Tag: Reviews

The vast majority of laptops nowadays use solid-state drives, which is why the development of new, higher-capacity 2.5-inch hard drives has all but come to a halt. Or rather, it almost has. It seems that the 2.5-inch form factor has a bit more life left in it after all, as today Western Digital has released a slate of new external storage products based on a new, high-capacity 6 TB 2.5-inch hard drive. WD's new 6 TB spinner is being used to offer upgraded versions of the company's My Passport, Black P10, and and G-DRIVE ArmorATD portable storage products. Notably, however, WD isn't selling the bare 2.5-inch drive on a standalone basis – at least not yet – so for the time being it's entirel

With all the new fabs being built in Germany and Japan, as well as the expansion of production capacity in China, TSMC is planning to extend its production capacity for specialty technologies by 50% by 2027. As disclosed by the company during its European Technology Symposium this week, TSMC expects to need to not only convert existing capacity to meet demands for specialty processes, but even build new (greenfield) fab space just for this purpose. One of the big drivers for this demand, in turn, will be TSMC's next specialty node: N4e, a 4nm-class ultra-low-power production node. "In the past, we always did the review phase [for upcoming fabs], but for the first time in a long time at TSMC, we started building greenfi

As modern high-performance CPUs generate more heat, there's been a noticeable increase in the demand for powerful air coolers capable of managing these thermal challenges. Traditional stock air coolers, while sufficient for regular use, are typically designed to be cheap and relatively compact, leaving further improvements to noise control and peak cooling efficiency on the table. This gap has long prompted advanced users and system builders to opt for high-quality aftermarket coolers that designed to better handle the heat output from top-tier processors. Known for their innovative approach to PC hardware, Arctic Cooling has stepped into this competitive market with a product aimed at delivering effective cooling at a very low retail price. The Freezer 36 A-RGB, a dual fan tower cooler, is designed to support the cooling demands of the latest CPUs while also offering customizable RGB lighting for visual flair. This review will explore the features, performance, and val

Of the several major changes coming with HBM4 memory, one of the most immediate is the sheer width of the memory interface. With the fourth-generation memory standard moving from an already wide 1024-bit interface to a ultra-wide 2048-bit interface, HBM4 memory stacks won't be business as usual; chip manufacturers are going to need to adopt more advanced packaging methods than are used today to accommodate the wider memory. As part of its European Technology Symposium 2024 presentation, TSMC offered some fresh details into the base dies it will be manufacturing for HBM4, which will be built using logic processes. With TSMC planning to employ variations of their N12 and N5 processes for this task, the company is expecting to occupy a favorable place in the HBM4 ma

As part of the second leg of TSMC's spring technology symposium series, the company offered an update on the state of its 3nm-class processes, both current and future. Building on the back of their current-generation N3E process, the optical shrink of this process technology, N3P, is now on track to enter mass production in the second half of 2024. Thanks to that shrink, N3P is expected to offer both increased performance efficiency as well as increased transistor density over N3E. N3E in Production, Yielding Well With N3E already in volume production, TSMC is reporting that they're seeing "great" yields on the second-generation 3nm-class process note. According to the company, the D0 defect density

Single-board computers in the 3.5-inch form-factor have become extremely popular for embedded applications involving a mix of high performance requirements as well as extended peripherals support. Typical use-case scenarios include digital signage, edge inferencing solutions, retail applications, and IoT gateways. The requirements in these segments call for processors and components that can operate in a wide temperature range. The chassis and cooling solution handle other duties such as ruggedness and avoidance of moving parts. The Supermicro X13SRN-H-WOHS is a 3.5-inch SBC with a soldered-down Intel Core i7-1370PE - a Raptor Lake-P embedded processor with vPro support. It has plenty of I/O support, including a SlimSAS PCIe expansion slot. Supermicro also offers a ready-to-deploy solution using the SBC in the actively-cooled SYS-E102-13R-H box PC. This review takes a detailed look at the features and performance profile of the SYS-E102-13R-H, along with an evaluation of the thermal

For numerous generations of their desktop processor releases, Intel has made available a selection of high-performance special edition "KS" CPUs that add a little extra compared to their flagship chip. With a lot of interest, primarily from the enthusiasts looking for the fastest processors, Intel's latest Core i9-14900KS represents a super-fast addition to its 14th Generation Core lineup with out-of-the-box turbo clock speeds of up to 6.2 GHz and represents the last processor to end an era as Intel is removing the 'i' from its legendary nomenclature for future desktop chip releases. Reaching speeds of up to 6.2 GHz, this sets up the Core i9-14900KS as the fastest desktop CPU in the world right now, at least in terms of frequencies out of the box. Building on their 'regular' flagship chip, the Core i9-14900, the Core i9-14900KS is also using their refreshed Raptor Lake (RPL-R) 8P+16E core chip de

