We’re breaking down tips and trips for making Windows 10 shine. (Image credit: Shutterstock)
Your PC is nothing without its operating system, and for most devices (about 1 billion to be more precise), that OS is Windows 10. Windows has been around for so long that even the technologically inept should be able to find their way around the latest version. But if you’re a tech enthusiast, you don’t just want to be able to just use Windows 10; you want to master it. Only then can you enjoy the performance your system was built for and make the most out of what both your computer, the ubiquitous OS and you as a user can do.
We’ve been detailing some of the handiest Windows 10 tips and tricks so you can maximize your PC’s relationship with the OS and make sure it works the way you want it to with your device. This means tips on maximizing Windows 10’s productivity software, momentous Windows 10 hacks that are sure to boost your productivity, Windows 10 troubleshooting tutorials to keep in your back pocket and even answers to questions you’re too scared to ask.
Windows 10 Productivity Tips
If you got the basics of Windows 10 down ages ago, you might be wondering what we have to offer you. The following are some of our favorite hacks for boosting productivity while working with Windows 10. Between ways to capture screenshots you may not have thought of and instructions for a DIY SSD, these should help you learn something you didn’t know before.
How to Get Windows 10 for Free (or Under $30)
15 Windows Tips to Help You Work Faster and Smarter
How to Share Your Internet Connection in Windows Using Ethernet or Wi-Fi
How to Free Up Space in Windows 10 and macOS
How to Turn a Windows 10 PC Into a Wireless Display
How to Use the Same Keyboard and Mouse With 3 or More PCs at Once
How to Map a Network Drive in Windows 10
Five Easy Ways To Capture a Screenshot in Windows 10 (also see: How to Take a Screenshot on a Mac)
How to Get Microsoft Office for Free (or Under $50)
How to Use XLOOKUP in Excel
How to Delete Blank Cells in Excel / Google Sheets
How to Shade Every Other Row in Excel / Google Sheets
How to Use an External Drive for Internal Storage
How to Build Your Own SSD
Simple RAM Overclocking With a Few Clicks: How to Enable XMP
Windows 10 Troubleshooting Tips
If you’re the kind of person who people call when they can’t get their system to work properly, you’ll want to get a firm grasp of all the following Windows 10 troubleshooting tutorials.
How to Use a Minidump File to Fix Your Windows BSOD
How to Factory Reset a Windows 10 PC
How to Boot Windows 10 in Safe Mode
How to Find a MAC Address in Windows 10
How to Monitor Your CPU Temperature
How to Test RAM: Making Sure Bad Memory Isn’t Crashing Your PC
How to Pause Windows 10 Updates
How to Fix the ‘Page Fault In Nonpaged Area’ Error in Windows 10
Windows 10 Security Tips
Windows security isn’t just something that enterprises need to worry about. Not only do everyday users need to think about their security on the web, security at home or in the office can also be an issue if you share a device. For all those things on the family computer no one else needs to see, the following how-tos should help you out.
How to Password Protect a Folder in Windows 10
How to Change Your Password in Windows 10
Windows 10 Tips and Tricks: Make It Yours
Microsoft doesn’t have the final word on how you experience Windows 10. We have step-by-step instructions for tweaking the OS to your preference. Maybe bright apps make your eyes weary, you want to change how your system boots or just don’t want to make a Microsoft account. Look to these Windows 10 tips and tricks for assistance.
New PC? Change These 13 Windows Settings Right Away
How to Enter the BIOS on any PC: Access Keys by Manufacturer
How to Create a Local Account in Windows 10
How to Hide the Taskbar in Windows 10
How to Format a Hard Drive Using the Command Prompt
Paint It Black: 15 Ways to Dark Mode Your PC
How to Change the Lock Screen Photos on Windows 10
Basic Windows 10 Tips and Tricks
In the tech world, it seems everyone knows it all, but the truth is no one does. Whether you’re a macOS converter (welcome), coming to Windows 10 from an older version of Windows, looking for a refresher or just plain don’t know how to do some basic or introductory tasks on Windows 10, we’ve got you covered.
How to Disable Notifications in Windows 10
How to Use Focus Assist to Control Notifications in Windows 10
A mysterious chip running DOTA 2 at 120 frames per second seems to be the first glimpse of Alder Lake-S, AKA Intel’s 12th-generation desktop CPUs. As spotted in the CapFrameX database by German tech site ComputerBase, the CPU identifies itself as Alder Lake, but is running at just 2.2GHz. As this is unverified information it is best taken with a pinch of salt.
(Image credit: Valve Corporation)
The DOTA 2 benchmark took place on April 5, and has taken this long to work its way out of the system. And while the game, a MOBA from 2013 favoured by esports types, may not be the most stressful test of the rig – which was also equipped with an RTX 3080 and 32GB of DDR5-4800 RAM – the presence of an engineering sample in a real-world situation is a good indication that Intel is on course to release its 12th-gen chips later this year.
Alder Lake, you’ll no doubt recall, marks a change for Intel, in that it will be the firm’s first 10nm chip design, made up of a mix of high-performance cores built on the Golden Cove architecture that succeeds the 11th-gen Core chips’ Cypress Cove, and power-saving cores utilising Gracemont cores that have more in common with Atom processors. This is the same trick phone manufacturers have been using for a while now, and is also behind the choice of Firestorm and Icestorm cores in the Apple M1 SOC.
The new chip also brings a next-generation hardware scheduler with it, which will require an update to Windows to use, along with support for DDR5, PCIE 5.0, and a new LGA 1700 socket that’s 7.5mm longer than existing Intel CPU sockets, and will require new cooling solutions as a result.
(Pocket-lint) – The HTC Vive Pro was revealed as the successor to the HTC Vive, back at CES 2018 in Las Vegas. Since then the company has launched the HTC Vive Pro Eye and HTC Vive Cosmos. In 2021, at Vivecon, the company the revealed the HTC Vive Pro 2.
While Oculus is focussing on making accessible and affordable VR headsets for the masses with the Oculus Quest line-up, HTC is very much aiming for the top-tier, best-in-class VR experience.
We’re summarising the differences between the headsets so you know what’s changed.
HTC Vive Pro 2: Dual front-facing cameras, adjustable comfort dial
The original HTC Vive was a striking VR headset with a funky black finish and an unmistakable pocked-marked design. A wired virtual reality headset that required a fairly high-end gaming PC in order to work. This headset was the start of serious VR headsets from HTC and the company has continued to improve upon an award-winning formula since then with various iterations of the Vive Pro line-up.
The HTC Vive Pro is immediately recognisable thanks to some striking design changes. Where the original headset came in black, the HTC Vive Pro came in a bold blue with two front-facing cameras.
The classic pocked-marked design remained with the sensors still a key part of the VR tracking experience, but the Vive Pro included some comfort upgrades missing from the original Vive. As well as other improvements too.
Where the HTC Vive featured three velcro straps that need adjusting to get the right fit, the Vive Pro had an updated design that includes a solid strap, integrated headphones and a clever comfort system. This included a dial at the back that allows for easy fit and comfort adjustment.
The design of the HTC Vive Pro also features enhanced ergonomics to give a more balanced fit by decreasing weight on the front of your face while you play. This includes a redesigned face cushion and nose pad combination which blocks out more light than the current design on the original HTC Vive.
The HTC Vive Pro has two front-facing cameras that look like eyes on the front of the headset. These are primarily designed for developers to take advantage of, but allow for better tracking of your environment as you game too.
The HTC Vive Pro 2 has mostly maintained the same outward design aesthetics as the Vive Pro. The main difference being the front faceplate is now black instead of blue. A lot has changed under the hood, but HTC has taken an “if it isn’t broken don’t fix it” attitude to the general setup of the headset itself.
