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Name of the game: Forza Horizon 5 Price: $59.99 $41.99 Link Store: Forza Horizon 5 on Steam Offer ends up after X hours: - Requirements: MINIMUM: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 10 version 15063.0 or higher Processor: Intel i5-4460 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 Memory: 8GB RAM Graphics: NVidia GTX 970 OR AMD RX 470 DirectX: Version 12 Red: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 110 GB of available space RECOMMENDED: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS: Windows 10 version 15063.0 or higher Processor: Intel i5-8400 or AMD Ryzen 5 1500X Memory: 16GB RAM Graphics: NVidia GTX 1070 OR AMD RX 590 DirectX: Version 12 Red: Broadband Internet connection Storage: 110 GB of available space

Nickname: @Yeezuz Video author: FA GAMEZ Name of the game: Assassin's Creed Valhalla (PS5) Link video: Rate this video 1-10: 10

According to a tweet by resident GPU leaker, Kopite7kimi, the GeForce RTX 4060 (AD106) reportedly delivers a TimeSpy Extreme score of 7,000 points. If accurate, it would put the GeForce RTX 4060’s performance in between the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070. Also, Kopite7kimi noted that Nvidia’s AD106 and the more budget-friendly AD107 die would only have eight PCIe lanes at their disposal instead of 16. It is the first time we’ve gotten a TimeSpy Extreme performance figure from the hardware leaker regarding Nvidia’s RTX 40-series (Ada Lovelace) GPUs. AD106 will potentially power the next-generation RTX 4060 and possibly the RTX 4050 Ti (if Nvidia makes one this time). Kopite7kimi stated that the new score is not very strong, but we would beg to differ. For reference, the current RTX 3060 has an average TimeSpy Extreme graphics score of around 4,500 points to 4,800 points. So if Kopite7kimi’s data is accurate and the RTX 4060 AD106 GPU has a TimeSpy Extreme score of approximately 7,000, the RTX 4060 is effectively 50% faster than the RTX 3060. It would put the AD106 die, or rather RTX 4060, at performance parity with cards like the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070, which isn’t the wrong place to be. According to TimeSpy Extreme alone, the RTX 4060 appears to be a good upgrade over the RTX 3060. But that is the problem; we only have the alleged TimeSpy Extreme scores on a GPU that isn’t yet out. So as always, take this data with a grain of salt. However, we will say that the RTX 4060’s estimated performance looks very accurate if history repeats itself. When the RTX 3060 was released, its performance generally outperformed the RTX 2060 Super and RTX 2070 by a few percentage points. The RTX 4060 would be doing the same thing here, being substantially quicker than the RTX 3060, but performing similarly to the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 3070. PCIe Lane Limitations Arguably the most exciting part about the Tweet is the claims of the AD106 and AD107 getting nerfed to eight PCIe lanes instead of the traditional 16. AMD does the same thing with its entry-level Radeon RX 5000 and mid-range RX 6000 series product stack. It would seem that Nvidia will follow suit with the GeForce RTX 40-series. Assuming Nvidia decides to use PCIe 4.0 instead of PCIe 5.0, we don't believe it will be a problem on modern platforms. For example, for an RTX 4050 and RTX 4060, a PCIe 4.0 x8 configuration should be adequate and provide enough bandwidth for PCIe heavy applications. After all, PCIe 4.0 x8 features the same bandwidth as PCIe 3.0 x16, and the RTX 2080 Ti - the last GPU to run PCIe 3.0, ran just fine with a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface. The only potential issue with PCIe 4.0 x8 is that older systems are limited to PCIe 3.0 speeds. It, in turn, will force PCIe 4.0 x8 GPUs to alternate to PCIe 3.0 x8, which is much slower than PCIe 3.0 x16 and PCIe 4.0 x8. As a result, we could see FPS reductions due to the PCIe bottleneck, but we can't be sure until we get our hands on Nvidia's RTX 4050 and RTX 4060. "Tom's Hardware"

