MSI shows off its first Brazos systems

MSI was showing off a pair of Brazos solutions earlier today at an event in Taipei, Taiwan. On display was a 12-inch notebook as well as a 20-inch all-in-one desktop, both featuring an AMD E-350 CPU.


The all-in-one Wind Top AE2050 have a 20-inch 16:9 screen. MSI will offer models with a multi-touch enabled screen, but this doesn't appear to be a standard feature. Besides the 1.6GHz dual core E-350 CPU with built in Radeon HD 6310 graphics, MSI has added USB 3.0 support and the two ports are located on the left hand side of the system.

Other features include four USB 2.0 ports, a pair of audio jacks, built in Ethernet of some form, an HDMI port, a multi-format memory card reader and an optical drive. It also sports a pair of SRS certified speakers and a top mounted web cam. It might not be the most exciting system ever, but should prove to be an interesting alternative to an Atom/ION all-in-one system.


MSI Wind U270 which is MSI's first Brazos notebook and it's a 12-inch model that features a fairly basic, but not unattractive design. The display has a resolution of 1366x768 which is a step up from the Acer Aspire One 522. Again it sports the 1.6GHz dual core E-350 Zacate APU with Radeon HD 6310 graphics. MSI has fitted the U270 with a D-sub connector, an HDMI port, a single USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, a pair of audio jacks, an Ethernet port and a multi-format memory card reader. There's of course also a built in webcam & WIFI, space for a standard 2.5-inch hard drive and support for up to 4GB of DDR3 memory.

Acer Aspire One 522 on Fusion APU

A leak info (not from Wikileaks :-P) that Acer is preparing a brand new Aspire One netbook based on AMD Ontario (FUSION) APU. This new Aspire One powered by a 1 GHz Dual Core Fusion APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) CPU & GPU Combo with max TDP only 9 watt. The on-die GPU said to be a Radeon HD 6250 class that is fully capable for mainstream games and Full HD playback.

Aspire One 522 is using 10.1 inch LCD screen but with max resolution of 1280x720. If not satisfied by that, we can used external LCD via HDMI port. Price tag expected to be around US$ 425.

More detail specifications:
AMD Fusion Dual core 1GHz AMD C-50 Ontario APU
Memory DDR3 2GB
Hard disk 500GB
Graphics ATI Radeon HD 6250 + HDMI Port
Layar 10.1″ 1280 x 720
OS Windows 7 Starter
HD webcam
WiFi 802.11b/g/n + Bluetooth+EDR
6-cell battery

AMD's Cayman Unleashed

AMD today introduced AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics (Cayman), its most advanced enthusiast GPU representing the intelligent choice for enthusiast gamers. The AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series of graphics cards provides gamers with an enhanced second-generation, Microsoft DirectX® 11-capable architecture for breakthrough performance, advanced image quality features for the best looking games, and innovative AMD PowerTune power management technology that dynamically adjusts power draw on the fly.

Unlike Barts, Cayman is based on a fundamentally new GPU architecture, with improvements extending from its graphics front end through its shader core and into its render back-ends. The highlights include higher geometry throughput, more efficient shader execution, and smarter edge antialiasing.


Reviews:
TechReport
X-Bit Labs

AMD ships 3 new processors with speed bumps

AMD continues to expand their current desktop CPU line, just in time for holiday shoppers. The first of these processors being released today is the AMD Athlon II X3 455 (HDZ565WFK2DGM). The new Athlon II X3 455 is the triple core processor which replaces the Athlon II X3 450. The Athlon II X3 455 features three cores running at 3.3GHz. The second processor today is the Phenom II X2 565 Black Edition. The Phenom II X2 565 is a dual core processor that runs at 3.4GHz. The Phenom II X2 series has become a favorite for the potential of unlocking the unused cores on the processor. This presents an opportunity to purchase a quad core processor at a lower cost, though there is no guarantees that the third and fourth cores will work properly, so you need to keep that in mind if that is your goal for the Phenom II X2 series.

The third and final processor being release today, is the flagship processor from AMD, the Phenom II X6 1100T processor (HDE00ZFBK6DGR). The 6-core THUBAN 1100T takes over the top spot in AMD's CPU line from the 1090T, and does it at a suggested retail price of only $265.00. The clock speed improvements over the 1090T are minimal: both the standard and Turbo Core speeds increase only 100MHz, to 3.3GHz and 3.7GHz, respectively.


Paired with AMD's new 800 series chipsets, which offer extra PCI-E lanes for CrossfireX, SATA 6G and USB 3.0 without needing expensive add-ons like the NVIDIA NF-200, AMD's Thuban processors offer the enthusiast a way to build an affordable, yet very powerful and versatile 6-core production or gaming system.

AMD's Financial Analyst Day 2010

At its annual Financial Analyst Day, AMD demonstrated how its unique combination of CPU and GPU computing technologies on a single die will enable breakthrough capabilities in an innovative processor design with planned OEM system availability in early 2011. AMD executives detailed how this new class of processor, AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), is poised to create a sustained position of advantage by powering demanding PC workloads in sleek form factors with long battery life, pacing future AMD growth. AMD Fusion APUs are built from DirectX® 11-capable GPU technology and either low-power or high-performance multi-core x86 CPU technology. These APUs are designed to vastly improve today's Internet, video processing and playback, and gaming (client and online) experiences. For the first time, AMD also demonstrated its new high-performance x86 multi-core CPU architecture codenamed "Bulldozer" and provided additional information around the "Bulldozer" launch schedule.

