Intel’s 3rd-generation Core i7 CPUs are certainly forces to be reckoned with, but they aren’t the best option for most businesses. In order to give enterprise users an option, too, the company’s introducing a 3rd wave of their Core vPro CPUs. These units are shipping now, aimed at notebooks (Ultrabooks included) across the IT landscape.

To defend against identity theft, Intel introduced Intel Identity Protection Technology with public key infrastructure into Intel Core vPro processors. The technology provides a new second layer of authentication embedded into the PC that allows websites and business networks to validate that a legitimate user is logging in from a trusted PC by using a private key stored in a PC’s firmware. Intel has been working with solution providers and online Web properties such as Feitian, InfoSERVER, Symantec and VASCO to take advantage of Intel IPT technology to ultimately safeguard users’ identity. Clearly, enterprise features are at the heart of these chips.

The Intel Core vPro Processor family includes Intel Active Management Technology (Intel AMT) to remotely manage computing issues. For example, retailers with point-of-sale machines, digital signs or other intelligent devices can remotely diagnose and fix problems over the network. Further details can be found in the Via link below; no word on when actual machines with the new vPro gear will start to ship, though.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/Intel-Touts-3rdGen-Core-vPro-CPUs-Security-And-IT-Focused/

Thermaltake brought water cooling technology to the mainstream in 2002 with the introduction of Aquarius and BigWater Series of liquid cooling solutions for computer enthusiasts and DIYers. The solutions were developed by garnering enthusiast communities’ experience and feedback, coupled with Thermaltake’s core expertise in thermal management. The goal was to enable PC enthusiasts to achieve higher PC performance by providing additional cooling needed in order for the CPU to run at higher frequency. Today, Thermaltake is introducing its WATER2.0 line of liquid coolers and announcing immediate availability of the all-new WATER2.0 Performer and WATER2.0 Pro all-in-one closed-loop CPU liquid coolers.

The “2.0″ in the name denotes the progression and improvements that Thermaltake has made in the performance liquid cooling segment as well as the new approach which WATER2.0 solutions are taking. While traditional D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) liquid cooling kits offer expandability, the same benefit often complicates installation and filling these coolers introduces a risk of mixing water and electronics. WATER2.0 specifically addresses these concerns by having a closed-loop design, meaning all the fluid that are required for maximum performance are pre-filled and sealed inside so the users do not need to handle any type of liquid during installation or operation.

“WATER2.0 is not a direct replacement of air cooling solutions. The all-new WATER2.0 is an improved performance-driven solution that offers added benefits of simple installation, no-maintenance and extreme reliability to the traditional liquid cooling kit. After a long period of research and development, we came to a point where WATER2.0 has reached the performance standard that Thermaltake has set forth while ensuring a fluid user experience from installation to actual operation. Now is time perfect time to discover an all-new performance-driven alternative CPU cooling solution” commented Ramsom Koay, Director of Marketing for Thermaltake.

WATER2.0 Series closed-loop CPU liquid coolers are available in three different performance categories that cater to different performance requirements or applications. The WATER2.0 Performer features dual 120mm PWM fans with a high-performance 120mm x 25mm radiator that can be mounted to any chassis with an available 120mm case fan mount. The liquid circulation is handled by a high-efficiency, low-profile pump that sits on top of the all-copper cold plate. The low-profile pump is ideal for high-performance systems where high-end air cooler may interfere with enthusiasts-grade memories that often come equipped with taller heat spreaders. A dual-PWM adapter is also included allowing both included PWM fans to be connected to a single PWM fan header on the motherboard to ensure synchronous fan speed operation.

For more performance, the WATER2.0 Pro utilizes a much thicker radiator, 49mm compared to 25mm found on the Performer model, to dramatically increase the heat-dissipating surface area by almost doubling the doubling the volume of the radiator. The WATER2.0 Pro also includes the same low-profile pump along with dual 120mm PWM fans including the dual-PWM adapter.

While all of the WATER2.0 CPU liquid coolers provide performance and low-noise operation, WATER2.0 Extreme delivers the ultimate performance by incorporating a double-long (240mm x 25mm) radiator that further increases the available heat-dissipating surface area for maximum cooling power. WATER2.0 Extreme ships standard with dual 120mm PWM fans and it is capable of supporting up to four PWM fans in push-pull configuration. Targeting enthusiasts and overclocking consumers, the WATER2.0 Extreme also comes with Smart Control Software that allows the user to monitor status of various hardware elements within the cooling unit, in addition to creating cooling profiles that best matches the user’s working and gaming environment.

