Finally I own a Cybershot-Walkman phone.. lol.. Flashed my K550i to a W610i

Oki doki fellas.. I used to have a Sony Ericsson K550i Cybershot branded phone.. I'm pretty darn sure that you have heard of flashing mobile phones.. K550i is a very popular mobile phone among mobile users which can be flashed to W610i ..
I followed this article and successfully flashed my phone to a W610i
And it didn't take much long..

http://www.akshayy.com/sonyericsson/crossflashing/flash-k550-to-w610/

Now it features Walkman 2.0 player and MEGA-BASS equalizer preset which I was drooling over for months.. :P
Also it supports Flash Lite based Themes (eye candies lol :D).
And I flashed the Camera driver of my phone to a modded (high FPS Video recording) camera driver (chris's v2.4 driver)..
Will check the picture and Video quality once I get time...... :-)

Overclocked VGA Killed my LCD Monitor ? ! ? LOL

Ok fellas! This is an utter weird thing that happened to me few days back.As you have seen on the previous post  I'm gaming on an EVGA 9800GT (EVGA 512-P3-N975-AR).
Core @ 695 and Mem @ 950 (1900). Furmark - 50 minutes stable. I fired up Crysis since I'm bored to death over FarCry2, played it like an hour and suddenly the system crashed with red artifacts (This has happened early when I was 700 on core, so I lowered it to 695 and it was stable with furmark)
I didn't restart the PC and just switched it off from the UPS and went to bed

My Display is Samsung SyncMaster 943NWX (19" Wide)



On the next day when I switched on the PC the LCD gave me an excessive RED tone, Boot Logo of my mobo (Foxconn) which is White was also RED, at the same time I noticed the Monitor displayed an OSD message saying you are not running the native resolution 1440x900.... (Can't remember it correctly). The PC booted up normally but everything was in excessive red,I did reset the LCD to factory defaults but with no luck . I even checked it with the Onboard VGA to make sure the culprit isn't my 9800GT, so the onboard VGA gave the same RED, So its a case with the LCD panel, and I noticed the OSD of the Monitor works perfectly without any color issue, even the "Check Cable" warning is perfect.

RAMDAC runs on it's own clock and doesn't get affected by the Core clock, but the over heated PCB may have caused the RAMDAC to send a weird signal to the LCD panel and busted it.. That's the only explanation I can provide now.. Anyway I got the LCD RMAed, Was on TV for 12 days,

So if you guys are in to Overclocking make sure to keep an eye on the PCB temp as well, In my case I couldn't monitor it while gaming , since the EVGA Precision tool only displays GPU temps on OSD..

From 32 Shaders to 112 Shaders Finally

Finally one of my dreams met with reality; Playing all the games out there with all the eye candies at high resolutions... A High end VGA card was a luxurious item back in 2007. Offerings from ATi couldn't give a neck to neck fight to nVidia's stronger counterparts. Finally ATi came up with a real competitor "The RV770" which brought as much as twice the performance of the not much successful predecessor R600. nVidia went haywire from seeing unexpected success of the RV770. That was the start of the flooding of the VGA market. We could see at least one VGA card once a week be it ATi or nVidia. The price point of so called High-End VGAs were falling to previous mid-range or sometimes Low-End cards' price points.

w00t!.. The most popular High End VGA; The8800GT that took enthusiasts' hearts  by like a storm was available as low as 110$ on newegg.
The time arrived for me to invest on a new hot babe finally. A PNY 8800GT was available on SLmega.com for 19k, that is a reasonable price compared to Unity Plaza prices. And few days later I spotted an EVGA 9800GT for 20k on SLmega. I searched all over the internet about this PNY 88GT but the impression among users of this PNY card was not convincing. That wasn't the case with EVGA, So i decided to pay additional 1k for the EVGA card even though its the same 88GT G92 with a 98GT label on it. So the long awaited hot babe arrived to SLmega local store after 12 days of my initial payment.

I collected the card from them ASAP but I was in a dilemma whether my Casing would not be enough to shelter this new babe. Gosh! It didn't fit in my casing I mean i couldn't even insert it in to the casing. I had to lean one end of the card to the casing and then only I could insert the whole card in to the casing, oh forgot to tell you all, I had to remove one of my HDDs before inserting the VGA. After all the blah blah I powered up the PC, oh crap! nothing happens not even lights of the Casing.. Now I stated to curse the sales person who sold me my new PSU ( I thought the PSU was the culprit thinking it couldn't feed the beast with juice). Within next 10 seconds I remembered that there is a On/Off switch back of the PSU and it may have been switched-off accidentally since I played with the Casing for a while. Bingo! I was correct, that was the case, Phew!.

PC booted up normally and I installed the very drivers supplied by EVGA + the EVGA Precision Tool. From the researches I did before buying this card I knew I can't do even mere 100MHz on Mem of this card (though the mem is rated as 1ns). So I ended up at 960MHz on Mem (1000MHz gave artifacts so I straight away went back to 950 then 960 and didn't try any further; my laziness..lol) . The core clock bump wasn't extreme either but satisfying; 700MHz on core not bad eh? ( 600 stock)
Every game I had performed extremely well but Crysis was an exception, I don't have to explain about it right? you all know about Crysis. hehehe. It was a way too short game btw. More details and pictures will follow.. Stay tuned.lol

Now Playing: COD4..
Coming up next : FarCry2..

Windows 7 Stays as the Product's Final Name

Windows 7 is Microsoft's next client operating system. It will succeed the current release, Windows Vista. There has been some talk about whether the company would retain the name "Windows 7", which has been used so far, to refer to the OS, and it is the name that release candidates carry. Mike Nash, Vice President for Microsoft's Windows Product Management has confirmed in his recent blog post, that the OS retains the name "Windows 7", for its commercial release. Nash stated that since it's the seventh major release of the client OS, it would make sense calling it Windows 7.

Nash explained the thought behind not giving it a name based on its release date (eg. Windows 95/98) or using "aspirational monikers" (eg. Windows eXPperience/Vista), by saying that since the company doesn't release a new Windows version every year, and that using an aspirational name did not do justice to what they were trying to achieve. It made all the more sense caling it Windows 7, being the seventh release

Intel Decides to Unlock the Memory Multiplier of its Core i7-920 and Core i7-940 CPUs

Thanks to some inside information that was published today by various hardware portals, now we know that Intel has decided to enhance the overclocking capabilities of two of its still to be released non-Extreme Core i7 processors. Intel's LGA 1366 Core i7-940 and Core i7-920, which are clocked at 2.93GHz and 2.66GHz respectively will now boast unlocked memory controlers, meaning that users will be able to change the memory multiplier and thus the memory frequency beyond the stock DDR3 800/1066MHz speed. The unlocked memory multiplier will also allow the QPI speed to be changed. The Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) bus resembles AMD's Hypertransport bus. A slide change in the memory frequency will result in higher QPI bus speed, just like in the current AMD processor family. Previously, we knew that only the Core i7 Extreme processors like the 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition will have these overclocking features. I sincerely hope that with this last minute change Intel will make us overclockers really happy.

Intel Officially Begins Shipping Dual-Core Atom Processors

Intel has officially begun shipping a 45nm dual-core Intel Atom Processor known as the Intel Atom Processor 330. The newest member of the Atom family is designed specifically for nettops, which are affordable desktops purpose-built primarily for web surfing, email, and basic Internet usage. The dual-core Intel Atom Processor 330 features a 1.6GHz processing core, 1MB of level 2 cache, an 8W TDP and support for DDR2 667. The new processor is available as an integrated package and has been validated with the Intel 945GC Express Chipset, featuring built-in Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 and Intel High Definition Audio.

Dual-core Atom comes on September 21st

To sell for $43

Intel is listing Dual-core Atom 330 with 1.6GHz core clock, 1MB cache and FSB 533 with a wholesale price of $43. Moreover, it plans to start selling this CPU on September 21st.

A few Intel documents have indicated that dual-core Atoms are planned for Q3 introduction and availability, but so far we haven’t seen a single one available, not to mention the fact that most single-core Atoms are facing a serious backorder situation.

We were informed by many of our sources that single-core Atom will remain in very limited supply, especially on the mobile side through most of Q4 2008; and they don’t expect the situation to get better.

