Dirk Meyer confirms

Dirk Mayer, President and Chief Operating Officer of AMD, has said to AMD's investors at its last week’s conference call that the new CPU architecture codenamed Bulldozer will debut in 45nm; and according to current agenda this is supposed to happen in 2009.

From what we know AMD will sample Bulldozer at late 2009, but the production parts are planned for 32nm. There is a possibility that AMD will launch Bulldozer in 45nm, but it will try to quickly move to 32nm.

AMD didn’t even start its 45nm production, and it has to heavily plan to go to 32nm. If you have one and a half fabs, their transitions tend to become real headache.

Currently, fab 36 produces all the Athlon, Phenom, Sempron and Turion CPUs you can buy, and Fab 38 is quickly coming to the rescue.

According to several sources close to the hard drive industry, Western Digital is working on a 20,000 RPM Raptor hard drive to combat the increasing pressure from SSD manufacturers.

Alot of people out here in Taipei about this industry’s direction and one thing is becoming clear: SSDs are going to be affordable in the next 12 to 18 months.

Because of this, hard drive manufacturers are starting to get a little worried about what marketshare SSDs might eventually take away from them—especially where performance is more of a concern than storage capacity.

And that’s exactly what Western Digital’s Raptor line is all about.

The new drive will be very similar to the recently-released VelociRaptor, in that it’ll be a 2.5in drive with a custom 3.5in housing built around it. Details are incredibly light at this stage, given that the product is still in development, and we don’t even have a release time frame at the moment.

Sources said that the drive will be ‘silent’ – that’s the last thing I would have expected from a drive with platters spinning at 20,000 RPM. Western Digital is apparently working on silencing the beast by improving the housing technology, which will now not just act as a heatsink, but also as a noise cancelling device. We’d also hope that the drive enclosure has some vibration dampening technology as well, because that’s also likely to be a problem given the high spindle speeds.

Key FeaturesKiller Speed - Built on the performance bloodlines of WD Raptor, these 10,000 RPM drives, with SATA 3 Gb/s interface, and 16 MB cache deliver mind-bending performance. Not only are they 35 percent faster than the previous generation WD Raptor drives, but they also beat out all other competitors in the field. Rock-solid Reliability - Designed and manufactured to mission-critical enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. With 1.4 million hours MTBF, these drives have the highest available reliability rating on a high capacity SATA drive. Double the Capacity -SState-of-the-art technology packs twice the capacity per disk compared to its older brother WD Raptor resulting in 300 GB of high-performance storage space in this enterprise-class 2.5-inch drive. (Not compatible with notebook computers) IcePack™ Mounting Frame - The 2.5-inch WD VelociRaptor is enclosed in a 3.5-inch enterprise-class mounting frame with a built-in heat sink that keeps this powerful little drive extra cool when installed in high-performance desktop chassis. Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF™) - Optimizes operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multi-drive chassis. SecurePark™ - Parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long-term reliability and increased drive protection when the chassis is moved.

Linksys RV016 16-Port VPN Router The Linksys 10/100 16-Port VPN Router is an advanced Internet-sharing network solution for your small business needs. Like any router, it lets multiple computers in your office share an Internet connection, but the 16 ports on this Router feature unprecedented versatility. Two are dedicated Internet ports that let you connect a second Internet line as a backup to ensure that you're never disconnected. Or, you can use both Internet ports at the same time, and let the router balance your office's requirements between them for maximum bandwidth efficiency.

The Virtual Private Network (VPN) capability creates encrypted "tunnels" through the Internet, allowing up to 50 remote office or traveling users to securely connect into your office network from off-site. Users connecting through a VPN tunnel are attached to your company's network -- with secure access to files, e-mail, and your intranet -- just as if they were in the building. You can also use the VPN capability to allow users on your small office network to securely connect out to a corporate network. Not enough? Up to five of the thirteen full-duplex switched 10/100 Ethernet ports can be reconfigured as Internet ports, for an up to seven-port failover or load balanced redundancy! Finally, a dedicated DMZ port gives you a publicly accessible channel so you can set up a web or FTP server, unimpeded by the powerful security features of the Router. You can find this router as low as $419.99.

Starting at $75,000, the Nexus 7000 will ship in the second quarter with a new advanced operating system, the Nexus Operating System (NX-OS), said Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president of Cisco's data center, switching and services unit. Cisco also announced a new Trusted Security architecture and an expansion to the Catalyst family of switches, which have helped the company corral 70% of the global switching market. More than 1,500 patents were used in creating the Nexus platform, which cost Cisco more than $1 billion in research and development, Ullal said in an interview. The Nexus 7000 will deliver up to 15Tbit/sec. of switching capacity in a single chassis, with 512 ports for 10Gbit/sec. Ethernet, she said. In the future, Cisco will deliver 40Gbit/sec. and 100Gbit/sec. ports.

Nexus 7000 also incorporates Cisco Trusted Security for the first time to integrate identity- and role-based security across data centers. Also, a new Data Center Network Manager is designed to give administrators visual information that will improve efficiency and awareness. Cisco also unveiled a 16-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet module for the Catalyst 6500 Series Switch, which can help reduce power consumption by up to 50% per port, Cisco said. Pricing was not disclosed; the new module ships in the second quarter. "Learn More"

Advanced Micro Devices will launch an unlocked "Black" edition of its Phenom processor later this quarter, and the company disclosed the approximate pricing of Phenom chips the company will launch in the first quarter of 2008.

In an email, an AMD representative confirmed that the 2.6-GHz AMD Phenom 9900 will be launched in the first quarter 2008 at under $350 in 1,000-unit lots. A 2.4-GHz 9700, which has already begun appearing on e-tailer sites for preorders, will be priced below $300, in the same quantity.

AMD did not disclose the price of the 2.3-GHz "Black" Phenom that it plans to release this quarter.

