AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB review: Great potential that’s brought down by high pricing

AMD’s latest flagship is the Radeon RX 480. It is part of their new Polaris line-up of GPUs and AMD hopes that these cards will completely revolutionise the graphics card industry.

How do they plan to do that? With disruptive pricing, they say.

AMD’s been stuck on the 28nm manufacturing process since around 2011. With Polaris, they finally switched to a 14nm FinFET process that vastly improves power efficiency, resulting in greater performance per watt.

Compared to previous AMD cards, the RX 480 series is vastly superior, offers an incredible performance bump at a drastic reduction in price. Unfortunately for AMD, this comparison is only valid against previous AMD cards.

A detailed analysis of Polaris is beyond the scope of this review, but if you’re curious, you can read more here.

While AMD’s been struggling to revamp their architecture, Nvidia has been casually stomping over them in every department, from price to features to performance figures.

Does Polaris do anything to change AMD’s fate on the graphics front? A little bit, but AMD is yet to hit that price-performance sweet spot.

This review is only going to answer one question: Is it worth it?

Design and build: 7/10

The AMD RX 480 is a cuboid with a fan. There’s nothing special externally and the design is, well, functional.

The rear of the card features three DisplayPort 1.3/1.4 outputs and one HDMI 2.0 output. The card supports HBR and HDR so as far as resolution and image quality are concerned, the RX480 has you covered.

Cooling is provided by a very simple heatsink design that uses a single radial fan for cooling. As you’ll see later on, the design is surprisingly effective, given AMD’s history.

Power is delivered via a single 6-pin power connector, which is sufficient for the 150W rating of the card.

Features and accessories: 7/10

The card fully supports HBR (High Bit Rate) and HDR (High Dynamic Range), which should be evident from the DP1.3 and DP1.4 support that we mentioned earlier. Both these technologies will serve to enhance visual fidelity.

AMD’s FreeSync technology is supported across all ports as well. The real ace up AMD’s sleeve however, is asynchronous compute (AC). In layman’s terms, AC allows for out-of-order computational tasks on a GPU, thereby more efficiently using available resources. These computational tasks can include physics and AI calculations.

The benefits of this are best seen in DirectX 12 and Vulkan and as you’ll see from the results in the Doom benchmark below, Vulkan gives AMD a huge boost in performance compared to regular rendering processes.

Nvidia uses a technique of “pre-emption,” where one workload is stopped to make way for a higher priority, time-critical task. AMD’s method gives higher priority to such tasks and gives them access to more resources, but doesn’t stop the other graphics processes entirely.

Coming to the accessories, we really have nothing to report on that front. We received a stock card directly from AMD for testing, which is not a retail bundle and did not include any accessories.

Performance: 7/10

AMD has positioned the RX 480 as a card that offers a VR experience on a budget. Given our testing, it doesn’t look like AMD hit that target.

For VR, both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive require a minimum 90fps at a 2K resolution. By itself, the AMD RX 480 struggles to deliver an average of 90fps at half that resolution (FHD). Given limited stock of the 480, we couldn’t get our hands on a second card to verify crossfire performance.

What is interesting is that AMD’s 480 delivers about 50 percent of the performance of Nvidia’s monster, the 1080, at about a third of the cost. From that perspective, the 480 offers amazing value.

The real power of the Polaris architecture is evident in the benchmark. When compared to OpenGL 4.5, we saw a performance bump of over 30 percent across the board with the RX 480.

We haven’t listed the performance figures of the other cards in our test here because those cards were tested on an earlier build of Doom that lacked the Vulkan update. We’ll update the story with figures once we test those cards.

The thermals were also very much under control. AMD has certainly come a long way since their toasty HD48XX days. The RX 480 rarely crossed the 70 degrees C mark even under full load and idle temperatures hovered between 32 and 40 degrees C. This is at an ambient temperature of 26 degrees C.

Overall, the RX 480 does seem to offer great value if you’re gaming at FHD. The card consistently delivered over 40fps in all our tests at FHD resolutions and maximum settings, only dipping down to the low 30s in Ashes of the Singularity.

Our test rig is as follows:

Intel i7 4770K (no OC)

8GB DDR3 RAM G.Skill RipJaws

AsRock Z87M Extreme

BenQ XL2730Z (2K)

CoolerMaster Silent Pro 800W Gold PSU

Windows 10 Enterprise Edition

All benchmarks are run at 1920×1080 (FHD) and 2160×1440 (2K) at maximum possible settings unless otherwise stated. Each result is the average of 3 runs.

Conclusion

Despite a strong showing from AMD, I’m still not sure if I can recommend the AMD RX 480. The card is good but Nvidia’s 1060 is better and retails for about the same price.

Officially, the 4GB variant of the RX 480 retails for Rs 20,990 and the 8GB variant for Rs 22,990. Actual amarket prices hover around the Rs 26,000 mark for the 8GB variant, however.

The problem here is that Nvidia’s 1060 offers about 15 percent more performance than the 480 at the exact same price point. Some are offering the 1060 for as little as Rs 23,000 (6GB RAM) and Rs 19,000 (3GB RAM).

Faced with such competition, it’s hard to recommend the 480 to anyone. Making this worse is AMD’s pricing policy in India, where they’re selling a $200 card (around Rs 13,500) for Rs 26,000. That’s almost double the price. Nvidia is also not innocent in this regard, but at least their mark-up isn’t as ludicrous (it’s “only” 60 percent on the 1080, for example).

The only advantage the 480 has over Nvidia’s 1060 is that the 480 supports up to 4-way crossfire while the 1060 doesn’t support even 2-way SLI.

Is it worth it? Unless you’re going for a multi-GPU setup, the answer is a no.

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Review About GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Video Card

By Olin Coles

Manufacturer: NVIDIA Corporation

Product Name: GeForce GTX 980 Graphics Card

Price: Starting at $534.99 (Amazon | B&H Photo)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by NVIDIA.

NVIDIA tends to dominate the field when it comes to graphics processing power, leaving AMD to reduce prices across their product line to remain competitive. Recently the AMD Radeon R9 290X became AMD’s flagship graphics card, and although powerful, it consumed plenty of electricity and was quite noisy during operation. NVIDIA answered back with GeForce GTX 780 Ti, which left no doubt who controls the top-end of discreet graphics. Not satisfied with producing the world’s most powerful graphics card, NVIDIA set out to produce an even better product that would deliver improved efficiency and reduced operating noise for gamers. The end result was their Maxwell-based GeForce GTX 980 graphics card.

GeForce GTX 980 is no one-trick pony; as it targets much more than simply delivering high frame rate performance. Sure, Maxwell’s new GPU datapath architecture translates into a 40% delivered performance increase per CUDA core, but it also delivers a host of additional features not seen or available from the competition. Four simultaneous Ultra HD 4K display heads are supported by GTX 980, utilizing DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 2.0 connections. While that may open the eyes to a bigger picture, GeForce GTX 980 makes that picture better using NVIDIA Voxel Global Illumination (VXGI). All of these new features pair nicely with: G-SYNC technology, which eliminates screen tearing and display-generated stutter, FXAA and TXAA post-processing effects that smooth rough edges and soften their graphical appearance, and always-on NVIDIA ShadowPlay that captures real-time gaming action in 1080p.

