GayanX86

My New Love :D

2012-01-23T20:45:00.000-08:00

I've been out of the blogging scene for almost a year, lots of things are changed. I got married few months back, and ever since finding time for any tech related activities have been increasingly difficult, let alone playing games. I've been playing BF3 for the past 4 months, and not even 50% is completed, Sigh! I'm missing the good old days where I used to finish a game within less than a week. :(

And I bought my first ever ride on last october, nothing fancy, a 1994 Sunny, a well kept car by the previous 2 owners and brought down here as brand new. Still there are little things here and there that needs to be attended. I'm a complete n00b to the car scene and sometimes I lose my sleep over the little things :) . I remember the old days when I couldn't sleep peacefully whenever there was a small glitch with the PC. How I wish the cars were as easy as maintaining a PC

Love you Atom :D

2011-01-02T01:07:00.000-08:00

Why would you want a sloppy Atom CPU ticking inside your PC in the first place, either you are not too demanding on hardware or you are a road warrior who wants to squeeze every bit of juice from your Lappy's battery. Well I fall in to the later category, though I'm not exactly a road warrior. The main reason of getting the Netbook was the skyrocketing electricity bills in Sri Lanka. My main PC consumes at least 70-80W just for idling (G92 alone eats around 30W :-/). Unless I have games to play, most of the time I spend infront of the PC are low demanding tasks such as Net browsing, downloading and watching movies.

So I bought this Lenovo Ideapad S10-3 Netbook, the battery life is rated as 7hours by Lenovo, I usually get 5hours+ when browsing net with the HSDPA modem. RMClock readings show around 8-10W being consumed during net browsing, and the funny thing is watching standard definition movies only taxes 7-8W of battery power. The culprit is the HSDPA modem that eats 2W+ alone under load.

The only thing I'm dissapointed in is the inability to undervolt the Atom CPU, RMClock doesn't detect the CPU properly ,Crystal CPUID voltage setting option doesn't work and the damn thing idles @ 0.95v while the lowest specified voltage being 0.8v >_<. I think I'll have to live with that until they release a supported version of their software. Apart from that the performance is just OK. I love the portability. I can be with my parents and I don't have to be inside my room ,which I always get shouted at :P

ෆෝන් එකෙන් සිංහලෙන් පෝස්ට් එකක්!

2010-10-21T06:41:00.001-07:00

ටෙස්ට් කරන්නත් එක්ක ෆෝන් එකෙන් බ්ලොග් පෝස්ට් එකක් ලියන්න හිතුන. මේකත් මරු වැඩක් තමයි හැබැයි රෙන්ඩරින් නම් ටිකක් කේස්. හරියට වින්ඩොස් XP වගේ. කොහොමත් සිංහලෙන් ලියන්නනම් අදහසක් නෑ. ටෙකී එව්ව සිංහලෙන් ලියන්න ගියොත් පිස්සු හැදෙයි :පී

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Installed Sinhala on Android

2010-10-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, This is a straightforward simple process. But your android handset must be rooted to change anything in your system folders. I used one click root method aka UniversalAndroot to root my X10Mini. (Get it from here)

Then you can use a file manager tool to explore your system files. Make sure your file manager has gotten root permission. You can check apps' root permission using Superuser permissions app (This is a part of the UniversalAndroot app and will be installed automatically when you install UniversalAndroot app).

I used this tool called Root explorer (Get it from here). First you have to mount the file system allowing Read/Write operations. You can simply do this by tapping this "Mount R/W" button.

Grant read/write permission to /system/fonts folder.

Then you have to rename or backup your existing DroidSansFallback.ttf in /system/fonts and copy this new DroidSansFallback.ttf (Get it from here) to /system/fonts. Now you are done. See! That was very easy! Not as easy as installing on Sony Ericsson A200 platform though :D

I believe the author of the above (right) facebook status wouldn't mind me using it :P

Why do I hate Apple products

2010-10-09T10:57:00.001-07:00

1. Terribly Overpriced.
50k + for iPhone 3G in SL? C'mon!

2. No proper multi tasking.
For the sake of a smooth UI ? Is it really a smart phone?

3. Dumb restrictions.

4. Apple fanboys are annoying (lol)

5. Di*khead CEO.

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Test post from blogger for Android

2010-09-30T18:08:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to test this Blogger-Droid Application for Android. Hope this might help me to update the blog more frequently :-D

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From Dumbphone to Smartphone =)

2010-09-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

I have been using dumb-phones for around 6 years. They were alright for my day to day needs, not that I didn't miss some features time to time. But they were simple and reliable companions. Then I came across a Samsung i900 Omnia , not as the primary phone though. IMO it wasn't much reliable for my day to day work, battery backup was bad, Sound quality was not up to my standards, Touch screen was an abomination >_<, and not to mention I hated Windows Mobile 6.5 with that resistive touch screen.

My C902 was almost 18 months old (Still rocking) and I wanted a change, Something reliable with good feature set and something "Smart" xD. So it was either Symbian or Android, I had already ditched WinMo after the bad experience with the i900. Funny thing is I always tend to forget iOS as a smart phone OS (You know what I mean :P ).
Symbian is stable and has a lots of applications but at the same time the UI is boring + old skool. Not to mention more and more developers are abandoning the Symbian ship.

I went ahead and bought an Xperia X10 Mini, teh cheapest and smallest Android device on earth. I must tell you, it's an Eagle in a Parrot's clothing, don't be deceived by the looks. The little thing sports a Qualcomm MSM 7227 600MHz CPU, 256MB Ram (128MB user accessible), and all the bells and whistles you could think of, got a pretty decent camera, and heck it's even got the same Adreno 200 GPU as it's big brother Snapdragon Q8250 (as far as my research is correct). UI is very fast, animations are smooth, capacitive touch screen is a treat to use, and since this thing is small (2.6 inch touch screen) it doesn't draw unnecessary attention when I'm travelling in the Bus :D. On the first day I took it to the office most of my office friends asked me "How do I open the slider ? or the Qwerty Keyboard", LOL

In the next post I will upload some of the cool apps I use.
and BTW here is the link for the Phone specs :)

Updating the blog

2010-09-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

Hi folks,

After a long break I'm gonna update the blog, and btw, the previous post was regarding my SSD and not having an official TRIM firmware. After fiddling with some custom firmwares and tools now my SSD sports TRIM. :)

That's for now, Adios

Getting the SSD finally , but no TRIM yet

2009-12-15T06:51:00.000-08:00

So finally I’m getting an SSD kudos to Mahen and Anusha (for dragging me into this :P). "SSD" (Solid state drive) might be an alien term for some of you; it’s a drive that is based on Flash memory cells (unlike your traditional hard disk which is based on a magnetic media). Which is quite fast in terms of sequential transfer speeds, random write/ read speeds and has an ultra low latency (~ 0.1ms) compared to your venerable hard drive (~ 13ms).

The new kid on the block: Kingston SSDNow 40GB MLC boot drive, in fact an Intel X25-M G2 drive in disguise. It comes in 2 retail versions one with the desktop bundle and the other with just the 2.5” (Notebook) drive. We opted to get it from Newegg and Mahen had ordered it through comgateway.com, but few days later we got to know Newegg has run out of stocks and had to search elsewhere. Dell had it but was out of stock, it’s the way it is, they are supposed to sell like hot cakes given the price tag. Then we tried Amazon, they had it but only the Notebook version was readily available, we had no chance but to opt out with it, besides you are not missing much, just the 2.5” to 3.5” enclosure, cables and the CD contains Acronis True Image ; not a deal breaker at all.

As of yet this drive doesn’t support the TRIM extension though Intel has already released a TRIM firmware for their X25-M G2 drives, Hopefully Kingston will release a TRIM firmware once Intel starts shipping their 40GB drives. SSDs degrade their write performance over time, once the cells started to fill up with your data + junk data that you deleted from the drive (you know that a hard drive doesn’t really delete data when you delete a file; same goes with SSD), Let me explain you the reason.

