I like eSATA, and I like USB 3.0.... but which is better? There's only one way to find out. FIIIIIGHT!!!
Most hardware manufacturers are finally rolling out USB 3.0 devices. We’ve seen motherboards, hubs, hard drives, and notebooks all rocking the new and improved USB standard. It’s clearly the future of USB with backwards compatibility, dramatically faster speeds and full-duplex data transfers. That’s great, but it’s still not faster than eSATA right now.
Of course USB 3.0 brings a host of other improvements over the 2.0 spec and eSATA. It’s dramatically more power efficient, allowing more power-hungry bus-powered devices and better power management when devices are idle. USB 3.0 also can theoretically hit 600 MB/s. But right now it’s not the ultimate external data transfer protocol. That title belongs to eSATA.
It might be AMD who appear to be the only company with an interest in external graphics solutions for the notebook market, but don't be fooled into thinking that NVIDIA aren't at least considering similar offerings in the future - So says Rene Haas, the general manager of NVIDIA's notebook GPU business.
A high-ranking executive from Nvidia Corp. said that it considers external graphics adapters for notebooks a big opportunity even though the company does not offer such products at the moment.
“I think it is a big opportunity. We have two strategies at Nvidia: one is to put graphics everywhere, the other one is to [find more ways to] integrate discrete chips into the box. I think there is definitely a place for [external graphics cards for notebooks], no question. We continue to look at whether this is a GPU [docking stations] or external devices,” said Rene Haas, general manager of the notebook GPU business at Nvidia, in a brief interview with X-bit labs.
I have to confess that the idea of a FIFA-based MMO really rather intrigues me, so I'm looking forward to seeing what EA Sports' FIFA Online (already somewhat popular in Asia, where it's already been released) will bring to the table.
FIFA is nothing like EA’s other recently launch free-to-play sports franchise Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online which is entirely browser based; instead, the concept is similar to that of last year’s free-to-play Battlefield Heroes, with players downloading client software - currently weighing in at roughly 1GB - and then connecting to the service from their home systems. A similar game has already been successfully deployed in Asia, where the localised version of FIFA Online has been available for sometime.
Once connected, players then compete against each other in a game of traditional foot-the-ball in matches varying in length depending on how long you want to play, earning experience with which you can improve your squad. The game also allows for drop in, drop out style gameplay while also providing consistent game rewards. Think of it like your typical MMO, with a consistent experience and rewards approach to multiplayer, only with footballs and fouls instead of DPS and raiding.
If you're one of the unlucky souls with a Radeon HD 5000 series board who has been suffering with so-called "grey screen" issues - where the system hangs and drops back to a grey screen, forcing a reboot - then help is finally at hand (if you're a Radeon HD 5800 board owner at least) courtesy of a new Catalyst 10.1-derived hotfix, available for download in the usual Windows XP, Vista and 7 flavours.
Catalyst 10.1 hotfix Features: Alleviates some of the intermittent grey screen and vertical line corruptions that may randomly appear during normal usage when using an ATI™ Radeon HD 5800 series graphics card
There are a fair few good things to be said about Intel's so-called "Turbo Boost" technology, the company's built-in overclocking capabilities that allow CPU cores to raise their frequencies within a particular power envelope when other cores are dormant. It appears that this idea is such a good one that AMD have decided to introduce their own (as yet unnamed) take on this, which they look set to introduce with their range of six-core Phenom II X6 parts.
There are not a lot of details available at this point, but what we do know is that when single-thread performance is needed most, Thuban processors will automatically disable idle cores and overclock the remaining engines to the maximum possible level that is determined by general thermal design power. The technology will be completely hardware-based, hence, will work in any operating system that supports six-core chips. The technology is presently called “C-state performance boost”, however, it is more than likely that AMD will introduce a better sounding marketing name when it launches six-core chips in the second quarter of the year.
It is clear that the new AMD Phenom II X6 “Thuban” processors will be compatible with AM3 and AM2+ platforms, however, we do not know whether performance booster of the six-core chip will work on all of them.
Today's big news is the release of AMD's Radeon HD 5450 (we should have a review shortly, by the way), but otherwise here's the remainder of our normal news and review round up for your enjoyment.
Are you in need of some more Fallout in your life? Come this autumn, that's exactly what you'll be getting, with the announcement of Fallout: New Vegas, due to ship in that time frame.
February 4, 2010 (London, UK) – Bethesda Softworks®, a ZeniMax® Media company, today announced that Fallout®: New Vegas™, the next chapter in the critically-acclaimed Fallout franchise, will be available in Autumn 2010. The game is currently in development at Obsidian Entertainment for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, and Games for Windows. The first trailer, which provides new insight into the game, is now available at fallout.bethsoft.com.
Fallout: New Vegas, the follow-up to Fallout® 3 – the 2008 Game of the Year – brings this beloved franchise to a location only Fallout could do justice: Vegas. Fallout: New Vegas takes all the action, humor, and post-apocalyptic grime and grit of this legendary series, and raises the stakes.
To view the Fallout: New Vegas trailer and for more information on the game, please visit the official Fallout site: fallout.bethsoft.com. Fallout: New Vegas will be featured in magazine cover stories around the world in the month of February. Check the official site for updated details.
As the press release says, you can find out more at the official Fallout web site, or you could simply check out the trailer below.
As we've already seen and discussed numerous times in the past few months, AMD are absolutely determined to make the most of their current advantage in terms of having working DirectX 11 hardware over NVIDIA, quickly transitioning their architecture from the high-end down to the mainstream, and now down towards the low-end market. It's those lowest price points that the company focuses on today with the launch of their Radeon HD 5450, which continues to boast DirectX 11 and Eyefinity support, but might well carve out more of a niche as a top-notch graphics board for Home Theatre PC builders.
There are plenty of reviews of this new offering now available for your perusal, so check out our comprehensive list of coverage below.
Want to know more about Intel's first six-core CPUs, codenamed "Gulftown"? Intel have now revealed a number of fascinating details at a recent press conference about the exact architecture and design of these processing behemoths.
Gulftown, also known as Westmere 6C, is essentially a six-core version of the dual-core Westmere design that recently debuted in Core i3 and Core i5 processors. Intel has fashioned Westmere 6C not out of three dual-core dies, but out of a single piece of silicon featuring six cores, a generous 12MB of L3 cache, a couple of 6.4GT/s QuickPath Interface links, and a triple-channel DDR3-1333 memory controller. (Westmere 2C, by contrast, comes with a companion die that houses its memory controller and graphics processor.) Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost capabilities are part of the formula, too.
All told, Westmere 6C packs 1.17 billion transistors and measures 240 mm². That's actually smaller physically than the 45-nm Bloomfield die from quad-core Core i7-900 processors, which spreads out 731 million transistors over 263 mm². Intel has no plans for a native quad-core 32-nm chip, as far as we know, but it does intend to release quad-core versions of Westmere 6C. Those products will simply have a couple of cores disabled.
The Tech Report has more on Gulftown, as well as information on other advances currently hidden away in Intel's labs.
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