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Team T-Force Delta RGB 1TB SATA SSD Review - TweakTown

Team surprises with its SATA-based T-Force Delta RGB SSD! Join us as we investigate the 1TB model and see what it has to offer us.

Team has had solid success with several of its NVMe platforms, their Cardea lineup being one of the largest and best currently on the market. That said, they continue to push new SATA products to market, filling every segment in the market. When it comes to SATA, T-Force Delta is the flagship for Team, and in their current setup, they offer four models with a new Delta Max at the top. The model in house today, the Delta RGB SSD, is a tier lower, offering 16.8 million color RGB lighting behind two colorways; white or black. Several capacities are made available, including 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. The performance of the Delta RGB is rated at 560 MB/s read and write with 90K IOPS 4K. MSRP of the 1TB Team Delta RGB comes in at $119.99 with a three-year warranty. The packaging is quite colorful, with both colorways of the drive shown on the front. Capacity is listed to the right at 1TB. The back goes into more detail about the drive, including supported RGB services and setup with the 5v header. Unboxing, the packaging includes the drive, manual, and RGB cable. Looking at the drive, we have a black metal frame with branding and T-Force logo in the center of the transparent plastic. The edge of the drive houses the SATA connection along with the 5v micro USB connection for the RGB functionality. Opening the drive, we can see the RGB functionality is inclusive to the lid of the drive. The drive PCB sports an SM2258 controller paired with 96L SanDisk TLC. CDM is a staple in performance testing; version 7 has seen some updates in the workloads used for testing. Sequential Read is on point with marketing; 563 MB/s read 511 MB/s write. 4KQ1 reaches 34 MB/s. Throwing a larger workload at the Delta, we see almost identical performance. PCMark10 system drive testing shows the Delta RGB right in the middle of the pack, slightly better than the 860 Pro in the same 1TB capacity. Running through Data Drive testing, the Delta again beats out the 860 Pro with a score of 1578. Price/Performance is rather good for the Delta, climbing the ranks in our charts to 98.7%. Team surprised me with this drive because I didn't go into the review expecting a top-end solution. Starting with the unboxing, I began to get a feeling this drive was a bit better than I thought, offering a metal chassis, which isn't too common anymore. The PCB has a pretty solid build quality and is on a proven good controller with the SM2258 and BICS TLC combination. Performance is at the top of SATA capabilities at 560 MB/s read sequential with 34 MB/s at 4KQ1 but can surpass the 860 Pro, making it legit in my eyes. PCMark showed good results from the Delta, putting it right behind the Mercury Extreme Pro from OWC and about 20MB/s quicker than the 860 Pro. Data Drive testing showed the Delta lost no performance, 40 MB/s quicker than the 860 Pro. The pricing of the 1TB Delta RGB puts this drive in a competitive slot. With its MSRP at $119.99, its quicker than the 860 Pro in nearly all scenarios yet has a price that's almost $100 cheaper at the time of writing! Tyler's Test System Specifications

https://avalanches.com/world_news/au/tweaktowncom/tweak_team932349_21_10_2020

+10

NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer Preview: Very Best Tool for Esports - TweakTown

NVIDIA Reflex is a new suite of technologies that gives you detailed stats on system latency, the ultimate tool for pro gamers.

Introduction NVIDIA had some exciting news with its new Reflex technology that was unveiled during its Ampere reveal, where we learned about -- and then got to see how awesome the new GeForce RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 graphics cards were. NVIDIA reached out and asked if I would like to play around with their new Reflex Latency Analyzer technology, which is a big part of the exciting new 360Hz (yes, 360FPS -- 360 frames per second) gaming monitors. The company sent me out everything required for the testing, and away I went. First off, the NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer is a tool that is built directly into the new wave of 360Hz G-SYNC esports displays that -- instead of requiring over $7000 worth of high-end equipment and many hours of configuration and testing -- can precisely measure your latency. Tools used:

ASUS ROG Strix PG259QNR: 360Hz G-SYNC monitor
ASUS ROG Chakram Core gaming mouse
Razer DeathAdder v2 Pro
GeForce Experience (press version)

What is NVIDIA Reflex NVIDIA Reflex is a suite of technologies that were built by NVIDIA to optimize, and measure system latency in competitive games. Most people won't need this -- but esports stars, game streamers, and enthusiasts will want to deep dive into this exact suite of tools. This includes:

NVIDIA Reflex Low-Latency Mode - A new technology to reduce game and rendering latency by up to 50 percent. Reflex is being integrated in top competitive games including Fortnite, VALORANT, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), and Call of Duty: Warzone.
NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer - Now built directly into G-SYNC 360Hz Esports displays! It works by detecting clicks coming from the mouse and then measures the time it takes for the resulting pixels (for example, a gun muzzle flash) to change on screen. Reflex Latency Analyzer is integrated in new 360Hz NVIDIA G-SYNC Esports displays arriving this fall from Acer, Alienware, ASUS, and MSI and supported by top esports peripherals from ASUS, Logitech, Razer, and SteelSeries. Measuring system latency has previously been extremely difficult to do, requiring over $7,000 in specialized high-speed cameras and equipment.

