Introduction, Overview
AMD’s position is not enviable. Though they’re the only large competitor to Intel in the market for x86 processors, the company is dwarfed by the Giant of Santa Clara. As a resident of Portland, I can’t forget this fact. Intel offices are strewn across the landscape of the western suburbs, most of them at least four times larger than any office I’ve worked at.
Despite the long odds, AMD is set in this course for now and has no choice but to soldier on. And so we have today’s reference platform, a laptop powered by AMD’s latest mobile processor, codenamed Trinity. These processors, like the older Llano models, will be sold as the AMD A-Series. This might lead you to think that it’s simply another minor update, but that’s not the case.
Llano was released around the same time as Bulldozer, but it did not use Bulldozer cores. Instead it used yet another update of Stars, which is a mobile incarnation of Phenom II, which was of course an improvement upon the original Phenom. The “new” Llano APU in fact was equipped with some rather old processor cores. This showed in the performance of the mobile Llano products. They simply could not keep up with Sandy Bridge’s more modern cores.
Bulldozer isn’t coming to mobile with Trinity, either. Instead we’re receiving Piledriver. AMD has effectively skipped the first iteration of its new Bulldozer architecture and moved straight on to the second. Piledriver includes the third generation of AMD’s Turbo Core and promises “up to 29%” better processor performance than last year’s Llano-based A-Series.
That’s a significant improvement, should it turn out to be correct. Is it true, and will it be enough to catch up to Intel?
Podcast #201 - GTX 690 review, ASUS G75V Ivy Bridge Notebook review, a Vertex 4 update and more!
Subject: Editorial | May 10, 2012 - 03:56 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: Vertex 4, podcast, nvidia, Ivy Bridge, Intel, gtx690, g75v, amd, 690
PC Perspective Podcast #201 - 05/10/2012
Join us this week as we talk about our GTX 690 review, ASUS G75V Ivy Bridge Notebook review, a Vertex 4 update and more!
You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still
The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!
- iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
- RSS - Subscribe through your regular
RSS reader - MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file
Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malvantano
Program Schedule:
- Introduction
- 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
- http://pcper.com/podcast
- http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
- Win a Netgear R6300 802.11ac router!!
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 Review - Dual GK104 Kepler Greatness
- ASUS G75V Review: Gaming Goes Ivy
- Greater than 20 Percent of Malware Articles Miss the Point
- Trinity Improvements Include Updated Piledriver Cores and VLIW4 GPUs
- More Leaks Emerge on NVIDIA’s Kepler Based GTX 670 GPU
- Ready for Diablo III? Not with Catalyst 12.4 you're not.
- Corsair Launches Air Series of High Airflow and High Static Pressure Fans
- Steam Allows Remote Installation of Games
- OCZ Updates Vertex 4 Enthusiasts to 1.4 Release Candidate Firmware
- Windows Media Center To Be A Pro Only Feature In Windows 8
- Good news from TSMC for NVIDIA and you
- Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
- Ryan: ASUS N66U Dual-band Router
- Jeremy: Wave your hands like an idiot for free
- Josh: Not exactly mine, but good.
- Allyn: pqi U819V 3cm USB3
- 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
- http://pcper.com/podcast
- http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
- Closing
Graphics Card (GPU) Stock Check - May 10th, 2012
Subject: Graphics Cards | May 10, 2012 - 01:38 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: radeon, nvidia, HD 7970, hd 7950, hd 7870, hd 7850, hd 7770, hd 7750, GTX 690, gtx 680, gtx 670, geforce, amd
Due to popular request, I am going to try to keep our readers up to date on the current availability of graphics cards and pricing on the market. With the recent price drops from AMD, the frequent out-of-stock status of the GTX 680 cards and today's new release of the GTX 670, I thought this would be a great summary of the current situation.
NVIDIA's latest offering, the GeForce GTX 670
We will try to post new updates weekly or maybe more frequently as we see fit. Newegg is our partner of choice for this today, so let's see what we have.
AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series
Radeon HD 7970 3GB - In Stock
Starting at $479
Radeon HD 7950 3GB - In Stock
Starting at $399
Radeon HD 7870 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $329
Radeon HD 7850 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $249
Radeon HD 7770 1GB - In Stock
Starting at $129
Radeon HD 7750 1GB - In Stock
Starting at $109
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 600 Series
GeForce GTX 690 4GB - No Stock
Starting at $999
GeForce GTX 680 2GB - No Stock
Starting at $499
GeForce GTX 670 2GB - In Stock
Starting at $399
It is launch day for the GTX 670 and those seem to be pretty widely available for the time being. As great a card as it is though, I am hesitant to think it will remain in stock through the end of the day based on past experiences with the GTX 600 cards. Still, the GTX 680 is MIA and the few times I have seen it in stock it only lasts a couple of hours.
