Thread: Anandtech News

It’s a couple of weeks later than originally planned, but this week NVIDIA is finally amping up the last of its high-end video card lineup with the release of the GeForce RTX 3070. Based on the Ampere architecture first launched back in September for the GeForce RTX 3080, the RTX 3070 is NVIDIA’s $500 take on a next-gen video card, incorporating a leaner Ampere GPU and otherwise shrinking Ampere down to something that’s a bit lighter on the wallet. Fittingly, whereas the RTX 3080 was positioned for 4K gaming, the RTX 3070 is being aimed at the 1440p crowd, a lower resolution that the Ampere card is very capable of handling. Reviews of NVIDIA’s Founders Edition (reference) card are going out today, with retail sales of NVIDIA and partner cards set to kick off on October 29^th.



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AMD's second and final product keynote of the month is taking place today, with an event AMD has dubbed "Where Gaming Begins". Hosted as always by AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su, AMD will be focusing on the new Radeon RX 6000 series and more, unveiling for the first time their latest generation of video cards. Powered by the company's new RDNA2 architecture, the RX 6000 cards and associated RDNA2-powered game consoles mark an important launch for AMD as they establish the technological cornerstone of gaming products for years to come.
So please join us at noon Eastern (16:00 UTC) for our live blog coverage of AMD's latest and greatest in video cards.

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After over a year of official teases, naming, and plenty of performance details, Microsoft is on the cusp of launching their first proper new generation of the Xbox since the Xbox One launched in 2013. Set to be released on November 10, 2020. Microsoft is going all-out on their next-generation Xbox, and they have been gracious enough to send us one for review. Sadly, that review will have to wait until close to the 10th, but they are allowing some unboxing and photos today of the new hardware, which we thought we would share with you.

The new console is a somewhat radical departure from the previous generation, with Microsoft moving to a vertical tower design that's shaped, well, like a box. Dressed in a flat black finish, it should fit quite well in most TV setups, and hopefully blend into the background. Design is of course a subjective measure, but the Xbox team has stuck with an understated design. The console can be used either vertically or horizontally, but the asymmetrical Xbox logo on the power button will be pointed the wrong way if it is used on its side.

For the console's default standing position, the new Xbox features a round podium to keep it elevated, allowing more airflow into the device. And for horizontal use, there are four rubber feet on the one side. Unlike some previous gen Xbox models, there will be no accessories needed to change the orientation, which is nice to see.

The top of the Xbox Series X features a wide-open cooling grill, with some Xbox green highlighting that can be seen from the right angles. It looks pretty good. Cooling is also helped by some wide vents on the rear of the device. With 12 TF of performance, cooling was clearly one of the key design features, and there is plenty of room for airflow.

The console's dimensions are almost exactly a 1:2 ratio, with the short sides being 151 mm / 5.94 inches, and the long edge being 301 mm / 11.85 inches. Compared to the outgoing Xbox One X, it is much taller, as the former generation console was only 60 mm tall, but the square design means it takes up a very small footprint, despite having around 50% more volume than the Xbox One X. Though it does look a bit strange when laid out horizontally, since it is much shallower than you would expect a console to be.
With the new console comes a new revision of the Xbox controller. Comparatively, this updated controller has not changed much from the previous generation, and all of the previous-generation controllers will work with the new Xbox if you have a custom one you enjoy. The new design has some subtle changes, with more texture on the grips for better control, and an updated D-pad which now includes a full circle on the D-Pad which should improve usage. There is also a new share button in the center of the controller which lets you share game clips and screenshots more easily. The controller is still powered by two AA batteries, which are included, with Microsoft opting to keep selling the rechargeable kit as an optional accessory.

The console ships with a controller, batteries, a power cord, and a high-speed HDMI cable in the box. There is no power brick, as the power supply is internal, so the power cord is the same standard connector as shipped with the Xbox One S and One X. The rear of the unit also features a couple of USB ports for connecting storage and accessories, as well as an Ethernet jack, and the new Storage Expansion port for adding additional NVMe SSD storage without having to dig into the console itself. Somewhat sadly, but also likely to not be missed, there is no longer an HDMI input port, unlike the Xbox One range.
We will have a much deeper review coming up, so check back soon. If there is anything you’d like to see tested, let us know in the comments.



