Office 15 preview is out

Different typing experience, Metro-esque eye candy

Office 15 has just gone live, at least in its Preview iteration. You can download the preview for free as of today and install it on up to five computers you own

It’s a redesign of Office 2010 that many are still using today and the general look and feel is not that far away from Office 2010. However, there are some nice Metro-esque touches and many are telling that this will be the general look and feel of Office for tablets as well


It’s a refreshing change, but if you got used to Office 2007 or 2010 you won’t have many problems getting used to the new UI. The absence of Aero glass support is definitely something that caught our eye, but there are a few new features to talk about. A blue Metro-like status bar tells you what page you are on, how many words you’ve typed so far, language, page layout and zoom, so it pretty much covers all the basics in one nicely designed spot

You can save documents on your computer or in the cloud via SkyDrive. We have been saving articles to Dropbox for a while now with Office 2010 and this doesn’t come as a surprise for the new iteration of Office. The Save dialogue is completely redesigned and refreshed. The typing animation is new and fun, at least until you get used to it. It’s different from any typing experience so far as it looks and feels smooth, but this subjective feeling is describe. You have to give it a go yourself to really see what we are on about
 
Powerpoint, Excel as well as Outlook have been refreshed and I didn’t face any issues when it came time to load my 69,961 e-mail database. It looks somewhat pale compared to the previous iteration of Outlook, but the overall feeling is very similar


Typing an email is very similar to Outlook 2010 but the new, smooth animation is there. Icons of all application are blue and in Outlook the calendar, people, tasks are now at the bottom. The notes, folders and shortcuts are hidden under a big three-dot menu, but they are still there. The calendar looks nice and generally there are not too many colors, keeping it clean and simple. It’s all done in blue and white, a color combination that will definitely look good under Windows 8.

It will be interesting to see how this new office compares to Office RT that is supposed to ship with Windows RT for ARM based processors.  If you want to give it a try, you can get it here
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/en

New Office 2013 not for Vista or XP

Microsoft releases system requirements

Microsoft has posted new set of system requirements for its new Office 2013 suite and it looks like Windows Vista and Windows XP are not going to be supported

The lack of Windows XP support does not come as a surprise and since Vista has been already dropped from Internet Explorer 10 support list, same thing is happening with Office 2013. The new Office 2013 will only be compatible with Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2008 R2/2012.

The rest of the system requirements are pretty high, or to be precise, higher than what we used to see from Microsoft, at least when Office suite is concerned. The CPU is set at 1GHz or faster x64/x86, 1GB of memory for x86 and 2GB for x64, 3GB of available storage space, almost every browser since IE8, Firefox 10.x, Apple Safari 5 or Chrome 17.x, v3.5 or higher .NET version, a touch enabled device for multi-touch functions (noting that all features and functionallity will be accessable via keyboard and mouse), and DirectX 10 capable graphics card for hardware acceleration

You can find the full set of system requirements here. via Tweaktown.com

No Office 2013 for Mac

No details on next release for Mac

 

While Microsoft has been talking up its new Office 2013 for Windows, one thing it hasn’t been talking about is when we might see a new version of Office for Mac. Microsoft has confirmed that it has no version of Office 2013 in development for Mac and has no details of when the next version of Office will be released

Microsoft did, however, add that they plan to update Office for Mac 2011 with a Service Pack that will be include the additional features of support for SkyDrive and Office 365. It has yet to be determined when this will arrive and what else this Service Pack might include

The news isn’t surprising in the fact that Microsoft has always given priority to the Windows version of Office on the Windows platform, but with the growth of the Mac platform and the much larger sales for Mac Office 2011 because of the addition of Outlook for Mac, the news no plans for a new version is disappointing and a bit puzzling. Sources tell us to expect Office for Mac 2015 as the next version we will see on the OS X platform

In addition, the rumored version of Office for the iPad appears to be on hold for at least the time being, with priority being given to the Windows tablet market and the version of Office that is targeted for that tablet market. Microsoft has stopped short of admitting that they have a version for the iPad in development or plan to release one, but sources continue to say that Microsoft will release an Office for iPad at some point. Microsoft as usual offered no comment

MSI teases water cooled HD 7970 Lightning

Full cover water block

MSI has posted a couple of pictures on its Facebook page teasing a new water cooled Radeon HD 7970 Lightning graphics card

