AMD Reports Q3 2011 Results

Subject: Editorial | October 28, 2011 - 05:27 PM | Josh Walrath
Tagged: Q3 2011, ontario, llano, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, bulldozer, brazos, amd

Unlike Intel, AMD was unable to report record revenues.  What they were able to report was a small profit.  They also were able to show some growth above that expected by most analysts, and even those in AMD.  Earlier this quarter AMD warned that revenues might not be as high as expected, but in the end AMD seemed to have done ok.

The company had a gross revenue of $1.69 billion, which is well above the expected $1.66 billion many analysts were predicting.  Net profit for the quarter came in at a reasonable $97 million.  This is a big improvement from Q3 2010, which had a net income of -$118 million.  Being positive for a quarter is a big accomplishment for AMD.  Controlling costs as a fabless semiconductor company is a lot easier as compared to running multiple Fabs and researching and implementing next generation process nodes.  Margins increased to 45%, but are still a far cry from the 60% plus that Intel achieves.  ASPs are also down due to the large amount of low priced, 45 nm parts that AMD still sells.

The primary movers for the positive results for AMD are their lineup of APUs.  The “Bobcat” based APUs have been a success for quite a few months, and with their superior performance and features as compared to the competing Intel Atom series, AMD is making a tidy sum off of them.  The big winner in the APU sector is of course Llano.  The uptake on this processor in the mobile space has been tremendous.  AMD has seen a 35% increase in mobile sales, and when combined with the already strong Brazos/Ontario platform, AMD is finally a factor in the mobile market.  The only real issue in this market that AMD is facing is that of continued poor yields on Llano processors.

Continue reading this article after the break.

Podcast #175 - NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 Launch, Intel Earnings, News of the week and more!

Subject: Editorial | October 20, 2011 - 09:17 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: podcast, nvidia, Intel, amd, 3dvision, 3d vision

PC Perspective Podcast #175 - 10/20/2011

Join us this week as we talk about the NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 Launch, Intel Earnings, News of the week and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

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, Josh Walrath, Jeremy Hellstrom, Allyn Malventano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:15:39

Program Schedule:

1. 0:00:40 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. 0:01:35 MSI Z68A-GD80 G3 LGA 1155 ATX Motherboard Review
6. 0:07:02 3D Vision Gets Updated with LightBoost, Larger Panels and New Glasses
7. 0:13:19 Corsair HX1050 Professional Series Power Supply Review
8. 0:13:55 ASUS N55 Core i7 15.6-in Notebook Review: Can One Laptop Do It All?
9. 0:15:44 Intel Reports Q3 2011 Earnings
10. 0:26:15 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
    
11. 0:27:20 Overclocking the next generation of Intel CPUs
12. 0:31:05 ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe GEN3 Board Spotted with PCI Express 3.0 Support
13. 0:32:45 Salt + electrons = 6x increase ialn HDD platter density?
14. 0:37:38 AMD May Release 28nm 7000 HD Series GPU In December
15. 0:41:35 EVGA Demos X79 Classified Motherboard at GeForce LAN 6
16. 0:44:30 Not quite older than dirt; the microprocessor turns 40
17. 0:48:05 Benchmarking Bulldozer and taking the GPU out of the picture
18. 0:52:02 SandForce finally patches elusive 2200 series SSD controller bug. OCZ issues firmware, others soon to follow.
19. 0:58:00 Jon Peddie sees IGPs dying in the next year
20. 1:01:50 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: "Take Ownership" tool
    2. Jeremy: Beefing up your laptop’s gaming chops with an external GPU
    3. Josh: For Thief lovers out there:  http://www.thedarkmod.com/main/
    4. Allyn: Siri (fan boy)
21. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
22. http://pcper.com/podcast   
23. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
24. Closing

Intel Reports Q3 2011 Earnings

Subject: Editorial | October 19, 2011 - 05:29 PM | Josh Walrath
Tagged: sandy bridge, Q3 2011, Intel, earnings, bulldozer, atom, amd

This should come as a shock to no one.  Intel made a lot of money this past quarter.  We again have seen new records in both gross revenue and net income.  GAAP revenue for the quarter came in at an astounding $14.2 billion.  Essentially that is the net revenue for AMD during a three year span.  Net income is again impressive at $3.5 billion.  In AMD terms that would be gross revenue for three quarters.  Truly there is a tremendous disparity between the two companies who are very bitter rivals.  It is no wonder AMD is starting to really fall behind.

