Thread: Anandtech News

One of the very interesting looking laptops from MSI is their upcoming GS30, which carries on the thin and light theme of the GS series but extends that down into a 13.3” chassis. The core laptop uses a Crystalwell i7-4870HQ processor, which means it should have decent integrated graphics performance but nothing earth shattering. Along with the Haswell-based CPU comes support for up to 16GB of DDR3L memory, RAID SSD storage, and a 13.3” 1080p anti-glare IPS display. All of that is well and good, but where things get interesting is when we get to the expansion dock.
Similar to the Alienware 13, the GS30 will have support for an expansion dock that supports full size desktop GPUs. MSI says it should work with all desktop GPUs, from lower end models all the way up to GTX 980, and Titan/Z/Black, as well as various AMD GPUs. The dock uses a proprietary connector, and the laptop sits on top of the dock rather than interfacing through a cable. The dock isn’t just for a discrete GPU either, as it supports an additional 3.5” hard drive, Killer Gigabit Ethernet, and it includes two speakers. I’m not convinced about the need for the speakers or networking support, especially considering the laptop already has a Gigabit Ethernet jack, but the additional four USB 3.0 ports certainly don’t hurt.
If you’re curious how MSI is interfacing with all of these extra devices and whether there will be sufficient bandwidth, the answer is that the dock uses a full x16 PCIe 3.0 based connector. That means not only is there plenty of bandwidth, but the discrete GPU will also be able to run at maximum performance. Interestingly, MSI noted that with certain high-end GPUs (e.g. Titan class and above), there may be a minor drop in performance on the laptop unless you also connect the laptops AC adapter. The dock itself comes with a 450W PSU, which should be plenty to run any GPU, HDD, USB peripherals, and still leave sufficient room to power the laptop, but until we can do some actual testing with the final hardware it’s not clear why there would be a need for the added power.
The GS30 Shadow is definitely one of the more interesting laptops we’ve seen, and for those that don’t need to have a ton of gaming power on the go it offers a nice blend of mobility with the option to hook up to a dedicated display and GPU at home for serious gaming. Note also that the GS30 cannot “hot-dock” – you have to power down the system before undocking, or there could be problems. Also, when docked the laptop’s internal display is disabled (for now?) and only an external display connected to the discrete GPU can be used.
Pricing and availability have not been announced yet, but at least the latter should be sooner rather than later. It’s also not clear whether the GS30 Shadow will always be sold as a package that includes the GPU docking bay, or if that will be a separate device. Selling the dock as an accessory would likely make the most sense, as there may be users that don’t care for the dock but otherwise like the GS30 laptop. We’ll have a full review once the laptop and dock are ready for retail customers. This is clearly a shot across the bow of Alienware, and while it’s too early to declare a victor and both offerings have their pros and cons, it’s shaping up to be a very interesting year for laptops.
Gallery: MSI Announces GS30 Shadow Laptop and GPU Expansion Dock

