THE HIGHS

Andy Kelly: Invading snakes I m so excited about Metal Gear Solid V that I m going to book some time off work to play it. But just when I thought I couldn t get any more excited, I saw this new gameplay demo showing off the game s intriguing Mother Base and FOB modes.

Between missions you can build and manage your own base, filling it with soldiers captured in the field. But as well as your main Mother Base, which ties into the story, you can also build three secondary FOB, or Forward Operating Bases, which can be invaded at any time by other players, without warning, as you play the game.

You can build automated defences to repel them in your absence, or fly in and handle the threat yourself. It s a fusion of base-building, stealth, and Dark Souls-style invasions, and it looks absolutely amazing. Just watch the video and you ll see what I mean.

Samuel Roberts: Star Wars, son Ever look at a picture of a spaceship and think: everything s gonna be okay ? I had that every time I saw a screenshot of the Millennium Falcon or a snippet of an A-Wing s cockpit view this week. The recently-revealed Fighter Squadron combat in Star Wars Battlefront may end up being as simple and straightforward as the on-foot battles I sampled at E3, but I think it s fair to say this is gunning more for a Star Wars-friendly audience rather than those into more specific kinds of competitive FPS games. I can fly an X-Wing that looks that good? This is the end of me. It s all I want. 

James Davenport: Dark Souls Glee Boy! Do I love sustained discomfort! Which is why I m super, super jazzed about new Dark Souls III information. Wes wrote up his impressions of a small preview, we got a new trailer, and some screens.

The combat looks much more aggressive and quick than previous games, which I m okay with. Bloodborne changed me. Mostly though, I m excited to see the world of Dark Souls realized with more detail. I still revere the sparse, empty vibes of the first two—though I can t help but want to see thicker embodiments of The Sad. This also means we ll be getting better lighting, which will lend itself to atmosphere. With better lighting, we might see some straight up horror segments in Dark Souls III. What does it matter? I m in anyway. 

Evan Lahti: Heroic! Blizzard is supporting the hell out of Heroes of the Storm. I d put it down in favor of Rocket League and Dirty Bomb over the past few weeks, but I didn t expect Gamescom to throw such a wave of new updates at us. We now know the next three, wait, four heroes hitting the game, and they all sound like interesting additions, especially Medic. There s a new map coming. Ranked Play is getting renovated. A ton of skins are on the way. Blizzard s following Riot s lead by making a change to the way bundles work to avoid making players pay twice for the same item. Competitive games face a ton of competition, but Blizzard seems fully committed to keeping the HoTS flame hot.

Tom Senior: Stellaris could be kingly Crusader Kings 2 has a reputation for being more complicated than it is. Ostensibly it's a game about feudal family politics, succession wars and reams of stats and buttons. Really, though, it's a soap opera. Who will you marry? What will you do with your rogue children? Who will they marry to secure you vital allegiances abroad? That's the part I love. Forget tax rates and the hunt for cassus belli, it may as well be set in space for all I know about feudal politics.

Well, whaddayaknow. The designers of CK2 and Europa Universalis are making a new game called Stellaris set on the final frontier, where procedurally generated aliens stand ready to eat you, befriend you or sell you things. I'm not expecting it to match the format of CK2 and the EU series, but I love the idea of setting a game with CK2's complex storytelling in a science-fiction setting. You can also build your own spaceships, and it already looks fancier than Paradox' other strategy games.

Wes Fenlon: A cool Dota thing is happening? I m going to step in for Chris Thursten here for a second, which I only know how to do by shouting things like SECRET and TECHIES and BOOM, YOU RE SPIDERS. I don t play Dota or watch Dota or really understand Dota, even though I ve dumped many hours of my life into other MOBAs like League of Legends and Smite. Dota s simply on another level of complexity, which can make for an incredible competitive scene. Just following The International 5 from afar, Dota seems bigger and better this year than it s ever been, and Chris s coverage of the tournament has been interesting and informative. All I remember from last year is how disappointed everyone was by the finale. So far, it seems like TI5 has delivered at least a dozen incredible matches, and it s still got two days to go.

THE LOWS

Wes Fenlon: A not so mighty Kickstarter The saga of Mighty No. 9, and now the failed (but kind of succeeded?) Red Ash project, has tarnished what many gamers hoped was a return from a great creative mind. Keiji Inafune s Mighty No. 9 was warmly received on Kickstarter and pulled in nearly 4 million dollars. The fact that it s a blatant Mega Man knock-off was part of the charm, a not-so-subtle jab at Inafune s former employers. After a couple years in development, enthusiasm has faded a bit, and people were naturally skeptical when Red Ash (this time a Mega Man Legends knock-off) launched on Kickstarter before Mighty No. 9 had been released. It felt like a cash grab—was Mighty No. 9 going to turn out bad?

Red Ash asked for a lot of money merely to create a prologue chapter, and the campaign petered out. At the last minute, a publisher stepped in to help fund the game, but they kept the Kickstarter up, asking for more money to expand on the game. It also failed. And then Mighty No. 9 was delayed into 2016, confirming fears that it wasn t ready for release yet. Red Ash should ve been a smashing success, but mismanagement of the Kickstarter and fans trust wrecked the project. What a waste.

Andy Kelly: That Time cover So Oculus Rift is on the cover of Time. That s pretty cool. A few million people read it every month, and it s a mainstream audience. The sort of coverage VR needs if it s to be taken seriously. But that cover. Man. What were they thinking? It features 22 year-old Rift creator Palmer Luckey, mid-jump, wearing the recently unveiled consumer version of the headset, with a beach in the background for some reason.

I guess the idea is that VR is an escape, and beaches are places where you go to get away from everything. Unless a launch game for the Rift is Beach Jumper: Origins, I have no idea what the thinking behind this was. Amazingly, the animated version is even worse.

To be fair, it s impossible to make VR headsets look cool. They are, visually, inherently stupid things. Not even David Bowie would look good wearing one. So the Time people had a hard task on their hands. But they could have done a classy portrait of Luckey like Wired, or a stylishly lit shot of the hardware itself. But no, they had to have him leaping embarrassingly into the air in front of a fake-looking Caribbean beach.

