Category: Hardware

Gigabyte’s GeForce RTX 2070 is on sale for $380

What a difference a year makes. In March 2019, I wrote about a GeForce RTX 2070 graphics card that was on sale for $469.99, which at the time was a decent bargain. Now 12 months later, the least expensive model available is this Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070, which is on sale for $379.99 at Newegg.

That price is after applying coupon code 4NFJSPC54 at checkout. It knocks $20 off, and with the discount in play, I have not been able find a better deal on a 2070, even when including ones that have a mail-in-rebate attached.

Gigabyte sticks to reference specifications on this model. That means it has a 1,410MHz base clock and 1,620MHz boost clock, with 8GB of GDDR6 memory humming along at 14Gbps.

The RTX 2070 hits its stride in 1440p and 1080p gaming, where it should be able to maintain 60fps or higher in most games. 4K is a bit out of its comfort zone, though with DLSS 2.0 now in play, it’s something worth revisiting.

Gigabyte attached its Windforce 2X cooler to this card. I haven’t tested this model specifically, though I have played with several Gigabyte models that used a Windforce cooling solution of one type or another, and have found they strike a good balance between noise and temps.

ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D Review: Inexpensive, Well-performing

AMD’s RX 5500 XT release in December 2019 targeted the entry-level 1080p gaming segment and was, overall, received well by the public. In particular, the 8GB variants are enticing, as they don’t take the performance hit of the 4GB cards in certain titles, though for now the card hasn’t managed to break into our best graphics cards guide. That’s partly because budget cards are pretty far down the GPU hierarchy, with higher pricing than many competing cards. The ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D we’re reviewing comes with the full 8GB of VRAM, a factory overclock, an attractive price and a dual-fan cooling solution designed to keep the card cool and quiet while gaming.

Performance of the Phantom Gaming D was just where we expected it, competing with the other RX 5500 XT 8GB variants tested. It ends up faster than the GeForce GTX 1650 Super and slower than the Geforce GTX 1660. Compared to the other 8GB RX 5500 XT cards we’ve tested, the ASRock performed the same with less than 1% difference between them. The card averages almost 72 frames per second (fps) at 1080p using ultra settings across all games. Only Metro: Exodus and Borderlands 3 fell below the 60 fps threshold (37.7 and 42.9 fps, respectively). When lowering the settings to medium, the average increased to 102 fps and all titles were above the 60 fps threshold and ran smoothly.

At the time of writing, the ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D is $199.99 on Newegg, the least expensive 8GB card in this roundup. It also comes with the Resident Evil 3 remaster, Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and three months of Xbox Game Pass for PC. We pit the ASRock against Gigabyte’s RX 5500 XT Gaming 8G at $219.99, the Asus ROG Strix RX 5500 XT O8G Gaming for $229.99, and the 4GB Sapphire Pulse RX 5500 XT priced at $179.99. Between the 8GB cards, there is a $30 price difference while the 4GB model used for testing is $20 cheaper.

On the Nvidia side of things, the Zotac GTX 1650 Super has the lowest price at $159.99 while the Zotac GTX 1660 is $239.99, the most expensive card in this article. Worth noting is the GTX 1660 Super can be found for $229.99, and other GTX 1660 cards can be found starting at $209.99. We’ve also previously compared the Radeon RX 5500 XT vs. GeForce GTX 1660.

We’ll detail how the ASRock card performed against its peers and competition, how well it performed thermally, and other important details so you can make a more informed buying decision.

Features

All Radeon RX 5500 XT’s use the Navi 14 GPU and first-generation RDNA architecture. TSMC produced the 7nm die with 6.4 million transistors cut into a 158mm² area. This includes 1,408 shaders, 32 ROPs, and 88 TMUs across 22 Compute Units (CUs). Clocks speeds on the ASRock Phantom Gaming D are 1,737 MHz Game clock and 1,845 MHz boost clock—a 57 MHz increase over the reference clock speed (1,680 MHz) and the same as the Asus ROG Strix used here.

The 8GB of GDDR6 memory sits on a 128-bit bus and runs at 1,750 MHz (14 Gbps)—the standard speed for the Navi 14 GPU. This configuration yields 224 GB/s bandwidth, and the RX 5500 XT comes in 4GB and 8GB variants. Unless you plan to game at 1080p using reduced settings, you’ll want to get the 8GB over the 4GB cards. With VRAM needs increasing as time goes on, 4GB is now considered the minimum for most users while 6-8GB for those who would like to use ultra settings.

AMD’s RX 5500 XT’s Total Board Power (TBP) is listed at 130W and recommends a 450W power supply. ASRock, like most board partners, does not list the TBP for the Phantom Gaming D, though it raises AMD’s power supply recommendation of 450W up to 500W. Actual power use will vary between partner cards due to higher clock speeds and where the power limit is set. Feeding power to the card is a single 8-pin PCIe connector capable of delivering more power than this card will need, including any overclocking.

Additional specifications for each of the compared cards are listed in the chart below.

Design

The ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D is a two-slot video card measuring 9.5 x 5 x 1.6 inches (241 x 127 x 42mm). Though the heatsink extends past the PCB lengthwise, the card’s overall length should allow it to fit in most chassis, including some small form factor (SFF) builds. Be sure to verify the space inside your case before buying this or any other video card.