AMD has struggled to regain its performance lead against Intel that it enjoyed during the heyday of the Athlon X2. The discrepancy between price, performance, and the revenue needed to fund future generations of products have left some to speculate if the company is doomed.

Topping the P35 Express won't be easy, but Intel has a few tricks up its sleeve with the X38. Chief among them is next-gen PCI Express 2.0 connectivity—a first for desktop chipsets—with enough lanes for dual-x16 CrossFire configurations. As is customary for its high-end chipsets, Intel has also rolled out memory controller optimizations that promise faster performance and support for higher DDR3 memory speeds.

To find out whether these perks are enough to elevate the X38 Express over its blue-collar P35 sibling, we've run the first X38 boards from Asus and Gigabyte through a relentless series of memory controller, application, and peripheral performance tests. Read on to see how the X38 fares and what you can expect from the first wave of motherboards based on this new chipset. Full Article Here

The Maximus Extreme also adopts the Intel X38/ICH9R chipset and supports cutting-edge DDR3 dual channel memory and CrossFire Technology - making it the Overclocker and Gamer´s first and best choice.

- Intel® Quad-core CPU Ready
- Intel® Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Duo Ready
- Intel® X38/ICH9R
- Dual-channel DDR3 1800(O.C.)/1600(O.C.)/1333/1066
- Fusion Block System
- Crosslinx
- Extreme Tweaker
- SupremeFX II
- LCD Poster
- CPU Level Up

LGA 775
45 nm CPU ready
Intel® X38 Express
FSB 1600
Dual DDR2 1066/800
PCI-E X16
SATA 3G RAID
PCI-E GbE
IEEE1394
7.1 CH HD Audio
SilentOTES™
µGuru™ Tech
RoHS Compliancy

Solid State Capacitors - For Best Stability
New Generation Digital PWM - Cool and statble
Onboard On/Off & Reset Buttons
External CCMOS Button
Extendor Silent Dual Pipe Cooling
2 x eSATA - Fast & fiexible
PCI-E 2.0 with CrossFire

 
     Intel® X38 + ICH9R Chipset
Supports Intel® Core 2™ multi-core and upcoming 45nm processors
Support for 1600 MHz FSB.
Dual DDR3 1600 memory with Intel® XMP , featuring faster speeds and performance tuning.
High quality CPU power module with Ferrite Core Chokes, Lower RDS (on) MOSFETs and Lower ESR Solid Capacitors.
Re-engineered Thermal Design featuring All Copper Silent-Pipe and Crazy Cool.
Japanese manufactured SMD All Solid Capacitor motherboard design.
Supports CrossFire™ with Dual PCI-E 2.0 x16 graphics for extreme gaming performance.
Features SATA 3Gb/s with Quad eSATA 2 interface .
ALC889A with DTS Connect enables high quality Full Rate Lossless Audio and support for both Blu-ray and HD DVD.
Quad BIOS for an extended level of protection.
Quad-Triple Phase Power Design for ultimate system stability.
Dual Gigabit Ethernet LAN with Teaming functionality.
Certified for Microsoft VISTA™ systems.

Phoenix Technologies Ltd., the world’s leading BIOS provider, has unveiled a new head turning product called HyperSpace.  No, it is not a new warp drive to allow Han Solo to break his record setting spice run from Kessel to Corellia. It is a virtualization product that claims to provide a faster, more secure, and battery efficient alternative to Microsoft Windows. 

HyperSpace is a layer of BIOS embedded software that makes it possible to instantly run applications independently of Windows.  These “instant-on” applications will be truncated versions of open-source programs and that are available before, during, and after Windows boot up and shut down.

Phoenix is targeting the portable PC market and seeks to capitalize on what critics say are the major faults of Windows: its size, speed, inefficiency, and poor security.  HyperSpace allows users to bypass the boot up process and instantly access their favorite applications, such as internet browsers, media players, word processors, and the like. It also promises to conserve battery life since Vista is notoriously power intensive. 

HyperSpace will add value to PC vendors by allowing them to remotely trouble shoot and restore customers’ computers.  It also promises to deliver a layer of embedded security that is stronger than the current standards. 

The product is based on a form of virtualization, called a hypervisor, that allows a machine to simultaneously run multiple operating systems.   Phoenix calls this HyperCore, and it is essentially a paired down hypervisor that uses a Zoned Virtual Machine Monitor (ZVMM) to run their core applications along side Windows.  Since HyperSpace is written into the BIOS firmware, its code is essentially secret and more secure argues Woody Hobbs, Phoenix CEO, in an interview with ComputerWorld. 

In the same conversation, Hobbs said Phoenix Technologies is working with unnamed PC vendors to make HyperSpace enabled computers available by the second quarter of 2008.  Phoenix has partnered with both Intel and AMD to take advantage of their processors’ built-in virtualization capabilities.  HyperSpace will be compatible with Intel’s Core 2 Duo, vPro, and Centrino processors.

There have been many questions about timing issues with AMD dual core. It seems that AMD is certainly working to address many of them with XP and 2003 server with these tools offered at the AMD site. Learn More

Barcelona: The code name given to AMD's upcoming Quad-Core Opteron processors, made using a 65-nanometer (nm) process. AMD plans to ship the first Barcelona chips next month, with the first servers based on the processors appearing on the market in September.

Bobcat: Code name for a future low-power CPU architecture for mobile devices such as ultramobile PCs and consumer electronics products. Will consume from 1 watt to 10 watts of power. Due in 2009.

Bulldozer: Code name for a CPU core designed for servers and clients that consumes from 10 watts to 100 watts of power. Set for release in 2009.

Eagle: Code name for an upcoming notebook chip package based on the Falcon processor. To ship in 2009.

Falcon: Code name for the first Fusion chip that will combine a CPU and graphics processor. Designed for laptops, Falcon will offer up to four Bulldozer cores. Due to ship in 2009.

