Hardware

Source: TechPowerUp!

Benchmarks have leaked on AMD’s upcoming Ryzen CPUs, and if accurate, these are the ones that will change the name of the game from “Hype Train” to “Reality Check”. Part of a verified Passmark entry, the test system consisted of an AMD Ryzen 8-core, 16-thread ES clocked at 3.4 GHz (which puts it closely on the Ryzen 7 1700X territory, though it isn’t known whether Turbo to its rated 3.8 GHz was active or not), seated on an entry-level MSI A320 AM4 motherboard (absent of overclocking functionality) and 16GB of 2400MHz DDR4 memory.

The tests include integer math, floating point performance, prime numbers, encryption, compression, sorting, SSE performance and physics. The AMD Ryzen 7 1700X outperformed every other CPU in 5 out of the 8 tests, including Intel’s fastest 8-core chip, the $1099 Broadwell-E i7 6900K. When put side by side against Intel’s slightly less expensive $999 8 core extreme edition Haswell-E i7 5960X, Ryzen was faster in 6 out of the 8 tests. The 1700X showed particularly good performance in integer math and encryption, workloads typically associated with server workloads (and where the bulk of the profit is).

Read on…

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• MSI Announces New ARCTIC Range of ATX and mATX Z270 and B250 Motherboards
• SilverStone Intros the FG Series RGB LED Fan Mounts
• Lian Li PC-O11 Dual-Chambered Case Available
• EVGA Intros its iCX Technology Suite – 9 Sensors on the Card
• Jonsbo Announces Four New Cases, New RGB Fan Sets
• Intel i7 8th Generation to be >15% Faster than 7th Generation
• EK Waterblocks Releases RGB Monoblock for GIGABYTE Z270X Motherboards
• US Prices of AMD Ryzen Processors Surface
• AMD Confirms it Won’t Ship Ryzen Drivers for Windows 7
• NEC Announces MultiSync EX341R Curved Ultrawide QHD Display
• CORSAIR ONE PC Announced
• Intel Core i7-7740K and i5-7640K Codenamed “Kaby Lake-X,” 112W TDP, No IGP
• New Rosewill RK-9300 Gaming Keyboard Won’t Give Users the Blues

By MAC @ Hardware Canucks

The model that we are going to be reviewing is the Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon, which as you might have guessed features a carbon fiber aesthetic. While carbon fiber might be a premium material, thankfully this motherboard retails for a fairly reasonable $175 USD / $230 CAD. Starting off with an attractive price is always a good position to be in, but only if the product doesn’t exhibit any signs of cost cutting. Thankfully, at least on paper, this model has everything that we have come to expect from a modern motherboard.

Read The Review Here

Source: TechPowerUp!

AMD today released the 17.1.2 WHQL version of its Radeon Software Crimson ReLive. The release packs the exact same game support, fixes and known bugs as the previous 17.1.2 Beta, with the only difference being that this version is now WHQL-signed.

Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition is AMD’s advanced graphics software for enabling high-performance gaming and engaging VR experiences. Create, capture, and share your remarkable moments. Effortlessly boost performance and efficiency. Experience Radeon Software with industry-leading user satisfaction, rigorously-tested stability, comprehensive certification, and more.

You can download the Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Drivers version 17.1.2 WHQL here.

By Josh Jackson @ PureOC

Have you ever met someone for the first time and felt like you hit it off with that person right away? I had that feeling with EpicGear at CES 2017. To be fair, they had shiny new tech and that kind of thing usually happens with my extroverted personality anyways. Still, EG had an impressive CES display and now we get the opportunity to take an up close and personal look at their equipment. EG is a subsidiary of Geil, who you probably recognize for the RAM products. EG however, is specializing in gaming peripherals and I like the concepts they are trying to succeed on. Today we’re going to start the reviews with the Defiant Keyboard and the MMS Mechanical Keyswitches. That’s because we’ll also have a mouse, a cable manager and headset reviews coming shortly hereafter. It seems like EG is offering some great options in the gaming peripheral market, but we’ll need to take a closer look to really get a feel for how “Epic” their gear actually is. While I’m not worried about their chances, let’s first take a look at a beautiful logo I cropped out of the website and a quick statement about the company. By the way, did you know GeIL was an acronym? It was news for me as well.

