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Asus Rampage V Extreme: An Overclocking Monster

VR World Staff — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 16:36:17 +0000

Asus’s Rampage Extreme line has long been considered by many as some of the top overclocking boards that have been on the market, and the Rampage V Extreme is in the same boat.

When the board first came out there was a lot of talk about the inclusion of a non-standard OC-Socket, an aftermarket LGA 2011-v3 socket that has additional contact pins. These pins help feed additional voltage to the CPU and result in what we have found to be very impressive and stable overclocking from the board.

But is this just a gimmick or is it really something that will make a difference? The answer we find is that this is no joke and that the board by far surpasses every other X99 motherboard that is currently available when it comes to cache/uncore overclocking. This leads to massive performance gains that other boards will not be able to achieve and quite frankly they are left in the Rampage V Extreme’s dust. Once again Asus continues the legend of the Rampage Extreme line with this shining example of engineering and hardware dominance.

Asus Rampage V Extreme Specifications:

CPU Socket Type: LGA 2011-v3
Supported CPU Technologies: Turbo Boost Technology 2.0
Chipset: Intel X99Onboard Video: None
Onboard Video: None
Audio Chipset: ROG SupremeFX 2014
Audio Channels: 8 Channels
LAN Chipset: Intel I218-V
Max LAN Speed: 10/100/1000MbpsWireless LAN: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 3T3R supports frequency band 2.4/5 GHz
Wireless LAN: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 3T3R supports frequency band 2.4/5 GHz
Bluetooth: Bluetooth v4.0

Memory:

Number of Memory Slots: 8×288pin
Memory Standard: DDR4 3300(O.C.) / 3000(O.C.) / 2800(O.C.) / 2666(O.C.) / 2400(O.C.) / 2133
Maximum Memory Supported: 64GB
Channel Supported: Quad Channel

Expansion Slots:

PCI Express 3.0 x16: 4 (40-lane CPU @ x16, x16/x16, x16/x8/x8 or x16/x8/x8/x8; 28-lane CPU @ x16, x16/x8, x8/x8/x8)
PCI Express 2.0 x16: 1 (Max. at x4 mode)
PCI Express x1: 1
Quad-GPU NVIDIA 4-Way SLI and AMD 4-way/Quad-GPU CrossFireX Technology (support up to 3-Way with 28-lane CPU)

Storage Devices:

SATA 6Gb/s: 8 x SATA 6Gb/s
SATA Express: Intel X99 – 1 x SATA Express port, red, compatible with 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports , ASMedia SATA Express controller – 1 x SATA Express port, red, compatible with 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports
M.2: 1 x M.2 Socket 3 with M Key, support type 2260/2280/22110 storage devices
SATA RAID: 0/1/5/10

Rear Panel Ports:

PS/2: 1
RJ45: 1 x RJ45
USB 3.0: 10 x USB 3.0
USB 1.1/2.0: 2 x USB 2.0
S/PDIF Out: 1 x Optical
Audio Ports: 5 Ports

Internal I/O Connectors:

Onboard USB
4 x USB 3.0
4 x USB 2.0

The post Asus Rampage V Extreme: An Overclocking Monster appeared first on VR World.

Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI : The Start Of A HTPC

VR World Staff — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 00:58:44 +0000

When considering a new HTPC build a lot should be taken into account, and a big part of that should be the motherboard, If size is to be kept to a minimum then the obvious choice for a motherboard is a Mini-ITX form factor board. If it should be power efficient then the AMD APU lineup is a good starting place since it has decent GPU and CPU power. Choosing something that fits both of those criteria will mean that a A88X Mini-ITX board is likely on the list. This Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI will fit the bill nicely since it has a lot of features that a user will want when building a HTPC and not a lot of unnecessary fluff filling up the already cramped board.

