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Tuesday, February 14th, 2017
- Razer Unveils The Updated Razer Blade: Chroma Keyboard, Skylake, And A Lower Price
- Razer Updates The Razer Blade And Razer Blade Stealth At PAX
- Razer Re-Launches The Razer Blade Pro: GTX 1080 And 4K G-SYNC
- The Razer Blade Stealth Review: Razer Takes On The Ultrabook
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| 1:30a | AMD Releases Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.2.1
Despite the arrival of Valentine’s day, gamers are still gonna game, and AMD is in to prepare us for this week’s game releases. The new update for Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.2.1 comes with display driver version 16.60.2011 (Windows Driver Store Version 21.19.519.0), and brings with it a collection of fixes and optomizations. In this update AMD has rolled out several bug fixes. Starting things off, we first have a fix for For Honor where users were experiencing an application crash when switching to full screen or menus from gameplay on Multi GPU setups. Also fixed is an issue with Radeon GCN products where DXVA H.264 encoded video could experience corruption when seeking through content. Speaking of GCN, Radeon HD 7900 series products have a fix in for shadow corruption in Civilization VI. And Counterstrike: Global Offensive had incorrect default slider values with Radeon Chill Enabled. Meanwhile Radeon ReLive recording has a few fixes. GPU information was missing from the system information overlay on ReLive captured videos, but has now been found, and ReLive recording in full screen with Windows Media Player of Power DVD should no longer experience flickering. Also, DayZ had a chance of crashing when Radeon ReLive Instant Replay/Recording was active. Lastly, we had memory clocks on R9 380 products locked at low states fixed and a fix for GRID Autosport users experiencing an application hang when advanced lighting was enabled. Finally, this update brings official support for For Honor, the latest Valentine’s day blockbuster. AMD claims that, compared to ReLive edition 17.1.2 we’ll see up to a 4% performance improvement with this driver update. Sniper Elite 4 is the other Valentine’s day blockbuster (I guess kids these days would rather have epic warfare than romantic courtship these days). AMD also notes an up to 5% performance increase vs ReLive 17.1.2. Both games will be receiving Multi-GPU profiles for DirectX 11 as well. As always, those interested in reading more or installing the updated hotfix drivers for AMD’s desktop, mobile, and integrated GPUs can find them either under the driver update section in Radeon Settings or on AMDs Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition download page. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8:00a | The Logitech Harmony Elite Experience: Ultimate Control Perhaps I’m dating myself, but the television in my house when I was young required the viewer to get up and change channels manually. Although it wasn’t very convenient, there were only two channels, and the satisfying ker-chunk of the switch almost made it worth it. We’ve come a long way since then, and now the ubiquitous remote control seems like it’s just part of normal life. But just because something has become normal, doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12:00p | Razer Blade Gets Core i7-7700HQ, Adds 4K Touchscreen, 1 TB SSD Options
Razer this week introduced an upgraded version of its latest Blade laptop that is now powered by Intel’s quad-core Kaby Lake processor along with DDR4-2400 memory and has 4K display and 1 TB SSD options. The 14” gaming notebook uses the same 17.8 mm-thick chassis introduced last year and has the same I/O capabilities, but some minor differences in weight. Meanwhile, it is important to note that the entry-level Razer Blade now costs $100 less than it used to last year, but at the expense of a lower-resolution display. The new Razer Blade is based on the Intel Core i7-7700HQ (4C/8T, 2.8/3.8 GHz, 6 MB, 45 W) processor as well as the HM175 PCH (so, the same motherboard as before). The new chip is powered by the Kaby Lake microarchitecture, has higher frequencies compared to its predecessor that was used in last year’s Blades (Core i7-6700HQ) and supports Speed Shift v2 technology as well as other improvements. Along with the Kaby Lake CPU, the new Blade also got 16 GB of faster DDR4-2400 memory (soldered to the mainboard). In addition to 256 GB and 512 GB M.2 (NVMe/PCIe) SSDs, Razer now also offers a 1 TB PCIe drive as an option. When it comes to graphics, the new Blade uses NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1060 with 6 GB of GDDR5 memory and an HDMI 2.0b output, just like the predecessor introduced last fall.