The HTC Vive Pro uses a DisplayPort 1.2 connection. This is something to bear in mind if you’re considering the upgrade or purchase of the HTC Vive Pro – as not all graphics cards have a DisplayPort output and you might need an adapter.
Despite significantly upgraded visuals, it’s said that any machine capable of running the Vive Pro will be handle the Vive Pro 2 as well. That’s thanks to something called “Display Stream Compression” which downscales visuals if necessary on lesser hardware.
HTC Vive Pro review: The best VR experience… if you can afford it
HTC Vive Pro Eye review: The future of VR is controller-free
HTC
The Vive Pro Eye was an interesting addition to the Vive line-up. A powerful VR headset that’s was more aimed at “professional” users than gamers.
It features similar design aesthetics to the HTC Vive Pro but stands out as having rings around the two front-facing cameras. The highlight of this device is the internal tech though as the HTC Vive Pro Eye features eye-tracking technology. This design, therefore, includes LED sensors around the lenses that both track and analyse eye movements as you observe the virtual world.
The HTC Vive Pro, the HTC Vive Pro Eye and Vive Pro 2 all features adjustable headphones, head strap and eye relief system to ensure you get a comfortable gaming experience. All these headsets are compatible with a wide range of games available from Steam and Viveport.
Best HTC Vive and Vive Pro games: Incredible experiences to play right now
HTC
Display resolution and specifications
HTC Vive Pro: 1400 x 1600 per eye (2800 x 1600 overall resolution), 110-degree field of view, 90Hz refresh rate
HTC Vive Pro Eye: 1400 x 1600 per eye (2800 x 1600 overall resolution), 615 PPI, 110-degree field of view, 90Hz refresh rate
HTC Vive Pro 2: 2448 x 2448 pixels per eye (4896 x 2448 overall resolution), 120-degree field of view, 120Hz refresh rate
The original HTC Vive was the pinnacle of VR when we first reviewed it. Things have come a long way since then and screen technology has changed a lot.
The HTC Vive Pro offered an increased resolution to deliver an even better optical experience. Dual-OLED displays on the headset offered a total resolution of 2880 x 1600. That’s 1400 x 1600 per eye compared to 1080 x 1200 per eye on the original HTC Vive.
The HTC Vive Pro Eye offered the same visual specifications as the Vive Pro. With the only difference being in the way this headset tracks your eyes.
The HTC Vive Pro 2 has lept forward even more with the offer of not only 4896 x 2448 pixels but a faster 120Hz refresh rate and a wider field of view too.
HTC claims the Vive Pro 2 has the “best-in-class” display with the highest resolution to date, even compared to top-of-the-line competitors like the HP Reverb G2 and Valve Index.
This resolution change improves clarity during gaming as well as enhancing immersion for gamers. The HTC Vive Pro 2 offers clearer text rendering and a crisper picture whether playing games or watching videos while using the headset. In-game textures are smoother and more realistic as well as stunning to look at.
HTC has also improved the Vive Pro 2 with the addition of a dual-stack lens design with two lenses redirecting the image for a wider field of view. This is said to have a bigger sweet spot and a more realistic view of the world around you. The fast-switch LCD IPS panel also sports RGB subpixel technology and that, combined with the high pixel count should result in virtually no screen-door effect.
Despite these changes, the Vive Pro 2 can still run on similarly specced gaming PCs:
The recommended specifications are:
Processor: Intel Core i5-4590 or AMD FX 8350, equivalent or better.
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce® GTX1060 or AMD Radeon RX480, equivalent or better.
Memory: 4 GB RAM or more
Video out: DisplayPort 1.2 or newer
USB ports: 1x USB 3.0 or newer port
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 8.1 or Windows 10
Audio quality and features
HTC Vive Pro: High-performance Hi-Res certified headphones with a built-in amplifier and 3D spatial sound, dual microphones with active noise cancellation
HTC Vive Pro Eye: Hi-Res certified headphones, built-in digital amplifier, 3D spatial sound, dual microphones with active noise cancellation
The HTC Vive Pro includes earcups built right into the design. These headphones offer a similar design to the Deluxe Audio Strap upgrade for the HTC Vive, but with improvements to enhance them further.
The HTC Vive Pro includes high-performance headphones with a built-in amplifier that delivers a superior audio experience including a “heightened sense of presence” and better spatial sound.
The HTC Vive Pro only requires a single cable to connect to the link box which then attaches to your PC, so there are far fewer cables to get in the way as you game.
The headphones click down into place when you need them and click up out of the way when you don’t.
The design of the HTC Vive Pro also includes dual built-in microphones with active noise cancellation for a superior communication experience when playing multiplayer or co-op games. These headphones also include volume controls and a mic mute button built right into the design for easy access while you play.
The HTC Vive Pro Eye and the HTC Vive Pro 2 offer the same audio experience as the HTC Vive Pro. There are no upgrades here as far as we can see from the specs or from testing. It is worth noting though that the headphones on the HTC Vive Pro 2 are detachable so you can pop them off and use your own if you so wish.
HTC
Tracking compatibility and upgrades
HTC Vive Pro: Backwards compatibility with original base stations (sold separately)
The original HTC Vive required users to plug two base stations into the mains power supply in the room that would make up the playspace. These sensors would then help track and relay movement data of both the headset and controllers back to the PC. With a base station in either corner of the room, users can achieve a Room-Scale play space of around 4×3 metres.
The HTC Vive uses sensors that make it capable of tracking six degrees of movement – meaning it can track all movement up and down, back and forth and around the play space as long as the base stations can see you.
The HTC Vive Pro is compatible with the original HTC Vive base stations meaning theoretically if you own the original VR device you can just buy the new headset and it will work fine with the original setup. New and improved base stations also offer an increased level of Room-Scale tracking with up to 10×10 metre playspace.
Similarly, the Vive Pro 2 follows the same logic and with the headset available to buy on its own it makes a logical upgrade path for anyone who owns the original headsets.
As we mentioned earlier, the HTC Vive Pro Eye boasts an upgrade in terms of its tracking capabilities that includes LED sensors that monitor eye movements. This is said to not only allow your eyes to act as a controller but also allows the headset to gather data on your eye movements while you play or look around the virtual environment.
In practice, this will result in faster reactions in gaming and useful data for businesses who are trying to track audience gaze. For example, monitoring what products or virtual objects get the most attention from a lingering look. It also presents the possibility of controlling games with just your eyes – whether indicating where you want to go or by controlling different menus within the game.
The Vive Pro 2 is interesting as it’s still compatible with the HTC Vive wireless adapter, it will also work with the Facial Tracker and with the Vive Tracker 3.0 setup which means you can theoretically track anything in the real world.
The Vive Pro 2 will also work with both Vive wand controllers and Valve’s Knuckle controllers, giving you more options to control the headset with ease.
HTC
Which is the right HTC headset for you?
The HTC Vive Pro 2 is now the most logical choice for those considering an HTC VR headset. It isn’t cheap, but if you’re upgrading from previous HTC headsets then you can save some money by just purchasing the headset and nothing else.
For those who are new to VR, the HTC Vive Pro 2’s price tag might seem high compared to the likes of the Oculus Quest 2, but with some serious specs under the hood, it should be the pinnacle of VR. Though you’ll need a high-end PC to make the most of the headset and the full kit in order to successfully track it.
We thought the HTC Vive Pro was one of the best VR headsets money could buy and the Vive Pro 2 should continue that trend too.
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The Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel is a computer I will never own. But I really, really wish I could.
