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Showing posts from November, 2018

Iiyama Launches G-Master GB2760QSU Display: WQHD at 144 Hz

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Iiyama is a brand that is tightly associated with monitors for creative professionals and prosumers looking primarily for accurate colors, factory calibration and other features necessary for their work. Three years ago, Iiyama finally introduced its G-Master trademark for gaming LCDs, and since then the company has been gradually expanding this lineup. leading to their current family of diverse devices. This week the company added another monitor to the family, launching its first 27-inch gaming LCD featuring a WQHD panel and a 144 Hz refresh rate. The Iiyama G-Master GB2760QSU display relies on a 27-inch 6-bit+FRC TN panel featuring a 2560×1440 resolution, 350 nits brightness (typical), a 1000:1 contrast ratio (typical), 170°/160° viewing angles, a 1 ms GtG response time, as well as a 50 – 140 Hz refresh enabled by AMD’s FreeSync technology. The monitor can display 16.7 million colors and reproduce 99% of the sRGB color space as well as 72% of the NTSC space. Since the LCD

Anton's List of Impressive Products from 2018

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As part of our Holiday Season series of best picks, sometimes the items that impress aren't in those lists. Out of all the people on our team, Anton as our news editor has the widest remit, so I asked him to come up with a list of the products the most impressed him through 2018. It's a super fun list, as Anton goes through his interesting laptops, smartphones, displays, and SSDs. There's even spinning rust on this list! -Ian

Shuttle XPC Slim DH370 Barebones PC: Coffee Lake with Three 4K Display Outputs

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Shuttle has introduced its new ultra-compact personal computer, the XPC Slim DH370. The new desktop PC barebones is aimed primarily at multi-display special-purpose applications and can drive up to three monitors using Intel’s iGPU, but it can naturally be used as an office or home computer. The XPC Slim DH370 is designed for Coffee Lake processors with up to six cores and mainstream TDP. Shuttle’s latest XPC slim DH370 comes in a small chassis measuring 19×16.5×4.3 cm, the same as the XPC slim DH310 launched back in August. Both systems support Intel’s 8 th  Gen up to six cores and use Shuttle’s ICE module featuring a large heatsink and two 60-mm fans, one of which is PWM-controlled. Both machines support up to Intel’s six-core Core i7-8700 processor. Shuttle guarantees that its ICE modules can ensure a stable 24/7 operation in 50⁰C environments. As the name suggests, the key difference between the XPC Slim DH370 and the XPC Slim DH310 is the chipset. Intel’s H370 chipset

ADATA XPG Launches Gaming microSD Cards, up to 512GB

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ADATA this week launched its lineup of microSD cards aimed at gamers. The ADATA XPG microSD cards offer capacities up to 512 GB, and are compliant with the 'App Performance Class 1' standard for guaranteed performance. ADATA’s XPG lineup of microSDXC cards includes 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB models and are rated for up to 100 MB/s sequential read speed as well as up to 85 MB/s write speed. The cards are compliant with the Video Speed Class V30 requirements and therefore guarantee a minimum write speed of 30 MB/s. Being A1-compliant, the cards also provide a sustained performance of at least 1500 random read IOPS as well as at least 500 random write IOPS. Being aimed at Google Android-based smartphones/tablets, Nintendo Switch consoles, various VR headsets, and other microSD devices, ADATA’s XPG microSDXC cards feature an extended temperature range and can operate in the range between -25ºC to 85ºC (-13ºF to 185ºF), which makes them useful not only for gamers, but also

Knights Mill Spotted at Supercomputing

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All the way back at Hot Chips 2017, we saw Intel launch its upgraded Xeon Phi processors, Knights Mill. These were updated versions of Knights Landing, using the same upgraded Silvermont x86 cores paired with AVX-512 units and MCDRAM, but focusing on variable length instructions for machine learning. Despite the launch way back when, we had not heard much about anyone using them. Until this past week, that is.

Best Mechanical Keyboards: Holiday 2018

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Continuing our run of holiday buyers' guides, today we're taking a look at peripherals. Considering that a PC’s peripherals can easily outlive the main system’s components and usually stay the same even after several main system upgrades, they are often not given the attention they deserve. Keyboards are just such a component; it is the main interface with the PC, yet most casual users hardly stop to consider what would be the most practical/comfortable choice for them.