The new LC R7970 Lightning is most likely based on the same top of the notch PCB seen on the "plain" R7970 Lightning card and replaces the TwinFrozr IV cooler with EKWaterblock EK-FC7970 Ltg water block. The block itself is made of huge copper slab and acetal panel. It will be only available in acetal version but will allow reinstallation of R7970 Lightning stock backplate

It is still not clear if we will only see a water block, which should be available at EKWB.com on 27th of July, or MSI actually plans to sell the LC R7970 Lightning card as well

In any case, with this water block, MSI R7970 Lightning will surely achieve much higher overclock when compared to air cooling, despite the fact that the TwinFrozr IV is one impressive air cooler

Eurocom adds Quadro K5000M to its Panther 3.0 notebook

Nvidia's Quadro Kepler

Eurocom has added a new graphics card option for its Panter 3.0 notebook platform which is no less than 28nm Kepler based Quadro K5000M

Eurocom's Panther 3.0 is aimed at professionals and with Intel desktop-class Xeon CPU options and Nvidia Kepler based Quadro K5000M it certainly packs quite a punch for professional applications. Specification wise, the new Quadro K5000M feature 1344 CUDA cores and comes with 4GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 256-bit memory interface. These specs are enough for a texture fill rate of 30.4 billon/sec and 115.2GB/s of memory bandwidth. As you may have noticed, the specs are pretty much identical to the recently introduced GTX 680M graphics card

The rest of the features include Nvidia Parallel Datacache technology, Gigathread engine, ECC memory support, native support for Visual Studio

The 17.3-inch Panther 3.0 Mobile Workstation can be equipped with up to Intel i7-990X CPU or Xeon X5690 CPU, up to 24GB of DDR3 memory, four storage HDDs or SSDs, and weighs in at 5.3kg. The Quadro K5000M adds US $1995 to the final price

You can check out the full details regarding the Eurocom Panther 3.0 here

Windows 8 to launch on October 26

Just in time for holiday shopping season

Windows 8 will roll out on October 26 this year, just in time for the holiday season and the 68th anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Windows 7 launched in June 2009, so it turned three just a few weeks ago

Windows 8 will be released to manufacturers in early August and it will ship on PCs at the end of October. Windows Server 2012 and Visual Studio 2012 will launch at about the same time. Upgrades from earlier Windows versions will cost $39.99 via download or $69.99 purchased in retail

Although Windows 8 will bring several new features and a totally redesigned user interface, the big news is actually not the Windows 8 release, but rather Windows RT. The tablet-centric OS will be used on Microsoft’s Surface tablet and it will provide the Windows ecosystem with an unprecedented level of flexibility. The RT launch should coincide with the Windows 8 rollout

The last piece of the puzzle is Windows Phone 8. The new phone OS will feature an entirely new kernel based on Windows rather than Windows CE. It will also launch by the end of the year

EVGA celebrates its 13th anniversary with massive sweepstakes

Europe gets a piece of action too

A few days ago, EVGA has started a celebration of its 13th anniversary by launching a massive sweepstakes/giveaway with over US $70k in prizes. In order to at least give something to its faithful European customers, EVGA Europe has informed us about their own contribution, including the a sweet new deal, aimed only at European customers

The USA based sweepstakes include the scavenger hunt, Youtube contest, wallpaper contest, all server anniversary event and the thumbs up anniversary event, all paired up with great sponsors and impressive prizes. The prizes include a 007 Mission Experience grand prize, complete systems, tablets and various hardware components. You can check out the entire list here

In addition to the USA based events, EVGA Europe is also hosting these same events and has kicked off a rather unique one that will cover more than half of the VAT bill if you purchase any product from the list. Bear in mind that this is a limited offer as it runs until 20th of July. You can check out the list of products here

The full details regarding the European event can be found here

Zotac silences GT 640 and GT 630

Zone Edition graphics cards

Zotac has announced two more graphics cards that will be a part of its completely silent Zone Edition graphics cards, the GT 640 Zone Edition and GT 630 Zone Edition

As we already wrote quite a while ago, the GT 630 is basically the GT 440 based on the GF108 GPU with 96 CUDA cores, just placed in a shiny new box. In case of Zotac, the GT 630 Zone Edition works at 750MHz for the GPU, features 96 CUDA cores working at 1500MHz shader clock and has 1GB of DDR3 memory clocked at 1333MHz and paired up with a 128-bit memory interface

