- ‘Furiosa’ First Reactions: Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth Are ‘Fantastic’ in ‘Powerhouse’ ‘Fury Road’ Prequel IndieWire
- Exclusive! Meet the Apocalyptic Hot Rods of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” MotorTrend
- Furiosa First Reactions Say “It’s No ‘Fury Road'” But Still “Stunning” — World of Reel Jordan Ruimy
- ‘Furiosa’ First Reactions Say It’s a Stunning Powerhouse (But No ‘Fury Road’) Hollywood Reporter
- ‘Furiosa’ To Fire Back At Furball As ‘Mad Max’ Prequel Has Edge Over ‘Garfield’ During Memorial Day Frame – Box Office Early Look Deadline
Tag Archives: Powerhouse
Fresh Growth Numbers Are Set to Show US Remains Economic Powerhouse – Yahoo Finance
- Fresh Growth Numbers Are Set to Show US Remains Economic Powerhouse Yahoo Finance
- After a robust third quarter, US economic growth will likely slow. That bodes well for rate cuts next year. CNN
- From Recession Fears to Too Good? What This Week’s GDP Data Will Tell Us – WSJ’s Take On the Week – WSJ Podcasts The Wall Street Journal
- Economists Predict US Recession Unlikely, Mortgage Rates Soar, And China’s Economy Surpasses Expectations Benzinga
- US economy largely unchanged, China’s GDP growth, and other economics stories to read this week World Economic Forum
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Save over $600 on this powerhouse RTX 4090 CLX Set gaming PC perfect for MW3 beta – PC Guide – For The Latest PC Hardware & Tech News
- Save over $600 on this powerhouse RTX 4090 CLX Set gaming PC perfect for MW3 beta PC Guide – For The Latest PC Hardware & Tech News
- Fall Prime Day hasn’t even started but this RTX 4080 gaming laptop is already the best deal of the week PC Gamer
- Early Prime Day deal slashes price of high-performance RTX 4070 Ti gaming PC WePC – PC Tech & PC Gaming News
- I test graphics cards for a living, and these are the Prime Day graphics card deals I’d look for — and one I’d avoid like the plague TechRadar
- Take your gaming to the next level with this rare RTX 4080 GPU deal – Prime Big Deal Days PC Guide – For The Latest PC Hardware & Tech News
- View Full Coverage on Google News
‘The Beanie Bubble’ Review: Powerhouse Actress Trio Banks, Snook And Viswanathan Take On Billionaire Boss Zach Galifianakis In Sly And Smart Biopic Of ’90s Toy Phenomenon – Deadline
- ‘The Beanie Bubble’ Review: Powerhouse Actress Trio Banks, Snook And Viswanathan Take On Billionaire Boss Zach Galifianakis In Sly And Smart Biopic Of ’90s Toy Phenomenon Deadline
- Inside the Beanie Baby Nostalgia Boom The Ringer
- The Beanie Bubble Review JoBlo.com
- The Beanie Bubble review – plushie-craze toy story goes down the cute route The Guardian
- ‘The Beanie Bubble’ Review: Zach Galifianakis and Elizabeth Banks in a Fun but Familiar Tale of a ’90s Toy Craze Hollywood Reporter
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Exclusive: Geely plans to turn maker of London black cabs into EV powerhouse
COVENTRY, England, Jan 23 (Reuters) – China’s Geely (0175.HK) is planning a big investment to turn the maker of London’s iconic black taxis into a high-volume, all-electric brand with a range of commercial and passenger vehicles, executives at the unit told Reuters.
London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) also aims to expand its suite of services, which include cars arranging their own maintenance and recognising their owner’s interests to help them book activities.
“We need a developed product portfolio. We need to make big investments in terms of the technology and infrastructure,” LEVC Chief Executive Alex Nan said at the taxi maker’s headquarters in Coventry, central England. “Geely will make consistent investments into LEVC because this is a very unique project.”
LEVC builds a hybrid taxi model that starts at around 66,000 pounds ($81,500), which has a battery providing 64 miles (103 km) of range and a petrol range-extender giving it a total range of over 300 miles. The company’s business was hit hard by the pandemic and it laid off 140 staff in October.
Nan said LEVC and Geely would seek to attract other investors to its zero-emission portfolio and would look to partner with other carmakers to develop new technology.