SSDs are made of zillion memory cells each cell holding a single bit, so these cells are grouped together to create a unit called a page (4KB usually). These pages are arranged to create a so called block which is usually 512KB (128 pages). You can write into these pages one by one but when you have to delete a single 4KB page you must erase the entire 512KB block, weird ha? That’s the way it is, you have no way of controlling it. Luckily the SSD controller applies wear-leveling algorithms and it ensures each and every memory cell of the SSD across the drive is used for writing data, thus eliminating writing to the same cell over and over again, but once every cell is used you have to overwrite the existing cells that are filled by junk data you had deleted from windows. This is where it gets interesting. Imagine you have a file to be written which is 256KB in size and imagine the block which is selected by the SSD controller has 256KB of valid and 128KB junk data, so you have 128KB of free space on the block. Your file needs 256KB and the block has 128KB of free space, so the controller needs to erase the 128KB junk data prior to writing your file, as I said earlier the controller can’t just erase a single page or couple of pages, it must erase the whole freakin 512KB block. So the controller reads the block, gets the 256KB of valid data and caches it in the controller cache/ DRAM memory. Now it erases the whole block and writes your file which is 256KB along with data on cache. Wait! What happened? Did the controller write 512KB worth data to the block? Yeah. Feel dizzy? LOL. You wanted to write a 256KB file and ended up reading old 256KB and writing 512KB of data which in turn crippled your write speed severely.

So technically your drive might become slower even when you have plenty of free space on it. TRIM to the rescue, though you need to have a TRIM supported OS (Win 7) and a TRIM supported firmware with your drive. When TRIM is enabled a simple delete operation you pass to the OS goes through the SATA controller of your motherboard from all the way up to the SSD controller and it really erases the deleted file from your drive. So your drive is free from junk data and it’s always ready for writing to it the absolute data you want. Delete operations may become slower since it has to do all the boring read-erase-write operations. That’s not a big deal. Remember if your drive doesn't support TRIM you have no way of regaining the full performance unless you secure erase the drive, formatting or partitioning cannot help here. So that's it for now, Sorry if it was boring to you. :D

Hopefully we will get the SSDs before this weekend and planning to visit Mahen’s place to eyewitness his Alienware-MX17, that’s a once in a lifetime chance for me I guess. catch ya' all later.

Peace out!

Impressions on Sony Ericsson C902

2009-04-11T06:06:00.000-07:00

It’s been a month since I bought my shiny, brand spanking Sony Ericsson C902. I never thought I would caught up with this mobile mania, My K550i (@W610i) wasn’t bad at all, due to some *sweet* reason I decided to buy a new mobile. There were few contenders in my dream list, as I’m aiming for not so high (lol) they were not that expensive or dreamy for most of the guys... he he.

Here are my concerns.

1). Fast UI.
2). Multi tasking capability.
3). Good Camera. (Well! Better than my modded K550i)

4). Good Multimedia capabilities.

5). Can it be modded to my needs. ?

6). Good battery life.

And here are the few contenders.

1). Nokia 6500Slide. (S40 / Lacks Multi tasking: Crap)

2). Nokia 6220Classic. (S60 / Great camera, Multi tasking, el-cheapo look though :-/ )
3). Sony Ericsson K850i. (A200 / Superb Camera, Multi tasking, great look, chubby though :-/ )

4) .Sony Ericsson C902. (A200 / Great camera, Multi tasking, slim sexy spy (lol) look, relatively smallish screen :-/ )

So the C902 finally won my heart and cost me 35K. Hehe.

Here are the pros,

1). Well built very slim metal body.

2). Exceptional, stylish camera slider.

3). 5MP Auto Focus Camera with Face Detection, Geo Tagging ( Saves the accurate location of the photo taken in EXIF information, and can be viewed on a map /flickr yada yada) and all new Photo Flash+ 8 Touch sensitive Camera buttons. (After all it's a CyberShot :-) )

4). Great multimedia capabilities. (Super fast Media manager , handles 5MP pics each about 2MB like nothing)
5). Accelerometer sensor.

6). HSDPA- 3.6Mbps : w00t!

7). One of the best displays of SE : Great sunlight legibility.
8). Smart search for contacts, filter SMS into categories.

9). Track ID Music recognition (It Rocks)

This screen shot is from a live footage of mine. lol (Refer the previous post for full details)

10) .Yeah baby! This (A200) can be modded .. :)

11). Great battery life.

Unfortunately here are the cons,

1). Slower UI compared to my K550i :( (Still C902 wins hands down in media playback)

2). Photo flash is not as powerful as Xenon or as SE suggests.

3). Smallish screen. 2.0” (Coz of 8 Touch sensitive camera buttons around the screen)

4). Distant Night shots are far from perfection due to underpowered LED flash, not a complete disaster either.. lol

5). Display is a Fingerprint magnet

Click to view the full sized image

As you can see there are many reasons to buy this nifty thing though there are few drawbacks as well, who cares ? Nothing is perfect.. lol
As a whole I'm satisfied with SE C902 and recommend to everyone

P.S: On a side note I would like to mention that this is the James Bond's phone in Quantum of Solace :P

Pictures : Courtesy of a 5610XM (Yohan :-) )

Sony Ericsson TrackID™ FTW! lol

2009-03-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

Today I came up with a cool free feature that Sony Ericsson brought to the table; "TrackID" : TrackID is a nifty tool you may find mostly in W series phones.. I'll tell you how I suddenly become a fan of this tool. I was watching SmallVille on my PC and usually at the end where it becomes sensitive (lol) there was a nice background song playing. It was really nice so I wanted to download the original track. But who is the Artist ? Title of the Song ? Album ?.. I just held my mobile few cms near to the PC speakers, started the trackID service, within like 15seconds - Violah!!. I got the Artist, Track, and Album info directly to my mobile freely..
TrackID was the most handy tool I've ever seen on a mobile phone..
How it Works
1. When music fans hear a song they want to identify, they tap a command on the phone keypad to start the audio recognition process, and then hold the phone up to the music source.
2. The phone captures a few seconds of the audio and extracts a waveform fingerprint of the snippet. The snippet can be from any section of the song, even the last few seconds.
3. The fingerprint is sent to the Mobile MusicID recognition service from the service provider that may be located anywhere in the world.
4. The Mobile MusicID recognition server compares the fingerprint to its database of reference fingerprints and responds with the exact match.
5. The artist, song title and related information, as well as content like album art and download links are relayed to the fan.
Official Page

Does your HSPA modem heat up ?

2009-02-02T06:56:00.000-08:00

Long time no see ? lol
OK, I made up my mind buying the Dialog HSPA Uni student package on the day before yesterday.. It is pretty much fast despite the fact that I have very low signal reception at my home. Even when the signal strength was 20% I got around 200-220KBps with IDM.
One thing I noticed was this teenie weenie modem (Huawei E220) heats up pretty much. Even though it may not be a problem for this I thought to add some sort of a heatsink to this. So I grabbed my old dead (sob sob) ASUS P4PE2-X mobo off my junk yard (lol) and removed the Northbridge heatsink, and placed the modem on the heatsink as this, (Edit:: The Heatsink is replaced with up side down now. There was a rubber substance on the Heat sink spreader so till I remove it using some chemicals I had to use it like this)

Although this is a very inefficient method (surfaces are barely touched) I noticed some considerable amount of heat level drops off the modem.
Here is a little video clip to show you how does it look like ( Sorry for the lower frame rate as the blogger has encoded it with a low frame rate)

Stuck at 4GHz with the Phenom II X4 940...

2009-01-29T19:18:00.000-08:00

When Anusha showed me this I was like WTF!
Here's the full article for you from Anandtech.

