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It’s friday the 13th!  Now that I have your attention and sure you will be interested in what news I have for you today!

As we all know Nehalem motherboards and chips were show cased at Computex 2008. The show casing of the up-coming processors was an indication that the processors at set to launch within the 4th quarter of this year. Now with that information is out what news has Intel got for the general public?

Intel will be releasing information on their Larrabee Graphics device. You can read some of my older graphics related posts here …. Larrabee will be unveiling the technology at Siggraph 2008 or international conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques.

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Most of you enthusiast are probably aware of AMD secret weapon, well if your not then here’s the low down. AMD are well behind the processor race against Intel. Lets slightly changes the subject here, AMD were going to release a dual core Phenom back in May. This never occurred due to the aggressive pricing of their current Phenom three and four core processors. AMD are yet to release their 45nm process CPU’s these are not ready until lat quard of 08 may be start of 09. Intel would of already released their Nehalem based architecture.

AMD released some information regarding their Phenom processors and southbridge chipset. AMD needed to get back into the game with some competitive edge against Intel. The company will be releasing some new versions of the Phenom processor which are begged to be over-clocked.

The Southbridge SB700 and SB750 chips will support multiplier unlocking and can overclock the processor at any point, maybe not half way through a game of Crysis but within reason. The processors will be able to be over-clocked by 400mhz with the chips running at 2.8Ghz at default.

As previously stated AMD will need to bring out newer versions of the Phenom processor. This is because the processor must have a certain pin configuration for the over-clocking capabilities not to mention the matching Chipset!
For all those AMD Fans out there, the Mainboards with 780G 790FX and 790GX chipsets will allow users to over-clock via the Southbridge with BIOS setting. Some enthusiast boards will incorporate a hardware button for instant performance increases

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I was un-aware of Nvidia and ATI’s interest in laptop graphics solutions. Nvidia have announced that they are to release 13 mobile based GPU’s, quite a few then!

ATI have hit back already and released their product at the Computex show. The graphics device will supply an external PCI-E 2.0 platform for graphics performance enthusiasts alike, ie Gamers.

You can see the product imaged to the right. The slim lined box features an ATI Radeon 3800 GPU. It can be connected via a 4.0 Gbps PCIe 2.0 connection.

The XGP support CrossFireX functionality and will work along side your existing internal graphics device. The external graphics will accelerate 1080p high definition videos. The XGP has HDMI and DVi based ports, it can support up to four displays and even has USB 2.0 ports.

Now as you guessed it, How is the external graphics device going to communicate with the laptop device. Well unfortunately the XGP uses a special PCIe 2.0 cable. That means for compatibility issues the laptop aka Puma must use this PCIe interface connection. This to me seems like a problem because Nvidia will also be doing the same. The result being another competition between vendors! Which one will we choose? Will all laptops come with these customised PCIe 2.0 connections? Its a shame that the designers couldn’t use existing technology but I cant see USB 2.0 being a viable option.

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The US Military have always experienced vast amounts of computing power, Flops and Flops of POWER! The Super Computer named Roadrunner created by IBM has achieved the long awaited goal of 1.026 Quadrillion caluculations a second!

The Super Computer Roadrunner is made up of 12,960 modified Cell processor architecture. Along aise these cell processors there are 7000 AMD Operton Processors, the design also includesa parallel chip that act as a turbocharger that acelerates parallel processing.

Roadrunner can run rings around the previous fatest IBM Super Computer the BlueGene/L, this Supoer Computer could execute one thousand trillion calculations per second! or a petaflop!

The Super Computer needs the same amount of of power as say a shopping centre or Harrods for example. The Super Computer will knock you back 133 million dollars but will help problem solving issues with Nuclear Weaponary, Global warming and the meaning of life which has be calulated as being the ineteger 42 :/.

IBM may be looking at slightly larger measurments of computation. Now the Peta Flop is done and dusted which took 11 years to achieve the exaflop, zettaflop, yottaslop and the xerflop will follow.

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Its Friday again, i’m sure I always start my Friday posts like this :/. Right anyway, As you area all aware Computex is here will load of goodies on the horizon. I wanted to take time out of my busy working day to create a few diagrams on the Nehalem architecture but un-fortunately I wasn’t able to. Over the next week I will be updating the public on hardware specially Processor, motherboards and graphics cards.

I know there will be some goodies very shortly around those types of hardware. Any way, keep posted and for now here’s a short video to show what the latest (Soon to be old) Graphics hardware can do in case of emergency’s!

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Computex is here again another year of fantastic goodies waiting for the enthusiast to indulge on. I might consider taking some time off work for next years show, why not, treat yourself! This is the best time of year for computer hardware followers. Computex will be answering all my un-answered questions relating to Intel’s Nehalem processors, Larrabee and Graphics architectures.
So what have I got for you all today? Well you guessed it! Nehalem! At Computex Intel have show cased numerous vendor motherboards using the new processor architecture. Below is a picture of the new desktop based motherboard.

