News


MSI X99S MPower Review: Sting Like a Bee

In our recent run of overclocking focused motherboards, we have had a couple of interesting contenders. Sub $300 is a difficult market to attack for X99 overclockers, and MSI brings the X99S MPower which is the focus of today’s review.

MSI X99S MPower Review: Sting Like a Bee

In our recent run of overclocking focused motherboards, we have had a couple of interesting contenders. Sub $300 is a difficult market to attack for X99 overclockers, and MSI brings the X99S MPower which is the focus of today’s review.

ASRock to Introduce USB 3.1 Cards and Motherboards

ASRock to Introduce USB 3.1 Cards and Motherboards

On the back of our USB 3.1 performance coverage, as well as seeing some motherboards in the flesh at CES, other manufacturers are now announcing their USB 3.1 implementations. ASRock distributed a press release today confirming that they will be launc…

ASRock to Introduce USB 3.1 Cards and Motherboards

ASRock to Introduce USB 3.1 Cards and Motherboards

On the back of our USB 3.1 performance coverage, as well as seeing some motherboards in the flesh at CES, other manufacturers are now announcing their USB 3.1 implementations. ASRock distributed a press release today confirming that they will be launc…

Samsung Announces 14nm FinFET for Exynos 7

Samsung Announces 14nm FinFET for Exynos 7

While we’ve known about the existence of the Exynos 7420 for a while now, we didn’t really know what to expect until recently. Today, it seems that Samsung is ready to start disclosing at least a few details about an upcoming Exynos 7 SoC, which is likely to be the Exynos 7420.

At a high level Exynos 7 will have four Cortex A57s clocked at 2.1 GHz, in addition to four Cortex A53s along with an LPDDR4-capable memory interface. According to Samsung Tomorrow, we can expect a 20% increase to device performance, which is likely a reference to clock speed, and 35% lower power consumption. In addition, there is a reference to a 30% productivity gain, which is likely to be referencing performance per watt. Samsung claims that these figures come from a comparison to their 20nm HKMG process, which we’ve examined before with the Exynos 5433 in the Note 4 Exynos review.

Although there is no direct statement of which version of 14nm is used for this upcoming Exynos 7 Octa, judging by how this is the first 14nm IC to come from Samsung it’s likely that this SoC will use 14LPE, which focuses on reducing leakage and power consumption rather than switching speed.