Covering the heatsink and surrounding the two 85mm fans (which have a 0db silent cooling feature) is a plastic shroud that fits with the ASRock Phantom Gaming theme, including black and red accents along with a faux brushed aluminum finish. The rear of the card is protected by a backplate, also matching the card’s theme, and doubles as a passive heatsink via thermal pads.

The Phantom Gaming D adds a bit of RGB flare as well with the Phantom Gaming name and symbol illuminated on the top of the card. For its size, the color is bright and saturated, though being so small it won’t take over the inside of your case.

In order to keep the card cool, ASRock uses a dual-fan setup along with a good size heatsink. The GPU die makes contact with the heatsink through a copper plate, which then sends the heat into the fin array via three large copper heatpipes. The heatsink cools all critical parts of the video card including the VRMs and memory, all of which connect to the fin array through an aluminum plate. 

The ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D3 routes power through a 6+1 phase VRM with the GPU and VRAM controlled by two OnSemi NCP81022 (4-phase) controllers. The GDDR6 chips on this card are made by Samsung and specified to run at 1,750 MHz (14 Gbps). This configuration will deliver plenty of clean power to handle both stock and overclocked operations. 

Outputs on the Phantom Gaming D are standard fare consisting of three DisplayPorts (1.4 with DSC 1.2a) and a single HDMI (2.0b) output. This should be plenty for most users. 

How We Tested the ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D 

Our current graphics card test system consists of Intel’s Core i9-9900K, an 8-core/16-thread CPU that routinely ranks as the fastest overall gaming CPU. The MSI MEG Z390 Ace motherboard is paired with 2x16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB DDR4-3200 CL16 memory (CMK32GX4M2B3200C16). Keeping the CPU cool is a Corsair H150i Pro RGB AIO, along with a 120mm Sharkoon fan for general airflow across the test system. Storing our OS and gaming suite is a single 2TB Kingston KC2000 NVMe PCIe 3.0 x4 drive.

The motherboard is running BIOS version 7B12v16. Optimized defaults were used to set up the system. We then enabled the memory’s XMP profile to get the memory running at the rated 3200 MHz CL16 specification. No other BIOS changes or performance enhancements were enabled. The latest version of Windows 10 (1909) is used and is fully updated as of February 2020.

Our GPU hierarchy provides a complete overview of graphics cards and how the various models stack up against each other. For these individual third-party card reviews, we include GPUs that compete with and are close in performance to the card being reviewed. On the AMD side, we have the Sapphire Pulse RX 5500 XT, Asus ROG Strix RX 5500 XT O8G Gaming and the Gigabyte RX 5500 XT Gaming OC. Nvidia cards include the Zotac GTX 1650 Super and the Zotac GTX 1660 Amp. 

Our list of test games is currently Battlefield V, Borderlands 3, The Division 2, Far Cry 5, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, Forza Horizon 4, Gears of War 5, Metro Exodus, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Strange Brigade. These titles represent a broad spectrum of genres and APIs, which gives us a good idea of the performance differences between the cards. We’re using driver build 441.20 for the Nvidia cards and Adrenalin 2020 Edition 19.12.2 for AMD cards, although the 5600 XT was tested using 20.1.2 beta drivers.

We capture our frames per second (fps) and frame time information by running OCAT during our benchmarks. For clock and fan speed, temperature and power, we use GPU-Z’s logging capabilities. We’ll be resuming our use of the Powenetics-based system from previous reviews in the near future.

Beginning with the 1080p ultra results, the ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D averaged 71.9 fps across all titles. At these settings, all but three titles—Metro: Exodus (37.7 fps), The Division 2 (57.9 fps) and Borderlands 3 (42.9 fps)—are able to average at least 60 fps and provide a smooth gaming experience. All of AMD’s RX 5500 XT cards are capable 1080p ultra video cards, though some games will need to reduce settings to reach 60 fps.

Looking at the other RX 5500 XT cards in this review, the ASRock card is just as fast as the other 8GB variants—all averaging over 71 fps with the Asus O8G Gaming averaging 71.7 fps and the Gigabyte 71.3 fps. The Sapphire Pulse RX 5500 XT 4GB is well behind at 63 fps (or 13% slower) because some titles showed a severe performance drop due to the 4GB memory and PCIe 3.0 x8 configuration.

If we include the two Nvidia based GPUs, our ASRock review card is almost 4% faster than the much less expensive Zotac GTX 1650 Super (69.3 fps average), and over 6% slower than the slightly more expensive Zotac GTX 1660 Amp (76.6 average). Since these Turing based video cards do not support ray tracing or DLSS, the decision between some of these cards will come down to price, performance (both thermal and fps) and card features.

Staying at 1080p resolution but lowering the image quality settings to medium allowed all the games to reach over 60 fps. The ASRock Phantom Gaming D averaged 102 fps along with the Asus. The Gigabyte Gaming OC averaged 101 fps—all are within 1% of each other, which is basically the margin of error for our testing and wouldn’t be noticeable in gaming.