Best CPUs for Workstations: 2018

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In our series of Best CPU guides, here’s the latest update to our recommended workstation CPUs list. All numbers in the text are updated to reflect pricing at the time of writing. Numbers in graphs reflect SRP for AMD and 1k pricing for Intel. Best CPUs for Workstations 2018 Sometimes choosing a CPU is hard. So we've got you covered. In our CPU Guides, we give you our pick of some of the best processors available, supplying data from our reviews. Our Best CPUs for Workstations guide mostly covers workstation processors available to consumers, although some server products cover both segments. Workstation CPU Recommendations: 2018 Segment Processor Best Overall Choice AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X $899 Maximum Performance Intel Core i9-9980XE AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX $1979 $1730 Maximum PCIe 1P 60 AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1900X $320 128 A

The Mushkin Source 500GB SATA SSD Review: A Value Proposition For An Everyday PC

QLC SATA SSDs haven't quite hit the consumer market just yet, so the most affordable entry-level SSDs are still DRAMless designs with TLC NAND. The Mushkin Source is a current-generation example that provides only modest improvements over older DRAMless SSDs, but is adequate for most home systems.

Best PC Power Supplies: Holiday 2018

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Now that you've picked out your CPU , it's time to start picking out the rest of your system components. And perhaps the most humble but overlooked of these components is the power supply unit (PSU). Available in a wide range of sizes and power capacities, there are a number of great PSUs out there, but choosing between them can be a challenge. So today we're bringing you our annual PC power supply guide, to help you sort figure out what the best options are, be it a low-wattage unit for a small form factor PC, or a hulking kilowatt unit for the most powerful PC.

NVIDIA Announces Q3 FY 2019 Results: Lots Of Stock

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This afternoon, NVIDIA announced their earnings for the third quarter of their 2019 fiscal year. Revenue was up 21% year-over-year to $3.181 billion. NVIDIA had margins this quarter of 60.4%, up 0.9% from the same time last year. Operating income for the quarter was $1.058 billion, up 18% from a year ago, and due to a booked tax benefit of $149 million, net income was $1.23 billion, up 47% from a year ago. Earnings per share came in at $1.97, up 48%. NVIDIA Q3 2019 Financial Results (GAAP)   Q3'2019 Q2'2018 Q3'2018 Q/Q Y/Y Revenue $3181M $3123M $2636M +2% +21% Gross Margin 60.4% 63.3% 59.5% -2.9% +0.9% Operating Income $1058M $1157M $895M -9% +18% Net Income $1230M $1101M $838M +12% +47% EPS $1.97 $1.76 $1.33 +12% +48% Gami

The Supermicro X11SCA-W Motherboard Review: For Entry Level Xeon

Intel recently released its server focused C246 chipset to the market to supplement the release of the entry-level Xeon E-2100 series of processors. On that day Supermicro released four different C246 models onto the market including the X11SCA-W which we are taking a look at today. The Supermicro X11SCA-W has support for up to 64GB of ECC and non-ECC memory, eight SATA ports, dual M.2 and a single U.2 port. The goal here is for a good run-of-the-mill Xeon E motherboard.

AnandTech Forums XenForo 2.0 Upgrade Today (11/14)

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For our forum regulars who may be wondering what’s going on – or even just onlookers who are curious as to what’s up at AnandTech – you’ll want to know that we’re giving the AnandTech Forums a well-deserved upgrade today to XenForo 2.0. As a result of the upgrade, the Forums will be in read-only mode for most of the day, as we’re expecting the upgrade to take into the evening. Behind the scenes, the community and dev teams are in the process of upgrading our forums from XenForo 1.5 to XenForo 2.0 . A medium-sized update, the latest version of XenForo adds several features that the community team is eager to get deployed, including quick thread replies, a better user interface (including keyboard navigation!), HiDPI images, and of course forum load time improvements. We’re expecting this to take around 12 hours – wrapping up at around 9pm EST – however as with any big server update, this is subject to change depending on how well the process goes. In particular, the AnandTech

Intel Partner Discloses Cascade Lake Xeon Scalable Launch Window

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This week at Supercomputing, everyone is getting excited about next generation hardware, not only on x86 but also GPUs, POWER, Arm, FPGAs, and accelerators. The danger of having so many partners trying to get business for their products and discuss future generations of products is that not everything is qualified through the original manufacturers and leaks are made. This is one such leak.

