Not long ago, we tested the HyperX Alloy FPS gaming keyboard, which was the first mechanical gaming keyboard to be offered by Kingston’s HyperX brand. Rather than stack up with features galore, the HyperX Alloy FPS was a rather strategic product, catering towards mainstream and eSports gamers who simply want a solid performing mechanical gaming keyboard they can take on the go at a reasonable price. For the most part, they succeeded.

Now back for round two is the HyperX Alloy FPS’s bigger, badder cousin, the HyperX Alloy Elite Mechanical Gaming Keyboard which we have for review today. While the HyperX Alloy FPS catered towards the mainstream gaming [...]

Google Drive and Google Photos are excellent tools for backing up your document and photos. With that said, they can only back up files stored in the Google Drive or Google Photos folder, making backing up existing documents a bit difficult.

To save the hassle, Google has introduced a new Backup and Sync app for Window and Mac. It links to your Google Account and automatically backs up folders selected by the user. Once installed, Backup and Sync will replace the Google Drive and Google Photos app. You can manage storage for both under one settings panel.

Eager to try it out? Download it from Google.

New benchmarks of the upcoming AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X has surfaced. The Threadripper 1950X will be AMD’s new flagship chip for consumers, and will come appropriately with 16 cores/32 threads, 40MB of onboard cache, and a whopping 64 PCIe lanes.

In a Geekbench run, the Threadripper 1950X is shown to score 4074 points in the single-core test and 26,768 in the multi-core test. This is a bit higher than the last time its performance were leaked, so it does seem like optimizations were made.

Unfortunately, the new score still doesn’t match up against Intel’s new Core i9-7900X 10-core CPU. The Intel Core i9-7900X scores 5,390 in the [...]

The ongoing legal battle between Qualcomm and Apple is getting hotter by the day. According to a recent announcement by Qualcomm, the company filed a Patent Infringement Complaint against Apple, alleging that Apple breached six Qualcomm patents for the iPhone.

Most of the six patents mentioned in the complaint pertains to power saving features of Qualcomm’s baseband processor. In an infographic included with the press release, Qualcomm details each of the six patents and states that Apple have been using these technologies without paying for them.

In the meantime, Qualcomm demands that a Limited Exclusion Order (LEO) to be issued to Apple. The LEO [...]

Samsung announced today that its new fab in Pyeongtaek, South Korea has entered mass production and is shipping its first products to customers. The newly-opened plant which will be the largest single fab in the industry will focus on production of Samsung’s latest 4th generation, 64-layer 3D V-NAND. Samsung’s 64-layer TLC 3D NAND enables capacities of up to 256Gbit per chip bringing increased performance and storage capacity to consumer and enterprise devices. The new factory represents a major step towards Samsung’s goal of shifting 50% of its production to 64-Layer 3D NAND by the end of this year.

Within the next four years, Samsung is also [...]

Most of us know Cherry as the company that set the gold standard for mechanical keyboard switches, but what very few know know is that Cherry also produces its own line of keyboards.

With the recent release of its Cherry MX Silent lineup of mechanical switches, Cherry took the opportunity to release a new keyboard based around the Cherry MX Silent switches to show them off.

As such, today we’ll be reviewing the Cherry MX Board Silent, a quiet typing mechanical keyboard equipped with Cherry’s latest Cherry MX silent switches paired with a classic, no frills, simple keyboard design. I’ve been waiting to get my hands on one for a long [...]

Over the past few months, there hasn’t been a whole lot of good news coming out of Toshiba, but here’s a recent announcement that I think we can all appreciate. In a recent announcement, Toshiba shared news that they’ve developed the industry’s first 4-bit per cell, Quad Level Cell (QLC) BiSC NAND flash memory chips.

The new QLC NAND features a 64-layer cell structure and boasts up to 768Gbit / 96GB per die making it currently the densest dies on the market. By using 16 dies, Toshiba is able to cram as much as 1.5 TB in a single package. This is a 50% increase over a comparable TLC NAND package with the same number of dies.

“From SLC to [...]

Things are getting heated between Toshiba and Western Digital as Toshiba has recently filed a lawsuit against Western Digital over alleged violation of the Unfair Competition Prevention Act and Civil Code, and is seeking $120 billion yen ($1.07 billion USD) in compensation along with a permanent injunction. In their recent press release, Toshiba accused Western Digital of intentionally delaying the sale of TMC (Toshiba Memory Company) and improperly obtaining trade secrets through their joint venture partnership.

Toshiba claims that Western Digital delayed the sale of TMC by publicly and privately exaggerating its “consent right”, a clause in Western [...]

A mysterious “Genuine Intel CPU 0000” has appeared in SiSoft Sandra benchmark database, said to be likely an engineering sample of Intel’s upcoming Coffee Lake CPU.

The chip in question has six cores featuring a base clock of 3.1GHz and a turbo clock of 4.2GHz. It carries 256KB of L2 cache per core and 9MB of shared L3 cache. The chip reportedly has a die size of 149mm².

What tier this chip sits at is unknown, but considering the competitive pressure from AMD, it could very well slot into the consumer Intel Core i7-8700K. A quad-core variant will also be available but will be manufactured under a smaller, 126mm² die.

Coffee Lake will be [...]

According to DigiTimes, TSMC has won the bid to manufacture Qualcomm’s baseband chips on the 7nm node. The chip order is for the baseband processors only and not for application processors. Qualcomm is still making a decision between Samsung and TSMC for the production of its next-generation APs, and is waiting to see the second generation 7nm products from both companies before it makes a decision.

Both Samsung and TSMC will be switching from HKMG to EUV process technology at the 7nm node. Samsung announced that its 7nm Low Power Plus transistors made using EUV will be available in 2018, while TSMC said its 7nm EUV node will be ready by 2019.

TSMC lost [...]