Tag: intel-core

PC vendors scramble as Intel announces vulnerability in firmware

Enlarge / All the Cores are affected by a major vulnerability in management firmware—as are Xeon servers and Atom, Celeron and Pentium devices. (credit: Intel ) Intel has issued a security alert that management firmware on a number of recent PC, server, and Internet-of-Things processor platforms is vulnerable to remote attack. Using the vulnerabilities, the most severe of which was uncovered by Mark Ermolov and Maxim Goryachy of Positive Technologies Research, remote attackers could launch commands on a host of Intel-based computers, including laptops and desktops shipped with Intel Core processors since 2015. They could gain access to privileged system information, and millions of computers could essentially be taken over as a result of the bug. The company has posted a detection tool on its support website for Windows and Linux to help identify systems that are vulnerable. In the security alert, members of Intel’s security team stated that “in response to issues identified by external researchers, Intel has performed an in-depth comprehensive security review of its Intel® Management Engine (ME), Intel® Trusted Execution Engine (TXE), and Intel® Server Platform Services (SPS) with the objective of enhancing firmware resilience.” Four vulnerabilities were discovered that affect Intel Management Engine firmware versions 11.0 through 11.20. Two were found in earlier versions of ME, as well as two in Server Platform Services version 4.0 firmware and two in TXE version 3.0. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See the original article here:
PC vendors scramble as Intel announces vulnerability in firmware

