Back in January, AMD released its Radeon RX 5600 XT graphics card with a last-minute specifications update that made it competitive with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card. It did so by increasing GPU clock speeds, and more importantly, increasing memory clock speeds to 14 Gbps up from 12 Gbps in the original spec. Various AMD add-in board (AIB) partners released one-click BIOS updates on January 22nd (find them for ASRock , Sapphire , MSI , PowerColor , and Gigabyte ). An easy updater from ASUS was missing in action at the time. The company finally got around to releasing easy, Windows-based programs that update the video BIOS of its ROG Strix Radeon RX 5600 XT O6G and TUF Gaming RX 5600 XT EVO OC graphics cards. The BIOS updates run the video memory at 14 Gbps since the cards physically do feature 14 Gbps-rated memory chips. The specifications update has had a profound impact on the price-performance positioning of the RX 5600 XT, from being able to outperform the GTX 1660 Ti to trading blows with the RTX 2060. Grab the BIOS update from the links below. DOWNLOAD: ASUS RX 5600 XT Easy BIOS Updates for ROG Strix RX 5600 XT O6G | TUF Gaming RX 5600 XT EVO OC
(btarunr)
08.Apr.2020
MAINGEAR—an award-winning PC system integrator of custom gaming desktops, notebooks, and workstations—today announced that they will be utilizing their manufacturing facilities to produce affordable and high-quality emergency ventilators to aid hospitals in the fight against COVID-19. The MAINGEAR LIV can be produced at scale for approximately a quarter of the price of traditional ventilators. New Jersey-based manufacturer MAINGEAR—known for building the industry's most complex liquid cooling systems and high performance PCs—is located twenty-minutes outside of New York City, the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Due to the growing number of infected individuals needing treatment, there are significant shortages of ventilators in New York City hospitals. MAINGEAR is quickly re-tooling much of its production space for mass assembly of the MAINGEAR LIV—an emergency pulmonary ventilator for use in intensive care units on intubated patients. Read full story
(AleksandarK)
08.Apr.2020
ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules, NAND Flash products, and mobile accessories today announces the launch of the ADATA IM2S3314 M.2 2242 SATA III solid state drive (SSD). Featuring a slim and compact design, the IM2S3314 is ideally suited for smaller industrial devices. Sporting a M.2 2242 form factor, the IM2S3314 offers high compatibility and is easy to install. For reliable use in most environments, the SSD can operate optimally in a wide range of temperatures, from -40°C to 85°C. As with all ADATA industrial-grade SSDs, the IM2S3314 has a 3K P/E cycles rating, enhancing its endurance, reliability, and stability. All these characteristics and capabilities make the IM2S3314 perfect for a wide range of applications, devices, and segments that require a compact SSD with excellent reliability and stability, such as thin clients, industrial PCs, industrial robots, autonomous vehicles, transportation, healthcare, aerospace, and more. Read full story
(btarunr)
08.Apr.2020
As part of the Inside Xbox event which was held yesterday, Microsoft revealed the addition of several new third party widgets for the Xbox Game Bar from the likes of Razer, XSplit and Intel. Several more companies are also in talks with Microsoft to add apps to Xbox Game Bar, this follows the successful release of a Spotify integration earlier. Since we introduced Xbox Game Bar, we've continually evolved it in partnership with you: our community. From simple video capture, to quick access to audio settings, to seamless listening with Spotify, to providing an FPS counter, we've kept PC Gamers at the center of everything we do. This philosophy is the driving force behind the updates we're announcing today. Read full story
(Uskompuf)
08.Apr.2020
Tails OS the operating system recommended by Edward Snowden, now works on systems with UEFI Secure Boot enabled. Tails OS is built from the ground up to offer maximum security and privacy running of a portable drive and leaving no trace on the host computer. The latest Tails OS 4.5 update added support for this crucial UEFI Secure Boot feature which was already found in most operating systems. Secure Boot uses cryptographic signatures to verify the integrity of firmware files loaded on system boot and insure they have not been tempered with. Secure Boot has been available as part of the UEFI specification now for over two decades but is rarely used due to compatibility reasons. While not commonly used, the fact that a security focused operating system did not support this security feature was worrying for many as it meant Secure Boot had to be disabled on the host computer before the OS could boot. Work to add the feature has been ongoing over the last 6 years and is now complete and ready for use.
