October 2020 – Page 3 – Motherboard Review

EVGA Z490 FTW WIFI

October 23, 2020 by Stephen

EVGA may be better known for graphics cards and power supplies, but the company has also been pushing into the motherboard realm for years, though with far fewer products than competitors like MSI or Gigabyte.The EVGA Z490 FTW WiFi that we’re looking at here sits at the ‘bottom’ of the company’s Z490 product stack, with the high-end Z490 Dark ($699.99) sitting above as the only other board on Intel’s current platform. You won’t find a Micro ATX or Mini ITX board from EVGA, just the ATX FTW and E-ATX Dark.

Ryzen 5 5600X Leaves Core i9-10900K in Single-Threaded Dust

October 23, 2020 by Stephen

The Ryzen 5 5600X is the upcoming Zen3 CPU featuring 6 cores and 12 threads. With a 200 MHz higher boost clock and Zen3 architecture improvements this processor is expected to offer 19% better performance per dollar than Intel Core i5-10600K in single-threaded benchmarks, according to AMD.

Recently PassMark has updated its webpage with CPU Mark results. The Ryzen 5 5600X is the first Zen3 processor to be listed, from the four SKUs announced. The 5600X scored 3495 points, while the top 10th Gen Core ‘Comet Lake-S’ CPU – the i9-10900K – scored 3177 points, meaning that the mid-range Ryzen CPU offers 10% better performance.

Intel Core i3-7350K

October 21, 2020 by Stephen

But here we are, Core i3-7350K in hand, and the ability to drive almost 5.0 GHz without too much trouble. This raises a couple of questions: just how close is it to the cheapest Core i5-7400 out of the box, which is only a few dollars more, and how close is it to the Core i7-2600K, a favorite chip among enthusiasts who have not yet upgraded.

Phison E18 Controller – 7.4GB/s Read?

October 21, 2020 by Stephen

Phison’s new E18 SSD controller is currently being stamped onto some test drives somewhere in the world, and we have an exlcusive sneak peak at some early benchmark numbers. Check this insanity out. The Phison E18 SSD controller is pumping away here at 7.38GB/sec, with writes of 7GB/sec. We’ve been teased about this from Sabrent’s next-gen Rocket 4 Plus SSD screaming along at 7GB/sec but now we have some real-world results from an actual Phison E18 SSD controller at past 7GB/sec up to 7.38GB/sec.

Silicon Motion Launches PCIe 4.0 NVMe 1.4 Controller

October 21, 2020 by Stephen

TAIPEI and MILPITAS, Calif., Oct. 20, 2020 — Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (NasdaqGS: SIMO) (“Silicon Motion”), a global leader in designing and marketing NAND flash controllers for solid-state storage devices, today announced a new portfolio of PCIe 4.0 NVMe 1.4 controller solutions to address performance, mainstream and value SSD applications. The portfolio consists of SM2264 for performance, SM2267 for mainstream and SM2267XT for value DRAM-less client SSDs.

Silicon Motion’s latest controller family has been designed from the ground up with PCIe Gen4 technology and innovative hardware features especially optimized for true Gen4 performance at low power consumption, advanced error correction as well as data path and EMI protections. To date, ten of the leading global NAND makers and SSD OEMs have selected Silicon Motion’s Gen 4 controllers with 3D TLC and QLC NAND technologies.

MSI Confirms 400 Series Motherboards Support Zen 3

October 21, 2020 by Stephen

While we knew that AMD had confirmed that Ryzen 5000 processors would be compatible with existing B450 and X470 motherboards, it was also clear that each motherboard maker would need to offer such compatibility. Fortunately, MSI has decided to go all in by ensuring that all its X470 and B450 offerings provide support. That includes the company’s Max and non-Max models.

AMD Radeon RX 6000 Details Leak

October 21, 2020 by Stephen

AMD’s Big Navi will feature 80 Compute Units (5120 Stream Processors). This card will be (for now) AMD exclusive. The Radeon RX 6900XT will be the AMD flagship series, which according to our sources will be in limited quantity. The card would allegedly feature 16GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus. The graphics card would feature a 2040 MHz game clock and a 2330 MHz boost clock.

Ryzen 9 5950X, Ryzen 9 5900X Benchmarked Too

October 21, 2020 by Stephen

In the Geekbench 5 tests, both the Ryzen 9 5950X and Ryzen 9 5900X’s clock speeds oscillated between 4.9 GHz and 5 GHz. The Ryzen 9 5950X peaked at 4.987 GHz, and the Ryzen 9 5900X got to 4.947 GHz. Both Zen 3 chips were just a few megahertz shy of 5 GHz. The conditions of either benchmark run are unknown. It’s plausible that the processors were leveraging AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) technology, an automated overclocking feature that pushes the processor beyond its specifications to supply higher performance. In any event, it’s still impressive to see 16 cores almost operating at 5 GHz.

Early AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Benchmarks Arrive

October 21, 2020 by Stephen

The Core i5-10600K clearly boasts higher boost clocks and a more generous thermal limit. Intel’s contender conforms to a 125W TDP (thermal design power) rating, while the Ryzen 5 5600X is rated for 65W. Theoretically, the Core i5-10600K should be faster since it has more breathing room to execute. However, the Ryzen 5 5600X leverages AMD’s groundbreaking Zen 3 microarchitecture, so don’t count the Ryzen 5 5600X out just yet.

PCWorld: ATX12VO Hands-On Look

October 21, 2020 by Stephen

ATX12VO does require a sacrifice. Newer power supplies will jettison support for old-school 3.3-volt and 5-volt rails, and concentrate solely on producing 12-volt power. But after kicking the tires on a pair of ATX12VO motherboards as well as an actual ATX12VO PSU, we can say that the future of desktop PC power looks brighter—and your old-friend legacy parts aren’t moving too far away.