gOt sKillz?!

Description
Few details have been leaked regards Nvidia’s upcoming next-generation graphics core, codenamed D10U.

D10U will make its first debut in 2 separate graphics cards; the high end GeForce GTX 280 (D10U-30) and the lower spec GeForce GTX 260 (D10U-20). For this new generation, Nvidia redesigned its unified stream(shader) processors to perform 50% faster than the ones used in the G90 series. GeForce GTX 280 will feature 240 of those redesigned unified stream processors and GeForce GTX 260 will carry 192.

GTX 280 ships with a 512-bit memory bus capable of supporting 1GB GDDR3 memory and GTX 260 alternative has a 448-bit bus with support for 896MB.

The new D10U series will deliver all the features found in the current G90 series and, surprisingly, it won’t support DirectX 10.1. This might seem like lagging behind AMD’s upcoming Radeon HD 4000 series, but it may be in the best interest of GeForce 8 and GeForce 9 cards owners that Nvidia utilizes its market position to protect them from being outdated over some minor DirectX changes.

D10U series will incorporate the PhysX stream engine into its shader engine, but no more info is available right now.

The new cards are scheduled for launch on June 18, 2008.

Description
Today, NVIDIA introduced the Tegra family of processors, the world’s first single-chip computer capable of the rich high definition and internet experiences we’ve come to expect from our PCs, but on small pocket type devices.

NVIDIA Tegra is a tiny computer-on-a-chip, smaller than a US dime (10-cent piece), designed from the ground up to enable the “visual PC experience” on a new generation of mobile computing devices while consuming the smallest amount of power.

“Creating Tegra was a massive challenge. Our vision was to create a platform that will enable the second personal computer revolution - which will be mobile centric, with devices that last days on a single charge, and yet has the web, high definition media, and computing experiences we’ve come to expect from our PC,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO at NVIDIA. “Shrinking down a 50 watt PC architecture will not create the discontinuity this industry needs. The culmination of nearly 1,000 man years of engineering, Tegra is a completely ground-up computer-on-a-chip architecture that consumes 100 times less power. Mobile internet and computing devices built with Tegra are going to be magical.”

The NVIDIA Tegra 650 processor is the second product in the Tegra line, the first being the NVIDIA Tegra APX 2500 processor, which is enabling the next generation of Windows Mobile smartphones. With the launch of this new processor, the NVIDIA Tegra products will reach consumers towards the end of the year.

“With the growing market demand for mobile Internet access, NVIDIA launched the APX 2500 computer-on-a-chip targeted at smartphones and handsets earlier this year. Recognizing that mobile Internet access usages will occur not just on smartphones and handsets but on compute devices as well, NVIDIA announced today the Tegra architecture. Representing the first products to be targeted at the MID and portable device space, it is anticipated to bring integrated capabilities similar to the APX 2500 with NVIDIA’s graphics expertise, an ARM core, HD video, and advanced power management,” said Ian Lao, senior analyst at In-Stat.

NVIDIA Tegra is a heterogeneous processor architecture with multiple processors, each architected for a specific class of tasks - an 800 MHz ARM CPU, a HD video processor, an imaging processor, an audio processor, and an ultra-low power GeForce GPU These processors are used together or independently to deliver a wonderful experience while utilizing a minute amount of power. With this heterogeneous ultra-low-power processor architecture, NVIDIA Tegra processors achieve up to 10 times the power efficiency of existing products in battery-operated computer systems running compelling visual computing applications.

“As more consumers begin to access the mobile Internet with devices like smartphones and MIDs, device manufacturers will be challenged to create the same high-quality user experience on mobile devices that consumers currently enjoy on their desktop PCs,” said Warren East, CEO, ARM. “Using advanced ARM technology and providing a ground-breaking mix of performance, power consumption and form factor, the NVIDIA Tegra mobile computer-on-a-chip addresses this challenge more effectively than any other solution yet on the market, thereby taking a major step toward the oncoming mobile Internet revolution.”

