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Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition Announced at E3, Available for Order July 27
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Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition Announced at E3, Available for Order July 27

Alienware this evening has announced their new Area-51 Threadripper Edition desktop at E3. The high-end gaming desktop offers up to a heady 16-core/32-thread AMD Ryzen Threadripper processor – marking AMD’s first OEM win for the HEDT processor – paired with a customized CPU liquid cooling system. In addition, Alienware has revealed that they will be “the exclusive OEM launch partner to deliver AMD Ryzen Threadripper pre-built systems to market”, which can be a bit confusing, but as later confirmed by PCWorld, is solely about a temporary exclusive among the OEMs. Alienware’s exclusive deal won’t impact stand-alone CPUs for enthusiasts.

The custom Triad Chassis fits three graphics cards, nicely complementing Ryzen ThreadRipper’s 60+4 PCIe 3.0 lanes and X399 chipset, and the GPU options top out at dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti’s or triple AMD Radeon RX 580s. To run this gamut of cards, PSU options range from 850W 80+ Bronze to 1500W 80+ Platinum. And not one to be ever out-done on bling, Alienware has made sure the chassis has AlienFX Lighting for any and all LED needs.

Alienware Area-51 Threadripper Edition
Processor AMD Ryzen Threadripper (Up to 16C/32T)
Memory Up To 64 GB 2933 MHz DDR4 (4x DIMM)
Graphics Up to 2 x Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti in SLI or
Up to 3 x AMD Radeon RX 580 in Crossfire
Storage HDD: Up to 2TB
SSD (M.2 PCIe): Up to 1TB
Wireless Dell 1820 802.11ac 2×2 or
Killer 1535 802.11ac 2×2 Wi-Fi
Front 2x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A
Optical Drive
Headphone Jack
Microphone Jack
Media Card Reader
Rear 10 USB ports (unspecified form-factors)
Includes 1 USB Type-C (w/ 15W Powershare)
Dual Killer Networks E2500 Gigabit NICs
SPDIF Port
5 1/8″ Audio Jacks
Dimensions 569 x 638 x 272 mm
Weight Starting at 28kg
Pricing TBA

The TR4 socket Ryzen ThreadRippers will come with an all-core factory overclock and will be available as a 12-core/24-thread variant. Memory options top out at 64GB of 2933 MHz quad-channel DDR4 RAM, while storage offerings go up to 1TB M.2 SSDs and 2TB HDDs. Connectivity-wise, two USB 3.1 Gen-1 Type-A ports, media card reader, headphone jack, and microphone jack is included in the front, while the rear includes ports for dual Killer Networks E2500 Gigabit Ethernet as well as “10 USB ports of different form factors, including a Type-C port”.

Positioning the Area-51 Threadripper Edition and its 6/8/10/12-core Intel Skylake-X counterpart for “4K, 8K, or VR applications” as well as “megatasking”, Alienware is offering demo rigs to visitors at E3 to experience the system first-hand. They will probably be as heavy as they look: the starting weight for these pre-builts is roughly 62 pounds.

Wrapping things up, Alienware’s Area-51 Threadripper Edition will be available for pre-order on July 27. However pricing has not been announced at this time, and more importantly, neither has a shipping date. AMD has not yet unveiled ThreadRipper’s release date, so all we know for sure by now is that it won’t be any sooner than July 27th, and may very well be later. Meanwhile Area-51 models with Intel’s Skylake-X family of CPUs will be available on August 22.

Samsung Announces First Freesync 2 Monitors: CHG70 & CHG90 - Quantum Dots, Up to 49”, 144 Hz, DCI-P3
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Samsung Announces First Freesync 2 Monitors: CHG70 & CHG90 – Quantum Dots, Up to 49”, 144 Hz, DCI-P3

Samsung on Friday announced the C49HG90 monitor, their new flagship gaming monitor that includes virtually all of the major gaming-oriented display technologies available today. The new 49” screen has a an ultra-wide 32:9 aspect ratio, a 144 Hz refresh rate, and uses quantum dot nanocrystals to enable support for DCI-P3 color gamut, and, perhaps most importantly, it supports AMD’s forthcoming FreeSync 2 technology. In addition, Samsung introduced its CHG70-series displays that will support the same technologies, but will be smaller and more affordable.

