Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Nvidia GeForce RTX Graphics Cards 2060 are Now Available!

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 has been announced by Nvidia on January 6, 2019 and available today! It has 1920 Cuda cores, DirectX 12, Nvidia Ansel, GDDR6 memory, PCIe 3.0 and available for $349. It is powerful enough for 60 Frames Per Second (FPS) and Real Time Ray Tracing (RTRT).

Nvidia Ansel allows you to take screenshots and freeze time in select games. It also has creativity in allowing you to edit the shot before taking it in game. I personally have tried it out in Mirror's Edge Catalyst. It is really cool!

Games like Battlefield V support the Real Time Ray Tracing (RTRT). Go into settings and enable "DXR Raytraced Reflections Quality" today in Battlefield V. Nvidia "The Way it is Meant to Be Played"

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 is available today for purchase!

Here are the links for my favorite Nvidia graphics card manufacuter EVGA.

https://www.microcenter.com/product/602000/xc-ultra-gaming-geforce-rtx-2060-dual-fan-6gb-gddr6-pcie-video-card

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/evga-geforce-rtx-2060-xc-ultra-gaming-6gb-gddr6-pci-express-3-0-graphics-card-with-dual-hdb-fans/6321301.p?skuId=6321301


Nvidia previously announced last year at Nvidia GeForce Gaming Event August 2018 
Palladium in Cologne, Germany. Nvidia announced Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 and Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070.

Sources:

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/01/06/ces-2019-press-conference/
https://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060-official-launch-349-usd/
https://evga.com
https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/11/19/nvidia-rtx-ray-tracing-benchmarks-in-battlefield-5
https://www.evga.com/products/product.aspx?pn=06G-P4-2167-KR

Note the following links Micro Center and Best Buy are not affiliate marketing links yet. I do not receive any benefit or commission from you purchasing for them yet. I am working toward getting my affiliate marketing links activated. Right now they are provided for your convenience only.

Privacy and Smartphone Locations

It has come to light that AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint have been selling and allowing 3rd parties to sell private cell phone location data. The cellular wireless company was selling it to 3rd parties who in turn were selling it again sometimes to shady companies or individuals. This is a threat to personal safety. Individuals were unaware that their location data was being sold.

This is simply unacceptable! Cellular wireless providers say they have cut down on the reselling of location data. However I do not believe it is completely solved by this. Federal Communications Commission and other governmental organizations need to do more to protect consumers from abuses of consumers' data. Call your cellular wireless company and ask if they have sold your data and what they are doing to protect it.

Let me know in the comments your research into location data selling.

Sources:
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/sale-your-location-revelations-about-data-sales-spur-renewed-calls-n956936

Monday, January 7, 2019

AMD Ryzen 3000 and AMD X570 Motherboards

It is January 2019 and that means it is time for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas, Nevada. AMD is showing off their new Zen 2 architecture microprocessors (CPU or Processors) and accompanying partner boards from third party vendors the AMD X570 motherboards. The AMD Ryzen Zen 2 processors offer faster speeds which is what I am looking forward to. The AMD X570 motherboards will offer Peripheral Component Interchange Express (PCIe) 4.0 slots according to WCCFtech. This is a slot that usually accepts a graphics card and other discrete add-in cards. PCIe 4.0 is supposedly offering to eliminate additional power supply (PSU) connectors from graphics cards to the power supply. It sounds cool that it would be able to do this. Plus offer upgraded speed for discrete cards that accept that slot.

If you want to watch the AMD live at CES you can checkout their livestream at https://www.amd.com/en/events/ces at 9 AM PST/ 10 AM MST / 11 AM CST or 12PM EST. I know I will be watching. I want to know if I will be building another gaming computer/ work computer this year. It has been since 2009 since I built my last one. I went with AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 3.0Ghz processor. I heard about it through Tiger Direct TV on YouTube as being advertised as a "true quad core" processor with streams running to each core. It has been amazing. I highly recommend AMD processors for affordability, easy to compare and reliability.

Sources:
https://www.amd.com
https://www.amd.com/en/events/ces
https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-3000-zen-2-cpus-ryzen-9-3900x-ryzen-7-ryzen-5-listed-online/
https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-3000-cpus-x570-chipset-and-pcie-gen-4-support/

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Apple Out Charging People's Budgets for Smartphones

The question is is Apple out and overcharging people's budgets for Apple iPhone smartphones? 

The Apple iPhone 6S was the last time that you could buy a AT&T Apple iPhone on a 2 year contract. A 2 year contract was for 2 years you could not upgrade to a newer phone. I bought my Apple iPhone 3GS in 2009 and iPhone 5 in 2012 both on AT&T 2 year contracts. It was a way to buy an Apple iPhone for $199 / $299 or $399 for the various sizes back in the day like 16/32/64GB respectively as I remember. 

Then came along the end of 2 year contracts. This meant the new installment plans would replace the 2 year contracts. However all this meant was more profit for the cellular wireless companies. Instead of them taking a loss on a smartphone and making up the money on the cellular plan, they would instead receive it directly from the consumer over the life of the installment plan. I was not very happy when I comprehended what they were doing. From the iPhone 5 in 2012 up until 2018 I did not buy a new smartphone. That was 6 years of not buying a new Apple iPhone smartphone.

Fast forward to Apple iPhone X in 2017 when the first iPhone cost over $1000 United States Dollars (USD). That is when it would cost on average $41.67 over 24 months or $33.34 over 30 months on an installment plan. Then in 2018 when Apple introduced the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. The iPhone XS is 41.67 for 24 months or 33.34 for 30 months. The iPhone X and iPhone XS cost the same on installment plans apparently. The iPhone XS Max is 45.84 for 24 months and $36.67 for 30 months.

The real question is Apple out and over charging their customers? I for one am not interested in taking out an installment plan with AT&T. Is the cost of owning a smartphone costing more than the consumer/customer is willing to spend? If they are they will see a decrease in the amount of iPhone smartphone sales. The market is saturated with smartphones according to NBC. "Apple iPhone sales are flat as people hold on to their smartphones" according to Alyssa Newcomb, NBC News.

I bought my most recent phone on an eBay auction contract free and paid upfront. This is where the price of the smartphone is not worth the investment into the new technology.

Are you still buying new Apple iPhones like the XS or XS Max on installment plans? Are you tired on the overpriced smartphone? Let me know in the comments below here on Blogger!


Resources:
*All prices were accurate at the time of this writing. Prices were researched from Best Buy on AT&T pricing.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/apple-entering-dark-chapter-iphone-sales-are-slowing-n954221

Welcome to Racer Technology News & Commentary

Welcome to Racer Technology News & Commentary blog. Here I will be discussing news, gaming, technology and commentary on it. It will be a way to discuss gaming, technology and way for me to share my knowledge surrounding them.

Sincerely,
Racer Technology

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