Author: batteryforpc

ASUS KO – a special series for the Korean market

ASUS has unveiled its special series called KO, which stands for Korean Origin. These series are special edition only to be sold in South Korea.

A special team of designers and managers gathered feedback from Korean users on what they expect from a graphics card in terms of design, noise, temperature, and pricing. It took half a year to complete the design. The final design was selected from 10 candidates.

The first graphics card to be part of the KO series is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070. This graphics card has been designed and manufactured to underline its Korean Origin. Everything from the packaging to cooler design resembles the Korean culture.

The RTX 3070 KO graphics card is a dual-fan design with custom display connector configuration: 3x DisplayPort and 2x HDMI. The card is 2.5-slot thick and features dual 8-pin power connectors. The clock speeds have not been confirmed yet. The ASUS RTX 3070 KO will likely become availble on October 29th, when NVIDIA officially lauches its new graphics card.

Gigabyte has spiced up its lineup of BRIX Pro mini-PCs with two new models, the GB-BSRE-1505 and the GB-BSRE-1605, powered by AMD’s Ryzen Embedded processors. Pricing and availability are unavailable at this time.

These AMD powered units are similar in size compared to Gigabyte’s latest Tiger Lake BRIX PCs, measuring 1‎96.2 x 44.4 x 140 mm. They aren’t the smallest BRIX units Gigabyte offers, but the extra size allows these PCs to pack more USB ports and display outputs, which can be handy if you need a desktop replacement.

The differentiating factor between the two units is the processor model. The GB-BSRE-1505 uses the Ryzen R1505G dual-core processor, while the GB-BSRE-1605 uses the more powerful Ryzen V1605B quad-core CPU. Surprisingly, both processors are on AMD’s first-generation 14nm Zen architecture. AMD hasn’t updated any of its embedded CPUs with more modern architectures, at least not yet, explaining Gigabyte’s choice in processors.

Both units feature a decent amount of connectivity; eight USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports, two gigabit LAN connectors, and one headphone/mic jack. For display outputs, you get three HDMI ports on the Brix with the Ryzen dual-core and four with the quad-core unit (that features a more powerful Vega GPU). Unfortunately, you don’t get as many USB 3.0 ports or any Thunderbolt ports due to the older Zen architecture.

Memory support maxes out at 2400 MHz with two DIMMs supporting up to 32GB of RAM (16GB per DIMM). For storage, you get two M.2 slots – one supports NVME and SATA, and the other only supports SATA. You also get one SATA 3 port for 2.5′ SSDs/hard drives. 

Both units look good on paper and the connectivity is excellent, but the older Ryzen architecture holds these computers back significantly. Hopefully, Gigabyte will set pricing low enough to keep these PCs competitive. 

The transition from USB Type-A to USB Type-C has not exactly been an expeditious one, mostly because the market is already flooded with devices built around the former. That’s why even the newest cutting edge motherboards typically offer more USB-A ports than USB-C ones. Kingston’s new DataTraveler Duo USB flash drive can plug into either one of them.

It’s a cleverly designed flash drive with a USB-C connector on one side and a USB-A connector on the other, either of which (or both) can be hidden in the slider-style casing.

“The addition of the DT Duo adds much needed functionality to the growing number of USB Type-C devices on the market,” said Carissa Blegen, flash product manager, Kingston. “The dual interface and unique double slider casing make the drive sturdy and stylish, with no cap to lose.”

Kingston is offering the DataTraveler Duo in 32GB and 64GB capacities. It is a USB 3.2 Gen 1 drive, which means it adheres to the original USB 3.0 specification, with a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 5Gbps. Navigating the USB standard is a little confusing these days, with the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) relabeling past standards. Here’s a breakdown:

USB 1.1 —> still USB 1.1 (Full Speed)

USB 2.0 —> still USB 2.0 (High Speed)

USB 3.0 —> USB 3.1 Gen 1 —> USB 3.2 Gen 1 (SuperSpeed)

USB 3.1 Gen 2 —> USB 3.2 Gen 2 (SuperSpeed 10Gbps)

USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (SuperSpeed 20Gbps)

Thanks for the specifications soup, USB-IF. In any event, Kingston has not provided any specific speed claims, saying only that the USB 3.2 Gen 1 standard is up to 10x faster than USB 2.0. As a possible point of reference, the company’s DataTraveler 80 drive is rated to read data 200MB/s. That is also a USB 3.2 Gen 1 drive.

