Kang Gosol

So far Intel's 9th Gen Core on desktop only features three models aimed at the higher end of the spectrum. The launch of the lineup consisting of these three products with unlocked multiplier does not yet have any “locked” parts aimed at mainstream PCs, although we are expecting them at some point. The question is one of when they will come. As it appears, from listings of numerous companies in the supply chain, Intel is finally gearing up to expand its Coffee Lake Refresh family with new models. The products in question are the eight-core Core i9-9900KF and Core i7-9700KF, as well as the six-core Core i5-9600KF and Core i5-9400F. These devices have been listed by retailers  Data-Systems.Fi , Newegg , and distributor  Synnex (see screenshots below). According to Intel’s existing nomenclature, the CPUs with model numbers ending with F, like 9400F lack integrated graphics, so we suspect the new processors will primarily target higher-end systems featuring discrete graphics.

Earlier this year, Kensington announced their new docking station specifically designed for the Microsoft Surface Pro. The SD7000 transforms the Surface Pro into a miniature version of the Surface Studio, and offers some unique features as well. Looking at the design and it is very clear where Kensington is getting their inspiration. The two chrome arms on the side are a definite nod to the Surface Studio, and with the grey base, Kensington has done a great job to match the aesthetics of Microsoft’s all-in-one PC. And like the Surface Studio, the display can be adjusted from an upright vertical stance for use as a desktop, or rotated down for use with the pen. It’s a very clever way to ensure that the Surface Pro doesn’t lose functionality when docked to a set of desktop peripherals. There’s a magnetic mounting point on the left side to dock the pen when it’s not in use, and the right side features a slide-out Surface Connect port which is used to connect the Surface Pro to t

IO Data, a Japanese display vendor, has quietly started to sell gaming monitors featuring a sub-1 ms response time. The GigaCrysta family of displays are currently available only in Japan, but since the LCD panels used by IO Data are available to other monitors manufacturers as well, expect to see similar products arrive in other markets shortly. The IO Data GigaCrysta-series monitors in question are based on 24/24.5-inch TN panels featuring a Full-HD resolution, 60/144/240 Hz refresh rates, and as their main selling point, a 0.6 ms – 0.8 ms GtG response time when the overdrive function is activated (see exact specs in the table below). Other characteristics of the display are just what you come to expect from fast TN panels, including 250, 300 or 400 nits maximum brightness, a 1000:1 contrast ratio, 170°/160° horizontal/vertical viewing angles, and so on. The GigaCrysta monitors from IO Data are clearly aimed at gamers, so they support special modes that makes dark scenes loo

AMD has announced availability of the Athlon 220GE and Athlon 240GE processors it announced back in September. Based on the Zen microarchitecture and featuring built-in Radeon Vega graphics, these parts are priced well below $100 per unit, focusing on the mass market, and the new chips have a TDP of 35 W. Coming on the heels of the Athlon 200GE chip introduced earlier this year, the new Athlon 220GE and Athlon 240GE processors increase the performance of AMD’s inexpensive CPUs and make the company’s sub-$100 desktop product line more complete. Just like the Athlon 200GE, the new 220GE and 240GE models integrate two SMT-enabled Zen cores operating at 3.4 and 3.5 GHz frequency (respectively), a Radeon Vega iGPU featuring 192 stream processors operating at 1 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 4 MB L3 cache, a dual-channel DDR4-2667 memory controller, and so on. Higher clocks enable AMD’s new Athlon processors to better compete against Intel’s entry-level Celeron and Pentium processors for the m

ADATA on Thursday introduced its highest-performing SSD to date, featuring sequential read speeds of up to 3.5 GB/s and random read speeds of up to 390K IOPS. The enthusiast-class PCIe 3.0 x4 drive, whose formal launch had been expected for quite a while, is powered by Silicon Motion’s range-topping controller. The ADATA XPG Gammix S11 Pro is based on Silicon Motion’s SM2262EN controller , which is a seriously revamped version of the SM2262 (eight NAND channels supporting up to 800 MT/s data transfer rates, four ARM Cortex-R5 cores, NVMe 1.3, LDPC ECC, RAID engine, etc.) that operates at higher clocks and features some additional firmware-based optimizations to drive performance up. SMI officially introduced this controller in mid-2017, but the chip took a long time to see adoption as we’ve only recently seen SSD vendors use it. ADATA is one of the adopters of the SM2262EN that have decided to pair it with proven 64-layer 3D TLC NAND memory in a high-end SSDs. Over time, we ex

