Month: June 2020
13 posts
For the past couple of days, some leaks are from Intel. The closer to future release is the LGA-1200 based Rocket Lake-S. And engineering sample of the 11th generation 8-core/ 16-thread processor appeared in Geekbench testing.
Western Digital is releasing the CMR-based Red Plus series NAS HDDs. This series assures ZFS compatibility for NAS, one of the features that were supposed to be a part of Red sub-branding. This is the action WD took well after being called out for switch-and-bait of WD Red models from the EFRX which used SMR to EFAX models between 2TB-to-6TB that used the lower performing and lesser reliable (for NAS) CMR technology. It all started with a lack of clarity from WD which kept defending its stance after the crowd-sourced evidence of NAS-specific issues.
AMD has two more Matisse Refresh CPUs- the Ryzen 9 3900XT and the Ryzen 5 3600XT. The leak appeared in Amazon Italy, which pretty much confirms its stocked for retail. According to the listing which is now pulled out, The Ryzen 9 3900XT and the Ryzen 3 3600XT costs €569.69 and €284.84, equivalent to US$ 641 and US$ 320.48. The scheduled launch date is July 7th. The only XT CPU that’s not listed but destined to be launched is the Ryzen 7 3800XT.
Microsoft reveals its plans with its games streaming platform Mixer which will partner with Facebook Gaming. As a result, the software giant is going to shut down Mixer’s operations. During its transition, all of Mixer’s partnered streamers will shift to Facebook. Neither the execs from Microsoft nor Mixer gave any reasons for this sudden development.
Corsair’s streaming peripherals division Elgato has released two USB microphones- Wave:1 and Wave:3, its first and therefore providing all streaming components, peripherals and accessories (except webcam for now). Both microphones are cardioid condenser based USB mics with a 24-bit converter.
NZXT released a limited edition and sixth variation of the H510 variation- the CRFT 06 H510 Siege. The case maker collaborated with Rainbow 6 Siege for its special edition. NZXT has been collaborating with respective game studios for having special limited edition for AAA titles. I did test the Fallout 4 Limited Edition H500 a long time ago. It did add an illumination ‘6’ logo on the front panel. It also has special Rainbow 6 Siege ‘Puck’ viz. a magnet-based holder for headphones. NZXT does its pucks but it sells this variation exclusively with this case.
AMD and Intel collaborated and made its first creation a year ago, codenamed NUC 8 ‘Hades Canyon’. Intel used its Kaby Lake-G CPU with Radeon RX Vega M graphics in the same package. The end results really an abomination, even though both competed against eachother actively. The CPU used in NUC 8 was impressive two years ago. However, the problem was with its driver support shortly after its availability in 2018. The respective chipmakers assured support for drivers for up to 5 years. You’d reckon they’d keep up with their word.
Asus launched a marketing campaign to encourage its users to post user reviews, calling it “Rate your Gear”. The company’s page requires submissions to be posted in some of the leading Indian PC component and peripheral sellers. This is limited to Amazon, Flipkart and MD Computers. Encouraging users to put up user reviews is nothing new, rather welcomed. But when it is incentivised, the nature changes. It is promotional material. But it uses its uses to do the job for them.
ASROCK is going to have twelve motherboards using the entry-level AMD A520 chipsets. The motherboard maker sent a list of motherboard for approval to the ECC. The finalised named indicates ASROCK’s readiness to release all these motherboards. It is also safe to speculate other motherboard manufacturers also have finalised many of its AMD A520 motherboards.
A slide shows a family of Intel NUCs ready to be made available till the end of 2021. The one that will catch your eye is the Phantom Canyon NUCs (NUC 11 Extreme). These NUCs will be using the Tiger Lake-U processors. The main function of this NUC is the support for discrete graphics. With power enough CPUs in a NUC, it probably made sense to give a much better gaming capability.