AMD also announced several notable updates to its 2011-2012 roadmaps including:

Server - All “Bulldozer”, all the time



By the end of 2012, every new server CPU AMD bring to market will be based on the new “Bulldozer” architecture. “Bulldozer” will power multiple platforms designed to give server buyers what they keep asking for: more threads, more memory and the best performance-per-watt, per-dollar available. The “Terramar” CPU, planned for release in 2012, will indeed scale to 20 cores in our mainstream, 2- and 4-processor server platforms. The cloud’s new best friend will be “Sepang,” planned for release in 2012. “Sepang” is planned to scale up to 10 cores and is targeted at low-cost, low-power 1- and 2-way platforms.

Client Roadmap - Velocity goal: the best APUs every year

Velocity is the term Rick Bergman introduced last year to signal the new AMD Fusion APU design methodology and product introduction cadence. AMD Velocity builds on AMD’s already established annual GPU design cycle to achieve a faster pace of innovation than AMD previously achieved with a CPU-only development focus.




"Krishna" and "Wichita" are two and four-core 28nm APUs based on the next-generation sub-one watt "Bobcat" CPU cores and a DirectX 11-capable GPU, designed for the tablets, notebooks, HD netbooks, and desktop form-factors. "Trinity" is a 32nm APU based on AMD's next-generation "Bulldozer" CPU cores and a DirectX 11-capable GPU, designed for mainstream and high-performance desktops and notebooks. "Komodo" is a 32nm CPU featuring up to 10 AMD "Bulldozer" CPU cores designed for high-performance and enthusiast desktops.

AMD introduce Barts-based Radeon HD 6800 series

The company has released the first official photos of the Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6850. Barts PRO and XT parts feature a 255mm2 die size. This is quite good as Radeon HD 5850 and 5870 had 334mm2 size. The chip is almost 30 percent smaller and the new one consumes up to 151W in the XT version, which is less than the Radeon HD 5850 series. Radeon HD 5850 had 2.15 billion transistors while the Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 have 1.8 billion.



Thanks to generally refined DirectX 11 architecture, 256-bit GDDR5 memory controller, increased clock-speed (despite of decreased amount of stream processors and texture units) as well as improvements like better tessellation module amid smaller die size hence lower price, the new Radeon HD 6870 seems to be generally more competitive than the previous-generation Radeon HD 5850. It is especially notable that now both models 6850 and 6870 support up to six monitors, not a mainstream feature that will be sported by $179 and $239 graphics cards.

In the new generation Northern Islands processor - when it comes to the Radeon HD 6800 - several improvements to the tessellation unit was made. In particular, the company improved thread management for domain shaders and re-sized some queues and buffers to achieve significantly higher peak throughput, particularly at lower tessellation levels. Even though the changes had negligible impact on transistor count or power consumption, two times higher the tessellation rate in synthetic tests is declared by AMD.

The AMD Radeon HD 6800 series graphics cards are the first in the industry to offer support for both DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a, providing PC users with expanded options for multi-monitor configurations, display selection, and new DisplayPort audio features. Thanks to new drivers, the new graphics boards also feature better support for third-party stereo-3D (S3D) middleware.


Reviews:
Legit Reviews-AMD Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 CrossFire Video Card Review
Hot Hardware-AMD Radeon HD 6870 & 6850 Graphics Cards Debut
Tom's Hardware-AMD Radeon HD 6870 And 6850: Is Barts A Step Forward?
Anandtech-AMD’s Radeon HD 6870 & 6850: Renewing Competition in the Mid-Range Market

Intel Selling Upgrade Card to Unlock

Intel is asking customers to pay extra if they want the full power of their store-bought silicon. An eagle-eyed Engadget reader was surfing the Best Buy shelves when he noticed this $50 card --


and sure enough, Intel websites confirm -- that lets you download software to unlock extra threads and cache on the new Pentium G6951 processor. The chip actually have a full 1MB of L3 cache that's enabled plus HyperThreading support.

This 'new' idea is similar to online games idea that let you "BUY" extra weapons and features with voucher cards. Still, it's an intriguing business model, and before you unleash your rage in comments, you should know that Intel's just testing it out on this low-end processor in a few select markets for now (United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and Spain).

In fact, this is the very first time in history, when a hardware maker enables a software upgrade. Interestingly, how much time will it take hackers to enable the application to all owners of Pentium-based systems? Or maybe that was indeed the plan to slowdown sales of CPUs by Advanced Micro Devices?

AMD Zacate Demo Video

Demonstration of AMD's upcoming Fusion architecture Accelerated Processing Unit code named "Zacate." In the video Simon Solotko demonstrates accelerated web applications, flash video, 3D gaming, and HD video playback on the 18W TDP dual core APU "Zacate."



Zacate has two x86 cores fused together with a DirectX 11 graphics engine. AMD continues to claim that this architecture will work very well in ultra mobile form factors and that it will also be affordable.