Now the world (well, the part that reads Time or goes on Twitter) is laughing at Oculus Rift, which it doesn t need, because it already has an image problem. This is terrible PR, not just for Oculus, but for the tech itself. It s the kind of thing that would give Malcolm Tucker heartburn (NSFW highlights here). Time is famous for its iconic covers, but this is just bad.

Tom Senior: No time for Dotes

Gamescom and the Dota 2 International clashed this week, which has stopped me from watching anywhere near as much of the tournament as I d like. That's annoying enough to become my low of the week, but at least there's a pleasing symmetry to the fact that first International back in 2011 was staged at Gamescom. Then the pool was $1.6 million. Now it s $18 million. The rise of Dota 2 is astonishing.

This is the first year I ve watched seriously. In preparation I ve been spectating games and playing to learn how heroes work. Teamfight commentary used to be gibberish, but now I've learned the language I can appreciate the skill and incredible speed of thought required to compete.

I used to share Blizzard s view that for a game to be a great esport it needs to be readable quickly, but Dota 2 defies that. I think the truth is more interesting. The process of getting into something new is a transaction that rewards intellectual investment with emotional return. The greater the evidence for that emotional reward, the more trivial the learning curve seems. Every dramatic turnaround, every rivalry, every upset and every dollar that the community throws behind Dota 2 makes learning more worthwhile, until suddenly you find yourself commanding an army of spiders to eat creep waves at half-past midnight. Once that s happened, there's no way back.

I've done my share of whooping and groaning watching some of this week's tumultuous series. I wish I could watch more, and can't wait for the arrival of the new major tournaments to sustain my interest throughout the year. I'm finally cashing out my investment in Dota 2, and it feels great. I suppose that's a high of the week, really. Whoops!

Evan Lahti: The bad kind of attention How and why is DDOSing still a problem at the biggest esports tournaments in the world? It s been a drag to see The International get attacked this week, partly because competitive Dota 2 is, by its nature, quite a long thing, and to have it be delayed and interrupted further is really frustrating to passionate fans. But we re multiple years into putting esports on big, grand stages, and organizers still can t seem to defend themselves consistently. We re in the process of putting together an article that tries to answer why—hopefully we ll all learn something from it.

Samuel Roberts: Has Mafia 3 shown its hand too soon? I m a fan of both Mafia games and was delighted to see a third entry was announced this week, seemingly with a bit of a shift away from the Goodfellas/Godfather pastiche, which was getting a little tired by the end of the second game. Part of me wonders if they ve announced it too early, however, and if that release date of next year isn t just a bit too ambitious.

Hangar 13, the studio making Mafia 3, was only officially announced as existing in December of last year, which logically means that the game has only been in development for around a year. I think it shows from the footage shown this week, too—while the backdrop is lovely, there s not a lot of game there. An open-top car blowing up in a street nearly empty of pedestrians, a shootout in an interior location, some driving. It doesn t look particularly far along, and just based on the footage I wonder how long we ll be waiting to play it. Maybe the reveal could ve waited a little while until they had some footage that could really blow us away.

James Davenport: Astral League It s important to keep in mind that listening to some genres of metal isn t supposed to be fun. Wallowing in discomfort via grating, harsh music is a way to confront and understand otherwise obscure or difficult emotions. I m a better person for listening to metal, though I can t say I m a better Rocket League player because of it too.

Last night, I dove back into Rocket League, but figured I d roll with the metal mood instigated in our work chat (thanks for pointing out Striborg, Shaun! A very bleak, sublime listen!) and throw on some black metal while I sleepwalked through matchmaking (and life). The Body hardly inspired me to play better, but every time I got scored on and my car went flying, their lyrics from the subtly titled tune Night of Blood in a World Without End reminded me what truly mattered. Which is: the pain of living holds no victory, only humiliation.

Or with every botched kick, I try to remember Wolves in the Throne s room promise that it ll all be okay when I shed my mortal, goal-shitting coil and visit the Pyramid with 1000 steps [with] bricks of obsidian glimmering, carved with ruins [and the] occult fire burning within.

After a good hour-long losing streak and existential doubt, Thou left me with a clear revelation in their song Ode to Physical Pain. It s like they were speaking directly to my Rocket League woes (and empty soul):

Oh, constant, unending Pain, my surest, truest friend. Agony, blessed Agony, your ever-present ache identifies unyielding vitality. That sharply labored breath is respiration experienced. Those overwhelming burdens grant me immune to senseless distraction, grounding me in the present. Oh, merciless teacher. Spread your harshest wounds across the soil of my figure. Find root in my skin and nerves and veins.

Rocket League at its best when I embrace how miserable and bad at it I am and that nothing will ever change. Have a great weekend everyone.

Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima says Snake will be turned into a blood-soaked mess as he works his way through Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, and unlike most games he won't be cleaned up between missions.

"Snake will be blood stained as he gets injured. Won't reset even he completes missions/sideOPS... It's totally different expression from blood as sign in old school game," Kojima tweeted. "As player continues to play in the battlefield you'll be soaked in blood/if got worse you'll be treated w/ IV fluids."

Snake's blue bandana will also "be soaked in blood red," he continued, implying that it's sort of a bone he threw in for fans. "Story wise, he won't be wearing as Snake broke up w/ the bandana given by THE BOSS in PW. But I let player has freedom of selecting bandana when going on the battlefield."

Kojima also posted a picture of a banged-up looking Snake sitting beside a wall of photographs: People he's killed, perhaps, or people he has to kill, or people he's supposed to prevent being killed. He doesn't look as bloody as I'd expect, if the pic is meant to illustrate Kojima's point—it seems to be limited to his kneepad, and maybe a bit on his shin guard—but he does look sad. Sad, sad Snake. Maybe he knows what's coming.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain will be out on September 1, and in case there was any doubt, all that blood and sticky bits will look best—the best!—on PC.

As player continues to play in the battlefield you'll be soaked in blood/if got worse you'll be treated w/ IV fluids. pic.twitter.com/N8r75A2xma

— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) August 7, 2015

Do you like the dark? Do you like the way it moves? Do you come alive when neon kills the sun? If you answered yes to at least two of those questions, then first, rock on, and second, you'll be happy to hear that the first expansion to the hit Cities: Skylines has been revealed as After Dark, featuring a day/night cycle that Paradox Interactive says will have a big impact on how cities are managed.

