May 2013 02:35 PM PDT Baseline, performance, and ultra PC builds! What time is it? It's time to build a PC with our Blueprints! This month, we've built three rigs at three approximate price points: Baseline, Performance, and Ultra. Baseline gets you a powerful, no-compromises rig, suitable for gaming and content creation at 1080p. Performance gets you more, and the Ultra is for those who want a killer PC. These rigs are lab-tested and editor-approved. Feedback is, of course, welcome. Tell us what you think! Our baseline build represents the minimum level of performance we'd accept on a semi-strict budget (by our gearhead measurement, at least). This month, we wanted to upgrade to an AMD Radeon HD 7870 XT for a graphics boost, but we haven't gotten hands-on yet. The Samsung 840 Pro is our favorite SSD, hands down, and the 128GB version is surprisingly affordable at just over $1/GB, so we're sticking with it for the time being. RAM prices continue to creep up, so we switched our PSU to the Seasonic M12II 650-watt to help bring the system price back down. That's less wattage than we were getting from the Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 720W we used previously, but 650W is plenty, even if we eventually add a second video card for CrossFire. For the Performance build, we upgraded from Intel's Ivy Bridge to its Sandy Bridge-E platform, where we have more PCIe lanes for multiple video cards, and a socket that should see Ivy Bridge-E CPUs through 2014. The Core i7-3820 can overclock using gear or strap ratios, despite not having the "K" that indicates an unlocked clock multiplier. We thought about upgrading the CPU cooler to something with a 240mm radiator, but we wanted to keep the budget under control. The Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 850W is a good buy at $120. It's a 100W boost over the Corsair HX750 we used previously, and it costs about the same. It's a lot of power, but we'll need the extra juice if we decide to add another AMD Radeon HD 7970 down the line.     At the Ultra tier, money is of no concern, so we upgraded our case to the Corsair 900D. We love the Cooler Master Cosmos II that has been part of this build since we started this column, but it can't mount a 420mm radiator, and we want that option for the future. The Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1,200W is a 150-watt upgrade from the Thermaltake ToughPower Grand we were using, and it's about the same price while offering comparable quality and features. We also updated the CPU cooler from the Corsair H100 to the H100i since it produces less noise and lower temperatures, and offers software control over pump and fans speeds. On the GPU front, we considered swapping the GTX 690 with the slightly faster Radeon HD 7990, AMD's new fl agship dual-GPU card. But at press time, the card was still experiencing frame latency issues, and the company only had a "prototype" fix for it that wasn't final. We're confident AMD'll lick the problem eventually, but it's hard to say when, so for now we'll stick with the GeForce GTX 690.

MOBAs Dominate Raptr’s List of Most Played Games of April 2013 Posted: 10 May 2013 01:51 PM PDT Dota 2 trails League of Legends Gaming social network Raptr, which has over the past few years published yearly lists of the most popular games based on its users' gaming habits, last month began doing so on a monthly basis. Earlier this week, it published the second such monthly list of "most played games." With a total share of 8.73 percent, the top spot on Raptr's list of most played Xbox 360 and PC games of April, 2013 belongs to Call of Duty Black Ops II , which had also topped the list last month. It is just one of six Xbox 360 games in the top 10. Just like last month, League of Legends occupies the second spot with a 6.31 percent share, slightly up from the 5.97 percent it managed during the previous month. The next two are both PC titles as well. Dota 2 climbed two places to snag the third spot from World of Warcraft, which is number four on the list. The fourth and final PC title in the top ten is Defiance, having debuted at number nine in April. Another PC title that merits a mention is SimCity, albeit for all the wrong reasons. The title, which somehow clung onto the twentieth and final spot last month, has now dropped out altogether. It is clear from the site's latest monthly data — for which it relies entirely on the willingness of its users to share their gamer ids — that multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games are very popular among the PC-doting section of the five-year-old site's constituency, and SimCity isn't (for obvious reasons, of course). But, as far as we are concerned, the biggest highlight of Raptr's first two monthly lists is the fact that Dota 2, which was recently said to have become the most played game, finds itself behind — and by quite a sizable margin at that — the game it had supposedly overtaken: League of Legends (LoL). This lends credence to Riot Games' contention that Dota 2 is not even close to LoL when it comes to popularity, with the latter attracting as many as "500,000 peak concurrent players every day on just the EU West shard" compared to Dota 2's peak of 325,897 concurrent users worldwide. Image Credit: Raptr Follow Pulkit on Google+

