steven terry

The FBI found an ally in the Supreme Court in its quest to expand its hacking powers. Today, the highest federal court in the US has agreed to the changes made to Rule 41, giving judges the authority to approve remote access to suspects' computers outside their jurisdiction. Under the original Rule 41, a judge in, say, New York can only authorize hacking into a suspect's computer in New York. But the amended rule means that same judge in New York can approve the feds' request to hack into a computer in Florida, Alaska, or anywhere else, really.

According to the court documents that detail the changes:

"...a magistrate judge with authority in any district where activities related to a crime may have occurred has authority to issue a warrant to use remote access to search electronic storage media and to seize or copy electronically stored information located within or outside that district if: (A) the district where the media or information is located has been concealed through technological means; or (B) in an investigation of a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5), the media are protected computers that have been damaged without authorization and are located in five or more districts."

By "concealed through technological means," the Supreme Court is saying that a warrant will be granted if a suspect uses Tor or any other tool to remain anonymous.

DOJ spokesperson Peter Carr told Motherboard:

"Criminals now have ready access to sophisticated anonymizing technologies to conceal their identity while they engage in crime over the Internet, and the use of remote searches is often the only mechanism available to law enforcement to identify and apprehend them.

This amendment ensures that courts can be asked to review warrant applications in situations where is it currently unclear what judge has that authority. The amendment makes explicit that it does not change the traditional rules governing probable cause and notice."

Just a few days ago, the court threw out evidence that the feds got through hacking the members of a child porn service on the Tor network. The judge explained that they violated Rule 41's territorial restrictions. This change would prevent something like that from happening. However, as Google's Legal Director Richard Salgado said, it could also "have profound implications for the privacy rights and security interests of everyone who uses the Internet."

The Congress has until December 1st to reject or make more changes to Rule 41, after which the amended version will take effect.

Via: TechCrunch, Reuters, Motherboard

Source: Supreme Court (PDF)

Read on Ars Technica | Comments

We got to try out the latest HTC Vive VR demo, WEVR's The John Wick VR Experience, a room-scale VR "companion experience" to a traditional John Wick FPS coming from Starbreeze Studios.

If you're determined to save money by watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens at home through a streaming service... well, you'd better live in the True North Strong and Free. Netflix tells Variety that the timing of its Disney deals will only let it stream the new Star Wars flick in Canada, starting eight months after it leaves theaters. You see, the service's Canadian Disney agreement covers movies released in 2015 onward, which includes The Force Awakens -- in the US, you're stuck with movies debuting in 2016 or later. We certainly wouldn't expect UK availability when even Disney's own streaming service won't have Star Wars movies, let alone a rival.

Source: Variety

This new Asus router looks like a dead biomechanical spider curled up on its back.

Microsoft has announced a number of new Xbox One bundles over the past week, but the last is likely to be the one that gets the most attention and sales because of the […]

Grab your screwdriver, it's time to buid a new PC!

Build it. DIY. Roll your own. Whatever you call it, there’s nothing more satisfying than putting together your own computer.

Sure, you can argue that there’s no point to it anymore—OEMs get such a big price break that at best, your DIY rig will cost $100 more than a buying a pre-built PC—so why even bother? The most obvious reason to build your own rig is that you get to pick every single part. Want a teal-and-pink case for your Miami Vice homage PC? You can do it. Want to stuff a $1,500 GPU into a machine with a $75 CPU? You can do that, too.

The most compelling part of rolling your own PC, though, is the pride you get from using your hands to turn a pile of parts into a working, breathing computer. You built it, not some faceless assembly-line worker.

The good news is that building a new PC has never been easier. If you can turn a screwdriver with any confidence, you can put together a new rig yourself, once you’ve read our step-by-step story. Even better, we’ll also teach you how to pick parts like an expert, so you can confidently build the computer that fits your needs exactly, not the needs some big-box store has determined for you.

The Five-Minute Abs of PC Part-Picking

Don’t get overwhelmed, we’ll teach you how to be a PC partpicking expert in no time.

The hardest part of any new PC build is picking your parts. How much RAM do you really need? How do you really pick a GPU and CPU, and do you really want a mobo with dual Thunderbolt 2 ports? While this is information we could easily write ten magazines about, we’re going to try to distill this down to small nuggets any new PC builder can absorb to help ease being overwhelmed by the process. This information is not the last word nor everything you need to know, but it should be enough to get you going so you don’t end up under- or over-buying parts for your new computer.

How to Pick a CPU

AMD or Intel? This is a tough question, but let’s generalize this way: Intel’s CPUs are better than AMD’s CPUs right now in actual CPU chores. If you want the best performance per chip, Intel is the answer. The only time this flips on its back is if you're going to run integrated graphics with entry-level gaming as your primary goal. If so, choose an AMD APU. But even AMD fan boys agree Intel’s CPUs are in front today—so, OK, so it’s Intel. Now, you need to decide how many cores: 2, 4, or 6? For most people, a quad-core chip is the right choice for general computing, gaming, and photo or video editing on the task list. Six cores is too much for 90 percent of people’s needs; two cores will work, but if you’re a heavy multi-tasker or do even a modicum of content creation, you will feel the dual-core’s weaknesses. We’re not saying it can’t be done, but our recommendation for all but the budget buyer is a quad-core CPU. Since you’re buying Intel, you still have a choice between older Ivy Bridge CPUs and the newer current Haswell parts. Today, frankly, there’s no need to buy Ivy Bridge parts. Haswell offers better performance and more modern amenities.

How to Pick a Mobo

With most of the performance of a motherboard relying far more on the CPU, mobo buying today is more about getting the features you need and no more. If you need Thunderbolt 2, it’ll cost you, but if you don’t need Intel/Apple’s highfalutin interface, don’t pay for it. Build a list of your needs: How many USB 3.0 ports, how many SATA or PCIe, and whether you want M.2 or SATA Express. Also think about the future: Do you really intend to run multiple GPUs? If so, make sure your board has support for it, as not all do. Some, for example, have CrossFire but not SLI.

The bundled utilities with the motherboards are also an important differentiator. Some are bare-bones, while others, such as Asus, offer exceptional software. Another important differentiator today is onboard audio. Our general recommendation is to lean toward a board with engineering put into the audio subsystem. For example, Brand A’s may not be better than Brand B’s, but in general, it’ll be better than a lower-end board with no separated audio path. Finally, we recommend buying 9-series chipsets for Intel and A88X for AMD’s APU for the forward compatibility they offer. As far as size or form factor, ATX is the standard and is our preference for most builds.

How to Pick a GPU

It’s actually not as hard to pick a GPU as you may think it is. Basically, the more expensive it is, the more powerful it is. Yes, a $300 GPU is faster than a $250 GPU. It’s just a question of how much you want to spend. Before you pick, though, consider what resolution you want to game at. If it’s a single monitor at 1920x1080, generally—and this is a very general guideline—a $250 GPU will give you a solid 50-plus fps performance in 95 percent of today’s games, with occasional dips. As you scale up in resolution, or if you simply want a solid higher frame rate all the time, pay more. If you intend to run at 2560x1440 on a 27-inch panel, you’re solidly in the $550-or-more range in GPU expenses. For most people though, $250 is the sweet spot in GPUs, and will give you a solid experience at 1080p in most games with few compromises in visual quality.

How to Pick a Cooler

For the person who will never overclock, the stock cooler is actually a good option. It’s free and AMD or Intel have done the actual engineering to ensure that it works under 95 percent of situations. If you intend to overclock though, an aftermarket cooler is mandatory. Our rule of thumb is don’t spend more than $35 to $45 for an aftermarket air cooler. Once you’ve passed that mark, our advice is to buy a closedloop liquid cooler. There’s no maintenance, and they’re generally  quieter and outperform most air coolers. CLC’s come in all shapes, sizes, and prices, so buy on your needs. If you intend a mild to medium overclock, a single 120mm CLC is enough. If you intend to push the overclock harder, a dual 240mm CLC gets you better cooling performance or less noise than a 120mm-size CLC.

How to Pick RAM

For the most part, RAM is a commodity like pork bellies. The chips are made by a handful of players and then sorted by the memory makers you mostly recognize. Unless you get no-name generic RAM, memory from any of the respected RAM makers will get the job done. That’s not all, though. You need to think about how much and how fast. For capacity, 8GB is our recommendation for a normal build. We’d keep 4GB in the budget category. Going to 32GB or for many, 16GB, won’t net much difference. Your second decision is clock speed. Today, we think the sweet spot is DDR3/1866. Anything more is luxury but does actually net some performance gains on Haswell CPUs. If you intend to run integrated graphics though, get the highest clock speed you can afford (and that your mobo will run), as it directly impacts gaming performance.

How to Pick an SSD

You can spend two days trying to decide between this type of X NAND or that type of Y NAND, but the truth is that with the performance of SSDs gated by the SATA interface, your primary influencers should really be capacity, price, software, and warranty. These matter much more than whether one SSD is five percent faster in one type of disk-intensive task than another. That doesn’t mean a low-end or old SSD is the answer. Newer SSDs almost always use more current technology and are preferred over older drives. For capacity, 128GB is the entry level on SSDs and 240GB or 480GB and up is preferred to make your life better. Basically, a mid-range or higher SSD from a trusted brand is enough to avoid heartache today. Finally, remember to have a backup going. SSDs die just as HDDs die, so plan on dealing with it.

How to Pick an HDD

The HDD is important but we’ve come to the conclusion that it should only be used as a primary storage device on the most budget of builds. So, forget about the RPM or access times—that’s 2009 thinking. The only real factors in an HDD are capacity, price, and warranty. For most people, a 1TB drive is the minimum for a new system, with the true sweet spot today being 3TB. As far as the all-important “reliability” factor, we recommend that you don’t bank on that. Yes, a longer warranty usually tells you how long the company thinks it might last, but it won’t tell you how long your particular HDD will last. We recommend backing up your SSD to your HDD and then backing up your HDD to a NAS or a secondary HDD.

How to Pick a Case

Picking a case is the most personal decision you make. There’s really no easy way to answer this question for you, but just know that most people will want a standard ATX case. Niceties to look for include generous cutouts to access the back of the motherboard, wiring ports, and removable drives cages.

New builders often overspend on unnecessary motherboard features. If you don’t need Thunderbolt 2 or Wi-Fi, go for a different board.

How to Pick an ODD

This is a category you don’t have to burn too much brain power on. A $20 Asus/Samsung/ LG/etc. SATA DVD Burner will get the job done. If you are contemplating using a slim USB-based drive, just know that if you intend to use it for a lot of burning and ripping, laptop drives in the slim cases usually stink in performance, and it’s not USB’s fault. Laptop drives tend to be significantly slower than desktop SATA drives.

