The Llano "accelerated processing unit" has been on AMD's roadmaps for over a year, but surprisingly few details have made it out into the news.

Llano will include four microprocessor cores, 4MB of L2 cache (1MB per CPU core), and a graphics core on a single die manufactured using GlobalFoundries' 32-nm silicon-on-insulator process. According to EE Times, the CPU cores will each take up 35 million transistors and 10 mm² of die area. Clock speeds will be upward of 3GHz, and supply voltage should fall in the 0.8-1.3 V range.

AMD will base Llano's cores on the same "Stars" architecture that powers today's Phenom IIs. Why not Bulldozer, AMD's next-generation architecture? When we asked the company that question last year, the company replied that it wanted to use a "well understood, existing core" as the basis for its first 32-nm APU. That decision mirrors Intel's "tick-tock" execution model, which involves transitioning to new process technologies using existing architectures to minimize implementation snags and delays.

Llano will tread new ground not just with its built-in GPU and 32-nm SOI silicon, but also with new power-management features, which will allow the chip to fit into 2.5-25W thermal envelopes, "depending on the performance demand." EE Times says those features will include core power gating, which allows each core to be shut off completely from the power supply; improved on-die temperature measurements; and a new clock grid design, which EE Times says "reduced the metal capacitance in the grid by more than 80% and reduced the number of final clock buffers by better than half."

Source: The Tech Report

A high-ranking executive from Nvidia Corp. said that it considers external graphics adapters for notebooks a big opportunity even though the company does not offer such products at the moment.

“I think it is a big opportunity. We have two strategies at Nvidia: one is to put graphics everywhere, the other one is to [find more ways to] integrate discrete chips into the box. I think there is definitely a place for [external graphics cards for notebooks], no question. We continue to look at whether this is a GPU [docking stations] or external devices,” said Rene Haas, general manager of the notebook GPU business at Nvidia, in a brief interview with X-bit labs.

There are a lot of notebooks featuring high-performance microprocessors, but there are much less notebooks with high-performance graphics processors since discrete graphics chips increase the size and weight of mobile computers rather tangibly and are not needed crucially. A way to add high-performance graphics to laptops was introduced by ATI in 2008: external graphics cards and external graphics port (XGP) technology. Unfortunately, so far such graphics cards have hardly become widespread; in fact, there is only one XGP graphis solution available: Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Graphics Booster powered by ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 that can be plugged to Fujitsu Siemens Amilo SA3650 or Acer Aspire Ferrari One. One of the issues, believes Nvidia, is the price of such graphics solutions.

“I think, the issue that has to be solved for something like that is the right price-point that hits the right segment. There is definitely a lot of interest in it and [this is] something we are keeping our eye on to be able to offer something there,” said Mr. Haas.

Source: X-bit Labs

HotHardware.com takes a look at NVIDIA's Optimus technology.

Ideally, switchable graphics would be seamless. Launch an application that doesn't require significant graphics resources, and chipset graphics gets used. Fire up a game and the discrete GPU kicks in. Up to this point, a scenario like this simply wasn't available without a hard switch over and possible reboot but NVIDIA aims to change that with the release of their Optimus technology.

Source: HotHardware.com

Although the mass of both current and upcoming Nehalem-based Xeons might suggest otherwise, Intel still hasn't killed its Itanium processor line—far from it.

Just yesterday, the company introduced five Itanium 9300 processors based on the brand-new Tukwila architecture.

Tukwila features four cores, eight threads, 24MB of L3 cache, Turbo Boost, QuickPath interconnects, second-gen hardware virtualization tech, and some new reliability features, all laid out on a massive, two-billion-transistor die. Intel claims the new Itanium 9300 series more than doubles performance over previous-gen dual-core Itaniums, bringing eight times the interconnect bandwidth, five times the memory bandwidth, and seven times the memory capacity with "industry standard DDR3 components."