Codenamed NVIDIA Maxwell, GM204 GPUs debut the company’s 10th-generation graphics processing architecture. Maxwell improves upon all previously released processor designs, and delivers greater performance while reducing energy consumption. Anticipated as the replacement for GTX 680, the new GeForce GTX 980 yields up to 200% performance increase (per watt) while requiring less power. Voxel Global Illumination and VR Direct technologies have been added to improve upon picture quality and virtual reality immersion. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the GeForce GTX 980 graphics card against today’s best gaming solutions.

What’s new with GM204 Maxwell GPU in GeForce GTX 980?

• 200% performance per watt increase over GK104 on GeForce GTX 680
• Improved process scheduler
• New datapath organization
• 40% delivered performance increase per CUDA core

Multi-Frame Sampled AA (MFAA)

Anti-aliasing technique that alternates sample patterns both temporally and spatially to produce a perceived higher-quality AA while maintaining the performance penalty of lower-quality AA.

Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR)

Down-sampling technology with a 13-tap Gaussian filter effect that reduces the artifacts introduced by anti-aliasing during the process.

Voxel Global Illumination (VXGI)

Maxwell-accelerated real-time global illumination engine that generates efficient dynamic geometry and lighting, one-bounce indirect diffusion, reflections, and area lights. Available on UE4 and other modern engines near Q4-2014.

VR Direct

Low-latency virtual reality, with VR SLI, VR DSR, MSAA, auto-asynchronous warp, and auto-stereo.

4K NVIDIA ShadowPlay

Utilizing the H.264 video encoder built-in to every Maxwell GPU, ShadowPlay works in the background, seamlessly recording your gameplay footage. Compared to Kepler GPUs, Maxwell delivers a 250% increase in efficiency, allowing gamers to encode 4K footage at 60 FPS.

NVIDIA GeForce Experience

GeForce Experience is a new application from NVIDIA that optimizes your PC in two key ways. First, it maximizes your game performance and game compatibility by automatically downloading the latest GeForce Game Ready drivers. Second, GeForce Experience intelligently optimizes graphics settings for all your favorite games based on your hardware configuration.

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News About Laptops: Reviews About Alienware 13 OLED

Pros

Supervivid OLED display; Great graphics performance for price; Excellent audio quality; Superb keyboard

Cons

CPU performance could be better; Bottom runs hot

Verdict

The Alienware 13 puts the most dazzling laptop screen ever in a portable design with powerful graphics performance and excellent audio.

I have seen the future of laptops, and it is OLED. Alienware is the first gaming laptop manufacturer to embrace this truth, updating the company's small, but powerful 13-inch laptop with a jaw-dropping 2560 x 1440 panel. It truly has to be seen to be believed. But the Alienware 13 (priced and reviewed at $1,299) is about more than its tear-inducing display; it also offers impressively loud audio, lightning-fast transfer speeds and serious graphics performance. This is the laptop to beat in the woefully underserved $1,000-$1,500 gaming laptop market.

Editors' Note: The version of the Alienware 13 review had a bug that prevented screen dimming, which didn't allow us to properly run our battery test. We will update this review once that issue is resolved.

World-Beating Display

The OLED panel Alienware promised in January has finally arrived, and it was worth the wait, because it is simply sublime. Colors on the 2560 x 1440 panel are so vivid I could almost see them with my eyes closed. OK, maybe not that vibrant, but you get where I'm going with this.

Watching the 4K version of the film Tears of Steel on the Alienware 13, I saw almost every joint, divot, gear and wire in the woman's robot hand. Her auburn hair popped thanks to the emerald-green trees in the background. The sapphire blue on her jacket and neon pink accents on the pants seemed to glow.

As I played Rise of the Tomb Raider, I took a long time just walking around the hidden village. Individual blades of yellow-green grass shifted realistically as Lara waded through to the top of a cliff. Crystal-clear water flowed over the zenith, sending out a fine spray of mist and culminating as a tempest of white froth at the bottom.

The display's color reproduction is just ridiculous, covering an insane 206 percent of the sRGB gamut (100 percent is excellent). This performance far surpassed the 87 percent category average as well as the Nitro Black (97 percent) and GL552 (93 percent).

As incredibly vivid as the Alienware 13's screen is, the color accuracy is a bit off. The panel measured 2.2 on the Delta-E benchmark, with zero being ideal. The Nitro Black had a much better score of 1, and the GL552 registered 0.7.

The panel is seriously bright, averaging 292 nits, which outshines the 243-nit mainstream average. The Nitro Black was a close second, with 289, nits while the GL552 emitted 273 nits.

Specs

CPU: 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7-6500U processor

Operating System: Windows 10 Home

RAM: 8GB

Hard Drive Size: 512GB

Hard Drive Type: SSD Drive

Display Size: 13.3

Native Resolution: 2560 x 1440

Optical Drive: None

Optical Drive: Speed n/a

Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M GPU

Video Memory: 4GB

Wi-Fi: 802.11ac

Wi-Fi Model: Killer Wireless-n/a/ac 1535 Wireless Network Adapter

Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.1

Touchpad Size: 4.27 x 2.67 inches

Ports (excluding USB): HDMI

Ports (excluding USB): Headphone

Ports (excluding USB): Microphone

Ports (excluding USB): Mini DisplayPort

Ports (excluding USB): Proprietary

Ports (excluding USB): Gigabit Ethernet

USB Ports: 3

Size: 12.9 x 9.3 x 1.04~1.1 inches

Weight: 4.5 pounds

Company Website: http://www.alienware.com

Design: Sci-Fi sleek but beefy

Clad in silver anodized aluminum with a sturdy carbon-fiber frame, the Alienware 13 looks like a small scout ship from an intergalactic armada. Like its larger brethren, this laptop features two customizable LED strips on the lid intersecting with the midline that draws the eye with the company's trademark glowing alien head.

The notebook's interior is awash in black, soft-touch finish that surrounds a glowing keyboard. Positioned right above the keyboard is the power button, disguised as another alien head.

Along the laptop's right side, you'll find a USB 3.0 port, Gigabit Ethernet and a USB-C port, which is a new addition to the lineup. Another USB 3.0 port resides on the left with a security lock slot and jacks for a microphone, a pair of headphones and the power adapter. HDMI and Alienware's proprietary port for the Graphics Amp sit in the rear, waiting to kick things up a notch.

Measuring 12.9 x 9.3 x 1.04~1.1 inches and weighing 4.5 pounds, the Alienware 13 is currently the lightest system in the company's lineup. However, this laptop is massive and thick compared to the slim proportions of the Razer Blade (4.25 pounds, 13.6 x 9.3 x 0.7 inches) or Aorus X3 Plus v3 (4 pounds, 12.9 x 10.3 x 0.9 inches). 

Audio: Big bark

Man, this little laptop can pump out some big sound. The side-mounted speakers filled my medium-size testing space, with crisp, loud audio. Jazmine Sullivan's powerful vocals washed over me during "Masterpiece (Mona Lisa)", accompanied by the gentle, yet insistent strum of a guitar, buoyed by the rhythmic clapping of the audience.

Man, this little laptop can pump out some big sound.

As I fought through a squad of religious zealots in Tomb Raider, I could hear the tightening of my bowstring before I released my poison-gas arrow. Once the arrow hit its intended target, I was rewarded with the gentle hiss of the vapor being released and the heavy thud of my targets hitting the ground.

