Hardware
HW News - China Bans Micron, GTX 1160, Intel's 8-Core CPU
By Eric Hamilton & Steve BurkeThe first point of interest for our regular weekly recap of HW News is our overclocking livestream. We're planning an i7-8086K CPU overclocking livestream on Wednesday, July 11, at 6PM EST. We'll likely be dragging ye olde Titan V out to claim some ranks once again, and later hope to 1v1 Buildzoid in a livestream. This last piece won't happen on Wednesday, but Wednesday will be our preparation for the live OC battle. Other GN news includes the closing of our presale for the limited edition foil GN shirts, commemorating the launch of our 10-year anniversary logo. If you've wanted one, now is the time to get an order in. Our Blueprint design shirts are also back in stock.
Aside from GN news, Micron is facing a temporary ban from sales of Crucial and Ballistix products in China (and has also responded to this ban), Intel's 9000-series CPUs have been spoiled (and may not be actually 9th Gen), and nVidia leaks from Lenovo indicate 1160 and 1180 launches are imminent.
HW News - 7nm Production, Another GTX 1050 Announced (3GB)
By Eric HamiltonHardware news for the past week includes another Pascal card launch -- the GTX 1050 3GB, which has some shared characteristics with the GTX 1050 Ti -- and news of the TSMC 7nm production timelines. We also talk about the new "Summit" supercomputer by NVIDIA and IBM, worthy of note for any interested in high-end computing and scientific research advancements.
More related to our audience, GDDR6 production continues to ramp, 7nm and 5nm are on-track, NAND prices continue to fall, and Gigabyte reiterates a GPU shipment reduction.
Show notes are below the video, if you prefer to read.
HW News - NVIDIA GPU Overstock, RAM Price Fixing Fines
By Eric HamiltonHardware news hasn’t slowed since Computex; in fact, this week has been among the busiest in months, with several news items out of the “Big Three” manufacturers. NVidia has seemingly purchased too many GPUs, according to GamersNexus sources (and verifying other stories), GPU shipments overall are trending downward, Intel’s CEO “resigned,” and AMD is working on Vega 20 and V340 products.
Other news for the week includes smaller items, like Be Quiet! opening a US service center and expanding US operations. Learn more in the video, or find the show notes below:
EVGA BIOS to Include Built-In Stress Test
By Ryan GreenbergWe visited EVGA’s suite for a look at the new OC Robot and built-in BIOS stress testing update for the X299 Dark motherboards. For the new X299 Micro 2 motherboard, we also learned the following of the VRM spec:
- VCCIN : IR35201(Controller1 - 5PH double to 10PH) + IR3556 x10
- VSA+VCCIO : IR35204(Controller2 - 1+1PH) + IR3556 (1+1)
- VSM+VPP_C01 : IR35204(Controller3 - 1+1PH) + TDA88240 (1+1)
- VSM+VPP_C23 : IR35204(Controller4 - 1+1PH) + TDA88240 (1+1)
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro Threadripper Cooler & New Cases Announced
By Ryan GreenbergOur Computex 2018 coverage continued as we visited the BeQuiet! booth. This year, Be Quiet! announced the new Dark Rock Pro for socket TR4 (Threadripper), timely for Threadripper 2, and also showed a trio of refreshed cases -- the Silent Base 801, 601, and Dark Base 900 Rev 2.0.
The Dark Rock Pro TR4 is specifically designed with AMD’s Threadripper socket TR4 in mind. The Dark Rock Pro’s only real difference from previous iterations is the new full coverage block for Threadripper. The new cold plate is designed to help ensure full die coverage on Threadripper, which we discussed back in August of last year. We’ve previously found there to be a measurable difference when using TR4 full coverage coolers vs. non-TR4 ones. Price and release date were not available at this time.
Phase-Change Cooler & Novec Cooling | Der8auer Phase-Shift Cooler
By Steve BurkeComputex 2018 saw the unveil of pro overclocker Der8auer’s phase-change cooling solution, called the Phase-Shift Cooler, using a similar solution to 3M Novec. Novec coolant has been demonstrated before (and was again at Computex) for its low boiling point and ability to cool a system using “only” a condenser and coolant, but is on the restricted substances list in the EU for containing PFCs. This eliminates 3M Novec from the list of products available for consumer retail, and forced Der8auer and Caseking to find another solution. The pair did find another liquid with a low boiling point, but did not share with GamersNexus the specs of the liquid. Regardless, it’s the same idea.
