gaming News - Page 9 of 20 - CNX Software

October 4, 2021October 4, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 5 Comments

MINIX NGC-5 Review – Windows 10, Ubuntu 20.04, and external GPU

MINIX has just launched a new mini PC in their NGC range called the NGC-5. Although it uses a somewhat dated Intel eighth-generation Core i5 processor, the integrated Iris Plus Graphics 655 is notable for being one of the more powerful iGPU solutions. MINIX kindly sent one for review and I’ve looked at performance running both Windows and Ubuntu together with using an eGPU. Hardware Overview The NGC-5 physically consists of a 153 x 153 x 43mm (6.02 x 6.02 x 1.57 inches) square plastic case. As an actively cooled mini PC, it uses Intel’s older 14 nm++ Core i5-8279U Coffee Lake processor which is a quad-core 8-thread 2.40 GHz processor boosting to 4.10 GHz with Intel’s Iris Plus Graphics 655. The front panel has just a LED power indicator whereas the rear panel includes dual gigabit Ethernet ports, dual USB 3.1 ports, a DisplayPort 1.2, an HDMI 2.0a port, […]

September 1, 2021September 1, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

AYN Odin – A Dockable portable game console offered with Snapdragon 845 or Dimensity 900 (Crowdfunding)

AYN Odin is a 6-inch portable game console powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 or MediaTek Dimensity 900 processor and offered with an optional dock with an HDMI port to connect it to a large screen, various ports for controllers, and even a 2.5-inch SATA bay. It offers a much more powerful experience, a larger display, a more recent Android 10/11 OS, and better multiplayer abilities than the Amlogic S905D3 powered Powkiddy A20 portable game console we have just covered. Three models of the Odin are offered with the Lite, Base, and Pro model differing in terms of processors, and/or storage and memory: SoC Odin Lite – MediaTek Dimensity 900 octa-core processor with 2x Cortex-A78 cores @ 2.4 GHz, 6x Cortex-A55 cores @ 2.0 GHz, Mali-G68 MC4 GPU Odin Base/Pro – Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 octa-core processor with 4x Kryo Gold (Cortex A75) cores @ 2.8 GHz, 4x Kryo Silver (Cortex A55) […]

September 1, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

Powkiddy A20 – An Amlogic S905D3 powered portable Android game console

Powkiddy A20 is a 3.5-inch portable Android game console based on the same Amlogic S905D3 processor found in Khadas VIM3L SBC, equipped with 2GB RAM, 8GB storage, and supported 18 different emulators for gaming. It could potentially also be an interesting platform to play with AOSP, as we’ll see below. Preliminary specifications for Powkiddy A20: SoC – Amlogic S905D3 quad-core Cortex-A55 processor @ 1.9GHz with Arm Mali-G31MP2 GPU supporting OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.0 and OpenCL 2.0 System Memory – 2GB DDR4 RAM Storage – 8GB eMMC flash, MicroSD card socket Display 3.5-inch IPS screen with 640×480 resolution Micro HDMI port to connect to external monitor or TV Audio – 3.5mm audio jack Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n/ WiFi 4 and Bluetooth User input – Rocker, D-Pad, A/B/C/D/X/Y buttons, volume buttons, and power button USB – 1x USB-C port for charging Battery – 3,000 mAh good for about 3.5 hours of […]

April 2, 2021April 2, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 13 Comments

Linux and Memory Performance on an Intel NUC 11 Enthusiast Phantom Canyon NUC11PHKi7C

I’ve already looked at Windows performance on the NUC11PHKi7C Enthusiast Phantom Canyon which is Intel’s latest NUC 11 flagship product specifically targeting gamers as it includes an NVIDIA RTX 2060 GPU. Now it is the turn of Linux and like before I will compare performance against Intel’s previous NUC with a discrete GPU: the NUC 9 Extreme Ghost Canyon. I will also briefly revisit Windows performance by looking at the impact of using 3200MHz memory as opposed to the 2400MHz used during the previous review. Hardware Overview As a reminder, the NUC11PHKi7C physically consists of a 221 x 142 x 42 mm (8.70 x 5.59 x 1.65 inches) rectangular plastic case. It is an actively cooled mini PC and uses Intel’s 10 nm Core i7-1165G7 Tiger Lake processor which is a quad-core 8-thread 2.80 GHz processor boosting to 4.70 GHz with Intel’s Iris Xe Graphics and the NUC also includes […]

