DH1 i liked the rhythm & sound too

my vote goes to DH1 , i liked the song

v2 , i liked the text

Several months ago, we reviewed ASRock’s B550 Taichi ($299.99), which proved to be an excellent board sporting stable power delivery, 2.5 GbE and Fast Wi-Fi, eight SATA ports, and its distinct premium appearance. Fast forward to late 2020 and the company has worked with Razer to bring a new and improved version, the ASRock B550 Taichi Razer Edition. The updated SKU includes full Razer Chroma support, Killer-branded networking, a different appearance, and the same robust power delivery. These changes yield an improved board that supports AMD 5000 series processors out of the box at the same price point. ASRock’s current B550 product stack consists of 15 boards, including the new Taichi. Prices range from $81 in the B550M HDV up to $299 for the Taichi. Between these SKUs are other boards from the Extreme Gaming and Steel Legends lineup. The stack includes full-size ATX boards down to MiniITX. Like most of the board partners, ASRock is likely to have an option for most users. The Taichi Razer Edition uses the same 16-phase (14+2) setup using 50A DrMOS MOSFETs found in the original Taichi. While it is not the most robust we’ve seen, this configuration easily handled our flagship Ryzen 9 5950X at stock speeds and while overclocked. ASRock also replaced the Intel-based networking with Killer Network’s 2.5 GbE E3100X LAN and Killer AX1650x Wi-Fi 6 solutions. This move can be a polarizing one as Killer Network has its fans and detractors. Appearance plays a big role here as well. Gone are all the gears and copper highlights, replaced by a black brushed-aluminum look and additional RGB lighting around the chipset area. While the Taichi is a good-looking board, it has a ‘theme’ while the Razer Edition is more agnostic in that respect. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but this board should fit in with even more build themes. The Razer Chroma RGB support also means lots of po[CENSORED]r peripherals can be plugged in and controlled and visually coordinated from a single piece of software. As far as performance goes, the B550 Taichi Razer showed promising results in our test suite. There were some outliers, but this was only from the PCMark 10 MS Office/Application testing, which tends to vary wildly. As expected, the board boosted our CPU to 5 GHz briefly, so we were getting all we could at default settings. During overclocking, the board handled our 16c/32t Ryzen 9 5950X without issue with the VRM’s running cool throughout all testing. Read on as we dive into the details and performance of the new B550 Taichi Razer Edition. Along with the motherboard, we find several accessories in the box. The stack includes the necessary cables and guides and a Torx screwdriver used to remove the M.2 heatsinks. Below is a complete list of the included accessories. Starting with the appearance, it’s plain to see the differences between the older Taichi and the new Razer model. Although both use a black PCB and connectors/slots, the Razer Edition eschews all Taichi bits, including the gears and copper highlights. Instead, all shrouds are black. Where it said Taichi on the previous board over the VRM area, it now says Razer Edition. The chipset heatsink also sports Razer Chroma RGB branding, which is illuminated by RGB lighting below. In the end, I found both boards attractive in their own way, but the Razer edition will fit in with more build themes and includes more RGB lighting. I guess the latter makes sense given the name. ASRock states the Razer Chroma RGB is the world’s largest lighting ecosystem for gaming devices (over 500 devices and 150 natively integrated games). This integration is said to “...enable universal compatibility with thousands of addressable RGB (ARGB) components directly into the ecosystem.” In short, if you like RGB LED bling, this board has plenty already integrated, plus the ability to add more, all while controlling things through Razer’s Synapse 3 software. Focusing on the top half of the board, we see a shroud with LEDs that shine on the large VRM heatsinks on the left side. Just above this are two 8-pin EPS (one required) connectors for sending power to the CPU. Notice the heatsinks are the same shape as the original Taichi, just all black now. To the right of the socket above the RAM slots are the first two of seven fan headers, the CPU fan (1A/12W) and the CPU2/Water Pump fan (3A/36W). Most fan headers support auto-detect if there is a 3-pin or 4-pin attached, shifting control to PWM or DC accordingly. Just to the right are the first RGB and ARGB headers (the