Fusion: The code name for AMD processors that combine multiple components with the aim of lowering power consumption and improving performance. The first Fusion chips, called Falcon, will ship in 2009.

Griffin: Code name for an upcoming dual-core mobile processor. To ship in 2008.

Hardcastle: The code name given to upcoming chip packages designed for business users, including Perseus and Puma.

Leo: Code name for a desktop chip package based on the 45nm Phenom processor, which will offer 6MB of cache. Set for release in 2008.

Perseus: Upcoming desktop chip package designed for business users. To ship in 2008.

Phenom: The brand name for AMD's quad-core desktop processors, which are slated to start shipping during the fourth quarter of 2007.

Puma: Chip package for laptops based on the Griffin processor. To debut in 2008.

Ridgeback: Code name for AMD's 45nm desktop processors. Will include 6MB of cache. To be released in mid-2008.

High-Performance, Low-Power Storage Device for Mobile PCs is Light, Rugged and Reliable
Samsung's Solid-State Drive (SSD) is an advanced NAND flash-based replacement for traditional hard disk drives, leveraging the company's longtime leadership in memory technology. This next-generation solution offers several advantages over rotating magnetic media such as significantly lower power consumption, remarkable ruggedness, high reliability, less weight and outstanding performance.

Why Samsung chose an ATA-66 interface rather than ATA-100 or ATA-133 is rather bizarre, but seeing as there is no cache implemented on the SSD and the total read speed is limited to just under ATA-66, it is likely the two have just been matched together. A SATA version at 150MBit/s probably won’t actually offer any extra performance, just a more common interface. At a current street price of 595.00 the 1 terrabyte disk looks more attractive for the desktop. Though there is something to be said for using this in a laptop.

That being said the performance is almost always better than a 7200RPM hard drive, with certain aspects like boot times significantly so. However, for a few seconds less wait would you shell out six times more money for five times less space? Only those people who desire the latest $1000 CPUs and a couple of 8800 Ultras will be seriously considering an SSD, of which a couple Raid 0 Raptors might offer a more attractive proposition, certainly so from a bragging rights perspective. Though we get closer every year it just is not ready for prime time.

Now that Intel has lowered the price of its slowest quad-core processor to around £160 (inc. VAT), AMD has already got a price war on its hands even before its quad-core processors have launched and the chips apparently won’t ship for at least a month after launch. We’re hoping that Phenom’s performance will blow us away and make it worth the wait, but the problem at the moment is that Phenom is essentially an unknown quantity until it’s actually been tested. The question here is whether enthusiasts will be able to resist the lure of Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6600 until Phenom arrives.

If you are dead set on an Intel CPU, obviously the question that I’m sure is on those people’s minds at the moment is whether you should opt for the Q6600 or the E6850, which are both at similar price points. Personally, I would opt for the quad-core processor every time, but that’s because I’m quite a heavy multi-tasker and I often find myself short of processing time on a dual-core processor. I like to be able to continue what I’m doing when I’m running a processor intensive task and since most applications that you’re likely to use benefit from no more than two cores.

Add this to the fact that there are a slew of games coming out in the future that will benefit from quad-cores – Crysis is the first, and from what we’ve heard there are plenty more too. In recent times, games haven’t really benefited from high processor clock speeds because they’re graphics limited rather than CPU limited. This trend is going to continue, but as games engines get more complex, more will need to be done at any given point in time – that’s where quad-core processors will really come into their own.

Full Article:

Jobs begins his presentation by reviewing the "revolutionary" products Apple has introduced. According to Jobs, "every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything…Apple has been fortunate to introduce a few things into the world." Jobs continues by describing the 1984 launch of the Macintosh as an event that "changed the entire computer industry." The same goes for the introduction of the first iPod in 2001, a product that he says "changed the entire music industry."

After laying the groundwork, Jobs builds up to the new device by teasing the audience: "Today, we are introducing three revolutionary products. The first is a wide-screen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary new mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough Internet communications device." Jobs continues to build tension. He repeats the three devices several times then says, "Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. This is one device…today Apple is going to reinvent the phone!"

If the Iphone is really revolutionary! I have to ask what about that battery? No replaceable battery?

Solid-state disks (SSDs) are fast becoming popular as drop-in replacements for hard-disk drives but they are not all alike, according to South Korea's Mtron Co. Ltd.

SSDs use flash memory rather than magnetic storage, which means faster reading and writing of data, lower power consumption and zero noise. They've been around for several years although it is only recently, after flash memory chip prices fell, that they have become practical for use in laptop computers.

Major PC makers are starting to offer them as options in some laptop models, but consumers looking to SSDs for a performance boost should pay close attention to the specifications, said Sean Roh, assistant manager of the marketing department at Mtron.

Mtron's 'Multi-Channel Processing on Flash Memory¡± architecture performs astonishing Read: 100MB/second and Write : 80MB/second sustained transfer rate with less than 0.1 millisecond of access time.

Mtron is targeting wide application areas with its high performance Flash SSD, ranging from portable consumer electronic market such as notebook PC, camcorder storage to enterprise / industrial high-end market. Mtron also develops DRM based MMC business with its advanced technology of flash memory control.

AMD prepares its Phenom FX, Phenom X4 and Phenom X2 lineups for launch

AMD is preparing the launch of its next-generation K10-derivedStars-family single, dual and quad-core processors. The next-generation Stars-family splits into three different brand names – Phenom, Athlon and Sempron. Ringing in the flagship are three Agena FX-based AMD Phenom FX processors. AMD has yet to confirm clock speeds for the three models; however, the latest roadmap reveals ballparks for the processors.

The top-end AMD Phenom FX processor clocks in the 2.4-2.6 GHz speed range. Slotting below the top-end Phenom FX is a 2.2-2.4 GHz model. These two models occupy AMD’s upcoming Socket 1207+ and current Socket 1207 Quad FX platforms. AMD also has a Phenom FX for single-processor customers as well, clocked at 2.4-2.6 GHz.

