Tech News

• TerraMaster F4-424 Pro NAS Review @ Guru3D

  Published: Sunday, April 14, 2024 | By: Dennis

  I was an early adopter when it came to Network Storage Solutions and have been running one or two since before, I started ninjalane.com.  Since then, the purpose of my servers has changed over the years, one thing remained the same, I store my stuff on them so I can access the files remotely, or when I jump on a review system to do some testing.  

  A quality NAS can do the same thing, requires less technical knowledge and can be quite affordable when compared to common cloud solutions.

  

  Today, we will review, analyze and test the TerraMaster F4-424 Pro four-bay NAS. At the heart of this NAS, you will find an Intel Core i3 N300 8-core processor, 32GB RAM, and two 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet connections. Next to four HDD/SSD slots, there's also space for two NVMe M2 SSDs.

  I do like how this NAS comes with NVMe slots, makes for extremely fast application storage while still offering long term storage options on larger HDDs.

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• Funky Kit Review - Kingston Fury Renegade RGB 96GB DDR5-6400 CL32 Memory Kit

  Published: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 | By: Dennis

  It is great to see Kingston pushing out performance memory kits again.  When HyperX was removed from the company there was a major void in the market and a huge unknown if Kingston was even allowed to complete in the same market.  (I suspect some sort of non-compete was agreed on, which has since expired)

  

  If you are searching for RAM that has it all without any compromises, then the Kingston Renegade RGB 96GB DDR5-6400 CL32 is the RAM for you. It combines excellent performance, stability, compatibility, the best RGB illumination on the market, and exceptional overclocking potential. At the same time, it is available at the highest capacity for those who not only play games, but also work professionally.

  I'm not sure I like the heatspreader design but the light bar is rather unique.

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• Creative Pebble X Plus @ TechPowerUp

  Published: Tuesday, March 26, 2024 | By: Dennis

  I have noticed a stark decline in desktop PC speaker options for modern computers.  There was a time when buying the latest Logitech 5.1 surround sound speaker system was THE way to go even if you couldn't use the two rear speakers.  

  However, it seems that most consumers have opted for Headphones and given the prevalence of extremely good USB Headphone DAC's you can get full surround sound without all the hassle. 

  Personally, I do both,.  I have a dedicated desktop sound system AND a set of headphones I use for gaming and am very particular that BOTH systems sound the same meaning that a quality set of desktop speakers is a must.

  

  The Creative Pebble X Plus is the new flagship 2.1 speaker system in the famous Pebble lineup. The speaker drivers have been enlarged, the RGB effects are more elaborate than ever, and you also get a compact subwoofer for added low-frequency rumble.

  I'm not sure what to think of the review description but, if a subwoofer only gives them a rumble then, it has to be really crappy.  The proper term for good bass is "boom".

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• Thermaltake Launches Twelve Exclusive LCGS Reactor Gaming Desktops at Best Buy

  Published: Thursday, March 21, 2024 | By: Dennis

  Introducing High-Performance Gaming PCs with NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 40™ Super Series, Intel® Core™ i9, and The Tower 300 Micro Tower Chassis in Snow, Black, Hydrangea Blue, and Turquoise

  WALNUT, CALIFORNIA, March 19th, 2024 - Thermaltake USA, the leading PC Case, Cooling, Power, and memory solutions, proudly announces the launch of twelve innovative models in the LCGS (Liquid Cooled Gaming System) Reactor series, available exclusively at Best Buy. This launch marks a significant milestone for Thermaltake, introducing the next generation of gaming PCs, meticulously designed with the newly unveiled The Tower 300 Micro Tower Chassis. These gaming powerhouses are equipped with the latest high-performance components, including the cutting-edge Intel® Core™ 14th Gen i9/i7 processors, NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 40 Super Series/4090 graphics cards, 32GB of DDR5 5600MTs memory, and expansive 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD storage. 

  

  Each system in the LCGS Reactor series boasts a 360mm radiator liquid cooling solution, ensuring exceptional cooling performance and stability during intense gaming sessions. The addition of vibrant color options such as Snow, Black, Hydrangea Blue, and Turquoise adds a personalized touch to these systems, catering to gamers' and content creators' diverse tastes and styles. Tailored for the most demanding gamers and creative professionals, these pre-built gaming desktop PCs are assembled and rigorously tested by Thermaltake's skilled engineers in the USA, ensuring unparalleled build quality and reliability.

