ASUS Flagship Rampage V Extreme X99 Motherboard Has Five PCIe x16 Slots

With Intel's Haswell-E central processing units about to come out, motherboard makers are finally releasing their latest platforms. The ASUS ROG Rampage V Extreme may not have officially been released yet, but the board has already surfaced on the net.

No doubt ASUS will soon make a press release in which it will formally introduce the newcomer, along with whatever other X99 chipset-based mainboards it has prepared. MSI did just that, so ASUS can't do any less. The X99 chipset is the motherboard logic that Intel created to act as the other half of the Haswell-E line of Core i7-5000 central processing units. It provides the LGA 2011-3 socket, which is incompatible with all other CPUs revealed to date. The ASUS ROG Rampage V Extreme has been leaked by SweClockers and is a really fine piece of work, although not quite as overkill as MSI's best, or the ludicrous ASUS X99-E WS (which has seven PCI Express slots). The ROG Rampage V Extreme has five PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots, allowing it to establish quad-SLI (NVIDIA) or quad-CrossFire (AMD) multi-GPU video card setups, and still have some I/O support left over.

Sure, the black PCI Express slot in the middle will probably be covered up because of how thick most video adapters are, but there's nothing that can be done about that, unless you equip the video cards with thin water blocks. For example, among others in the water-cooling field, EK already has some selling for every adapter likely to ever be installed in systems based on the newcomer. But we digress. Besides the PCI Express x16 slots, the new mainboard from ASUS possesses eight DDR4 memory slots (for 64 GB total, 128 GB in 2015 when 16 GB DIMM modules are created), one SATA Express port (12 Gbps HDDs/SSDs), an M.2 with PCI Express 2.0 x4 physical layer (1.8 GB/s SSD speed), 802.11 ac WLAN with Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet support, and fourteen USB 3.0 ports.

There's even a high-current USB 2.0 connector, allowing you to recharge gaming peripherals and mobile devices. Everything is powered by 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and 4-pin ATX connectors. Finally, you will find 12 SATA 6.0 Gbps connectors on the motherboard, as well as UEFI BIOS filled with overclocking features. Sadly, the price of the ASUS ROG Rampage V Extreme has not been confirmed, but it is supposed to be of around $460 / €460.

ASUS Rampage V Extreme Motherboard
Images credits to ASUS

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HTC Nexus 9 Tablet Scores Shows Up in AnTuTu, 46K Points

We have been waiting on the successor of the Nexus 7 (2013) tablet for quite some time now. But at this point, we’re not even exactly sure if Google plans to call the tablet Nexus 8 or Nexus 9.

The most recent info seems to point towards the latter scenario. A purported Nexus 9 tablet has been spotted in the popular AnTuTu benchmark database, highlighting the prowess of the processor running at its core (as seen at Tk Tech News). The Android L tablet appears to have scored an impressive 45,923 points in the AnTuTu tests, which is to be expected since the slate is supposedly taking advantage of the all-new NVIDIA Tegra K1 Denver platform. The Nexus 7 (2013) tablet is one year old and in some locations the slate has been reportedly listed as being Out of Stock. This has fueled speculations that the Nexus 9 shouldn't be far from us. A recent leak places the launch of the device before October 9. We don’t know why this particular date was chosen, and all we can do is hope that we’re going to see the slate within a month. After all, not seeing the Nexus 9 make a debut at the Google I/O was enough of a disappointment.

The AnTuTu listing confirms the spec-list we already shared with you countless times. However, if you are new to the story, we will take the opportunity to remind you that Nexus 9 is expected to tout an 8.9-inch screen with QHD resolution (2560 x 1440 pixels) and take advantage of the NVIDIA 64-bit Tegra K1 Denver platform fitted with 2GB of RAM and backed up by 32GB of internal storage. As we already knew, the Android version in the listing is 5.0, which the rumor mill is now calling Android Lemon Meringue Pie (LMP). The tablet is shaping up to be quite a beast and a worthy successor of the largely popular Nexus 7 (2013) which is still considered one of the best 7-inchers on the market. We also get a glimpse of the IMEI number (International Mobile Station Equipment Identity) which means that the tablet will come boasting cellular network connectivity.

And, of course, like all Nexus devices, the new tablet is expected to be released in its LTE-variant, as well. An earlier leak suggested that the slate would come with an MDM9x25 modem (3G model). Anyway, hopefully in a month’s time, we’ll be able to check out the Nexus 9 in its entire splendor. Keep your fingers crossed!

Nexus 9 shows up in AnTuTu
Images credits to TKtechNewsBlog

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BlackBerry Porsche Design P’9983 Press Photos and Full Specs Sheet Leak

It’s no surprise that BlackBerry has teamed up with Porsche Design once again to offer fans a premium alternative to BlackBerry 10 smartphones that the Canadian company usually launches.

Even though the collaboration between the two companies has only spawned three premium smartphones until now, BlackBerry fans have more luxury products to choose from than consumers who use other brands and operating systems do. The fourth product to result from the two companies’ partnership is called Blackberry Porsche Design P’9983 and is expected to go on sale sometime this fall. The first BlackBerry Porsche Design P’9983 pictures leaked last week, along with some of its features, but the folks over at BBin have gotten their hands on the full specs sheet of the smartphone. Two press photos have been published as well, so fans of BlackBerry’s premium lineup can have an idea of what to expect from the next product in the Porsche Design series.

First of all, BlackBerry Porsche Design P’9983 is the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone with QWERTY keyboard launched by Porsche Design. Word is that it might be available for around $2,000 (€1,500) upfront, but this is to be expected considering that it’s a premium handset. The Porsche Design P’9983 will be manufactured from premium material, including the chassis, lock and external keys, which are made from CNC-milled stainless steel. The rear-facing camera’s lens is made of sapphire glass, while for the back cover Porsche Design will use glass weave technology. Owning one of these premium smartphones will add you to an exclusive Porsche Design PIN ID group, which will be recognizable among those who use any Porsche Design products.

Specs-wise, BlackBerry Porsche Design P’9983 sports a 3.1-inch OLED capacitive touchscreen display that supports 720 x 720 pixels resolution. On the inside, the smartphone will be equipped with a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.5GHz, which will be complemented by 2GB of RAM and 64GB of internal memory. There’s no word on a microSD card slot, so we must assume that it will lack one, but given the high amount of storage you get by default, you might not need it. As shown in the pictures, the Porsche Design P’9983 comes with a full QWERTY keyboard. It also packs an 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back, which features autofocus, LED flash, image stabilization, 5x digital zoom, and full HD (1080p) video recording. The 2-megapixel front-facing camera features fixed-focus, image stabilization, and 3x digital zoom. It can also capture HD (720p) videos at 30fps.

When it comes to connectivity, BlackBerry Porsche Design P’9983 offers a wide range of options, including LTE, HSPA+, Wi-Fi., Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, GPS with A-GPS support and microUSB 2.0. The Porsche Design P’9983 will ship with BlackBerry 10.3 operating system out of the box. According to sources familiar with BlackBerry’s roadmap, the Porsche Design P’9983 is likely to go official in September, along with the BlackBerry Passport.

BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9983 (front)

BlackBerry Porsche Design P'9983 (back)
Images credits to BBin.in

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