AMD Releases FX-6200 and FX-4170 Processors; FX-8120 Gets a Price Cut

AMD sent word this morning that they’re doing some shuffling of their Bulldozer based FX processor lineup. Altogether in the near future AMD will be releasing a new CPU, releasing a previously announced CPU, and doing a price drop on an existing CPU.

CPU Specification ComparisonProcessorCoresClock SpeedMax TurboNB ClockL2 CacheTDPPriceAMD FX-815083.6GHz4.2GHz2.2GHz8MB125W$249AMD FX-812083.1GHz4.0GHz2.2GHz8MB95W/125W$199AMD FX-8100*82.8GHz3.7GHz2GHz8MB95WN/AAMD FX-620063.8GHz4.1GHzN/A6MB125WN/AAMD FX-610063.3GHz3.9GHz2GHz6MB95W$149AMD FX-417044.2GHz4.3GHz2.2GHz4MB125WN/AAMD FX-B4150*43.8GHz4GHz2.2GHz4MB95WN/AAMD FX-410043.6GHz3.8GHz2GHz4MB95W$109AMD Phenom II X6 1100T63.2GHz3.6GHz2GHz3MB125W$190AMD Phenom II X4 98043.7GHzN/A2GHz2MB125W$170

First and foremost, the FX-4170 is finally being prepared for release. This is AMD’s top quad core (two module) part, and while it was announced at the Bulldozer launch back in October AMD had said they weren’t going to be releasing it until later in the year. Like the FX-4100 it’s a harvested Bulldozer CPU, and is the first Bulldozer quad core with a 125W TDP, owing to its high clockspeeds.

The second product today is AMD’s new CPU, the FX-6200. Like the FX-4170 was to quad cores, this is the first 125W TDP part for AMD’s hex core Bulldozers. At 3.8GHz base and 4.1GHz turbo it has a higher base clockspeed than any of AMD’s octo core parts, however turbo caps out just a bit lower than the FX-8150. AMD didn’t give us the Northbridge clockspeed, but it’s almost certainly 2.2GHz given the TDP and clockspeeds.

Finally, the FX-8120 is getting a price cut today. Unfortunately AMD sent along their generic all-regions press release today, so we were not given any pricing information on the FX-8120 or any of the other processors mentioned today. We will update this article as soon as we have confirmed pricing from AMD, but in the meantime we’d expect AMD to knock at least $10 off of the FX-8120, while the FX-6200 and FX-4170 should launch not too far above their existing lower-clocked counterparts at $149 and $109 respectively.

Meanwhile, AMD has told us that the release of the FX-6200 and FX-4170 will be staggered based on region with no further information, so all we know at the moment is that they won’t be available in the North American e-tail market today.

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OCZ Releases 180GB and 360GB Models of Agility 3

Today OCZ added two more capacities to their Agility 3 lineup: 180GB and 360GB. Agility 3 isn't the first SSD series to feature such SSD capacities, but more often we see 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB SandForce based SSDs. However, making a 180GB or 360GB SSD isn't any more difficult. The SF-2281 controller supports up to eight channels but it can also run in 6-channel mode and that's how you make 180GB and 360GB drives.

Remember that SandForce drives use about 7% for over-provisioning by default plus possibly RAISE as well depending on the SSD. Hence these SSDs have 192GiB and 384GiB of actual NAND in them. 2.5" drives usually have 16 NAND packages but to run in 6-channel mode, you only use 12 packages (i.e. two NAND packages per channel). For the 180GB model, that means twelve 16GiB NAND packages with two 8GiB dies per package. 360GB simply doubles the dies per NAND package so you have twelve 32GiB packages with four dies each.

Specifications of New Agility 3 SSDsCapacity180GB360GBRaw NAND Capacity192GiB384GiBControllerSandForce SF-2281NAND TypeAsynchronous 25nm MLCSequential Read525MB/s525MB/sSequential Write500MB/s495MB/s4KB Random Read35K IOPS35K IOPS4KB Random Write50K IOPS25K IOPSPrice19,000 Yen ($237)36,000 Yen ($448)

Even though only six channels are used, there is no performance loss according to the specs. Read speed is the same for all Agility 3 drives but write speed is dependent on the capacity: low and high capacity drives have worse write performance than the medium capacities. This is why the 180GB model is faster in writes than the 360GB model.

