There are lots of advantages to external hard-drives, but not quite as many as a purely portable drive. First and foremost it allows you to safeguard your data, those precious documents, or that music library that has taken you years to collect. Secondly it allows you to access data where ever you are, whether it is at home, school, university, sat on a train or whatever else takes your fancy that particular day. While USB memory sticks offer the perfectly compact solution for moving around data, they are rather expensive for the capacities available, especially when compared to a standard mechanical hard drive.
The reason memory sticks are so expensive is they use flash memory, similar to the likes of SSD’s, whereas portable drives are nearly exclusively made up of a mechanical hard drive. While flash memory of course has more positives than negatives over mechanical disk drives, for instance, much quicker performance, they will always fall down at the price point.
Seagate have tried to combine the best of both worlds into one drive, aiming to give you improved performance through the USB 3.0 interface while giving you the larger capacities of the mechanical hard disk drives. While the brand FreeAgent GoFlex features various different interfaces, the latest and hopefully the best is the USB 3.0, as such these Portable drives can be purchased with the USB 3.0 interface or can be upgraded at a later date, they are for want of another phrase, flexible.
We believe that the Acer Iconia 7″ Tab A100 will start to appear online and in stores as of August with a price tag of around $300.
Unfortunately, the original launch date of this tablet was mid-May and of course got held back due to the launch of Honeycomb OS and the issues surrounding that.
The Acer Iconia Tab A100 uses a Tegra 2 dual-core chip and has a 7″ 1024 x 600 touch screen, 512MB of memory and 8GB of flash storage. As with most other tablets on the market it has two cameras, WiFi, Bluetooth but does also have a microSD card slot and a battery rated to last up to 5 hours (half that of the iPad 2).
While the release date is of course for the US we expect the Acer Iconia to be available in Europe at the beginning of September and of course it does now have Honeycomb up and running on it so should prove to be popular especially with its pleasing price tag.
The upcoming 22nm Ivy Bridge processors appear to have been tweaked slightly with regards to the FSB. The current generation of 1155 processors have very tight FSBs meaning overclocking is pretty much entirely limited to multiplier alterations. The Ivy Bridge processors will apparently have a little more flexibility when it comes to changing the FSB, a margin of + or – 5% is said to be realistic.
So users of the Ivy Bridge platform can switch their FSB between 95MHz, 100MHz (default) and 105MHz which should allow better flexibility with overclocking, although long gone are the days of the Pentiums with a wide variety of FSB speeds such as 66, 84 and 100MHz.
Many are saying that this may still not be enough to please most overclockers since if the processor is not a “K” processor then an extra 5MHz on the FSB will probably only provide an overclock of about 150-200MHz depending on the stock multiplier of Ivy Bridge processors. For example if the base multiplier of the processor is 35 x 100 on a non-k processor you could increase your FSB to 105MHz and end up with an overclock from 3.5GHz to 3.675GHz.
There is also talk that the Ivy Bridge processors will have native support for 2133MHz DDR3 memory modules with potential support for modules up to a very fast 3000MHz on DDR3 which will probably be the fastest DDR3 gets before the next generation DDR4 memory is introduced. Currently Sandy Bridge only has “native support” for 1333MHz but it can support higher memory speeds.
A judge in London recently ruled that under the 1988 act of Copyright, Design and Patents BT must block its internet users from accessing the website newzbin because it violates UK law. Therefore, BT must apply its website filtering system to block access to Newzbin2, it intends to use its cleanfeed filtering system. BT is planning to return to court in October in order to get details on how to carry out the blocking.
The administrators of Newzbin2 commented that they will “ensure continuity of service to our UK readers” by making sure any application of a filter to their site would be broken. This leaves BT in a troublesome position, should it go ahead and enact the filtering it risks its “cleanfeed” technology being hacked and disabled resulting in all previously filtered websites becoming available such as those showing child pornography. However, should it choose to give in to Newzbin2 and not filter the website it faces potential court action for not following the ruling laid out by law.
