AMD extends 3D card lead with high-end ATI Radeon HD 5970

AMD extends 3D card lead with high-end ATI Radeon 5970

AMD announced its newest high-end graphics card this morning, the dual-chip ATI Radeon HD 5970. Available today for $599, the new high-end card features two clock speed-reduced Radeon HD 5870 GPUs on a single graphics card.

Based on the Radeon HD 5000-series chip design, the new Radeon HD 5970 card has the same features common to AMD's other new 3D cards, including DirectX 11 support, GPU computing via ATI's Stream technology, as well as support for up to three monitors via a technology AMD calls Eyefinity.

Unique to the Radeon HD 5970, AMD has budgeted overclocking headroom into the cooling hardware and unlocked the clock speed multipliers for both the GPU and the graphics memory. Included software will let you overclock the card, and AMD has also included multiple fail-safes to prevent overheating or damage to the card or your system.

Overclocked or otherwise, the Radeon HD 5970 performed well in various review from around the Web, taking over as the fastest graphics card currently available. It trumps Nvidia's GeForce GTX 295 on almost every test we found. This isn't a surprise given that Nvidia's top single-chip card fell to the AMD's single-chip Radeon HD 5870 when it debuted last month, but it's particularly interesting because Nvidia's answer, the DirectX 11-based FERMI, isn't due until at least the first quarter of next year.
source:http://cnet.com

Intel Core i7 975 CPU

Intel Core i7 975 CPU

Intel released their Core i7 family late last year. At the time there were three models, the Core i7 920, the Core i7 940 and the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition. Intel CPUs have long been known for their high performance relative to the competition and are at the leading edge in terms of process technology, transistors on the die and features. Their main competition for the CPU market, AMD, has lagged behind in performance and has had to compete in the price/performance category to even stay in the game.

Intel is launching their second series of Core i7 processors in the form of the Core i7 950 and Core i7 975 which is the fastest available Intel CPU on the market today at 3.33GHz. This processor uses the same core features and design as the previous Core i7 CPUs taking up the $999 spot on their lineup previously taken up by the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition. With unlocked multipliers and the ability to overclock automatically, it should be an interesting ride in the least.

Intel manufactures their Core i7 series on a 45nm process at their Fabs. The Core i7 CPU has 731 million transistors on a die 263mm2 in size. The transistor count and die size is the same for all Core i7 CPUs from the 975 to the 920. These are the first true quad core CPUs from Intel, with previous Intel Core 2 Quad CPUs having two processor cores on each of two packages on the same processor.

Each core on the Core i7 975XE has 32KB of L1 Data and 32KB of L1 Instruction cache, bringing the total to 256KB for all four cores. Level 2 Cache is 256KB per core bringing the total to 1MB on the Nehelam core. Intel's Core i7 processors have a shared “Smart Cache” of 8MB that feeds all four cores on the processor. The Core i7 family has HyperThreading which allows the CPU to work on two software threads at a time, effectively doubling the number of cores. A Core i7 can work on 8 threads.

One major change with the Core i7 is the memory controller has moved to the processor rather than the motherboard's Southbridge as on previous Intel CPUs. The memory controller on the CPU now supports Triple-Channel memory, which allows the Core i7 to have increased memory bandwidth over similarly clocked dual-channel memory. The maximum bandwidth on DDR3-1333MHz in Triple Channel mode is 25GB/second.

source:http://www.motherboards.org

Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Video Card

Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 Video Card

Microsoft is set to launch Windows 7 on October 22nd and with it a new graphics API in the form of DirectX 11. Advanced Micro Devices manufactures video cards, CPUs and motherboard chipsets and competes with NVIDIA in the graphics card space. The last few years has seen a flip flop war between ATI and NVIDIA in terms of performance and features for the performance leadership.

