General Gaming Article |
- Maximum PC No BS Podcast #208
- AMD Delivers Frame Pacing “Fix” Via Driver Update
- Ivy Bridge-E Pricing Leaked
- Best Free Antivirus: Windows Defender vs. Avast
- CyberPowerPC's Fang Taipan M2 Gaming Laptop Packs a Bite (and Dual GPUs)
- Asus ROG GTX 770 Poseidon May Sail to Retail in September
- Zalman Reserator 3 Max is First Water Cooler to Use Nanofluids
- SuperSpeed USB 3.1 Specification is Now Official and Twice as Fast as USB 3.0
- Newegg Daily Deals: Tt eSports Theron Wired Gaming Mouse, Thermaltake 430W PSU, and More!
| Posted: 01 Aug 2013 04:05 PM PDT |
| AMD Delivers Frame Pacing “Fix” Via Driver Update Posted: 01 Aug 2013 03:01 PM PDT
Catalyst 13.8 Beta adds user selectable delay to help smooth frameratesAMD announced on Twitter a few weeks ago it would be releasing a new driver on July 31st that would help smooth out micro-stutter its cards were experiencing in multi-GPU configurations. Well, yesterday was July 31st, so we asked AMD if the driver was still in the works, and they told us that it was but it was just one day late due to last minute Q/A. As of today, August 1st, the new Catalyst 13.8 Beta driver is now available for download. The biggest change is the new driver includes a user selectable frame pacing option in the Catalyst Control Center, so you can turn it on or off, though it will be set to "on" by default. The frame pacing delay is compatible with DX10 and DX11 games for one display up to 2560x1600, and users are able to set the frame pacing option on a per-app basis. The company said a future driver will add DX9 support as well as the ability to run it on 4K monitors and Eyefinity setups. The frame pacing "fix" is supported by all games automatically as long as they fit the above specifications, and won't need a specific Catalyst profile to work properly.
AMD's given users a Frame Pacing option for CrossfireX setups in its newest Catalyst Driver. AMD told us that gamers who need instant responsiveness or twitchiness will probably want to disable to new software-based delay, but that all other users running multi-GPU configurations will see an immediate benefit from the new pacing. For those who are unfamiliar with the controversy, frame pacing is the amount of time between each frame being shown on screen. If the frames are delivered in a fluctuating interval the user experiences what is known as micro stutter, which makes games feel choppy even though the overall framerate can still be very high. AMD's solution to this problem is to add latency between some frames to smooth out the amount of time each frame is delivered so that it's set to a specific interval. We've taken a look at the new driver and can see more uniformity and less fluctuation in the amount of time it takes for each frame to be delivered. We'll be doing more testing on the driver, but in the interim here are a few FRAPS graphs showing the difference in frame pacing between Catalyst 13.6 Beta 2 and Catalyst 13.8 Beta in Heaven 4.0, Tomb Raider, and Metro Last Light. We compared the two beta drivers using a reference AMD Radeon HD 7990 video card. Heaven 4.0 Old 13.6 Beta Driver
Heaven 4.0 New 13.8 Beta Driver
Tomb Raider Old 13.6 Beta Driver
Tomb Raider New 13.8 Beta Driver
Metro Last Light Old 13.6 Beta Driver
Metro Last Light New 13.8 Beta Driver
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| Posted: 01 Aug 2013 01:21 PM PDT
Socket 2011 CPUs priced similarly to Sandy Bridge-EEven though the thermal paste is barely dry on Intel's new Haswell CPU microarchitecture, its performance-oriented Ivy Bridge-E processors are due to be launched soon, and now we finally have some pricing info. According to VR-Zone, we'll be seeing three Core i7 Ivy Bridge-E CPUs debuting around Q3 this year, including the 4820K, 4930K, and 4960X. Here are the leaked specifications of the CPUs:
These socket 2011 CPUs look as if they will sport only marginally higher clock speeds than their Sandy-Bridge-E counterparts, and will also carry the same amount of cache and TDP rating. Ivy Bridge-E is expected to arrive Q3 '13, and will be followed by Haswell-E in the second half of 2014. If you want to hear our thoughts on Ivy Bridge-E check out episode #201 of the No BS Podcast. |
| Best Free Antivirus: Windows Defender vs. Avast Posted: 01 Aug 2013 12:15 PM PDT Best free antivirus head to headWindows 8 ships with a new version of Windows Defender that's supposed to offer the same level of protection as Microsoft Security Essentials. Along with other security upgrades, we're left wondering if there's any reason to saddle up with a third-party antivirus program. To find out, we compared Windows Defender with Avast, which as we discovered in last month's antivirus roundup is a formidable ally to have by your side as you romp around the web. Round 1: InterfaceThere's a lot going on in Avast, so much, in fact, that you might not even notice that it doesn't scan for potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) by default, a setting we recommend enabling as an added ounce of protection (which, as you know, is worth a pound of cure). To get the most out of Avast, there's an initial time investment required to poke around all the settings and tweak everything just the way you want it. In stark contrast to Avast, Windows Defender takes a minimalist approach with an interface that's extremely straightforward and dead simple to navigate. There are just four headings to browse—Home, Update, History, and Settings—none of which tries to upsell you on security; Avast does. In this instance, simplicity gets the nod, and so does Windows Defender. Winner: Windows Defender