Graphics and Gaming: Bigger bite

When you're going to battle against marauding demons or hostile militiamen with the Alienware 13, you'll be doing it with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M GPU with 4GB of RAM. The laptop churned out a steady 38 frames per second as I made my way through the opening level of Rise of the Tomb Raider on high. The rising snowstorm whipped Lara's hair into a frenzy as she searched for shelter, her jagged breaths rising in small white wisps that barely had time to form before they were scattered to the winds.

The laptop hit an impressive 96 fps on low at 1080 during the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege benchmark, coasting past the 85-fps mainstream average. Powered by Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M GPUs, the Asus GL552 and Acer Nitro Black scored 84 and 82 fps, respectively. Cranking the settings to high dropped the Alienware 13's showing to 68 fps, which is well above the 49-fps average. The Nitro Black and GL552 missed that mark, at 45 and 42 fps. Switching the Alienware 13 to its native resolution (2560 x 1440) netted 61 fps on low and 43 fps on high.

The OLED display's color reproduction is just ridiculous, covering an insane 206 percent of the sRGB gamut.

The Alienware 13 continued to dominate on Metro: Last Light, our most grueling graphics test, scoring 69 fps on low at 1080p, matching the category average. The Nitro Black was a couple of frames short, at 67 fps, while the GL552 was a full 10 frames short, at 59 fps. The Alienware 13 kept dishing out the win on high with 52 fps, easily clearing the 18-fps average as well as the 19 fps and 16 fps posted by the GL552 and Nitro Black.

When you decide to take a break from banishing Hell's denizens or snagging the Play of the Game, the Alienware 13 switches over to its integrated Intel HD Graphics 520 GPU.

Keyboard and Touchpad: Seriously comfy

Bouncy, comfortable typing awaits on the Alienware 13's full-size traditional TactX keyboard. Buoyed by the keyboard's 2.2 millimeters of key travel and 60 grams of actuation, I easily hit 65 words per minute on the 10FastFingers typing test, which is well above my typical 60-words-per-minute average.

My fingers glided across the 4.2 x 2.6-inch touchpad as I navigated web pages and highlighted passages without ever encountering an edge. Performing multitouch gestures like two-finger scroll and four-finger tap was a breeze with speedy response. The bottom corners of the touchpad perform their function as right and left buttons with a healthy amount of feedback and an audible click.

Alienware Command Center

What's a mini battle station without its war paint? Alienware's Command Center suite allows gamers to configure the backlighting and power settings, and set unique software profiles. AlienFX continues to be one of my favorite color configurators, since it offers a wide variety of colors and effects to create a mean, lean, glowing machine. When this is paired with AlienAdrenaline, you can create a unique profile for each of your games while monitoring system performance. 

Overall Performance

I was surprised to see that Alienware equipped the 13 with a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7-6500U processor with 8GB of RAM, instead of the speedier 2.6-GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ CPU I've grown accustomed to seeing on competing laptops. However, the Alienware 13 can juggle multiple tasks with ease, streaming an episode Gunslinger Girl while running a system scan with 10 additional tabs open in Google Chrome.

The Alienware 13 stumbled a bit when we ran our synthetic benchmarks. For example, it notched only 6,816 on Geekbench 3, missing the 7,531 mainstream average. Both the Nitro Black and GL552 outdid that, with 12,577 and 13,554, respectively.

The Alienware 13 continued to dominate on Metro: Last Light, our most grueling graphics test.

When we tested the Alienware 13's 256GB PCIe SSD, it transferred 4.97GB of multimedia files in 28 seconds. That's a transfer rate of 179.6 megabytes per second, which tops the 129.8MBps category average. The GL552's 1TB and 7,200-rpm hard drive was a distant second, at 98.5 MBps, while the Nitro Black (1TB 5,400-rpm hard drive) mustered only 33.9MBps.

During the OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro Test, the Alienware 13 paired 20,000 names and addresses in 2 minutes and 12 seconds, decimating the 5:38 category average. The GL552 and Nitro Black were way ahead, with times of 3:44 and 3:46.

Battery Life

As pretty as that display is, if you're planning on using the Alienware 13 without keeping it plugged in, you might want to turn down the brightness. The laptop lasted about 3 hours and 35 minutes on our battery test (continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi) at full brightness. 

Heat

After I spent 15 minutes fighting my way through a nest of hostile enemies in Tomb Raider, the Alienware 13's undercarriage measured a crotch-roasting 139 degrees Fahrenheit. (We consider anything above 95 uncomfortable.) The space between the G and H keys reached 104 degrees, while the touchpad stayed cool, at 89 degrees.

After letting the laptop cool down, I switched to watching a video. Another 15 minutes later, the bottom of the laptop registered a hot 114 degrees, while the keyboard and touchpad hit 95 and 82.

Webcam

The integrated 1080p webcam serves up sumptuous color with a solid amount of detail. My midnight-blue blanket and shamrock-green shirt helped accent the reddish tones in my brown complexion. The camera even caught my purple-dyed locks. Details were sharp enough to capture the lines in my top, but there was a lot of visual noise, so much so the lights looked like misshapen blobs.

Software and Warranty

The Alienware 13 is nearly bloatware-free aside from Candy Crush Soda Saga, Twitter and Flipboard. You also have your typical Windows 10 fare, including Microsoft Edge, OneNote, Skype and Cortana.

Configurations

In addition to the OLED screen, the $1,299 configuration of the Alienware 13 has a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7-6500U processor with 8GB of RAM, a 256GB PCI SSD, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M with 4GB of RAM and an Intel HD Graphics 520 GPU.

Bottom Line

If you've been using a regular display for your laptop gaming and entertainment, I'm here to tell you that you're doing it wrong. The $1,299 Alienware 13's OLED screen is a vibrant revelation of where gaming notebooks are going. But once I stopped peering into the panel trying to see my future, there was the rest of the notebook to consider.

While I would love for Alienware to outfit this baby with beefier Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M graphics, the 965M is a powerhouse in its own right. The speakers and colorful keyboard also impress. I just wish the bottom of this rig ran cooler.

The only other thing I would change about the system is the processor. I want a beast whether I'm gaming or writing a review. Overall, though, the Alienware 13 is a great choice for gamers who want an unparalleled viewing experience for a midlevel price.

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Rviews About AMD Radeon RX 470

PROS

Great Full HD performance

Low power consumption

Plenty of memory for a sub-£200 card

CONS

Priced too near the 4GB RX 480

KEY FEATURES

2,048 stream processors

32 compute units

Maximum boost clock: 1,270MHz

4GB GDDR5 memory

DVI, HDMI, 3x DisplayPort

TDP: 120W

Manufacturer: AMD

Review Price: £200.00

WHAT IS THE AMD RADEON RX 470?

The AMD Radeon RX 470 sits slightly awkwardly in AMD's range. As you'll see from our benchmarks, it's a great Full HD GPU, but pricing oddities mean it sits in a price bracket that's just 5% lower than the more powerful 4GB RX 480.

Aside from the economics – these might change in the coming months – AMD has produced a very competent card for Full HD gaming with the latest AAA titles with a very low power draw of just 120W. Compact versions of this card will be great for microATX and mini-ITX PC builds, producing very little heat and noise and playing nicely with tight power budgets.

