Former Intel bloke sentenced to three years

Stole trade secrets, went to work for AMD

 

Former Intel employee Biswamohan Pani has been found guilty of stealing company secrets and he will have to do a three-years prison stint for it

Pani stole chip design and manufacturing documentation that’s took an estimated $200 to $400 million to develop. Interestingly, he did so just after announcing his resignation and prior to taking a job with AMD, so we’re not sure whether to call it cunning or just plain daft

He pleaded guilty to wire fraud back in April. He will do three years in federal prison and two year probation, in addition to a $17,500 fine. AMD claims not to have known about Pani’s plan and the company cooperated with investigators

Point of View/TGT GTX 680 Beast Watercooled Edition 4GB previewed

Preview: Faster iteration with low leakage GPUs 

 
Point of View / TGT is locked and loaded with its new GTX 680 Beast Watercooled Edition 4GB graphics card. The main difference between this card and the earlier launched GTX 680 Beast Watercooled Edition 4GB is in the factory overclock. Users should not worry about whether they’ll buy the new card, because the company’s retail channels already carry the new card only. That the card is a new model is clear from the ‘Low Leakage’ sign highlighted on the box. Low Leakage means that PoV/TGT handpicked the crème of the crop GPUs that can handle higher clocks

GTX 680 Beast 4GB (Low Leakage Selection) has a Base GPU clock at 1137MHz, while the earlier GTX 680 Beast 4GB ran at Base GPU clock of 1111MHz. The Low Leakage Selection’s Boost clock is 1229MHz, which is 92MHz higher than the Base clock. The “regular” Beast’s Boost clock is 1176MHz, which his 65MHz higher than the Base Clock

It’s not only the GPU clocks that are responsible for superior performance. Namely, the Low Leakage card comes with overclocked memory, which wasn’t the case with the previous model. The memory comes overclocked by 101MHz (404MHz effectively). We must admit we liked the memory overclock because most users will never overclock it, despite the obvious performance gains in many games

 


The graph below shows that while playing AvP at 2560x1600 with 4xAA and 16AF, the maximum Boost clock was at constant 1267MHz



The water block used by PoV/TGT is AquagraFX. It is made by Aqua Computer and can be purchased separately

The I/O panel is identical to those we’ve seen on air-cooled PoV/TGT cards. There are two dual-link DVIs and standard HDMI and DisplayPort outs. The card is powered via one 8-pin and one 6-pin power connectors



Part of the memory is on the back of the card, which is bare and has no heatsink or backplate

GTX 680 Beast 4GB was cooled via Aqua Computer’s three-fan radiator. The first results we got show that the low GPU temperatures (maximum of 44°C in AvP) worked great for the Boost clocks, which were maxed out and in turn brought performance gains. We received two GTX 680 Beast 4GB cards so we’ll soon have some SLI results for you as well. We’ll also have some numbers on how overclocking friendly the Low Leakage GPUs are

If the preliminary figures are anything to go by, we’re looking at the fastest and quietest GTX 680 we’ve tested so far. Anyways, we’ll have the full review up soon, so stay tuned

Tony Hawk HD gets release date for PS3

PC version to arrive after the PS3 release

 

While players on the Xbox 360 have been enjoying the retro trip back to Tony Hawk land now only in HD, PlayStation 3 owners will have a chance to make the trip, as well. Developer Robomodo has confirmed via its Facebook page that the PlayStation 3 version of Tony Hawk HD will arrive on August 28th and our sources tell us that it will cost $15, just as the Xbox 360 version did

Robomodo confirmed that the PC version is still in development and is coming, but the developer had no release date to announce at this time. Robomodo said, “Exact date to be shared as soon as we know it.” Tony Hawk HD was part of the Microsoft Summer of Arcade promotion and a timed exclusive on the Xbox 360 platform

While the reviews of Tony Hawk HD have been a bit critical of the touchy controls, it has not seemed to matter, as sales for the title have been very good. The sales have been so good, in fact, that DLC content is likely coming, as well as a new Tony Hawk title likely to follow the old school ways of the current release; but nothing has been announced yet

AMD updates Radeon HD 7950 spec

Anti-GeForce GTX 660 Ti measures

 