/***************************************/

We have been testing the overclocking capabilities of the Phenom II X4 940 (seriously, who names these products?) for an AMD roundup and have hit the proverbial brick wall. It has not been for the lack of trying or even using a stellar motherboard to test these processors. The motherboard choices have ranged from some wicked little 790GX overclockers from ASRock, Gigabyte, and DFI to the flagship 790FX products from ASUS, MSI, and Foxconn. We even tried a few NVIDIA 780a based motherboards along with a slew of newly arrived AM3 compatible boards. We changed cooling, processors, video cards, disk drives, memory, and tried every available voltage setting. It did not matter. We could not break the 4GHz barrier and still complete our benchmark test suite.
The only commonality between our 30 different setups is the operating system. We recently standardized on Vista Ultimate 64 SP1 for testing. Granted, we had this same problem when our 940 engineering samples first arrived and we asked AMD about it. However, AMD never did get to the bottom of it before the launch date. We thought our results might change with retail processors. Alas, they did not. We have four retail CPUs, three with 0850 lot codes and one from the 0849 batch that all behave the same way under Vista 64.
Our final benchmark stable clock speed is 3.955GHz reached via a 17.5 core multiplier and a 226 HTT setting on our . This required a 1.6V VCore setting (with droop, real voltage is around 1.585V) on our DFI DK 790FXB-M2RSH motherboard. Memory speed is DDR2-1205 at 5-5-5-18 timings with VDimm at 2.060V. This is the setting we will utilize in our upcoming roundups. We mention it now as our Core i7 920 will operate at 4GHz and Q9550 at 4.25GHz, not exactly fair, but we are looking at platform capabilities on air cooling in the overclocked sections. As one would say, it what it is.

What is really strange is the behavior of the OS and Phenom II X4 940 at the 4GHz mark. We actually have 3.990GHz (19x210) stable for all tests except Crysis and the PCMark Vantage TV/Movies test suite. With that in mind, a simple change to 19x211 for a 4.009GHz clock speed results in the majority of our tests failing. We sometimes have trouble even entering Vista at 19x211, while 19x210 is about 97% benchmark stable. We have tried every possible combination (20x200, memory at DDR2-800, 1GHz NB speed, etc.) and even chilled the processor down to 16C and raised processor voltages above 1.7, nothing worked above 4GHz.
At least under Vista 64 as Vista 32 was much different. The settings mentioned earlier allowed us to reach a stable 4.275GHz (19x225) with the same components. However, we are not utilizing Vista 32 in testing anymore, especially considering our standard benchmarks are completed with 4GB and 8GB configurations on the DDR2 platforms. As such, it appears at this time that any overclocking comparisons will be limited to under 4GHz on the AM2+ and AM3 platforms. We have addressed this problem with AMD again and hopefully an answer is forthcoming. In the meantime, we figured out a way to get a screenshot above 4GHz before we received the standard BSOD routine. At least it is a consolation prize at this point.

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

2008-12-11T03:25:00.001-08:00

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

2008-12-05T01:14:00.001-08:00

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

2008-10-20T03:18:00.001-07:00

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

2008-10-14T21:33:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-21T21:09:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-21T20:27:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-12T00:45:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-11T22:14:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-11T21:53:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-11T21:50:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-11T21:47:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-11T21:44:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-23T00:29:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-23T00:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-22T23:42:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-22T23:28:00.001-07:00

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

2008-07-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-07T22:22:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-06-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-18T21:20:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-11T09:27:00.001-07:00

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

2008-05-11T09:21:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-15T20:37:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-12T08:20:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-09T08:07:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-09T08:04:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-09T08:03:00.001-07:00

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

2008-03-19T09:29:00.001-07:00

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

2008-03-19T09:27:00.001-07:00

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

2008-03-19T09:25:00.001-07:00

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

2008-03-19T09:23:00.001-07:00

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

2008-03-04T06:24:00.001-08:00

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.

2008-03-04T06:23:00.001-08:00

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

2008-02-19T07:33:00.001-08:00

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

2008-02-19T07:23:00.001-08:00

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

2008-02-19T07:22:00.001-08:00

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

2008-02-07T05:16:00.001-08:00

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

2008-02-06T05:14:00.001-08:00

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

2008-02-02T23:14:00.001-08:00

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

2008-02-02T09:00:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-29T08:31:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-29T08:30:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-29T08:28:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-26T08:52:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-25T18:54:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-22T09:18:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-22T09:11:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-22T09:10:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-15T19:55:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-15T19:40:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-12T07:33:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-11T07:25:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-10T09:00:00.001-08:00

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

2008-01-10T08:45:00.001-08:00

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 .

Asustek to push WiMAX-based notebooks in 2008

2008-01-09T09:21:00.001-08:00

Asustek Computer will cooperate with Intel and Sprint Nextel to push WiMAX technology by launching WiMAX-based notebooks in 2008, announced Asustek chairman Jonney Shih, at CES 2008.
Asustek is planning to adopt WiMAX technology in its mainstream and performance level notebooks plus low-cost PCs, including the VX2 and U6 notebooks, the enterprise-based V1, UMPC R50A and mainstream F88 notebook, with the company's next generation Eee PC to also feature built-in WiMAX technology, noted Shih. WiMAX-based products will account for 15% of the company's own-brand notebook shipments, noted the chairman, adding that prices will start from US$999.
The company is optimistic that 20% of notebook users will start using WiMAX technology before the end of 2009. However, due to the faster build up of WiMAX infrastructure in the US, Asustek will initially focus its WiMAX lineup in the US, detailed Shih.
The growth of the notebook market in 2008 will still depend on factors such as the worldwide gasoline prices and the US subprime mortgage crisis, noted Jerry Shen, president of Asustek. Shen added that even in the worst scenario, Asustek's notebook shipments will still see a 20% on-year growth and possibly even 30%.
In related news, Shih revealed that Asustek's second generation Eee PC, which will feature 8- and 8.9-inch display panels, will be launched in the second quarter of this year.

Not interesting for Sri Lankans still though :P

AMD introduces ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series for notebooks

2008-01-09T09:16:00.001-08:00

AMD has announced the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series, a new family of discrete graphics solutions for high-definition gaming and video on notebook PCs. The initial offerings consist of the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 series and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3600 series both of which are optimized for AMD's upcoming Puma notebook platform, according to the company.

The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series offers support for DirectX 10.1 enabling a higher level of visual quality through new lighting and rendering techniques designed to enhance the realism and quality of 3D games. New PCI Express 2.0 support enables faster throughput and greater overall system performance as compared to PCI Express 1.1. Notebook users can play the latest Blu-ray and HD DVD movies in 1080p resolution using ATI Avivo HD technology, which frees the CPU for other tasks. With a choice of digital outputs, notebook users can connect to a variety of displays featuring DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort support on a notebook platform. These new notebook graphics chips provide battery efficiency and greater performance-per-watt, delivering exceptional battery life for enthusiast users, according to AMD.

The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series also features ATI PowerPlay Technology which dynamically delivers the optimal balance between performance and power to suit performance requirements for extended battery life and superior performance-per-watt operation.

The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 and 3600 series are currently shipping in notebooks from Asustek including the M50 and F8 series. Additional products in the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3000 series are scheduled for availability from notebook manufacturers in the first half of 2008.

AMD announces that it's still alive

2008-01-09T02:05:00.001-08:00

APPARENTLY CONCERNED that the rumours of its demise are premature, AMD has announced something called AMD LIVE!^TM

The Sunnyvale, California chipmaker's new branding will cover both hardware and software, AMD said in a statement released today.
AMD LIVE! Ultra stickers will adorn new high-definition media centric desktop and notebook PCs powered by AMD chipsets codenamed "Spider" and "Puma" and running AMD's multi-core Phenom desktop and Turion notebook processors with ATI Radeon graphics. Systems bearing the AMD LIVE! tags are expected from the likes of Acer, Asus, Alienware and other PC OEMs sometime in 2008.
To go along with the new AMD LIVE! Ultra PCs, there will also be the AMD LIVE! Explorer media library software application.
In its press release AMD said, "AMD LIVE!^TM Explorer offers an immersive, 3D approach to browsing a PC's complete digital media library while also enjoying a video, TV program or Internet access in the same window."
Yay, AMD lives!
That's great and all, AMD. But all your fans will be a lot happier if you'll get back on the stick and turn out some seriously faster and more powerful CPUs

Nvidia Formally Unveils Hybrid SLI, New Integrated Graphics Processor.

