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Top Earning Websites

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 05:33:00 +0000

I created a list of the top 25 earning websites in the world

25 Websites That Make A Lot Of Money Online

Rank	Website	Founders	Annual Revenue	Per Second
1	Google	Larry Page and Sergey Brin	$21,800,000,000	$691.27
2	Amazon	Jeff Bezos	$19,166,000,000	$607.75
3	Yahoo	Jerry Yang and David Filo	$7,200,000,000	$228.31
4	eBay	Pierre Omidyar	$6,290,000,000	$199.45
5	MSN/Live	Nathan Myhrvold.	$3,214,000,000	$101.92
6	PayPal	Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek,	$2,250,000,000	$71.35
7	iTunes	Jeff Robbin	$1,900,000,000	$60.25
8	Reuters	Marshal Vace	$1,892,000,000	$59.99
9	Priceline	Jesse Fink	$1,884,000,000	$59.74
10	Expedia	Added Mark Schroeder	$1,447,000,000	$45.88
11	NetFlix	Reed Hastings	$1,200,000,000	$38.05
12	Travelocity	Terry Jones	$1,100,000,000	$34.88
13	Zappos	Nick Swinmurn	$1,000,000,000	$31.71
14	Hotels.com	David Litman	$1,000,000,000	$31.71
15	AOL	Erik Prince	$968,000,000	$30.70
16	Orbitz	Jeff Katz	$870,000,000	$27.59
17	Overstock	Robert Brazell	$834,000,000	$26.45
18	MySpace	Tom Anderson	$800,000,000	$25.37
19	Skype	Niklas Zennstrom	$550,841,000	$17.47
20	Sohu	Zhang Chaoyang	$429,000,000	$13.60
21	Buy.com	Robb Brock	$400,000,000	$12.68
22	StubHub	Eric Baker	$400,000,000	$12.68
23	Alibaba	Jack Ma	$316,000,000	$10.02
24	Facebook	Mark Zuckerberg	$300,000,000	$9.51
25	YouTube	Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim,	$300,000,000	$9.51

Train accident in bangladesh khilgaon 10-11-2010

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 06:53:00 +0000

Train accident in bangladesh khilgaon 10-11-2010

Exclusive picture on train accident in bangladesh khilgaon near kamalaput train station. Accidnt time 11.50 am [gmt+6] 10-11-2010

Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 & OCZ Enyo

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:33:00 +0000

Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 & OCZ Enyo

SSDs are being used for more than just expensive boot/application drives. Personally, I use a couple of old SSDs connected to Apricorn SATA-to-USB adapters as Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 install discs.

Ultimate Performance expands new worlds.
Kingston's DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 (DTU30) features the latest technology for USB Flash drives, making it ideal for early adopters who want to take advantage of all the performance improvements offered by USB 3.0 right away.

Technical Details

Capacities ? 16GB, 32GB, 64GB
Requirements ? system with USB 3.0 port
Backwards Compatible ? with USB 2.0
Fast ? data transfer rates for USB 3.0 to 80MB/sec. read and 60MB/sec. write; USB 2.0 = 30MB/sec. read and 30MB/sec. write
Dimensions ? 2.90 x 0.87 x 0.63 Inches (73.70mm x 22.20mm x 16.10mm)
Operating Temperature ? 32°F to 140°F (0°C to 60°C)
Practical ? durable casing with a solid lanyard loop
Storage Temperature ? -4°F to 185°F (-20°C to 85°C)
Product Dimensions: 4.5 x 4 x 0.5 inches ; 4 ounces

Enterprise Storage: Two 2.5" 600 GB Hard Drives Tested

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:14:00 +0000

The latest 2.5” hard drive generation ships with SAS 6Gb/s and delivers up to 600 GB of storage space, narrowing the gap with much larger 3.5" disks. Today we're comparing the latest 2.5" drives from Seagate and Toshiba to see if they're faster, too.
Seagate’s Savvio was the first 2.5” hard drive product for enterprise applications. Today, you can get 2.5” SAS drives from Hitachi, Seagate, and Toshiba, but only Seagate and Toshiba ship the latest 600 GB, 10 000 RPM models for mainstream enterprise applications.

Hard Drives? Aren’t SSDs Better?

Hard drives will remain with us for many years, not just because of higher capacities and certainly not because of stellar performance. A decent SSD can easily overtake most hard drives. However, performance is only one of several requirements for enterprise storage, and there are many reasons to favor hard drives over SSDs.

First and foremost, there still are no long term studies on the reliability of SSDs. While we doubt that reliability issues will suddenly plague SSDs, individual cells will likely start failing as wear leveling retreads the same memory cells over and over. The result would be somewhat erratic performance, making it difficult to manage high-availability solutions. Performance variance is already an issue because most SSD performance isn’t 100% predictable. This is not the case for hard drives. But as long as operating parameters remain stable, performance is predictable. Administrators should plan to account for performance variances with oversized SSD arrays.

This is where SAS hard drives like the Seagate Savvio 10K.4 and Toshiba’s MBF-series fit in. Both deliver solid, predictable performance based on SAS 6Gb/s interfaces that enable easy deployment and management in standardized storage solutions. We wanted to know which drive is the better option from a performance standpoint.

The first Savvio drive arrived in 2004, and it was still based on an Ultra320 SCSI interface. At that time, the 10 000 RPM Savvio provided as much throughput as notebook hard drives did two years ago. The second-generation Savvio 10K.2 and the first 15K.1 were already based on SAS at 3 Gb/s. The Savvio 15K.1 at 15 000 RPM in 2007 was good enough to receive our editor’s choice award. Only last year, we tested the Savvio 10K.3 (10 000 RPM) and 15K.2 (15 000 RPM) in a large enterprise hard drive roundup. Both of these drives were among the first enterprise products that implemented the faster SAS 6Gb/s interface. The Savvio 10K.3 was great at delivering high efficiency, while the 15K.2 dominated our I/O benchmarks. It's time to look at the latest Savvio offering, especially since fresh competition has arrived.

The Savvio 10K.4 is Seagate's forth generation, and if you realize that it took six years for four product updates, you see that the enterprise market is much more conservative than the mobile and desktop segments, where new products are launched once or twice each year. This latest Savvio spins at 10 000 RPM and is available at 450 GB and 600 GB capacities. Both drives utilize three platters to reach their capacity. Since the 450 GB model does not take advantage of the full recording area on each of its platters, the drive can deliver slightly improved access time and I/O results.

Both drives come with SATA 6Gb/s interfaces and 16 MB of cache memory. Seagate still offers a Fibre Channel version (4 Gb/s), and there are SAS models with built-in encryption (TCG-compliant controller required). Seagate boasts that the Savvio 10K.4 is the first enterprise drive to deliver two million hours MTBF (mean-time between failure). This is at least 20% more than usual in this field.

The drive remains relatively cool, literally, with a surface temperature of 60°C after 30 minutes of intensive operation. However, the Toshiba drive runs cooler. We measured an impressive peak throughput of more than 140 MB/s. But again, Toshiba comes out slightly on top.

Toshiba has been very active recently, especially since the takeover of Fujitsu’s hard drive business. The overlap in the 2.5” notebook space is probably less significant than the fact that Fujitsu’s enterprise drives were a strong asset. Fortunately for Toshiba, the results appear profitable, as the latest mainstream enterprise 2.5” hard drive, the MBF2600RC, delivers very solid performance.

The Toshiba drive has a specification list similar to Seagate's model: 10 000 RPM spindle speed (10 025 to be precise), 16 MB of cache memory, and a 6 Gb/s SAS interface. Toshiba offers the same 450 GB and 600 GB capacities, but you can also opt for 300 GB. The latter runs two, instead of three platters, which should decrease power consumption.

We looked at the 600 GB drive. An excellent 3.5 W idle power comes courtesy of Toshiba's enhanced power condition state. This technology dynamically reduces spindle speed when the drive is not in use. Our active idle test requires the drive to be instantly available, but since there is no noticeable delay upon access, we can’t say anything negative about this feature. This is probably why the drive runs as cool as it does. A 54°C (rather than 60°C) surface temperature is quite a difference, and it's mirrored by the low power consumption numbers at maximum throughput, 1080p video playback, and workstation I/O.

A quick look at the benchmark results shows us that aggressive power savings don’t come at the expense of performance, although this isn’t the fastest 2.5”, 10 000 RPM enterprise drive across the board. The MBF2600RC delivers the best throughput of all comparable drives, and it delivers better I/O performance than the Savvio 10K.4. This is because Seagate apparently hasn’t optimized the latest Savvio drive for I/O performance at all. I/O numbers are still higher on older Savvio 10K drives and the Fujitsu 300 GB 2.5” MDB2300RC. In the end, the low power consumption paired with strong performance ensures that Toshiba’s 600 GB drive delivers great power efficiency.

We use PCMark Vantage test less for everyday applicability and more for the sake of looking at possible performance differences due to varying workload types.

Power Consumption

Idle power is radically low on the new Toshiba MBF2600RC drive because the spindle slows down when the drive is idle. Otherwise, it wouldn't turn in results as conservative as it's turning in. Seagate looks worse, though that's not really true. The new Savvio 10K.4 still delivers very low idle power consumption compared to other 2.5” enterprise hard drives.

Delivering data at peak throughput takes a bit more power on the Seagate drive than on Toshiba’s product. This is disappointing, as the last Savvio 10K generations did better.

The 1080p video playback test isn't a typical enterprise workload, but it shows how much power is required if the drives have to deliver a continuous, limited stream of data. In this case, Toshiba again does better.

Power consumption at high workstation I/O activity triggers the highest power consumption numbers on the Toshiba drive. Seagate requires the same power here.

Efficiency

Performance per watt for streaming read workloads looks extremely good on the new Toshiba drive. It delivers high throughput, while maintaining relatively low power consumption.

Workstation efficiency is also better on the Toshiba drive because of its higher performance paired with equivalent power consumption relative to the Savvio 10K.4. However, other drives deliver better power efficiency in I/O-intensive workloads.

Although the wheels don’t turn as quickly in the enterprise space as they do for notebook and desktop class products, there's still significant progress from one product generation to the next. Seagate and Toshiba beat Hitachi to the 600 GB capacity point on 2.5” drives, and both have characteristics that qualify them for different scenarios.

First, let’s talk about performance. Neither drive competes well with other enterprise hard drives when it comes to I/O performance. SSDs aside, 15 000 RPM drives are much faster. However, we must advise against purchasing the Savvio 10K.4 if your applications involve much I/O activity. Using the default firmware, the Seagate drive shows hardly any optimization for I/O-intensive workloads. The Toshiba drive isn’t a racer either, but its I/O results are acceptable.

On throughput and application performance, the clear winner is Toshiba’s MBF2600RC. It delivers better results in most of our benchmarks. At the same time, the drive’s power consumption is well below the Savvio 10K.4's numbers. This isn't only because of the Toshiba drive’s variable spindle speed at idle, but the drive is slightly lower on power overall. This places Toshiba on top when it comes to power efficiency, as well. The drive wins our throughput and I/O performance per watt testing.

PCI Express 3.0: By This Time Next Year

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:07:00 +0000

After an unfortunate series of untimely delays, the folks behind PCI Express 3.0 believe they've worked out the kinks that have kept next-generation connectivity from achieving backwards compatibility with PCIe 2.0. We take a look at the tech to come.
Moore's Law states that the amount of transistors which can be placed on a chip will double every two years. This has often been misinterpreted as a statement that processor speed will double every two years. It’s a misinterpretation that the computer-buying general public has turned into an expectation of exponentially-scaling PC performance.

However, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed, shipping processors have been stuck between 3 GHz and 4 GHz for about six years now. So, the computer industry has had to find other ways to make data move faster. One of the most important of those ways has been maintaining balance between platform components using PCI Express, the open standard technology that enables high-speed graphics cards, expansion cards, and other onboard computer components. It’s at least arguable that PCI Express is as important to scalable performance as multi-core processors. Although dual-core, quad-core, and hexa-core CPUs can only be adequately used by applications optimized for threading, every program installed on your machine can and will touch components attached via PCI Express in some way.

Many industry observers originally expected motherboards and chipsets based on next-generation PCI Express 3.0 to appear in the first quarter of 2010. Unfortunately, problems with backward compatibility delayed the launch of PCI Express 3.0, and as we enter the second half of this year, we’ve been left waiting for official word on the new standard's release.

Finally, following a conference call with PCI-SIG (the Special Interest Group that oversees the PCI and PCI Express standards), we at last have some answers.

Al Yanes, president and chairman of PCI-SIG, and Ramin Neshati, chairman of the PCI-SIG Serial Communications Workgroup, addressed the current timeline of PCI Express 3.0 development.

On Wednesday, June 23rd, PCI Express 3.0 revision 0.71 was released. Yanes stated that the 0.71 release marks what is believed to be the resolution of the backward compatibility issues that had caused an initial delay. Neshati described the primary compatibility issue as “DC wandering,” which he explained as PCI Express 2.0 and earlier devices “not having enough zeros and ones” to satisfy the demands of the PCI Express 3.0 interface.

Now that the backward compatibility issues are resolved, the PCI-SIG says it is on track for the base release of the 0.9 revision “later this summer.” This is expected to be followed by the base release of revision 1.0 in the fourth quarter of this year.

Of course, the most pressing question is when can we can expect to see PCI Express 3.0-based motherboards on store shelves. Neshati stated that he expects to see initial products in the first quarter of 2011 (the “FYI” triangle on the Timeline image).

Neshati added that there would be “no silicon-impacting changes” (the only changes would be software/firmware-related) between revision 0.9 and revision 1.0, which is what will allow some products to start to trickle into the marketplace before the final release of the 1.0 revision. During this time, products will be able to qualify for the PCI-SIG “Integrator’s List” (the “IL” triangle), which is PCI-SIG’s version of an approval logo.

Neshati jokingly referred to the third quarter of 2011 as the “Fry’s and Buy” date (an apparent reference to Frys.com and either Buy.com or Best Buy). This is the time in which we can expect to see a large selection of PCI Express 3.0-based merchandise for sale on the Web and in retail stores.

The primary difference for end users between PCI Express 2.0 and PCI Express 3.0 will be a marked increase in potential maximum throughput. PCI Express 2.0 employs 5 GT/s signaling, enabling a bandwidth capacity of 500 MB/s for each “lane” of data traffic. Thus, a PCI Express 2.0 primary graphics slot, which typically uses 16 lanes, offers bidirectional bandwidth of up to 8 GB/s.