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Last year, MSI teased us with some images of their upcoming GT80 Titan notebook, an 18.4” gaming behemoth with support for SLI GPUs and a full Cherry MX mechanical keyboard. Today we’re able to official reveal the full specs for the GT80, and as expected they’re quite impressive. Start with dual GPUs, up to the GTX 980M, and right off the bat we have the potential for better performance than a single desktop GTX 980. Of course, the cost of an SLI GTX 980M notebook dwarfs that of a GTX 980, but that’s part of the price you pay for mobility…or at least transportability.
Other specs are equally impressive. The CPU in the system being shown is the top-end Crystal Well offering from Intel, the i7-4980HQ. It has a slightly slower base clock compared to the socketed i7-4940MX (2.8GHz vs. 3.1GHz), but the maximum Turbo Boost is still 4.0GHz. As we discussed earlier, the GT80 also has a full mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Brown switches – MSI may offer MX Red switches in the future, but for now the supply of MX Browns makes them a safer choice. (MSI also plans to provide a key puller and gold WASD keys, or at least we were shown some early key cap samples.) The GT80 also comes with four SO-DIMM slots with support for up to 32GB RAM, four M.2 SATA slots in RAID for SSD storage, an additional 2.5” bay for an HDD (or another SSD if you want to upgrade it), 802.11ac WiFi and GbE from Killer Networks, and a 1080p display.
That last item is actually one of the few potential weak spots in the design; we’re only just now starting to see higher quality (e.g. IPS) 17.3” displays for notebooks, and while we might see some higher resolution options later this year at present I’m not aware of anyone shipping a 2.5K, 3K, or 4K 17.3” panel. Moving up to the even more niche 18.4” notebook (luggable) market only further limits the options for the display. As such, it’s unfortunate that the GT80 Titan for now will ship with a 1080p TN panel. What’s particularly ironic is that this is one of the few notebooks out there that could legitimately handle a lot of games at 3K or 4K resolutions!
There are a lot of naysayers when it comes to extreme gaming notebooks, and one of the biggest complaints is that you end up with an expensive system that can’t be upgraded. MSI is doing their part to at least partially address this shortcoming, as they are now guaranteeing support for at least the next two GPU cycles through select vendors in the US. So the GT80 ships with support for GTX 980M and should be able to run at some future point the “GTX A80M” and “GTX B80M” (whatever they end up being called). To take advantage of the GPU upgradeability, users in the US will have to ship their notebook to one of MSI’s System Integrator partners – MSI mentioned iBUYPOWER, XoticPC, GentechPC, and PowerNotebook as options right now. The SI will perform the upgrade, including swapping out the GPU as well as the cooling module, install driver and firmware updates, and then ship the updated notebook back to the user along with the old GPU(s) and cooling modules. Note that the GPU upgrade option is available for both the GT80 Titan as well as the GT72 Dominator.
I know quite a few users have been able to upgrade other gaming notebooks (including the GT70 series), but all of that was done “unofficially”. MSI is taking it a step further by publicly committing to notebook GPU upgrades, and while I don’t think many users would fork over an extra $1000 to upgrade one generation of GPUs (e.g. from 780M to 880M, or 880M to 980M), the potential to skip at least one generation makes this a far more useful feature. It will be interesting to see how this plays out long-term, as MSI might even support more than two generations of GPU upgrades.
Wrapping up the GT80, this is obviously a very large notebook (over 10 pounds) and I suspect battery life would measure under 30 minutes with even a moderate load. MSI does provide the option to turn off the GPUs and switch to integrated graphics if the user desires (a reboot is required), so battery life may still be okay in that mode. Note that similar to the GPU upgrade option, MSI has chosen to drop NVIDIA’s Optimus Technology for their GT72 and GT80 notebooks based on user feedback; Optimus remains part of the GS and GE lines. The placement of the keyboard at the front is also a conscious decision to make the notebook feel more like a typical desktop keyboard, and the touchpad on the right can also function as a 10-key if you press the num-lock area in the top-left.
GT80 is clearly a very niche product, but it’s an interesting alternative to the other SLI notebooks out there and we’ll be interested in doing a full review when the notebook starts to ship. Pricing and availability for the GT80 Titan have not been announced, but given the components it’s a safe bet that we’re looking at prices closer to $3000 if not more.
Gallery: MSI GT80 Titan: Full Specs Revealed

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Wrapping up the MSI Notebooks coverage, also on display at MSI’s suite were a couple of their latest mobile workstations. These are lower volume parts and basically take their consumer laptops and add in a Quadro GPU along with going through the required testing to be certified for use with NVIDIA’s Quadro GPUs. The two laptops shown are the WS60 (workstation version of the GS60) and the WT70 (workstation version of the GT70). The mobile workstations feature some toned down styling, so the MSI Dragon Army and red highlights often found on MSI’s consumer laptops are gone, with a “Workstation” logo on the cover instead.
Starting with the WS60, the CPU is the same i7-4710HQ found in the GS60, while the display is a 4K (3840x2160) IPS panel. HiDPI displays aren’t always the greatest depending on the apps you run, but for professional users and in particular those doing video editing, the native 4K support can prove useful. For the GPU, MSI supports the Quadro K2100M, a 576 CUDA core part that uses a GK106 Kepler core. Performance should be faster than the previous generation K2000M but not at the level of the K3000M, and the 667MHz core clock and 3000MHz GDDR5 clock are relatively tame. Still, the Quadro drivers enable enhanced performance in various professional OpenGL application as well as video and image editing software, which can greatly improve performance to the point where a K2100M outperforms even the fastest GTX 980M in such tasks.
Moving on to the WT70, the core GT70 design and features are present, which means a single large cooling fan for both the CPU and GPU. GPU options include the Quadro K3100M and K4100M, and support for the K5100M also exists (though it sounds as though very few users are willing to pay the price for that GPU). As with the GT70, there’s support for up to three SSDs in RAID 0 with a 2.5” HDD bay for additional storage. Memory support goes up to 32GB, with the default configuration being 2x8GB of DDR3L RAM. The LCD also appears to be the same old 1080p TN panel used in the GT70, which is unfortunate but not surprising. An update with WT72 (GT72 for workstations) is sorely needed and is likely in the works. NVIDIA is also just about overdue for Maxwell based workstation class GPUs, so we will likely see those in the coming months.
The workstation world for the most part is following in the footsteps of the desktop world; there will always be users that need the most performance they can get, but for many laptops have now become fast enough that the ability to take your system on the road is worth the added cost. As such, the mobile workstation market may be small, but it’s growing steadily and profit margins tend to be better than in the consumer sector. Currently, there are only a few mobile workstation options out there. Dell has their Precision line, HP has their ZBook line, and Lenovo has their W-series. Other than that, your choices are generally limited to system integrators using Clevo or MSI based platforms. MSI has definitely made some marked improvements in their consumer notebook designs lately, and it will be great to see workstation options of these in the future.
Gallery: MSI WS60 and WT70 Mobile Workstations