Unfortunately, the new GT 630 Zone Edition graphics card is neither low-profile nor a single slot graphics card, so it will not appeal to slim HTPC users. It features a rather hefty heatsink that, as noted, takes up two slots and even extends slightly over the top and to the back of the PCB

The GT 640 Zone Edition is, on the other hand, based on the 28nm GK107 GPU. It works at 900MHz for the GPU, has 384 CUDA cores and features 2GB of DDR3 memory clocked at 1782MHz and paired up with 128-bit memory interface. Again, it is paired up with a rather hefty dual-slot heatsink that extends over and to the back of the PCB and features with three copper heatpipes. It is not only a full sized PCB but takes even more space due to the size of the heatsink, despite the shortness of the GT 640 PCB

Of course, there are users who appreaciate the golden silence and the cards will surely find their place on the market. You can check out the GT 630 Zone Edition here and GT 640 Zone Edition here

Battlefield 4 is coming

Beta to start in fall 2013

 

Once again, a Medal of Honor title will have something to do with Battlefield. This time around, those that pre-order Medal of Honor Warfighter will get the Limited Edition version that contains access to the Battlefield 4 Beta. Of course, this now publicly admits that Battlefield 4 is coming for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in the late fall or holiday season of 2013, if you will

The news that Battlefield 4 is coming next year isn’t necessarily news that many fans were looking to hear. Rumors of DICE and EA holding Battlefield 4 for release on Xbox Next/720 and PS4 were rumored to be the course that DICE and EA had planned to chart; after all, the company had just launched Battlefield Premium, which takes the Battlefield 3 experience into 2013. Rumors of a release of a Battlefield 2143 were also hinted at, but we are not sure where that road is leading at the moment

As for Medal of Honor Warfighter, EA developer Danger Close has gone it solo this time around. While they are using the Frostbite 2 engine, DICE is apparently in an advisory support role and is doing none of the actual development this time around. The game looked good at E3 and perhaps even much better than many had expected; still, it is being released in a window that is seeing a number of shooters being released, so it will have to do exceptionally well to gain the attention of gamers

Medal of Honor Warfighter is available for pre-order now, and has a release date of October 32rd in North America and October 26th in Europe. The game is being released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC

ADATA announces XPG Gaming v2.0 DDR3 2400G memory

Dual 8GB kit optimized for Z77 platform

ADATA has announced the availabilty of its newest XPG Gaming DDR3 2400G DRAM modules that will be sold as dual channel kits designed and engineered to bring optimum performance for third generation Intel Core CPUs and the Z77 platform

Specification wise, the new XPG Gaming v2.0 DDR3 modules are rated at 2400MHz with CL 10-12-12-31 latencies at 1.65V. The feature set includes aforementioned support for Intel 3rd gen Core CPUs and Z77 platform, support for Intel XMP v1.3, thermal conductive technology (TCT) and 2oz copper 8-layer PCB

The modules are cooled by ADATA's screw-lock XPG Gaming heatsink that should provide improved reliabiltiy and cooling efficiency

The 8GB dual channel XPG Gaming v2.0 kit should be available in the US and Canad with a suggested price tag set at US $89.99.

Sapphire officially launches HD 7970 6GB Toxic graphics card

Cream of the crop

By releasing its Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics card, AMD managed to get on top of things once again and Sapphire decided it is the right time and chip to be featured in its newest Toxic Edition graphics card, the HD 7970 6GB Toxic Edition

Judging by the specs it is quite clear that Sapphire's newest Toxic Edition graphics card will easily end up the fastest single GPU graphics card that money can buy. The new Sapphire HD 7970 6GB Toxic Edition is based on AMD's Tahiti XT2 GPU that has been pushed even further as it works at 1050MHz base and 1100MHz Powertune Boost clock while those 6GB of GDDR5 memory is set to work at 6000MHz

To spice things up and make the Sapphire HD 7970 6GB Toxic Edition really special, Sapphire has integrated the new Sapphire Lethal Boost Button, that pushes the base clock to 1100MHz and boost clock to 1200MHz while memory is set to work at 6400MHz. The Lethal Boost Button also changes the fan profile and Powertune limit

Since this is its cream of the crop, Sapphire deicded to use a premium set of components and VRM design named Lethal Power Suite. The new graphics card is equipped with 8-phase power design for the GPU VDDC with two additional phase for VDDCI and MVDD. The entire card is made on a 12-layer PCB and paired up with double sided Black Diamond Chokes