PCI Express 3.0 will double those numbers. PCI Express 3.0 uses an 8 GT/s bit rate, enabling a bandwidth capacity of 1 GB/s per lane. Accordingly, a 16-lane graphics card slot will have a bandwidth capacity of up to 16 GB/s.

On the surface, the increase from 5 GT/s to 8 GT/s doesn’t quite sound like a doubling of speed. However, PCI Express 2.0 uses an 8b/10b encoding scheme, where 8 bits of data are mapped to 10-bit symbols to achieve DC balance. The result is 20% overhead, cutting effective bit rate.

PCI Express 3.0 moves to a much more efficient 128b/130b encoding scheme, eliminating the 20% overhead. So, the 8 GT/s won’t be a “theoretical” speed; it will be the actual bit rate, comparable in performance to 10 GT/s signaling with 8b/10b.

PCI-SIG states that it chose the route of eliminating overhead instead of increasing to 10 GT/s because “8 GT/s represents the most optimal tradeoff between manufacturability, cost, power, and compatibility.” The group further states that bumping the speed to 10 GT/s creates “prohibitive penalties” including “design complexity and increased silicon die size and power.” PCI-SIG’s Al Yanes added, “The magic is in the electrical stuff. These guys have really come through for us.”

I asked Yanes what devices he anticipates will require the increase in speed. He replied that these will include “PLX switches, 40 Gb Ethernet, InfiniBand, solid state devices, which are becoming very popular, and of course, graphics.” He added “We have not exhausted innovation, it’s not static, it’s a continuous stream,” clearing the way for even more enhancements in future versions of the PCI Express interface.

Storage

AMD is already integrating support for SATA 6Gb/s into its 8-series chipsets, and third-party motherboard vendors are adding USB 3.0 controllers. Intel is lagging behind in this area, with no chipset support yet for either USB 3.0 or SATA 6Gb/s (Ed.: Note that pre-production P67-based motherboards we've seen here in the lab do incorporate SATA 6 Gb/s support, but lack USB 3.0). However, as we’ve often seen in the AMD versus Intel saga, innovation at AMD usually inspires Intel. Given the data rates for both next-generation storage and peripheral interconnects, it's clearly not necessary to drop either technology onto PCI Express 3.0. Rather, a single lane of second-generation PCI Express is ample for both USB 3.0 (at 5 Gb/s) and SATA 6 Gb/s (which no storage device can even come close to saturating).

Of course, when it comes to storage, the interaction between drives and controllers is only part of the equation. Consider that dropping multiple SSDs on a SATA 6 Gb/s chipset and creating a RAID 0 array does actually have the potential to saturate the single lane of second-gen PCI Express that most motherboard vendors are using for their implementations. Deciding whether USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s can truly utilize PCI Express 3.0 support requires a closer look at the math.

As mentioned, USB 3.0 runs at 5 Gb/s. But as with PCI Express 2.1, USB 3.0 employs 8b/10b encoding, which lowers the actual peak speed to 4 Gb/s. Divide bits by eight to convert to bytes, and you get a peak throughput of 500 MB/s, which is the exact same speed as a modern PCI Express 2.1 lane. SATA 6Gb/s runs at 6 Gb/s of course, but its own 8b/10b encoding scheme drops the peak rate from a theoretical 6 Gb/s to an actual speed of 4.8 Gb/s. Again, convert that to bytes and you get 600 MB/s, or 20% more than the peak speed of a PCI Express 2.0 lane.

The problem here is that even the fastest SSDs cannot fully saturate a SATA 3 Gb/s connection. Nothing comes close to saturating a USB 3.0 connection, and the same holds true for the latest iteration of SATA 6Gb/s. At least as far as we're concerned today, PCI Express 3.0 isn't really a necessity for driving the biggest buzzwords in the platform space. Hopefully, as Intel shifts into its third generation of NAND flash manufacturing, however, speeds increase and we start to see devices capable of pushing beyond what a 3 Gb/s SATA port could have sustained in the past.

Our own experience with testing graphics throughput, after the introduction of PCI Express 2.0 and as recently as earlier this year, have revealed that it’s very difficult to saturate the x16 bandwidth currently available on PCI Express 2.1 motherboards. It really takes a multi-GPU configuration or a very high-end single-GPU card to distinguish the difference between a x8 and a x16 connection.

We asked both AMD and Nvidia to comment on the need for PCI Express 3.0 as an enabler for the next generation of graphics card performance. An AMD spokesperson replied that they weren't able to comment at this time.

A spokesperson from Nvidia was a little more forthcoming: “Nvidia is a key contributor to the industry’s development of PCI Express 3.0, which is expected to have twice the data throughput of the current generation (2.0). Whenever there is a major increase in bandwidth like that, applications emerge that take advantage of it. This will benefit consumers and professionals with increased graphics and computing performance from notebooks, desktops, workstations, and servers that have a GPU”.

Perhaps the key phrase here is “applications emerge that take advantage of it.” Nothing in the world of graphics is getting smaller. Displays are getting larger, high definition is replacing standard definition, the textures used in games are becoming even more detailed and intricate. We do not feel that the need exists today for the latest and greatest graphics cards to sport 16-lane PCI Express 3.0 interfaces. But enthusiasts have seen the same story again and again: the progression of technology paves the way for new ways to take advantage of fatter pipes. Perhaps we'll see a surge of applications that make GPU-based computing more mainstream. Or maybe the performance hit experienced when you run out of frame buffer and swap to system memory will be diminished on more mainstream boards. Either way, we have to look forward to the innovation that PCI Express 3.0 promises to AMD and Nvidia.

AMD and Intel have never been particularly chatty when it comes to detailing the interfaces they use to communicate between chipset components, or even been logic blocks within a northbridge/southbridge. We know the data rates at which those connections run, and we know that they're generally designed to be as bottleneck-free as possible. Sometimes we even know where a certain piece of logic came from, such as the Silicon Logic-based SATA controller AMD used in its SB600. But we're often kept in the dark as to the technology used in building the bridge between components. PCI Express 3.0 certainly presents itself as a very attractive solution, similar to the A-Link interface AMD employs.

The recent emergence of USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s controllers on a number of third-party motherboards may provide a glimpse into this process. Because Intel's X58 chipset does not provide native support for either technology, companies like Gigabyte had to integrate discrete controllers onto their boards using available connectivity.

Gigabyte’s EX58-UD5 motherboard did not have USB 3.0 or SATA 6Gb/s. However, it did include a x4 PCI Express slot:

Gigabyte replaced the EX58-UD5 with the X58A-UD5, which has support for two USB 3.0 and two SATA 6Gb/s ports. Where did Gigabyte find the bandwidth to support the new technologies? By using one lane of PCI Express 2.0 connectivity for each controller, cutting back on available external connectivity while adding functionality to the board, overall.

Besides the addition of support for USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s, the only other real difference between the two motherboards is that the newer offering had its x4 slot removed.

Will PCI Express 3.0, like the standards that preceded it, wind up serving as an enabler of future technologies and controllers that won't make it into the next generation of chipsets as integrated features? Almost certainly.

We are entering an age of the desktop supercomputer. We have access to massively parallel graphics processors, along with power supplies and motherboards that can support as many as four cards at the same time. Nvidia’s CUDA technology is transforming the graphics card into a tool for programmers working not only with games, but with science and engineering. The programming interface has already played an instrumental role in solutions for enterprises as diverse as medical imaging, mathematics, and oil and gas exploration.

nVidia’s CUDA showcasenVidia’s CUDA showcase

I asked OpenGL programmer Terry Welsh, from Really Slick Screensavers, for his thoughts on PCI Express 3.0 and GPU processing. Terry told me “PCI Express was a great boost, and I'm happy with them doubling the bandwidth anytime they want, as with 3.0. However, for the types of projects I work on, I don't expect to see any difference from it. I do a lot of flight-sim stuff at work, but that's mostly bound by memory and disk I/O; the graphics bus isn't a bottleneck at all. I can easily see [PCI Express 3.0] being a big boost, though, for GPU compute applications, and people doing scientific viz on large datasets.”

The explosion Easter Egg in Terry Welsh’s Skyrocket Screensaver The explosion Easter Egg in Terry Welsh’s Skyrocket Screensaver

The ability to double transfer speed when working with mathematics-intensive workloads is sure to enhance both CUDA and Fusion development. This is one of the most promising areas for the upcoming PCI Express 3.0 interface.

Any gamer with an Intel P55 chipset can tell you about the advantages and disadvantages of P55 versus Intel's X58 chipset. Advantage: motherboards employing using the P55 chipset are more reasonably-priced than those using X58, on average. Disadvantage: P55 comes equipped with minimal PCI Express connectivity, instead relying on Intel Clarkdale- and Lynnfield-based CPUs with 16 lanes of second-gen PCIe built into the processor itself. Meanwhile, X58 leverages 36 lanes of PCI Express 2.0.

For P55 customers who want to use two graphics cards, both boards are forced down to x8 signaling rates. If you want to add a third card to a P55-based platform, it'll have to occupy the chipset's connectivity, which unfortunately runs at first-gen signaling rates and is limited to a maximum of four lanes on a board with the corresponding slot.

When I asked Al Yanes of the PCI-SIG group how many lanes we could expect to see in PCI Express 3.0-enabled chipsets from AMD and Intel, he responded that this was “proprietary information” that he “could not discuss.” I didn’t really expect an answer. But still, given the opportunity, the question had to be asked. We feel it’s unlikely that AMD and Intel, both members of the PCI-SIG Board of Directors, would invest time and money into PCI Express 3.0 development if they planned on using PCI Express as an excuse to reduce lane counts. Thus, we feel it’s far more likely that future AMD and Intel chipsets will continue to employ segmenting similar to what we see today, with high-end platforms sporting enough connectivity to support a pair of graphics cards at native x16 signaling, and more mainstream chipsets shaving off PCIe from there.

Picture a chipset like the P55, but with 16 available PCI Express 3.0 lanes. Since these 16 lanes run at twice the speed of PCI Express 2.0, you'd actually be getting the equivalent of 32 lanes. Then, it'd just be a matter of a company like Intel making its chipset compatible with three- and four-way GPU configurations. Unfortunately, we already know that Intel's next-generation P67 and X68 chipsets will still be limited to PCIe 2.0 (and the Sandy Bridge CPUs will similarly be limited to 16 lanes of on-die connectivity).

In addition to CUDA/Fusion/parallel processing, the expansion of mainstream capabilities through higher-bandwidth interconnects like PCI Express 3.0 is where we see the technology's true potential emerging. Without question, PCI Express 3.0 will enable moderately-priced motherboards with interfaces that were limited to high-end platforms in the previous generation. Those high-end platforms, armed with PCI Express 3.0, will naturally set new performance records, thanks to innovations in graphics, storage, and networking that exploit the available throughput.

Gaming With Nvidia 3D Vision

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:58:00 +0000

Gaming With Nvidia 3D Vision

a 3D dual-projector system, just like in movie theaters. Now, we're comparing it to Nvidia's 3D Vision projector-based setup to see which option offers the best consumer-level 3D experience for your living room.
When we concluded our Wall-Sized 3D Gaming, Just Like The Theaters Do It review, we noted that there could be no proper conclusion until we tested an alternative projector that utilized Nvidia's 3D Vision solution. Well, now you're reading that follow-up article. For those who missed the previous story, we created a 3D projector system similar to the ones used in movie theaters, with two projectors and polarized filters. The whole experiment consisted of about $2,500 worth of hardware and software, not including the PC used to drive the displays.
The main advantage of the polarized system is that it allows for the use of inexpensive polarized 3D glasses. Each pair can be purchased for under a dollar, so adding as many viewers as you like is only limited by the space in your theater room. The main disadvantages of a polarized dual-projector theater are the initial cost, the complexity of setting the system up, and ghosting artifacts in certain situations.

There is another disadvantage that is quickly becoming a much more important factor: Blu-ray 3D. At present, we know of no software that allows a polarized dual-projector system to play back Blu-ray 3D discs, and as far as we know, there are no options on the horizon.

But there is another 3D theater option for the home that offers Blu-ray 3D playback. It is relatively simple to set up, minimizes ghosting artifacts, and has a very low startup cost. That option is an Nvidia 3D Vision-compatible projector.

Stereoscopic 3D and the methods that are used to create it have been thoroughly covered in our Wall-Sized 3D Gaming, Just Like The Theaters Do It and Blu-ray 3D On The PC: The Tom's Hardware Review articles. If you're considering a 3D projector system for your PC, then I suggest looking over the Wall Sized 3D Gaming article, as it has a lot of information about the two alternate 3D theater options. Both of these articles also go over the basics of stereoscopic 3D vision and explain why the key to a 3D display is to provide each eye with an alternate view of the same scene.

For now, we'll cover the main differences between a polarized dual-projector setup and a 3D Vision projector setup.

Polarized Dual-Projection

A dual-projector polarized theater relies on two projectors to deliver video to the screen, while each delivers a unique perspective for a specific eye. Each projector lens is attached to its own polarized filter. The viewer has to wear glasses, but the glasses contain no electronic parts and simply use passive polarized filters. The filter over the right eye will block out the polarized video that is intended for the left eye and the filter over the left eye will block out the polarized video intended for the right eye. This way, each eye only sees its intended perspective, even though both perspectives are displayed on the same screen.

What are the advantages of the dual-projector polarized method for stereoscopic 3D? Most significantly, polarized glasses can be purchased for less than a dollar a pair. Want to invite 20 people over for a 3D party? Less than $20 worth of extra equipment keeps you covered.

What's the downside? The up-front costs are much greater. A dual-projector system requires two projectors. On top of that, you'll need a polarized-compatible screen and polarized filters for each projector. While this might seem like a lot, keep in mind that 720p projectors are available for under $1,000, meaning the total cost of this setup can be kept well under $3,000. The cost is comparable to a single 46" 3D-ready television, which requires at least one pair of expensive glasses to operate.

There are other disadvantages, too. The polarized filters are never 100% perfect at blocking all of the light from one of the projectors, so if there is something dark beside something bright, an eye might notice light intended for the other eye. This is called crosstalk. For me, this usually isn't much of an issue, but it can be quite noticeable in some scenarios. If it doesn't bother you in the theaters, then it probably won't bother you at home. But it is something to consider.

Another slight disadvantage of this setup is that most filters polarize the light across a plane, so the more you tilt your head, the more crosstalk you see.

It is also notable that there is no cost-effective, ready-to-go consumer-level solution for building a polarized dual-projection home theater. The technically-inclined might enjoy the challenge of constructing such a system, but if you don't get excited about big projects, a polarized dual-projection system is not the way to go.