2008-01-07T20:11:00.001-08:00

Nvidia Corp. formally announced on Monday its highly-anticipated Hybrid SLI technology. The new feature is projected to balance power consumption and computing power requirements of high-end personal computers and improve graphics performance of mainstream machines. Unfortunately, half a year after the first official mentioning, Nvidia does not provide availability timeframe for certain Hybrid SLI features.

Nvidia’s new Hybrid SLI technology will have two modes and that will target different applications: the HybridPower, which will switch off discrete graphics core and use only integrated graphics engine when high performance is not needed, whereas GeForce Boost will make integrated graphics processor (IGP) to assist discrete graphics processing unit (GPU) and boost performance when it is required.

For typical games and 3D applications, GeForce Boost can kick in automatically, resulting in a greatly enhanced consumer experience, as technically Nvidia GeForce Boost is nothing more than an SLI configuration. However, currently there is no driver that can automatically switch between discrete and integrated graphics processors transparently to end-users. While Nvidia promises that transparent transition “will be available in a future software driver” for HybridPower, it does not indicate their availability date. According to some media reports, currently switching to or from discrete GPU requires system restart.

“From the introduction of programmable GPUs to the rapid adoption of our multi-GPU SLI technology, Nvidia has repeatedly pioneered and innovated to solve difficult problems for the industry. We believe Hybrid SLI technology is one of the most important innovations we’ve come up with to date,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, chief executive of Nvidia.

Nvidia plans to release a full lineup of Hybrid SLI-capable graphics and motherboard products in 2008. New Hybrid SLI-capable products include the upcoming Nvidia nForce 780a SLI, nForce 750a SLI, and nForce 730a core-logic sets for AMD microprocessors, which will be released next month, as well as the new GeForce 8200-series chipsets that feature built-in DirectX 10 IGP. Nvidia Hybrid SLI notebooks as well as desktop products designed for Intel microprocessors will be available next quarter.

“Hybrid SLI delivers new multi-GPU technology to a large segment of the PC market, delivering consumers a level of PC graphics performance and power efficiency never before seen,” Mr. Huang added.

Meet Intel Wolfdale: Core 2 Duo E8500, E8400 and E8200 Processors Review

2008-01-07T18:46:00.001-08:00

These days Intel refreshes their dual-core Core 2 Duo processor lineup. The new CPUs manufactured with 45nm process boast a lot of advantages compared to their predecessors. We would like to offer you our extensive write-up about them...

Not so long ago we thought that in early 2008 we will be focusing on comparing the new AMD Phenom processors against the refreshed Intel Penryn manufactured with 45nm technological process. However, these expectations didn’t come true, and both – AMD and Intel – should be blamed for that.

It is true, at this time AMD cannot deliver mass quad-core processors working at competitive frequencies. The currently available Phenom models lose even to previous generation quad-core Intel processors, not to mention the more advanced CPUs. It is quite logical that Intel doesn’t have any significant stimulus to refresh their quad-core processor line-up, because there are simply no worthy competitors to the pretty successful Core 2 Quad on old 65nm cores these days. That is why the launch of new Core 2 Quad processors known as Yorkfield has been postponed for an indefinite period of time, at least until February or March 2008. And although Intel has found an excuse – an alleged problem in the upcoming processors caused by EMI in 1333MHz front side bus when these CPUs are used in hypothetical mainboards with 4-layer PCB design – it doesn’t sound convincing at all.

As for us, we have to state to our disappointment that it doesn’t make sense to compare Phenom against Penryn, because the former is uncompetitive, and the latter is still illusive and remains only an upcoming solution for the time being.

Nevertheless, there are more than enough interesting topics for discussion in the today’s processor market. Although Intel decided to postpone the launch of their quad-core processors on 45nm cores, the Core 2 Duo processor lineup will be refreshed with a few new models. They are going to announce three new processor models with Wolfdale codename within the next few days. They will be Core 2 Duo E8500, E8400 and E8200. These CPUs are based on the revised core manufactured with 45nm process and belong to the same Penryn family as the postponed Yorkfield CPUs. We certainly can’t disregard the arrival of mass Wolfdale processors, which promise to raise the performance bar for Intel’s dual-core solutions to a totally new qualitative level. They feature higher clock speeds, larger L2 cache and a number of other improvements. And the most pleasing thing about them is their cost, set at the same level as that of older Core 2 Duo solutions.So, in the second half of January 2008 Intel is going to massively update their dual-core processor lineup in $160-$260 price range. This particular event became the main topic of our today’s article that will dwell on the new promising Intel processors and the changes they will bring to the mainstream desktop market.

Read the Full Story HERE

NVIDIA Details GeForce 9600 GT

2008-01-07T09:34:00.001-08:00

NVIDIA's D9M makes its first appearance on corporate roadmaps

NVIDIA's newest mid-range processor, codenamed D9M, will make its official debut as the GeForce 9600 GT.
Corporate guidance from NVIDIA lists the initial GeForce 9600 GT
shipments come stock with a 650 MHz core clock and a 1625 MHz unified
shader clock. Unlike the G84 core found on GeForce 8600 GT, D9M will
feature a 256-bit memory bus interface. Coupled with a 900 MHz memory clock, NVIDIA calculates the memory bandwidth at 57.6 GB/s.
The texture fill rate is estimated at 20.8 billion pixels per second.
The company would not indicate how many shaders or stream processors
reside on the D9M core. Late last year, NVIDIA confirmed the D9 family will use TSMC's 65nm process node. The company introduced its first 65nm processor shrink
in November 2007: the G92.

Other details of the D9M family have already surfaced. ChileHardware published slides yesterday claiming the GeForce 9600 requires a 400W power supply that requires 26A on the 12V rail. Unlike previous mid-range GeForce cards, the D9M
will require a 6-pin supplementary power connector.
NVIDIA publicly confirmed other details of D9M: DirectX 10.1 support,
Shader Model 4.0, OpenGL 2.1 and PCIe 2.0 support just to name a few. Further documentation from NVIDIA claims the 9600 GT will also support the Quantum Effects physics processing engine. Like all NVIDIA processors, the GeForce 9600 is also HDCP compatible,though final support still depends on vendor implementation.
NVIDIA declined to comment on expected price of GeForce 9600. A representative for NVIDIA would comment that the performance increase between GeForce 9600 and GeForce 8600 is "almost double."

SAPPHIRE Announces AGP HD 3850

2008-01-04T22:43:00.001-08:00

SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced support for legacy PC systems using the AGP graphics bus with a new product in its HD 3000 series which brings the latest graphics architectures and features to this industry standard platform.

The SAPPHIRE HD 3850 AGP is available with 512MB of GDDR3 memory, running at 846MHz (1.7GHz effective) and has a core clock speed of 700MHz. It is a standard ATX format card, compatible with the industry standard AGP interface and with its slim fan assisted cooler the card occupies only a single expansion slot in the PC.

The SAPPHIRE HD 3850 AGP shares the 320 stream processors and 512-bit internal ring bus memory controller of the latest PCI-Express models together with multiple rendering units and a programmable tessellation unit. This new product's unified shader architecture with support for Shader Model 4.0 and the forthcoming DirectX 10.1 combine to deliver the most outstanding graphics performance ever available to AGP users.

