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Here a roundup of today's reviews and articles:

AMD CPU Sales Rise As Intel Shortages Make OEMS Unhappy
ASUS GeForce RTX 2080 STRIX OC 8G Review
Budget All-round PC - September 2018
Deepcool Gamer Storm DQ850-M PSU Review
Fnatic Clutch 2 Gaming Mouse Review
FNATIC Flick2 Gaming Mouse Review
Forza Horizon 4 Review
Forza Horizon 4 Review: rolling hills and changing seasons
How to make your own bootable macOS 10.14 Mojave USB install drive
HyperX Fury RGB SSD 480GB Review
I want to talk to the (Font) Manager
iPhone XS Max Review
Kingston HyperX Fury RGB SSD Review
Kingston HyperX Fury RGB SSD Review
Kingston HyperX Fury RGB SSD Review
Kingston HyperX Savage EXO Review
macOS 10.14 Mojave: The Ars Technica Review
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti PCI-Express Scaling Review
Overclocking Showdown – the RTX 2080 vs. the GTX 1080 Ti
Palit GeForce RTX 2080 Super Jetstream 8 GB Review
The 9 Best New Features of macOS Mojave
Valkyria Chronicles 4 Review



AMD CPU Sales Rise As Intel Shortages Make OEMS Unhappy

Over the past month or so, Intel has been struggling with a looming CPU shortage. Due to the demands placed on their 14nm process, supply has not been keeping up. As expected, these shortages have pushed the prices for the chips way up due to supply and demand. After high prices for a month or so, we are starting to see signs of the ripple effects in the market. For one, AMD chip sales are increasing while OEMs are growing unhappy about the shortages.

The first part of the story makes a lot of sense as the Intel CPUs go up in price. AMD is currently the most competitive they have been in a decade in terms of performance. With such a small performance margin, AMD CPUs at stable prices are more competitive for uninitiated buyers. Fence sitters are also more likely to choose AMD for cost benefit. Furthermore, even those who might want to buy Intel might hold out for lower prices, pushing sales down.

Read full article @ eTeknix

ASUS GeForce RTX 2080 STRIX OC 8G Review

We have a peek at that other STRIX, the GeForce RTX 2080 model (SKU: ROG-STRIX-RTX2080-08G-GAMING). We test the 8GB OC model that comes with shy factory tweak, however with a cooler that remains really impressive as yes the STRIX comes with a few tricks up its sleeves.

We've already covered a lot of new technology as the Turing architecture of the new GPUs offers a fundamental change in the graphics card arena as, next to your normal shading engine, NVIDIA has added RT (Raytracing) cores, as well as Tensor (AI) cores into the new GPUs, and these are active. Is Turing the start of the next 20 years of gaming graphics? Well, that all depends on the actual adoption rate in the software houses, with the guys and girls that develop games. A dozen or so RTX games are in development and a dozen or so announced titles will make use of deep learning DLSS utilizing the Tensor cores. For the new RTX series, it's mostly about Raytracing though. So welcome to a long row of RTX reviews. We start off with the reference cards and will follow with the AIB cards as, for whatever reason, NVIDIA figured it to be an okay thing for them to launch everything at once. First a quick recap of what's tested in this article, a bit of architecture and then we'll dive into real-world testing of course. Starting November 20th of the year 2018 you will see two products become available, a GeForce RTX 2070 will follow later in October. The GeForce RTX 2080 then; this graphics card series will not have the full shader count and GPU as the 2080 Ti, in fact, it even has its own GPU called the TU104. This card will get 2944 shader processors (also referred to as Stream or Cuda cores) active based on that TU104 GPU running a base clock of 1515 MHz with Boost frequencies running upwards to 1800 MHz. The TU104 chip contains six GPCs, 48 SMs, and eight 32-bit memory controllers (256-bit total). Each SM includes 64 shader processors, 256 KB register file, 96 KB L1 data cache/shared memory cache, and four texture units. The full TU104 chip contains 13.6 Billion transistors and includes 3072 shader processors, 368 Tensor Cores, and 48 RT Cores. So yes, the RTX 2080 is cut down. One x8 NVLink link is activated providing 25 GB/sec of bandwidth in each direction (50 GB/sec total bandwidth). Keep in mind that the clocks and TDPs will be different here and there, AIB partners obviously have different factory tweaked products. The GDDR6 memory will get tied to a 256-bit bus, and depending on the clock frequency, we are looking at 448 GB/sec. It is a product that will start at 699 USD for the AIB partner products, and 799 for the Founders editions. This product will have a 225 Watt TDP. Will the 2080 rip a hole on that FPS ceiling? Well, let's find out and also show you a trick or two on Raytracing and DLSS, of course.

