AMD Trinity A10-5800K vs Intel Ivy Bridge i5-3470 - Discrete GPU Gaming Performance

Battlefield 3

Betafield 3 is the much hyped 2011 multiplayer shooter from EA DICE that gullible fans like yours truly will be bombarded by bog standard DLCs for some time to come until the franchise refresh next year. Powered by the fairly optimized Frostbite 2 DX11 engine which scales more with GPU than CPU, we see almost no experiential difference between the two different CPU architectures here.

Crysis 2

Pretty much the same story with Cryteks CryEngine 3 powered Crysis 2, which was supposed to be the standard bearer for graphics but not living up to its namesake until later patches enabled DX11 and high resolution textures.

Nexuiz

The Nexuiz 2012 remake is a fast paced Quake-ish shooter, also powered by the mod friendly CryEngine 3. Both processors are neck and neck here.

Sniper Elite V2

Sniper Elite V2 takes place in 1945 Berlin where you fantasize being an undercoverAmericanOffice of Strategic Services(OSS) spy with the objective of taking out the members of the V-2 rocket programme. The game utilizes Rebellions Asura engine.

Alien vs Predator

I think youd rather have a chestbuster implanted inside you now than for me to tell you that both sides performed equally well.

Hard Reset

There starts to be a tangible difference here...

Army looks to using EMP grenades

Today, the biggest threat against Americas troops in Afghanistan is the IED, or Improvised Explosive Device. Combating this threat is difficult and dangerous. Jamming vehicles, robots and Explosive Ordinance Disposal teams have to be called in whenever an IED is discovered in order to neutralize it. Its an expensive and time consuming procedure, and unfortunately, though the US military has become better at detecting IEDs, some of them are still only discovered as they go off.

In order to simplify the procedure, bringing IED disposal down to an individual level, the US Army is looking into developing an EMP Grenade. The grenade would be portable and light weight enough to be carried by individual soldiers, and could be tossed near an IED to neutralize it. Indeed, it could even be tossed into a room where an unknown IED may exist, and neutralize the threat before its even detected.

"When the pin is pulled, mr. Grenade is not our friend"

EMP, or Electro Magnetic Pulse, is a technology in which a strong wave of electromagnetic energy is used to overwhelm the circuitry of electronic devices. This is useful in IED disposal as many of them have electronic components. IEDs frequently have remote triggers, and in this case, EMP technology would shut down the devices circuit boards and make detonation (or indeed communication with the trigger) impossible.

For the companies participating in the development of the device, the US Army has put a few restrictions on the design. For instance, it has to be small enough to be portable, in the same size range as “hand or robot delivered munitions, 40 mm grenades, Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs), and Stinger, Hydra, and Javelin missiles."

Additionally, the designers have to choose how to implement the EMP technology, as the grenade could either be explosive or non explosive. An non-explosive EMP device emits a series of compressed electromagnetic pulses at an ever increasing frequency, which should fry the circuitry of the targeted electronics. Unfortunately, non-explosive devices tend to be large and expensive. An explosive EMP device on the other hand, is much more powerful, and smaller, but uses superconducting materials to store the electromagnetic energy inside, and those materials have to be cooled. In addition, an explosive EMP grenade would most likely destroy itself during detonation, making it a one-shot device. Of course, the same goes for a fragmentation grenade, so perhaps self-destruction isnt a major concern.

Its going to be very interesting to see how the development of the EMP grenade continues and seeing it used in the field one day may really turn the tide of the war. However, they do have to get there first, and they seem to have a lot of work left. Even if the grenade works perfectly for example, theres still the issue of protecting the armys own equipment from being disabled by the grenades.

ATi amp; NVIDIA GPUs Codenames

H1 2005H2 2005H1 2006ATiHigh EndR480 (X850 Series)
R430 (X800 Series)R520R580MainstreamR410 (X700 Series)R530?ValueRV370 (X300 Series)RV515?NVIDIAHigh EndNV40/41/42 (6800)
NV40/45 (6800GT/Ultra)G70/G71 (7800 Series)G80?MainstreamNV43 (6600/6200)
NV43-V (6600LE)G73(7600 Series?)?ValueNV44 (6200TC)G72 (7200 Series?)?

There are quite a bit of confusion over the codenames of NVIDIA G7x seriesespecially when NVIDIA decided to drop the NV4x codenames. If you remember forGeForce 6800, there are already 3 codenames tagged to it; NV40, NV41 and NV42.NV40 is the one where all the GeForce 6800 series started from but it isAGP-based interface. NV41 is the stripped down version of NV40 with 12 pipes and5 vertex shaders but PCI-E based interface and NV42 is the 0.11 version of NV41.For the case of G70, it is 0.11 based and PCIe interface and G71 is the shrunkdown version (90nm) of G70. From our sources, there is a G73 for mainstreamsegment to replace the current 6600 series while G72 is meant for value segmentto replace 6200 series. Information is scarce at this point of time so take thislightly.

