Deal for April 8th - Dell UltraSharp U2410 24" IPS @ $384.30

Subject: General Tech, Displays | April 8, 2013 - 01:45 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

If you are shopping around for a 24" IPS LCD then today's deal might be custom made for you.  The Dell UltraSharp U2410 24" IPS is currently discounted $165 and comes with free shipping.  It is a full 1920x1200 display with HDMI, DVI-D and DisplayPort inputs and even better it has a ghosting time of 11 ms and an input lag so low as to be undetectable which makes it perfect for gaming.

Dell UltraSharp U2410 24" IPS-panel LCD Monitor with HDMI & DisplayPort
Today only. Dell is offering UltraSharp U2410 24-inch LCD Monitor for $384.30 with FREE shipping. Use 33% instant savings to get final price.

(Not) The End of DirectX

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards, Systems, Mobile | April 7, 2013 - 10:21 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: DirectX, DirectX 12

Microsoft DirectX is a series of interfaces for programmers to utilize typically when designing gaming or entertainment applications. Over time it became synonymous with Direct3D, the portion which mostly handles graphics processing by offloading those tasks to the video card. At one point, DirectX even handled networking through DirectPlay although that has been handled by Games for Windows Live or other APIs since Vista.

AMD Corporate Vice President Roy Taylor was recently interviewed by the German press, "c't magazin". When asked about the future of "Never Settle" bundles, Taylor claimed that games such as Crysis 3 and Bioshock: Infinite keep their consumers happy and also keep the industry innovating.

Keep in mind, the article was translated from German so I might not be entirely accurate with my understanding of his argument.

In a slight tangent, he discussed how new versions of DirectX tends to spur demand for new graphics processors with more processing power and more RAM. He has not heard anything about DirectX 12 and, in fact, he does not believe there will be one. As such, he is turning to bundled games to keep the industry moving forward.

Neowin, upon seeing this interview, reached out to Microsoft who committed to future "innovation with DirectX".

This exchange has obviously sparked a lot of... polarized... online discussion. One claimed that Microsoft is abandoning the PC to gain a foothold in the mobile market which it has practically zero share of. That is why they are dropping DirectX.

Unfortunately this does not make sense: DirectX would be one of the main advantages which Microsoft has in the mobile market. Mobile devices have access to fairly decent GPUs which can use DirectX to draw web pages and applications much smoother and much more power efficiently than their CPU counterparts. If anything, DirectX would be increased in relevance if Microsoft was blindly making a play for mobile.

The major threat to DirectX is still quite off in the horizon. At some point we might begin to see C++Amp or OpenCL nibble away at what DirectX does best: offload highly-parallel tasks to specialized processing units.

Still, releases such as DirectX 11.1 are quite focused on back-end tweaks and adjustments. What do you think a DirectX 12 API would even do, that would not already be possible with DirectX 11?

Blink and It's Gone: Google Forks WebKit

Subject: General Tech, Mobile | April 6, 2013 - 05:47 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: webkit, Blink, Android, Google Chrome, ChromeOS

There once was a web browser named Konqueror which was quite common in the Linux community. At its core was the KHTML rendering engine, a nice standards-compliant layout package; KHTML was so nice that Apple decided to create WebKit based on it. Since then, WebKit has been the basis of Google Chrome and other applications such as Steam as of a few years ago.

And even though the project maybe never be done, Google stuck a fork in it.

Blink is a new layout engine, based on WebKit, soon to be implemented in Google Chrome. By soon, I mean practically the next release. It stands to reason, too: a forked project by definition starts out looking nearly identical because they both start from the same point. The two projects will be able to evolve in different directions as each begin to differ in needs and desires.

So what does it mean? Firstly, web developers do not need to worry about a new vendor-prefix until at least Google starts to worry about one. According to their above Q&A, they currently seem more interested in reducing prefix support rather than adding new ones. Personally, I expect that at some point they will likely need to add some as standards evolve.