Read full article @ The Guru of 3D

Budget All-round PC - September 2018

The all-round PC is a PC with comprehensive features for around £650 - £750 that can do a little bit of everything. It should have enough speed and capacity to meet your needs for some time. Currently it can run all applications, and you're able to upgrade it with small future investments when you need more power or storage capacity.

Surfing, gaming, business applications, photo and video editing should all be possible on the all-round PC without giving you the feeling that it's lacking in performance.

Read full article @ Hardware.Info

Deepcool Gamer Storm DQ850-M PSU Review

Its a good looking power supply in partnership with CWT, but is it worth the money? The DQ850-M promises high performance along with 80 PLUS Gold and ETA-A efficiency levels. It uses a 120mm FDB fan, which offers quiet overall operation while the provided warranty is 5 years. Since this power supply uses quality parts including Japanese caps, it will easily outlast the provided warranty, given that you power it through a stable mains grid.

Read full article @ KitGuru

Fnatic Clutch 2 Gaming Mouse Review

Hey everyone, I’m back again much quicker than usual with another mouse review.

Fnatic provide gaming peripherals and other team branded merchandise and are solidifying their mouse offerings with two very similar products.

The Fnatic Clutch 2 gaming mouse is almost a twin of the recently reviewed Flick 2, I promise to resist the urge to copy paste my review. There are however subtle differences so lets get into the specs.

Read full article @ Play3r

FNATIC Flick2 Gaming Mouse Review

Not that long ago we took a look at our first FNATIC gear product, which was the miniStreak and boy did it impress us, I actually still use it daily! Already impressed with the miniStreak I was excited to take a look at a mouse from FNATIC. Today we have their Flick2 which is a light-weight professional-grade esports mouse for gamers who like a more symmetrical feel. The mouse features the Pixart 3360 12000 DPI optical sensor and OMRON switches. FNATIC says this mouse supports both palm and claw-grip users, so is it the perfect gaming mouse for you? Read on as we find out!

Read full article @ ThinkComputers.org

Forza Horizon 4 Review

Forza Horizon 4 is Microsoft's latest racing game for Xbox One and Windows 10. The title packs loads of content, new gameplay mechanics, mouth-watering cars, and different terrains to race across. While I'm not really a hardcore fan of racing games, I'm still a huge fan of Microsoft's Forza franchise. When I reviewed Forza Motorsport 7 last year, I walked away considerably impressed by the immersion and realism presented by the title.

So, when Neowin's Senior Editor Rich Woods reached out to me to review Forza Horizon 4, I almost immediately jumped on the opportunity. Emphasis on the word "almost" because when I reviewed Motorsport 7 last year, I was hampered a lot by the Microsoft Store (then known as Windows Store), which forced me to download the 95GB game multiple times before I could finally play. However, given how much fun I had with the title, I decided to take the plunge again with Horizon this year, and thankfully, faced no issues downloading the 65GB of files in the Windows 10 version this time around.

Read full article @ Neowin

Forza Horizon 4 Review: rolling hills and changing seasons

Playground Games' latest addition to the Forza Horizon series showcases the beauty of Britain. On paper, the UK is a terrible place to drive fast cars. Between all the potholes, speed cameras and congestion, there's seemingly no point in driving anything faster than a child's pedal car around the major cities of Britain. But outside of those epicentres lay many miles of winding lanes, rolling hills and flowing country roads just tailor-made for a two-seater sports car and a heavy right foot on the throttle pedal.

