Is It Worth Upgrading An Expensive, Ancient CPU For A Modern, Low-End One?

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Seven years is an eternity in the CPU business, but you don't need to feel bad if you invested in a processor way back when. While it does get beat in ...

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ASRock Rack Launches Xeon D Motherboards

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Intel's Xeon D SiP (System-in-package) has turned out to be one of the exciting launches this year in the server CPU space. We have already analyzed Xeon D in detail in our review of the Supermicro SuperServer 5028D-TN4T. Almost all currently available Xeon D systems / motherboards are from Supermicro, but we now have another set of options from ASRock Rack.

The Xeon D family currently consists of two members:

• Xeon D-1520 : 4C/8T Broadwell-DE x86 cores @ 2.2 GHz, 6 MB of L2 cache, 45W TDP
• Xeon D-1540 : 8C/16T Broadwell-DE x86 cores @ 2.0 GHz, 12 MB of L2 cache, 45W TDP

ASRock Rack's Xeon D lineup consists of one board using the Xeon D-1520 and six boards using the Xeon D-1540. Customers have the option of going with either the mini-ITX (mITX) form factor or the micro-ATX (uATX) form factor. The mITX boards are all compatible with 1U rackmount chassis.

Gallery: ASRock Rack Xeon D Lineup

In addition to the motherboard size, the differentiation aspects come in the form of support for different varieties of LAN ports, PCIe slot configurations, additional storage ports using the LSI 3008 HBA and different USB 3.0 port configurations. Unlike the mITX boards, all the uATX boards come with a COM port in the rear I/O.The following tables summarize the features of the various products in the ASRock Rack Xeon D lineup.

mITX Boards

 

	D1520D4I	D1540D4I	D1540D4I-2L2T
SiP	Intel Xeon D-1520	Intel Xeon D-1540
RAM	4x DDR4 DIMM Slots 2133 / 1866 MHz RDIMMs (Up to 128 GB)
PCIe Expansion Slots	1x PCIe 3.0 x16
Storage Controllers	6x SATAIII 6 Gbps from integrated PCH in the Xeon D SiP (4x via mini-SAS connector) (1x with SATA DOM support)
	1x SATAIII 6 Gbps from Marvell 9172 (via M.2 2280 interface)
LAN Controllers	2x RJ45 1GbE (Intel i210)		2x RJ45 1GbE (Intel i210)
			2x RJ45 10GbE (Intel X557-AT2)
Board Management Controller	ASPEED AST2400
IPMI LAN Controller	1x Realtek RTL8211E
Display Output	1x D-Sub VGA
USB Ports	2x USB 3.0 Type-A (Rear I/O)

uATX Boards

 

	D1540D4U-2T8R	D1540D4U-2O8R	D1540D4U-2T2O8R	D1540D4U-2L+
SiP	Intel Xeon D-1540
RAM	4x DDR4 DIMM Slots 2133 / 1866 MHz RDIMMs (Up to 128 GB)
PCIe Expansion Slots	1x PCIe 3.0 x8 (x16 physical)			1x PCIe 3.0 x16
	1x PCIe 3.0 x8 (x8 physical)			1x PCIe 3.0 x8
Storage Controllers	6x SATAIII 6 Gbps from integrated PCH in the Xeon D SiP (4x via mini-SAS connector) (1x with SATA DOM support)
	8x SAS3 12Gbps from LSI 3008 HBA (via mini-SAS HD connector)
	1x SATAIII 6 Gbps from Marvell 9172 (via M.2 2280 interface)
LAN Controllers	2x RJ45 10GbE (Intel X550)	2x 10G SFP+ Fiber	2x 10G SFP+ Fiber	2x RJ45 1GbE (Intel i350)
			2x RJ45 10GbE (Intel X540)
Board Management Controller	ASPEED AST2400
IPMI LAN Controller	1x Realtek RTL8211E
Display Output	1x D-Sub VGA
USB Ports	2x USB 3.0 Type-A (Rear I/O)
	1x USB 3.0 Type-A (Internal Connector)
	1x USB 3.0 Header

These boards are ideal for network and warm storage devices as well as micro-servers. Given the low power nature of the Xeon D platform, some of them can also be useful in home lab settings for experimenting with virtualization or even act as boards for high-end development machines.

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1 Product I Would Love to See From Intel Corp.

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That said, although the company seems to be treating its Atom processor ... In light of this, I believe it's time for Intel to begin using its Core CPUs to ...

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Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 SLAWE 2.5GHz 6MB 1333MHz CPU Processor

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pull from working system,tested,quarrantied working Speed: 2.50 GHZ Socket Type: LGA775 CPU Number: q9300 Cores: 4 Generation: ...

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When Will We See Intel Corp. Integrate Altera FPGAs Into Its Xeon Processors?

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... be able to offer processors that integrate Intel's CPUs with Altera's FPGAs. ... Although Intel should see a benefit from selling Xeon processors with ...

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Hypervisor updates and containers give ARM processors a leg up

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It's still too early to tell if ARM processors are the way of the future, but ... aimed at the scale-out server market as a direct challenge to the Intel CPU.

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H.264 Image Processor delivers high-resolution 4K video.

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October 30, 2015 - Based on ARM Cortex A5 MP 400 MHz x 2 CPU, ... is the eighth-generation product from its Milbeaut Image Processor series.

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Phone launches with two versions and with Snapdragon 801 chipset

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Rounding out its specs are a Snapdragon 801 processor, the same 2014 chip found in the OnePlus One (though the X's CPU is clocked a bit lower, ...

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Chillblast Fusion Drone review

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The X4 860K was never going to match top-end processors for outright ... CPU-intensive tasks like multimedia encoding and 3D rendering won't be ...

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MSI GS60 6QE Ghost Pro (063UK) review

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The new processor is paired with more familiar graphics. ... and therefore have an impact on CPU usage, while offering minimal benefit for gamers.

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AMD's Keller rumored to be headed to Samsung

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Jim Keller, the well-regarded CPU architect who just departed AMD after ... and the first native x86 64-bit architecture for the Athlon 64 processor.

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Genomics Marks the Next Sequence for FPGAs

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While some FPGA approaches have used the host CPU as a secondary element, in this ... “FPGAs are a dedicated processor for the genomics tasks.

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Intel G3258 Processor / CPU

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I'm selling an Intel G3258 Processor. It is opened, but unused. I was planning to build a PC with it, but never got around to it. The processor is great ...

