Tabla de contenidos para June 2021 en APC

Right now I’m immersed in my favourite part of this job – along with the rest of the team we’re putting together our annual Australian PC Awards. The best thing about PC tech has always been the extraordinary pace of innovation and technological advancement. Every single month we’re served up evolutions of existing products, or brand new gear that raises the bar (hopefully!) once again. It’s not always easy to keep abreast of the vast landscape of tech that the PC encompasses, and that’s why the APC team is a collection of expert know-it-alls across a range of areas. I think you probably appreciate their skills, and how well they explain things as you digest our magazine articles and reviews. So, once again, we have asked the team to distill…

VESA released a statement denying recent claims that two monitors are “DisplayHDR 2000” certified because, well, there’s no such thing as DisplayHDR 2000. The statement was issued in response to listings on Taobao, a popular Chinese retailer, for an updated Samsung Odyssey G9 and a new Acer EI491CRG9 monitor. VESA said that it “has no knowledge of the origins of the DisplayHDR 2000 logo currently posted on these display listings,” adding that it “takes any misuse of our trademarks and logos seriously,” which suggests the logos won’t be there long. A DisplayHDR 2000 certification probably isn’t going to debut any time soon, if only because it would be awkward for VESA to release such a strongly worded statement about these logos right before the new certification is officially revealed.…

It seems that Realtek has joined the long list of supply chain bottlenecks. DigiTimes has reported that the company is struggling to meet demand for the various chips manufacturers use in their notebooks, automobiles and other kinds of devices. In the story, DigiTimes remarked that Realtek has extended its delivery lead times to 32 weeks as the capacity of the foundries is currently tight and there are shortfalls in the supply of the necessary raw materials. Those chips are found in a wide variety of products. The audio+LAN chips are used in notebooks, for example, and the xDSL chips are being used in “smart city projects” by Samsung. But the shortage of networking equipment might be most worrisome.…

The Backbone One sneaks into the mobile gaming market with a handful of interesting features, including a pass-through Lightning port, headphone jack, and some dedicated controls, such as gameplay recording and instant muting. But is this compact iPhone controller as repairable as it is tactile? Let’s see! Major tech specs • D-pad and thumbstick on the left • A-B-X-Y buttons and thumbstick on the right • Shoulder and trigger buttons on each side • Lightning port for pass-through charging and accessories • 3.5mm headphone jack • A soft-touch Smart Case and a Lightning-to-USB-C cable Key findings • This Joy-Con-esque controller may look like any other mobile gamepad – but it packs a few surprises. A couple of interesting omissions, though, are Bluetooth and an internal battery. The Backbone One connects…

$1,799 | Lenovo.com/au The Yoga range from Lenovo has been one of the most consistently standout convertible ultrabooks over the last few years, and while the new Yoga Slim 7i Carbon borrows its namesake form this long lineage, it’s not actually a convertible… or even a touchscreen laptop. The Yoga 7i Carbon is a 13.3-inch Intel Evo clamshell that features a carbon fibre chassis to keep the total weight to just 966g, around 25 percent lighter than your average 13-inch Evo. Despite this the chassis feels sturdy and because the material is around 40 times less conductive than aluminium, you won’t feel the computer heat on the keyboard surround. Traditionally carbon fibre-clad laptops needed additional cooling architecture, but Intel’s 11th generation G7 laptop processors are efficient enough to mean this…

$345 | thermaltake.com.au The Thermaltake Toughpower PF1 with 850-watt max power is a decent PSU that packs many good features. With 850W capacity, this PSU can handle a power-hungry CPU and GPU combo, for example, an Intel i9-10900K or AMD Ryzen 9 5950x and an Nvidia RTX 3080 or AMD RX 6800XT. It features an RGB-everywhere approach, with 18 configurable LEDs, an RGB fan and ARGB side panels that illuminate the product branding, and is compatible with Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and Asrock lighting systems. “With 850W capacity, this PSU can handle a power-hungry CPU and GPU combo, for example, an Intel i9-10900K or AMD Ryzen 9 5950x and an Nvidia RTX 3080 or AMD RX 6800XT.” On the 80 PLUS scale, the PF1 850 is classified as Platinum, while in…

