ASRock unveils the first Radeon RX 6900 XT by a board partner

So, AMD has allowed its board partners to release Radeon RX 6900 XT cards, after all. There has been no official announcement from AMD on the matter, but the arrival of an RX 6900 XT by ASRock confirms that this is the case.

ASRock’s card is nothing more than a reference design, though. The company has not even put any of its branding on its RX 6900 XT, making it plain that this nothing more than the card that AMD has already announced. Unsurprisingly, ASRock has called its card the ‘Radeon RX 6900 XT 16G’.

The ASRock card also bears identical specifications to AMD’s reference card. So, that means that it has a 2,015 MHz game clock, a 2,250 MHz boost clock and a 300 W total board power.

ASRock has not stated how much its RX 6900 XT will cost. Presumably, it will cost approximately US$999 though, given how much AMD has marketed the price of the RX 6900 XT in comparison to NVIDIA’s more expensive GeForce RTX 3090.

It remains unclear whether we will see any custom RX 6900 XT designs, nor which other board partners will release cards. According to Videocardz, AMD’s partners should announce any custom cards after December 8, if there are any.

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 and RX 6700 XT tipped to launch with Navi 22 GPUs with 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM

Rumours about the RX 6700 series have reared their head again. This time the rumour stems from Patrick Schur, a software engineer and active leaker on Twitter. Apparently, AMD has two SKUs planned, with the RX 6700 and RX 6700 XT set to join the RX 6800, RX 6800 XT and RX 6900 XT. Based on a recent EEC listing, AMD may be planning to release an RX 6900, too.

Schur states that the RX 6700 cards will use AMD’s Navi 22 GPUs. Both will be paired with 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, which is unsurprising considering that NVIDIA still has exclusivity over the newer GDDR6X variant. This correlates with a similar leak by @_rogame in September. By comparison, the RX 6800 series has 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, as does the RX 6900 XT.

Apparently, AMD will base the RX 6700 XT on the Navi 22 XT GPU, with the Navi 22 XTL used for the RX 6700. Additionally, AMD has apparently targeted a total graphics power (TGP) of between 186 W and 211 W for the RX 6700 XT, which would make it a lot less power-hungry than the RX 6800 series.

Meanwhile, the RX 6700 will have an upper target of 156 W. Schur states the card should have a minimum TGP of 146 W too, but adds that its minimum may be even lower. However, he is yet to see a Navi 22 XTL GPU with a TGP below 146 W. According to Videocardz, AMD plans to announce the RX 6700 series in January 2021, which is the same month as several NVIDIA RTX 3000 series launches. There is no word on pricing yet, though.

Motorola Moto E7 launched with a 48 MP dual camera and a 4,000 mAh battery for €110

The Moto E7 has arrived, a few months after Motorola announced the Moto E7 Plus. The new budget handset will be available from next month in Europe for just €110, so it should come as no surprise to learn that Motorola has made some compromises to keep costs down.

Motorola has, for example, equipped the Moto E7 with a MediaTek Helio G25 chipset, along with 2 GB of RAM. The former integrates eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores and an IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU. There is also 32 GB of onboard storage, and a 4,000 mAh battery that can recharge at up to 10 W. Motorola has included a microSD card reader too, should you need additional storage.

The display of the Moto E7 is identical to the Plus version though, with a 6.5-inch IPS panel included. The display operates natively at 1,600 x 720 pixels and is joined by a 5 MP selfie camera with an f/2.2 aperture.

Additionally, the Moto E7 has a 48 MP primary camera (f/1.7) and a 2 MP macro sensor. We suspect that the 48 MP camera will be taking most of the photos on the Moto E7 though, given the lowly megapixel count of the macro camera.

Finally, Motorola has integrated a fingerprint sensor within its logo. There is even Bluetooth 5.0 support, a USB Type-C port and a 3.5 mm jack. The Moto E7 will be available outside of Europe, too.

A possible Redmi Note 9 5G leaks onto Geekbench ahead of its launch

New Redmi phones are officially set to launch soon. However, it seems one member of this group has broken cover ahead of this event. A new Xiaomi device called the M2007J22C has appeared on Geekbench with specs previously predicted for the Note 9 5G.

They include a processor called the ARM MT6853T, believed to be the Dimensity 800U processor. This is due to findings that the GPU in question here is the Mali-G57 – although it must be noted that the same is also present in the Dimensity 720 processor.

Should it be the 800U, however, it would put the new Redmi Note on par with the Realme X7 (or 7 5G for the European market). However, the newer phone is rumored to be the cheaper of the two on its launch.