“WATER2.0 Series of closed-loop CPU liquid coolers are not just new products that Thermaltake is introducing,” stated Weller Chen, Director of Product Management at Thermaltake, “WATER2.0 represent a shift in design philosophy from Thermaltake that aligns user experience in the same breath with performance, as consumers can see from the maintenance-free operation as well as simplified installation.”

Source:http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18740&Itemid=99999999

Thermaltake brought water cooling technology to the mainstream in 2002 with the introduction of Aquarius and BigWater Series of liquid cooling solutions for computer enthusiasts and DIYers. The solutions were developed by garnering enthusiast communities’ experience and feedback, coupled with Thermaltake’s core expertise in thermal management.

The goal was to enable PC enthusiasts to achieve higher PC performance by providing additional cooling needed in order for the CPU to run at higher frequency. Today, Thermaltake is introducing its WATER 2.0 line of liquid coolers and announcing immediate availability of the all-new WATER 2.0 Performer and WATER 2.0 Pro all-in-one closed-loop CPU liquid coolers.

The “2.0” in the name denotes the progression and improvements that Thermaltake has made in the performance liquid cooling segment as well as the new approach which WATER 2.0 solutions are taking. While traditional D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) liquid cooling kits offer expandability, the same benefit often complicates installation and filling these coolers introduces a risk of mixing water and electronics. WATER 2.0 specifically addresses these concerns by having a closed-loop design, meaning all the fluid that are required for maximum performance are pre-filled and sealed inside so the users do not need to handle any type of liquid during installation or operation.

“WATER 2.0 is not a direct replacement of air cooling solutions. The all-new WATER 2.0 is an improved performance-driven solution that offers added benefits of simple installation, no-maintenance and extreme reliability to the traditional liquid cooling kit. After a long period of research and development, we came to a point where WATER 2.0 has reached the performance standard that Thermaltake has set forth while ensuring a fluid user experience from installation to actual operation. Now is time perfect time to discover an all-new performance-driven alternative CPU cooling solution” commented Ramsom Koay, Director of Marketing for Thermaltake.

Water20Performer2 300×292 Thermaltake Announces WATER 2.0 Series All In One Closed Loop CPU Liquid Cooler

WATER 2.0 Series closed-loop CPU liquid coolers are available in three different performance categories that cater to different performance requirements or applications. The WATER 2.0 Performer features dual 120mm PWM fans with a high-performance 120mm x 25mm radiator that can be mounted to any chassis with an available 120mm case fan mount. The liquid circulation is handled by a high-efficiency, low-profile pump that sits on top of the all-copper cold plate. The low-profile pump is ideal for high-performance systems where high-end air cooler may interfere with enthusiasts-grade memories that often come equipped with taller heat spreaders. A dual-PWM adapter is also included allowing both included PWM fans to be connected to a single PWM fan header on the motherboard to ensure synchronous fan speed operation.

For more performance, the WATER 2.0 Pro utilizes a much thicker radiator, 49mm compared to 25mm found on the Performer model, to dramatically increase the heat-dissipating surface area by almost doubling the doubling the volume of the radiator. The WATER2.0 Pro also includes the same low-profile pump along with dual 120mm PWM fans including the dual-PWM adapter.

While all of the WATER 2.0 CPU liquid coolers provide performance and low-noise operation, WATER 2.0 Extreme delivers the ultimate performance by incorporating a double-long (240mm x 25mm) radiator that further increases the available heat-dissipating surface area for maximum cooling power. WATER 2.0 Extreme ships standard with dual 120mm PWM fans and it is capable of supporting up to four PWM fans in push-pull configuration. Targeting enthusiasts and overclocking consumers, the WATER 2.0 Extreme also comes with Smart Control Software that allows the user to monitor status of various hardware elements within the cooling unit, in addition to creating cooling profiles that best matches the user’s working and gaming environment.

“WATER 2.0 Series of closed-loop CPU liquid coolers are not just new products that Thermaltake is introducing,” stated Weller Chen, Director of Product Management at Thermaltake, “WATER 2.0 represent a shift in design philosophy from Thermaltake that aligns user experience in the same breath with performance, as consumers can see from the maintenance-free operation as well as simplified installation.”

The WATER 2.0 Performer and Pro are now available at major retailers in the United States and Canada. MSRP for WATER 2.0 Performer is USD $69.99, and USD$99.99 for WATER 2.0 Pro.

