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Will nVidia’s Quadro Debut In August?
Nvidia appears to be readying new members of its professional Quadro range of graphics cards in time for the August SIGGRAPH 2015 event.
According to VideoCardz the latest Nvidia graphics driver for the Quadro range of graphics cards includes a telltale text string revealing Nvidia’s dark satanic intension.
The new driver adds support for:
NVIDIA_DEV.13F0.1152.103C = “NVIDIA Quadro M5000″
NVIDIA_DEV.13F1.1153.103C = “NVIDIA Quadro M4000″
NVIDIA_DEV.13F2= “NVIDIA Tesla M60″
At the same time last year Nvidia revealed details of the Quadro Kxx2 and since SIGGRAPH 2015 scheduled to start on 9th August (runs until 13th Aug, takes place in downtown LA) it looks like the latest Quadro graphics cards will be also launched.
Of course driver strings do not reveal much detail however the Quadro professional graphics range will be based upon the Maxwell architecture GM204GL graphics processor. We are expecting a 256-bit GPU with a a 4GB or 8GB frame buffer versions.
Then there is the Tesla M60. This GPU based general purpose computing product is expected to be based upon a fully-fledged GM204 GPU with 8GB of GDDR5 memory.
Will nVidia Drop Its Prices
Nvidia is about to release a range of price cuts in a bid to see off AMD in the longer term.
While the price cuts have already happened in the US, in the EU Nvidia’s GTX 980, GTX 980Ti and Titan X are still kept high because people were buying them at the prices the Green Goblin was asking.
In the US where competition between AMD and Nvidia is tighter, the prices dropped by 10 per cent. Ironically since Europeans are more loyal to Nvidia in the high-end graphics cards market the outfit decided they could continue to pay.
According to Kitguru the new R9 Radeon 300 series appears to have upset the apple cart. The cards have been launched at similar prices or lower than Nvidia’s top tier products. Apparently Europeans were thinking of going cheaper since the Green Goblin did not seem to admire their loyalty.
It could force AMD to drop its prices as it can’t remain competitive selling top-end graphics at prices higher than Nvidia’s while having weak selling figures in non-US countries.
It will force AMD to sell its freshly launched Fury X at prices lower than planned, and for such a new card this move damage AMD. Nvidia was expected to drop prices of course, but only for its lower-end products like the 700 or 600 series.
Qualcomm Has A Plethora Of Automobile Modems
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Qualcomm had an IoT event in San Francisco yesterday and the company wanted to talk a bit more about IoT, also known as Internet of Things. They started off with a catchy phrase – Internet of Hype to Internet of Everything.
Dave Aberle said that up to a billion dollars in revenue is coming from the non-mobile market. More than 10 pecent of Qualcomm revenue will come from the non-headset market. They call this market Internet of Everything, but we believe that not all of that market should be called IoT.
IoT is not just the wearable market; it is car modems, connected speakers, action cameras, some smart SanDisk storage solutions, home automation kit and more. Aberle mentioned that Qualcomm has 40 car design wins in the market with 15 different OEMs. We saw some names including Audi on the slide, but the list of obviously much longer.
Qualcomm is the leader in connected car and 4G LTE market, while Nvidia is the leader in Infotainment car systems, having some huge customers behind it, including the Volkswagen Group.
Qualcomm wants to expand its presence in IoT, including automotive solutions, and we expect more IoT designs from them in the near future.
Chipmakers Advocating MIPS Open Source Moves
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Qualcomm Atheros, Lantiq (part of Intel) and Broadcom have joined the Prpl Foundation.
For those who came in late Prple is the organisation set-up by Imagination Technologies to support open-source software on the MIPS architecture.
The big names follow CUPP Computing, Elliptic Technologies, Imperas Software, Kernkonzept and Seltech joined the foundation at lower levels.
In a statement the Foundation said that the newcomers to the prpl Foundation’s board of directors will participate at the executive level and appoint representatives to the technical steering committee and to engineering groups including the security.