ASUS ROG Zephyrus review: Gaming laptops will never be the same again

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus is an entirely new breed of gaming notebook. It packs in the most powerful laptop graphics hardware on the market, NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 , in a frame that’s almost half the size of similar machines. Mostly, that’s due to being one of the first notebooks to feature NVIDIA’s Max-Q design standard, which is laser-focused on slimming down gaming laptops with beefy GPUs. That does lead to some compromises, especially around battery life, but the Zephyrus is still a wonder to behold. Hardware The Zephyrus, which is part of ASUS’s Republic of Gamers brand, is surprisingly thin at 17.9 mm thick. You won’t mistake it for an ultraportable like the MacBook or ASUS’s Zenbook , but it also doesn’t betray itself as a completely decked out gaming laptop, like Dell’s Alienware lineup. It clocks in at 4.93-pounds, 3 pounds lighter than the Razer Blade Pro , which was considered lightweight for a gaming machine when it came out last year. When it’s closed, the Zephyrus features one of the most subtle and attractive designs we’ve seen from an ASUS gaming laptop. The only elements that really stand out are its polished metal lid and copper vents, but otherwise it doesn’t call attention to itself. It’s slim and unassuming enough to fade into the background, but it packs in a ton of power. Open it up, and the laptop’s gaming DNA becomes clear. The bottom rear of the Zephyrus expands as you lift up the lid, creating a noticeable gap that pushes the screen up at an angle, and allows for better air intake. That open portion of the laptop also rocks red LED lights when you plug it in. (The mantra for most gaming machines: Got some empty space? Put an LED on it.) Cool air comes in from below, while hot air is exhausted through vents on the sides. ASUS also developed thinner and stronger fan blades made out of a new polymer to push air throughout the system. The company worked together with NVIDIA to design its cooling technology, and it shows. There’s clearly more ingenuity involved with removing heat from the system than we’ve typically seen from ASUS. And you can expect future Max-Q laptops to be similarly inventive. The laptop feels sturdy, overall, though I could see potential problems with its expanding bottom half. All it takes is one fall from a desk, or one spilled drink, to throw a wrench into the meticulous cooling design. Thankfully, there’s none of the sloppy build quality we’ve seen from other ASUS laptops, like the Zenbook 3. Port-wise, the Zephyrus is a bounty. It includes four USB 3.1 connections, a USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port, a full-sized HDMI connection, and a headphone jack. And since the laptop is too thin for a full-sized Ethernet port (which is mind boggling, to be honest), ASUS includes a USB converter in the box. We don’t normally mention AC adapters in reviews, but in the Zephyrus’s case, it seems necessary: It’s huge! Honestly, it seems more reminiscent of a PC power supply than a laptop’s. That’s probably due to the massive amount of juice the laptop needs when you’re gaming. Keyboard and trackpad Chris Velazco/AOL Unlike most other laptops, ASUS pushed the Zephyrus’s keyboard and trackpad all the way to its front edge. That allowed the company to place all of its high-powered hardware towards the back of the case — in particularly, the CPU and GPU — so it could all be cooled at once. It took me a while to get used to the Zephyrus’s strange keyboard orientation, and even longer to adjust to its trackpad, which sits to the right of the keys instead of below it. The keyboard is comfortable to type on, even though the keys have a very short travel distance. Not surprisingly, it was better suited to gaming than typing. Moving around first person shooters using the WASD keys felt just as responsive as my desktop keyboard. There’s also an array of LEDs behind every key, which you can customize using an app. ASUS bundles a comfortable wrist-rest in the box, which is useful if you’re worried about repetitive stress injuries. While the trackpad placement is a bit strange, we’ve seen similar laptops like the Razer Blade Pro place it on the right side as well. When it comes to games, I actually found it more useful than a typical trackpad, since it almost mimics the feeling of using a mouse. It’s surprisingly smooth and responsive — in many ways it felt more accurate than a standard trackpad. Obviously, it’s not something you’d use for an FPS, but it gives you a way to play slower paced games in areas where you can’t fit a gaming mouse. You can also transform the trackpad into a virtual numberpad by hitting the key right above it, which some gamers might appreciate for hitting hotkeys. It wasn’t as accurate as having a physical numberpad, but it felt more convenient than just relying on the standard top number row. Display and sound The Zephryus’s 15.6-inch, 1080p screen doesn’t seem particularly impressive at first, especially when other gaming laptops include 4K displays these days. But its 120Hz refresh rate and support for NVIDIA’s G-Sync technology should be appealing to gamers, since it allows for smooth play no matter what framerate you’re getting. The screen shined when playing colorful, fast-paced games like Overwatch and Doom . There wasn’t any tearing at all — it’s an experience more reminiscent of a high-end gaming monitor, than a standard laptop screen. It’s clear that ASUS wanted to focus on speed instead of pixel count, but it would have been nice to see a slightly higher resolution to take advantage of the laptop’s bountiful horsepower. 4K would have been nice, especially since the Zephyrus can actually play games at such a high resolution, but even 1, 440p would have been a decent compromise. A 1080p screen feels dated, and it’ll seem even more limiting over the next few years. While the Zephyrus’s display was bright enough for indoor gameplay, it didn’t fair as well outdoors. I appreciated its matte finish, which minimized reflections, but just don’t expect to be fragging your friends while sitting in the park. The laptop’s speakers, which are towards the front near the keyboard, are loud, yet tinny. You wouldn’t want to use them for any serious music or movie sessions. That doesn’t matter much for games, since most people will just plug in an elaborate pair of headphones, but it’s a disappointment nonetheless. Performance and battery life PCMark 7 PCMark 8 (Creative Accelerated) 3DMark 11 3DMark (Sky Diver) ATTO (top reads/writes) ASUS ROG Zephyrus (2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1080) 6, 030 7, 137 E20, 000 / P17, 017 / X7, 793 31, 624 3.4 GB/s / 1.64 GB/s Alienware 15 (2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1070) 6, 847 7, 100 E17, 041 / P16, 365 20, 812 2.9 GB/s / 0.9 GB/s Alienware 13 (2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1060) 4, 692 4, 583 E16, 703 / P12, 776 24, 460 1.78 GB/s / 1.04 GB/s Razer Blade Pro 2016 (2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1080) 6, 884 6, 995 E18, 231 / P16, 346 27, 034 2.75 GB/s / 1.1 GB/s ASUS ROG Strix GL502VS (2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ , NVIDIA GTX 1070) 5, 132 6, 757 E15, 335 / P13, 985 25, 976 2.14 GB/s / 1.2 GB/s HP Spectre x360 (2016, 2.7GHz Core i7-7500U, Intel HD 620) 5, 515 4, 354 E2, 656 / P1, 720 / X444 3, 743 1.76 GB/s / 579 MB/s Lenovo Yoga 910 (2.7GHz Core i7-7500U, 8GB, Intel HD 620) 5, 822 4, 108 E2, 927 / P1, 651 / X438 3, 869 1.59 GB/s / 313 MB/s Razer Blade (Fall 2016) (2.7GHz Intel Core-i7-7500U, Intel HD 620) 5, 462 3, 889 E3, 022 / P1, 768 4, 008 1.05 GB/s / 281 MB/s Razer Blade (Fall 2016) + Razer Core (2.7GHz Intel Core-i7-7500U, NVIDIA GTX 1080) 5, 415 4, 335 E11, 513 / P11, 490 16, 763 1.05 GB/s / 281 MB/s ASUS ZenBook 3 (2.7GHz Intel Core-i7-7500U, Intel HD 620) 5, 448 3, 911 E2, 791 / P1, 560 3, 013 1.67 GB/s / 1.44 GB/s HP Spectre 13 (2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U, Intel HD 520) 5, 046 3, 747 E2, 790 / P1, 630 / X375 3, 810 1.61 GB/s / 307 MB/s Razer Blade Stealth (2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U, Intel HD 520) 5, 131 3, 445 E2, 788 / P1, 599 / X426 3, 442 1.5 GB/s / 307 MB/s Under the hood, our Zephyrus review unit featured an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor running at 2.8GHz, along with 16GB of RAM. But of course, the star of the show is NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 GPU. Just a year ago, the idea of cramming that GPU into a laptop was impressive. Now, we can do it in gaming notebooks that are slimmer than we’ve ever seen before. This isn’t a stripped down version of the GTX 1080 either, it’s still clocked at 1.5-1.7GHz and packs in 8GB of GDDR5X RAM. But instead of focusing on getting as much performance from the video card as possible, NVIDIA’s Max-Q philosophy emphasizes peak efficiency — basically, the point where you can get the most bang for your GPU buck. Our unit also featured a 512GB M.2 SSD, which is significantly faster than the older SATA variety. Your first impressions of the Zephyrus will depend on the type of computer you’re most used to. If you mainly dabble in ultraportables, you’ll likely be intimidated by how large it seems. But if you’re familiar with gaming laptops, it’ll seem remarkably slim. As soon as I was done marveling at what an engineering feat it is, I installed several games to test out its capabilities — and the results were impressive. I saw around 100-110 frames per second in Overwatch with all of the graphics settings at maximum. That was particularly notable since I set the render scale to 140 percent, which made the computer process the game at a higher resolution than 1080p for a sharper image. Doom, meanwhile, hit its 200FPS cap with everything maxed at 1080p, and Hitman’s benchmark achieved a solid 100FPS. Christopher Velazco/AOL Clearly, the Zephyrus’s hardware is overkill for 1080p, but that also makes it ideal for playing games on external monitors and TVs. It hit around 45 FPS on average in Hitman while running on a 4K monitor in high settings. Hooking it up to my 4K TV and receiver over HDMI was also a cinch, and I was able to create a console-like experience with the Witcher 3 by plugging in an Xbox controller and booting up Steam’s big picture mode. And given just how powerful it is, the Zephyrus had no trouble handling VR with the Oculus Rift. Its specs are well above the minimum requirements, so that’s not a huge surprise. Just be prepared to use up almost all of its USB ports. As you can imagine, this laptop gets hot when you’re playing games — especially around where its powerful components sit. But ASUS’s cooling setup does a decent job of keeping things from getting out of hand. While playing Overwatch and Doom , the GPU temperature hovered between 75c and 80c, which is typical for a gaming PC. I never saw any issues due to overheating. You’ll certainly hear the system’s fans, once they get going, but they’re nowhere near as loud as what I’ve heard on other high-powered gaming laptops. ASUS ROG Zephyrus 1:50 Alienware 15 4:31 Surface Book with Performance Base (2016) 16:15 Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (13-inch, no Touch Bar) 11:42 HP Spectre x360 (13-inch, 2015) 11:34 Apple MacBook Pro with Retina display (13-inch, 2015) 11:23 Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (15-inch) 11:00 HP Spectre x360 15t 10:17 Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (13-inch, Touch Bar) 9:55 ASUS ZenBook 3 9:45 Apple MacBook (2016) 8:45 Samsung Notebook 9 8:16 Alienware 13 7:32 Microsoft Surface Pro 4 7:15 HP Spectre 13 7:07 Razer Blade Stealth (Spring 2016) 5:48 Razer Blade Stealth (Fall 2016) 5:36 Dell XPS 15 (2016) 5:25 (7:40 with the mobile charger) Razer Blade Pro (2016) 3:48 ASUS ROG Strix GL502VS 3:03 The Zephyrus fit well into my daily workflow — I was even able to get some work done while balancing it on my lap. Its biggest downside, unfortunately, is battery life. In our test, which involves looping an HD video, the Zephyrus lasted just 1 hour and 50 minutes. And while gaming, expect between an hour and 90 minutes of play. The terrible battery life is a shame, but it makes sense given how thin and powerful this computer is. You can’t do that without making tradeoffs. You’ll want to keep the Zephyrus plugged in for the best performance, anyway. On battery, Overwatch was locked at around 30 FPS. As soon as I plugged in power, it skyrocketed to 110 FPS. Configuration options and the competition The Zephyrus we tested starts at $2, 699, but there’s also a slightly cheaper model with a GTX 1070 and 256GB SSD for $2, 299. That’s a bit less than the $3000 Acer Predator 700, which also sports a Max Q design and features a GTX 1080. Basically, if you want this combination of portability and power, be prepared to pay dearly. Otherwise, you’ll have to make do with heavier gaming laptops like the Alienware 15 . Razer’s Blade Stealth is another option, since you can add the company’s Core dock to use an external GPU. And of course, if games are your main concern, you can also consider buying or building a small desktop. It won’t be as portable as the Zephyrus, but you’ll save a ton. Wrap-up No matter how you look at it, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus is remarkable. It marks a new era for gaming laptops, one where you can expect a thin, five-pound notebook to pack as much power as an eight-to-ten pound machine from a few years ago. It could conceivably be the answer to all of your gaming needs, even on your television, since it’s easy to move around your house. It’s a shame that the battery life stinks, but that’s a decent compromise for a laptop unlike any other.

