Recent content by CraigN

Yes. they make a big difference from each other. A dual core with hyperthreading (2 cores, 4 threads) will be slower than a quad core with hyperthreading (4 cores, 8 threads). Honestly, if you're trying to cut cost of that rig, then go for an i5-6600K. For games, there's not a gross performance...

There's no straightforward answer to this. It depends on how well the chip's single threaded performance is. For example, a 3.5 GHz Intel i7 quad core performs better in most games than a 4.0 GHz 8-core AMD, because it has better single-thread performance. It really depends between which two...

Your best bet would be to sign up for some website newsletters - As of right now, to my knowledge, haven't seen any advance information on stuff like that. I wouldn't hold my breath on these premium laptops being discounted too much though. Maybe $100 off at most, but, generally your largest...

:| Then I truly have no idea. You could try reinstalling those Intel drivers, but I'm at a loss if it's none of these things.

The only other thing I can think of is that for some reason your games aren't switching to your dedicated graphics card and that's what's causing the issue. There are a few solutions for this. NVIDIA Control Panel, under Manage 3D Settings: 3D Settings->Manage 3D Settings Tab "Global setttings"...

You said you reinstalled drivers, have you tried rolling back to a previous driver version before the Battlefront drivers? Since things were working status-quo before, try running on some older graphics drivers and see if you get your expected performance back. All else fails, only other...

It's not a defective motherboard, but it is related to the USB. If the USB 3.0 ports on your new motherboard aren't well shielded, you'll get feedback like that. Could be that the ones on your AM3 board were better shielded from feedback. This isn't a defect in the motherboard, some just don't...

Unfortunately not possible. The headset doesn't necessarily have the hardware to handle so much cross-talk between signals at the same time, which is why you get the static between the PS3 and the PC. That's why most (if not all) of these devices are designed to be used on one thing at a time.

An 850M is pretty decent. There are a few other laptops in that price range with worse GPUs, so that's probably the best you'll get in terms of performance/$. $799 is pretty good for that laptop and graphics card.

You'll have to buy a new laptop. Laptops from OEMs like Lenovo, HP, Dell, etc. are not upgrade-able like desktops are.

Laptop graphics tend to not be upgrade-able as the GPU is soldered directly to the circuitboard. You would have to buy a new laptop for a better video card. Still doesn't solve your problem as you'd have to buy a new laptop, but if upgradeability is something you're concerned about, you could...

Look into the 15" G551LM ASUS or the Lenovo Y50 series. They commonly go on sale in that price range. (right now a little north of the £900 mark though) I think MSI may have a similar offering, but I'm not familiar with their laptops.. Most of them tend to have 850M or 860M chips, they will...

This is unfortunately not possible to the best of my knowledge. While most bluetooth devices can pair to multiple devices simultaneously, they can only input/output from one source at a time usually. This is usually to stop interference, and a lack of processing power. The bluetooth chips inside...

False. The Nexus 9 has a more powerful K1. It has the 64-bit Denver. The Shield only has the 32-bit K1. http://www.anandtech.com/show/8670/google-nexus-9-preliminary-findings/ Granted, the Shield seems to leverage it's 32-bit K1 better than the N9 in some areas, this could be due to lack of...