In order to keep this beast well cooled, Sapphire paired it up with its Vapor-X cooler that features a new vapor chamber designed especially for this graphics card. The cooler features four heatpipes (2x6mm and 2x8mm), and cooled by two 90mm fans. Sapphire also incorporated the PCB Temperature LED feature, a built in onboard LED that monitors the PCB temperature

These features come with at a price and while a standard Sapphire HD 7970 3GB graphics card is currently selling in Europe at around €400-450, the Sapphire HD 7970 6GB Toxic Edition is currently listed with a lowest price set at €624,89. Unfortunately, it is still not available but according to Sapphire, it should appear on retail/e-tail shelves pretty soon

NFS: Most Wanted bonuses detailed

Limited Edition version also confirmed

As has been EA’s pattern with most releases, the company will be releasing a Limited Edition version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Those that pre-order before October 30th will also get some pretty good incentives to do so

Pre-ordering is the only way to assure that you will get the Limited Edition version of the game. The Limited Edition run will be limited and after they are gone, they are gone. Those getting the Limited Edition version will get unlocks for the Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale and Porsche 911 Carrera S for use in multiplayer, and as a bonus these cars will give the player double speed points during the first four hours of multiplayer play

As is becoming common, depending on where you pre-order will dictate which additional booster pack you will get. You will have three to choose from, which are speed, power, and strike. The speed pack gets you the Caterham Superlight R500 with the track tires and light weight chassis mods for improved handling and top speed. The power pack will give you the Ford F-160 SCT Raptor with the reinforced chassis and nitrous mods that give you the ability to absorb more damage and better survive takedowns. The strike pack includes the Mercedes Benz SL 65 AMD Black Series with powertrain and re-inflating tire mods, plus additional improvements for torque and acceleration; this gives the car better handling ability to deter rivals’ attempts to take the car down

While it isn’t yet confirmed which retailer will offer which pack, we expect that info to be available in the next few weeks. What we do know is that you will want to get your pre-order in before October 30th, for sure

Linux try to bypass Microsoft secure boot

Dual operating systems must be protected

James Bottomley, chair of the Linux Foundation's Technical Advisory Board, has released a version of the Intel Tianocore UEFI boot image and some code to help Linux programmers get around Windows 8's Secure Boot restrictions

Windows 8 will ship with a locked up boot system called the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface.  This will stop you installing  Linux or any other operating system, such as Windows 7 or XP, on a Windows 8 system

It is not known at this point how much support Redmond has for UEFI among OEMs. The key to getting around the problem appears to be Intel Tianocore which is an open-source image of Intel's UEFI. This image has the Authenticode that Microsoft uses for Secure Boot

Bottomley wants people to play with UEFI Secure boot so that they can work out how to get Linux onto windows machine. Writing in his blog  Bottomley said he is releasing the image now because interest in UEFI Secure Boot is rising, particularly amongst the Linux Distributions which don't have access to  UEFI secure boot hardware, so having a virtual platform should allow them to experiment with coming up with their own solutions

More here

Point of View Ultra Charges the GT 640

To 1006MHz for the GPU

Point of View and its TGT overclocking and tuning team have just launched the Ultra Charged version of the GT 640 graphics card that features a high factory-overclock

Based on Nvidia's 28nm GK107 Kepler GPU, it features 384 CUDA cores organized in 2 SMX clusters and paired up with a 128-bit memory interface. The reference design puts the GPU at 901MHz for the GPU and 1782MHz for either 1 or 2GB of DDR3 memory

The POV/TGT GT 640 Ultra Charged on the other hand puts the GPU at an impressive 1006MHz while memory ends up factory overclocked to 2020MHz. The new GT 640 Ultra Charged graphics card still features a full height PCB and a single slot design

The POV/TGT GT 640 Ultra Charged is, according to Point of View, available immediatelly with a suggested retail/e-tail price set at €115 incl. VAT

MSI going into SSD business

Sandforce drives coming soon

According to the keen eyes of the Techpowerup.com crew, MSI might be going into SSD business pretty soon. MSI's company logo has showed up at the Sandforce site and lists MSI as one of the companies that will feature an SSD based on Sandforce's SF-2000 controller

