Thread: Anandtech News

Both AMD and Intel bundle cooling solutions with their microprocessors. Such coolers are inexpensive, they are rather reliable and they do their job. They are not supposed to enable great overclocking results, or be utterly quiet, unlike premium thermal solutions from the third parties. The two CPU developers are gradually working to improve their own coolers and this week AMD unveiled its new “Wraith” cooling system for its current and future chips.
At present, AMD equips its boxed FX-series central processing units (CPUs) with a rather small air cooler called the AMD D3. The latter is made of aluminum, is equipped with four heat-pipes as well as a 70-mm fan. The thermal solution can remove up to 125W of heat, but at the cost of a lot of noise (up to 51 dbA, according to AMD). The vast majority of enthusiasts, who buy AMD FX CPUs, usually obtain their thermal solutions from companies like Corsair, Noctua or Scythe. However, certain PC makers utilize bundled coolers, which may not be a very optimal decision since they get rather loud when CPUs get hot. AMD’s high-end accelerated processing units (APUs) can dissipate up to 95W, but their boxed versions are also equipped with rather tiny and noisy coolers, which is not a problem for power users (who use third-party solutions anyway), but is not exactly good for PC makers.

Apparently, AMD plans to offer better coolers with its microprocessors going forward. This week the company revealed its Wraith thermal solution, which will be used to cool down both current and upcoming chips from the company. The AMD Wraith, which was designed to take away around 125W of heat, features a rather large aluminum heatsink with ultra-thin fins, four heat-pipes as well as an 80-mm fan. AMD claims that the Wraith features 24% more cooling fin surface area (179,730.1mm²) compared to its predecessor (144,397.8mm²), which seems like a significant improvement. Contemporary 80-mm fans can generate significant airflow while staying rather quiet. According to AMD, the new fan pushes 55.78 cubic feet of air per minute (CFM), or 34% more than the predecessor (41.6 CFM). The maximum noise level generated by the Wraith cooler is around 39 dBA (based on what AMD says), which is quieter compared to the current-generation D3 cooler from the company, but is significantly louder than noise levels generated by advanced coolers from companies like Noctua or Scythe (20 – 32 dBA). Overall, the new cooler from AMD seems to be rather efficient for an in-box solution, but only real-world tests will show how good the Wraith cooling system actually is.
While AMD did not disclose all details about its new thermal solution, it did show it in action on its YouTube channel. The new cooler is noticeably larger than the AMD D3. It is also noticeably quieter, but it is clearly not noiseless like 120mm low-RPM fans used on giant coolers.

The AMD Wraith cooling system will be bundled with select microprocessors going forward and will also be sold separately. The Wraith should be compatible with all recent AMD sockets (e.g., FM2+, AM3+, etc.), but we are not sure about the upcoming AM4 at this point. Since changing mounting mechanism of a cooler is not that hard, it looks like AMD’s Wraith will cool down the company’s chips for quite some time.

While enthusiasts will continue to use third-party coolers with AMD’s current and future central processing units, for many PC makers new thermal solutions will mean that AMD-based systems will get considerably quieter (which means generally more competitive). Since the Wraith is not large, it will fit into small form-factor systems. As a result, it will soon be possible to build an inexpensive SFF PC based on a high-performance AMD APU that will be relatively quiet.
AMD did not reveal when exactly it plans to start bundling the Wraith cooler with its chips, but expect the new thermal solution to show up in the coming months.

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AMD plans to improve performance of its desktop computing platforms by launching a new accelerated processing unit as well as another generation of AM3+ and FM2+ motherboards with USB 3.1 and M.2 ports. The new APU — the AMD A10-7890K — will be the company’s most powerful hybrid processor ever, when it is released later this quarter. The new APU and motherboards will help AMD to maintain its competitive positions.
Same Thing, Only Faster

The upcoming AMD A10-7890K accelerated processing unit is based on the Kaveri design introduced two years ago. The APU will integrate two Steamroller modules (four x86 cores), 4 MB L2 cache, the AMD Radeon R7 integrated GPU with 512 stream processors and GCN 1.1 architecture, a dual-channel DDR3 memory controller (which supports up to DDR3-2133 memory) as well as second-generation video coding engine (VCE) and fourth-generation unified video decoder (UVC) units for video playback. Just like all modern hybrid processors from AMD, the new APU is compatible with heterogeneous system architecture specification 1.0 and can use its graphics core for general-purpose processing (in appropriate applications). The chip will feature unlocked multiplier.

