Victoria Fox's Blog, page 153

MSI is working on the first ATX12VO motherboard with AMD AM5 socket, PSU is also planned

Hardwareluxx visited MSI to view the products the company has planned for next year. This has shown, among other things, that the manufacturer wants to provide more support for the ATX12vo standard. Not only are compatible motherboards for modern Intel and AMD processors discussed, a dedicated power supply is also mentioned. However, according to the company, these products are mainly aimed at system builders. So it remains to be seen whether they will also be available for purchase separately.

Atx12vo has been around for several years, but has struggled to gain popularity.

With this efficient standard, the DC-DC conversion from 12 volts to 3.3 and 5 volts is performed by the motherboard instead of the power supply. This makes it possible to replace the well-known 24-pin connector with a more compact 10-pin one. This connection can be assisted by additional plugs to connect equipment such as SATA storage. This specification makes simpler and therefore cheaper power supplies possible, although ATX12vo-compatible motherboards are more expensive.

In the course of 2024, MSI wants to release the Pro H610M 12VO for Intel LGA1700 CPUs, followed by the Pro B650 12VO Wifi for AMD am5 chips. So far, there are no motherboards for AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series that can handle atx12vo. MSI also doesn’t want to reveal much information about this model, other than the name and the fact that it is “expected soon”. The same applies to the MSI 12VO Psu, a power supply that is not entirely unexpectedly aimed at the relatively new standard.

Source: Hardwareluxx

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Telefónica is committed to renewing the 4 members who fulfill their mandate

The ‘teleco’ council intends to renew the four independent directors, Echenique, Löscher, Pascual and Sender, and thus prevent the Government from achieving greater power.

Telefónica is committed to bringing to the next shareholders meeting the proposal for the renewal of the four independent directors – José Javier Echenique, Peter Löscher, Claudia Sender and Verónica Pascual – whose mandate ends in 2024 , co

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Accessible gaming: Can this controller make gaming inclusive?

Melanie Eilert would have loved to swing through urban canyons as Spider-Man in recent weeks. However, this was not previously possible on the Playstation 5 with the conventional controller. In order to throw the spider threads in Spider-Man 2 , players have to press the shoulder buttons on the controller. The d-pad is also important for Spidey to heal or become invisible. But Eilert finds it difficult to press these keys; she lacks the strength.

Melanie Eilert is a gamer, blogs about video games and has repeatedly had to abandon games in frustration over the past few years. She was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy as a child. The disease means that the muscles have little strength and become weaker over time. That’s why Eilert can’t move her left hand and also her right hand only to a limited extent. She couldn’t play many games on the Playstation because the conventional controller is designed for two hands. “If I have to use both sticks, it depletes my hand strength very quickly,” she says. Out of necessity, Eilert keeps making smaller aids.

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Specs of OnePlus 12R on the street, potentially great value for the money – Update design

Original message 12/22/2023, 7:28 PM –

In addition to the OnePlus 12, OnePlus will also introduce the OnePlus 12R of the same name worldwide on January 23. Unlike the regular model, the 12R has not yet been announced in China and therefore little official information is known. The tipster Max Jambor has already shared more details about the device on Twitter.

According to the leaker, the OnePlus 12R will be equipped with a 6.78-inch ProXDR display, which offers an adaptive refresh rate of 1-120 Hz. While the OnePlus 12 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 under the hood, the Gen 2 is mentioned for the 12R. The SoC is reportedly paired with 8 or 16 GB lpddr5x and 128 or 256 ufs storage.

OnePlus also seems to be saving on the camera system: the 12R is said to have an IMX890 as the main sensor (50 MP), followed by an 8MP ultra-wide-angle sensor and a 2MP macro lens. For reference, the regular OnePlus 12 features a 50MP main sensor, a 64MP telephoto lens with 3x optical zoom, and a 48-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens. With a capacity of 5,500 mAh, the battery would offer 100 mAh more than that of its bigger brother. 100W fast charging is also available, but it is not known whether it supports wireless charging.

