If you’re looking for a reasonably priced gaming laptop that can handle major new releases, take a look at the 15.6-inch Inspiron 15 7000 series from Dell. With a new quad-core Skylake processor, a graphics card with some real horsepower, and a solid state hybrid drive, this laptop can hold its own at any LAN party. And thanks to today’s coupon code, you can save a total of 26% off the sticker price. (List price: $949.99 — Coupon code: 50OFF699) Inside, this model features a sixth generation quad-core 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-6300HQ CPU, a discrete Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M graphics card (with 4GB of memory), 8GB of DDR3L RAM (1600MHz), a 1TB SSHD, Bluetooth 4.0, and 802.11b/g/n/ac WiFi support.
It’s no secret that AMD and Nvidia are new GPUs in the next few months, but there are still questions about configurations and technology. Initially, we expected these new cards to use the HBM2 memory standard, but the persistent rumor has been that AMD’s upcoming Polaris would be GDDR5 based. That now appears to be true for Nvidia as well. The “GTX 1080” moniker is for discussion purposes only; Nvidia has not revealed their future branding Leaked photos of the GP104 die show the chip with a standard memory interface — either GDDR5 or GDDR5X (it’s difficult to tell).
Sometimes, physicists can get too up in their own heads. At the most recent Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, recently held at New York’s Hayden Planetarium, scientists gathered to address the question for the year: Is the universe a computer simulation? It’s an older question that you might imagine, and if we interpret it a bit more broadly then it’s really one of the oldest questions imaginable: How do we know that reality is reality? And, if our universe were a big, elaborate lie, could we ever devise some test to prove that fact? At the debate, host and celebrity astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson argued that the probability is that we live in a computer simulation.
Amazon built its business on a simple premise: It was the place to go to buy all your stuff. Today, Amazon offers a wide range of products and services, including its own branded tablets, ebook readers, and video-on-demand solution — but the basic idea of Amazon and the Amazon ecosystem remains the same. Amazon Prime is meant to be a value-incentive program that encourages people to pay a yearly fee to Amazon in exchange for free two-day shipping, access to the video-on-demand services, and several other perks. It seems, however, that Amazon is testing an experiment in multiple markets (both the UK and US are reportedly affected).
For a limited time, Dell is offering up a 26% discount on the new XPS 8900 desktop PC. With a brand new Skylake CPU, incredibly fast DDR4 memory, and plenty of room for expansion, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better PC with an asking price this low. (List price: $949.99 — Coupon code: 50OFF699) In terms of specs, the XPS 8900 is rocking a sixth generation quad-core 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-6700 processor, 8GB of DDR4 RAM (2133MHz), a discrete Nvidia GeForce GT 730 graphics card (with 2GB of memory), a 1TB 7200RPM hard drive, a DVD burner, Bluetooth 4.0, and 802.11b/g/n WiFi support.
One of the major questions readers have raised over the past year is which company’s graphics cards would perform better in DirectX 12. It always takes a certain amount of time to answer questions like this, and DX12 is still in the early stages of deployment, with only a handful of titles currently available: Hitman, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Ashes of the Singularity, and Gears of War. Of these four, one of them (Gears of War) is DX12-only and available solely through the Windows Store; the other titles can run in DX11 or DX12 and support multiple operating systems.
Nvidia doesn’t always announce new consumer graphics cards at its annual technology conference, but it was widely expected to this year. Instead, GTC 2016 is all about AI, VR, and especially self-driving cars. Following up on its announcement of the Drive PX 2 car computer, Nvidia updated its plans to ship a complete set of developer tools — fueled by its own autonomous vehicle research — for car makers, and to sponsor and help equip a robot car racing league. DriveWorks is the power behind the Drive PX 2 A , like Nvidia’s Drive PX 2, isn’t much good without the software to run it.
Earlier today, Sony released firmware version 3.50 (codenamed “Musashi”) for the PlayStation 4. Social features like scheduled events and log-in notifications have made their way to Sony’s console, but today’s biggest news is the support for Remote Play on both Macs and PCs. At long last, Sony has finally decoupled this excellent feature from the wildly unpopular PlayStation TV and Vita hardware. Okay, so how do you take advantage of ? First, you’ll need to make sure everything is up to date. If you’re not immediately prompted to update your PS4 upon boot-up, head over to Settings > System Software Update, and download the latest firmware.
Yesterday, Nvidia took the wraps off its and gave us a look at what its top-end HPC configuration would look like come Q1 2017. While this new card is explicitly aimed at the scientific computing market and Nvidia has said nothing about future consumer products, the information the company revealed confirms some of what we’ve privately heard about next-generation GPUs from both AMD and Nvidia. If you’re thinking about using some of your tax rebate on a new GPU or just eyeing the market in general, we’d recommend waiting at least a few more months before pulling the trigger.