The main difference of the new microprocessor compared to its predecessors will be slightly higher clock-rates and slightly better performance. AMD does not disclose exact specifications of the A10-7890K, but claims that its maximum turbo frequency will be 4.3 GHz, which means that its default clock-rate will likely hit 4 GHz or higher (AMD did not confirm this). It is unclear whether AMD plans to bundle its new Wraith cooler with the A10-7890K, but if the new chip gets the latest cooling solution, then it will get somewhat more competitive.
AMD’s latest APUs for desktops — also known as Godavari — feature upgraded power supply circuitry designed to deliver cleaner and higher amount of power to the die and are made using slightly refined GlobalFoundries’ 28 nm super high performance (SHP) process technology. Improved binning process and increased voltages (compared to the original Kaveri) enable AMD to increase clock-rates of its APUs gradually. This helps the company to sustain average selling price (ASP) of its desktop chips while staying competitive against Intel’s Core i3 and Pentium offerings.

AMD Kaveri Lineup
	A10- 7890K	A10- 7870K	A10- 7850K	A10- 7800	A10- 7700K	A8- 7670K	A8- 7650K	A8- 7600	X4 860K
Modules	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
Threads	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4
Core Freq. (GHz)	up to 4.3	3.9-4.1	3.7-4.0	3.5-3.9	3.4-3.8	3.6-3.9	3.3-3.8	3.1-3.8	3.7-4.0
Compute Units	4+8	4+8	4+8	4+8	4+6	4+6	4+6	4+6	4+0
Streaming Processors	512	512	512	512	384	384	384	384	N/A
IGP Freq. (MHz)	unknown	866	720	720	720	754	720	720	N/A
TDP	95W	95W	95W	65W	95W	95W	95W	65W	95W
DRAM Frequency	2133	2133	2133	2133	2133	2133	2133	2133	1866
L2 Cache	2x2MB	2x2MB	2x2MB	2x2MB	2x2MB	2x2MB	2x2MB	2x2MB	2x2MB

The release of the AMD A10-7890K accelerated processing unit may not be a breakthrough in terms of additional performance. However, it shows two important things. Firstly, AMD can increase clock-rates of its existing chips (which potentially means that overclockers can boost them further). Secondly, AMD is confident that its upcoming code-named Bristol Ridge APUs will be powerful enough to leave current-gen hybrid processors behind in terms of performance.
New Motherboards Incoming

AMD also revealed at CES that its partners are working on a new generation of socket AM3+ and socket FM2+ motherboards. The new breed of mainboards from various manufacturers will feature USB 3.1 gen 2 controllers (ASMedia ASM1142) that will enable USB type-A and USB type-C ports. Besides, select motherboards will also have M.2 connectors for solid-state drives.

The implementation of the USB 3.1 is relatively easy: the ASMedia ASM1142 controller requires two PCI Express 2.0 lanes (something that all modern AMD platforms have), everything that motherboard makers need to do is to install one chip and supporting logic. Meanwhile, a properly implemented M.2 connector for contemporary solid-state drives needs four PCI Express 3.0 lanes in order to provide up to 3940 MB/s of bandwidth. The AMD FX (AM3+) platforms do not support PCIe 3.0 natively at all, hence, AMD’s partners will have to either implement an M.2 connector using four PCIe 2.0 ports (which would limit bandwidth to 2000 MB/s), or use a PCIe switch to “convert” eight PCIe 2.0 lanes into four PCIe 3.0 lanes. The AMD A-series (FM2+) processors support PCIe 3.0 x16 and hence can support an M.2 port with PCIe 3.0 x4 bandwidth, but in that case graphics cards will have to work in PCIe 3.0 x8 mode. In general, it is possible to add USB 3.1 and M.2 to current-generation AM3+ and FM2+ platforms, but that comes at a cost.
Waiting for Next-Generation

Without any doubts, higher clock-rates and better feature-set will make AMD-based platforms faster and more compelling. Unfortunately, a minor increase in frequency as well as addition of the USB 3.1 and the M.2 to several new motherboards will hardly dramatically increase popularity of AMD’s A-series or FX-series microprocessors. Nonetheless, proper pricing and up-to-date features will help AMD to maintain its positions.
What the market is waiting for is the next-generation AMD platform that is based on the company’s microprocessors code-named Summit Ridge. The CPU developer hopes that its Zen micro-architecture will deliver 40% higher IPC (instructions per clock) performance compared to the predecessor, whereas new 14nm/16nm FinFET process technologies will help to lower power consumption and/or increase clock-rates.

