Din imaginile distribuite pe Facebook, se observă mai mulți bărbați care se îmbrâncesc și se lovesc în timp ce își adresează injurii. Unul dintre protagoniști, numit Andrei, este certat de Dan Tănasă să-și ia haina și să părăsească încăperea, în timp ce acesta răspunde cu insulte și declară furios: „Mi-am dat viața pentru partidul ăsta”.
Reprezentanții AUR nu au oferit până acum explicații privind cauza conflictului. De asemenea, Dan Tănasă, președintele Comisiei pentru egalitatea de șanse pentru femei și bărbați, nu a comentat incidentul.
Femeia a necesitat îngrijiri medicale din cauza „urmelor vizibile de violență”, conform unui comunicat al Poliției. În acest caz, autoritățile au deschis un dosar penal pentru violență în familie.
Istoria de confruntări și incidente violente în AUR
Partidul AUR, condus de George Simion, a fost implicat în mai multe scandaluri de-a lungul timpului. În martie 2022, Dumitru Focșa a amenințat cu bătaia un deputat PSD, Alfred Simonis, pe holurile Parlamentului.
În ianuarie 2022, Simion și mai mulți susținători AUR au intrat cu forța în Primăria Timișoara, fără ca forțele de ordine să intervină. În octombrie 2021, liderii AUR au forțat intrarea în ședința unei comisii parlamentare pentru a protesta împotriva certificatului verde COVID-19.
Tot în 2021, liderul AUR Claudiu Târziu a provocat controverse după ce l-a amenințat pe Alexandru Muraru, consilier pentru combaterea antisemitismului, cu declarații ce făceau referire la mișcarea legionară.
Windows Recall, originally available to all users of Copilot+ PCs in April 2025, stores screen caps of user activity. (Microsoft Photo)
Microsoft says its Recall app — which captures and stores screen shots every few seconds — is safe. Security researchers keep saying otherwise.
Recall was originally billed as a “photographic memory” to store everything Windows users do on their computers. People could then see some of those screen shots at a later time by searching AI with plain-text queries such as red barn. (See illustration above.)
Select members of Microsoft’s exclusive Windows Insider program have had access to Recall for more than a year. Users of AI-enabled Copilot+ PCs started receiving Recall as an opt-in feature in April 2025, one year ago this month.
But since its debut, experts have repeatedly demonstrated that hackers can access the data Recall stores. This raises questions about whether a tool that records your entire digital life can ever be adequately secured. The situation is creating uncertainty about Microsoft’s plans to make Recall more widely available on all PCs.
Alexander Hagenah, executive director of SIX — a Zürich-based technology company that operates infrastructure for stock exchanges in Switzerland and Spain — described Recall’s security weaknesses in a LinkedIn post in April 2025. He also released an app he called TotalRecall that could “extract all captured windows and images taken by Recall … nothing encrypted, no rocket science needed.”
Joining other researchers, the University of Pennsylvania’s Office of Information Security released a warning on Apr. 14, 2025, about the version of Recall that was then available. The university’s announcement stated that Recall “introduces substantial and unacceptable security, legality, and privacy challenges” [emphasis in the original]. The statement added that administrators of “Windows environments at Penn are strongly urged” to disable Recall.
In response to criticisms such as these, Microsoft — to its credit — pulled back on its plans to roll out Recall to all Windows 11 PCs that met fairly high system requirements (including a neural processing unit and eight logical processors, according to an MS Learn document). Instead, the company announced in a blog update on June 13, 2024, that Recall would become available only to participants in the company’s much smaller Windows Insider program.
In the time since that decision, the fate of Recall has become even murkier. Journalist Zac Bowden wrote in a Windows Central blog post on Jan. 30, 2026, that Microsoft is “pulling back its Windows 11 AI push with a major Copilot and Recall rethink.”
The problem is that it’s tough for software engineers to make data ultra-convenient for end users to access while simultaneously securing it so it’s impervious to hackers.
It’s hard to remember that the company’s original goal was ease of use, now that Microsoft’s focus has changed to making the security of its screen-cap app impenetrable.
Microsoft says Recall blurs images of credit-card numbers, bank passwords, and other personal data — or doesn’t store them at all. But security experts are still not convinced.