April 1, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Ryzen Embedded V2000 COM Express Module supports up to 1TB NVMe SSD, 64GB DDR4

We’ve already covered some COM Express modules based on AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 processors with products like ADLINK cExpress-AR COM Express Type 6 Compact computer-on-module, but Kontron COMe-bV26 is the first we’ve seen that follow COM Express Basic Type 6 standard. The module supports up to 64GB DDR4 via two SO-DIMM connectors, up to 1TB NVMe onboard SSD, exposes 8x PCIe lanes, and with an 8-core/16-thread Ryzen Embedded V2000 processor is well-suited to IoT edge devices that must perform parallel processing tasks. Kontron COMe-bV26 specifications: AMD Embedded V2000 SoC AMD V2748 octa-core/16-thread processor @ 2.9 GHz / 4.15 GHz (Turbo) with 4MB L2 cache, 7CUs Radeon RX Vega 7 GPU @ 1.6 GHz; TDP: 35-54W AMD V2718 octa-core/16-thread processor @ 1.7 GHz / 4.15 GHz (Turbo) with 4MB L2 cache, 7CUs Radeon RX Vega 7 GPU @ 1.6 GHz; TDP: 10-25W AMD V2546 hexa-core/12-thread processor @ 3.0 GHz / 3.95 […]

March 22, 2021March 21, 2021 by Ian W MORRISON (Linuxium) - 14 Comments

Windows Performance on an Intel NUC 11 Enthusiast Phantom Canyon NUC11PHKi7C

The Enthusiast Phantom Canyon is Intel’s flagship product from its latest NUC 11 range of mini PCs. Specifically targeting gamers it includes an NVIDIA RTX 2060 GPU. In this article, I take a brief look at the performance under Windows and compare it against Intel’s previous NUC with a discrete GPU: the NUC 9 Extreme Ghost Canyon. Hardware Overview The NUC11PHKi7C physically consists of a 221 x 142 x 42 mm (8.70 x 5.59 x 1.65 inches) rectangular plastic case which is remarkable because of its size and is similar to just a graphics card like NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition (229 x 113 x 35 mm). It is an actively cooled mini PC and uses Intel’s 10 nm Core i7-1165G7 Tiger Lake processor which is a quad-core 8-thread 2.80 GHz processor boosting to 4.70 GHz with Intel’s Iris Xe Graphics. But it also includes NVIDIA’s N18E-G1-B notebook graphics […]

March 11, 2021August 24, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Crowbits Master Kit Review – Part 1: A first look at the ESP32 based education kit

Crowbits STEM education kits comprised of magnetic modules launched on Kickstarter a couple of weeks ago. There are five kits increasing in difficulty with the Hello Kit just requiring the student to connect modules to get started, i.e. no programming required, to the Crowbits Master Kit based on a battery-powered ESP32 module suitable to create your own phone, portable game console, radar tower, etc… Elecrow sent me the latter for evaluation, and in the first part of the review, I’ll unbox the kit, see how modules mechanically fit together, and have a quick look at the user manual, before trying one or two projects from the manual in the second part. This is the second STEAM product from Elecrow that I review, as I reviewed CrowPi2 Raspberry Pi 4 laptop last year. Let’s open the package. We have a total of six modules with two joysticks, an ESP32 module with […]

February 12, 2021 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment

Commell LP-179 Pico-ITX motherboard ships with Intel Tiger Lake UP3 embedded processor

Intel first introduced Core i3/i5/i7 Tiger Lake UP3 processors with Intel Xe graphics in early September 2020, soon followed with embedded versions of Tiger Lake UP3 a couple of weeks later, and then Celeron 6305E, still for embedded & IoT applications, with support for features such as 2.5GbE and quad-display support. We’ve already seen some Tiger Lake UP3 motherboards with AAEON UP Xtreme i11 (122 x 120 mm) and IEI tKINO-ULT6 mini-ITX SBC, but if you’d like a more compact Tiger Lake solution, Commell LP-179 Pico-ITX motherboard may be an option with a choice of Core i7-1185G7E or Celeron 6305E processor. Commell LP-179 specifications: SoC (one or the other) Intel Core i7-1185G7E quad-core/octa-thread Tiger Lake UP3 embedded processor @ 1.8 GHz / 4.4 GHz (Turbo) with 12MB cache, 96EU Intel Iris Xe graphics; 12 to 28W TDP Intel Celeron 6305E dual-core Tiger Lake UP3 embedded processor @ 1.8 GHz (No […]