Bongdaplus

As someone that’s spent a good portion of my life tangled up in XLR cables, I’ll be the first to tell you that setting up audio gear can be a fiddly endeavour. If you’re not inclined to get down and dirty with all the intricacies of a pro audio setup—yet still fancy capturing quality sound for streaming, podcasts and more—then this SteelSeries kit makes things about as painless as they can be.

Currently available at a touch over $237 for Amazon Prime Members (and $250 for those without a membership) as part of the Prime Day sales, the SteelSeries Alias Pro kit has almost everything you need to get going. For much less fuss than you might expect, too.

I reviewed the Alias Pro kit at the start of this year, and came away very impressed with the package as a whole. The pill-shaped microphone, unlike the regular SteelSeries Alias, ditches internal amplification for an XLR port, through which it links to a very compact Stream Mixer that acts as both a preamp and a…

Lord of the Rings games didn’t get a great start this year with the ropey Gollum game but I’m feeling pretty optimistic about incoming crafting and survival game Return to Moria. Gollum was a weird pitch even when we first heard about it and I felt little surprise it landed flat. A dwarven crafting and base-building game set down in Khazad-dûm already felt like a way better fit, and the new combat and crafting laden trailer is keeping my hopes afloat.

Look, it takes embarrassingly little to talk me into any crafting survival game. I have a weakness for whacking iron in a furnace, organizing my chests full of ores, and snapping together a little house in a little nook of the world I like, especially if I can do it with friends. So I’d probably be on board with Return to Moria even if it looked questionable. Thank goodness it doesn’t.

We got a look in the new trailer at the consequences of a noisy mining operation. There’s combat with Orcs, huge spiders…

With just about every motherboard model on the market supporting RAM overclocking, it takes something new to stand out from the crowd now. Enter stage left Asus with its DIMM Flex feature in its latest Z790 ROG lineup, that is supposed to allow for more performance or stability, depending on how hot everything is running.

The full details on exactly how it all works were issued as a blog on Asus’ website and it involves the addition of extra circuits and components that monitor the temperature of the DDR5 modules, feeding the information back to the CPU. If the RAM or power management chips are running too hot, then the board will tell the processor to slow things down a touch.

But if they’re both under a set thermal limit, then the CPU will adjust its integrated memory controller, boosting clock speeds or dropping timings, to eke out a little more performance. At stock settings, DDR5 isn’t going to run hot enough to cause problems, but those with a high XMP (Extreme Mem…

Having trouble with Wordle? Turn a struggling game into an easy win with our help. Keep on scrolling and you’ll soon find everything from a clutch of tips designed to boost every guess, to a helpful hint for the May 9 (1055) puzzle. You’ll even find the answer to today’s Wordle here too, just in case you need it.

It was less a case of using what I had found to solve today’s puzzle, and more about carefully combing through what I had left by the end, in search of a valid word. To call this Wordle stressful would be something of an understatement, but I did scrape by at the end.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Thursday, May 9

There are a few possible meanings for today’s answer, one of which is a kind of snack made using dried strips of meat. Another is as a way of describing abrupt, stop-start movements. You only need to find a single vowel to win this Wordle.

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Is there a double letter in Wordle today? <…

Amazon has a fantastic deal on a killer 1TB NVMe SDD for just $60, making it an excellent upgrade for any aging gaming PC. With SSD prices at an all-time low, it’s no wonder we’re seeing a plethora of outstanding NVMe SSD deals this week.

The 1TB WD Black SN850X typically retails for around $80, but I’ve noticed it occasionally spiking to its original launch price of $160 recently. But at $60, it’s the lowest price I’ve seen for what is arguably the best SSD for gaming. 

This PCIe Gen 4 drive boasts a read speed of 7,300MB/s and a write speed of 6,300MB/s. Launched around this time last year, it’s faster than the 1TB SK Hynix Platinum P41 SSD that we really liked from a while back, and it’s $12 cheaper. 

Our review of the WD Black SN850X highlighted its consistent performance and efficient thermal management. However, it’s worth noting that its performance is not a significant leap over the SN850. But the choice is clear considering the current discount o…

Win your daily Wordle with ease: just click or scroll straight to today’s answer and bask in that fresh +1 to your win streak. Only after a little help? You’ve got it. There’s plenty of tips just below, as well as a fresh clue written especially for the August 28 (800) game.

I only won today’s Wordle after four increasingly embarrassing attempts, each and every one of them packed with fresh yellows and greens that I failed to make any effective use of for far too long. Here’s a fresh Wordle tip, mostly for myself: we’ve all got 24 hours to solve this puzzle, it doesn’t need to be rushed first thing in the morning.

Today’s Wordle hint

A Wordle hint for Monday, August 28

The answer today describes the act of jotting down thoughts on paper, typing words into a document, or even adding new data to a disc or other storage device. A folder on your computer might be _____ protected, to prevent changes. There are two different vowels today. 

…

The US government has announced it will hand $6.4B to Samsung, in a bid to get more advanced chips produced on US soil. The company, headquartered in South Korea, is currently in the process of building chipmaking facilities, including a fab and packaging plant, in Taylor, Texas and this big influx of cash hopes to convince it to stay in the Lone Star State for the long-term.

“The chips that Samsung will be making in Texas are important components to our most advanced technologies, from artificial intelligence to high-performance computing and 5G communications,” Gina Raimondo, US Secretary of Commerce, said. “With President Biden’s leadership and Samsung’s commitment to the US, this proposed funding advances America’s leadership in semiconductor manufacturing on the world stage.”

The money promised to the South Korean tech giant will part-fund two new cutting-edge fabs, an R&D fab, and an advanced packaging facility in Texas. All of which will join force…

You’re now just one click away from winning the December 27 (921) Wordle—the answer’s ready and waiting if you need it. You’re also in the right place if you’re after a tailor-made clue for today’s game too, if you’d like a bit of help without being handed the solution on a plate. Whatever Wordle support you need, we’ve got it.

I soon found myself staring at (almost) all the right letters in all the wrong places after two guesses this morning, which usually means I’m either in for a very long game of “Where the heck does this go?” or I’m just one more attempt away from a win. Luckily for me, today’s Wordle was the latter. Hopefully tomorrow’s game will be just as simple—hopefully.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Wednesday, December 27

The word you need to find today is a type of flower, the most common type having white petals and a bright yellow centre. If something is a fresh as one of these, it’s full of energy and…

Chip designer Arm Holdings is going public for the second time in almost thirty years, this time with a market value of $54.5 billion. The company listed 95.5 million shares under “ARM” on Nasdaq, the largest IPO since the electric truck maker Rivian went public in 2021 for over $66 billion. 

The current share price is $51, giving Arm a market capitalization of roughly $54.5 billion. There was early speculation that the IPO value would be as high as $70 billion as big tech companies like Amazon, Nvidia, and Intel planned to spend billions of dollars on the chip designer once it went public. 

“Together, we have built the world’s largest compute and software ecosystem based on the most pervasive CPU architecture in history,” wrote Rene Haas, CEO of Arm, on the company blog announcing the news. Haas also thanked employees for sticking by through “a long road with lots of twists and turns we never anticipated nor expected.”

Even though $54 billion is a comedo…