ARM gives us a glimpse of what to come

Although ARM has already announced its next gen Cortex-A15 core based on the ARMv7 architecture some time ago, the company has now unveiled some details of its upcoming ARMv8 architecture. The biggest and possibly most important change, depending on how things move forward in the universe of ARM powered devices, is 64-bit support in ARMv8.The ARMv8 architecture is a major step forward for ARM, at least when it comes to making processors that arent necessarily the most power frugal chips out there. With a clear move towards more ARM powered devices outside of the phone space, ARM needs to up its game and offer competitive processor cores on more than one level. With Windows 8 adding ARM support and maybe even more importantly, the server market starting to show interest in ARM powered servers, being able to address more than 4GB of RAM. However, ARM already supports virtual memory addresses of 40-bit or larger and that gives the ARMv7 architecture the option to support up to 1TB of RAM.Even so, a move towards 64-bit is going to be a must as operating systems, especially the ones from Microsoft, looks set to move to 64-bit only in the future, as there simply is no need to have separate 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows these days. Native 64-bit support should also offer better performance than virtual memory addressing, as the latter adds a performance hit. Another reason for 64-bit support is as mentioned, servers and with todays virtualized server environments, having 64-bit memory support is going to be a must for ARM if they want to compete with the big boys.ARM will of course continue to use its current technology and further enhance them in the ARMv8 and well see improved versions of TrustZone, virtualization and NEON advanced SIMD. What isnt mentioned are any additional features beyond the 64-bit addition to the ARMv8 architecture, but depending on where ARM and its partners want to take things, well most likely see a big change when it comes to power efficiency and thermals, at least for high-end cores that will end up both consumer devices and servers. In as much as were expecting new low-power solutions for phones and tablets, ARM and its partners are clearly taking the game to Intel and something is going to have to change if they want to compete on equal terms.That said, we doubt that well see power hungry processors based on ARMs technology, at least not compared to x86 based processors. There is a fine line between enough performance and power efficiency and ARM is likely to have to cross that line to stay competitive in the long term. The easy way to get more performance, at least in some scenarios is to add more cores and this is reasonably easy to do with ARM based technology, especially if you use multiple chips which are smaller and run cooler than x86 processors. More cores are great, except as AMD showed with its Bulldozer based FX series of consumer CPUs, having more cores doesnt always translate to real world performance gains. On the other hand, were not expecting to see a huge influx in cores when it comes to consumer processor designs from ARM, instead the company is going to have to come up with some new, clever ways of doing things.Of course, moving to new manufacturing technologies will help ARM and its partners to keep the power envelope down, for now at least, but the next step beyond 28nm is going to take a while, at least if the move from 40nm to 28nm is anything to go by. Yes, the foundries have roadmaps, but its worth taking into consideration that TSMC has decided to cut its capex for the next year or so with yet another global downturn being expected. This implies that we might have to live with 28nm chips for a bit longer than originally though. Then again, ARM is only expecting to disclose its first processors based on the ARMv8 architecture sometime next year and doesnt expect its partners to have any prototypes ready until 2014 which right now is an awfully long time away for a new processor technology.Source: ARM

ASUS S-presso SFF System

ASUS today introduced the S-presso, an all-new desktop barebone system thatoffers multimedia entertainment in a compact small form factor (SFF) casing. Itprovides excellent support for high-quality graphics, powerful computing, TVviewing, video recording, FM radio, and comes in a stylish design that makes itperfect for home environments.

Easy multimedia access
With the LED Easy Touch Panel, the S-presso allows users to surf TV channels,adjust volume, skip CD and DVD tracks etc. Access and control multimediafunctions without touching the keyboard or mouse. When users are resting on thecouch, the S-presso also offers a remote controller, so sit back, relax andenjoy all the multimedia features.

3.4GHz+ Pentium 4 and powerful graphics
Powerful computing performance is a prerequisite for multimedia entertainment.The S-presso is Prescott ready, delivering 3.4GHz+ Pentium 4 processing formulti-task operation. The S-presso is also the only PC of its size with theability to accommodate all AGP 8x graphics cards. It eliminates graphics cardcompatibility issues and provides high-quality visual performance support.

