Kang Gosol

Having launched a revamped version of its flagship Alienware 34-inch curved gaming display, Dell has also put together something similar for the broader mid-range gaming market. Dell new 32-inch QHD Curved Gaming Monitor is slightly smaller overall, but it offers variable refresh support via FreeSync 2 of up to 165 Hz, along with support for HDR content. Like many other FreeSync 2-enabled displays, the 32-inch monitor (model S3220DGF) uses a 31.5-inch curved VA panel featuring a 2560×1440 resolution, 400 nits brightness (typical), a 3000:1 contrast ratio, 178°/178° viewing angles, a 4 ms GtG response time, and a 165 Hz maximum refresh rate. In fact, Dell’s 32-inch Curved Gaming Monitor is one of the industry’s first FreeSync 2-enabled LCDs of this size and curvature, an important distinction since FreeSync sets requirements for panel quality and HDR support. As for the variable refresh range, it is rather wide: from 48 Hz to 144/165 Hz depending on the conn...

We don’t often cover the FPGA market here at AnandTech, but in the past couple of years we have seen the array of features that FPGAs are implementing expand at an incredible rate. Xilinx has been at some of the forefront of those innovations, with products such as Versal on 7nm and its Alveo family. One key part of Xilinx’s business is emulation and simulation, which requires large FPGAs to fit large designs onto - and the company recently lifted the lid on its latest creation, the Virtex Ultrascale+ VU19P. This new FPGA, when it comes to market, will hold the title of the World’s Largest FPGA.

Most laptops running Chrome OS are aimed at students or consumers, but this week Google introduced its Chromebook Enterprise initiative designed to make its platform viable for enterprise users as well, thus challenging Microsoft's Windows. Dell is the first major PC maker to launch Chromebook Enterprise notebooks designed for businesses and supporting appropriate security, management, and deployment features. The Chromebook Enterprise systems introduced this week are Dell’s Latitude 5300 2-in-1 Chrome convertible notebook with a touch-sensitive Full-HD 13.3-inch display as well as Latitude 5400 Chrome laptop with a 14-inch HD or Full-HD monitor with or without touch support. Both machines come in a post-industrial carbon fiber chassis that features carbon fiber reinforced polymer LCD back and has passed 17 MIL-STD tests. The laptops are 19.3 ~ 19.6 mm thick and weight 1.36 ~ 1.47 kilograms depending on the model. As for battery, Dell will offer options with a 4...

Lenovo on Tuesday formally unveiled its 4 th Generation ThinkPad X1 Yoga convertible notebooks aimed at 'road warriors and corporate users'. The new ThinkPad X1 Yoga comes in an all-new aluminum chassis, features a 14-inch display panel, and Intel’s 10 th Generation Core i5/i7 Comet Lake processors with four or six cores. While the new hybrid laptops are the lightest X1 Yoga machines to date, they also claim to be the most powerful at least when it comes to general-purpose performance. For the first time in history of the ThinkPad X1 Yoga product family, the new 4 th Gen machines come in a CNC-machined MILSPEC-graded all-aluminum chassis that is up to 15.5 mm thick and weighs around 1.3 kilograms, making the PCs among the most compact and lightweight convertible with a 14-inch display available today. The new ThinkPad X1 Yoga will be offered with the same touch-enabled LCD panel options as the latest X1: some will will come with a Full-HD with ThinkPad Privacy G...

At the Gamescom trade show in Cologne in Germany, ASUS has unveiled its new high-end premium HEDT motherboard, the ROG Rampage VI Extreme Encore. Built on Intel's X299 chipset and for the anticipated arrival of the their Cascade Lake-X processors, some of the main features include support for up to four PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 drives, Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax wireless connectivity, and an Aquantia AQC107 10 G NIC. Slotting in just below the ROG Rampage VI Extreme Omega motherboard in its current X299 product stack, ASUS has made some notable improvements to some of the core design aspects for the upcoming Intel 14 nm Cascade Lake-X processors. The extra lanes on the impending Cascade Lake-X processors have led ASUS to include four PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slots which feature support for VROC, meaning users can run high-performance NVMe drives in RAID for better performance and parity. Other improved aspects include a tweaked 16-phase CPU power delivery designed to optimize overclocking performance,...

