Gaming
Creative Labs was instrumental in evolving PC audio with notable products, like the Sound Blaster 16, AWE 32, AWE64, Live!, Audigy, X-Fi, and Extigy, and algorithms like EAX technology. Most of its competitors through the last three decades, like Yamaha, ESS, Turtle Beach, Auzentech and M-Audio, evolved their product line-ups or faded into obscurity. There were acquisitions of Aureal and Sensaura technologies that further boosted Creative's technology portfolio, too. Sound cards seem passé nowadays, as motherboard manufacturers hop up high-definition audio codecs with higher quality op-amps, capacitors,...
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It was not that long ago when the idea of buying a gaming laptop meant spending a heavy premium versus a desktop setup. That was always a tough pill to swallow, because for the most part, there was no way to upgrade critical components like a GPU, down the road a bit. What you got is what you would have to live with for the life of your laptop. That latter restriction remains today but now, more than ever with more powerful mobile platforms, gaming laptops can offer a reasonably good return on investment. That is certainly true of the EON15-S from Origin PC, the 15.6-inch frag-ready notebook...
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Gaming enthusiasts understand the impact that a proper gaming mouse can have on their performance. Whether it be for fast flick-shots in CS:GO or for programming macros in MOBAs, having a gaming mouse tailored to your needs is an absolute necessity. For this review, we compared three newer mid-range gaming mice from a few top PC accessory brands: the Corsair Sabre RGB, SteelSeries Rival 500, and the G.Skill RIPJAWS MX780. It is important to note that there are different factors that could determine the way a user performs with each mouse. That being said, this review will act as a specification...
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There was a time when laptop options were basically a choice between desktop-like performance in a heavy and bulky form-factor, an ultralight with integrated graphics, or something in the middle, around 5-lbs with a low-end GPU. NVIDIA sought to solve this choice compromise with its Max-Q Design initiative that was announced at Computex last month. Max-Q Design is a holistic approach to notebook graphics design that ensures a svelte exterior, light weight, quiet thermals and optimal performance.ASUS and NVIDIA joined forces to produce the 15.6-inch Republic of Gamers (ROG) Zephyrus GX501, the first...
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Dave Haynie, one of the chief engineers that worked on the Amiga back in its heyday, put it best when he said, “Amiga users make Macintosh users look like PC users”, in the Viva Amiga documentary that was released early this year. Those of us that were around when the Amiga initially debuted knew Commodore had something special on its hands. At the time of its launch, the Amiga was the most advanced personal computer money could buy – bar none. It offered multimedia features that were unmatched for many years, it was affordably priced (relatively speaking), and was the first personal computer with...
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Dell updated its Alienware 17 gaming laptop at PAX West 2016 with NVIDIA Pascal graphics, but at the time Intel’s quad-core Kaby Lake mobile processors weren’t available yet. It was a short-lived update, however, as the Kaby Lake-powered Alienware 17 was announced a short time later at the start of the Consumer Electronics Show this past January. Today, we’re checking out the newest Alienware 17 R4 gaming laptop featuring the latest of both technologies. The chassis may look familiar, but its all-new on the inside with two 7th-Generation Intel Core i7 processor and four NVIDIA Pascal graphics options....
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The slim, sleek Razer Blade gaming laptop we'll be looking at here is an interesting beast that does its best to perform a balancing act of sorts. The gaming laptop arena is a landscape full of compromises. Gamers generally crave the most powerful technologies on the market, but until we can cram 8K displays into a fanless 13-inch form factor with dual Titan X GPUs and physics-defying thermal headroom, sacrifices obviously must be made. And we love high-end, 10 pound gaming battle stations, don't get us wrong, but sometimes situations and use cases call for something actually portable....
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It used to be that large physical dimensions were a telltale sign of a Herculean gaming PC. Looming desktop towers with wild looking exteriors indicated the presence of serious hardware inside. Cracking one open might reveal multiple graphics cards and fancy liquid cooling setups, both almost considered prerequisites in order to crank up the eye candy in demanding games and to play at high resolutions. But somewhere along the way, things began to change. While some of the most powerful gaming systems still reside inside gargantuan full tower enclosures, a growing number of decked out desktops have...
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The AMD Radeon RX 580 has been in the wild for over a month at this point. AMD pitched the Radeon RX 580 as an ideal choice for gamers looking to upgrade from graphics hardware acquired a couple years back. Specifically, in the lead up to the launch, AMD compared the performance of the RX 580 to cards like the Radeon R9 380. So, with that in mind, we're in the lab today to test that claim using the recently launched Prey reboot from Bethesda Softworks and developer Arkane Studios, as our primary benchmark and game engine to explore. The game also just so happens to look fabulous. This is...
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The wonderfully retro and incredibly rare Nintendo PlayStation has now been made fully functional. The Nintendo PlayStation did not initially include any games. Gaming and electronics freak enthusiast Ben Heck of the Youtube channel The Ben Heck Show, however, recently managed to get Super Boss Gaiden running on the console. How did Ben get the console to work? After experiencing a few initial roadblocks, Ben replaced a number of capacitors in order to get the CD ROM to work. The board contained a CD ROM controller chip, a digital signal processor, and a microprocessor. The microcontroller...
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When I first heard about Nintendo's plan to build a hybrid console, I thought it was a long shot. And truthfully, it was. But I also reckoned the response to a 2-in-1 console (or 3-in-1 if you count tabletop mode, as Nintendo does) would ultimately be lukewarm. Having now spent the past couple of weeks actually playing with the Nintendo Switch, I can say I was (mostly) wrong in my original assessment, and certainly in my expectations. We'll get to my own thoughts in a little bit, but first let's talk about the Switch's reception. Despite the skepticism by myself and many others leading up to the...
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It may be time to upgrade your gaming setup. Razer just announced the Lancehead, which it bills as “the world’s most reliable, tournament-grade wireless gaming mouse”. The Razer Lancehead features Adaptive Frequency Technology (AFT) that syncs data reporting between the mouse and user’s system. It also connects to the strongest frequencies within the 2.4 GHz band and only hops to another when there is troublesome interference. Razer promises that the “lag-free data transmission outperforms every other wireless gaming mouse”. The Razer also includes a 5G laser sensor that provides 16,000 DPI, 210...
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Activision just launched the reveal trailer and announced release date for Call of Duty: WWII. The game will launch on in November and was described by Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg as “bringing an intense, visceral, boots on the ground gameplay”. Many of the hints reddit users dropped last week were confirmed today by Activision. The game will include a new “War Mode” in which players tackle famous World War II battles. Multiplayer will include objectives that will differ depending on whether a player has chosen to fight for the Allies or Axis. Players will be able to spend time at “Headquarters”,...
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Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) is upping its security game. DOTA 2 ranked matchmaking will soon require players to enter a phone number upon registration and Valve hopes that this will cut down on the amount of “smurfing”. First off, what is “smurfing”? In the DOTA world, smurfing is when a player creates a new account after already having made one, and recalibrates the account once a player reaches level thirteen. The player essentially develops the account in order to play at a level lower than their actual mmr.Image from: Wikimedia Commons, ZilsonzxcSome people sell the smurf account...
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