Tag Archives: 11th Generation

MSI’s Creator Z16 Notebook PC Lands in Malaysia

August 16, 2021 Darwin Sucipto Leave a comment

High-performance computing is the name of the game for MSI. For the longest time, they have been the name to beat too when it comes to high-performance gaming rigs. This includes their line of very powerful and very desirable gaming laptops.

Of late though, high-performance PCs are not just about playing games at high framerates and ultra-realistic graphics. It is also about creating contents that can live up to demands of the modern world. High-performance machines are not just about getting the most out of your games anymore, it is about making your workflow more effective and efficient.

Earlier in the year, MSI launched their new line of notebook PCs created for creators. The new line-up of creator notebook PCs combines the power of Intel’s latest and greatest with NVIDIA’s most powerful Ampere architecture for a performance like no other. At the same time, the svelte, stealth look of the notebook combined with fans designed to work as quietly as possible while maintaining optimal temperatures ensures that the MSI fits into any working environment.

Today, MSI introduces its new line-up of ‘made for creator’ notebooks in the Creator Z16. Aside from the familiar MSI logo, there is nothing to indicate the power that is hidden within its aluminium body. It even looks like a modern unassuming thin and light notebook PC.

Fire it up though and you get a completely different story from its external façade. The first thing that greets you is a brilliant 16-inch display that boasts 2,560 by 1,600 pixels (QHD) at a 16:10 aspect ratio. The 16-incher boasts 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut with ΔE<2 in colour accuracy. That also means what you see is what you get on the MSI Creator Z16’s True Colour display. To get the best out of your creative mind, the 120Hz refresh rate display is a touch sensitive panel.

Of course, a high-resolution and fast display has to be matched by its powerful internals. The Creator Z16 boasts Intel’s latest 11^th Generation Core i7 that clocks at up to 4.6Ghz on turbo. The new generation CPU is also paired with a new generation NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 with Max-Q design. The combination of the two processing chips means that the Creator Z16 is perfect for any sort of creative work on-the-go. With up to 16GB in RAM, you can edit 8K HDR videos smoothly and quickly, very important when you have a short deadline, and you need to be moving about for your shoots. You do not even need to lug around an extra backup drive for in your haul, because the Creator Z16 comes with 1TB of NVMe PCIe Gen4 SSD. The only downside is that you have no more excuses for not meeting your deadline.

Source: MSI
Source: MSI
Source: MSI
Source: MSI
Source: MSI

The MSI Creator Z 16 is now available for pre-order in Malaysia via MSI’s official Lazada Store and their own Online Store. There are no colour choices here, but you are getting a slate grey finish that looks ultra-professional. The MSI Creator Z16 will set you back MYR 11,999. More information on the MSI Creator Z16 is available from their website.

Computers, News

Intel Has Joined the Chat – The New 11th Generation Desktop Intel Core Rocket Lake Processors

March 17, 2021 Darwin Sucipto Leave a comment

Rocket Lake is here! Some might say, “about time”. We say, let the games begin.

Intel’s 11^th Generation Intel Core processor for Desktop systems, while inevitable, seems to be something that should have come a while ago. Then again, taking their time to introduce a new product after the big game changer that was AMD’s new Ryzen 5000 series processor could be a smart thing to do. So here is the new Rocket Lake processors that has been teased and highly expected since the end of 2020.

500 Series Chipsets

The introduction of the new Rocket Lake processors also means that there is a new on-board chipset to pair to, as usual with Intel. Intel’s new 500 series chipset adds support for PCIe 4.0, which also means you can now take full advantage of new PCIe Gen 4.0 devices like the newer NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 series and AMD Radeon 6000 sieres GPUs. It also means you can get the newer, faster PCIe 4.0 SSDs to work with too. Of course, there is some new improvements in Intel Optane Memory.

Source: Intel
Source: Intel

The new chipset is also supposed to open up more USB bandwidth on the new boards too, which also means more USB lanes and faster ports. You also get to put in faster memory modules at DDR4-3200. The new 500 series chipset also allows memory overclocking on the H570 and B560 chipsets, so you are less restricted when you have a budget to work with.