The HTPC is a great option for those who have a lot of media that they have accumulated over the years and want to watch on a tv or home cinema. There are plenty of large HTPC builds that users can do with a simple ATX sized board and a big case. But for those looking for something a bit smaller that will look great next to the tv or in the home cinema the Mini-ITX solutions are often the best. They will be compact builds and many of the HTPC cases for them look great and will blend right in with current components that users may have or will be getting.

Overview

Gigabyte is a well known and trusted brand and its boards are many peoples first choice when it comes to picking a new motherboard. They have a couple different choices of A88X Mini-ITX boards. The only current AMD chipset Mini-ITX boards that you can find on sites like Newegg are the A88X boards. So they made sure that people have a few choices in that small segment, which is great for selecting a board that will suit your needs. This board sits at the top of the lineup and it comes packaged with a dual band 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0 add-in card. This means that the board is up to date with the speediest Wi-Fi standard available, and will be able to operate at speeds of up to 867Mbps.

The board offers a few features to enhance this board. The board has Gigabyte’s Ultra Durable 4 Plus, meaning that the board is built with good quality components that should stand up to stress that may come from certain setups. The board also uses all solid capacitors and Low RDS(on) MOSFETs which will work at higher temperatures and have longer lifespans. This board also features DualBIOS which means that users will have a second BIOS to fall back on if the first one has issues, such as a failed BIOS flash. Humidity Protection, Power Failure Protection, and Electrostatic Protection are all in the board as well. Also on the board is ESD protection for USB and LAN, as well as one fuse per USB 3.0 porst.

AMD Eyefinity technology is available for those who choose to use this as a small desktop build with multiple monitors. This board also has two HDMI ports instead of having multiple different options. With using a qualified AMD APU and GPU that have Dual Graphics technology the board will use both the discrete GPU and the APU to deliver better graphics performance. 4K Ultra HD support is there right out of the box as well via HDMI ports.

Specifications:

Model: GIGABYTE GA-F2A88XN-WIFI
CPUs: FM2+ / FM2 Athlon/A- Series
Chipset: AMD A88X (Bolton D4)
Memory: 2×240pin Dual Channel DDR3 2133/1866/1600/1333
Maximum Memory Supported: 64GB
Expansion Slot: PCI Express 3.0 x16
Mini Card Slots: 1 x mini-PCI Express slot for the wireless module
SATA: 4 x SATA 6Gb/s
SATA RAID: 0/1/5/10/JBOD
Audio: Realtek ALC892 / 7.1 Channels
LAN: Realtek 10/100/1000Mbps
Wireless: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with Bluetooth 4.0, 3.0+HS, 2.1+EDR

Rear Panel Ports

1x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
1 x DVI-D
2 x HDMI
2 x USB 3.0
4 x USB 2.0
1 x Optical
5x Audio Ports

Internal I/O Connectors

2 x USB 3.0 + 2 x USB 2.0
1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector
1 x APU fan header
1 x system fan header
1 x front panel header
1 x front panel audio header
1 x S/PDIF Out header
1 x Clear CMOS jumper
1 x chassis intrusion header

Physical Spec

Mini ITX
6.7″ x 6.7″
Power Pin: 24 Pin

Features

GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 4 Plus Technology
IR Digital 4+2 phase APU power design
GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS
Support for @BIOS
Support for Q-Flash
Support for Xpress Install
Support for EasyTune
Support for Smart Recovery 2
Support for ON/OFF Charge
Support for Wi-Fi Share
Support for Cloud Station

The post Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI : The Start Of A HTPC appeared first on VR World.

Nvidia Responds to Samsung's Lawsuit

Anshel Sag — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 03:27:52 +0000

Nvidia has publicly responded to Samsung’s (KRX: 005935) lawsuit against Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) which BSN* recently reported on.

