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AMD reportedly delaying Navi GPU architecture into 2019
We've just heard some juicy details on AMD's next-gen Vega 10 and Vega 20 graphics cards - with 16GB of HBM2 and 32GB of HBM2, respectively. But it's the news on Navi that has me even more excited, and simultaneously disappointed.
VideoCardz.com's source says that Navi 10 and Navi 11 are "currently planned for 2019", meaning that AMD has delayed Navi by 12 months from its original 2018 release, and now into 2019. We haven't confirmed this yet, but I've sent some emails and will update this post when we hear back from someone at AMD.
Continue reading: AMD reportedly delaying Navi GPU architecture into 2019 (full post)
AMD's purported Vega 20 graphics card rocks 32GB of HBM2
We just reported on the first details of AMD's next-gen Vega 10 graphics card, but it seems as though that's the mid-range model, while the higher-end Vega 20 is shaping up to be a damn monster.
AMD's upcoming Vega 20 graphics card will feature 32GB of HBM2 memory with 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth, up from the 16GB of HBM2 with 512GB/sec bandwidth offered on Vega 10. Not only that, but the Vega 20 chip will reportedly support the upcoming PCI-Express 4.0 standard.
VideoCardz.com does note that the details were from AMD's internal server roadmap, so things might change for the consumer market. 32GB of HBM2 would be insanely expensive, so I would dare say these are higher-end cards not meant for the consumer market. Alternatively, maybe we will see these cards in the consumer market, as AMD will be needing to prepare for NVIDIA's next-gen Volta architecture in 2017.
Continue reading: AMD's purported Vega 20 graphics card rocks 32GB of HBM2 (full post)
BioShock Remastered will soon be patched on the PC
2K Games is thankfully listening to PC gamers that the PC port of the recent BioShock remasters is a pile of crap, with the studio taking to the Steam forums detailing their plans for an upcoming patch.
The company is working on an FOV slider, improved mouse controls, support for 21:9 displays, and "general stability improvement to reduce instances of game crashes". The complete list is a little more detailed:
Continue reading: BioShock Remastered will soon be patched on the PC (full post)
Samsung's new PM1725a SSD - up to 6.4TB at 6.4GB/sec
Samsung SSD Summit 2016 - Samsung is hitting some major home runs at its SSD Summit 2016, with our storage god Jon Coulter on the ground sending us back some golden nuggets of storage news - like the new PM1725a, which is a beast NVMe-based SSD.
Samsung's new PM1725a arrives in the 2.5-inch form factor, based on NVMe and uses V-NAND 3bit MLC alongside Samsung's new Epic controller. The PM1725a comes in 800GB/1.6TB/3.2TB/6.4TB capacities, with some pretty impressive read/write speeds of up to 3.3GB/sec and 2.9GB/sec, respectively.
It also arrives in an HHHL version, using a PCIe x8 slot, with the read/write speeds scaling up to an insane 6.4GB/sec and 3GB/sec, respectively.
Continue reading: Samsung's new PM1725a SSD - up to 6.4TB at 6.4GB/sec (full post)
Microsoft launches their last Nokia phone, ever
Microsoft surprised everyone today and announced a new Nokia phone - the Nokia 216, a feature phone with dual SIM capability that will be available in India and Pakistan by the end of October.
For a mere $37 you get a 2.4-inch QVGA screen, 1020 mAh replaceable battery and two 0.3 MP VGA cameras. 16MB of RAM is enough to run the Series 30+ OS, Opera Mini browsers and other pre-installed apps. Storage is basically your memory card which can be up to 32GB.
Microsoft also points out that you can store up to 2,000 contacts.
Continue reading: Microsoft launches their last Nokia phone, ever (full post)
Antec teams with Razer on a new mini-ITX gaming case
Antec has announced its new Cube case, designed by Razer in an "extensive collaboration" between the two companies. Antec's new Cube chassis is a mini-ITX gaming case designed for gamers who want a SFF gaming PC.
Inside of the new Antec Cube is 1 x 3.5-inch bay, up to 4 x 2.5-inch bays, 3 expansion slots, and it can take graphics cards that are up to 350mm. The Razer-designed Antec Cube also goes above and beyond most mini-ITX gaming cases, with a separate compartment for the pSU, allowing for improved cable management.