How to Pick a PSU

Your first criteria in picking a PSU is the obvious: Will it power my hardware? There are about a dozen different PSU calculators you can use on line. The most popular is Outervision’s at http://extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine. According to the calculator, for a standard single processor, single high-end GPU system with SSD, HDD, and 16GB of RAM—believe it or not—a 500-watt PSU is acceptable today. We’d agree with that assessment, but we’d add a little more wattage for summer months and potential future hardware. You may be confused over the multi-rail vs. single-rail, but for normal PCs, don’t sweat it. Only when you get to extreme builds do you need to pay attention to per-rail amperage needs. You will definitely want to make sure the PSU has the ability to run the number of GPUs you will use. Finally, consider the warranty as a good measure of the quality of a PSU. A PSU with a one-year warranty is very likely to be inferior to one with a five-year or seven-year warranty. The rest is really just gravy: digital control, monitoring, and modular cables.

Outervision’s PSU calculator gives you a good ballpark estimate for sizing your unit, but we like to add 20 percent to be conservative.

Web Help

You’ve got a rough idea of what you might want in your PC, but now you’re overwhelmed by the sheer amount of parts out there.

One of the best tools available today is PCpartpicker.com. It’s a one-stop shop for helping you price out and configure your system. Just click the system build button and start selecting your parts. Selected parts will filter out other parts you don’t need—pick an LGA1150 CPU and it will only let you pick from LGA1150 motherboards. The tool crawls popular stores for the latest in prices and rebates, too, so you don’t have to.

PCpartpicker.com only helps you sort through the bazillion parts out there. If you want to research the key components you’re confused by—say, the CPU and GPU—you can look at Cpuboss.com, Gpuboss.com, and Passmark.com for general comparisons of CPUs and GPUs. These sites offer very high-level views of the products, but they will at least get you in the ballpark of what you want. From there, we recommend drilling down into other such valuable sites (ahem, Maximumpc.com) to get a better feel for the particular parts. One more site we’d recommend to aid in decoding the CPUs is Intel’s ark.intel.com. It helps sort out the exact differences between the billion different CPUs Intel offers today.

A balanced system for general use should see that the CPU and GPU get equal attention.

 

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What We Built and Why

Before we walk you through how to build your first PC, we’ll show you the parts we picked and tell you why. The two most important were the CPU and GPU. For the CPU, there are cheaper CPUs to be had, but Intel’s Core i5-4670K delivers the most bang for the buck. It easily overclocks beyond its base clock of 3.4GHz and its four cores easily outrun dual-core parts. It is, essentially, the part to have for a budget enthusiast who does some content creation and gaming. Our box is a “balanced” build, so we spent a reasonable amount of cash our video card. At $249, the Asus GeForce GTX 760 gives us solid 1080p gaming with the latest games. Mind you, it’s not a solid 60fps on max settings, but with a few tweaks that most  would never notice during game play, you could get there. The other important part here is the SSD. We thought about foregoing an SSD and making a few other trims to get the price under $800 but decided that any new machine you build should make you smile—and nothing makes you smile more these days than an SSD. We could have dropped the capacity to 128GB as well, but it’s just too hard to live with a boot drive that small, and doubling the capacity only costs about 30 percent more. You should know the Core i5-4670K comes with a stock Intel heatsink. If you never intended to overclock, this would be fine, but since we intend to take advantage of the free performance from the Core i5- 4670K, we plunked down the cash for the Silverston AR01 cooler.

The last part to highlight is the MSI Z97-Gaming 7 mobo. This is a solid board with an M.2 slot for faster SSD performance upgrade potential, as well as support for SLI and CrossFire, and a separated audio path on the PCB for theoretically cleaner sound. We don’t need the direct voltage readouts, but at $164 you’re getting a lot of motherboard value with the Z97 Gaming 7.

One last thing we like to do is look at how much each component costs as a percentage of the entire rig. This gives you an idea if your system is “balanced” or not. By balanced we mean if the system is properly weighted toward its use. In this case, it’s a balanced machine with slightly more going to the GPU than the CPU. If we were building a pure gaming rig, we’d tilt the confi guration to put more into the GPU. If the box were to be used for content creation using videos and high-resolution still images, a shift to more money on the CPU would be advised. If you simply want to store an insane amount of fi les on the drives, spend more of your budget on HDDs.

Step 1: The Case

The NZXT Source 530 is a full-tower case with two 120mm fans in it. That’s a pretty standard fan size, though 140mm is increasingly common. These fans attach to the case with specifically designed screws. They have a fatter bore and a coarser thread than normal. Our case came with a small box full of little baggies containing a variety of screw types for different applications. Thumbscrews are a popular type, and our case uses two in the back to keep the side panel on.

When attaching a fan, don’t put the first screw all the way in. Just most of the way. Then go diagonally across to the second hole, putting that screw in most of the way, too. Then, attach the other two screws (again, most of the way) in any order you like. Once all four screws are attached, you can finish tightening them. Waiting until this point to tighten gives you more room to wiggle the fan around if it’s not lining up perfectly with the holes. When you put the motherboard in later, you’ll plug the fan cable into a case fan connector on the board. Our case has a fan hub, however, so we plug our fan into that instead, then plug the hub directly into the power supply unit (we’ll talk about the PSU in a bit).

Step 2: The CPU

Retail motherboards get shipped inside an anti-static bag. Place the motherboard on top of this for now. The CPU tray is protected by a plastic cover. You can pop that off by pulling a tab on one of its sides.

Do not throw this cover away. If you need to return the board for service, the maker may not accept any motherboard without this cover in place. Next, there’s a metal lever that secures the actual CPU bracket. Pull the end of this lever out, then pull up to free the bracket. It should swing clear of the tray.

Now, look for a small gold triangle on one of the corners of your CPU. There should be a corresponding marker on the motherboard. You want to line up these two markers to make sure the CPU is oriented correctly during installation. Once you’ve set the CPU in the tray according to the markers, put the bracket back on top, and return the lever to its original position.

Step 3: The RAM

Our motherboard has four slots. We’ll be using slots 1 and 3 (counting from left to right). Your board manual will tell you which slots to use for different RAM configurations (please follow it). Each RAM slot has tabs on either end.

At least one of these can move out of the way to allow RAM installation. Each slot also has a notch that corresponds to a notch on the stick. Line up these notches, and press the stick gently but firmly into the slot until you hear the tab click. You may need to use a see-saw motion to get the stick in.

Step 4: The CPU Cooler (Phase One)

You could use the stock cooler that comes with a retail Intel CPU, but we chose an “aftermarket” variant, the Silverstone AR01, since we want the option to push the CPU beyond its factory settings. This cooler is comparable to a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo. We use the Evo a lot, so we wanted to switch things up a bit.

The backplate installs first. This one has three sets of screw holes. Stand the motherboard on an edge, and rotate the backplate slightly until you can see through four screw holes to the other side of the motherboard.

This backplate will not end up perfectly square, and it may take a minute to line up. The cooler comes with a set of screws that attach on the other side of the board. Each screw also gets a spacer to help prevent damage. Like with the case fan, don’t put the first screw all the way in. Go most of the way, then go diagonally across and do that screw next. Then go most of the way with the third and fourth, then fully tighten all four screws.

Step 5: The CPU Cooler (Phase Two)

You can set the motherboard back down now. The AR01 comes with two sets of brackets—one for AMD CPUs and the other for Intel CPUs—and the manual will show you which to use. Pay close attention to how the brackets’ screw holes are oriented. Basically, you want to be able to draw an invisible “X” over the CPU, using the diagonal line of the bracket’s screw holes as a guide. Now, attach four nuts to the brackets to set them firmly in place. At this point, you’re ready to put thermal paste on top of your CPU. Apply a small pea’s worth, peel the protective plastic off the bottom of the CPU cooler, and set the cooler on top of the CPU.

The AR01 has another bracket that goes underneath the cooler’s radiator fins, connecting the first two brackets to each other.

This third bracket has two bundled screws. As with the case fan and the backplate screws, don’t put the first screw in all the way. Just part way, then attach the other and put it in part way. Alternate between the two until they are tight. Lastly, connect the cooler’s fan to the appropriate connector on the motherboard.

Step 6: The Motherboard

This motherboard comes with an individually packaged I/O shield. The shield does not use any screws. Instead, you just press it into the rectangular hole in the back of the case, and it uses tension to stay put.

You may need to tap a corner or two with the handle of a screwdriver to get the shield to pop in all the way. Now, you can set the motherboard down inside the case. Since the Source 530 has built-in standoff, we don’t need to install those separately. However, you still need to apply some pressure against the I/O shield to get the screw holes on the motherboard to line up with the screw holes in the standoffs. But after one of those screws is in, you can take the pressure off. There are usually nine holes in all. Your case should come with screws sized for motherboards.

Step 7: The Power Supply Unit

In this case, the PSU sits in the bottom. Below is a grill for air intake, so you place the side of the PSU that has the fan on it against this grill. Underneath this case is also a filter to keep dust from getting in. The case comes with four screws that attach the PSU to the back; for easy identification, these screws have hexagonal (sixsided) heads on them.

Our PSU is semi-modular, so its CPU and motherboard power cables are permanently attached, but the other cables are not. From the bag that comes in the retail box, we’ll pull one cable labeled “PCIE” for the video card, and two cables labeled “SATA” for our three storage devices (each SATA power cable has multiple connectors). One end can only plug into the power supply, while the other end is “keyed” to fit into the device. We can feed cables behind the motherboard tray to keep our case presentable. There is a cutout at the top left-hand corner of the motherboard tray to do this with the CPU power cable. You’ll need to remove the case’s other side panel to get behind the mobo. Customarily, it’s secured by two large screws at the back of the case.

Step 8: The Video Card

Counting from the top of the case, we’ll be removing slot covers 2 and 3 from the rear. You may need to temporarily remove slot cover 4 to get enough clearance for the video card’s bracket. Once the card is in the slot, secure its slot bracket with one of the thumbscrews that you just removed. The bracket has both notches and holes. Use a hole for the best results.

Take that PCIE power cable we connected to the power supply earlier and plug the other end into the card (after feeding it behind the motherboard, if you like). This card uses an eight-pin cable, and our cable is “6+2,” meaning that it has two pins that can detach if you only need six pins in total. Like the CPU and motherboard power cables, this one will snap into place when it’s secure. If the connector isn’t going in, try rotating it 180 degrees first, rather than trying to force it.