After testing the latest version of Recall, Swiss technologist Hagenah recently issued a new proof-of-concept called “Total Recall Reloaded” on a GitHub page. In his comments, Hagenah said any malware running on a user’s PC can copy every Recall screen shot as it passes through in-process memory: “No admin required. Standard user. No kernel exploit.”
Hagenah has not publicly disclosed some security holes, saying he’s reported them to Microsoft and won’t release the technical details until the Redmond company has fixed the problems.
Already, malicious hackers have written code to take advantage of Recall’s screen shots. The malware can access Recall’s own memory to copy screen caps and send them to a faraway server. Hackers no longer need to write such code from scratch. (The procedure is described in a technical overview by cybersecurity writer Kevin Beaumont.)
At this writing, fewer than 10% of Windows 11 PCs can enable and run the current version of Recall. Microsoft representatives responded to my inquiries about plans for the app’s future availability by pointing to a Sept. 27, 2024, security update and an Apr. 25, 2025, blog post.
Jul 4, 2024; London, United Kingdom; Andy Murray (GBR) (R) hugs brother Jamie Murray (L)(GBR) after their match against Rinky Hijikata and John Peers (both AUS)(both not pictured) in gentlemen’s doubles on day four of The Championships Wimbledon 2024 at All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images
Scotland’s Jamie Murray, a seven-time Grand Slam doubles champion and older brother of Andy Murray, announced his retirement from professional tennis on Wednesday.
“My tennis journey comes to an end after 36 years,” Jamie Murray, 40, posted on Instagram. “I feel very fortunate and privileged for all the amazing experiences this great sport has given me.
“Thanks Mum, Dad, Andy, Ale, Alan, Louis and Thomas for all your incredible support, efforts and sacrifices throughout my career that allowed me to achieve everything I could in the game.”
Murray won 34 career ATP Tour doubles titles, including the Australian Open and U.S. Open in 2016 with Bruno Soares of Brazil. He also win five major titles in mixed doubles: Wimbledon (2007, 2017) and the U.S. Open (2017-19).
In 2016, Jamie Murray became the first British player to rise to World No. 1 in the doubles rankings. He helped Great Britain win the Davis Cup in 2015.
Brick Machines created an ingenious LEGO Coffee Factory that automatically brews coffee into a cup that can be ordered on command via a smartphone app. The machine uses a Keurig coffee maker and disposes of the containers neatly in a refuse area. The machine also adds a nicely fitting lid at the end.
This LEGO® Coffee Factory finally solves the ancient problem of those early mornings where you need coffee immediately 🙂 Use the smartphone app to make your order, and by the time you’re ready for the day, so is your coffee! I
Conform Inspectoratului Școlar Județean Brăila, suma totală decontată până acum include 7,7 milioane de lei reprezentând diferențe salariale și 1,6 milioane de lei aferente dobânzilor legale.
Inspectorul școlar general, profesorul Dan Mihai Gheorghiță, a declarat: „La nivelul inspectoratului și al unităților de învățământ s-au făcut demersurile necesare pentru respectarea cadrului legal stabilit prin ordinul de ministru. Majoritatea unităților de învățământ au achitat sumele datorate pentru anul 2025, la salariul din luna martie.”
De remarcat este faptul că profesorii din Brăila au primit plățile restante mai devreme decât în alte județe, ceea ce a fost apreciat de către Cătălin Radu, liderul Sindicatului Învățământului „Gheorghe Corneliu Caranica”.
„Este un lucru pozitiv că la Brăila plățile s-au făcut mai rapid. În continuare, se respectă calendarul stabilit, iar la salariile din aprilie vor fi acordate tranșele de 5% și 10% pentru hotărârile judecătorești din perioada 2019–2023, care vizează, în principal, plata normei de hrană inclusiv pe perioada concediilor de odihnă”, a explicat acesta.
Un mecanism național pentru recuperarea drepturilor
La nivel național, Ministerul Educației și Cercetării a demarat în ianuarie 2026 aplicarea Ordonanței de urgență a Guvernului nr. 52/2025 și a Ordinului nr. 3.226/2026, care reglementează plata eșalonată a drepturilor salariale câștigate în instanță. Primele plăți au fost realizate odată cu salariile din februarie 2026, fiind alocate aproximativ 244 de milioane de lei pentru tranșele restante și dobânzile aferente anului de plată 2025.