Coming out of the dark times that preceded the launch of AMD's Zen CPU architecture in 2017, to say that AMD has turned things around on the back of Zen would be an understatement.  Ever since AMD launched its first Zen-based Ryzen and EPYC processors for client and server computers, it has been consistently gaining x86 market share, growing from a bit player to a respectable rival to Intel (and all at Intel's expense). The first quarter of this year was no exception, according to Mercury Research, as the company achieved record high unit shares on x86 desktop and x86 server CPU markets due to success of its Ryzen 8000-series client products and 4th Generation EPYC processors.

Sabrent tends to get into news when it launches ultra-high-performance SSDs for enthusiast-grade desktops, but this week the company introduced a completely different type of product: a small form-factor M.2-2242 SSD aimed at Lenovo's Legion Go handheld and ultra-thin laptops that don't accomodate M.2-2280 drives. And even though it's not an enthusiast-grade drive, the Rocket Nano still boasts with quite decent performance and capacity. The Sabrent Rocket Nano 2242 (SB-2142) drive is based on the Phison E27T platform, a PCIe 4.0 x4 controller that is that

As LPCAMM2 adoption begins, the first retail memory modules are finally starting to hit the retail market, courtesy of Micron. The memory manufacturer has begun selling their LPDDR5X-based LPCAMM2 memory modules under their in-house Crucial brand, making them available on the latter's storefront. Timed to coincide with the release of Lenovo's ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 laptop – the first retail laptop designed to use the memory modules – this marks the de facto start of the eagerly-awaited modular LPDDR5X memory era. Micron's Low Power Compression Attached Memory Module 2 (LPCAMM2) modules are available in capacities

According to a recent report by Digitimes, Intel’s CPU supply shortage will continue to worsen through the 2H2019 as demand for entry level and mainstream notebooks such as Chromebooks and Core i3-based notebooks continue to increase without the proper increase in supply to sustain the growth. Supply shortages in 3Q2018 began impacting major notebook vendors […]

The CPU, or Central Processing Unit, along with the motherboard is generally considered the most important core component of any PC. The reason for this is that the combination of the CPU and the motherboard determines what other components can be used with the system. As a result, this makes the decision of which CPU […]

At CES 2019, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa SU spoke on several products at their keynote and while many users were disappointed that AMD did not announce a rumored $250 GPU that would give GTX 1080 class performance, AMD did surprise the world by announcing the world’s first 7nm GPU for the consumer market. Rather than […]

In a stunning move from Nvidia earlier this week, the GPU company announced that they would finally begin supporting adaptive sync functionality on AMD FreeSync monitors. Previously, Nvidia graphics cards were only compatible with their proprietary G-Sync system, which is technically a slightly better implementation of adaptive sync monitor technology when compared to FreeSync however, […]

With the launch of Nvidia’s 20-series GPUs seemingly an eternity ago, Nvidia has finally announced a January 15th release date for their Geforce RTX 2060. The new graphics card uses the same GPU core as the GTX 2070, the TU106, though is cut down featuring 1920 CUDA cores, 240 tensor cores, 30 RT cores, 120 […]

Generally speaking, always being up to date on the latest Windows patches is a pretty good thing. Updating your system will not only fix bugs and add new features, it also includes security patches that prevent hackers from having their way with your system. While there are plenty of benefits to having the latest updates, […]

CES 2019 is chock-full of weird hardware, but the ASUS ROG Mothership GZ700 is definitely takes the cake as one of the craziest gaming laptops available. Name ROG Mothership GZ700 Processor Intel® Core™ i9-8950HK Operating system Windows 10 Home Windows 10 Pro (ASUS recommends Windows 10 Pro) Display 17.3” FHD (1920×1080) IPS-level panel, 144Hz, 3ms, […]

Following Nvidia’s announcement of the new mobile GeForce RTX 20-series GPUs, Razer wasted no time announcing updates to their Blade 15 gaming laptop. Starting at $1,599, the Razer Blade 15 packs either an 15-inch Full HD (1920×1080) 144Hz display or a 4K (3840×2160) touch display with full 100% Adobe RGB color support. The laptop also […]

If you’re a T-Mobile OnePlus 6T owner, good news! T-Mobile has recently released a new software update, Android 9.0 Build Number: A6013_34_181228. According to the software version details, the new update “Enables support for additional domestic roaming partners”. In order to update, simply swipe up from the Home screen and tap Settings. From there, scroll […]