Kang Gosol

Sonnet has started sales of its Solo5G, their first 5 Gigabit Ethernet USB-C dongle. Designed to quickly and easily add support for faster networking to any laptop or desktop with a USB interface, the device is compatible with all three of the major OSes. Adoption of NBASE-T networks is proceeding slowly due to two reasons: expensive Multi-Gig Ethernet switches and sporadic support of NBASE-T by PCs. Fortunately, higher-end desktops as well as gaming laptops are finally getting native NBASE-T support, but when it comes to mainstream and ultra-thin machines, such support is a rare occurrence; so to gain Multi-Gig support they need external USB adapters. A couple of years ago Aquantia (an independent company back then) developed its AQtion AQC111U and AQtion AQC112U USB-to-Ethernet chips along with reference designs for USB 3.0 to 2.5GbE/5GbE adapters to simplify production of such devices. Sonnet’s Solo5G is based on the Marvell AQC111U controller (since Aquantia is now a

Today Huawei is announcing the successor of one of 2019’s most talked about devices: the new Mate Xs. The successor to the Mate X refines the design of the predecessor, introducing a new more durable hinge as well as a new display protection material, as well as updating the internals of the phone to include the newer generation Kirin 990 5G SoC.  

MSI has been actively targeting content creators with its laptops as of recently, so it's only fitting that this week the company introduced its Modern 15 notebook, aimed at the entry-level content creation market. Powered by Intel’s 10 th Generation Core (Comet Lake) processor and NVIDIA’s GeForce MX330 discrete graphics chip, the Modern 15 mobile PC promises to offer decent performance as well as a relatively low weight in a reasonably priced package. The MSI Modern 15 laptop currently exists in only one configuration (A10RAS-061JP) which is powered by Intel’s quad-core Core i7-10510U ‘Comet Lake-U’ processor. This is accompanied by 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory, a 512 GB M.2 NVMe SSD, and NVIDIA’s GeForce MX330 graphics chip with 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM. According to MSI, the CPU and the GPU are cooled via MSI’s Cooler Boost 3 cooling system, which uses two fans and three thick heat pipes. Within MSI's laptop lineup, this places the Modern 15 at essentially a tier below

Today Huawei is announcing a refresh of its popular MateBook X Pro laptop line, upgrading the internals to the newest Intel Comet Lake CPUs as well as introducing new colours, as well as officially launching the new MateBook D line in western markets with configuration options such as AMD's Ryzen 5 3500U CPU.

ATP has revealed its new N600S-series SSDs for industrial and commercial applications. The industrial-grade SSDs are designed to offer high performance and write endurance while also offering extreme physical endurance, as well as extensive power loss protection (PLP) technology for electrical endurance. ATP’s N600S-series drives are based on an NVMe 1.3 controller with eight NAND channels that supports Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) ECC with a 2 KB codeword, end-to-end data protection, and programmable RAID engine. The drives are set to be available in 120 GB, 240 GB, 480 GB, 960 GB, and 1920 GB configurations and offer s equential read/write performance of up to 3,420/3,050 MB/s, which would make them among the fastest M.2-2280 SSDs for embedded applications with a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. ATP plans to offer its N600S drives in in two versions: the N600Sc for commercial temperatures (0ºC - 70ºC) as well as the N600Si for industrial temperatures (-40ºC - 85ºC). One of the

Patriot has launched its new family of entry-level NVMe SSDs with a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface designed for budget PCs. Patriot’s P300 drives come in capacities ranging from 128 GB all the way to 2 TB, but there is a catch. Although all the SSDs carry the same P300 name, they will use different controllers. For the US market, Patriot offers P300 SSDs on blue PCBs based on the Phison PS5013-E13T controller, whereas for other markets the company rolled out P300 drives on black PCBs powered by the Silicon Motion SM2263XT chip. It is noteworthy that earlier this year the company implied at a meeting that Phison-powered drives might also show up on non-US markets. Patriot did not disclose what type of memory it plans to use with the drives, but what we often see is Phison controllers paired with Toshiba’s BiCS 3D TLC NAND, while SMI silicon is accompanied by Intel’s 3D TLC memory. Meanwhile, we do not known whether there is a plan to use the cheapest 3D TLC NAND memory available at a giv

Plextor has introduced its new flagship consumer SSD lineup, the M9P Plus. The new drives continue to use Marvell’s proven "Eldora" controller, but come equipped with Kioxia’s 96-layer BiCS4 3D TLC NAND memory, and offer slightly higher sequential performance than its predecessors. Set to be available in 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB configurations, the new Plextor M9P Plus lineup is based on the Marvell 88SS1092 controller that is paired with Kioxia’s latest 96-layer BiCS4 3D TLC memory. By contrast, the previous-generation Plextor M9Pe family used the Marvell 88SS1093 controller (with higher clocks) along with Kioxia’s 64-layer BiCS3 3D TLC NAND. When it comes to performance, the new M9 Plus 1 TB drives are rated for sequential read/write speeds up to 3,400/2,200 MB/s, which is 6.25% and 4.75% higher when compared to the M9Pe 1 TB. But there is a catch. Plextor says that the latest M9 Plus 1 TB SSDs deliver up to 340K/320K read/write random IOPS, which means 15% lower r