All of the internal groups, except for one, have shown tremendous growth over the past year.  Notebooks have really lead the charge as of late, but both desktop and server markets have shown very favorable growth for the company.  Even the McAfee and Intel Communications divisions provided upwards of $1 billion to the bottom line.  The only area that Intel is lagging in is the Atom line.

When we look at the product offerings of Intel in server, desktop, and notebook markets we see they have a sizeable advantage in both process technology and performance per watt.  Intel has been shipping 32 nm chips for well over a year and a half.  On the desktop this has translated to modestly priced processors that have a much smaller die size yet comparable (and even superior) performance to the AMD products which are much larger in size and more expensive to produce.  On the server side we really have not seen AMD make any inroads since Intel took over that market in a big way once they released the QPI based designs which took away AMD’s last architectural advantages; HyperTransport and integrated memory controllers.

Read the rest of the article after the break.

Way to go Yeager; you broke it!

Subject: Editorial | October 14, 2011 - 06:30 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: friday

It seems that the simplest questions can create the biggest stir as a members question about the current relevance of sound cards has been one of the more popular threads in the General Tech forum lately.  Have you chimed in yet?   No matter how strong the feelings are about sound cards, they have nothing on the conversations about AMD's release of the Bulldozer.  We have been waiting for it so long that it could never live up to our expectations, but still it does seem more of a let down than anyone was expecting.

In the Storage Forum one members project to track any changes in the performance of his SSD as it is used has hit the three week mark, check out the results so far.  The Linux Forum has a discussion about GNOME while the Windows 8 thread in the Microsoft Forum has grown quiet recently.  The opposite is happening in the Gaming Forum as the Rage thread grows and grows and The Lighning Round never grows silent.

The Podcast video is a little delayed this week, but fear not as the audio version is ready right now.  Otherwise we appreciate your patience and the video shall appear soonish.

Bulldozer Impressions: That was... interesting

Subject: Editorial | October 12, 2011 - 08:45 AM | Josh Walrath
Tagged: GLOBALFOUNDRIES, fx-8150, bulldozer, am3+, amd, 32 nm

Huh. 

I am pretty sure I am not the only person who has read these Bulldozer reviews (including Ryan's here at PC Perspective) and had that particular reaction.  Bulldozer was supposed to bulldoze the competition.  It turns out it barely outpaces its own predecessor, the Phenom II X6 1100T.  In fact, in terms of IPC, the older Thuban architecture gives it a sound thrashing when both are clocked at 3.3 GHz.  So why should I be impressed with this processor?

I guess the answer is… you shouldn’t.  At least not yet.  I distinctly remember back in November of 2007 being invited to Lake Tahoe to test and report about the first Phenom samples that were available for limited testing.  We were not allowed to take the samples home with their new AM2+ based motherboards.  When going over the results of the tests with Ryan (I was not part of PCPer at the time) we quickly saw that the 2.6 GHz Phenom was unable to keep up with the Core 2 Q6600 from Intel.  This was a little surprising, as we expected the original Phenom to clean house due to its very forward looking architecture (HT, IMC, beefier FP/SIMD units, etc.).  The original Phenom had its fair share of problems, to say the least.  TDPs were very high, there was the revision B2 bug that was solved in B3, and due to the 65 nm process it did not nearly have as much cache as was needed to make it a more efficient product.

Click to read the rest of this post.

