LG’s Gram laptops are designed to be super lightweight and thin, with excellent battery life. Now, LG is hyping up the latest entries to the lineup, weeks before CES 2019. There will be a new 17-inch model, as well as the company’s first 14-inch 2-in-one laptop.
The gram 17 is equipped with a 17-inch 16:10 display with a resolution of 2560×1600. Thanks to the minimal screen bezels on all sides, the gram 17 can fit the large display within a normal 15-inch laptop body. LG claims the gram 17 is the world’s lightest 17-inch laptop, which only weighs in at 1.34 kg. The bigger chassis also holds a considerably larger 72W battery, which is good for about 19.5 hours of usage with a single charge from LG’s testing.
The laptop will be powered by a Intel 8th Generation Core processor, which should have at least four CPU cores at its disposal. You can paired it with 8 GB or 16 GB of DDR4 RAM. A 256 GB M.2 SSD comes with the standard configuration, which can be upgraded to 512 GB. The gram 17 has a USB 3.1 Type C/Thunderbolt 3 port, three USB 3.1 Type A ports, an HDMI port and a microSD slot.
The gram 14 2-in-1 laptop sports very similar specifications, except for the 14-inch 1080p touch screen with Stylus support and the lack of Thunderbolt 3 port. It has the same 72W battery (21 hours of battery life), Intel 8th Gen Core processor, up to 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. It is equipped with a 360-degree hinge to act as a tablet.
Pricing and availability have yet to announce.
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KINGMAX had showcased some of its latest gaming series memory and SSD products in Computex earlier this year. Now, the Zeus Dragon RGB DDR4 memory is finally released and we are going to see how it performs.
Unboxing
We tested the dual-channel memory kit, that is clocked at 3000 MHz, with two 8 GB sticks. The rated frequency can be achieved by choosing one of the two included XMP profiles. There are a total of four speed options, from 2666 MHz up to 3466 MHz. Capacities of 8 GB (single module) to 32 GB (in kit) are available.
A photo of the metal heat spreader covers the majority of the front of the box. You can also find the “KINGMAX” and “Zeus Dragon” brandings, as well as your particular memory kit’s speeds and capacity.
There is a brief description about the Zeus Dragon DDR4 RGB RAM listed on the back, including high-quality ICs and RGB LED lighting effects. A specification list about the frequencies, CAS latency and voltage is printed as well.
KINGMAX Zeus Dragon RGB DDR4-3000 16GB Kit
The Zeus Dragon RGB is the product from the gaming series of KINGMAX, which features a more gamer-like style for the exterior aesthetics. The silver brushed aluminum heat spreaders are installed on both sides. The metal is designed with aggressive angles with cutouts for the RGB “KINGMAX” logo and the dragon. There is a sticker with information like model number/part numbers, RAM frequency and operating voltage (1.35 V).
The PCB is painted black and there are 288 golden pins for power and data transmission.
A RGB LED light bar is fitted on the top, which half of it is visible from the sides. The light bar is shaped like the top fins of a dragon, which looks really unique. No logo or brand name is embossed/engraved to the light bar itself.
Review
Testing Methodology
To evaluate the performance of the particular memory kit, we use a total of three benchmarking software. AIDA64’s internal “Cache and Memory Benchmark” is used to determine the read, write and copy speeds, as well as the latency. Cinebench R15’s CPU test is perfect for testing how the memory kit’s speeds affect CPU performance. Finally, the SiSoftware Sandra toolkit is used to test both bandwidth, latency and throughput of the memory. The memory kit will be tested in three different settings/profiles.
Our particular Zeus Dragon memory kit is rated to operate at frequency up to 3000 MHz. In AIDA64, the Zeus Dragon RGB performed as expected, and on par with the HyperX Predator RGB we tested earlier. At 3000 MHz, it achieved 43085 MB/s, 44258 MB/s and 39018 MB/s at read, write and copy respectively. Speeds decreased to around 38000 MB/s at 2666 MHz and 35000 MB/s at 2400 MHz.
The Zeus Dragon RGB did well enough in latency, but lagged slightly behind the Predator RGB. The latency sat at 58.3 ns at 2400 MHz. It improved to 56.9 ns (~2.4% decrease) and 52.4 ns (~10.12% decrease) at higher frequencies.
The Zeus Dragon RGB scored a CPU score of 969 at stock 2400 MHz speed, and a few points higher at 2666 MHz. Score went up to 996 when clocked at 3000 MHz, which is about a 2.79% improvement.
The Zeus Dragon outperformed the Predator RGB in terms of Throughput, capable of reaching over 8.3 MTPS at 3000 MHz. The latency benchmark showed a similar picture of the AIDA64 Latency test, with the Predator RGB edging out slightly. Both memory kits achieved similar bandwidth numbers.
