Update: Head over to the Sony UK site to configure one yourself — pricing starts at £1,434 ($2,294) with a Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM and no PMD. The dock is a £400 ($640) option with no optical drive included, while upgrading to a 1080p 13.1-inch LCD is a mere £40 extra.

PRESS RELEASE

Ultimate performance and design: ultra-mobile new VAIO Z Series from Sony weighs under 1.2kg
28 June 2011

Specifications and features vary by model. Please check VAIO laptops for more information.
For more information please contact
Sony Europe Press Centre

With Microsoft now embracing GPUs in their future higher level language and OS roadmap, it makes the decision to go with GPU computing even easier for those programmers still on the fence.

Its intent with C++ AMP is to expose C++ language capabilities to millions of Windows developers with the goal of enabling them to take advantage of GPUs. It promises to give millions of C++ developers the option of using Microsoft Visual Studio-based development tools to accelerate applications using the parallel processing power of GPUs. CUDA C and CUDA C++ will continue to be the preferred platform for Linux apps or demanding HPC (high performance computing) applications that need to maximize performance.

In the Spring 2007, there was just one language (CUDA C) supporting NVIDIA GPUs. Fast forward to today and our customers now have a much wider selection of languages and APIs for GPU computing – CUDA C, CUDA C++, CUDA Fortran, OpenCL, DirectCompute and in the future Microsoft C++ AMP. There are even Java and Python wrappers, as well as.NET integration, available that sit on top of CUDA C or CUDA C++.

If you are a Windows C++ developer looking at GPU Computing for the first time, there is no need to wait. Visual C++ developers today use our high performance CUDA C++ with the Thrust C++ template library to easily accelerate applications by parallelizing as little as 1 to 5 percent of their application code and mapping it to NVIDIA GPUs. CUDA C++ comes with a rich eco-system of profilers, debuggers, and libraries like cuFFT, cuBLAS, LAPACK, cuSPARSE, cuRAND, etc. NVIDIA’s Parallel Nsight™ for Visual Studio 2010 provides these Windows developers a familiar development environment, combined with excellent GPU profiling and debugging tools.

The take away from Microsoft’s announcement today is that the GPU computing space has reached maturity, with the company that produces the world’s most widely used commercial C++ developer tools – Microsoft — completely embracing GPU computing in their core tools. Rest assured, NVIDIA continues to work closely with Microsoft to help make C++ AMP a success, and we will continue to deliver the best GPU developer tools and training.

Stay tuned for more details.

PhysX is the world’s most pervasive physics solution for highly realistic and real-time simulation based effects for games, film and more. Version 3.0 of PhysX has been over three years in the making and features a new modular architecture and a completely rewritten PhysX engine. It provides a significant boost in overall performance, as well as efficient, reliable simulations across a broad spectrum of multi-core gaming devices – such as PCs, notebooks and gaming consoles, as well as emerging gaming platforms like handheld game devices, tablets, and smartphones.

Let’s take a look at some of the key features and capabilities of PhysX 3.0 SDK:

• Larger Levels: Game levels are getting larger these days. That means they require more actors. In PhysX 3.0, developers can combine multiple actors into a single “aggregate”, which is managed as a single bounding-box entity in the broadphase stage of the collision pipeline. This reduces the computing load required to predict collisions between actors, and helps improve overall performance and memory efficiency of PhysX-3 relative to earlier versions.

• Streaming: PhysX 3.0 enables efficient streaming of asset data into a simulation through a new feature,binary in-place serialization, which allows quick and memory-efficient insertion of actors into a scene. In addition, out-of-scene actor creation, which allows actors to be created outside the scene and stored rather than being created and destroyed on demand, provides developers with better asset management while minimizing troublesome compute load spikes.

• More Effective Multithreading: The new Task Manager with managed thread pool allows games to take advantage of multi-core processors on all platforms, resulting in greatly increased performance and a much improved gaming experience.

• Flexible and Powerful Tools: In addition to a highly optimized physics runtime, NVIDIA is  releasing improved tools for artists that have been tailored to work within the developer’s asset production pipeline.  A new release of PhysX Visual Debugger allows superior performance profiling, detailed memory analysis and improved visualization of all PhysX content across all major platforms.

PhysX 3.0 is available for all major gaming platforms, including PC, Xbox360™, PLAYSTATION®3, OSX, Linux and Android. PhysX 3.0 is designed to run on a variety of CPU architectures. Performance can be accelerated by any CUDA™-enabled NVIDIA GPU – including any GeForce 8-series or higher graphics card.