AMD isn’t producing its own version of the RX 470, so reviewers have been sent a variety of third-party cards from AMD’s partners. Ours is a PowerColor Red Devil model that's currently priced at £200.

AMD RADEON RX 470 – SPECS AND TECHNOLOGY

The Radeon RX 470 uses the exact same chip as the RX 480, called Polaris 10. The RX 470 uses ‘binned’ Polaris 10 chips – a common practice in the world of microelectronics. These binned chips didn’t make the grade as RX 480 units, but they're still good enough to match the specification of the less powerful RX 470. It’s sensible business logic: you get a much higher yield of usable Polaris 10 chips and get to sell them in two different products.

The difference between the two isn’t huge. The RX 480 has 36 compute units, while the 470 gets 32. Clock speeds have been reduced slightly, too, with the base clock speed sitting at 926MHz, lower than the RX 480’s 1,120MHz. Our PowerColor model comes pre-overclocked with a boost clock speed of 1270MHz.

The RX 470 gets the same memory as the 4GB RX 480, shipping with GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus and a memory bandwidth of 211GB/s, which is slightly less than the 224GB/s on the RX 480.

Polaris itself is full of little technical treats, with perhaps the most important coming in the form of massively improved power efficiency. There are also hardware-level improvements to colour compression for more efficient rendering, and granular overclocking control with AMD’s WattMan software.

Our PowerColor model came pre-overclocked to 1,270MHz with 1,750MHz memory. It’s a double-height card, as is typical with all RX 470s. It has a dual-fan design with nine blades on each. The shroud is made of black plastic, and the backplate is a simple matte-black affair with a hexagram affirming the satanic themes of PowerColor’s Red Devil.

The PowerColour RX 470 comes with a small switch on its near side that toggles between the overclocked mode and a quieter, more power-efficient mode. All of our testing was conducted in the OC mode, which is the default setting. Turn to page two to see how it performed.

The number of video outputs on the RX 470 varies across the different third-party manufacturers. Our model included three DisplayPort 1.2 sockets, an HDMI 2.0 connector and a DVI connector, but some are available with a second HDMI port in place of one of the DisplayPorts.

AMD RADEON RX 470 – PERFORMANCE AND BENCHMARKS

How we test: I tested the Radeon RX 470 in our in-house test rig. It represents a fairly typical gaming PC and consists of the following components:

• Motherboard: Asus Z170-Deluxe
• Processor: Intel Core i5-6600K (not overclocked)
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2,666MHz, 16GB DDR4
• Cooler: Corsair H60 liquid cooler
• PSU: Corsair CX750M
• SSD: Samsung 850 EVO
• OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

For this review, I’ll be comparing the RX 470 with other cards Trusted has reviewed recently. TrustedReviews hasn’t tested older AMD cards in our current test rig setup, so I’ve not included those here. My results should give you a good idea of how the RX 470 stacks up against its nearest competitor – which happens to be the RX 480 – and also how much performance you can get by paying more for an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060.

This only takes into account Full HD gameplay. The RX 470 is capable of 1440p as well, but since Trusted's tests focus on games running on maximum graphics settings, I'm focusing on Full HD only.

Note: One of the key points of comparison is the RX 480. My benchmark figures for that card are based on the 8GB model. Third-party tests point to the cheaper 4GB card performing a couple of percentage points slower, at most, than the 8GB version.

One final point to remember: The GTX 1060 benchmarks here are from the Founders Edition card, which is effectively a reference design with slightly lower clock speeds than the GTX 1060s on sale now from third-party card manufacturers.

Now let’s get to those numbers...

Dirt Rally

Dirt Rally is the least challenging title Trusted runs benchmarks on. The biggest challenges here are fast-moving textures and some particle effects.

Dirt Rally is the RX 470’s bread and butter, and unsurprisingly it performed extremely well here, scoring an average frame rate of 82.9fps. This is a great GPU for racing games and other less challenging titles.

For comparison, the RX 480 was just 7% faster.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

Warner Bros’ third-person adventure title is a tough one on graphics cards, with the short benchmark including lots of particle effects, explosions and lighting challenges.

The RX 470 was once again extremely capable here, managing a fantastic 79.5fps, making it very playable. Here it was just 5% slower than the RX 470.

Because it performed so well, we also tested it at 1440p resolution at the same Ultra settings and achieved another very playable result of 57.2fps.

GTA V

GTA V is one of our more challenging benchmarks, with high-speed textures, loads of objects and plenty of physics calculations as well. The benchmark is run at a combination of High and Very High settings and 4x anti-aliasing.

The RX 470 managed 59.4fps, just off the hallowed 60fps I always look for. It’s an excellent result in a challenging game. That result puts it around 13% slower than the RX 480. The extra horsepower of the RX 480 is in evidence here.

Hitman

Episodic stealth game Hitman is tough, but it was built with AMD in mind, so performance here is an indicator of the best the RX 470 is capable of. At Ultra settings the RX 470 managed 67.1fps, just 4% slower than the RX 480.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Rise of the Tomb Raider presents GPUs with a series of fairly challenging tasks, including lighting and particle effects.

The RX 470 managed 57.7fps, its second-slowest result behind GTA V, but still very fast and stable in what can be a difficult title. I also had a go at 1440p, and at Ultra settings it managed an average of 39.1fps. With a bit of tweaking you could easily get this up to beyond 45fps for some fairly smooth 1440p gameplay.

Fire Strike Ultra

3DMark’s Fire Strike Ultra is an incredibly difficult and unforgiving benchmark that forces a graphics card to render some challenging visuals at a 4K resolution. It doesn’t represent any game in particular, but the overall score it creates is fairly representative of overall performance.

Here, the RX 470 is 299 points off the RX 480, equating to 11%. This is a slightly greater performance delta than in all of the games I benchmarked, and points to the incredible strain Fire Strike Ultra puts on both memory and GPU. It was here I also recorded a peak temperature reading of 66ºC, making the RX 470 the coolest card we’ve tested this year. This isn’t a great surprise, though, since it has that dual-fan cooling system on board, whereas the rest had single-fan solutions.

Power draw

The RX 470 isn’t hugely different to the RX 480 in terms of power consumption, either. Taken during the Hitman benchmark, our test system reached a peak power draw of 236W, compared to the 249W of the RX 480 under the same circumstances. This is likely due to the overclocking settings applied by PowerColour; the base thermal design power (TDP) of the RX 470 should be 120W, 30W less than the RX 480.

SHOULD I BUY THE AMD RADEON RX 470?

At the time of writing, buying an RX 470 for £189 or £199 isn't a bad idea, but its price is just slightly lower than a 4GB RX 480. While the performance delta is small, if your budget will stretch a tiny amount more, the RX 480 is a better buy for the longer term. Whether that continues to be the case in the next few months is unknown, but as this is a review written in the here and now, I currently can’t see any compelling reason why you should buy an RX 470 over a 4GB RX 480.

The big caveat here is whether AMD actually continues to sell the 4GB RX 480. There are far fewer 4GB RX 480s on the market at the moment, and considering it's been two months since its launch, this makes things tricky. If the situation changes, I will update the review.

VERDICT

An excellent card for Full HD gaming, but wacky pricing at the time of review makes it a hard sell.

