Features

6 Features iOS 7 Took from Android and Other Operating Systems

Chris Zele — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:00:12 +0000

There's a reason iOS 7 looks so familiar

Last week Apple announced its highly-anticipated iOS 7 update would come with a flurry of "new" features. From the look of things, however, we've seen a lot of these supposedly fresh designs in Android, WebOS, and Windows before.

Is Apple stealing ideas from other user interface (UI) developers in a bid to stay relevant? Take a look at our UI comparisons in the slides below and let us know what you think!

Asus DirectCU II Top Reviews: GeForce GTX 680 vs Radeon HD 7970

Josh Norem — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:11:14 +0000

Two overclocked flagship video cards go head to head one last time

Over the past year, the GeForce GTX 680 and the Radeon HD 7970 have served as the respective flagship GPUs for each of their camps, and even though both cards seem a bit like well-aged cheese by now, they are still fast. There have also been quite a few driver updates since these cards were released, so we've decided to pit two of the overclocked versions against one another in a battle royale to settle this feud once and for all. Fighters, touch circuit boards and come out of your PCI Express corners. It's time to get it on!

Asus GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP

There are many flavors of GeForce GTX 680 out in the wild, from cards that have only modified the reference design with pretty stickers to this heavily mutated bad boy from Asus. For those not familiar with Asus nomenclature, this is the DirectCU II version of the GTX 680, meaning it features a heat pipe and fan-based cooler approximately the size of mainland China. The cooler utilizes five copper heat pipes that make direct contact with the GK104 Kepler GPU. The heat pipes fan out above the GPU and to the edge of the card, sending the heat they've collected into two separate heatsinks. Twin 100mm fans then blow into the heatsinks, exhausting the warm air outside of the chassis. It's a superb design that we've lavished praise on before because, even though it's a bit large, it works extremely well, and keeps the GPU just the way we like it—cool and quiet. Asus claims a noise reduction of 14dB compared to the reference design prepared by Nvidia, and we believe it even though we don’t specifically measure sound output. All this cooling takes up a bit of space, though, and this card's triple-slot design makes it the biggest GTX 680 ever to grace our test bench.

The Asus GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP’s name is almost as long as the 11-inch card.

Some of you might be asking, "But wait, the GTX 680 already runs cool and quiet, so why is a cooler the size of Gordon Mah Ung’s anger management therapy bill required in this situation?" That's a good question, and the answer is in the second part of our nomenclature lesson, which is the word TOP in the card's name, which means it's overclocked like a son-of-a-gun to the tune of 112MHz over stock speeds at 1,137MHz. Its Boost Clock gets a gentle massage all the way up to 1,201MHz, as well. Memory is not overclocked, however. The card also comes with Asus's GPU Tweak software that lets you not only monitor the card's temps, fan speeds, voltages, and clock speeds, but also manually adjust all those values. The card even supports an Asus-exclusive feature called VGA Hotwire that’s also supported on several Asus motherboards (it has to be supported on both to work). It lets you adjust the GPU's voltage once you've soldered several wires that run from the motherboard to the video card's PCB. This allows for control at a hardware level instead of using software, and is designed for extreme overclocking enthusiasts, to put it mildly.

During testing, the overclocked Asus GTX 680 held a crystal-clear advantage over the overclocked Radeon HD 7970, which might not be too surprising to you, but it was a surprise to us. When we tested these same video cards (not these exact cards, but reference models at stock clock speeds) just a few months ago using the latest beta drivers from each manufacturer, it was a photo finish in practically every test, with AMD holding a very slight advantage. This was a distinct coup for AMD, which had always trailed Nvidia in these comparisons previously, and it all came down to drivers, essentially. AMD had released its beta 12.11 drivers, claiming they made a significant impact on performance, and they were right.

Perhaps it's fitting then, that this time around it is most likely drivers that have put Nvidia ahead, as we tested this card with the 310.70 version of the drivers, which were released about a month after the 12.10 drivers we used to test the Radeon card. As we were going to press, Nvidia released another version of its drivers numbered 310.90, claiming even further improvements, but they arrived too close to deadline for us to test them. However, the advantage Nvidia holds is clear, both in the benchmark numbers and frequency of driver updates. Drivers are clearly a weak point for AMD, and in this face-off it most likely made all the difference.

We should point out that the Asus card was totally silent at all times during testing, a remarkable feat given its overclocked status and its superb performance. It beat the AMD card in every test except Metro, where it lost by one frame per second, so not much of a loss, really. The numbers don't lie, though, and as we close the book on this era of GPUs, the crown goes to the green camp, and we'll award a crown to Asus too, for making the fastest, and most silent, GTX 680 we've ever tested.

Asus GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP

Fast; totally silent at all times; GPU Tweak software.

Massively huge and heavy, skimpy bundle.

$540, www.asus.com

Asus Radeon HD 7970 DirectCU II TOP

In the game of high-stakes poker known as the GPU industry, once a manufacturer reveals its hand, it then waits for the competition to do the same. If the competing manufacturer reveals a more powerful or desirable alternative, due to a combination of price, performance, noise, or all three, the other manufacturer will oftentimes update its lineup with a new Extreme Titanium Platinum FTW Balls-to-the-Wall Edition, which is usually mildly overclocked. We've seen both Nvidia and AMD do this in the past, but in this particular round it's been AMD pulling this maneuver with its GHz edition of the HD 7970. The original HD 7970 shipped with a 925MHz core clock speed, and in order to gain a bit of an edge on the suddenly dominant GeForce GTX 680, or at least attempt to match its performance, AMD overclocked its flagship board to 1GHz and released the Radeon-based Kraken. It achieved its goal, too, as the GHz edition of the card was, for the most part, as fast as the GTX 680, or at least the two were close enough to move the argument away from performance to price and other considerations. Unfortunately for AMD, once people began to consider other factors, such as noise and heat, Nvidia still held the edge with its power-sipping Kepler architecture. While third-party manufacturers can't do much about the card's power output, they could certainly change its noise profile, and that's exactly what Asus has done by adding its sizable DirectCU II cooler to this card.

