Xbox is announcing the next round of games coming to Game Pass, and it’s a pretty stacked deck with games like Undertale and Octopath Traveler, both of which are coming to Xbox for the first time.
Coming to all the Game Pass platforms (cloud, console, and PC) are:
Undertale (available today)
Empire of Sin (Available March 18th)
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (March 25th)
Narita Boy (March 30th)
Coming to just cloud and console is Outriders (April 1st), and coming to just console and PC are Octopath Traveler and Genesis Noir, both on March 25th.
The PC is also getting some love, with a few of games being added to the platform that were previously not available to PC Game Pass subscribers:
Nier: Automata (March 18th)
Torchlight III (March 18th)
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire – Ultimate Edition (March 25th)
Supraland (March 25th)
And finally, as if there weren’t enough games, Star Wars: Squadrons will be available on EA Play for console players starting on March 18th. Game Pass Ultimate subscribers will have access to the game through the included EA Play subscription.
Overall, there are some great games in here if you’re a Game Pass subscriber, whether you stream your games, play them on console or PC, or some of each. Undertale coming to the service (and platform) feels like a finally, given the game’s incredible popularity and the fact that it’s been available on most platforms for a while now (it was released on the PlayStation Vita almost three years ago). The game was first released in 2015.
Of course, many of these games are also becoming available for purchase on the Xbox as well, for those who prefer owning their games. And, as always, there must be some sort of balance in the universe, so three games will be leaving Game Pass on March 31st: HyperDot, Journey to the Savage Planet, and Machinarium. If you’ve been meaning to play any of those titles, it’s probably time to hop on it!
Cooler Master’s MasterFrame 700 is an open-air presentation case and test bench that transforms in just a few minutes. But while it’s built like a tank and has a true quality finish, it requires a skilled, patient builder to make the best of it.
For
+ Gorgeous open-chassis looks
+ Excellent build quality
+ Beautiful paint finish
+ Heavy steel panels
+ Includes lightly-tinted glass panel
Against
– Very heavy
– Paint finish in threads makes some screws difficult to insert
– Transforming from open-air case to test bench requires longer AIO tubes
– Can be tedious to work in (needs a skilled, patient builder)
– Motherboard tray covers back of socket
Assembling the MasterFrame 700
When Cooler Master reached out asking if I could have a look at its upcoming MasterFrame 700 open-air chasis / test bench, I was scratching my head a little about how to approach it. I wondered what mainstream appeal there could be in a test bench.
And while ‘mainstream’ is absolutely not how I would describe the MasterFrame 700, it actually left me quite impressed. After my experience with it, I can appreciate its appeal as an open-air chassis to showcase pretty builds.
It won’t be making it onto our Best PC Cases list as it’s not a chassis meant of the masses, but if you’re into this sort of thing, it might be worth reading on to find out more about the MasterFrame 700 – if the photos haven’t already convinced you.
Specifications
Type
Open-air/Test bench chassis
Motherboard Support
Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX, E-ATX
Dimensions (HxWxD)
16.1 x 12.1 x 27.6 inches (410 x 306 x 702 mm)
Max GPU Length
17.7 inches (450 mm), Up to 12.2 inches (310 mm) for maximum compatibility
CPU Cooler Height
6.2 inches (158 mm)
Max PSU Length
8.3 inches (210 mm)
External Bays
✗
Internal Bays
4x 3.5-inch
7x 2.5-inch
Expansion Slots
8x
Front I/O
2x USB 3.0, USB-C, 3.5 mm Headphone/Mic Combo
Other
(Removable) Tempered Glass Panel
Left Fans
None (Up to 2x 140mm, 3x 120mm)
Right Fans
None (Up to 2x 140mm, 3x 120mm)
Top Fans
None (Up to 2x 140mm, 3x 120mm in Test Bench Mode on a Radiator)
Bottom Fans
None (Up to 2x 140mm, 3x 120mm in Test Bench Mode on a Radiator)
Side Fans
✗
RGB
No
Damping
No
Warranty
1 Year
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Normally, we start off case reviews with a tour of the features, build a standardized system in it, and wrap up with thermal and acoustic testing – but today we’re foregoing the usual format. Instead, I’m going to take you on the path I took to familiarize myself with the product, which starts off with assembling the MasterFrame 700.
Unboxing, Layer by Layer
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The Cooler Master MasterFrame 700 comes flat-packed into a relatively compact, briefcase-style box. None of the components come assembled, and as such we have to start with assembling the case. I started off by fixing the case’s radiator wings to the main frame, which was easily accomplished by using three countersunk screws per hinge, of which there are four. I also stuck on four rubber feet.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The hinges are beautifully manufactured to a mirror finish. In fact, all the parts are quite nicely made with a very smooth and even paint job. The panels themselves are also very thick steel, and altogether, it’s a very heavy chassis that oozes quality – which is no surprise given that it’s partly manufactured by hand.
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However, at this stage, I already ran into my first issue – with the wings on, the entire chassis was tilted quite far forward, which didn’t seem right.
With no manual to be found (yet), I played around a bit with the wing layout and eventually got the wings attached the correct way – with the text on the user’s side and the straight edge at the bottom – the top of the wings are slanted down slightly for style.
I then proceeded to attach the PCIe bracket, PSU bracket, and rear cover. The case comes with two PSU covers that you can install above one another for extra power. I don’t really see the need for a second PSU, but I suppose the addition of just one bracket can’t do much harm for those who do.
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At this point, the chassis was almost assembled and ready for system installation. I also chucked on the glass panel holder, a small SSD bracket at the rear, a fifth rubber foot at the bottom of the rear cover, the IO panel at the top, and voila:
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
However, in this assembly I had a few moments where I got stuck, not knowing exactly how to fix a certain bracket to the mainframe. When it was all done and built, which took longer than it looks like from the pictures, I was wondering where the manual was. I had already turned the box over twice looking for it. But eventually, I found it hidden under the glass panel.
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Yep. I had placed the glass panel aside for when I neared the end of the build, but in doing so totally overlooked that the manual might be in there. Oh well, we made it this far.
Neat Little Details
The MasterFrame 700 comes with a few neat little details that show thoughtful design. For example, it includes a magnetic rubber pad shaped like the Cooler Master logo that you can use to keep track of screws, a VESA 100 mount for if you want to wall-mount the chassis, and there are instructions on where to place the standoffs for the motherboard.
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That said, I’m not sure I fully understand the VESA mount. It’s part of the main frame, but behind it is the PSU mount, cable management space and the rear cover to hang hard drives nto. As such, you’d need to make a lot of sacrifices to be able to wall-mount this chassis if you want it flat against the wall – or you’ll need an arm. And it better be a strong arm, because this chassis is very heavy with a system installed into it.
Corsair is the latest company to introduce a 60-percent wired mechanical keyboard of its own, lopping off the arrow keys and other functions for a more compact design. The K65 RGB Mini costs $110 and has a design that is about as subtle as Corsair has ever produced. It connects via its included, detachable USB-C-to-USB-A braided cable to your PC, macOS computer, or Xbox One. This keyboard joins the ranks of Razer’s $120 Huntsman Mini, HyperX’s $100 Alloy Origins 60, and Ducky’s One 2 Mini, among others.
Like other 60-percent models, many of the function keys are embedded as secondary functions you can execute by holding the “FN” key. As a result, it lacks about several keys you might be accustomed to seeing on a keyboard. If you primarily use a PC for gaming, or are able to quickly learn a new keyboard layout, the transition to a 60-percent keyboard shouldn’t be too difficult.
Image: Corsair
The K65 RGB Mini that I briefly tested is equipped with Cherry MX Speed linear switches, which have the signature mechanical “thock” sound. Unlike some other switch types, these are very easy to press and have short, smooth travel. You can also choose between Cherry MX Silent or Red switches, depending on your region.
This keyboard also has per-key RGB backlighting that you can tweak in Corsair’s iCue software (available on Windows 10 and macOS Catalina and later). The keys are removable, and there’s a key removal tool included in the box, along with a different space key. The bottom row is the standard layout, so you can equip it with custom key caps if you prefer.
The K65 RGB Mini supports up to an 8,000Hz polling rate through its iCue software. In other words, it can report new presses up to 8,000 times per second, or once every 0.125 milliseconds (on macOS and Xbox One, it tops out at 1,000Hz). No one can type that fast and it might not bear any impact on your gaming, but it ensures this model is far more responsive to fast key presses than other keyboards. Other notable features include full N-key rollover and support for up to 50 custom mapping profiles saved to its onboard storage.
As I mentioned earlier, the design of this keyboard is subtle, clean, and subdued. Aside from its RGB backlighting, it’s light on logos and other details, which makes sense. Corsair knows it needs to appeal to gamers who prefer a minimalist design, since that’s the whole appeal of opting for a 60-percent keyboard anyway.
The Corsair K65 RGB Mini is a well-performing highly customizable keyboard that should help raise awareness for the 60% form factor despite a few (mostly cosmetic) flaws.
For
+ Bounty of customization options
+ Polling rates up to 8,000 Hz
+ Doubleshot PBT keycaps
+ Custom spacebar, Esc key
Against
– Pinging on common keys
– Cosmetic problems with many keycaps
– 8,000 Hz polling rate may not be useful
Corsair today announced that it’s entering the 60% keyboard market with the Corsair K65 RGB Mini ($109.99). This diminutive board ditches the number pad, arrow cluster and other keys so it can occupy as little desk space as possible without compromising on the stuff that matters most to gamers. Mechanical switches? Present. RGB lighting? Accounted for. True love? Never say never.
