gaming – SFF.Network

ASRock Working on Intel’s New A380 GPU

Intel’s new Arc family of graphics cards has a mainstream board partner, in the shape of ASRock. Excitingly for us, and belying the “A380” moniker (plane nerds know what I’m talking about), it’s an “ITX” spec GPU in the shape of a Challenger branded card. The board features a single 8 pin power connector, which is interesting considering the Intel rated 75w TDP. This is likely a mid-process prototype still. Looking at the solid aluminium heatsink, it seems that this card will either run cool, or loud. Place your bets now! From early benchmarks, the A380 looks to lag behind …

Cases Motherboards Reviews Systems

ASRock’s DeskMeet B660 – Fantastic Idea, Interesting Execution

ASRock’s DeskMini series has been a stalwart in the SFF world for some time now, even with the canning of the GTX/RX series (Rest in Peace, MXM graphics cards). Eschewing standard form factors to enable denser computers, the DeskMini has been the basis of many builds and mods in our community forum. But the challenge with the DeskMini has always been hardware compatibility – only really supporting CPU, RAM and storage upgrades. What if we wanted more graphics power and more RAM? Enter the DeskMeet. As a larger brethren to the DeskMini, the new DeskMeet series significantly increases component compatibility …

News

CES 2019: AMD

The SFFn crew (Tim and Joshua and myself) just had to make it to the AMD keynote – here’s what we saw! The Radeon VII is a triple fan card, so not the smallest. However, for the water enthusiasts amongst us, the card has all the IO in a single slot – no more DVI here! Thoughts? Discuss them in the forum.

Motherboards Reviews

ASRock’s Fatal1ty X470-ITX/ac – Back to the Future

With the second generation of Ryzen processors on the market, it’s only fitting than a new, upgraded, chipset family is available. With this in mind, today we are looking at ASRock’s first AMD 400 series M-ITX board, the X470 Gaming-ITX/ac. This board is a younger brother to the previously reviewed X370 Gaming-ITX/ac, with a few changes to the layout, as well as the aesthetic. ASRock’s partnership with the Fatal1ty brand goes back some time, and has always been associated with bright, Gam3r-esque branding and design. Not any more it seems, with this new generation of motherboards taking on a much …

News

Laptop Launch Extravaganza!

Earlier this week, the rest of Intel’s 300 series of chipsets and a few related mobile processors were released, meaning every man and his dog has updated their existing lineup, or launched new products based on the new chips. Here’s a roundup of some of the more interesting laptop-related tidbits, in no particular order; Intel Not to be overshadowed by all the manufacturer launches, Intel has also launched a product of their own, an i9 Mobile processor. Specifically, the Core i9-8950HK, a 2.9GHz, 45w rated part. Based on the Coffee Lake silicon (on 14nm), the chip features 6 cores, 12 …

News

Xiaomi Launches a Non-GAM3R Gaming Laptop

Xiaomi, a brand better known for their Mi brand smartphones and powerbanks, has launched their first gaming laptop, the Mi Gaming Laptop. The laptop was launched at the Mi Mix 2s launch event in Shanghai, China yesterday. What’s remarkable about this gaming laptop is the lack of aggressive, “gamer” aesthetics – with the RGB turned off (as it should be!), the Mi Gaming Laptop could look at home in a business meeting one minute, and a gaming event the next. The 20.9mm (at it’s thickest point) thick, the brushed aluminium chassis is an exercise in subtle design. Xiaomi has decided …

Motherboards Reviews

Fatal1ty! ASRock’s X370 and AB350 Gaming-ITX/ac Motherboards Reviewed

History lesson time folks! Back in the early 2000’s, a FPS shooter player, Johnathan ‘Fatal1ty’ Wendel, was dominating the competitive gaming scene, earning attention from not only the gaming fraternity, but mainstream media also. Soon enough, a company, ABit, approached Fatal1ty with a brand deal. ABit would build Fatal1ty branded hardware, cementing his name in the minds of the gamers and hardware enthusiasts of the era. ABit unfortunately fell, along with DFI, BFG and a few other contemporaries. What once were glorious hardware manufacturers, became relegated to history. Some retreated to OEM only production, while others were stripped for any …

Editorial

Opinion – M-DTX, The Ultimate SFF Motherboard

Quite a few years ago, AMD launched the DTX (and by extension, the M-DTX) standard, aiming to reduce costs in motherboard manufacturing by more efficiently optimising the use of a standard sheet of PCB material. In doing so, they inadvertently created what I consider the ideal SFF board form factor – M-DTX. This form factor offers the best of the M-ATX and M-ITX formats, in a balanced design. M-DTX offers us the best of the expandable SFF world – not too big, but not too small. Leaving M-ATX in the dust, M-DTX would offer us the world in a little …