The motherboards will be using the x58 tylersburgDT chipset. If you look at the image above you will notice the enlarged CPU socket and shrunk chipset. Lets not forget the actual reason I write about Nehalem so much, there is no memory controller and FSB in the chipset! This means no more over-clocking is needed! Finally the revolutionary change in the computer architecture! I have a feeling that L3 cache will not be needed even L2 cache in-fact? If the memory can ideally be the same clock as the processor and FSB follows then the bottle neck is redundant! But will memory prices increase? I assume so.

If you haven’t noticed already the motherboard only includes 3/4 slots! The symmetrical memory setups are a thing of the past. The majority of the Nehalem based motherboards use asymmetric memory channels. This means that the memory can be configured into three channels. The first channel can take two dims sockets and the remaining two channels can only use one socket each. Nehalem can organise the memory addressing, this allows overflow to the remaining single socket channel.

Right with that said, Now lets move onto the server based motherboards (Skull trail 2 **COUGH**). Now you may have noticed the ram set-ups? The motherboard has 12 to 18 DIMM slots! You may think why an odd number? But the theory behind asymmetrical memory applies! Some simple math will put you all at ease. Two CPU x 3 channels x 3 DIMMS per channel, simple! Yet impressive!
Release is only months away, if my estimations are anything to go by! Start remortgaging your house its worth it!

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I have recently been writing articles on Nvidia’s new processor range the Tegra and CSX. I was also going to investigate where this processor will be used, how will they compare to Intel’s counter-part the Atom.
I will be concentrating on the Tegra model processors, Nvidia are using these tiny processors for small laptops and notebooks.  As we are aware the processor can render high definition video but can also handle graphically heavy games.

Now I can release some information on what the processor is used for (Thank You Computex). At Computex Nvidia are set to release more details on the Tegra 650 and 600 series processors. The processors are aimed at light, portable based hardware which can be fitted with a 12” screen, a keyboard, high-speed wireless and a joy pad/Stick port (USB ?).

Nvidia has dubbed the devices Mobile Internet Devices ‘Mids’ not MIDI!. Other vendors have called the miniature laptops ‘netbooks’ which is the inherited new branded name for mobile hardware. If Intel and Nvidia never started battle would the so called netbook be created? I know Apple started the miniature laptop scene but I don’t see their products as direct competition, remember we are talking budget based laptops here!

One query I must highlight is Intel and Nvidia processors boast full 1080p running at 25/ 60 fps. When running these modes how will the 12” display justify the display quality?  Nvidia could be focusing some of their processors into other products. It’s not over yet! Nvidia could have other products in mind. Remember Nvidia have different series of processors So the Tegra 650 may be used in a multimedia intensive operations.

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In my previous post on Nvidia’s Processors I looked into the general capabilities of the two processors. Today I will be giving more emphasis into the Nvidia Tegra Processor. As we already know, the processor renders both 720p and 1080p high definition signals. The Tegra processor is also known for good power consumption considering the processor will run 720p HD for 26 hours compared to Intels 1 hour.

The Tegra 650 Specs:

• Processing ARM11 MPCore @ 800Mhz,16/32-bit LP-DDR NAND Flash support
• Audio/ Video Processing:1080p H.264 decode, 720p H.264 encode
  Supports multi-standard audio formats, including AAC, AMR, WMA and MP3. JPEG encode and decode acceleration
• Imaging Up to 12 megapixel camera sensor support, Integrated ISP, Advanced imaging features
• True dual-display support
  Maximum display resolutions supports:
  - 1080p (1920×1080) HDMI 1.3
  - WSXGA+ (1680×1050) LCD
  - SXGA (1280×1024) CRT
  - NTSC/PAL TV output

Tegra 600

• Processor ARM11 MPCore @ 700Mhz, 16/32-bit LP-DDR, NAND Flash support
• Audo/ Video Processing 720p H.264 and VC-1/WMV9 decode, 720p H.264 encode, Supports multi-standard audio formats, including AAC, AMR, WMA and MP3, JPEG encode and decode acceleration
• Imaging Up to 12 megapixel camera sensor support, Integrated ISP, Advanced imaging features
• True dual-display support
  Maximum display resolutions supports:
  - 720p (1280×720) HDMI 1.3
  - SXGA (1280×1024) LCD
  - SXGA (1280×1024) CRT
  - NTSC/PAL TV output

Even though the processor seems impressive Intel’s Atom processor uses the x86 architecture and so will be used on multiple of platforms within a mobile scope. The processor used is a ARM11 32 bit RISC which is usually used in mobile phone hardware. I’m still interested in where this processor will be used compared to Intels version.

I would put the Atom against the Tegra processor as such but you could say the Nvidia processor will be great for HD video but if Intel’s Atom processor can perform around the same level then Nvidia sales could be effected.

On the other hand, I will be interested in seeing what Nvidia will offer in the future. The Head man at Nvidia said the processor was created from the bottom up. The processor has no limit to its future because the architecture is new.

Hopefully I will have much more to talk about regarding the latest technology’s. Now that Intel and Nvidia are at war over more than GPUS where will they venture next?

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