While AMD have had things their own way in the DirectX 11 notebook GPU space across a number of price points of late, today sees NVIDIA launch a whole host of competing offerings as they look to try and change that.
At long last, Nvidia has a top-to-bottom lineup of DirectX 11 mobile graphics processors. The company has just introduced seven new GeForce 400M-series graphics processors, which will complement the company's existing, GF100-based GeForce GTX 480M. This is interesting timing for Nvidia, since the firm still hasn't introduced corresponding low-end GeForce 400-series GPUs on the desktop. But I digress...
Nvidia says the new 400M parts, which include the GeForce GTX 470M, GTX 460M, GT 445M, GT 435M, GT425M, GT420M, and GT415M, are up to 40% faster than the 300M-series mobile GeForces they will replace. All seven parts support Optimus switchable graphics technology, and all of the offerings from the GT425M up support GeForce 3D Vision.
For all of the details on the seven products launched today for the notebook market, check out The Tech Report.
Yesterday saw Apple give their adoring public another handful of new product announcements courtesy of their Autumn press event, so what did they have to show those who had gathered? Pretty much everything the rumour mill had been anticipating, in short.
First we had the new iPods. The shuffle got some more buttons and the nano was fundamentally overhauled with the removal of the click-wheel. The result is a device that's almost half the size and weight of its predecessor and is now controlled via the multi-touch screen.
The new iPod touch features a lot of Apple's best new components, including the retina display and the A4 SoC. The other big change is a front-facing camera allowing FaceTime video calls over Wi-Fi with other iOS 4.1 devices, but not the iPad until it gets a camera, which will surely be soon.
Version 10 of iTunes was announced, with the big new feature being Ping - yet another social network to allow you to share all your favourite songs, etc with your mates. Assuming, that is, they don't already know absolutely everything about your every waking thought and action already. Apple also introduced the ability to rent TV shows for 99 cents a time and movies for $4.99, note this is a rental-only thing, which leads us onto the final announcement.
Apple TV was the thing we were most curious about from this event, especially with there being so much activity in this field right now. What was announced was a physical shrink of the box to a fifth of the size of its predecessor and the availability of a bunch of movies and TV from ABC, Fox, Disney Channel and BBC America.
HEXUS has a full round up of what was on show, while Engadget have live coverage of the event as it happened.
Want to know what one of AMD's forthcoming eight-core CPUs will look like naked? Phwoar, of course you do!
Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday displayed a die-shot of the forthcoming central processing unit (CPU) code-named Orochi, which is based on the Bulldozer micro-architecture and will be made using 32nm silicon-on-insulator process technology.
AMD Orochi is projected to be the company's next-generation high-end desktop microprocessors. The chip will feature eight processing engines, but since it is based on Bulldozer micro-architecture, those cores will be packed into four modules. Every module which will have two independent integer cores (that will share fetch, decode and L2 functionality) with dedicated schedulers, one floating point unit with two 128-bit FMAC pipes with one FP scheduler. The chip will have shared L3 cache, dual-channel DDR3 memory controller and will use HyperTransport 3.1 bus. The Orochi chips will use new AM3+ form-factor and will require brand new platforms.
X-Bit Labs have the die shot in all its colourful glory.
Want to see how Unreal Engine 3 shapes up on Apple's family of portable devices? There's an app for that, as Epic Games have now released an application demonstrating its looks and capabilities.
Cary, NC, September 01, 2010 — CARY, N.C. – September 1, 2010 – Epic Games, Inc. today announced its “Epic Citadel” App is now available from the App Store. The app showcases the technical capabilities of Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine 3 on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. In “Epic Citadel,” players navigate a fictional castle realm using simple controls and the innovative Multi-Touch user interface. “Epic Citadel” also features stunning visuals and special effects, with an environment inspired by “Project Sword,” Epic’s newest game.
“Project Sword” is the codename of the all-new action role-playing adventure game exclusively for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch developed by Epic’s critically acclaimed studio, Chair Entertainment, creators of the Xbox LIVE Arcade games of the year “Undertow” and “Shadow Complex.” Scheduled for release later this year, “Project Sword” will bring unrivaled visual fidelity and a highly accessible gameplay experience to the iOS platform.