From a manufacturing point of view, the dual-core Atom is nothing much more than two single-core chips stitched in the same packaging. Single-core Atom is selling for a wholesale price of $29, and as you can see, Intel can make more money by selling two single chips than a single dual.

All Nehalems have 130W TDP

2.6, 2.93 and 3.2GHz It was rather interesting to notice that all Nehalem chips have the same 130W TDP. Either this is a typo in Intel's official documents that we've seen, or it means that 3.2GHz, which is 600MHz faster than 2.6GHz Nehalem, will have the same TDP. We've seen the same numbers before, which might indicate that these are the real numbers. We know that even 2.93GHz Nehalem can easily hit over 4GHz with air-cooling, which indicates that there is still enough room for some overclocking in this chip. Nehalem is probably the best chip that Intel ever engineered, even if it's a heavily improved Core 2 architecture, but it looks that it works well. November should be the time when you should be able to buy one.

AMD Gives ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series Graphics Cards to the Masses

AMD today announced the ATI Radeon HD 4600 series, mainstream graphics offerings that deliver exceptional gaming and HD multimedia performance while consuming less power than a standard light bulb. Comprising the ATI Radeon HD 4670 and the ATI Radeon HD 4650 graphics cards, the ATI Radeon HD 4600 series leverages the leading technology found in the award-winning ATI Radeon HD 4800 series, including support for the latest DirectX 10.1 games, superior HD multimedia capabilities and industry leading performance-per-watt, all delivered at affordable prices for the mainstream graphics segment. The combined features and technologies and incredible prices makes the ATI Radeon HD 4600 series a superb all-around performer, ideal for playing the latest games or driving a high quality home theatre entertainment experience.

AMD Prepares its Initial ULPC Processors

AMD plans to offer two processors for the ULPC. Cost-effectiveness being the mantra, AMD plans to offer processors that provide users of ULPC with a level of performance that takes it closer to that of regular PCs and eradicate the netPC/netbook moniker as the processors offer more performance at a low cost than what the likes of Atom or Nano could. Of course this comes at the expense of much higher TDP and slightly higher price. Perhaps the performance to price ratio is what AMD is banking on.

There are two parts under the Athlon X2 banner. The 22W, 1.50 GHz dual-core 3250e processor aims to compete with the desktop variant of Atom dual core where the Athlon's architectural superiority aims to give it a leading edge. The issue of energy savings dampens when it comes to desktop. Another processor, the single-core Athlon 2650e that is available now is rated at 15W with a 1.60 GHz clock speed. It comes with 512 KB L2 cache.

Radeon HD 4550 Details Surface

Later this month, AMD is expected to launch the ATI Radeon HD 4550 graphics processor (GPU). Its board SKU details have surfaced. The RV710 graphics processor will make it to the grass-root of entry-level and high-definition media grpahics boards. It is based on the 55nm silicon fabrication process. The GPU has a transistor count of 242 million, it has 80 stream processors. It is engineered in a way that makes it draw less than 25W. In the form of reference designs, AMD will release two cards: a full height, passively cooled 512 MB DDR3 version, and a low-profile, 256MB fan-heatsink cooled card. Both models have core clock speeds of 600 MHz with the memory clocked at 800 MHz on a 64-bit wide memory bus. The GPU schematic shows it to have 8 texture address and 8 texture filter units. There's only one render back-end. The 512MB variant is expected to be priced at US $49~59, while the 256MB variant in the $39~49 range. These cards are expected to compete with the GeForce 9400 GT GPU.

SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash Series Doubles Capacity To 32GB At Twice The Speed

Who says big cards can’t be fast? SanDisk Corporation today announced the 32-gigabyte (GB) SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash® (CF) card, the latest addition to its award-winning SanDisk Extreme III line. Combining world-class storage capacity with fast data transfer rates, SanDisk’s new memory card is designed to meet the demands of professional digital videographers and photographers. For many cards, an increase in storage capacity often comes at a cost to speed, but the 32GB SanDisk Extreme III CF card at 30 megabytes per second (MB/s) offers customers the best of both worlds.

AMD is going to introduce Bobcat CPU completely in November

AMD new CEO Dirk Meryer currently said they will announce the details of the super low power consumption CPU in November technology conference.
Though Dirk Meryer didnt say the CPU name and details, we believe it is Bobcat. It is said the Bobcat is 64bit single core CPU, 812pin BGA, 27mmx27mm and it supports 16 channel 800MHz HyperTransport. It integrated memory controller to support DDR2-400 single channel DIMM/SODIMM. It is about 1GHz clock, 2×64KB L1 cache, 256KB L2cache and the power consumption of CPU and Northbridge chip is 8W.
Intel Atom N270 is 2.5W but added the Northbridge power consumption, it will be 8.5W.
Dirk Meryer confirmed that AMD 45nm technology goes well and in fact they have tried to produce at the end of last quarter and they will mass produce in next quarter.
In addition, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said Atom will face to low price Netbook and Nettopo and it wont replace Celeron series.

AMD next generation RV870 key specs revealed

It is said that AMD next generation graphic core possible be named RV870 and according to TSMC technology, it will use 40nm or 45nm technology. The core area of RV870 will be about 140m㎡ which is much smaller than RV770 260m㎡. As we know by now, it will have 192 ALU. RV770 each ALU matched 5SP and then RV870 will have 960SP. In order to control the core area, it is still 256bit. We believe RV870 will be 1.2 times than RV770 in performances, but this will be decided by the clock of RV870.
It is also said that AMD next generation R800 will use new design. We know Radeon HD3870X2 and the coming Radeon HD4870X2 both used single PCB+dual graphic core design while R800 will possible use real dual core design. If so, AMD next generation flagship R800 will be the first dual core GPU. The specs of R800 will double RV870.
Advanced 45nm (40nm?) will bring RV870 smaller core area. The current RV770 did well in performances but the temperature is really terrible. If RV870 can settle this problem and further improve performances, it will be really excited for us and it will be the first real dual core GPU possibly.

2 Watt PC Here, Sufficient Power for Cloud-computing

A relatively unknown brand, Cherrypal introduced a PC module dubbed 'cloud computer'. It carries a price tag of US $250. Sure you do find pre-owned full-size PCs for that price, but just think of it: this PC consumes a mere 2W of power when idle (excludes the consumption of monitor and other peripherals). On the features front, there's enough computing power to get you onto the internet, it is driven by a 400 MHz Freescale MPC5121e mobileGT triple-core processor, 256 MB DDR2 memory and 4 GB of NAND flash memory to store the OS, a Debian-derived Linux OS, Mozilla Firefox as the core internet application (supports all add-ons and Linux media plugins). 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, two USB ports, an Ethernet port, VGA out, and stereo audio out. It beats the $929 VidaBox PC convincingly at its price-point. Sure, such devices are mere toys for average users like us sitting cozy with powerful gaming PCs, but such devices are a step in the right direction, towards Cloud Computing. Cloud computing, a new buzzword in the computing industry, is the computing methodology where software is thin and light, and streamed onto a computer. A user accesses software either freely or on a subscription basis. All you need is a standards compiant web-browser, OS isn't a factor. This has gotten players such as Microsoft, Google, Adobe and others looking up to it as the next big thing. You don't need to buy those installation discs and throw gigabytes of hard-drive space at applications anymore.

Microsoft offers some early DirectX 11 details

During its Gamefest 2008 developer conference in Seattle, Microsoft not only made the multiplayer component in Games for Windows a free service but also revealed details concerning DirectX 11, the latest edition of its PC gaming graphics API. Like its predecessor, DirectX 11 will be exclusive to Windows Vista and future versions of Microsoft’s operating system. Features include a new computer shader technology that lays the groundwork for developers to utilize video cards as parallel processors, as well as improved multi-core support and support for tessellation, which supposedly improves the appearance of close-in models. Microsoft also revealed that the new software will add features to existing DirectX 10-compatible hardware, though it was not clear what those features may be. Don't go tossing your DirectX 10 card just yet, however, as DirectX will be available sometime in 2009-2010 when the next version of Windows ships.