"Day and night changes in the city and affects citizen schedules," the publisher explained. "Traffic is visibly slower at night and some zoned areas do not work with full efficiency, further easing the traffic. Service vehicles move around as usual."

Other changes in the expansion are Leisure Specialization for commercial areas, which will make them more active at night, and Beach Specialization, which will enable "beach activities" in commercial areas such as beach bars and restaurants along the shoreline. City services are also being expanded: Criminals will be transported from police buildings to prison, taxis will hit the streets, and an international airport will allow for much greater volumes of traffic than the current model.

Released in March, Cities: Skylines handily out-citied SimCity and became a surprise hit, setting a Paradox sales record and quickly racking up more than one million units sold. In July, developer Colossal Order said it intended to support the game "as long as we possibly and technically can." A release date for After Dark hasn't been announced, but Paradox says it's "coming soon."

Cloud Imperium Games debuted Star Citizen's multi-crew ships at Gamescom and, for the benefit of those who weren't there, PCGamesN has posted a video of the demo on YouTube. It's not the most action-packed thing ever—it takes until around the 4:30 mark before things really start to happen—but it sure is pretty.

Multi-crew ships are exactly what they sound like: Relatively large vessels that are crewed by multiple players. One player takes the controls, others can man turrets, and it's even possible (although perhaps kind of dangerous, if your pilot is a jerk) to open a door and go for a spacewalk. It's not the most revolutionary idea ever, but crewed vessels can be all kinds of fun, as players hop aboard what is basically a party bus with guns and run around causing grief for everyone. And it sounds like that's more or less what Cloud Imperium has mind.

"You re not going to have 50 systems to adventure in, but I think most people are going to have a lot of fun," founder Chris Roberts said. "I m actually expecting people to make up their own action story arc. So what we re planning is, we ll just have different areas you can fly in and visit and do things in, or have some AI that will spawn."

Objectives will also be left largely for the players to set themselves. Roberts said he's considering something like a "freeflight mode," but with "more team-oriented stuff where you could have a combination of the bigger multi-crew ships and the smaller [ones]. A team battle thing. It should be pretty good."

A couple years ago, Stompy Bot Productions tried to cut itself a slice of the giant fighting robot pie by resurrecting the moribund Heavy Gear franchise as Heavy Gear Assault. But when the $800,000 Kickstarter tanked, the studio canceled the campaign and said it would try its luck with homegrown crowdfunding instead. That's often code for "We give up," but in this case that's actually what it did.

Fundraising totals aren't listed on the Heavy Gear Assault site, but whatever it pulled in was enough to get the game to a playable state and, more to the point, an early access release. "With the move to Early Access, players are no longer required to sign a confidentiality agreement or NDA," Stompy Bot wrote. "We welcome all players to stream live video, post screenshots, and share their Heavy Gear experiences with their friends!"

The early access launch also opens up the fundraising doors a whole lot wider. The game packs required to play run from $40 to $100, and there are all sorts of other purchase options as well, including blueprints packs and specialized weapon systems.

Heavy Gear Assault sends players to the planet Terra Nova, where they'll take the controls of giant fighting robots called Gears and use them to blow each other to pieces. Activision made the first Heavy Gear game in the mid-'90s, after losing the rights to the Mechwarrior franchise, but despite the obvious similarities it's a well-developed property in its own right, with a tabletop tactical game, an RPG, and even a short-lived animated series.

"This new phase of development has really energized our team, and we re eager to keep the momentum going full speed," Stompy Bot Marketing Director John Nguyen said. "Our early supporters have been dying to share their excitement with the world since it s been under wraps, and we re thrilled to see more players join in and provide vital feedback as we gear up for our full launch next year."

Get the details at Heavygear.com.

Update: The post originally referred to Stompy Bot Productions as the developer of Heavy Gear Assault, but it's actually the publisher. The game is being developed by MekTek Studios.

The Past through Tomorrow

Earlier this week, we posted our review of Intel s newest processor, sixth-generation Core series, aka Skylake. While we were able to provide comparison points with more recent processors like the fourth-generation Haswell/Devil s Canyon and the fifth-generation Broadwell, that s as far back as we went. Truth is, we ve cleared our labs of most hardware older than Haswell now—no surprise there, considering Haswell launched over two years ago. But, we also have PCs at our homes that sometimes aren t quite so up to date, and one of those is a dusty but still fully functional Nehalem (Bloomfield) system that s nearly seven years old. Yes, we re talking about a true first-generation Core i7 processor.

The specific processor is an i7-965 Extreme Edition, nominally clocked at 3.2GHz but with the capacity to turbo up to 3.46GHz at stock. It s also running overclocked, though, at a steady 3.67GHz. That may not seem much compared to modern chips, but this is a 45nm part we re talking about. Since then, Intel has gone through two generations of 32nm parts, two generations of 22nm parts, and they ve now released their second 14nm part. Wait a minute; didn t we just list six generations right there? How is it that Bloomfield is first-generation and Skylake is sixth-generation? For the CPU history buffs, it goes something like this:

Nehalem is considered first generation, but that s lumping a bunch of chips into one big bag. The Nehalem family launched at 45nm with Bloomfield for consumers, and shortly thereafter as Nehalem EP for workstations and single socket servers; all of these used the LGA1366 socket. (There was also Nehalem EX for dual- and quad-socket servers, using a different socket.) Then there was a 32nm die shrink version codenamed Westmere EP/EX that also targeted servers and workstations, which later came out as a consumer chip with the codename of Gulftown, a 6-core/12-thread processor that also ran in LGA1366. Sandy Bridge was 32nm as well and moved to socket LGA1155, Ivy Bridge shrank to 22nm and also used LGA1155, Haswell was 22nm on LGA1150, and most recently Broadwell was 14nm on LGA1150. Depending on how you count, that s seven generations counting Skylake.

But since we re talking about missing generations of Core processors, we should also mention Lynnfield, the mainstream offshoot of Nehalem that launched a year after Bloomfield, on socket LGA1156. That marked the split between Intel s mainstream and enthusiasts platforms, and they ve been going their separate ways ever since. And who can forget the original Core Duo (Yonah) and Core 2 Duo (Merom and later Penryn), which is when Intel finally killed the Pentium 4 NetBurst architecture and kicked off their tick-tock strategy? By our count, somehow Intel conveniently left out several generations of Core processors—sort of the opposite of Microsoft and Windows 10, aka No Number Nine Necessary . But moving on, we were talking about our old Bloomfield PC.

