107191660
submission
MojoKid writes:
Samsung's latest Galaxy S10 series of phones was announced a few weeks back and should actually start shipping to pre-orders in the next few days. Tech press reviews of the Galaxy S10+, the larger of the currently soon shipping trio of Samsung devices, have started making the rounds and so far, the new Samsung Android flagship is being met with high praise. Some of the highlights include the 6.4-inch display that the Galaxy S10+ offers, which is an HDR+ certified Dynamic AMOLED screen that is easily the best smartphone display on the market right now, at least according to DisplayMate. Also on board is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855 mobile processor that delivers anywhere from a 15 to 25 percent performance kicker, depending on CPU or graphics workload, along with phone's exceptional battery life that is proving to offer well over 11 hours of continuous use up-time. The Galaxy S10 series also has a few other standout features like Wireless PowerShare that allows charging of wearables like Samsung's new wireless Galaxy Buds, just by placing them on the back of the phone. Finally, the Galaxy S10's rear triple camera array is capable of capturing some great shots with good flexibility, since it has an ultra-wide 123-degree 16MP shooter, a 12MP 77-degree wide angle lens and a zoom telephoto lens as well. One downside, the Galaxy S10's ultra-low light Night shooting mode can't compete currently with devices like the Pixel 3's Night Sight mode. Regardless, all told, with its powerful processing engine, great battery life, and fantastic HDR Dynamic AMOLED display, the new Samsung Galaxy S10+ is bringing down its share of awards in these early reviews that are now hitting the web.
105990582
submission
MojoKid writes:
Samsung's SSD 970 series of solid state drives are widely considered to be some of the best performing NVMe SSDs on the market currently. However, the company just raised the bar another notch with the new SSD 970 EVO Plus series. These drives specifically deliver optimizations for write performance, enhancing the previous generation SSD 970 EVO's 3.5GB/s read and 2.5GB/s write specs up to 3.5GB/s read and 3.3GB/s for writes. As with the original Samsung SSD 970 EVOs, the new Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus series will be offered in four capacities, ranging from 250GB up to 2TB, though the 2TB model won't be arriving until later in Q1 (April). These new Samsung drives leverage the company's latest 96-layer TLC V-NAND MLC flash memory and the firmware on these SSDs has been further optimized to increase performance as well. In the benchmarks, the drives proved notably faster than any other consumer-targeted SSD on the market currently. Prices for the Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus start at $89.99 ($0.35 per GiB) for the 250GB model, and $129.99 and $249.99 ($0.25 per GiB) for the 500GB and 1TB models, respectively. All but the 2TB models should be shipping at retail in a few days.
105890514
submission
MojoKid writes:
Gamers who have been around long enough to have witnessed the birth of real time 3D rendering will likely recall the glory days of the Quake franchise. Quake's addictive, fun game play fueled by its not so intelligent enemy AI, was truly ground-breaking and innovative back in the day. And perhaps equally ground-breaking are new capabilities of the recent generation of graphics cards with respect to real-time ray tracing for realistic lighting and reflections. Now, gamers with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX-based card can relive the entire Quake 2 experience but now with real time ray tracing delivering decidedly better visuals. A group of developers has released what they call QUAKE II PATHTRACED or Q2VKPT. It is being billed as a proof-of-concept exercise to show what can be accomplished in future games with fully-realized real-time ray tracing effects. And the good news is, you can play it right now on GeForce RTX cards, even with the free demo of the game. "Q2VKPT is the first project with an efficient unified solution for all types of lighting: direct, scattered, reflected, and refracted light," writes Christoph Schied, who wrote Q2VKPT. The project is available currently via GitHub.
103582936
submission
MojoKid writes:
NVIDIA began shipping its latest Turing-based GeForce RTX 2070 cards today and has lifted its embargo on performance reviews of this new, lower cost midrange graphics card with a $499 starting price. The NVIDIA Turing-based TU106 GPU powering the Radeon RTX 2070 has fewer CUDA, Tensor, and RT cores than the higher-end, TU104-based GeForce RTX 2080, but it has an identical memory configuration. The TU106's reduced core count translates into a somewhat smaller die size, which in turn brings costs down versus its higher-end siblings. One feature that's missing on the TU106-powered GeForce RTX 2070 is support for SLI with NVLink – there are no NVLink and traditional SLI connectors on the board at all. Just published benchmarks show GeForce RTX 2070 cards will deliver performance in current-gen games roughly on par with NVIDIA's previous generation high end GeForce GTX 1080 Ti cards, trailing by only a few percentage points in certain spots. However, the RTX 2070 also supports next generation graphics features like real time ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) for high performance anti-aliasing. GeForce RTX 2070 cards are expected to arrive at retail in a matter of days.
