Thread: Anandtech News

It has been a while since we last heard from NVIDIA about Project Shield. Today, NVIDIA is dropping "Project" from the name, making it formally just Shield, and simultaneously announcing pricing and availability information about its Tegra 4-packing handheld gaming console. The specs for Shield remain the same as what we saw at CES 2013 — 1.9 GHz Tegra 4 SoC, 5-inch 720p display, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. What's nice about getting a device straight from the SoC vendor in this case is that NVIDIA promises it will be able to push out OTA updates with the latest and greatest Android version basically in lock step with its own official Tegra 4 BSP (Board Support Package) software offerings, which makes it essentially the Tegra 4 reference platform.

NVIDIA SHIELD
	Shield
SoC	NVIDIA Tegra 4 - 1.9 GHz
Display	5-inch 720p "Retinal" Display
RAM	2 GB LPDDR3
Wireless Connectivity	2x2:2 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi + BT 3.0, GPS
Storage	16 GB NAND, microSD Expansion
I/O	microUSB 2.0, mini-HDMI, 3.5mm headphone
OS	Android 4.2.1, Updates from NVIDIA
Price	$349.00, Preorders May 20, Shipping Late June

As for availability, the big news is pricing, which will be $349 in the US, with preorders starting on May 20th from vendors familiar to everyone. NVIDIA called out Newegg, GameStop, Micro Center, and Canada Computers explicitly as preorder vendors, with others to follow after the preorder period. As for ship date, NVIDIA is aiming for late June for fulfillment. At $349 the Shield is more expensive than the major first party handheld gaming consoles like the Sony PS Vita or Nintendo 3DS, but an impressive middle ground and price point nonetheless for basically what boils down to a higher-end smartphone sans cellular stack but with a built in gamepad. We're excited to get hands on with Shield in its final form with the final tuning of its joysticks, triggers, and D-Pad.
In conjunction with the launch of Shield will be availability of the PC game streaming functionality as well, initially in beta form. NVIDIA has a set of recommended titles which have been optimized for the Shield controller scheme, and as we experienced at CES likely include UI tweaks to make 720p handheld gaming a reality.

Source: NVIDIA Blog (

It's been a little while since NZXT produced the popular but flawed H2 silent enclosure. The new H630 is radically different; does it make up the difference?


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In the desktop form factor NAS space, it is quite difficult to find units with more than two network ports and / or
PCIe expansion slots. These features are usually reserved for rackmount units targeting high end SMB users. Synology is bringing some of these high-end SMB / enterprise features to the desktop form factor with the launch of the DS1513+. The enclosure has been redesigned and the drive bays are now screwless.
Gallery: Synology DS1513+


To differentiate itself from the DS1512+ (with which it shares the same computing platform, a 2.13 GHz dual core Atom D2700), the unit has four GbE network ports. The unit also brings multi-path IO (MPIO) to the desktop form factor. SHA (Synology High Availability) is also part of the enabled features. This provides for seamless failover transition by maintaining identical contents in real time across two Synology NAS units.
Synology claims read and write throughputs of 350 MBps and 200 MBps respectively when all four ports are link aggregated. The unit is now shipping globally, but availability may vary across regions.



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The Haswell launch gets just a little more complicated each day, with the latest wrinkle being that standard ATX power supplies that conform to the ATX 2.3 standard may not actually be capable of supporting Haswell's extremely low power sleep states. The result has been power supply manufacturers scrambling to see if their power supplies can handle Haswell's requested 0.05A on the 12V rail as opposed to the ATX 2.3 minimum's 0.5A.
Both Corsair and Sea Sonic have been rigorously testing their power supplies to determine which ones definitely can handle Haswell's C6/C7 states, and both have a list of power supplies which are certified to run Haswell, and in the case of Corsair and their substantial portfolio, which power supplies should be able to handle Haswell with no problems.
Starting with Sea Sonic, the following power supplies are certified Haswell ready:

Series	Wattages
X Series	650, 750, 850, 1050, 1250
Platinum	660, 760, 860, 1000, 1200
Platinum Fanless	400, 460, 520
M12 II Bronze EVO	360, 450, 550, 650
G Series	750, 850

Corsair is a little bit more complicated. Certification testing is ongoing, but the following power supplies have been guaranteed to be fully compliant with Haswell:

Series	Wattages
AXi	760, 860, 1200
AX	650, 750, 760, 850, 860, 1200
HX	650, 750, 850, 1000, 1050
TX-M	650, 750, 850
TX	650, 750, 850
GS (V2)	600, 700, 800
CX	750, 750M

Corsair's validation efforts continue on the following models (predominately legacy), which they say are "likely compatible" but are not confirmed yet:

Series	Wattages
HX	520, 620
GS (V1)	500, 600, 700, 800
CX-M	430, 500, 600
CX	430, 500, 600
VX	450, 550
VS	350, 450, 550, 650

If you're looking to make the jump to Haswell next month, the best thing you can do is likely going to be to watch the homepage and support page of your vendor of choice. Haswell will still work just fine with most power supplies, but you may have to disable these lower power sleep states to maintain stability.



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It has been a while since we last heard from NVIDIA about Project Shield. Today, NVIDIA is dropping "Project" from the name, making it formally just Shield, and simultaneously announcing pricing and availability information about its Tegra 4-packing handheld gaming console. The specs for Shield remain the same as what we saw at CES 2013 — 1.9 GHz Tegra 4 SoC, 5-inch 720p display, and Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. What's nice about getting a device straight from the SoC vendor in this case is that NVIDIA promises it will be able to push out OTA updates with the latest and greatest Android version basically in lock step with its own official Tegra 4 BSP (Board Support Package) software offerings, which makes it essentially the Tegra 4 reference platform.

NVIDIA SHIELD
	Shield
SoC	NVIDIA Tegra 4 - 1.9 GHz
Display	5-inch 720p "Retinal" Display
RAM	2 GB LPDDR3
Wireless Connectivity	2x2:2 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi + BT 3.0, GPS
Storage	16 GB NAND, microSD Expansion
I/O	microUSB 2.0, mini-HDMI, 3.5mm headphone
OS	Android 4.2.1, Updates from NVIDIA
Price	$349.00, Preorders May 20, Shipping Late June

As for availability, the big news is pricing, which will be $349 in the US, with preorders starting on May 20th from vendors familiar to everyone. NVIDIA called out Newegg, GameStop, Micro Center, and Canada Computers explicitly as preorder vendors, with others to follow after the preorder period. As for ship date, NVIDIA is aiming for late June for fulfillment. At $349 the Shield is more expensive than the major first party handheld gaming consoles like the Sony PS Vita or Nintendo 3DS, but an impressive middle ground and price point nonetheless for basically what boils down to a higher-end smartphone sans cellular stack but with a built in gamepad. We're excited to get hands on with Shield in its final form with the final tuning of its joysticks, triggers, and D-Pad.
In conjunction with the launch of Shield will be availability of the PC game streaming functionality as well, initially in beta form. NVIDIA has a set of recommended titles which have been optimized for the Shield controller scheme, and as we experienced at CES likely include UI tweaks to make 720p handheld gaming a reality.
Source: NVIDIA Blog (Shield), (5 Games)



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The Haswell launch gets just a little more complicated each day, with the latest wrinkle being that standard ATX power supplies that conform to the ATX 2.3 standard may not actually be capable of supporting Haswell's extremely low power sleep states. The result has been power supply manufacturers scrambling to see if their power supplies can handle Haswell's requested 0.05A on the 12V rail as opposed to the ATX 2.3 minimum's 0.5A.
Both Corsair and Sea Sonic have been rigorously testing their power supplies to determine which ones definitely can handle Haswell's C6/C7 states, and both have a list of power supplies which are certified to run Haswell, and in the case of Corsair and their substantial portfolio, which power supplies should be able to handle Haswell with no problems.
Starting with Sea Sonic, the following power supplies are certified Haswell ready:

Series	Wattages
X Series	650, 750, 850, 1050, 1250
Platinum	660, 760, 860, 1000, 1200
Platinum Fanless	400, 460, 520
G Series	360, 450, 550, 650
M12 II Bronze EVO	750, 850

Corsair is a little bit more complicated. Certification testing is ongoing, but the following power supplies have been guaranteed to be fully compliant with Haswell:

Series	Wattages
AXi	760, 860, 1200
AX	650, 750, 760, 850, 860, 1200
HX	650, 750, 850, 1000, 1050
TX-M	650, 750, 850
TX	650, 750, 850
GS (V2)	600, 700, 800
CX	750, 750M

Corsair's validation efforts continue on the following models (predominately legacy), which they say are "likely compatible" but are not confirmed yet:

Series	Wattages
HX	520, 620
GS (V1)	500, 600, 700, 800
CX-M	430, 500, 600
CX	430, 500, 600
VX	450, 550
VS	350, 450, 550, 650

If you're looking to make the jump to Haswell next month, the best thing you can do is likely going to be to watch the homepage and support page of your vendor of choice. Haswell will still work just fine with most power supplies, but you may have to disable these lower power sleep states to maintain stability.