Nvidia's Revenue Slips 14 Percent, GPU Maker Eyes Return to Growth in Second Half Posted: 10 May 2013 10:56 AM PDT Compared to last year, Nvidia is moving in the right direction. Nvidia reported revenue of $954.7 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 ended April 28, 2013. That's down 13.7 percent from $1.11 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013, though up a little more than 3 percent compared to last year. A similar story played out with regards to Nvidia's net income (profit), which totaled $77.9 million for the quarter, down 55.2 percent sequentially but up 29 percent year-on-year. "The success of Kepler-based GPUs within and beyond the PC helped drive another quarter of record margins," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of Nvidia. "Kepler is capturing share among gamers, strengthening our workstation and supercomputing segments, and will fuel new growth opportunities for our GRID server graphics solutions. With Tegra 4 devices and Tegra 4i certification on the way, we're gearing up to return to growth in the second half." Nvidia had a few notable product launches last quarter, including its Tegra 4i SoC (System-on-Chip), it's first fully integrated 4G LTE mobile processor that it claims is three times faster and half the size of its nearest competitor. The GPU maker also launched the GeForce GTX Titan graphics card for desktops. Like Apple, Nvidia is planning to line its shareholders pockets. Nvidia said it will return in excess of $1 billion this fiscal year to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and quarterly dividend payments. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Intel Haswell Chip Cranked to 5GHz at Just 0.9V Posted: 10 May 2013 09:40 AM PDT How high can Intel's Core i7 4770K go? When's the last time you saw a tablet or smartphone overclocked to 5GHz and beyond? The answer is "never" and it probably won't happen for a long, long time yet. On the desktop, well, that's an entirely different story. Not only are high overclocks common, but early looks at overclocking results on Intel's Haswell parts would indicate that the fun is just beginning, and you don't even need exotic cooling to participate. An overclocker on Ocaholic.ch's forum posted screenshots that show his Intel Core i7 4770K processor running at 5005.83MHz (5GHz) on an ASRock Z87 Extreme4 motherboard. Ready for the best part? It only required 0.904V to achieve 5GHz! It looks like he had to disable Hyper Threading to reach 5GHz, and it's not clear if it's a stable overclock or one that lasted just long enough to get a screen grab. Either way, it's pretty remarkable that he was able to get his Haswell chip to run at such a high speed with so little voltage. Haswell is currently scheduled to launch on June 3rd at Computex. Image Credit: ocaholic.ch (Validator) Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Global Smart Mobile Device Shipments Topped 300 Million Last Quarter Posted: 10 May 2013 09:14 AM PDT Smart device shipments are booming. Convenience is the name of the game, and today more than ever, mobility is playing a huge factor in consumers' buying decisions for electronic devices. Gadget makers are answering the call, and in the first quarter of 2013, they shipped more than 300 million mobile devices around the world, according to the latest data published by Canalys, a market research and analysis firm. The number of mobile shipments in Q1 2013 is 37.4 percent higher than it was in the same quarter a year ago, Canalys says. No platform benefited more than Android, which is the OS of choice on nearly 60 percent of all smart mobile devices shipped, followed by iOS at 19.3 percent. Microsoft wasn't far behind Apple, grabbing 18.1 percent of the market. It should be noted that Canalys isn't just counting tablets and smartphones, but also notebooks and presumably hybrid laptops, too. The tablet market grew the fastest, however, with tablet shipments more than doubling from last year to 41.9 million units. There were 216.3 million smartphones shipped in Q1, up 47.9 percent year-over-year. Android handsets accounted for more than 75 percent of them, with Samsung leading the way by growing its volume by 64.3 percent, Canalys says. As for notebook PC shipments, they totaled 50.5 million units, down 13.1 percent compared to Q1 2013. Western Europe saw the biggest decline, where shipments fell by 25.2 percent year-over-year. "While there are macroeconomic factors that contribute to this ongoing trend, the impact of tablets must not be understated," said Canalys Research Analyst, Pin-Chen Tang. "The combination of ARM-based chipsets and Android has taken computing devices to new, lower price points. If Microsoft and Intel are serious about capitalizing on this exploding market, both will need to ensure that their OEMs can remain competitive on price." Canalys is likely right, and the good news for Microsoft is that Windows 8 devices are starting to come down in price. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Newegg Daily Deals: Rosewill Power Supply Bonanza Posted: 10 May 2013 07:07 AM PDT Top Deal: Little Billy's in the kitchen banging pans together, Mary-Jo and Erica are in the basement arguing over who's turn it is to watch Netflix, and the dog's chasing the cat all over the house. Soon evening will come and they'll all fall fast asleep, giving you the sweet, sweet silence you've been longing for all day. If only your PC would do the same. It's possible, starting with today's top deal for a Rosewill SilentNIght Series 500W Fan-less Modular Design Power Supply for $112 with shipping for $6 (normally $160 - use coupon code:[EMCXRXL27]). Not only is it dead silent, it's also modular and 80 Plus Platinum certified! Other Deals: Rosewill Stallion Series 400W Power Supply for $32 with free shipping (normally $40 - use coupon code:[EMCXRXL27])  Rosewill Green Series 530W Power Supply for $48 with free shipping (normally $80 - use coupon code:[EMCXRXL27]) Rosewill Hive Series 650W Power Supply for $64 with free shipping (normally $100 - use coupon code:[EMCXRXL27]) Rosewill Xtreme Series 750W Power Supply for $72 with free shipping (normally $130 - use coupon code:[EMCXRXL27])

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