You can go for a full deep dive into NVIDIA Reflex here. Do You Have NVIDIA Reflex? NVIDIA Reflex isn't just locked to the latest Ampere GPUs or the now-last-gen Turing GPUs -- but it extends all the way back to the GeForce GTX 90 series graphics cards. So if you've got a GeForce GTX 90 series, GeForce GTX 10 series, GeForce RTX 20 series, or if you've been able to actually buy a GeForce RTX 30 series card -- then you have Reflex. If you've got one of these series cards, you'll be ready for Reflex:

GeForce GTX 90 series
GeForce GTX 10 series
GeForce RTX 20 series
GeForce RTX 30 series

ASUS 360Hz G-SYNC Display NVIDIA sent over the fastest gaming monitor in the world over to test, with the ASUS ROG Strix PG259QNR -- offering a totally next-gen dual-driver IPS panel that the company collaborated with AU Optronics on. The new dual-driver IPS panel is a next-gen IPS panel that offers super-fast, consistent response times and color levels across the entire panel -- most importantly, even at the huge 360Hz refresh rates. The new 360Hz G-SYNC esports displays, in NVIDIA's own words: "feature the world's fastest refresh rates, hand-tuned esports settings on next-gen IPS technology, high performance Ultra Low Motion Blur (ULMB) tech for superior motion clarity, and support for the NVIDIA Reflex Latency Analyzer, a revolutionary new way to measure system latency. This faster refresh enables crystal clear visuals, extremely low system latency for faster reaction times, and the smoothest motion to keep your crosshairs on target". In the flesh... the ASUS ROG Strix PG259QNR. From left to right we have the power, DisplayPort, USB host, and then 2 x gaming mice plugged directly into the monitor. I'm using the ASUS ROG Chakram Core alongside the Razer DeathAdder v2 Pro gaming mice here. Setting It Up My take on NVIDIA Reflex won't be so much about the pure statistics built into the monitor, but rather how it applies to me -- an enthusiast. I love seeing the stats of my hardware when I'm gaming, but nothing over the top. I like to have the CPU, RAM, GPU (temp, GPU usage, VRAM usage) stats when gaming. Nothing too much, but enough to see that my hardware is ticking along nicely. Of course, I have my FPS counter enabled in all games -- but there are times when I'm setting up a new system and would love more stats -- that's where NVIDIA Reflex steps in. I surround myself with high refresh rate monitors, always have -- I have spent a ridiculous amount of money over the last 20 years on displays than I care to admit. But it gives me a good insight into latency in games, as I can instantly feel and recognize a lower refresh panel (say 60Hz, or even 120Hz versus 240Hz or higher). But at the end of the day it's not just display refresh rates, there are other point of latency that can create problems -- and in order to measure that you need $7000+ worth of equipment. NVIDIA skips all of that, providing users and benchmarkers like me with a system to measure latency without that massively expensive equipment. NVIDIA builds in the new Reflex Latency Analyzer into the NVIDIA 360Hz G-SYNC displays, which I have here -- and will be available to consumers in the fall -- captures the entire system latency and provides a precise measure of your PC's reaction time. This makes it as accurate as a super-fast, and very expensive 1000FPS camera. Why would you use this? To tweak and tune your gaming PC for the ultimate in response time... beyond important for competitive gamers and enthusiasts. Latency Savings If you've got a higher-end graphics card like the new Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3080, then Reflex allows you to game at higher resolutions with the same, if not better responsiveness. This means that in something like Fortnite, you can play at 4K with the responsiveness of 1440p, or at 1440p with the hyper-fast responsiveness of 1080p. If you've got NVIDIA Ultra Low Latency mode enabled, in a game that supports it -- like Valorant, then you're looking at some ridiculously low system latencies at under 12ms if you've got the right hardware. Destiny 2 also enjoys some reductions, too. Performance Overlay Now THIS is right up my alley -- NVIDIA's new Performance Overlay built into GeForce Experience, is incredible. It's a very detailed run down of what is going on with your system, and has been totally tweaked for Reflex. You can enable the Reflex option on the Performance Overlay in GFE, getting access to the following data in real-time:

FPS - Frames per second - the measure of throughput - not latency.
Render Present Latency - The time when the present call entered the queue to the time the present call was executed on the GPU.
Render Latency - The time from when the frame gets in line to be rendered to when the GPU completely renders the frame.
Reflex Monitoring Position - Rectangle monitoring coordinates.
Mouse Latency - Mouse peripheral latency only.
PC + Display Latency - Measured from the moment the mouse click is received by the OS to the end of display latency. Monitor OSD reports this.
System Latency - The time encompassing the whole end-to-end measurement - from the start of peripheral latency to the end of display latency (requires Reflex Latency Analyzer supported mouse). GeForce Experience reports both PC + Display and total System Latency.

