IC Insights has released its annual semiconductor rankings for 2020, and frankly they’re pretty interesting this year. At the top of the market there’s Intel, with an estimated $74.894B in revenue this year, a 4 percent growth from 2019. That’s robust growth for Intel considering that the company is still working through its CPU shortage. Samsung is in #2, though the company’s yearly revenue fluctuates based on the NAND flash market (Samsung topped the charts in 2018 but lost to Intel in 2019 and 2020). The big movers of the report are TSMC, Qualcomm, Nvidia, MediaTek, and AMD — though the major gains reported by Kioxia, Apple, and SK Hynix would be headline news in their own right in any regular year.
Samsung may be planning a major shift in its smartphone strategy in 2021. According to a recent analyst report, Samsung in favor of a foldable with a stylus. The problem, it seems, is that the Note series isn’t as popular as it once was. The stylus functionality could remain, though, as part of the upcoming third-gen Samsung foldable phone. The Galaxy Note series launched in 2011, and it seemed extremely silly at first. Who would want a phone with a humungous 5.3-inch screen? It turns out Samsung had a hit on its hands. It has released a Galaxy Note every year since, and only one of them has shown a propensity to explode.
iFixit has disassembled the M1-powered MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, giving us a look at one of the last unexplored major areas of these products: their underlying physical design. We know some information about how Apple integrated hardware into the M1 SoC itself, but the company didn’t exactly advertise the guts of its latest systems. Apple has removed the fan inside the MacBook Air in favor of a passive cooler. iFixit discussing that previous versions of the Air have had problems with cooling, even with a fan, but notes that the current version of the chip doesn’t seem to have any.
It’s looking increasingly like next-generation game prices will max out at $70 for a blockbuster AAA title. That’s a lot for a game, but at least you get to play it. Someone just spent $156,000 on a copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES that they’ll probably never take out of the box. That makes it the , surpassing a copy of the original Super Mario Bros. that sold . In the world of collectible video games, tiny variations in the packaging or printing can make all the difference. A sealed copy of widely available games like Super Mario Bros.
Today you can save over $400 on a gaming desktop from Dell that comes equipped with an overclockable Intel Core i7 processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super graphics card. Intel Core i7-10700K Gaming Desktop w/ Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD for $1,399.99 from Dell (List price $1,829.99) for $359.99 from Amazon (List price $599.99) 1536×1536 Wired for $99.99 from Amazon (List price $149.99) Noise-Cancelling Bluetooth Wireless Over-Ear Headphones for $199.00 from Amazon (List price $299.99) Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 6.7-Inch OLED FHD+ Smartphone w/ 6GB RAM and 256GB Storage for $399.99 from Amazon (List price $699.99) AMD Ryzen 5 3200U 15.6-Inch 1080p Laptop w/ AMD Vega 3 Graphics, 4GB DDR4 RAM and 128GB SSD for $364.99 from Amazon
SpaceX has been launching Starlink internet satellites for the last 18 months or so, and all they managed to do for most of that time is . However, the first users have been able to log onto SpaceX’s Starlink internet service, and their impressions are good. This is just a small beta test, but SpaceX is apparently planning a wider test . Satellite internet service is nothing new — companies like Viasat and HughesNet have been offering similar services for years, but they’re slow, laggy, and really only worth using in remote areas where there are no other options.
Over the last week, the press coverage of Apple’s new Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air — all powered by the company’s new M1 SoC — has been glowing. ExtremeTech’s coverage has focused on the M1 as a CPU and its potential for market disruption rather than diving into the day-to-day experience of using the new Mac systems. We’re plenty excited about what the M1 could mean for personal computing and the products from other manufacturers it might inspire, but the practical side of the equation matters to anyone who might, you know, spend money on one of these things.
AMD has announced that it will add a new feature to its Ryzen 5000 CPUs this coming December. The company expects motherboard manufacturers to begin delivering UEFI updates with support for a new features: Precision Boost Overdrive 2. Precision Boost Overdrive 2 will be introduced with Agesa 1.1.8.0 on 400-series and 500-series motherboards, but the feature will only be supported on Ryzen 5000 processors. PBO2 uses a new tool, dubbed the Curve Optimization tool, to undervolt the CPU, thereby freeing up additional frequency headroom and offering longer boost duration. The idea here is this: CPUs have set voltages that they operate at when clocked at a given frequency.
The holidays are just around the corner, and that means it’s gift giving season. Whether you’re shopping for friends, family, or even for yourself, you can put a big smile on someone’s face by gifting them a Mac product. And believe it or not, you can do that without breaking the bank if you can find the right refurbished product. Since we’re all staying home more often and many of us are telecommuting, it’s likely you or someone on your list is in need of an upgrade. Fortunately, Apple offers a wide range of options in price and size.