The new capacities have already been listed by some retailers and the 180GB seems to go for around $225 while the 360GB is listed at $425. The price per GB is about the same as what other Agility 3 drives offer, so these are viable options if you're looking for something in between 120GB and 240GB or 240GB and 480GB models.

Sources: Hermitage Akihabara, OCZ

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AMD Releases Video Driver for Windows 8 Consumer Preview

In conjunction with today’s release of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview, AMD has released a new set of drivers specifically for Windows 8. Dubbed the AMD Catalyst driver for the Windows® 8 Consumer Preview, it most notably includes full support for Windows 8’s new WDDM 1.2 features. The rest of AMD’s software features are also supported, including Overdrive, CrossFire, and Eyefinity.

Radeon HD 7000 users will be out of luck for the time being, however. These drivers do not support GCN GPUs; drivers for that will be released at a later time. Considering AMD has yet to publish a WHQL certified Win7 driver for GCN it’s safe to assume that will happen before we see a Win8 driver, particularly if AMD plans on having Direct3D 11.1 support ready for the Consumer Preview.

Source: AMD

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Hitachi Releases Ultrastar SSD400S.B: 25nm SLC NAND Is Here

25nm MLC NAND has been in the market for roughly a year now and it is very common in today's consumer SSDs—there are only a few models using 3Xnm MLC NAND (OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS for example). In the enterprise space, however, 25nm SLC NAND is just starting to appear in SSDs. Hitachi GST (i.e. Hitachi's storage unit) today released their Ultrastar SSD400S.B series, which is the first publicly available SSD to use 25nm SLC NAND. 

Before we look at the specifications of Hitachi's new enterprise SSD, let's go through the reasons why we haven't seen 25nm SLC NAND before today. There is no physical difference between SLC and MLC; manufacturing SLC NAND isn't any harder than manufacturing MLC NAND. The only real difference between SLC and MLC is the fact that SLC stores one bit per cell whereas MLC stores two, although this has nothing to do with why 25nm SLC NAND is released later than 25nm MLC NAND. When you shift to a new process node (from 34nm to 25nm in this case), the first NAND to be manufactured is MLC. Why?

MLC is the highest volume product and it's usually not used by enterprises, so extreme reliability is not necessary. SLC NAND is very enterprise orientated due to its higher cost per GB, making its volume smaller. Every time you move to a new process node, your yields will be lower than on the old node. Only when you have met the demand of 25nm MLC NAND and the process has matured enough—not just better yields, but the higher reliability that is essential for enterprise market—can you start manufacturing 25nm SLC NAND along with your MLC NAND. This time, it took about a year for the 25nm process to be mature enough for SLC, and 20nm MLC NAND is already knocking at the door.

With the short NAND flash lesson out of the way, it's time to look at this new SSD. Hitachi's Ultrastar SSD400S.B comes in a 2.5" form factor but it's important to note that its height is 15mm, making it too thick for most laptops—this is aimed at servers, after all. It uses Intel's 25nm SLC NAND and a SAS 6Gb/s interface, which isn't used in the consumer space but offers some crucial features for servers (e.g. more effective error-recovery). The actual controller seems to have been developed in-house, but Hitachi has been very quiet on that so unfortunately we don't have any details. Another possibility is a third party controller (e.g. SF-2582) with Hitachi's own firmware. Either way, we are looking at a fairly high performance controller with SandForce-like performance, at least going by the spec sheet.

Hitachi Ultrastar SSD400S.B SpecificationsInterfaceSAS 6Gb/sSequential Read536MB/sSequential Write502MB/sRandom Read57.5K IOPSRandom Write25.5K IOPS

The Ultrastar SSD400S.B will be available in capacities of 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB. Hitachi has not revealed the pricing but given that this is an enterprise-grade SLC SSD, the price tag won't be wallet friendly. Hitachi has already started shipments to selected OEMs and widespread availability is expected later in H1'12. 

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AMD Releases Two Llano Based Athlon II X4 CPUs

AMD has quietly released two Athlon II X4 CPUs, the 638 and 641. These are based on Llano (i.e. Stars+/K10.5 architecture) but lack an integrated GPU. The socket is still FM1, just like in normal Llano CPUs. Here's a quick rundown of the chips.

Specifications of AMD Athlon II X4 638 and 641Model638641Core/Thread Count4/44/4Base Frequency2.7GHz2.8GHzL2 Cache4MB4MBTDP65W100WPrice$81$81

There is nothing extraordinaty in these chips. We are looking at relatively low-end SKUs in terms of price and performance. It's good to keep in mind that a discrete GPU is needed because these SKUs lack integrated graphics, so that will potentially raise the total system price.