102885336
submission
MojoKid writes:
NVIDIA has lifted the embargo veil on performance of its new GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards today. Both new NVIDIA Turing cards are expected to ship in market this week at $799 and $1199, respectively. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti brings 4352 CUDA cores at 1350MHz/1635MHz boost, while the RTX 2080 brings 2944 cores at 1515MHz/1800MHz boost. The cards are strapped with 11GB and 8GB of GDDR6 memory, respectively. Also, the RTX 2080 has a narrower 256-bit memory interface, while the 2080 Ti sports a 352-bit memory interface. In the benchmarks, the new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is easily the fastest, single-GPU tested to date. With today's games, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is approximately 20 – 45% faster than a Titan Xp and it makes smooth, 4K gaming with ultra-high image quality settings a reality with a single GPU. Performance was especially strong with newer, DX12 optimized titles. The GeForce RTX 2080's performance is a little more difficult to summarize. The GeForce RTX 2080 clearly outpaces the previous gen GeForce GTX 1080 by a wide margin across the board. Its performance was also strong in newer titles and in VR-related tests, and it generally performed on-par or somewhat better than a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, slipping past the Titan Xp on a couple of occasions as well.
99127795
submission
MojoKid writes:
The Intel NUC8i7HVK is the first product to hit the market powered an Intel 8th Generation Core processor with integrated Radeon RX Vega M graphics, aka Kaby Lake-G. More specifically, the new Intel NUC8i7HVK is powered by a Core i7-8809G with a Radeon RX Vega M GH GPU and 4GB of HBM2 memory, linked together on a single package though something Intel calls an Embedded Multi-Die Interconnect Bridge, or EMIB. The Core i7-8809G has a base clock of 3.1GHz and a turbo clock of 4.2GHz. The CPU packs quad cores with 8MB of cache, with support for HyperThreading and 8 logical processing threads. The graphics core is a Radeon RX Vega M GH with 24 compute units, 1536 stream processors, base and boost clocks of 1063MHz and 1190MHz and 4GB of HBM2 that offers over 204GB/s of bandwidth. Throughout testing, the NUC8i7HVK's CPU performance typically fell somewhere in-between a Core i5-8400 and Core i7-7700K. GPU performance, however, clearly surpasses any other on-processor, integrated solution and is slightly faster than a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti-class discrete GPU.
96768097
submission
MojoKid writes:
A few early benchmarks of the Intel-AMD hybrid Core series processor with Radeon RX Vega M graphics are in, and the results are promising. Using Dell's recently announced XPS 15 2-in-1, multiple Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark runs show the Core i7-8705G processor (3.1GHz base, 4.1GHz boost), with Radeon RX Vega M GL graphics, running at 1920x1080 resolution, and averaging a frame rate of nearly 35 FPS at High image quality settings. Not bad for a roughly 4.5 pound machine that measures just 16mm thick. Compared to a similar 8th Gen Core system with Intel's own integrated UHD 620 graphics, it's no contest. Even on Medium Quality settings, Intel's UHD 620 core is only able to manage about 8 frames per second in the same game engine. In fact, Intel's 8th Gen IGP can't even run the game on High quality settings because it runs out of frame buffer memory. As an additional reference point, a discrete NVIDIA GeForce MX 150 mobile GPU was only able to muster 23 FPS at identical High image quality settings. Dell's XPS 15 2-in-1 with this new hybrid chip on board will begin shipping in the Spring with a starting price of $1,299. A similar 15-inch 2-in-1 system from HP with the new hybrid CPU, the Spectre x360 15 2-In-1, was also announced at CES 2018.
