External 3D Card for MSI Seagate invites itself on the SSD market Departure of AMD’s VP of Sales and Marketing 3 Xeon FSB 1600 MHz for Q4 VIA launches a 1 watt CPU A second test of the Penryn AGEIA’s PhysX goes mobile

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External 3D Card for MSI   Posted on 23/08/2007 at 20:35 by Nicolas - source: The Inquirer

	MSI took advantage of the Games Convention, which is currently taking place in Leipzig, to unveil its Notebook Station which takes after Asus’ XG Station, or more specifically uses the concept of a 3D external card for laptops. While this docking station for graphic cards is (unlike the competition) capable of accommodating a double slot graphic card in its PCI-E x16 port, MSI currently recommends the Radeon HD 2600 and GeForce 8600GT, which frankly aren’t overachievers in terms of performances. These cards remain limited, however, because unfortunately it’s still the ExpressCard which is used for the PC connection and not a real PCI-Express x4 or x16 external port. You may recall the native PCI Express lane on ExpressCard is only of the x1 type.

Seagate invites itself on the SSD market   Posted on 23/08/2007 at 19:58 by Nicolas

	After PNY, Seagate has now announced its intention to attack the SSD (Solid State Drive) market starting next year in the Wall Street Journal through its CEO, Bill Watkins. While this company already has some experience with flash because since March it produces hybrid hard drives, they will have to find one or several partners to supply the precious memory. To start with, the creator of the Barracuda intends to make SSD for the professional market, which isn’t too surprising given the current prices. Either way, the arrival of a someone new in this domain can’t be bad for competition.

Departure of AMD’s VP of Sales and Marketing   Posted on 23/08/2007 at 19:42 by Nicolas

	After Dave Orton, former CEO of ATI, left AMD at the end of last month, it’s now Henri Richard, chief of sales and marketing who is willfully leaving his job according to an AMD press release. While Hector Ruiz, CEO of the company, praised the work of his colleague and said that the firm is now in a position to break Intel’s monopoly, this departure comes about at a moment abound with financial difficulties as well as the upcoming launch of a new architecture which hasn’t been without delays.

3 Xeon FSB 1600 MHz for Q4   Posted on 23/08/2007 at 19:13 by Nicolas - source: VR-Zone

	While we already know the launch dates for the first Harpertowns and most Xeons which will follow (including the Wolfdales), Intel has added three Xeons stemming from Penryn architecture to its roadmap from the fourth quarter of 2007 which will usher in the FSB 1600 MHz. They will be two Harpertowns (quad core), the E5472 and E5462 set at 3.0 GHz and 2.8 GHz, respectively, and a Wolfdale-DP (dual core), the E5272 whose frequency will reach 3.4 GHz. All of these CPUs will have a TDP of 80 watts and with their release will be accompanied by the Seaburg chipset which supports the new FSB. The least we can say here is that Intel will quickly have high performances solutions to meet the Barcelona expected out September 10 and whose frequency should surpass 2.0 GHz according to the latest news. Even if faster models should arrive from AMD as well in the fourth quarter, Intel already sets the bar very high.

VIA launches a 1 watt CPU   Posted on 23/08/2007 at 15:49 by Marc

	Today, VIA launched a new version of its Eden ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) processor. Set at only 500 MHz, it’s noteworthy for its power consumption which varies between 0.1 watt in rest and 1 watt in use. Up until now, VIA offered an Eden at 400 MHz and 2.5 watts as well as a 1 GHz and 3.5 watt Eden ULV. In terms of architecture, it is still based on the Esther core (like the C7) and is engraved in 90nm. We should also take note that VIA isn’t the only one in this domain. For more than two years now, AMD has been offering its Geode LX 800@0.9W. It actually consumes 2.4 watts overall, but unlike the Eden ULV is also serves as a Northbridge. AMD, however, announces the consumption of the CPU part alone to be 0.9 watts.

A second test of the Penryn   Posted on 23/08/2007 at 11:49 by Marc

	According to HKEPC, AnandTech was able to obtain a sample of a Wolfdale2.33GHz, the dual core Penryn, which you may recall is an evolution of the Conroe that currently equips the Core 2. The Penryn is distinguished by its engraving in 45nm and an L2 cache of 6 MB amongst other things. The average gain in performances is 4.81%. As is usually the case, this is representative of applications with little or no gain (SYSMark, iTunes, Oblivion) and others where there is more of an impact (DiVX 6.6, Cinebench, Lost Planet) varying from 8.5 to 10.5%. In terms of power consumption, there is a decrease of 4.5W in standby and 18.8W in load. Overclocking tests were carried out in the default voltage of 1.168V where the CPU was able to reach 3.22 GHz. You may recall, the Penryn will arrive in desktop PCs at the end of the year in an « Extreme Edition » quad core version priced at $999, while others are planned for the beginning of 2008.

AGEIA’s PhysX goes mobile   Posted on 23/08/2007 at 00:38 by Damien

	AGEIA has just announced a mobile version of its PhysX processor. Although it hasn’t sold too well in its desktop version besides in high end machines (and therefore which include everything else to justify their exorbitant price) from a handful of manufacturers such as Dell, AGEIA continues its efforts. The mobile version’s consumption is announced at 10W in typical game use and much less in standby in order to adapt to mobile conditions. To accomplish this, standby frequencies were decreased and limited to 10W in games, and AGEIA says to have adapted the number of cores and frequencies in order to preserve the same performances as the desktop version. All of this, while at the same time reducing consumption. Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, this is a very vague explanation. Medion has announced its intention of commercializing this physics accelerator in its new PhysX Gaming PC Sys. 6539 laptop. And AGEIA indicates it has developed a reference module with a laptop manufacturer (probably Medion), which is however accessible to everyone. Now we just have to see if these solutions are of interest and when and if games will really benefit because what we’ve seen up until now really hasn’t been too convincing.