Executives said the size of Geely’s investment would be disclosed later. So far the Chinese group, which took full control of LEVC in 2013, has invested 500 million pounds in it.
“Geely fully supports the new transition strategy laid out by LEVC’s board and executive team,” Geely said in a statement.
In 2021, Geely launched a 2 billion pound investment in another unit, niche British luxury sports carmaker Lotus, to massively expand production of its sports cars and build high-end SUVs and sedans in Britain and China. Geely is following a similar path in its plans to grow LEVC, executives said.
Britain’s EV ambitions were dealt a blow last week when startup Britishvolt, which had planned to build a major battery factory in northeast England, filed for administration.
“We need to make sure the UK environment as a whole is competitive and has its position on the world stage,” said LEVC managing director Chris Allen.
READY TO ACCELERATE
Geely owns multiple brands including Volvo (VOLCARb.ST) and – via a joint venture with Volvo – Polestar . Zeekr, another brand in the group, filed for a U.S. initial public offering last month.
As such, Geely faces a complexity that larger EV makers BYD (002594.SZ) and Tesla (TSLA.O) have avoided.
Allen said LEVC was exploring a range of commercial and passenger car models on a common electric platform. It can lean on other group brands that already have EVs to “move forward in a fast, agile way”.
The company already uses an infotainment system and software developed by Volvo and a steering wheel from the Swedish carmaker, allowing it to cut costs, Allen said.
“There’s nothing we couldn’t deliver in a very short time period if we needed to, but it’s just a question of timing,” he said, adding LEVC could easily have a full range of EVs on the road within five years.
“But in two years time, is the industry going to be ready, is the charging infrastructure going to be there, is consumer confidence going to be there?”
LEVC currently has the capacity to build 3,000 taxis a year running on a single shift at its Coventry factory. Allen said that could easily be increased to 20,000 and the plant had room to expand. It could also lean on production in China as Lotus has, Allen said. A major car plant produces on average around 300,000 vehicles per year.
“There’s a huge amount of value in our product that hasn’t ever really been maximised,” Allen said. “This is about growing LEVC into a much more recognizable brand on a global scale and expanding our product offering into as many spaces as we can.”
($1 = 0.8095 pounds)
Reporting by Nick Carey, Additional reporting by Zoey Zhange in Shanghai and Norihiko Shirouzu in Beijing
Editing by Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Acer Predator Triton 500 SE review: A refined powerhouse for work and play
Acer is one of those laptop makers that frequently tries too hard to stand out. Consider the Predator Triton 900, a wild machine with a 360-degree swiveling screen that I found to be mostly useless. Earlier this month, Acer also announced plans to bring its SpatiaLabs glasses-free 3D technology to gaming laptops. Ambitious swings are nice and all, but these days I’m more interested in notebooks that are subtle about their gaming prowess. And after testing out the Predator Triton 500 SE for the past week, I’ve learned that Acer can pull that off pretty well.
Gallery: Acer Predator Triton 500 SE | 12 Photos
Gallery: Acer Predator Triton 500 SE | 12 Photos
The Triton 500 SE packs all of the power you’d want from a large gaming notebook, in a sleek metallic frame that wouldn’t look out of place in a stuffy office or lecture hall. There’s little need for garish LEDs (except for the keyboard backlight, which you can always turn off), or other obnoxious case bling. It’s ready to get down to work. And sure, it’s not the only subtle gaming notebook around, but competitors like the Razer Blade cost more than the Triton’s $2,300 starting price.
Pros
- Gorgeous and smooth 16-inch screen
- Fast 12th-gen CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs
- Refined design
- Cool performance
- Easy overclocking
- Plenty of ports
Cons
- Could use a better keyboard
- Trackpad is stiff
- Tinny speakers
What separates the Triton 500 SE from your typical productivity laptop, aside from the powerful hardware, is its glorious 16-inch screen. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio, making it slightly taller than typical widescreen displays and more useful for dealing with documents. Our review unit shipped with the 240Hz WQXGA model (running at 2,560 by 1,600 pixels) which, in my book, is the ideal balance between sharpness and silky smooth refresh. There’s no HDR support, but at least it offers a relatively high brightness of 500 nits, as well as full coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut. And while the screen is a big reason the Triton is a hefty 5.3 pounds, that’s still better than most 17-inch gaming notebooks (the Razer Blade 17 clocks in at 5.5 pounds).