AMD is set to give its Radeon HD 7950 a helping hand in its fight against Nvidia’s upcoming Geforce GTX 660 Ti via a BIOS ROM image file

The file will boost the HD 7950’s GPU from the current 800MHz to 850MHz. It will bring PowerTune with Boost that will ensure the GPU overclocks up to 925MHz depending on the graphics requirements

Being a BIOS update, the actual physical specs will remain the same. The company seems to have decided against overclocking the memory so you can expect it to remain at 1250MHz

So, the “new” HD 7950 is expected to ship from mid-August, priced the same as the “old” card Users can update their existing reference HD 7950s, but of course, at their own risk

More here

HIS announces HD 7970 X graphics card

Custom PCB and IceQ X2 cooler

HIS has updated its Radeon HD 7900 series lineup with a new HD 7970 graphics card base on AMD's Radeon HD 7970 GHz, or Tahiti XT2 chip, simply called the HD 7970 X. The new HD 7970 X graphics card features a custom PCB, HIS' IceQ X2 cooler and should be the company's flagship, at least for now

The HD 7970 X features a custom PCB with a 20-phase power design and needs two 8-pin PCI-Express power connectors. Despite an impressive PCB design, HIS decided to keep the card at reference 1GHz for the GPU and 6GHz for 3GB of GDDR5 memory. Of course, the new graphics card will be extremely overclocking friendy, according to HIS

The new HD 7970 X also features multi-color LEDs for GPU voltage and fan speed indication, as well as a single color LED that lights up when temperature is at certain level. It also comes with, now quite standard, voltage measure points

The new HIS HD 7970 X will also be using HIS' IceQ X2 cooler with two 90mm fans and four heatpipes. The new graphics also support AMD Eyefinity 6, which means that it can output to six different monitors thanks to four mini DisplayPort, one DVI and one HDMI outputs

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

Codemasters sets release date for F1 2012

Slated to arrive in September 18th and 21st

Codemasters has confirmed the release dates for F1 2012. The game, which was announced for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC will hit retailer shelves on September 18th in North America and September 21st in Europe. Warner Brothers Interactive will continue to handle the distribution for Codemasters titles in North America, from our understanding

The 2012 version of F1 adds a new Champions Mode, which Codemasters just confirmed last week, and a new Young Drive Test mode, which aims to help those new to the game get a grasp on the ins and outs of it. Many have complained over the years that F1 games are difficult to get the hang of and Codemasters has gone to great length to attempt to address this

Those in North America will perhaps be most excited about the return of F1 racing to the United States with the addition of the new track in Austin, Texas, which appears in the game for the first time. In addition, the Hockenheim track in Germany returns this year

The game also adds a number of new features that makes this the best release of the Codemasters F1 titles so far. With all of the new features and the new circuit in Austin, Texas, sales are expected to be a bit stronger in North America this year where F1 isn’t as popular

Barnes and Noble slashes Nook prices

Trying to put out the Fire

Barnes & Noble has cut prices on three models of its Nook e-reader and tablet devices as rival Amazon.com is preparing to launch a new version of its Kindle Fire tablet

Barnes & Noble managed to take 27 percent of the US e-books market thanks to the Nook has slashed the retail price of its Nook tablet with 16 GB of memory to $199 from $249. Barnes & Noble took $20 off its 8 GB version of the tablet to $179 and lowered the price of its Nook Colour by $20, bringing it to $149, the latest reduction for that model

Nook has done rather well, but Barnes & Noble is worried about the coming Kindle Fire tablet which seems to be arriving as Nook revenue has fallen. So far the Fire has only appeared in the US where it has some content available for it.  In the EU the main rival to the Nook is the Kindle and Google's Nexus 7.

