Several weeks ago, Intel and rival AMD made headlines when the two companies announced that Intel would begin using AMD Vega graphics in some of its mobile CPUs. It appears that the first SKU is finally rolling off the production line with the model name Core i7-8809G.

The Core i7-8809G carries a 4 core, 8 thread CPU. When Intel teased this chip in November 2017, it did so under the moniker “Kaby Lake G”, which suggests that it’ll likely feature Kaby Lake architecture with some tweaks rather than the new Coffee Lake architecture that’s rolling out on some of the newer 8th Generation Core Processors.

The graphics die is the center of [...]

If you’ve been surprised by the massive surge in RAM pricing lately, you’re not alone. China is now closely monitoring DRAM prices, hinting that it’s possibly looking to conduct an investigation for price fixing. Xu Xinyu, an official of China’s National Development and Reform Commission’s Pricing Supervision Department, stated:

 “We have noticed the price surge and will pay more attention to future problems that may be caused by ‘price fixing’ in the sector”

The officials didn’t specifically mention which major manufacturers will be scrutinized, but the according to Wang Yanhui, Secretary General of the Mobile China Alliance, [...]

As the end of the year approaches, AMD packed a special surprise for its graphics card users – the Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition (Yes, that’s Adrenaline without an “e”) which is now available for download at AMD’s website here. The new update brings a healthy boost to features as well as many refinements to existing features.

 

Performance Latency

Performance has always been the paramount focus when it comes to any driver. According to AMD, the new Andrenalin driver ups the performance in some popular titles like Overwatch, Prey, and Project Cars 2. Input latency has been optimised slightly for DX11 titles. [...]

AMD’s former Radeon Technology Group Chief, Raja Koduri, has had an eventful week. After Hexus recently reported on an internal memo Koduri sent to his staff announcing his departure from AMD, Intel recently sent out a press release announcing that Koduri has joined Intel’s newly formed Core and Visual Computing Group.

Back in September, Koduri announced that he’d be going on a sabbatical for personal reasons. In an email, he explained to his staff that he was taking a temporary break to spend some time with his family. Given that Koduri had just overseen AMD’s launch their latest Vega GPU, it didn’t seem like a huge deal at the time. [...]

When Razer acquired Nextbit in January this year, we had a feeling that they would put that acquisition to good use combining Nextbit’s smartphone engineering know-how with Razer’s own gamer twist. After just less than a year in the making, Razer unveiled their latest smartphone which may be the first decent smartphone ever produced specifically for gaming and content consumption.

The new smartphone, which Razer calls the Razer Phone, looks very similar to the Nextbit Robin, which was Nextbit’s flagship smartphone before the company was acquired by Razer. From there, Razer has made some serious enhancements to the product to make it one of the [...]

HP has released the world’s first 2-in-1 convertible mobile workstation. The HP ZBook X2 aims to bring high performance into a versatile form factor that’s also familiar to professionals already proficient to drawing tablets.

The ZBook X2’s design borrows much from today’s drawing tablets. The ZBook X2 has a column of function buttons on either side of the display, much like many high-end drawing tabs do. An adjustable kickstand at the rear lets the user’s hands rest in a comfortable position.

To provide the best experience for artists and designers, HP has opted for a 14-inch 4K IPS panel that covers 100% of the Adobe [...]

Razer refreshed its Blade Stealth laptop with Intel’s 8th Gen quad-core mobile processors, bringing more performance while retaining battery life.

The Razer Blade Stealth laptop now uses Intel’s Core i7-8550U quad-core mobile CPU. Despite being a quad-core part, the i7-8550U has the same TDP as the previous generation dual-core mobile CPUs. This enables it to be fitted into thinner devices all the while doubling the thread count. Users can expect vastly improved multi-threaded and multi-tasking performance with excellent battery life.

Other aspects of the hardware remain unchanged. The Razer Blade Stealth still features a 13.3″ QHD [...]

After a succession of failures, Joe Belfiore, VP of Operating Systems at Microsoft, confirmed via Twitter that Microsoft will not be creating another Windows phone.

In another Tweet, Belfiore explained that Windows Phone’s phone’s fundamental issue was one it had since day one: the lack of apps. Users won’t use a phone with no apps, and companies won’t develop apps for a platform with no users. This vicious cycle is what ultimately drove the nail in the coffin. Joe also promised that Windows 10 mobile will continue to receive security updates, but active development in both hardware and software have ceased.

Microsoft’s [...]

FPS Gaming Mouse

First Person Shooter, or FPS, games are one of the most common gaming genres out there, but when it comes to gaming mice designed specifically for the genre, there is surprisingly very few out there. Of course, if you ask any professional FPS gamer, it’s easy to understand why. As FPS gaming relies almost solely on the quality of the main switches along with the accuracy of the sensor, FPS gamers typically select simple mice with quality switches and ultra-accurate sensors making gaming mice such as the Zowie EC2, Razer DeathAdder Elite, Logitech G Pro, or SteelSeries Rival 300 some of the most popular gaming mice for FPS gamers.

Of course, [...]

Following the release of the 8th generation “Kaby Lake-R” mobile CPUs last month, Intel has finally launched its 8th generation “Coffee Lake” CPUs.

Model Core i7-8700K Core i7-8700 Core i5-8600K Core i5-8400K Core i3-8350K Core i3-8100K Cores / Threads 6/12 6/12 6/6 6/6 4/4 4/4 Frequency (Base/Boost) 3.7Ghz / 4.7GHz 3.2Ghz / 4.6GHz 3.6Ghz / 4.3GHz 2.8Ghz / 4GHz 4Ghz / NA 3.6Ghz / NA Cache 12MB 12MB 9MB 9MB 8MB 6MB TDP 95W 65W 95W 65W 91W 65W Price $359 $303 $257 $182 $168 $117

Coffee Lake uses an improved version of the 14nm FinFET. Though there’s still no transistor node shrink (we’ll have to wait until [...]