Items tagged with A-8
When it comes to flagship luxury sedans, vehicles that often come to mind include the BMW 7-Series, Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Audi A8 and Lexus LS. Today, it is Audi’s time to shine, as the German automaker just pulled the wraps off its all-new A8. Audi bills the new A8 as the most advanced luxury sedan on the planet, and we have no reason to doubt those claims. Right off the bat, every single A8 will be a mild hybrid, which means each includes a 48-volt electric system enabling stop/start operation of the gasoline (or diesel) engine when stopped and turning off the engine when the vehicle is coasting (and then back on again when the accelerator pedal is pushed). However, the feature that...
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So, what did Apple do with those old design models for the Mac Pro? Apparently, it used them to create the HomePod, which is Apple’s take on the smart speaker movement that is sweeping the tech world. The HomePod is a “Breakthrough Home Speaker” first and foremost that measures less than seven inches tall and features seven beam-forming tweeters at the bottom of the device and an Apple-designed woofer for rich bass. As you might expect, HomePod has full support for voice controls with deep Siri integration, which would put it in the same league as the Amazon Echo and Google Home; albeit with far superior audio more in line with Sonos products. An array of six microphones are included the HomePod,...
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We reported last week that Apple was set to unveil a next generation iPod touch with a faster, 64-bit processor (the current iPod touch is using the old-as-dirt A5 SoC). We had expected that Apple would use the 2013-era A7 processor for the redheaded stepchild of the iOS family, but the folks from Cupertino, California surprised us with an even more potent SoC. The new 2015 iPod touch features the current generation A8 processor, which is used in Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The arrival of the A8 also means that the M8 motion coprocessor is also along for the ride, which allows the iPod touch to function as a pedometer. The rear iSight camera is now an 8MP unit (up from 5MP), but the display...
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Last month, we were made aware of a number of new features that will make it into the next generation Apple TV. The media streamer is tipped to feature an Apple A8 processor, “well beyond” 8GB of internal storage, support for Siri, and its own App Store that will deliver big-screen accommodating applications and games. Today, we’re learning from BuzzFeed one feature that will not be coming to the Apple TV: 4K video support. 4K support is just now coming online with streaming services like YouTube, Amazon Instant Video, and Netflix; and according to BuzzFeed’s sources, "4K is great, but it's still in its infancy.” The move is a little surprising, as one would think that Apple would want to add...
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Apple recently slashed the price of its Apple TV media streamer for $99 to $69 earlier this month. The price cut was a long time coming, as Apple’s “premier” media streamer hasn’t seen a significant update in years (the current generation was introduced way back in March 2012) and there are other more functional streamers (namely the Amazon Fire TV and the Roku 3) available to consumers. About the only thing that Apple TV offers over the competition currently is tight integration with the Apple ecosystem and exclusive (for a limited time) HBO Now support. Today, we’re hearing word that some new hardware is finally in store for the Apple TV. First and foremost, the processor inside the device...
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Historically speaking, we typically see impressive performance gains each time Apple releases a new custom processor for its mobile products. Certainly that was true of the A7 System-on-Chip (SoC), the world's first 64-bit smartphone processor offering desktop-class performance. In our evaluation of the iPhone 5s, the A7 chip dominated our benchmark runs and consistently outperformed previous generation iPhone models, sometimes by an obscene margin. So, can we expect the same kind of performance bump from the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, both of which sport a custom A8 SoC? Maybe not. Rightware ran the iPhone 6 through its Basemark X benchmark and noted only modest gains compared to the iPhone...
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Today, Apple unveiled the upcoming iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, ending months of speculation over whether or not the company would ever move to larger screens or higher PPI. The answer, it turns out, is yes -- the iPhone 6 will pack a 4.7-inch screen while the iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch screen. Resolution on the iPhone 6 is 1134x750 (326 PPI) while the iPhone 6 Plus hits 1920x1080 and 401 PPI. These figures aren't as high as some Android phones, but we've already hit the point of diminishing marginal returns since the original iPhone 4 launched the concept of a Retina Display. Unless you have better than 20/20 vision, a display is always Retina at a certain distance -- and the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will...
