ATI Radeon HD 5970

ATI Radeon HD 5970

And here it is, the ATI Radeon HD 5970, the fastest graphics card in the world.
All hail its mighty rendering pathways and the gods of silicon for bringing us this technological wonder.
It's faster than any graphics card we've ever tested, it's bigger than any graphics card we've ever tested and it houses more technology than you could shake Stephen Hawking at. So why then are we feeling so utterly underwhelmed?
We had pricing issues with the original ATI Radeon HD 5870; its £320 price point making a mockery of AMD's previous successes with more svelte, cheaper cards than the monolithic strategy of its Nvidia rivals.
In today's market such expensive cards are less viable purchases and more tech demos.
We're not just talking about the financial climate either, in this gaming world where most titles are developed for three year-old console technology you hardly need the sort of power such cards are touting, unless you've got a couple of 30-inch panels strapped together.
The same obviously rings true for a card that's sitting dangerously close to £600; it feels even less like a viable consumer card and more the sort of thing to ensure competition once Nvidia's DX11 Fermi cards hit our test benches in a month or so.

We're also slightly dubious as to how many of these cards you'll actually see in the wild. Reference and manufacturer boards have been made available to us, but we still find it difficult to track down any 5800-series cards in the country. Most retailers are out of stock - the supply just isn't there.
AMD assured us that the 5970 launch is coinciding with a ramping up of its 40nm production which should mean thousands of chips being produced every day.
Whether it will produce enough to cover demand for both 58xx series cards and the 5970 we'll have to wait and see.
But that's all by the by if the beast performs like the beast we're told it is.

Radeon HD 5800 video cards

Radeon HD 5800 video cards

We've just received word that ATI have just sent out the design kit to its ATI partners this week. So what does that mean? Well it means that come January we'll begin to see companies offer their own design of Radeon HD 5800 series video cards, this also means that ATI probably have confidence in their supply of chips come early next year as well.

This is good news for everyone, for starters the supply will mean that if you're looking for a HD 5800 series, you shouldn't run into any dramas. Secondly with the launch of the Fermi based boards from NVIDIA, ATI only partners like Sapphire and HIS can work at making a product that will compete with the green teams new model, which is no doubt going to beat a stock HD 5870 for the simple fact that it needs too.
While we can't confirm 100%, come January we should see models like the Atomic from Sapphire, TurboX from HIS and other pre overclocked models from partners producing ATI products.

ATI 5800 series

It's been more than two months since AMD launched the Radeon HD 5000 series, the world's first DirectX 11 cards manufactured in TSMC's troubled 40nm process. Sadly, two months on, it's virtually impossible to get HD 5800 cards in most markets and the situation isn't much better when it comes to 5900 series products. AMD execs said the shortage should be resolved by the end of November, but it's obvious AMD is still struggling to meet demand.A quick search on our price search engine reveals that you're much more likely to get struck by lighting than find an HD 5850 in European retail. Getting an HD 5870 is somewhat easier, as it's available in a couple of stores at €400+. The cheaper HD 5850 is a much better deal, as it should sell for around €200.Oddly enough, getting a dual-GPU HD 5970 is a bit easier, but its still far from widely available. Prices range from €575 to over €640, not what we'd call cheap.Fortunately, HD 5700 availability has greatly improved over the past several weeks. They are readily available in most major EU markets and the prices are very competitive. HD 5750 prices start at under €100 and this sounds like a great deal for casual gamers or consumers on a budget. An HD 5770 will cost you at least €121, but most sell for €130+.We can only hope AMD manages to muster some stock over the next couple of weeks, but with Nvidia's Fermi nowhere in sight, there is no doubt demand for 5000 series products will remain strong over the next couple of months.

ASUS demos Eee PC 1201T with Athlon Neo

What is the first Eee PC netbook from ASUS to run on a chip other than Intel's has been spotted. The Eee PC 1201T offers the option of a 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo CPU but otherwise shares the specs of the Eee PC 1201HA, which has an Intel Atom processor. There is also 2GB of RAM, and the 12.1-inch display has 1366x768 resolution. Also, the 1201T can play back 1080p video thanks to its ATI Radeon HD3200 graphics processor.
The hard drive is 320GB in capacity, and there is also 2GB of cloud storage offered. There is no word on which operating system ships with the 1201T, but it is likely to be Windows 7 Starter. An Ethernet port and a Wi-Fi connection are the options for connecting to the Internet. Bluetooth 2.1 is also onboard.
There is also a VGA port, three USB 2.0 ports, and an audio output. A six-cell battery powers the Eee PC 1201T and is said to provide up to four hours of operation.