In a new preview build for Windows 11, Microsoft is taking another crack at redesigning a taskbar optimized for tablets and updating the Settings menu. Changes to the taskbar on tablets have been in development for a while, as far back as February 2022(opens in new tab), before being pulled and taken back to the drawing board. Now in Preview Build 25197(opens in new tab), the taskbar will have two different modes: collapsed and expanded. While in collapsed mode, the taskbar will be hidden giving users more screen space; leaving behind only the most important icons like the battery life and time. Expanded mode shows the full taskbar complete with apps, widgets, and the Start button. You’ll be able to switch between the two modes just by swiping up and down at the bottom of the screen. Microsoft also points out that the taskbar on 2-in-1 laptops “will automatically transition to this optimized version” when the keyboard is either disconnected or folded back. The new taskbar will be the default in the Preview Build. You can see if you have this feature by going to the Taskbar behaviors section of the Settings menu. There will be an option that reads “Optimize taskbar for touch interactions when this device is used as a tablet”. Microsoft plans on continuing development on the optimized taskbar as there are still some wrinkles to iron out. There are reports of widgets being cut off and the taskbar transition is slower than anticipated. New features The rest of the new Preview Build features affect all devices, not just tablets. The Settings menu will have new animated icons and illustrations for an extra flourish. As seen in an accompanying video(opens in new tab), the Settings icons will have a little popping animation. The new System Tray will add “rounded focus and hover treatment” to the icons found in the bottom right corner. We reached out to Microsoft for clarification on what this means, exactly. This story will be updated if we hear back. The company also states that the drag and drop feature for icons in the System Tray is disabled for this build, but assures users it’ll come back in the future. Other changes include new native Arm64 support for the Calculator app. Microsoft claims Calculator will have faster performance when used on Arm64 devices. And Media Player will give direct access to Clipchamp in the context menu for quick video editing. Bug fixes The Preview Build also has a variety of bug fixes. Aside from the few exclusive to tablets, all of the fixes will roll out to all Microsoft devices. On tablets, the taskbar will no longer begin to flash when changes are made to the System Tray. The date and time should no longer get cut off and Microsoft got rid of a bug that would cause certain parts of the taskbar to display the wrong color theme. There is a prerequisite for the tablet changes, however. You must have the newly optimized taskbar enabled for the fixes to take hold. As for the other fixes, they cover various aspects of Windows 11. Emptying large recycle bins in File Explorer will now be faster, bugs that caused sporadic crashes have been addressed, and the Task Manager has been made more reliable. Preview Build 25197 is currently available for download from the Dev Channel on Windows Insider program. Microsoft is asking users to go into the Feedback Hub(opens in new tab) and give their thoughts on the build, which you can do by pressing the Windows and F keys at the same time. With all this talk of the tablet taskbar, you may not be aware of the changes made to the desktop taskbar that came out in July. TechRadar’s Axel Metz covered these changes, which include the reintroduction of taskbar overflow. "TechRadar"

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In time you may be seeing some premium features that you'll have to pay for when you're scrolling through your Facebook or Instagram feed, alongside WhatsApp, which could be the death knell for many users, including me. According to a leaked memo by The Verge(opens in new tab), Meta has set up a new group called 'New Monetization Experiences' to think up new ways of adding revenue, due to the hit it took after Apple brought in new privacy policies that limited Meta's advertising strategies. We've already seen other apps such as Snapchat and Telegram launch monetization options to offer exclusive features behind a paywall, but seeing a 'Facebook Plus' or 'Instagram Plus' may be a step too far for some. With Instagram's currently experiencing a low point due to some unwelcome features, offering a paid option could be the last straw for many, and cause them to move to other social platforms. I remember in the early days of Facebook, circa 2008 when there would be viral posts constantly promising that your account would be behind a paywall as soon as you would log in. In these early days, using a social platform such as Facebook was new and fresh, and a break from the days of MySpace and Bebo, so these fears would be all over my news feed, but eventually these would be debunked. Nowadays though, I would expect to see this as a reason for users to leave, rather than keeping fingers crossed that it wouldn't happen. There's a growing opinion that Facebook, and recently Instagram, has become irrelevant, and out of touch with what users want. From NFTs to a full-screen view on Instagram, alongside posts on Facebook that rarely give relevance to what you want to read, Meta gives the impression that it's not sure what to focus on. Seeing new features that users will not want to pay for may only exacerbate this, and cause them to move to other platforms, such as Glass and Twitter. For me, I enjoy using Instagram, but its recent focus on video, especially when I get to 'Suggested Posts' when I scroll through my feed has become irritating, especially as they're always irrelevant to my interests. However, Facebook is something I now use for browsing Groups with Simpsons memes(opens in new tab) and keeping in touch with some family and friends who don't use WhatsApp. It makes sense for WhatsApp to offer some features, as it's against the behemoths of Apple's iMessage and WeChat, but for the casual users who only use Facebook, seeing features for a price could be the final straw for many, and further proof that Meta is panicking as to how it could benefit its users for the long term. "TechRadar"

