Dark Power Pro 11 1000W

There’s no such thing as the perfect power supply. Systems that have four graphics cards and an eight-core processor require a certain kind of PSU, while home-theater PCs require a different PSU altogether. If you want to prioritize acoustics, there are fanless power supplies that are well-suited for the task. That said, for most builders the Dark Power Pro 1000W from German manufacturer be quiet! is about as close to perfect as possible.

First and foremost, the 1kW Dark Power Pro 11 is an 80 PLUS Platinumcertified power supply. To meet such exacting requirements, a PSU has to be extremely efficient under a wide range of operating conditions, and the Dark Power Pro 11 is. The power supply is 92.3%, 94.1%, and 93% efficient at 20%, 50%, 100% load, respectively.

MSI GeForce GTX 980 GAMING 4G

If gaming is high on your list of favorite computing activities, then you need a graphics card with some serious mettle. MSI’s GeForce GTX 980 GAMING 4G is certainly a top-tier card that can handle whatever you throw at it.

Let’s start with the heart of this beast, a 28nm NVIDIA Maxwell GPU code-named “GM204.” Although this is the same GPU as in the GTX 970, it’s fully unlocked on the GTX 980, with a total of 16 SMMs populated with 2,048 CUDA cores, 128 texture units, and 64 ROPs. The card also features a 256-bit memory bus that lets the GPU access a 4GB GDDR5 frame buffer. The memory is clocked to 1,753MHz and the core clock defaults to a 1,190MHz base clock and 1,291MHz boost clock. These are considered the Gaming Mode clocks. When you install the MSI GAMING app, however, you can drop the card into Silent Mode for a base and boost clock of 1,140MHz and 1,241MHz or put it into OC Mode, which raises the base and boost clocks to 1,216MHz and 1,317MHz, respectively.

Crucial Ballistix Elite DDR4-2666 32GB (BLE4K8G4D26AFEA)

One of the best reasons to adopt a Skylake processor from Intel is to enjoy the benefits of using DDR4, and this kit delivers a performance boost you’ll feel compared to DDR3. This Ballistix Elite kit is clocked at 2,666 MTps (megatransfers per second), which means this system can complete tasks that much faster, applications respond better, and the frame rates in our games will be as high as possible. The kit is capable of supporting theoretical memory bandwidths starting at 21.3GBps, and even in a dual-channel configuration that is some blazing-fast memory.

5 things you didn’t know Android 6.0 could do

Unless you’re the proud owner of the Huawei Nexus 6P, you probably haven’t had the chance to experience the latest version of Android yet. Google’s latest Nexus phone may have shipped with Marshmallow, the yummy moniker slapped onto the most polished version of Android so far, but it’ll likely be a while before other manufacturers roll out their own updates.

But while you’re sticking your neck out trying to catch wind of roasting marshmallows, here are some of the nifty features (not all of them are equally useful) that you can look forward to. Granted, some of them are dependent on manufacturers themselves to implement, but it’s nice to have the function there at the very least.

Pointless apps

I once thought that phone and tablet apps were just amazing. There we were in a new era of lightweight, mobile computing, throwing off the shackles of those big, bloated computers with their complex features that nobody used. Apps were compact, streamlined, smart and – best of all – cheap. They did the jobs you wanted doing faster, and handled tasks you never thought a computer could.

I remember it well: the giddy rush of getting my first proper smartphone or tablet, then installing a flurry of apps that would make my device worthwhile. I read the hyperbole in app reviews that everyone devoured at the time, then installed the apps which – the reviews assured me – would revolutionise my life.