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Heterogeneous Processing, SoCs and FPGAs

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You can assemble components on a board – possibly a processor, a DSP, ... At power-up, the processor boots first and then configures functions in ... SoC FPGAs with hard-wired CPUs and programmable fabric are ideal for building ...

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Intel Corp.'s Atom is a Failure; Time to Transition to ARM Holdings plc Designs in Mobile

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Today's best Atom CPU, known as Airmont, offers roughly the same ... to no performance improvement over the prior generation Silvermont processor.

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Lenovo Announces YOGA 700 with 6th Intel CPU

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The 14" YOGA 700 made for fast productivity with up to latest Intel 6th Gen Core i7 processor and optional NVIDIA GeForce 940M graphics card ...

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BIOSTAR Gaming Z170X ATX Motherboard Review

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In addition to using Intel's latest Skylake processor, the BIOSTAR Gaming ... These buttons include Power, Reset, BLCK – / +, and CPU Ratio – / +.

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PGI Accelerator Compilers Add OpenACC Support for x86 Multicore CPUs

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This newest PGI feature compiles OpenACC compute regions for parallel execution across all of the cores in an x86 processor or multi-socket server.

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Rugged, Fanless, IP66 Touch Panel HMI PCs employ Core i7 CPU.

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The Premium family of Touch Panel PCs from AIS feature a powerful Intel® i7™ Core processor (4m Cache up to 3.30 GHz), RAID high availability ...

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Samsung Galaxy S7 And S7 Edge: Exynos 8890 Processor To Begin Mass-Production In ...

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... be the company's first processor to match the custom CPU cores found in Apple's and Qualcomm's high-end processors. The octa-core Exynos 8890 ...

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Biostar Hi-Fi H170-Z3 Motherboard Review – DDR3L & DDR4 on H170

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... still don't have a discrete processor) and surround configurations, alongside the ... Biostar's “O.N.E” menu allows CPU multiplier up-ticking to the Turbo clock so ... CPU fan speeds can be set to “Smart” (dependent upon load and ...

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MSI's tiny Windows 10 PC sips power courtesy of Intel Braswell CPU

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The MSI Cubi N measures 116mm x 112mm, it's 45mm thick, and is a fanless Windows 10 box that boasts the new Intel Braswell processor – a ...

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Superior silicon: How Apple is beating chipmakers at their own game

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Instead, Apple chose Intel, and P.A. Semi was forced to court manufacturers of high-end specialty hardware like Mercury Computer Systems.

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Sparc returns to Ellison's eyes

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After seeing its Sparc processor as its red-headed stepchild, Oracle has ... The M7 is a 4.13GHz 32-core, 256-hardware-thread CPU with 64MB of ...

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HTC One M9e Officially Launched with Octa-Core Helio X10 CPU, 2GB RAM

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HTC One M9s is powered by a 64-bit 2.2GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6795T Helio X10 processor, couple with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal ...

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Rumor – Samsung Galaxy S7 Specs Will Include Exynos 8890 Processor

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Business Korea, said in a report Wednesday that Samsung is planning to mass-produce its next-generation application processor, the Exynos 8890, ...

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Can I test-drive Windows 10 on my older PC for free?

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Q. I have a Vista-era PC with a 64-bit CPU. ... warns '64-bit computing on Intel architecture requires a computer system with a processor, chipset, BIOS, ...

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Lenovo Vibe X3 Lite specs, leaks and rumors: The rumored iteration has been spotted at TENAA

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Fans now believe that the next phone will sport in an octa-core processor based on the details listed on the certificate. ... The CPU, as reported on GSM Arena, is going to be backed up by a 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory ...

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How to build a totally open computer from the CPU to the desktop

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How does one build a completely open-source computer from scratch? ... but it relies on Intel's closed-source processor initialization firmware, which ...

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Vibox Spawn X review

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Processor temperatures are kept in check by a Cooler Master Seidon 120V – a sealed-unit liquid cooler with a 120mm fan and fitted with a blue LED ...

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Samsung is reportedly 'optimising' Snapdragon 820 in prep for Galaxy S7

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It could be that Samsung will offer these processor variations for the S7 ... work on the principle of heterogeneous computing, which allows the CPU, ...

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The Market for Two-Inch Windows

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The CPU heart of the chip is AMD's familiar Excavator core, the fourth (and probably last) ... The processor is a 486-class core (remember those?) ...

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Droid Turbo 2 Specs: 5.4-inch QHD Shatterproof Display, Snapdragon 810 CPU, and 21 MP Camera

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... System which is based on a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 810 SoC with Natural Language Processor and Contextual Computing Processor.

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DinoPC Primal GT2

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The CPU is a Core i5-6500 from Intel's current 'Skylake' stable, and though the multiplier-locked chip isn't geared ... Partnering the processor is a large 16GB (2x8GB) pool of latest-generation DDR4-2133 memory, and graphics are ...

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MSI launches Cubi N mini PC with Intel Braswell CPU

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MSI launches Cubi N mini PC with Intel Braswell CPU ... It's powered by an Intel Celeron N3150 quad-core processor and supports up go 8GB of RAM ...

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1 More Reason Intel Corp. Won't Be Building Apple Inc.'s A-Chip Anytime Soon

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That is, a chip that can be built in the CPU-only process flavor can be built in the ... process to build something like an Apple A-series processor.

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What Might the Jointly Developed Intel and LG Applications Processor Look Like?

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... then perhaps the choice of CPU intellectual property is the most interesting. ... Intel has been very slow to iterate to new Atom processor cores and I ...

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Report: Samsung Exynos 8890 with custom CPU for the Galaxy S7

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We don't have any specific details about the CPU, but it will surely be based on the ARMv8 architecture, just like custom processors designed by ...

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Micromax planning to launch new sub 13K 4G phone with octa-core CPU

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Sources have however confirmed to us that the phone will be powered by an octa-core processor coupled with more than 2GB RAM. It is said to sport ...

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XOLO Black X1 Officially Announced with Octa-Core CPU, 3GB RAM, Android 5.1 Lollipop

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Under the hood, the Black X1 packs a 64-bit 1.3GHz octa-core MediaTek MT 6753 processor, which is coupled with a Mali-T720 graphics processing ...

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Xolo Black 1X launched at Rs 9999 with octa core CPU, 3GB RAM

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The smartphone is armed with the 1.3GHz octa core 64-bit MediaTek MT6753 processor which is clubbed with Mali-T720 GPU. Xolo Black 1X has two ...