This keyboard also shows that the 60% form factor is becoming mainstream among the best gaming keyboards. Other manufacturers have offered 60% keyboards for years, of course, and enthusiasts have designed even smaller boards for personal use. But the K65 RGB Mini’s arrival means Corsair has joined Razer, HyperX, and other prominent gaming manufacturers in embracing the form factor. And it looks to stand out with a unique custom spacebar and whopping 8,000 Hz polling rate that you probably won’t notice.
Corsair K65 RGB Mini Specs
Switches
Cherry MX RGB Red (tested), Cherry MX Silent Red or Cherry MX Speed Silver
The most important aspect of the K65 RGB Mini is its size. It measures in at 11.6 inches long, 4.1 inches wide and 1.7 inches tall at its peak, making it similar to the HyperX Alloy Origins 60 (11.5 x 4 x 1.5 inches). Although, Corsair’s 60% keyboard will feel slightly lighter than HyperX’s (1.6 pounds versus 1.3 pounds). The bad news for those who like some extra height (perhaps due to an extra thick wrist rest), the K65 RGB Mini’s height isn’t adjustable, as it doesn’t have any adjustable feet.
Corsair achieved those measurements by paring the keyboard down to the most essential keys, most of which pull double duty when they’re pressed at the same time as the Fn key. Many of those dual functions make sense. The Backspace key is also used as Delete, for example, and the number row serves as a de facto function row as well. But there are many other combinations besides: several keys have been assigned media functions Z to B’s secondary functions control lighting aspects of the keyboard, and the keys above them perform mouse functions. These functions are all reprogrammable if you download the keyboard’s software. We’ll talk more about that later.
For now, let’s get back to the basics. The K65 RGB Mini boasts a braided, detachable USB-C to USB-A cable that should make travel easier. Corsair makes the keyboard stand out a little more by including an extra Esc keycap with the Corsair logo on it and a fancy spacebar. These are a cheaper form of plastic, ABS, than the rest of the keycaps.
The custom spacebar looks cool, even if I prefer the topographic design HyperX used for the Alloy Origins 60. Its light texturing adds a bit of flair without becoming a distraction every time the key is pressed. And it probably would’ve been enough to help the K65 RGB Mini stand out. Corsair didn’t stop there, however. The company also used a custom finish on the standard keycaps that makes it look like someone with severe dandruff scratched their scalp over the keyboard.
The keycaps also suffer from a lack of clarity on their legends that can make it hard to see the RGB backlighting and make the keys seem a bit messy even when the lighting is off. This problem is most noticeable in the number row, but it affects other keycaps as well. That doesn’t really matter while the keyboard’s actually in use, of course, but it does undermine Corsair’s other efforts to make the K65 RGB Mini aesthetically pleasing.
It’s a shame, too, because the standard keycaps are doubleshot PBT plastic that should be able to withstand all sorts of abuse. (Not that any of us have ever been anything but totally gentle with a keyboard, of course.) Doubleshot PBT is typically more durable than ABS. And these succeed in preventing that shiny look. Beneath those 1.5mm-thick keycaps lies your choice of one of three Cherry MX switches rated for between 50 million and 100 million keystrokes, so the K65 RGB Mini should prove fairly durable, despite its plastic exterior.
Typing Experience
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
In an attempt to appeal to gamers who want switches that are easy to depress, the K65 RGB Mini comes with a range of linear switch options: Cherry’s MX Silent Red, MX Speed Silver or MX RGB Red. We tested the keyboard with the latter, essentially standard MX Red with a transparent casing meant to help the LEDs underneath them shine through. Cherry’s official website puts the MX RGB Reds at requiring 30 cN initial force and 45 cN actuation force with 2mm pretravel and 4mm total travel. It’s a solid linear switch that offers very little resistance throughout a smooth keypress.
After about a week with the K65 RGB Mini, I averaged 125.6 words per minute (wpm) with 97.7% accuracy on the 10fastfingers.com typing test. That’s faster than I was with the Alloy Origins 60 (117 wpm) but equally accurate. Some of that speed boost may have more to do with me getting more familiar with the test and 60% keyboards though.
While appropriate for gaming, I find Red switches a bit light to depress for heavy typing. Your experience may vary, but I find that any hesitation when pressing a key can result in an accidental keypress. Tactile mechanical switches would come in handy in that regard, but, again, the K65 RGB Mini is only available with linear ones. The 60% layout also takes some getting used to. People who need a number pad balk at tenkeyless keyboards; I bet they gasp in horror upon sight of a 60% board.
That’s all just a matter of acclimation, though, even if Corsair decided to put the arrow keys all the way on the “UHJK” cluster instead of somewhere closer to where they’d be on a larger keyboard. Buying a 60% keyboard is making a commitment to learning how to perform everyday functions on that particular board, and I don’t recommend switching between various models.
But the biggest problems with typing on the K65 RGB Mini are its noise levels and lack of ergonomic control. In a side-by-side comparison, the keyboard was louder than the Alloy Origins 60, the full-sized Asus ROG Strix Scope RX with optical mechanical switches and other boards I’ve reviewed lately, with notable pinging on certain keys. Every time I hit the “Shift” key or the spacebar it sounds like I’m operating an old-timey cash register.
The lack of feet on the bottom of the keyboard also means the K65 RGB Mini is limited to just one height. That might not bother some people, but it’s nice to have more control over a keyboard’s positioning.
Gaming Experience
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
When gaming, the K65 RGB Mini feels a lot like other keyboards with linear mechanical switches but with the added bonus of leaving more desk space available to the mousepad. Its keys feel responsive, which is exactly what people expect from linear switches. Sometimes that led to mis-presses for me but not as often as when I’m just typing.
None of these traits are exclusive to the K65 RGB Mini. By now we’ve come to expect that a gaming keyboard will offer reliable inputs, responsive switches,and features like n-key rollover; their absence would be more notable than their presence.
The K65 RGB Mini’s standout features are similarly hard to notice. It features the Corsair Axon Hyper-Processing Technology that was introduced in October 2020. Corsair said the feature is enabled by a 32-bit Arm Cortex SoC running a “purpose-engineered real-time operating system.” It’s supposed to offer up to an 8,000 Hz polling rate and key scanning at a rate of 4,000 Hz. Most gaming keyboards offer 1,000 Hz polling rates, so the K65 RGB Mini is eight times as fast, in theory.
Here’s how the math breaks down: A 1,000 Hz polling rate leads to a 1ms delay between a key being pressed and a PC registering a keypress. The K65 RGB Mini’s maximum 8,000 Hz polling rate reduces that to a 0.125ms delay. Corsair has strayed from the 1,000 Hz standard before with the Corsair K100 RGB, but that much pricier keyboard’s maximum polling rate is 4,000 Hz.
That would all be something to celebrate, if only human eyes could perceive the 0.875ms of time Corsair Axon is saving. Estimates vary—Tobii claims we react to visual stimuli in about 80ms, while MIT has said we can recognize images that appear for just 13ms—but the consensus is that we can’t detect the kind of sub-millisecond difference Corsair is enabling with the greater-than-1,000 Hz polling rates.
In-game I didn’t notice any improvements either. I was still lumbering around the generations-old landscapes of Halo: Reach and accidentally using my utility before the round even starts in Valorant at exactly the same speeds that I was with other keyboards. That doesn’t make Corsair Axon a detriment to the K65 RGB Mini, though. It just means that it’s another spec that sounds impressive on paper but isn’t noticeable in-game.
To use the K65 RGB Mini’s 8,000 Hz polling rate, you must have the iCue software installed, as well as a USB 3.0 Type-A port and Windows 10 or macOS 10.15 or later. iCue warns that higher rates are limited based on system performance but doesn’t offer minimum specs, and there is an option to enable the Corsair Axon-afforded polling rates despite those warnings. (We’ve reached out to Corsair about recommended system specs for 8,000 Hz and will update this review if we hear back.)
Software and Features
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The K65 RGB Mini offers a bevy of customization features via Corsair’s iCue software. Most settings can be saved directly to the keyboard, and Corsair claimed the 8MB of onboard storage has capacity for between 50 and 200 profiles. (We’ve reached out to the company for clarification; our reviewer’s guide claims 50 but the keyboard’s packaging claims 200.)
Settings that have been saved to the K65 RGB Mini’s onboard storage are easy to cycle through using various modifier keys. The default layout has profile settings, brightness levels, and lighting effects assigned to the “Z” to “B” keys. Keyboard shortcuts can also be used to record, assign, and delete macros without having to venture into iCue beforehand.
iCue splits its settings into six categories: Key Assignments, Hardware Key Assignments, Lighting Effects, Hardware Lighting, Performance and Device Settings. Changes made via Key Assignments and Lighting Effects are only effective when the software is running; changes made to the other categories persist, as long as they’re saved to onboard storage first.
The Key Assignment categories at their most basic enable remapping, the ability to switch between languages with a keypress and simulate mouse input. You can also set them to perform more sophisticated actions, such as inserting predetermined text, launching specific programs, controlling media playback and running macros.
Each key offers two levels of customization. The first is activated when the key is pressed by itself, so I wouldn’t recommend it for keys that see a lot of use. If you don’t use the right Shift key a lot, however, it might make sense to have it perform another function instead. The second level of customization performs the specified action when the key is pressed alongside the Fn and Menu modifier buttons, and Corsair said additional modifier keys will be available soon.
