MediaTek reportedly working on two Cortex-A78 based chips

Even though ARM unveiled its Cortex-A78 and Cortex-X1 cores earlier this year, we are yet to see them in action. If recent benchmark results are anything to go by, they can pack quite a punch. We’ve only seen them in Exynos and Qualcomm chipsets so far. MediaTek is all set to join that list soon, according to a new leak.

Weibo stalwart Digital Chat Station says MediaTek’s upcoming MT6893 and MT6891 chips will use Cortex-A78 cores, likely on a 5nm or 6nm process node. Judging by the model number, the former is likely MediaTek’s top-of-the-line offering, presumably a sequel to the Dimensity 1000. The tipster rounds things off by saying that the company is expected to release both chips earlier than usual. Considering that the MediaTek Dimensity 1000 was released in November 2019, we can expect the company to unveil the silicon soon.

If the yet-to-be-named MediaTek chip uses the same 4+4 configuration as the Dimensity 1000, we can expect it to perform on par with the Exynos 1080 (four Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 3.0GHz). While its performance will be significantly better than its predecessors, it is unlikely to surpass the Qualcomm Snapdragon 875 or the Exynos 2100. However, the gap will probably be a lot less narrow should MediaTek opt for a 1+3+4 design with a Cortex-X1 at the helm.

PlayStation 5 DualSense controller soaks up the accolades as reviewers call it a mind-blowing next-generation game changer

First impressions of the PS5 DualSense controller have started appearing online, and they seem to be almost universally glowing. Marques Brownlee (MKBDH) stated that the DualSense “feels more next gen than any other piece” because of the large haptic motors that are contained inside the accessory. Tom Warren of The Verge took to Twitter to equally laud the merits of the PS5 controller after testing out the haptic feedback and the response of the adaptive triggers: “I still can’t get over how good the PS5 controller is. It’s truly mind blowing”. The DualSense’s purpose is to help immerse the user deeper into the gameplay, such as being able to hear and feel the rumbling feedback in a racing game when a vehicle is moving over rough terrain.

YouTuber Dave Lee was also effusive about the DualSense, settling for a punchy “The PS5 controller is AMAZING” as the title for his video preview of the next-gen accessory. Lee also explained how a special motor is incorporated into the device to offer resistance for certain situations when a gamer needs to use the trigger buttons for more-complicated tasks; he calls it “controllable tension”. Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier didn’t hold back with his praise either, saying that the controller was “wild” and “feels more ‘next-gen’ than any graphical improvements we’ve seen yet”, thanks to the combination of the haptics, triggers and rumble.

Sakis Karpas of Unboxholics was also impressed with the DualSense’s haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, and he classified the controller as a “game changer”. However, Karpas also pointed out that the battery was “a bit disappointing”, but other sources have also praised the improvement in battery life that the DualSense controller (1,560 mAh) offers over the DualShock 4 (1,000 mAh). YouTube resident Skill Up wore a look of amazement on his face when he held the PS5 accessory and said “the controller blew me away”. The video’s hosts were particularly enamored with the additional gaming properties the controller can provide, such as adding extra resistance in the triggers when a weapon becomes jammed and using the touchpad to move a zip, with the DualSense also offering audio feedback to match the action on the screen.

It’s a flying start for the PS5 and the DualSense in particular. The controller is bustling with features (light effects, built-in microphone, the Create button, etc.) that add extra entertainment value to those long and intense gaming sessions. It seems every component of the DualSense has been carefully considered, even down to the tiny PlayStation symbols that decorate the grips and underside. Although back buttons would certainly have been a welcome inclusion, the DualSense has still successfully delivered a next-gen experience according to these initial reviews.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600X ends Intel’s hegemony in single-thread perf; 10% faster than Core i9-10900K and 23% faster than Ryzen 9 3900X

Intel has traditionally held the single-core performance crown for many generations. AMD did get close to Intel 9th gen Coffee Lake, but Comet Lake once again showed good leads in single-core and gaming. With Ryzen 5000 Zen 3, Intel may not be in a comfortable position any longer.

User /u/losh11 (@loshan1212) first posted CPU-Z results of the Ryzen 5 5600X on Reddit. The OP had since deleted the post, but the results were shared quickly to other subreddits. CPU-Z screenshots and product packaging of the Ryzen 5 5600X were subsequently reposted by @GawroskiT on Twitter.

In the CPU-Z single-thread benchmark, the Ryzen 5 5600X scored 643 points leading the Core i9-10900K by 10% and the Core i7-10700K by 15%. The Zen 3 processor also seems to be 23.4% faster than a Ryzen 9 3900X in single-core, which shows that AMD is leaving no stone unturned in the quest to extract the maximum possible peak performance from the new architecture.

The Ryzen 5 5600X seems to be no slouch in the multi-core either with the processor amassing 4,814 points — 12% faster than the Core i5-10600KF and 14% faster than the Ryzen 5 3600XT.

