ATI wins DirectX 11 GPU market fight in 1H 2010

Nvidia starting to catch up

 

Judging by the recently announced graphics results from AMD, it looks like the ATI part of the company has delivered some rather nice numbers. The company has sold 16 million Radeon HD 5000 series in the last three quarters

This means that they have shipped 16 million DirectX 11 parts and that Nvidia probably managed only a few hundred thousand. So judging by number cards sold, ATI has won this round by a mile

The second surprising part is that even today Radeon 5850 and 5870 cost as much as they cost six months ago when they launched. Although AMD has slightly reduced HD 5830 pricing in the short term we don’t see any major price cuts and Nvidia is surely catching up with Geforce GTX 400 series, but only in the $199 and up market. Bear in mind that this particular market segment is limited to a handful of people that are willing to pay such money for good graphics

Nvidia's GF106 and GF108 a mainstream and entry level chips are to be expected in late summertime, let’s say August, and by that time, ATI will probably sell a few hundred thousand if not a million more HD 5000 series cards

In its last quarter the company had reported revenues of $440 million and a quite miserable $33 million of profit, but a year ago they had revenue of $235 million and a loss of $17 million

Nvidia is certainly limping with the number of DirectX 11 Fermi and similar parts sold, but overall Nvidia makes much more money with much higher average selling price for its GPUs

Nvidia has Optimus and quite a strong following of people who want their GPUs and once they make a decent DirectX 11 mobile GPU, they will continue to grow in this market segment. ATI is doing purely in mobile computing and Nvidia as you should know by now makes a lot of money on professional CAD / CAM market and nowadays they make some decent margins selling GPUs for super computers

Overall ATI wins this round, they could make better profits out of it but they own the DirectX 11 market. Nvidia still makes a lot of money with its outdated DirectX 10 cards, but they surely know how to sell them for much higher profit.  The biggest issue for Nvidia is that once they have the whole DirectX 11 line up, ATI will be ready to move to its second generation DirectX 11 product line

Of course ATI can thank Nvidia for being late with Fermi, and even when the company launched it after six month delay, it was not as great as people have expected, but knowing Nvidia, once they fall on its face, they always tend to return stronger

Logitech shows its Z506 5.1 speakers

Quite good for $100

Logitech has announced a quite interesting 5.1 speaker system that will not hurt your wallet and should appeal to a wide population of budget minded consumers, the Z506 5.1. The new Z506 can be connected to wide variety of devices via 3.5mm input and RCA connection so consoles, computers and media/MP3 players are pretty much covered

Despite its quite interesting US $100 price tag, the Z506 offers quite a punch with its 27W subwoofer, four 8W speakers and a 16W center speaker. All adds to 75W of RMS power and Logitech even added the support for 3D Stereo surround sound

The Z506 should show up in retail sometime next month

Microsoft blasts Apple over iPhone 4 issues

Shoots itself in the foot in the process

 

Microsoft appears to be quite pleased with Apple’s iPhone 4 issues and a company executive has gone on record saying that he’s “okay” with Apple’s troubles. Truth be told, after the Kin disaster Microsoft probably shouldn’t be handing out smartphone advice to anyone, least of all Apple

During his keynoted at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft’s COO Kevin Turner blasted Apple over the iPhone 4, but he also managed to shoot himself in the foot

“It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I’m okay with that,” said Turner. Basically he admitted that Vista was overpriced and broken at launch

He also told the crowd that Windows Phone 7 handsets will work no matter how you hold them, provided Windows Phone 7 manages to outlive the Kin

More here

Point of View gets its AMG overclocked cards

TGT cards powered by Wolfram

 

Many of you should know a company that goes by the name of Point of View and with XFX out of the picture and with EVGA weaker than before, it was quite logical that this Dutch company would get quite a lot of market presence. The only thing missing were overclocking and sexy products and as of next week this is supposed to change

We were informed that the legendary Wolfram Tismer has set up a company that will do overclocking for Point of View and brand them TGT. He will definitely be a good match to power the Point of View that is run by quite successful graphics diplomat Bjorn Soli

What AMG is to Mercedes, that should be the TGT brand for Point of View. The first overclocked GTX 460 cards with clocks of 780 to 820MHz should show up as early as next week. We were told that Point of View TGT should also end up with some GF104 based products even faster than 820MHz and all this will be pre-tested and covered with a nice warranty

Wolfram and a few of the guys in his team have broad experience and he was one of the key people responsible for getting Gainward and later EVGA overclocking products the fame that they have today. One can only hope that the tradition will continue and we can confirm that Geforce GTX 460 TGT won't be the only card from this lab

Apple to hold iPhone 4 press conference tomorrow morning

  

Likely to discuss antenna issue and iOS 4.1 software fix

Several hours ago, Apple announced that it would hold a press conference tomorrow on Friday morning to discuss the iPhone 4, as growing concerns about the device's antenna issue spread through popular consumer media like wildfire and add to the company's massive PR nightmare