The Asus HD 7970 DirectCU II TOP’s triple-slot design is an amazing thing to not hear at all.

Like the GTX 680, this card is also overclocked a bit and runs at 1,000MHz, which is 75MHz over its stock speeds. Its memory also has a teeny, tiny overclock up to 1,400MHz from 1,375MHz. The card includes four Display Port connectors along with one single-link DVI port and one dual-link DVI port, giving it a distinct advantage in the multiple-displays department, and allowing you to run all six displays using AMD’s Eyefinity setup for multi-monitor gaming.

During testing, the Asus card showed a mild advantage over the reference design, pulling a few frames per second out of its red-and-black hat in each test. In two games in particular, though—Dirt 3 and Far Cry 2— we saw the most improvement, though in Metro we’re still stuck in the sub-20fps region, which is simply ridiculous but not the fault of the cards, obviously. Given its overclocked nature, it's not too surprising that it's faster than the reference design, but what's most impressive is how utterly silent the card is at all times; a marked improvement over the reference design, and all other HD 7970s we've ever tested. Sadly, the Radeon card still gets its lunch eaten by the GTX 680 in almost every benchmark, and not just by one or two frames but by enough to make it clear which card is faster. As we stated in the GTX review, it could be down to drivers, as we used the 12.10 drivers for these tests, which are the latest "official" drivers. The 12.11 drivers have been in beta for a while now and might have turned the tide had they been released, but we don't test with beta drivers, so for now the crown goes to the green camp. To be clear, this is the best version of the HD 7970 we've tested in this generation of cards, but given its performance deficit to the GTX 680, we're forced to withhold a Kick Ass award for now. Let's hope the company can reclaim one very soon with its HD 8000 series GPUs.

Asus Radeon HD 7970 DirectCU II TOP

Whisper quiet; as fast as GHz edition; GPU Tweak software; runs six displays.

Expensive; not as fast as the GTX 680 in our tests.

$490, www.asus.com

Specifications

	Asus GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP	Asus Radeon HD 7970 DirectCU II TOP	Reference Radeon HD 7970	Reference GTX 680
3DMark 2011 Performance	10,886	8,700	8,337	9,555
Unigine Heaven 2.5 (fps)	33.1	28.9	28.7	31.2
Shogun 2 (fps)	37.8	29.6	25.7	29.8
Far Cry 2 / Long (fps)	118.6	97.4	91.6	107.3
Dirt 3 (fps)	79.3	75.2	70.5	72.9
Metro 2033 (fps)	17	18.6	18.6	16.3
STALKER: CoP SunShade (fps)	41.5	40.2	38.7	34.3
Just Cause 2 (fps)	57.71	53.1	51	54.7
Batman: Arkham City (fps)	66	62	60	58
Catzilla	5,690	4,427	4,218	4,880
Base Clock	1,137MHz	1,000MHz	925MHz	925MHz
Boost Clock	1,201MHz	N/A	N/A	1,000MHz
Memory Clock	6,008MHz	5,600MHz	5,500MHz	6,000MHz

Best scores are bolded. Our test bed is a 3.33GHz Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition in an Asus P9X79 motherboard with 16GB of DDR3/1600 and a Thermaltake ToughPower 1,050w PSU. The OS is 64-bit Windows Ultimate. All games are run at 2560x1600 with 4xAA except for the 3DMark tests.

60 E3 2013 Pictures

Jimmy Thang — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:40:01 +0000

E3 booth babes, booth tours, and more!

We had the chance to check out E3 2013 in Los Angeles, California last week. As expected, the gaming/tech event was a big one with Microsoft and Sony showing off their new Xbox One and PS4 consoles. But it wasn't all about the next-generation consoles. PC vendors such as Nvidia, AMD, Alienware, and Razer were at the expo showing off their latest gaming toys and there were a bunch of PC-exclusive titles at the event.

In our E3 2013 picture gallery below, we'll provide a look at some of this hottest tech, booth babes, and much more. What did you think was the coolest thing at the show this year? Let us know in the comments!

Richland Review

Gordon Mah Ung — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:50:42 +0000

Richland review: Even the most diehard fan boy can admit AMD’s not in the hunt against Intel’s top-end processors

That doesn’t mean AMD still can’t give Intel a hard time. While AMD can’t compete with the Core i7-3970X or even the Core i7—4770K, the company’s rush to merge CPU and GPU to make the APU has put more pressure on Intel than Intel would probably want to admit.

AMD’s first Brazos APUs, for example, blew away peoples' sales and performance expectations. Since then, AMD has kept its foot on the gas peddle. While it hasn’t eclipsed Intel’s efficiency per core on the x86 side, the graphics portion of the APUs have always lead Intel’s integrated graphics. The company’s Llano parts have been even more competitive, giving up better integrated graphics and fair x86 performance. From Llano, AMD introduced Trinity and the latest sequel: Richland.

Richland doesn’t bring any fancy new 3D transistors or a fabrication process that’s the envy of the technical free world, but it still offers a pretty compelling message: a high-clocked quad-core chip with graphics that’s surprisingly decent.

Richland Benchmarks

Since Richland rolled out just as Intel’s Haswell hit, we had a nice set of systems all ready to go for direct comparison using the latest graphics drivers and UEFIs. Obviously, we’re not making a direct comparison between the $142 A10-6800K, $122 Core Core i3-3220 and three Core i7 procs, but since we had the numbers, we’re including them to give users an idea of how much they’re missing and not missing by spending twice or three times as much on a CPU.

For our testing, we outfitted three different systems with the same GeForce GTX 580 cards, 16GB of Corsair DDR3/1600 and 240GB Corsair Neutron GTX SSDs. Windows 8 was used for all of our testing.

The Upshot

Obviously, you need to dig into the details of our tests. But rather than having you click around looking for the conclusion, we’ll just put it right here. Our impression of Richland is generally good. The graphics performance obviously schools the Intel parts that we’ve seen. Intel’s HD5000 and HD5200 is another story, though, but somehow we doubt you’ll get those in $140 CPUs.