NVIDIA Tegra 650 also features:
- All-day media processing, for 130 hours audio, 30 hours HD video playback
- HD image processing for advanced digital still camera and HD camcorder functions
- Optimized hardware support for Web 2.0 applications for a true desktop-class internet experience
- Display support for 1080p HDMI, WSXGA+ LCD and CRT, and NTSC/PAL TV-Out
- Direct support for WiFi, disk drives, keyboard, mouse, and other peripherals
- A complete Board Support Package (BSP) to enable fast times to market for Windows Mobile-based designs

“With NVIDIA’s Tegra processor line, we will continue to see impressive mobile innovations in Windows Mobile products,” said Todd Warren, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s mobile communication business. “Microsoft is dedicated to providing people best-in-class mobile experiences, so that people can carry a single device for work and play.”

Description
AMD and Havok today announced plans to jointly investigate the optimization of physics effects utilizing AMD’s full line of products.

Interestingly enough, Havok is a subsidiary of AMD’s chief rival in the CPU market, Intel.

“As the complexity and visual fidelity of video games increases, AMD wants to take advantage of opportunities to improve the game experience,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. “By working with the clear market leader in physics software, AMD can optimize our platforms to consistently deliver the best possible visual experience to the gamer.”

This collaboration looks like AMD’s and Havok’s response to Nvidia’s recent acquisition of Havok’s main competitor, Ageia. By way of this collaboration, AMD gets competing physics optimization for its GPUs and CPUs. Havok also benefits from increasing its hardware platforms base.

Havok Physics scales extremely well across the entire family of AMD processors, including quad-core products such as the AMD Phenom X4. As part of the collaboration, Havok and AMD plan to further optimize the full range of Havok technologies on AMD x86 superscalar processors. The two companies will also investigate the use of AMD’s massively parallel ATI Radeon GPUs to manage appropriate aspects of physical world simulation in the future.

“The success of Havok as a cross platform software company is predicated on our willingness to listen to the needs of our customers,” said David O’Meara, managing director of Havok. “The feedback that we consistently receive from leading game developers is that core game play simulation should be performed on CPU cores. The clear priority of game developers is performance and scalability on the CPU. Beyond core simulation, however, the capabilities of massively parallel products offer technical possibilities for computing certain types of simulation. We look forward to working with AMD to explore these possibilities.”

Description
ASUS announced the world’s first HDMI 1.3a compliant audio card - the Xonar HDAV1.3.

Capable of outputting uncompressed multichannel high definition audio from Blu-ray movies, the Xonar HDAV 1.3 also enhances video with an onboard Splendid HD processor.

HD Digital Audio & Video with Support for Blu-ray and HDMI 1.3
The Xonar HDAV 1.3 features Protected Audio Playback Systems (PAPS) and full Advanced Access Content System (AACS) certification. Without both of these certifications, typical PCs will need to downsample Blu-ray audio to DVD quality (48K/16bit). By closely working with ArcSoft’s Total Media Theater, ASUS’ Xonar HDAV1.3 is capable of decoding Blu-ray movies and takes full advantage of lossless digital audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio for professional, high-fidelity sounds at 24bit, 96-192Khz. The PCI Express based Xonar HDAV1.3 is designed from the ground up for next generation home theater PCs (HTPC); and is equipped with the proprietary AV200 audio processor and HDMI1.3a certified Splendid HD video processor - making it capable of delivering the highest quality 7.1 channel 192K linear pulse code modulation (LPCM) audio and high definition video through the HDMI port.

Analog Audio with 120dB Signal-to Noise Ratio
The ASUS Xonar HDAV1.3 also reigns in analog audio quality thanks to a HyperGrounding circuit design. With HyperGrounding, Xonar sound cards further reduce EMI noise inside modern PCs, providing clean 120 dB SNR and peerless 0.0004% low distortion - reaching the pinnacle of audio quality on most PC platforms. Unlike generic audio cards in the market that provide the highest SNR to only the front stereo outputs, the Xonar D2X is able to deliver 120 dB quality audio for all 7.1 channels.

