Workstation

The Video Electronics Standards Association (or VESA) is the body that can confer official certifications for state-of-the art quality standards such as DisplayHDR on new screens. Its latest update to the criteria by which they are granted is called version 1.1. It calls for ultra-modern specs such as active dimming, as well as tougher yardsticks for color gamut and luminance.

Acer's new series of XV3 gaming monitors offer modern refresh rates of up to 240Hz and response times of as low as 1 millisecond. They are also G-SYNC ready with the variable refresh rate (VRR) necessary to handle either the RTX or GTX 10-series of graphic cards. These new IPS panels come in either 24.5- or 27-inch variants, and will start at €249 (about US$275).

Asus has claimed that its ProArt StudioBook lineup includes the “world’s most graphically-powerful laptop” with the ProArt StudioBook One (W590) workstation. The device comes with a 9th Gen Intel mobile processor and Nvidia’s Quadro RTX 6000. The new series also features the ProArt StudioBook Pro X (W730) that offers up to a Quadro RTX 5000 and incorporates the innovative ScreenPad 2.0 secondary display.

NVIDIA has introduced a new mobile Quadro RTX card, the mobile Quadro RTX 6000 at IFA 2019. The specifications of the mobile Quadro RTX 6000 are yet to be officially disclosed, but NVIDIA's performance numbers show that it performs within 10% of that of its desktop counterpart. NVIDIA is working with partners to create mobile workstation laptops based on its Ace Reference Design and a total of 39 RTX Studio laptops and desktops will be made available.

The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) has finalized the specification for USB4. A few things are different this time around including the way the it named, as well as its support for another standard in the form of Thunderbolt 3.

Some consumers may have found that having a 4K display does not always result in pin-sharp content. This is because 1080p image data is not always scaled effectively to match the more up-to-date resolution. NVIDIA has addressed this by introducing integer scaling in its latest Game Ready Drivers update.

With a gaming performance comparable to the more affordable RX 5700 XT, the Radeon VII GPU is already put on EOL status after a short-lived 6 months. Still, the high-end GPU is a solid option for heavy compute tasks and demanding renderings, so the remaining stocks may eventually end up in select workstations.

AMD has released Radeon Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.8.2, an update that adds compatibility with HDCP 2.3 on the RX 5700 series of graphics cards. It also boosts performance while playing Control using DirectX 11 compared to the previous version of this driver. 19.8.2 may also address a range of glitches associated with this version.

Some of Lenovo's most popular ThinkPad laptops, the X1 Carbon, X1 Yoga, T490, and X390, have been updated with Intel's 10th generation Comet Lake CPUs. The L13 and L13 Yoga have also been given a thinner, lighter design makeover.

Usually reserved for 15-inch models and up, MSI now offers 4K display options for the 14-inch Prestige models, as well, plus all screens are factory-calibrated. Users can also opt to equip the laptops with quad-core or six-core Comet Lake-U CPUs, while the graphics processing is ensured by Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1650 Max-Q GPUs.

Mojang, the makers of Minecraft, has announced that its hit game will become able to use real-time ray tracing in early 2020. Furthermore, NVIDIA has broken the news that a number of other titles will get these features. They include upcoming Metro Exodus DLC, Control and Dying Light 2.

The chip-maker SK Hynix has released HBM2E, its new storage standard. It is described as having up to 50% higher bandwidth at double the size compared to the previous generation. This new chip is aimed at uses in machine learning, AI and high-tier GPUs.

The Quartz Canyon series will feature the first NUCs that allow users to add high-end GPUs. The systems are advertised as workstation kits due to the inclusion of Xeon E and Core i7 vPro CPUs. Other features include dual Thunderbolt 3 connectors, Wi-Fi 6 interface, Optane and ECC memory support, plus an internal 500 W power supply.

Samsung claims that its upcoming vertically-stacked NAND (or V-NAND) for SATA-based SSDs confers improved read- and write-speeds on the resulting drives. They are composed of 100 or more layers of stacked flash cells, whereas previous generations had 99 or less. This increased scale is the new 3D memory's main advantage over its predecessors.