Powering that glorious display is Intel’s 12th-gen processors and NVIDIA’s latest RTX 30-series GPUs, all the way up to the droolworthy RTX 3080 Ti. The unit we received featured that GPU as well as Intel’s top-end Core i9 12900H, 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM and a speedy 1TB NVMe SSD. To be honest, it was that configuration that inspired me to review the Triton 500 SE in the first place. I wondered, can this unassuming notebook actually satisfy gamers? Turns out, yes.
Halo Infinite, for example, reached a solid 85fps at the Triton’s native resolution at ultra graphics settings. While I missed the HDR and expansive view I’ve grown used to on the Alienware QD-OLED ultrawide monitor, I was surprised at just how immersive the game felt on a 16-inch display. You can thank the taller 16:10 aspect ratio for that – it sometimes felt like I was about to dive headfirst into Halo Infinite’s maps. (That could also be a sign that I need to make my desk a bit more ergonomic for laptops.) The 240Hz display also shined as I lowered the game’s graphics settings to reach higher framerates. I’m still not fully sold on such a high refresh rate, but it’s nice to see laptop makers pushing for smoother and more realistic gameplay.
Gearheads will likely appreciate the Triton 500 SE’s built-in overclocking capabilities. Acer’s software makes it easy to tweak clock speeds and thermal profiles. Personally, though, I was just glad to have a simple “Turbo” button on the keyboard. It revs up the fans all the way and automatically overclocks the system. In Halo Infinite and all of the benchmarks I ran, it typically led to 8 to 10 percent increase in performance. The big downside? It’s so loud you probably wouldn’t want to use it without headphones.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
Even without overclocking, the Triton 500 SE annihilated all of the benchmarks we threw at it, delivering performance mostly on-par with the Razer Blade 15. There were a few instances where the Razer edged ahead, like in PCMark 10 and Geekbench 5’s Compute test (which mostly stresses the GPU). But in others, including Cinebench R23 and 3DMark’s Port Royal ray tracing benchmark, the Triton held a commanding lead. Partially, that’s due to our review unit having a slightly faster 12th-gen processor. Hit that Turbo switch and the Triton’s numbers soar even higher.
|
PCMark 10 |
3DMark (TimeSpy Extreme) |
Geekbench 5 |
ATTO (top reads/writes) |
|
|
Acer Predator Triton 500 SE (2022, Intel i9-12900H, NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti) |
6,779 |
4,887 |
1,736/11,382 |
6.4 GB/s / 4.9 GB/s |
|
Razer Blade 15 (2022, Intel i7-12800H, NVIDIA RTX 3080 Ti) |
7,085 |
4,798 |
1,795/9,529 |
4.32 GB/s / 6.45 GB/s |
|
ASUS Zephyrus G14 (2022, AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS, Radeon RX 6800S) |
7,170 |
3,821 |
1,543/9,839 |
3.5 GB/s / 4 GB/s |
|
ASUS Zephyrus G15 (AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS, NVIDIA RTX 3080 Max-Q) |
6,881 |
4,530 |
1,426/7,267 |
3.3 GB/s / 2.85 GB/s |
NVIDIA’s Advanced Optimus feature, which intelligently swaps the Triton’s GPU between integrated and discrete graphics, also worked flawlessly throughout my testing. I didn’t see any of the performance bottlenecking that occurred with older Optimus machines, where discrete GPUs had to be squeezed through integrated graphics. There’s also a MUX switch that lets you manually change between both GPUs without rebooting the entire system.
After benchmarking and playing several games for a few hours, the Triton 500 SE remained relatively cool. The CPU typically hovered around 78 Celsius under load, while the GPU hit 83 Celsius. It never felt hot to the touch, though it’s worth noting that I was testing in my chill basement. Fan noise was about what I’d expect with the Triton’s default performance settings – audible, but not nearly as irritating as cranking them up all the way with the Turbo button.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
But even though Acer got cooling and overall performance right, it’s a shame that some of the Triton 500 SE’s hardware holds it back. The keyboard is fine for gaming, but I’d like more feedback for lengthy typing sessions. And while I appreciated the large and smooth trackpad, the actual clicking mechanism felt stiff – it was particularly bad at registering right clicks. I’m also not a fan of having a fingerprint sensor right on the trackpad, as it often gets in the way while I’m swiping around. Just stick that sensor on the power button, or throw in a Windows Hello webcam already! I’d also like to see Acer bundle more than just a pair of tinny stereo speakers, especially since Razer, Dell and others are cramming many more drivers into their notebooks.