The usage of the Athlon II brand with Llano isn't actually a new thing as the first such SKU, Athlon II X4 631, launched back in August. This is quite similar to what Intel is doing; AMD is saving the A4, A6, A8, and FX brands (their rough equivalent of Intel's Core i3/i5/i7) for midrange and high-end chips, and reusing their older Sempron and Athlon brand names (e.g. Intel's Celeron and Pentium) with lower-end SKUs.

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Intel Releases Core i7-3820

Intel has finally filled out the Sandy Bridge E lineup by releasing the Core i7-3820. The initial Sandy Bridge E lineup launched back in November 2011 and it consisted of two SKUs, the i7-3960X and i7-3930K. While the i7-3820 wasn't released until this week, we reviewed it over a month ago, so head there for a longer analysis. The table below summarizes the current Sandy Bridge E lineup:

ProcessorCore ClockCores / ThreadsL3 CacheMax TurboMax Overclock MultiplierTDPPriceIntel Core i7 3960X3.3GHz6 / 1215MB3.9GHz57x130W$999Intel Core i7 3930K3.2GHz6 / 1212MB3.8GHz57x130W$583Intel Core i7 38203.6GHz4 / 810MB3.9GHz45x130W$294

The short summary is that i7-3820 is Sandy Bridge E on a budget. In terms of CPU performance and price, it's equivalent to the i7-2600(K) but provides higher I/O performance due to the quad-channel memory and 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes. Anand summed it up nicely in his review, so we'll just repost here.

There are three reasons why you'd want the Core i7-3820:

You need PCIe 3.0 today and/or you need more PCIe lanes than a Core i7-2600K can provide.You need tons of memory bandwidth for a particular application.You want a 2600K but you need a platform that can support more memory (32GB+).

So in general, most users will be better off with a LGA 1155 based platform. While the i7-3820 is actually cheaper than the i7-2600K, the total price of the platform is not. LGA 1155 based motherboards go for as little as ~$50 (e.g. Gigabyte GA-H61M-DS2). If you want more features such as Intel Rapid Storage Technology, you can get a Z68 based motherboard for around $90 (e.g. ASRock Z68M/USB3). In contrast, the cheapest LGA 2011 based motherboard starts at $210. Unless you benefit from the extra features that Sandy Bridge E offers, your money is better spent else (e.g. on an SSD).

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Firefox 10 Releases Today, Fixes Add-On Compatibility Issues

Firefox 10 is due to release today, continuing Mozilla's commitment to the six-week release cycle it switched to last year. As usual with these rapid-release browsers, Firefox 10 brings a couple of features you'll probably notice and a few more that you probably won't. The browser is available for Windows XP, Vista, and 7, Intel versions of Mac OS X 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7, and most flavors of Linux.

Firefox 10's banner feature is a tweak designed to fix add-on compatibility - most add-ons compatible with Firefox version 4 and later will now automatically be marked as compatible by the browser without any additional updates from the add-on's developer. This is true both of add-ons downloaded from Mozilla's repository, or add-ons installed from elsewhere on the Internet. This was done to ease the pain of upgrading for heavy add-on users, and to make way for Mozilla's silent Firefox updater, which is tentatively scheduled to land in June with the release of Firefox 13.

Mozilla has also hidden the browser's forward button unless it can actually be used, implemented anti-aliasing for WebGL, added support for CSS3 3D transforms, added full-screen APIs to allow for full-screen web apps (though still no official support for Lion's Full Screen mode), and a few other small feature and bug changes.

FF10 is also the first release of the browser to be offered as an "Extended Support Release" or ESR, which will be offered as a separate download - as we reported earlier this month, the ESRs will be good for a year, and will keep the same major version number and rendering engine while being kept current with security and bug fixes. The ESR is intended to replace Firefox 3.6, which has been patched continuously as Firefoxes 4 through 9 have been end-of-lifed, and is meant to placate enterprise administrators and others upset by the new rapid release cycle. Firefox 3.6 is tentatively scheduled to be discontinued on April 24, so if you've stuck by it for the last year you should begin testing the new version soon.

Source: Mozilla

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Apple Releases OS X 10.7.3, Safari 5.1.3

Apple today released the OS X 10.7.3 update for the client and server versions of Lion - unlike 10.7.2, which introduced a major feature in iCloud, the 10.7.3 update consists mostly of smaller feature and security bugfixes. The updates are currently available both from Apple's download site and from Software Update - its build number is 11D50 and it bumps the OS X kernel version to 11.3.0.