RGB lighting categories perform as expected. The K65 RGB Mini offers per-key RGB backlighting that you can modify with iCue’s built-in lighting effects. Each of those effects offers at least some level of customization as well, including the ability to control how bright they are, what colors they include, what areas of the keyboard they affect and how they behave.
Performance mostly offers control over how the Windows Lock feature activated by pressing Fn + Win functions: It also controls the indicator colors shown when a key is locked, a profile is activated or a macro is being recorded.
Device Settings is used to update the K65 RGB Mini’s firmware, manage profiles saved to its onboard storage, control the brightness of its lighting, and change the active keyboard layout. It also offers a choice of polling rate: 125, 250, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 4,000, or 8,000 Hz.
Bottom Line
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The Corsair K65 RGB Mini is a niche product. It’s a 60% form factor keyboard from Corsair that’s only available with linear switches. It’s also Corsair’s first attempt at a lot of things: The company said this is its first keyboard with a 60% form factor, detachable USB C-to-A cable, function layers on each key and the ability to hit polling rates up to 8,000 Hz.
The K65 RGB Mini isn’t cheap either, but that cost is justified by the doubleshot PBT keycaps, braided cable and per-key RGB backlighting, as well as all the extensive gaming features enabled by iCue. Opting for Cherry MX switches instead of their more affordable counterparts also helps to explain Corsair’s pricing.
That doesn’t mean the K65 RGB Mini is perfect. The pinging on some keys is frustrating, the all-plastic build could raise questions about the keyboard’s durability and the cosmetic flaws in the keycaps take some getting used to.
It will be interesting to see how Corsair improves upon the 60% form factor in the future. But the K65 RGB Mini is still an exciting first attempt at a 60% keyboard;
AMD is moving its mobile Ryzen 5000 processors into business with Ryzen 5000 Pro, the company announced today. The new series consists of three chips, the Ryzen 7 Pro 5850U, Ryzen 5 Pro 5650U and Ryzen 3 5450U, and AMD claims the processors will show up in 63 laptop designs this year, including laptops from Lenovo and HP.
All three processors are on AMD’s Zen 3 architecture and 7nm process. (In fact, they are almost exactly identical, except for cache, on specs with the consumer-focused Ryzen 7 5800U, Ryzen 5 5600U and Ryzen 3 5400U)
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Cores / Threads
Frequency
Architecture
Node
L2 + L3 Cache
TDP
Ryzen 7 Pro 5850U
16-Aug
1.9 GHz base, up to 4.4 GHz
Zen 3
7nm
20 MB
15W
Ryzen 5 Pro 5650U
12-Jun
2.3 GHz base, up to 4.2 GHz
Zen 3
7nm
19 MB
15W
Ryzen 3 Pro 5450U
8-Apr
2.6 GHz. up to 4.0 GHz
Zen 3
7nm
10 MB
15W
In benchmarks released by the company, it compared the top-of-the-line, Cezanne-based AMD Ryzen 7 Pro 5850U to Intel’s 28W Core i7-1185G7 “Tiger Lake” part.
(Image credit: AMD)
AMD admitted to a 3% loss against the Core i7 in single-threaded performance (measured in Cinebench R20) but showed 65% gains in Cinebench R20 multi-thread and Passmark 10 CPU Mark, as well as Geekbench 5’s multi-core (single-core scores weren’t listed). In these tests, Intel’s chip was housed in a Dell Latitude 5420 with 32GB of RAM at 3,200 MHz and a 512GB SSD from SK Hynix, while the Ryzen Pro was in a reference platform with 16GB of LPDDR4 RAM at 4,266 MHz and a 512GB Samsung 970 Pro SSD.
(Image credit: AMD)
In productivity, the two tied in Microsoft Word and the Edge browser in AMD’s tests, but the Cezanne chip came out between 4% and 23% in other productivity benchmarks. Those tests switched the Intel laptop to an MSI Prestige 14 Evo with a 28W TDP, 16GB of RAM at 4,267 MHz, and a Kingston SSD of unspecified size. The AMD machine remained the reference design.
(Image credit: AMD)
Just to show off, AMD also picked some benchmarks comparing the Ryzen 5 Pro 5650U and the Core i7-1185G7, where its chip outperformed Intel in Passmark 10 CPU Mark (+25%), Geekbench 5 multi-core (+26%), PCMark 10 Apps (+4%) and PCMark 10 Benchmark (+20%). This round of testing also used the MSI Prestige 14 Evo and the reference design.
(Image credit: AMD)
Compared to the Latitude with Intel Core i7-1185G7, AMD claims that the Ryzen 7 Pro 5850U is up to 10% faster while running a 49-participant Zoom call and running the PCMark 10 applications benchmark.
(Image credit: AMD)
For battery life, AMD compared to previous generation Ryzen Pro chips, suggesting the 7nm process helps the new Ryzen 7 reach 17.5 hours on Mobile Mark 2018’s general computing test.
(Image credit: AMD)
The company is touting new security features for this year. AMD Shadow Stack is at the hardware level to prevent malware. It’s part of the Secured Core PC program, which Microsoft announced with Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm in late 2019, and also meets the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS).
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To mark the launch, AMD is also showcasing six laptops coming from partners HP and Lenovo. The HP Probook Aero 635 G2 and HP Probook x360 435 G8 will be exclusive for 2021, and the Lenovo ThinkBook 16) is listed as an “AMD exclusive creator platform.” The company also listed the HP EliteBook 845 G8, ThinkPad T14S and ThinkBook 14S as highlighted notebooks.
So this is a thing. MSI appears to be crowdfunding a product, the Liberator gaming pedal, with XFastest reporting that the peripheral is expected to debut on March 16.
Pretty much everything about this needs to be seen to be believed. Take the most recent post on the product’s Facebook page. We’re sure it reads perfectly fine in the original Chinese, but the social network’s automatic translation is just breathtaking:
(Image credit: MSI)
So what is this “unprecedented electrical pedal” exactly? Well, it looks like the kind of pedal racing enthusiasts have used for years, but with far more RGB lighting. It also offers numerous inputs, activated by pressing different parts of its surface.
An earlier Facebook post from the MSI Gaming account said Liberator features an Omron shaft, and the product’s Typeform page revealed that it can be used to input keyboard shortcuts. (A GIF showing Liberator in action is also worth checking out.)
Other details about the product are sparse. It appears to rely on a braided detachable cable, which is a plus for pretty much any peripheral, and it can also be adjusted to accommodate people who know that foot size truly does matter.
Jokes aside for a moment: Liberator could obviously prove useful to people with accessibility concerns, for example, or anyone who wants a discreet way to control their PC. We aren’t mocking the product itself; we’re delighting in the fact that it exists.
XFastest reported that crowdfunders receive an “early bird” discount that brings Liberator’s cost down to approximately $430 (2,790 yuan) and that it will cost about $600 (3,900 yuan) after the official debut on March 16. A ship date was not revealed.
A Grand Theft Auto Online fan that goes by the moniker t0st posted an investigation into the game’s infamously slow load times on PC, with a solution that improved things by up to 70 percent. And it seems that Rockstar was playing attention: the company has confirmed to PC Gamer that t0st’s fix is legitimate, and it will be implementing their suggestions in a future update to the game.
“After a thorough investigation, we can confirm that player t0st did, in fact, reveal an aspect of the game code related to load times for the PC version of GTA Online that could be improved,” the company commented to PC Gamer. “As a result of these investigations, we have made some changes that will be implemented in a forthcoming title update.”
According to t0st’s detailed post explaining the issue and their solution, they were first motivated to explore the problem after noticing that it took nearly six times as long to launch into the online mode for Grand Theft Auto than it did the story mode.
After examining the code of GTA Online as it launched, t0st determined that a main bottleneck was due to single-threaded CPU processing of a 10MB file that appears to contain a list of every item that can be bought with in-game currency. The fix is twofold: it reduces both the time it takes GTA Online to check that list and provides a far more efficient method for checking for duplicates by using a hash table. Together, t0st’s fixes managed to cut down load times from roughly six minutes down to just under two minutes on their test machine, an improvement of about 70 percent.
Rockstar hasn’t said when it’ll be implementing t0st’s updates to the game, but GTA Online fans frustrated by lengthy load times should hopefully see some relief soon.
(Pocket-lint) – For 2021 it seems like Asus is going after competitive gamers with the 2021 versions of the ROG Strix G15 and G17. The G15 is now not only more compact than the previous model, but also boasts Nvidia’s RTX 3000 series graphics cards. Something that’s notoriously hard to get hold of in the desktop world.
On paper, the ROG Strix G15 (G513) is a gaming beast with some great options, whether you favour fast screens or stunning visuals. That’s because not only is there a lot of power under the hood, it’s also specced with a choice of Full HD 300Hz or a WQHD 165Hz panel.
The aim to create either gaming powerhouses or the ultimate portable e-sport machines depending on your preference. Or maybe both? We’ve been living with, working with, and gaming with the Strix G15 for a couple of weeks to see how it all stacks up.
Power and prowess
Up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 Max Q 8GB GDDR6 GPU
Up to AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU
Up to 32GB DDR4 3200MHz SDRAM
Up to 1TB M2 NVMe storage
Don’t be fooled by the compact-yet-snazzy frame of Asus ROG Strix G15 – this is still a powerhouse of a gaming machine. It needs to be as well, in order to reach the lofty goals Asus is aiming for and, of course, to make the most of the 300Hz refresh rate screen (as specified for this review).