Interestingly, Intel says these processors share a number of platform features with upcoming eight-core Nehalem EX processors, including "the Intel® QuickPath Interconnect, the Intel Scalable Memory Interconnect, the Intel® 7500 Scalable Memory Buffer (to take advantage of industry standard DDR3 memory), and I/O hub (Intel® 7500 chipset)."

Source: The Tech Report

We've given our take on the Radeon HD 5570, now here's a selection of Radeon HD 5570 reviews from our news affiliates:

• ATI Radeon HD 5570: Affordable DX11 GPU @ HotHardware.com
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 Review and Radeon Value Card Roundup @ HardwareHeaven.com
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 1GB GDDR3 Video Card @ Tweaktown.com
• Sapphire Radeon HD5570 1GB DDR3 @ PureOverclock.com
• ATI Radeon HD 5570 - Sub-$100 HTPC & Gaming Solution @ Techgage.com
• AMD’s Radeon HD 5570: Low Profile, Higher Performance @ AnandTech.com
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 1GB Review @ Elite Bastards.com
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 1GB CrossFire Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews.com
• Sapphire HD 5570 1 GB @ Bjorn3D.com
• Sapphire ATI Radeon HD5570 Videocard Review @ Tweaknews

The more info the better, so we'll keep this list updated as more reviews are posted. Enjoy!

Last week saw the entry-level ATI Radeon HD 5450 based on AMD's Cedar core, with the ATI Radeon HD 5670 introducing Redwood a couple of weeks prior to that. The HD 5570 slots in between the HD 5670 and the HD 5450 in terms of price, but not in terms of performance. The Redwood architecture is pruned to allow big features in small form factor (SFF) or Home Theater PC (HTPC). Join us as we take a look at AMD's latest video card, the HD 5570.

ATI Radeon HD 5570 Video Card Review

Click Here to discuss this review in our ATI Radeon Discussion Forum!

More cores, please!

The other week saw several AMD chips released, and we found a couple to be very good overclockers and offer some great value for your money, particularly the Athon II X4 635. But there was one CPU noticeably absent from our tests: the Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition. Unfortunately, we were unable to test the chip at that time but we've got things ready to rock now and you're in for a real treat today.

So let's get right to it. How does a full-featured Phenom II Quad Core CPU for $99 sound? AMD's new dual core hotrod, the X2 555 BE, is a special chip under the hood; in fact, it's actually an X4 and just needs a bit of help to unlock those two extra cores for all the performance goodness you can dream about at bargain prices. Does AMD want this to become widely known? We're not sure to be honest; on one hand, this could really spur a surge in sales but on the other hand it could poach their Phenom II X4 lineup. Either way, we successfully unlocked the X2 555 BE and we'll tell you how today and show the resulting performance increase.

Not only that, but man did this chip overclock like a champ. 4.0GHz on air? Not a problem. Higher? Oh, now you're talking.

Source: PureOverclock

Enjoy, everyone!

After cashing Intel’s check and appearing more competitive than expected against Clarkdale 2010 is like a fresh start for AMD. The news gets better.

Late last year AMD said that before the end of 2010 it would be sampling its first APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) - codenamed Llano. Today AMD is announcing that the first Llano samples, built on Global Foundries 32nm high-k + metal gate, SOI process will be sampling to partners in the first half of this year.

For those not in the know, Llano is AMD’s first hybrid CPU-GPU with on-die graphics. The graphics core is a derivative of AMD’s DirectX 11 Evergreen lineup (the same lineage as the Radeon HD 5970, 5870, 5850, 5670, 5570, 5450, etc...).

Llano will go up against Sandy Bridge, which seems to have been pushed back to 2011 for volume availability according to Intel’s internal roadmaps. While Sandy Bridge will have graphics on-die, it will still only be DX10 class - AMD will have the feature-set advantage as far as graphics is concerned.

The "Llano" processor that AMD described today in an ISSCC session is not a CPU, and it's not a GPU—instead, it's a hybrid design that the chipmaker is calling an "application processor unit," or APU. Whatever you call it, it could well give Intel a run for its money in the laptop market, by combining a full DX11-compatible GPU with four out-of-order CPU cores on a single, 32nm processor die.