At these settings, the Sapphire Pulse didn’t choke on its 4GB of VRAM with medium settings and ended up only 4% behind. Most games were over 80 fps with a few (The Division 2, Strange Brigade, Final Fantasy XIV, Forza Horizon 4 and Battlefield V) averaging well over 100 fps. Dropping down to the medium settings shows a significant performance increase over ultra.

Performance differences between the ASRock Phantom Gaming D and the Nvidia cards are similar to the 1080p ultra results, with the GTX 1650 Super about 5% slower and the GTX 1660 almost 4% faster. This is a more CPU bound setting so the performance gaps tend to shrink at these settings compared to higher resolutions and image quality. 

We use GPU-Z logging to measure each card’s power consumption with the Metro Exodus benchmark running at 2560 x 1440 using the default ultra settings. The card is warmed up prior to testing and logging is started after settling to an idle temperature (after about 10 minutes). The benchmark is looped a total of five times, which yields around 10 minutes of testing. In the charts, you will see a few blips in power use that are a result of the benchmark ending one loop and starting the next.

We also use FurMark to capture worst-case power readings. Although both Nvidia and AMD consider the application a “power virus,” or a program that deliberately taxes the components beyond normal limits, the data we can gather from it offers useful information about a card’s capabilities outside of typical gaming loads. For example, certain GPU compute workloads including cryptocurrency mining have power use that can track close to FurMark, sometimes even exceeding it.

Power Draw 

Starting with the gaming tests, the ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D averaged 114W, the most of all RX 5500 XT cards tested so far. The Asus was just behind it at 104W, the Sapphire Pulse at 102W, followed by the Gigabyte sipping power at 89W. As an end-user, you will be hard-pressed to see these differences on your power bill. We also need to be cognizant that our current recording method, GPU-Z only records the chip power and not Total Board Power (TBP) for AMD GPUs. This means actual power use is going to be a bit higher on these cards. 

The Zotac GTX 1650 Super averaged 97W—a few watts lower than most of the RX 5500 XT’s we’ve tested. The faster Zotac GTX 1660 Amp (not pictured in the chart) used even less power at 89W. This shows that Nvidia’s 12nm Turing architecture is still slightly more efficient than the 7nm Navi, considering the difference in lithography.

Power consumption using Furmark shows much more consistent power use across the test. In this case, The ASRock averaged 129W with the Asus and Sapphire cards both using 133W. The Gigabyte again comes in the lowest reaching 122W. The GTX 1650 Super barely budged from the game tests averaging 99W, which is less power than all of the RX 5500 XT cards we’ve tested. 

Temperatures, Fan Speeds and Clock Rates 

To see how each video card behaves with temperatures and fan speeds, like the power testing, we use GPU-Z logging in one-second intervals to capture data. These items are captured by looping the Metro Exodus benchmark five times, running at 2560×1440 and ultra settings.

Additionally, we also use FurMark to capture the data below, which offers a more consistent load and uses slightly more power, regardless of the fact that the clock speeds and voltages are limited. These data sets give insight into worst-case situations along with a non-gaming workload.

Gaming

Temperatures for the ASRock Phantom Gaming D averaged almost 62 degrees Celsius during gaming testing. This result places it in the middle with the Gigabyte Gaming OC. The Sapphire Pulse ran the warmest at 69 degrees Celsius, at least partly because its fan speeds are lower, while the much larger Asus ROG Strix RX 5500 XT O8G Gaming ran the coolest at 54 degrees Celsius. Though the Phantom Gaming D didn’t have the best cooling solution, it worked quietly and kept the video card running well within specification. 

Fan speeds during the Metro: Exodus test show all cards except for the Sapphire Pulse have significantly varying fan speeds. The ASRock varied throughout the test from around 1600 RPM to a peak of 2,000 RPM. The higher fan speeds were more noticeable over the slower spinning Asus and Gigabyte cards, but none were particularly loud or off-putting. During more typical gaming loads (where there isn’t a scene change every 100 seconds) users should not see this fan behavior.

Clock speeds on the ASRock Phantom Gaming D averaged 1,818 MHz during the last phase of the gaming test. This result is over 20 MHz faster than the Sapphire Pulse (1,794 MHz), 10 MHz faster than the Gigabyte and 2 MHz faster than the Aus. This result makes sense considering the 8GB cards’ clock speeds are similar out of the box. Another noteworthy fact is how much the 4GB of memory on the Sapphire card affects results with core clock speeds being similar to all the other tested cards. 

Furmark

Temperatures in Furmark ran a couple of degrees warmer than game testing across all tested cards. The ASRock Phantom Gaming D and Gigabyte Gaming OC both peaked at 67 degrees Celsius with the Asus again coming in the coolest running at 60 degrees Celsius. The slower Sapphire card peaked at 74 degrees Celsius with a similar size cooling solution as the Phantom Gaming D. 

Fan speeds during Furmark testing stabilized across all cards with the ASRock again peaking around 2,000 RPM. Unlike the Asus O8G Gaming, the ASRock Phantom Gaming D maintained these speeds throughout the test. While the ASRock video card doesn’t have the best cooling solution, it kept the card well within specification and did so relatively quietly. 

Clock rates during the Furmark testing averaged 1,661 MHz, which is the lowest value by far of all three RX 5500 XT 8GB cards tested. Compared to the game test, the result for the Phantom Gaming D is over 150 MHz less than game testing. 

