Vik
August 3, 2017
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AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X and 1920X: We’re Allowed To Show Pictures Now

One of the interesting things to come out of this Threadripper launch is the stack of embargos. Last week AMD revealed the launch date and pricing, which will incidentally also be the date for our review of both chips. AMD also inserted a small embargo in the middle for today, allowing media outlets to do unboxings.

We’re Allowed To Show Pictures Now

Rather than discuss each element of what AMD shipped the ~250 reviewers who have review kits, this article is going to be mainly a picture story with annotations. Starting with a pelican case that AMD shipped the CPUs in.

Mug for Scale

Inside the massive padded box were two CPUs in special cases, along with a paperweight.

Yes, that’s an actual CPU in the paperweight, printed with AnandTech’s logo. We got CPU 30 out of 250.

Who has #1 ?

Each of the CPUs was in this overly padded secondary box.

Vital Codes

The instructions were far from clear. I tried to record this on video. Some swearing was involved – you definitely need two hands for this.

The CPU is housed in its own secondary support system. Twist, unlock, pull, grip, fail, try again, use force, swear, then eventually get the latch off.

The CPU comes in this orange holder. The orange holder goes into the motherboard as well, so there’s no need to take the CPU out.

The box also contains a bracket for Asetek liquid coolers to fit, and a Torx Screwdriver. There are some stickers as well.

Putting it in the socket is fairly easy – three Torx screws and the mechanism pops open. Slide into the tray, close the screws. I had more issues with the CPU cooler mechanism than the CPU tray.

This last picture shows how thermal paste spreads across the CPU after a couple of days of testing with a tight liquid cooler. We can’t say much about temperatures at this point because of the embargo.

Paperweight. No idea if the CPU inside actually works.

Gallery: AMD Ryzen Threadripper Unboxing

Along with the CPUs, AMD supplied almost everything needed for the system: an ASUS X399 Zenith Extreme motherboard, 32GB of G.Skill Trident RGB DDR4-3200 C14 memory, a 512GB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 drive, a Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W, and a Thermaltake Floe Riing 360 Premium liquid cooler (a 3×120 side radiator). The only thing missing was a Vega GPU (ed: you don’t get everything).

What Does This Mean

I’ve never had a review sample come with quite so much kit in such extravagant packaging. Back with Ryzen they supplied a hardwood box with all the kit, and this one goes another stage up. AMD knows they can cause a stir on the social channels by being big and bright rather than staying understated, and to a certain extent, it works (as long as the company can afford it). It’s a corner of the product release cycle that AMD has honed in on, or one that its competitors have missed, although it is hard to gauge the return on investment and requires a marketing head to approve it nonetheless.

AMD Ryzen SKUs
	Cores/ Threads	Base/ Turbo	XFR	L3	DRAM 1DPC	PCIe	TDP	Cost	Cooler
TR 1950X	16/32	3.4/4.0	?	32 MB	4×2666	60	180W	$999	–
TR 1920X	12/24	3.5/4.0	?	32 MB	4×2666	60	180W	$799	–
TR 1900X	8/16	3.8/4.0	+200	?	4-Ch	60	?	$549	–
Ryzen 7 1800X	8/16	3.6/4.0	+100	16 MB	2×2666	16	95 W	$499	–
Ryzen 7 1700X	8/16	3.4/3.8	+100	16 MB	2×2666	16	95 W	$399	–
Ryzen 7 1700	8/16	3.0/3.7	+50	16 MB	2×2666	16	65 W	$329	Spire
Ryzen 5 1600X	6/12	3.6/4.0	+100	16 MB	2×2666	16	95 W	$249	–
Ryzen 5 1600	6/12	3.2/3.6	+100	16 MB	2×2666	16	65 W	$219	Spire
Ryzen 5 1500X	4/8	3.5/3.7	+200	16 MB	2×2666	16	65 W	$189	Spire
Ryzen 5 1400	4/8	3.2/3.4	+50	8 MB	2×2666	16	65 W	$169	Stealth
Ryzen 3 1300X	4/4	3.5/3.7	+200	8 MB	2×2666	16	65 W	$129	Stealth
Ryzen 3 1200	4/4	3.1/3.4	+50	8 MB	2×2666	16	65 W	$109	Stealth

What now? Time to get back to testing. Review next week.