$179 | consumer.huawei.com/au One of the many things that Huawei is synonymous with is computer networking. So, it’s strange that this is the first consumer router we’ve seen from the company. It is also unusual in that it eschews the industry’s traditional spiky space-spider and star fighter form factors in favour of a more furniture-oriented appearance. Indeed, the white body is literally L-shaped and only 1cm thick. The four, flat antennae fold up from the body but they’re not very large, which gave us concerns regarding range. Huawei’s networking and manufacturing prowess means there are added bells and whistles on this router. While many of the innovation-based claims turn out to be reworded spin on well-worn Wi-Fi 6 benefits, there are still some genuine theoretical benefits (not all of which…

$220 | msi.com MSI is on a mission to impress with its ever-expanding lineup of cases. Unlike some makers that flood the market with a large and confusing range, MSI is taking things slowly and carefully. The new MPG Sekira 100R is a well-designed and great looking new case in the range. At around $220 (street price) it sits comfortably in the mid-range bracket, and has enough features to well justify its reasonable cost. Technically it’s a medium-sized version of the larger MSI Sekira 500P, yet it can amply contain motherboards up to E-ATX with room to spare. It shares the 500P’s design aesthetic, which, to my eyes, is a pleasingly simple and stylish look with little flourishes here and there turning it into something that’s easy to love. Initially…

Duolingo $Free or US$7 per month | http://duolingo.com Babbel $9.99 per month | http://babbel.com Learning a new language as an adult can be a tricky proposition, especially if you live in a monoglot culture and don’t get the chance to practice. Apps and services that promote language-learning can come in handy here, offering daily lessons to learn new vocabulary and reinforce old lessons, so that when you do get the chance to use your new language skills, they’re on the tip of your tongue. Prominent among these services are Duolingo and Babbel. They’re both popular ways of learning another language, but each takes a rather different approach. “Do you learn best in a structured environment with a “teacher” figure? Or are you more likely to retain the information in a…

$479 | www.asrock.com Say hello to the Asrock PG Velocita! It’s a new product family and an evolution of the Phantom Gaming brand. It sits in between Asrock’s mainstream ranges and the high end Taichi. Much like the MSI and Asus boards, it aims to find a balance of premium features without the top end bells and whistles that separate the sub-$500 boards from those with ever steeper price jumps. It’s a board we were excited to check out. The Velocita features a busy looking grey, black and red theme complete with a little PCB inside the chipset heatsink. It’s a really bold design with its splashes of RGB and attention-grabbing graphics. Will it appeal to all? Maybe, maybe not, but to us it looks good. It features the usual…

$549 | www.msi.com The MSI MPG Gaming Carbon sits right in the middle of its Z590 product stack, below the expensive flagship MEG boards and above the affordable MAG range. Its upper mid-range positioning aims to strike a nice balance of affordability while including the important features that a typical gamer really needs. The Gaming Carbon reminds us of an 80s boom box with its spectrum analyser theme. It’s a bit of a take it or leave it kind of design. We like the way that MSI has incorporated the design into the heatsink assembly, which has the dual benefit of adding surface area, which is needed for a hungrier 11th Gen CPU like the 11900K. Storage functionality is atypical for a Z590 board three M.2 slots, the topmost of…

“What if you stripped out all of those unnecessary capabilities and focused on creating a chip that was only good at one thing: cryptographic hashing?” We’ve focused most of our efforts on the description of mining with GPUs, but originally Bitcoin was designed to be mined using CPUs. It just so happened that with GPUs becoming increasingly programmable, software developers figured out they could get 10, 100, or maybe even 1,000 times the performance of a CPU by doing the calculations on a GPU. But GPUs aren’t optimised for doing just cryptographic hashing calculations – there’s a whole bunch of extra stuff for textures, 3D graphics, anti-aliasing, ray tracing, and so on. What if you stripped out all of those unnecessary capabilities and focused on creating a chip that was…

Driver installation The first thing you’ll need to do is update your laptop’s graphics driver (which can be different to standard desktop drivers). Doing this manually and getting it wrong can cause major driver failure that will require a tool like Revo Uninstaller to remove all traces of it. By far the safest method is to install Nvidia’s GeForce Experience app and use that to select and install the correct driver. Mining pool software We used Nicehash for testing as the app is simple to download and setup, it’s relatively secure and you can control and monitor your rigs over the internet. However, be sure to follow the guidelines on allowing the app to be exempted by your security software. Security suites HATE cryptomining apps and some, like Norton, won’t…