Nothing is official as of yet, but MSI always had some partner companies that were manufacturing keyboards, optical drives, PC cases and other products and peripherals like USB flash drives, so SSDs are pretty much a part fit into the picture. On the other hand, MSI could use those SSDs in their own notebooks as it has currently opted for Sandisk branded mSATA SSDs on its new high-end GT60 and GT70 gaming notebooks

Of course, the info is still scarce and MSI is not announcing anything officially, at least not yet. We honestly doubt that we will bunch of various models and any serious involvement of MSI in the SSD market, but anything and everything is possible

We will certainly keep an eye out for more info. You can check out the original post here

Meet AMD’s new FX 8320, 8300 eight-cores

Vishera, late October launch

We have already revealed that AMD FX 8350 is a 4GHz eight-core, capable of hitting  4.2GHz on Turbo, in a 125W envelop and you can read all about it here

It turns out that AMD is working on two more Vishera eight-cores. The runner up is called AMD FX 8320 and is an eight-core with 16MB cache at 3.5GHz that can get to 4.0GHz on Turbo. It is still a 32nm SOI part with a 125W TDP that supports DDR3 1866 memory and comes in AMD’s AM3+ package

The AMD FX 8300 is also an eight-core processor with a 95W TDP that still has 16MB of cache and works at 3.3GHz default clock or 3.2GHz on Turbo. This processor looks really attractive due to the somewhat lower TDP. The rest of the specification is still the same, DDR3 1866 memory, AM3+ 32nm SOI and eight-cores. This part has a real chance of being really popular, at least if the price is right

They all should show up in late October according to current plans which point to an early Q4 2012 launch. For many value minded consumers these chips might be a great pre-Thanksgiving / Xmas treat and they will be a good basis for mid-range gaming rigs

We are sure that these parts will have some very attractive pricing as the fastest AMD FX 8150 Zambezi core currently sells for €173 or $199 in States. This is truly a good price for such a part

Intel slashes SSD prices

HDD is pretty much doomed

 

Intel is planning to cut the prices on its SSDs in August. The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactered a hell on earth rumour that Chipzilla is planning significant price reductions across its consumer SSD lineups, even in its new 330 series

The biggest cuts will be to the 320 series. The retail version of the 300GB drive costing $464 instead of the previous $519, while the 600GB version will lose almost $200 of its retail price, falling from $1,059 to $879.

The performance 520 line will see huge cuts with the 60GB version now retailing at $99, $139 for 120GB, $199 for 180GB, $259 for 240GB, and $594 for 480GB. At those sorts of prices, SSDs should kill off traditional hard drives for all but older backups

Intel just released the 330 family in April, it's slashing prices for these drives by a quarter. The 60GB drops to just $69, the 120GB to $104, and the 180GB to $154.

AC 3 PC delay rumors now confirmed

Will arrive before holidays, however

We have been hearing a number of rumors that Ubisoft’s release of Assassin’s Creed 3 for the PC was going to be delayed beyond the expected release date after the arrival on the console system on October 30th

The latest word now is that Ubisoft is planning for it to arrive at some point before Christmas, but they are not sure when that will be, according to creative lead Alex Hutchinson who spoke about this during a panel discussion at Comic-Con

Additional details on its arrival date are expected near the release of the console version of the game. Whispers we heard seem to suggest that it could be that the console version release date could change, as well, but that has not yet been confirmed and is still strictly a rumor. The reasons for any possible delays have not been made public by Ubisoft

Sea Islands AMD supports DirectX 11.1

Kabini APU to have it

We finally managed to learn a few details about AMD’s upcoming Sea Islands graphics cores. AMD told some of its partners that Radeon HD 8000 is a good candidate for an official name and now we got some news that the new cores will support yet to be announced DirectX 11.1 API

Richland A series Trinity successor in 28nm will end up with current generation Northern Islands Radeon HD 7000 cores, while the Kabini gets Sea Island Radeon HD 8000 cores. Many expect to see Sea Islands in discrete and mobile graphics form this year, but this is not something we can confirm at this time

Despite the fact that some APUs might end up with the same number or graphics cores (shaders) AMD is quick to point out that next generation cores will be different and that e.g. 384 Sea Islands cores won’t be the same as 384 cores of Northern Islands. In a perfect world the new generation should end up significantly faster

Nvidia has Maxwell scheduled for 2013 and according to the roadmap from GTC 2010 it is expected in 2013 with double precision of some 15 Gflops per Watt, some three times more than with Kepler. We hope both players in the graphics duopoly will put up a good fight as every industry needs competition to drive prices down and keep innovation up