AMD further differentiates its Phenom FX processors with different Hyper Transport 3.0 clock speeds. The flagship 2.4-2.6 GHz model features a 3.6 GHz HT 3.0 clock speed while the two 2.2-2.4 GHz models have a lower 3.2 GHz HT 3.0 clock. All three models share the same 4x512KB L2 cache and 2MB L3 cache configuration. AMD has yet to determine the TDP of its Phenom FX processors.

Catering towards high-end user are two Socket AM2+ AMD Phenom X4 processors. AMD remains undecided on its model numbers; however, clock speeds on the Agena-based Phenom X4 processors are set. The two AMD Phenom X4 processors clock in at 2.4 GHz and 2.2 GHz. These models share the same 4x512KB L2 cache and 2MB L3 cache configuration as the Phenom FX processors.

HT 3.0 speeds differ on the two models, the 2.4 GHz features a 3.6 GHz HT 3.0 speed while the 2.2 GHz model features a 3.2 GHz HT 3.0 speed. AMD rates the Phenom X4 processors with 89W TDPs. AMD plans to start taking orders for its Phenom FX and Phenom X4 processors in Q3’2007. "Road Map and full article"

If you thought the Core micro architecture was a vast change from the Netburst Pentium 4 range, just wait until you get a look at what Nehalem has in store! With AMD ramping up the game as it seeds Fusion and other technologies to integrate more into the CPU core, we all wondered how Intel was going to react.

While the expressed details are still to be confirmed, we have learned that there are a lot of changes in store for Intel's upcoming platform, and that perhaps the ideas and methods adopted by the green camp weren’t so bad after all.

Firstly Nehalem will arrive in Q208 and is being designed from the ground up on the 45nm process. Intel has confirmed it will contain a variant of Hyper-Threading technology previously seen on the Pentium 4 CPUs, although it won’t be a hacked on addition in response to expected poor IPC and long pipeline, like it was in the Netburst days. SMT (Simultaneous Multithreading) is being optimised to make use of the many cores and shared cache in a way that “intelligently” uses the available resources.

Intel is aiming to have a scalable performance and core structure including 8+ cores with 16+ threads running. What gets very interesting is that Intel describes Nehalem as having a Multi-Level shared cache architecture, without specifically denouncing something along the lines of the L3-shared cache that AMD’s next generation Barcelona will have.

Integrated memory controller... on an Intel?

Say goodbye to the northbridge, because Nehalem will integrate the memory controller into the CPU core. Intel is finally ready to do what AMD has been doing for years with the K8 architecture - incorporate an on-die memory controller, to lower memory access latencies, reduce power consumption of the whole platform and make designing future motherboards far easier.

This could be be a marketing nightmare for Intel’s PR and the green camp is going to be rolling around the floor in fits of glee at this news, but respect to Intel for ultimately biting the bullet and making the right choice. That said, Intel was in a similar situation when it created the Pentium M and had to convince the market the MHz wasn’t the only performance rating that mattered after years of preaching the contrary – and that turned out to be one of the most successful moves for Intel in recent history.

By combining the architectural power of Core with an incredibly low latency memory controller and some super bandwidth DDR3 we should see massive gains in multi-core applications that are now suddenly freed of the northbridge front side bus (FSB) limitation.

Traditionally, Intel CPUs in a multi-core scenario had to queue and wait for the northbridge to serve commands to the memory, with the scenario getting progressively worse as the latency increases in every CPU you add.

Intel privately shared parts of its roadmap for memory technologies through 2008. Intel’s progress on phase-change memory, PCM or PRAM, will soon be sampled to customers with mass production possible before the end of the year.

Phase-change memory is positioned as a replacement for flash memory, as it has non-volatile characteristics, but is faster and can be scaled to smaller dimensions. Flash memory cells can degrade and become unreliable after as few as 10,000 writes, but PCM is much more resilient at more than 100 million write cycles. For these reasons, Intel believes that phase-change memory could one day replace DRAM.

“The phase-change memory gets pretty close to Nirvana,” said Ed Doller, CTO of Intel’s flash memory group. “It will start to displace some of the RAM in the system.”

For its implementation of phase-change memory, Intel has since 2000 licensed technology from Ovonyx Inc.. The Ovonyx technology uses the properties of chalcogenide glass, the same material found in CD-RW and DVD-RW, which can be switched between crystalline and amorphous states for binary functions.

Every potential PCRAM memory maker thus far licenses Ovonyx technology. According to Ovonyx’s Web site, the first licensee of the technology was Lockheed Martin in 1999, with Intel and STMicroelectronics in the following year. Four years after that, Nanochip signed an agreement.  Elpida and Samsung were the next two in 2005, and Qimonda marks the latest with a signing this year.

SCSI vs SATA
       It is a relatively common belief that SCSI, or serial attached SCSI (SAS) in its newest incarnation, is faster than SATA for any and all situations. While this may be true for server usage patterns, and may have been true at one point for desktop applications, it no longer applies.

MTBF
      This is a measurement of a hard drive’s reliability that is often quite misunderstood. The MTBF, or mean time between failures, is a length of time that is achieved by monitoring failure rates for a large number of drives. For example, if drive A has a 600,000-hour MTBF and drive B has a 1.2 million-hour MTBF, don’t assume that drive A will last 68 years and drive B will last 137 years, it just isn’t going to happen.

SATA I/O
      The term ‘SATA II’ is often used, incorrectly, to indicate that a drive has a 300MB/sec interface. The organisation that penned out the features of the newest SATA standard was named ‘SATA II’ which is where the confusion came from; the name is now changed to SATA-IO in an attempt to stop manufacturers from using incorrect terminology.

