General Gaming Article

---

• Your Tablet Benchmarks Suck
• AVADirect Clevo P570WM Review
• HP’s Meg Whitman Calls Microsoft/Intel Its Competitors Not Partners
• Valve Invites Developers to Come Test Drive Prototype Steam Machines
• Lenovo Retains Slim Lead Over HP as PC Shipments Continue to Slip
• Toshiba's Q Series Pro Solid State Drives are Slim Enough for Ultrabooks
• Acer Launches Thinner, Faster Chromebook Powered by Haswell for $250
• Newegg Daily Deals: Samsung 23.6-inch Monitor, ASRock H87M Pro4 Motherboard, and More!

Your Tablet Benchmarks Suck Posted: 10 Oct 2013 04:41 PM PDT The mobile benchmarking scene is facing the same pitfalls as the PC experienced At least that's what Intel engineers are saying as the chip giant finally prepares to go toe-to-toe with ARM-based tablets with its new "Bay Trail" Atom chips. In talks with the hardware press just before showing off Intel's new Bay Trail part, principal Engineers Ronen Zohar and Francois Piednoel pointed out several "cringe" worthy issues they found in the source code for many benchmarks being used to test tablets today. The identities of the benchmarks weren't disclosed but Zohar pointed out several issues with the source of popular benchmarks that don't actually test what they claim to test. For example, one memory bandwidth benchmark didn't even stress the tablet's RAM. Another test used an unrealistic math function that the vast majority of research doesn't match popular use. In another test, the developer hoped to create a CPU performance test but going through the source code with the media, Zohar said it was apparent the test didn't do that. Instead the test only really tested how fast it could update the status bar.  "Your CPU benchmark 'tests' how fast you can update the status bar and how fast you can update the clock," Zohar said he learned from examining the app's source code. Perhaps worse than inadequate benchmarks is gaming of the tests by vendors. Zohar said in one example he witnessed, running the stock browser on a device and pointing it at a web-based browser resulted in the CPU ratcheting up to higher clocks. Those who have followed the PC benchmarking scene for ages will feel a sense of déjà vu all over again as the PC went through this too in the early days.  Piednoel agrees there are echoes of the early days of the PC when benchmarking was a bit of a wild west.  It's not just Intel that believes this either.  "I agree with Intel that mobile benchmarking has gotten completely out of hand, and, it does remind me of the 90's," said analyst Pat Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy. A former AMD exec turned analyst, Moorhead said mobile benchmarks have some maturing to do. He also agreed that cheating is rampant but also not quite as black and white as people make it out to be. AnTuTu is a very popular mobile benchmark Intel's hands aren't entirely clean in this either. This summer the company was accused of cheating in the popular AnTuTu benchmark in shows downs with its Clover Trail+ SOC. When run on the popular AnTuTu benchmark, ARM-based tablets would run the full calculation but when the benchmark was run on Clover Trail+ platforms, the benchmark would run the full calculation and then take a shortcut for the rest of the run. When asked to about the summer dustup over AnTuTu—after having just accused competing ARM vendors of benchmarketing—Zohar chalked it up to legitimate compiler optimization. But, Zohar said, the optimizations had been made many moons ago and made sense. He said Intel had no interaction with the AnTuTu developer except to provide a compiler which was optimized for Intel hardware—not exactly illogical. The optimizations didn't fabricate numbers he said, the compiler just knew that if the code is asking for the exact same thing it asked for, there's no reason to waste time and energy since you already know the answer. Why not just give the same answer?  When AnTuTu was written to execute the same workload over and over again rather than take the compiler short cut, the Intel CPU actually trailed the ARM chip slightly. Just days ago AnTuTu Labs, the developer of the AnTuTu benchmark said it has implemented anti-cheating techniques in AnTuTu X.  Moorehead said he doesn't think Intel's framing of how it all unrolled doesn't match what he knows but allegations of "cheating" isn't exactly unusual. "I don't know of any relevant hardware company who hasn't been accused of cheating, particularly in CPUs and graphics," Moorhead said. "The gray area is that one man's cheat is another's optimization. One man's piling on of resources in a benchmark consortium is interpreted as manipulation."     For the most part, cheating on the PC has been mostly tamed by the move from the early days of purely synthetic benchmarks to an emphasis on "real-world" tests. The move was motivated when the benchmarking community began seeing driver optimizations that increased performance in benchmarks that actually hurt gaming performance. The theory behind the emphasis on real-world testing is that if a vendor is "optimizing" for a game, the end user still benefits. So call it cheating or optimizing, the result is still a better experience for the consumer. At least, that's the theory. Reality doesn't always match though.  More than a decade ago, ATI got in hot water for fudging performance numbers in Quake III Arena One of the most famous cases of "optimizations" involved Quake III Arena. Tech site HardOCP.com found that changing the name of the executable from Quake3.exe to Quack3.exe would cause performance of the ATI Radeon 8500 to drop. When changed back, the performance would increase. Further testing by others found that the "optimization" appeared to be at the cost of image quality.  ATI defended itself by saying that it was indeed an optimization made to give gamers the best combination of performance and visual quality but the fact that people still remember this more than 12 years later tells you how history remembers it. Years ago, Intel was also caught up in another benchmark brouhaha when it was found that applications compiled with Intel's compiler didn't use Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (SSE2) properly on AMD CPUs that had the feature. The only way to enable the support on AMD CPUs was to make the application appear to be an Intel CPU that supported SSE2. The end result was even if an AMD CPU had SSE2 support, an application compiled with Intel's compiler would run far slower using a different code path without SSE2 support. This, in fact, was an allegation of AMD's anti-trust suit against Intel which both eventually agreed to settle with AMD receiving a $1.25 billion payment. But showing just how gray "optimizations" can be, defenders of Intel argue that the Intel's C++ compiler is specifically designed for Intel CPUs and it's not Intel's job to validate AMD CPUs with a tool made to extract the most performance out of an Intel CPU. Others, of course, argue that Intel's foot print on the industry is so large and if its compiler was violating Intel's own guidance to explicitly check for CPU feature set support rather than just the CPUID string the only answer can be blatant cheating. On the PC though, these incidents are more the exception than the rule thanks to the bad PR that's usually generated and a generally skeptical press. Reliance on using real-applications, such as how long it takes to encode a video using Handbrake, has also kept the benchmark controversies to a minimum lately. That's not the same with tablets and smartphones right now. Samsung's name was recently dragged through over allegations that the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 were maxing out on cores and clock speeds—but only during popular benchmarks. This practice though apparently wasn't confined to Samsung, Anandtech.com found multiple vendors were targeting benchmarks including Asus, HTC, LG and well as Samsung.  As the first fingered for optimizing solely for benchmarks, Samsung has denied it's intentionally trying to cheat, but only wants to give the highest performance when running stressful workloads. Afterall, when you're running a test that's supposed to measure an SOC's theoretical performance, don't you want the SOC to be running at maximum clock speed with all of the cores active? In the end, Intel argues that synthetic mobile benchmarks are still misleading.  "It's not because you have 25 potatoes that you have a good cell phone," Piednoel said.  "At the end of the day we are asking you to look at the new breed of benchmarks coming from benchmark vendors. Try to measure user experience, stop trying to measure potatoes."

