Shuttle's been a player in the small form factor (SFF) space ever since our cave dwelling ancestors first discovered the PC, which back then was made out of stone and dinosaur bones (this is why we don't teach history, folks). Fast forward to today and Shuttle is still making SFF systems, its latest creation the DS57U, the company's first mini barebones PC with a built-in Broadwell processor.
More specifically, it's rocking an Intel Celeron 3205U dual-core CPU clocked at 1.5GHz. The chip is built on a 14nm manufacturing process and sips less than 15W, allowing for Shuttle to go with a passive cooling scheme. There's no fan to be found in the DS57U, which not only makes it quiet, but also less prone to sucking in dust, Shuttle says. Nevertheless, we still advise popping it open every so often to clear it of any debris that might have floated inside.
That shouldn't be a problem -- there are two screws on both covers of the case. Just remove them and you have easy access to the DS57U's guts. Inside you'll find space for a 2.5-inch drive, two SO-DIMM sockets that support up to 16GB of DDR3L memory, and two mini-PCI Express slots, one of which is already occupied with a half-size WLAN module.
Other features include a pair of USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, two RS-232 interfaces for connecting peripheral devices, DisplayPort, HDMI, audio ports, memory card reader, and included VESA mount.
The DS57U is currently available in Europe for 192 euros (~$218 in U.S. currency). No word on when Shuttle plans to offer the system in the U.S.
Plugin allows developers to add virtual hands to games
Epic and Leap Motion have teamed up to create and launch an official Windows plugin for Unreal Engine 4 that's supposed to make it easy for developers to integrate virtual hands into their games. The plugin is available in the Unreal Engine 4.7 source code, which they can download from Unreal's GitHub repository to immediately start building and creating a custom VR experience.
The plugin will, which will also be bundled with future Unreal binary tool releases, works by mapping Leap Motion input to virtual hand meshes. These can then collide and interact with other objects that appear in the game. You can already view it in action, as Cherry Pie Games was the first to use the plugin in its Hollow game.
Check it out:
Leap Motion is billing the plugin as an "introductory release" that will evolve over the coming weeks and months. In the meantime, developers who are interested and planning to attend the 2015 Game Developers Conference (GDC) next will have access to a discout code available at the Unreal Engine booth.
As for Unreal's GitHub respository, you can find that here.
AMD has high hopes for its energy-efficient Carrizo System-on-Chip (SoC) for laptops and low power desktops. The Sunnyvale Chip designer wants you to be optimistic as well, and so it shared several details about Carrizo's architecture at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), saying that Carrizzo will deliver a bunch of advanced power management technologies while also delivering substantial performance by way of new Excavator x86 CPU cores and a new generation of Radeon GPU cores.
On the technical side, Carrizo will feature 29 percent more transistors (3.1 billion total) in nearly the same die size as its predecessor, Kaveri. AMD also says its Excavator x86 cores provide an uplift in instructions per clock at 40 percent less power, hence the claim that Carrizo will offer double digit percentage increases in both performance and battery life.
The new GPU cores will have a dedicated power supply. In addition, there's a dedicated on-chip H.265 video decode for true 4K resolution support. And for the first time ever on a high performance AMD APU, there will be an integrated Southbridge, the company said.
AMD had to be a bit creative to cram several new technologies into Carrizo. As the company explains, microprocessor designs typically supply excess voltage -- up to 10 to 15 percent -- to account for transient drops in voltage known as droop. To avoid having to go that route, AMD said it developed a number of technologies to optimize voltage. In addition, Carrizo compares the average voltage to droops on the order of nanoseconds,
"Since the frequency adjustments are done at the nanosecond level, there's almost no compromise in computing performance, while power is cut by up to 10 percent on the GPU and up to 19 percent on the CPU," AMD said.
Carrizo will also be HSA 1.0 compliant, which translates into the GPU being able to perform compute tasks.
Quick, hide your small form factor (SFF) PC and any NUC-like devices you might have hanging around, we wouldn't want any hurt feelings. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum of all these pint-sized PCs that are suddenly vogue is Boxx's new Apexx 5, "the world's most advanced professional workstation." A bold claim for sure, and one the company attempts to back up by cramming its system full of hardware, including five dual-slot GPUs.
Oh, but that's not all. In addition to five GPUs, the liquid cooled Apexx 5 can accommodate 36 cores and 72 threads of processing power. The chassis has a dozen slots and supports 7 total expansion cards with simultaneous utilization of four full x16 PCI-E 3.0 expansion slots, PCI-E 2.0 x8 (x4 electrical), PCI-E 3.0 x16 (x8 electrical), and PCI-E x8 (x8 electrical).
A standard configuration comes with 32GB of DDR4-2133 RAM and a 240GB SSD, though the Apexx 5 supports up to 512GB of RAM and up to eight mechanical hard drives or 16 SSDs.
"We understand that Apexx 5 addresses a specific market segment and is obviously not for everyone," says Chris Morley, Boxx Sr. Product Marketing Manager. "But if a creative professional or organization requires this level of power and performance for perfecting their ideas, they can't get it from Dell, HP, and Lenovo. With APEXX 5, we're offering configurations once considered impossible, and that's what it means to be a true solution provider."
Because it's fun to dream big, I went and configured a setup that tallied $47,313 -- it consisted of dual Xeon E5-2699v3 processors, 256GB of DDR4-2133 ECC RAM (the highest the configuration tool currently allows), four Nvidia K6000 with Sync, dual 800GB SSDs, and a few other odds and ends. With the right drivers, I suspect it could run Crysis.
Where barebones and Broadwell meet
Plugin allows developers to add virtual hands to games
Carrizo's coming to town
Packed to the gills with hardware
