With most of the details of the Evo 850 series already leaked, it was only a matter of time before Samsung (KRX:005930)  officially unveiled the new SSDs. The South Korean vendor has done as much today, with the Evo 850 offering a significant increase in performance thanks to Samsung’s 3-bit 3D Vertical NAND (V-NAND) technology.

The Evo 850 series will be available in four storage variations: 120 GB, 250 GB, 500 GB and 1 TB. While pricing wasn’t revealed, a series of retailer leaks revealed that the 120 GB would retail for $100, 250 GB for $146, 500 GB for $258 and 1 TB for $499. 

The new SSDs boast sequential read speeds of up to 540 megabytes per second (MB/s) and write speeds of up to 520 MB/s. The 1 TB variant also features Samsung’s TurboWrite technology, through which it delivers random write speeds of up to 90K IOPS. Data reliability is also enhanced, as users can undertake 80GB data writes per day for five years without running into any issues on the 500 GB and 1 TB versions. Other highlights include AES 256 encryption and ability to withstand changes in temperature. 

With the Evo 850 series, Samsung is looking to diversify, and has mentioned that it will roll out drives that offer mSATA and M.2 connectivity in 2015. These drives will also feature the 3-bit V-NAND technology. The South Korean vendor is heavily touting the benefits of its V-NAND technology, which offers a high density and performance in a smaller footprint.

The new series of drivers will be available in over 53 countries around the globe later this month. Now that the new series is available, it is likely that the Evo 840 will see a price discount. 

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With the holidays approaching fast and the sales that come with it many people will be getting new notebooks this holiday season.  Researching what the best notebooks out there are takes time and we though we could help out by giving you our choices in five different categories of notebooks.  They are gaming, ultraportable, Chromebook, business, and Apple MacBook.  With the latest computer parts in these notebooks it will be certain that they will be able to earn there keep for quite some time.  There are many things to consider when looking for a notebook and budget is a big one.  Most of these choices are going to be in the higher end range since they perform better.

Gaming Notebook: MSI Computer GT72  Dominator Pro with GTX 980M – $2,299

This gaming notebook is the top of the line from MSI, and it does not disappoint.  Equipped with Intel i7-4710HQ, 16GB of DDR3-1600, a 128GB SSD, and a Nvidia GTX 980M 8GB, this will tear through any recent and upcoming game.  The best thing about the GT72 Dominator Pro is that MSI has taken steps to ensure that you can update the graphics down the line when new and better GPUs come out.  This means that the investment made in this computer will last a lot longer than comparable notebooks that are stuck with their graphics for the life of the product. If you are wanting some more speed from the notebook then throw in four identical M.2 SSDs inside and put them in RAID 0 for read/write speeds of up to 1600MB/s.  From experience with MSI’s SuperRAID as it is called I can attest to how massive of an improvement that speeds like this can be, it makes using the notebook just so much more enjoyable.  You can even attach three monitors to the notebook with two mini-displayport and one HDMI outputs.  The keyboard feels like no other notebook keyboard and is made by the gaming company SteelSeries. Bottom line is that if this is in your budget and you are a gamer or even a power user, I have little doubt that you will love this notebook.

Apple Notebook: 15″ 2.5GHz MacBook Pro with Retina display – $2,374.99

There is no denying it, Apple makes good notebooks and they are arguably the best notebooks for running Windows on as well.  The Retina display will allow for better multi-tasking with various windows as the resolution gives lots of screen real estate.  The Retina display will be great for those who edit photos or video as the display will reproduce colors very well. The construction of the MacBook Pro is amazing and the fit and finish are things that other companies could learn a thing or two from.  The choice with the 2.5GHz Intel i7 was made for what would be the most capable and powerful option with a reasonable price.  At Apple you can customize the MacBook Pro with up to a 1TB SSD and a 2.8GHz Intel i7.

Ultraportable Notebook: Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro – $1,382.99

The 2-in-1 Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro is the latest model in the Yoga line and features an amazing watchband style hinge.  The hinge is made up of hundreds of individual pieces that allows the notebook to flex like no other and fold to use it in different positions.  The screen is a high resolution (3200×1800) IPS touchscreen that will reproduce colors very well and look much better than lower quality panels.  If needing something very light, portable, and a long battery life then this notebook should be on your list of ones to check out.  The stylish Yoga 3 Pro is one of the most stunning designs out now and is powered by the brand new Intel Core M processor.

 Chromebook – Toshiba Chromebook 2 1080p $329.99

Chromebooks are a new breed of notebook, and people are really loving them.  Chromebooks generally are affordable, light, and have long battery life making it an easy choice for those who need something portable.  The best thing about this model is likely the 1080p IPS panel that will look much better than panels that are in other models.  Powering the notebook is an Intel Celeron processor, and while not very powerful it will get the job done and sip power giving longer battery life.  The battery should be good for up to 8 hours and 45 minutes.  The audio has been fine-tuned by Skullcandy meaning that it should deliver much nicer sound than the standard Chromebook.  This will be useful if you enjoy listening to streaming music while you surf the web or do work.  The 802.11ac Wi-Fi is blazing fast and will allow you to get better coverage over other Chromebooks.