In Nvidia’s response, the company talks about its original lawsuit alleging that Qualcomm and Samsung were infringing upon its patents without making proper licensing payments. The problem with that lawsuit was that it was very selective in which companies it filed claims against because when you look at the lawsuit, Nvidia could theoretically sue almost any SoC vendor and any smartphone manufacturer based upon their patent claims. However it specifically chose Qualcomm and Samsung, the two biggest shippers of SoCs and smartphones for Android.

Now, Nvidia says that when it filed its suits against Qualcomm and Samsung in Delaware District Court and with the ITC that it fully expected it would be sued in response. The company said in filings: “It’s a predictable tactic.” Nvidia continues saying that it was not surprised to see that Samsung had filed a lawsuit against them earlier this week and had included Velocity Micro, a ‘small’ customer of Nvidia’s based in Virginia (where the Samsung suit was filed).

Nvidia then goes on to talk about the claims that Samsung has made about infringed upon patents and performance claims, but says it is not ready yet to formally respond to Samsung’s lawsuit. However, it appears ready to respond to Samsung’s claims about false marketing claims regarding the Shield tablet and the Tegra K1 SoC. We already addressed these performance claims by Samsung, stating that the Exynos SoC in the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 was actually faster than Nvidia’s SHIELD tablet with the Tegra K1 SoC, and we really couldn’t find any industry standard benchmarks that corroborated Samsung’s story. But Nvidia went much further and decided to run a dozen or two benchmarks side by side and out of the box against the Galaxy Note 4 with the SHIELD tablet and posted their results in a graph.

Nvidia SHIELD vs Galaxy Note 4

As you can see, Nvidia’s SoC and tablet handily beat the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 handily in most tests, so there’s really no question that Samsung’s claims of Nvidia’s false marketing claims are fairly baseless as we had stated earlier.

Nvidia continues, stating that Samsung’s suing of Velocity Micro is unfortunate, especially considering how small Velocity Micro is. Nvidia states that Samsung is trying to keep their lawsuit in Virginia because they have a faster time to trial than most other jurisdictions in the US. Nvidia ends the posting with a caution, “It can be a dangerous strategy for one of the largest companies on the planet to decide to sue one of the smallest companies in all of Virginia. Samsung’s action does not change our analysis, or our determination. Our patent lawsuit in the ITC is moving forward and remains a far more serious problem for them.”

We have the full documentation, including the Samsung filing posted below if you’d like to read it.

Samsung v Nvidia in Virginia

The post Nvidia Responds to Samsung's Lawsuit appeared first on VR World.

Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4-3000 CL15 16GB Kit Review

VR World Staff — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 06:22:41 +0000

If you’re looking for a high speed set of DDR4 RAM there are no shortage of choices these days, even if supplies are still fairly tight. The HyperX Predator line from Kingston is fresh on the scene and is hoping to be the choice for many enthusiasts with its competitive pricing. This kit is the 16GB Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4 3000 C15 quad channel kit ( HX430C15PB2K4/16 ). It has two XMP profiles, of which are 3000 15-16-16-39 2T and 2666 14-14-14-36 2T. Having the multiple XMP profiles provides a bit of comfort knowing that there are two good configurations provided with the kit that are set and forget. These modules were a sample and did not come with the regular retail packaging, so what photos we have are limited to the actual modules. Thankfully, you don’t buy memory for the packaging. You buy it for the performance, and boy did this set post some very impressive results.

Specifications:

Model – HX430C15PB2K4/16
Type – 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM
Capacity – 16GB (4 x 4GB)
Speed – DDR4 3000 (PC4-24000)
Cas Latency – 15
Voltage – 1.35V
Multi-channel Kit – Quad Channel Kit

Features

Power Supply: VDD=1.2V Typical
VDDQ = 1.2V Typical
VPP – 2.5V Typical
VDDSPD=2.2V to 3.6V
Nominal and dynamic on-die termination (ODT) for data, strobe, and mask signals
Low-power auto self refresh (LPASR)
Data bus inversion (DBI) for data bus
On-die VREFDQ generation and calibration
Single-rank
On-board I2 serial presence-detect (SPD) EEPROM
16 internal banks; 4 groups of 4 banks each
Fixed burst chop (BC) of 4 and burst length (BL) of 8 via the mode register set (MRS)
Selectable BC4 or BL8 on-the-fly (OTF)
Fly-by topology
Terminated control command and address bus

The post Kingston HyperX Predator DDR4-3000 CL15 16GB Kit Review appeared first on VR World.

