The Tech Report - Articles

Gigabyte offers early peek at Z87 motherboards

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:38:00 -0500

Intel's next-generation processor isn't due for a couple of weeks, but that isn't stopping motherboard makers from previewing their wares. We've already seen what Asus has in store for Intel's upcoming flagship Z87 platform. Now, it's Gigabyte's turn to show off. We flew down to Los Angeles last week to check out the company's upcoming boards, and we have much to report.

Gigabyte's Z87 boards are split into three main categories: overclocking, gaming, and everything else. The OC models are really designed for the hard-core overclocking crowd; unless ...

Coffee Talk with Timmy Cook

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:32:00 -0500

It's true. I recently won the Charitybuzz auction for "coffee with Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, California." Sure, it set me back 610,000 bones, but the nice folks at Charitybuzz have done me a solid by letting me hold off on payment until my one share of Apple stock hits that magic number. Which should be right after the iPad superMini 19 comes out.

At first, I considered waiting until Apple's slow-to-rise Cheerio campus was complete before exercising the option on my coffee summit. But once I was assured that a couple dozen of Yum Yum's finest would be in attendance, I borrow a jet from my goodish friend Warren and hightailed it from Omaha ...

Asus shows off Z87-based Haswell motherboards

Thu, 16 May 2013 01:01:00 -0500

A few weeks ago, I traveled to Fremont, California to preview Asus' Haswell motherboards. My lips were supposed to be sealed until Haswell's official launch in early June. However, other motherboard makers have been dropping details about their 8-series lineups, and Asus has decided to join them. We can now give you an early look at the company's Z87 boards.

While any discussion of Haswell and its accompanying platform are off the table, there is plenty to discuss about the ...

Adobe lets you pay now and later and later again

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:26:00 -0500

The time was January 1995. The smooth, Philly soul and pleated pants of Boyz II Men ruled the airwaves. I had finally, seven months after ending my academic wanderings, wrangled a full-time job. I owned a miniature pig named Elvis the Tiny King. Life was good.

But enough about my porcine past. That first job was at a small ad agency. I was their lone copywriter, a complement to their lone art director. Yes, much loneliness was afoot. Not surprisingly, the agency was a Mac shop. I believe I had the ...

Intel's Thin Mini-ITX platform: nine months later

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:25:00 -0500

Not too long ago, all-in-one PCs were the realm of repurposed mobile processors and proprietary components. Buying one invariably meant sacrificing the prospect of serious upgrades. Oh, sure, you could always swap in a higher-capacity hard drive or a little extra RAM. But upgrading the processor or motherboard? Forget about it.

That all changed last year. Intel introduced its Thin Mini-ITX platform, which, at long last, allowed all-in-one PCs to be built using standard components. As we discovered last August, when we went hands-on with the platform for the first time, building a Thin ...

Tripping on microdoses of Dyad

Thu, 09 May 2013 21:50:00 -0500

I thought I'd be writing about Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon this week. The awesome-looking homage to 80s cheese is out, and there's a download code in my inbox. I've heard good things from people who have played, too. There's just one problem: Blood Dragon is apparently about eight hours long. That's great for a game that costs only $15, but it also means I'll have to do some juggling to find enough time to really sink my teeth into it.

As a gamer, the sad fact is I'm past my prime. A decade ago, I would play Battlefield 1942 with friends for eight-hour stretches in a single evening. I had fewer responsibilities and other hobbies back then, and I could get by on a lot less sleep. ...

The next Atom: Intel's Silvermont architecture revealed

Mon, 06 May 2013 12:00:00 -0500

Intel's Atom processor debuted five years ago as the first x86-compatible CPU from Intel tailored explicitly for low-power operation. At that time, the iPhone was less than a year old, and Asus had only recently introduced the first-generation Eee PC. Intel was talking about a new class of products, known as MIDs or "mobile Internet devices," as the natural home for the Atom.

You know what happened next. Without robust touch interfaces, MIDs never took off. Instead, the netbook craze came and went, ...