In terms of the future: I feel that multiple rendering engines will only be better for the future of the web. Sure, it can be difficult for web developers to test their products across a variety of devices but that is a drop in the bucket compared to the misery caused when a dominant player gets complacent. A noncompeting player will stop innovating and maybe pull away from open standards.

Then again this pretty much always happens: no-one is satisfied with monopolies. Thankfully the WebKit license made it easy for dissatisfied parties to take action. In turn, WebKit can benefit from many of these developments at their leisure, particularly before their products look too dissimilar.

Haswell, we have a problem. USB 3.0 woes may lead to delays

Subject: General Tech | April 5, 2013 - 02:06 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: haswell, Intel, usb 3.0, oops

Hardware.Info has recently had confirmation of the rumours we have heard about Intel's USB 3.0 chipset in Haswell; the problem exists and it will cause delays.  Many readers may find this remeniscent of the issues with the Marvell 88SE9123 SATA controller from back in the days of P55 boards.  This time however the issue has been caught before a single board was sold and while it is upsetting that we will be waiting even longer for Haswell perhaps it is better to get a working product late.  It could be quite annoying to lose all your peripherals every time your machine goes into S3.  Follow the links from their post for more details.

"Intel now officially admits there is a problem with USB 3.0 in Haswell products, and that solving the issue will affect delivery times of various products"

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• High speed circuit design for quantum physics light sensing @ Hack a Day
• Has Europe finally passed Peak Disk? @ The Register
• Bitcoin-mining malware ENSLAVES computers @ The Register
• Litecoin, the GPU Mining Alternative to Bitcoin @ hardCOREware
• Open source 3D patches appear for Nvidia's Tegra SoC @ The Inquirer
• ActiveX Filtering In Internet Explorer 9 and 10 Kills Flash Player @ TechARP
• How To Install Windows 8 Guide @ OCC
• How to Enable 64-bit Internet Explorer 10 in Windows 7 @ NGOHQ

Deal of the Day - ASUS GeForce GTX 660 2GB @ $169

Subject: General Tech | April 5, 2013 - 01:48 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

If you are looking for a decent midrange card with a good selection of outputs and enough VRAM to handle multiple screens at reasonable resolutions but can't spend more than $200 then consider this GTX 660.  It is a decent upgrade for current owners of  GTX 560 Ti or even the GTX 570 with a Core clock of 1020MHz, 1085MHz Boost and 2GB of 6GHz GDDR5.  Also, it will be featured in Ryan's next frame rating article for those who need a refresher on its performance. 

ASUS GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 Video Card @ $168.99 + FREE SHIPPING

Newegg offers the ASUS GeForce GTX 660 2GB GDDR5 Video Card (GTX660-DC2O-2GD5) for $168.99 with free economy shipping. Use coupon code EMCXSXV42 applied during checkout and $20 mail-in rebate to get final price. Coupon applicable for Newegg.com newsletter subscribers only (Free to signup). Deal ends 4/8 or while supplies last.

AMD and Adobe Show OpenCL Support for next version of Adobe Premiere Pro

Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards | April 5, 2013 - 11:48 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: premiere pro, opencl, firepro, amd, Adobe

As we prepare for the NAB show (National Association of Broadcasters) this week, AMD and Adobe have released a fairly substantial news release concerning the future of Premiere Pro, Adobe's flagship professional video editing suite. 

Earlier today Adobe revealed some of its next generation professional video and audio products, including the next version of Adobe® Premiere Pro. Basically Adobe is giving users a sneak peek at the new features coming to the next versions of its software. And we’ve decided to give you a sneak peek too, providing a look at how the next version of Premiere Pro performs when accelerated by AMD FirePro™ 3D workstation graphics and OpenCL™ versus Nvidia Quadro workstation graphics and CUDA.