NCQ
      Native command queuing, or NCQ, is a feature that has been included in many consumer SATA drives in the last few years. Command queuing is a technology that was introduced in 1994 as TCQ (tagged command queuing) with the SCSI2 standard, so it’s by no means a new development. The technology allows for significant performance improvements when used in server environments by reordering commands sent to the drive, optimising them so that there is as little head movement as possible when servicing the commands.

Full Article

Windows contains a trap in which quite a few computers seem to get caught sooner or later. The trap was described in a Web article whose link no longer works (and also in another one mentioned below):

PIO mode is enabled by default in the following situations:

For repeated DMA errors. Windows XP will turn off DMA mode for a device after encountering certain errors during data transfer operations. If more that six DMA transfer timeouts occur, Windows will turn off DMA and use only PIO mode on that device.

In this case, the user cannot turn on DMA for this device. The only option for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and reinstall the device.

Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after receiving more than six CRC errors. Whenever possible, the operating system will step down one UDMA mode at a time (from UDMA mode 4 to UDMA mode 3, and so on).

If you're not interested in the details, but just want to fix this problem as quickly as possible:

1. Click here.
2. Despite any warnings click on the [Open] or [Execute] buttons as required to execute the file resetdma.vbs. (If you fear that this web site could be malevolent, you can use the manual method instead, which is described below. Or you could download, save, and inspect the program with an editor like the Windows Notepad. It is a script text file.)
3. If the program found any ATA channel to reset, reboot your computer and test all drives.
4. If the problem is still not solved, set the offending channel to PIO manually, reboot your computer, set the channel back to DMA, and reboot again.

Full article

Enjoy DVI Supported Playback of HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs - The first integrated VGA MB supports Playback of HD DVD and Blu-ray Discs with HDCP compliant - Support Dual-VGA output(DVI-D&RGB) and SurroundView - Support AMD Socket AM2 CPU - AMD 690G Chipset - Integrated ATI Radeon X1250-based graphics - PCI Express architecture - Gb LAN - DDR2 800 - 4*SATA 300MB/s RAID 0,RAID 1, RAID10 Does this mean that everyone running an NVIDIA or even Intel chipset under their hoods should run out and pick up one of these as soon as they hit the shelves? Not really. But anyone looking to put together a great budget desktop or HTPC needs to keep this, and other RS690 motherboards in mind, as they're certainly the best of the crop as far as mATX goes. Plus, with a price range of $70-90, these boards are priced to put pressure on all the competition. To see an amd board that supports raid 10 again is great and in this price range outstanding.

The motherboard supports AMD socket AM2 single-core Athlon 64/ Sempron and dual-core Athlon 64 X2/ Athlon 64 FX processors with 2MB / 1MB / 512KB L2 cache, which is based on 64-bit architecture. It features 2000 / 1600 MT/s HyperTransport Bus, dual-channel un-buffered DDR2 800 memory support and AMD Cool 'n' Quiet! Technology. Enjoy the extraordinary CPU power from the latest dual-core CPU. The advanced processing technology contains two physical CPU cores with individually dedicated L2 cache to satisfy the rising demand for more powerful processing capability. Asus Info

We do not understand why Nvidia seems to have abandoned Raid 10. Intel Matrix Storage Technology on the 965P and Q965 chipset both support raid 10 on board with several motherboards. We again searched to web only to find the misleading, non factual information still is alive and well.

What we cannot understand is the number of people who still seem to think that raid 10 is the same as 0+1. Are these people just picking up incorrect information and pasted it in their site without any research at all? If there is any question what so ever ask and ask.

Yes 1+0 is different from 0+1. We have thought about simply pointing at the sites which are wrong but that is not wise.
What is hard to believe is there are data recovery companies claiming 0/1 is the same as raid 10. It is simple 10 is 1+0 and the mirror comes before the strip.

We could point you at our resources and we will, but since there appears to be endless misleading information.  We will simply point at the correct information and let the others run wild.

ActiveServers
Webopedia
ACNC

AMD today introduced its first chipset products to be released only under its own brand rather than ATI's: the integrated 690G and 690V.

The 690G incorporates two independent display controllers and ingratea signalling for DVI, HDMI, TV, CRT and LCD monitors. It also has HDCP support built in. The 690V drops the integrated DVI and HDMI signalling, and features a lower-clocked graphics core.

AMD said the integrated GPUs deliver significant 1,024 x 768 un-antialiased, un-aniso'd graphics benchmark leads over Intel's rival G965 chipset, though it won't be long before Intel has the G965's successor, the G35, out the door in Q2, which may change the scores. AMD may well have the edge on price, however.

Both products incorporate AMD's ATI-inherited SB600 South Bridge chip, which provides ten USB 2.0 ports, four SATA ports and legacy parallel ATA and PCI support. Interestingly, the North Bridges both handle audio. They also provide PCI Express connectivity, both for external graphics cards, as usual, and for other devices.

All this has taken a while coming. The RS690 - the codename under which the 690G was developed - was first roadmapped for a Q2 2006 release alongside the SB600. The SB600 shipped as expected, and while the RS690 appeared in June at least year's Computex show, only now are boards based on the part coming to market. "Read More Here"

Corsair Flash Voyager USB drives are rugged, stylish, compact, reliable, and exceptionally fast, making them ideal for transporting MP3s, digital images, presentations and more. With data transfer rates up to 33MB/s read and 16MB/s write*, Flash Voyager drives are fully Hi-Speed plug and Play with most operating systems and are backward compatible with USB 1.1. Their durable rubber casing is easy to grip and water resistant. These highly portable drives are available in capacities ranging up to 16GB! With the cost for 16 gig around 200.00. Plus the True Crypt security application lets you create a hidden, password-protected partition on your Flash Voyager.