Newzbin2 is a website which lets users access films, TV shows, games, books and music for free, much like the pirate bay. It is run from an offshore location in the Seychelles after it was previously ran in the UK and shut down in May 2005. According to statistics from the MPAA it has 700,000 active users and generates profits each year for its operators of $1.6 million. About 70% of the content on Newzbin2 is ripped and recorded TV programs.
Although the exact release date has not been announced, and normally at this stage we wouldn’t know the price, however AMD have unintentionally revealed the price of the 8-core FX-Series Bulldozer CPU.
The price showed up in the AMD FX Giveaway which was opened for US and Canadian residents suggested that the value of the giveaway is worth $300.
While the page was quickly altered to not include a price, it wasn’t clear which CPU AMD was talking about, but we are pretty sure it is likely to be the flagship FX-8150P as this was the rough figure announced a few months ago, so this more than confirms that they are still looking at the same price mark.
As far as the giveaway is concerned, all you have to do is give your details to AMD and you might win one of five FX-Series 8-core Black Edition CPUs or one of 100 collectible ruby dolls. As noted, the giveaway is opened for US and Canada residents. That is quite a large giveaway and if you are a lucky winner you will receive the new FX Processor as early as possible.
Biostar have released a new Intel Socket 1155 motherboard on the Z68 chip set. The motherboard has been designed with value in mind targeting the lower end of the market. The TZ68+ is an updated version of the current TZ68+ motherboard and it supports an 8 phase VRM design in comparison to the older version which uses a 4 phase VRM design which will allow for better overclocking capabilities. The additional VRM phases mean more heat so the VRM has its own dedicated heat sink.
The boards main features are:
Two PCI-E lanes wired to 16X and 4X
Single PCI-E 2.0 1X slot
Two legacy PCI slots
Two SATA 6GB/s ports
Four SATA 3GB/s ports
LPT and COM headers
Two USB 3.0 ports on the rear
Abundant USB 2.0 connectivity
6 Channel Audio
HDMI, DVI, VGA
PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse Combo port
UEFI BIOS
Pricing will be impressive, around $100 or about £60 which is extremely good value for a socket 1155 board.
While we all know Apple is becoming a household name, and for all the right reasons, but maybe you didn’t quite realise just how rich Apple truly is.
In a report by Canadian broadsheet, the Financial Post, it was revealed that Apple has a cash reserve of US$75.876-billion, compared to the US$73.768-billion available to the U.S goverment.
On top of that:
Apple’s market capitalization currently stands at US$363.25-billion, making it the second largest company on the planet, after Exxon Mobil.
Of course, while these figures don’t really mean too much, it does indicate the power Apple has within the technology industry, and when you have this much cash to spend, it also gives you an incredible lead and advantage over other manufacturers, especially if you invest it correctly, leading to a wider gap between Apple and its competitors.
We will leave you with this final thought. Will we soon be paying the infamous “Apple Tax” on more than just electronics in time to come, especially now that Apple is “richer” than the most powerful nation in the world? At least for some of us, while they continue to produce good products, why should we mind how rich they are?
Gmail or GoogleMail is an integral part of some peoples lives and while it was already fairly easy to use with an Android phone, Google have made it just a little bit easier. The Updates give you the option to sync just Priority mail through the Priority Inbox filters that Gmail has been using for some time now. This of course allows you to save bandwidth (and data charges) as well as saving battery life, while still giving you access to the most important emails.
Other updates include:
Use label notifications to mash up filters, labels, and ringtones
Remember Show Pictures’ for individual senders
Turn off sticky message actions in landscape or all orientations
Better TalkBack support for accessibility
Performance improvements
While none of these features are exactly revolutionary it is certainly about time Android had its share of the updated Google products, and we have to say it is starting to look better as well.
Kingston Technology, the leader in memory products today announced that its world’s fastest dual channel memory kit, Kingston HyperX KHX2544C(D3T1FK2/2GX, was clocked at 2,902 MHz with CAS 6 and 3082 MHz with CAS 7 latencies during a heavy home over-clocking session in France.
