With Nvidia having showcased their latest and greatest Turing architecture GPUs in Cologne (Germany), OEMs are wasting no time incorporating the GPU in their custom Grapics Card design.

GIGABYTE has launched 5 graphics cards – Geforce RTX 2080 Ti GAMING OC 11G, Geforce RTX 2080 Ti WINDFORCE OC 11G, Geforce RTX2080 GAMING OC 8G, Geforce RTX 2080 WINDFORCE OC 8G, and Geforce RTX 2070 GAMING OC 8G on August 20th, 2018 in Taipei (Taiwan). All these cards feature GIGABYTE WINDFORCE 3X cooling system with alternate spinning fans, RGB fusion, protection metal back plate, GIGABYTE certified ultra-durable materials and one-click overclocking.

The “WINDFORCE 3x cooling system” is equipped with 3 unique blade fans, High-efficiency pure copper composite heat-pipes directly touching the GPU and a semi-passive fan function. The middle fan spins in reverse to optimize airflow for heat dissipation. These together ensure that the graphics card temps remain at an acceptable level, resulting in a more stable performance. The graphics cards use multi-phase power supply design with Ultra Durable certified chokes and capacitors to provide excellent performance and longer system life. The one-click overclocking function provides 3 preset modes, and the user can easily switch settings according to their requirement. The back of the graphics card has a metal back plate that not only strengthens the overall structure, but also prevents the PCB from bending or falling parts. In addition, the Graphics cards also possess RGB LEDs for aesthetic appeal. The users can adjust the color of the lights and various lighting effects through AORUS Engine.

GIGABYTE will also be launching more AORUS series graphics cards for enthusiasts in the near future, including air-cooled and water-cooled designs, allowing gamers to have more choice to build an ultimate gaming machine.

Source: GIGABYTE

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Broadcom, in what can only be perceived as a totally unexpected turn of events, has offered a bid of a whopping $130 bn to buy off Qualcomm. If this deal goes through, it would in-arguably be the biggest takeover in the Semiconductor industry(and believe me, the semiconductor industry has seen more than its fair share of high priced deals!), and would catapult Broadcom to the third position of the World’s largest chip makers (behind Intel and Samsung).

Broadcom’s offer of $70 per share to Qualcomm Stockholders would be broken down to $60 per share in cash and $10 per share of Broadcom. Broadcom says this is a 28% premium over the closing price of Qualcomm common stock on November 2.

In a press statement, Broadcom president and CEO Hock Tan presented the following views on the bid:

“This complementary transaction will position the combined company as a global communications leader with an impressive portfolio of technologies and products,”

“We would not make this offer if we were not confident that our common global customers would embrace the proposed combination,”

“With greater scale and broader product diversification, the combined company will be positioned to deliver more advanced semiconductor solutions for our global customers and drive enhanced stockholder value.”

While it seems natural to be skeptical of this deal going anywhere, the fact remains that Qualcomm is amidst an intense legal tiff with Apple, and has just been fined heavily by the Taiwanese FTC for unfairly licensing out it’s patents. So, the timing of this bid couldn’t be any better for both parties.

In a news release on Monday, Qualcomm said that their board of directors will assess the bid to pursue the course of action that would be in the best interests of Qualcomm shareholders.

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Western Digital, in it’s “Innovating to Fuel the Next Decade of Big Data” event held at the company headquarters in Silicon Valley, uncovered it’s new breakthrough in Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording (MAMR) Technology. The event involved a demonstration of the world’s first MAMR HDD and a few presentations detailing the technology.

According to the statements made by the WD, they will be focussing their efforts to using MAMR in their High Capacity Hard Disks in the near future and put HAMR (Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording), whose growth has been at a crawling pace, in the backburner. The reason provided by WD for this is that MAMR offers significant advantages to HAMR, at least for the time being. Below, you’ll find the numerous slides presented by WD explaining the same:

The main problem which contributed to MAMR remaining elusive till now was the implementation of the “Spin Torque Oscillator”(STO). The STO, simply put, is a microwave field generator operating at a frequency close to the Ferromagnetic Resonance of the platter. The microwave field generated by this is used to increase the ability to reliably record data at high densities. WD, it seems, has managed to find an innovative and efficient way to implement this.

Other developments made by WD that helped to pave the way to MAMR were their new improved Drive Heads and “Multi-Stage Micro Actuators”. WD has been using “Damascene” process to manufacture it’s Drive Heads with the precise tolerances and complex structures for reliable and cost-effective recording at ultra-high densities. The added advantage that this gives is that it enables the STO to be embedded in the Head Assembly without much further modification. The Micro Actuators were introduced to address the problem of accurate positioning of the Head assembly on High Data Density Disks. Increased track densities require finer control of the head that was unachievable using a single actuator, so a “micro actuator” was added to accurately position the head over the narrower tracks. This supports track densities of upto 400,000 TPI on a disk.

