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Intel Corei7 technology has a sudden pitfall with its architecture. I’ve always had my suspicions that Intel had an issue with their memory! Taken that the new memory controller is not asynchronous and the fact that you can only run odd number of modules the voltage bottleneck didn’t come as a surprise.

Memory modules cannot exceed 1.65 volts, a Japanese forum has photographs  of asus’s x58 motherboard that has a warning label instructing builders not to exceed this memory voltage. Asus has stated that they are currently running their memory at 1.7 volts which is considered the highest voltage to date.

Currently no news is available to why Intel have done this, is this another flaw in Intels design and how manufacturers are forced to design round their specifications, unfortunately. Intel have either done this to help accelerate computation or is this considered a design fault where enthusiast cannot overclock their memory to achieve better gaming capabilities.

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So we had the EEE PC laptop that was fairly popular but then as technology moves on so would the eee pc/box specification. To those people who decided to get a asus EEE PC I would of personally waited for the release of Intels Atom processor. This could only result in more mobile technology, hence the boom in web books!

With the Atom processor being implemented into these mobile laptops the current technology would become obsolete. Take the existing EEE pc intel pentium 1 YES one! not a p3/p4! Obviously this was a bottle neck for end users and now with the Atom a laptop can be used like any current main stream computer!

The specifications for the EEE Box are below

• OS Windows XP Home
• Processor Intel Atom N270 (1.6 GHz, FSB 533)
• Memory DDRII 1 GB
• Storage 80 GB
• Chipset 945GSE + ICH7M
• VGA On-board Intel GMA 950, 1600 x 1200 max resolution
• Networking 10/100/1000 Mbps LAN, 802.11n WLAN

This machine looks promising! With web servers now using the Atom technology due its mobile strengths. I can easily see this as a good machine for watching hd 1080 films and general usage such as internet surfing and streaming internet videos.

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Right So AMD are releaseing a set of new dual core processors? I’m not quite sure why this is the case but I thought I would look into it!

AMD will scrap their existing offerings to bring out new dual core k10 parts. AMD have already decided to leak the product to its partners, for testing? or just early release?

The German Tech website Hardware-infos which I have commented on before, im sure. Their website showed AMD’s primary line up of processors codenamed ‘Kuma’ with related prices.

The specifications

AMD Phenom x2 GE- 6600: 2.30GHZ, 1MB L2 Cache (2x 512 KB), 2MB L3 Cache 65nm process
AMD Phenom x2 GE- 6500: 2.10GHZ, 1MB L2 Cache (2x 512 KB), 2MB L3 Cache 65nm process
AMD Phenom x2 GE- 6400: 1.9GHZ, 1MB L2 Cache (2x 512 KB), 2MB L3 Cache 65nm process

Nothing really special here then. But these details should be take with a pinch of salt.

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The advanced overclocking championship a world class overclocking event was held in Hong Kong on July the 29 and 29th. The overclocking championship was open to the USA, UK and European country’s also Asia. There were at least 20 countries taking part in the event globally.

The first challenge of the two day even consited of a two man team trying to get the best possible performance out of their processors which were exactly identical chips for all taking part.

The Event was sponsored by Asus so you can imagine the kit they handed out for all teams! The teams then had to benchmark their work using 3DMark 01, 3DMark Vantage and Super PI 8M.

For information on the results keep posted!

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As we all know Crysis is the second version of the Crytek engine. The game was originally called Far Cry if I remember correctly which was back then a brilliant graphics engine for out door environments. I know Crysis (Crytek Engine 2) has been out a couple of months now but I think this game is a perfect way of benchmarking your system in terms of gaming performance.

Over these last few months I have read all about Crysis and how its engine needs a large amount of computation i.e an expensive computer. For example a crossfire/ SLI system running either of the latest graphics offerings with an Intel core extreme processor could run Crysis in full detail around 40 FPS. Ok that sounds good but is it really worth it? For the highest settings!?