  "Through our strategic partnership with Best Buy, we're excited to present the twelve cutting-edge LCGS Reactor gaming desktops, equipped with the formidable RTX™ 40 Super Series and 4090 graphics cards. Our collaboration is designed to directly engage the gaming community, providing them with top-tier gaming experiences. These systems, featuring the sleek Tower 300 Micro Tower Chassis and powered by Intel®'s latest 14th Gen i9/i7 CPUs, epitomize our commitment to quality and performance. Built and meticulously tested by our dedicated team in the USA, this launch sets a new standard in gaming excellence. We look forward to seeing gamers push the limits with our LCGS systems." Michael Guo, Vice President of Thermaltake USA.

  The Tower 300 Micro Tower Chassis: Striking the Ideal Balance of Performance, Thermals, Space, and Ease of Use 

  The Tower 300 Micro Tower Chassis embodies a perfect synergy of aesthetic elegance and functional prowess, presenting a modern design that captivates and performs. Manufactured with high-quality materials, this chassis is built to last, ensuring durability while enhancing performance through its outstanding cooling capabilities. Its design promotes exceptional airflow, supporting multiple cooling fans and liquid cooling radiators to accommodate the rigorous demands of high-performance gaming systems requiring efficient thermal management.

  Emphasizing user convenience, The Tower 300 features a modular architecture that simplifies customization and upgrades. It has been thoughtfully designed to fit a variety of motherboard sizes, including Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX, alongside multiple graphics cards, ensuring versatility for building a range of powerful systems. Innovations such as tool-less installation and comprehensive cable management refine the building experience, eliminating complications and keeping interiors tidy and airflow unobstructed.

  With its spacious layout and compatibility with an extensive array of components, The Tower 300 Micro Tower Chassis is the foundation of choice for enthusiasts seeking to create a powerful, visually striking, and neatly organized PC setup. It achieves the optimal balance between performance, cooling efficiency, and ease of assembly.

  LCGS Reactor Series are Teamed with  NVIDIA®GeForce® RTX™ 40 Super Series GPUs

  The twelve new LCGS Reactor series are equipped with NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX™ 4090, 4080 Super, and 4070 Ti Super graphics cards. These cutting-edge components are specifically chosen to deliver unparalleled gaming performance, ensuring smooth and stable gameplay even with the most graphically demanding titles. 

  The GeForce® RTX™ 40 Super Series graphics cards, including the 4080 Super, 4070 Ti Super, and 4090 GPU, represent a significant leap forward in graphics card technology. Built on the latest Ada Lovelace architecture, these GPUs deliver unrivaled performance and power efficiency, making them ideal for gaming enthusiasts and professionals. The RTX™ 4080 Super substantially increases CUDA and tensor cores compared to its predecessor, providing unparalleled gaming performance and AI capabilities.

  Meanwhile, the 4070 Ti Super boasts enhanced ray tracing and DLSS technology, delivering stunning visuals and smooth gaming experiences. Finally, the flagship 4090 GPU pushes the boundaries of gaming graphics with its massive memory bandwidth and advanced features, ensuring a truly immersive gaming experience. With the GeForce RTX™ 40 Super Series graphics cards, gamers can expect nothing short of exceptional performance and realism in their favorite titles.

  Thermaltake's twelve newly launched LCGS Reactor pre-built gaming desktop PCs, now available in an elegant array of Snow, Black, Hydrangea Blue, and Turquoise for the PC chassis, are meticulously tailored for professional gamers and visual content creators. Each system comes with a one-year parts and labor warranty, offering reliability and peace of mind to its users. Assembled and hand-tested by Thermaltake USA's dedicated local engineers, these gaming PCs meet the highest quality standards. Exclusively available at Best Buy, these systems, with their unparalleled performance and innovative features, cater to gamers seeking the ultimate gaming experience while allowing for personal expression through the choice of chassis color.

  Learn more about Thermaltake LCGS Gaming PC: https://thermaltakeusa.com/collections/gaming-pc 

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• Thermaltake Reveals the Dr. Power III, a Power Tester Compatible with the Latest 12+4pin Connector

  Published: Thursday, March 21, 2024 | By: Dennis

  Taipei, Taiwan-March 21^st, 2024-Thermaltake, a leading PC DIY brand for premium hardware solutions, is excited to launch the Dr. Power III, an enhanced portable power tester that supports the latest ATX12V v3.1 standard. This tester simplifies the process of checking the operational status of different PSU connectors. Compared to its predecessor, the Dr. Power III additionally supports a 12+4pin connector, enabling it to test the next-gen power supplies which are designed for high power consumption GPU.