Here are some pics of a running AMD Bobcat platform, specifically a Zacate APU running City of Heroes: Going Rogue.


The Zacates compared with a coin:

AMD's new stickers

AMD is working on new stickers that manufacturers put on their computers - the stickers, which have been around a while let the consumer know what type of products are inside.


We're used to see the Intel Inside, Centrino, AMD's Better by Design stickers, AMD's Vision or nVidia's sticker and of course the one for Windows, but now things may be getting out of hand when some machines are labeled "Skype Ready".

What's worse is that these stickers are often hard to remove, and can either tear or leave a residue that requires a cleaning job. The reasoning behind the stickers is that companies pay the manufacturer for the 'ad space' of placing a sticker right on the palm rest of a laptop.

AMD knows that computer logo stickers are getting out of hand, and for that reason has consolidated many of its logos into the Vision branding program. Right now, in fact, AMD's logo stickers are optional and vendors that choose not to use the sticker are not penalized in terms of marketing dollars.

AMD is designing case badge stickers to be less sticky. The new stickers will be able to be peeled off more easily, and with little to no residue left behind. This clearly shows that they are taking it a step further and siding with the end users who take them off anyway. If only Microsoft would follow this advice. AMD's new stickers should be out sometime next year.

Toshiba's Nile-powered Satellite T235D

For someone who still considers 13" notebooks to offer the best blend of portability and functionality, we saw a lot to like in the Toshiba Satellite T235D. Weighing less than four pounds and measuring only 0.7" at its thinnest point, the larger form factor gets you not just a bigger LCD panel, but also a larger keyboard and touchpad.


Processor AMD Turion II Neo K625 1.5GHz
Memory 4GB DDR3-800 (2 DIMMs)
Chipset AMD M880G
Graphics Mobility Radeon HD 4225 integrated graphics
Display 13.3" TFT with WXGA (1366x768) resolution and LED backlight
Storage Toshiba MK3265GSX 320GB 2.5" 5,400 RPM hard drive
Audio Stereo HD audio via Realtek codec
Ports 2 USB 2.0,1 eSATA/USB 2.0 combo port,1 HDMI
1 VGA, 1 RJ45 10/100 Ethernet via Realtek controller
1 analog headphone output,1 analog microphone input
Expansion slots 1 MMC/SDHC
Communications 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi via Atheros AR9285
Input devices Chiclet keyboard
Synaptics capacitive touchpad
Internal microphone
Camera 0.3-megapixel webcam
Dimensions 12.7" x 8.8" x 0.7-1.03" (323 x 224 x 18-26 mm)
Weight 3.9 lbs (1.8 kg)
Battery 6-cell Li-Ion (61 Wh)


This particular variant of the T235D-S1345 sells for $599.99 at Newegg. The cheapest 13" laptops with Intel CULV processors, like Acer's Aspire AS3810TZ or Toshiba's own T235-S1310, are priced almost identically at around $590-600.

ATI Radeon branding will be changed to AMD Radeon

The rumors are true! AMD intend to phased out the ATI logo on future branding of graphics processors, which are developed by engineers of ATI Technologies, which AMD acquired back in 2006.

A major motivator is the fact that AMD plans to introduce a range of new products incorporating both AMD microprocessor technology and a Radeon graphics tech on the same chip. The first fruits of the CPU-GPU "Fusion" initiative are slated to arrive soon. "Ontario," which will combine two copies of the low-power "Bobcat" CPU core with Radeon graphics, is slated to ship before the end of the year. The more powerful "Llano" APU, which mates quad Phenom II-class CPU cores with presumably a more capable GPU, is scheduled for the first half of 2011. Obviously, the combination of the firm's CPU and GPU technologies into single-chip products could create some consumer confusion, if folks were to continue to think of AMD and ATI as separate entities—especially if the ensuing marketing messages emphasize the benefits of CPU-GPU integration.

Furthermore, AMD tells us it feels confident in making this change right now because its graphics business is "on good track," having surpassed rival Nvidia in discrete graphics shipments last quarter, according to analyst estimates, and having secured high-profile design wins with the likes of Apple. Also, the chastening of Intel via its settlement with the FTC gave AMD some extra assurance that the expansion of its brand into graphics wouldn't hurt its relationships with major PC makers.

According to AMD's own survey results, consumers savvy enough to know something about discrete graphics cards tend to know the Radeon name, they tend to like AMD, and they don't mind seeing the AMD name on graphics cards once they realize AMD merged with ATI. The folks at AMD read those results as "permission" to jettison the ATI brand name.


The plan is to replace "ATI Radeon" and "ATI FirePro" with "Radeon" and "FirePro", along with a sprinkling of AMD corporate identity. The badges you see above will be used for systems with discrete Radeon and FirePro graphics cards. The lower row omits the AMD logo, so PC makers shipping Intel-based systems will be able to avoid the oil-and-water combo of Intel and AMD branding, if they wish.

However, end-users are likely to miss the ATI logotype since in general people associate the brand with high quality, performance, experience and so on. Besides, 25-years old trademarks like ATI are generally recognizable.

Some analysts said the re-branding of ATI Radeon into plain Radeon may become the worst branding decision ever made by AMD due to the fact that ATI has a larger scope on the market of discrete graphics chips than AMD does on the market of CPUs.

