PATREONItems tagged with kaby lake
When it comes to impactful processor vulnerabilities, the two most well-known attacks announced the year are Spectre and Meltdown. The hardware and software industry scrambled to push out fixes to prevent these, and Microsoft is still working to minimize the performance impact of its mitigations. Today, however, we're learning of yet another side-channel vulnerability, which is being dubbed PortSmash. In layman's terms, a side-channel vulnerability uses complex methods to sniff out encrypted data within a CPU or system memory in an effort to gain escalated privileges and access "protected" data. PortSmash takes advantages of simultaneous multi-tasking (SMT) on the processor, allowing...
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When the Surface Studio was first announced nearly two years ago, it was praised for its innovative design and space age Surface Dial accessory. However, the all-in-one PC was also widely criticized for the fact that it featured Intel Skylake processors at time when Kaby Lake parts were commonplace. In addition, Microsoft also relied on older NVIDIA GeForce GTX 900 Series GPUs. For a device that retailed for $3,000+, this was a tough pill to swallow for some in what was supposed to be a high-end professional computer. Microsoft will hold an event on October 2nd where it is widely expected to launch a refresh of several key Surface hardware products. One of the devices...
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It seems as though all at once, we're beginning to glean pertinent details about Microsoft's upcoming low-end Surface tablet. Yesterday, we learned that the budget tablet hit the FCC with a 24-watt charger and a 7.5-volt battery. It was also reasoned that the Surface tablet will feature Intel-based processors. Today, we're getting more specifics on those processors, which are said to be from the Pentium family rather than beefier Core range found on the pricier Surface Pro tablets. This news comes from WinFuture, which says that the cheapest Surface will feature a quad-core Gemini Lake Pentium Silver N5000 processor. However, if you need a bit more firepower, Microsoft will offer...
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Intel continues to plug along with microcode updates for its vast stable of processors. Two weeks ago, the company released revised microcode updates with Spectre mitigations that were limited to mainstream Skylake mobile and desktop platforms. This week, the company has expanded the microcode updates to cover Skylake-X and Skylake-SP processors architectures including Core-X, Xeon Scalable and Xeon D. In addition, the new microcode release covers Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake processors that were previously left out. Intel was forced to pull its original microcode updates after it was found that some systems were randomly rebooting. That is definitely not something that consumers will tolerate and...
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The PC industry is still trying to come to grips with the fallout from the revelation of the Meltdown and Spectre chip vulnerabilities. Meltdown only affects Intel processors, while Spectre -- the more serious exploit -- affects processors from Intel, AMD, and ARM. Hardware OEMs and OS manufactures have banded together to release patches to help mitigate the effects of any attacks based on Meltdown or Spectre, although some of those patches have been disastrous. For its part, Microsoft is addressing some of the performance ramifications for installing patches to mitigate the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities. Windows Chief Terry Myerson describes three exploits (two for Spectre, one for Meltdown)...
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It's quite a big deal that Intel and AMD have partnered to build a new processor package incorporating an 8th Generation Core H-series CPU with a Radeon Vega GPU, plans of which Intel announced two months ago. We expect quite a bit of fanfare and ballyhooing when the first multi-chip module (MCM) package arrives, though in the meantime, an overclocking page at Intel's India portal has tipped what that will likely be—a Core i7-8809G. The new chip shows up on a page promoting overclocking Intel's unlocked processors. When you scroll down, there is a section that lists several unlocked CPUs so that users can compare the clockspeeds and other features, such as the amount of L3 cache and TDP....
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When Microsoft released the original Surface Pro five years ago, the mobile market was completely different – Windows tablets were an afterthought and weren’t the svelte and snappy performers you can buy today. The first-generation Surface Pro wasn’t perfect, but it was a huge step in the right direction for Windows 2-in-1’s and tablets. Today’s mobile computing device landscape is completely different versus five years ago and one could argue it was significantly re-shaped by the success of the Surface Pro. Each notebook manufacturer has its own interpretation of mobile nirvana. Whether it’s the HP Envy, Dell XPS, Lenovo Yoga or ASUS Zenbook, there are plenty...
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Intel’s newest 8th generation Core processors are here and have delivered promising early results in our initial tests on the desktop, and more recently in Dell's XPS 13 laptop. The biggest change with Intel's 8th Gen Core Mobile processors comes by way of doubled core counts. This makes many of this new generation of Core i5 and i7 mobile chips true quad-core processors now, with support for up to eight threads with Hyper Threading, all within a 15W TDP target. This improvement does not come without trade-offs, of course, as we see base clocks dropped by up to 900MHz relative to each chip’s predecessor. However, Intel has also seen fit to keep boost clocks high and even increased...
