Micron Technology on Monday began the expansion of its Singapore NAND flash memory fabrication facility. The company started to build a new fab that will cost $4 billion and will start production in fiscal 2017. The new fab is expected to produce innovative 3D NAND flash (co-developed with Intel) as …
Read More »AMD advices developers to focus on DirectX 12 and glNext, not Mantle 1.0
AMD’s Mantle application programming interface was the first low-overhead/high-throughput graphics API to reach the market. The emergence of Mantle has made Microsoft and many other companies in the industry to redesign their APIs, including DirectX and OpenGL. While Mantle will continue to be AMD’s graphics innovation platform, the company now advices …
Read More »Intel ‘Skylake’ processors for PCs will not support AVX-512 instructions
Intel Corp.’s forthcoming central processing units code-named “Skylake” for personal computers will not support any AVX-512 instructions, according to a media report. Only Xeon processors for servers and, possibly, workstations will support 512-bit instructions. Support of 512-bit SIMD instructions – known as AVX3 – was expected to be a key …
Read More »InWin 703 Chassis Review
The In-Win 703 is as far removed from the In-Win D Frame Mini as one PC case can be from another, which just goes to show that it is a mug's game to have preconceptions about any new product before you open the box. In essence the InWin 703 is …
Read More »MSI: We will not block overclocking capabilities of our notebooks
MicroStar International does not plan to block overclocking of Nvidia GeForce GTX 900M-series graphics processing units inside its laptops for gamers. The company, which produces one of the finest high-end notebooks, however, warns overclockers about possible overheating and warranty issues because of overclocking. “MSI is not planning any changes to …
Read More »Nvidia now limits overclocking of GeForce GTX 900M with vBIOS
Although Nvidia Corp. recently said that its future drivers for GeForce GTX 900M-series graphics adapters for mobile computers will re-enable overclocking support for the notebook GPUs, there are reports that the company continues to block overclocking, but this time using a vBIOS setting. A BIOS mod enthusiast from TechInferno.com forum …
Read More »Samsung unveils ‘SSD’ for smartphones with up to 600MB/s bandwidth
Samsung Electronics this week said that it had started to mass produce a family of NAND flash memory devices for mobile applications that are compliant with the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 standard. The new chips will be used for smartphones and tablets and will enable SSD-class performance on mobile …
Read More »27% of SSD owners experienced malfunction of SSDs – study
Kroll Ontrack, a leading provider of data recovery services, revealed this week that while there are a lot of people who already take advantage of solid-state drives, many of them also have experienced failures of such drives and data loss. Apparently, the amount of people, who suffered an SSD malfunction …
Read More »Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK Black Edition Motherboard Review
Longevity and reliability are particularly important purchasing decisions for a component such as a motherboard. Quite simply, your system's motherboard failing can be considered not too far off a personal disaster. Gigabyte aims to put those reliability concerns at ease with the 168 hour, server-level validation process used on its …
Read More »Thermaltake Core V51 Chassis Review
The key feature of the Thermaltake Core V51 is its substantial size. It stands 540mm high and 560mm deep, which means it can support an EATX motherboard with eight expansion slots. You'll get a better idea about the size of Core V51 when you hear it accommodates a graphics card …
Read More »EVGA GeForce GTX 980 hits 2.30GHz, sets new records
Nvidia Corp.’s code-named GM204 graphics processing unit has once again managed to set a new frequency record for graphics processing units. A well-known overclocker has succeeded in pushing the frequency of the GPU to 2.30GHz clock-rate, but could not eventually replicate the record because of high humidity. Steponz, a leading …
Read More »Intel to reclassify Atom processors to better reflect their positioning
Intel Corp. not only plans to unveil its new Atom processors code-named “Braswell” later this year, but also to introduce a new classification for its chips aimed at ultra-portable devices. The new naming scheme will help the world’s largest chipmaker to better position its Atom processors and will likely help …
Read More »The BitFenix Aegis Core and Icon editions are now available
The full colour range of the BitFenix Aegis desktop PC case is now available at Overclockers UK. There are two versions of the case available, the Icon edition, which comes with a small colour display built-in, allowing you to display a custom logo and the Core edition, which does not …
Read More »Nvidia to unveil ‘revolutionary new gaming platform’ next week
Nvidia Corp. recently unveiled a web-site that invites everyone to a special event where its chief executive officer plans to make an important announcement about the future of gaming. The company revealed no details about the upcoming project, but it now turns out that it is a brand new gaming …
Read More »DRAM will remain in short supply this year – analyst
Even though Samsung Electronics plans to increase its manufacturing capacities for dynamic random access memory later this year, analysts believe that this will not create an oversupply on the DRAM market. The reasons for that are transitions to bigger memory dies as well as growing demand for higher memory capacities …
Read More »Nvidia increases lead over AMD share as shipments of GPUs drop – JPR
As expected, Nvidia Corp. managed to increase its desktop GPU market share lead over Advanced Micro Devices in the fourth quarter of 2014 as a result of successful launch of its GeForce GTX 970/980 “Maxwell” products as well as because of AMD’s continued troubles in the channel. Declines of AMD …
Read More »Asrock shows off LGA1151 mainboard for Intel ‘Skylake’ processors
At the Embedded World 2015 trade-show this week Asrock demonstrated its first mainboard for LGA1151 central processing units code-named Skylake. DFI, a well-known maker of mainboards that no longer produces products for consumers, is also showcasing its embedded/industrial LGA1151 roadmap at the show. Although makers of desktop mainboards are not …
Read More »TSMC: We will close the gap with Intel at 10nm!