This will be the first time that OpenCL is used as the primary rendering engine for Premiere and is something that AMD has been hoping to see for many years.  Previous versions of the software integrated support for NVIDIA's CUDA GPGPU programming models and the revolution of the Mercury Playback Engine was truly industry changing for video production.  However, because it was using CUDA, AMD users were left out of these performance improvements in favor of the proprietary NVIDIA software solution.

Adobe's next version of Premiere Pro (though we aren't told when that will be released) switches from CUDA to OpenCL and the performance of the AMD GCN architecture is being shown off by AMD today. 

Using 4K TIFF 24-bit sequence content, Microsoft Windows® 7 64-bit, Intel Xeon E5530 @ 2.40 GHZ and 12GB system memory, AMD compared several FirePro graphics cards (using OpenCL) against NVIDIA Quadro options (using CUDA).  Idealy we would like to see some OpenCL NVIDIA benchmarks as well, but I assume we'll have to wait to test that here at PC Perspective.

AMD also claims that by utilizing OpenCL rather than CUDA, the AMD FirePro GPUs are running at a lower utilization, opening up more graphics processing power for other applications and development work.

While this performance testing is conducted on a pre-release version of the next Adobe Premiere Pro, we’re really pleased with the results. As with all of the professional applications we support, we’ll continue to make driver optimizations for Adobe Premiere Pro that can only help to improve the overall user experience and application performance. So if you’re considering a GPU upgrade as part of your transition to the next version of Adobe Premiere Pro, definitely consider taking a look at AMD FirePro™ 3D workstation graphics cards.

You can continue on to read the full press release from AMD and Adobe on the collaboration or check out the complete blog post posted on AMD.com.

Podcast #245 - Frame Rating, Ivy Bridge-E, Oculus Rift and more!

Subject: General Tech | April 4, 2013 - 03:39 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: podcast, oculus rift, Ivy Bridge-E, gtx 700M, GTX 670 Mini, giveaway, frame rating, bioshock infinite

PC Perspective Podcast #245 - 04/04/2013

Join us this week as we discuss more Frame Rating, Ivy Bridge-E, Oculus Rift 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, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath, and Allyn Malventano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!

Program length: 1:18:58

1. 0:01:45 You missed our Bioshock Infinite Game Stream!
2. 0:02:40 Win the Roccat Kave Real 5.1 Gaming Headset
3. Week in Review:
   1. 0:04:30 Frame Rating: HD 7990 vs GTX 690 vs GTX Titan
      1. Frame Rating: HD 7950 vs GTX 660 Ti
   2. 0:30:10 Oyen Digital USB 3.0 UASP / eSATA Dock
4. News items of interest:
   1. 0:33:00 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 700M Announced
   2. 0:37:50 Oculus Rift Future from GTC
   3. 0:42:15 Activision Faces are scary!
   4. 0:44:15 Ivy Bridge-E Processor Leaks
   5. 0:49:15 64-bit ARM A57 SoCs are nearly here
   6. 0:52:30 AMD Fan Event in San Francisco!
   7. 0:53:45 Seagate has 1TB platter drives now
   8. 0:59:00 Could Lenovo makes it own chips?
   9. 1:02:45 ASUS Mini-ITX Ready Small GTX 670 card
5. 1:05:45 Hardware/Software Picks of the Week:
   1. Ryan: Nerdytec Couchmaster
   2. Jeremy: Already modded Oculus Rift
   3. Josh: Used it this weekend. Nice
   4. Allyn: iBackupBot
6. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
7. http://pcper.com/podcast
8. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
9. Closing/outro

Deal for April 4th - Dell Inspiron 15R (5521) 15.6" Core i5 Laptop

Subject: General Tech | April 4, 2013 - 01:58 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

At $500+tax with free shipping and Windows 8 included, the Dell Inspiron 15R is a good choice for anyone looking for a reasonably powerful and lightweight laptop.  It is powered by a 1.8GHz Core i5-3337U, has 6GB RAM, a 500GB HDD and integral DVD burner, with a 15.6" 1366 x 768 LED-backlit LCD powered by the HD4000 on the i5.  Not exactly a gaming PC but at 4.9lbs it is an easy way to bring your work with you wherever you go and have more processing power than a tablet will offer.

