ASRock to Introduce USB 3.1 Cards and Motherboards
These cards look to be PCIe 2.0 x2 cards, giving the 10 Gbps needed to saturate a USB 3.1 port. It is worth noting then that the combined throughput of two ports on one card will be 10 Gbps, rather than 10 Gbps on each. Interestingly each card seems to have a power requirement – on the dual Type-A card there is a 4-pin molex whereas on the combo card there is a 4-pin custom/floppy sized connector. The power connectors on each card allow each port to provide up to 3 amps at 5V, giving 15W charging a possibility. (Unfortunately dreams of 100W charging are still in the air at the moment, as it requires a power delivery design to step up 12V to 20V at 5A, as well as providing a 100W source though a power connector.)
ASRock will be providing these cards as bundles in two models – the Z97 Extreme6/3.1 and the X99 Extreme6/3.1. The Z97 model will come with the combination A+C card whereas the X99 will come with two Type-A because the board will already come with a Type-C onboard.
This means that the X99 Extreme6/3.1, with the PCIe card installed, should be capable of three USB 3.1 devices being attached. All we have to wait for now is USB 3.1 devices to actually come to market. In that respect it might be worth considering that buying these now will require waiting for the rest of the industry to catch up.
ASRock did not distribute any pricing or launch window information as this was a global press release, but I would imagine within the next month to see something on the shelves. I have had a Skype message offering a board for review, so they must be near-final.
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Samsung Announces 14nm FinFET for Exynos 7
At a high level Exynos 7 will have four Cortex A57s clocked at 2.1 GHz, in addition to four Cortex A53s along with an LPDDR4-capable memory interface. According to Samsung Tomorrow, we can expect a 20% increase to device performance, which is likely a reference to clock speed, and 35% lower power consumption. In addition, there is a reference to a 30% productivity gain, which is likely to be referencing performance per watt. Samsung claims that these figures come from a comparison to their 20nm HKMG process, which we've examined before with the Exynos 5433 in the Note 4 Exynos review.
Although there is no direct statement of which version of 14nm is used for this upcoming Exynos 7 Octa, judging by how this is the first 14nm IC to come from Samsung it's likely that this SoC will use 14LPE, which focuses on reducing leakage and power consumption rather than switching speed.
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Report: Intel's New Skylake Chips May Be Slipping Later in 2015
Volume shipments may not begin until early 2016; Broadwell is just now getting up to speed
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Windows Phone 8.1 Update 2 ("GDR2") Will Land Before Windows 10 for Lumias
Update brings new abilities to restrict certain options to carriers, enterprise clients, and OEMs
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LG Unveils Budget Luxury-Aimed "Watch Urbane" Android Wear Device
Pricing and availability TBD; Watch Urban will vie with the Moto 360 and Apple Watch for low-end style watch buyers
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After a Year of Waiting ASUS ZenBook UX305 Finally Ships to U.S., Priced at $699
Scarcity of onboard 14 nm Broadwell chip likely pushed back launch
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NVIDIA Kills Mobile GPU Overclocking, Robs Customers Who Paid For It
NVIDIA insists the ability to overclock is "a bug" and its "fixing" the issue
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Amber Fossil Reveals Ancient Mesozoic Fungus With Links to LSD
Oregon State University discovers extinct fungus with similarities to ergot, which is used in the synthesizing of LSD
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