Official statement from John Volkmann : Evolving the AMD Brand Portfolio

AMD Reveals Peculiarities of Bobcat Design

Bobcat micro-architecture will power AMD's next-generation central processing units (CPUs) for netbooks and other innovative form-factors that require very low power chips. The Bobcat seems to be by far more progressive than Intel Atom, but it will consume more power and its performance is likely to be considerably better.

When AMD started to design Bobcat back in 2005 - 2006, it already knew that its K7/K8/K9 chips were too power hungry for mobile computers, whereas the preceding generations were too inefficient in modern workloads. As a result, the company decided to design the chip from scratch rather than to "borrow" designs from previous-generation products. However, AMD decided not to sacrifice performance in order to absolutely minimize power consumption. As a result, Bobcat seems to be almost completely contemporary chips with numerous design trade-offs to reduce power consumption. According to AMD, the micro-architecture minimizes data movement and unnecessary reads from cache or memory.


The Bobcat core sports out-of-order execution, advanced branch predictor, dual x86 instruction decoder, 64-bit integer unit with two ALUs, floating point unit with two 64-bit pipes, 32KB instruction cache, 32KB data cache, 512KB L2 cache (working at half speed to trim power consumption) and so on. Bobcat fully supports modern SIMD extensions like SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4A, but no 3DNow, AVX and so on. AMD Bobcat features an extensive set of means to reduce power consumption, including such capabilities as fine grain clock gating, integrated core power gating and so on.

The first implementation of Bobcat will be Ontario chip that features one or two x86 processing cores as well as DirectX 11 graphics processing unit from ATI. The chip will be made using 40nm process technology at TSMC and will be released commercially in Q1 2011.

First Details about Bulldozer

Advanced Micro Devices revealed numerous details about the Bulldozer micro-architecture, which will power the company's next-generation central processing units (CPUs) for desktops, servers and workstations. Apparently, the main goal of AMD's designers when it came to Bulldozer was to ensure maximum sharing of resources within multi-core microprocessors to get high performance amid moderate low power and die sizes.

Traditional approach to creation of multi-core microprocessor is very straightforward: each core acts independently and shares only the most obvious resources with other: L3 cache, memory controller, processor bus, etc. In Bulldozer designs, cores will be able to dynamically share fetch and decode blocks, caches and other units. At least in initial designs, multi-core chips will consist of several major blocks, each of which will have two independent integer cores (that will share fetch, decode and L2 functionality) with dedicated schedulers and two 128-bit FMAC pipes with one FP scheduler. This means that each major block (Bulldozer Module) is, according to AMD, essentially a tightly-linked dual-core microprocessor with shared fetch, decode and floating point units.


Such "dual-core" major block will not be as efficient as two traditional cores, but will consume less power and will use less die space, which in effect means that more of major building blocks can be installed without increasing thermal design power or die size to unacceptable levels. Moreover, AMD reasonably claims that the approach is more efficient than simultaneous multi-threading or chip-level multi-threading. In fact, according to AMD, each major block can provide 80% performance of a dual-core microprocessor.

AMD also implied that Bulldozer will feature a new predication-directed instruction preset mechanism to overlap instruction miss requests to cache or memory and thus improve efficiency of execution. In particular, this will help AMD to maximize utilization of the "dual-core" major blocks of Bulldozer microprocessors.

Given the fact that AMD's Bulldozer architecture seems to be very modular, we can expect AMD to tailor designs in accordance with performance and/or power requirements.


The first Bulldozer processors will be made using 32nm SOI fabrication process in 2011 and that with 33% increase of the number of cores, up to 50% of additional performance may be received in server applications, at least, based on AMD's internal simulations.

More info : TechReport - AMD's Bulldozer architecture revealed

AMD reduces CPU prices to keep market share

AMD recently reduced prices for about 20 of its desktop processors. According to sources from motherboard players, the price cuts are aimed at defending against competition from Intel.

AMD's quad-core Athlon II X4 640 CPU has seen its price drop from US$122 to US$99, while the dual-core Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition CPU dropped from US$105 to US$93, and the quad-core Phenom II X4 955 and 965 Black Edition both dropped US$26. Most of the company's other processors have seen drops up to US$10.

The above prices only apply to "direct" AMD customers buying CPUs in trays of 1000, but the savings should start trickling down to street prices. So stay tuned!

Upcoming AMD CPU & GPU Update

New Phenom II and Athlon II are scheduled for launching on September 21. Leading the new batch will be the Phenom II X6 1075T. With a $230-240 price tag and a 3GHz clock speed (or 3.5GHz with Turbo Core), that part should bridge the gap between the $199 1055T and the $295 1090T.

At the same time, the 3.5GHz Phenom II X4 970 should become AMD's new quad-core flagship. There will be two types of AMD Phenom II X4 970 BE CPUs: boxed versions aimed at retail market will be based on the well known code-named Deneb design that has four cores in total; tray flavours of the chips designed for system integrators and OEMs will be based on Zosma design, which is basically six-core Thuban chip with two disabled cores that can be unlocked on certain mainboards.