Splendid HD Video Processor Presents True HD video for HTPCs
The Splendid HD Video Processor increases color performance and enhances edges for a more brilliant, crisper high definition image - without impacting the CPU load. Splendid HD not only recovers clarity when viewing lower-resolution content, but also reduces flicker for a more natural, brilliant viewing experience.

High Performance Components & Swappable Operational Amplifiers
At the heart of the Xonar is an ASUS AV200 codec chip, which routes and interprets high quality signals to premium audio components. These high quality materials include oversampling digital to analog converters (Burr-Frown PCM1796, 123 dB SNR), National Semiconductor LM4562 operational amplifiers (opamp), and analog-to-digital (Cirrus Logic CS5381, 120 dB SNR) converter. The Xonar HDAV1.3 is the first in the Xonar family to utilize opamp sockets to allow simple, solder-less modifications for user-customized sound.

DS3D GX2.0 for Rich Gaming Audio
The Xonar HDAV1.3 also comes with the well renowned DS3D GX 2.0, which revives EAX 5.0 and 3D gaming audio in Vista. DS3D GX 2.0 automatically enables the latest EAX and DirectSound HW after installation, with no additional driver patches, game modifications, or OpenAL required. DS3D GX2.0 also extends MMOG EAX to online chat, allowing you to place your voice into the game’s environment.

HDAV 1.3 Deluxe - Premium Multi-channel Analog
In addition to the Xonar HDAV 1.3’s features, the Xonar HDAV1.3 Deluxe packs the HDAV H6 surround channel expansion card. The HDAV H6 offers 120dB SNR*, ultra-low 0.0004% distortion, and swappable opamps on each channel.

HP announced that researchers from HP Labs, the company’s central research facility, have proven the existence of what had previously been only theorized as the fourth fundamental circuit element in electrical engineering.

This scientific advancement could make it possible to develop computer systems that have “memories that do not forget, do not need to be booted up, consume far less power and associate information in a manner similar to that of the human brain”.

In a paper published in Nature, four researchers at HP Labs’ Information and Quantum Systems Lab, led by R. Stanley Williams, presented the mathematical model and a physical example of a “memristor” - a blend of “memory resistor” - which has the unique property of retaining a history of the information it has acquired.

Leon Chua, a distinguished faculty member in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department of the University of California at Berkeley, initially theorized about and named the element in an academic paper published 37 years ago. Chua argued that the memristor was the fourth fundamental circuit element, along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor, and that it had properties that could not be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements.

Building on their groundbreaking research in nanoelectronics, Williams and team are the first to prove the existence of the memristor.

“To find something new and yet so fundamental in the mature field of electrical engineering is a big surprise, and one that has significant implications for the future of computer science,” said Williams. “By providing a mathematical model for the physics of a memristor, HP Labs has made it possible for engineers to develop integrated circuit designs that could dramatically improve the performance and energy efficiency of PCs and data centers.”

One application for this research could be the development of a new kind of computer memory that would supplement and eventually replace today’s commonly used dynamic random access memory (DRAM). Computers using conventional DRAM lack the ability to retain information once they lose power. When power is restored to a DRAM-based computer, a slow, energy-consuming boot-up process is necessary to retrieve data from a magnetic hard disk required to run the system.

In contrast, a memristor-based computer would retain its information after losing power and would not require the boot-up process, resulting in the consumption of less power and wasted time.

Another potential application of memristor technology could be the development of computer systems that remember and associate series of events in a manner similar to the way a human brain recognizes patterns. This could substantially improve today’s facial recognition technology, enable security and privacy features that recognize a complex set of biometric features of an authorized person to access personal information, or enable an appliance to learn from experience.

Williams is the founding director of HP Labs’ Information and Quantum Systems Lab, which is focused on turning fundamental advances in areas of mathematics and physical science into technologies useful for HP. For the past 12 years, Williams and his team have conducted primary scientific research into the fundamental limits of information and computing, which has led to a series of breakthrough discoveries in nanoelectronics and nanophotonics.