Graphics card releases are either watershed moments or simply refreshes of an existing design. The last real watershed in graphics was the release of the NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX in 2006. This card marked the first DirectX 10.0 card and a quantum leap in performance over the previous generation in terms of performance of 2x and the first card to support Shader Model 4.0. ATI’s release of the HD 3xxx series was a refresh of their HD 2xxx series, improving the feature set to Shader Model 4.1 but performance was similar to the last generation at a lower price. Shader Model 4.1 included improved image quality features but has only been implemented in a few games to date.

That all changes today with the launch of ATI’s Evergreen chip, the RV870 that is behind the new card on the review bench the Sapphire Radeon HD 5870 1GB card. This is the first card to implement support for Microsoft’s new DirectX 11 API, is said to nearly double the performance of their previous generation card the Radeon HD 4890 and offers support for Eyefinity a new way of looking at displays and monitors. ATI launched the card at a party on the USS Hornet in San Francisco earlier this month. Today they are launching two products, the HD 5870 and the HD 5850 of which reviewing the highest end model, the HD 5870.

source:http://www.motherboards.org

Kingston 32GB DT410 Flash Drive Review

Kingston 32GB DT410 Flash Drive Review

Kingston is one of the strongest players in the memory game and since SSD and memory stick (Flash Drives) products are also memory based products Kingston has their hands firmly in the pie of this market. Kingston is a name associated with stability, and for years that was the mainstay of their business model. Later years found them diving into the overclocking game and now we see both their standard lines and their new Hyper X line of products for the enthusiast and overclocker market.

They have also developed and co branded a few series of SSD drives that are selling well. Kingston also makes a variety of memory sticks and the Traveler series has been evolving for years ever getting better, faster and more memory capable. We have reviewed many of their products in the past and one thing about them, they never make anything cheaply, and they only make or rebrand quality products across the board. Today we take a look at one of Kingston business class lines of memory stick, the Data Traveler 410.

Kingston has had a wide variety of potable media devices and now with the addition of the Data Traveler 410 (DT410) you can have storage of up to 32GB. The, Data Traveler 41s ample storage space contains room for high-definition photos, graphics-intensive documents, videos, spreadsheets, presentations, term papers, and music that can be stored and retrieved in a flash. This is a cool thing when you need information on the fly and able to be on the go.You can safely Password-protect your data with Secure Traveler software, this is a software application that allows you to create and access a passwordprotected, secure area of the drive called a "Privacy Zone." One excellent feature of the new DT410 is its fast access and transfer rates. The DT410 has 20MB/sec. read and 20MB/sec. write speeds and a cap less, swivel design for added functionality and ease of use. All you do is just pop out the access plug and insert into any USB port.

source:http://www.motherboards.org

Microsoft releases Windows Vista SP3, calls it Windows 7

Windows 7 Release

Today Microsoft Corp. announced the worldwide availability of its new Windows 7 operating system. Windows 7 delivers on a simple premise: make it easier for people to do the things they want on a PC. The new operating system offers a streamlined user interface and significant new features that make everyday tasks easier and allow people to get the most out of computers of all styles and sizes.

Microsoft has stripped Windows 7 of some important accessory programs. Believe it or not, software for managing photos, editing videos, reading PDF documents, maintaining a calendar, managing addresses, chatting online or writing e-mail doesn’t come with Windows 7.

Instead, you’re supposed to download these free apps yourself from a Microsoft Web site. It’s not a huge deal; some companies, including Dell, plan to preinstall them on new computers. But a lot of people will be in for some serious confusion — especially when they discover that the Windows 7 installer has deleted their existing Vista copies of Windows Mail, Movie Maker, Calendar, Contacts and Photo Gallery.

Intel says no to Nvidia's Ion

Intel says no to Nvidia's Ion

Business comes first for Intel it seems as the season of goodwill is denied, because the word from Taiwan is that Intel insists it will only sell its Atom CPUs bundled with its limited 945-based chipset.