This new leak may show that the Redmi Note 9 5G has at least 8GB of RAM and, slightly disappointingly, runs Android 10. Therefore, it might prove a compelling new prospect for Chinese consumers when it launches in that market. It is also now touted to do so as the Note 9T in other markets once this event is complete.

Beelink GTI: A new mini-PC with an Intel Core i5-8260U and a built-in fingerprint scanner launched

The Beelink GTI, is a rather unusual mini-PC in some sense. The machine measures a typical 168 x 120 x 39 mm and includes multiple ports, such as six USB Type-A ports and dual LAN connections. However, it also has an Intel Core i5-8260U processor and a fingerprint scanner that Beelink has included on the top of the device.

The Core i5-8260U is a quad-core processor from Intel’s Kaby Lake-Refresh family. Unsurprisingly, the Core i5-8260U shares many similarities with the Core i5-8250U. The Core i5-8260U has a 300 MHz higher boost clock speed at 3.9 GHz though and supports 64 GB of RAM instead of the maximum of 32 GB that the Core i5-8250U can handle.

The Beelink Mini does not have a dedicated graphics card, meaning that it relies on the built-in Intel UHD Graphics 620, instead. This iGPU has a 300 MHz base clock and can reach 1.1 GHz. The Intel UHD Graphics 620 shares its TDP with the CPU, for reference.

Beelink offers the GTI with 8 GB or 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB or 512 GB of storage. The latter is a replaceable M.2 PCIe SSD, though. There is also a secondary M.2 slot for adding a SATA drive. Sadly, it seems that Beelink has soldered the GTI’s RAM to its motherboard, rather than equipping it with SO-DIMM RAM.

The Beelink GTI comes with Windows 10 pre-installed and starts at US$539.99 on Geekbuying. The 16 GB of RAM edition will set you back US$619.99, though.

The Xbox Series S and Series X can now run retro emulators through RetroArch, and performance is excellent

The Xbox Series S is by far the weakest console of the current generation, but there’s a new trick up its sleeve that may entice some gamers, particularly those interested in emulating retro consoles.

Thanks to the console’s Developer Mode, some intrepid coders have gotten the popular emulator frontend Retro Arch to run on the console. After setting the Xbox Series S into Developer Mode, users can install the Unified Windows Platform (UWP) version of Retro Arch through the console’s web browser. Once Retro Arch is installed, it’s a simple matter to configure controls and add ROMs. 

YouTuber Modern Vintage Gamer tested several emulators on his Xbox Series S via Retro Arch. Highlights include the Dolphin emulator (for Nintendo GameCube and Wii games), the Beetle emulator (for Sega Saturn games), the Reicast emulator (for Sega Dreamcast games), and more. The Xbox Series S runs several notoriously difficult-to-emulate games like Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2 (GameCube), Panzer Dragoon Zwei (Sega Saturn), and Skies of Arcadia (Sega Dreamcast) fluidly. There are some hiccups (like GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64), but it seems that most titles run at a steady framerate without issue.

There are some major caveats. First and foremost, getting an Xbox Series S into Developer Mode isn’t straightforward. Users must register their console with Microsoft and pay a one-time fee of US$20. Additionally, a console in Developer Mode cannot play retail Xbox games. While it is fairly easy to switch the console back and forth between its Developer and Retail Modes, both modes cannot be active at the same time. As such, gamers that want to play retro games through emulation and current-gen titles will have to regularly flip their console between the modes, which is cumbersome. 

What are your thoughts on the emulation capabilities of the Xbox Series S and Series X? Let us know in the comments. 

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano features lower powered Tiger Lake UP4 CPUs & 1.35mm travel keyboard

When Lenovo announced the new 13 inch 16:10 flagship ThinkPad X1 Nano in late September 2020, a few things were left in the dark. For example, the exact release date. In the press-release, Lenovo did not give us a release date beyond the 4th quarter 2020, which by now would mean December. Depending on the locale, even an early 2021 looks increasingly likely. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano Gen 1 is not listed in Lenovo’s PSREF database yet, which is an indicator that availability is more than a few weeks away.

Availability was not the only question we had about the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano 2021. For example: Which CPUs are used in the ThinkPad laptop? The spec-sheet only mentions “Intel 11th Gen Core i CPUs”, meaning Tiger Lake. Reminder: There are actually two kinds of Tiger Lake U processors, UP3 and UP4. The UP3 CPUs have a TDP of 12 to 28 W, while the UP4 processors can consume 7 to 15 W.

Another interesting area for us was the key travel of the vaunted ThinkPad keyboard. Lenovo ThinkPad laptops originally had a key travel of 2.5 mm. Over the last decade, Lenovo has reduced it to 1.8 mm on most models. The current Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, bigger brother of the X1 Nano, goes a stop further down to 1.5 mm. But the X1 Nano is even thinner and much lighter and the competing Dell XPS 13 9310 only offers 1 mm of key travel.