Also coming : a couple of CPUs priced at around $100: the Phenom II X2 560 and Athlon II X4 645. The new parts will indeed be 100MHz quicker than the existing Phenom II X2 555 and Athlon II X4 640, or 3.3GHz and 3.1GHz.

Meanwhile, AMD is preparing to introduce the Radeon HD 6000-series (Southern Islands) formally in October with retail availability to follow in November. DigiTimes claims that changes in foundry firm TSMC's roadmap led AMD to scrap plans for 32-nm GPUs (code-named Northern Islands) and build Southern Islands products using the same 40-nm process as today's Evergreen chips. Build on the same 40nm, savvy pricing and architectural improvements should be the only weapons at the new Radeons' disposal.

DigiTimes adds that AMD will cut prices across the Radeon HD 5000 series "in the near future".

KaraokeSys 1.1 Released

KaraokeSys is a Karaoke Management Software that simply needs a Windows based computer with dual monitor (or a projector) and sound enabled. No need to worry about damaged VCD discs anymore. Your favorite MPEG videos were stored on your PC and easily launched via this multifunction software.

Highlighted features:

1. Multiple monitor support to view live video at secondary screen while still doing anything else in the primary screen (including searching and selecting songs)
2. Manage songs (add, edit, delete, and multiple edits of song properties)
3. Drag & drop files to upload songs
4. Search anything (any displayable text within title, artist, genre, and even tag)
5. Manage playlist (add and delete songs for future use)
6. Play, pause, stop, next song, previous song (this is very obvious)
7. Switch to left, right, or stereo audio channel for vocal + music or music only
8. Pitch control (transpose –12 to +12) [NEW]
9. Tempo control [NEW]
10. Volume control
11. Preview song in mute volume

Screenshots:

Apple’s New iMac & Mac Pro Powered by ATI Radeon

Apple has selected the world renowned ATI Radeon™ graphics solutions for the new line of Apple® iMac® and Mac Pro® tower. Now featured in Apple Stores as well as online retail, ATI Radeon graphics offer outstanding power and performance as the standard configuration for the new iMac and Mac Pro tower which will hit store shelves soon.

“Apple buyers demand the best, and AMD’s award-winning ATI Radeon graphics enable exceptional visual experiences for iMac users,” said Matt Skynner, corporate vice- president and general manager, GPU division, AMD. “AMD has conducted extensive testing and research to create superior graphics products for the iMac. This research is designed to dramatically enhance the Mac-user experience so that Apple users can enjoy responsive performance and play the newest games.”

The high-performance ATI Radeon™ HD 5770 graphics card features 1GB of GDDR5 memory from AMD and enables blistering fast Mac Pro graphics technology. Ideal for motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, or animation, the card comes standard; for more demanding tasks purchasers can upgrade to ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 graphics.

ATI Radeon™ HD 5750 graphics are available in the new 27” iMac. The ATI Radeon™ HD 5650 graphics are available in the new 22” and 27” iMac.  Last but not least, ATI Radeon™ HD 4670 graphics are available in the new 22” iMac .

StarCraft II only takes advantage of dual cores

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty has now been available via digital distribution servers. StarCraft II marks the return of the three races from the original game: Protoss, Terran, and Zerg. This first installment only features the Terran campaign, with two planned expansion packs “Heart of the Swarm” and “Legacy of the Void” which will allow gamers to play the Zerg and Protoss campaigns.

The bad news is StarCraft II only takes advantage of dual cores, but still processing power plays a major role in this game. For example, the Core i3 540 processor only has half the L3 cache of the Core i5 750 and this makes the latter 27% faster when comparing the clock for clock data at 3.70GHz.


The extra threads of the Core i7 920 processor are no advantage when compared to the Core i5 750 in this game, but the additional memory capacity and bandwidth is. The Core i7 920 was 11% faster when comparing the clock for clock data at 3.70GHz which is quite significant.


An older processor like the Core 2 Quad Q6600 suffers compared to the other CPUs tested, serving as a bottleneck to a high-end GPU such as the GeForce GTX 480. The Phenom II processors delivered average performance and we saw no real difference between the Phenom II X2 (dual-core) and Phenom II X4 (quad-core processors).

It is a shame that StarCraft II can only utilize two cores, as this really hurts older quad-core processors such as the Core 2 Quad Q6600. Furthermore this will also mean that those with budget quad-core processors, such as the Athlon II X4, will also suffer.

AMD considering its own USB 3.0 implementation

AMD is getting ready to sign a deal with Renesas that will give AMD access to Renesas USB 3.0 implementation. This would allow AMD to quickly implement a stable USB 3.0 solution into its chipsets without having to spend time and money on developing its own solution and more importantly, software stack.

We’re hearing reports of Renesas competitors having problems with their software stacks and this is why we’re still waiting for all but Fresco Logic to get their products approved by the USBIF. If this rumour proves to be true, then it means that AMD has had enough of Intel’s silly game and decided to move forward without the blessing of Intel’s xHCI spec.

Digitimes claim that the first chipset from AMD to incorporate USB 3.0 support should be the Hudson D1 southbridge which is meant to go with AMD’s upcoming Ontario APUs which are set to launch sometime in the fourth quarter. This also means that we’ll see USB 3.0 from AMD on its notebook platform first, rather than its desktop platform which is usually the case for new technologies like this.

