The TR Podcast 116: The Nexus between Batman and Korean IPS displays

	Date: August 5, 2012 Time: 1:59:09 Hosted by Jordan Drake Co-Hosts: Scott Wasson, Geoff Gasior, and Cyril Kowaliski Download: MP3 (85.8MB) | M4A (117MB) Subscribe: RSS (MP3) | RSS (M4A) iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (M4A)
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Show notes
With a trifecta of tech reviews to discuss and an epic film trilogy to review on top of that, it's a monster of an episode this time around on the Tech Report Podcast. We kick off with some quick video game discussion (Jordan wants to weigh in on Max Payne 3 and the latest Battlefield 3 DLC) and then segue into listener mail. Afterwards, we round up the latest news and controversy surrounding Windows 8, which has both Valve and Blizzard not the least bit pleased. Then, Geoff offers his take on the 7" Nexus tablet from Google, Cyril compares the latest hardware video transcoding implementations, and Scott has his hands on the famous Korean IPS displays we discussed on the last episode. Finally, after finishing the program with Geoff and Cyril, Jordan and Scott add in a review of The Dark Knight Rises—which is not spoiler free. You've been warned!

Send in listener mail, and we'll answer on the podcast. - jdrake@techreport.com

Follow us on Twitter - Scott - Jordan - Geoff - Cyril - The Tech Report

Listener mail/tweets:

NAND and RAM? (0:07:33) - from Tom:

"I have a P67 system with 8GB of ram, 2500k and a 560ti. Toshiba just cut their NAND production by 30%, should I upgrade to 16GB while its still cheap or is that unnecessary for the duration of my build?"

DPC Latency Testing? (0:09:42) - from Zaphod Beeblebrox:

"A few years ago, I paid over $100 for a top of the line Linksys N wireless adapter. But because of frequent DPC latency spikes, playing music on my computer with it installed caused the music to skip every few seconds. Irritating! And I also had an Asus DVD drive that caused massive spikes of DPC latency above 30,000 μs (mu), causing any music or video being played to abruptly interrupt. Unplugging the hardware of either of these devices from my motherboard, or disabling them in my Device Manager, solved the problems. However, it would have been nice to know this before purchasing.

For the listeners, an explanation of the phenomenon and download link for a free DPC latency checker can be found at thesycon.de

One of the things I love about your team is that you find new and better ways to quantify important things that others gloss over. For example, your method of measuring graphics card performance with frame-times is really cool. One measurement that is sorely missing from reviews is the affected DPC latency. Would you be able to implement it into product reviews?"

Tech discussion:

Jordan chimes in on Max Payne 3 and Battlefield 3 DLC - (0:02:03)

Windows 8 news and controversy round-up - (0:15:17) - Windows 8 hits RTM - Gabe Newell's comments - Blizzard chimes in

Google's Nexus 7 tablet reviewed - (0:29:54) - Read more

A look at hardware video transcoding on the PC - (0:51:31) - Read more

Those 27-inch IPS displays from Korea are for real - (1:13:18) - Read more

Scott and Jordan review The Dark Knight Rises (warning: spoilers) - (1:41:19)

That's all, folks! We'll see you on the next episode.