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MSI Launches GX70 and GX60 Gaming Notebooks Powered By AMD Richland APUs

Subject: Systems | May 21, 2013 - 08:21 PM |
Tagged: Richland, msi, gx70, gx60, gaming notebook, gaming, APU, amd

MSI announced two new gaming notebooks powered by AMD's latest Richland APUs today called the GX70 and GX60. Both gaming notebooks use AMD A10-5750M processors, a discrete AMD graphics card, 8GB of RAM, and a 750GB (7200 RPM) hard drive. Other shared specifications include a Killer E2200 NIC, Blu-ray drive, THX certified speakers, a headphone amp, and a large 9-cell battery.

MSI-GX70_front.jpg

The GX70 is the largest of the two gaming notebooks at 8.6 pounds and packing a 17.3” display. The GX70 uses the A10-5750M APU and a Radeon 8970M discrete mobile GPU to deliver gaming performance to the 1080p display. The system is also capable of outputting to multiple displays over HDMI and supports AMD's Eyefinity 3D technology. On the outside, the MSI GX70 features a 17.3” 1920 x 1080p display with an anti-reflective coating as well as a SteelSeries gaming keyboard.

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Meanwhile, the MSI GX60 is a 15-inch notebook that weighs 7.7 pounds. This gaming notebook uses an AMD A10-5750M APU and a Radeon 7970M mobile discrete GPU. Further, the GX60 has a 15.6” 1080p anti-reflective display and SteelSeries gaming keyboard.

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MSI claims that the new AMD Richland APUs will give its gaming notebooks much better battery life. The new GX70 and GX60 will have up to 40% better graphical performance compared to previous generations thanks to the new APUs and discrete cards. According to MSI VP of Sales Andy Tung, “the GX70 and GX60 deliver the ultimate sensory experience for both professional and amateur gamers.” More information on the new gaming notebooks can be found on this MSI press release.

Source: MSI

HGST Develops 1.5TB 2.5" Mobile Drive With 500GB Platter Tech

Subject: Storage | May 21, 2013 - 10:01 PM |
Tagged: hgst, western digital, 500GB platter, 1.5tb drive, mobile hard drive

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST, which is now owned by Western Digital) has developed a new 2.5” mobile hard drive called the Travelstar 5K1500. The hard drive uses three 500GB platter drives for a total capacity of 1.5TB. HGST claims that the drive is the highest capacity 9.5mm mobile drive on the market. Additionally, the company has stated that the new drive is faster than its existing two-platter hard drives according to the PCMark Vantage and PCMark 7 benchmark suites.

HGST Logo.jpg

The 1.5TB Travelstar 5K1500 is a 5400 RPM hard drive with 32MB of on-board cache, a 6Gbps SATA III interface, and shock protection features.

The new mobile drive will be used in external hard drives, all-in-one systems, and notebooks where storage space is valued more than pure performance. It will be available sometime in June for an as-yet-unannounced price point. Another version of the Travelstar 5K1500 that offers automatic encryption of data will be available in Q3 2013.

Source: Maximum PC

HP Slate 7 Android Jelly Bean Tablet for $169

Subject: General Tech | May 21, 2013 - 10:12 PM |
Tagged: deals

If you are on the look out for a low cost Android tablet in the 7-in form factor, we have a great deal for you this afternoon.  HP's latest Slate 7 offering, powered by a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 SoC running at 1.6 GHz, brings the price down even lower with our deal; you can pick it up for just $169 with FREE shipping.

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HP Slate 7 Android Tablet for $169!

Source: LogicBuy

German PSU Manufacturer Be Quiet! Lists Its Haswell-Ready Power Supplies

Subject: Cases and Cooling | May 21, 2013 - 10:50 PM |
Tagged: sleep state, PSU, Power Supplies, haswell, c7, c6, be quiet

Be quiet!, a power supply manufacturer based in Germany, has announced that almost all of its recent power supply lineups are fully compatible with Intel's upcoming Haswell processors. The PC Perspective team has talked in-depth about the new C6 and C7 sleep states used by Haswell CPUs. However, for the uninitiated, the new Intel processors have two new low power sleep states. The lowest state, C7, draws as little as 0.05A from the 12V PSU rail. That is a good thing, but not all power supplies will be compatible with the new sleep states as such low load on the 12V rail was not a concern when the PSUs were designed and manufactured. Notably, even incompatible power supplies will still work in Haswell systems, but those computers will not be able to enter the lower-power C6 and/or C7 sleep states.

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There is good news for users of Be Quiet! Power supplies, however. The following power supplies are fully compatible with Haswell and the new sleep states:

  • Dark Power Pro 10 Series (all models)
  • Straight Power E9 Series (all models)
  • Pure Power L8 Series (all models)
  • System Power 7 Series (all models)
  • Pure Power L7 Series (the 630W and 730W models only)

Older Be Quiet! power supplies will still work in Haswell systems, but use of the lowest power C7 state is not recommended. Fortunately, most desktop users can live without the new low power states (which, while nice to have, the new sleep states are more beneficial to laptop users).