Instant-On – OS-free audio and video
Don’t waste time waiting for the system to boot. Enjoy TV, DVD, CD, MP3 and FMradio right away without entering the operating system.

ASUS Home Theater
This user-friendly interface for multimedia functions is found uniquely in ASUSdesktop solutions. Users can easily switch between different applicationswhether it’s watching TV, listening to CDs, playing DVDs or enjoying FM radioshows.

Convenient assembling
The chassis of the S-presso takes on a simple tool-less design that permitsusers to quickly access the interior of the PC system for system upgrade andmaintenance.

The S-presso offers two models – S1-P111 and S1-P112. Multimedia featuressuch as Touch Sensor LED panel, remote control, TV tuner, ASUS Home Theater andASUS Instant-On are only available in the S1-P111 version. The S1-P112 is agaming system tailored for those who enjoy playing the latest 3D titles.

Specification summary
-CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz (Northwood and Prescott)
-Chipsets: Intel 865G + ICH5
- 800/533MHz FSB
-Memory: Dual-channel DDR 400/333/266. Max. 2GB
-Serial ATA
-1 x AGP 8x
-S/PDIF
-7-in1 card reader (CFI/CFII, Smart Media, SD/MMC, MS/MS Pro)
-TV tuner card

Coming in blue and white, the S-presso looks good in all settings.

Apple updates MacBook range, releases new MacBook Pro

Apple has announced its new lineup of Mac laptop computers, with improved design and beefier specs under the hood.

The revamped MacBook Air, which Apple claims revolutionised the laptop market, will offer processor options up to a 3.2GHz (with TurboBoost) dual-core i7, memory of up to 8GB, 512GB Flash storage, and a high-definition camera for FaceTime. Best of all, and a surprise for Apple, is that it will be $100 cheaper than previous models. The new version is available from today.The MacBook Pro range is also getting an upgrade, with the 13-inch model featuring choices of a 2.5GHz i5 or 2.9GHz i7 processor, while the 15-inch model features a choice between 2.3GHz or 2.6GHz quad-core i7. Graphics will also be improved, up to 60 percent faster than previous models, and the devices will also come with USB 3.0 ports.There will also be a new MacBook Pro with a 15-inch 2880x1800 resolution retina display, called by Apple “the most beautiful computer we have ever made.” It is lighter than the 13-inch model, thinner than a persons finger, and packs a punch, with up to a 2.7GHz quad-core i7, up to 16GB of RAM, up to 768GB of Flash storage, a GeForce GT 650 M graphics card, ThunderBolt and USB 3.0 ports, and a battery life of up to 7 hours. Prices start at $2,199 and the new model is available immediately.The ever wasteful Apple is touting that users can watch full 1080p video with more than three million pixels left over. That is a whopping 220 pixels per inch. It seems that the revamps to all of its devices include the move to the retina display, despite it offering a much higher resolution than needed, or indeed noticeable, on a computer. Some improvements that will help, however, include 75 percent less reflection and 29 percent more contrast.It does not appear that any of the other Mac devices are getting an upgrade at this time.

ASUS Rampage IV Gene Looking Good

The Rampage IV Gene is a micro-ATX form-factor motherboard based on the Intel X79 chipset, supporting Core i7 processors in the LGA2011 package. It aims to give you everything the X79 platform can, 3-way SLI and CrossfireX included. The top half of the board is laid out like any other X79 motherboard. The LGA2011 socket sits in between two sets of DDR3 DIMM slots with two slots each, supporting quad-channel DDR3 memory, with speeds of up to DDR3-2400 MHz by overclocking.

Despite severe space constrains of the micro-ATX form-factor, ASUS did not compromise on the power delivery one bit. The CPU is powered by an 8-phase Extreme Engine Digi+ II VRM with at least 8 phases, and 4-phase memory VRM, cooled by a robust heatsink set that makes use of a heat pipe to spread the heat around. To the right side of the socket is the OC Zone, which gives you consolidated voltage measurement points, onboard OC control buttons; phase LEDs, and POST code readout.

The expansion slot area completely does away with ye olde PCI slots, it consists of three PCI-Express Gen 3.0 x16 slots, and an open-ended PCI-Express 2.0 x4 slot wired to the X79 PCH. Among the long slots, the top two are x16 capable, while the bottommost one runs at x8 speed at all times. In terms of SATA connectivity, the Rampage IV Gene gives you a total of 7 internal ports and one eSATA. Among these six internal ports (red) are SATA 6 Gb/s, two from the X79 PCH and two from an ASMedia-made SATA 6G controller; three internal ports (black) are SATA 3 Gb/s wired to the PCH. The eSATA port is wired to the PCH, and runs at 3 Gb/s speed.

