Thread: Anandtech News

Ever since Razer entered the Ultrabook market, they have offered a solid laptop in the ultra-portable category. The initial version launched back in 2016, and although it had some concerns, mainly battery life, Razer has updated it several times to help correct that. The one thing that was tough to not notice though was that it had pretty large display bezels, when much of the competition is now doing their best to make those as small as possible, allowing more display in the same size laptop.

Today Razer is announcing their latest refresh on the Stealth, and the biggest news is the new 13.3-inch display, packed in the same size chassis. This shrinks the display bezels by 50%, making the entire device a much more pleasing laptop to use. The new 13.3-inch display is a 3200x1800 IGZO panel, offering 100% sRGB color gamut coverage, and 400 nits of brightness. The UHD option will still be available, with its 100% AdobeRGB gamut, but since it is still a 12.5-inch model, and since it doesn’t offer any way to constrain the display to sRGB, it would be difficult to recommend it over the newer, larger display.
The rest of the Stealth is staying pretty much the same, and that’s not a bad thing. The 13.3-inch model comes standard with a Core i7-7500U, up to 16 GB of RAM, and up to a 1 TB PCIe SSD. Razer gives a battery life estimate of up to 9 hours, which is not amazing by today’s standards, but still respectable for most people.

The Razer advantages over the competition continue to be their chassis, with a CNC aluminum body which is very stiff, and a keyboard with individually backlit keys offering RGB lighting per-key. They also offer a Thunderbolt 3 port, along with the Razer Core external GPU, allowing a single cable docking solution to hook the Blade Stealth up to an external graphics card when more oomph is needed.
Razer is also offering a new color option for this model release. A new gunmetal gray option allows people to choose a different look than the typical black coloring on previous Razer laptops. The new color option also deletes the backlit green Razer logo on the rear of the laptop, making it a bit less conspicuous. The rear logo is a tone-on-tone Razer logo on this model.

The new Razer Blade Stealth 13.3-inch model starts at $1399 USD, and is available now on razerzone.com
Souce: Razer

More...

The Microsoft Surface Pro has undeniably carved out a new segment in the PC space. But what was once a powerful, but heavy, thick, and unwieldly tablet when it was first launched, has become a thin, light, and even more powerful tablet in the following years. It was really the launch of the Surface Pro 3 that finally changed Microsoft’s fortunes in the hardware game. This was the first Surface Pro that was able to bring the weight and thickness into check, and the 3:2 aspect ratio screen was a revelation in this product category where 16:9 or 16:10 displays were really all that was offered in the Windows world.
In October 2015, Microsoft launched the refreshed Surface Pro 4 which was a bigger improvement than you would have guessed. The overall dimensions and look of the tablet were similar to the Pro 3, but the display was a big step forward, offering 267 pixels per inch, and outstanding color reproduction. The new keyboard launched with the Surface Pro 4 was really one of the biggest highlights though, offering an edge to edge keyboard with island keys, and a far more useable trackpad as well.

More...