Nvidia unveils new GeForce 9700M, 9800M mobile GPUs

Nvidia’s mobile GPU lineup has expanded today with the introduction of five new high-end products in the GeForce 9M series: the GeForce 9700M GT, 9700M GTS, 9800M GTS, 9800M GT, and 9800M GTX. Not only these new cards promise improved gaming performance, but also to help save power and increase battery life. At the top end sits the flagship GeForce 9800M GTX, with a core frequency of 500MHz and 112 stream processors each running at 1250MHz. The card is based on the same G92 core of the previous-generation GeForce 8800M GTX but has a higher 420 gigaflops floating-point arithmetic rating. Next up is the 9800M GT and 9800M GTS, both based on the G94 core with a frequency of 500MHz – oddly, the 9800M GT appears to have better specs than the 9800M GTS with 96 stream processors compared to 64 on the latter. The 9700M series includes the GeForce 9700M GTS and lower end 9700M GT. All these new models share many of the same features as cards announced early last month when the GeForce 9M line was unveiled, including Nvidia’s Hybrid SLI and Hybrid Power to save battery life.

XFX gives cash back to early GeForce GTX 200 buyers

Those who paid up to $649 for the first GeForce GTX 200 series graphics cards that launched nearly a month ago probably aren't too thrilled with people paying as ‘little’ as $499 for the same thing now. Well, apparently XFX doesn’t want early adopters to eat the entire price drop and thus have started a program to give up to $120 cash back to anyone that bought an XFX GeForce GTX 280 or GTX 260 between June 16th and July 11th of this year. This is certainly a stupendous way to build some serious brand loyalty. XFX says the exact amount of the reimbursement will depend on the model purchased, as well as the date and price of the purchase. More details about the cash back offer will be available in the next few days on their website, where you can also sign up to be notified on how to receive your “cold hard cash.”

ATI Radeon HD 4870 to Crash Nvidia’s GeForce 200 GTX

Diamond Multimedia, a well-known supplier of graphics cards in the USA, has unveiled its new graphics board that would be, at least initially, available exclusively from a builder of high-end computers called Smooth Creations. The graphics card supplier claims that the graphics adapter powered by ATI Radeon HD 4870 chip is pre-overclocked so substantially that it can leave behind even Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 280.
“The Diamond Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition was clocked to kick some ass. We didn’t just want a fast card out in the market, we wanted the fastest card that could kick the living daylights and bust some performance records. We wanted a card that kicked the competitions teeth into the curb, and that’s exactly what our engineers accomplished,” said Mario Gastelum, director of product development and engineering at Diamond.
Diamond “Unlocked” Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition graphics card comes with graphics processing unit clocked at 800MHz and 512MB of GDDR5 memory operating at 4400MHz, up from 750MHz/3600MHz on reference design ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics adapter. Moreover, according to Diamond Multimedia, the firmware of the board was modified and the board can be overclocked even further and can leave behind the current flagship Nvidia, the GeForce GTX 280.
“The firmware was custom designed to enable end users to go beyond the normal over clocked speeds and allow them to push their cards for higher performance via the Catalyst Control Center. The GPU’s custom firmware has been unlocked to push cards to GPU settings of up to 950MHz and Memory of up 1200MHz,” said Mr. Gastelum.
The Diamond’s Radeon HD 4870 XOC Black Edition comes with a custom liquid-based cooling system from Danger Den, which ensures that extreme overclocking of the product does not affect its lifespan and stability of work.
Market rumours indicate that other leading suppliers of graphics boards may also start making “über-overclocked” graphics boards based on ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics processing units. Theoretically, with custom cooling solution, modification of power supply system and overclocking the ATI Radeon HD 4870 may leave behind much more expensive Nvidia GeForce GTX 280, but what should be kept in mind is that the latter may also be overclocked beyond its stock speeds as well.

Sony Ericsson K550i (Review)

Good bye my good old Nokia 3120,you've been serving me for almost 4 years. Thats not an excuse to keep you longer with me. Things do change,so do I. Welcome home my all new Sony Ericsson K550i (I'll use "SE" instead of Sony Ericsson through out this article!)
I wasn't a SE fanboy at all, I did hate their menu structure,especially the fact that the space bar button is to the right(in contrast to Nokia's bottom-middle key),needless to say I did texting more often than anyone of you :P,as for a witness my outgoiung txt msg count was somewhere around 8500 and incoming was around 23000, that is hell a lot haa:D. Ok its enough bragging about the old rag, lets start with my SE550i review.

The Sony Ericsson K550i( I would say this is a bang for the buck)



Most of you may have seen the technical specifications of the SE K550 on Gsmarena.com, but for the rest I'll include the most basic Specs here.
P.S . The SE K550 review on gsmarena.com is based on a prototype model so that review is no longer valid(most of the features are changed)

Network :Quad band
Dimensions : 102 x 46 x 14 mm
Weight :85g
Display type : TFD(Thin Film Diodes- Battery friendly) 256KColors
Resolution : 176x220 pixels

The phone supports Memory stick micro (M2) slot and features about 70MB internal free memory. It supports all common connectivity methods except 3G and Wi-Fi
Thats pretty enough for an introduction, lets dive deeper, would you join me ? :D and forgot to tell you, I'll be focusing youngsters rather Business personnel in this review, so basically on the Processing speed, Audio quality, Camera ,Video playback and Applications

At the first glance you will notice that this nifty phone is pretty slim( not the slimmest though) the display is vivid and very bright (TFD Nature) . And another noticeable thing is the awkward keypad buttons. It was pretty hard for me to get used to it, but after fiddling with it few days i could somehow satisfy. I was surfing the internet and saw the JBenchmarking web site and got to know this little phone was a wicked performer. "ARM 9 CPU @ 201MHz", when I saw that I was like "Wow",even the very popular and expensive N73 has the same Cpu running at 209MHz.
The UI is quite fast and very responsive,even when you run 5 or 6 apps it's still the same. Audio quality is satisfiable, tell you what ; SE K550 has the exact same hardware as the W610 which is a walkman 2.0 device. So this K550 can be easily flashed to a W610 so comes the term "Cybershot-Walkman".
The 2MP camera is pretty much OK for the price you pay,needless to say its much better than most of the mid-range Nokia 2MP cams. Auto focus and powerful LED flash lights play a vital role here. The K550 sports a panorama mode as well as macro mode which can be used to take closer shots.

Video playback is impressive,even a high bit rate(512Kbps) QVGA resolution video can be played without a glitch(remember the ARM9 201MHz CPU?). Video quality is also adorable, you will feel like watching a video on your PC.
So guys and girls if you are on a tight budget (like I was) and looking for the best within the price range don't think twice go and get this.
Thumbs up!

Crawling for Bass - Subwoofer Placement

Since i used to be a PC enthusiastic I've used Sub Woofer PC sound Systems. I tried every bit of me to get the maximum bass output from the sound systems,too bad. I'm not an audiophile(Well..mm.. I'm a lame audiophile :P). My room and the furniture didn't allow me to do as i wanted :(.

I came across several reviews on the net and thought that would be useful for you(Who are passionate about music!). So here it goes..

Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks in placing your speaker system whether it is a 2 channel or multichannel surround system is finding the best location for your subwoofer. It is not only a matter of choosing which location will sound best, but it is also a matter of ergonomics and dealing with space constraints of the listening room.

My advice in this matter is simple yet useful. I recommend doing the following procedure listed below when nobody is home or at least able to witness what you are doing as it may potentially result in having you committed or at the very least it will lead to a psychiatric evaluation.
Subwoofer Placement Procedure
onnect the "Sub Out" of your Receiver / Preamp Processor using an RCA cable into a Y-cable into the "L" and "R" inputs of your subwoofer. Note: Unless otherwise stated by the manufacturer, be sure to utilize both inputs of the sub as many subs sum the "L" + "R" inputs to yield a 6 dB gain from the input voltage of the processor.
lace the Subwoofer in the most common location of your listening area. (Usually your couch, chair, or bean bag).
lay a bass heavy CD or other format (not 8 track!) that you are familiar with and turn the volume up so that the sub is really working.

ote: The reason why you should crawl is that standing will put you about 5 feet off axis (depending on how tall you are) with the sub and thus will change the characteristics of the sound enough to potentially cause you to place the sub in a non optimal position.
Now get on your hands and knees and pay homage to the subwoofer (just kidding). Seriously, for the next part of this set-up, prepare to do some crawling (this is the part that could get you committed, but its all worth it!)
rawl around the listening room and listen for when the sub seems to sound the best. (IE. Listen for depth, loudness, tightness and definition)
f possible, place the sub as close to this position as you can. This will ensure you have chosen the best location in the room.
ow get off your knees and calibrate your system.

or Example:

Adjust crossover point on the sub for optimal blend with main speakers.
djust gain control of sub to tonally balance your system.
epeat A + B until satisfied.

