Author: batteryforpc

Samsung Germany has given us another reason to believe that the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite is getting closer and closer to an official unveiling, as the tablet’s support pages went live on Samsung’s German portal. A pre-release listing in the support section usually indicates that the company is gearing up for the product’s release on the market.

Pair that with previous premature listings on a couple of retailers’ online shops – including Amazon Germany – and the puzzle pieces are beginning to fall into place and paint a clearer picture. The tablet should be on its way.

The Galaxy Tab S6 Lite will come in Wi-Fi and LTE flavors

Support pages went live for both the Wi-Fi (SM-P610) and LTE (SM-P615) versions of the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite. Earlier reports claim that the Wi-Fi and LTE models for Europe will cost €399 and €428, respectively. B&H also listed the Wi-Fi version along with a price tag of $350 a week ago, but the price didn’t contain VAT. The premature listing has since been removed.

The preliminary spec sheet based on previous leaks includes a 10.4-inch LCD with a resolution of 2000 by 1200 pixels, an Exynos 9611 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 64GB/128GB of expandable storage, a 7,040mAh battery, Android 10, and support for S Pen. In addition, the Galaxy Tab S6 Lite is said to carry an 8MP main camera paired with a 5MP front-facing sensor.

As a general rule of thumb, I try to avoid paying full price for SSDs (on the rare occasion I’m in the market for one), because there seems to always be a sale. Crucial’s new P2 500GB SSD, however, comes out of the gate with a tantalizing price point that will have some buyers skip the sale shopping.

The 500GB model (CT500P2SSD8) is one of only two capacities comprising the P2 series right now—it costs $64.99 on Crucial’s website and at Newegg. There’s also a 250GB model (CT250P2SSD8) for $54.99.

Pricing on the 250GB is actually fair for the specifications, but the 500GB is a better value and stands out as particularly interesting. Over on Newegg, every other 500GB SSD that costs the same (or slightly less) has a SATA 6Gbps interface, and most are 2.5-inch form factor drives.

In contrast, the P2 drives are built around the M.2 form factor and leverage an NVMe interface for faster speeds. Here’s what we’re looking at:

Crucial P2 500GB—2,300MB/s sequential read, 940MB/s sequential write

Crucial P2 250GB—2,100MB/s sequential read, 1,150MB/s sequential write

They’re not the fastest NVMe drives on the market, even among PCI Express 3.0 models, let alone those newfangled PCIe 4.0 SSDs that push speeds in excess of 5,000MB/s. But those read speeds are around four times faster than a typical SATA SSD.

To put the pricing on the 500GB model into perspective, Crucial’s MX500 500GB SSD in M.2 form (SATA 6Gbps) sells for $69.99 on the company’s website, and $70.99 on Newegg. In other words, Crucial undercut its own pricing by releasing a faster SSD at a lower price, as well as the competition.

It’s not clear what type of NAND flash memory chips Crucial is using on its P2 series. The P1 line (which we consider one of the best NVMe SSDs) uses Micron’s 64-layer 3D quad-level cell (QLC) chips paired with Silicon Motion’s SM2263 controller, and I assume the P2 line uses the slower QLC NAND chips as well.

There’s also no mention of the controller on this new line. It’s probably a different one, though, since the specifications have changed—the P1 500GB is rated to deliver up to 1,900MB/s random reads (versus 2,300MB/s) and 950MB/s random writes (versus 940MB/s).

Assuming these drives don’t cough up a hairball during any testing for the best SSD for gaming guide (none of us have spent any hands-on time with them), the only real complaint I have is the lack of capacity options. I’d like to see Crucial offer these in 1TB and higher capacities, with the same aggressive pricing strategy.

The idea of the thin and light gaming laptop has been bouncing around for years, and there have been plenty of manufacturers that have managed the feat, with some great machines from the likes of Asus, Dell, Razer, MSI, and many more. The problem is that while a lot of these pack the finest components into their super-thin chassis, they can get loud when you really push them. 

There have been a few exceptions though, and one machine that has stood out from the crowd for it’s whisper quiet operation is the MSI GS65 Stealth. We loved the original MSI GS65 Stealth Thin when we reviewed it back in May 2018, and we liked the refresh, the MSI GS65 Stealth Thin (2019) that shipped last June as well. So when MSI offered us an engineering sample of its up and coming GS66 Stealth, we jumped at the chance.

For the most part, this looks identical to the previous GS65, but instead of gold highlights, it’s all black. The star of the engineering sample is the 10th gen Intel processor, the Core i7 10750H to be exact. This is a 6-core, 12-thread CPU that has a base frequency of 2.6GHz, a max frequency of 4.8GHz across all its cores, and a potential top single core frequency of 5GHz.

As this is an early engineering sample it’s hard to say for sure how fast this CPU will go, but the fastest I recorded across days of testing was slightly shy of the single core Max Turbo frequency, but it lined up with the multi-core frequency. It may be that MSI has held back a little in order to keep the noise levels down, which I have absolutely no problem with.

The rest of the specifications makes for a tempting machine, with 32GB of DDR4-2666 RAM, a fast 512GB NVMe SSD and a 240Hz 1080p panel that looks great. There are several versions of the GS66 Stealth on the way, with the graphics subsystem being one of the defining factors. This engineering model had an RTX 2060 as a placeholder (with older drivers that couldn’t be updated), although the shipping machine will have either an RTX 2060 Max-Q or an RTX 2080 Super.

We can’t print the results of the benchmarking we did on this machine, because firstly it’s an engineering sample, and thus not finished, but also because there’s an embargo on performance results from both Nvidia and Intel until the 15th April. There’s also a rather important missing element from this machine, and that is the GPU. So I’ll be revisiting this machine just as soon as it’s in production to see how it performs.

