Kang Gosol

Amazon Japan has started to take pre-orders on Cosair’s upcoming PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. The MP600 SSDs will ship in mid-July, several days after AMD and its partners start to sell platforms that support the PCIe 4.0 interface. At press time, Amazon Japan is offering Corsair MP600 M.2-2280 SSDs with a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface featuring 1 TB and 2 TB capacity for ￥36,936 ($320) and ￥66,852 ($579), respectively. Considering the fact that we are talking about ultra-high-end client SSDs aimed at expensive desktops, their prices are not exactly surprising. Meanwhile, keep in mind that these are not their official MSRPs. UPDATE: Amazon US on Tuesday also started to take pre-orders on Corsair's MP600 SSDs. The 1 TB model costs $250 , whereas the 2 TB SKU is priced at $450 . Buy Corsair MP600 PCIe Gen 4 SSD on Amazon.com According to Corsair, its MP600 SSDs will offer up to 4950 MB/s sequential read speed as well as up to 4250 MB/s sequential write speed when u...

It’s nearing 8 months since Google released the Pixel 3 and we extensively reviewed the phone . It also has been several years now since Google abandoned the Nexus line of devices; one of the most attractive aspects during the early days of Google’s own phones was their incredible value proposition and very competitive pricing. As Google evolved the Pixel line of smartphones, it was clear that we’d no longer see quite as attractive price-tags, with the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL nearing the $1000/€ mark. Google apparently did see the higher price points as a hurdle for some consumers, and decided to expand its product line-up by introducing new mid-range devices at much more reasonable price-points, all while maintaining the key features that make the Pixel phones worth their namesake. The new Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL, the latter which we’re reviewing today, are very much derived from the same DNA that was established in the Pixel 2 and further iterated upon...

Having secured strong positions on the market for consumer SSDs, Silicon Motion is now after the enterprise SSD market. At Computex, the company demonstrated a prototype of an SSD based on its next-generation controller for enterprise applications, the SM8108. The key features of the controller include support for two DRAM interfaces for higher bandwidth and improved QoS, as well as support for the latest memory types, including 3D TLC and 3D QLC. The Silicon Motion SM8108 controller features a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and supports the NVMe 1.3 protocol. The controller has eight NAND channels, which have a peak transfer rate of 800 MT/sec, and overall the controller can support up to 16 TB of 3D TLC and 3D QLC NAND flash. Being aimed at enterprise applications, the SM8108 sports a dual DRAM interface to allow for more DRAM buffer bandwidth as well as isolation for improved QoS (i.e., more predictable performance under loads by several virtual machines), end-to-end data path protection...

SK Hynix on Thursday introduced its 2 nd generation enterprise-grade NVMe SSDs, which are based entirlely on the company's in-house SSD technology. The new drives offer 4 – 8 TB capacities depending on form-factor, and compared to their predecessors offer 30% improve sequential read speeds as well as 70% faster random write speeds. Select customers of SK Hynix have already received the new drives for qualification purposes. SK Hynix’s 2 nd gen enterprise NVMe SSDs are based on the company’s Gemini controller – an eight NAND channel design – as well as 72-layer 3D NAND chips marked at H25QFTMG4A9R (these stacks rely 512 Gb 3D TLC NAND devices with a 13.5 MB page size). The drives will be available in M.2 form-factor with up to 4 TB capacity as well as in U.2 form-factor with up to 8 TB capacity. As far as performance is concerned, SK Hynix says that its 2 nd gen enterprise NVMe SSDs offer up to 3.2 GB/s sustained sequential read speeds as...

Tul, the parent company of PowerColor, currently has two external graphics (eGFX) boxes for high-end graphics cards, as well as low-power miniature eGFX solutions. Both sides of the coin have allowed the company to gain a lot of experience when it comes to external Thunderbolt 3 graphics. At this year's Computex, the company demonstrated its upcoming enclosure for high-performance customers that will offer even more advantages over their previous-gen chassis. The TBX-750FA eGFX box is equipped with a 750 W power supply, which allows it to deliver up to 500 W of power to a graphics card as well as up to 100 W of power to its host laptop via USB-PD. With 500 W of power available to a video card, the chassis will be compatible even with the highest-performing video card, with a good bit of headroom to spare for overclocking. Furthermore, the box will be able to power high-end 15.6-inch laptops. Traditionally for Tul, and PowerColor, the TBX-750FA eGFX box supports...