The biggest disadvantage of the polarized method is that no company has announced a Blu-ray 3D software player for it yet. It might happen in the future, but there is a good chance it won't. We've heard rumors that the Blu-ray 3D spec doesn't allow for more than a single display, and the software developers we've talked to have indicated that the dual-projector option is too fringe to justify development. While it's not impossible, it does seem unlikely that we will see a Blu-ray 3D option anytime soon. That means this configuration is pretty much limited to playing games.

3D Vision Projector (Alternate-Frame Sequencing)

Nvidia's 3D Vision solution uses a method called Alternate-Frame Sequencing. Alternate-Frame Sequencing works by alternately displaying a frame of video for each eye. First, a frame of video for the left eye is shown, and then a frame of video for the right eye. This changes back and forth, 120 times each second. The key to making this system work is LCD shutter glasses. These glasses alternatively block each eye at the same frequency (60 times a second for each eye) in order to allow only the intended frame of video to be seen by the targeted eye.

A rate of 60 frames of video per second is what we're used to seeing on conventional LCD TVs. At this speed, you shouldn't be able to perceive any strobing or flickering.

What are the advantages of a 3D Vision projector over a polarized dual-projection system? Foremost, the startup cost is a fraction of any other large-screen 3D Vision setup. A good 3D Vision projector can be found for well under $1,000, including the 3D Vision glasses kit, and only a single projector is required. A 3D Vision projector system is also easy to set up. With only one projector required and no polarized filters needed, mounting the system is relatively simple, and no calibration is necessary.

Another unmistakable advantage favoring 3D Vision and 120 Hz alternate-frame sequencing displays is Blu-ray 3D compatibility. While the 3D Blu-ray specification is said to be display-agnostic, all playback software for the PC relies on this method for full-resolution playback. It might not be practical to view Blu-ray 3D movies at full resolution any other way.

In addition, alternate-frame sequencing all but eliminates ghosting or crosstalk artifacts because each eye is prevented from seeing the image intended for the other eye. It is true that some ghosting might be seen on LCD screens when very bright objects are displayed, but with digital light processing (DLP) projectors, the refresh rate is fast enough to prevent this issue.

All of this sounds wonderful, but there are still downsides to take into consideration. The main problem with alternate-frame sequencing solutions is the high cost of the glasses. For example, Nvidia's 3D Vision kit, including a single pair of 3D glasses and an IR emitter (required to synchronize the glasses to the proper frame of video), is about $200. Each extra pair of glasses after that will typically cost $150 each. So, if you have a family of five and you want to watch a movie on your new 3D Blu-ray home theater PC, it'll cost you about $800 to get the glasses and emitter. Invite a couple to join your family for movie night and the cost goes up to $1,100--and that's not including the cash you already spent on your 3D Vision projector, HTPC, and playback software. On top of this, if your kids are anywhere near as reckless as my own, the risk of damaging those glasses is very real. With each set priced higher than a Wii, you can understand the potential for problems.

Moreover, as mentioned previously, 3D Vision glasses limit the amount of light that reaches the eye, so your display will seem darker than it does when not wearing them. The glasses will also need to be powered. 3D Vision glasses are rechargeable, though, and last for over a day on a single charge, so this is a minor inconvenience. Finally, 3D Vision is not graphics card-agnostic, so if you don't have a 3D Vision-ready GeForce card, you're going to have to get one.

You want to build a 3D Vision projector home theater? Let's go over what you'll need to make it happen.

A Home-Theater PC with a 3D Vision-Capable Graphics Card

You're going to need a GeForce 3D Vision-capable graphics card in your PC. 3D mode will put the hurt on game performance, so you'll want a GeForce GTX 260 or more powerful graphics card if games are on the menu. If Blu-ray 3D is your focus, then you can get away with a GeForce GT 240. The CPU isn't as important, but if you're using a GeForce card that doesn't accelerate Blu-ray 3D, or if you're planning on some serious gaming, you should opt for something well-balance like an Athlon II X3 or Core i3 CPU, at the very least.

We chose the GeForce GTX 260 for our testing, giving us the ability to compare performance to our previous polarized dual-projector theater testing.

3D Vision Kit (Comes with a Single Pair of 3D Vision Glasses)

The 3D Vision kit comes with a 3D Vision emitter and a single pair of 3D Vision glasses. The kit can be purchased for $200 directly from Nvidia's Web store. A single emitter will drive a room full of people wearing glasses, and additional shades sell for $150 each.

We're going to consider this cost as $200 for the time being, but for a family of five, the cost actually adds up to $800 total. Just keep in mind that more glasses equals more money.

3D Vision-Ready Projector

The projector is critical. It has to be 3D Vision-ready. When purchasing a 3D Vision-ready projector for gaming use, you're going to be looking at three factors: brightness, resolution, and cost. Brightness is important because a substantial amount of light from the projector gets blocked when viewed through the 3D Vision shutter glasses. Resolution is important because, when you're playing on a wall-sized display, low resolutions aren't pretty at all. As for price, that's somewhat self-explanatory.

Unfortunately, there are no 1080p 3D Vision-ready projectors out there at this time, but the 720p models deliver excellent image quality, even on a 100" screen. You're going to want a model with at least 2,000 lumens of brightness because you will lose some of the light through those 3D Vision glasses.

We chose the Acer H5360 projector for this review. It's a 3D Vision-ready unit with a 720p resolution, 120 Hz refresh rate, a bright 2,500 lumen output, and a 3200:1 contrast ratio, all for $640 on Newegg. Frankly, we're surprised at the attractive price. It doesn't seem like 3D Vision-ready projectors bear the same price premium associated with 3D Vision-ready LCD monitors. And this projector works great for standard 2D content, too.

You can find a 99" pull-down projector screen for as low as $60 on Newegg. Of course, you could just use a white wall instead of a screen, but let's assume you want to put a little money into something that will reflect the light a little better. We're adding a $60 charge to the bill.

Mounting Hardware and Cables

We found great projector ceiling mounts for $15 each at Monoprice.com. DVI-to-HDMI cables are also nice to have, and we paid about $25 total for a 25 ft. cable. The mounting hardware and cable adds up to $40.

What's the Total?

We're going to leave out the price of the PC from this setup, as folks may opt to use their existing PC to drive the wall-sized 3D display. All of the other costs add up to a final total of $920 for 3D Vision-display hardware.

This costs far less than our polarized dual-projector system, which weighed in at about $2,500. The financial advantage for the polarized system is, of course, that additional glasses can be purchased for under $1 each. Then again, you can buy a lot of $150 3D Vision shades for the $1,500 price spread between these display technologies.

Installing a 3D Vision projector system is incredibly easy compared to setting up a polarized dual-projector system. For example, you do not have to worry about filters that need to be mounted or screen calibration. Some hardware mounting is involved, but it's a straightforward affair.

Before you do anything else, plug your 3D Vision glasses into the included USB cable to charge them. There's nothing worse than having everything else ready and no glasses to use.

Now you want to install the screen, and to do that, you'll want to test-fire your projector and see how far away from the screen it will have to be placed to produce the image size image you'd like. When this is done, you should have a good idea of where everything will be placed. Projector screens are often attached to the wall/ceiling by a few screws, which is not difficult to do.

With the screen installed, you move onto the projector mount. Ideally, you'll find a centered ceiling joist to carry the weight of the projector and mount it there. Every mount has its own particular mechanism for bolting to the projector, which is usually mounted with three small screws to secure the base.

With the hardware mounted, power and display cables need to be routed to the projector. In our temporary setup, we simply mounted the cables to the ceiling, but a permanent solution would probably benefit from a stealthy installation behind the wallboard or ceiling tile.

With the projectors mounted and cables attached to the PC, it's time to turn everything on. A quick note about the Acer H5360 projector: there is a 3D Vision option in its menu. Our testing shows that this option does not enable 3D Vision. Instead, it provides a number of extremely irritating messages whenever the resolution is changed. You should probably keep this option off if you value your sanity.

With everything powered up, you install the newest GeForce drivers that include all of the necessary optimizations for 3D Vision. In this case, we're using build 257.21, but there is a newer package on Nvidia's site. After installation, make sure you set the display resolution to 1280x720 at 120 Hz. This is critical because lower refresh rates will not work with 3D Vision. With this done, you can enable 3D Vision and test it out.

The 3D Vision controls are in the Nvidia Driver Panel, and the first time you try to enable the feature, you instantiate the 3D Vision wizard. It's a helpful little app that simplifies the setup of 3D Vision and makes sure everything is working well.

The 3D Vision wizard ensures the display is working properly with the emitter and glasses by displaying some imagery and quizzing you about what you see. After the wizard is certain everything is working, you are prompted to click the “Test Stereoscopic 3D” button in the driver panel for a full-screen 3D video test.

There is an important detail to note when using Acer's projector for 3D Vision duty: 3D mode only seems to work properly at 1280x720 using the 120 Hz refresh rate. This means that you will have to run your games at this setting in order to view them in 3D. Interpolating higher resolutions down to the monitor's native resolution will not work in 3D mode.

This nostalgic test is the same one Nvidia's 3D driver has been using for years--you can tell by the old rendition of the Nvidia logo--and it continues to do a fine job of letting you know if 3D is indeed working on your system or not.

To view this cross-view image in 3D, read the instructions on the test setup and benchmarks pageTo view this cross-view image in 3D, read the instructions on the test setup and benchmarks page

During our setup stage, we had two issues that were both illuminated by the 3D Vision setup wizard. First, the system did not automatically recognize our 3D Vision IR emitter. This is a rare problem in the wild, but we've experienced it a number of times with our particular sample. In any case, the problem is solved by manually applying the nvstusb.inf driver from an older 3D Vision driver.

Our second issue was a bit more disturbing. The PC did not detect our Acer H5360 projector when we used the HDMI input, and since it wasn’t detected as a 3D Vision-ready display, 3D Vision would not work. We worked around this incompatibility by using a VGA cable instead of an HDMI connection. The tradeoff here is that HDCP compatibility is lost over VGA, resulting in a loss of resolution during Blu-ray playback.

3D Vision is somewhat simple to use, and in many cases, tasks are handled automatically. However, there are a few things to keep in mind.

Operating the 3D Vision IR emitter

You'll need a clear line of sight to the emitter from your seating position because it sends a signal to the 3D Vision glasses that synchronizes them to the display. It won't work if the emitter is behind you. The good news is that the emitter outputs a strong IR signal that works as far as 30 ft. away, so a number of people can use the same emitter at the same time.

There are two controls on the emitter: an On/Off button for the 3D effect and a depth wheel at the rear. The On/Off button is self-explanatory, while the depth wheel increases or decreases the depth of the 3D effect. The best way to understand what it does is to try it out. Simply set it to taste.

Launching a Game

Once you have enabled 3D Vision, it will automatically become active whenever you launch a 3D game. 3D Vision will show you a heads-up display with information about how well 3D Vision works with the title, if any information is available. Typically, the overlay will give the game a rating such as “Good” or “Not Recommended” and describe the in-game settings you might want to tweak to minimize 3D anomalies, if possible. When you're done examining this information, you can make it disappear by hitting the Ctrl-Alt-Insert keys.

The Depth Issue

This brings us to an unpleasant, but workable, issue that we encountered: a lack of apparent 3D depth in some games when using 3D Vision.

The 3D depth hinges on two factors: separation and convergence. Both of these factors must be set properly for a good 3D effect. Nvidia has supplied a very convenient separation control on the 3D Vision emitter (the depth wheel), but the convergence control is much harder to find. The setting is actually disabled by default and must be enabled in the "Set keyboard Shortcuts" pop-up menu in the "Set Up Stereoscopic 3D" panel of the GeForce driver.

In most games that Nvidia has profiled, it has created a default convergence setting that facilitates a reasonable 3D effect. Unfortunately, there are some games for which Nvidia has not created a profile, and if the default convergence setting isn't quite right for the game engine, the 3D effect will be poor, regardless of what the depth wheel is set at. Naturally, this is something that Nvidia has the power to affect with driver updates, and the good news is that the company continues shipping newer software to keep 3D Vision up to date.

Another issue with the convergence controls is a lack of user feedback. Increasing or decreasing convergence might have a very subtle effect for a long time before you notice any difference on screen, so some feedback about Nvidia's 3D Vision HUD would be appreciated here. Essentially, we think that the critical convergence control should be enabled by default and that there should be some user feedback when the controls are operated.

As for separation, the depth wheel on the 3D Vision emitter doesn't allow us to increase the apparent 3D depth past an arbitrary value that we feel is too shallow in some of the games we tested.

3D Vision allows a maximum depth setting based on the size of the display you are using and the display size is hard-coded based on your 3D Vision-compatible device. In the case of the H5360 projector, though, the screen size is variable--there's a huge range of possible screen sizes. Nevertheless, the 3D Vision driver decided on a 110" screen size, and that's what we had to live with.

Traditionally, Nvidia's 3D drivers have offered screen size settings, and because the maximum depth is based on the screen size, it could be used to manipulate the maximum depth. A smaller screen size setting allows for a larger apparent maximum depth. Unfortunately, the new drivers do not allow the user to manually select the screen size for a known 3D Vision display. Nvidia could easily fix this issue for everyone by allowing advanced users to set their own screen size in the driver panel, and we requested that in our feedback.

Left 4 Dead simply has to be one of the test cases for a wall-sized stereo 3D experience. And I'm not talking about Left 4 Dead 2 (the sequel with its bright outdoor environments). I'm talking about the original, with its dark, claustrophobic corridors and rainy nights. This game is very well suited for 3D play and brings the experience to life in a way that's hard to describe, but awesome to behold.

We use the following settings for our tests: 1280x720 (native projector resolution), highest details, and 4x multi-sample anti-aliasing (MSAA).

Game Experience using 3D Vision:

Nvidia considers this game worthy of the “Excellent” rating, and we certainly agree. Left 4 Dead delivers a very smooth 3D experience with no visual anomalies to note.

The specific info delivered in the 3D Vision game rating overlay is "Rating: Excellent, Clouds at wrong depth, Setting film grain to off provides better stereo effect." Strangely enough, I don't notice anything in the way of cloud-oriented anomalies.

The only thing we can complain about is that the maximum depth allowed by the 3D Vision driver seems slightly shallower than what we would like, as we've mentioned previously. However, this can be improved with convergence controls.

Comparing with the Polarized Dual-Projector Drivers:

The TriDef drivers perform just as well as the 3D Vision solution in Left 4 Dead, but the iZ3D drivers are lacking in that there are a number of text overlay and skybox anomalies.