Începând cu luna martie 2026, sistemul a trecut la etapa achitării tranșelor pentru anul în curs, cu termen final de plată până la 31 decembrie. De asemenea, în iunie, odată cu salariile din luna mai, profesorii urmează să primească tranșa a V-a, reprezentând 35% din diferențele salariale stabilite prin Ordonanța de Urgență nr. 48/2022. Valoarea totală a acestei tranșe, la nivel național, este estimată la 326 de milioane de lei.
Întârzieri recuperate și stabilitate
Cătălin Radu a subliniat că plățile au fost întârziate de modificările legislative din anii trecuți. „Prin OUG nr. 52/2025, tranșele scadente până la finalul anului 2025, dar neachitate, au fost amânate pentru 2026, ceea ce a dus la o întârziere resimțită de cadrele didactice. Totuși, situația a reintrat acum într-un curs normal”, a explicat liderul sindical.
Pentru procesul de recuperare a drepturilor salariale, Guvernul a implementat un calendar de plată pe cinci ani. Astfel, profesorii primesc 5% din sume în primul an de la decizia definitivă, 10% în al doilea an, 25% în al treilea și al patrulea an, iar 35% în ultimul an. Aceeași schemă se aplică și dobânzilor legale aferente.
Perspective pentru 2026
Plățile efectuate în județul Brăila sunt considerate un exemplu de eficiență la nivel național, având în vedere perioada de întârziere a tranșelor din anii precedenți. Liderii sindicali și autoritățile locale consideră că respectarea strictă a calendarului de plăți pentru 2026 reprezintă un semnal pozitiv pentru angajații din învățământ, oferind un grad de stabilitate mult așteptat în sectorul educațional.
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One of the standout characters in The Handmaid’s Tale was Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski). At first, viewers were encouraged to loathe her. We saw her cruelty and complicity in Gilead’s system of sexual slavery through the eyes of June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss), the Handmaid forced to serve Serena and her husband, Fred (Joseph Fiennes), a powerful Commander.
But as The Handmaid’s Taleunwound its six seasons, we learned there was a surprising depth behind Serena’s mask of icy perfection. While her willing participation in Gilead’s misogynistic nightmare was never excusable, we saw how her genuine despair over not being able to conceive her own child helped blind her to the horrors she was helping facilitate, at least in the beginning.
We also got a glimpse at her background. Once a powerful author and political figure, she agreed to curb her ambitions to support her husband and the Gilead movement, eventually submitting to a culture that wouldn’t even let women read, much less have opinions or careers. Though she ostensibly knew what she was signing up for, Serena learned quickly just how oppressed she really was, despite being married to one of Gilead’s top leaders.
While she had every reason to renounce Gilead—losing a finger for reading the Bible, as she did in season two, would’ve done it for most people—The Handmaid’s Tale took its time showing how Serena’s faith in the country she’d helped create began to crumble. Strahovski’s searing performance helped make what could’ve been a thoroughly hateable character sympathetic, even as she continued to waver as to what path she should follow.
And she went through a lot. Though she lost custody of the baby June was supposed to hand over to her, Serena did eventually have a child with Fred, a near-miracle amid the fertility crisis that propelled The Handmaid’s Tale. Then, she was forced to confront Fred’s untimely death, her status as an international war criminal, and her struggle to fit into Gilead’s rigid society as a widow.
She even tried to reform Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale’s final season. While that was ultimately a bust, we also saw Serena and June—who was working to “reform” Gilead in a more violent way—forge almost a friendship. Their values would never be fully aligned, but they realized they had common ground, not just as mothers but as women who were really fed up with horrible men being in charge.
At the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, Serena passed on some key intel to June and her Mayday rebels. She also apologized to June for, well… everything, a decision that helped nudge her toward the spiritual healing she so desperately craved. The last we saw, she and her son were in a UN refugee camp. It couldn’t be farther from her former life in one of Gilead’s most luxurious mansions, but it also couldn’t feel more like a step in the right direction.
