Public Preview Available for Office 2016
Microsoft released a public test version of the upcoming Office 2016 desktop suite for Windows earlier today. A test version had previously been released in March 2015 for IT Pros and developers, with this version available to all users. Office 2016 will be available on Windows 7, 8, and 10 in the fall of this year. Current testers have noted that new features are hard to come by in the test version, with touch-first/Universal app versions and coauthoring capability notable absences.
Source: ZDNet
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Launch Trailer Released for Project CARS Ahead of May 7 Release
Project CARS officially went gold late last month with a release date of May 7. Slightly Mad Studios has released the launch trailer to help hold gamers over for the rest of the week and it certainly appears to live up to the hype. The trailer was accompanied by a sample of the extensive feature list, some of which can be seen below.
- The largest track roster of any recent racing game with 110+ unique locations
- A wide variety of motorsports including GT, Touring, Le Mans Prototypes, Karts, and modern Open Wheel and 80+ cars available at launch
- Dynamic weather, pit stops, and pit strategy creation
- World-class graphics running at 60 fps with up to 45 drivers onscreen
- Competitive multiplayer for up to 16 players and the ability to create public, private and friend-based lobbies with ‘Join In Progress’
- Support for 30+ wheels, community apps, and virtual reality via Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus
- Continual updates and further content after launch
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DEEPCOOL Announces TriStellar Case
DEEPCOOL has announced the first case to join its GAMER STORM product line, the TriStellar. The TriStellar presents an extremely unique design, dividing components into three separate compartments instead of a traditional single tower design. The three chamber design helps to more effectively dissipate heat with full size GPUs installed in the top compartment and attached to the motherboard via a PCIe cable. An included 90mm fan provides airflow over the GPU and up to two 2.5" SSDs. A Mini-ITX motherboard can be installed in one of the bottom chambers with enough room for larger air coolers or all-in-one liquid coolers. The final chamber holds the power supply with two spaces for hot-pluggable 3.5" hard drives and a single 5.25" drive. The TriStellar will be available in June at an MSRP of $399.99.
Source: Press Release
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Three Videos Totaling 45 Minutes Showcase The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
While new screenshots for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt have been popping up quite often as of late, videos of the upcoming title from CD Projekt RED are becoming bountiful as well. Gopher has successfully uploaded 45 minutes of gameplay from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that showcases that various environments and elements of the video game title. The first part, which is roughly 13 minutes long, displays the outside world with some intriguing game dynamics. The second part, which is roughly 17 minutes long, offers insight into the various abilities of the witcher, along with some in-game menus. The third and final part, which is right around 15 minutes in length, dives deep into the story of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
For anyone who dislikes spoilers, please do not watch the following videos that are available in 1080p, 60FPS.
Source: WCCFtech
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NVIDIA Giving Away The Witcher 3 and Batman: Arkham Knight With Select Video Cards
According to a series of slides obtained by Videocardz, NVIDIA will soon offer a free copy of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Batman: Arkham Knight to users that purchase a NVIDIA GTX 970 or 980 video card. The Witcher 3 is currently offered with those two cards and the GTX 960. As two of the most anticipated games to be released this year, this presents an incredible value for anyone in the market for a new video card. The promo material states that the offer will be available "for a limited time" so be sure to jump on it as soon as possible if you are interested.
Source: Videocardz
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First CryEngine-Based DX12 Game Shown at Microsoft BUILD
The day after Square Enix showed off the WITCH CHAPTER 0 [cry] demo at the Microsoft BUILD conference, the company showed off King of Wushu running with DirectX 12. This should end up being the first DX12 title in China and the first CryEngine-based game to use the new API. Like the previous demo, this one was also supported by NVIDIA and the game will include several GameWorks technologies when it launches.
This demo was not just about the technical potential for DX12 but its ease of adoption. According to Microsoft, DirectX 12 is set to be adopted at the fastest rate since DX 9, which may not be that surprising since it took just six weeks for two engineers working on King of Wushu to port it from DirectX 11 to DX12.
