Issue November 2020 - APC (2024)

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For people who love technology, APC is unique: it's the world's longest-published monthly tech magazine. Launched in May 1980, we were there when Apple's Macintosh and IBM's PC were born, and have been at the forefront of tech ever since. With a combination of insights, testing and tutorials APC lets you stay up-to-date with tech as it changes the world.

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In This IssuePlaying gamesSome commiserations are due, this month. First, pity the poor reseller... when the new Nvidia RTX 3080 was announced it immediately rendered the 20-series cards unsellable. While it did take a couple of weeks before Australian pricing was known, the global launch – brought to us from Jensen’s now-famous kitchen – included US pricing and that was enough to make it clear that not a single 20-series card would ever be sold again at full price. Overnight pretty much every online store was forced to slash prices. Perusing most of them, I saw cuts of around $300, typically. Today as I look around the price drop is more like $1,000 or more for a 2080 Ti. Lordy. I don’t personally know exactly what the margin is for that particular product…2 min

In This IssueExclusive downloadsPlease note that these exclusive downloads will only be available for a limited time, from 05/10/20 to 22/11/20 Full version after registration. Tune and clean your system Optimise performance and save space with ASCOMP Cleaning Suite. If your system boots up more and more slowly and the hard drive gets fuller, then it is high time for a thorough system cleaning! But which data can be deleted without risk, and which are still needed for the smooth system and program flow? Cleaning Suite gives the answer! A total of six helpers analyse your system and enable deep cleaning operations. For example, you can delete temporary files, clean browser histories, caches, and cookies from all popular internet browsers, and prevent installed applications and tools from starting automatically at system startup. The…1 min

In This IssueInside APCAPC is Australia’s oldest consumer technology magazine – having been consistently in print for forty years, since our first issue way back in May 1980 – and we take that heritage and responsibility very seriously. While our focus is obviously on the personal computer the very definition of the PC has changed and shifted markedly since the early 1980s. As such, we touch on many other areas of tech, too, from smartphones and apps to peripherals, accessories, and beyond. We have two goals: to find the best modern tech and to help you make the most of it. We’re also an open church in terms of platforms. We know most people aren’t wed to a single brand’s products and use a variety of devices. And, like you, APC’s journalists want…2 min

TechnotesApple reveals 5nm A14 Bionic SoC on new iPad AirApple has unveiled its latest internally-developed silicon, the A14 Bionic. It’s built on a 5nm processor and has six CPU cores, four GPU cores and a 16-core neural engine. The chip will debut in the new iPad Air, which will go on sale in October. The SoC has 11.8 billion transistors, which Apple said was quite the challenge, considering you’re getting into measurements made in atoms. The CPU’s six cores are broken into four high-efficiency cores and two high-performance cores. Apple claimed the offering is 40 percent faster than the previous generation and that graphics, via four cores, are 30 percent faster. Apple’s neural engine has 16 cores for 11 trillion operations per second, and, for the first time on iPad, is paired with a machine learning accelerator for matrix…1 min

TechnotesBanana Pi BPI-M5 aims to take a slice of the Raspberry Pi 4An interesting new player in the Single Board Computers (SBC) scene is the Banana Pi BPI-M5, offering the power of the Raspberry Pi 4 with onboard eMMC flash storage. The Banana Pi BPI-M5 has at its heart an Amlogic S905X3 System on Chip which features an ARM Cortex-A55 processor running at 2GHz and a Mali-G31 MP2 GPU running at 650MHz. RAM comes in the form of a single chip of 4GB of LPDDR4, so is mid-range when compared to the three memory options for the Raspberry Pi 4. What is most welcome is 16GB of eMMC flash storage soldered to the board, with options available for models featuring up to 64GB of eMMC.…1 min

TechnotesNvidia announces ARM acquisition for US$40 billion“Nvidia will gain access to a treasure trove of IP and engineering talent that could enable the company to quickly develop custom CPU architectures for its own use.” After months of speculation and reports, Nvidia announced that it is acquiring ARM Limited from SoftBank in a transaction valued at US$40 billion. SoftBank “will remain committed to ARM’s long-term success through its ownership stake in Nvidia, expected to be under 10 percent,” signaling that Nvidia will gain full control of ARM. However, the transaction does not include ARM’s IoT Services Group, which remains with SoftBank. The deal ranks as the largest semiconductor acquisition in history and marks the second-largest tech acquisition in history, behind Dell’s US$64 billion purchase of EMC. As expected, the ARM/Nvidia deal will be subject to regulatory approval…2 min

Issue November 2020 - APC (2024)

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