General Gaming Article |
- Microsoft Releases a New Build of Windows 10 Technical Preview
- Newegg Daily Deals: Asus GeForce GTX 980, Intel Core i7-5820K, and More!
- Customize Your Radeon R9 Fury X Using AMD's 3D Printer Files
- Microsoft May Kick Windows Phone to the Curb, Concentrate on Android
- Rumor: Microsoft Interested In Purchasing AMD
- Acer Flaunts 34-inch Curved QHD Monitor with AMD Freesync
- Laptop vs. Desktop
| Microsoft Releases a New Build of Windows 10 Technical Preview Posted: 30 Jun 2015 01:56 PM PDT Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10158 is here!On Monday, Microsoft announced the release of Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 10158. This new build focuses on polishing the platform before its retail release in late July. Changes include updates to the Microsoft Edge browser, general improvements, refinements to the user interface, and more. "We don't have any significant known issues for this build worth noting in the blog post but we are servicing several issues so make sure you check Windows Update for those" says Gabe Aul. The browser appears to have a new logo and Microsoft Edge label. Other changes to Edge include playing music while the browser is minimized in the background, the ability to drag-and-drop tabs into a new window, password and form-fill support, new start-up options, and new customizations for the New Tab page. "One of the top pieces of feedback we've heard from Windows Insiders is that many of you really wanted a "home" button for Microsoft Edge," he said. "In this build, we've provided an option for you to add it via Settings > Advanced Settings and turn on "Show the home button.'" As for the updated interface, Aul said that when using the Start Menu, customers can swipe up on the left side to open the All Apps list. Here users can simply click once to bring up the alphabet and choose a specific letter where the desired app resides. Another improvement is notification when an app (such as Skype) needs the user's attention: it will now flash orange on the Taskbar. Cortana has also received a few changes. For example, the Notebook now includes the Profile and Settings panels. Cortana is also capable of sending email; simply say that you want to send an email, tell "her" the recipient, the subject, and the body of the email. "Tracking your flights has also been enabled, so when you get an e-mail with flight or package information from supported providers they show up in the Cortana experience and Cortana will also alert you about them," Aul writes. "Alerts for going to work, going home, and the airport are also work now, too." In addition to Microsoft Edge and Cortana, Build 10158 has an updated Photos app, an updated Snipping Tool, and an updated Insider Hub. There are also dedicated fixes for the Surface 3 and the Surface Pro 3. For the former, Microsoft fixed the issue that kept it from upgrading successfully. The latter fix improves battery life. Windows 10 is expected to launch on July 29. There's a good chance that Windows Insider participants won't see another build until the operating system's development is locked down. Once Windows 10 launches, Insiders can choose to keep getting the latest builds or opt out of the program and receive updates with the rest of the consumer base. |
| Newegg Daily Deals: Asus GeForce GTX 980, Intel Core i7-5820K, and More! Posted: 30 Jun 2015 12:51 PM PDT Top Deal: PC gaming is alive and well (just pay no attention to Batman: Arkham Knight)! The question is, is your PC able to handle games like Witcher 3, GTA V, and so forth? If not, then take a look at today's top deal for an Asus Strix GeForce GTX 980 Graphics Card for $500 with free shipping (normally $520 - use coupon code: [EMCATPA79]; additional $20 mail-in-rebate). Armed with 2,048 CUDA cores and 4GB of memory on a 256-bit bus, this card is ready for action. It also comes with the aforementioned Arkham Knight title, which Rocksteady is working hard to fix. Other Deals: Intel Core i7-5820K Haswell-E 6-Core 3.3GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W Desktop Processor for $375 with $1 shipping (normally $390 - use coupon code: [EMCATPA23] ; Free Intel Game Bundle with purchase, limited offer) Corsair CX500 500W 80 Plus Bronze Certified Active PFC Power Supply for $45 with free shipping (normally $50 - use coupon code: [EMCATPA24]; additional $20 Mail-in rebate) SanDisk SSD Plus 2.5-inch 240GB SATA Revision 3.0 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for $80 with free shipping (normally $85 - use coupon code: [EMCATPA37]) AMD A10-5800K Trinity Quad-Core 3.8GHz Socket FM2 Desktop Processor for $80 with free shipping (normally $90 - use coupon code: [EMCATPA32]) |