Back to the new processing chips. Of course, the are not just launching a single Intel Core i9-11900K. The range topper is coming with a whole slew of Intel Core processors from the low-end, low-power Core i3-10105T with four cores and eight threads all the way to the superpower that is the flagship Core i9-11900K. The new Rocket Lake launch also include the launch of the new Pentium series with the Pentium Gold G6605 two core processor leading the way.

More Power

As per usual, Intel’s big focus on the new processors that were introduced is gaming. The headline figures for the class leading Intel Core i9-11900K unlocked processor is eight cores, 16 threads, and 16MB of Intel Smart Cache. The flagship chip clocks at up to 5.3GHz on Thermal Velocity Boost. Most games these days have not been able to capitalise on high multicore clocks too, so the Intel Rocket Lake platform processors are still expected to perform very well.

Of course, the new Rocket Lake Core processor will come with Intel’s UHD graphics with enhanced Intel X^e graphics architecture. Intel’s X^e GPU architecture pretty much has proven itself in the mobile computing space. It also means you technically can game on the on-board graphics. Intel claims 50% more graphics performance over the older generation Intel UHD Graphics. They also claim up to 19% generational improvement on the overall IPC performance. That is one of the larger leaps in terms of generational performance in Intel’s line-up. Oddly enough, the 11^th Generation Core processors are still built on top of 12nm technology instead of AMD’s cutting-edge 7nm technology. AMD has also touted 5nm technology in their next Ryzen series.

Price and Availability

Source: Intel
Source: Intel
Source: intel

The biggest surprise from Intel’s new generation of processors though is their price tag. This time, their offering their CPUs at lower prices than their competitors. The range topping Core i9-11900K for example will be sold at US$ 539 (MYR 2,220*), US$ 10 (MYR 41*) cheaper than its competition the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X at US$ 549 (MYR 2,261*). The Core i5-11600K, which would most likely be the processor of choice for most users will sell at US$ 262 (MYR 1,079*), a whopping US$ 30 (MYR 124*) less than AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X at US$ 299 (MYR 1,231*).

Intel’s 11^th Generation Rocket Lake Core processors for desktop is announced to be available later in March 2021. There are no solid leads regarding its local (Malaysia) availability just yet. That also means there are no official pricing locally just yet. Of course, we will keep you posted. For more information, you can head to Intel’s website.

*Approximate value based on conversion rate US$ 1.00 = MYR 4.12 on xe.com as of 17/03/2021

Computers, News

Intel Confirms “Rocket Lake”, 11th Generation Intel Cores for Q1 2021, with PCIe 4.0

October 12, 2020 Leeden Tang Leave a comment

If you’re looking to buy or upgrade a new desktop, it may be worth waiting until next year 2021. AMD has just announced their AMD Ryzen 5000, technically their most powerful CPU yet. Recently, Intel has confirmed that its 11th generation, “Rocket Lake” CPUs will be launching in the first quarter of 2021. The update, of course, comes with other parts as well. The Z490 motherboard for example, and support for PCIe 4.0.

Intel’s Rocket Lake is expected to be built upon the same Skylake architecture as the previous five generation of 14nm. That, or it is built upon Intel’s Cove microarchitecture designs. Technically Rocket Lake will be more powerful just based on the fact that you have PCIe 4.0 support over PCIe 3.0. In this update as well, Intel technically matched the new AMD Ryzen chips with PCIe 4.0 support.

There are no mentions on whether or not there are more PCIe lanes supported compared to the previous generation CPU though. The ASRock Z490 Aqua, built for next generation Intel processors, is built with a PCle 4.0 storage M.2 slot. Using the PCIe 4.0 slot on the board will render the PCIe 3.0 slots useless, or unusable.

Mind you, these things are said before AMD’s big announcement of the AMD Ryzen 5000 series. At this point, no one knew or could expect the kind of progress AMD has made in their new CPUs. As we have discovered, it is a monumental swing of momentum in AMD’s favour, just based on AMD’s announcement.

Intel has been making pre-emptive move with updating the Skylake architecture and introducing Tiger Lake. Up until last week, Intel still holds the title of ‘most powerful gaming processor’ available in the market. In some sense, we can expect Rocket Lake to take that title back at least. With the likelihood of Intel not moving away from 14nm processes though, it might be a long shot. All we can do, is wait and see.

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