Step 9: Storage

This case has removable trays that come out from the “far” side. They move when you pinch the tabs sticking out. For a 2.5-inch drive like an SSD, you screw it directly into the tray. Make sure that the drive’s connectors are pointing toward the tabs, to make it easier to attach cables. Your SSD may come with small screws for this purpose. We had some screws bundled with the case that had “brims” on their heads, of two different lengths. We used the longer screws. For 3.5-inch mechanical drives, the tray has preinstalled nubs that snap into where screws would go.

Next, you can feed your SATA power cable from the power supply. You may need to move your drives to different trays to best accommodate the distance between each connector on the cable. Your power supply may also come with multiple SATA power cables that you can experiment with. The connectors on the cable and the drive are slightly “L” shaped, so they can only go in one way. Once those are connected, grab the SATA data cables from your motherboard’s retail box. You’ll usually see a combination of “straight” and “right-angle” cables. Right angles are for tight spots. On our motherboard with Intel’s Z97 chipset, all of its SATA data cable ports (toward the lower left-hand corner) will behave the same, so you can plug into whichever is most convenient. We recommend that you consult your mobo manual for where to install them, but we always prefer the ports from the Intel or AMD chipset.

Step 10: Optical Drive, and Some Wiring

The large drive bays on the front of our case have tabs to help remove their covers. We chose the top-most one, making it easier to reach if the case is on the floor. The side of this drive bay has a latch you pull out before sliding the drive in. Once the front bezel of the drive is flush with the front of the case, you can put the latch back down. No screws are required here. Next, we connect the SATA power and data cables like we did with the SSD and mechanical hard drive.

Last but not least, this motherboard comes with a block of pins that plug into a connector on the lower right-hand corner of the motherboard. This block connects to a set of wires coming from the front of the case that handle the power button, reset button, and activity lights. The negative wire is usually white. This area of the board usually also has a connector for the front panel’s USB 2.0 ports. Our case has only USB 3.0 ports, so we plug that into a USB 3.0 header near the RAM slots. On the lower left-hand corner of the board, you will customarily find the header for the cable that connects your front headphone and microphone jacks to the board. Like the internal USB 2.0 ports, its pin arrangement is designed so that the connector can only go in one way, so check that before plugging in the cable.

 

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Install Windows 8.1

Your box is built, time to use it!

Installing Windows 8.1 is a snap, but for the uninitiated, it can be a scary task. We’ll walk you through the basics of getting an OS onto your drive. And yes, if you bought Windows 7, it’s pretty much the same steps.

If you bought Windows 8.1 from a retailer, you’re likely installing it from a DVD. To get started, just put the disc into the drive and boot your box. If the SSD and hard drive are the first boot devices and completely blank, the system should boot straight to the installer. If you’re recycling an SSD or HDD, the system may try to boot to the old OS. In that case, you’ll need to change the boot order in the UEFI/BIOS (the sort-of operating system equivalent for the hardware itself, which loads before Windows does) to make the CD/DVD the first boot device.

As Windows starts the install, it’ll first ask you for your Product Key. That’s the serial number for this copy of Windows. Mind you, this is for the retail version of Windows. An Enterprise version that you install for a 90-day trial won’t ask for a product key. Input it and press enter. You’ll soon be greeted by a licensing terms screen that you’ll have to agree to. Then, Windows will ask you what type of install you want, an upgrade or custom.

Select Custom, which will bring you to a screen that should show you both drives you can install the OS to. Select your SSD as the target. You can tell it’s the SSD by its smaller capacity.

If you did reuse an older SSD or HDD and don’t want the data, you’ll see all of the partitions to select from in Windows. Since you don’t want that old data (right?) we recommend that you delete all of the previous partitions on the target drive by selecting each partition and pressing the Delete button. We don’t recommend that you ever have any “hot” drives with data you want to keep plugged in during and OS install, to reduce the chances of you wiping your data by accident.

That’s it. Windows will start the install and take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to complete.

Overclocking 101

Because factory settings are for wussies.

Out of the box, our quad-core Intel Core i5-4670K CPU will run at 3.4GHz. But when a task doesn’t need all four cores at once, the chip will engage a “turbo” mode and push to 3.8GHz on one or two cores. These speeds are based on clock multipliers. The CPU has an element called a base clock that runs at 100MHz, and its non-turbo setting multiplies that 34 times to get 3,400MHz, aka 3.4GHz. Our CPU’s name has a “K” at the end, so the clock multiplier is unlocked. We can dive into the BIOS and crank up this multiplier. Motherboards usually also come with performance-tweaking software, but we prefer the fine-tuning available in the BIOS.

And yes, we’ll give the standard disclaimer: Overclocking risks damaging your CPU or motherboard and possibly causing the moon to spin out of orbit, so do this at your own risk. OK, really, it’s not that bad but there are always risks, so go into it with your eyes open.

While the system is starting up, mash the Del key to access the BIOS. (You may need to press a different key, depending on your motherboard.) For our MSI Z97 Gaming 7, we go to the “Overclocking Settings” screen and switch from Simple to Advanced mode. For first-timers, a CPU Ratio of 40 is a safe 4GHz overclock. Press the “+” and “-” keys to adjust the ratio (some motherboards use Page Up and Page Down instead).

 

When we push the multiplier past 42x with this particular CPU, its core voltage needs a boost, too. A setting of 1.3V should be fine, up to 4.4GHz.

We generally don’t recommend pushing your voltage past 1.4V, but everything else is fair game. You may also need to increase the power to the motherboard’s voltage regulator modules (VRMs). In this BIOS, those settings are in the “DigitALL Power” submenu. Each increment raises your OC ceiling, but it also makes the VRMs run hotter, which impacts stability. We’d stick to tweaking just a couple things like Phase Control and Vdroop Offset, one or two increments at the time. If your PC stops booting, you can reset the BIOS itself with a labeled button on the board (the manual has a diagram showing its location).

You can test stability with a free program called Prime95 (http://www.mersenne.org), using its Large FFT torture test, accessible from the Options menu. Do this for at least one hour. Some enthusiasts will go a full 24 hours before they consider their OC stable. For Intel, as long as the chip stays at or below 85 degrees Celsius in Prime95, your temperature is fine. When this CPU hits 90 C, it ordinarily kicks into a lower gear to avoid burning up.

Overall, we were pretty happy with this build. The case has a solid feel to it, though we would move the top exhaust fan to the front as an intake. Built-in motherboard standoffs are a nice bonus, and 4.4GHz is a nice overclock for an air cooler with a single 120mm fan.

At CES in January, Ford threw down its "Smart Mobility Plan" to make transport easier using a combination of cars and electric bikes. Today at MWC, it just revealed the actual "bike" part of that with its "Handle on Mobility" experiment consisting of two employee-designed e-bike prototypes and an app. The foldable MoDe:Me for commuters was built in conjunction with Dahon, while the bigger MoDe:Pro -- built by an in-house team -- is aimed at bike couriers and delivery services. Both come with 200-watt motors and 9-amp-hour batteries that deliver pedal-aided speeds of up to 25 km/h (16 mph). Ford also revealed its iPhone 6-compatible MoDe:Link app that lets you use a combination of cars, trains and e-bikes to commute.

The app is only available on iOS for now, it appears. After you enter your destination, it uses "multimodal" navigation to plan your trip using vehicle, public transportation and bike routes. You can filter by toll or parking cost and the amount of time you want to bike and/or drive. From there, handle-bar grip vibrations notify you to turn, and the app even activates the bike's turn signals automatically.

The bikes can also notify you of overtaking vehicles by vibrating both handlebars thanks to a rear-facing ultrasonic sensor. At the same time, the MoDe:Link app flashes the bike's lights to alert drivers. As for the motors, the electric pedal assist level can be auto-adjusted based on your heart rate, letting you take a break if needed. The whole thing is compatible with Ford's voice-connected BlackBerry-powered Sync system, of course.

Ford has tested e-bikes before, and hasn't said when, or if, it'll turn the concepts into reality. However, it's currently running 25 experiments across the world, including the Handle on Mobility tests, as part of its Smart Mobility project. It also has Info Cycle tests in Palo Alto and Europe to determine how bikes can aid urban transportation. The automaker said the aim is to "connect all of these transport options together... to (help commuters) seamlessly move between cars, buses, trains and e-bikes and react to changing traffic situations." For more, check the video below.

Aaron Souppouris contributed to this report.

Filed under: Transportation

Comments

Source: Ford

 Netflix is said to be working on a new series that uses Nintendo’s beloved ‘Legend of Zelda’ games as their source material. The Wall Street Journal reports that it’s in the early stages of development, and that it will follow the basic premise of familiar hero Link being tasked with rescuing Zelda in the kingdom of Hyrule. This could be the greatest thing ever, or… Read More

While Dan Aykroyd struggled valiantly for years to will a third Ghostbusters movie into existence, fate and Bill Murray’s apathy decided it was not to be. But now a new Ghostbusters is gaining […]

Okay, so at last count World of Warcraft had a Pokémon clone built into it, an in-game web browser of sorts and even a tribute to the late Robin Williams. Now it has another way to distract you as the epic battle between the Horde and Alliance rages on in the background: selfies. Naturally. As our sister site WoW Insider reports, the camera is part of a rare late-game quest in the forthcoming update (6.1 if you're keeping track at home), and there's a follow-up mission that rewards virtual narcissists with a trio of camera filters for the self-aggrandizing new feature. Your toon'll even mug for the camera with duckface or perhaps something a little more charming and less 2009 as you show off that sweet new bit of armor.

WoW Insider also found that Twitter integration's coming as well, but, logging into the microblogging service isn't an option yet so figuring out the particulars of the feature isn't exactly possible right now. Does Twitter play nicely with selfies in meat-space? Unfortunately yes, so it stands to reason that we'll likely see this sort of thing come to the Azeroth's sharing option as well. Here's to hoping "First, let me take a selfie" isn't the new "LEEROY JENKINS" when it comes time to raid in the future.

[Image credit: 4Gamers/WoW Insider]

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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Source: WoW Insider, 4Gamers (translated)

It's 13-feet tall, weighs 5 tons, and requires the operation of multiple interfaces once inside the cockpit. Sounds like very expensive fun.

Best Android games introduction

While the 'free-to-play' market has taken a bit of a beating of late due to gamers falling out of love with the use of in-app payments, the world of mobile gaming is still an exciting one.

Whether you want games that will just last the length of a commute, or want to be lost in a port of GTA where you spend hours mowing down pedestrians and making money out of murder, there is a game on here for you.

This constantly updated list is a mixture of free and paid for games, and also that one in between - some in-app payments honestly aren't really that bad. If by the end you think we have missed something special off of the list, let us know and we will see if it is worthy of inclusion further down the line.

Of course we properly play each game we test - so you can have confidence in our selection.