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Tomb Raider is a classic series now running for nearly 20 years. While the original titles are beyond dated graphically, Rise of the Tomb Raider looks to not only be quite the GPU workout but also claims to be 4K ready. Which if the screenshots are enough verification will make for some of the sharpest graphics I’ve ever seen in game. Even if the game is taxing at the high end those of us with more mortal machines may still be fine, since the minimum requirements are more in the realms of a GeForce GTX 650.
If you are interested in the new Tomb Raider and are also looking for a GPU upgrade, you can get the game thrown in for free and have ample graphics power on launch. From now until February 16th the Rise of the Tomb Raider GeForce GTX Bundle will be given to anyone who purchases a qualifying the GTX 970 or better (excluding Titan X) desktop cards or qualifying 970M, 980M or 980 equipped notebooks computers.

NVIDIA Current Game Bundles
Video Card	Bundle
GeForce GTX Titan X	None
GeForce GTX 980Ti/980/970	Rise of the Tomb Raider
GeForce GTX 960/950	None
GeForce GTX 980 For Notebooks	Rise of the Tomb Raider
GeForce GTX 980M/970M	Rise of the Tomb Raider
GeForce GTX 965M And Below	None

Those wishing to participate are encouraged by NVIDIA to check the product description of the item they are purchasing to ensure that the seller is participating in the "Rise of the Tomb Raider GeForce GTX bundle”, as NVIDIA cannot provide codes and coupons for purchases made at non-participating retailers and e-tailers. Per the Terms and Conditions, the offer is valid worldwide excluding China. Rise of the Tomb Raider will be released for the PC on January 28, 2016.

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At CES 2016, QNAP showed off what they had been introducing into the APAC market over the last three months. CES was used to make the North American market aware of the new models. While we have the usual 4-, 6- and 8-bay NAS units based on Braswell, three products stood out - a 4-'bay' NAS using M.2 SSDs, a 16-bay dual-CPU 40GbE-capable NAS with 12Gbps SAS support and QNAP's first foray into the high-end enterprise space with a ZFS NAS running a completely different operating system (QES based on FreeBSD). Before talking about the expected Braswell updates, we will take a look at the three unique products from the QNAP stable.
TBS-453A 4-bay M.2 SSD NASbook

The TBS-453A looks more like a mini-PC, rather than a NAS.

The most surprising aspect of the chassis is the presence of five RJ-45 ports. These appear as two physical LAN ports to the OS (since the second set of four is actually connected to the main SoC using a hardware switch chip).
Gallery: QNAP M.2 SSD NASbook: TBS-453A


Removing the bottom panel reveals four M.2 slots (capable of supporting M.2 2242, 2260 and 2280 SSDs) and two DDR3L SO-DIMM slots. The 2.08 GHz 2C/4T x86 SoC (Intel Celeron N3150 belonging to the Braswell family) is cooled by a notebook fan (SUNON MF60090V1-C482-S9A). The absence of any 2.5" or 3.5" drives make it quite compact. The combination of ports, speed and relative silence make it suitable for file sharing, presentations and multimedia applications (including karaoke singing concerts) in a portable form factor.
The QTS Network Manager incorporates software-defined virtual switch technology providing configuration flexibility. The presence of five RJ-45 ports on the unit can lead to some interesting applications such as private networks for surveillance cameras.

The TBS-453A also supports Linux using Docker functionality. QNAP has always had the Hybrid Desk (HD Station) app to enable video output over HDMI on selected QNAP NAS models. Linux Station builds upon Hybrid Desk and utilizes containers to provide users with a complete Linux desktop on the NAS. The NASbook along with Linux Station can act as a standard Linux desktop in this way.

Other than these features, the usage of Braswell provides AES-NI capabilities for better performance with encrypted volumes and folders. The integrated Quick Sync engine can also transcode 4K material (both in real-time and offline) Container Station and Virtualization Station enable a number of different applications (including the running of different OSes on the machine as well as sandboxing certain processes for greater security).
Dual HDMI ports allow for multimedia enjoyment using apps such as Kodi. The unit also comes with an IR receiver and remote. Apps such as OceanKTV allows for usage of the NASbook as a karaoke system.

Other than the above unique features, the standard QTS capabilities for data storage, backup and file sharing exist in the NASbook also. The storage capacity of the TBS-453A can be expanded via the UX-500P and UX-800P which provide five and eight 2.5" / 3.5" drive bays respectively. They can connect to the TBS-453A using one of the USB 3.0 ports.

We do not have concrete pricing information yet, but, with the launch towards the end of this quarter, that should soon be clarified.
TDS-16489U Dual-CPU NAS

The TDS-16489U is, in QNAP's own words' a hyperconverged enterprise NAS. The capabilities of the unit are best brought out using the hardware architecture documentation.