These are the fastest every recorded frequencies for memory with CAS 6 and CAS 7 and were achieved by overclocker’s Benjamin Bouix and Jean-Baptiste Gerard using liquid nitrogen as the main cooling aid. These overclocking session were run on a Gigabyte P55 UD6C with an intel Core i7 870 processor.
This is the first time we have overclocked this module and the speeds achieved are very impressive, said French over-clocking champion Jean-Baptiste Gerard aka Marmott’. HyperX KHX2544C9D3T1FK2/2GX has the potential to go even faster but unfortunately we were restricted by CPU performance. We can’t wait until the next OC session to beat our own records!
Certainly this says a lot about the memory if they still believe it can go faster, Kingston have clearly created a memory module with lots of headroom.
Another month has passed, so it seems and that means a lot of things to many people. For me, it’s the next chapter in my life as my first daughter is due to be born any day. For others it means the middle of summer is here and for the tech world it means that AMD have released another set of drivers.
In typical AMD fashion as of late, a monthly driver update has been released with bug fixes for a variety of things including video playback including HD footage, feature improvements and more importantly to us; bug fixes and improvements where it matters the most, and that is of course, games.
Whilst Catalyst 11.7 has been released, it’s also worth noting that Catalyst 11.8 preview has also been let loose to the public, but we will wait to look at that when it becomes official. For now, it’s time to get down to it and to take a look at what 11.7 is all about and if it makes for any improvements in our benchmarks and games.
Download locations
You can download the new drivers for your chosen platform using the following links:
Release notes [B] Package Content [/B][B] The AMD Catalyst Control Center / AMD Vision Engine Control Center 11.7 software suite contains the following: [/B]
AMD display driver version 8.872
HydraVision for Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7
Southbridge/IXP Driver
AMD Catalyst Control Center version 8.872 / AMD Vision Engine Control Center version 8.872.
[B]Important ! Caution ![/B]
The AMD display driver and the AMD Catalyst Control Center / AMD Vision Engine Control Center can be downloaded independently of each other. However, for better stability and performance AMD recommends that both components be updated from the same AMD Catalyst release.
The AMD Catalyst Control Center / AMD Vision Engine Control Center requires that the Microsoft® .NET Framework SP1 be installed for Windows XP and Windows Vista. Without .NET SP1 installed, the AMD Catalyst Control Center / AMD Vision Engine Control Center will not launch properly and the user will see an error message.
[B]Notes.[/B]
When installing the AMD Catalyst driver for Windows operating system, the user must be logged on as Administrator or have Administrator rights to complete the installation of the AMD Catalyst driver.
These release notes provide information on the AMD display driver only. For information on the ATI Multimedia Center, HydraVision, HydraVision Basic Edition, Remote Wonder, or the Southbridge/IXP driver, please refer to their respective release notes found at: http://support.amd.com/.
AMD Eyefinity technology gives gamers access to high display resolutions. As pixel count grows, the graphics horsepower required to drive the displays at a reasonable frame rate can increase dramatically. Depending on the game and system configuration, users may notice texture corruption and reduced frame rates when running games in multi-monitor Eyefinity modes.
Windows Driver Model (WDM) drivers are no longer bundled in the AMD Catalyst software suite. The WDM drivers install bundle can be downloaded independently through the AMD website
[B]AMD Product Compatibility
[/B]The AMD Catalyst driver is compatible with the following AMD products.
[B]AMD Desktop Product Family Compatibility
[/B]AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series of Products AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4700 Series of Products AMD Radeon HD 6600 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4670 Series of Products AMD Radeon HD 6500 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4650 Series of Products AMD Radeon HD 6300 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series of Products AMD Radeon HD 6200 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4550 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 5900 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4350 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 5600 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 3400 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 5500 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 2900 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 5400 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 2600 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4890 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 2400 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Series of Products
ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 Series of Products
[B]AMD FireStream Product Families
[/B]AMD FireStream 9350 Series of Products AMD FireStream 9250 Series of Products AMD FireStream 9270 Series of Products AMD FireStream 9170 Series of Products
[B]AMD Chipset Product Families
[/B]ATI Radeon HD 4290 Series of Products ATI Radeon 3200 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4250 Series of Products ATI Radeon 3100 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 4200 Series of Products ATI Radeon 3000 Series of Products ATI Radeon HD 3300 Series of Products
[B]AMD Mobility Product Family Compatibility
[/B]AMD Catalyst Mobility is a notebook reference graphics driver with limited support for system vendor specific features. When used with Windows Vista or Windows 7, users may have unwanted experiences.