New: The Room Three (£3.99/$4.99/AU$5.17)

The Room is a series about mysteries within mysteries. It begins with a box. Fiddling with dials and switches causes things to spring to life elsewhere, and you soon find boxes within the boxes, layers unravelling before you; it's the videogame equivalent of Russian dolls meets carpentry, as breathed into life by a crazed inventor.

The Room's curious narrative and fragments of horror coalesce in follow-up The Room Two, which expands the 'boxes' into more varied environments – a séance room; a pirate ship. Movement remains restricted and on rails, but you're afforded a touch more freedom as you navigate your way through a strange clockwork world.

The Room Three is the most expansive of them all, featuring intricate, clever puzzles, as you attempt to free yourself from The Craftsman and his island of deranged traps and trials.

Get all three games, and play them through in order, preferably in a dark room when rain's pouring down outside for best effect. It's a terrifying and - ultimately - infuriating experience that will have you toying with the idea of having to go online for walkthroughs until you finally crack the mystery.

There are some clues, but generally these are very gentle hints at best.

Train Conductor World (free)

You might moan about trains when you're again waiting for a late arrival during your daily commute, but think yourself lucky reality doesn't match Train Conductor World. Here, trains rocket along, often towards nasty head-on collisions. It's your job to drag out temporary bridges to avoid calamity while simultaneously sending each train to its proper destination.

From the off, Train Conductor World is demanding, and before long a kind of 'blink and everything will be smashed to bits' mentality pervades. For a path-finding action-puzzler - Flight Control on tracks, if you will - it's an engaging and exciting experience.

Osmos HD ($2.99/£1.99/AU$2.27)

The developers of Osmos HD call it an 'ambient arcade game'. It's a strange description, but apt, since Osmos is often about patience and subtlety. You guide a 'mote', which moves by expelling tiny pieces of itself. Seemingly floating in microscopic goop, it aims to munch motes smaller than itself, expand, and reign supreme.

This is easy enough when other motes don't fight back, but soon enough you're immersed in a kind of petri dish warfare, desperately trying to survive as various motes tear whatever amounts to each-other's faces off.

And then occasionally Osmos throws a further curveball, pitting you against the opposite extreme in scale, dealing with gravity and orbits as planet-like motes speed their way around deadly floating 'stars'.

Her Story ($2.99/£2.69/AU$3.99)

In Her Story, you find yourself facing a creaky computer terminal with software designed by a sadist. It soon becomes clear the so-called L.O.G.I.C. database houses police interviews of a woman charged with murder.

But the tape's been hacked to bits and is accessible only by keywords; 'helpfully', the system only displays five search results at once.

Naturally, these contrivances exist to force you to play detective, eking out clues from video snippets to work out what to search for next, slowly piecing together the mystery in your brain.

A unique and captivating experience, Her Story will keep even the most remotely curious Android gamer gripped until the enigma is solved.

Snakebird ($4.71/£3.74/AU$6.44)

You probably need to be a bit of a masochist to get the most out of Snakebird, which is one of the most brain-smashingly devious puzzlers we've ever set eyes on. It doesn't really look or sound the part, frankly - all vibrant colors and strange cartoon 'snakebirds' that make odd noises.

But the claustrophobic floating islands the birds must crawl through, supporting each other (often literally) in their quest for fruit, are designed very precisely to make you think you've got a way forward, only to thwart you time and time again.

The result is a surprisingly arduous game, but one that's hugely rewarding when you crack a particularly tough level, at which point you'll (probably rightly) consider yourself some kind of gaming genius.

Warp Shift ($2.99/£2.99/AU$3.28)

There's something of a children's animation vibe about Warp Shift, with expressive Pixar-like protagonist Pi floating about brightly colored boxes, aiming to find an exit that will take her a step closer to home.

At first, it's a bit too simple. You slide boxes, tap to make Pi scoot about, and sit there smugly, wrinkling your nose at how easy it all is.

But Warp Shift gradually starts clobbering you with additional tests: colored doors that must be lined up; a cuboid chum to rescue and lob at the exit; switches; move limits to attain enough stars to unlock subsequent stages.

The mix of enchanting visuals, familiar mechanics and gently stiffening challenges proves stimulating and captivating.

Rush Rally 2 ($3.49/£2.99)

You initially get the feeling Rush Rally 2 is treading a fine line, unsure whether to steer towards being an arcade game or a simulator. It certainly lacks the demented rocket-like speeds of an Asphalt 8, but Rush Rally 2's more measured gameplay nonetheless gradually reveals a sense of fun.

Sure, the standard rally mode can be sedate, although the game's nonetheless happy to frequently catapult your car up a hillside when you mess up a turn. And then there are weird missions, such as dodging missiles as you negotiate hairpin bends (Colin McRae never had to deal with such things.)

But when belting along in Rally Cross mode, Rush Rally 2 suddenly clicks. You'll use other cars as brakes and spin off into the gravel, before gunning the engine and blazing back into the thick of it. Even then, this racer's a more challenging and thoughtful affair than most, but it's just as gleefully exciting when you're bombing down the final straight, and take the chequered flag by fractions of a second.

Captain Cowboy ($1.86/£1.54)

It's always the way: you're minding your own business when - BOOM! - you're suddenly propelled into a gargantuan space maze. At least it's the way if you're Captain Cowboy. This smart arcade title comes across like seminal classic Boulder Dash in space. You dig through dirt, grab diamonds, and avoid being crushed by boulders within the asteroid.

There are also floaty space bits, nasty space laser turrets, space bus stops and a space disco. At least, we're told that's the case, because we've never found the last of those things; but we'll keep trying, because Captain Cowboy is superb.

(The trailer is also one of the best we've seen, so watch it and then buy the game.)

FOTONICA (US$2.99/£2.22)

One of the most gorgeous games around, FOTONICA at its core echoes one-thumb leapy game Canabalt. The difference is FOTONICA has you move through a surreal and delicate Rez-like 3D vector landscape, holding the screen to gain speed, and only soaring into the air when you lift a finger.

Smartly, FOTONICA offers eight very different and finite challenges, enabling you to learn their various multi-level pathways and seek out bonuses to ramp up your high scores. Get to grips with this dreamlike runner and you can then pit your wits (and thumbs) against three slowly mutating endless zones.

Touchgrind Skate 2 (free + IAP)

You might narrow your eyes at so-called 'realism' in mobile sports titles, given that this usually means 'a game that looks a bit like when you watch telly'. But Touchgrind Skate 2 somehow manages to evoke the feel of skateboarding, your fingers becoming tiny legs that urge the board about the screen.

There's a lot going on in Touchgrind Skate 2, and the control system is responsive and intricate, enabling you to perform all manner of tricks. It's not the most immediate of titles - you really need to not only run through the tutorial but fully master and memorize each step before moving on.

Get to grips with your miniature skateboard and you'll find one of the most fluid and rewarding experiences on mobile. Note that for free you get one park to scoot about in, but others are available via IAP.

Leo's Fortune (US$4.99/£4.99)

The bar's set so low in modern mobile gaming that the word 'premium' has become almost meaningless. But Leo's Fortune bucks the trend, and truly deserves the term. It's a somewhat old-school side-on platform game, featuring a gruff furball hunting down the thief who stole his gold (and then, as is always the way, dropped coins at precise, regular intervals along a lengthy, perilous pathway).

The game is visually stunning, from the protagonist's animation through to the lush, varied backdrops. The game also frequently shakes things up, varying its pace from Sonic-style loops to precise pixel-perfect leaps.

It at times perhaps pushes you a bit too far — late on, we found some sections a bit too finicky and demanding. But you can have as many cracks at a section as you please, and if you master the entire thing, there's a hardcore speedrun mode that challenges you to complete the entire journey without dying.

NO THING (US$1.99/£1.99/AU$2.99)

We're not sure what's going on in NO THING, but it doesn't look good for anyone living in its strange world. Apparently set in both 1994 and the future, this 'surreal arcade trip' has you attempting to deliver an important message to the Queen of Ice.

Getting to her involves staying on pathways that weave their way through abstract and fragmented landscapes comprising office furniture, tower blocks and blank-faced people.

It's all unsettling and the weirdness is matched by a kind of brutality rarely seen outside of the sharp lines of Super Hexagon.

Even early levels are merciless, punishing a single slip up, and forcing you back to the start. This can be hugely frustrating, but perseverance reaps rewards, not only in bludgeoning your way through NO THING's ten levels, but also in finding out a little more about this fascinating digital dystopia.

Dreii (US$3.99/£3.14/AU$5.59)

Most online play pits you against other people, but Dreii is all about cooperation. The aim is to build structures from geometric shapes, having them reach a pre-defined point for a set period of time, whereupon you can move on to the next task.

That sounds deathly dull, but Dreii's many quirks transform a basic building blocks game into a mesmerizing experience. First, your character is a strange patterned levitating creature, which grabs shapes with a fragile tether. On early levels, controlling everything is tough enough, but when you have to carefully stack shapes and battle gales and water, Dreii becomes a hugely challenging experience.

The online component is a slice of genius. Hang around a level for a short while and someone else will likely drop in to lend a hand. Communication is limited to just a few stock words, but you'll soon form your own language with your temporary friends.

You can then wiggle your levitating beast to try and get across that you're thrilled at completing a particularly fiendish task or frustrated that a sausage-fingered buffoon has just demolished a carefully constructed tower.

Forget-Me-Not (US$2.99/£1.99/AU$3.99)

At its core, Forget-Me-Not is Pac-Man mixed with Rogue. You scoot about algorithmically generated single-screen mazes, gobbling down flowers, grabbing a key, and then making a break for the exit.

But what makes Forget-Me-Not essential is how alive its tiny dungeons feel. Your enemies don't just gun for you, but are also out to obliterate each other and, frequently, the walls of the dungeon, reshaping it as you play.

There are tons of superb details to find buried within the game's many modes, and cheapskates can even get on board with the free version, although that locks much of its content away until you've munched enough flowers.

If there was any justice, Forget-Me-Not would have a permanent place at the top of the Google Play charts. It is one of the finest arcade experiences around, not just on Android, but on any platform - old or new.

Lifeline (US$1.99/£1.64/AU$2.73)

One thing we didn't see coming was the resurgence of the text adventure on mobile devices. But Lifeline is even simpler than the likes of Infocom's early 1980's classic Zork, mechanically being little more than a branching Choose Your Own Adventure narrative.

But the way it's executed propels it into must-have territory. Lifeline begins with a plea for help, and you're soon drawn into a tale of desperate survival, with your choices dictating whether a stranded astronaut will live or die.

Great writing soon has you wrapped up in the story, and clever use of time makes everything feel all the more real. For example, you may leave your remote friend to trek across a massive crater. In a typical game, you'd immediately discover how they got on; here, they might respond hours later, or, more ominously, not at all.