Along with AMD’s software suite that’s included with the driver package, ASRock has its own monitoring and tweaking software, named ASRock Tweak. This lightweight application is able to overclock the core and memory speed, though it’s manual only—there’s no automatic scanner.

The software displays current core and memory speeds, GPU and memory use, along with temperatures and fan speeds. Unlike similar applications from other card partners, ASRock Tweak doesn’t include real-time hardware monitoring in chart form.

Overall, the software works fine for its intended purpose, but it’s not as feature-rich as some of the other solutions. More granular control over AMD video cards can be found within the driver software.

The ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D’s testing showed the card to be a competent 1080p ultra gamer across the majority of titles in our test suite. Although it did not have the large cooler and three fans some of the other cards did, the Phantom Gaming D kept the card running well within specification and did so rather quietly—not quite as quiet or as well as the much larger Asus card, but it was effective nonetheless. 

Priced at $199.99, the Phantom Gaming D is the least expensive card compared to the other 8GB AMD RX 5500 XT cards we’ve tested. The Gigabyte is priced at $219.99 and the Asus O8G $229.99. The 4GB Sapphire Pulse is listed at $179.99, though the 4GB VRAM makes it a less desirable choice. Between the 8GB cards, some titles may show one performing slightly better than the other, but it’s mostly just typical fluctuations and in the end, they all averaged out to perform the same. Where they set themselves apart is the cooling and other features. 

Opening up considerations to Nvidia GPUs, we know the 5500 XT 8GB cards are slightly faster than the less expensive GTX 1650 Super, and a few percent slower than the GTX 1660. The GTX 1660 Super also makes for an intriguing buy as well. Priced from $229.99, it’s about 15% faster than the GTX 1660 while being priced around the same. If you can stretch the budget to $230, it does offer a better price to performance ratio than any RX 5500 XT. 

Right now, if you want the most well-rounded RX 5500 XT 8GB card, it’s the ASRock Phantom Gaming D. While it doesn’t cool as well as the larger Asus card, it cools as good as the Gigabyte Gaming OC version while being smaller, and it costs less. Its two fans spin faster and create more noise than the Gigabyte and Asus cards, but it wasn’t intrusive. Outside of that, all three have some form of RGB lighting as well as backplates. The difference between their VRMs won’t affect the ambient overclocker and they’re all robust solutions.

Overall, the ASRock RX 5500 XT Phantom Gaming D is a good performing graphics card for both 1080p ultra and 1080p medium settings. As the least expensive 8GB 5500 XT, this card will give you the same performance as more expensive options and does so with a much smaller footprint. If you’re looking for a good 1080p ultra/medium video card around the $200 price point, the Phantom Gaming D is a good option.

Colorful H310 Motherboard Shown Supporting Four Generations of Intel CPUs

While Intel has forced consumers to upgrade their motherboard with every new wave of CPUs since Skylake, Colorful apparently has a more cost-effective solution. Hardware leaker @momomo_us recently discovered that Colorful’s H310M-E V20 accepts four generations of Intel Core chips, spanning from Skylake to Coffee Lake Refresh.

The H310M-E V20 comes in a compact, micro-ATX form factor and, of course, features a LGA1151 CPU socket. Colorful only lists compatibility for Coffee Lake and Coffee Lake Refresh processors, but the the CPU-Z screenshots below show the H310M-E V20 working with with previous Kaby Lake and Skylake processors as well. This would make the H310M-E V20 the jack of all trades in the H310 motherboard world.

With the ample processor support aside, the H310M-E V20 isn’t the best motherboard you can buy when it comes to specs and is everything you’d expect from your typical budget H310 offering. The board only has two DDR4 RAM slots and supports DDR4-2666 memory modules. The motherboard lacks an M.2 port, and you’re restricted to four SATA III connectors for your hard drives and SSDs.

The expansion slot configuration on the H310M-E V20 is as basic as it gets. The motherboard supplies one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot and one PCIe 2.0 x1 slot for housing graphics cards and other expansion cards.

The H310M-E V20 utilizes two third-party controllers. Thanks to the Realtek RTL8111H controller, the motherboard has a Gigabit Ethernet port. Additionally, the Realtek ALC662 audio codec provides a 6-channel audio experience through three 3.5mm audio jacks.

Connectivity options on the rear panel come down to two PS/2 ports, one HDMI port, one VGA port, two USB 3.0 ports and two USB 2.0 ports. Fortunately, the motherboard has one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 header, meaning you can have up to four more USB ports for connecting peripherals.

Samsung’s speedy DDR5 is coming next year, even if no PC will support it

DDR5 is on the way! We shouldn’t have to wait too long to see next-generation DDR5 system memory land in systems, according to Samsung. Whether those will be gaming systems we’ll have to wait and see what Intel and AMD have in store. But there’s still plenty to be excited about right now as the memory manufacturing giant sets up its fabs for volume production of DDR5 in 2021.

The news comes straight from Samsung, who’s just announced its first EUV-based DRAM, D1x. These new DDR4 chips will act as precursor to further EUV-based DDR5 products next year, including those intended for use within mobiles, servers, datacentres, and, you guessed it, PCs.