The software capabilities enable the unit to act as both a storage server and an application server. QNAP's QTS provides all the storage server functionality. Linux and Windows VMs can enable all the compute heavy stuff. The usage of powerful Xeon CPUs give the unit bonafide data center server credentials.

In a tradtional setup, boxes such as those from QNAP are used as a storage server, with another server running Hyper-V or some VMWare tools for virtualization. Even though QNAP's Virtualization Station can't hold a torch to those dedicated virtualization systems, it comes with no licensing costs and enables tighter integration of the guest OS and the storage server infrastructure in products such as the TDS-1648U.
The hardware specifications of the NAS are reproduced below

Pricing information has not been made available yet.
ES1640dc ZFS NAS and Miscellaneous Products

QNAP also talked about their upcoming ES1640dc, which is a significant departure from their usual products.
Unlike the traditional Turbo NAS models that run the Linux-based QTS, this unit runs QES 1.1, and is based on FreeBSD. The important enterprise-targeting feature is the move from ext4 to ZFS for the file system.

While the move to QES with ZFS brings features such as inline compression, data deduplication, checksumming / bitrot protection and increased shapshot capabilities, we lose support for powerful QNAP apps such as Virtualization Station and Container Station.
On the hardware side, the ES1640dc and ES1642dc both come with dual active controllers in order to provide high availability if one of the controllers were to fail. The units also provide support for usage of a DRAM DIMM as a write cache as long as a dedicated battery backup unit is installed to copy contents to a mSATA SSD when power fails. Additionally, this scheme also reduces wear on the flash memory when the mSATA SSD is used as a write cache. The EJ1600 / EJ1602 expander modules (again, with dual controller support) can be used to increase the storage capacity of the ES1640dc.
Moving on to other SMB-focused products, QNAP also had the TS-x53A on display in their suite. Based on the Intel Celeron N3150 platform, these products make up the Braswell update to the Bay Trail-based TS-x53 series. Like the TBS-453A NASbook, the TS-x53A series come with two HDMI outputs, two microphone inputs
Recent software updates have enabled apps such as the JRiver Media Center for media management and playback. The other unique features such as the ability to run full-fledged Linux using Linux station have already been covered in the NASbook section.

The full specifications of the various models in the TS-x53A lineup are in the extract from the above spec sheet.
On the whole, I would say that QNAP had a quiet CES. There was one major innovative product in the TBS-453A NASbook. The rest of the products show the direction in which QNAP has been heading, but they have all already been talked about in the APAC market. The only disappointing aspect, in my opinion, was that QNAP had no updates to share on the move from ext4 to btrfs for their home consumer and SMB lineup. Considering that Netgear has already been shipping an implementation for more than a year now, and Synology is shipping btrfs in beta form for a couple of months now, this was quite surprising.

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Synology had organized the Synology 2016 Conference back in September 2015 to talk about their plans for the next couple of quarters. We had covered it in great detail. In the conference, the beta version of DSM 6.0 was launched. Synology also talked about their 2-bay Braswell unit, the DS716+ and a 802.11ac router, the RT1900ac.
Synology's booth at CES 2016 had a working demo of the RT1900ac. The 'DSM' experience delivered by the Synology Router Manager (SRM) OS on the router is quite impressive and will definitely make other router vendors rethink the interface for their offerings. As is common nowadays, management of the router can also be done via a mobile app. The router OS also has plenty of interesting features for power users. One of the unique features is the application layer QoS optimization that can bring down the bandwidth available for, say, YouTube or BitTorrent. Other routers have similar features, but Synology claims that their implementation provides the best granularity.

Hardware-wise, the unit is based on the legacy 2nd generation Broadcom 802.11ac platform (AC1900 - 3x3 in 5GHz band for 1300 Mbps and 3x3 in 2.4 GHz with 256-QAM for 600 Mbps). The rest of the specifications as well as the hardware aspects are reproduced below from the datasheet.

Going with an older platform has allowed Synology to price the unit at $150. This is quite cheap for the specifications and will definitely be a worthy competitor to the Netgear R7000 Nighthawk router which has similar specifications and is priced at $200.
Synology DS716+

Coming back to the NAS side, Synology was also demonstrating the DS716+, a 2-bay Braswell NAS which can be expanded up to seven bays with the DX513. The interesting aspect here is that the unit is capable of supporting btrfs volumes.
Gallery: Synology DS716+


The hardware specifications of the DS716+ are reproduced below.