We’re starting to wonder how much Intel’s xHCI spec really matters, especially as Intel is in no hurry to launch its own USB 3.0 supporting chipset. NEC must also be kicking itself for selling off the NEC Electronics division to Renesas, as from what we’ve been told, NEC only expected USB 3.0 to be profitable for about six months or so before it got integrated into chipsets. Now it looks like this time period might well extend over two years or longer when it comes to Intel chipsets, as we have yet to hear or see anything that suggests that Intel will add USB 3.0 support to its chipsets over the next twelve months.

AMD Technology Helps Bring “Predators” To Life on the Big Screen

Troublemaker Studios utilized Six-Core AMD Opteron™ processors and ATI FirePro™ graphics accelerators to create animations and special effects for the new film “Predators”, now in theaters. Produced and executive directed by acclaimed film maker, Robert Rodriquez, Predators stars Academy Award winning actor Adrien Brody in a tale about a group of elite warriors who come to realize they’ve been brought together on an alien planet…as prey.

With a long history in the movie making industry, Troublemaker Studios is using AMD technology to push the envelope of digital movie making and special effects in several blockbuster films.

In addition to “Predators”, Rodriguez has looked to AMD technology to create six of his movies, including “Shorts”, “Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams”, “Spy Kids 3D: Game Over”, “Planet Terror”, and “Sin City”.

Rodriguez’s next film, “Machete”, is currently in production employing AMD technology as the movie’s digital hardware backbone, and is expected to be released on September 3, 2010.

The creative team at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios use workstations based upon AMD’s superior ATI FirePro V8800 graphics solutions and Six-Core AMD Opteron processors which enable the digital artist to create and iterate at the speed of thought.”

“With the AMD platforms, my creative team has the freedom to quickly design and animate all the required concepts and designs,” said Robert Rodriguez, Troublemaker Studios. “AMD’s complete platform solution helps turn our visions into reality – we can easily and quickly manipulate images or scenes without the wait process previously associated with computer technology.”

Fujitsu Announces AMD Powered 11.6” LifeBook PH520

Fujitsu Japan has announced a new 11.6" notebook powered by one of AMD's new mobile 2010 processors.


Fujitsu LifeBook PH520 : 
11.6" 1366 x 768 display
Athlon Neo K125 processor (1.7GHz, single core)
AMD M880G chipset
ATI Radeon HD 4225 graphics
2GB RAM
320GB HDD
USB 2.0 x 3, Ethernet, HDMI, VGA, card reader, audio jacks
Wi-Fi b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
1.3MP Webcam
Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
6-cell battery (6.2 hours)
1.4 kg

Acer Liquid E Ferrari smartphone

Acer has teamed up with Ferrari to manufacture the Liquid E Ferrari special edition smartphone. The device comes loaded with Ferrari-themed content, like videos, photos and ringtones of Ferrari engines, in addition to the obvious external themed Ferrari red color and emblem.

Acer has opted for Android 2.1 OS on the Ferrari phone, but not so surprising since they are dealing with Ferrari; speed is key. Running a 768MHz Snapdragon processor, 5 megapixel camera, MicroSD slot with support for 32GB chips, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, all connected to your 3G HSDPA network. Added bonus is a bright red Ferrari Bluetooth headset.

Asus introduces Eee PC 1015T AMD-powered netbook

Asus is showing off the 10 inch netbook at its Computex booth this week. At the first glance, it looks like all of the other 10 inch netbooks Asus has introduced this year, but the Eee PC 1015T is powered by a 1.2GHz AMD V105 single core processor and ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics. Unlike most current netbooks, this model also supports up to 4GB of DDR3 memory.

The rest of the specs are pretty standard, including a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1GB of DDR3 memory, up to 320GB of hard drive space, and a 6 cells battery. The laptop runs Windows 7 Starter Edition and also includes the Asus Express Gate quick boot environment. The netbook comes with 802.11b/g/n WiFi and optional Bluetooth 3.0.

Dell Announces Nile & Danube Notebooks

A new ultrathin notebook from Dell, the Inspiron M301z offering users the choice of an AMD "Nile" Dual-Core Athlon II Neo K325 (1.3GHz) or a Turion II Neo K625 (1.5GHz).


The 13.3" widescreen laptop comes with an HD display panel (1366x768), an AMD RS880M chipset with SB820 south bridge, integrated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics,, up to 4GB of DDR3 memory, Windows 7 Home Premium or Home Basic (64-bit), built-in speakers, a standard 320GB hard drive (7200RPM), 6-cell battery, 1.3MP webcam, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v2.1 and a Kensington lock slot. There's also HDMI-out a 7-in-1 card reader, audio jacks, two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, a mini-DisplayPort output and a starting weight of just 3.89 lbs.

Beside that, Dell also announced the Inspiron M501R, a 15.6-inch laptop based on the latest 2010 AMD Mainstream Platform for Notebooks nicknamed "Danube".


The Dell Inspiron M501R features mobile AMD Phenom II X4 quad-core processor (codename Champlain), ATI Radeon HD 4250 integrated graphics or optional ATI Radeon HD550v 1GB GPU, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, up to 640GB of hard disk capacity, a DVD writer or Blue-ray combo drive, and a 720p LED-backlight display.