Artists, creators, and engineers who are looking for a powerful high-end convertible have all kinds of options on today’s market. But only Acer’s ConceptD line can fold in six different ways. There are not one, but two hinges attached to the display: a traditional clamshell hinge and another one in the middle of the lid that enables the screen to rotate outward. By using the two hinges in tandem, you can put the screen in nearly any position you want. This unique form factor makes the ConceptD 7 Ezel unlike any other laptop on the market.
There are other things that separate the Ezel from something like a MacBook, of course. It also has a sleek look with an attractive finish, a gorgeous 15.6-inch 4K UHD touch display, a built-in Wacom EMR pen, and all the ports you need. The chips on the inside are quite powerful. But you can find similar benefits in many convertibles that are half the price. The people who should shell out thousands of dollars for this device are those who have a need for the combination of its unique form factor and large screen — and the rest of us can be jealous of them from afar.
Before ogling too much over this form factor, you might want to know how much it costs. The $2,499 base model comes with an Intel Core i7-10750H, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. For $2,999.99, you can bump the graphics up to a GeForce RTX 2070 and 2TB of storage. I was sent the top model, which has a Core i7-10875H, 32GB of RAM, and a GeForce RTX 2080 Super Max-Q, for a whopping $3,999.99. These components are both a generation old — Acer hasn’t refreshed the ConceptD with the latest chips yet — but they still deliver solid performance, as you’ll see later on.
These prices will make the ConceptD 7 Ezel an unrealistic purchase for most people, but there’s a 14-inch ConceptD that’s more affordable if you’re interested in this form factor. For those whose work involves professional design and video editing, CGI, machine learning, and the like, Acer also sells a ConceptD 7 Ezel Pro with an Nvidia Quadro GPU. Those are expensive, and people whose work requires a Quadro likely know who they are.
A normal-looking laptop, until you start bending the screen.
There are all kinds of ways you could theoretically arrange the ConceptD, but Acer has defined six. There’s Laptop (self-explanatory), Pad (tablet mode), Float (screen facing forward, hanging above the keyboard deck), Stand (screen facing forward, forming a tent shape over the keyboard deck), Share (screen facing upward, parallel to the keyboard deck), and Display (clamshell shape, but with the screen facing away from the keyboard).
I started out using the Ezel in Laptop most of the time, but Float grew on me quickly. It brought the screen much closer to me — it’s pretty far away in Laptop mode, given the size of the keyboard deck. I can see the use cases for the other modes as well: I’d love to use Stand to take notes during a lecture, for example, and Share could be useful for drawing while standing at a desk. The one form I can’t really see myself using is Pad because, at 5.6 pounds, the Ezel is too heavy to practically hold as a tablet unless you’re swole.
The one hiccup I ran into is that the screen is very top-heavy. A few times when I picked the device up, the screen would start to fall forward and I’d have to catch it to keep the lid open. My preferences for Windows tablet mode vs. Windows desktop mode also didn’t quite line up with the device’s. It stayed in desktop mode when in Stand, for example, but I’d prefer it switch to Tablet Mode in that form since the keyboard isn’t accessible.
Acer calls this the “Ezel Hinge design.”
The fact that these form factors are useful, of course, doesn’t mean that most people needthem. Convertibles like the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 can emulate most of these positions as well (Float and Stand are the really unique ones). The Ezel is really meant for people who will be using the nontraditional forms a lot. For those folks, it has two main benefits: moving the screen around is quite smooth and seamless (you don’t have to use two hands to flip the whole machine around, as you would with a 2-in-1 workstation), and the hinge is also sturdy enough that you can draw in Float and Share with no wobble at all. Of course, this sturdiness comes with a big weight penalty, in addition to its price premium — the Ezel is much heavier than most convertible machines.
That extra heft isn’t for nothing — there are some serious fans in this device. Specifically, there are two “4th-Gen AeroBlade 3D” fans in addition to three heat pipes, and there are vents all over the place including the sides of the case and above the keyboard. The system (which Acer calls its “Vortex Flow” design) did a good job of keeping the chassis cool during my day-to-day work — the bottom sometimes got warm but was never uncomfortably hot, and I never felt much heat on the keyboard or palm rests.
Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel benchmarks
Benchmark
Score
Benchmark
Score
Cinebench R23 Multi
8610
Cinebench R23 Single
1249
Cinebench R23 Multi looped for 30 minutes
8413
Geekbench 5.3 CPU Multi
7879
Geekbench 5.3 CPU Single
1280
Geekbench 5.3 OpenCL / Compute
91801
PugetBench for Premiere Pro
604
The fans had trouble keeping pace with the CPU, though. Temperatures stayed solidly in the mid-70s to mid-80s (Celsius) during a 30-minute loop of Cinebench — but throughout several runs of a five-minute, 33-second 4K video export in Adobe Premiere Pro, I saw it jump up to the mid-90s, and even high-90s often. Cinebench scores did decrease over time, and export times also got slower.
The ConceptD took two minutes and 55 seconds to complete the video export, which is one of the fastest times we’ve ever seen from a laptop. The Dell XPS 15 with the same processor and a GTX 1650 Ti took four minutes and 23 seconds (though different versions of Premiere Pro can impact export times, so synthetic benchmarks such as Cinebench are more precise for direct comparison).
Chunky as tablets go.
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Here’s Stand.
There’s a “specialized silent switch” under the touchpad.
The webcam’s okay. There’s no privacy shutter.
All ConceptDs include a Pantone-validated display.
SD card reader on the front.
On the left: one USB-A, two Thunderbolt 3, one headphone jack, one Kensington lock slot.
On the right: One USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, one DisplayPort, one HDMI, one Ethernet, one power port.
Check out that hinge.
I also ran PugetBench for Premiere Pro, which measures a device’s performance on a number of real-world Premiere Pro tasks, and the ConceptD scored a 604, which beats the XPS 15 as well. The ConceptD also solidly beats the XPS on Geekbench 5 across the board. The XPS isn’t exactly on a level playing field here, since it has a weaker GPU — these results just illustrate the increased performance that the ConceptD will give you for the extra money. Acer’s machine did lose to Apple’s M1 MacBook Pro in both single-core tests, which underscores how powerful Apple’s processor is in single-core workloads.
The Ezel comes with some software features tailored to creative work as well. In Acer’s ConceptD Palette app, you can swap between Native and Adobe RGB color presets, as well as customizable profiles. You can also monitor CPU, GPU, and memory usage to see how much power your apps are using, and you can toggle between various split-screen layouts if you’re multitasking.
Acer says it’s worked with developers to “optimize” the device to work with various software including Premiere Pro, After Effects, Maya, Revit, and KeyShot. You could also run games on the ConceptD, but it wouldn’t be the best choice since the screen is just 60Hz and won’t be able to display very high frame rates.
As is often the case with big workstations, the Ezel’s battery life isn’t amazing. I averaged four hours and five minutes of continuous use with the screen around 200 nits of brightness. That’s not unexpected, considering the high-resolution display and the discrete GPU, but it’s worth noting that you’ll probably need to bring the hefty brick with you if you’re taking the Ezel out and about.
Elsewhere, the ConceptD 7 is a fine laptop to use. The keyboard is a bit flatter than I prefer but comfortable enough. The backlighting is a dark orange color (Acer calls it warm amber) that looks nice against the white deck. The touchpad is a bit small for a laptop of this size and I sometimes hit plastic while scrolling, but it is quite smooth. The chassis itself is a sturdy magnesium-aluminum alloy, and it’s covered in a nice white finish that Acer says is “highly resistant” to dirt and sun exposure. There’s a fingerprint reader built into the power button on the left side of the chassis, which works just fine.