Synology claims around 223 MBps for reads and 137 MBps for writes to a RAID-1 volume on the DS716+. Enabling encryption doesn't cause any noticeable drop in the claimed numbers. The Quick Sync engine is now taken advantage of in DSM to deliver real time 4K transcoding (no HEVC, though). The DS716+ is available for $450 on Amazon.
Synology DS416j

In fresh NAS news (i.e, what we didn't hear about at the Synology 2016 conference), Synology also launched the DS416j in order to replace the DS414j in their budget-friendly 4-bay lineup. As is usual for budget NAS models, this unit comes with only one network port. However, RAID-5 performance is still very good, with reads coming in at 112 MBps and writes at 101 MBps according to Synology.
Gallery: Synology DS416j

The interesting aspect here is that Synology has opted to go with the Marvell ARMADA 88F6828 with four native SATA ports. It is a high-end variant in the the ARMADA 38x family, and replaces the Mindspeed SoC used in the DS414j. The DS416j is available for $340 on Newegg.
Synology has focused more on bringing attention to their RT1900ac router at CES 2016. Personally, I was hoping to hear about Braswell-based NAS units with 4+ bays. Consumers looking at commercial off-the-shelf NAS units with btrfs support will definitely be waiting for those.

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Linksys was one of the first vendors to jump on to the MU-MIMO bandwagon last year with the launch of the EA8500 AC2400-class 802.11ac router. The Max-Stream branding is used by Linksys to promote their routers. At CES, they introduced a host of new products to expand this lineup.
EA7500 - AC1900-class with MU-MIMO

The EA7500 is a 3x3 dual-band router based on a Qualcomm Atheros platform (1.4GHz IPQ8064 SoC, QCA8337-AL3C switch, and QCA9982 and QCA9983 radios). This one enables 256-QAM to deliver 600 Mbps in the 2.4GHz band. The 5 GHz band still delivers 1300 Mbps theoretical throughput.

Priced at $200 and slated to come to the market next month, it will go against the Netgear Nighthawk R7000 with similar speeds, but come with MU-MIMO enabled. The latter is an important selling point as more and more MU-MIMO clients come to the market. More information can be found on the Linksys product page.
EA9500 - AC5400-class with MU-MIMO

The EA9500 is based on the Broadcom Tri-Band Wi-Fi platform (two 4x4 5GHz SSIDs and one 4x4 2.4GHz SSID). This is the same platform as the AC5300 Nighthawk X8 router released by Netgear in October 2015. Compared to the Nighthawk X8, this one comes with 8 LAN and 1 WAN port and 8 external antennae. There doesn't seem to be any link aggregation capabilities out of the box, but that is just a firmware feature.

Priced at $400, availability is slated for April. The delay is due to the fact that Broadcom is yet to bring MU-MIMO capability to the platform in the firmware (the hardware is claimed to be MU-MIMO capable).
Miscellaneous Products

The RE7000 is a MU-MIMO-capable Wi-Fi range extender in the plug-in form factor. It is AC1900 class, but, instead of having the same spatial stream configuration for both 2.4GHz and 5 GHz bands, the product does 4x4 in the 5GHz and 2x2 in the 2.4GHz channels. It comes with a single GbE port. Priced at $150, it will come to market in Spring 2016.

The AC600 USB MU-MIMO adapter (WUSB6100M) finally brings MU-MIMO to USB WLAN adapters. With a 1x1 configuration (433 Mbps in 5GHz and 150 Mbps in 2.4 GHz), it needs only a USB 2.0 interface to connect to the host PC. The big draw here is the MU-MIMO capability which helps improve overall system performance when used alongside other MU-MIMO clients and a MU-MIMO-capable router.

On the cable modem side, the CM3008 (DOCSIS 3.0, 8 downstream / 4 upstream channel bonding, 343 Mbps down / 120 Mbps up, $70, Spring 2016) and the CM3024 (DOCSIS 3.0, 24 downstream / 8 upstream channel bonding, 960 Mbps down / 240 Mbps up, $130, Spring 2016) were on display. There is also a growing trend to integrate the Wi-Fi router and cable modem in one (particularly from a service provider perspective). To address this market, Linksys is also introducing the CG7500 which combines the CM3024 24x8 DOCSIS 3.0 platform with a AC1900 (1300 Mbps + 600 Mbps) wireless router platform. The unit comes with four RJ-45 GbE ports and one USB 2.0 port. The antennae are all internal. It will be priced at $250 and be available in Spring 2016.

Linksys also took the opportunity at CES to announce DD-WRT support for the routers based on Marvell silicon (WRT1900AC, WRT1200AC and WRT1900ACS).

