We expect Apple to launch its highly-anticipated new iPhone lineup in September. While that’s still a long way off, there are plenty of rumors, so we at least have an idea of what’s to come. Today well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that the iPhone 14 series will feature an upgraded front-facing camera with autofocus and a wider f/1.9 aperture. Previous rumors have indicated Apple’s desire to ditch the notch. Kuo has a good track record for predicting iPhone features, so his confirmation is only one step from being official....

Apple’s new 3m-long Thunderbolt 4 Pro cable is now officially available to purchase for a steep $159. While that price tag might sound insane, it’s currently the longest Thunderbolt 4 cable on the market. Passive Thunderbolt cables have a maximum length of about 0.8m, but this is an active cable. That means there are chips and retimers inside of it working together to reduce signal jitter. You can check out the teardown of the 1....

In the last few months, Apple has made another change to the AppleCare+ (AC+) program. Customers now have unlimited repairs. MacRumors notes that Apple recently changed its AC+ product page to show the new conditions. Previous AppleCare+ plans only covered two incidents per year. Of course, the same service fees still apply. Whether or not unlimited repairs add value to an AppleCare plan is debatable depending on your situation. Monthly rates vary by device and model; the cheapest is $2....

A report from the BBC claims the group in question is Lapsus$. It is unclear if one of the teens arrested and released was the alleged 16-year-old mastermind referenced in an earlier report from Bloomberg. The BBC report also mentions a 16-year-old from Oxford. The child, who can’t be named for legal reasons, is said to have autism and attends a special education school. The boy’s father said he hadn’t heard anything about the matter until recently....

GPU pricing and availability was bleak in 2021, as we’ve noted in each one of our monthly reports. People who have been trying to upgrade their systems with one of Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series or AMD’s RX 6000 series graphics cards were faced with scalpers and cryptocurrency enthusiasts grabbing much of the available stock. Used GPU pricing has also been a nightmare, as it followed a similar trend as brand new GPUs....

Thanks to the use of a Core i5-6500 processor, the Asrock DeskMini blasted its way through our Excel workload in just 5.9 seconds - a blistering fast time for such a small PC. The DeskMini proved itself the king of PowerPoint - taking just 2.9 seconds to complete the workload. This puts the rest of the small form factor systems we tested to shame. Here the DeskMini reached a total of 15114 MIPS making it 34% faster than AMD’s quad-core APUs and almost 50% faster than the Cubi 2 Plus....

Atto Disk Benchmark write performance was also greatly improved with the SRT results similar to that of the Kingston SSDNow V+ 180, which we chose for our cache drive.

According to DigiTimes (via Tom’s Hardware), Taiwan PC industry sources say the two big motherboard—and other hardware—makers are expecting the market to shrink by around a quarter this year compared to 2021. It’s a prediction already seen in the Q2 2022 shipment figures, which experienced a larger-than-expected reduction. Two factors are being blamed for the shrinking motherboard sales volumes: cooling demand in the Chinese DIY market and the end of GPU/mobo bundles....

This is the only configuration option available in the United States, and it’s priced at $1,699. The Intel Core i7-7700HQ is a four core, eight thread CPU clocked at 2.80 GHz with a boost clock of 3.80 GHz. It has 6MB of L3 cache and a 45W TDP. There’s also an integrated GPU inside, though with the GTX 1070 in this laptop, the integrated graphics is only used sparingly. Speaking of the GTX 1070, this is effectively the same GPU as found in desktop graphics cards: the GP104....

The plastic housing flexes a little if you push hard enough, but nowhere near enough to be a problem. Asus made critical components such as the hinge on the docking station out of steel to improve durability. Combined, the dock and pad measure 10.3 x 7.1 x 0.76" (263 x 180.8 x 19.4mm) and weigh roughly 2.6lbs (1181g). The tablet itself measures 10.3 x 7.1 x 0.40" (263 x 180....