Now manufactured in a new 55nm process technology, the GPU in the HD 3000 series delivers high performance with lower power consumption than previous generations. A new feature known as ATI PowerPlay actively reduces power consumption depending on loading. On the AGP model, additional power is required via the 8-pin PCI-Express connector fitted, which can be provided from a standard power supply with an adapter cable (supplied).

The SAPPHIRE HD 3850 AGP incorporates the latest ATI Avivo HD Technology for enhanced Video display and features a built in UVD (Unified Video decoder) for the hardware accelerated decoding of Blu-ray and HD DVD content for both VC-1 and H.264 codecs, considerably reducing CPU loading. Two independent display output controllers provide support for two dual link DVI displays as well as TV-out and HD TV options. HDCP is supported.

SAPPHIRE HD 3000 series graphics cards are Microsoft Windows Vista Premium certified and supported by the ATI Catalyst suite of software, ensuring customers have ongoing access to software updates for performance, stability and added features.

Specifications: SAPPHIRE HD 3850 AGP

BiTMICRO Introduces 832GB SATAII SSD for CES 2008

2008-01-04T22:35:00.001-08:00

BiTMICRO, developer of flash disk, solid state disk (SSD), network storage and file cache solid state drive solutions is about to make strong appearance at CES this year. According to a press release, the company is introducing a new, 2.5-inch solid-state drive with the whoppping 832GB of space. The SATA II drive comes as a new addition to the company's E-Disk Altima line, and utilizes a technology the company calls multi-level cell (or MLC) memory, which apparently doubles the number of bits stored per memory cell when compared with single-level cell (SLC) NAND. The drives are expected to ship Q3 2008 in capacities ranging from 32GB to 832GB.

Nvidia Readies Dual-Chip, Single-Chip High-Performance Graphics Cards.

2008-01-04T07:52:00.001-08:00

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GX2, GeForce 9800 GTX, GeForce 9800 GT Approaching

Nvidia Corp., the world’s largest designer of discrete graphics processing units (GPUs), reportedly plans to update its lineup of expensive graphics cards with at least two new offerings later in the quarter. The most powerful of the novelties will carry two graphics chips, whereas another will feature single-chip designs.

The new top-of-the-range graphics card by Nvidia is called GeForce 9800 GX2 which is based on two yet unknown 65nm graphics chips with 128 unified shader processors inside. The board, according to [H]ard|OCP web-site, will be 30% faster compared to Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra and will enable 4-way multi-GPU configurations. The novelty will have 256 stream processors in total, but will rely on driver support to demonstrate its potential, just like any multi-GPU solutions.

The least expensive solution – Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX – is projected to be released in late February or early March and is claimed to be based on one GPU. The new model 9800 GTX will replace existing GeForce 8800 GTX, thus, should offer performance on par with GeForce 8800 Ultra and support 3-way SLI configuration. In addition, there will be a the least expensive version of GeForce 9-series called GeForce 9800 GT and due in March or April.

Based on information reported earlier, Nvidia GeForce 9800-series graphics processors will support DirectX 10.1 feature-set along with powerful video encoding engine and post-processor.

Even though the new GeForce 9800 GX2 is projected to offer performance only 30% higher compared to Nvidia GeForce 8800 Ultra, whereas the new GeForce 9800 GTX should outperform the 8800 GTX by a similar margin, the new lineup represents a great threat to ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2.

At present Nvidia sells GeForce 8800 Ultra for $849 in retail, whereas the GeForce 8800 GTX costs about $549 - $649. Provided that the new solution by graphics product group of Advanced Micro Devices offers performance of the GeForce 8800 Ultra, AMD’s new dual-chip graphics card will have to cost the same amount of money as the new GeForce 9800 GTX. Unfortunately, dual-chip configurations offer performance advantages over a single-chip ATI Radeon HD 3870 only in cases when its driver can take advantage of multi-GPU ATI CrossFireX technology. Therefore, in all other cases the GeForce 9800 GTX will be faster compared to ATI’s dual-chip solution, making it very hard for ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 to finds its place on the market.

Nvidia did not comment on the news-story.

HP Begins Selling PC With AMD Quad-Core Phenom Chip

2008-01-03T04:56:00.001-08:00

Hewlett-Packard (HP) has begun selling systems based on the AMD quad-core Phenom processor at Wal-Mart, according to the retailer's website. HP becomes the first top-tier U.S. computer vendor to offer systems using the Phenom processor. Smaller vendors, such as Falcon Northwest and iBuypower, have been offering systems for a number of weeks. The HP M8330F Pavilion Desktop comes with the Phenom 9500 Quad-Core Processor (2.2GHz), a 640GB (2x 320GB) 7200-rpm Serial ATA hard drive, 3072MB of PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM memory, and Windows Vista Home Premium. The system is priced at $959.99. Other large retailers, such as Sears, are also offering the system. The Phenom 9500 and 9600 processors, generally available now, contain a bug that can cause system instability in certain rare overload situations. The bug can be fixed with a workaround. AMD is also in preparation of a new "B3" revision processors that should fix the TLB bug.

Hitachi and ASUS Collaborate to Deliver the World’s First One Terabyte Notebook PC

2008-01-03T04:35:00.001-08:00

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that ASUS has integrated Hitachi’s Travelstar 5K500 hard drive into its new M50 and M70 notebook PCs, the latter of which delivers up to 1TB of storage capacity in a two-drive configuration. The companies are breaking new ground in personal computing by combining industry-leading storage capacity – exceeding that of a typical desktop system – with the portability of a notebook PC. One TB of storage capacity translates to 1,000 hours of video, or more than 350 feature length movies or 250,000 four-minute songs.

As a world leading notebook PC brand, ASUS continues to develop cutting-edge products that offer the best solution in great designs. With the new multimedia notebook series, the M50 and the M70, ASUS aims to provide a high-definition audio and video experience. The HD experience starts with a sleek LCD cover made by exclusive ASUS Infusion technology. Upon opening the notebook, users are greeted with a multimedia console-like design with an ergonomic full-size keyboard and a separate numerical keypad. To further enhance the entertainment enjoyment, the dual-mode touch pad allows easy access to playback controls.

ASUS selected Hitachi Travelstar drives for its M50 and M70 series notebooks because they allow users to store more digital content than any other mobile drive on the market today. Consumers expect their notebook PCs to be entertainment powerhouses, storing and providing easy access to massive libraries of high-definition movies, music and photos. The new Travelstar 5K500 addresses these requirements with the features, design innovations and technologies that enhance the entertainment experience.

The Travelstar 5K500 features Hitachi’s Rotational Vibration Safeguard (RVS) technology to mitigate any adverse impact on system performance from unexpected vibrations or shocks to the system enclosure. RVS serves as an “early warning” system for the drive, enabling it to sense a possible vibration in advance and take the necessary steps to stabilize the drive head. RVS is particularly important for many of today’s full-featured notebooks that include premium speakers for enhancing a user’s experience with movies, music and games. When played at maximum volumes, notebook speakers can inadvertently cause vibrations that may not be noticeable to the user.

“Digital entertainment on-the-go is growing rapidly and notebooks are being used to run more powerful, memory-intensive applications,” said Tony Chen, General Manager of ASUS Notebooks Business. “Our notebooks with the Hitachi Travelstar 5K500 provide the answer to users who demand systems that combine large storage capacities with desktop-class performance and features.”

“One TB represents a major advancement in notebook computing and we are pleased to be at the heart of this industry milestone,” said Larry Swezey, director, Consumer and Commercial HDD, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. “We will continue to deliver the best that storage technology has to offer, solidifying Hitachi’s position as the segment and technology leader in 2.5-inch hard drives.”

Since entering the 2.5-inch segment in 1991, Hitachi has led innovations in the form factor for every measurable category: areal density, performance, power management, acoustics, shock tolerance, reliability and breadth of product options. Hitachi Travelstar drives continue to be the most popular 2.5-inch hard drives on the market today.