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It’s almost hard to believe that ASUS started as primarily just a motherboard company. Their CES showcase for 2016 had a huge array of products, including of course motherboards, but also smart home, smartwatches, phones, laptops, all-in-one systems, monitors, and more. Let’s take a look at some of the new devices for 2016.
ASUS had a couple of all-in-one PCs, including the ASUSPRO model. This is a 20” AIO designed for commercial applications, and it can include a smartcard reader, VGA port, COM port, HDMI, and a tool-less back cover to access the internal components. There was nothing flashy about this model, but it certainly should fit the bill for specific instances where things like a COM port are necessary.

The Zen AiO Pro was a much more consumer oriented model, with the ASUS Zen spun circle finish on the back. It’s a Full HD (1920x1080) model which can be had with up to a GTX 960M graphics card, which should actually be pretty decent for gaming at that resolution. It also features a USB 3.1 Type-C port with 10 Gbps transfer. CPU is up to Core i7 Skylake (T Series 35 Watt Desktop chips) with 16 GB of DDR4, and 512 GB of PCIe storage. The speakers are 16 Watt models which should provide decent audio for a monitor mounted solution. The model on display was the Z220IC, which is a 22-inch version, but there is also a Z240IC which has an optional UHD display. Intel RealSense 3D camera is also available for Windows Hello facial login. ASUS has a very nicely designed AIO here with the beautiful aluminum stand.

ASUS’s VivoMini VC65 Series of Mini-PC was pretty interesting. They feature desktop class processors and support for up to four storage devices, meaning you could turn one of these into a very compact NAS. The VC65R model supports RAID as well. These were announced quite a while ago, but it was good to see them in person. They really are very compact, and with room for up to four drives, there are a lot of applications for this.

ASUS also had the MX34 Curved monitor, which is a 34-inch display with a 3440x1440 resolution. These 21:9 displays can be a nice way to eliminate the need for dual monitors. This model also features Qi wireless charging on the base, as well as HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 connections.

ASUS also had their mini PCs on display, with the Chromebit and VivoStick models shown in a couple of colors. The Chromebit is unsurprisingly Chrome OS, and the VivoStick is Windows 10. Neither is going to wow you with performance. The Chromebit is powered by a Rockchip quad-core RK3288C and has 16 GB of eMMC and 2 GB of memory. The Vivostick is based on Intel’s Cherry Trail Atom processor, and also has 2 GB of memory, but 32 GB of eMMC storage. There are 2 USB 2.0 ports available on the VivoStick.

Next on display was the MB169C+ monitor, which has a terrible name, but a great set of features. It’s a 15.6-inch Full HD display, with the cool feature that it is completely driven off of a single USB-C cable. The USB-C can provide enough power for this display, so you can just plug it into your notebook and that’s all you need. It also comes with a sleeve case to protect the display when not in use.

Before moving on to laptops, I’ll just mention a couple of networking items as well. ASUS had on display the AC2600 router, which offers 4x4 MIMO support, and to go with that, they also have a PCIe wireless networking card which supports 4x4 802.11ac for up to 3.1 Gbps theoretical speed. ASUS put a big heatsink on this card to help it keep cool under load, but the antennae required is, frankly, massive. If you can’t run Gigabit to your desktop, this should give you the best result. ASUS also had a DOCSIS 3.0 cable model on display, so it seems they are expanding their networking to that side as well.

ASUS didn’t have any new laptops for CES, but I did get a chance to check out some that had been announced over the last couple of months with the launch of Skylake. The 15.6-inch ZenBook Pro is arguably ASUS’s flagship laptop, with a full aluminum chassis and 45-Watt Skylake CPUs. It also features an NVIDIA GTX 960M GPU, and PCIe storage. Optionally there is a UHD display with 100% Adobe RGB color space coverage. It’s a great looking laptop, and plenty powerful as well.

Moving down in price and performance is the UX303UA, which is a 13.3-inch Ultrabook with U series Skylake processors. It’s fairly light and thin, and is an incremental upgrade over the previous model. ASUS also had the UX305CA, which is the Skylake powered version of the UX305 that we reviewed in 2015, and ASUS sent us the new Skylake model to put through its paces so look for a review of this soon. The UX305 was one of my favorite Ultrabooks of 2015, and it offers some great value with 8 GB of memory and 256 GB of SSD storage for just $699.

UX303UA

UX305CA

As always, ASUS has a huge amount of product on display at CES. They have branched into almost every aspect of computing, including phones and smartwatches. They seem to aim for the value proposition, offering more product for the dollar than a lot of their competition.