Now in reality, most of us probably don't own a McLaren Senna or Aston Martin Vulcan. And even if we did, attempting to drive it fast down a twisty lane would result in a huge crash and a hefty insurance bill – amongst other things.

Read full article @ TechRadar

How to make your own bootable macOS 10.14 Mojave USB install drive

All you'll need is a Mac, the Mojave installer, and an 8GB USB drive or SD card. Apple hasn’t shipped operating systems on physical media in almost a decade, but there are still good reasons to want a reliable old USB stick for macOS Mojave. Luckily, it's not hard to make one—either with a handy graphical user interface or some light Terminal use. Here's what you need to get started.

Read full article @ ArsTechnica

HyperX Fury RGB SSD 480GB Review

Today we'll be taking a look at the HyperX FURY RGB SSD. This SATA III 2.5-inch drive series is available in 240GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities and each has a light bar inside to give your gaming PC a little RGB lighting in a place that most don't. Read on to see how it performs!

Read full article @ Legit Reviews

I want to talk to the (Font) Manager

I spy with my little eye, something beginning with F. Fonts! Behold this dope review of GTK+ Font Manager, a highly versatile, flexible and powerful font management utility for GTK desktops. Please head yonder to OCS-Mag for more sweet details.

Read full article @ OCS-Mag

iPhone XS Max Review

After a summer of fairly accurate rumors, the iPhone XS Max has arrived with much fanfare and a proportional price. It is the ultimate expression of Steve Jobs' original vision for the iPhone without compromise -- assuming that it fits in your budget.

This is an "S" model year, and you'd think that there wouldn't be big changes. On the outside, other than the size of the iPhone XS Max, that looks to be true —there aren't a lot of big design changes. We've still got a notch and how much of a problem that is, is an exercise for the reader, and there's still an edge-to-edge OLED screen.

As with nearly everything, it's what's on the inside that matters.

Read full article @ Apple Insider

Kingston HyperX Fury RGB SSD Review

Kingstons HyperX gaming brand is introducing their first SSD with adjustable RGB LED lighting. The LEDs add significantly to the price tag, but internally its a mid-range SATA SSD. This lighting-first and SSD-second design pays off with no fewer than 75 RGB LEDs to illuminate the drive and surrounding components, but from our performance benchmarks its clear that Kingston had to make some real sacrifices on the SSD side to bring this drive together.

Read full article @ Anandtech

Kingston HyperX Fury RGB SSD Review

HyperX Fury RGB lights up that dark space in your case with customizable lighting effects, and is fully compatible with all modern RGB controllers. Utilizing the economical Marvell 88SS1074 storage controller with Toshiba 3D TLC NAND flash components, the Kingston HyperX Fury RGB SSD advertises 550 MB/s peak read speeds and 480 MB/s writes. The Fury RGB SSD also offers 500x its capacity is total bytes written, with a three-year warranty. In this article for Benchmark Reviews, we test the HyperX Fury RGB SSD against the leading SATA-based competition.

Read full article @ Benchmark Reviews

Kingston HyperX Fury RGB SSD Review

Kingston's new Fury RGB SSD brings the bling but doesn't bring the performance to match. RGB is all the rage lately. From peripherals like keyboards and mice to primary components like RAM and motherboards, it's RGB everything. RGB is so pervasive we knew it was only a matter of time before it lit up mainstream SSDs, too. Today, we take a look at Kingston’s latest creation from the company's high-performance HyperX division, the Fury RGB SSD.