SanDisk Reports Lukewarm Earnings for Q3 2014

Anshel Sag — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 23:49:10 +0000

SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) yesterday reported its earnings for for the third quarter of 2014, ending September 30th.

For the third quarter of 2014, SanDisk reported earnings of $263 million on a record $1.75 billion in revenue, this translated to an earnings per share of $1.09, compared to profits of $277 million last quarter ($1.18 EPS) and $274 million in the same quarter a year ago ($1.14 EPS). As a result, SanDisk’s investors were not happy to see the company’s earnings shrinking even though revenue continues to increase. In fact, SanDisk posted record revenues this quarter, even with declining profitability.

Even so, SanDisk continues to be on a march to ensure that solid state technologies are the leading technology in the storage industry. This was made clear by the acquisition of FusionIO, which completed this quarter and should help pump up their enterprise offering, as well as their expansion of consumer flash products for mobile and photography. SanDisk now has a 512 GB SD card as well as 128 GB microSDXC memory cards which are capable of 4K video capture. In fact, there’s a very good chance that a lot of people will be buying lots of SanDisk microSDXC memory cards for their new GoPro Hero4 cameras (which we’re reviewing) this holiday season. After all, SanDisk’s 128 GB microSDXC card will only yield 4 hours of 4k footage on a GoPro Hero4 camera.

SanDisk saw channel revenue grow 13% while retail shrunk 2%, channel revenue was mostly driven by SSD growth in both enterprise and consumer, which offset the losses in retail, resulting in a record revenue quarter. SanDisk also talked about their ramping of their fabs from 19nm to 15nm and how they will slowly begin to make the transition over the course of the next year, which will start to yield them cost savings as opposed to pure operating expenditures.

The company also issued forward looking statements for Q4 2014 as well as 2015, stating that they expect to reduce inventory levels in order to fulfill demand across all key product categories as their customers are indicating to be true. However, the company is cautioning that it expects to be “in supply allocation” and that will constrain their growth in some areas in Q4.

Problems with supply

One interpretation of the term “supply allocation” is a euphemism for a shortage of some resources or manufacturing in order to properly supply demand from customers. The company then proceeds to say that it will, “prioritize our business according to our strategic priorities and customer relationships,” which essentially translates to larger and more loyal customers are going to get what they order when they ask for it and everyone else is going to have to wait. But even so, its forecast for the fourth quarter of 2014 indicates revenues of $1.8 billion to $1.85 billion, which would be another record revenue quarter for the company.

Based on yesterday’s earnings announcement, SanDisk’s investors did not seem pleased by the company’s earnings report. In fact, SanDisk today closed down nearly 3% in regular trading, this was even though many of their competitors closed the day up, clearly indicating a reaction to yesterday’s earnings.

The post SanDisk Reports Lukewarm Earnings for Q3 2014 appeared first on VR World.

Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666 CL 15, Surprisingly Fun Memory

VR World Staff — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 01:37:42 +0000

Today we will take a look at some DDR4 from Corsair, the Vengeance LPX 16GB (4x4GB) CL15 memory kit. DDR4 is brand new and is used motherboards featuring Intel’s new X99 chipset using s2011-3 processors. DDR4 uses 1.2v standard as opposed to the 1.5-1.65 that is now standard in DDR3. It can operate at higher frequencies with much less voltage needed, being much more efficient. Running in quad channel the memory will provide much more bandwidth than that of dual channel systems by a hefty margin. This kit is some of the entry level DDR4 from Corsair, but as you will see they have much more to offer if you do some tweaking.