I enjoyed using the built-in stylus, though it’s a bit stiff to pull out of its garage and requires a substantial nail. The pen uses Wacom EMR technology, meaning it never needs to be charged; it draws its power from inside the display. I enjoyed the limited drawing I was able to do on the smooth matte display (I’m an amateur artist at best).
The pen lives on the right side.
Acer says the ConceptD utilizes “improved psychoacoustics” to provide a better listening experience. You can swap between presets for music, voice, movies, and various types of games in the DTS:X Ultra app that comes preloaded if you have external speakers or headphones connected. If you’re using just the laptop, there are Music, Game, Movies, and Voice presets in ConceptD Palette. The dual front speakers themselves deliver not-great audio that’s quite lacking in the bass department.
Do you want to switch to tablet mode?
The ConceptD 7 Ezel is… well, in a word, it’s awesome. But you don’t need me to tell you that you don’t need to spend $4,000 to get an awesome device. If you want a touchscreen convertible with stylus support and can live without quite this much processing power, devices like the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 and the HP Spectre x360 15 are half the price of this device, more portable, and also have outstanding screens. The Spectre’s screen doesn’t literally fold over the keyboard, but it’ll work for many of the same use cases. And even for folks who want this particular form factor, the smaller ConceptD 3 Ezel will be a more practical purchase. The ConceptD 7 Ezel is for those who need serious power.
But man, is the ConceptD 7 Ezel a great device for content creators. As a professional reviewer, I’ve used more creator-focused laptops than most people on the planet — and I’ve never used anything like this. It’s a great idea, it’s powerful, it’s well-built, and it’s a lot of fun to use. I won’t recommend that you buy it — but if you do, please know that I’m very jealous of you.
The Xbox Series X / S’s handy Quick Resume feature, which suspends supported games so that they boot up more quickly when you come back to them later, is getting some nice improvements in the May Xbox update.
Once the update is installed on your console, you’ll be able to see which games are kept in Quick Resume with a new tag, and you’ll also be able to make a group of games in Quick Resume so you have access to all of them in a single spot. Microsoft is also promising that Quick Resume will have “improved reliability and faster load times,” Microsoft’s Jonathan Hildebrandt said in a blog post.
A Quick Resume group.Image: Microsoft
The new update also adds passthrough audio for media apps like Disney Plus and Apple TV, meaning that audio from those apps can be sent directly to a compatible HDMI device. There are also new parental settings that let parents unblock multiplayer mode for individual games and a new dynamic background.
The May update should be rolling out now, and it might already be available for you. While writing this story, I booted up my Series X and it installed.
Microsoft also announced that it will be sunsetting the Xbox One SmartGlass app for PC starting in June. “This means the SmartGlass app will be removed from the Windows Store and there will be no further updates for those who have the app already downloaded to their devices,” Microsoft said.
Razer has just announced new versions of its Blade 15 workhorse gaming laptop, complete with some of the biggest changes to the lineup in some time.
Like many other laptops announced today, the new Blade 15 Advanced features Intel’s 11th Gen H-series processors and Nvidia’s RTX 30-series graphics chips, with up to a Core i9 11900H (2.5GHz base clock, 4.9GHz boost clock), an RTX 3080 GPU with 16GB of video memory (Razer declined to share the total graphics power ahead of publishing), and a 4K touchscreen.
The most welcome improvement might be the new fingerprint-resistant coating making its way to all of these new models. I can’t imagine that it’ll eliminate fingerprints altogether, but this should address one of the biggest annoyances with the prior models. The Windows Hello webcam is getting bumped up to 1080p resolution (from 720p), and Razer claims the trackpads have improved palm rejection.
For the new design, Razer managed to shave off a little more than a millimeter from the thickness of the Blade 15 Advanced, coming in at 15.8mm thick. Razer claims that it’s the smallest 15-inch gaming laptop with RTX graphics and is 17 percent smaller by dimensions compared to the MSI GS66 Stealth. This size reduction applies only to the starting model that has the RTX 3060, though. Thinner might sound more appealing, but it isn’t usually better for gaming performance. Nvidia allows OEMs like Razer to choose the wattage and clock speed of the GPU based on their laptop designs, and generally speaking, the thinner the laptop is, the worse it can be running games compared to thicker laptops that typically allow for bigger cooling systems.
The higher-specced options are thicker than this 15.8mm model, but that’s roughly the same thickness as the previous generation. The width and depth of these machines debuting today are also unchanged from the previous gen at 355 and 235mm (13.98 and 9.25 inches), respectively.
The Blade 15 Advanced can be configured with an FHD, QHD, or 4K display.Image: Razer
The latest (and thinnest) Blade 15 Advanced starts at $2,299, and this model has a 240Hz QHD IPS panel with 2.5ms response time and 100 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut. It has an octa-core Intel Core i7-11800H processor, the RTX 3060 GPU with 8GB of video memory, and 16GB of DDR4 RAM clocked at 3,200MHz. A 1TB NVMe SSD that supports PCIe 4.0 for faster read / write and transfer speeds and a 80Wh battery come standard across all Advanced models.
The selection of ports across the Advanced lineup is similar but not exactly the same as the models released earlier in 2021. The most notable exceptions are the two new Thunderbolt 4 ports. In addition, you’ll find an UHS-III SD card reader, two USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 ports, a headphone jack, and an HDMI 2.1 port. Aside from that, all new Blade 15 models support Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2, 20V charging via USB-C.
All of the Advanced models also support upgradeable storage and RAM. The starting model has only one M.2 slot because of its thin design, but all other new models have an additional M.2 slot for a total of up to 4TB of storage supported.
Spending more will get you a better screen, processor, and GPU. Below you can see the specs of each option, as well as the most recent version of the prior Blade 15 Advanced.
QHD (240Hz IPS), upgradeable to FHD (360Hz IPS), or 4K (60Hz OLED with touch)
QHD (240Hz IPS, 2.5ms response time)
OLED 4K touchscreen (60Hz, 1ms response time)
Storage
1TB PCIe NVMe SSD (supports a second M.2 drive for a total of up to 4TB)
1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD
1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD (supports a second M.2 drive for a total of up to 4TB)
Memory
16GB dual-channel DDR4-2933MHz RAM (upgradeable to 32GB, user replaceable up to 64GB)
16GB dual-channel DDR4-3200MHz (upgradeable to 32GB, user replaceable up to 64GB)
32GB dual-channel DDR4-3200MHz (user replaceable up to 64GB)
Processor
Intel Core i7-10875H (2.3GHz base clock, 5.1GHz boost)
Intel Core i7-11800H (2.3GHz base, 4.2GHz boost)
Intel Core i9-11900H (2.5GHz base, 4.9GHz boost)
Graphics
Nvidia RTX 3070 (upgradeable to Nvidia’s RTX 3080 with 16GB of VRAM)
Nvidia RTX 3060 with 8GB vRAM
Nvidia RTX 3080 with 16GB vRAM
USB-C ports
Two (one being a Thunderbolt 3 port with four lanes of PCIe throughput)
Two Thunderbolt 4 ports
Two Thunderbolt 4 ports
USB-C charging
Yes (20V charging)
Yes (20V charging)
Yes (20V charging)
Battery
80Wh
80Wh
80Wh
USB Type A ports
Three (3.2 Gen 2)
Two (3.2 Gen 2)
Two (3.2 Gen 2)
HDMI 2.1 support
Yes
Yes
Yes
SD card reader
Yes (UHS-III)
Yes (UHS-III)
Yes (UHS-III)
Ethernet port
No
No
No
Headphone port
Yes
Yes
Yes
Webcam
Windows Hello 720p
Windows Hello 1080p
Windows Hello 1080p
Wi-Fi 6E support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Bluetooth
5.2
5.2
5.2
Starting price
$2,499
$2,299
$3,399
All of these new Blade 15 Advanced machines will be available for preorder starting Monday, May 17th from Razer. They’ll go on sale and ship sometime in June.