At its launch, Bloomfield was the new high-end platform from Intel, with triple-channel DDR3 memory support. It was paired up with the X58 chipset (Northbridge), which provided 36 PCIe 1.1 lanes. Bloomfield/Nehalem also represented Intel s first ever integrated memory controller, which helped to reduce memory latency by moving the memory interface onto the same die as the CPU. There were limitations, of course: USB 2.0 support came via the ICH10 Southbridge, along with the SATA connections—which were limited to just 3Gb/s. USB 3.0 ports or SATA 6Gb/s ports required additional chipsets on the motherboard, or you could use a PCIe adapter card.

Skylake: shiny and new

In other words, by going back nearly seven years, we re seriously limiting the features offered by our test rig! But it s a testament to the quality of the old Bloomfield/X58 platform that we re still running it, and it actually continues to work quite well, all things considered. It s so old that we actually had to replace the motherboard s CMOS battery in order to avoid losing date/time and BIOS settings in the event of a power failure, but otherwise it s happily chugging along. In fact, Nehalem has done so well that even now, we still get people wondering if it s even worth the hassle to upgrade to a more modern platform. That brings us to the purpose of today s article.

Some readers asked for it, and we re happy to accommodate them: Just how much faster is Skylake compared to a first-generation Bloomfield system? Many people purchased i7-920 processors and overclocked them to 3.6GHz (give or take), which basically matches the clocks on our i7-965. While we re here, we can also muse about where the industry is headed and what patterns are emerging, and hopefully relive a few good times during our stroll down memory lane. Here s the full list of specs for our Bloomfield and Skylake platforms.

Bloomfield: a bit dusty but still running fine!

Okay, full disclosure: This test system is my own old PC, and it s near and dear to my heart as I used it for work, gaming, and just about anything else I needed to do on a PC from 2009 up until about a year ago when I finally upgraded to Haswell. Now the PC is used by my wife (and children), not because I don t have anything faster for them, but because it has all her files and preferences, it s running properly, and she hasn t requested a change.

If you re wondering, the GeForce GTX Titan X was installed purely for testing purposes; normally the PC has to make do with a GTX 770. Over its life, the system has gone from an HD 4870X2 to dual HD 5870 to dual HD 7970 cards, before I retired it from gaming use and put in the single GTX 770. Not a bad lifespan for a PC, and something I never would have done ten or twenty years ago when it seemed every two years brought enough of a performance boost to warrant an upgrade. Those were heady times….

Show me the money!

Those expecting first-generation Core to tuck its tail between its legs and go run and hide should find these results a bit sobering. Sure, Bloomfield isn't the fastest processor, but for less demanding use cases there s hardly any need to try to keep up with the Joneses. Skylake is clearly faster than the old i7-965, but particularly when you look at the i5-6600K stock results, it s really not that much faster. The i5-6600K is only 15 percent faster on average compared to Bloomfield at 3.67GHz, and even the i7-6700K is only 37 percent faster. If we toss in overclocking on Skylake, the gap widens to 39 percent for the i5-6600K at 4.6GHz and 61 percent for the i7-6700K at 4.7GHz, but there are plenty of cases where we aren t anywhere close to double the performance.

If you re wondering why Bloomfield and X58 have managed to hang around for so long, look no further than the mainstream benchmarks like PCMark 8. Storage and graphics help Bloomfield stay relevant, and for these system wide benchmarks the difference between first- and sixth-generation Core is quite small. Bloomfield equipped with a modern GPU is actually able to beat Skylake (with overclocking) on the Home and Creative tests. No doubt the Titan X is helping here, as the Skylake system was tested using its integrated HD Graphics 530 for the above benchmarks. (For the record, PCMark 8 results on stock i7-7600K with Titan X are 4895 Home, 7598 Creative, and 5161 Work. No surprise that the Creative suite benefits the most.) But that s just it: Even an archaic PCIe 1.1 connection is apparently good enough for most single GPUs in 2015. That might sound shocking, but check out our gaming results.

Note: Average is the geometric mean of the nine tests, using (3DMark / 100).

Here we re running the fastest single GPU on both platforms in order to make the processor (and chipset) the biggest bottleneck possible, and we re even running at a moderate resolution to further emphasize CPU performance. And yet, of the nine graphics tests, only three show more than a 10 percent improvement—and that includes the overclocked Skylake results! GTAV and Hitman: Absolution show the biggest gains from moving to a modern architecture, with an 18-28 percent boost in average frame rates, roughly matching what we saw earlier in generational CPU performance improvements; Metro: Last Light also shows a moderate improvement of 7-19 percent. Outside of those three, the performance is close enough to call it a draw—the average over the remaining six tests gives Skylake a meager 2-3 percent improvement over Bloomfield. In fact, there are even a few cases where Bloomfield posted slightly higher numbers than the i5-6600K. Oops!

As if that s not damning enough, DirectX 12 is supposed to help further alleviate CPU bottlenecks for games, so that even a moderate processor can keep up with a faster graphics card. If that sounds unreasonable, consider for a moment that the CPU cores in both the PS4 and Xbox One are horribly under-powered compared to even Bloomfield. Just how under-powered are we talking?

A quad-core A4-5000 AMD APU managed a result of 0.39 in the single-threaded Cinebench 11 test, and 1.5 in the multi-threaded test. Even with perfect scaling from clock speeds and cores (the Xbox One is eight cores clocked at 1.75GHz while the PS4 is eight cores clocked at 1.6GHz), those CPUs would only muster about a 3.5 score in the multi-threaded Cinebench 11.5 test—about half the CPU performance of Bloomfield. And yet these gaming consoles are still able to power some nice visuals, thanks to the low level access developers have to the hardware. DX12 provides all of that for Windows users, which means once we start seeing DX12 titles, Bloomfield may be even closer to Skylake in gaming performance—at least on DX12 enabled titles.