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There has been a lot of activity on the AMD-Intel front over the past week. Earlier this week, out of nowhere, Intel announced that it has been working together with AMD on its upcoming Kaby Lake-G family of processors, which incorporated Radeon graphics in a multi-chip module (MCM). On Wednesday, the first benchmarks for the Core i7-8705G and Core i7-8809G leaked to the internet. Today, we're getting a real world look at the Kaby Lake-G MCM instead of fancy computer renders/press shots. As you can see, the MCM is absolutely massive compared to most modern processors, and it looks like it's currently installed on a test board. The size, however, is to be expected given that the MCM not only includes...
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If you're looking for a hulking bruiser of a gaming laptop, ASUS is looking for your attention with its Republic of Gamers G703. This is a beastly machine that looks more like a desktop replacement than a truly portable machine, nonetheless, it is loaded to the gills with high-powered hardware on both the processor and graphics front. For starters, the conductor of this orchestra of gaming goodness is a factory overclocked Intel Core i7-7820HK processor, which is clocked at up to 4.3GHz once you take it out of the box (this represents a 10 percent improvement over stock). ASUS has installed its Anti-Dust Cooling (ADC) system to help keep the system cool, so you won't have to worry about cooking...
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ASUS is once again expanding its mobile family, with the latest entry being the all-new ZenBook Pro UX550. According to the company, this is "the thinnest, lightest, fastest and most elegant ZenBook Pro yet", and we have no reason to doubt those claims. The first thing that you will notice on the ZenBook Pro UX550, other than its svelte chassis, is its 15.6-inch NanoEdge touch display, which has a Full HD (1920x1080) resolution and wide 178-degree viewing angles. At the heart of the machine is a seventh generation Kaby Lake processor; in this case, a Core i7-7700HQ that teams up with 16GB of DDR4-2400 memory. For those that like to game on the side or dabble in 3D rendering, there's an NVIDIA...
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It has been known for some time that Intel's 7th generation Core processor family (Kaby Lake) would not work in Z370 chipset motherboards designed for 8th generation Core processors (Coffee Lake) even though both use the same LGA 1151 socket. The assumption has been that the power requirements for Coffee Lake prevent Z370 motherboards from working with Kaby Lake CPUs, but behind the scenes, there is chatter that it is an arbitrary restriction that Intel is enforcing by way of the BIOS.The Z370 is a similar chipset to Z270. On the surface, it seems that Kaby Lake should be compatible with Z370 motherboards. And it probably is—the folks at Guru3D say that several motherboard manufacturers have...
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Today we are going to take a look at three popular Intel Z270-based motherboards targeted at power users and gamers, produced by enthusiast favorites Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI. The three boards we've rounded-up here cover a wide range of price points. The Gigabyte Aorus Z270X-Gaming K5 and ASUS ROG STRIX Z270F Gaming boards represent more mainstream segments, while the MSI Z270 XPOWER Gaming Titanium targets the ultra high-end. Although AMD's powerful Threadripper processors and Intel's upcoming 18-Core Skylake-X behemoth have gotten the lion's share of attention lately, more mainstream processors like Intel's Kaby Lake-based Core i7s and Core i5s sell in much greater quantities. As such, we...
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Xiaomi is taking aim at one of the most popular notebooks families on the market with its newest offering, the Mi Notebook Pro. In fact, Xiaomi called out the MacBook Pro by name when announcing its latest computing powerhouse, and made many comparisons to Apple's bestseller. At first glance, the Mi Notebook has a lot going for it. It features a 15.6-inch display, backlit keyboard, and enough ports to make a MacBook Pro user blush. You'll find two USB-C ports, two USB 3.0 ports, an SD card reader, HDMI port and a headphone jack. For comparison, the 15-inch MacBook Pro comes with four Thunderbolt 3 ports. You can now forget about carrying port extensions just because.. you know, we've got it all!...
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Things have been relatively quiet on the Microsoft Surface hardware front for the past few months (at least with regards to new releases). Earlier this summer, Microsoft performed a brain transplant on the Surface Pro convertible and introduced the all-new Surface Laptop. However, an update for the Surface Book, which was first introduced in late 2015, was nowhere to be found. Fortunately, Microsoft has revealed that it will hold a keynote on October 31st at its “Future Decoded” event in London. As you might expect for a major announcement relating to Surface, division chief Panos Panay will be the chief presenter. Sources for The Verge indicate that at least once new product will be...