This is a starter for those integrating a Subwoofer into their system for the first time. A more detailed placement guideline will be presented shortly for the more advanced users.

GDDR5 in Production

Qimonda, a leading manufacturer of advanced dynamic random access memory (DRAM), said that it could deliver next-generation GDDR5 memory for graphics cards and other applications that require high memory bandwidth in volume. At this point Qimonda can supply makers of graphics boards GDDR5 memory with up to 4.50GHz clock-speed.

“Qimonda was the first to announce samples of GDDR5 back in November 2007. We have proven the technology and we can deliver in volume production to the market today,” said Glen Haley, communications director of Qimonda in North America, in an interview with X-bit labs web-site.

Presently Qimonda has 512Mb (16Mx32) GDDR5 chips at 3.60GHz, 4.0GHz and 4.50GHz clock-speeds in PG-TFBGA-170 packages in production. It is interesting to note that current-generation GDDR3 chips from Qimonda use PG-TFBGA-136 packing, which means that GDDR5 has more pins and requires more complex print-circuit boards of graphics cards.

It is projected that GDDR5 will play a substantial role in the next round of war between the leading designers of graphics processing units (GPUs) because it can double bandwidth available for graphics chips. Unfortunately, the price of GDDR5 memory from Qimonda is unclear. But while Qimonda does not unveil the exact pricing, it is likely that GDDR5 will be more expensive than GDDR3 and GDDR4, at least initially.

“If you look at the best performing GDDR3 parts today, they are running at about 2Gbit/s. With our GDDR5 we are able to at least double this data rate. We believe that Qimonda offers the highest performing graphics memory. There is a price/performance curve, and we are well-positioned to accommodate market demand as adoption increases,” Mr. Haley said.

Existing GDDR3 memory chips may run at 2.0GHz – 2.2GHz, which provides up to 140.8GB/s memory bandwidth in case of 512-bit bus, though, such chips are pretty expensive, just like print-circuit boards with 512-bit memory bus. For ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, the use of high-speed GDDR4 is an option, but Nvidia’s GeForce 8 and 9 GPUs do not support GDDR4. Therefore, the company either needs expensive GDDR3 in conjunction with wide memory bus, or GDDR5 with its extreme clock-speed potential.

In addition to Qimonda, Hynix Semiconductor and Samsung Electronics also plan to make GDDR5 memory.

Xbox 360 "Jasper" 65nm GPU in Production

Microsoft preps 65nm GPU for cooler Xbox 360s



Chip process evolution is a usual thing in a console’s lifecycle, but rarely has it been as important as in the case of the Xbox 360.

Known for its relatively hardware fragility, the original design of the Xbox 360 would frequently fall to the “Red Ring of Death” failure, which Microsoft terms as the three flashing red lights. While improvements in cooling and a CPU die shrink to 65nm in the Falcon revision have surely improved the situation, the problematic GPU still sits with its 90nm process.

The 65nm drop for the GPU in the Xbox 360 revision codenamed Jasper isn’t expected until August, a time frame backed up by a report from CENS. Microsoft has contracted Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE) and Nanya PCB Corp. to build the chips that will ship with the Jasper consoles later this summer.

TSMC will produce the 65nm chips, ASE will package and test them, and Nanya will supply the flip-chip packaging substrates. Microsoft has supposedly booked a production capacity at TSMC estimated to be at around 10,000 300mm wafers.

Inventory of the existing Falcon chips are reportedly depleted, paving the way for the transition to Jasper. The next step for the Xbox 360 console is dubbed “Valhalla,” which will integrate both the GPU and CPU in a single package as a cost-cutting measure, isn’t expected until a year after Jasper.

Nehalem chipset won't do SLI

no Jensen, look what you did Bosnian people tends to say don’t play with fire if you are not a fireman and Jensen Huang is everything but a fireman. We learned that Intel is really upset with a little green thing called Nvidia and that the chipset that will support Nehalem CPUs codenamed Bloomfield won't support SLI. This is not big news as traditionally the X38 and X48 high end chipset in its reference boards didn't support SLI, and yet again Intel was fine. First generation Nehalem won't do SLI, but it will support Crossfire as Intel likes AMD more than Nvidia, which is kind of an awkward situation. If there is a mechanism for Intel to remove Nvidia from its chipset list for future products, this is highly likely to happen. Just remember the Nforce 680i where Intel intentionally forgot to tell Nvidia that it changed the Yorkfield 45nm quad cores and the final score is that Nforce 680i doesn’t run with 45nm quad cores. This cost Nvidia a lot of money as it decided to swap all Nforce 680i reference designed boards for 780i and this happened when Intel was rather cold to Nvidia. It also caused an upset in the market, as not all of Nvidia's partners got in on the upgrade scheme. Well, Nvidia wanted a fight and a fight is what they're going to get.

Microsoft fanboys fight for XP

Microsoft fanboys are gearing up for a fight as the outfit threatens to pull the plug on Windows XP.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Fanboys have papered the Internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions. They say that XP was better than Vista, which has hefty hardware requirements, is slower than an asthmatic turtle on its way up a hill towards a turtle soup convention. It is to software compatibility what Robert Mugabe is to economic strategy. 

Since January the Save XP Web petition, has gathered more than 100,000 signatures and thousands of comments, mostly from die-hard XP users who want Microsoft to keep selling it until the next version of Windows is released, currently targeted for 2010. Redmond has extended the XP deadline once, but it shows no signs it will do so again and is refusing to talk to the Save XP Website organizers.

Phenom 9950 to dissipate 140W

We’ve learned that soon-to-launch Phenom 9950 will dissipate 140W. The motherboard manufacturers are currently testing their boards to see if they can take it, but most of the boards that can cope with 125W will be able to take care of 140W.

Once you overclock your 125W TDB Phenom 9850 your TDP jumps up anyway, and the board that will let Phenom 9850 overclock will also take good care of Phenom 9950.

Phenom 9950 will be the last quad-core consumer CPU with the highest clock manufactured in 65nm and the next step will come as soon as AMD gets the 45nm parts ready.

As we reported previously, the 45nm Deneb and later Propus quad-cores are aiming for 2.8GHz and faster speeds, but don’t be surprised if you see K10.5 Deneb at some lower frequencies, as with 45nm AMD should get much better TDP than with its current 65nm Phenom parts.

Nvidia's VP says the CPU is dead

Nvidia's CEO goes frontal against Intel
There are no more lies and no more cold war between Intel and Nvidia. Surprisingly, Nvidia just started a full-scale frontal attack on the biggest semiconductor company in the world that we all know as Intel.

Nvidia’s fearsome Jensen Huang, the CEO of the company (also known as the Borg queen), told analysts during its recent analyst days that, “Intel is false. They have crossed the line, they're saying false things."

Huang continued with the following, "They (Intel) said Nvidia is going to be dead. Their graphics are good, but we'll put graphics into the CPU and there is no place for them to stick it." He went on to compare Intel’s current Core 2 platform with the next-gen processors and said that it would be “nothing else but putting more transistors [on it] instead of thinking of a solution.”

"People don't buy Nvidia products because they have to, because they're allowed to. They buy our stuff because they want to. They're overwhelmed by the value and the benefit we bring," Huang noted.

"This team [Nvidia] is like a Ferrari team. We know how to bring visual technology to life. We bring 20-30-40x the performance advantage and 27x the price/performance ratio". Even if Intel was able to deliver a 10-fold performance increase, the company would still not be able to reach catch up with Nvidia and AMD in the discrete space, Huang said.

Jensen is known as a very passionate, brilliant and arrogant guy but going against Intel on a frontal full scale might be the worst thing that they ever decided. Nvidia went from close to $40 to current $19.88 which means that the company has to do something to fix this but this is simply too much.

In addition to this super ultra bold comments from Nvidia’s CEO, Nvidia’s Vice President also commented to some of its customers that “the war has just started that will likely be written about for years and which will affect everyone who owns a PC. Everyone.”