The Bigger Picture

This isn t to say that we should forget about the past seven years of technological progress and stick with LGA1366, however. For one, efficiency is not a strong point of the old architecture. At idle, Skylake on our desktop is using just 39W at the wall (50W when overclocked); the Bloomfield system by comparison draws 131W idle. Under load, the story is similar: running Cinebench, Skylake is pulling 104W at stock on the i7 and 155W when overclocked; Bloomfield at 3.67GHz and a bit more than half the performance requires 249W—or put another way, i7-6700K delivers nearly four times the performance per watt. Part of that comes from LGA1366 being an enthusiast platform though—our Haswell-E test bed as another example idles at 110W, and running Cinebench (with a 4.2GHz overclock) pushes it to 234W; of course, Haswell-E does deliver more than twice the performance of i7-965 in this sort of workload.

It s not just about power and efficiency either. While CPU performance of Skylake may not be a revolution compared to Bloomfield, there are plenty of other benefits. PCIe 3.0 offers four times the bandwidth per lane, and when paired with a fast NVMe SSD it can make even the fastest SATA SSD look mediocre. USB 3.1 is also showing up on most Z170 motherboards we ve seen, providing up to 10Gbps connectivity compared to the 480Mbps of USB 2.0—and even USB 3.0 wasn t commonly found on X58 motherboards. That may not seem like a huge deal, but copying files to our old Bloomfield system from an SSD over USB proved to be quite painful, topping out at the expected 33MB/s of USB 2.0 compared to nearly ten times that rate when copying the files to the SSD from our Skylake build. (Our X58 board in theory has USB 3.0 support, but it never quite seemed to work properly when it comes to

Seven years of separation

Of course no one is looking to buy a new Bloomfield PC today, but if you re already running such a system and you re not doing video editing or other CPU intensive work, the upgrade bug probably still isn t biting. Haswell was a good upgrade to Bloomfield back in the day, and for enthusiasts we ve now had Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge-E, and Haswell-E. If none of those were sufficient reason to upgrade during the past five years, however, Skylake doesn t really change things relative to Haswell. There are new features that are worth having, but for mainstream users there are no must have items.

Let s be clear: we love the speed of Haswell-E when it comes to video editing and other complex tasks; it s substantially faster than mainstream systems. There s no way we d want to go back to Bloomfield for that sort of work. But when I asked my wife if she had any complaints with my old Bloomfield system, the answer, not surprisingly, was no. Sure, the fact that the system has an SSD helps, which is the first thing to upgrade on any system using conventional storage. With 500GB SSDs now priced well under $200, there s really no need to suffer with putting your OS on a hard drive. But until the motherboard or some other critical component actually goes belly up, she and many others like her will keep on plugging along with outdated hardware.

On the one hand, this is sort of sad. We remember fondly the earlier days of the PC when performance was doubling every two years (sometimes less). The old 80386 launched at 12MHz, and within two years it was running at a lofty 33MHz. 80486 was just as good, starting at 20 and 25MHz in 1989 and finishing at 100MHz by 1994. The very first Pentiums were 60 and 66 MHz parts in 1993, with 233MHz models by 1997. (Those were also 15-17W parts, if you re wondering.) Even in the days of Pentium 4, we went from 1.4/1.5GHz parts in 2000 to 3.4GHz by 2004—still more than double the performance within a four year span. But that was the end of an era; starting with Core 2, clock speeds gave way to adding cores. Core 2 launched with 2.67GHz parts in 2006 and the fastest parts ended at 3.33GHz for dual-core and 3.2GHz for quad-core two years later. And that brings us back to Bloomfield, which launched in 2008. Here we are, Q3 2015, and over a variety of applications we re only seeing about a 30 percent improvement in overall performance.

The Mobile Disruption and the Road Ahead

But just because pure clock speeds and performance aren t shooting up doesn t mean we re not seeing some real improvements in other areas. At stock clocks, i7-6700K is around 30 percent faster than a moderately overclocked i7-965. There s something else that s also faster than i7-965: just about every quad-core i7 notebook CPU since Haswell. Yeah, let that sink in for a moment. The Acer V17 Nitro Black we recently tested manages around 20 percent better CPU performance than our old overclocked Bloomfield, and it idles at less than 15W with load power on CPU tasks measuring 75W (including the display). And for a lot of people, quad-core i7 notebooks are more powerful than they really need; a good Ultrabook is more portable, fast enough, and has great battery life.

Quad-core Haswell notebooks are also faster than Bloomfield.

No wonder Intel and others have been focusing more on power efficiency for the past several generations than on raw performance. Desktops aren t going away any time soon, as there will be a certain market segment that always needs more performance, but they re just one of a variety of computing devices in today s technology saturated world. Laptops deliver all the computing power most people need on a day to day basis, and in turn plenty of people are increasingly using smartphones to do tasks that were traditionally handled by desktops. Ironically, the same people that would balk at spending $1,000 to upgrade their laptop or desktop to a modern system are often the first in line for a brand new $500 smartphone, complete with a two year contract.

Where do we go from here? 14nm is just the tip of the iceberg; Intel still has plans for 10nm, 7nm, 5nm, and even 3nm. Even if we slow down to process updates every three or four years, we are fast approaching the true end of Moore s Law . No one is quite sure where process technology will actually stop, but the size of a copper atom is 128pm and aluminum is 125pm, so that s a pretty hard limit, and likely we won t ever get that far due to quantum tunneling and other issues. That means the slowing down of computing demands may not actually be such a bad thing.

Fifteen years ago, you rarely saw large businesses running PCs and laptops more than four years old; today, a high-end PC from seven years back can still deliver a good computing experience for most users. In another fifteen years, we may enter an era where computer purchases become more like cars: You could buy a new model and use it for 10 years or more before needing a replacement…unless you drop your smartphone and shatter the screen. Sorry, dad; I totaled the computer.

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Looking for a monitor that will help create a more immersive experience when playing games on the PC or console? Look no further than BenQ America s new curved monitor, the XR3501. Measuring 35 inches and featuring a curvature of 2,000R, the panel doesn t come cheap, costing a hefty $999.

According to the specs, the new curved monitor has a 21:9 aspect ratio and a max resolution of 2560 x 1080. The panel also includes a typical contrast ratio of 2000:1, 178 degree viewing angles, a refresh rate of 144 Hz and a typical response time of 12ms (4ms GtG).