AVADirect Clevo P570WM Review Posted: 10 Oct 2013 02:34 PM PDT It's got a tank's firepower… and weight AVADirect's Clevo P570WM might look like a laptop, but make no mistake about it, you won't be using this on your lap. With a gargantuan carry weight of almost 20 pounds and a humongous chassis measuring 16.5x11.2x2.4-inches, this is the definition of desktop replacement. The reason it's so heavy and massive, besides requiring a pair of three-pound power bricks to take full advantage of its power, is that it houses an X79 chipset with a hexa-core Core i7-3970X and two GeForce GTX 680Ms graphics cards. When you add in its 32GB of RAM and two storage drives—including a 250GB SSD—it's easily the most well-spec'd notebook we've ever tested. Besides being heavy, the laptop is also shockingly tall at 2.4 inches. The Clevo's black chassis features a brushed-aluminum finish and a blue LED–backlit keyboard. Though these aesthetic touches are appreciated, it's hard for the Clevo to look sexy when it's so damned fat. While we would have preferred an IPS panel for the 17.3-inch 1080p monitor, it does offer excellent viewing angles for a TN screen. We're not just being screen snobs here—we honestly think such a powerful laptop is likely to be used for workstation tasks, which almost mandates a color-accurate screen. Audio side, the Clevo's speakers are disappointing. They sound thin, lack bass, and aren't as loud as we would have liked. We do, however, like the Clevo's keyboard, which is quiet and responsive. The trackpad is competent and supports multitouch gestures, but we found these controls too jumpy and unpredictable. As expected, the Clevo was able to obliterate our comparatively humble MSI GT60 zero-point in our performance tests. It held a 45 percent lead in our Stitch.Efx 2.0 benchmark, and even wider gains in the multithread-loving x264 HD test. Its least-impressive lead came in ProShow, which tops off at four cores. AVADirect's offering really came into its own in our GPU tests, blasting away our zero-point's single 670M by 240-plus percent in STALKER: CoP and 3DMark 11. The only area where the Clevo lost was in battery life, lasting 65 minutes while playing a movie, which isn't terrible, considering its power-hungry components. In our experiential gameplay tests, we ran Borderlands 2 maxed out, with a frame rate in the mid-80s at 1080p. While the Clevo wasn't able to smoothly run Far Cry 3 on its highest Ultra settings, we did muster average frame rates in the 30s by turning down the settings to Very High and disabling AA. The big downside to all these beefy components is that they generate a lot of heat. Even though the Clevo never got unbearably hot, its fans did get annoyingly loud. It sounds like you have a small server in your room, even when you're just surfing the web. It's loud enough that it can actually tarnish your movie-watching experience. While the Clevo P570WM is by far the most powerful laptop we've reviewed so far, at nearly $5,000, it's also one of the most expensive. But its MSRP isn't the only high price you'll pay; with its low portability as a laptop and high fan noise, AVADirect's unique form factor makes some unfortunate compromises for the sake of absolute power. $4,900, www.avadirect.com