Specifications:

CMK16GX4M4A2666C15R
16GB (4 x 4GB)
DDR4 2666 (PC4-21300)
Cas Latency – 15
Timings – 15-17-17-35 2T
Voltage – 1.2V
Quad Channel Kit
Anodized Aluminum Heat Spreader
Low-profile heatspreader design
Intel XMP 2.0

Design and Build Quality

The build quality of these RAM modules is top notch as expected with Corsair products that are currently available. The heatsinks are of high quality and look great in the motherboard with no defects visible. The PCB from visual inspection looks very clean and made of high quality materials. The kits have single sided Hynix MFR for the ICs and are now the type that is most coveted by overclockers.

Performance

This kit was really impressive as the performance that was achieved with the XMP profiles and with overclocking was much better than was expected. In these tests you will notice that they are done with varying uncore frequencies. This was done by adjusting the frequency in the bios to achieve the overclock. This is very important as it has a huge effect on the performance of your memory. Even at the same speed and timings there will be a huge performance gain from the simple act of overclocking the cache/uncore. It should be noted that these tests were run on the ASUS Rampage V Extreme, as it is the best board on the market currently for achieving the highest RAM and cache/uncore clocks. This is attributed by the inclusion of its OC Socket that is a non reference s2011-3 CPU socket. The results with the 4000MHz and 4500MHz cache/uncore speeds may possibly be harder or impossible to replicate on other boards. be addressed is cache/uncore speed . The first XMP profile is 15-17-17-35 2T at 2666MHz with 1.2v, the second XMP profile is 15-17-17-35 2T at 2800MHz with 1.35v.

When checking to see what these modules were set to auto and then run while increasing the speed until it could no longer be stable and boot into windows. The max that was achieved was 3070MHz with the RAM set to 1.5v. Running the memory at these speeds would have required setting the memory to 2T and having loose timings, which would not equate to the best performance possible from the memory. To find the best possible performance that would be possible a memory profile from the Rampage V Extreme for single sided Hynix was needed to be loaded. Selected was a profile for 3000MHz 1.65v, though it could not load it at 3000MHz. This was expected since this isn’t exactly a highly binned set of Hynix MFR, so 2750 was tried. This was a success at 12-14-16-15 1T with the 1.65v, and proved to be better performing than the other combinations that were tried. Please bear in mind that if running DDR4 at over 1.4v additional cooling is a must or damage to the modules may occur.

Test setup

Asus Rampage V Extreme
Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666 C15 #CMK16GX4M4A2666C15R
Intel i7 5960X @ 3.5GHz
Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme
Cooler Master V1200 PSU
MSI R9 290X Lightning

AIDA64

Higher is better

Here it is seen that the write speed is impacted more than anything else with the increase in the cache/uncore speed. The read performance also makes a big improvement, though not as drastically as the write did. At 3000MHz the read was 58532MB/s, the write was 46945MB/s, and copy was 60979MB/s with a latency of 71ns. At 3500MHz it was 62801MB/s – 5480MB/s – 62948MB/s with a latency of 68.7ns. At 4000MHz it was 65685MB/s – 62046MB/s – 62853MB/s with a latency of 67.1ns. At 4500Mhz the results were 67654MB/s – 69344MB/s – 63552MB/s and the latency was the lowest at 66.2ns. These results are good and fall in line with what you would expect from running at these speeds

Higher is better

The write and read speeds increase at the same rate as the other XMP profile, but here the speed is a decent amount faster due to the speed increase of the RAM. The results at 3000MHz cache/uncore were 61124MB/s – 47798MB/s – 64022MB/s and a latency of 68ns. At 3500MHz the results increased to 66168MB/s – 55563MB/s – 66290MB/s with 66.1ns latency. The 4000MHz results came in at 69620MB/s – 62917MB/s – 67165MB/s and 64.6ns latency. 4500MHz returned the best results of 71367MB/s – 68829MB/s – 67348 MB/s and 63.9ns. Being able to obtain a read speed of over 70000MB/s on the XMP profile was very good and was better than expected.