Although their appeal has been somewhat diminished by the wide availability of streaming services, a network attached storage device is still a great addition to any home. It can keep your data, media and documents stored in a central location that is secure, private and accessible to every device on your network. But while commercial NASs are cool, they’re also expensive. And that’s before you include the actual hard disks for storage, for which the sky is the limit on cost. But you can also roll your own NAS using free software and an older PC that you might have lying around. A five or even ten year old PC is likely to have more power than the cheap ARM-powered commercial NASs. So let’s take a quick look at how…

Users of Raspberry Pi and Arduino SBCs are familiar with these boards’ GPIO (general purpose input/output) ports that enable them to interface to real-world electronic devices. PCs are devoid of GPIOs, but boards are available that provide that facility and connect to the PC via a USB port. Two such devices are the FT232H and the MCP2221, both from Adafruit, and here we see how to use them. Our main emphasis is on hardware because we expect a lot of PC users who’ll be interested in this topic probably won’t have dabbled with SBCs and so won’t have learned much about electronics. Having said that, we provide some Python code to get you started and show you how to learn more. These two boards differ in their number of various…

The studio best known for Apex Legends, Titanfall and Jedi Fallen Order is working on a brand new game. According to new job listings on the Respawn Entertainment website, the studio is kicking off a “new IP from scratch.” That’s good news for fans of the studio who might have worried that it would be eternally stuck on a game-as-a-service treadmill thanks to the success of The job listings don’t reveal much else about the project, except that the successful applicant will help the studio “pioneer new ways to enable ‘adventuring until the heat death of the universe’.” Hyperbole, or a hint at a possible No Man’s Sky-esque infinite universe? We probably won’t find out for years to come.…

DEVELOPER HUMONGOUS ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE RELEASED 1996 WEB humongous.com I’m not afraid of the dark. I’m not! But I am afraid of what PC gaming would look like without Pajama Sam. A whole generation of PC gamers grew up after the heyday of adventure games, but were too young and oblivious to notice the rapid descent of a genre. All kids knew was the computer desk, a treasure trove littered with old CDs, many of which had a game from Humongous Entertainment tucked away somewhere. And it was scratched to hell probably, sending CD-drives into whirring, heaving fits – working nevertheless. Playable cartoons. That’s what we thought of them, and Pajama Sam’s big adventure in a surreal nighttime world hidden in his closet might’ve been the best of the bunch.…

Alienware is releasing its first laptop with an AMD CPU since 2007. Its parent company, Dell, announced the Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 laptop in April. The Alienware m15 Ryzen Edition R5 will use AMD’s Ryzen 5000 H-series chips paired with Nvidia GeForce RTX 30-series GPUs. Like the Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15 SE, it will go up to a Ryzen 9 5900HX. The new m15 Ryzen Edition R5 will also be the first 15-inch Alienware laptop going to DDR4 memory at 3,200 MHz, and that memory will be user-replaceable. The last Alienware laptop to pair with an AMD CPU and an Nvidia GPU was the Aurora mALX, last seen in 2007.…

With the emergence of the Chia cryptocurrency, miners in China are reportedly frantically snatching up every hard drive and SSD they can find. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, you don’t mine Chia with a processor, graphics card or ASIC miner. Instead, you farm Chia with storage space, which is where hard drives or SSDs come in. Unlike Bitcoin, which is based on proof of work, Chia utilises a proof of space and time model. Chia reportedly arrives as an eco-friendly cryptocurrency. Bram Cohen, who’s best known as the inventor of BitTorrent, created Chia to leverage the free space on storage devices. The basis behind Chia is that hard drives and SSDs use less power, are easier to come by and cheaper to purchase.…

It probably won’t make the list of best CPU coolers for end users anytime soon, but Microsoft’s data centre servers could be getting a massive thermal management upgrade in the near future. Right now, the software giant is testing a radical new cooling technology known as boiling liquid, which promises to be higher performance, more reliable, and cheaper to maintain compared to traditional air cooling systems in data centres right now. Servers that are equipped with this new prototype cooling system look very similar to mineral oil PCs if you’ve seen one. Dozens of server blades are packed tightly together in a fully submerged tank of boiling liquid. The liquid of course is non-conductive so the servers can operate safely inside the liquid environment. The liquid is a special unknown…