Last Horizon (US$2.99/£2.36/AU$4.20)

Giving you a sense of the emptiness and vastness of space, and the risks in exploring the void, isn't easy for a bite-sized survival game, but Last Horizon somehow succeeds.

The idea is to leave your broken world behind, roam the galaxy in your rocket, and 'harvest' living worlds. Doing so loads information into your terraforming kit, for when you reach your destination.

During your journey you battle massive suns, asteroids, black holes, alien lifeforms, and lots of gravity. This is simple fare - more Lunar Lander than EVE Online - but it has a great sense of atmosphere. And although repeating the first three flights can be a little tiresome if you keep dying (hint: be more patient), Flight X mode's procedurally generated maps provide great replay value.

Horizon Chase (free + IAP)

If you're fed up with racing games paying more attention to whether the tarmac looks photorealistic rather than how much fun it should be to zoom along at insane speeds, check out Horizon Chase. This tribute to old-school arcade titles is all about the sheer joy of racing, rather than boring realism.

The visuals are vibrant, the soundtrack is jolly and cheesy, and the racing finds you constantly battling your way to the front of an aggressive pack.

If you fondly recall Lotus Turbo Esprit Challenge and Top Gear, don't miss this one. (Note that Horizon Chase gives you five tracks for free. To unlock the rest, there's a single £2.29/US$2.99 IAP.)

I Am Level (US$2.41, £1.49, AU$2.59)

Old-school 8-bit platformers just don't work on touchscreens, due to pixel-perfect gameplay that demands tight, tactile controls. I Am Level's genius is in fusing the core elements of such games (Spectrum-style graphics, single-screen puzzle-oriented challenges, and an explorable map) with modern mobile thinking.

Thus, each of your efforts builds on the previous one, and your rotund avatar gets about by you tilting your device or pinging him across the screen using springs and flippers. It's essentially Jet Set Willy meets pinball and it's fantastic.

Sadly, developer Stewart Hogarth passed away in 2015, at the far too young age of 34. So snap this one up before it vanishes forever, and play a few games in tribute of a talented games creator.

Egz (US$3.99, £3.75, AU$6.18)

Apparently many millions of years before angry birds existed there were jovial Egz, emerging from Earth's primordial soup and jumping about like idiots. Sadly for the Egz, everything else wants to smash them to bits. Cue a fast-paced platform game/fling 'em up where you guide your Egz from starting point to goal, trying to avoid getting cracked.

Egz has some great level design, and keeps adding new ideas as you progress, such as zip-lines to slide along, bubbles to float you into the air, and bouncy surfaces to hurl an Egz against.

An XP system used to power-up an Egz or bring back a dead one is a bit harsh, but forces you to take care and think about what you're doing rather than just hurling Egz about without a care.

(A top tip: if you do find yourself needing to resurrect an Egz, hatch a new one and use the three built-in mini-games to relatively quickly get the XP required.)

Lost in Harmony (free + IAP)

Some games have a kind of razor-sharp focus, but Lost in Harmony is very much the other kind — a sort-of endearing mess that somehow comes together the more you play, to the point you won't want to put it down.

Ambitiously (and perhaps foolishly), it attempts to marry endless runners and Ouendan-style rhythm action, often at the same time. Underpinning everything is a heartfelt story about two friends, and their journeys through some eye-popping dream-like environments.

As the skateboarding hero zooms into the screen, friend clinging to his back, the scenery periodically warps and folds, revealing all manner of craziness, from futuristic Manga-style cities to Tetris blocks whizzing by. It might feel disjointed at times, but stick with Lost in Harmony and you'll be rewarded.

(Note: this game is a free download, with a £2.99/$3.99 IAP then required to access the full storyline.)

Lost Journey (50p, US$0.99, AU$0.99)

The shard's of Jennifer's memories are scattered about the world of Lost Journey, and it's up to you to collect them, largely by bounding about platforms in small puzzle-oriented levels that are not that much bigger than the screen. The twist — or, more accurately, flip — is that you can invert the level at any point. On doing so, pits become hills, giving you the means to reach previously inaccessible places.

Anyone looking for speedy Mario-style larks might find Lost Journey's take on platforming rather sedate. But if you're keen on more thoughtful platform fare, it's a very good buy; and the atmospherics and visuals certainly make for an aesthetically pleasurable time as you try to help Jennifer find her lost self.

Power Hover (free + IAP)

There's a great sense of freedom from the second you immerse yourself in the strange and futuristic world of Power Hover. The robot protagonist has been charged with pursuing a thief who's stolen batteries that power the city.

The droid therefore grabs a hoverboard and scythes across gorgeous minimal landscapes, such as deserts filled with colossal marching automatons, glittering blue oceans, and a dead grey human city.

In lesser hands, Power Hover could have been utterly forgettable. After all, you're basically tapping left and right to change the direction of a hoverboard, in order to collect batteries and avoid obstacles. But the production values here are stunning.

Power Hover is a visual treat, boasts a fantastic soundtrack, and gives mere hints of a story, enabling your imagination to run wild. Best of all, the floaty controls are perfect; you might fight them at first, but once they click, Power Hover becomes a hugely rewarding experience.

(On Android, Power Hover is a free download; to play beyond the first eight levels requires a single £2.29/$2.99 IAP.)

A Good Snowman (£3.99, US$4.99, AU$6.99)

It turns out what makes a good snowman is three very precisely rolled balls of snow stacked on top of each other. And that's the core of this adorable puzzle game, which has more than a few hints of Towers of Hanoi and Sokoban about it as your little monster goes about building icy friends to hug.

What sets A Good Snowman apart from its many puzzle-game contemporaries on Android is a truly premium nature. You feel that the developer went to great efforts to polish every aspect of the production, from the wonderful animation to puzzles that grow in complexity and deviousness, without you really noticing — until you get stuck on a particularly ferocious one several hours in.

Doug Dug (83p, US$0.99, AU$1.39)

This one's all about the bling - and also the not being crushed to death by falling rocks and dirt. Doug Dug riffs off of Mr Driller, Boulder Dash and Dig Dug, the dwarf protagonist digging deep under the earth on an endless quest for shimmering gems. Cave-ins aren't the only threat, though - the bowels of the earth happen to be home to a surprising array of deadly monsters.

Some can be squashed and smacked with Doug's spade (goodbye, creepy spider!), but others are made of sterner stuff (TROLL! RUN AWAY!). Endlessly replayable and full of character, Doug Dug's also surprisingly relaxing - until the dwarf ends up under 150 tonnes of rubble.

Pinball Arcade (free + IAP)

There are plenty of great pinball games for Android, but Pinball Arcade is a bit different. Rather than reworking an old PC hit or going nuts with animatronics and effects that simply wouldn't work in the real world, this app seeks to become a fully playable digital museum - essentially (legal) MAME for pinball.

You get Tales of the Arabian Nights for free, and one other table is regularly unlocked for unlimited play. They all look superb and work especially well on 7-inch tablets and above. Importantly, the tables also play like the real thing, whether you grab old-school classic Black Hole, the creepy and weird Bride of Pin•Bot, or more modern fare like The Addams Family.

Kill the Plumber (£2.32, US$2.99, AU$4.10)

If you ever thought a certain videogame plumber could do with a taste of his own medicine, Kill the Plumber should appeal. Across dozens of single-screen levels, you control knock-off Goombas, Thwomps and Boos, trying to stop fake-Mario reaching the flag. There's a distinctly indie - sometimes slightly clunky - feel to proceedings, but Kill the Plumber pleasingly keeps things fresh throughout, regularly shaking up its puzzles and the wee critters you use to duff up the so-called hero.

Occasionally, things get a bit demanding from a precision standpoint, but it's rewarding to crack a particularly tough level. Android owners also get one-up on iOS fans, with the proper characters as originally designed by the developer and not watered-down replacements to appease Cupertino-based censors.

You Must Build a Boat (£2.29, US$2.99, AU$4.49)

This is one of those 'rub your stomach, pat your head' titles that has you play two games at once. At the top of the screen, it's an endless runner, with your little bloke battling all manner of monsters, and pilfering loot. The rest of the display houses what's essentially a Bejeweled-style gem-swapper. The key is in matching items so that the running bit goes well - like five swords when you want to get all stabby.

Also, there's the building a boat bit. Once a run ends, you return to your watery home, which gradually acquires new rooms and residents. Some merely power up your next sprint, but others help you amass powerful weaponry. Resolutely indie and hugely compelling, You Must Build a Boat will keep you busily swiping for hours.

Blown Away: First Try (free demo + IAP unlock)

Poor Hendrik: an ill wind blew away his brand-new house and his hair, and the only thing he has left is a pair of teleporting shoes. You must find the scattered remains of his home, along with uncovering the mystery of the wind. This means using the power of a single digit to teleport your way through 120 levels set across four different worlds.

Yes, we're in one-thumb platform-game territory again, but Blown Away's elegant teleport mechanic (essentially, tap where you want to go) feels fresh and exciting. Each level is a carefully crafted puzzle to solve, requiring precision movement and timing as you teleport about and quickly recharge your shoes' batteries by marching along for a bit. Note that you get 30 stages for free, and can buy the rest of the game with a single $2.49/£2.14 IAP.

The Executive (£2.41, US$2.99, AU$4.10)

If you're having a bad day at the office, spare a thought for the CEO in The Executive. He's just watched his employees transform into werewolves, and now it's his job to save the world from their dastardly schemes.

Having apparently been to CEO Fight Club, he's fortunately well-versed in beating up scary creatures, and so he zooms about 120 quickfire levels, kicking werewolves in the face, leaping from floor to floor, and pausing only to invest in a mining company that over time rewards the world's most punchy businessman with new skills. It's all utterly ludicrous, but loads of fun.

Pro Pinball (£2.49, US$2.99, AU$3.99)

If you're of a certain age, the words 'Pro Pinball' will bring a huge grin to your face. In the 1990s, it was the pinball simulation series for your PC, featuring amazing physics, great table designs, and stunning visuals.

Pro Pinball for Android is a remastered take on Timeshock!, bringing the original table bang up to date with high-quality graphics and lighting, touchscreen controls, and a top-notch soundtrack. It still plays wonderfully, and we can only hope loads of people buy it, enabling the developer to bring other Pro Pinball tables to mobile.

Limbo (£3.88, US$4.99, AU$6.85)

The term 'masterpiece' is perhaps bandied about too often in gaming circles, but Limbo undoubtedly deserves such high praise. It features a boy picking his way through a creepy monochrome world, looking for his sister. At its core, Limbo is a fairly simple platform game with a smattering of puzzles, but its stark visuals, eerie ambience, and superb level design transforms it into something else entirely.