The WATER 2.0 Extreme will be available in July at major retailers with MSRP at USD $129.99.

Source:http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/news/thermaltake-announces-water-2-0-series-all-in-one-closed-loop-cpu-liquid-cooler/

According to reports from various industry sources, the Chinese government has begun the process of picking a national computer chip instruction set architecture (ISA). This ISA would have to be used for any projects backed with government money — which, in a communist country such as China, is a fairly long list of public and private enterprises and institutions, including China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the world. The primary reason for this move is to lessen China’s reliance on western intellectual property.

There are at least five existing ISAs on the table for consideration — MIPS, Alpha, ARM, Power, and the homegrown UPU — but the Chinese leadership has also mooted the idea of defining an entirely new architecture. The first meeting to decide on a nationwide ISA, attended by government officials and representatives from academic groups and companies such as Huawei and ZTE, was held in March. According to MIPS vice president Robert Bismuth, a final decision will be made in “a matter of months.”

China has a long history with MIPS and Alpha. Loongson processors, which power millions of Chinese school computers, use MIPS — and the ShenWei processors (pictured right) found in China’s first homegrown supercomputer, the Sunway Bluelight MPP, are based on the Alpha ISA. MIPS Technologies (the company) hasn’t been doing very well recently, and it’s rumored that the Sunnyvale-based company could be up for sale — a purchase I’m sure the Chinese government could afford.

According to EE Times, there are some 34 ARM licensees in China, but at $5 million for a single Cortex-A9 core license, it’s unlikely that ARM will be China’s choice. The Power ISA is cheaper, but lacks the software ecosystems that ARM and MIPS enjoy. ShenWei/Alpha is also a possibility, but again it cannot compete with MIPS’ installed base.

The other option, of course, is developing a brand new ISA — a daunting task, considering you have to create an entire software (compiler, developer, apps) and hardware (CPU, chipset, motherboard) ecosystem from scratch. But, there are benefits to building your own CPU architecture. China, for example, could design an ISA (or microarchicture) with silicon-level monitoring and censorship — and, of course, a ubiquitous, always-open backdoor that can be used by Chinese intelligence agencies. The Great Firewall of China is fairly easy to circumvent — but what if China built a DNS and IP address blacklist into the hardware itself?

Taking a leaf out of South Korea’s hardcore gaming scene, what if the Chinese government decided to implement a hardware-level 10pm curfew for video games? Or some code that automatically turns negative mentions of Hu Jintao (the Chinese president) into positives, and inserts a few honorifics at the same time. Or a latent botnet of hundreds of millions of computers that can be activated upon the commencement of World War III. Or, or, or…

Source:http://www.extremetech.com/computing/127791-china-plans-national-unified-cpu-architecture?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=china-plans-national-unified-cpu-architecture

Toshiba said Monday it has developed hardware for servers that encodes and sends video streams without using CPU or memory, greatly increasing the number of streams that can be broadcast from a single machine.

In personal computers, video cards and other hardware have long been used to lessen the load on the main processor for intensive encoding and gaming applications. But Toshiba said its NPEngine is the first such solution for servers that can stream directly from solid-state drives to networks.

The company said the new hardware can stream 64,000 video streams at 40 gigabits per second, about three times that of one of its standard servers. It can handle IPTV (Internet Protocol television) as well as HTTP adaptive streaming.

The hardware will be included in Toshiba servers from this year, which typically cost $62,000 to $98,000, and will not be available as a separate component.

While large Internet companies like Google and Facebook typically rely on large server farms filled with cheap, custom-built machines to serve their content, smaller companies use pricier, advanced servers that have better reliability. Competition for sales of lucrative high-end machines is building as manufacturers like IBM and Fujitsu face new rivals in traditional software companies like Oracle and SAP, which are increasingly marketing servers that are custom-built to support their applications.

Source:http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225951/Toshiba_to_video_servers_to_use_streaming_hardware_instead_of_CPU_memory?taxonomyId=154

My first computer was a Commodore SX-64 ‘luggable’ computer with an integrated 5″ screen and a MOS 6510 CPU. It was magic, and a wave of nostalgia sweeps over me whenever I see a Commodore Basic startup screen with its flashing cursor at the Ready prompt. Learning how to load Jumpman at will, by punching cryptic commands into that computer, is what got me interested in computers at such an early age. It wasn’t long until I started building my own x86 computers from commodity hardware, from Intel 386 SXs through Cyrix x86 clones and AMD Athelons.