Link:
ASUS ROG Zephyrus review: Gaming laptops will never be the same again

ASUS crams a GTX 1080 into a 16.9mm-thick laptop

For most people, Zephyrus is the Greek god of the west wind, gently bringing spring, and fruit, to the peoples of the world. For gamers, you can be damn sure that definition is going to be quickly supplanted by the one created by ASUS’ Republic of Gamers today. Now, Zephyrus means a pretty damn powerful gaming laptop in a surprisingly slender body, measuring in at just 16.9mm thick when closed, making it the “world’s slimmest.” By way of comparison, Razer’s latest Blade Pro , a high water mark for such laptops, stands at 22.5mm. It appears that ASUS has been one of the principal beneficiaries of NVIDIA’s Max-Q design program that shrinks high-powered gaming laptops. The initiative was announced earlier today, with NVIDIA promising to help laptop makers build devices with top-end internals like the GTX 1080 without the heft. In fact, NVIDIA’s promise is that the first generation of Max-Q laptops will be three times as fast as their immediate predecessors while being three times as thin. Part of that thinness is down to a new thermal design that, when the laptop is open, opens an exhaust port on the underside. That, the company promises, will ensure that your lap won’t get fried when you’re using this on the go. Since Zephyrus ships with the Windows 10 Creators Update, it will take advantage of both Windows Game Mode and Beam’s streaming service. In addition, the device has a new type of trackpad that sits to the right of the keyboard to make life easier for gamers. That trackpad also, apparently, pulls double duty as a numeric keypad for when you need to type out large numbers. Oh, and you’ll be able to customize the keyboard’s lighting scheme that will even let you single out the WASD and QWER keys for night-time fragging sessions. ASUS ROG also wanted to talk about how its laptops aren’t simply for gamers with large wallets when fans of different genres have different needs. A MOBA gamer, for instance, may not need as fast a display as one who’s seriously into FPS. Which is why the company has unveiled a pair of Strix laptops that are tailored specifically to the needs of those two genres. The ROG Strix SCAR Edition is engineered to give FPS gamers a vital edge, with Intel Core i7 processors, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10 series and an ultrafast, 120Hz, 5ms display. Meanwhile, the ROG Strix Hero Edition is designed for MOBA fans who are geared towards eSports, packing Intel Core i7 processors, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10 Series graphics and a 120Hz wide-view display with rich color fidelity. This breaking news story is developing, please refresh for more information. Click here to catch up on the latest news from Computex 2017!