The Installation Verification Software will prevent driver download on certain notebook products. This is to protect against the installing of drivers that may disable features or functionality provided by the system manufacturer. If unwanted experiences occur using CatalystMobility, it is recommended to revert back to the driver provided by your system vendor for your specific platform. Please contact your system vendor for the most recent drivers for your notebook.
[B]AMD Mobility Product Families
[/B]ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6900M Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6800M Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4100 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6300M Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6300 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3600 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 6200 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5800 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5700 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3100 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5600 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2700 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5400 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5100 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400 Series of Products ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4800 Series of Products ATI PowerXpress enabled notebooks ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4600 Series of Products using AMD chipsets ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500 Series of Products
The following notebooks are not compatible with this release:
Any notebook launched after this driver release
Switchable Graphics enabled notebooks using Intel® chipsets.
Toshiba® notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)
Sony® VAIO® notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)
Panasonic® notebooks (please contact the notebook OEM for driver support for these notebooks)
[B]Compatible Operating Systems
The latest version of the AMD Catalyst software suite is designed to support the following Microsoft Windows platforms:[/B]
Windows 7 32-bit version
Windows 7 64-bit version
Windows Vista 32-bit version
Windows Vista 64-bit version
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Media Center Edition
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
[B]Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 11.7 Windows release includes:
Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System
This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 11.7 software suite for Windows 7. These include:[/B]
All issues experienced with mouse cursor lag have been resolved
Resolves system hangs seen in the AMD Catalyst 11.6 driver on specific HDMI and DP displays
Log event (Event ID 62464) issues when playing video content have been resolved
Bluray playback using PowerDVD 10 under High Performance mode no longer randomly displays a blank screen.
Bluray playback using PowerDVD 10 under High Performance mode no longer randomly hangs.
Some Divx format files no longer display video corruption using WinDVD.
AVIVO Video Quality settings are now correctly applied to Flash Video Content.
AMD SteadyVideo is now applied to Home Video clips when using WinDVD 10.
Random screen corruption is no longer displayed when changing desktop themes.
Chequerboard corruption is no longer displayed intermittently when playing DirectX 10 titles in a Crossfire configuration with Eyefinity enabled.
Shogun II now renders the cinematics correctly when run in various Eyefinity configurations.
Video playback now works correctly when Hardware acceleration is enabled with VLC Player version 1.1.9.
720P Divx video clips no longer display stuttering when played using Windows Media Center and Windows Media Player.
Crossfire now functions correctly when playing Hamilton’s Great Adventure.
Video corruption is no longer observed when when using the Forward slider on 720P Divx format video clips using Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center.
PowerDVD now correctly handles 3D Bluray content.
Portal 2 no longer displays flickering on water surface textures with Medium and Low Shader detail settings.
Image stabilization now functions correctly when playing Divx content using Windows Media Player.
Wraparound corruption is no longer displayed intermittently after exiting a 3D application.
[B]Known issues under the Windows 7 operating system
The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows 7 operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst. These include:[/B]
Star Wars Jedi Knight II / Jedi Academy may randomly crash on launch.
Image rotation might not function correctly in Photoshop CS5.
OpenGL acceleration might not be available in Photoshop CS5.
High GPU speeds might be retained after exiting a 3D application.
Crysis 2 may display random corruption when Crossfire is enabled and run in DirectX 9 mode
Homefront may experience random crashes during gameplay.
Crossfire may not perform as expected when playing Earthsim, Bad Company 2 and Metro 2003 under DirectX 11 mode.