The Samsung C49HG90 is the company’s first ultra-wide display with the 32:9 aspect ratio and the so-called double full HD (DFHD) resolution (3840×1080). The monitor is based on a VA panel with up to 600 nits brightness, 1 ms moving picture response time (MPRT) as well as a 144 Hz refresh rate, two features important for fast-moving games. The panel has 1800R curvature along with 178° viewing angles to make gaming experience more immersive. The smaller C32HG70 and C27HG70 monitors use 32” and 27” curved VA panels (respectively) with a 2560×1440 resolution as well as the same refresh rate and MPRT as on the flagship model.

Large dimensions, curvature and a high refresh rate are not the only distinctive features of Samsung’s new breed of gaming displays. The C49HG90 features LED backlighting enhanced with quantum dots that enable support for the DCI-P3 color space (as well as larger-than-sRGB gamut) and the HDR-focused AMD’s FreeSync 2. Samsung claims that the QLED backlighting of the display is similar to that used in its high-end UHDTVs with HDR, but does not say anything about features like local dimming or formal support for the HDR10 spec. Keeping in mind that Samsung’s announcement is focused around games and FreeSync 2 (and the latter uses its own HDR transport) the status of the HDR10 support isn’t known at this time.

Meanwhile, Samsung’s HDR implementation makes the CHG70- and the CHG90-series displays the first to support AMD’s FreeSync 2, which is something bigger than just a new dynamic refresh rate technology (as discussed in the appropriate article). The FreeSync 2 mandates support for Low Framerate Compensation – an optional feature for FreeSync 1 monitors – but the biggest shift from a feature perspective is how HDR works. Rather than double-tone mapping the dynamic range – tone mapping a game once from its rendering space to HDR10’s space, and then again in the monitor from HDR10 to the monitor’s native space – FreeSync 2 skips the middle-man by having games tone map directly to a monitor’s native dynamic range. This saves potentially precious milliseconds both by removing a step, and by putting the extremely fast GPU in charge of the process instead of the historically inconsistent display processors inside monitors.

As this is the first FreeSync 2-related news to hit the scene in nearly 5 months, there are some remaining questions that at least as of Samsung’s announcement have not yet been answered. Chiefly, when AMD will enable FreeSync 2 support on their end, as all of the heavy lifting is being done by AMD’s drivers. Coupled with that is a need for FreeSync 2-enabled software – since devs need to code for it – so that there’s something to use with the display. Samsung says that it had collaborated with DICE and Ghost Games to enable HDR in the upcoming Star Wars Battlefront II and Need for Speed Payback games, which may indicate that these two titles will be among the first to support AMD’s FreeSync 2.

Samsung CHG70 and CHG90 QLED Gaming Monitors with AMD FreeSync 2
  C49HG90
LC49HG90DMNXZA		 C32HG70 C27HG70
Panel 49″ VA 31.5″ VA 27″ VA
Native Resolution 3840 × 1080 2560 × 1440
Maximum Refresh Rate 144 Hz
Response Time 1 ms MPRT
Brightness 600 cd/m²
Contrast 5000:1?
Backlighting LED w/Quantum Dots
Viewing Angles 178°/178° horizontal/vertical
Curvature 1800R
Aspect Ratio 32:9 (3.56:1) 16:9
Color Gamut 95% DCI-P3
Dynamic Refresh Rate Tech AMD FreeSync 2
Pixel Pitch 0.312 mm² 0.2767 mm² 0.2335 mm²
Pixel Density 81.41 PPI 91.79 PPI 108.8 PPI
Inputs 1 × DP
1 × mDP
2 × HDMI		 1 × DP
2 × HDMI
Audio 3.5 mm input and output
USB Hub 2 × USB 3.0 Type-A connectors
1 × USB 3.0 Type-B input
MSRP $1499 $699 $599

Samsung plans to demonstrate its CHG70- and the CHG90-series monitors in action at the Ubisoft booth at the E3 convention this week, just a couple of weeks before the devices will hit the market. This in turn implies that this Ubisoft is also set to support AMD’s FreeSync 2 (good news for the GPU developer) in at least some of its titles, but this is a speculation for now.

While the C27HG70 and C32HG70 look like rather regular gaming displays with a high refresh rate and FreeSync 2, HDR and DCI-P3 support as important bonuses, the C49HG90 seems like an experimental model that will compete against multi-monitor setups. Consumer displays with the 21:9 aspect ratio have been available for several years now and are gaining traction, but so far, no monitor manufacturer has attempted to offer a very large monitor with the 32:9 aspect ratio and a relatively low DPI. People buying the C49HG90 will not be able to watch 4K content on them in native resolution and that may stop some gamers from adopting it. On the other hand, those who use multi-display setups for ultra-wide screen gaming today do not necessarily enjoy 4K video anyway.

