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Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: the best midrange graphics card for the masses
4:00 pm | June 28, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: Two-minute review

Nvidia really wants you to know that the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is a card for those who are still running a GTX 1060 or RTX 2060, and it's really Team Green's best marketing strategy for this card.

To be clear, the Nvidia RTX 4060 is respectably better than the Nvidia RTX 3060 it replaces, and comes in at a lower launch MSRP of $299 (about £240/AU$450) than its predecessor. Its 1080p gaming performance is the best you're going to find under $300, and its 1440p performance is pretty solid, especially when you turn on DLSS. If you're playing a game with DLSS 3 and frame generation, even better.

Unfortunately, the card's 4K performance suffers due to the limited video memory it's working with, which is a 50% decrease from the initial RTX 3060 run's 12GB VRAM pool (though at least it doesn't go below the 8GB of the later RTX 3060s).

You also get more sophisticated ray tracing and tensor cores than those found in the Ampere generation, and this maturity shows up in the card's much-improved ray tracing and DLSS performance.

There are also some added bonuses for streamers as well like AV1 support, but this is going to be a lower-midrange gamer's card, not a streamer's, and for what you're getting for the price, it's a great card.

The real problem for this card though is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. For more than a year after the RTX 3060 Ti hit the scene, it topped our best graphics card list for its spectacular balance of price and performance, punching well above its weight and even outshining the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070.

Ever since the crypto bubble popped and Nvidia Lovelace cards started hitting the shelves, the last-gen Nvidia Ampere cards have absolutely plummeted in price, including the RTX 3060 Ti. You can now get the RTX 3060 Ti for well below MSRP, and even though the RTX 4060 outperforms the RTX 3060 by roughly 20%, it still falls short of the RTX 3060 Ti, so if you are able to get an RTX 3060 Ti for near or at the same price as the RTX 4060, it might be a better bet. I haven't seen the RTX 3060 Ti drop that low yet, but it's definitely possible.

The reason why the RTX 3060 Ti is competitive here is especially because many of the best features of the RTX 4060 depend on other people implementing Nvidia's DLSS 3 technology in their products. DLSS 3 with Frame Generation is incredible for most games (though there are some latency issues to work out), but the number of games that implement it is rather small at the moment.

Many newer games will have it, but as we've seen with the recent controversy over Starfield partnering with AMD, one of the biggest PC games of the year might not have DLSS implemented at all at launch. It's a hard thing to hold against the RTX 4060 as a solid negative, since when the technology is implemented, it works incredibly well. But it's also unavoidable that Nvidia's biggest selling point of this generation of graphics cards is explicitly tied to the cooperation of third-party game developers.

With something like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, DLSS 3 is a nice feature to have, but it doesn't make or break the card. With the RTX 4060, its appeal is deeply tied to whether or not you have this tech available in your games, and it seriously undercuts the card when it isn't. Its non-DLSS performance is only better than the RTX 3060 by a standard gen-on-gen uplift at 1080p, and without DLSS, 1440p gaming is possible, but will be severely hampered by the limited VRAM. 4K gaming, meanwhile, would be out of the question entirely.

All that said, the Nvidia RTX 4060 is still going to be one hell of an upgrade for anyone coming from a GTX 1060 or RTX 2060, which is really where this card is trying to find its market. RTX 3060 gamers will honestly be better off just saving up some more money for the RTX 4070 than worrying about the RTX 4060 (and you can probably skip the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti, honestly).

If you're looking for the best cheap graphics card from Nvidia, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is probably as good as it's going to get for a while, since there have been few - if any - rumblings about an Nvidia RTX 4050 or Nvidia RTX 4050 Ti coming to the budget segment any time soon. Whether it's worth upgrading from an RTX 3060 is debatable, but if money is tight and looking for an upgrade from the Pascal- or Turing-era 60-series cards, you'll absolutely love this card.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: Price & availability

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 on a table with its retail packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • How much is it? US MSRP $299 (about £240/AU$450)
  • When is it out? June 29, 2023
  • Where can you get it? Available globally

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is available on June 29, 2023, for an MSRP of $299 (about £240/AU$450), which is about 10% less than the RTX 3060 was when it launched in 2021.

There is a caveat to this pricing in that there is no Nvidia Founders Edition of the RTX 4060, so it is only available from third-party partners like Asus, PNY, and others. These manufacturers can charge whatever they want for the card, so you can expect to see many of the cards priced higher than Nvidia's MSRP, but there will be those like the Asus RTX 4060 Dual that I tested for this review that will sell at MSRP.

While this card is cheaper than most, it's not the cheapest of the current generation. That would be the AMD Radeon RX 7600, which has an MSRP of $269.99 (about £215/AU$405), which still offers the best performance-to-price value of any of the current-gen cards. Still, given the actual level of performance you get from the RTX 4060, it definitely offers a compelling value over its rival cards, even if they are cheaper in the end.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: Features and chipset

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 on a table with its retail packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • 3rd-gen ray tracing and 4th-gen tensor cores
  • Only 8GB VRAM
  • DLSS 3 with Frame Generation under $300

In terms of specs, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 is a marked improvement over the Nvidia RTX 3060 thanks to a smaller TSMC 5nm process node compared to the RTX 3060's 8nm Samsung node. It also features much faster clock speeds, with a roughly 39% faster base and boost clock speed.

You also have a faster memory speed, but a smaller VRAM pool and smaller memory bus, so you end up with a roughly 25% smaller memory bandwidth, which really puts a ceiling on higher resolution performance.

Still, with faster clock speeds, more mature ray tracing and tensor cores, and a lower TGP than its predecessor, this is one of the most powerful and energy-efficient graphics cards in its class. 

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: design

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 on a table with its retail packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

There is no reference design for the Nvidia RTX 4060, since there is no Founders Edition, so the design of the card is going to depend entirely on which version you get from which manufacturer. 

In my case, I received the Asus GeForce RTX 4060 Dual OC edition, which features a dual fan design and a much smaller footprint befitting a midrange card. Thankfully, the card uses an 8-pin power connector, so there's no need to fuss with any 12VHPWR adapter cables.

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An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 on a table with its retail packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
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An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 on a table with its retail packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

It comes with the now-standard three DisplayPort 1.4 and one HDMI 2.1 video outputs on this generation of Nvidia cards, so those with one of the best USB-C monitors will once again be out of luck here.

The card is a dual-slot width, so you shouldn't have any issues getting it into a case, and it's light enough that you really should be able to get away without having to use a support bracket.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: Performance

An Nvidia RTX 4060 slotted into a test bench

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • Best-in-class 1080p gaming performance
  • Huge improvement if coming from RTX 2060 or older
Test system specs

This is the system we used to test the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060:

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360 AIO
RAM: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6600MHz
Motherboard: MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk Wifi
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX1000
Case: Praxis Wetbench

When it comes to 1080p, the Nvidia RTX 4060 offers the best gaming performance under $300.

The AMD RX 7600 gives it a run for its money in pure rasterization performance, and even manages to beat out the RTX 4060 on occasion, but once you start cranking up ray tracing the RTX 4060 absolutely pulls away from its rivals.

This is especially true when you flip the switch on DLSS, which makes 1440p gaming a very feasible option with this card. While this definitely isn't going to be one of the best 1440p graphics cards, on certain titles with certain settings, you'll be surprised what you can get away with.

Synthetic Benchmarks

When it comes to synthetic benchmarks, you get the typical blow-for-blow between Nvidia and AMD cards that we've seen in the past, with AMD outperforming on pure rasterization tests like 3DMark Time Spy and Firestrike, while Nvidia pulls ahead on ray tracing workloads like Port Royal and Speedway.

The RTX 4060 and RX 7600 are close enough in terms of raw performance that it might as well be a wash on average, but it's worth noting that the RTX 4060 is about 20% better on average than the RTX 3060. I point that out mostly to contrast it with the RTX 4060 Ti, which was only about 10-12% better than the RTX 3060 Ti on average. 

A 20% improvement gen-on-gen, on the other hand, is much more respectable and justifies considering the RTX 4060 as an upgrade even with an RTX 3060 in your rig. You might not actually make that jump for an extra 20% performance with this class of GPU, but it's at least worth considering, unlike with the RTX 4060 Ti.

Gaming Benchmarks

Where the RTX 4060 really takes off though is in gaming performance. Compared to the RX 7600, it's more or less even when just playing at 1080p with max settings without ray tracing or upscaling. Notably, the RTX 4060 actually underperforms the RX 7600 by about 9% in Cyberpunk 2077 when you're not using ray tracing or upscaling.

Crank ray tracing up to Psycho in Cyberpunk 2077 though, and the value of the RTX 4060 really starts to show through. The RX 7600 absolutely tanks when RT is maxed, but that's not universal across the board. In other games, the RX 7600 is competitive, but Cyberpunk 2077 really is AMD's Achilles' Heel. Meanwhile, the RTX 3060 holds up fairly well on some titles, while the RTX 4060 pulls ahead by a substantial amount on others.

With upscaling turned on, the RTX 4060 manages to substantially outperform both the RTX 3060 and the RX 7600. If you leave the base DLSS settings and don't mess with frame generation, the RTX 4060 pulls off a clean win on Cyberpunk 2077, while it has a slightly lower average framerate than the RTX 3060, but a higher minimum framerate, it's a much more stable experience across the board.

Once you turn on frame generation though, things swing dramatically in the RTX 4060's favor. You can even increase the resolution in Cyberpunk 2077 to 1440p with Frame Generation on and you'll get more fps on average and at a minimum than you would with the RTX 3060 at 1080p, while the RX 7600 simply can't keep up at this level.

Unfortunately, a lot of this is dependent on developers implementing Nvidia's new technology. Without DLSS 3 with Frame Generation, you still get respectably better performance than the RTX 3060, but nothing that absolutely blows you away. 

Meanwhile, the RX 7600 offers a compelling alternative if you're looking to save some money and don't care about 1440p or ray tracing.

Still, if you can toggle a setting and give yourself an extra 50 fps on a demanding game, there really is no comparison, and on this alone, the RTX 4060 wins out by default.

Should you buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060?

A man's hand holding up the Nvidia RTX 4060

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Buy it if...

You want the best 1080p gaming under $300
This card is a 1080p champ in its weight class, even if it walks right up to the line of the middle midrange.