RGB Lighting
According to KINGMAX, the Zeus Dragon’s RGB LED lighting is compatible with major motherboard manufacturers, including ASUS, MSI, ASRock and GIGABYTE. The available lighting effects and modes will be depending on your selected motherboard’s software.
The RGB lighting is extremely bright. The colors are vivid, but you can clearly see the separations of the five lighting zones/LEDs. Those lighting hotspots should be better diffused to create a more pleasant effects transitions. Nonetheless, the lighting effects are still smooth and fluent enough.
Conclusion
The Zeus Dragon RGB DDR4 RAM is the first RGB LED-enabled product from KINGMAX, which ticks a lot of right boxes. The build quality is solid with the thick aluminum heat spreaders. The dragon design for the RGB LED lightbar looks unique and cool. The implementation of the RGB lighting could be better with more numbers of LEDs or nicer diffusion.
In our benchmarks, the Zeus Dragon performed splendidly, completing our tasks without any issues. There should be a lot more headroom for overclocking, if you would like to get even more power out of the RAM. Simply by dialing down the timings should yield better results in synthetic tests.
The Zeus Dragon RGB RAM is backed by a 5-year warranty. However, it is quite hard to get one in North America and Europe. It is available mostly in Asia, such as Taiwan and China. It is priced at $1488 RMB (MSRP), which is about $215 USD. The price is reasonable, sitting around the average of a RGB memory kit would cost (~$220 USD). The Zeus Dragon would be a great option, if you need a decent set of RGB memory kit with awesome build quality.
Thanks KINGMAX for sending us the memory for review. (Review Sample)
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After 3D TLC NAND flash becomes the mainstream in the SSD market, major manufacturers are recently introducing QLC NAND, which would potentially reduces the cost per GB for SSDs. Intel and Crucial have already released their SSDs that equipped with QLC NAND flash earlier. Now, Samsung also adds the 860 QVO QLC SSDs to its lineup.
Different from Intel and Crucial, Samsung uses the traditional SATA 3.0 (6 Gbps) interface instead of the NVMe and PCIe. The 860 QVO is tested to have sequential read and write speeds at 550 MB/s and 520 MB/s respectively. For random operations, it has up to 97,000 IOPS/89,000 IOPS.
Because of using Quad-Level-Cell (QLC) NAND flash on the 860 QVO, the SSDs can achieve larger capacities at the same price. It can offer sizes up to 4 TB. However, QLC NAND flash will be less durable than TLC. The 860 QVO is rated for 360 TBW (1TB), 720 TBW (2TB) and 1440 TBW (4TB). Compared to Samsung’s own 860 EVO, the 1 TB models can afford up to 600 TBW, while 2 TB at 1200 TBW and 4 TB at 2400 TBW. The 860 QVO has 40% less Total Bytes Written than the 860 EVO, and 2 years less warranty period.
Though, the endurance of the QLC should be more than enough for average users. It allows manufacturers to release larger capacity SSDs at much lower prices that otherwise impossible. The 860 QVO is priced at $149.99 USD (MSRP) for the 1 TB model, and will be available on 16 December.
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YouTube Annotations are those tiny popups in the videos. Back in May 2017, YouTube announced the discontinuation of the annotations editor for creators. New videos would not be able to use annotations since then. Now, YouTube decides to stop showing all existing annotations to everyone starting from January 15, 2019.
Annotations will be completely replaced by end screens and cards. According to YouTube, they can be shown to more types of devices, both desktop, mobile phones and tablets. Annotations do not work well on mobile devices, which is where over 60% of YouTube watch time happens.
End screens and cards are simpler and easier to implement into a video. Combined with their better conversion rate, the removal of annotations is for the good of the creators and viewers.
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HyperX is one of the most popular gaming memory manufacturer in the industry, with great performance and reputable reliability. As RGB lighting for PC components has become the trend, HyperX releases the Predator RGB DDR4 memory. Let’s take at look at the RAM and see how it performs.
Unboxing
The particular memory kit we tested is clocked at 3600 MHz, with two 8 GB sticks. The rated frequency can be achieved by choosing one of the two included XMP profiles. You can choose from speed at 2933 MHz up to 4000 MHz and capacity of 4 GB (single module) to 128 GB (in kit).
At the front of the box, the specific frequency and capacity of the kit are clearly indicated. A small plastic window is present to show the design of the Predator RGB’s heat spreaders. The packaging is mainly in black with typical red accents.
A short description in different language is printed at the back, alongside all the regulatory icons, UPC code and serial number.
There is not much to see inside the box, except for the warranty and installation guide and a HyperX sticker. The two Predator RGB memory sticks are sitting neatly in a hard plastic tray.