Google Rolls Out Night Sight Tech to Improve Quality of Low-Light Photos

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Google on Wednesday began to roll out its Night Sight low-light computational photography technology to its Pixel-branded smartphones. The technology is designed to improve the quality of low-light photos, though with one significant caveat: it cannot handle moving objects. As noted on our recent Pixel 3 smartphone review , one big thing brought by the latest generation of Google’s handsets is computational photography, which currently supports two modes to improve the picture quality of still pictures: Super Res Zoom, and Night Sight . As the names imply, the first one promises to introduce a superior zoom, whereas the second one enhances lighting. Both algorithms capture multiple temporally different images by the same sensor, then blend them and apply a special filter to either increase the spatial resolution or image exposure (without adding noise). Since the algorithms capture multiple pictures in burst mode, when something in the frame is moving, the Night Sight mode prod

SK Hynix Develops First 16 Gb DDR5-5200 Memory Chip, Demos DDR5 RDIMM

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SK Hynix on Thursday announced that it had completed development of its first DDR5 memory chip. The new chip offers a capacity of 16 Gb and is said to be the industry’s first DRAM that is fully compliant with the JEDEC standard, which is yet to be published. Meanwhile, mass production of SK Hynix's DDR5 memory chips is slated for 2020. The new DDR5 chip from SK Hynix supports a 5200 MT/sec/pin data transfer rate, which is 60% faster than the 3200 MT/s rate officially supported by DDR4. Meanwhile the DRAM operates at 1.1 Volts, a 9% decrease in operating voltage. The monolithic 16 Gb chip is made using SK Hynix’s second generation 10 nm-class process technology (also known as 1Ynm), though the company does not disclose its die size and other peculiarities. Looking forward, SK Hynix expects its DDR5 lineup to include DRAM chips at 8 Gb, 16 Gb, and 32 Gb capacities, with data transfer rates ranging from 3200 to 6400 MT/s. Besides announcing the memory chip, SK Hynix also de

The Intel Core i9-9980XE CPU Review: Refresh Until it Hertz

It has been over a year since Intel launched its Skylake-X processors and Basin Falls platform, with a handful of processors from six-core up to eighteen-core. In that time, Intel’s competition has gone through the roof in core count, PCIe lanes, and power consumption. In order to compete, Intel has gone down a different route, with its refresh product stack focusing on frequency, cache updates, and an updated thermal interface. Today we are testing the top processor on that list, the Core i9-9980XE.

Just When You Thought It Was Dead: Qualcomm Centriq Arm Server Systems Spotted

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Much to our surprise, we saw a Qualcomm Centriq server from an OEM at Supercomputing this week.

Seasonic To Increase Power Supply Prices In United States Next Month

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In a bit of an unusual move, Seasonic is announcing in advance that they intend to increase the prices of most of their power supplies in the United States. Citing "recent market developments" - i.e. the tariffs imposed by the U.S. government on select components manufactured in China - the company will be increasing the recommended prices of its products to cover the higher costs. The new MSRPs will become effective on December 1st, 2018, Once the new prices go into effect, all Seasonic products made in China and sold in the U.S. will become $5 to $20 more expensive, depending on the product and its original price. It's worth noting that Seasonic is listing their manufacturer suggested retail prices here, and these are not the prices that retailers are actually paying for the hardware. So actual retail prices will depend both on what the real cost is to retailers, and what kind of margins they're aiming for. Meanwhile, all orders placed prior to December 1st

AMD Unveils ‘Chiplet’ Design Approach: 7nm Zen 2 Cores Meet 14 nm I/O Die

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AMD on Tuesday disclosed some additional details about its upcoming codenamed Rome processor based on its Zen 2 microarchitecture. As it turns out, the company will use a new design approach with its next-generation EPYC CPUs that will involve CPU ‘chiplets’ made using TSMC’s 7 nm manufacturing technology as well as an I/O die made using a 14 nm fabrication process. AMD’s chiplet design approach is an evolution of the company’s modular design it introduced with the original EPYC processors featuring its Zen microarchitecture. While the currently available processors use up to four Zen CPU modules, the upcoming EPYC chips will include multiple Zen 2 CPU modules (which AMD now calls ‘chiplets’) as well as an I/O die made using a mature 14 nm process technology. The I/O die will feature Infinity Fabrics to connect chiplets as well as eight DDR DRAM interfaces. Since the memory controller will now be located inside the I/O die, all CPU chiplets will have a more equal memory access