Control versus Revenue: Round 2 -- Ubisoft

Subject: Editorial | October 7, 2011 - 10:11 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: ubisoft, piracy

A couple of days ago I posted an editorial discussing videogame piracy and secondary sales. During the discussion I postulated that the primary issue with publishers is the logical leap made between controlling your market and the amount of revenue made from the market. The failure in that assumption is that you ignore the cost, in market size and otherwise, spent to acquire that control and immediately attribute the negative consequences of that to piracy or secondary sales. PC Gamer has weighed in on the topic with an interesting addition: Ubisoft, since the introduction of the DRM method, has not only shrunk piracy but also shrunk sales by 90%.

Jack Blackbeard... the one who all pirates fear. Just kidding, that's fiction.

In terms of the sense of control, PC Gamer quotes Ubisoft prior to Driver’s release:

“It’s difficult to get away from the fact that as a developer, as somebody who puts their blood, sweat and tears into this thing… And from the publisher’s point of view, which invests tens and tens and tens of millions into a product – by the time you’ve got marketing, a hundred million – that piracy on the PC is utterly unbelievable.”

So Ubisoft's PC gaming sales are down 90% without a corresponding lift in console sales. If only they gave up some control for some revenue, right? A smaller number of pirates might make you sleep better at night, but with an empty stomach and no roof over your head. As always, the solution is to lure customers to your content; do not condone piracy, but pretty-much do not enforce it. I realize that you may feel violated by your non-paying customers but as a company you should be concerned about revenue, not bad feelings; the two paths occasionally diverge. The customer is always right.

Thank you Lady Ada of Lovelace

Subject: Editorial | October 7, 2011 - 06:20 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: friday, ada lovelace

If you were to drop by the Processor Forum you will be swept up in a discussion about Bulldozer in no time at all. The long running rumour thread is still very popular and now there are new questions and suggestions appearing as the release date creeps ever closer and the leaks keep appearing everywhere.  Take a quick pop into the Cases'n'Cooling forum for a look at this member's new build.  After that head to the Storage forum and keep an eye on this thread; one of our members is keeping track of any performance changes that occur as his RAID 0 SSDs are filled and used.  Windows 8 is still the topic of choice in our Microsoft forum while Battlefield 3 is the hot topic in the Gaming forum. 

As always the Lightning Round has plenty of action, perhaps the only good thing about the current global situation is that it provides no end of things to debate.  Head to the Trading Post for a new phone or hardware, or even visit this thread where a member will gladly take all your old dusty PC parts off your hands for free.

You should also check this weeks PC Perspective Google Hangout, and get a look at some of Ryan's new AV gear.  Don't worry, we will be back on TWiT.tv next week.

Intel and Eurogamer discuss videogame piracy: listen

Subject: Editorial | October 5, 2011 - 09:52 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: used sales, piracy, Intel

Matt Ployhar of Intel recently wrote in their blog their thoughts about Eurogamer’s piracy and secondary sales editorial. Piracy and Secondary Sales are hot-button issues with publishers these days as many publishers are looking for ways to maximize revenue; we will discuss that in just a second. Talking to many people of the general public over the last few years it seems as though there are two dominant camps of ideology: piracy is alright because I am not hurting anyone; and people are getting screwed and pirates should not be allowed to enjoy the content. Humorously enough, plotting that sample space statistically would yield an overlapping Venn diagram. Personally, I believe that both sides are wrong.

I’d sing “Stuck in the Middle with You” but… copyrights; also, this is a text-only article. And I’m not.

Piracy and Secondary Sales are difficult concepts to fully grasp as information transactions have sharp analogues to material value without actually having any. The most obvious application of this concept is that theft is impossible: a copy is a copy and not a move. Publishers make the analogy to physical goods which can be stolen and this fight perpetuates ad-infinitum. Secondary sales are where these arguments break down, however: publishers actually desire for their products to be consumable. The entire entertainment industry is constructed around the concept of consumable entertainment. This leads into the true issue with information content revenue: control.

