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Join the community - in the OCAU Forums! Tuesday News Catchup (1 Comments) (link)  Tuesday, 23-December-2025  17:43:15 (GMT +10) - by MUTMAN India's New Spyware Mandate Sets A Dangerous Precedent. The government of India released an order that all smartphones manufactured for Indian citizens must come with a pre-installed government app. This app, known as Sanchar Saathi, is supposed to protect against phone-based crime such as stealing smartphones or miscellaneous telecom scams. India's Department of Telecommunications (DOT) specified that this app cannot be disabled or restricted by users, and that phone manufacturers would have to submit a comprehensive compliance report within 120 days of the order. NBN Co's 2Gbps services are too fast for ACCC to monitor. While a boon for bandwidth-hungry consumers, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) revealed this week that it has a limited ability to monitor the quality and performance of these very high-speed NBN connections under its 'Measuring Broadband Australia' program. Field testing hardware devices used by the program, manufactured by SamKnows, can’t measure data transmission speeds greater than 1Gbps. This means the ACCC's testing can no longer keep pace with the capacity of NBN Co’s very high-speed service tiers. Thanks to IntelInside for those two stories above. Maybe reconsider that energy drink when you're enjoying some holiday gaming. The man, who was in his 50s and otherwise healthy, showed up at a hospital after the entire left side of his body abruptly went numb and he was left with clumsy, uncoordinated muscle movements (ataxia). At that point, doctors pushed for more lifestyle information from the man, who finally revealed that he had a habit of drinking an average of eight high-potency energy drinks every day. Microsoft have done it again, massive gains in their Windows Server products, just 14 years late is all. Sysadmins willing to take the plunge only have to tweak a registry key, or add a group policy MSI, and they can enjoy up to 80% higher IOPS and up to 45% lower CPU utilization under a high I/O load. This should be a shot in the arm for scenarios involving high-performance file serving, virtualization, AI and ML workloads, and databases. DDR5 pricing is having an unexpected knock-on effect for prices of older CPU's. The DDR5 memory pricing crisis has sent the whole PC market into utter chaos, including pricing on AMD's flagship AM4 gaming chip. eBay prices for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D have skyrocketed to the point where these chips are being sold regularly for more money than a brand-new Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Second-hand prices for the 5800X3D average around $500-$600 on eBay. Some of the highest-selling units sold at nearly $800, showing how desperate some buyers are to buy AMD's best gaming chip that still uses DDR4 memory. What a time to be alive ! AMD thought a new 9850x3d chip would help. The CPU was spotted at SHI, an American retailer that listed it for $553.09, and a Swedish retailer called Ordeflow.ch, which put it up for 473.55 CFH (in a now deleted post), which comes out to around $595 USD. Searching the part numbers mentioned on SHI's listing doesn't bring up any further details either. For some context, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is likely to be a routine mid-cycle bump, bringing slightly higher clocks to an otherwise unchanged spec sheet. We're looking at rumored 5.6 GHz max clock speeds, up from 5.2 GHz on the 9800X3D. Misc Pics (12 Comments) (link)  Friday, 19-December-2025  15:05:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg Last one before Xmas - have a happy and safe holiday! Friday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)  Friday, 19-December-2025  13:58:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg Motherboard & CPU: ASUS ROG Strix Z890-I Gaming Wi-Fi on TechPowerUp. X870E AORUS MASTER X3D ICE on Vortez. MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition on TechPowerUp. MSI MEG X870E GODLIKE X Edition on Guru3D. MSI MEG X870E Godlike X Edition on Tweaktown. ASUS ROG Strix B850-G Gaming Wi-Fi microATX on TechPowerUp. Cases: Thermaltake View 600 TG Snow Full Tower Chassis and 6.0" LCD Panel on FunkyKit. CPS PCCooler K101 Mesh SFF case on TechPowerUp. Cooler Master QUBE 540 on Tweaktown. Thermal Grizzly der8enchtable Review - After 3 Months of Usage testbench on TechPowerUp. SAMA Z60 Mid-Tower White on FunkyKit. Cooler Master MasterFrame 500 Mesh Mid-Tower on Tweaktown. Audio Visual: Elgato Stream Deck + Review - Content Creators, Don't Walk, Run to Get One Now on Tweaktown. Elgato Prompter XL on Tweaktown. Elgato Facecam 4K Webcam Review - Studio-level Camera Quality on Tweaktown. ASUS ROG Strix XG248QSG Ace Esports Gaming Monitor on Tweaktown. Einarex Pulse PM400 on TechPowerUp. SOUNDPEATS Clip1 Bluetooth Earphones on APHNetworks. SteelSeries Arctis Nova 3P Wireless headset on NikKTech. Storage: TerraMaster TNAS F4-425 Plus (4x HDD / 3xNVME SSD) on Guru3D. Kingston Dual Portable SSD on StorageReview. Cooling: Noctua NF-A12x25 G2 Series Cooling Fans on APHNetworks. Cooler Master Hyper 212 3DHP Black ARGB CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers. Input Etc: be quiet! Dark Mount Silent Tactile Mechanical Keyboard on APHNetworks. ENDORFY Thock V2 Wireless Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown. Pulsar Susanto-X mouse on TechPowerUp. MSI Strike Pro Wireless Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown. Simagic Alpha Evo 12Nm Bundle on Tweaktown. AULA F75 MAX Wireless Mechanical Keyboard on FunkyKit. Epomaker P65 65% Compact Gaming Keyboard on MadShrimps. Razer Cobra Hyperspeed on TechPowerUp. Power Supply: Formula V Line PSFX-1200 ATX 3.1 Power Supply Unit on NikKTech. Super Flower LEADEX III GOLD UP ATX 3.1 1000W on FunkyKit. Portable & Prebuilt: OnePlus 15R Review: Affordable Midrange Phone With Big Battery Life phone on HotHardware. XMG Focus 17 (M25) Review - Proves that the 17.3-inchers Are Still a Thing laptop on TechPowerUp. ECS LIVA Z11 Plus Mini-PC on MadShrimps. PELADN WO4 mini-PC on TechPowerUp. Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Ultra SFF Gen 2 on StorageReview. Lenovo ThinkStation P3 Tiny Gen 2 on StorageReview. Misc: Intel Arc Pro B60 Battlematrix Preview: 192GB of VRAM for On-Premise AI on StorageReview. Supermicro JumpStart Review: A Week With an NVIDIA HGX B200 on StorageReview. Patriot Viper Xtreme 5 Aurum DDR5-8000 UDIMM 32GB Dual-Channel Memory Kit on Tweaktown.

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