Even though the major US national laboratories are just now starting to take delivery of the supercomputers they ordered a few years back, due to the long and complex development process for these projects, the US Department of Energy(DOE) has already been focusing on the next round of supercomputers for the next decade. Under the Exascale Computing Project, the DOE expects to develop & order one (and in the end, likely several) exaFLOPS-capable supercomputers, 50 times more powerful than the generation of supercomputers being installed now.
A long-term project expected to take several years altogether, the Department of Energy and its laboratories have already been working on it for nearly two years now, slowly building towards ordering the final computer. To that end, today the project is taking its next step forward with the announcement that the DOE is awarding $258 million in research contracts to six of the US’s leading technology companies.
At a high level, the significance of this project is more than just supplying an exascale system: a major goal of the project is to figure out how to build such a system. Researchers have known for some time that traditional supercomputing paradigms won’t scale very well to exaFLOPS-level performance, as power efficiency, reliability, and interconnect performance would all struggle at those performance levels. As a result, to get the exascale systems the DOE ultimately would like to have – and to get those systems in a timely fashion to ensure US leadership in the field of supercomputing – it has taken a greater role in the research and development of the required technologies under the PathForward program.
To that end, today the department is announcing that it is awarding a total of $258 million in R&D contracts to major US technology firms to help spur them to develop the necessary technologies. These contracts will be going to a veritable who’s who of major US tech firms: AMD, Cray, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, Intel, and NVIDIA. All told, the participating companies will be working over a three year contract period, with the respective firms kicking in their own money – to the tune of at least 40% of the project cost – to help develop the technologies needed to build an exascale computer for 2021.
Overall, the DOE’s R&D program is intended to spur development in three areas: hardware, software, and application development. Hardware is of course the biggest issue: how do you build processors energy efficient enough to do 1 exaFLOPS of work in under 30 megawatts, especially at a time when Moore’s Law is slowing down? Even then, how do you actually connect those systems together in a meaningful manner?
The answer to that is to pull together the nation’s largest hardware firms – all of whom already have supercomputer experience – and help them to develop the next level of technology. Unsurprisingly then, the plan calls for everyone to play to their strengths: Cray and IBM working on system level challenges, while HPE develops their Memory-Driven Computing architecture that is based around byte-addressable non-volatile memory and new memory fabrics. Meanwhile Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA are all working on processor technology for the project, along with I/O technology in the case of the former two.

The DOE is still years away from awarding a contract for a complete system – and such a contract will inherently hinge on the outcome of the aforementioned R&D efforts – but at a very high level it’s easy to imagine what such a system will look like, based on the companies involved. The new systems already being brought online, such as Summit, make heavy use of GPUs and other wide processors, and at a pure processing level this looks likely to be a major component of exascale systems as well. What is likely to be farther off of the beaten path for these systems are the storage/memory and interconnects; particularly how these can be used to actually make an exaFLOPS worth of processors work together in an efficient manner.
Not significantly discussed in today’s DOE announcement, but still a big part of the project, will be the software to run on these systems. The issue here being much the same as the system interconnects, that is, actually getting applications and libraries that can scale to as many threads as it would take to fill an exascale system. Some of this will be on the application development side, while other parts will come down to building supporting libraries that are up to the task.
Finally, not to be overlooked are the stakes for the Exascale Computing Project itself. For the companies involved, these research contracts are likely to lead to lucrative computer contracts down the line. Meanwhile for the US DOE and other aspects of the US government and industry, it’s a matter of both technology leadership and good old fashioned national pride. China has already usurped the Titan supercomputer, taking the top two spots in the latest Top 500 list, and the country has its own plans to build an exascale computer for 2020 (and meanwhile, the US Committee on Foreign Investment is looking to further restrict Chinese investment in related fields). So for the US there is a need to keep pace with (and ultimately surpass) any competing systems so that the US maintains its leadership in supercomputer technology.

More...

Eagerly anticipated for later this month is the launch of AMD’s first wave of Radeon Vega cards, the first-run workstation/early adopter-focused Radeon Vega Frontier Edition. To date, AMD has not yet said anything further about the launch since last month’s Computex unveil, however it appears that either AMD is opting to quietly release the sure to sell out cards, or some of their retailers have jumped the gun, as listings for both models have begun to show up.
SabrePC, one of the industry’s more specialized retailers whom tends to focus on workstation and server products, has posted listings for both of the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition cards that AMD has previously unveiled. That is, both the air-cooled card and the closed loop liquid cooled model. As you’d expect for these early-run cards, they won’t come cheap: the air cooled model is listed at $1199, while the liquid cooled card is higher still at $1799.

