Month: September 2019

35 INCHES OF 3440 X 1440 VA PANEL

In one corner is the Asus ROG Swift PG35VQ and in the other corner you will find the Acer Predator X35, both of which will cost around $2500 at launch. There is a twist in this review from TechSpot, which has nothing to do with Nematics at all, seeing as how both of these monitors will use the exact same VA panel. The 35″ panel has an 1800R curvature, with ultrawide 3440×1440 resolution, HDR1000 support and up to a 200 Hz refresh rate with G-Sync Ultimate support.

This means the review focuses more on the implementation and the differences in the the software, OSD and stand design compare between Acer and ASUS models. If these prices are a bit high for your taste, there are a variety of similar displays with refresh rates between 100-144Hz for sale now.

The Acer Predator X35 packs the same specs as Asus’ ROG PG35VQ which we recently called the best monitor we’d ever tested, because it uses the same panel. It’s a 35-inch ultrawide 3440 x 1440 VA panel with up to a 200 Hz refresh rate, 1800R curvature, proper HDR and G-Sync Ultimate support.

Microsoft has joined other major tech companies such as Amazon, Googleand Sony in laying out some new commitments to mitigate climate change. One of the more eye-catching measures it detailed was a pilot project to make 825,000 Xbox consoles carbon neutral. It says those’ll be the first carbon-neutral consoles.

“Microsoft’s business operations have operated carbon neutral since 2012,” chief environmental officer Lucas Joppa wrote in a blog post. “Today, we are beginning the journey of extending that to our products and devices.” The Xbox pilot is the first stage of that project.

Joppa also affirmed Microsoft aims to reduce carbon emissions in its value and supply chain by at least 30 percent by 2030. The latest efforts it announced are part of its drive to be “even more ambitious than the Paris Accord targets, which mapped to a two-degree (Celcius) rise.” The Science Based Target Initiative certified Microsoft’s renewable energy target as being aligned with a 1.5-degree rise in future temperatures.

Additionally, Microsoft said it’s continuing to expand its AI for Earthprogram. It recently released its first APIs and code under the program, which has more than 430 grantees in 71 countries tapping into the company’s resources “to power new AI breakthroughs for the planet.”

News of Microsoft’s latest efforts follow an open letter that employees published last week, demanding more action on climate change. They called on the company to cancel its contracts with fossil fuel businesses, stop making contributions to climate change-denying politicians and lobbyists and commit to zero carbon emissions by 2030.

Meanwhile, the United Nations reported that 21 games industry companies (including Microsoft) have spelled out climate change commitments as part of the Playing for the Planet Alliance. Collectively, those efforts will lead to a “30 million-tonne reduction of CO2 emissions by 2030, will see millions of trees planted, new ‘green nudges’ in game design and improvements to energy management, packaging and device recycling.” Among the other companies involved are Sony, Google Stadia, Rovio, Supercell, Sybo, Twitch, Ubisoft and WildWorks.

Stadia, for instance, will release a Sustainable Game Development Guide and fund research on how developers can effectively integrate prompts for players to take green action into their games. Clash of Clans developer Supercell will offset its entire carbon footprint, while Rovio “has offset the carbon impact from their players charging their devices.”

There was a time that I was a voice in the wilderness that heralded a strong defense for Google’s relatively short Auto Update Policy for Chrome OS. End of Life policy if you prefer. Three years into this and I have conceded that it is time for a change. Chromebooks are coming into their own and the average price for a decent device has nearly doubles. If you really wanted to, you could drop nearly $2,000 on a Chrome Enterprise machine and that gives me a serious pause when I consider it may only get updates for 5-6 years.

Okay, before we get too far off into the weeds, we’ll put a pin in this and circle back around after we’ve discuss this weeks findings. Over the weekend, we shared some deals on a couple of MediaTek-based Lenovo Chromebooks. While the prices were great, one of the most common complaints we see in comments is the End of Life date for these devices. These are legitimate concerns when you’re dropping your hard-earned money on a new anything. Price is generally relative to the value of a thing. If you give me a brand new Chromebook and tell me it’s only $100, great. If you then tell me that it will cease to receive updates in six months, I’m probably going to take a hard pass. Sure, it’s only a hundred bucks but I can spend a couple of hundred more and get a device that will last three, four or even five years.

Lenovo has done a great job of getting some great mileage out of the MediaTek MT8173 SoC but at the end of the day, all of these Chromebooks were built off of the same platform. According to Google’s Auto Update Policy, the End of Life for all of them is to be based on the original device.

Google provides each new hardware platform with 6.5 years of Auto Update support. Multiple devices can share the same hardware platform. The 6.5 years starts when the first device on the platform is released(1). Manufacturers are advised to choose the newest platforms to ensure that they produce devices that have the longest Auto Update support available.

Google Support

That means that Lenovo’s (or any other manufacturer that produces a MediaTek device built on the same baseboard) latest S330 Chromebook has the same End of Life as the original Chromebook Flex 11. The latter was released two and a half years ago. Consumers don’t particularly like buying a Chromebook that was launched less than a year ago just to find out that the End of Life date is a short, three years away. That was the exact case for these Lenovo Chromebooks. Until recently that is.