There is an intuitive link between control and revenue: if you increase your control over your market than you will increase your revenue. That is a dangerous untruth. Assume that you add a DRM that limits your customer’s ability to pirate your product as stated in Intel Blog and Eurogamer: did you make the pirated product more appealing than the official one? Have you cut off potential buyers? Did you increase development and maintenance costs for yourself? How will future product sales be affected? Assume that you remove the ability for your market to purchase second-hand: how are you distribution partners affected? How will future product sales be affected? Would those people ultimately learn how to pirate your content if they do not entirely ignore it?

Warning: Anti-Piracy methods may lead to loss in revenue beyond $250,000

The danger in this untruth is that intuition often takes over and these failures are attributed to a lack of control rather than a superabundance of it. This arms race quickly escalates the non-issue to government legislation which is not even remotely focused on the fundamental problem. Perhaps try a little of what Monty Python and Steve Lieber already have? Intelligently release some control and let your market reward you. Conversely, a customer who cannot pay for your services for one reason or another -- will not -- at a fault of none other than your personal business practices.

Battlefield 3 (BF3) Beta Performance: Quality Preset and SLI Scaling

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards | October 1, 2011 - 01:49 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: sli, gtx 570, gtx 460, bf3, battlefield 3

I know, we've been talking a lot about Battlefield 3 this week, but I have yet another set of numbers and results that I think you guys will want to see.  Previously, all of our BF3 benchmarks have been run under the Ultra quality presets but it is obvious that not all GPUs or gamers are going to want to target the highest settings the game can accomplish.  With that in mind I decided to test a couple of cards at Ultra, High, Medium and Low presets in order to guage how well the game scaled based on image quality.

For this round I wanted to use a high end card as well as an older, much more popular (and currently low cost) card; the result is tests on the GeForce GTX 570 1.25GB and the GeForce GTX 460 1GB reference platforms.  We used the Operation Metro map and the initial outdoor section for our testing as it was the most strenuous in the beta thus far.  

As a side note, if you want to see how the image quality actually changes from the Ultra, High, Medium and Low presets, check out this page of my previous performance article that included screenshots and even some animated GIFs as demonstration.

Here are the results:

On the more powerful GTX 570 you can see that BF3 scales pretty well from the Ultra settings through the Low options in even steps.  By moving from Ultra down to High a gamer would see about 34% better performance and 22% better minimum frame rates.  The jump to Medium gains another 41% while the move to Low gets another 25% on top of that.  The gap between Low and Ultra is about ~2.3x.

The GTX 460 sees similar levels of performance grades though the move from Ultra to High only gains you about 28% and averages of 33.8 FPS or so.  I would still consider that on the low side of a good game play experience and thus the move to Medium (which is 82% faster than Ultra) seems like the sweet spot for BF3.  

I know we also had some requests for SLI scaling performance and, in particular, with the GTX 460 1GB cards.  Since this card has been so incredibly popular we thought this would be the perfect candidate for the "SLI Upgrade Path" option and you can pick one up for $150 (or less with rebates).  Let's see how well Battlefield 3 scales with multiple GPUs.

At the Ultra quality settings we saw a 60% scaling capability by adding in a second GTX 460 at stock speeds while at High settings we see that rate increases to 84%!  That is pretty impressive and for the cost investment of a second GPU it looks like you are going to see better than average scaling.  Considering this is with the first driver release and with a beta version of the game, I can only see multi-GPU scaling rates going up as the full retail release hits.

With these results and some others we have done through the week we are ready to put together our Battlefield 3 system build guide.  Stay tuned!

PCPer Live! Battlefield 3 Beta Party and Discussion @ 10:30pm EST

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards | September 29, 2011 - 06:51 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: radeon, pcper live, nvidia, geforce, bf3, battlefield 3, amd

Look, there isn't any football on tonight, so what else are you going to do?  Rather than watch a rerun of Seinfeld, why not stop by here at http://pcper.com/live to hang out and not only watch us play some Battlefield 3 but also participate yourself by calling in on Skype, using Google+ Hangouts or even just chatting on our IRC server (welcome back to 1998, amiright?).

