Workstation

The fingerprint software vulnerability affects quite a few ThinkPad, ThinkCentre and ThinkStation models that run Windows 7, 8 or 8.1.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Intel had informed select customers about the Meltdown/Spectre vulnerabilities. What's news, however, is that somehow the Chinese Government could have gotten to know about the vulnerabilities much before the US Government did.

Intel has identified the root cause of the recent reboot issues plaguing the company's 'Broadwell' and 'Haswell' chips that received a microcode update for the Meltdown and Spectre exploits. The company has issued an updated guidance for customers and partners in this regard.

The Holiday shopping season proved to be disastrous for Asus as the manufacturer struggles to compete in both the desktop and laptop markets.

MSI will launch this year the workstation variant of its G25 gaming compact PC. The W25 will feature gen 8 Core or Xeon CPUs, Nvidia Quadro GPUs, up to 64 GB of DDR4 RAM, HDD+NVMe combos and VR-ready compliance.

The top of the line i9-8950HK and the Xeon E-2186M feature six cores/twelve threads that can reach boost clocks of 4.8 GHz. The mid-range i7-8850H and Xeon E-2176M feature the same core/thread count, but can boost only to 4.3 - 4.4 GHz. Finally, the entry-level i5-8400H and i5-8300H come with 4 core and 8 threads that can go up to 4.2 - 4.0 GHz.

That old Alienware laptop with GeForce GT 555M graphics buried in the closet could help cut $1000 USD or more off the purchase of your next Eurocom system.

Fujitsu caps off a busy week with three new desktops, a 17.3-inch workstation notebook with an Nvidia Quadro 5000, and Attachecase confidential file distribution software which removes part of a file and uploads it to a company server to make the original file unreadable.

SK Hynix has listed the status of GDDR6 memory in its Q1 2018 Databook as available with speeds starting from 10 Gbps and reaching up to 14 Gbps.

Intel could be looking to develop its own discrete GPUs and package them into an MCM similar to the Intel-AMD MCM we've seen at CES. We could see this implementation starting from the upcoming 10th generation Core family.

F-Secure's security researchers discovered another flaw in Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) that a hacker can potentially misuse to gain remote access to a system.

Users of older generation 'Haswell' and 'Broadwell' Intel CPUs are reporting of constant reboots after applying patches to address the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. Intel is looking at issuing a revised firmware to address specific issues related to these CPUs.

Lenovo has announced a new ThinkPad generation a few days ago, but not all models were updated. Now an internal Lenovo document has been leaked, which mentions some new ThinkPad models for the remainder of 2018.

After a droolworthy announcement last year, Intel has finally taken wraps off its much hyped Intel-AMD MCM. The MCM is available in 65W and 100W total package power and will soon start showing up in notebooks and NUCs this year.

The 2018 Zotac mini PCs will get CPUs ranging from Gemini Lake ultra-low voltage chips to six-core gen 8 processors from Intel. The fanless models will feature redesigned chassis that support processors with TDPs up to 25 W, allowing for pre-overclocked Kaby Lake-R processors.

G.Skill has announced the availability of Sniper X DDR4 3600 RAM in a camouflage design that complements gaming PCs. G.Skill offers capacities up to 128 GB and the modules come with support for XMP 2.0.

The next version of Linux Mint, Linux Mint 19, will release sometime in May or June this year. The popular Linux distro will be based on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Recent changes to NVIDIA's EULA prohibits datacenter deployment of their consumer grade GeForce GPUs apart from those used for blockchain processing. This being seen as a move to curb deployment of cost-effective GeForce GPUs for half-precision Deep Neural Network processing.

Intel's India website leaked some information about the 'Kaby Lake-G' Core i7-8809G MCM. The listing sheds some light on the specifications of the new package and gives us hints on what to expect from Intel's official announcement at CES 2018.

While the new iMac Pro is not end-user upgradeable, Apple component supplier, OWC, did a teardown of the latest iMac Pro base model and found that the RAM and SSD can actually be upgraded if needed.

Apple and Computer History Museum will jointly release the source code for Lisa, one of Apple's first commercial OSs to feature the GUI. The source code, currently being reviewed by Apple, will be made available for free in the public domain very soon.

The first pictures of the rumored NVIDIA GTX 1060 5 GB SKU card have surfaced online. The new Gigabyte card is identical to the GTX 1060 6 GB Windforce OC but comes with the NVIDIA GP106-350-K3-A1 GPU that supports up to 5 GB GDDR5 memory and reduced memory bandwidth.

We could soon see AMD launch its 400-series chipset close to Ryzen 2000's launch early next year. Existing 300-series boards will, however, continue to be compatible with the next generation Ryzen CPUs.