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Storage Visions kicked off today and on the show floor Western Digital was showcasing a prototype of its new 3.5" dual-drive. The drive consists of a 128GB SSD along with a 4TB hard drive and utilizes PCIe 2.0 x2 interface through the SATA Express connector. Similar to the Black2 we reviewed last year, the prototype shows off as two separate volumes, although Western Digital is also working on a caching software to make the solution more user friendly. 2.5" version is also in the plans, although at first Western Digital is focusing on the 3.5" form factor.

Since the drive is in prototype stage, there are no specs available but since the drive is based on a JMicron SATA 6Gbps controller, the performance maxes out at ~550MB/s. At the booth, Western Digital was showing off two prototypes in software RAID 0 reaching 1GB/s, which is what you would expect from any two SATA 6Gbps SSDs in RAID 0.

Currently the product is more of a concept and there is no set release schedule, but the drive will likely appear on the market later this year. To be completely honest, the product as it stands today doesn't make much sense because it's internally SATA 6Gbps, but uses for PCIe for host connectivity. From a performance perspective the only advantage of PCIe is that the SSD and HDD can be accessed at the same time at full speed, but ultimately I think Western Digital has to go with a native PCIe SSD controller to be competitive. Western Digital told me that they are looking into PCIe controllers but since there aren't any available at this point, the prototype is stuck with SATA 6Gbps controllers.

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Lenovo has a whole slew of announcements coming out over the next few days, but let’s start at the top with the updated X1 Carbon. The latest iteration upgrades the CPU to Intel’s latest 5^th Generation Core processors, with support for up to Core i7. This is the Broadwell-U line of CPUs, which means we can’t disclose specifications just yet, but it should be comparable to the Haswell-U processors – we’d expect a 5-10% performance increase in most workloads. Lenovo also rates the latest X1 Carbon at up to 10.9 hours of battery life with a 50Wh battery, compared to the previous version’s 8.6 hours.
Most of the remaining design elements are similar to last year’s X1. The LCD is a 2560x1440 IPS touchscreen display (there may still be a lower resolution option), it ships with up to 8GB RAM, and the dimensions are the same 331mm x 226.5mm x 17.7mm (13.0” x 8.9” x 0.7”) with a starting weight of 1.31kg (2.88 lbs). Storage has also received an update to M.2 PCIe with up to 512GB, and WiFi is again 2x2 802.11ac.
There’s nothing particularly surprising with the update, but then there weren’t any major issues with the old X1 Carbon. Battery life is better, performance is better, and storage is better; everything else basically stays the same. Pricing and availability have not yet been announced, but the new model should take over from the previous generation when it launches.
Gallery: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon: Broadwell Version