ASUS implemented its SupremeFX III audio solution, which can also be found on the Rampage IV Formula. It uses a high-SNR HD audio CODEC (probably ALC898 for all we know), sitting on a tiny PCB thats laid on top of the boards main PCB. This isolates the CODEC from the ground layer of the main PCB. In conjunction with a 1500 uF capacitor, this design eliminates background electrical noises typically associated with onboard audio solutions. To top it all off, the 8+2 channel CODEC is backed by Creative X-Fi MB software that provides EAX 5.0 HD, X-Fi Crystalizer, CMSS-3D, and THX TruStudio Pro.

Other connectivity features include an Intel-made GbE connection, four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear-panel, two via standard USB 3.0 header), a number of USB 2.0 ports, and a PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port. PS/2 is still indispensable, as PS/2 keyboards are free from ghosting and rollback flaws associated with USB keyboards. This board includes several ROG exclusive features such as ROG Connect, ROG GameFirst, USB BIOS Flashback, etc. The board is driven by ASUS UEFI BIOS firmware. Unfortunately, we dont have a specific release date.

Source: SweClockers

ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime's specifications unveiled

Comes in Amethyst Gray and Champagne Gold, the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime, with metallic spun finish design made of aluminium, is incredibly slim at just 8.3mm thin and weighs a mere 586g.It features NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor that can deliver superb experience for tablet-based multitasking, web browsing, full high definition video playback and gaming. On top of that, the Eee Pad Transformer Prime also sports a bright 10.1-inch Super IPS+ screen with LED backlight and Corning Gorilla glass for protection.

On the front is a 1.2-megapixel camera for video conferencing while the 8-megapixel camera at the rear comes with auto-focus and LED flash for taking brilliant pictures and full 1080p HD video. The Eee Pad Transformer Prime is also powered by ASUS exclusive SonicMaster technology for impressive audio performance. And is available in 32GB and 64GB flavours, along with a micro SD card slot, 3.5mm combo audio jack and micro HDMI port. It boasts a battery life of up to 12 hours and when combined with the mobile dock, it can last up to 18 hours. Unfortunately,no details on the pricing and availability at press time.

Display

10.1"LED Backlit screen with Super IPS+ (1280 x 800) 10 finger multi-touch, Corning® Gorilla® Glass

Operating System

Android™ 3.2 Honeycomb (Upgradable to Android™ 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich)

CPU

NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 Quad-core CPU

Memory

LP DDR2 1 GB

Storage

32GB /64GB(1) EMMC + ASUS WebStorage

Wireless

802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR

Camera

1.2MP (front)/ 8MP Auto-focus (rear) with LED flash, large F2.4 aperture

Interface

PAD: 2-in-1 Audio Jack (Headphone/Mic-in); 1x micro HDMI port; 1x Micro SD Card Reader; 1x Internal Microphone; 1x Stereo Speaker

Mobile Dock:1x USB2.0 port; 1x SD Card Reader

Sensor

G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-compass, GPS

Flash support

Yes

Multi-tasking

Yes

Special Apps

ASUS launcher, @Vibe Music, ASUS WebStorage, MyLibrary, MyNet, MyCloud, File manager, ASUS sync, SuperNote, App Locker, App Backup, TegraZone, Polaris® Office

Battery

12hours; 25Wh Li-polymer Battery(2)

18 hours pad with dock ; 25Wh(pad) & 22Wh(mobile dock) Li-polymer Battery(2)

Size / Weight

Pad: 263*180.8*8.3mm / 586g

Mobile Dock: 263*180.8*8~10.4mm / 537g

Asus' Transformer Prime gets undressed, reveals Tegra 3

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) had kindly posted pictures of the guts of Asus’ upcoming Transformer Prime tablet, since if you want to sell a device in the US; it has to pass through the stringent testing of the FCC. As such, we now know not only what Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chip for tablets look like, but also some details about the specifications of the Transformer Prime beyond the processor.It looks like Nvidia has managed to shrink the size of the chip quite significantly compared to Tegra 2, despite doubling the core count and then some. It’s unlikely that this same chip will be used in smartphones though, as it’s still bigger than your average ARM SoC. Beyond the Tegra 3 chip, we’re looking at an unknown amount of 32-bit DDR2 or possibly LPDDR2 memory from Elpida, as the specific model number doesn’t appear on Elpida’s website. Storage comes courtesy of an eMMC chip from Hynix, in this case a 32GB chip built on 2Xnm technology that is compliant with the eMMC 4.41 standard that offers a maximum memory bandwidth of 104MB/s.Other chips spotted include Wi-Fi from Azurewave, a GPS receiver from Broadcom, audio from Realtek and a touch screen controller from Atmel with support for up to 16 simultaneous touch inputs. The tablet also appears to have a micro SD card slot, a built in camera with what appears to be an LED flash, an audio jack and a USB port. There’s also a custom dock connector for the keyboard dock, but it’s a bit hard to see in the pictures. The battery pack seems to take up most of the space inside the tablet and it’s rated at 25Wh or 3,380mAh whichever you prefer. That said, we shouldn’t have to wait too long for the Transformer Prime to launch and we should know more then. Check out the source for more pictures of the internals of the Transformer Prime.Source: Wireless Goodness