Details on the highly parallel vector hardware—the "GPU" part of the device—have yet to be disclosed, but AMD is focusing today's revelations on the CPU part of the design. In a nutshell, AMD has taken the "STARS" core that's used in their current 45nm offerings, shrunk it to a new 32nm SOI high-K process, and added new power gating and dynamic power optimization capabilities to it. Each out-of-order core has a bit under 35 million transistors, and a 1MB L2 cache that's not included in that number. AMD is targeting sub-3GHz operation, and a power consumption range of 2.5 to 25 watts.

The chipmaker will put down four such cores, shown in the micrograph below, along with enough vector hardware to power a DX11 GPU. Overall, most of the work on the x86 side of Llano was done on dynamic power optimization and on fitting the design to the 32nm process. In this respect, Llano differs from the upcoming "Bobcat" mobile part in that the latter is more portable across a range of processes and configurations, and features less custom work.

Sources: AnandTech and Ars Technica, respectively.

Some purchases are based on needs and not desire, such is the case when choosing a discreet video card for a second computer or an HTPC.

We all desire the killer video card but realize that the extra expense outweighs our needs based on the intended use of the PC. Options of utilizing an on-board (IGP) solution is available but more times than not these Integrated Graphics solutions utilize system memory and are underpowered. In turn the CPU works harder than the GPU to render anything visual and causes increases total system temperature. In my opinion these needs require a discreet graphics solution that can bear the burden and are cost effective as well.

Axle 3D manufactures such a video card and it the GeForce G210 512MB GDDR3 64bit Video Card. The Axle GeForce G210 is an NVIDIA based graphics solution that is an inexpensive upgrade and contains 16 CUDA cores for processing, up converting and rendering video. The Axle GeForce G210 can take the burden away from the CPU without using system memory, up convert DVD video and playback HD and more at price that won’t lighten your wallet.

Source: Hi Tech Legion

Many people out there simply do not have $200 laying around to go out and buy a new graphics card.

You may be someone who fits into this category, and are looking for some performance and features while still retaining the lower price point. Today we have the Sapphire HD 5670 which falls into this category. Sapphire understands that many users just want to have higher performance without paying a huge price, so they have opted to include an aftermarket cooler with thier take on the 5670. This means that you will not only have a cool running card, but you'll also be able to easily overclock to the max.

The ability to overclock is great, but what about the features? Well you'll be happy to note that this card has all of the features of the more expensive cards. This includes DirectX 11 and Eyefinity. While this card won't play games as well on Eyefinity as the more expensive cards, it has the ability. Like many other more recent graphics cards, this card decodes video. Combine that with the aftermarket cooling solution, and you have a great card for a high end HTPC.

Source: Bjorn3D.com

Penny pinchers may get another two dual-core Athlon IIs to choose from before the end of the summer.

According to Fudzilla, AMD will roll out an Athlon II X2 260 next quarter and follow up with a faster X2 265 model the quarter after that.

Both of those future processors should outperform the freshly released Athlon II X2 255. Fudzilla quotes a clock speed of 3.3GHz for the X2 265, and based on what we know about AMD's model numbering scheme, we'd expect the X2 260 to run at 3.2GHz. For the record, the existing X2 255 ticks away at 3.1GHz with 512KB of L2 cache per core and a 65W thermal envelope.

As far as precise scheduling goes, Fudzilla reckons the Athlon II X2 260 might show up in April, while the X2 265 should succeed it in the middle of the third quarter—August, in other words.

Source: The Tech Report

AMD’s six-core chips to feature dynamic performance boost.

In an attempt to provide maximum possible performance for enthusiasts, Advanced Micro Devices plans to implement a dynamic performance boost technology into its six-core processors known as Phenom II X6 “Thuban”.

