Thread: Anandtech News

With Computex now in full swing this week has and will continue to be a flurry of product and standard announcements. To that end and kicking off their Tuesday, the VESA has sent us a status update on DockPort, the organization’s combined display/data/power cable and interface standard.
The last time we talked to the VESA was at CES 2014. There, the organization announced that they were adopting AMD/TI’s Lightning Bolt specification as a VESA standard, and were in turn making it an official extension to the DisplayPort standard. At the time the DockPort specification was still in development, with a projected finalization of Q2’14.
Catching up to Computex then, the VESA is announcing that they have finished the DockPort specification on schedule and are releasing the final specification to their members today. Since the provisional release earlier this year DockPort has seen a specification bump – it now carries USB 3.1 rather than USB 3.0 – a relatively minor change since USB is fundamentally just another protocol being carried over DisplayPort. Otherwise this is the expected next step in the development of the standard. With the final specification in hand, device makers can begin final design and production of DockPort capable controllers and devices, though the VESA does note that device manufacturers are going to have to wait a bit for compliance testing as the compliance test is not yet complete.

Along with today’s announcement of the finalized specification, the VESA has also released the DockPort logo. The logo will be used to identify DisplayPort devices with DockPort capabilities, as the physical DisplayPort basis means that while DockPort devices can fall back to DisplayPort-only operation, their enhanced abilities only work when both the source and the sink are DockPort capable.
Meanwhile we’re still in the process of tracking down information on DockPort’s power delivery capabilities. Remember that DockPort will use new cabling (despite reusing DisplayPort itself), so there’s still the question about how much power source devices can provide and how much power the new cable can carry. The VESA’s own infographic lists “up to USB 3.1 speed charging power,” however as USB 3.1 has multiple power tiers it’s not clear which of those are going to be applicable.
The VESA tells us that various vendors will be showing off early DockPort devices at Computex this week. If nothing else, we’d expect to see a further iteration of AMD’s Discovery concept tablet as that has been the DockPort proof of concept device thus far. Though if DockPort gains traction, then it would be the first of many such devices to make use of DockPort’s single-cable capabilities.

More...

Since our initial testing of smartphone audio, I’ve had a lot more time to play with the APx582 from Audio Precision. I’ve also received far more feedback than I ever expected to on this subject. I have made a few changes to the testing method that I’m going to outline, along with discussing the reasons for the changes.


More...

The FUEL range from Patriot is known for its range of charging products, but for Computex 2014 Patriot has accelerated into the wireless charging era with the FUEL iON range. The first two products in this range will be a set of cases for the iPhone 5/5s and the Galaxy S4. What Patriot has done to make these different from most other wireless charging pads is use a series of magnets in both the cases such that their charging pads ensure that the device stays on the pad, rather than slide off.

With the cases, Patriot are launching two compatible charging pads: one for the car which doubles as a holder, and one for the home.

The FUEL iON range will ship in July, with the cases set at $80, the car charger at $50 and $30 for the charging pad. While not explicitly mentioned, I would assume that all devices would adhere to the Qi wireless charging standard. We might see more when meeting with Patriot at Computex this week.
Gallery: Computex 2014: Patriot Releases FUEL iON for Wireless Charging

More...

Kristian and I are here at the ASUS ROG Press Conference, going to start in a few minutes!

More...

More releases of Intel based tablets this week at Computex, this time from Dell launching its updated Dell Venue 7 and Venue 8 models. The Venue 7 features a regular HD screen, is based on Android 4.4 and uses the Intel Atom Z3460, a dual core 64-bit Silvermont-based Merrifield processor at 1.6 GHz.

The Dell Venue 8 upgrades the screen to 1920x1080, and uses the faster Atom Z3480, another 64-bit dual core Silvermont-based Merrifield processor but at 2.13 GHz. Both tablets feature audio technology from Waves MAXXAudio Pro and an easy-grip design on the back.

Both models will be available in red and black from July 1^st on the Dell website. The Venue 7 will retail for $160, and the Venue 8 at $200. Other information was relatively thin on the ground regarding connectivity, although on previous information both models use the PowerVR G6400 GPUs clocked at 533 MHz.
Dell is also going to release a series of accessories for the Venue series. The Venue Cradle for the 8-inch model is designed to charge the device while in use, while a Duo Tablet Case will protect the device on the move. A wireless keyboard folio will also be available, as well as Bluetooth portable speakers.
Gallery: Computex 2014: More Intel Tablets, the Dell Venue 7 and Venue 8




More...