He continues “Basically the CPU is dead. Yes, that processor you see advertised everywhere from Intel. It runs out of steam. The fact is that it no longer makes anything run faster. You don’t need a fast one anymore. ”

He also says that Intel is panicking and that AMD is in trouble because you don’t need faster CPUs. Last time we checked AMD was in trouble for being incredibly late with K10 and for the bug that ruined its sales of heavily under clocked CPUs, but maybe Nvidia knows better.

Nvidia believes that Intel attacks Nvidia because it is panicking, as Nvidia has a chip that it calls GPU that needs to be faster and faster. We agree faster GPUs will run games faster and get more details and life like stuff but you still needs a CPU and many other chips in order to make the GPU work and perform.

There will be more let us just gather a few more things about this first attack. I am sure that Intel works hard on its counterattack and it probably won’t take any prisoners.

Nvidia + VIA = True

Rather unexpected

Although the rumors have been circulating for a couple of weeks now, with various suggestions about Nvidia and VIA having been in talks about a possible buyout from Nvidia's side, it now seems that Nvidia has decided to support VIA's upcoming CN/Isaiah CPU with a new chipset.

Nvidia revealed the new chipset during its financial analyst meeting yesterday and the new platform is referred to as "The World's Most Affordable Vista Premium PC." The pictured prototype board appears to be a VIA product and doesn't actually have a Nvidia chipset on it.

Regardless of this, there are some interesting things to point out here. First of all, Nvidia is listing the board to have 1+8 cores, as Nvidia likes to call its Shader processors for cores now, meaning that the integrated GPU will have 8 Shaders. The combination of the VIA CN processor and the Nvidia IGP chipset should be good for up to 36 GFLOPS, which is compared to an unspecified Intel Celeron processor and Intel's 945G chipset which is meant to produce a mere 6.4 GFLOPS in comparison, although the 945G chipset uses the ICH7 (not ICH4 as per the picture below).

Nvidia is also touting features such as Vista Premium support, Blu-ray playback and DX10. All this should still set you back less than US$45, that being the CPU and the chipset, not the entire board. The platform is meant to compete with Intel's low-cost PC platform and more specifically the Atom processor.

We're not sure how power efficient this new Nvidia chipset will be and it would be a major concern if this platform would end up in a notebook design, as battery life is still a key factor in any mobile product. However, as a desktop platform, this could be a very interesting product, especially for the low cost HTPC market. Now we just need some Linux HDMI support and the sub $200 HTPC is here.

There was no word on availability, although Digitimes mentioned early 2009, but this seems a little bit too far away to be a realistic launch date.

AMDs eight-core is a native one -Montreal

We were surprised to learn that despite the rumors going around, AMD's eight-core CPU is actually a native one. AMD can do native octa-core just as well as Intel can with its Nehalem, and the codename for this eight-core monster is Montreal. This comes from a highly ranked source at AMD.
So, Montreal is not just two Shanghai quad-cores stitched together, it's a native octa-core 45nm part. This makes sense for servers initially and eventually it will also launch for the ultra high-end gaming market.
Of course, this all happens in 2009.

Next Nvidia card is D10U-30

Still DDR3

Nvidia plans to release a new card in Q2 2008 codenamed D10U-30 and the new card will come up with 1024MB of DDR3 memory. This is the chip that comes before GT200, and GT200 should be out in Q3 or early Q4.

The board will have quite nasty heat dissipation, as we’ve learned that Nvidia warned its partners to expect approximately 225 to 250W dissipation from the card. This information leads us to believe that this is yet another dual chip card.

We still don’t know that much about it, but we have confirmed its existence. We wonder if it is 55nm G92 shrink behind this card.

Geforce 9500GT reviewed

Faster than 8600GT

Geforce 9500GT specifications are finally out. The new Nvidia entry level card works at 550MHz, Shaders work at 1375MHz and memory at 1600MHz. The card still uses 128 bit memory interface, but the good news is that it performs better than the 8600GT.

Of course, we are talking about the fastest version of 9500GT with DDR3 memory, but it’s still quite an impressive number.

The Chinese review site promises 31FPS in Crysis at 1024x768 with no effects on, but probably at some modest quality settings. The card scores impressive 5853 in 3Dmark06.

To make it easier to understand, the Geforce 9500GT is a halved 9600GT. This means less performance and features, but at a much lower price.

ATI plans Mobility 3870 X2

And 3850 X2, M88

Mobile computing will finally get some decent Crossfire graphics from AMD. Codenamed M88, AMD plans to launch a product that is very similar, if not the same, to a desktop RV670 chip.

The M88 will enable two very interesting products that will bring the Crossfire on the notebooks. The first and slowest will end up branded as ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850 X2, and this baby is definitely based on two derived RV670PRO cores. The second one, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2, is faster and reaches higher frequencies based on two derived RV670XT.

We have a feeling that mobile guys will use the same chips, as RV670 already has the power play part that takes care of careful energy spending on a GPU.

Since M88 is a 55nm product, ATI should have better thermals than Nvidia’s 8700MGT in SLI. We also expect a mobile 9 series sooner than later.

Corsair, Crucial, G,Skill & OCZ Announced Fastest DDR3 Memories

Corsair, Crucial, G.Skill and OCZ separately announced their fastest DDR3 memories today. Cosair announced DOMINATOR and XMS DHX 2GB kit pre-loaded with EPP2 while Crucial announced Ballistix PC3-16000 (DDR3-2000MHz) high-performance memory modules with EPP2 and latency timings of 9-9-9-28 at 1.9V, available in 1GB modules and 2GB kits. G.Skill announced their new DDR3-1800 CL7 equipped with the Antazone RamMod cooler to improve module stability and performance while operating under extreme overclocking conditions. Lastly, OCZ unveiled blistering fast PC3-16000 DDR3 modules with EPP2 at an aggressive timings of 9-8-8.

Intel Talks About Nehalem, Larrabee & Sandy Bridge

Intel discussed upcoming leading edge microprocessors and technologies. Nehalem is scalable with future versions having anywhere from 2 to 8 cores, with Simultaneous Multi-threading, resulting in 4 to 16 thread capability, 8 MB level-3 cache, 731 million transistors, Quickpath interconnects (up to 25.6GB per second), integrated memory controller and optional integrated graphics. The Larrabee architecture includes a high-performance, wide SIMD vector processing unit (VPU) along with a new set of vector instructions including integer and floating point arithmetic, vector memory operations and conditional instructions. In addition, Larrabee includes a major new hardware coherent cache design enabling the many-core architecture. Intel AVX when used by software programmers, will increase performance in floating point, media, and processor intensive software. The instructions will be implemented in the microarchitecture codenamed "Sandy Bridge" in the 2010 timeframe.

Intel to embrace overclocking

WHAT IS INTEL going to be talking about at IDF in Shanghai in a week or two's time? In addition to the usual slate of announcements, one big topic is going to be overclocking, officially sanctioned overclocking at that.

Intel has realized there is money in gaming and the lunatic fringe of overclockers, so they are going to encourage it. They took the gaming crown with Skulltrail, and now the attention turns to the weirdos with multi-phase cooling rigs. IDF will have plenty of talks about how to eke out the best from Intel CPUs.

There is a lot of irony here, Intel was the first CPU maker to lock enthusiasts out of OCing, and now they are selling that back to the same group as a feature. Oh how times change, or don't as the case may be.

Nvidia To Launch GeForce 9800 GTX On April Fool Day

Nvidia has informed their partners that the GeForce 9800 GTX launch has been pushed one week from March 25th to April 1st. No reason was provided for the delay but it is funny that Nvidia chose to launch a flagship product on April Fool day. GeForce 9800 GTX will be priced at US$349. On a side note, the industry is speculating that Nvidia might be forced to lower the price of the newly launched GeForce 9800 GX2 soon to better compete against Radeon HD 3870 X2 card which has a better price/performance ratio. Currently, 9800 GX2 is priced at ~US$599 while 3870 X2 is priced at ~US$410, nearly $200 difference. With that amount, you can get another HD 3870 card, set up a Hybrid Crossfire (3870X2+3870) and has a potential to achieve better performance than the GX2.