Finally, one of the newest games we tested was Wolfenstein, and here the Radeon HD 5870 was able to deliver 2x more performance at 2560x1600 when compared to the Radeon HD 4870. In fact, the Radeon HD 5870 was so fast that it out muscled the Radeon HD 4870 X2 by 7fps, which worked out to be a 13% performance increase. It also was 45% faster than the GeForce GTX 285, but couldn’t match the GTX 295’s 65fps....

To game at 4K we often find that you have to pull out the big guns, but the RX 480 and GTX 1060 performed surprisingly well, both staying above 30fps at all times. That said, ideally you’ll want the GTX 1080 here and it’s impressive to see a single graphics card averaging 65fps at 4K.

When testing the beta we found that the GTX 770 and R9 280X were just able to break 60fps while the GTX 960 and R9 285 delivered between 51 and 55fps. The GTX 770 and R9 280X are good for 55fps – a 7fps drop for the GTX 770 and 9fps for the R9 280X. The GTX 780 was required in the retail version to break 60fps.

We’ve already touched on Battlefield V’s GPU performance and we found that it runs pretty well on Ultra settings with a range of graphics cards. Nvidia’s new RTX cards do particularly well, with something like the RTX 2070 being able to play at above 120 FPS at 1080p, or well above 80 FPS at 1440p. Naturally, the RTX 2080 Ti is a beast at both those resolutions, with framerates above 140 FPS....

The Saturday morning launch and recovery took place at Blue Origin’s Launch Site One facility, located on Bezos’ Corn Ranch near Van Horn, TX. The launch marked Blue Origin’s 5th crewed flight and 21st overall successful launch of the New Shepard launch platform. New Shepard launches typically last 11 minutes from initial liftoff through capsule touchdown, using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to provide the thrust needed to propel the vehicle away from the surface....

That’s unfortunate as it can be hard to get our hands on these chips in a timely manner. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to acquire the dual-core model, the Celeron J1800, nor was I able to get the Sempron 2650. So which is the best buy, AMD’s AM1 Kabini APUs or Intel’s Bay Trail-D CPUs? It’s a bit of an apples and oranges comparison since one is a socket solution and the other is soldered to the motherboard....

Having been around since last summer, the GTX 460 is one of the best selling DirectX 11 graphics cards today, possibly only second to the HD 5770. Although the 768MB version of this board is typically about $5 more than the newer GeForce GTX 550 Ti, it provides much better performance. Considering both the GTX 460 and 550 Ti provide similar power consumption figures, we wouldn’t even consider the latter at $145....

The total build cost came to just under $1400, this includes the Silverstone SG10 case, Intel Core i5-4430 processor, Gainward GTX 760 Phantom graphics card, Corsair 8GB DDR3 memory, Thermalright AXP-100 heatsink, Corsair VS450 power supply, Asrock Z87M Extreme4 motherboard along with the OCZ Vector 240GB SSD and a pair of WD Red 2TB hard drives. As you can tell, this is more gaming rig/small workstation hardware than your average HTPC....

One of the pioneers of small computing, VIA Technologies, developed the Mini-ITX form factor over a decade ago in 2001. Although VIA’s solutions were too underpowered for daily usage, over the next few years motherboard manufacturers were able to adapt more powerful AMD and Intel platforms to use along the tiny 170 × 170 mm (6.7 × 6.7 in) Mini-ITX motherboards. Subsequently case manufacturers provided support with a range of creative Mini-ITX solutions such as the Lian Li PC-Q25, which we reviewed and awarded a couple of years ago....

AMD AM3+ Test System Specs - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T (3.30GHz) - AMD Phenom II X4 980 (3.70GHz) - AMD FX-8150 (3.60GHz) - AMD FX-8120 (3.10GHz) - AMD FX-6100 (3.30GHz) - AMD FX-4170 (4.20GHz) - x2 4GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-14900 (CAS 8-9-8-24) - Asrock Fatal1ty 990FX Professional (AMD 990FX) - OCZ ZX Series 1250w - Crucial m4 256GB (SATA 6Gb/s) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 SOC (1536MB) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit - Nvidia Forceware 285....