Month: November 2020

What just happened? Good news for AMD Ryzen 5000 series CPU owners looking to run their shiny new processors in older 400 series motherboards as multiple board suppliers have seemingly decided not to wait until 2021 to roll out updated BIOSes supporting the new chips.

AnandTech points out that several ASRock B450 motherboards now have updated BIOSes available to download that add Zen 3 support. Indeed, a quick check reveals that many B450 boards do have new BIOSes that were made available on November 19 but the descriptions are vague, only saying that they optimize system compatibility.

Asus’ official ROG Twitter channel on November 18 teased that 400 series BIOS updates (AGESA 1.1.8.0) for AMD Ryzen 5000 series CPUs will be available “in a couple of weeks.” Biostar echoed similar sentiments on November 22, noting that Ryzen 5000 series support was “coming soon.”

In related news, Tom’s Hardware is also reporting that ASRock has enabled Smart Access Memory (SAM) on B450 motherboards. SAM up to this point has only worked with 500 series boards running a Radeon 6000 series GPU like the RX 6800 and a Ryzen 5000 CPU.

Of course, for many, the toughest task will be finding a Ryzen 5000 series CPU in stock. All of the new chips sold out within minutes of launch and are still out of stock at major retailers.

A French security researcher has accidentally discovered a zero-day vulnerability that impacts the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems while working on an update to a Windows security tool.

The vulnerability resides in two misconfigured registry keys for the RPC Endpoint Mapper and DNSCache services that are part of all Windows installations.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\RpcEptMapper

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Dnscache

French security researcher Clément Labro, who discovered the zero-day, says that an attacker that has a foothold on vulnerable systems can modify these registry keys to activate a sub-key usually employed by the Windows Performance Monitoring mechanism.

“Performance” subkeys are usually employed to monitor an app’s performance, and, because of their role, they also allow developers to load their own DLL files to track performance using custom tools.

While on recent versions of Windows, these DLLs are usually restricted and loaded with limited privileges, Labro said that on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, it was still possible to load custom DLLs that ran with SYSTEM-level privileges.

ISSUE DISCOVERED AND DISCLOSED ACCIDENTALLY

But while most security researchers report severe security issues like these to Microsoft in private, when they find them, in Labro’s case, this was too late.

Labro said he discovered the zero-day after he released an update to PrivescCheck, a tool to check common Windows security misconfigurations that can be abused by malware for privilege escalation.

The update, released last month, added support for a new set of checks for privilege escalation techniques.

Labro said he didn’t know the new checks were highlighting a new and unpatched privilege escalation method until he began investigating a series of alerts appearing on older systems like Windows 7, days after the release.

By that time, it was already too late for the researcher to report the issue to Microsoft in private, and the researcher chose to blog about the new method on his personal site instead.

ZDNet has reached out to Microsoft for comment today, but the OS maker has not provided an official statement before this article’s publication.

Both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 have officially reached end of life (EOL) and Microsoft has stopped providing free security updates. Some security updates are available for Windows 7 users through the company’s ESU (Extended Support Updates) paid support program, but a patch for this issue has not been released yet.

It is unclear if Microsoft will patch Labro’s new zero-day; however, ACROS Security has already put together a micro-patch, which the company released earlier today. The micro-patch is installed via the company’s 0patch security software and prevents malicious actors from exploiting the bug through ACROS’ unofficial patch.

Most years we’re all about building the best PC you possibly can from Black Friday deal parts, but 2020 isn’t exactly a normal year. AMD’s brand new CPUs are scarce, and even old graphics cards are hard to find. The latest Nvidia RTX 30-series and RX 6800 from AMD? Forget about it—we can’t find them in stock, let alone on sale.

But there is a way to get one of these new cards, if you don’t mind getting a whole PC right along with it. Buying a prebuilt gaming PC right now is the easiest way to get your hands on an RTX 3080 right now. Conveniently, Dell has chopped about $50 off the high-end configuration of the Alienware Aurora R11 with an RTX 3080, which happens to be our pick for the best gaming PC today.