Richland’s big problem from the enthusiast perspective is that we don’t quite get it. The APU, when rolled into a NUC-sized or HTPC mini PC, is a pretty damned decent story. What we don’t get is why you’d ever build with a Richland in a full-sized FM2 board. Our instincts tells us to suck it up and build on AM3+ with discrete graphics for maybe $75 more. Talking to motherboard vendors, though, we’ve heard FM2 boards in full ATX are overwhelmingly favored by consumers. That tells us that most of the people buying FM2 systems have very tight budgets, and putting out another $75 for a GPU is out of the question. And that's really the magic of the FM2 platform and Llano/Richland.

For those on very tight budgets, Richland does the job and it does it very well. For those of us with a bit more scratch, we think AM3+ or even LGA1155 is the better choice for a full-sized desktop box.

Click the next page for our Richland Benchmarks.

A good GPU test shouldn’t vary much from the CPU, and here we see amazingly close scores despite the differences in clock speeds, core counts and generations of cores. We found similar results in the overall scores in 3DMark11 (incorrectly labeled 3DMark2011 in our chart) as well as for the new 3DMark, so we decided to simply skip those charts here. The results is an overall score, and higher is better.

The story changes when we flip over to physics testing. The test is a theoretical physics test and favors core and thread count. Here’s a first glimpse of the steep hill AMD’s Piledriver cores still face: the dual-core Core i3-3220 is a dual-core Hyper-threaded part without Turbo Boost. That means the A10-6800K’s 4.1GHz to 4.4GHz clock speed and quad-core/shared modules don’t give up much more than the i3. The result is an overall score and higher is better.

Echoing 3DMark11, the new 3DMark also favors the higher core count parts, and we found the A10 and Core-i3 on equal footing, despite one being a quad-core. The results is an overall score, and higher is better.

The popular and free 7-Zip has a built-in benchmark mode that gives approximations of how well a processor would perform in compression duties. Here, the quad-core A10 actually proves itself well against the Core i3-3220 and—surprise—comes amazingly close to the new Haswell chip. A10, pat yourself on the back. The result is an overall score of MIPS, and higher is better.

Cinebench 10 is the older version of Maxon’s popular 3D rendering benchmark. It features the ability to render the test on a single core. This should give an idea of the efficiency of each respective CPU microarchitecture. Sandy Bridge is slower than Ivy Bridge, which is slower than Haswell. The Core i3-3220’s weakness is likely due to its inability run at higher clock speeds than 3.30GHz. Seen in red, the A10 single-core performance could use some help, especially when you consider it’s running at 4.1+GHz. The result is an overall score, and higher is better.

Oh, but those cores in the A10 do pay off when it comes to a multi-threaded workload. The A10 outruns the Intel dual-core handily. Those longer bars? You have to pay for those, buddy. The result is an overall score, and higher is better.

Cinebench 11.5 is the newest version of Maxon’s popular benchmark. The A10 again comes out on top of the Core i3, but the more efficient Intel cores and Hyper-Threading make it closer than you’d think. For those wondering if a 6-core Core i7-3930K is even worth it, look at the hexa-cores’ numbers. If you are getting paid to render out a scene, the hexa-core will save you time and money. The result is an overall score, and higher is better.

POV-Ray is a ray-tracing engine that’s been around the block. It favors core and thread count, and the A10’s quad-cores trounces the Core i3’s dual-cores, despite the presence of Hyper-Threading. Count this as a win for AMD. The results are in seconds, and lower is better.

There is an OpenCL version of Handbrake floating around in beta. But for now, we stuck with the public version of the latest build, so you’re seeing purely x86 performance, not GPU performance here. The A10’s quad part comes out on top of the Core i3 dualie, and again, we see the hexa-core part outrun even the new Haswell chip. Did your buddy tell you hexa-core’s are worthless even when you said you intended to transcode a lot of video? He was wrong. The results are in seconds, and lower is better.

For our Premiere Pro CS6 test, we take 1080P video shot on an EOS 5D Mk II and export it as a Blu-ray formatted video. All of the encoding here is done on the CPU rather than the GeForce GTX 580, as we want to see CPU performance. Keep in mind, there is a new version of Premiere Pro coming out with OpenCL support rather than pure CUDA. Still, this test is a pure CPU x86 test, and the A10 gets trashed really, really badly. AMD fans will say that’s Intel’s hand in making compilers that gives them the upper hand. We’ll say that whatever the reason is, it’s pretty clear that if you are using Premiere Pro CS6, you need to be running Intel silicon with at least four cores aboard and Hyper-Threading. This is simply horrible performance from the A10 here. The results are in seconds, and lower is better.

TechARP’s X264 HD 5.01 is a pretty thread-heavy benchmark that tests how fast a CPU can encode using the free X264 encoder library. It makes two passes for the benchmark, and the A10 and Core i3 are pretty much tied. This test also shows that if you intend to encode video, pay more for your CPU. The results are in frames per second, and higher is better.

Pass 2 of the X264 HD 5.01 benchmark favors thread and core count more, so we now see the quad-core A10 outpace the dual-core Core i3 by a healthy clip. The results are in frames per second, and higher is better.

For our Proshow Producer 5 test, we take a couple of hundred images shot with a Canon EOS 5D MkII, create a custom slideshow, and export it to a 1080P video file. ProShow Producer 5 pretty much tops out at four-cores. The A10 is slightly faster than the Core i3 part, but nothing to really text home about. The budget parts do amazingly well on this, considering how much pricier the other parts are in this roundup, which means photoslide show production isn’t something anyone should consider a heavy duty workload anymore. Perhaps ProShow Producer 6 will step it up. The results are in seconds, and lower is better.

HDRs are so popular now, it’s a built-in feature on point-and-shoot digital cameras and phones. Those modes are just fakes, though. If you’re going to make an HDR, you need different exposures, which is what HDR Soft’s PhotoMatix does. Favored by HDR experts, PhotoMatix has a batch mode that’s unavailable in the main interface, because it grinds most machines into the ground. It favors core and thread count, and here we see the A10 outpacing the dual-core Core i3. PhotoMatix is also one of those apps that actually show spending more money on the CPU helps. The Core i7-4770K is roughly twice as much (plus some change) as the A10-6800K, and the performance you get is actually the equivalent too. The results are in seconds, and lower is better.