Razer is refreshing its Blade 15 Advanced model with Intel’s Tiger Lake-H, its 11th Gen, 35-65W processors for gaming. The new lineup starts at $2,299 and will go as high as $3,399 when it ships in June. It’s pricey, but the previous release was one of the best gaming laptops.
The majority of Razer’s configurations will include the Intel Core i7-11800H, an 8-core processor with a 4.2 GHz max boost clock. The top-of-the-line version will use the Core i9-11900H with a 4.9-GHz max boost. None of them uses Intel’s overclockable Tiger Lake-H chips. Graphics range from the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 on the intro model and go up to the RTX 3080 with 16GB of VRAM.
Razer Blade 15
$2,299
$2,599
$2,699
$2,999
$3,099
$3,399
CPU
11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H
11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H
11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H
11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H
11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H
11th Gen Intel Core i9-11900H
GPU
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 (8GB)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 (8GB)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (8GB)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (8GB)
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 (16GB)
Display
QHD, 240 Hz
FHD, 360 Hz
QHD, 240 Hz
QHD, 240 Hz
FHD, 360 Hz
4K, OLED, Touch
Storage
1TB (PCIe)
1TB (PCIe) with one open M.2 slot
1TB (PCIe) with one open M.2 slot
1TB (PCIe) with one open M.2 slot
1TB (PCIe) with one open M.2 slot
1TB (PCIe) with one open M.2 slot
Memory
16GB DDR4-3200
16GB DDR4-3200
16GB DDR4-3200
32GB DDR4-3200
32GB DDR4-3200
32GB DDR4-3200
Battery
80 WHr
80 WHr
80 WHr
80 WHr
80 WHr
80 WHr
Networking
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Webcam
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
1080p webcam with IR for Windows Hello
At 13.98 x 9.25 x 0.67 inches, there’s no real change in profile beyond a few fractions of a millimeter of thickness shaved off. Still, Razer claims that the CNC aluminum notebook is the smallest 15-inch gaming laptop with RTX graphics.
There are other technical improvements internally including faster memory clocked at 3,200 MHz and support for
PCIe
Gen 4 storage (up to 4TB). On models that don’t use the RTX 3060, there’s a second PCIe slot that lets you stack storage in the laptop’s minimal space. Finally, there’s a
1080p
webcam with IR support for Windows Hello, both of which will be welcome for those using the Blade 15 to work from home.
It’s still keeping its Choma keyboard, of course. One might argue it wouldn’t be a Razer laptop without it.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Razer)
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: Razer)
Razer has only provided information about the Advanced Model. The company did not make it clear when 11th Gen Core processors may come to the normal Razer Blade 15 or the Studio Edition.
If it’s as good as the Blade 15 has historically been, the new version will be worth looking forward to. But there are a lot of gaming laptops with 11th Gen Core and Nvidia RTX being announced today, so it will surely be in a crowded field.
It’s a little-known fact that you can sling a PS5 or PS4 to another room of your house, streaming your games to a Mac or Windows PC, iOS or Android device, or even an old PS4 with Sony’s PS Remote Play app. But until recently, you could only remotely control your shiny new PlayStation 5 with the old DualShock 4 gamepad.
That’s now changing, as Sony has just announced the PS5’s new DualShock controller is supported across every Apple platform running the latest operating system, including iPhones, iPads, iPod touches, and Apple TVs running 14.5 and Macs running macOS Big Sur 11.3.
I just gave it a quick try myself with an iPhone 12 mini and a recent iPad Pro, and I have some thoughts!
The good news: if the only controller you own is a DualSense controller, it totally works — and your awesome adaptive triggers come along for the ride.
Here is some bad news:
There’s no haptic feedback. Absolutely zero. It feels extremely weird.
Each time you want to switch devices (to your iPhone or back to your PS5), you’ll have to manually pair your DualSense again. That was true of previous pads as well, but I was hoping they’d fix it.
The built-in microphone, headphone jack, and speaker don’t work. The speaker is a serious loss — games like Returnaluse it in combination with haptic feedback to add some serious immersion.
The streaming quality, as always, will depend heavily on your home wireless network. Give it a try, though; it’s free!
You’ll have to decide whether these things defeat the purpose of pairing a DualSense with an Apple device. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll keep my DualSense hooked up to the PS5 where it can actually help me sense things, and use a DualShock 4 (or third-party pad) when I want to stream.
It’s also more ammunition for the argument that we should be able to play PS5 games on our PS5 with a PS4 pad. This is the second time Sony has shown that limitation is totally arbitrary: first when it allowed us to control PS5 games with the PS4 controller over Remote Play to start, and now again with this signal that the DualSense’s sensing abilities are optional when streaming games over a network.
Laptops like the recent Samsung Galaxy Book Go run Windows 10 on a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. However, according to reports Samsung will introduce a new Exynos chipset in the second half of this year that will be used to power future laptops.
This chip – tentatively named Exynos 2200 – will feature an AMD Radeon GPU, which will deliver a PC-class graphics performance. The chip will be fabbed at Samsung’s 5nm foundries.
The €450 Galaxy Book Go runs Windows 10 on a Snapdragon 7c chipset
Interestingly, when Samsung and AMD officially announced their collaboration, there was supposed to be no overlap between products using the new Exynos chip and AMD chips. And AMD sure does make laptops. An additional agreement may have been made since then.
Anyway, after making its debut in a laptop, the Exynos 2200 may find its way into Galaxy tablets as well (perhaps even phones). It should support Android as well as Windows.
The Exynos will rival the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2, which Qualcomm unveiled in September, and (of course) Apple’s M1 product line-up, which recently added iPad Pro tablet into the mix. While the Qualcomm chip uses the same Kryo 495 CPU cores as the original 8cx from 2019, the Exynos should benefit from more current ARM Cortex designs.
João Silva 3 hours ago Featured Tech News, Graphics, Software & Gaming
During the Nvidia RTX 30 series announcement in September 2020, Nvidia showcased the ray-tracing capabilities of its newly announced graphics cards using the Marbles at Night demo. Now, the demanding demo is freely available for all to test out first hand.
Marbles at Night is a physics-based, playable demo that uses the RTX 30 series’ ray-tracing capabilities to render a photo-realistic scene. The demo also uses DLSS to optimise performance and visual sharpness.
When Nvidia showed the Marbles at Night demo running for the first time, the system was equipped with an RTX 3090. To give you an idea of how demanding this demo is, this GPU is capable of running it at 1440p and 30 frames per second.
The minimum system requirements are as follows:
OS: Windows 10 64-bit.
CPU: 4-core Intel Core or 4-core AMD Ryzen
GPU: Any RTX GPU with 6GB of VRAM
RAM: 16GB
Video driver: 456.71 (Windows) or 455.28 (Linux)
As for the recommended system requirements, they are:
OS: Windows 10 64-bit.
CPU: 8-core Intel Core or 8-core AMD Ryzen
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 or Quadro RTX 5000
RAM: 32GB
Video driver: 456.71 (Windows) or 455.28 (Linux)
For those interested in testing the demo, you can download the demo through Nvidia’s Omniverse Launcher, which is currently in open beta. Once you download and install the app, you can download the demo and try it out.
KitGuru says: Are any of you going to test out Nvidia’s Marbles at Night demo? If you do, let us know how it runs on your system.