HP’s Meg Whitman Calls Microsoft/Intel Its Competitors Not Partners Posted: 10 Oct 2013 01:32 PM PDT Former partners face off as "outright competitors" HP, Dell, Microsoft, and Intel have traditionally been the inseperable bastions of the consumer computing world. Things aren't quite as sunny anymore. On Wednesday, HP Chief Executive Meg Whitman called out Microsoft and Intel as its "outright competitors." This has been a long time coming. Microsoft has started to develop and manufacture its own machines in a bid to grab some of the growing hardware market. Products like the Surface Pro may not be runaway successes, but they're a step towards a future of Microsoft software on Microsoft hardware. Microsoft's purchase of Nokia's Devices and Services division coupled with a $2 billion loan to Dell probably haven't helped either. HP's firing back with some initiatives that will move them away from total dependence on Windows. An increased focus on Android tablets and the recently announced HP Chromebook 11 are just two examples. Meanwhile Microsoft is clearly cozying up with Dell—an array of Venue Tablets and XPS Laptops running Windows 8.1 were introduced just last week. Trouble has been brewing in the PC industry for a while with declining sales and the rapid consumer uptake of tablets. Add in the fact that Android, Chrome OS, and even Steam OS are encroaching on territory that has predominantly been Microsoft and Apple's and it's little wonder that Microsoft and its partners-turned-competitors aren't happy with the current state of things. Follow Ben on Twitter.