Asus introduces dual GPU 6600GT after Gigabyte

GIGABYTE´s GV-3D1 won´t be alone in the market soon, because ASUSTeK Computer decided to introduce a competing solution with two GPUs onboard. Taiwanese Digital-Info.Net posted intriguing photos of a sample named EN6600GT Dual:

Though this card is based on the same GeForce 6600GT GPUs, it´s totally different from GIGABYTE GV-3D1:

EN6600GT Dual has two DVI-I interfaces, 9-pin S-Video that also supports video capture (with Philips SAA7114H chip). On card´s PCB there´s also 6-pin power connector, 256MB of 256-bit 1.6ns GDDR3 memory from Samsung similar to that installed on GV-3D1 (8 x K4J55323QF-GC16 chips).

The architecture is still a matter of guess, but GIGABYTE already patented its version of it. It seems that GPUs share PCI Express evenly, each using 8 x PCI-E channels. Perhaps, GPUs are interconnected with SLI (Scalable Link Interface) that has the switch integrated into the PCB circuits.

I wonder, is it possible to install 2 x EN6600GT Dual card to get yourself a whole 4 GPUs? Perhaps, it is, because the novelty from ASUS has two 14-pin connectors, one in the place of SLI interface, so if you take a couple of cables...

It seems a configuration of two EN6600GT Dual will require a special daughterboard like TYAN Thunder K8WEX to provide each fully-fledged PCI Express slot with 16 PCI-E channels, otherwise the #9 to #16 PCI-E channels of the 4th GPU won´t be connected (in 16 + 4 PCI-E channels mode).

So, the motherboard should be able to switch 8 + 8 PCI-E channels (or 16 + 4 PCI-E channels) as channels #1 to #4 for 1-1/2-1 GPUs, channels #8 to #12 for 1-2/2-2 GPUs (or channels #1 to #8 for 1-1 GPU, channels #9 to #16 for 1-2 GPU + channels #1 and #2 for 2-1 GPU, channels #8 and #9 for 2-2 GPU). This can be done by DFI nForce 4 based series, for example. But, of course, if GeForce 6600GT supports multi-GPU modes, ASUSTeK is bound to release a new board to handle two EN6600GT Dual cards at once.

2012-12-21-471

A-Data Readies S596 Turbo SSD for Release

A-Data is preparing to release the S596 Turbo SSD, targetingenthusiasts.



Encased in a brushed aluminum enclosure, the 2.5” SSD boasts a JMicronJMF616 chip, 128Mb DDR2 cache buffer, both SATA II and USB 2.0interfaces, MLC NAND flash memory, TRIM support, “static wear-levelingtechnology” (for extended lifespan), and supports data transfer rates upto 210Mb/s (write) and 260Mb/s (read). Available in capacities of 32Gb,64Gb, 128Gb and 256Gb, the S596 Turbo SSD is bundled with a 3.5"converter and a 60-day trial version of Norton Internet Security 2010.Pricing and availability has not been set yet so stay tuned for moreupdates.


News via [Softpedia]

2012-12-21-312

90nm Athlon 64 Mass Production In Q3

AMD Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Robert J. Rivet haspresented at the Morgan Stanley Semiconductor and Systems Conference today andhere are some information he has shared regarding the upcoming 90nm Athlon 64 :

AMD is right on target to ship out 1M units of Opteron and Athlon 64 in thisquarterAMD's strategy is to establish in server first (high end client first),then mobile then desktopAMD to start fab conversion for 90nm process in 5 weeksFirst 90nm production silicon in April, volume production in July andavailability around September-October targeted at Athlon 64 family90nm Athlon 64 (Winchester) will be around 98-102mm2 in diesize, about half the size of a 130nm Athlon 64 (193mm2) and smallerthan Intel Prescott (112mm2)

Some of the architectural improvements such as SSE3 and DDR-2 might just be present inthe 90nm Athlon 64.