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Samsung Electronics may become a new rival for Qualcomm, MediaTek and other suppliers of mobile system-on-chips as the company reportedly plans to sell its Exynos 7420 processors to third parties. For a long time, Samsung Electronics used application processors from Qualcomm inside its premium smartphones, but in the recent years …

BenQ America Corp. has introduced the world’s first curved display with 144Hz refresh rate. The device can potentially provide unique experience in video games and it even has an advanced VA panel for great viewing angles and high quality. Unfortunately, its resolution is not really high by today’s standards. The …

Chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp. explained this week the reason why a number of graphics cards makers this year refocused their marketing efforts to higher-end graphics adapters. Apparently, China, one of the world’s largest markets, is shifting to higher-end GPUs, which is generally a good news for both Nvidia …

A professional overclocker this week managed to push Intel Corp.’s latest Core i7-6700K “Skylake-S” microprocessor to whopping 6.80GHz without disabling any cores or Hyper-Threading technology. The record was set on MicroStar International’s flagship MSI Z170A XPower Gaming Titanium mainboard. Toppc, a professional overclocker from Taiwan, this week overclocked an engineering …

Nvidia Corp. on Thursday said that sales of its GeForce GTX graphics processing units used inside gaming personal computers increased 51 per cent year-over-year thanks to the success of the latest “Maxwell” family of products. By contrast, sales of Tesla, Quadro and Tegra products dropped in the second quarter. Sales …

Toshiba Corp. on Thursday introduced the world’s first NAND flash memory packages, which stack eight or 16 dies of NAND flash memory devices and feature 128GB or 256GB capacities. The NAND flash memory chips are designed for various applications that require high density of NAND flash storage, including mobile products …

Although Intel Corp.’s latest “Skylake” microprocessors officially support only DDR4 and DDR3L memory technologies, Asustek Computer claims that its Intel Z170-based motherboards with 240-pin DIMM slots will work with standard DDR3 memory modules with industry-standard voltages. DDR4 SDRAM memory has default voltage of 1.2V, but memory modules for overclockers with …

Just before next week's Qualcomm event, at which the company is expected to reveal its new flagship mobile chip, the Snapdragon 820, we have had a leak, apparently showing off the specs of the new SoC and giving us a rough idea of performance ahead of time. The announcement event …

The new Intel Corp.’s Core i7-6700K “Skylake” processors have clearly helped professional overclockers to set new DDR4 frequency records. G.Skill on Thursday said that one of its Ripjaws 4 memory modules managed to hit nearly 4.8GHz clock-rate earlier this week. Chi-Kui Lam, a world-class overclocker from Hong Kong-based HKEPC, successfully …

In the second part of this series, we presented some initial tests to illustrate how CPU and graphics can affect different types of performance in a PC workstation. In this third part, we focus down on one particular, industry-standard benchmark that puts a workstation through a range of tests with …

Rivet Networks on Wednesday introduced its new-generation smart network processor with enhanced performance and improved functionality. The new Killer E2400 chip promises to improve network-related performance in video games, multimedia and bandwidth-demanding applications. Gigabyte Technology and MicroStar International will be the first companies to use the new chip. Rivet does …

The Blu-ray disc association on Wednesday announced that it plans to begin licensing its Ultra HD Blu-ray format on the 24th of August. The set of technologies will allow makers of players, receivers and other electronics as well as designers of various audio/video (AV) processors to create hardware compatible with Ultra …

MicroStar International on Wednesday said that an overclocker had managed to set a new clock-speed record for DDR4 memory using the company’s flagship MSI Z170A XPower Gaming Titanium mainboard. The achievement underlines that both the new motherboard and Intel Corp.’s new “Skylake” microprocessors are excellent overclockers when it comes to …

MicroStar International will provide a free closed-loop liquid cooler from Cooler Master to the first buyers of their MSI Z170A Gaming M7 mainboards. The offer is limited, hence early adopters will need to be extremely quick. The first buyers of MSI’s new Z170A Gaming M7 platform will get Cooler Master …

While Intel's High-End Desktop (HEDT) CPUs are fast and fun, it's on the mainstream platform where the chip manufacturing company really shifts volumes to gamers and DIY enthusiasts. Multiplier-unlocked Core i5 and i7 variants of the latest mainstream micro-architecture are the popularity champions on an annual basis; an affordable platform …