In this issue we cover four 11th Generation-supporting Z590 motherboards. They bring a lot to the table, but still, most people baulk at the idea of dropping half a grand on a motherboard, especially if you’re looking for a new hyper-cost-inflated GPU as well. Right now, you’re not likely to get much change from $2,000 even for a fairly basic gaming PC. There’s an affordable motherboard alternative though, and this time around, it’s one worth considering. Enter the B560 chipset. “Right now, you’re not likely to get much change from $2,000 even for a fairly basic gaming PC. There’s an affordable motherboard alternative though, and this time around, it’s one worth considering. Enter the B560 chipset.” Intel’s B460 motherboards, and the B series chipsets before that were... average. A significant…

$57 | 8bitdo.com/n30pro-2 8BitDo N30 Pro 2 8-bit style with USB-C charging. Bluetooth controllers can be annoyingly limited when it comes to compatibility, but the new N30 Pro 2 manages to cover all bases by connecting to Windows, Android, MacOS, Steam, Switch and Raspberry Pi. As the second generation of 8BitDo’s NES-inspired controllers the new offering brings new motion controls, vibration and turbo keys. The controller now connects and charges via USB-C and you can purchase an Xtander grip to mount your smartphone to it. With clickable joysticks, a D-pad, Start and Select buttons and the usual four right thumb button array you can play pretty much anything with these controllers. $1,699 | Store.dji.com/au DJI Air 2 An automated drone that makes professional level cinematography easy. DJI is pretty much…

$3,009 | lg.com/au As the name may suggest, the Gram is an extremely lightweight laptop from LG, even among some of today’s most portable Ultrabooks. It’s been a long time since LG has had a laptop in the local market, but it’s not shying away from the competition, offering a bigger and better screen and one of the longest battery lives across the whole range of devices. The LG Gram laptop range is available in three sizes, 14-, 16- and 17-inches, which have RRPs that range from $1,799 to $3,009. The smaller devices all get Intel Core i5-1135G7 processors and 72Wh batteries, with the entry level models seeing 8GB of RAM and a 256GB M.2 SSD. You can opt for 512GB of onboard storage on the 14-inch devices for an…

“It doesn’t just look good though, The Citadel punches above its weight in terms of performance.” $2,399 | lcgs.thermaltake.com.au Thermaltake’s latest gaming tower, The Citadel, is a carefully considered system that balances performance against cost for a great overall configuration. The Citadel comes in just one model that features an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, an Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU and 16GB of RAM. The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 might seem a little dated now that you can get the Ryzen 5 5600X, but that new processor is only around 15 percent better in general performance (seven percent in gaming) and costs 45 percent more than its predecessor. So including the Ryzen 5 3600 is actually a sensible choice for a price conscious gaming PC. This CPU is managed by…

$550 | www.draytek.com.au Networking for small to medium businesses can be a remarkably complex affair, so Draytek aims to make life a little simpler with a range of routers and other hardware designed to be fast and easy to manage. The Vigor2927 is a feature packed, rack mountable, dual Ethernet router, with the ability to control your entire network. To try before you buy, Draytek has a very handy virtual demo of the router online at eu.draytek.com:12927. The Vigor2927 comes in three flavours: no Wi-Fi, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi + VOIP (and a separate single Ethernet LTE model), but otherwise the rest of the featureset is the same. The router is built around dual WAN ports (though one can be reconfigured to LAN), for connecting to your internet service of…

$200 - $400 | Second-hand market The IBM Model M is a classic. First introduced in 1985, it is the successor to the Model F, which is an equally sought-after vintage keyboard, if not more so. The Model F had a more difficult layout, but the Model M changed this and became more user-friendly. The Model M helped to create the modern-day layout – apart from the lack of Windows keys. It is one of the very first keyboards, if not the first, to include dual Ctrl and Alt keys, function keys, alphanumeric keys, navigation keys, numeric keys, and indicator lights. The switches on the Model M make a keyboard enthusiast weak at the knees. They’re so satisfying to press, and although they are obnoxiously loud, they’re very fun to…

