Computex: Pineview and Ion from ECS Computex: NVIDIA relaunches Tegra Computex: NVIDIA accelerate Flash Computex: AMD 785G

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Computex: Pineview and Ion from ECS   Posted on 14/06/2009 at 23:15 by Damien

	At Computex ECS were showing one of the very first prototypes of a nettop based on Pineview, the successor to the current Atom. Pineview will be a dualcore Atom CPU with built-in northbridge, which will surround the graphics core. The graphics core will still be a GMA950, an identical core to that currently used with the 945 Gx chipset. Pineview nettops from ECS. Pineview will of course present a significant problem for NVIDIA’s Ion platform that will lose its advantage in terms of compactness and energy consumption. It should still have better 3D performance and video play if Intel has not revised its graphics core for this. Several manufacturers admitted that they were waiting to evaluate the capacities of Pineview before planning on using NVIDIA’s built-in Ion chipset. The idea being not to rub up Intel the wrong way for nothing if Pineview corrects the gaps in the current platform quickly. Thus at ECS, many nettops use the built-in NVIDIA chipset, called the GeForce 9300 in some cases and Ion in the most recent, while the netbooks on display all use Intel’s 945GSE architecture. The manufacturer didn’t want to talk about why it has made these choices, but obviously financial pressure from Intel counts for a lot. An integrated system in the screen based on Ion. An original mod, as the system, based on Ion again, is hidden in a false vase made of porcelain.

Computex: NVIDIA relaunches Tegra   Posted on 14/06/2009 at 22:48 by Damien

	NVIDIA launched the Tegra range exactly a year ago at Computex 2008. At that time the manufacturer also held a conference given over to these components and we were therefore waiting for developments. Unfortunately for us, NVIDIA did not more than present its SoC Tegra 6x0s that were announced in June 2008 and which, to recap, are versions of the APX 2500 which first appeared at the beginning of last year. Jen-Hsun Huang, President & CEO of NVIDIA, again unveiled a Tegra 6x0 module that allows you to integrate a whole system on a very small PCB. Tegra 600s and 650s are SoCs that have an ARM11 processor and various processors dedicated to 3D, sound, video etc. This architecture means there’s a great deal of functionality for reduced energy consumption that can target both smartphones, MIDS and netbooks. The biggest fault of the architecture is that it is still not compatible with x86 which means it is limited to Oss such as Windows CE, Windows Mobile and Google Android. A Tegra notebook. NVIDIA is relaunching Tegra after a year so as to continue to draw attention to a technologie that has been quiet. Convincing the industry in this area takes time, especially as we’re talking about a complete change in the architecture of a machine such as a netbook. It is nevertheless in this area that Tegra would seem to be starting to make an impact, more than with MIDs and smartphones. Of course NVIDIA’s response to the fact that we’re not hearing much about Tegra in these areas is that although many manufacturers are working on products based on Tegra, they (NVIDIA) are themselves sworn to secrecy. This may well be, but after a year you can’t keep ducking the obvious: NVIDIA is still working to convince manufacturers. One of the reasons is probably that Tegra is judged too expensive and indeed unnecessary, seeing as, for example, decoding HD 1080p videos isn’t of much use on a smartphone. We’ll probably have to wait until these ultra mobile perpherals need more power and functionality before NVIDIA manages to impose itself. Next year, NVIDIA will be offering a second generation of Tegra products that will be based on a Cortex A9 dualcore CPU and improved processors dedicated to the individual functions: a way of offering even more performance and capacity within the same thermal envelope.

Computex: NVIDIA accelerate Flash   Posted on 14/06/2009 at 22:17 by Damien

	Adobe Flash is one of the most demanding elements of Internet surfing especially when the technologie is used for displaying video. NVIDIA has decided to associate itself with Adobe to develop Flash Player so that it can benefit from GPU acceleration for display of video and other animation. NVIDIA has not however given any more details on this development and we don’t yet know what level of acceleration is planned nor when this version of Flash Player will be available. The manufacturer insists however on the fact that its ultra-mobile platform Tegra will also be able to integrate with Flash Player, which is very important given the difficulties posed by Flash content on numerous MIDs.

Computex: AMD 785G   Posted on 14/06/2009 at 21:51 by Damien

	Most motherboard manufacturers were showing a model based on the forthcoming 785G from AMD. This chipset that should be out this autumn, is a slight evolution on the current 780G from AMD. The main difference comes from the built-in core that changes from a Radeon HD3200 to a Radeon HD 4200. We don’t yet have any info on the exact details of the new built-in core except that it will support DirectX 10.1 this time, like all other current AMD products. The AMD 785G from ECS.