Roughly a year after the debut of AMD’s Spider platform, 45nm processors are coming in the frame. Under codename Deneb (Phenom) and Shanghai (Opteron), these babies are starting to appear from thin air. We’ve received word that the new Phenom is again repeating the history of original Phenom, and that is launching too late for major system design wins from the likes such as Dell, HP and others. So, AMD is going to launch Deneb in channel first, and you can expect those Black Edition processors appearing out of thin air. Overclocking results are really promising, and on 790 boards with SB750 Southbridge, you can
AMD’s Folding performance explained, future development revealed
Following the article about Top graphics cards for Folding@Home, it seems that I managed to get some doors opened and receive answers from the people closely involved with the project. I had that luck of being contacted by people who were or still are involved with the project, and thus their answers were quite interesting. Names will remain unrevealed, of course.;-) In order to keep the clarity of the article, I’ve dumbed down some items that came up in discussions – I will try to keep it both technical and simple. Impossible task, I know. Onto the matter then – the reason for ATI’s problems
Some Radeon 5870 rumours are BS… some aren’t ;)
I’ve received word from a reader that some Germans wrote a story containing details about RV870, e.g. Radeon “5870”. Neoseeker brought the translation forward , and while some parts make a lot of sense, some really don’t. First of all, the RV870 is supposed to be a 40nm part, but that’s not something that we didn’t know already. Both Nvidia and AMD are going to bring 40nm half-node parts first, followed by 32 and 28nm full-nodes. According to the story, the GPU is supposed to contain 25% more shaders than Radeon 4800 series, bringing the theoretical computational power to 1.5 TFLOPS. Well, you don’t need
Nvidia aims at workstation market, desktops and notebooks
Fudo and his gang discovered MCP7A-GL motherboard over at Chinese Iworkstation.com.cn. This motherboard is “body of evidence” that Nvidia finally found the guts to go after the workstation market with embedded Quadro chipset. Over the course of years, I’ve seen couple of Quadro motherboards, but Nvidia never dedicated themselves to creating a market. Personally, I saw that as a big mistake, and often questioned chipset guys about professional solutions. Nvidia was afraid that the move would cannibalize their cash cow, Quadro series of cards, but that fear just didn’t made any sense – at the end of the day, a company has to increase the
OPTiGate: AMD and Intel in the same boat as Nvidia
Earlier today, my friends at Fudzilla ran a story that hit at Nvidia, with claims that Nvidia disabled PCI Prefetch due to patent infringement. That story was true, without any doubt. But that story was actual back in late 2006, as DVhardware confirmed. When OPTi left the PCI chipset market and decided to do what Silicon Valley companies do when they leave the competition world: sue everybody they can. Just like Integraph milked money from their stolen IP from AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Gateway, Dell, HP and others, OPTi decided to cash in by opening negotiations with AMD, Intel, Nvidia and others – VIA included. The
Intel Core i7 965 Gallery – from Silicon to Benchmarks!
Following my yesterday’s article, I received news that GTX280 kicked the bucket so my friend decided to install the ATI Radeon HD 4870X2 as a replacement, and the machine is now working like a clockwork. I won’t go into fashion decisions, as I am not a big fan of acrylic cases, but I wish my friend all the best when it comes to cleaning up. When it comes to the CPU itself, Intel Core i7 965 (codename: Bloomfield) works at 1.6 GHz in SpeedStep mode, and works at 3.4 GHz by default. E.g. it works in ASUS motherboard at 3.4 GHz by default, since the
World, meet Nehalem e.g. Core i7 965 pixellated
This coming monday (Nov 3rd), Intel will officially unveil Core i7 line-up. The line-up is consisted out of i7 920, 940 and 965, which will retail as the “Extreme Edition” and feature a lot of overclocking-friendly technologies. I’ve just received word that a buddy of mine got his Core i7 in Croatia. He and decided to assemble a system for ultimate gaming and Photoshop action. The system will be consisted out of Core i7 Extreme 965, Corsair DDR3 memory kit, ASUS Rampage II Formula motherboard and EVGA GeForce GTX280. But for starters, this is his majesty, Core i7 965, formerly known as Nehalem: Also, this
Sapphire’s 4850X2 shows some promise…
Time for custom-designed X2 boards has come. Sapphire Technologies is getting close to release of its own 4850X2, featuring no less than four DVI ports for connection to four possible displays. My colleagues from VR-Zone got a hand on a review sample and published first scores. The board scored a index of P12741 and X5728 in 3DMark Vantage, but bear in mind that the test system was Intel Core i7, so naturally the scores are a bit higher than current Core 2 setups. All in all, another interesting product arrives. But unlike Sapphire Atlantis 2600X2, which featured quite similar layout, this time AMD/ATI is standing
ASUS kills PATA and PCI standards!
