There’s been some question about what AMD’s Ryzen 3000 refresh would look like in 2020, given that Zen 3 is intended to launch before the end of the year. The company has given us our answer in the form of the new Ryzen 3000XT CPU family. There are three new to talk about: the 3600XT, 3800XT, and 3900XT. Each of these is a clock-tweaked version of the CPU AMD launched last year. AMD writes that “3000XT series desktop processors are optimized with higher boost frequencies to deliver elite-level performance that dominates gaming and content creation,” but it doesn’t answer the question of just what kind of boost frequencies we can expect.
This time last year, Google was basking in praise after launching the Pixel 3a, which was widely considered one of the best phones of 2019. It wasn’t objectively the best phone, but it was an incredible value. In 2020, Google is facing new challenges that have delayed the Pixel 4a. We previously heard the phone would be pushed to June, but here we are with no Pixel 4a. Multiple sources now claim Google is looking at a fall 2020 launch for the phone. The Pixel 4a has several times in the last few months, and the leakers revealed the design .
Intel announced today that an upcoming CPU security technology, Control-Flow Enforcement (CET), will deploy for the first time on Tiger Lake CPUs, expected later this year. The new capability may include some ability to protect against attacks like Spectre and Meltdown, though Intel doesn’t directly mention it in any of the briefing material for today. We’ll touch more on that later in this article. Intel describes CET as addressing “common malware attack methods that have been a challenge to mitigate with software alone.” Specifically, CET is intended to keep hackers from using a security technique known as return-oriented programming (ROP).
It’s been more than a decade since the first SSDs started to hit the consumer market, and about eight years since they began arriving at price points that could broadly be called “consumer-friendly.” It’s only been in the past few years that SSDs have gotten inexpensive enough that buying a 512GB+ drive is more of an impulse purchase than a serious financial outlay. If you’ve already bought a new SSD or are wondering if you should pull the trigger, we’ll walk you through deciding how to move your data and the best ways to do it. The simplest way to upgrade from a smaller SSD (or HDD) to a larger one is to pull the old drive, install your new drive, load your OS image and all associated software, and reinstall everything you don’t opt to manually preserve.
The red planet is looking a bit less red today, but that might be a good thing. European Space Agency (ESA) scientists operating the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) have snapped a photo of Mars with an eerie green glow in its upper atmosphere. This effect, known as night glow, is caused by oxygen atoms interacting with solar radiation, and its presence on Mars could help us understand . It’s likely you’ve seen images and even video featuring night glow, but not on Mars. Earth exhibits the same green light in the atmosphere. Night glow is extremely hard to see from the surface of Earth, but there are numerous images from the International Space Station and satellites that show the wispy green light.
Apple has announced a new refresh for the MacBook Pro 16-inch, with claims that the new GPU option will provide up to a 75 percent performance improvement for end-users. Rumors suggest the GPU may be exclusive to Apple’s product lines, but the 5600M looks like a sizeable upgrade compared with anything AMD has shipped before. With a $700 upgrade price, you’ll be paying through the nose for this GPU — starting price on the MacBook Pro 16-inch with a 5600M is going to be ~$3,200 for the base configuration. One of the characteristics of low-power GPUs is that they tend to be wide and slow.
In the five years since Microsoft released Windows 10, it’s made a number of positive changes to the operating system — and demonstrated a distinct willingness to use dark patterns to push users towards using online Windows 10 accounts. There are certain benefits to using an online Microsoft account to sign in to Windows 10, including cross-device synchronization, automatic logins to MS services, and automatic sync with services like OneDrive. Most of the PCs I build are testbeds, so I don’t use a Windows account for these systems, and I’ve kept my own PC offline as well. Users who are using Microsoft Edge and the Windows Store will benefit more here than users who do not.
(Credit: Viaframe/Getty Images)The COVID-19 pandemic has given us all the first clear picture of what working from home is really like. Many fear that this could be the new normal and there is no doubt that . As we adjust to interacting virtually with coworkers, friends, and family, we’re beginning to discover just how important in-person interactions really are. Many of us miss the hallway conversations at work or the chance encounters with friends at the gym or grocery store. What has become apparent is that the email, social media, and video chat technologies we rely on for communication during the pandemic are no substitute for real connections with other people.
Apple has grown to be one of the most valuable companies in the world thanks in part to the tight integration of hardware and software. Unlike Google or Microsoft, you can only get Apple’s software if you buy its hardware. That hasn’t stopped some companies from trying to sell so-called “Hackintosh” computers with custom hardware and Apple’s software. This has not worked out for said companies in the past, but a new outfit called OpenCore Computers has with the Windows-macOS hybrid “Velociraptor.” If you want a Windows 10 PC, you can get one for as little as a few hundred dollars.