CPU Wars plays right to that nostalgia weakness. Built as a card game similar to the classic game of War or other ‘trump’ card games, and funded through Kickstarter, CPU Wars has you pitting the specs of various processors against each other to beat your opponent. Each card is broken into sections, beginning with the processor’s name, a photograph, a factoid and eight different statistics about the proc.

Each processor, from the Zilog Z80 through the AMD Phenom II, is lovingly photographed from creator Harry Mylonadis’ own collection. The specs include max clock speed, max bus speed, introduction year, transistor count, data width, manufacturing process, die size and max TDP (thermal design power).

Each category has an indicator which indicates whether the higher or lower value would win the battle. For example, in pitting a Motorola 68000 against a NexGen Nx586, the former’s 44 mm2 die size would beat the latter’s 165 mm2, but the NexGen’s 111 MHz clock speed would win over the Motorola’s 20 MHz.

A single deck of cards can be used between two players, and a three player game is best played with two decks. Players divide the cards amongst all players and players determine who goes first. (I recommend a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock.) Each player draws the top card from their stack. The player whose turn it is reviews their card’s stats and chooses one they think has the best value. Each player reads their value and the one with the best card wins all the cards. Continue until a player wins all of the cards.

I brought the game out in the office where I work as a Network Administrator and my colleagues got pretty excited about the game. Paging through the cards, they’d have similar trips of nostalgia about long forgotten processors and their personal stories behind them. It was a fun way for us to reminisce about our shared past through the history of modern computing. One variant we came up with in the game was to use a D8 dice to decide the category for each round, adding a bit of randomness to the game.

Overall, while the game won’t win any awards for its depth in strategy, CPU Wars is a cheap thrill as an expression of our nerd heritage. Revisiting old processors was fun and the stat section was surprisingly educational when comparing chips against each other. Indeed, as their website claims, this is the most fun you can have with CPU specs!

Source:http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/03/cpu-wars/

Some of you may never have heard of the Z77 chipset, and are therefore wondering what exactly it is. Surprisingly this isn’t a chipset for a new CPU socket type, and is instead the third enthusiast chipset release on the 1155 socket (previously P67 and Z68). There will also be a Z75 and H77 chipset accompanying the Z77, effectively superseding the “old” H61 chipset used on entry-level boards.

The Z77 chipset brings with it some advancement in technology, but not enough to be considered the “upgrade” from an existing Z68 motherboard. Most of the changes include support for both PCI-E Gen 3 and a greater quantity of USB and SATA 3 ports. USB 3 is now native to the ‘Panther Point’ chip, meaning slightly improved performance will be seen, though for most people this is of little significance as USB 3 portable devices are typically limited by read / write speeds of the hard disk used before the bus limitations.

With native support for both SLI and CrossFire, the Z77-GD65 is sure to be popular among gamers. The full PCI-E 3 support will also mean the maximum possible performance from AMDs new 7970, along with the up and coming replacement for the GTX 580 from NVIDIA.

Unfortunately due to the limitations of the Z77 chip, SLI and CrossFire will force the PCI-E lanes to run at x8/x8, and any boards sporting a 3-way setup will run at an ever more constricted x8/x4/x4. However, This problem is negated by the fact PCI-E gen 3 has a maximum throughput of 1GB/s per lane, compared to the 500MB/s per lane found on PCI-E 2. This means the gen 3 setup is exactly comparable to a x16/x16/x8 PCI-E gen 2 setup.

Essentially the Z77-GD65 isn’t too far removed from the Z68 offerings already available. The main changes are those found in the new chipset, and that largely involves I/O without any real benefits to overclocking or CPU efficiency. We put this to the test and compared the new Z77 board with the “old” Z68. We found a margin of difference roughly around 1%-1.8%, hardly worth noting, and could be put down to margin of error between the software and each run of the benchmark tools.

Due to more and more operations and responsibilities now being moved onto the CPU, we really couldn’t justify moving over to a Z77 board like the GD65 unless you have the specific need for native (and greater) USB 3, SATA 3 or PCI-E 3. These technologies are good, but usually a handful of USB, two SATA and a BIOS update for PCI-E 3 is all your Z68 board needs in order to get you ready for Ivy Bridge.

Source:http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/Review/293392,msi-z77-gd65-and-a-z77-snapshot.aspx

CineBench R11.5 Benchmarks

Maxon CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses the computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on Maxon’s award-winning animation software, Cinema 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. Maxon software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many more. CINEBENCH Release 11.5 includes the ability to more accurately test the industry’s latest hardware, including systems with up to 64 processor threads, and the testing environment better reflects the expectations of today’s production demands. A more streamlined interface makes testing systems and reading results incredibly straightforward.

