Zotac International, a well-known Hong Kong manufacturer continues to widen its ZBox series of mini PCs and introduces two samples of the different price spectrum – namely ZBox MI553 and ZBox PI225.



Possessing the 185 х 185 х 72 mm dimensions, the ZBox MI553 nettop is equipped with highly productive components like Intel Core i5 (Core i7) processing units built on the Kaby Lake architecture. Thus, one of the ZBox MI553 modifications will obtain a quad-core Intel Core i5-7300HQ (2.5/3.5 GHz) silicon with the Intel HD Graphics 630 embedded. The motherboard has two slots for the SO-DIMM DDR4 RAM of the ultimate 32 GB capacity.

The disk subsystem includes a 2.5” drive with the SATA 6 Gbps interface and a pair of M.2 connectors supporting Intel Optane Memory devices. Among other options one can find a Thunderbolt 3, an HDMI, a DisplayPort and four USB 3.1 Gen2 ports. Networking is enabled by the RJ45 wired interface, as well as by the wireless Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth …

Arsenal Gaming is a specific lineup of motherboards in MSI’s portfolio. It embraces 7 different models, joined under military-style codenames. The units are targeting primarily gaming community, although the Z170A Tomahawk is a universal solution at an affordable price. As distinct from the comrades, it features a set of controllers & sockets which are considered to be remnants of the past. Let’s find out what kind of advantages this board offers.



CPU & Memory


Motherboard MSI Z170A Tomahawk is developed on Intel Z170 Express chipset. It supports LGA1151-compatible CPUs of the 6th generation (Skylake): Intel Celeron/Pentium/Core i3/Core i5/Core i7. The hardware rests on a 4-layer dark PCB (304x224 mm, ATX) with red PCI-e and RAM slots. The rear panel is differentiated by the availability of a backplate for the CPU socket. The integrated ISL95856 controller is accountable for the providing power to the CPU (3+5 VRM).


The board comes with four DIMM slots for the …

The SAPPHIRE Pulse graphics adapters series is aimed at thrifty gamers, who spend their money wisely. So, it was great to notice the SAPPHIRE Pulse Radeon RX Vega 56 card in the German vendor’s price-list. The novelty costs €789. Старт продаж видеокарты Sapphire Radeon RX Vega 56 Pulse намечен на первые дни февраля

 

SAPPHIRE Pulse Radeon RX Vega 56 is of the 282 х 125 х 50 mm size and takes 3 expansion slots. It encloses GPU AMD Vega 10 XL, supporting 3,584 streaming processors and operating at the 1,512 MHz clock, which is 41 MHz higher, than the reference sample’s rate (1,471 MHz). In its turn, the 8 GB HBM2 memory operates at the 1,600 MHz effective frequency with the 2,048-bit bus.

 

The cooling system consists of a big two-section aluminium heatsink, shot through with several nickel-plated copper heat pipes, and a compact backplate at the rear …