Month: August 2022

Qualcomm has unveiled two new chipsets to power high-end mobile phones, including its new top-tier offering: the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1.

The 8+ Gen 1 is one of Qualcomm’s typical mid-cycle refreshes, in this case upgrading on last December’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

The core of the chip remains unchanged, but the CPU’s prime core has been overclocked to 3.2GHz – up from 3GHz – resulting in a 10% increased in CPU performance. That’s matched by a further 10% improvement to the GPU, and both benefit from a 30% improvement to power efficiency.

Those upgrades won’t be enough to see the 8+ Gen 1 catch up to Apple’s A15 Bionic on pure performance, but should further cement Qualcomm as the dominant chip provider for high-end Android phones.

Brands including Xiaomi, Asus ROG, Realme, and Motorola have already committed to using the upgraded chip, which is expected to appear in the likes of the ROG Phone 6, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Fold 4, and Xiaomi 12 Ultra.

Alongside the 8+ Gen 1, Qualcomm also revealed the 7 Gen 1 – its first mid-range chip since the company adopted the new ‘Gen’ branding.

Like the 8+ Gen 1, this is a 4nm chip, and uses roughly the same CPU structure – though clocked slower at 2.4GHz on its prime core.

It’s powerful enough to drive FHD+ displays at 144Hz – or QHD+ screens at 60Hz; can record 4K HDR video at up to 30fps with up to 200Mp photo capture; and boasts gaming features like Variable Rate Shading, the Adreno Frame Motion Engine, and over 20% faster graphics rendering than last year’s Snapdragon 778G.

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After years of success in China, and slow but steady progress in Europe and the rest of Asia, chipset manufacturer MediaTek has clearly set its sights on the US smartphone market with its first ever mmWave 5G chipset: the Dimensity 1050.

While MediaTek already offers several 5G chipsets to smartphone manufacturers, all so far have been limited to sub-6GHz frequencies. The Dimensity 1050 breaks that trend by supporting sub6 along with mmWave, a different frequency band that’s currently only widely used in the US. Support is often set as a requirement by key US carriers to stock manufacturers’ 5G phones.

Despite arguably boasting MediaTek’s most advanced networking yet, the Dimensity 1050 isn’t actually the company’s top-tier chip – that remains the Dimensity 9000. Instead, this is a cheaper offering built on a 6nm process, intended to even sit below the recently announced Dimensity 8000 and 8100 in the MediaTek lineup.

Expect it to appear in mid-range Android phones, with specs including support for 144Hz displays, 108Mp cameras, and Wi-Fi 6E connections.

For those who care about CPU construction, the 1050 uses two A78 performance cores clocked at 2.5GHz, and a further six A55 efficiency cores.

MediaTek hasn’t yet confirmed any specific manufacturers that intend to use the Dimensity 1050, but says the first phones should arrive some time in Q3, meaning July to September this year.

That means phones will begin to arrive after the first handsets using the Snapdragon 7 Gen 1, the similarly positioned rival chip from Qualcomm, announced just last week. Honor, Oppo, and Xiaomi have already committed to using the Qualcomm chip, and it will be interesting to see if MediaTek can attract a similar calibre of OEM – or, as it’s no doubt hoping, companies like Motorola and OnePlus that have a foothold in the US market.

Alongside the 1050 MediaTek also announced two cheaper smartphone chips. The Dimensity 930 is a similar 6nm chip, with the same CPU cores but clocked at a slower 2.2GHz – and while it’s 5G-capable, it lacks mmWave support. Expect to see this chip in more affordable mid-rangers – its predecessor, the Dimensity 810, was used in the likes of the Vivo V23 and the Indian version of the Realme 9 5G.

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It’s hard to believe that AMD released its very first Ryzen CPUs as recently as 2017. They were based on a new Zen architecture, built from the ground up in the five years prior to release. Looking back, this was a defining moment for AMD, and the future of laptop and desktop chips more widely.

In the five years since, we’ve seen six generations of Ryzen chips and three subsequent Zen architectures. The latest of these is the Ryzen 6000 Series, which uses a tweaked version of the existing architecture known as Zen 3+.

But AMD confirmed it was working on the next-gen Zen 4 architecture back in 2020, and it’s set to arrive before the end of 2022.

AMD Zen 4 release date
At the Zen 3 reveal in October 2020, AMD Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster confirmed that Zen 4 was “on track, in design”. His presentation was accompanied by the following timeline:

Image: AMD
Our next official update came in July 2021, when AMD CEO Lisa Su confirmed that Zen 4 was on track to launch the following. At CES in January 2022, the company was a little more specific – the second half of 2022 is the target.