  

  Whether pre-build checks or troubleshooting existing setups, the Dr. Power III can offer straightforward voltage and PG value detection. To initiate testing, easily use cables to attach connectors between the power supply and the Dr. Power III, press the check button, and the test will begin. The Dr. Power III supports various connectors, including the latest 12+4pin, 24pin, PCIe 6/8pin, SATA, CPU 4/8pin, and peripheral connectors. It is compatible with all contemporary ATX PSU, Dr. Power III meticulously detects the SENSE0/SENSE1 sideband signals of the latest PCIe 12+4pin connector, distinguishing power levels of 150W, 300W, 450W, and 600W.

  The output voltages will be shown respectively on the real-time LCD display, ensuring the information can be read clearly and immediately. While the built-in diagnostic system of the Dr. Power III detects issues of low-voltage, high-voltage, no-voltage, and PG alarm systems, it alerts users with a red LCD backlight and a “beep” sound; if the test proceeds without any issues, the LCD backlight will stay white, allowing users to assess instant feedback effortlessly. The Dr. Power III incorporates both manual and automatic testing modes, so users can choose the approach that fits their needs best. Moreover, the Dr. Power III features a 3-year warranty, guaranteeing reliability for users over an extended period.

  The Dr. Power III simplifies the process of diagnosing power supply issues. It comes with support for the latest 12+4pin connector, a real-time LCD for immediate feedback, and a user-friendly design, making it the perfect tool for testing your high-end power supplies.

  For more information on Thermaltake Dr. Power III, please visit:https://www.thermaltake.com/dr-power-iii.html

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• Lexar Introduces the SL500 Portable SSD, a High-Performance Drive in a Compact Form Factor

  Published: Wednesday, March 20, 2024 | By: Dennis

  Supports Apple Pro Res recording so users can shoot directly to the drive in up to 4K 60FPS with iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max

  San Jose, CA, USA, March 20th, 2024—Lexar, a leading global brand of flash memory solutions, is excited to introduce the SL500 Portable SSD, the latest addition to its portable SSD lineup. Featuring a super-slim, solid aluminum unibody construction that fits in the palm of your hand, the Lexar^® SL500 Portable SSD delivers exceptional 2000MB/s max read and 1800MB/s max write speeds¹ for maximized efficiency.

  

  Key Features

  • Incredible USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 performance of up to 2000MB/s read and 1800MB/s write² to transfer files fast
  • Thin, compact, and durable metal design
  • Supports Apple Pro Res recording – shoot directly to the drive in up to 4K 60FPS with iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max
  • Compatible with iPhone 15 series, mobile devices, laptops, cameras, game consoles, and more
  • Type-C data cable for plug-and-play convenience
  • Includes Lexar^® DataShield™ 256-bit AES encryption software to protect files³

  The SL500 Portable SSD is compatible with a wide range of devices. It is a slim and convenient companion for the iPhone 15 series, serving as a backup for photos, videos, and more. It pairs especially well with iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max devices. It supports Apple Pro Res Recording allowing users to shoot directly to the drive in 4K at up to 60FPS. Paired with Mac^® OSX 10.6+, Windows^® 11/10/7/8, or Android 4.4+, it offers substantial extra storage. It can also be used to store massive game files for PlayStation™4, PlayStation™4 Pro, PlayStation™5 with system software version 4.50 or higher (playing or storing PS4™ games; storing PS5™games), Xbox One, and Xbox™ Series™ X | S (playing or storing Xbox One™ games; storing Xbox Series X | S games). It also comes with Lexar DataShield™, a 256-bit AES encryption software to keep files secure³.

  “Whether users are looking to speed up their work or accelerate their creativity, this drive delivers the performance needed to take projects and pursuits to the next level,” said Joey Lopez, Director of Marketing. “It’s incredible read and write speeds translate into both faster downloads and faster transfers.”

  The SL500 Portable SSD is available in 2TB at $229.99 and will be available in a 4TB capacity at the end of Q2.