On the outside, Antec's Cube chassis features a hybrid structure consisting of 3mm aluminum and 0.8mm of cold-rolled steel with Razer's iconic Triple-Headed Snake logo on the front. On the left and right of the Cube we have LED under glow strips with the signature Razer green color, with a green LED on the rear exhaust fan, power button, and USB 3.0 ports.
Continue reading: Antec teams with Razer on a new mini-ITX gaming case (full post)
'Pacific Rim' surfaces on 4K Blu-ray next month
While fans of the 2013 monster action flick 'Pacific Rim' still have a way to go until the sequel hits theatres, at least they have one more event to look forward much, much sooner... so long as they have a 4K TV and an UltraHD Blu-ray player.
Starting next month, 'Pacific Rim' is set to be released on 4K UltraHD Blu-ray combo pack across the world, which includes the film remastered for 4K with HDR and Dolby Atmos audio, alongside a standard 1080p Blu-ray, director's commentary and an hour of extra features. Unfortunately, the film's 3D presentation will be absent from the pack, as well as the second Blu-ray disc of extra features - so you might want to hang onto those.
'Pacific Rim 4K' hits stores in the U.S. on October 4 in the U.S. and on October 19th in Australia. Look for our in-depth TweakTown review later next month!
Continue reading: 'Pacific Rim' surfaces on 4K Blu-ray next month (full post)
World's fastest Samsung 2TB SSD rocks 2.1GB/sec writes
Samsung SSD Summit 2016 - Samsung has once again redefined consumer solid state drives with its new 960 EVO and 960 PRO M.2 SSD duo, offering lightning fast transfer rates with high-capacities and optimum reliability.
Samsung's new 960 PRO is now the world's fastest consumer SSD, hitting peak sequential reads of 3,500 MB/s and write speeds of 2,100 MB/s as well as random read and write IOPS of up to 440,000 and 360,000 respectively. The 960 PRO also packs in an amazing 2TB of data thanks to Samsung's vertically-stacked VNAND memory technique. The 960 PRO SSD is also available in 512GB and 1TB capacities along with the 2TB model.
Armed with Samsung's new Intelligent TurboWrite tech, the 960 EVO SSD blazes with peak read speeds of 3,200 MB/s and 1,900 MB/s write speeds, and comes in more diverse capacities like 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. The 960 EVO also features random read speeds of 380,000 IOPS and random write speeds of up to 360,000 IOPs, and comes with a three-year limited warranty and up to 400 TBW (whichever occurs first) for the 1TB model.
Continue reading: World's fastest Samsung 2TB SSD rocks 2.1GB/sec writes (full post)
GoPro's first drone is the foldable Karma for $799
GoPro announced its new Hero5 Black action camera alongside their first ever drone, with the upcoming foldable Karma drone priced at $799.
The new GoPro Karma features a 3-axis stabilizer that slides out from under the drone, and attaches to a handheld "Karma Group" so that you can record stabilized footage on the ground, as well.
GoPro is offering a more expensive $1,099 bundle that includes the Hero5 Black camera, but if you only want the new Hero5 Session the bundle drops to $999. Karma also includes a slick-looking gaming-like controller, sporting a built-in touchscreen with GoPro CEO and founder Nick Woodman proudly saying that Karma is "more than just a drone", and with these specs and features - he's right.
Continue reading: GoPro's first drone is the foldable Karma for $799 (full post)
NVIDIA bundles Gears of War 4 with GTX 1080 and 1070s
NVIDIA is giving away a free copy of Gears of War 4 with its higher-end GeForce GTX 10-series GPUs.
For a limited time, if you buy an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080, GTX 1070, or a notebook rocking either GPU, you'll get a free PC copy of Gears of War 4. Microsoft has confirmed that Gears of War 4 supports a huge plethora of enthusiast-level features like 4K resolution, 21:9 aspect ratios, performance bumps with DirectX 12, unlocked frame rates, a massive helping of tweakable settings, FreeSync and G-Sync support, and more. In order to leverage the game's full potential and play Gears of War 4 in 4K, Microsoft recommends a GeForce GTX 1080. Sadly the GeForce GTX 1060 isn't included in the promotion.
Oddly enough, we have reports that a single GeForce GTX 1080 isn't enough to run Gears of War 4 in 4K at "Insane" graphics, but the GTX 1080 handled 1440p 60FPS just fine in the same Insane preset.
Continue reading: NVIDIA bundles Gears of War 4 with GTX 1080 and 1070s (full post)
Opera's built-in VPN goes public
Two months after the news Opera's browser business would be sold to Chinese firms, the company's eponymous browser now offers a built-in virtual private network (VPN) service. Available in beta form since April, it goes public today, making it the first major browser to do so.