We are going to start the show at 10:30pm EST and plan on running until midnight at least, but it all depends on participation levels from YOU! 

What all do we have on the agenda?  Well, it is going to be pretty informal as we are still getting our feet wet with this whole "live" thing but here is what we are planning:

• Watch Ryan and Ken get destroyed over and over in Battlefield 3 and watch as we attempt to sneak our way into the password protected Caspian levels with vehicles, 64 players and a new game type (oh my!).
• Skype call ins from readers and gamers that want to talk about BF3 and their experiences with the game so far.  How does it run on your hardware?  Discussion like this will help others that might not have the beta figure out what they might want to upgrade in the near future.  (Be prepared to give us your Skype handle in the chat so we can call you!)
• Trying some group games via our PC Perspective Platoon, the Fragging Frogs!  (Head over and apply to join or become a fan!)  You can also find me on EA Origin or in the Battlelog system as "ryanshrout".
• We will discuss our brainstorming sessions for what hardware we will recommend for certain gaming resolutions and specific image quality settings in a future article...all live!
• Maybe some surprise guests from the PC Perspective staff and beyond...??  

We will be streaming the festivities live on our Justin.tv channel (embedded below) and will have a chat widget here as well for those of you that would rather use IRC than the integrated Justin.tv chat.

In short, we are planning on having a good time playing some games and talking hardware so if you are into that, then I think you should be sure to stop by and say hello!!  Let us know in the comments if you have anything else you want to see or any more ideas for our live show.  Thanks!!!

PCPer Live! Alienware M17x with Radeon HD 6990 Unboxing and Early Test

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Mobile | September 23, 2011 - 05:07 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: pcper live, m17x, hd 6990, alienware

UPDATE: Shows over folks!  Thanks to those of you that stopped by and we'll be doing more of these types of things in the very near future.  Feel free to watch the reply hosted on YouTube if you want.

So, here we go.  After weeks of screwing around with a complely new studio setup at the PC Perspective office, we are going to try something new.  Consider this an ultra-alpha-beta if you will.  Come stop by our Live Stream channel below to watch us unbox and play around with the new Alienware M17x gaming laptop complete with Radeon HD 6990 graphics!  You can even use the Justin.tv chat located at http://justin.tv/pcper to talk with us live and ask questions, etc. 

Oh, and we are going to give away some random stuff sitting around the office to those of you that comment in the Justin.tv chat too, so there is that as well.  :)

Just as a side note: this is our first attempt at something like this so it might be perfect but it is more than likely going to be a bit rough arond the edges.  I am most curious though to get some feedback on what you liked, didn't like or would like to see additional or changed in this kind of process.  We aren't going to focus only on "unboxings" and stuff - far from it.  Instead expect to see live demonstrations of hardware, overclocking attempts, multi-display gaming setups and more.  If you can, please leave some feedback in the comments below!!

Note: We should be underway by 5:25pm ET or so!

Win a Free Drobo Storage Device at PC Perspective!!

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Storage | September 22, 2011 - 04:42 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: pcper, giveaway, drobo, contest

UPDATE: Just a couple more days left on this contest - we are closing entries for this Drobo at 12:01am EST on September 26th!

So you know here at PC Perspective we are big fans of backing up your data.  And one such brand of devices that helps users do that efficiently and safely is Drobo.  We are still working on our Drobo FS review here internally, but should probably check out Allyn's previous review of the 8-bay Drobo Pro to get an idea of the technology and reliability of Drobo.

But, back to the point, did we say you could win a brand new Drobo for yourself?  Yes, you can get your hands on a free Drobo FS unit by simply filling out a form and using your Twitter and Facebook accounts to spread the good word of data security!!