Speaking of luxurious mansions, in the sequel series The Testaments, one of the first characters we meet is Paula MacKenzie (Amy Seimetz). She’s horseback riding around the massive estate where she lives with her husband and his daughter—the show’s teenage heroine, Agnes (Chase Infiniti).
There’s an entirely different dynamic at play here than what we saw between Serena and June, though the levels of hostility are similar.
In the few years since Serena’s escape, the role of a Gilead wife has shifted somewhat. Handmaids are far less frequently used; we still haven’t seen one in The Testaments. The blue dresses are still part of the custom, as are the immaculate homes and intense paranoia. But Paula is Agnes’ stepmother in a culture where, increasingly, very young women are married off as soon as they become fertile. Their entire “education” revolves around learning how to be obedient wives.
Paula is Commander MacKenzie’s second wife, snagging that desirable position after the much kinder, gentler woman who’d raised Agnes died of an unspecified illness. Paula is haughty and controlling. She is a master of the sly insult, the calculated power move, the thinly veiled warning, and the withering put-down. “Slouching girls get fat husbands” is her idea of constructive advice.
“I’m an irritant to Paula,” Agnes tells us in one of her voice-overs. “She wants me married and gone.”
When Agnes gets her period in episode two—a phenomenon that speaks to Gilead’s work to reverse the fertility crisis—that means Paula is one step closer to getting what she wants. There’s almost a moment of tenderness as she shows Agnes how to use a sanitary napkin. “I was scared my first time too,” she confesses. “It’s a woman’s duty to pass on this kind of wisdom.”
She can’t resist making it about herself, though. “Of course, no one bothered to do it for me.”
We’d like to know more about Paula’s past, but that doesn’t come here. Instead, Paula almost smiles as she hands over a pad cover made by Tabitha, Agnes’ first adoptive mother. But the moment ends quickly as Paula springs into action, listing off all the appointments Agnes will need now that she’s “eligible.” After all, “We need to make her as appealing as possible.”
One of those appointments involves a visit to Gilead’s creepiest dentist, whose wandering hands are Agnes’ first lesson in being blatantly victimized and unable to say anything about it. Later, Paula forces Agnes to parade through a room filled with Commander MacKenzie’s colleagues as the older men slide their beady eyes over her approvingly. It’s repulsive and only underlines the fact that Agnes won’t be able to turn to her stepmother for any emotional support in the future.
This week’s episode, “Green Tea,” plunged us directly into the intricate process Gilead uses to choose husbands for its newly ripe offerings. Surprisingly, this step involves very few men. Instead, it’s Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and her minions, who assemble for a tea party to ascertain whether the girls have what it takes to be a Commander’s wife.
The Aunts also arrange the marriages, so their opinions are of extreme importance. “One stumble, and you could be forever fucked,” Daisy (Lucy Halliday) explains to us in voiceover. Since the domestic servants known as “Marthas” do all the cooking, flower arranging, and cookie frosting, all the daughters have to do is look flawless and make sure they don’t spill any tea.
The party is held at the MacKenzies’ mansion, where Paula, the hostess, is the alpha among the wives. As Daisy explains to us, that’s because she’s married to the most important Commander. “She has power—reflected, but still. That’s what all these girls desperately want. Power is survival in Gilead.” It’s all Paula has, and she clings to it.
The event is tense. The girls march around with their tea pots using precise movements, and everyone’s on point.
Then, Paula catches sight of one of Agnes’ classmates: the prim, nervously smiling Miriam (Birva Bandya). For reasons known only to Paula, Miriam triggers her mean-girl instincts. (Much praise to Seimetz for making us feel Paula’s sudden anger using just her flicking eyes and clenched jawline.)
Paula makes her move right as Miriam is gliding past her. Nobody sees Paula rumpling the rug with her foot. They only see Miriam stumbling—gasp!—and spilling her tea. Disaster! It’s an unforgivable infraction, dooming Miriam to the least desirable husband in the pool, if she’s even deigned worthy of a match at all.