This is not the first demonstration of AMD’s new found single-core leads, though. Previously, we saw the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and the Ryzen 5 5600X posting impressive single-core results beating Intel’s flagship Core i9-10900K by a significant margin.

While it is always advisable to wait for final reviews before coming to conclusions, these initial scores do indicate that AMD may have a definite winner on their hands with Zen 3 that does not compromise either in single-core or multi-core workloads.

The Honor V40 smartphones are touted as worthy Mate 40 alternatives in a new leak

Honor may be one of the last smartphone brands to launch new premium devices in 2020. It is now slated to debut the follow-ups to its V30 and V30 Pro in the last month of this year. The prolific leaker Teme (@RODENT450 on Twitter) now asserts that at least 1 of their successors will have a 6.72-inch display with an up-to-date 120Hz refresh rate.

Then again, the tipster never mentioned whether this possibly advantageous panel is to be LCD or some form of OLED. In addition, this screen is apparently to be of the curved variety, an often polarizing aspect of smartphone design.

Besides this, the Honor V40s are also now projected to come with the same 66W SuperCharge power brick introduced with Huawei’s Mate 40 series, not to mention 40W wireless charging.

Furthermore, the series may get this lines’ new Kirin 9000 flagship (if beleaguered) SoC. However, it may only be for the Plus (or V40+) variant, whereas the vanilla model may rock the MediaTek Dimensity 1000+ instead.

The Honor V40 series is also now believed to retain their predecessors’ dual punch-hole selfie cameras. On the opposite side, Teme predicts a 50MP main shooter in a triple- to quad-lens arrangement.

The extent of the new details on the upcoming flagships end there. All in all, they suggest that (as noted by @RODENT450), Honor plans to unveil a contender to its own parent’s new top-end models not so long from now.

Gaming benchmarks reveal that the AMD Radeon RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT conquer NVIDIA GeForce cards at 1440p and 4K

Several benchmark results of the upcoming RX 6800 may have leaked in the last few days, but AMD has published some gaming benchmark results for its trio of Radeon RX 6000 series cards. The company showcased the performance of the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT at its launch event last week, but these new benchmark results offer more granular comparisons between the RX 6000 series and recent NVIDIA cards.

Naturally, AMD benchmarked its new cards in a powerful test bench. According to the company, it used the following system configuration to achieve the benchmark results shown below:

CPU – AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

RAM – 16 GB DDR4-3200 (presumably dual-channel)

Motherboard – X570 reference platform

BIOS – RQ21082B – Smart Access Memory enabled

Radeon drivers – 20.45-201013n

GeForce drivers – 456.71

OS – Windows 10 Pro x64 19041.508

AMD has not mentioned anything about Rage mode, so we presume that the company did not enable it for these benchmarks. Currently, AMD has published results for ten games at 1440p and 4K – all at the highest possible graphics presets. In short, these early results suggest that AMD has closed the gap between RDNA 1 and Turing cards, although we should stress that AMD has probably chosen games that perform particularly well on its new architecture.

Nonetheless, the data provided by AMD points to the RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT outperforming the RTX 3090 at 1440p, which the RX 6900 XT maintains at 4K. The RX 6800 XT drops back behind the RTX 3090 at 4K though but remains a few percent ahead of the RTX 3080 at this resolution, on average. Meanwhile, the RX 6800 strikes a middle ground between the performance of the RTX 3080 and RTX 2080 Ti at both resolutions. The RX 6800 also performs better, relatively, at 1440p than it does at 4K, like the RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT.

All this should come as good news to PC gamers. Not only does the RX 6000 look powerful, but AMD is much closer to NVIDIA than it has been for many years.

Creative Outlier Air V2 launched: Up to 34 hours of battery life with Qualcomm aptX, Qualcomm cVc 8.0 and touch controls

Creative Technology has unleashed a new pair of true-wireless earbuds (TWS), the Outlier Air V2. Released initially in Japan, the earbuds have now reached the UK where they currently retail for £64.99. The earbuds will eventually retail for £74.99 though, and will be available in the US from November 5.

The Outlier Air V2 combines the best of the Outlier Air and Outlier Gold but with a fewer notable improvements. Firstly, the design of the earbuds and their charging case remains identical, with the earbuds sitting against your ears rather than just balancing in your ear canal as is the case with many earbuds. Creative Technology has finished the earbuds and charging case in what it has called Metallic Blue, which offers a balance between the gold of the Outlier Gold and the black of the Outlier Air.

The company claims that the earbuds should last up to 12 hours between charges, while the charging case should provide another two charges before it needs recharging. Overall, that should yield up to 34 hours use before you will need to recharge the Outlier Air V2.

While this is slightly worse than the battery life of the Outlier Gold, the Outlier Air V2 feature touch controls and Qualcomm cVc 8.0 technology for improved call quality. The inclusion of touch controls was one of our most-requested features when we reviewed the Outlier Gold earlier this year and should make the Outlier Air V2 much easier to use than its predecessors.

