The original Barcelona is a 65 nm part and really the first of its architecture. Since its release and the subsequent shuffling around of design teams, AMD has refocused their energy on delivering a design that would not only have a better per clock performance than the older part, but allow the design to scale in clockspeed on AMD's new 45 nm process. So far what we have seen shows that AMD has done very well. While the 3.0 GHz Phenom II will likely not perform anywhere near that of the new 3.2 GHz Intel i7, it will show very well against the older Intel Core 2 quads. Not only that, but we will see how AMD scales clockspeed in the future, as well as how they handle DDR-3 support early next year. With AMD's constant process improvement program, and tweaks to the Phenom II design that we typically see in the manufacturing stage, AMD could theoretically have a 3.4 to 3.6 GHz processor at moderate TDP levels (think 125 watts) that would more adequately perform against the mighty i7 within the next 8 months.
...
The Phenom II reached 6 GHz+ at 1.9v on liquid nitrogen (boiling point -321F/-196C at 1 atm). Testing looks to have been done on a Gigabyte 790GX motherboard that is currently available.

Not three bad, not three bad atoll. Here's a little bit on the current i7 record, obviously as incomprehensible as the preceding sentence for non-germanophones:

Hardware-Infos

Einem japanischen Overclocking-Team gelang es nun, den Takt von 4x 3,20 auf 4x 5,73 GHz zu hieven. Zuvor hatte man sich an einem Core i7 940-Prozessor versucht, der sich bis 4x 4,44 GHz ubertakten lieB.

The important thing to remember, here, is that in Foreign, there are no rules for comma usage; they seem interchangeable with periods. Quotes, similarly, remain recognizable only because of their placement around phrases not original to the article at hand, otherwise they look like chevrons, likely due to the highly militarized nature of Foreign.

ASRock has put out a video showing its new Instant Boot feature that can start a computer in 4 seconds. Thanks to this new BIOS feature (a BIOS update is available for some existing boards), when the operating system is shut down it goes through a process of rebooting and then hibernates / goes into suspend mode until the user presses the power button again. Pretty slick.

Pretty slick? Hardly. Distilled premium quality awesome? Hell yes. These engineering dudes and their voiceovering have switched me from being a neutral party to a strict ASRock enthusiast.

I can only ask that in the future, ASRock get these guys to dance to O-Zone while simultaneously showcasing their ground-breaking, highly innovative technology. (Assuming that it works and everything.)

The MintyBoost is a small DIY kit is available from the Makershed and works well for any gadget that can be charged via a USB port. It's been tested with iPods, cameras, cell phones, and other gadgets to make sure that it works well. What's really cool is that the power comes from 2 AA batteries. That's right, you just plug in two disposable AA batteries and charging will start.

Funny that I spotted this today, as Kurtis and I were mashing our brains together earlier in an attempt to come up with the a plan to build the coolest DIY headphone amp ever conceived. Apparently the mint-tin is in for such projects. Too bad the MintyBoost doesn't have laser beams or a ninja star thrower hidden inside. If my aim is true over the next two weeks, however, the (un)official TTL Headphone FrankenstAmp will.

I just hope it works without shocking me every time the 808 goes off in Let the Beat Build. I might have to hit the kill switch.

“Before Fusion introduced the CA-IP500, iPod support in car stereo systems was kludgey at best,” said Todd Crocker, head of region, Fusion Electronics USA. “With our new solution, the iPod nestles into the stereo, removing the need for cables, elaborate set-up or extra space. Our complementary iPod interface also gives users a seamless and familiar way to access their music. Taken together, our new iPod receiver is the most simple and powerful car audio solution available on the market.”

If you haven't given over to the dark, precipitous desire that is iPhone fanboyism, or you still prefer to have a dedicated music player at your side, Fusion's new iPod-devouring car stereo might be to your liking. It's compatible with generation 2 and 3 of the Nano, generation 5 and 6 of the Classic, generation 1 of the Touch, and all of the new iPods announced in September. Once you slip your iWidget inside the dock, you'll control the music through the head unit. If that interface ends up not frustrating the heck out of users, Fusion might have a winner on their hands.