Eurocom launches dual graphics gaming notebook

Enter the Scorpius

 

Eurocom has launched its new Scorpius gaming notebook and, as we’ve come to expect from Eurocom gear, it packs a seriously mean punch


Eurocom was obviously bent on making the Scorpius a formidable beast, so notebook is based on Intel’s HM77 chipset and powered by a Core i7 3920XM Extreme Edition CPU. The CPU runs at 3.8GHz and has 8MB of L3 cash

It has a 17.3-inch full HD with a choice of glossy or matte finish. The company offers a choice between dual GeForce GTX 680M, with a 720MHz GPU, 1688 CUDA cores and 8GB of GDDR5, or dual Radeon HD7970M cards, with 850MHz GPU, 1560 stream processors and 4GB of GDDR5. Additionally, the Scorpius supports NVIDIA Quadro K5000M, K4000M and K3000M graphics as well as 675M cards, so you’re pretty much set for most scenarios



The Scorpius offers up to 32GB of DDR3 1600 SODIMM via four sockets. It comes with support for up to four storage drives – two SATA3 devices (SSD, HDD or Hybrid HDD), optical drive plus an mSATA drive. It also has a 9-in-1 card reader




As for connectivity, it has a single USB 2.0 port, four USB 3.0 ports, eSATA/USB 2.0 combo, SPDIF out, 802.11b/g/nWLAN, Bluetooth 3.0, RJ45, headphone and line in jacks. Creative’s Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 takes care of the sound and the Scorpius has two 2W speakers by Onkyo plus a subwoofer. It has a full sized, backlit keyboard



It has an 8-cell high capacity battery (89.21WH), but we wouldn’t expect it to last any longer than an average run to the outlet. It weighs in at 3.5kg and measures 419mm x 286mm x 24-49.7mm so it’s not that portable either but those who can afford it probably won’t care. Oh yes, the basic model stands at $2017, so the good old’ rule applies – no pay, no play

Lenovo to launch Yoga alongside Windows 8

ARM and Intel powered tablets

It has been reported that Lenovo is working on some interesting Windows RT tablets and judging by the Yoga tablet, the company is serious about the Windows tablet market. Lenovo is one of the first licensees to get Windows RT and it will be among the first to launch Windows 8 tablets

Interestingly, the company will launch two versions of the tablet – the ARM based Windows RT and Intel based Windows 8 Pro models. Note that the company only had the Intel version on display at this year’s CES

While the Intel version is expected to be faster, the ARM one should provide better battery life. In fact it is said it will double the 8 hours on the Intel based Yoga, but we’ll see soon enough



The Yoga that appeared at CES had a 13.1’’ display with 1600x900 resolution. Back then it ran Intel’s Core CPU and could be worked on in laptop or tablet modes, courtesy of the convertible design

The device supports up to 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB SSD storage. It is 16.99mm thick and weighs in at 1.47kg
    
It is expected that the ARM version will run Tegra 3 but the rest of the specs are still an unknown. Additionally, it’s quite possible that some hardware has changed from the CES version, but even if so, the product itself shouldn’t end up radically different

Intel 8-series chipset scheduled for April 2013

Entry-level in June

According to the latest drop in the rumour puddle over at Digitimes, Intel is set to release its next 8-series chipset in April 2013.

According to Digitimes' industry sources, Intel plans to relears performance and mainstream Z87 and H87 chipsets in April 2013. These socket LGA1150 motherboards will replace the existing Z77, Z75 and H77 chipsets with LGA1155 socket and will pave the way for entry-level H81 chipset scheduled for June 2013.

The 22nm socket 1150 Haswell CPUs are expected aaround the same time so motherboard manufacturers expect great interes for the new 8-series chipset simply due to the fact that new socket is not backward compatible. Ivy Bridge is expected to have its peak in the Q4 2012.

As always, take these rumours with a grain of salt as schedules tend to change

More here

ECS announces A85F2-A Deluxe motherboard

AMD's A85X chipset and FM2 socket

Elitegroup Computer Systems has uveiled its new motherboard based on AMD's A85X chipset with support for AMD's FM2 socket CPUs, the A85F2-A Deluxe. The new ECS A85F2-A Deluxe is also a part of ECS "non-stop" motherboard lineup that is certified for long hours and/or non-stop operation

Specs wise, the new A85F2-A Deluxe is based on a standard ATX form factor and, in addition to the FM2 socket support, features two PCI-Express x16 slots for CrossfireX, three PCI-Express x1 and two PCI slots. It has four DDR3 slots with support for up to 64GB of DDR3-1866 memory (2300 O.C.) and seven 6Gbps SATA ports

The rest of the specs include integrated 7.1-channel audio, a total of six USB 3.0 and eight USB 2.0 ports, eSATA port, Gigabit Ethernet, HDMI, DVI and D-Sub outputs as well as uEFI BIOS. The aforementioned ECS non-stop certification features enhanced gold plating on critical contacts, all solid capacitors, and electrostatic discharge protection for VGA, USB, HDMI and Ethernet ports on the motherboard

In addition to the A85F2-A Deluxe, ECS roled out four more socket FM2 motherboards including A75F2-A2, A75F2-M2, A55F2-A2, A55F2-M3.

