Surely on more than one occasion you have said or heard someone say a computer is running slow, especially on older computers, as more and more powerful applications are being developed and therefore more resources are needed. RAM is one of the key components in computer performance, although other components such as the processor itself or the hard drive are also important in this regard.
Sometimes we decide to change computer the minute we start noticing it becomes slow and that there is no way to optimize its performance through software, however, you should first think about the possibility of making some changes in the hardware to extend the life of our PC or laptop much more.
Undoubtedly, changing from HDD to SSD can help you a lot, but in many cases users think first about increasing the RAM of their computer. However, several doubts may arise here, how much RAM do I have installed right now, what type, how much RAM does my computer support, how to know if I have room to install more RAM and how do i install it.
The Radeon RX 460 graphics cards are the humblest model of the new family of graphics based on AMD’s Polaris architecture. In principle, they integrate a Polaris 11 GPU with 896 Stream Processors, but in recent months we could already see some vBIOS that allowed the activation of the remaining 128 SP that the GPU …
Computers and mobile devices need two main types of memory in order to operate correctly and to store the data that they work with. These two types of memory are known as RAM and ROM, and we are going to analyze in detail each of their differences and in what way each one stands out.
RAM
The first one is RAM, which stands for Random Access Memory, and as its name indicates, constantly changes its content. This is usually the second component with most memory on our device, after the hard discs or SSD, followed by the graphics cards. RAM is used to store the programs and data that the CPU is using in real time, hence the term ‘Random Access Memory’.
It doesn’t sound like much after having passed a CES 2017 packed with gaming laptops, in which there are space for monstrous configurations, and are also well balanced. The common denominator in the industry is to move to the seventh generation of Intel processors, and the new MacBook Pro should not be left out of the game.
We will not discover anything with Apple, the Californian company has always been characterized by making evolutions at their considered pace, and do not always offer the latest in components common with other brands. This year they have been more concerned with placing an extra screen in devices, and according to the majority of tests, a battery life that has had to be fixed with updates.
Although it is true that there are curved televisions with sizes exceeding 65 inches, in the monitors market the most common in the larger models are the 34″. Philips has wanted to go a little further and has announced its BDM4037UW monitor with nothing more and nothing less than 40 inches. This monitor includes a …
Two months ago we explained how to compress files, particularly how compression works for several files, including images. This is something that’s been gaining importance in the last years, especially in big companies like Google or Facebook, since images just keep getting larger, and they are doing it at a faster pace than any company’s servers and hard drives, so compressing is a must.
The best options to compress your photos
It’s common to rely on websites to perform these functions, but if we don’t have a fast internet connection the process can be too slow. We also have Windows’ Paint or Photos, which compress the file of an image 20% if we save them, and in Paint we can even edit their size. The problem is that they barely have any customization options.
To protect our computer against viruses or a defective software this is best weapon. In just a few steps it allows us to restore the computer to a previous state and everything goes back to normal. This time we are going to show you how to enable system restore in Windows 10. It’s a quick process, without any further effort.
It’s a feature that few users value when having to deal with any threat. Obviously, we have to say that its use expose the computer to certain risk of losing information. This will depend on the frequency in which the restore points are created and the frequency in which we decide to use them. The more distant to the present day it’s more probable to happen. We also have to mention that enabling it will impact in the available storage capacity, although that’s something we can configure during the enabling process and once functioning.
How to enable system restore in Windows 10
In first place, we have to look for the configuration menu of this function. Since Windows 10 is organized differently than other versions of Redmond operative systems, let’s turn to Cortana. Writing “restore point” it should appear as first option “Create a restore point”. By selecting it, it will open a window in the tab that has what we are looking for. For those who want to look for it, it’s found in the System Properties window under the system protection tab, as you can see in the next image:
Companies try to brand all of their products with the gaming slogan, and that leads to curiosities like trying to put it on the routers. Linksys introduced the WRT32X at CES, of dubious utility, and Asus has also done the same with the ROG Rapture GT-AC5300-Republic of Gamers, the popular gaming brand from Asus.
