PCWorld January 2021

Maybe you can’t buy the hottest new PC hardware yourself, but scalpers are ready to sell it to you for a tidy profit. These numbers come to us courtesy of Dev blogger Michael Driscoll. Driscoll, an Oracle Data Engineer at USG Corp. by day, applies his data skill sets in his off-hours to the scalping market for PC hardware and consoles. By Driscoll’s analysis, scalpers have sold at least $82 million in Ryzen 5000 CPUs, RTX 30-series cards, RX 6000 GPUs, and Xbox Series X and PS5 consoles. Most of it is still selling at stupid levels above the list price, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, some 322 Ryzen 9 5950X CPUs have sold at a median price of $1,275. Those impossible-to-get GeForce RTX 3080 cards…

If you think Intel is worried about AMD and Apple, the company isn’t flinching. In early December, Intel’s Gregory Bryant said the chip giant welcomed the competition because that basically means there’s money to be made and that the PC business is thriving. “We’ve always said, only the paranoid survive,” said Bryant, who runs Intel’s client computing group, largely responsible for laptops, desktops and workstations. “I think that’s alive and well inside of this company. And I take all competition, whether that’s from Apple or the other ARM guys, Qualcomm, MediaTek or AMD—I take that all very seriously.” “Anytime you’re a growth business and a healthy business, there’s going to be competition,” Bryant said in a talk with investment bank UBS as well as with Yahoo! Finance. “We absolutely intend to compete and…

AMD will reverse course and continue to manufacture its own “Big Navi” Radeon cards indefinitely. The company had apparently decided to end production of its own Radeon RX 6800, Radeon RX 6800 XT and Radeon RX 6900 XT cards, according to a report from Videocardz.com. But “due to popular demand,” the company will continue making its reference cards “indefinitely,” AMD’s VP of graphics Scott Herkelman confirmed over Twitter. “We’ve just officially extended the reference design builds indefinitely due to popular demand,” Herkelman said in response to a question on Twitter. While some might view AMD’s attempt to stop producing its own reference cards as “bad news” and a reflection of the card’s prowess, it typically isn’t. In this case, AMD’s Radeon 6000 cards have received high marks from the press. Still, some casual headline…

Take it from this parent—there are times when you just want your kids to pause their gaming, put down their controllers, and do something else. A new Pause Screen Time feature in the Xbox Family Settings app for Windows and Xbox allows you to do just that. Pause Screen Time allows a parent to say, “That’s enough!” and revoke access instantaneously. The new feature is part of the Xbox Family Settings app for Android and iOS—essentially an app-based version of the Family Settings management tool that’s already baked into Windows. The new feature adds a Pause Now button to the app, which tracks the amount of time your child has been accessing Windows and Xbox games and apps. Family Settings was originally set up with the assumption that your child would be…

Microsoft finally committed to bringing its Xbox cloud gaming technologies to Windows PCs in spring 2021, right on time to catch up with the incredible shortage of graphics cards that is preventing Windows gamers from playing on their own PCs. Microsoft also committed to bringing cloud gaming to iPhones via its mobile Web browser, the company said. It will all be part of Microsoft’s Game Pass Ultimate subscription, available for $15 per month. (Or less, if you know how to work the system.) Finally, Microsoft will have delivered on its promise to make cloud gaming a part of its entire ecosystem, by delivering cloud gaming via the Xbox Windows 10 app or a browser. “In Spring 2021, we will take the next step in our journey to reach more players around the…

Smartphones built upon Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 888 processor will be able to take advantage of concurrent recording and HDR using three different cameras, a creative feature that will allow consumers and content creators additional options for crafting the perfect photo and video. It’s one of many new features inside the new Snapdragon 888 mobile chip, including integrated 5G. The Snapdragon series represents the chief opposition to the Apple iPhone and its A-series processors, powering rivals like the Samsung Galaxy S20 and the OnePlus 8 series. The new Snapdragon 888 will ship inside flagship smartphones beginning in the first quarter of 2021. Qualcomm introduced the Snapdragon 888 and its basic capabilities at its virtual Snapdragon Technology Summit opening keynote on December 1. The company spent the next day diving deeper into the chip’s…