Latest news with #Wccftech
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Yahoo
Asus 610Hz Super TN Gaming Monitor Is Probably As Fast As It Gets
Asus continues to push the boundaries of gaming display performance with a new record-breaker in refresh rate. The new Asus ROG Strix Ace XG248Q5G uses a Super TN panel technology to deliver a 610Hz refresh rate. Although competing with the likes of Samsung's 500 Hz OLED Odyssey monitors, Asus calls this display the "World's fastest Esports monitor," and with less than 1ms of input lag, it may well be right, as Wccftech reports. In the world of high-pressure eSports gaming, milliseconds can be everything. That's why Asus is pushing this monitor as the fastest display out there. Its 610Hz refresh rate cuts the potential input lag from the monitor to just 0.8ms. Admittedly, a 500 Hz gaming monitor's input lag is only around 2ms, so it's not making much of a difference, but that difference is there for those looking for a display that's as fast as possible. Credit: WCCFTech/Asus While TN displays have traditionally been very fast and popular among eSports gamers, they aren't known for their visual quality. They typically don't get particularly bright and have poor contrast. To counter that, Asus' new display uses what it calls Super TN technology, which gives it up to 90% support of the professional-grade DCI-P3 color gamut. Asus also claims this monitor can get three times brighter than most TN panels. There are also AI enhancements in the form of dynamic shadow boosting, which makes it easier to spot enemies hiding in the dark. That feels a little more akin to cheating than just using a fast display, but the option is there nonetheless. As an eSports-focused display, the XG248Q5G is a mere 24 inches diagonally, far from the larger, immersive displays that most gaming monitor companies sell today. It is also limited to 1080p resolution, but that is equally a common eSports standard, so it is not unsurprising. No word yet on pricing or release date for this display, expect it to be widely available before the end of the year, according to the report. Here are the best gaming monitor deals right now.
Yahoo
15-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Panther Lake launch timeline looks clearer after first public showcase
Intel's Panther Lake chip has now been showcased in public, with the tech brand putting it on display at the Embedded World 2025 conference in Nuremberg, Germany. The Dutch publication, PC Games Hardware shared images of the chip on display, noting that this is the first time the Panther Lake SoC has been seen publicly, not being held up by Intel's former CEO Pat Gelsinger. With the company discussing more of its plans and timelines for the Panther Lake rollout in 2025 and beyond at the conference, more of the component's release strategy has become a lot clearer. Also referred to as the 'Core Ultra 300' mobile platform, Intel is banking on the Panther Lake being a powerful chip as it will be manufactured on the company's custom 18A process. Panther Lake follows the Core Ultra 100 'Meteor Lake' chip, which was released in 2023, and the Core Ultra 200 'Lunar Lake' chip, which is Intel's current flagship. Wccftech noted that Intel's Foundry business is counting on a successful rollout of the Panther Lake to propel its future in the market. The company has already detailed plans to introduce the Panther Lake-H lineup as its premiere offering, then Panther Lake-HX, and others. The coming chip will likely feature the Cougar Cove P-Cores and Skymont E-Cores architectures, as per current reports. Additionally, it is set to include the third-generation Xe3, onboard iGPU, codenamed 'Celestial.' The component follows the second-generation Xe 2 GPU 'Battlemage'. The Xe3 is expected to support at least 16 cores, powering up to 180 TOPS of AI power among its specifications, Wccftech noted. While the Core Ultra 300 is set to be manufactured under the 18A process, PC Games Hardware noted that Intel has split its production between its own Foundry and TSMC, with the latter manufacturer taking charge of the Xe3 graphics portion of the chip. Overall, Intel is still set to announce Panther Lake during the mid-2025 timeframe. This should put hardware partners on schedule to have products ready by January, in time for the coming CES 2026. The industry will surely be excited to see how the SoC will perform alongside similar next-generation chips from competitors.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Yahoo
The M4 MacBook Air is displaying some odd behavior we don't understand yet
People are getting their hands on the new M4 MacBook Air this week, which means they're posting lots of discoveries about its performance (and the blueness of the new Sky Blue color). While editing photos in Lightroom Classic, YouTuber Vadim Yuryev noticed that the CPU workload was being handled almost completely by the laptop's six efficiency cores. Spotted by Wccftech, this behavior is interesting because the image editing software is so CPU-intensive that anyone would assume it needed the performance cores to run. This was certainly the case for the M3 MacBook Air, which Yuryev shows using all four performance and all four efficiency cores to get the work done. We don't know why this behavior has changed, how purposeful it is, or if it's specific to Lightroom Classic — but the benefits could be significant. Keeping the efficiency cores busy and limiting the activity on the performance cores could improve battery life and keep temperatures down. That said, we don't know from Yuryev's post how well the software is running while in this state — we can assume he's pointing it out because it's running fine but we don't know for sure. It's also not entirely impossible that this is a bug of some kind — the performance cores are there to be used, after all, or else they'd be pointless. So the sheer amount of activity on the efficiency cores while the performance cores sit almost unused does seem quite odd. With outlets like Wccftech and tech influencers everywhere experimenting with this new model, we'll likely find out soon whether this was a fluke or an intended feature of the new MacBook Air.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Yahoo
New Nintendo patent teases a big upgrade for Switch 2 — here's what we know
