Although budget handsets are critical to a company’s smartphone portfolio, they often receive less polish and less development time than the high-end models. Sometimes they come out half-baked, with a greater number of compromises than you would hope for or expect. The abysmal Nokia X is a perfect example of this and the result is a severely underdone phone. Over at Motorola, it’s a completely different story from other major manufacturers....
The MSM8916 in the Moto G 2015 features a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU clocked at up to 1.4 GHz, which is slightly higher than the 1.2 GHz CPU clock we’ve seen in other Snapdragon 410 devices (the Galaxy A5 and the 2015 Moto E). This clock speed increase should result in around 15% better performance in CPU limited workloads relative to other Snapdragon 410 handsets. Interestingly, despite this 200 MHz jump in max CPU frequency, the Moto G’s Snapdragon 410 still carries the same model number as other 1....
32 GB of RAM, 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD, 1080p display - $1,599 16 GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, 1080p display - $1,649 16 GB of RAM, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD, 1080p display - $1,679 16 GB of RAM, 512GB SSD + 1TB HDD, 4K display - $1,899 Admittedly the configuration structure here is strange, particularly the inclusion of 32 GB of RAM in the cheapest model yet just 16 GB in all other models....
Spergel said they will look at available data from governments, civilians, non-profits and companies, decide what other information they should try to collect and determine how to best analyze it. “Consistent with NASA’s principles of openness, transparency, and scientific integrity, this report will be shared publicly,” said Daniel Evans, the assistant deputy associate administrator for research at NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. The community has largely moved away from the term unidentified flying objects (UFOs) due in part to the stigma it carries and the fact that some of these objects exhibit characteristics atypical of flight and beyond our understanding of physics....
Nintendo has finally added a feature to the Switch that arguably should have been there from day one. The new feature, which came bundled as part of the version 14.0.0 software update on March 21, enables users to create groups on the Switch. Groups are essentially folders; users can create up to 100 unique groups, and each one can hold a maximum of 200 titles. Groups can only be utilized when you have a dozen or more software titles saved on your Switch....
Most graphics cards struggle with Metro 2033 and when using the DirectX 11 mode with AA/16xAF enabled along with the maximum visual settings the lower-end/mid-range cards perform very poorly in our test. Although we are running in the DX11 mode the features have actually been disabled to try and produce a scenario where we see playable frame rates. The GeForce GTS 450 averaged 21fps making it faster than the Radeon HD 5770 while only slightly slower than the Radeon HD 5830....
Sleeping Dogs is extremely demanding with maxed visuals and the GTX 650 Ti only delivered 21fps, 9% slower than the GTX 560 Ti, 20% slower than the HD 6870, and 11% faster than the HD 7770. Borderlands 2 is less GPU intensive than Sleeping Dogs, so the GTX 650 Ti managed a much healthier 53fps this time around. Although it was 18% faster than the HD 7770, the new card was 12% slower than the HD 6870 and 27% slower than the GTX 560 Ti....
The GTX 660 was 20% slower than the GTX 660 Ti when testing Deus Ex at 1920x1200, though it still managed to outpace the HD 7850 by 9% and fell only 5% behind the HD 7870. The GTX 660 averaged 60fps in Hard Reset, a 25% lead on the HD 7850 and 3% on the HD 7870. It was also 25% faster than the GTX 560 Ti and 18% slower than the GTX 660 Ti....
The GeForce GTX 780 was able to average 62.6fps at 2560x1600, making it 11% slower than the GTX Titan but 21% faster than the GTX 680 and 14% faster than the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. The frame time performance closely reflected what we saw in the frames per second test, as the GeForce GTX 780 was 11% slower than the GTX Titan but 24% faster than the GTX 680....
The idle consumption figures are where we were expecting them to be at 69 watts each. The GTX 980 allowed for a total system power consumption of 274 watts, which is 6% less than the GTX 780 Ti and 12% less than the R9 290X. It’s also less than 1% more than the GTX 780 and 13% more power than the GTX 770. The GTX 970 consumed 7% less than the GTX 980 and 11% less than the R9 290....
