PC News Zone » CPU

Small Form Factor PC – Commodore Amiga Mini PC

pcnz_admin — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 09:24:35 +0000

Commodore Amiga Mini PC is the perfect system for your HTPC, which such small and elegant PC setup it can stay fit on your living room which design to fit to your home theather setup. While not much of a looker, this box houses a potent 3.5GHz Core i7-2700k CPU, 16GB of DDR3 memory, NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 430 (1GB), a WiFi radio and a 1TB HDD that can be swapped out for a 300GB or 600GB solid state drive. There’s a slot-loading Blu-ray drive by default, internal space for a pair of 2.5-inch drives and a predictable Amiga logo burned right onto the front panel. Unfortunately, the well-specced base model tips the pricing scales at $2,495, but that does include a copy of its Commodore OS Vision. The company’s also revealing the C64x Supreme, the new VIC mini and a more powerful VIC-Slim keyboard computer (which now includes an HDMI output), all detailed in the presser past the break.

PR: COMMODORE USA RELEASES FIRST NEW COMMODORE AMIGA IN 20 YEARS, FINALLY REUNITING TWO ICONIC COMPUTER BRANDS.

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. March 21, 2012 â€“ Commodore USA, LLC announced today the historic re-unification of the legendary Commodore and AMIGA brands with the launch of the new Commodore AMIGA mini, as well as other new models such as the new C64x Supreme, the new VIC mini and a more powerful VIC-Slim keyboard computer (now with HDMI output). These new products are now in production and available for purchase at www.CommodoreUSA.net.

The new Commodore AMIGA mini is a trail blazing power-house featuring Intel’s i7-2700k 3.5 Ghz Quad-Core (3.9Ghz Turboboost) processor, 16Gb RAM DDR3 1333MHz and an NVIDIAÂ® GeForceÂ® GT 430 GPU with 1GB DDR3. This machine is fully loaded with a 1 TB SATA drive (optional 300 GB or 600 GB SSD), two WiFi antennae and bluetooth. The new Commodore AMIGA mini case is ultra small and features a solid, all aluminum seamless housing, micro-sandblasted with an anodic oxidation finish. It also includes a slot load Blu-Ray drive and internal space for two 2.5″ hard drives. It measures 7.5 inches square with a height of only 3 inches. The AMIGA mini’s appearance is enhanced with the inclusion of the classic embedded AMIGA logo engraved in the front.

The C64x, highly regarded by Commodore fans for its retro styling, now features Intel’s new D2700 dual core 2.13 Ghz CPU and nVidia GeForce GT 520 (512Mb) graphics for enhanced gaming capability over previous models. It also features 4Gb Memory (DDR3 1066), a 1 or 3 GB SATA drive (300 or 600 Gb SSD optional), a mechanical keyboard, a built in multi-card reader, WiFI, Bluetooth, VGA, DVI and HDMI output, 7.1 channel high definition sound, 2 USB 3.0 and 4 USB 2.0 ports for exceptional external data access, a slot loading Blu-ray drive that can also write DVDs and 2 WiFi antennae for outstanding signal reception.

The VIC mini has specifications identical to the C64x Supreme, wrapped in the elegant aluminum enclosure of the AMIGA mini.

The VIC-Slim is an upgraded unit replacing the previous 1.8 Ghz dual core Atom with the new Intel 2.13Ghz Dual Core D2700 processor and includes 2Gb RAM (DDR3 1066MHz), a 1Tb SATA Hard Disk Drive and HDMI output.

Mr. Barry Altman, CEO, states “This is an historic day. The team here has been working around the clock to fulfill the vision of a reunited Commodore and AMIGA branded computer with the launch of our new Commodore AMIGA mini.”

Mr. Leo Nigro, CTO, states “We built Commodore USA to take advantage of the rapid rate of technological change in the computer hardware market. The introduction of Intel’s new Atom processor for compact devices such as the C64x Supreme, VIC-Slim and VIC mini proves that Commodore USA is setting the pace for the computer industry. The Commodore AMIGA mini with its 16 GB of RAM, powerful i7-2700k 3.5 Ghz Quad-Core processor and built-in nVidia graphics chipset is truly worthy of the AMIGA name. Also, with the inclusion of Commodore OS Vision, our own Linux distribution showcasing our product’s advanced hardware features, we can also provide a unique and compelling experience for customers seeking an alternative to Apple and Microsoft products. First and foremost I’m a Commodore and AMIGA fan, and like millions of other fans around the world, I am excited by the return of the famous Commodore and AMIGA brands we grew up with and loved.”

