The Samsung 960 Pro SSD Review

           The Samsung 960 Pro SSD Review

A year ago, Samsung brought their PCIe SSD technology to the retail market in the form of the Samsung 950 Pro, an NVMe M.2 SSD with Samsung's 3D V-NAND flash memory. The 950 Pro didn't appear out of nowhere—Samsung had shipped two generations of M.2 PCIe SSDs to OEMs, but before the 950 Pro they hadn't targeted consumers directly.

Now, the successor to the 950 Pro is about to hit the market. The Samsung 960 Pro is from one perspective just a generational refresh of the 950 Pro: the 32-layer V-NAND is replaced with 48-layer V-NAND that has twice the capacity per die, and the UBX SSD controller is replaced by its Polaris successor that debuted earlier this year in the SM961 and PM961 OEM SSDs. However...

Samsung 960 PRO Specifications Comparison
	960 PRO 2TB	960 PRO 1TB	960 PRO 512GB	950 PRO 512GB	950 PRO 256GB
Form Factor	Single-sided M.2 2280			Single-sided M.2 2280
Controller	Samsung Polaris			Samsung UBX
Interface	PCIe 3.0 x4			PCIe 3.0 x4
NAND	Samsung 48-layer 256Gb MLC V-NAND			Samsung 32-layer 128Gbit MLC V-NAND
Sequential Read	3500 MB/s	3500 MB/s	3500 MB/s	2500MB/s	2200MB/s
Sequential Write	2100 MB/s	2100 MB/s	2100 MB/s	1500MB/s	900MB/s
4kB Random Read (QD1)	14k IOPS			12k IOPS	11k IOPS
4kB Random Write (QD1)	50k IOPS			43k IOPS	43k IOPS
4kB Random Read (QD32)	440k IOPS	440k IOPS	330k IOPS	300k IOPS	270k IOPS
4kB Random Write (QD32)	360k IOPS	360k IOPS	330k IOPS	110k IOPS	85k IOPS
Read Power	5.8W	5.3W	5.1W	5.7W (average)	5.1W (average)
Write Power	5.0W	5.2W	4.7W
Endurance	1200TB	800TB	400TB	400TB	200TB
Warranty	5 Year			5 Year
Launch MSRP	$1299	$629	$329	$350	$200

... looking at the performance specifications of the 960 Pro, it clearly is much more than just a refresh. Part of this is due to the fact that PCIe SSDs simply have more room to advance than SATA SSDs, so it's possible for Samsung to add 1GB/s to the sequential read speed and to triple the random write speed. But to bring about those improvements and stay at the top of a market segment that is seeing new competition every month, Samsung has had to make significant changes to almost every aspect of the hardware.

We've already analyzed Samsung's 48-layer V-NAND in reviewing the 4TB 850 EVO it first premiered in. The Samsung 960 Pro uses the 256Gb MLC variant, which allows for a single 16-die package to contain 512GB of NAND, twice what was possible for the 950 Pro. Samsung has managed another doubling of drive capacity by squeezing four NAND packages on to a single side of the M.2 2280 card. Doing this while keeping to that single-sided design required freeing up the space taken by the DRAM, which is now stacked on top of the controller in a package-on-package configuration.

                                       

Samsung's Polaris controller is also a major change from the UBX controller used in the 950 Pro. Meeting the much higher performance targets of the 960 Pro with the UBX controller architecture would have required significantly higher clock speeds that the drive's power budget wouldn't allow for. Instead, the Polaris controller widens from three ARM cores to five, and now dedicates one core for communication with the host system.

The small size of the M.2 form factor combined with the higher power required to perform at the level expected of a PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD means that heat is a serious concern for M.2 PCIe SSDs. In general, these SSDs can be forced to throttle themselves rather than overheat when subjected by intensive benchmarks and stress tests, but at the same time most drives avoid thermal throttling during typical real-world use. Most heavy workloads are bursty, especially at 2GB/sec.