Bah, we don’t give a damn that your phone has a 16-megapixel sensor. The future is about Gigapixel, so we used a GigaPan EPIC Pro to shoot 263 images with a Canon EOS 7D and stitched them with Stitch.EFx 2.0 to make a 1.1 gigapixel image. Stitch.EFx2.0 is interesting because the first two thirds of it is single-threaded, with the last third exploiting all of the cores available. It’s a good mix that favors efficiency, clock speed, and core count. The A10’s high clocks and more cores hands the dual-core Core i3 -- a pretty handy defeat which, frankly, gives the even the pricier Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge quad chips a good scare. The results are in seconds, and lower is better.

Click the next page to see some Richland game benchmarks.

For some real-world gaming tests, we ran Hitman: Absolution at 13x7 resolution with graphics quality turned way down. We expected the performance to be pretty uniform, but that didn’t pan out. The A10 actually came in last with the Core i3 running at nearly 1GHz lower clock speed, beating it. It’s pretty clear that Hitman: Absolution likes quad-core parts, and not quad-cores that share resources the way AMD’s Piledriver cores do. These are framerates, and higher is better.

Resident Evil 6 also saw the much higher-clocked A10 lose to the Core i3. It’s not by much, but a loss nonetheless. In reality, the gameplay between the six chips would likely be indistinguishable at 1080p with graphics quality turned up. These are framerates, and higher is better.

Total War: Shogun 2 CPU benchmark shows that pricier quad-cores have a pretty heavy advantage over the budget parts. In budgetland, the AMD chip was again slightly trailing the Intel chip, despite its core and clock advantage. This reminds us of a forum post we read on another site that said AMD’s chips were faster in gaming. Our results, and most of the hardware community, would disagree. These are framerates, and higher is better.

Valve’s particle test was created around the time the Core 2 Quad was released and made to show off a pure CPU-based physics engine. Again, the Core i3-3220 running at 3.2GHz or lower owns the A10-6800K running at 4.1GHz to 4.4GHz. We've seen this particular test favor cache size and memory latency, which is why we think the fat hexa-core part beats even the Haswell chip. These are framerates, and higher is better.

Echoing the Core i3’s prowess at gaming, we ran Dirt 3 at low resolution with features turned down to take the GPU out of the equation. The result was an A10 part that is OK with discrete graphics, but it's clearly trailing a chip that’s clocked almost 1GHz lower. Let's also take a moment to admire the Haswell's thrashing of the other quad parts and the hexa-core chip. These are framerates, and higher is better.

PCMark 8 came out just as we finishing our testing, and rather than being even later with this story, we rolled with our existing PCMark 7 numbers. The test has never particularly favored core counts, and here we see it’s mostly a wash between the Core i3 and A10 CPU. These are overall scores, and higher is better.

Click the next page to check out Richland's integrated graphics.

Haswell Integrated Graphics Benchmarks

AMD fans may be ready to declare non-victory and go home, but let’s now look at where the A10-6800K is made to really live: in integrated graphics.

For that test, we ripped the GeForce GTX 580 card from the systems and compared the respective CPUs on their graphics prowess. The Core i3-3220 represented HD2500, the Core i7-3770 flew the flag for HD4000, and the new Haswell Core i7-4770K shows up with HD4600. AMD’s A10-6800K features Radeon HD 8670D graphics. All three were running dual-channel DDR3/1600 RAM. For those who don’t know, if you intend to run integrated graphics only and want the best gaming performance, pay for the fastest RAM you can afford, as DDR3/1866 or DDR3/2133 will give you nice benefits.

The A10 doesn’t disappoint. It simply destroys the HD2500 and HD4000 graphics. Intel’s new HD4600 gets closer, but there’s no cigar. Maybe HD Graphics 5200 aka Iris Pro will beat it, but we didn’t have it to test. These are overall scores, and higher is better.

This test isolates the graphics, and we again see the A10 make a monkey out of all of the Intel parts. Don’t expect this to change much, either. These are overall scores, and higher is better.

We’re actually running out of things to say, as we really aren’t seeing anything change for the Intel graphics here. Maybe it’s just time for Charlie Sheen to step in with a cliché. These are overall scores, and higher is better.

The new 3DMark actually sees the results close up a bit between the A10 and 4000-series Intel graphics, but the A10 still wins, especially against the HD2500 Core i3 CPU. These are overall scores, and higher is better.

Firestrike is the heavy-duty test in the new 3DMark and is more apt for testing discrete graphics, but it’s still interesting to see the Intel parts lose out to the A10. These are overall scores, and higher is better.

3DMark’s Ice Storm Graphics test is intended for mid-range PCs. Here we see HD4600 close up the distance with HD4000. But again, the A10 reigns supreme. These are overall scores, and higher is better.

The Cloudgate test in 3DMark is aimed at entry-level computing. For the first time, the HD4000 and HD4600 outpace the A10. The reason? The emphasis shifts from graphics performance to x86 performance, when the physics is factored into it, and the Intel chips now come out on top. Still don’t get it? If you’re running a game so old and so graphically easy as say Quake III, the Intel graphics and CPUs can actually be faster due to the better x86 performance. Well, except for HD2500 graphics, which is apparently there to insult or tease you. Hmm, maybe Intel shouldn't be allowed to use the word "graphics" with HD2500. Just as you can't call something "juice" unless there's actually fruit in it, maybe the HD2500 should be the purple-colored drink of the graphics world next to the grape juice A10. These are overall scores, and higher is better.

In the graphic’s only portion of Cloud Gate when physics and x86 is not factored in, the A10 actually pulls even with the new HD4600 graphics. That pretty much tells us that Intel’s HD5000 and HD5200 graphics will be faster—they just won’t be cheaper. These are frame rates, and higher is better.

We ran Hitman: Absolution at 13x7 with the image quality trimmed way low, and we still saw pretty sub-par frame rates. It’s pretty clear that as good as integrated graphics has gotten recently, sometimes you really will need a real discrete GPU. These are frame rates, and higher is better.