TriDef Ignition Driver Screenshots:

iZ3D Driver Screenshots:

Note the distracting inconsistency in the placement of the character names above their headsNote the distracting inconsistency in the placement of the character names above their heads

Left 4 Dead 3D Stereo Performance:

The 3D Vision driver delivers much better performance than the iZ3D driver can muster on the GeForce GTX 260. From a raw performance standpoint, the iZ3D and TriDef drivers deliver almost identical performance compared to the Radeon HD 4890. Note that the TriDef drivers do not work on the GeForce card in this game.

I can't think of a racing title I'd rather play to experience the ugly fun of high-speed collisions in stereo 3D. For the record, this game gets the most traction out of the titles I demonstrate when people come over to experience wall-sized 3D gaming. Burnout is very accessible, and players never seem to tire of racing through ParadiseCity. High-speed crashing and jumps in 3D never get old.

We use the following settings for our tests: 1280x720 (native projector resolution), highest details, and 8x MSAA.

We use 8x MSAA with this title because, for whatever reason, Burnout Paradise is a game that seems to highlight jaggy edges at low resolutions. So, 8x MSAA is how we counter that.

Game Experience using 3D Vision:

For Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, 3D Vision has the following to say when it comes to compatibility: "Rating: Good, some objects render incorrectly."

After putting some time into the title, I have to say it's hard to believe it was given the same rating as Crysis. This game works a heck of a lot better than Crysis in 3D mode, and it appears just fine with all of the bells and whistles enabled.

Comparing with the Polarized Dual-Projector Drivers:

Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box works very well with the TriDef driver, but the iZ3D driver suffers from shadow artifacts and glitches that spoil the experience.

TriDef Ignition Driver Screenshot:

iZ3D Driver Screenshot:

Note the extra random shadows all over the road compared to the TriDef driver. These shadows crawled all over the place while drivingNote the extra random shadows all over the road compared to the TriDef driver. These shadows crawled all over the place while driving

Burnout Paradise 3D Stereo Performance:

Burnout Paradise is the biggest disappointment in our test suite as it pertains to 3D Vision. This is due to poor performance and not because of poor visuals. The good news is that lowering shadow detail makes the game run a lot smoother, and 8x AA can be enabled because it doesn't seem to have an effect on performance.

Epic space battles in wall-sized 3D are so impressive that this is a crowd-favorite game to sit back and watch. The sense of scale is simply breathtaking with the camera poised behind the saucer section of a mighty starship that fires volley after volley of phaser cannons toward a target far off in the distance. Floating space debris contributes to a sense of depth.

We use the following settings for our tests: 1280x720 (native projector resolution), recommended quality, and 4x MSAA.

Game Experience using 3D Vision:

The 3D Vision adviser tells us the following about Star trek Online compatibility: "Rating: Good, Some objects render at wrong depth, Go to Options/Video turn on advanced video settings, Anti-Aliasing=None, Shadows=low, Bloom Quality=Off."

Essentially, shadows don't render properly. But it turns out that space battles don't need shadows to look great. And if AA is enabled, some stuff renders in one eye and not the other (explosions and certain weapon effects are two examples), but turning AA off fixes this issue. On a positive note, the mouse cursor is shown for both eyes, which is an improvement over the iZ3D driver.

This is one of the titles where we noticed a lack of depth on the projector compared to other 3D solutions, such as the polarized 3D drivers or even 3D Vision on the Acer GD235Hz LCD monitor. The depth wheel could not correct the lack of depth, but extensive tweaking with convergence helps produce great results.

Comparing to the Polarized Dual-Projector Drivers:

Unfortunately, this is another game for which the TriDef driver fails to work on a dual-projector system. As it always seems to, the iZ3D driver works, but produces some shadow glitches, so the low setting is necessary. Once again, the mouse cursor can only be seen in one eye when using the iZ3D driver.

Star Trek Online 3D Stereo Performance:

This game favors the 3D Vision solution, delivering higher frame rates than the iZ3D driver provides on the GeForce GTX 260.

Something that polarized dual-projector systems do not currently allow for is Blu-ray 3D playback. This is a software, and not a hardware, limitation. No developers are spending resources to design something for the fringe dual-projector platform.

Of course, 3D Vision uses the same 120 Hz AFR method to display 3D imagery that the major television manufacturers are using, so this de-facto standard is supported through 3D Vision by all the significant Blu-ray 3D software packages. In our case, we'll use a prerelease version of PowerDVD 10 Ultra Mk II to test things out. We're using the newly released Blu-ray 3D disc Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

The Blu-ray 3D playback is perfect, and surprisingly bright. We are put off by Blu-ray 3D playback on the 3D Vision-capable Acer GD235Hz LCD LCD, but the brightness issue doesn't seem to rear its head on the Acer H5360 projector. Perhaps we're simply conditioned to control the light in a projector situation. But whatever the reason, the brightness isn't a detractor at all like it is on the monitor.

4GB Memory Kit 4

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:46:00 +0000

4GB Memory Kit 4

Now the rules. This contest is unfortunately only available to US residents
in one of the 50 states. I realize that AnandTech is an international site and I do highly value all of our readers, unfortunately extending the contest rules outside of the US is a bit more than we're able to reliably handle today. That's not to say that we won't at some point in the future, we just have little experience doing such things and don't want to get burned early on.
Secondly, you are only allowed to enter once.

Entries will be accepted from 2:00 AM EDT on July 22, 2010 through 2:00 AM EDT on July 23, 2010. Winner will be selected by July 25, 2010.

Good luck everyone :)

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RIM BlackPad Expected To Complete with Apple's iPad

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:57:00 +0000

Research In Motion is expected to introduce the BlackPad to compete with rival Apple's iPad, which currently dominates the tablet market. RIM recently acquired blackpad.com, and is also expected to introduce the BlackBerry Bold 9800 to regain smartphone market share from Apple's iPhone. RIM faces an uphill battle with the BlackPad.

Research In Motion will introduce its own tablet computer, called BlackPad, in November, according to news sources. The BlackBerry maker is moving to compete with rival Apple, which currently dominates the tablet market with its iPad.

RIM is also expected to introduce the BlackBerry Bold 9800 smartphone with a sliding QWERTY Relevant Products/Services keyboard next month to recover market share lost to Apple's iPhone. According to IDC, RIM's share of the global smartphone market was 19.4 percent in the first quarter, down from 20.9 percent a year earlier, while Apple rose to 16.1 percent from 10.9 percent.

News sources said RIM's BlackPad will be about the same size as the iPad and include both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth so users can connect to the Internet through smartphones. The price is expected to be close to the iPad, which currently starts at $499.

The operating system for the BlackPad is not known, but could be the upcoming BlackBerry 6. RIM and AT&T could discuss that operating system at a press conference next week expected to focus on the Bold 9800.

Canada-based RIM recently acquired the domain blackpad.com.

Even with a tablet, RIM will have to scramble to compete with the more than 225,000 apps available for the iPad and iPhone on Apple's App Store. RIM's BlackBerry App World had a bit more than 9,000 apps as of Friday.

The BlackPad will reportedly have front and back cameras for videoconferencing. News sources said it will also be tied to the BlackBerry e-mail system used by many enterprises.

With more than three million iPads sold, Apple has a tremendous market lead and RIM will be playing catch-up along with tablets expected from Hewlett-Packard, LG Electronics, and Samsung. Dell Relevant Products/Services has already introduced its Android-powered Dell Streak tablet and smartphone in the United Kingdom and has a large volume of pre-orders for its U.S. debut.

CORE Or Boost? AMD And Intel Turbo Features Dissected

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:00:00 +0000

CORE Or Boost? AMD And Intel Turbo Features Dissected

Intel arms its Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs with Turbo Boost. AMD's hexa-core Phenom II X6 chips sport Turbo CORE. Both technologies dynamically increase performance based on perceived workloads and available thermal headroom. Which one does the better job?
Automotive turbochargers increase torque and power output, which is why they're used to increase the air-fuel mixture rate per combustion cycle. AMD’s and Intel’s performance-improving technologies don't actually a require an additional piece of hardware bolted on like a turbo would be, but they both invoke the gas compressor namesake anyway.Instead, both companies' latest six-core models dynamically increase their clock rates to deliver better performance under workload conditions that allow for faster frequencies. We wanted to see whether Intel's Turbo Boost or AMD's Turbo CORE is the better implementation.

Intel was first to offer this performance-enhancing feature. Its Nehalem architecture and the Core i7-900 family first introduced Turbo Boost in late 2008. The technology is capable of accelerating all cores by one clock speed bin (133 MHz) and one or two cores by two speed increments (depending on the particular model). In 2009, the Lynnfield Core i5/i7 quad-core processors for LGA 1156 enabled a more advanced implementation able to accelerate one or two cores by four clock speed increments. The 800-series even bumps clock speed up by five clock speed bins for a single core. One speed bin equals 133 MHz at stock speed, so we’re effectively talking about a 133 to 533 MHz dynamic increase. Turbo Boost is also an available feature on the Clarkdale-based Core i5 dual-core chips.

We grabbed the latest AMD Phenom II X6 and Core i7-980X six-core processors to find out which implementation works best across our benchmark suite in terms of performance and power efficiency. Since the performance level of these two chips is rather different—Intel has more punch—we decided to compare benchmark results with and without the Turbo feature and normalize these to 100% for the non-Turbo results. This way we can compare the relative impact on the respective configurations despite the absolute performance difference. In short, which Turbo implementation gives you more bang for the buck?

Turbo CORE is available on all AMD Phenom II X4 and X6 processors based on the recent 45 nm designs, namely the Thuban six-core and seen-in-the-wild but not-yet-available-at-retail Zosma quad-core models. Should it ever see retail availability, the Phenom II X4 960T at 3.0 GHz nominal speed could accelerate two cores up to 3.4 GHz (+400 MHz) with the thermal headroom available, and if the application load demands the increase. The Phenom II X6 processors increase their clock speeds by 500 MHz, with the exception of the 1090T flagship, which adds 400 MHz to reach from 3.2 to 3.6 GHz.

This implementation can be considered an addition to the Cool’n’Quiet feature, which reduces clock speeds and voltages if there is little work for the processor to do. Once half of the cores are idle, the system reduces their clock speed to the Cool’n’Quiet minimum of 800 MHz. The next step is a voltage increase for the remaining active cores paired with a speed lift of up to 500 MHz, as explained above.

Unfortunately, few workloads would tax exactly three cores by 100%—the conditions needed for AMD’s solution to run at 3.6 GHz. We found that a two-core load scenario is more realistic. This is why the feature works better on a CPU with an even core count, such as the Phenom II X4 960T.

AMD’s Turbo CORE control allows Black Edition processor users to adjust their number of accelerated cores. This makes analysis more complex, but also gives enthusiasts a more powerful tool for fine tuning their systems.

Intel's implementation works best on processors with a lot of scalability inherent to their design, as Turbo Boost covers much broader clock speed ranges. For example, the new six-core "Gulftown," Core i7-980X, is already running close to its thermal ceiling under load. Thus, it's limited to a 266 MHz boost with a single core active, and a modest 133 MHz bump when two or more cores are active. Knowing that Intel’s overclocking headroom is sizable, this is really a pity for enthusiasts. After all, the Phenom II X6 can speed up three cores by up to 400 MHz using a 45 nm process.

Intel’s power gate transistors facilitate cutting power to individual cores. This allows the processor to actually disengage those cores from the overall power envelope, consequently "buying" the overhead needed to increase the remaining cores’ clock speed. The premise here is that fewer cores can run at higher clock speeds before they reach the same thermal output.

While AMD basically reduces clock speed and voltage for inactive cores, Intel can physically shut them down. In theory, this should result in lower power consumption and, paired with the ability to dynamically scale one or more cores up or down, a better overall performance result.

Intel has another advantage that should be mentioned. While AMD's six-core processors access 6 MB of shared L3 cache, Intel's architecture currently offers a massive 12 MB repository. If you switch off individual cores, the remaining active processing units can still access the full 12 MB L3. This should provide advantages for applications that work with limited data and use few threads.

3DMark, a synthetic benchmark, realizes a slight advantage from Intel's architecture and Turbo Boost.

PCMark Vantage clearly shows that Intel’s approach delivers performance gains while AMD’s Turbo Core doesn’t seem to help as much.

iTunes is single-threaded, and is better-accelerated on the Phenom II X6 with Turbo CORE enabled.

The same applies to Lame.

MainConcept is optimized to take advantage of multiple cores, so it benefits more from Turbo Boost, which can kick in even if many cores are taxed.

Once again, we see the multi-threaded advantage in HandBrake, where AMD's processor easily hits its limits on all six cores, preventing Turbo CORE from kicking in.

As expected, switching the Turbo features on or off doesn’t change idle power.

However, peak power increases under Turbo Boost and Turbo CORE. The differences are small, though.

The runtime for our full efficiency suite decreases a bit more on the Intel platform, as there are more applications taking advantage of Intel’s Turbo Boost implementation than AMD’s Turbo CORE.

Average power consumption is much higher on the AMD system with Turbo CORE enabled.

The total power used is exactly the same on the Intel system. This is interesting because the Core i7-980X with Turbo Boost is still faster. AMD’s Turbo CORE-enabled Phenom II X6 delivers more performance, but it requires more power to deliver it.

In the end, the Intel chip's efficiency stays constant. The total power used is exactly the same, but the average power is higher during the workload. As a result, the efficiency is identical. This is like reaching your destination faster in a car without changing your mileage per gallon. AMD’s Turbo implementation sacrifices power efficiency. Runtime decreases, but average power and total power used increase at a higher proportion.

We can only recommend that AMD and Intel continue implementing and developing their Turbo-oriented features. Both do their job in increasing performance. Since the two approaches are different, though, we found that their outcomes in real life are different, as well.

Let’s start with Intel. The six-core, 3.2 GHz Core i7-980X speeds up a single core by 266 MHz if a single-threaded application wants maximum performance, and it can accelerate all six cores by 133 MHz if thermal headroom allows. This is the main difference compared to AMD’s solution, because Intel's Gulftown design can accelerate single-threaded apps, as well as high-end applications. From a multi-core processing standpoint, Turbo Boost makes more sense than Turbo CORE, since all types of workload benefit when compared to nominal clock speed.

AMD’s Turbo CORE only knows one acceleration mode. It increases clock speed for three cores by up to 400 MHz in the case of the Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2 GHz six-core. This means that all applications that utilize no more than three cores experience immediate acceleration. In this case, we found that AMD's performance improvement is higher, as a 400 MHz upgrade is much more noticeable than Intel’s 133/266 MHz speed bump. The downside is nonexistent acceleration if four to six cores are being taxed.

