General Gaming Article |
- Newegg Daily Deals: Asus GeForce GTX 970, Samsung 850 Evo 120GB SSD, and More!
- AMD Releases Catalyst 15.9 Beta Driver Optimized for Star Wars: Battlefront
- Microsoft Attempts to Soothe Privacy Concerns Over Windows 10
- Logitech Adds G140 Atlas Spectrum to Mechanical Keyboard Arsenal
- Samsung SM951 NVMe 256GB Review
- How To: Future-Proof Your Home Network
| Newegg Daily Deals: Asus GeForce GTX 970, Samsung 850 Evo 120GB SSD, and More! Posted: 29 Sep 2015 12:03 PM PDT Top Deal: There are many ways to relieve stress. If we were to list them out, gaming would be No. 2 on our list (we'll let your mind run wild with what No. 1 is). Of course, without a dedicated graphics card, trying to game would only increase our stress level, so why mess around with integrated graphics? We wouldn't, and if you don't plan to either, then check out today's top deal for an Asus GeForce GTX 970 Strix Graphics Card for $309 with free shipping (normally $325 - use coupon code: [EMCAXN22]; additional $20 mail-in-rebate). This is a factory overclocked card with high quality parts and a custom cooling solution that's cooler and quieter than reference. Other Deals: Samsung 850 Evo 2.5-inch 120GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive for $60 with free shipping (normally $70 - use coupon code: [EMCAXNX23]) Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive for $80 with free shipping (normally $90 - use coupon code: [ESCAXNX24]) Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 Desktop Memory for $83 with free shipping (normally $108) MSI 970 Gaming AM3+ AMD 970 6 x SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Motherboard for $80 with $3 shipping (normally $99) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| AMD Releases Catalyst 15.9 Beta Driver Optimized for Star Wars: Battlefront Posted: 29 Sep 2015 11:39 AM PDT Getting ready to rumble If you're running Radeon graphics and plan to play the Star Wars: Battlefront beta when it comes out next week, AMD has a new Catalyst driver release that might be of interest. It's Catalyst 15.9, which itself is also a beta release. According to AMD, its latest beta driver contains "performance and quality" optimizations for Battlefront, along with the DirectX 12 optimizations for the Fable Legends: Benchmark. In addition to performance tweaks, Catalyst 15.9 resolves several issues. They include:
There are also a bunch of known issues, such as GTA V crashing on some Radeon R9 390X GPUs and flickering in the Battlefront beta if Crossfire is enabled. You can read the full list of issues in the release notes. If and when you're ready to download the driver, go here (32-bit) or here (64-bit). As for Battlefront, it releases in beta form on October 8. EA is considering it a "technical test" to give fans a small taste of what to expect. There will be three modes spread across three planets, including Walker Assault on Hoth (40-player battle with Rebels trying to destroy the Empire's onslaught of AT-ATs), Drop Zone on Sullust (8v8 matches as you fight for control of escape pods), and Survival Mission (play alone or with a friend to hold off waves of Imperial forces). | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Microsoft Attempts to Soothe Privacy Concerns Over Windows 10 Posted: 29 Sep 2015 10:43 AM PDT Can privacy and Windows 10 go hand-in-hand? Since launching two months ago, Windows 10 has been simultaneously praised for bringing the focus back to the desktop, and soundly criticized for potentially stepping over privacy bounds at every turn. Speaking to the latter, Microsoft's Terry Myerson says that from the very outset, WIndows 10 was designed with two straightforward privacy principles in mind. The first is that "Windows 10 collects information so the product will work better for you", and the second is that "you are in control with the ability to determine what information" Microsoft collects. Those statements alone aren't likely to be sufficient to appease Windows 10 users who are concerned about privacy, so Myerson goes on to explain things in a little more detail. "We collect a limited amount of information to help us provide a secure and reliable experience. This includes data like an anonymous device ID, device type, and application crash data, which Microsoft and our developer partners use to continuously improve application reliability," Myerson states. "This doesn't include any of your content or files, and we take several steps to avoid collecting any information that directly identifies you, such as your name, email address, or account