On the client side of things, 10.7.3 adds Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukranian language support, and addresses problems logging on using smart cards, with Windows filesharing, and with printing Word documents that use markup. Older iMacs with ATI graphics cards should no longer experience performance issues after waking from sleep, and post-sleep wi-fi connection issues were also addressed. Safari should no longer have trouble opening before the computer has connected to a wireless network. Lastly, Apple has fixed an issue authenticating to distributed SMB shares, and RAW image compatibility with additional cameras has been added.

Enterprise users with Active Directory domains should also note that the 10.7.3 update fixes a number of Directory Services bugs, a full list of which can be found in the client release notes.

OS X Server sees a few more feature updates, both in Server.app and in the services themselves - there are too many of them to list here, but you can check out the server release notes for a full list.

10.7.3 also includes Safari 5.1.3, a minor version bump for which release notes are not currently available (it's also not clear whether 5.1.3 will be released to Snow Leopard users, or whether it addresses issues that are only present in Lion). Snow Leopard users can also grab Security Update 2012-001 to get all of the security fixes present in 10.7.3 that also apply to 10.6.8.

 

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Intel Releases Seven Sandy Bridge CPUs

Today, Intel has released seven new Sandy Bridge based CPUs: three Core i5 and four Celeron models. All the i5 SKUs are desktop models, whereas the Celeron SKUs are mobile: two standard voltage and two ultra-low voltage models. Below is a table of the new SKUs. 

Specifications of New Intel CPUs (1/30/2012)SKUCore/Thread CountFrequencyMax Turbo FrequencyL3 CacheTDPPriceCore i5-2550K4/43.4GHz3.8GHz6MB95W$225Core i5-2450P4/43.2GHz3.5GHz6MB95W$195Core i5-2380P4/43.1GHz3.4GHz6MB95W$177Celeron B8152/21.6GHzN/A2MB35W$86Celeron B7201/11.7GHzN/A1MB35W$70Celeron 8672/21.3GHzN/A2MB17W$134Celeron 7971/11.4GHzN/A1MB17W$107

You may be wondering what the P at the end of two Core i5 SKUs stands for. Intel has not updated their product database yet so we aren't 100% sure, but VR-Zone is reporting that it implies a GPU-less model. VR-Zone is also stating that the i5-2550K is GPU-less as well, which would be a step down from the i5-2500K that features Intel HD 3000 graphics.

This is a logical move as Intel must have a stack of chips with fully working cores and other parts, but the IGP isn't functional. On the other hand, it's good to keep in mind that a disabled IGP means no Quick Sync. Since the price and specification differences between the models with IGP and the models without is so small, we recommend buying a model with the graphics as you never know when you might want/need Quick Sync or more video outputs. The 100MHz increase in frequency isn't worth the loss of the IGP. 

As for the CPUs in general, i5-2550K is obviously the successor of i5-2500K. It has 100MHz (i.e. one CPU bin) higher frequencies than i5-2500K and is priced $9 higher. Similarly, i5-2450P and i5-2380P are successors of i5-2400 and i5-2320—the i5-2450P being $11 more expensive and i5-2380P being priced the same as its predecessor. Celeron B815 replaces B810 at the $86 price point; they share the same core specs while the GPU gets a bump in maximum clock from 950MHz to 1050MHz. Meanwhile, B720 succeeds B710 with 100MHz higher frequency and the same $70 price tag. Celeron 867 becomes the new high-end ULV Celeron by taking the place of 857 at the price point of $134 with 100MHz higher frequency, and 797 increases the frequency by 100MHz to 1.4GHz in the $107 category and replaces 787.

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Update: AMD Quietly Releases The OEM-Only Radeon HD 7000 Series: VLIW5 Rides Again

Earlier today one of our news editors, Andrew Cunningham, came to me with an interesting problem. HP was launching their gaming-oriented Phoenix desktop, and the spec sheet listed a video card he had never seen before: the Radeon HD 7670. Initially thinking it was a typo on HP’s part we did some digging, and after finding a well-hidden product page we had our answer. It’s Turks.