Jambor indicates that the phone will be released in China on January 4, followed by the global release on January 23. The recommended retail price is not mentioned. If the Chinese smartphone manufacturer uses the same strategy as with the previous generation, the OnePlus 12R may offer a lot for an attractive price. The OnePlus 11R, which is only available in India, is a quarter cheaper than the regular 11.

Update 12/26/2023, 2:28 PM –

Twitterer Ishan Agarwal has shared a teaser video of the OnePlus 12R, which appears to come from the manufacturer itself. The images show a black and a blue model whose design appears almost identical to that of the OnePlus 12. The marketing material once again confirms that the device will be unveiled on January 23, 2024, at 3:00 PM European time.

Sources: Max Jambor (Twitter), Ishan Agarwal (Twitter)

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Review: ECS Liva Z5 Plus. Economical mini PC to which you can connect four screens

Introduction

Mini PCs have their own place in the market. After all, not every application requires a thick desktop or laptop. Sometimes it can be a bit smaller and a mini PC comes into the picture, for example in an office environment or at home as an HTPC or work computer. In the professional market, these types of devices are used for all kinds of applications.

ECS is an important player in the small PC market. In this article we look at the new Liva Z5 Plus from this brand. This mini PC is based on an economical Raptor Lake chip.

The variant of the Liva Z5 Plus that we looked at is equipped with a Raptor Lake i5 processor from the U-series. This variant is known for its low power consumption; it is therefore often used in laptops. The chip has two fast P-cores and eight economical E-cores. This allows him to work on twelve threads simultaneously. An Intel Iris Xe Graphics with 80 execution units is used to control the screens.

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Risc-V support takes another step forward with the establishment of Quintauris, Qualcomm and Bosch among founders

Risc-V is an open-source instruction set architecture (ISA) for CPUs and was first made public in 2014. The standard is maintained by RISC-V International, but anyone can use the ISA to design their own chips without any licensing or other costs. In recent years, Risc-V has experienced significant growth in small chips for low-energy applications.

In recent years, major players in the semiconductor market have also taken up architecture. For example, Qualcomm has already announced that it wants to use Risc-V for its Snapdragon Wear platform, together with Google. Alibaba has recently taken a big step with a complete server with 3,072 cores based on Risc-V processors. Google has announced that Risc-V will become a ‘tier-1’ architecture for Android, which means full support and significant optimization. Imagination Technologies and Ventana Micro Systems are also working together on a Risc-V server processor that has 192 cores and should be able to compete with even the top server processors from AMD and Intel.

Now five major semiconductor companies have announced their intention to collaborate by establishing the Quintauris company. This company should focus on developing the next generation of chips based on Risc-V. The five companies are Qualcomm, Bosch, Infineon, Nordic Semiconductor, and NXP Semiconductors. Bosch, Infineon, and NXP are also working with TSMC to start the European Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Qualcomm tried to acquire NXP in 2016, but ultimately failed. Only Nordic Semiconductor is a new name in this collection of companies. It is by far the smallest company participating, but it makes important chips for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity.

Some chips from Nordic Semiconductor for mobile IoT applications.

The Quintauris website states that the focus will mainly be on the automotive industry in the beginning. But mobile and Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications will also soon follow. These are all logical steps, given that low energy consumption is desired and that licensing agreements for an ISA can account for a large part of the costs in these types of small chips. By the way, Quintauris is not the only major collaborative project to advance Risc-V development and introduce some standards, a collaboration between Google, Intel, Nvidia, and again Qualcomm also wants to do this with the Risc-V Software Ecosystem or RISE. This collaboration does focus on software, while Quintauris must mainly focus on hardware.

Source: Tom’s Hardware

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Asus bundles ProArt AIO water cooler with three Noctua fans

In addition to the PA602 housing, Asus has recently supplemented its range of ProArt products with a new processor cooler. As its name suggests, the ProArt LC 420 is an all-in-one water cooler that uses a 420mm radiator to dissipate heat. To combine optimal cooling performance with relatively low noise production, this model is supplied with three 140mm fans from Noctua.