As the launch of Haswell approaches, more and more PSU manufacturers are releasing compatibility information. So far, the following companies have put together compatibility lists.

JPR Releases Q1 2013 GPU Market Share Numbers, Good News for NVIDIA

Subject: Graphics Cards | May 20, 2013 - 12:54 PM |
Tagged: VIA, Q1 2013, nvidia, jpr, Intel, gpu market share, amd

Market analytics firm Jon Peddie Research recently released estimated market share and GPU shipment numbers from Q1 2013. The report includes information on AMD, NVIDIA, Intel, and Via and covered IGPs, processor graphics, and discrete GPUs included in desktop and mobile systems powered by X86 hardware. The report includes x86 tablets but otherwise does not factor in GPUs used in ARM devices like NVIDIA's Tegra chips. Year over Year, the PC market is down 12.6% and the GPU market declined by 12.9%. It is not all bad news for the PC market and discrete GPU makers, however. GPUs through 2016 are expected to exhibit a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.6% with as many as 394 million discrete GPUs shipped in 2016 alone.

In Q1 2013, the PC market is down 13.7% versus last quarter (Q4 2012) but the GPU market only declined 3.2%. This discrepency is explained as the result of people adding multiple GPUs to a single PC system, including adding a single discrete card to a system that already has processor graphics or an APU. By the end of Q1 2013, Intel holds 61.8% market share followed by AMD in second place with 20.2% and NVIDIA with 18%. Notably VIA is out of the game with 0.0% market share.

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In terms of GPU shipments, NVIDIA had a relatively good first quarter of this year with an increase of 7.6% for notebook GPUs and desktop GPU shipments that remained flat. Overall, NVIDIA saw an increase in PC graphics shipments of 3.6%. On the other hand, x86 CPU giant Intel saw desktop and notebook GPUs slip by 3% and 6.3% respectively. Overall, that amounts to PC graphics shipments that fell by 5.3%. In between NVIDIA and Intel, AMD moved 30% more desktop chips (including APUs) versus Q4 2012. Meanwhile, Notebook chips (including APUs) fell by 7.3%. AMD's overall PC graphics shipments fell by 0.3%.

In all, this is decent news for the PC market as it shows that there is still interest in desktop GPUs. The PC market itself is declining and taking the GPU market with it, but it is far from the death of the desktop PC. It is interesting that NVIDIA (which announced Q1'13 revenue of $954.7 million) managed to push more chips while AMD and Intel were on the decline since NVIDIA doesn't have a x86 CPU with integrated graphics. I'm looking forward to seeing where NVIDIA stands as far as the mobile GPU market which does include ARM-powered products.

Deal for May 20th - Dell UltraSharp U2413 1920 x 1200 24" IPS @ $499

Subject: General Tech | May 20, 2013 - 02:48 PM |
Tagged:

Dell's UltraSharp U2413 1920 x 1200 24" IPS claims a 6ms response time which makes it suitable for gaming, as well as offering superior colour support.  As it is a new model it supports HDMI, DisplayPort 1.2, DVI-D and mini DisplayPort inputs as well as acting as a 4-port USB 3.0 hub.

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Dell UltraSharp U2413 1920 x 1200 24" IPS Monitor (2013 model)
Dell Works is offering newest 24-inch UltraSharp U2413 Monitor (2013 model) for $499.99 with FREE shipping. Use $100 instant savings to get final price. Backed by 3-Year Advanced Exchange Service and Premium Panel Guarantee.

Source: LogicBuy

Samsung 840 Series 500GB SSD for $277

Subject: General Tech | May 23, 2013 - 12:03 PM |
Tagged: deals

SSD deals just keep getting better and today's is no exception.  You can pick up a 500GB version of the Samsung 840 series SSD, powered by TLC NAND memory, for just $277.49! 

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You can read over Allyn's original review of this product if you'd like or just click the link below to get the offer before it runs out!

Samsung 840 Series 500GB SSD for $277

Source: LogicBuy

Epic Games is disappointed in the PS4 and Xbox One?

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards, Systems | May 23, 2013 - 06:40 PM |
Tagged: xbox one, xbox, unreal engine, ps4, playstation 4, epic games

Unreal Engine 4 was presented at the PlayStation 4 announcement conference through a new Elemental Demo. We noted how the quality seemed to have dropped in the eight months following E3 while the demo was being ported to the console hardware. The most noticeable differences were in the severely reduced particle counts and the non-existent fine lighting details; of course, Epic pumped the contrast in the PS4 version which masked the lack of complexity as if it were a stylistic choice.

Still, the demo was clearly weakened. The immediate reaction was to assume that Epic Games simply did not have enough time to optimize the demo for the hardware. That is true to some extent, but there are theoretical limits on how much performance you can push out of hardware at 100% perfect utilization.

