Lexar NM610 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Responsive and Efficient DRAMless Storage

Our Verdict

Lexar’s NM610 is a worthy choice depending on the price you catch it at. It doesn’t offer the best performance but is good enough for most tasks, especially gaming.

For

  • Competitive performance
  • Power-efficient
  • Black PCB
  • Could use further idle power optimization

Against

  • Slow direct to TLC write speed
  • Ugly sticker
  • 3-year warranty
  • No software package
Lexar NM610
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Intel

Biostar Reveals Specifications For AMD Ryzen 4000 Renoir APUs

Biostar Racing B550GTQ (Image credit: Biostar)

Biostar has been a great source of information for AMD's looming Ryzen 4000-series (codename Renoir) desktop APUs. After exposing Renoir's lack of support for PCIe 4.0 yesterday, the motherboard manufacturer has now spilled the beans on the specifications for the Zen 2 APUs.

Eagle-eyed hardware sleuth @KOMACHI_ENSAKA discovered that Biostar has listed the Renoir chips in the Racing B550GTQ motherboard's

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Memorial Day Sales Start With $445 off Alienware m15 R1 Gaming Laptop

Alienware m15 R1
(Image credit: Dell)

With many of us sheltering in our homes away from barbecues and greenery, it may not feel like a typical Memorial Day this Monday. Thankfully, Dell is here to bring a little normalcy with its Memorial Day discounts, starting with this Alienware m15 R1 gaming laptop, slashed down to $1,299.99 from its usual $1,744.99 .

That’s a savings of $445, and will net you

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Intel

AMD Reportedly Planning Two New Ryzen 3000-Series CPUs

AMD Ryzen 3000-Series Processor
AMD Ryzen 3000-Series Processor (Image credit: AMD)

The latest AMD rumor-mill buzz suggests that the Red Team is secretly rewarming two Ryzen 3000-series (codename Matisse) processors to contest the latest Intel Comet Lake army.

The Ryzen 7 3800X and Ryzen 7 3700X are the two potential Zen 2 candidates that could undergo the refresh treatment. If there is a tiny bit of credence in the rumors, AMD will market the rewarmed parts


Raspberry Pi 4 Gets USB Bootloader in New Firmware Beta

None

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Earlier this week, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced the beta release of a new firmware update featuring a bootloader with USB boot support on the Raspberry Pi 4 . This new update should make the USB boot process much easier to set up on the latest Raspberry Pi .

While we've ran the Raspberry Pi off an SSD before, the Raspberry Pi 4 has lacked USB boot functionality since launch. This new update will allow complete USB boot support, eliminating the need for a microSD card entirely.


Cooler Master Caliber R2 Gaming Chair Review: Extra Lumbar Love, Extra Purple

Our Verdict

The Caliber R2 takes over a room with its bold purple accents. It offers solid back and seat support. But a flawed armrest design leaves them underused, and the neck pillow is nearly unusable.

For

  • Adjustable and thick lumbar pillow
  • Comfortable back support
  • Solid seat

Against

  • Stiff and bulky neck pillow
  • Armrests are too far apart
  • Questionable shade of purple
  • Build quality concerns
Cooler Master Caliber R2
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Intel

Intel Rocket Lake Six-Core CPU Shows Off 4.2 GHz Boost Clock

None

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Although Intel's 10th Generation Comet Lake-S CPUs have only just arrived, it appears that Intel's already fine-tuning Rocket Lake chips. Hardware detective @_rogame has reportedly discovered an early engineering sample (ES) of a six-core part.

Intel's 14nm process node has been around for a long time now. The last couple of generations of Intel processors were technically based on the same Skylake microarchitecture that debuted five years ago, (

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Nvidia Recreates Pac-Man Using AI

Pacman generated via GameGAN
(Image credit: Nvidia)

It's apparently the 40th anniversary of Pac-Man, and to celebrate Nvidia AI researchers cooked up a new tool called GameGAN and applied it to Pac-Man. The result: Without writing an engine or any code, the tool recreated Pac-Man and all of its rules with just a few days of training. But let's rewind and explain why this is cool and interesting.

GAN stands for generative adversarial network, basically two machine learning algorithms where one is


Lian Li and PC Master Race's 011 Dynamic Is a $160 Limited Edition Case Finished in Chrome

(Image credit: Lian Li)

We've been waiting months to see what Lian Li could do after tapping PC Master Race (PCMR) to create a drool-worthy chassis. The collaboration has resulted in today's announcement of the O11 Dynamic Space Gray Special Edition. This is it, the official PCMR computer case. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

“It's amazing to work with Lian Li and see this project come true," Pedro

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Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020) Review: Standard Bearer

Our Verdict

The 13-inch MacBook Pro is an update that modernizes the MacBook Pro, adding an excellent keyboard and offering long battery life. Just be sure to check that you’re getting a configuration with the newest processors.

For

  • Comfortable, clicky keyboard
  • Bright display
  • Long battery life
  • Strong speakers

Against

  • A pro machine should have more ports
  • Some apps still need updating to work with macOS Catalina
  • Base configurations use old processors
Apple MacBook Pro (13-inch)
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