To give a brief perspective of just how immediate this press conference was announced, Apple began notifying its selected guests on Wednesday evening and expects them to make it over to their headquarters by Friday morning. This gives a large portion of press analysts and bloggers just a little over a day's notice to fly out from the East Coast and all over the world and join the fruit-themed toymaker at an open-ended discussion of the iPhone 4. For many, this means last minute cross-country flights, of which Apple will not be paying for. So in order to make it up to these poor souls who have been dragged into attending the event for business purposes, we sincerely hope that the company is prepared to give a humble, open-ended meeting and answers every question about the iPhone 4 that has been widely publicized up until this point

Apple Headquarters - 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California

If successful, this will be the first time the company straightforwardly addresses the public on the antenna drama that has plagued the iPhone 4's product image since launch day on June 24th. TechCrunch blogger M.G. Siegler has pointed out that the company will probably mention the iPhone 4 actually has the best antenna Apple has ever produced. He also assumes that its engineers will undoubtedly present scientific results to back their claims, and suspects that there might be several antenna engineering specialists and wireless industry experts in the room to offer their insights as well

The fun begins tomorrow morning, July 16, 2010, 10am PST at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. A few notable Apple bloggers have already reported they will be attending the conference, and we look forward to the information they post as it becomes available

Retailers apparently cutting HD 5800 prices

Rolling out the red carpet for GTX 460

 

It appears that some retailers and/or AMD AIBs are preparing to cut HD 5800 prices in order to maintain their lead over Nvidia and fend off the GTX 460. Bear in mind that there is still no official confirmation on any price cuts and we are merely monitoring some early listings in the US and EU

For example, HD 5830 prices on Newegg appear to be going down and several cards are listed at $199. This is not a major cut, just $10 to $20, but it doesn’t have to be, as Nvidia’s GTX 768MB cards are selling for $199. However, the HD 5830 ships with 1GB of memory and it features a 256-bit bus, so it has a bit of an advantage over Nvidia’s 192-bit card. EU prices appear to be following suit, but bear in mind that some EU retailers were offering HD 5830 for less than €199 more than a month ago

The situation is somewhat more blurry when it comes to the HD 5850. A British e-tailer is apparently shipping them at €239, but most prices on the mainland remain unchanged. Amazon.de is listing HD 5850 cards at €243, but they are still not available at the list price. Stateside there are no major changes, but there were some slight drops and the HD 5850 can be yours for $299.

Basically it appears that some price cuts are coming, but they will not be significant. Distributors might just cut prices by as little as 5 percent in order to match the GTX 460 price point, especially with the HD 5830. However, take this with a grain of salt. Thanks to unstable currency exchange rates and the depreciation of the euro, EU prices have been erratic in past weeks. In fact, many products in the EU still retail at higher prices than several months ago thanks to weakness of the euro

EVGA GTX 460 Superclocked in SLI previewed

Preview: 90 percent faster Aliens vs. Predator

A couple of days ago, Nvidia launched GTX 460 cards with a suggested price of €200 for the 768MB model. Gamers who can’t afford more expensive Nvidia DirectX 11 cards will find the GTX 460 to be a great deal, as it’s small, quiet but packs one mean punch. The card is built around the GF104 chip, which is basically a mid-range oriented and further polished Fermi. GF104 has less transistors and runs cooler than its predecessor, but it seems like it offers more performance than the cards with the crippled GF100 chip

The weather, which in our case is as close to being burned alive as possible, isn’t quite what you’d call perfect for trying out SLI, but we like to torment equipment so we gave it a shot. GTX 460 cards ran great in SLI and we had no overheating. The GPU on EVGA’s GTX 460  768MB Superclocked runs at 763MHz, but temperatures still didn’t exceed 84°C in auto-fan mode. The card in the upper PCI-E slot is slightly hotter, which is expected as the card’s centrally placed fans draws air from around the already hot card below. This results in about 6°C hotter operation for the upper card in idle

GTX 460 768MB card comes with a 150W TDP. Our test rig equipped with EVGA GTX 460 768MB Superclocked drew up to 299 whereas the scenario with GTX 460 768MB in SLI resulted in consumption of about 490W





Aliens vs. Predator didn’t manage to double a single card’s results but it came really close – we measured about 90% better results. As you can see from the tables, we tried SLI with two EVGA GTX 460 768MB cards at reference clocks, as well as with Superclocked clocks



3DMark Vantage reports significant performance boost compared to a single card and it’s even more evident with the higher workload. Performance test saw 65% better results, High test saw 76% whereas Extreme SLI resulted in 81% better performance


It will be interesting to compare results with the GTX 480 and HD 5870, so stay tuned as we’ll have the full review soon

New high end card has two GF104 chips

Comes later this year

 

We got some confirmation that GTX 480 will get a successor, and this new card will be made out of two GF104 chips