Please check the regional ASUS branch for the M50 and M70 availability.

GeForce 9800 GTX Speculated

2008-01-02T07:48:00.001-08:00

VR Zone has some speculations about the specifications of NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce 9800 GTX (G100) graphics card:

This is just a speculation and to know its real existence in the roadmap of NVIDIA we have to wait and look.

AMD May Lead NVIDIA In The Next IGP Battle

2008-01-02T07:47:00.001-08:00

AMD's RS780 and Nvidia's MCP 78 IGP chipsets are scheduled to go head-to-head in the first quarter of 2008, however, performance of the MCP 78S is reportedly below that of the RS780, while the higher-end MCP 78U is causing issues due to its higher thermal dissipation giving AMD the advantage over the chipset battle, according to sources at motherboard makers.

The RS780 is reported to have 15-20% better performance than the MCP 78S in 3DMark 05 and 06 tests, while the higher-end MCP 78U cannot function normally with the original passive northbridge heatpipe due to the higher core frequencies of the graphics engine. Adopting a larger heatpipe or fan will cause costs to rise significantly, pointed out the sources. Nvidia is still struggling with the problem, they added.

Additionally, motherboard makers have not yet taken delivery of MCP 78 chipset supplies, which means that the original launch schedule of motherboards might have to be postponed back to the end of January or beginning of February, noted the sources.

On the other hand, motherboard makers have already finished preparations for their RS780 motherboard launches and will be ready to ship in January 23 next year.

AMD has also fixed an issue with the SB700 southbridge caused by a malfunction of the internal clock generator. Although motherboard makers will need to add an external one to solve the problem for now, AMD has notified its partners that the issue will be fixed in an updated SB710 chipset, added the sources.

Nvidia declined to comment on this report saying it cannot comment on unannounced products. AMD did not respond by the time of publication.

Asus EAH3870 TOP Review

2008-01-02T02:28:00.001-08:00

Santa must have had some renovations done to his workshop, in order to accommodate all of the new video cards that came out over the last two months. It all started around Halloween, which had a little extra bang to it this year, with the release of NVIDIA's 8800 GT. While that card might of attracted the lion's share of the spotlight, AMD/ATI released its response, its own 'killer-card' around the mid-two hundred dollar price point, about two weeks later: the HD 3870.

Today we are going to look at a factory-overclocked HD 3870 from Asus: the Asus EAH3870 TOP. A few weeks ago, I was impressed with the combination of performance and price found in PowerColor's HD 3850 Xtreme PCS video card. Maybe the HD 3850 bigger brother will be just as impressive.

Asus EAH3870 TOP left, Powercolor HD3850 Xtreme PCS right.

Alright, let's take a look at this bad-boy.

The Asus EAH3870 is more on the hefty side of cards, than the slight. It was a double-slot cooler and feels a lot heavier than you'd guess it would, judging from looks. Which much thicker than its nemesis, the 8800 GT, the HD 3870 is about the same length, at a little under 9 inches. You can see some resemblance between the HD 3870 and the HD 2900 XT, but not that much -- in a way, the HD 3870 looks like a 'HD 2900 XT Lite.'

As for the cooler, through the red plastic, you can see a solid block of aluminum fins mounted to the centre of the board. This stretch of GPU-cooling heat-fins are all aligned so that air is expediently pushed through, flowing over the card and out the rear. While the Asus EAH3870 heat sink doesn't have nearly as much metal as a HD 2900 XT, or say, 8800 GTS does, the amount it does have does look substantial enough to provide adequate cooling. Unlike some HD 3850 cards that I have seen, this HD 3870 also has copper-colored aluminum heat sinks on the memory, connected by thermal tape.

A standard-sized fan dominates the right side of the PCB, ready for both duties: cooling the heat sink, and getting air flowing off of the memory as well.

The Asus EAH3870 features a Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts decal on the cooler, on which a German Panzer-commander stares off to the right side of the video card (perhaps dreaming of ledenhosen and blitzkrieg'ing), and a Canadian artillery officer stares off to the left (perhaps dreaming of hockey and incendiary grenades.) Besides the decal, there isn't all that much apparent difference between this Asus video card and the reference board design.

The HD 3870 has 320 stream processors (same amount as the HD 2900 XT), as well as 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs. Being an TOP edition, Asus has overclocked this video card. The GPU clock is set to 850 MHz, while the 512MB of GDDR4 memory is clocked to 1143 MHZ. Unlike the HD 2900 XT, the HD 3870 has a 256-bit memory interface. A 256-bit memory bus was sufficient to allow for some great performance from the 8800 GT cards, so, hopefully this will hold true for the HD 3870 as well.

On the back end of the card we have the standard double DVI outputs, which support resolutions up to 3840x2400.

Read the full story here

Most AM2 Motherboards Not Phenom Ready

2007-12-29T08:21:00.001-08:00

AMD's new quad core cannot compete with Intel's high end processors - despite being clearly faster when comparing individual cores including the entire cache hierarchy. Hence AMD adjusted its product strategy and points at the value of the Phenom processor together with the AMD790 chipset (Spider platform) as well as Phenom being an excellent upgrade option for the majority of socket AM2 systems on the market. Such an upgrade scenario is very likely, so we grabbed nine different socket AM2 motherboards to see if Phenom would really work with them.

In theory, a motherboard should provide a suitable core voltage to a processor automatically, and since the HyperTransport interface hasn't changes as well (with the exception that Phenom supports the faster HT 3.0), chances are that a Phenom processor could boot on a compatible motherboard even without having updated the BIOS. We've seen this in the past when AMD released faster Athlon 64 X2 models or stepping upgrades. Some motherboards would boot and display generic processor information together with a clock speed. Though this is not ideal due to missing support for processor features and probably improper processor settings together with missing micro code updates, it can help to check whether compatibility is there. We don't recommend to run a system with a processor not officially supported by the motherboard.

The more reliable approach is to look for a BIOS update on the website of your motherboard manufacturer. We've compiled a list of links to the download pages of the most popular motherboard manufacturers; you'll find it at the end of this article. Make sure that your desired processor is supported once you find an updated BIOS version for your motherboard. The BIOS update process depends on the motherboard, as there are multiple approaches to flash the firmware. We will discuss the upgrade options first and have a look at the nine socket AM2 motherboard, which we tried to upgrade with a Phenom 9600.

Read the full Story here

NVIDIA Asks Card Makers to Reduce Manufacturing Costs of 8800 GT Cards

2007-12-28T22:42:00.000-08:00

NVIDIA recently contacted its graphics card partners asking them to reduce the number PCB board layers used in GeForce 8800 GT-based graphics cards from ten to six in order to reduce manufacturing costs and so lower the card's ASP (average selling price) in the market. The redesign would allow the NVIDIA cards to compete in terms of pricing with AMD's Radeon HD 3800 series products. Although the Radeon HD 3800 series was launched three weeks later than the GeForce 8800 GT, Radeon 3800 demand has started to pick up, bringing the market shares of NVIDIA and AMD from 90% and 10%, originally, to 70% and 30%. If the PCB layers are reduced from ten to six, graphics card makers are expected to save more than US$10 for each card, which would allow the NVIDIA products to go into price competition with those of AMD. Despite the cost benefits, some graphics card makers are unhappy with NVIDIA's suggestion, pointing out that the chip maker is in effect asking them to do the job of improving the price/performance ratio of its products, while preserving its own profit margins. NVIDIA responded in saying that the redesign is only a suggestion which it believes is the best solution to meet the current market conditions. Card makers will not be forced to implement the change, the company stressed.

Samsung, Hitachi sign license deal on hard drives

2007-12-22T19:25:00.000-08:00

Samsung and Hitachi have agreed to drop all pending patent-infringement lawsuits against each other and instead have decided to sign a license agreement covering their hard disk drive patents. Under the deal, both companies will be able to share HDD-related patents registered before 2003 permanently and others until 2011.