Why does Paula go after Miriam? There’s no context for any relationship between Paula and Miriam or Miriam’s family. This is not even a character that The Testaments has highlighted in any particular way. Paula is apparently just that impulsive and horrible. Perhaps she thought it would help Agnes’ chances, and maybe get her out of the nest that much faster?
Or maybe it’s just that Paula thrives on causing chaotic evil.
We get a deeper clue about why Paula treats Agnes with such disdain at the end of the episode. After Agnes accidentally breaks her tooth at the tea party, she returns to the dreaded dentist for a quick repair.
Paula checks out his handiwork when Agnes returns and gives her approval. Then, she gets a weird dig in: “I blame your mother for this. She gave you weak teeth.”
Not Tabitha, of course. Paula’s referring to Agnes’ mysterious birth mother.
“It’s not your fault you come from weak genes,” Paula adds. “It’s where that rebellious streak comes from.” If Testaments viewers hadn’t already guessed, that’s a big hint for anyone who doesn’t know who Agnes’ real mother is.
Either way, Paula definitely knows the truth, and she’s been holding it against Agnes this whole time. It’s just the sort of petty thing Paula would do. Now we have to wonder: what will she do next? We have a feeling Serena-style evolution, growth, and personal reckonings are not on the table here.
New episodes of The Testaments arrive Wednesdays on Hulu and Disney+.
SAVE $9.01: As of April 15, the Apple MacBook Neo base model is on sale for $589.99 at Amazon. While that may not be a huge discount from its $599 list price, it’s the best price we’ve seen since its March launch.
$589.99 at Amazon
$599 Save $9.01
Apple’s new budget laptop, which just launched last month, is already selling in droves. It’s hard to pass up a MacBook that only costs $599, after all. If you haven’t already secured one for yourself, you can now pick one up for even less.
It ain’t much, but at just $589.99 at Amazon, the Apple MacBook Neo base model (A18 Pro, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) is officially down to its best price ever. We saw the budget-friendly MacBook drop to $595 during the Big Spring Sale, but this is the first time it’s broken through the $590 threshold.
Mashable’s tech editor tested the MacBook Neo and loved it. “If I were a Windows laptop that cost under $1,000, I’d be shaking in my boots,” he writes. It’s not meant to be a hefty work laptop for professionals. Instead, it’s designed for everyday tasks like streaming and web browsing — and for those tasks, it performs seamlessly (just as fast as an M4 MacBook Air). It has the same premium aluminum build as any other MacBook, but runs on an iPhone chip: the A18 Pro (same as the iPhone 16 Pro).
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Other specs include a 13-inch Liquid Retina display with a 60Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness, WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 6, 8GB of RAM, two USB-C ports, a MagSage charging port, and a headphone jack. And for those concerned about the 8GB of RAM, Mashable’s reviewer notes that “it performed surprisingly well.” For students or those looking for a second laptop for non-work, the Neo is hard to beat.
This is the least ideal time to be upgrading your GPU that I’ve seen in the past couple of decades. Trust me, I should know. My PC cost more than my car. Due to the influence of AI on the consumer PC hardware market, graphics cards that were launched years ago are currently retailing at higher prices than they initially launched at.
In our current, extra-unstable economic climate, we all really should be trying to wring out every last ounce of value from the technology we currently own. On that note, I’m going to try and convince you why you really shouldn’t upgrade your current GPU.
Be it the increasing influence of supersampling on frame rates or why a monitor upgrade is more sensible than a graphics card one, here are the main reasons you should keep the GPU you’re using right now.
It’s not major gains, but any strain off the CPU is good to me.
GPU prices are completely out of control
Blame AI for the farce of the graphics card market
Credit: Dave Meikleham / MakeUseOf
This is probably the main reason you should stick with your current GPU: graphics card prices have become obscene. Thanks to companies hoarding GPUs for data center purposes, there’s never been a worse time to try to buy a new graphics card.
I thought I overpaid for my Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 a year ago. And make no mistake, I did. Yet that $2,700 outlay on a card that initially launched at $1,999 (well, in the seconds before the bots bought every 5090 going) no longer looks so ludicrously steep. If you’re in the market for the world’s fastest consumer GPU at the time of writing, you’ll have to stump up a minimum of $3,500.
