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Kamis, 11 April 2019

Acer’s new, wood-patterned ConceptD PC looks like a humidifier - The Verge

Acer announced two desktops in its new ConceptD lineup, a series that’s targeted toward professional creators who have a lot of money and are in need of a lot of power and particularly, a pre-built Windows 10 PC. Compared to most Acer products, one of these desktops features a wood-patterned panel on its top.

Starting off with the ConceptD 500 desktop pictured above, it’s a hulking tower that’s powered by a 9th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, an Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000 graphics card, and support for up to 64GB of DDR4 RAM. Compared to most Acer products, this model has a somewhat contentious design with a wood-patterned panel on its top. I think that it looks like a humidifier, though others in the office think it looks more like an ice box or a diffuser. Looking at the specs, there’s no doubt that this machine won’t be capable in the hands of creators, but Acer also touts that it can keep quiet under pressure with fans that reach a peak of 40db. This desktop starts at $1,699 and will be available in June 2019.

The ConceptD 900 is the high-end desktop offering in Acer’s new series, and it basically treads on supercomputer status — both in terms of its specs and its $19,999 price tag. In terms of what that gets you, it includes dual Intel Xeon Gold processors with 40 cores, Nvidia’s Quadro RTX 6000 GPU, and supports up to 192GB of RAM. This option takes the prize when it comes to performance, though it arrives in a much more subdued black case that looks more in line with Acer’s consumer-grade products. But again, for $20K, Acer’s just showing off with this one.

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2019-04-11 17:20:00Z
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Acer ConceptD 9 laptop hands-on: A bombastic attempt to stand out - Engadget

Acer has been busy. It unveiled a whole new brand of computers at its global press conference today, showing off not just a trio of laptops and a pair of desktops, but three monitors and a new VR headset as well. That's in addition to the slew of gaming laptops and displays it also launched here. The new series, called ConceptD, is the result of a collaboration with IF Design and focuses on four principles: accurate color reproduction, powerful performance, silent fans and attractive design.

Gallery: Acer ConceptD 9 laptop hands-on | 17 Photos

The company showed off three new ConceptD notebooks, which it's also calling "creator laptops" -- the ConceptD 9, ConceptD 7 and ConceptD 5. The names are confusing to me, since they don't actually reference the size of the machines or really mean anything at all. Of the trio, the 17.3-inch 9 is the most eye-catching. It has an "Ezel Aero hinge" so you can pull the screen closer to you over the keyboard. Acer's used this mechanism before, but it's still an unusual feature and nice to see.

For a device that's the result of a partnership with a design agency, the ConceptD 9 doesn't actually look pretty. It's clunky, and I could fit two and a half fingers in the display's thick bezels. The hinge that holds up the screen is also unwieldy, and overall the ConceptD 9 isn't attractive -- just odd-looking.

The good news is, the other two notebooks in the ConceptD family are significantly prettier. The ConceptD 5, in particular, is the thinnest and lightest of the trio and its sharp profile and white finish lend it a modern aesthetic. The ConceptD 7 doesn't look shabby either, with the same matte white finish and cut-off corners giving it a unique hexagonal shape. Both these laptops have 15.4-inch UHD matte screens were so vibrant they looked like they had the Windows wallpaper directly painted onto their panels.

Gallery: Acer ConceptD 5 and ConceptD 7 hands-on | 12 Photos

All three ConceptD laptops are Pantone validated, support 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color gamut and have DetalE color accuracy ratings of less than two. In the ConceptD 9's case, the DeltaE number is actually less than one (numbers closer to zero are better). What this means is that these displays are capable of reproducing a large variety of colors and do so accurately, which is ideal for graphic designers and photo editors who need their work to look realistic. I did find the ConceptD 9's screen vibrant and colorful, but even at maximum brightness, the 400-nit panel was hard to see under the harsh lights at the demo area.

I did enjoy sketching some graffiti-esque scrawls on the ConceptD 9 with its companion Wacom EMR Pen -- the stylus was responsive and I easily dragged it across the screen for meandering lines and light shading. None of my testing during our hands-on was taxing enough to even strain the ConceptD 9's ninth-generation Intel Core i7 CPU, but for the light browsing and drawing I did, the machine ran smoothly. You can configure it with up to a ninth-gen Intel Core i9 CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 card, which should make for extremely powerful performance.