WD claims that using MAMR, they would be able to provide a data density of over 4 Terabits/sq.in(Platter Area). Also, using MAMR, they state that by 2025, they’d be able to provide hard drives with 40TB of capacity and beyond. These numbers are nothing short of astounding, and far surpass what the current expectations are using HAMR. So, it’s no surprise WD is betting all it’s money on this.

According to John Rydning(VP of research, IDC):

“Western Digital’s demonstration of MAMR technology is a significant breakthrough for the hard disk drive industry,”

“Commercialization of MAMR technology will pave the way to higher recording densities, and lower cost per terabyte hard disk drives for enterprise datacenters, video surveillance systems, and consumer NAS products.”

MAMR, as stated by WD, is another addition to it’s growing list of innovation in the HDD space, which includes Helium Filled HelioSeal HDDs.

Release Timeline:

Western Digital has also revealed a timeline of how MAMR based HDDs will be rolled out. The engineering samples will supposedly be distributed by mid 2018 to WD’s key datacenter customers. Production-level MAMR HDDs are expected to start shipping in 2019 for use in data centers that support Big Data applications across a full range of industries.

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The story of Microsoft’s Windows Phone Operating System has been bittersweet, to say the least. Despite not being half bad, the lack of App Developers willing to develop for this platform and the inability of Microsoft to lure new users have led to the Windows Phone platform to be in a somewhat stagnant state.

Now, as seen by these recent tweets by Joe Belfiore(Microsoft’s Corporate VP):

Of course we'll continue to support the platform.. bug fixes, security updates, etc. But building new features/hw aren't the focus. 😟 https://t.co/0CH9TZdIFu

— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 8, 2017

We have tried VERY HARD to incent app devs. Paid money.. wrote apps 4 them.. but volume of users is too low for most companies to invest. ☹️ https://t.co/ePsySxR3LB

— Joe Belfiore (@joebelfiore) October 8, 2017

It seems Microsoft too, has given up on their efforts to revive the windows phone platform. While this doesn’t come as a surprise, it still is disappointing to see a mobile OS with a lot of potential bite the dust. I’ve always found Windows Phone to have a much smoother UI than Android. Also, Microsoft’s Continuum demo did seem pretty nice. But the lack of users meant that app developers weren’t willing to invest the time and effort in developing for the Windows Phone OS. After all is said and done, Microsoft felt that it needed to shift it’s focus elsewhere, and it is certainly the right decision in my humble opinion.

Belfiore also reassured users of Windows Phone that support(ie, bug fixes, security updates, etc) for this platform wouldn’t be impacted by this. The only thing ending is further development of features for the platform.

One thing that I do have a gripe with however, is that Microsoft STILL hasn’t given an official announcement that it’s pulling the plug on it’s Windows Phone OS, leaving it’s (handful of) users still hopeful for a revival that wont be coming anytime soon. Guess these tweets from Belfiore are as official an announcement as we’ll get regarding this. Unfortunate that a company as big as Microsoft is deciding to “play safe” and not openly admit that they are giving up on their Mobile OS at least for the time being.

The post Microsoft (Un)offically brings down the curtain on Windows Phone appeared first on OCFreaks!.

G.Skill has been on a roll lately, releasing the fastest memory kits for all the recently released HEDT platforms(Intel-x299 and AMD-x399).

With the unveiling of Intel’s new 8th Gen Coffee lake CPUs and the Z370 platform, G.Skill is wasting no time in doing what they do best, ie, release the fastest DRAM for the platform. G.Skill just revealed their new “Extreme Trident Z” Memory Kits clocked upto a whopping 4600 MHz. These kits utilize Samsung’s B-die ICs, which are well known in the overclocking circles for their High performance and ability to handle extreme overclocking conditions. They come in two variants, with RGB LEDs(sigh!) and without.

While the Plain Trident Z (i.e., without RGB) consists of the lower capacity higher clocked higher latency kits, the Trident Z RGB lineup consists of the higher capacity lower clocked lower latency kits. You can get more details from this chart below:

As can be seen from the chart, the lineup is pretty diverse. The top of the line Trident Z kit(2×8 GB) is clocked at 4600 MHz(let that sink in!) and runs at 1.5 V. The RGB variants, while clocked much lower than their counterparts, do have tighter timings.