Source: NVIDIA
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HP Leaks Unannounced AMD GPUs
Leaks happen when you are working on a new and highly anticipated product, but you probably expect them to come from various places on the Internet, and not a large company. The latter is the case here though, as HP has apparently revealed the existence of the AMD R9 380 and the Radeon R7 A330 or R7 A360. These leaks come from HP describing its upcoming Envy Phoenix desktops and Pavilion All-in-Ones.
The Envy Phoenix is supposed to start shipping in June, as part of the company's back-to-school lineup.
Source: PCWorld
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Hardware Roundup: Monday, May 4, 2015, Edition
A new week is upon us, with some new items to help get you started on the right foot. There is a review of the Zalman Z11 NEO case, which has a unique visual style and plenty of features to provide something for everyone. The Cougar 200K gaming keyboard gets tested to see how this budget-friendly model stacks up to the competition. The 2015 edition of the Razer Blade Pro is on the test bench to see how this 17.3-inch laptop performs and whether or not it should be your next gaming laptop. Finally there's the VKWorld VK2015 smartphone, which has a quad-core processor, dual-SIM support, and an affordable price tag.
Cases
Zalman Z11 NEO @ ThinkComputers
Keyboards/Mice
Cougar 200K Gaming Keyboard @ LanOC Reviews
Laptops/Tablets
Razer Blade Pro (2015) @ TechSpot
Mobile
VKWorld VK2015 @ Madshrimps
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GTA V Looks Amazing at 6K
Just over a month ago, 4K screenshots for GTA V were revealed to the public that successfully showed off some impressive environments within the PC version of the game. About a month ago, a 60FPS trailer for GTA V was released by Rockstar, which provided more of want gamers wanted to see before the official release of the game. Now, PC Gamer has been kind enough to capture some 6K screenshots of GTA V. The screenshots primarily cover various outdoor environments present within GTA V, but still manage to show off just how beautiful the game can look when running on some of the best hardware currently available to consumers.
The included screenshots have been reduced in size, but the original 6K screenshots can be viewed by clicking on the source link.
Source: PC Gamer
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Disabling NVIDIA’s Streaming Service Provides Marginal Performance Gains
NVIDIA’s drivers contain a streaming service that powers one of its most touted features known as Shadow Play, which allows gamers to stream games to a SHIELD device. Unfortunately, it looks like the streaming service is automatically enabled in the latest GeForce drivers, and as such, happens to utilize CPU resources in the background even when not in use. According to reddit user lhikary, disabling the NVIDIA Streamer Service provides a roughly three to five percent performance increase in synthetic benchmarks, which is just outside the margin of error. Nonetheless, the performance gains achieved by disabling the streaming service that makes Shadow Play work could help owners of lower-end CPUs quite a bit when it comes to everyday tasks as well as gaming.
NVIDIA has not yet made an official statement in regards to its streaming service continually utilizing CPU resources in the background, even when a SHIELD device is not present.
Source: WCCFtech
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2D Semiconductor Properties Now Better Understood
The future of many technologies may be flat, thanks to advances with two-dimensional materials like graphene, boron nitride (BN), and molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). The last of those three materials is of special interest to some as it is the only of the three to be a natural semiconductor, but its performance tends to be less than predicted. Researchers at Columbia University have been investigating this and found an explanation and solution for the discrepancy.
In previous work, the researchers discovered that encapsulating graphene, a plane of carbon one atom thick, in boron nitride improved its electron mobility by a factor of 50. Electron mobility is a measure of how quickly electrons can move through a material, so better mobility means better performance. The reason the encapsulated graphene performed better is because the encapsulation reduced the disorder from exposure to the environment. By encapsulating MoS2 in BN, with graphene at the ends to act as contacts, the researchers found electron mobility increased by a factor of 2 at room temperature, bringing it closer to the theoretical limit. At low temperatures the increase was on the order of 5 to 50 times better, depending on how many layers there were.
Further analysis at low temperatures revealed that contamination at the interfaces is still the main source of disorder, which means there is still room for improvement. With 2D semiconductors and other materials potentially able to push past the performance of modern technologies, you can bet this is going to be investigated more.
Source: Columbia University
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