You want fantastic ray tracing support
Nvidia pioneered real-time ray tracing in games, and it really shows here.

Don't buy it if...

You want the best value
While the RTX 4060 is very well-priced, the AMD RX 7600 offers a much better price-to-performance ratio.

You don't care about ray tracing or upscaling
Ray tracing is honestly overrated and a lot of games don't offer or even need upscaling, so if you don't care about these features, Nvidia's RTX 4060 might not offer enough for you to spend the extra money.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060: Also consider

How I tested the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060

  • I spent about a week testing the card 
  • I looked at the cards gaming performance and raw synthetic performance
  • I used our standard battery of graphics card tests and several current PC games to push the GPU to its limits.

I spent extensive time testing the RTX 4060 over a number of days, using synthetic tests like 3DMark and Passmark, while also running several games on the card at different settings and resolutions.

I also tested its closest rival card as well as the card it is replacing in Nvidia's product stack and compared the performance scores across the cards to assess the card's overall performance.

I did this using the latest Nvidia and AMD drivers on a test bench using all of the same hardware for each card tested so that I could isolate the graphics card's contribution to the overall performance I found in-game or in synthetic benchmarks. 

We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed June 2023

Durabook R11 Rugged Tablet Review
5:05 am | June 15, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , | Comments: Off

Two-minute review

Many companies claim to have built the best rugged tablet, only to find out they feel and look flimsy and are not designed to hold up over time. That’s not the case with the Durabook R11 Rugged tablet. From the first time we picked up the R11, we could tell that Durabook had put a lot of thought into designing a tablet to withstand the rigors of various unforgiving environments. The tablet is encased in a hard plastic shell surrounded by thick rubber bumpers that are easily replaceable by removing the screws. Also, they’ve designed protective covers for the port slots around the device. It covers close with satisfying and reassuring clicks so you know they won’t accidentally come loose. The R11 received MIL-STD 810H, MIL-STD 461F, and IP66 certifications, and Durabook claims it can survive up to 4 ft drops. The tablet also comes with a 3-year accidental warranty, so you can have peace of mind that should the worst happen, you can get your device repaired.

The 1920x1080, 10-point glossy touchscreen is beautiful to use and protected on all edges of the display, and you’ll find the corners have additional bumpers for extra protection. The screen is designed to be used with fingers, gloves, and styluses, and modes can be toggled quickly through programmable buttons along the face of the display bezel. The screen provided enough brightness for us to find usable indoors and outdoors. There is an optional 1000 nits DynaVue sunlight readable display with a capacitive multi-touch screen for when you’ll use the tablet in highly bright environments.  

We appreciated the modular approach to the R11, which helps keep costs down. However, adding accessories and upgrading components starts to push this tablet into a full-fledged laptop price range. The R11 is equipped with WiFi 6E, Bluetooth V5.3, and a Thunderbolt 4 port for one of the fastest connectivity devices we’ve seen on a tablet. Expansion modules let you equip the device with a rear-facing camera with flash, RFID (NFC) reader, smart card reader, GPS, and 4G LTE capabilities to use the device anywhere. Durabook also offers a vast range of cases and mounts to use the device at your desk, mounted in a vehicle, or even in the field on stands. We missed having a hardware keyboard, though you can purchase a detachable one for the tablet.

Inside the R11, you’ll find why Durabook went to such great lengths to protect this tablet. It comes outfitted with Windows 11 running on a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1255U CPU with vPro, 16 GB of RAM, and an Intel Iris Xe graphics card. We found the R11 capable of handling various office applications with blazing speed. On our PCMark 10 benchmark, the tablet received an overall score of 5325 which puts it squarely between what you’ll find in a well-equipped office laptop and a gaming PC.

Durabook R11 Rugged Tablet

(Image credit: Bryce Hyland // Future)

Design

One of the first things you’ll notice when picking up the Durabook R11 Rugged tablet is the solid heft of the 2.65lb form factor. It’s not extremely heavy but provides a sense of security that it’s well protected from drops, dust, water, and day-to-day abuse of on-the-job use. Its chassis is molded, hardened plastic with machine screws holding different body parts together. While we didn’t get to test any of the modular add-on accessories, there are plenty to choose from that will make this tablet a top choice for those needing to scan data, document progress, and connect to the office network whether in a manufacturing plant, warehouse, construction site, or back in the office. 

Specs

*Specs as tested

CPU: 12th Gen Intel Core i7-1255U
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe
RAM: 16GB 4800MHz DDR5
Screen: 11.6” FHD (1920 x 1080), User selectable touch mode for Finger/Water, Glove, or Stylus programmable function
Storage: 256 NVMe PCIe SSD
Dimensions: 11.73in x 7.56in x 0.79in
Weight: 2.65lbs

The sleek black casing with molded rubber bumper provides a secure gripping surface for carrying the tablet around without fear of slipping out of your hands. For those needing to move it around all day, Durabook offers multiple shoulder strap options and a hand strap mounted to the back of the R11. The R11 can also be mounted using any custom cases and mounts Durabook offers to fit your specific use case. 

Along the front of the display is an integrated 2 MP front-facing camera with multiple touch buttons that can be defined and programmed for various tasks such as changing the screen touch mode, operating the camera, and other shortcuts. We were impressed with the many ports we found under a locking cover, including micro HDMI, nano SIM, Thunderbolt 4, MicroSD, USB 3.2 GEN 2, and a mic/headset combo jack. Along the left are easy-to-operate power and volume buttons and a Kensington lock slot to secure the device. The back of the tablet has many different attachment points for swappable accessories. Additionally, our demo model featured the optional 8.0 MP auto-focus rear camera with flash. While neither camera is suitable for taking photos, we’d expect from a smartphone camera; both are up to reading barcodes, taking onsite pictures for documentation purposes, and making the occasional video conference call.

Durabook R11 Rugged Tablet

(Image credit: Bryce Hyland // Future)

For power, the rugged tablet comes outfitted with a smaller 950mAh battery which we found to be underpowered for keeping this tablet running for a full 8-hour work day. However, Durabook offers a longer-life 6900 mAh battery, or you can keep multiple batteries on hand with the convenient charging dock accessory and easily swap them out as needed. Additionally, if you can access mains power, you can use the AC adapter to recharge the battery and power the device.

Durabook R11 Rugged Tablet

(Image credit: Bryce Hyland // Future)

Features

At its core, the Durabook R11 Rugged tablet is designed to be assembled on a case-by-case basis specific to your work environment requirements. Depending on the data you need to interact with, you can add reader modules for LF/HF-RFID (NFC), smart cards, and a barcode camera with flash. If upgrading to the DynaVue display, you can also enable a Night vision mode that we could not test. With Intel vPro technology, TPM 2.0 security, WiFi 6E, an intelligent selection of ports, and a multi-touch screen, the R11 is ready to tackle almost any job in any environment while keeping data and the tablet safe and sound. Users can customize programmable touchscreen functions for Finger/Water, Glove, or Stylus and make a selection from a wide range of attachments beyond the data readers listed above (GPS & 4G LTE connectivity, detachable keyboard, cradles, as well as hand and shoulder straps).

Durabook R11 Rugged Tablet

(Image credit: Bryce Hyland // Future)

Usability

We found the Durabook R11 easy to get up and running on with a highly responsive touch screen and the ease of running Windows 11. It’s sleek, high-powered, and quickly runs most applications we tested like those found in a typical office setting. While it’s not designed for high-end graphics or modeling work, it does provide a snappy experience everywhere else. With modular accessories for accessing multiple data types via RFID, smart cards, barcodes, and more, the R11 can be customized for various industry needs. Our test model came with the tablet, stylus, and hand strap. The hand strap provides a secure fit and a storage sleeve for the stylus. 

Once we discovered multiple buttons along the face of the tablet screen, we took our productivity to the next level by quickly changing settings and launching shortcuts. However, without a physical keyboard, we found our productivity waning when typing in web addresses, making notes, or composing messages. We’d recommend looking into the Durabook detachable keyboard or Bluetooth keyboard solution if you’re doing more than tapping on a screen or reviewing documents. 

As we reviewed this tablet, we found the hardware and software choices from Durabook made this tablet a breeze to pick up and start working with right away. With the ability to add features such as data scanning, mounting, and carrying options, the Durabook R11 is sure to find its home across a wide diversity of environments.

Durabook R11 Rugged Tablet

(Image credit: Bryce Hyland // Future)

Performance

This Windows 11 tablet comes kitted with a 12th Gen i7-1255U processor with 12MB Cache, up to 4.7 GHz clocking and 2P+8E cores, an Intel Iris Xe graphics card, and 16 GB of 4800MHz DDR5 RAM. Opening applications feels snappy, and you can be up and running quickly. Speed rules when scanning and working with large quantities of data and with the ability to upgrade to 32 GB of 4800MHz DDR5 RAM and 1 TB NVMe PCIe SSD of storage space, this machine boasts some great specs that are usually only found in full-fledged business laptops. 

When we ran the PCMark10 benchmarking application for Modern Office, the R11 scored 5325, which put it above your average business laptop and below a decently kitted gaming PC. Looking at the PCMark10 scores in more detail revealed the R11 received an Essentials Score of 10425, Productivity Score of 7283, and Digital Content Creation Score of 5400. We also ran the PCMark 10 Modern Office battery test and found that our demo unit's standard 3950mAh battery at 93% wear capacity clocked in just under 6.5 hours, well under the 8.5 hours listed on the Durabook page.

Durabook has put together a rugged powerhouse that will help keep business operations running smoothly and efficiently. However, we’d recommend upgrading to the larger capacity batteries if you need this to stay powered for more than 6 hours between battery swaps.

Value

The Durabook R11 isn’t designed like the regular tablet at home or in a typical office environment. As such, not everyone will want to invest in a device that would be overkill in distinct business spaces. However, if you need a device that can withstand the rigors of dust, dirt, water, and being dropped on hard surfaces while keeping operations up and running smoothly, consider the R11. 

With swappable and rechargeable batteries, this can be used for a work shift and quickly swap out a storm over a break or before an upcoming change. Rather than building a device with everything already included, Durabook took the modular approach to keep costs down by offering unique accessories to affix to the tablet for specific use cases. Additionally, IT and systems managers will appreciate the vPro and Windows 11 configuration to keep data safely managed and protected. 