| Customize Your Radeon R9 Fury X Using AMD's 3D Printer Files Posted: 30 Jun 2015 12:36 PM PDT Your card, your design AMD built its Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card with a removable front plate with the intention of letting customers design their own alternatives. To help do that, AMD has made available the 3D model for the Fury X's face plate so that owners of the graphics card can design their own 3D printed or CNC replacement. The stock face plate uses multiple pieces of aluminum die cast finished in black nickel and a soft touch black layer. AMD says it's pleased with its design, though if you want to replace it, you just need to remove four screws, one in each corner, as shown in the picture above. "During the process of creating the industrial design for the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card we encountered a variety of unique perspectives within AMD on how it should look. These differentiating opinions made us think, what if we could enable our customers to implement their own creativity on our design? To do this we incorporated a removable front plate on the AMD Radeon R9 Fury X graphics card to allow for customer creativity," AMD said. AMD's also asking users to share their own creations, of which it will highlight its favorites. If you're interested, here's the link to download the 3D model. |
| Microsoft May Kick Windows Phone to the Curb, Concentrate on Android Posted: 30 Jun 2015 12:09 PM PDT If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!Take this with a heavy dose of skepticism covered in salt, but rumor has it Microsoft is having internal discussions about dropping Windows Phone and chasing its mobile dreams through Android. If Microsoft went down that road, it would focus its mobile efforts on pre-installing services like Office, Skype, and OneDrive onto Android phones and tablets. The rumor originates from Twitter user and known Microsoft leaker "MSNerd." "Nadella and the SLT debating continuing Windows on phones and small tablets versus bundle Microsoft services on Android as the way forward," MSNerd said, according to The Inquirer. "Microsoft would push Google Play devices with Microsoft apps in exchange for Google providing first-class Maps, YouTube, Search on Windows." It's a 'scratch-my-back' sort of deal that MSNerd describes, though would Microsoft really go down that road? Giving up on Windows Phone at this stage seems unlikely, especially with the work that's been put into Windows 10 for Mobile. At the same time, Nadella's recent letter to employees talked about making "some tough choices in areas where things are not working." Whether or not Microsoft's mobile strategy is working is up for debate. According to IDC's data, Microsoft's share of the mobile market at the end of the first quarter was just 2.7 percent. That's not much, and there hasn't been much movement in the past several years. Have a look:
If you average those out, you get 2.6 percent, or just 0.1 percent below where it's at now. Meanwhile, Android has a stranglehold on the mobile market with a 78 percent share, followed by iOS at a distant second with 18.3 percent. Looking at the numbers, it might not be the worst thing in the world for Microsoft to alter its mobile strategy and ride the coattails of Android. Whether or not it goes down that road, however, we'll have to wait and see. |
| Rumor: Microsoft Interested In Purchasing AMD Posted: 30 Jun 2015 12:03 PM PDT A report from Kitguru suggests that Microsoft may be eyeing struggling chipmaker AMD as a potential acquisition. The news arrives via an unnamed source who claims that Microsoft approached the chip maker several months ago. The details of the acquisition talks are unknown for now, but the report points to Microsoft's $95.3 billion in cash and AMD's value of $1.81 billion. Clearly Microsoft has the cash to make the acquisition happen. Currently, AMD trails behind Intel in the CPU market. However, the company provides the APUs that power both the Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One console. Microsoft has sold an estimated 12.6 million Xbox One units since the console's launch. Take that number and mulitply it by the $100 Microsoft pays AMD per console, and you've got $1.26 billion. By acquiring AMD, Microsoft would presumably save billions while also getting a small cut from console rival Sony Entertainment, thanks to the APU in the PlayStation 4. The report points out that if the acquisition does in fact take place, Microsoft would save even more money by producing its own SoCs for smartphones and tablets. This would seemingly help Microsoft's plan for having one operating system for all form factors: having APUs in the Xbox One, in phones, in tablets and in desktops and notebooks. This is not the first time we've heard of an AMD acquisition. A rumor surfaced back in March that Samsung was eyeing the APU maker again after contemplating an acquisition back in 2007. As we wrote back then, Samsung would take advantage of AMD's GPU and CPU technology to better compete with rival Qualcomm. The latest rumor arrives after another rumor surfaced last week claiming that AMD may split its business in half or spin off several divisions so that it can better compete with rival chip maker Intel. The rumor was based on three people "familiar with the matter" and indicated that CEO Lisa Su was investigating every possible avenue to get the company in the black. According to Reuters, AMD has hired a consulting firm to create scenarios to help determine how splitting the company in half or selling off portions would work. One scenario sees AMD spinning off its licensing and graphics business from its server department. However, AMD denies that such a project even exists. As for the latest rumor, would Microsoft be a better fit as AMD's parent company? The situation is quite interesting, and could force Sony to choose another processor maker for its next console. Unfortunately, both AMD and Microsoft didn't comment on the rumor. |