Dell Inspiron 15R (5521) 15.6" Core i5 Laptop @ $499.99

Use $109 instant savings and extra $80 coupon code: HCV9LCWDGXR7WZ to get final price.

New Flash based products coming to a server near you

Subject: General Tech | April 4, 2013 - 01:40 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: memristor, non-volitle RAM, mlc, PCIe SSD, hitachi, hp, dell

The Register assembled a brief look at the near future of flash storage products from HP, Hitachi, Dell and NetApp.  HP expects to be shipping memristor based storage devices by the end of the year as well as photonic inter-node backplanes which will offer much faster transfer than copper based solutions.  Hitachi Data Systems believes they have made a breakthrough in MLC flash and controller technology which will not only extend the usable life of the memory but they expect price parity with high end SAS HDDs by the end of 2015.  Check out those stories as well as Dell's server plans and NetApp's new OS right here.

"In every minute;

• More than 600 videos are uploaded to YouTube
• More than 13,000 hours of music are streamed via Pandora
• 168 million emails are transmitted
• 695,000 status updates are added to Facebook
• 695,000 Google searches are also made."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Non-Volatile DIMMs To Ship This Year @ Slashdot
• How to Run Linux on ODROID-U2: A Monster of an ARM Machine @ Linux.com
• Customer designed ARM chips will give Intel headaches @ The Inquirer
• Open-Source 3D Support For NVIDIA's Tegra @ Phoronix
• A guide to Windows Blue / Windows 8.1 @ Hardware.info
• How to Install Windows 7 Guide @ OCC

Make your own macros with the Gigabyte Aivia Osmium keyboard

Subject: General Tech | April 3, 2013 - 06:37 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: input, mechanical keyboard, gigabyte, Aivia Osmium, cherry mx red

Gigabyte has added another mechanical keyboard to their family, the Aivia Osmium which uses the quiet Cherry MX Red switches preferred by gamers who don't want a click to slow down their button mashing.  It is definitely aimed at gamers with backlighting, audio in and about and a USB 3.0 port on the side along with sound and brightness wheels at the top.  The Tech Report was very impressed with the macro capability of this keyboard, not bound by a certain set of dedicated keys but instead a full program which allows up to 25 programmed macros which can include both mouse and keyboard input.  Head on over and check out the full review.

"Most high-end keyboards combine mechanical switches with LED backlighting and programmable macro keys. Gigabyte's Aivia Osmium adds a new twist: USB 3.0 connectivity. We take a closer look at this unique keyboard to see what's what."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Logitech G710+ Mechanical Gaming Keyboard @ Tweaktown
• Cooler Master CM Storm Quick Fire Rapid Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review @ Madshrimps
• SteelSeries APEX Gaming Keyboard @ Tweaktown
• Cooler Master Storm Trigger w/Green Keyswitches @ LanOC Reviews
• AZiO Large Print Tri-Color Backlight Keyboard Review @ OCC
• ROCCAT Isku FX Illuminated Gaming Keyboard Review @ NikKTech
• Logitech G710+ Mechanical Gaming Keyboard @LanOC Reviews
• Ducky Zero DK2108 Mechanical Keyboard @ eTeknix
• Satechi 10-Port USB 3.0 Hub UH3-10P Review @ Legit Reviews
• Func Surface 1030 XL mousepad @ Rbmods
• Func MS-3 Mouse & 1030XL Mouse Mat @ techPowerUp
• G600 MMO Gaming Mouse @ LanOC Reviews
• Razer Ouroboros Elite Gaming Mouse @ Benchmark Reviews
• Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M Gaming Mouse @ techPowerUp
• Corsair Vengeance M65 FPS Laser Gaming Mouse Review @ Madshrimps
• A4TECH V3 Bloody Gun3 Gaming Mouse @ Benchmark Reviews
• Corsair Vengeance M65 FPS Laser Gaming Mouse @ eTeknix
• SteelSeries Guild Wars 2 Gaming Mouse Review @ Madshrimps
• Logitech G600 MMO Gaming Mouse Review @ NikKTech
• AZIO GM-2000 Gaming Mouse Review @ Hardware Canucks
• Tesoro SHRIKE HL2 Laser Gaming Mouse Review @ NikKTech
• Func MS-3 Mouse Review @ Hardware Secrets
• Genius Gila GX Series Gaming Mouse Review @ Legit Reviews