VPNs allow one greater privacy and security while granting access to region restricted content. Opera cites surveys where users who declined to use one typically did so to avoid difficulty and subscription fees, so it appears their aim is to eliminate both barriers.
To enable the service in Opera, navigate to Settings/Preferences, Privacy & Security, then toggle as you see fit. Once you do so, a convenient VPN icon will appear in the browser, and you can toggle it from there going forward, as well as choose a location, or let the browser intelligently choose one for you (the idea being to minimize any performance impact, and possibly to automatically access content).
Continue reading: Opera's built-in VPN goes public (full post)
GIVEAWAY: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G Graphic Card
Global entry! We have teamed up with MSI to giveaway one of its GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G graphic cards.
THE ULTIMATE PC GAMING PLATFORM
Get Game Ready with GeForce® GTX. GeForce GTX graphics cards are the most advanced ever created. Discover unprecedented performance, power efficiency, and next-generation gaming experiences.
Continue reading: GIVEAWAY: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G Graphic Card (full post)
Twitter loosens up on character limit starting today
Announced in May, Twitter has finally implemented changes to its 140 character limit.
The limit still remains, of course, but in modified form: now photos, quoted tweets, polls, GIFs, and basically anything that isn't original, raw text will no longer count toward it. The result: a much more convenient experience when tweeting anything but text or in addition to text.
Posting images or videos not uploaded to Twitter directly will still count, however, which has the inadvertent benefit of encouraging users to employ Twitter's side services.
Continue reading: Twitter loosens up on character limit starting today (full post)
Samsung 960 M.2 SSDs may use 64-layer VNAND at up to 2TB
Samsung SSD Summit 2016 - They say a picture is worth a thousand words. From this picture floating around at Samsung's SSD Summit 2016 event in Seoul, South Korea, we can speculate a few things about the 960 Series M.2 NVMe SSDs that Samsung will be launching in less than 24 hours. First and most exciting is that the MLC-based 960 Pro will at some point hit the market at a massive 2TB capacity point. This is 4x the current highest selling capacity of the 950 Pro (512GB).
Based on the information that the photo reveals, we are speculating that the 960 Pro, at least at the 2TB capacity point, will use Samsung's fourth-generation 64-layer VNAND. Additionally, we noticed something else that points to fourth-generation 64-layer VNAND. According to the picture, the 960 Pro has a power draw of only 1 amp. This is a massive reduction in power draw in comparison to the 2.7 amps of power draw on the 950 Pro.
The 1TB 960 EVO, according to the picture, will have a power draw of 2.7 amps. Hence, we believe the 960 EVO will be based on Samsung's current third-generation 48-layer VNAND. We think that the 960 EVO will be first to market, followed sometime shortly by the 960 Pro. Both the 960 EVO and 960 Pro will be based on Samsung's Polaris controller, the same controller that we saw on the SM961 OEM drive that currently reigns supreme in terms of sequential performance of up to 3200/1800 MB/s (sequential read/ write).
Continue reading: Samsung 960 M.2 SSDs may use 64-layer VNAND at up to 2TB (full post)
4K Blu-ray is dead on the PC, and there's no reason why
Begin rant: I'm sitting in front of my computer looking at the price of the Xbox One S console, as I'm about to buy my first console since the PS3. I never owned an Xbox 360, Xbox One or PS4, but the new Xbox One S has me convinced. I'm moving back to consoles for a very big thing: 4K Blu-ray, which doesn't exist on the PC right now - the mightiest platform of them all.
Seriously, it doesn't make sense.
Years later, I went to a PC store in my state and purchased a Pioneer DVDROM with an MPEG2 decoder card, and getting The Matrix on DVD right after. That night, I launched into the next generation of entertainment, with my PC at the center of it. The quality was on another level, but having my PC power by DVD drive was really something else for entertainment at my desk.
Continue reading: 4K Blu-ray is dead on the PC, and there's no reason why (full post)
Gears of War 4 could run at 4K 60FPS on Xbox Scorpio
In an article earlier today, I wrote about Gears of War 4 shaping up to be one biggest games for the PC this year. But during the interview with Technical Director Mike Raynor, it looks like Xbox Scorpio could run it at close to PC settings, at 4K.