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Somes reviews about Raspberry Pi 3: Mini miracle PC gets somes extra port

PROS

Great value

Significant performance increase

Great free online learning resources

Built-in wireless connections

CONS

No Android support yet

KEY FEATURES

• Quad-core 1.1GHz CPU
• VideoCore IV GPU
• 1GB RAM
• 4x USB2.0, HDMI, Ethernet
• 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1
• Manufacturer: Raspberry Pi
• Review Price: £32.10

WHAT IS THE RASPBERRY PI 3?

The Raspberry Pi 3 is the latest version of the circuit-board computer that caused such a fuss in 2012. This is the most powerful version of the Pi, making the £4.25 Pi Zero look like, well, it’s worth about four quid.

To some this may seem the sort of annual refresh from your favourite phone makers. However, in adding greater power and both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to the Pi without increasing the price, it's now a more versatile "all-in-one" board. For almost everyone, it’s clearly the best Pi yet.

For those not solely interested in learning the basics of Python, C or Java, the added power and features make it far more powerful as a retro games machine, and more convenient as a media streamer too. There’s very little to dislike at £30. 


RASPBERRY PI 3 – DESIGN AND FEATURES

The Raspberry Pi 3 looks almost identical to the Rasberry Pi 2. This means owners of Raspberry Pi 2s who have bought, made or 3D-printed their own cases will be able to slot this new model into them. For those who haven’t come across one of these computers before, it’s roughly the same size as the palm of your hand.

For £30 you get only the circuit-board computer: no power supply, no case, no cables. However, any owners of Android or Windows phones will be able to use their 5V phone charger and cable to power the Raspberry Pi 3. It uses microUSB, although you'll need a fairly high-amp plug (up to 2.5A if you have lots of peripherals) rather than the 1A ones that tend to come with cheaper phones.

The Pi 3 has identical ports to the old Raspberry Pi 2. Four USBs, an Ethernet port and a full-sized HDMI make up your main connectors. None of the USBs are 3.0-speed, just 2.0, but anything much faster would needlessly push up the budget when these boards are designed to run off a microSD card.

There’s no built-in storage to the Raspberry Pi, only a microSD slot on its underside. This port supports the higher-capacity microSDXC standard, so you could grab a 128GB microSD card for £40 and have a formidable portable mini-media player on your hands.

The one other conventional port on the Raspberry Pi 3 is a 3.5mm audio jack.

Where the Raspberry Pi 3 strays from the Raspberry Pi 2 blueprint is in including Wi-Fi (b/g/n) and Bluetooth on the board itself. In previous boards you had to use USB adapters for these features. While they can be bought for a few pounds, they add bulk to the board. You may still wish to use these if your current case interferes with wireless signals.

When the Pi 3 was released, the default Raspbian OS didn’t support these new connections, but support has since been patched in, and as the de facto OS many users will start with, this is great news.

The Raspberry Pi 3 still features 40 GPIO pins. These are used to connect items such as LEDs, motors and anything else you can think of for proper home-brew projects. Sitting between the HDMI and 3.5mm ports is the camera connection port, also inherited from the Raspberry Pi 2. The Raspberry Pi Foundation sells a 5-megapixel camera for around £20.

Depending on your use case for the Pi 3, you'll either use these connectors all the time or leave them for the more simple USB connectors. For those attracted to the board for tweaking and coding, the Raspberry Pi 3 is ready to hook up with the new BBC micro:bit too.

RASPBERRY PI 3 – SOFTWARE AND OS SUPPORT

If you buy the £30 Raspberry Pi package, no software is included. Fresh downloads of the various supported operating systems are all free, but there’s a slight premium to pay if you want to get a pre-loaded microSD card that will let you get up and running immediately.

For example, Pi Hut sells a starter kit that includes a charger, HDMI cable, Ethernet cable, case and 8GB memory card for £50. That’s not a bad deal, but it means that buyers who are simply after something to turn your old TV into a smart-ish TV may be better off with an Amazon Fire TV Stick, a Roku Stick or a Chromecast. Of course, these are far less fun to play with.

One downside that still isn't fully solved is that you can’t run Android on Raspberry Pi. There’s an in-progress community project to port it over, but if all you want is an Android interface for your TV then there are easier ways to get one.

The Raspberry Pi 3 is designed primarily to run the Debian-based Raspbian, now recognised as the computer’s "official" OS. While the Pi ships as a barebones skeleton unless you buy a package, Raspbian is full-fat, powerful and, most importantly, free.

Since its arrival in 2012, numerous bits have gradually been bolted on. to Raspbian. At this point in its development, it may have all the features you could wish for without having to download extra bits and pieces.

Raspbian includes Office-like apps, Minecraft, a web browser and tools to let you get started with the main programming languages the Raspberry Pi is designed to help you learn. Scratch is perhaps the most interesting of these for younger and less-experienced buyers. It’s a visual programming language, far less terrifying than C, which is perfect for creating simple programs and games without needing masses of experience.

You're not limited to Scratch, though, you can program whatever you want in the likes of C and Python, too.

The Raspberry Pi 3, and all other Pis, give you a low-cost and portable way to try out this stuff. But the real triumph is how this raw ability is made into something more thanks to the giant catalogue of well-presented tutorials available over at the Raspberry Pi website. There are more than 100 available, covering Python, Scratch and digging into the extra bits that plug into a Raspberry Pi.

These include Sense HATs, Breadboards, the Pi camera and more. If you or your child are going to really get into Raspberry Pi be aware that you'll be spending more than £30 over the life of a project, but it will be far cheaper than a Lego obsession in the long run.

Let me be honest: I come from the other end of the Raspberry Pi spectrum. While I find the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s resources inspiring, my time with the various Pis of the past has been much more about setting up a media player, or installing some game emulators and reliving SNES-flavoured memories from the 1990s.

There are several media players available, including a couple of different branches of XBMC. You can install a couple of them through NOOBs, which is a one-download installer that lets you choose between all the main Pi operating systems without hunting down separate installers. These include Raspbian, media centre OpenELEC and several others.

All of this isn't specific to the Raspberry Pi 3, of course, but it's good to know if you haven’t used a Raspberry Pi before. And if you feel like you’re drowning in acronyms, the Raspberry Pi downloads section lays out all your options clearly.

Unless you’re planning on only surface-level use, you'll have to embrace some basic Linux commands. You can see a few of them in action in our feature on turning the Raspberry Pi into a gaming centre.

RASPBERRY PI 3 – PERFORMANCE

There are three main benefits to the Raspberry Pi 3 over the Pi 2. It has Bluetooth; it has Wi-Fi; and it has a more powerful CPU/GPU pair.

Let’s deal with the CPU first. The Raspberry Pi 3 has a Broadcom BCM2837 CPU. This is a 1.2GHz quad-core CPU with the Cortex-A53 processor, as used in Qualcomm’s entry-level Snapdragon phone chipsets.

The Broadcom BCM2837 is a 64-bit CPU but the main benefit of the upgrade is that this chip is more efficient and far more powerful than the one in the Raspberry Pi 2 – a quad-core Cortex-A7 Broadcom BCM2836.

The difference in power is much greater than the move from a 900MHz quad-core processor to a 1.2GHz quad-core one might suggest.