ID." Microsoft's attempting to walk a fine line here. On one hand, Myerson acknowledges that Windows 10 shares information about you with Microsoft, but on the other hand, he's saying it's largely anonymous and for the benefit of certain features. What about Cortana? "Note that with new features like Cortana, which require more personal information to deliver the full experience, you are asked if you want to turn them on and are given additional privacy customization options," Myserson explains. Myerson also took a subtle shot at Google by saying that "unlike some other platforms," Windows 10 doesn't scan the contents of email or other forms of communication to deliver targeted ads. The blog post isn't likely to sway users who believe Windows 10 is little more than a mass spying platform for Microsoft. However, it does at least open a dialog and confirm that Microsoft is aware of the negative privacy perception surrounding its OS. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Logitech Adds G140 Atlas Spectrum to Mechanical Keyboard Arsenal Posted: 29 Sep 2015 09:19 AM PDT Compact and colorful Logitech today announced its new G410 Atlas Spectrum, a tenkeyless (no dedicated number pad) keyboard with mechanical switches. Unlike many of the mechanical planks out there, the G410 Atlas Spectrum doesn't use Cherry-brand key switches. Instead, Logitech designed its own "Romer-G" switches and tasked Omron with building them. If the name Omron looks familiar, it's probably because they make button switches from several high-end gaming mice. As for the G-Romer switches in the G410, Logitech says they offer 25 percent faster actuation than standard competing switches with an actuation point of 1.5mm. The pitch is that they receive commands faster, which in turn will give gamers an edge in competitive matches. The G410 uses center-illuminated RGB backlighting for gaming in the dark. You can customize the backlighting and synchronize various effects to in-game situations, such as having them turn red when your health reaches a critical low. Logitech didn't include a built-in LCD in the construction of the G410, but the keyboard does come with an Arx Control dock that you can position wherever you like. It's essentially a stand for your smartphone or tablet. Using Logitech's Arx Control app for Android or iOS, you can use your mobile device to display in-game information, system stats, and more. "We worked closely with gamers of all ages and our eSports teams to create this ultra-light keyboard that is durable and comfortable," said Ujesh Desai, vice president and general manager of gaming at Logitech. "The result is something that we think meets the needs of eSports athletes, but is also great for younger gamers looking to buy their first gaming keyboard." The G410 Atlas Spectrum will be available in October for $130 MSRP. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Samsung SM951 NVMe 256GB Review Posted: 29 Sep 2015 07:52 AM PDT At a Glance(+) Speed Freaks: Fast; compact; great for laptops. (-) Speed Limits: High price per GB; limited capacities; BIOS support for booting; OEM-only. Compact, fast, and built for OEMsLast week, we posted our new SSD test suite and set our baseline expectations. Our baseline SSDs consist of one of the fastest SATA drives, two good SATA SSDs in RAID 0, and Intel's SSD 750 PCIe NVMe drive. The Intel drive is a force to be reckoned with, easily beating the other SSDs in most of our tests, but it's also the first NVMe drive we've tested. Today, we're reviewing Samsung's first NVMe offering, the SM951 NVMe M.2 256GB. A quick overview of storage interfaces is in order before we continue. NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is a new standard designed specifically around the needs of SSDs, where previous SSDs used the AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) command set that was built for SATA drives—which initially consisted solely of hard drives and other slow storage options. NVMe connects to storage via a PCI Express interface, opting to use the existing standard rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. The core differences between NVMe and AHCI are that NVMe has significantly more queues and supports more commands per queue (65536 queues and commands per queue, compared to one queue with up to 32 commands), it has more interrupt options, and there's significantly improved parallelism for the interface and devices. If you're just interested in what this means to the end user, NVMe has much higher bandwidth and some optimizations to reduce latency and improve throughput. Intel's