On the ports front, the XR3501 provides two HDMI 1.4 ports, one DP! port, one miniDP port, audio in and out and a microphone jack. The panel also comes with proprietary features such as the Black eQualizer, which lightens dark areas on the screen without washing out the white levels. There s also ZeroFlicker that gets rid of flickering no matter the brightness level.

When combined with the device s built-in Low Blue Light modes, the monitor also successfully filters the exposure of emitted blue spectrum light — effectively reducing eye fatigue and elevating gaming performance to provide exceptional visual comfort, even during long hours of gaming or dynamic content viewing, the company said this week.

BenQ s new monitor provides three exclusive gaming presets, the first of which is geared towards racing games. The other two are focused on first-person shooters, but the company does not explain what makes these two modes different from each other. According to BenQ, each setting is fine-tuned and actually used by professional gamers.

Is BenQ s new curved display a bit pricey? The ideal setup would consist of three curved panels, but that would set gamers back $3K. The company said that the monitor was designed for the casual gamer looking for a more enveloping gaming experience. However, we re not sure if casual gamers will dig the steep pricetag.

The display is now shipping to retailers and online shops across North America.

Thermaltake introduced on Friday the Core V1 Snow mini ITX chassis. The company said that the new chassis is built for high-end gaming systems, providing enough space for up to four HDDs or SSDs, power supplies up to 180mm, tower CPU coolers up to 140mm and cable management space of up to 80mm.

According to the company, the case features two interchangeable side panels, a two-chamber design, a huge 200mm fan installed in the front and removable 2.5/3.5 inch drive device racks. Thermaltake said the upper chamber was designed for cooling performance and efficiency while the bottom chamber plays host to cable management and the power supply.

Symmetrical panels allow users to build the system with personality, Thermaltake said in its announcement. Users can change the panels for the best viewing presentation or better cooling performance. A removable PSU dust filter and adjustable shockproof rubbers built in the bottom panel prolongs the PSU usage.

The Core V1 Snow Edition includes a number of "mounting points" for installing air cooling units or liquid cooling systems. The specifications show that the front can accommodate 120mm or 140mm radiators or 120mm (x1) or 140mm (x1) fans. The case also comes with two optional 80mm turbo fans that can be installed at the back of the chassis.

Finally, the new chassis provides two expansion slots that can accommodate GPU cards up to 250mm. On the front panel s side are two USB 3.0 ports, HD audio connections, the Reset button and the Power button. Available only in white, the overall dimensions of the new chassis are 10.9 x 10.2 x 12.4 inches.

Unfortunately, the company did not provide pricing or availability in its announcement.

Windows 10 is out, and at least 18 million people have already upgraded to Microsoft s new OS. The launch chaos has subsided. If you re still waiting for the upgrade option to appear in your system tray, click here to learn how to install now. But you should know what you re getting out of Windows 10, particularly when it comes to gaming.

Should you expect dramatically improved framerates? What about compatibility issues with new and old games? We ve already gone over what DirectX 12 means for the future of gaming, so now it s time to talk about gaming on Windows 10 right now. Here s what to expect.

Gaming performance on Windows 10: a whole lot like Windows 8.1

Beyond the introduction of DirectX 12, gaming on Windows 10 isn t much different than gaming on Windows 8. And when it comes to raw performance, it s not so different than gaming on Windows 7, either.

Our colleagues at Maximum PC benchmarked Batman: Arkham City, Tomb Raider, and Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor on Windows 7, 8.1 and 10, as well as 3DMark FireStrike Ultra. Their system? An Intel Core i7-5930K, Nvidia GTX 980 Ti, 16GB DDR4 RAM and an M.2 Kingston HyperX Predator 480GB SSD.

Their results, which you can read about in more detail here, are...pretty much identical across all three operating systems. Arkham City gained 5 frames per second in Windows 10, a relatively small increase from 118 fps to 123 fps at 1440p. Their score in FireStrike Ultra did increase 100 points between Windows 7 and Windows 10, but only 6 points from 8.1 to 10. As expected, Windows 10 s significant aesthetic changes don t do much to affect the underlying architecture that formed Windows 8.

But that s just three games, hardly a representation of the entirety of PC gaming. Let s check out some other data.

Ars Technica benchmarked Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 in four different games: Metro: Last Light, Grand Theft Auto 5, BioShock Infinite and Far Cry 4. Their results mirrored Maximum PC s. Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 performance was virtually identical, with one exception: AMD s R9 295X2, a dual-GPU card, dropped almost 20 frames of performance under Windows 10 in BioShock Infinite, and crashed in Far Cry 4. AMD s Windows 10 drivers need a bit of work to smooth over CrossFire performance.

Look around the web, and you ll likely find reports of big performance bumps moving from Windows 7 or 8 to Windows 10, and just as many reports of framerates dropping. Performance will obviously vary game-to-game, and all sorts of factors could be causing those performance differences: driver upgrades, different background tasks eating up CPU cycles, and so on. Overall, Windows 10 isn t going to change pure performance much. Now let s talk about compatibility.

Windows 10 and compatibility

Every new Windows release runs the risk of breaking compatibility with the classic games of the 80s and 90s and even the last decade. Thankfully, today we have services like GOG working to upkeep a library of classic games and ensure that they install and launch correctly on modern Windows. You can usually get those same games to work yourself through DOSBox, but GOG takes care of all the fiddling.

On July 29, when Windows 10 was released, GOG posted about its compatibility: Overall, the entire process went better than expected. We're very happy with that fact, but we're still only getting started. Today, roughly 85% of our library is labeled as compatible with Windows 10. These games were fully playable with no significant performance or graphical issues during our testing process and are ready to go right now. You can filter through Windows 10 games in our catalog, and the compatibility will be labeled on every game card.

Not bad for launch day. But how are other games and hardware faring without GOG s touch?

Modern games: There s a huge list of games on Microsoft s website that have been checked for compatibility, and pretty much everything is listed as playable. Only a few have notes for minor issues. And across various PC subreddits, compatibility issues seem few and far between.

SoundBlaster drivers: Windows 10 drivers/software for most Creative Sound Blaster cards are mostly unavailable at this time, and slated for August/September. You can see a full compatibility list on Creative s site.

DualShock 4 and DS4Windows: The DualShock 4, our favorite controller for PC, didn t work on Windows 10 right away. It doesn t have official drivers, and the update broke compatibility with tool DS4Windows. Turns out there s a very simple workaround: stopping and starting explorer.exe (found via reddit).