Apple plans to disable support for Intel Atom

Apple plans to disable support

According to some sources, Apple plans to disable support for Intel Atom processors in version 10.6.2 of the operating system Mac OS X, reports AppleInsider. This will be done to ensure that Mac OS X could not be put on the netbook.
Intel Atom processors were presented in early 2008 for low-cost laptops, known as netbooks. Not wanting to wait for the release of a product from Apple, some technically literate users have to put on netbooks operating system Apple, which is at odds with the rules of the license agreement (Apple OS can be put only on the Macintosh).
Meanwhile, the new product is still expected. According to some unofficial estimates, again, in early 2010, the company intends to submit a touch tablet with no physical keyboard, which will cost about $ 700. For comparison, the cheapest MacBook is $ 999.or Intel Atom

AMD Phenom II X4 965 And Intel Core i5 750

AMD Phenom II X4 965 vs Intel Core i5 750

PC Specialist supplied us with what at first glance appear to be two identical PCs. They share the same accessories, the same system case and monitor and almost identical internal components. Identical, apart from the core processor architecture. The Vortex HD 750 is based on Intel's Core i5 750 processor, whereas the Fusion HD 965 uses AMD's Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. They both cost around £1,000 including VAT and delivery.

PC Specialist supplied us with what at first glance appear to be two identical PCs. They share the same accessories, the same system case and monitor and almost identical internal components. Identical, apart from the core processor architecture. The Vortex HD 750 is based on Intel's Core i5 750 processor, whereas the Fusion HD 965 uses AMD's Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. They both cost around £1,000 including VAT and delivery.
The core specification for both PCs is the same: 4GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz DDR3 provides system memory, with a 1TB Seagate ST3100333AS hard drive for storage. They also both include a 22x LG DVD burner. Graphics duties are taken care of by one of AMD's latest ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards, with 1GB GDDR5 memory. Power comes courtesy of a 600W FSP Quad Rail PSU and everything's housed in a CoolerMaster Sileo 500 system case, finished in matt black, with internal damping helping to keep the PCs quiet.
An Acer V243H monitor provides a 24in 16:9 format display with full-HD 1080p resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. A trio of inputs covers VGA, DVI and HDMI. Speakers, wireless keyboard and mouse are all provided by Logitech.
Both systems use Asus motherboards - a M4A79XTD Evo for AMD, and P7P55D for Intel. These are closely-matched in specification, although the latter has an extra PCI slot and a pair of extra USB ports. Both offer Express Gate and good overclocking capabilities.
AMD Phenom II X4 965 vs Intel Core i5 750: Performance
Our WorldBench 6 test reveals overall system performance when running a selection of popular desktop applications. When pitted directly against each other, the Intel-fuelled Vortex HD 750 took the lead by around 4%, scoring 130 points compared to the 125 points of the Fusion HD 965.
Taking a closer look at the scores for the individual applications which make up WorldBench 6, we see that the Intel system is faster in all tests by varying amounts, except for tests involving Firefox, where the AMD PC takes a small lead.
And we do mean small: we're talking about a difference of around 10 seconds in a task taking three minutes. Overall, the performance differences between the two architectures are small enough to make no difference to most users.
AMD Phenom II X4 965 vs Intel Core i5 750: Gaming
Both of these PCs make great gaming systems. The ATI Radeon HD 5770 offers very good performance as well as support for the latest DirectX 11 features from forthcoming games as well as those built in to Window 7 and Windows Vista. While you may get better raw speed out of an older card (think: Radeon HD 4890), you'll miss out on quality-enhancing features such as tessellation, which gives increased object detail, and depth-of-field lens effects which give 3D scenes considerably more realism.
Both these features are used to great effect in the Unigine Heaven benchmark which, along with STALKER Call of Pripyat, we've used to evaluate performance running DirectX 11 games. We've also included our regular Crysis and FEAR tests for reference.
With graphics performance largely down to the graphics card, there's little difference in gaming performance between the two. Occasional differences of one or two frames per second do occur however, and usually in favour of the AMD-based PC. For example, the Fusion HD 965 managed 21.34 frames per second when running Crysis at 1920x1080 at the "very high" quality level with DirectX 10. The Vortex HD 750 managed 21.1 frames per second on the same test.
However, on older games and when running tests at lower resolutions the Intel-based system comes out on top, scoring 66.9fps compared to 61.3 frames per second when running Crysis at 1024x768 in the "high quality" mode and using DirectX 9.
Both DX11 tests produced similar results - the AMD system delivering a very small performance lead over the Intel system. In Unigine, for instance, we saw a 0.5fps difference in AMD's favour at 1920x1080 resolution.
What this does suggest is that for gaming, the Fusion HD 965 is every bit as good as the Vortex HD 750 despite its lower performance at WorldBench 6.
AMD Phenom II X4 965 vs Intel Core i5 750: Power Consumption
We compared power consumption figures of the main systems, when sitting idle and when running the Unigine Heaven benchmark. Because the configurations of both systems are the same, any differences in power consumption can be attributed to the processor and motherboard selection.
Intel came out on top: where the AMD-based Fusion HD 965 consumed 103W at idle and 163W under load, the Vortex HD 750 required only 59W and 120W respectively.
Lower power consumption is not only greener, it also means you may get away with quieter cooling fans, and increase scope for overclocking.
AMD Phenom II X4 965 vs Intel Core i5 750: the verdict
These systems are closely matched in general performance, with often hair-splitting differences in gaming performance. The Intel-based PC delivers better application performance with considerably better power consumption; while the AMD-based machine can deliver fractionally better games performance, plus a price advantage of £60. This may not seem much but you could always apply this saving elsewhere, offsetting the extra electricty you'll be consuming, for example, or adding a second hard drive.
AMD Phenom II X4 965 vs Intel Core i5 750: the processors
The AMD Phenom II x4 965 and Intel Core i5 750 offer broadly similar performance. They're both quad-core processors which are great for multi-tasking and multi-processing, but there are some key differences:
* The AMD chip runs at a faster clock rate of 3.4GHz compared to the 2.67GHz of the Intel.
* They also have different cache architectures, the Phenom II X4 having 6MB of Level 2 cache compared to 8MB in the Intel Core i5. They also have different methods of interfacing with system memory and the graphics subsystem, although these differences result in relatively minor performance differences in real-world applications.
* According to the specifications, the Core i5 also has lower power requirements than the AMD chip - a fact that's bourne out by our own test results.
* It's also worth noting that the Phenom II X4 965 BE is currently AMD's flagship desktop CPU; this is most certainly not the case with the Intel processor which is part of a range containing many faster processors, some of which are available as drop-in upgrades for the Core i5 750.