Dell’s new laptop also includes an integrated 1,3MP web camera, two speakers, 802.11n WiFi, optional Bluetooth, Ethernet LAN, three USB ports, an eSATA/USB port, optional 7-in-1 media card reader, VGA and HDMI outputs, and a full-size keyboard with numeric pad. The laptop weighs 5.83 pounds with its standard 6-cell battery, integrated graphics and optical drive.

Acer shows its new Aspire notebooks based on AMD's Nile

Following AMD announcement, Acer has officially announced three new notebooks based on AMD's 2010 Ultrathin platform, the Aspire One 521, Aspire One 721 and Aspire 1551.

The Aspire One 521 features AMD's single-core AMD V-series V105 processor clocked at 1.2 GHz paired up with ATI Radeon HD 4225 GPU. The rest of the features include 1 GB of memory, a 160 GB HDD, three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and D-Sub outputs, and an ability to easily run 1080p HD videos.



The bigger 11.6-inch Aspire One 721 features AMD's Athlon II Neo K325 paired up with the same Radeon HD 4225 GPU. As far as the ports and specs are concerned, this one is pretty much the same as the Aspire One 521 except for the obvious change in screen size and CPU.

The last but not least is the Aspire 1551 featuring the same 11.6-inch 1366x768 display but will be available with either AMD Turion II Neo K625 dual core processor, up to 4 GB of memory, 640 GB of HDD space, and the same Radeon HD 4225 integrated graphics. It also comes with HDMI output and is capable of playing 1080p content.

Some photos & videos posted at Netbooknews.de

AMD Cannes film about VISION Technology

AMD has a short film on Youtube about their Vision technology. Miki Manojlovic, a Serbian actor is featured in it.



Quote : VISION technology from AMD provides such an immersive experience that you will be hard pressed to tell the difference between the virtual world and reality. A stunning level of detail, life-like gaming and amazing photos that turn into a vibrant video with a click of a button are just some reasons that will make every user feel like a film star.

Over 100 Laptops with AMD's Upcoming Danube & Nile Platform

Reuters reported that Advanced Micro Devices may make some of its largest inroads into the fast-growing laptop computer market thanks to a new generation of power-efficient chips to be unveiled next week. The company's latest microprocessors are expected to be included in 109 laptop models in the coming months, the company's best showing during the crucial back-to-school sales season. Last year, AMD's chips were available in 40 laptop models.

"Danube" is the new platform for mainstream notebooks replacing "Tigris". On Ultrathin segment, we will see "Nile" platform to replace "Congo" or the second generation AMD's Ultrathin.

Here are the 2010 Mainstream Notebook Platform CPU

Here are the 2010 Ultrathin Notebook Platform CPU

Notebooks featuring the new silicon will start showing up "as early as June" from the well-known vendors : HP, Acer, Dell, and Lenovo.

Early signs that the new range of chips to be unveiled next week are getting positive responses from top PC makers due to AMD's attempts to simplify its numerous offerings under its new "Vision" brand, as well as improved battery life and performance across the line. In the first quarter of 2010, AMD represented 12.1 percent of worldwide mobile chip sales, according to IDC.

AMD "Leo" & Six Core Phenom II Arrive

The long awaited AMD Phenom II X6 processors have finally arrived and AMD officially has 6-core desktop processors on the market! AMD today released their new flagship desktop processors that feature six processor cores, but that is not all! The have also rolled out a new frequency boosting technology called AMD Turbo CORE that is available on these new 'Thuban' processors, a brand new chipset that goes by the name of 890 FX for high-end motherboards.

The new AMD Phenom II X6 processors, AMD 8-series chipsets, and ATI Radeon HD 5800 series cards make up what is called the 'Leo' platform and is said to be the ultimate AMD platform for power users.

The addition of the 890FX chipset and even the software updates (AMD Fusion Utility 2.0 for basic performance tuning and easy profile selection and the new AMD OverDrive 3.2.1 Utility) have made AMD a more well-rounded platform.


The AMD890FX chipset is basically superior to the AMD890GX chipset in the sense that it has been stripped of the integrated graphics (IGP) and has two full x16 PCI Express lanes for better performance for those that have multi-GPU CRossFire graphics configurations. Both the 890GX and 890FX chipsets have the primary PCIe graphics card location as a x16 slot when one video card is used, but when two video cards are used the 890GX chipset reduces the number of lanes down to just eight on the slot.

Today they have officially announced the Phenom II X6 1090T (HDT90ZFBK6DGR) for $ 285 and the Phenom II X6 1055T(HDT55TFBK6DGR) for $ 199. These new six core processors help you improve productivity and can be a drop-in replacement for those with existing socket AM2+ and AM3 motherboard. According to AMD at the time of launch, they expect there to be over 160 AM2+ and AM3 motherboards with BIOS updates available (where required) to enable support for the Phenom II X6 processors! This is great news as those with older platforms can spend $199 on a processor like the AMD Phenom II X6 1055T and have a 45nm 6-core processor as a drop-in replacement.