Fortnite + Call of Duty: Warzone Tested I installed and tweaked GeForce Experience, enabled the Reflex feature in Performance Overlay in GeForce Experience -- and jumped into (to play) two games: Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone. After enabling all of the settings required, I would reboot between testing with Reflex and Ultra Low Latency enabled. Some games have Reflex and Reflex Low Latency options that you need to enable, with Fortnite having Latency Markers, NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency, Latency Flash -- and for HUD options you also have Latency Debug Stats so you can get the ultimate nerd out of stats. In Call of Duty: Warzone you'll have to enable NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency (which has the options of being disabled, being turned ON, and then ON + BOOST). I pumped many hours into playing Call of Duty: Warzone on the 360Hz monitor with NVIDIA Reflex Low Latency (both enabled + BOOST) and loved every moment of it. It is a ridiculous monitor at 360Hz, and no GPU hardware on the planet can handle 360FPS in Call of Duty. But, the NVIDIA Reflex technology enabled with BOOST -- is an experience that is unmatched. As you can see, you get some glorious stats to check over. There's a lot of latency-related stuff here, giving people who want it, every single detail possible. We have everything from the Render Preset Latency through to the Average PC + Display Latency and even the total System Latency. Seeing the Render Preset Latency sitting somewhere in the 1ms range is beautiful -- beyond describable smoothness in Call of Duty: Warzone. It's something that you need to simply try in person, I cannot describe how smooth it is. It's almost like how they describe the Matrix... you have to experience it for yourself. Stats for Nerds FTW NVIDIA Reflex is another great free upgrade for gamers, that gets built right into an already great foundation that is GeForce Experience. The Performance Overlay is awesome on its own, but Reflex is like steroids to your stats. Being able to measure and test system latency without super-expensive hardware is great -- but it is not for everyone. If you spend the money on a ridiculously fast 360Hz G-SYNC esports display, then having the Reflex Latency Analyzer built into your monitor and GFE is a Godsend. The entire esports market is continuing to expand so testing latency becomes a much more important tool, and there are scenarios where this is a game changer. There are esports events where millions of dollars are on the table, so a new milliseconds in latency can mean the difference between a win, and a loss -- between millions of dollars and first place, and not. In a world where we return to somewhat normal with in-person esports tournaments and events, NVIDIA now exclusively offers esports gamers and companies to deploy GeForce-powered gaming PCs with pinpoint latency. You will of course require the new 360Hz G-SYNC displays, but you would have instantly-calibrated lightning-fast latency on every PC. This is a very big deal with NVIDIA leading in esports games, having Day One drivers, optimizations, and constant improvements to gigantic esports games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Valorant, and so many more. NVIDIA Reflex is being added to these games and that is a big deal on its own -- these games are played by 100s of millions of gamers. I pumped in some hours of playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone with NVIDIA Reflex (+BOOST) on and it was liquid smooth. I don't think I've ever had something feel that smooth when gaming before, and I've tested everything right up to a 280Hz refresh monitor. The 360Hz dual-driver IPS panel mixed with NVIDIA Reflex is out of this world, it's the very fastest gaming experience I've ever had -- improved again when you can get close to 300FPS+ in something like Fortnite. Running around in Fortnite at over 300FPS with NVIDIA Reflex enabled was incredible.

https://avalanches.com/world_news/au/tweaktowncom/tweak_nvid904660_13_10_2020

+10

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's new update will make PC version smaller - TweakTown

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's new 1.28 update will FINALLY let you uninstall parts from the game, making it MUCH smaller.

Finally... finally, finally, finally -- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is about to get a bit smaller on the PC with its new 1.28 update that will begin rolling out in the next few hours. The new update will let PC owners of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare uninstall specific parts of the game, so if you're only playing Warzone or multiplayer in MW, you can uninstall the single player campaign and save some precious space on your HDD or SSD. The news is coming from Paul Haile, who is the Production Director on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, announcing it over Twitter. We don't know what else the new COD: MW 1.28 update will include, or how big the patch will be -- but whatever is required to reduce the storage required for PC users since the game is weighing around 250GB -- a quarter of a terabyte. It was only a few months ago that the installation size of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare tipped over 200GB, but with the recent huge Season 6 update that weighed 57GB on the PC -- the overall size of COD: MW is now tipping towards 250GB. This new update will make things a bit better for PC gamers.

https://avalanches.com/world_news/au/tweaktowncom/tweak_call902764_13_10_2020

+10

Sennheiser EPOS GSX 300 External Sound Card Review - TweakTown

EPOS | Sennheiser has released a new external sound card, the GSX 300. Will it enhance your gaming audio performance for $79?