Higher is better

Here the RAM was set up by using the settings that was able to get the most bandwidth from, very tight timings and sub-timings were used. It is visible to see just how much proper tuning of the timings can affect the performance when comparing to the XMP2 results. It can be seen that with some work these can perform on par or better than kits that are much more money, though a better binned set would likely require lower voltage at similar speeds and timings. The results at 3000MHz were 62777MB/s – 47441MB/s – 68236MB/s and a latency of 63.4ns. At 3500MHz they were 69794MB/s – 55169MB/s – 70848MB/s and 61.4ns latency. The 4000MHz results were 74104MB/s – 62848MB/s – 72438MB/s and 60ns latency. 4500Mhz results were 76194MB/s – 70482MB/s – 71528MB/s and the lowest latency of all at 58.9ns.

Super Pi mod 1.5 32m

Lower is better

It is visible in this benchmark that is heavily influenced by RAM just how big of an effect that boosting the cache/uncore speed will have on the performance of a system. The results for the super pi benchmark was 8:58.620 at 3000MHz, 8:54.301 at 3500MHz, 8:51.562 at 4000MHz, and 8:48.809 at 4500MHz. these results fall in line with the increased performance of the memory with the cache/uncore speed increase.

Lower is better

It is visible that XMP profile 2 at 3000MHz uncore/cache frequency is about as effective as the first one at 4500MHz. The reduced time of about 10 seconds is substantial in this benchmark. The results were 8:48.747 at 3000MHz, 8:44.192 at 3500MHz, 8:39.953 at 4000MHz, and 8:38.684 at 4500MHz. Again, this is in line with what is to be expected from the memory performance increases like the previous test.

Lower is better

This result shows just how helpful to the benchmark memory speeds are to Super Pi, though in this one it looks like there was a bigger gain by increasing the cache/uncore than the other two. The results are 8:52.772 at 3000MHz, 8:47.063 at 3500MHz, 8:45.019 at 4000MHz, and 8:42.833 at 4500MHz. It is interesting to see that the jump from 3000MHz to 3500MHz was far greater than the others.

SiSoft Sandra

Here it is clearly seen that increasing the cache/uncore frequency that it is possible to increase the bandwidth greatly, and the results are on par with what was expected. The results are 52.68GB/s Aggregate, 52.36GB/s Integer, and 53GB/s Float at 3000MHz. At 3500MHz the results were 54.65GB/s Aggregate, 54.1GB/s Integer, and 55.21GB/s Float. At 4000MHz the results were 55.78GB/s Aggregate, 55.27GB/s Integer, and 56.3GB/s Float. The results are in line with what was to be expected, though the jump from 3000MHz to 3500MHz showed the biggest improvement.

Looking at the results here it is possible to see that the increase gained from increasing the speed from 2666 to 2800 resulted in an increase of about 3GB/s across the board. The results at 3000MHz are 56.3GB/s Aggregate, 56GB/s Integer, and 56.64GB/s Float. At 3500MHz the results are 58GB/s Aggregate, 57.52GB/s Integer, and 58.61 Float. At 4000MHz the results were 59.2GB/s Aggregate, 58.76GB/s Integer, and 59.65GB/s Floar. At 4500MHz the results were 59.71GB/s Aggregate, 59.15GB/s Integer, and 60.28GB/s Float. Again, it is seen that the jump from 3000MHz to 3500MHz is by far the greatest leap of gain made.