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Wrapping up the ThinkPad updates for now, Lenovo also announced the T550, T450s, E550, E450, and L450 today. As with the X1 Carbon and X250, these replace the previous generation Haswell products and upgrade them to Broadwell processors. Let’s quickly go through the various laptops.
The T550 is a 15.6” Ultrabook with an optional 3K (2880x1620) touchscreen display. Similar to the X250, it supports Lenovo’s Power Bridge Technology that features a smaller integrated battery with a user swappable external battery. Combined with the 6-cell 72Wh battery, the T550 is rated at up to 17 hours of battery life. It weighs 2.26kg (4.98 lbs) and measures 380mm x 252mm x 22.4mm (14.96” x 9.92” x 0.88”). It supports up to Core i7 Broadwell-U processors, with up to 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD.
The T450s is a slightly smaller 14.0” version of the T550 Ultrabook, with up to a 1080p display. Power Bridge Technology is again present, allowing for up to 17 hours of mobility. The T450s measures 331mm x 226mm x 21mm (13.03” x 8.90” x 0.83”) and weighs 1.58kg (3.48 lbs). It comes with 4GB RAM soldered onto the motherboard with one SO-DIMM slot allowing up to 12GB RAM total. Up to a 512GB SSD and a Core i7 Broadwell-U processor are supported.
The E550/E450 are one step down the ThinkPad hierarchy, and as such they lose support for Power Bridge. They are also not Ultrabooks, but they do have optional discrete GPUs – R7 M260 2GB for the E450 and R7 M265 2GB for the E550. Both support up to the Core i7-5500U, with two SO-DIMM slots allowing up to 16GB RAM. Storage from the factory consists of pure HDD solutions, unfortunately. The E550 is available with either a 15.6” 1366x768 or 1080p LCD, while the E450 comes with a 14” 1366x768 or 1080p LCD.
Both are rated at up to nine hours of battery life, with the E450 featuring an integrated (non-swappable) battery while the E550 has a user swappable battery. The E550 weighs 2.35kg (5.2 lbs) and measures 377mm x 256mm x 27mm (14.82” x 10.08” x 1.06”) while the E450 weighs 1.81kg (4.0 lbs) and measures 339mm x 239mm x 24mm (13.35” x 9.41” x 0.94”). But have 720p webcams, but the E550 has an optional 3D camera.
Finally, the L450 is the entry-level 14” ThinkPad, but it’s more of a step sideways from the E-series. It comes with up to Core i7 processor support, 16GB RAM, 1TB HDD or 360GB SSD, and up to a 1080p IPS display. It comes with R5 M240 graphics and Intel’s HD 5500, along with a 720p webcam. It’s a bit heavier than the E450, weighing 1.93kg (4.25 lbs), but dimensions are similar at 339mm x 235mm x 24.3mm (13.3” x 9.3” x 0.9”).
Pricing and availability for all of these ThinkPad models have not been announced, but we’d expect most of these to ship Q1 at the latest.
Gallery: Lenovo ThinkPad Broadwell Updates for T550, T450s, E550, E450, and L450

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In addition to the ThinkPad notebook updates announced today, Lenovo also announced several accessories in the “Think” line of products. The ThinkPad Stack is a modular portable office, with several different accessories, and the ThinkVision X24 monitor is a premium looking monitor for a reasonable price.

Lenovo has released the ThinkPad Stack to maximize productivity on the go. The Stack is several interchangeable accessories for the portable office. Each has a magnetized interlocking design, allowing them to be stacked in any order, and all have Pogo pins to connect each device to the next. There is a 10,000 mAh Power Bank, which has several ports for charging devices on the go. A 1 TB USB 3.0 Hard Drive is also available for increased storage. Next, Lenovo offers a Wireless Access Point, and the final part of the Stack is a Bluetooth Speaker. While none of these devices in and of themselves is unique, the appeal of purchasing a set such as this is that they are designed to lock together, and should keep the number of cables necessary to a minimum. The ThinkPad Stack will be available starting in April, with the prices of $89.99 for the speaker, $49.99 for the Power Bank, and the Wireless Access Point and Hard Drive kit retailing for $199.99.

The other accessory announced today was the ThinkVision X24 monitor, which Lenovo markets as a borderless display. The X24 is only 7.5 mm thick, and offers a 23.8” 1080p IPS Neo Blade panel. The X24 has a pre-coated metal surface on the rear, which should enhance the look of the monitor if you are in an office where the rear of the display is visible. There are DisplayPort and HDMI connections, as well as an adjustable chrome stand. The X24 will also be available in April for a retail price of $249.
We will try to get some hands on shots of these in the next couple of days.
Source: Lenovo

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In the past few years, we’ve seen NVIDIA shift their mobile strategy dramatically with time. With Tegra 2 and 3, we saw multiple design wins in the smartphone space, along with the tablet space. These SoCs often had dedicated GPUs that were quite unlike what we saw in NVIDIA’s desktop and laptop GPUs, with a reduced feature set and unique architecture. However, with Tegra K1 we saw a distinct shift in NVIDIA’s SoC strategy, as the Tegra K1 was the first mobile SoC to achieve parity in GPU architecture with desktop GPUs. In the case of the Tegra K1, this meant a single Kepler SMX which made for truly incredible GPU performance. However, in the time since we’ve seen companies like Apple release new SoCs such as the A8X, which managed to bring largely similar performance with less power. To find out what Tegra X1 brings to the table, read on for the full article.