Custom liquid cooling systems are built by hardcore enthusiasts who want to get absolutely no-compromise style and performance. Meanwhile, one of the trendiest features for enthusiasts introduced in the recent years, addressable and customizable RGB lighting, has so far only been supported by factory-built all-in-one liquid coolers. This week EKWB changed this by introducing its EK-Velocity, its first CPU water blocks with RGB LEDs. EKWB’s EK-Velocity D-RGB CPU water blocks feature the company’s brand-new internal design that relies on a nickel-plated electrolytic copper cold plate covered with black acetal or transparent plexiglass. Besides, the water blocks use a reinforced mounting bracket with smaller screws for additional style. The EK-Velocity D-RGB are outfitted with 24 LEDs that can be programmed using software from leading motherboard makers (ASUS Aura, MSI Mystic Lights, Gigabyte RGB Fusion, and ASRock Polychrome Sync) and is compatible external digital RGB controll

So you want to get some of that super fast, super low latency 5G goodness? AT&T has just announced pricing for their upcoming services to several US cities, and it doesn’t look too great.

One of the key announcements at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit in the past week was around OnePlus: CEO Pete Lau stood on stage and stated that the company would have the first Snapdragon 855 enabled device to market. Due to some special sleuthing, this isn’t the case. OnePlus also expanded on its plans for 5G, as well as what it expects to cost.

Mike Rayfield, senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group, will leave the company by the end of the month to spend more time with his family. David Wang will head the business unit while the company is looking for a new GM for RTG, which is left without a formal leader for the second time in one year. ​ Mike Rayfield , who previously led NVIDIA’s Tegra business unit and Micron’s mobile storage business unit, became the business lead of RTG serving as SVP and GM of the group. “Mike is retiring at the end of the year,” confirmed AMD in an email. “He has made the decision to spend more time with his family and pursue his personal passions. David Wang will be interim lead for Radeon Technologies Group while we finalize search for a new business leader.” David Wang , a renowned GPU engineer who worked at ATI/AMD from 2000 to 2012, contributing to all GPUs starting from the R300 down to the GCN 1.0, became senior vice president of engineering at R

If there’s one thing I love about this job, it’s about finding what makes the companies in our industry tick. This goes above and beyond just the product announcements, the reviews, or user experiences: it pays off to take heed of what a company is saying, how they are saying it, and how people inside the company feel. This is why Qualcomm’s annual Snapdragon Tech Summit is such a big deal: it’s hard to move in the smartphone space without bumping into Qualcomm, so an opportunity for the company to cover the technical aspects of its 2019 product goals is the prime time to analyze and scrutinize one of the biggest businesses in our industry. Here’s an overview of what happened through the week.

GIGABYTE has released its first servers based on overclockable Core X-series processors that offer a higher single-thread performance when compared to regular server CPUs. The new Overclocking Servers R161-series will be just what the doctor ordered for those who need to maximize per core performance and software investments. GIGABYTE’s R161-series servers support Intel’s Core X-series processors in LGA2066 packaging with up to 18 cores and are based on the Intel X299 chipset. Each R4 socket is outfitted with apparent high quality 11-phase VRM comprising of solid-state capacitors to ensure high overclocking potential and long-term stability and reliability. The machines are outfitted with eight DIMM slots that support up to 128 GB of overclocked DDR4 memory, two M.2-2280 slots for PCIe 3.0 x4 SSDs, two U.2. connectors for 2.5-inch PCIe SSDs, four SATA connectors for 2.5-inch storage devices (alternatively, an SAS add/on card can be used for SAS SSDs/HDDs), and two PCIe 3.0 x1

Today Qualcomm was granted an injunction against Apple, allowing for a ban of certain iPhone models in Germany. The announcement comes only a little over a week after a Chinese court ruled in a similar fashion against Apple, on the case that the company is infringing Qualcomm patents. The case in Germany is on the matter of infringing certain patents that cover the functioning of envelope tracking (ET). ET is a key component in the RF front-end of a cellular system, and its usage notably increases the power efficiency of the system by avoiding unnecessary losses on the side of the power amplifier. Qualcomm claims Apple’s implementation in certain devices infringes on their patents – in this case we’re talking about international models of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 which rely on Intel modems and a Qorvo ET chip. The ban is currently not yet active, as Qualcomm will need to post a bond of €668.4m before the order can be enforced. Meanwhile, Apple is naturally appealing the inju