What do you have to do?  It's a simple three step process:

1. Follow @Drobo on Twitter and send a message to all your friends with the hash tags #drobo and #pcper telling them about your love of both!
   1. OR .... hit up Drobo on their Facebook page and leave a note on YOUR wall for your friends on the same topic - backing up your data and how Drobo gets it done.
2. Finally, fill out the form at http://bit.ly/pcperdrobo to finish the job.

You will be emailed a coupon for a Drobo even if you don't win the free one, so you can still get something out this deal, right?!?

Our thanks go out to Drobo for the donations and to our loyal reader base for support PC Perspective over the years!

Podcast #171 - X79 Motherboard Show and Tell, a 5th Core in NVIDIA's Kal-El, Weekly News, Viewer Questions and more!

Subject: Editorial | September 22, 2011 - 03:49 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: x79, sandy bridge-e, podcast, nvidia, kal-el, Intel, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #171 - 9/22/2011

Join us this week as we have a X79 Motherboard Show and Tell, a 5th Core in NVIDIA's Kal-El, Weekly News, Viewer Questions and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

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, Josh Walrath, Jeremy Hellstrom, Allyn Malventano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:13:36

Program Schedule:

1. 0:00:36 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. Stay Tuned for a contest!!
6. 0:02:05 X79 Show and Tell!
7. 0:13:00 NVIDIA Reveals a 5th CPU Core in Upcoming Kal-El Tegra SoC
8. 0:24:33 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
   
9. 0:25:47 IDF 2011: Intel Many Integrated Core (MIC) Knights Corner
10. 0:28:12 IDF 2011: Knights Ferry Shown 8-Deep Running Ray Tracing
11. 0:31:15 Corsair is a vengeful beast: K90, the (Black)Widow’s maker?
12. 0:37:58 Corsair Returns With A Vengeance (Line Of Gaming Headsets)
13. 0:39:00 This newcomer to SSDs holds a new iteration of a familiar controller
14. 0:45:00 New Intel Core i7 2700K Revealed In MDDS Will Take Top Spot In Company Lineup
15. 0:47:11 Kepler has arrived ... sort of
16. 0:51:13 Email from Pete about Windows 8 and SSDs
17. 0:56:00 Email from Nabokovfan87
18. 1:02:00 Email from Rahul about Ultrabooks
19. 1:04:00 Win a Free Drobo Storage Device at PC Perspective!!
20. 1:04:52 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: Gorillapod
    2. Jeremy: Ray Tracing ain't dead  fine, ruin my pick then  Cartel
    3. Josh: Looks very interesting:  http://shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/WW-USSMBPublicStore-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductUUID=UUIQ7EN5PMEAAAEyle0CBwpd&CatalogCategoryID=yP4Q7EN5.w0AAAEu6fw.zwd2
    4. Allyn: VMWare 8
21. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
22. http://pcper.com/podcast   
23. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
24. Closing

PC Gaming to Surpass Console Gaming in Revenue by 2015

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards | September 22, 2011 - 02:26 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: skyrim, rage, pc gaming, diablo iii, consoles, battlefield 3, batman

During a conference call with NVIDIA this week some interesting information from DFC Intelligence, "a strategic market research and consulting firm focused on interactive entertainment and the emerging video game, online game, interactive entertainment and portable game markets" according to their webiste, was revealed that paints the world of PC gaming in a much more positive light than previously expected.  By anyone's account, the coming fall and winter release schedules are going to be packed with fantastic releases:

Courtesy NVIDIA

Several of these games, including DOTA 2, Diablo III and The Old Republic are going to be PC-only titles with others (like Battlefield 3, RAGE and Skyrim) that will without question look better and play better on the PC.  This sets up a great time for hardware companies like NVIDIA and AMD to sell system upgrades in order to maximize user experience in these titles.  

And while most gaming pundits have been telling us for years that PC gaming is dying, the report from DFC tells a different story:

Courtesy NVIDIA

Based on revenue alone, estimates show PC gaming to surpass the sales of console games by 2014 with steady growth.  How can this be?  Have you stopped by your local Gamestop or Best Buy and seen the shelf space devoted to PC games compared to that devoted to the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Wii?