These memory kits will be available in November 2017. No word has been given on the pricing.

Source(s): G.Skill

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Service

There are endless possibilities for robots in the service industry. In Japan, the Henn-na Hotel near Tokyo is run almost entirely by robots with only a handful of human staff remaining. The robots are useful as they speak many languages such as English, Japanese, Korean and Chinese, and they assist with carrying luggage, housekeeping, and dealing with guest requests and emergencies. So far, this is the only hotel known to be using android robots, however, there are plans to add 1,000 similar hotels in the future also using majority robot staff.

Image credit: Pixabay

Casino

Robotic casino dealers are threatening to replace casino croupiers worldwide in the near future, as android dealers have been all the rage in Macau lately. It’s thought that similar robots will be rolling out in casinos worldwide, as they can offer more precise card shuffling and dealing. Robot dealers also help to get around gambling laws in places such as New York in order to bring casino gambling to new areas. This will undoubtedly cost thousands to implement, but one area of the casino industry that cannot be affected is for online casinos. Many of them are offering bonuses such as free bets without a deposit and technology such as live dealer tables to experience an authentic casino experience without leaving the house. So maybe the future truly is online?

Image credit: Bloomberg

Education

In the education industry, technology presents endless possibilities. From interactive whiteboards to tablets and online portals, there are so many ways to engage children in education. Lately, the use of robots is beginning to be incorporated in more classrooms worldwide. There are so many ways for robots to help in the classroom, from computer coding and 3D printing to foreign language training and mathematics. However, it may be some time until schools are completely replaced by robots considering that they are simply programmed to teach and not programmed to connect with student’s learning or help control a classroom, so teachers may not be out of a job yet!

The post Rise of the Robots: The Industries Where Android Robots are Taking Over appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Image Source: Pexels

Companies

Despite the multitude of gaming hardware companies, one of the most prominent rivalries is largely agreed to exist between Nvidia and AMD (Advanced Micro Devices Inc.). Nvidia was founded 34 years ago, in 1993, by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem. The company has partnered with numerous others over the years – such as SGS-Thompson in 1994 and TSMC in 1998 – as well as made many acquisitions (including Graphics Pioneer 3DFX and Media Q) – in order to deliver products at the cutting edge of the industry market. They were named America’s fastest growing company in 2002, while 2007 saw Nvidia being proclaimed by Forbes as company of the year. It was in 1999, however, that the company invented its first GPU, named the “GeForce 256”. In recent years, although Nvidia has begun to delve into the newest technological markets, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, the company still persist in making new models of graphics processing units.

Nvidia’s competitor AMD, on the other hand, was first established in 1969, with Jerry Sanders becoming the first president and CEO. The company started by making logic chips, then RAM chips in 1975, in 1985 was listed for the first time in the Fortune 500, then in 2006 merged with ATI Technologies. By 2016 we can see just how far the company has evolved, with their popular new CPU releases, acquisition of software company HiAlgo Inc. and development of a graphics card designed especially with VR users in mind.

Image Source: Pexels

Products

Each of these companies has, among their wide array of GPUs, some that are the most optimal for gaming computers.

The versions within the 10th GeForce series from Nvidia range massively in price, memory size, power, and just about every other key aspect that you can think of. While the GTX 1050 possesses CUDA cores at 640, memory size of 2GB, power of 75W and recommended PSU of 300W, the newest model, the GTX 1080 Ti has CUDA cores of 3584, memory size of 11GB, power of 250W and PSU of 600W. The newest model is based on the company’s Pascal architecture and is their flagship gaming GPU, with next-gen GDDR5X memory and 11 GB frame buffer. The price difference makes the earlier model, the GTX 1050, more affordable than the GTX 1080 Ti, the former coming in at upwards of $120.58, whereas the latter totals at $909.79.

Furthermore, professional eSports players have been known to use Nvidia’s graphics cards in their gaming PCs: an earlier model introduced by Nvidia in 2013, the GTX 780 Ti, was used by Team SoloMid’s sponsors, Origin PC. Additionally, teams competing in The International have, for the last four years, used Nvidia GPUs – this year, the GTX 1080 was the graphics processor of choice. It is no wonder, then, that there is speculation that one of Nvidia’s newest GPUs may be used by teams at the Epicenter tournament for video game CS:GO. With CS:GO betting sites predicting odds of 31/20 in the first half and 9/20 in the second between NRG vs Optic, Epicenter looks to be host to an interesting series of battles, concluding in October 2017, and the perfect opportunity for pro players who have not had the chance yet to test out a new GTX GPUs.