Linux laptop seller System76 recently announced a new workstation. The Adder WS, which is set to release on August 8, is the retailer's first laptop with a 15.6-inch 4K OLED display. The laptop will also pack a power Core i7 or Core i9 CPU and an Nvidia RTX 2070 GPU into its chassis.

Comparative benchmarks between AMD Ryzen 9 3900X systems running Windows 10 1903 and Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS show that Microsoft's work in optimizing the OS for MCM CPUs such as Ryzen has paid off. Although Linux does have an overall lead, the scheduler improvements in the latest Windows version have managed to narrow the performance gap significantly.

UPDATE 8/2: Intel has responded with a clarification of Raja Koduri's statement. See below. In a recent interview with a Russian YouTube tech channel, Raja Koduri (chief architect at Intel) stated that Intel's upcoming Xe GPU will start at a competitive $200 and that at least some models will use HBM. While it's unlikely that the $200 entry-level Xe GPUs will have HBM (due to the high cost of HBM), the GPUs are looking more competitive than ever.

Internal Asus documents point to at least two AMD X590 boards in development. This was confirmed by an Asus source to Videocardz. Not much is known about the X590 chipset at the moment apart from the fact that AMD could be aligning its launch to that of the 16C/32T Ryzen 9 3950X in September. Also on the anvil is an AMD X599 Zenith II Extreme for the upcoming Threadripper 3000 series.

The XPS 15 7590 has suffered from a severe GPU throttling issue under sustained load since it's release over a month ago, but Dell has finally pushed out a BIOS update to help fix the issue.

A 10-core 20-thread Intel Cascade Lake-X CPU belonging to the Glacier Falls platform has surfaced on UserBench. Not much information is gained from the listing itself, but we do see the CPU being listed with low base and boost clocks.

Well, well, well. We might have just got our first sight of an AMD Threadripper 3000 series processor, courtesy of a posting on UserBenchmark. The processor, which we expect to see before the end of the year, is compatible with the TR4 socket and existing X399-based motherboards. It leaves the Threadripper 2950X and Ryzen 9 3900X in its wake in multi-core tasks too.

The full specifications for Lenovo's latest P53 mobile workstation ThinkPad, revealing a variety of configurations for CPU, GPU, and display. Unfortunately, the removable battery of the P52 has become a casualty of the 2019 update, however.

Microsoft has marked an important NASA anniversary by taking part in Project Egress, in which engineering teams were challenged to re-make a component of the Apollo 11's landing module. The Redmond cohort were charged with making the craft's hatch, a small but complicated part that required advanced CNC to replicate.

Everybody was expecting Arcturus to be the high-end version of Navi and a true competitor for Nvidia's RTX 2080 / Ti gaming GPUs, but the latest Linux AMDGPU shader compiler code update suggests that Arcturus is more of a professional GPU in-line with Radeon Instinct. It will most likely be manufactured on the 7 nm EUV node from TSMC and could launch in early 2020.

With the 2019 generation of ThinkPad laptops, the PC manufacturer Lenovo has stopped offering any models with external, hot-swappable batteries. Instead, all ThinkPads feature a single internal battery now – a development that is now lamented by fans and a relatively well known Youtuber.

GPU as a Service involves offering access to the functions of an advanced, dedicated or powerful GPU set-up from a remote location. It is increasingly prominent in cloud and AI applications. The latest market research indicates that its market will grow based on its use in CAD, modelling and 3D animation.

The Intel Core "Comet Lake" processor family has leaked out along specifications of no less than 13 different SKUs, alongside most of their prices and rumors concerning the LGA 1159 platform. The quad-core i3-10100 will apparently carry a price tag of US$129 and the most affordable deca-core revealed by the leak — the i9-10800F — starts at US$409.

The new entry-level card will be replacing the WX3100 launched 2 years ago. It comes with the same low-profile, single slot design and a 50 W TDP, but the updated 14 nm Polaris core coupled with 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM is able to crunch 104 GFLOPs in double precision workloads. It also features four DisplayPort 1.4 connectors which enables support for quad 4K monitor setups.

India now joins China and the European Union in the race to break away from U.S. hardware reliance. Developed since early 2016, the Shakti CPU family based on the open-source RISC-V microarchitecture offers multiple classes of chips designed for specific markets like embedded / IoT, mobile, HTPC and workstation / server, promising performance similar to existing Intel, AMD and ARM chips.