It’s not just the highest end of the GPU market that has been wildly affected by AI-skewed market factors. Even the distinctly mid-range RTX 5060 is retailing for roughly $100 more than it did when it launched in the first part of 2025.
Until the current AI boom has leveled out, modern GPUs are unlikely to fall back to fair retail prices.
Upscalers have made raw GPU power less important
DLSS and FSR represent the way forward for high frame rates
Credit: Nvidia
AI-driven upscalers are no longer the future; they’re very much the now. And they have been for more than a hot minute. Supersampling has completely changed triple-A PC gaming. Whether you lean on Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) as a Team Green GPU owner, or AMD’s agnostic FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), you no longer need a super-powerful graphics card to enjoy modern PC titles at console-beating frame rates.
I’ve been leaning on Nvidia DLSS for years, and it’s now so good in the latest 4.5 iteration that this form of supersampling often looks cleaner than native screen resolution gameplay. I might not love the AI-focused nature of this trend, but there’s no denying that software developments are driving cutting-edge PC gaming more than hardware evolution at the time of writing.
If you bought a new GPU in the last five years, it likely supports both DLSS and FSR. Throw in the increasing amount of games that use frame generation to produce ludicrously high frame rates, and the argument for owning a best-in-class graphics card quickly diminishes.
Dial down settings before buying a new GPU
Going from Ultra to Medium isn’t a huge deal
Credit: Dave Meikleham \ MakeUseOf
See that impressive shot above? That’s Cyberpunk 2077 with every single graphical setting tuned to its lowest value. No ray tracing. The lowest form of ambient occlusion available. And with pretty much every visually appealing bell and whistle dialed down as much as CD Projekt RED’s open-world adventure will allow. And you know what? It still looks damn good in motion.
Before you consider breaking the bank on a new GPU, it’s well worth fiddling around with in-game settings. Modern PC games look so good that the difference between Ultra and Medium presets can be incredibly hard to tell, unless you’re comparing side-by-side screenshots.
Lowering presets can help your current GPU achieve 60FPS results at your native screen resolution. As long as you’re hitting that magic, oh-so-responsive 60 on your current hardware through settings adjustments, you really don’t need a new graphics card. Well, unless you’re a budding eSports champ thirsting for 240FPS Call of Duty action.
Cloud gaming can produce results on par with native hardware
GeForce Now Ultimate has changed the game
Credit: Dave Meikleham \ MakeUseOf
Short of attempting to stick a ring on its imaginary finger, I could scarcely be more smitten by Nvidia GeForce Now Ultimate. The $20p/m, top subscription tier of Team Green’s streaming service harnesses the power of data centers to deliver results on a par with a PC using a native RTX 5080. As such, you can deploy the rendering grunt of the world’s second-fastest consumer GPU if your broadband hits around 45Mbps to provide 4K/120FPS gaming.
The results are incredibly impressive. I’ve messed around with GeForce Now both on my PC and an Nvidia app that transformed how I use my Steam Deck. In both instances, the streaming results aren’t massively removed from what the best native GPU hardware is capable of delivering.
In open-world games like Crimson Desert, where you’re constantly staring at wide-open blue skies, the odd instance of compression-based macroblocking can be spotted. Yet if it comes to sacrificing a little visual quality for the price of your average takeaway for quality remote 4K gaming every month vs a $2000+ GPU, I know which option my beleaguered bank balance would prefer.
Upgrade your monitor before your GPU
Your displays matter far more than you might think
Are you still using a 1080p/60Hz monitor? Then, in the majority of cases, you really shouldn’t be considering a GPU upgrade. To this day, Steam hardware surveys continue to point out that most gamers who play on Valve’s platform are using 1080p displays. If you’re one of these folks, I’d highly recommend upgrading your screen before being tempted to buy a new graphics card.
If you have a semi-recent GPU, like an Nvidia 20-series(or better), but are still stuck on a sub-1440p display, you should make replacing your current monitor your biggest PC hardware upgrade priority. In terms of PC gaming in 2026, you want an HDMI 2.1 monitor that can take advantage of full 120Hz features, while also supporting frame-smoothing Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) tech.