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Preparing to close out a major month of announcements for AMD – and to open the door to the next era of architectures across the company – AMD wrapped up its final keynote presentation of the month by announcing their Radeon RX 6000 series of video cards. Hosted once more by AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su, AMD’s hour-long keynote revealed the first three parts in AMD’s new RDNA2 architecture video card family: the Radeon RX 6800, 6800XT, and 6900XT. The core of AMD’s new high-end video card lineup, AMD means to do battle with the best of the best out of arch-rival NVIDIA. And we’ll get to see first-hand if AMD can retake the high-end market on November 18^th, when the first two cards hit retail shelves.


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During a time of increased competitor activity, Intel has decided to disclose some of the high level details surrounding its next generation consumer processor, known as Rocket Lake or Intel’s 11^th Gen Core. The new processor family is due in the market in the first quarter of 2021, and is expected to share a socket and motherboard compatibility with the current 10^th Gen Comet Lake processors, providing an upgrade path even for those with a Core i9-10900K, Intel’s highest performing desktop processor to date. New 500-series motherboards are also expected to be available.

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Portable bus-powered SSDs are a growing segment of the direct-attached storage market. The ongoing glut in flash memory (and the growing confidence of flash vendors in QLC) has brought down the price of these drives. Sabrent, a computer peripherals and accessories manufacturer, has made a name for itself in the space by catering to niche segments such as ultra-high capacity and compact SSDs. The company sent over a bunch of unique external SSDs to put through our strenuous review process. The first product we are going to take a look at is the Rocket Nano Rugged 2TB USB 3.2 Gen 2 drive. Read on to find out how it stacks against the rest of the competition.

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For those of you fortunate enough to be able to find one of NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX 30 series video cards, the GPU maker has launched a new game bundle for the much sought-after cards. For their latest promotion, NVIDIA is bundling the forthcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War with GeForce RTX 3080 & GeForce RTX 3090 cards, highlighting the launch of the latest Call of Duty game as well as its support for various NVIDIA technologies. This latest game bundle replaces the Watch Dogs bundle, which ended yesterday.
NVIDIA has offered Call of Duty bundles a few times in the past, so including this year’s game is quickly becoming a regular tradition for the company. One of the biggest games on the market every year, NVIDIA and its developer relations team have worked with developer Treyarch to implement several technologies, including ray tracing support, NVIDIA’s DLSS, and NVIDIA’s new Reflex latency-reduction tech. So as with a lot of NVIDIA’s RTX series game bundles, it’s designed to show off the capabilities of the hardware as much as it is extra kicker to add to the value of NVIDIA’s cards.

NVIDIA Current Game Bundles (October/November 2020)
Video Card (incl. systems and OEMs)	Bundle
GeForce RTX 3090	Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
GeForce RTX 3080	Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
GeForce RTX 3070	None
GeForce RTX 20 Series (All)	None
GeForce GTX 16 Series (All)	None

NVIDIA is including the standard edition of Call of Duty with the top two cards of their new RTX 30-series lineup, the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, as well as new desktop systems that include those cards. Which at face value is a bit surprising; though game bundles with high-end cards aren’t unusual, RTX 30 series card sales are going so well that NVIDIA hardly needs to include extra swag to sell their cards. In fact, if you can even get an RTX 3080 or RTX 3090 card then you’re fortunate given how quickly they sell out. On the flip side, however, this may change in November when AMD launches its rival RX 6800/6900 series cards, as the company has made it known that they’re gunning for NVIDIA – so perhaps it’s never too early to sweeten the pot.
At any rate, this is NVIDIA’s only game bundle for the moment. The company is not running the Call of Duty bundle for the recently-launched RTX 3070, nor are they including any games with their previous-generation RTX 20-series or GTX 16-series cards.
As always, codes must be redeemed via the GeForce Experience application on a system with a qualifying graphics card installed. The Call of Duty bundle runs from today through December 10^th, and more information and details can be found in the terms and conditions. Be sure to verify the participation of any vendors purchased from, as NVIDIA will not give codes for purchases made from non-participating sellers.