(Uskompuf)
08.Apr.2020
Here's the first picture of the Crucial P2, the company's second M.2 NVMe client SSD series based on QLC NAND flash memory, and successor to the Crucial P1. The drive sticks to PCI-Express gen 3.0 x4 as its host interface, but increases sequential read speeds over the P1. Available in 250 GB and 500 GB models to begin with, the P2 offers sequential transfer rates of up to 2100 MB/s reads with up to 1150 MB/s writes for the 250 GB variant; and up to 2300 MB/s reads with up to 940 MB/s writes on the 500 GB variant. There's no word on whether the P2 uses the same QLC NAND chips as the P1, but we do spy a DRAM cache chip. Endurance of the P2 is rated at 150 TBW, and Crucial is backing them with 5-year warranties when they come out in the near future. Pricing in Europe is expected to be about 59€ for the 250 GB model, and 70€ for the 500 GB one.
(btarunr)
08.Apr.2020
DeepCool seems to have a habit of reusing names, the MATREXX 55 V3 is the 12th case bearing the MATREXX 55 name. This version in particular is a variant of the MATREXX 55 V3 ADD-RGB 3F launched last December omitting the front RGB fans. Naming shenanigans aside this case could be a real value proposition considering its RRP of $49 USD and impressive feature set. The case has 4 mm thick tempered glass front and left side panels, the front panel also features an addressable RGB strip. I / O consists of a USB 2 and USB 3 port, audio in/out and a RGB button. The case can accommodate up to motherboards up to E-ATX, has 7 expansion slots, has room for 2 3.5" drives and a further 2 2.5" drives. In terms of fan/radiator compatibility you can fit 3 front 120 mm / 140 mm, 2 top 140 mm / 120 mm and a rear 120 mm. While the case is expected to debut first in Asian countries we can expect some worldwide availability.
(Uskompuf)
08.Apr.2020
I-O Data today unveiled the SSPH-UT line of portable SSDs that are certified for use with PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro as additional storage (USB mass-storage class devices). The drives feature USB 3.1 gen 1 (5 Gbps) host interface, and use a single cable for both power and host connectivity. Available in capacities of 250 GB, 500 GB, and 1 TB, the drives offer sequential transfer rates of up to 300 MB/s, which should be viable for console gaming speedups, including in cases where you transfer game installations from the internal hard drive onto these. The compact portable drives come in two color options, maroon and gray. Both measure 8 cm x 8 cm x 1.5 cm (WxDxH), weighing 55 g. The drives are certified for 1.2 m drops. The company didn't reveal pricing.
(btarunr)
08.Apr.2020
Intel's x86 processor architecture has been the dominant CPU instruction set for many decades, since IBM decided to put the Intel 8086 microprocessor into its first Personal Computer. Later, in 2006, Apple decided to replace their PowerPC based processors in Macintosh computers with Intel chips, too. This was the time when x86 became the only option for the masses to use and develop all their software on. While mobile phones and embedded devices are mostly Arm today, it is clear that x86 is still the dominant ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) for desktop computers today, with both Intel and AMD producing processors for it. Those processors are going inside millions of PCs that are used every day. Today I would like to share my thoughts on the demise of the x86 platform and how it might vanish in favor of the RISC-based Arm architecture. Both AMD and Intel as producer, and millions of companies as consumer, have invested heavily in the x86 architecture, so why would x86 ever go extinct if "it just works"? The answer is that it doesn't just work. Read full story
(AleksandarK)
08.Apr.2020
It was only recently that we reported on Samsung's decision to stop manufacturing all the LCD panels and focus on the production of AMOLED and QLED displays. However, it seems like Samsung will not be abandoning the LCD technology completely. According to a report from DigiTimes, we have information that Samsung will continue to offer LCD-based screens, TN-film, various kinds of VA, IPS, etc., by buying the LCD screen from a Japanese multinational company called Sharp. Sharp will be Samsung's only source of these LCD screens, so Samsung will still be able to offer products based on them. It is reported that types of panels in question are meant for the production of television devices, meaning that they are probably bigger-sized panels.