The deal also covers patents from IBM, whose disk drive business was bought by Hitachi in 2002. Hopefully, the agreement will bring further innovation to the hard drive market in the form of energy-efficient drives and larger capacities, which these days come from new developments in how data is recorded onto the surface of a disk to improve density rather than from just adding platters.

Intel GPU/CPU combo in 2009?

2007-12-22T09:08:00.000-08:00

Really integrated graphics may be coming in 2009

Penryn is almost here; Nehalem is due next year.

But Intel may be planning to follow them up with new chips integrating a GPU with the CPU in 2009 - at least according to the Reg.

Bloomfield will apparently feature a 1366 pin socket (ouch) and feature "QuickPath" - Intel's answer to AMD's "HyperTransport" along with up to three channels of DDR3 memory. The new core apparently will have 8MB of L2 and use QuickPath to connect to a "Tylersburg" northbridge that will provide PCIe 2.0 lanes.

Strangely enough, less than six months later there will apparently be a "Lynnfield" going to a 1160 pin socket with four cores and hyperthreading, 8MB of L2, dual DDR3 channels, using PCIe as a chip to chip bus. Frankly, this sounds weird to me. Why on earth would Intel go to a 1366 pin chip, to go to a 1160 pin chip less than six months later?

The only way that this would make sense is if one of the chips was destined for the low end integrated market.

Let's peek into our crystal ball... to reduce costs, you have to simplify designs. What if Lynnfield integerated the GPU? With PCIe integrated onto the chip, it is not farfetched to consider that Intel may also consider integrating a couple of SATA channels and some USB2.0 channels... then you could have a nice little quad core "SOC" (System on a Chip) allowing very low part count integrated low end designs.

Such an SOC really would only be suitable for low end machines as the GPU would have to share memory bandwidth with the four core / eight thread CPU portion, so even a hypothetical dual channel 2000MHz DDR3 system with close to 32GB/sec bandwidth would be hard put to exceed the performance of an 8600GT - and it would starve the processor for memory bandwidth at that.

To make matters even more confusing, the referenced roadmap also shows a mainstream "Clarksfield" part using a 989 pin rPGA socket. UGH.

PLEASE PEOPLE: We don't need so many sockets!

Carbon one step closer to becoming viable alternative for silicon

2007-12-19T22:57:00.001-08:00

Researchers at Princeton University have discovered a potentially viable way to use carbon as a replacement substrate material for silicon. The team has figured out how to build transistors on tiny patches of the substrate, called graphene, just a few atomic layers thick. The research indicates that switching speeds could be 10x faster than silicon.

Graphene is a 2D layer of the common material, graphite.

The big hurdle was in overcoming the limited size of a graphene sheet. Whereas today's silicon wafers come in 8" or 12" (200 mm or 300 mm) circles, the largest graphene sheet that could be created in the lab was only a couple millimeters square, too small for today's several hundred square millimeter CPUs. So, what the researchers did was essentially create a patchwork of tiny graphene sections, only 1/10th mm square. These small patches are overlaid on a traditional silicon substrate wherever logic circuits are required. The end result is like having a football field covered with 1" square pieces of paper. The entire football field is covered with paper, and yet no individual piece is very big.

To create the final substrate, the graphene source material could be thought of like sheets of cookie dough. A type of stamp comes down and presses against the graphene. When the stamp is extracted, the graphene sticks to the stamp. It is then moved onto the final position on the destination substrate, whereby it is pressed onto it. The act of pressing transfers the graphene from the stamp to the substrate, where it adheres and resides through the stamping force.

Earlier efforts involved using a type of "Scotch Tape" to randomly pick up sheets of graphene for deposition. This resulted in a haphazard layout, resembling the images shown in this document. There are no images of the new process, but it could be easily envisioned as a series of squares covering larger surface areas.

While it seems like a lot of work, the payoff potential is in processing speed. One measurement of the potential advantages of carbon over silicon comes from something called an "electronic hole" measurement. In such tests, the carbon circuits performed 10x faster than silicon. According to the researchers, there would be an almost immediate benefit in radio technology, such as cell phones and wireless devices with high power outputs. Devices could be smaller, use less power, and produce greater signals due to the properties of carbon-based transistors.

One of the researchers believes the carbon technology could be adapted in a few years. The current 1/10th mm size is the first step in the proof of concept implementation. Now that the team has proved it can be done, the next step is to scale it up for larger applications. Eventually, entire CPUs could be created that would be 10x on the same amount of power as is seen today.

The work was carried out by professor of electrical engineering, Stephen Chou, and graduate student Xiaogan Liang at Princeton University. No word was given on the source of funding, however Princeton University receives funding from DARPA, the U.S. Department of Energy, and other U.S. government sources.

How To Hack Your Graphics Card

2007-12-18T08:40:00.000-08:00

In the bad old days, you'd buy a video card that ran at some standard clock frequency. The core clock was the core clock, the memory clock was the memory clock, and that was that.

Then a couple of companies decided to try their hands at selling and supporting video cards clocked higher than the reference clocks. In a commodity market, selling an overclocked card was one way to eke out a little more profit margin and distinguish yourself from the competition. At first, the GPU makers frowned on this, but not for long. In fact, Nvidia and ATI have begun embracing the idea. They allow companies that resell cards, that are often indistinguishable from each other, to compete on something other than software bundles and prices.

When Nvidia launched the 8800 GT, they told the press they left lots of headroom in the card, so card makers could, if they so desired, pump up clock rates and give buyers a little more value. Of course, that added value comes at an extra cost. As we noted in our recent 8800 GT roundup, the factory overclocked cards cost quite a bit more than the standard cards. These higher clock rates can make a big difference in some games, and less so in others.

Of course, you can simply take control of the situation by overclocking the card yourself. This article shows you just how to do that.

Read the full story Here

AMD Hints at 32nm Test Shuttles, Claims 45nm Samples Ready in January

2007-12-16T08:52:00.000-08:00

AMD has had more than its share of problems over 2007 with possibly the worst issue being with its new Phenom and Opteron processors. With the current problems with AMD's K10 processors, now the question becomes, "Will AMD make its deadline for the next processor?"

ChannelWeb Network sat down for a phone interview with AMD Executive Vice President of the Computing Products Group Mario Rivas for some more information on the bug and how AMD plans to recover from the torrent of bad press that has resulted.

Rivas says that the bug started as an observation and it wasn’t until mid-November that it actually turned into a more serious bug. Rivas also said that the company tried to do BIOS workarounds and patches with a 90% success rate.

In a closing comment, Rivas details some heavy information about the company's next-process chips. "We have 45nm on the way. We will have initial samples also in January. I'm fairly confident that those puppies are going to boot, and then we can have a follow-up conference call and I'll tell you, 'The sucker is booting.'"

Typically, when a processor is first taped-out, a operating system boot is one of the markers of a successful design. Intel's 45nm Penryn, for example, loaded the Windows XP operating system on the first spin. 11 months later, the processor began shipping for volume.

According to AMD’s John Pellerin, director of logic technology and development, AMD plans to ramp production of 45nm high-k dielectric chips in the first half of 2008. Pellerin says that AMD is more concerned with finding customer applications for its processors rather that a process race with rival chip makers.

Pellerin said in an interview during the International Electron Device Meeting that AMD’s 32nm high-k parts were solidly in the development phase showing that AMD is already looking down the road and hoping to learn from the problems encountered with its early 45nm process.

Rivas closes, "We also have 32nm advance work in SRAMs, which as you know is the initial step. So we will be a fast follower again, and as long as we have architectural advantage, our 45nm will be as good as the other guy's 32nm."

Intel announced its 32nm test shuttle just three months ago in September 2007. If AMD does have a 32nm test shuttle already, the year differential for 45nm may shrink considerably with AMD's 2010 architecture launches.