other two headers are on the bottom strip). The four unreinforced DRAM slots support up to 128GB, with speeds listed up to DDR4 4733+(OC). We had no issues running this board at DDR4 3600 at 1:1 with the Infinity Fabric with all four slots po[CENSORED]ted (32GB total). The slots use a locking mechanism on one side, making it easier to get the sticks out as they are close to where a GPU would be. To the right of the DRAM slots is a vertically oriented 24-pin ATX power connector, a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen1 header and a front-panel USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C header below. Finally, another chassis fan header sits to the left of the DRAM slot. We find five of the seven fan headers on the top half of the board (not previously mentioned is the 5th just below the left VRM bank). Taking a look at power delivery, the same 16-phase setup found on the original Taichi finds its way to the Razer Edition. Controlling power is a Renesas RAA 229004 controller (X+Y = 7+1) using Intersil ISL6617A phase doublers. Power then goes to the Vishay 50A Sic654 DrMOS MOSFETs. This configuration easily handled our Ryzen 9 5950X at stock speeds and while overclocked. The large VRM heatsinks do a great job at keeping temperatures under control, yielding a middle-of-the-pack result with the new CPU. On the bottom half of the board, we spy the audio bits on the left, PCIe and M.2 storage in the middle, the chipset on the right, and many headers across the bottom. On the audio front, the Taichi Razer edition uses the premium Realtek ALC1220 7.1 channel codec. The audio section is isolated on the PCB and the L/R channels are separated by the PCB layer for improved audio quality. Additionally, the board uses a Texas Instruments NE5532 OP-Amp (supporting up to 600 Ohm) for the front panel connector. Most users will find this audio solution more than sufficient for their needs. In the middle of the board are five PCIe slots. The three primary slots are all reinforced with ASRock’s 4th Generation Steel slot to prevent heavy cards from shearing off the connector. Using a Vermeer based CPU, the slots break down to x16/x0/x4 or x8/x8/x4 with the first two slots PCIe 4.0 and the third slot sourced from the chipset running PCIe 3.0 speeds. This configuration supports AMD Quad CrossfireX and 3/2-Way CrossfireX. Wedged between the full-length slots are two x1 slots whose bandwidth comes from the chipset. Just be aware you lose access to the top x1 slot if you have a dual-slot cooled video card. Also located in this area are the two M.2 sockets. The top Hyper M.2 socket (M2_1) supports PCIe 4.0 x4 (64 GB/s) drives up to 80mm long. Meanwhile, the bottom (M2_2) socket supports up to 110mm SATA and PCIe 3 x4 modules. Both M.2 sockets live under a heatsink. Just remember that, to remove the heatsink, you need to use the included Torx screwdriver. I wish ASRock would use a more common Phillips head screw. Moving to the right, we see the passively cooled chipset and Razer Chroma branding on the heatsink, along with eight SATA ports to the right. Four of the SATA ports are controlled natively and support RAID 0, 1 and 10 modes, while the other four come from an ASMedia ASM1061 chip. There are plenty of storage options available and due to how the board is configured, you don’t lose any SATA ports if either or both M.2 sockets are in use. Across the bottom are a bunch of buttons and headers, including USB ports and RGB headers. Here’s the full list, from left to right: ● Front panel audio ● 3-pin aRGB and 4-pin RGB headers ● (2) 4-pin Chassis/WP headers ● Power LED and speaker header ● (2) USB 2.0 headers ● Dr. Debug LED ● Clear CMOS jumper ● Reset/Power buttons ● Clear CMOS button ● Front panel header The integrated rear IO plate on the back of the Taichi Razer Edition is all black, outside of the audio stack. There are a total of eight USB ports, including a USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port. The number of USB should be plenty. My concern is the labeling and lack of color-coding to discern between USB 3.2 Gen1 and the USB 2.0 ports. For the record, the stack of four USB ports is USB 3.2 Gen1, while the dual-stack below the Killer E3100 2.5G LAN port is USB 2.0. Video wise, we see the HDMI (v2.1) and DisplayPort (v1.4) ports, which work when using an APU, though we can’t imagine very many people spending $300 on a motherboard, and forego a dedicated garaphics card. To the left of this are Clear CMOS and the BIOS Flashback buttons. Outside of that is the standard five-plug audio stack with SPDIF and the connectors for the Killer AX1650X Wi-Fi antennas.