The Change in NDA Philosophy: A Personal Commentary

This new ‘unboxing’ sort of embargo has been borne from a rapid change in how media approaches launches and NDAs.

In the past, from 2014 and before, when there was a product NDA in place it was expected that no media would even acknowledge that they had the product, let alone disclose the date of launch. In the advent of a more social media focused – and younger – technology press, skirting those NDA lines with product images has now become almost a standard: if you have the product, flaunt it, and generate hype for the review/video. Even when there is an NDA in place specifically barring certain types of content, such as unboxings, it seems that posting screenshots or gifs of the upcoming unboxing content being edited before the NDA is becoming the norm.

The reasoning stems from the fact that NDAs typically restrict product reviews and only mention performance and data analysis to be revealed at a certain date, and the argument is that the NDAs often say nothing about showcasing the product before the launch (or even if the NDA is itself under NDA). Depending on the company, this has had a mixed response: typically an incumbent market leader will come down hard if NDA rules are pushed, although PR teams and underdogs like to push the hype train as many times around the track as possible if the product is good.

AnandTech in this respect is fairly old-school: we’d rather spend more time testing the product to give more data for our analysis and reviews, making sure our readers have the sufficient knowledge at hand to invest in a product. Unboxings on AT are few and far between because there usually isn’t that much to show for our typical user base that know technology – it only really makes sense to us when something is unusual (like Threadripper), or to show to new users that may become enthusiasts. Ultimately, it’s that latter group that has spurned the tech media to invest in social media for this sort of content, especially around high-performance components or hardware where it actually makes sense, like monitors. Unboxing products like a CPU would usually take several seconds: CPU, manual, cooler, sticker, done.

Coffee Lake Not Supported by Intel’s 200-Series Motherboards

In a stunning bit of Twitter, a tweet from one of the leading motherboard manufacturers has stated that Coffee Lake, Intel’s 8^th Generation Core processors, will not be supported on the current generation of 200-series motherboards.

No，Coffee Lake CPU is not compatibilble with 200 series motherboards.

— July 31, 2017

Information like this is usually kept under wraps until an Intel reveal, but it seems to have been mindlessly posted to Twitter on July 31st, an account that last tweeted on April 11^th before this tweet occurred. This tweet has since been deleted.

At this point, due to the similar microarchitecture to Kaby Lake being used in Coffee Lake, most of the technology press were under the impression that the Coffee Lake processors would be compatible with LGA1151 socket motherboards, namely the 100-series and 200-series. With the above tweet essentially confirming that Coffee Lake will not be supported, it means that either the new CPUs will not be LGA1151, or that the motherboards will lock-out the processors by firmware, or the CPUs and sockets will use a different notching system to ensure the wrong processor cannot be put in the wrong board. It does mean however that 200-series users hoping to upgrade to a Coffee Lake processor (which early reports are suggesting might be up to six cores, but this has not been announced) will not be able to.

There are many potential reasons for the change if the socket is still LGA1151. The obvious one would be product segmentation on Intel’s part, which would stick in the craw for a number of the user base. The second one that it might actually be a physical requirement for the processor – if previously unused pins are required for power and/or control for different elements of the DVFS in the chip. This would depend on new features on the chip, which could extend to different power management, different graphics, or different IP blocks that require separate pin-out connections. Intel might also be using a different power system for voltage regulators, which might not be compatible with current 200-series motherboards.

At this point, nothing has been made official. The fact that this was stated on Twitter so far from any launch date that we know of is an interesting development.

Gallery: Coffee Lake Not Supported by Intel’s 200-Series Motherboards

*The name of the manufacturer has been removed by request after this news was published.

Apple Announces Q3 FY 2017 Results

This afternoon, Apple announced their earnings for the third quarter of their 2017 fiscal year. Revenue grew 7% year-over-year to $45.408 billion USD for the three months ending July 1, 2017, with a gross margin of 38.5%. Operating income was $10.77 billion for the quarter, up 6.6% from a year ago. Net income was $11.31 billion, up 11.8% as well. This resulted in earnings per share of $1.67, up from $1.42 a year ago.