ReadyBoost is Windows Vista feature that allows the user to plug a USB flash memory device into a USB 2.0 port on the PC and use it as a cache or virtual memory.  The advantage being that it is much faster to cache to the USB drive than caching to your hard disk, speeding up your system and enhancing overall performance.  Acting as a fast store for frequently accessed data, the average random 4K read from a flash device is about ten times faster than accessing the same information from the hard drive.

Select Use this device.  Here you can also set how much space ReadyBoost should reserve for the cache - the most space you reserve, the faster things go. That’s all there is to it!  ReadyBoost is working.  You can conform this by looking at the contents of the drive through Windows Explorer.  If it’s working you’ll see the ReadyBoost file (which as the .sfcache extension).

There are two ways that you can disable ReadyBoost.  First, you can just disconnect the drive from the system.  This won’t cause any system instabilities or data loss because the flash drive is not used as an exclusive data store, only as a high-speed cache, so the only thing you’ll notice if you remove the drive is a drop in  performance.  (The only drawback to this is that the ReadyBoost cache file will remain on the drive and take up storage space until you deleted it manually.)

The best way to disable ReadyBoost is to shut it down properly.

• Fire up Windows Explorer and find the drive
• Right click and select Properties
• Click on the ReadyBoost tab
• Select Do not use this device.
• Click OK.

This deletes the cache file for you, once again freeing up space on your flash drive.

WD’s RAID Edition hard drives are the world’s most reliable server-class SATA drives in the market. With 1.2 million hours MTBF, 100% duty cycle, 5-year limited warranty, up to 3.0 Gb/s SATA technology, and best-in-class vibration tolerance, WD RE2 drives offer the best combination of superior reliability, high capacity, and optimum performance for enterprise applications. In the $175.00 range it makes this drive one of the best upgrade values world wide. Superior reliability - Designed and manufactured to server-class standards to provide best-in-class enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. With 1.2 million hours MTBF at 100% duty cycle, these drives have the highest available reliability rating on a high-capacity drive. High capacity - Up to 500 GB of storage packed with server-class features and low cost-per-gigabyte value. Fast - With a next-generation SATA interface, up to 3.0 Gb/s data transfer rate, native command queuing (NCQ), and 16 MB cache, these drives deliver optimum performance. Low power - Active Power Save™ delivers best-in-class seek mode power consumption through an advanced WD firmware which conserves power in active seek modes without degrading performance. RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER) - A feature pioneered by WD, significantly reduces drive fallout caused by the extended hard drive error-recovery processes common to desktop drives. Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF™) - Provides best-in-class vibration tolerance by optimizing operation and performance when the drives are used in vibration-prone, multidrive systems such as rack-mounted servers or network storage. SecureConnect™ - Provides a 500 percent stronger cable-to-drive connection than first-generation SATA hard drives and cables. Also ensures backward compatibility with legacy SATA cables and backplanes. Note: SecureConnect supports only legacy power and does not allow connection to a SATA power supply. FlexPower™ - Connector technology that accepts power from eitherindustry-standard or new SATA power supplies. 5-year limited warranty

Transcend's 150X SD Cards achieve outstanding data transfer rates, come in a range of capacities and are highly stable and compatible. For high-performance results from your digital devices Transcend's SD Cards are the perfect choice. In the $80.00 range it makes a great gift for anyone on your list.

Features:

Amazing data transfer rates: Up to 150X speeds (22.5MB/sec)

Supports Error Correcting Code (ECC) to detect and correct errors

Supports In System Programming (ISP) to load firmware

Support power down and sleep modes

Mechanical Write Protection Switch requirements

Manufacturer's Lifetime Warranty.

Technical Information:

Size : 32mm x 24mm x 2.1mm (L x W x H)

Op. Voltage : 2.7V~3.6V

Op. Temperature : -25° C(-13° F) to 85° C(185° F)

Durability : 10,000 insertion/removal cycles

Weight : 2g

AMD is expected to release its 65nm products soon. This transition uses AMD’s new core naming scheme. While AMD has typically named its processor cores after cities, the new naming scheme uses star names. While Stars family processors use the HyperTransport 3.0 protocol, it will be backwards compatible with HyperTransport 1.0 systems.

HyperTransport 3.0 is expected to provide twice the amount of bandwidth between the processor and chipset. It will also allow the processor and internal north bridge to operate at different frequencies as well. With HyperTransport 3.0, the north bridge can operate at 75% of the maximum clock frequency of the processor. AMD roadmaps claim the greater bandwidth of HyperTransport 3.0 is important for PCIe 2.0 and upcoming multi-GPU, integrated graphics and multiprocessor performance.

Stars family processors will use socket AM2+, with the exception of the Agena FX. Nevertheless, Stars family processors will be backwards compatible on socket AM2 motherboards, though performance is sacrificed by falling back to HyperTransport 1.0.

Beginning in Q3’2007 AMD is expected to release its first Stars quad-core processors. The new quad-core processors are based on AMD’s Agena and Agena FX cores. Targeting AMD’s 4x4 platform is the Agena FX core. Agena FX will only be available on Socket 1207+ and offer dual processor functionality. The vanilla Agena core will be available on single processor socket AM2+ platforms.

Agena FX and Agena based processors offer identical features. New to the Agena FX and Agena cores is a shared L3 cache. 2MB of L3 cache will be shared between all four processor cores. The L2 cache will be 2MB as well. Clock frequencies of 2.7 GHz to 2.9 GHz are initially expected. The HyperTransport 3.0 frequency for Agena FX and Agena cores is expected to be clocked at 4000 MHz. Agena FX and Agena core processors will be manufacturing using a 65nm process and carry 125W TDPs. The first Agena FX and Agena based processors are expected to arrive in Q3’2007.

AMD will be releasing new Kuma core dual-core processors in Q3’07 as well. The new Kuma core processors feature HyperTransport 3.0 clocked at 4000 MHz, 1MB of L2 cache and 2MB of shared L3 cache. Kuma processors are expected to arrive in 2.0 GHz to 2.9 GHz frequencies for socket AM2+. TDP for Kuma core processors is expected at 89W and 65W.