Macs may have a reputation for being invulnerable to viruses, but the figures tell a different story: independent testing lab AV-Comparatives says malware targeting Macs is growing daily, and the company has now registered more than 700,000 different samples. Intego knows all about protecting Macs as it has been producing Mac security software since 1997. These days the company offers a range of products covering antivirus, parental controls, system optimization and more. Mac Internet Security bundles Intego's antivirus, VirusBarrier, with its firewall, NetBarrier. Avira's engine helps block the very latest threats, including Windows malware to prevent your Mac acting as a carrier (and giving malware to friends with Windows PCs). It can scan and remove viruses from the documents on your iOS devices, too, while they're connected to your Mac. Mac Washing Machine Secure takes Internet Security's core antivirus, anti-phishing and firewall technology, and adds a collection of optimization tools: disk clean-up, a duplicate file finder, and smart organization features such as the ability to automatically sort all those files cluttering your desktop into the right folders. You can sign up for Intego's Antivirus solutions here Mac ContentBarrier Secure is Mac Internet Security plus parental controls. Features include web content filtering, chat monitoring to block inappropriate content, time limits on internet access, and more. (As with the rest of the range, ContentBarrier Secure works on Macs only – there's no iOS app.) Confused? You could always buy Mac Premium Bundle, which gets you Mac Internet Security, device clean-up and optimization, ContentBarrier's parental controls, and a bootable local backup tool, too. Whatever the package, you're covered on anything from Mavericks (OS X 10.9) onwards. Intego also now offers Intego Antivirus for Windows, but that's much more basic, with antivirus and real-time malware protection only. Prices Pricing starts at $40 for a one-device, one-year Mac Internet Security license. Mac Washing Machine Secure lifts the cost to $56 for a year, and ContentBarrier Secure is $60. The best value is Mac Premium Bundle, though, at $70 to cover one device for one year, $120 to protect five devices, or $220 to cover five devices for two years. Intego Antivirus for Windows is $30 a year for a single device, $80 for five; relatively expensive considering how basic it is. But if you're ordering any Mac product, you can cover a single PC for only $10 more. A two-year, three-device Mac Internet Security license costs $100, for instance, and adding a single two-year Antivirus for Windows license lifts the cost to only $110. This is fair value if you need the extras, but if you're after antivirus only, there's cash to be saved. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac doesn't have a firewall, for instance, but it's cheap at $84 for a three-year, three-device license ($120 on renewal). No need to decide just yet, though. Intego has generous 30-day trials available for its Mac products, and a 7-day trial for Windows, which is plenty of time to get a feel for the range before you buy. We don't have space to look at every Intego Mac package, so we'll focus on its Premium Bundle, as this includes all the main features you'll find in the rest of the range. The Intego Mac Premium Bundle trial is easy to find on the website. We downloaded and launched the installer in a couple of clicks, then chose the modules we needed (VirusBarrier, NetBarrier, ContentBarrier, Personal Backup, Washing Machine), set them up in a minute or two, and rebooted our machine. On launch, a prompt asked us to set up NetBarrier. Configuring firewalls can be a challenge, but not here. NetBarrier asked us for the kind of network we were using currently (home, work, public Wi-Fi), configured itself to match, then displayed the main firewall window. Graphics showing incoming and outgoing traffic, and highlighting anything currently blocked (incoming internet connections, say) ensure this looks a little prettier than the average firewall. On the right-hand side are switches which let you select your network type, blocking or allowing incoming and outgoing internet and local connections, and adding exceptions as required. NetBarrier monitors apps as they try to go online. It allows trusted apps to connect immediately, and asks your permission for everything else. This isn't quite as intelligent as we'd like, and for instance it had to ask us whether we should allow Google Chrome Helper to go online. Still, if you know for sure that an app is safe, one click adds it to the whitelist, and you won't be prompted again. This isn't the smartest or most configurable of firewalls, then, but it's mostly easy to use and does a reasonable job of keeping you safe. VirusBarrier Intego's VirusBarrier opened with a 'What's New' page, proudly pointing out that 'threats are now quarantined automatically.' Sounds good to us, though we're a little surprised that wasn't the case in the previous version. A Setup screen then asked us to choose from three levels of protection. 'Minimum' scans emails, archives and connected iOS devices only. 'Standard' scans for all Mac, iOS, Windows, Linux and Android malware, as well as looking out for malicious scripts, hacking tools and keyloggers. 