The card will have two GTX 460 chips so to speak and with the right clocks it could be faster. It is too early to know the exact specification but as a hint what to expect, the full GF104 chip has eight clusters with 48 shaders each, and the card with total 384x2 is possible. This is of course if Nvidia manages to enable all shaders and clock the chip to some decent clocks, say 700+ MHz

The dual card can end up with up to 768 shaders, but we are quite sure that the final number will be lower than that. As for the memory, GDDR5 is of course the first choice and the clocks speeds around 4000MHz should be possible

The only thing we can confirm is that the new high end “GX2 Fermi successor” dual card has two GF104 chips and that the performance wise it should be the fastest thing on market, at least it should end up faster than Radeon HD 5970 X2 card, but then again, ATI is not sitting around with its legs crossed

Intel posts record earnings

A quarter to remember

 

Intel has reported the best quarter in its history, exceeding even the most optimistic forecasts

Gross margins jumped to 67 percent and revenue topped $10.7 billion in the second quarter. The company reported profits of 2.89 billion, or 51 cents per share. Basically Intel managed to outperform all forecasts by a significant margin

Of course, the good news did not go unnoticed by Wall Street and shares jumped 8 percent in after-hours trading. In fact, the entire tech sector was up on the news, including rivals AMD and Nvidia, which jumped 5.5 percent and 3.5 percent respectively

Intel is projecting further increases in gross margin figures and revenues towards the end of the year

Gainward's GTX 460 Golden Sample Goes Like Hell previewed

Preview: If hell ever ran, it would run like this

Almost all Nvidia partners were ready with their GTX 460 cards yesterday, many of which come pre-overclocked. As far as we know, Gainward took the biggest step in overclocking and managed to push the GPU from the reference 675MHz to 800MHz. Nvidia has said that the majority of GTX 460 cards will run at 800MHz with no trouble, and it seems like Gainward found the exact source of this “majority” and now sells them branded as GTX 460 1024MB Golden Sample Goes Like Hell

Although there was no need for non-reference cooling this time around, since the reference cooling is quiet and efficient, Gainward still strapped the card with its cooler. Furthermore, the company redesigned the PCB, which is now shorter than reference. Gainward GTX 460 1024MB GDDR5 Golden Sample Goes Like Hell runs at 800MHz for the GPU and 1600 for the shaders, whereas the memory is at 1000MHz (4000MHz effectively). Just for comparison purposes, reference clocks are 675MHz GPU and 900MHz memory (3600MHz effectively). Thankfully, with such high operating clocks, many won’t even need to overclock the card further



So, we’re talking about a 1024MB memory on a 256-bit memory interface and with 32 ROPs. We must say that GS-Goes Like Hell fully deserves its name, as you’ll soon see for yourself. The cooler does its job well and the card is quiet in both operation modes – idle and 3D



Gainward has come up with a total of three cards based on the new GF104, one reference with 768MB of memory and two factory overclocked 1GB GTX 460 cards



The top of the line is the Gainward GTX 460 GS-GLH, or short for Golden Sample Goes Like Hell edition. The next in line is the GTX 460 GS set at 700MHz for the GPU, 1400MHz for shader and 3600MHz for the same 1GB of GDDR5 memory

The last but not least is the reference GTX 460 with 768MB of memory and clocks set at 675MHz for the GPU, 1350MHz for shaders and 3600MHz for memory. All three cards feature 336 CUDA cores, feature support for DirectX 11 and Nvidia's CUDA, SLI and PhysX

Although it looks like all three cards use the same silent cooler, that isn't the case as Gainward decided to use its GP Heatpipes on those two overclocked cards. This one has 6mm copper-water heatpipes and a "Great 8cm" double ball bearing fan. All three cards feature the same connectivity so you are looking at D-Sub, DVI and HDMI outputs

Talking about gaming, you should know that the GTX 460 1GB will allow for pleasant gaming of newer titles at 1920x1280. Stay tuned as we’ll follow up with a full review soon

Nvidia rolls out Geforce 258.96 driver

For its GTX 460 cards

Following the launch of its GTX 460 graphics cards, Nvidia has rolled out its newest Geforce 258.96 driver that should take care of the aforementioned card. In addition to the GTX 460 cards, the new WHQL driver also supports Geforce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300 and the rest of the 400 series cards as well as Nvidia's ION GPUs

As far as features are concerned, the new driver adds support for Nvidia's 3D Vision Surround, updates PhysX software to version 9.10.0224 and HD Audio driver to 1.0.15.0, and brings performance increases for Geforce GTX 400 series GPUs in several PC games

The performance improvements include games like Metro 2033 for both single and SLI setups, Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X, Crysis: Warhead, Aliens vs Predator, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat, World in Conflict and Just Cause 2. Don't expect any wonders as the biggest performance increase is in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat and Aliens vs. Predator, and it is mere 10 to 12 percent

You can find the new driver here

Palit first with 800MHz GTX 460

With its GTX 460 Sonic Platinum

Before the launch of the Nvidia Geforce GTX 460, we wrote that Nvidia gave a nod for an 800MHz clocked GTX 460 card and it was just a matter of time before one of the partners showed such a card. Although our best guess was EVGA, it looks like Palit was the one to look at, as its GTX 460 Sonic Platinum works at exactly 800MHz

