As developers of graphics processing units start to use high-bandwidth memory (HBM), manufacturers of graphics cards cease their ability to buy memory directly from DRAM makers. A good news is that Nvidia Corp. intends to buy second-gen HBM from two suppliers, which potentially means flexible pricing. Nowadays manufacturers of graphics …
Read More »Sales of solid-state drives hit $15 billion in 2014
The market of solid-state drives is growing exponentially. In fact, total available market of SSDs hit $15.1 billion in 2014, if the numbers from Transparency Market Research are to be believed. Moreover, SSD sales are expected to grow by 40 per cent next year. According to a new market report …
Read More »Nvidia changes roadmap: ‘Volta’ is now due in 2018
Nvidia Corp. has slightly changed its roadmap concerning GPU architectures. As it appear, its next-gen GPUs code-named “Pascal” are now due in 2016, whereas their successors will be released only in 2018. Based on a new roadmap that Nvidia showcased at a tech conference in Japan, the company will release its …
Read More »Western Digital to abandon ‘Green’ brand in favour of ‘Blue’ HDDs
Western Digital Corp. plans to unify its Green and Blue product lineups. The move will help the company to increase its profit margins. For end-users, the unification of low-cost HDD brands could mean increased performance of affordable hard disk drives. Western Digital is set to unify its Green and Blue …
Read More »GlobalFoundries develops 7nm and 10nm technologies in-house
GlobalFoundries is working on its own 7nm and 10nm fabrication processes and it does not look like the company has plans to license technologies from the outside. The contract maker of semiconductors hopes that specialists from IBM’s microelectronics unit will help it to design world-class leading-edge manufacturing processes. GlobalFoundries, which …
Read More »PowerColor, XFX prep to start shipments of AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards
PowerColor and XFX are preparing to add another graphics card into their range of adapters based on AMD’s “Fiji” graphics processing unit. In the coming weeks the two companies will start to sell their AMD Radeon R9 Fury graphics cards, thus, expanding availability of AMD’s latest product. Although all partners …
Read More »Legendary microprocessor developer Jim Keller leaves AMD
Advanced Micro Devices on Friday said that Jim Keller, a legendary microprocessor architect, will leave the company, effective immediately. Mr. Keller worked on multiple future generations of central processing units (CPUs) and system-on-chips (SoCs) at AMD, his departure will have an effect on the company’s long-term roadmap, but will not …
Read More »Intel will retain “Broadwell-C” as the best LGA CPU with built-in GPU
Even though Intel Corp.’s future “Skylake” processors with integrated graphics cores are expected to offer very high performance in applications that demand graphics processing horsepower, the company’s current-generation Core i7-5775C and Core i7-5665C “Broadwell” chips will remain the firm’s best offerings for desktops with sockets for quite a while. Intel’s …
Read More »Sapphire R9 380 Nitro 4GB Review
For many, the R9 Fury X and GTX980Ti are fantasy solutions – dream cards most of us will never be able to afford. What if you only have £200 to spend and need a new graphics card that can handle resolutions up to 1440p? Today we look at the latest …
Read More »MSI starts to sell its top-of-the-range Z170A Xpower Gaming Titanium
Although makers of mainboards tend to start selling their high-end products right after developers of microprocessors introduce their new central processing units, some unique products take longer time to develop. MicroStar International on Friday said that its top-of-the-range Z170A Xpower Gaming Titanium Edition mainboard – which features an distinctive silver colour – …
Read More »MSI unveils Night Elf: Inexpensive Intel B150 mainboard for gamers
MicroStar International has unveiled its new mainboard for Intel Corp.’s latest code-named “Skylake” processors that belongs to its Gaming family of platforms designed for gamers, but which costs significantly less than higher-end solutions. The MSI B150M Night Elf mainboard does not support overclocking or other advanced capabilities of modern motherboards. …
Read More »Intel Xeon E5, E7 “Broadwell” CPUs with up to 24 cores due in 2016
Intel Corp. has slightly re-scheduled release dates for its upcoming Xeon E5 v4 and Xeon E7 v4 central processing units for servers. Instead of late 2015, the world’s largest maker of microprocessors will launch its new server CPUs in the first half of 2016. The reasons for the delay are …
Read More »ARM ups expectations: ARMv8 to be in 25% of servers by 2020
ARM Holdings admits that large-scale deployments of servers based on chips powered by its technologies will start only in 2016 or 2017. But while there are almost no commercial ARM servers today, the company is increasing its target market share for 2020. In fact, ARM hopes that in five years …
Read More »AMD Radeon R9 380X with ‘Tonga XT’ to hit the market in late October
Advanced Micro Devices and its partners are gearing up to release the Radeon R9 380X graphics card featuring the code-named “Tonga XT” graphics processing unit. The product is expected to hit the market next month and will become a good addition to the company’s lineup for the holiday season. Manufacturers …
Read More »OcUK ‘8Pack Approved’ kit includes Intel Core [email protected], other hardware
Overclockers UK has unveiled its new “Elite Tier Skylake” “8Pack Approved” hardware bundle that not only lets to build a high-end system at a discount price, but also includes Intel Core i7-6700K “Skylake” processors that are guaranteed to run at increased clock-rates. A lot of people enjoy overclocking. Modern central …