'Maximum' adds an automatic Quick Scan which runs after every malware definition update. We opted for Standard mode, but if you're less sure, it's easy to change this later. Mode settings are customizable, too, so if you're mostly happy with Standard mode but don't need scanning for Windows malware, that can be turned off. For the most part, you should then be able to leave VirusBarrier alone to protect your system. Real-time scanning is on by default, and you'll be alerted if there are any problems. If you need to take some manual action, though, a straightforward interface makes VirusBarrier generally easy to use. Your main device and any connected devices are listed in a left-hand side bar; clicking any of these displays options to run a Quick or Full scan, or adjust scan settings, and the main VirusBarrier window displays your security status and gives access to more settings. Most options are as we'd expect (scan for hacking scripts: yes or no), but some are more interesting. You can choose which of nine archive types you'd like to scan, for instance, as well as setting an archive timeout (handy for deeply nested archives – zips within zips). An option to scan with low priority reduces system impact with the trade-off being longer scan times. VirusBarrier has no 'safe browsing' settings of its own, but can enforce Safe Browsing in Chrome, Safari and Firefox, and warn you if it's turned off. Protection VirusBarrier has what it calls a quick scan, but it's more thorough than most, checking 210,000 files on our test system and taking just over 20 minutes. But the situation improved for the second scan, where decent optimization saw the scan time drop to only two minutes. Our main antivirus testing tools run on Windows, which limits what we could do here. But we found that although VirusBarrier missed some solely web-based threats, its file detection layer worked well, identifying and quarantining any dangers as soon as we downloaded them. VirusBarrier isn't tested often by the big independent labs, and we have to go back to March 2020 to find Intego's last results at AV-Test. These were seriously impressive, though, with 100% detection of the test malware, minimal performance impact and zero false positives, earning the package the maximum score for protection, speed and usability. As we know VirusBarrier makes at least some use of the Avira engine, we were interested to see how Avira's own products performed in the latest tests. The answer turned out to be 'very well', with Avira Antivirus Pro also earning maximum scores in AV-Test's September 2020 Mac tests. ContentBarrier Intego's ContentBarrier is a configurable parental controls system which offers various tools to keep your kids safe online. Content filtering enables blocking websites by content, or those which include custom keywords. You can further customize this by adding specific websites to a blacklist or whitelist. When your child visits a blocked site, they see a 'not allowed' message, but if this is a legitimate site, you can override it for them by entering your password (a handy usability plus). Intego's Anti-Predator feature blocks chats with inappropriate content. We'd like to tell you this uses cutting-edge machine learning-powered AI, but it mostly just looks for phrases like 'how old are you', 'can we meet' and 'I am your friend', so we'd expect a lot of false positives. It doesn't work with encrypted chats at all, either, further limiting its usefulness, although it does at least block encrypted chat by default. More conventional tools include the ability to limit network access by time, to block particular internet access types (P2P, FTP, SSH, audio/video, connections to game servers), and to log keystrokes and take screenshots to help you spot any issues, later. You're able to create custom profiles for each child's account, ensuring a teenager doesn't have to face the same restrictions as a five-year-old. There are no particularly advanced features here, no smart GPS location or geofencing tools, and ContentBarrier doesn't have any web-based dashboard where you can monitor all your kid’s activities from one place. The app can keep you up to date with what's going on via email reports, though, and it could be enough for not-so-demanding users. If you're unsure, take a look: Intego's generous 30-day trial gives you plenty of time to find out. Washing Machine Security suites often include some kind of general system maintenance tool, and Washing Machine is Intego's offering; a simple app which aims to find and delete junk and duplicate files, and help organize your desktop and dock. The Reclaim feature searches for leftover files in five categories, for instance – Caches, Downloads, Languages, Logs, Trash – and displays its results. If you're the technical type, you can browse the list of files and select what to keep and what to wipe. But if that's too much hassle, you can choose your preferred deletion mode ('Aggressive' cleans as much as possible, 'Safe' keeps more recent files) and have Washing Machine clean up with a click. The Duplicates module searches for duplicates in your choice of categories (Folders, Archives, Movies, Documents, Music, Pictures). This worked quickly for us, especially as it searches on content rather than just file name. The app automatically chooses which files to keep, but you can also choose manually, or select a general rule for all files (keep the earliest files, the latest, the shortest path, the longest and so on). As with the Reclaim module, it covers the basics, but there's nothing particularly advanced here. Finally, Washing Machine's Organize feature includes a