The ConceptD 7 is based on NVIDIA's Max-Q design and can go up to a GeForce RTX 2060 card, while the ConceptD 5 only offers AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL for graphics. The latter also only goes up to an Intel eighth-generation Core i7 CPU, so don't expect as much muscle in that thin and light rig.

Acer ConceptD 9

I was perplexed by the ConceptD 9's keyboard and trackpad. The keys had decent travel but they had a strange squishy response that made them feel sticky. The trackpad, meanwhile, didn't recognize any of my two-finger gestures when I tried to pinch and zoom on a sketch. I was also slightly disoriented by the fact that the trackpad was to the right of the keyboard where a numpad would typically lie. My fingers frequently wandered below the spacebar where I normally expect a trackpad to be. This placement issue is something I expect is easy enough to get used to over time, but the keys and lack of multi-finger gesture support is more disturbing. A nearby Acer rep told me that the units we were testing were early samples, so hopefully this is something that gets fixed before the laptops go on sale.

The ConceptD 5 and 7 will be available later this month, starting at $1,699 and $2,299 respectively, while the ConceptD 9 will cost from $4,999 when it goes on sale in June. As expected, these aren't cheap rigs, but it's encouraging to see a company try to make super powerful laptops that look attractive. ConceptD is a promising effort, but until we can test these laptops I can't tell if Acer's play for cash-rich creators will be successful. For now, I can only shake my head in frustration at the confusing names.

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https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/11/acer-conceptd-9-rtx-2080-hands-on/

2019-04-11 19:12:49Z
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Samsung's nearly $2,000 Galaxy Fold reservations start this Friday, S10 5G arrives in May - USA TODAY

Eli Blumenthal USA TODAY

Published 1:52 PM EDT Apr 11, 2019

Ready to drop nearly $2,000 for Samsung's first foldable? It's almost time to grab your wallet.

Starting Friday, Samsung will be sending out invitations to those who have signed up on its website expressing interest in the Fold. After receiving the invitations, those interested in purchasing one of the foldable phones will be able to reserve their place in a virtual line, granting them the ability to be one of the first to buy the phone/tablet hybrid.

Samsung will not be making the phone available for preorder Friday, that will be on April 15. Those who do want to preorder will need to sign up in advance for one of these invitations, however, as the supply of the phones will be limited.

The Galaxy Fold, which will be available for $1,980 for a 4G LTE version with 512GB of storage, will be available on April 26. AT&T and T-Mobile will both carry the 4G LTE model and those are the only two options available for preorder.

There is no unlocked option that would work on Verizon and Sprint.

Samsung will also have a 5G version of the Fold, though its exact pricing and release are also currently unknown.

Forget a $2,000 phone: $1,000 for a smartphone? How about $100?

More Galaxy Fold: As Galaxy S turns 10, Samsung looks to future with first foldable phone

Galaxy S10+ review: Samsung shows it knows how to build a great phone

Speaking of 5G, in addition to announcing the update on the Fold's availability, Samsung additionally confirmed that the 5G version of the Galaxy S10 will be available in May.

The previously announced larger version of the Galaxy S10+ features a 6.7-inch display, four rear cameras and two front cameras as well as the latest Galaxy S10 features including a fingerprint sensor underneath its display and Wireless PowerShare for wirelessly charging other devices from the phone.

All four major carriers have announced they will carry the S10 5G, though Verizon will be the first to get the device.

It is currently not known how much the phone will cost or when exactly it will be released. Noted leaker Evan Blass, however, recently tweeted that Verizon will sell the phone on May 16.

Follow Eli Blumenthal on Twitter @eliblumenthal

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2019/04/11/samsung-galaxy-fold-pre-sale-starts-tomorrow-s-10-5-g-arrives-may/3434819002/

2019-04-11 16:43:00Z
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Some GeForce GTX graphics cards now support ray tracing - TechRadar

Nvidia has released a new set of drivers that allow owners of GTX graphics cards to enjoy ray tracing with games that support these added visual bells and whistles.