To test this I dug out an old version of Geekbench, the only one that supported both the Linux software and ARM CPUs used here. For those interested, it’s version 2.4.2. This is so old it isn't really directly comparable with the results we get today from Geekbench 3, but I had an old Raspberry Pi 2 on hand to test. The Raspberry Pi 3 scores 2,086 points; the Pi 2 1,302.

The claim was that the Pi 3 is 50% more powerful than the Pi 2, and that’s what these results suggest; in fact it's actually closer to 60% when measured purely on Geekbench 2.4.2 results.

This isn't just down to the CPU. The GPU is more powerful, too, even though they're of the same VideoCore IV family. Why? Clock speed. The Raspberry Pi 3 has a 400MHz GPU, the Pi 2 a 250MHz one. RAM remains at 1GB of DDR2.

For basic video-streaming use, there isn't a great deal of difference to be seen between the two generations – but only because the Raspberry Pi 2 already had enough power to get by unless you were using the the latest H.265 codec in your videos. If you want to see the difference between the two, game emulation is the easiest way to do so.

While the Raspberry Pi 2 can run 16-bit games – such as those of the SNES – at full-speed, it struggles with many N64 games. The same is true of the Pi 3, to an extent. However, several games that were barely playable on a Pi 2 now run pretty comfortably on Pi 3, including The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. There remains a bit of slow-down, though, which slightly spoils the experience.

There isn’t a massive shift in what the Pi 3 can do, but it offers an improvement that's easy to appreciate.

USING THE RASPBERRY PI AS A PC

The extra power of the Pi 3 also makes it much less frustrating to use as a PC for web browsing, work and so on. There’s now much less obvious lag when using the basic Raspbian interface.

I still find the rendering of web pages in the default browser a little slow, so it still feels like a compromise. However, it's one that’s much easier to live with than the Raspberry Pi 2. The last-generation model lags far more frequently when you’re doing anything but the most basic of tasks.

I spent a few days using the Raspberry Pi 3 as my main work computer for a couple of three-hour stretches. While I’m not ready to retire my MacBook just yet, it did the trick for writing and researching online.

It's a serviceable alternative to the more expensive stick PCs that have failed to take off so far.

SHOULD YOU BUY THE RASPBERRY PI 3?

The Raspberry Pi 3 is certainly worth the upgrade from the £4 Pi Zero. It's also much more powerful than the Raspberry Pi 2, but for a lot of people the most noticeable benefit won't be the extra power, but that you don't need any annoying dongles to make the computer wireless.

Those connections and 'free' extra power (it costs roughly the same as the Pi 2 did at launch) make this the only Pi to buy if there’s a chance you might use it as anything other than a way to play with Scratch/Python, or to play some MP4 files you downloaded from the internet.

While there are a number of alternatives, none of them have managed to offer quite as compelling a package for this kind of money. Rather than getting all excited about the hardware, though, it’s actually a good idea to take a look through some of the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s tutorials to see if the mini-projects on offer appeal.

They may be intended for a young audience, but their matter-of-fact presentation makes them suitable for all ages. If there’s nothing there to get you excited about learning programming, or that’s not your aim at all, you may want to consider one of the several very good media stick alternatives instead.

VERDICT

The best Pi yet continues to offer unbeatable value for money and an appeal for tech fiddlers and would-be coders alike.

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Some Info About Google Pixel C: Too clever by half

A funny thing happened on the way to inventing the future of touchscreen computing: everybody is botching it.

Google is the latest company to try to rethink how we interact with computers, designing and manufacturing a tablet and keyboard combination itself for the very first time instead of leaning on a partner to do it. The result is the Pixel C, a beautiful Android tablet that’s just slightly bigger than the iPad Air 2.

Google probably would never admit it, but putting its own hardware team in charge of this year’s Android tablet makes a statement: everybody else has been doing it wrong. That doesn’t just include Android tablets like the Nexus 9 or Samsung’s Tab series, but also Apple’s iPad Pro and even Microsoft’s Surface line. The iPad Pro is massive with a gangly keyboard and all the limitations of mobile software, and the Microsoft Surface has only recently begun to resolve its fundamental identity crisis between laptop and tablet. They’re good, but they're over-engineered solutions to problems we’re only beginning to have.

This tablet is the Pixel hardware team’s response. It’s a simple, well-considered, uncomplicated glimpse into what a tablet computer ought to be. “Get on the train,” it says, “this is the future.”

Except, well: Google’s Android and developer relations teams never even got to the station.

Let’s start with the hardware, and I won’t make any bones about it: I love it in all its squarish simplicity. The Pixel C is slightly bigger than the iPad Air 2 in every dimension (including weight), but not so much that it should give anybody significant pause. Even though both tablets share the same basic materials — glass and aluminum — they look and feel totally distinct.

The Pixel C has straight, squared off edges — you can trace the design language straight back to the Chromebook Pixel. But it isn’t a slavish port from laptop to tablet. It’s designed with slightly curved edges and dual speakers. There are no creaks or weird misaligned ports and buttons like we often see on Android tablets. Google’s Pixel team has only ever made beautiful-looking hardware, and the Pixel C is no exception.

IT FITS THE PIXEL DESIGN AESTHETIC PERFECTLY

The 10.2-inch screen is beautiful too, at a resolution of 2560 x 1800 in a screen with an uncommon aspect ratio: 1:√2. That’s the same ratio as a standard A4 piece of paper, which means that the Pixel C’s screen feels capacious whether you’re using it in landscape or portrait mode (it also has implications for multitasking, maybe, someday — more on that later).

Like those Chromebook Pixel laptops, paying for the design and materials of the Pixel C isn’t cheap. It starts at $499 for the 32GB version, and it’s another $149 for the Bluetooth keyboard that’s meant to go along with it. From a certain perspective, that may not seem like too much — an iPad Air 2 with only 16GB of storage costs $499 as well. But Android tablets typically don’t cost this much.

The battery is good enough — which doubtlessly accounts for some of the 0.27-inch thickness — and so this tablet just lasts and lasts. In our battery test of refreshing web pages, it topped out over 11 hours. In real-world use I never plugged in the USB Type-C charger until the next morning, even after using it all day.

The specs are also huge: 3GB of RAM paired to the latest Nvidia X1 64-bit processor. That all seems good, but something is amiss with performance on the Pixel C. There are inexcusable pauses and latency, especially when launching and switching apps. My hunch is that the Android team still hasn’t figured out how to take real advantage of all that power out of Nvidia’s silicon (the Nexus 9 seemed to similarly underutilize its processor). Whatever the reason, it’s a miss. A bad one.

Hardware that looks good is easy to come by. But what’s genuinely new and interesting about the Pixel C is the optional Bluetooth keyboard accessory. It’s a $149 gadget that is more gadgety than any mainstream piece of consumer hardware I’ve used in years.

It attaches to the tablet with magnets, closing it up into a sealed little flat box in a mode that Google calls "sunny side down." When closed, the tablet wirelessly charges the keyboard. You can attach the keyboard to the back with more magnets — that’s "sunny side up." But what you want to do with a keyboard is type, and there again you have yet more — and more powerful — magnets.