(AleksandarK)
08.Apr.2020
The leading personal computer brand, GIGABYTE, recently received the 2020 Red Dot Design Award for two creator laptops from the AERO line - AERO 15 OLED & AERO 17 - as well as two professional gaming laptops - AORUS 15G and AORUS 17X. The recognition further establishes GIGABYTE's role as a market leader in the laptop industry. There were over 6,500 entries from 60 countries contending in this year's Red Dot Design Awards. GIGABYTE is committed to producing the AERO Creator Laptop and AORUS Gaming Laptop lines in Taiwan. With their ultra-slim bezel, Xrite Pantone color calibration, Microsoft Azure AI, and other industry leading technologies, GIGABYTE's laptops have already been recognized with the European Hardware Awards for Best Notebook as well as receiving Taiwan Excellence Awards. The notebooks are now honored with the 2020 Red Dot Design Award. Read full story
(btarunr)
08.Apr.2020
AMD late Tuesday posted updated versions of its Chipset Software for AMD "Promontory" 300-series, 400-series, and homebrew X570 chipsets. The new version 2.04.04.111 drivers now come with a brand new installer interface carried over from Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020. AMD has cleaned up several deprecated device IDs from the IOV and integrated USB 3.0 controller drivers. The company also mentions "general system stability improvements" without specifying what these are. Thanks to the new installer, the drivers no longer run into the "Error 1720" code during installation. A bug that caused the drivers to not install to a non C-drive location has been fixed. A screen rotation bug with certain mobile AMD processors has been fixed. Also fixed is a rare system halt bug with certain 7th gen A-series (socket AM4) processors. Grab the drivers from the link below. DOWNLOAD: AMD Chipset Software The change-log follows. Read full story
(btarunr)
08.Apr.2020
When it launched late March, the AMD Ryzen 9 4900H held the distinction of being the fastest notebook processor, the very first time AMD held the distinction, but only for a brief period before Intel launched its Core i9-10980HK to take back the performance lead. Over in the 15 W category, AMD's Ryzen 7 4800U is holding the fort on two fronts - against the "Comet Lake-U" and the "Ice Lake-U." According to reports, AMD wants to take another swing at this category with a new flagship Ryzen 9 series part. Called the Ryzen 9 4900U, and unearthed from the User Benchmark database by TUM_APISAK, the new SKU is designed to compete with the Core i7-10710U and Core i7-1065G7, in the 15 W category. Lenovo had a notebook featuring this part listed earlier this year. It is configured with an 8-core/16-thread CPU clocked at 1.80 GHz nominal, with up to 4.30 GHz boost, which may seem like a minor speed bump, until you compare its User Benchmark scores with those of the 4800U. Apparently, the 4900U has some boost algorithm secret sauce that makes it a double-digit percentage faster than the 4800U in multi-threaded tests (possibly better spread of boost clocks across multiple cores). The iGPU appears unchanged, with 8 "Vega" compute units (512 stream processors), and up to 1750 MHz engine clocks.
(btarunr)
08.Apr.2020
NVIDIA announced the limited edition Cyberpunk 2077 RTX 2080 Ti card in february with a limited run of just 200 cards, 133 of which were available to purchase at a price of $1,100 with the other 77 getting raffled off. These cards are now finding their way onto eBay both new and used and hitting prices of up to $6,000 over 5x the normal price for a 2080 Ti. If you've got some money burning a hole in your pocket you can pick one up at auction here where the price is currently $4,250.
(Uskompuf)
08.Apr.2020
HP has announced it's updated ProBook Business Laptop lineup with the 14" ProBook 445 G7 and the 15.6" 455 G7. The laptops feature a aluminium construction, 180 degree hinges and screen choice of HD or FHD non-touch screens up to 1,000 nits brightness. For both models the CPU choice are the Ryzen 3 4300U, AMD Ryzen 5 4500U or AMD Ryzen 7 4700U all with integrated AMD Radeon Graphics. The laptops can be configured with up to 16 GB of ram, 1 TB SATA SSD and 512 GB NVMe SSD. Pricing hasn't been announced yet but HP says the laptops will be available to purchase from late April 2020 so we don't have long to wait.
(Uskompuf)
08.Apr.2020