 AMD Radeon HD 7670AMD Radeon HD 6670Stream Processors480480Texture Units2424ROPs88Core Clock800MHz800MHzMemory Clock1GHz (4GHz data rate) GDDR51GHz (4GHz data rate) GDDR5Memory Bus Width128-bit128-bitVRAM512MB/1GB1GBFP64N/AN/ATransistor CountN/A716MTDPN/A66WArchitectureVLIW5VLIW5Manufacturing ProcessN/ATSMC 40nm

There are days I’d like to think that it’s the OEM market that’s the oddball, but the truth of the matter is that it’s the retail discrete market that’s the oddball. The OEM market – mobile and discrete – is in fact the norm, as OEM video card sales absolutely dwarf retail discrete video card sales. So much of what we take for granted with retail cards – well defined specifications and formal product announcements through press releases – simply don’t happen in the OEM market. Instead the OEM market is ambiguous on its best days and secretive at its worst, and as a result OEM-only products rarely get a formal announcement, and you would never know about some products if not for the fact that OEMs list them in their system specifications like HP did in this case. Ultimately because of the ambiguity in the OEM market and the need to push specifications, some of the most ridiculous video cards are launched here.

Technically speaking AMD already diluted the 7000 series last month with the launch of the 7000M series, which saw Turks’ and Caicos’ mobile counterparts reborn as various 7000M products. However as the OEM desktop is usually at least slightly saner than the mobile market we had some hope that the 7000M rebrand wouldn’t catch up to the desktop market, but this was not to be. It typically takes AMD around 6 months to launch a complete product stack so a Turks-like GCN product would be a spring/summer affair, but OEMs don’t want to wait that long, especially with CES right around the corner.

The problem of course with a Turks-based 7000 series product is that there just aren’t a lot of similarities to the other 7000 series products to speak of. Turks and Tahiti (and Cape Verde and Pitcairn) are distinctly different products from a feature set perspective. Southern Islands was the biggest GPU architectural overhaul for AMD in the last 5 years, creating a massive divide between Turks and Southern Islands.

The following is a list of some the important attributes and major features being introduced with Southern Islands. None of which will be available with the Turks based 7670.

TSMC’s 28nm HKMG processGraphics Core Next architecturePCI-Express 3.0Direct3D 11.1Partially Resident TexturingFast HDMIVideo Codec Engine (fixed function H.264 encoder)DDM AudioZeroCore PowerAnisotropic Filtering Quality Improvements

As it stands Turks is still a fine GPU, but when badged as the 7670 this insane namespace collision makes it very hard to meaningfully differentiate between products. Do you want fast H.264 encoding and Direct3D 11.1 support? Then you want a Radeon HD 7000 series card, but now you have to make sure it’s not a 7670. Turks simply doesn't have enough in common with Southern Islands to justify this kind of a model number. Ultimately the launch of the 7670 brings with it the same problem that most other rebrands do, albeit on a larger scale: it's being sold on the well-earned strength of the 7000 series name but lacks the 7000 series' features.

Long term there will also be the question of whether we'll see the 7670 Turks in the retail market. OEM products sometimes cross over - the 6770 being the most recent example - so the 7670 may not stay OEM-only forever.

Update 01/06/2012: The crew over at Tom’s Hardware found AMD’s complete OEM video card page; the 7670 wasn't alone.

The Turks based 6570 is back as the 7570. The Caicos based 6450 is back as the 7470 and the 7450 (depending on the type of RAM used). And absurdly enough, the 2 year old Cedar based 5450 is back as the 7350. The last one is particularly notable as Cedar is from the Evergreen family, not Northern Islands. So it lacks all the features Northern Islands brought, including DisplayPort 1.2 support, improved anisotropic filtering, UVD3, MLAA, and the improved tessellation unit; all of this being on top of all of the differences between Northern Islands and Southern Islands.

 AMD Radeon HD 7570AMD Radeon HD 7470AMD Radeon HD 7450AMD Radeon HD 7350Stream Processors48016016080Texture Units24888ROPs8444Core Clock650MHz750MHz625MHz400-650MHzMemory Clock1GHz (4GHz data rate) GDDR5900MHz (3.6GHz data rate) GDDR5800MHz (1.6GHz data rate) DDR3800MHz DDR3/ 400MHz DDR2Memory Bus Width128-bit64-bit64-bit64-bitVRAM512MB/1GB512MB/1GB512MB/1GBN/ATransistor Count716M370M370M292MManufacturing ProcessTSMC 40nmTSMC 40nmTSMC 40nmTSMC 40nmArchitectureVLIW5 (Turks)VLIW5 (Caicos)VLIW5 (Caicos)VLIW5 (Cedar)

Meanwhile AMD’s web team appears to have made some mistakes listing specifications, which makes the 7000 series ambiguity even worse. The 7470 and 7570 are listed as having “Video Compression Engine (VCE)” support as a feature. As you may recall, SI introduced the Video Codec Engine (VCE), which is AMD’s fixed function encoder. Turks and Caicos of course have the same shader-based video encoding functionality as the rest of the 6000 and 5000 series, but they do not have a fixed function encoder, so we’re not sure how that ended up there. It’s worth noting that AMD had a similar problem with the 7970, which when initially published touted support for DX10 Super Sample Anti-Aliasing.