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For many users who have gone to a large LAN event, taking stock of all the crazy PC builds is part of the experience. Some users modify the case for a particular styling, and then insert a water cooling system with just the right amount of LED lighting. Last year at Computex, Lian Li showed us a mini-ITX chassis in the form of a train, and even put an engine inside it instead of a PC to show it could actually function as a train. This time around, we get a case to show off all the mini-ITX goodness without too much effort.

The PC-Q30 is a little different to say the least. We are dealing with a curved aluminum chassis adorned with an acrylic window. Lian Li believes the styling befits any PC location – as a HTPC in the living room, as a small gaming machine, or just as an under the desk work machine.
Aside from what is visible from the window, the chassis can hold a dual slot GPU up to 7.8 inches (200mm, or just above mini-ITX spec), making it ideal for the ASUS GTX670 Mini as shown above, or something like a stock GTX460. The space below the motherboard is for up to four 2.5” hard drives in a removable cage, but there is no space for any optical drive.

Ventilation comes in the form of a rear 140mm exhaust fan, along with apertures at the top and sides for intake vents. Power supply options are limited to those of 125mm in length, so we are really looking at something like the Silverstone SFX or Seasonic SFX series PSUs.
Other features on board include a power button that lights blue at idle and red while loading, as well as the IO panel to the left hand side. This includes a pair of USB 3.0 and front panel audio, although the motherboards IO does stick out of the top just in case you need any more ports.
Retail price is $149, with expecting shipping in June.

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For many users who have gone to a large LAN event, taking stock of all the crazy PC builds is part of the experience. Some users modify the case for a particular styling, and then insert a water cooling system with just the right amount of LED lighting. Last year at Computex, Lian Li showed us a mini-ITX chassis in the form of a train, and even put an engine inside it instead of a PC to show it could actually function as a train. This time around, we get a case to show off all the mini-ITX goodness without too much effort.

The PC-Q30 is a little different to say the least. We are dealing with a curved aluminum chassis adorned with an acrylic window. Lian Li believes the styling befits any PC location – as a HTPC in the living room, as a small gaming machine, or just as an under the desk work machine.
Aside from what is visible from the window, the chassis can hold a dual slot GPU up to 7.8 inches (200mm, or just above mini-ITX spec), making it ideal for the ASUS GTX670 Mini as shown above, or something like a stock GTX460. The space below the motherboard is for up to four 2.5” hard drives in a removable cage, but there is no space for any optical drive.

Ventilation comes in the form of a rear 140mm exhaust fan, along with apertures at the top and sides for intake vents. Power supply options are limited to those of 125mm in length, so we are really looking at something like the Silverstone SFX or Seasonic SFX series PSUs.
Other features on board include a power button that lights blue at idle and red while loading, as well as the IO panel to the left hand side. This includes a pair of USB 3.0 and front panel audio, although the motherboards IO does stick out of the top just in case you need any more ports.
Retail price is $149, with expecting shipping in June. The website for the case can be found at this link.

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Intel puts their best foot forward with a business class 14" ultrabook from Lenovo, the touchscreen-equipped X1 Carbon.


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Earlier this week I noted that AMD’s Radeon 8970M and Richland A10-5750M are both available in MSI’s new GX70 3BE gaming notebook, but at the time I could fully disclose the specs on the Radeon 8970M. Today, AMD is officially launching the 8970M, so we can talk specifics. Cutting right to the chase, here’s what the 8970M brings to the table, with the rest of the 8000M family details to help put things in perspective:

Obviously, the 8970M is going to be AMD’s fastest current mobile GPU, but what we’re missing from the above slide are the specs of the previous generation 7970M. There’s not much to add, unfortunately: the 7970M is identical to the 8970M except that it lacks the 900MHz Boost clock. Both use the same Pitcairn core (codename Neptune for the 8970M and codename Wimbledon for 7970M), with 1200MHz GDDR5 (4.8GHz effective). I’ve even got an Alienware M17x with a 7970M that overclocks without issue to 900MHz/1300MHz, so really the 50MHz Boost Clock is just a software tweak to the existing chip to improve performance by up to 6%.
While there’s not a whole lot to discuss in terms of the hardware or architecture, there’s a separate story that does warrant some discussion. For the past several years, NVIDIA has basically been on a roll as far as gaming titles are concerned, with a large number of the AAA titles sporting an NVIDIA logo. Our last two mobile gaming suites have had quite a few NVIDIA titles, and there have been other major releases with NVIDIA branding (both Batman games, Battlefield 3 and before that Bad Company 2, Borderlands 2, Mafia II, and Metro 2033 to name a few). There are also a few recent and upcoming releases from the green team, like the just launched Metro: Last Light, Lost Planet 3, and Star Trek, with ARMA 3 coming down the pipeline.
That’s all well and good, and up until the past nine months or so I’d say NVIDIA had a major advantage in terms of game developer support. However, check out the list of games with ATI branding from the last year or so: Far Cry 3 (and the spin-off FC3 Blood Dragon), SimCity, Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, DmC (Devil May Cry), Hitman: Absolution, Sleeping Dogs, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution are all on the list, and outside of DmC and Sleeping Dogs I’d say all of those are names that any gamer would recognize and most of those games have been good if not excellent. If AMD can keep up the pace of AAA releases, they might regain some lost ground. The Never Setting and Never Settle: Reloaded bundles are possibly the best gaming suites ever given away for free with a new GPU purchase. AMD is hungry, I’ll give them that.

Not surprisingly, many of the AMD branded titles perform better on AMD hardware, and in general the GTX 680M and HD 7970M (nee 8970M) are basically on equal footing. With the appropriate settings and drivers, AMD shows a pretty significant performance advantage in their slides relative to NVIDIA, but as always we would take those numbers with a grain of salt. Like NVIDIA, AMD cherry picks the games and settings to put their GPUs in the best light; we’re working to provide some independent testing of a larger variety of games with branding from both vendors along with a larger spread of settings, but right now we don’t have all the required hardware in hand for such an article.
The one item that still generates some concern is AMD’s Enduro switchable graphics. My earlier encounters with the technology (especially prior to the Enduro branding) were less than acceptable, and even with Enduro I can’t say AMD has caught up to NVIDIA’s Optimus. In particular, support for older GPUs and iGPUs is sketchy at best (Sandy Bridge and Llano generally require modded drivers for support, and even then they don’t always work). There are also certain applications that present difficulties; for example, I’ve tried Bitcoin and Litecoin mining on Enduro laptops, with less than stellar results. I’m not suggesting those are critical applications for most people, but if GPU compute doesn’t fare any better it would certainly be a problem. Still, at least the last few driver releases from AMD have all had mobile versions that installed with Ivy Bridge and Trinity Enduro solutions, so that’s definitely an improvement.
The other thing to consider is that where AMD’s 8970M is basically just a rebranding and minor clock speed increase from 7970M, NVIDIA has yet to announce their GTX 780M. Oh, we know it’s coming, and I would assume we’ll hear about it sooner rather than later (the Haswell launch practically demands a new high-end NVIDIA GPU); the question is whether GTX 780M will be a rebranding/higher clocked GK104 part, or if NVIDIA will do something more—like, say, getting the higher performance of the GTX 680MX into a 100W power envelope. (GK110 in a notebook isn’t going to happen any time soon, I suspect.)
The first notebook to ship with HD 8970M is MSI’s already discussed GX70 3BE, but more will certainly follow. At the very least, Alienware and Clevo notebooks are basically a gimme, considering they already support HD 7970M without issue. Pricing will also likely continue to be in AMD’s favor—NVIDIA hasn’t made their highest performing mobile GPU competitive in price for a while, mostly because they apparently don’t need to. We’ll see if anything changes with the status quo this round, but outside of the software story the Radeon HD 8970M doesn’t bring anything truly noteworthy to the table. We’ll probably have to wait for 20nm mobile GPUs before we see major improvement in performance, but will have to wait until the next round of GPU updates.
As usual, the full deck of AMD slides is provided in the gallery below, lest anyone think we’re intentionally skipping over important information.
Gallery: AMD Launches Radeon HD 8970M





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