Visit link:
ASUS crams a GTX 1080 into a 16.9mm-thick laptop

Zotac Zbox EN1080 review: Console-sized 4K PC gaming—and it’s expensive

Enlarge (credit: Mark Walton) Specs at a glance: Zotac Zbox EN1080 (barebones) CPU Intel Core i7-6700 GPU Nvidia GTX 1080 Networking Dual gigabit LAN, 802.11ac/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 Ports Microphone, headphone, 4x USB 3.0, 1x USB 3.1 Type-C, 1x USB 3.1 Type-A RAM 2 x DDR4-1866/2133 SODIMM Slots (up to 32GB) Storage 1x 2.5-inch SATA 6.0 Gbps HDD/SSD bay, 1x M.2 PCIe x4 slot (22/42,22/60,22/80) Price £2000 / $2000 Size 225mm x 203mm x 128mm Last year Zotac released its tiny, gaming-ready Zbox EN1060 mini-PC. Featuring an Intel Core i5-6400T processor and Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics card, the EN1060 is more than fast enough for high settings 1080p gaming at 60FPS or more. But for those that demand more frames, more resolution, and more powerful hardware inside a console-sized chassis—particularly as Sony raised the game somewhat with the PlayStation 4 Pro —Zotac has another option. Enter the Zotac Zbox Magnus EN1080, a ventilated black cube that packs a fully watercooled Skylake Intel Core i7-6700  processor (note the lack of the unlocked “K” designation) and Nvidia GTX 1080 inside a case just 225mm wide and 203mm deep. Such powerful hardware means the EN1080 is capable of playing games at a native 4K resolution with near maximum settings at over 60FPS. Even better, thanks to the clever watercooling setup inside, it does so while remaining quieter than any console or desktop PC with a standard cooling setup. It’s seriously impressive stuff. Naturally, there’s a price to pay for such a setup—and it’s not cheap. A barebones EN1080—where you supply your own storage, memory, and operating system—costs around £2,000 / $2,000 . A more conventional desktop system with the same components plus storage, RAM, OS, and a decent all-on-one liquid cooler comes in at under £1500. Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Visit site:
Zotac Zbox EN1080 review: Console-sized 4K PC gaming—and it’s expensive