Introduction & Specification Details and Close-up EPOS is expanding its range of gaming audio solutions, and one of the markets that you may not be familiar with is external sound cards. Since most motherboards these days come with really good audio and microphone amplification, purchasing an external sound card is quite unheard of in 2020. However, the EPOS GSX 300 may provide a level of convenience that would warrant you picking one up. Additionally, if you are into audio and are looking at getting higher-end headphones, an external sound card is probably on your list of things you need to acquire to get the most out of new flashy pair of headphones. Coming in at $79, EPOS has released the GSX 300, and we are going to putting it to the test to see if it's a worthy addition to your desktop and gaming audio setup. My initial first impressions are that desktop gamers aren't going to benefit a whole lot from the GSX 300, but more so, laptop gamers or gamers running on very cheap machines will benefit most from acquiring a GSX 300. Let's see if I'm right, but first, let's jump into a product's close up. Close-up To kick things off, we have an image of the front of the box, and here we can see an image of the external sound card, as well as some of the features it comes with listed in the bottom right-hand corner. Moving on to the back of the box, we have some more details on the features the sound card comes with, as well as a nice informative diagram. The side of the box provides us with some technical data, and as you can see, the sample rate for the GSX 300 is 96 kHz, bit-depth is 24 bit, cable length is 1.2m, connection is via USB, and the weight of the unit is only 150g. The other side of the box is quite plain, but informs us of the contents of the box, as well as the compatibility. Now we have an image of the GSX 300 outside of the box, and if you can't see by this image, the GSX 300 is extremely small. The unit measures in at 9cm long, 8cm wide, and 4cm tall. In this image, we can also see the large volume wheel, and beside it, a button that can be used to enable surround sound mode or switching between presets. To really emphasize how small the GSX 300 is, I decided to take a side-on shot, and as you can see, the unit is designed to be face-on to the user due to the front of the unit being larger than the back. Here we have an image of the back of the GSX 300, and from right to left we have the microphone input, headphone input, and micro-USB input. Lastly, we have an image of the 1.2m micro-USB to USB cable. Jak's Test System Specifications Design & Software Design The GSX 300 encapsulates everything that is Sennheiser into a nice little box. The GSX 300 has a nice smooth plastic casing that is aesthetically pleasing to look at. It also has rubber pads located on the bottom of the device, so it doesn't slide off your desk if you accidentally bump it. The large volume wheel on the front is pleasurable to use as it features tactile notches that are extremely satisfying when either increasing/decreasing volume. Another awesome feature of the volume wheel is that it's instantaneous with Windows, meaning that there is no delay between you increasing/decreasing the volume on the GSX 300, and the volume being outputted by Windows. The smaller button located next to the volume wheel has been left by EPOS | Sennheiser to be a programmable button. Users can decide to configure this button to cycle through preset EQ profiles, or switch between stereo and surround sound. When a user is cycling between surround sound and stereo, the LED located around the volume wheel will change color; red for surround sound and blue for stereo. The only real issue I have with the design of the GSX 300 is that the cable is only 1.2m in length. The reason this is an issue is that it gives users a limited amount of customization when it comes to where they are going to place the unit on their desks. Other than that, the GSX 300 has a very sleek design that has minimal downsides. Software The software that is needed to control the GSX 300 is the EPOS Gaming Suite, and it can be downloaded here. Once you have successfully downloaded and installed the software, you will be presented with the screen. Here you must select the GSX 300 as your default playback device in Windows, and to do that; you can click on the Auto Setup option. In the settings screen, you can also choose if you want the software to launch on startup, update firmware, and enable/disable notifications. The EPOS Gaming Suite also comes with microphone customization options in the forms of gain control, sidetone, noise gate, and noise cancellation. There are also three voice enhancement profiles; off, Warm, and Clear. I will get more into each of these profiles in the Performance & Microphone side of the review. The playback option allows users to change the sound curvature to whatever they like. Users can also save custom profiles by clicking on the + symbol at the top right next 'flat' profile. Speaking of profiles, the software comes with four preset profiles; eSports, Flat, Movie, and Music. The software also comes with two modes stereo, and 7.1 surround sound. Overall, I found the EPOS Gaming Suite software to be very easy and simple to use. Everything you need is very easy to find, and the user interface is intuitive even for a person who has no prior EQ knowledge. Lovely work here EPOS | Sennheiser, but I will get into some of the driver issues later on in the review. Performance & Microphone Performance I decided to test the GSX 300 with the Sennheiser GSP 300, and my first initial thoughts were that my sound was immediately far louder at less volume in Windows. I also found that even as I was listening to audio at higher volumes, there was less distortion than if I had the headset plugged directly into my PC case or motherboard. As for gaming testing, I decided to run the GSX 300 through my typical gaming suite titles; Apex Legends, Hyperscape, Dragon Age: Origins, and a surprise title - Iron Harvest. In each of these titles, I noticed a rise in quality, and a new level of punchiness to the audio that was being outputted through the GSP 300's. Now, I don't believe the GSX 300 will magically turn an average headset into a fantastic one, but I do believe that an average headset paired with the GSX 300 will bump that overall audio experience up a few notches. I also did some surround sound testing, and throughout all of the titles that I tested the virtual surround sound in, I found one commonality - I felt extremely distant from the source of the audio. For example, footsteps in both Apex Legends and Hyperscape are vital information for knowing where your enemy is. I found that with the 7.1 virtual surround sound enabled, I was able to track where my enemy was going more accurately, but I didn't necessarily know the correct distance of how far away I was to him. For this reason, I found myself in my situations where I knew where my enemy was, but he would surprise me by appearing super close to me, or actually being further away than previously anticipated. Personally, I don't really recommend the virtual surround sound on the GSX 300, as throughout my listening experience, I thoroughly enjoyed the stereo side more. Microphone GSX 300 + GSP 300 No Settings Your browser does not support HTML5 video playback. GSX 300 + GSP 300 Warm Setting Your browser does not support HTML5 video playback. GSX 300 + GSP 300 Clean Setting Your browser does not support HTML5 video playback. I believe the 'warm' setting sounds the best out of each of the above audio files and is something I would definitely recommend users turning on if they decide to pick up the GSX 300. Final Thoughts What's Hot The GSX 300 has a fantastic sleek design that is complemented with its functionality and ease of use. The price of the GSX 300 is something to turn your head at as well, as I believe this soundcard paired with some decent mid-range gaming headsets will turn some good headsets into great ones. What's Not Now, I left most of the really big downsides here for one reason, and that is because I believe they are temporary. The reason I believe that is because they are driver issues. Unfortunately, the programmable button located on the unit doesn't actually swap audio modes even when displayed in the EPOS Gaming Suite Software. The mode has to be manually clicked for it to swap. Notably, the actual EPOS Gaming Suite software doesn't show up on the taskbar at the bottom of Windows, and can only be found in the hidden icons tray. Additionally, the side-tone slider in the software doesn't work, at least on my unit. These issues certainly impact the overall performance of the GSX 300, but I believe that in the future, driver updates will be issued to the software that will remove them - or at least, I hope so. So, is the GSX 300 worth the $79 price tag? Well, as always, that really depends on your use case. If you are looking for a significant boost to your gaming audio experience, but don't want to upgrade your headset, then the GSX 300 could be a really good pick up for you. This will especially be the case if you are looking for some really convenient functionality on your desk. However, there are several driver issues I mentioned previously that severely impact the functionality of the unit, but I do stress that these issues exist at the time of writing this review, and that may not necessarily be the case in the future. Overall, I do believe EPOS | Sennheiser has created a really nice product, and while it does have its issues, it does fill a wanted place in the market for a very reasonable price. Ultimately, if you can get past some of the issues previously mentioned, and really have fallen in love with that 'warm' microphone preset (my favorite part of the product), then I believe you would be satisfied with your purchase of the GSX 300.