Back on the INQ, I wrote about dangers lying ahead for AGEIA, Creative Labs and Bigfoot Networks, representatives of these respected companies just told me that their business model is solid and that they are indeed, future-proof. Well, that turned out nicely – AGEIA never took off because of $250 charge for a PCI card, Creative now exists almost solely on patent charges and selling off its own property, while Bigfoot networks made the greatest network card on the planet – and failed to pack it up in an attractive and future-proof package. The reason for this rant is a story on Xfastest.com, introducing ASUS
AMD wins big in GPU wars
In this industry, the rule of “second generation” is the one that always work. And if you’re lucky, you’ll continue the sales tradition for 2-3 generations, if your competitor does not make “1-2”. In case of ATI, the company struck gold with Radeon 9700 (R300 GPU), but the company sold 9800 and X800 like hotcakes. Nvidia came out with GeForce 6800 at X800 time and didn’t achieve the success the company expected, but 7800, 7900 and 8800 scored majorly. ATI came out with 3800 and did rather well, but GeForce 9000 outsold ATI parts. Now with Radeon 4000 series, AMD/ATI scored big with the “second
Nvidia’s $50 card destroys ATI’s $500 one or “Why ATI sucks in Folding?”
As you might already know, I am a bit enthusiastic when it comes to distributed computing. I’ve been looking for aliens through SETI@home, later with BOINC… but then, Folding@Home showed up and I became an enthusiast for this valuable project from Stanford University. My family had some share of dealings with Alzheimer’s (aka AD) and Parkinson’s diseases (aka PD) and I won’t go here into what psychological and ultimately financial stress that families around the world, including my own – have to endure. Folding@Home is also a project that pioneered the use of GPUs for distributed computing (if I am wrong on this one, feel
Intel starts to phase out 65nm CPUs
If anyone doubts Intel’s leadership in the world of CPUs and manufacturing, just think of the following: its nearest competitor is yet to ship its 45nm products in any volume, while Chipzilla started to phase out 65nm CPUs as 45nm ones took over. While the world is waiting on AMD’s Shanghai and Deneb, Intel’s 45nm Core and Xeon processors overtook 65nm ones and the company decided to phase out or EOL (End Of Life) no less than 31 different 65nm processors. Intel claims the company has achieved break point between 45nm and 65 and that majority (roughly 60%) of CPUs in Q4 will be manufactured
Badaboom’s CPU utilization issue explained
After the first look here, I managed to again speak with Sam and Mike of Elemental fame, who got back to me regarding my comments on high CPU utilization. I’ve experienced close to 100% load on AMD’s dual-core processor, while AMD’s quad-core worked normally. According to Elemental, CPU utilization can be high on a dual-core processor if you do low-resolution transcodes (which is kinda the natural purpose of this application). This is a natural latency between the CPU and the GPU that happens during moving frames between the GPU video memory and the CPU and its (system) memory. Guys haven’t experienced this on Intel platform,
Nvidia makes a “stupid” call with brilliant RapiHD
With the release of Adobe Creative Studio 4, Elemental Technologies finally launched their own RapiHD CUDA-accelerator for Premiere Pro. As team of users of Sony 1080p and RED One (4K FTW!) camera, my guys expected that RapiHD will be a brilliant add-on to my configuration consisted out of two 4-core Intel Xeons@3 GHz, brilliant ASUS Skulltrail-lite motherboard and Nvidia Quadro FX 4600 SDI. SDI is a paramount when working with HD signal and RED camera, since it tremendously speeds up the workflow. I am first to admit that I am not exactly at home with video production per se, but I well know what to
AMD and Celsia sign agreement for next-gen GPU cooling
I’ve just read a piece on X-Bit Labs about agreement between AMD GPG and Celsia Technologies. The two companies are developing new generation of coolers for future ATI Radeon graphics cards. After Sapphire successfully used vapor chamber cooling on their Atomic 3870 card (with a certain glitch, described here), ATI took a limited risk and introduced vapor chamber on Radeon 4870X2. As you can see on picture above, GPU0 on 4870X2 is cooled by vapor-chamber cooler, while GPU1 is cooled by the same copper cooler present on 3870X2. Now, Celsia Technologies is developing new coolers that will send conventional heat-pipe technology into oblivion. On paper,
New “nForce for AMD” chipsets take shape under GeForce name
Last week, Chinese site Expreview.com published a story about the new generation of nForce chipsets for AMD processors. We managed to find more details through course of the weekend. For starters, the lineup will consist out of three (not two) chipsets with various capabilities. MCP82-S1, MCP82-S2 and MCP82-S3 will round the lineup, all targeting their respective markets (high-end, mainstream and entry-level). The S1 and S2 will support SLI, while S3 targets lucrative OEM/ODM deals – our sources indicate that this variant will be pitched as a successor to GeForce 6150 line that conquered many Dells, HPs and Acers out there. MCP82-S1 targets the high-end, with
AMD reports $1.78B revenue, records first profit in years (non-GAAP)
On Thursday, AMD reported its Q3’2008 results and the company managed to “Experience Black” (marketing slogan behind 4870X2). When we look at overall (non-GAAP) numbers, AMD filed $1.776 billion revenue and a profit of 80 million dollars. This was the first filed profit in seven quarters, and in a way, Hector J. Ruiz kept its promise of AMD becoming profitable by Q3’08. However, the results that Wall Street calculates are GAAP ones, and without that one-time revenue of $191 million (selling equipment to JSC Angstrem, as I first reported here), the company filed a net loss of $67 million on a revenue of $1.56 billion.