Apple Q3 2017 Financial Results (GAAP)
	Q3’2017	Q2’2017	Q3’2016
Revenue (in Billions USD)	$45.408	$52.896	$42.358
Gross Margin (in Billions USD)	$17.488	$20.591	$16.106
Operating Income (in Billions USD)	$10.768	$14.097	$10.105
Net Income (in Billions USD)	$8.717	$11.029	$7.796
Margins	38.5%	38.9%	38.0%
Earnings per Share (in USD)	$1.67	$2.10	$1.42

Apple has been the iPhone company for pretty much a decade now, and at time, Apple has been somewhat dependant on the iPhone for most of its earnings. That’s the case again this quarter, but Apple as a company is much more diversified now than even a year or two ago when iPhone revenues could account for over 70% of their earnings. This quarter, iPhone brought in $24.85 billion in revenue, which works out to 54.7% of Apple’s revenue. iPhone revenue was up 3% year-over-year, with unit sales of 41.026 million phones, up 2% from a year ago.

Services has quickly jumped from being an afterthought at the company, to now being their number two source of revenue, surpassing both the Mac and the iPad. Services revenue jumped 22%, to $7.27 billion. The iPhone ecosystem is a strong draw for many Apple customers, clearly.

Mac sales were only up 1% year-over-year, which is a bit surprising since they hadn’t yet launched their new laptops a year ago, but revenue was up 7% to $5.59 billion, so revenue-per-device is up nicely. Apple sold 4.29 million Macs in the last three months.

iPad has been the one sore spot for Apple for several years now, with slowing sales, but earlier this year, Apple announced a new, lower cost, entry level iPad. This strategy has paid off, at least for the interim, with iPad sales up 15% in terms of units sold. Apple sold 11.42 million iPads last quarter, compared to just 9.95 million a year ago. Revenue was only up 1% though, thanks to the lower cost of these entry level devices.

Apple Q3 2017 Device Sales (thousands)
	Q3’2017	Q2’2017	Q3’2016	Seq Change	Year/Year Change
iPhone	41,026	50,763	40,399	-19%	+2%
iPad	11.424	8,922	9,950	+28%	+15%
Mac	4,292	4,199	4,252	+2%	+1%

Other Products, which includes Beats, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and accessories, also had a very strong quarter, with revenue up 23% year-over-year to $2.73 billion. Apple doesn’t break down individual sales inside of Other Products though, but Apple did say Apple Watch sales were up 50% in the quarter. Up from what, we’re not sure, but obviously a big jump regardless.

For the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017, Apple is expecting revenue between $49 and $52 billion, with a gross margin between 37.5 and 38 percent.

Source: Apple Investor Relations

Vik
August 1, 2017
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Dell Announces Updated Precision Workstation Lineup at SIGGRAPH: Refreshed Towers, Racks, and Laptop

This year, Dell is celebrating the 20^th anniversary of their Precision Workstations. The first Precision workstation, the Workstation 400, was released in 1997 and consisted of a 128MB graphics card, with a total cost at the time of around $12K. The tale is told that sales were slow out of the gate for Dell, with the company selling only 700 units in the first quarter. By the end of the second quarter, Dell sold 7000 units and Precision workstation lineups were well on their way.

Fast forward to today where the workloads have increased massively – and 128MB of VRAM is a rounding error – and workstation hardware manufacturers like Dell are continuing to improve their production designs to keep up with user demands. Part of Dell’s goals with their latest iteration of their Precision hardware is to become a trusted partner for Data Center solutions, and in turn entice commercial clients to move away from renting hardware and back towards buying it up front. With many small to medium size businesses that are farming out their hardware to services such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, there are pieces of the pie to be taken back.

Precision Towers and Rack

For the first time in 5 years, Dell has updated both their tower and rack chassis workstations. Dell claims the Precision Tower and Rack workstations are, “…first to market with leading technology to handle complex, creative workloads, including development and deployment of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies.”The front of both class devices has changed the look of the front grill with the 2U 7920 looking a lot different. On the rack mount, where there used to be a simple bar going across it, has been replaced with a large hexagonal cover instead. The workstations receive more of an update with a diamond pattern on the front as well as a bezel down the middle where the peripheral attachments can be inserted.