In all, the Durabook R11 rugged tablet is a beast made to endure anything thrown at it and looks to be a sound investment for those needing to protect their tablet and their data.

iQoo 11 review: a speedy phone that’s hard to find
3:00 pm | June 7, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

iQoo 11: Two-minute review

The iQoo 11 probably won’t be launching in the west, but as one of the first ever phones to run on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, it's worth acknowledging, even now some more widely available handsets use this chipset too.

While this Vivo sub-brand sells largely to the Asian market, it’s clearly mulling over a push into new territories at some point. There aren’t many Chinese brands that bother to supply their pre-launch test handsets with a UK power adapter, but iQoo did, which has to signify something.

Given the strength of the iQoo 11 package, we would welcome it (or a future handset) to our shores. Maybe the brand could take up OnePlus’s former role as market disruptor and flagship killer-in-chief.

An iQoo 11 from the front

(Image credit: TechRadar)

iQoo’s customary team-up with BMW sees a fairly generic design lifted by a white vegan leather back with a three-stripe decal. There’s a black option, but this themed one is way more fun.

The headline feature here, however, is that cutting-edge chipset, which instantly makes the iQoo 11 one of the most powerful smartphones on the market. The iQoo brand presents itself as gamer-friendly, and its latest phone certainly flies through demanding games like Wreckfest and Genshin Impact on maxed-out settings.

This gaming-friendly status is further enhanced by a 6.78-inch AMOLED display that’s similarly cutting-edge. Besides using the very latest Samsung E6 panel, it sports a rare combination of QHD sharpness and a 144Hz refresh rate, as well as getting really bright.

While the iQoo 11 won’t be joining the iPhone 14 Pro, the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, and the Google Pixel 7 Pro at the top of the camera phone tree, it does a creditable job of turning out bright, balanced shots across its three cameras. It could use a little work when the light drops, though.

Throw in a full day of battery life from its 5,000mAh cell and rapid 120W wired charging (but not wireless, alas), and you have a fine entry-level flagship phone.

iQoo 11 review: price and availability

An iQoo 11 from the back, in someone's hand

(Image credit: TechRadar)
  • Arrived December 8, 2022
  • No western availability
  • Price works out to around $700 / £580 / AU$1,050

The iQoo 11 hit Indonesia and Malaysia on December 8, 2022, and Thailand on December 15, followed by India on January 13, 2023.

There are no plans for the iQoo 11 to hit the US, UK, or Australia, which is a real shame. With an Indonesian launch price of IDR10,999,000 working out to around $700 / £580 / AU$1,050, it could very well have undercut – or at least provided genuine competition for – the Pixel 7 and the OnePlus 10T.

We’re hopeful of a wider rollout for the brand in future. The company supplied a UK power brick with our test iQoo 11, so it’s clearly thinking about branching out.

  • Value score: 4.5 / 5

iQoo 11 review: specs

An iQoo 11 from the front, in someone's hand

(Image credit: TechRadar)

iQoo 11 review: design

An iQoo 11 from the back, in someone's hand

(Image credit: TechRadar)
  • Typical design, lifted by vegan leather/three stripe finish
  • No IP rating
  • Camera module scratches easily

The iQoo 11 has a pretty generic Android design, with a flat display, a subtly curved back, and a metal frame.

However, it’s rescued from bland uniformity by the Legend model we’ve been sent. This sports a mixture of fiberglass and vegan leather on the rear, rendered in brilliant white, and with a colorful triple stripe running down the entire length of the phone.

The latter is courtesy of a longstanding brand partnership with BMW M Motorsport. It’s just as effective a design flourish here as it was on the likes of the iQoo 7.

If you opt for the Alpha edition, you’ll receive an altogether more sober black shade and a glass back. iQoo calls this a “classic, premium aesthetic”, but others might call it boring.

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An iQOO 11 from the side

(Image credit: TechRadar)
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An iQOO 11 from the back

(Image credit: TechRadar)
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The bottom half of an iQOO 11 from the back

(Image credit: TechRadar)

One negative point we did notice towards the end of our time with the phone was that the black paint coating the thin metal frame surrounding the camera module had begun to scratch off along the bottom edge. Presumably this was where the phone made contact with whatever surface it was laying on, but it started to give the phone a somewhat scruffy edge after just a week or two of usage.

This isn’t a small phone at 8.7mm thick and 205g, but nor is it distractingly hefty. We found it very easy to live with, and that vegan leather has proved both grippy and mercifully non-freezing-to-the-touch when taken out on cold days.

The lack of an IP rating – meaning no official water resistance – is a bit of a downer, and one sign that we’re not dealing with an out and out flagship phone here. So too is a chin bezel that’s slightly thicker than the forehead, which is always a dead giveaway that a phone isn’t gunning for the elite league, regardless of what its spec sheet might say.

There’s stereo sound provided by a pair of speakers, but one is positioned on the bottom edge of the phone, and proves a little too easy to cover during landscape gaming. This is a common concession on phones of all price ranges, but when a phone claims to be geared towards gamers it’s worth calling out.

  • Design score: 4 / 5

iQoo 11 review: display

An iQoo 11 from the front

(Image credit: TechRadar)
  • 6.78-inch AMOLED screen
  • Next-gen Samsung E6 panel 
  • QHD+ and 144Hz in one package

While the iQoo 11’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip is getting most of the headlines, its display is similarly cutting-edge and just as worthy of attention.

Where most flagship Android phones in 2022 featured Samsung’s E5 panel, this phone switched up to the E6.

The baseline stats are strong. It’s a 6.78-inch AMOLED with a QHD+ (1440 x 3200) resolution, though you’ll need to activate that in the settings menu. We experienced some issues with font sizing following this switch, but that’s an issue with iQoo’s software.

Two other specs stand out here. One is a higher-than-usual 144Hz maximum refresh rate, though again, you’ll need to crank this up in the settings. It really is very responsive indeed.

An iQoo 11 from the front, in someone's hand

(Image credit: TechRadar)

We’ve seen 144Hz (and higher) refresh rates before, but never in conjunction with a QHD resolution.

The other stand out spec is a peak brightness of 1800 nits. That’s beyond even the mighty Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, and just a little shy of the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

One other gaming-focused feature is a pressure-sensitive screen, which can be mapped to controls in certain games. Pressing both sides firmly in landscape serves as a shortcut to booting up the phone’s Game Space gaming UI, which is a nice touch.

We haven’t seen too much of this pressure-sensing technology since Apple removed it from its iPhones, so it’s good to see it implemented here – even if it’s not as deeply integrated into the UI as Apple’s 3D Touch was to iOS.

  • Display score: 4.5 / 5

iQoo 11 review: software

An iQoo 11 from the front, in someone's hand

(Image credit: TechRadar)
  • Funtouch 13 is busy and full of bloat for local markets
  • Somewhat buggy UI
  • Only 2 years of Android updates

Software is arguably the weak point with the iQoo 11, with Funtouch 13 proving to be a rather busy custom UI layered over Android 13.

It’s worth mentioning that there are mitigating circumstances here. As discussed, this is a phone that’s intended for the Indonesian market, which explains why it comes laden with so much bloatware, including local apps like Lazada and Viu.

Even setting the matter of pre-installed apps aside, though, Funtouch 13 feels somewhat buggy and unfinished. There’s the UI’s apparent inability to adjust to bumping up the display resolution to full QHD+, resulting in comically small text in the Messages app and the clock widget. Adjusting the system font size didn’t seem to help here.

An iQoo 11 from the front, in someone's hand

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Then there’s the fact that WhatsApp notifications continued to break through for us when the phone was in Do Not Disturb mode, which spoiled a couple of attempted weekend lie-ins.

All of this can be fixed in future software updates, of course. However, that just brings into focus iQoo’s two-year Android update promise, which is looking rather stingy and outdated compared to many other high-end handsets.

  • Software score: 2.5 / 5

iQoo 11 review: cameras

The camera block on an iQoo 11

(Image credit: TechRadar)
  • Same 50MP main camera sensor as Galaxy S22
  • 13MP telephoto, 8MP ultra-wide
  • Slightly artificial but even tone across the three cameras

If the iQoo 11 is mixing it with the big boys in terms of power and display technology, then it steps back into the second tier with its camera offering.

That still makes it a decent photography tool however, and it does some things we like a lot. We particularly appreciate the provision of a dedicated telephoto camera to accompany the wide and ultra-wide. That’s often one of the first features on the chopping block when putting together a more affordable flagship.

This is a nicely balanced setup too. The main camera uses  the same 50MP sensor as you’ll find in the Samsung Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S22 Plus, as well as a number of previous iQoo models. It’s not exactly a cutting-edge component, but it’s a decent-sized 1/1.57" sensor, and it produces punchy shots in good lighting.

This is accompanied by an 8MP ultra-wide and a 13MP telephoto sensor, both also from Samsung. These support sensors aren’t up to the standard of the main sensor in terms of color depth, detail, or dynamic range, but they’re perfectly serviceable – especially that telephoto.

iQoo 11 camera samples

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The overall tone can be rather cool.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The telephoto does a good job matching the main sensor’s tone.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The ultrawide lacks detail, but again matches the tone of the others.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Not much in the way of noise or artifacts here.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Again, the telephoto matches up well.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Edge distortion, but a consistent tone.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Indoor shots can look a little murky.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

A reasonably sharp, if dark, food shot.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Shots can look a little washed out.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The dedicated telephoto is way better than cropping in.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The ultrawide struggles for detail.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Night mode isn’t up there with the best.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Good low light shots are possible if you keep movement to a minimum.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

A shot showing the iQoo 11’s performance in low indoor lighting.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Showing the main camera’s cool tone and exaggerated greens.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The 2x telephoto is a solid performer.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

Selfies are fine, once you deactivate beautification.

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An iQOO 11 camera sample

(Image credit: TechRadar)

The camera is least impressive in middling/indoor lighting situations.

One of the best things about this camera setup is that the tone of the shots stays relatively consistent across all three sensors. Take three shots of the same scene, one with each camera, and they all look more or less of a piece.

True, that shared tone can be a little too cool and icy for our liking, with slightly punched up greens and a hint of overexposure. But that’s a color science choice that some will be more fond of than others, especially if you’re mainly in the business of sharing your shots on social media. 

What’s more, there’s a toggle on the main camera UI that switches to a more natural, restrained look should you prefer it, which we did. It’s a shame this isn’t the default selection, but at least the camera app remembers your choice should you choose to activate it.