Palit's GTX 460 Sonic Platinum card looks identical to Palit's Sonic card, execept for the fact that the Platinum Edition works at 800MHz for the GPU, 1600MHz for those 336 CUDA cores and 4000MHz for the 1GB of GDDR5 memory. It looks like Palit also redesigned the PCB on this one as well, as this time we are looking at the red PCB with power connectors placed on the top of the card rather than on the front of it

Palit's Sonic Platinum looks like a great surprise as it uses a simple centered placed fan which appears to be enough to keep the card at below 60 degrees while performance was way over AMD's HD 5850 and on par with GTX 470 cards in total performance rating

Guys from Tweaktown managed to get one of those in their lab so you can check out the rest of the benchmarks and pictures over there

OCZ shows its new DDR3 2133MHz kits

4GB 2133MHz modules

OCZ has announced the latest addition to its memory lineup, a new 4GB module capable of running at 2133MHz

It will be available with OCZ's Flex EX, Reaper HPC as well as Platinum series, in both dual and triple-channel configurations, so you can expect both 8GB and 12GB DDR3-2133 kits that are rated to work at this speed

All kits will be working at 1.65V with 2133MHz clock and either 8-9-8-27 or 10-10-10-30 latencies depending on the series

As always, all kits are backed by a lifetime warranty and should be available pretty soon

Gigabyte puts WindForce cooler on GTX 460

Dual slot, dual fan and factory overclock

In addition to reference GTX 460 cards announced yesterday, Gigabyte has also prepared a WindForce series card based on the same GPU. Featuring a non-reference dual slot cooler, these GTX 460 cards will also be available as a 768 and 1024MB version and will feature a factory overclock

The new WindForce cards will work at 715MHz for the GPU, 1430MHz for those 336 CUDA cores and 3600MHz for either 768 or 1024MB of GDDR5 memory. It also features Gigabyte's 2oz copper PCB, Japanases solid capacitors, Low RDS mosfet and Ferrite/Metal core chokes as well as only Samsung and Hynix memory chips

The new WindForce cooler features two pure copper heatpipes connected to a large heatsink which is then cooled by a dual quiet PWM Windforce fans that have anti-turbulence inclined-fin. The Windforce cooler should provide up to 11 percent better cooling

Both cards should be available on the market pretty soon

Black Ops could out perform MW2

Activision excited at pre-order pace

 

Despite all of the drama surrounding Activision and Infinity Ward, Call of Duty: Black Ops looks to be ahead of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2; at least if you are going by the pace of the number of pre-orders. Sources tell us that Activision is increasing their estimated sales numbers for Black Ops, which is set to be released this holiday season

The Treyarch-developed Call of Duty title has Activision excited, as retailers are reporting significant pre-order bookings for the title. Our sources tell us that it is possible that Black Ops could sell as many as 12 million copies before the end of the year and the number could go even higher

In the past the Infinity Ward-produced titles have outsold the Treyarch-developed titles, but retailers as well as several analysts are expecting things to be a lot closer this time around. “It would seem that players are attracted to what they have seen so far from Black Ops, and Treyarch might have gotten it right this time around; and while sales might not surpass Modern Warfare 2, it is possible that they could. This isn’t something that we would have thought possible prior to E3,” one analyst who wished to remain anonymous told us

Activision created a police state

Sounds like it has the makings of a good game

The court case over the row between Activision and the makers of its highly successful Modern Warfare 2 game has escalated into something like a game plot.
If you looking at Game Mag Kotaku you will see an intro which looks like the back of a box for an Activision game

“Guarded doors, secret interrogations and broken promises are just the latest allegations laid out in the ongoing saga about the break-up between the world's largest game publisher and the people in charge of creating Modern Warfare 2,” it wrote According to the developers of Modern Warfare 2 Activision created a "police state" where they conducted secret "interrogations" of employees

The outfit held $54 million dollars hostage as they tried to threaten and cajole the team behind Modern Warfare 2 into making the next Modern Warfare game. More than 40 past and present Infinity Ward developers have banded together in April to sue the publishers of Modern Warfare 2 for half a billion dollars, alleging breach of contract and unpaid royalties

Orginally they wanted half a billion from the company in punitive damages and unpaid bonuses but now it seems that they want $216 million. In March Activision paid 40 percent of the Modern Warfare 2 bonus money to the team, but withheld the rest, demanding that Infinity Ward develop, produce, complete and publish Modern Warfare 3 by November 2011 to get the rest of the cash

Activision conducted secret interrogations of staff and told the employees not to tell anyone about them. The outfit was so scare they paid for security personnel to man the office exits, according to the suit. Later that month, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick promised the full bonus at the end of the month, but that never happened. When a group of employees met with CFO Thomas Tippl they were told to "Get over it." Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella, who were fired want $36 million unpaid royalties. Their suit claims there was an "Orwellian," "pre-ordained" investigation designed to "manufacture a basis to fire" the studio founders