Intel Plans to Launch Six-Core Microprocessors

Intel Corp. may release six-core microprocessors as early as in the second half of this year, according to a number of media reports. However, if those claims are correct, then it may mean not only another powerful central processing unit for Intel and a threat to chips from Advanced Micro Devices, but also a further delay in unification of Intel Itanium and Intel Xeon platforms.

Intel needs a chip to update its multi-processor (MP) enterprise server platform this year as no Nehalem-based microprocessor for the MP market segment is planned for 2008, whereas quad-core AMD Opteron microprocessors for multi-chip servers are on the offensive, perhaps, without a lot of success so far. However, it seems like unified Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) platform that supports both Intel Itanium and Intel Xeon processors is not due in 2008, at least, based on reports about the processor code-named Dunnington

According to reports from PC Watch and Virtualization Journal web-sites, Intel intends to released six-core Intel Xeon MP microprocessors in the second half of this year in order to offer processing power not achievable by rivaling products. Different web-sites report different details about the new product: some claim that Intel Xeon MP “Dunnington” is a chip with three dual-core dice on a single-piece of substrate, whereas some other indicate that the forthcoming code-named Dunnington CPU is a monolith six-core product with 16MB of unified L2 cache.

It is interesting to note that code-named Dunnington chip emerged in Intel’s roadmap back in 2005 along with code-named Whitefield processor, however, both were shortly replaced with code-named Tigerton chip for MP servers. Both Dunnington and Whitefield were believed to feature Intel’s QPI bus. It is widely believed that QPI is the bus to be used for many of Intel’s incoming processors, including desktop- and server-oriented chips based on code-named Nehalem micro-architecture. In addition, servers powered by future Intel Itanium and Intel Xeon CPUs are officially set to utilize the same platform architecture as well as QPI bus.

Theoretically, Intel Corp. may released six-core CPUs for desktop enthusiast segment as well, however, probability of this situation may not be very high as Intel’s plans towards Nehalem desktop ramp-up remain unclear.

Intel did not comment on the news-story.

AMD Quietly Unveils Dual-Core Sempron Processors.

Perhaps, considerably later than expected, but Advanced Micro Devices, the world’s second largest maker of x86 microprocessors, has quietly released its first dual-core AMD Sempron central processing unit (CPU). The chips will be initially available only in China, but it will hardly take long before they emerge in other countries and regions.

The first AMD Sempron processor with two processing engines is made using 65nm process technology and operates at 1.80GHz, reports DigiTimes web-site. The chip retails for about $55, which is below the price of the fastest single-core AMD Sempron LE 1300 microprocessor that operates at 2.30GHz, has 256KB of L2 cache and is priced at $69 in business quantities.

Intel Corp. unveiled its first Intel Celeron central processing units with two cores back in January ’08, however, for quite some time the world’s largest maker of x86 CPUs has been shipping dual-core Intel Pentium D and Intel Core 2 Duo processors at truly affordable price-points. On the other hand, AMD has been offering its AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ processor for $68 for some time now.

It is a natural trend for desktop microprocessors to gain the number of cores as more and more software developers tend to optimize their applications to take advantage of multiple processing engines.

Officials from AMD did not comment on the news-story.

S3 Graphics Releases Chrome 400 Series Graphics Cards

S3 Graphics today announced the S3 Graphics Chrome 400 Series discrete graphics processors, designed to provide the latest gaming experience for energy-efficient desktop systems and portable notebook PCs coupled with outstanding HD content playback at the highest performance-per-watt ratio ever.

Using proven low power 65nm process technology, S3 Graphics Chrome 400 Series processors will support the latest Microsoft DirectX 10.1 game engine and the PCI Express 2.0 bus technology, bringing superb performance and improved 3D gaming image and texture rendering in a remarkably power-efficient, low heat package. Using the breakthrough ChromotionHD 2.0 fully programmable video architecture for true HD quality 1080p playback for Blu-ray and HD-DVD content, the Chrome 400 Series graphics processor will offer a state-of-the-art cinematic experience while remaining cool under the hood. The ChromotionHD engine will support the latest HD standards including H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VC-1, WMV-HD, and AVS.

Deneb 45nm K10.5 works just fine

Samples up and running

AMD has samples of K10.5 quad core codenamed Deneb for some time now and the big customers such as HP and Dell have already seen this baby.
It looks promising and it works, but this doesn’t mean that the production will go flawlessly. The first samples of K10 were finished in December 2006 and it didn’t help AMD solve the problems that occurred at launch in September 2007.
Intel's Nehalem is also taped out in some point in August 2007 but it doesn’t mean that Nehalem will be on schedule and executed flawlessly either, but it is more likely to happen. For AMD’s sake, we hope that Deneb 45nm K10.5 will come in early second half of 2008 and that it will work well as the company needs a big comeback in the CPU arena.
Deneb is the hope that can get K10 based marchitecture to over 3.0GHz and this the least AMD needs to compete with Intel’s Core 2 Extreme quad core generation.

Mobile 45nm Core 2 goes over 3GHz

Intel has a new mobile CPU that for the first time is set to break 3.0GHz barrier. It calls its CPU Core 2 Extreme X9100 and it is a Penryn 45nm based product. It works with FSB 1066MHz and fits in cFCPGA / Socket P. The new CPU works at 3.06GHz, has 6MB of cache memory and it will be fastest of its kind.

Together with 6MB of cache it is just a slight increase in speed compared with already available 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme X9000 but the new X9100 has FSB 1066 and ought to be faster than FSB 800 based X9000 .
The launch is set for June and we bet it’s Computex.

Intel Integrates Wireless Support On A Single Chip

Intel has designed a chip that can receive and transmit WiMax and multiple Wi-Fi signals. Intel on Monday said it has designed a chip that can receive and transmit WiMax and multiple Wi-Fi signals and has developed other on-die technology to lower power consumption and reduce the size of the processor.

Intel researchers outlined the achievements in four research papers presented at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. The papers reflect some of the technology that may one day find its way in Intel chips for use in future mobile Internet devices. What Intel says it has accomplished is the building of a die that supports WiMax and Wi-Fi a/g/n. In integrating a transceiver capable of handling multiple frequencies on a single chip, Intel has eliminated the use of a "front-end module," technology that performs the same function today on a separate die, Hossein Alavi, director of communications circuits at Intel labs, told InformationWeek. Eliminating the separate module would ultimately enable the building of a smaller processor with lower power consumption, two important attributes for portable Internet devices.

PhysX Experiment: Nvidia Acquires Ageia

Nvidia made a surprise announcement, acquiring Ageia Technologies and its PhysX line of hardware and software. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Ageia’s sale comes almost five months after rival physics technology maker Havok was acquired by Intel. Nvidia’s acquisition puts an even stronger emphasis on physics-focused hardware and software for gaming and also gives the Intel-Nvidia combination a leg up on rivals AMD and ATI in the physics department (AMD had reportedly considered a bit for Ageia late last year). “The AGEIA team is world class, and is passionate about the same thing we are—creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of Nvidia, in a press statement. "By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world.”

Nvidia will now have the benefit of Ageia’s PhysX hardware, or physics processing unit, as well as the company’s PhysX SDK middleware offering for game developers. Ageia’s technology is currently being used in more than 140 titles that have shipped or are currently in development for both the PC as well as the next generation consoles. Some notable titles include Gears of War, Medal of Honor: Airborne, Tom Clamcy’s Rainbow Six Vegas, and Unreal Tournament 3. Recently Ageia increased its efforts to provide PhysX-based mod tools for Unreal Tournament 3, including a special UT3 mod kit and brand new maps for the multiplayer shooter.

“Nvidia is the perfect fit for us. They have the world's best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience,”said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of Ageia, in a press statement.

Nividia said the acquisition remains subject to customary closing conditions.

Via Presents Isaiah Micro-Architecture

Via Technologies, a struggling designer of chipsets, graphics chips and microprocessors, announced recently its new family of microprocessors that offer high clock-speeds, 64-bit capability, out-of-order execution along with promised tangible performance improvements. It remains to be seen whether single-core microprocessors will be able to compete against modern chips from AMD and Intel.

“Today is an exciting day for everyone at Centaur. With a team of less than one hundred first-class engineers, we have created from scratch the world’s most power-efficient x86 processor architecture with state of the art features, outstanding performance, and flexible scalability for the future,” said Glenn Henry, president of Centaur Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of Via Technologies that develops microprocessors.