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

Nvidia posts stronger than expected quarter

Tegra sales save the day

After a relatively disappointing first quarter, Nvidia has released its second quarter results and they are a bit better than expected

The company reported earnings of $119 million, EPS of 19 cents and $1.04 billion of revenue. Non-GAAP earnings were 27 cents a share. The figures are a vast improvement over Q1, which saw Nvidia post just $60.4 million of income on $924 million of revenues

The success is largely attributed to the company’s mobile business, or Tegra chips in layman terms. Nvidia managed to score several design wins in the tablet and smartphone space, most notably Google’s hot Nexus 7 tablet. Looking forward, Nvidia chips will power Microsoft’s Surface and other Windows RT tablets, while Kai value tablets are also on the way

As for Nvidia’s core business, it has seen better days. Although the company managed to score Kepler design wins in the notebook space, the GPU market on the whole was described as “weak.”.

Impossible Studios opened by Epic

Out of the ashes of Big Huge Games

Epic Games has confirmed the opening of its new Maryland studio called Impossible Studios. Impossible, which is located in Hunt Valley, Maryland, is being led by Sean Dunn and staffed by the former team members of Big Huge Games

Big Huge Games was acquired by 38 Studios and were the developers of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, until it was closed by 38 when the developer went bust. Epic decided to try and help the former Big Huge Games employees land on their feet by opening the new studio; and apparently the company had been looking at adding an additional studio anyway, so the timing was right

First up for Impossible will be to work on the action role-playing iOS title Infinity Blade: Dungeons, which is being developed in conjunction with both Epic and Chair. The primary development, however, will be based in Impossible’s facility in Maryland

Codies spending heavily on Grid 2

Has been in development for 2 years

Codemasters wants to get Grid 2 right. So right, in fact, that the game has been in pre-production for almost two years and the company is spending heavily to achieve something unique and different. Of course, the priority is to get it right and Codemasters knows this

Codemasters claims that it the development costs of Grid 2 have exceeded what they have spent on any other Codemasters’ title to date. The company hopes to raise the bar compared to what they achieved with the first Grid title

According to our sources, Grid 2 will be the first title to take advantage of the latest enhanced version of the Ego engine that will feature new technology that has been in development for over five years at Codemasters

Grid 2 will be coming next year and is planned for release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. A more exact arrival date will be announced in the future, but our sources say that Codemasters is targeting summer or early fall for release

AMD's Vishera ES FX-Series CPU benchmarked

Poses for camera as well

It appears that a forum member over at Coolaler forums managed to get his hands on an engineering sample of AMD's upcoming Piledriver FX-8300 series, codename Vishera, eight-core CPU and even run some benchmarks

As it was rumored earlier, AMD plans to launch a total of three CPUs in the FX-8300 series, the FX-8300, FX-8320 and the FX-8350. The flagship FX-8350 is expected to work at 4.0GHz base and 4.2GHz Turbo clock. It is still not clear which CPU did Coolaler forum member managed to get, but it did work at 3.3GHz, according to the Cinebench R11.5 screenshot, so it all points to the FX-8300. On the other hand, the CPU-Z shows the TDP at 124W which is the rumored rated TDP for higher clocked FX-8320 and the flagship FX-8350.

As far as the benchmarks are concerned, the tested engineering sample scored 18705 points in 3DMark Vantage benchmark CPU test, 4986 points in 3DMark 06 CPU test, did SuperPi 32M in 24m 20.946s and scored 5.73 points in Cinebench R11.5 CPU test

Of course, these are only early benchmarks done with an engineering sample CPU but they do give a clearer picture of what we can expect from the upcoming Vishera based FX-series CPUs

You can check out the thread on Coolaler forum here

Lenovo officially announces Windows 8 10-inch tablet

Will have to wait for Windows 8.