So in other words the key players will be advocating an open source approach to MIPS.
Prpl, is open to other architectures, and focuses on “datacenter-to-device portable software and visualized architectures”, it said. Initial domains oem its hit list are: datacenter, networking, storage, connected consumer, embedded and IoT.
Does nVidia See Trouble Ahead?
GPU maker Nvidia is seeing trouble ahead, thanks to a slump in PC sales and a strong US dollar.
The company’s astrologers and tarot card readers have Nvidia predicted lower-than-expected revenue for the second quarter either that or someone is going to meet a tall dark stranger.
Nvidia also reported first-quarter revenue and profit below what the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street estimated.
Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said that there had been a fall in demand from OEMs and PC market which is softer than an Apple fanboy’s bottom.
Worldwide PC shipments fell about 6.7 percent to 68.5 million units in the first quarter, and are expected drop 4.9 percent during the year.
Rival chipmaker AMD reported a steep fall in first-quarter sales last month and said it expected weak demand for PCs to continue for some time.
Nvidia was also hurt by the strong dollar, which has risen about 9 percent. The outfit does a lot of its business in US dollars which has made its GPU gaming more expensive.
The outfit forecast second-quarter revenue of $1.01 billion, plus or minus two percent, below the average analyst estimate of $1.18 billion.
The company’s net income fell to $134 million in the first quarter ended April 26.
Revenue rose 4.4 percent to $1.15 billion, but missed the average estimate of $1.16 billion.
Can MediaTek Take On Qualcomm?
While Qualcomm’s 20nm Snapdragon 810 SoC might be the star of upcoming flagship smartphones, it appears that MediaTek has its own horse for the race, the octa-core MT6795.
Spotted by GforGames site, in a GeekBench test results and running inside an unknown smartphone, MediaTek’s MT6795 managed to score 886 points in the single-core test and 4536 points in the multi-core test. These results were enough to put it neck to neck with the mighty Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 SoC tested in the LG G Flex 2, which scored 1144 points in the single-core and 4345 in the multi-core test. While it did outrun the MT6795 in the single-core test, the multi-core test was clearly not kind on the Snapdragon 810.
The unknown device was running on Android Lollipop OS and packed 3GB of RAM, which might gave the MT6795 an edge over the LG G Flex 2.
MediaTek’s octa-core MT6795 was announced last year and while we are yet to see some of the first design wins, recent rumors suggested that it could be powering Meizu’s MX5, HTC’s Desire A55 and some other high-end smartphones. The MediaTek MT6795 is a 64-bit octa-core SoC clocked at up to 2.2GHz, with four Cortex-A57 cores and four Cortex-A53 cores. It packs PowerVR G6200 graphics, supports LPDDR3 memory and can handle 2K displays at up to 120Hz.
As we are just a few days from Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015 which will kick off in Barcelona on March 2nd, we are quite sure that we will see more info as well as more benchmarks as a single benchmark running on an unknown smartphone might not be the best representation of performance, it does show that MediaTek certainly has a good chip and can compete with Qualcomm and Samsung.
ARM Buys Offspark For IoT
ARM has snaffled up Dutch Internet of Things (IoT) company Offspark.
The move is designed to improve ARM’s security credentials for IoT offerings.
Offspark is the creator of PolarSSL, a widely used protocol for IoT security products, and ARM hopes that the combined companies can offer a one-stop shop for IoT developers.
Krisztian Flautner, ARM’s IoT manager, said: “PolarSSL technology is already deployed by the leading IoT players.
“The fact that those same companies also use ARM Cortex processor and software technologies means we are now able to provide a complete bedrock solution for the industry to innovate from.”
The product will be renamed ARM Mbed TLS, but will remain open source, reports Tech Week Europe.
Paul Bakker, CEO of Offspark, added: “Security is the most fundamental aspect in ensuring people trust IoT technology and that is only possible with a truly tailored solution.
“Together, ARM and Offspark can provide security to the edge of any system and we look forward to working with our partners to help them deliver some exciting new projects.”