Meanwhile, AMD is pitching their Radeon RX 480 graphics card on the basis of its enhancement of VR graphics, and is their first model that is based on the company’s 14nm FinFET Polaris architecture. AMD pledges low-latency gaming and incorporates gating and clocking technologies. The graphics card boasts 150 board power, boost clock speeds of 1266 MHz and base clock speeds of 1120 MHz.

Nvidia’s GTX graphics card series may often be a little more expensive than AMD’s cards, yet many feel that the investment is worth it, in part for the fact that Nvidia’s cards naturally support their graphical technologies like Nvidia “HairWorks” (such as that used in The Witcher 3 on Geralt) and “Physx”.

Why Might You Need a New Graphics Card?

Graphics cards may age more rapidly than the other components within PCs, such as motherboards, cases, RAM and hard drive docks. Therefore, it may be the case that it is just the graphics card that requires replacement. Alternatively, graphics cards will also need to be purchased along with all the others if attempting to build an entire PC from scratch. In this scenario, there is far more freedom to almost build the PC around the graphics card if you so wish, instead of having to carefully ensure that the graphics card corresponds to specifications of the other components.

The post The Best Gaming Graphics Cards: Rivalries and Recommendations appeared first on OCFreaks!.

For many PC enthusiasts looking to upgrade their rigs lately, the wait for AMD’s new Ryzen processors has been a sweet agony. Adding salt to the wound, heartless AMD has been providing potential buyers with juicy tidbits at just the right intervals to keep them from moving on. How much pain can an enthusiast take?!?! Well folks, I’m pleased to tell you the wait is finally over.

AMD has formally announced the release of Ryzen CPUs on a tech event held in San Francisco today, and they would reach the market on March 2nd. Initially, only the three Ryzen 7 CPUs (1800X, Ryzen 7 1700X and Ryzen 7 1700) will be released. The release of the rest of the lineup would follow thereafter.

In this event, AMD has also disclosed some new information about these processors that we were not privy to.

52% Better IPC

After the bulldozer fiasco, AMD decided that it would be much better to start with a clean slate. If you go by their words, this approach has worked wonders for them. Their target of 40% improvement in IPC over their previous chips (Excavator) was not only met, but exceeded! The Ryzen CPUs have 52% more IPC than the Excavator chips. Looks like Jim Keller (and his team, of course) has done it again!

Source: AMD

Die Shot

AMD has revealed a die shot of Ryzen processors. Built on a 14nm process node, the 8 core Ryzen CPU consists of 4.8 billion transistors and 2000m of signal wiring. The AMD team responsible for Ryzen has reportedly spent two million engineering hours over the architecture. Looking at the benchmark results (that are revealed till now), it looks like all that hard work has finally paid off.

Source: AMD

Benchmark Demos

AMD CEO Lisa Su showed three demos pitting Ryzen 7 1700X against Intels Core i7-6800K. The demos run included Cinebench, HandBrake, and a 4K gaming session. See how Ryzen fared in these tests below:

Source: pcper

In the 4K Gaming Session, AMD showed a Ryzen (Ryzen 7 1800X) processor and an Intel Broadwell-E (Core i7-6900K) processor running a demo version of Sniper Elite 4 side by side. The average frame rate (70-80 FPS) was similar on both the systems and the differences, if any, were imperceptible.

From all this, it can be seen how Intel has a serious competitor on it’s hands in the form of Ryzen.

Retail Packing and Coolers

AMD also unveiled the retail packaging and their new Wraith Spire Heat Sink Fans for select Ryzen processors. Have a look below:

Source: AMD

Apart from all this, here is some more miscellaneous information about the Ryzen 7 processors and AM4 Mobo Chipsets that AMD was kind enough to share:

Source: legitreviews

Source: wccftech

Ryzen 7 CPUs and AM4 Mobos are now officially available for pre order at following prices:

Amazon:

Ryzen 7 1800X – $499 – Amazon.com
Ryzen 7 1700X – $399 – Amazon.com
Ryzen 7 1700 – $329 – Amazon.com

ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero – $255 – Amazon.com
ASUS Prime X370-Pro – $170 – Amazon.com
ASUS Prime B350-Plus – $99.99 – Amazon.com
ASUS Prime B350M-A/CSM – $89.99 – Amazon.com

MSI X370 XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM – $299.99

Gigabyte GA-AX370-Gaming 5 – 194.99$
Gigabyte GA-AB350-Gaming 3 – 109.99$

Newegg:

AMD RYZEN 7 1800X 3.6 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo)
AMD RYZEN 7 1700X 3.4 GHz (3.8 GHz Turbo)
AMD RYZEN 7 1700 3.0 GHz (3.7 GHz Turbo)

BIOSTAR X370GT7 – $209.99
BIOSTAR X370GT5 – $149.99
BIOSTAR B350GT5 – $129.99

Now, before anyone jumps the gun seeing all this and indulges in their fanboyish whims by pre-ordering, I urge you to remember that the only benchmark results available of Ryzen CPUs as of now are either from AMD themselves (which could be cherry picked) or from unofficial leaks (which could very well be fake). So, it would be better if you wait till some reviews of them show up. You did wait till now, what’s another 1.5-2 weeks.