Intel Xeon E Six-Core Review: E-2186G, E-2176G, E-2146G, and E-2136 Tested

Despite having officially launched back in July, Intel’s Xeon E desktop platform has yet to see the light of day in systems casually available to users or small businesses. This should change today, with the official embargo lift for reviews on the parts, as well as the announcement today that SGX-enabled versions are coming for Server use. The Xeon E platform is the replacement for what used to be called the E3-1200 family, using Intel’s new nomenclature, and these parts are based on Intel’s Coffee Lake (not Coffee Lake Refresh) microarchitecture. We managed to get a few processors in to test, and today we’ll start by examining most of the six-core family.

ZOTAC Unveils VR GO 2.0 Wearable PC: Core i7-8700T Meets GeForce GTX 1070

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ZOTAC this week officially launched its second-generation VR GO wearable backpack PC for VR gaming. The new VR GO 2.0 system is somewhat smaller and marginally lighter than the one ZOTAC introduced back in 2016, though the only tangible performance upgrade versus the previous-gen backpack PC is Intel’s six-core processor. The manufacturer announced plans to release its second-gen VR GO back at Computex, but did not disclose its exact specs. This week ZOTAC finally revealed that the new VR GO 2.0 system is outfitted with Intel’s six-core Core i7-8700T processor and paired with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1070 GPU with 8 GB of GDDR5, 16 GB of DDR4 memory, and a 240 GB M.2 SSD with a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. The system also has a 2.5-inch bay for another storage device so to provide plenty of capacity to install more games. Technically, the system can accommodate other CPUs and GPUs, but due to thermal concerns ZOTAC will offer its new backpack PC with the aforementioned hardware only (at

AMD EPYC for ATX Workstations: GIGABYTE MZ01-CE0 & MZ01-CE1 Motherboards

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AMD’s EPYC processor has made it into servers and supercomputers, yet it still has to find its place inside workstations. To a large degree that is because up until recently there were no motherboards for these CPUs on the market. ASRock Rack was first to showcase such a mainboard at Computex. Now, GIGABYTE is coming up not with one, but with two ATX mobos for AMD’s EPYC aimed at workstations. GIGABYTE’s lineup of ATX motherboards for AMD’s EPYC consists of two motherboards, the MZ01-CE0 and MZ01-CE1 . Both feature a socket for AMD’s EPYC, four PCIe x16 slots (as expected from a CPU that has 64 128 spare PCIe lanes) compatible with dual-slot graphics cards and accelerators, a PCIe x8 slot, eight DDR4 slots supporting up to 1 TB of DDR4 ECC memory, an M.2 slot for SSDs, and four SlimSAS ports for up to 16 SATA storage devices. Despite being ATX-compatible, the two motherboards from GIGABYTE can be used to build both workstations as well as servers. The MZ01-CE0 and MZ01-CE1 p

The Google Pixel 3 Review: The Ultimate Camera Test

The Pixel 3 is Google’s third generation in-house design, meant to showcase the company’s own view of what an Android device should be, whilst fully embracing Google’s first-party software applications and services. The one thing Google’s Pixel phones have become synonymous with is the camera experience. The Pixel 3 continues this focal point of the line-up, and promises to be “the best smartphone camera”, period. We’ll dive into the phone and verify Google claims, including an extensive camera comparison between all of this year’s major camera shooters.

AMD Announces Radeon Instinct MI60 & MI50 Accelerators: Powered By 7nm Vega

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As part of this morning’s Next Horizon event, AMD formally announced the first two accelerator cards based on the company’s previously revealed 7nm Vega GPU . Dubbed the Radeon Instinct MI60 and Radeon Instinct MI50, the two cards are aimed squarely at the enterprise accelerator market, with AMD looking to significantly improve their performance competitiveness in everything from HPC to machine learning. Both cards are based on AMD’s 7nm GPU, which although we’ve known about at a high level for some time now, we’re only finally getting some more details on. GPU is based on a refined version of AMD’s existing Vega architecture, essentially adding compute-focused features to the chip that are necessary for the accelerator market. Interestingly, in terms of functional blocks here, 7nm Vega is actually rather close to the existing 14nm “Vega 10” GPU: both feature 64 CUs and HBM2. The difference comes down to these extra accelerator features, and the die size itself. With respect