Taking us into this afternoon’s AT20 giveaway is SilverStone. The prolific maker of computer hardware offers a large number of computer peripherals, running the gauntlet from computer cases and coolers to power supplies, bay adapters, and other …
Taking us into this afternoon’s AT20 giveaway is SilverStone. The prolific maker of computer hardware offers a large number of computer peripherals, running the gauntlet from computer cases and coolers to power supplies, bay adapters, and other …
With a warm welcome to Tuesday, we’re now on day 15 of our 20 day giveaway celebration of AnandTech’s 20th anniversary.
Today’s prizes come courtesy of ARM. While not a product manufacturer in and of themselves – ARM’s business is all about IP and architecture licensing – the 800lb gorilla of the mobile world has their hands in a multitude of products thanks to the ubiquity and performance of the ARM CPU architecture and their own Cortex-A CPU designs. So for our giveaway, the company has sent over a pair of Samsung’s Chromebook Pluses, which are among the most popular of the ARM-powered Chromebooks on the market right now.
The AnandTech 20th Anniversary Celebration – ARM architectures Giveaway
The Samsung Chromebook Plus is Samsung’s high-end ARM Chromebook offering. The 12.3” Chromebook features a 3:2 aspect ratio IPS touchscreen display, which offers a 2400×1600 pixel resolution. The laptop is 2.2lbs and 13.9mm thick, making it thin and light. This in turn is critical to its 2-in-1 design, allowing it to also be used as a tablet thanks to its 360 degree hinge and included stylus. Samsung’s Chromebook Plus is also one of what’s still only a handful of Chromebooks with shipping Android app support, allowing the aforementioned tablet functionality to mesh well with tablet-optimized Android applications.
| Samsung Chromebook Plus | |
| SoC | OP1
2x ARM Cortex-A72 @ 2GHz ARM Mali-T860MP4 |
| RAM | 4GB LPDDR3 |
| NAND | 32GB eMMC |
| Display | 12.3″ 2400×1600 Touchscreen IPS LCD |
| Dimensions | 280.8 x 221.6 x 12.9-13.9 mm, 1.08 kg |
| Camera | 720p FFC |
| Battery | 39 WHr |
| OS | ChromeOS |
| Connectivity | 2×2 802.11ac, BT4.0, 2x USB-C, microSD |
| Stylus | Wacom EMR |
| AC Adapter | 30W USB-C |
| Keyboard | 1.5mm stroke, backlit, curved caps |
| Speakers | 2x 1.5W |
Under the hood, the Chromebook Plus is built around the ARM-powered OP1 SoC, which is a Rockchip-built and Google-approved SoC that packs a pair of ARM Cortex-A72 CPU cores for performance with a quartet of ARM Cortex-A53 cores for efficiency. On the GPU side, the SoC includes another ARM design, their Mali-T860MP4 GPU. Rounding out the package is 4GB of RAM, 32GB of eMMC storage, and 2×2 802.11ac WiFi. Meanwhile the 39Whr battery gives the Chromebook Plus a 9 hour battery life, while charging it is accomplished by using either of the device’s USB Type-C ports.
Finally, as with our other giveaways, today’s giveaway is only open for 48 hours, so be sure to enter soon. However please note that for legal reasons, we’re only able to open these giveaways to residents of the United States.
Good luck to everyone! And be sure to check in this afternoon for our next giveaway.
With a warm welcome to Tuesday, we’re now on day 15 of our 20 day giveaway celebration of AnandTech’s 20th anniversary.
Today’s prizes come courtesy of ARM. While not a product manufacturer in and of themselves – ARM’s business is all about IP and architecture licensing – the 800lb gorilla of the mobile world has their hands in a multitude of products thanks to the ubiquity and performance of the ARM CPU architecture and their own Cortex-A CPU designs. So for our giveaway, the company has sent over a pair of Samsung’s Chromebook Pluses, which are among the most popular of the ARM-powered Chromebooks on the market right now.
