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Thursday, July 21st, 2016
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| 7:00a | Cards Galore: A Quick Look At the Custom GeForce GTX 1060 Launch Lineup
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 is here to contend for mainstream space. Alongside the NVIDIA-only Founders Edition card, we will see a large number of cards released from other vendors (I count 18 in this write up) which gives consumers enough choice to fill a very wide range of needs. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition cards will be available only from NVIDIA.com for $299. Meaning that retail outlets will be limited to just the third party cards. These cards, as we will see below, are priced from $249 all the way up to $329 with designs from single fan mini-ITX all the way up to dual fan cards just shy of a full foot in length. So let’s see what NVIDIA’s segment of the mainstream market will look like for the foreseeable future.
First on the list, which I’m covering in no particular order, is EVGA. They have announced four cards, two which use their ACX 2.0 single fan cooler in an m-ITX form factor and another two that use the relatively new ACX 3.0 dual fan cooler that we’ve seen on cards all the way up to the GeForce GTX 1080. EVGA re-iterates that fans in their coolers use double ball bearings which will result in longer fan life. They also state that their fans use three watts less than competitor’s fans at the same acoustic level, claiming more overclocking headroom as a benefit. Though I’ve seen a larger rise in power consumption from temperature differences alone, so while less power use is good I’m skeptical of meaningful changes to overclocking limits. Speaking of power delivery. The two smaller cards, the GTX 1060 Gaming and GTX 1060 SC Gaming, will each have a single six pin power connector. Meanwhile, the GTX 1060 SSC Gaming and GTX 1060 FTW Gaming will have single eight pin connectors for their power deliver.
Clock speeds for the EVGA’s GeForce GTX FTW Gaming and GeForce GTX SSC Gaming have not yet been announced, as these cards will be launching at a later date. Though It’s safe to assume that they will be faster than the two smaller cards. EVGA’s 1060 Gaming will run at the same stock speed as the founder’s edition card. The 1060 SC Gaming, on the other hand, will see some performance improvements from a 7% overclock. For the two higher tier cards, between the larger cooler and more robust 6+1 power delivery (up from 3+1) there is potential for healthy gains over a stock configuration. For video output EVGA’s offerings all have two HDMI 2.0b ports, two DisplayPort 1.4 ports, and one DVI-D port. Prices for these cards will land at $249 for the GTX 1060 Gaming and $259 for the GTX 1060 SC. We are still waiting for prices on the EVGA’s GeForce GTX FTW Gaming and GeForce GTX SSC Gaming.
Moving on, ASUS's three cards are the same ones we already visited a few weeks ago. This time though we have numbers to go with the picture we were shown before.
Base clocks have not been announced for all of ASUS's cards, but the boost clock numbers we are shown can give us some idea of the potential these cards will hold. There will be both an overclock ROG Strix card for $329.99 and one with stock clock speeds priced at $309.99. Moving down to the dual fan model we see another OC version and a card running at stock clock speeds which are currently un-priced. Lastly we have the ASUS Turbo GTX 1060 which will be running with a blower style cooler at stock speeds, and be priced at $249.
Up next is PNY. Information from PNY on their GeForce GTX 1060 is limited. Based on their pictures we can see what looks like a plastic shroud on a dual fan cooler. The specifications on the webpage for this card have stock numbers all around. Simularly, it appears they're using the stock NVIDIA display connector layout. The PNY GeForce GTX 1060 will have a list price of $259.
Meanwhile MSI is providing four versions of the GeForce GTX 1060. Three of the cards, the GEFORCE GTX 1060 6GT OC, GEFORCE GTX 1060 ARMOR 6G OC, and GEFORCE GTX 1060 GAMING 6G all have relatively moderate overclocks and sport dual fan open air coolers. Aside from their base model only having one each of DP 1.4, HDMI 2.0b and DVI-D and the others upping the DP 1.4 count to three, the differences are largely cosmetic and cooling. Though the GTX 1060 Gaming supports a silent mode with stock clock speeds and two overclock modes, the fastest of which sits just under the clock speeds of their other two offerings.