There is a clear trend towards increase of the number of cores inside central processing units (CPUs), just five years ago a dual-core chip was a dream, whereas now we are approaching six-core microprocessors. The software is, unfortunately, seriously behind the hardware and many applications still cannot take advantage of additional cores, but fully depend on clock-speeds. In order to provide maximum possible performance in such programs, developers of CPUs implement special dynamic performance boosting technologies that disable certain cores and overclock the rest.

At present only select Intel Corp.’s microprocessors feature Turbo Boost technology that can accelerate certain cores when they are needed while slowing down the unneeded cores. However, with the introduction of AMD Phenom II X6 “Thuban” processors similar capability will also be available on chips from Advanced Micro Devices, sources close to the company revealed to X-bit labs.

Source: X-bit Labs

April 15 is the last day gamers playing on the original Xbox can play online.

Microsoft has made an announcement today that many Xbox gamers who enjoy original Xbox titles on either the Xbox 360 or the original console will not like. Starting on April 15 the Xbox Live service for the original Xbox console and original Xbox games will be discontinued.

The discontinuation of service will also include service for original Xbox games that are playable on the Xbox 360. Marc Whitten says that the decision wasn't made lightly, but is for the benefit of the entire Xbox Live community.

Whitten wrote in a blog post, "On April 15 we will discontinue the Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals. I want to start by saying this isn’t a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community."

Source: DailyTech

We've shared our take on the Radeon HD 5450, now here's a selection of Radeon HD 5450 reviews from around the web:

• Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 512MB Review @ HardwareHeaven.com
• ATI Radeon HD 5450 512MB GDDR3 Video Card in CrossFire @ Tweaktown.com
• ATI's Radeon HD 5450 - The Perfect HTPC Card? @ Techgage.com
• ATI Radeon HD 5450 HTPC Video Card @ Benchmark Reviews
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 512MB @ PureOverclock
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 512MB GDDR3 Video Card @ Tweaktown.com
• ATI Radeon HD 5450: DX11 On The Cheap @ HotHardware.com

Until after the Chinese New Year.

Our friends all over the Far East are preparing to celebrate its biggest holiday that we know as Chinese New Year and this holiday can be held responsible for a lot of graphics delays.

Fermi is of course the major one that will suffer from it, but we just learned that this holiday will also delay the Radeon HD 5830.

We were told that these GPUs are going to be delayed to factories and that it won’t make it to China before February 10. At this time most factories are closed for the Chinese New Year and won't open their doors for anyone. This might delay the shipping until February 20th.

Without further words you can expect that Radeon HD 5830 will ship after this date and volume availability can probably be expected in March.

Source: Fudzilla

Catalyst 10.1 hotfix features are as follows:

Alleviates some of the intermittent grey screen and vertical line corruptions that may randomly appear during normal usage when using an ATI™ Radeon HD 5800 series graphics card

This issue applies to the following configuration(s):

* Hardware
o ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series
* Software
o ATI Catalyst™ release

* Operating System
o Windows 7® 32bit
o Windows 7® 64bit

o Windows Vista® 32 bit
o Windows Vista® 64 bit
o Windows® XP
o Windows® XP x64
o Windows® XP Media Center

You can download the hotfix here. To discuss this topic in the Rage3D forums, click here.

Unlucky thirteen. Hmm....

According to the Microsoft Security Response Center, Microsoft will issue 13 Security Bulletins addressing 26 vulnerabilities on Tuesday, and it will host a webcast to address customer questions about the bulletins the following day (February 10 at 11:00am PST, if you're interested).

Five of the vulnerabilities are rated "Critical," seven are marked as "Important," and the last one is classified as "Moderate." All of the Critical vulnerabilities earned their rating through a remote code execution impact, meaning a hacker could potentially gain control of an infected machine. At least 10 of the 13 patches will require a restart.