[B]Known Issues under the Windows Vista Operating System The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst. These include:[/B]
PowerDVD may display a blank screen during Bluray playback when Crossfire is enabled.
Doom 3 and Quake 4 may display random screen corruption.
Performing Bezel compensation in certain Eyefinity configurations may cause some bezel groups to not appear.
Windows Aero options may no longer be available after installing the driver.
Cyberlink have today launched YouCam 5, the latest vesrion of its popular webcam software. YouCam 5 goes beyond video effects by adding innovative webcam ‘usage models’ for both play and work.
New features include:
Face Loginsigns into Windows and popular sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Amazon and eBay by using a smart face recognition algorithm. No need to fill in usernames or passwords anymore.
Face-out detects when users move out of the webcam frame and automatically locks, sleeps, or hibernates the PC to better protect your data. Users unlock their computers again using Face Login.
Webcam Presentation embeds webcam faces into slides to create more personal and effective online presentations.
Dual Webcam support for advanced users to produce creative vlogging content or online training videos.
CyberLink combines webcams, faces and imaging and video technologies to create innovative usages, said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink Corp. While YouCam retains all the fantastic fun effects, in this new version we added smart features to make YouCam the ideal webcam software for the home and workplace.
Key Features and Usages for Webcams:
Sign in with Face Login: Advanced facial recognition technology to login to Windows and online websites.
Interact with Augmented Reality: Use webcams and patterns to generate virtual 3D objects.
Create videos with interactive fun effects: Includes filters, headgear, emoticons, frames and virtual scenes to create fun videos and to express yourself while chatting online.
Take center stage with Face Tracking technology: Tracks your face accurately for applying headgear gadgets, avatars, cool effects and to ensure you’re always the focus in online chats.
Look better with TrueTheater® technology: Enhances lighting and removes noise from captured videos to make you look better on screen.
Create effective presentations and tutorials: Import PowerPoint files to create effective webcam video presentations. Capture your PC screen in HD or use support for dual webcam streams to produce compelling tutorials and training videos.
Download unlimited FREE effects from DirectorZone: A repository of uploaded content from thousands of creative users, DirectorZone is home to extra effects, 3D objects, avatars, and more.
Share videos to social networks: Users can now publish HD videos to YouTube, Facebook and DirectorZone directly from YouCam.
Surveillance mode: Set YouCam to automatically activate recording when any kind of motion is detected; and get notified by email.
Supported Languages:
English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese and Korean.
Availability
YouCam 5 is available online and the Standard version will cost £25.99 whereas the Deluxe version will cost £36.99 . Upgrades for previous YouCam versions are available starting at £12.99 .
For certain users, a good performing graphics card isn’t enough and they will strive until they get the very best. Now Gigabyte have answered the prayers of those users with a range of products branded as “Super Overclock”. Gigabyte are more known for their motherboards than graphics cards, but that’s not to say they aren’t a worthy contender in that department.
The top card in this range is the GTX 580 SOC which as you can guess is a Geforce GTX 580 using the Nvidia GF110 GPU, but with increased speeds and performance. With cards like this on the market, when we hear the words “overclock” we generally find the card to have a 5-10MHz increase, but Gigabyte haven’t done things by halves and have increased the core clock speed from a 772MHz to a mighty 855MHz.
We will be taking a look to see how this card performs against the top cards on the market including the likes of the Radeon 6990 dual GPU monster, as surely a single core card can’t keep up with that, can it?
It’s not too often that we a company making really really bold statements, except for the likes of Google and Apple. That said, when companies like Razer do, we tend to expect very good things!
Razer empowers gaming enthusiasts with the Razer Electra headphones for gaming audio and music on the go
Razer have decided to come out with all the guns blazing and create a headset that allows you to ‘take your thumping music beats and exciting game audio to the streets’ with the Razer Electra. Which has been designed to deliver powerful bass depth and crisp clear sound-stages in what looks to be a very comfortable and versatile package.