Needs macOS 10.15 or later | US$99 for single-use licence | softobe.com/kinemac Kinemac 2.0.3 is a 3D modelling and animation app that’s designed to help you create motion graphic sequences for video projects. You can use it to present clips or stills on a series of virtual 3D screens to create eye-catching title sequences for your YouTube channel. The app offers a range of preset 3D shapes that you can add to your virtual TV set (or stage), and it’s a doddle to drag and drop your own clips and stills onto the various sides of a 3D cube for example. You can also create your own 3D text by importing and extruding an .SVG file or even import more complex 3D models (such as a human figure) as OBJ…

Linux | https://neon.kde.org Despite the plethora of KDE distros around – from Kubuntu to KaOS to PCLinuxOS – some people still haven’t heard of KDE neon. Any distro working on a fix release cycle is going to have problems keeping current with KDE. The KDE Applications suite is updated every three months, as is the Plasma desktop (roughly, and rarely in cadence with the applications) and the underlying KDE Frameworks libraries see a new release every month. So distros – conservative ones that don’t like to break things at least – will tend to stick with older KDE technologies. KDE neon wants to showcase the latest Special K, but to do so on a reliable base. So it’s built on Ubuntu 20.04, but has its own repos for the applications,…

$379 | www.asus.com The Asus TUF Gaming Z590-Plus Wi-Fi is Asus’ entry-level gaming board. It slots in below the high-end ROG and mid-level Strix series. The focus of TUF products has shifted away from the earliest military-themed Sabretooth branded boards complete with extended warranties to a more budget gaming tier today. Though the reliability aspect remains, it seems to be more of an aesthetic these days. The TUF Gaming Plus is positioned as simplified and affordable option for a mainstream gamer. The TUF Z590 Plus features a fairly simplistic design with minimal RGB and the trademark TUF splash of yellow. You get three M.2 slots, with the topmost one supporting PCIe 4.0. There are six SATA ports. Four of them are vertically oriented which may not appeal to all. There…

Every few years, cryptocurrency returns to the spotlight with a surge in prices, and everyone suddenly wants to invest. This time, anyone with even a passing interest in computer hardware should know what Bitcoin is at some level, but how does it actually work, and when will we be able to buy graphics cards at reasonable prices again? The first most people heard about Bitcoin was in 2011 when it jumped from being a weird experiment to having actual real-world value, reaching over $30. Then it collapsed to below $2 and many were quick to call it a Ponzi scheme. Now, early 2021 has set new record highs, topping out at $68,000 at the time of writing. How far will it fall this time? Will the talk of investments from…

Arguably the easiest way to get started at mining cryptocurrencies is with NiceHash. We’ve noted that it’s no longer profitable to mine Bitcoin directly using a GPU, because ASICs are so much faster and more efficient. That doesn’t mean you can’t get BTC from a GPU, however. NiceHash launched in 2014 and greatly lowered the barrier to entry for mining. It gets rid of the worry about what coin(s) to mine and is extremely easy to get running. You lease your PC’s hashing power to other users, who get to choose what to mine, and you get paid in Bitcoin. NiceHash takes a small cut of the potential profits, and your PC can be up and mining in minutes. The company’s custom NiceHashMiner software benchmarks your hardware using various common…

We must give credit where credit is due. Nvidia kicked off the Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) monitor revolution back in 2013 with its G-sync initiative – a proprietary adaptive sync technology using a special module that Nvidia developed that makers needed to include to enable support. With Nvidia’s multi-year marketing efforts and evolution of the technology it has succeeded in changing the industry for the better – tear-free variable refresh rate bliss. Unfortunately for Nvidia it was AMD’s reaction and competing open standard technology, FreeSync (based on the industry standards body, VESA, Adaptive Sync) that got VRR monitors into the hands of most people. For quite a few years it seemed like the two competing technologies were going to remain at odds with each other with neither being able to…

LENGTH OF TIME: 1 hour LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: Easy The concept around this is pretty simple – we just love the idea behind the Core i3-10100. When this editor first joined the tech industry, the crème de la crème of desktop processors was whatever quad-core, Hyper-Threaded chip Intel had to offer at the time. That was the end goal. Ryzen wasn’t yet a thing, and anything more than four cores was relegated to the world of HEDT, which was a bit more inaccessible. Motherboards were more expensive, and memory costs immediately shot up whenever you mentioned the phrase “quad-channel.” Fast forward to 2020, and with the launch of Intel’s latest chips, this little beauty fell into our lap. Well, it was a special request we put in with Intel really,…