Lenovo has now officially announced the earlier rumored Thinkpad branded Windows 8 tablet, but, of course, retail/e-tail shelves will not see it until Windows 8 officially launches in October

The ThinkPad Tablet 2, as Lenovo decided to call it, features a 10.1-inch 1366x768 IPS display and runs on a still unknown version of Intel's 32nm Clover Trail Atom CPU. The rest of the specs include an 8-megapixel rear and 2-megapixel front camera, 802.11bgn WiFi, optional 3G/4G, NFC chip and micro-HDMI output on the tablet itself

The ThinkPad Tablet 2 will also have a keyboard dock as well that adds three USB ports, HDMI output and Ethernet to the picture

As noted, we are looking at a textbook example of a paper launch as the ThinkPad tablet has no chance to appear on the market before Microsoft's official Windows 8 launch on 26th of October

Unfortunately, the price has not been announced

Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Student Edition coming to Best Buy

US $249 for tablet with keyboard dock

Samsung is apparently preparing to launch the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Student Edition scheduled to appear on Best Buy's shelves around August 19th

According to a post over at Engadget.com, the upcoming Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Student Edition, keeps the 8GB WiFi US $249 price tag but throws in a keyboard dock and USB peripheral adapter as a bonus. Although it is still a bit more expensive than the Nexus 7, the dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP, 1024x600 screen and Android 4.0 ICS are still a pretty good deal. It also has a microSD card slot so it is not limited by 8GB of internal storage

You can check out more info over at Engadget.com

Haswell comes with up to 3X faster 3D

Compared to Ivy Bridge

We know it’s a big statement but sources close to the matter that have seen a roadmap or a two have revealed us that Haswell comes three times faster 3D graphics than today’s Ivy Bridge Core i 3000 series

It turns out that Haswell, Intel's fourth-generation core architecture, can score three times the performance of Ivy Bridge GT1 and the Haswell in mind is called GT2 Desktop SKU

In addition the new core scores up to three times faster in video conversion, something that Intel got better in the last few processor generations. Of course, up to three times in 3D and up to two times in video conversion are best case scenarios, but it sounds quite optimistic and impressive

It can make AMD and Nvidia run for their money in the lower end market segment and possibly better gaming at entry level notebooks and desktop computers
 
When we asked one of the Nvidia’s general managers what happens if Intel gets its act together and get its integrated graphics much faster, he replied that Nvidia will make even faster entry level parts. The same probably goes for AMD, but with the added luxury of top notch graphics in APUs

The chase will definitely continue heated up in Q2 2013 when we should expect to see the launch of Haswell

Mafia 3 in development for what’s next

Will skip Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 releases

Our sources are confirming as accurate news that is coming out of the Czech Republic that Mafia 3 is already in development. What is a bit more interesting, however, is that apparently the decision has been made to bypass the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 releases and instead focus on a release for the Xbox Next and PlayStation 4

The original report that came out of the Czech Republic came from Eurogamer.cz  and in it the translated info revealed that 2K Czech is staffing up for Mafia 3, and it is targeted as a launch title for the new consoles. Although 2K Czech would not confirm the report as accurate, the fact that they are staffing up and have reportedly finished what they were working on for Grand Theft Auto 5 frees them up to get back to work on Mafia 3.

There is no release date or word if a PC version will be coming, as well. We believe that it will arrive at some point toward the end of 2013 or maybe early 2014, at the latest

You can read the first report here, but take your translator

Windows 8 retail packaging revealed

Boxes for Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro

The Verge managed to get their hands on what appears to be a picture of retail packaging for the upcoming Windows 8 OS

The design of the boxes actually looks pretty good and emphasizes the Windows 8 style logo. The Windows 8 box will be colored in white while the Windows 8 Pro version will be using a dark gray color

The entire lineup of Windows 8 OS, as well as an upgrade version, is scheduled to launch officially on October 26th

You can check out the original post over at TheVerge.com

Zotac launches new ZBOX with Geforce GT 520M

The ZBOX ID84 with Atom D2550 and GT 520M

Zotac has updated its line of ZBOX mini-PCs with yet another model that combines Intel's dual-core Atom D2550 with Nvidia's Geforce GT 520M dedicated GPU, the ZBOX ID84.