The list of affected operating systems includes Windows 2000, Windows XP (x86 and x64), Windows Server 2003 (x86 and x64), Windows Vista (x86 and x64), Windows Server 2008 (x86 and x64), Windows 7 (x86 and x64), and Windows Server 2008 R2 (x86 and x64). In terms of the Microsoft Office suites, only older versions are affected: Office XP, Office 2003, and Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac.

Compared to last month's quiet Patch Tuesday, this one is quite a whopper. The exact breakdown of the bulletins is as follows:

• Bulletin 1: Critical (Remote Code Execution), Windows
• Bulletin 2: Critical (Remote Code Execution), Windows
• Bulletin 3: Critical (Remote Code Execution), Windows
• Bulletin 4: Critical (Remote Code Execution), Windows
• Bulletin 5: Critical (Remote Code Execution), Windows
• Bulletin 6: Important (Remote Code Execution), Office
• Bulletin 7: Important (Remote Code Execution), Office
• Bulletin 8: Important (Remote Code Execution), Windows
• Bulletin 9: Important (Denial of Service), Windows
• Bulletin 10: Important (Elevation of Privilege), Windows
• Bulletin 11: Important (Remote Code Execution), Windows
• Bulletin 12: Important (Denial of Service), Windows
• Bulletin 13: Moderate (Elevation of Privilege), Windows

If you're wondering, the 17-year-old Windows hole we reported on last month is indeed being plugged next week. As for the Internet Explorer flaw disclosed this week, Microsoft understandably isn't ready to patch it yet. What is worrying, however, is that Redmond says it is still working on a patch for the SMB flaw that can be used crash Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 remotely. That was disclosed three months ago, so the company is lagging quite a bit with that one.

Source: Ars Technica

Today, February 4th, 2010, AMD executes the penultimate step of their sweet spot strategy with the launch of the ATI Radeon HD 5450. Aggressively priced at $49 - $59 USD, the HD 5450 offers DirectX 11, Eyefinity, and powerful HTPC functionality to the masses for productivity and pleasure. Join us as we examine the Cedar core architecture and its implementation in the entry level HD 5000 series!

Rage3D's ATI Radeon HD5450 Video Card Review

Click Here to discuss this review in our ATI Radeon Discussion Forum!

Twitter is sending out a large number of e-mails, asking users to reset their passwords. It appears a large number of passwords got compromised in a recent phishing incident (mine included).

When I received the message at first, I considered the e-mail a phishing attempt in itself. But all the links appeared to be "good". If you receive an e-mail like this, I recommend the following procedure:

1. delete the e-mail
2. go to twitter by entering the link in your browser. Best: use https://www.twitter.com (httpS not http) (hey. I got a link for you to make it easier ;-) https://www.twitter.com
3. change your password.
4. do not reuse the password, do not use a simple password scheme (like "twitterpassword" and "facebookpassword")

I know it is hard. A lot of people will advice against writing the password down, or using a "password safe" application. But considering the risks, I am tend to advice people to rather write down the passwords or use a password safe application compared to using bad / repeating passwords.

Source - Internet Storm Center

Elbow and palm gaming for the win!

A new Microsoft device is about to join the ranks of premium, programmable gaming keyboards. Due in March with a $59.95 price tag, the new SideWinder X4 Keyboard will bring gamers a full layout with macro keys, red backlighting, and if we're to believe Microsoft, "the industry's most advanced anti-ghosting technology."

How advanced, you might ask? Microsoft credits its Applied Sciences Group for the work, and it claims the technology allows the SideWinder X4 to register as many as 26 simultaneous key presses. (Extra cybernetic hands not included.)

In addition, the left side of the keyboard plays host to six macro keys and a switcher key, which will let users alternate between three different macro key "modes." Folks will be able to record macros on the fly in games and set them to repeat automatically. The SideWinder X4 software will also support application-specific profiles and automatically recognize opened applications or games.

Source: The Tech Report

The past three releases of Ubuntu Linux have included unreleased ATI Catalyst drivers.