As a matter of editorial policy I don’t typically post news about retailer listings; these are often erroneous, or at the very least speculative. However any listings at SabrePC raise an eyebrow as they’re a more straight-laced player and one of the traditional retailers for workstation products. So they’re not known to post faulty listings. Which, coupled with the fact that other workstation retailers are also listing these cards, leads me to believe that this week’s listing isn’t an accident, even if AMD themselves aren't saying more about the product.
In any case, we had no real guidance for where AMD would price these cards at prior to today, so I’m admittedly a bit surprised to see the Frontier Edition cards come in as (relatively) cheap as they have. $1199 for the air cooled card is less than similar NVIDIA Quadros (and Radeon Pro cards, for that matter), and is perfectly aligned with NVIDIA Titan Xp pricing. Meanwhile the liquid cooled card is a bit more surprising with its $600 premium. All messaging so far from AMD is that these are a low volume part meant for customers to evaluate Vega as early as possible, so it’ll be interesting to see where AMD goes from here.

AMD Workstation Card Specification Comparison
	Radeon Vega Frontier Edition (Unconfirmed)	Radeon Pro Duo (Polaris)	Radeon Pro WX 7100	Radeon Fury X
Stream Processors	4096	2 x 2304	2304	4096
Texture Units	?	2 x 144	144	256
ROPs	64?	2 x 32	32	64
Boost Clock	1.6GHz	1243MHz	1243MHz	1050MHz
Single Precision	13.1 TFLOPS	11.5 TFLOPS	5.7 TFLOPS	8.6 TFLOPS
Half Precision	26.2 TFLOPS	11.5 TFLOPS	5.7 TFLOPS	8.6 TFLOPS
Memory Clock	1.89Gbps HBM2	7Gbps GDDR5	7Gbps GDDR5	1Gbps HBM
Memory Bus Width	2048-bit	2 x 256-bit	256-bit	4096-bit
Memory Bandwidth	483GB/sec	2x 224GB/sec	224GB/sec	512GB/sec
VRAM	16GB	2 x 16GB	8GB	4GB
Typical Board Power	?	250W	130W	275W
GPU	Vega (1)	Polaris 10	Polaris 10	Fiji
Architecture	Vega	Polaris	Polaris	GCN 1.2
Manufacturing Process	GloFo 14nm	GloFo 14nm	GloFo 14nm	TSMC 28nm
Launch Date	06/2017	05/2017	10/2016	06/24/15
Launch Price	Air: $1199 Liquid: $1799	$999	$649	$649

Meanwhile SabrePC also lists technical specifications for the Frontier Edition cards, with both cards listed at the same memory bandwidth and peak throughput. At 13.1 TFLOPS FP32, this would put the GPU clockspeed at 1.6GHz on the dot, just a smidge higher than AMD’s own presentations last month. Meanwhile 483GB/sec of memory bandwidth puts the memory clock at just under 1.9Gbps. That both cards are listed with the same specifications is a bit surprising, and given the price difference I’m not wholly convinced that Sabre has the right specifications for the cheaper air cooled card – distinctly cheaper cards are usually built around harvested processors – but for now it’s what we have to work with. It may very well be that the listings are correct, but the air cooled card is expected to throttle more often relative to the high-efficiency air cooler.
In the meantime I’ve reached out to AMD for more information on these new listings, particularly since AMD's official Frontier Edition release isn't slated to be until the 27th. However quiet nature of these listings does have me wondering if AMD is purposely looking to avoid additional press at the moment – opting to silently get them into the hands of distributors to get out to their professional customers – as the company had made it clear that they’re not aiming these cards at consumers.
Gallery: AMD Radeon Vega Frontier Edition Retail Listings Appear: Cards at $1199 and $1799

More...