The Alienware 13 gets better with VR and impressive battery life

Gaming laptops used to be an outlier in the world of portable computing. When the rest of the market was focused on extending battery life, gaming laptops doubled down on raw power and thick frames designed for better airflow. Trying to find a small gaming machine that didn’t sacrifice power for portability was a fool’s errand. Today, things are different. Gaming laptops can be thin , have enough battery life to survive a plane flight, and double as a productivity and entertainment machine with few compromises. The best recent example of this to cross my desk is the Alienware 13, a small, powerful gaming laptop that does almost everything right. The New Alienware 13 isn’t just a strong example of a compact gaming notebook. It’s also the brand’s first outing with an Intel 7th-generation “Kaby Lake” Core CPU, which promises to push 4K content to the laptop’s screen without decimating battery life . Combined with the strides NVIDIA made with its mobile GPU platform last year, that alone makes 2017 a good year for PC gamers to consider upgrading their mobile battle station — but there’s more to love about the Alienware 13 than just its new internals. Hardware Somewhere between the garish, brightly colored accents of ASUS’ ROG Strix laptop and the thin aluminum shell of the Razer Blade Pro , you’ll find Alienware’s latest notebook — a machine with enough flair to identify itself as a serious gaming rig, yet still subtle enough to keep it from being an eyesore. Its simple matte black finish lets it blend in as a normal work laptop, but its anodized aluminum lid, subtly angled front lip and Dell’s AlienFX lighting lend it just the right amount of attitude. At a glance, the machine looks like a minor tweak of Alienware’s previous gaming laptops , albeit with less LED lighting, but there is one major change: the screen. Dell has moved the Alienware 13’s display about an inch closer to the user. This is actually a practical design aesthetic: It leaves a 1.3-inch lip behind the screen for heat exhaust, making the laptop’s bottom a little cooler when playing games. That lip is also home to most of the machine’s connections, including an Ethernet jack, mini DisplayPort, HDMI socket and a USB Type-C Thunderbolt port. This is also where you’ll plug in the laptop’s AC adapter and the Alienware Graphics Amplifier , if you happen to own one. Users who just want to plug in a mouse can find a full-size USB 3.0 port on either side of the machine, as well as two audio jacks on the left and an extra USB Type-C connection on the right. The smooth, soft plastic coating that drapes the laptop’s chassis is a bit of an Alienware standard, and I’m still a fan. The rubber-like surface dulls the corners of the machine’s body, and feels almost silky to the touch. Best of all, it doesn’t collect unsightly fingerprints like laptops built from harder materials. Keyboard and trackpad That same rubberized coating extends to the keyboard, which lends the Alienware 13’s keys a soft, almost luxurious feel. The buttons themselves are a joy to type on, falling 2.2mm and landing on a firm, but springy steel baseboard. Like any keyboard bearing the Alienware TacX branding, it promises millions of keystrokes in durability and full anti-ghosting capabilities, but to me, it’s the style that really makes it stand out. Unlike most modern laptops, the Alienware 13’s keyboard features full sized keycaps that meet edge-to-edge, with no space between the keys. It’s a design you might have seen on a machine made a decade ago, before island-style keyboards became the norm. For me, it’s a nostalgic comfort — a style I’ve always found easier to type and game on that has nonetheless fallen by the wayside. The Alienware 13’s touchpad gets almost everything right as well. It’s a spacious mousing surface that can navigate multitouch gestures without messing up, a feat that’s unfortunately still impressive on many Windows machines. The buttons are great too; they fall with a firm, but quiet click that feels just right. At worst, its AlienFX lighting feature activates at inconvenient times, causing the entire touchpad to glow if my palm ever brushes it while I’m typing. This contact never moved the cursor, but it the repeated, unexpected lighting can be distracting. I turned it off and moved on. Display and sound Most gaming machines I review manage a passing audio grade by doing the bare minimum: offering loud, clear sound without distortion or cracking. The Alienware 13 is one of the rare few that actually impressed me. During my gaming sessions, I kept hearing odd sounds coming from my front door. I’d check the porch, and there would be nothing there. Back at my desk, the sound would pipe up again. After a few fruitless trips to the front of the house, I figured out what was happening: The laptop was somehow “throwing” sound across the room like a ventriloquist. The Alienware 13 has built-in surround sound that actually kind of works. This was a surprise. Most attempts to simulate spatial sound in a laptop fall flat, but Alienware’s Virtual Surround had me instinctively glancing left and right to see where a sound might have come from. It’s a clear differentiation from simple left-and-right sound separation too, with the ability to project sound to areas very close to the laptop’s chassis, or all the way across the room. Like most fake surround systems, it fails to simulate having speakers behind the viewer, but it’s still a cut above the average laptop audio setup. My review unit came outfitted with a 13.3-inch 2, 560 x 1, 440 OLED touch display , and it’s simply gorgeous. It offers everything you’d expect from a great screen: vivid colors, wide viewing angles and excellent contrast. It’s a strong example of the kind of difference display technology can make; OLED panels simply produce deeper blacks than their IPS counterparts. Still, there are some drawbacks. The screen’s blacks are so dark that it’s almost hard to tell where the display ends and the its dark, wide bevel begins, which can make the screen look a little smaller than it really is. I also had to dial Battlefield 1 ‘s brightness calibration dial to 93 percent to make the test logo visible. Deep blacks indeed. Performance PCMark 7 PCMark 8 (Creative Accelerated) 3DMark 11 3DMark (Sky Diver) ATTO (top reads/writes) Alienware 13 (2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1060) 4, 692 4, 583 E16, 703 / P12, 776 24, 460 1.78 GB/s / 1.04 GB/s Razer Blade Pro 2016 (2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ, NVIDIA GTX 1080) 6, 884 6, 995 E18, 231 / P16, 346 27, 034 2.75 GB/s / 1.1 GB/s ASUS ROG Strix GL502VS (2.6GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ , NVIDIA GTX 1070) 5, 132 6, 757 E15, 335 / P13, 985 25, 976 2.14 GB/s / 1.2 GB/s HP Spectre x360 (2016, 2.7GHz Core i7-7500U, Intel HD 620) 5, 515 4, 354 E2, 656 / P1, 720 / X444 3, 743 1.76 GB/s / 579 MB/s Lenovo Yoga 910 (2.7GHz Core i7-7500U, 8GB, Intel HD 620) 5, 822 4, 108 E2, 927 / P1, 651 / X438 3, 869 1.59 GB/s / 313 MB/s Razer Blade (Fall 2016) (2.7GHz Intel Core-i7-7500U, Intel HD 620) 5, 462 3, 889 E3, 022 / P1, 768 4, 008 1.05 GB/s / 281 MB/s Razer Blade (Fall 2016) + Razer Core (2.7GHz Intel Core-i7-7500U, NVIDIA GTX 1080) 5, 415 4, 335 E11, 513 / P11, 490 16, 763 1.05 GB/s / 281 MB/s ASUS ZenBook 3 (2.7GHz Intel Core-i7-7500U, Intel HD 620) 5, 448 3, 911 E2, 791 / P1, 560 3, 013 1.67 GB/s / 1.44 GB/s HP Spectre 13 (2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U, Intel HD 520) 5, 046 3, 747 E2, 790 / P1, 630 / X375 3, 810 1.61 GB/s / 307 MB/s Razer Blade Stealth (2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U, Intel HD 520) 5, 131 3, 445 E2, 788 / P1, 599 / X426 3, 442 1.5 GB/s / 307 MB/s Since Alienware is one of the most recognizable brand in PC gaming, I expect its laptops to keep pace with everything in my game library with minimal fuss. I was not disappointed here. With a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics and 16GB of RAM, my review unit played almost every game I tried on high or ultra settings at the screen’s native 2, 560 x 1, 440 resolution. Overwatch and Dishonored 2 easily broke 60 frames per second with maximum resolution and visual settings, while games like Battlefield 1, Just Cause 3 and Shadow Warrior 2 could be coaxed past the 60-fps barrier by either scaling settings down to high or dialing resolution back to the standard 1080p. The usual suspects gave the machine a bit of pause, however. The Witcher 3 had to be restricted to medium settings to hit higher frame rates at the PC’s native resolution, and Resident Evil 7 suffered from noticeable slowdown until I dialed it back to medium texture quality at 1080p. That’s about right for a smaller form gaming laptop, but it’s also just skirting the edge of playing newer games at maximum fidelity. Keep you games tuned just one step below their highest settings (or crank it to 11, but settle for 1080p), and you’ll be fine. Virtual reality may not have hit the mainstream just yet, but if you do decide to pick up an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive headset, the Alienware 13 will serve you just fine. With a score of 5, 985 in VRMark’s Orange Room benchmark (and 1, 091 in its more intensive Blue Room test), Alienware’s smallest notebook is definitely VR ready — so long as you leave most games at their default settings. Like the Razer Blade Pro and ASUS ROG Strix, it ran everything in my VR library just fine until I cranked up resolution multipliers in titles like Raw Data . Battery life Alienware 13 7:32 Surface Book with Performance Base (2016) 16:15 Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (13-inch, no Touch Bar) 11:42 HP Spectre x360 (13-inch, 2015) 11:34 Apple MacBook Pro with Retina display (13-inch, 2015) 11:23 Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (15-inch) 11:00 HP Spectre x360 15t 10:17 Apple MacBook Pro 2016 (13-inch, Touch Bar) 9:55 ASUS ZenBook 3 9:45 Apple MacBook (2016) 8:45 Samsung Notebook 9 8:16 Microsoft Surface Pro 4 7:15 HP Spectre 13 7:07 Razer Blade Stealth (Spring 2016) 5:48 Razer Blade Stealth (Fall 2016) 5:36 Dell XPS 15 (2016) 5:25 (7:40 with the mobile charger) Razer Blade Pro (2016) 3:48 ASUS ROG Strix GL502VS 3:03 I’ve never used a gaming laptop that wasn’t powerful enough to handle my Engadget workload. The problem has always been battery life — what good is a machine that can handle half a dozen tabbed browser windows, work chat and Adobe Photoshop and Premiere if it dies after only a few hours? Most gaming machines struggle to break four hours in Engadget’s standard battery test. The Alienware 13, on the other hand, lasted over seven and a half. True, our video-based rundown test is well suited to play nice with the processor’s Kaby Lake’s video features, but that longevity panned out in casual use too. During my normal workday, the Alienware 13 regularly lasted five to six hours on a charge. That’s still leagues behind even an average productivity notebook, but for a gaming machine? It’s not bad. Software The days of buying a new PC with bloatware are pretty much behind us, but that doesn’t mean there still isn’t room for improvement. While the Alienware 13 doesn’t tack on any extra software besides its own AlienFX configuration tool, an audio manager for handling the laptop’s Virtual Surround mode and a bandwidth management application, it does pester the user with annoying pop ups — and too often. Just minutes after I had opened the laptop for the first time, the Alienware software suite asked me to rate my experience with the machine. Gee, I don’t know what my experience is yet. I only just opened the box. It’s not uncommon for software to beg users to register, rate or update it, but Alienware’s suite played this card too often, and too soon. It’s far from a dealbreaker, and the pop-ups dropped off after a day or two. Even so, repeated, nagging interruptions took a lot of joy away from my first moments with the machine. Nobody likes a needy notebook. Configuration options and the competition My $1, 831 review unit is just shy of the most powerful configuration Dell offers for the Alienware 13, with its aforementioned 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-7700HQ CPU, 6GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512 GB PCIe SSD. Tacking on an extra $150 will double the RAM to 32GB, and users can upgrade to one or two 1TB SSD drives for $400 and $1, 150, respectively. Adding the slightly longer-range version of the laptop’s wireless chip (Kill 1535) will add an additional $25 to the total, with the most expensive Alienware 13 configuration ringing in at $3, 156. Storage space is expensive, isn’t it? Dell’s customization tool lets users create endless price points, but Alienware’s default configurations offer plenty of variety for folks looking for a cheaper gaming rig. A machine with half as much storage and RAM as our review unit can be had for $1, 650, for instance — and downgrading its OLED display to a 1080p IPS screen will knock off an additional $250. Buyers willing to settle for a 180GB SSD and a less powerful Geforce GTX 1050Ti GPU (with just 2GB GDDR5) can score the machine for $1, 150. Lastly, a bottom-dollar build is available for $1, 000, but that means knocking the GPU down another notch to a regular GTX 1050 and settling for a dimmer 1, 366 x 768 display. If you’re thinking of going with another brand (and don’t mind missing out on that OLED screen), it’s a good time to be shopping around; Alienware isn’t the only company to upgrade its gaming rigs with Kaby Lake processors. Gigabyte’s Aero 14 can be had with the same specs as our Alienware 13 review unit for $1, 750 with a larger 14-inch 2, 560 x 1440 IPS display and a slightly thinner profile. You can get the same internals in an even slimmer profile in the Razer Blade’s $2, 400 aluminum chassis — with a higher resolution 4K screen, to boot. That said, if you want variety, you’ll have to settle for a slightly larger chassis. Most gaming laptops are more in-line with machines like the ASUS Strix : 15 inches wide at minimum and at least half an inch thick. Wrap-up When friends come to me asking for a laptop recommendation, I usually try to lead them through a process of figuring out what features they need, what size they want and figuring out what fits in their budget before offering them a shortlist of different options from different manufacturers. When they don’t feel like doing the work, however, I usually shrug and tell them to look at Alienware. There’s a reason for that. Dell’s gaming brand has a history of making well built gaming machines with great design and excellent performance that are a joy to use. The Alienware 13 is no exception. If you’re overwhelmed by the dizzying array of choices available to you as a PC gamer, but still want to be sure you’re getting a high-quality machine, Alienware’s latest won’t let you down.