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Xolo Black 1X with octa-core CPU, 3GB RAM launched at Rs.9999

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It is powered by a 1.3GHz octa-core Mediatek MT6753 processor with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal memory. It is further expandable by up to 128GB ...

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Oracle announces first SPARC M7 systems

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In addition to performing SQL more efficiency, this approach releases CPU resources for other tasks. ... fully encrypted faster than the second best result from a pair of four-processor IBM Power8 systems without encryption.

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Samsung to Mass Produce Exynos 8890 for Galaxy S7

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Samsung Electronics plans to mass produce its own application processor (AP) using its first cores within the year. Among mobile AP producers, it is ...

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Oracle M7 Enhances CPU-level Security

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With M7, Oracle is adding security controls at the CPU level for real-time ... Oracle marries the M7 processors with new servers (T7 and M7) and the ...

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Biostar Z170Z5 Hi-Fi Supports DDR3 and DDR4 Memory - Modders-Inc

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The latest addition to Biostar’s Hi-Fi motherboard family is the Z170Z5, an ATX motherboard that curiously supports both DDR3L and DDR4 memory modules on its four DIMM slots. The black modules support DDR3 modules while the brown DIMM slot pair supports DDR4. The Z170Z5 has a 4+2 phase design for the CPU+GT. Since the Z170Z5 …

- Post Biostar Z170Z5 Hi-Fi Supports DDR3 and DDR4 Memory appeared first on Modders-Inc. #moddersinc

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MSI launches new mini PC- Cubi N

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Thanks to the implementation of a wide range of the Braswell Intel® processors, users can benefit from a palm-size PC that is now more powerful than ...

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Imagination's new Ci40 Creator IoT board will run Brillo from Google

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Last year Imagination released it Ci20 Creator single board computer and now ... announced that the Ci40, which will use a dual-core MIPS based processor, ... The new Ci40 board will use a dual-core MIPS interAptiv CPU, which is ...

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InFocus launched 5-MP camera phone 'M260' @ Rs 3999

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CPU & RAM : InFocus M260 is backed by a 1.3 GHz MediaTek MT6582 Quad-Core 32-bit processor with 1 GB of RAM. For graphics related tasks, the ...

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Oppo R7 Manages to Forge its Name with Serious Innovation

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The phone is powered by Qualcomm, octa-core processor and clocks at a speed of 1.5 GHz, with a quad-core CPU as well as a 1 GHz CPU. This is ...

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MSI Launches Cubi N Palm-Sized Desktop Mini-PC

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Thanks to the implementation of a wide range of the Braswell Intel processors, users can benefit from a palm-size PC that is now more powerful than ...

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Enermax Enermax ETS-T40Fit-RF Air Cooler Review

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Enermax is back again today with a new CPU air cooler that looks to ... Once again we have an integrated GPU in our processor which alleviates the ...

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Samsung Galaxy S7 processor progress

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... the Snapdragon 820 being the processor of choice for the Galaxy S7 is how it ... This is the next generation chip, which will sport 64-bit CPU cores.

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Infocus M260 with Quad-Core CPU, Android 5.0 Lollipop Listed on Snapdeal at Rs 3999

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It is powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core MediaTek processor besides 1GB RAM under the hood. SEE ALSO: Android 6.0 Marshmallow: 5 Best And 5 ...

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UMi iRon Pro Leaked To Feature Killer Hardware On Top Of Its Amazing Security

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From all the smartphones we have seen until now, all of them running a Helio X10 featured an octa-core Cortex-A53 processor running at different frequencies, so it is unclear which speeds the CPU will be running in UMi iRon Pro.

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LeTV Announced Mid-Range Le 1s Smartphone with Octa-Core CPU, Fingerprint Sensor

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Following the announcement of its entry-level Le 1 phone, the China-based LeTV has announced its successor, dubbed as Le 1s. Look wise, it is ...

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Which is the faster CPU: old but high-end or entry-level and new? – Part 2

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The Core 2 Quad Q8300 CPU was launched in 2008 and uses the LGA775 socket. It was one of the high-end processors available in the market at ...

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ARM Announces New CCI-550 and DMC-500 System IPs

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Today ARM announces two new additions to its CoreLink system IP design portfolio, the CCI-550 interconnect and DMC-500 memory controller. Starting off with the CCI announcement, we find the third iteration of the Cache Coherent Interconnect. The CCI is the cornerstone of ARM’s big.LITTLE strategy as it provides the required cache-coherent system interconnect between CPU clusters and other SoC blocks such as the main memory controllers and thus enabling heterogeneous multiprocessing between all the IP blocks.

The CCI-550 is an improvement to the CCI-500 which ARM announced back in February among other IPs such as the new Cortex A72 core design. Both the CCI-500 and the new CCI-550 are generational successors to the CCI-400 that is found in all currently released big.LITTLE SoCs such as Samsung’s Exynos, MediaTek’s Helio or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon designs. Back in February I was pretty excited to see ARM improve this part of their IP portfolio as it seemed that there was a lot of optimization that could be done in terms of performance and power. 

As a reminder, the primary characteristics of the new CCI-5X0 designs is the addition of a snoop filter within the interconnect that is able to maintain a directory of all cache contents among its coherent agents. On previous IP such as the CCI-400, all coherency messages needed to be broadcasted among all agents, causing them to have to wake up and respond. This not only impacted performance due to the increased latency but also had a power impact caused by the processing overhead. For the new CCI family, ARM explains that in heavy use-cases the new snoop filter can save up to “100’s” of milliwatts of power which is a quite significant figure.

Due the broadcast nature of how the CCI-400 was operated, it meant that adding another coherent agent would have incurred a quadratical increase in the amount of messages such as snoop lookups. The CCI-500 on the other hand is able to take advantage of the new filter to increase the number of ACE (AXI Coherency Extension) master ports from 2 to 4 without increased overhead. This for example enabled the implementation of up to 4 CPU clusters if a vendor wished to do so. The new CCI-550 again improves this configuration option by raising the maximum number of ACE master ports to up to 6. 

In the example SoC layout diagram that ARM provides, we see the CCI-550 configured with two CPU clusters such as the Cortex A53 and a Cortex A72. The remaining four ACE master ports could be then dedicated to a fully coherent GPU.

ARM explains that its still to-be-announced next-generation Mali IP codenamed "Mimir" will be fully cache-coherent and would be a perfect fit to take advantage of such a configuration (Current generation Midgard-based GPUs such as the T6-/7-/800 series are only I/O coherent). Fully coherent GPUs will be able to take advantage of shared virtual memory and new simplified programmers models provided by APIs such as OpenCL 2.0 and HSA.