  Availability
  Amazon

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• NVIDIA Digital Human Technologies Bring AI Characters to Life

  Published: Wednesday, March 20, 2024 | By: Dennis

  Leading AI Developers Use Suite of NVIDIA Technologies to Create Lifelike Avatars and Dynamic Characters for Everything From Games to Healthcare, Financial Services and Retail Applications

  SAN JOSE, Calif., March 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NVIDIA announced today that leading AI application developers across a wide range of industries are using NVIDIA digital human technologies to create lifelike avatars for commercial applications and dynamic game characters. The results are on display at GTC, the global AI conference held this week in San Jose, Calif., and can be seen in technology demonstrations from Hippocratic AI, Inworld AI, UneeQ and more.

  NVIDIA Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE) for speech and animation, NVIDIA NeMo™ for language, and NVIDIA RTX™ for ray-traced rendering are the building blocks that enable developers to create digital humans capable of AI-powered natural language interactions, making conversations more realistic and engaging.

  “NVIDIA offers developers a world-class set of AI-powered technologies for digital human creation,” said John Spitzer, vice president of developer and performance technologies at NVIDIA. “These technologies may power the complex animations and conversational speech required to make digital interactions feel real.”

  World-Class Digital Human Technologies
  The digital human technologies suite includes language, speech, animation and graphics powered by AI:

  • NVIDIA ACE — technologies that help developers bring digital humans to life with facial animation powered by NVIDIA Audio2Face™ and speech powered by NVIDIA Riva automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS). ACE microservices are flexible in allowing models to run across cloud and PC depending on the local GPU capabilities to help ensure the user receives the best experience.
  • NVIDIA NeMo — an end-to-end platform that enables developers to deliver enterprise-ready generative AI models with precise data curation, cutting-edge customization, retrieval-augmented generation and accelerated performance.
  • NVIDIA RTX — a collection of rendering technologies, such as RTX Global Illumination (RTXGI) and DLSS 3.5, that enable real-time path tracing in games and applications.

  Building Blocks for Digital Humans and Virtual Assistants
  To showcase the new capabilities of its digital human technologies, NVIDIA worked across industries with leading developers, such as Hippocratic AI, Inworld AI and UneeQ, on a series of new demonstrations.

  Hippocratic AI has created a safety-focused, LLM-powered, task-specific Healthcare Agent. The agent calls patients on the phone, follows up on care coordination tasks, delivers preoperative instructions, performs post-discharge management and much more. For GTC, NVIDIA collaborated with Hippocratic AI to extend its solution to use NVIDIA ACE microservices, NVIDIA Audio2Face along with NVIDIA Animation graph and NVIDIA Omniverse™ Streamer Client to show the potential of a generative AI healthcare agent avatar.

  “Our digital assistants provide helpful, timely and accurate information to patients worldwide,” said Munjal Shah, cofounder and CEO of Hippocratic AI. “NVIDIA ACE technologies bring them to life with cutting-edge visuals and realistic animations that help better connect to patients.”

  UneeQ is an autonomous digital human platform specialized in creating AI-powered avatars for customer service and interactive applications. Its digital humans represent brands online, communicating with customers in real time to give them confidence in their purchases. UneeQ integrated the NVIDIA Audio2Face microservice into its platform and combined it with Synanim ML to create highly realistic avatars for a better customer experience and engagement.

  “UneeQ combines NVIDIA animation AI with our own Synanim ML synthetic animation technology to deliver real-time digital human interactions that are emotionally responsive and deliver dynamic experiences powered by conversational AI,” said Danny Tomsett, founder and CEO of UneeQ.

  Bringing Dynamic Non-Playable Characters to Games
  NVIDIA ACE is a suite of technologies designed to bring game characters to life. Covert Protocol is a new technology demonstration, created by Inworld AI in partnership with NVIDIA, that pushes the boundary of what character interactions in games can be. Inworld’s AI engine has integrated NVIDIA Riva for accurate speech-to-text and NVIDIA Audio2Face to deliver lifelike facial performances.

  Inworld’s AI engine takes a multimodal approach to the performance of non-playable characters (NPCs), bringing together cognition, perception and behavior systems for an immersive narrative with stunning RTX-rendered characters set in a beautifully crafted environment.

  “The combination of NVIDIA ACE microservices and the Inworld Engine enables developers to create digital characters that can drive dynamic narratives, opening new possibilities for how gamers can decipher, deduce and play,” said Kylan Gibbs, CEO of Inworld AI.

  Game publishers worldwide are evaluating how NVIDIA ACE can improve the gaming experience.