DDR5 will double the available data rates of DDR4, which is currently in service across most gaming PCs built in the latter half of the 2010s. The standard set out by its governing body, JEDEC, also outlines a rather spectacular density increase per chip, meaning chipmakers will be able to squeeze a lot more memory into a much smaller footprint when DDR5 arrives.

As for EUV, or Extreme Ultraviolet lithography, this is a lithographic technology that allows for a reduction in silicon manufacturing complexity. In theory, it allows chip manufacturers of all shapes and sizes—including those that produce CPUs and GPUs—to simplify the entire lithographic process by using shorter wavelengths of light. Sounds great, but it also costs a heap and no one has quite managed to figure out that whole ‘profitability’ thing.

But it’s starting to look like some major silicon players are getting to grips with the new technology. TSMC, who produce Nvidia’s Turing GPUs and AMD’s entire 7nm lineup, already make some chips on the EUV-based 7nm+ node—but none that matter to us PC gamers. AMD appears to be looking towards the enhanced 7nm node for Zen 3 and RDNA 2.0, which relies on the traditional DUV, or deep ultraviolet, method instead.

The latest leaks regarding Intel’s plans for 2021 currently show it committing to the DDR4 status quo with its next-(next-)gen Intel Rocket Lake CPUs. However, AMD’s future Zen processors could pick up the next-gen memory standard first. Either way, we don’t expect gaming PCs to be at the forefront of DDR5 adoption. Boo.

Micron, a US-based memory manufacturer, is already sampling its next-gen DDR5 registered DIMMs (RDIMMs). These are not for the likes of you and me either—rather these are intended for whopping server racks—but it’s touting a 1.85x performance increase with DDR5 over DDR4, and that’s a convincing glimpse of what’s to come in PC gaming’s future.

Samsung’s “4th-gen 10nm-class (1a) EUV-based 16Gb DDR5/LPDDR5” (phew) memory will hit mass production sometime in 2021. If Samsung expects growing demand for DDR5, we’re sure to see the entire computing industry shifting in line with its expectations. Hopefully PC gaming won’t trail too far behind, either.

The GIGABYTE MZ31-AR0 Motherboard Review: EPYC with Dual 10G

The workstation and server markets are big business for not only chip manufacturers such as Intel and AMD, but for motherboard vendors too. Since AMD’s introduction of its Zen-based EPYC processors, its prosumer market share has been slowly, but surely, creeping back. One example of a single socket solution available on the market is the GIGABYTE MZ31-AR0. With support for AMD’s EPYC family of processors, the MZ31-AR0 has some interesting components including its 2 x SFP+ 10 G Ethernet ports powered by a Broadcom BCM57810S controller, and four SlimSAS slots offering up to sixteen SATA ports. 

GIGABYTE MZ31-AR0 Overview

As it stands, AMD has two versions of its EPYC range on the market: the first generation Zen series (called Naples), released in June 2017, and the Zen 2 based EPYC chips (called Rome). Each processor from AMD’s EPYC families has support for 128 PCIe lanes and up to 2 TB of system memory operating in eight-channel mode.

Despite the GIGABYTE MZ31-AR0 being a server motherboard, it uses the regular E-ATX form factor, with with a single SP3 socket that, depending on the revision of the board, supports Naples (rev 1.x) or both Naples and EPYC (rev 2.x). This ranges from base 8 cores 16 thread model (EPYC 7251), all the way to a 64 core and 128 thread variant (EPYC 7742).

EPYC is focusing on both performance and IO, and so along with a lot of PCIe lanes on offer, the MZ31-AR0’s primary features includes a Broadcom BCM 57810S dual SPF+ 10 G Ethernet controller which adds two 10 G ports onto the rear panel. For maintenance, an Aspeed AST2500 powered remote management controller provides BMC functionality, with a D-sub 2D video output with a dedicated Ethernet port for direct access.

Both revisions of the board are limited to PCIe 3.0, even with Rome, but the board makes the most of the available PCIe 3.0 lanes. The GIGABYTE MZ31-AR0 has four full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, one full-length PCIe 3.0 x8 slot, with a further two full-length PCIe 3.0 x8 slots given this board a total of seven full-length slots. This is an impressive array of PCIe support and is equipped to make the most of the 128 lanes available from the processor. Equally impressive is sixteen memory slots set up in two banks of eight slots either side of the SP3 socket which offers eight-channel support. These slots support both RDIMM and LRDIMM DDR4 modules up to a maximum capacity of 2 TB, with DDR4-2666, DDR4-2400, and DDR4-2133 all supported.

For storage, the GIGABYTE MZ31-AR0 is well-equipped with four SlimSAS ports with each slot supporting four SATA drives, with a combined total of sixteen available for use. Interestingly, the MZ31-AR0 is equipped with a single PCIe 3.0 M.2 slot. Some users may have expected a second M.2 slot due to the board’s large E-ATX form factor, but alas that is not the case. Focusing on the design, the board layout implies it would be more than suitable for rackmount deployment in a 1U chassis, which it is, although it can also be used in a permitting chassis that features E-ATX support. The positioning of the single 24-pin motherboard and two 8-pin CPU 12 V ATX connectors fit in line with support for 1U chassis, with GIGABYTE offering its own 1U solutions for users to capitalize on. The SP3 socket is rotated with this in mind for better airflow in a server situation.