This one looks like it will be a lot of fun

MSI launches its GTX 460 Cyclone cards

A total of four cards

Now that the GTX 460 NDA is over, MSI has rolled out a total of four graphics based on the GTX 460 GPU. All of the cards feature MSI's Cyclone dual-slot cooler and use military class components. In addition to two reference clocked cards, MSI has also rolled out two identical ones but with a slight factory overclock

The new MSI GTX 460 Cyclone card will be available in 768MB/192-bit or 1GB/256-bit version and while reference ones are clocked at 675MHz for the GPU, 1350MHz for those 336 CUDA cores, the OC series works at 725MHz and 1450MHz. All four version have a 3600MHz clocked GDDR5 memory

The Cyclone cooler features two heapipes and a 90mm fan and according to MSI should be up to 15.7 percent quiter than the reference card. The cards should also be a bit cooler but bear in mind that this one keeps the hot air mostly inside the case as it has no plastic shroud, rather than to push it out of the case

The cards should start to appear in retail/e-tail pretty soon

Asus shows its overclocked GTX 460 cards

   

DirectCU ones

In addition to regular stock clocked GTX 460 cards, Asus has rolled out two special ones with DirectCU cooler

The ENGTX460 DirectCU TOP/2DI/768MD5 and ENGTX460 DirectCU TOP/2DI/1GD5 feature identical design and both work at 700MHz for the GPU, 1400MHz for those 336 CUDA cores and 3680MHz for either 1GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 256-bit memory interface or 786MB of GDDR5 memory paired up with 192-bit memory interface

The cards use the same DirectCU cooler that has an 8mm heatpipes and offers up to 20 percent better cooling performance compared to reference cooler. Asus was also keen to point out that both of these cards support its Voltage Tweak and are bundled with the Voltage Tweak utility so you can get up to 50 percent higher performance with a pinch of voltage adjusting and overclocking

Both cards should be available pretty soon although you can expect a slightly higher price tag due to the DirectCU cooler

Gainward launches three GTX 460 cards

Tops with Golden Sample Goes Like Hell card

As most partners did or shall do, Gainward has also released its Geforce GTX 460 card. In order to use the overclockability of the GF104 GPU, Gainward has come up with a total of three cards, one reference with 768MB of memory and two factory overclocked 1GB GTX 460 cards

The top of the line is the Gainward GTX 460 GS-GLH, or short for Golden Sample Goes Like Hell edition which will be working at 800MHz for the GPU, 1600MHz for shaders and 4000MHz for that 1GB of GDDR5 memory. The next in line is the GTX 460 GS set at 700MHz for the GPU, 1400MHz for shader and 3600MHz for the same 1GB of GDDR5 memory

The last but not least is the reference GTX 460 with 768MB of memory and clocks set at 675MHz for the GPU, 1350MHz for sahders and 3600MHz for memory. All three cards feature 336 CUDA cores, feature support for DirectX 11 and Nvidia's CUDA, SLI and PhysX

Although it looks like all three cards use the same cooler, that isn't the case as Gainward decided to use its GP Heatpipes on those two overclocked cards. This one has 6mm copper-water heatpipes and a "Great 8cm" double ball bearing fan. All three card feature the same connectivity so you are looking at D-Sub, DVI and HDMI outputs

Sparkle readies GeForce GTX 460 2GB

   

Reference clocked though

Sparkle is apparently the only Nvidia partner to come up with a 2GB version of the newly launched GeForce GTX 460 card and although the usefulness of so much memory on a GF104 is dubious, at least it’s getting Sparkle some press coverage

Unfortunately it seems like a half hearted effort, as Sparkle stopped short of overclocking the new card. So, it’s still reference clocked, but users will probably be able to squeeze out a few more fps on their own

However, Sparkle will introduce an overclocked 1GB version, clocked at 700/1485/3600 MHz. Of course, the company will offer reference 768MB boards as well

EVGA releases its GeForce GTX 460 lineup

DirectX 11 performance for budget minded individuals

Our friends over at EVGA have just announced their new Geforce GTX 460 lineup in celebration of the card’s worldwide launch today, complete with a whopping six-card lineup to appeal to a wide range of consumer budgets. This card is Nvidia’s first in a series of upcoming second-generation Fermi GPUs that will surface the market over the next year, and we are excited to learn that many of the company’s add-in board partners, including EVGA, are providing consumers with a variety of pricing options for this very anticipated graphics card

Over the years, EVGA has held a reputation for differentiating GPU models of the same product line with acronyms including SC (SuperClocked), SSC (SuperSuperClocked), FTW (For The Win) and Black Edition (before 2009). With the addition of the Geforce GTX 460 in its mainstream lineup, it is now adding yet another product differentiation acronym dubbed “EE” for External Exhaust. The company hopes this should allow customers to more easily identify the differences between a GPU of the same product line with a heatsink/fan combination that pushes exhaust air out the back of the card versus inside one that leaves exhaust air inside the system chassis

First up on the list is the EVGA Geforce GTX 460 SuperClocked 1GB EE (01G-P3-1373-AR) with external exhaust. This card features 336 processing cores clocked at 763MHz, a 1526MHz shader clock and a 3800MHz memory clock with 1024MB of 256-bit GDDR5 and 121.6GB/sec memory bandwidth. This card is EVGA’s flagship Geforce GTX 460 and is currently on pre-order for $249.99.