Developers will be able to license the technology for commercial use as well as embedding it into future ARM products.
Last week the company released the ARM Cortex-A72 processor, a 64-bit effort offering support for Android 5.x Lollipop and incorporating the big.LITTLE architecture that prioritises jobs to different processor cores based on their computational requirements.
A message on the Offspark website indicates that it has been taken down and redirects to ARM.
Is Qualcomm Losing Steam?
Qualcomm is one of the most successful companies to come out of the smartphone revolution that’s taking place. That’s because their mobile chips are powering many of the devices currently on the market.
The company’s successful strategy was once again confirmed by the latest financial statements with profit estimates between $26 and $28 billion for the full fiscal year. But not everything’s rosy inside Qualcomm as the company did mention they recently lost “a large customer”.
Who could that be? Why, none other than their frenemy, Samsung. Qualcomm’s statement seems to corroborate an earlier report that said Samsung would no longer be sourcing the high-end Snapdragon 810 chip from Qualcomm.
According to the original report, which seems to be all but confirmed now, Samsung experienced overheating issues with the high-end silicone and decided to drop it from its upcoming Galaxy S6 flagship.
Qualcomm’s execs on the other hand said their chip works exactly as intended and they offer proof of that the fact the Snapdragon 810 has already been confirmed to be in LG’s next flagship, and is expected to show up in a number of other devices including the unannounced HTC M9.
ARM Develops IoT For Students
ARM has created a course to teach IoT skills to students at University College London (UCL)
The course is designed to encourage graduates in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) to seek careers in IT.
The IoT Education Kit will teach students how to use the Mbed IoT operating system to create smartphone apps that control mini-robots or wearable devices.
Students are expected to be interested in building their own IoT business, or joining IoT-focused enterprises like ARM. The course will also try to limit the number of Stem graduates pursuing non-technology careers.
ARM reported statistics from a 2012 study by Oxford Policy and Research revealing how many engineering graduates (36 percent of males, 51 percent of females), technology graduates (44 percent, 53 percent) and computer scientists (64 percent, 66 percent) end up with non-Stem jobs.
The IoT Education Kit will be rolled out by UCL’s Department of Electronics from September 2015, with a week-long module for full-time and continuing professional development students.
The Kit comprises a complete set of teaching materials, Mbed-enabled hardware boards made by Nordic Semiconductor, and software licensed from ARM. A second teaching module for engineering graduates is being developed for 2016.
“Students with strong science and mathematical skills are in demand and we need to make sure they stay in engineering,” said ARM CTO Mike Muller.
“The growth of the IoT gives us a great opportunity to prove to students why our profession is more exciting and sustainable than others.”
UCL professor Izzat Darwazeh also highlighted the importance of Stem skills, saying that “many students are not following through to an engineering career and that is a real risk to our long-term success as a nation of innovators”.
Is Qualcomm Overheating?
South Korean smartphone maker LG Electronics Inc said on Thursday that it has not experienced any overheating problems with Qualcomm Inc’s new Snapdragon processor that is powering a curved-screen device going on sale later this month.
“I am very much aware of the various concerns in the market about the (Snapdragon) 810, but the chip’s performance is quite satisfactory,” Woo Ram-chan, LG vice president for mobile product planning, told reporters at a press event for the company’s G Flex2 smartphone.
The comment came after Bloomberg reported a day earlier that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the world’s top smartphone maker, decided not to use the new Qualcomm processor for the next flagship Galaxy S smartphone after the chip overheated during testing. Samsung and Qualcomm have declined to comment on the report, which cited unidentified sources.
Samsung is widely expected to unveil the new Galaxy S smartphone in early March, and Bloomberg reported that the Korean firm will use its own processors instead.
But LG’s Woo said on Thursday that internal tests for the G Flex2, powered by the new Qualcomm processor, show that the new product emits less heat than other existing devices. The new phone is scheduled to start selling in South Korea on Jan. 30.
“I don’t understand why there is a issue over heat,” he said.