Anandtech News

**FEED** · 03-29-17, 09:12 AM

Over the last week, Lexar has introduced a new series of USB flash drives with enhanced endurance. The new drives are built to survive in tough conditions, such as very cold or very hot temperatures or water. As for performance and capacities, we are talking about fairly mainstream products with USB Type-A interface with low price points.
The Lexar JumpDrive Tough are designed to withstand physical impact (up to 750 PSI or 50 atm), extreme temperatures (from -25°C to +148.9°C) and water (it is claimed to be water resistant up to 98 feet, or 30 meters). This is compared to typical flash drives that can be stored at -20°C and operate at 0°C, or some that are also water resistant from use of resins. There are ranges of products on the market aimed at the physical endurance crowd, and the combination of extended temperature ranges, water resistance, and physical durability is the main selling point of Lexar’s new drives.

Lexar JumpDrive Tough Family of Flash Drives
	LJDTD32GABNL	LJDTD64GABNL	LJDTD128GABNL
Capacity	32 GB	64 GB	128 GB
Type of NAND	Unknown
Maximum Transfer Rate	Read: 130 MB/s Write: 25 MB/s	Read: 150 MB/s Write: 60 MB/s
Physical Impact	750 PSI
Water Resistance	Up to 30 Meters
Storage Temperature	-25°C to +148.9°C -13°F to 300°F
Warranty	Three Years
MSRP	$19.99	$34.99	$59.99

The JumpDrive Tough family of USB drives consists of three models with 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB capacities. As for performance, the manufacturer declares up to 150 MB/s read speed as well as up to 60 MB/s write speed (for the 128 GB and 64 GB versions, the 32 GB version is slower). To enable advanced security, Lexar bundles the EncryptStick Lite software with 256-bit AES encryption.

Lexar has already started to ship its JumpDrive Tough family of USB drives at MSRPs of $19.99 (32 GB), $34.99 (64 GB), and $59.99 (128 GB). All the USB sticks are covered with a three-year limited warranty.
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**FEED** · 03-29-17, 11:17 AM

Samsung officially unveiled the latest Galaxy devices at its Unpacked event in New York today. The taller displays in the 5.8-inch Galaxy S8 and 6.2-inch Galaxy S8+ show more content without making the phones difficult to hold or fit in a pocket, while the slim bezels and rounded display corners give them a fresh, modern look. Like previous Galaxy phones, the S8 and S8+ come loaded with features, including an iris scanner, microSD card support, IP68 dust and water resistance, and wireless charging.

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**FEED** · 03-29-17, 12:30 PM

Corsair last week started to sell its first Vengeance RGB memory modules, equipped with full sets of RGB LEDs that can change their colors using OS software. Right now Corsair offers DDR4-2666 and DDR4-3000 modules, but eventually we expect the Vengeance RGB lineup will be expanded.
Just like other Vengeance memory modules, the Vengeance RGB DIMMs are based on Corsair’s custom PCBs as well as preselected ICs. The modules come with aluminum heat spreaders featuring RGB LEDs that can change colors dynamically using the Corsair Link software, allowing users to synchronize colors of RGB lighting of their DIMMs and specific motherboard brands. Lighting of each module can be controlled separately as well. The lighting of the Vengeance RGB can also be controlled using GIGABYTE’s RGB Fusion app and Corsair states that eventually other producers of LED-controlling software are expected to follow.

At first, Corsair will offer 16 GB dual-channel as well as 32 GB and 64 GB quad-channel Vengeance RGB kits consisting of two, four and eight 8 GB modules (they are based on 8 Gb DDR4 ICs), respectively. The DIMMs are rated to run at 2666 MT/s with CL16 18-18-35 timings and at 3000 MT/s with CL15 17-17-35 latencies. The DDR4-2666 modules feature 1.2 V power supply, whereas the DDR4-3000 DIMMs require the higher DDR4 standard of 1.35 V.

Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4 DIMMs and Kits
Data rate	Latency		Kit Capacity	Modules	Voltage	Part Number	Launch Price
2666 MT/s	CL16 18-18-35		16 GB	2x8GB	1.2 V	CMR16GX4M2A2666C16	$194.99
32 GB	4x8GB	CMR32GX4M4A2666C16	$384.99
64 GB	8x8GB	CMR64GX4M8A2666C16	$764.99
3000 MT/s	CL15 17-17-35		16 GB	2x8GB	1.35 V	CMR16GX4M2C3000C15	$199.99
32 GB	4x8GB	CMR32GX4M4C3000C15	$389.99

At present, Corsair’s Vengeance RGB memory modules are equipped with XMP 2.0-compatible profiles, optimized for Intel X99, Z170 and Z270 platforms. Eventually Corsair plans to expand the lineup with something faster than DDR4-3000. In addition, Corsair intends to announce AMD Ryzen-compatible Vengeance RGB DIMMs as well “soon”, but the company does not disclose timeframes or specifications of the upcoming products.

It is noteworthy that the non-RGB based Vengeance monochromatic LED modules announced last year are now available at up to 3466 MT/s.

Prices of Corsair’s Vengeance RGB DRAM kits depend on specifications and capacity. Memory chips have risen in price compared to a year ago, and on top of this, companies like Corsair will charge a premium for customizable RGB lighting.
Gallery: Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4 DIMMs and Kits

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**FEED** · 03-30-17, 07:48 AM

The market for UCFF (ultra-compact form factor) PCs has seen tremendous growth since the introduction of the Intel NUCs in early 2013. Various motherboard and system vendors have their own offerings in this space. ECS started selling their own UCFF PCs under the LIVA brand in 2014. The initial focus was on the low end, with units based on the Intel Bay Trail and Braswell platforms. The lineup evolved to accommodate Core M-based units as well as systems in the mini-STX form factor. Today, we are taking a look at the ECS LIVA Z. This fanless Apollo Lake system targets the low-end market segment, and aims to differentiate itself by supporting two LAN ports. Read on to find out how the system performs in our evaluation routine.

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**FEED** · 04-01-17, 08:22 AM

FSP introduced its Dagger family of SFX PSUs for gaming systems at Computex 2016, about nine months ago. However, sometimes it takes several quarters for products to reach the market after their formal announcement because makers finalize certain details. This week, the company announced pricing of its SFX PSUs, an indicator that they are going to hit the market shortly.
As reported, the FSP Dagger lineup consists of two models rated for 500 W and 600 W maximum load. Both PSUs are compliant with the SFX12V V3.3 and ATX12V V2.4 specs as well as carry the 80 Plus Gold certification. The Dagger power supplies have modular design and come with EPS12V power connectors (one 24-pin and a 4+4-pin connector), two PCIe 8-pin (6+2) power connectors to support all existing graphics cards as well as the upcoming GPUS, as well as five SATA power plugs. For cooling, both PSUs are equipped with an 80 mm dual ball bearing fan.
FSP will offer the Dagger 500 W for $99, whereas the Dagger 600 W will retail for $109. MSRP of FSP’s 500 W SFX PSU is in line with prices of competing devices of the same wattage, whereas the 600 W is slightly cheaper than the rivals are.

FSP Dagger Series
Connector type	Hardwired	Modular
ATX 24 Pin	-	1
EPS 4+4 Pin	-	1
PCI-E 8 Pin	-	2
SATA	-	5
Molex	-	2
Floppy	-	1

It is noteworthy that over the past several quarters, three PSU manufacturers have announced their SFX PSUs for miniature gaming systems. Enermax, FSP and Thermaltake are joining the club, which originally only had Corsair and SilverStone a year ago. This is not exactly surprising, as miniature gaming PCs are getting more popular. Virtually all makers of high-performance computers offer small-form-factor gaming systems, and there are a number of newcomers that exclusively build only SFF gaming machines. While initiatives like Valve’s Steam Machine has helped bring some systems to market, others like Corsair’s Bulldog and One aim to bring a gaming PC into to the living room. Obviously the DIY market follows the industrial trend and demand for various components for mini PCs is on the rise, which is why five makers now offer SFX PSUs.