In appearance it is similar to other routers of the company that already are in the market (a characteristic form of spider with eight antennas), and with the maximum benefits in this sector: wifi of type 802.11 ac MU-MIMO, eight ports Gigabit Ethernet, Simultaneous use of three Wi-Fi networks (one at 1000 Mbps and two at 2167 Mbps), 1024 QAM modulation and 80 MHz bandwidth for connections, two USB 3.0 ports, and a full firmware with firewall and other security and configuration features.
Many, many times in this website have we talk about power supplies and each time, we have mention rails as something common without going to deep about them. Well, that ends with this article in which we are going to explain what rails are, how they affect PC performance and if it’s better to choose a power supply with a single and powerful rail or one with several.
In this article we’ll try to be as comprehensible as possible for people who don’t have any electronic or electrical notions, so we warn you if you do have this knowledge don’t be alarmed by seeing how rough this explanations are, since our aim is for this to be completely understandable for every user, having in mind that the purpose is to help choosing which option is more convenient whether a single rail or a multi rail power supply.
What are power supply rails?
First of all, let’s explain what a rail is. Rails are the channels through which the power supply feeds electricity to all the components in our computer. Generally we just talk about +12 V rails since these have the bigger impact in the computer but power supplies have also rails in the +3,3V y +5V channels of course.
Single Rail vs Multi Rail
Each rail of the power supply has an overcurrent protection (OCP) and is limited to one OCP per rail, this way if our power supply relies on just one +12 V rail, it will have one OCP as well. This means that everything we plug into the power supply will have the same rail and therefore just a single protection, so if any problem were to happen and the power supply protection fails, every component connected would be at risk.
In the other hand we have a multi rail power supply, which will have an OCP in each rail. So, not only can we divide the current by components (for example, on one rail the motherboard and processor, video card in another, and in a different rail hard drives) but also if something fails not every component will suffer the consequences, just the ones connected to that rail.
Pros and Cons
We’ll start by saying that you should not be alarmed; modern power supplies have lots of safeguards no matter how many rails they have. The first advantage of having a +12 V single rail power supply is that you will be able to feed more alternating current, and as you know, specially video cards need a minimum of intensity to work. For example a GTX 1080 NVIDIA graphic card needs a +12 V rail not only to provide certain power but also to supply a minimum of 30 amps of intensity.
Today Intel is launching its new line of desktop Core processors – the so called “7th generation” Kaby Lake line. As we have previously mentioned, the innovations in CPU technology offered by these new chips are pretty limited, the major innovation is their increased operating frequency.
The Core i5 and Core i7 Kaby Lake range is composed of:
i7-7700K : 4C/8T, 8 Mo LLC, 4.2-4.5 GHz, 91W, 339$
i7-6700K : 4C/8T, 8 Mo LLC, 4.0-4.2 GHz, 91W, 339$
i5-7600K : 4C/4T, 6 Mo LLC, 3.8-4.2 GHz, 91W, 242$
i5-6600K : 4C/4T, 6 Mo LLC, 3.5-3.9 GHz, 91W, 242$
i7-7700 : 4C/8T, 8 Mo LLC, 3.6-4.2 GHz, 65W, 303$
i7-6700 : 4C/8T, 8 Mo LLC, 3.4-4.0 GHz, 65W, 303$
i5-7600 : 4C/4T, 6 Mo LLC, 3.5-4.1 GHz, 65W, 213$
i5-6600 : 4C/4T, 6 Mo LLC, 3.3-3.9 GHz, 65W, 213$
i5-7500 : 4C/4T, 6 Mo LLC, 3.4-3.8 GHz, 65W, 192$
i5-6500 : 4C/4T, 6 Mo LLC, 3.2-3.6 GHz, 65W, 192$
i5-7400 : 4C/4T, 6 Mo LLC, 3.0-3.5 GHz, 65W, 182$
i5-6400 : 4C/4T, 6 Mo LLC, 2.7-3.3 GHz, 65W, 182$
Compared to the previous line of processors, we can see an increase in operating frequency of between 200 and 300 MHz thanks to the “14nm+” technology Intel has incorporated into the new chips and all for the same price as the older generation. For all practical purposes however, due to the novelty factor and the absence of non-official suppliers, we can expect a temporarily increased retail price. It should be noted that these processors officially support DDR4-2400 RAM whereas the previous generation is limited to DDR4-2133, except when overclocking with the Z chipset – in which case they easily exceed DDR4-3000.