Another purported Intel Core i9-13900K video has surfaced on Bilibili(opens in new tab), the Chinese video streaming site. Erjin Homemade Taobao (EHT) compared an alleged Intel Core i9-13900K engineering sample (ES) against a Core i9-12900K on the same platform; an MSI Z690 Godlike with Colorful DDR5-4800 RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card. For extra interest, an AIO 360mm liquid cooler tamed both CPUs. The reviewer tested both application benchmarks and games. Unfortunately, we don’t know the Raptor Lake chip’s ES revision, but it is likely to be recent. Images of the processor are visible within the video, but the chip engraving, except for ‘Intel Confidential,’ has been obscured. EHT would characterize this testing session as a “brief analysis,” for reference only if anyone were tempted to take it too seriously. Nevertheless, they provide a decently thorough test comparison. One of the first slides shared clarifies the differences between the two processors dueling in the video. Those keeping up with coverage of Raptor Lake’s development will know the significant change with the newer chip doubling the number of E cores, delivering an 8P + 16E processor with 32 threads at its disposal. The 13th Gen Core chip also has bigger caches and higher clocks in its favor – but getting to those higher speeds can push the power envelope. As mentioned in the intro, EHT did several tests on apps and games. As well as ‘stock’ tests, other results were gathered by iso-clocking the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-12900K P-cores to 5.2 GHz. Thus, you will usually see four results for all the apps/games in the comparison charts. In CPU-Z and Cinebench testing, the Raptor Lake did better in nT tests, with many extra cores available. However, the 1T tests were less convincing – as the newer gen processor came second in these tests in CPU-Z. There appeared to be some problems with the Core i9-13900K ES for gaming tests. In two of the biggest games tested, Cyberpunk 2077 and Forza 5, the Alder Lake predecessor came out on top in the first set of tests with processors running with their complete set of P- and E-cores. As a result, EHT had to push the Raptor Lake to 5.5 GHz (performance cores only) to ensure its overall supremacy. Indeed, this video isn’t the best showing of Raptor Lake we have seen. Intel’s 13th Gen Core ‘Raptor Lake’ CPUs reportedly launch on September 28, with availability starting from October 10, according to recent leaks. For more information about Intel’s next-gen processors and the updated platform please check out our regularly updated Intel 13th-Gen Raptor Lake Specs, Rumored Release Date, Benchmarks, and More article. "Tom's Hardware"

Name of the game: Call of Duty®: Black Ops II Price: $59.99 $19.79 Link Store: Call of Duty®: Black Ops II on Steam Offer ends up after X hours:- Requirements: MINIMUM: OS: Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7. Windows XP is not supported Processor: Intel Core2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHz or AMD Phenom X3 8750 2.4 GHz Memory: 2 GB for 32-bit OS or 4 GB for 64-bit OS Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 8800GT 512 MB or ATI Radeon HD 3870 512 MB DirectX: Version 9.0c Hard Drive: 16 GB Sound: DirectX 11.0c compatible Additional: Broadband connection required for activation and multiplayer gameplay Note: Windows XP Operating System is not supported

Yes! ❤️ @DeepPurple?