  Developers Across Healthcare, Gaming, Financial Services, Media & Entertainment and Retail Embrace ACE
  Top game and digital human developers are pioneering ways ACE and generative AI technologies can be used to transform interactions between players and NPCs in games and applications.

  Developers and platforms embracing ACE include Convai, Cyber Agent, Data Monsters, Deloitte, Hippocratic AI, IGOODI, Inworld AI, Media.Monks, miHoYo, NetEase Games, Perfect World, Openstream, OurPalm, Quantiphi, Rakuten Securities, Slalom, SoftServe, Tencent, Top Health Tech, Ubisoft, UneeQ and Unions Avatars.

  More information on NVIDIA ACE is available at https://developer.nvidia.com/ace. Platform developers can incorporate the full suite of digital human technologies or individual microservices into their product offerings.

  Developers can start their journey on NVIDIA ACE by applying for the early access program to get in-development AI models. To explore available models, developers can evaluate and access NVIDIA NIM, a set of easy-to-use microservices designed to accelerate the deployment of generative AI, for Riva and Audio2Face on ai.nvidia.com today.

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• NVIDIA Launches Blackwell-Powered DGX SuperPOD for Generative AI Supercomputing at Trillion-Parameter Scale

  Published: Wednesday, March 20, 2024 | By: Dennis
  • Scales to Tens of Thousands of Grace Blackwell Superchips Using Most Advanced NVIDIA Networking, NVIDIA Full-Stack AI Software, and Storage
  • Features up to 576 Blackwell GPUs Connected as One With NVIDIA NVLink
  • NVIDIA System Experts Speed Deployment for Immediate AI Infrastructure

  SAN JOSE, Calif., March 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GTC—NVIDIA today announced its next-generation AI supercomputer — the NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD™ powered by NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchips — for processing trillion-parameter models with constant uptime for superscale generative AI training and inference workloads.

  Featuring a new, highly efficient, liquid-cooled rack-scale architecture, the new DGX SuperPOD is built with NVIDIA DGX™ GB200 systems and provides 11.5 exaflops of AI supercomputing at FP4 precision and 240 terabytes of fast memory — scaling to more with additional racks.

  Each DGX GB200 system features 36 NVIDIA GB200 Superchips — which include 36 NVIDIA Grace CPUs and 72 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs — connected as one supercomputer via fifth-generation NVIDIA NVLink^®. GB200 Superchips deliver up to a 30x performance increase compared to the NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU for large language model inference workloads.

  “NVIDIA DGX AI supercomputers are the factories of the AI industrial revolution,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “The new DGX SuperPOD combines the latest advancements in NVIDIA accelerated computing, networking and software to enable every company, industry and country to refine and generate their own AI.”

  The Grace Blackwell-powered DGX SuperPOD features eight or more DGX GB200 systems and can scale to tens of thousands of GB200 Superchips connected via NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand. For a massive shared memory space to power next-generation AI models, customers can deploy a configuration that connects the 576 Blackwell GPUs in eight DGX GB200 systems connected via NVLink.

  New Rack-Scale DGX SuperPOD Architecture for Era of Generative AI
  The new DGX SuperPOD with DGX GB200 systems features a unified compute fabric. In addition to fifth-generation NVIDIA NVLink, the fabric includes NVIDIA BlueField^®-3 DPUs and will support NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking, announced separately today. This architecture provides up to 1,800 gigabytes per second of bandwidth to each GPU in the platform.

  Additionally, fourth-generation NVIDIA Scalable Hierarchical Aggregation and Reduction Protocol (SHARP)™ technology provides 14.4 teraflops of In-Network Computing, a 4x increase in the next-generation DGX SuperPOD architecture compared to the prior generation.

  Turnkey Architecture Pairs With Advanced Software for Unprecedented Uptime
  The new DGX SuperPOD is a complete, data-center-scale AI supercomputer that integrates with high-performance storage from NVIDIA-certified partners to meet the demands of generative AI workloads. Each is built, cabled and tested in the factory to dramatically speed deployment at customer data centers.

  The Grace Blackwell-powered DGX SuperPOD features intelligent predictive-management capabilities to continuously monitor thousands of data points across hardware and software to predict and intercept sources of downtime and inefficiency — saving time, energy and computing costs.

  The software can identify areas of concern and plan for maintenance, flexibly adjust compute resources, and automatically save and resume jobs to prevent downtime, even without system administrators present.