Barry Altman adds, “Leo and I and the entire team, started on this journey to prove that we could take these historic computer brands and produce products that are relevant to both the historical consumer base and new customers. These computers are breathtaking in appearance, incredibly powerful and exciting to use.”

the ‘desktop-like’ Opteron 3200 – AMD Cheap Server CPU

pcnz_admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:45:02 +0000

AMD’s 2012 rampage continues. Having outed a overall stack of Radeon HD 7000-series graphics cards on the consumer side of things, it’s now alert release the next in its line of Opteron undertaking server chips. Like the 4200 and 6200 series before it, the Opteron 3200 is based on the Bulldozer architecture. It comes in four or eight-core configurations, with 45W to 65W power consumption, plus a 2.7GHz base frequency that gets a 1GHz adrenalin kick in Turbo Core mode (which prioritizes half the cores and shuts down the other half). However, the 3200 series is designed to offer cloud and web hosting server functionality in a cheaper, “desktop-like infrastructure”, which means these processors squeeze into a regular AM3+ socket and undercut comparable Xeons by up to $90. Can we expect server builders like SeaMicro to wobble to these processors instead of Intel? Oh, you can count on it.

AMD Launches New Platform for Dedicated Web Hosting Providers

New AMD Opteronâ„¢ 3200 Series Processor Family Changes Industry Economics for Single-Socket, Dedicated Hosting and Cloud customers

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -3/20/2012

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the latest solution as part of its ongoing Web/Cloud initiative with the launch of the new AMD Opteronâ„¢ 3200 Series processor. Dedicated Web hosting customers seeking enterprise-class reliability have a new choice that delivers:
â€¢ Great value with up to 38% better price performance1 and up to 19% less power per core2 than the competition;
â€¢ ECC memory and server reliability features at a low price-point;
â€¢ Fast hardware payback – In as few as 7 months hosting fees can cover hardware costs – up to 14% quicker than with the competition3;
â€¢ Efficient economics for the Cloud with twice the core density per rack4.

“In today’s economic environment, dedicated hosting providers need their data centers to become profit centers faster than ever,” said Patrick Patla, corporate vice president and general manager, Commercial Business, AMD. “With the new AMD Opteronâ„¢ 3000 Series platform, Web and Cloud customers no longer have to compromise with desktop-class platforms in order to hit certain price points. Now they have all the benefits of a true server-class product at desktop-class price points. This helps rapidly-growing hosting customers achieve fast payback in their incredibly dense, power-efficient environments.”

Since the launch of its new core server architecture, and AMD Opteron 4200 and 6200 Series processors last November, AMD unveiled a disruptive server strategy and intentions to leverage its leading graphics IP while driving down the power in future SoC offerings. As part of accelerating this, AMD recently announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cloud pioneer SeaMicro.

Today AMD has delivered on its promise of a low-power, single-socket solution that brings server functionality with desktop economics. The AMD Opteron 3000 Series platform is targeted to the dense, power efficient 1P Web hosting/Web server market. Available in either 4- or 8-core CPUs, the AMD Opteron 3200 Series processor is shipping today in platforms from MSI, Tyan, Fujitsu and Dell. Based on the “Bulldozer” core, the AMD Opteron 3000 Series platform leverages Socket AM3+ and provides customers with the cost savings associated with a “desktop-like” infrastructure, yet still offers server-class reliability, enterprise-class silicon validation/testing, security features and server OS certification.

“AMD is a great partner, and we’re excited about the new AMD Opteron 3200 Series CPU. It allows us to create a custom design for our DCS customers, and deliver a compelling combination of performance and energy efficiency, ” says Dell Data Center Solutions’ Steve Cumings. “As the leader in the Density-Optimized market segment, we require focused partner technology within industry standards â€“ and this is a good fit for our customers.”

Key Facts, Performance and Technical Detail

45W to 65W TDP

2.7 GHz base frequency, up to 3.7 GHz frequency using AMD Turbo CORE technology5

4- and 8-core options

2 DDR3 memory channels supporting ECC UDIMM

1333, 1600, 1866 MHz memory speed6

Supports 1.5V, 2Rank

Up to 32GB memory capacity

Supports up to 2 DIMMs per memory channel

Total Cache: 16MB for 8-core, 8MB for 4-core

L2 Cache: up to 8MB total

L3 Cache: up to 8MB total

Nvidia to Apple – Show Benchmark for New iPad

pcnz_admin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:11:31 +0000

Yesterday at the Apple iPad event the gang from Cupertino was making brave claims about the performance of the unused iPad A5X chip and talking a bit of trash about the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor. Apple tossed a whisk on the big screen during the presentation claiming that its A5X has four times the graphics performance of the Tegra 3. Nvidia has had time to see at the charts and presume a bit and now wants Apple to back up its claims with benchmarks.

