Month: August 2022

AMD is finally returning to the budget scene with the announcement of six new ‘mainstream’ chips: three based on Zen 2 architecture and the other three using the latest Zen 3.

They’ll range from quad-core to octa-core, and one includes built-in Radeon graphics. All are under $200 (around £150), bar the Ryzen 7 5700X which will cost $299 (around £230).

They’ll go on sale starting on 4 April 2022. UK prices have not yet been officially announced.

You can see their main features and prices in this handy table.

Ryzen 7 5800X3D price & release date
Announced at CES 2022, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D now has a price and a release date. It goes on sale on 20 April and will cost $449 – around £345.

AMD says it’s the world’s fastest gaming CPU, which also happens to be the first consumer CPU with vertically stacked L3 cache. Adding this extra 3D V-Cache memory makes it 15% faster than the Ryzen 9 5900X.

BIOS updates for 300-series motherboards
Initially, AMD said that Zen 3 chips wouldn’t work on 300 or 400-series motherboards, but as part of its spring announcement, it says it has been working for months on adding support and has now provided version 1207 to its motherboard partners.

What this means is that any of the seven new chips – including the 5800X3D – can be dropped into an X370 or B350 board (that’s had the update) and they will work. Seeing support for motherboards coming up to six years old is great to see.

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Apple launched the fifth-gen iPad Air alongside the new iPhone SE at its March 2022 event, boasting impressive performance gains compared to its predecessor. Not only does it offer 5G connectivity and improved USB-C transfer speeds, but the new iPad Air sports the same Apple M1 chipset as the company’s top-end iPad Pro range – and all without a price hike.

Here’s all there is to know about the new iPad Air ahead of full release tomorrow.

When will the new iPad Air be released?
As was rumoured, Apple revealed the new iPad Air during its March 2022 event. The fifth-gen tablet is on sale as of 18 March.

Buy the new iPad Air in the UK
Buy the new iPad Air in the US
As well as the Apple Store, it’s also available to buy at popular retailers like Amazon and Argos in the UK, and Best Buy in the US. For more options, see our dedicated article on where to buy the iPad Air 5.

To see what it’ll be up against, take a look at our choice of the best iPads available right now.

How much does the new iPad Air cost?
The iPad Air saw a noticeable price hike when the redesigned model was introduced in October 2020, going from a starting price of £479/$499 to £579/$599, representing an increase of £100/$100.

Thankfully, that wasn’t the case this time around, with identical pricing to the iPad Air 4 range for the Wi-Fi variant – in fact, it’s £10 cheaper in the UK!

The cellular models are a little more expensive this time around though, likely down to the inclusion of upgraded 5G connectivity.

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If you’re a Sonic the Hedgehog fan and want to level up your home with some unique smart lighting, you’re in luck. Nanoleaf is releasing a Sonic Limited Edition of its Shapes Starter Kit to celebrate the release of the movie, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – the sequel to the box office smash video game film adaptation.

Nanoleaf is one of the best-known brands in the smart lighting industry. The products come in a series of shapes, which customers can piece together however they like to create an installation that can be hooked onto a wall. Nanoleaf is particularly popular with gamers and streamers, so a Sonic-themed product is quite apt.

The 32 lights included in the pack allow users to build a portrait of either Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles ‘Tails’ Prower or Knuckles the Echidna – the three main characters in the upcoming animated movie. Three colours (Sonic Blue, Tails Yellow and Knuckles Red) are also programmed in the Sonic 2 playlist in the Nanoleaf app to streamline the build process.

Alternatively, if users want something that is not related to the speedy blue hedgehog, they can build the Nanoleaf shapes in a different custom configuration and choose from over 16 million colours.

The panels feature a screen mirror mode, which means that they will reflect the colours shown on a screen in real-time. There is also a rhythm feature, where panels react to sound and music.

The Nanoleaf Shapes Starter Kit features triangular and mini-triangular panels. If that doesn’t suit your tastes, you can opt from a range of styles, including the Hexagonal product, and the rectangular Canvas version. For something a little more sophisticated, there is also the wood-effect Elements lights.

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The successor to Nvidia’s top-end GPU, the Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti, was teased at Nvidia’s CES 2022 keynote in early January with a promise that we’d hear more by the end of that month.

As we now know, that didn’t happen. In fact, it wasn’t until the end of March that Nvidia finally released the mammoth GPU.

We cover all there is to know about the top-end Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Ti right here, from release date and pricing information to confirmed specs.

When was the Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti released?
While we were treated to a glimpse at the top-end Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti during Nvidia’s CES 2022 press conference, not much was actually revealed beyond its existence. Nvidia claimed that we’d hear more about the graphics card in late January – when some had expected the company to release the GPU – but as we now know, nothing was revealed.

In fact, it wasn’t until months later that Nvidia finally released the RTX 3090 Ti. It’s available to buy now following release on 29 March 2022.

How much does the Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti cost?
The standard RTX 3090 was the most expensive card in Nvidia’s collection at $1,499, so it should come as no real surprise that the souped-up RTX 3090 Ti costs even more. In fact, the mammoth GPU comes in with a cool £1,879/$1,999 RRP.

Of course, that’s just an RRP and it’s possible that manufacturers and retailers could choose to charge even more for the top-end GPU as with most other recent releases. It’s available at retailers including Scan in the UK and Best Buy in the US, but stock is going quickly.

It’s undoubtedly a premium graphics card, but considering the packed 24GB of GDDR6X RAM on offer, it’s not designed for gamers – or even consumers, really. It’s aimed more at creative professionals running complex 3D software or editing 8K video, which makes the price tag a little more understandable.

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In the last few years, competition in the components space has exploded into life. While Nvidia and AMD battle it out in the GPU space, the latter has also emerged as Intel’s major rival when it comes CPUs.

Intel remains the market leader, but the Ryzen 5000 Series took performance on the AMD side to the next level. These desktop processors were the first to run on the company’s new Zen 3 architecture, although they’ve since been joined by laptop-focused mobile chips.

AMD typically staggers the release of its new silicon, and that’s no different this time around. In April 2021, the company revealed the new Ryzen 5000 G-Series, which focus on gaming and content creation, before new budget CPUs arrived almost a year later. Here’s everything you need to know.

AMD Zen 3 (Ryzen 5000) release date
The Zen 3 and new Ryzen 5000 Series desktop processors were officially launched at AMD’s online event on 8 October 2020. This first wave of desktop chips then went on sale from 5 November.

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