handful of simple management tools. It helps you automatically or manually move files from your desktop to the appropriate folder, and organize the apps in your dock. It can also help you build Smart Folders, an easier way to give you access to important files and apps. Again, this handles the basics, but nothing more. Overall, we're struggling to see any compelling reason to install Washing Machine ahead of other maintenance tools. It does have some value, though, and if you're planning to buy Intego's Mac bundle anyway, you might find one or two of its features useful. Personal Backup Intego's Mac Premium Bundle includes Personal Backup, a versatile local backup tool. It's a configurable app, more flexible than the built-in Time Machine with plenty of features and settings. Personal Backup can easily back up your choice of folders, for instance. Optional file versioning enables keeping old versions of files. It can also clone your whole drive to an external disk or a disk image file, allowing you to boot from the external drive if your main system fails. You don't have to choose a preferred backup type, as Personal Backup can create and run as many backup jobs as you need and on a custom schedule (back up your work files hourly, maybe, but your media files daily, and create a bootable disk image every week). As a bonus, Personal Backup is able to sync your selected folders between two Macs. As with backups, you can create multiple sync jobs and set them up to run automatically, at your chosen interval, or leave them to be run manually whenever you like. This isn't a hosted backup service – there's no cloud storage space and no direct support for backing up to cloud storage accounts. That's no great surprise, though; NortonLifeLock 360, for instance, provides cloud storage space, but Macs are left out – it only has a PC client. Personal Backup may not be enough for everyone, then, but it's a likeable local backup tool, easy to use, and with a decent feature set. Intego scored well in its last antivirus testing lab results, but we're less sure whether the parental controls and clean-up tools justify upgrading. The 30-day trial gives you time to find out, though – but we would choose either Mac Internet Security or the all-in-one Mac Premium Bundle for the best value. Intego's Antivirus for Windows is a very basic product. There's no visible URL filtering, no banking protection, no password manager, no extras of any kind; just basic real-time malware protection and on-demand or scheduled scanning. And even that is more limited than usual. Intego modestly claims it provides 'ongoing defense from well-known ransomware', for instance – there is no mention of smart behavior monitoring to protect against zero-day threats. A 7-day trial does give you time to check out the package for yourself, though. Even when that expires, you can continue using the app in a basic form for free, although with reduced protection, no automatic updates or scheduled scans. Setup Intego Windows installed easily, with no hassles at all. It added a minimal three background processes and a couple of Windows services to our system, making it one of the more lightweight antivirus apps around (Bitdefender Antivirus Plus adds a total of 13 processes, for example). We ran the PCMark Professional benchmark before and after installing Intego, aiming to measure any drop in performance, but saw no noticeable change at all. While that sounds good, there's a potential downside: it suggests the antivirus was taking no background actions to monitor our system. Checking Intego's files, we noticed it uses the Avira engine. There's no obvious sign of any other detection system. It's important that antivirus can protect itself from malware, otherwise new threats will just disable your security on launch and then do whatever they like. To check this, we use a variety of techniques to simulate attacks on every product we review. We began by attempting to tinker with Intego's processes and services. Competitors like Bitdefender and Kaspersky launch their processes with permissions which make them almost untouchable; Intego, not so much. We were able to freely manage processes (suspend, change priority and so on), terminate them and stop services without any difficulty. Files should be protected to ensure that regular users can't touch them, but that also wasn't the case here. We were able to freely edit, rename or delete files without the app apparently noticing. That included configuration files, which means there's a theoretical possibility that malware could alter antivirus settings without your knowledge. During these tests, we noticed we could effectively disable Intego by renaming a single file and restarting its service. That's not just worryingly fragile, it also highlights the app's poor handling of unexpected situations. If an antivirus can't launch because it's unable to access key settings, we would expect it to use default settings, or warn the user that it was inactive and demand an immediate reinstall. Intego asked us to wait while it loaded, but then hung indefinitely, leaving any malware which might have been on our system to do whatever it liked. That's bad news, but there was more to come, when we realized we could run Intego's uninstaller silently, cleanly removing the app without it displaying any warnings or alerts. We did see a Windows notification that we had no active antivirus, so in a real-world situation, we might have realized there was