Now with taking a look at these results it is clearly visible that properly configured timings at a lower speed can greatly outdo itself running at higher speeds with looser timings. The results are 60.39GB/s Aggregate, 60.49GB/s Integer, and 60.29GB/s Float at 3000MHz. At 3500MHz the results were 63GB/s Aggregate, 62.7GB/s Integer, and 63.2GB/s Float. At 4000MHz the results were 64.33GB/s Aggregate, 64.11GB/s Integer, and 64.55GB/s Float. At 4500MHz the results were 65.14GB/s Aggregate, 64.91GB/s Integer, and 65.37GB/s Float. What is able to be seen here compared to the XMP profile 2 test is that the tightened timings and sub-timings plays a great deal in helping the overall bandwidth.

User Experience

The RAM exceeded expectations in both how it performed with the XMP Profiles, but also with overclocking. This set of RAM is fun to tweak and will reward the user with great results from the time they spend tweaking things to perfection. This RAM performs well in 1T and will go quite far before it needs to switch to 2T to become more stable. It was clear to see why overclockers enjoy working with the Hynix MFR DDR4, it performs great and is so tweakable with more voltage applied. When testing to see what these could do, I tried to find the settings for the best bandwidth that I could get.

Value

Being essentially an entry level kit and being able to overclock so far and tweak it to perform so much better makes this a killer deal. It would definitely be something to consider when it comes time to build a new DDR4 system. Seeing what fellow overclockers were able to achieve with this kit has been astonishing since it perform better than other kits that cost hundreds more.

Should I buy this?

If you are looking to get something that you want to tweak a bit or be able to get more performance out of then this is it. For $316.37 it is a great buy indeed, and this kit has received the Value Award from BSN*. It has been a lot of fun to test this kit as I was surprised about how much performance can be squeezed out of these, and with more time with them I know that they can do even better. I like to push my equipment to the max and see what it will do and these definitely proved themselves during testing.

The post Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666 CL 15, Surprisingly Fun Memory appeared first on VR World.

HP's "The Machine" Could Fundamentally Change Computing

Anshel Sag — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 06:21:24 +0000

HP is trying to solve the big data problem, just like all of their competitors. The company has slowly been preparing the building blocks for their strategy to attack big data with things like HP’s Moonshot. Many believed that HP’s Moonshot was the company’s sole hardware answer to the big data problem, but in reality it was merely a piece of what HP is calling The Machine. Essentially, The Machine combines three technologies that HP is developing or has already developed in order to accelerate things beyond Moonshot and its space and power savings.

Data demands of the future as foreseen by HP

Here’s a short video that explains what The Machine’s really is and how the company came up with such a name.

The Machine combines three new principles of computing together to deliver a unique and updated vision of how computing should work. First and foremost, it combines a series of specialized cores together to help tackle different tasks as best as possible based upon whichever one does those tasks most efficiently. And considering how many different processor architectures there are out there, nobody will deny that certain ones do one thing better than another.

Memristors on a wafter

This is then connected with HP’s Memristor memory technology, initially in a DIMM format (but will likely morph into something entirely different) similar to current system memory. This is necessary because it offers the ability to create a universal memory architecture from top to bottom, removing storage bottlenecks and translations. The universal memory solves the next step that we take from having unified memory architectures, since those help simplify certain problems but don’t necessarily solve fundamental architectural limitations.

These processors and memristors will be connected via HP’s own photonic interconnects which promise to deliver far lower latency and better throughput than current technologies. This new architecture will also require an entirely new operating system which HP already has said they fully intend to open source in order to give everyone maximum access to it.

HP’s Photonics system as part of The Machine

As Paul Teich, CTO and Senior Analyst Moor Insights & Strategy, said that The Machine, “will enable us to fundamentally rethink computer architecture at a wide range of scales.” And at this time, that’s pretty much the best analysis that anyone could give until we actually see this whole system in action, especially with the right software.

I believe that for HP, the yields of memristor based memory will be critical to their success and whether or not they can really get photonics based interconnects to scale. Most of what HP Labs has done so far is under very controlled enviroments and it would be interesting to see if the company can actually take a lot of these promising concepts and somehow get them to actually work together to accelerate computing.