FSP Dagger SFX Series DC Output Specifications
	SDA500		SDA600
Rated	Combined	Rated	Combined
+3.3V	20 A	90 W	20 A	150 W
+5V	15 A	15 A
+12V	41.67 A	501 W	50 A	600 W
-12V	0.3 A	3.6 W	0.3 A	3.6 W
+5Vsb	3 A	12.5 W	2.5 A	12.5 W
Total Power	550 W		650 W

Most vendors stagger their PSU launches based on region, and we expect FSP to do this as well.
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Gallery: FSP Finally Ships Dagger SFX 500 and 600 W PSUs: Starting at $99

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**FEED** · 04-01-17, 01:51 PM

ADATA this week launched its Ultimate SU700-series SSDs that were briefly introduced at Computex 2016 about nine months ago. The new drives are based on 3D TLC NAND memory and are among the first retail products to use Maxiotek’s MK8115 controller for low-cost SSDs. The SU700 lineup will include various models with different capacities and performance.

The ADATA Ultimate SU700 drives appear to be one the first retail SSDs featuring the MK8115 without onboard DRAM. The products use Micron’s 3D TLC NAND flash memory and come in 120 GB, 240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB configurations. The drives come in a 2.5”/7 mm form-factor and use the SATA 6 Gbps interface, thus are compatible with modern desktops and notebooks. When it comes to on-the-box sequential performance, we are talking about a typical 2017 entry-level SATA SSD rated for a sequential read speed of up to 560 MB/s as well as sequential write speed of up to 520 MB/s when pseudo-SLC caching is used. Random read/write performance of the SU700 drives is almost on par that of ADATA’s Ultimate SU800 featuring the Silicon Motion SM2258 controller and the same 3D TLC memory - up to 80K read IOPS and up to 80K write IOPS (see the table for details). Keeping in mind that even the name of the new drives implies that they are positioned slightly below the SU800, it is not surprising that they are slightly slower as well. The SU700 drives (unlike the SU800) support hardware AES-256 encryption, however.

ADATA SU700 Specifications
Capacity	120 GB	240 GB	480 GB	960 GB
Model Number	ASU700SS-120GT-C	ASU700SS-240GT-C	ASU700SS-480GT-C	ASU700SS-9600GT-C
Controller	Maxiotek MK8115
NAND Flash	3D TLC NAND
Sequential Read	560 MB/s
Sequential Write	320 MB/s	520 MB/s		unknown
Random Read IOPS	30K	60K	80K	unknown
Random Write IOPS	70K	80K	80K	unknown
Pseudo-SLC Caching	Supported
DRAM Buffer	Yes, capacity unknown
Encryption	AES-256
Power Management	Slumber, Device Sleep, etc.
Power Consumption	Unknown
Warranty	3 years
MTBF	2,000,000 hours
TBW	70 TB	140 TB	280 TB	unknown
MSRP	unknown	unknown	unknown	unknown

The manufacturer rates its SU700 SSDs for 2 million hours MTBF and ships them with a three-year limited warranty. From endurance point of view, 3D TLC NAND memory is more durable than TLC NAND produced using a thin planar process technology (as the cells in 3D TLC are larger, allowing more room for voltage drift over the life of the NAND). As with all SSDs, ADATA leaves NAND for overprovisioning in a bid to ensure that the drives work fine even after prolonged usage - however it remains to be seen how the use of a controller featuring a BCH-based ECC technology plays out for a TLC-based SSD in general.
A Side Note about the MK8115 Controller