Battery life is another disappointment, though I suppose we’ve grown used to that in powerful gaming laptops. The Triton 500 SE lasted five hours and twenty-five minutes in our benchmark, which involves looping an HD video. That’s 17 minutes less than the Razer Blade 15. During my typical workday, it usually lasted around five hours before needing a recharge. Unfortunately, that’s typical for gaming laptops with large screens. You’ll never want to be too far from a power plug.
Still, I’d imagine most people would want to keep their workstations plugged in for the best performance. Acer also included all of the ports you’d need to make it a true workstation, including two USB 3.2 Type A connections, dual USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI, Ethernet and an SD card slot. And thankfully Acer didn’t get rid of the headphone jack, something more laptop makers are doing these days.
The Acer Predator Triton 500 SE starts at $2,300, which is $200 less than the Razer Blade 15 with 12th-gen Intel chips and $400 less than the most recent Blade 17. Be prepared to shell out $3,000 if you want all of the hardware from our review unit (still cheaper than comparable machines from Razer and others). But if you can live with last year’s 11th-gen Intel chips, you can also find older Triton 500 SE models for $2,000 and under. We’d recommend doing whatever it takes to get a 12th-gen chip, though, as the performance difference is huge.
Devindra Hardawar/Engadget
If anything, the Triton 500 SE proves that Acer is doing more than just chasing gaming gimmicks. After being known for producing cheap and unsophisticated laptops for years, it’s nice to see that Acer can make a refined gaming notebook without any unnecessary bling.
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‘Ruthless’ CEO of real estate data powerhouse CoStar ‘created toxic environment’
More than 1,500 employees have left one of the biggest real estate data firms in the country over the past year, and many say the ‘ruthless’ CEO created a toxic work environment where he openly favored young women while ridiculing others, and even pointed a gun at an executive during a Zoom call.
In interviews published by Insider, former employees each had their own horror story to tell and claimed it was a workplace where humiliation and surveillance was common, specifically by CEO Andrew Florance.
Florance, 58, who started CoStar in the basement of his father’s Washington, D.C. home, has been credited with the company’s growth. But former employees say his leadership styled paired with the pandemic has caused discontent in the company and sparked a mass exodus.
Insider reported that 1,546 workers departed the $27 billion company in 2021 — more than double the 638 who left in 2020.
Employees’ discontent with the company was also apparent in the form of memes on an Instagram account that mocks the company, many of them referencing their own experiences.
One former employee, who wished to remain anonymous, told Insider that dealing with Florance had always been difficult, but on once occasion found himself starring down the barrel of a gun.
In March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, the 39-year-old who used to be a communications director for the firm, said he was on a video call with the CEO and two other colleagues when the CEO suddenly pulled out a black semiautomatic pistol and pointed it at the screen.
‘It was inappropriate, quite jarring, and showed a complete lack of professionalism,’ the employee told Insider. ‘What if any of us had been the victims of violence in the past?’
The employee said Florance, who was working at home in rural Virginia, then put the gun down and explained he had seen bears on his property.
But the CEO also allegedly showed off his ammunition while on the call, and then months later sent a photo of a target riddled with bullets.
CoStar told Insider in a written statement that ‘the alleged incident you referenced did not occur’ and that Florance is ‘a well-trained and licensed shooter who is passionate about firearm safety.’
CEO Andrew Florance, 58, CEO of CoStar, a powerful real-estate data firm, is accused of creating a toxic work environment causing more than 1,500 employees to leave in 2021
A 39-year-old who used to be a communications director for the firm, said he was on a video call with the CEO when he pulled out a black pistol and pointed it at the screen
But the CEO also allegedly showed off his ammunition while on the call, and then months later sent a photo of a target riddled with bullets
The former communications director texted his account of the incident to a colleague at the time, in a text thread obtained by Insider.
‘I’m on a call with Andy and he’s holding a gun,’ the text read.
‘He just pointed it at the screen,’ the next text read.
The recipient replied: ‘Is it loaded?’ and then added: ‘Whaaaaat??’
The then-communications director wrote back: ‘He was playing with a bullet too,’ before adding: ‘I was terrified lol.’