And if you own an IPS or VA panel, regardless of resolution, I can’t recommend upgrading to an OLED monitor in stronger terms. The benefits of incredible contrast performance and infinite black levels are going to benefit your favorite games more than an extra 10-20 FPS.
This is the worst time to buy a new GPU in years
Credit: Dave Meikleham \ MakeUseOf
Blame AI data centers, blame bots that hoover up new GPUs before you have a hope of getting them into your online basket. These factors have twisted the GPU market massively. That means you should try to squeeze the maximum value out of your graphics card that might be a couple of generations old.
As a parting shot, as much as I adore my RTX 5090, there’s no way I’m ever going to recommend paying hundreds of dollars above MSRP for any piece of tech. Keep your current GPU, and squeeze the most out of it.
Brand
Gigabyte
GPU Speed
2.73 GHz
Memory
16GB
Power
360W TDP
CUDA Cores
10,752
The Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5080 delivers next-generation performance for gaming and creative workloads, featuring advanced ray tracing, AI-enhanced graphics, and high-speed GDDR7 memory. Its robust cooling system ensures stable operation under load, while factory overclocking and modern connectivity make it ideal for high-resolution gaming, streaming, and demanding GPU-intensive tasks.
Apr 14, 2026; San Diego, California, USA; San Diego Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts (2) hits a RBI single during the eighth inning against the Seattle Mariners at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: David Frerker-Imagn Images
In recent years, the San Diego Padres haven’t played well or gotten much good luck against the Seattle Mariners, reflected in their 4-14 record against their interleague rivals in their previous 18 meetings before Tuesday night.
But if Xander Bogaerts’ two RBI hits during a 4-1 victory in the opener of a three-game series are any indication, that record and luck might be changing.
Exit velocity might not have wowed the analytics crowd, but the results were good enough for San Diego to notch its sixth straight win and its ninth victory in the past 10 games.
The Padres will try to keep rolling Wednesday night when they shoot for a series win over Seattle in San Diego.
Bogaerts pushed his batting average to .270 after recording three hits on Tuesday. He drove in two runs in the third inning with a looping single to shallow center and knocked in another run in the eighth by dinking a single over a drawn-in infield.
If nothing else, it shows the value of simply making contact instead of striking out. And Padres manager Craig Stammen said Bogaerts was due a peck on the cheek from the baseball gods.
“He didn’t really hit them as hard as he’s been hitting them,” Stammen said. “But we talk about the luck kind of turning our way and some of those softer hits falling in.”
San Diego has outscored opponents 40-15 during its winning streak, taking every game by at least three runs. The Padres will try to extend the streak to seven behind right-hander Randy Vasquez (1-0, 1.02 ERA), their best starting pitcher through the first 17 games.
Vasquez has allowed just two runs in 17 2/3 innings and is coming off a no-decision in the team’s 7-3, 12-inning win Thursday night against Colorado. He scattered seven hits over 5 2/3 innings but allowed just one run and struck out eight.
Seattle will counter with right-hander Emerson Hancock (2-1, 2.04 ERA), who last pitched on Friday night and got the win in a 9-6 verdict over Houston. Hancock lasted five innings, allowing four hits and three runs, with two walks and five strikeouts.
Hancock has pitched well in two career starts against the Padres, logging a 1.86 ERA in 9 2/3 innings without a decision.
Vasquez, in his fourth season in the majors, will face the Mariners for the first time.
Seattle appeared to have found some offense during a four-game sweep of the Houston Astros in a wraparound weekend series, but on Tuesday, that attack was replaced by the pop-gun offense that served as a source of frustration in the season’s first three weeks.
The Mariners managed four hits off Michael King and three relievers. Their batting average is a meager .205, ranked 28th in MLB, and they have only 70 runs, well below the Astros’ MLB-leading 102.
That offensive output has wasted some pretty good pitching. As a team, Seattle is second in ERA at 3.02 and leads MLB in WHIP (walks plus hits/innings pitched) at 1.06.
Hitters such as Josh Naylor, who have been struggling, know that there’s plenty of time to turn things around.
“This game we play is the hardest game in the world, in my opinion,” said Naylor, who is batting .134 this season. “So I think trying to do things to minimize thinking too much, I guess, that helps you in the long run.”