The Maxiotek MK8115 is a quad-channel NAND controller that supports SATA (technically SATA v3.2) as well as various types of SLC, MLC, 3D MLC, and 3D TLC NAND flash memory with Async, Toggle, and ONFi NAND interfaces (at up to 400 MT/s transfer rates). The MK8115 controller supports the developer’s AgileECC error correction (with programmable ECC parity that supports 1 KB code-word length correctable up to 76 bits, something that implies on BCH method) with virtual parity recovery. As with other controllers, the MK8115 supports modern security capabilities (AES-256, SM4, TCG-OPAL 2.0, IEEE1667) and other features, such as low-power modes (Slumber/Device Sleep, etc.), advanced static/dynamic wear-leveling and so on. So while the MK8115 formally supports AES-256 encryption (something that is not always supported by inexpensive controllers), from an ECC point of view it seems to be behind competitors that also support LDPC. All that being said, one of the key features that Maxiotek advertises about its MK8115 is the fact that it does not require additional onboard DRAM, thus allowing saving a few cents on the SSD bill of materials. We're looking forward to when Billy gets a sample for review.
Pricing

Now, time to talk about the retail pricing. ADATA intends to charge $10, $20 and $30 for 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB versions of the Ultimate SU700 SSDs. Traditionally, the producer plans to release the highest-capacity model a bit later.
Gallery: ADATA Launches SU700: Maxiotek MK8115 Controller, 3D TLC NAND, Up to 960 GB

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**FEED** · 04-03-17, 07:06 AM

In a bombshell of a press release issued this morning, Imagination has announced that Apple has informed their long-time GPU partner that they will be winding down their use of Imagination’s IP. Specifically, Apple expects that they will no longer be using Imagination’s IP in 15 to 24 months. Furthermore the GPU design that replaces Imagination’s designs will be, according to Imagination, “a separate, independent graphics design.” In other words, Apple is developing their own GPU, and when that is ready, they will be dropping Imagination’s GPU designs entirely.
This alone would be big news, however the story doesn’t stop there. As Apple’s long-time GPU partner and the provider for the basis of all of Apple’s SoCs going back to the very first iPhone, Imagination is also making a case to investors (and the public) that while Apple may be dropping Imagination’s GPU designs for a custom design, that Apple can’t develop a new GPU in isolation – that any GPU developed by the company would still infringe on some of Imagination’s IP. As a result the company is continuing to sit down with Apple and discuss alternative licensing arrangements, with the intent of defending their IP rights. Put another way, while any Apple-developed GPU will contain a whole lot less of Imagination’s IP than the current designs, Imagination believes that they will still have elements based on Imagination’s IP, and as a result Apple would need to make lesser royalty payments to Imagination for devices using the new GPU.

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**FEED** · 04-03-17, 08:35 AM

JEDEC made two important announcements about the future of DRAM and non-volatile DIMMs for servers last week. Development of both is proceeding as planned and JEDEC intends to preview them in the middle of this year and publish the final specifications sometimes in 2018.
Traditionally each new successive DRAM memory standard aims for consistent jumps: doubling the bandwidth per pin, reducing power consumption by dropping Vdd/Vddq voltage, and increasing the maximum capacity of memory ICs (integrated circuits). DDR5 will follow this trend and JEDEC last week confirmed that it would double the bandwidth and density over DDR4, improve performance, and power efficiency.
Given that official DDR4 standard covers chips with up to 16 Gb capacity and with up to 2133-3200 MT/s data rate per pin, doubling that means 32 Gb ICs with up to 4266-6400 MT/s data rate per pin. If DDR5 sustains 64-bit interface for memory modules, we will see single-sided 32 GB DDR5-6400 DIMMs with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth in the DDR5 era. Speaking of modules, it is interesting to note that among other things DDR5 promises “a more user-friendly interface”, which probably means a new retention mechanism or increased design configurability.

Samsung's DDR4 memory modules. Image for illustrative purposes only.