I am in the market for a new head unit for my aging system in my Jeep, and this is just short of my dream setup. Imagine if Fusion was not only compatible with the iPhone, but they enabled built-in handsfree and interfacing with phone calls. It'd be like every other iPod / cell phone vehicle solution, but loaded on HGH and Red Bull. Someone needs to turn this giggle-inducing fantasy into reality. I know so many OCD people who would swoon for that kind of lack-of-wires, hands-off, hands-free integration. Fusion's offering is, pending an actual test impression, a wicked awesome solution in the mean time.

Despite Internet rumors of forthcoming product releases, an Apple representative confirmed that the company has no plans to release any new products before the holidays. Our holiday line-up is set,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans told Macworld. For instance, one online report claims that Apple will release new iMacs and an updated Mac mini on November 10. The report offers only "Apple moles" as the source for the report.

Were you hoping for a matte screen macbook or display to be announced just in time for the holidays? Jobsies politely suggests, "Eat me." Not, like, in those words. But I'm pretty sure that's what he's thinking.

And another thing... if you're referencing inside information from a source at Apple, wouldn't it make more sense to call them a worm than a mole? Just sayin'...

While we may not see a lot of VIA C7-M or VIA Nano-powered computers in the US or western Europe in the near future, this initiative could result in an awful lot of computers in developing nations being powered by VIA chips. And who knows, if the VIA Nano lives up to its promise overseas, perhaps we’ll see major western companies like HP take another look at the chip maker’s products in the not too distant future.

Losing the only high-resolution netbook is a pretty big hit for people, well, like me. I cannot stand seeing pixels, with their little square borders givin' me the eye. Low resolution is holding back a lot of prospective buyers, because it's hard to go from 1440x900 or greater to 1000x600. The Mini Note, all 1280x768 was dead-sexy, and at least someone at Dell noticed.

Not every computer with an Atom CPU is a netbook - or is it? @ Lilliputing

Dell has officially pulled back the curtain on the Inspiron Mini 12, a light weight and relatively cheap 12 inch notebook. It looks almost exactly like the Dell Inspiron Mini 9, which has a 9 inch screen. But the Mini 12 is bigger, has a higher resolution display, a full sized keyboard (with function keys), and a different version of the Intel Atom CPU which uses less energy thus providing longer battery life.

So it doesn't have the 7,200 RPM hard drive or Via graphics, but it's a little cheaper, and weighs less, too.

We have tested hundreds of products, including cable and accessory products -- some better then others, for sure.
A fair number of the products, marketed as Rev 1.3b, actually tested worse than others at Rev.1.3a. Why?

Any time you see anyone advertising their product as anything better than 1.3a, it should automatically sound an alarm.

If you pay any attention to the vast world of consumer electronics, you recognize marketing-speak instantly. The trouble with the whole HDMI mess is that future / backward compatibility instantly come into question. In your head, at least. Apparently, anything past 1.3a is just for testing purposes, i.e. has no effect on the performance of the product sportin' that spec. All's you need is HDMI 1.3a to be on top of your game. Don't sweat the other stuff.

On the up side, the 280 is the single fastest GPU on the market. On the down side people don't buy GPUs, they buy graphics cards, and the 280 is not the single fastest graphics card on the market. That honour goes to the ATI 4870X2 by a large margin. With the new-gen GT200 parts, Nvidia loses on all fronts, performance, performance per dollar, and performance per watt, they simply aren't competitive.

That brings us to the new parts, the 270 and 290. They popped up on a PNY price list a few weeks ago, and then were pulled off immediately. This part is what we were calling the GT200b in May, but the public code name is GT206. It is simply an optically shrunk GT200, so clock for clock, you won't get any speed boost out of it. It is meant to fatten up the margins by reducing cost. If the GT200 is a 576mm^2 die, and the 206 is around 460mm^2 (~21mm*21mm die), even with the more expensive 55nm process, NV should save some money.

I am really curious to see how well twin 260s work on one PCB. 270s. You know what I mean. The last GX2 really wasn't that bad, and if you compare it to an HD 4870 X2, it, weh, er, consumes a lot less power.

And that's something to be proud about.

When they're not hand-wringing over the recent drop in Apple's share price, Mac enthusiasts have been transfixed lately by the mystery product, code-named "brick," that's due for release later this month.