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Sony may finally be making a black DualSense controller
When the PS5 was first revealed, one of the most controversial aspects to the console …
SilverStone Milo 10 is a tiny PC case that supports a Mini-ITX motherboard – and when we say ‘tiny’ what we really mean is ‘less than four litres in capacity.’ You won’t be shocked to learn that Milo 10 does not support a graphics card and requires the use of an external power brick, but despite that you have a number of options and it is surprisingly versatile.
Watch the video via our VIMEO Channel (Below) or over on YouTube at 2160p HERE
Main features
Super small at only 2.7 litres or 3.6 litres depending on configuration
Includes interchangeable top covers for altering case size to accommodate various components
Includes VESA mounting plate for integration with monitors
Supports standard sized Mini-ITX motherboard
Supports slim optical drive with interchangeable bezel
Specification:
Motherboard support: Mini-ITX.
CPU cooler support: Between 29mm and 63mm depending on configuration of storage and top cover.
Expansion slots: None.
Included fans: None
Fan mounts: 1x 120mm/140mm in top cover.
Radiator mounts: None.
Optical drive bay: Slimline laptop ODD.
Internal drive bays: 1x 3.5-inch/2x 2.5-inch.
Front I/O: 2x USB 3.0 ports
Dimensions: 453mm H x 227mm D x 196mm W x 63mm H with standard top cover or 84mm H with Elevated cover.
We faced a dilemma during our build as we have a reasonable selection of Mini-ITX motherboards and a huge pile of CPUs, but finding an APU that is sub-65W nearly defeated us. In essence you can take AMD off the table and are forced to turn to Intel.
When you are working with relatively small items such as the SilverStone Milo 10 the regular form is use a banana for scale, however Leo was determined to get his hands in the picture to better illustrate the tiny size of this case.
This is probably the first (and last) time we will skip thermal testing during a case review as your choice of APU and cooler will make a huge difference to the results, along with the types of workload you perform. If you install an Intel Core i3-10300 and merely update spreadsheets or watch videos on YouTube, you will barely stress the CPU. We felt bad running 3D Mark Fire Strike for the video and simply did not have the heart to run Blender.
Closing Thoughts
Building a PC inside the SilverStone Milo 10 can be a fiddly process, although it gets easier with repetition, and you will find the situation improves if you choose your components wisely.
You will have noted our single biggest gripe with the SilverStone Milo 10 is its reliance on an APU with a relatively low power draw as that is a complete change in direction for us folk at KitGuru. The obvious choices for us would be an AMD Ryzen 5 5600G or Ryzen 7 5700G, however they are not on sale to the public and are exclusively in the hands of system integrators.
For that reason we doubt many home enthusiasts will line up to buy the Milo 10 case and its matching SilverStone AD120-DC DC board and external AC adapter combo kit, unless they have amazingly specific requirements that centre around the tiny form factor of this case.
On the other hand we can easily imagine system integrators using the SilverStone Milo 10 to deliver low powered PCs to offices, hotels and shops where space is at a premium.
While we are all in favour of small form factor PCs, they typically weigh in at 10-20 litres in volume and allow you a fair degree of latitude with your choice of hardware. By contrast the sub-4 litre Milo 10 is a more challenging proposition that is best suited to a customer who is simply unable to compromise in their pursuit of a tiny PC.
You can buy the SilverStone Milo 10 for £44.99 HERE.
Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.
Pros:
Pricing for the case is cheap, but you also have to factor in the DC power converter.
Supports a range of storage up to 3.5-inch HDD.
Supports a 120mm/140mm fan in the top cover.
Cons:
Requires an APU to provide graphics.
Limited to 65W TDP.
Requires an ITX motherboard which is limiting and probably expensive too.
KitGuru says: SilverStone Milo 10 requires the careful selection of an APU, motherboard, cooler and storage.
Matthew Wilson 3 days ago Featured Tech News, General Tech, Operating Systems
We’ve been hearing about Windows 10X for a few years now. The lighter version of Windows was supposed to be Microsoft’s answer to ChromeOS and boost sales of entry-level and student laptops. Unfortunately, development has reportedly been shelved.
According to a report from Petri, Windows 10X will no longer be releasing this year and may never see the light of day in its current form. Originally, Windows 10X was created for dual-screen devices, like Microsoft’s unreleased Surface Neo tablet. Since then, the company has shifted gears in an effort to compete with ChromeOS and focus the OS around single-screen devices.
Microsoft has reportedly shifted resources away from Windows 10X and back to Windows 10 proper. As we know, Microsoft is currently making an effort to update the current version of Windows 10 with new UI elements and design changes.
Some of the technologies originally built for Windows 10X may still see the light of day within Windows 10. This is apparently due to conversations with customers, who wanted some of those features Microsoft was developing, but didn’t want them in an entirely separate operating system.
Microsoft has yet to comment on these reports publicly. Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: It sounds like Windows 10X is meeting a similar fate to Windows 10 S, Microsoft’s earlier attempt at delivering a lighter version of Windows for students and entry-level PCs.
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Galax confirms Nvidia is preparing the launch of RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 graphics cards …
Home/Component/SSD Drives/Seagate launches One Touch SSD, delivering portable NVMe performance
Matthew Wilson 4 days ago SSD Drives
Today, Seagate launches the One Touch SSD, offering NVMe performance in an external, portable form factor, with up to 2TB of capacity.
The Seagate One Touch SSD is rated for sequential read/write speeds of up to 1030MB/s, using a USB 3.2 Gen 2 USB-C interface. As a portable drive, device compatibility is wide ranging, including support for Windows, Mac and Android devices.
As we can see in the image above, the One Touch SSD uses an aluminium top cover and a soft-touch fabric surface. Colour-wise, the drive is available in black, silver or blue. For monitoring, file syncing, backup and data recovery, users can install Seagate’s included Toolkit desktop software.
The Seagate One Touch SSD will be available before the end of this month with MSRPs of £79.99 (500GB), £134.99 (1TB) and £254.99 (2TB).
KitGuru Says: Are any of you in need of a portable SSD? What do you think of the new Seagate One Touch SSD?
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Corsair MP600 PRO 2TB SSD Review
Corsair’s second-generation PCIe 4.0 SSDs have arrived – but are they any good?
The new Chia cryptocurrency has already started making waves in the storage industry, as we’ve reported back in April. With Chia trading now live, it looks set to become even more interesting in the coming months. The total netspace for Chia has already eclipsed 2 exabytes, and it’s well on its way to double- and probably even triple-digit EiB levels if current trends continue. If you’re looking to join the latest crypto-bandwagon, here’s how to get started farming Chia coin.
First, if you’ve dabbled in other cryptocurrencies before, Chia is a very different beast. Some of the fundamental blockchain concepts aren’t radically different from what’s going before, but Chia coin ditches the Proof of Work algorithm for securing the blockchain and instead implements Proof of Space — technically Proof of Time and Space, but the latter appears to be the more pertinent factor. Rather than mining coins by dedicating large amounts of processing power to the task, Chia simply requires storage plots — but these plots need to be filled with the correct data.
The analogies with real-world farming are intentional. First you need to clear a field (i.e., delete any files on your storage devices that are taking up space), then you plough and seed the field (compute a plot for Chia), and then… well, you wait for the crops to grow, which can take quite a long time when those crops are Chia blocks.
Your chances of solving a Chia coin block are basically equal to your portion of the total network space (netspace). Right now, Chia’s netspace sits at roughly 2.7 EiB (Exbibytes — the binary SI unit, so 1 EiB equals 2^60 bytes, or 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 bytes decimal). That means if you dedicate a complete 10TB (10 trillion bytes) of storage to Chia plots, your odds of winning are 0.00035%, or 0.0000035 if we drop the percentage part. Those might sound like terrible odds — they’re not great — but the catch is that there are approximately 4,608 Chia blocks created every day (a rate of 32 blocks per 10 minutes, or 18.75 seconds per block) and any one of them could match your plot.