IT TAKES A MINUTE TO FIGURE OUT, BUT IT WORKS WELL

There’s a small hinge at the top of the keyboard that latches on to the back of the Pixel C, letting you pull it up to any angle you might want — and it sticks there too, because that hinge is as sturdy as it can be without being obstinate. The Pixel C automatically detects whether the keyboard is attached and knows whether or not to show you the on-screen keyboard.

The system is clever. Actually, it’s too clever by half.

The Pixel C came with a cheeky little how-to card that explains how it works and, well, it needed it. I’ve watched no fewer than five Very Smart People who hadn’t seen it before struggle to figure out how to work the thing. Does it open like a laptop? Nope, you slide it out. Do you set the tablet on top of the keyboard to make the hinge pop up? Nope, you have to lay it flat or slap the two things together in the right position.

Once you get it, there is something kind of satisfying in that gadgety way of slipping the two things apart and reattaching them (but take note, it only works in landscape mode). When they’re together, you get a little laptoppy-looking thing that’s sturdy and won’t come apart or flop around at all. Surface and iPad Pro: take note.

But because this is a 10-inch tablet, there’s not enough horizontal space to fit a full-sized keyboard. The Pixel team’s solution was to excise less-used keys like brackets and the tilde, which means that the keys you use most get to be bigger. Like any diminutive keyboard, it takes a minute to get used to. But once you do, you can really fly. The key travel is plenty deep and there’s a little three-dot menu you can hit to bring up a symbol keyboard on the screen. (Google also tells me that there are hidden, secret keyboard combos for some symbols, only a few of which I’ve discovered).

You can definitely get used to this keyboard and even learn to love it — I did. Except, well, something is amiss again: missed and repeating keypresses. The Pixel C seems to just have a stutter-step in the Bluetooth connection from time to time. When it drops, nothing registers for a few seconds. When it returns: fffffffffffffffffffffff (literally and figuratively).

Bad Bluetooth connections and rogue latency are the sort of thing that could be improved with a minor OS update — or so I’d like to hope. But Android doesn’t need a minor OS update to get up to snuff on tablets, it needs a major one. And that update needs to be combined with an all-out campaign to woo developers to update their apps to truly support tablets.

1ANDROID NEEDS SERIOUS WORK ON TABLETS

One big problem is that most of the apps I use on Android tablets still aren’t truly optimized for tablets. Most apps are comprised of wide, wasted expanses of open space that are technically designed for any screen size but actually aren’t utilizing all this screen real estate. That’s problematic with third-party apps, but it’s unforgivable from Google’s own apps. Hangouts, the perennial forgotten child of Mountain View, is a mess on this device. Even Google Docs (presumably the app best suited to this keyboard) feels more like a phone app than something I can do real work in.

It gets worse with third-party apps. The Pixel C wants to be used in landscape mode, but too many apps assume that they’re on phones. Popular apps like Slack, Twitter, and many more toss you into portrait mode even when the keyboard is attached.

Complaining that Android is lacking tablet apps is old hat, but that’s not even the biggest problem here. No, it’s that Android and the Pixel C have a hair-on-fire screaming need for some kind of split-screen solution. Microsoft, Samsung, and Apple have all figured this out, but there’s not any kind of solution inside Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Heck, the √2 aspect ratio of the Pixel C’s screen is basically designed to be split in half, yet there’s no option to do so here.

>>> Update to get some of new free games and watch some of video game reviews

I’ve spent the past month or two on a sort of casual quest to try to move into this weird and woolly future of computing — the kind with a touchscreen and mobile-style apps and new form factors. I tried various Microsoft Surfaces, which had too few apps and fiddly keyboard designs. I tried the iPad Pro, which also had a fiddly keyboard and an unconscionable lack of support for multiple users. And now I’ve tried the Pixel C.

The pieces should have been here, but there are just too many flaws. Occasional performance skips and Bluetooth connection issues aside, the Pixel team has built a really nice piece of hardware. It simply engenders affection — you pick it up and you want to love it. The keyboard setup is a little weird at first, but when put together, it feels sturdy and much less of a hassle than what you’ll find for iPads or Surfaces. Plus, Android supports multiple users where iOS doesn’t. It has more mobile-style apps (albeit without proper tablet support) than Microsoft.

THE PIXEL TEAM HAS MOSTLY DELIVERED SOMETHING REALLY GOOD, THE ANDROID TEAM HAS NOT

But the performance issues, the lack of apps, and the lack of split-screen functionality show that, right now, Android isn’t really even trying to participate in that future. Simply put: the Pixel team has mostly delivered something really good, the Android team has not. Android may not be Google’s answer for the next generation of computing on a tablet. Maybe that will have to wait for whatever weird hybrid ChromeOS / Android thing that Google is supposedly working on.

The future of tablet computing just isn’t here yet, on any platform. So I bought an iPad.

Photography by Amelia Krales

Video by Mark Linsangan, Andrew Marino, and Phil Esposito

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Sony's PS4 Pro Gets the Jump on 4K, HDR TVs

Sony on Wednesday officially unveiled the powered-up PlayStation 4 Pro, which features smoother graphics, thanks to higher frame rates. This new version of Sony's bestselling video game console includes support for 4K resolution and high dynamic range, making it fully compatible with 4K/UHD displays.

Some developers will add PS4 Pro support to existing games, as well as upcoming releases. Sony's own Uncharted 4 can be updated to take advantage of the 4K/HDR support immediately. Other titles -- including Call of Duty: Infinite Wars, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Mass Effect: Andromeda and Days Gone -- will provide support at their respective launches.

Gamers who don't have HDTVs that offer either 4K or HDR still can benefit from the PS4 Pro's higher frame rate.

The PS4 Pro will support for Netflix's and YouTube's upcoming 4K apps, which will be available in the coming months.

In addition to the high-end PS4 Pro, Sony introduced a new standard version of the PlayStation 4. It is externally smaller and weighs less than the original PS4, but its new hardware design reduces power consumption by 28 percent. It is otherwise the same as the PS4 launched in late 2013.

"The premium tier allows Sony to target enthusiasts, while its standard version addresses a broader audience," said Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games research at IHS Markit.

Sony's PlayStation 4 Pro will be available at retail on Nov. 10 for US$399.99, while the new standard PlayStation will be released on Sept. 15 for $299.99.

Going High-End

Support for 4K and HDR may mean a more powerful gaming system, but adoption of TV sets that are capable of utilizing those features is still in its infancy. Sony's PS4 Pro, in a sense, has future-proofed the console.

"The PS4 Pro is designed to appeal to a high-end consumer, and in the same way that you have high-end gaming PCs, you can expect to have an audience of console gamers who want more from the PS4," noted Scott Steinberg, principal analyst at TechSavvy Global.

"Not everyone will take advantage of these new features in the next month or two, but the system will be there and be ready for when the market gets there," he told TechNewsWorld. "This way Sony will have a system that can take advantages of a consumer's next TV as well as their current one."

Halfway There

Sony is hedging its bets with the two offerins.

"The PS4 Pro is really a '.5' upgrade, which adds features, but the major hitch is going to be selling to someone who already has the system and doesn't have a 4K TV right now," observed independent video game industry analystBilly Pidgeon.

However, "the advanced features could possibly entice those with an Xbox One to make the switch," he told TechNewsWorld.

Further, "Sony is also smart to offer the cheaper slimmed-down version as another way to pull in those who haven't bought a PS4 in any form yet," Pidgeon said.