As it was always the case with ZBOX Mini-PCs, the new ZBOX ID84 will also be available as a barebone or as a fully equipped system. Main specs include Intel's Atom D2550 dual-core CPU working at 1.86GHz and Nvidia's Geforce GT 520M GPU with 512MB of DDR3 memory

In case you missed it, the Geforce GT 520M can be based on either GF108 or GF119 GPU although we suspect that, in this case we are looking at GF119 based GPU. It features 48 CUDA cores and usually works at 740MHz for the GPU (1480MHz for shaders) and comes with 64-bit memory interface paired up with 800MHz clocked DDR3 memory. The GF108 version of the GT 520M features 128-bit memory interface but has lower clocks

The rest of the specs include Gigabit LAN, 802.11bng WiFi and Bluetooth 3.0, 6-in-1 card reader, HDMI and DVI outputs, four USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports, room for single 2.5-inch HDD and support for up to 4GB of DDR3 SO-DIMM memory in two slots

The new ZBOX ID84 also comes bundled with MCE-compatible remote with USB IR receiver and VESA 75/100 mount. As noted, the new ZBOX ID84 will be available as a barebone (without HDD and memory) or as a ZBOX-ID84-Plus full system that includes 2GB of DDR3 memory and a 320GB 2.5-inch 5400RPM HDD

The price or the precise availability date have not been announced but a quick search at our price search engine shows that the ID84 is already listed with a lowest price set at €224,63 for the barebone and €327,22 for the ID84-PLUS version










 

Linux is not a gamer's utopia

ID Software boss says it has not been a success

Technical director ID Software, John Carmack, has ruled out Linux being a viable gaming platform. Comack told QuakeCon that the the two forays his company made into Linux had not been successful. He said that Valve announcing Steam Linux support changes things a bit but we have made two forays into Linux commercial market, most recently with Quake Live client but that platform just hasn't carried its weight compared to Mac

Carmack said that while it was great that people were enthusiastic about Linux as a gaming platform, there are not many people who are interested in paying for a game. He added that Linux and open source Integrated graphics were getting better and better. This is because Intel has been completely supportive of open source graphic driver efforts. Carmack said that if he had time he would love to work on optimising Intel open source drivers

It is enticing to think that there there is a well supported open platform that you can deliver content through the Steam ecosystem, but its a tough sell. Carmack has publicly released the source code to Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3 and most recently Doom 3.

Look for Respawn’s game in 2013

2013 will be busy for the shooter market

2013 is shaping up to be the year of the first person shooter. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter is speculating that we will see Respawn’s first offering arrive in 2013. Respawn, which was formed by former Infinity Ward leaders Jason West and Vince Zampella, is perhaps one of the most eagerly awaited titles coming. Our sources agree that a 2013 launch is likely for what is a sci-fi oriented FPS title

In addition to the new Respawn title, Activision will be releasing both a new Call of Duty title as well as the first offering from Bungie since its split from Microsoft. Called Project Destiny, little is known about this title, but it, too, is likely to arrive in 2013.

EA is going to be busy, as they will be promoting the new Respawn title as well as seeing DICE launch Battlefield 4, which promises to again deliver more of what Battlefield players want

With all of these FPS titles launching and (we suspect) many of them in the same time frame, Pachter is speculating that it is going to cannibalize more of the Call of Duty sales numbers simply because consumers have more FPS choices

ARM announces three new Mali-T600 series GPUs

Mali-T624, T-628 and T-678.

ARM has unveiled its second generation of Mali-T600 series GPUs that promise to bring up to 50 percent higher graphics performance and lower power consumption when compared to current generation Mali GPUs. ARM has announced no less than three new Mali-T600 series GPUs that will each aim at a different market segment, or simply different device. The Mali-T624, T-628 and T-678 are the first to include Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression that is adopted by the Khronos Group

The second generation of Mali-T600 series GPUs are all still based on ARM's Mali Midgard architecture and, as noted, aimed and tuned to provide optima performance and energy-efficiency of different end devices. The Mali-T624 and Mali-T628 will be aimed at smartphones and smart-TVs while the Mali-T678 is optimized for the demands of the quite lucrative tablet market