He said Florance told him he had a gun because he was in the mountains and ‘you never know what’s going to be outside’.
The director was one of the 1,546 of the firm’s 4,200 US employees who resigned or were fired, in what Insider reported as its largest exodus ever, according to data provided by a current employee with access to its internal employment statistics.
In a previous Insider article, CoStar characterized the discontent as a symptom of its high performance expectations.
‘We will not apologize for these standards, nor will we compromise them to accommodate a vocal few who decide that this level of expectation is not for them,’ it said in a statement in a February statement.
But negative reviews of the company online and a meme account on Instagram say otherwise.
An Instagram account dedicated to memes mocking the company was created by Nate Peterson, who was fired in 2021, and has more than 2,300 followers.
The content is submitted by current and former employees eager to share their own experiences of working at CoStar.
An Instagram account dedicated to memes mocking the company was created by Nate Peterson, and has more than 2300 followers
Current and former employees submit content to the Instagram account which is dedicated to mocking the company
COSTAR: THE $27 BILLION COMPANY STARTED IN A BASEMENT
CoStar describes itself as the world leader in commercial real estate information and was founded by CEO Andrew Florance in 1987 in his father’s basement in Washington DC.
He borrowed $5,000 from his father Colden Florance as seed money.
It was one of the first companies that digitized and aggregated property data and raised $22.5 million in its IPO in 1998.
According to Business Insider, it started as a 145-person upstart that made less than $14 million in revenue in 1998 to boasting a staff of 4,700 and a $2 billion annual revenue in 2021.
However last year, 1,546 of the firm’s 4,200 US employees resigned or were fired.
The company conducts ongoing research to produce a comprehensive database of commercial real estate information.
In October shares hit an all-time high of a little over $100, but they have now fallen to the $60s, despite the Dow and the S&P rising.
CoStar was set up by Andrew Florance in 1987
In interviews conducted by Insider, more than 50 former employees described a toxic work environment with a ‘ruthless’ CEO who could ‘ridicule and callously fire employees and that he made workers both fearful and uncomfortable by showing ruthlessness to some and unwanted attention to others.’
One employee told Insider that while she was on a video call while working from home, she overheard Florance slam her appearance and accused her of being asleep and not paying attention, apparently unaware that his microphone was on.
She said she called him out on his comments and when the call ended and an HR employee called her to inform her she had been fired.
Five women told Insider that Florance openly favored young women in the office and made them feel uncomfortable by complimenting them on their appearance.
One woman said Florance approached her at the office and told her, ‘I want to steal you away for a few days with a few of us and lock ourselves in a room and figure out this product,’ she said he told her. ‘You can pick anywhere you want to go.’
When she jokingly suggested Europe, he responded that, ‘We’ll get the private jet.’ The trip never happened, but the woman said the encounter was awkward.
CoStar said in its statement to Insider that ‘this insinuation is categorically false and mischaracterizes the situation and the purpose and intent of the requested meeting.’
Dailymail.com has reached out to the company for comment.
CoStar disputed allegations and characterizations of the company and CEO to Insider and instead described their boss as someone who is ‘pro-family’ and ‘likes children.’
The company added that Florance has offered ‘comfort and support’ to his workers, especially those in need.
CoStar told Insider it has taken steps to improve its workplace and benefits by hiring an outside firm to run focus groups, allowing employees to work from home one day a week, and updating its parental leave policy.
CoStar disputed allegations and characterizations of the company and CEO to Insider and instead described their boss as someone who is ‘pro-family’ and ‘likes children’
LG’s new 16:18 monitor looks like a multitasking powerhouse
Are monitors with traditional aspect ratios just not getting the job done for you? LG might have the answer. Today the company has announced what it touts as “a completely new format in the monitor market” called the DualUp. With a unique 16:18 aspect ratio, LG claims the DualUp gives you “the same screen real estate as two 21.5-inch displays and has a vertical split view function that lets users see more in one glance.”
With a resolution of 2560×2880 and measuring 27.6 inches on the diagonal, the DualUp (model 28MQ780) tops out at 300 nits of brightness and covers 98 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut. It attaches to LG’s included Ergo stand, which can clamp to “most” desks and tables to save on space. Aside from the productivity and creative possibilities opened up by this form factor, LG claims the double-height display has ergonomic benefits since it “helps reduce side-to-side head movements, the main cause of neck pain.”