Via Isaiah is the first x86 processor from Via Technologies that features 64-bit instruction set along with a superscalar and out of order execution engine, macro-fusion and micro-fusion functionality, advanced branch prediction mechanism, advanced floating point unit as well as support for virtualization technology and Via PadLock security engine.

Since Via Technologies has been concentrating primarily on low-power central processing units (CPUs) recently, the new chips that belong to the Isaiah family will also feature Adaptive PowerSaver Technology that further reduces power consumption and improve thermal management, including the unique TwinTurbo dual-PLL implementation, which permits smooth transitions between activity states within one clock cycle, ensuring always-on service and minimize latency, as well as new mechanisms for managing the die temperature.

The first Isaiah processors will support clock-speed up to 2.0GHz, will use 800MHz – 1333MHz processor system bus (PSB) and will be pin-to-pin compatible with Via C7 chips. The CPUs will have two 64KB L1 caches and 1MB exclusive L2 cache with 16-way associativity.

Processors implementing the Via Isaiah micro-achitecture are expected to start shipping in the first half of 2008 and will be manufactured using an advanced, low power 65nm process.

AMD 790GX chipset to replace discrete chipsets

AMD 790GX chipset to replace discrete chipsets? With integrated graphics support and CrossFire X support. We presume ATX boards with 2 PCIe full length slots with capabilities of CrossFire X (PCIe x 8 x2) and Hybrid CrossFire. It is said that it is capable of doing 3 way CFX using the on board 2*8 CF + UMA. Below is a description of the AMD 790GX aka RS780D.

Just when AMD 780G is selling like hot cakes in China, there is news of yet another chipset from AMD. This new chipset is known as AMD 790GX. Ths new 790GX chipset, also known as RS780D is integrated with Radeon HD 3300 graphics.

The AMD 790GX Chipset redefines 3D gaming on a mainstream PC. Enable ATI CrossFireX™ to enhance your gaming performance when playing the latest 3D games. The AMD 790GX Chipset is a gaming machine at an incredible value.

Experience AMD’s innovative ATI™ Hybrid graphics technology for scalable gaming action. Transform your gameplay with ATI CrossFireX™ powering two ATI Radeon™ graphics cards or plug in one graphics card to allow the AMD 790GX Chipset to boost your performance.

The AMD 790GX Chipset allows you to immerse yourself in a full HD cinematic experience at home while enabling a quiet entertainment PC. Enjoy more vibrant colors and lifelike picture quality with ATI Avivo™ HD. Get a full HD experience on your computer at an irresistible value.

The AMD 790G Chipset lets you connect to a wide range of the latest HD panels by supporting numerous display technologies. Take advantage of ATI SurroundView™ technology to support up to six monitors when you plug in two Radeon™ graphics cards. The 790G Chipset lets you attach your PC effortlessly to a myriad of storage and entertainment devices for a better user experience.

Be amazed by fast download times when storing, accessing and sharing digital data. Personalize your PC experience with AMD OverDrive™. Get state-of-the-art overclocking**, along with advanced system monitoring and amazing control options. With settings for novice to enthusiast users—tune your system easily, in real time.

ASIC Name Chipset Marketing Name
Chipset Brand Graphics Brand
RS780D AMD 790GX Chipset ATI Radeon™ HD 3300 graphics
RS780 AMD 780G Chipset ATI Radeon™ HD 3200 graphics
RS780C AMD 780V Chipset ATI Radeon™ 3100 graphics
RS740 AMD 740G Chipset ATI Radeon™ 2100 graphics

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 C1 Stepping Coming in March

The first 45nm 3.0GHz Core 2 Extreme QX9650 CPU is set to undergo a few updates as Intel is preparing a new stepping for later this quarter. Planned to be available from March 3rd on, the C1 stepping CPUs will feature new SSPEC and MM numbers and a new CPUID - 0x00010677. The rest of the specifications of the C1 stepping remain unchanged from C0, but motherboard makers will still have to release new BIOS versions in order to support it.

Intel to Retire Seven Merom Core 2 Duo Processors

Intel has entered a range of Core 2 Duo processors with Merom core into its product discontinuance program. According to a product change notification (PCN) published today, the models T5500, T5600, T7200, T7600 and LV L7200 will see final shipments on July 27, 2009. The T7400 and LV L7400 versions will ship until July 26, 2009, according to the published schedule. Boxed versions of these processors will ship until August 26 of this year. Orders for these CPUs are possible until May 26, 2008. Also affected by the PCN are the Celeron M models 520 and 530, which also can be ordered until May 26 and will continue shipping until January 26, 2009.

NVIDIA to Launch nForce 790i Chipset in 2Q

NVIDIA is planning to launch the next generation nForce 790i chipset in the second quarter of this year. The chipset adopts NVIDIA's C73 northbridge and MCP55 southbridge, and will support Intel processors with FSB up to 1600MHz. The chipset will also feature 3-way SLI, Hybrid SLI technology and support DDR3 memory. Motherboard makers generally expect DDR3 memory pricing will start to drop in the third quarter of 2008. The nForce 790i is positioned by NVIDIA as a high-end product and so the motherboard should attract high-end gamers who will be willing to pay a premium for DDR3 memory. The nForce 790i will be released in two versions, nForce 790i Ultra SLI and nForce 790i SLI. The difference between the two is that the former has better overclocking ability and will support SLI memory modules up to DDR3 2000.

AMD to base Fusion on Phenom - Dual-Core Fusion CPU's Coming In 2009

Advanced Micro Devices gave further details of its upcoming Fusion processor, saying it will be based on the design of a microprocessor used in the desktops currently shipping to enthusiast PC users such as gamers. The Fusion chip, which will combine a graphics processing unit and CPU on one chip, will be a redesign of the company's current Phenom processor, said Patrick Moorhead, vice president of advanced marketing at AMD, in an interview. However, the Fusion chip will witness significant design changes from the current iteration of Phenom, Moorhead said. The first Fusion chips will be released as dual-core CPUs for notebooks, followed by quad-core CPUs for notebooks, Moorhead said. The dual-core notebook processors will be available in the second half of 2009, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. The company didn't provide a timeline for the quad-core chips.

The Fusion chip, code-named Swift, will be shrunk from the Phenom core and be optimized for use in a notebook, Moorhead said. The optimization will focus on making the chip more power-efficient while increasing graphics capabilities, Moorhead said. The graphics processing unit on the Fusion chip will include multiple "mini-cores" that breaks down code from a program, like 3-D games, to process data faster, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. Fusion's graphics processor will be based on a graphics card AMD plans to release in the near future, Taylor said, declining to give details.

DirectX 10.1 goes to $49

Radeon HD 3450 is out

ATI's cheapest DirectX 10.1, Shader model 4.1 part will sell for $49 and its primary goal is to give Nvidia hard time with Geforce 8400GS.
ATI's chip is based on RV620, 55nanometre process and works at 600MHz and is enough to fight Geforce 8400GS performance in both games and Video.
Furthermore, if you are not happy with 600MHz clock, for $59 you can go for ATI Radeon HD 3470 that will work at 800MHz which we believe it might be the absolute record for entry level chip.
At least in some games and 3dmark 3470 is faster than Nvidia's Geforce 8500GT.

AMD HD 3870 X2 Launch -January 28th

I'm afraid that all potential ATI HD 3870 X2 buyers will have to wait one more week until they get their hands on the new cards. TweakTown alerts that the launch of AMD's Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card has been pushed back to January 28th. AMD's new dual GPU graphics card was supposed to launch tomorrow but for unknown reasons, the launch has been pushed back. One possible version could be due to the fact that AMD is looking to have good stock quantity for this launch as it probably is a product that could do well for the struggling company.

AMD Tests 45nm Microprocessors, Plans Revenue Shipments in 2008

Advanced Micro Devices said during a conference call with financial analysts that it was pleased to receive and test its 45nm quad-core central processing units (CPUs). Despite of doubts by analysts and observers, the world’s second largest maker of x86 microprocessors is on track to release its chips made using 45nm process technology in 2008.

“It is exciting to point out too that at the same time, we’ve had silicon of a quad-core 45nm product. We’re pleased with the results and look forward to being able to ramp 45nm [process technology] aggressively in the second half of this year,” said Hector Ruiz, chief executive of AMD, during the most recent conference call with analysts.