AMD is still doing fine on availability with the Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 widely available for the price of $479 with a set of three free games including DiRT Showdown and Dues Ex: Human Revolution.
If you are looking for our latest graphics reviews to judge the performance of the above cards, here you go:
- GeForce GTX 670
- GeForce GTX 690
- GeForce GTX 680
- MSI R7970 Lightning
- Radeon HD 7870 and HD 7850
- Radeon HD 7770 and HD 7750
- Radeon HD 7950
- Radeon HD 7970
AMD Releasing Mobile Trinity APUs In May
Subject: Processors | May 8, 2012 - 05:30 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: ultrathins, trinity, piledriver, mobile, APU, amd
Last week we detailed the changes and improvements in AMD’s upcoming Trinity Accelerated Processing Units (APU). Today, DigiTimes has confirmed that Trinity will be released later this month. The only catch is that the company is only releasing the mobile Trinity chips in May. The higher end, and higher TDP, parts will not be released until August 2012.
A Trinity APU die next to a USB flash drive
According to their sources, AMD will be pricing the mobile Trinity chips very aggressively. They will offer a cheaper alternative to OEMs as AMD based ultrathins compared to an Ivy Bridge based ultabrook notebook. The low power Trinity chips will have vastly superior GPU execution units, though Ivy Bridge may retain the CPU performance crown. Both chips are able to sip voltage and have low TDPs so it will be interesting to see the results of battery life tests once the chips and notebooks are released and are in the hands of reviewers.
Trinity desktop parts are scheduled for release in August, including the A10-5800K, A10-5700, A8-5600K, and A8-5500. They are also planning lower end A6 and A4 series Trinity APUs.
Beyond Trinity, their sources have indicated that AMD will release very low power Brazos 2.0 processors for ultrathins and Windows 8 tablets that have 18W TDPs in June 2012. Vishera–Piledriver architecture, AM3+ socket–FX series desktop CPUs (no iGPU) will be released sometime in the third quarter of this year (Q3 2012). The FX and Brazos processors include the FX-8350, FX-6300, FX-4320, and the E2-1800 and E1-1200 respectively.
While AMD may not have the lowest manufacturing process, are seemingly dropping employees like flies, and had a huge financial loss due to buying themselves out of GlobalFoundries they are still hanging in there and delivering competitive products for the low to mid-range markets.
Take a break from Ivy Bridge with the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5
Subject: Motherboards | May 7, 2012 - 04:07 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: gigabyte, 990FXA-UD5, amd, am3, 990fx
If you need your Intel fix then scroll to the reviews below the fold where you will find a plethora of Z77 and X79 boards, but to provide a little variety check out the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 which is available for $180. As you can tell from the pricing this is from the higher of end AMD motherboards, with four PCIe 16x slots of which two can manage a full 16x, a total of ten SATA6Gb/s ports, two of which are eSATA, fourteen USB 2.0, four USB 3.0 and even a pair of Firewire ports are available. The variety and number of I/O ports is this boards strongest feature, Neoseeker would not recommend it for heavy overclockers but for someone who needs a workhorse that will handle a huge amount of drives and peripherals it is a very strong choice.
"The Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 is a solid motherboard with a nice feature set for the AM3 and AM3+ processors. We pit it against the ASUS Crosshair V Formula, provided with the AMD FX-8150 review kits back at launch, to see how it compares with the incumbent AM3 champ."
Here are some more Motherboard articles from around the web:
- ASUS Maximus V GENE Z77 mATX Motherboard Review @ Hardware Canucks
- Intel DZ77GA-70K Motherboard Benchmark Tests @ Benchmark Reviews
- ASUS P8Z77-V LGA1155 Motherboard Review @ Hi Tech Legion
- ECS Z77H2-A2X Black Edition @ PCStats
- Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 Intel Z77 Express LGA 1155 Preview @ techPowerUp
- Intel DZ77GA-70K Motherboard Features @ Benchmark Reviews
- Asus Maximus V Gene @ eTeknix
- Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H @ Kitguru
- Biostar TZ77XE4 @ Kitguru
- MSI Z77A-GD65 @ Tweaktown
- Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H @ OC3D
- ECS Z77H2-AX @ Guru of 3D
- ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe Benchmark Performance @ Benchmark Reviews
- Sapphire Pure Platinum Z77K @ Kitguru
- GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H @ Tweaktown
- ASUS Maximus V GENE Z77 @ Guru of 3D
- MSI Z77A-GD65 Motherboard @ Hardware Secrets
- Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe @ Kitguru
- MSI Z77A-GD65 @ Guru of 3D
- ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe LGA1155 Motherboard @ Benchmark Reviews
- BIOS Option Of The Week - Internal Graphics Mode Select @ TechARP
- MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) @ X-bit Labs
- ASRock X79 Extreme9 Motherboard Review @ HardwareHeaven
- Gigabyte X79-UD3 Motherboard Review @ Madshrimps
- Six SSDs in RAID 0: Intel vs AMD - which chipset scales the best? @ Hardware.Info
Ready for Diablo III? Not with Catalyst 12.4 you're not.
Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | May 6, 2012 - 12:58 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: radeon, diablo iii, catalyst 12.4, catalyst, amd
A recent forum entry from a Diablo III official agent informed gamers that if you were planning on playing Diablo III on the May 15th launch date, you had better not be using the Catalyst 12.4 drivers that were just released on April 25th.
While AMD still has about 9 days to respond to this issue, for a support rep from Blizzard to flat-out say that "12.4 isn't going to be supported for use in Diablo III" is indicative of a larger problem - can AMD's somewhat smaller driver team hope to keep up with NVIDIA's as we get set for another way of pretty major PC game releases?
Quite a few users are taking up for AMD in the thread including Mortac that says:
I find this to be a very confusing answer. What are we to expect for the future? You say that Diablo III won't support 12.4, but what exactly do you mean by that? Are we to expect support for future drivers down the road, say a few weeks after release, or are you telling us that we'll never be able to update our drivers again for as long as we intend to play Diablo III? If the latter, then you guys really need to think that through again. People update their drivers for several reasons, and you cannot possibly expect everyone to swap drivers every time they play other games that might require the latest version.
How this issue will be resolved before May 15th will be of importance to quite a few PC gamers so let's hope both AMD and Blizzard can get their acts together.
Besides Blizzard's long awaited Diablo entry, PC gamers can look forward to Guild Wars 2, DiRT Showdown, Max Payne 3, a new Ghost Recon title, BF3: Close Quarters, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Far Cry 3, Borderlands 2, Bioshock Infinite and many more in the coming months.
UPDATE 2:22pm: An AMD representative has informed us that that bug referred to by the Blizzard forum support person in fact ONLY affects Radeon HD 2000, 3000 and 4000 users. The 12.4 Catalyst software will work fine with 5000, 6000 and the new 7000 series of graphics cards apparently.
@ryanshrout This post from Blizzard is an unfortunate misunderstanding we are working to correct. 12.4 works fine for 5k/6k/7k users.
— Robert Hallock (@Thracks) May 6, 2012
Also, as Robert Hallock commented in our thread below:
Podcast #200!!! - GTX 690, Intel 910 Series PCI-E SSD, our Podcast Life in Review, and much more!
Subject: General Tech | May 3, 2012 - 04:53 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: ssd, podcast, nvidia, intel., amd, 910, 690, 680
PC Perspective Podcast #200!!! - 05/03/2012
Join us this week as we talk about the GTX 690, Intel 910 Series PCI-E SSD, our Podcast Life in Review, and much more!
You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still
The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!
- iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
- RSS - Subscribe through your regular
RSS reader - MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file
Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malvantano
Program Schedule:
- Introduction
- 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
- http://pcper.com/podcast
- http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
- PC Perspective Live Review - GTX 690
- Podcast Life in Review
- #1 - 5/3/2007 - NV 8800 Ultra
- #10 - 8/14/2007 - AMD takes wraps off 3.2GHz Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition
- #46 - 2/4/2009 - NVIDIA ION
- #50 - 3/26/2009 - Bigfoot new Gaming Card, Original from 2006!!
- #75 - 9/24/2009 - HD 5870 Launch
- #100 - 4/7/2010 - VRaptor 600GB
- #150 - 4/13/2011 - HD 6000 mid-range rumors
- Intel SSD 910 Series 800GB PCIe SSD First Look
- Dying Atoms: The Failure Of Low-Power x86 Processors
- SilverStone Nightjar ST50NF 500W Fanless Power Supply Review
- ASUS P8Z77-V Premium motherboard announced.
- Custom Gaming PC Being Auctioned Off For Charity Doing Multiple Sclerosis Research
- NVIDIA Announces dual-GPU Kepler GeForce GTX 690
- NVIDIA Announces GeForce Experience Cloud Service for Quality Presets
- NVIDIA Crates the GeForce GTX 690
- Cheaper GTX 670 GPU Spotted At Malaysian Retailer
- Moore's Law End in Sight
- Trinity Slides Leaked
- HWLB Update
- Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
- Ryan: LogmeIn Ignition - good and bad
- Jeremy: $60 3 LCD stand
- Josh: Apparently quite CPU intensive. SRS gamers only!