The CINEBENCH R11.5 test scenario comprises three tests: an OpenGL-based test that models a simple car chase, and single-core and multi-core versions of a CPU-bound computation using all of a system’s processing power to render a photo-realistic 3D scene, “No Keyframes”, the viral animation by AixSponza. This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores, and all rendering is performed by the CPU: the graphics card is not involved except as a display device. The multi-core version of the rendering benchmark uses as many cores as the processor has, including the “virtual cores” in processors that support Hyper-Threading. The resulting “CineMark” is a dimensionless number only useful for comparisons with results generated from the same version of CINEBENCH.

What a nice, linear set of results! CINEBENCH really uses all the threads it can, and the more threads a CPU can dispatch, the better it’s going to do on this test.

In single core rendering, the i7-3820 at 3.6Ghz runs faster than all but the i7-3960X. This is a little strange, considering the i7-3960X runs at 3.3GHz. Perhaps its due to the massive 15MB of L3 cache on the $1k CPU. Multi-core rendering shows no surprises. The i7-3820 is the fasted quad-core on the chart. That’s pretty good, considering its price isn’t much higher than the i7-2600K.

Source:http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=874&Itemid=99999999&limit=1&limitstart=7

A global manufacturer of custom gaming machines, today announced it will feature AMDs new Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition and AMD Radeon HD 7850 GPUs across its entire desktop gaming PC line.

CyberpowerPC thinks its time to broaden your horizons and tap into the full potential of your GPU. The AMD Radeon HD 7870 and 7850 have been engineered to be the worlds most advanced graphics cards. They feature the award-winning GCN Architecture — the industrys first 28nm GPU design with full support for DirectX® 11 to power the next generation of high-def games and multimedia.

CyberpowerPCs designed around these advanced new GPUs also feature PCI Express 3.0; AMD App Acceleration to get unprecedented performance in everything from browsers to video editors; AMD ZeroCore Power technology, which shuts down the GPU during periods of long idle; and AMD Eyefinity technology, which delivers the unfair gaming advantage you deserve with multi-display support, 5×1 landscape, and 3D support.

The new Radeon GPUs will be offered in all CyberpowerPC desktop gaming PCs including the Gamer Infinity, Gamer Ultra, Gamer Xtreme, Fang series, and the recently released Zeus series.

These new AMD GPUs will also be offered as part of CyberpowerPCs huge March Madness offering, which features 10% off on select gaming PCs, free gaming hardware upgrades and more at www.cyberpowerpc.com/landingpages/2012MarchMadness/. The promotion is limited so do not wait until the last second and throw up a buzzer beater because you may miss out.

Base price of CyberpowerPC gaming systems based on the HD 7870 GHz Edition and AMD Radeon HD 7850 GPUs start at $799.

All CyberpowerPC gaming systems can be customized with a number of performance hardware and components such as CyberpowerPCs Advanced Hydro Liquid Cooling kit, Solid State Drives, Blu-Ray drives, performance gaming memory, gaming peripherals, business and productivity software, and more.

All systems are housed in a gaming chassis from top-tier manufacturers that are designed to be feature rich with advanced cooling, silent performance and extreme airflow. Every system is meticulously built with precise cable routing to ensure optimal airflow and a clean aesthetic appearance. CyberpowerPC loads every system with Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System for an enhanced gaming and multimedia experience. All CyberpowerPC desktop gaming systems include an industry-best 3-year limited warranty.

Source:http://hardware.broadcastnewsroom.com/article/CyberpowerPC-Makes-AMD-Radeon-HD-7870/7850-GPUs-Available-in-all-Gaming-PCs–1911493

There’s been a lot of talk about Intel’s Ivy Bridge platform lately, and specifically whether or not the Santa Clara chip maker’s new CPUs are being delayed until summer. Conflicting reports abound, but one thing we do know is that Ivy Bridge is right around the corner. Thanks to a leaked slide that’s made its way to the Web, we’re also privy to some unannounced details regarding Ivy Bridge.

CPU-World stumbled upon a flipbook PDF file listing a full lineup of desktop and mobile processors from January through April 2012, including third generation Core i5 3xxx and i7 3xxx Ivy Bridge chips.