Single-core products won’t be left out of the Stars family either. AMD will release single-core Rana and Spica cores towards the end of 2007. Rana core processors will be replacing Orleans and Lima Athlon 64 single-core processors while Spica will be replacing single-core Venice Athlon 64 and Manilla Sempron processors. AMD’s roadmap doesn’t reveal too much on Rana and Spica. Nevertheless, Rana and Spica will feature HyperTransport 3.0 and socket AM2+ compatibility.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced that its three solid state disk (SSD) drives have been officially recognized by Microsoft Corporation as fully qualified Windows-compatible peripherals.

After thorough testing by its Windows Hardware Qualification Lab (WHQL), Microsoft has validated that Samsung SSDs meet all of the requirements for storage media in a Windows operating environment.

"Microsoft's certification of Samsung's SSDs provides designers with the added assurance of full compatibility in a demanding Windows environment, with our SSDs adding a strong dose of speed, reliability and power savings." said Jon Kang, senior vice president of Technical Marketing at Samsung Semiconductor.

Samsung's SSDs also markedly enhance system performance. The SSDs have a data read speed of 57MB/s and data write speed of 32MB/s, more than double the performance levels of a 1.8-inch HDD. Moreover, the SSDs provide a performance boost of up to 50 times that of a 1.8 HDD when servicing small, random data "read" requests. Such faster speeds shorten application program operating time as well as system boot time.

When asked about the reliability of NAND-based hard drives, Barnetson had no problem shrugging off fears of write corruption of failure.  "Samsung's solid-state devices have a MTBF of approximately 1 to 2 million hours."  Typical disk-based hard drives have a mean-time between failures of approximately 100,000 to 200,000 hours.  Since there are no moving parts, the only real point of failure is for something to come unsoldered or a problem with the physical bit during a write.

Obviously, write-errors are a huge concern for those who have used flash products in the past.  Only a few years ago the highest-end flash media was only useable for 1,000 or so writes.  At that point the physical bits would "burnout" and could no longer be flipped. Today's single-level cell (SLC, memory that stores one bit per cell) is rated in excess of 100,000 writes before burnout.  Multi-level cell flash, memory that stores multiple bits per cell, is significantly cheaper but even then is still rated at over 10,000 writes before burnout. 

Is 10,000 writes enough?  Absolutely, assures Barnetson.  Samsung memory uses a technique called "wear leveling" to distribute the writes on a media through as many groups of cells as possible. The idea behind wear leveling is that all of the cells have approximately the same amount of writes to them, maximizing the life of the device.  Consider a typical computer that writes 120 megabytes per hour to the hard drive.  On a 32GB solid-state NAND drive, wear leveling would distribute this data over the entire drive -- it would take 267 hours to fill the device once. Even on a multi-cell flash device, at this rate it would take no less than 150 years to burnout all the bits on the SSD.  Single-cell drives are capable of ten times as many writes.

Features 36 pixel shader processors 8 vertex shader processors Up to 256-bit 8 channel GDDR3 memory interface Native PCI Express® x16 bus interface Plug-and-play (native) CrossFire™ Shader Technology Support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware. Shader Model 3.0 vertex and pixel shader support: Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL® 2.0 Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering 2x/4x/6x Anti-Aliasing modes: Lossless Color Compression (up to 6:1) at all resolutions, up to and including widescreen HDTV 2x/4x/8x/16x Anisotropic Filtering modes: Improved rendering with higher subpixel precision and LOD computation levels 3Dc+™ — Advanced Texture Compression High quality 4:1 compression for normal maps and luminance maps Works with any single-channel or two-channel data format Ring Bus Memory Controller Programmable arbitration logic maximizes memory efficiency, software upgradeable New fully associative texture, color, and Z cache design Hierarchical Z-Buffer with Early Z Test Lossless Z-Buffer Compression (up to 48:1) Fast Z-Buffer Clear Z Cache optimized for real-time shadow rendering Optimized for performance at high display resolutions, up to and including widescreen HDTV Avivo™ Video and Display Engine New advanced video capabilities, including high fidelity gamma, color correction and scaling Dual independent display controllers that support true 30 bits per pixel throughout the display pipe Full symmetry on both heads Each display interface supports display resolutions beyond 2560x1600 Advanced DVI capabilities, including 10-bit, 16-bit HDR output YPrPb component output for direct drive of HDTV displays Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time MPEG1/2/4 decode and encode acceleration: DXVA support All-format DTV/HDTV decoding Adaptive per-pixel de-interlacing and frame rate conversion (temporal filtering) CrossFire™ Multi-GPU technology Four modes of operation: Native CrossFire support simplifies setup by requiring no dedicated slave or master hardware 24-bit CrossFire connection enables high resolutions and refresh rates Supports the broadest range of platforms for both Intel and AMD

Finally, ATI has caught up with NVIDIA. It’s been a long time coming, but with Radeon X1950 Pro, virtually all of our concerns with previous CrossFire implementations are wiped off the slate. All that you need to get Radeon X1950 Pro CrossFire running is a pair of Radeon X1950 Pro cards, a pair of CrossFire connectors that look incredibly similar to NVIDIA’s own SLI connector (albeit a little wider) and a motherboard capable of running CrossFire.

Viruses, malicious code, spyware and other security threats may become a past worry says Intel. According to Intel, its R&D team is hard at work on a technology called Trusted Execution Technology -- previously called LaGrande. Abbreviated as TXT, Intel's Trusted Execution Technology will use hardware keys and subsystems to control what part of a computer's resources can be accessed and who or what will be granted or denied access.

Going beyond the NX bit, or the Non-execution bit that is currently enabled inside recent processors from both AMD and Intel, TXT will bring a whole new dimension of security to PCs. In fact, TXT will also be able to work in a virtualized environment on systems with Intel's VT technology. Guest operating systems will be able to take advantage of features on a TXT-enabled platform.