  If the software detects that a replacement component is needed, the cluster will activate standby capacity to ensure work finishes in time. Any required hardware replacements can be scheduled to avoid unplanned downtime.

  NVIDIA DGX B200 Systems Advance AI Supercomputing for Industries
  NVIDIA also unveiled the NVIDIA DGX B200 system, a unified AI supercomputing platform for AI model training, fine-tuning and inference.

  DGX B200 is the sixth generation of air-cooled, traditional rack-mounted DGX designs used by industries worldwide. The new Blackwell architecture DGX B200 system includes eight NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and two 5th Gen Intel^® Xeon^® processors. Customers can also build DGX SuperPOD using DGX B200 systems to create AI Centers of Excellence that can power the work of large teams of developers running many different jobs.

  DGX B200 systems include the FP4 precision feature in the new Blackwell architecture, providing up to 144 petaflops of AI performance, a massive 1.4TB of GPU memory and 64TB/s of memory bandwidth. This delivers 15x faster real-time inference for trillion-parameter models over the previous generation.

  DGX B200 systems include advanced networking with eight NVIDIA ConnectX™-7 NICs and two BlueField-3 DPUs. These provide up to 400 gigabits per second bandwidth per connection — delivering fast AI performance with NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand and NVIDIA Spectrum™-X Ethernet networking platforms.

  Software and Expert Support to Scale Production AI
  All NVIDIA DGX platforms include NVIDIA AI Enterprise software for enterprise-grade development and deployment. DGX customers can accelerate their work with the pretrained NVIDIA foundation models, frameworks, toolkits and new NVIDIA NIM microservices included in the software platform.

  NVIDIA DGX experts and select NVIDIA partners certified to support DGX platforms assist customers throughout every step of deployment, so they can quickly move AI into production. Once systems are operational, DGX experts continue to support customers in optimizing their AI pipelines and infrastructure.

  Availability
  NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD with DGX GB200 and DGX B200 systems are expected to be available later this year from NVIDIA’s global partners.

  For more information, watch a replay of the GTC keynote or visit the NVIDIA booth at GTC, held at the San Jose Convention Center through March 21.

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• NVIDIA Blackwell Platform Arrives to Power a New Era of Computing

  Published: Wednesday, March 20, 2024 | By: Dennis
  • New Blackwell GPU, NVLink and Resilience Technologies Enable Trillion-Parameter-Scale AI Models
  • New Tensor Cores and TensorRT- LLM Compiler Reduce LLM Inference Operating Cost and Energy by up to 25x
  • New Accelerators Enable Breakthroughs in Data Processing, Engineering Simulation, Electronic Design Automation, Computer-Aided Drug Design and Quantum Computing
  • Widespread Adoption by Every Major Cloud Provider, Server Maker and Leading AI Company

  SAN JOSE, Calif., March 18, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Powering a new era of computing, NVIDIA today announced that the NVIDIA Blackwell platform has arrived — enabling organizations everywhere to build and run real-time generative AI on trillion-parameter large language models at up to 25x less cost and energy consumption than its predecessor.

  The Blackwell GPU architecture features six transformative technologies for accelerated computing, which will help unlock breakthroughs in data processing, engineering simulation, electronic design automation, computer-aided drug design, quantum computing and generative AI — all emerging industry opportunities for NVIDIA.

  “For three decades we’ve pursued accelerated computing, with the goal of enabling transformative breakthroughs like deep learning and AI,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Generative AI is the defining technology of our time. Blackwell is the engine to power this new industrial revolution. Working with the most dynamic companies in the world, we will realize the promise of AI for every industry.”

  Among the many organizations expected to adopt Blackwell are Amazon Web Services, Dell Technologies, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, Tesla and xAI.

  Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google: “Scaling services like Search and Gmail to billions of users has taught us a lot about managing compute infrastructure. As we enter the AI platform shift, we continue to invest deeply in infrastructure for our own products and services, and for our Cloud customers. We are fortunate to have a longstanding partnership with NVIDIA, and look forward to bringing the breakthrough capabilities of the Blackwell GPU to our Cloud customers and teams across Google, including Google DeepMind, to accelerate future discoveries.”

