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Monday, October 4th, 2021
| Time | Event | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8:00a | Western Digital Updates WD Blue Series with SN570 DRAM-less NVMe SSD
Western Digital is unveiling its latest addition to the WD Blue family today - the SN570 NVMe SSD. A DRAM-less PCIe 3.0 x4 drive, it brings in performance improvements over the current lead product in the line - the SN550. In order to better appeal to the content creators market, WD is also bundling a free month of membership to Adobe Creative Cloud. Similar to the SN550, the SN570 is also available in three capacities - 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. All drives are single-sided, come with a 5-year warranty, and carry a 0.3 DWPD rating. The key performance improvement over the SN550 is the increase in sequential read speeds from 2400 MBps to 3500 MBps. Though Western Digital wouldn't officially confirm, we believe this is likely due to the move from BiCS 4 96L 3D TLC to BiCS 5 112L 3D TLC. We did obtain confirmation that these drives are set to be equipped with 3D TLC over their complete lifetime, and will not move to QLC.
The WD Blue series started getting credible competition in the entry-level DRAM-less NVMe SSD space recently from Samsung's 980 series. Using 128L V-NAND technology with higher flash speeds, Samsung was able to advertise better sequential performance numbers that the WD Blue. Our review did find the original SN550 holding up better for heavier workloads, but the advertised numbers are hard to dismiss for the average consumer. The new SN570 should solve that problem for WD. On the other hand, Samsung enables TCG Opal support in the 980, while WD opts not to enable it for the Blue series. In terms of pricing, the SN570 matches the 980 (at least at the 250GB capacity point). Assuming that the SN570 can match the SN550's performance for real-world workloads, the Adobe Creative Cloud value-add might just tilt the choice in its favor - at least for the content creators market. We are yet to receive the final datasheet, and the table above will be updated once we have additional details. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9:30a | The Apple A15 SoC Performance Review: Faster & More Efficient In preparation for our full iPhone device review, we’re having a dedicated look at the new A15 SoC from Apple – following quite vague performance claims, how does the new chip stand up against its predecessor & competition? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11:00a | ASRock Rack Lists WRX80D8-2T Motherboard For Ryzen Threadripper Pro
ASRock Rack has listed a new motherboard on its website supporting AMD's latest Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3000WX series of processors. The ASRock Rack WRX80D8-2T is currently under 'preliminary' status and features eight memory slots, seven full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slots, as well as twelve SATA ports and support for two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives. It also includes dual 10 GbE and is supported by an ASPEED BMC controller with a dedicated management LAN port and D-sub video output. In terms of design, the ASRock Rack WRX80D8-2T follows a basic green design with blue memory slots and black PCIe slots, and power connectors. Surrounding a transposed sTRX4 (WRX80) socket is eight memory slots with support up to 2TB of capacity, with ECC and non-ECC UDIMM, RDIMM, LRDIMM, and RDIMM3DS memory types supported. Providing power to the motherboard is a 24-pin 12 V ATX power input, while CPU power comes from a pair of 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs, all of which are located in the top right-hand corner.
Dominating the lower half of the board are seven full-length PCIe 4.0 x16 slots, which are designed to maximize 112 of the supported 120 PCIe lanes from the Zen 2 based Ryzen Threadripper Pro 3000WX processors. Focusing on storage, the WRX80D8-2T has support for twelve SATA ports from the WRX80 chipset with two OCuLink ports, including four regular 7-pin SATA ports. Users can add U.2 storage with two OCuLink ports at PCIe 4.0 x4 or use these for an additional four SATA ports apiece. Other storage options include two PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots with support for form factors up to 22110 M.2. Cooling options consist of seven 6-pin fan headers.
On the rear panel are two USB 3.2 G1 Type-A ports, with a dedicated Realtek RTL8211E Gigabit management LAN port and D-Sub video output powered by an ASPEED AST2500 BMC controller, which adds IPMI support. Users looking to add more USB ports can do so via front panel headers, including one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C header and one USB 3.2 G1 Type-A header for an additional two ports. Networking includes two RJ45 ports, which an Intel X550-AT2 10 GbE controller powers. Finishing off the rear panel is a Serial port, and a small UID identification LED button. At the time of writing, we don't have any information on either the pricing or availability of the ASRock Rack WRX80D8-2T. Source: ASRock Rack Related Reading | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 4:00p | What to Expect with Windows 11: A Day One Hands-On Tomorrow, Microsoft is officially launching Windows 11, the next installment of their operating system which underpins the majority of PCs in use today. Windows 10 has an install base of over 1 billion devices, and Windows 11 comes into existence in a much different place than its predecessor. After the much-maligned Windows 8 there was a sense of urgency and necessity which ushered Windows 10 into the world. Windows 11, on the other hand, comes into a market where most people are happy with Windows 10. So it raises the question: Why now? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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