Hardware Post: 04/04/11

Monday, April 4, 2011

Radeon HD 6790-2 Ventilos from XFX

So it should officially make an appearance tomorrow, the Radeon HD 6790 has already made a short stop at the manufacturer XFX. The latter has indeed missed a few pictures of his model of Radeon HD 6790. Thus we discover a model equipped with a cooling system owner, with two fans and an aluminum radiator crossed by several copper heat pipes.

CrossFireX compatible, this graphics card embeds 1 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus. The operating frequencies of the GPU and memory are currently unknown, but presumably they are similar to those of the reference model (840 MHz for the graphics chipset THE Barts and 1050 MHz for the GDDR5 memory).

LG top seller of LCD "LED"

If the screens backlight CCFL "classic" still represented the majority of sales of LCD monitors in 2010, models equipped with a system of LED backlighting are progressing gradually from 1% of total screens sold in 2009 to 10% in 2010. In this market, the manufacturer is LG, which last year was able to succeed at the game with a sales volume reaching 2.92 million units, representing 18% market share.

Memories DNA

German and Israeli researchers have discovered that DNA molecules could alter the polarity of the electrons, giving rise, among other memories of a new genus. The idea of storing data represented by the spin of electrons is not new (see "Back to the future of memories"). This is not the first we consider the use of DNA in an electronic component (see "From DNA to produce processors).

This research, which are not limited to the world of memory, or even electronics, are nevertheless interesting because they provide a better understanding of biological phenomena that quantum can give birth to the revolutions of tomorrow. In their experiment, scientists sent a laser on a gold plate.

Action game for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360: Battlefield 3 release date slipped through

Mid-2009, Electronic Arts confirmed to the gaming site for the first time that the development studio working on Dice "Battlefield 3". Nearly two years later, finally the official announcement follows including the rough start date. In you access to arms. And not only multi-player mode. For the third branch also introduces a solo campaign.

You are going to request to cooperate with your friends. For the online mode, the developers promise the return of well-known series of virtues. To make such uncertain in fighter jets or the sky falling on the PC in multiplayer battles with up to 64 players "Battlefield 3" appears on 2 November 2011 - says.

Now available: entry-level phone Samsung E2230

It features a 1.8 inch color screen. Fixed include an FM radio with RDS station identification, a media player, Bluetooth, a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, a microSD slot for memory cards and a digital camera for photos in VGA-quality (640x480 pixels). The standby time is Samsung with 660 hours, the phone mode keeps the E2230 by 14.6 hours.

With this product Samsung brings out a cell phone with no special features. It is recommended for infrequent users and people who do not need smartphone features. With its price is classified into the group of single-cell phones.

Phantom image appeared: Apple iPod nano 7G again with a camera?

The product image, which published the IT-blog "" shows the (presumably) metal casing of the MP3 Players. Good to see: In the upper right corner there is a round hole. It suggests that Apple provides at this point a camera lens. Where is the photo out to be genuine, would be the iPod nano 7G after the second representative from the nano-range, which is equipped with a camera.

The current model has none. Apple stays true to its tradition, comes the iPod nano 7G in the fall of 2011 on the market.

IPod (wikipedia)

The first images appeared: Windows 8: Explorer with ribbon interface

Unlike traditional Microsoft toolbars arranged with Ribbons functional groups under one umbrella term. Example: If you click in the current version of "Word" to "Start", works from a bar in which there are many functions which in turn in tabs (in this example, "clipboard", "Font", "sales", "Styles" and "Edit") are divided.

Microsoft plans something similar apparently for Windows 8 IT-blog "was" leaked screenshots of the Explorer of the upcoming operating system. Here too, therefore, ribbons are used. The bloggers emphasize, however, that these are images from a very early Windows version 8 and you have to wait and see if Microsoft actually holds in the operation.

NoFen CR-100A, 100% passive CPU cooling

The Korean Nofen presented a special and impressive passive heatsink for cooling the CPU desktop, called CR-100A. The technology used is called Fluid Dynamic Pipe (FDP) and uses a huge heatpipes loop to form a steady stream of warm air upward. The heat sink is signed circular with a diameter of no less than 226 mm, a height of 132 mm and a weight of 763 grams.

From the base lapped mirror part 4 copper heatpipes 6mm in diameter nickel forming two semicircles on which several wires are welded aluminum (2mm). The NoFen CR-100A is able to dissipate without the use of any fan of modern CPUs from Intel and AMD processors with TDP up to 100W. This limitation would therefore exclude the enthusiast end models and heavily overclocked CPU.