Following the reveal of an official roadmap, that timeframe is looking likely:

Image: AMD
That was then reiterated at Computex 2022, with the company announcing that we’d begin seeing Zen 4-equipped Ryzen 7000 series processors as soon as Q3 2022, but again, no solid release date was given.

A specific release date remains unclear then, but Twitter leaker @Broly_X1 said Zen 4 could be announced in September 2022, with availability a month later. However, the tweet has now been deleted.

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While most gamers are interested in Nvidia’s high-end RTX 30 Series (if not the RTX 40 Series due in the coming months), there’s still a huge market for entry-level graphics cards that don’t cost the earth.

With that in mind, Nvidia is said to be prepping a new entry-level graphics card that could hopefully retail at around $150 – and what’s more, a Videcardz report gives us a good idea of specs and when the GPU will be released.

Here’s everything there is to know about the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1630 right now, from release date and pricing speculation to leaked specs.

When will the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1630 be released?
According to the Videocardz report outlining the upcoming graphics card, the budget-focused Nvidia GTX 1630 is currently scheduled for release on 31 May 2022.

Of course, that’s yet to be confirmed, but with Nvidia set to take to the stage at Computex 2022 in little under 24 hours, it’s likely that we’ll hear more about the graphics card then.

We explain how to watch the Nvidia keynote at Computex 2022 separately if you’re interested in watching the event live, though be warned; it’s either a very late, or very early, start depending on where you are in the world.

How much will the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1630 cost?
As an entry-level graphics card, it should come as no surprise that Nvidia will want to price the GeForce GTX 1630 competitively – especially in a market in desperate need of entry-level options.

With top-end graphics cards still hard to come by, let alone at RRP, the budget specs of the GTX 1630 should mean less (or no) interest from crypto-miners. That’s the hope, anyway!

While there aren’t any specific pricing rumours about the GTX 1630 right now, it’s worth noting that its sibling, the GTX 1650, has an RRP of just $149, so we’d expect something similar for the GTX 1630.

Here’s how much the existing GTX 16 series costs:

Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 (GDDR5): $149
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 (GDDR6): $149
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Super: $159
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660: $219
We’ll update this section once we hear anything else, or get confirmation from Nvidia.

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The iPad Air 5 brought with it some key upgrades, including an improved 12Mp front-facing camera, 5G connectivity and the same M1 chipset as the iPad Pro and Apple’s MacBook line, but it’s safe to assume that Apple is hard at work on the next-gen iPad Air behind closed doors at Apple Park.

While it’s early days, we cover all there is to know about the iPad Air 6 right now, including release date and pricing speculation based on previous releases and our wishlist of features we’d love to see on the next-gen tablet.

When will the iPad Air 6 be released?
While you might be excited by the idea of the prospect of an update to the popular iPad Air 5, there’s some bad news: you’ll likely be waiting a while.

Unlike Apple’s iPhone range, which is updated every year, the iPad range has a longer upgrade cycle, meaning you shouldn’t expect the next iPad for quite some time. What we can do, however, is predict when to expect the tablet to appear based on previous releases.

The iPad Air 3 was revived back in March 2019 after a five-year hiatus, with the iPad Air 4 following 18 months later in September 2020. There was a similar pattern with the release of the iPad Air 5, which came 18 months after the release of the iPad Air 4 in March 2022.

With all that being said, it’s safe to assume that Apple has an 18-month upgrade cycle for the iPad Air, leading us to believe that the iPad Air 6 will be released in September 2023.

We’ll update this section as soon as we hear any concrete news, but based on the above, we wouldn’t expect that for a while yet.

If that’s too far, take a look at our iPad Air 5 (2022) review to see whether it’s worth buying.

How much will the iPad Air 6 cost?
The iPad Air 4 saw a sharp price hike when it was redesigned in 2020, but we can’t see Apple rising the price any further – it’s very much a premium tablet at its current £569/$599 starting price, after all.

The iPad Air 5 matched the pricing of its predecessor (and was actually £10 cheaper in the UK!) and bar any currency exchange rate fluctuations, it’s unlikely that the iPad Air will change in price.

For reference, here’s how much the current iPad Air range costs:

iPad Air (64GB, Wi-Fi): £569/$599
iPad Air (256GB, Wi-Fi): £719/$749
iPad Air (64GB, Wi-Fi & Cellular): £719/$749
iPad Air (256GB, Wi-Fi & Cellular): £869/$899
To see how the tablet compares to the rest of the iPad collection, take a look at the best iPad.

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