Business Notebook: Lenovo X1 Carbon – $1,619

When looking for a business notebook it is wise to choose something that is portable and light so you can easily get work done no matter where you are working.  The X1 Carbon also offers great battery life allowing up to 9 hours from a single charge.  Lenovo is the the most used PC maker for businesses and they sure do know what they are doing with its lineup that is geared for productivity.  The keyboard is surprisingly good and has back-lighting making it easier to get work done while on that red-eye to an important meeting or at home in the evening.  The integrated fingerprint reader should help simplify secure login by allowing you to simply swipe a finger over it.  When it comes to a business notebook, choosing Lenovo is a wise choice that millions have made before.

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At Computex 2014, Kingston had a lot of products to show attendees at their HyperX suite which also featured Kingston’s HOT (HyperX OC Takeover) where overclockers competed for a share of $10,000 in prize money. The rest of the floor was shared by Kingston’s various new products, some never seen before, and others updated since CES. The main stage was where Kingston would show off these products as well as host their League of Legends competition.

The HyperX Main Stage

We got a private tour of all of the products that Kingston currently has to offer, including the lowdown on how the company is rebranding their HyperX line of products to be more consistent and simple. In fact, some of their product names won’t change at all, while others will change just for the sake of consistency. Those lines will start with Fury at the baseline for HyperX, then be followed by Savage in the middle and Predator at the top. This will be reflected across all of Kingston’s HyperX memory and storage products and should make understanding the expected level of performance quite easy for consumers. They will do away with the Gensis line of HyperX products and will brand their SODIMM line of HyperX memory as Impact, unrelated to the other naming schemes.

The first product we were introduced to was actually an update to their recently announced gaming headset, the HyperX Cloud Pro Gaming headset which is the company’s update to the original, offering a white color in addition to black. Otherwise, nothing really drastic.

After that, we took a look at their new HyperX Fury 240GB SSD. This SSD is part of the company’s entry line of HyperX gaming SSDs and features a SandForce 2281 controller. The expected read/write speeds are about 500/500 MB/s and uses a standard SATA 6Gb/s connector and uses locked synchronous NAND. It will come in 120 and 240GB capacities.

Hyper X Fury 240 GB SSD

After that, we got to take a look at Kingston’s new MobileLite Wireless G2 (Gen 2) which is designed to vastly improve upon the original version. It now has a whopping 4640 mAh battery for extended battery life as well as a network port to allow you to use the device as a router. I have personally been hoping for such a device because my laptop doesn’t have a wired port on it and the MobileLite gives me the ability to get near to wired connection speeds without a wired port. It also has a USB port and memory card slot for sharing the media like the previous MobileLite did and charges via MicroUSB. The router functionality for 3G dongles, unfortunately is only available in Asia, but may eventually reach the US. Kingston’s demo showed the MobileLite Wireless G2 playing content off their also newly announced DataTraveler MicroDuo 3.0 USB onto the tablets next to it.

After that, we got a chance to see their new Phison-based M.2 SATA SSD which is a 22×80 mm SSD and is rated for a 555/520 sequential read/write performance. But they also had other benchmarks running so that we could see things like CrystalDiskMark and others as well.

After Kingston’s Phison-based M.2 SSD, we took a look at their HyperX Predator SSD, this drive is rated for speeds up to 1.8 GB/s sequential read. Obviously there are going to be a lot of companies out with these kinds of PCIe SSDs with SanForce SF-3000 series controllers fairly soon, so it will be important to evaluate who’s got the fastest drive and what kind of performance it really has. As you can see below, Kingston’s HyperX Predator PCIe SSD will be offered in capacities up to 2TB.

They also showed us their Marvell based M.2 SSD, which is their more high-end drive, capable of astonishing speeds of up to 1.3 GB/s. These drives will come in capacities up to 512GB and will sport 16nm NAND. Because of the PCIe controller from Marvell, this M.2 drive is capable of astonishing speeds, more than double the other M.2 drive that Kingston currently offers.

After seeing that drive in action, we got to check out Kingston’s new V310 SSD, which is a 960 GB SSD capable of delivering fairly high performance using a Phison 3108 controller that still delivers a pretty good level of performance with sequential reads over 500 MB/s and writes of 485 MB/s as seen in the CrystalDiskMark below.

Below, we will have a full gallery of all of the products that Kingston showed, including new and old products. Some of those products include their already announced, but never shown Fury RAM as well as their DDR4 desktop and server modules, still currently under development.

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