The Samsung C49HG90 will be available in late June at a price of $1499. The monitor is now available for pre-order at Amazon and Micro Center in the U.S. The 32” C32HG70 will cost $699 and is available for pre-order at Newegg, whereas the 27” C27HG70 will be priced at $599 and can be pre-ordered from Samsung now.

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Mushkin Announces Availability Of SATA SSDs With 3D NAND
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Mushkin Announces Availability Of SATA SSDs With 3D NAND

As previewed early this year at CES, Mushkin is now launching their first SSDs using 3D NAND flash. The new Reactor ARMOR3D is the replacement for the successful Mushkin Reactor, which held on to its position as one of the most aggressively priced MLC SATA SSDs as the mainstream segment of the market migrated almost entirely to using TLC NAND flash. The value-oriented Mushkin Triactor hasn’t been around for quite as long as the Reactor but it too is being upgraded, to use 3D TLC NAND.

The new Mushkin drives continue the pattern of using Silicon Motion SSD controllers, with both new models incorporating the current SM2258 controller. The 3D MLC and 3D TLC NAND comes from Micron, the first flash manufacturer to provide 3D NAND in volume for independent drive manufacturers (Samsung has largely been keeping their 3D NAND for their own SSDs, and the rest are still ramping up production capacity). Both models use the first-generation 32-layer 3D floating gate NAND flash, not the upcoming 64-layer 3D NAND.

The major hardware components of the new Mushkin SSDs make them broadly similar to the ADATA SU800, SU900 and XPG SX950 SATA SSDs, all based on the SM2258 controller and Micron 3D NAND. There may be minor firmware differences between ADATA and Mushkin’s offerings and they don’t exactly match on overprovisioning ratios and usable capacity, but performance should be broadly similar between drives using the same NAND and similar capacity.

Mushkin has not announced MSRPs, but the usual online retailers should have these drives in stock soon with competitive pricing.

Mushkin Reactor ARMOR3D and Triactor 3D SSDs
Capacity Reactor ARMOR3D Triactor 3D
Capacities 240 GB – 960 GB 512 GB, 1 TB
Controller Silicon Motion SM2258
NAND Flash Micron 3D MLC NAND Micron 3D TLC NAND
Form Factor 2.5″ 7mm SATA
Sequential Read Up to 565 MB/s
Sequential Write Up to 510 MB/s Up to 525 MB/s
Random Read IOPS Up to 80k IOPS
Random Write IOPS Up to 80k IOPS Up to 82k IOPS
Pseudo-SLC Caching Supported
DRAM Buffer Yes
TCG Opal Encryption No
Power Management DevSleep
Warranty 3 years
MTBF 1,500,000 hours

Mushkin is initially offering a narrower range of capacities than ADATA, with 240–960GB for the Reactor ARMOR3D, and 512GB and 1TB for the Triactor 3D. Larger capacities are likely to be introduced when NAND prices get back down to reasonable levels, but that may not happen until it’s time to move to 64-layer 3D NAND. Mushkin is offering three-year warranties on both new models. ADATA’s 3D MLC SATA SSDs come with five and six year warranties, so Mushkin will have to beat them on price.

Mushkin also has their first NVMe SSD in the pipeline. The upcoming Mushkin Helix will pair the Silicon Motion SM2260 controller with Micron 3D MLC NAND, and like these new SATA drives its closest competition will be another ADATA drive, the ADATA SX8000.

Microsoft’s Project Scorpio Gets a Launch Date: Xbox One X, $499, November 7th
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Microsoft’s Project Scorpio Gets a Launch Date: Xbox One X, $499, November 7th

Over the last several months, Microsoft has been trickling out details about their mid-generation hardware update for the Xbox One console, which has been going under the name Project Scorpio. Now at this year’s E3 conference, the company is releasing the final details. We now have a name, a launch date, and perhaps most importantly, a price.

Hitting the streets on November 7th will be the new Xbox One X, which is Microsoft’s retail name for the console.(ed: I’m convinced MS is trying to keep us from writing their console names in short-hand) It will be priced at $499 in the US and equivalent prices in other regions, which is the same price as the original Xbox One (with the Kinect) at its launch back in 2013. On a relative basis, this stacks up as being twice the cost of the Xbox One S, whose base model (and now bundles as well) has been $249 for a while now.