Read More »OcUK cuts price of KFA2 GeForce GTX 980 ‘8Pack Edition’ by 10%
Factory-overclocked graphics adapters offer performance and features that are simply not available on add-in-boards designed by developers of graphics processing units. Unfortunately, graphics cards with extreme clock-rates and high overclocking potential also cost considerably more than adapters based on reference designs. Fortunately, from time to time stores offer great deals on them. Overclockers …
Read More »MSI and Corsair team up to launch GTX 980TI Sea Hawk
MSI and Corsair have teamed up to launch the GTX 980Ti Sea Hawk, combining the best of air and liquid cooling. The new GPU was officially announced at the Tokyo Game Show this week, combining MSI's expertise in graphics cards with Corsair's highly rated closed loop liquid coolers. The GTX …
Read More »Cooler Master V Series 550W PSU Review
Cooler Master are set to release three new power supplies in October and today we look at the entry level capacity model – the V550. This compact 550 watt supply is a pure modular unit featuring 80 Plus Gold certification and thanks to the incorporation of a Silencio FP fan, …
Read More »AMD reportedly begins to fight back market share from Nvidia
Advanced Micro Devices began to fight back its market share from Nvidia Corp. in the third quarter of the year, a financial analyst revealed on Wednesday. While Nvidia still dominates the market, the launch of AMD’s latest graphics cards helped the company to improve its sales a bit. “Graphics processor …
Read More »Shortages of AMD Radeon R9 Fury-series graphics cards persist
About three months since the formal announcement, Advanced Micro Devices’ flagship products based on the code-named “Fiji” graphics processing units are still in extremely short supply, according to a market analyst and various retailers. At present, AMD offers Radeon R9 Fury X and Radeon R9 Nano based on the fully-fledged …
Read More »Asus R9 390X STRIX DC3 OC 8GB Review
AMD released the R9 390X GPU three months ago and the custom-cooled board partner offerings are available in strength. Today we are taking a look at Asus' STRIX DC3 OC version of the R9 390X which utilises the company's triple-fan DirectCU III cooler and an automated production process. Asus' approach …
Read More »Intel will begin to sell mainstream ‘Skylake’ CPUs in late September
Even though Intel Corp. has formally introduced code-named “Skylake” microprocessors for desktop computers, many of such central processing units are still not available. Apparently, Intel only intends to start their sales to end-users in late September. It is not a secret that Intel’s latest CPUs for enthusiasts that feature unlocked …
Read More »Intel: Skipping ‘Broadwell’ CPUs for desktops was a mistake
Due to issues with yields, Intel Corp. had to delay mass production of central processing units made using 14nm fabrication process by almost a year. Instead of releasing enthusiast-class processors based on the “Broadwell” micro-architecture in 2014, the company decided to launch new “Haswell” chips with higher clock-rates. Right now, …
Read More »Apacer unveils 64GB 3GHz DDR4 SO-DIMM memory kit for laptops
Apacer on Tuesday unveiled a lineup of new DDR4 SO-DIMM memory kits for high-performance laptops. The new kits have up to 64GB capacity and can operate at clock-rates of up to 3000MHz. The new modules are designed for Intel’s new mobile “Skylake” central processing units and high-end gaming and workstation …
Read More »Sapphire is now shipping the AMD R9 Nano
Sapphire has announced that it has begun shipping the Radeon R9 Nano, AMD's latest graphics card that packs the full power of a Fury chip on to a tiny 6-inch PCB, featuring High-Bandwith Memory (HBM) along with support for DirectX 12, which is starting to be implemented in to games …
Read More »Asrock unveils mainboard for ‘Skylake’ with DDR3 and DDR4 memory slots
Asrock has quietly unveiled a unique mainboard for Intel Corp.’s latest processors code-named “Skylake”, which features both DDR3 and DDR4 memory slots. The motherboard is an affordable platform, but it can be used to build rather high-performance personal computers for gaming. The Asrock B150M Combo-G mainboard for Intel “Skylake” processors in …
Read More »AMD preps Radeon R9 380X with fully-fledged “Tonga” GPU
Advanced Micro Devices is reportedly working on a new graphics card based on its code-named “Tonga” graphics processing unit. The Radeon R9 380X will be powered by the fully-fledged GPU with all stream processors activated. Performance of the product will be similar to that of the Radeon R9 280X. The …
Read More »Galax offers GeForce GTX 980 Ti card for extreme overclockers
Galax, a graphics card brand owned by Palit Microsystems, has quietly unveiled its factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 980 Ti-based graphics card that not only offers incredible performance out of box, but is actually designed for extreme overclocking. The Galax Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti HOF LN2 GOC Edition features rather extreme …
Read More »SilverStone FTZ01B Review
You can think of the SilverStone FTZ01 as a member of the Fortress Series Z with a B suffix for Black or S for Silver. FTZ01 is described as a ‘premium slim form factor case with superior thermodynamics and construction' and while these claims are correct they tell only part …
Read More »Seagate: SSDs will never match per-gigabyte costs of HDDs
Seagate Technology claims that no matter how cheap NAND flash memory will get in the coming years, it will never be able to match the per-gigabyte price of rotating magnetic media used in hard disk drives. In fact, the price of one gigabyte on a HDD will decrease to half …
Read More »