  Andy Jassy, president and CEO of Amazon: “Our deep collaboration with NVIDIA goes back more than 13 years, when we launched the world’s first GPU cloud instance on AWS. Today we offer the widest range of GPU solutions available anywhere in the cloud, supporting the world’s most technologically advanced accelerated workloads. It's why the new NVIDIA Blackwell GPU will run so well on AWS and the reason that NVIDIA chose AWS to co-develop Project Ceiba, combining NVIDIA’s next-generation Grace Blackwell Superchips with the AWS Nitro System's advanced virtualization and ultra-fast Elastic Fabric Adapter networking, for NVIDIA's own AI research and development. Through this joint effort between AWS and NVIDIA engineers, we're continuing to innovate together to make AWS the best place for anyone to run NVIDIA GPUs in the cloud.”

  Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies: “Generative AI is critical to creating smarter, more reliable and efficient systems. Dell Technologies and NVIDIA are working together to shape the future of technology. With the launch of Blackwell, we will continue to deliver the next-generation of accelerated products and services to our customers, providing them with the tools they need to drive innovation across industries.”

  Demis Hassabis, cofounder and CEO of Google DeepMind: “The transformative potential of AI is incredible, and it will help us solve some of the world’s most important scientific problems. Blackwell’s breakthrough technological capabilities will provide the critical compute needed to help the world’s brightest minds chart new scientific discoveries.”

  Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta: “AI already powers everything from our large language models to our content recommendations, ads, and safety systems, and it's only going to get more important in the future. We're looking forward to using NVIDIA's Blackwell to help train our open-source Llama models and build the next generation of Meta AI and consumer products.”

  Satya Nadella, executive chairman and CEO of Microsoft: “We are committed to offering our customers the most advanced infrastructure to power their AI workloads. By bringing the GB200 Grace Blackwell processor to our datacenters globally, we are building on our long-standing history of optimizing NVIDIA GPUs for our cloud, as we make the promise of AI real for organizations everywhere.”

  Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI: “Blackwell offers massive performance leaps, and will accelerate our ability to deliver leading-edge models. We’re excited to continue working with NVIDIA to enhance AI compute.”

  Larry Ellison, chairman and CTO of Oracle: "Oracle’s close collaboration with NVIDIA will enable qualitative and quantitative breakthroughs in AI, machine learning and data analytics. In order for customers to uncover more actionable insights, an even more powerful engine like Blackwell is needed, which is purpose-built for accelerated computing and generative AI.”

  Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and xAI: “There is currently nothing better than NVIDIA hardware for AI.”

  Named in honor of David Harold Blackwell — a mathematician who specialized in game theory and statistics, and the first Black scholar inducted into the National Academy of Sciences — the new architecture succeeds the NVIDIA Hopper™ architecture, launched two years ago.

  Blackwell Innovations to Fuel Accelerated Computing and Generative AI
  Blackwell’s six revolutionary technologies, which together enable AI training and real-time LLM inference for models scaling up to 10 trillion parameters, include:

  • World’s Most Powerful Chip — Packed with 208 billion transistors, Blackwell-architecture GPUs are manufactured using a custom-built 4NP TSMC process with two-reticle limit GPU dies connected by 10 TB/second chip-to-chip link into a single, unified GPU.
  • Second-Generation Transformer Engine — Fueled by new micro-tensor scaling support and NVIDIA’s advanced dynamic range management algorithms integrated into NVIDIA TensorRT™-LLM and NeMo Megatron frameworks, Blackwell will support double the compute and model sizes with new 4-bit floating point AI inference capabilities.
  • Fifth-Generation NVLink — To accelerate performance for multitrillion-parameter and mixture-of-experts AI models, the latest iteration of NVIDIA NVLink® delivers groundbreaking 1.8TB/s bidirectional throughput per GPU, ensuring seamless high-speed communication among up to 576 GPUs for the most complex LLMs.
  • RAS Engine — Blackwell-powered GPUs include a dedicated engine for reliability, availability and serviceability. Additionally, the Blackwell architecture adds capabilities at the chip level to utilize AI-based preventative maintenance to run diagnostics and forecast reliability issues. This maximizes system uptime and improves resiliency for massive-scale AI deployments to run uninterrupted for weeks or even months at a time and to reduce operating costs.
  • Secure AI — Advanced confidential computing capabilities protect AI models and customer data without compromising performance, with support for new native interface encryption protocols, which are critical for privacy-sensitive industries like healthcare and financial services.
  • Decompression Engine — A dedicated decompression engine supports the latest formats, accelerating database queries to deliver the highest performance in data analytics and data science. In the coming years, data processing, on which companies spend tens of billions of dollars annually, will be increasingly GPU-accelerated.