Once we jump up to the GTX 1060 Gaming X we keep the stock clock speeds in “Silent Mode”. Though the gaming and OC modes are bumped above and beyond what is seen with their other cards. If the TWIN FROZR VI cooler is unmodified from those found on the higher end cards such as the GTX 1080 then it is likely much more heatsink than this GPU will ever need. While a review is still pending I’ve had some time with the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X, and on that card this cooler is very cool and quiet. Especially under lighter loads when the fans shut off. On top of crazy coolers, both the Gaming cards and the Armor card have single eight pin power connectors. Pricing for MSI’s offerings will be as follows: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING X 6G: $289, MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming 6G: $279, MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Armor 6G OC: $259, and lastly, the MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GT will be listed for $249.
Up next, GIGABYTE is releasing two dual fan models. Both cards possess back plates and RGB lighting. In fact, over on GIGABYTE’s site is a working utility allowing one to play around with the cards RGB lighting from within the browser. Kind of a neat diversion while writing out a news report. Moving on these cards both have a single eight pin for power. With three DP 1.4, one HDMI 2.0b, and one Dual-Link DVI-D. They also both have backplates on their backsides.
GIGABYTES GTX 1060 D5 is running at stock speeds out of the box but has an OC mode that can be enabled through their “XTREME engine utility” which bumps the clock speeds up slightly. The GTX 1060 G1 Gaming card has a healthier boost in both gaming mode and OC mode, giving up to an 8% clock speed boost over the stock speeds. The GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 G1 Gaming will be priced at $289, and it is currently $249.99 for the GIGABYTE GTX 1060 D5.
Last but certainly not least, ZOTAC is releasing both a single fan GTX 1060 Mini and a dual fan GTX 1060 AMP! Edition this time around. Neither card has a back plate and both go the three DisplayPort and one HDMI port route for video output. They also each use a single PCI-e six pin connector for power. While the mini-ITX card is running stock we do see a small increase in clock speeds for the dual fan model. The ZOTAC GTX 1060 Mini will be listed for $249 while the ZOTAC GTX 1060 AMP! Edition will be listed for $279.
Wow, this took a while to write up. While I’m sure it’s obvious at this point, there will be quite a lot of options for those looking in the $249 to $329 range. We can see cards ranging from m-ITX ready to nearly foot-longs which wouldn’t surprise if they were quiet with a hefty overclock. For further information, you can see our sources below for each of these cards. Keep an eye out later this week for our pending review of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8:45a | Assessing IBM's POWER8, Part 1: A Low Level Look at Little Endian A few months ago, IBM brought the relatively cheap S812LC server to the market, making sure the IBM POWER8 is within the budget of almost every datacenter. In this article we assess the capabilities of the "affordable" IBM POWER8 and compare with the Intel Xeon E5 v4 to offer you the very first Little Endian, level playing field benchmarks. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9:00a | Verizon Announces Price And Availability For Moto Z And Moto Z Force Droid Editions
Today Motorola and Verizon announced the availability and pricing details for the Moto Z Droid Edition and the Moto Z Force Droid Edition, the Verizon exclusive versions of Motorola's Moto Z smartphones. The Moto Z Droid with 32GB of internal storage costs $26 per month for 24 months using Verizon’s device payment plan or $624 total. The Moto Z Force Droid costs $30 per month for 24 months or $720 total. Both phones will also be available with 64GB of NAND through Motorola’s Moto Maker website for an extra $50. The new Moto Z Droids are up for preorder online starting today and will be available for purchase in Verizon stores beginning July 28. Pricing for the Moto Mods, the modular accessories that snap onto the back of the phones using strong magnets, was also revealed. The JBL SoundBoost speaker, which includes two speakers, a kickstand, and an additional 1000mAh battery, costs $79.99. The Moto Insta-Share DLP projector, which outputs a 854x480 WVGA image at 50 lumens nominal and also includes an 1100mAh battery, is $299.99. Incipio, Kate Spade, and TUMI offer several 2200mAh Power Packs that range in price from $59.99 to $89.99. Each design comes in both standard and wireless charging versions, with the latter supporting the Qi and PMA standards.
Just like with past Motorola phones, there are several decorative back plates that allow you to customize the look and feel of the new Droids. These come in several colors and materials, including real wood, leather, and fabric, and sit flush with the rear camera when snapped into place. The decorative Style Shells start at $14.99, with the nylon fabric and wood versions costing $19.99 and the leather-covered plates costing $24.99. All of the Moto Mods and back plates will be available the same day as the phones. Motorola first announced the Moto Z and Moto Z Force at Lenovo’s Tech World event in June. These new phones replace the Moto X family as the company's flagship devices. Both phones have a 5.5-inch QHD (2560x1440) AMOLED screen and come with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 SoC, 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, and either 32GB or 64GB of internal storage that's expandable via microSD.