The R9 295X2, or any graphics card that comes pre-liquid cooled, comes up against a barrier. There will be a market segment that cares more about the card than the cooling, and would rather not have to spend the extra on the cooling because they want to apply their own, or a waterblock. Aside from the leaked images on the web showing a triple-slot air cooled version of the 295X2 from Powercolor, ASUS is going to address this issue with the Ares III for users building their own water cooling loops.
The new card will come pre-fitted with a custom designed EK water block, and only 500 units will be made so expect this thing to be pricy. The two Hawaii XT GPUs are said to be ‘hand-chosen’ for the cards, and one would assume that the card comes with a decent overclock pre-installed. If not, the main purpose of the card would be for the user to overclock, or for the system to run as cool and quiet as possible. Based on internal testing, ASUS states that a 120x3 water cooling loop is recommended as a minimum.
The GPU is single slot, meaning that the top of the card seems taller than the standard height of GPU. Pricing is not yet set but expect a release in Q3.

More...

Monitor talk is crazy. In this modern era we have a choice between 4K panels, cheap Korean 1440p monitors, panels that cover wide gamuts those that refresh at 30 Hz, 60 Hz, 120 Hz and 144 Hz, as well as TN/VA/IPS panels with all the variants therein. The issue comes when putting as many of these features together - typically IPS panels at higher refresh rates are hard to come by, whereas TN panels can lack the wide viewing angles and color reproduction. So by saying that ASUS are paring a 27” 2560x1440 display with a high refresh rate and NVIDIA G-Sync, we open our arms to this kind of evolution.
Anand reviewed G-Sync last year, and while it is the closest adaptive refresh technology to market, it does have its competitors. The ROG Swift PG278Q is going to be available from July, and should bring more G-Sync into the market. While other specifications are thin on the ground from the press release, we are inquiring into a more detailed list of data points for the monitor. The PG278Q also comes with a dedicated Turbo Key to allow users to adjust refresh rates on the fly from 60 Hz to 120 Hz to 144 Hz with one button, rather than adjusting the on-screen display. ASUS is quoting a 1ms GTG response time, with a 6mm bezel, VESA wall mount, a large range of stand adjustment, 1 DP port, two USB 3.0 ports and a 5-way joystick for the OSD.
ASUS expects the PG278Q to be in the $800 region, with a full release in late July.



More...

Earlier this evening, Intel announced a new family of NVMe based PCIe SSDs, including the P3700. I reviewed a 1.6TB version of the P3700 here. A few weeks ago I was invited to participate in a roundtable discussion with Intel and Supermicro about the P3700 and NVMe in general. Intel posted the video which I've embedded below:
The video is a bit higher level than what you'll find in our review, but it's short and we hit on a lot of the key points about the drive and NVMe in general. Check it out if you're interested in the future of SSDs and what NVMe has to offer.

More...

In 2008 Intel introduced its first SSD, the X25-M, and with it Intel ushered in a new era of primary storage based on non-volatile memory. Intel may have been there at the beginning, but it missed out on most of the evolution that followed. It wasn't until late 2012, four years later, that Intel showed up with another major controller innovation. The Intel SSD DC S3700 added a focus on IO consistency, which had a remarkable impact on both enterprise and consumer workloads. Once again Intel found itself at the forefront of innovation in the SSD space, only to let others catch up in the coming years. Now, roughly two years later, Intel is back again with another significant evolution of its solid state storage architecture.



More...

After what seems like a eon or two since the original announcement, Intel’s Renée James is formally launching the new Devil’s Canyon and Anniversary Edition Pentium processors. In response to enthusiast feedback, and the recent release of the Z97 chipset motherboards, these new processors are designed to improve the overclocking experience for enthusiasts until the next platform enters production.
In the same way as certain other electronic market segments, where the announcement and launch occurs a few weeks before launch, today is actually a paper launch as part of the Computex experience. Review samples for sites like ours should be arriving sometime this week when we can test and dissect the new parts, with a full retailer release later in the month. At present the date is still uncertain: we were hoping to get samples before Computex in order to present results today, but delays have pushed testing and release later down the line. This is in part due to the restricted timescale for these new processors, whereby VP Lisa Graff in a recent press call stated that the Intel engineers had fewer than six months from idea-to-launch.
Devil’s Canyon, the codename for the upgraded Haswell overclocking ‘K’ series SKUs, launches as two parts: an i7 and an i5.