You'll get a chill the first time a chittering figure sneaks off in the distance, and your heart will pump when being chased by a giant arachnid, intent on spearing your tiny frame with one of its colossal spiked legs. That death is never the end — each scene can be played unlimited times until you progress — only adds to Limbo's disturbing nature.

ALONE... (£1.49, US$1.99, $2.63)

People who today play mobile classic Canabalt and consider it lacking due to its simplicity don't understand what the game is trying to do. Canabalt is all about speed — the thrill of being barely in control, and of affording the player only the simplest controls for survival. ALONE… takes that basic premise and straps a rocket booster to it.

Instead of leaping between buildings, you're flying through deadly caverns, a single digit nudging your tiny craft up and down. Occasional moments of generosity — warnings about incoming projectiles; your ship surviving minor collisions and slowly regenerating — are offset by the relentlessly demanding pressure of simply staying alive and not slamming into a wall. It's an intoxicating combination, and one that, unlike most games in this genre, matches Canabalt in being genuinely exciting to play.

Framed (£2.49, US$2.15, AU$3.23)

From a gaming perspective, the most important aspect of touchscreen devices is that they give you new ways to play, but relatively few developers take full advantage, instead choosing to ape traditional controls. Framed is an exception, flinging you headlong into an animated comic of sorts. Your aim is to improve the fortunes of a spy, fleeing from the cops — and worse.

Panels are dragged about and rotated, and new ideas regularly appear, including you having to carefully shift scenes on the page at exactly the right moment. This is a stylish and finite affair that ends before it gets old, leaving you satisfied but nonetheless hoping for more.

Angry Birds Space (free)

Developer Rovio has done quite a lot of aggressive whoring of the Angry Birds franchise, but this space-based fork of the simplistic physics game series is really worth a try.

For one, it introduces some new play concepts, with the planet-based levels requiring different tactics, plus the puzzles generally need a bit more of a thoughtful approach than the chuck-it-and-see of the originals.

Badland (free)

Has a bit of an 'indie' vibe about it this one, with Badland offering a weird, dark and gloomy world, in which you fly about in control of a… blob thing.

Your blob gets bigger and smaller, splits into loads of mini clones, and generally baffles you about what might lie around the next corner. We like a bit of a surprise, and this is full of them.

Prune (£2.99, US$3.99, AU$5.53)

It's not often you see a game about the "joy of cultivation", and Prune is unlike anything you've ever played before. Apparently evolving from an experimental tree-generation script, the game has you swipe to shape and grow a plant towards sunlight by tactically cutting off specific branches.

That sounds easy, but the trees, shrubs and weeds in Prune don't hang around. When they're growing at speed and you find yourself faced with poisonous red orbs to avoid, or structures that damage fragile branches, you'll be swiping in a frantic race towards sunlight.

And all it takes is one dodgy swipe from a sausage finger to see your carefully managed plant very suddenly find itself being sliced in two.

Monument Valley (£2.99, US$3.99, AU$4.90)

A very, very pretty game, this. Monument Valley is based around the weird sort of impossible geometric shapes popularised by artist M. C. Escher, with its colourful maps bending and rotating in ways that appear to defy the laws of nature. You walk on walls, flip them, turn them into floors, avoid crows and marvel at how beautiful it all looks.

It's a short journey, but a joyful one. If you hanker for more when protagonist Ida's quest is complete, further adventures are available via IAP.

PewPew (free)

The developer calls this a "multidirectional shoot 'em up" presumably because describing it as a "Geometry Wars clone" might have got him in a bit of legal trouble.

Regardless of its origin, it's a superb shooter with some bizarre game modes and controls that work exceptionally well on touch devices.

Modern Combat 5: Blackout (free + IAP)

We get moaned at a lot for putting too many silly, quirky little games about shapes and animals and organising letters of the alphabet in this list. So here's one about men with guns shooting each other in 3D.

Modern Combat 5, the latest in Gameloft's mobile homage to grown-up home console FPS franchises, in which you gun about the place alone or in online multiplayer matches.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft (free)

If you're not already familiar with Blizzard's Hearthstone then consider this a warning: it gets very, very addictive. A card game from the makers of World of Warcraft, Hearthstone sees you building decks from won or purchased cards to then battle against friends and strangers.

It's a surprisingly complex game that demands meticulous strategy. You can play and enjoy without paying a penny, but there are options to buy booster packs and add-on quests should you want to.

Whale Trail Frenzy (free)

No one dies of disease in Whale Trail. It's a sweet flying sim, which sees you float about in the clouds having a lovely time, collecting things, boosting and generally being quite happy about it. The cheery vibe is broken a bit when adverts and in-app purchase requests pop up, but it's happy enough before the money men turn up.

Thomas Was Alone (£1.49, US$1.99, AU$9.99)

One of the PC "indie" world's big name smashes has arrived on Android, with the existential platform game yours to... enjoy. Or at least attempt to understand. You could call Thomas Was Alone a "platform game" if you wanted to be mean and disrespectful, but it's more about offering an atmospheric and thoughtful journey through an abstract world.

A bit like a piece of art, but let's not get into that debate here. I'm not being paid by the word.

Bad Piggies (free)

Angry Birds maker Rovio proves it's not a one-trick bird-pony with this, a bizarre and quirky physics game. You have a toolbox at your disposal, used to build a flying and/or driving machine, which then has to trundle its way through a level. It's silly, but at least attempts to shove out some new ideas rather than just flinging birds around.

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions (£6.99/US$9.99/AU$6.47)

This is the good stuff. So many mobile games make the claim of being console-quality, but Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions is a rare title that fully delivers. Like its predecessors, this is a twin-stick shooter, a fight for survival against waves of deadly neon foes.

But as its name alludes to, Dimensions dispenses with flat arenas, instead wrapping play areas around geometric shapes. It's disorienting as a cube in space you're traversing lurches about, and exhilarating as you barely avoid the legions of ships lurking beyond an edge.

With 15 grids and 12 modes, along with an extensive single-player quest, Dimensions easily manages to be the finest game of its kind on mobile.

Radiant Defense (free)

The tower defense genre is heaving on Android, thanks to the poke and press play mechanics being ideally suited to touchscreen play. Radiant Defense is a great example of the simplified strategy concept, presenting its war action in a futuristic neon style that looks awesome on any phone with the grunt to do it justice.

Pocket League Story 2 (free)

Kariosoft's made a big thing for itself by using its management style of game across various scenarios, with this sporting event being one of the best. You take control of a club, then stress about signings, money, tactics and more.

It's slightly robbed of some fun via a desire to use in-app purchases to squeeze money out of players, ironically mirroring the state of the game it takes inspiration from.

80 Days (£3, US$5, AU$5.50)

Of all the attempts to play with the conventions of novels and story-led gaming on mobile, 80 Days is the most fun. It takes place in an 1872 with a decidedly steampunk twist, but where Phileas Fogg remains the same old braggart. As his trusty valet, you must help Fogg make good on a wager to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. This involves managing/trading belongings and carefully selecting routes.

Mostly, though, interaction comes by way of a pacey, frequently exciting branched narrative, like a Choose Your Own Adventure book on fast-forward.

A late-2015 content update added 150,000 words, two new plots and 30 cities to an adventure that already boasted plenty of replay value — not least when you've experienced the joys of underwater trains and colossal mechanical elephants in India, and wonder what other marvels await discovery in this world of wonders.

Tiny Thief (free)

As accessible as it is charming, Tiny Thief is a perfect fit for mobile, with a simple tap used to both move and interact with objects as you navigate increasingly intricate levels trying to complete objectives (which as the name suggests usually involve stealing things), while staying hidden and solving puzzles.

The gameplay might be simple but the humour and imagination should keep a smile on your face for the duration. Better yet, you can play half the game for free...though the remaining levels will cost you.

Lara Croft GO (£3.99, US$4.99, AU$6.49).

Lara Croft games have landed on Android to rather variable results. The original Tomb Raider just doesn't work on touchscreens, and although Lara Croft: Relic Run is enjoyable enough, it's essentially a reskinned Temple Run.

Lara Croft GO is far more ambitious and seriously impressive. It rethinks Tomb Raider in much the same way Hitman GO reimagined the Hitman series.

Croft's adventures become turn-based puzzles, set in a world half-way between board game and gorgeous isometric minimalism. It shouldn't really work, but somehow Lara Croft GO feels like a Tomb Raider game, not least because of the wonderful sense of atmosphere, regular moments of tension, and superb level design.

Cut the Rope: Time Travel (free)

The weird little physics game is one of Android's most popular franchises, with this update introducing a few new tricks and weapons. It's the same sort of experience as its earlier chapters, though, with players swinging ropes to throw sweeties around its colourful screens. Masses of levels and a mid-to-high fun level.

Piloteer (83p, US$0.99, AU$1.35)

Piloteer teaches you to be careful what you wish for. If you thought a cool future would be blasting about on a jetpack, be mindful of the heroine of this game, who spends most of her time crashing head-first into the scenery.

To be fair, her jetpack controls are more than a touch twitchy, which combined with the ragdoll physics may well make you want to send your device for a quick flying lesson itself. But perseverance reaps rewards as you gain at least some modicum of control. Seldom will you have been so excited about making a gaming character take off and successfully land a few steps to the right.

HoPiKo (£1.49, US$1.99, AU$4.99)

If you've played Laser Dog's previous efforts, PUK and ALONE…, you'll know what you're in for with HoPiKo. This game takes no prisoners. If it did take them, it'd repeatedly punch them in the face before casually discarding them. HoPiKo, then, is not a game to be messed with. Instead, it feels more like a fight. In each of the dozens of hand-crafted tiny levels, you leap from platform to platform via deft drags and taps, attempting to avoid death.

Only, death is everywhere and very easy to meet. The five-stage level sets are designed to be completed in mere seconds, but also to break your brain and trouble your fingers. It's just on the right side of hellishly frustrating, meaning you'll stop short of flinging your device at the wall, emerging from your temporary red rage foolishly determined that you can in fact beat the game on your next go.

Re-Volt 2: Multiplayer (free)

Old-ish people who played the original Re-Volt race series on the games hardware of yesteryear will be bang up for this, even though it looks a little rough around the edges. Re-Volt 2: Multiplayer is a refresh of the radio-controlled car racer, now updated with multiplayer options for the sociable modern player. Free to download and get going, with only some unlockables masked by an in-app purchase requirement.

Spaceteam (free)

This is bonkers. Spaceteam uses the Android hardware to the max to build a properly innovative multiplayer-only game, where between two and four players come together to shout exciting space terminology at each other while battling the control panel of an exploding ship. It's very silly, like something that only came out on the Wii in Japan.

