Items tagged with ASIC
As Bitcoin prices skyrocketed earlier this year, all cryptocurrencies were under the microscope by people around the globe. Specifically, energy-consumption concerns arose as miners built out massive mining operations to execute the “proof-of-work” system that makes cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin tick. However, none of that matters if you are stealing electricity, as the Ukrainian Security Service discovered earlier this month. Now, Malaysian police have found this problem for themselves, but they are sending a message with it. For serious cryptocurrency miners, custom-built computers for mining are called an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). These are significantly better...
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Though cryptocurrency mining is becoming less profitable by the day, those who still have the hardware may as well use it. However, it sucks up a lot of energy and dumps a lot of heat, which suspiciously looks like a marijuana grow house, as it turns out. Earlier this month, police in London were tipped off to a building within the Great Bridge Industrial Estate, Sandwell. Using drone surveillance, police saw a characteristic heat signature and people regularly going in and out. Therefore, when the police raided the location on May 18th, they were expecting a cannabis farm, but that is not what they found. Upon entry, they saw shelves full of up to 100 application-specific integrated circuit...
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While testifying before Congress over the Cambridge Analytical privacy scandal, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly talked about the need to further develop artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to tackle several of the challenges the company currently faces. Apparently that includes designing its own chips, too. Facebook is looking to hire silicon design engineers to develop ASIC and FPGA hardware that will drive its next generation technologies. The job listing does not go into great detail about Facebook's semiconductor plans, though it does mention designing semi-custom and fully custom ASICs. By assembling its own chip design team, Facebook would ultimately make itself less reliant...
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Bitmain, a popular manufacturer of ASIC hardware, is now taking pre-orders for a new model that could potentially (and finally) reduce the demand on graphics cards for cryptocurrency mining. Called the Antminer E3, the new Ethash ASIC is purpose built for mining Ethereum, the second biggest form of cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, and other cryptos based on the Ethash / Dagger-Hashimoto algorithm. Image Source: Bitmain ASICs (application-specific integrated circuit) are customized for a specific use and, generally speaking, are more efficient at mining certain types of cryptocurrencies than processors or GPUs (see our extensive GPU mining guide right here). According to Bitmain, the Antminer E3...
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For years, we've heard rumors that Intel was building custom chips for Google or Facebook, but these deals have always been assumed to work with standard hardware. Intel might offer a different product SKU with non-standard core counts, or a specific TDP target, or a particular amount of cache -- but at the end of the day, these were standard Xeon processors. Today, it looks like that's changing for the first time -- Intel is going to start embedding custom FPGAs into its own CPU silicon. The new FPGA-equipped Xeons will occupy precisely the same socket and platform as the standard, non-FPGA Xeons. Nothing will change on the customer front (BIOS updates may be required), but the chips should...
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Over the past nine months, we've seen the beginnings of a revolution in how video games are displayed. First, Nvidia demoed G-Sync, its proprietary technology for ensuring smooth frame delivery. Then AMD demoed its own free standard, dubbed FreeSync, that showed a similar technology. Now, VESA (Video Electronics Standard Association) has announced support for "Adaptive Sync," as an addition to DisplayPort. The new capability will debut with DisplayPort 1.2a -- we're going to walk you through what this means, and how it relates to both Nvidia's and AMD's plans for the market. G-Sync, FreeSync, and Adaptive Sync: How The Pieces Fit Together In order to understand how these technologies fit together...
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AMD's CEO, Rory Read, has made no secret of his plans to take the company in new and different directions, but the company's server announcement today caught the market by surprise. Sunnyvale has purchased SeaMicro in a deal worth ~$330 million, the majority of which ($281M) will be paid in cash. The acquisition brings AMD's onetime CTO, Fred Weber, at least temporarily back to the fold; Weber left AMD to take a position with SeaMicro. If you aren't familiar with the company, SeaMicro is a server startup that made a name for itself starting several years ago when it built server rigs using Atom processors. The company has extended and built on that foundation since its inception and ironically...
