Earlier this year, AMD leaker TUM_APISAK caught sight of a new AMD engineering SKU that seemed relevant to the upcoming Xbox Next / PlayStation 5 consoles. Today, a new — but similar — SoC has tipped up in the 3DMark database: “ZG16702AE8JB2_32/10/18_13F8” AMD Gonzalo ZG16702AE8JB2_32/10/18_13F8 — APISAK (@TUM_APISAK) Believe it or not, this actually means something. Marvin’s AMD Name Decoder can help us tease out what: “Z” means this part is a Qualification Sample as opposed to a shipping retail part. “G” is thought to be a console reference. “1670” refers to the frequency, model number, and chipset, but the exact meaning in this context is unclear.
At CES this year, Intel announced its Optane H10 Memory Solution — a novel idea for combining Optane and new, quad-level cell NAND on the same M.2 card. It’s an adaptation of the same caching idea we’ve seen used to pair fast NAND memory with slow, mechanical hard drives, only now the Optane cache is being used to accelerate the performance of QLC NAND. Intel has now released additional specifications on the H10 solution and how the entire package fits together. The H10 will be offered in three flavors: 256GB, backed by 16GB of Optane, 512GB backed by 32GB of Optane, and 1,024GB, backed by the same 32GB of Optane.
The upcoming launch of AMD’s third-generation Ryzen microprocessors based on the Zen 2 architecture is a major moment for the company. Not only will this be the first time AMD has ever beaten Intel to a new node, but it’s also a necessary and important demonstration of AMD’s ability to execute an iterative roadmap. This kind of long-term improvement cycle is critical to winning business and server space. Given the importance of the launch to both consumers and corporations, what sort of parts should we expect to see from AMD? Note: According to AMD, the formal name for the CPU family is third-generation Ryzen with Zen 2 microarchitecture.
The image you see above is not an out-of-focus donut. That’s the supermassive at the center of the distant Messier 87 galaxy, the first-ever image of a real black hole. It took a team of more than 200 astronomers to pull this off, along with eight massive radio telescopes organized into the “Event Horizon Telescope” or ETH. This is an opportunity for scientists to test some of the most complex predictions of general relativity. The M87 galaxy is a supergiant about 55 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. It’s famous for the relativistic jet of plasma emanating from its core.
Late in 2018, Epic Games, makers of the Unreal engine and the massive battle royale game Fortnite, released their new storefront, the Epic Games Store. Since then, they’ve announced a number of exclusive titles, including some games that were formerly exclusive to Valve’s competing service, Steam. This, and some other issues we’ll discuss, have generated quite a bit of blowback for the company. If you’ve worked or paid attention to the tech industry for long enough, some of these complaints may be giving you a sense of déjà vu. Back when Steam launched, gamers didn’t just dislike it — they hated it.
The 2019 BMW X5 SUV is your best car for the next 3-5 years. Nothing else touches the versatility of the X5 at the high end and does more of the things you’re likely to want: carry people and cargo, get there safely and comfortably, help with driving, tow a 7,500-pound boat or trailer, and entertain you and your companions en route. No automaker offers more driver, entertainment, and safety technology, most of it useful. Against the X5’s many virtues, there are these facts: BMW holds hostage a key safety assist feature, adaptive cruise control, in a $1,700 options package.
It has been more than a year since successfully completed the of the long-awaited Falcon Heavy, and today could be its first commercial flight. Following a last-minute delay, SpaceX expects to launch the Arabsat-6A from NASA’s historic Pad 39A this evening. The makes use of the highly successful Falcon 9 design — it’s actually composed of three Falcon 9 core stages with a few design tweaks. The standard Falcon 9 still carries the bulk of SpaceX payloads (including the upcoming manned Dragon II), but the company hopes to move all launches to the Starship/Super Heavy platform in the coming years.
It’s become depressingly common for video games to implement loot boxes as a monetization scheme, but gamers are increasingly up in arms about it. Last year, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the use of loot boxes in games, and now we know how it’ll start. On August 7th, the FTC will hold a , and you’ll be able to watch it live. No one has ever been pleased that loot boxes existed in games, but the uproar was confined to gaming communities until EA messed with Star Wars. The beta test for Star Wars Battlefront II revealed a loot box system that made hero characters incredibly costly to unlock.
Most aircraft are limited to subsonic cruising speeds, but an experimental hypersonic engine from a UK-based firm is one step closer to reality today. Reaction Engines says it of its Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE). This could clear the way to build rocket engines that push commercial aircraft to several times the speed of sound. Supersonic flight has been limited to military and governments ever since the retirement of the Concorde in 2003. That aircraft was capable of flying at Mach 2.04 (1,354 mph or 2,180 kph), but it was costly to maintain. There is an appetite to bring back supersonic flight and possibly even push into hypersonic speeds.