https://avalanches.com/world_news/au/tweaktowncom/tweak_senn901091_12_10_2020

+10

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 with 20GB rumored for December 2020 launch - TweakTown

NVIDIA rumored to launch GeForce RTX 3080 with 20GB and also the GeForce RTX 3070 with 16GB in December 2020, after Big Navi.

NVIDIA is seeing virtually every single GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card it can make sell out worldwide instantly, but it looks like we're leading right into the larger 20GB model that will reportedly launch in December 2020. According to VideoCardz, the new GeForce RTX 3080 20GB graphics card will launch in December -- with their sources "confident that NVIDIA will launch two SKUs: 3080 20GB and 3070 16GB in that month". The plans as VC states have been changed when it comes to the purported GeForce RTX 3070 Ti with 6144 CUDA cores which has "allegedly been scrapped". NVIDIA should launch the GeForce RTX 3070 with 8GB of GDDR6 on October 29, the day after AMD reveals Big Navi and the now-confirmed (with 4K gaming performance numbers teased) with the Radeon RX 6000 series on October 28. After that, sometime in December, we are to expect the RTX 3070 with 16GB. AMD is expected to launch Big Navi with 16GB variants, which will beat the 10GB on the RTX 3080 and the very reason the RTX 3080 20GB is being loaded into the chamber for NVIDIA to fire out to gamers to battle Big Navi.

https://avalanches.com/world_news/au/tweaktowncom/tweak_nvid899231_12_10_2020

+10

Corsair Force Series MP510 4TB NVMe M.2 SSD Review - TweakTown

Corsair is going big and in a big way. Join us as we review and look closely at the 4TB Corsair Force MP510 TLC NVMe M.2 SSD.