Over on the Alienware Aurora R11 configuration page, you can choose a base model of the PC and then customize it with the graphics card of your choice, including an RTX 3070 or 3080. When I got to the order screen I put in my zip code in San Francisco, and found that I could get the system delivered as soon as December 3 with express shipping. In other words, the RTX models aren’t back-ordered, at least right now; stock might not hold out for the entirety of Black Friday.

The default high-end RTX 3080 Aurora R11 model is a pricey $2,391.19, but Dell lets you do plenty of customization here. I started with the cheapest config, using an Intel i5-10400F, and upgraded to the RTX 3070 along with a 1000W power supply, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB M.2 SSD for a total price of $1,754 (with discount code “EXTRA50” applied). That’s $600 cheaper, though still a pricey PC build.

If you just want an RTX 3080 model with no thought tweaking required, here it is. Bonus: it comes with a free copy of Call of Duty: Cold War.

The Aurora R11 comes with a one-year warranty including tech support and on-site service if you need it. In our review of the R11, we wrote that “the higher-than-average price provides you with reliable build quality, exceptional customer service, and solid warranties. The numerous pre-fab options offered by Alienware also help eliminate much of the guesswork associated with customizing your system. Some options provide better value for the parts used, but for hassle-free PC gaming out of the box, it’s tough to beat the ease of use that Alienware provides.”

The ThinkPad X1 Fold is finally here and in the hands of reviewers. Sadly, it is not all rosy for Lenovo’s first foldable. The ThinkPad X1 Fold starts at US$2,499, although that only gets you 256 GB of storage and no accessories. Lenovo charges US$2,749 for the detachable keyboard and pen, and another US$50 if you want a Windows 10 Pro licence. Prices rise to US$3,099 though if you want 1 TB of storage, instead of 256 GB.

For that money, you could pick up practically any high-end laptop or 2-in-1, although they lack the foldable display that the ThinkPad X1 Fold has. However, MKBHD inadvertently summed up the limitations of the new form factor, in our opinion, despite ringing its praises. In short, the foldable screen appears to offer no added functionality than one could already get with a Surface Pro. MKHBD highlights the tablet mode of the ThinkPad X1 Fold, before explaining that the detachable keyboard offers a better typing experience than the onscreen keyboard does. 

PC Watch has demonstrated the drawbacks of Intel’s Lakefield processor, too. The Core m3-8100Y in the Surface Go 2 outperforms the ThinkPad X1 Fold and its Core i5-L16G7 in multiple benchmarks, for example, while also lasting longer in PCMark 10 battery life tests. The Core m3-8100Y should offer about 91% of the Core i5-L16G7 according to our database, but Lenovo may have tuned its performance based on the form factor of the ThinkPad X1 Fold, somewhat.

Ultimately, the ThinkPad X1 Fold disappoints on price, performance and does not offer more versatility than something like a Surface Pro. Nonetheless, we hold out hope for the likes of Lenovo delivering more useful second and third-generation foldable laptops, as Samsung has with its foldable smartphones.

If you had hopes of getting a shiny new RDNA 2 graphics card from AMD this upcoming Black Friday, you’ll likely be very disappointed. Even though AMD’s launch for third-party custom Radeon RX 6000 graphics cards officially occurred today, every single tech store has sold out its entire stock in both aftermarket and reference flavors. That isn’t surprising, as some retailers didn’t even have stock to begin with. 

Both graphics card manufacturers and some stores have gone to Twitter to share the problems with the RX 6000 series volume. Simply put, just like the Ampere shortages, AMD and its partners are unable to manufacturer enough graphics cards to meet demand.

Most of the recent product launches have been plagued by bots, but that doesn’t seem to be the cause of the shortage this time around. In fact, Microcenter says it had zero cards for the launch today. 

So what should you do as a gamer? Right now is perhaps one of the worst times to build a system, so if you’re a DIYer we would highly recommend you wait until next year to build a new workstation/gaming machine when stock goes back to normal and prices are not over-inflated. 

But, if you’re a gamer and desperate to grab anything to get your game on, check out our Black Friday deal guides here, which can help you get together a gaming machine. If you don’t mind going with entry-level graphics like an RX 5500 XT, those are still a solid option for a “gaming-capable PC.”

It really is a terrible time to build a gaming computer, especially if you were considering purchasing an RX 6800 or RX 6800 XT. If you really need something to game on now, be prepared to make some sacrifices.