Courtesy NVIDIA

Here is the key and it is something we have always suspected but haven't really been able to nail down: packaged sales are dying while digital distribution methods and new monetary game mechanics are increasing.  Because the industry's most prolific digital sales platform is notoriously tight with sales numbers (Valve's Steam), we have to depend on third party reports from DFC and others.  According to this chart, the digital sales of gaming on the PC are skyrocketing and will take PC revenues past consoles in just a few years time.  

One note here: this does NOT just include downloaded games in the traditional sense.  Instead, new pay models like the monthly subscriptions of World of Warcraft and "free to play" models that charge for upgrades and additional features are really going to be pushing the industry forward.  Looking at titles like League of Legends that claims 15 million PC gamers worldwide and others like World of Tanks and World of Planes, this trend is growing and though it differs from the "traditional" PC gaming mentality, it appears to be dominating our future.

Courtesy NVIDIA

Many a PC gamer has lamented about the "console port" generation of games and this graph demonstrates how the power of the PC and the power of the current generation of consoles have diverged over the years.  By NVIDIA's estimates we are now about 8-9x the performance level of the Xbox 360 when compared to the GTX 580 that currently sells for about $450.  But if you look at the quality difference between something like Deus Ex: Human Revolution on the PC and the consoles, you do NOT see anything close to that kind of improvement.  Game developers have always had their hands tied by having to develop for the lowest common platform and while the PC market (when dominant) meant an upgrade cycle of 2-3 years we are now hitting a 6th year of static console gaming power.

Unreal Engine

If we want to see games that look like THIS, a screenshot from the Unreal Engine Samaritan demo, then we need to boost the baseline and soon. 

But the numbers that DFC Intelligence provided give hope to those die-hards in the enthusiast and PC gaming community that with the expanding reach and positive growth of the PC market as a whole, developers will see this as their chance to move the medium forward beyond the status quo. 

IDF 2011: Live Blog of Keynotes, Technical Discussions

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Processors, Chipsets, Systems, Storage, Mobile, Shows and Expos | September 15, 2011 - 12:15 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: live blog, Intel, idf 2011, idf

PC Perspective is all over the 2011 Intel Developer Forum and we'll be covering it LIVE here all week.  Expect to hear news about Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge-E, SSDs, X79 chipsets, 22nm tri-gate transistors and more!  We will have specific news posts about the major topics but if you want to keep up with our information to the minute, then you'll want to migrate to this page throughout Tuesday, Wednesay and Thursday morning.  

You can also hit up http://www.pcper.com/category/tags/idf to see all of the posts relating to and coming from IDF this week!

Feel free to leave comments for me on what exactly you want to know and I will do my best to address your questions as the day progresses. 

IDF 2011: New Ivy Bridge Details from Mooly Eden Keynote

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Processors, Shows and Expos | September 14, 2011 - 01:25 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: mooly eden, Ivy Bridge, idf 2011, idf

Today is day 2 at the Intel Developer Forum and with the first keynote out of the way, we can share a few short details about Ivy Bridge that we didn't know before.  First, the transistor count is 1.48 billion - a hefty jump over Sandy Bridge that had less than 1 billion.

There was also mention of a new power management feature that will allow interrupts from other hardware devices to go to other cores than Core0, which it had ALWAYS done in the past. This means that it can route it to a core that is already awake and doing some work and not wake up a sleeping core unless necessary.

We also saw the Ivy Bridge processor running the HAWX 2 benchmark, now with support for DX11.

If you look at the die image at the top of this post, you will also notice that it appears more of the die has been assigned to graphics performance than was allocated to it on Sandy Bridge.  Remember that on AMD's Llano about 50% of the die dedicated to stream processors; it would appear that by adding support for DX11, nearly doubling performance and including required support for things like DirectCompute, Intel was forced to follow suit to some degree. 