Introduction & Drive Details The rarest SSD out there today is a 4TB consumer M.2 NVMe SSD with a TLC flash array. There are only two that we know of, one is by Sabrent, and the other is now by Corsair. Everything high capacity is trending QLC, and it doesn't look like TLC will be around for long, at least not at capacity points above 2TB. With this in mind, we think now is the perfect time to jump on a drive like Corsair's MP510 4TB SSD. It's not cheap, but nothing 4TB is cheap, not even QLC. However, when you can get a 4TB NVMe TLC SSD for at or around the same price as a 4TB QLC variant, you should do it if you can. In my rig, I run a 4TB TLC SSD, and it is glorious. You think a 2TB NVMe SSD makes life great? Wait until you try a 4TB M.2 NVMe TLC SSD. Again, this may be the last time you can get a 4TB M.2 NVMe TLC SSD. It's not that QLC is bad. It's that TLC is inherently better, and it's going extinct soon. We just witnessed the extinction of MLC flash in the consumer space with the Samsung 980 Pro going TLC. TLC is next, and therefore we believe you can't go wrong investing in a quality piece of hardware like Corsair's 4TB MP510. The newest iteration of Corsairs renown Force Series MP510 line of NVMe SSDs is different than the others. It has a flash array composed of 96-Layer BiCS TLC (3-bit) NAND vs. 64L BiCS TLC on the smaller capacities. More density (layers) facilitates higher capacity. Additionally, the 4TB MP510 differs from its older brethren in that it has a newer version of Phison's powerful E12 controller, the E12S. The E12S is an E12 variant with an optimized footprint and nickel coating. An optimized footprint is a smaller footprint, and nickel coating makes it run cooler. Both nice improvements. A smaller footprint is what you need if you want to fit 8-flash chips, DRAM, and an 8-channel controller on a 22mm x 80mm PCB that is about the size of a stick of gum. Impressive. Now, let's take a closer look at what we believe is the most desirable Corsair SSD ever made. Drive Details Incredible endurance and plenty of speed to satisfy the most demanding consumers. Corsair's MP510 is, in our opinion, a good-looking piece of hardware. Jon's Test System Specifications Corsair SSD Toolbox Corsair offers a free SSD Toolbox to manage the SSDs they sell. With Corsair's full-featured SSD Toolbox, you can monitor SSD health, clone your system, update firmware, and secure erase. You can download it here. Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM & Anvils CrystalDiskMark Great performance across the board. Phison's E12S controller can handle massive capacities with ease. Anvil's Storage Utilities Corsair's 4TB MP510 delivers the best score we've seen from a high-capacity M.2 NVMe SSD with a Gen3 interface. Impressive. Max random write IOPS results are outstanding. Well above factory specs. Max random read falls a bit short of factory specs because they are given for an empty secondary device. Synthetic Benchmarks: AS SSD & ATTO AS SSD Our focus is read scoring, and Corsair's MP510 delivers in a big way, with the second-best performance we've seen from a high capacity M.2 NVMe SSD. Additionally, whenever an SSD delivers a total score that exceeds 7K it is something to take notice of. ATTO The MP510 almost gives us full speed at 128K transfers but comes up a bit short when serving data to the host. Nevertheless, very impressive. Real-World Testing: Transfer Rates & Gaming Transfer Rates Corsair's MP510 gives us our 600 MB/s minimum plus a little bit more. The difference between the best Gen3 performance and the MP510 is little more than 100 MB/s and likely unnoticeable to the end-user. Game Level Loading We like to see sub-11 seconds here, but as is the case with all Phison powered SSDs, that remains elusive. Real-World Testing: PCMark 10 Storage Tests PCMark 10 Storage Test is the most advanced and most accurate real-world consumer storage test ever made. There are four different tests you can choose from; we run two of them. The Full System Drive Benchmark and the Quick System Drive Benchmark. The Full System Drive Benchmark writes 204GB of data over the duration of the test. The Quick System Drive Benchmark writes 23GB of data over the duration of the test. These tests directly correlate with user experience. Of the two tests, we feel that the Quick System Drive Test most accurately replicates a typical user experience. PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark As our charts demonstrate, the 4TB MP510 handles heavy workloads with ease, which is something that gives it an advantage over most QLC SSDs. Even if a QLC SSD manages to do a bit better as we see from Intel's 660P, that is offset by the fact that QLC SSDs can quickly wear out if subjected to heavy workloads for a long period of time. PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark Corsair's 4TB MP510 shows us what it is made of by easily digesting what we consider the most important test we run. The 4TB MP510 delivers the fourth-best performance for any high-capacity consumer NVMe SSD we've tested to date. Impressive. Final Thoughts Capacious, fast as hell, and unparalleled endurance is what Corsair's 4TB MP510 is all about. We feel this SSD is as good as it gets and that soon you will never again be able to buy such an SSD as a 4TB TLC M.2 NVMe SSD. QLC is taking over the high capacity NVMe SSD market and bringing with it inherently lower performance and lower quality. There are two issues we see with QLC SSDs. When they start to get filled up, write speeds plummet to the point where even mechanical HDDs can be significantly faster. The other is the most obvious, and that is incredibly low endurance in comparison with TLC SSDs. What QLC does have going for it is capacity. This is why we love Corsair's 4TB MP510 TLC powered M.2 NVMe SSD. It is one of only two M.2 NVMe SSDs we know of that gives you the best of both worlds. High capacity that won't slow to a crawl when it gets full or close to full, and endurance that is currently close to 10x better than 4-bit (QLC) SSDs. As the above chart clearly shows, Corsair's magnificent 4TB MP510 M.2 NVMe SSD delivers a user experience that is far better than anything QLC, even when QLC is on a Gen4 interface. A quick recap of our testing reveals several highlights where the 4TB Corsair MP510 really stands out in terms of performance. Anvils testing produced overall results that are the best we've seen from an ultra-high capacity Gen3 SSD. AS SSD testing treated us to the second-best performance we've seen from any Gen3 SSD. Finally, and most importantly, the 4TB MP510 showed off its prowess when performing typical consumer tasks when tested with PCMark 10. Unrivaled M.2 TLC capacity, blazing-fast performance, and the highest endurance rating we've ever seen have earned Corsair's 4TB MP510 NVMe SSD TweakTown's highest award. Pros

Capacity
Endurance
User Experience
5-Year Warranty

Cons

https://avalanches.com/world_news/au/tweaktowncom/tweak_cors880504_06_10_2020

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Call of Duty Mobile has made nearly $500 million in one year - TweakTown

Activision's new Call of Duty mobile shooter is massively successful especially in the United States with nearly $500m in 1 year.