  A Massive Superchip
  The NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell Superchip connects two NVIDIA B200 Tensor Core GPUs to the NVIDIA Grace CPU over a 900GB/s ultra-low-power NVLink chip-to-chip interconnect.

  For the highest AI performance, GB200-powered systems can be connected with the NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand and Spectrum™-X800 Ethernet platforms, also announced today, which deliver advanced networking at speeds up to 800Gb/s.

  The GB200 is a key component of the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72, a multi-node, liquid-cooled, rack-scale system for the most compute-intensive workloads. It combines 36 Grace Blackwell Superchips, which include 72 Blackwell GPUs and 36 Grace CPUs interconnected by fifth-generation NVLink. Additionally, GB200 NVL72 includes NVIDIA BlueField®-3 data processing units to enable cloud network acceleration, composable storage, zero-trust security and GPU compute elasticity in hyperscale AI clouds. The GB200 NVL72 provides up to a 30x performance increase compared to the same number of NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs for LLM inference workloads, and reduces cost and energy consumption by up to 25x.

  The platform acts as a single GPU with 1.4 exaflops of AI performance and 30TB of fast memory, and is a building block for the newest DGX SuperPOD.

  NVIDIA offers the HGX B200, a server board that links eight B200 GPUs through NVLink to support x86-based generative AI platforms. HGX B200 supports networking speeds up to 400Gb/s through the NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand and Spectrum-X Ethernet networking platforms.

  Global Network of Blackwell Partners
  Blackwell-based products will be available from partners starting later this year.

  AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure will be among the first cloud service providers to offer Blackwell-powered instances, as will NVIDIA Cloud Partner program companies Applied Digital, CoreWeave, Crusoe, IBM Cloud and Lambda. Sovereign AI clouds will also provide Blackwell-based cloud services and infrastructure, including Indosat Ooredoo Hutchinson, Nebius, Nexgen Cloud, Oracle EU Sovereign Cloud, the Oracle US, UK, and Australian Government Clouds, Scaleway, Singtel, Northern Data Group's Taiga Cloud, Yotta Data Services’ Shakti Cloud and YTL Power International.

  GB200 will also be available on NVIDIA DGX™ Cloud, an AI platform co-engineered with leading cloud service providers that gives enterprise developers dedicated access to the infrastructure and software needed to build and deploy advanced generative AI models. AWS, Google Cloud and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure plan to host new NVIDIA Grace Blackwell-based instances later this year.

  Cisco, Dell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lenovo and Supermicro are expected to deliver a wide range of servers based on Blackwell products, as are Aivres, ASRock Rack, ASUS, Eviden, Foxconn, GIGABYTE, Inventec, Pegatron, QCT, Wistron, Wiwynn and ZT Systems.

  Additionally, a growing network of software makers, including Ansys, Cadence and Synopsys — global leaders in engineering simulation — will use Blackwell-based processors to accelerate their software for designing and simulating electrical, mechanical and manufacturing systems and parts. Their customers can use generative AI and accelerated computing to bring products to market faster, at lower cost and with higher energy efficiency.

  NVIDIA Software Support
  The Blackwell product portfolio is supported by NVIDIA AI Enterprise, the end-to-end operating system for production-grade AI. NVIDIA AI Enterprise includes NVIDIA NIM™ inference microservices — also announced today — as well as AI frameworks, libraries and tools that enterprises can deploy on NVIDIA-accelerated clouds, data centers and workstations.

  To learn more about the NVIDIA Blackwell platform, watch the GTC keynote and register to attend sessions from NVIDIA and industry leaders at GTC, which runs through March 21.

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• SilverStone IceMyst 360 All-in-One Liquid Cooler Review @ APH Networks

  Published: Monday, March 18, 2024 | By: Dennis

  I really do love the SilverStone naming schemes,  The cases are named after famous people of the warring type and the coolers tend to self describe, themselves.

  For instance, we have the IceMyst, great name but being an AIO watercooler, there will be no Ice or Myst unless you consider the LEDs as sparkles of diamond shapes lights in your PC and play a little bit of Myst on the side.

  

  The SilverStone IceMyst 360 all-in-one liquid cooler is an excellent performer with an innovative way to cool around the motherboard too.

  Check back for our review of this exciting new cooler, with extra fans.

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