Reviews & News :
AMDZone
Legit Reviews
BSN 
Tweaktown 
Hot Hardware-AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 6-Core Processor Review
PC Pro-AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
Hardware Secrets-Phenom II X6 1090T CPU Review

Acer Aspire One 521 to feature AMD's Nile Platform

Say Farewell to Congo (2nd Generation Ultrathin), and Welcome to Nile platform. AMD's Nile is the new platform for Ultrathin notebook that will be using DDR3 memory.


Acer is reportedly preparing to launch a new 10.1 inch Aspire One netbook that switch from the Intel Atom chip for an AMD chip. The Aspire One 521 is powered by an AMD V105 processor. This is the slowest single core "Geneva" processor of the "Nile" platform, clocked at 1.2GHz, with 512KB L2 cache, DDR3 support and 9W TDP. Performance and further details remain unknown until AMD announces it in May. It is paired with an AMD M880G chipset with integrated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics core and 384MB dedicated video memory. The 4225 is not announced yet either and probably has a few minor architectural improvements over the 4200, hence the increased model number, but is likely slower due to ~25% lower clock speed. It supports UVD2 (should be capable of HD video playback) and Acer didn't forget to add an HDMI port.


Eye-catching noticeable is the huge chrome plated logo. This chrome accentuation continues with the power button, which is transparent but has a chrome element.


The netbook will have optional Bluetooth 3 support and a compact charger with changeable plus. The battery is supposed to be good for up to 7 hours. No word on a launch date or price yet. So stay tuned...

AMD Turbo Core Technology

Today AMD is disclosing some basic details about the upcoming Phenom II X6. With the Thuban cores AMD is introducing its version of Intel’s Turbo Boost technology called Turbo Core. AMD has yet to implement power gating on its processors, so Turbo Core works a little differently than Intel’s Turbo.



Turbo Core activates when 3 or more cores (on a 6-core part) are idle. When this happens, the frequency of those three cores is reduced to 800MHz, the voltage to the entire chip is increased, and the remaining three cores are turboed up by as much as 500MHz. In any other situation the CPU runs at its normal clocks.



The CPU handles all monitoring and does the clock/voltage management itself. The switch to turbo up cores apparently happens fast enough to deal with Windows moving threads around from core to core.



Turbo Core is triggered by a deterministic system that is based on load demand and current operating conditions (not temperature). Cool’n’Quiet is active throughout the turbo process. What actually happens is that when CnQ looks to see if a set of cores should be downclocked, it also has the ability to increase the frequency of other cores.

Turbo Core will work only on AMD's new Phenom II X6 CPUs and forthcoming quad-core CPUs based on the new Zosma core design when they launch later this year. AMD also says that Turbo Core won't require new motherboards, and that current Socket AM3 and AM2+ boards that can support Thuban/Zosma will only need a BIOS update to support it.

The Versatile AMD890GX Chipset

AMD and its motherboard partners today unleashed ATI Radeon™ HD 4290 Graphics with the AMD 890GX Chipset, a versatile, affordable and exceptionally energy efficient solution for an incredible, high definition visual computing experience.

The AMD 890GX chipset redefines the way you play with versatile graphics configurations, including DirectX® 10.1 graphics on the motherboard and support for up to two high-performance ATI Radeon™ Premium Graphics cards with ATI CrossFireX™ technology. The same AMD 890GX motherboard which can be used to build an efficient and slim home theater PC using the integrated ATI Radeon HD 4290 Graphics, can be augmented with ATI Radeon™ HD 5450 Graphics for a dual-graphics performance preview, or upgraded to a gaming powerhouse with ATI Radeon™ HD 5870 Graphics and the visual realism of DirectX® 11.

The AMD 890GX chipset supports the SATA 3.0 6Gbps hard drive interface to help speed application performance, decrease boot times, and provide faster access to information, HD video, photos and more.2 SATA 3.0 technology on the AMD 890GX Chipset can help speed application performance and Windows 7 data access speeds with high-bandwidth SATA 3.0 solid state drives and in multi-drive RAID configurations.

Many AMD 890GX-based motherboards feature SuperSpeed USB 3.0, quickly synchronizing and transferring digital media files on the new generation of USB 3.0 devices. With USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 support, these platforms are designed to be ready for a new generation of high-speed hard drives and high resolution digital camcorders and media players. The AMD 890GX chipset also includes support for Gigabit Ethernet, HyperTransport™ 3.0 technology, and PCI Express® Generation 2.0 to create a system designed to provide fast data flow resulting in speedier transfers of work, games, and entertainment files.

The first of the AMD 8-series chipsets, these technologies serve as the foundation for 2010 VISION technology for AMD desktop platforms that are scheduled to be announced in the second quarter of 2010 and are designed to be compatible with the upcoming AMD Phenom™ II X6 six-core processor.

A series of tests to check out the 3D performance of the new chipset and compared the AMD 890GX, AMD 785G and Intel HD Graphics:



Resources:
AMD 8-Series Chipsets Product Page
Tweaktown-Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB3
Overclockers Club-Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H
Guru3D-MSI 890GXM G65
Hardwarezone-MSI and Gigabyte
Neoseeker-Asus and Gigabyte
X-Bit Labs-AMD 890GX in Action