If you’re not into the idea of having multiple displays in your working space, this thing should make it easier to multitask while keeping an eye on Slack, Microsoft Teams, and so on. And as the marketing images show, it seems like a dream for video editors.
LG isn’t yet disclosing pricing for the DualUp, but this isn’t the only new monitor that the company is introducing today. There’s also the 4K 32-inch UltraFine display. This one keeps things more ordinary with a 16:9 aspect ratio, but LG is taking up its “first Nano IPS Black panel” and says this display can output “realistic and nuanced black tones.” The UltraFine can crank a little brighter than the DualUp with a peak of 400 nits and also has a 2000:1 contrast ratio compared to the 1,000:1 of the more unconventional display. LG also includes a self-calibration sensor to ensure you’re seeing accurate color tones when editing photos or video or working on graphic design.
Both of LG’s new monitors include two HDMI ports, one upstream USB-C port (for your computer), and two downstream USB-C ports — but they aren’t Thunderbolt ports, unfortunately. They can charge external devices like laptops at up to 96 watts through USB power delivery.
The company says it will share more details on both products during its virtual CES 2022 presentation on January 4th. LG has already made pre-show announcements including a battery-powered TV that can be wheeled around your home and a new soundbar with an upward-firing center channel designed to improve speech clarity.
Hollywood agency CAA acquiring rival ICM to create movie powerhouse
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Creative Artists Agency says it will acquire the rival talent group ICM, combining two powerful stables of agents amid sweeping changes in Hollywood and the global sports industry.
The deal, which is expected to close by the end of the year, comes after talent agencies were forced to dismiss workers due to the pandemic-related suspensions of live events and costly delays in filmed productions. Financial terms were not disclosed.
It would be the first big merger of talent groups since the William Morris Agency combined with Endeavor in 2009. Endeavor, led by Hollywood impresario Ari Emanuel, was backed by the private equity group Silver Lake for a decade and went public in April. It has a market capitalisation of $12.5bn.
“This has a seismic scale impact in Hollywood that certainly must have the people at Endeavor talking,” said Eric Schiffer, chairman of Reputation Management Consultants.
The deal will bring CAA’s clients — which include Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg — under the same roof as ICM’s Samuel L Jackson, Olivia Colman and Uma Thurman.
The private equity firm TPG invested in CAA in 2010, taking a majority stake four years later in a transaction that valued the talent agency at more than $1bn. That deal came as financial investors sought ways of profiting from content rights that soared in value as music and video streaming created new ways of monetising artists’ back catalogues and triggered a boom in television production.
The CAA-ICM deal comes at another inflection point, with Hollywood studios launching their own streaming platforms and potentially challenging the traditional way actors are paid for their work.
This summer Johansson filed a lawsuit against Walt Disney after it released Black Widow on Disney+ at the same time as its theatrical release. Johansson alleged that the decision cost her a bonus that was tied to box-office sales. Disney says the suit has “no merit”.
Bryan Lourd, co-chairman of CAA, said he was hopeful that such shifts in the media industry would result in “a better world” for the agency’s clients.
“We’re really excited about the opportunities our clients have in this new world order, and a driving principle behind combining the companies is to answer that challenge of the future,” he added.
Last year ICM acquired London-based ICM Stellar Sports, with an 800-strong roster of clients includes a number of football stars, from Chelsea’s Saúl Ñíguez to Manchester City’s Jack Grealish. Its English Premier League strength compliments CAA’s dominance in North American sports.
Endeavor went beyond simply representing athletes with the acquisition of the mixed martial arts league Ultimate Fighting Championship. Emanuel told a Goldman Sachs media conference last week that he also saw a big opportunity in sports betting, an area the traditional agencies are unlikely to push into.
Schiffer said the question for CAA-ICM is whether they would seek to expand with further acquisition to compete with Endeavor and its public market valuation.
“What does it portend? Do they look at other acquisitions as Endeavor did with UFC?” he said.
Still, CAA is a dominant force in film, TV, music and sports. Besides its core areas of film, television and theatre, ICM has a strong books division. Both of the Los Angeles-based groups boast of their strength in emerging areas such as podcasting.
Lourd said the two groups had discussed a deal informally for years but that now the “timing felt incredibly right”.
“We will have more resources and expertise around the world to make things with the writers, directors, actors musicians and athletes on the field,” he said.