On the outside, the Strix G15 retains the usual Asus ROG aesthetic. It boasts an aluminium chassis, a textured finish with ROG logo etching, and a backlit keyboard with RGB underlighting. It’s compact and stylish – but beauty is more than skin deep as the goodness continues when you open the lid and turn the device on.
As you’d expect, the G15 uses NVMe storage, so it boots to Windows in the blink of an eye when you press that power button. Your experience is going to vary depending on whether you go for the WQHD (1440p) model or the Full HD (1080p) one, but even at 1080p we were struck by just how easy-on-the-eye the panel is.
It’s rich and vivid. But more importantly, it’s fast and accurate. With Armoury Crate, you can also adjust the visuals and switch between several pre-programmed settings including Vivid, Cinema, RTS, FPS, and Eye Care. That last one is our favourite for working during the day as it reduces the blue light and makes the screen easier on the eye while you’re beavering away.
Gaming goodness
Display options: Full HD 1080p 300Hz IPS // WQHD 1440p 165Hz, 3ms response
62.5% sRGB, 47.34% Adobe RGB, Adaptive Sync
Benchmarks: PC Mark, TimeSpy, TimeSpy Extreme, Port Royale, FireStrike Ultra, FireStrike Extreme
The screen really shines when you get into a good gaming session of course. If you opt for the 300Hz panel, you can push competitive games to their limit and theoretically make the most of the display’s nifty fast refresh rate.
We played Rainbow Six Siege at around 200fps on Max settings. We managed 66fps average on Dirt 5, 80fps on Far Cry 5, 60-70fps on Assassin’s Creed Odyessy. Even outputting to a 32-inch Samsung Odyssey G7, the G15 still did the business with comparable frame rates.
Other games, including CS:Go and Apex Legends, are bound to make the most of this panel too.
Connection options and downfalls
3x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C (support Display Port & 100w PD Charger)
1x LAN RJ-45 Ethernet jack, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x audio combo jack
Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax (2×2), Bluetooth w/ support for Range Boost
One of our niggles with the Strix G15 is the connection options. While there are some highlights – there’s an Ethernet port, for example – it lacks a Display Port or Display Port Mini connection unless you have a DP to USB-C adapter.
It also doesn’t have a webcam as standard. We begrudge that in a world where everyone’s on Zoom calls or Microsoft Teams meetings. Yes, it could be countered by simply buying an external webcam but that’s more expense. It also means you’d be using up one of the precious few USB ports as well. Plug in a mouse (no right-minded gamer would use a trackpad), headset and external keyboard and you’ve barely got any ports left.
That said, a nice amount of thought has been put into the overall design. The USB ports are located on the left and rear, meaning if you do plug in a gaming mouse you won’t find cables getting in the way while you play.
Great sound and positional audio too
Up to Twin 4W Smart Amp speakers
Built-in array microphone
Dolby Atmos compatibility
AI microphone noise cancellation
Compact and thin gaming laptops usually run hot and loud in our experience. Sometimes painfully so. The Strix G15 is intelligently designed with excellent cooling vents that seem to keep it running cool under pressure.
It has various different fan modes too, all of which can be switched to from within the Armoury Crate software. Choose from Windows, Silent, Performance and Turbo modes. Under general use, the Strix G15 is pleasantly quiet and barely ramps up when watching video, surfing the web or working away.
Under gaming load it remains fairly quiet too. This is in part thanks to Nvidia’s Whisper Mode technology, which uses AI-powered analysis to adjust cooling to keep things quiet as well as cool. Of course, if you need power for the best performance then you can ramp things up with Turbo and Performance modes. These bring more frames per second potential – but also more fan noise.
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We’re happy to report that even under pressure the Strix G15 is not only quieter than other gaming laptops we’ve tried, but the speakers also do a great job of overpowering any noise from the fan sufficiently enough to not spoil your gaming fun.
Those speakers are also smashing in other ways. They’re great sounding and deliver satisfying audio whatever you’re doing. A two-way AI-noise cancellation mic also removes fan noise and background noise from your chat as well – whether you’re on a work call or gaming with friends.
Battery longevity
90WHr 4-cell li-ion battery
240W AC adapter, 100W PD Charger via USB-C
Despite its compact frame, the G15 packs in some neat battery charging tech that includes the ability to fast-charge for as much as 50 per cent power in just 30 minutes at the plug.
Pocket-lint
But the highlight for us is under standard, everyday load – browsing and working – we managed to get between five to six hours out of it before it needed charging. That’s great capacity and pleasing if you’re away from a plug or just want to work wire-free around the home.
Unlike other models we’ve tried, the Strix G15 is also capable of playing games when not plugged in with semi-decent performance. We managed to play Rainbow Six Siege at between 30-60fps while unplugged and other casual or less taxing games like Valheim will run nicely too.
Verdict
The Asus ROG Strix G15 is a great bit of kit that’s solidly built and powerful enough to make light work of modern games.
It doesn’t annoy with excessive fan noise, instead delighting with visual pleasures and audible goodness. The battery life means you can happily work all day too. Indeed, about the only irks are the limited connections and lack of webcam.
All told, the ROG Strix G15 is a great gaming device with far more delights than downfalls. It’s one of the best gaming laptops we’ve seen to date.
Also consider
Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15
Pocket-lint
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If you want something even slimmer and with extra screens then look no further than Zephyrus Duo 15. It runs a bit hotter but it’s also a really pleasing laptop whether you’re working or trying to be gaming productive.
Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 (GX550) review: Too hot to handle?
Gigabyte Aorus 17X
Pocket-lint
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If you don’t mind your laptop being a bit fatter, then the Gigabyte Aorus 17X is an interesting choice as well. It’s designed as a desktop replacement with some serious power under the hood. It also has great highlights including a mechanical keyboard and AI designed to help tune performance.
All-in-one Raspberry Pi handhelds are really cool—some of the best Raspberry Pi projects we’ve come across are just simple, PC rigs with built-in keyboards. But this one, created by a maker known on Twitter as Sulfuroid, takes the cake and stretches wide across the plate. It has a small, tablet-like size complete with a built-in keyboard and super-wide LCD screen.
The project requires a custom PCB which we just got the first glimpse of today. It’s used to connect the Pi to critical components like the screen and keyboard. The board will work with both Raspberry Pi 3 or Raspberry Pi 4 modules and is intended to support a wide 1920 x 480 LCD screen.
The great looking keyboard will use mechanical keys driven by an Atmega32u4 chip, presumably acting as a USB HID device. In the prototype images shared for the project, the keys appeared to have a minimal, flat design.
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(Image credit: Sulfuroid)
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Sulfuroid knows that makers need to tinker and assures GPIO and USB access is available both internally and externally. This makes it possible to prototype projects and connect peripherals via GPIO. An internal USB port would provide expansion possibilities such as USB boot devices and USB 4G / LTE modems.
There are plans to sell these in the future once testing is complete. Follow Sulfuroid on Twitter for more details and future updates.
AMD unveiled its EPYC 7003 ‘Milan’ processors today, claiming that the chips, which bring the company’s powerful Zen 3 architecture to the server market for the first time, take the lead as the world’s fastest server processor with its flagship 64-core 128-thread EPYC 7763. Like the rest of the Milan lineup, this chip comes fabbed on the 7nm process and is drop-in compatible with existing servers. AMD claims it brings up to twice the performance of Intel’s competing Xeon Cascade Lake Refresh chips in HPC, Cloud, and enterprise workloads, all while offering a vastly better price-to-performance ratio.
Milan’s agility lies in the Zen 3 architecture and its chiplet-based design. This microarchitecture brings many of the same benefits that we’ve seen with AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series chips that dominate the desktop PC market, like a 19% increase in IPC and a larger unified L3 cache. Those attributes, among others, help improve AMD’s standing against Intel’s venerable Xeon lineup in key areas, like single-threaded work, and offer a more refined performance profile across a broader spate of applications.
The other attractive features of the EPYC lineup are still present, too, like enhanced security, leading memory bandwidth, and the PCIe 4.0 interface. AMD also continues its general approach of offering all features with all of its chips, as opposed to Intel’s strict de-featuring that it uses to segment its product stack. As before, AMD also offers single-socket P-series models, while its standard lineup is designed for dual-socket (2P) servers.
(Image credit: AMD)
The Milan launch promises to reignite the heated data center competition once again. Today marks the EPYC Milan processors’ official launch, but AMD actually began shipping the chips to cloud service providers and hyperscale customers last year. Overall, the EPYC Milan processors look to be exceedingly competitive against Intel’s competing Xeon Cascade Lake Refresh chips.
Like AMD, Intel has also been shipping to its largest customers; the company recently told us that it has already shipped 115,000 Ice Lake chips since the end of last year. Intel also divulged a few details about its Ice Lake Xeons at Hot Chips last year; we know the company has a 32-core model in the works, and it’s rumored that the series tops out at 40 cores. As such, Ice Lake will obviously change the competitive landscape when it comes to the market.
AMD has chewed away desktop PC and notebook market share at an amazingly fast pace, but the data center market is a much tougher market to crack. While this segment represents the golden land of high-volume and high-margin sales, the company’s slow and steady gains lag its radical advance in the desktop PC and notebook markets.