"The danger still remains that hardware upgrades can cut out the largest part of your install base in the process, so Sony and the game developers will have to be careful not to make it seem like early adopters are left behind" he cautioned.

"Some console gamers will always want the best stuff, and if they have the money then they'll buy the system again," Pidgeon said, noting that a similar strategy sustained the PC hardware market at one time. "The question remains, how big is that market?"

Updates Galore

Updating the technology in a video game console was not so easy with past systems.

"Today's consoles use less proprietary technology compared to older generations and are more like PCs," remarked IHS Markit's Harding-Rolls. "This makes it easier and quick to develop and build improved versions."

Microsoft already has fired its own salvo, with the introduction of the Xbox One S, which offers 4K video and HDR support, as well as a 4K/UHD Blu-ray drive.

Microsoft reportedly also is working on another version that will be capable of running 4K-native games expected early next year.

The companies' new strategies could be to extend the lives of their respective systems through these types of updates, rather than introducing completely new systems.

"Consoles are now being designed to last a whole lot longer than previous generations," said TechSavvy Global's Steinberg.

"This is good news for gamers who don't have to see their library of games left behind, but it also should appeal to game developers who don't have to learn a whole new ecosystem," he pointed out. "For both gamers and developers, this really provides maximum value for the systems."

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Destiny Guide: Where to Find the New Crucible Map Dead Ghosts

Check out and read the game review

There are new Dead Ghosts to find and collect in each of Destiny‘s 27 Crucible maps, added today with Private Matches. Don’t miss any with this guide.

A week ahead of the release of Destiny: Rise of Iron, Private Matches have officially come to the game. As fans started jumping into Private Matches today, they quickly discovered that there was something else waiting for them. New Dead Ghosts have been added to the Crucible, and there is one on every map. For Destiny players on PlayStation, that means there are 27 Ghosts to collect, while those on Xbox have 26 due to the PlayStation-exclusive map Sector 618 (which will remain exclusive until fall 2017).

Arekkz Gaming has a full video guide to the locations of the Dead Ghosts, but be sure to check out our handy text guide.

It will be helpful to load into a Private Match onto each of these maps solo with Control selected, as Control will provide the flags as extra landmarks in finding the Dead Ghosts. Here are all 27 Dead Ghosts:

The Anomaly

Go to the C flag side, by the moon rover. Go towards the opening and to the right in the corner between the crate and the wall will be the Ghost.

Asylum

Near C flag, in the back corner towards the screen and benches, the Ghost can be found in the tall grass on the right side of the hallway.

Bannerfall

Go to the side of the map where if you stand looking towards B flag, the main courtyard and tree are to the left. Jump up onto the platform where the Rift usually spawns, and go right into the interior building. The Ghost will be to the left on a table.

Bastion

Not far from C flag, there is a rock formation with some large boulders scattered at its base. Jump on one of the boulders on the left side of the rock formation’s opening and inside a crater is the Dead Ghost.

Black Shield

Go through the small side tunnel that is to the right when running from C flag to B flag. Before coming out of the tunnel on the side closer to B flag, the Ghost will be on the left lying on the ground.

Blind Watch

On the A flag side of the map, find the area farthest to the left (the large fan will be to the right) covered with an overhang. In the shade, on the ground is the Ghost.

The Burning Shrine

On this Trials of Osiris favorite, go outside on the “sun side” of the map and go to the center of the area. Head towards the sun and the kill barrier. The Ghost is hiding behind one of the large sqaure stones to the left. You will have to go far enough to trigger the kill barrier countdown timer to snag it.

Cathedral of Dusk

Find the large stone tablet in front of where heavy ammo spawns in the interior of the map. Go straight across towards the chasm and the Ghost will be to the right of the crypt-like box.

The Cauldron

Go to the B flag. When standing on the steps, looking at B flag, drop down into the water on the right side. In the corner to the left of the small tunnel that connects the lower level of that room, is the Ghost.

Crossroads

On the B flag side of the map, (with the rest of the map behind you) the Ghost can be found just to the left of the teleporter to the left of the tree.

The Drifter

Run from the center of the map to B flag. Go to the railing where heavy ammo spawns. Turn right and follow the railing all the way to the wall. The Ghost is on the ground there.

The Dungeons

Walk from A flag to the right and through the door towards B flag, but continue right toward the Special Ammo box that spawns there. Now turn around and check one of the corners to the left.

Exodus Blue

From the A flag side, the Ghost is in one of the buildings furthest away from the center of the map. It is inside of the building that has the Russian “Poba” writing on it. Go inside the doorway and immediately turn right to find it.

Firebase Delphi

Run right from C flag into the room where Heavy Ammo spawns. Turn right and go through the circular opening. Go straight back into that room. The Ghost is near the back wall behind a metal cylinder.

First Light

From the C flag side of the map, pass the building where Heavy Ammo spawns and head towards the domed building slightly to the left. Before jumping down off that ledge, the Ghost is nestled between some crates to the left.

Frontier

Go to where Heavy Ammo spawns between the two rocks (to the right if starting on A flag). The Ghost is hidden well in some bushes against the cliff closer to the A flag side.

Memento

In the middle of the map, there is a Special Ammo crate through a doorway on the left not far from the red car. The Ghost is very easy to spot next to the Special Ammo box.

Pantheon

The Ghost can be found on the A flag side, directly to the left below the raised platform where the Alpha spawn point is located. Look on the stairs on the edge of the chasm.

Rusted Lands

This Ghost requires going into a kill barrier to get to. Go the B flag. When facing away from the center of the map, towards B flag, the wall to the left is the edge of the map. Walk over to the wall at its halfway point. Jump over the wall, and before the timer runs out, grab the Ghost hiding on that side of the wall.

Sector 618

The Ghost is sitting on the middle platform, next to the Fallen barrier right in the middle of the map that serves as a connection between where the Spark spawns in Rift and the upper section of the map.

Shores of Time

This Ghost is hidden behind some crates outside of the tunnel that connects A flag side and the open section outside of the B flag. On the A flag side, before going into the tunnel, check the stacked boxes to the right.

Skyshock

On this very large map, head down towards the water where the plane wreckage is. Check the tail section very close to the water. The Ghost will be on the left side of the opening, next to some grass.

Thieves’ Den

Directly behind the Spider Tank that sits next to A flag, check the pile of gold like material stacked up against the wall to find the Ghost.

The Timekeeper

Go to A flag in the pool of water. With the boundary of the map at your back, there is a narrow broken wall to the left. Jump up on top of it to find the Ghost.

Twilight Gap

This Ghost is hidden in the middle of the map. There is a stack of boxes through the doors that connects the path between A flag and C flag. Walk around it until you see the Ghost resting atop a box in the middle of the stack.

Vertigo

Start at B flag facing the teleporter. Go down the stairs to the right and then take a sharp right at the bottom of the stairs. Walk straight towards the corner for the Ghost.

Widow’s Court

From C flag, go to the right side of the map towards the broken stairs on the way the A flag. The Ghost is on the upper platform in the left corner.

And that’s it! Be sure to check out Game Rant’s other guides for Rise of Iron, including how to beat the new revamped Devil’s Lair strike and how to get into the new hidden room added in Patch 2.4.0.

Destiny: Rise of Iron launches September 20 on PS4 and Xbox One.

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