Based on its $350 MSRP, the RTX 2060 comes at a cost of $4.06 per frame. The GPU provides a slightly better price to performance ratio than the GTX 1070, Vega 56 and the Radeon RX 590. It also makes it around 22% more cost effective than the RTX 2070, so that’s obviously a step in the right direction. Can you notice a trend on the graph above? Anything mid-range or better will set you back more than it ever has before....
The top-of-the-line Ampere consumer card is currently available for $400 off the MSRP at Best Buy. This is an official Founders Edition model of the AD102 GPU-based card, the same one that’s going for $1,999 on Nvidia’s official website. Given that Nvidia is still selling the card for its original price, Best Buy’s deal could only be temporary. But it’s another example of graphics card prices finally improving. It could also be a further indication of Nvidia trying to clear out stock before its next-gen RTX 4000 (Ada Lovelace) cards arrive....
With the RTX 4080 16B—now the only version of that card—landing on November 16, PC hardware retailer Micro Center is currently showing 13 models as “coming soon.” Asus, PNY, Zotac, Gigabyte, and MSI cards are all listed with prices ranging from $1,199 up to $1,549. The four cards priced at Nvidia’s MSRP are the PNY XLR8 Verto, Asus TUF, Zotac Trinity, and Gigabyte Eagle. Moving up the price range will get you the overclocked/gaming models, though it should be noted that some are hundreds of dollars more expensive for their small overclocks....
The GPU section of the Steam survey shows the RTX 3060 was once again the best-performing card, something we’ve seen in previous months. It was up 1.95% to take a 5.47% total share, making it the fourth most popular card among participants. Apart from a couple of older cards (GTX 1660 and GTX 1060) that saw gains last month, the top twelve best performers were mid-to-higher-end Ampere and Turing products, such as the RTX 3070, 3070 Ti, and 2080 Super....
It appears that police have arrested Sonic the Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka once again. The former Sonic Team head got arrested in November on insider trading charges related to the Dragon Quest Tact mobile game for Android and iOS. According to Japanese news outlet Asahi, police have collared Naka again on similar but separate charges. Naka’s most recent arrest is over his involvement in purchasing shares in the mobile game developer ATeam....
What QNAP offers, however, is a unique fanless set-top design as well as a more refined user interface and software setup than you’ll experience with Thecus. While we like the HS-210’s living room-friendly aesthetics and we’re happy that QNAP’s QTS software is finally on par with Synology, there are a few catches to cover. First, the concept of an HDMI-less multimedia NAS is strange to us, even if Synology also did it with the DS214play....
Upon opening the application, it will detect any QNAP NAS products installed on the network and then let you select the device and configure it. Here you can also see the NAS name, IP address, firmware version and MAC address. With the NAS selected, we can check the server details and above you can see that the TS-220 came with its older 3.8 firmware installed. You can also see that two HDDs have been detected, in our case a pair of Western Digital Red 1TB drives....
The plan is to start reviewing NAS type devices on a more regular basis at TechSpot so we’ll be building up benchmark results from this point forward. For now, only have the Synology TS-853A to compare against. The TS-1635 puts those four dedicated 2.5" SSD drive bays to use via “SSD cache acceleration” to enhance performance. QNAP says this is perfect for improving the overall workflow of IOPS-demanding applications and allows the best of both cost and performance by combining SSDs with HDDs....
At a mere .66 inches thick and powerful enough to capably handle some of the most demanding games on the market, Razer’s new 14-inch Blade might be the coolest piece of equipment I’ve ever played a PC game on. It’s certainly the hottest. Once known for its mid-to-high-end gaming peripherals, Razer has gotten to a point where I can no longer refer to them as an accessory manufacturer. Between the original 17-inch Razer Blade, the Edge PC gaming tablet, and now this ridiculously thin beauty, the company has definitely made an impression on the PC gaming market....
As for battery life, we’re looking at an 80 Wh integrated cell which delivers decent battery life. Not bad, not amazing, just okay for this sort of form factor. Luckily, the lack of G-Sync has allowed Razer to use Optimus technology, so it can switch off the discrete GPU when not in use, and that does help with battery life. But the Blade 2018 won’t last as long as a high-end 13-inch ultraportable which is to be expected....