Graphics cards: Modern graphics cards pretty much all have Windows 10 driver support. Nvidia supports back to Fermi (400 series). Here s a full list of Nvidia GPU compatibility. AMD supports back to its 7000 series cards. Here s a list of AMD GPU compatibility.

Give us your take

Have you run into any compatibility problems? Seen framerates soar or sink? Let us know!

Mass Effect is beloved, it's lauded, it's three video games people have strong opinions about. I'm not sure I've ever totally agreed with anyone on which is the best and why, so to find out just how wrong I am, I asked 1,256 people to tell me which Mass Effect is the best Mass Effect. I also asked which is the worst, and all kinds of other things—who you romanced, paragon or renegade, and so on. These are the results. Because math.

Before we start, it's important to note the demographics of the survey. I promoted it here, on Twitter, and elsewhere around the internet, but it's definitely not a perfect snapshot of Mass Effect fandom: the majority of the respondents were men ages 18-34, which has certainly affected the results.

Which Mass Effect is the best?

According to my survey, Mass Effect 2 is the best by far. It received 56% of the vote, while Mass Effect 3 received 22.9%, and the original Mass Effect received 21.1%. 

Those who favored the original Mass Effect cited the story and the sense of adventure. "It was rough around the edges, but the world was amazingly detailed," said one survey taker. "It was high-concept Proper Science Fiction, amazingly non-human-centric, with a real (if occasionally annoying) sense of scale to the zones. Shep was competent and dedicated, but basically just the right (hu)man in the wrong place, not The Chosen One. It was really, really refreshing and different and interesting."

I felt that way, too, though I think I would rather go back and play the less-aged ME2, and that probably contributed to its success. Those who voted for Mass Effect 2 cited the characters (Mordin and Miranda, especially) and improvements to the combat and mission design. The general consensus is that Mass Effect's story might have been great, but Mass Effect 2 was more fun to play. "Best balance of story and combat," said one voter. "Satisfying the whole way through."

Mass Effect 2's suicide mission ending is also praised as the best in the series, and several people said they appreciated that it was less gloomy than ME3. "I eat that squad shit up."

As for Mass Effect 3, its 22.9% came from those who liked the ending (I'm among them, but I consider the last hour or so the ending, not just the Final Choice), the drama, and the multiplayer. But it seems that the best mix of game design and storytelling sits in the middle, and that's a pretty inoffensive thing to agree with.

Which Mass Effect is the worst?

According to the survey, the worst Mass Effect is the original Mass Effect. It received the fewest "best" votes and the most "worst" votes, though it was very close to ME3 in the worst department. I disagree, but it turns out I'm wrong. The survey doesn't lie. My opinion is bad.

People who didn't like Mass Effect 1 often cited the Mako (more on that below) and the elevators. It's "clunky" said one survey taker, and another complained about "boring planetary exploration." Generally speaking, Mass Effect's age did it in. A few said that it still has the best story, but the inventory system and other design issues dump it to the bottom anyway.

Given how grumpy just the mention of Mass Effect 3 can make people, I expected it to lose here, but it just barely managed to become the middlest Mass Effect. The comments are as expected: bad ending, bad story, contradictory plot points, too much combat, day one DLC. Not everyone said all of those things, of course (and several people defended it), but they came up the most. As mentioned above, it's the "gloomy" Mass Effect, which some expressed as a positive ("the feels" etc.), but many didn't like when compared to the camaraderie of Mass Effect 2.

Who did you romance?

Liara, by far, is someone you would totally date: 67.3% of respondents romanced Liara. The next most popular romantic partner was Miranda at 44.1%, followed by Tali at 42.4%, and Ashley Williams (blah) at 41.6%. Garrus was popular, too, which I expected, but I thought he'd manage more than 25.1%. This is all very dependent on the demographics of the survey, of course.

The least popular partner was Javik, but that doesn't really count, as he was bound to the From Ashes DLC and is an ancient four-eyed fish monster. James Vega, Steve Cortex, Jacob Taylor, Morinth, and Samara didn't do much better, though. Maybe they can just hook up with each other.

Who's your favorite character?

As for your favorite characters, independent of whether you could or did get romantic, Garrus was the clear favorite with 382 mentions. I let survey takers write in anything for this, so just about everyone gets a mention and there are plenty of multi-entries from the indecisive (so it's not perfect data, but it still gives us a good idea of who's the most loved). Here are the top five, in order from most popular to least:

1. Garrus (382)
2. Tali'Zorah (129)
3. Mordin (88)
4. Liara (75)
5. Shepard (69)

The rest go: Urdnot Wrex, Thane, Legion, Jack, Joker, Kaidan, Grunt, Javik, The Illusive Man, EDI, Ashley Williams, James Vega.

Characters not on this list, like Captain Anderson, received fewer than 5 mentions. Sorry, Anderson, but people would rather hang out with an ancient four-eyed fish monster than you, apparently. At least you beat Saren, though, who was only two people's favorite character (plus one other who spelled his name wrong).

Other results

The most popular ending is the red ending (31.5%). In second place is the Extended Cut's 'None of the Above' ending (30.6%), followed by the Green ending (24.9%) and the unpopular Blue ending (13%).

18.3% of respondents believe Shepard was actually indoctrinated. 55.2% do not, and 26.5% haven't made up their minds. 

30.8% of you have read Mass Effect fanfiction.

62.4% punched the reporter. Interestingly, a very close 66% agreed not to punch me. It's good to know that punching fictional reporters is about as popular as not punching me.

Paragon is greatly preferred over Renegade, with 82.4% of the vote.

Most of you (60.3%) played as male Shepard, also known as the wrong Shepard. Jennifer Hale owns all.

The most preferred class is the Soldier (30.3%), followed by the Vanguard (26%), Infiltrator (17%), Adept (11.7%), and Sentinel (9%). The Engineer did pathetically, bringing in only 6% of the vote.

21.8% of respondents have modified a save file. I am among them, because I totally botched the end of ME2.

And finally, it turns out that the Mako is actually good. Only 31.4% of people didn't like it.

On the next page, read some of the comments survey takers left behind...

To help me understand the survey results, I included text boxes in which takers could tell me why they voted the way they did, or just leave general comments. Here are some of the best.

