Computex Taipei 2013 - Yesterday we had a meeting with Intel at the Grand Hyatt where they showed us some interesting Haswell and power consumption demos, but Intel products were not all that was focused on.

Intel had a Google Nexus 10 tablet setup with direct measurements of heat and power consumption. In the measurement chart demo we saw that the N10 would start off would start off with normal power consumption on the CPU rail and then after just a second or two the CPU line power consumption would drop right down and then a few seconds later, pick right back up again, and then go back down again. This was happening with basic operation of the N10, HD video playback.

It didn't take much for us to see that this was due to the dual-core A15 CPU throttling. Due to heat issues, it was quite clear to see that the N10 was not running at its main clock speed all of the time.

Computex Taipei 2013 - The enterprise SSD market is a tough nut to crack, just ask OCZ. That doesn't mean others aren't seeing the same projections that show enterprise storage revenue on the rise. With the consumer PC market shrinking as mobile increases, some are looking at other areas of growth and enterprise is where the action is for the next few years.

Four products are on display at Computex, all SandForce Driven.

Contrary to what was reported yesterday by The Preview Site, the new ADATA SX2000 is not a SAS 12Gb part; it uses a PCIe connector that looks similar to SAS. The interface isn't exactly new; Micron's P320h uses it and Dell has already shipped several 12 generation PowerEdge servers with the technology.

Computex Taipei 2013 - We didn't get a lot of time to talk with ADATA today, so more details will follow shortly. At the booth we found several interesting products though. First up are two personal cloud products that use NAS technology to give users access to their data anywhere in the world through other devices. You can use the Internet--err 'the cloud'--to access your files. I use this technology everyday on my notebook, smartphone, and other people's hardware to get to my files. Since I'm literally on the other side of the globe right now, it's an important detail to toss in.

We're not going to try to BS you, this is obviously a rebranded unit from ASUSTOR. ADATA's global network of distribution should help products like this gain traction. I've said for years the most important tech in my home and office is my NAS server and that digital home needs one as the foundation for ever device to connect to. With the new cloud features, your data is no longer tied to a physical device on your person as you can access it from anywhere.

The new dual-bay unit from ADATA is called Premier Pro NP210. It has a small footprint but packs big features, several more than listed on ADATA's short list shown at the show.

Computex Taipei 2013 - ADATA's SX series branding has always been associated with LSI SandForce controllers. Even before SX, the S Series products like S510 and S511 were LSI SandForce. It's been quite some time since we've seen ADATA using a Marvell controller. The last time I can think of is at Computex three years ago when ADATA closed a section of their booth so we could test a then new SATA III product based on the same controller used in the Crucial C300, the world's first SATA III controller.

Looking to increase diversity to the brand, the SATA SX920 uses a Marvell controller and appears to be ready for entry into the channel. We suspect this is the same controller used in the SanDisk Extreme II and Plextor M5 Pro Xtreme. Talking to the product manager at the show, we learned that SX920 uses Type C Toggle NAND, the good stuff that everyone wants but few are getting access to.

With 20nm yields down and next-gen LSI SandForce stuck somewhere in 3Q or 4Q, ADATA needed a product to compete with M500 and Extreme II. Personally I would have liked to have seen ADATA not follow the SX product naming scheme and release this under a different name since SX920 is quite a bit different than SX900 and SX910. The five-year warranty from the SX910 didn't carry over either.

Computex Taipei 2013 - With our meetings at Hyatt finished, Cameron and I finally had a chance to get to the show floor for a few minutes today. There we saw the future of SSDs at just about every booth we stopped by: NGFF or Next Generation Form Factor, commercially known as m.2. Over the next few days, we'll have a lot of NGFF product images and slide in some details about the interface that most are not familiar with yet. We should be able to take a few products back to the test lab as well.

The largest crowd at Plextor's booth was around the two NGFF products seen above. This form factor has several versions, roughly 14 or 15 the last I looked into it. That number will come down to just a few common sizes once system builders roll out motherboards, notebooks and Ultrabooks with the new form factor.