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Intel Releases Two Pentium and Two Core i-series CPUs

Intel has updated their product database (ARK) with four new CPUs. Two of these are branded as Pentiums: 967 and B960. The former is a low-power model with only 17W TDP for BGA-1023 socket. The latter is a regular 35W TDP for rBGA-998 socket. The two new Core i-series CPUs are i5-2430M and i7-2670QM. As the naming suggest, the i5 part is dual core whereas the i7 is a quad core chip. All these CPUs are mobile variants and based on Sandy Bridge microarchitecture. Below is a table with more in-depth specifications:

 Pentium 967Pentium B960i5-2430Mi7-2670QMCore/Thread Count2/22/22/44/8Frequency1.3GHz2.2GHz2.4GHz2.2GHzMax TurboN/AN/A3.0GHz3.1GHzL3 Cache2MB2MB3MB6MBGraphicsIntel HD 3000Intel HD 3000Intel HD 3000Intel HD 3000Graphics Frequency350MHz650MHz650MHz650MHzMax Graphics TurboN/AN/A1.2GHz1.1GHzTDP17W35W35W45WSocketBGA-1023rBGA-998rBGA-998rBGA-998

Pentium 967 is the only newcomer, the other three CPUs are just slightly higher clocked versions of their predecessors. 

Source: Intel, Intel, Intel, Intel

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iOS 5 Releases on October 12

Apple has announced that the newest version of its mobile operating system will be released on October 12.

Apple first discussed iOS 5 in depth at WWDC 2011 (read our coverage here), and the features discussed there still constitute the bulk of iOS 5. Most prominent among them: a new less disruptive notifications system and the Notification Center, PC-free capabilities for syncing with iTunes and performing software updates, iCloud sync and backup capability, and a new iMessage protocol that allows for free SMS-style messaging between all iOS 5 devices.

In addition to the new iPhone, iOS 5 is supported on all current iOS devices: the iPhone 3GS, the AT&T and Verizon iPhone 4, the iPad and iPad 2, and the third and fourth-generation iPod Touch. You should expect a full review from us soon.

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AMD Releases Catalyst 11.9 Drivers

Following up yesterday's release of the Catalyst 11.10 beta package, AMD has made the final version of the Catalyst 11.9 package available for users of 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7, Vista, and XP. As with the previous version of the package, most desktop and laptop DirectX 10 and 11 GPUs are supported, but Windows 7 users should note that this package requires Service Pack 1 to be installed.

The new drivers enable 3D support via DisplayPort - AMD specifically mentions the Samsung 750 and 950 displays as being supported. There are no particular performance enhancements listed for any games, though hanging and crashing issues in several games have been resolved (especially under Windows 7).

The new drivers can be downloaded from AMD's web site, through the Catalyst software's automatic updater, or via Steam. The final version of the 11.10 drivers will replace the 11.9 drivers when they're made available next month.

Source: AMD

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Canonical Releases Windows Client for Ubuntu One Cloud Storage Service

Ubuntu One, the cloud storage service available for Ubuntu versions 9.04 and higher, now has an official Windows client. Previously available as a beta, Ubuntu One for Windows gives XP, Vista, and 7 users a free 5GB of cloud storage space in which to keep their files.

Ubuntu One works a bit differently than, say, Dropbox, a competing cloud storage service: for example, if you'd like to sync your My Documents and My Pictures folders, Dropbox would require you to store them within your Dropbox folder, while the Ubuntu One client allows you to select folders anywhere on your hard drive for syncing. Once synced, your files can be accessed from Ubuntu, Windows, and Android devices, as well as through the Ubuntu One web site.

For users with more storage needs, Canonical will bump your space up to 20GB for $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year. You can also add an Android and iOS-compatible MP3 streaming service (which also includes the 20GB storage upgrade) for $3.99 a month or $39.99 a year.