Both models are quad core parts, with the i7 featuring hyperthreading for a total of eight threads. The TDP has a small bump from 84W to 88W, while the official memory support stays at two channels of DDR3-1600. The i7-4790K represents Intel’s first ever consumer processor with a base frequency of 4 GHz (we have CPUs that turbo this high), but the turbo mode for this processor is actually 4-4-3-2, meaning that at single core loads the user will see 4.4 GHz and at full-core loads it will be 4.2 GHz. The i5 is more of a Haswell Refresh-like bump up from its predecessor, with the base frequency and turbo frequencies being moved up a notch.
Compatibility for these processors will be on all Z97 motherboards, and it should extend to Z87 if and only if the motherboard manufacturer has engineered the motherboard to cope with the increased power consumption and also release a relevant BIOS update. I would expect that all the major motherboard manufacturers should announce a full range of 9-series support and a most-of-the-range 8-series support, starting with the most popular products in the 8-series range first (as it all comes down to validation and rewriting BIOS code).
Aside from the base frequency increases, enthusiasts will want to know if the rumor regarding an upgraded package on the CPU is true. I can confirm that Intel has officially made the following changes:

The first upgrade is a new thermal interface material (TIM), which Intel is stating as a ‘next-generation polymer’. This would inevitably imply that the base material is silicone monomer, unless Intel has decided to do something fancy with a carbon-polymer based suspension. With this in mind, users looking to delid their CPUs might see a material the same color as the normal Haswell CPUs, but Intel is stating that this is a new material. One could estimate that another 5-15C shift might occur, allowing those CPUs that were temperature limited to get another 100-200 MHz than they would under the old system. However the issue regarding the height of the heatspreader above the die due to the binding agent has not been mentioned, which would lead me to suggest that it might not have been changed. Until we get a sample in house to test we will not know for sure, but I could perhaps hope that the amount of TIM under the heatspreader has also increased in order to facilitate heat transfer.
For the extreme overclockers using sub-zero cooling, Intel has reworked part of the power delivery around the FIVR to give a cleaner power delivery. Note that none of these changes suggest that any specific change to the underlying silicon die was made, however Intel will be examining the sales of these processors to determine their popularity and whether it is a feature to consider on future platform evolutions.
Also launched today is the new Pentium Processor Anniversary Edition, a fully unlocked 3.2 GHz dual core Pentium and 3MB of L3 cache.

I personally think Intel has missed a trick in not calling this new processor with a ‘K’ moniker, but the 8 on the end should point the CPU out against the myriad of other model names. At $72 for the bulk OEM pricing, this should allow the competitive overclockers to go almost crazy binning (testing to find the best ones) for competitions. The interesting point about the table above is the memory support, set at DDR3-1333. This means that Intel has used a lower bar of entry for the integrated memory controllers on the dies they produce, which might not end well for high memory clocking.

One point of contention for any user that has sought after a high overclocking Haswell CPU in the past is the silicon lottery, whereby CPUs are like chocolate chip cookies. Some cookies have many chips, others have fewer, but the ones made of pure chocolate are the best. Similar analogy to overclocking – some CPUs will hit higher frequencies at lower voltages than others. Haswell processors had a very large swing, with some of the lower performing CPUs (from 3.9 GHz Turbo) only managing 4.2 GHz on air/water cooling compared to the average (4.4-4.5 GHz) and the few awesome ones (5.0 GHz at 1.3 V). Many users tested a half-dozen or a dozen to get the best one of the bunch, and I fear that unless there has been a change at the silicon level, we may see the same with the Devil’s Canyon and Anniversary Pentium models.
CPU-Z screenshots of all three models have been released, confirming many of the details:

As I mentioned, the exact retail release date, as I am writing, is unknown. The embargo for this data is being released at the same time as the Intel Keynote at Computex which is where the official announcing of the new products is happening. Have a read of our live blog on the main page on the keynote to see if an exact date has been chosen! This post will be updated if we get this information.
When we return from Computex we will begin testing the new CPUs, with a plan to show some delidding and see how the new Devil’s Canyon and new Pentium compares to the regular Haswell CPUs both at stock and overclocked. Let me know in the comments if there is anything specific you would like to see in the review.
Gallery: Intel Launches Devil’s Canyon and Overclockable Pentium: i7-4790K, i5-4690K and G3258

More...