The launch of Intel's Skylake CPUs sees the introduction of a whole new platform based around the LGA 1151 socket. Making use of Intel's feature-healthy Z170 chipset, Asus is targeting gamers who value premium aesthetics and enhanced gaming-grade features with the Maximus VIII Hero. Will the Republic of Gamers (ROG) …

Modern graphics processing units are extremely complex devices, which are exceptionally hard to manufacture. Because some of their execution units are defective, they are usually disabled during testing and packaging process. However, in many cases GPU developers also disable fully-functional units just to get a GPU configured for a particular …

Nowadays virtually all makers of mainboards offer motherboards with various exotic colours, including white or even silver. Makers of memory modules have traditionally been more conservative and typically such products come with black heat spreaders and PCBs. However, Crucial, a division of Micron, decided to release something for modders, who …

Micron Technology and Seagate Technology on Tuesday introduced their first jointly-developed solid-state drives for datacentres. The new SSDs are designed for enterprise applications, such as data analytics, financial transactions and media streaming. The Micron S600DC-series and the Seagate S1200.2-series drives use Micron’s advanced NAND flash along with Seagate’s SAS-related technologies. …

Silverstone has produced some of the most gorgeous brushed metal chassis in the history of PC building. Today, KitGuru has an exclusive competition to win a Milo ML06-E mini ITX chassis, 450w SFX 80Plus Gold rated Power Supply and Argon AR06 Low Profile Cooler – a great prize for anyone …

Toshiba Corp. and SanDisk Corp. have formally introduced their first vertically stacked triple-level-cell (TLC) NAND flash memory IC [integrated circuit] with 256Gb capacity. The new 3D BiCS [bit cost scalable] NAND flash memory will be mass produced next year. Toshiba’s new 256Gb (32GB) 48-layer BiCS flash device features 3-bit-per-cell TLC (triple-level cell) …

Samsung Electronics has reportedly decided to reduce production of standard dynamic random access memory (DRAM), which could cause increase of DRAM prices in the coming months. The world’s No. 1 maker of computer memory will increase production of LPDDR in a bid to supply enough memory to Apple, which is …

A web-site has published the finalized prices of Intel Corp.’s “Skylake-S” processors for desktops. The new central processing units will cost about the same amount of money as existing chips, the world’s largest maker of microprocessors will not increase prices of its products. The flagship Intel Core i7-6700K (four cores …

Advanced Micro Devices has confirmed that it is researching a multi-core accelerated processing unit based on “Zen” micro-architecture, which will eventually power supercomputers with extreme performance. At present the company is only considering a concept design and it is unclear when AMD decides to actually develop such processor. AMD, just …

In a bid not to create oversupply of NAND flash memory in the market, SanDisk Corp. will continue to cautiously expand its manufacturing capacities to sustain its profit margins. While even a minimal expansion of wafer capacities will be enough for SanDisk to fulfill demand for its products, it remains …

SanDisk Corp. and Toshiba Corp. are on-track to start volume shipments of products based on their BiCS [bit cost scalable] 3D NAND flash memory in 2016. Recently the two companies began to purchase equipment needed to manufacture vertically stacked NAND chips and will initiate pilot production later in 2015. Moreover, …

EVGA has upgraded its micro-ATX mainboard for Intel Corp.’s high-end desktop processors. The new platform features all the advanced capabilities that the EVGA X99 Micro had to offer a year ago, but adds more Serial ATA-6Gb/s ports as well as one USB 3.1 type-C connector. The new motherboard is one of …

The attitude of hard disk drives makers to solid-state drives is well known: they claim that such devices can only serve certain niche markets and cannot really compete against HDDs. On Friday chief executive of Seagate went on to say that nobody uses SSDs as storage devices. Nowadays solid-state drives …

High-end graphics cards for desktop PCs represent only a tiny fraction of the whole market of discrete graphics adapters, but as integrated graphics processors become more powerful and end-users cease to buy entry-level solutions, producers of standalone adapters need to refocus their businesses. Demand for entry-level and mainstream personal computers …

As small form-factor PCs rise in popularity, so do small form-factor graphics cards.  Today, Sapphire has announced the AMD R9 380 ITX Compact Edition, a shrunk down version of the R9 380 graphics card. The compact edition has been developed with small ITX builds in mind, with a short 171mm …