Desktop Tiger Lake Debuts in SFF Gaming Powerhouse
Intel kick-started a form-factor revolution in the early 2010s with the introduction of the ultra-compact NUCs. The systems were meant to be an alternative to the tower desktops used in many applications where the size, shape, and the system capabilities were mostly unwarranted. The success of the NUCs enabled Intel to start reimagining the build of systems used in a wider range of settings.
More recently, the introduction of the Skull Canyon NUC in 2016 was Intel’s first effort to make a gaming-focused SFF PC. And desktop-focused Compute Elements (essentially, a motherboard in a PCIe card form-factor) launched in early 2020 meant that full-blown gaming desktops could credibly come under the NUC banner. Also last year, the Ghost Canyon NUC9 – the first NUC Extreme – made a splash in the market with support for a user-replaceable discrete GPU. Ghost Canyon was extremely impressive, but the restrictions on the dGPU size and high-end pricing were dampeners.
Thankfully, the introduction of Tiger Lake has enabled Intel to make multiple updates in its Compute Element lineup. Incorporating some tweaks and changes learned from their Ghost Canyon experience, Intel has now put forward its flagship NUC for 2021: Beast Canyon. With a desktop-class CPU and ability to accommodate most discrete GPUs in the market, the Beast Canyon NUC promises a lot. Does it manage to exorcise the ghosts of its predecessor? Our review below provides some answers.
Introduction and Product Impressions
Intel’s lineup of gaming-focused NUCs started with the Performance series (Skull Canyon NUC6i7KYK and Hades Canyon NUC8i7HVK), before moving up the ladder to the Extreme series (Ghost Canyon NUC9i9QNX). The Beast Canyon, announced at the 2021 Computex, is taking over the flagship mantle this year. The important updates over the Ghost Canyon NUC include:
- Support for 65W desktop-class CPUs in the Compute Element (compared to the 45W mobile workstation-focused CPU in the Ghost Canyon’s Compute Elements)
- Increased chassis dimensions to accommodate larger discrete GPUs
- 10nm Tiger Lake CPU with new micro-architectural improvements for performance and power-efficiency
- Support for a richer set of I/Os (including PCIe Gen 4)
Intel supplied us with an engineering sample of the high-end SKU in the Beast Canyon line – the NUC11BTMi9 sporting the NUC11 Extreme Compute Element (NUC11DBBi9). This Compute Element is housed in a 357mm x 189mm x 120mm chassis. Traditionally, NUCs have been associated with the ultra-compact form-factor (100mm x 100mm in a 0.63L or 0.42L chassis). The introduction of the Skull Canyon and subsequent Hades Canyon NUCs created yet another class of 0.7L to 1.2L NUCs, and last year’s Ghost Canyon took it up to approximately 5L. The need to accommodate the cooling solution of a more powerful Compute Element, along with the ability to accept large dGPUs contribute to the 8L volume of the Beast Canyon NUC chassis. This is still within the realm of SFF PCs – an adult can still single-handedly carry the unit around. Other important SFF aspects such as the in-built PSU are carried over from the Ghost Canyon NUC.
Intel’s NUC lineup has traditionally included board and kit variants, allowing its partners to provide value additions (such as a passive chassis or additional I/O ports in the end system). Kits (other than the ones that come with a pre-installed OS) require the end-user to add storage, DRAM, and install an OS to complete the system. Intel plans to sell two varieties of the Beast Canyon NUC – the NUC11BTMi9 and the NUC11BTMi7. These two NUCs are kits based on the Driver Bay line of Compute Elements. OEMs and end-users can build their own NUC11 system based on the following components:
- Compute Element (NUC11DBBi9 or NUC11DBBi7)
- Baseboard (or backplane)
- Chassis
- PSU
- DRAM (up to 2x DDR4-3200 SODIMMs)
- Non-volatile storage
- Discrete GPU (optional)
An off-the-shelf Beast Canyon NUC11BTM kit leaves only the DRAM, non-volatile storage, and discrete GPU to the choice of the end-user. Prior to the platform analysis and overview of our review configuration, let’s take a look at the pre-decided components in the above list.