Starting from the use of more advanced Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chips and adding new hardware extensions to both processors and chipsets, TXT can perform the following:

Protected Execution: This feature allows an application that has the ability to execute in an isolated environment, to be shielded from other software running on the same platform. No other software may monitor or compromise the data or the application in the protected environment. Plus, each application running in PE mode has its own physically dedicated resources from both the processor and system chipset.

Sealed Storage: The new advanced TPM chips are able to store and encrypt keys in hardware. Only the same system that the TPM is integrated into can decrypt the keys. Any attempts at copying data out of the TPM will result in scrambling.

Protected Input: Intel is developing mechanisms that will prevent unauthorized monitoring of human input devices such as mouse clicks and keyboard strokes. Not only will traditional input devices be encrypted, but data traversing the USB bus will also be encrypted too.

Protected Graphics: applications that are running in the PE environment will have its graphics path encrypted. Data being sent to a graphics card's frame buffer from an application will be encrypted and cannot be observed by unauthorized code. For example, a particular notice box popping up can be encrypted, while other windows remain unprotected.

Protected Launch: this part of TXT will control and protect critical parts of the operating system and other system related components from being compromised during launch. OS kernel components for example are protected during and after launch.

According to Intel:

The hardware-rooted security enables the ability to increase the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive information from software-based attacks, protect sensitive information without compromising the usability of a platform, and deliver increased security in platform-level solutions through measurement and protection capabilities. It provides a general-purpose, safer computing environment capable of running a wide variety of operating systems.

Intel will also provide a mechanism called Attestation for TXT, which is a self-monitoring component that ensures that the TXT system was enabled properly. Attestation will provide monitoring, as well as applications running in protected space.

Processors will have split execution spaces called partitions, similar to the concept of partitions on a hard drive. These partitions can be labeled as protected or non-protected. Standard partitions, those that are not protected, are now referred to as "legacy" partitions. A TXT-enabled processor will be able to have both a legacy and protected partition coexist together. Chipsets will also be designed with TXT technology. According to Intel, every part of a TXT-enabled platform will have the technology built in so that every pathway that is traversed by data will be able to offer a high level of security. With TXT, Intel is taking a no-compromise approach to securing data. All components of a system will be protected:

• Processor execution memory
• Processor event handling
• System memory
• Memory and chipset paths
• Storage subsystems
• Human input devices
• Graphics output

Currently close to being finished, Intel will demonstrate the first working implementations of TXT technology sometime in 2007 on Intel vPro platforms. The technology will make an appearance in business platforms first, before making a showing on consumer desktops. Major OEMs have begun sampling TXT-based platforms from Intel already this year.

With the use of RAID 6 double-parity large storage arrays growing, Applied Micro Circuits has launched its high-performance 3ware 9650SE SATA II RAID controller family. See our Tutor for more about Raid 6.

AMCC’s 3ware 9650SE SATA II hardware RAID controllers deliver industry-leading performance, robust fault tolerance,and multi-terabyte capacities. Continuing AMCC’s RAID 5 performance leadership, the3ware 9650SE fuels a new breed of speed for red hot RAID 6 performance, delivering over 700MB/s RAID 6 readsand 600MB/s RAID 6 writes. Supported RAID levels include 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, Single Disk and JBOD and with models ranging from two to 24 ports,it is the broadest family of PCI Express-to-SATA II RAID controllers available.

All models except the 24 port will be available Nov. 1 through AMCC's worldwide network of distributors, integrators and VARs. The 24-port model will be available in early 2007. Prices for the 4-port configuration start at $395 and range to $995 for the 16-port model.

"The simultaneous parity calculation and improved RAID architecture is what sets the controller apart and is what drives its record-setting performance," said Scott Cleland, director of marketing for AMCC. By calculating the parity simultaneously, AMCC dramatically reduces the RAID 6 write penalty common among other RAID designs, resulting in sustained throughput for the 9650SE more than twice the speed of competing RAID 6 controllers.

Chipset Manufacturer NVIDIA GPU Geforce 6800XT Core clock 350MHz PixelPipelines 8 Memory Memory Clock 1000MHz Memory Size 256MB Memory Interface 256-bit Memory Type GDDR3

Description: XFX PVT42KVDE3 Geforce 6800XT 256MB AGP 4X/8X Video Card Features: NVIDIA UltraShadow II Technology 64-Bit Texture Filtering and Blending NVIDIA CineFX 3.0 Technology High-Speed GDDR3 Memory Interface NVIDIA PureVideo Technology Adaptable Programmable Video Processor Intellisample 3.0 Technology Unified Driver Architecture (UDA) nView Multi-Display Technology NVIDIA Digital Vibrance Control (DVC) 3.0 Technology High-Definition MPEG-2 Hardware Acceleration High-Quality Real-Time Video Recording Advanced Spatial Temporal De-interlacing

Memory Clock 1.32 GHz Clock rate 450 MHz Chipset GeForce 7900 GS Memory 256 MB Bus Type PCI-E Memory Type DDR3 Memory Bus 256 bit TV Out , Dual DVI Out , HDTV ready , SLI ready Memory Interface 256 bit Memory Bandwidth 42.2 GB/sec Fill Rate 9 Billion Pixels/sec Vertices Per Second 822.5 Million RAMDACs 400MHz Pixels per Clock (peak) 20 Graphics Core GeForce 7900 GS

A 256-bit memory interface and fast GDDR3 memory enable blazing graphics performance with the quality set to max so you don’t have to choose between frame rates and image quality. Need a break from gaming? The GeForce 7900 GPU also delivers smooth, high-definition video playback and crisp picture quality thanks to its advanced NVIDIA PureVideo technology. If you are searching for an extreme HD gaming and video experience on the PC, this is a great pick under $200.00 US.