Author: batteryforpc

CHUWI brand is definitely one of the big dogs in chinese tablet/laptop industry and they always focus on the price/performance ratio. Recently they have sent to the market a new CHUWI Hi10 X convertible 2-in-1 tablet and it more or less embodies the company’s philosphy. It packs quite a punch with rock solid specs, but on the other hand is not exceeding the acceptable pricing. And the design of full metal unibody chassis with sleek 8.8mm thickness and 600g of weight certainly helps too. How about rest of the specs ?

For starters the 2-in-1 convertible tablet is getting a solid processor with the Gemini Lake Intel Celeron N4100 paired with 6 GB LPDDR4 RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. The 10.1-inch fully laminated G+FF IPS display with FHD resolution is kept and with the added support of the 1024-pressure level stylus pen HiPen 3 it got even better. The tablet is also boasting full metal unibody build with a docking keyboard as an extra and new set of ports. Those will even have two USB Type-C ports (one slower 2.0 for charging and one 3.0 for data). Battery life is also not bad with estimations ranging from 6 to 8 hours. Everything of course runs on the pre-installed Windows 10 system as usual.

And now we are getting to the best part of the whole thing. Because CHUWI Hi10 X is really kept pretty affordable with the base prices on Aliexpress, Amazon and Banggood official channels reaching roughly about $210. But ideally you want to throw in the mix the keyboard dock and the stylus pen for couple dollars more to have all the perks. Still the pricing is really good all things considered. You can find more information about the model including the buying links on the official website.

A leaked slide suggests that Intel’s Rocket Lake is going to be the desktop equivalent of Tiger Lake, just a bit more portly.

Intel Rocket Lake is rumoured to be the next next-gen desktop processor from the chip giant, and a freshly leaked slide looks to be serving up our first concrete info on the new Intel CPUs. Of course we need to get the Intel Comet Lake processor update out of the way first, but the Rocket Lake silicon should be our first taste of a new Core architecture on the desktop since Skylake when it finally arrives. When that might be… well, all hardware launches are subject to change right now.

The slide, leaked by Videocardz and reportedly its sources at Intel, promises “Increased performance with new processor core architecture.” The 10nm Tiger Lake mobile chips launching in laptops (near you) later this year look to be the forerunners of the Rocket Lake desktop parts, and those sport the new Willow Cove Core architecture. 

Willow Cove wraps in the extra single threaded performance boost of the Sunny Cove architecture, but includes a cache redesign, new transistor optimisations, and some much-needed security features. And that should give Rocket Lake some of the edge it needs to compete with AMD’s Ryzen chips. Which will be in maybe their fifth generation by the time it launches some time in 2021. Tough times.

Alongside the new architecture will be the Xe graphics silicon, but as Rocket Lake S is a desktop part, don’t expect Intel to ship too much GPU grunt inside it. After all, you’re going to be slamming a next-gen AMD RDNA 2 or Nvidia Hopper graphics card into your hypothetical Rocket Lake rig.

The slide also promises PCIe 4.0 support for the touted Intel 500-series motherboard platform, something which Comet Lake’s 400-series boards won’t be offering. Again, a long while after AMD dropped the inaugural PCIe 4.0 platform. The PCIe 4.0 support is coming directly from the CPU itself, offering a x16 interface for the GPU and another x4 lanes for an NVMe SSD. That there’s bandwidth, people.

So, will this be the first 10nm desktop processor from Intel, a node akin to AMD’s 7nm chips? There’s no confirmation in the latest slide, but the expectation all along has been that Rocket Lake will be another roll of the 14nm dice, with a huge number of +++++ characters behind it, back-porting the advanced core architecture into an older process node.

Given the performance Intel has squeezed out of the 14nm node up to now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The best CPUs for gaming are still Intel… for now. But we’ve got to wade through the Comet Lake CPU sludge first, and who knows when that’s going to happen.

As the original hardware from the golden era of 8-bit computer gaming becomes a bit long in the tooth, keeping it alive has become something of a concern for enthusiasts. There have been a succession of remanufactured parts for many of the major platforms of the day, and now thanks to [Redherring32] it’s the turn of the NES console.

The OpenTendo is a completely open-source replacement for an original front-loading Nintendo Entertainment System motherboard, using both original or after-market Nintendo CPU and PPU chips, and other still readily available components. It doesn’t incorporate Nintendo’s CIC lockout chip — Drew Littrell wrote a great article on how that security feature worked — but if you really need the authenticity there is also the NullCIC project that can simulate that component.

It’s an interesting exercise in reverse engineering as well as a chance to look at the NES at the chip level. Also for Nintendo-heads, it provides all the component footprints and schematic items in KiCAD format. Will many be built? Given that the NES was the best-selling console of its time there should be no shortage of originals to be found, but that in no way invalidates the effort put into this project. There will be NES consoles somewhere running for decades to come because of work such as this, simply remember that you don’t need to blow in the slot to make it work!