Micron has made a number of announcements in recent weeks regarding its GDDR memory for graphics cards, game consoles and networking applications. The company is reporting that they've been able to hit Gbps data rates in the lab on their latest generation of GDDR5X devices, while also reiterating their long-term plans for GDDR6 and GDDR5, with GDDR6 memory due in a couple of quarters from now, while GDDR5 will be here to stay for a long time to come.
Graphics DRAM has been a hot topic in the industry in the recent years as GPU demands for memory bandwidth are growing rapidly and because different companies offer different types of memory to satisfy these increasing requirements. For example, SK Hynix and Samsung rolled out HBM (Gen 1 and Gen 2) memory in 2015 and 2016 for ultra-high-end consumer and HPC applications, whereas Micron introduced its GDDR5X for high-end graphics cards last year. At present, HBM offers the greatest potential bandwidth, however the complexity of the multi-layer chips and 2.5D packaging keep costs high, so it remains to be seen which mass consumer applications adopt it. Meanwhile, conventional graphics memory in BGA packaging and proven architecture continues to evolve and hit new performance targets due to architectural improvements, which are intended to keep it competitive in the coming years.
When Micron announced its GDDR5X memory in late 2015, it set two targets for data transfer rates: the initial target of 10 – 12 Gbps and the longer-term target of 16 Gbps. Initially, the company only supplied GDDR5X ICs validated at 10 and 11 GT/s, but this year the company also started to bin the chips for 12 Gbps. The latter are used on NVIDIA’s Titan Xp graphics card. What is noteworthy is that engineers from Micron's development center in Munich (also known as Graphics DRAM Design Center) recently managed to run the company’s mass-produced GDDR5X chips at 16 Gbps in the lab.
While the achievement doesn't have an impact on actual products available today, it has a number of important implications. Primarily, it means that Micron has refined their process to the point where they can build graphics DRAM with 16 Gbps signaling, and this is something it is going to need going forward. But additionally, it shows that the current GDDR5X technology has potential, and that Micron’s customers might release new products with faster memory.
Micron has been quite busy in the last couple of years working on the GDDR5X memory specification, physical implementation of such ICs, and then developing GDDR6 chips that the company plans to launch by early 2018. In fact, GDDR5X and the GDDR6 are not that different. They are both based on the 16n prefetch architecture and this is the key to their additional performance when compared to GDDR5. Meanwhile, GDDR6 also features dual-channel mode, which is meant to ensure better channel utilization and hence improve performance in cases that can take advantage of the feature.

Micron's GDDR Memory at Glance
	GDDR5	GDDR5X	GDDR6
Capacity	4 Gb - 8 Gb	8 Gb	8 Gb
Data Rate	5 - 8 Gbps	10 - 12 Gbps	Over 12 Gbps
Process Technology	20+ nm 20 nm, 16 nm	20 nm	16 nm

Meanwhile Micron will be using 16 nm fab lines to produce GDDR6 memory devices, which may add frequency potential to the upcoming chips compared to ICs made using their 20 nm fabrication process. Speaking of 16 nm, Micron also plans to use it for newer GDDR5 chips, which makes a lot of sense considering the fact that such devices are going to be used for graphics cards and game consoles for years to come.
Summing up. Micron has GDDR5X memory chips that run at 16 Gbps in the lab using test equipment. Such chips are made using 20 nm process technology. Meanwhile Micron is using 16 nm fabrication process to produce GDDR6 and GDDR5 by 2018.
Related Reading:

• SK Hynix Advances Graphics DRAM: GDDR6 Added to Catalogue, GDDR5 Gets Faster
• Micron 2017 Roadmap Detailed: 64-layer 3D NAND, GDDR6 Getting Closer, & CEO Retiring
• Hot Chips 2016: Memory Vendors Discuss Ideas for Future Memory Tech - DDR5, Cheap HBM, & More

More...

Building a PC is an experience worth having. Finding out what works with what and putting it all together is an experience, and the first time always gives a sense of achievement and accomplishment. In the high-end desktop space, even more so: trying not to break your first $500+ CPU can be akin to feeling like a surgeon. Following the HEDT space can be a journey, especially after five years of iterative updates we are seeing something special happening in 2017. Intel, the incumbent, is changing its 2017 strategy in a few ways which means there is more to understand, and in the future, and also means it is set to release 18-core consumer processors. Today is the first part of that release, with the new Skylake-X processors: the Core i9-7900X, the Core i7-7820X and the Core i7-7800X. These throw a few curveballs into the mix which are worth walking into.

