Tech Advisor November 2022

It’s been three years since Microsoft debuted Windows Terminal, its official upgraded interface for programs like Command Prompt and PowerShell. While the open-source command line tool isn’t necessarily setting the world on fire, it’s earned its fair share of fans. It might get a few more now, because the latest version includes a ton of handy customization options. The new features are baked into the beta version, labelled Windows Terminal Preview and available via direct download on Github (fave. co/3DuW7NT), on the Microsoft store (fave.co/3QICs05) or via winget. The big news is the new theme options, which allow for custom background colours or images, text colours, and even a few tab and window variables. Custom themes can be built with a JSON file – it’s not as easy as standard…

It seems like we’ve been waiting a dog’s age for Intel to release its Arc series of desktop graphics cards, with only one sporadically available in western markets at the time of writing. Intel still insists that they’re coming in the latter part of the year, even as that part continues to dwindle away. The latest titbit of information comes in the form of a series of basic specs now made official, specifically for the midrange and high-end cards we’d only seen named before. In addition to the semi-released budget card the Arc A380, we now have more concrete details for the mid‑range A580 and the high-end A750 and A770. The number of Xe GPU cores is one of the bigger differentiators: going from the A380 to the A580 the…

It’s been three years since Microsoft debuted Windows Terminal, its official upgraded interface for programs like Command Prompt and PowerShell. While the open-source command line tool isn’t necessarily setting the world on fire, it’s earned its fair share of fans. It might get a few more now, because the latest version includes a ton of handy customization options. The new features are baked into the beta version, labelled Windows Terminal Preview and available via direct download on Github (fave. co/3DuW7NT), on the Microsoft store (fave.co/3QICs05) or via winget. The big news is the new theme options, which allow for custom background colours or images, text colours, and even a few tab and window variables. Custom themes can be built with a JSON file – it’s not as easy as standard Windows…

Hiring a shot back at AMD official Ryzen reveal, Intel officials said the upcoming 13th gen ‘Raptor Lake’ desktop CPUs will hit 6GHz. Intel’s boost clock of 6GHz for its upcoming chip was revealed at a press event at the company’s Haifa design centre in Israel, according to numerous press reports. Much of the briefing is under embargo for the launch of the CPU later this year, but company officials did confirm some performance claims which was covered by Paul Alcorn of Tom’s Hardware (fave.co/3S1lpap). Alcorn reports that the 13th gen Raptor Lake is touting a 15 percent improvement in single-threaded performance and an eye-opening 41 percent increase performance in multi-threaded performance using SPECintrate_2017. Many consumers may not be familiar with the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation, but it’s a decades-old…

It seems like we’ve been waiting a dog’s age for Intel to release its Arc series of desktop graphics cards, with only one sporadically available in western markets at the time of writing. Intel still insists that they’re coming in the latter part of the year, even as that part continues to dwindle away. The latest titbit of information comes in the form of a series of basic specs now made official, specifically for the midrange and high-end cards we’d only seen named before. In addition to the semi-released budget card the Arc A380, we now have more concrete details for the mid‑range A580 and the high-end A750 and A770. The number of Xe GPU cores is one of the bigger differentiators: going from the A380 to the A580 the core…

Not surprisingly, Intel has followed USB4 into the 80Gb/s generation, showing off a prototype 80Gb/s Thunderbolt demo in its Israel facility. Intel is the key developer of Thunderbolt, which was co-developed with Apple. The I/O specification is the foundation of a small but growing ecosystem of Thunderbolt docks, which connect to a USB-C/Thunderbolt port on a PC and use the I/O bandwidth to connect to various peripherals, including displays and storage. Displays, not surprisingly, suck up the most bandwidth. The current Thunderbolt specification, known as Thunderbolt 4, allows for 40Gb/s data transfers, typically enough for a pair of 4K displays running at 60Hz apiece. Connecting additional peripherals, however, can cut into that bandwidth – docks with integrated Ethernet ports and connections to high-speed external SSDs can see hiccups if many…