Thread: Anandtech News

These past few days MSI has held their annual competitive overclocking event, the ‘Master Overclocking Arena’, in Taipei.  Following a preliminary overclocking competition online, with tickets evenly distributed throughout EMEA, APAC and the Americas, sixteen finalists were invited to show their sub-zero talent in front of an audience, the cameras, and a livestream.  As far as international overclocking tournaments go, MSI have held MOA since 2008, and have publicly stated via their Executive Vice President, Charles Jiang, that “This is the 6th consecutive year of MOA and we have no intention to stop.”

Final competition was relatively simple: two days of contest.  The first day was the Classic Battle, using well known benchmarks SuperPi 32M, Cinebench R11.5 and 3DMark Firestrike, using provided i7-4770K CPUs, MSI Z87 MPower Max motherboards, MSI GTX 780 Lightning GPUs and other sponsored hardware from Corsair, Plextor, Cooler Master and BenQ.  Scores at the event were compared to a base stock system, given as a percentage of the overall score, and weighted by a predetermined factor.

The winner of this first day was T0lsty from Ukraine, fresh from a win the previous month in another live overclocking contest and MOA 2010 runner-up.  He achieved first in FireStrike with a final score of 14736 which translates as a +48.98% overclock over stock, as well as high results in SuperPi and Cinebench.  MOA 2008 winner Lucky_n00b from Indonesia finished an overall second despite winning both the SuperPi and Cinebench stages, but T0lsty’s lead in FireStrike was too much.  Third was Xtreme Addict from Poland who was hot on the tails in each round, including matching Lucky_n00b in Cinebench.  Australia had a good showing, with both of their qualifiers SniperOZ and JJJC finishing 4^th and 5^th respectively.

The second day was more a freestyle event: all the overclockers had a day to break any one of ten world records in specified benchmarks.  Any competitor who claimed a new world record received $1000, and contestants were given time to prepare as well as discuss between them the best way to modify components to squeeze out the extra few MHz.  As world records can take large amounts of preparation (some GPU benchmarks require 10+ hours of modifications on each graphics card in order to provide the right power), offering only eight hours in order to do so requires an expert hand.  At the end of the day, three records were broken; a couple of them were broken several times by repeated improvements:

• MOA 2012 winner oc_windforce from Korea beat the 6-core Intel XTU world record, scoring 1891 marks with an i7-4960X at 6047 MHz
• Vivi from South Africa beat the 4-core Cinebench R11.5 world record with 13.91 points using an i7-4770K at 6300 MHz
• Rbuass from Brazil broke the 1xGPU Unigine Heaven world record five times (!) with a final score of 4697.82 DX11 Marks using an i7-4770K at 5900 MHz and a modified GTX Titan at 1700 MHz (memory at 1930 MHz).

Needless to say I tried entering the contest but with little success as I was not able to prepare sufficiently for the qualifiers (There's a skill element I lack as well!).  Congratulations to each of the winners, they put in a lot of hard work and it was well deserved.

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Ubiquiti Networks is a B2B company with a very interesting business model. At the enterprise level, companies employ dedicated sales teams to attract clients and increase revenue. Ubiquiti claims that such teams are responsible for approximately 40% of the consumers' end cost. Ubiquiti does away with these teams and passes on the savings to the consumer, which results in a disruptive pricing model. We have already covered Ubiquiti before, when they launched the first 802.11ac access point for enterprise Wi-Fi networks.
One of the most interesting product lines from Ubiquiti is their fixed wireless broadband lineup. The airMAX, airFiber and EdgeMAX products helps Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) to provide broadband access to remote and sparsely populated areas (think of outposts in Alaska with populations in the hundreds or low thousands). Laying wired cables to such areas might not make economic sense and this is where Ubiquiti steps in. Fixed wireless broadband providers have rapid ROI since they do not require trenching and can also be deployed in areas with limited infrastructure. The WISP business is still a niche market, but analysts predict that it is growing at a 21.8% CAGR through 2017. This represents a $5.9B revenue opportunity for service providers next year.
The new products from Ubiquiti introduced today include:

• airMAX: This provides point-to-multipoint and point-to-point fixed wireless access (last mile infrastructure). Within this product line, we have the airMAX NanoBeam CPE (consumer premises equipment) family based on Ubiquiti's proprietary airMAX TDMA protocol. This products comes in a couple of different form factors for deployment flexibility. One form factor is the dish reflector design with three different models: 2.4 GHz 400mm, 5 GHz 400mm and 5 GHz 300 mm, while the other all-in-one design integrates both antenna and radio to provide a more efficient footprint. This one also has a faster processor and comes in two models, 5 GHz 16dbi and 5 GHz 19 dBi.
• airFiber: This provides high performance point-to-point wireless access (backhaul platform). It operates in the unlicensed 5 GHz band and primarily targeted at carrier backhauls. However, it can also be used for building-to-building networking in enterprises. The new generation product can provide 1.0+ Gbps aggregate throughput and, with the new xRT (eXtended Range Technology), can provide a range of over 100 kms. It is priced at $2000 per link, which is very disruptive. The airFiber family also includes a 24 GHz model which provides 1.4+ Gbps real data throughput with a 13 km range.
• EdgeMAX: This is a routing and switching platform for the network edge and comes in two models, EdgeRouter and EdgeRouter Pro. These are 8-port rack mountable switches and the Pro version comes with two SFP ports. Both are capable of 2 million packets per second throughput.

The new products are scheduled to ship in Q4 2013. Ubiquiti also announced the beta release of the Ubiquiti World Network, an endeavour to create a directory of WISPs (Ubiquiti customers). It is envisaged that the directory would make it easier for end consumers to find Internet providers servicing their location.

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After last month’s release of their 331.40 beta drivers, NVIDIA’s R331 driver branch has finally reached WHQL certification with today's release of driver version 331.58.
For those of you on a beta upgrade cadence, these drivers should be similar to the last beta, going by NVIDIA’s release notes. Otherwise for those of you on a WHQL upgrade cadence, then these are the first drivers with all of the R331 branch enhancements. This includes the usual mix of performance enhancements – up to 10% in several games versus R325 – new SLI profiles, driver-based HBAO+ support, official Ivy Bridge-E support, and OpenGL 4.4 support. Furthermore NVIDIA is labeling these as a “game ready” release for Battlefield 4 and Batman: Arkham Origins (both coming out at the end of this month), so these will be the preferred drivers for those games.
As usual, you can grab the drivers for all current desktop and mobile NVIDIA GPUs over at NVIDIA’s driver download page.

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In October 2012, Qualcomm Atheros introduced their first HomePlug AV2 (HPAV2) solution in the form of the QCA7450/AR1540 chipset. It did boast of theoretical speeds up to 500 Mbps, but lacked support for all the MIMO profiles.
Today, Qualcomm Atheros is announcing the QCA7500 HPAV2 solution to deliver gigabit-class performance using existing electrical wiring. The QCA7500 is highly integrated, with no need for an external AFE (analog front end). An integrated 2x2 MIMO AFE line driver reduces system cost. It also includes TR 069 remote management support. The MIMO feature comes with optimized beamforming coefficients. As expected, kits based on the QCA7500 will be interoperable with the already installed HomePlug solutions.

The QCA7500 has an operational frequency band between 2 and 68 MHz and boasts compatibility with IEEE 1901 and HPAV, and pre-compliance with HPAV2. 128-bit AES encryption is available along with a hardware QoS engine. An integrated ARM1156 CPU manages the Ethernet and HPAV2 subsystem and interfaces with the rest of the SoC components.
Qualcomm Atheros has been promoting the Hy-Fi hybrid networking solution heavily over the past couple of years. They claim that the QCA7500, coupled with the VIVE 11ac solutions will be compliant with the nVoy / IEEE 1905.1 hybrid networking standard.

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The first Monoprice display I looked at didn’t fare well. While very affordable, it only offered a DVI input and very little in the way of controls. The worst sin was that the brightness control on the display just didn't work correctly. A step up from that model is their IPS-Glass. With HDMI, DSub, and DisplayPort inputs to go with a dual-link DVI input, it is far more flexible than the cheaper model. It also returns the display controls to the front of the monitor instead of the rear. As important as these changes are, it won’t really matter if the issues found in the cheaper model exist here, so let's see if this second go with Monoprice fares any better.