Next up is the EVGA Geforce GTX 460 1GB EE (01G-P3-1371-AR) with external exhaust. This card features 336 processing cores clocked at 675MHz, a 1350MHz shader clock and a 3600MHz memory clock with 1024MB of 256-bit GDDR5 and 115.2GB/sec memory bandwidth. This card is currently on pre-order and will be available soon for $239.99.

EVGA has also gone out of its way to release four different 768MB 192-bit GDDR5 versions of the GTX 460. First on the list is the EVGA Geforce GTX 460 SuperClocked EE (768-P3-1363-TR) with external exhaust. This card features 336 processing cores clocked at 763MHz, a 1526MHz shader clock and a 3600MHz memory clock with 768MB of 192-bit GDDR5 and 91.2MB/sec memory bandwidth. The card is currently on pre-order and will be available soon for $209.99.

Next on the list of 768MB cards is the EVGA Geforce GTX 460 SuperClocked (768-P3-1362-AR) with standard exhaust. This card features 336 processing cores clocked at 763MHz, a 1526MHz shader clock and a 3800MHz memory clock with 768MB of 192-bit GDDR5 and 91.2GB/sec memory bandwidth. This card is currently available on EVGA’s site for $219.99.

Third on the list of 768MB cards is the vanilla EVGA Geforce GTX 460 EE (768-P3-1361-TR) with external exhaust. This card features 336 processing cores clocked at 675MHz, a 1350MHz shader clock and a 3600MHz memory clock with 768MB of 192-bit GDDR5 and 86.4GB/sec memory bandwidth. This card is currently on pre-order and will be available soon for $199.99.

Last on the list of 768MB cards is the vanilla EVGA Geforce GTX 460 (768-P3-1360-TR) with standard exhaust. This card features 336 processing cores clocked at 675MHz, a 1350MHz shader clock and a 3600MHz memory clock with 768MB of 192-bit GDDR5 and 86.4GB/sec memory bandwidth. This card is currently available on EVGA’s site for $199.99.

For some reason, it seems that the pricing pattern EVGA has set on its GTX 460s may lead consumers to believe that the standard exhaust models are superior to the external exhaust models. For instance, the vanilla EVGA Geforce GTX 460 SuperClocked 768MB is priced at $219.99, while the vanilla EVGA Geforce GTX 460 SuperClocked EE 768MB is priced at $209.99. Last time we measured ambient temperatures in our chassis with multiple GPUs, the units with external exhaust heatsink/fan designs averaged lower idle temperatures and provided slightly more legroom for overclocking on air. While we may be mistaken about the temperature differences between these two unique EVGA designs, we found it to be an interesting observation and look forward to seeing some comparison tests on the community forums

In addition, the company has also uploaded a comical GeForce GTX 460 Overview clip to its EVGA On The Tube page on YouTube that can be viewed below

NVIDIA Tesla™ C2050 Computing Processor, 3GB GDDR5 1.5GHz, PICe x16, Retail

NVIDIA 900-21030-2201-000 DESCRIPTION

 

Note: This board is NOT a video card. It has no display outputs for connecting a monitor. It is a processor that offloads the computation from the computer’s CPU. Also note that for operation under Windows XP, this board requires a NVIDIA graphics display board or motherboard NVIDIA graphics. This is not a requirement for Linux operation

Overview

Tesla C2050 / C2070 GPU Computing Processor
NVIDIA® Tesla™ C2050/2070 Computing Processor delivers supercomputing power at 1/20th the power consumption and 1/10th the cost, bringing the performance of a small cluster to the desktop

The NVIDIA Tesla™ C2050 and C2070 Computing Processors fuel the transition to parallel computing and bring the performance of a small cluster to the desktop. Based on the next-generation CUDA architecture codenamed “Fermi”, the 20-series family of Tesla GPUs support many “must have” features for technical and enterprise computing including C++ support, ECC memory for uncompromised accuracy and scalability, and a 7X increase in double precision performance compared Tesla 10-series GPUs. The Tesla™ C2050 and C2070 GPUs are designed to redefine high performance computing and make supercomputing available to everyone

Compared to the latest quad-core CPUs, Tesla C2050 and C2070 Computing Processors deliver equivalent supercomputing performance at 1/10th the cost and 1/20th the power consumption

Features

GPUs powered by the Fermi-generation of the CUDA architecture
Delivers cluster performance at 1/10th the cost and 1/20th the power of CPU-only systems based on the latest quad core CPUs