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The sound of silence -- there’s nothing like it, especially when it comes to a media PC. The last thing anyone wants while binging on the new season of Game of Thrones is the distracting drone of a fan or whir of a hard drive. Silence is precisely what the Streacom DB-4 chassis we'll be featuring here has to offer. I’ve been wanting to build a Home Theater PC (HTPC) for years now. My current rig actually started life as an HTPC, but was soon upgraded for gaming and workstation tasks and now lives under my desk instead of in my living room. When Streacom reached out to us to review the DB-4, I was eager for the opportunity to give a proper HTPC another go. The DB-4 is not your average computer...
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ASUS is looking to appease mobile professionals who might partake in some light gaming on the side with its latest thin and light notebook, the VivoBook Pro N580. While it’s not being aimed at hardcore gamers that crave the ultimate in graphics muscle, the VivoBook Pro N580 has more than enough power to ensure that eSports fanatics will be more than satisfied when they are on the go. Powering the notebook is a potent Intel Core i7-7700HQ Kaby Lake processor, which is backed by 16GB of DDR4 2400 memory (taking up two DIMM slots). Your window into the gaming world (or productivity tasks) is through a 15.6-inch Full HD touch screen with a 72.57 percent screen-to-body ratio. An NVIDIA GeForce GTX...
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EVGA is well known in the enthusiast community for its motherboards, video cards, power supplies and countless other PC peripherals (among other things). The hardware company just announced its upgraded SC17 1080 G-SYNC Gaming Laptop (which is quite a mouthful), but we’ll just call it the SC17 for brevity’s sake. As its name implies, the SC17 features a big, gorgeous 17.3-inch 4K NVIDIA G-SYNC panel, which is much appreciated in this class of gaming notebooks. We’ve been seeing 17-inch notebooks “saddled” with 1080p displays for far too long, so it’s nice to see that EVGA has equipped this notebook with a resolution worthy of the gaming muscle lurking within. Powering the notebook is a burly...
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About a month ago we talked about a critical HyperThreading flaw that had been found in Intel Skylake and Kaby Lake processors. As we noted at that time, the flaw is very hard to trigger and is limited in scope. In fact, many people running processors affected by the flaw probably never noticed any stability issues with their machines as a result. With that said, no PC enthusiast wants a system that has any critical flaws lurking about, so Intel has fixed the issue with a new update. The first indication that the flaw has been fixed comes from the Debian Linux user lists, the group that was initially credited with reporting the flaw. The message to the user list states that "Intel has...
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Amid the spectacle of new CPU and GPU architectures that have been dominating the headlines for the past several weeks, Intel has gone and quietly added a handful of new processors to its Kaby Lake and Xeon stacks. These can be seen in the latest update to Intel's 7th generation Core processor family specifications datasheet, which is a compilation of device and document errata, specification clarifications, and changes to Intel's product family. The latest update sees the addition of a several new Core i3 desktop processors based on Intel's Kaby Lake architecture, along with several more mobile oriented Kaby Lake-U series system-on-chip (SoC) options for thin and light laptops, certain all-in-one...
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Dell updated its Alienware 17 gaming laptop at PAX West 2016 with NVIDIA Pascal graphics, but at the time Intel’s quad-core Kaby Lake mobile processors weren’t available yet. It was a short-lived update, however, as the Kaby Lake-powered Alienware 17 was announced a short time later at the start of the Consumer Electronics Show this past January. Today, we’re checking out the newest Alienware 17 R4 gaming laptop featuring the latest of both technologies. The chassis may look familiar, but its all-new on the inside with two 7th-Generation Intel Core i7 processor and four NVIDIA Pascal graphics options. The Alienware 17 R4 is a full-fledged desktop replacement that packs serious hardware...
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Update: 6/26/2017, 8:59PM EST - Our contacts at Intel have responded to our requests for further detail on this issue with the following statement: "We have already identified this issue and addressed it with a fix that started rolling out in April 2017. As always, we recommend checking to make sure your BIOS is up to date, but the chance of encountering this issue is low, as it requires a complex number of concurrent micro-architectural conditions to reproduce."And so it's clear that Intel feels this issue is limited in scope and very hard to trigger. Further, the fix was documented and released to OEMs and motherboard vendors in April. However, it's of course incumbent upon system...
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