While the amount of ACE master ports increases from 4 to 6, the amount of possible memory interfaces has also gone up from a maximum of 4 to up to 6. This allows an increase of up to 60% in the total peak interconnect bandwidth (total aggregate bandwidth). This improvement not only comes from the two additional memory interfaces, but also an additional increase which can be credited to micro-architectural improvements on the interconnect itself. For example, we're told the CCI-550 is able to reduce CPU-to-memory latency by 20% when compared to the CCI-500.

ARM explains that its CCI IP is highly customizable and thus each vendor can configure it to their needs. The IP will be able to scale in terms of physical implementation based on the number of desired interfaces and ports. 

As an IP vendor, ARM is aiming to provide highly optimized integrated solutions, and memory controllers are consequently part of such designs. ARM previously offered the DMC-520 with DDR4 support but this memory controller was aimed at more complex enterprise designs employing AMBA 5 system IP such as ARM’s CCN (Cache Coherent Network). The DMC-500 announced today on the other hand is ARM’s first mobile-targeted memory controller with support for the new LPDDR4 memory standard. Aimed for AMBA 4 system IPs such as the CCI family, this is the memory controller IP we’ll most likely see adopted by vendors in consumer devices such as smartphones.

The DMC-500 promises support for LPDDR4 up to 2133MHz while still maintaining LPDDR3 compatibility. This is an important differentiation factor as in doing so ARM is able to offer maximum flexibility in terms of choice of implementation for vendors. Performance wise, ARM promises up to 27% increase in memory bandwidth utilization in a low power design.

All in all today’s announcements provide some solid improvements in ARM’s IP portfolio. On the memory controller side I’m not certain what the rate of adoption ARM’s DMC’s is; as far as I know the main "heavyweight" SoC vendors currently chose to employ their own memory controller IP. Those who don’t have their own IP and instead use ARM's designs are often hard to single out as many times the choice of memory controller is completely invisible to the system.

On the interconnect side I predict that we’ll be seeing a lot more discussions and developments from third-party vendors. Even among today’s higher-profile big.LITTLE SoCs I’m only aware of LG’s Odin to use ARM’s CCI as a “center-piece” in their SoC fabric while other vendors chose to implement it alongside their own interconnect fabric. Vendors who have the resources and design talent may also chose to implement cache coherency into their own interconnect IP. They would thus be able deploy big.LITTLE systems or other similar fully coherent SoCs without ARM’s CCI IP. For example, MediaTek is among the first to do exactly this in the Helio X20 with help of the in-house designed MCSI. Next year we should be seeing new big.LITTLE SoCs equipped with both ARM’s IP such as the CCI-500 or 550 alongside third-party IP, creating a new differentiation point for SoC vendors that will undoubtedly make competitive landscape much more interesting.

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The Kangaroo Is A Computer That You Can Fit In Your Pocket

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In terms of specs, it is powered by an Intel Cherry Trail (Atom Z8500) processor clocked at 2.24GHz with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of eMMC storage.

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Oracle Announces Breakthrough Processor and Systems Design With SPARC M7

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Offloading these functions to co-processors greatly increases the efficiency of each CPU core, lowers memory utilization, and enables up to 10x better ...

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Gigabyte BRIX GBBXA8-5557 Review

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Intel's Core i5-5250U Broadwell CPU posted better numbers in Stitch. ... though we do have to note that the A8-5557M processor wasn't powerful ...

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Ashes Of The Singularity DirectX 12 System Requirements

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Coping with vast numbers of units and simultaneous events is a CPU's job essentially, but what we see here are comparatively low processor ...

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MagicStick pocket-sized Windows 10 PC offers the ultimate in portability

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Fancy a Windows 10 PC you can put in your pocket? Then you need to check out the MagicStick, another dongle-style computer that plugs into an ...

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Gigabyte B150N Phoenix ITX Motherboard

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Have a look at Gigabyte's B150N Phoenix ITX Motherboard with a rear mounted M.2 slot and support for Intel's Skylake CPUs.

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AMD's Zen man Keller defects to Samsung

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Jim Keller, who has been behind some of the biggest CPU core design ... In 1998 he moved to AMD, where he worked on the Athlon (K7) processor.

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Checklist to Build a Gaming PC

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The “2 CPUs” in this case means that this particular Amd CPU is a dual-core processor. Had it been a triple-core processor, DxDiag would have ...

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Oppo Neo 7 Announced with Micro-Arc Frame, Snapdragon 410 CPU

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It is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 (MSM8916) processor with Adreno 306 GPU besides 1GB RAM under the hood.

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Jim Keller has reportedly joined Samsung as Chief Architect

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Jim Keller has been instrumental in the birth of many an important computer processor. When AMD was at the height of its successes he was involved ...

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Gionee Elife S6 with Octa-Core CPU, 2GB RAM Confirmed to Arrive on November 16

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Hardware-wise, the smartphone will be equipped with a 1.3GHz octa-core MediaTek processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory, which can ...

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5 4G phones under £150

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Available online for around £100, this Android device (running Lollipop) is powered by a Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU, with 8 GB internal ...

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Will Zen save AMD, or might Apple?

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The Computing and Graphics division (desktop and notebook CPUs and ... The problem is that the first Zen processor, code-named Summit Ridge, ...

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HTC One A9 mid-end premium smartphone with Snapdragon 617 processor launched

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The smartphone has a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 chipset along with octa-core CPU, 2GB of RAM and 16GB internal storage. The 810 has ...

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Two new Oppo devices certified by TENAA: the R7s Plus, A33m

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It comes powered with an octa-core processor—which developer was not specified—with a CPU clocking in at 1.5GHz. It packs 3 GB worth of RAM ...

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AMD reportedly lost its CPU architect, Jim Keller, to Samsung

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It's now being rumored that Keller has joined Samsung, where he'll begin work in the mobile processor division. Keller has previously worked on ...

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Intel Skylake: Core i3 6100 review

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We've already reviewed the key Skylake processors aimed at the ... improvements over their predecessors in CPU-bound gaming scenarios.

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EKWB Releases their latest Z170 EK-FB ASUS M8G Monoblock

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Today, EKWB has announced their first LGA-1151 socket Skylake CPU ... the CPU, but also the motherboard's CPU power regulators or MOSFET modules. The end result is a cool processor and power regulators which in turn could ...