Continue reading here:
The Alienware 13 gets better with VR and impressive battery life

LG’s 14-inch ‘Gram’ laptop is the world’s lightest

LG’s big computing reveal for CES was a refreshed 14-inch “Gram” laptop . It’s said to be the lightest in its class, weighing in at only 2.13 pounds (that’s a sub-kilogram weigh-in). That, combined with the promise of between 21 and 24 hours of battery life sounds like an incredible combination. Unfortunately, it may be too good to be true. CNET notes that LG was using battery rundown tests from 2007, which assumed no WiFi use and was just generally less taxing than the sort of tests reviewers are likely to use today. That’s almost definitely how LG got such great runtime. That said, the laptop still packs a 60Wh battery that’s almost double the capacity of the company’s older 14-inch Gram laptop. (That’s also bigger than the 13-inch MacBook Pro’s battery.) LG says it saw 17 hours on a charge during more realistic (read: modern) rundown tests, which is still pretty damn impressive. Aside from that probably-overrated battery life, the Gram is a stylish ultraportable, albeit one made mostly of plastic. It’s not… terrible, but my preferences skew toward metal builds. They feel more reassuringly solid. Yes, the Gram is light, but that comes with some flimsiness. That said, despite some other super thin and light laptops, the laptop’s 14-inch IPS screen does still support touch. Under the hood, you get either an Intel Core i7 or i5 processor. There are also both USB 3.0 and USB-C ports, as well as HDMI-out if you’re looking to connect to projectors or bigger screens. Despite all those battery life statistics, LG isn’t offering a launch date or price, but judging by the cost of both the last-gen 14-inch Gram and the 15-inch version when they landed in the US, you could expect to pay over $1, 000 depending on the configuration. Click here to catch up on the latest news from CES 2017.