More...

Similar to last year, at this year's International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) NVIDIA has announced and detailed a PCI Express version of their latest Tesla GPU accelerator, the Volta-based V100. The conference itself runs from June 19 to 22, and with several speakers from NVIDIA scheduled for events tomorrow, NVIDIA is set to outline its next-generation efforts in HPC and deep learning with Volta.
With Volta discussed and described at their GPU Technology Conference in mid-May, NVIDIA upped the ante in terms of both features and reticle size: V100 is 815mm2 of custom TSMC 12FFN silicon, chock full of tensor cores and unified L1 cache per SM, along with many more fundamental – and as of yet not fully revealed – microarchitectural changes.
Like the previous Pascal iteration, the Tesla V100 PCIe offers a more traditional form factor as opposed to NVIDIA’s own mezzanine-type SXM2 form factor. This allows vendors to drop Tesla cards in traditional PCIe systems, making the cards far more accessible to server builders who don't want to build around NVIDIA's SXM2 connector or carrier board. The tradeoff being that the PCIe cards have a lower 250W TDP, and they don't get NVLink, instead relying on just PCIe.

NVIDIA Tesla Family Specification Comparison
	Tesla V100 (SXM2)	Tesla V100 (PCIe)	Tesla P100 (SXM2)	Tesla P100 (PCIe)
CUDA Cores	5120	5120	3584	3584
Tensor Cores	640	640	N/A	N/A
Core Clock	?	?	1328MHz	?
Boost Clock(s)	1455MHz	~1370MHz	1480MHz	1300MHz
Memory Clock	1.75Gbps HBM2	1.75Gbps HBM2	1.4Gbps HBM2	1.4Gbps HBM2
Memory Bus Width	4096-bit	4096-bit	4096-bit	4096-bit
Memory Bandwidth	900GB/sec	900GB/sec	720GB/sec	720GB/sec
VRAM	16GB	16GB	16GB	16GB
L2 Cache	6MB	6MB	4MB	4MB
Half Precision	30 TFLOPS	28 TFLOPS	21.2 TFLOPS	18.7 TFLOPS
Single Precision	15 TFLOPS	14 TFLOPS	10.6 TFLOPS	9.3 TFLOPS
Double Precision	7.5 TFLOPS (1/2 rate)	7 TFLOPS (1/2 rate)	5.3 TFLOPS (1/2 rate)	4.7 TFLOPS (1/32 rate)
Tensor Performance (Deep Learning)	120 TFLOPS	112 TFLOPS	N/A	N/A
GPU	GV100 (815mm2)	GV100 (815mm2)	GP100 (610mm2)	GP100 (610mm2)
Transistor Count	21B	21B	15.3B	15.3B
TDP	300W	250W	300W	250W
Form Factor	Mezzanine (SXM2)	PCIe	Mezzanine (SXM2)	PCIe
Cooling	Passive	Passive	Passive	Passive
Manufacturing Process	TSMC 12nm FFN	TSMC 12nm FFN	TSMC 16nm FinFET	TSMC 16nm FinFET
Architecture	Volta	Volta	Pascal	Pascal

