Wednesday, July 23, 2008

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.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

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.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

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.”

Monday, July 7, 2008

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.