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Synology has been pretty busy introducing its 2014 models over the last couple of weeks. While the DS214 was, in my opinion, a run-of-the-mill product (not taking away any of the awesome features that the DSM 4.3 OS provides, but just a comment on the hardware), today's announcements are much more interesting.
First up is the DS214play, based on Intel's EvanSport (aka Berryville) platform. Synology had teased the DS714 earlier at CeBit, based on the same platform. However, that unit doesn't seem to be available for sale anywhere. Today, we have shipping confirmation on the DS214play. While the DS214play is not the first EvanSport unit to ship (the Thecus N2560 and the Asustor AS-302T hold that distinction), we are very encouraged by the availability of hardware acceleration for video transcoding. The Thecus N2560, in our evaluation, failed to utilize the internal SoC engines to serve up transcoded media (used the CPU cycles, instead). Synology advertises the unit to be the first DiskStation to launch with dedicated hardware acceleration, specifically for video transcoding. The DS214play has two bays, comes with a 1.6 GHz dual-core CPU (which points to the Intel CE5335) and 1 GB of RAM. It will be interesting to see if the encryption feature is also able to take advantage of the available hardware acceleration in the EvanSport platform.

Gallery: Synology DS214play

Synology claims that the unit can provide read / write speeds of more than 100 MBps, but it is the media-centric features which steal the show here. Many codecs and containers are supported and we will have detailed coverage in a hands-on review. The DS214play is shipping today (US availability will be in November) and will have a MSRP of $370.

Gallery: Synology DS114 and DS414

The other new products being launched today by Synology are the single-bay DS114 and the four-bay DS414. The former complements its single gigabit link with two USB 3.0 ports and an eSATA port. It will have a MSRP of $200. The DS414 provides dual gigabit links with two USB 3.0 ports and a USB 2.0 port in front. It also has redundant fans. The DS414 will have a MSRP of $500. Synology refused to divulge the exact SoCs being used in the DS114 and DS414, but their wiki page seems to suggest that these are Freescale PowerPC-based ones. Once these units hit the market, it should be easy to confirm.

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Brian and I are on the ground in San Francisco for Apple's event today. We're expecting to see new iPads introduced as well as the long-awaited Haswell rMBP refreshes. The event starts at 10AM PT, keep it parked here for our live blog!

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Brian also just finished up some hands on with the iPad Air. Check out the video below for his impressions and a comparison to the new mini.

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Brian just spent some time hands on with the new iPad mini:

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With Intel's Bay Trail platform and Silvermont Atom cores in the news for tablets, we have spotted their use in mini-ITX platforms as far pack as Computex 2013 where model numbers of Celeron Silvermont systems were on display.  While these platforms are aimed at embedded systems on the desktop side, there is a small inkling that SFF PCs and AIOs will benefit too.  To this extent, ECS (Elitegroup Computer Systems) has revealed their initial mini-ITX Bay Trail-D lineup, codename 'BAT-I'.

The difference in designation will be the CPU name in the product: the three products will offer a Pentium J2850 (quad core, 2.4 GHz), a Celeron J1850 (quad core, 2 GHz) and a Celeron J1750 (dual core, 2.4 GHz).  All systems are paired with Intel HD Graphics (Ivy Bridge based), one mPCIe 2.0 x1 slot, one USB 3.0 port and two SATA 3 Gbps, as well as two COM ports.
Aside from the passive heatsinks (the SoCs have a Max TDP of 10W) these systems will need DDR3L-1333 SODIMM memory, and the HDMI/VGA will support 1080p and BluRay playback.  Due to the price point and feature set, they fall under ECS' 'Essentials' range like the KBN-I, whereas the Deluxe/Pro ranges are reserved for more prominent builds.
I have requested release dates and pricing, update to follow.
Gallery: ECS Reveals Bay Trail-D Mini-ITX Line

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