Simple math can then give you the average time to win, though Chia calculators make estimating this far easier than doing the math yourself. A completely full 10TB HDD can store 91 standard Chia blocks (101.4 GiB). Yeah, don’t get lazy and forget to convert between tebibytes and terabytes, as SI units definitely matters. Anyway, 91 blocks on a single 10TB HDD should win a block every two months or so — once every 68 days.
Each Chia plot ends up being sort of like a massive, complex Bingo card. There’s lots of math behind it, but that analogy should suffice. Each time a block challenge comes up, the Chia network determines a winner based on various rules. If your plot matches and ‘wins’ the block, you get the block reward (currently 2 XCH, Chia’s coin abbreviation). That block reward is set to decrease every three years, for the first 12 years, after which the block reward will be static ad infinitum. The official FAQ lists the reward rate as 64 XCH per 10 minutes, and it will get cut in half every three years until it’s at 4 XCH per 10 minutes with a block reward of 0.125 XCH.
Of course, luck comes into play. It’s theoretically possible (though highly unlikely) to have just a few plots and win a block solution immediately. It’s also possible to have hundreds of plots and go for a couple of months without a single solution. The law of averages should equalize over time, though. Which means to better your chances, you’ll need more storage storing more Chia plots. Also, just because a plot wins once doesn’t mean it can’t win again, so don’t delete your plots after they win.
This is the standard cryptocurrency arms race that we’ve seen repeated over the past decade with hundreds of popular coins. The big miners — farmers in this case — want more of the total Chia pie, and rush out to buy more hardware and increase their odds of winning. Except, this time it’s not just a matter of buying more SSDs or HDDs. This time farmers need to fill each of those with plots, and based on our testing, that is neither a simple task nor something that can be done quickly.
Hardware Requirements for Chia Coin Farming
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
With Ethereum, once you have the requisite GPUs in hand, perhaps some of the best mining GPUs, all you have to do is get them running in a PC. Chia requires that whole ploughing and plotting business, and that takes time. How much time? Tentatively, about six or seven hours seems typical per plot, with a very fast Optane 905P SSD, though it’s possible to do multiple plots at once with the right hardware. You could plot directly to hard drive storage, but then it might take twice as long, and the number of concurrent plots you can do drops to basically one.
The best solution is to have a fast SSD — probably an enterprise grade U.2 drive with plenty of capacity — and then use that for the plotting and transfer the finished plots to a large HDD. Chia’s app will let you do that, but it can be a bit finicky, and if something goes wrong like exceeding the temp storage space, the plotting will crash and you’ll lose all that work. Don’t over schedule your plotting, in other words.
Each 101.4 GiB plot officially requires up to 350 GiB of temporary storage, though we’ve managed to do a single plot multiple times on a 260 GiB SSD. Average write speed during the plotting process varies, sometimes it reaches over 100MB/s, other times it can drop closer to zero. When it drops, that usually means more computational work and memory are being used. Plotting also requires 4 GiB of RAM, so again, high capacity memory sticks are par for the course.
Ultimately, for fast SSDs, the main limiting will likely be storage capacity. If we use the official 350 GiB temp space requirement, that means a 2TB SSD (1863 TiB) can handle at most five concurrent plots. Our own testing suggests that it can probably do six just fine, maybe even seven, but we’d stick with six to be safe. If you want to do more than that (and you probably will if you’re serious about farming Chia), you’ll need either a higher capacity SSD, or multiple SSDs. Each plot your PC is creating also needs 4GB of memory and two CPU threads, and there appear to be scaling limits.
Based on the requirements, here are two recommended builds — one for faster plotting (more concurrent plots) and one for slower plotting.
Our baseline Chia plotting PC uses a 6-core/12-thread CPU, and we’ve elected to go with Intel’s latest Core i5-11400 simply because it’s affordable, comes with a cooler, and should prove sufficiently fast. AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X would be a good alternative, were it readily available — right now it tends to cost about twice as much as the i5-11400, plus it also needs a dedicated graphics card, and we all know how difficult it can be to find those right now.
For storage, we’ve selected a Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 2TB that’s rated for 1400 TBW. That’s enough to create around 800–900 plots, at which point your Chia farm should be doing quite nicely and you’ll be able to afford a replacement SSD. Mass storage comes via a 10TB HDD, because that’s the most economical option — 12TB, 14TB, 16TB, and 18TB drives exist, but they all cost quite a bit more per GB of storage. Plus, you’ll probably want to move your stored plots to a separate machine when a drive is filled, but more on that below.
The other components are basically whatever seems like a reasonably priced option, with an eye toward decent quality. You could probably use a smaller case and motherboard, or a different PSU as well. You’ll also need to add more HDDs — probably a lot more — as you go. This PC should support up to six internal SATA HDDs, though finding space in the case for all the drives might be difficult.
At a rate of 18 plots per day, it would take about 30 days of solid plotting time to fill six 10TB HDDs. Meanwhile, the potential profit from 60TB of Chia plots (546 101.4 GiB plots) is currently… wow. Okay, we don’t really want to get your hopes up, because things are definitely going to change. There will be more netspace, the price could drop, etc. But right now, at this snapshot in time, you’d potentially solve a Chia block every 11 days and earn around $5,900 per month.
What’s better than a PC that can do six plots at a time? Naturally it’s a PC that can do even more concurrent plots! This particular setup has a 10-core CPU, again from Intel because of pricing considerations. We’ve doubled the memory and opted for an enterprise class 3.84TB SSD this time. That’s sufficient for the desired ten concurrent plots, which will require up to nearly all of the 3.57 TiB of capacity. We’ve also added a second 10TB HDD, with the idea being that you do two sets of five plots at the same time, with the resulting plots going out to different HDDs (so that HDD write speed doesn’t cause a massive delay when plotting is finished for each batch).
Most of the remaining components are the same as before, though we swapped to a larger case for those who want to do all the farming and plotting on one PC. You should be able to put at least 10 HDDs into this case (using the external 5.25-inch bays). At a rate of 30 plots per day, it should take around 30 days again to fill ten 10TB drives (which aren’t included in the price, though we did put in two). As before, no promises on the profitability since it’s virtually guaranteed to be a lot lower than this, but theoretically such a setup should solve a Chia block every seven days and earn up to $9,800 per month.
Chia farming rig from https://t.co/IPJadpARFa 96 terabytes running off a RockPi4 Model C pic.twitter.com/F6iKOMIdIyJanuary 15, 2021
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Long-term Efficient Chia Farming
So far we’ve focused on the hardware needed to get plotting, which is the more difficult part of Chia farming. Once you’re finished building your farm, though, you’ll probably want to look at ways to efficiently keep the farm online. While it’s possible to build out PCs with dozens of HDDs using PCIe SATA cards and extra power supplies, it’s likely far easier and more efficient to skip all that and go with Raspberry Pi. That’s actually the recommended long-term farming solution from the Chia creators.
It’s not possible to directly connected dozens of SATA drives to Raspberry Pi, but using USB-to-SATA adapters and USB hubs overcomes that limitation. There’s the added benefit of not overloading the 5V rail on a PSU, since the enclosures should have their own power — or the USB hubs will. And once you’re finished building out a farm, the power costs to keep dozens of hard drives connected and running are relatively trivial — you could probably run 50 HDDs for the same amount of power as a single RTX 3080 mining Ethereum.