Rovio shows trailer for its next game

Amazing Alex puzzle game

Rovio, the company behind the famous Angry Birds franchise, has released a trailer for its new game, Amazing Alex

Introduced back in June, Amazing Alex is your standard puzzle game similar to the quite famous "The Incredible Machine" series. It puts you into a role of the kid Alex where you can use a bunch of objects and set them to interact in chain reaction in order to create an elaborate Rube Goldberg device and achieve a certain goal

The good part of the story is a level creation option that will give users an option to create and share their own levels and judging by the Angry Birds series, we are pretty sure that Rovio will do good with this one as well

The game will be available as of tommorow when it should hit both Apple's iTunes App Store and Google Play Store

Toshiba releases new enterprise AL13SE HDDs

2.5-inch 10k RPM HDDs

Toshiba has updated its line of enterprise class hard disk drives with the new AL13SE series. Packed in a 2.5-inch form factor the new AL13SE series will be available in capacities ranging from 300 to 900GB

The exact dimensions of the new AL13SE series are set at 69.85x100.45x15.00mm (WXDXH) and the drives weigh in at 240 grams. The entire series feature SAS 2.0 6Gbps interface, rotational speed of 10,500 RPM, 64MB of cache, 3.7 and 4.1ms of average read and write seek time and 4.7W/2.7W load/idle power consumption

As noted, the series will feature four drives im 300, 450, 600 and 900GB capacities. Although it did not provice any specific performance details, Toshiba did note that due to an improved magnetic recording head and disc magnetic layer, the AL13SEB900 (900GB model) has an areal density of 856Mbit/mm2, which is currently the industry's highest class, and has an internal transfer rate of 286MB/s, a boost of around 32 percent over previous generation, thanks to the improved liner recording density

Toshiba was also keen to note that it AL13SE series is frist HDD series from Toshiba to employ a dual-stage head position actuator that improves accuracy by 30 percent providing sstable operation and that AL13SE series has around 41 percent higher energy consumption efficiency when compared to previous generations

Unfortunately, the price or the actual availability date have not been announced

Western Digital launches new WD Red line of HDDs

Designed for NAS

Western Digital has announced a completely new WD Red line of hard disk drives designed specifically for home and small office network attached storage (NAS) devices

Standing shoulder to shoulder with WD's Blue, Green, and Black series, the Red series offers 3.5-inch HDDs available in 1, 2 and 3TB capacities and are designed for NAS systems with one to five drive bays. As noted, all three models will be packed in a standard 3.5-inch form factor and feature SATA 6Gbps interface and 64MB of cache

According to WD, these HDDs have been compatibility tested with top NAS box manufacturers and optimized for both power and performance, which is, at least according to WD, a much better way to go considering that consumers had to choose between desktop or high-end server drives for their NAS devices, with neither being cost effective or fully NAS compatible

According to WD, the new Red line feature 3D Active Balance Plus enhanced balance control technology feature that should significantly improve overall drive performance and reliability

The new Red line of WD's HDDs should already be available with MSRP set at US $109 for the 1TB, US $139 for 2TB and US $189 for the 3TB drive model. The entire line is backed by WD's free premium 24x7 dedicated support and three-year warranty

You can check all models here where you can find WD's NAS compatibility list as well

Sapphire announces new HD 7850 graphics cards

Refreshes its HD 7850 family

Sapphire has decided to update its HD 7800 series by announcing no less than three new models that will all be based on AMD's Pitcairn Pro GPU and be a part of Sapphire HD 7850 family. The new model list includes two new HD 7850 2GB as well as a cheaper HD 7850 1GB model

As far as specs go, all HD 7850 graphics cards are based on the 28nm GCN Pitcairn GPU with 1024 stream processors and 256-bit memory interface. The first in line is the new standard Sapphire HD 7850 graphics card that will work at 860MHz for the GPU and feature 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 1200MHz (4.8GHz effective). Sapphire will also be rolling out a higher perfomance model, the Sapphire HD 7850 OC Edition clocked at 920MHz for the GPU and 1250MHz (5.0GHz effective) for the same 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The last but not the least is a cost effective Sapphire HD 7850 1GB model working at 900MHz for the GPU and 1200MHz (4.8GHz effective) for memory