Some bloggers and pundits have suggested it might be a new iteration of Apple TV or an updated Mac Mini. But according to a report on 9to5Mac.com, "brick" refers not to what it is, but how it's made. The Web site, which cites an anonymous source, says the code name has to do with a manufacturing process for Apple's MacBook and MacBook Pro lines of laptops. Apple (AAPL) will build the notebook out of a single piece of carved-out aluminum—a brick.

Only Apple would, or realistically, could, take a word infamously characterized as the greatest shortcoming of their greatest product, and spin it into marketing.

Oh, like there wasn't a memo.

No bad press indeed--would you like your Macbook pre-bricked? Of course, because that's f'ing secksy. I will be impressed if this design incorporates the chassis into the machine's cooling, though. Seems to me that just leaving it a solid shell is waste of industrial engineering.

Well, after changing the name without changing the specs, Nvidia may now change the specs without changing the name. Expreview reports that an updated GeForce 9600 GSO based on the G94 graphics processor will come out at the end of this month.

The current 9600 GSO features a G92 graphics processor with 96 stream processors, a 550MHz core speed, a 1375MHz shader speed, and 384MB of 800MHz GDDR3 RAM tied to a 192-bit memory interface. Expreview says the "updated" GeForce 9600 GSO will feature a G94 GPU (the one that powers the GeForce 9600 GT) with 48 stream processors, a 256-bit memory interface, and either 256MB or 512MB of RAM.

Hot on the heels of yet another renaming scheme NVIDIA is quietly announcing a cut-down G94 (9600 GT) and plans to call it a 9600 GSO. So to avoid renaming the old 9600 GSO another time, they're, ah, not going to rename the old 9600 GSO. So there will be two.

Why? Letters don't cost money? (Except X, which to this day, commands a strong premium for licensing, due to its performance-extreming benefits.) By the way, this is going to be the least extreme of the GSOs, and it's basically there to have a cheaper part to compete with the HD 4670. They should just call it the 9600 G. Not that you should buy this card unless you, I dunno, hate gaming but love discrete video.

the upcoming 9600 g is identical to the g94 gso but kicks it old school; keeps it real like dre

MSI has announced that people wishing to get their hands on an MSI Wind U100 Netbook can stroll into their nearest Best Buy starting today and pick up the 10" 3-cell version with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor and Windows XP for $399. Before your rush out to get one though, keep in mind that the updated U120 version with HDSPA could hit before Christmas.

You'd think that the netbook would have extended to the brick-and-mortar stores by now, but I haven't been able to find a single model for sale at the local establishments. Sure, Best Buy has been advertising the EeePC 9 inch for ages, and they even have an in-store display unit. Too bad you have to order it from their website if you actually want to get your mitts on one.

Hopefully that's not the case with the Wind. I might have to go confirm that this is not the case. I'll make sure to bring someone with me who will not allow me to buy one if they're physically in stock. Impulse by price + the instant gratification of walking out the door with product in hand is a dangerous combo.

I know things are getting a little out of hand with motherboard bling, but I can't help but think that the lighting on that is so damn perfect that the picture has got be touched up. Is that the state of things nerdgasmic? It's not enough to have factory-installed waterblocks, but they have to be onyx-patina chromed, and then glossed up after the fact? This goes against everything I've learned reading Hack-A-Day.

Although it's lookin' pretty sweet... Wouldn't mind unboxing one of those, if you know what I mean. Strapping it to the test bench, if you're pickin' up what I'm puttin' down.

We want to see how today's new generation of video cards stack up in terms of gaming value. There exists a wide range of video cards you can purchase; from the $150 Radeon HD 4850 to the $1100 Radeon HD 4870 X2 CrossFireX. How do figure out what will suit our needs? Also, is there such a thing as "GPU overkill" right now? We are here to answer these questions and find out what kind of gameplay experience and performance is delivered between $150 and $1100 using the newest generation GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA in single and multi-card configurations.