448 CUDA Cores
Delivers up to 515 Gigaflops of double-precision peak performance in each GPU, enabling a single workstation to deliver a Teraflop or more of performance. Single precision peak performance is over a Teraflop per GPU

ECC Memory
Meets a critical requirement for computing accuracy and reliability for workstations. Offers protection of data in memory to enhance data integrity and reliability for applications. Register files, L1/L2 caches, shared memory, and DRAM all are ECC protected

Desktop Cluster Performance
Solves large-scale problems faster than a small server cluster on a single workstation with multiple GPUs

Up to 6GB of GDDR5 memory per GPU
Maximizes performance and reduces data transfers by keeping larger data sets in local memory that is attached directly to the GPU

NVIDIA Parallel DataCache™
Accelerates algorithms such as physics solvers, ray-tracing, and sparse matrix multiplication where data addresses are not known beforehand. This includes a configurable L1 cache per Streaming Multiprocessor block and a unified L2 cache for all of the processor cores

NVIDIA GigaThread™ Engine
Maximizes the throughput by faster context switching that is 10X faster than previous architecture, concurrent kernel execution, and improved thread block scheduling

Asynchronous Transfer
Turbocharges system performance by transferring data over the PCIe bus while the computing cores are crunching other data. Even applications with heavy data-transfer requirements, such as seismic processing, can maximize the computing efficiency by transferring data to local memory before it is needed

CUDA programming environment with broad support of programming languages and APIs
Choose C, C++, OpenCL, DirectCompute, or Fortran to express application parallelism and take advantage of the “Fermi” GPU’s innovative architecture. NVIDIA Parallel Nsight™ tool is available for Microsoft Visual Studio developers

High Speed, PCIe Gen 2.0 Data Transfer
Maximizes bandwidth between the host system and the Tesla processors. Enables Tesla systems to work with virtually any PCIe-compliant host system with an open PCIe x16 slot

*Note: With ECC on, a portion of the dedicated memory is used for ECC bits, so the available user memory is reduced by 12.5%. (e.g. 3 GB total memory yields 2.625 GB of user available memory.).

About NVIDIA Corporation

Nvidia is a multinational corporation which specializes in the development of graphics processing units and chipset technologies for workstations, personal computers, and mobile devices. Based in Santa Clara, California, the company has become a major supplier of integrated circuits (ICs), designing graphics processing units (GPUs) and chipsets used in graphics cards, in personal-computer motherboards, and in video game consoles

AVADirect Custom Computers is Authorized NVIDIA Reseller and System Ingerator

Partnership with leading hardware suppliers provides AVADirect great benefits of lower pricing, enhanced technical support and prioritized new product delivery to make sure that our customers always get the latest technology and the best value. Being partnered with many quality hardware suppliers in the industry, we at AVADirect are proud to inform that we were recognized as an authorized NVIDIA reseller and system integrator

Half Windows 7 installs are 64-bit

Software slow to catch up

 

Nearly half of Windows 7 installs are using 64-bit, despite the fact that the software industry insists on making 32-bit code. Figures just out from Microsoft show that 46 percent are using 64-bit versions of the operating system. Vista only ever managed 11 percent

For the great unwashed there is little point using 64-bit. They are not going to benefit from being able to use more RAM. But there are other advantages 64-bit Windows can make systems such as ASLR stronger. However despite the fact that Windows 64-bit adoption has more or less happened.  Software makers are still dragging their feet and providing viable code

One problem are Web browsers and their plugins. Plugins like Flash have no 64-bit version. And although Internet Explorer has had a 64-bit version for many years, other Windows browsers have not yet followed suit. Firefox 4 may include a 64-bit Windows version but that would be pants if you can't fun Flash on it, just ask an Apple user

However it is worth pointing out that 64-bit migration is happening faster than the switch from 16- to 32-bit software. Intel's first 32-bit processor was released in 1985; it wasn't until Windows 95 that anyone used it. It was not until XP came out that 16-bit was dumped completely

Intel to kill off Celerons in 2011

Dual Atoms and Pentiums to fill the gap

 

According to Digitimes, Intel has told its notebook partners that it will phase out Celeron processors in 2011. The venerable Celerons will be replaced by dual-core Atom processors as well as some Pentium SKUs

We’re already seen a couple of dual-core Atoms in unannounced netbooks, the CPUs are slated to go on sale soon, during this quarter. The 1.5GHz Atom N550 should be the first mobile dual-core Atom to appear. However, at $86 it costs the same as a P4500, which is a proper dual-core processor, so it doesn’t sound like a very good deal

Intel has relied on several Celeron processors in the entry level market, ranging from the single core Celeron 900 to the dual-core P4500. It also offers two Celeron ULV parts for thin-and-light notebooks. Intel will introduce several faster Celeron SKUs by September, but they will obviously have a limited lifespan