Low light performance is decent, if not among the best. Taking pictures of static scenes with a suitably steady hand yielded some clear results, but we also shot the odd dud that didn’t quite lock on properly, or which yielded excessive noise, while any form of movement in the shot tended to be picked up. 

Shots in artificially lit indoor environments, and those in that murky zone between light and dark, could be a little hit and miss on the focusing front, and sometimes looked a little flat and washed out. This is a camera that rewards a steady hand and a little patience once the light drops.

The 16MP front camera does a reasonable job with selfie skin tones, though you’ll want to turn off the default beautifying effect, which smooshes and smudges facial textures in that disconcerting way that certain manufacturers seem to favor.

Overall, this is a solid camera setup, and none of the traits we mention are egregious given what appears to be the competitive pricing of the device. They merely illustrate that the iQoo 11 isn’t in the conversation with the genuinely top tier camera phone crowd like it is in other departments. With the Pixel 7 and the Google Pixel 6a both available for a very reasonable price, that’s worth mentioning. 

  • Camera score: 3.5 / 5

iQoo 11 review: performance

An iQoo 11 from the front, in someone's hand

(Image credit: TechRadar)
  • One of the first Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones
  • Extremely impressive CPU and GPU performance
  • Stays cool and fast under gaming load

While it doesn’t make gaming phones in the strictest of senses, gaming prowess is undoubtedly a core component of the iQoo brand. The iQoo 11 is no different, standing as one of the very first instances of the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip being used.

The resulting benchmarks are suitably impressive, with an average Geekbench 5 single-core score of 1,462 and a multi-core score of 4,855. That beats a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 phone like the Samsung Galaxy S22 by around 200 points in single-core and a whopping 1,500 points in multi-core.

The Asus Zenfone 9 with its Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset gets a little closer, but still falls short by around 100 points single-core and 500 points multi-core.

On the GPU front, an average Wild Life Extreme score of around 3,750 (with an average frame rate of 22.50fps) is very strong indeed, outgunning even the mighty iPhone 14 Pro. Just as impressive is the fact that this level of graphical performance remains relatively stable over time in the extended Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, which runs the same high-intensity GPU workout 20 times in a row.

There’s a slight dip for the final few loops, but not by much, indicating that the iQoo 11 has its thermals in order. That can be attributed to the efficiency of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but also to a multi-layer vapor chamber that iQoo has implemented.

In practical terms, we were able to play Genshin Impact and console-quality racer Wreckfest on maxed out graphical settings, with performance remaining silky smooth. We didn’t observe any serious thermal build-up or throttling over the space of a 20-minute gaming session, either.

Another performance point we should note is the inclusion of iQoo’s V2 chip, which apparently inserts frames to keep gameplay nice and smooth, even when the game itself doesn’t support higher frame rates of 90 or 120fps (as most games don’t). All in all, the iQoo 11’s level of performance is extremely impressive.

  • Performance score: 5 / 5

iQoo 11 review: battery

The bottom edge of an iQoo 11

(Image credit: TechRadar)
  • 5,000mAh battery
  • Comfortable all-day battery life, even with heavy usage
  • Rapid 120W wired charging but no wireless

The iQoo 11 has been fitted out with a 5,000mAh battery. That’s not an uncommon sight in an Android flagship, but it’s reassuring nonetheless, especially when combined with that efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset.

We were able to get through a full 15-hour day of heavy usage (just shy of 6 hours of screen-on time) with the screen set to QHD and 144Hz, and the iQoo 11 still had around 30% left in the tank.

On days with more moderate usage, it wasn’t uncommon to be left with around half a tank left. That’s a very solid showing.

Charging is also extremely rapid, with a 120W charging brick bundled in. We found that a 15-minute charge would get the phone from empty to 74%, while it hit 100% in around 25 minutes.

The only real disappointment here is that the iQoo 11 doesn’t support wireless charging. This isn’t a given at less-than-flagship prices, of course, but the Pixel 7 and Nothing Phone 1 show that such an inclusion isn’t outside the realms of possibility.

  • Battery score: 4 / 5

Should you buy the iQoo 11?

Buy it if...

You want top power for a reasonable price
The iQoo 11 packs the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, and it knows what to do with it, while undercutting many rivals in terms of price.

You want an outstanding display for less
The iQoo 11 uses the latest Samsung E6 AMOLED panel - it’s big, bright, sharp, and at 144Hz it’s also unusually fluid.

You don’t mind importing
The iQoo 11 isn’t coming to western markets, so you’ll need to be comfortable with importing if you want to buy it.

Don't buy it if...

You highly value the camera
The iQoo 11’s main camera isn’t bad by any means, but nor is it the best you can get for the money, and it struggles with indoor lighting.

You like a clean or stock Android experience
The Funtouch 13 overlay here is far from unusable, but it is busy, buggy, and bloated. It's one of the very weakest points of the iQoo 11.

You want high-end extras
Water resistance and wireless charging are fairly standard high-end smartphone features, yet neither are present here.

iQoo 11: Also consider

The iQoo 11 isn't the easiest phone to get hold of in most regions, so for alternatives, consider the following options.

Google Pixel 7

Available for about the same price – and in more markets – the Pixel 7 might not have the impressive performance and display specs of the iQoo 11, but it’s an altogether classier phone with a superior main camera.

OnePlus 10T

Also similarly priced, the OnePlus 10T lacks the cutting edge specs of the iQoo 11, but isn’t lacking in the performance or display stakes. It’s also available in more markets, features cleaner software, and charges even faster.

Nubia Red Magic 7

If it’s a pure-bred gaming phone you’re after for this sort of money, then the Nubia Red Magic 7 goes above and beyond what the iQoo 11 has to offer. While its processor isn’t quite as impressive, its thermal system is even more extensive and its display is even more fluid, while dedicated physical controls will further enhance your gaming performance.

First reviewed: April 2023

ARM unveils the Cortex-X4, its fastest CPU yet, Cortex-A720 and A520 and 5th gen GPUs join it
1:19 pm | May 29, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Mobile phones news | Tags: , | Comments: Off

ARM’s big.LITTLE CPU configurations have been around for years and the standard practice so far has been to have as many – or more – little cores as there are big cores. This is now changing with the introduction of ARM’s new designs. The high-power Cortex-X4, middle Cortex-A720 and small Cortex-A520 were unveiled today and will work in tandem to balance between performance and efficiency. ARM also introduced the DSU-120, which is what drives the DynamIQ Shared Unit system that allows different CPU cores to work together. With the DSU-120, chipset makers can build designs with up...

AMD Radeon RX 7600: a major gift for gamers on a budget
4:00 pm | May 24, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

AMD Radeon RX 7600: Two minute review

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is probably the best 1080p graphics card you can buy right now, and in all honesty, it should be the last of its kind.

Team Red has been a bit gun-shy of late with its graphics card offerings, with the last graphics card we saw being the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. While that was a great card, it launched almost half a year ago, and we haven't heard much from AMD since. 

Meanwhile, its rival has released a steady stream of cards, and at this rate, it's almost through its main GPU stack at this point, so it's interesting that AMD chose to release a very budget-friendly midrange card rather than go down the list of higher-end offerings the way Nvidia has.

In a way, it's a very smart strategy (and one I actually recommended back in February), and with the Radeon RX 7600 going on sale on May 25, 2023, for just $269 (about £215/AU$405), AMD manages to make it to market with its all-important midrange offering at least a full month ahead of Nvidia's competing RTX 4060 while also managing to undercut its rival on price.

In terms of performance, the RX 7600 is a major improvement over the AMD Radeon RX 6600 it replaces, while also generally outperforming the competing Intel Arc A750. It does fall short of the RTX 3060 overall, but not by much, and a lot of that is relative to ray tracing performance, which isn't great on either card to begin with, so this advantage looks bigger than it really is in practice.

If there is one knock against the RX 7600, it's its power draw, which is pulling down 165W TGP, which is more than the 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and about 33W more than the RX 6600, so this is definitely the wrong direction for AMD to be going in, power wise.

AMD also has to step up its game when it comes to FSR. Nvidia's most recent launch, the RTX 4060 Ti, was a fairly disappointing card when it came to its baseline performance, but there was no denying that DLSS 3, especially with Frame Generation, is a huge value-add for Team Green. And while DLSS 3 is only available on about 50-ish games, FSR 2 is generally more available with about 120 games featuring FSR 2, but DLSS 2.0 is available in more than 200 games, so AMD has some catching up to do.

When it finally does, the RX 7600 will be an even better buy for midrange gamers, and while it's a sad state of affairs that $269 is about as "budget" as we can hope to see for a while, it's a substantially better value than just about any card on the market right now.

That might change when the RTX 4060 lands, but given that the performance of the baseline performance of the RTX 4060 is expected to be about 20% better than that of the RTX 3060, I expect that it will fall in pretty close to where the RX 7600 currently is, only with a more expensive MSRP and no Founders Edition to keep third-party partners honest in terms of price. 

So unless the RTX 4060 pulls a rabbit out of a hat, I still expect the AMD Radeon RX 7600 to hold the edge over its rival on value, which at this price point is really the only thing that really matters. As it stands, it is the best cheap graphics card you can buy right now, and I expect that will remain the case for the rest of this generation.

AMD Radeon RX 7600: Price & availability

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • How much is it? MSRP listed at $269 (about £215/AU$405)
  • When is it out? It goes on sale May 25, 2023
  • Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 goes on sale on May 25, 2023, with an MSRP of $269, (about £215/AU$405), making it the cheapest card of this generation to launch. Not only that, it's a substantial price drop from the Radeon RX 6600, which launched at $329 (about £265/AU$495), so you're getting a much better graphics card for almost 20% less. This is more like it! 

Ostensibly, the rival to the RX 7600 is the RTX 4060, but since that card has yet to launch, we can only really compare it to the last-gen midrange offerings from Nvidia and Intel.

The Nvidia RTX 4060 when it launches will sell for $299 (about £240/AU$450), which is 9% cheaper than the RTX 3060's official MSRP of $329. The RX 7600 has a cheaper MSRP than either of those, but I expect that the RTX 3060 especially will see some heavy discounting as a result of both the RTX 4060 and the RX 7600, so the value proposition of the RX 7600 might shift depending on what SKU you're looking at.

The RX 7600 does come in slightly more expensive than the Intel Arc A750, and while you might do a double-take at the mention of Intel, the Arc A750 can give the RX 7600 a run for its money at times, so you definitely can't write it off completely.