Valve Invites Developers to Come Test Drive Prototype Steam Machines Posted: 10 Oct 2013 10:19 AM PDT A two-day event for Steam developers Valve sent out an email to members of the press announcing its upcoming Steam Dev Days conference, a two-day event for video game professionals to satisfy their geek in a relaxed, off the record environment. They'll have access to industry expertise, be able to participate in roundtable discussions, attend lectures by industry veterans, and even try out (and provide feedback for) Steam OS, Steam Machines, and Steam Controllers. Topics up for discussion will range from game economies to virtual reality, as well as Linux, OpenGL, user-generated, and more. Given that Valve is shooting for a relaxed atmosphere that's off the record, we imagine anything and everything is likely to come up during the event. The event will take place in Seattle, Washington on January 15-16, 2014. There's a $95 pre-registrant fee. If you'd like to attend or just want to know more, hit up the Steam Dev Days FAQ page. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Lenovo Retains Slim Lead Over HP as PC Shipments Continue to Slip Posted: 10 Oct 2013 10:01 AM PDT Back-to-school sales quarter lowest since 2008 Both Lenovo and HP shipped more PCs in the third quarter of 2013 than in the same quarter a year ago, though overall, the market declined 8.6 percent to 80.3 million overall PC shipments from all players, according to preliminary data released by Gartner. This would mark the sixth consecutive quarter of declining worldwide shipments, and the worst sales quarter during the back-to-school season in terms of PC volume since 2008. Once again, a big reason why PC shipments are down is because tablets are cannibalizing sales, especially now that slates have become so affordable. "Consumers' shift from PCs to tablets for daily content consumption continued to decrease the installed base of PCs both in mature as well as in emerging markets," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. " A greater availability of inexpensive Android tablets attracted first-time consumers in emerging markets, and as supplementary devices in mature markets." Lenovo managed to hold onto the top spot and edge out HP with a 17.6 percent share of the market and 14.1 million PC shipments, versus HP's 17.1 percent share and 13.7 million shipments. Those figures are up from 15.7 percent and 15.4 percent, respectively, from a year ago. Dell, the world's third largest PC maker, also saw an increase in both shipments and market share year-over year, which totaled 9.2 million units and 11.6 percent in Q3. Acer, Asus, and all others saw declines. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Toshiba's Q Series Pro Solid State Drives are Slim Enough for Ultrabooks Posted: 10 Oct 2013 09:13 AM PDT High performance and slim design, at a price Toshiba on Thursday announced its new Q Series Pro line of high-performance solid state drives. These 2.5-inch drives adhere to the 7mm form factor, which means they're slim enough to fit into an Ultrabook, a point of emphasis for Toshiba. Judging by the graphs on Toshiba's website, the Q Series Pro drives feature sequential read performance of around 550MB/s and sequential write performance in the neighborhood of 500MB/s. It's tough to pinpoint exact performance metrics from the graphics and unfortunately Toshiba isn't real forthcoming with this information, though the company did provide a PCMark 7 performance graph that shows the Q Series Pro in a favorable light compared to similarly sized SSDs from Intel (525 Series), Crucial (M500 Series), and Samsung (840 and 840 Pro Series). In fact, most details are missing, such as what controller Toshiba is using and what kind of chips, though we suspect MLC NAND flash memory parts, which are much more common in the consumer sector than SLC chips. Pricing is likely to scare folks off. At a time when speedy SSDs can be had for less than a buck per gigabyte, Toshiba went the other direction with its MSRPs, which are set at $160 for 128GB, $310 for 256GB, and $740 for 512GB. Street pricing could end up being lower, however. In any event, all three capacities will be available later this month. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Acer Launches Thinner, Faster Chromebook Powered by Haswell for $250 Posted: 10 Oct 2013 08:18 AM PDT Third generation Chromebook is 30 percent lighter Acer's been on the Chromebook bandwagon since the first day and shows no sign of hopping off. Just the opposite, Acer today announced the debut of its C720 Chromebook line featuring processors based on Haswell's micro-architecture. Suffice to say, the C720 is Acer's fastest Chromebook yet, and also the slimmest, boasting a design that's 30 percent thinner and weighs just 2.76 pounds. It has an 11.6-inch ComfyView HD display with a 1366x768 resolution. Other features include an Intel Celeron 2955U (what, you weren't really expecting a Core i7 chip, were you?) clocked at 1.4GHz with 2MB of cache, 4GB of DDR3L RAM, 16GB solid state drive, 802.11n Wi-Fi, a pair of USB ports (1 x USB 2.0 and 1 x USB 3.0), HDMI output, full-size Acer FineTip keyboard, multi-gesture touchpad, and a battery that's good for up to 8.5 hours of run time. "The Acer C720 is a significant step forward for our highly-acclaimed Acer Chromebook line, as it delivers speedy performance, quick boot times, a matte anti-glare display and a slimmer design that is portable enough for anywhere use," said Arif Maskatia, chief technology officer, Acer America. "These key advances allow families and students to continue collaborating, learning and playing in exciting ways, all while staying secure since Chrome OS includes multiple layers of protection from online threats." Kicking off the C720 family is the C720-2800 as configured above. This is available to pre-order now at Amazon ($240.27) and is also supposed to be listed on Best Buy's website, though it's not posted at the time of this writing. It will ship in the coming weeks. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Newegg Daily Deals: Samsung 23.6-inch Monitor, ASRock H87M Pro4 Motherboard, and More! Posted: 10 Oct 2013 07:56 AM PDT Top Deal: We know you have fond memories of late night gaming sessions on your bulky CRT, and yes, those big boxes were known for color accuracy. The heat they put out is even nice in the winter time, but it's time to let go and consider a bright and slim monitor from the modern age. There are tons to choose from, including today's top deal for a Samsung Glossy Blck 23.6-inch Widescreen LED Monitor (S24C570HL) for $150 with free shipping (normally $200 - use coupon code AFNJ2669). It has a Full HD 1080p resolution, 178-degree viewing anagle, and both D-Sub and HDMI ports. Other Deals: ASRock H87M Pro4 LGA 1150 Intel H87 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard for $73 with free shipping (normally $78 - use coupon code: [OCTSALE48]) Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970 ATX AMD Motherboard for $75 with free shipping (normally $85 - use coupon code: [AFNJ2668]; additional $10 Mail-in rebate) Intel Core i5-3350P Ivy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.3GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 69W Quad-Core Desktop Processor for $170 with free shipping (normally $180 - use coupon code: [OCTSALE33]) Plantronics GameCom Commander Circumaural Limited Edition Gaming Headset for $150 with free shipping.

You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - All Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610