From a performance perspective, we compared the MZ31-AR0 against an ASRock server model as well as other 16-core Zen compatible boards. Everything is in line with the competition – POST times are higher than anticipated, but this can be put down to the BMC initialization process. The performance in relation to power consumption is also a little higher than the ASRock model we tested, but it is EATX (versus ATX) and is pretty stacked, to say the least.

The GIGABYTE MZ31-AR0 currently retails for $565 at Amazon, and as a result of its current price point has a couple of competitive rivals on the market. One such example is the Supermicro MBD-H11SSL-NC which retails for $470 at Newegg, although with a much lesser networking configuration, and with fewer memory slots. Another example is the ASRock Rack EPYCD8 model with a current selling price of $460, which is in a similar with Intel dual 10 G Ethernet but has fewer memory slots.

Both of the Supermicro and ASRock examples are also ATX, whereas the GIGABYTE MZ31-AR0 is E-ATX, and as a result has more space to include the better memory support and premium dual 10 G SPF+ networking which it includes. For the extra $100 over the ASRock and Supermicro models, the MZ31-AR0 looks like a solid choice based on value and specifications, which in this area given the pricing of AMD’s EPYC Zen-based processors, is a very worthy trade-off against the competition.

Read on for more extended analysis.

Intel 10th Gen Laptop CPU at 5 GHz Spotted Before Release

The Intel Core i9-10880H, which should be the direct successor to last year’s i9-9880H, hasn’t been announced yet, but benchmarks results are already creeping up. Hardware leaker @_rogame reportedly found the upcoming mobile chip in a 3DMark submission yesterday.

The i9-10880H (codename Comet Lake-H) is expected to arrive sporting eight cores and 16 threads like its predecessor. Besides the improved clock speeds, there isn’t any significant architectural changes with Comet Lake over the i9-10880H’s Coffee Lake. Therefore, we expect the i9-10880H to retain the same 16MB of L3 cache as the i9-9880H. Being a H-series part, the 14nm processor will likely operate within the 45W envelope.

According to the 3DMark entry, the i9-10880H could come with a base clock fixed at 2.3 GHz, which is the same base clock on the prior i9-9980H. The only thing that the i9-10880H has going for it is the higher boost clock. If the 3DMark’s report is accurate, the i9-10880H will flex a 5 GHz boost clock, which is 200 MHz higher than the i9-9980H but only by 4.2%.

With the previous generation, Intel offered consumers the i9-9980H and faster i9-9980HK. The latter operates with a 100 MHz and 200 MHz higher base and boost clocks, respectively. It’s plausible that Intel would release a i9-10880HK with slightly faster clocks.

So far, the i9-10980HK has appeared with a 3.1 base clock and 5.27 GHz boost clock in unconfirmed benchmarks. Given the huge gap between the i9-10980HK and i9-10880H’s specifications, there’s certainly room for a i9-10880HK to slide in between. 

The i9-10880H and i9-10980HK should be very popular choices for upcoming high-performance mobile workstations and gaming laptops. However, they’ll have to compete with AMD’s Ryzen 4000-series (codename Renoir) chips, such as the Ryzen 9 4900H and Ryzen 7 4800H.

Intel Core i5-L15G7 Lakefield CPU Rivals Qualcomm Snapdragon 835

A second Intel Lakefield processor has finally popped up in the wild. Twitter user @InstLatX64 recently spotted the Core i5-L15G7 in a Geekbench 5 submission. Based on the model name alone, the Core i5-L15G7 should be a lower-specced model in contrast to the previously-tested Core i5-L16G7. 

The Core i5-L15G7 chip is listed with five cores, which correspond to one powerful Sunny Cove core and four slower Tremont cores. The compute die should be on the 10nm process while the base die remains on the 22nm process. Intel will build Lakefield with Foveros, a technology that allows stacking different chips on top of each other. Lakefield should debut with TDP (thermal design power) rating between 5W and 7W.

One of the first Lakefield chips appeared with a boost clock in the 3.1 GHz range. Subsequently, the Core i5-L16G7 showed up with a 1.4 GHz base and 1.75 GHz boost clock. Geekbench 5 seemingly detects the Core i5-L15G7 with a 1.38 GHz base clock. However, the Lakefield part was running as high as 2.95 GHz during the benchmark. The logical deduction is that the reported clock speeds are for the Sunny Cove core rather than the Tremont ones. 

Digging deeper into the Geekbench 5 report reveals the Core i5-L15G7’s cache configuration, which isn’t always visible in the submission itself. The Core i5-L15G7 seems to have 1.5MB of L2 cache and 4MB of L3 cache.

The plan behind Lakefield is to combine performance with power efficiency into a single package, similar to Arm’s big.LITTLE architecture. Lakefield goes neck-to-neck against Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors. 

The Snapdragon 835, which powers the Asus NovaGo TP370QL, is equipped with eight Kryo 280 cores, split into two groups of 2.6 GHz and 1.9 GHz. The device scores 355 points in the single-core test and 1,533 points in the multi-core test. In single-core workloads, it’s evident that the Core i5-L15G7 is far superior. With a single-core score of 725 points, Intel’s Lakefield chip delivers up to 104.2% higher single-core performance than the Snapdragon 835. Multi-core workloads are another story though. The Core i5-L15G7 scored 1,566 points, so it’s only 2.2% faster.