This newsletter is not supposed to be focused on education, but so many of our recent editions – about teacher strikes, a teacher shortage, politics in the classroom, student loan debt – have fallen into that space. Today it is national test score data suggesting that American 9-year-olds took a major step backward during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many of them were not physically in the classroom. The scores decreased more among lower-performing students and Black and Hispanic students, suggesting the pandemic was harder on groups of people already struggling. The results are being interpreted as proof of what many parents, teachers and other sentient beings already suspected: that remote learning was a failure. “It’s not surprising,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, appearing on CNN’s “New Day” on Thursday. “Keeping in mind a year and a half ago, over half of our schools were not open for full-time learning.” What is this test? The National Assessment of Educational Progress, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, is known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” It’s a congressionally mandated program within the US Department of Education, and it selects a representative sample of students to project a national picture. In-person learning. Cardona argued the Biden administration helped get districts back to in-person learning, which may be technically true, but is counter to the perception that Republican-led states were quicker to push their schools to return. Schools and politics. Republicans have looked to grassroots school board politics – and making sure kids are physically in school – as a campaign issue, although the efforts have veered into disputes over race and gender. These fights are often cited as a frustration for teachers and all of the other people who make schools run, such as guidance counselors. Teacher burnout is real. 70+ kids in some classes. CNN’s Gabe Cohen went to a rural school district outside Phoenix, where science teacher Stacy Brady has a 10th grade biology class with more than 70 students. “To me, it’s been very chaotic,” Brady told Cohen. “I wish I could clone myself because it’s like I can’t get to every kid who needs help.” Cohen reported that Casa Grande’s elementary school district has gone to a four-day week in an effort to keep teachers. Meanwhile, their high schools are looking overseas for more candidates. And in some classrooms, they’re having paraprofessionals teach lesson plans prepared by licensed teachers like Brady. See Cohen’s report. An old problem reaching crisis point. The teacher shortage in Casa Grande has been building for years, he writes, and the infusion of billions in federal pandemic relief funding has actually hurt some rural districts as larger districts poach teachers by offering better pay and benefits. That teachers are leaving and few people want to join the field are also problems that predate the pandemic but were supercharged during the past two years. CNN’s Christina Maxouris and Christina Zdanowicz wrote about it in-depth earlier this year. “I think the perception of teaching is that there is little respect and little pay for the amount of work that has to be done,” a northern California student teacher named Priscilla told them. “It’s not as prestigious as something else, like maybe a doctor, or a nurse.” Read more. “Certainly something that everyone who is engaged in education agrees on is that it has been an extraordinarily difficult last three years to be a public school teacher,” Kevin Carey, vice president for education policy at New America, told me. “The pandemic was a real body blow to the whole education system,” he said. “I think everything we know about learning tells us that it really requires a consistency and momentum and anything that interrupts that has long-term consequences.” We spend a lot of money on education. You might think the answer is to spend more money on schools, and that is probably part of the answer. But I was a bit shocked to see how the US already spends more per student than most other countries, according to OECD data. Plus, all the federal pandemic relief money school districts are trying to spend suggests the problem is larger than just funding. “I was a fourth grade teacher. I know these students need smaller class sizes, they need tutoring, they need additional supports,” Cardona said on “New Day,” although he added the government has allocated billions for post-pandemic education. “The funding is there,” he said. Don’t lump all these problems together. For a different view, I talked to Frederick Hess, who directs education policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. He agreed with Cardona that the new test scores are devastating and that “nothing there is surprising.” That the US opened bars and nail salons a year before schools during the pandemic was “indefensible and immoral,” Hess added. However, he pushed back on my question about whether there is a larger and new education crisis in this country. I asked him to weigh in on everything from “The Nation’s Report Card” test scores and teacher shortages to the student debt problems. All of these problems have been brewing, he said. Hess: We have a number of ongoing concerns in this country. College costs. Student performance has stagnated for a decade before 2019. Our schools are middling internationally even though we spend as much per kid as anywhere in the world. We’re worried that we’re not getting good value for tuition and higher ed. Teachers feel overburdened. And I think the pandemic absolutely exacerbated and highlighted all these challenges. But after talking individually about each of these issues, Hess argued it’s important to view them distinctly. Hess: I don’t know that it’s useful to directly bundle these together, except insofar as they’re affected by the pandemic. … I would be concerned that folks would talk about them as facets of some kind of single unifying crisis, distorting kind of the complexities on the ground and making it harder to solve the individual challenges, each of which requires specific remedies. "CNN"

Grand touring cars should look great, offer top-notch luxury, and provide incredible performance. The best grand tourers offer manual gearboxes and high-cylinder-count engines as well. The Aston Martin DBS shown here, and for sale now on Bring a Trailer (which like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos), has all of the above. Looks are subjective, but I would argue strongly in favor of the DBS as one of the most heart-wrenchingly beautiful cars in the modern age. The body lines flow smoothly from the iconic front end over squatting hips at the rear. The DBS looks akin to a jaguar waiting patiently in the weeds, ready to pounce. By modern standards, of course the DBS falls behind. The car is over 10 years old, leading the infotainment to look a bit too much like your first flip phone. But infotainment isn't why you buy a rear-wheel-drive, six-speed GT car with a 5.9-liter V-12 ready to roar through its gears. Neither is the Aston Martin–branded umbrella, but it would be fun to show off at a Saturday Cars and Coffee. The V-12 here may have 46,000 miles on the clock, and repairs probably run near the cost of a few vital organs, but this DBS does seem well cared for. Perhaps you recognize the DBS from Casino Royale, in which freshly minted Bond Daniel Craig flips his DBS so as not to run over his lady love. High mileage can be scary, especially with a supercar, but if it were my money, I'd take the risk. We may have given the edge to a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano in a 2008 comparison test, but that was before I got here—and anyway, the author referred to the DBS as "mighty fine." Those sparkling words of praise, DIY shifting, and a raucous V-12 should convince any prospective bidders who are on the fence—assuming they can afford the six figures it is likely to go for. With six days left before bidding ends on Thursday, September 8, the high offer is at $80,000 and sure to go way up from there. "CarandDriver"