Dont be fooled, I then had the impression that the game is basically unplayable on dual core processors and systems with 8800 series Nvidia graphics but I found this was not the case. If your a mainstream gamer then high settings or the word Ultra High dont exists.  But! whats up with medium detail? If you enjoy games as much as me then  you will like the game play, graphics and physics but remember, treat the game as a benchmark! Think of it as an investment for your gaming future!

Benchmarking. Ok so We have a system running a AMD dual core processor 2g of ddr2 and a 8800GS Graphics Card, what will this system produce in terms of performance? Well Medium detail would suffice. The only issue is under intense game play or open areas of the island which usually mean struggling hardware. So we can easily  pin-point the issue and diagnose the P.C with a low clock speed processor please upgrade! Eventually this should evolve into a fast gaming p.c. able to run the likes of crysis in FULL/ MEGA HIGH detail not to mention future games which will probebly use the crytek 2 engine.

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Intel has indicated that the processor code named Bloomfield the mainstream version of the new architecture. The processors will ship as 2.66Ghz in the last quarter of 2008. This will be followed by the 2.94Ghz processor. The extreme versions running at 3.2Ghz will shortly follow.

I didnt expect these processors to be released so early, but i had a slight indication that a Nehalem based processor was set for release around this time. With this in-mind when will the motherboards launch? Apparently the Intel x58 chipset is set for launch in October. The boards will cost around £150, remember these are mainstream based motherboards. Other mainboard chipsets should follow, unless you cannot wait and must buy the x58 version.

I must state that Intel have not released an official statement regarding the release dates but when rumours are released they are usually right.

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Intel is already heavily pitching its Larrabee technology to its business partners. Even though the technology behind the cGPU still remains a mystery, somehow business men alike are drawn to the new product, who wouldn’t! A German publication has provided more clues based on Larrabee and how its built on two decade old P5 architecture!

This may remind you of Parallel and serial computation but hardware architecture design usually in some way or another use older original design.

In the German Article, when Intel decided to create the cGPU Larrabee architecture they looked into obsolete technology the result? second generation p54C core using Pentium 600nm process.

The first Pentium processor P5 used 800 nm and was clocked between 60 to 66 Mhz and was developed in 1989. The P54C on ther other hand had a clock speed of 120Mhz. Intel also released the P54CS core 200Mhz and 55C Core 230nm, they cores had 250nm and 280nm respectfully.

The Larrabee processor will use 32 cores equppied with new MMX extensions called AVX, this would mean that Larrabee will be used on a 45nm P54CS core. The 32 core also supports 512-bit wide AVX (Advanced Vector Extensions) instead of the old MMX used in previous Pentiums.

The processor is said to run at 2 GHz and have compuation of 2 Tflop/sec. If this is true Intel may be able to hit twice the performance in a single precision calucation as Nvidia and AMD. With both graphics vendors doubling their floating point performance its predicted that GPUs may hit 3 to 4 Tflops/sec in single core Graphical processors.

Take the ATI Radeon 4870 x2 clocked at 778Mhz this has an estimated performance rate of 2.49 Tflop/sec. Lets just see how this turns out!

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After searching on the internet I came across and interesting find. A german website Eeepc news has found an interesting slide which suggest AMD has a rival for the Intel Atom processor, to little to late?

AMD are planning/ creating a tiny 64bit processor running at 1GHz and boasts thermal design power of 8Watts. According to the slide below the processor will include the Hypertransport powered chipset and the Northbridge memory controller. The southbridge and graphics processor will be soldered on to the main board.

The specifications

• AMD64 Instruction Set
• Integrated Memory Controller - DDR2 400mhz DIMM/ DODIMM
• 16 lane 800Mhz HyperTransport Technology link
• On-chip L1 & L2 Cache 64KB, 256 KB respectfully
• 1GHz core frequency
• 8W TDP (CPU + Northbridge Memory Controller)
• 812 pins, 27×27mm dimension

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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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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 tha