ApoTheTech

The manufacturer specializing in mini PCs and motherboards, ECS has announced the launch of the new addition to its catalog, the new ECS Liva Plus ZE, a mini PC that stands out for incorporating two RS232 ports to make it compatible with old and industrial devices, and equipped of a high power in small format to be able to supply any type of need that the user may have.

Z390 Express Socket LGA1151 manufactured by SuperMicro has been spotted on SiSoft Sandra benchmark. It is surprising to find indications of this chipset since its launch is scheduled for the second half of 2018, which indicates that Intel may be trying to accelerate its launch. According to the manufacturer’s official launch schedule, the Z390 Express chipset should be launched in the second half of next year, and would come after the H370 Express, B360 Express and H310 Express chipset that will arrive in the first half of 2018. This is the reason why it is strange to see already signs that there are already motherboards with the Z390 chipset, and not only because it seems too early because we should have seen something from the others before, since they will be launched to the market beforehand. 

The Intel Z390 Express chipset adds some improvements to the existing platform (Z370) but nothing particularly substantial. Things like a programmable quad-core DSP audio processor or the SoundWire audio interface are fine, but they can not be considered important. There are other things that do have something more important, such as the integrated USB 3.1 controller, the WLAN controller 802.11ac integrated – yes, with an external PHY, SDIO controller for card readers also integrated, or compatibility with the new controller Thunderbolt 3.0 “Titan Ridge”. They are improvements to the platform that have more or less weight, but as we said nothing that has a real weight on the platform.

We’ll see anyway what happens in the end. Since the manufacturer of the plate is SuperMicro, a manufacturer that usually focuses on OEM and industrial systems rather than the general public, it is quite possible that it was simply an oversight by an Intel engineer who was doing the first tests and forgot to uncheck the option to upload the benchmark result directly to the database after the test.

First HP laptop with Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and windows 10 has been spotted on popular benchmark website, geekbench that has given us some information on its specifications. Scheduled to be launched at the end of 2017, this HP 12 inch laptop is a convertible laptop with touchscreen display that can be used as slate tablet by folding the screen. Specifications include Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor and it runs Windows 10S / Windows 10 32 bit OS. Processor’s clock speed is said to be between 1.9-2.2GHz backed by 4GB / 8GB RAM so the performance is not going to win any awards.

However, the price is going to be much cheaper than its Intel counterparts. Plus, the battery life is going to be much more than any other Intel processor. We are not saying there are no Intel-powered laptops with long battery life but they are no way as efficient as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835.

That being said, if you are planning to use your laptop for heavy duty tasks like Auto CAD or Solidworks or gaming, do not even think of buying a laptop with ARM processor like Qualcomm because they simple do not have enough power to run 3D modeling applications smoothly.