USB flash drives with dual interfaces are not super common, but this is not the first of its kind, either. SanDisk (owned by Western Digital) also offers a flash drive with both USB-C and USB-A connectors, in capacities ranging from 16GB to 256GB.

Kingston’s DataTravel Duo is available now, priced on Amazon at $10 for the 64GB model and $7 for the 32GB model.

AMD Radeon RX 6000 series specifications have been known to us since Monday. This week AMD provided a lot of details to AIBs, including new (working) drivers, final SKU names, and so on. We have been able to cross-check parts of the specs and we feel confident that these are more or less final.

AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT – Navi 21 XTX

AMD’s Big Navi will feature 80 Compute Units (5120 Stream Processors). This card will be (for now) AMD exclusive. The Radeon RX 6900XT will be the AMD flagship series, which according to our sources will be in limited quantity. The card would allegedly feature 16GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus. The graphics card would feature a 2040 MHz game clock and a 2330 MHz boost clock.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT – Navi 21 XT

The cut-down Navi 21 codenamed XT will feature 72 Compute Units (4608 Stream Processors) paired with 16GB of GDDR6 memory. This card will also feature a 256-bit memory bus and clock speed above 2.0 GHz. The game clock is expected to be 2015 MHz and the boost clock should be under 2250 MHz. These are of course AMD reference clocks.

AMD Radeon RX 6800 – Navi 21 XL

The RX 6800 non-X will feature Navi 21 XL variant with 64 Compute Units (4096 Stream Processors). Similarly to 6900XT and 6800XT it will also come with 16GB GDDR6 memory and a 256-bit memory bus. The clock speeds are lower for this part with an 1815 MHz game clock and 2105 MHz boost clock.

The Radeon RX 6900XT, 6800XT, and 6800 will all be unveiled on October 28th.

AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT and 6700 – Navi 22

AMD is also releasing its Radeon RX 6700 series, but not this month. The RX 6700 series will feature Navi 22 GPU. According to our sources, AMD has recently decided to launch these GPUs quicker than previously planned. The current plan is to launch them in January. The Radeon RX 6700XT is expected to be full Navi 22 with 40 CUs (2560 Stream Processors). The RX 6700 XT Navi 22 graphics card is said to feature 12GB GDDR6 192-bit memory.

A few more things

Although we had the specs since Monday, another news outlet has been the first to publish the correct SKU/configurations before us. The information posted earlier today by Coreteks is more or less the same with some small changes to the clock speeds. We are however expanding this information with RX 6700 SKUs.

We will talk more about performance and special cache built into the Big Navi later (we are still collecting information). We can confirm also that AIBs will release their custom cards next month, but the priority is on AMD reference design. According to our information, the MBA (reference) cards will even have a separate review embargo.

This Friday Apple’s newly unveiled iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are officially becoming available, and ahead of that the company is pushing out a software update to all of its supported phones and tablets.

iOS 14.1 and iPadOS 14.1 are now rolling out, and both of these are, as the minor version number incrementation shows, small updates, focused on fixing bugs.

And there are a lot of such fixes included, for sure. Here’s the full changelog courtesy of Apple itself:

– Adds support for 10-bit HDR video playback and edit in ‌Photos‌ for ‌iPhone‌ 8 and later

– Addresses an issue where some ‌widgets‌, folders, and icons were showing up in reduced size on the Home Screen

– Addresses an issue where dragging ‌widgets‌ on the ‌Home Screen‌ could remove apps from folders

– Fixes an issue where some emails in Mail were sent from an incorrect alias

– Fixes an issue that could prevent incoming calls from displaying region information

– Fixes an issue on some devices where selecting zoomed display mode and an alphanumeric passcode could result in the Lock Screen emergency call button overlapping with the text input box

– Addresses an issue where some users were occasionally unable to download or add songs to their library while viewing an album or playlist

– Fixes an issue that could prevent zeroes from appearing in Calculator

– Resolves an issue where streaming video resolution could temporarily be reduced at the start of playback

– Fixes an issue that prevented setting up a family member’s Apple Watch for some users

– Resolves an issue where the Apple Watch case material was displayed incorrectly in the Apple Watch app

– Addresses an issue in the Files app that could cause some MDM-managed cloud service providers to incorrectly display content as unavailable

– Improves compatibility with Ubiquiti wireless access points

The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are expected to ship running iOS 14.1, or at least pop up an update notification for it as soon as you set them up. Apple is, at the same time, continuing development of the 14.2 branches of iOS and iPadOS, with a fourth beta seeded to developers. A final iteration of that software version will probably be out in a few weeks.