Deal for April 3 - Samsung 840 Series 120GB

Subject: General Tech | April 3, 2013 - 04:24 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: deals

One of the best SSDs from a dollar per gigabyte perspective is the Samsung 840 series; you can see it in action here in Allyn's review of the 250GB model.  It uses Triple Level Cell flash, which is what helps keep the cost down, but won't have an effect on the performance for most users. 

Top Deal

Samsung 840 Series 120GB SATA 6Gb/s 7mm 2.5" SSD (MZ-7TD120BW) @ $100

http://www.logicbuy.com/deals/samsung-840-series-mz-7td120bw-ssd/42947.aspx

New Hack Allows Kindle Paperwhites To Be Used As Wireless Display For Rasbperry Pi

Subject: General Tech | April 3, 2013 - 01:43 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: wireless display, Raspberry Pi, paperwhite, mobile, kindle, e-ink

The Raspberry Pi makes for a cheap and low power media PC, file server, or desktop but the lack of a display means that it is not very portable. Recently a hack was posted online by Max Ogden that enables the Rasbperry Pi to be used on the go by pairing it with an Amazon Kindle and its e-ink display. His wireless display setup was actually based on a previous hack that allowed the Pi to be paired with the 3rd-generation Kindle. Ogden's hack takes things a step further by supporting the latest Paperwhite versions as well as no longer requirig a wired connnection between the display and the Raspberry Pi.

By loading the Raspberry Pi with Raspian Linux and adding a terminal emulator to the Kindle, the Kindle connects to the Pi over an SSH session where the Pi console and any keyboard input can be seen on the Kindle's e-ink display. The hardware needed to make the setup work includes a Wi-Fi hotspot, a Wi-Fi USB NIC, The Raspberry Pi, a supported Kindle, and a battery pack with enough juice to power everything. A wired or wireless keyboard and Wi-Fi dongle can be added to the Raspberry Pi Model B, bu Model A users will need to add a USB hub as the $25 model only supports a single USB port on the device itself.

Max Ogden shows off his new portable battery-powered Raspberry Pi with wireless e-ink display.

There are some limitations to this setup. One is a bit of latency between typing and seeing the characters appear on the screen due to the low refresh rate inherent in e-ink displays and the wireless connection. Ogden estimates that this delay is around 200ms, and is noticeably but bearable while typing. The other major limitation is that the display can currently only be used to display the Pi console, and not the GUI of Raspian. For writing code or articles, you could get by with a command-line text editor like nano or vi--at the very least it would be a distraction-free writing environment as you could not procrastinate and browse Reddit or watch videos even if you wanted to (heh).

If you are interested in setting up your own wireless Raspberry Pi display, you should check out Ogdens blog for a list of recommended hardware as well as Rod Vagg's tutorial on configuring the Kindle Paperwhite with the correct software.

This is one of the more-useful Raspberry Pi hacks that I've seen so far. Hopefully, a future hack will come along that will also allow one of these e-ink devices to display the GUI desktop environment and not just the terminal.