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about MediaTek – the Helio P60 was the last release in the more visible “premium” range that the company now focuses on. The P70 released later this year seemingly was the same P60 chipset binned at a higher clock-speed. With new generation manufacturing processes around the corner, as well as Arm’s new Cortex IP cores, I’ve been expecting a new release from MediaTek for a while now. Today’s announcement is about the new Helio P90: The new chipset is quite a surprise as it isn’t exactly what I had expected. The P90 naming seemingly positions the chipset at the very high-end of the “P-series”, yet its specifications aren’t exactly matching this positioning. Let’s start on the specifications of the P90: MediaTek Current P-Series SoC Helio P90 Helio P60/P70 CPU 2x Cortex A75 @ 2.2GHz 6x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz 4x Cortex A73 @ 2.0/2.1GHz 4x Cortex A53 @ 2.0GHz GPU

In a surprise announcement, Lenovo has revealed its new flagship phone in China:  the new Z5 Pro. The phone wouldn’t have been anything particularly special if it weren’t for the fact that Lenovo is also offering a “GT” version of the model which comes with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 855. Effectively, this makes the Z5 Pro GT the very first S855 phone announced, and what seems to be also the first phone with the chipset that will be available for consumers. Lenovo Z5 Pro   Z5 Pro Z5 Pro GT SoC Snapdragon 710 2x Kryo 360 (CA75) @ 2.2GHz  6x Kryo 360 (CA55) @ 1.7GHz Adreno 616 Snapdragon 855 1x Kryo 485 Gold (A76 derivative) @ 2.84GHz 1x512KB pL2 3x Kryo 485 Gold (A76 derivative) @ 2.42GHz 3x256KB pL2 4x Kryo 485 Silver (A55 derivative) @ 1.80GHz 4x128KB pL2 2MB sL3 Adreno 640 Display 6

It has been difficult to move around in 2018 without bumping into someone with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845-powered smartphone. The success the company has seen in capturing most of the Android market has been exciting for the executives and helped accelerate a large number of use cases and experiences for users. With 2019 fast looming, and Qualcomm recently announcing both its new Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform and a good chunk of its next-generation 5G partnerships, we were able to spend some time with Cristiano Amon, President of Qualcomm, about recent developments and upcoming opportunities for the company.

One of the exciting things on display at Qualcomm's Snapdragon tech summit was their 5G reference smartphone design – the one that gets handed around to the smartphone vendors so they can initiate their own designs. Reference platforms are usually base and ‘generally good’ all-around designs that OEMs can take as a starting point, and so Qualcomm had to address one of the main issues with 5G with its QRD: size. Thanks to the extra 5G modem and the many antennas required for mmWave frequencies, 5G requires a good deal more hardware than current 4G phones. Qualcomm's reference design, in turn, is of reasonable dimensions, and not completely out of place amongst the larger modern smartphones of today.

The number of news stories about gaming displays that we post has increased significantly in the past couple of years. Established suppliers have broadened their lineups of gaming LCDs, and meanwhile new players have decided to join the party. Apparently, our coverage has been reflecting market sales trends, as sales of such monitors have been increasing at a rapid pace. According to WitsView, shipments of displays with a 100 Hz refresh rate or higher (i.e., gaming LCDs) will exceed five million units in 2018. Moreover, over half of them will be curved monitors. Curved Gaming LCDs Leave Flat Displays Behind Global sales of gaming displays with high refresh rates are expected to reach 5.1 million units in 2018, an annual growth of 100%, reports WitsView, a division of TrendForce. This is still a small fraction of the 126 million total LCDs projected to be sold in 2018 (up 1.5% year-over-year), according to the company. The researchers attribute the growing demand for displays

While the headline features of the new Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform might be the 5G connectivity, or the Cat 24 LTE modem, or the new CPU/GPU combination, further down the list is the fact that the S855 chip is also 802.11ax-ready. Under the new branding, this is ‘Wi-Fi 6’. Qualcomm had a demo to show it in action at the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit.

Enermax has introduced its new family of all-in-one liquid cooling systems (AIO LCS) for mainstream and high-end desktop CPUs. Capable of dissipating upwards of 500W of heat, the LiqTech II lineup includes models with 240-mm, 280-mm, and 360-mm radiators, all featuring a high-performance pump. To make the devices more attractive to modders, Enermax is also offering one of the LiqTech II SKUs in white. Interestingly, Enermax seems to be aiming for overkill here. The company, one of a handful of AIO LCS makers to target AMD's Threadripper platform, is porting their TR4 cooler design to this more mainstream cooler. The Enermax LiqTech II coolers are compatible with all mainstream sockets in use today, as well as Intel's HEDT socket, meaning it works with Intel’s LGA2066/2011/1366/115x sockets as well as AMD’s AMx/FMx. However AMD's TR4 socket continues to require one of the company' specialized extra-large TR4 coolers. The new AIO LCSes use the EF1 pump featuri