ICYMI: NVIDIA’s RTX 3050 is a great budget GPU
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The new year is well underway, and we’ve begun testing a variety of gadgets, devices, and components. This week, Devindra Hardawar played with NVIDIA’s RTX 3050 and thinks it’s a bargain – if it’s still at its original price point. Steve Dent shot with Sony’s new A7 IV to test its autofocus, video and image quality improvements, while Billy Steele spent time with both the Jabra Elite 4 Active and the Jabra Elite 4 Active earbuds and headphones. Shure Aonic 40 over-ear headphones.
Through the RTX 3050 Supposedly an affordable way to hit 1080p/60fps during gaming, the $250 GPU can be significantly more expensive due to demand and chip shortages. Devindra Hardawar says the graphics card, which is the lowest-priced NVIDIA GPU that also features ray tracing, is a great component with 2,560 CUDA cores, 8GB of GDDR6 RAM, and a boost speed of 1,777MHz.
Devindra says the RTX 3050 handled everything he threw at it during testing, averaging 140 fps in Hitman 3’s Dubai benchmark. He is very impressed with how well the card handles demanding games Control, where it averaged 65fps at 1080p (no ray tracing). It’s also surprisingly quiet and cool at 60 degrees Celsius. While Devindra says it’s best suited for 1080p gaming, he also says it’s an absolute steal – if the price remains. short.
With a higher resolution 33-megapixel sensor, improved video capabilities, and updated autofocus, Steve Dent found a lot to like about Sony A7 IV mirrorless camera. He even called the hybrid shooter a near-perfect package, and he particularly liked its sturdy grip, precise buttons and dials, and fully articulated rear touchscreen. Sony’s well-organized menu system also makes it easy to navigate through the controls.
The main drawback on this camera is the rolling shutter issue: Steve says when shooting silent in electronic mode, the camera needs to be steady and the subject should be smooth, or else artifacts like oblique lines will appear in the photo. Still, he’s quite impressed with the AI autofocus features, which make the A7 IV easy to use and the most reliable camera he’s tested. At $2,500, the A7 IV was more expensive at launch than previous models, but Steve says improvements in image quality, video and color science make the A7 IV another winner in the lineup. Sony’s photo.
By Jabra Elite 4 in action True wireless headphones continue the company’s trend of offering small in-ear headphones with lots of hands-free features. With IP57 water resistance, they’re also more useful when working out, and Billy Steele says their small size also makes them more comfortable to wear. The new model includes features commonly found in more expensive models such as HearThrough, SideTone, and Find My, most of which are adjustable in the companion mobile app.
Billy found the Elite 4 Active to deliver good but not great sound quality – while they provided good clarity and detail overall, they lacked a wider soundstage and depth. However, he says call quality is slightly better than most earbuds thanks to the reduction in background noise. Battery testing shows that the Elite 4 Active buds last a little over seven hours – enough to get through most of a workday – and the $120 price tag is competitive.
Billy Steele is pleased to see that Shure doesn’t make too many compromises when it comes to Ao Dai 40 over-ear headphones. Made from aluminum alloy and glass-filled nylon, the cans fold flat easily for portability and feature physical buttons for onboard controls, but Billy said he found them a bit uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. long. He was more than impressed by the Shure app, which offers a powerful equalizer, lots of adjustable settings, and the ability to create your own presets.
Billy says that while the Aonic 40 offers strong and clear bass at volume levels, the soundstage isn’t wide and songs lack the depth of listening typically heard with other headphones. Noise cancellation and ambient sound are decent, but call quality is above average. The $249 headphones particularly excelled during the battery test, where they lasted more than 30 hours. Overall, Billy said the Aonic 40 is a relatively affordable choice, but lacks the polish of finer details.