If nothing else, the last year or so has shown just how much our world now relies on the STEM disciplines – the collective areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (remember, maths is the foundation of the other three). That’s why it’s so important to encourage the next generation to not just use technology, but understand how it works, so that they can solve tomorrow’s problems. If you’re looking for low-cost inspiration to get your kids into STEM, here’s where you can start. Get practical If you’re thinking this is another ‘get into coding’ war-cry, it’s not. We’re way past that point. The speed at which our lives are transforming into the digital world means we are essentially left at the mercy of others if we don’t at least…

Capcom has announced a VR port for Resident Evil 4, releasing exclusively for Oculus Quest 2 later this year. It’s not just a simple port: The most obvious change is that the third-person horror now plays in first-person, but along with the perspective shift comes some necessary VR enhancements: your weapon inventory is now strapped to Leon’s body so, using the Touch controllers, you’ll need to unholster and re-holster weapons just like you would in real life. You can dual wield separate weapons too, which is probably the biggest departure this port features compared to the original. Traversal options are fairly exhaustive: you can still move using a Touch controller’s analog stick, but the port also features teleportation movement and support for room-scale movement. Also, 4,500 textures have been “repainted…

Raspberry Pi turns Nerf Gun into CoD controller YouTuber gets creative by using toy gun as PC input. Coder and YouTuber Alfredo Sequedia posted a video in April of his project to turn a Fortnite Nerf gun into a controller for Call of Duty on PC. Sequedia connected a smartphone with custom code that allowed it to output data from its accelerometer to a Raspberry Pi that translated the gun’s movement into mouse controls in real time. He also fabricated some custom buttons that were built into the rifle grip and mapped them to relevant keyboard keys to control everything from the toy gun. Sure, the cabling wasn’t the neatest we’ve seen and there was no shortage of lag, but it worked well enough to play. Steam now works for…

APC is Australia’s oldest consumer technology magazine – having been consistently in print for forty years, since our first issue way back in May 1980 – and we take that heritage and responsibility very seriously. While our focus is obviously on the personal computer the very definition of the PC has changed and shifted markedly since the early 1980s. As such, we touch on many other areas of tech, too, from smartphones and apps to peripherals, accessories, and beyond. We have two goals: to find the best modern tech and to help you make the most of it. We’re also an open church in terms of platforms. We know most people aren’t wed to a single brand’s products and use a variety of devices. And, like you, APC’s journalists want…

Apple’s successor to the M1 chip, commonly referred to as the M2, has now entered mass production, better positioning the tech giant in its goal of completely replacing Intel chips in Macbooks with its own bespoke hardware. Reported by Nikkei Asia, the Apple M2 could be integrated into consumer products like the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13-inch from July onwards, meaning interested consumers should look towards the latter half of the year for MacBooks with improved specs. It’s noteworthy that the M2 is likely to be a different chip than the rumoured M1X, which is said to be a more powerful, business-oriented processor tailor-made for specialist computers like the Mac Pro and MacBook Pro 16-inch. Apple’s M2 would come hot on the heels of the M1 SoC (System on…

Intel and Microsoft are collaborating on a new project to help enterprise and small business customers avoid security issues that may involve others using PCs on your network to mine cryptocurrencies, known as cryptojacking. The protection will be built into Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on systems using 6th Gen or later Intel vPro and Intel Core processors. Specifically, it uses Intel Threat Detection Technology, or TDT to take advantage of the CPU for machine learning to detect cryptomining. Intel stated that the rise of cryptocurrencies in the mainstream and their increase in value means that “cybercriminals [will] shift their focus from ransomware to cryptojacking.” Intel claims that there was a 53 percent increase in mining malware attacks in the fourth quarter of 2020 compared to the quarter before it. Cryptojacking,…

Loot boxes in videogames aren’t a new phenomenon, and predate even those titles most strongly associated with them – Overwatch, Counter-Strike, FIFA, Star Wars Battlefront 2. But it’s fair to say that those games have helped propel them into the public consciousness, in a way the industry may not have intended. In the plainest sense loot boxes are gambling. It usually works like this: while regular gameplay can net the player loot boxes filled with randomised cosmetic goods, it’s also possible to buy them in packs that are also randomised. You’re not paying for a product; you’re paying for the chance to win the product. Some players love them, like children love Kinder Surprises. A lot of players hate them. Over the past four years the matter of loot boxes…