Much of that boils down to the staunchly risk-averse customers in the enterprise and data center; these customers prize a mix of factors beyond the standard measuring stick of performance and price-to-performance ratios, instead focusing on areas like compatibility, security, supply predictability, reliability, serviceability, engineering support, and deeply-integrated OEM-validated platforms. To cater to the broader set of enterprise customers, AMD’s Milan launch also carries a heavy focus on broadening AMD’s hardware and software ecosystems, including full-fledged enterprise-class solutions that capitalize on the performance and TCO benefits of the Milan processors.
AMD’s existing EPYC Rome processors already hold the lead in performance-per-socket and pricing, easily outstripping Intel’s Xeon at several key price points. Given AMD’s optimizations, Milan will obviously extend that lead, at least until the Ice Lake debut. Let’s see how the hardware stacks up.
AMD EPYC 7003 Series Milan Specifications and Pricing
Cores / Threads
Base / Boost (GHz)
L3 Cache (MB)
TDP (W)
1K Unit Price
EPYC Milan 7763
64 / 128
2.45 / 3.5
256
280
$7,890
EPYC Milan 7713
64 / 128
2.0 / 3.675
256
225
$7,060
EPYC Rome 7H12
64 / 128
2.6 / 3.3
256
280
?
EPYC Rome 7742
64 / 128
2.25 / 3.4
256
225
$6,950
EPYC Milan 7663
56 / 112
2.0 / 3.5
256
240
$6,366
EPYC Milan 7643
48 / 96
2.3 / 3.6
256
225
$4.995
EPYC Milan 7F53
32 / 64
2.95 / 4.0
256
280
$4,860
EPYC Milan 7453
28 / 56
2.75 / 3.45
64
225
$1,570
Xeon Gold 6258R
28 / 56
2.7 / 4.0
38.5
205
$3,651
EPYC Milan 74F3
24 / 48
3.2 / 4.0
256
240
$2,900
EPYC Rome 7F72
24 / 48
3.2 / ~3.7
192
240
$2,450
Xeon Gold 6248R
24 / 48
3.0 / 4.0
35.75
205
$2,700
EPYC Milan 7443
24 / 48
2.85 / 4.0
128
200
$2,010
EPYC Rome 7402
24 / 48
2.8 / 3.35
128
180
$1,783
EPYC Milan 73F3
16 / 32
3.5 / 4.0
256
240
$3,521
EPYC Rome 7F52
16 / 32
3.5 / ~3.9
256
240
$3,100
Xeon Gold 6246R
16 / 32
3.4 / 4.1
35.75
205
$3,286
EPYC Milan 7343
16 / 32
3.2 / 3.9
128
190
$1,565
EPYC Rome 7302
16 / 32
3.0 / 3.3
128
155
$978
EPYC Milan 72F3
8 / 16
3.7 / 4.1
256
180
$2,468
EPYC Rome 7F32
8 / 16
3.7 / ~3.9
128
180
$2,100
Xeon Gold 6250
8 / 16
3.9 / 4.5
35.75
185
$3,400
AMD released a total of 19 EPYC Milan SKUs today, but we’ve winnowed that down to key price bands in the table above. We have the full list of the new Milan SKUs later in the article.
As with the EPYC Rome generation, Milan spans from eight to 64 cores, while Intel’s Cascade Lake Refresh tops out at 28 cores. All Milan models come with threading, support up to eight memory channels of DDR4-3200, 4TB of memory capacity, and 128 lanes of PCIe 4.0 connectivity. AMD supports both standard single- and dual-socket platforms, with the P-series chips slotting in for single-socket servers (we have those models in the expanded list below). The chips are drop-in compatible with the existing Rome socket.
AMD added frequency-optimized 16-, 24-, and 32-core F-series models to the Rome lineup last year, helping the company boost its performance in frequency-bound workloads, like databases, that Intel has typically dominated. Those models return with a heavy focus on higher clock speeds, cache capacities, and TDPs compared to the standard models. AMD also added a highly-clocked 64-core 7H12 model for HPC workloads to the Rome lineup, but simply worked that higher-end class of chip into its standard Milan stack.
As such, the 64-core 128-thread EPYC 7763 comes with a 2.45 / 3.5 GHz base/boost frequency paired with a 280W TDP. This flagship part also comes armed with 256MB of L3 cache and supports a configurable TDP that can be adjusted to accommodate any TDP from 225W to 280W.
The 7763 marks the peak TDP rating for the Milan series, but the company has a 225W 64-core 7713 model that supports a TDP range of 225W to 240W for more mainstream applications.
All Milan models come with a default TDP rating (listed above), but they can operate between a lower minimum (cTDP Min) and a higher maximum (cTDP Max) threshold, allowing quite a bit of configurability within the product stack. We have the full cTDP ranges for each model listed in the expanded spec list below.
Milan’s adjustable TDPs now allow customers to tailor for different thermal ranges, and Forrest Norrod, AMD’s SVP and GM of the data center and embedded solutions group, says that the shift in strategy comes from the lessons learned from the first F- and H-series processors. These 280W processors were designed for systems with robust liquid cooling, which tends to add quite a bit of cost to the platform, but OEMs were surprisingly adept at engineering air-cooled servers that could fully handle the heat output of those faster models. As such, AMD decided to add a 280W 64-core model to the standard lineup and expanded the ability to manipulate TDP ranges across its entire stack.
AMD also added new 28- and 56-core options with the EPYC 7453 and 7663, respectively. Norrod explained that AMD had noticed that many of its customers had optimized their applications for Intel’s top-of-the-stack servers that come with multiples of 28 cores. Hence, AMD added new models that would mesh well with those optimizations to make it easier for customers to port over applications optimized for Xeon platforms. Naturally, AMD’s 28-core’s $1,570 price tag looks plenty attractive next to Intel’s $3,651 asking price for its own 28-core part.
AMD made a few other adjustments to the product stack based on customer buying trends, like reducing three eight-core models to one F-series variant, and removing a 12-core option entirely. AMD also added support for six-way memory interleaving on all models to lower costs for workloads that aren’t sensitive to memory throughput.
Overall, Milan has similar TDP ranges, memory, and PCIe support at any given core count than its predecessors but comes with higher clock speeds, performance, and pricing.
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Milan also comes with the performance uplift granted by the Zen 3 microarchitecture. Higher IPC and frequencies, not to mention more refined boost algorithms that extract the utmost performance within the thermal confines of the socket, help improve Milan’s performance in the lightly-threaded workloads where Xeon has long held an advantage. The higher per-core performance also translates to faster performance in threaded workloads, too.
Meanwhile, the larger unified L3 cache results in a simplified topology that ensures broader compatibility with standard applications, thus removing the lion’s share of the rare eccentricities that we’ve seen with prior-gen EPYC models.
The Zen 3 microarchitecture brings the same fundamental advantages that we’ve seen with the desktop PC and notebook models (you can read much more about the architecture here), like reduced memory latency, doubled INT8 and floating point performance, and higher integer throughput.
AMD also added support for memory protection keys, AVX2 support for VAES/VPCLMULQD instructions, bolstered security for hypervisors and VM memory/registers, added protection against return oriented programming attacks, and made a just-in-time update to the Zen 3 microarchitecture to provide in-silicon mitigation for the Spectre vulnerability (among other enhancements listed in the slides above). As before, Milan remains unimpacted by other major security vulnerabilities, like Meltdown, Foreshadow, and Spoiler.
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The EPYC Milan SoC adheres to the same (up to) nine-chiplet design as the Rome models and is drop-in compatible with existing second-gen EPYC servers. Just like the consumer-oriented chips, Core Complex Dies (CCDs) based on the Zen 3 architecture feature eight cores tied to a single contiguous 32MB slice of L3 cache, which stands in contrast to Zen 2’s two four-core CCXes, each with two 16MB clusters. The new arrangement allows all eight cores to communicate to have direct access to 32MB of L3 cache, reducing latency.
This design also increases the amount of cache available to a single core, thus boosting performance in multi-threaded applications and enabling lower-core count Milan models to have access to significantly more L3 cache than Rome models. The improved core-to-cache ratio boosts performance in HPC and relational database workloads, among others.
Second-gen EPYC models supported either 8- or 4-channel memory configurations, but Milan adds support for 6-channel interleaving, allowing customers that aren’t memory bound to use less system RAM to reduce costs. The 6-channel configuration supports the same DDR4-3200 specification for single DIMM per channel (1DPC) implementations. This feature is enabled across the full breadth of the Milan stack, but AMD sees it as most beneficial for models with lower core counts.
Milan also features the same 32-bit AMD Secure Processor in the I/O Die (IOD) that manages cryptographic functionality, like key generation and management for AMD’s hardware-based Secure Memory Encryption (SME) and Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) features. These are key advantages over Intel’s Cascade Lake processors, but Ice Lake will bring its own memory encryption features to bear. AMD’s Secure Processor also manages its hardware-validated boot feature.
AMD EPYC Milan Performance
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AMD provided its own performance projections based on its internal testing. However, as with all vendor-provided benchmarks, we should view these with the appropriate level of caution. We’ve included the testing footnotes at the end of the article.
AMD claims the Milan chips are the fastest server processors for HPC, cloud, and enterprise workloads. The first slide outlines AMD’s progression compared to Intel in SPECrate2017_int_base over the last few years, highlighting its continued trajectory of significant generational performance improvements. The second slide outlines how SPECrate2017_int_base scales across the Milan product stack, with Intel’s best published scores for two key Intel models, the 28-core 6258R and 16-core 4216, added for comparison.