ATI demonstrates hybrid-chip CrossFire graphics tech

2007-12-15T08:55:00.000-08:00

We've already seen laptops like Sony's Vaio SZ include integrated graphics alongside much more powerful (and power-hungry) dedicated chips, but AMD's looking to make such setups all the more commonplace with new chips capable of hybrid CrossFire. AMD recently demoed the tech to PC Perspective, showing off a 2.2GHz Phenom machine with both unreleased RS780 integrated graphics and a RV620-based card labeled HD Radeon 3450. Running games like Call of Duty 4 and Unreal Tournament 3, frame rates jumped from 30-35fps to around 55fps when hybrid mode was enabled. That's pretty respectable, although the system is limited to speedups of the slowest chip times two, so bigger gains are probably not in the offing. However, there can still be benefits to using chips of drastically different horsepower: the integrated chips can power down the heavy hitter to save power when not needed, and totally switch over when required. That's a pretty solid compromise, we think -- and with AMD aiming for the initial batch of hybrid CrossFire-capable cards to be priced around $50, it looks like we'll be seeing these setups a lot when AMD starts shipping these early next year.

Guys there is a bad news also, AMD has revealed that they don't have any plans for releasing new family of Graphics Processing Units in Year 2008,bad luck nuh?. You can sneak peek(:P)into the full story here.
Thank goes to Anusha. :D

Do you need 3 way SLI with 3 x 8800GTX

2007-12-15T04:35:00.000-08:00

Today NVIDIA lifts it's NDA on 3 way SLI. Although it seemed to have rushed it out ahead of it's competitor AMD+ATI, it doesn't seem to appeal to most gamers. This is largely due to the fact that you need to use at least 3 x 8800GTX to achieve 3 way SLI. You can do that with lower end cards like the more affordable 8600 series.

NVIDIA marketing is silly to launch things at year end when Christmas is round the corner. Press can't get 3 cards and 680i board for review too. So, what is the point ? Even you can get 3 8800GTX cards, you will have to look for a 3 way SLI bridge. Of course you can choose to connect the 6 connectors crossing one another as shown in the review (ref) we posted earlier.

Even with 780i, I doubt 3 way SLI will be the way to go. It is simply to milk those rich kids who wants the best of best without considering hardware depreciates faster than anything else.

I will assume that there will be 3 way SLI without the need for SLI bridge. It is only a matter of a small performance hit. Whether NVIDIA will enable it really depends on how AMD markets it's CrossFire X which allows even HD 2600XT to run in tandem.

Can Water push Yorkfield to 5 GHz?

2007-12-13T22:53:00.000-08:00

Is 45nm An Overclocker's Dream?

Intel's Penryn family of 45 nm processors is making waves, but still hasn't had much desktop market penetration, because the firm has so far only released the expensive "Extreme" QX9650 model. As enthusiasts look forward to upcoming lower-cost versions that will give them the best "bang for the buck", a few extreme overclockers have already pushed these beyond 6 GHz using equally extreme below-ambient coolers.

As indicated in our Penryn premiere, major improvements over earlier Core 2 models include a die shrink for higher yields, and a new dielectric for reduced leakage current. The combination of these production features could eventually translate into lower pricing and lower power consumption with reduced heat. Any time we see a die shrink we expect higher clock speeds will soon follow, and the cool-running Yorkfield four-core version was capable of reaching 4 GHz on air cooling.

Lower heat is a step in the right direction when insane clock speeds are the objective, but Intel's efforts have focused instead on reducing the system's "carbon footprint" and operational cost while increasing longevity of related components. These seem like lofty goals, but we really wanted to how far we could push the performance envelope using common parts that most enthusiasts can afford.

Is More Cooling Really Needed?

While these new processors might run "cool" on nothing more than a heat sink and fan, extreme cooling has always been the "trick" to reaching the highest overclocked speeds. High overclocks require relatively large voltage increases for greater signal strength, which can overwhelm the inherent efficiency of any integrated circuit design. Excess voltage creates heat, heat causes instability, and adding even more voltage to overcome that instability only further increases heat until the component reaches its breaking point. The only way to break this never-ending loop of voltage and heat is to increase cooling capacity.

Extreme overclockers have used wild cooling methods - including dry ice and even liquid nitrogen - but none of these is practical for daily use. The next step towards "daily use" practicality has come from cascade-type phase change (refrigeration) units, where the primary cooler is itself cooled by a second cooler, but these are expensive, complicated, and require skills beyond those of most builders.

Thus, the majority of enthusiasts won't use anything more elaborate than a large water cooler. We've gotten such good results from Swiftech's Apogee GT water block, MCP-655b pump, and three 120mm radiators, that the kit is now mounted into one of our test benches.

Read the full Story Here

Nintendo Sells a DS Every Five Seconds

2007-12-13T22:38:00.000-08:00

This fun piece of trivia does more than make you the life of the party when playing "trivial pursuit". It indicates just how popular the Nintendo DS really is. Nintendo claims that they have sold over six million Nintendo DS units in America this year, citing internal estimates. There also seems to be no slowdown of sales in sight. The Nintendo DS is extremely popular to both the casual and hardcore gamer, and Nintendo fully intends to propel that momentum into 2008.

To further increase your trivial pursuit scores, these recent sales figures indicate that the sale of a Nintendo DS happens more than...

A bad car accident (those happen once every 14 seconds)
A man making a sexual advance on a woman (that happens once every seven seconds)
Two or more script kiddies having a "flame war" on internet message boards over the previously mentioned console (which happens once every six seconds).

8800 GTX drops to € 369

2007-12-12T09:58:00.000-08:00

Scared of 8800 GTS 512MB

The Geforce 8800 GTX has dropped to €369, as the new 8800 GTS 512MB G92-based cards are almost as fast as this year-old competitor.

This is a very interesting price, as the 8800 GTX has never been lower priced, and clearly Nvidia wants to get rid of the leftovers to make some space for next month’s announcement of the D8E dual PCB/chip card.

The Geforce 8800 GTX will also be a better bet for higher resolutions with FSAA and Anisotropic filtering enabled, as it has 3a 84-bit memory controller and faster memory, while the new 8800 GTS 512MB has 256-bit memory controller and slightly slower memory.

Nehalem quad core TDP is 130W

2007-12-12T09:22:00.000-08:00

Intel's next generation native quad core with eight threads aims for 130W TDP (Thermal Design Power) and it is unlikely that Intel can do better than quad core at 45 nanometer. This is a bit better TDP than Core 2 Extreme 9770 that has 136W TDP, or 9775 that will have even higher TDP, closer to 150W.

Pre-announced eight core sixteen thread Nehalem CPU is doomed to wait for the 32 nanometer shrink as it would simply be too big and too hot for 45nm process.

Bloomfield should have a total 8MB cache memory and it fits in a brand new socket, LGA1366.

The CPU is still scheduled for Q4 2008 announcement and we are quite sure that Intel plans to have a big demonstration at IDF in Fall 2008. Until that point 3.2GHz Yorkfield at 45 nm should be the fastest one, but we’ve seen Intel changing its mind far too many times; and it can easily decide to increase the speed of Core 2 Quad, if it feels necessary.

AMD's bet for 2008 is 45nm

2007-12-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

Much improved K10.5

If you watch Smallville you know what 33.1 is, and if you don't, then K10.5 is the new codename for AMD's K10 manufactured at 45 nanometer.
Anyway, the primary goal that AMD has for 2008 is to switch to 45 nanometers as soon as possible. The new K10.5 will produce a faster cache latency, as well as improved imc, and these were exactly the weak points of the K10.
Both the B2 and B3 revision of the K10 would benefit a lot from a faster cache latency and an improved imc. AMD hopes to give the Yorkfield processors a run for their money with this improved core.
Let’s hope to see K10.5 around Computex, at the latest.