HyperX Predator RGB DDR4-3600 16GB Kit
The aluminum heat spreaders of the Predator RGB is painted black with aggressively designed brushed metal on top. The metal is shaped like two arrows pointing towards the center. The wordings, “PREDATOR” and “DDR4”, are printed on either sides of the front, while the “HyperX” logo is embossed with another layer of metal at the center. There is information about the RAM on a sticker at the back, including the model/part number, serial number and operating voltage (1.35 V).
At the bottom, there are a total of 288 golden pins for power and data transmission and the PCB is painted black to match with the existing color scheme.
On the top, there is a RGB LED light bar that stretch across nearly the whole length of the memory stick. Some sections of the heat spreader are opened, which allows the RGB lighting to shine to the sides as well. You can see the HyperX name on the light bar, even after the RAM is installed into a PC case.
Review
Testing Methodology
To evaluate the performance of the particular memory kit, we use a total of two benchmarking software. AIDA64‘s internal “Cache and Memory Benchmark” is used to determine the read, write and copy speeds, as well as the latency. Cinebench R15‘s CPU test is perfect for testing how the memory kit’s speeds affect CPU performance. The memory kit will be tested in three different settings/profiles.
This HyperX Predator RGB memory kit is rated for frequency up to 3600 MHz. As expected, higher frequency results in larger bandwidth, with read speed at 49243 MB/s, write at 51661 MB/s and copy at 44237 MB/s. At the two lower frequency profiles, the performances were in line with the other RAM we have (KINGMAX Zeus Dragon RGB’s review here). Speeds were at around 35000 MB/s at 2400 MHz, and were increased to around 43000 MB/s at 3000 MHz (~22.9% improvement).
The Predator RGB did well in terms of latency and outperformed the Zeus Dragon RGB. At 3600 MHz, latency was only 48.7 ns. It lengthened to 51.2 ns at 3000 MHz and 57.8 ns at 2400 MHz.
We first expected the results in Cinebench R15 were somewhat similar to the bandwidth benchmarks. Surprisingly, the Predator RGB performed marginally better when clocked at 3000 MHz than 3600 MHz by 1.12%. It may related to slightly slower timings in the 3600 MHz’s XMP profile. Though, it still beat the score of 971 at 2400 MHz (~0.93%).
RGB Lighting
The Predator RGB RAM‘s lighting is designed to work with most major motherboard manufacturers, including ASUS Aura, GIGABYTE RGB Fusion, MSI Mystic Light and ASRock Polychrome. You can choose to sync the LEDs on the Predator RAM to match other components in your system. Or you can select it to show a different RGB lighting effect, which depends on which motherboard is used.
The RGB lighting on the RAM is very bright and vibrant. The light is diffused evenly across the whole light bar. The transition between colors is smooth and fluent. Because of HyperX’s Infrared Sync technology, both RAM sticks are perfectly in sync.
Conclusion
The HyperX Predator RGB DDR4 RAM is no doubt a good-looking memory. The aggressive double-layer metal styling on the heat spreader complements well with the RGB light bar at all angles. At the same time, the memory performed as expected. If you are willing to push the boundaries, there should be a lot of headroom to squeeze even more performance out of the Predator RGB, by lowering the timings and overclocking the frequency.
During our benchmarks, the memory ran stably without big issues. However, our particular memory kit does not apply the correct FSB frequency and memory frequency, when the XMP Profile 1 (DDR4-3600) is chosen. Any other fields, such as timings, are set correctly. It may limit to only our specific kit and motherboard BIOS. This is not a huge problem, and can be easily fixed by manually selecting the desired frequencies in the BIOS.
The Predator RGB DDR4 RAM is backed by a lifetime warranty. The DDR4-3600 kit we tested is priced at $197.99 USD at the time of this review. You can also pick the 2933 MHz/3200 MHz kit for $20 USD less. In fact, the Predator RGB is reasonably-priced when similar memory kits with RGB lighting always cost more than $220 USD. If you want both awesome aesthetics, RGB lighting and performance for the memory, look no further for the HyperX Predator RGB DDR4 RAM.
You can purchase the memory from your local/online resellers or the links below from Amazon and Newegg.
Thanks Kingston for providing us the memory for review. (Review Sample)
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As we all know, online shopping has become an indispensable part of our daily life. Firefox has announced its latest test pilot experiments, with a price tracking extension. The extension can notify users, if the selected products are on sale or not.
The extension, named PriceWise, is currently available for a total of five major online retailers in the US, including Best Buy, eBay, Amazon, Walmart, and The Home Depot. To use the extension, you browse those online shops as usual. And when you are interested in a particular item, click “Add This Product” on the extension to add it into a watch list. A desktop notification will appear automatically every time the prices change.
PriceWise is not the first price-tracking service in the market, but integrating it as a browser extension with notifications would definitely help pushing this kind of service to more users.
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