On the hardware side, the new lineup consists of 5820, 7820, and 7920 Towers as well as a 2U 7920 rack. All incorporate the latest Skylake-X processors, and according to Dell, are designed with flexibility in mind. One of the unique features on the new lineup is bringing PCIe to the front of the chassis where custom devices, such as large removable storage, can be used without entering the chassis. This includes SATA, SAS, PCIe M.2/U.2 NVMe SSDs.

Gallery: Dell Precision 5820, 7820, and 7890

The new towers hold up to 1.5 TB of 2666 MHz RDIMM memory in 4 or 6 channel configurations, with LRDIMMs supporting up to 3 TB on specific CPUs in the 7920. The smaller siblings in the 5820 and 7820 hold up to 256GB and 384GB respectively. CPU support, like RAM, will vary a bit by model. All of these systems support Skylake-X Xeons and are based on the C261 chipset. The 5820 supports up to a 10 core Xeon, while the larger towers and rack mount servers support up to 28 core Xeons.

On the graphics side of the house, Dell uses both NVIDIA and AMD professional graphics cards, with the 7920 and 7820 towers supporting up to 900W of graphics power when using up to 3 double width GPUs. Available NVIDIA cards go up to the Quadro GP100 series cards and other Pascal based cards, while for AMD, customers can get up to AMD’s newly announced Radeon Pro WX9100. The workstations will also support the upcoming Radeon Pro SSG due out in fall. All of this horsepower, both from the CPUs and GPUs can be used for creation and deploying cognitive technologies among many other use cases Dell is targeting with their workstations.

The towers and rack workstations will be available starting October 3rd, 2017.

Precision 5520 Laptop: 20th Anniversary Edition

Meanwhile, Dell has also announced an update to their Precision 5520 laptop, which they’re calling the Anniversary Edition. The refreshed 5520 is targeting the prosumer market, separating itself from the XPS lineup by using Xeon CPUs and professional graphics. More specifically, the limited edition Anniversary version has several aesthetic changes. The chassis comes in a new color that is dark gray, almost black, which they call, Abyss. The shell is made of anodized aluminum with a brushed finish and anti-fingerprint coating. Outside of the updated chassis appearance, it also comes with a unique Dell 20th-anniversary wallpaper and a special badge commemorating the occasion located on the bottom of the device.

Specifications for the 5520 Anniversary Edition were not shared, though Dell did mention there will be two high-end configuration options. Pricing on the limited run Precision 5520 20th-Anniversary Edition comes in at $2179. Availability is today, August 1st. More details can be found at the Dell.com Precision Anniversary website.

Gallery: Dell Precision 5520

Dell Canvas

Last but not least, this morning Dell is also announcing that their long-awaited Canvas display & input system is now shipping. Essentially a large format touch tablet to maximize drawing space, the Canvas is Dell’s take on Microsoft’s Surface Studio, using a combination of a large surface, digital pen, totems object manipulation and interaction. However unlike the Surface Studio, the Canvas is not a stand-alone PC; rather it’s just an input system and a display. Users still need to connect it to an existing PC to actually use it.

The star of the show is Dell’s choice of panel, which is a QHD (2560 x1400) IPS display. Otherwise the Canvas supports over 90 pieces of software including Adobe, Autodesk, Solidworks, etc. Availability starts August 1^st with the device priced at $1799. This includes the QHD screen/tablet, pen, and the dial totem (the smaller knob totem is optional).

Gallery: Dell Canvas

More information on the Precision Performance Towers, Racks, the limited run Anniversary Edition 5520 laptop, and Dell Canvas can be found at the Dell website.

HP Expands Commercial VR Strategy: Z VR Backpack and Immersion Centers

At SIGGRAPH this week, HP has lifted the lid on parts of their Commercial VR strategy, announcing three major aspects of their implementation. In talking with HP, they are confident there is an opportunity in that commercial VR space.

The Z VR Backpack for Commercial

HP’s new commercial VR strategy will have three major points:

The first is to deliver the best and most immersive VR and compute experience. Second is to have an end to end solution. Last is to learn and invest with their partners while keeping an eye on mixed reality. These points, according to HP, translate into optimizing their investment and cut costs for commercial customers. Out of those points come three announcements.

