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23 Apr 2025

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Gamers shocked as Elder Scrolls IV revealed and launched on same day
It is a long-awaited remaster of the classic video game, which originally released back in 2006.

Intel is giving Core Ultra 200S PCs a free performance boost
Intel is allegedly releasing a “free” overclocking tool called “200S Boost” for Intel Core Ultra 200 Series processors, which could lift performance by about 7 percent without voiding your warranty. Intel has yet to formally announce the technology, but the company’s announcement was spoiled by its partners, including Gigabyte, and by Tom’s Hardware, who obtained leaked firmware to test the new tool. According to Hot Hardware, the 200S Boost technology requires a Core Ultra 9 285K, a Core Ultra 7 265K or 265KF, or a 245K/KF chip; a qualified motherboard with an Intel Z890 chipset; and 8,000 MT/s RAM with an XMP profile. Although Hot Hardware suggests that all Z890 motherboards should be able to take advantage of the 200S Boost feature, not all will include the necessary optimizations to do so. What the new Core 200S Boost feature does is simply overclock the chip’s memory and fabric speeds rather than adjust the clock speeds or power settings, Tom’s Hardware reports. Specifically, the NGU/SA fabric is now clocked at 3.2 GHz (up from 2.6 GHz) and the die-to-die communication fabric is now also clocked at 3.2 GHz (up from 2.1 GHz). The fact that Intel is doing this while still preserving its warranty coverage is somewhat remarkable. Whether or not you’ll be able to get Intel’s Core 200S Boost technology, however, is up to your motherboard manufacturer. When (if) they release a BIOS update for your board to include the new feature, you’ll need to go to any overclocking options provided by the BIOS and enable the new 200S Boost overclocking upgrade. MSI, for example, offered this configuration guide below: Intel’s Arrow Lake-S desktop processors emphasized lower power, but at “parity” performance for games and an overall geomean that was expected to be lower than Intel’s 14th-gen parts. A “free” boost might not be able to make up that lack, but it’s an improvement.

UB40 band members back striking bin workers
Robin Campbell and Jimmy Brown say workers should be paid what they deserve.

Get this budget-friendly HP laptop with 16GB RAM for under $400
It’s getting hard to find an affordable laptop these days, and not likely to get easier anytime soon… so when I see a surprisingly recent laptop with solid specs sliding in under the $400 point, it’s worth spotlighting. Such is the case with this refurbished HP laptop on eBay, available for as little as $398.96 right now. (Automatic discount at checkout!) The HP Pavilion Plus 14-EW1XXX is the worst name I’ve seen for a laptop in a long time, and it’s pretty dang hard to parse. It also has a bad description, contradicting itself on whether it’s a 14-inch or 16-inch display, but I’m pretty certain it’s a 16-incher. It has a pretty nice panel, too, boasting a 2560×1600 resolution (though not touch-enabled). Ditto for the 14-core Ultra 5 125H processor, four primary and four efficiency cores, and 16GB of DDR5 RAM. (That’s as low as I’d go to comfortably run Windows 11 these days.) This laptop-with-an-awful-name has 512GB of storage and a good-but-not-amazing selection of ports, with double USB-C, double USB-A, and full-sized HDMI. This is a refurbished laptop, with a “five star” cosmetic condition according to the description, with an eBay Refurbished badge, which also means that it comes with a 2-year Allstate warranty included in the price. The eBay listing shows a price of $428.99, but when placed in my cart for checkout, I get an automatic 7 percent discount that brings the final pre-tax price to $398.96 with free shipping. Not bad for a laptop with a 1600p display and 16GB of RAM, even if it’s lacking a few extras. Get this refurbished HP laptop with 16GB RAM for under $400Buy now on eBay

5 ways I lower my PC RAM usage to boost game performance
I don’t have a lot of RAM — just 32GB — so I need to keep it as free as possible. When apps or other system processes are using that up, I see the telltale signs: slower than normal frame rates, longer load times, and in the worst cases — stuttering. But here’s how I free up my RAM just for my games and keep them running smoothly. Clear the browser cache and close tabs As I browse the web my browser will store images, fonts, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript code to save bandwidth. That’s generally a good thing, since pages will load faster. But the downside of that is it can also use up RAM. To counteract that, I clear my browser cache before I play. Additionally, I will generally never play with browser tabs open in Windows. Why? Because tests show that having just 20 Google Chrome browser tabs open can chew up as much as 1.8GB RAM. End programs in Task Manager Windows Task Manager is an excellent tool for keeping a tab on your RAM usage. I am always surprised how many programs I have running idly in Windows that sap my RAM without me knowing. In my case they are usually apps for my gaming peripherals and communications programs, all of which load into Windows by default whether I need them or not. So now I close or disable the ones that I don’t need. To close them, you just click Ctrl + Shift + Esc to bring up the Windows Task Manager, then right-click and select End task on the programs or apps you want to close. To disable them loading into Windows on startup, select Startup apps from the left menu, then right-click on the app and choose Disable in Task Manager. Closing apps using up RAM in Windows Task Manager. Dominic Bayley / Foundry Use an optimization tool There are a lot of apps that will act as RAM cleaners to free up memory, but personally I like to use ones made especially for gamers since they offer more gamer-specific optimizations. The Razer Cortex app is one. The app’s Game Booster kicks in to stop unnecessary apps and processes and free up RAM as soon as I launch a game. It also optimizes the CPU, so I get a nice boost to my FPS. Razer Cortex also allows me to manually monitor my performance and make tweaks beyond the app’s automatic optimizations, so I have control over settings when I want it. Update drivers and BIOS firmware When your PC’s device drivers and your PC’s BIOS firmware is outdated, it can result in more of your RAM being utilized than is needed. As a result, your PC can perform sluggishly or be prone to instability issues or crashes in games. Keeping these important things updated regularly will help avoid these issues. It takes just a few minutes, but you’ll be rewarded with higher FPS and less headaches trying to figure out what’s wrong when games stutter or crash. Use a gaming browser I use tip #1 when I’m playing lightweight indie games on my laptop, but for my desktop gaming PC where I do most of my high-end gaming, I use dedicated gaming browsers. Browsers like Opera GX and Vivaldi run very lightly on the OS and utilize a lot less RAM than Google Chrome does, so you can expect better performance in your games as a result. They also come with extra features especially for gamers, which you can read more about here.