Details of the much awaited 8th generation Intel HQ-series CPUs have surfaced online and from the looks of it, seems to corroborate our expectations of a 'Coffee Lake' 6-core 45W chip. The rest of the specifications are more or less similar to that of the extant 'Kaby Lake' quad-core 45W HQ offerings.

Advertised as "the most powerful Mac ever," the iMac Pro provides an impressive set of hardware specs, packing Xeon processors with up to 18 cores, 22 Teraflops of graphics performance, as well as a 27-inch Retina 5K display.

Apple has announced that the successor to the ill-fated 2013 Mac Pro is scheduled to arrive this week. Based on the iMac AIO design, the new iMac Pro can sport up to 18-cores of custom Intel Xeon performance.

The new DisplayHDR certificate aims at a more clear classification for HDR-grade LCD displays. It includes three tiers that have distinct logos and are differentiated according to luminance, color gamut, bit depth and rise time. Commercial DisplayHDR-certified screens will be available as soon as Q1 2018.

Leaked slides, which are claimed to be genuine AMD material, show core and thread count for the upcoming 2700, 2800, and 2800X, as well as the frequencies that they run at. You can expect these new Ryzen processors to start shipping from 1st February 2018.

We might soon see Intel's 35W 'Coffee Lake-S' hit production in Q1 2018 alongside quad-core and dual-core 'Gemini Lake' entry level CPUs. Interestingly, Q4 2018 will see the launch of HEDT 'Cascade Lake-X', the successor to 'Skylake-X'.

Laptops will rise to make up over 40 percent of the PC market in the next five years at the expense of desktops and traditional slate tablets.

While it has been an iOS exclusive for quite some time now, Siri will be coming to macOS starting with the upcoming iMac Pros and MacBook Pro versions. The ARM A10 Fusion chip will enable an always-on functionality that allows Siri to work even when the devices are completely shut off.

The upcoming iteration of the Dell XPS 15 will finally have full speed 4-lane Thunderbolt 3 along with possibly a 5K display option according to Dell's VP Gaming and XPS, Frank Azor, who also confirms that Dell is waiting for Intel to ship its 8th generation H-series processors.

The PrevailPRO is PNY's first incursion into mobile workstations. There are three available variants that integrate an i7-7700HQ CPU coupled with up to 32 GB DDR4-24400 RAM and up to 512 GB NVMe SSD + 2 TB HDD storage options. On the graphics side, professional designers can choose between Nvidia's Quadro P3000 and P4000 GPUs, both with Max-Q specs.

The ThinkPad P52s will also integrate a physical slider in front of the webcam for privacy concerns when it launches early 2018.

The first images of the new Intel-AMD multi-chip module (MCM) in the wild have surfaced and going by the looks of it, appears to be exactly what ultrabooks and mini-PCs have been longing for all this while.

The XPG SX6000 NVMe SSD offers the best value on the market right now. For only US$145, gamers and video editing pros can benefit from 1 GB/s read speeds and 800 MB/s write speeds. The M.2-2280 form factor is designed to fit both desktops and laptops. ADATA also provides 128 GB, 256 GB and 1 TB variants.

NVIDIA has announced the launch of the much anticipated GeForce GTX 1070 Ti as a successor to the hugely popular GTX 970. Featuring the same GP104 GPU as the GTX 1080 but just 128 CUDA cores short of its elder cousin the 1070 Ti, which will officially launch on November 2, is well poised to take the AMD Vega 56 head on.

The Summit is almost ready to go online and it will become the fastest supercomputer ever built. It will average between 150 and 300 petaflops of processing power and will integrate 4,600 nodes that are powered by IBM and Nvidia processors, consuming 15 MW in full load.

HP, Lenovo, and Dell have each grown in market share at the notable expense of Asus and Acer. HP alone accounts for more than one in four PCs sold in the European, Middle Eastern, and African regions.

The new Ubuntu Linux 17.10 release is nicknamed "Artful Aardvark" and comes with the latest version of GNOME as the default desktop, thus dropping Canonical's Unity graphical shell.

The 10-core Xeon CPU is more than 50% faster than the 8-core model when it comes to multi-core performance tests. Apple will also launch an 18-core/36-thread iMac in December this year.

The HP ZBook x2 is now official and should hit the market in December as the world's most powerful detachable PC. It features a quad-core Intel Core Kaby Lake-R processor, NVIDIA Quadro graphics, and starts at US$1,749.

Q3 2017 market data reveals a largely stable PC market with Asus suffering the most losses out of the big 5 makers.