[Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View]
Thursday, October 8th, 2020
| Time | Event | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8:30a | Western Digital Launches New WD Black NVMe SSDs And Thunderbolt Dock
Today Western Digital is announcing a major expansion of their WD Black family of gaming-oriented storage products. In a digital event later today on Twitch, Western Digital will introduce their first PCIe Gen4 SSD, a new high-end PCIe Gen3 SSD, and their first Thunderbolt Dock. WD Black SN850 PCIe Gen4 SSD
The new WD Black SN850 is Western Digital's first PCIe 4 SSD and the successor to their WD Black SN750. The SN850 features Western Digital's second generation in-house NVMe SSD controller and can hit speeds of 7GB/s (sequential) and 1M IOPS (random). The SN850 will initially be available as a standard M.2 NVMe SSD, suitable for gaming PCs and expected to work in the upcoming Sony PS5. Western Digital is also working on a version of the WD Black SN850 that will add a heatsink and RGB lighting. The plain M.2 version will be hitting the market later this fall with capacities from 500GB to 2TB, while the RGB+heatsink version likely will not be ready until next year.
WD Black AN1500 SSD: PCIe Gen4 Speeds for Gen3 SystemsFor gamers on desktops that only support PCIe Gen3 speeds, Western Digital is introducing a new high-end SSD option. The WD Black AN1500 PCIe 3 x8 add-in card SSD puts two of their SN730 SSDs (OEM equivalents of the SN750) in a RAID-0 configuration for increased performance and capacity. The AN1500 uses the Marvell 88NR2241 NVMe RAID chip, which we reported on earlier this week as part of HPE's new RAID1 card for server boot drives. Thanks to that hardware RAID capability, the AN1500 operates as a single drive with a PCIe 3.0 x8 uplink allowing for read speeds of 6.5GB/s and write speeds of 4.1GB/s. Since the AN1500 internally uses a pair of SN730/SN750 M.2 SSDs, the AN1500's capacities are doubled: the smallest model is 1TB and the largest option is 4TB. The card is armored by a substantial aluminum heatsink and backplate that match the recent WD_BLACK design language, including customizable RGB lighting around the edge.
Single-chip NVMe SSD controllers supporting a PCIe 3 x8 interface do exist, but they're only used in high-end enterprise SSDs. That means the WD Black AN1500 is the first consumer NVMe SSD capable of using an 8-lane interface, without the hassle of software RAID as used by competing NVMe RAID solutions. The AN1500 does not require PCIe port bifurcation support from the host system, and is also usable (with reduced performance) in PCIe slots that only provide four lanes of PCIe.
WD Black D50 Thunderbolt 3 Game DockThe WD Black family of products for external storage is also getting a new member. The current lineup consists of the P10 portable hard drive, P50 portable SSD, and D10 desktop 3.5" external hard drive. The obvious gap is a desktop-oriented external SSD, but the new Western Digital WD Black D50 goes a bit beyond that: rather than merely provide Thunderbolt-attached NVMe storage, the D50 is a full Thunderbolt 3 dock providing a variety of port expansion. The D50 Game Dock will be available with either 1TB or 2TB of NVMe storage, and in a dock-only version without built-in storage. None of the three models are intended to allow the user to upgrade the storage. Customizable RGB lighting is of course present.
The WD Black D50's natural competition will be Seagate's similar FireCuda Gaming Dock. Seagate's dock comes with a 4TB hard drive and an empty M.2 PCIe slot for the user to install the SSD of their choice, and slightly more ports. The WD Black D50 Game Dock is smaller overall, provides power to a connected laptop, and is intended to be used in a vertical orientation—it has a weighted base to help keep it upright. The WD Black D50 with no built-in storage has a MSRP of $319.99, the 1TB model is $499.99, and the 2TB model is $679.99.
As Western Digital continues moving their WD Black brand toward a focus specifically on gaming, the products have inevitably been infected with RGB lighting. Western Digital's own WD_BLACK Dashboard software for Windows can control these lighting elements, but Western Digital is also working to integrate with other RGB control systems. They currently have support for Gigabyte RGB Fusion 2.0, MSI Mystic Light Sync and ASUS Aura, and support for Razer Chroma RGB will be ready soon. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9:15a | AMD Zen 3 Announcement by Lisa Su: A Live Blog at Noon ET (16:00 UTC) One of the most anticipated launches of 2020 is now here. AMD's CEO, Dr. Lisa Su, is set to announce and reveal the new Ryzen 5000 series processors using AMD's new Zen 3 microarchitecture. Aside from confirming the product is coming this year, there are very few concrete facts to go on: we are expecting more performance as well as a competitive product. The presentation is scheduled to last 30 minutes, so we hope there is some juicy information to go on. Come back at Noon ET for reporting and analysis at AnandTech. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12:26p | AMD Ryzen 5000 and Zen 3 on Nov 5th: +19% IPC, Claims Best Gaming CPU Dr. Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, has today announced the company’s next generation mainstream Ryzen processor. The new family, known as the Ryzen 5000 series, includes four parts and supports up to sixteen cores. The key element of the new product is the core design, with AMD’s latest Zen 3 microarchitecture, promising a 19% raw increase in performance-per-clock, well above recent generational improvements. The new processors are socket-compatible with existing 500-series motherboards, and will be available at retail from November 5th. AMD is putting a clear marker in the sand, calling one of its halo products as ‘The World’s Best Gaming CPU’. We have details. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 12:30p | AMD Teases Radeon RX 6000 Card Performance Numbers: Aiming For 3080?
As part of today’s Zen 3 desktop CPU announcement from AMD, the company also threw in a quick teaser from the GPU side of the company in order to show off the combined power of their CPUs and GPUs. The other half of AMD is preparing for their own announcement in a few weeks, where they’ll be holding a keynote for their forthcoming Radeon RX 6000 video cards. With the recent launch of NVIDIA’s Ampere-based GeForce RTX 30 series parts clearly on their minds, AMD briefly teased the performance of a forthcoming high-end RX 6000 video card. The company isn’t disclosing any specification details of the unnamed card – short of course that it’s an RDNA2-based RX 6000 part – but the company did disclose a few choice benchmark numbers from their labs.
Dialing things up to 4K at maximum quality, AMD benchmarked Borderlands 3, Gears of War 5, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019). And while these are unverified results being released for marketing purposes – meaning they should be taken with a grain or two of salt – the implied message from AMD is clear: they’re aiming for NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3080 with this part. Assuming these numbers are accurate, AMD’s Borderlands 3 performance are practically in lockstep with the 3080. However the Gears 5 results are a bit more modest, and 73fps would have AMD trailing by several percent. Finally, Call of Duty does not have a standardized benchmark, so although 88fps at 4K looks impressive, it’s impossible to say how it compares to other hardware. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that as with all vendor performance teases, we’re likely looking at AMD’s best numbers. And of course, expect to see a lot of ongoing fine tuning from both AMD and NVIDIA over the coming weeks and months as they jostle for position, especially if AMD’s card is consistently this close. Otherwise, the biggest question that remains for another day is which video card these performance numbers are for. It’s a very safe bet that this is AMD’s flagship GPU (expected to be "Big Navi", Navi 21), however AMD is purposely making it unclear if this is their lead configuration, or their second-tier configuration. Reaching parity with the 3080 would be a big deal on its own; however if it’s AMD’s second tier-card, then that would significantly alter the competitive landscape. Expect to find out the answers to this and more on October 28th, when AMD hosts their Radeon RX 6000 keynote. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| << Previous Day |
2020/10/08 [Calendar] |
Next Day >> |