All three models will feature dual BIOS, two DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, as well as Sapphire's quite recognizable Dual-X cooler with two fans

The new Sapphire HD 7850 graphics cards are expected to hit retail/e-tail soon

Intel to sell wireless desktop cards

WiDi support on Maho Bay

Maho Bay is a desktop platform wrapped around the recently launched Ivy Bridge desktop processor and Intel plans to enrich this platform with a Wireless mini card offer of its own

The plan is to make new SKUs based on half Minicard (mPCIe) standard and offer it with its boards that have support for PCIe 1X or faster. Maho Bay also allows some combinations with Sandy Bridge processors and will allow the use of these mini Wireless cards on older processors with new boards. It looks like the Panther Point chipset is necessary even for older Sandy Bridge processors on Maho Bay platform

The top range card with premium performance is Intel Centrino Ultimate N 6300, and the card has virtually the same specification like its mobile brother. It supports Intel Wireless Display as well as Intel My Wifi technology and quick driver connect

Since it is using 3x3 antennas and MIMO standard it us capable of achieving speeds of 450Mbits per second and it does support multiple streams. It supports dual band 2.4 + 5 GHz and Intel Vpro. This is still a 802.11n based product as Intel hasn’t really jumped the gun to support 802.11ac in 2012.

It looks like it is too early for Intel to embrace this new standard due to its very limited market penetration

At some point Intel will include 802.11ac products in its portfolio but according to our sources this won’t happen before Q2 2013 at earliest. Intel has total of 7 mini PCIe 1X Wireless cards to offer where five of them support WiDi and two lower end satisfy with 150Mbits per second

Intel to sell wireless desktop cards

WiDi support on Maho Bay

Maho Bay is a desktop platform wrapped around the recently launched Ivy Bridge desktop processor and Intel plans to enrich this platform with a Wireless mini card offer of its own

The plan is to make new SKUs based on half Minicard (mPCIe) standard and offer it with its boards that have support for PCIe 1X or faster. Maho Bay also allows some combinations with Sandy Bridge processors and will allow the use of these mini Wireless cards on older processors with new boards. It looks like the Panther Point chipset is necessary even for older Sandy Bridge processors on Maho Bay platform

The top range card with premium performance is Intel Centrino Ultimate N 6300, and the card has virtually the same specification like its mobile brother. It supports Intel Wireless Display as well as Intel My Wifi technology and quick driver connect

Since it is using 3x3 antennas and MIMO standard it us capable of achieving speeds of 450Mbits per second and it does support multiple streams. It supports dual band 2.4 + 5 GHz and Intel Vpro. This is still a 802.11n based product as Intel hasn’t really jumped the gun to support 802.11ac in 2012.

It looks like it is too early for Intel to embrace this new standard due to its very limited market penetration

At some point Intel will include 802.11ac products in its portfolio but according to our sources this won’t happen before Q2 2013 at earliest. Intel has total of 7 mini PCIe 1X Wireless cards to offer where five of them support WiDi and two lower end satisfy with 150Mbits per second

Intel to sell wireless desktop cards

WiDi support on Maho Bay

Maho Bay is a desktop platform wrapped around the recently launched Ivy Bridge desktop processor and Intel plans to enrich this platform with a Wireless mini card offer of its own

The plan is to make new SKUs based on half Minicard (mPCIe) standard and offer it with its boards that have support for PCIe 1X or faster. Maho Bay also allows some combinations with Sandy Bridge processors and will allow the use of these mini Wireless cards on older processors with new boards. It looks like the Panther Point chipset is necessary even for older Sandy Bridge processors on Maho Bay platform

The top range card with premium performance is Intel Centrino Ultimate N 6300, and the card has virtually the same specification like its mobile brother. It supports Intel Wireless Display as well as Intel My Wifi technology and quick driver connect

Since it is using 3x3 antennas and MIMO standard it us capable of achieving speeds of 450Mbits per second and it does support multiple streams. It supports dual band 2.4 + 5 GHz and Intel Vpro. This is still a 802.11n based product as Intel hasn’t really jumped the gun to support 802.11ac in 2012.

It looks like it is too early for Intel to embrace this new standard due to its very limited market penetration

At some point Intel will include 802.11ac products in its portfolio but according to our sources this won’t happen before Q2 2013 at earliest. Intel has total of 7 mini PCIe 1X Wireless cards to offer where five of them support WiDi and two lower end satisfy with 150Mbits per second