The TR Podcast 133: Iris graphics and the Radeon HD 7990

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:27:00 -0500

Date: May 5, 2013
Duration: 1:15:02

Hosted by: Jordan Drake

Co-Hosts:Scott Wasson, Geoff Gasior, and Cyril Kowaliski

Download:
MP3 (54.4MB) | M4A (74.1MB)

Subscribe:
RSS (MP3) | RSS (M4A)
iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (M4A)

...

Angering hippies and financing evil

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:56:00 -0500

Seeing as how nobody else has released a Steve Jobs mockumentary ("These mold lines go to eleven!") and nothing on my Hackintosh has flipped me the zero-one-zero, let's go back to commentating on this week's Apple-related news.

PETA successfully lobbies to end skeumorphism in iOS 7. Much to the chagrin of pleather aficionado Scott Forstall, AllThingsD reports that Jony Ive is indeed stripping the next version of iOS of all manner of fake leather, faux notebooks, simulated calendars, and cubic zirconia, hopefully ending PETA's counterfeit outrage. The report also states ...

An ode to the Kindle Paperwhite

Thu, 02 May 2013 18:56:00 -0500

Oh Paperwhite, my sweetest Paperwhite
In softness clad, and black as moonless night
Submerged in ...

Asus' VivoTab Smart ME400C tablet reviewed

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:44:00 -0500

There was a time, not long ago, when Windows tablets cost at least as much as an iPad or an Android slate. It wasn't that the Windows tablets necessarily had better hardware or software than the competition. In fact, they often had lower-resolution displays, and their selection of good touch-friendly apps was very slim. Yet Microsoft and its partners still felt confident enough to charge a premium.

Maybe it was because Windows 8 tablets could also double as productivity PCs. Maybe Microsoft expected people to stampede electronics stores ...

AMD's Radeon HD 7990 graphics card reviewed

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:57:00 -0500

Well, this is quite the turn of events. We recently started using some new GPU testing tools from Nvidia that measure precisely when frames are being delivered to the display, and in the process, we found that Radeon-based multi-GPU solutions have some troubling problems. As I said in that article, our next task is to address the issue of multi-GPU microstuttering in more depth. Just as we published that article, we learned of AMD's plans to introduce a killer new multi-GPU graphics product: the Radeon HD 7990.

So I guess our work ...

The 463rd review of the first Steve Jobs movie

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:22:00 -0500

As promised, I have watched FunnyOrDie.com's fictionalized account of Steve Jobs's life entitled iSteve. As threatened, here is the review. (By the way, this whole review could be considered a spoiler—of the movie or your appetite for blogs—so if you're one of those people, avert your eyes.)

For those who fail to slavishly follow the genius that is Justin Long and his slow-shuttle-to-the-stars career trajectory, let me break off, like a metaphorical Kit Kat of Knowledge, the important chunks for you. iSteve is FunnyOrDie.com's ...

A quick look at BitFenix's Prodigy enclosure

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:11:00 -0500

Mini-ITX motherboards have come a long way since the early days of soldered-on processors and PCI expansion cards. Current offerings have standard desktop sockets, PCI Express x16 slots, and peripheral ports up the wazoo. They can accommodate some of the fastest processors and GPUs available today.

It's still difficult to find truly enthusiast-grade Mini-ITX enclosures, however. Most cases designed to accommodate the form factor have caveats, including limited support for larger ...

The Tech Report - Articles

Gigabyte offers early peek at Z87 motherboards

Coffee Talk with Timmy Cook

Asus shows off Z87-based Haswell motherboards

Adobe lets you pay now and later and later again

Intel's Thin Mini-ITX platform: nine months later

Tripping on microdoses of Dyad

The next Atom: Intel's Silvermont architecture revealed

The TR Podcast 133: Iris graphics and the Radeon HD 7990

Angering hippies and financing evil

An ode to the Kindle Paperwhite

Asus' VivoTab Smart ME400C tablet reviewed

AMD's Radeon HD 7990 graphics card reviewed

The 463rd review of the first Steve Jobs movie

A quick look at BitFenix's Prodigy enclosure

The TR Podcast 132: BioShock, bundles and big SSDs