Microsoft
Demand for generative AI services is skyrocketing and driving the need for AI servers and machines that are substantially different from traditional servers. The category is growing so quickly that sales of AI servers are set to reach $150 billion in 2027, according to Liu Yangwei, the chairman of Foxconn, the world's largest electronics manufacturing service (EMS) provider. AI servers are a relatively new category of data center-grade products that use compute GPUs or specialized processors equipped with fast memory, so they tend to be considerably more expensive than traditional servers for data center and enterprise workloads. Demand for various generative AI applications is driving demand for such machines so rapidly that the AI server market will grow from $30 billion in 2023 to a...
Xbox Series X Unboxed: Our First Look At Microsoft’s Next Gen Console
After over a year of official teases, naming, and plenty of performance details, Microsoft is on the cusp of launching their first proper new generation of the Xbox since...
35 by Brett Howse on 10/28/2020Microsoft Launches the Surface Laptop Go: Lighter In The Hand And The Wallet
Microsoft’s Surface lineup started with a Surface RT tablet, but is now features a wide range of devices targeting different markets, with different price brackets, and different levels of...
63 by Brett Howse on 10/1/2020Microsoft Surface Pro X Gets A Refresh: SQ2 Processor And Platinum Finish
Microsoft’s Surface Pro X seems to be a very divisive device. Being the only current generation Surface product powered by an Arm-based processor, it thrusts its users directly into...
40 by Brett Howse on 10/1/2020Hot Chips 2020 Live Blog: Microsoft Xbox Series X System Architecture (6:00pm PT)
Hot Chips has gone virtual this year! Lots of talks on lots of products, including Tiger Lake, Xe, POWER10, Xbox Series X, TPUv3, and a special Raja Koduri Keynote...
59 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 8/17/2020Microsoft Opens Pre-Orders for Surface Duo - US Only
Late last year in October, Microsoft had announced the Surface Duo, the company’s first ever Android device and first-party smartphone (if you can call it that) release in years...
71 by Andrei Frumusanu on 8/12/2020OpenXR Update: First Approved Runtimes Now Available, OpenXR Coming to Minecraft
Among the many technologies to come under the purview of the Khronos consortium have been augmented reality and virtual reality. Looking to fulfill the group’s mandate to develop open...
16 by Ryan Smith on 7/28/2020Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher In A New Era of Gaming
A new generation of gaming consoles is due to hit the market later this year, and the hype cycle for the Xbox Series X and Playstation 5 has been...
200 by Billy Tallis on 6/12/2020The Microsoft Surface Book 3 (15-Inch) Review: A Refreshing Dip Into Ice Lake
The PC industry has introduced some remarkably exciting designs over the last five years or so. Some of those designs, such as the thin-bezel laptop, have been adopted by...
125 by Brett Howse on 6/3/2020Microsoft Springs A Surface Refresh: Surface Book 3 And Surface Go 2 Plus Accessories
This morning Microsoft is announcing a refresh on a couple more of their Surface products that did not get updated back in October. The Surface Book 3 and Surface...
43 by Brett Howse on 5/6/2020Microsoft Unveils DirectX 12 Ultimate: The GPU Feature Set For the Next Generation of Games
While the 2020 Game Developers Conference has been postponed, that thankfully doesn’t mean everything gaming-related for this spring has been postponed as well. As the saying goes, the show...
53 by Ryan Smith on 3/19/2020Microsoft Now Offers Azure NVv4 Virtual Machines with AMD EPYC & Radeon Instinct
AMD’s 2nd Generation EPYC processors have gained a strong recognition among cloud computing companies, and today numerous instances are powered by AMD’s latest server CPUs. By contrast, however, the...
19 by Anton Shilov on 3/18/2020Microsoft Drops More Xbox Series X Tech Specs: Zen 2 + RDNA 2, 12 TFLOPs GPU, HDMI 2.1, & a Custom SSD
For the past several months both Microsoft and Sony have been slowly but steadily trickling out additional details about their forthcoming gaming consoles. And now this morning we’re getting...
74 by Ryan Smith on 2/24/2020The Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 Showdown: AMD's Ryzen Picasso vs. Intel's Ice Lake
Occasionally the stars align. It is very rare in the laptop space that we're able to test two devices, with two very different CPU platforms, with the fewest number...
174 by Brett Howse & Andrei Frumusanu on 12/13/2019Microsoft Announces Xbox Series X: Available Holiday 2020
Microsoft this evening has finally given their long-awaited next generation gaming console a name, announcing the Xbox Series X. The device, formerly known as Project Scarlett, is said to...
83 by Ryan Smith on 12/12/2019Microsoft Ends Support for Windows 10 Mobile
Microsoft this week has finally retired Windows 10 mobile, ending support for its smartphone OS. However, in a quirk of differing lifecycle policies, the software giant will continue to...
20 by Anton Shilov on 12/11/2019Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit Day 3 Live Blog: ACPC and XR
The annual Qualcomm Snapdragon Tech Summit is in its final day, and the main focal points for discussion are the Windows on Snapdragon-based Always Connected PCs, with updates to...
21 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 12/5/2019Lenovo: Foldable ThinkPad X1 to Launch in 2020
At Canalys Channels Forum last week, Lenovo finally revealed launch timeframe for its foldable ThinkPad X1 hybrid notebook that was first revealed in May. The company says that the...
9 by Anton Shilov on 10/21/2019The Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 (15-Inch) Review: AMD Ryzen Surface Edition
This year at Microsoft’s somewhat annual Surface update event, Microsoft surprised everyone by not only announcing a newer and larger Surface Laptop 3, bumping the screen size from 13.5-inches...
91 by Brett Howse on 10/21/2019Already Working on 2nd Gen: AMD’s Ryzen Microsoft Surface Edition and what Semi-Custom Means
One of the key takeaways from Microsoft’s launch this week was that the company was spreading its wings with devices made by all three major SoC vendors: Intel, AMD...
73 by Dr. Ian Cutress on 10/4/2019Microsoft Announces Surface Laptop 3 Family: Now Including 15-Inch Models & Custom AMD Ryzen APUs
Kicking off the holiday quarter for Microsoft, today the company held its annual Surface press event, where the company announced a slate of new laptops, tablets, & 2-in-1s for...
88 by Ryan Smith on 10/2/2019