Computer Systems - Page 14

Australia's #1 PC builder -- Aftershock PC -- had something truly unique to show off at PAX Australia 2023 over the weekend: an exclusive PC build in partnership with Samsung and AORUS for Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios.

The Aftershock PC team was honored to collaborate with Nick himself, going through every detail meticulously to create something truly unique for the tennis star. The Aftershock PC Ultra-Lab team outdid themselves with some of the highest-end components on the market, building Nick's PC into something he will be proud to have on his desk.

Better yet, Nick's new Gaming PC features custom artwork that has been heavily influenced by Nick's favorite gaming characters, with some beautiful 3D printed elements. Not only that, but Aftershock PC used a custom water-cooled open loop to emphasize the theme, as well as keep all of the important components inside of Nick's new system nice and chill.

We reported a few weeks ago that Apple's high-end 2023 Mac Studio was listed in Apple's online refurbished store for the first time. However, while the Mac Studio was indeed listed in various configurations, it wasn't actually available for anyone to buy. That's now changed for the first time, making it cheaper for people to put Apple's best Mac on their desk.

The 2023 Mac Studio comes with Apple's best and fastest M2 Ultra chip inside, while the M2 Max is also an option for people who don't need the best of the best. The Mac Studio in its current form was announced back in June of this year with a starting price of $1,999 for the entry-level model. Prices soon increase from there when you add more storage and that fast M2 Ultra chip of course, but that's to be expected and it's still cheaper than the Mac Pro that uses the same silicon.

As for the refurbished model, prices start at $1.699 which is of course $300 less than the price that you'd pay if you were buying a brand-new model.

The Mac Studio is among the best computers you can buy right now, especially if your creative workflow uses some of the apps it's especially well-optimized for. But it isn't cheap which means the prospect of picking up a refurbished model is all the more compelling. The Mac Studio is already available refurbished, but today is the first time that the latest model has been added to the mix.

That latest model is the M2 Max and M2 Ultra version that was released earlier this year. It was announced at WWDC in June alongside the new Apple silicon Mac Pro, and it's now started to appear in Apple's refurbished store online. However, as MacRumors points out, it isn't currently listed as in stock which means that you can't buy it yet.

It isn't yet clear when we can expect that Apple will start actually selling these refurbished 2023 Mac Studios, but it's unlikely to be all that far away. The updated Mac Studio of course gained M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips over its predecessor as well as support for an 8K display and high-impedence headphones. There's also Wi-Fi 6E support for those who need nice and fast wireless networking.

Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs is still fondly remembered even more than a decade after his death from pancreatic cancer. So it perhaps shouldn't be all that surprising that a handwritten ad for an Apple-1, penned by the man himself, should sell for a big sum of money when put up for auction. But did anyone expect it to fetch quite this much?

Apparently not, because the lot that just sold for almost $176,000 was originally expected to sell for a fraction of that when RR Auction put it up for grabs. But the action ended with one buyer spending $175,759 on the handwritten ad copy as well as Polaroid photos that were taken at a local store - The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California to be exact. Jobs even added his own comment to one of the photos, saying that it was fuzzy because the camera "wiggled" when the image was being taken.

The auction was originally expected to bring in around $30,000 so it's fair to say that it exceeded expectations. It also comes with a letter from the items' former owner that explains where they came from which no doubt helped bump the price up a bit.

In just a couple of days, GEEKOM, the Taiwanese maker of mini PCs, will take the covers off its newest SFF computer, the Mini IT13.

It is the first Mini PC powered by Intel's 13th Gen Core i9 processor. The Mini IT13 will come with either the 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900H, i7-13700H, or i5-13500H processors. The top dog Core i9-13900H model will feature 14 cores, 20 threads, and a maximum turbo frequency of 5.4GHz, a staggering amount of power for an SFF PC. GEEKOM says, "This powerful mini PC delivers groundbreaking performance for various tasks, including multitasking, gaming, and video editing. The computing experience is further elevated by the Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics, which provides remarkable graphics capabilities for stunning visuals."