Continue Reading:
LG’s 14-inch ‘Gram’ laptop is the world’s lightest

HP’s tiny Xeon-powered PC puts the Mac Mini to shame

HP has unveiled the Z2 Mini , a mini PC that packs workstation-class parts, including an Intel Xeon CPU, NVIDIA Quadro mobile M620 graphics and M.2 SSD tech. By using powerful notebook-sized parts, it squeezed that power into a 2.3-inch-high case that’s “90 percent smaller than a traditional business-class tower, ” HP wrote. In its top configuration, the device is twice as powerful as any mini PC on the market, letting it run up to six displays in a stock configuration. The Z2 Mini is 63 percent quieter than HP’s business-class mini PCs, thanks to a custom cooling system. The PC maker hyperbolically describes the engineering, saying “the octagon form of the Z2 Mini is the most uniquely designed workstation in HP’s 35 years of workstation history.” HP is targeting CAD, design, graphics and 3D users, though it could make a decent gaming rig in some configurations. Spec-wise, it comes with up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM and an HP Z Turbo Drive , with M.2 SSD read speeds over 1GB/s and a capacity up to 1.5TB. You can get one with an Intel Core i7, i5, or i3 CPU, or pay more (presumably a lot more) for Intel’s Xeon E3-1200v5 family, normally used in workstations and servers. Another option is NVIDIA’s mobile M620 Quadro GPU with 2GB of VRAM, also geared toward workstations and officially approved for pro apps like Autocad and 3DS max. However, it doesn’t meet NVIDIA’s “VR Ready” criteria, so it’s not certified with the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, and would probably allow middling gaming performance, at best. The Z2 Mini is missing a few other features, too. While USB-C is available, it doesn’t have a Thunderbolt 3 port, limiting drive options for video editors. And while it has three DisplayPort slots, it lacks an HDMI port (though USB-C can be adapted for that purpose). As for the price, the compact PC starts at $699, which probably gets you an Intel Core i3 configuration without discreet graphics. Intel hasn’t said how much a stouter setup will cost, but it probably runs over double that with workstation components. If you’re in the market for a small, powerful PC and are tired of waiting for the next Mac Mini, however, it may be your best option. HP said it should arrive to market in December — hopefully we’ll get a better look at it before then. Source: HP