Advanced Micro Devices said many times in the past that it plans to release processors made using 45nm process technology commercially in 2008, however, AMD’s track-record in the last two years as well as market rumours made many observers to express doubts regarding AMD’s capability to fulfill its promise.

“We’re trying to ramp as quickly as possible 45 nanometer, starting on Fab 38 and we continue to try to execute as quickly as possible to get new products out there, so we’re making those appropriate investments and as prudently as possible,” said Robert Rivet, chief financial officer of AMD.

AMD originally promised to start shipments of its 45nm processors in mid-2008, which means that the company would be about six months late with its new generation process technology compared to market leader Intel Corp., which started revenue shipments of its 45nm breed in late 2007.

The chief executive of AMD did not reveal when exactly the company plans to release its quad-core processors produced using 45nm fabrication process. Typically, “second half of the year” means late fourth quarter for Advanced Micro Devices, at least, judging by the recent track record of the chipmaker.

“We’ve got internal samples of our 45 nanometer microprocessors, we’re putting them through their paces currently and we’re on track to, the plans we talked about in the past which is to start our ramp in the first half of this year and ship revenue product in the second half of this year,” said Derrick Meyer, president and chief operating officer of AMD.

AMD Plans to Release ATI RV770 Graphics Chips in Mid-2008

ATI, graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices, reportedly aims to release its next-generation code-named R700-series graphics processing units (GPUs) in mid-2008. The news comes as a surprise, as earlier it was revealed that the ATI R700-series chips are only due either in late 2008 or early in 2009.

According to a news-story by Chinese news-paper Commercial Times (which article was partly translated by DigiTimes web-site), AMD’s code-named ATI RV770 GPU is due to be commercially released in late Q2 2008. Two of such chips are projected to power AMD’s new high-performance ATI R700 graphics card.

The new graphics solutions, which official name is likely to be ATI Radeon HD 4000, are expected to feature new architecture, which will be more efficient compared to current ATI R700-series.

The first ATI RV770 chips have been reportedly delivered to graphics cards makers, however, there is no information regarding performance or feature-set of the new series of graphics products. The new family of ATI’s GPUs is expected to boost competitive positions of AMD on the market and help to fight back the lost market share from Nvidia Corp.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Voice Controlled Bluetooth Headset: BlueAnt V1: CES 2008

For the past year or so, we have been lucky enough to use some very cool communication products from Australia’s own BlueAnt Wireless.  Since moving to expose more of their products to North America and Europe, BlueAnt has released some of the best Bluetooth communication devices that we have seen here at Legit Reviews. 

Like most compainies, BlueAnt was showing off their next generation of Bluetooth headsets here at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  We have already been impressed with the lightweight and technically advanced Z9 Bluetooth Headset and they take the Z9 concept a step further with the introduction of the new V1 Bluetooth Headset. 

BlueAnt is touting the V1 as the world’s first “voice-controlled headset” that allows users the capability of controlling most functions by voice commands. The headset is the first to incorporate the BlueGenie Voice User Interface to control almost every function of the headset.  Sensory, Inc. is one of the leaders in speech technologies in consumer products, and they are the architects and driving force behind the voice control interface. 

The size and weight put it directly on par with the BlueAnt Z9.  If you look closely, the body still has seems to have multiple buttons like the look to be used for volume up, volume down, and a multifunction button like the Z9.  The V1 will also have a dual microphone and advanced DSP to help isolate the unwanted background noise for the caller.  BlueAnt will equip the V1 with Bluetooth 2.1 and its talk time should be around 6 hours with over 200 standby hours.

What clearly will set this unit apart from the rest is the user’s ability to give the headset voice commands.  This is perfect for those of us who have a hard time remembering the right combination of buttons to push to pair the headset with a device, or put a caller on hold, etc.  In fact, check out the partial list of voice controlled functions the V1 will have out of the box:

• Answer Call
• Ignore Call
• Redial
• Call Back
• Call Favorites
• Call Home or Office
• Enable Pair mode
• Check Battery
• Check Connection
• Activate Phones Voice Dial
• Help Menu
• Settings

 

Slated for release this Spring, the $119 BlueAnt V1 measures 41mm x 17.5mm x 11.2mm (1.6" x .7" x .5") and weighs under .5 ounces.  By the looks of things, the V1 will also ship with a sweet desktop charger in a variety of colors.

Intel's Menlow :The Baby Centrino Revealed

Menlow is the name of this new ultra mobile platform that Intel is working on.  In Intel's terms the platform refers to the CPU + chipset, much like how Centrino is a combination of an Intel CPU, Intel chipset and Intel wireless adapter. 

 

The Menlow project began back in 2004, so what you're hearing about today is much like what Centrino was back in 2003.  We're on the verge of something very big (I could insert a pun here about how Menlow is actually very small and it's ironic that it's also something very big, but I won't; you can thank me later). 

 

Menlow consists of the Silverthorne processor and the Poulsbo chipset.  If you're in dire need of yet another codename, the core used in Silverthorne is also known as Bonnenn. 

 

Silverthorne is a brand new architecture, highly simplified from current Core 2 chips (thus reducing die size and power consumption) but still compatible.  Silverthorne is an x86 chip, meaning it can run the same applications as your desktop and notebook; and it's technically ISA compatible with Merom (65nm Core 2 Duo), meaning it has support for up to SSE3 but lacks SSE4 instructions.
Read the full story HERE

AMD RS780 on 23 Jan 2008-for China only

AMD will officially announce the new DX10 IGP on 23rd Jan 2008. To all international readers, this is a bad move by AMD as the launch is only for the China.

Boards will go on sale right after 23rd while other regions in the world will have to wait for an official launch at CeBIT 2008 on 5 March 2008.

Although AMD is set to launch on 23rd Jan in China, drivers supporting the Hybrid CrossFire (they call it Hybrid graphics technology) driver will not be ready. It is said that the driver will be available as early as FEB or MARCH.

It is also speculated that the product will have a name Radeon HD 3250 (unconfirmed), as it is to be paired up with cards namely the Radeon HD 3450 and HD3470 for best DX10 experience in Hybrid CrossFire.

Crytek releases patch verson 1.1 for Crysis

Today, Crytek released the version 1.1 patch for Crysis. NVIDIA let us know that this patch improves 3D performance in single and SLI mode. For optimal SLI performance with the patch, you will need to use the v169.28 graphics driver. The driver weighs in at 139MB, which is decent sized. This patch has been needed for some time as it improves overall rendering performance in both DX9 and DX10.

The first Crysis patch is finally available, updating the game to version 1.1. A 139mb download, the patch offers bug fixes, gameplay tweaks and performance improvements for DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 rendering modes.

File Shack

Radeon HD 3870 X2 gets benchmarked

 

And appears in the nude

A Taiwanese forum has scored the first pictures of the Radeon HD 3870 X2 in the nude, as well as the first benchmark figure ever, although at first look 9,573 doesn't look that great in 3DMark 06.
However, the test was not run at standard settings, but rather at 2,560x1,600 and the CPU was a Core 2 Duo E6600 at stock clocks with 2GB or RAM, so this is hardly a monster system.
It looks like the real deal and the drivers are reporting PCI Express 2.0 x8, which should be correct for each of the GPUs, as they're sharing a x16 slot. The card has 1GB of GDDR4 memory, but there was no screen shot of any clock speeds. However, the author of the post claims the GPU's are clocked at 770MHz with the memory at 2,250MHz.

You can find the original post here but you have to register to see all of the pictures.

Dual-Core Celeron E1200- Overclocks as Twice

Today I'm gonna unveil you a few details about the new Celeron E1200 (1.6 GHz). Accurately the processor will be available in the market ( this month ),  with wholesale price $53.

Concrete copy has the marking SLAQW, it is packed in Malaysia on 28 December, 2007.

This dual core processor LGA 775 operates at 1.6 GHz frequency , It is equipped with 512 KB cache in the second level, it supports 800 MHz bus, maximum vcore is equal to 1.35 v.

Using the motherboard on base of chipset Intel X38 , this processor overclocks up to 3.2 GHz, which is already twice as the default frequency .

The processor is based on M0 stepping , its overclock successes will depend on FSB wall value and motherboard abilities .