Carzy Zarx’s PC Gaming Emporium - Catch Up on All the Latest PC Gaming Related News

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Some hardware related news and a rumor:

Backblaze Hard Drive Stats for Q3 2018
https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-for-q3-2018.html
As of September 30, 2018 Backblaze had 99,636 spinning hard drives. Of that number, there were 1,866 boot drives and 97,770 data drives. This review looks at the quarterly and lifetime statistics for the data drive models in operation in our data centers.
In addition, we'll say goodbye to the last of our 3TB drives, hello to our new 12TB HGST drives, and we'll explain how we have 584 fewer drives than last quarter, but have added over 40 petabytes of storage.

 

Samsung Electronics Starts Production of EUV-based 7nm LPP Process
https://www.techpowerup.com/248674/samsung-electronics-starts-production-of-euv-based-7nm-lpp-process
Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced that it has completed all process technology development and has started wafer production of its revolutionary process node, 7LPP, the 7-nanometer (nm) LPP (Low Power Plus) with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. The introduction of 7LPP is a clear demonstration of Samsung Foundry's technology roadmap evolution and provides customers with a definite path to 3nm. The commercialization of its newest process node, 7LPP gives customers the ability to build a full range of exciting new products that will push the boundaries of applications such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Enterprise and Hyperscale Datacenter, IoT, Automotive, and Networking.
EUV uses 13.5nm wavelength light to expose silicon wafers as opposed to conventional argon fluoride (ArF) immersion technologies that are only able to achieve 193nm wavelengths and require expensive multi-patterning mask sets. EUV enables the use of a single mask to create a silicon wafer layer where ArF can require up to 4 masks to create that same layer. Consequently Samsung's 7LPP process can reduce the total number of masks by about 20% compared to non-EUV process, enabling customers to save time and cost.
The EUV lithography improvements also deliver increased performance, lower power and smaller area while improving design productivity by reducing mulit-patterning complexity. Compared to its 10nm FinFET predecessors, Samsung's 7LPP technology not only greatly reduces the process complexity with fewer layers and better yields, but also delivers up to a 40% increase in area efficiency with 20% higher performance or up to 50% lower power consumption.

 

AMD 7nm Based Zen 2 CPU Architecture Features 13% IPC Improvement, Alleges Rumor – 7nm Process To Deliver Higher Clock Speeds
https://wccftech.com/amd-zen-2-7nm-cpu-13-percent-ipc-increase-rumor/
The rumor comes from Bits and Chips through their official Twitter feed where it’s alleged that the Zen 2 architecture brings an average of 13% IPC (Instructions Per Clock Cycle) uplift over the Zen+ architecture. It is stated that this performance uplift is specifically in scientific tasks so maybe the numbers are from early EPYC 7nm ‘Rome’ samples which should be out in the wild. There are no gaming performance results available at the moment since the consumer samples are still away from launch.
We know that aside from their server aimed EPYC ‘Rome’ lineup, AMD is also working on their new 7nm, Zen 2 based Ryzen parts. Earlier, rumors have stated that these CPUs are already working in AMD labs at speeds of up to 4.5 GHz on an 8 core, 16 thread SKU. If AMD manages to extend their product lineup with faster and much more affordable 7nm CPUs in the coming year, the can gain a significant chunk in the CPU market share with ease.