The HyperX Fury RGB comes resplendent with a fully-controllable RGB light show and boasts up to 550/480 MB/s of sequential read/write throughput. But while the performance may seem impressive on paper, the specs don’t tell the entire story. Our testing found lackluster performance in real-world file transfers and productivity applications. Adding in a paltry three-year warranty and high pricing makes the drive hard to recommend, though some will probably find the shimmering RGB goodness too much to resist.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Kingston HyperX Savage EXO Review

Today, we take a look at Kingston’s latest USB 3.1 Gen 2 external SSD, the HyperX Savage EXO. Today, we take a look at Kingston’s latest USB 3.1 Gen 2 external SSD. The HyperX Savage EXO delivers up to 500/480 MB/s of sequential read/write throughput to help expedite your file transfers and game load times, and the edgy design looks good while it's doing it. Perhaps most importantly, it's compatible with game consoles like the Xbox One and PS4. But the specifications only paint part of the performance picture. Poor real-world write performance taints our outlook on this new external, although competitive pricing helps offset some of the drive's shortcomings.

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

macOS 10.14 Mojave: The Ars Technica Review

Dark Mode and iOS apps make this desert-themed release feel surprisingly verdant. I ended last year’s review of macOS High Sierra by lamenting its invisibility but praising the much-needed work it did on the macOS foundation. There weren’t a lot of ways to tell that a Mac was running High Sierra instead of Low Sierra, but Apple quietly replaced the file system and the system’s window server and added (and later finalized) official support for external graphics, among a bunch of other tweaks. The yearly release cycle just kept Apple from actually building a whole lot of new features on top of that foundation.

Read full article @ ArsTechnica

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti PCI-Express Scaling Review

It takes a lot of bandwidth to support the fastest graphics card, especially one that can play anything at 4K 60 Hz, with an eye on 120 Hz. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti could be the most bandwidth-heavy non-storage PCIe device ever built. PCI-Express gen 3.0 is facing its design limits.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

Overclocking Showdown – the RTX 2080 vs. the GTX 1080 Ti

We evaluated the RTX 2080 Founders Edition (FE) using our benchmark suite of 36 games last week and concluded that it is faster than the GTX 1080 Ti. We now test the RTX 2080’s overclocked performance using EVGA’s new Precision X1 scanner compared with our overclocked GTX 1080 Ti FE’s performance using MSI’s Afterburner.

Our launch review focused on overclocking the RTX 2080 Ti, and we were only able to spend a few minutes overclocking the RTX 2080 with Precision X1’s scanner. During a 20 minute scan, it automatically overclocked our RTX 2080‘s core by +115 MHz, and then we added +700 MHz offset to its memory for a very preliminary overclock.

Today, we present our final RTX 2080’s stable overclocked performance using EVGA’s latest public beta of Precision X1. EVGA’s Precision X1 has been released to the public featuring NVIDIA’s Turing scanner for a fast and accurate semi-automatic way to overclock by fully unlocking the new RTX GPU’s Boost 4.0.

Read full article @ BabelTechReviews

Palit GeForce RTX 2080 Super Jetstream 8 GB Review

Palit's GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the company's flagship RTX 2080. It comes with a large triple slot, dual-fan cooler and an overclock out of the box, to 1860 MHz, which is a 60 MHz increase over the Founders Edition.

Read full article @ TechPowerUp

The 9 Best New Features of macOS Mojave

Apple’s latest yearly update to its macOS, Mojave, is here and is bringing some new features to the operating system. This year’s most exciting feature is the (at long last!) introduction of Dark Mode, but there’s also some new usability features, updates to FaceTime and a sign at the future of iOS software on Macs. Here’s the best of macOS Mojave this year....

Read full article @ Tom's Hardware

Valkyria Chronicles 4 Review

As I stated in my preview of Valkyria Chronicles 4 at the start of the month, I absolutely loved Valkyria Chronicles when it came out on the PS3. What captured me was a host of highly engaging characters featured in one of the most charming and visually appealing games I’ve ever had the joy of playing. I thought and still think it was impeccable.

Impeccable is a word that I’ve never used to describe a game before (I’ve checked) and I genuinely mean it. The same charming style has continued into Valkyria Chronicles 4, which is only improved by advances made in the past ten years. I can’t adequately explain how much I love the visual design – fuelled by the CANVAS Engine – and the game as a whole. Still, I’m going to try my best.

Read full article @ Wccftech