How to Create Chia Plots
We’ve mostly glossed over the plot creation process so far. It’s not terribly complicated, but there are some potential pitfalls. One is that the plotting process can’t be stopped and restarted. You don’t want to do this on a laptop that may power off, though theoretically it should be possible to put a system to sleep and wake it back up, and then let it pick up where it left off. But if you overfill the temp storage, Chia will crash and you’ll lose all progress on any plots, and since it can take six or seven hours, that’s a painful loss.
The first step naturally is to install Chia. We’re using Windows, though it’s available on MacOS and can be compiled from source code for various Linux platforms. Once installed, you’ll need to let the blockchain sync up before you can get to work on farming. However, you can still create plots before the blockchain gets fully synced — that takes perhaps 10 hours, in our experience, but it will inevitably start to take longer as more blocks get added.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
You’ll need to create a new private key to get started — don’t use the above key, as anyone else on the ‘net can just steal any coins you farm. Screenshot and write down your 24 word mnemonic, as that’s the only way you can regain access to your wallet should your PC die. Store this in a safe and secure place!
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Next, you’ll see the main page. As noted above, it can take quite a while to sync up, and any information displayed on this screen prior to having the full blockchain won’t be current. For example, the above screenshot was taken when the total netspace was only 1.51 EiB (sometime earlier this week). The Wallets and Farm tabs on the left won’t have anything useful right now, so head over to Plots and get started on the plotting process.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
If you’ve previously generated plots, you could import the folder here, but your key has to match the key used for generating plots. If you were to gain access to someone else’s plot files somehow, without the key they’d do you no good. Again, don’t lose your key — or share it online! Hit the Add a Plot button, though.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Here’s where the ‘magic’ happens. We’ve specified six concurrent plots, with a ten minute delay between each plot starting. That should result in roughly a ten minute delay between plots finishing, which should be enough time for the program to move a finished plot to the final directory.
The Temporary Directory will be your big and fast SSD drive. You could try for a smaller delay between plots starting, but six concurrent plots will certainly put a decent load on most SSDs. Note also that Chia says it needs 239 GiB of temporary storage per plot — it’s not clear (to us) if that’s in addition to the 101.4 GiB for the final plot, but the amount of used space definitely fluctuates during the course of plot creation.
Once everything is set, click the Create Plot button at the bottom, and walk away for the next 6–8 hours. If you come back in eight hours, hopefully everything will have finished without incident and you’ll now see active plots on your Chia farm. Queue up another set of six plots (or however many plots your PC can handle concurrently), and done properly you should be able to get around three cycles in per day.
Then you just leave everything online (or migrate full drives to a separate system that uses the same key), and eventually you should manage to solve a block, earn some XCH coin, and then you can hoard that and hope the price goes up, or exchange it for some other cryptocurrency. Happy farming!
Chia Farming: The Bottom Line
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
Just looking at that income potential should tell you one thing: More people are going to do this than what we’re currently seeing. That or price is going to implode. For the cost of an RTX 3080 off of eBay right now, you could break even in just a couple of weeks. Our short take: anyone looking for new hard drives or large SSDs — could be in for a world of hurt as Chia causes a storage shortage.
During its first week of trading, Chia started with a price of around $1,600, climbed up to a peak of around $1,900, and then dropped to a minimum value of around $560. But then it started going up again and reached a relatively stable (which isn’t really stable at all) $1,000 or so on Friday. A couple more exchanges have joined the initial trio, with OKex accounting for around 67% of trades right now.
More importantly than just price is volume of trading. The first day saw only $11 million in trades, but Thursday/Friday has chalked up over 10X as much action. It might be market manipulation, as cryptocurrencies are full of such shenanigans, but anyone that claimed Chia was going to fade away after the first 12 hours of trading clearly missed the boat.
Unlike other cryptocurrencies, Chia will take a lot more effort to bring more plots online, but we’re still seeing an incredibly fast ramp in allocated netspace. It’s currently at 2.7 EiB, which is a 55% increase just in the past four days. We’ll probably see that fast rate of acceleration for at least a few weeks, before things start to calm down and become more linear in nature.
There are still concerns with e-waste and other aspects of any cryptocurrency, but Chia at least does drastically cut back on the power requirements. Maybe that’s only temporary as well, though. 50 HDDs use as much power as a single high-end GPU, but if we end up with 50X as many HDDs farming Chia, we’ll be right back to square one. For the sake of the environment, let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
There are a number of different options available to move files between your desktop and mobile devices. The most common method is to use a USB cable, but this only works if you have access to the correct cable. What if we could send files between devices on the same network using nothing more than a QR code? For that we need qrcp.
Available for Linux, Windows or macOS, Qrcp works by binding a web server to the machine’s IP address along with a random port number. It then generates a unique QR code that provides the relevant information. You can then read the QR code on your mobile device, which will automatically take you to the decoded URL. The web server automatically stops once the download is completed.
How to Install qrcp
Qrcp is available for Windows, Mac and Linux machines including the Raspberry Pi. Our tutorial is centered on Linux and Qrcp produces deb and rpm package files for 32- and 64-bit machines as well as ARM, should you wish to install qrcp on a Raspberry Pi. But it’s quite easy to install from the source tarball.
1. Download the latest source release for your machine. At the time of writing, this was version 0.8.4.
2. Extract the downloaded file into a new directory called qrcp in your Downloads directory.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
3. Open a terminal / command prompt and navigate to the newly created qrcp directory.
$ cd ~/Downloads/qrcp
4. Move the extracted qrcp script into the /usr/local/bin directory. This enables the command to be used from any location. Windows users can copy the qrcp file to their Windows directory, enabling the command to be used from any location.
$ sudo mv qrcp /usr/local/bin/
Transferring Files to Mobile Devices
The default qrcp configuration should suffice for most users. As soon as you specify the file you wish to transfer, qrcp will create a unique URL from which the file can be downloaded. Not only that, but the utility generates a QR code which you can scan from your mobile device. When you then navigate to the decoded URL, the file will be automatically downloaded to your mobile device.
We’ll be using Google Lens as the QR code scanner, but you can use an alternate app if you so prefer. The commands to use qrcp are identical between Windows, Mac and Linux.
1. From the terminal / command prompt, navigate to the directory which contains the file you wish to share. In our case we have a PDF on our desktop that we wish to send to our mobile device.
$ cd ~/Desktop
2. Use qrcp to prepare the file for transfer. Qrcp has generated a QR code, as well as a URL.
$ qrcp Technical-Specs.pdf
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
3. On your mobile device, open a QR code scanner, such as Google Lens and scan the QR code on the screen.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
4. Tap on the decoded URL, the file transfer will automatically begin and the connection will close once the transfer is complete.
Transferring Multiple Files With qrcp
You can similarly use qrcp to transfer multiple files, via a zip file comprising all of the specified files.
$ qrcp filename1 filename2 filename3
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Transferring files from mobile device to desktop
You can just as easily use qrcp to transfer files to the desktop.
1. On your computer open a terminal and set qrcp to receive a file.
qrcp receive
2. Using your mobile device, scan the generated QR code and tap the decoded URL.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
You’re taken to a page where you are asked to choose the files that you wish to transfer.
3. Select the files you want to send, tap the Transfer button at the bottom of the page, and the specified files will immediately be downloaded.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
By default qrcp receive will download files to the current directory but you can also specify the directory you wish to receive the files in.
qrcp receive --output=/path/to/directory
Configuring qrcp
Although qrcp’s default configuration should suffice for most users, you can run the qrcp config command to set some useful defaults. The command will ask a series of questions, such as the default network interface to use, the default port, the default directory for received files, whether to use HTTPS for transfers, etc. The process is fairly straightforward and easy to follow. When done, the configuration is written in the config.json file under the ~/.config/qrcp directory (Linux version location).
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
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