AMD Radeon RX 7600: Features and chipset

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • More ray tracing cores and new AI cores
  • Higher TGP

With the move to RDNA 3, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 starts off on a 6nm TSMC process over the RX 6600's 7nm, which gives the RX 7600 a roughly 20% jump in the number of transistors it has to work with (13.3 billion to 11.1 billion). And even though the actual GPU die on the RX 7600 is about 14% smaller than that of the RX 6600, it manages to pack in four additional compute units for a total of 32 compared to the RX 6600's 28.

This is also a more mature architecture, so the 2,048 stream processors (a roughly 14% increase over the RX 6600), are more performant, and the second-generation ray accelerators are a huge improvement over the first-gen RAs in the RX 6600.

The RX 7600 also has faster clocks than the RX 6600, with a boost clock improvement of about 6%, but the big improvement comes with the memory clock speed, which is 2,250MHz for the RX 7600 and 1,750MHz for the RX 6600. This means a nearly 30% boost to memory speed, so even though the RX 7600 is still rocking the same 8GB GDDR6 VRAM on a 128-bit bus as the RX 6600, it has an 18 Gbps effective memory speed compared to 14 Gbps for the RX 6600.

There is also the addition of 64 AI accelerators for the RX 7600, which the RX 6600 simply didn't have. This means that things like Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) will run better than it did on the RX 6600, and it will enable advanced AI workloads like generative AI content creation.

All this does come at the cost of power though, as the RX 7600 has a 25% higher TGP than the RX 6600. This isn't good, and given how Nvidia's cards are typically getting better performance with less power gen-on-gen, this is definitely the wrong direction for AMD to be going in. It still keeps the card "reasonable" when it comes to your PSU, and AMD recommends a 550W PSU for the RX 7600 at a minimum, but this still manages to keep things under 600W overall.

AMD Radeon RX 7600: design

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

The AMD reference card for the Radeon RX 7600 is a compact dual-fan number that will fit in just about any case. This is a dual-slot card, but it's just over eight inches long and a little over four inches tall, so it's great for mini-tower builds, and with just a single 8-pin power connector, you won't have any issues with cable management here.

In terms of outputs, we get three DisplayPort 2.1 ports, with a single HDMI 2.1a port, though no USB-C output. Honestly, having the DisplayPort 2.1 output is nice, but really unnecessary. With just 8GB VRAM, there is no universe where this card can output 8K video that doesn't default to a slow sequence of still images, so it's a nice-to-have that you are almost guaranteed to never use. Far be it for me to be a buzzkill, though, so if you want to push this card at 8K, do let me know how that turns out.

As for the lack of USB-C, this really isn't a creative card, so this isn't something that you should worry about unless you have one of the best USB-C monitors and nothing else. Even then, I recommend looking further up the stack (like the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT), since USB-C monitors are almost universally for creative pros and this card isn't going to cut it for the kind of work you'll need to do with it.

In terms of its actual aesthetics, like the two RDNA 3 cards before it, the RX 7600 eschews any RGB and features a matte black design with some subtle accent touches like the red stripes on the fins of the heat sink which would be visible in a case. Overall, it's a cool-looking card, especially for those not looking to have excessive RGB lighting up everything in their case.

AMD Radeon RX 7600: Performance

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • Best-in-class 1080p rasterization performance
  • Much improved ray tracing performance
  • Can manage some decent 1440p performance, especially without ray tracing

Given the missteps Nvidia has been making lately, AMD has a real shot of taking some market share if it can offer compelling performance for gamers. Fortunately for Team Red, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 manages to pull off quite a coup when it comes to gaming performance.

Test system specs

This is the system we used to test the AMD Radeon RX 7600:

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360 AIO
RAM: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6600MHz
Motherboard: MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk Wifi
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX1000
Case: Praxis Wetbench

For the most part, the RTX 4060 is the RX 7600's main competition, but with the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti just being released, it's the natural comparison at the moment. Is this necessarily fair? No, it's not, and the RX 7600 does lose out to the RTX 4060 Ti on just about every measure, but it really doesn't lose that badly.

In rasterized workloads at 1080p, the RX 7600 is only about 12% slower than the RTX 4060 Ti, and only about 13% slower at 1440p. This changes drastically as soon as you start factoring in ray tracing and upscaling, but it's something I definitely wasn't expecting. Against the RTX 3060 Ti, the RX 7600 fares better, obviously, and generally it outperforms the RTX 3060 in rasterization workloads.

In terms of its predecessor, the RX 7600 is the kind of gen-on-gen improvement I was really expecting to see from the RTX 4060 Ti and didn't get. The RX 7600's rasterization performance is great, but its improved ray accelerators really outshine what the RX 6600 is capable of, and really makes ray tracing at this price point accessible to the midrange.

Synthetic Benchmarks

In synthetic benchmarks, the RX 7600 roundly beats its predecessor, as well as the RTX 3060. Against the card it's replacing, the RX 7600 outperforms the RX 6600 by about 19%, while the RX 7600 beats the RTX 3060 by about 18% overall.

Digging into the results a bit further though, we can see some of the biggest gains come in ray-traced workloads like Port Royal, where the RX 7600 saw a 33% improvement over the previous gen.

The only benchmark where the RX 7600 comes up a bit short is in the Speedway benchmark, which is a 1440p, ray tracing benchmark. Here, the RTX 3060 just barely edges out the RX 7600 by just 219 points, which is close enough to be a bit of a wash.

Gaming Benchmarks

As you can see, when it comes to general rasterization performance at 1080p, the RX 7600 is the hands-down winner, only falling to the RTX 3060 in Counterstrike: Global Offensive, and only then by the barest of margins. Everywhere else, you can expect roughly 15-20% better performance out of the RX 7600 overall.

Things take a bit of a turn when it comes to ray tracing performance, but the results here are a bit deceptive for a couple of reasons. First, Cyberpunk 2077 is Nvidia's major showcase game, and that game is very well optimized for Nvidia cards, so the ray tracing performance for the RTX 3060 is substantially better than for either AMD card. However, take Cyberpunk 2077 out of the mix, and the RX 7600 actually outperforms the RTX 3060 in ray tracing performance. 

It's not all good for AMD though, since the minimum fps for the RX 7600 in both Returnal and Cyberpunk 2077 is in the single digits, and it's not just for a brief moment, but fairly regular dips into slideshow territory, especially around volumetric fog with applied lighting effects.

It's a similar story when you apply upscaling to either Cyberpunk 2077 or Returnal, where the RTX 3060's DLSS 2.0 is simply better optimized for the former, and the AMD RX 7600 struggles on the minimum fps on the latter, so even though the average fps on Returnal looks like it's north of 60 fps, you'll dip as low as 6 fps on the Quality FSR preset or 15 fps on the Ultra Performance preset, and trust me, it's noticeable. 

Of course, turn ray tracing off and you probably won't have this issue, but that will be a series of settings compromises you will have to decide for yourself. Overall though, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 manages to perform well above where you would expect from this generation at this price point. If you're looking for an outstanding and reasonably cheap 1080p graphics card, you can't go wrong with this one.

Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 7600?

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

An AMD Radeon RX 7600 on a desk

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

If my AMD Radeon RX 7600 review has you considering other options, here's two other graphics cards to consider.

How we test graphics cards

I spend several days with the RX 7600 running benchmarks, playing games, and generally measuring its performance against competing cards.

I paid special attention to its 1080p performance, since this is the main target audience for this card, while also stretching into 1440p gaming as well.

Having covered and tested many graphics cards in my career, I know how a graphics card should perform at this level and what you should be spending for this level of performance. 

Read more about how we test

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: A DLSS and ray tracing upgrade, but not much else
4:00 pm | May 23, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: two minute review

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti is without a doubt one of the most anticipated graphics card launches of this generation, and now that it's here, it should be an easy win for Nvidia over archrival AMD. I wish that were the case.

That's not to say that the RTX 4060 Ti doesn't hold up well against AMD's midrange offerings at the moment, it absolutely does, and there's no question that the features this card brings to the table are impressive, especially DLSS 3, which is the first time a properly midrange GPU (under $500/£500/AU$750) is seeing this feature.

It goes without saying that Nvidia is leaning into DLSS 3 as its biggest selling point, and as I'll get into later, it definitely delivers significantly better performance than the RTX 4060 Ti should be capable of given its various specs — even factoring in the expanded cache which widens up the memory bandwidth of the card despite still having just 8GB GDDR6 VRAM to work with.

The decision to go with 8GB VRAM for this card — a 16GB VRAM variant is going to be released in July 2023 for an MSRP of $499 (about £400/AU$750) — is probably the only thing that kept the price on this card under $400. With an MSRP of $399 (about £320/AU$600), the Nvidia Founders Edition RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is the same price as the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti it is replacing, and generally, it offers a pretty good value for that money, with some caveats.

In terms of native, non-DLSS performance, there isn't a whole lot of improvement over the previous generation, which is definitely going to disappoint some, if not many. Given the kinds of performance advances we've seen with higher-end cards, we were hoping to see that extend down into the heart of the midrange, but it seems those benefits generally stop at the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070.

Instead, you have a card that relies very heavily on DLSS for carry its performance over the line, and where it works, it is generally phenomenal, offering a real, playable 1440p gaming experience, and even brushing up against some decent 4K performance with the right settings. 

This is something AMD has really struggled to match with its FSR, and so Nvidia really has a chance to score a major blow against AMD, but as we'll see, the best AMD graphics card in the last generation's midrange, the AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT, actually outperforms the RTX 4060 Ti in non-ray tracing workloads, including gaming, so this does not bode well for Nvidia once AMD releases its current-gen midrange cards.

This is somewhat exacerbated by the fact that the RTX 4060 Ti's ability to use its new features is fairly limited, and while features like DLSS 3 with Frame Generation are available on the best PC games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal, as of the launch of the RTX 4060 Ti, there are only 50-ish games that support DLSS 3. 

This list will surely grow over time, but you certainly won't get this kind of support on games that may be just recent enough to push the RTX 4060 Ti in terms of its performance, while being just old enough that you'll never see a DLSS 3 patch for it.