Previously, this was exclusively the domain of RTX cards, but in March, Nvidia promised us broader support for ray tracing to include GTX cards, and not just Turing models (like the GTX 1660) but previous-generation 10-series cards.

Indeed, the new 425.31 GeForce Game Ready Drivers support ray tracing via DirectX Raytracing (DXR) on the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti and GTX 1660, along with the GTX 1080 Ti, GTX 1080, GTX 1070 Ti, GTX 1070, and GTX 1060 (6GB).

The Titan X and Titan Xp are also supported.

Naturally, you have to bear in mind that the performance hit on GTX cards may be a tough blow to take, given that they don’t have the fancy on-board tech and dedicated RT cores that really help with rendering scenes with ray tracing (which is an intensive task even for an RTX GPU, after all).

When it first revealed this capability was coming to GTX graphics cards, Nvidia made it clear that we should only expect basic ray tracing effects and a low ray count, and that these GPUs wouldn’t be able to handle anything complex.

And with the release of these new drivers, Nvidia has provided some handy benchmarks to give us an idea of the sort of ray tracing performance we can expect from GTX models.

It’s no real surprise that Metro Exodus, a very taxing title, will only limp along to the tune of 16.4 frames per second (fps) on a GTX 1080 Ti at 1440p resolution with ray tracing set to ‘ultra’ details. Whereas with DLSS, the RTX 2080 Ti will hit a smooth 65.7 fps, and indeed the RTX 2080 manages 52.7fps. (DLSS helps to boost frame rates, as well as image quality, and isn't one of the additional benefits coming to the GTX GPUs).

Shadow of the Tomb Raider, also at 1440p but with ‘high’ details, saw the GTX 1080 Ti rack up 34fps, which is at least just about palatable – but the RTX 2080 Ti hit 84fps, and the RTX 2080 achieved 64 fps (again, with the RTX models using DLSS).

Turing GTX?

What about the GTX 1660 Ti? That managed 8.5fps in Metro Exodus and 24fps in Tomb Raider – the latter almost matching the GTX 1080’s 25fps – but overall, these figures will hardly bowl you over. However, remember that these benchmark tests were running ultra and high DXR, and as we already mentioned, Nvidia did tell us that we should only expect basic effects, ie low DXR.

Oddly, though, Nvidia didn’t provide any benchmarks for low settings, but it did include results for Battlefield V running medium DXR. Here, at 1440p resolution, the GTX 1080 Ti hit a more impressive 50.6 fps, with the GTX 1660 Ti on 36.8fps, naturally considerably behind the RTX cards like the vanilla 2080 which managed 72.8 fps (with DLSS).

Dropping down to Full HD with medium settings, the GTX 1080 Ti managed 64.1 fps, and the GTX 1080 recorded 53.1fps, with the GTX 1660 Ti not far behind that on 49.8fps. So dropping to low might get you something a little smoother on the more demanding ray tracing games.

All in all, given the benchmarks shown, it feels a little like Nvidia is trying to stress the power of RTX cards here, as opposed to the ability for GTX cards to capably manage some kind of decent ray tracing performance.

Nvidia has also pushed out three tech demos that show off ray tracing tech further: Atomic Heart, Justice, and Reflections, the latter of which was created by Epic Games.

The new 425.31 drivers also provide optimizations for Anno 1800, and fixes for some game crashing bugs, including random crashes in ARK: Survival Evolved with GeForce RTX 20-series graphics cards.

Via Windows Central

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https://www.techradar.com/news/some-geforce-gtx-graphics-cards-now-support-ray-tracing

2019-04-11 16:02:00Z
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Samsung's foldable smartphone will be available for preorder Monday, but only for people who sign up early — here's how to get in line - CNBC

Samsung said Thursday that people who sign up to learn more about its new foldable phone on Friday will be able to order it next week, ahead of the April 26 release date.

