Weekend tech reading

Matthew DeCarlo

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The Kaby Lake overclocking guide Conroe, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Skylake, and anything in between, we’ve overclocked them all. Each had their pros and cons, but the standout architecture in that list is Sandy Bridge. Good samples were capable of achieving stable overclocks of 5GHz on air cooling. It’s a landmark that has proven elusive, until now. Finally, we have a worthy successor: Kaby Lake. Asus

Confessions of a custom mechanical keyboard obsessive I was in the market for a new mechanical keyboard a few years ago, and during my research I stumbled on the custom mechanical keyboard community. Mech enthusiasts are consumed by custom boards with unusual layouts, exotic switches, and fancy keycaps—and they'll often spend ludicrous amounts of money on things you or I might consider silly… at first. This is a niche hobby that can hook you, and once it does, won't let go. PC Gamer

Driven by e-sports, Micron fast-tracks superfast GDDR6 graphics memory Micron is rushing to release the latest GDDR6 graphics memory by the end of the year, and e-sports is a major driver behind the plans. The memory company is speeding up the release of GDDR6 to cope with faster PC and console upgrades. GDDR6 will be significantly faster than its predecessor, GDDR5X, which is still reaching GPUs. Micron had originally planned to release GDDR6 next year. Computerworld

The Gray-1, a homebrew CPU exclusively composed of memory Since the 1970s, computers are essentially composed of microprocessors, memory, and peripherals such as keyboard, mouse, display, network interface… The microprocessor plays a central role of running the programs located in the working memory. Most people, even among computer experts,  see the microprocessor as a black box whose operation is too complex to be understood. Creating a microprocessor from very simple components is a good way to deeply understand how a computer works. 2x-1.net

IMDb is shutting down its long-running, popular message boards after 16 years After 16 years, IMDb’s message boards and the ability to privately message other users is shutting down, with many members of the community openly mourning the loss of the section. IMDb, which stands from the Internet Movie Database, is one of the world’s biggest databases for film and television. According to the company, there is information on more than 4.1 million titles and 7.7 million personalities available on the site as of January 2017. Polygon

This company went from 'game over' to gaming industry power player Sometimes all you need to be successful in business is a good idea. Other times, you need to know when to drop everything and change course. The founders of Taipei, Taiwan-based Micro-Star International (MSI) learned this the hard way. But the lesson was lucrative. In a few short years, MSI transformed from a relatively obscure tech company to a power player in PC gaming. Entrepreneur

Inside the far-out glass lab At  Corning’s headquarters in upstate New York, three people in bulky masks and silvery, spacesuit-like gear are working the research furnaces. They move gracefully and in harmony. They have to, to face a 1,600 °C furnace, grab an incandescent crucible of molten glass, pour out the material, and shape it before it hardens. One worker’s glove begins to smoke; he seems to pay it no mind. MIT

Inside the 20-year quest to build computers that play poker Four of the best professional poker players in the world spent most of January holed up at the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, losing. They’d show up before 11 am, wearing sweatpants and stylish sneakers, and sit down in front of computer screens. Each of them was supposed to play 1,500 hands of heads-up no limit Texas Hold ‘Em online before they could go back to the hotel for the night. Bloomberg

Microsoft gives Windows device makers their 2017 marching orders On the PC front, Microsoft wants its OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and ODMs (original design manufacturers) to make more Windows 10 detachables, convertibles, and ultraslims. They also are advising their partners to make devices and peripherals that highlight the "hero experiences" of Windows 10 involving Cortana, Windows Hello authentication, and Windows Ink. ZDNet

Windows Game Mode performance preview - the early numbers are not good... The results are marginally more exciting when you look at the new Hitman numbers - Game Mode has actually achieved some extra performance on the Nvidia GTX 1060 card, boosting the average frame rate by 6%. It's also introduced a more considerable boost in the minimum frame rates too, offering a smoother death-dealing experience with the GeForce card. PCGN

Airbus is about to build a self-flying electric robo-taxi If you think self-driving cars are futuristic, imagine them flying overhead. That's what European aerospace titan Airbus has done in designing its Vahana electric, autonomous plane, which can fly a single passenger on trips of around 50 miles, getting there about twice as fast as by car. Fast Company

Chinese factory replaces 90% of human workers with robots. Production rises by 250%, defects drop by 80% While some of the world’s leaders are obsessed with keeping people out of their country, an unspoken entity is slowly but certainly taking our jobs: robots. It’s been long discussed that robots and computers will start taking our jobs “in the near future” — well that near future is upon us and we’re not really prepared to deal with it. Of course, some jobs are more at risk than others, are few are as threatened as factory jobs. ZME Science

Building a local Steam caching server to ease the bandwidth blues If you play games on PC, where God intended them to be played, chances are you’ve got Steam installed. Since its troubled launch in 2003, Valve’s publishing platform has gone from a thing we had to grudgingly put up with in order to play Half Life 2 to the most popular digital game distribution tool on the planet. Most of us—me included—-interact with it pretty much daily. Ars Technica

Hacking the aether: how data crosses the air-gap It is incredibly interesting how many parts of a computer system are capable of leaking data in ways that is hard to imagine. Part of securing highly sensitive locations involves securing the computers and networks used in those facilities in order to prevent this. These IT security policies and practices have been evolving and tightening through the years, as malicious actors increasingly target vital infrastructure. Hackaday

NASA releases spectacular new snapshots of Saturn’s rings Ever since 1610, when a stargazer named Galileo discovered Saturn’s rings, the idea of a planet encircled by billions of particles has intrigued astronomers. But it’s taken until now—a mere 407 years later—for scientists to get a good peek inside. Thanks to NASA’s Cassini mission, the secrets of the rings are only now starting to be revealed. And, as The Guardian’s Hannah Devlin reports, it appears that there are millions of previously unseen moons tucked within. Smithsonian

Lawsuit claims Apple forced users to iOS 7 by breaking FaceTime Seemingly spawned from internal Apple documents disclosed during the VirnetX patent infringement lawsuit, which found Apple on the hook for $302.4 million in damages, the California action claims Apple intentionally broke FaceTime for devices running iOS 6 and earlier to avoid high monthly data relay charges from Akamai. Apple Insider

You can build a laptop out of open source components if you want a bad laptop I'm typing this on a unibody MacBook Pro, probably the most infamous laptop on the planet when it comes to lack of repairability and modularity. But in the drawer next to my desk is a Raspberry Pi and a loose LCD I bought from Adafruit. My heart is in that drawer. Figuratively. In every way, a MacBook is a superior computer, but a Raspberry Pi is more than a computer: it's an invitation to do something new and different with computers. The Verge

How the Nvidia Shield TV holds up as a game console As a pure gaming machine, the new Nvidia Shield TV doesn’t have much in common with other consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4. It can’t compete on computing muscle, and can’t natively run many new releases. PC World

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Just a heads up, the link to the Windows Game Mode performance preview ins't working for me.

Another question if anyone has knowledge on this. Does kaby lake consistently overclock higher than the 4000 series and skylake? I've seen that "good" sample OC to 5 GHz but that doesn't say much about the average.
 
LMAO

Like AMD could have waited for GDDR6 to come to being before Vega.

Same as it ever was ...

Same - as - it - ever - was
 
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