I can say that if you're coming from an RTX 2060 Super or older, then this card is absolutely going to blow your mind. It's effectively the RTX 3060 Ti's NG+, so if you missed what I consider to be the best graphics card of the last generation, you'll get all that and more with the RTX 4060 Ti. If you're coming from an Nvidia Ampere card though — especially from greater than the RTX 3060 Ti — chances are you are going to find this is really a downgrade with some neat features to soften the blow. 

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: Price & availability

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • How much is it? MSRP listed at $399 (about £240, AU$600)
  • When is it out? It is available starting May 24, 2023
  • Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 8GB is available starting May 24, 2023, with an MSRP of $399 (about £240, AU$600). This is the same launch price of the Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti that this card is replacing, so we're glad to see that Nvidia didn't increase the price on this variant with this generation.

This also puts it on par with the AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT, which initially launched for $549 (about £440/AU$825), but which you can find under $400 right now, even without discounts, at major retailers. AMD hasn't released an RX 7700 XT yet, which would be this card's more natural competition, so comparing the RX 6750 XT and the RTX 4060 Ti isn't really fair, but it's all we have for now until AMD launches its RTX 4060 Ti challenger.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: Features and chipset

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • Only uses one 8-pin...but still requires a 16-pin converter?
  • 3rd-generation ray tracing and 4th-generation tensor cores
  • 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth, but 32MB L2 cache boosts effective bandwidth to 554.0 GB/s (according to Nvidia)

The Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti is the first properly midrange Nvidia Lovelace graphics card, and so it is built on TSMC's 5nm process, with about 22.9 billion transistors across 34 streaming multiprocessors (SM), which come with 128 shader cores (CUDA), 4 fourth-generation tensor cores, and 1 third-generation ray tracing core per SM.

The clock speed is a solid 2,310MHz base clock, which is about a 64% improvement over the RTX 3060 Ti's 1,410MHz, with a boost clock of 2,535MHz, or about 52% faster than the RTX 3060 Ti's 1,665MHz.

The biggest difference between the two cards is the memory bus. The Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti uses a 128-bit bus for 8GB GDDR6 VRAM, while the RTX 3060 Ti uses a 256-bit bus for the same amount of VRAM. The RTX 4060 Ti has a faster memory clock (2,250MHz), which combined with the expanded L2 cache (32MB), the RTX 4060 Ti has a slightly faster effective memory speed of 18 Gbps to the RTX 3060 Ti's 15 Gbps, while having a much faster effective memory bandwidth.

Still, this really does smack of over-engineering. The move to a 128-bit bus doesn't seem necessary, and given what we've seen of other Lovelace cards, like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070, I definitely think Nvidia could have stuck with a higher bus width and it wouldn't be catching nearly the grief it is getting over this. 

What's more, even though the performance of the RTX 4060 Ti is better than the RTX 3060 Ti, I really think that had this card had the same bus width as the RTX 3060 Ti, this card would absolutely anything that approached it in the midrange. As it stands, the RTX 4060 Ti is great, but fails to score the knockout it really needed.

It is worth mentioning though that this card also uses significantly less power than the RTX 3060 Ti. That card had a TGP of 200W, while the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB comes in at 160W, which is a 20% improvement in efficiency. This is great for keeping your build under 600W, and it's a move in the right direction for everyone and deserves to be praised.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: Design

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

The Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti Founders Edition keeps the same black heatsink with chrome trim as the other Founders Edition cards this generation, and — unfortunately — it also sticks with the 12VHPWR 16-pin power connector. Fortunately, you only need to plug a single 8-pin into it, so it is at least somewhat easier to manage in a case.

Also easier to manage is the size of the card. Using the same dual-fan design as previous Founders Edition cards, the RTX 4060 Ti pretty much shrinks these down a bit. While it's still a dual-slot card, it comes in at just under 9.5 inches long and 4.5 inches tall, making it the kind of card that will easily fit in your case.

There's not much flash here, but that's a given with the Founders Edition, so if you're looking for visual bells-and-whistles like RGB or super-cooling features like a triple fan design, you're going to want to look at any of the third-party cards that release alongside this one for those.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti: Performance

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • DLSS 3 is the real draw here
  • Improved ray tracing performance
  • Baseline performance not much improved over the RTX 3060 Ti

When it comes to performance, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti really leans on DLSS 3 for most of its major performance gains, and while this can be substantial, some are going to feel somewhat disappointed.

Test system specs

This is the system we used to test the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti:

CPU: Intel Core i9-13900K
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360 AIO
RAM: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR5-6600MHz
Motherboard: MSI MAG Z790 Tomahawk Wifi
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX1000
Case: Praxis Wetbench

This is largely because even with the introduction of some pretty advanced tech, there aren't a lot of games out right now that can really leverage the best features of this card. While three of the games I use as benchmarks — F1 2022, Cyberpunk 2077, and Returnal — all feature frame generation, these are also three of the latest games out there from major studios that have the time and staffing to implement DLSS 3 with Frame Generation in their games. 

There is a DLSS 3 plug-in coming for Unreal Engine, which should definitely expand the number of games that feature the tech, that's still going to be a ways off at this point before that starts to trickle down to the gamers who will actually be using this card.

I'll get more into DLSS 3 and Frame Generation in a bit, but a quick glance over the underlying architecture for the RTX 4060 Ti tells something of a story here, as shown by synthetic benchmarks using 3DMark and Passmark 3D.

Synthetic Benchmarks

As you can see, the RTX 4060 Ti beats out the RTX 3060 Ti, but only just barely, getting about 11% better performance than the card it's replacing. This is, okay, I guess, but hardly the generational leaps that previous Lovelace cards have been making. 

For example, the RTX 4070 offers a roughly 21% jump over the RTX 3070 on these same synthetic benchmarks. In fact, this puts the RTX 4060 Ti just ahead of the RX 6750 XT, and ultimately just behind the RTX 3070 in terms of raw performance.

As a gaming card, the performance outlook is better, but not by a whole lot overall.

Gaming Benchmarks

On games with heavy effects-based visuals like Metro: Exodus and Cyberpunk 2077 where the advanced architecture of the RTX 4060 Ti can be leveraged, it does edge out the competition, sometimes. The RX 6750 XT still manages a slightly better fps on Returnal at 1080p, on average, when not using ray tracing or upscaling tech, for example. 

The RTX 4060 Ti also gets crushed in CS:GO at 1080p, relatively speaking, which I chalk up entirely to pushing textures through the smaller memory bus of the RTX 4060 Ti. The 192-bit bus on the RX 6750 XT's 12GB GDDR6 VRAM and the 256-bit bus on the RTX 3060 Ti's 8GB GDDR6 really show up in cases like this.

Things do start to turn in the RTX 4060 Ti's favor once you start fiddling with ray tracing. The third-generation ray tracing cores on the RTX 4060 Ti are definitely much more capable than the RTX 3060 Ti's and especially more than the RX 6750 XT's, which are second-generation and first-generation cores, respectively.

The RTX 4060 Ti is the first midrange card I've tested that is going to give you playable native ray-traced gaming at 1080p consistently on max settings, though it will struggle to get to 60 fps on more demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077.

But lets be honest, nobody is playing any of these games with native resolution ray tracing, you're going to be using an upscaler (and if you aren't then you really need to start). 

Here, the performance of Nvidia's DLSS really shines over AMD's FSR, even without frame generation. In both Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal, the RTX 4060 Ti can get you over 120 fps on average when using the DLSS Ultra Performance preset, and if you want things to look their best, you can easily get well north of 60 fps on average with every setting maxed out, even ray tracing.

Now, one of the things that the wider memory bus on the RTX 3060 Ti gave that card was a faster throughput when gaming at 1440p. Now, not every game is going to run great at 1440p, but for a lot of them, you're going to be able to get a very playable frame rate. 

The RTX 4060 Ti improves over the RTX 3060 Ti here, but not nearly as much as it should, and on games like F1 2022 and CS:GO where that memory bandwidth difference is going to show, well, it shows up here at 1440p, too.

Of course, once you turn on ray tracing, most games are going to turn into a slide show, but unsurprisingly, the RTX 4060 Ti manages to score a win here on every ray-traced game I tested.

That said, you are really pushing it here on these settings, and you're better off using upscaling if you're going to go for 1440p, especially with settings turned up.

The biggest win for the RTX 4060 Ti here is with Cyberpunk 2077, where it manages 67% better performance at max quality settings than the RX 6750 XT, but maddeningly, it's only about 13% better than the RTX 3060 Ti on the quality preset. On ultra performance, the RTX 4060 Ti is about 52% better than the RX 6750 XT, but again, only 13% better than the RTX 3060 Ti.

When it comes to Returnal, the RX 6750 XT is essentially tied with the RTX 4060 Ti on the quality preset for FSR 2.1 and DLSS, respectively. Bump this up to ultra performance, and the RTX 4060 Ti does better, beating out the RX 6750 XT by about 22% and the RTX 3060 Ti by about 17%.

I imagine the RTX 4060 Ti will perform more or less the same across most games that still rely on DLSS 2.0, which number more than 200. For those games that really leverage DLSS 3 with Frame Generation though, it really is another story entirely.

With Frame Generation, you can get about a 40-60% performance improvement on games that support it. This isn't nothing, since this can even get you playing Cyberpunk 2077 at a playable framerate at 4K on ultra performance. The RTX 3060 Ti and RX 6750 XT really don't have any answer to this, and so they are going to lag behind considerably on any games that have DLSS 3 with Frame Generation.

Does Frame Generation increase latency on some titles, along with other issues? Sure. Will it matter to gamers who get to play Cyberpunk 2077, Returnal, and other titles that play like they were RTX 3080 Ti's? Probably not.

Will any of this matter to anyone who doesn't play those games? Obviously not. And that is ultimately the issue with this card. For what it does well, it has no peer at this price, but if you already have an RTX 3060 Ti, then there is really very little reason to upgrade to this card. Hell, if you have an RX 6750 XT, you might feel like you're better off just waiting to see what AMD has in store for the RX 7700 XT, and I would not blame you in the slightest. 

This isn't a whiff by Team Green by any means, but there's no getting around the fact that the performance of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti absolutely leaves a massive opening for AMD to exploit in the coming months with the RX 7700 XT, or even the RX 7650 XT.

Should you buy the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti?

An Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Buy it if...

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

How I tested the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti

I spend several days with the RTX 4060 Ti running benchmarks, playing games, and generally measuring its performance against competing cards.