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HP has announced a staggering number of monitors today, and have reset the bar on pricing. A total of seven monitors have been announced today, and all offer something different from each other. From curved, to 4K, to Virtual Reality, HP has covered the gamut with these models.

HP Z24s

We will start with the smaller models first. The HP Z24s is a 23.8” UHD display, which features a IPS panel. HP lists this model as covering the sRGB color gamut, which is generally what the average consumer requires. The stand offers tilt, height adjustment, swivel, and pivot. Connections to the display include 1 MHL 2.0/HDMI 1.4, a second HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2, and Mini-DisplayPort. The monitor includes 4 USB 3.0 ports as well as an audio out. HP rates the brightness as 300 cd/m². The Z24s will be available in April for $549.

HP Zvr 24"

The next 24” panel is the Zvr 23.6” Virtual Reality Display. This display tracks your heads movements and can create real-time parallax effects to create a 3D experience with the help of some 3D glasses. The device is targeted as a commercial display, for CAD and other types of software, and HP will release an optional zView Software suite in Q2 2015 for this device. The Zvr has a 1080p TN panel, which HP claims offers up to 170° horizontal viewing, and 160° vertical. The Zvr 23.6” display has 1 DVI-D port, 1 DisplayPort 1.2 port, and two USB 2.0 ports. Prices and availability are to come.

HP Z27s

HP also announced three 27” displays, and the first on the sheet is the Z27s, which is a size bump up of the Z24s. As with the Z24s, the Z27s features a 3840x2160 IPS panel, with 1.07 billion colors and coverage of the sRGB color gamut. The connections are HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2, and Mini-DisplayPort, and the Z27s offers 4 USB 3.0 ports and 1 audio port as well as a tilt, swivel, pivot, and height-adjustable stand. The Z27s should be available this month for $749.

HP 27c

The next 27” display is the HP Pavilion 27c Curved Display. This is only a 1080p panel, but has a gentle curve to it. The panel on this model is listed as a VA panel according to the tech specs, and brightness is listed at 300 cd/m². Connections feature HDMI 1.4, MHL 2.0, and a VGA connection for some reason. This display also features onboard audio, with 4 watts per channel for the two speakers and DTS Audio. The 27c is available now for $399.99.

HP Z27q

The next 27” monitor is likely the most exciting display announced today. The HP Z27q is a 27” IPS display with 5K (5120x2880) resolution, matching the new Retina iMac and Dell’s 5K display. The big change here though is that HP will be offering the Z27q for $1299.99. This is about half of what Dell was first asking for their 5K UltraSharp. The Z27q offers color calibration to sRGB, Adobe RGB, and BT.709, and according to HP the 10-bit panel covers 99% of the Adobe RGB gamut. The stand offers tilt, swivel, pivot, and height adjustments, and the only connections offered are 2 DisplayPort 1.2 connections. There are four USB 3.0 ports as well. The Z27q should be available in March.

HP S270C

The final 27” monitor announced by HP today is the HP EliteDisplay S270c which is a 27” curved display. The 1080p panel is a IPS panel, with 300 cd/m² brightness listed. As with the Pavilion Curved Display, the S270c offers DTS Audio with 4 watts per channel. Inputs are VGA, HDMI 1.4, and MHL 2.0. HP states that this model covers 98% of the sRGB gamut, and has a coating for low refection. Price and availability to follow.

HP Z34c

Finally, in case you had not seen enough monitors, HP also announced the HP Z34c display, which is a 34” Ultra Wide Curved Display. The Z34c offers a 3440x1440 WQHD resolution from the VA panel, and 350 cd/m² brightness. This panel offers 8 bit color depth, and HP rates it at 98.8% of the sRGB gamut. The panel features a low reflective coating and DTS audio with 6 watts per channel. Inputs are 2 HDMI (one with MHL) and 1 DisplayPort 1.2. Estimated pricing for this model is $999 with availability in April.
Source: HP

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