Motorola Droid X Reviewed

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:55:00 +0000

Motorola Droid X Reviewed

You have to hand it to Motorola; as little as a year ago their future looked bleak. Android was still in its infancy and lacking polish, mainstream devices running it were few,
and there weren’t public or visible signs of any forthcoming devices which would challenge the dominance of BlackBerry or iOS, especially from Motorola. A few months later, they launched the Motorola Droid, and a few months after the floodgates opened up - out has poured a steady stream of relatively polished devices running Android 2.x. It’s been breakneck almost, with new flagships every 3 months on average - the latest is Motorola’s Droid X on Verizon - henceforth just 'X.'
You also have to hand it to Verizon for getting its act together. Previously, they were infamous for crippling device hardware and OSes - the Touch Pro notoriously lacked an entire row of keys, and half the RAM. Their smartphone lineup also used to consist entirely of BlackBerries and Windows Mobile devices. That’s all changed.

Since the first Motorola Droid, they’ve been probably the single most vocal proponent of Android, embracing and billing their lineup of “Droids” as serious iPhone alternatives. The unique combination of being the largest carrier and the largest 3G footprint (and the perception of having above average coverage) has resulted in massive growth of the Android platform. That’s definitely a turnaround for two giants.

Motorola and HTC are now locked in a battle for dominance of the Android segment on the nation’s largest carrier. On one side is the HTC Incredible, on the other is the X and eventually the Droid 2. Across the aisle at Sprint, HTC has the EVO 4G. If you’re interested in a smartphone of the Android variety, you’ve got the most options ever right now, and the X is the newest contender. Let’s dive in.

HP Confirms Plans for Both Windows and webOS Tablets

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:50:00 +0000

HP Confirms Plans for Both Windows and webOS Tablets

Hewlett-Packard will offer a tablet computer with Windows 7 for business and a second tablet with Palm's webOS for a consumer tablet. HP gave no pricing or release dates beyond "fall" for the Windows slate. Despite the dismal showing for webOS in the smartphone market, an analyst said HP will need to figure out how to use it in a tablet.
Hewlett-Packard has confirmed it plans separate tablet computers running Microsoft's Windows and Palm's webOS. HP says it will use Windows for a business device and webOS for a consumer-oriented machine.
No release dates, product specs, or prices have been named, but HP spokesperson Marlene Somsak told us in an e-mail that a Slate-type computer is coming soon.

Slated For Fall

"We aren't saying anything beyond 'fall' for a Windows-based slate," she wrote. "And we have not set an official name or set pricing. We are aiming that product at the commercial market. webOS from Palm is the platform Relevant Products/Services for our consumer slate -- no timing, name or pricing revealed there."

Somsak declined further comment.

Speculation abounded last week about the technology giant's tablet plans when the HP Slate made a brief appearance on the company's web site, listed as the Slate 500-1002TU, with no release date or price. First unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, the Slate was assumed to be dead when HP purchased the failing Palm, creator of webOS.

The Slate 500-1002TU was described in product specs as a fun device for social media, photos and videos, which means it's not likely the upcoming HP Windows device geared toward enterprises. It had an 8.9-inch screen, video and still cameras, a gigabyte of memory, a 1.6-gigahertz processor, and support for input from an electronic pen "to write or draw as if on a piece of paper," HP said.

That device disappeared from the web site after it prompted numerous articles in the technology media.

A Two-Pronged Approach

Taking advantage of Microsoft's strong desire to be in the burgeoning tablet market -- Ballmer on July 12 said it is "one of the most important things we'll do in the smart-device category" -- while also promoting webOS for tablets makes sense, said Altimeter Group consultant Michael Gartenberg.

"It's all in the details, of course," Gartenberg said. "As HP has already shown some of their Windows 7-based tablet, I'm not surprised they want to leverage it with at least some audience, and the Windows-based nature makes sense for the business market."

"We've only seen webOS on phones," Gartenberg noted. "HP will need to figure out what the proper webOS experience is on a tablet, much as the iPad differs from the iPhone in a number of ways for an optimized tablet experience."

HP acquired Palm for $1.2 billion in a deal that was completed July 1.

Two GeForce GTX 460s Beat One GTX 480?

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:09:00 +0000

Two GeForce GTX 460s Beat One GTX 480?

The GeForce GTX 460 has already proven itself an excellent value as a single card, but can two of them offer superior performance at similar cost to Nvidia’s flagship GTX 480? Let's just say that there's a good reason to buy an SLI-compatible motherboard.
Graphics giants Nvidia and AMD continuously run up against the limits of manufacturing technology in their effort to release revolutionary products every eighteen months.

Note to AMD enthusiasts: The focus of today’s article is on GeForce GTX 460 SLI performance relative to the GeForce GTX 480. For a detailed analysis of how the GeForce GTX 480 compares to multi-GPU Radeon configurations, including the Radeon HD 5970 and Radeon HD 5870 in CrossFire, please consider Don Woligroski’s Asus ARES review.

Sparkle was kind enough to supply one GeForce GTX 480 and two GeForce GTX 460 graphics cards. Each card includes a mini-HDMI to standard HDMI data cable, a DVI-I to VGA adapter, driver CD with various freeware, installation guide, and two power adapter cables.

Support for up to seven graphics cards makes the X58A-UD9 this reviewer’s choice for multi-card graphics tests. Less expensive X58-based solutions would have also been adequate for two-way SLI testing, since the chipset supports two x16 cards at full bandwidth.

We brought back Intel’s Core i7-980X to satisfy popular demand, even though none of today’s games can properly access more than four CPU threads. SLI does allow some games to push a few CPU cores to their limit however, so we overclocked ours to 4.00 GHz.

Diamond’s Radeon HD 5870 provides a second reference point for anyone who would like to compare Don Woligroski’s comprehensive CrossFire analysis to today’s limited SLI tests.
Benchmark Configuration
3D Games
Aliens Vs. Predator Benchmark Alien vs Predator Benchmark Tool
Test Set 1: Highest Settings, No AA
Test Set 2: Highest Settings, 4x AA
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign, Act III, Second Sun (45 sec. FRAPS)
Test Set 1: Highest Settings, No AA
Test Set 2: Highest Settings, 4x AA
Crysis Patch 1.2.1, DirectX 10, 64-bit executable, benchmark tool
Test Set 1: Highest Quality, No AA
Test Set 2: Highest Quality, 4x AA
DiRT 2 Run with -benchmark example_benchmark.xml
Test Set 1: Highest Settings, No AA
Test Set 2: Highest Settings, 4x AA
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call Of Pripyat Call Of Pripyat Benchmark version
Test Set 1: Highest Settings, No AA
Test Set 2: Highest Settings, 4x MSAA
Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
3DMark Vantage Version: 1.0.1, GPU and CPU scores

3DMark adds a PhysX Processing Unit score by default, invalidating any test results where ATI cards have been included. We disabled it for the following tests.

Two GeForce GTX 460 graphics cards put a beating on the GeForce GTX 480 at the default 1280x1024 resolution, a place where the Radeon 5870 also does well. Higher resolution tests will show just how unimportant the default resolution should be to high-end gamers, though.

Maintaining the same chart scale for all resolutions gives a visual representation of how far performance really drops as settings are increased. Two GeForce GTX 460 graphics cards continue to show up the single GTX 480 at 1680x1050.

The GeForce GTX 460’s lead begins to fall off a little at 1920x1200. Even still, the difference between two GeForce GTX 460s and a single GTX 480 is almost as big as the difference between a GeForce GTX 480 and a single GTX 460. The real question is whether this synthetic's results will be repeated in real-world games?

Any GeForce GTX 480 buyers who thought solid performance might be limited to DX11-based games will be shocked to see the GeForce GTX 460 SLI configuration leaping out of the gate in MW2, tearing a 25% lead away from the GeForce GTX 480.

Can SLI scaling ever reach 100%? It can with the GeForce GTX 460, but only at MW2’s highest settings. It’s at this point that we really must remind readers that this particular game is completely playable at all settings, even using a single GeForce GTX 460.

The GeForce GTX 460 SLI solution continues its rampage in Crysis, beginning with an unbelievable 95% improvement over a single card when using medium resolutions at the game’s highest settings. Equally unfathomable is its 27% lead over the single GeForce GTX 480.

Yes, it can play Crysis, even at the 1920x1080 pixel resolution native to mid-budget monitors, and even with all the eye-candy enabled. Adding AA to the GeForce GTX 480, however, causes it to drop below our target 40 FPS average frame rate.

The AA bug we normally see in SLI systems at Crysis’ highest settings appears to be gone completely using Nvidia’s latest drivers with the GeForce GTX 460. We even retested at 8x to make sure the bug was gone, and confirmed that it is no longer a problem. Nobody will be playing this game at these low frame rates, but at least the performance scaling is appropriate.

With the GeForce GTX 460 SLI configuration’s pattern of performance domination clearly established, further superlatives add nothing to its top score in Call of Pripyat benchmark.

We finally get to the point where the GeForce GTX 460’s performance is actually needed by increasing this benchmark’s resolution to 2560x1600.

It’s not always easy to keep track of which card wins and loses in individual benchmarks, or by how much. While today’s performance numbers were far more consistent than those of most graphics reviews, we thought there might be a few readers who could still use a breakdown of average performance.

At 1680x1050, the GeForce GTX 460 SLI configuration outpaces the GTX 480 by a wide enough margin that it wins even with anti-aliasing enabled.

1920x1080 results give the GeForce GTX 480 its second beating, yet even the single GeForce GTX 460 produces adequate frame rates, on average.

If you can afford a 2560x1600 display, you’ll want nothing less than a GeForce GTX 460 SLI configuration. The average doesn’t show how it stumbled in a few benchmarks, but it absolutely slams the single-card GeForce GTX 480. Of course, we have a pair of GeForce GTX 480s to show off in this quarter's System Builder Marathon, and that is a performance segment unto itself.

Power consumption numbers are measured for the entire system by a meter gauging use from the wall outlet. Our OCZ-Z1000 power supply is 90% efficient (±1%) at the “Full GPU Load” power consumption levels charted below. So, anyone who wants to know the actual consumption of system components need only multiply the “Full GPU Load” readings by 0.9.

Efficiency is a comparison of work done to energy used. There is no metric to determine 100% efficiency using bits-per-watt or even FPS-per-watt, since bits and rendered frames are intangible. The best we can hope for is a comparison of how much more or less efficient one system is compared to another. To do that, we must first see how much more energy each system used than the lowest-consuming system, which in this case is the single GeForce GTX 460-based configuration.

Next, we need to know how much more performance the three top systems have over the fourth. We averaged the frames per second of each system and divided the result by that of the lowest system.

Dividing the performance difference (above) by the power consumption difference (two charts above) gives us a “full load” performance-per-watt difference, with the lowest system representing 100%. On the other hand, since the work produced by idle systems is invariable, comparing the efficiency of idle systems requires simply dividing each configuration’s idle power by that of the most miserly configuration. Because there is no such thing as 100%-efficient, subtracting the 100% baseline from each result allows us to show the difference between configurations.

Adding a second GeForce GTX 460 gives us a 90% performance boost, while requiring only 53% more total system power, yielding a performance-per-watt increase of 24% (1.90 / 1.53). The same system, at idle, consumes 13.1% more power than the single GeForce GTX 460 baseline.

And now for heat:

The temperature numbers above are for the first card in the system. In our SLI configuration, with two cards spaced less than one expansion slot apart, the bottom card actually runs cooler than a single card. The is likely due to the system increasing the speed of both fans simultaneously. Our motherboard also supports spreading the cards several spaces apart, and a test with two spaces between cards revealed identical temperatures in SLI and single-card configurations.

With an MSRP of $250 and a Web price around $230, GeForce GTX 460 1GB graphics cards were already known to be great mid-priced performers. Doubling these up in SLI gives us the same MSRP and Web price as a single GeForce GTX 480. But does this give us more performance? You bet!

The GeForce GTX 460 SLI configuration absolutely obliterates the GeForce GTX 480’s performance scores, landing a 26% performance coup de grace upon its big brother after continuously battering it with wins in every benchmark at every setting. That would put it in the same performance class as a certain $700 dual-GPU card, according to Don Woligroski’s recent review. But—at less than $500—it doesn't even need to compete there. While far-more-expensive solutions do have their own particular strengths, what we really wanted to know was where our $460 would be best spent, and today’s test revealed that answer.

Because SLI scales so well, giving two GeForce GTX 460 1GB graphics cards a 90% performance boost over a single card, the value for two cards together is very similar to what earned the single GeForce GTX 460 1GB its previous Recommended Buy award. Today’s award applies in the same way to the $500 graphics category, where the only reason we can think of to purchase a GeForce GTX 480 right now is to use it in SLI for the $1000 price class.

While today’s award applies to all GeForce GTX 460 1GB models priced between $230 and $250, we’d still like to express our special thanks to Sparkle Computer Corp. for supplying the units we used to determine today’s results.

U.S. Orders for Dell Streak Overflow Even Without a Price

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:05:00 +0000

U.S. Orders for Dell Streak Overflow Even Without a Price

U.S. pre-orders for the hybrid Dell Streak tablet-smartphone are piling up even without a price or a release date. Already launched in the U.K., Dell said the Dell Streak is its most successful pre-order device. The smaller Android-powered Dell Streak with Adobe Flash support is expected to offer some competition to Apple's popular iPad.
The reason for the delay is that the Streak is the most successful pre-sale device that the computer maker has ever offered, according to Dell blogger Lionel Menchaca. "There are many pieces that need to fall into place to release a product like this, and the reality is that we need more time to work out some things," Menchaca wrote Monday.

Definitely a Need

Once Dell launches the device in the United States, the main question will be to what extent it impacts Apple's iPad sales, given that the Streak will offer similar features but be small enough to carry just about anywhere. IDC Research Manager Francisco Jeronimo expects to see the iPad and the Dell Streak successful in two different market segments.

The iPad will be the choice for people with "a clear preference for a bigger screen" who primarily wish to use their devices at home, Jeronimo said. However, another segment of users will be attracted to a smaller go-anywhere device that sports a screen large enough to view web pages in their natural form -- something they are unable to do on a smartphone.

"For these users, the Dell Streak will be a much more attractive proposition," Jeronimo said. "There's definitely a need on the market for a mobile device that falls midway between a netbook and a smartphone."