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Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Review: Definitely Raises The Bar

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Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Review: Definitely Raises The Bar - With the launch of new Surface tablet, Microsoft is all set to compete with its OEM ...

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Portable, pocket-friendly picks

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Despite a drop in the CPU performance, the iBallSplendo PC-On-Stick is a small improvement over Intel's Compute Stick template. ... combined by an Intel Atom quad core processor making for a very decent offering for its category.

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INTEL CORE i5 - 3470 3.20GHZ CPU / PROCESSOR

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INTEL CORE i5 - 3470 CPU / PROCESSOR SR0T8 3.20 GHZ IN PERFECT CONDITION TEXT/CALL.

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Dell Precision 670 Copper Processor CPU Heat Sink F3543

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Dell Precision 670 Copper Processor CPU Heat Sink F3543 in perfect condition. includes plastic clips to attach $5 cash.

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The original iPhone is much more powerful than the New Horizons probe that flew to Pluto

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According to the Imagination Technologies blog (the company that made the chips inside the New Horizons space probe), the processor (CPU) used ...

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HP Refreshes Chromebook 14 Models With Improved Displays, Performance

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The Chromebook 14 G4 can be configured with an Intel Celeron N2940 1.83GHz processor or an Intel Celeron N2840 2.16GHz CPU, up to 4GB of ...

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Samsung Galaxy S7 To Launch In January: 4K Display, Dual Camera, Exynos 8890 Processor ...

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This was unearthed by a prominent Weibo-based processor-focused ... own custom processor core, meaning no more stock ARM Cortex CPU cores.

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ARM pushes Mali towards the IoT, but high end designs star in Q3 results

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It has been hurling new designs at the IoT space all year, from processor IP to security platforms to its development ecosystem, and its latest launch ...

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Meet The EUROCOM Sky X9 – The Skylake Socketed Desktop Laptop

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Eurocom has been putting desktop processors into laptops for quite some time. ... As more laptops and mobile workstations move toward BGA processors ... Users can take desktop CPU overclocking adventures to unprecedented ...

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BIOSTAR's Gaming H170T Mainboard

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... design that supports Intel 6th generation socket 1151 Intel Core processors. ... solid state capacitors that provide a stable power supply to the CPU.

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Surface Pro 4 Review, A Tablet For Professionals

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Now, you are getting more powerful processors, more memory, more ... of the Pro 4, which is great for storing it while the computer is on your desk, but ...

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DOOM Alpha System Requirements

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The AMD FX-8350 CPU seems totally excessive in comparison to the ... you to be able to cope fine with a higher-end quad-core Phenom processor.

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MSI announces updated WS60 portable workstation with 6th Gen Intel Xeon processor

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The 15.6-inch workstation model can be configured with either an Intel Core i7 6700HQ processor or a Xeon E3-1505M CPU, NVIDIA Quadro ...

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MSI updates WS60 laptop with 6th Generation Core-i7 and Xeon processors

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For example CPU performance of i7 6700HQ is 20% faster than i7 4720HQ ... It features intelligent performance that delivers the scalable processor ...

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Lumia 650 Coming in February with 5-Inch AMOLED display, Snapdragon 410 CPU

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... to him, Lumia 650 will sport a 5-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display and it will pack a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor.

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Kogan's laptop gets Atlas Pro Core i7 flagship upgrade

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Intel skipped the 5th-generation processors for most mainstream laptops and ... The aforementioned Intel 3.5GHz i7 CPU, an NVidia GeForce 940M ...

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Heber unveils fastest controller

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The new Embedded R-Series SOC processor incorporates AMD's latest generation x86 64-bit CPU core Excavator, third-generation Graphics Core ...

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EUROCOM Sky X9 'desktop laptop' featuring Intel Core i7-6700K CPU & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 ...

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Eurocom has been putting desktop processors into laptops for quite some time. Most recently the EUROCOM Panther 5 supported 12 core Intel Xeon ...

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New Inforce 6401 Micro SOM Delivers High Performance in a Tiny Form Factor

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The Snapdragon 600 processor is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., ... Quad-core 1.7GHz Qualcomm® Krait(TM) 300 CPU, Qualcomm® ...

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Embedded Box PC operates from -20 to 60°C.

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October 22, 2015 - Housed in 166 x 106.6 x 30 mm aluminum enclosure, BOXER-6404 is equipped with quad-core Intel® Celeron® J1900 processor. ... Within its humbly-designed enclosure packs a quad core CPU, the Intel® ...

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Apple iPad mini 4 Review: Finally, A Decent mini

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This is a substantial improvement over the A7 processor that came stock on the mini 2 and 3. According to Apple, this translates to a CPU that's 1.3 ...

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MSI GS40 Phantom gaming laptop less than an inch thick, packs top of the line specs

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The GS40 comes with an Intel i7 6700 HQ Skylake CPU with a clock speed of 2.6 GHz. The Intel processor is a quad core chip, as listed in the Intel ...

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Suitable for medicine and industry applications

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According to the company, it is the smallest, most secure, and most energy-efficient ARM-based applications processor. The CPU has an ARM ...

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Chillblast Fusion Krypton review

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... Fusion Krypton is powered by an Intel Core i5-6600K “Skylake” processor. ... The CPU is cooled by an Akasa Nero 3 CPU Cooler which runs quietly, ...

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AMD processor brings 4K graphics into industrial designs

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AMD's latest embedded processor combines a 64-bit x86 CPU core with a high-end Radeon graphics core. This allows it to carry out ...

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Pipo X7-Pro TV Box With Windows 10, Intel Z8300 CPU And 2 GB RAM Costs $115 With Coupon ...

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The Pipo X7-Pro is powered by Intel Cherry Trail Z3800 processor that clocks at 1.84 GHz. It comes with 2 GB of RAM and the native storage provided ...

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Pipo X7-Pro TV Box With Windows 10, Intel Z8300 CPU And 2 GB RAM Costs $115 With Coupon ...

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The Pipo X7-Pro is powered by Intel Cherry Trail Z3800 processor that clocks at 1.84 GHz. It comes with 2 GB of RAM and the native storage provided ...

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Intel Korea chief to be tested on new processor business

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Intel, the world's largest maker of central processing unit (CPU) chips, launched its sixth-generation Core processors based on the Skylake ...

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The IP companies creep toward an SoC

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Synopsys has the ARC CPU, a RISC design not too dissimilar from ARM ... while Synopsys has an embedded vision processor as well as integrated ...