SSD 750 is awesome, but there are a few limitations. The biggest issue is price: The smallest version is 400GB and costs just under $400, while the larger 800GB and 1.2TB models double and triple the capacity and price. There are other potential concerns, though, like the need for an x4 PCIe 3.0 slot to realize maximum performance, and a motherboard that has BIOS support for NVMe. Intel offers the drive in a 2.5-inch form factor as well, though it requires relatively rare SFF-8643 (Serial Attached SCSI) connector. Basically, very few people are going to have a board with SFF-8643, so there's not much demand for those drives. That brings us back to the Samsung SM951 NVMe M.2 256GB. This aims to take all the NVMe goodness and stuff it into a convenient M.2 PCIe form factor, naturally—we love names that tell you pretty much everything you want to know! Just to clarify a few things, it's important to note that the SM951 M.2 PCIe SSD was already available a while ago, but the earlier release uses the AHCI command set. The SM951 NVMe is essentially the same core device but with some minor tweaks to switch from AHCI to NVMe; going forward in this article, when we say "SM951" we're specifically talking about the NVMe model. There's also one major problem with the SM951: It's intended for OEMs, typically going into laptops, so it's not widely available, though you can still find it for sale on Amazon.com and Newegg.com. Hail to the KingOne thing to note before we get into the results is that Samsung elected to send us their 256GB model for testing. This will have an impact on certain performance metrics as the larger SSDs often have better parallelism, particularly for write operations. Samsung specifies the 256GB model with read speeds of up to 2,150MB/s and write speeds of up to 1,260MB/s, while the 512GB model has slightly higher peak write performance of 1,550MB/s. So, how does the Samsung SM951 perform, and can it hope to dethrone the Intel SSD 750? As we noted in our revamped SSD test suite article, we've updated to a new test bed for storage, running a Skylake processor in a Z170 motherboard. We had initially planned on using our X99 GPU test system, but the M.2 slot unfortunately only runs at x2 PCIe Gen2. Which makes for an interesting comparison point, so we've added it to our graphs to show what happens if you run the Samsung drive on a narrower bus. Here's our test system (except for the PCIe Gen2 results), followed by the benchmarks.
Considering the relatively low capacity, the SM951 does well in our sequential and random transfer results. The Intel 1.2TB drive is faster, but if we had the 400GB Intel vs. the 512GB Samsung, things would likely be much closer—and you'd get 112GB of additional storage from Samsung. The QD64 AS SSD Random Write results are the one area where Intel still holds a significant advantage, but that's a pretty unlikely use case for consumers. As we continue through the benchmarks, IOmeter confirms the AS SSD results, but an interesting thing happens when we get to the "real world": Samsung wins out in both the file copy test and PCMark 8 Storage. The PCMark 8 Storage Score, of course, reflects system-wide performance, so the SSD has less of an impact and most of the drives are "tied," but Samsung is clearly delivering better bandwidth. The same is true of file copying, where Samsung enjoys a moderate lead. Somewhat interesting is that even on an x2 Gen2 PCIe connection, the SM951 is still generally faster than SATA SSDs, including RAID 0 SATA drives, but there's clearly a bottleneck. Here's what the charts won't tell you: The Intel SSD 750 is basically useless for laptops and notebooks. This is the intended market for the SM951, and not only does it offer great performance, but it does it in an M.2 form factor that you can find in most modern laptops. The catch is that you still need a laptop BIOS that supports booting from an NVMe drive; otherwise, the SM951 will only work as secondary storage. That sort of defeats the purpose of buying an NVMe M.2 device, which is probably why Samsung is positioning the drive as an OEM-only product. Coming Soon: Samsung 950 ProThere's a lot to like with the Samsung SM951, but even with great performance, it may not be the M.2 drive to get. Samsung just briefed us on their upcoming 950 Pro SSD, which will be a retail product with full NVMe support. Hopefully, that should mean better prices and wider availability, though we don't have internal performance numbers just yet. Interestingly, Samsung didn't compare performance of the 950 Pro with the SM951, but on paper there's