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Netgear's flagship router - the Nighthawk X8 (R8500) - was launched in October. At CES, Netgear took the opportunity to upgrade the Nighthawk X4 line. Interestingly, the original X4 - the R7500 - was launched with Quantenna radios and a Qualcomm IPQ SoC, and promised MU-MIMO support in a future firmware update. However, Netgear decided to enable MU-MIMO only with a hardware upgrade - the R7500 v2 with full MU-MIMO support became an all-Qualcomm Atheros affair. The R7500 v2 is being replaced by the Nighthawk X4S at the same price point.
The Nighthawk X4S (R7800) comes with an IPQ8065 dual-core SoC at 1.7GHz and the QCA9984 radio. Unlike the AC2400-class routers introduced towards the middle of last year, this 4x4 design supports 160 MHz (either contiguous or 80MHz + 80 MHz) and MU-MIMO out of the box. Client support is needed in order to take full advantage of both these features. The router has a MSRP of $270 and is available now.

EX7300 AC2200 Nighthawk X4 WiFi Range Extender

A wall-plug Wi-Fi extender with MU-MIMO capability (EX7300) was also launched at CES. It belongs to the AC2200 class - 4x4 1733Mbps in the 5 GHz band and 3x3 450 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz band. The antennae are internal and the unit also has a GbE RJ-45 port. The extender is available for purchase now and is priced at $170. At the $140 price point, Netgear is launching the EX6400, a AC1900-class extender with 3x3 spatial streams in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. 256-QAM support exists for the 2.4 GHz band. The EX6400 can also be used as a Wi-Fi access point.

Powerline WiFi 1000 (PLW1000 Kit)

On the PLC side, Netgear has introduced the PLW1000, which combines powerline technology with Wi-Fi. Based on the HomePlug AV2 standard, this adapter can support up to 1 Gbps of theoretical throughput. In addition, the PLW1000 also creates a Wi-Fi hotspot at the place of installation. While not explicitly specified, we believe this is a 1x1 configuration for both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. It is marketed as a 802.11ac access point. The PLW1000 is priced at $120 and is available now.

C6250 AC1600 WiFi Cable Modem Router

Netgear also launched the C6250 Wi-Fi cable modem router. The DOCSIS 3.0 modem supports bonding of 16 downstream and 4 upstream channels. The Wi-Fi side is AC1600, i.e, 2x2 in the 2.4 GHz band (300 Mbps) and 3x3 in the 5 GHz band (1300 Mbps). The C6250 has a MSRP of $170 and will be available for purchase soon.

In ReadyNAS news, Netgear had the RN20x and 21x series on display. One of the interesting aspects was the tie-up with Plex. On purchase of models such as the RN202, RN204, RN212, RN214, RN312, RN314, RN316 and RN516, customers can obtain three free months of Premium PLEX Plus.
Gallery: Netgear Updates Networking Lineup at CES

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We usually don't cover televisions in detail here at AnandTech. However, the current flux in the market when it comes to 4K displays for HTPCs made CES 2016 an interesting destination for us to look at what vendors will be offering in the near future. Consumers looking for the best possible picture quality and not concerned about the price have a number of models to choose from in the Smasung SUHDTV series and the Sony XBR series TVs.
Vizio and Hisense 4K TVs are perfect for those on a tight budget. However, a limited budget also means that one can't afford to be an early adopter and be stuck with an outdated television early on. In June 2014, we covered the launch of the Hisense 50H7GB 4K TV. In that article, we covered the minimum features that a 4K HTPC display needed to support in order to not become obsolete within a couple of years. The 50H7GB 50" 4K TV was launched at $600. It supported HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2, with the only disappointing factor being the absence of HDR capabilities. Consumers considering this model obviously have price, and not picture quality, at the top of their purchase factors. In late August 2015, Hisense had launched the H10 series ULED TV with full-array local dimming and quantum dot technologoy for a wider color gamut (the 65" model is currently available for $2500).
At CES 2016, we stopped by Hisense's booth to get an idea of what they had in store for consumers over the rest of the year and what they are working on for future products. The good news is that all the four 4K TV lineups get updated with HDR processing capability - the H7, H8, H9 and H10.

• The new H10 will be similar to the one currently available on Amazon with all the Smart TV and Wi-Fi features, but Hisense hopes to get THX certification for this high-end curved model.
• The H9 (55", $1000, February 2016) gets all the features of the new H10 except that it will not have 3D or quantum dot technology.
• The H8 (50" - $600, 55" - $700, April 2016) is not a curved model. But, Hisense indicates that it will not have the vibrant picture quality of the H9 and H10.
• The H7 (43" - $400, 50" - $550, 55" - $650, 65" - $1300, February 2016) doesn't have the full-array local dimming present in the other models, but carries forward other features from the H8.