Not only does the Mini IT13 provide huge processing power with whisper-quiet operation thanks to the Mini IT13's efficient cooling system, but it also excels with its display support. It supports 8K displays and multiple screens through its two USB4 and two HDMI 2.0 ports. So, whether you want a small PC to handle a complex task or watch your favorite TV shows, you are covered. In addition, the IT13 includes many I/O ports, including six USB and 2.5Gbe LAN.

ZOTAC has some new all-in-one PCs that are powered by NVIDIA's latest GeForce RTX 40-series GPUs, paired with other high-end components.

I originally spotted ZOTAC's latest offerings at Computex 2023, with the company giving me a demo of what has now been officially announced. Let's start with the flagship model, the Zbox Magnus One, which comes in two different variants, the ERP74070C and ERP74070W. Both of these variants are exactly the same component-wise but only differ in color, with ZOTAC offering a white and black version. The Zbox Magnus One is powered by the RTX 40-series GPUs, which utilize NVIDIA's cutting-edge Ada Lovelace architecture. But which GPU does the Magnus One feature?

According to ZOTAC, which was confirmed to me at Computex 2023, the Zbox Magnus One will feature a GeForce ETX 4070 that has been paired with an Intel Core i7-13700. As for memory, the Zbox Magnus One will support 64GB of DDR-56000 through two SO-DIMM slots. Additionally, each of the models features two PCIe 4.0 x 4 M.2 NVMe slots, along with a 2.5-inch drive slot with SATA compatibility for all your extra storage needs.

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.

The very first Apple silicon Mac Pro is finally here and you can buy one right now starting from $6,999. But if you do, you might want to think twice about installing your SATA hard drives.

That's because Apple has already admitted that there is a problem that could cause some hard drives to disconnect when the Mac Pro wakes from sleep, leaving them in a state where they cannot be used for accessing the files that are saved on them. The good news? Apple says that it's already working on a fix.

In a new support document, Apple says that some models of internal SATA drives might disconnect from the Mac Pro when it's waking up from sleep. In the short term, the fix appears to be to simply disable the feature that automatically puts the Mac to sleep when it is idle. Otherwise. the only way to make the Mac reconnect to its hard drives is to restart it.

The brand-new Mac Studio and Mac Ultra can connect to up to eight different 4K displays at any one time, Apple has confirmed.

The eight-display limit applies to the new Apple silicon Mac Pro as well as the Mac Studio when kitted out with the latest and greatest M2 Ultra. Both new Macs are available to buy now.

The news comes after Apple released new support documents for the two machines, both confirming that the new Macs can push pixels out to eight 4K displays at once. What's more, that doesn't mean that those displays will have to make do with a low refresh rate - instead, they'll all support 60Hz refresh rates no matter what.

If you expected the new Mac Pro to be fast, you've probably been waiting for the first benchmarks to arrive so that you could confirm whether you were right or not. And now they're here and sure enough, the M2 Ultra absolutely destroys everything that came in a Mac Pro before it.

Before we move on we have to have some context. That context comes in the form of the previous best Mac Pro you could buy - it started at $13,000 and sported an Intel Xeon chip with 28 cores. It was fast. at the time, and it probably still is. Unless you happen to pit it against Apple silicon. It managed a Geekbench single-core score of 1,378 and a multi-core score of 10,390.

The early benchmarks for the new M2 Ultra Mac Studio give us scores that are barely believable - a single-core score of 2,794 and a multi-core score of 21,453.

Computex 2023 was jam packed with juicy announcements, and we have decided to gather what we consider to be our favorite unveilings.

From Monday to Thursday last week the TweakTown team wandered the Computex showroom floor, meeting with companies and their marketing teams to understand what is just around the corner for gamers.

TweakTown founder and director Cameron Wilmot, gaming hardware editor Kosta Andreadis, hardware editor Ryan Gendreau, and science, space, and AI reporter, Jak Connor were demoed countless products, from NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang showcasing GraceHopper on-stage at the NVIDIA press event, to the ASUS booth where we broke the news on the world's first 38-inch 4K 144Hz gaming monitor.