Resident Evil 6 is surprisingly difficult on integrated graphics, but we think it’s almost playable at a low resolution. Still, count this as a win for the A10. This is an overall score generated by RE6, and higher is better. For what it's worth: Resident Evil 6 benchmark, can you please stop when you're done, rather than looping over and over again?

We ran Dirt 3 at ultra-low quality and 13x7 resolution. Believe it or not, it looks surprisingly good at that resolution. The Haswell’s HD4600 also motors past the A10 a bit, which might be why Intel keeps showing Dirt 3 in its benchmarks. These are frame rates, and higher is better.

Unlike most shooters, driving games don’t really need high frame rates to be playable. We ran Dirt 3 at 1920x1080 resolution and medium quality to see how integrated parts would run. The A10 and Haswell do OK. In fact, it would likely be pretty playable to most people's eyes. The HD4000 graphics in the Core i7-3770K would be pushing it and HD2500? Forget it. These are frame rates, and higher is better.

We’re still turning our OpenCL testing, but we thought CyberLink’s MediaEspresso 6.7 would be a fair test of the chips’s encoding performance, using the graphics side rather than the x86 side. Intel’s QuickSync has always been pretty fast, and here we see even the lowly HD2500 give the A10 a good run for the money. Interestingly the Core i7-3770K and Core i7-4770K are surprisingly close. HD4600’s graphics should be improved for computing tasks such as encoding, so we suspect MediaEspresso just can’t exploit it yet. The results are in seconds, with lower being better.

Sandra has a GPGPU test. It’s purely synthetic but the results actually mirror the A10’s gaming performance, for the most part. We’ll be adding more OpenCL tests using real-world applications as we move forward. The results are expressed as MIPS, and higher is better.

15 Father's Day Geek Gifts

Paul Lilly — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 22:14:16 +0000

Tech gifts for dad

Now that Mother's Day is in the rear view mirror, it's time to switch gears and focus on what to give dad for Father's Day to show your appreciation for what he had to put up with all those years, especially if you had a knack for getting into trouble. Maybe as a teen you swiped the keys to his prized Mustang for a night out on the town, only to take a curve too fast and render his pride and joy a hunk of expensive junk. If that sounds at all familiar, getting him a tie or new pair of loafers won't pay off the penance you owe.

Even if you steered clear of sticky situations while growing up, you can probably think of plenty of reasons to prize your pops with a cool gift on Father's Day. Perhaps he taught you to toss a baseball or bought you your first computer. The point is, while you have your reasons for rewarding your dad on his day of special recognition, do you have any gift ideas? Put your worries to rest if you don't, because we do. In fact, we have 15 of them, but you'll have to click fast. Father's Day is right around the corner, so let's get started!

13 Most Anticipated PC Games of E3 2013

Brittany Vincent — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 22:12:49 +0000

Battlefield 4, The Witcher 3, and more!

The excitement of E3 2013 is heating up and this year is poised to have shocking reveals, next-generation surprises, and amazing PC games. Maximum PC will be at the Los Angeles expo covering the event next week, but we couldn't wait to talk about some of the top-notch games that will surely be there. While we can't preview every PC game at the show, because we're still not 100% sure what's going to be there, we thought we'd select 13 of our most anticipated PC games from the 2013 event.

Is there a PC game that you thought we should have included in our gallery below? Let us know in the comments!

London Comic Con 2013 Cosplay Gallery

Christopher Leddy — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 21:50:49 +0000

50 cosplay pictures from the London MCM Comic Con Expo

It’s fair to say the cosplay phenomenon has reached every corner of Earth and England bears no signs of bucking that trend. Last week we had the chance to check out London's MCM Comic Con Expo, an event where all things gaming and cosplay collide. We saw tons of costumes from the Mass Effect universe to the myriad champions in League of Legends and everything in between.

Take a peek below to see all of the crazy costumes in our gallery and let us know which cosplay is your favorite!

Note: The preview images may look like we cut off some of the cosplayers' heads so make sure to click each picture to see the full image!

GeForce GTX 770 Benchmarks

Josh Norem — Thu, 30 May 2013 13:00:31 +0000

Nvidia delivers a juiced GK104 in the GeForce GTX 770

Today the embargo lifts on the second GeForce GTX 700 series GPU to be announced in a week's time; the Titan-cooled but GK104-powered GeForce GTX 770. Unlike the GTX 780 announced last week, this card does not use the monstrous GK110 GPU, but instead opts for a highly-clocked version of the GK104 chip found previously in the GeForce GTX 680, GTX 670, and GTX 660 Ti. It's the highest clocked-part of all of those cards though, and also has 7Gb/s memory instead of the 6Gb/s variety found in all the previous Kepler cards, giving it a signficant bump in memory bandwidth.

It also features all the cool features we've already covered in our GTX 780 article, including GPU Boost 2.0 and Adaptive Fan Control. If you haven't read that article, go check it out right here. The GTX 770 will also be offered in both 2GB and 4GB flavors, and Nvidia's board partners will be offering boards that are overclocked even more than the Nvidia reference design as well. The GeForce GTX 770 will retail for $400, though versions that are overclocked or have more memory will obviously cost a bit more, but we don't have the exact prices for you as of press time. Watch this space, as we'll add information about the new cards as it comes in today.

GTX 770 specs

Here are the GTX 770's specs. You will note this is the highest-clocked GK104 GPU to roll off the fab yet, and its memory is also the highest clocked that we've ever seen on a GTX board. And with that sweet Titan cooler, not to mention what third-parties can come up with, you can expect even more overclocking and overvolting goodness. The card is the same 10.5-inch length as the GTX 780 and Titan, and also uses one six-pin and one eight-pin PCIe connector, which is two more pins than what is found on the GTX 670.

How Fast is The GTX 770?