This effectively kills the ion platfroms - Nvidia's plans to pair the infectiously popular Atom CPU with the superior GeForce 9400M integrated graphics chipset.

Intel told Digitimes that it has no plans to validate the Nvidia MCP79 chipset on Atom-based nettop or netbook platforms and also said it isn't looking to form a partnership with Nvidia to support nettop or netbook platforms based on the Intel Atom CPU.

Considering the almost unanimously positive feedback we have had from our community on Ion's potential following the announcement, this is a very sad situation for potential consumers, modders and PC enthusiasts. We did pose the question of selling the Atom CPUs on their own to Intel last week and, although we got a very kind "I'll check into it and get an answer," we still haven't heard back on the issue - the situation has been all but confirmed in Taiwan anyway.

In light of this, we suspect very few companies will buy the complete Atom bundles only to throw out the Intel chipsets and use the GeForce 9400M only if the premium can be made back. However, since the netbook/nettop phenomenon is predominantly cost sensitive we believe that many will avoid the Ion platform for that reason. A big shame, in our opinion.

Sadly though, the news doesn't really surprise us because Intel and Nvidia aren't exactly on the most co-operative terms at the moment, but this insistence by Intel could be deemed anti-competitive. On the flipside, Intel is arguably well within its rights to regulate its own platform (which the Atom was launched as) even despite the fact there are other cross-licensing agreements in place.

source:http://www.bit-tech.net

Intel News

Intel and Numonyx Achieve Research Milestone with Stacked, Cross Point Phase Change Memory Technology.

New Research Discovery Paves Way for Scalable, Higher Density Phase Change Memory Products.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., and GENEVA – Oct. 28, 2009 – Intel Corporation and Numonyx B.V. today announced a key breakthrough in the research of phase change memory (PCM), a new non-volatile memory technology that combines many of the benefits of today's various memory types. For the first time, researchers have demonstrated a 64Mb test chip that enables the ability to stack, or place, multiple layers of PCM arrays within a single die. These findings pave the way for building memory devices with greater capacity, lower power consumption and optimal space savings for random access non-volatile memory and storage applications.

The achievements are a result of an ongoing joint research program between Numonyx and Intel that has been focusing on the exploration of multi-layered or stacked PCM cell arrays. Intel and Numonyx researchers are now able to demonstrate a vertically integrated memory cell – called PCMS (phase change memory and switch). PCMS is comprised of one PCM element layered with a newly used Ovonic Threshold Switch (OTS) in a true cross point array. The ability to layer or stack arrays of PCMS provides the scalability to higher memory densities while maintaining the performance characteristics of PCM, a challenge that is becoming increasingly more difficult to maintain with traditional memory technologies.

Memory cells are built by stacking a storage element and a selector, with several cells creating memory arrays. Intel and Numonyx researchers were able to deploy a thin film, two-terminal OTS as the selector, matching the physical and electrical properties for PCM scaling. With the compatibility of thin-film PCMS, multiple layers of cross point memory arrays are now possible. Once integrated together and embedded in a true cross point array, layered arrays are combined with CMOS circuits for decoding, sensing and logic functions.
source:http://www.intel.com

New!! Radeon 5870

The 5870s are available in the US.

Sapphire wants $379.99 for SAPPHIRE 100281SR Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video - Retail while Diamond wants $384.99 for its DIAMOND 5870PE51G Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video- Retail.

Catalyst 9.8 drivers offically released

AMD has now officially released the Catalyst 9.8 drivers.

Here are the notes. Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ 9.8 Windows release include:

Performance improvements

Battleforge DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 performance improves up to 15-50% in CPU limited settings with the largest gains in CrossfireX configurations. Company of Heroes DirectX 10 performance improves by up to 10-77% in CPU limited settings. Crysis DirectX 10 Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 10% and Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 34% in CPU limited settings. Crysis Warhead DirectX 10 Dual CrossfireX performance improves as much as 7% and Quad CrossfireX performance improves as much as 69% in CPU limited settings.