Toast Time (£2.29, US$2.99, AU$1.28)

If it needs pigeon-holing, Toast Time is best described as a combat platform game. Thing is, you're only a toaster, and your weapon is… toast. So it's sort of a toast-based physics simulation as well, with the kickback from the toast knocking the toaster around the screen and requiring constant compensation. Because there's a clock that needs protecting and… it's best you play it. It's good.

Ridiculous Fishing (£1.99, US$2.99, AU$3.68)

Quite possibly one of the best uses of the mobile phone accelerometer tech there's ever been, this, with motion control sending your fishing line down to the depths of the sea while you avoid fish. Then, on the way up, it's how you catch them. That's when it goes ridiculous, as the fisherman chucks them up in the air - and you shoot them to bank the money. Silly, but a must play.

Super Hexagon (£1.99, US$2.99, AU$3.68)

Another mobile classic. Super Hexagon has two controls -- rotate left and rotate right. That's all you need to navigate the endless maze that spins out of the screen, in one of the mobile world's hardest, coolest, best-sounding and most moreish games. We order you to buy it. You literally have to.

Threes! (£2.39, US$2.99, AU$2.40)

The sort of silly maths game you might've played in your head before mobile phones emerged to absorb all our thought processes, Threes! really does take less than 30 seconds to learn.

You bash numbers about until they form multiples of three and disappear. That's it. There are stacks of free clones available, but if you won't spare the price of one massive bar of chocolate to pay for a lovely little game like this that'll amuse you for week, you're part of the problem and deserve to rot in a freemium hell where it costs 50p to do a wee.

Minecraft Pocket Edition (£4.99, US$6.99,AU$9.25)

The build 'em up phenomenon works brilliantly well on Android, thanks to the creator of the desktop original taking the time to do it justice.

It's a slimmed down interface you see here with on-screen buttons, but the basics are all in and the Survival and Creative modes are ready for play -- as is multiplayer mode over Wi-Fi.

Heroes of Loot (£3.99, US$3.99, AU$3.30)

The entire back catalogue of solo indie creator OrangePixel is worth exploring, but his latest is the best yet. It's a stylish 2D dungeon explorer, with masses of quests, classes and secret areas to unlock. Plus it supports a wide range of Bluetooth controllers for easier play if you've got a compatible lump of buttoned plastic.

Flight Control (78p, US$0.99, AU$1.20)

An exciting new genre all of its own when it appeared, Flight Control created the world of the top-down air traffic control simulator. Literally three million times more exciting than it sounds, it's played by swiping 2D aeroplanes into runway landing slots, avoiding collisions and scoring for successful landings. Perfectly suited to touchscreen play.

Pac-Man CE DX (£4.07, US$4.99, AU$4.99).

Since Pac-Man graced arcades in the early 1980s, titles featuring the rotund dot-muncher have typically been split between careful iterations on the original, and mostly duff attempts to shoe-horn the character into other genres. CE DX is ostensibly the former, although the changes made from the original radically transform the game, making it easily the best Pac-Man to date.

Here, the maze is split in two. Eat all the dots from one half and a special object appears on the other; eat that and the original half's dots are refilled in a new configuration.

All the while, dozing ghosts you brush past join a spectral conga that follows your every move. The result is an intoxicating speedrun take on a seminal arcade classic, combined with the even more ancient Snake; somehow, this combination ends up being fresh, exciting and essential.

Game Dev Story (£1.60, US$2.50, AU$3.00)

The "Story" that started Kairosoft's domination of the simplistic business world sim, Game Dev Story sees you take charge of a software house and attempt to create a smash game. The sweet pixel-art characters then battle with the complexities of design and the stresses of arbitrary internet reviews from people who haven't even played it (ahem), in the pursuit of a money-making smash.

Raiden Legacy (£4.21, US$4.99, AU$10.00)

Quite possibly the greatest 2D shoot 'em up of all time, the Android conversion of Raiden is every bit as impressive as the original. A choice of control schemes, display and difficulty settings make it a little more manageable on touchscreens, plus, seeing as this is the Legacy edition, you get Raiden, Raiden Fighters, Raiden Fighters 2 and Raiden Fighters Jet.

Fallout Shelter (free)

After making a splash on iOS, Fallout Shelter is now available on Android for all you Wasteland nuts. Create a vault and fill it with post-nuclear-war survivors, expanding your underground property, levelling up your dwellers, and sending them out to explore the surface left behind.

Canabalt HD (£2.39, US$2.99, AU$3.68)

The game that kickstarted the endless runner genre on mobile, Canabalt is far simpler than many of its contemporaries, but therein lies its genius. Canabalt is refined and focused: it's all about running, jumping and surviving — at speed. And that last bit's what few people realise — Canabalt has always been about flying along at breakneck pace, getting through scrapes by the skin of your teeth, adrenaline pumping all the while.

Another World (£3, US$3.99, AU$3.49)

The classic 2D puzzle platformer that wowed the simpler folk of the 1990s with the very occasional bit of 3D, has arrived in perfect form on Android. This 20th anniversary edition has the original graphics plus the option of an HD refresh, but what's really about is getting to play one of gaming's most loved classics. On your phone. For a few quid. Madness.

GTA Vice City (£3.99, US$4.28, AU$5.53)

Seem to remember people thought this was quite good. For the price of a drink you can own one of the largest and most highly-rated video games of all time, to pop in and out of on your mobile phone. On-screen controls are never going to suit a game like this, but they are at least fully customisable - so you can get it how you like it.

Terraria (£3.99, US$4.99, AU$5.70)

Sort of a Minecraft… platform… puzzle 'em up, Terraria players dig and mine and fight their way through randomly generated worlds. Resources make weapons and houses, weapons and houses mean you stay alive, plus there's Wi-Fi multiplayer support that has it nearing parity with the version sold on desktops.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (£2.33, US$2.99, AU$3.68)

Not the easiest thing to play using on-screen buttons, but the fact this exists at all is a marvel. It's also a glorious conversion, with Sega finally taking the time to do the best Sonic justice.

It's been remastered into widescreen and supports a wide range of Bluetooth controllers so, even if you don't yet own one, you'll be able to enjoy it fully when you eventually do.

Scribblenauts Remix (£0.64, US$0.99)

The 3DS game made its way to mobile some time ago with Scribblenauts Remix, and was later joined by Scribblenauts Unlimited. Remix, however, comes at a lower price, making it a perfect entry point for newcomers. The premise is this: think of something, type it into the text editor, and there's a good chance it will appear.

Scribbnauts is half platformer, half dictionary, and it's up to your imagination to solve a series of puzzles.

Colin McRae Rally (£1.49, US$1.99, AU$2.80)

Cars. Cars going round corners and sometimes down straight bits. That's what you get here, in this nice looking recreation of the old PlayStation race favourite. On Android, Colin McRae lets users race four cars including Colin's classic Ford Focus, cars you get to smash around 30 separate race stages. Based on the beloved Colin McRae Rally 2.0 from the PS2, you really can't go wrong.

Broken Sword: Director's Cut (£3.99/US$4.99/AU$6.58)

This cult classic from an earlier wave of the big home consoles has been converted beautifully to Android, capturing the slightly odd and amusing adventure perfectly - and with an interface that really works on today's touchscreens. It's an "indie" game from before there were indie games, silly and with some excellent and challenging puzzles.

Worms 2: Armageddon (£2.99, US$4.99, AU$0.99)

Very old and very good, the Worms series led the way when it came to making strategy games fun. The comedy combat action is turn-based, with players alternating at having pop shots at each other with their weaponry. This slower pace means it's ideal for online and local multiplayer, as the odd glitch doesn't ruin the experience.

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition (£6.99/US$9.99/AU$13.99)

The strategy titan has a hefty price tag attached to it on Android, but that's OK as the immense challenge it contains is likely to burn for longer than the sun.

The first Baldur's game, this faithful reworking of the 1998 classic also includes several of the PC game's post-release expansion packs, just in case the standard 60-hour marathon quest isn't hardcore enough for you.

The Wolf Among Us (free + IAP)

Telltale has made a name for itself with story-driven episodic games and The Wolf Among Us is one of its best. Essentially a hard boiled fairy tale, you control the big bad wolf as he hunts a murderer through the mean streets of Fabletown.

Don't let the fairy tale setting fool you, this is a violent, mature game and it's one where your decisions have consequences, impacting not only what the other characters think of you but also who lives and who dies. Episode One is free but the remaining four will set you back a steep £9.59 / $14.99 / around AU$18. Trust us though, you'll want to see how this story ends.

The Banner Saga (£4.02, US$4.99, around AU$5.99)

Large, deep games are still relatively rare on Android, but you can add one more to the list with The Banner Saga. This Viking-inspired tactical RPG gives you control of over 25 different characters across 7 different classes as you battle your way through beautiful hand drawn environments and make decisions both in and out of combat which affect the story.

There's a lot to it, but its turn-based nature means controls are never a problem and you can take it at your own pace.

Lucasfilm has revealed that Star Wars: Episode VII will be released with the subtitle The Force Awakens when it premieres next December. The long-awaited name was revealed on Twitter alongside the news that principal photography has all been wrapped up. The film is still more than a year away, but the title artwork maintains the classic Star Wars aesthetic and suggests director J.J Abrams is trying to capture the original trilogy's spirit and tone. The name itself has, almost inevitably, been polarising for fans of the force and sparked the hilarious hashtag #BetterStarWarsTitles on Twitter. Go check it out.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens has completed principal photography. #StarWarsVII #TheForceAwakens pic.twitter.com/mFTP9YbKNN

- Star Wars (@starwars) November 6, 2014

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Source: Twitter

Chiptune music is one the many phenomena that '80s era gaming nostalgia spawned -- but to get into it you need to mod a working 30-year-old NES into an instrument. Now, a company called Assorted Wires has launched a hackable 8-bit chiptunes instrument on Kickstarter to make it way easier. The pitch is pretty simple: if you're good at video games, you can make music with no practice. That's why they're calling it the Lo-Fi SES, for Sound Entertainment System. It's shaped exactly like a game controller, with the control buttons used to trigger samples, change tempo, and play, record or delete tracks, to name a few functions.

The Lo-Fi SES is designed around the Arduino platform with an Atmega processor. As a result, you can replace the samples with actual sounds from an NES or other console. You can remap the buttons, do sophisticated open-source signal processing and even use it as a... game controller. The team says that no coding experience is needed, but if you like hacking, "it's the perfect platform for audio projects, budding bands or skilled instrumentalists." Finally there's a slot to add three cartridges: a second sound pack, a USB cartridge for custom tweaking and a "Smasher" cartridge that lets you dirty up the music.