Driver Bay Compute Element
The NUC11BTMi9 we are reviewing today comes with the NUC11DBBi9 NUC11 Extreme Compute Element. It comes with a soldered processor – the Core i9-11900KB. This belongs to the Tiger Lake (11th Generation) family, and has a 8C/16T configuration with a 65W TDP. It can turbo up to 5 GHz. This Compute Element is a natural successor to the NUC9 Compute Element which re-imagined the traditional motherboard in a discrete PCIe x16 card form-factor.
The Compute Element comes with a cooling shroud containing a single fan and three M.2 heat-sinks with thermal pads pre-attached. These align with the three M.2 2280 slots in the Compute Element. The slot to the right of the processor is enabled by the x4 Gen 4 lanes directly from the processor, while the two to the right (and the M.2 slot occupied by the WLAN card) are from the PCH. On the extreme right, we have the two SODIMM slots that can operate at speeds of up to DDR-3200 for DIMMs up to 64GB in total. These are vertical slots (compared to the horizontal ones in the NUC9 Compute Elements), and free up valuable space that gets taken up by the extra M.2 slot. The gallery below provides additional photographs of the Compute Element and the cooling shroud.
The NUC11BTMi9 comes with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 2.5G Ethernet port, a HDMI 2.0a display output, and six USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports in the rear. There are two USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A ports, a 3.5mm stereo headset jack, and a SDXC slot with UHS-II support in the front. The front I/Os are enabled by a daughterboard that connects to the headers in the Compute Element. The Compute Element has its own power connection to the PSU.
Monster Cove Baseboard
The baseboard used in the Beast Canyon (code name Monster Cove) is an evolutionary update to the West Cove board used in the Ghost Canyon. The PCIe lanes are now Gen 4, but they retain the x8 / x4 / x4 bifurcation capabilities designed into the previous generation. Thankfully, the M.2 22110 slot resulting from this bifurcation is now easily accessible from the underside of the chassis, without having to take out the Compute Element from the baseboard.
Similar to the West Cove board, the usage of either of the two x4 slots hard-limits the peripheral in the x16 slot to x8 bandwidth. This was an issue in our review configuration of the Ghost Canyon NUC, but the Beast Canyon has no such issues, as discussed further below. One of the downsides of the new baseboard compared to the West Cove is the placement of the vertical x4 PCIe slot between the Compute Element slot and the x16 slot. Due to the placement of the air guide above the Compute Element’s fan (essential due to the 65W TDP of the resident CPU), the x4 slot is rendered unusable.
Chassis and PSU
The NUC11BTMi9 chassis has the same ease of installation as the previous generation Extreme NUC. The dimensions have been expanded to allow the installation of dual slot GPUs up to 12″ in length. The included 650W 80+ Gold internal PSU also supplies a 8-pin and a 2×6+2-pin connector for the GPU. The chassis can be disassembled by removing the four screws to dislodge the rear cover, and popping out the side panels.
The top panel with the three fans rests on a hinge. The embossed directions in the frame helpfully guide the user to open it up. This is essential to get access to the Compute Element and remove its shroud to install the RAM and storage.
Despite the plastic framing in the front panel, the metal-based construction in other areas gives the chassis a premium look and sturdy feel. The Beast Canyon NUC chassis also features customizable RGB underglow lighting, as well as replaceable RGB front logo. The chassis has ample space inside for easy cable management even in the presence of a discrete GPU. These are updates over the previous generation NUC Extreme.
The chassis also has a few downsides. The front USB ports are recessed, and given their Type-A nature, figuring out the correct orientation to plug in the peripherals is a bit of a hit or miss. Certain keyboard / mice receivers can end up being completely inside the recess, making it challenging to remove them when the other USB slot is also occupied. The placement of the PSU AC receptacle on the top end of the chassis means that the heavy AC power cord could potentially create cable management issues. In both these aspects, the Ghost Canyon NUC chassis had a much better design.
Our review sample of the NUC11BTMi9 came with the following components pre-installed:
- 2x Kingston HyperX KHX3200C20S4/8G for 16GB of DRAM
- 1x Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 500GB M.2 2280 SSD
- ASUS Dual GeForce RTX 3060 12GB GDDR6
The presence of a desktop-class CPU in the system means that the Beast Canyon NUC should easily be able to support powerful GPUs such as the dual-slot RTX 3080 variants (even though we tested only with the RTX 3060). In the next section, we take a look at the full specifications of our review sample, followed by a detailed platform analysis along with some notes on our setup experience.