However, the Core i5-L15G7’s multi-threaded performance is no match for Qualcomm’s more recent offerings, such as the Snapdragon 8cx that’s inside the Samsung Galaxy Book S. For reference, the Snapdragon 8cx rocks eight Kryo 495 cores, four clocked at 2.84 GHz and the remaining at 1.8 GHz. The Samsung Galaxy Book S puts up single-core and multi-core scores of 703 points and 2,770 points. While the Core i5-L15G7 maintains 3.1% single-core lead over the Snapdragon 8cx, Qualcomm’s chip ultimately offers up to 76.9% higher performance in multi-threaded workloads.

Given that Lakefield is Intel’s first generation of Foveros-based chips, the performance doesn’t look too bad. The leaked Core i5-L15G7 is unreleased silicon after all, hence Intel still could probably tweak the chip for more performance. Furthermore, Geekbench 5 has often been criticized for its applicability as a benchmarking tool on a whole. We’ll just have to wait for a proper evaluation of the Lakefield devices that drop this holiday season.

ASRock’s AMD EPYC Motherboard Flaunts Seven PCIe 4.0 x16 Expansion Slots

German news outlet HardwareLuxx noticed a fascinating LGA4094 motherboard for AMD’s EPYC processors in ASRock Rack’s arsenal. For the uninitiated, ASRock Rack is ASRock’s elite server division.

ASRock Rack engineered the ROMED8-2T to house both EPYC 7001-series (Naples) and EPYC 7002-series (Rome) processors. The motherboard features the standard LGA4094 (Socket SP3) socket and adheres to the ATX form factor. The ROMED8-2T is a server product, after all, so ASRock crafted it with a green PCB and it lacks fancy heatsinks or RGB bling.

This board comes with the ultimate in connectivy: AMD’s EPYC 7002-series chips deliver an impressive 128 high-speed PCIe 4.0 lanes, and ASRock Rack is keen to take advantage of them. Therefore, the ROMED8-2T is equipped with nothing less than seven PCIe 4.0 x16 lanes to exploit the latest and fastest PCIe 4.0 SSDs and enterprise graphics cards on the market right now. Only the second PCIe 4.0 x16 slot shares bandwidth with the mini-SAS, M.2 and OCuLink connectors.

The motherboard has eight DDR4 memory slots that support different formats. It’s compatible with 32GB RDIMMs (Registered DIMMs), 256GB LRDIMMs (Load-Reduced DIMMs) and 32GB NVDIMMs (Non-volatile DIMMs). The official memory speed supported across all three formats is 3,200 MHz.

The ROMED8-2T boasts a very unique and advanced storage configuration. There are two mini-SAS connectors to support up to eight SATA III drives in total and one SATA DOM port. The motherboard exposes two OCuLink connectors for U.2 SSDs. It also has two M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 ports. Although both M.2 ports support PCIe-and SATA-based SSDs, the primary port accommodates drives up to 80mm in length while the secondary port can hold SSDs up to 110mm.

In addition to the enormous amount of PCIe 4.0 x16 lanes, the ROMED8-2T also has other neat features. Intel’s X550-AT2 controller provides the motherboard with two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports while Realtek’s RTL8211E controller manages the single Gigabit Ethernet port.

The ROMED8-2T incorporates Aspeed’s AST2500 server management processor. The AST2500 features an 800 MHz Arm11 processor and 512MB of DDR4 memory. It’s responsible for supplying the VGA port on the motherboard.

The rear panel’s other interfaces include one COM port, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports and one USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port. You shouldn’t have to worry though since the motherboard integrates one USB 3.1 Gen 1 header and one USB 3.1 Gen 2 header. The combination should be good for another four additional USB 3.0 ports.

OLOy WarHawk RGB 2x32GB DDR4-3200 Review: Lower-Priced 64GB Performance

It’s easy to understand why a memory kit with four-times the capacity costs four times as much, but those of us accustomed to pricing out 16GB kits still face sticker shock at the thought of paying $299 for two DIMMs. But a look around at various competitors’ kits shows that this is, indeed, a value price.

We’re not implying that there aren’t cheaper kits at this capacity, but most of those have a lower data rate that doesn’t appeal to performance enthusiasts. The DDR4-3200 rating of WarHawk RGB (part number MD4U323216DEDA) puts it right in the middle of that segment, and OLOy supplements this performance with a CAS 16 rating which likewise hits the middle at one latency cycle per 100 MHz frequency (200 MHz data rate).

That doesn’t mean that this is the perfect 64GB dual-channel kit, however, as its tRCD and tRP are programmed to 20 cycles for its 1.35V XMP (Intel Extreme Memory Profile). This is the same minor setback we saw with Corsair’s competing Vengeance RGB Pro. And, like that competing product, the kit will revert to DDR4-2133 CAS 15 on any system that doesn’t have XMP enabled, doesn’t have XMP at all, or can’t support this kit’s XMP data rate.