a problem. But it's possible malware could find a way around this, and in any event, it doesn't excuse Intego's comprehensive self-protection failures. If a threat can launch on your system without being detected, it can easily turn off Intego without you noticing, and that has to be a major concern. Antivirus The app's interface takes up more screen real-estate than most, but it's easy enough to use. An opening dashboard displays your security state; a Scans tab has options to run Quick, Full System or Custom scans; you're able to manage quarantined files, view reports or tweak a handful of settings. Quick scans were reasonably speedy on our test system at around three minutes, but any serious tasks took a long, long time. Intego Antivirus took 71 minutes to scan 50GB of test data, for instance, compared to 39 minutes for Bitdefender Antivirus Plus and 19 minutes for Kaspersky. Worse, there's no optimization, so while Bitdefender and Kaspersky's subsequent scans were much faster, Intego took the same 71 minutes, each and every time. It's also possible to scan selected files or folders from Explorer's right-click menu, with one issue: Intego can't run simultaneous on-demand scans, so if it's already running a lengthy system scan, you'll be told to come back later. That might not happen very often, but it's a usability hassle which you don't see with the best antivirus programs. Intego's Windows offering isn't tested by the independent labs, so we ran some simple checks of our own. These suggested it had a working file detection layer, but not much else. For example, one group of tests uses common scripting tricks to download malware using built-in Windows tools. Kaspersky and Bitdefender Antivirus detected and blocked most of the scripting tricks, killing our test process before the download happened. Intego Antivirus didn't notice the trick, or block the URL, but did detect and quarantine the malware file. We were still safe, this time, but the lack of behavior monitoring left us more vulnerable to new threats. Running our custom ransomware only confirmed the point. Even though it's not a known threat, Kaspersky and Bitdefender Antivirus detected it in seconds, killed its process and successfully recovered the handful of files it had managed to encrypt. Intego Antivirus didn't notice it at all, and our ransomware successfully encrypted all 11,000 test files. Final verdict Intego Antivirus for Windows is a horribly limited app with very basic protection which can easily be disabled by malware. If you trust its Avira engine, install Avira Free; you'll be much safer that way.

Being able to look back twice as far as any other judge, I can say with confidence that this, the 32nd Britain’s Best Driver’s Car (BBDC) event, was the toughest yet. Everything was against our doughty troupe of contenders. Of all British tracks, Castle Combe and its notorious bumps present the greatest challenge for a road car, and that’s when it’s dry. When wet, bring your A-game or stay home. When damp, wet, with hints of a dry line and flooded all at the same time depending on where you are, it’s a bloody nightmare. The route from Combe across to quick and open roads around Wantage and Lambourn was easier for the drivers perhaps, but just as likely to expose the frailties of the cars. And then there was the time, or lack thereof. Short days, time spent sanitising cars, and periods when the track was too wet to learn anything other than how to have a pointless accident left no time for car or driver to warm up. If a car did not make you feel at once and entirely at home, that alone would rule it out of contention: there was no time for excuses. Yet despite it all, perhaps the most remarkable fact about BBDC 2020 is that no car came up short. Usually, we’ll have invited something that turns out to be better on paper than in practice, and occasionally we’ve been left wondering why we bothered. But not this year. So we’ll start with the car that’s already won, the Toyota GR Yaris, fresh from victory in our quest to find Britain’s best affordable driver’s car. Would it be cowed by uniformly more powerful and expensive rivals now it had earned the right to a seat on the top table? What do you think? As road test editor Matt Saunders put it: “It had the compliance, traction, stability and compactness to devour those slippery road surfaces.” At Combe, Saunders found himself actively seeking out the standing water, to see how it would cope. It did so magnificently. “I’d have taken five laps in this over 50 in some of the others” was his final comment. Was it lucky the conditions played to its inherent strengths? Possibly. Would it have done so well on a smooth, bone-dry track? Probably not, but you play the hand you’ve been dealt and it did so quite brilliantly. Next up is another outlier, the Porsche Taycan. Some judges didn’t even think it should be here, myself included. What business could a four-door electric car weighing 2300kg have amid such company, and what prospects were there for it to do anything other than come unstuck? Well, I got that wrong. As special correspondent James Disdale put it: “Regardless of its power source, this feels like a Porsche, from the weighting of its controls to the way it responds to your inputs. Acceleration and traction are remarkable, the fine control of its motors allowing it to conjure grip on the most unhelpful of surfaces.” It was profoundly impressive to see the Taycan not so much drive as bludgeon