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. believes that its 10nm fabrication process will not only be available around the same time when Intel Corp. starts to use its 10nm technology, but will also offer similar performance and density as Intel’s. In a bid to speed up time-to-market of their manufacturing processes featuring FinFET …
Read More »Samsung: 10nm technology in development, 7nm will require new transistors
Kinam Kim, the president of Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor business, presented his view on the development of chip manufacturing technologies at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference 2015 this week. Samsung is already developing its next-generation 10nm FinFET fabrication process, but in order to continue scaling down structures of chips, new materials …
Read More »Nvidia CEO addresses GeForce GTX 970 scandal in a letter to customers
Jen-Hsun Huang, chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp. on Tuesday wrote an open letter to the company’s customers covering the recent GeForce GTX 970 controversy. The head of the GPU developer admitted that the company failed to communicate how memory sub-system works on the GeForce GTX 970, but said that …
Read More »DirectX12 could bring AMD and NVIDIA together
In a pretty exciting rumor today there have been claims that the new DirectX standard coming with Windows 10, could allow you to use graphics card from both AMD and NVIDIA. The so called, Explicit Asynchronous Multi-GPU capabilities could bring all of the GPU power in a system into a pool …
Read More »Seasonic TFX 350W PSU Review
We spend most of our review time analysing ATX power supplies, however we wanted to break with tradition today and take a look at the new Seasonic TFX 350 watt unit. This tiny supply is fully modular and ships with 80 Plus Gold Certification – but can it deliver the …
Read More »AMD details ‘Carrizo’: High-density design, lowered power consumption
At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference 2015 Advanced Micro Devices unveiled the first official details regarding its code-named “Carrizo” accelerated processing units. As reported, the new chips are aimed specifically at notebooks and therefore were designed from the ground up to be extremely power efficient and integrate all functionality possible. …
Read More »OCZ Challenge update: 3rd ARC 100 drive dies at 384TB
Given the nature of SSD technology, one sure fire way to check reliability is to run massive amounts of data through them – which is what we started to do with five OCZ ARC 100s back on December 10th. Here's the latest update from KitGuru Labs. The warranty term for this kind …
Read More »Usage of USB 3.1 type-C connectors will not take off before 2016 – Foxlink
Although USB 3.1 type-C connector has loads of benefits for end-users compared to regular USB implementation, its usage will remain insignificant till 2016, according to Foxlink, a leading maker of various ports and connectors. Reversible form-factor and improved durability of the new USB 3.1 type-C connectors bring loads of benefits …
Read More »Intel: 7nm process technology will require new materials
The semiconductor industry has realized the benefits of Moore’s Law for 50 years, making chips that have grown from tens to billions of transistors and performing an increased range of functions from memory to logic to signal processing. Next year or in 2017, the world’s largest maker of microprocessors will …
Read More »AMD seeking CPU performance engineer to optimize GPU drivers
Advanced Micro Devices is hiring a microprocessor performance engineer to optimize its Catalyst drivers for graphics cards. The programmer will help to optimize AMD drivers to boost performance of Radeon graphics adapters in cases where CPU is a major performance-limiting factor. The CPU performance engineer will have to analyze CPU bound …
Read More »AMD’s ‘Zen’ could sport Intel’s ‘Skylake’ features, new 512-bit FPU – rumours
Although microprocessors based on AMD’s next-generation high-performance micro-architecture code-named “Zen” are more than a year away, some details regarding the forthcoming chips and “Zen” in general are beginning to surface. The most recent rumours about the new architecture add some technical details and point to release schedule of the new …
Read More »Nvidia slammed with class-action lawsuit over GeForce GTX 970 specifications
While only a small fraction of GeForce GTX 970 owners plan to return their graphics cards to stores following a scandal with the product's specs, there are still quite a lot of people, who got upset not only because the company originally published incorrect specifications, but because it decided to …
Read More »Corsair’s Dominator Platinum Orange guaranteed to run at 3.4GHz at ambient room temperature
Corsair, a major maker of enthusiast-class memory modules, has introduced its new limited edition 16GB DDR4 memory kit designed for high-end desktop (HEDT) systems featuring Intel Core i7 “Haswell-E” processors and Gigabyte X99-SOC Champion mainboards. The memory will run at maximum DDR4 clock-rate possible today, 3.40GHz, and will provide further …
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