Call of Duty Mobile has been a tremendous success right out of the gate, amassing nearly half a billion dollars in revenues and taking the #3 spot in the U.S. in its first year of availability. There's nothing like Call of Duty; the IP is a trend-setter and its annualized installments routinely rake in hundreds of millions in game sales and long-term monetization for Activision. Now with the new mobile-based Call of Duty game, Activision has expanded its focus to tap gaming's most lucrative platform. And tap it the company has; the free-to-play CoD Mobile has generated $480 million in microtransactions in its first year on the market. According to analyst firm Sensor Tower, Call of Duty Mobile has made considerable revenues since releasing in October 2019. The game has earned about $480m in mTX spending and overall earnings peaked in Q2'20 during the coronavirus lockdowns. Downloads sit at about 270 million worldwide, but CoD Mobile is doing extremely well in the U.S., where it's taken the #3 top mobile shooter spot behind Fortnite (#2) and PUBG (#1). The F2P game's success lies with Activision's new four-part plan, which emphasizes monetization, full game releases, mobile ports, and new engagement models. We've seen evidence of the last two with a number of mobile-based releases of Activision-Blizzard's most popular IPs, including CoD and the upcoming Diablo Immortal, and the latter, new engagement models, is highlighted with the unique cross-progression/cross-play/cross-SKU business model of Call of Duty Warzone. CoD Mobile is an important piece to Activision's earnings pie, but Warzone represents the biggest thing the company has ever done. Check our video below for more info on why Warzone is so transformative:

https://avalanches.com/world_news/au/tweaktowncom/tweak_call877537_06_10_2020

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Black Ops Cold War: uncapped FPS, DirectX 12, FOV slider on PC - TweakTown

Beenox promises tons of PC-level optimizations and settings for Black Ops Cold War, including uncapped FPS, FOV sliders, and more.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will have all the staples of a marquee AAA PC game: uncapped frame rates, VRR for high-refresh displays, FOV sliders, and ray-tracing support for RTX video cards. One big change for Cold War is how the engine now runs on DirectX 12, which enables all kinds of new optimizations via the DX12 Ultimate APIs like Sampler Feedback Streaming (devs have more control how data is streamed to GPU), and accelerated DirectStorage APIs that power NVIDIA's new ultra-fast RTX IO data technology. "The biggest change is that the Black Ops engine now runs on DirectX 12. This has led to a huge improvement in terms of performance and latency reduction. For players that prioritize immersive gameplay, we have a great partnership with NVIDIA to bring ray traced effects, performance-accelerating deep learning super-sampling, and Reflex latency optimization technology," Beenox UI/UX director Marc-Alexandre Milot said in a recent video. Milot also confirms Reflex latency tech is coming to Warzone in the future. Also remember Cold War's PC version is being developed by four studios: Beenox, Sledgehammer Games, High Moon Studios, and Activision Shanghai. Black Ops Cold War PC features

Uncapped FPS
Variable Refresh for 120Hz play
FOV slider
Ray-traced shadows & ambient occlusion
DLSS enabled
Reflex low-latency technology

https://avalanches.com/world_news/au/tweaktowncom/tweak_blac847505_27_09_2020

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Acer's new 28-inch 4K 144Hz gaming monitor includes HDMI 2.1 standard - TweakTown

Acer's new XV282K KV is the company's first HDMI 2.1-capable monitor, 4K resolution with a super-smooth 144Hz refresh rate.

Acer has just unveiled its latest XV282K KV gaming monitor, which is part of the NITRO XV2 series and is the first gaming monitor that is HDMI 2.1-capable. Why is HDMI 2.1 important? Because HDMI 2.1 supports 4K 120Hz over a single cable, something that is required here for high-res monitors over HDMI. The new Acer XV282K KV is a 28-inch IPS-based 4K monitor with a native 144Hz refresh rate. Acer is providing 1 x DisplayPort 1.4 (with DSC support to drive 4K 144Hz) as well as 2 x HDMI 2.1 connectors which will be perfect for NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 30 series (which has HDMI 2.1 connectivity), AMD's upcoming Big Navi graphics cards, and the next-gen PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles. We have VESA HDR600 certification, 4 x USB 3.0 ports, dual 2W speakers, and a 3.5mm audio jack. We're looking at a price of around $1250 for the Acer XV282K KV, which is pretty hefty considering you can get damn fine alternatives like a huge 43-inch ASUS ROG Strix XG438Q (4K 120Hz HDR600) for $1100.

https://avalanches.com/world_news/au/tweaktowncom/tweak_acer807348_15_09_2020

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NETGEAR Nighthawk AX12 Wireless Router Review - TweakTown

NETGEAR's flagship 12 stream AX6000 platform in the Nighthawk AX12 wireless router impresses! Join us as we take a close look.