96701353
submission
MojoKid writes:
Early benchmarks of the Intel-AMD hybrid Core series processor with Radeon RX Vega M graphics are in, and the results are promising. Using Dell's recently announced XPS 15 2-in-1, multiple Rise of the Tomb Raider benchmark runs show the Core i7-8705G processor (3.1GHz base, 4.1GHz boost), with Radeon RX Vega M GL graphics, running at 1920x1080 resolution, averaging a frame rate of nearly 35 frames per second with High image quality settings dialed in. Not bad for a roughly 4.5 pound machine at 16mm thick. Compared to a similar 8th generation Core system with Intel's own integrated UHD 620 graphics, it's no contest. Even on Medium Quality settings, the Intel UHD 620 was only able to manage about 8 frames per second. In fact, Intel's 8th Gen IGP can't even run the game on High quality settings because it runs out of frame buffer memory. As an additional reference point, a discrete NVIDIA GeForce MX 150 was only able to muster 23 FPS with similar settings. Dell's XPS 15 2-in-1 with this new hybrid chip on board will begin shipping in the Spring with a starting price of $1,299. A similar 15-inch 2-in-1 system from HP with the new hybrid CPU, the Spectre x360 15 2-In-1, was also announced last week at CES.
96324837
submission
MojoKid writes:
You have probably at some point been contacted via email spam by someone claiming you are the beneficiary in a will of a Nigerian prince. As the scam goes, all you have to do is submit your personal information and Western Union some funds to process the necessary paperwork, and in return you will receive millions of dollars. One of the people behind the popular scam, Michael Neu, has been arrested by police in Slidell, Louisiana. This may come as a shocker, but Neu is not a prince, nor is he Nigerian. He is a 67-year-old male possibly of German descent (based on his last name) who is facing 269 counts of wire fraud and money laundering for his alleged role as a middle man in the scheme. According to Slidell police, some of the money obtained by Neu was wired to co-conspirators who do actually live in Nigera.
95757207
submission
MojoKid writes:
Qualcomm provided a deep-dive view today of its Snapdragon 845 mobile processor platform that it recently announced, highlighting key advancements in what the company is referring to as a completely new silicon design. The new chip now employs a Kyro 385 CPU with four high performance cores at 2.8GHz (25 percent faster than the previous gen Snapdraong 835) and four "efficiency" cores operating at 1.7GHz. The new chip also includes the new Spectra 280 image signal processor (ISP). Compared to its predecessor, the ISP in the Snapdragon 845 promises a 64x uplift in the ability to capture high dynamic range (HDR) color information for 4K HDR video capture and playback. The chip's new Adreno 630 GPU promises a 30 percent boost in gaming performance compared to its predecessor, along with room-scale VR/AR experiences that support 6 degrees of freedom along with simultaneous localization and mapping, or SLAM. Finally, the new SoC platform incorporates Qualcomm's second-generation gigabit LTE modem: the Snapdragon X20. This Cat 18 modem supports peak download speeds of 1.2Gbps along with 5x carrier aggregation, 4x4 MIMO, and Dual SIM-Dual VoLTE. Qualcomm says that the first Snapdragon 845 processors will begin shipping in production devices in early 2018.
95424053
submission
MojoKid writes:
AMD Ryzen Mobile processors are just starting to show up now in retail ready laptops from the likes of HP, Lenovo and Acer. In the first CPUs to hit the market, AMD took quad-core Ryzen and coupled it with 8 and 10-core Vega graphics engines on a single piece of silicon, in an effort to deliver a combination of strong Ryzen CPU performance along with faster integrated graphics performance over Intel's current 8th Gen Kaby Lake laptop solutions. AMD Ryzen 7 2700U and Ryzen 5 2500U chips have 4MB of shared L3 cache each, but differ with respect to top end CPU boost clock speeds, number of integrated Radeon Vega Compute Units (CUs), and the GPU's top-end clocks. Ryzen 7 2700U is more powerful with 10 Radeon Vega CUs, while Ryzen 5 2500U sports 8. In the benchmarks, Ryzen Mobile looks strong, competing well with Intel quad-core laptop CPUs, while offering north of 60 percent better performance in graphics and gaming. Battery life is still a question mark, however, as the HP laptop model tested here was hampered by a dim display and a less than optimal configuration.