AMD's core design for Bulldozer

AMD's core design for Bulldozer


Anandtech has painted a clearer picture today as to what methods AMD plans to use to build its upcoming 'Bulldozer' CPU family. The way in which AMD arranges the cores and resources with this architecture is quite different to anything we've seen before.

Henceforth AMD is referring to the number of integer cores on a processor when it counts cores. So a quad-core Zambezi is made up of four integer cores, or two Bulldozer modules. An eight-core would be four Bulldozer modules.
It's a distinct shift from AMD's (and Intel's) current method of counting cores. A quad-core Phenom II X4 is literally four Phenom II cores on a single die, if you disabled three you would be left with a single core Phenom II. The same can't be said about a quad-core Bulldozer. The smallest functional block there is a module, which is two cores according to AMD.
The article is a well documented piece that helps give a better perspective on what AMD's main point of focus is with regard to this upcoming major refresh that is hoped to put Intel on its back foot.

'Netbooks can't be just cheap laptops’

ARM processors power almost 90% of the mobiles sold around the world, 70% of digital still cameras and about 70% of printers. Now, it hopes to challenge Intel Atom’s dominance of netbooks . Graham Budd, COO of the UK-based ARM, who was in Bangalore on Monday for the company’s Technology Symposium, talks about the advances in ARM-based netbooks.
Do you think netbooks will take a significant share of the PC market? In India, it hasn’t really taken off.
The current Atom-based netbooks are basically cheap laptops without all the features of a laptop. People who buy a netbook also think they are buying a cheap laptop. And then they get disappointed that it can’t do what a laptop does. Netbooks have to be built as a separate category, and the products have to be similarly differentiated. The ARM processor based ones that are being created will bring that differentiation. What is this differentiation? It will provide a rich internet experience, as good as X86 processor ones. The boot time will be faster, the battery life will be substantially higher, and the cost will be lower . ARM-based netbooks will also be smaller because we don’t have to put in a fan to cool the processor , as its energy consumption is very low. All this will help to create a category between a smartphone and a laptop. So, if somebody who is used to accessing the internet on a smartphone wants a fuller web experience, he could reach out to a netbook.
Why would costs be lower, and how much do you think the price would go down to?
I believe that before long the netbook price will go down to below Rs 10,000 ($200). The reason is partly our business model, where we license out our designs to multiple chipset developers. The competition amongst them brings costs down and raises the level of innovation. This is also the reason why you have seen such a lot of innovation in mobile phones.
When do you see ARM based netbooks becoming visible in the market?
You will see many models based on our Cortex A8 processor being launched in the first half of 2010. We have also now introduced the Cortex A9, which can help create more powerful netbooks. (The Atom chip this year is likely to claim 94% of the netbook market. But analysts like Robert Castellano of market research company The Information Network estimate that by 2012, ARM-based netbooks will overtake Intel-based ones. PC maker Asus’s head, however , said he didn’t see a market for an ARM based netbook that was launched recently).
What trends do you see in mobile phones?
The adoption of smartphones is rising exponentially, even as the growth of entry level and mid-range phones is slowing down. This is because of internet connectivity , 3G, and greater affordability of smart phones.