Having seen how we peeled the heat spreader of its 32GB WarHawk kit to reveal SpecTek ICs, OLOy sent this 64GB kit with its IC logos completely scrubbed. The Micron-based programming remains however, and we believe that this larger kit also sources the same Micron daughter-brand.

Nothing has changed in WarHawk RGB program compatibility since we confirmed it last year, apart from minor interface updates to our motherboard’s software that makes it look better. OLOy doesn’t offer its own RGB suite.

Comparison Hardware

OLOy carries a similar lifetime warranty to its competitors, but the differences in how these modules are handled after the first three years might be unsettling to some buyers. We’re comforted in the knowledge that memory defects are usually revealed within the first three years, but usually doesn’t mean exclusively. The competing 2x32GB samples in today’s review come from Corsair and G.Skill, with the Trident Z Neo offering the advantage of slightly better timings (at a higher price).

In our test setup, AMD’s impressive Ryzen 7 3700X is controlled by MSI’s memory-mastering MEG X570 Ace and fed by Toshiba’s OCZ RD400 SSD, while Gigabyte’s GeForce RTX 2070 Gaming OC 8G pushes any gaming bottlenecks back towards the CPU and DRAM.

Overclocking and Latency Tuning

OLOy takes second place in overclocking in our testing, behind G.Skill, with none of these reaching even the now-common DDR4-4000 available from several kits of lower capacity. It looks like the 16Gb (sixteen gigabit) ICs required to build this capacity have a little catching up to do.

Lowest Stable Timings at 1.35V (Max) on MEG X570 ACE (BIOS 1.20)

Lower is better when it comes to latency: The WarHawk RGB’s slow tRCD and tRP were stable enough to let these DIMMs clock up to DDR4-3600 by increasing only tCAS, the first setting in the primary timings group. That puts the kit between the Corsair and G.Skill modules in tweakability for latency reduction.

The XMP profile of OLOy WarHawk RGB ties with that of the Vengeance RGB Pro in SiSoftware Sandra’s memory tests, but its better tweakability puts it between Corsair and G.Skill at our best-determined custom settings.

The OLOy WarHawk RGB kit beat the Vengeance RGB Pro in games, but only by a margin too slim for us to get excited about. Trident Z Neo’s better timings keep it on top throughout.

WarHawk RGB pulled off an unexpected XMP victory in our timed tests, but still fell behind Trident Z Neo when both were tuned to their lowest latency limit. It’s not that anyone would notice a four-second difference on a seven-minute benchmark, but a victory is a victory.

Final Thoughts

OLOy’s WarHawk RGB was at least 10% cheaper than the other DDR4-3200 kits in today’s comparison, leaving only the Vengeance LPX DDR4-3000 to undercut it on price. Yet with DDR4-3200 becoming the baseline performance standard for enthusiasts, DDR4-3000 would need to be far cheaper to get our attention.

The cost savings for the Corsair Vengeance kit is too small for us to consider reverting back to the slower speed, but that may not be true for everyone. Still, RGB value seekers who also happen to be performance enthusiasts are served better by the WarHawk RGB.

Intel Core i5-10500T and Core i7-10700T Leaked With 92W and 123W Peak Power Consumption

Now that the Core i9-10900T has been leaked, it’s the Core i5-10500T and Core i7-10700T’s turn to shine. Thanks to @TUM_APISAK’s most recent findings, the potential specifications for the two looming Comet Lake desktop processors are out there for everyone to see.

In terms of specifications, Intel’s T-series chips are very close copies of their regular counterparts. The processors feature the same core count and cache capacity, but because Intel optimizes the chips for low power applications, they come with lower clock speeds.

Traditionally, the T-series processors conform to a 35W TDP (thermal design power) rating. Mind you, that value corresponds to the chip’s PL1 (power level 1), which Intel measures when the processor is operating at base clock speed. The PL2 (power level 2) value, which the processor’s peak power draw at the Turbo Boost frequency, is the one that Intel doesn’t advertise.

As with any unreleased hardware, it’s healthy to take the specifications with a bit of salt. There is no guarantee that the utility is always reporting the correct values, and early engineering samples can be deceptive. With that in mind, let’s look at what the Core i5-10500T and Core i7-10700T could offer consumers.

The Core i5-10500T rocks six cores, 12 threads and a 12MB L3 cache. The hexa-core part seemingly ticks with a 2.3 GHz base clock and 3.81 GHz boost clock. SiSoftware detects the Core i5-10500T with a peak power draw of 93W.

The Core i7-10700T, on the other hand, flexes eight cores, 16 threads and 16MB of L3 cache. The Core i7-10700T allegedly runs at a 2GHz base clock and 4.38 GHz boost. SiSoftware has the octa-core chip with a maximum power consumption of 123W, which surprisingly falls in line with the Core i9-10900T.

The Core i5-10500T and Core i7-10700T score 135.44 GOPS and 151.28 GOPS, respectively. Despite having two more cores, the Core i7-10700T is only up to 11.7% faster than the Core i5-10500T. Of course, we’ll have to wait for the reviews to confirm this figure. 

If you need a point of reference, the highest score for a stock Core i5-9600K on SiSoftware is 195.81 GOPS. Therefore, the Core i5-9600K is up to 44.6% and 29.4% faster than the Core i5-10500T and Core i7-10700T, respectively.