See more here:
HP’s tiny Xeon-powered PC puts the Mac Mini to shame

Intel’s Skull Canyon NUC is the future of tiny desktops

What if you could have a desktop that easily slips into a messenger bag or purse? That’s what Intel has been aiming for with its Next Unit of Computing (NUC) devices. Yes, it’s a terrible name, but Intel’s goal is admirable: to deliver powerful machines that are significantly smaller than the desktops of yore. Our first look at a NUC back in 2013 showed plenty of promise. And with the new Skull Canyon edition (starting at $609), Intel has come closer than ever to delivering a truly portable desktop replacement that can even play some games. Just be prepared to pay through the nose to actually use it. Officially called the NUC NUC6i7KYK (yes, Intel is really bad at naming things), this new device isn’t a complete computer. Instead, like all of Intel’s previous tiny desktops, it’s a kit that requires some handiwork. It packs in a 2.6GHz quad-core i7-6770HQ processor with integrated WiFi, Ethernet, Intel HD Audio and Iris Pro 580 graphics. But you’ll have to open it up and add your own SSD in one of the two M.2 slots, along with your own RAM (it supports up to 32GB of laptop-sized DDR4 memory). And of course, you’ll have to supply your own OS as well. In short, don’t expect to buy this box and have it magically start working. While previous NUCs looked like boring gray mini PCs, Intel actually infused a bit of style into the Skull Canyon model. It’s a slim and small device, at only 1.1 inches tall, 8.3 inches long and 4.57 inches wide. It feels like a small hardcover book, weighing in at around 1.5 pounds. Its plastic case is all black, with a reflective webbing pattern and large skull imprinted on the top — a not-so-subtle hint that Intel built this thing for PC gamers. Thankfully, the company also includes a plain black replacement cover in the box. Simply put, the Skull Canyon NUC feels like an exotic piece of hardware rather than a humdrum PC. Alongside the power button up front, there’s an SD card slot, headphone jack and two USB 3.0 sockets (one of which is colored yellow, as it’s a “charging port” meant to provide extra voltage for mobile devices). Around back there are ports for power, HDMI, Thunderbolt 3/ USB-C , Mini DisplayPort and gigabit Ethernet, along with two more USB 3.0 connections. In addition, there’s another 3.5mm jack for audio output, which also supports minijack to optical cables (useful for connecting the NUC to an A/V receiver). This plethora of ports is another way that the Skull Canyon NUC distinguishes itself from modern laptops. Getting started involves removing the four Philips screws on the bottom of the NUC and plugging in the RAM and M.2 SSD of your choice. Intel packed our demo model with a 512GB SSD and 16GB of memory, but I nonetheless unplugged and reinstalled those pieces of hardware to get a feel for what it’s like to work with such a tiny case. If you’ve ever installed RAM, a video card or any PCI card in a desktop, you won’t have any trouble here. But even if this is your first time dealing with naked hardware, it shouldn’t be too difficult (just remember to align the pins). With my system complete, I then installed Windows 10 from a USB stick, a process that took around 15 minutes. Once I got into Windows, I quickly realized that none of the drivers for the NUC were automatically recognized, not even its WiFi radio. I used my Windows desktop to snag those drivers, along with Intel’s Display drivers for the NUC. Once those were installed, I had the NUC run through Windows Update several times to fully upgrade the OS and grab all the other relevant drivers. It took about an hour to get the NUC fully up and running. All the while, I had flashbacks to the hours I spent mindlessly installing Windows during my IT days. With everything set up, I used the NUC for my daily workflow, which involves having dozens of browser tabs open across multiple browsers, chatting on Slack, writing on Evernote, listening to music on Spotify and occasionally editing some photos. For the most part, I was surprised by how normal everything felt. Even though it’s running a laptop-grade i7 processor, which produces less heat than its beefy desktop counterparts, the NUC managed to keep up with me every step of the way. Having 16GB of RAM also helps, especially when it comes to multitasking and handling large files. You can definitely hear the system’s fan working when things heat up, but that’s to be expected with such a small device. In practice the NUC felt almost indistinguishable from my custom-built desktop, which is particularly surprising given how small it is. This is also the first NUC with decent gaming performance: It had no problem staying at 60 frames per second in 1080p with less demanding games like Transistor and Civilization 5 . Quadrilateral Cowboy , with its blocky ’80s aesthetic, ran between 35 fps and 60 fps in 1080p. Even Overwatch was playable, reaching between 60 and 70 fps at 720p with low settings. More surprisingly, it ran at around 50 fps in 1080p with low settings. That’s a testament both to Blizzard’s scaling skills and the amount of power Intel has managed to cram into its Iris Pro 580 graphics. For some gamers, the Skull Canyon NUC’s performance will be fine for LAN parties and competitions. And if you need even more power, you can connect a full-sized graphics card over Thunderbolt 3 using an enclosure similar to Alienware’s $200 Graphics Amplifier . I didn’t have one of those to test out, unfortunately, but it’s nice to know the capability is there. PCMark 7 PCMark 8 (Creative Accelerated) 3DMark 11 3DMark (Sky Diver) ATTO (top reads/writes) Intel Skull Canyon NUC (2.6GHz Core i7-6770HQ, Intel Iris Pro 580 ) 6, 130 5, 634 E5, 105/ P3, 085/ X844 7, 797 2.5 GB/s / 1.5 GB/s Microsoft Surface Book (2.4GHz Core i5-6300U, Intel HD 520) 5, 412 3, 610 E2, 758 / P1, 578 / X429 3, 623 1.6 GB/s / 571 MB/s HP Spectre 13.3 (2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U, Intel HD 520) 5, 046 3, 747 E2, 790 / P1, 630 / X375 3, 810 1.61 GB/s / 307 MB/s Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet (1.2 GHz Core M7-6Y75, Intel HD 515) 4, 951 3, 433 E1, 866 / P1, 112 2, 462 545 MB/s / 298 MB/s Dell XPS 13 (2.3GHz Core i5-6200U, Intel Graphics 520) 4, 954 3, 499 E2, 610 / P1, 531 3, 335 1.6GB/s / 307 MB/s Razer Blade Stealth (2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U, Intel HD 520) 5, 131 3, 445 E2, 788 / P1, 599 / X426 3, 442 1.5 GB/s / 307 MB/s Toshiba Radius 12 (2.5GHz Intel Core i7-6500U, Intel HD 520) 5, 458 3, 684 E2, 865 / P1, 622 3, 605 552 MB/s / 489 MB/s Microsoft Surface Pro 4 (2.4GHz Core i5-6300U, Intel HD 520) 5, 403 3, 602 E2, 697/ P1, 556/ X422 3, 614 1.6 GB/s / 529 MB/s My experience with the NUC was reflected in its benchmarks. It’s significantly faster than any laptop we’ve reviewed over the past year, especially when it comes to gaming performance. In fact, it even outdoes Microsoft’s Surface Book and its dedicated NVIDIA GPU. We don’t review many high-end gaming laptops these days, so we don’t have any beefier mobile hardware to which we can compare the NUC, unfortunately. And while I’ve been testing a slew of desktop GPUs over the past few months, comparing the NUC to one of those feels unfair. So Intel has built a mini computer that’s both portable and capable, but who actually needs it? That’s a good question. It’s much easier to carry around than previous NUCs and other tiny desktop designs, like Gigabyte’s BRIX . Intel is pitching it as something ideal for bringing to LAN parties and other gaming events. You’ll still need to bring along a monitor, keyboard and mouse to actually use it, of course. If you’re simply looking for something smaller than a typical desktop tower to use at home, there are plenty of small options out there that would likely cost less than the Skull Canyon NUC. And even if you’re not worried about the cost, you can still cram more-powerful hardware in other mini-PC cases. The big takeaway is that this isn’t a device meant for everyone. Most people would be fine with a laptop instead (which is hard for me to admit as a desktop fan). While it makes for a powerful home theater PC that can actually play some games, you’d be better off with something like Alienware’s Steam Machine . And if you’re just concerned about the media side of HTPCs, earlier NUC models are cheaper alternatives (and only slightly larger). The biggest issue with the Skull Canyon NUC? It’s too expensive for most uses. While it’s retailing for $609 now (down from around $650 originally), it would likely set you back somewhere around $1, 000 once you include the cost of a decent SSD, RAM and a Windows 10 license. It’s faster than Apple’s highest-end Mac Mini, which goes for $999 with a 2.8GHz dual-core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, but I’d argue that’s also not the wisest purchase for most. If you want the best tiny desktop replacement, no matter the cost, then the new NUC is for you. In the end, the Skull Canyon NUC is a statement of intent for PC hardware tinkerers. Behold! A small profile desktop coupled with a surprising amount of power. It might seem impractical today, but in a few years this is what desktops will look like.

See the original article here:
Intel’s Skull Canyon NUC is the future of tiny desktops