Even so, many users would prefer the benefits of reliable sustained performance offered by a well-cooled PCIe SSD, and almost every M.2 PCIe SSD is now doing something to address thermal concerns. Toshiba's OCZ RD400 is available with an optional PCIe x4 to M.2 add-in card that puts a thermal pad directly behind the SSD controller. Silicon Motion's SM2260 controller integrates a thin copper heatspreader on the top of the controller package. Plextor's M8Pe is available with a whole-drive heatspreader. Samsung has decided to put a few layers of copper into the label stuck on the back side of the 960 Pro. This is thin enough to not have any impact on the drive's mechanical compatibility with systems that require a single-sided drive, but the heatspreader-label does make a significant improvement in the thermal behavior of the 960 Pro, according to Samsung.

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PS3 review

THE GOOD/ The PlayStation 3 still offers palpable gaming and entertainment value, with a nearly unrivaled library of games, strong array of streaming services (including Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, HBO Go and Vudu) and the fact that it doubles as a great DVD/Blu-ray player. Optional add-on services like PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now add more gaming choices to the mix.

THE BAD/ Sliding-top disc door feels downmarket; no IR port limits universal remote compatibility; PS4 will pick up momentum in 2015 and beyond as it gains more exclusive next-gen titles.

THE BOTTOM LINE/ While it will begin to cede its position to the PS4 in 2015, the PlayStation 3 still delivers impressively strong value for gaming and video entertainment.

sony unleashed the PlayStation 3 to the world in 2006. Over the next few years we would see the console go through a number of design changes, although hardware features have largely remained the same. It started with the original PS3 (now referred to as the Fat model), then came the PlayStation Slim in 2009 and finally the so-called Super Slim, which arrived in late 2012. These days the PS3 is available in a number of different game bundles for around $270 in the US, £200 in the UK, and AU$370 in Australia.

Of course, the PlayStation 3 is now the old man on the block. It's coming up on its ninth birthday, while the red-hot PlayStation 4 is brand new. And Sony even has a new PlayStation TV microconsole that you can buy for less than half the price of the PS3 and play Vita games on a big-screen TV. (And that's not even counting the Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii U , all of which continue to compete for your gaming dollar as well.)

So is it even worth still considering this last-gen system? The answer may be closer to "yes" than you'd think. We'll examine the pros and cons of buying a PS3 in a post-PS4 world, below.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              What you get right now

Inside of the box you get a Super Slim model with a meaty 500GB hard disk, a wireless DualShock 3 controller, an AC power cord and USB cable (for charging the controller). For reasons known only to Sony, the company also throws in a composite AV adapter rather than an HDMI cable.

Each bundle is basically the same save for the included game. In the US, you can buy it with Destiny, The Last of Us, or -- as of November 11 -- Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham and The Sly Collection (that final one, obviously, being best for young children). There's also a 12GB PS3 that's available solo or (in the US) comes bundled with Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes for around $200. But we strongly recommend that you avoid the 12GB model and stick with the 500GB one. Once you download a game or a few apps, you'll want the extra space almost immediately.

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MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G

MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G

When the GeForce GTX 1080 launched two weeks ago, it caught us a bit by surprise, the actual reference review took down this site for a couple of minutes as our load-balanced front-end servers could not handle the near 2500% increase in traffic. Crazy stuff, and that is testimony to the fact that you guys have been waiting very long on the new graphics cards from both AMD and Nvidia. It's for good reason, the graphics card industry, or the GPU industry has been on hold, waiting for a smaller GPU fabrication process to become viable. Last generation GPUs were based on a 28 nm fabrication, an intermediate move to 20 nm was supposed to be the answer for today’s GPUs, but it was a problematic technology. Aside from some smaller ASICs the 20 nm node has been a fail. Therefore the industry had to wait until an ever newer and smaller fabrication process was available in order to shrink the die which allows for less voltage usage in the chips, less transistor gate leakage and, obviously, more transistors in a GPU. The answer was to be found in the recent 14/15/16 nm fabrication processors and processes with the now all too familiar FinFET + VLSI technology (basically wings on a transistor). Intel has been using it for a while, and now both Nvidia and AMD are moving towards such nodes as well. Nvidia is the first to announce their new products based on a TSMC 16 nm process fab by introducing Pascal GPU architecture, named after the mathematician much like Kepler, Maxwell and Fermi. That stage has now passed, the GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080 have been announced with the 1080 slowly becoming available in stores as we speak, the 1070 cards you'll start to see selling by next week (June 10th 2016). Both cards are equally impressive in it's product positioning, though I do feel the 1070 will be the more attractive product due to it's price level, the 1080 cards really is what everybody want (but perhaps can't afford). The good news though is that the board partner cards will sell for less opposed to the Nvidia reference / Founder edition cars. Obviously the higher-end all customized SKUs will likely level with that founders edition card price level again, but I am pretty certain you'd rather spend your money on a fully customized AIB card that is already factory tweaked a bit opposed the the reference one. 

In this AIB review we look at the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G fitted with a Pascal GP104 based GPU. A product series that is to replace the GeForce GTX 980. It's all custom with 10 power phases, has a nice dark aesthetic feel and comes with the all new TwinFrozr VI model cooler, that is marketed as a cooler with Balls of Steel. Seriously I am not making that up, it literally was in the press release and actually refers towards the Double Ball Bearings that the fans use -- made out of steel.

Regular Gaming - X or Z ?

You will have noticed that MSI is to release a regular Gaming and then an X and a Gaming Z model. The regular Gaming model (no X or Z) will not have the backplate and configurable RGB LED light system and basic clock frequencies. Then there are the  X models, these are released in the initial launch and come with a backplate and RGB system and are clocked a notch higher. Then the Z models will be the most high-end SKU, even more overclocked with all the benefits the X model has as well. So we test the X model, but there will be even faster clocked revisions. The Gaming Z gives you all the features of the Gaming X, but with higher clock speeds. Right with that explained, the cooling perf has been improved and combined with a new generation fans, the airflow is improved whilst remaining silent. Up-to 60 Degrees C the card will even stay in passive mode, e.g. the fans will not spin. The TWIN FROZR cooler is now intensified by a red GAMING glow piercing through the cover, while the MSI GAMING dragon RGB LED on the side can be set to any of 16.8 million colors to match the LED lights in the color-tone of your PC. The GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G comes with MSI's traditional Military Class 4 components and holds both an 8- and 6-pin power connector. At the backside you'll spot a nice matte black solid backplate. Both versions do have TwinFrozer VI as wel as a memory cooling plate and a PWM heatsink. You will have noticed the X in the product name. MSI will offer two models here, a slightly lower clocked X version and then the Z version with high factory clocks as well as the inclusion of the back-plate. The MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G  has default clock frequencies of 1822 MHz (boost) / 1683 (base) MHz with a reference clocked 8192 MB GDDR5X / 10108 MHz effective data-rate on the memory.

Right, we have enough to talk about and to show, let's head on-wards in the review. We'll start with a product overview in the Photo-shoot

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razer headset

Engadget Summary

The first thing you'll notice about the Kraken Pro is its garish appearance -- one color option is a bright neon green with black accents, the other black with green accents -- but place them on your head and you'll find the sound anything but garish. Destructoid said "the audio itself comes in both clear, and loud," while PC Mag noted it "handles bass very well." The microphone is just as good, with Gaming Shogun saying that "your teammates will be able to hear your chatter, loud and clear." However, a gaming headset is no good if you don't want to wear it. Fortunately, this is a gaming headset you'll want to wear, and wear for a long time, as Gaming Shogun calls it "one of the lightest and most comfortable I have ever worn." If you're working in an environment where you'd rather not draw attention to yourself -- like an office -- you might want to pass on these cans, but with good sound and a great price for a 2.1 headset, you'll be perfectly pleased to take these to your next gaming tournament or

LAN party.