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The Nintendo Switch 2 Direct presentation is still several weeks away (it's scheduled for April 2). This has led to a sparsity of concrete Switch 2 information as the gaming giant is seemingly saving up its official announcements for that date. Fortunately, the rumor mill hasn't stopped churning, and the latest morsel is one of our most intriguing yet. A recent patent filing (spotted by Wccftech) suggests that Nintendo Switch 2 may fix one of its predecessor's major issues: Its highly restrictive voice chat. According to the patent, Switch 2 could offer proximity chat and the functionality would be accessible from the console's operating system. On the surface, this may not seem like a big deal. After all, being able to easily communicate with players online has been a staple of Xbox and PlayStation hardware for three console generations. However, the current Nintendo Switch does not make talking to other players easy. If you want to talk to your fellow players in the likes of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or Splatoon 3 on Nintendo Switch, you'll need to make use of the Nintendo Switch Online App. This requires a compatible smartphone and a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. And if those restrictions weren't enough of a headache, the feature is also highly cumbersome and often unreliable. A switch to voice chat that can accessed directly on the Switch 2 console would be hugely welcome and would massively upgrade the online experience on Switch. This is an area that Nintendo does need to improve quickly if it wants to keep pace with Sony and Microsoft's hardware. It's important to note, that this patent only talks about the feature in relation to first-party games (aka games published directly by Nintendo), and it's also proximity chat rather than party chat. The former is the ability to speak to other players when close to them in-game, rather than being able to set up a 'party,' allowing you to talk even across different games. Nevertheless, it could be a major improvement for Switch 2 over its predecessor. There's also been some speculation online that the current mystery button (usually referred to as the 'C' button) could be a dedicated 'chat' button. Allowing Switch 2 owners to speak to other players online at literally the press of a button. Though, for now, this is all just speculation. We expect to learn a whole lot more about the Nintendo Switch 2 in just a matter of weeks during the dedicated Direct event. A release date is also expected at this showcase. In the meantime, we have a Nintendo Switch 2 hub that collects together everything we know about the upcoming handheld/home hybrids and also recaps the biggest rumors right now. Nintendo Switch 2 — everything we know so far Epic Nintendo Switch sale is live from $4 Nintendo Switch 2 price rumors and predictions
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Yahoo
The MacBook Air M4 could deliver MacBook Pro-level performance, leaks suggest
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Apple's MacBook Air M4 refresh is expected to come in the next few months, and we've already got a few early looks at how the M4 MacBook Air will fare. The M4 Air surfaced on the Geekbench archives earlier this week (spotted by Wccftech) and indicated performance that rivals the M4 MacBook Pro 14. If this benchmark holds, you could get MacBook Pro performance at a budget price with the upcoming MacBook Air. The leaked MacBook Air M4 benchmark was a Geekbench Metal run, testing the GPU of the M4's integrated graphics tile. The MacBook Air M4 scored 54,806 points on the Geekbench Metal benchmark. The MacBook Air M4 used in the leaked benchmarks features 10 GPU cores, which is the same number of GPU cores as the M4 base chip on the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M4, 2024). If Apple follows the same pattern with the M4 MacBook Air as the MacBook Air M3 models, then this would be a benchmark for an upgraded chip, since the base M3 in the MacBook Air features 8 CPU cores and 8 GPU cores. Also noteworthy is that the MacBook Air M4 in the leaked benchmark features upgraded RAM, with 24GB of memory onboard. So, base models of the Air with 16GB RAM won't benchmark quite as high as the laptop in this Geekbench run. A Geekbench Metal score of 54,806 sounds pretty impressive. But how does it stack up? We don't run the Geekbench Metal and Geekbench Vulkan benchmarks in our standard suite of lab tests, so we've got to rely on the official Geekbench archives for comparison scores to see how the MacBook Air M4 fares in comparison to the MacBook Air 13 (M3, 2024), MacBook Pro 14 (M4, 2024), and the MacBook Pro 16 (M4 Pro, 2024). We don't expect the M4 in the MacBook Air to compete with the M4 Pro, but it serves as a good reference point since the M4 Pro is easily capable of taking on the M3 Max. The MacBook Air M4 scored 33.5% higher on the Geekbench Metal test than the MacBook Air 13 M3, and it's just 4.8% lower the MacBook Pro 14 (M4, 2024). Considering the MacBook Air is a fanless laptop design, the fact that it can put out GPU performance that's less than 5% under MacBook Pro 14 is beyond impressive. The leaked MacBook Air is almost certainly an upgraded configuration, so the base MacBook Air M4 won't be getting MacBook Pro-like performance for $1,099. If Apple keeps the pricing for the M4 refresh the same as the M3, then a similarly configured MacBook Air M4 would cost about $1,499. This is still a more wallet-friendly price compared the MacBook Pro 14 which starts at $1,599 and would cost about $1,999 with upgraded RAM to 24GB. So this particular MacBook Air M4 punches well above its weight-class on the Geekbench: Metal archives, but we'd expect the base configuration of the MacBook Air M4 to be a little less powerful. Not that it's a bad thing. This means that the base MacBook Air M4 won't be quite as powerful as the MacBook Pro 14, but it will definitely be a powerhouse. The MacBook Air M4 refresh is expected as early as March 2025. Apple needs to do this one thing to make the M4 MacBook Air a clear winner among budget laptops The iPhone 16's fiercest competitor is actually the cheapest Apple phone you can buy Best MacBook in 2025: Which Apple laptop should you buy?