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Meizu Blue Charm Metal Goes Official with Helio X10 CPU, Flyme 5.0 UI, Low Price

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The strong point of the phone is the fact that it comes equipped with MediaTek's Helio X10 chipset that packs an octa-core processor clocked at 2GHz ...

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New AMD Embedded Processors Aimed at 4K Video Uses

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Designed for high-end embedded requirements, the new processors incorporate AMD's newest 64-bit x86 CPU core -- called "Excavator" -- plus ...

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Hardware instancing speed check

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... NVidia GT750M, 16Gb RAM and an Intel i7 2.8GHz quad core processor. ... I think this is because the CPU is practically idle during this test so doing ...

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Kogan's Atlas Pro is a 'gaming' notebook with a sub-$1000 pricetag

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Inside is an fourth generation processor hailing from Intel's year-old Haswell family. The 2.5GHz quad-core CPU can be boosted in spurts to run at ...

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COM Express Type 6 module revs up with new R-Series SoC

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When Intel announced its 6th Gen Skylake Core processors, Congatec ... CPU and GPU cores, and it's the first R-Series processor to support DDR4.

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MSI Announces the Gaming 27 AIO Desktop

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Meet the MSI Gaming 27, a All in one desktop PC with a Intel Skylake i7 6700 CPU and a GTX 980m. Plenty of gaming power for 1080p.

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Computer Processors CPU Memory DDR

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I have several types of computer processors and memory for sale (all tested and in good working order). All parts are in good condition and excellent ...

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AMD R-Series system-on-chips dip to 12 Watts, support DDR4

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AMD's first SoC version of its R-Series family offers a 25 percent faster CPU, ... More specifically, it's claimed to be the first embedded processor with ...

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Microsoft Surface Book is a computer to lust after

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But for anyone who wants a full mobile computer with a superb balance of ... This year Microsoft improved the design, display, processor, and many ...

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Dell Drives All-Flash Array Costs Into The Ground

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Generally speaking, hyperconverged storage scales with CPU and storage in lockstep, adding nodes, but there is ... year and will eventually be part of the “Purley” server platform that sports Intel's “Skylake” Xeon E5 v5 processors.

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AMD Launches New R-Series Embedded Processors

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As an embedded variant of 'Carrizo', AMD's 'Merlin Falcon' offers up to four x86 Excavator CPU cores which are the most recent iteration of AMD's ...

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AMD Achieves High-End Embedded Performance Leadership With New R-Series Processors

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Designed for demanding embedded needs, the processors incorporate the newest AMD 64-bit x86 CPU core ("Excavator"), plus third-generation ...

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The Microsoft Surface Book First Look

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Today is the official launch day for not only Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4, but also the Surface Book which was announced back at the Microsoft Windows 10 Devices event. There had been rumors of a larger form factor Surface Device, but launching it as a “The Ultimate Laptop” was certainly unexpected. Microsoft has tried to break the mold compared to the standard Windows Ultrabook, with a detachable display, which they call a Clipboard, and an optional GPU in the base. By moving the CPU and other components into the display, it has certainly freed up the base for extra battery capacity as well as the GPU, something that would not be thermally possible in a normal Ultrabook.

I was lucky enough to receive a Surface Book at the event, but the pre-production unit that I received had a defective keyboard. Due to very limited supply initially obtaining a replacement unit was difficult, but Microsoft came through with another sample. Due to the time needed to swap I haven’t had time to do a full review yet, but being that this is the launch day it’s important to offer a preliminary showing on the Surface Book. We have some results for both the base Core i5 model as well as the Core i7 version which comes with the NVIDIA GPU in the base.

Surface Book
	Core i5	Core i5 w/GPU	Core i7 w/GPU
GPU	Intel HD 520	Intel + "NVIDIA GeForce" (Approx. GT 940M) w/1GB GDDR5
CPU	6th Generation Intel Core i5-6300U (15w)		6th Generation Intel Core i7-6600U (15w)
Memory	8-16GB RAM
Display	13.5" IPS 3000x2000 resolution 1800:1 Contrast Ratio 100% sRGB, individually calibrated 10 point touch and Pen support
Storage	PCIe 3.0 SSD 128 GB to 1 TB
I/O	USB 3.0 x 2 (In Base) SD Card reader (In Base) Surface Connector (In Tablet and Base) Headset Jack Mini DisplayPort
Dimensions	Laptop (mm) : 232 x 312 x 13.0-22.8 (inches) : 9.14 x 12.3 x 0.51-0.90 Tablet Only (mm) : 220.2 x 312.3 x 7.7 (inches) : 8.67 x 12.3 x 0.30
Weight	Laptop 1.515 kg / 3.34 lbs Tablet Only 726 g / 1.6 lbs	Laptop 1.579 kg / 3.48 lbs Tablet Only 726 g / 1.6 lbs
Camera	Windows Hello (Front) 8 MP Rear Facing 5 MP Front Facing
Price	$1499+	$1899+	$2099+

First, I think the one piece of information that most of our regular readers are curious about is the GPU. At the launch event, Microsoft was pretty guarded about what GPU model was in the Surface Book. Their specifications just listed it as an "NVIDIA 8G" part, which was a custom Maxwell based GPU.

Taking a look at the GPU in our samples leads us to the conclusion that it is most certainly a GM108 based GPU, with specifications fairly close to the GeForce GT 940M. There are 384 CUDA Cores available, but the custom part is the memory. Normally GT 940M would come with 2 GB of DDR3 memory, and Microsoft has instead gone with 1 GB of GDDR5, trading memory capacity for improved GPU performance through additional memory bandwidth. This is a pretty typical tradeoff in lower-end GPUs, however to ship 1GB of GDDR5 in a mobile part in 2015 is quite unusual to say the least. Even GM108 should benefit from GDDR5 (thanks to its narrow 64-bit memory bus), but with only 1GB of memory it's going to be cramped.

Moving on, the GPU connects over PCIe lanes provided by the Surface Connect port between the Clipboard and base.

Surface Book GPU

Microsoft does have Optimus enabled, with the default setting in the custom control panel for Auto-Select on the GPU, but you can also change to integrated or the NVIDIA graphics. There is no GeForce Experience installed, so in order to make the change you have to dive into the Control Panel. It’s not very elegant but I think the idea is that you just leave it in auto and let the whitelist handle when the dGPU is enabled. My experience so far is that the whitelist seems a bit bugged right now, and the dGPU runs all the time when the Clipboard is docked, which is clearly not the way it is intended to be.

