The past several days were marked by the Intel's announcement about the celebration of a contract with ASML company. Such step has been dictated by the company's intentions to invest into the development of 450 mm wafers and EUV technologies. In accordance with the preliminary estimates, the general investment rate will reach $4.1 billion. The major target of the cooperation is to decrease the term of lithography equipment commissioning by two years, and stimulate the development of technologies targeted at 450 mm wafers. The implementation of the predesigned plans will allow the manufacturers of semiconductor components to receive a range of benefits, among which is the cut of expenses.



With the purpose to facilitate in the solution of this technological problem, Intel will take part in a dedicated program. This program includes financial backup of scientific and research projects, as well as, equity investing campaigns in ASML.


The initial stage of this program …

The inventory of motherboards designed by ECS is quite ample for the user to get confused. There are various series with a number of models in each, and each of these series is replenishing with new products at enviable frequency. Still, 'Black' series differentiates itself from all other lines by an eye-catching design and remarkable performance. Motherboard ECS Z77H2-A2X is an outstanding representative of 'Black' series that is notable by premium design, premium implementation, and premium performance.



Design and Layout


The first thing that stands out a mile is the delivery box which features goldish coverage and speaks of the motherboard's high-end destination. The board itself is packed in an antistatic box, while all other components found their places in a separate box. This box contains DVD with dedicated software and drivers, user's manual, I/O shield, LucidLogix Virtu MVP Technology usage guideline, a set of plugs for USB and video sockets, six SATA cables with …

MSI has taken its fans by surprise by introducing two lineups of video cards simultaneously. The lines (which embrace 10 models in total) are based on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1050 & GeForce GTX 1050 Ti adapters. The new-comers feature either one or two fans and differ by the operational performance as well as functional. It stands to reason that the company has enlarged its Gaming series with 4 new products.



One-fan video cards are distinguished by the implementation of Military Class 4 hardware base, whereas the two-fan versions boast the incorporation of MSI Twin Frozr VI cooling system (TORX 2.0 fans), three operational profiles and overclocking features.


The MSI GeForce GTX 1050 series is introduced by the following models (Nvidia GP107-300 GPU, Pascal, 640 CUDA, 2GB GDDR5, 128-bit bus, DVI-D, HDMI 2.0b, DisplayPort 1.4):

— MSI GeForce GTX 1050 2G: base GPU frequency – 1354 MHz, dynamic GPU frequency – 1455 MHz, efficient memory frequency – 7.0 GHz;

— …