You can have a look at the Ryzen Launch Event below:

Source(s): pcper, wccftech, legitreviews

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The Indian Space Research Organisation i.e. ISRO has created a history in space research by launching 104 satellites using its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV)-C37 (XL Variant). PSLV’s 39th flight successfully lifted off at 9.28am 15th Feb 2017 from Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota. The total weight of all the 104 satellites was 1378 kg.

Check out the official PSLV-C37 Lift off and On-board Camera Video below:

This record was previously held by Russian Space Agency which launched 37 satellites in June 2014. Earlier in the same year America’s Orbital Sciences Corporation had launched 34 satellites in a single mission. In June 2016 ISRO had lauched 20 satellites in a single flight with its PSLV-C34.

The launched satellites include 714kg Cartosat-2 Series Satellite (which will be used for remote sensing) along with 103 co-passenger satellites. The pool of 103 co-passenger Sats on the PSLV-C37 has:
1) ISRO Nano Satellite-1 (INS-1) & INS-2 are from India which are technology demonstration satellites.
2) 96 satellites from USA.
3) One satellites each from The Netherlands, Switzerland, Israel, Kazakhstan and UAE.

In 16 minutes 48 seconds the satellites achieved a polar Sun Synchronous Orbit of 506 km inclined at an angle of 97.46 degree to the equator and in the next 12 minutes, all the 104 satellites were successfully separated from the PSLV fourth stage in a predetermined sequence beginning with Cartosat-2 series satellite, followed by INS-1 and INS-2. In its offical post isro said:

After separation, the two solar arrays of Cartosat-2 series satellite were deployed automatically and ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) at Bangalore took over the control of the satellite. In the coming days, the satellite will be brought to its final operational configuration following which it will begin to provide remote sensing services using its panchromatic (black and white) and multispectral (colour) cameras.

Mayilsamy Annadurai (Director, Isro Satellite Centre) said:

We can also hit centuries like our cricketers. In another two months, the number of satellites built by Isro will reach 100. Besides GSLV missions, we have get Chandrayan – 2 ready for launch next year.

You can watch the complete lanuch video below:

Sources: ISRO , TOI Image Source: ISRO

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New Update on AMD Ryzen: Official release, Benchmarks and pre-order list

With the launch of AMD’s new Ryzen CPUs inching closer, more and more information is surfacing about them online. Not even two days past the leak about the the full lineup and pricing, Ryzen CPUs have been seen listed for pre-order on multiple online stores, with a Thai retailer revealing the legit box-art. Have a look.

Source: Wccftech

AMD has chosen to go with a “less is more” approach for their box art, consisting of a black background with the Ryzen logo in the middle. A small AMD logo can be seen right below the Ryzen logo, and on the top-right corner of the package. The left side of the box contains a short passage giving the features of the processor. Judging from the thickness of the package, it is fair to say that the CPU cooler will be bundled along with the processor. The coolers look amazing, complete with RGB lighting (apparently the biggest innovation of the year 2016 😀 ) From all the praise the new AMD stock coolers (Wraith) have been getting, this is a good move by AMD, as it could allow the XFR enabled processors to reach higher clock speeds.

The prices listed here are a bit on the higher side. The final pricing is expected to be lower than this(according to the leaks, anyway). A Belgian retailer (Centralpoint.be) also has listed Ryzen 7 CPUs as available for pre-order. Heres the list:

Source: Centralpoint.be via Wccftech

What intrigues me here is that they have two SKU listings for each part, with a €20 price difference between the two SKUs (for the same product), except for the R7 1700, whose two SKUs are priced the same too. Maybe they’ve messed up on the naming.The pricing given here is closer to what the leaked pricing suggests.

The Ryzen CPUs are expected to be released at Feb 28th 2017 – the same date AMD will host its ‘Capsaicin & Cream'(GDC) 2017 press event.

Source(s): Wccftech(1) Wccftech(2)

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