This is fascinating considering the benchmark wars that raged between Nvidia and AMD for so numerous years in the graphics card business. Both sides of that war have a history of handpicking benchmarks to manufacture their video cards see better than the competition. I presume some of that is going on here with Apple as well.

Nvidiaâ€™s Ken Brown is calling for Apple to offer up data to back up their claims of four times the performance. I seriously doubt Apple ever offer that kind of detail. However, with the hornetâ€™s nest kicked, we will right on be running some comparative benchmarks when we acquaint our own narrate of the unused iPad.

Ken Brown, a spokesman for Nvidia, said that it was â€œcertainly flatteringâ€ to be called out by Apple, but the performance claims are sketchy without more data. â€œWe donâ€™t have the benchmark information,â€ said Brown. â€œWe have to understand what the application was that was used. Was it one or a variety of applications? What drivers were used? There are so many issues to get into with benchmark.â€

Intel shows off low-power chips at ISSCC

PC News Zone — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:41:00 +0000

Intel has announced development of an ulta-low voltage processor which is capable of operating at voltages as low as 280mV, claiming the feat will assist it produce future chips with a five-fold increase in energy efficiency. Announced ahead of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, the chip is unlikely to win any performance awards. Based on a 32nm implementation of the original Pentium architecture, the prototype chip boasts a dynamic stroll reaching from 3MHz to 915MHz. The consequent is the Intel Near Voltage Threshold Processor, which can tick above at a low tempo while drawing fair 280mV. When in 'turbo' mode, at these speeds something of a relative thought considering the summit tempo of the NVT process is beneath a gigahertz, the chip runs on fair 1.2V. Intel also announced a modern method arrangement for floating-point processing, which allows the prototype processor to differ the precision of its calculations dynamically. The result, Intel claims, is a boost in energy efficiency of around sevenfold above traditional implementations. According to Intel's planned presentation, the variable-precision floating point fused-multiply add unit hits 52 to 162 gigaflops per watt at 1.45GHz. The technology will be used in Intel's future graphics products, the company confirmed, along with a vertex and pixel shading lighting accelerator capable of processing 2.05 gigavertices a moment while drawing fair 151mW. The announcements come as Intel looks to lead the way into 'exascale' computing: processing at an exaflop level, rather than the gigaflop or teraflop levels of current systems. To reach that goal, the company is attempting to produce processor designs that boast increases in energy efficiency of between fifty and a hundred times that of current chips. Much of the company's technology in this regard is dinky to the supercomputing market. The Many Integrated Cores (MIC) cards, Knights Ferry and Knights Bridge, as an example are fifty-core highly-parallel processors that are unlikely to find their way into the average gaming rig. While the technology is being developed for supercomputing applications, however, it will trickle down to the consumer level above time. Intel has already declared war on ARM in the tablet and smartphone space with a system-on-chip (SoC) variant of its Atom processor family with in-built Wi-Fi connectivity. Building in a five-fold increase in energy efficiency would surely assist encourage diagram makers to produce the jump from the ARM instruction set architecture to x86. Intel's work also holds the promise of cooler, faster chips on the desktop. As the number of transistors on a processor increases, so too does the risk of current leakage and heat dissipation issues. A vast increase in energy efficiency will surely assist the company in those regards until a practical alternative to silicon can be compose and proved to work on a commercial scale. Sadly, the company has yet to offer a trace as to when the technologies shown of at ISSCC will be making their way to the production lines, instead preferring to talk up its Ivy Bridge processor family featuring tri-gate transistor technology.