With the GPU information out of the way, let’s dig into what makes the Surface Book so unique. The basis of the Surface Book is that it is designed to be used as a laptop most of the time, but the display can be removed as a Clipboard for use with the pen. The Surface Book is certainly not the first device to do this, but it does some things in new ways that are pretty interesting.

The display sticks with a 3:2 aspect ratio, the same aspect ratio as the Surface Pro lineup. This makes the Surface Book considerably taller than pretty much every laptop out there, with maybe the exception of the Chromebook Pixel if you want to count that. For what feels like too long, the standard Windows laptop comes with a 16:9 display, and even prior to that the standard was 16:10 which is slightly taller than 16:9. Moving to 3:2 on a notebook brings a lot of vertical space and makes it a lot easier to be productive on, at least in my experience in my short time with a review unit.

The Clipboard itself is pretty nice too, and with the decision to not include any USB ports on the display section, it gave Microsoft the ability to make the tablet portion even thinner than the Surface Pro 4. At just 7.7 mm thick, it is noticeably thinner than the 8.4 mm Surface Pro 4 even though it doesn’t sound like a big difference. At just 726 grams, the Surface Book display is even lighter than the Surface Pro 4, despite the larger 13.5-inch display compared to just a 12-inch display on the Surface Pro 4. The way they got it so light was to not include much battery cacity, with the display only packing 18 Watt-hours. The idea is that the Surface Book is used as a notebook most of the time, but if you find occasions where the tablet would be handy, you detach, so really long battery life is not the priority.

The base though is almost a blank canvas. By putting all of the major components in the display, not only have they made room for a GPU in an Ultrabook form factor, but they also have room for a lot more battery than most notebooks of this size. The additional 52 Wh of capacity in the base is as much battery as most Ultrabooks have. Combined with the 18 Wh in the Clipboard, the Surface Book packs in an impressive 70 Wh of capacity. I’ve run some battery tests already but I need to run a few more before I’ll have a good set of results so this will come with the review.

One thing the Surface Book does pack in is good performance. The Skylake 15 Watt processors are great for day to day tasks, and the GPU only puts it further ahead of most Ultrabooks. I’ll save the full performance figures for the review, but here’s a taste of what the GPU can bring to the table. Valve has recently revamped the Dota 2 game with a new Source 2 engine, and we’ve run a new version on a couple of devices to see how it fares.

The performance increase of the discrete GPU is a sizable jump over the integrated graphics of Skylake, and by moving the GPU into the base away from the processor, Microsoft is able to put the GPU in its own thermal zone. We don’t have exact TDP numbers from NVIDIA, but the GPU should be somewhere under 30 Watts. There is no way to fit that kind of TDP into a normal Ultrabook.

The Core i5 and i7 options offer performance right on par with other Ultrabooks too. Having a full 15 Watt Core processor in a 7.7 mm chassis is fairly impressive, especially since you almost never hear the fans kick in. Here is a taste of the CPU performance.

Obviously one of the signature design elements of the Surface Book is the hinge. I think this might be somewhat a love it or hate it idea. The hinge unrolls and actually lengthens the base of the notebook. Balance is the key here. With the majority of the notebook parts in the display, Microsoft is trying to avoid the one pitfall that most detachable 2-in-1s have, which is their tendency to tip backwards. By extending the base, Microsoft needs less weight in the base to overcome that balance issue. I’ve been told that the design means that they can get by with a 0.8:1 ratio of base mass to display mass. The other benefit of having the strange hinge which does not close completely is that the keys never touch the display. Most notebooks have the keyboard sunken in the deck, which reduces the maximum key travel. The extra room provided by the hinge lets Microsoft offer a 1.6 mm key travel on a very thin base. It also lets the Surface Book actually look like a book when it’s closed, which is a nice take on the design.

The Surface Book is a very interesting take on the Ultrabook by Microsoft. I’ll need some more time with it to get a full review completed, but initial impressions are that it’s a solid device with a great display, a good keyboard, and a generous trackpad. The overall device is not as thin or light as some other Ultrabooks, but generally those don’t pack in 70 Wh of battery and a real GPU. Stay tuned for a full review soon.

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AMD Launches Excavator Based R-Series APUs for Embedded with DDR4 Support

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Despite the recent news surrounding AMDs reorganization and financials, today AMD is announcing the launch of its first DDR4 processors. But rather than aiming at the high end or the consumer platforms like their blue competitors, AMDs focus for DDR4 starts in the embedded sector which comprises of digital signage, vertical markets (medical), networking, point-of-sale, commercial and industrial applications.

The new R-series line uses the same Excavator cores we have seen in AMDs Carrizo platform but with an extra level of validation and support.  An embedded platform regularly requires security, and thus features such as AMDs use of ARM TrustZone along with high performance graphics and HSA 1.0 features are all aimed at these markets. Currently at launch, AMD is submitting the processors for 'HSA 1.0 Full' validation to the HSA Foundation, and expect to be approved within a week or two.

The initial launch will be of five ‘Merlin Falcon’ processors, supporting DDR3 and DDR4 through a dual controller design, with the single module cheaper silicon being limited on memory speeds. Three of these will be APUs with 3rd generation GCN graphics while two are pure CPU silicon. There will be another set of processors coming in Q1 in the R-series as part of the iTemp line, featuring a wider validated temperature operating window from -40ºC to 105ºC. This will essentially the same silicon as the others, but requires additional validation on AMDs side. Customers requiring ISO or MIL validation will have to enquire with AMD direct.

Obviously an interesting element is the DDR4 support. These are the same silicon as the laptop versions of Carrizo, which doesn't have DDR4 support and begs the question of where it went for consumers. We were told by AMD that for this platform, which is expected to have a 7-10+ year life cycle, the requirements for DDR4 were to allow their customers through the memory transition as the market shifts. Reasons as to why the Carrizo silicon in laptops are not DDR4 enabled revolve around the mix of DDR3-only Carrizo-L and Carrizo designs, as well as marketing of those parts.

Aside from this, the new R-series brings the chipset/south bridge normally connected to provide the storage and PCIe supported onto the same silicon die as the APU. This means that the chipset is now made at the same processing node as the APU, reducing power, but it also makes power management easier as well as reducing the size of the motherboard needed for the system. AMD told us in a briefing that a number of customers have requested an overall smaller form factor for their designs, and this is here for that.

At the time of writing, the new R-series will support three displays, using a variety of connectivity. We have been told that this is the currently validated list, and other display configurations are still being tested. On the left is AMD’s ‘Bald Eagle’ platform, with R-series processors derived from Kaveri cores.

