El Chapuzas Informático has posted an early review of the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 which was tested on a Gigabyte Aorus Gaming 7 WiFi motherboard, G.Skill FlareX DDR4 @ 3200 MHz and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti FE graphics card. Looking at the data presented, it becomes clear the performance on offer if real looks to be quite impressive. The site compared AMD's latest offering to the Intel Core i9-9900K and the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X with the Ryzen 5 3600 typically slotting in between the two and in some cases beating both. This is interesting to note as the Ryzen 7 2700X offers similar clock speeds to the Ryzen 5 3600 but the former has a 2C/4T advantage. Even so, the newer AMD CPU tends to outpace the Zen+ based Ryzen 7 2700X in multiple tests. In Cinebench R15, for example, the Ryzen 5 3600 had the lead in single-core performance while multi-core was held by the Ryzen 7 2700X. Cinebench R20 roughly mimics these results as well.



While memory latency was quite high 80.5 ns, it didn't seem to impact performance to any serious degree. In fact, in wPrime 2.10 32M running on a single core showed the Ryzen 5 3600 coming in just behind the Intel Core i9-9900K while being faster than the previous generation Intel Core i7-8700K, i7-8600K, and AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and 1700X. That said, the previous generation Ryzen processors were far slower here were as the Intel chips were still competitive. In the multi-core test, the Ryzen 7 2700X took a slight lead while the Ryzen 7 1700X was a bit slower than the Ryzen 5 3600. One interesting quirk of note was the lack of write speed on the memory with the Ryzen 5 3600 only hitting 25.6 GB/s which is quite a drop from the 47 GB/s seen on the Ryzen 7 1700X and Ryzen 7 2700X. However this could be due to the X470 motherboard being used or maybe an issue with sub timings on the memory, something that will need to be verified in future reviews.
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(PR) SK Hynix Starts Mass-Producing World's First 128-Layer 4D NAND, Working on 176-Layer NAND
SK hynix Inc. announced today that it has developed and started mass-producing the world's first 128-Layer 1 Tb (Terabit) TLC (Triple-Level Cell) 4D NAND Flash, only eight months after the Company announced the 96-Layer 4D NAND Flash last year.



The 128-Layer 1 Tb NAND chip offers the industry's highest vertical stacking with more than 360 billion NAND cells, each of which stores 3 bits, per one chip. To achieve this, SK hynix applied innovative technologies, such as "ultra-homogeneous vertical etching technology," "high-reliability multi-layer thin-film cell formation technology," and ultra-fast low-power circuit design, to its own 4D NAND technology.



The new product provides the industry's highest density of 1 Tb for TLC NAND Flash. A number of companies including SK hynix have developed 1 Tb QLC (Quad-Level Cell) NAND products, but SK hynix is the first to commercialize the 1 Tb TLC NAND Flash. TLC accounts for more than 85% of the NAND Flash market with excellent performance and reliability.
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UL Releases PCI Express Feature Test For 3DMark Ahead of PCIe 4.0 Hardware
With PCI-Express 4.0 graphics cards and motherboards soon to arrive, UL has released their PCI Express feature test for 3DMark. This latest addition has been designed to verify the bandwidth available to the GPU over a computer's PCI Express interface. To accomplish this, the test will make bandwidth the limiting factor for performance and does so by uploading a large amount of vertex and texture data to the GPU for each frame. The end goal is to transfer enough data over the PCIe 4.0 interface to thoroughly saturate it. Once the test is complete, the end result will be a look at the average bandwidth achieved during the test.
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AMD To Offer RX 5700 XT Anniversary Edition in Europe, Canada After All
It seems that AMD either had a) unrevealed plans to launch their online store on more countries and markets alongside the introduction of the Navi-powered RX 5700 XT, or b) a change of mind when it comes to permitted availability of their collectors', limited-edition graphics card for the rest of the world. Originally reported to only be launched in the United States and China, an AMD representative (under the handle dprairie_AMD over at Reddit) has seemingly confirmed that the company will be bringing its limited-edition graphics cards to more markets than previously expected - though it still isn't a global release. The statement from Reddit follows.



Reddit user @dprairie_AMD
Hi all,

Friendly reminder that just because someone writes it doesn't mean it is true.... We will be expanding AMD.com sales to more countries, so we expect the 50th anniversary edition will also be available in: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Sorry we are not offering global availability at this point. We hear you on the desire. The team is focused on expanding into more regions/countries while making sure we can fully support customers.

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The 2019 Steam Summer Sale is On From Today Through July 9th
The annual Steam game sale celebration is here, in the form of the Summer Sale. The now legendary platform for games consumption on the PC ecosystem has announced that from today through July 9th, thousands of games are experiencing price cuts that can go up to 90%. If you're planning to get your game fix, and it isn't an EPIC Games Store Exclusive, you can try and pick it up here at a discounted price - provided you can actually reach the site. Storefront price cuts are Devil May Cry 5 (-34%) and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (-50%) but you can also grab Ni-oh, for example, at a 60% discount. The new Summer Sale now features a Steam Summer Grand Prix mode, where users can band together in groups to complete milestones (including unlocking quests and achievements) that will grant users games from their wishlist as they achieve "Pit Stops".



As it stands, it seems there have been some connection issue,s with users reporting "502 - Bad gateway" errors. For me, the page simply appears blank, with not even a single error report shown (after I finished writing this piece, I tried the steam store page again, and it seems to be working - at least for now.

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(PR) MAD CATZ Announces Limited Edition R.A.T. 8+ 1000 Optical Gaming Mouse
Mad Catz Global Limited, leading gaming hardware innovators for 30 years, announced today the limited edition R.A.T.8+ 1000 Optical Gaming Mouse, in celebration of the Company's 30th birthday. Proudly serving the gaming community for 30 years, Mad Catz has stood the test of time, embedded in the lives of players looking for quality, value and innovation in gaming hardware.



Marking the anniversary in a way that only Mad Catz can, the Company will be launching a commemorative R.A.T.8+ 1000 Optical Gaming Mouse, strictly limited to just 1000 units worldwide. The cutting-edge R.A.T.8+ is already a favorite amongst gamers looking for the winning edge, and this limited edition version comes complete with stunning, premium collector's packaging, designed to store the mouse and a host of accessories, displaying the R.A.T. in style when not in use.
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GIGABYTE Launches X570 Aorus Master Motherboard
GIGABYTE today officially launched its latest addition to the Aorus series of motherboards, made for the new generation of Ryzen 3000 series processors. The "Master" as it is called, is an impressive feat of engineering designed to handle even the most power-hungry Ryzen CPUs like the 16 core Ryzen 9 AMD recently showcased.



For starters, the board is featuring twice the amount of copper wires usually needed to implement a PCIe connection, which means less information loss on PCB. It has a 14 direct phases of Infineon digital IR 3556 PowIRstage MOSFETs VRMs that are capable of delivering 50A each, which means that the VRM is capable of delivering up to 700A of current, providing additional headroom for CPU overclock. To handle the large amount of VRMs effectively, the board is equipped with beefy heatsinks and a heat pipe that has direct contact with VRMs. Sandwiches between the heatsink and the board is a new generation of thermal pads designed by LAIRD, with 1.5 mm thickness and 5 W/mK thermal conductivity.
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