Source: Canonical

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NVIDIA Releases Beta Drivers Specified for Battlefield 3

NVIDIA has released beta drivers which have been coded with Battlefield 3 in mind. The drivers are named as GeForce R285.38 and are available immediately from NVIDIA's site. Supported products range from as old as the GeForce 6 series to the latest GeForce 500 series. 

The release comes at a good time since the open beta of Battlefield 3 will be available on Thursday 29th (27th if you pre-ordered through Origin). NVIDIA claims up to a 38% performance increase in Battlefield 3, as well as overall stability improvements. The beta drivers add better support for SLI configurations in a few other games too, such as Diablo III and Saints Row: The Third. 

Source: NVIDIA

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Intel Releases Atom D2500 and D2700 Processors

Back in April, we reported the specifications of Intel's upcoming Cedar Trail platform. On Sunday, Intel quietly updated their CPU price list with two new SKUs: Atom D2500 and D2700. These are Intel's first Cedar Trail codenamed CPUs, as well as the first 32nm Atoms. The specifications are the same as what we reported earlier but lets list them anyway:

Intel Atom "Cedar Trail" LineupModelD2500D2700Core/Thread Count2/22/4Frequency1.86GHz2.13GHzL2 Cache1MB1MBMax Memory4GB4GBSupported MemoryDDR3-800/1066DDR3-800/1066Graphics frequency400MHz640MHzTDP10W10WPrice$42$52

There aren't any major compared to what we have already published. The only new bits of info are GPU frequencies, but unfortunately we still have no idea of the architecture, and hence performance remains as a big question. It's not even sure whether DirectX 10.1 is supported, even though we initially reported that it will be. There were rumors of Intel having problems with DirectX, thus it's possible that Intel will be releasing only DirectX 9 capable driver at the release to avoid further delays. 

Intel has not released a press release of Cedar Trail announcement yet, so the official release with more details should be coming in the near future. 

Sources: Intel, Intel

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AMD Releases Catalyst 11.10 Preview for Battlefield 3

With today's launch of the Battlefield 3 early beta, AMD has released a preview build of their Catalyst 11.10 drivers specifically for Battlefield 3. The Catalyst 11.10 Preview driver improves BF3 performance on the Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series for both single-GPU and CrossFire configurations, and adds support for 5x1 Eyefinity. The full release notes are below:

Improves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing, and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series for single GPU configurationsImproves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing, and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on CrossFire configurations using the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 SeriesEnables support for Eyefinity 5x1 display (portrait and landscape) configurations  using the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 SeriesVision Engine Control Center:    User Interface enhancements have been implemented for the CrossfireX, GPU Overdrive, and Information Center pages.

Source: AMD

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Intel Releases New Sandy Bridge Processors

Intel has announced a total of 16 new Sandy Bridge processors today, augmenting its lineup in the mid and low-end markets on the desktop and in the high and low-end markets on laptops.

On the desktop side, we have four new Core-series processors, one i5 (the 2320) along with three i3s (the 2130, 2125, and 2120T. Along with these comes three new Pentium processors (the G860, G630, and G630T) and four low-end Celerons (the G540, G530, G530T, and G440). The G440 has the dubious honor of being the only single-core Sandy Bridge of which I am aware.

New Sandy Bridge Desktop CPUsNameCores/ThreadsCPU ClockL3 CacheGPUGPU ClockTDPPricei5-23204/43.0 GHz (3.3GHz Turbo)6MBHD 2000850 MHz (1100 MHz turbo)95W$177i3-21302/43.4 GHz3MBHD 2000850 MHz (1100 MHz turbo)65W$138i3-21252/43.3GHz3MBHD 3000850 MHz (1100 MHz turbo)65W$134i3-2120T2/42.6GHz3MBHD 2000650 MHz (1100 MHz turbo)35W$127Pentium G8602/23.0GHz3MBHD850 MHz (1100 MHz turbo)65W$86Pentium G6302/22.7GHz3MBHD850 MHz (1100 MHz turbo)65W$75Pentium G630T2/22.3GHz3MBHD650 MHz (1100 MHz turbo)35W$70Celeron G5402/22.5GHz2MBHD850 MHz (1000 MHz turbo)65W$52Celeron G5302/22.4GHz2MBHD850 MHz (1000 MHz turbo)65W$42Celeron G530T2/22.0GHz2MBHD650 MHz (1100 MHz turbo)35W$47Celeron G4401/11.6GHz1MBHD650 MHz (1000 MHz turbo)35W$37

Most of these processors are simple clock bumps of existing processors and their energy-effecient T-series counterparts. What's new here is the Celeron series of processors, most of which sacrifice 100 MHz of GPU Turbo speed and another MB of L3 cache compared to their Pentium counterparts (according to CPU World's listings, VT-x and EM64T remain available on all models). It's also important to remember here that the HD-series graphics has nothing to do with Intel's last-gen IGP - in Sandy Bridge models, the HD graphics series is basically the HD 2000 series with QuickSync and a few other video features disabled - see our Sandy Bridge Pentium review for more information on this.

