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- AMD Rizen is rising to glory even before it’s launch. Everybody is expecting this new AMD CPU built from the ground up and we are excited about it as well. First tests show really good performance that at least matches Intel in most tasks and a lot of people hope will surpass it in at least some. AMD FX should really go at this point, it’s so old, Rizen may bring AMD back from the ashes of CPU giant it once was.
- Soon we will get new Intel chips - 7 series. they come with updated 2xx chipset motherboards, which is nice, though we think Z170 is still good. Intel 7xxx series is called Kabi Lake, it will provide small incremental speed upgrades over 6xxx series. New motherboards will have a bit more PCi-e lanes for new storage options like M.2. Overall it's a good development and hopefully something to push AMD even further in Zen development.
- Nvidia GTX 1050 is out now! We will be adding it to all mid-low end configurations, replacing GTX 950. New GTX 1050 video card is around GTX 960 in terms of performance and it’s great for average 1080p gamer, especially for games like World Of Warcraft, Overwatch and others. Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti is also out and it’s around R9 380X in performance, a bit slower than RX 470 but not as expensive as well. GTX 1050 Ti has an added benefit of bigger memory size, 4GB vs 2GB on regular GTX 1050, which helps a lot with higher resolutions.
- It's a fun time for PC gaming lovers. Looks like AMD may still have enough time to release Radeon RX 490 by the end of the year, which will put a dent in GTX 1070/1080 pricing which in turn will make us all so happy. There are still a lot of questions about this card but AMD lets leaks go through all the time to heat up the interest so you will know more soon enough.
- Western Digital is back in SSD business. WD have announced WD Blue SSD (similar to Caviar Blue HDD) based on TLC which has improved lately with much better performance and endurance. So don't worry about TLC that much, most people will never see the difference in speed between TLC and MLC which is now significantly more expensive. We are glad to have another SSD player onboard as competition is always good in PC hardware. We have seen SSD prices go up a bit lately, most likely due to high demand for these memory chips and decline of HDDs, so any movement on this front is positive. Especially when such giant as WD make a move.
We have launched a YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOZ8h_F1FkGdv12d-J5h-cg
What kind of PC do you need for VR - virtual reality headsets?
That depends on which headset you are going to use. All of them include kind of similar requirements:
Good processor - on that - see below
8GB RAM minimum
GTX 1060 or AMD RX 470 and up
3x USB 3.0 ports (and 1x USB 2.0)
Windows 7 and up (or may need 10) 64bit
That sums it up mostly.
Now for the processor - Oculus Rift wants Intel i5 4590 and above CPU, while others (like HTC) run on AMD FX x8 processors as well. Oculus does not like AMD processors at all, like none of them. They say AMD CPUs are weak in single-thread processing compared to Intel and so no AMD processor can be used with Oculus right now. Other VR headsets can work with AMD though. It makes us believe that it may not be the AMDs problem but rather poor optimization by Oculus for multi-core processors.Â
So to be on a safer side just pick any modern LGA 1151 Intel processor, add GTX 970 or Radeon equivalent GPU and 8GB RAM which is already standard these days, the rest you will most likely have already if you are getting a modern PC. Oh... and lay some cash aside for that VR set, it's going to be expensive in the beginning.
- AMD dirver hotfix for new Tomb Raider looks like does not help a lot with performance, game runs nearly just as bad as with unoptimized drivers (older). Seems like Nvidia is the way to go if you want to run Rise of the Tomb Raider now. At least CrossFire is enabled now.
- Did you know how regular SSDs differ inside?
SLC has the fastest write speeds, highest endurance, and the lowest power consumption. However, this comes at the expense of the lowest density, which in turn gives us a higher cost than the other types. This high performance makes SLC the choice for enterprise storage, though even that area is migrating to MLC now.
MLC is the middle-of-the-road choice. While it has slower write speeds and lower endurance than SLC, its higher density gives it good performance, and lower cost compared to SLC. This balancing act of cost versus performance makes MLC the choice for consumer-grade NAND applications at affordable prices.
TLC has the highest density of NAND storage, which gives it the lowest cost. The penalties are that the read and write speeds are the slowest, with the lowest endurance compared to the other NAND types. This makes TLC most appropriate for budget SSDs
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