Apple fans were shocked by news that legendary design guru Jony Ive is leaving the company. While Ive has undoubtedly contributed significantly to numerous iconic Apple designs in the past, he is not, however, leaving Apple on a design high.

Starting July 1st, Dell will be rolling out deals for its Inspiron, XPS, Alienware, Vostro, Precision, and G Series of PCs to piggy back on the success of Amazon Prime Day. Many of the price cuts are for older models in order to make room for the new models revealed at Computex 2019.

Canon is attending the 2019 Sensors Expo & Conference in San Jose, California to showcase its new 120MXSI sensor. This CMOS is rated for 120MP imaging, and can operate in visible and near-infra-red (NIR) light spectra at a maximal 9.4 frames per second.

Noctua makes some well-known CPU coolers and fans. It has also recently released its new series of inserts and alternate parts, which can change a PC's look without needing to resort to RGB. They include the new NA-HC5 chromax cooler covers and NA-SAVP1 chromax grey anti-vibration pads for fans.

Microsoft 365 for Campaigns is a new service intended to safeguard election campaigns from bad actors of various kinds. It is part of the Redmond company's Defending Democracy Program, and offers enterprise-level security to those covered by its subscriptions. Currently, it is available for US$5 per user per month.

Nvidia is once again partnering with ARM, however this time around it plans to further its plans to support the rise of exascale computing. The two companies have partnered on Nvidia's Tegra chips and on the custom processor powering the Nintendo Switch, but this time around it is about bringing to bare Nvidia's GPU's for their parallel processing capabilities.

References to AMD X590 chipset were spotted in the BIOS code of a Gigabyte motherboard by a user on the Computerbase.de forums. This follows the tease of X590 by known Ryzen enthusiast Yuri Bubly on Twitter. Not much is known about the X590 platform but speculation is that it could feature even more number of PCIe Gen4 lanes than what X570 offers.

Innodisk's Fire Shield SSD(TM) has reportedly been developed to withstand extreme temperatures. It is apparently based on black-box technology in order to maintain 100% accuracy and integrity for the data on its NAND storage. So far, this new type of drive is available in a 3.5-inch SATA SSD form-factor.

Semiconductors are commonly used in energy transfer for electronics and other related fields. The current state of the art are applications of gallium nitride or silicon carbide rather than conventional markets. The potential improvements and advancements to be gained from this transition could drive their market's worth to as much as US$3 billion by 2025.

A system record apparently for an HP ProOne 600 G5 21.5-inch All-in-One enjoying the company of Intel’s Core i9-9900T processor has been discovered on UserBenchmark. The focus of the benchmark is clearly on the processor as the rest of the system does not seem to be fully completed yet. The Coffee Lake desktop CPU has eight cores and 16 threads.

Huntkey is known as a maker of power bricks and other similar accessories. However, it also makes other devices, monitors included. Its latest model is the X2471C, which is a 1080p, 144-hertz (Hz) 23.6-inch 1800R-curved panel. This model has a white housing, 2 HDMI ports and 1 Display Port.

AMD is looking to shake up the processor market once again with a new 64 core and 128 thread chip, which it is planning to bring to market in Q4 2019. The HEDT processor will be based on the upcoming X599 platform and looks set to succeed the Threadripper W2290X.

The second generation refresh is set to be the thinnest and lightest 15.6-inch workstation Lenovo has ever offered when it launches later this month for $1950. Nvidia Quadro Turing will replace last year's Pascal offerings.

Launching before the end of Summer, both the 15.6-inch ThinkPad P53 and 17.3-inch ThinkPad P73 can each be configured with Quadro RTX 5000 graphics for desktop-class performance. NVMe SSDs and three-year manufacturer warranty will come standard across all configurations.

The 14-inch ThinkPad P43s and 15.6-inch ThinkPad P53s balance performance with both mobility and price in contrast to the "world's fastest" ThinkPad P53 and P73 alternatives. The P53s will be both thinner and lighter than its 2018 P52s counterpart when it launches before the end of July.