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Today may be Halloween, but what Intel is up to is no trick. Almost a year after showing off their alpha silicon, Intel’s first discrete GPU in over two decades has been released and is now shipping in OEM laptops. The first of several planned products using the DG1 GPU, Intel’s initial outing in their new era of discrete graphics is in the laptop space, where today they are launching their Iris Xe MAX graphics solution. Designed to complement Intel’s Xe-LP integrated graphics in their new Tiger Lake CPUs, Xe MAX will be showing up in thin-and-light laptops as an upgraded graphics option, and with a focus on mobile creation.

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Alongside today’s launch of Intel’s DG1-based Iris Xe MAX graphics for laptops, the company is also quietly confirming that DG1 will be coming to desktop video cards as well, albeit in a roundabout way.
Though still in the early stages, a hereto unnamed third party has reached an agreement with Intel to produce DG1-based desktop cards. These cards, in turn, will be going into OEM desktop systems, and they are expected to appear early next year.
The very brief statement from Intel doesn’t contain any other details. The company isn’t saying anything about the specifications of the OEM desktop cards (e.g. clockspeeds), nor are they naming the third party that will be making the cards, or any OEMs who might be using the cards. For today at least, this is a simple notification that there will be OEM cards next year.
As for the market for such cards, there are a couple of avenues. OEMs could decide to treat the cards similarly to how Iris Xe MAX is being positioned in laptops, which is to say as a cheap add-in accelerator for certain GPU-powered tasks. Intel has baked a significant amount of video encode performance into the Xe-LP architecture, so the cards could be positioned as video encode accelerators. This would be very similar to Intel’s own plans, as the company will be selling a DG1-based video encode card for servers called the SG1.
Alternatively, the third party may just be looking to sell the DG1 card to OEMs as simple entry-level discrete graphics cards. Based on what we know about Xe MAX for laptops, DG1 is not expected to be significantly more powerful than Tiger Lake integrated graphics. However, as pointed out by our own Dr. Ian Cutress, it should be a good bit better than the Gemini Lake Atom’s integrated GPU.

Sadly, the OEM card probably won't be as fancy as Intel's DG1 development card

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We don’t normally publish news posts about Apple sending out RSVPs for product launch events, but this one should be especially interesting.
This morning Apple has sent notice that they’re holding an event next Tuesday dubbed “One more thing.” In traditional Apple fashion, the announcement doesn’t contain any detailed information about the content expected; but as Apple has already announced their updated iPads and iPhones, the only thing left on Apple’s list for the year is Macs. Specifically, their forthcoming Arm-powered Macs.
As previously announced by Apple back at their summer WWDC event, the company is transitioning its Mac lineup from x86 CPUs to Arm CPUs. With a two-year transition plan in mind, Apple is planning to start the Arm Mac transition this year, and wrapping things up in 2022.

For the new Arm Macs, Apple will of course be using their own in-house designed Arm processors, the A-series. As we’ve seen time and time again from the company, Apple’s CPU design team is on the cutting-edge of Arm CPU cores, producing the fastest Arm CPU cores for several years running now, and more recently even overtaking Intel’s x86 chips in real-world Instruction Per Clock (IPC) rates. Suffice it to say, Apple believes they can do better than Intel by designing their own CPUs, and especially with the benefits of vertical integration and total platform control, they might be right.

Apple has been shipping early Arm Macs to developers since the summer, using modified Mac Minis containing their A12Z silicon. We’re obviously expecting something newer, but whether it’s a variant of Apple’s A14 SoC, or perhaps something newer and more bespoke specifically for their Macs, remains to be seen.
In the meantime, because this is a phased transition, Apple will be selling Intel Macs – including new models – alongside the planned Arm Macs. So although Apple will no doubt focus on their new Arm Macs, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see some new Intel Macs announced alongside them. Apple will be supporting Intel Macs for years to come, and in the meantime they need to avoid Osborning their x86 systems.
As always, we’ll have a live blog of the events next Tuesday, along with a breakdown of Apple’s announcements afterwards. So please be sure to drop in and check that out.

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