On the surface, the addition of tensor cores is the most noticeable change. To recap, tensor cores can be liked to a series of unified ALUs that are able to multiply two 4x4 FP16 matrices together and subsequently add that product to an FP16 or FP32 4x4 matrix in a fused multiply add operation, as opposed to conventional FP32 or FP64 CUDA cores. In the end, this means that for very specific kinds (and specifically programmed) workloads, Volta can take advantage of the 100+ TFLOPS capability that NVIDIA has tossed into the mix.
As for the specific specifications of the PCIe Tesla V100, it's similarly configured to the SXM2 version, getting the same number of CUDA cores and memory capacity, however operating at a lower clockspeed in-line with its reduced 250W TDP. Based on NVIDIA's throughput figures, this puts the PCIe card's boost clock at around 1370MHz, 85MHz (~6%) slower than the SXM2 version.
Interestingly, unlike the Tesla P100 family, NVIDIA isn't offering a second-tier PCIe card based on salvaged chips; so this generation doesn't have an equivalent to the 12GB PCIe Tesla P100. NVIDIA's experience with GP100/interposer/HBM2 assembly as well as continuing production of HBM2 has likely reduced the need for memory-salvaged parts.
Finally, PCIe-based Tesla V100 accelerators are “expected to be available later this year from NVIDIA reseller partner and manufacturers,” including Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which will offer three different PCIe Volta systems.

More...

?Lenovo has unveiled a new ThinkStation model, the P320 Tiny, based on a Kaby Lake / Q270 platform with NVIDIA's Quadro P600 GPU. The unique aspect is the dimensions - At 1.4" x 7.1" x 7.2" (1L in volume), it is one of the smallest systems we have see that includes a discrete GPU. In order to achieve this compact size, the 135W power adapter is external to the system.

The P320 Tiny supports Kaby Lake CPUs with TDP of up to 35W (such as the Intel Core i7-7700T). NVIDIA's Quadro P600 is a GP107-based GPU with a 40W TDP. The system comes with two DDR4 SODIMM slots and two M.2 NVMe SSD slots. There is a rich variety of I/O ports - audio jacks in the front, a total of six USB 3.0 ports spread across the front and the rear, a RJ-45 GbE port, and six display outputs (4x mini-DP + 2x DP). Thanks to the Quadro GPU, the P320 Tiny is able to come with ISV certifications for various applications such as AutoCAD etc.

Lenovo ThinkStation P320 Tiny: General Specifications
CPU	Intel Kaby Lake (up to Core i7) (35W TDP max.)
Chipset	Intel Q270
RAM	Up to 32 GB DDR4-2400 (2x SODIMM)
GPU	NVIDIA Quadro P600
Storage	2x M.2 PCIe: up to 1 TB NVMe SSD each ODD: optional with add-on
Networking	Gigabit Ethernet Intel 802.11 ac, 2 x 2, 2.4 GHz/5GHz + Bluetooth 4.0 -
I/O	6x USB 3.0 Serial - optional
Dimensions	1.4" x 7.1" x 7.2"
Weight	2.9 lbs

The board used in the system seems to be a custom one - it is larger than a mini-STX board, but, smaller than an ITX one. It is perfect for space-constrained setups, and comes with extensibility options such as add-ons for extra USB ports and a COM port, or, for an optical drive, as shown in the gallery below.
Gallery: Lenovo P320 Tiny SFF Workstation


As for operating systems, the new Lenovo ThinkStation P320 Tiny workstation supports both Windows and Linux. The P320 Tiny starts at $899 and is available now.
?



More...

I'm in Austin for AMD's launch event for their new server parts, named EPYC. Come back at 4pm ET (3pm Austin) for the Live Blog on the official announcement!

More...

The big news out of AMD was the launch of Zen, the new high-performance core that is designed to underpin the product roadmap for the next few generations of products. To much fanfare, AMD launched consumer level parts based on Zen, called Ryzen, earlier this year. There was a lot of discussion in the consumer space about these parts and the competitiveness, and despite the column inches dedicated to it, Ryzen wasn’t designed to be the big story this year. That was left to their server generation of products, which are designed to take a sizeable market share and reinvigorate AMD’s bottom line on the finance sheet. A few weeks ago AMD announced the naming of the new line of enterprise-class processors, called EPYC, and today marks the official launch with configurations up to 32 cores and 64 threads per processor. We also got an insight into several features of the design, including the AMD Infinity Fabric.

More...