Mooly laughed at press taking pictures of the die as he had purposely modified the image to hide some of the details or distort them to prevent precise measurements.  Still, it looks like about 33% of the new Ivy Bridge processor is dedicated to graphics and media.  This is good news for consumers, but potentially very bad news for the discrete GPU market in notebooks and low end PCs.

Finally, Mooly Eden ended with a brief look at future Ultrabooks that will be based on the Ivy Bridge processor.

If you thought the current generation of Ultrabooks was sexy (as I do) then you will really like what is coming up next.

IDF 2011: Intel Developer Forum Coverage Coming Soon!

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Motherboards, Processors, Chipsets | September 12, 2011 - 10:22 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: Intel, idf 2011, idf

It is once again time for our annual pilgrimage to the land of the Golden Gate to spend a few days with our friends at Intel and the Intel Developer Forum.  IDF is one of the most informative events that I attend and I am always impressed by the openness and detail with which Intel showcases its upcoming products and future roadmap.  This year looks to be no different.

What do we have on the agenda?  First and foremost, we expect to hear all about Ivy Bridge and the architecture changes it brings to the Sandy Bridge CPUs currently in the market.  Will we see increased x86 performance or maybe increases in the likelihood of us recommending the integrated graphics?  More information is set to be revealed on the 22nm tri-gate transistor as well as the X79 chipset and the Sandy Bridge-E enthusiast platform.  SSDs and Ultrabooks are also set on the docket.  It's going to be busy.

But what would a week in downtown San Francisco be without visits from other companies as well?  We are set to meet with Lucid, MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, Corsair, HP and of course, AMD.  I expect we will have just as much to say about what each of these companies has on display as we do Intel's event.  

I am planning on live blogging many of the sessions I will be attending so stay tuned to PC Perspective all week for the latest!!

Podcast #169 - SSD Decoder Update, Antec SOLO II, ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, Ultrabook news and a Drobo contest!!

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards, Processors, Storage, Mobile | September 8, 2011 - 03:23 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: ultrabook, ssd, podcast, eee pad transformer, drobo, decoder, asus, antec

PC Perspective Podcast #169 - 9/08/2011

Join us this week as we discuss the MARS II combo on Newegg, an update to the SSD Decoder, the new Antec SOLO II chassis, our review of the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer tablet, news on Ultrabook development and even announce a new contest partnership with Drobo!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

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, Josh Walrath, Jeremy Hellstrom, Allyn Malventano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:23:36

Program Schedule:

1. Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. MARS II Combo  for $4000!
6. SSD Decoder Update
7. Kingwin Stryker 500W Fanless Power Supply Review
8. Video Perspective: Antec SOLO II Chassis Review
9. ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101 Review: Assemble!
10. This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
11. Zotac Releases New ZBOX Nano AD10 Series Mini PCs
12. Toshiba Unveils Portege Z830 Ultrabook Series
    1. Acer Unveils Super Thin Aspire S3 Ultrabook at IFA in Berlin
    2. Silly Intel, the high price and limited availability were the parts your Ultrabook was supposed to drop
13. Bulldozer Infused Trinity APU Specifications Confirmed
14. Intel Unveils 16 New 32nm Processors
15. AMD Ships Bulldozer for Revenue- Interlagos though- will write up after the podcast and post on front page.
16. Magma Unveils the First Three-Slot Thunderbolt Expansion Chassis
17. Drobo contest
18. Email from Wes about GPU selection
19. Email from Chris about GPU whine
20. Email from Lee about SSD security
21. Email from a mystery writer about GPU stuttering
22. Finally, a VIDEO QUESTION from David!
23. Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: Blackmagic Intensity Pro
    2. Jeremy: Coil gun revolver with laser sty ((sight?) so there)
    3. Josh: Thermaltake eSports Shock Spin Diamond Black
    4. Allyn: Surefire LED flashlights
24. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
25. http://pcper.com/podcast   
26. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
27. Closing