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Adobe's Flash player has a 98% percent install rate, so I guess it's safe to call it an industry standard for video content. They've just released the latest version, Flash Player 10, nicknamed "Astro," as a beta test. It's got some interesting things under the hood that work in the background to make video playback faster. On the visual side, it allows interactive 3D display based on 2D pictures, and for some reason, a "Pixel Bender" that allows you to swirl and distort the image and make yourself seasick if you like. Adobe has enhanced performance by enlisting the user's graphics card to render Flash graphics as well as by employing dynamic streaming, which means that video quality changes...
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Yahoo introduced their personal GUI builder Pipes, a short time ago. Is it "beatbox defjammin L337 kewl," or is it "Ted Stevens interwebs is a series of tubes Perry Como" cool? Read/WriteWeb has a look, and sees a lot of potential there. Perhaps today we are witnessing one of the most vivid examples of emergence - the remixing of the world wide web. The parts of the new web have crystallized - blogs, photos, video, audio, maps, RSS, social network profiles and even plain old HTML pages have formed an impressive network, that now can be mined and remixed. Mashups are really nothing new, the web has been a programmable oyster...
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The folks at Hardware Secrets have put together a tutorial outlining the features and benefits of HDTV. The tech savvy among you can probably sift through the good and bad HDTV branded products out there, but it's not always easy to figure out where to spend their hard earned money for the uninitiated. This tutorial should help. "People who are interested in home entertainment today find themselves constantly bombarded with the term "HDTV." Studies confirm that most of us are very confused about what the term actually means, much less how to experience the full benefits of high definition television in our own homes. So what...
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Hey everyone! Plenty of reviews in tonight, and while I'm sure most of you are already in bed, there's still the special group of insomniacs that I owe a post to. Enjoy the news, goodnight all :). Fujitsu Lifebook N3511 Review @ Designtechnica "The new Fujitsu Lifebook N3511 takes a stab at the multimedia-centric notebook market by adding an integrated TV tuner and a remote control to its list of one-ups. While the N3511 may come with all the bells and whistles you would expect, it is still a heavy system especially when compared to its competitors. We also aren't sure that it's small 15.4-inch screen will entice media enthusiasts enough to jump into the Fujitsu camp." Canon PowerShot...
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Hey folks, my internet is back and so is the news :) Today we have a few articles that shy away from the actual hardware review, such as the "Basics of RAID", and "Are you addicted to the internet". Am I? Are you? Maybe, maybe not, but I'll bet many of the people who answer "no", probably are. Enjoy! Jetart JACSH1 Universal VGA Cooler Review @ 3DXtreme "Today 3DXtreme is reviewing the Jetart JACSH1 Universal VGA Cooler. With video processing units becoming more complex than CPU's, users are wanting better solutions to cool their video cards. The old days of passive heatsinks are long gone, and active cooling solutions need to be better and better designed to...
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We're starting off the morning with some interesting reads from around the web. If you are looking for a good networking basics article, the Tech Zone has you covered, while Hexus.Net has information on MSI's DBS system. There's something about quad video that makes be curious. Check it! Seagate 100GB Portable External HDD @ Bjorn3D: "On the go? Always away from home or the office? Looking for a way to take a big chunk of data along with you wherever you may roam? With the arrival of USB portable drives in sizes all the way up to several GB of data, the desire to go portable with all of your data is fast becoming the norm. Enter Seagate's portable external USB 2.0 100GB HDD ready...
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It's only around 10:30PM right now, but my eyelids feel like bricks... how about you? I still have to do some shopping on Newegg for a client, so I'll get straight to the news... Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 5 Video Card Cooler @ Systemcooling "Arctic Cooling manufactures a line of GPU coolers designed to combat not only the heat issues, but noise issues as well, and we know from experiencing the original VGA Silencer that they have succeeded in the past on both counts. Today, we're looking at one of their newest offerings, the NV Silencer 5, and we'll find out if this new generation of Silencer is as good as the old one." Basic System Buyer's Guide - Holiday Season 2004 @ Mikhailtech...
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