New feature: Gmail launches personalized advertising

So far, apportions the advertising (appears on the mailbox as a line of text on) indiscriminately to its users. The result is that you read ads that do not interest you at all. Step by step, Google is opening a new function. This checks to see which emails you get and which to delete inconvenient or move into the spam folder.

Example: Click to essentially any e-mail that contains the keyword "digital camera" remembers Gmail this behavior - and sends you in the future include advertising photography, preferably at the display. The other way round it's the same move unread mails with the above-mentioned common keyword in the trash or spam folder, is "digital camera" on the index - and you are spared of photo ads.

Ivy Bridge CPU with integrated PCI-Express 3.0

The site SemiAccurate published a paper on the next generation of Intel CPU known by the code name Ivy Bridge. We refer to technology development with the existing range of 22NM processors Sandy Bridge (32nm) expected to debut next year. Seem to confirm previous rumors that finally saw the integration of a controller PCI Express 3.0 to 16 lines and an on-die GPU compatible with DirectX11, compared to the controller and PCIe 2.0 GPU DX10.1 this about Sandy Bridge.

MSI X-Slim X370 E-350 with APU AMD and screen 13.4 "

MSI has just announced the new X370 notebook, which is part of the solution X-Slim with a thickness of less than 25mm and APU based on AMD dual-core E-350 with integrated Radeon graphics core compatible with DirectX 11. The APU has a TDP of just 18 watts and this allows the MSI X370 notebook to achieve an autonomy of 10 hours when using the extended battery pack.

The MSI X370 provides a 13.4-inch display with a resolution of 1366x768 pixels, an HDMI connector, a VGA, a 320GB hard drive, DDR3 memory and a 1.3-megapixel camera.

NYSE: AMD (googlefinance) Advanced Micro Devices (geolocation) AMD (homepage) Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) (wikinvest) AMD (crunchbase) Advanced Micro Devices (wikipedia) Accelerated processing unit (wikipedia)

A key PicoDrive N 64 GB at Green House

The manufacturer has recently launched Green House on the market a 64 GB USB on PicoDrive N. Showing the dimensions of 54 x 18 x 8 mm and weighs 7.5 grams on the scale, this USB stick rather compact must unfortunately be satisfied with a USB 2.0 interface. We note in passing that a "Demo" version of Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 is delivered with the key PicoDrive N.

Already available in Japan, this 64 GB USB drive is displayed at 206 dollars.

MSI GT680R-201ES: New gaming laptop

MSI announces launch of its portable gaming GT680R-201ES, a model which will surely delight the most demanding players, has a Core i7 last generation, which together with its powerful GT Nvidia GPU X460M we offer excellent performance . This new laptop features a 15.6 "LED, 16:9 FullHD resolution, which together with its powerful combination of 2630QM i7 processor and 460M GTX graphics card, we will have the necessary components to seamlessly enjoy the latest games without problems, besides the new GT680R-201Es has the technology "Boost Cooler", ensuring that your laptop does not suffer from lack of power problems and temperature.

Google wants to standardize and ARM Honeycomb

Google Android 3.0 would standardize and is in talks with ARM to provide a standard that would facilitate the development and application updates for mobile Android. The idea is simple. By providing a standard for Honeycomb (Android 3.0), Google would encourage developers to build applications that will run identically on any platform.

The system tray now has the great disadvantage of having a relatively thin software park and at the time of the App Store, is a harmful situation. Moreover, as we often see the diversity of variants of the ARM architecture means that the deployment of updates is to thank you for manufacturers, which is not always optimal.

Prices for hard drives will rise

The earthquake that occurred in Japan will raise the prices of hard drives suffer from a shortage of engines. It is expected to rise by 5% to 10%. This was reported the DigiTimes website which claims that Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics are the main suppliers of motors for HDD Western Digital and Seagate.

But the American was seriously affected by the disaster. The fact that its plant in Miho not find a rhythm of normal delivery by September (see "Texas Instrument will suffer from the tsunami for 6 months") should mean that shipments of hard drives from 160 million units in first quarter to 100 million in the second

Blu-ray 100 GB rewritable

Panasonic is the first company to market Blu-ray XL (100 GB) rewritable. They will be sold in Japan initially priced at 10,000 yen each (about 85 €). The supports are scheduled for mid-April. Until now, Blu-ray recordable XL were once. The format was formalized in June. It has taken almost a year between the final specifications of BD-RE XL and its placing on the market.

Compatible recorders are already available. These media should primarily serve as storage solution for multimedia content.

