x2 2GB DDR2-1066 G.Skill (CAS 7-7-7-18) Asus P5Q Pro (Intel P45) OCZ GameXStream 700 watt Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) - Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) Asus Radeon HD 4550 (256MB) Software - Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 (64-bit) - ATI Catalyst 9.12 LG Super-Multi NAS N2A2 - x2 Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB (Serial ATAII) QNAP TS-412 - x4 Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) Thecus N3200XXX - x3 Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) Synology Disk Station DS211 - x2 Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) Synology Disk Station DS411+ - x4 Western Digital Black 500GB (Serial ATAII) Synology Disk Station DS1511+ - x5 Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) Synology Disk Station DS2411+ - x8 Western Digital Blue 500GB (Serial ATAII) Synology claims that the DS2411+ chugs 105 watts and we assume this is when loaded with a dozen hard drives....

In the final three months of 2021, tablet shipments slid 11.9 percent year over year to 46 million. According to IDC, it’s the second market decline since the pandemic started in 2020. Thing were even worse for Chromebooks as shipments in the fourth quarter of 2021 were down 63.6 percent compared to the same period in 2020, totaling just 4.8 million units. Yet despite the poor holiday showing, Chromebook shipments were up 13....

Motherboard, Processor, Cooler, Memory Intel recently upgraded its mainstream platform to the new Skylake architecture using the LGA1151 socket along with the new 100-series chipsets. The new Core i5 lineup sees the $270 6600K at the head of the table, a fully unlocked quad-core with eight threads clocked at 3.5GHz. The 6600K is routinely overclocked by more than 1000MHz, but to achieve best results we recommend an aftermarket CPU cooler. Something like the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo will work well for just $30....

Nineteen-year-old IT security specialist David Columbo reported in a Twitter thread Monday and Tuesday that he gained complete control of over 25 Teslas in 13 countries without their owners knowing. He doesn’t want to disclose exactly how he did it until he reports the vulnerability to the non-profit Mitre. However, Columbo did say it was due to errors on the owners’ part, not a security flaw in Tesla’s software. Columbo said he could search the precise location of each car, disable their security, open their doors and windows even while they’re on the road, play music and YouTube videos at full volume, and more....

Bloomberg reports that Tencent, a company that almost became China’s second trillion-dollar firm 18 months ago, is set to record its first quarterly revenue decline since the 2008 financial crisis. Much of its woes are down to slowing gaming sales and the country’s crackdown on the industry. After experiencing a boom time during the lockdowns when those stuck indoors embraced home entertainment like never before, video game sales have nosedived this year....

While looking for this year’s bone-chiller, Kotaku’s Zack Zwiezen turned me on to a small indy project that I totally want to play, but at the same time, I don’t want to go near it. You can see why in the trailer below that debuted on Tuesday. The game is Paranormal Tales, or PT for short, from a studio called Horror Cam Committee. The two developers drew inspiration from PT, the legendary “Silent Hills demo” that nobody can get their hands on anymore, so the name is not likely a coincidence....

Overall it’s still a good showing for 3rd-gen Ryzen as the deficit when gaming is negligible for the most part, while it pummeled the 9900K in all productivity tests. After we published that feature, we’ve been requested by readers to retest the 3900X with SMT disabled, essentially turning the 12-core, 24-thread CPU into a 12-core, 12-thread CPU. Many say this can significantly improve gaming performance… but why? We were instantly skeptical as we spent quite a bit of time testing first generation Ryzen with and without SMT and even back in 2017 the gains were not great and often you’d see a performance regression – in other words SMT was doing what it was supposed to with no major downside....

Apple unveiled the Watch Series 8 at Wednesday’s “Far Out” keynote. The good news is that there is a standard version. The more affordable SE model also makes a return this year. The bad news is that there was no Pro model to be seen. Well, that’s because Apple decided to psych everybody out and call it Apple Watch Ultra. The Apple Watch Series 8 is not a giant leap forward from the Series 7....