Intel launched its Broadwell desktop processors in 2015. Those were the very first 14nm chips to hit the market, and even after delays, Intel was basically two years ahead of the competition. So, it seems practically inconceivable that, nearly six years later, we’re now looking forward to the seventh Intel CPU generation to use a variant of 14nm lithography. Intel stumbled, badly, on the transition to 10nm. Yes, we know 10nm Ice Lake processors have been shipping since 2019, and SuperFIN (10nm+) Tiger Lake CPUs launched last year. But both were confined to mobile solutions, suggesting Intel was still not ready to make bigger 10nm chips. Server-class Ice Lake-LP 10nm Xeon CPUs and desktop and mobile Alder Lake parts will change that later this year. In the interim, we have…

$899 | www.amd.com Here we go again. There are a lot of very nice gaming cards on the market right now*. Note the asterisk. The RX 6700 XT is ostensibly a mid-range card but with the GPU market and the wider semiconductor market in a state of shock, normally affordable cards like this are selling at flagship price levels, and even then, availability is scarce. Let’s hope that supply and demand will reach a happier state of equilibrium in the coming months and we can stop prefacing every GPU article with the same sad lament. Rank and file gamers that have no interest in paying $1,000+ for a GPU are crying out for new and affordable card. Let’s hope the 6700 XT can take its place as a compelling mid-range…

$499 | au.msi.com In a world of increasingly commoditised technology, computer monitors represent an area where you’ll want to avoid buying the wrong thing. Prices vary wildly, many specialise at displaying certain types of media in a way that’s detrimental to other types of media, and while superlative do-it-all monitors do exist, they can easily cost ten times more than what you actually need. Against this backdrop, MSI has launched the 27-inch Modern MD271QP which is part of its Business/Learning range. It’s designed primarily for productivity and eye comfort with an additional eye on not looking ugly in the home or office. So, is it any good? It looks smart (as monitors go) with clean lines, a thin bezel and a reasonably small-but-sturdy stand. There’s a generous degree of height…

$149 | www.mercusys.com/au With TP-Link moving from budget brand to one of the best on the market, it left a gap at the cheap end of the market. Say hello to its new junior brand, Mercusys. Forget the new-fangled, fancy apps for setup, Mercusys embraces the old-school setup via web browser. The ‘quick setup’ is generally straightforward, but novices might be scared by some of the jargon. However, if you generally answer ‘next’ to all questions, while adding passwords when asked, you should end up connected. A ‘Smartconnect’ option allows you to bind the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands together allowing the router’s built-in smarts to choose the best connection for you. While we’re not particularly confident in budget-grade, robot intelligence, we chose this for testing. Browser-based settings are spread across…

$200 | samsung.com Samsung’s SSDs are widely regarded as among the most reliable and best-performing in the market, and the company hopes to extend that reputation with the introduction of the 980 NVMe SSD. Samsung’s 980 is designed for everyday PC users and gamers, although with performance ratings six times that of a standard SATA SSD, it possibly appeals to lower-budget content creators, too. “Samsung’s 980 also stands out with much more affordable pricing than the 980 Pro and 970 Evo Plus, a benefit borne of its DRAMless design that the company claims makes it the highest-performing DRAMless SSD on the market.” Samsung’s 980 also stands out with much more affordable pricing than the 980 Pro and 970 Evo Plus, a benefit borne of its DRAMless design that the company…

From $3.49/month | moleskinestudio.com | Needs iOS 13 or later Flow is an artist’s sketchpad with customisable brush presets and gestures, and an endless canvas for images of any width. The second major version brings a lower price tag: if you buy the Studio Bundle for $32.99, you get Flow plus the Timepage calendar app and Actions to-do app. The app is $32.99 per year on its own. Flow’s endless canvas can now flow vertically instead of horizontally, and the new Pencil Case mode takes the tools away from your iPad screen and displays them on your iPhone instead. You can add images to a document from Photos or Files, including supported cloud storage services, and you can take photos from inside the app and draw on them. You can…