The AnandTech 20th Anniversary Celebration – ARM architectures Giveaway
The Samsung Chromebook Plus is Samsung’s high-end ARM Chromebook offering. The 12.3” Chromebook features a 3:2 aspect ratio IPS touchscreen display, which offers a 2400×1600 pixel resolution. The laptop is 2.2lbs and 13.9mm thick, making it thin and light. This in turn is critical to its 2-in-1 design, allowing it to also be used as a tablet thanks to its 360 degree hinge and included stylus. Samsung’s Chromebook Plus is also one of what’s still only a handful of Chromebooks with shipping Android app support, allowing the aforementioned tablet functionality to mesh well with tablet-optimized Android applications.
| Samsung Chromebook Plus | |
| SoC | OP1
2x ARM Cortex-A72 @ 2GHz ARM Mali-T860MP4 |
| RAM | 4GB LPDDR3 |
| NAND | 32GB eMMC |
| Display | 12.3″ 2400×1600 Touchscreen IPS LCD |
| Dimensions | 280.8 x 221.6 x 12.9-13.9 mm, 1.08 kg |
| Camera | 720p FFC |
| Battery | 39 WHr |
| OS | ChromeOS |
| Connectivity | 2×2 802.11ac, BT4.0, 2x USB-C, microSD |
| Stylus | Wacom EMR |
| AC Adapter | 30W USB-C |
| Keyboard | 1.5mm stroke, backlit, curved caps |
| Speakers | 2x 1.5W |
Under the hood, the Chromebook Plus is built around the ARM-powered OP1 SoC, which is a Rockchip-built and Google-approved SoC that packs a pair of ARM Cortex-A72 CPU cores for performance with a quartet of ARM Cortex-A53 cores for efficiency. On the GPU side, the SoC includes another ARM design, their Mali-T860MP4 GPU. Rounding out the package is 4GB of RAM, 32GB of eMMC storage, and 2×2 802.11ac WiFi. Meanwhile the 39Whr battery gives the Chromebook Plus a 9 hour battery life, while charging it is accomplished by using either of the device’s USB Type-C ports.
Finally, as with our other giveaways, today’s giveaway is only open for 48 hours, so be sure to enter soon. However please note that for legal reasons, we’re only able to open these giveaways to residents of the United States.
Good luck to everyone! And be sure to check in this afternoon for our next giveaway.
Following what seems to be an industry pattern at the moment, ZOTAC has just announced their very own highly customized and liquid-cooled GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Out of the box, this new GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ArcticStorm model does not appear to be trying to compete for the title of highest-performing graphics card on the market, but it has the prerequisites to be a highly competitive product.
Starting off with the basics, the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ArcticStorm ships with an out of the box core clock of 1506 MHz, a boost clock of 1620 Mhz, and 11GB of GDDR5X memory clocked at 11Gbps. Connectivity is quite good with the video output selection consisting of three DisplayPort 1.4, one dual-link DVI-D, and one HDMI 2.0b.
While 1506/1620 MHz (base/boost) is a fairly mild factory overclock for a custom card, ZOTAC have clearly designed this model to be manually overclocked. It has a beefy 16+2-phase VRM, two rear-mounted Power Boost 2.0 capacitors, and dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors.
In fact, this new ArcticStorm model shares all the same power components as the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti AMP Extreme Edition, which has much higher factory clock speeds despite being air-cooled. On that model, the default core clock is 1645 MHz, the boost Clock is 1759 Mhz, and even the memory has been pushed up to 11.2 Ghz.
The key selling point of this ArcticStorm model is clearly the full-coverage water block. While the primary material is not listed, the top of the water block is made of a translucent acrylic, it has copper contact plate to maximize heat transfer, and 0.3mm micro-channels to increase surface area and cooling performance. The block features G 1/4 threaded fittings to make it compatible with most third-party liquid cooling solutions, and a pair of barbs supporting 10mm ID tubing are included. Since it is the feature of the year, the water block inevitably has built-in RGB LED lightning – which ZOTAC calls Spectra – and it is controlled with the included FireStorm utility. For aesthetic and durability reasons, this model also a metal wraparound backplate.
| Zotac GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Cards | |||||||
| ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ArcticStorm |
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti AMP Extreme | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Reference) |
|||||
| Core Clock | 1506 MHz | 1645 MHz | 1481 MHz | ||||
| Boost Clock | 1620 MHz | 1759 MHz | 1582 MHz | ||||
| Memory Clock | 11Gbps | 11.2Gbps | 11Gbps | ||||
| RAM | 11GB | ||||||
| TDP | 270W | 320W | 250W | ||||
| Power Connectors | 2 x 8-pin | 2 x 8-pin | 8-pin + 6-pin | ||||
| Length | 11.81″ | 12.8″ | 10.5″ | ||||
| Width | 2 Slot | 2.5 Slot | 2 Slot | ||||
| Cooler Type | Water Block (Full Coverage) |
Open Air | Blower | ||||
| Launch Date | N/A | ~04/2017 | 03/10/2017 | ||||
| Launch Price | N/A | ~$750 | $699 | ||||
Although there are no details with regard to availability or pricing, we definitely expect the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 1080 Ti ArcticStorm to fall in the $800-900 range.