I paid special attention to its DLSS 3 Frame Generation technology, since this is one of the card's biggest selling points, and played several games at length with the tech turned on.

Having covered and tested many graphics cards in my career, I know how a graphics card perform at this level. 

Read more about how we test

Intel Arc A750 review: a great budget graphics card with major caveats
9:48 pm | May 22, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

Intel Arc A750: Two-minute review

The Intel Arc A750 is probably the one graphics card I've most wanted to get my hands on this year, and now that I've put it through a fairly rigorous testing regime, I can honestly say I am very impressed with Intel's first effort at a discrete GPU. At the same time, it's also not an easy card to recommend right now, which is a tragedy.

First, to the good, namely the great price and stylish look of the Intel Limited Edition reference card. The Intel Arc A750 Limited Edition card has an MSRP of just $249.99 (about £200 / AU$375), and the limited number of third-party cards out there are retailing at roughly the same price. 

The Arc A750 I tested also looks spectacular compared to the reference cards from Nvidia and AMD, thanks to its matte black look, subtle lighting, and silver trim along the edge of the card. It will look great in a case, especially for those who don't need their PCs to look like a carnival.

When it comes to performance, I was most surprised by how the Arc A750 handled modern AAA games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Returnal, both of which put a lot of demands on a graphics card in order to maintain a stable frame rate. The Arc A750 handled them much better than the RTX 3050 it is ostensibly competing against. It even outperformed the RTX 3060 in many cases, putting it just under halfway between the RTX 3060 and the RTX 3060 Ti, two of the best graphics cards ever made.

The Arc A750 manages to pull this off while costing substantially less, which is definitely a huge point in its column.

An Intel Arc A750 running on a test bench

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Test system specs

This is the system we used to test the Intel Arc A750:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
CPU Cooler: Cougar Poseidon GT 360 AIO
RAM: 32GB Corsair Dominator Platinum @ 5,200MHz & 32GB G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo @ 5,200MHz
Motherboard: ASRock X670E Taichi
SSD: Samsung 980 Pro 1TB NVMe M.2 SSD
Power Supply: Corsair AX1000
Case: Praxis Wetbench

The thing about the Arc A750 is that the things it does well, it does really well, but those areas where it flounders, like older DirectX9 and DirectX10 workloads, it does so pretty badly. 

It's a tale of two halves, really. Nothing exposes the issues with the Arc A750 more than its synthetic performance scores, which on average trounce the RTX 3060, 23,924 to 20,216. In that average though is its PassMark 3D score, a good measure of the card's ability to render content that wasn't just put out within the last couple of years. Here, the Arc A750 scored a dismal 9,766 to the RTX 3060's 20,786 - a 10,000 point deficit.

The story is similar when gaming, where the Arc A750 generally outperforms its rival cards, even in ray tracing in which Intel is the newcomer behind mature leader Nvidia and fiesty, determined AMD. In fact, when gaming with ray tracing at 1080p, the Intel Arc A750 comes in a close second behind Nvidia's RTX 3060 8GB, 37fps on average to the 3060's 44fps.

Bump that up to 1440p, however, and the Intel Arc A750 actually does better than the RTX 3060 8GB - 33fps on average to the 3060's 29fps average. When running Intel XeSS and Nvidia DLSS, the Arc A750 averages about 56fps on max settings with full ray tracing at 1080p, while the RX 6600 can only muster 46fps on average.

These are much lower than the RTX 3060's 77fps, thanks to DLSS, but getting roughly 60fps gaming with full ray tracing and max settings at 1080p is a hell of an accomplishment for the first generation of Intel discrete graphics. The Arc A750 can even run even with the AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT in ray tracing performance with upscaling at 1440p, getting 42fps on average. 

If only this performance were consistent across every game, then there would be no question that the Intel Arc A750 is the best cheap graphics card on the market. But it is exactly that inconsistency that drags this card down. Some games, like Tiny Tina's Wonderland, won't even run on the Arc A750, and it really, really should. How many games are there out there like Tiny Tina's? It's impossible to say, which is the heartbreaking thing about this card.

I really can't recommend people drop $250 on a graphics card that might not play their favorite games. That is simply not a problem that AMD or Nvidia have. Their performance might be rough for a few days or weeks after a game launches, but the game plays. The same can't be said of the A750, and only you, the buyer, can decide if that is worth the risk.

In the end, the Intel Arc A750 is a journeyman blacksmith's work: showing enormous potential but not of enough quality to merit selling in the shop. Those pieces are how craftspeople learn to become great, and I can very clearly see the greatness that future Arc cards can achieve as Intel continues to work on lingering issues and partners with more game developers.

It's just not there yet. As Intel's drivers improve, a lot of these issues might fade away, and the Intel Arc A750 will grow into the formidable card it seems like it should be. If you're comfortable dropping this kind of cash and taking that chance, you will still find this card does a lot of things great and can serve as a bridge to Intel's next generation of cards, Arc Battlemage, due out in 2024. 

Intel Arc A750 Price & availability

An Intel Arc A750 graphics card on a pink desk mat next to its retain packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • How much does it cost? MSRP of $249.99 (about £200 / AU$375)
  • When can you get it? It is available now
  • Where can you get it? It is available in the US, UK, and Australia, but stock may be an issue

The Intel Arc A750 is available now, starting at $249.99 (about £200 / AU$375). There are a limited number of third-party partners who also make the A750, though these tend to sell at or very close to Intel's MSRP from what I've seen.

This puts the Arc A750 on the same level price-wise as the Nvidia RTX 3050, but it definitely offers better performance, making it a better value so long as you're ok with the varying compatibility of the Arc A750 with some PC games out there.

  • Value: 4 / 5

Intel Arc A750 Specs

An Intel Arc A750 graphics card on a pink desk mat next to its retain packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)

Should you buy the Intel Arc A750?

Buy it if...

You're looking for a cheap GPU
At $249.99, this is one of the best cheap GPUs you're going to find.

You want a stylish looking card
This card is very cool looking in a way that Nvidia and AMD reference cards simply aren't.

You want strong ray tracing and upscaling
Not only do Intel's AI cores make XeSS upscaling a serious contender, the Arc A750's ray tracing performance is quite strong.

Don't buy it if...

You are concerned about compatibility
While only one game I tested wouldn't work, that's one game too many for many gamers out there.

You're concerned about power consumption
At 225W TGP, this card soaks up way more power than a card in this class reasonably should.

Intel Arc A750: Also consider

If my Intel Arc A750 has you considering other options, here are two more cards to consider...

How I tested the Intel Arc A750

An Intel Arc A750 graphics card on a pink desk mat next to its retain packaging

(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
  • I spent several days with the Intel Arc A750
  • I used the A750 in my personal PC playing games and doing creative work
  • I ran our standard battery of tests on the Arc A750

I spent several days with the Intel Arc A750 to test its gaming and creative performance, including at 1080p and 1440p. In addition to gaming, I ran our standard suite of GPU tests at it using the same system set up I use for all our graphics card tests. 

Besides my extensive computer science education or practical experience, I have been a hardware reviewer for a few years now, and a PC gamer for even longer, so I know how well graphics cards are supposed to perform with a given set of specs.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed May 2023

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i review: a solid gaming laptop
8:00 pm | May 19, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Computers Gadgets | Tags: , , , | Comments: Off

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i: Two-minute review

Unlike the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i that was released earlier this year, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i is a much more affordable gaming laptop that offers excellent performance for its price point. It comes in two separate types: the Legion Pro 5i outfitted with an Intel CPU and the Legion Pro 5 which comes with an AMD CPU. 

Both versions use an Nvidia 4000-series GPU, as AMD The cheapest configuration you can nab without having to customize one yourself is about $1,259.99 / £1,410 (including VAT) / AU$2,499, which is far more affordable than most of the best gaming laptops on the market while still commanding respectable specs.

Just as many of the other desktop replacements we’ve seen in 2023, this one comes in the standard black color with nothing particularly interesting about its shape and design. The chassis feels decently sturdy, with a nice metal finish on the top of the laptop. Opening it, the keyboard keys are more uniquely shaped, with a roundness to them you normally don’t see. It makes typing a bit weird at first until you adjust to it. The trackpad is pretty solid in terms of sensitivity, and I’m always a fan of mechanical feedback versus haptic feedback.

It has an excellent, well-balanced 16-inch WQXGA (2560x1600) display, with a choice to upgrade to HDR and from 165Hz to 240Hz refresh rate. For most gamers, the difference doesn’t matter, and if you’re purchasing this laptop in particular to save money, then you can do without the pricier upgrade. I also enjoy the fact that there’s a manual switch to turn the webcam off and on, which is lacking in the vast majority of laptops, though I wish it linked up to a physical shutter instead.

There are two downsides to the Legion Pro 5i, however. The first is the audio, specifically how low it is. Of course, you could mitigate this by simply using a headset, but the fact that the speakers are so quiet compared to every other laptop I’ve reviewed in 2023 so far is a huge inconvenience. The second issue is the placement of the keyboard and trackpad. Both feel like they’re too far to the left,  requiring you to adjust to the orientation. Until you do, typos and mis-presses are commonplace. This isn’t much of an issue if you use a controller or mouse, but for those who use a keyboard for gaming or productivity work, this could be an issue.

I received two personal review units — the first came with the Intel Core  i7-13700HX and the second with an AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX. Both come with an Nvidia GPU, as AMD hasn’t yet released gaming laptops with mobile processors. The Intel and AMD CPUs are mostly comparable in theory but in practice, the Ryzen 7 7745HX completely blows the i7-13700HX out of the water in every benchmark.

Despite these differences, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i’s gaming performance is excellent, handling any of the best PC games easily, including Cyberpunk 2077 at max settings and ray tracing on while maintaining 60fps on average. Other titles like Final Fantasy VII Remake and Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered also look and run great, with very little slowdown at max settings. The former is able to lock in at 60fps when the option is chosen, while the latter consistently stays above that with the proper frame rate settings.

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i: Price & availability

closeup of keys

(Image credit: Future)
  • Starting at $1,259.99 / £1,410 (including VAT) / AU$2,499
  • Available now 
  • Available in the US and UK, and Australia

The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i sits firmly in the affordable market of gaming laptops — never quite dipping down to budget levels but still a well-rounded choice for those wanting great gaming performance for a solid price. The price is especially impressive for a gaming laptop with a 4000-series GPU and a 13th Gen CPU.