On why Mass Effect 1 is the best...

"They're all so close but the first one really nailed the excitement, mystery and wonder of the Mass Effect universe. There were also a ton of ways to solve each problem. Also the ending made you feel like a badass. I can't count the number of times I accidentally started another playthrough because of it."

"Best writing! Best music! Some of my favorite worlds to explore on random missions. I even have great affection for the Mako, as dumb a vehicle as it is."

"It was more RPG than it was a shooter. I don't mind that the series refined the gameplay, that's a great thing, but the dilution of the RPG elements, exploration and the gradual lack of choice makes the third installment less special and more of your everyday third person shooter."

"It has the best RPG 'feel' out of all three, with all the exploration, discovering a whole new universe, gear diversity... I feel like there were more things to discover, more people to talk to, and your choices had more of a weight to them than the other two. Also, elevator conversations. How can you not like those?"

"The story was far more contained and avoided the typical cliche of the universe ending bad guy out to destroy the universe. Of course, this was seen later in the form of the reapers in Mass Effect 2 and 3. More importantly, the game felt more like sci-fi and less like a typical action video game. Guns didn't need reloading, grenades hovered along a straight trajectory, remote hacking. It's like combat really had flung into the future. In later sequels, particularly the engineer, powers became dull, sniper rifles couldn't see so far, classes and weapon choices were more strict."

"Just about everything in Mass Effect one is better then the rest of the series. They did an amazing job of introducing an entirely new universe, with a clear story that you could follow and with a satisfying ending that left you wanting more, but not left hanging. The Reapers are never more threatening than they are in the first game, there is just so much you don't know about them. It left you thinking, if it takes the combined forces of the races at the Citadel to defeat just one, how do stand a chance against the full force of the Reapers? There were actual meaningful and difficult choices (Ashley or whining Kaiden, Wrex, the Rachni, etc). The combat was the most tactical of the three and less shooter which I appreciated. The harder difficulties forced you to use your squadmates and skills. It actually felt like you were exploring a galaxy because of the Mako missions (though they could have make the terrain a little easier to traverse). Top to bottom Mass Effect was an amazing game that left me so excited for what's next."

On why Mass Effect 2 is the best...

"It took the interesting Universe they'd set up in the first game, kept up the writing and tightened up the gameplay so it was actually, y'kno, fun to play."

"This is so damn close. Mass Effect 3 has the better gameplay by far. Rolling, better combat environments, the works. It also has the Citadel DLC, which is my favorite DLC I've ever experienced. But Mass Effect 2's characters and their individual stories will live with me forever. It established Mass Effect as my all-time favorite game series. And I fell in love with Garrus! And Tali! Though mostly Garrus."  

"Cast was more developed and interesting. Loyalty missions offered more insight into team members' lives and also the workings of the galaxy. Stakes in the overall plot were much greater. Morality system, while still fairly basic, had introduced more complexities and shades of gray. Combat was simpler but more refined. Suicide run final mission was unbelievably intense, yet so satisfying to get through it without losing a single squad member."

"Mass Effect 2 offers the peanut butter & jelly of video-games. Also, I don't know how you can't think it is the best whASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL."

"It has a better combat system than ME1, the best squad of all the games, an incredible story, and the suicide mission is the single greatest game end I've ever played."

"It's a sprawling adventure that finally gets away from the old Bioware 'Star Map' structure. I'm a massive sucker for stories based around putting together a team of flawed geniuses to pull off one big mission. It also has a wonderful sense of light and shade; without the looming threat that dragged ME3 into some fairly grim territory, I felt free to enjoy and explore the character relationships which are BioWare's strongest suit."

On why Mass Effect 3 is the best...

"It gave me a lot of feelings."

"It plays the best of the three. I enjoyed the way the story wrapped up (pre and post extended cut). The story was the culmination of the journey that happened over the course of three games and concluded the story of my Shepard. Also the multiplayer was tons of fun."

"Perfect build up, much more intense than the previous titles and keeps the plot moving at a great pace, never a dull moment."

"Because Female Shepard actually got some face and a trailer and cover. The previous games acted as if she didn't exist."

"Every moment felt as though it could be the endgame—it was fast moving and non-stop action, but well paced, as you could still pause to check in with all your companions and see how things were doing. Everything genuinely felt like it really mattered and a lot of threads from the previous two games—particularly ME2—were tied up, but not necessarily with a tidy little bow or in a way that felt forced. Finally, the emotional roller coaster it puts you on is hard to forget."

"The multiplayer and forming several lasting and close friendships with great people."

"While the ending was a massive disappointment, the rest of the game is all around amazingly well done with special note being given to the Tuchanka and Rannoch missions which left a strong impression with their character focus and difficult decisions."

"It's the most emotional. It hurts me, but I love it the most; the character development, the feeling of despair and stress you get because the war is going down fast and you need to act on it... Plus the combat is so much fun."

Anything else you want to say about Mass Effect?

"It's the best. Despite all the ending controversy, it's still my favorite series of all time. My first tattoo will come from this universe (Garrus's face tattoo, on my arm). These characters are my second family. I've laughed, cried and partied with them. More than any novel, movie, television show, they touched my heart. All my thanks to BioWare for such an incredible epic."

"How am I supposed to have a favorite character in a story with so damn many amazing characters? I went with Joker because he was the funniest, but I can think of good reasons to love Garrus, Tali, Wrex, Kaidan, Ashley, Liara, Jack, Legion, even Zaeed, hell, even the Illusive Man and his yoomans. IT'S SO HARD."

"I'm commander Shepard and this is my favourite survey on the citadel."

"I wish romances were non-exclusive, there's no possible universe in which Jack is 100% straight, and I need to start a roller derby team called Ass Effect."

"I still vividly remember beating ME1 for the first time. I knew the ending was coming and played until 6 am to finish it. Then M4 Part 2 starts playing as the credits roll and sent chills down my spine. It just felt way bigger than a simple video game."

"I refuse to vote Paragon or Renegade. #Renegon4LifeBitch!"

"It was the most important video game I ever played. It helped me through a difficult time in my life, introduced me to people both fictional (in the game) and real (other BioWare/Mass Effect Fans) that changed my life and made me a better more self aware person. I am a better person for having played it, a better person for having met so many fans."