Bad news GPU fans, prices may be climbing

Subject: General Tech | April 3, 2013 - 01:21 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: gpu, DRAM, ddr3, price increase

It has taken a while but the climbing price of memory is about to have an effect on the price you pay for your next GPU.  DigiTimes does specifically mention DDR3 but as both GDDR4 and GDDR5 are based off of DDR3 they will suffer the same price increases.  You can expect to see the new prices last as part of the reason for the increase in the price of RAM is the decrease in sales volume.  AMD may be hit harder overall than NVIDIA as they tend to put more memory on their cards and buyers of value cards might see the biggest percentage increase as those cards still sport 1GB or more of memory.

"Since DDR3 memory prices have recently risen by more than 10%, the sources believe the graphics cards are unlikely to see their prices return to previous levels within the next six months unless GPU makers decide to offer promotions for specific models or launch next-generation products."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Memory vendors pile on '3D' stacking standard @ The Register
• History of the GPU, Part 2: 3Dfx Voodoo, the game-changer @ Techspot
• Intel releases OpenCL SDK for upcoming Haswell chips @ The Inquirer
• Linux Foundation Training Prepares the International Space Station for Linux Migration @ Linux.com
• Microsoft releases Exchange 2013 update @ The Register
• Canon PowerShot A2600 Review @ TechReviewSource
• AMD Releases Open-Source UVD Video Support @ Phoronix
• Win An Amazing PC Specialist Gaming System @ eTeknix

Futuremark Launches 3DMark Benchmark For Android Devices

Subject: General Tech | April 3, 2013 - 06:53 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: ice storm extreme, ice storm, Futuremark, benchmarking, Android, 3dmark

Futuremark recently unveiled its latest 3DMark benchmarking suite for Android devices. Compatible with over 1,000 devices, the new 3DMark is a free benchmark that incorporates both the  Ice Storm and Ice Storm Extreme tests. The benchmark was developed by Futuremark in cooperation with a number of industry companies including Broadcom, Imagination Technologies, Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm. The Ice Storm Extreme test is also coming to the Windows version of 3DMark, and the tests can be used to compare benchmark scores across platforms.

Both the benchmarking tests are based on OpenGL ES 2.0. Ice Storm runs through two graphical tests to stress the GPU and one physics test to measure CPU performance. The ice Storm Extreme benchmark takes things further by bumping up the resolution to 1080 and swapping in higher quality textures and post processing effects.

The benchmark is compatible with a number of mobile smartphones and tablets running Android 3.1 or higher. It is a free download from the Google Play store.

The iOS and Windows RT versions of 3DMark are still in development. More information can be found in the press release.

Read more about Futuremark's 3DMark benchmarking suite at PC Perspective.

AMD Hosting an Event for Fans In San Francisco on April 6th

Subject: General Tech | April 3, 2013 - 05:57 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: prizes, GCN, fan day, APU, amd

AMD has announced that is will be hosting an event for fans in San Francisco this weekend. The AMD Fan Day is free with registration (register here), and fans will give enthusiasts a chance to go hands-on with the company's 2013 hardware lineup, play several newly released (and some not-yet-released) games, talk with industry experts, check out modded PCs, and have a chance to win free hardware and swag from AMD, Corsair, and Gigabyte.

Gamers will get a chance to speak with the developers for Bioshock Infinite, Far Cry 3, Crysis 3, Devil May Cry (DMC), and Tomb Raider as well as AMD representatives. VIZIO, IGN, Ubisoft, Sapphire, and Logitech will also be attending the AMD fan day to show off their latest products.

The event will held at City View at Metreon (address below) at 5:30pm on Saturday, April 6th. Best of all, the first 1,000 registered attendees in the door will get a free AMD A8 5600K APU. The first 120 attendees will win both an A8 5600K APU and an A85X motherboard.

One of the modded PCs that will be on the event floor.