It started with Ubuntu 8.10, which got an early-access driver as the official Catalyst Linux driver that was available to the public at the time had not supported X Server 1.5. With Ubuntu 9.04, AMD was running behind at supporting X Server 1.6 as found in the Jaunty Jackalope, so it too received an early ATI driver. Ubuntu 9.10 also received an early Catalyst for Linux driver more than a month in advance to provide compatibility with the Linux 2.6.31 kernel. It looks like this will happen a fourth time with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" running with the X.Org Server 1.7.x series, which isn't yet supported by the Catalyst driver even though it was released back in October.

The proprietary NVIDIA driver already supports X Server 1.7.x and the Linux 2.6.32 kernel as found in Ubuntu 10.04. Catalyst 10.1 does support the Linux 2.6.32 kernel, but it's still missing on the X.Org 7.5 compatibility. However, with Ubuntu now looking for people to test out the proprietary ATI driver and emailing Pulido for instructions, it looks like they're getting ready to roll out an unreleased Catalyst driver for Linux. At this point, however, there is no updated fglrx packages found in the Ubuntu Lucid repository.

Source: Phoronix

Last night, the members and staff of the Rage3D Discussion Area became aware of a tragedy in our midst. One of our more well-known and respected members, Chris "ChrisRay" Arthington, had passed away on January 28 due to complications of the H1N1 flu virus. Chris, a nVidia user group member and nVidia forum administrator, was truly an asset to both Rage3D and the computer tech community at large, and he will be sorely missed. Our best thoughts and wishes go out to his family.

If you would like to take part in Chris's Rage3D memorial thread, you are welcome to do so by clicking here. In addition, NVIDIA PR manager Ken Brown and nV News's Mike Chambers have written a memorial article which provides some details about his personal and Web lives.

January 14th, 2010, marked the beginning of AMD's assault on the largest market in discrete GPUs - the mainstream segment. AMD's sweet spot strategy has delivered Cypress and Juniper core graphics cards - now Redwood stands tall, ready to bring DirectX 11 and Eyefinity to the masses. Join our resident caveman as we take a first look at AMD's ATI Radeon HD5670 video card.

ATI Radeon HD 5670 Video Card Review


Click Here to discuss this review in our ATI Radeon Discussion Forum!

The launch of Intel's Socket LGA 1156 platform and associated CPUs and motherboard chipsets has naturally opened up quite a market for high performance, low voltage DDR3 memory kits, particular given the stellar overclocking available almost across the board with Intel's Core i3, i5 and i7 CPUs. One company looking to provide an affordable yet impressive dual-channel memory kit for these platforms is OCZ, and today Elite Bastards take a look at their 4GB DDR3 PC3-15000 Platinum Low Voltage Dual Channel memory kit to see just what it can offer anyone looking to build a system with overclocking in mind.

A peek at the label of these PC3-15000 modules gives us a little more information about them - As you'd expect, this 4GB dual channel kit comprises of two modules sporting 2GB of DDR3 memory each, while these modules are designed to run at the low voltage of 1.65v in line with Intel's latest chipsets and CPUs. Timing wise, the key ratings of these modules are 9-9-9

If you're looking for a little further information on this memory kit, then some further investigation shows it to have CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS timings of 9-9-9-27, while the modules are also rated to operate using these timings at 1,866MHz, giving us a fair amount of overclocking headroom without the need to compromise on other aspects of memory performance.

Read the full review at Elite Bastards.

From nVidia's Facebook page:

Fun Fact of the Week: GeForce GTX 480 and GeForce GTX 470 will be the names of the first two GPUs shipped based on our new GF100 chip!

Source - Facebook


GeekSmack.net reports that shipping cards are expected in Q2 '10.

Exitios, moderator from the NVIDIA Forums, confirmed the post as “legit”. The GF100 architecture is NVIDIA’s newest platform aimed at the high-end market. Is expected to make an introduction in Q2 2010, and is currently in volume production, as mentioned by Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA CEO at the NVIDIA Press conference at CES 2010.

Source - GeekSmack.net