Moving on to a broader spate of applications, AMD says existing two-socket 7H12 systems already hold an easy lead over Xeon in the SPEC2017 floating point tests, but the Milan 7763 widens the gap to a 106% advantage over the Xeon 6258R. AMD uses this comparison for the two top-of-the-stack chips, but be aware that this is a bit lopsided: The 6258R carries a tray price of $3,651 compared to the 7763’s $7,890 asking price. AMD also shared benchmarks comparing the two in SPEC2017 integer tests, claiming a similar 106% speedup. In SPECJBB 2015 tests, which AMD uses as a general litmus for enterprise workloads, AMD claims 117% more performance than the 6258R.
The company also shared a few test results showing performance in the middle of its product stack compared to Intel’s 6258R, claiming that its 32-core part also outperforms the 6258R, all of which translates to improved TCO for customers due to the advantages of lower pricing and higher compute density that translates to fewer servers, lower space requirements, and lower overall power consumption.
Finally, AMD has a broad range of ecosystem partners with fully-validated platforms available from top-tier OEMs like Dell, HP, and Lenovo, among many others. These platforms are fed by a broad constellation of solutions providers as well. AMD also has an expansive list of instances available from leading cloud service providers like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle, to name a few.
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Model #
Cores
Threads
Base Freq (GHz)
Max Boost Freq (up to GHz11)
Default TDP (w)
cTDP Min (w)
cTDP Max (w)
L3 Cache (MB)
DDR Channels
Max DDR Freq (1DPC)
PCIe 4
1Ku Pricing
7763
64
128
2.45
3.50
280
225
280
256
8
3200
x128
$7,890
7713
64
128
2.00
3.68
225
225
240
256
8
3200
X128
$7,060
7713P
64
128
2.00
3.68
225
225
240
256
8
3200
X128
$5,010
7663
56
112
2.00
3.50
240
225
240
256
8
3200
x128
$6,366
7643
48
96
2.30
3.60
225
225
240
256
8
3200
x128
$4,995
75F3
32
64
2.95
4.00
280
225
280
256
8
3200
x 128
$4,860
7543
32
64
2.80
3.70
225
225
240
256
8
3200
x128
$3,761
7543P
32
64
2.80
3.70
225
225
240
256
8
3200
X128
$2,730
7513
32
64
2.60
3.65
200
165
200
128
8
3200
x128
$2,840
7453
28
56
2.75
3.45
225
225
240
64
8
3200
x128
$1,570
74F3
24
48
3.20
4.00
240
225
240
256
8
3200
x128
$2,900
7443
24
48
2.85
4.00
200
165
200
128
8
3200
x128
$2,010
7443P
24
48
2.85
4.00
200
165
200
128
8
3200
X128
$1,337
7413
24
48
2.65
3.60
180
165
200
128
8
3200
X128
$1,825
73F3
16
32
3.50
4.00
240
225
240
256
8
3200
x128
$3,521
7343
16
32
3.20
3.90
190
165
200
128
8
3200
x128
$1,565
7313
16
32
3.00
3.70
155
155
180
128
8
3200
X128
$1,083
7313P
16
32
3.00
3.70
155
155
180
128
8
3200
X128
$913
72F3
8
16
3.70
4.10
180
165
200
256
8
3200
x128
$2,468
Thoughts
AMD’s general launch today gives us a good picture of the company’s data center chips moving forward, but we won’t know the full story until Intel releases the formal details of its 10nm Ice Lake processors.
The volume ramp for both AMD’s EPYC Milan and Intel’s Ice Lake has been well underway for some time, and both lineups have been shipping to hyperscalers and CSPs for several months. The HPC and supercomputing space also tend to receive early silicon, so they also serve as a solid general litmus for the future of the market. AMD’s EPYC Milan has already enjoyed brisk uptake in those segments, and given that Intel’s Ice Lake hasn’t been at the forefront of as many HPC wins, it’s easy to assume, by a purely subjective measure, that Milan could hold some advantages over Ice Lake.
Intel has already slashed its pricing on server chips to remain competitive with AMD’s EPYC onslaught. It’s easy to imagine that the company will lean on its incumbency and all the advantages that entails, like its robust Server Select platform offerings, wide software optimization capabilities, platform adjacencies like networking, FPGA, and Optane memory, along with aggressive pricing to hold the line.
AMD has obviously prioritized its supply of server processors during the pandemic-fueled supply chain disruptions and explosive demand that we’ve seen over the last several months. It’s natural to assume that the company has been busy building Milan inventory for the general launch. We spoke with AMD’s Forrest Norrod, and he tells us that the company is taking steps to ensure that it has an adequate supply for its customers with mission-critical applications.
One thing is clear, though. Both x86 server vendors benefit from a rapidly expanding market, but ARM-based servers have become more prevalent than we’ve seen in the recent past. For now, the bulk of the ARM uptake seems limited to cloud service providers, like AWS with its Graviton 2 chips. In contrast, uptake is slow in the general data center and enterprise due to the complexity of shifting applications to the ARM architecture. Continuing and broadening uptake of ARM-based platforms could begin to change that paradigm in the coming years, though, as x86 faces its most potent threat in recent history. Both x86 vendors will need a steady cadence of big performance improvements in the future to hold the ARM competition at bay.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait for Ice Lake to get a true view of the competitive x86 landscape over the next year. That means the jury is still out on just what the data center will look like as AMD works on its next-gen Genoa chips and Intel readies Sapphire Rapids.
Tightly curved monitors like the MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR can really enhance gameplay, especially in first-person environments. With class-leading contrast, accurate out-of-box color and superb HDR, the 343CQR should be on everyone’s curved screen short list.
For
High contrast
Accurate out-of-box color
Solid gaming performance
1000R curve
Against
Slightly light gamma
Blur reduction feature makes the screen too bright
Higher input lag than some 144 Hz screens
Features and Specifications
In the world of curved monitors, there are more things to consider than just screen size. Not only are there three different aspect ratios, 16:9, 21:9 and 32:9, they also come in a wide variety of curve radii. This number is expressed in millimeters like 1500R or 1800R. Larger numbers indicate less curvature. When you see 1000R, you know the curve is as extreme as it gets
MSI has jumped on the 1000R train with its MPG Artymis 343CQR. In addition to that tight curve, it sports a high-contrast VA panel running at 3440×1440 resolution with USB-C, HDR support, Adaptive-Sync and an impressive 165 Hz refresh rate worthy of competing with the best gaming monitors. Selling for a premium price ($900 as of writing), the 343CQR is a sharply focused display that is at its best when gaming — going even as far as to include an aim magnifier for shooters.
MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR Specs
Panel Type / Backlight
VA / W-LED, edge array
Screen Size, Aspect Ratio & Curve
34 inches / 21:9
Curve radius: 1000mm
Max Resolution & Refresh
3440×1440 @ 165 Hz
FreeSync: 48-165 Hz
Native Color Depth & Gamut
10-bit (8-bit+FRC) / DCI-P3
DisplayHDR 400, HDR10
Response Time (MPRT)
1ms
Brightness (mfr)
SDR: 350 nits
HDR: 550 nits
Contrast (mfr)
3,000:1
Speakers
None
Video Inputs
1x DisplayPort 1.4
2x HDMI 2.0
1x USB-C
Audio
3.5mm headphone output
USB 3.2
1x up, 2x down
Power Consumption
32.6w, brightness @ 200 nits
Panel Dimensions WxHxD w/base
31.3 x 16.5-20.5 x 12.4 inches (795 x 419-521 x 315mm)
Panel Thickness
6.5 inches (165mm)
Bezel Width
Top/sides: 0.4 inch (9mm)
Bottom: 0.9 inch (22mm)
Weight
20.2 pounds (9.2kg)
Warranty
3 years
The 343CQR is all about gaming with support for AMD FreeSync from 48-165 Hz. It’s not G-Sync Compatible-certified, but we still got Nvidia G-Sync to work (see our How to Run G-Sync on a FreeSync Monitor article for instructions).
MSI’s specs sheet includes nearly 85% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut. You’ll be using that gamut for all content, SDR and HDR alike, because there is no sRGB mode available.
MSI designed the 343CQR with consoles in mind too. It will accept 4K resolution signals and down-convert them to 3440 x 1440 resolution. The 343CQR is also the first monitor we’ve seen with HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control). Originally developed to support universal remotes, the CEC implementation in this monitor is designed to sense whether the incoming signal is coming from a PC or a console and adjust its picture mode based on designated profiles. The feature supports both PlayStation and Nintendo Switch.
Assembly and Accessories of MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR
To assemble the MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR, the panel and upright are mated with four fasteners, so you’ll need to have a Phillip’s head screwdriver handy. Next, you attach the base with a captive bolt. The resulting package is rock-solid and shows impressive build quality. It certainly meets the standard one expects for the price.
Bundled cables include IEC for the internal power supply, DisplayPort, HDMI and USB. A small snap-on cover hides the panel’s mounting hardware. And if you’d rather use a monitor arm, the bolt holes are in a 100mm VESA pattern with large-head bolts included. In a nice touch, a small hook snaps onto the bottom of the panel to help manage your best gaming mouse’s cable.