The cooler is completely covered in black.

Specifically, this concerns the black NF-A14 IndustrialPPC 2000 PWM, which offers a rotation speed of 800 to 2,000 rpm. This unit should be able to deliver up to 107 cfm of airflow and 4.18 mm H2O of static pressure, while the sound pressure should not exceed 31.5 dBA. No concrete specifications are released regarding the pump, other than the fact that it has “an advanced three-phase design”.

The housing of the pump block contains lighting that can display all kinds of information via Asus software. The manufacturer mentions the system load as an example, as well as the fan speeds or the temperature of the CPU or GPU. The water is drained through 450 mm long hoses with braided sleeves, so it can also be used in larger cabinets without any problems.

Source: Asus

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TikTok: Watched “Friends.” Full length. On TikTok.

Scrolling around on TikTok, ah, a scene from Friends . Just click on the profile of the posting account and you’ll see an excerpt. And another one. And another one – until you’ve binged half a season in one to two minute TikTok videos.

Watching films and series on TikTok: This is no longer a niche. A clip from the animated film Luck : 115 million views. A clip from the thriller Focus : 49 million views. A clip from the drama Palmer : 24 million views. One from the series Suits : 14 million views.

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IBM demonstrates nanosheet concept transistor that operates very well at -196 degrees Celsius

IBM presented the concept transistor at IEEE 2023 earlier this month. The transistor was constructed from a nanosheet structure instead of the common FinFET. However, that was not the only special thing about the circuit, as it also performed very well at the boiling point of liquid nitrogen.

A nanosheet transistor is a form of Gate-all-around (GAA) transistors that several manufacturers are currently working on. This is because this structure has promising properties when producing chips smaller than “3nm”. It is therefore the ideal successor to the ubiquitous FinFET structure. From TSMC’s 2nm process and Intel’s 20Å process, chips based on GAA transistors are expected.

What this demonstration also showed is that this structure may be suitable for use in extremely low temperatures. This can also significantly increase the performance of current chips, but the chips are often not exactly stable at such a temperature. The concept transistor was made with the idea of liquid nitrogen cooling in mind, and could therefore operate stably at such temperatures. This also delivered almost a doubling of performance compared to room temperature. Energy consumption was also lower, which could enable a higher density of transistors in a chip. This may pave the way for a whole new class of AI and HPC chips that are cooled with liquid nitrogen for even higher performance.

Source: Techspot

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Hobbyist finds special sapphire chip in old HP floppy disk drive

A hobbyist in restoring old computers and reverse engineering integrated chips, Ken Shirriff, came across a very special find while repairing an HP 8-inch floppy drive. He shows the chip on his blog; with a substrate of sapphire, with silicon and metal parts attached to it.

This ‘silicon-on-sapphire’ chip is partly transparent and had to serve as an interface between the interface bus and the Z80 processor in the floppy drive controller. The use of sapphire gives the chip some special properties. The transistors are well insulated from electrical interference because the material is a good insulator. This also means there is less capacitance between the transistors, which provides protection against radiation and certain forms of short circuit.

The chip is clearly somewhat transparent as the gold-colored cross is clearly visible behind the chip.

Thanks to these useful properties, especially regarding radiation, these types of chips have been produced since 1963. Including for space applications where radiation can be a major problem. HP’s MC2 16-bit processor from 1977 also used a sapphire substrate. This resulted in an impressive chip for that time with 10,000 transistors at 8 MHz and a consumption of only 0.35 Watt. The well-known Intel 8086 that was released a year later had almost three times as many transistors, but could only run at 5 MHz and consumed more than seven times more energy. Silicon-on-sapphire chips did provide advantages in terms of clock frequency and efficiency, but the transistors could be placed less closely together because silicon and sapphire do not bond very easily. This also resulted in a low yield of only 9% for HP. These reasons were ultimately decisive for choosing full silicon substrates for chip production.

Source: Techspot

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