On its own, the new Razer Basilisk V3 Pro costs $159.99. While that’s still a pretty hefty sum, gamers with money burning a hole in their pocket can look towards the $199.99 mouse + wireless charging dock bundle for the ultimate Razer gaming mouse experience. This new optional accessory, called the Mouse Dock Pro, costs $69.99 if purchased separately and allows the Basilisk V3 Pro to unleash its full potential....

We did not include the Core i3-8100 for two reasons: First, at the current $130 asking price it doesn’t make sense as the Ryzen 3 2200G which was already our preferred choice is better value at $100. Intel’s current budget lineup just isn’t doing it for us and this was the case even before the 14nm shortage. In the past we’ve preferred Intel’s budget offerings to those from AMD. We loved the Pentium G4560 and couldn’t stop talking about that thing....

There are other factors to consider, such as a premium build quality, media keys, a wrist rest, or the convenience of a USB passthrough. In this article you’ll find our top picks from the wealth of gaming keyboards currently available for users with different budgets, connectivity and layout preferences. Best High-End Wired Corsair K100 RGB Optical-Mechanical Price: $199 Best High-End Wireless Razer BlackWidow V3 Pro Price: $177 Best Budget Wired Keyboard Redragon K552 RGB Kumara Price: $40 Best Budget Wireless Keyboard Corsair K63 Wireless Price: $109 And More… Honorable Mentions...

Starting from the bottom, the Radeon R7 260X takes on the GeForce GTX 750 with the former providing 19% more performance at 1920x1200. Next up, the R7 265 takes aim at the GTX 750 Ti and wins with a 25% margin while the R9 270 was just 4% faster than the R7 265 (the R9 270X was 16% faster). The R9 280 has its sights set on the GTX 760, though this time the Nvidia’s card was 12% faster while costing 10% more – a close battle....

Sound The overall audio profile is similar to the i60. The audio is superior to the G930 and H2100 in detail and clarity but severely lacking low end. Notably, there are 4 EQ presets selectable on the headset. Even with “Bass boost” enabled, which Turtle Beach claims is “for the extreme low frequencies,” the bass output was anemic. A deal breaker for me on the Z300 was its “fading in” of audio during silent moments....

Juice will leave Earth on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou in April 2023. The spacecraft will leverage four gravity assist maneuvers over the next several years to help propel it towards our solar system’s largest planet while conserving as much propellant as possible. Once on its way, the craft will take a little more than two years to reach its target. Should everything go according to plan, Juice will conduct its first flyby of Jovian moon Ganymede in July 2031....

Performance and pricing aside, power consumption is by far Vega’s biggest hurdle. In all honesty, performance isn’t bad and it might even improve quite a bit over time. Moreover, once pricing settles down I’m sure that will be fine as well. What won’t change is the power consumption. Sure you can undervolt and I’ll look at that in the future but for now this is what most Vega owners will be faced with....

Located on the edge of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, the two-bedroom, three-bathroom house only hit the market about two weeks ago, and it has now sold for its asking price. The new owner said they plan to rent it out on Airbnb, so you could live out your Jetsons fantasy at some point in the future. Other features of the house include an elevator that takes you up a 44-foot tube to the 1,386-square-foot living area, a three-car garage, and a utility area....

We soon discovered – as did the many gamers that jumped into The Witcher 3 at launch – the sole cause for this huge performance hit was Nvidia’s HairWorks. After the pCARS situation, there was a big fuss about HairWorks hurting performance of Radeon GPUs with no way to truly optimize since it’s a propriatary implementation. Well, in this case Nvidia isn’t doing much better even when it’s using its own technology, as HairWorks hampered GeForce cards almost as much as it did the Radeons....

Microsoft

Software

Although the hot-swappable bays weren’t designed as well as they could’ve been, it was fairly easy to install storage drives. In fact, it’s fair to say that we appreciated most of the N3200XXX’s internal design – it was the external design that disappointed. To put it bluntly, the N3200XXX looks like a very cheap product, and its flimsy front door doesn’t help. This is a shame because at $430 (without hard drives) it’s not exactly inexpensive....