ErYing Delivers a Fantasy SFF Motherboard
Chinese motherboard manufacturer (尔英) ErYing has released a “Fantasy” series motherboard featuring Intel 12th generation Alder Lake CPU’s, except it’s not what you might think. The CPU’s available are mobile variants with a 45W base TDP and soldered to the motherboard. It looks like it can use a standard intel cooler mount however, and might make for some interesting SFF builds. While they offer both ITX and mATX boards, the ITX is the most interesting for SFF. Currently on Chinese retailer JD.com, the board is listed (but not yet available) in 3 CPU variants. Prices and specs are listed below. …
Quick Test – AMD Resizable Bar vs Nvidia Resizable Bar
Recently, Hardware Unboxed tested the effect of using resizable bar on their Z790 Intel test bench. They discovered that Gigabyte boards show substantial performance improvements in certain games over other brands, when paired with an RTX 4090. Primarily this was in Horizon Zero Dawn. Ultimately, they determined that the Gigabyte boards had resizable bar turned off whereas all other boards had it turned on. I decided to do a quick test with my more modest setup to see if I could replicate this. I used Z690 boards paired with the Intel I9-12900K, to compare a RTX 3080 to Radeon …
Framework Next Level Event Answers Every Rumor with “Yes”
Framework, a startup laptop company that launched it’s first product in 2021, announced a plethora of products at it’s Next Level event this morning. The basic premise behind the company is that it wants to reduce e-waste by making upgradeable laptops so you only replace the parts you need/want. They also offer a level of customization through their unique USB-C expansion cards and also their standardized components shared across all generations of the laptop. Starting off the presentation, Framework announced the unsurprising and expected Intel 13th gen Raptor Lake mainboards. Unfortunately, prices increased by nearly $100 for the DIY version …
Hardware Unboxed Discovers Resizable Bar Performance Issues
Steve from Hardware unboxed, seen above pointing out the next set of companies that won’t send him samples after his videos, discovered an interesting issue when setting up his latest Z790 test system. While he was doing so, he found that the Gigabyte boards substantially outperformed other models in Horizon Zero Dawn and Spiderman Remastered. What he discovered was that Gigabyte disables resizable bar by default. All the other manufactures enabled it by default. Steve was testing with a Z790, i9-13900K, and RTX 4090. Even with a performance issue, these games were still going to outpace the …
Asus GeForce RTX 4080 Noctua OC Costs as Much as RTX 4090
Do you have $1,650 US Dollars to spend on a GPU? Neither do I. However, for those that want to pay RTX 4090 prices for an RTX 4080 you can now buy the 4-Slot Asus RTX 4080 Noctua OC. I’m not going to list this as a news post because there is absolutely no way I can keep opinion out of this overpriced owl face. Look, I like Noctua. I really do. The L9 series coolers have been my go-to for SFF cooling. Their fans are top notch. Even the huge NH-D15 is worth the money at $109 it …
Tom’s Hardware Finds Up To 10% Performance Loss in Games From Windows VBS
Tom’s Hardware recently discovered that Windows Virtualization Based Security was automatically activated on their Windows 11 test platform. Thankfully, they took the time to test the performance difference with and without it on. With modern GPUs pushing more bottleneck to the CPU, it turns out that there was a pretty substantial hit to performance. In some cases, it was up to 10%. Check out their article and benchmarks by CLICKING HERE. To learn more about Windows Virtualization Based Security, CLICK HERE.
Digital Foundry Reviews AYANEO 2 – Faster Than SteamDeck
Digital Foundry has gotten their hands on the AYANEO 2. Powered by the Ryzen 7 6800U, the AYANEO 2 is a Windows OS SteamDeck competitor. It packs double the cores and far more graphics power than Valve’s still awesome handheld. It also has user adjustable power limits. Check out their review below.
EKWB Launches Monoblock for the ROG Strix X670E-ITX
EKWB has launched a new “MOMENTUM² Monoblock” for the ROG Strix X670E-ITX, encompassing CPU and VRM cooling in one schmick looking unit. Gone are the days of monoblocks covering CPU and chipset, with today’s M.2 stacks sharing heatsinkage with the chipset, the next target of cooling is the VRM section. This is also a boon with modern, uber-thirsty, processors. In this instance, the block connects to the existing VRM heatsink and cools the power delivery section indirectly. This indirect cooling, however, still appears to work well, with EK claiming a greater than 20°C improvement over the stock air cooled VRM …