Unlike the iPad, the Streak will be able to place and receive calls as well as offer support for Adobe Flash 10.1 multimedia files, Jeronimo noted. So Apple "will have to be more competitive because the other device will be a much better value for the money and Apple cannot rely only on its brand," he said.

No T-mobile Certification

The carbon-black Streak destined for the U.S. market is expected to emulate the version released to the O2 network last month, which features a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset with a one-gigahertz processor; 2GB of internal storage Relevant Products/Services as well as 16GB of microSD memory; and a five-megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flash. The device will also sport 3G HSDPA and Wi-Fi radios, together with a Bluetooth chip for wireless gear such as the Plantronics headset currently featured on Dell's pre-order page.

Dell plans to offer a mobile application store with apps especially for the Dell Streak, which is slated to become available to U.S. customers in an unlocked mode. On the downside, the U.S. version of the Dell Streak will not be certified for T-mobile. "At this point, we do not have plans for supporting T-Mobile's 3G network," Menchaca wrote.

ASRock Core 100HT-BD : Bringing HTPCs to the Mainstream Market

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:02:00 +0000

ASRock Core 100HT-BD : Bringing HTPCs to the Mainstream Market

Home Theater PCs (HTPCs) have remained a niche market, catering mainly to enthusiasts who love the challenge of setting up and maintaining them.
The demand for dumb devices with HTPC capabilities has seen tremendous increase over the past few years, with the success of devices such as the WDTV and other media streamers. Blu-Ray players also end up integrating features such as media streaming and wireless networking. Often, though, users end up demanding things which are difficult for these units to implement. A case in point is Netflix streaming on the WDTV Live, which ended up being implemented in WDTV Live Plus. Torrenting (and other similar PC capabilities) end up making an appearance in the homebrew firmware versions of these products. One of the easiest ways to avoid such disappointments is to invest in a HTPC. These are more future proof than the small media streaming boxes and Blu Ray players for which one has to depend on core firmware updates from the manufacturer.

Over the last 2 or 3 years, with the advent of small form factor (SFF) PCs, and promising chipsets such as Nvidia ION, one sensed the looming convergence of the media streamer and HTPC market. While being much more flexible compared to media streaming boxes, they suffered on the power envelop front. Also, the DRM requirements of Blu-Ray ensured that such PCs could never hope to achieve as much ease of usage and bitstreaming support as the Blu-Ray players unless one invested in costly soundcards. In the last 6 - 8 months, ATI introduced the 5xxx series and Intel introduced the Clarkdale and Arrandale platforms with an IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor), both of which were capable of HD audio bitstreaming. Enthusiasts could easily purchase such products and build HTPCs which could surpass the capabilities of any Blu-Ray player or media streamer.

The HTPC market, unfortunately, can never take off unless pre-built units make an appearance. We have seen the big players such as Dell and Acer create products such as the ZinoHD and Aspire Revo respectively. However, the platforms utilized processors such as the Neo and the Atom, which were mainly geared towards the ultraportable and netbook market. Consumers expecting desktop performance from such PCs were left disappointed. The market needed a fresh approach, and AsRock has come out with the first pre-built SFF PC based on the Arrandale platform for this.

ASRock has gained a reputation amongst us of being innovative in a crowded market, and having come out with pioneering products. Their first play in the SFF HTPC market was the ASRock ION 300-HT. Though it was found to be technically good, it ended up competing against products such as the Aspire Revo from Acer (with a substantially higher marketing impetus). Now, they have stolen a march over the competition by introducing the Core 100 HT-BD. Realizing that the Atom in the nettop was the major cause of concern amongst HTPC customers, they seem to have done their homework by introducing their next play in the market with the Arrandale platform.

The comments for the Gigabyte H55 mini-ITX review requested HTPC specific testing. Starting with this review, we are taking those comments into consideration and this unit will be analyzed completely from a HTPC perspective. If you are interested in a specific aspect, use the index below to navigate to the section you want. Otherwise, read on to find out what Anandtech discovered while trying to use the Core 100 HT-BD as a HTPC.

Antec DF-85 Gaming Chassis

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:51:00 +0000

Antec DF-85 gaming chassis:The highlights of the chassis are below: Better filter brackets – Tool-free filters that are durable and are designed to use a special flip-up tab for the Fleet-Release™ doors

· Top 2.5” hot-swap drive bay – Right up top where we know you’ll find it most useful, the Dark Fleet series’ hallmark smoked-crystal hot-swap enclosure is ideal for SSDs and HDDs

· Variable-speed fans – Accurate, silky-smooth stepless control knobs on the Dark Fleet series that allow a practically infinite range of settings between 0 and 10. It’s never been easier to achieve the perfect level of CFM to preserve both your gear and your peace of mind

· Fleet-Release™ – Modular doors that open up the drive bay allow easier access to internal hot-swaps. Getting at your drive cage for maintenance and swapping is as simple as popping open a durable, modular door with a tool-free latch

· Fleet-Swap™ – Offered exclusively on the DF-35 and top-line DF-85, these external SATA interfaces allow hot-swap capability and, in a world first, can be moved anywhere throughout the drive cage. Now you can organize your fixed and hot-swap drives the way that you want.

· Longer 2nd and 3rd 5.25 drive bays (DF-85) – More depth so you can fit that flush, seamless finished look even if you’re using bigger drives and accessories

· Convenience tool-less features – Hard drives secure with a single, strategically placed thumbscrew – you get the convenience of tool-less, with the solidity and durability of a traditional screw connection

· Dedicated SSD mounting locations – Added 2.5” mounts on the bottom, saving airflow for the hotter HDDs and also freeing up a drive bay slot.

The full spec sheet is here on Antec's site. To enter the giveaway all you need to do is respond to this post with a comment. Please only respond with one comment. If you're chosen, you need to email us your shipping information within 7 days to claim your prize. This contest is going to run for 48 hours unlike our other giveaways so you've got a little more time to enter.

Now the rules. This contest is unfortunately only available to US residents in one of the 50 states. I realize that AnandTech is an international site and I do highly value all of our readers, unfortunately extending the contest rules outside of the US is a bit more than we're able to reliably handle today. That's not to say that we won't at some point in the future, we just have little experience doing such things and don't want to get burned early on.

Secondly, you are only allowed to enter once. Multiple entries aren't counted.

Entries will be accepted from 1:00 AM EDT on July 13, 2010 through 1:00 AM EDT on July 15, 2010. Winner will be selected by July 17, 2010.

Good luck everyone :)

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OCZ Unveils 4GB DDR3-2133 Modules

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:46:00 +0000

Today is what OCZ calls the ‘unveiling’ of their new 4GB DDR3-2133 MHz memory modules, running at 1.65V. Along with the unveiling, OCZ are extending the modules into 8GB dual channel kits and 12GB triple channel kits, up to 2133 MHz.
The Platinum Series will aim to cater gamers and high density users, whereas overclockers and enthusiasts may plump for the faster and more expensive Flex EX and Reaper HPC kits.

OCZ did not release data on sub-timings with their unveiling, leading one to believe that they are attempting to market the memory based on raw MHz alone. In fact, delving into their website, the Flex EX 2133 MHz modules are specified at 10-10-10-30 timings, and the 2000 MHz Platinum modules are at 9-9-9-24 requiring 1.65V. There is no word on price for the high end parts - for comparison, the OCZ Reaper HPC 2x4GB 1333Mhz CAS 9 kit can be found at Newegg for $225 after rebate, and G. Skill’s 6x4GB DDR3-1600 CAS 7 kit is currently priced at $999. OCZ have recently been quite competitive on the pricing front with other products, such as their OCZ RevoDrive which is bringing more affordable PCIe SSDs to the market. Maybe OCZ can start to force the price of 4GB modules down as well.

Google To Sell Last Shipment of Nexus Ones In U.S.

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:43:00 +0000

Nexus One

Google will sell off its last shipment of the Android-powered Nexus One smartphone in the U.S. After that, the Nexus One will only be available in other countries. Google's experiment with selling the Nexus One primarily online appears to have clashed with buyers' desire to see and try a phone. Reviewers liked Google's Nexus One.

Want a collector's item? Consider a Nexus One smartphone, while supplies last. Once the search giant sells out its most recent shipment of the critically praised but sales-challenged handset, it will become a rare find for American consumers.

Still Available Abroad

The announcement comes about two months after Google announced it was giving up its unique approach of trying to market the HTC-manufactured Nexus One only online. Buying the phone unlocked for $529 allowed customers to choose their own carrier, while a subsidized version was available for $179 with a two-year T-Mobile contract. Plans to sell the Nexus One at major retail outlets evidently did not materialize.

Google was long believed to be planning a Verizon Wireless version of the Nexus One, but announced in April that it would not. Instead, it recommended the Droid Incredible, also made by HTC and also based on the Android mobile operating system.

The inability for people to see what they were buying beforehand in a store, rather than rely on reviews, might have killed the Nexus One.

"People want to see and test the phone," said wireless analyst Ken Dulaney of Gartner Research. "Also, [Google] didn't work with the [carriers] on this, and that didn't work out. Apple made the same mistake on their first version [of the iPhone]."

High Expectations

The January launch of the Nexus One came after months of speculation that Google, after designing a winning operating system for other phones, would release its own branded phone not directly tied to a wireless carrier. The phone impressed reviewers with such features as the ability to transcribe speech for search and noise-canceling front and back microphones. The stakes were high because Google is working hard to move beyond its domination of search and advertising into new areas, and the smartphone arena is tempting.

But only about 135,000 units were sold in the first 74 days. In the same number of days, Apple sold a million iPhones and Verizon sold one million Motorola Droids. Subsequent sales figures were not released, but pulling the plug on the online store was an indication of trouble.

Google, however, can still boast that Android is a hit on phones made and distributed by others, such as the Droid Incredible and the recent, top-selling Droid X as well as Sprint Nextel's EVO 4G. Surveys show Android-based phones winning an increasing share of the U.S. market.

Verizon Adding More Droid Phones

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:39:00 +0000

Motorola Droid Phones

Verizon Wireless is rumored to be planning two more smartphones for its Android-powered Droid line. If true, the Droid 2 and the Droid Mini could join Verizon's smartphone line with slide-out keyboards. The original Droid has the slide-out keyboard, but not the Droid X or the Droid Incredible. Existing phones are expected to get an Android update.

With three Droid smartphones on the shelves (and, in some cases, in short supply), Verizon Wireless may be ready to add two more to take advantage of the popularity of the Android operating system.

Openly intended as an alternative to Apple's iPhone -- a recent Verizon ad even mocked the iPhone 4's antenna problems -- the original Droid launched with much fanfare last November is widely believed to have two new siblings in the making. They are the Droid 2 and the Droid Mini, both of which would have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard featured on the original Motorola Droid but not the Droid X or HTC-made Droid Incredible. The iPhone has never had a slide-out keyboard.

A Mini-Me for Droid?

Tech blogs in recent days have displayed photos of the Droid 2 running Android 2.2 or Froyo (for frozen yogurt) and packaging one blog says will be used for the device.

A Korean web site, Hiapk.com, has displayed what it says is the Droid Mini, a scaled-down, possibly cheaper version of the Droid. A blurry image shows the trademark red eye on its screen reminiscent of the cyborg eye sported by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator movies.

Verizon won't confirm or deny that it has commissioned the devices. "We don't comment on speculation or rumors," spokesperson Howard Waterman told us in an e-mail. "We have the original Droid, the Droid Incredible, Droid X, plus the LG Ally that has the Android OS, all available now."

Android 2.2 Coming

Consumer devices researcher Avi Greengart of Current Analysis declined to speculate on whether the devices will be released. But he said the series is working out well.

"What I can say is that Verizon Wireless has done an excellent job building its own sub-brand around Android, and that we're definitely seeing the Android ecosystem fill out with different vendors, form factors, carriers and software capabilities," he said.

The new device rumors come as the Droid X, which sold out in some locations and is back-ordered online through Friday, is expected to receive an over-the-air update to Android 2.2. Google says the update will operate up to five times faster than its predecessor and will support Adobe Flash 10.1 graphics. Apple has refused to support Flash on the iPhone. The update is rumored to be only weeks away, but Verizon would not specify a date for us.

Android 2.2 will allow phones to operate as a mobile Wi-Fi hot spot so other devices can connect to the Internet. It will also allow over-the-air downloading and updating without the need to attach to a computer.

X58 To The Max: Three New Flagship LGA 1366 Motherboards

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:35:00 +0000

Supporting Intel’s highest-performance processors with twice the bandwidth of its mainstream counterpart, the X58 chipset proves the staying power of good ideas. We take a closer look at what makes the latest generation of premium motherboards special.
One word explains how Intel’s oldest Core i7 chipset has been able to dominate the high-end desktop market for an impressive two years: more. More PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 pathways feed more high-bandwidth expansion cards. More memory channels on the socket increase bandwidth to more physical CPU cores, while new models, like the Core i7-980X and Xeon X5600-series chips, are introduced.

Yet because the concept of more always translates to cost, manufacturers are constantly looking to pack more features into these already-more-expensive motherboards.

Our most recent “more” article for X58 motherboards examined boards with USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers, two items that take advantage of the X58’s four left over PCIe 2.0 pathways. Intel solutions aren’t completely comparable, since Intel's LGA 1156 platform only has 16 lanes to begin with. It might surprise you then that the latest trend in more doesn't have anything to do with additional connectivity at all.

Top LGA 1366 motherboards now feature two eight-pin ATX12V/EPS12V power connectors to enable enhanced power delivery under the rigors of extreme overclocking. Builders whose overclocking needs are less intensive will still find that a single connector works, while those running at stock speeds will even find a four-pin connector adequate. Today we consider the totality of features, performance, and stability of the three latest examples of flagship-class X58-based platforms.

Quite possibly the best-featured motherboard Asus has ever produced, the Rampage III Extreme is everything its predecessor should have been, and then some.

The “and then some” comes courtesy of an NEC PD720200 USB 3.0 controller that wasn’t available when the first LGA 1366 Republic Of Gamers product was introduced. Retained from previous models is the ROG Connect dual-function USB header that allows tuners BIOS-level access from a second PC, no matter what programs or operating system the Rampage III Extreme is running.

The Rampage III Extreme adds support for four dual-slot graphics cards, a feature that simply must be present before any motherboard can claim to be the “ultimate gaming platform.” Supporting four x16 cards from 32 of the X58 northbridge’s 36 total lanes is accomplished by dropping the first and third x16 slots to eight lanes whenever a card occupies the second and fourth x16-length slots, respectively.