We have reached out to Lenovo about both topics and got a clear answer: As for the processor, the X1 Nano features the lower-powered UP4 Tiger Lake variant, with the Intel Core i7-1180G7 as the fastest chip. It can reach the maximum TPD of 15 W. This is an interesting choice and the X1 Nano is seemingly one of the first laptops with these processors. Also, it might provide a differentiation compared with the upcoming Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2021 if that uses UP3 Tiger Lake.

The key travel of the 95 % keyboard is meanwhile also reduced to 1.35 mm – the lowest amount for any Lenovo ThinkPad laptop yet, though of course still more than what Dell’s XPS 13 offers.

MINISFORUM EliteMini UM700: A mini-PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 3750H APU for US$539

MINISFORUM has unveiled another mini-PC, following on from the announcement of the EliteMini Box X400 earlier this month. MINISFORUM has called its new machine the EliteMini UM700, and it is already available to order for US$539 directly from the manufacturer.

The entry-level model comes with 8 GB of SO-DIMM RAM and 128 GB of M.2 2280 storage. However, prices rise to US$669 for 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. All models come with the AMD Ryzen 7 3750H though, like the X35G that MINISFORUM announced earlier this year.

The Ryzen 7 3750H offers four Zen+ cores and can boost up to 4.0 GHz on a 35 W TDP. The 12 nm APU also includes AMD’s Radeon RX Vega 10 GPU, which has 10 Compute Units (CUs) and can boost to 1.3 GHz.

The EliteMini UM700 has three video outputs too, along with four USB Type-A ports and dual Gigabit Ethernet connections. Alternatively, you could use the built-in Intel WiFi6 AX200 module, which also offers Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity. Additionally, there is a 3.5 mm combined headphone and microphone jack on the front of the device.

MINISFORUM aims to begin shipping the EliteMini UM700 next month. All orders will come with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed. The machine itself measures 128 x 127 x 46 mm and weighs about 0.5 kg.

The Huawei P50 series will be available in limited quantities because of the scarcity of the Kirin 9000 chipset

Although Huawei has already received some licenses to trade with US companies, it cannot purchase high-end chipsets from Qualcomm, with Huawei restricted to Qualcomm’s 4G chipset portfolio, instead. Equally, Huawei cannot produce new Kirin chipsets through companies like TSMC, leaving it at a loss when it comes to releasing new flagship smartphones. 

The P50 series is thought to be Huawei’s next flagship series, but it may be in short supply because of Huawei’s inability to source new 5G chipsets. According to The Elec, Huawei plans to use its HiSilicon Kirin 9000 SoC, which debuted on the Mate 40 series.

The Kirin 9000 offers eight cores separated into three clusters. The prime Cortex-A77 core offers the best single-core performance with a peak clock speed of 3.31 GHz, while three additional Cortex-A77 cores can reach 2.54 GHz. Huawei has complemented these Cortex-A77 cores with another four Cortex-A55 cores, along with a Mali-G78 MP24 GPU. The Kirin 9000 is one of the first chipsets to be built on a 5 nm process, too.

Ultimately, the use of the Kirin 9000 in the P50 series may explain why Mate 40 series devices are so few and far between. Huawei will have access to components from LG Display and Samsung Display though, with both companies having been granted trading licenses by the US government. However, the P50 series will still arrive with Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) instead of Google Mobile Services (GMS), which means no Play Store or Google account integration.

The Huawei Mate X2 visits the TENAA – Kirin 9000 chipset likely in line for 5G foldable smartphone

Huawei has certified the Mate X2 with the TENAA in China. Specifically, the Chinese company has approved the TET-AN00 and TET-AN10, which appear to be two SKUs of the same device. Details about the Mate X2 remain sparse, but the TENAA offers a few nuggets of information about the upcoming foldable smartphone.

On the one hand, the TENAA confirms that the Mate X2 will launch with Android. This means that Huawei will release the device on EMUI 11, rather than HarmonyOS. The Mate X2 will also support up to 66 W fast charging, as we previously reported. Both models will support dual-SIM connectivity, too.

Moreover, the Mate X2 will be a 5G device. Huawei cannot currently source 5G chipsets from Qualcomm, so we suspect the Mate X2 to arrive with the Kirin 9000, along with the forthcoming P50 series.

The TENAA does not describe any other elements of the Mate X2, nor does it offer any pictures of the device. However, Huawei is expected to equip it with an 8.03-inch and 120 Hz display. The Mate X2 should arrive in early 2021.