a bit of give and take going on. The SM951 uses planar NAND while the 950 Pro will use V-NAND, so 950 Pro should have better endurance and require less power. The peak read speeds are slightly higher on the 950 Pro as well, but peak write performance may be down slightly. In other words, while the SM951 is speedy, this review is really setting us up for the Samsung 950 Pro launch in October. There likely won't be a huge difference between the two drives in overall performance, but the retail 950 Pro should be more easily available for purchase. If you don't care about the M.2 form factor, e.g., for desktop use, the Intel SSD 750 1.2TB is still the drive to beat when it comes to pure performance; it also wins out for capacity, as the SM951 tops out at 512GB. If you don't need the additional space and you want an M.2 NVMe drive today, the SM951 is still a great drive and definitely worth a look. Frankly, there aren't many other options out there, and of those that we've tested (more SSD reviews coming soon!) the SM951 comes out well ahead of the competition. But that price will still make you think twice, and you still have to deal with system requirements. There's also the fact that as an OEM-only product, you won't get any warranty from Samsung. Caveat emptor. Here's some more food for thought. Samsung's SM951 may be over twice as fast as a good SATA drive in many of our benchmarks, but for less demanding users, it's hard to go wrong with the Samsung 850 EVO 500GB. Not coincidentally, you get more than twice the storage capacity of the 256GB SM951 for less money as an added benefit. It may not be the new hotness, but SATA is still more than fast enough for most users. That's likely to be a recurring theme with high-performance SSDs for the coming year, but someone has to blaze trails and eventually the price discrepancy between SATA and M.2 drive should fade away. And by the time that happens, we should also see a wider installed base of motherboards and laptops with NVMe support. Samsung's SM951 ends up being an awesome little drive with a few disclaimers. For those who fall into the target demographic, it's easily the best of its class, but in the fast-changing world of SSDs that title may not last long. Swing by next month and we'll see where things stand. Follow Jarred on Twitter. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| How To: Future-Proof Your Home Network Posted: 29 Sep 2015 12:00 AM PDT 10 gigabit Ethernet in your home in about two hoursChances are high that if you've ever tried moving a file larger than 1GB from one device to another over your Wi-Fi network, you've noticed that you have just enough time to floss your teeth, clip your nails, and stare at that old pencil mark on your desk for a solid minute before that file makes it to its destination. As you sat there waiting you probably thought to yourself, "There's gotta be a better way!" There is! It's called a "wired network" and it has been around since Intel was a pup. While not as easy or as buzzword-laden as Wi-Fi, you can't beat a wired network for serious, intense throughput. And we're going to show you that it's not as tough to install in a home as you might think. C'mon, let's get dirty! WARNING: Check your local regulations on permits and cabling in your area! Tools you'll need:
Sure, we could have gone with plain old Cat5e cable rated for gigabit Ethernet transfer speeds, but this isn't "Average PC" is it? No, we want future-proofing and room for 10-gigabit Ethernet, son! Arr! We're also using a patch panel that handles 24 ports to allow room for later expansion. Note that we're assuming you already have a Gigabit router/switch available (which would include 802.11ac Wireless routers); 10GbE switches are still very expensive, but they'll drop in price as sure as you can say "gravity," and when they do you'll be ready. To start, you should measure your wall height and the approximate run of your cable from your source to the area you'd like to install your new wall jack. You want the jack on an interior wall to avoid dealing with insulation, and at least one stud away from an electrical outlet to lessen the chances that you'll nip a live wire and black out the neighborhood. You also want it centered between wall studs to make the drilling portion easier. Wall studs are about 16 inches apart, but some are 24 inches; you'll need to use your stud finder to see what standard your home uses. Use a pencil to lightly mark the studs on each side of your work area. Find Your Supports | ||||||||||||||||||||
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