Category: Hardware

One of the biggest running gags on social media and Reddit is how hot and power hungry CPUs have become over the years. Whereas at one time flagship x86 CPUs didn’t even require a heatsink, they can now saturate whole radiators. Thankfully, it’s not quite to the levels of a nuclear reactor, as the memes go – but as the kids say these days, it’s also not a nothingburger. Designing for higher TDPs and greater power consumption has allowed chipmakers to keep pushing the envelope in terms of performance – something that’s no easy feat in a post-Dennard world – but it’s ... Read more

Akasa is one of the very few vendors to carry a portfolio of passively-cooled chassis solutions for the Intel NUCs. We had reviewed their Turing solution with the Bean Cayon NUC and the Newton TN with the Tiger Canyon NUC, and come away impressed with the performance of both cases. At CES 2023, the company is upgrading their portfolio of fanless NUC cases to support the mainstream NUC Pro using the 12th-Gen Core processors – the Wall Street Canyon. Turing WS The Turing WS builds upon the original Turing chassis to accommodate the updated I/Os of the Wall Street Canyon ... Read more

IOGEAR has been servicing the computer accessories market with docks and KVMs for more than a couple of decades now. In addition to the generic use-cases, the company creates products that target niche segments with feature sets that are not available in products from other vendors. At CES 2023, IOGEAR is taking the wraps off a number of USB-C docks slated to get introduced over the next couple of quarters. Docking Solutions The three new products in this category fall under two categories – the first two utilize Display Link chips along with traditional USB-C Alt Mode support, while the ... Read more

Alongside AMD’s widely expected client product announcements this evening for desktop CPUs, mobile CPUs, and mobile GPUs, AMD’s CEO Dr. Lisa Su also had a surprise up her sleeve for the large crowd gathered for her prime CES keynote: a sneak peak at MI300, AMD’s next-generation data center APU that is currently under development. With silicon literally in hand, the quick teaser laid out the basic specifications of the part, along with reiterating AMD’s intentions of taking leadership in the HPC market. First unveiled by AMD during their 2022 Financial Analyst Day back in June of 2022, MI300 is AMD’s ... Read more

This year’s CES has turned out to be a laptop-centric event in the PC space, and no farther do you have to look for proof of that than AMD’s CES keynote. The densely packed keynote immediately kicked things off with the announcement of AMD’s 2023 mobile product stack, which will see the CPU vendor mixing and matching silicon across multiple generations of designs to put together a fresh product stack for the new year. This includes the return of some old favorites, including bringing desktop Zen 4 silicon to mobile, as well as the introduction of AMD’s brand-new Phoenix CPU ... Read more

While many companies such as Razer offer ‘desktop’ replacements in the form of very high-end and powerful gaming laptops, the silicon that goes into them not only needs to deliver similar levels of performance but it’s got to be efficient too. With high-end mobile processors coming out at least once a year, during their opening keynote at CES 2023, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su unveiled the latest in AMD’s Ryzen mobile products for the high-end laptop space, the Ryzen 7045HX-series. Leading the charge is the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX with 16-cores and 32-threads and an incredible boost frequency of 5.7 ... Read more

During Computex 22, AMD showcased its updated CPU roadmap going through 2024, which yielded some exciting propositions to the desktop processor market. One of those products highlighted was a new 3D V-Cache SKU based on Zen 4 cores, and with the success of its previous Ryzen 7 5800X3D with 96 MB of 3D stacked V-Cache, gamers have been chomping at the bit for more ever since. Using their primetime keynote slot during CES 2023, AMD has unveiled its next 3D V Cache-based processors to the market using its Zen 4 core architecture. AMD hasn’t unveiled just one new Zen 4-based X3D ... Read more

During its keynote at CES 2023, Dr. Lisa Su, AMD’s CEO, announced three new desktop processors based on its Zen 4 microarchitecture, the Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 7 7700, and Ryzen 5 7600. Each of these new processors includes a base TDP of 65 W with a reduction of all-core base frequency compared to the X-series SKUs. Designed to be a more affordable and cost-effective option for its latest AM5 platform, the new 65 W-based Ryzen 7000 SKUs come bundled with one of AMD’s Wraith coolers, with prices starting at $229 for the Ryzen 5 7600. With the ever-pressing desire for high-performance ... Read more

CES keynote season continues this week with the second major PC-centric keynote of the event, being held by AMD. Helmed as always by CEO Dr. Lisa Su, AMD is taking the center stage this evening to share their plans and products for consumer electronics for 2023. AMD is in the midst of rolling out their Zen 4 CPU architecture and RDNA 3 GPU architecture across their product lines, so there’s ample space in both AMD’s desktop and mobile product lineups to introduce some new parts – and we don’t expect to come away empty-handed. Come join us at 6:30pm PT ... Read more

Intel recently updated their low-power processors lineup with the Raptor Lake U- and P- Series 13th Gen Core mobile SKUs. Supporting a range of TDPs up to 28W, these SKUs allow ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) PC manufacturers to update their traditional NUC clones. Starting with Tiger Lake, ASRock Industrial took over ASRock’s Beebox chassis design and equipped it with a 4″x4″ industrial PC motherboard internally. The company has typically announced these NUC clones within a few days of Intel’s platform announcement, and things are no different with Raptor Lake this time around. One of the key updates this time around is ... Read more

The Thunderbolt and USB ecosystems have seen rapid updates over the last couple of years. In 2022, we saw the announcement of the USB4 v2 standard and some details of Next Generation Thunderbolt with total bidirectional speeds of up to 160 Gbps (80 Gbps TX / RX with symmetric links, and 120 Gbps TX / 40 Gbps RX using asymmetric links from the host perspective). Product introductions have typically lagged behind the announcement of the standards by 18 – 24 months, and we are currently in the midst of the introduction of the second wave of Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 ... Read more

During CES 2023 in Las Vegas, HP announced the latest entry to its Dragonfly notebook series, the Dragonfly G4. Catering to SMIBs and business use in general, HP states it’s the world’s first business notebook to support the simultaneous use of dual cameras. It also comes equipped with Intel’s latest 13th Gen Mobile processor and HP Fast Charge support that can charge the G4 up to 50% battery in just 30 minutes. With numerous features on offer, HP’s latest Dragonfly entrant, the G4, has been updated for 2023 with the inclusion of Intel’s latest 13th Generation mobile processors. The HP ... Read more