Blu-ray Disc (wikipedia)

10 new 10-core Xeon processors from Intel

According to sources, Intel could add in the coming days in its catalog no fewer than 29 new models of Xeon processors etched into 32 nm, 10-EX models Westmere with 10 cores and can handle 20 threads simultaneously. The frequencies of these new chips would be between 2 and 2.4 GHz, while the TDP at between 105 and 130 watts.

As far as prices, the "affordability" of these new Xeon E7-2850 would be displayed at 2558 dollars, while the E7-8870 would be offered at a price of 4614 dollars. Currently, the foundry has not added new models to its database Ark.

Xeon (wikipedia) Intel Corporation (geolocation) Intel (homepage) NASDAQ: INTC (googlefinance) SEHK: 4335 (googlefinance) Intel (INTC) (wikinvest) Intel (crunchbase) Intel Corporation (wikipedia) Intel Corporation (youtube)

TDJ: Epic Naga, Asus P8P67

Our fellow Cowcotland recently posted a review of the Naga Epic Razer, mouse, intended primarily for MMORPG players. With many buttons, the Naga Epic has a sensor displaying a maximum resolution of 5600 DPI. Self reached on it 12 hours mode "hardcore gamer", or 72 hours in use classic. Verdict? For his part, Brother 59 Hardware has recently interested in P8P67 Asus, a motherboard based on P67 chipset and therefore designed to Sandy Bridge processors from Intel.

Seasonic X Semifanless Gold: Available in Ibertrónica Systems.

Ibertrónica wide systems family Seasonic power supplies with new powers of 660W, 760W and 850W, remain semifanless and 80Plus certified Gold, also are made with 100% quality materials and offer five-year warranty. Seasonic X range is enlarged in Ibertrónica systems, these sources have the Sanyo Denki San Ace fan, which together with its full design grid in the form of honeycomb ensure perfect cooling power.

AMD wants to improve its GlobalFoundries 32 nm

AMD has revised the agreement that binds to GlobalFoundries for the manufacture of its processors. The new contract should provide a greater incentive to improve yields GlobalFoundries for its 32 nm process. The future depends Bulldozer and Llano. In late 2008, AMD has posted its plants by placing them in the lap of a new company, GlobalFoundries.

Since then, AMD remains the biggest customer "GloFo" all its Phenom, Athlon, Sempron and Turion from it. GloFo must also make future Bulldozer and Llano. However, in August 2010, AMD reported that the yields achieved by GlobalFoundries unsatisfactory. This has forced AMD to postpone the launch of Llano APU and the APU advance Ontario (the famous Zacate who are on track to eclipse the Intel Atom netbooks).

GeForce GTX 590 vs Radeon HD 6990

With their new high-end monsters, we also tested alone and in Quad SLI / Quad CrossFire, NVIDIA and AMD offer us maps certainly inaccessible, but close to the performance that will deliver future Radeon HD 7870 and GeForce GTX 680 . What is this level of performance and is well armed with current architectures?

GeForce 200 Series (wikipedia) Radeon (wikipedia)

Apple uses a Sony sensor in the iPhone 5

In an interview with Walt Mossberg (The Wall Street Journal), the PD-G Sony has admitted he made the photo sensors for Apple and if the details remain slim, these statements seem to confirm the rumors that speak of a unit 8 Megapixels integrated camera in the iPhone 5. During the interview, Sir Howard Stringer was surprised he made his best sensors for Apple.

This immediately aroused the interest of the press. Indeed, until now, the sensors of iPhone, including the iPhone 4, are produced by OmniVision. Gold since April 2010, rumors say that Cupertino had asked to produce sensors that go in the smartphone in 2011. This would be the R 8 Megapixel Exmor already present in the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo and that would have been retained.

A Cortex-A8 in a 10-inch netbook eCAFE

The manufacturer is Hercules currently preparing the launch of two new models of netbooks, eCAFE Slim HD eCAFE EX HD. With a screen size of 10.1 inches LED-backlit, with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels, these two netbooks show dimensions of 300 x 171 x 21 mm (31 mm for the EX HD). Equipped with an ARM Cortex A8, these netbooks are capable of playing 720p HD video seamlessly.

They embark 512MB of DDR2 memory and a storage space with 8 GB of flash memory iNAND. The EX model HD is also bundled with an SDHC memory card 8 GB WiFi 802.11n controllers, audio and Ethernet are present, along with a webcam and three USB 2.0 ports. An SDHC card reader completes the picture.

The calm still reigns in the RAM

Our last survey of prices of the RAM showed a general stabilization of the rates charged on 2 x 2 GB kits of DDR2 and DDR3. What about today? RAS Prices are still stable, the largest change that we recorded not even reaching 3%. We will continue to closely monitor the market in the coming weeks.