Those who sign up on Samsung.com for information about the Galaxy Fold on Friday are eligible to preorder it on Monday, the company said. It's the best bet for people to get the next-generation phone on release day.

The Galaxy Fold was announced in February and will cost $1,980. It is one of the first foldable phones to come to market and is a milestone in mobile technology, since it allows the device to function a bit like a traditional smartphone and a tablet when it's unfolded.

Consumers have gravitated away from expensive devices that don't offer big hardware changes over what they already own. While the mass market may not jump to buy a $1,980 phone, the Galaxy Fold is a good example of where technology is heading and how device makers may change phones to make them more attractive to buyers who haven't found enough must-have features to upgrade.

It's a form factor that's also being offered by Huawei through its Mate X device, which was also announced in February. Since Samsung provides displays to other manufacturers like Apple, it is plausible that other device makers will eventually adopt this form factor, and at lower prices as the technology matures.

Samsung also said it will launch the Galaxy S10 5G, a special version of the Galaxy S10 that works on new 5G networks, beginning in May. Preorders for that phone will also begin "soon," the company said. Verizon has the exclusive on the Galaxy S10 5G until later in the second half of the year, when AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile will also begin selling the Galaxy S10 5G. However, Verizon's 5G network is extremely limited right now.

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2019-04-11 14:26:29Z
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Samsung's Galaxy Fold and Galaxy S10 5G go up for pre-order tomorrow - Engadget

There's not much new to say about the Galaxy Fold at this point. It's a phone. That folds. It's expensive. And it may or may not have a significant design flaw, depending on how you look at it. The only remaining question was: When can people buy one? The answer is tomorrow. Samsung just issued a brief saying that customers in the US can pre-order the Fold starting Friday. The 5G version of the Galaxy S10 will open for pre-orders at the same time. We already knew that the Fold would go on sale in the US on April 26th, and a press release from T-Mobile, for one, confirms that's still true. In its statement, Samsung added that the Galaxy S10 5G will ship here in the states sometime in May.

When we say expensive, by the way, we're talking $1,980 for the Fold. As a refresher, the device has a 4.6-inch AMOLED display on the outside, along with a flexible 7.3-inch AMOLED screen when the device is unfolded. You're also getting six cameras and Samsung's Wireless Powershare technology for wirelessly charging other devices. Not bad, but then again: This is an experimental first-generation device that not even us reviewers have gotten to play with.

As for the 5G Galaxy S10, Samsung somehow still hasn't mentioned a price, which is weird given the company is apparently hoping people will buy one as soon as tomorrow. For now, think of it as a higher-spec Galaxy S10, with a larger battery and a more advanced camera setup. Keeping in mind that the S10 itself starts at $900, that should at least put us in the correct ballpark.

All products recommended by Engadget were selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company, Verizon Media. If you buy something through one of our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

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2019-04-11 14:13:13Z
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NVIDIA Releases DirectX Raytracing Driver for GTX Cards; Posts Trio of DXR Demos - AnandTech

Last month at GDC 2019, NVIDIA revealed that they would finally be enabling public support for DirectX Raytracing on non-RTX cards. Long baked into the DXR specification itself – which is designed encourage ray tracing hardware development while also allowing it to be implemented via traditional compute shaders – the addition of DXR support in cards without hardware support for it is a small but important step in the deployment of the API and its underlying technology. At the time of their announcement, NVIDIA announced that this driver would be released in April, and now this morning, NVIDIA is releasing the new driver.

As we covered in last month’s initial announcement of the driver, this has been something of a long time coming for NVIDIA. The initial development of DXR and the first DXR demos (including the Star Wars Reflections demo) were all handled on cards without hardware RT acceleration; in particular NVIDIA Volta-based video cards. Microsoft used their own fallback layer for a time, but for the public release it was going to be up to GPU manufacturers to provide support, including their own fallback layer. So we have been expecting the release of this driver in some form for quite some time.