The first talk being live blogged at Hot Chips today is from Tesla, who are showing off their compute and redundancy solution for a fully-self driving car. We assume this means a Level 5 car, so it will be interesting to see what is mentioned.

Among the many laptop families receiving updates today in line with the launch of Intel's 10th gen Core CPUs, Dell has introduced its all-new Inspiron 13 7391-series laptop. The latest Inspiron 13 brings together Intel’s Comet Lake processors, NVIDIA’s discrete GPUs, a spill-resistant keyboard, and an ultra-low weight. In a bid to keep the laptop weight at 955 grams, Dell had to omit usage of a touch-enabled or a 4K display panel, but those who need the lightest notebook possible should find the trade-off worth it. At the heart of the Inspiron 7391-series is Intel’s 10th gen Core i5/i7 processors, accompanied by NVIDIA’s GeForce MX 250 graphics processor with 2 GB vRAM, up to 8 GB of soldered-down system DRAM, and an M.2 PCIe SSD featuring capacities ranging from 128 GB to 1 TB. The laptop has multiple sensors to determine whether it is used on the desk, in hands, or on lap tops, in a bid to apply appropriate thermal profile to the situation. The ...

Capping off Dell's spate of laptop updates, today the company also announced an updated Vostro 13 laptop for small business. The relatively inexpensive Vostro 13 5391-series feature a solid build quality along with numerous enhancements that will be appreciated by business users, road warriors, and even consumers. The new machines pack Intel’s 10 th Gen Core processors and a discrete GPU into a thin and light package. The Dell Vostro 13 5391 comes in an aluminum and plastic chassis that is 14.9 mm thick, with total system weights starting from 1.18 kilograms, which is comparable to modern high-end notebooks such as Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1. According to Dell, the chassis is tested using 50 kinds of reliability, shock, and vibration programs to ensure its robust build quality. Furthermore, Dell will offer optional accidental damage and ProSupport services with this laptop. By default, the Vostro 13 5391 is equipped with a spill-resistant keyboard, whereas premium SK...

Among the monitor announcements to come out this week, HP has introduced a new display aimed at hardcore gamers and esports professionals. With a 240 Hz max refresh rate, FreeSync 2 support, and HDR, the Omen X 27 is designed to be a jack of all trades for gaming monitors. HP's new gaming monitor is based around a high-performance QHD TN panel, sporting a 240 Hz refresh rate, 300/400 nits brightness (SDR/HDR), and a 90% coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut. Seeing a TN panel show up in a (marginally) HDR-capable monitor like the Omen is a relatively recent advancement; for years, TN displays have lagged IPS monitors when it comes to the color space that could be represented. However, recently developed TN panels and new types of backlighting have significantly improved the ability of such LCDs to cover wide color gamuts, a core requirement for HDR support. The Omen X 27 is also an AMD FreeSync 2-certified monitor, which means that it not only supports a variable refresh rate te...

NVIDIA announced at a VLSI conference last year that it had designed a test multi-chip solution for DNN computations. The company is explaining the technology today at Hot Chips, with the idea that what they've created could be a stepping stone for future monetizable products.

Corsair’s Elgato has introduced its new capture card aimed at professional gamers and streamers who need to record either HDR10 or 240 Hz content. Dubbed the 4K60 Pro MK.2, at the moment it is the only consumer-grade capture card capable of capturing HDR10 content. The Elgato 4K60 Pro MK.2 is half the size of its predecessor, yet its capabilities have been vastly improved thanks to new hardware and software. The card enables streamers to capture videos a 4K at 60 Hz resolution with HDR10 while simultaneously streaming to Twitch in 1080p at 60 Hz. Furthermore, it also can it can capture 1080p at 240 Hz as well as 1440p at 144 Hz videos in dual-PC setups. The maximum encoding bitrate supported by the 4K60 Pro MK.2 card is 140 Mbps, which is higher than that supported by Ultra-HD Blu-ray discs. Right now, the Elgato 4K60 Pro MK.2 is the only consumer-oriented capture card to support 4Kp60 with HDR10, so the board will likely get popular among PC and console gamers/streame...

Some of the big news of today is Cerebras announcing its wafer-scale 1.2 trillion transistor solution for deep learning. The talk today goes into detail about the technology.