Raynor said: "When we built this game over the last three years and went to a new engine, we optimized for a new console generation. We've made a foundational technology for the franchise to work over the next 10 years. We've authored content with 4K in mind. We support 4K texture resolutions, additional features".
He added that Gears of War 4 is ready for future hardware, with more horsepower and new features. Raynor continued: "We're not gonna hit reset [with the next game] and be thinking, 'How are we going to do this? We're not ready for it.' I can't go into specifics about Gears 4, but look at what we're doing on Windows, what we're doing on Gears 4-it looks pretty good for what we'll be able to do on future hardware".
Continue reading: Gears of War 4 could run at 4K 60FPS on Xbox Scorpio (full post)
Gears of War 4 ready for future PCs and multi-GPU rigs
Gears of War 4 is nearly here, and we're beginning to hear very positive things about the PC version of the game, which almost feels like we've slipped into a Bizarro world with PC ports these days.
Ars Technica got their hands-on some preview code of the PC version of Gears of War 4, with the site confirming the game includes an 'Insane' graphics setting, something they ran on their GeForce GTX 1080, Core i7 processor and 32GB of RAM. This hardware is pretty beefy, and it wasn't enough to handle the game at 4K.
The resolution was dropped from 4K to 1440p, with Ars noting it "still looked gorgeous" and ran at 60FPS with the graphics settings set higher than the Insane settings. Technical Director Mike Raynor told Ars: "DirectX 12 is a big part of how we're able to get additional performance out of the PC. The DX12 graphics API takes away a bunch of layers from the developer and hardware. It's letting us have more direct control over what the GPU's doing...".
Continue reading: Gears of War 4 ready for future PCs and multi-GPU rigs (full post)
Sandisk unveils the world's first 1TB SD card
We should be used to Sandisk continuing to push the storage barrier, but their announcement of the world's largest SD card is an impressive one; with the company unveiling their massive new 1TB SD card.
Sandisk's new 1TB SD card is quite the card, perfect for those moving into 4K video production, upcoming 6K and 8K formats, 360-degree and VR video, and more. Sam Nicholson, CEO of Stargate Studios and also a member of the American Society of Cinematographers said that Sandisk really has owned the storage market.
Nicholson said: "Just a few short years ago the idea of a 1TB capacity point in an SD card seemed so futuristic - it's amazing that we're now at the point where it's becoming a reality. With the growing demand for applications like VR, we can certainly use 1TB when we're out shooting continuous high-quality video. High-capacity cards allow us to capture more without interruption, streamlining our workflow, and eliminating the worry that we may miss a moment because we have to stop to swap out cards".
Continue reading: Sandisk unveils the world's first 1TB SD card (full post)
Intel's Core i7-7700 CPU up for pre-order in EU for $400
Intel's new Kaby Lake architecture is so close I can smell it, with the upcoming Core i7-7700K processor already up for pre-order on an Estonian online retailer website for what equates to $402.
The specs listed on the website state the Core i7-7700K is a quad-core processor with 8 threads at 4.2GHz, but it'll hit 4.5GHz under Turbo Boost, a higher frequency than previously reported. Intel's upcoming Core i7-7700K should rock 8MB of L3 cache, and a 95W TDP, while slotting into the LGA1151 socket.
Kaby Lake will work on some current Z170-based motherboards, while newer Z270-based boards should be launching in the near future. The new Kaby Lake architecture is made on Intel's latest 14nm+ node, which provides up to 12% more performance over the older Skylake architecture made on 14nm.
Continue reading: Intel's Core i7-7700 CPU up for pre-order in EU for $400 (full post)
Star Wars Battlefront 3 footage from 2008 appears online
Some gameplay footage of Star Wars Battlefront 3 has emerged, in its alpha build form that was being developed on all the way back in 2008.
LucasArts cancelled the game before it launched, but with the leaked footage, we get a good glimpse at what the team was working on. The video shows off a little of the campaign from Star Wars Battlefront 3, with Old Republic heroes X1 and X2 arriving on Tatooine, with a new mission. They fly out of the hanger on their starfighters towards Tatooine, without a single loading screen - impressive, especially for 2008. We're only seeing this type of thing in games now, nearly 10 years later.
The second video is a continuation of the first, following X1 and X2 as they respond to a Tusken Raider attack. The sound effects used a hilariously bad, but we can see the overall shape of what LucasArts were working on, especially when it comes to the lack of loading screens.
Continue reading: Star Wars Battlefront 3 footage from 2008 appears online (full post)