We ran all of our tests on our standard GPU test bench, which consists of an Intel Core i7-3960X CPU, 16GB of RAM and an Asus PX79 motherboard, so this system is no slouch. In our tests we saw what we think is the basic argument for the GTX 770, which is you get GTX 680 performance for $400, which is a great deal. Based on the marketing materials we received from Nvidia prior to launch it seems like the company's target for this card was the HD 7970, though we threw the HD 7950 into our chart too since it was the GTX 670's nemesis. Looking at the chart, all three of these cards - the GTX 770, GTX 680, and HD 7970 GHz are damn close to one another, but the rub is that the GTX 770 is the least expensive, and the most silent, of all of them. The HD 7950 is a lot more competitive though, as a quick check on Newegg shows you can get one for around $300 including Tomb Raider, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, and Bioshock Infinite. That's a tough deal to pass up, and we think the GTX 770 will be a bit of a tougher sell for Nvidia than the GTX 780 or the Titan, which for now stand alone as the leaders in their price range. Then there's word of some new AMD cards arriving soon so it looks like the $400 price point is about to get real interesting, especially when prices on the GTX 670 and GTX 680 drop now that the GTX 770 has been announced. Will AMD hit back hard, and will we also see a GTX 760 Ti soon? We certainly can't wait to find out.

FanimeCon 2013: Cosplay Gallery

Jimmy Thang — Wed, 29 May 2013 21:46:59 +0000

60 cosplay pictures from FanimeCon 2013

We had the chance to check out FanimeCon 2013 in San Jose, California this past weekend. While the annual event is widely known as an anime convention, gaming played a huge part of the show. In addition to having an entire expo hall dedicated to video games, there were a ton of game-inspired costumes. Popular outfits this year included the large roster of League of Legends champions to the ever popular Team Fortress 2 classes, and much, much more!

Presented below are some of our favorite FanimeCon 2013 cosplay costumes. Let us know which ones are your favorite in the comments section!

Maximum PC's Geek Quiz 2013

The Maximum PC Staff — Tue, 28 May 2013 18:33:02 +0000

Measure your nerd knowledge in our 12th annual interactive Geek Quiz!

Since time began, the fittest of any species have found ways to test their mettle in the fiery cauldron of competition. First there was the Olympics, then Jeopardy, and finally – the Maximum PC Geek Quiz. Though you are probably cracking your knuckles, keep in mind that we've designed this timed quiz, not to entertain you, but to destroy you. Yes, those are fighting words. And yes, we mean it. Don't worry – we've made this a fair fight by mixing softballs with knees-to-the-groin-region, so if you're a regular reader of Maximum PC, and don't go running off to your Google mommy, you should come out the other end of this a better man, woman, or child.

Commemorating the Best PC Hardware

Paul Lilly — Mon, 27 May 2013 17:35:38 +0000

13 hardware components worth remembering on Memorial Day 2013

Memorial Day is a time to stop and remember all the men and women who died defending this country, and also to honor those currently serving, putting their lives at risk for our collective freedom. We're always delighted to receive letters and emails from readers in the Armed Forces, and truly humbled and honored that our magazine, website, and podcasts can provide a small mental retreat to their monumental sacrifice. So first and foremost, here's a heartfelt and emphatic "Thank you!" to anyone who has served or is currently serving, from all of us at Maximum PC.

Since this is Maximum PC, we'll do what we do best and stick to the topic of technology. Running with the Memorial Day theme, we've put together a gallery of some of the best PC hardware to serve our needs in the past decade or so. We're not digging deep into history to the days of the Commodore 64, but don't worry if you're a sucker for nostalgia, we have some shoutouts to long-gone hardware that you may not have thought about in long time.

So, without further adieu, let's look back and give thanks to some awesome hardware! Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below!

Maker Faire 2013: 50 Pictures

Jimmy Thang — Sat, 25 May 2013 18:50:46 +0000

Pictures from one of the largest DIY conventions in the country

This past weekend Maximum PC had the chance to check out Maker Faire 2013 in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area. The event, billing itself as "the greatest show and tell on Earth," is one of the largest DIY conventions in the country and has inventors from all around the globe showing off their latest and greatest doodads. While it is technically an arts and crafts show, technology played a big part of Maker Faire 2013 with inventors showing off everything from interesting PC case mods to robots.

You could really feel the spirit of creativity at the festive event. If you didn't have the good fortune of attending Maker Faire 2013, fret not as you can still see some of the unique devices in our extensive picture gallery below.

What's your favorite DIY invention here? Let us know in the comments!

15 Technology Failures

Mark Pilkington — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:40:03 +0000

Duke Nukem Forever, Windows ME, Google Wave, and more!

Predicting the next big thing is never easy, especially when it comes to technology. It's easy to lose count of the number of times Microsoft or Google have promised to create products that will revolutionize our lives. Granted, occasionally the corporate gurus are right – smartphones and wireless networks being two great examples. But for all the successful launches, there are as many products that don’t quite get it right. It could be a fantastic idea on paper, but when it comes to fulfilling the dream, they become nothing more than technology failures.

Following on from our earlier article way back in 2010 covering the 13 Biggest Tech Blunders of the Decade we bring you 15 more embarrassing tech failures that some companies would rather you forget.

Did you own or ever use any of these tech blunders? If so, let us know in the comments below!

Google I/O 2013: Everything You Need to Know

Paul Lilly — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:57:46 +0000

Google music streaming service, Gmail improvements, and Galaxy S4 to come with stock Android Jelly Bean 4.2

If you weren't one of the 6 million people who tuned in to YouTube to watch the Google I/O 2013 keynote on Wednesday, don't sweat it, you've come to the right place for an extensive recap of all the big announcements. Some of it you may have already read about here on Maximum PC, such as Google partnering with Samsung to offer a totally clean version of the Galaxy S4 complete with an unlocked bootloader or the introduction of an All Access music service, but we also have some new stuff to share.

Technically the event is still going on -- it's a three-day event -- and while the news keeps pouring in, a lot of what's now being revealed are product statistics and minor software updates, like Heat Maps and Symbols being added to the Google Maps API -- not exactly 'knock-your-socks-off' news. There's plenty of interesting tidbits to share, however, so let's get started!

Android's Ascension

From humble beginnings as an operating system that was originally developed for digital cameras, Android over the past decade has grown into the most popular mobile OS in the world. Just how popular is the open source platform? Google revealed rather early in its opening keynote that Android is now installed on 900 million devices.