Acer has introduced its new Predator XN253QX display, which is aimed at professional gamers who are looking for top-tier response times. The Predator XN253QX has a maximum refresh rate of 240 Hz, features a response time of 0.4 ms, and support NVIDIA’s G-Sync variable refresh rate technology. The Acer Predator XN253QX monitor is based on an 8-bit TN panel featuring a 1920x1080 resolution, 400 nits brightness, a 1000:1 contrast ratio, and so on. The key features of the panel are its maximum refresh rate of 240 Hz, a 3 ms native response time as well as a 0.4 ms gray-to-gray response time. Acer notes that the display uses its "Fast Liquid Crystal" technology, but does not really go into detail about what the technology is.   The latest gaming monitor from Acer also supports NVIDIA’s G-Sync variable refresh rate technology with a 30 – 240 Hz range (when operating over DisplayPort), which will certainly please demanding gamers looking for flexib...

Today NVIDIA announced their earnings for the second quarter of their 2020 fiscal year, which ended on July 28. NVIDIA made tremendous gains during the cryptocurrency boom, and as we saw in Q1 , the company has had to deal with the loss of the crypto sales which contributed a lot of revenue to their bottom line in the last year or two. Revenue for Q2 2020 came in at $2.579 billion, which is down 17% from a year ago, and while gross margin was also down 350 bps, it was still a healthy 59.8%. Operating income for the quarter was down 51% to $571 million, and net income was down 50% to $552 million. This resulted in earnings-per-share coming in at $0.90, down 49% from a year ago. NVIDIA Q2 2020 Financial Results (GAAP)   Q2'2020 Q1'2020 Q2'2019 Q/Q Y/Y Revenue $2579M $2220M $3123M +16% -17% Gross Margin 59.8% 58.4% 63.3% +1....

It’s past the middle of the year now, and every Android vendor has had the opportunity to release their devices. It’s been a few months now since the flagship refresh cycle started and we’ve reviewed the ups and down of this generation, even giving vendors enough opportunity to refine their software and fix any issues that may have plagued the phones in the first few months. It’s this time of the year that’s also the best time to actually dive into getting a new phone – the new generation has already gotten sizeable price reductions, but the phones are still new enough that one wouldn’t suffer any buyer’s remorse in getting in on the bandwagon, with still plenty of time left in the product cycle.

SMART Modular this month demonstrated one of the industry’s first prototypes of a EDSFF 3-inch DDR4 Gen-Z memory module. The ZMM supports advanced functionality enabled by the new interface and offers throughput akin to that offered by today’s DDR4-4000 memory modules. SMART Modular’s 256 GB ZMM uses Samsung’s 32 Gb 4-high DDR4 DRAM devices as well as IntelliProp’s Gen-Z Mamba memory controller ASSP, which supports multiple access semantics, including byte and block addressable DRAM access, in-band configuration, and access key/region key memory isolation opcodes in a bid to simplify memory access needed to handle emerging data-centric workloads. The controller features 16 Gen-Z lanes with 25 Gbps PHY as well as 400 Gbps aggregate performance. The chip requires up to 20 W of power, so it needs proper cooling. The Gen-Z module from SMART Module comes in SNIA’s 3-inch 4C SFF-TA-1008/9 form-factor, and offers a 30 GB/s bandwidth along with 400 ...

Lenovo on Wednesday introduced its first servers based on AMD’s EPYC 7002-series ‘Rome’ processors, which offer up to 64 cores and 128 PCIe 4.0 lanes. The single-socket ThinkSystem SR635 and SR655 machines are designed for a wide variety of applications, including analytics, HPC, virtualized environments and scale-out software-defined storage. Lenovo’s ThinkSystem SR635 is a 1U server featuring 16 DDR4 DIMMs supporting up to 1 TB of memory using 64 GB RDIMMs, 16 2.5-inch NVMe drives (or four 3.5-inch drives), M.2 boot drives three PCIe 4.0 x16 slots (for three single-wide graphics cards), one PCIe x8 slot, one OCP mezzanine slot, and other I/O capabilities. The ThinkSystem SR655 is a larger 2U machine featuring 16 DDR memory slots for 1 TB of DRAM, up to 20 3.5-inch or 32 2.5-inch NVMe storage drives, six PCIe 4.0 slots for single-wide GPUs, an OCP 3.0 connector, and other I/O means. Both ThinkSystem SR635 and ThinkSystem SR655 suppor...