Missing from the processor list (see partial list above) are Core i3 3xxx Ivy Bridge processors, though word on the Web is that those will be shipping in May or June. The original document (which has since been pulled offline), did, however, detail the existence of Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Ivy Bridge processors not previously disclosed, including Intel’s upcoming Core i7 3667U (2.5GHz, 25W TDPand Core i5 3427U (1.8GHz, 17W TDP) CPUs.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/Intels-Ivy-Bridge-Lineup-Leaked-to-the-Web/

Ever since Bulldozer’s less-than-spectacular debut, enthusiasts and investors have watched to see if the company would follow up with faster chips that improved overall performance. That’s finally started to happen; AMD announced two new chips today — the quad-core FX-4170 with a 4.2GHz base clock speed / 4.3GHz Turbo mode, and the six-core FX-6200 at 3.8GHz stock / 4.1GHz Turbo.

Both of the new parts are clocked ~15% faster than the FX-4100 and FX-6100 and may offer a slightly faster integrated memory controller as well; rumors indicate that the IMC is clocked at 2.2GHz, up from 2GHz. The new chips are reportedly based on the B3 stepping that’s been in the works for months; current Bulldozer parts are all based on the B2 stepping.

It’s good to see AMD pushing Bulldozer’s clock speeds higher, but there are two indications that the benefits of doing so will be fairly limited. The first is that AMD wasn’t able to hold the 95W TDP mark for either the quad-core or hexa-core variants; both the 4170 and 6200 carry a 125W TDP. The second is that while baseline clocks jumped quite a bit, Turbo Mode core speed didn’t. The 4170’s TM clock is 13% higher (compared to a 16% higher baseline clock) while the 6200’s Turbo Mode is a modest 5% higher than its predecessors.

What this suggests is that AMD has modestly improved power consumption in the CPU’s standard operating voltage, but hasn’t pushed the core’s absolute headroom much higher. This fits with the rumors around AMD’s upcoming 8170; that core is expected to debut a baseline frequency of 3.9GHz (up ~8% from the FX-8150) with a maximum full-load Turbo Mode of 4.2GHz (7% higher).

Pricing on the FX-8120 has also been cut as of these launches, though AMD didn’t provide information on how much. In the wake of Bulldozer’s launch, the FX-8120 and six-core 6100 variants were compared unfavorably with AMD’s older six-core X6 1090T and 1100T. AMD appears to have killed retail shipments of these older parts; neither the 1090T or X6 1100T are widely available, and prices have gone up significantly compared to the 1100T’s $180 price tag six months ago.

The FX-4170 and FX-6200 are showing up online for ~$140 and ~$180, compared to $109 and $149 for the older FX-4100 and FX-6100 parts. The most important achievement of these new parts is that they should at least achieve performance parity with AMD’s older 45nm chips. At 4.2GHz, the FX-4170 is clocked 17% faster than the old Phenom II X4 975 Deneb, while the only hexa-core Phenom II X6 left in stock at NewEgg is the Z6 1045T at 2.7GHz. If the 8170 launches at the expected clock speeds, it should be able to match/exceed the X6 1100T in a similar fashion.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/AMD-Launches-New-Bulldozer-CPUs-At-Substantially-Higher-Clockspeeds-TDPs/

I first ventured into liquid cooling for my computers way back, about a decade ago, for my Intel Pentium 4 “Williamette” and AMD “Duron” based test systems. This was when I was in high school and in my early years of reviewing computer hardware. Back then, the big players in the watercooling market were Danger Den and Swiftech. There were no pumps specific for computer watercooling, so most adopters of liquid cooling used fountain and pond pumps. For radiators, the main choices were the Black Ice series from HWLabs or car heatercores (I preferred Chevelle cores).

Soon after this time period, the liquid cooling market exploded with many new companies in the market and many more component options as a result. While I stayed more in the DIY/enthusiast end of the liquid cooling spectrum, I remember seeing many all-in-one liquid cooling kits appear. I always scoffed at them. They were never really good, with cooling performance not being remotely close to the top-end air coolers they were competing against, and price was always very high.

Today I’ll be looking at a modern version of an all-in-one liquid cooling kit, a class of product I used to dismiss. But it’s been a long time, and as with any other category of computer component, I’d expect this class to evolve for the better over time. Representing our first look at a modern all-in-one liquid cooling kit is Corsair’s H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU cooler. The highest end liquid cooler offered by Corsair, the word “extreme” is used by their marketing folks to describe it. We’ll see how that description holds true…

Build and Design

Corsair’s H100 is an all-in-one liquid cooling kit. It comes preassembed and prefilled with coolant (mixture of water and propelyne glycol), and consists of two main parts: the waterblock (with integrated pump) and radiator which are connected with flexible tubing. The H100 was designed to be simple to use with no maintenance required. Since it’s preassembled, installation is made easy as it only requires the mounting of the waterblock and radiator. Those familiar with the assembly of liquid cooling setups know that it’s more complicated than that. The H100 is Corsair’s attempt at bringing liquid cooling to the masses.

