Computer Systems News - Page 7

The upcoming Thunderbot MIX is not only a mini-PC that looks like a videogame console, but with support for up to GeForce RTX 4070 level laptop graphics, it'll perform like one too. Visually, it looks like an Alienware product, right down to the logo, but this is a custom Mini PC coming from China that the company is calling a "Mini Gamebox."

Although official specifications for the Thunderbot MIX have yet to be confirmed, the word from outlet ITHome is that there will be various configuration options, including Intel's Core i7-13620H and Core i9-13900H for the CPU and either a GeForce RTX 4060 or RTX 4070 laptop graphics for the GPU. And with that, you're only looking at around 140W of total power consumption for the mini-PC.

This CPU and GPU configuration is popular in the laptop gaming space and should be able to deliver console-like performance in a build smaller than the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X - thanks to the 1.7-liter chassis.

Alienware has launched a new all-in-one mid-tower PC in the form of the new Alienware Aurora R16, bucking the trend of the company's usual out-of-this-world designs. Yeah, it looks like a standard desktop gaming PC in that it's a black rectangle box housing your typical PC components. Some RGB flourishes on the front panel, and the Alienware logo lights up, but the look is fairly standard for PC chassis designs.

A far cry from the space-age design of the Alienware Aurora R15, the Aurora R16 is a lot smaller - a 40% reduction in total volume, with the same amount of space inside the rig. Alienware notes that the design is all about improving acoustic and thermal performance. Compared to the Aurora R15, the company notes that the PC is 20% quieter with up to 10% lower CPU and 6% lower GPU temperatures.

Even though the physical design might not be up there with Alienware systems of old, the new Legend 3 look is part of a shift to a "universal design that fits into more diverse environments."

Microsoft has just revealed its earnings for Q4 of fiscal 2023, and there are some highs and lows, with one of the latter again being sales of its Surface hardware and Windows OEM.

If you recall, these areas were heavily down in the previous quarter, too, so this is a continued barrage of bad news for the hardware side of Microsoft.

Surface sales were down 20% year-on-year (a loss of $339 million), while sales of Windows to PC makers dropped by 12%.

We recently heard that Intel is no longer going to make its NUCs, and that Team Blue is passing the baton for this product line to ASUS - and apparently this means a ROG branded NUC is in the cards.

This comes from Italian tech site Bits and Chips, so as ever with rumors - particularly from lesser-known sources - be careful about accepting it as the truth. But the gossip is that ASUS is developing a high-end ROG NUC to take over from the Intel NUC 13 Extreme.

We're told this will use an Intel Meteor Lake processor paired with an RTX 4000 GPU (likely an RTX 4070), and it'll be a typically flashy ROG design which is heavy on the RGB.

Last week we reported on the news that Intel was no longer in the business of making its impressive NUC (Next Unit of Computing) devices, which are compact and powerful Mini PCs that take up very little space. At the time, Intel noted that it would pivot its strategy to enable its "ecosystem partners to continue NUC innovation and growth."

Well, it looks like all that pivoting has already happened, with Intel announcing that it has partnered with ASUS to "manufacture, sell and support 10th to 13th Gen NUC systems product line and to develop future innovative NUC systems product designs." So, Intel NUC PCs are still a thing but will now be produced and sold by ASUS in partnership with Intel.

ASUS has a great track record for creating and releasing its own line-up of Mini PCs, so this collaboration makes a lot of sense. How this partnership will affect ASUS's existing product line-up and the development of future Mini PCs remains to be seen. However, the line about the "future innovative NUC system" highlights that the current plan is for this to be a long-term partnership.

With recent news confirming that Intel was ending production of its powerful range of mini PCs under the NUC name, it did state that it was pivoting to allow its "ecosystem partners to continue NUC innovation and growth." And with that, we'll see tiny PCs pop up for many more years to come, making this new entry from Chinese company ThundeRobot very interesting.

The MIX combines a 13th Gen Intel Core CPU with a GeForce RTX 4060 in a form factor 60% smaller than the compact Xbox Series S console (1.7 liters, apparently). In fact, the announcement at IT Home refers to it as a console first, PC second - making it a pretty cool Steam box you can sit in or on a TV cabinet without worrying about it taking up space.

ThundeRobot is huge in China, the third largest supplier of laptops and gaming peripherals like displays and keyboards, making it an ASUS of sorts in the region - alongside ASUS. As of writing, the full specs have yet to be revealed, though with a 13th Gen Raptor Lake HX-series mobile CPU; the GeForce RTX 4060 inside may be the mobile version too.

Apple's M2 Macs are still proving popular among those who buy them but there will soon be a new chip in town. We're waiting for Apple to announce new Macs power by the M3, and now it looks like we could get them as soon as this October.

That's according to the well-connected Mark Gurman, at least. Writing for his weekly Bloomberg Power On newsletter Gurman said that there is likely to be another launch of Apple hardware in October. That launch will come hot on the heels of the iPhone 15 and Apple Watch announcements in September with Macs thought to be the order of the day.

If that's true, it's thought that new M3 versions of Apple's Macs are likely to be the devices announced. Those Macs are unlikely to be flagship 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros, but the spotlight appears to be on a potential M3 iMac, new 13-inch MacBook Air, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Intel won't make any more NUCs (Next Unit of Computing devices), so wave goodbye to those compact boxes of components.

The small form factor PCs have been around for a long time, but the axe has been brought down on NUCs, as VideoCardz spotted, and Andreas Schilling, editor of a German tech site, confirmed.

Schilling provided details of an emailed Intel statement, in which Team Blue said: "We have decided to stop direct investment in the Next Unit of Compute (NUC) Business and pivot our strategy to enable our ecosystem partners to continue NUC innovation and growth."

Fans of all-in-one computers are set to get three new Apple options according to a new report, and one of them will include a model that's larger than any that came before it.

Writing for his weekly Power On newsletter Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that Apple is working to release two new iMacs with the same 24-inch display as the one that's currently available, but that isn't even the interesting part. Gurman says that Apple is already in the early stages of working on an iMac with a display that is over 30 inches in size.

If the report is accurate, it will mean that Apple is working on its biggest iMac to date, although it isn't clear whether it will carry the iMac Pro branding or just mean that two iMac display sizes will be offered. As for the 24-inch models, the fact that there are two codenames in use inside Apple - J433 and J434 - might suggest that there are M3 and M3 Pro variants in the works.

Quantum computers are extremely powerful, but are famously unreliable in providing a user with the same result. However, that may very well all change, according to scientists at IBM.

So, what is quantum computing, and how is it different from regular computing? The barebones of quantum computing rely on two phenomena or principles of quantum mechanics, superposition and entanglement. Superposition is the principle that a particle, in this case, a qubit, or a bit of quantum information, can be in two separate states at the exact same time. Entanglement is the principle that two particles can share the exact same location at the same time, despite a perceived distance between the two.

The difference between classical computers and quantum computers is that classical computing uses binary, or 1 and 0's. Qubits are able to be both 1 and 0 simultaneously, enabling much faster calculations to be performed as many calculations can be performed at once, compared to a classic computer that performs each calculation individually. Unfortunately, one of the main problems with quantum calculations is the inconsistency with results.