GlobalFoundries starts IBM chip production at Fab 8

PC News Zone — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:54:00 +0000

GlobalFoundries, the chip fabrication specialist born out of AMD, has announced that it has begun production at its latest Fab 8 facility in Saratoga County, New York. The first components to mosey off the company's production, GlobalFoundries has confirmed, will be based on the 32nm silicon-on-insulator technology jointly developed by members of IBM's Process Development Alliance, itself based on research conducted at the University at Albany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. Designed, GlobalFoundries claims, to vastly improve performance in the areas of multi-core blueprint and graphics, the same SOI blueprint was used in the chips at the heart of Watson, the supercomputer-cum-expert system that shot to fame as a winning contestant on the US gameshow Jeopardy! early last year. Based in the Luther Forest Technology Campus, Fab 8 is claimed by GlobalFoundries to be the largest leading-edge semiconductor foundry in the world, with 300,000 square feet of clean-room space and a projected output of 60,000 wafers per month once fully ramped. The company has confirmed that production will concentrate on gate-first High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) manufacturing 32nm and 28nm parts, following the company's Fab 1 facility in Dresden hitting volume production on the same process. Using gate-first, contrasted with gate-last, manufacturing, GlobalFoundries claims, provides a saving of around 10-20 per cent compared to similar HKMG solutions while providing the whole benefit of scaling a blueprint down from a 45nm or 40nm process size. GlobalFoundries won't be the only company making IBM's modern chips, however: Big Blue's facility in East Fishkill, some 100 miles south of GlobalFoundries Fab 8, will also be churning out wafers for the company's latest designs. "Today's announcement is a natural extension of our longstanding partnership with IBM that includes production of 65nm and 45nm chips at our fabs in Singapore and Germany," explained GlobalFoundries chief executive Ajit Manocha. "With the addition of our newest factory in New York, we will now be jointly producing chips with IBM at four fabs on three continents." The chips, destined for server, storage and supercomputing applications, are also set to feature IBM's embedded DRAM (eDRAM) technology, which boosts on-processor memory performance while reducing component size to a third and standby power to a fifth of traditional SRAM components. GlobalFoundries commitment to gate-first manufacturing on 32nm and 28nm parts comes despite an announcement from the company in January last year that it would be bright to a gate-last process for 22nm and 20nm parts, joining the majority of the fabrication world in placing the transistors' gates at the conclusion of manufacturing.

Intel Ivy Bridge GPU to sustain 4K resolutions

PC News Zone — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 14:21:00 +0000

Color us unsurprised that Ivy Bridge is destined to be faster and smaller than its predecessor, but unbeknownst to us is an fascinating tidbit concerning the upcoming architecture's GPU. The revamp will reserve resolutions in excess of 4K (topping out at a maximum of 4,096 x 4,096) -- a gigantic leap from the WQXGA (2,560 x 1,600) limitation of its Sandy Bridge's forebearer -- opening the door to all sorts of resolution independent goodness. Guess that means you won't need a discrete GPU in the future to power that bodacious (but pricey) pro-level display. Have a study in the links below whether you're hungry for more.

Leaked AMD roadmap reveals next-gen Fusion tablet chips

PC News Zone — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:59:00 +0000

Until recently, AMD has kept pretty mum on its tablet plans, with it only officially entering the fray last month. It's clear that the first batch of Z-Series chips, codenamed Desna, are are not terribly different from the rest Fusion line but, according to a leaked roadmap, that will all change with its successor -- Hondo. Supposedly the next gen of tablet APUs will ditch a number features that aren't essential to burgeoning form factor, including VGA output, PCIe support, and couple of USB pathways. It will also add an "active standby" mode for maintaining connectivity while reducing power draw and cut TDP by about a third. Hondo is expect to enter production in Q2 of next year, and be succeeded by Samara which will feature a new graphics core. Check out the source link for a few more slides.

New Samsung Series 9 notebooks outed: Core i3, i5 and i7 options

PC News Zone — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 07:36:00 +0000

Samsung has outed a new range of Series 9 notebooks, with three new 13.3-inch models and two new 11.6-inch models, priced from $1,049. The new Series 9 machines keep the styling of the models that began shipping in May, but add in new Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors, up to 256GB SSDs and up to 6GB of DDR3 memory. The new 11.6-inchers are the NP900X1B-A02US, with a Core i3-2357M, 2GB of memory and a 64GB SSD, and the NP900X1B-A01US, with the same processor but twice the RAM and storage. They’ll go on sale in August, priced at $1,049 and $1,249 respectively. Samsung’s 13.3-inch versions, meanwhile, are all available from today. The NP900X3A-B01US has a COre i5-2467M processor, 4GB of memory and a 128GB SSD, and retails for $1,349, while the NP900X3A-B02US has the same CPU and RAM but doubles up the SSD for $1,649 in total. Finally, there’s the $2,049 NP900X3A-A05US with a Core i7-2617M processor, 6GB of DDR3 memory and a 256GB SSD. There’s still FastStart, which Samsung reckons will see the Series 9 boot in less than three seconds, along with a casing allegedly twice as strong as aluminum and USB 3.0 connectivity. The displays are also billed as twice as bright as rivals offer.