Part of the DDR5 specification will be improved channel use and efficiency. Virtually all modern random access memory sub-systems are single-channel, dual-channel or multi-channel, but actual memory bandwidth of such systems does not increase linearly with the increase of the number of channels (i.e., channel utilization decreases). Part of the problem is the fact that host cores fight for DRAM bandwidth, and memory scheduling is a challenge for CPU and SoC developers. Right now we do not know how DRAM developers at JEDEC plan to address the memory channel efficiency problem on the specification level, but if they manage to even partly solve the problem, that will be a good news. Host cores will continue to fight for bandwidth and memory scheduling will remain important, but if channel utilization increases it could mean both performance and power advantages. Keep in mind that additional memory channels mean additional DRAM ICs and a significant increase in power consumption, which is important for mobile DRAM subsystems, but it is also very important for servers.
JEDEC plans to disclose more information about the DDR5 specification at its Server Forum event in Santa Clara on June 19, 2017, and then publish the spec in 2018. It is noteworthy that JEDEC published the DDR4 specification in September 2012, whereas large DRAM makers released samples of their DDR4 chips/modules a little before that. Eventually, Intel launched the world’s first DDR4-supporting platforms in 2014, two years after the standard was finalized. If DDR5 follows the same path, we will see systems using the new type of DRAM in 2020 or 2021.

Another specification that JEDEC plans to finalize in 2018 is the NVDIMM-P that will enable high-capacity memory modules featuring persistent memory (flash, 3D XPoint, new types of storage-class memory, etc.) and DRAM. The capacity of today’s NVDIMM-Ns is limited to the capacity of regular server DRAM modules, but the NVDIMM-P promises to change that and increase capacities of modules to hundreds of GBs or even to TBs. The NVDIMM-P is currently a work in progress and we are going to learn more about the tech in June.

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Sources of images: SNIA, Samsung

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OptoDP Active Optical Cable Key Features
	Cosemi OptoDP1.4
Material	High-Speed Fiber Optics
Bandwidth (theoretical/actual)	32.4/25.92 Gbps
Maximum Resolution	7680×4320 resolution with 4:4:4 chroma subsampling at 60 Hz (with DSC enabled)
Length	100 meters/328 feet
DisplayPort Version	1.4

AUKEY 6-in-1 USB Type-C Hub
	CB-C55
Main Connection	USB 3.0 Type-C at 5 Gbps with power delivery
Display Outputs	D-Sub (max resolution is 1920×1080) HDMI 1.4 (max resolution is 3840×2160 at 30 Hz)
Ethernet	GbE
USB	2 × USB 3.0 Type-A (5V 500mA - 5V 900mA)
Power Input	5-12V 2A (up to 24 W)
Cable Length	142 mm 5.6 inches
Dimensions	102 × 58 × 18 mm 4 × 2.3 × 0.7 inches
Weight	120 grams 4.2 ounces

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Anandtech: Lexar Launches 'JumpDrive Tough' USB Drives up to 128GB: Focusing on Physi

Anandtech: Hands On With Samsung's Galaxy S8 and S8+: Taller Screens and Slimmer Beze

Anandtech: Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4 Memory Modules with LEDs Now on Sale

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Anandtech: AUKEY’s CB-C55 USB-C Hub Now on Sale: Macbook Port Expander with Power and

Anandtech: ECS LIVA Z Fanless Dual-LAN Apollo Lake UCFF PC Review

Anandtech: FSP Dagger 500W and 600W SFX PSUs Come To Market: From $99 with 80Plus Gol

Anandtech: ADATA Launches the SU700 SSD Range: Maxiotek MK8115, 3D TLC, Up to 960 GB

Anandtech: Apple To Develop Own GPU, Drop Imagination's GPUs From SoCs

Anandtech: JEDEC: DDR5 to Double Bandwidth Over DDR4, NVDIMM-P Specification Due Next

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