Apart from the CPU and DRAM upgrades, Razer changed display options for the latest breed of Blade laptops. Last year the company only offered its Blades with touch-enabled IGZO LCDs featuring 3200×1800 resolution, and a matte 1920x1080 on the entry level. This year the higher-end Blade machines will feature touch-enabled UHD displays (3840×2160). Usage of the lower-resolution panel allowed Razer to reduce the price of the entry-level Blade to $1899 (or by $100), but at present we do not know how much the 4K SKUs is going to cost. In any case, systems featuring FHD panels will be slightly lighter and will have a longer battery life than models with UHD monitors. We haven't heard back from Razer on if the new UHD display continues to be a Sharp IGZO panel or not. Apart from displays, different Blade systems will look and feel exactly the same: both use a solid CNC-milled aluminum chassis with a matte black finish.
As for the rest I/O capabilities, they remained very similar to those of the last year’s Razer Blade models (because the chassis and the motherboard are the same as those used on the late 2016 Blade): Rivet Networks' Killer 1535 802.11 2×2 Wi-Fi + BT 4.1 controller, one Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1 Type-C port, three USB 3.0 headers, an HDMI 2.0b output, a 2 MP webcam, built-in speakers and a microphone, a TRRS audio connector, a keyboard with RGB backlighting and so on. In a bid to appeal to those who care about security, there is a TPM 2.0 security chip installed. The new Razer Blade notebooks with FHD screens are available now in North America and Europe starting from US$1,899/C$2,749/€2.149/£1.799. The laptops with 4K UHD panels will be available in Q2 and Razer does not have pricing available at the moment, but expect it to be similarly priced to the outgoing QHD+ model.
Gallery: Razer Blade Early 2017
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| 8:30p | NVIDIA Releases 378.66 WHQL Driver: Game Ready, More Ansel, With 10 and 12-bit video
Not wanting to be left out of the Valentine’s day fray, NVIDIA has swung by to drop off their driver updates in preparation for this week’s releases and next week’s release of Halo Wars 2. Cyber photographers can itch their shutter finger with new game support for Ansel, and we’ve been given more high bit depth video support. As the 378.66 driver update continues with release branch 378 we see the list of fixes start with an issue keeping surround from being enabled on an XGPU. When G-Sync and V-Sync are both enabled, there was a long delay while switching between windowed and full-screen modes. Players of Second Life will no longer experience a blue tinted world after disabling advanced lighting, and The Division no longer shows shadow flicker after enabling PCSS. On Kepler GPU’s in Battlefield 1 NVIDIA has fixed in game flickering when using TAA and menu text no longer jitters for the Battlefield Day 28 Patch when SLI is enabled. Users playing on SLI GTX 1080’s with surround on HDMI 2.0 should have less system crashes while launching games now, and Heroes of the Storm should be done crashing on startup as well. Also, GeForce 860M Notebooks are no longer causing Direct X games to crash. Finishing up the fixes, we have a Minecraft Java SE Binary crash that was pointing to nvinitx.dll, and a fix for the GTX 980 Ti struggling to detect multiple TV models. Alongside this release, NVIDIA has added Video SDK 8.0. This finally exposes high-bit-depth (10/12-bit) decoding for VP9 and HEVC to projects using NVIDIA's specialized NVDEC video decoder. Video SDK 8.0 also adds support for OpenGL input surfaces for encoders, weighted prediction, and H.264 ME-only mode enhancements. NVIDIA is also providing Game Ready support for Sniper Elite 4, For Honor and Halo Wars 2. For Honor and Paragon both now have Ansel support and additionally, NVIDIA recommends those interested in playing For Honor do so with a GTX 1060 at 1080p, a GTX 1070 at 1440p, and 1070 SLI for 4K for an excellent high quality experience. Anyone interested can download the updated drivers through GeForce Experience or on the NVIDIA driver download page. More information on this update and further issues can be found in the 378.66 release notes. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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