Introduction & Pricing, Availability, and Specifications A little over a year ago, the Nighthawk AX lineup was released, so we are a bit late to the party with this review, but alas, we were finally able to get our hands on this unique solution today. NETGEAR and ASUS are routinely the first two vendors to release wireless router product to the market, ASUS initially carrying Broadcom chipsets and NETGEAR offering Qualcomm platforms. With several ASUS solutions in the charts, it was about time we got a flagship Qualcomm solution on the books, and the RAX120 will do just that. As mentioned, the Nighthawk AX12 is a Qualcomm-based platform featuring the IPQ8074, a four-core SoC operating at 2GHz. NETGEAR pairs the 8074 with 1GB of DRAM from Nanya and 512MB of flash from Winbond. As for radios, we have two in use for the AX12, the first being a QCN5024 allowing 4x4 2.4GHz throughput of 1148Mbps. 5GHz works on the QCN5054 in an 8-stream configuration, allowing 4804Mbps of throughput. The main 8074 SoC handles both ethernet and switch duties, while a secondary Aquantia AQR111 is included for multi-gig connectivity. Pricing and Availability The Nighthawk AX12 is currently available at nearly all online retailers, including Newegg, Amazon, and Microcenter. The MSRP is $499.99 with a two-year warranty. Router Details Nighthawk AX12 Wireless Router The AX12 arrives in colorful packaging, an image of the router centered with model identification at the top. The spine of the box offers full specifications along with package contents and warranty information. Included with the router, we have the power adapter and ethernet cables and the quick start guide. The Nighthawk AX12, and AX8, for that matter, share an Imperial Shuttle design with wings that fold up and down and lock into place. The wings of the AX12 have been locked in opening up the airflow channel that resides down the router's center. We have Nighthawk branding on the left side. On the backside, we have a stacked lineup of ports starting with the four gigabit ports on the left, WAN, and the multi-gig port that supports 1Gbe through 5Gbe. We round things out with two USB 3.0 and power controls. Management GUI Details Management GUI Setup for the AX12 starts with the screen above. NETGEAR offers several options for going through setup, including an automatic option that is the default setting. Pushing through setup, we configure the admin account and security for the router. With setup complete, we get our first look at the user interface, with what appears to be a more modern take on the NETGEAR Genie interface we were used to on Wi-Fi 5 solutions. Off the bat, the dashboard gives us a look at SSID, devices connected, and ReadyShare. Wireless settings allow you to set up separate SSIDs for each band or smart connect that allows the router to choose a band based on the device. QoS allows you to prioritize devices based on rules and devices. ReadyShare is NETGEAR's onboard storage platform that includes both local and cloud access with ReadyCloud. Test System Setup & Benchmark Throughput Tests Tyler's Test System Specifications We perform all tests in a real-world environment. You may get better range and throughput results in a spacious facility with few internal walls or outdoors. Our tests provide a benchmark for estimating the range and throughput of wireless networking devices in an indoor setting with some obstacles. Wired and Wireless Throughput LAN throughput for the AX12 showed 950Mbps for the wired connection and 452Mbps when going wireless to wireless. 2.4GHz throughput hit a high of 301Mbps using 40MHz channels and a touch under 90Mbps with 20MHz. 5GHz was a bit better, the Nighthawk AX12 reaching 1250Mbps with 160MHz channels and 650Mbps with 80MHz. Mobile Throughput / Range Moving to our iPhone for mobile throughput, the AX12 did quite well, topping 130Mbps at 30ft on 2.4GHz. 5GHz came in just under 500Mbps at 30ft, middle of the pack in our charts. Benchmarks - Storage Performance & Final Thoughts Storage Performance Lastly, we have storage performance, which for the AX12 was remarkably good, reaching 169 MB/s read and 113 MB/s write. Final Thoughts With our first NETGEAR solution tested, the AX12 is certainly a capable flagship solution for NETGEAR, a router that shows off what Wi-Fi 6 is capable of with 12 stream Wi-Fi and Multi-Gig among other features. Build quality is really good, top-end plastics with excellent fit and finish with just enough LEDs to let you know what's going on and nothing overdone. The hinge mechanism used for the "wings" does feel sturdy, although it technically is the weakest point of the platform. Hardware choice for this top-end offering is on point and using the aging but proven IPQ8074 that made its name in Wi-Fi 5 solutions like the ASUS GT series and, more recently, this AX12 and the ASUS GT-AX6000 platforms. That said, the DRAM/flash configuration for the AX12 is the first to use 1GB of DRAM paired with 512MB of flash on Wi-Fi 6. The performance of the AX12 in LAN reached the peaks of gigabit ethernet at 951Mbps wired and 452Mbps wireless to wireless. 2.4GHz offered excellent performance, reaching 301Mbps right with the rest of the pack in our charts. 5GHz put the AX12 in the top 3 in performance, reaching 1250Mbps with 160MHz channels and 700Mbps using 80MHz channels. Mobile throughput had the AX12 in the top 5 in 2.4GHz performance at 30ft, while 5GHz ends up in the 7th spot just under 500Mbps at 30ft. Storage performance sets the AX12 apart from most routers we have tested with 169 MB/s read and 113 MB/s write in sequentials, making this a solid yet basic option for users who want a media server or personal cloud solution without buying into a dedicated NAS box. With the AX12 being the flagship solution, the AX12 has a hefty MSRP of $499.99 but does carry a two-year warranty. Comparable solutions include the ASUS AX88U or Archer AX6000 from TP-Link.

https://avalanches.com/world_news/au/tweaktowncom/tweak_netg805055_14_09_2020

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