"There are over 7 billion people on this planet, so we have a long way to go and we think the journey is just getting started," Google's Sundar Pichai quipped on stage.

What's interesting about Android's dominance in mobile is that it's only scratched the surface of available users. While Pichai may have been semi-joking about getting Android devices into the hands of 7 billion people, Android's penetration in most territories around the world is less than 10 percent, albeit "growing very, very fast."

Underscoring Android's popularity is the number of app downloads to date, which Google pegs at 48 billion. To put that number into perspective, consider that it's just 2 billion shy of Apple, which recently announced 50 billion iOS app downloads.

In just the last month alone, Android users have installed 2.5 billion apps. Beyond bragging rights, all these numbers translate into revenue for developers, who have been paid more money in the last four months than in all of last year. The revenue per user is up 2.5x what it was a year ago. Not too shabby.

Google announced a bunch of new APIs for Android developers as part of a robust update to its Google Play services, including three new Android location-based tools. They are:

A low-power location mode that uses less than 1 percent of battery life per hour.
Geofenching: Lets you define virtual fences around geographic areas, which are triggered when a user enters or exits any of them. Developers can have 100 simultaneous geofences active per app.
Activity Recognition: Uses accelerometer data to determine whether a user is walking, cycling, or riding without tapping into the battery-sucking GPS.

Another new API is one that allows for cross-platform single sign-ons with Google+. The benefit for users is that they don't have to sign into apps separately on different devices, so if you open an app using your Google+ account, you're logged in whether you fire it up on the web, on your smartphone, or with your Android tablet.

Leveling Up Google Play

You'll notice some changes to Google Play over the course of the next few weeks. Google's putting a much bigger focus on movie, music, and book recommendations based on the content you consume and what items prompt your friends to mash the +1 button.

Google Play will also do a better job adapting to whichever device you're using. The same content will be available whether you're viewing Google Play on your notebook's browser or your tablet, but it will be presented differently on each to take advantage of the different form factors.

Google Gets Into Streaming Music

Okay, enough with the APIs, backend infrastructure, and UI enhancements, let's get to the fun stuff. One of the big announcements Google made was its new All Access streaming music service. This is the next logical step in the evolution of Google's foray into music, which began with it offering an online locker for users to upload 20,000 songs of their own that could then be streamed to multiple devices. After that, Google launched a music store, and now this.

For a monthly fee (normally $9.99, though if you sign up by June 30, it's $7.99), you can tap into Google's catalog of millions of songs, but it's more than just that. There are curated playlists by Google's expert music editors and 22 top level genres to sift through, with more to drill into. Best of all, you can immediately start playing anything you see in All Access, as nothing is grayed out.

There's quite a bit of fine grain control, too. Anything you listen to can be turned into a radio station. If you're curious about what the unseen DJ has picked out, you can take a look at the playlist and swipe away any songs you don't want to hear, You can also rearrange the order of songs in your queue.

All Access offers the same features across multiple devices. It's available now with a 30-day free trial.

Samsung Galaxy S4 as You've Always Wanted It (Unlocked)

The other big reveal is the one we talked about at the beginning. Coming soon to Google Play is a special version of Samsung's Galaxy S4 device. Unlike the one that's currently available, this one will ship with an unlocked bootloader. it will also feature a squeaky clean version of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, delivering the same software experience that Google ships on its Nexus devices.

Like the Nexus line, this version of the Galaxy S4 will receive Android upgrades "promptly" with every system platform update, which means no more waiting around for weeks and months for your device maker and wireless carrier to get on the ball with the latest version of Android. Speaking of which, it will work on both AT&T and T-Mobile.

That's the good news. And the bad? Well, it's going to cost a whopping $649 when it becomes available starting June 26.

Chrome Dominates the Web

As far as Google is concerned, the various versions of Chrome collectively add up to the most used browser on the planet. It's added 300 million active users in the past 12 months, giving it a userbase that's now over 750 million strong, and climbing. Many of those new users are accessing Chrome on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets.

If those numbers are even remotely accurate, it's easy to see why Google is sticking with its Chromebook platform, which runs the company's Chrome OS. Providing further incentive to push Chromebooks onto the masses is data from Amazon that shows the $249 Samsung Chromebook as being the No. 1 selling laptop for 199 consecutive days.

"It's an ecosystem play and we have many more partners joining our journey," Google Senior Vice President Sundar Pinchai added.

Click the next page to see why you might want to start using Google+

Redesigning Google+

Get ready for a different Google+ experience than the one you're currently used to, assuming you're using the service. To take advantage of widescreen displays and to address the flatness of feeds, Google+ will be switching to a multi-column card design. This will make your feed more visually appealing, and on the backend, Google+ will optionally have the ability to automatically add hashtags. What for? If you spy the Eiffel Tower above, you'll notice there's no mention of what it is. However, Google knows, and if you click the card, it will present related information. Here's a short demo:

Related to Google+, Google introduced Google+ Hangouts for mobile devices during its event. It's a standalone app with a heavy focus on conversations, and it's available on Android, Chrome, Gmail, and iOS. It will keep a history of long-running conversations, though you can turn off the history and/or delete entries you're rather keep private.

Like everything else, there's an emphasis on making Hangouts visually appealing. There might be pictures and videos scattered throughout your long-running conversation, and according to Google, it just "feels alive." Subtle animations show when people join and where they're reading, so that it feels like you're all in the same room together. And of course it's all synced, so if you swipe something away on iOS, it's also gone on your other devices.

Finally, Google is making an effort to make photos less labor and time-intensive by making its data center your darkroom. In other words, the cloud will handle some of the time sucking tasks that are related to cleaning up photos.

It starts with backups, something Google already offers, only now it's giving you 15GB of free unified cloud storage, which you can allocate however you want between Gmail, Drive, and Google+ Photos.

Much more interesting, however, is Google's Highlight feature. If you think about the number of photos you're likely to take on vacation, it quickly becomes a daunting task when you get back home and discover there are hundreds, if not thousands of snapshots to sift through and edit. What ends up happening is you tuck them into a folder telling yourself you'll come back and power through them when you have more time, but that time never comes.