So how much does this chiptune fun cost? For $50, you can get an early bird cartridge only, while $110 will grab you the early bird Lo-Fi SES with all three cartridges. Early bird backers should receive their devices by the end of the year, while other buyers will have to wait until April 2015. The campaign has just kicked off with a $5,000 goal.

Filed under: Misc, Gaming

Comments

Source: Kickstarter

 When it comes to corporate IT, revolution is in the air. The way companies buy, build, manage, optimize and secure information technology is changing dramatically. From cloud computing to big data analytics to ubiquitous mobile connectivity, corporate IT systems are getting faster, more efficient, cheaper to operate and easier to use. In the process, a new wave of tech companies has emerged… Read More

AMD’s “Dual Graphics” aka Hybrid CrossFire lets you pair an APU with a GPU for improved performance, so we took it for a spin with a Kaveri APU and a budget GPU

We’ve already written quite a bit about AMD’s third-generation APU family, known as Kaveri. It’s a CPU with an integrated GPU, just like with Intel’s Core i7 parts that contain HD Graphics. The difference is that in the past, AMD paired a relatively weak GPU with the CPU, for predictably lame results. This time around, however, AMD has stepped it up a notch, and put the GPU on equal footing with the CPU, sticking an R7-series GPU inside the package, which is a bit more powerful than anything Intel has to on tap these days (on the GPU side, that is). Also, since AMD makes both CPUs and GPUs, it can one-up Intel by letting both pieces of silicon work together in a partnership dubbed Dual Graphics, which used to be known as Hybrid CrossFire. It’s a dual-GPU setup combining integrated and discrete graphics, and it could be a good way to give your integrated graphics a healthy boost, or it could be a total waste of money. This month, we decided to build a budget-oriented gaming machine to find out for ourselves what Dual Graphics is all about, and to see whether it’s actually useful, or just marketing BS.

Preparing to Dual

All you need to build a machine that uses AMD Dual Graphics is the right APU and GPU, and naturally, AMD has a list of compatible and recommend pairings on its website. The selection is actually quite limited, and when we asked AMD what criteria it uses to deem a particular APU and GPU "compatible," the response was, "We test the different configurations and the best user experiences based on smoothness and performance are listed as the recommended pairing." The company noted, "similarity in outright performance but also configuration" as the main criteria, and listed the A10-7850 and R7 250 as a perfect example, since both have 8 GCN units, the same memory bus width, and similar clock speeds. Due to this recommendation, we decided to use it for this particular build. With the A10-7850 selected, we decided to plop it into a Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X motherboard, since it's a top-shelf gaming board, supports Dual Graphics, and has dual PCIe x16 slots in case we want to add a baller GPU or two some day in the future. This is a budget machine with modest power requirements, and our discrete GPU doesn't require a six-pin power connector, so we opted for a 430W Smart PSU from Thermaltake, which is the wattage we consider the minimum for a gaming box. Storage duties are handled by an Intel 335 Series SSD, which is SandForce-based. It's not the fastest SSD on the bench, but it's reliable and affordable. Since it's a budget box, we stuffed it all into Antec's newest entry-level military-themed chassis, the GX700. It's similar to the Corsair C70, but half the price.

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1. Case Working

Building in the GX700 was refreshingly painless, thanks to a roomy interior, large grommets for cable routing, and plenty of room to work. Since we weren't planning on overclocking our A10-7850 APU, we went with the simplest cooling option available to us—a stock AMD cooler. These coolers don't look so hot, but they do a great job of keeping the CPU cool, and they operate quietly. Its small size also makes connecting things around the CPU socket a walk in the park. We did splurge a bit on the RAM, though, going with 8GB of Corsair Vengeance with extra-tall heatsinks. These guys are a tiny bit more expensive than the LP sticks with the low-profile heatsinks on them, but either one would work.

2. Hiding Wires

One of the building "tricks" we like to use, if you can call if that, is to stick all the power cables that come from the front of the case to the back of the chassis, and then let them poke out right where they are connected. This keeps the interior uncluttered, and theoretically improves airflow around the power supply, since the cables aren't arranged in a rat's nest at the bottom of the chassis. We like the space between the SATA ports on this motherboard, too, and the fact that they are on the bottom of the motherboard instead of along the edge like they usually are. Anyone who has installed a slightly long GPU knows what a PITA it can be to access those ports with a GPU covering that area of the motherboard. We also like the fact that there are eight SATA 6Gb/s ports on this motherboard instead of six you get with a Z87 motherboard.

3. Give me the code

Probably the most glaring nod to this case's military theme is the yellow-and-black striped cover that sits on top of the case. Lifting this cover exposes a red switch, which is actually a fan controller that can handle up to four fans. Three fans are already in the case, with two 140mm units up top where a radiator could reside one day, and one 120mm rear fan exhausting heat. You can also install up to two 120mm front intake fans, and one 120mm fan on the side door to help cool the GPU. Next to the fan controller are four USB ports—two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0—and headphone and mic jacks.

4. The bad news

Maybe we're spoiled, but we're used to just pressing down on a front filter like this one and having it pop away from the case for easy removal. On this chassis, though, the metal grill that covers the front air filter is attached via four thumbscrews. You can loosen the screws with your thumbs just like their name implies, but we found we had to use a screwdriver to get them all the way out. Once removed, the air filter is held into place by clips, reminding us of this case's rock-bottom price tag of just $60. There are no free lunches, so saving money on a PC build means you lose a few amenities, such as tool-less filter covers. To install a 120mm fan, you'll need to remove the entire front cover, which can be lifted away with a bit of effort.

5. More bad news

Here's another odd design choice from Antec: these weird metal clips that hold the covers on the 5.25-inch bays. When you pull the clips out of the way, the cover loosens and falls right out of the slot. Both the clips and the way the covers tumble out when free felt extremely cheap. Plus, the top drive bay is blocked internally by all the cabling that dangles down from the top-mounted USB and fan controller cables, so you can't put an optical drive in that particular slot, but you could put in a card reader or something similar. The mechanism that holds the drives in place is toolless, however, so you just need to slide it to lock the drive into place. It's not the most sturdy design, but it worked well enough for our needs. Just below the 5.25-inch drive bays there is a vertical cage made of metal that holds five drives in either 3.5- or 2.5-inch form factor. You need to install drives from the right side of the case, however, as the mechanism that releases the individual drive bays resides behind the cage.

6. Cool Under Pressure

We'll be honest: When we first configured this build, we slotted a 650W PSU into the bottom of the chassis because, well, this is Maximum PC and that's how we roll. Upon reflection, however, we realized that was a bit of overkill, especially since we had one SSD, no optical drive, and didn't need any power for our discrete GPU. Since we always tell people not to buy more PSU than they need, we decided to take our own advice and just go with a 430W unit from Thermaltake. We've used its PSUs in our GPU testing machine for the past two years with no issues, so it's a brand we generally trust. The area below the PSU is well-ventilated, and includes a filter that is easily removable, too. It sticks out a tiny bit behind the chassis, so you just have to pull it out as if you were sliding a card out of a deck, give it a good wash, and slide it back into place. You can also see that we could have fit a slightly larger PSU into this area.

 

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A Golden Triangle

The purpose of this build was to find out how the addition of a second GPU to a Kaveri APU machine worked, and to see whether or not it was worth the money. Once our rig was built, we added the $90 R7 250 GPU, and then tested both the GPU by itself, and then paired with the APU. Once the system was humming along, enabling Dual Graphics was as simple as ticking a box in the Catalyst Control Center, much like you would do if you were enabling regular CrossFire with two discrete GPUs.

To put it through its paces, we ran our tests suite at 1080p with all settings maxed out, but no AA because that’s just a bridge too far for these cards. With Dual Graphics enabled, we were surprised to see performance go up as much as it did, which was around 40 to 50 percent in most titles that were able to use both GPUs. That is damned impressive, and more than we expected. The problem, of course, is that the overall numbers were still really low despite two GPUs working together. When we tested the R7 250 in the May 2013 issue, we noted that it couldn’t quite do 1080p with all settings maxed, but we hoped the addition of the second GPU would allow us to overcome that challenge. Unfortunately, it’s not enough, so any of these low-end cards are not ready for 1080p gaming—they're better suited to 720p or 1050p.

The bigger question here is if you were running a Kaveri box and decided you wanted to add more GPU muscle, what are you going to do? We can say definitively that if you want to really increase performance, you should just buy a discrete GPU like the R7 265 and forget about integrated graphics, or sub-$100 GPUs because they generally suck, at least if you are like us and used to gaming with all details enabled. It’s possible that over time, AMD will work to improve the scaling between the two GPUs in Dual Graphics, so instead of seeing gains around 40 percent, we’ll see it more around 75 percent, like it is with two discrete cards.

With all that said, we were impressed by both how easy it was to set up Dual Graphics, and that we saw a very noticeable gain in almost all of our test games. We don’t think the combination of two weak GPUs is enough to provide a decent gaming experience, though, so in the final analysis, we’d rather just use a more powerful discrete GPU.

The zero-point machine compared here consists of a 3.2GHz Core i7-3930K and 16GB of Corsair DDR3/1600 on an Asus P9X79 Deluxe motherboard. It has a GeForce GTX 690, a Corsair Neutron GTX SSD, and 64-bit Windows 7 Professional.

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While many companies are tinkering with lasers, ultrasound and even arm muscles for touchless gesture control on portable devices and desktop PCs, Japan's 16Lab just wants to put a pretty ring on you. The yet-to-be-named titanium wearable is designed by the award-winning Manabu Tago, and it features ALPS Electric's tiny module (5.05 x 5.65 x 2.5 mm) that somehow manages to pack Bluetooth Smart radio, movement sensor, environment sensor plus antennas -- there's a video demo after the break. Despite its custom-made 10mAh lithium polymer cell, 16Lab is aiming for at least 20 hours of battery life. This is possible mainly because you have to place your thumb on the top pad (with the ring's wedge pointing away from the user) to enable the sensors -- upon which point the ring vibrates to confirm that it's active. It's then just a matter of waving and tilting your hand until you're done.

In addition to gesture control, 16 Lab CEO Ko Kijima said his ring also serves as a notification tool (presumably by using the vibration motor), e-wallet and contactless key. What he didn't say was how much it'll cost, but since it's entirely titanium, it's going to do some damage to your wallet. The good news is that you'll have plenty of time to save up for the ring: the startup is hoping to launch it in Q2 2015 with several size options, though you can also pre-order the partially-plastic development kit edition later this year, if you don't mind its bulkiness.

Filed under: Wearables

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Source: 16Lab