Yet even though 4-way CrossFireX and 3-way SLI are supported, Quad SLI is not (at least out of the box). Nvidia has decided to require two of its NF200 PCI Express bridges to enable the feature, and Asus includes these on workstation-class P6T7 WS SuperComputer motherboard. Competitive overclockers who love the Rampage III Extreme's other features might be interested in its announced ROG Expander, which adds NF200 controllers to the Rampage III Gene through a daughter board. That's going to be a separate purchase though, adding to the cost of this board.

As with most "Republic Of Gamers" products, the Rampage III Extreme's most prolific features are designed exclusively for competition-level overclocking. The Rampage III Extreme lives up to that purpose as well with dual eight-pin CPU power inputs. Gone is the space-consuming and marketing-driven array of 16 tiny voltage regulator phases, replaced by Asus’ Extreme Engine Digi+ collection of eight digital-analog hybrid phases that it claims respond more quickly and accurately while operating more efficiently at high loads. A Q-Reset button next to the CPU’s power connectors allows builders to cut CPU power temporarily to recover from a “cold-bug” boot failure when using sub-ambient cooling.

Buyers now have three ways to access BIOS-level controls from an external device, thanks to Asus’ new RC Bluetooth module. Just as with the previously mentioned ROG Connect, pressing a button transforms the device from an ordinary data link (for mobile device syncing and peripherals) to an overclocking gadget interface. A smart phone becomes the controller for RC Bluetooth, but only if it has Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional (or higher), Symbian 3.1 or 3.2, or Android 2.0. The third method of external control is to borrow an OC Station controller from a previous Asus motherboard that was so equipped and connect it to a special 4x2 pin connector along the Rampage III Extreme’s bottom edge.

The Rampage III Extreme still carries over the top traits of preceding models, such as the ProbeIt voltage-sensor points, the Go Button overclocking profile switch, and a row of PCIe slot-disabling switches to help overclockers determine which card has stopped responding after being pushed too far. An LN2_Mode jumper is meant to reduce “cold-bug” boot errors when using extreme cooling, hopefully reducing reliance on the previously mentioned Q-Reset button.

Asus even includes a button to enable manual switching between the Rampage III Extreme’s two BIOS chips, allowing tuners to boot from one IC and to make adjustments to the settings on the other IC.

The Rampage III Extreme’s remaining layout is almost as pleasing as its expansion slot placement. Six SATA 3Gb/s and two SATA 6Gb/s ports face forward to slip easily under the sinks of long graphics cards and behind the drive cages of most modern cases, while the lack of legacy drive interfaces prevents us from complaining about associated connector placement.

That’s not to say that the lack of legacy connectors makes the Rampage III Extreme’s layout perfect, however. Front-panel audio and FireWire headers are pushed so far towards the back of the bottom edge that they make cable reach a problem for some cases. Another potential problem is that outward-facing headers along the motherboard’s bottom edge require cables ends to be smashed flat when placing a double-slot card in the Rampage III Extreme’s bottom slot and that little issue precludes the use of Asus’ Q-Connector cable-end bundler.

The Rampage III Extreme installation kit differentiates itself from most competitors by including eight SATA cables and a replacement chipset cooling sink with a fan. The original chipset sink can also be replaced with certain chipset water blocks, although buyers should contact the water block’s manufacturer concerning compatibility. Asus includes two-way CrossFire and SLI bridges plus a three-way SLI bridge.

Gigabyte’s EasyTune6 utility for Windows provides several status and overclocking menus to adjust CPU, memory, and graphics performance.

The EasyTune6 Tuner menu is where the excitement happens. Choosing the Quick Boost option allows the board to attempt an automatic overclock to the frequency of a higher-model processor, while Easy mode brings up an array of manual options that are mostly blocked-out. Advanced mode unlocks its settings, beginning with base clock and memory ratio.

The Ratio tab is limited to CPU clock only, while the Voltage tab offers a far broader selection of adjustments that mimic those found in BIOS.

It’s unusual to find a basic graphics card overclocking utility in motherboard tuning software, but Gigabyte is also a video card manufacturer. This utility should work with most recent Gigabyte cards, but our Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 threw its fan settings way off.

The EasyTune6 Smart menu doesn’t report drive status, but is instead the only method Gigabyte provides for altering its automatic fan-speed control. While this level of control is annoyingly not found in BIOS, the software method works extremely well.

Hardware monitoring includes a full set of alarm controls to notify users if any problem occurs.

MSI’s Cell Menu contains primary clock and voltage settings, with separate submenus for memory timings and signal amplitude control.

Choosing the Memory-Z submenu takes the user though several steps to a single XMP memory reading. We would have preferred to see both XMP configurations for our modules.

The Advanced DRAM submenu allows timings to be set per-channel, but thankfully defaults to a single set of timings for all channels.

The ClockGen Tuner submenu contains only CPU and PCIe amplitude controls.

MSI’s M-Flash menu directs the PC to a protected-mode user interface, where the BIOS can be updated or stored to non-bootable drives, including most USB flash drives.

An Overclocking Profile menu allows up to six BIOS configurations to be stored separately with custom names and descriptions.

The X58 chipset supports two cards with 16 PCIe 2.0 lanes. Installations of three or more cards benefit from the NF200 PCIe bridge’s lane multiplication, while its added latency is a slight detriment to installations of two or fewer cards. That puts Gigabyte’s NF200-enhanced X58A-UD9 in a tough position for our single-card graphics performance tests.

Differences to this point have been minimal, slightly favoring Asus’ tiny 2.1 MHz CPU overclock and not favoring Gigabyte’s 8.4 MHz CPU underclock, though the previously-mentioned NF200 latency hit may also be in play.

Apple iTunes performance is frequency-dependent, so a win for the slowest-clocked board is anomalous.

HandBrake puts MSI in the lead, while Gigabyte’s slower clock drags it down. These types of differences shouldn’t matter to overclockers, since they set their own speed.

Repeat performances in TMPGEnc and MainConcept again point out a clock-speed discrepancy.

All three boards in today’s competition offer voltage levels in excess of what most users actually need, but competitors who use liquid nitrogen cooling will be happy to see these ultra-high limits.
BIOS Frequency and Voltage settings (for overclocking)
Asus Rampage III Extreme Gigabyte X58A-UD9 MSI Big Bang XPower
CPU Base Clock 100-500 MHz (1 MHz) 100-600 MHz (1MHz) 100-600 MHz (1 MHz)
CPU Multiplier Yes Yes Yes
DRAM Data Rates BCLK x6-x18 (x2) BCLK x6-x18 (x2) BCLK x6-x16 (x2)
PCIe Clock 100-200 MHz (1 MHz) 90-150 MHz (1 MHz) 100-190 MHz (1 MHz)
CPU Vcore 0.85-2.30 V (6.25 mV) 0.50-1.90 V (6.25 mV) 0.90-2.30 V (6.25 mV)
Uncore Voltage 1.20-2.50 (6.25 mV) 1.075-2.015 V (20 mV) 1.20-1.83 V (6.25 mV)
IOH Voltage 1.11-2.20 V (13.25 mV) 1.00-2.00V (20 mV) 0.80-1.70 V (10 mV)
ICH Voltage 1.11-2.00 V (13.25 mV) 0.92-2.38 V (20 mV) 1.10-2.00 V (10 mV)
DRAM Voltage 1.21-2.50 V (13.25 mV) 1.30-2.60 V (20 mV) 1.20-2.50 V (1 mV)
CAS Latency 3-11 Cycles 5-15 Cycles 4-15 Cycles
tRCD 3-15 Cycles 1-15 Cycles 3-15 Cycles
tRP 3-15 Cycles 1-15 Cycles 3-15 Cycles
tRAS 3-31 Cycles 1-31 Cycles 9-31 Cycles

Our air-cooled configuration and first-generation Core i7 processor limit us to a far more practical 1.45 V, a configuration we’ve maintained through several product generations to make comparisons of overclocking capabilities possible between articles.

This is the closest we’ve seen any three boards come to overclocking parity, indicating the true limit of our CPU at our chosen voltage. The actual difference is less than the 21 MHz we’d get from increasing the base clock by 1 MHz, so all three boards are tied within the “margin of error” for each board’s clock generator.

Base-clock capability is also essentially tied for all three boards, with Gigabyte’s 220 MHz setting coming in at an actual 219.8 MHz.

Memory is where things get a little trickier. MSI appears to lead in the average of three- and six-module speeds, but it’s hard to know exactly where it would have ended up had its 7x memory multiplier actually worked. That’s right, MSI’s memory overclock started at the DDR3-1600 setting rather than the DDR3-1866 setting used by its competitors, requiring a higher base clock to reach its memory overclocking limit.

We manually set a 133 MHz base clock with all power-saving features enabled during both our benchmark and power consumption tests. MSI wins big here with power consumption numbers that are close to those we’ve seen on less-overclockable products.

MSI makes a lot of noise about its Icy Choke design, but this is the first time we’ve seen it produce noticeably lower voltage regulator temperatures. This alone could explain the XPower’s lower power consumption.

A quick comparison of the total performance for today’s three motherboards shows a difference of only 1.25%, even though the clock speed difference between the top and bottom boards was only around 0.4%

Dividing average performance by average power consumption could get ugly:

MSI leads by a huge margin, a fact that should excite efficiency fans, such as our own Patrick Schmid.

Today’s tested motherboards offer some of the best features we’ve seen, which should come as no surprise, since many of those features have only recently been introduced. Yet, features aren’t the primary motivation behind the design of these parts.

Instead, we find dual-CPU power connectors on each board that are designed to provide the higher amperage extreme overclockers need to reach CPU limits at extreme voltage levels. Liquid nitrogen is only typical at the competition levels these motherboards were designed to tolerate.

While performance and air-cooled overclock results were a dead-heat for all three boards, MSI’s Big Bang-XPower led in efficiency. If extreme overclockers aren’t impressed by that feat of engineering, then they probably won’t be too impressed by the fact that the board isn’t able to effectively support high-performance SLI or CrossFire configurations in excess of two cards. Though it has six x16-length expansion cards, going even to three cards drops its pathways to a ridiculous x8-x4-x8 mode.

The iPhone 4 Redux: Analyzing Apple's iOS 4.0.1 Signal Fix & Antenna Issue

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:28:00 +0000

In case you haven’t noticed, the iPhone 4’s antenna design has come under considerable scrutiny. In our iPhone 4 review, we investigated the iPhone 4 antenna and came to two conclusions.
First, that iOS 4 was displaying signal bars in an overly optimistic manner, compressing the dynamic range of possible signal bars users can see. Second, we identified a worst case signal drop of around 24 dB when the iPhone 4 is cupped tightly in the left hand, covering the black strip and possibly detuning the antennas and adding additional attenuation from the presence of the hand.

Since those initial measurements, we’ve been working tirelessly to both characterize the problem, fully understand the mechanisms behind it, and report on a number of possible solutions.
The Bars Have Changed

On July 2, Apple released a letter noting that the formula used in iOS 4.0 to calculate how many bars are presented for each signal strength is “totally wrong.” This mirrored our conclusions that the effects of the signal drop were exacerbated in part by the way the iPhone visualizes signal strength - the dynamic range is compressed so much that the 24 dB drop from cupping the phone without a case could make all the bars go away.

They went on to promise that in a future software update they would make bars 1, 2, and 3 taller, and make the bars more “accurate” by displaying 2 bars fewer in certain circumstances.

iOS 4.1 beta rolled around yesterday, and we immediately dove in to find out just how much the bar to signal strength mapping has changed. Update: iOS 4.0.1 final just came out this afternoon and we finished preliminary testing. The signal strength mapping algorithms are identical to the 4.1 beta. The findings in this article apply to 4.0.1 as well as the 4.1 beta.

After updating our devices to the iOS 4.1 beta (and 4.0.1) and making sure our little trick to show signal strength in dBm instead of bars still worked, we set off. Remember last time how I said I drove around town all day with iOS 4.0, testing the phone, and recording signal strength and how many bars were being shown? You guessed it - another update, another evening of driving around. Anand and I did quite our fair share of moving around to get a complete picture of what the new cutoffs are.

The results are conclusive - Apple has dramatically changed the signal strength to signal bar mapping in iOS 4.0.1 and the iOS 4.1 beta, making the dynamic range not only much broader, but the range values for each bar much wider. The range of signals that correspond to bars three and four are the same width, and bar two is only slightly less.

The cutoff value for two bars to one bar remains the same, but every other value has increased. The result is that the worst case drop of 24 dBm no longer makes all the signal bars disappear, but rather two.

AnandTech reader Mike Escoffery, Director of Design and User Experience at Media Platforms, created his own diagram to help compare the old and new way of iOS signal strength reporting:

As you can see the old way (top) put far too much weight into the 5th bar of signal. Apple's new approach not only splits it up more reasonably between the 4th and 5th bar (still non-linearly keeping you in the 5th bar if possible) but also extends the range of the lower bars.

This change actually presented itself in our numeric signal strength reports - there’s more dynamic range in these numbers too. Previously, the absolute lowest value any iPhone would report was -113 dBm. With iOS 4.0.1/4.1, the value is now a shockingly low -121 dBm. In the iPhone 4 review, I talked a lot about how although the phone is prone to dropping signal from being held wrong, it was measurably more sensitive in weak signal areas. I was shocked that calls and data worked seemingly unfazed at -113 dBm. It seems as though this increased 8 dBm of range below -113 dBm was meant to show really how much more sensitive the radio stack is - it undeniably is more sensitive. Both Anand and I were able to hang onto calls all the way down at -121 dBm.

We’ve also included a comparison to how the latest version of Android displays signal bars from GSM or UMTS networks below. Thankfully, this didn’t require driving around town all day but rather inspecting the latest version of the Android source code from Google’s own repositories. Android uses an ASU value to compute signal strength, which isn’t anything more than a remapping of dBm to a sane value that’s a bit easier to interpret.

Apple’s mappings have gone from having probably the most compressed dynamic range among handset vendors to less compressed than Android.

While the software update obviously does not and cannot address the design of the antenna itself - or make the drop from holding the phone any less - it does change the way the issue is perceived among users. The result is that most iPhone users will see fewer bars disappear when they hold the iPhone 4 in a bare hand. The side effect is that the iPhone now displays fewer bars in most places, and users that haven’t been reporting signal in dBm will time see the - perhaps a bit shocking - reality of locations previously denoted as having excellent signal.