$150-$300 Price Range: Radeon HD 4850 - $150, GeForce GTX 260 - $215, Radeon HD 4870 - $250, Radeon HD 4850 CrossFire - $300

$390-$550 Price Range: GeForce GTX 280 - $390, GeForce GTX 260 SLI - $430, Radeon HD 4870 CrossFire - $500, Radeon HD 4870 X2 - $550

$780 - $1100 Price Range: GeForce GTX 280 SLI - $780, Radeon HD 4870 X2 CrossFireX - $1100

It's not a lot of reading if you just jump to the conclusion. I know I do that all the time. I mean, there's always a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter to you because you already know how much you're willing to spend, and sure, you'll probably look at the DX 10 titles because you're buying for the future and admittedly, that's where things are headed. But it's OK to glance at a graph and then jump straight to the pros and cons. We all do it.

Of course, anything I write should be read in it's entirety. Let's consider the following points when exploring the superiority of TheTechLounge content. Firstly, there's the point of

in conclusion, the above image the result of the search terms, "in conclusion", and as you see, things always have a beginning, middle

Industry sources told TG Daily that while the 8000 series is being phased out, all 55 nm 9000-series GPUs will carry a G100-series name. By the end of 2008, Nvidia will be offering today’s 9000 series as G100, GT120, GT130, GT140 and GT150 models.

When the 2009 45 nm GPUs arrive, which seems to be the case around Q1 or Q2, Nvidia will have fully transitioned to the new branding structure: Enthusiast GPUs will be integrated into the GTX200-series, performance GPUs into the GT200-series, mainstream GPUs into the GS200-series and entry-level products into the G200-series.

The new branding should clear up some of the confusion in Nvidia’s product lineup today.

This isn't going to confuse people? Having three names for the same video cards is clearing things up?

OK, then, I know what NVIDIA needs to do. They need to get their partners together, and give each card a name. Like Angelo, or Diane. Or Yeoh or whoever assembled it. Clancy is a name often associated with Wiggum and Tom, so that one can be used for a really bloated, power-hungry video card. And there are constellations, and latin names for plants... They could really put the screws to retailers.

How much is Renaldo at Newegg? Oh, dude, you can get Julia for ten bucks more at Mwave, and she's got that tight little aftermarket heatsink. You could bounce a quarter off it.

the above image the results of the search terms "tight little heatsink". oh baby, shake it

Kuma is the first (or last) dual core 65nm CPU in “Stars� family. Early in 2007 Kuma showed up in AMD roadmap. But after September AMD had made their decision that they would launch Phenom 8000 series Triple core, Because of marketing, Kuma delayed to 2008 Q2.

It is interesting that AMD branded Kuma with “Athlon�, not Athlon64 X2 or Phenom X2. Initially Kuma have two SKU, they were 6050 and 6250. Both SKU would be positioned higher than Athlon64 X2.

But because of TLB issue, AMD’s CPU product line turned out to be a mass. Kuma once again delayed. Until recently some words mentioned that AMD finally make up their mind, going to release Kuma with new SKU：6500(2.3GHz)/6400(2.2GHz)/6300(2.1GHz). The CPU in our hand is the highest one, Athlon 6500.

I love Expreview, not just for their thorough reviews, but also for their awesomely restrained Engrish. And you really don't want to have to wait for Tom's Hardware to push out a forty-page review on this processor, anyway. You just want to know if it's clock-for-clock faster than K8 (yes) uses less power (no) and overclocks (very nice). There, if you're putting together a budget gaming machine AMD-style, which should be your first choice on that front, there you have it.

while searching for pictures i realized holy crap bears, having long forgotten what kuma means besides micro-architectures. so then i just did a google images search for "holy crap bears", and there you have it

Sapphire HD4670 with 43 per cent more sword-bearing chick

What can you do? Add more pins, add more board layers, more memory width, pile on more expensive memory. That can work. See the 4870's crushing performance for what you can do with narrow and fast GDDR5, but that is really tough to do on an $80 card. This segment is all about price, so you do what you can and balance things out where you are able.

This market segment is delineated in about $20 chunks, an $80 card is a different category from a $60 and $100 card. Some people even differentiate on $10 or less while OEMs are more granular than that.

Charlie touches on an important subject: how much does it, in fact, cost to put cheesecake on a card? If you add up all the costs of graphic design, from the beginning with the mock-ups, to the very end, where you're pricing out vinyl stickers, taking into consideration printing position to cut back on waste, I wonder how much less a boob-free video card would actually cost?