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Ps4 review

                       PS4 review

PlayStation 4 Pro marks a turning point for the modern console era. In fact, it redefines what a "console" even means. Consoles are supposed to offer "good enough" graphics at an attractive price point, and a consistent hardware target to allow developers to optimize the crap out of their games. Meanwhile, PC gamers can spend twice as much (or more) and get marginally better graphics and all the headaches and complexities of playing games on a grab bag of hardware.

But the PS4 Pro is a mid-generation spec upgrade to an already successful console. It adds power and complexity to the console equation, at a reasonable price: $399, $100 more than the slimmer version of the original (and less powerful) PS4. The extra expense also gets you a nice big 1TB hard drive, an extra USB plug, and optical audio out.

• You can debate the fittingness of a "Pro" moniker on a piece of hardware designed to play video games better, but Sony really has made this new console a notable improvement over its standard model.                                                       And then there's HDR, a feature Sony is pushing on both the Pro and on the normal PlayStation 4. I'll be honest with you: I have a hard time spotting when HDR is on or not. The only reason I knew The Last of Us Remastered was in HDR was because the first time I booted the game, my PS4 told me HDR wasn't active on my TV. So I turned on HDR on my TV and then I guess the brights were brighter and the darks were darker. I mean, it did look great. I just wasn't nearly as impressed with the color gamut as I was with the 4K resolution. Maybe you'll feel differently.  

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Asus ROG

1. Desing

The Asus ROG G20CB is the type of machine that represents the

future of PC gaming. It's tiny, it looks like it was made by aliens and it's specifically designed to handle virtual reality. But while many modern PCs merely mark off those common checkboxes, Asus' PC shatters them, offering a one-of-a-kind design whose sharp angles and glowing lights are as captivating as they are practical. People seeking upgradability or a more TV-cabinet-friendly design should look elsewhere, but in terms of compact PCs built for VR gaming, the G20CB is at the top of its class.                                                                                                            

     2. Lighting

                                         

In addition to being completely captivating, the breathing LED lights emanating out of the G20CB are ridiculously customizable. Using the desktop's included Aegis II app, you can individually assign one of 8 million colors to the PC's left, right and bottom-facing lights, as well as set each light to pulsate or glow steadily.You can also opt to have each zone run through a gamut of colors. There's a ton of freedom here, whether you want a static, all-red look to match the PC's design or prefer the desktop to span every color of the rainbow Although customizing the G20's lights is a ton of fun, syncing them to your music is even cooler. Once you enable the Sound Effect feature in the Aegis app, the PC's two front lights become bars of light that bounce up and down based on the rhythm and volume of your PC's audio. As soon as I saw the G20's blue and purple lights thump in unison with Fall Out Boy's "Irresistible," it was hard to look away.

      3. Portd and Upgradability                                                                                 The strip of red in the G20CB's center houses your essential plug-and-play ports, which include two USB 3.0 ports, a DVD-RW drive, and headphone and microphone jacks. In the back, you'll find two USB 3.1 ports, two USB 3.0 ports and two USB 2.0 ports. As a great extra touch, the USB 3.0 and 3.1 ports are labeled with the Oculus logo, so you know exactly where to plug in your Rift. (Don't worry; this rig supports the HTC Vive, too.)

       4. Gaming Preformance

                                                                                         

Asus' PC allowed me to take in Rise of the Tomb Raider's gorgeous ancient vistas and lifelike character models at 2560 x 1440 on high settings, all while jumping from cliff to cliff at a smooth 45 to 60 frames per second. (Lowering the resolution to 1080p resulted in a consistent 60 fps.) I was even able to push the game to 4K, in exchange for a less smooth 30-fps frame rate.

The G20CB cranked out the game's benchmark at a brisk 54.9 fps at 1080p with graphics maxed out, but sank to a slugging 21.8 fps at 4K. That's about on a par with the X51's scores of 58.8 fps at 1080p and 19.9 fps at 4K.

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