| Acer Flaunts 34-inch Curved QHD Monitor with AMD Freesync Posted: 30 Jun 2015 09:45 AM PDT A peripheral product Acer today announced that its XR431KC ultra-wide curved monitor with a QHD (3440x1440) panel, zero-frame design, and AMD Freesync support is headed to the United States. That's a lot of visual goodness packed into a single display. We'll start with the curved screen, which is quickly becoming popular in the display market. According to Acer, the benefit of having a curved display is that it puts every corner of the screen at the same distance from your eyes for more uniform viewing. This is aided by the monitor's ultra-wide field of view, which increases the perceived area of peripheral vision compared to a flat display of the same size, Acer says. Add in a zero-frame design and gamers are left with a totally immersive display, or at least that's the pitch. "This killer new monitor makes game play incredibly realistic," said Charlotte Chen, Acer America product manager. "The ultra-wide curved design, stunning image quality and dynamic audio take the thrill of gaming to a new level." The XR431KC sports an In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel for more accurate color reproduction and wider viewing angles than what you'll get with the majority of cheaper Twisted Nematic (TN) panels. It sports 100 percent coverage of the RGB color space and has a rated response time of 4ms. Other features include an adjustable aluminum stand with tilt (-5 to 35 degrees) and height (up to 5 inches) adjusments, picture-by-picture (PBP) and picture-in-picture (PIP) support, dual 7W speakers with DTS sound, and connectivity options consisting of HDMI v2.0 with MHL charging, DisplayPort, mini DisplayPort, and DisplayPort out. There's also a built-in USB 3.0 hub (1 up / 4 down). The XR341CK will be available in late July for $1,100 MSRP. |
| Posted: 30 Jun 2015 12:00 AM PDT This article was published in the February 2015 issue of Maximum PC. For more trusted reviews and feature stories, subscribe here. Gaming laptops have come a long way, but can they really replace desktop rigs?For a long time, many PC gamers scoffed at the idea of gaming laptops. After all, how could you fit all that power in such a small form factor? And even if you could somehow squeeze it in, it's got to be deafeningly loud or incredibly heavy, right? Well, the gaming notebook sector is advancing, and it's doing so by leaps and bounds. So much so that big gray box companies are taking notice. HP, for instance, is jumping back in with its Omen gaming notebook. Gone are the days when a modestly powerful gaming laptop had to be a back-breaker. Many aren't much thicker than some of the sleek Ultrabooks out there now. But what of performance? The gap between desktop and mobile GPU performance is narrowing faster than a teen's teeth with braces. So can a desktop-replacement laptop now truly live up to its name? There's only one way to find out, and that's by throwing them both into the Thunderdome. Let battle commence! Slugging It OutWho's your money on? The heavyweight champ or the light-footed contender? Desktops and gaming laptops go eight rounds to see which is best GPULet's face facts. As powerful as gaming laptop GPUs have become, they will always be slower than their desktop counterparts. You can always cram more power into larger components; it's simple physics. But gaming laptop GPUs are narrowing the divide, and this has been the case with every passing generation of mobile GPUs. According to Nvidia, its Fermi-based 480M GPU only offered 40 percent of the performance of its 480 desktop equivalent back in 2010. Nvidia claims the gap narrowed to 60 percent with the Kepler-based 680M. Now Nvidia says the 980M is roughly 70–80 percent as fast as its current flagship GTX 980. From our internal testing, our numbers don't support those figures across the board, but they aren't terribly far off. But performance issues aside, a glancing blow to mobile GPUs is that you can't typically swap them out. The beauty of gaming on a desktop PC is that if a beefer card comes along, you can just pop it in. In addition, while there are some dual-GPU options in the gaming notebook space, they are few and far between. And four-way mobile GPU options? Fuggedaboutit. Winner: Desktop The performance