Read The Review Here

By Peter Donnell @ eTeknix

“RGB ALL THE THINGS!” has certainly been the unofficial motto of the tech industry this year, and while some may be getting tired of the lack of new products, unless you count the 2015 models with new lighting, I’m honestly loving every bit of it. We can’t expect rampant innovation with every hardware generation, so this year we went sideways and made things colourful. When it comes to creating a unique and aesthetically pleasing desktop environment, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have options. This is where the new Aer RGB 120 and 140mm fans from NZXT come into play!

Read The Review Here

Check out these latest hardware announcements for today from around the web. Also included are some hardware news bits, and on some days, a few rumors tossed in for good measure. Click on the links below to read the official press release, visit the products web page, or to an independent news source.

• Cooler Master Launches MasterCase Pro 6 Chassis
• Thermalright Announces Retail Availability of the AXP-100RH CPU Cooler
• MSI Working on a Z270 Gaming PLUS Motherboard
• Arctic Announces The New P533 PENTA Gaming Headset – VIDEO
• GIGABYTE Intros the B250M-Gaming 5 Motherboard
• Antec Announces the Rainbow 120 Series Fans
• Kingston Adds MX Brown, Red Switches to its HyperX Alloy Keyboard
• Thermalright Intros the Silver Arrow ITX-R CPU Cooler
• Palit Releases the Silent 0dB GeForce® GTX1050 Ti KalmX
• BYKSKI Intros GT-ROZ-X CPU Water Blocks
• ASRock Top-end X370 Socket AM4 Motherboards Production Versions Pictured
• AMD Ryzen Chips 10% Smaller When Compared to Intel Skylake Dies
• Intel Readies Kaby Lake Core i7-7740K and Core i5-7640K To Tackle Ryzen Chips
• AMD Ryzen Processor Models Revealed
• WD Announces First 64-Layer 512Gb TLC NAND Die Amidst Toshiba Turmoil
• AMD’s Upcoming Ryzen to Prompt HT-enabled i5 from Rival Intel

By Brian Nyhuis @ Legit Reviews

It has been a while since we’ve had a chance to take a look at NZXT cooler, but in the past, we’ve been highly impressed with their products. Quite frankly, there hasn’t been a whole lot of innovation in the CPU cooler market, because it’s just tough to improve on something that’s already awesome. Instead, we see a lot of manufacturers adding visual improvements to the coolers to help make them stand out, but this really only helps for those who have windowed cases. Today we’re going to take a look at a trio of NZXT Kraken coolers, called the Kraken X42, X52, and X62. These coolers are updated version of the already successful X41 and X61 with a little added flare and were released just this past November.

Read The Review Here

Source: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA released the GeForce 378.57 Hotfix drivers, designed to address glaring bugs. The driver update fixes a critical game crash bug noticed in “Minecraft” and other Java-based titles; and resolves “debug mode” being the default mode on GPUs based on the “Pascal” architecture. The rest of their features appear consistent with older releases. Find the driver from the links below.

You can download the new GeForce 378.57 Hotfix drivers from GeForce Experience and GeForce.com.

Source: TechPowerUp!

NVIDIA released the GeForce 376.80 Beta drivers. These drivers are being released exclusively through the Vulkan developer support channel, and come with bug fixes for the company’s implementation of Vulkan API support. The change-log is limited to just “bug fixes,” and the drivers are not WHQL-signed. If you’re gaming on the Vulkan API, on titles such as “Doom,” “Ashes of the Singularity,” etc.

You can download the new GeForce 376.80 Beta Vulkan Support driver from the NVIDIA Vulkan Support site.