The post HP's "The Machine" Could Fundamentally Change Computing appeared first on VR World.

Gigabyte Introduces New 9 Series Z97 Motherboards

Anshel Sag — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 13:29:04 +0000

As you would expect, Gigabyte has announced their new line of 9 series Intel chipset motherboards, with the primary focus being on their Z97 chipset motherboards. This time around, Gigabyte will have four different flavors of Z97 boards, which will support both 4th and 5th generation Intel Core processors. Gigabyte has rolled over a lot of the things from their Z87 line of motherboards, but also made some modifications and improvements to make the Z97 a worthwhile upgrade.

Gigabyte’s four different lines are their Gaming line, Ultra Durable line, Overclocking line and a new Black Edition line. The bulk of Gigabyte’s boards are going to be in their Ultra Durable line, which comes as a result of the fact that Gigabyte has decided to do away with the Ultra Durable numbering scheme, a good decision. In addition to that, Gigabyte is bringing more and more of their gaming and overclocking premium board features into their mainstream Ultra Durable line of boards. This is a welcome move because it simply improves the overall value of buying virtually any Gigabyte board. Some of those features include improved audio codecs and isolation as well as dual NICs and other gamer-focused innovations.

Gigabyte’s Z97 Gaming G1 Black Edition

However, in terms of excitement, Gigabyte’s most interesting announcement was the announcement of their Z97-OC LN2 board which is strictly an LN2 overclocking motherboard (or HE3). This board is especially interesting because of the way it was designed for optimal memory overclocking. This board recently broke the world record for the fastest memory, ever at 4.5 GHz, beating the previous record of 4.4 GHz on an ASUS board. It is a bit curious, though, that this new record isn’t being posted on HWBot, but maybe it will shortly… This Z97-OC LN2 board is special because it only has two memory slots and no mounting holes for the CPU. Because of these two major design decisions, this board is capable of overclocking memory higher than any board before it. And it was all done using Kingston memory, too.

The rest of Gigabyte’s line pretty much stays the same, gaining a few incremental upgrades here and there with the addition of M.2 connector and SATA Express support with the Z97 chipset. Obviously, not all boards will have these features but they will come and go through the product stack. The only new addition to Gigabyte’s line of boards are their Black Edition boards, which are Gigabyte’s premier quality boards designed and tested to last. All of Gigabyte’s Z97 Black Edition boards are designed for the ultimate durability, enduring 168 hours of grueling testing before being sent out to the customer accompanied by a 5 year warranty. Currently, Gigabyte only has three Black Edition boards, starting with a UD3 board, followed by a UD5 and finally completed with a G1 Gaming Z97 board which pretty much fills the Black Edition lineup with boards from all three different price and feature levels from Gigabyte.

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Congrats to Jadranko Jelavic

Theo Valich — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:23:51 +0000

It’s been a while since we last met, but it is always to hear good news when friends earn respect in their businesses. It is my great pleasure to announce that Jadranko Jelavic became General Director of Sales for the entire distribution team at takeMS International AG.

Hard work does pay off...

Prior to this role, Jadranko was responsible for Eastern and South East Europe. Thanks to his team effort, the company expanded to 25 countries in the afore mentioned regions, and the logical step for the takeMS management was to promote Jadranko to the role of General Director of Sales for the whole company.
“We enjoy having won Jadranko Jelavic for this important position”, stated Edmund Dägele, president and CEO of the takeMS International AG. “He brings in a lot of marketing know-how and is familiar with the dynamic and competitive market environment. Besides he convinces through his competence and professionalism with customers just the same as with associates.” Jadranko Jelavic was caught stating his future mission: “My aim is to upgrade the takeMS brand and to go on following that successful way”.
I wish him all the best in his new position.

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