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AMD updated its family of Kaveri-based A-Series APUs for desktop systems today. We first took an official look at Kaveri back in January, when we evaluated the A8-7600 APU. That particular APU is being re-launched today at a new price point, but AMD is also introducing a couple of new APUs as well, namely the A10-7800 and the A6-7400K. As their names suggest, the A10-7800 is a somewhat higher-end APU than the A8-7600 we initially evaluated, and the A6-7400K is a lower-end variant with fewer cores. We’ve got an A10-7800 in hand and have run it through an array of benchmark to show you what its performance looks like in comparison to a few competing chips... AMD Kaveri Update: A10-7800 APU...
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AMD updated its family of Kaveri-based A-Series APUs for desktop systems today. We first took an official look at Kaveri back in January, when we evaluated the A8-7600 APU. That particular APU is being re-launched today at a new price point, but AMD is also introducing a couple of new APUs as well, namely the A10-7800 and the A6-7400K. As their names suggest, the A10-7800 is a somewhat higher-end APU than the A8-7600 we initially evaluated, and the A6-7400K is a lower-end variant with fewer cores. The Updated AMD Kaveri-Based APU Line Up - Find Them At Amazon The complete breakdown of AMD’s updated A-Series APU line-up is listed for you here. As you can see, the A10-7800 has 12 total compute...
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Apple’s WWDC is just around the corner, and reports indicate that fresh new goodies in store include a new version of Mac OS X (10.10), iOS 8, and new features for Apple TV. According to 9to5 Mac, OS X 10.10 is a complete redesign with a new look not dissimilar to some of iOS 7’s aesthetic features, perhaps in an effort to keep the Apple product experience more uniform across multiple devices. Unnamed hardware updates will be coming to support the new OS X 10.10, and Apple will ship it all this autumn. iOS 8 promises many new features, but the release may have to be split into iOS 8 and a later iOS 8.1 due to some feature delays--which may have been caused by a reallocation of iOS...
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Both Intel and AMD have quite successfully combined CPU and GPU engines onto single chips, but up to this point they have tended to work as autonomous islands. The CPU and GPU share some resources, but not a single memory pool. That changes today though, with the official launch of AMD’s Kaveri-based APUs, the first APUs to truly support heterogeneous computing. Kaveri combines AMD’s latest Steamroller CPU microarchitecture with a GCN-based graphics engine, with up to 512 stream processors. Peak CPU clocks will vary depending on model, but the graphics clock maxes out at 720MHz. These AMD desktop-targeted APUs will carry TDPs of 45W – 95W. AMD Kaveri A8-7600 APU Review The GCN-based...
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Way back in 2006, after the ATI acquisition, AMD laid out its Fusion initiative and future plans to integrate a CPU and GPU onto the same processor die. The ultimate goal of Fusion was to seamlessly combine CPU and GPU resources into a single, cohesive compute engine equally adept at handling serial and highly parallel workloads. At the time, the idea seemed ambitious, but history has shown that more and more external resources have consistently been brought onto the CPU die (memory controllers, IO hub, etc.) and graphics would be no different. Since then, both Intel and AMD have quite successfully combined CPU and GPU engines onto single chips, but up to this point they have tended...
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Late last week, we posted a glimpse of what AMD had in store with their latest A-Series APUs for desktop systems. In that article, we were able to officially unveil the Virgo platform and discuss speeds and feeds, GPU performance, and power consumption characteristics. However, we weren’t able to disclose any CPU performance numbers, overclocking data, or pricing. We know some of you aren’t too fond of cliffhangers that leave out important data like that, but thankfully we can give you all the full scoop here today. In this piece, we’ll fill in the blanks regarding AMD’s latest desktop APUs and cover the rest of the performance characteristics many of you have been eagerly...
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Late last week, we posted a glimpse of what AMD had in store with their latest A-Series APUs for desktop systems. In that article, we were able to officially unveil the Virgo platform and discuss speeds and feeds, GPU performance, and power consumption characteristics. However, we weren’t able to disclose any CPU performance numbers, overclocking data, or pricing. We know some of you aren’t too fond of cliffhangers that leave out important data like that, but thankfully we can give you all the full scoop here today. In this piece, we’ll fill in the blanks regarding AMD’s latest desktop APUs and cover the rest of the performance characteristics many of you...
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