Google proposes it can pick out the best pictures of the bunch for you. Sounds too good to be true, right? Time will tell, but it sounds promising. It's not just a crapshoot wherein Google hopes to get lucky, there's some intelligent sifting going on. For example, Google won't highlight blurry photos, and if it detects duplicate images, it will pick no more than one of them. It also looks for poorly exposed photos and narrows down photos based on other factors, such as whether or not there are people in the picture and if they're smiling. It will even attempt to detect family members, giving those photos a social boost.

A little less interesting is Google's auto-enhance feature, as we've found similar tools to be of limited value. However, Google promises dramatic results using tonal distribution, skin softening, noise reduction, white balancing, red eye removal, and a whole bunch more.

Better Looking Google Maps

Google Maps rocks, that's something most of us can agree on. If you liked it before, you're going to love the new version, which Google rebuilt from "the ground up." Upon logging into Google Maps, restaurants and other places you frequently visit will be highlighted. You can also see more of the map by shoving aside and hiding the sidebar menus. There are Info Cards that provide details about different businesses and locales, some of which even show photos of the establishment you're looking up.

Send Money Through Gmail

Lastly, Google announced that it's folding Google Wallet into Gmail. Now you can send money to family and friends through Gmail, even if the recipients don't have a Gmail address. It's free to send money if you link your bank account to Google Wallet, or if you're using your Google Wallet balance.

In Gmail, just click the dollar sign icon to attach money to your message, and then send away. Some of you will see this feature now, others will see it over the coming months.

If you wanted to check out the entire Google I/O 2013 Keynote, check out the video below.

That wraps up the more interesting highlights of Google I/O 2013. Were you impressed or disappointed by Google's event? Let us know in the comments below!

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How to Download Without Installing Malware

Paul Lilly — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:57:43 +0000

A how to download PSA

When the **** did it become so damn difficult to download a program from the Internet? If you've recently tried to grab a screensaver or software utility from the web, you know exactly what we're talking about. Somewhere along the way, the simple act of downloading a program has become anything but easy, even for Internet veterans who aren't easily duped. Many download sites are now designed to test the wits of savvy users and prey on the impatient with link landmines that will blow up your browser with toolbars and other unwanted add-ons. Even worse, you could end up with a malware infection. Should you give up?...

Hell no! Downloading might not be as simple as it once was, but it's far from an impossible mission, convoluted download portals be damned. We'll show you how to wade through the sea of shady links and track down the program you're looking, but it doesn't end there. You also have to be careful when installing an application, as installers sometimes carry adware, especially ones for free programs.

Free download links are often plastered with malicious links and adware

To Click or Not to Click the Big Green Download Button?

When we posted our "20 Awesome Screensavers" article with download links to each screensaver, some readers thought we screwed the pooch and served up malware infected URLs. Rest assured we verified that every screensaver we posted was clean, but actually downloading each one can be an exercise in frustration. Let's walk through the process of downloading "The Matrix" screensaver.

The link we provided jettisons readers to where the screensaver is hosted on CNET's website. Here's what you should see when you navigate there:

CNET's download.com is a popular website so you might not think twice about clicking the Download Now button, but take a closer look.

The fine print indirectly admits to installing adware.

If you hover your mouse over the button, you'll discover CNET is using an ad-supported wrapper. Not all downloads on CNET's website use the ad-supported stub installer, but the ones that do are indentified as such (so long as you're paying attention), both on the green Download button ("CNET Installer Enabled") and via the above pop-up box.

Downloading and installing looks so simple and easy but it's often anything but.

If you choose to proceed, you'll be presented with several attempts like the one shown above to install third-party software in addition to The Matrix screensaver. Simply click the Decline button to skip these offers one-by-one rather than mashing the oh-so-inviting Accept button. If you learned anything at all from mythology, it's that you should avoid being tempted by Sirens, and download sites serve up plenty of them.

Do you really want to install random third party apps?

Some screens are a little trickier than others and offer only two options:

Full Installation (Recommended)
Custom Installation (Advanced User)

When you encounter one of these screens, check the Custom Installation radio button and then deselect any checkboxes asking if you want to install toolbars or other cruft.

The legitimate download button is often the hardest one to find.

If this seems like an unnecessarily long path to the end, that's because it is. Instead of jumping through CNET's third-party hoops, an easier way to grab The Matrix (and similar downloads) is to click on the direct download situated just below the download button. Easy cheesy, right?

This particular link has SEVEN download buttons. Which one is the legitimate one?

Lest anyone think we're picking on CNET, it's actually not that bad compared to plenty of other download sites that make things much harder than they need to be. It's certainly not uncommon to see adware/malware masquerading as legitimate download links. Some are worse than others. In the screenshot above, there are no less than seven links with the words "download" or "driver," but only one of them actually links to the file we're looking for. How can you tell? Once again, hover your mouse over each button/link and see where it points to. If it's a DoubleClick ad or anything similar, then move on to the next one. In this case, the second download button with a right-facing arrow directs us to a URL with the words "ARCHOS-101-XS-Tablet-Firmware-412-Download" contained within. That's the one we're looking for.

Scan for Malware

Virustotal.com is a great tool for sussing out malware

Once you've finally found and downloaded the file you're looking for, be sure to scan it for malware, especially if you grabbed it from a site you've never heard of. Use any on-demand scanners you have installed (such as a daily AV program and/or Malewarebytes), and also upload the file to VirusTotal, a free cloud-based service that analyzes suspicious files and URLs for dirty code.

Using Virustotal is extremely easy, especially with a browser extension

If you're a Firefox user, we highly recommend installing VTzilla, an official VirusTotal browser extension. The extension adds a toolbar to Firefox, which you can disable if you prefer, as well as a right-click context menu entry to scan hyperlinks with VirusTotal before visiting the site in question.

For further virus protection measures, check out our in-depth virus protection guide. Do you know of any safe downloading tips? Have a downloading horror story to tell? Share them with us and other Maximum PC readers by posting in the comments section below!