More here

G.Skill shows off 24GB DDR3 kit

2,000MHz at CL8

Following in the footsteps of all other memory makers, G.Skill has also launched its own 24GB DDR3 kit. The new Trident kit consists of six 4GB modules rated to work at 2000MHz at CL8 latencies

The same kit was demonstrated back at Computex, but back then it was working at the same speeds with CL9 latency. Today, G.Skill has once again squeezed a bit more out of this one scoring a 2,000MHz but at tighter 8-9-8-24 latencies at the same 1.65V

Of course, such kit asks for quite some cooling power so this one has G.Skill's memory cooler mounted on top of it, but that's a small price to pay for such settings

Nvidia's GTX 460 to be great overclocker

Nvidia nods for 800MHz

It looks like Nvidia's upcoming GTX 460 card has s lot of overclocking headroom as we are hearing that even Nvidia gave the nod for up to 800MHz. Most partners, if not all, will go for a factory overclocked card, and some might even hit the magical 800MHz mark

We already caught a glimpse of MSI's card that works at 725MHz for the GPU and it's quite a boost from the reference 675MHz, but we guess that some partners will go even higher. The best bet for the 800MHz card is EVGA, as it has always launched at least three cards and Superclocked version might be the one that will go this high

Of course, some of the GF 104 chips will not be able to go this high, or at least partners will not make such a high factory overclock, but there is a lot of room for overclocking on these cards

GTX 460 768MB press kit leaks

A bit faster than HD 5830

One of the users at Expreview forums has posted the complete GTX 460 768MB press kit and according to the performance slides, the upcoming GTX 460 768 is a bit faster than the "generic" HD 5830 and a bit slower than the GTX 465.

The slides refer to standard GTX 460, so we are looking at reference cooled card working at 675MHz for the GPU, 1350MHz for shaders, 3600MHz for 768MB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 192-bit memory interface. This means that the GTX 460 1GB should end up even closer to the GTX 465 card and might end up to be even faster in some cases and we don't even want to mention factory overclocked cards

The HD 5830 manages to outperfrom the GTX 460 768 only in Unigine Heaven v2.1 benchmark, while in other benchmarks and games, GTX 460 768 is faster. Of course, bear in mind that these slides come from an Nvidia partner and we would surely like to see more benchmarks

Intel shows off Moorestown and Meego

Europe package on show

 

Intel has shown Carrypad a prototype smartphone running Intel’s chips and MeeGo, a Linux-based operating system developed by Intel and Nokia

Moorestown is an Atom for mobile phones and has been created to be extremely power efficient and manage multi-media. Intel had hoped to have the first phones featuring its chips in hands of consumers later this year but last week, the company said the devices are expected to launch early next year

Carrypad said that Intel and Nokia have now released version 1.1 of MeeGo that includes the the handset user experience or UX available to developers for review. The protoype phone running MeeGo has an interesting user interface

MeeGo is still in pretty early stages so we will have to wait and see if other handsets manufacturers will take a shine to it and MeeGo it can become an alternative to Android. The dual MeeGo/ Mooreston 'review' is mostly pictures

MSI's GTX 460 768 Cyclone pixellized

1GB version coming as well

The guys from Expreview managed to score a picutre of MSI's GTX 460 768MB Cyclone graphics card. In addition to the non-reference Cyclone cooler, this card also features a factory overclock

The card uses MSI's Cyclone cooler, the same one that we had a chance to see back on MSI's HD 4890 Cyclone card. The MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5/OC is based on Nvidia's GF104 GPU, has 336 CUDA cores and works at 725MHz for the GPU, 1450MHz for shaders and 3600MHz for 768MB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 192-bit memory interface. We are quite sure that MSI will have a GTX 460 1GB Cyclone card as well

The GTX 460 is scheduled to launch in a few days, on 12th of July to be precise. Of course, MSI's GTX 460 Cyclone will have a slightly higher price tag

MSI officially shows its AE2420 AIO PC

3D-ready 23.6-incher

MSI has officially announced its first 3D-ready all-in-One PC, the Wind Top AE2420. It features a 23.6-inch 120Hz LED-backlit multi-touch screen and packs quite a punch considering that we are talking about an all-in-One PC

The main specifications include a Core i5 650 3.2GHz CPU and discrete Mobility Radeon HD 5730 1GB graphics card. The aforementioned 23.6-inch LED-backlit screen has a 1920x1080 resolution so it is no wonder that MSI decided to put a Blu-ray drive into this one. Other specs include up to 4GB of DDR3 SO-DIMM memory, 1TB HDD and bunch of other features like USB 3.0, eSATA, VGA-out, HDMI-in, Gigabit LAN, 802.11bgn WiFi, 1.3M webcam, and 2x5W speakers and a 10W subwoofer

The new AE2420 comes with wireless active-shutter 3D Glasses, an MCE remote control and wireless keyboard and mouse. There should be couple of other SKUs featuring different CPUs, but for now the Core i5 650 is the one that has been detailed

Unfortunately, the price or the availability date haven't been announced