There are a few notable differences between the two models. The Moto Z Droid comes with a smaller 2600mAh battery packed inside an especially thin all-aluminum chassis. The Moto Z Force Droid bumps battery capacity to 3500mAh and increases rear camera resolution to 21MP versus 13MP for the Moto Z Droid. It also includes a hybrid autofocus system that combines PDAF with a laser, which should be a step up from the standard Z's laser autofocus. Both cameras have f/1.8 apertures and OIS. While the Moto Z Droid’s screen is covered edge to edge with Corning Gorilla Glass, the Moto Z Force Droid uses Motorola's second-generation Moto ShatterShield technology, which should improve the screen's resistance to cracking or shattering if dropped. For more information about these phones, including a full list of specifications and additional pictures and discussion, please see our original Lenovo Tech World article. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11:00a | HP’s Elite x3 Windows 10 Smartphone to Cost $699, Set to Be Available Worldwide
When HP introduced its flagship Elite x3 phablet earlier this year at MWC, the smartphone made a very positive impression mostly because HP decided to make a bold move and create a Windows Continuum device aimed purely at the business professional on a company contract. It drew a little ire from some industry analysts, thinking that HP building a Windows phone would never see the light of day. To them it was a paper announcement, but this week shows that the Elite x3 is still alive and well, and coming to consumers and business users. What the company did not announce in February was its recommended price as well as countries, where it planned to make the product available. This weeks details show that the Elite x3 will hit the market in August and will be sold in 46 countries worldwide. The HP Elite x3 smartphone is based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 SoC, as well as Microsoft’s Windows 10 Mobile OS. The device is equipped a 5.96” AMOLED display and comes with 64 MB of eMMC 5.1 NAND flash storage, 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM as well as all the necessary connectivity features, including 4G/LTE, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and a USB Type-C connector. Developed specifically for enterprise and business users, who value security, the device is FIPS 140-2 certified and features Secure Boot (with iris and fingerprint scanners), full disk encryption with a 256-bit key, fTPM 2.0, and so on.
While the internal specifications of the HP Elite x3 are impressive, the company does not position the device as just its flagship smartphone. HP believes that there are enterprise customers interested in using one device for multiple workloads and in various situations by taking advantage of Microsoft’s Continuum technology, which allows you to run your phone as a desktop PC. To support such clients, HP intends to offer a special dock (with an Ethernet adapter, DisplayPort USB connectors, etc.) that can work with desktop displays as well as keyboards. When purchased from the HP online store, the dock should come as standard. In addition, the company plans to sell the Mobile Extender laptop, which does not have its own processor or storage, but relies on the Elite x3. The Mobile Extender has a 12.5” display (with 1920x1080 resolution), USB-C ports, speakers as well as a spill-resistant keyboard with a drain and backlighting.
Current competition, at least in the Continuum space, comes from Acer's Liquid Jade Primo which was demoed at MWC and quietly shipped several days ago, and the Lumia 950. According to Engadget, which cites a representative of HP, the phablet itself will cost $699 in the U.S. and $799 when acquired with a dock, starting from August 29. Slashgear claims that the Elite x3 will cost €863 in the Netherlands and 8,624 SEK in Sweden. Unfortunately, the price of the Mobile Extender is still unknown.
Sources: Engadget, Slashgear, HP Netherlands, HP Sweden. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11:30a | Super Talent Launches their PCIe Nova U.2 SSDs, up to 2 TB and 3 GB/s
The march to U.2 adoption is slow but coming - it is already more successful than SATA Express ever was. Consumer motherboards are now coming equipped with slots, and we've seen a single vendor supply drives to the consumer space - a number of players behind the scenes are shipping to enterprise users, and are expected to launch consumer grade products at some point in the next twelve months. While not specifically aimed at consumers, we got word that this week Super Talent has added a family of SSDs with U.2 connector into its lineup of products. Their new PCIe Nova drives will be aimed at servers and workstations first, and will offer capacities up to 2TB as well as high quoted performance. In fact, the new SSDs will be the fastest drives in Super Talent’s lineup and will compete against high-end drives from companies like Intel and HGST. The Super Talent PCIe Nova SSDs with a U.2 (SFF-8639) connector and PCIe 3.0 x4 interface will be based on MLC NAND memory and will be offered in various configurations, initially starting with 120 GB, up to 1920 GB. The manufacturer does not disclose the exact model of the controller or the exact type of flash it uses to build the devices, but it claims that the drives have maximum sequential read speed of 3 GB/s and maximum sequential write speed of 2.2 GB/s. Super Talent also does not specify endurance of the SSDs, but declares a mean time between failures (MTBF) at 1 million hours, which is in line with consumer storage devices.