Round 2: FeaturesWhereas Windows Defender is super simple to navigate, it comes at the expense of an expansive feature-set. There's very little in the way of fine-grain control, limiting most of what you can do to including/excluding certain file types and locations, and whether or not you want to scan removable drives. You can't even schedule a scan, at least not through the traditional UI. To do that, you need to open up the Windows Task Scheduler and configure it through there. That's lame. Avast, on the other hand, offers a much bigger toolbox. The "AutoSandbox" feature alone, which automatically isolates suspicious programs from the OS, wins this category for Avast. There's also a remote assistance feature for troubleshooting family and friends who are running Avast, plus browser plugins, and more. Winner: Avast
Avast is chock-full of settings and provides excellent real-time protection, no matter where the threats come from. Round 3: Scan SpeedWindows Defender uses the same pokey scan engine as Microsoft Security Essentials, and since there's no easy way to schedule scans, it's even more problematic. Running a full system scan with 30GB of data on a solid-state drive took 20 minutes with Windows Defender, and subsequent scans took just as long. That's an indication that Windows Defender doesn't skip over files that haven't changed since the last time they were processed. Avast clocked five minutes and nine seconds to scan the same data, and though it also didn't get any quicker during subsequent scans, it's still significantly faster than Windows Defender. Plus, you can easily schedule scans in Avast to run during times when you're not sitting at your PC, such as after-work hours (assuming you leave your PC on 24/7). Winner: Avast Round 4: Performance ImpactGood news for both programs. If you're rocking a solid-state drive with Windows 8 on a relatively modern machine, you're unlikely to notice a performance impact with either Windows Defender or Avast installed. We slapped a 120GB Kingston SSDNow V300 drive onto an Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard with an Intel Core i7-930 processor, 4GB of DDR3/1333 RAM, and a Radeon HD 5850 graphics card. Boot times were virtually unaffected, with Avast introducing a startup penalty of just a few seconds. On the flip side, we recorded 4,035 in PCMark 7 with Avast installed versus 4,011 with Windows Defender. If this were a presidential race, it'd be too close to call. Subjectively, surfing the web and opening up programs felt equally snappy regardless of which AV program was running. Winner: Tie Round 5: ProtectionWindows Defender needed to pull out a win in this round to keep the race interesting, but it doesn't have the legs to compete with Avast. Using our own collection of malware, Avast detected twice as many dirty files as Windows Defender, though that might have to do with the way each program counts individual files within an infected archive. In both cases, Malwarebytes detected infections that both Windows Defender and Avast missed. However, Avast is better at detecting zero-day threats and adds a second layer of protection through its automatic sandbox mode, which Windows Defender lacks. Finally, we're a little wary given that Microsoft's antimalware engine is having trouble passing certification with AV-Test (www.av-test.org), a well-known independent testing laboratory. All things considered, this crucial round goes to Avast. Winner: Avast And the Winner Is…
Avast wins this bout by taking three of the five categories and tying in another, though it's not quite as lopsided as it appears. Windows Defender, while not as fully featured as Avast, is capable of blocking common threats, and it doesn't put a drain on system resources. Avast's army of defenses is just bigger and better trained to spot danger from more places, like IM clients. It also has a bigger arsenal of weapons. |
| CyberPowerPC's Fang Taipan M2 Gaming Laptop Packs a Bite (and Dual GPUs) Posted: 01 Aug 2013 08:58 AM PDT
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| Asus ROG GTX 770 Poseidon May Sail to Retail in September Posted: 01 Aug 2013 08:00 AM PDT
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| Zalman Reserator 3 Max is First Water Cooler to Use Nanofluids Posted: 01 Aug 2013 07:30 AM PDT
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| SuperSpeed USB 3.1 Specification is Now Official and Twice as Fast as USB 3.0 Posted: 01 Aug 2013 07:00 AM PDT
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| Newegg Daily Deals: Tt eSports Theron Wired Gaming Mouse, Thermaltake 430W PSU, and More! Posted: 01 Aug 2013 06:30 AM PDT
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Recoiled and ready to strike
Things are about to get wet and wild
When nanoparticles and fluids collide
SuperSpeed USB 3.0 just got super speedier
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