There is still little to no information about AMD’s upcoming ATI Radeon HD 4870, but Belgium website, BilgiUstam, managed to get their hands on 3 charts comparing it to Nvidia’s GeForce 9800 GX2.

The charts are available in the screens tab, but be warned: we couldn’t check their authenticity. We asked several hardware reviewers and hardware centered websites but they all failed to confirm the authenticity of those charts.

The charts indicate that ATI Radeon HD 4870, expected to be released within a month, beats Nvidia’s top dog, the 1GB GeForce 9800 GX2, nearly by a 25% margin in 3D Mark 2006 and Crysis.

Alleged test system:
- Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 @ 3.00GHz
- ASUS P5E3 Deluxe
- 2×1GB OCZ DDR3 1333MHz 9-9-9-26
- Western Digital 250GB 16MB SATA2 7200RPM
- 1GB GeForce 9800 GX2 - 600/1500/2000mhz
- 512MB ATI HD 4870 - 800/3400mhz

Info coming from several sources suggests that Nvidia decided to accelerate the launch of its most powerful G90 graphics chips in order to battle AMD’s upcoming Radeon HD 4800.

Leaked info and underground rumors have it that GeForce 9900 GTX and GeForce 9900 GTS might hit retail as soon as July. AMD’s Radeon HD 4800 is expected to be launched in May, though.

There is no solid info about both 9900 cards’ specs, but Nvidia has already said that the architecture behind the flagship will be “extraordinarily complex” with as many as one billion transistors on the GTX. GeForce 9900 GTX is expected to host 1GB video memory with 512 bit interface, while the GeForce 9900 GTS is expected to have 640 or 768 MB video memory with 448 bit interface; but then again, those are not confirmed yet.

Intel’s latest price update revealed price cuts of up to 50% on select quad core processors.

Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6700 (2.66GHz) saw the greatest price shakedown with a 50% price drop from $530 to $266. The quad-core Xeon X3230 (2.66GHz) also saw a 50% cut: from $530 to $266.

The dual-core Xeon 3085 (3GHz) was reduced 29% from $266 to $188, and the Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (3GHz) was reduced by 31% from $266 to $183.

Pentium dual-core E2200 (2.2GHz) and E2180 (2GHz) were cut 12 percent and 14 percent to $74 and $64, respectively.

Celeron chips also saw some price cuts. The Celeron 430 (1.8GHz) was reduced 23 percent from $44 to $34 and the dual-core Celeron E1200 (1.6GHz) fell 19 percent from $53 to $43.

On the same update, Intel also introduced new chips. The Core 2 Duo chips E8300 (6MB cache, 2.83GHz) and the E7200 (3MB cache, 2.53GHz) were announced at $163 and $133, respectively. Intel also announced dual-core Celeron E1400 (2GHz) at a price of $53 and Celeron 570 (2.66GHz) at $134.

Self-Erasing DVDs, dubbed DVD-D have already hit European stores.

DVD-D discs, sold for around one third of the usual DVD-R discs, can be played on any DVD player, but they will self-erase 8 hours after their first spin. Another version with a 48 hours life span is also available for software.

Blank DVD-D discs are also available. They are burned at 8X speed and their life span can be set to anything from 8 to 48 hours. Blank DVD-D disks also have the option to be played once.

DVD-D are currently available in Italy, France, Germany and Scandinavia.

During their financial analyst meeting, Nvidia revealed their plans for what they called “the world’s most affordable Vista Premium PC”.

Instead of utilizing Intel or AMD’s processors, for the new platform Nvidia chose to go with VIA’s Isaiah processor coupled with an integrated Nvidia graphics chipset. According to Nvidia, this combination is good for a total of 36 GFLOPS in comparison to a mere 6.4 GFLOPS for a comparable Celeron-based system with an Intel 945 IGP/ICH4 chipset.

NVIDIA also claims that its platform will be Windows Vista Premium capable, support Blu-ray HD and DX10, and cost less than $45.

VIA Isaiah processor does indeed offer performance on bar with current Intel Celeron offerings, but the real test should be against Intel’s upcoming Atom processor.