Of course, this is all speculation, as the market would collapse immediately following its rendered mastectomy. God knows gamers are all horny, under-sexed boys who, FACT, know that cleavage can improve their performance by up to ten.

The 4670 doesn't change the game enough to say that spending more money isn't worth it, but the 4670 does lead at its price point and is good enough for anyone with a 1280x1024 monitor to have a good experience. We even see some advantages that would allow us to enable 4xAA at these low resolutions and enjoy playable performance. This card isn't going to change the world, but it fits a niche. Throw in the lower power requirements and smaller form factor and you have a great card for moderate gaming.

Unlike the 9500 GT, this card isn't an epic fail at its price point. We would still like more (we always do), but what we've got isn't bad. This is hardware based on a new architecture (meaning it has all the latest features and bug fixes like working AA hardware), unlike NVIDIA's competitive offerings. We can play most of the games we tested at 1280x1024 (a very cheap very widely used panel size) with high quality settings and some of them do well with 4xAA enabled as well.

I'm not quoting AnandTech because they pay me, but because I like to see people who take themselves so seriously let slip an "epic fail". If you, too are a fan of epics and failure, you totally gotta check out the fail blog. And watch the videos, they're righteous, if you think laughing so much your insides hurt is righteous. But don't if you don't like watching people get hurt. If that is you, you and I probably won't get along.

@ AMD Zone
@ AnandTech
@ FiringSquad
@ the Guru of 3D
@ Hexus.net
@ Hot Hardware
@ Legit Reviews
@ Neoseeker
@ PC Games Hardware
@ techPowerUp!
@ TweakTown

Flexing its technology muscle into new territories – Intel has taken a huge step into the future of storage with today’s release of its first Solid-state Hard drive. While the technology behind these kinds of drives isn’t totally new, I do feel it represents the future direction of PC storage and I also know there are makers of conventional hard drives that are also hard at work at releasing their own SSD drives as well.

Although the capacities of Sold State drives is nowhere near that of the conventional, we see by today’s release of the X25-M that it offers unparalleled performance and power savings which the conventional drives can only dream of. Ultimately, the SSD drive movement will appeal to laptop users and power-users who have extra cash to throw around for the sake of extreme performance.

@ AnandTech
@ Boot Daily
@ Laptop Magazine
@ PC Perspective
@ the Tech Report
@ Tom's Hardware

Whether or not you want to plunk down $500+ on an Intel SSD, this sort of thing is guaranteed to level the price across markets, forcing cheap SSDs down where they should be and promoting a little friendly competition among the performance SSD manufacturers.

There are three new stages in the standard graphics pipeline: the Hull Shader, Tessellator, and Domain Shader. In addition, changes have been made to the pixel shader to enable compute shaders (for general purpose applications). In addition to the new pipeline stages, DirectX is being tweaked to fully support multithreading. So DirectX 11 DLLs will spawn threads as appropriate on multicore and SMT-enabled CPUs.

Another key new feature are several new texture compression formats, which enable better image quality, and will support high dynamic range. A host of lesser features are also being implemented; most don't require new hardware. They include upping the resource limit to 2GB, increasing texture limits to 16K and support for double-precision floating point (this last one is optional, and is aimed at compute shaders).

Now let's drill down on some of the features.

Just when you thought it was safe for hardware...

In the aftermath

Of the GPU wars

A new technology

Will rise.


Pandora's box opens

11.01.08


DirectX 11

Will.

Shatter.

Your.

World.

Dean Takahashi, one of the most respected tech journos around, spent years putting together this mind-blowing expose that reveals the truly epic scale of the problems that lead to millions of dead Xbox 360s. It really is one of the most stunning flustercucks in gaming history. According to his account, Microsoft willfully ignored deep, systemic problems in the console's production that reached from chipmakers—initially, only 16 out of every 100 of its IBM-made processors worked—to production lines, where just before launch, an unbelievable 68 percent of consoles made were clunkers.

...

Most of the problems pointed to as the cause of the epidemic of Red Rings of Death showed up way before launch, naturally.

The corporate giant

Puts away its guns

And learns

What it means

To be a kid again.

[Cue Peter Gabriel]

In an uplifting tale

Of games

Triumph

And loss.


This Fall, Microsoft Does a 360.

Cracking The Xbox