Electrically, NGFF can connect to a SATA bus or PCIe. The PCIe connection moves us past the limits of SATA III, making SSDs exciting once again from a performance standpoint. Companies will once again race to maximize the performance of products and more distinction in the market place will occur.

Computex Taipei 2013 - Off to the side at the Plextor booth and getting little attention was an early look at what may become the M6 Series. We were told it's a working product name but considering the M1 through M5 product naming scheme M6 seems appropriate since it's next in line.

The specifications shown are very close to those found on the existing M5 Pro model that's selling today.

That means the baseline M6, or M6S depending on your market, should have nearly identical performance to the existing M5 Pro product but at a lower cost. With that said, where are the M6 Pro specs? That's the model we want to see since the Pro versions in the Plextor product series are the bleeding edge performance drives. We'll get out the shovel tomorrow and look for treasure.

Computex Taipei 2013 - We learned today that Plextor has dropped any immediate plans to release the 2.5" TLC model shown at CES 2013 and CeBIT 2013. Citing endurance concerns, a Plextor rep stated to TweakTown that the TLC model shown at previous shows has been shelved. "With Toshiba's new 1y NAND flash we can meet the same or better price point and not [have] issues with endurance."

The product in question used a Marvell 88SS9189 controller with Toshiba TLC NAND, lithography unknown. In 512GB capacity size, the rated performance was 540MB/s sequential read and 465MB/s sequential write speeds. The quoted IOPS performance was 80K read and 72K write, 4K aligned. These numbers are significantly higher than Samsung's 840, especially the write performance. Allowing TLC NAND to write at those speeds would have been an issue since TLC has lower PE cycles than MLC NAND.

The buzz around the show is that 1y will change the SSD market from a price perspective. Also, new controllers are emerging that can scale beyond 512GB and new interfaces that work over PCIe will mean moving beyond the limits of SATA III. These new products should start hitting e-tail stores in 3Q.

Mozilla, the developers behind Firefox, are planning a major design overhaul for the popular web browser. The changes will appear in Firefox 25 which is slated to arrive in October. Those who wish to preview the changes are in luck as Mozilla has set up a special Nightly UX channel for Firefox 25. (Source #2)

For those of you who just want to know the differences, keep reading. The new look is awfully similar to the current user interface for Google's Chrome browser. The tabs have been rounded over, and Firefox is ditched the top left settings drop-down in favor of a more Chrome-like menu icon at the right hand side of the URL bar which is affectionately known as the "hot dog icon."

Other features include:

Computex Taipei 2013 - Going hand in hand with all the memory that is being shown off this year we've got a ton of motherboards that support the latest chipset from Intel. We headed over to the MSI booth this afternoon to have a look at what is exactly on offer.

One board that really took our eye is the upcoming Z87 XPOWER which is due in the coming weeks. Sporting the PLX chip for faster 4-Way GPU support the upcoming board which isn't quite ready yet looks good. Along with the PLX chip we've got the Sound Blaster X-Fi3 HD audio chip.

We've also got a bunch of buttons on the board helping overclock on-the-fly. One set controls the multiplier, the other controls the BCLK. There's also a toggle switch that lets us adjust the BCLK by 1 or .1 depending on the kind of tuning you want to do. We look forward to seeing a sample in the coming weeks.

Computex Taipei 2013 - This year at Computex we've really seen companies expand into some new areas. When you hear the name G.Skill you think fast high-end performance memory; over the coming months they're hoping that name also becomes known with high quality audio as the company shows of two headsets due in Q4 of this year.

Consisting of two models the upcoming Ripjaws R71 Gaming Headet carries with it 7.1-channel surround sound audio via USB. In a really stylish blue which really looks great. Build quality on the unit feels good and playing a bit of Counter-Strike on the headset found for a good quality audio experience that came off very comfortable.

One of the really cool features, though, is the touch-based control which looks awesome in its black and blue combination. Alongside the new R71 set G.Skill was showing off the new D71 set that's due to hit at the same time.