its way through the weather and around the circuit, finding purchase where logic told you there should be none. Editor-at-large Matt Prior observed it could do “odd things when you go from acceleration to braking on track”. But if the Taycan had an issue, it was that expressed by road tester Simon Davis: “The speed and agility are great, but once you look past the insane engineering that enables them, there’s not much else that excites me.” As for the more conventional Porsche in our midst, when I saw the weather forecast I was moved to call Saunders and suggest in jest that we should give the award to the 911 Turbo S and stay home. In the event, it didn’t quite turn out like that but, even so, its ability to deploy what felt like limitless torque through the medium of its four-wheel-drive hardware and the traction benefit of having that motor slung over the rear wheels provided a formidably high bar for the others to vault. At times, it felt almost like too much. Prior: “On the road, it feels like being let into a fully equipped stainless-steel restaurant kitchen, but being restricted to using the microwave to defrost some peas.” On the track, however, more than one of us saw the conditions and headed for the 911 first. It says plenty about the car that we’d choose a 641bhp 911 essentially as our circuit familiarisation vehicle. As Saunders put it: “It tore around in the heavy rain, finding grip and stability almost everywhere, communicating its limits clearly and remaining controllable, engaging and progressive on track, even in treacherous conditions.” And Disdale was not alone in noting that “the worse the weather became, the more your confidence in the car grew”. And yet for all the admiration in our notes, there was little sign of love. As Prior put it: “It didn’t excite me and I think it’d be the 911 I’d be least likely to buy.” It was, in many ways, the polar opposite approach to that taken by the rear-drive Lamborghini Huracán Evo. It’s stunning it’s here at all, given the pasting its four-wheel-drive sibling received at this event last year, but not one of us regretted its inclusion. Davis: “After last year’s disappointment, the rear-drive Huracán has redeemed things for Sant’Agata. From its steering, to its balance, to its front-end response, it feels more intuitive and predictable than its four-pawed sibling.” It wasn’t a hard car to criticise, though, because of its poor visibility, driving position and ergonomics. Also, its damping was streets behind that of the McLaren 765LT – and, for that matter, the Ferrari F8 Tributo, which made the cut for this shootout and appears in our photos but was withdrawn with mechanical issues before all of our judges could drive it. The Huracán’s damping led to uneven progress on the road and interesting reactions to Combe’s many bumps, but the car also showed that back-to-basics charm still gets you a long way in this game. As Disdale pointed out, had it had the damping from the Performante, it could have really worried the front runners here. Which is not something anyone said about the Aston Martin Vantage Roadster. The surprise was that a couple of testers (Disdale and me) preferred it on track to road. Everyone enjoyed its languid nature and an AMG-supplied powertrain that feels more Aston Martin than some of its own. As Prior observed: “Once you get in the (five- to six-tenths) groove, there’s fun to be had. The engine is great, delivering deep-chested torque but with a barking rush for the redline. Meaty steering and a strong front end help, too, allowing you to place the car just so – crucial, given it’s a big old bus.” But beyond that effort level, the limitations of its convertible structure come into play, the ride deteriorates and its size and mass become increasingly evident. On the wet track, however, the fact that there’s some structural give and a bit of heft actually help, even if Saunders felt its e-diff tricky to read at times. We suspect a manual Vantage Coupé with a conventional locking differential could have done far better. There was another that had us wondering whether we’d brought the right version. We like the BMW M2 CS, but the suspicion that the cheaper M2 Competition would have done as well and possibly better was never far away. To be fair, the CS was sizeably undone by standard Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 rubber with very limited wet weather performance; were the car available on the 4S, things could have turned out differently. As it was, Saunders called its grip “brittle and duplicitous” and I think the rest of us would have to travel some distance to beat that. Both he and Disdale saw flashes of what might have been when the track dried enough for a merely damp line emerge, but the “slithering from understeer to snappy oversteer” noted by Disdale was a trait we all recognised, as was the “head-banging” intervention of the traction control. Which leaves just two cars, one of which is our returning champion, the Ariel Atom 4. For the skeletal sports car, a moment of truth. You could argue that last year’s smooth dry roads of Snowdonia and Anglesey Circuit played to its strengths. Well, Combe and the Cotswolds would even that out. Anyone getting into the Atom on road or track knew they’d be getting out wet and cold. If it could overcome that, that would be something because it looked near enough the last car you’d want to drive in such weather. Not so. Saunders: “Another lightweight might have been the