The Outlier Air V2 also supports Qualcomm aptX, AAC, Bluetooth 5.0 and dual-voice calls. Each earbud contains 5.6 mm graphene-coated drives – the same as the ones that Creative Technology includes in its other Outlier TWS earbuds. Naturally, Super X-Fi support is on board Outlier Air V2, too. 

Xiaomi outclasses the test competition again with the Redmi K30 Ultra

The Redmi K30 Ultra turned out to be an exciting mid-range smartphone in our review, and it hardly offers any real weaknesses considering its price range. The Redmi phone, which is so far only designed for the Chinese market, combines a bright 120 Hz OLED panel with an appealing configuration and a very nice look. In addition, there’s the very powerful MediaTek Dimensity 1000+, with which the K30 Ultra sets new standards in the mid-range.

The MediaTek Dimensity 1000+ is a 7 nm SoC that integrates four fast Cortex-A77 cores as well as four power-saving cores (Cortex-A55). The graphics unit consists of a Mali-G77 MP9. In addition, according to MediaTek, the APU 3.0 of the Dimensity 1000+ is supposed to achieve a theoretical peak performance of 4.5 TOPS through its six AI processors.

In our benchmark package, the K30 Ultra places itself at the front line. Especially in the graphics benchmarks, the K30 Ultra often offers twice as high frame rates as the comparison smartphones with the Snapdragon 765G. The latter also has a positive effect in our gaming test, as the FPS values are above average here too. But the Redmi phone also achieves a performance that is higher by a third in the multi-core score of the Geekbench test. All in all, the K30 Ultra is more at the level of a Snapdragon 855 Plus than on the one of its mid-range competition.

Would you like to take a closer look at the benchmark results or get a detailed impression of the Redmi K30 Ultra? We recommend then our review of the Xiaomi smartphone.

i7book: Alldocube is charging US$499.99 for a 14-inch laptop with an Intel Core i7-6600U processor

It has been a while since we reported on Alldocube, which sells an array of hardware, including tablets like the Alldocube X. Its latest laptop is intriguing, but not necessarily for the right reasons.

On the one hand, the i7Book has an aluminium build, 8 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and a 14.1-inch IPS display. The 1080p panel supposedly has a 90% screen-to-body ratio too and a matte finish, although it is unclear how bright it gets. There is also a 256 GB SSD, albeit a slow SATA III one.

Alldocube has included a rather strange choice of processor, though. The company has gone with a Core i7-6600U, a Skylake processor that Intel released over five years ago. The 15 W processor possesses two cores, supports Hyper-Threading and can reach 3.4 GHz. Unsurprisingly, the Core i7-6600U cannot match the performance of the Core i7-10510U or even the Core i7-8550U.

The i7book has plenty of I/O, including three USB 3.0 Type-A ports and a USB Type-C. However, that cannot overcome its high asking price of US$499.99, which is simply too much for a Core i7-6600U-powered machine in 2020. If you are interested in the Alldocube i7book, then it can be purchased on Banggood.

Apple may be planning to release a new MacBook Pro 16 before the year is out

It has been nearly a year since Apple announced the first 16-inch MacBook Pro, replacing the 15-inch model that the company had been selling for over a decade. Apple is yet to confirm any plans to release a new MacBook Pro 16, but it has seemingly provided a concrete reference to the launch date of a subsequent model.

Apparently, Boot Camp 6.1.13 ‘fixes a stability issue…on 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019 and 2020)’, as it also does for the most-recent MacBook Pro 13. Apple released a MacBook Pro 16 with a Radeon Pro 5600M earlier this year, but the company refers to this model as the 16-inch MacBook Pro 2019. So, Apple has either published the changelog for Boot Camp 6.1.13 in error, or it is an indication of the upcoming launch of a new 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Rumour has it that Apple will host a Mac event on November 17, with an announcement for the event due a week before. The company may just use this event to showcase ARM hardware, so we may see a new MacBook Pro 16 arrive via an Apple press release, instead.

Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite box with device image and key details revealed via FCC appearance

A listing by the Federal Communications Commission of the United States has revealed some information about the Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite. The details come from an image of the box for the Mi Watch Lite, which also features a render of the smartwatch. The wearable has a somewhat generic look, containing its 1.4-inch HD screen inside a square-faced display unit that has a physical button on the right-hand side.

Some of the features of the Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite have been revealed via the packaging, so it can be seen that the smartwatch comes with a handy built-in GPS, an abundance of fitness modes, auto-brightness for the display, and it’s waterproof (up to 50 m). The wearable, which will likely be priced at a very affordable level, also offers the practically obligatory heart-rate monitor.

The box also shows that the Mi Watch Lite sports a 230-mAh battery and that it is compatible with Android devices at operating system 4.4 and above and iOS hardware running at 10 or above. The multiple languages on the packaging imply that the Xiaomi Mi Watch Lite is going to go global, although with the model number “REDMIWT02” printed on the box it certainly seems that there will be some countries that will greet this device as the Redmi Watch.