It is exciting to see that HDR is making an appearance at mainstream price points. However, wider color gamut is absolutely essential to better appreciate the right 4K content. It might be worthwhile to take a look at the complete specification sheets of the above models before making a purchase decision. Important aspects to track down would be the panel type and panel bitwidth, color gamut coverage and black levels.
Hisense believes that there is a big tussle going on between ULED technology and OLED. To give consumers their perspective, they had the same clip running on a ULED TV as well as an OLED TV side by side in their booth.

To be frank, the OLED TV playback was more pleasing to the eye. However, a side chart indicated that OLEDs have trouble reaching brightness levels that can be achieved via ULED technology. In addition, the quantum dots technology being used in ULED TVs can deliver 106% of the NTSC color gamut, while the best OLEDs can only reach 85% of the NTSC color gamut. While the ULED TV on display was consuming 280W, the equivalent sized OLED TV was consuming 500W. Finally, the OLED TV on display currently costs three times as much as the ULED TV. It would be nice if ULED TVs could further evolve to get some of the more desirable features of OLED TVs - particularly in terms of black levels.
Looking further into the future, Hisense also had a static demo of a 8K model in their booth. Other than the resolution (7680x4320), there was no other information about the television or expected release dates.

As part of their press releases, Hisense also indicated that the Sharp brand is going to be alive and well, and will be around as a premium brand. The N9000, a 70" flat-screen 4K TV with other specifications similar to the H10 series, will come to the market in July for $3000.

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The desktop PC market is seeing growth only in two areas - the gaming high-end and the mini-PCs (in the NUC form factor). Intel has been strengthening its offerings in the latter space as a system vendor. The NUC has been extremely popular and Intel's partners such as Zotac and GIGABYTE are also enjoying a lot of success with similarly sized systems.
ARM SoC vendors started the trend of HDMI sticks, but Intel joined the game in CES 2015 with the Bay Trail Compute Stick. The first iteration was, to put it kindly, a bit underwhelming, but Intel showed its commitment to the form factor by announcing three new Compute Stick models at CES 2016.
Cherry Trail Compute Stick

This is a straight-on follow-up to the Bay Trail model from last year. The I/O ports and hardware construction are similar, except that the Cherry Trail model is slightly longer and includes a USB 3.0 port in addition to the previously existing single USB 2.0 port.

Other improved aspects include the use of Intel's own 802.11ac Wi-Fi chipset instead of the Realtek one found in the Bay Trail version. Obviously, Cherry Trail's GPU is better than Bay Trail's. However, the cooling fan still remains part of the hardware. The eMMC capacity is only 32GB and the RAM is only 2GB - two aspects that have an artificial limitation imposed on them by Intel's decision to pre-install Windows 10 Home. Even though the information is not public, it is likely that Microsoft mandates neutering of a PC's hardware specifications in exchange for a lower price for the Windows 10 OEM license.
Skylake Core M Compute Sticks

While the Cherry Trail Compute Stick was more or less expected, the Core M-based Compute Sticks were a real surprise. Later this year, Intel will launch two Compute Stick models with a Core m3 and Core m5 vPro configuration respectively. The OS will not be pre-installed, and this means that we don't need the storage or RAM to be limited by anything other than what the hardware design allows. In terms of available ports, the design retains the microSD slot from the other Compute Stick models. However, there is only one USB 3.0 port on the unit itself. Power to the unit is delivered by a USB Type-C connector.

The USB Type-C power adapter also includes two USB 3.0 ports. This is a very novel use of the USB Type-C power delivery mechanism. Intel mainly expects the Core M Compute Sticks to be popular amongst businesses and enterprises (thanks to the availability of vPro).
NUCs

Intel has been shipping the Skylake NUCs for a couple of months now. They had one on display at their booth. Interesting aspects include the presence of a SDXC slot as well as a full-sized HDMI port in the rear panel.
Gallery: Intel Skylake NUC


They also talked about the upcoming 'Skull Canyon' mini-PC featuring a 45W TDP Skylake H CPU with Iris Pro graphics. It will not be in the NUC form factor, but will be a slightly larger rectangle with height similar to the current NUCs which don't support 2.5" drives. The unit is still a work in progress, but we expect it to launch in the second half of this year. Unfortunately, Intel didn't allow us to take photographs of the Skull Canyon mini-PC.
On the whole, Intel is showing strong commitment to the mini-PC market segment. This will keep x86 relevant in the home computing space even as ARM continues to strengthen its hold in mobile computing.

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