PS Vita face-tracking demo tips SmartAR gaming [Video]

PC News Zone — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 06:36:59 +0000

Sony has demonstrated the face-recognition and tracking capabilities of the upcoming PlayStation Vita handheld, using the portable consoleâ€™s front-facing camera to track head movement and have on-screen avatars respond accordingly. In the demo, filmed byÂ Siliconera and which you can see after the cut, Sony showed a two-way video chat being held between a pair of animated avatars, the head, mouth, eye and other movements being mapped to those of the gamer.

Although head-tracking has been done before, the system Sony demonstrated was able to track minor details like eye-blinking and eyebrow twitches, for a more lifelike animation. Sony wasnâ€™t saying a video calling app would necessarily be the final use of the technology, 4gamer reports, but that the software was merely a demonstration of the power of the Vitaâ€™s abilities and its potential in augmented reality (AR) gaming.

Rather than using specific glyphs that can be identified and tracked by an AR system, Sonyâ€™sÂ Yoshikatsu Kanemaru suggested that objects and even people could be distinguished by the Vita and have computer-generated graphics overlaid. Itâ€™s a technology that appears to have borrowed from Sonyâ€™s previous SmartAR research, which canÂ intelligently spot unique elements -such as posters, magazines or more complex forms, like body outlines â€“ in the cameraâ€™s frame and then track them accordingly.

Sandy Bridge Buyerâ€™s Guide

PC News Zone — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 09:07:09 +0000

Intel released its second-generation Core CPUs back in January. Unfortunately, the excitement generated by the release of the fastest mainstream desktop processors was quickly dampened by the Cougar Point chipset recall. To be clear, this issue affected only the earliest Sandy Bridge-compatible motherboards, and not the Sandy Bridge CPUs themselves. This issue is now fixed—there are no defective motherboards available through reputable North American retailers like Newegg and Amazon. In the almost half-year since the initial Sandy Bridge CPU release, the platform has matured, with CPU variants available for almost every budget and a number of niches, as well as motherboard chipsets with a variety of feature sets and in form factors from mini-ITX to extended-ATX. Succinctly, the second-gen Core CPUs are astonishingly powerful and sip electricity. As Anand aptly described them, “architecturally it’s the biggest change we’ve seen since Conroe.” I agree with Anand—not since I upgraded from an AMD Athlon X2 3800+ to an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 at the end of 2006 have I been so impressed by a new CPU as I have by the Core i7-2600K.

This is the first guide I’ve written for AnandTech that will not be ‘fair and balanced’ for both AMD and Intel. I hoped this month’s guide would detail higher-end builds featuring and comparing AMD’s Bulldozer CPUs and Intel’s Core i5 and i7 chips, but unfortunately, AMD’s release of its high-end desktop Bulldozer SKUs is now delayed until September. The midrange Llano desktop APUs are scheduled for retail availability in early July, and Llano-based laptops are already showing up here and there online (though as of the time of writing, they are not available for actual sale). Thus, AMD’s entire product line will be refreshed within the next few months. With the imminent release of radically new APUs and no currently available AMD CPUs that can compete with Intel’s higher-end CPUs, this month’s guide focuses on the second-generation Intel Core processors. I simply don’t think it makes much sense to build an AMD system at least until Llano’s desktop release—unless you need a budget rig and you need it right now. And lest I be accused of favoritism, next month’s guide will likely focus on Llano-based desktop computers.

It’s also a great time to build an Intel-based computer. The successor to LGA 1155 (the Sandy Bridge socket), LGA 2011, is not due out until late this year, and looks to supersede LGA 1366 at Intel’s highest-end of the desktop CPU spectrum. Other than supporting Sandy Bridge-E CPUs, LGA 2011 will offer PCIe 3 (which current GPUs can’t take advantage of) and native USB 3.0 (even though third-party USB 3.0 controllers are already shipping on many Intel and AMD motherboards). Considering how capable the Core i5-2500K and Core i7-2600K are today, it’s unlikely Sandy Bridge-E will field any model that’s astonishingly faster than what’s already available. Thus, if you buy a Core i7-2600K now, you’ll be at the near pinnacle of desktop computing for at least 5-6 months. I think there are times to buy and times to wait. It’s a bad idea to buy right before a lineup refresh (as is the case with AMD today), but it’s also unwise to delay building a system to hold out for the next big thing when that’s half a year away and unlikely to be that much better!