gap between mobile and desktop GPUs is shrinking. CPUJust about all the high-end gaming laptops that arrive in our Lab come with quad-core i7 CPUs, but in all honesty, they hold a rinky-dink candle to their desktop counterparts. Comparing high-end mobile quadcore to high-end desktop quad-core, we're talking a delta of 40–50 percent. And that's not to mention the six- and eight-core CPUs desktops can offer. Sure, some crazy beast laptops such as AVADirect's Clevo P570WM squeeze hexa-core desktop CPUs into their monstrous chassis, but notebooks like that are rare. Plus, you can't watercool them, meaning you can't unleash the beast to its full potential. To avoid overheating, laptop CPUs typically throttle themselves, and if they don't, they tend to sound like shop vacs. Not great. But arguably the biggest win for the desktop column here is the modularity factor. You just can't beat swappable CPUs. Winner: Desktop Mobile CPUs are still lagging behind their desktop counterparts. SoundYears ago, laptop speakers were weak pieces of crap. But these days, while they may not please the harshest audiophiles, most high-end gaming laptops now offer plenty of volume firepower. Hell, some even offer a 2.1 setup with a bass speaker underneath the chassis. And you don't have to spend a fortune to get good audio from a gaming notebook. Lenovo's Y500 gaming series, which retail around $1,000, offer great sounding speakers licensed by JBL. This should be an easy win for gaming laptops, right? Unfortunately, sound goes both ways, and fan noise is a major factor. A good laptop like the Asus ROG G751 will run near silent under load, but something that's too powerful for its britches, such as the AVADirect Clevo W230ST, can sound annoyingly loud. Your mileage may vary here, but with both ends of this spectrum to consider, we're calling it a draw. Winner: Tie RAM Laptops aren't known to be modular, but most of them allow you to swap out RAM. In fact, some will even let you plop in up to 32GB, which is more than enough for gaming and everyday tasks. In terms of pricing, both are pretty competitive, with the cost equalling roughly $10 per gig of DDR3 on either platform. If we had to give one platform the nod, it would have to go to the desktop. Some gaming laptops, most notably the really thin ones, make it difficult to access the RAM slots. Typically, the only way to do this is to completely unscrew the notebook's base, which usually voids the warranty. Winner: Desktop StorageFor a long time, smaller 2.5-inch laptop drives have generally been smaller and/or pricier than traditional 3.5-inch HDDs. With SSDs coming down in price and increasing in storage capacity, however, laptops can now offer a decent amount of storage at a reasonable cost. And with m.sata SSDs being so tiny, you don't have to sacrifice thinness for storage space. Still, it's almost comical to even compare the advantages of a desktop when it comes to storage, where your biggest limiting factor is how many SATA ports you have. This means you aren't constrained to using just 2.5-inch laptop drives. Knowing you can expand your storage by 4TB simply by plugging in one SATA cable... that's a good feeling. Winner: Desktop The rise of the SSD has meant big improvements for laptop storage. KeyboardWe all love our mechanical keyboards, which have been a mainstay of gaming desktops for years, so you're probably thinking this is an easy win for the desktop column, right? But while most gaming laptop keyboards merely get the job done, they are also "free." In addition, you could always hook up a mechanical keyboard to your gaming laptop if you need to get your clickity-clackity fix. While you may scoff this off as awkward, it's actually fairly common at big national LAN events. Furthermore, some gaming laptops like MSI's GT80 will be shipping with integrated mechanical keyboards, though the jury is still out on how well they'll work. Winner: Laptop MonitorThere's a lot of quality variance when it comes to laptop monitors. We're beginning to see a lot of UHD panels out there, and then there's also the IPS versus TN facet to consider. Most gaming laptop monitors come in the 60Hz variety, unless they support stereoscopic 3D, but those have been rare birds since stereoscopic 3D glasses failed to take off. But even if you've got a crummy 1080p TN display, you could always plug a nice discrete monitor into the laptop. Like the keyboard category, free is better than not free, and you still get the discrete monitor. The one big downside is that laptop displays are smaller, and you can't raise their screens with a stand. Those quibbles aside, though, free monitor beats not-free monitor. Winner: Laptop PortabilityDesktops may have the power and the modularity, but it's tough to beat the portability that a laptop offers. Even if you could get a powerful PC in a relatively small mini-ITX form factor, they're still bigger and heavier than the fattest gaming laptops out there. Plus, you've got to lug around a monitor, keyboards, and