MSI MPG Artymis Product 360
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(Image credit: MSI)
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(Image credit: MSI)
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From the front, the MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR is all business with a thin flush bezel around the top and sides and a molded strip across the bottom adorned only with a small MSI logo. A tiny LED appears red in standby mode and white when the power’s on. Around the back right is a joystick and two buttons. One activates the Gaming OSD (on-screen display) app, and the other toggles power.
The upright is very solid with a stiff-moving 4-inch height adjustment. You also get 30 degrees swivel to both sides and 5/20 degrees tilt. There isn’t even a hint of slop or wobble. A small hole helps tidy up cables. The base is solid metal with thin legs that go more than 1 foot deep. That, combined with the fact that the panel’s 6.5-inch thick means you’ll need a bit of extra desktop space to accommodate the 343CQR.
From the top, you can see the 1000R curvature clearly. That radius means that if you made a circle from 343CQRs, it would be just two meters in diameter. If you have the room for three of them, they’ll wrap around almost 180 degrees. They would make a great flight simulator or, perhaps, a solid solution for a Zwift (cycling virtual training app) setup.
The back of the MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR is styled nicely with a variety of different textures and an RGB effect that shows as a strip and MSI shield graphic with a dragon. The color breaths gently through different shades. You can turn it on and off in the OSD and control it ever further with the Gaming OSD app. You can also sync up the lighting effect with that of other MSI products that support the vendor’s Mystic Light-branded RGB. That way, you can create a custom light show with everything working in concert.
The input panel includes two HDMI 2.0 ports that support refresh rates up to 100 Hz with Adaptive-Sync and HDR. Meanwhile, the DisplayPort 1.4 and USB-C inputs accept 165 Hz signals, also with HDR and Adaptive-Sync. There are no built-in speakers, but you get a 3.5mm audio port for headphones.
OSD Features of MSI MPG Artymis
Pressing the joystick brings up the MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR’s OSD,which is divided into seven sub-menus. There are plenty of gaming features as well as most of what you’ll need for calibration.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The Gaming menu offers five picture modes. Four are game genre-specific, and there’s also the default mode, User. User’s the mode to pick because it delivers solid accuracy with no need for calibration. There are a few minor flaws, but the 343CQR definitely makes our Calibration Not Required list.
The Night Vision option is a shadow detail enhancer. We didn’t need it because the monitor’s black levels are both deep and richly detailed. Response Time is a three-level overdrive. Fast, the middle setting, is best. Next, MPRT is a backlight strobe that reduces motion blur and cancels out Adaptive-Sync.
It also pegs the brightness at over 860 nits, which is unusual. You can reduce this with the contrast control, but that removes much of the picture’s depth and quality. We recommend sticking with Adaptive-Sync and leaving MPRT off. Finally, Zero Latency should always be turned on for the lowest possible input lag.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Additional features include a frame rate indicator, alarm clock, aiming points and an Optix Scope feature. This is geared at fans of first-person shooters and lets you magnify the area underneath your crosshair in multiple levels using hot keys. As this will take some finessing to execute smoothly and without slowing down your gameplay, it won’t be for everyone.
The OSD will always show you the MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR’s signal status at the top with resolution, refresh rate, HDR status, FreeSync status and the active video input.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The Image menu offers three color temperature presets, plus a User mode. Normal is the default and best choice. We were unable to make a visual improvement to the color temp with calibration. The test numbers show a tiny gain but not one that can be seen with the naked eye. The only thing we wished for was a gamma control. The default luminance curve is a tad light, though that’s somewhat mitigated by the 343CQR’s extremely high contrast.
Calibration Settings of MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR
You can simply unpack the MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR, plug it in and enjoy. The image is very accurate by default — even the brightness is already set close to 200 nits in the User picture mode. We attempted a calibration and made no visible improvement.
Our settings are below if you want to try them. Note that in the User color temp, the RGB sliders start at 50%, which reduces brightness by roughly that amount. We turned them all up to 100%, then adjusted from there to achieve maximum dynamic range.
Picture Mode
User
Brightness 200 nits
49
Brightness 120 nits
6 (min. 109 nits)
Contrast
70
Color Temp User
Red 100, Green 93, Blue 93
HDR signals lock out all picture controls. You can still access the modes, but changing them does not affect the image. HDR grayscale runs a tad red, but the EOTF is spot-on, as is the color tracking. The 343CQR also uses dynamic contrast to achieve tremendous contrast for HDR content.
Gaming and Hands-on with MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR
At 1000R, the MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR is as curvy as a gaming monitor gets today. At first, we noticed a little image distortion when working in productivity apps, like word processors and spreadsheets. However, we got used to the look after a short time.
When browsing the web, that distortion became unnoticeable. The monitor’s image is sharp and contrast-y enough to overshadow any horizontal line curvature. It’s best to set the panel exactly vertical with no back or forward tilt. By adjusting the height so our eyes were centered, it made all parts of the screen equidistant from the body. The 343CQR is perfectly usable for workday tasks.
Color was nicely balanced with slightly more than sRGB saturation but not so much that it looked unnatural. MSI has tuned the gamut so it renders SDR content more accurately without the need to switch color spaces, a capability the MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR lacks. When HDR was on, color looked far more vibrant, as it should. This is one of the few monitors that you could leave in HDR mode all the time for Windows apps. Brightness is reasonable with the highest levels reserved only for small highlights.
The monitor also supports 10-bit color, though the panel uses Frame Rate Conversion to achieve this. Despite the internal upconversion, we didn’t see any banding artifacts.
Gaming tests started with our usual trip through Tomb Raider, which clipped along at a sprightly 165 fps on a Radeon RX 5700 XT and GeForce RTX 3090. Both FreeSync and G-Sync worked without a hitch. The MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR’s middle overdrive setting, Fast, struck the best balance between ghosting and blur reduction. The MPRT backlight strobe feature also worked well at reducing blur without artifacts but at the cost of a very bright and overly harsh image. Playing games at over 800 nits peak grew tiring after a short time.
Engaging HDR for a few hours of Call of Duty: WWII proved to be a singular experience. The MSI MPG Artymis 343CQR nears equalling a FALD display when it comes to HDR contrast and color. Every hue, down to the murkiest greens and browns, leapt from the screen. Black levels seemed almost OLED-like in their depth and detail, offset by perfectly balanced highlight areas. Color accuracy was also top-notch. Though we noted a slight red tint during the grayscale tests, it did not affect games or movies we played. This is one of the best HDR monitors we’ve seen in a while.
If you download MSI’s Dragon Center software, you can also use the 343CQR’s Sound Tune feature which uses “AI calculations” to block out background noise coming through a plugged in headset. Since it requires software and many of the best gaming headsets include similar tech on their own, its usefulness will vary depending on the gamer.
Another unique feature comes in what MSI calls Mobile Projector. It lets you display your phone’s screen in a 5:9 column on the side of the monitor. Although having your phone on your computer screen could generally be distracting, if you have a specific task that requires using both your smartphone and PC, this could come in handy.
Leading workstation vendors offer Linux-based machines with the latest hardware inside, but those PCs are expensive and are not exactly home-friendly due to their expansive design. Meanwhile, buying a boutique desktop PC with Linux is somewhat tricky. Fortunately for Linux users, there are companies like System76, which just launched its Thelio Mira midrange system that can be equipped with a 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X processor and a leading-edge Nvidia Quadro RTX graphics card.
System76 doesn’t label the Thelio Mira as a workstation; instead, the company brands it as a professional desktop system. Yet the PC can pack an AMD Ryzen 5000-series processor with up to 16 CPU cores, one or two Nvidia’s Quadro RTX graphics cards (up to the RTX 8000 model), up to 128GB of DDR4 RAM with ECC memory, up to 4TB of PCIe 4.0 NVMe storage (using two M.2 drives), and up to 36 TB of HDD storage. Obviously, all the connectivity features that you would expect from a 2021 desktop are all there, too: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, 2.5 GbE, USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB Type-C, and audio connectors.
Measuring 436.35 × 253 × 331mm (17.18″ × 9.96″ × 13.03″), the System76 Thelio Mira is smaller than most high-end workstations by major vendors and is more compact than the company’s top-of-the-line Thelio Major box. While the system isn’t large, it can still support two graphics cards and loads of DRAM, which is something you usually don’t find in midrange machines.
One thing to note about the System76 Thelio Mir is that it does not look as utilitarian as machines from the big suppliers. With a choice of five different wooden finishes, it can actually fit almost any home design.
System76’s Thelio Mir stats at $1,499 and comes with Pop!OS 20.10 (64-bit), Pop!OS 20.04 LTS (64-bit), or Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (64-bit) operating systems. Meanwhile, nothing is stopping you from installing Windows 10 on these PCs.
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Microsoft’s new $99 Xbox Wireless headset isn’t perfect, but it’s the best attempt at being an Xbox gaming headset and an everyday set of wireless headphones I’ve tried yet. It’s compatible with the Xbox Wireless protocol, making it easy to pair with any Xbox One or Xbox Series X / S console. It’s also compatible with Bluetooth (version 4.2, SBC codec), and better yet, it can connect through both protocols simultaneously. So you can take a call or have audio from any app come through from a phone, tablet, or a PC mixed in with the sound coming from your Xbox console.
This is far from the first gaming headset to do this, or even do it well. Microsoft’s latest headset just stands out as being particularly impressive for the number of things it gets right for $99. Its design is stellar, a logical fit in the company’s headphone lineup. Next to the Series X, it looks the part with a touch of glossy green detailing around the ear cup dials, covered in matte black plastic. The little holes in the recessed areas between the faux leather ear pads and the dials seem to be there just for cosmetic reasons, but it looks fantastic nevertheless.