About the Razer Electra gaming and music headphones
Electrify your life through the power of sound with the Razer Electra. Slick headphones built to deliver exciting gaming audio and music, the Razer Electra allows you to hit the streets with sick bass drop and a balanced sound thanks to finely tuned drivers in each ear cup. Enjoy the music and forget the noise as the Razer Electra was designed with optimally positioned ear cups and thick leatherette ear cushions that mold to the shape of your ears for enhanced sound isolation. With a flexible headband structure and lightweight frame, you’re assured of long-lasting comfort over extended play. Kick your audio on-the-go up a notch, with the Razer Electra.
For the more frequent traveller or wannabe explorer, whether local or overseas, Google Maps has just added a few extra features to its Google Maps app for Android.
One of the main features is the ability to upload photos for places straight from your mobile device, of course this makes sense as it can tag the places with locational data for easy identification at a later date.
There are a few other features that have been added including descriptive terms and a new ‘my Places’ option. The descriptive terms enhances the search results, bringing up points of interest related to businesses such as their specialities. My Places provide a listing of your favourite and recently visited places.
If you do, somehow, manage to stumble upon an interesting location that hasn’t been placed on Google Maps, you can add it straight to Google Maps. Of course, this will also check you into that new location.
It seems Google is improving all its services slowly, and improving the interconnecting parts between the services to help ease transition and entice more people to use all of their services.
ASUS has today announced that it will be the first to provide the Google Android 3.2 update, giving all Eee Pad users the chance to upgrade before any other users of the Google Android OS.
The update will be carried out over the air for all its tablet devices, ASUS Eee Pad users will receive a notification as of today and the update installation can be carried out painlessly in just a few steps.
Android 3.2 includes a variety of improvements and optimisations to ensure great user experience. With the update, users of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer can use the keyboard dock touchpad in much the same way as the multi-touch display.
The 3.2 update also gives better more compatible zoom giving users a new way to view fixed-size applications that haven’t been designed to run on the larger screens
The market research firm Experian Hitwise said that Google + visits last week declined both in the number of visits and in the average time spent using the service. This has brought about suspicions that growth may be halted, unique visitors of 179 million was down 3% from the previous week and the average time spent using the service was also down to 5 minutes 15 seconds which is a large reduction of 10%.
Google only launched its Google + service 4 weeks ago with it looking to challenge Facebook’s Social Networking crown, and after CEO Larry Page announced 10 million users on the 14th of July it would seem things are starting to go stale already. Is Google about to meet its match?
Taiwan’s electronic times has stated from its research on the DRAM market that prices fell sharply in July. The first two weeks of the month saw a decline of 7% and the second half of the month saw a further reduction of about 10% which leaves a monthly decline in prices of 15.9%. The company DRAMeXchange said that a 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 module was now being sold for just $28 and a 2GB module for $14.50 down 9.4% and 9.7% respectively.
The Taiwan’s electronic times also goes on further to state that many major companies have started to cut shipments of DRAM because of weak demand and many companies are not at all optimistic that demand will recover for the next quarter which is leading to companies trying to clear their current stock by selling at very low prices. It would appear things are very good for the consumer right now when it comes to DRAM, further price falls are expected before it gets better for the DRAM companies.
Xbit Labs reports that AMD nexts generation of APUs will provide a 50% power consumption off the lowest power Llano unit currently available. The current ULV Llano processor at 35W offers two cores with integrated graphics whereas the Trinity APU equivalent will offer similar physical specifications but with improved performance and half the TDP at just 17.5W. AMD interim chief executive said this about the upcoming Trinity APU: “We plan to introduce a version of Trinity that will consume less than 50% the power of today’s lowest power, 35W Llano APU, bringing performance computing to the ultra-thin notebooks. We put out a pretty interesting power-consumption specification. I don’t know if we really want to go into more details about that product at this time, other than the fact that we’re going to continue to invest in leading in the mobile space,”
Trinity is different in design to the current APU Llano processors since it utilises the Bulldozer archictecture with Radeon graphics which hasn’t yet been done before. The x86 VLIW4 architecture processors should be able to start rivaling Intel on “performance per watt” which we have seen Intel excel on with its ULV Atom and Celeron processors.