When the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) first announced PCIe 4.0 a few years back, the group made it clear that they were not just going to make up for lost time after PCIe 3.0, but that they were going to accelerate their development schedule to beat their old cadence. Since then the group has launched the final versions of the 4.0 and 5.0 specifications, and now with 5.0 only weeks old , the group is announcing today that they are already hard at work on the next version of the PCIe specification, PCIe 6.0. True to PCIe development iteration, the forthcoming standard will once again double the bandwidth of a PCIe slot – a x16 slot will now be able to hit a staggering 128GB/sec – with the group expecting to finalize the standard in 2021. As with the PCIe iterations before it, the impetus for PCIe 6.0 is simple: hardware vendors are always in need of more bandwidth, and the PCI-SIG is looking to stay ahead of the curve by providing timely increases in bandwidth. Fu...

There are many reasons why external storage devices are gaining traction these days, so storage vendors have been aiming to expand their product lineups and offer storage solutions that meet market needs while still offering a degree of differentiation from their rivals. ADATA for its part already has a comprehensive lineup of consumer-grade external HDDs and SSDs, so at this year’s Computex the company introduced its new HD830 ruggedized external hard drive, which is designed to withstand rather tremendous pressure and is water, dust, and shock-proof. ADATA’s HD830 comes in 2 TB, 4 TB, and 5 TB capacities. The drive can survive up to 3 tons (3000 kilograms) of pressure – enough to survive being run over by a car. It can also withstand drops from 4 feet as well as the regular bumps of life. The HD830 storage devices are completely sealed against dust and water: they can survive for 120 minutes when submerged at a two-meter depth. The drives use a micro-B USB 3...

During Computex 2019, ASRock announced its upcoming X570 range ready for the launch of AMD's Ryzen 3000 series processors. One of the motherboard highlights of the show was the ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX TB3, which includes a very solid feature set including Thunderbolt 3 Type-C, a solid looking 10-phase power delivery, and a Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax wireless interface. The ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX TB3 joins a small handful of small form factor X570 models at launch but looks to stand-out from the crowd with a major feature; a Thunderbolt 3 Type-C connector on the rear panel. Following in line with the rest of its premium X570 product stack, ASRock has equipped the board with a hefty looking 10-phase power delivery, and official support for DDR4-4400 memory across two available slots. A single full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slot is located at the bottom of the board, with a single PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, and just four SATA ports. The networking is handled by an Intel Gigabit ...

Hard drives continue to remain the storage media of choice for cost-conscious consumers with bulk storage requirements. HDD vendors have typically used their 2.5" drives for bus-powered high-capacity models. This market segment has been stuck at the 4TB mainstream capacity point for a few years now, with the z-height of the models coming in at well over 15mm. Earlier this year, Seagate announced an update to their massive 5TB Backup Plus Portable, while also introducing a new svelte 2TB Backup Plus Slim external hard drive. Both of them adopt SMR platters (similar to the Backup Plus models being sold since late 2016 ), and given the performance impact of SMR, today we'll be taking a detailed look at how SMR in bus-powered hard drives behaves for consumer workloads.

LG has introduced the industry’s first IPS displays featuring a 1 ms response time. The new UltraGear monitors bring together high image quality that LG’s Nano IPS panels are known for, the DCI-P3 color gamut, high performance, and NVIDIA G-Sync support. Aimed primarily at gamers, the new UltraGear monitors will come in 27-inch and 37.5-inch sizes. The smaller monitor is the LG UltraGear 27GL850 that uses a 27-inch IPS panel featuring a 2560×1440 (16:9) resolution, 350 nits brightness, a 144 Hz refresh rate, and 1 ms GtG response time. The larger display is the UltraGear 38GL950G based on a 37.5-inch panel offering a wider aspect ratio 3840×1600 (21.5:9) resolution, 450 nits brightness, a 175 Hz refresh rate (when overclocked), and also a 1 ms response time. The smaller monitor supports HDR10, whereas the bigger one is DisplayHDR 400 certified. Both UltraGear 27GL850 and UltraGear 38GL950G LCDs can display 1.07 billion colors and cover 98% of the DCI-...

At Computex 2019, ASUS unveiled a number of ROG-branded motherboards aimed at gamers and enthusiasts for AMD's new X570 chipset. Most of them are ATX, but a small handful of models are designed for small form factor users and the ASUS ROG Strix X570-I Gaming is one such model with a mini-ITX sized PCB. The main features include Wi-Fi 6 support, dual PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, and dual video outputs on the rear panel. The ASUS ROG Strix X570-I Gaming is gaming-focused and represents its more mid-range Strix brand. On the smaller Mini-ITX form factor, the X570-I Gaming has plenty to shout about including two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots with one located on the front of the board with an inclusive heatsink, and another located on the rear of the PCB. Also featured which is impressive for a mini-ITX model is eight SATA ports. Similar to the widely anticipated Mini-DTX form factor ROG Crosshair VIII Impact model, the ROG Strix X570-I shares the same networking configuration with an Intel I211-AT...