The new laptop CPUs are fewer in number, and aimed at both the high-end and very low-end of the market.

New Sandy Bridge Laptop CPUsNameCores/ThreadsCPU ClockL3 CacheGPU ClockTDPPricei7-2960XM4/82.7 GHz (3.7GHz Turbo)8MB650 MHz (1300 MHz turbo)55W$1096i7-2860QM4/82.5 GHz (3.6 GHz Turbo)8MB650 MHz (1300 MHz turbo)45W$568i7-2760QM4/82.4GHz (3.5 GHz Turbo)6MB650 MHz (1300 MHz turbo)45W$378i7-2640M2/42.8GHz (3.5 GHz Turbo)4MB650 MHz (1300 MHz turbo)35W$346Celeron B8402/21.9GHz2MB650 MHz (950 MHz turbo)35W$86

The Core i7-2960XM is an Extreme Edition processor and is the fastest quad-core chip that Intel currently offers, and it has a pricetag to match. On the other end of the spectrum, the Celeron B840 is a dual-core processor that loses L3 cache and some GPU Turbo speed, though it retains VT-x and the same HD 3000-series GPU that all mobile Sandy Bridge CPUs possess.

Source: CPU World, CPU World

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Optimus Top to Bottom: NVIDIA Releases the GeForce GTX 570M and 580M

Computex 2011: The ROG Releases

This week at Computex, along with the ASUS announcement of the Padfone, the UX series, and the $199 MeeGo netbook, we also have had a glimpse into what the Republic of Gamers line will have for enthusiasts and overclockers very shortly, including the Danshui Bay concept reported on earlier.

One of the more interesting products on display was the G74SX 3D which was previewed at CeBIT also – a 3D capable gaming laptop that doesn’t require glasses.  It uses a CMOS camera and an NVIDIA 560M under the hood, combined with an advanced detection algorithm to find where the user is, to change the 3D perspective accordingly.

ASUS were keen to point out the new fan design technology utilising dual fans pulling air from the middle of the bottom of the laptop to the back.  It was also emphasised that this improves sound quality as there is no fan disturbance of noise from the sides.

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The other interesting product due for release was the ASUS ROG Matrix GPU - a new ASUS designed GTX 580 aimed at performance.  Using an overclocked 580 chip, the PCB itself has three buttons on the card to adjust the voltage and the fan speed to 100% - any MHz overclocking has to be done in the BIOS however.  In case all fails, there is a safe-mode button on the rear to revert to the card’s default settings.

The odd thing about the GTX580 is that at the ASUS booth, which had a live demonstration, in order to promote the onboard voltage tweaking settings, had a display showing that the voltage can be adjusted from a +50 mV offset, to a 1250 mV offset.  Bearing in mind that the chip at default runs around 1 V, adding a +1250 mV offset gives 2.25 V – this is around 0.5 V more than extreme overclockers use.

In terms of design features for the gaming segment for motherboards, supposedly including the Rampage Extreme III Black Edition on show, ASUS were keen to stress the use of Intel controllers for networking, onboard audio in the form of the SupremeFX Fi-2 supporting EAX Advanced HD 5.0 and THX TruStudio Pro, but also what ASUS calls its Thunderbolt card.

The Thunderbolt card is an ASUS solution utilising Xonar’s experience in sound and Bigfoot’s Killer NIC in the form of a PCIe 1x card, despite having the previously mentioned features on the motherboard.  Thus when you purchase a Thunderbolt branded product, you get theoption of using either, but end up paying for both.

The card uses the Bigfoot Killer NIC and software to help prioritize traffic from various applications (read: games) over other network traffic, while the built in headphone amplifiers and software tools help customize the gaming sound experience.

As always with this type of announcement, there’s rarely mention of price or release date – however at the ASUS booth, I was informed to expect the ROG Matrix 580 at the end of June.

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