The Mali-T624 will offer scalability from one to four cores, while Mali-T628 will feature up to eight cores and provide twice the graphics and GPU compute performance of the Mali-T624. Apparently, both of these are aimed at both smart-TV and smartphone devices depending on the actual need for performance

The ARM Mali-T678, on the other hand, will offer highest GPU compute performance available and is said to deliver a four-fold increase when compared to the Mali-T624 GPU, all thanks to features such as an increased ALU support. According to specifications, the Mali-T678 delivers a 50 percent improvement over, yet to be seen, Mali-T658 GPU. As a highest performing Mali-T600 series GPU, the Mali-T678 is aimed at tablet market

The entire lineup supports 16xFSAA (4x FSSA with minimal performance drop), OpenGL ES 1.1/2.0/3.0.
OpenVG 1.1, OpenCL 1.1, DirectX 11 and Renderscript APIs, configurable L2 cache (32kB-256kB) and multi-core scaling

As noted earlier, the second generation Mali-T600 series GPUs will be the first to include Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC), a texture compression technique that comes directly from ARM. The ASTC supports a very wide range of pixel formats and bit rates thus enabling higher quality when compared to other formats. ASTC, according to ARM, should significantly optimize GPU performance and increase battery life in devices and reduces Mali GPU memory bandwidth and memory footprint

The newly announced second generation of the Mali-T600 series GPUs have been already welcomed by the likes of Fujitsu Semiconductor, Samsung, Rockchip and Nufront, so we guess it is just a matter of time before we see one of these in some device

You can check out more about ARMs Mali-T600 series GPUs here

AMD launches FirePro APUs

First ever workstation APU

In addition to a full lineup of AMD FirePro workstation graphics cards, AMD has also launched a new line of FirePro APUs targeting entry and mainstream level markets. The new A300 and A320 FirePro APUs are based on AMD's Trinity architecture and simply paired up special driver to give them some performance leverage in CAD and media and entertainment applications

The new A300 series APUs, according to AMD, provide a perfect blend of CPU and GPU performance and deliver incredible performance for entry and mainstream workstation segments. Feature wise, the A300 series brings support for AMD Eyefinity technology, AMD's Turbo Core technology, support for horizontal display resolutions of up to 10,240x1600 pixels, support for Discrete Compute Offload that allows additional compute capability by pairing up a discrete AMD FirePro GPU in parallel with APU, 30-bit color support as well as dedicated UVD media encoding hardware

For starters, AMD decided to roll out two AMD FirePro A300 series APUs that include 65W TDP AMD FirePro A300 and the 100W TDP FirePro A320. Both APUs feature four CPU cores, 4MB of L2 cache and 384 GPU Stream Processors. The A300 works at 3.4GHz base and 4GHz Turbo CPU clock while the GPU is set to work at 760MHz. The FirePro A320 on the other hand works at slightly higher 3.8GHz for base and 4.2GHz for Turbo CPU clock while the GPU is set at 800MHz. The A320, unlike the A300, is unlocked. The peak compute performance of AMD A300 series APUs is 736/184 GFLOPs of single and double precision compute performance for the A320 and 693/173 GFLOPs for the FirePro A300 APU

The AMD FirePro A300 series APU comes as a direct response to Intel's Xeon E3 CPUs with professional graphics and according to AMD, offers much higher performance than Intel's HD Graphics P4000, more memory, higher number of supported displays and lower TDP

AMD's FirePro A300 series APUs are paired up with, what AMD now calls, Catalyst Pro software, or special driver that enables application performance and compatibility with ISV-certified software and optimized performance for CAD and M&E applications

According to AMD, the FirePro A300 series APUs will be available in various systems from a number of workstation integrators as of August 2012.

You can check out more info here

Cyberlink's flagship products get Windows 8 certification

Will work flawlessly

Cyberlink has announced that its flagship products are now certified and optimized to run on Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 OS and will receive Windows 8 Logo certification

The lineup includes PowerDVD 12, PowerDirector 10, Media Suite 10, PhotoDirector 3, and Youcam 5. Of course, the most important two are the PowerDVD 12 and Cyberlink's collection of eleven multimedia offerings known as the MediaSuite 10.