Crucially, these are comfortable, even though my head size nearly pushes them to their size limits. The sidearms require two hands to make adjustments, which I like. There’s no worry that they’ll resize just from being moved around. And while I wish this model had a bungee-style headband and swiveling ear cups like most SteelSeries headsets, not having these features didn’t equate to comfort issues here.
In addition to how the headset looks, its functionality is similar to the Surface Headphones, with twistable dials on the outside of each ear cup for adjusting elements of the audio. Unlike the company’s more premium headphones, there’s no active noise cancellation here (I’d complain, but they’re $99), though the passive noise isolation is better than average for this price. The left dial acts as a chat and game audio mixer, so you can tune your playmates down a bit during a dialogue-heavy cutscene or vice versa. I appreciate that Microsoft put it front and center. On the other dial is the volume control. Twist to increase or decrease, nice and simple — no buttons necessary.
Over on the right ear cup, there’s a USB-C port for charging. Microsoft includes a USB-C to USB Type-A cable to charge it, but you’ll get all of the same headset features if you plug into a Windows 10 machine with your own USB-C to USB-C cable. That’s not the case when plugged into a MacBook Pro, which won’t work over a wired connection with the headset. You can still connect to a macOS device and use the headset over Bluetooth, though.
There are only two buttons on the headset: one to manually mute the bendable microphone (an LED on the inner section of the boom microphone angled toward your face is illuminated when the mic is hot), and another that serves as the all-in-one pairing and power button, both of which reside on the left ear cup. Most gaming headsets require days of continued use to fully learn their respective button layouts, but this one’s dead simple. I would have taken one more button if it served as a multifunction button to control my device over Bluetooth, but Microsoft has limited the headset to just two buttons. There’s no way to independently control, say, a phone outside of just adjusting the volume.
The sound performance from this headset is better than I expected. During my tests, I listened to Spotify, and the music sounded good enough to stick with this headset instead of automatically reaching for my Sony 1000XM3s. People with a knack for stellar audio quality will find quibbles, like that the sound can come off as muddled at times, and the soundstage isn’t as expansive as you’d find in a more expensive set of headphones. But again, these are $99 and meant for gaming first. And for that price, I’m pleased.
Hopping over to gaming, I instantly booted up Doom (2016) on the Series X. The soundtrack and all of the various hellish sound effects have an adequate amount of crunch and punch, and I was head-banging to the music while I played. It sounded as it was intended to sound, though, again, the same nitpicks apply here as they do for music. When there’s a lot happening in the mid and high frequencies, the sound can lack clarity if you’re listening closely. I didn’t notice that as much in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, for instance. This headset works with the Dolby Atmos (Microsoft is giving buyers a trial of Dolby Atmos with purchase that will last until the end of September) and DTS: X paid apps available for Xbox and PC, which might enhance the sound. But for the purposes of this review, I tested just the out-of-the-box experience.
The battery life and range are competitive with other gaming headsets I’ve tested in this price range. Microsoft claims 15 hours per charge, and both times I ran the non-replaceable battery down during testing, it lasted for about that long. I was able to roam about my studio apartment, straying about 25 feet or so from the Xbox without experiencing any drop-outs. It started cutting out when the signal had to go through multiple walls, but that’s to be expected. As for charge speeds, Microsoft says it can gain four hours of use out of a 30-minute charge, or a full charge in three hours. In case you were wondering, you can use the Xbox Wireless headset while it’s being charged, but obviously, it’ll then take longer to recharge.
To give you a sense of how this headset handles connections, I first paired the Xbox Wireless headset to my PC with Microsoft’s USB Wireless Adapter (not included with this headset, but it operates on the same Xbox Wireless protocol as the consoles) for music and to take some video calls. Pairing the headset required pressing and holding the pair button for four seconds and doing the same to the Wireless Adapter. To use them on the Xbox Series X, I had to run through the same process. Frustratingly, the headset can’t handle juggling between two previously paired devices that use the Xbox Wireless protocol, so I had to manually re-pair it when I wanted to hop between my PC and the Xbox. I don’t want to overblow this issue, though. Microsoft’s pairing process for Xbox accessories is very simple. This won’t be a problem at all if you connect to your PC via Bluetooth (as I imagine most people will) since the headset can connect to both concurrently.
If you’re someone who’s likely to lean heavily on the concurrent wireless connection feature, I like that this headset automatically lowers the audio streaming from the Xbox Wireless protocol device when a call is incoming so you can hear it. You can adjust the volume of just your Bluetooth device with its own controls, but not from the headset itself. Cranking the volume with the dial makes it louder for both devices you’re connected to.
The Xbox Accessories app on PC and Xbox lets you fine-tune adjustments.
The level of customization this headset allows is also impressive for the price. Through the Xbox Accessories app for Windows 10 or Xbox, you can adjust the equalizer (movie, music, game, heavy bass, and speech are the presets, or make your own) and boost the bass. Additionally, there’s an auto-mute feature that can mute noises happening in your surroundings. There are three levels (low, medium, and high), and Microsoft says each step up will increase how aggressively the mic mutes things that aren’t your voice. During a video call, it seemed to work as intended, if not better than I expected. The person on the other end said that my speech wasn’t getting cut off, which is something that can happen with these kinds of features, and that happenings in the background weren’t noticeable. Of course, the effectiveness of this auto-mute feature can vary depending on your household situation. If you’re skeptical, it’s easy enough to just tap the mute button to avoid potential embarrassment.
Two other small but cool features in the Xbox Accessories app let you tweak how bright the mute light is, making it easier to see in your peripheral vision. You can also customize the level of mic monitoring or how much outside sound is fed through the mics and then funneled into your ears.
Up until now, the $150 Razer Kaira Pro was the Xbox-specific headset I told people to get because it’s comfortable, and it supports Bluetooth in addition to the Xbox Wireless protocol. Microsoft’s new Xbox Wireless headset is well ahead of that model in terms of design, ease of use, and functionality — all in a more affordable package.
If it fits my head and can also fit around the Series X, it should fit you fine.
If Microsoft is to be judged compared to Sony on how well it designed a headset to accompany its latest consoles — as it inevitably will be — this one handily edges out the Pulse 3D even though they’re the same price. Sony’s model is comfortable and looks equally dashing next to the console it was made for, and it has a 3.5mm headphone jack and 3D Audio support in its court. But it’s tough to compete with the Bluetooth support and button-lite design built into Microsoft’s model. I would have loved it if a USB dongle was included for more support with devices, like the Nintendo Switch. But by design, it can’t connect to other gaming consoles. Microsoft is keeping this one in the family. If you’re in the family, though, you’re in for a treat.
Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge
Correction: The Xbox Wireless headset can get four hours of use from a 30-minute charge. This review incorrectly stated that a 15-minute charge could get you three hours of use. We regret this error.
Zadak is a fairly young manufacturer of computer hardware—they were founded in 2015 in Taiwan. Besides SSDs, they’ve released cases, memory, and closed-loop watercoolers. All their products are targeted at the DIY PC space.
The Zadak Spark RGB is an M.2 NVMe SSD that goes all out on RGB bling capability. Thanks to support for all major motherboard vendors, you can use the Spark RGB with your mobo’s RGB control software, and it just works. No additional cabling is required, the SSD will show up as a separate ARGB element in your motherboard’s RGB software.
Under the hood, the Zadak Spark RGB SSD is based on a Phison PS5012-E12 controller, paired with Micron 96-layer 3D TLC flash and 1 GB of DDR4 DRAM cache. PCI-Express 3.0 x4 is used as the host interface.
The Zadak Spark RGB SSD is available in capacities of 512 GB ($130), 1 TB ($220), and 2 TB ($390). Endurance for these models is set at 360 TBW, 726 TBW, and 1550 TBW respectively. Zadak provides a five-year warranty for the Spark RGB.
Specifications: ZADAK Spark RGB 1 TB
Brand:
ZADAK
Model:
SPARK PCIe Gen 3×4 M.2 RGB SSD
Capacity:
1024 GB (953 GB usable) No additional overprovisioning
Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass platform just got a huge boost with the addition of 20 new Bethesda Softworks titles starting today, and now a quarter of those games will be getting performance boosts on the next-gen Xbox consoles in an upcoming update. The performance gains are in frame rate thanks to an appropriately named new feature Microsoft revealed last month called FPS Boost, which can roughly double frame rates of older games using new Xbox hardware without requiring developers do any manual work.
The games that will see performance boosts with frame rate jumps up to 60 frames per second include Arkane Studios’ Dishonored: Definitive Edition and Prey and Bethesda Game Studios’ The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76.
The announcement was made during a YouTube live stream on Friday between Xbox Live programming director Larry Hryb (aka “Major Nelson”) and comms chief Jeff Rubenstein, in which Rubenstein discussed the benefits the new Xbox Series X/S can bring to older Bethesda titles. The games, while available now, don’t yet have the FPS Boost mode enabled currently, but Microsoft intends to add it as an optional toggle some time soon.
Microsoft said in its announcement yesterday that “a handful of these games will also benefit from FPS Boost on Xbox Series X / S,” though it did not specify which at the time. it also said 16 of the 20 Bethesda games coming to Xbox Game Pass would be available across PC and xCloud in addition to Xbox consoles. You can find a list of which platforms which games are available on here.
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