Part of today's announcement also lot to do with the Linux ecosystem surrounding the embedded market. AMD is moving its entire graphics driver stack to open source, removing the disconnect with some closed source drivers. Elements of the stack are under different open source licenses, but it allows customers to develop and distribute a custom driver kernel specific to their needs. Customers can also select part of AMDs Linux distribution platform.

Performance for the new Merlin Falcon parts, according to AMD and running benchmarks such as 3D Mark, puts the high frequency RX-421BD APU at 15W on par with the previous generations RX-427BB (Bald Eagle, Kaveri-based) when at 35W. Customers for these parts can work with AMD and Sapphire (AMD’s long term AMD Pro partner) to obtain evaluation ‘AMD Gardenia’ motherboards.

Just to be clear with these embedded parts, in AMD’s briefing to us they identified the markets they are targeting – gaming machines (poker, pachinko, etc), communication infrastructure, industrial control/automation, storage, medical, security/surveillance and retail signage. Any hopes of being able to play with DDR4 on an Excavator based platform, for the end user at least, is still an unknown. That being said, we are working with AMD to perhaps get a couple of evaluation boards to test, at least to see how DDR3 vs. DDR4 performance comes into the equation.

Source: AMD

Gallery: AMD Launches Excavator Based R-Series APUs for Embedded with DDR4 Support

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Black Friday 2015 Ads, Deals, Sales & Discount: Dell's Promos Leaked! $150 Windows 10 Laptop ...

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It has modest specs: a 14-inch screen, Intel Celeron processor, 2GB RAM, and 32GB internal Solid State Storage, and $80 less than the normal price. ... Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1 with Pentium CPU, 4GB RAM, and 500GB storage.

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Alcatel eyes to manufacture handsets in India, launches Flash 2 smartphone at Rs 9299

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Powered by a 64-bit 8 Core 1.3GHz Cortex-A53 MediaTek MT6753 processor paired with 2GB LPDDR3 RAM and a Mali-T720 MP4 GPU, the handset ...

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Imagination reveals its Creator Ci40 IoT development board

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Google Nexus 5X vs. Sony Xperia Z5: Nexus 5X Cheaper, But Xperia Z5 Features Better Processor ...

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It is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 chipset for the Nexus 5X with a hexa-core CPU. Four of its cores is clocked at 1.44 GHz and two is pegged at 1.82 ...

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Intel Greenlow platform and Xeon E3-1200 v5 series launched

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New Xeon E3 v5 CPUs are powered by Skylake microarchitecture, and ... A slightly more expensive E3-1225 v5 processor has higher 3.3 GHz base ...

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Yoga 900 – a Hybrid Gadget with an Affordable Price

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Chinese computer producer Lenovo declared that it will launch the Yoga 900, ... This model of processor first started to be delivered with gadgets by ...

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The ASUS Z170-A Motherboard Review: The $165 Focal Point

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We worked with the Z170-A for part of our Skylake CPU coverage, as added information and BIOSes from ASUS on elements such as the FCLK issue ...

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HP Spectre x360 vs Microsoft Surface Book

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Surface Book's i5 processor delivers near-equal clock speeds, but Intel's i7 processors outperform the i5 when it comes to multitasking, multimedia ...

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Andes Technology and INVECAS Enter Into a High Value Collaboration to Win Designs for ...

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With Andes CPU IP we can provide customers with complete solutions ... Andes CPU cores were architected to serve these new requirements and have ... a leader in developing high-performance/low-power 32-bit processors and its ...

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AMD's Classic Death Spiral

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AMD's plans for new products such as the Zen CPU appear to be too little, too late. AMD is in the grips of a classic ... That means it's two full process generations behind Intel's latest Skylake processor family. I can only find a single ...

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MSI's GS40 Phantom Gaming Notebook Sports Modest Frame, Not So Modest Internals

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On the CPU side of things, the Intel Core i7-6700HQ quad-core processor that graces this notebook is clocked at 2.6GHz, bursts to 3.5GHz, and offers ...

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More Greenlow Motherboards Announced: ASRock Rack’s C230 Series

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On the back of Intel’s muted launch for the Xeon E3-1200 v5 platform, the server based business units from normal motherboards consumer facing companies are announcing their C230 series. We covered GIGABYTE Server’s offering in a previous pipeline post, and next up comes ASRock Rack with ATX, microATX and mini-ITX offerings for workstations set up for server-based airflow.

C236 WS

First up is the full ATX model, giving support for dual PCIe co-processors at PCIe 3.0 x8/x8, dual Intel networking (I210 and I219), another PCIe 3.0 x4 slot from the chipset, a total of eight SATA ports with SATA Express in there as well, an onboard USB 3.0 Type-A port and eight other USB 3.0 ports through two headers and a four ports on the rear panel.

Compared to the consumer ASRock motherboards, this is eminently more clinical and aimed at its specific market – there is low end onboard audio (ALC662 or lower), COM and TPM support, display outputs and PCIe to PCI bridges for legacy connections.

C236M WS (link)

The micro-ATX member of this family carries over a number of features, such as the dual networking (this time I219-LM and I210) and eight SATA ports, but also implements an M.2 connector and a SATA DOM. Audio is boosted up to at least the ALC892 with 5.1 support, and the power delivery on the processor gets a heatsink for good measure. Perhaps surprisingly we see a total of six fan headers as well.

Despite the layout of the PCIe slots, the bottom open-ended x8 is part of the CPU lanes, offering x8/x8 configuration with a PCIe 3.0 x4 at the top from the chipset. Unfortunately, despite the free PCIe lanes in the system, that M.2 slot is only geared for PCIe 3.0 x1 bandwidth.

C236 WSI (link)

Similar to the boards from GIGABYTE Server, the smaller mini-ITX one is the more interesting out of the set. Here’s a small board with support for up to 32GB of ECC DDR4 memory, a total of eight SATA ports, dual network controllers (again I219 and I210), a full PCIe 3.0 x16 and a rear-IO COM header.

There’s an interesting large gap in the bottom left however, showing solder pads but no integrated chip. The size of the pad suggests that there is room here for an Alpine Ridge controller, suggesting that in the future there might be a version with either USB 3.1 or Thunderbolt 3.

Availability of these motherboards will be dependent on B2B distribution channels, although we might see one or two filter into commercial channels as well.

Source: ASRock Rack

Gallery: More Greenlow Motherboards Announced: ASRock Rack’s C230 Series

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