Like its predecessor, PhysX 2.8, the new PhysX 3.0 SDK binary version is available without charge to all registered and platform-authorized developers for both commercial and non-commercial applications.

For more information on NVIDIA PhysX and APEX technologies, please visit: www.nvidia.com/physx.

LUCID TAKES VIRTU GRAPHICS VIRTUALIZATION TO MORE PLATFORMS, MORE SYSTEMS
New Virtu Universal Immediately Available for Notebooks, All-in-One and Desktop PCs based on Either AMD or Intel Integrated GPUs

KFAR NETTER, Israel and TAIPEI, Taiwan – COMPUTEX 2011 – June 1, 2011 – LucidLogix demonstrated today for the first time at Computex 2011 its Virtu™ Universal® GPU virtualization software, on notebooks, All-in-One (AiO) and desktop PCs based on both Intel® and AMD integrated graphics processing units (GPUs). Virtu Universal is a new product that builds on the capabilities of the popular LucidLogix Virtu™ GPU virtualization software for Intel Sandy Bridge H61, H67 and Z68-based motherboards.

Virtu Universal dynamically allocates graphics resources between integrated and discrete GPUs on Intel second-generation Core processors and AMD Brazos and Bulldozer platforms, allowing the systems to take full advantage of the processing power provided by both GPUs. Consumers will no longer have to choose between popular media processing features like Intel QuickSync video transcoding and DirectX 11 3D gaming performance. Virtu provides consistent, simultaneous performance with both.

“We’ve had an amazing adoption of Virtu on select Intel Sandy Bridge-based systems,” said Offir Remez, president and founder of Lucid. “It was a natural step for us to extend this capability to all Sandy Bridge platforms including notebooks and AiO PCs as well as sharing it with the AMD fanbase.”

Virtual Vsync Delivers No Compromise Game Performance and Quality

In addition to the recently introduced Lucid Virtu software benefits of complete media and 3D gaming performance, LucidLogix Virtu Universal also features Virtual Vsync benefiting all gamers from casual to hard-core who no longer have to compromise between visual quality and performance. Virtual Vsync delivers maximum gaming frame rates and responsiveness, while eliminating distracting and image-distorting visual tearing. Virtual Vsync breaks past the limits of standard Vsync (60 FPS) to deliver:

• Unlimited frame rates – some as much as 120 FPS and beyond with in-game Vsync on.
• User-defined frame rate and visual quality selection
• Flawless visual quality without tearing
• Maximum responsiveness to mouse and keyboard – some as much as 250 percent or more
• The infrastructure to support for next-generation platforms

“Once again, Lucid’s ongoing innovations in GPU virtualization keeps the end customer in mind and eliminates common performance and feature compromises on PCs,” added Remez. “We believe gamers will be amazed at the boost in visual quality and keyboard responsiveness provided in Virtu Universal enabled systems.”

Virtu Universal is available to system manufacturers using AMD Brazos and Bulldozer, Intel Sandy Bridge Z68/H67/H61, and other Intel integrated graphics, like the G41 platform. To date Virtu technology has been verified with hundreds of games and applications and is bundled with motherboards from many of the worlds’ leading brands. The flexible nature of Virtu Universal makes the technology highly likely to be found on a variety of upcoming mobile and desktop PCs this year. For more information, visit www.lucidlogix.com.

The ROG Maximus IV Extreme-Z and ROG Maximus IV GENE-Z use the Intel Z68 chipset and ASUS’ overclocking system, but the GENE-Z shrinks things down to the microATX form factor. Both support both NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX, but can also intelligently switch between discrete and integrated graphics using the Lucid Virtu virtualization engine. Finally, there’s SupremeFX X-Fi 2 audio and Intel Ethernet with GameFirst for prioritizing online gaming network traffic.

Both new graphics cards use NVIDIA’s GTX 580 GPU, with the ROG MATRIX GTX 580 getting one of them and the ROG MARS II getting a pair. Each packs GPU Tweak for easier overclocking, as well as 19-Phase Super Alloy Power. Dual fans keep things cool, with ASUS claiming the MATRIX pulls through 600-percent more air and makes for 20-percent cooler operation than the NVIDIA reference design.

Finally, ASUS throws in some accessories, including the ROG Vulcan ANC Headset with an active-noise-cancellation system, and the VG278 3D 27-inch display, which has HDMI 1.4 and a built-in infrared emitter. No pricing or availability for any of the new ROG range.

