Month: January 2017

Enlarge (credit: Mark Walton)

The Intel Core i7-7700K is what happens when a chip company stops trying. The i7-7700K is the first desktop Intel chip in brave new post-"tick-tock" world—which means that instead of major improvements to architecture, process, and instructions per clock (IPC), we get slightly higher clock speeds and a way to decode DRM-laden 4K streaming video. Huzzah.

For the average consumer building or buying a new performance-focused PC, a desktop chip based on 14nm Kaby Lake remains the chip of choice—a total lack of competition at this level makes sure of that.

But for the enthusiast—where the latest and greatest should perform better than what came before—Kaby Lake desktop chips are a disappointment, a stopgap solution that does little more than give OEMs something new to stick on a label in a 2017 product stack.

Enlarge / Prototype of the upcoming Transit Custom EV, which will be available in Europe by 2019 according to today's event. (credit: Ford)

Today at the Flat Rock Assembly Plant, Ford Motor Company CEO Mark Fields unveiled a large-scale electric vehicle initiative that will run through the company's next five years. Ford plans to invest $4.5 billion in electric vehicle production by 2020, and the company said it will produce 13 new electric vehicles, including a Mustang, an F-150, police cars, and a Transit Custom van. Additionally, Fields revealed that Ford would be canceling a previously announced $1.6 billion-production facility in Mexico. Instead, the company wants to invest $700 million in the existing Flat Rock facility, generating 700 new jobs focused on EV and autonomous initiatives at that location, according to Ford.

"Electrified vehicles have driven millions of miles and saved consumers millions on costs in fuels," Fields said. "Now, imagine electrifying a pick-up truck for more productivity—or a commercial van, a police car. That's exactly what we're doing."

Ford described seven of the 13 upcoming EVs during its press conference today. The F-150 Hybrid will be available by 2020 in North America and the Middle East, and Fields noted it'll be powerful enough to stand-in for on-site generators in a pinch. The Mustang Hybrid will deliver "V8 power and even more low-end torque" according to Ford; it too is intended for a 2020 release. Generally, electric motors are well suited to applications where you want a lot of immediate torque, so their presence should work well in a light duty truck like the F-150. (Cars Technica Editor Jonathan Gitlin notes it will also probably make the electric Mustang pretty handy at the drag strip.)

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Linksys is joining the rapidly growing collection of mesh Wi-Fi devices with Velop—and unlike Google Wifi, Plume, and Ubiquiti, it's coming to the UK and Europe (and the US too).

Unfortunately, Linksys will charge you a pretty penny for the privilege. Velop, which is aimed at Wi-Fi novices, is available in three different packs, starting with a single unit that functions just like any other wireless AC router for £199/$199. A double-pack costs £349/$349, while a triple-pack costs an eye-watering £499/$499. That's a lot of money to spend on improving your Wi-Fi signal, particularly as our friends in the US can pick up three Google Wifi routers for a mere $299.

Still, Linksys claims the extra cost is justified. Unlike all its competitors (with the exception of Orbi), Velop's mesh network is a tri-band 802.11ac MU-MIMO system. Where a typical mesh Wi-Fi network uses a dual-band system, with one of the bands doubling up as the wireless link between each router (in theory, at a performance cost to the user) Velop includes a dedicated third band to prevent any bottlenecks. Each Velop router also includes two Gigabit Ethernet ports, should users prefer to connect them together via cables.

FreeSync, AMD's variable refresh rate tech for gaming monitors, now comes in a slicker, and potentially more compelling version. FreeSync 2, which will coexist alongside FreeSync, combines variable refresh rates with the many HDR displays that are expected to make a splash at CES 2017. Not only that, but it promises to fix some of the more pressing problems with its predecessor, including patchy low frame rate compensation (LFC) support and required low latency levels.

At a base level, Freesync—like Nvidia's rival G-Sync technology—synchronises the refresh rate of the monitor with the frames per second output of the game currently being played. This eliminates the input lag associated with using v-sync—which typically locks games to 60FPS, regardless of how quickly the PC is pushing out frames—or playing with v-sync off, which can cause unsightly screen tearing as the game pushes out more frames than the monitor can handle.