To date Qualcomm has promoted two key standalone 5G modems for widespread adoption: the Snapdragon X50 and the Snapdragon X55. Today the company is disclosing details on its upcoming 3 rd generation 5G modem design, the Snapdragon X60, which is being promoted as the premium offering for smartphones, industrial, and commercial designs that require a discrete 5G modem. Key features of this modem include the fact that it is built on a 5nm process, supports carrier aggregation between Sub-6 and mmWave, and offers up to 7.5 Gbps download speeds.

Founded in 1999, EKWB was among the pioneers of the PC liquid cooling market. But despite the market's roots going even farther back – as a spin-off of supercomputer cooling – until now the company has been content to focus on liquid cooling solutions for consumers and enthusiasts, never specifically addressing servers and workstations. All of that has changed, however, and last week the company finally unveiled its Professional lineup of liquid cooling components, which are aimed at a market looking for the highest reliability and utility, but not exactly for fancy looks. The EKWB Professional family of products includes two EK-Pro Manifold devices as well as seven EK-Pro Quick Disconnect Kits. The manifolds feature industry-standard G1/4-inch in and out ports, the smaller EK-Pro Manifold can support two CPU and two GPU water blocks ( 2CPU 2GPU ), whereas the larger one supports two CPU and four GPU water blocks ( 2CPU 4GPU ). The EK-Pro Quick Disconnect kits are designed

Nine enterprise NVMe SSDs suffer through our updated test suite to show who's who for high-end storage.

The arrival of 32 GB unbuffered DIMMs has not only allowed mainstream systems to reach 128 GB of memory, but it's also allowed high-end desktops based on AMD Ryzen Threadripper or Intel Core i9 XE to reach an even larger 256 GB. Unfortunately, high-end, high-capacity kits are not common, with most high-capacity kits sticking to strictly JEDEC specs. G.Skill this week changed that with introduction of a new 256 GB kit, which offers DDR4-3600 speeds at a CL16 latency, and has been designed for AMD’s latest Threadripper platform. G.Skill’s 256 GB Trident Z Neo kit consists of eight 32 GB modules rated for DDR4-3600 with CL16 20-20 timings, and running at 1.35 V. The modules use 16 Gb DDR4 chips (presumably from Samsung), feature XMP 2.0 SPD profiles for easier set up, and come with aluminum heat spreaders with an RGB LED bar. The manufacturer has validated its 256 GB kit with the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X processor and the ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme Alpha motherboard,

The market of professional memory cards has shrunk in the recent years as many cameras shifted to more compact SD cards, but there are still a good number of high-end cameras that use CFexpress or XQD media. This week Sonnet unveiled the industry’s first card reader with a Thunderbolt 3 interface that supports CFexpress and XQD. The Sonnet SF3-series CFexpress/XQD Pro Card Reader (SF3-2CFEX) comes in a rugged aluminum enclosure, it supports CFexpress 2.0 Type B and XQD cards, and can read files concurrently from two CFexpress cards at up to 2,600 MB/s or two XQD cards at up to 800 MB/s. The reader has two Thunderbolt 3 ports to enable daisy chaining with other Thunderbolt 3 devices or connect a display. The Sonnet SF3-2CFEX card reader measures 147 mm × 88.3 mm × 35.6 mm and is compatible with Apple macOS as well as Microsoft Windows PCs. The Sonnet SF3 CFexpress/XQD Pro card reader is now available directly from the company for $199.99. At present the SF3-2CFEX media

Proving that where there's a will, there's a way, these days higher-end desktop replacement laptops can beat mainstream gaming desktops on general-purpose computing performance, graphics performance, and even RAM capacity. But what about storage? For those with deep pockets, Eurocom now offers built-to-order notebooks with up to 28 TB of raw solid-state storage. In its arsenal, Eurocom has two 17.3-inch DTR laptops — the Sky X9C and the Tornado F7W — that feature three M.2-2280 slots for SSDs, as well as two 2.5-inch bays for SSDs or HDDs.  Customers requiring extreme storage capacity can now order three Sabrent Rocket 4 TB SSDs (Phison PS5012-E12, 3D TLC NAND, PCIe 3.0 x4) and two Micron 5100-series 8 TB SATA SSDs for a total of 28 TB of raw NAND flash (the usable capacity will be lower). The cost of such a storage subsystem alone is about $10,700 without installation and RAID configurations, but if you need it, it exists: you will just have to open your wallet.