MSI claims that the card is the most powerful on the planet and it packs in 3GB of graphics memory and has Propeller Blade fans that use Smart Temp Sensor and Dust Removal technology along with the Twin Frozr III cooling tech. The card is made for the overclocker that wants the most performance with Triple Temp monitoring capability and Power4 Architecture. All that tech adds up to the king of the single GPU cards.

The fans use special coating that turns from blue to white when the temperatures inside the machine exceed 45-degrees. The color change warns the user that the system might be too hot. The dust removal tech spins the fans backwards for 30 seconds to remove dust form the heatsink fins for better cooling. The exact clock speeds of the card are not known at this time. Pricing and availability are also a mystery.

NVIDIA demoed the new goodness on a Honeycomb slate with 1280 x 800 resolution and the frame rates remained smooth throughout. In order to emphasize the generational leap that we can expect with Kal-El, the company switched off two of the four cores momentarily, which plunged performance down to less than 10fps. That means the simulations we’re watching require a full quartet of processing cores on top of the 12-core GPU NVIDIA has in Kal-El. Mind-boggling stuff. Glow Ball will be available as a game on Android tablets once this crazy new chip makes its way into retail devices — which are still expected in the latter half of this year, August if everything goes perfectly to plan. One final note if you’re still feeling jaded: NVIDIA promises the production chip will be 25 to 30 percent faster than the one on display today. Full video demo follows after the break.

Traditional Netbooks are minimalist, typically sub-$350 laptops that average about 3 pounds and feature Intel’s power-frugal Atom processors. But the specially designated category of Netbooks is fading as more companies and consumers gravitate to plain old small laptops, minus the Netbook nomenclature and minus Intel’s Atom. And, as many analysts are saying of late, the surge of consumer interest in tablets, like Apple’s iPad, is also causing problems for the Netbook.

AMD told me this week it “sold out” of the Fusion processor in its most recent fiscal quarter. “Demand far exceeded supply,” Raymond Dumbeck, product marketing manager for AMD’s mobile products, said in a phone interview.

In further conversations with AMD this week, I was told it has delivered about 5 million Fusion chips since their introduction in the fourth quarter of 2010, and that the total includes somewhere between 3.5 million and 4 million in the most recent (first) quarter. And this number will undoubtedly increase when AMD discloses more numbers at the end of the current quarter. This is enough to dent Atom shipments, since the first-quarter Fusion number cited above comprises more than half the average number of Atom processors shipped per quarter.

“There is a significant interest in Fusion, especially the Llano parts that have yet to be released,” said Jim McGregor, an analyst at In-Stat. Which means more un-Netbooks like Sony’s 11.6-inch Y series–very deliberately not labeled as a Netbook. And Sony has made it clear it’s not interested in the category anymore.

So, is Fusion that much better than Atom? Let’s put it this way: Though AMD’s Fusion processors don’t clobber comparable Atom chips in benchmarks, Fusion offers enough of a performance cushion over Atom for PC makers like Sony, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo to create new designs. Sony and HP, among others, are using Fusion in 11.6-inch designs that are designated simply as small laptops. (See CNET review of HP Pavilion dm1Z with commentary about AMD’s Fusion chip performance vis-a-vis Atom.)

Not surprisingly, Intel disagrees about the demise of Netbooks–though in a phone interview Friday, the chipmaker’s marketing chief said tablets are having some impact. “It is fair to say that if people have discretionary income and they’re going to spend 500 or 600 dollars, it’s a tablet today [which] could have been a Netbook a year ago. So, there’s no question there’s a substitution that could be happening there,” said Tom Kilroy, a senior vice president and general manager at Intel’s Sales and Marketing Group.

And a couple of final thoughts about Netbooks: Apple is also doing its part to diminish the format. Though there’s a gaping price difference between, let’s say, a $300 Atom-based 10-inch Netbook and a $999 11.6-inch MacBook Air, Apple offers consumers a clearly superior choice to a Netbook.

And let’s not forget the Chromebook, a dark horse in all of this. These small (11- and 12-inch) Google Chrome OS-based laptops, due in June, are powered by Intel’s latest dual-core Atom processors. Atom’s performance characteristics are better suited to the Chrome OS than Microsoft’s resource- and performance-intensive Windows 7, which runs (slowly) on all Netbooks today.