spikiest, worst-balanced and traction-limited thing in the pit lane, but the Atom was none of the above.” Prior: “I feared I’d end up too cold, wet and miserable. I was wrong. I was cold, wet and joyful.” Disdale: “The weather should have played against a very fast kid’s climbing frame, but it simply enhanced its appeal, putting you closer to your surroundings for a totally immersive driving experience.” Davis: “It’s a reminder of how wonderful simplicity can be. It feels so superbly light and agile, with feelsome steering and perfectly weighted controls.” As for me, I was floored by its ability to find grip and inspire confidence. It was pulling way past 130mph approaching the notorious rise before Quarry bend, yet it would flick deftly left over the streaming track, allow you to nail the brakes, shed a gear or two, dive into the right-hand turn and slither away from the apex. If we’d not all experienced it, we’d have had trouble believing it. Which just leaves the 765LT, the most powerful car ever to attend this event, and I’d be lying if I said the prospect of driving a car predominately intended for dry race tracks didn’t make us pause as the rain belted down. Yet it defied expectations. At the most basic level, the fact that you can see out so well is crucial, as is, on the road, its fine ride quality. It builds the confidence without which any such car would be at best horrid, at worst a menace. Yet Disdale called it “shockingly good on the road. It should have been terrifying but felt alive and on your side.” Davis found it a terrific car to drive at “social” speeds because its controls “are so wonderfully communicative”. And that’s the thing with this latest LT: through the finest power-assisted rack and feedback of the chassis, you felt fully informed and in charge, despite the devastating firepower at your disposal. The only bone of contention was its limit handling. Disdale thought it “sublime” and Saunders observed “I like how the stability systems let you play with its handling at the limit and give an extra dimension of appeal, without needing to be fully deactivated” while I found it far more reassuring to slide about than most, but Prior still found the “lag-to-ohmygawd oversteer still there on track”. There’s no easy explanation for such a divergence of opinion, other than it seems the LT reacts better to some driving styles than others. So eight cars, and eight performances from the merely interesting to the genuinely extraordinary. But we need a top three and, most of all, a winner. Over to you, Mr Road Test Editor…

Rabat – The government of Togo today expressed its support for Morocco after the recent tensions in Guerguerat in Morocco’s southern provinces. Togo’s foreign ministry sent a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans living abroad to announce its position on the matter. The Togolese ministry in Lome announced that Togo supports the “right of Morocco to defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity” after a weeks-long blockade of Morocco’s only road to its southern neighbor Mauritania forced the country to act. The blockade at the Guerguerat border crossing ground to a halt the vital trade in fruits and vegetables between the two nations, which had caused a large increase in prices in Mauritania. The Algerian-backed Polisario militia framed the lifting of the blockade as an act of aggression, after which the group declared the 29-year-old ceasefire to be “dead and buried.” The letter from Togo’s government confirmed that it supports Morocco’s restoration of the free movement of goods and people across the border between Mauritania and Morocco. The Togolese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and Togolese Abroad called on “all actors involved” to respect the diplomatic process of dialogue and consultation to resolve the issue in line with relevant UN resolutions. The country urged respect for the UN resolutions that guide the UN-led process to resolve the Western Sahara dispute between Morocco and the Polisario Front. Read also: King Mohammed VI Congratulates Togolese President on Re-election Togo furthermore welcomed its cooperative relations with Morocco. Togo joins a large group of West-African countries that have expressed support for Morocco’s operation to restore the freedom of goods and services on its southern border with Mauritania. It appears that Polisario forces blockading the border hoped to trigger a confrontation to renew attention for the conflict, yet Morocco’s UN-monitored operation avoided a violent clash. Multiple states have since announced their intention to open diplomatic Multiple states have since announced their intention to open diplomatic offices in Morocco’s southern provinces as symbols of their unwavering support on the issue. Countries from around the world have rallied around Morocco and its continued insistence to respect the UN process, which includes adherence to the 1991 ceasefire that brought peace to the region. Togo now joins this long list of supportive nations and is likely not the last to express support for Morocco’s operation as well as the right to defend its territorial integrity.

DH1 , i liked the music Sound

DH1 DH2 DH3 DH4

Accepted !

DH1 DH2

Nickname : @Revo 324 Tag your opponent : @亗 GRAVEN 亗 Music genre : Moroccan Rap Number of votes ( max 10 ) : 7 Tag one leader to post your songs LIST : Me

my vote for DH1 , i liked the rhythm & Sound

DH1 i liked the rhythm

my vote fot DH2 , Legendary Song