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Gigabyte Debuts New Motherboards
July 14, 2011 by admin
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Gigabyte just announced their new slate of motherboards that will support AMD’s A75 series chipsets and the latest AMD A-Series APUs or Llano. The new A75 based motherboards are said to offer DIY PC builders and developers a higher level of 3D and multimedia performance that is scalable and said to offer the best value upgrade path imaginable.
Gigabyte’s VP of Service and Marketing Henry Kao is quoted as saying that the new boards were new and exciting as AMD new APU’s were “ground breaking” APU technology. As well as bringing AMD A-Series technology to DIY users who demand excellent gaming and multimedia performance on a budget, these motherboards also offer a compelling upgrade path that includes Dual Graphics configurations.
The A75 motherboards from Gigabyte feature an AMD A75 ‘Hudson’ chipset supporting the latest 32 nanometer AMD A-Series APUs. That said, these chips are the first ever to combine a DX11-capable, high performance graphics processor with the option of a dual or quad core CPU on one silicon die, offering a 3D gaming and multimedia experience which is similar to a discrete graphics configuration.
AMD’s Bulldozer Overclocked To 4.63 GHz
It appears that those techies toying around with samples of AMD’s FX-8130P were able to overclocked this processor to a remarkable 4.63GHz.
That said, Bulldozer appears be AMD’s fastest offering where the eight cores run at 3.8GHz, or up to 4.2GHz with AMD’s Turbo Core 2.0. The processor 8MB of L2 cache, 8MB of L3 cache, supports DDR3 1866MHz and is said to have a 125W TDP.
TSMC May Beat Intel To Market With 3D Chip
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is competing with Intel to become the first technology firm to offer three-dimensional chips that boost the density of transistors in a single semiconductor by up to 1000 times.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, could make its first 3D chips commercially available before the end of 2011, according to a person close to the situation who wishes to remain anonymous.
The time frame for TSMC matches the end of 2011 schedule that Intel has set for the launch of its 3D Tri-Gate chips, which the company expects to be the world’s first commercial 3D chip and the most significant advance in chip technology since the development of the chip transistor in the 1950s.
With several layers of silicon stacked together, a 3D chip can achieve performance gains of about a third while consuming 50% less power. For this reason, 3D chips are particularly well suited to power new generations of mobile devices such as tablets and mobile phones, businesses where Intel has so far failed to establish a significant presence.
“This is definitely a new business opportunity for TSMC,” said Shang-Yi Chiang, senior vice president for R&D at TSMC, in an interview. “We are building a patent portfolio now.”
3D chips are expected to solve a number of problems for chipmakers who are aiming for performance increases in ever-smaller chips. As transistor density rises, the wires connecting them have become both thinner and closer together, resulting in increased resistance and overheating. These problems cause signal delays, limiting the clock speed of central processing units.
“3D chips look more attractive because of their greater density,” Chiang said. “However, it is more difficult to make them because of the testing issues. If you have five stacked dies and one of the dies is bad, you have to scrap the whole thing.”
AMD’s Bulldozer Will Be Late
AMD has confirmed that their Bulldozer chip-set will be delayed until later in the summer.
The FX Series which is codenamed Zambezi is based on the Bulldozer architecture. Unfortunately, AMD didn’t provide an official date they just said that the FX Series is coming in “late summer”, which means do not expect to the chip until probably late August.
Is Intel Facing The Heat?
Analysts at Goldman Sachs are saying that chip maker Intel may be in a pickle as microprocessor shipments slow and it faces stiff competition. That said, analysts have advised stockholders to sell Intel as they downgraded the stock.
James Covello and Simon Schafer of GS said that there will be a surplus in chips due to plant expansion. Meanwhile the rest of the gang on Wall Street is forecasting a six percent year-over-year rise in Intel’s sales, amid expanding gross margins, Goldman says otherwise and that sales will be flat due to excess capacity.
Furthermore, Intel is expected to face problems dealing with better chips from their main rival AMD: while tablets are cannibalising notebooks with ARM kicking its tail in the mobile space.
AMD Drops Prices On Certain Chips
As AMD casually outed their new processor pricing lists. Over all AMD dropped the Athlon series between 2 and 25 percent based on the model. The highly sought after Athlon II X4 645 dropped from $112 to $102 and the eco-friendly 605e dropped from $122 to $98. Dual core and triple core Athlons were shown love as well with cuts between 3 and 12 percent, and 5 and 25 percent respectively.
There are many Phenom deals as well with the dual-core 560 dropping from $102 to $90 bucks. The EE quad-core 905e processors got a price drop around $65.00 dollars bringing the price to $100.00. AMD’s much touted 9xx Black Edition saw roughly a 10 percent price drop too with the flagship Phenom II X6 discounted from $239 to $205.
Intel Unveils 3D Transistor
Intel may have jumped eons ahead of its competitors by redesigning the transistor. Yesterday Intel said the firm will start designing 3D transistors which will let them design smaller and more powerful processors.
The new Tri-gate design apparently will use a 22-nanometer process. The processors using this method will go into production later in the year and should start showing up in computers in 2012 under the code name of “Ivy Bridge”. The new designs should be more eco-friendly since they will consume less power. Intel is saying that a dual-core chip with 22nm tri-gate transistors would use the same amount of power as a 32nm chip. If these specs are valid, the move may give Intel the break it needs to become more competitive in the smartphones and tablet space now dominated by ARM.
AMD Outs Phenom II X4 980
AMD just let the world see the glory of its processor prowess with the introduction of its fastest quad-core processor; which is called the Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition.
The chip is said to run at a lightning fast 3.7GHz. The processor is also features a 6MB of L3 cache and a 125W TDP. Like previous Black Edition processors, the new Phenom is unlocked, which will also those techies to freely overclock the Phenom over 4GHz with no issues.
PC Sales Up This Year
The research firm Canalys is stating that overall worldwide PC sales grew by seven percent last quarter. The firm is report believes the Apple’s iPad was the main factor for the increase. Nevertheless, the jury is still out on whether a tablet can be considered a true PC.
According to Canalys, tablet shipments in the first quarter of 2011 were 6.4 million units and Apple had a 74 percent share. Be advised, Android tablet sales are expected to increase in the later part of 2011.
In the world of true PC’s like laptops, desktops and netbooks, HP is still the king, with 14.6 million units shipped and a 16.6 percent share. While Acer is second, with a 12.8 percent share and 11.3 million units sold last quarter. In reference to year-on-year sales, overall Acer sales saw a drop of 5.8 percent and 6.5 percent respectively. Dell was close on the heels of Acer at third with an 11.3 percent share, and sales of 10 million units and 2.8 percent growth.
2GHz Smartphones On The Horizon
April 19, 2011 by admin
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According to Asian sources, Samsung is apparently developing an ARM based 2GHz dual-core processor. The smartphone is expected to be the first on the market next year about of the Samsung’s Exynos line.
Apparently, this news was leaked from an executive at Samsung who also said the company intends to offer the new processors on its competitors to put on their smartphones and tablets. Samsung is also claiming that the processor will offer PC performance. Our question is what will the performance be based upon?