According to DICE the makers of Battlefield 3 the game will have slightly smaller multiplayer maps on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions because sacrifices have to be made to achieve a high quality playable experience. The size of the shrink will vary dependent on the nature of the maps, i.e. those with the most demanding physics and textures will be shrunk more so than those which are much simpler to process. DICE estimates that console versions of each map will be around 70-85% of the original PC map size.
DICE also claims that reducing the map size on console is because the console needs to have a much faster pace of gameplay and by reducing the overall map size it can allow the game to run a lot more smoothly as players can interact with each other in combat much more frequently. This is also seen by many as a way of competiting with the “Modern Warfare” style of close fast paced combat.
Arctic cooling has released the latest addition to the well known VGA cooling “Accelero” line of products, the L2 Plus cooler which has been designed to support video cards with a thermal load of around 120W which is the smaller cards on the market, i.e those which have only one 6-pin power connector is a rough guide to the cards which should be used with this. In addition to the main GPU heat sink which also has a 92mm fan on it there are a handful of smaller heat sinks for the VRAM to be cooled with passively. The main heat sink is 119mm by 94mm by 51mm in size, made from Aluminium.
The fan is a 92mm arctic cooling fan with speeds from 900-2000RPM on a PWM controller, it can push up to 27CFM of air and makes 0.4 sone of noise which is around 25dBa. Included are the main heat sink, eight additional standard mosfet sized heat sinks, an assortment of screws and bolts and a sachet of G1 arctic cooling paste. Prices start at 17 euros or $22.
AMD have released the latest version of its catalyst control center graphics card driver package for AMD and ATi cards. The update was mainly intended to bring about WHQL signed drivers for the new family of Fusion APUs. AMD claims that the patch will fix the following issues with AMD/ATi based Windows systems:
All issues experienced with mouse cursor lag have been resolved
Resolves system hangs seen in the AMD Catalyst 11.6 driver on specific HDMI and DP displays
Log event (Event ID 62464) issues when playing video content have been resolved
Bluray playback using PowerDVD 10 under High Performance mode no longer randomly displays a blank screen.
Bluray playback using PowerDVD 10 under High Performance mode no longer randomly hangs.
Some Divx format files no longer display video corruption using WinDVD.
AVIVO Video Quality settings are now correctly applied to Flash Video Content.
AMD SteadyVideo is now applied to Home Video clips when using WinDVD 10.
Random screen corruption is no longer displayed when changing desktop themes.
Chequerboard corruption is no longer displayed intermittently when playing DirectX 10 titles in a Crossfire configuration with Eyefinity enabled.
Shogun II now renders the cinematics correctly when run in various Eyefinity configurations.
Video playback now works correctly when Hardware acceleration is enabled with VLC Player version 1.1.9.
Crossfire now functions correctly when playing Hamilton’s Great Adventure.
Video corruption is no longer observed when when using the Forward slider on 720P Divx format video clips using Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center.
PowerDVD now correctly handles 3D Bluray content.
Portal 2 no longer displays flickering on water surface textures with Medium and Low Shader detail settings.
Image stabilization now functions correctly when playing Divx content using Windows Media Player.
Wraparound corruption is no longer displayed intermittently after exiting a 3D application.
However, some issues with Windows 7 and Vista still remain such as:
PowerDVD may display a blank screen during Bluray playback when Crossfire is enabled.
Doom 3 and Quake 4 may display random screen corruption.
Performing Bezel compensation in certain Eyefinity configurations may cause some bezel groups to not appear.
Windows Aero options may no longer be available after installing the driver.
Star Wars Jedi Knight II / Jedi Academy may randomly crash on launch.
Image rotation might not function correctly in Photoshop CS5.
OpenGL acceleration might not be available in Photoshop CS5.
High GPU speeds might be retained after exiting a 3D application.
Crysis 2 may display random corruption when Crossfire is enabled and run in DirectX 9 mode
Homefront may experience random crashes during gameplay.