The waterblock, with its integrated pump, has an all black colour scheme. Its exterior is mostly all matte black plastic, except for the top which has a glossy insert. The top of the waterblock has a button that controls the speed of the fans that are plugged into it. Three speeds are selectable.

The fan controller integrated into the waterblock supports four fans. The side of the waterblock has four 4-pin PWM fan connectors. The cable coming out of the side of the waterblock ends in a 4-pin molex connector, supplying power for the waterblock and fans.

The other side of the waterblock has the inlet and outlet ports leading to the radiator. The connectors can be rotated as necessary, depending on how and where you install the radiator in relation to the waterblock.

The baseplate of the waterblock is copper. It’s smooth, but with faint-feeling machining marks. Thermal compound comes preapplied to the waterblock.

The radiator in the H100 kit is sized to support two 120mm fans. It’s entirely made of aluminum and is completely painted black. As mentioned earlier, the waterblock contains copper. Normally, in a pure water liquid cooling loop with mixed metals, galvanic corrosion will occur. Typically, aluminum will corrode and and build up on copper surfaces. In the case of the H100 this would be bad as it could lead to leaks in the radiator and clogging of the waterblock. What helps to slow down this corrosion is Corsair’s of propylene glycol additive in the liquid within the H100’s loop. Reassuringly, Corsair backs the H100 with a 5 year warranty, so users shouldn’t have to worry about corrosion for a while.

Source:http://www.circuitremix.com/?q=content/corsair-hydro-series-h100-extreme-performance-liquid-cpu-cooler

Intel’s presentations at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) this year are focused on one of the biggest problems facing modern CPU designers—how to improve power efficiency without sacrificing compute performance. Intel isn’t just tackling this problem through conventional process shrinks and smaller dies, however; the company detailed multiple new approaches. First up is Claremont, Intel’s first chip built to run on Near Threshold Voltage (NTV) technology.

The term “Near Threshold Voltage” refers to the amount of voltage required to switch a transistor from 0 to 1. Normally, the voltage variation between the two states is significant in order to prevent transistors from activating when they aren’t supposed to. An NTV processor is able to operate much closer to the On/Off point. The result is a significant level of power savings.

Claremont is a bog-standard Intel Pentium that’s been transplanted from its original 0.8µm process (that’s 800nm) to a 32nm architecture. Intel didn’t set out to label Claremont a solar-powered processor; the demo shot below was simply meant to show that the chip could run on extremely small amounts of power. The CPU’s operating parameters indicate such uses are an option; Claremont idles at 280mv at 3MHz and draws just 737mW of power at 915MHz and 1.2v.

For a pertinent example of why this matters, consider the tweaked graph below. The data is from our coverage of Medfield, Intel’s first smartphone processor, but we’ve updated the original with hard figures rather than simply showing a trend line. The reason power consumption increases so sharply as frequency rises, is because higher clock speeds require higher voltages, and raising voltage has a huge impact on power consumption.

It’s not clear yet if NTV would improve power consumption at maximum frequency or if its benefits are mainly confined to lower power modes, but the impact on mobile devices would be substantial. Much of what makes Medfield a huge step forward for Intel is the chip’s ability to minimize its power consumption and rapidly return to standby mode once computational tasks are complete. Smartphones spend the overwhelming majority of time — upwards of 90% — in standby or low-power modes, and that’s where NTV would deliver further improvements.

Source:http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Intel-Details-NextGen-Radios-SolarPowered-CPUs/

CyberPower unveiled its Zeus series of desktop computers that feature Intel’s new i7-3820 CPU, AMD FX CPUs, NZXT’s Switch 810 chassis, and Advanced Hydro Liquid Cooling. Initially, the Zeus series will include six models. The Zeus Thunder 1000, 2000, 300 and MAX will feature Intel’s latest CPUs, such as the 2nd Gen. Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E quad-core CPU. The Zeus Lightning series, models 1000 and 200, will feature the AMD FX series native 8-core desktop processor.