You can read Epic Games' full press release here, or if you don't own any of the requisite devices check out the video showing "Epic Citadel" in action below.
Looking to build a new Intel-based system right now? You might want to hold out and wait for this rather hefty price cut to hit...
Intel recently dropped the price of its quad-core Core i7-950 processors to US$294 from US$562 to defend from AMD's recent price cuts for its quad-core Athlon II X4 640 CPU from US$122 to US$99, according to sources from motherboard makers.
In addition to the price cut, Intel also recently released Core i3-560, Pentium E6800 and Celeron E3500 processors with prices at US$138, US$86 and US$53, respectively, the sources noted. All the prices are in thousand-unit tray quantities.
If you're an Xbox 360 user, and more specifically an Xbox Live Gold subscriber, then be prepared to shell out more cash for your subscription from November 1st onwards as prices for the service increase. Oddly, if you're in the UK it appears that only one month subscription costs will increase, while US users will be paying more no matter what flavour (or should that be flavor?) of subscription they choose.
After getting their chips onto a couple of MSI motherboard's, the next phase in Lucid's unique multi-GPU technology is to get HydraLogix parts on to single GPU graphics boards to increase the flexibility of those parts when it comes to matching it up with a second card, via an architecture known an Unity. Will this be the move that pushes Lucid's technology into the mainstream? Given the likely additional cost to graphics boards, I'm guessing not.
KFAR NETTER, Israel and SANTA CLARA, California – Aug. 30, 2010 – Today LucidLogix Technologies (Lucid) announced its arming video card manufacturers with the new Unity™ graphics board architecture for the HYDRALOGIX (previously known as HYDRA) engine.
Now graphics board vendors for the first time can combine a single HYDRALOGIX 200 real time distributed processor with any single NVIDIA or ATI GPU, creating an affordable, flexible multi-GPU ready graphics card that can make any motherboard a high performance gaming system.
As the rumours floating around in recent weeks have suggested, the ATI brand name is coming to the end of its life as AMD take over the branding reigns of their graphics division. Our very own digitalwanderer discusses the change, as well as his own thoughts and feelings on the move.
I hate to say it, I really do, but the rumors are true. ATI is no more, AMD is retiring the brand name and will be marketing all the new cards they put out under the AMD Radeon logo as of today August 30th, 2010.
Simple enough idea, but it took me a few days before I could fully process the information. It just seemed too surreal, a world without ATI? No more red team? What will the cards be marketed as, AMD? So it'll be green team vs the green team? What about all my buddies at ATI? Fired? Relocated? Shuffled around and reorganized?
It's time for another retro review, and today Layden has taken a look at a well known classic, Shadow of the Beast.
You play the role of an enslaved beast. One day, you decide to break free from your chains and seek escape. Thus the scene is set for a fairly average run 'n' jump scrolling game, albeit one with an extraordinary atmosphere. You begin in a forest, populated by numerous types of horrible creatures. You can punch, kick or jump over them. The game is initially a 2-way horizontally scrolling game, spread over a large plain. However, at both ends of the plain lies doors that lead to an underground cavern and a creepy castle. Both of these areas take the form of multi-directional scrolling labyrinths.
We probably won't be able to buy one for ourselves until next year, but would you like to know how Intel's next-generation Sandy Bridge architecture is shaping up performance-wise? Of course you would.
Sandy Bridge is a 32nm CPU with an on-die GPU. While Clarkdale/Arrandale have a 45nm GPU on package, Sandy Bridge moves the GPU transistors on die. Not only is the GPU on die but it shares the L3 cache of the CPU.
There are two different GPU configurations, referred to internally as 1 core or 2 cores. A single GPU core in this case refers to 6 EUs, Intel’s graphics processor equivalent (NVIDIA would call them CUDA cores). Sandy Bridge will be offered in configurations with 6 or 12 EUs.
While the numbers may not sound like much, the Sandy Bridge GPU is significantly redesigned compared to what’s out currently. Intel already announced a ~2x performance improvement compared to Clarkdale/Arrandale, and I can say that after testing Sandy Bridge Intel has been able to achieve at least that.
Anandtech have a full preview of a Sandy Bridge CPU in action.