Cyberlink solutions comply with Microsoft's technical requirements and ensure compatibility and stability for customers running or shall run the software on Windows 8 OS. According to CyberLink, customers will be able to take advantage of a variety of new performance enhancements designed to accelerate the digital media process on the upcoming Windows 8 OS

According to Cyberlink, compatibility is assured to consumers who purchase Cyberlink's Windows 8 certified products from the online store. Cyberlink will also offer free software updates for all purchases made from June 2012 to ensure compatibility with Windows 8 OS

You can check out the entire lineup here

Samsung to unveil Galaxy Note 2 on August 29

No specs yet

Samsung plans to show off the second generation Galaxy Note 2 phablet in Berlin, on August 29.

A Samsung spokesman confirmed the launch plans to Reuters, but did not disclose any new details. The new Note is expected to feature a souped-up Exynos 4 processor, although some rumour mongers claim it will be based on a Exynos 5 chip, which sounds rather unlikely

The first generation Note features a 5.3-inch 1280x800 screen and weighs in at 178g, but successor is said to feature an even bigger screen, which doesn’t sound like a brilliant idea. Enough is enough

Gigabyte's Geforce GTX 670 Windforce 2X detailed

Custom PCB and Windforce 2X cooler

The guys from Expreview.com managed to get their hands on custom Geforce GTX 670 graphics card from Gigabyte. The new Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 2X will feature custom PCB paired up with Gigabyte's well known Windforce 2X cooler that we had a chance to check out in our Gigabyte HD 7850 OC review

According to details, the new Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 2X features custom design compact PCB that features Gigabyte Ultra Durable VGA features like 2-oz copper PCB, Japanese solid-state capacitors, ferrite core chokes, as well as Gigabyte's pretty good Windforce 2X cooler with two 8mm copper heatpipes and two 100mm fans. The PCB is in Gigabyte's trademark blue and features 4+2 phase VRM design and needs two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors

The new Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 2X will hit retail/e-tail in two versions, reference clocked and OC Edition. The OC Edition is clocked at 941MHz for base and 1019MHz for boost GPU clock while 2GB of GDDR5 memory is clocked at 6008MHz. The base GPU clock on the OC Edition is a decent OC from reference 914MHz

Due to custom PCB and Windforce 2X cooler, new Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 2X cards are expected to retail at much lower price than the Gigabyte GTX 670 Windforce 3X ones

You can check out the Expreview review here. via Techpowerup.com

POV/TGT launches Midas Force PowerPacks

Up to 12,000mAh on the go

Point of View's TGT tuning team has added a new product line to its already impressive offer of factory overclocked graphics cards, the Midas Force PowerPacks line of premium mobile batterypack chargers

Since we are talking about TGT team here, it is no wonder that we are looking at premium product lineup that features high quality battery cells that offer, unlike some of the competition, life time of up to 500 cycles. The new Midas Force PowerPacks, according to TGT, offers lower weight, smaller size, higher capacity, life time of over 500 cycles and can even hold the charge for over a year extending the life time of the battery cells due to low leakage

The new Midas Force PowerPacks are available in 3,000mAh, 5,200mAh and impressive 12,000mAh versions providing enough power for a wide range of device all the way from smartphones to the new iPad

Midas Force PowerPacks are already available in Europe, at TGT's website shop with a price tag set at €39 for the 3,000mAh model, €49 for the 5,200mAh one and €99 for the 12,000mAh one

Logitech launches TV Cam HD

Skype on HDTV without Smart TV

Logitech has launched its new TV Cam HD, a high-definition TV camera with built-in Skype that actually only needs HDMI in order to get Skype on your TV

The Logitech TV Cam HD features integrated Ethernet and WiFi connections as well as built-in Skype so it just needs a TV that has HDMI input, getting rid of all the fuss about finding and buying a webcam for your TV. Spec-wise, you are looking at Carl Zeiss optics and 720p capability, built-in 802.11gn WiFi, Ethernet connection, HDMI output, built-in ringer when the TV is off, digital zoom, pan and tilt options, and four noise cancelling microphones that should provide premium audio even in large living rooms

The Logitech TV Cam HD ships with simple remote and according to Logitech, should ship in the U.S and Europe by August and September, respectively

The suggested retail price is set at US $199.99, which sounds rather steep. You can check out more details over at the Logitech product page here