Interestingly enough, Apple has indeed changed the heights of bars 1, 2, and 3. They’re taller, and the result is that the relative heights are no longer linear, but rather a tad exponential looking. It’s a mind trick that Apple no doubt hopes will make the signal look better. If the bars are taller, they must denote stronger signal, right?

From top to bottom: iOS 4.1, iOS 4.0, Android 2.2

ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte & MSI: Four Flagship X58 Motherboards Reviewed

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:24:00 +0000

Round one of the high-priced enthusiast end of X58 went to EVGA last year, who set the pace with their Classified line of motherboards.
While not perfect in every regard, the E759 and E760 broke and set more overclocking records than any other product, elevating the Classified series to must have status in the eyes of overclocking and gaming enthusiasts.

In light of this success, it was clear that ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI would have to go back to the drawing board and come up with new designs to captivate the audience. The launch of Intel’s i7-980X Gulftown together with the availability of SATA 6G and USB 3 controllers from Marvell and NEC provided the excuse for a revamp and here we are a couple of months down the road with everyone vying to capitalize on sales thanks to the longevity of the X58 platform. That’s where we pick up today, we’ve got the very best ASUS, Gigabyte, EVGA and MSI have to offer and have lined up a compare taking a look at basic functionality, overclocking and overall stability.

Meet the contenders:

Now grab a fresh pair of pants before you take a look at the asking prices:
Motherboard Chipsets SATA 6G USB 3 Price
ASUS Rampage III Extreme X58 Yes Yes $379
EVGA X58 4 way Classified X58, 2 x NF200 No No $429
Gigabyte X58A-UD9 X58, 2 x NF200 Yes Yes $699
MSI Big Bang-XPower X58 Yes Yes $299

Eek! $700 for a single socket motherboard? That’s waaay over the top. While we acknowledge there is a market for high-end products, we can’t think of a good reason for why a motherboard designed around a heavily integrated architecture should be priced this high.

In general, all these boards do over their $200~$250 counterparts is offer a more robust VRM for heavy overclocking, in some cases a better layout and lastly a more overclocking centric BIOS. As such, these motherboards are worth looking at by those of us that have very specific overclocking needs beyond conventional cooling, or by those that have a mind-set that pays scant regard to cost versus performance ratios. So yes, this is a minority audience article.

iPhone 4 Will Go on Sale in 17 Additional Countries

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:20:00 +0000

Apple will take its popular iPhone 4 to 17 more countries, making Europe the largest iPhone market. The iPhone 4 will be essentially unlocked in the U.K., France and Canada, meaning it can run on any GSM carrier. Gartner's U.K.-based analyst said problems with Apple's innovative iPhone 4 antenna are not expected to hurt sales.

Apple's iPhone 4 will ramp up its world tour Friday, reaching new markets in North America, Asia, Europe and Australia. The popular but trouble-plagued handset has been available since late June in France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom for the same cost as the U.S. version, $199 for the 16-gigabyte model and $299 for the 32-gigabyte iPhone. Apple has not announced price points for the new markets.

"iPhone 4 will roll out to many more countries later this year and Apple will announce availability and local pricing for these additional countries at a later date," the company said.

Europe Is Largest Market

iPhone sales in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom, have been strong as new carriers join the scene, said Carolina Milanesi, the U.K.-based vice president of mobile devices for Gartner Research.

"Europe -- all countries combined -- is now the largest market for Apple," said Milanesi. "Spain will move to more carriers at the end of this month, which leaves Germany as the only market with an exclusivity deal. In Asia, there are many carriers Apple is working with. The largest markets [by country] remain Australia and Japan, with Hong Kong, China and Korea following."

The new countries for the iPhone 4 are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Additional markets will be named in August with the eventual goal of selling the iPhone in 88 countries by September.

Bad publicity for Apple from the signal difficulty experienced by some users because of the iPhone's unusual antenna design is not expected to take a major toll on iPhone sales. In disclosing third-quarter earnings last week, Apple executives said 8.4 million iPhones were sold, although most of them were before the iPhone 4 was released on June 24. Apple says it sold 1.7 million iPhone 4s in its first three weeks.

Perception Abroad

The impact abroad will be minimal, said Milanesi. "The antenna issues, although covered in the press (in the U.K.), have not been as big as in the U.S.," she said. "There has been coverage in media and blogs about the actual signal not being impacted as much given better network coverage."

Bug Or Feature? AMD's Catalyst Doesn't Recognize NB Driver

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:13:00 +0000

When installing AMD's current northbridge drivers, the "success" confirmation message, installation log entries, and info in the Device Manager might lead you to believe that everything was installed just fine. Too bad the Catalyst setup says otherwise.

Tom's Hardware was made aware of a rather curious issue when one of our readers asked us for assistance. While at first glance it may not seem very serious, the frequency of its occurrence at least makes the issue a minor annoyance. After searching the Internet and finding a large number of forum threads on the subject, we came to the conclusion that the event described by our reader was far from an isolated case. This piqued our interest in the matter, especially since no plausible explanation had yet been offered. The issue boils down to the Device Manager and Catalyst disagreeing on whether the northbridge driver is actually installed or not.

The issue manifests itself under the following circumstances:

* Windows 7 (x64, x86)
* Motherboard with AMD chipset
* Catalyst 10.2 to 10.5
* Setup in Custom mode (not Express mode)

We hope that this article can be of help, because an old but very effective trick that we'll explore later in this article actually turned out to be the solution. It also has the potential of eliminating other irritations that may arise during the installation of AMD/ATI drivers. Furthermore, we will briefly describe a hidden option in the Catalyst installer that might be of use.

*
*
Installed Or Not?
o Installed Or Not?
o Installation And Verification
o Possible Causes And An Old Trick
o Updating? A Hidden Option
o Conclusion And Advice
* next page

To eliminate all possible sources of errors, we used clean Windows 7 installations with no drivers or updates installed, except for the Windows 7 updates.

In the Device Manager->System section, we selected "AMD PCI Express (3GIO) Driver," where we found the files atipcie.sys (x86) or atipcie64.sys (x64). These are the default drivers. We noted the installed driver version before proceeding.

We then unpacked the current version of Catalyst into the suggested directory and started the installation, pausing at the initial choice of either installing or uninstalling the driver.

We had to choose "Uninstall" and then "Custom Uninstall" to check whether any components were recognized by the installer. The result confirmed what we were expecting based on the described symptoms: Catalyst did not recognize any installed components, even though the driver was already installed by Windows 7 and Windows Update had been run.

After starting the installation again, we chose "Installation" and then "Custom Installation."

In addition to the USB drivers, we were offered the option of installing the northbridge drivers. Interestingly, the version offered was the same as the one already installed. We chose to install the drivers anyway to avoid confusion. The installation completed successfully.

After the mandatory reboot, we opened the Catalyst installer again to check the options for uninstalling the drivers.

Except for the USB drivers, no other components are displayed. When we switched over to the installation routine, where the driver was suggested for installation once more, nothing indicated that it was already installed!

Even if you only notice this issue when using the Custom installation mode (Express mode reveals little information about the installation process), we can understand being confused. Let’s set out to find the cause and a possible solution.

Possible Causes

After several experiments and brute force uninstallations (with Cleaner and manual removal of registry entries), we came to the conclusion that AMD's own Catalyst setup drivers and the drivers obtained through Windows installation and/or Windows Update want nothing to do with each other. Although manual installation and removal of the driver through Device Manager works, the Catalyst installer remains oblivious, offering to re-install all currently-installed drivers that are not AMD-exclusive (meaning the drivers already supplied by Microsoft).

At the same time, the opposite scenario is impossible, as these drivers are not recognized by the installer or uninstaller. AMD alone can answer to what extent this is either a security mechanism or the installer failing to identify drivers.

Assessment

We would like to once more point out that this issue does not cause any real problems with the computer. The issue is merely a bother, causing unnecessary confusion for the folks who like to keep track of driver versions to ensure they're running the latest and greatest. But it's also obvious from our searches that this situation has existed for a long time, and that there has simply been no explanation or solution from AMD.

An Old Trick: A Simple, But Effective Procedure

The Catalyst installer starts by extracting the actual installation files to a directory. This is where the trick comes into play.

We navigate to the installation directory and then into the subdirectory called "Config." Here we find the file "InstallManager.cfg." We open this file with a suitable text editor, such as Notepad. This is what the file contains:

Note the last line ‘WorkaroundInstall’. By default, this is set to "false." We enable the option by setting the value to "true" and then save the file.

Now we start the setup from the directory by running Setup.exe. Note the installation options we are greeted with:

Some things changed that help to avoid confusion by AMD’s Catalyst: only exclusive driver packages remain after executing Catalyst setup with the workaround install option.

Additional Benefits

This trick also helps when the Catalyst installer, for some reason, refuses to install the driver, despite the hardware being plugged in and an older driver working perfectly. Next time you are facing an unfathomable installation problem, remember that modifying the installation configuration often works wonders. We were able to successfully use it when the current Catalyst 10.5 refused to install on systems that had previously had version 10.2 or 10.3 installed.

How to Find the Hidden Option

As the previous section explained, we first go to the directory with the extracted installation files. From there, we dip into the "Config" folder. Next, we open the "InstallManager.cfg" file with Notepad or a similar editor. Then we find the "Show Update" row at the bottom of the options list. This is set to "false" by default. We enable this option by setting the value to "true" and then save the file.

When starting the installation program, an additional option now appears in the main selection screen:

If you use the previously hidden "Update" option, a new wizard appears:

As a Catalyst user, you should adopt a certain degree of serenity. Some things may seem strange at first, but not all of them are actually signs of serious issues. If you just know certain tricks and workarounds, many inconsistencies can be solved more easily than you'd at first think.

Manually editing the configuration of the Catalyst setup can help solve situations like the one we've just explored. This article's documented steps should benefit less-experienced users, and perhaps suggest a lasting fix to AMD. The more features a software combines in a package, the more complex it gets. Mistakes are almost inevitably made. The real question is how well those mistakes will be addressed and remedied. This should be kept in mind when complaining.

Free Tools Can Fix Windows Shortcut Vulnerability

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:10:00 +0000

Free tools fix a Windows Shell vulnerability that allows shortcuts to execute malicious code. The tools from G Data Software and Sophos also fix a problem in Microsoft's solution that turns icons into "broken" generic white icons. The Windows Shell vulnerability gives cybercriminals many ways to infect a PCs.
Security firms G Data Software and Sophos have released free tools that eliminate a vulnerability in an operating-system component called the Windows Shell for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. According to Microsoft, the vulnerability exists because Windows incorrectly parses shortcuts in such a way that malicious code may be executed whenever the icon of a specially crafted shortcut is displayed.

Microsoft introduced an automated tool of its own on July 21 that will block any attempts to exploit the vulnerability of .LNK shortcut files. However, the software giant's homegrown fix replaces the graphics-based icons on the PC's Task and Start menu bars with generic white icons.

The free tool downloads from G Data and Sophos likewise block the automatic execution of malicious code but display the PC icons in their usual graphic form. "Microsoft's current workaround leaves systems almost unworkable with broken-looking icons," noted Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant at Sophos.

Warning Users

Microsoft warned earlier this month that the shortcut vulnerability in Windows can be exploited locally through a malicious USB drive, or remotely via network shares and WebDAV. Moreover, an exploit can be included in specific document types that support embedded shortcuts, the software giant's security Relevant Products/Services team said.

The free third-party tools from Sophos and G Data, which run alongside existing antivirus software, will intercept any shortcut files that contain the exploit and even warn users about the executable code that attempted to run. For example, the G Data tool displays safe desktop symbols in their usual form but activates a red warning icon if a malicious mechanism is detected.

Fixing the problem is important because the vulnerability gives cybercriminals a wide range of possibilities for infecting a PC, noted Ralf Benzmueller, head of G Data SecurityLabs. "They only need to make sure that a .LNK file is displayed on the computer," Benzmueller explained. "The file which the link refers to does not necessarily need to be on the computer -- it can even be on the Internet."

Laptop Buyer's Guide: 14-inch and Smaller

noreply@blogger.com (saif) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:07:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, Dustin published the first part of our Mobile Buyer’s Guide, focused on notebooks and desktop replacements larger than 14”. Now we’re back with the second half, detailing the best choices for portable and ultraportable notebooks and netbooks.

With the back to school season approaching, newly refreshed notebooks are being released on a rapid fire basis. It’s pretty exciting, with tons of new products and new technology platforms hitting the market all at once. While a few months old, Intel’s Core i3/5/7 processors are really starting to ramp up, with standard voltage Core i3/i5/i7 processors essentially taking over the market. The delayed CULV refresh, with low voltage Arrandale chips, is also starting to hit the market in notebooks like the Alienware M11x R2 and Acer’s TimelineX series. Intel’s also done a bit of refresh job on the netbook-class Atom processor, with higher clock speeds, support for DDR3 memory, and a dual core variant expected to hit early Q3.

AMD has its own updates in the pipeline, with tri and quad core Phenom II chips (Danube platform) launching in some of the larger notebooks and their 2010 Ultrathin platform, codenamed Nile, just starting to hit the market. Danube and Nile both share the RS880 chipset and SB820 southbridge, along with a 55nm Radeon HD 4225 integrated graphics chip built on the RV620 core.

And on the graphics front, we’ve got ATI really making some waves with high performance DX11 parts like the HD 5850 and 5870, and on a more mainstream level, the HD 5650 as well. NVIDIA is dominating the portable market, with the Optimus automated graphics switching technology being a real draw for notebook manufacturers. On the higher end, NVIDIA just launched its first mobile DX11 part, based on a cut down version of the beastly Fermi core. More mainstream DX11 parts are in the pipeline for Q3 as well, based on even more scaled down variants of Fermi. And then there’s Next-Gen Ion (or Ion 2, whichever you prefer), which adds a discrete NVIDIA graphics chip and Optimus to Pine Trail based netbooks, making them serviceable HD media playback machines. We’re still waiting for NG ION to hit market (the Acer 532g just got canceled), but it’s supposed to be out this summer as well.

Since this is the “Portable Edition”, we’ll be focusing on laptops mostly this side of 14” screen size, with 13.3” being the most common screen size in our list. We do have a few 14-inchers though, either because they were powerful enough to merit mention in this guide, or because they are slim enough to compare with smaller notebooks. I used 5.0 lbs as the (flexible) upper cap on weight, with sub-4.0 lbs carrying weights preferred. A surprisingly high number of systems on my list claim to top 8 hours of battery life, even with dedicated graphics and standard voltage Core i3/i5/i7 processors – a testament to how far battery life has come in recent years, even with battery tech staying mostly stagnant for some time now.