If you're going to be in the area this weekend and are interested in going, be sure to head over to the AMD site and register. It sounds like it should be a fun time, and the free hardware doesn't hurt!
The AMD Fan Day will be held at the following address:

City View at Metreon
135 4th Street
San Francisco, CA 94013

Will you be checking out the AMD fan day to enjoy some gaming and PC hardware?

16nm FinFET ARM processors from TSMC soon

Subject: General Tech | April 2, 2013 - 05:57 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: arm, FinFET, 16nm, TSMC, Cortex-A57

While what DigiTimes is reporting on is only the first tape out, it is still very interesting to see TSMC hitting 16nm process testing and doing it with the 3D transistor technology we have come to know as FinFET.  It was a 64-bit ARM Cortex-A57 chip that was created using this process, unfortunately we did not get much information about what comprised the chip apart from the slide you can see below.

As it can be inferred by the mention that it can run alongside big.LITTLE chips it will not be of the same architecture, nor will it be confined to cellphones.  This does help reinforce TSMC's position in the market for keeping up with the latest fabrication trends and another solid ARM contract will also keep the beancounters occupied.  You can't expect to see these chips immediately but this is a solid step towards an new process being mastered by TSMC.

"The achievement is the first milestone in the collaboration between ARM and TSMC to jointly optimize the 64-bit ARMv8 processor series on TSMC FinFET process technologies, the companies said. The pair has teamed up to produce Cortex-A57 processors and libraries to support early customer implementations on 16nm FinFET for ARM-based SoCs."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

• Wiping a Smartphone Still Leaves Data Behind @ Slashdot
• ARM processor competition to fire up @ DigiTimes
• Physicists bang the drum for quantum memory @ The Register
• Intel Haswell Socket H Heatsink Requirements and Overclocking Thoughts @ Tweaktown
• Killing Your Internet with Killer Ethernet @ Techgage
• Backdoors Found In Bitlocker, FileVault and TrueCrypt? @ TechARP
• Win ASRock FM2A85X Extreme 6 & Seasonic M12II-850 @ Kitguru
• Win Enermax Goodies From Insomnia i48 @ eTeknix
• NikKTech & Synology Joint Giveaway - One DiskStation DS213+ Up For Grabs
• The TR Podcast 131: News from GDC and FCAT attacks
• Dispatches from the Nexus @ The Tech Report
• AMD touts unified gaming strategy @ The Tech Report
• Intel gets serious about graphics for gaming @ The Tech Report

Intel Will Allegedly Release Three Ivy Bridge-E Processors Later This Year

Subject: General Tech | April 2, 2013 - 10:59 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: lga 2011, Ivy Bridge-E, Intel, 22nm

Many enthusiasts have been eagerly awaiting the next generation of Intel processors to use LGA 2011, which is supposed to be Ivy Bridge-E. Especially after seeing rumors of a 10 core Xeon E5-2600 V2  Ivy Bridge-EP CPU, I think many users expected at least an eight core Ivy Bridge-E part.

Unfortunately, if a slide posted by VR-Zone China is any indication, LGA 2011 users will not be getting an eight core processor any time soon. The slide suggests that Intel will release three new Ivy Bridge-E CPUs in the third quarter of this year (Q3'13). However, the top-end part is merely a six core CPU with slight improvements over the existing Sandy Bridge-E 3960X chip.

Specifically, the slide alleges that the initial Intel release will include the Core i7 4820, Core i7 4930K, and the Core i7 4960X. An Ivy Bridge-E equivalent to the SB-E 3970X is noticeably absent from the lineup along with several of the other rumored (higher core count) chips.