95294517
submission
MojoKid writes:
NVIDIA just launched a new, fastest graphics card yet and this GPU is targeted at Star Wars fans. In concert with EA's official launch today of Star Wars Battlefront II, NVIDIA unveiled the new Star Wars Titan Xp Collector's Edition graphics card for enthusiast gamers. There are two versions of the cards available, the Galactic Empire version and a Jedi Order version. Both of the cards feature customized coolers, shrouds, and lighting, designed to mimic the look of a lightsaber. They also ship in specialized packaging that can be used to showcase the cards if they're not installed in a system. The GPU powering the TITAN Xp Collector's Edition has a base clock of 1,481MHz and a boost clock of 1,582MHz. It's packing a fully-enabled NVIDIA GP102 GPU with 3,840 cores and 12GB of GDDR5X memory clocked at 5.5GHz for an effective data rate of 11Gbps, resulting in 547.2GB/s of peak memory bandwidth. At those clocks, the card also offers a peak texture fillrate of 379.75 GigaTexels/s and 12.1TFLOPs of FP32 compute performance, which is significantly higher than a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. In the benchmarks it's the fastest GPU out there right now (it better be for $1200), but this card is more about nostalgia and the design customizations NVIDIA made to the cards that should appeal to gamers and Star Wars fans alike.
94926389
submission
MojoKid writes:
NVIDIA launched its new Geforce GTX 1070 Ti gaming graphics card today, based on the same GP104 GPU employed in the original GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080. The GP104 GPU in the new GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, however, falls somewhere in between the GTX 1070 and 1080. Specifically, it has 2432 active CUDA cores, versus the GTX 1080's 2560 and 1070's 1920 core counts. The GeForce GTX 1070 Ti also has 152 active texture units, whereas the base GTX 1070 has 120 and GTX 1080 has 160. The new GeForce GTX 1070 Ti has similar clock speeds to the GTX 1080 at 1607MHz base and 1683MHz boost. However, like the GTX 1070, the 1070 Ti employs standard GDDR5 memory, while the GeForce GTX 1080 employs more advanced GDDR5X. All told, the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti ends up with a 244.3GT/s fillrate and 256GB/s of peak memory bandwidth, which gives the card plenty of horsepower that help it edge past AMD's new Radeon RX Vega 56 in the benchmarks, nearly across the board. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti cards are available immediately from a number of board partners as of today's launch and are set to retail starting at $449 MSRP.
94854155
submission
MojoKid writes:
NVIDIA released a paper recently detailing a new machine learning methodology for generating unique and realistic looking faces using a generative adversarial network, or GAN for short. The result is the ability to artificially render photorealistic human faces of "unprecedented quality." NVIDIA achieves this is by using an algorithm that pairs two neural networks—a generator and a discriminator—that compete against each other. The generator starts from a low resolution image and builds upon it, while the discriminator assesses the results, sort of like a constant critic, pointing out where things have gone wrong. The GAN is not a new technology, but where NVIDIA differentiates is through the progressive training method it developed. NVIDIA took a database of photographs of famous people and used that to train its system. By working together, the neural networks were able to produce fake images that are nearly indistinguishable from real human photographs, and a little creepy too.
94752709
submission
MojoKid writes:
AMD is officially launching a processor family today known by the code name Raven Ridge, but now referred to as Ryzen Mobile. The architecture combines AMD's new Zen CPU core architecture, along with its RX Vega GPU integrated into a single chip for laptops. There are two initial chips in the mobile processor family that AMD is announcing today: the Ryzen 5 2500U and the Ryzen 7 2700U. Both processors feature four cores capable of executing 8 threads with SMT. However, there are differences with respect to processor clocks and GPU specs. AMD's Ryzen 5 2500U has a base clock of 2GHz and a boost clock of 3.6GHz, while Ryzen 7 2700U cranks up another 200MHz on both of those figures. Ryzen 5 2500U features 8 Radeon Vega graphics CUs (Compute Units) and a GPU clock of 1.1GHz, compared to 10 Radeon Vega CUs and a GPU clock of 1.3GHz for the higher-end Ryzen 7 2700U. AMD is making rather ambitious claims for the new processors, and promises some impressive gains over its 7th generation Bristol Ridge predecessors. According to AMD, CPU and GPU performance will see 200 percent and 128 percent uplifts, respectively. AMD is also showcasing benchmark numbers that have the new CPUs outgunning Intel's new quad-core Kaby Lake R chips in spots, along with significant performance advantages in gaming and graphics, on par with discrete, entry-level laptop GPUs like NVIDIA's GeForce 950M. Thin and light laptops from HP, Lenovo and Acer powered by Ryzen Mobile are expected to ship in Q4 this year.