High-performance SSDs are often difficult to transfer them from a system to a system, which is sometimes needed. Removable U.2 drives are easier to use, but they are more expensive and not everyone needs their features. ICY DOCK has introduced its new enclosure that accommodates up to four M.2 SSDs and fits into a conventional 5.25-inch bay, allowing users to quickly remove a drive, and safely transport it. The ICY DOCK ToughArmor MB720M2K-B mobile rack is made of metal, so it is ruggedized, and features a lock to prevent its unauthorized removal. The device has four MiniSAS HD (SFF-8643) connectors on special backplanes and two SATA power connectors with support for locking latches. To ensure consistent performance of SSDs inside the mobile rack, it has controllable two fans, thermal pads for the M.2 drives, and an integrated aluminum heatsink cover. Furthermore, it has EMI grounding technology and antivibration protection. The ToughArmor MB720M2K-B is currently l

Samsung has expanded its The Wall lineup of Micro LED-based displays with two models featuring 437 and 583-inch diagonals. The monitors are intended for commercial use, though nothing can stop someone with deep pockets from buying such a 'television' for home use. The new 437 and 583-inch Wall displays from Samsung feature an 8K resolution and are based on new Micro LED modules. Previously, Samsung’s The Wall lineup included 75-inch, 146-inch, 219-inch, and 292-inch models. Here's the previous generation 146-inch model Samsung does not disclose exact specifications of its new Wall displays as well as Micro LED-based modules (called cabinets) uses to build them. Previously, Samsung’s Micro LED cabinets featured 250 - 2000 nits brightness (regular/peak), around 10,000:1 contrast ratio, a 16-bit color depth, up to a 100/120 Hz refresh rate, as well as 155°/135° horizontal/vertical viewing angles. Given the overall size of the latest displays, the newest modules p

SK Hynix has inked a new broad patent and technology licensing agreement with Xperi Corp. Among other things, the company licensed the DBI Ultra 2.5D/3D interconnect technology developed by Invensas. The latter was designed to enable building up to 16-Hi chip assemblies, including next-generation memory, and highly-integrated SoCs that feature numerous homogeneous layers. Invensas’ DBI Ultra is a proprietary die-to-wafer hybrid bonding interconnect technology that supports from 100,000 to 1,000,000 interconnects per mm 2 , using interconnect pitches as small as 1 µm. According to the company, the much greater number of interconnects can offer dramatically increased bandwidth vs. conventional copper pillar interconnect technology, which only goes as high as 625 interconnects per mm 2 . The small interconnects also offer a shorter z-height, making it possible to build a stacked chip with 16 layers in the same space as conventional 8-Hi chips, allowing for greater memory densiti

Essential, a company founded by Andy Rubin with an aim to create easy-to-use devices tailored for the most important needs, this week announced its cease of operations. Andy Rubin, the man who headed creation of Google’s Android operating system, founded Essential back in 2015. It took the company two years to develop and build its first Essential PH-1 smartphone that came in a titanium body with a ceramic back, featured a minimalistic iPhone 5-like design, had a large edge-to-edge display with a raindrop camera for selfies, and ran ‘pure’ Android without any fancy UI. The handset looked rather innovative in 2017, but all of its main features (except expensive materials) appeared months later on cheaper or more popular devices, so the product lost a substantial part of its appeal. As a consequence, sales of the PH-1 were negligible. After the company launched its first handset, it promised to release more hardware and software products, including a smart home assistant, a v

Following last month’s launch of the new Radeon RX 5600 series of video cards , AMD is not done tweaking their product stacks quite yet. Today the company is launching an updated series of Raise the Game game bundles, which will see multiple games bundled with both Radeon RX 5500 and RX 5700 series cards, as well as OEM systems including those cards. AMD’s latest game bundle is one of the biggest ones in a while from the GPU manufacturer, and is a bit surprising in just how many games they’re bundling with the cheaper Radeon RX 5500 XT . The updated bundle sees the value line of cards come with three games: Resident Evil 3 , Warcraft III: Reforged , and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint . For the RX 5500 this replaces the earlier bundle that was in place when that card launched in December, and is a notably larger bundle than that single-game Monster Hunter World offer. AMD "Raise the Game" Bundles Video Card (incl. systems and OE

For the last several years, NVIDIA has been dabbling in offering game streaming services. Starting out as GeForce GRID for the controller-shaped SHIELD Portable, the service has morphed over the years in scope and technology. The most recent iteration, GeForce NOW, a multi-platform service , was launched in beta back at the start of 2018 . And now, a bit over two years later, NVIDIA is finally taking the service out of beta and is formally launching the commercial GeForce NOW service. Trying out a number of different strategies over the years in various retoolings, NVIDIA has ultimately settled on an interesting, and for the moment at least, quite unique service offering for their game streaming service. Rather than going with a hybrid subscription model where customers would subscribe to a service, get some games, and get the option of buying more games on that service (ala Google Stadia or Playstation Now), NVIDIA has instead focused purely on providing the infrastructure and str