Xbox One Specification Comparison
  Xbox One (Original) Xbox One S Xbox One X
CPU Cores 8 8 8
CPU Frequency 1.75 GHz 1.75 GHz 2.3 GHz
CPU µArch AMD Jaguar AMD Jaguar “Custom CPU”
(AMD Jaguar Variant)
GPU Cores 12 CUs
768 SPs
853 MHz		 12 CUs
768 SPs
914 MHz		 40 CUs
2560 SPs
1172 MHz
Peak Shader Throughput 1.23 TFLOPS 1.4 TFLOPS 6 TFLOPS
Embedded Memory 32MB eSRAM 32MB eSRAM None
Embedded Memory Bandwidth 204 GB/s 218 GB/s None
System Memory 8GB DDR3-2133 8GB DDR3-2133 12GB GDDR5
(6.8 Gbps)
System Memory Bus 256-bits 256-bits 384-bit
System Memory Bandwidth 68.3 GB/s 68.3 GB/s 326 GB/s
Manufacturing Process TSMC 28nm TSMC 16nm TSMC 16nm
Dimensions 343mm x 263mm x 80mm 295mm x 230mm x 65mm 300mm x 240mm x 60mm
Weight 3.54kg 2.9kg 3.81kg
PSU 220W
(External)		 120W
(Internal)		 245W
(Internal)
Optical Drive Blu-Ray UHD Blu-Ray UHD Blu-Ray
Wireless 802.11n (Dual Band) 2×2 802.11ac 2×2 802.11ac
Launch Price $499 w/Kinect $299 $499
Launch Date 11/23/2013 08/02/2016 11/07/2017

As far as the hardware itself goes, thanks to Microsoft’s ongoing campaign, we already know the bulk of the details of the console. The 16nm SoC at the heart of the new Xbox One design is meant to be significantly more powerful than the original and S versions of the Xbox One, vaulting MS from having the least powerful console to the most powerful console. All told, the Xbox One X will offer almost 4.3x the GPU compute throughput of the Xbox One S, while the CPU cores have received a healthy 31% clockspeed boost (Interesting aside: Microsoft is still not calling it Jaguar, unlike the XB1/XB1S). The memory feeding the beast has also gotten a great deal faster as well, with Microsoft switching out their 8GB of DDR3 for a large and very fast 12GB of GDDR5, which has a combined memory bandwidth of 326GB/sec.

Meanwhile the only real details we didn’t have on the console itself, such as the size, have been answered. Microsoft is going for a super slim design on the console, announcing that it’s the “smallest Xbox ever”, placing it below even the already slimmed-down Xbox One S. At 300mm x 240mm x 60mm, the console is 5mm wider and 10mm deeper than the Xbox One S, but it’s 5mm shorter than said console. Or to put things in terms of volume, it’s 98% the volume of the Xbox One S, indeed making it smaller, though just slightly so.

Otherwise, Microsoft has largely confirmed that the Xbox One X will function as you’d expect as a mid-cycle console upgrade, similar to the Xbox One S. Existing games will benefit from the more powerful hardware, though to what degree is apparently going to depend on the game. For games that are fully Xbox One X enabled, Microsoft is targeting a 4K (3840×2160) resolution, and will offer downsampling for improved quality when hooked up to 1080p TVs. And all of the existing Xbox One ecosystem accessories will work as well.

Gallery: Xbox One X

QNAP Launches TS-1277 NAS Powered by AMD's Ryzen CPUs: 12 Bays, 64 GB DDR4, Starts at $2,299
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QNAP Launches TS-1277 NAS Powered by AMD’s Ryzen CPUs: 12 Bays, 64 GB DDR4, Starts at $2,299

QNAP demonstrated its upcoming 12-bay NAS devices at Computex 2017, including most notably models powered by AMD’s Ryzen processors. The NAS will support HDDs and SSDs in various form-factors and will start at $2,299. In addition, the company is prepping 6-bay and 8-bay NAS featuring AMD’s Ryzen CPUs that will be more affordable.

The QNAP TS-1277 series NASes are powered by AMD’s Ryzen 7 1700 or Ryzen 5 1600 CPUs with eight and six cores respectively, and come with up to 64 GB of DDR4-2400 DRAM. All the systems use four GbE ports to connect to networks and have eight 3.5”/2.5” bays as well as four 2.5” bays for various SATA storage devices. As you’d expect for a NAS, there’s a multitude of RAID options available, with the NAS hardware able to tap the large number of drives here for RAID 50/60 operation. In addition, the NASes feature two M.2 slots (up to M.2-22110) for SSDs that can cache frequently used data.

