Tag: Reviews

As Qualcomm prepares for the mid-year launch of their forthcoming Snapdragon X SoCs for PCs, and the eagerly anticipated Oryon CPU cores within, the company is finally shoring up their official product plans, and releasing some additional technical details in the process. Thus far the company has been demonstrating their Snapdragon X Elite SoC in its highest-performing, fully-enabled configuration. But the retail Snapdragon X Elite will not be a single part; instead, Qualcomm is preparing a whole range of chip configurations for various price/performance tiers in the market. Altogether, there will be 3 Snapdragon X Elite SKUs that differ in CPU and GPU performance. As well, the company is introducing a second Snapdragon X tier, Snapdragon X Plus, for those SKUs positioned below the Elite performance tier. As of today, this will be a single configuration. But if the Snapdragon X lineup is successful and demand warrants it, I would not be surprised to see Qualcomm expand it fu

As Seagate ramps up shipments of its new heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR)-based Mozaic 3+ hard drive platform, the company is both in the enviable position of shipping the first major new hard drive technology in a decade, and the much less enviable position of proving the reliability of the first major new hard drive technology in a decade. Due to HAMR's use of temporal heating with its platters, as well as all-new read/write heads, HAMR introduces multiple new changes at once that have raise questions about how reliable the technology will be. Looking to address these matters (and further promote their HAMR drives),

Samsung Electronics has started mass production of its 9th generation of V-NAND memory. The first dies based on their latest NAND tech come in a 1 Tb capacity using a triple-level cell (TLC) architecture, with data transfer rates as high as 3.2 GT/s. The new 3D TLC NAND memory will initially be used to build high-capacity and high-performance SSDs, which will help to solidify Samsung's position in the storage market. Diving right in, Samsung is conspicuously avoiding to list the number of layers in their latest generation NAND, which is the principle driving factor in increasing capacity generation-on-generation. The company's current 8th gen V-NAND is 236 layers – similar to its major competitors – and word on

Lexar has a long history of serving the flash-based consumer storage market in the form of SSDs, memory cards, and USB flash drives. After having started out as a Micron brand, the company was acquired by Longsys which has diversified its product lineup with regular introduction of new products. Recently, the company announced a number of portable SSDs targeting different market segments. The Lexar SL500 Portable SSD is one of the moderately priced 20 Gbps PSSDs in that set. The SL500 is able to achieve its price point thanks to the use of a native USB flash controller - the Silicon Motion SM2320. The unique aspect is the use of YMTC 3D TLC NAND (compared to the usual Micron or BiCS NAND that we have seen in previous SM2320-based PSSDs). Read on for a detailed look at the SL500, including an analysis of its internals and evaluation of its performance consistency, power consumption, and thermal profile.

While desktop PC power supplies receive the bulk of enthusiasts’ attention for good reasons – not the least of which being the vast selection of options that comes from being a standardized part – power supplies as a whole aren’t just a concern for big PCs. With the majority of PC sales having flipped to notebook sales some years ago, notebook power supplies already lead the market in volume. And while most laptops don’t need the kind of massively powered PSUs that dominate the desktop space, even that is slowly changing as desktop replacement-class laptops increasingly grow in performance and power consumption. Perhaps the poster-child for the high-performance, high-powered laptop is Eurocom, who has a long history of developing heavy-duty DTR laptops that are all but portable desktop systems. Following recent trends in GPU power consumption and in GPU popularity for both gaming and AI workloads, the company has been selling a range

When JEDEC released its DDR5 specification (JESD79) back in 2020, the standard setting organization defined precise specs for modules with speed bins of up to 6400 MT/s, while leaving the spec open to further expansions with faster memory as technology progressed. Now, a bit more than three-and-a-half years later, and the standards body and its members are gearing up to release a faster generation of DDR5 memory, which is being laid out in the newly updated JESD79-JC5 specification. The latest iteration of the DDR5 spec defines official DDR timing specifications up to 8800 MT/s, as well as adding some new features when it comes to security.

SK hynix and TSMC announced early on Friday that they had signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on developing the next-generation HBM4 memory and advanced packaging technology. The initiative is designed to speed up the adoption of HBM4 memory and solidify SK hynix's and TSMC's leading positions in high-bandwidth memory and advanced processor applications. The primary focus of SK hynix's and TSMC's initial efforts will be to enhance the performance of the HBM4 stack's base die, which (if we put it very simply) acts like an ultra-wide interface between memory devices and host processors. With HBM4, SK hynix plans to use one of TSMC's advanced logic process technologies to build base dies to pack additional featu

AMD is looking to drive the AI PC market with options across multiple product lines, which aren't limited to consumer processors. While primarily designed for the commercial sector, AMD has announced the Ryzen Pro 8000 'Phoenix' series of APUs for desktops, which AMD claims is the first professional-grade CPU to include an NPU designed to provide on-chip AI neural processing capabilities. AMD has also announced the Ryzen Pro 8040 'Hawk Point' series of mobile processors designed for commercial laptops and notebooks. AMD's Ryzen Pro 8000 and Ryzen Pro 8040 series processors come with support from AMD's Pro Manageability and AMD Pro Business Ready suites and are

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. this week released its financial results for Q1 2024. Due to a rebound in demand for semiconductors, the company garned $18.87 billion in revenue for the quarter, which is up 12.9% year-over-year, but a decline of 3.8% quarter-over-quarter. The company says that in increase in demand for HPC processors (which includes processors for AI, PCs, and servers) drove its revenue rebound in Q1, but surprisingly, revenue share of TSMC's flagship N3 (3nm-class) process technology declined steeply quarter-over-quarter. "Our business in the first

This week ASML is making two very important announcements related to their progress with high numerical aperature extreme ultraviolet lithography (High-NA EUV). First up, the company's High-NA EUV prototype system at its fab in Veldhoven, the Netherlands, has printed the first 10nm patterns, which is a major milestone for ASML and their next-gen tools. Second, the company has also revealed that it's second High-NA EUV system is now out the door as well, and has been shipped to an unnamed customer. "Our High-NA EUV system in Veldhoven printed the first-ever 10 nanometer dense lines," a statement by ASML reads. "Imaging was done after optics, sensors and stages completed coa

After the allure of the Hummer's physics-defying acceleration wears off, there isn't a whole lot left to love.

The first ultrabudget streamer with a voice remote talks circles around Roku.

The latest generation of the ubiquitous luxury SUV is damn near perfect.

Editor's Choice: This tiny bar adds great 4K HDR streaming, and solid sound, to any TV.

Editor's Choice: This tiny, battery-powered entertainment machine does a lot of things right.

Editor's Choice: Excellent contrast, accurate color and solid features make it our favorite sub-$1,000 projector for 2020.

Editor's Choice: A higher-end projector worthy of the "home cinema" moniker.

The more powerful spec of BMW's iX electric SUV is certainly quicker than the base model, but that extra oomph comes at too high a cost.

The C2 sets the pace for 2022 with superb picture quality, numerous sizes and a track record of success.

Available in black or white, Amazon's Blink Mini sports many features for a reasonable price.

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 […]