Now that we know both the PS4 and, recently, the Xbox One: it is time to dissect more carefully.

A recent LinkedIn post from EA Executive VP and CTO, Rajat Taneja, claims that the Xbox One and PS4 are a generation ahead of highest-end PC on the market. While there are many ways to interpret that statement, in terms of raw performance that statement is not valid.

As of our current knowledge, the PlayStation 4 contains an eight core AMD "Jaguar" CPU with an AMD GPU containing 18 GCN compute units, consisting of a total of 1152 shader units. Without knowing driving frequencies, this chip should be slightly faster than the Xbox One's 768 shader units within 12 GCN compute units. The PS4 claims their system has a total theoretical 2 teraFLOPs of performance and the Xbox One would almost definitely be slightly behind that.

Back in 2011, the Samaritan Demo was created by Epic Games to persuade console manufacturers. This demo was how Epic considered the next generation of consoles to perform. They said, back in 2011, that this demo would theoretically require 2.5 teraFLOPs of performance for 30FPS at true 1080p; ultimately their demo ran on the PC with a single GTX 680, approximately 3.09 teraFLOPs.

This required performance, (again) approximately 2.5 teraFLOPs, is higher than what is theoretically possible for the consoles, which is less than 2 teraFLOPs. The PC may have more overhead than consoles, but the PS4 and Xbox One would be too slow even with zero overhead.

Now, of course, this does not account for reducing quality where it will be the least noticeable and other cheats. Developers are able to reduce particle counts and texture resolutions in barely-noticeable places; they are also able to render below 1080p or even below 720p, as was the norm for our current console generation, to save performance for more important things. Perhaps developers might even use different algorithms which achieve the same, or better, quality for less computation at the expense of more sensitivity to RAM, bandwidth, or what-have-you.

But, in the end, Epic Games did not get the ~2.5 teraFLOPs they originally hoped for when they created the Samaritan Demo. This likely explains, at least in part, why the Elemental Demo looked a little sad at Sony's press conference: it was a little FLOP.

Update, 5/24/2013: Mark Rein of Epic Games responds to the statement made by Rajat Taneja of EA. While we do not know his opinion on consoles... we know his opinion on EA's opinion:

EPI Announces New High-Resolution Philips Desktop Monitors

Subject: Displays | May 23, 2013 - 01:08 AM |
Tagged: quad hd, philips, epi, 2560x1440, 2560x1080, 21:9

Envision Peripherals Inc. (EPI), a company that sells Philips monitors in North America recently announced three new high resolution IPS desktop monitors. The company is releasing one 29” 21:9 monitor for consumers and two high resolution displays for professionals.

Philips Brilliance 29” UltraWide Monitor

This Philips monitor is of the 21:9 variety and offers up a resolution of 2560 x 1080 on its AH IPS display. The monitor features a narrow bezel, built-in speakers, and comes bundled with SmartControl software to adjest settings via a PC software application.

It has DL-DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI, and (optional) Thunderbolt video inputs. It supports MultiView technology, which allows the monitor to accept multiple video inputs and display them simultaneously on the screen.

Philips Brilliance 29.jpg

The Philips Brilliance 29” UltraWide display is available now at online retailers like Amazon. While it has an MSRP of $599 according to the press release, Amazon is actually charging $667.90 for the monitor currently.

While the Brilliance 29” UltraWide is aimed at consumers, the following two monitors are intended for professionals doing CAD, finance, and art/design work.

P-Line 29” UltraWide Monitor

The P-Line 29” UltraWide is a 21:9 monitor for professionals. It features a 2560 x 1080 resolution AH IPS display with MultiView technology and a “ultra narrow” bezel. EPI claims that the display has both a 178-degree vertical and horizontal viewing angles. There are four USB 3.0 port as well as a height-adjustable stand.

Video inputs include DisplayPort 1.2a ports that allow daisy chaining monitors. The MultiView technology also allows the display to show two display inputs simultaneously.

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The monitor is available now to business customers from resellers like CDW for $699.

P-Line 27” Quad HD Monitor

Finally, the P-line 27” Quad HD monitor is the final new professional series display. It has the highest resolution at 2560 x 1440 (109 PPI). This IPS display supports 8-bit color and has a professional price to match. The monitor itself has a height-adjustable stand, built-in speakers, a 2MP webcam with microphone, USB 3.0 ports, and a PowerSensor which detects when the user leaves the computer and automatically dims the display. EPI claims that the PowerSensor results in up to 80% power savings. It would be useful for businesses, though less crucial for home users.

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Like the P-line 29” UltraWide, this monitor can daisy chain other monitors to the PC video output via DisplayPort connectors. Video inputs include DL-DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI, and Thunderbolt.

It is available now from resellers with an MSRP of $799.

You can find the full press release below.

Source: EPI