$649 | www.aorus.com Gigabyte’s Aorus Master boards usually impress us. They’re unmistakably high-end boards, but they sit in a price range that hits a good balance of pricing and premium features without resorting the extreme cost that burdens boards that include the kitchen sink. If you’re planning to run an overclocked 11900K, you need a board with a very strong VRM, and the Aorus delivers. With its 18 phase 90A design fed by dual 8-pin power connectors, it’s about as good as it gets. We love the Aorus-finned heatsink design that prioritises function over form. The solid metal chunks on many boards may look good, but efficient cooling relies on surface area and with the way Rocket Lake can punish the VRM, Gigabyte’s choice is the smart one. With Adaptive…

Assuming you’re interested in trying out cryptocurrency mining, there’s a lot of conflicting advice on how to go about tuning for optimal performance. Many tutorials throw caution to the wind and look to maximise hash rates, with little heed to the differences in individual graphics cards. It’s a fast track to dead hardware if you’re not careful. While it’s true that AMD and Nvidia graphics cards tend to be tuned somewhat conservatively, the intent is for the card to handle hours of gaming, every day, for several years. 24/7 cryptocurrency mining is a completely different use case. There’s a reason Nvidia’s data center GPUs are usually clocked lower than consumer GeForce parts, with very different cooling configurations. Supercomputers use high-speed fans that push a lot of air through the coolers,…

The Finder is such a core component of macOS, used by everyone every day, that we often take it for granted. Yet there are a lot of ways you can customise it to perfectly suit your needs, adding extra features or removing those you do not need to create a much more streamlined and tailored Mac experience. In macOS Big Sur, nearly every element of the Finder can be customised, from the folders and shortcuts in the sidebar and the buttons in the toolbar to the size of the icons and text displayed with each file. You can set your preferences to apply to a single folder or every folder you subsequently browse, based on your needs. You can even add a background picture if you like. In this tutorial,…

If you’re willing to sacrifice the ability to receive attachments then there are several command-line utilities that provide similar functionality as tmpmail. One such utility, which also uses the 1secMail service is called, unimaginatively, 1secmail. Its dependencies are the same as tmpmail. Run the git clone https://github.com/KevCui/1secmail.git command to download the project repository in your current directory. As with tmpmail, you can move the 1secmail script into a directory in your $PATH for ease of use. To create a new temporary email address, run the 1secmail command. You can create a custom email address with the 1secmail -u =<email>=@=<domain>= command. The same command will display the contents of the inbox if the specified email address already exists: To read a message, you must specify the email address as well as…

At last, we’re featuring the machine we’ve been teasing for months: the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The machine was a cultural icon. Far cheaper than anything Americans were exporting, the homegrown Spectrum was a working-class hero that spawned a generation of influential coders. Although the machine had cheap graphics and primitive sound, its rock-bottom price spawned a phenomenal budget gaming scene. For anyone willing to look past its shoddy presentation, an anarchic game culture awaits, with classic titles unlike any other system. Development The ZX Spectrum was developed under the leadership of British inventor Clive Sinclair, who was renowned for making electronics affordable through ruthless simplification. Originally code-named the ZX82, the Spectrum built upon the ZX80 and ZX81 – machines that helped establish budget computing – but brought a wave of…

Activision has released an update on its Call of Duty: Warzone anti-cheat progress, detailing how many permabans have been issued and how the team roots out cheaters. According to the official Call of Duty blog, over 475,000 players have been permanently banned from Call of Duty: Warzone. The latest ban wave, which crashed onto Verdansk’s shores on April 12, was the seventh large-scale ban since this February alone. Activision states that its security and enforcement teams issue bans daily “to individual offenses or repeat offenders.” Activision is also cracking down on cheat providers and resellers, or people who create accounts, farm them, and sell them at a premium. The developer has banned 45,000 “fraudulent, black market accounts used by repeat offenders” and is making sure those cheaters won’t be able…

$69.95 | PC, PS4, Switch | bit.ly/31SUyoX Spacebase Startopia Manage a space station fuelled by nostalgia. Realmforge Studios’ Spacebase Startopia is a homage to one of my favourite management games. More than an homage, really, as it lifts pretty much everything from the original Startopia, even the name – it’s more like an unofficial remake. After two decades of waiting, I should be happy to return to my donut-shaped space station, but instead I’m conflicted. Hewing so closely to the original also emphasises the ways in which it misses the mark, and some of the new additions leave a lot to be desired. Thankfully, Spacebase Startopia is still capable of being charismatic, full as it is with aliens and sci-fi oddities. Sometimes I’ll even follow my diligent little droids around…