For Der8auer’s Phase-Shift Cooler, about 40ml of liquid sits in a CPU block, attached via (presently) a large hose to a condenser and tank. Atop a 7920X with Prime95 running, roughly creating about a 140W heat load, the coolant evaporates and drafts up the pipe as a gas. As the gas hits the tank, it encounters the condensers and gets cooled by a pair of copper heatsinks and 90mm fans. Once condensation forms, it slowly drips back down the tube and returns to the block.
Liquid Nitrogen in a Closed Loop Hybrid Cooler | EVGA Roboclocker at Computex
By Steve BurkeAt EVGA’s headquarters in New Taipei City, Taiwan, GamersNexus received a hands-on overview of the company’s new semi-closed loop liquid nitrogen cooling setup. The setup was created by K|NGP|N and TiN, both of whom work in the Taiwan office, to increase overclocking efficiency and reduce LN2 usage to only necessary quantities. Typically, extreme overclocking involves manual pouring of liquid nitrogen (LN2) from a thermos, which the overclocker can either manually refill from the LN2 tanks or can refill from the exhaust. With this new system, K|NGP|N is able to circulate LN2 based upon software input of desired temperatures, with used LN2 getting pushed through a series of flexible steel tubing and out of an exit manifold. The result yields somewhat reusable LN2 and eliminates the hands-on thermos pouring element of XOCing, allowing overclockers to focus on the result and tuning. Theoretically, you could run off of large LN2 tanks (~180L) at conservative temperatures for weeks on end, then swap tanks and use the collected “runoff.”
On the Intel i7-8086K and Soldering the IHS
By Ryan GreenbergRumors and speculation around Intel’s Core i7-8086K have begun to grow in large part due to listings on retail websites. The rumored i7-8086K is likely Intel’s way of commemorating their 40th anniversary of their 8086 CPU, a 16-bit processor released on June 8th, 1978.
The i7-8086K (6C/12T) was listed at two different frequencies of 4.0GHz and 5.0GHz. The 5GHz model was listed on Connection.com for $489.83, an increase of $139.94 over the i7-8700K at the time of writing. Despite rumors, GN has been told by multiple sources that the 8086K will not be a soldered CPU, but instead will use TIM.
Lian Li O11 Air Release Date, Final Specs, & RGB Cables
By Steve BurkePrior to the Computex rush, we stopped by Lian Li’s case manufacturing facility in Taiwan, about 30 minutes outside of Taipei. A near-future content piece will show our tour of the case factory (and detail how cases are made), but for today, we’re talking about the products for Computex. Other than pushing RGB to the next level – namely by attaching it to cables – Lian Li also provided us an opportunity to look at an updated O11 Air and Lancool One.
We first saw the Lian Li O11 Air at CES 2018, then reviewed the O11 Dynamic after that, and we’re now approaching launch for the Air variant. The Lian Li O11 Air has gone through spec finalization, with a target of $130 for a 3-fan model, or $150 for a 6-fan model (which is highly competitive, we think). The O11 Dynamic was more focused on water cooling, but the O11 Air goes for large, plastic paneling with grills cut throughout, with otherwise identical tooling to the O11 Dynamic. We think this enclosure is one of the most interesting for the latter half of this year. It’s presently due for “before August, probably,” with a possibility of a July launch.
HW News - China vs. Memory Makers, B450 Chipset Specs
By Eric HamiltonDespite Computex’s imminence, there are still plenty of pre-show announcements and news items to discuss. This week’s anchor item is the “conversation” that Micron has been having with memory suppliers; specifically, China’s Anti-Monopoly Bureau has discussed DRAM pricing with Samsung and Micron, Hynix likely to follow. Connecting the dots isn’t too hard here, but keep in mind that there’s still nothing confirmed with regard to price fixing possibilities.
Separately, AMD’s B450 chipsets were detailed, passive AM4 coolers debuted, and JPR thinks cryptomining is waning, giving way to more affordable video cards for gamers.
Show notes are below the video.
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