Crossfire may not perform as expected when playing Earthsim, Bad Company 2 and Metro 2003 under DirectX 11 mode.
It is dissappoiting to see that AMD do not put a numeric value on the improvements brought about in performance with the new drivers like Nvidia do by refering to FPS improvements in big name game titles, but the users of the fusion APU systems can still expect much better system performance with these newly developed drivers. You can download the latest AMD drivers here.
AMD seems to be set to ship its first 28nm GPUs in late 2011, probably ahead of NVIDIA. The news has been broken by interim CEO Thomas Seifert by saying that AMD would be at the forefront of the transition to 28nm.
“We have working silicon in-house and remain on-track to deliver the first members of what we expect will be another industry-leading GPU family to market later this year, he said.
Seifert pointed out that AMD’s 28nm GPUs (codenamed Kepler) will be based on bulk process technology, in theory, both TSMC and Globalfoundries will be able to produce them. However, both foundries are different and the chip would have to be redesigned for each partner.
AMD VP Rick Bergman spoke out and said the new 28nm GPU series should have a significant effect on AMD’s revenue, similar to the first DirectX 11 cards.
More than two years ago, AMD pioneered 40nm technology with the launch of the HD 4770, but the transition to 28nm has been pushed back due to less demand due to the ‘economic downturn’. As such the 40nm process will be one of the most enduring production processes in the graphics industries’ recent history.
While we like to take a look at a lot of hardware at eTeknix, some other accessories can make a large difference to your overall gaming experience, or even to your general computer experience. Today is the turn for a mousepad by the gaming brand of Thermaltake, Tt eSPORTS.
Tt eSPORTS have been producing mice, keyboards, headsets and mouse pads for a while now, and seem to be going from strength to strength as they are getting into more and more major retailers. Recently they have in fact opened up a Tt eSPORTS Store, and while it is in Taiwan it certainly shows the progress and success they are having.
We have learnt to expect good things from Tt eSPORTS, primarily as it is a sub-brand of the very successful Thermaltake, but more than that, we know that they go to a lot of trouble to develop and design their products. For starters, their products are always thoroughly tested by professional gamers before they even get anywhere close to a shop. For that reason you can expect them to just work, and usually work brilliantly.
While a mousepad may seem like a simple piece of cloth and rubber there are still a lot of options as different surfaces will suit different mice better and suit certain gamers. The Dasher Speed Edition is as you probably expect is designed to be a fast mousepad so it should allow the mouse to slide easily while giving excellent tracking performance.
“Logitech Transforms Places You Use Your iPad Tablet with Lineup of Accessories”
Logitech have today unveiled two iPad tablet accessories that should enable you to make the most of your tablet, and as they say, no matter where you use it. They have aimed the accessories for people who might want to catch up with friends on Facebook, post quick updates to your blog or even share your favourite music with a friend.
Firstly we have the Logitech Tablet Keyboard:
The Logitech Tablet Keyboard is a keyboard and stand combo that is designed to travel easily and for you to be able to set it up quickly to increase the convenience of using your tablet where ever you might be. It pairs with your tablet via Bluetooth wireless so it is easy to use on your desk, lap or anywhere within 30 feet of your tablet. Although that figure is rather dependant on the environment and situation you are in, and how good your eyesight is.
The Logitech Tablet Keyboard for iPad is available now for $95.
They have also announced the release of the Logitech Keyboard Case:
The Logitech Keyboard Case, created in collaboration with ZAGG, features the same aluminium cover with military-grade, high density padding as Logitech’s previous version. The case wraps around the iPad 2 to cover the screen and side. On top of this the Logitech Keyboard Case also uses Bluetooth connectivity to pair the keyboard quickly and easily, and they have claimed that the keyboard incorporates a more intuitive keyboard layout and improved keystrokes for even more comfortable typing. It also adds a recess just behind the keyboard that props up an iPad 2 in portrait or landscape mode, virtually eliminating set-up and pack-up time.
The Logitech Keyboard Case is expected to be available in Singapore in early August for a retail price of $139.