Rumored Ivy Bridge-E chips:

Existing Sandy Bridge-E equivalents:

All of the chips allegedly have 130W TDPs, 40 PCI-E 3.0 lanes, support for quad-channel DDR3-1866 memory, and are built on Intel's 22nm manufacturing process. The low end i7 4820 is a quad core chip clocked at 3.7 GHz base and 3.9 GHz turbo with 10MB L3 cache. The i7 4930K is an unlocked six core part with 12MB L3 cache and clockspeeds of 3.4 GHz base and 3.9 GHz turbo. Finally, the Core i7 4960X is rumored to be the highest-end chip Intel will release (at least, initially). It is also a six core part clocked at 3.6 GHz base and 4 GHz turbo. It has 15MB of L3 cache. These chips are the Ivy Bridge-E equivalents to the 3820, 3930K, and 3960X chips respectively. The new processors feature higher clockspeeds, and are based on 22nm 3D transistor technology instead of SB-E's 32nm manufacturing process. It seems that Intel has extended unlocking to the lower-tier LGA 2011 chip, as it is listed as the Core i7 4820K. Having an unlocked multiplier is nice to see at the low end (the low end of the enthusiast platform, anyway). Curiously, the TDP ratings are the same, however. That suggests that the move to 22nm did not net Intel much TDP headroom, and the higher clocks are bringing them up to similar TDP numbers. At least the TDP ratings are not higher than SB-E, such that you motherboard and HSF should have no problems accepting an IVB-E CPU upgrade (with a BIOS update, of course).

It will be interesting to see how the new Ivy Bridge-E chips stack up, especially considering Intel may also be unveiling the consumer-grade Haswell processor this year. On one hand, Ivy Bridge-E offers up a CPU upgrade path for existing systems, but on the other hand pricing and the performance of Haswell (and lack of higher core count Ivy Bridge-E chips like previous rumors suggested) may see enthusiasts instead opt for a motherboard+CPU overhaul instead of simply recycling the LGA 2011/X79 motherboard. At this point, if this new slide holds true it appears that Ivy Bridge E/LGA 2011 will become even more of a niche solely for workstations that need the extra PCI-E lanes and quad channel memory. I say this as someone running a Lynnfield system who is itching for an upgrade and torn on going for the enthusiast platform or waiting for Haswell.

What do you think about the rumored Ivy Bridge-E chips, are they what you expected? Do you think they will be worth a CPU upgrade for your LGA 2011-based system or are you leaning towards Haswell?

Read more about Ivy Bride-E at PC Perspective, including: Ivy Bridge-E after Haswell: I think I've gone cross-eyed.

DOS PC Emulator For Raspberry Pi Now Available With rpix86, Now At Version 0.04

Subject: General Tech | April 2, 2013 - 07:25 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: x86 emulator, rpix86, Raspberry Pi, gaming, dos

The Raspberry Pi is proving to be a popular destination for all manner of interesting software projects and open source operating systems. The most-recent Pi project I've come across is a DOS PC emulator by Patrick Aalto called rpix86. A port of DSx86, which ran on the Nintendo DS handheld console, rpix86 is now up to version 0.04 and emulates a 90's X86 computer with enough hardware oomph to run classic PC games!

Rpix86 is an emulator that runs from the console (not within the X GUI desktop environment) on the Raspberry Pi. It emulates the following X86 PC specs:

Patrick Aalto added support for analog USB joysticks and foot pedals (4 buttons, 4 analog channels) as well as 80 x 50 text mode (required by some MIDI software and Little Big Adventure's setup program) to the recent 0.04 update. He also stripped out debug code, which cut the program size approximately in half.

The developer has stated on his blog that he is working on allowing rpix86 to be used from the terminal within X and adding support for intelligent MPU MIDI mode. A port to the Android operating system called ax86 is also in the works. You can grab the current version of the Raspberry Pi X86 emulator on the developer's website.

With this emulator, you can run most of the DOS games you grew up with (Wolf3D and Digger anyone?), which is definitely a worthy use for the $25 or $35 Raspberry Pi hardware! At the very least, it is an interesting alternative to running DOSBox, and much smaller and more power efficient than running an old X86 PC dedicated to running classic games. Getting those floppies to work with the Pi might be a bit of an issue though, assuming they are still readable (heh).

Read more about the Raspberry Pi computer at PC Perspective.