cables galore. For situations like LAN parties, ain't nobody got time for that. Winner: Laptop ConlusionWith the freedom to easily swap out components, coupled with the power they offer, it's clear the desktop PC isn't going anywhere. Having said that, however, as good as the desktop platform is, you shouldn't dismiss gaming laptops too swiftly. They've come a long way and are getting more powerful with each passing The rise of the SSD has meant big improvements for laptop storage. swiftly year. Believe it or not, the performance gap is narrowing (though it's unlikely to ever catch up completely). Furthermore, a lot of the other issues that have plagued gaming laptops, like size, weight, and noise, are slowly being ironed out. In short, we think you should allow plenty of room at the table for both a desktop and a gaming laptop. Mobile High-End GPUsA closer look at what you can achieve with a laptopAbove are charts showing the latest and greatest mobile GPUs from both Nvidia and AMD. Keep in mind that because of architectural differences, numbers should only be considered across the same brands, not across the board, for an accurate Even then, the comparison can be misleading. Nvidia's latest Maxwell GPUs, for instance, have CUDA cores that do far more pixel processing per clock than the older Kepler tech. So, the 1,536 cores in the 980M are far more powerful than the same number of cores in the 880M. That said, AMD uses pretty much the same GCN stream processors across its current model range. Nvidia's Battery Boost RevisitedRevised power management now delivers. A little...If you can remember our August 2014 issue, we weren't too impressed with Nvidia's Battery Boost when it came out. For the uninitiated, the feature throttles gaming performance to optimize battery life, but we saw little-to-no gains. Nvidia acknowledged an issue and has been trying to rectify that with its mobile Maxwell GPUs. We tested it with our Asus ROG G751, with its Nvidia GTX 980M, and saw a small gain this time. For our benchmark, we did A/B testing by looping the Tomb Raider graphics benchmark until our G751 died. With Battery Boost disabled, the laptop ran around 50fps average and lasted 70 minutes. With Battery Boost enabled, we got 80 minutes. Ten minutes extra may not sound much, but a 15 percent bonus is nothing to sneeze at. But keep in mind, you'll be trading frames per second for those extra minutes, as the frame rate target. All in all, it's a small gain, and you won't be leaving your laptop charger behind anytime soon. Battery Boost defaults to 30fps, but you can change that. Laptop vs Desktop: Crunching the NumbersCan mobile GPUs really offer 80 percent of the performance of their desktop siblings?Nvidia claims its 980M GPU can muster 70–80 percent of the horsepower its desktop sibling offers, and so this month we decided to put that claim to the test by pitting Asus's new ROG G751 against a 980 GeForce GTX box we put together ourselves. We ran a host of gaming benchmarks at maximum settings at both 1080p and 2560x1600 resolution across both systems. We also threw a high-end quad-core CPU into our box—specifically, Intel's i7-4790K Devil's Canyon processor—because we wanted to see how a high-end quad-core desktop CPU stacks up against a high-end mobile equivalent. How did the two compare? While Nvidia's claim wasn't totally off-base, there were only two tests in our graphics benchmarks in which it really lived up to the claim. The mobile GPU version of Batman: Arkham Origins at 1080p and 3D Mark 11 at Extreme settings both ran over 80 percent as fast as its desktop counterpart, which was surprisingly impressive. The rest of the numbers, however, don't stack up nearly as well. We saw the largest split in Bioshock Infinite a t 1080p, w here the mobile GPU got blasted by roughly 80 percent. The rest of the GPU benchmarks show leads for the desktop GPU by roughly 35–45 percent, which is still quite impressive given the fact the 980 GTX desktop is a badass graphics card. Nvidia's GPU boasts rang true for Batman, but Bioshock and Hitman fared less well. From an experiential perspective, our Nomad laptop is equipped with a 1080p monitor, and with the exception of Hitman: Absolution, which is quite the system hog at maximum settings, the system was overkill and played any game we threw at it well over 60fps. When we hooked up the laptop to a 2560 display, however, Hitman became unplayable at maximum, reporting average frame rates in the mid-20s. Batman: Arkham Origins' frame rates nearly split in half. As powerful as these mobile GPUs are, high-resolution displays do a great job of highlighting the importance of having a kick ass desktop GPU. But what of the CPU side? It was surprisingly unanimous across the board in favor of Devil's Canyon, by about 45 percent. Ultimately, then, there's no getting away from the thermal and power constraints of a mobile form factor. The laws of physics simply get in the way. |
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