We have, on multiple occasions, pointed out the upcoming EOL dates on these Chromebooks. While they’re often a steal, we want our readers to be aware of what they’re buying. If we ever forget to point this out, forgive us. Thankfully, I get to be the bearer of good news today. While looking at Google’s Auto Update Policy page this weekend, I noticed that the dates for a number of these MediaTek devices had changed.

I’ve uncovered eight Chromebooks in all including seven Lenovos and the oddball Poin2 Chromebook 14. All of these devices were once slated for End of Life around June of 2022. Three years. Not that bad but still, some of these Chromebook have been on shelves for less than 12 months. That being said, Google has changed the date to June of 2025. Talk about a stay of execution.

NOW, THE CAVEATS.

These devices have an extended AUE date; however, providing updates beyond June 2023 is subject to certain limitations including reliance on third party component suppliers. Google will work with suppliers in an effort to ensure continued support.

Google Support

Here’s the full list of devices with the extended AUE dates:

Flex 11 Chromebook

100e Chromebook 2nd Gen MTK

N23 Yoga Chromebook

300e Chromebook

300e Chromebook 2nd Gen MTK

Ideapad S330 Chromebook

Ideapad C330 Chromebook

Poin2 Chromebook 14

So, this extends the life of these Chromebooks way out. This isn’t something we’ve seen from Google, ever. At one point, the Auto Update Policy was updated from 5 to 6.5 years but this adds that amount of time to these Chromebooks based more closely on their release date as opposed to their platform launch. Could this be a sign of things to come?

There has been a lot of scuttlebutt around the world of Chrome OS about Google taking a fresh look at the AUE policy. With devices costing over a thousand dollars at times, the expectation of a longer support cycle is quickly becoming the common consensus and I tend to agree. Being that Chrome OS lives as one, unified Stable release, there aren’t the concerns of which model supports what version. The late-gen devices on the market are powerful enough to offer 7-10 years of reliable use if Google and the Chromium OS developers are willing to keep them updated. I understand that there would be exceptions as technology continues to evolve but the cloud-centric nature of Chrome OS allows a lot of the work to be offloaded from the local machine which means a device that capable today should be capable a decade from now.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that these MediaTek Chromebooks just got a new lease on life and that makes them much more of a value than they were just a few weeks ago. Picking up a Chromebook that performs well enough for the casual user that will do so for 5+ years and do it for around $250 is a big win for the consumer Chrome OS market. That’s my two cents. Hopefully, this will be a new trend for Chrome OS and Google will continue evolving the policy.

Pair this with a next-gen Threadripper CPU and you’ve got a drool-worthy configuration.

The arrival of PCI Express 4.0 on consumer systems has led to the release of several blazing fast solid state drives capable of sequential read performance of up to 5,000MB/s. That’s around nine times faster than the speediest SATA-based SSDs. It’s also almost pedestrian next to Gigabyte’s upcoming add-in card (AIC) solution with four high-speed NVMe SSDs stuffed inside.

First introduced at Computex a few months ago, the upcoming Aorus Gen4 AICfeatures four 2TB SSDs configured in a RAID 0 array. According to Gigabyte, this beastly storage card is rated to deliver up to 15,000MB/s for both sequential reads and writes.

Gigabyte notes those figures are based on its own internal testing and that actual results may vary. That goes for pretty much any storage solution. In this case, Gigabyte might be rounding the numbers—back at Computex, it was touting reads of up to 15,376MB/s and writes of up to 16,184MB/s.

Like every PCIe 4.0 SSD we have seen to date, the drives in Gigabyte’s AIC solution are powered by Phison’s PS5016-E16 controller.

One of the caveats to hitting these crazy-high speeds is that only AMD has embraced the PCIe 4.0 spec, and as it pertains to consumers, and just on its X570 chipset for third-gen Ryzen. You can still use these drives in an Intel rig or an older AMD platform, but you won’t maximize performance.

The other caveat is cooling—hitting these high speeds and maintaining them for any meaningful amount of time requires keeping thermals in check. Gigabyte says its AIC solution tackles this by combining “smart active and passive cooling.”

“A large all copper heatsink touches the SSD’s hottest controller and transfers heat to the multi-cut copper heatsink. The blower fan helps to draw heat away more quickly, preventing thermal throttling on the SSD to maintain amazing speeds at all times.,” Gigabyte says.

It’s basically a full-body suit of armor, and according to Gigabyte, temps are 30C lower with it than without.

This kind of speed is way overkill for a gaming setup—though SATA SSDs are far slower, they’re still much faster than a hard drive. Anything faster really only comes into play outside of gaming, like transferring large video files and that sort of thing. This particular drive is probably best suited for a workstation environment, though Gigabyte seems to be targeting enthusiast consumers.

While a product page now exists for this drive, Gigabyte has still not announced a launch date or price.