Meanwhile, the TS-1277 has one PCIe 3.0 x8 and two PCIe 3.0 x4 slots, and thus can be upgraded with QNAP’s QM2 PCIe cards, which offer options such as 10GbE networking and additional M.2 slots. For those who needs to have access to the TS-1277 from a local PC or to a DAS, the NAS has two USB 3.1 ports (Type-A and Type-C) and five USB 3.0 headers (Type-A). As for power, the TS-1277 is equipped with a 550 W PSU and can handle all kinds of HDDs and SSDs (as long as they are compatible with SATA-6G and do not require management by the host) as well as almost any graphics card in the PCIe 3.0 x8 slot.

The 12-bay TS-1277 NAS will not be the only model based on AMD’s Ryzen CPUs from QNAP. Along the high-end SKU, QNAP will also introduce more affordable solutions featuring six and eight bays: the TS-677 and the TS-877 with 250 W and 450 W PSUs, respectively. As for feature set, all QNAP’s TS-x77 NAS will run the company’s QTS 4.3 OS and will support the same capabilities as other NAS from the manufacturer.

QNAP is the first NAS manufacturer to start using AMD’s Ryzen processors for network area storage. AMD’s CPUs traditionally have strong integer performance, making them a good fit for NAS tasks. Meanwhile, the high core counts of the Ryzen CPUs also enables QNAP to position their TS-1277/TS-877/TS-677 NASes for hosting virtual machines or containerized applications. During a conversation at Computex, QNAP also mentioned that the prices of AMD’s Ryzen processors (relative to its rivals) were also a major factor in their decision to use Ryzen CPUs for NASes.

QNAP TS-1277, TS-877 and TS-677 Specifications
  TS-1277
1700-64G		 TS-1277
1700-32G		 TS-1277
1600-16G		 TS-877
1600-16G		 TS-877
1400-16G		 TS-677
1400-8G
CPU AMD Ryzen 7 1700
8C/16T
3 GHz/3.7 GHz
20 MB Cache (L2: 4 MB, L3: 16 MB)
65W TDP		 AMD Ryzen 5 1600
6C/12T
3.2 GHz/3.6 GHz
19 MB Cache (L2: 3 MB, L3: 16 MB)
65W TDP		 AMD Ryzen 5 1400
4C/8T
3.2 GHz/3.4 GHz
10 MB Cache (L2: 2 MB, L3: 8 MB)
65W TDP
Encryption Acceleration AES-NI
Memory Speed DDR4-2400, dual-channel
Capacity 64 GB (4×16 GB) 32 GB
(2×16 GB)		 16 GB
(2×8 GB)		 8 GB
(2×4 GB)
Bays 8 × 3.5″
4 × 2.5″
 		 6 × 3.5″
2 × 2.5″		 4 × 3.5″
2 × 2.5″
M.2 Slots 2×M.2 slots (up to M.2-22110)
Storage interface SATA 6 Gbps
Ethernet 4×GbE, 10/40 GbE supported via add-in-cards
PCIe Slots 1 × PCIe 3.0 x8
2 × PCIe 3.0 x4
Audio 2 speakers
1 × audio out
2 × audio in
USB 1 × USB 3.1 Type-A
5 × USB 3.0 Type-A
1 × USB 3.1 Type-C
 
Other I/O Monochrome backlit LCD display with Enter & Select buttons, 3.5 mm console port, voice allert, buzzer, etc.
Dimensions Height 234.6 mm / 9.23″ 231.9 mm / 9.13″
Width 369.9 mm / 14.56″ 292.8 mm / 11.53″ 224.9mm/8.9″
Depth 319.8 mm / 12.59″
PSU 550 W 450 W 250 W
OS QNAP QTS 4.3
MSRP $3099 $2599 $2299 $2099 $1899 $1649

QNAP plans to start selling its AMD Ryzen-based 12-bay TS-1277 NAS in late July. The top-of-the-range model with a Ryzen 7 1700 and 64 GB of memory will cost $3,099, a slightly cheaper SKU with the same processor, but 32 GB of DDR4 will retail for $2,599, whereas the most affordable configuration powered by AMD’s six-core Ryzen 5 1600 will be available for $2,299.

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