- Allyn: Mini SAS SFF-8087 to 4x 2.5in SATA/SAS 5.25in Hot Swap Backplane.
- 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
- http://pcper.com/podcast
- http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
- Closing
May it truly be the end of our graphics card drought
Subject: General Tech | May 3, 2012 - 12:21 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: NVIDA, amd, graphics card, TSMC, 28nm, kepler, southern islands, gtx690, gtx680, gtx670, gtx610
Enthusiasts were offered a bit of hope this morning with news from DigiTimes that more capacity at TSMC will be available for AMD and NVIDIA which would mean more dies being made and hopefully a larger supply of GPUs. Since TSMC seems to have finished playing with their Cortex A9 process, there is a good possibility that the GTX680 and perhaps even the GTX690 will become common enough that the great unwashed actually have a chance to purchase one. We can also hope that it will give NVIDIA a chance to build up stocks of the GTX670 and 610 which are due out at the end of the month and June, respectively. Unfortunately, if a certain site is correct that may not be the case as NVIDIA will be redoing their mask and not be able to take advantage of the extra capacity TSMC could make available for them. Perhaps if this scenario is true AMD will be able to leverage TSMC to flood the market with Southern Island GPUs and hope to win the availability war as the performance crown is firmly on NVIDIA's head in this generation of GPUs.
"AMD and Nvidia, impacted by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) fully-booked capacity, had rather weak shipment performance in the first quarter; however, as more capacity will be gradually released by TSMC, shortages of 28nm graphics cards are expected to improve in late May, according to sources from graphics card makers."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Gimp 2.8 Finally Released @ Slashdot
- The 2012 Top 7 Best Linux Distributions for You @ Linux.com
- Microsoft will ditch Window Live brand ahead of Windows 8 launch @ The Inquirer
- RIM unveils BlackBerry 10 platform @ DigiTimes
- AMD outs Roadrunner mainboard for Open Compute @ The Inquirer
- Biggest Tech Failures of The Last 10+ Year @ Techspot
Podcast #199 - Ivy Bridge Desktop and Mobile reviews, Intel and AMD Earnings, and a Gold Motherboard
Subject: General Tech | April 26, 2012 - 04:59 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: Z77, podcast, nvidia, Ivy Bridge, Intel, earnings, amd, 3770k
PC Perspective Podcast #199 - 04/26/2012
Join us this week as we talk about Ivy Bridge Desktop and Mobile reviews, Intel and AMD Earnings, and a Gold Motherboard
You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still
The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!
- iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
- RSS - Subscribe through your regular
RSS reader - MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file
Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malvantano
Program Schedule:
- Introduction
- 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
- http://pcper.com/podcast
- http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
- Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge LGA1155 Processor Review
- Intel Core i7-3720QM - Ivy Bridge For Mobile Review: Monster Kill!
- NVIDIA continues to tease, sends us a crowbar
- ASUS Demonstrates Z77 Motherboard Features at PC Perspective
- ASUS Overclocks Ivy Bridge To 7 GHz, Breaks World Records
- Intel Announces Q1 2012 Earnings: Not a Record, but Close
- AMD Q1 2012 Earnings Analysis: Looking Back and Looking Forward
- New mLink PCI-E to Thunderbolt Enclosure Shown Off at NAB 2012
- Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
- Ryan: ECS GOLDEN BOARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Jeremy: 25GB free on Microsoft SkyDrive
- Josh: I like this case. Not exactly affordable, but still really nice.
- Allyn: Is it a pen or is it a pencil?
- 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
- http://pcper.com/podcast
- http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
- Closing
Get Out the Microscope
AMD announced their Q1 2012 earnings last week, which turned out better than the previous numbers suggested. The bad news is that they posted a net loss of $590 million. That does sound pretty bad considering that their gross revenue was $1.59 billion, but there is more to the story than meets the eye. Of course, there are thoughts of “those spendthrift executives are burying AMD again”, but this is not the case. The loss lays squarely on the GLOBALFOUNDRIES equity and wafer agreements that have totally been retooled.
To get a good idea of where AMD stands in Q1, and for the rest of this year, we need to see how all these numbers actually get sorted out. Gross revenue is down 6% from the quarter before, which is expected due to seasonal pressures. This is right in line with Intel’s seasonal downturn, and in ways AMD was affected slightly less than their larger competitor. They are down around 2% from last year’s quarter, and part of that can be attributed to the continuing hard drive shortage that continued to affect the previous quarter.
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