Of course, the elephant in the room in enabling DXR on cards without RT hardware is what it will do for performance – or perhaps the lack thereof. High-quality RT features already bog down NVIDIA’s best RTX cards that do have the hardware for the task, never mind their non-RTX cards, which are all either older (GeForce 10 series) or lower-tier (GeForce 16 series) than the flagship GeForce 20 series cards. This actually has NVIDIA a bit worried – they don’t want someone with a GTX 1060 turning on Ultra mode in Battlefield V and wondering why it’s taking seconds per frame – so the company has been on a campaign both at GDC and ahead of the driver’s launch to better explain the different types of common RT effects, and why some RT effects are more expensive than others.

The long and short of it being that simple reflections and shadows can be had without terrible performance drops on cards that lack RT hardware, however the more rays an effect requires, the worse the performance hit gets (or perhaps, the better an RTX card would look). So particularly impressive effects like RT global illumination and accurate ambient occlusion are out, however cheap reflections (which are always a crowd pleaser) are more attainable.

This all varies with the game and the settings used, of course. NVIDIA’s been working with partners to improve their DXR effect implementations – an effort that’s actually been fairly successful over the last half-year, going by some of the earliest games – but it’s still a matter of tradeoffs depending on the game and video card used. Much to my own surprise however, NVIDIA says that they aren’t expecting to see game developers release patches to take into account DXR support on cards without RT hardware; this of course isn’t required since DXR abstracts away the hardware difference, however it’s up to developers to account for the performance difference. In this case, it sounds like game devs are satisfied that they’ve provided enough DXR quality settings that users will be able to dial things down for slower cards. But as always, the proof is in the results, which everyone will be able to see first-hand soon enough.

Ahead of this driver release, NVIDIA has put out some of their own performance numbers. And while they’re harmless enough, they are all done at 1440p with everything cranked up to Ultra quality, so they do present a sort of worst case scenario for cards without RT hardware. The RT quality settings GTX card owners will want to use will be much lower than what NVIDIA does here.

As a reminder, while NVIDIA’s DXR fallback layer is meant to target Pascal and Turing cards that lack RT hardware, not all of these cards are supported. Specifically, the low-end Pascal family isn’t included, so support starts with the GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, as well as NVIDIA’s (thus far) two GTX 16 series cards, the GTX 1660 and GTX 1660 Ti.

Overall the new driver is being released this morning at the same time as this news post goes up – 9am ET. And while NVIDIA hasn’t confirmed the driver build number or given the press an advanced look at the driver, this driver should be the first public driver in NVIDIA’s new Release 430(?) driver branch. In which case there’s going to be a lot more going on with this driver than just adding DXR support for more cards; NVIDIA’s support schedule calls for Mobile Kepler to be moved to legacy status this month, so I’m expecting that this will be the first driver to omit support for those parts. New driver branches are some of the most interesting driver releases from NVIDIA since these are normally the break points where they introduce new features under the hood, so I’m eager to see what they have been up to since R415/R418 was first released back in October.

Gallery: GeForce GTX DXR Driver Press Deck

DXR Tech Demo Releases: Reflections, Justice, and Atomic Heart

Along with today’s driver release, NVIDIA and its partners are also releasing a trio of previously announced/demonstrated DXR tech demos. These include the Star Wars Reflections demo, Justice, and Atomic Heart.

These demos have been screened extensively by NVIDIA, Epic, and others, so admittedly there’s nothing new to see that you wouldn’t have already seen in their respective YouTube videos. However as an aficionado for proper tech demo public binary releases – something that’s become increasingly rare these days (Tim, I need Troll!) – it’s great to see these demos finally released to the public. After all, seeing is believing; and seeing something rendered in real time is a lot more interesting than seeing a recoded video of it.

Anyhow, all three demos are going to be released through NVIDIA today. What I’m being told is that Reflections and Justice will be hosted directly by NVIDIA, whereas Atomic Heart will be hosted off-site, for anyone keeping the score. For NVIDIA of course it’s in their own best interests to put their best foot forward with RT, and to have something a bit more curated/forward-looking than the current crop of games; though I don’t imagine it hurts either that these demos should bring any GTX card to its knees rather quickly.

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https://www.anandtech.com/show/14203/nvidia-releases-dxr-driver-for-gtx-cards

2019-04-11 13:35:38Z
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