While the performance and responsiveness of the machine are great, the thing that blew me away the most was how quiet it was in use. Push it hard and it continues to keep its noisy side in check. It’s not absolutely silent under load, but even when the fans do kick up a gear, they are only just audible. Can MSI keep the noise levels this low with such a high-end GPU? I can’t wait to find out.

So not everything is exactly as it will ship, which made it all the more surprising to find that MSI had set aside time to install Norton Antivirus onto it’s otherwise gorgeous machine. Far more welcome was MSI’s Dragon Center, which enables you to switch between various User Scenarios, which essentially pitches noise against performance. We did experiment here a little, although found the “Balanced” setting worked best.

As for the rest of the machine, the Steelseries keyboard looks good and is responsive, and that screen is also another plus point. It looks great from a range of angles, although whether you actually need a 240Hz screen is another question entirely. I was less impressed with the touchpad, which is large, but tricky to register clicks with. Still the chassis is sturdy, and I’m definitely a fan of the subdued styling. 

The bottom line is that the MSI GS66 Stealth is a deeply impressive laptop, and like its predecessors could do very well. The biggest problem for MSI right now, and indeed any manufacturer, is those new $999 RTX 2060 gaming laptops that could make this seem incredibly expensive. We’ll have to wait and see if the extra performance makes up for it.

For what feels like ages at this point, we’ve been waiting for Intel 10th-generation Comet Lake processors for desktop to make their appearance. And, while we have heard plenty of rumors about when we’ll see them, we’re starting to see info suggesting what they’ll be capable of. 

The latest of these is a Geekbench 5 benchmark result spotted by renowned hardware leaker TUM_APISAK, and the results are pretty interesting. Notably, it lists the maximum frequency as 5.08GHz, which is lower than the 5.3GHz that previous leaks have suggested. This leads to a multi-core score of 11,296 which isn’t quite as powerful as AMD’s current-generation flagship. 

We actually just retested the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X the night before this leak appeared, where the 12-core processor managed a score of 12,060, which makes it still around 7% faster than the alleged Intel chip’s result – keep in mind that the 3900X launched way back in July 2019, too. 

However, the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X does fall behind this leaked benchmark in single-core performance, scoring 1,268 points in last night’s testing compared to the 1,408 in this leak. That is a pretty substantial 10% lead that Intel is potentially claiming here, which would maintain its position as the manufacturer behind the best processors for gaming. 

Obviously, we can’t wait to get this little chunk of silicon in for our own in-house testing to see exactly how it stacks up against AMD, but we still have no idea when that will actually happen. Intel will launch its next-gen processors when it decides is the best time, and until then we’re just going to have to wait and see. 

A temporary fix?

Intel’s 10th-generation Comet Lake-S processors may narrow the massive gap that exists between AMD and Intel in the desktop world right now, but it may not last for long. Keep in mind that AMD CEO Lisa Su has said that Ryzen 4000 processors for desktop will be coming this year. 

If the Intel Core i9-10900K only manages to come 7% short of beating the 3900X and only beating it in single-core by around 10%, that doesn’t bode well for Intel whenever Team Red manages to launch its next desktop platform. Word on the street, according to an AdoredTV leak, is that the Zen 3-based Ryzen 4000 lineup is going to see a 15% boost in IPC performance. If that’s paired with higher clockspeeds on AMD’s next platform, Intel’s single-core lead could vanish. 

And now that we’ve seen AMD bring the Zen 2 improvements over to mobile, there’s a lot of pressure on Intel to come up with something truly exciting. We said it in another piece touching on our brief testing of the AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS (more on that coming very soon), but we’d love to see Intel come up with its own Ryzen moment. 

Intel Comet Lake-H has just arrived and Comet Lake-S is likely right around the corner, so we’re incredibly interested to see whether or not it can shake up AMD’s stranglehold on the processor world. 

And if it does, you can bet we’ll be diving into that when the time comes. 

Aaeon’s PICO-WHU4 is a tiny computer that measures about 3.9″ x 2.8″ making it just a little larger than a pack of playing cards (or a Raspberry Pi). But it’s basically a full-fledged computer powered by a 15-watt, 8th-gen Intel Core processor.

I’m reluctant to call this a single-board computer like the Raspberry Pi because while its processor is soldered to the motherboard, the PICO-WHU4 has a SODIMM slot for up to 16GB of DDR4 memory and a PCIe slot for solid state storage. Then again, most Raspberry Pi computers don’t have built-in storage either — they boot from microSD cards.

The biggest difference between the PICO-WHU4 and the Raspberry Pi line of devices though, is that this is not a cheap mini PC. ZDNet notes that a model with a Core i5 processor is priced at $783. Other configurations will likely cost less — but you need to contact Aaeon for pricing.

That said, the little computer is an extraordinarily versatile machine that’s designed for “AI and edge computing applications,” with support for expansion cards for AI processing, among other things.

Aaeon offers models with a choice of processors including:

Intel Core i7-8665UE

Intel Core i5-8365UE

Intel Core i3-8145UE

Intel Celeron 4305UE

The computer supports DDR4-2400 memory, an mSATA/mPCIe SSD and/or USB storage, and features a decent range of ports:

2 x HDMI 1.4b

2 x Gigabit Ethernet

2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2

2 x RS-232/422/485 Serial

M.2 2230

Overall this… is probably not something you’re likely to buy for home use. It’s a little too pricey to consider using as a home theater PC, a little underpowered for gaming, and generally seems to be geared more toward developers.

But it’s still a pretty nifty little pocket-sized, Windows-compatible computer (with the heart of a laptop).