It’s available in the US, UK, and Australia, with a nice range of configurations for each region. The US has the most choices, with several models available for purchase as well as an option to customize your laptop, while the UK and Australia only have the preset models.

It’s difficult to compare to other gaming laptops in the 2023 market, as many of them are meant to either be super expensive desktop replacements or ultra-cheap laptops. The Legion Pro 5i is meant as an affordable option that sits in mid-range pricing. The closest are the Alienware m18 and the Asus ROG Zephyrus M16, which are nearly double the price but feature the best specs in return.

  • Price score: 5 / 5

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i: Specs

closeup of stickers

(Image credit: Future)

The specs for the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i review unit sent to me are as follows: Intel Core  i7-13700HX CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 8GB GDDR6 GPU, 16GB DDR5 RAM, 512GB SSD of storage, and a 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) display with 100% sRGB, 300 nits, and 165Hz.

I was also sent a Lenovo Legion Pro 5 for comparison, which features the following specs: AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 8GB GDDR6 GPU, 16GB DDR5 RAM, 512GB SSD of storage, and a 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) display with 100% sRGB, 300 nits, and 165Hz.

Like the Pro 7, the Legion Pro 5 comes in two main types: the Legion Pro 5i outfitted with an Intel CPU, and the Legion Pro 5 with an AMD CPU. The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i comes in several configurations depending on the region. The main difference in configurations will have you choose between Intel Core i5-13500HX and i9-13900HX CPUs, between the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 and RTX 4070 GPUs, RAM, storage, and displays.

Only those in the US can configure their laptop based on several specs. Those in the UK and Australia can only choose from the available models, with no customization options.

  • Specs score: 4.5 / 5

a closed black laptop

(Image credit: Future)

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i: Design

  • Plain looks
  • Great port selection
  • Great display, average keyboard and touchpad
  • The sound is very low

Like many affordably priced gaming laptops, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i is rather plain looking from the outside. Its chassis has a nice metal finish, and its weight is hefty but not unmanageable. The size of the display makes it a little tricky to carry around in bags, but a large enough one won’t struggle with the five-pound weight as well.

It has an excellent port selection with a wide selection of slots including four USB Type-A ports, two USB Type-C (both with DisplayPort 1.4), one HDMI port, one ethernet port, one headphone/microphone combo jack, and one power connector. 

Many of the ports are located in the back but are thankfully labeled, making it a breeze to know which port is what without having to turn around the laptop. Unfortunately, there’s no SD card reader, which is a shame as that’s one of the most useful ports for a laptop to have.

Image 1 of 4

closeup of ports

(Image credit: Future)
Image 2 of 4

closeup of ports

(Image credit: Future)
Image 3 of 4

closeup of keyboard

(Image credit: Future)
Image 4 of 4

closeup of ports

(Image credit: Future)

The display is a thin-bezel beauty 16-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600) with its brightness between 300 to 500 nits, 100% sRGB coverage for creatives and editors (which pairs perfectly with the gaming-level GPU and CPU), and a choice of either 165Hz or 240Hz refresh rate, as well as a screen that supports HDR. 

It would be nice if the HDR support was included and we had a choice for an OLED screen instead, which many other gaming laptops have been offering. Rounding that out is a handy manual switch on the side for the largely average webcam, which is always preferable to a key press, but a physical shutter for the camera would have made things even sweeter.

Though I always appreciate the RGB backlighting of the keyboard and the unique shape of the keys that afford more space to type on, the keyboard and touchpad are positioned in an odd way. They’re a little more to the left than normal, which requires a period of adjustment that can cause mistyping and missed presses on the touchpad in the meantime. This could be an issue for those who heavily rely on both for work and gaming. Otherwise, feedback from the keys and pad is perfectly serviceable and shouldn’t hamper gamers who use a controller and gaming mouse instead.

Ventilation is probably the biggest issue with this laptop, which is strange considering it has more than enough vents. The largest ones are located at the bottom – a standard gaming laptop design, but for some reason, they aren’t quite up to snuff when it comes to encouraging airflow properly. I found myself having to prop up the laptop using the cable itself, giving it just enough wiggle room to cool down. You may have to invest in a cooling pad or prop if you have these issues too.

  • Design score: 4 / 5

a black laptop

(Image credit: Future)

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i: Performance

  • Gaming performance is excellent
  • CPU performance is fine 
  • But underperforms in benchmarks
Alienware m18: Benchmarks

Here's how the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i performed in our suite of benchmark tests:

3DMark: Night Raid: 52,244; Fire Strike: 21,729; Time Spy: 8,869; Port Royal: 4,834
GeekBench 5: 1,825 (single-core); 8,126 (multi-core)
Cinebench R23 Multi-core: 10,450 points
Total War: Warhammer III (1080p, Ultra): 80 fps; (1080p, Low): 227 fps
Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p, Ultra): 44 fps; (1080p, Low): 63 fps
Dirt 5 (1080p, Ultra): 40 fps; (1080p, Low): 131 fps
25GB File Copy: 15.0
Handbrake 1.6: 3:37
CrossMark: Overall: 2,017 Productivity: 1,916 Creativity: 2,148 Responsiveness: 1,945
PCMark 10 (Home Test): 6,854 points
Battery Life (TechRadar movie test): 3 hours, 28 minutes

At this point, it’s difficult to directly compare the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i to other gaming laptops in 2023, as most of them are running on high-end GPUs like the RTX 4070, 4080, and 4090. However, comparing benchmark scores between those and last-gen laptops give us a better range of how well the Legion Pro 5i performs. I’ve found that the RTX 4060 scores quite high on its own merits, far surpassing the 3000-series and merely 30K points behind the two most powerful GPUs.

This, in turn, is well reflected in its general gaming performance and frame rate stability. When maxing out Cyberpunk 2077’s settings and turning on both tray-racing and DLSS 3, the laptop was able to maintain a stable 60fps. On Final Fantasy VII Remake, I chose to lock in gameplay at 60fps while maxing out the graphic setting, and it ran beautifully with no slowdown to speak off. And Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered also runs incredibly well, staying above 60fps at all times, even during the more intensive web-swinging sections.

Testing out the Intel Core  i7-13700HX CPU, however, and the results aren’t nearly as impressive. Benchmark scores across the board for the 13th Gen Core i7 are far lower than any of the laptops with a 13th Gen Core i9. Even worse, many of the scores are comparable to the 12th Gen CPUs. I also tested out the AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX CPU in my other review unit, and in benchmarks like Geekbench, Cinebench, and PCMark10 the results were definitively superior to the i7-13700HX. 

When testing out how this translated to creative and productivity performance, however, I found no slowdown or sluggishness in either model, with responsiveness that never waivered no matter how many tasks were going off at once. But if you’re looking for which is the better-performing processor, the AMD version is the way to go. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to test which version has the better-performing Nvidia 4000-series GPU, since the Legion Pro 5 uses a 4070 instead of the 4060 in the Legion Pro 5i.

  • Performance score: 4 / 5

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i: Battery

closeup of time and battery display

(Image credit: Future)
  • Terrible battery life
  • Charges fast

I regret to inform you that, as with most other desktop replacement gaming laptops, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i’s battery life is horrible. At most, it lasts about three and a half hours for productivity and creative work, less than half a standard workday and about the same amount of time if you’re streaming videos or movies instead. 

Keeping this baby plugged in at all times is the way to go, especially for intensive gaming sessions that will drain the power even faster. Its saving grace is the fast charge time, which will give you a full battery in about an hour. 

  • Battery score: 2.5 / 5

Should you buy the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i?

Buy it if...

You need great gaming performance
For its pricing, the gaming performance is quite great, maintaining a solid framerate even on the highest settings.

Don't buy it if...

You need a high-volume audio system
For some reason, the audio is extremely low and you'll most likely have to purchase a headset or headphones to get anything adequate.

Lenovo Legion Pro 5i: Also consider

If the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i has you considering other options, here are two more laptops to consider...

How I tested the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i

  • I tested two models of the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 for several weeks
  • I tested it using both benchmark tests and video game benchmarks
  • I stress-tested the battery using the TechRadar movie test

First, I tested the general weight and portability of the Lenovo Legion Pro 5i by carrying it around in a laptop bag for a day. After I set it up, I ran several CPU and GPU benchmarks to thoroughly test out the graphics card's performance and how much it affected processing performance. Finally, I used a variety of programs and applications to test out both battery life and general performance during work-like conditions, as well as gaming benchmarks to test the RTX 4060 GPU.

The Lenovo Legion Pro 5i is an average desktop replacement for gaming, meaning it's meant to be used for hardcore gaming sessions. I made sure to thoroughly test out this laptop in that regard, to make sure it reached certain levels of performance. I also tested out the CPU to see how it fared against the current competition.

I've tested plenty of gaming PCs and laptops, making me more than qualified to understand benchmark test results and how to properly stress test machines to see how well they perform as a work machine.

Read more about how we test

First reviewed May 2023

Dimensity 9200+ brings higher CPU and GPU clocks, promises lower power usage
2:31 pm | May 10, 2023
Author: admin | Category: Mobile phones news | Tags: , | Comments: Off

MediaTek is on a roll and has unveiled its third chipset this month. Today’s item is the Dimensity 9200+, which schooled the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in preliminary Geekbench 6 tests. As the name suggests, this is a boosted version of the Dimensity 9200 chipset from last year. It’s still fabbed on TSMC’s N4P node (4nm, second gen) but is able to run its CPU and GPU at higher clock speeds. This includes all three CPU clusters, which promises a 10% uplift over the original version of the chip. The new Dimensity 9200+ chipset at a glance As for the ARM Immortalis G715 GPU, MediaTek...

Dimensity 9200+ brings higher CPU and GPU clocks, promises lower power usage
2:31 pm |
Author: admin | Category: Mobile phones news | Tags: , | Comments: Off

MediaTek is on a roll and has unveiled its third chipset this month. Today’s item is the Dimensity 9200+, which schooled the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in preliminary Geekbench 6 tests. As the name suggests, this is a boosted version of the Dimensity 9200 chipset from last year. It’s still fabbed on TSMC’s N4P node (4nm, second gen) but is able to run its CPU and GPU at higher clock speeds. This includes all three CPU clusters, which promises a 10% uplift over the original version of the chip. The new Dimensity 9200+ chipset at a glance As for the ARM Immortalis G715 GPU, MediaTek...

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