The first announcement is the Z VR Backpack. This is a wearable and untethered VR PC, similar to ones we’ve seen from ZOTAC and MSI, albeit aimed at the commercial space. One use case for such an item can be in training situations, such as military training, first responders. For this type of training, it can be too dangerous or potentially cost prohibitive to do live. Similarly, HP state that in the health care space, training for doctors and nurses can be held in a virtual environment saving time and money, and even help with patient care and pain management.

Gallery: Z VR Backpack

The Z VR Backpack uses an i7-7820HQ and a NVIDIA Quadro P5200 GPU, with a 16GB frame buffer. HP states this is the most powerful wearable VR PC, as well as lightweight and manageable (important to IT administrators). The Z VR Backpack weighs in at just under 10 lbs with both a completely untethered VR solution and a docking ability.

Battery life in, “a rich VR experience” (as HP puts it) is about an hour, while less stressful applications can last up to 1.5 hours. As with other mobile VR solutions, HP uses a dual battery system that is hot-swappable to prevent interruption of the VR experience. The docking solution is designed to allow the device to transition back and forth between a content design desktop to a wearable VR PC.

HP Z VR Backpack Specifications
Form Factor		Backpack when worn Compact PC when docked
OS		Windows 10 Pro 64
CPU		Intel Core i7-7820HQ: 4C/8T, 2.9GHz, vPro Intel HD Graphics 630
Chipset		Intel QM175
DRAM		2 SODIMM / up to 32 GB DDR4-2400 non-ECC
Storage		256 GB up to 1 TB
Discrete GPU		NVIDIA Quadro P5200 16 GB Miracast for wireless external displays
Audio		RealTek ALC3866-CG Integrated DTS Headphone:X
Networking		Realtek RTL8153B Gigabit Port Intel AC 8265 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2×2)
Expansion slots		1 M.2 PCIe 3.0 x1 (for WLAN/BT only)
Ports and Conectors	Top	1 x VR Power Port 2 x USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) 1 x HDMI 2.0 1 x mDP 1.3 1 x TB3 Type-C 1 x audio jack
	Bottom	External Battery Port Dock Connector
	Right	2 x USB 3.0 (5 Gbps)
	Left	DC-In
Software		HP Performance Advisor HP Remote Graphics Software 7.1, HP Client Security Software HP Velocity HP Client Management Software Suite
Power		330W
Dimensions		13.11 x 9.29 x 2.39 in, 10.25 lbs 33.3 x 23.6 x 6.09 cm, 4.65 kg
Warranty		1-year (1-1-1) limited warranty 1 year of parts, labor and on-site repair

Pricing on the Z VR Backpack is $3299 with availability towards the end of September. HP brought the Z VR Backpack to SIGGRAPH this year and will be demonstrating military demonstrations, automotive, showroom, and other use cases.

The HP Immersion Center

The second announcement, us that HP is creating ‘Immersion Centers’, places for potential commercial clientele to come in and test the commercial lineup. Part of the reason potential VR clients are apprehensive about getting in the space are partly rooted in a fear, such as how to get started, and so businesses understandably wanted to experience what it can do before a significant investment on piloting a program begins. This announcement is HP’s answer to their customers.

There will be 13 immersion centers that will have the full HP commercial portfolio on site, from the HTC Vive Business Edition, Z Workstations, mobile workstations and VR commercial desktops, and the Z VR Backpack. They will be located throughout the world with 4 in the Americas, 4 in Asia/Pacific, and 5 in Europe. These 13 sites will all be live by the end of September with the first already starting July 27^th.

The Vive Business Edition and Mars Collaboration

The final announcement is HP partnering with HTC and bringing out the Vive Business Edition. The hardware itself is the same, although the software stack changes with stand alone enterprise software as well as a 1-year commercial license.

Along with the big push in the commercial space, HP has put out a VR program called HP Mars Home Planet. It is a free to participate environment, where users can collaborate in a VR space to imagine and design a colony on Mars for housing 1 million humans. Members can use Autodesk software to create 3D models of buildings and cities. The world uses terrain from the Mars 2030 game, which uses real map data from NASA research of a potential landing area on Mars. As the program continues, users can download the files and experience what the cooperative effort has developed.

Vik