As for dimensions, all drives come in 2.5”/9.5 mm form-factor, rather than 7mm. They are still compatible with almost all desktops, servers, workstations as well as other applications with large storage bays and U.2, however some mobile devices might have limitations. Keep in mind that Super Talent officially positions its PCIe Nova drives for servers and workstations, despite the consumer based MTBF and no listed enterprise features. The U.2 connector has still got some traction to gain in the desktop space, with about a dozen motherboards currently supporting the native connector and over 100 others suitable via M.2 to U.2 converter cards. On the enterprise side, companies like Intel and HGST have released a number of SSDs for servers and workstations featuring this interface and server/storage systems makers like Supermicro support U.2 with their latest SuperServer and SuperStorage solutions, including features such as the NVMe 1.2 protocol as well as hot-swapping. The main driving force for U.2, at least publicly, has so far been Intel and its DC P3xxx-series SSDs. For workstations, Intel also released its SSD 750-series drives with the SFF-8639 connector in 2015. As a result, Super Talent’s PCIe Nova SSDs will not have a lot of competitors. At this time, Super Talent has not disclosed prices for the PCIe Nova line, but enterprise customers can contact their local ST reps for more info. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11:10p | AMD Releases Q2 FY 2016 Financial Results
This afternoon, AMD announced their second quarter earnings for the 2016 fiscal year. It’s been a while, but AMD finds itself in the black for this quarter, with higher revenues, and thanks to $150 million from a joint venture with Nantong Fujitsu Microelectronics, AMD’s net income found its way into the positive column. AMD had revenues of $1.027 billion for the quarter, which is up 23% from last quarter, and more importantly up 9% from a year ago. Gross margin for the quarter was 31%, which is still not what AMD wants or needs to maintain profitability, but it is up 6% from their Q2 2015 results which is good news for the company. AMD did record an operating loss for the quarter of $8 million, but that’s a big improvement compared to the $68 million loss last quarter and $137 million loss in Q2 2015. Net income for this quarter was $68 million, or $0.08 per share, compared to a net loss of $109 million last quarter and a $181 million loss a year ago.
AMD also released Non-GAAP results which exclude restructuring charges and some other results. On a Non-GAAP basis, AMD had the same $1.027 billion in revenue, but showed a slight operating income of $3 million, compared to a $55 million operating loss last quarter and a $87 million loss last year. Looking at net results, AMD had a net loss of $40 million, or $0.05 per share, compared to a $96 million net loss last quarter and a $131 million net loss a year ago.
AMD attributes their revenue increase primarily to higher sales of its semi-custom SoCs, and with the announcement of the Xbox One Scorpio AMD has secured another design win there. Overall the Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom segment had revenues of $592 million for the quarter, which is up 5% from a year ago, once again attributed to the increased sales of semi-custom SoCs. The segment had an operating income of $84 million for the quarter, up from $27 million in Q2 2015.
AMD’s Computing and Graphics segment just had an important quarter with the launch of their first FinFet GPU design in the AMD Radeon RX 480. They’ve also been releasing several Carrizo based APUs and CPUs, as well as announcing Bristol Ridge, and all the while working on Zen. The Computing and Graphics segment had revenues of $435 million for the quarter, which is up 15% from Q2 2015. Notebook processor and GPU sales have been tagged as the reason for the revenue increase. The segment had an operating loss of $81 million, which is better than the $147 million operating loss a year ago, but still a bit way from profitability. Lowered expenses have helped them here quite a bit, but they still have some work to do. AMD’s average selling price of their notebook APUs decreased compared to Q2 2015, and GPU average selling price also declined.
Looking ahead to next quarter, AMD is expecting revenues to increase 18% from this quarter, plus or minus 3%. Source: AMD Investor Relations | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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