The Zeus series features graphics options from AMD and NVIDIA, low-latency high capacity memory modules, and solid state drives. For cooling, the Zeus gaming PCs can be configured with up to 10 120mm case fans or water cooling. The Zeus Thunder series starts under $1329. The AMD-based Zeus Lightning systems begin at $999.

A manufacturer of custom gaming machines, today announced its Zeus series — a powerful new line of desktop computers that offer the power of thunder with Intel’s new i7-3820 CPU; the speed of AMD’s lightning fast FX CPUs; the refined design of NZXT’s Switch 810 chassis, and legendary Advanced Hydro Liquid Cooling.

The initial Zeus rollout includes six models. The Zeus Thunder 1000, 2000, 300 and MAX will all feature Intel’s latest CPUs, including the new 2nd Gen. Core i7-3820 Sandy Bridge-E quad-core CPU operating at 3.6GHz, a 10MB L3 cache and HyperThreading support. The Zeus Lightning series consists of the 1000 and 200 models with the AMD FX series native 8-core desktop processor, which allows you to immerse yourself in the most advanced 3D games and achieve extreme mega-tasking with ease.

High definition gaming will be no myth because the Zeus series is outfitted with leading edge graphics from AMD and NVIDIA. They not only deliver excellent gaming performance but provide great versatility and speed in video transcoding. You can also harness the power of multiple video cards with your choice of CrossfireX or SLI graphics performance.

The CyberPowerPC Zeus series does not forget the memory and uses low-latency high capacity memory modules from top tier brands such as Kingston HyperX or Corsair Vengeance DDR3 memory. Solid state drives (SSDs) are also a standard feature with a choice of Intel, Corsair Kingston and OCZ models to provide super fast system response and quick loading times.

To become the supreme ruler of gaming as the Zeus name implies, you need an elegant and refined chassis to house your weapons. The CyberPowerPC Zeus series employs the NZXT Switch 810 full tower hybrid chassis. PC enthusiasts can easily modify this classy-white case for liquid cooling, silent performance, or extreme airflow. With a quick switch, the hybrid fins on the NZXT can open up to allow maximum air flow or close for enhanced sound reduction. The Switch 810 chassis is also loaded with front panel ports for enhanced connectivity, which includes dual USB 3.0 ports and an Integrated SD card reader convenient for on-the-fly file transfers.

Each Zeus gaming PC has the option of up to 10 120mm case fans for supreme cooling and is also “hydro-ready” for intricate water cooling solutions. CyberPowerPC’s Advanced Hydro Liquid Cooling can be added to any Zeus system to cool both the CPU and GPU(s). With the Advanced Hydro Liquid Cooling kit, you can opt for a 240mm or 360mm radiator for ultra cooling.

Base price of the Zeus Thunder series with Intel CPUs starts under $1329. Base price of AMD-based Zeus Lightning systems is $999.

All CyberPowerPC gaming systems are available worldwide and can be customized with a number of performance hardware and components such as Solid State Drives, Blu-Ray drives, gaming memory, gaming peripherals, business and productivity software, and more.

North American customers can configure their Zeus system at www.CyberpowerPC.com. In Europe CyberPowerPC Zeus systems can be custom configured at www.cyberpowerpc.co.uk.

Every system is meticulously built with precise cable routing to ensure optimal airflow and a clean aesthetic appearance. CyberPowerPC loads every system with Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System for an enhanced gaming and multimedia experience. All CyberPowerPC desktop gaming systems include an industry-best 3-year limited warranty.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/CyberPower-Targets-Gamers-With-New-Zeus-Desktop-Systems/

A few months back, we examined the performance of four liquid coolers for the Sandy Bridge-E socket LGA 2011 platform: Corsair’s H80 and H100, Maingear’s Epic 180, and Intel’s own reference cooler. Liquid coolers are popular with high-end OEMs and some enthusiasts, but they aren’t cheap — and there’s a certain group of enthusiasts who aren’t comfortable with flowing liquid in their systems.

Recently, we spoke with the team at Noctua, who offered to send us one of its high-end air coolers for comparison. We’ve been curious about the company since it came across our radar with its upgrade offer for anyone upgrading to Socket 2011 last year.

The Noctua DH-14 is a mammoth air cooler that competes performance-wise with many self-contained liquid coolers.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/Noctuas-DH14-CPU-Cooler-Sandy-BridgeE-Tested-and-Burned-In/

A CPU is a terrifically complex piece of hardware. Even Intel’s most lightweight Atom processors comprise more than 40 million transistors on a piece of silicon the size of a fingernail. And it isn’t only about numbers: the way these transistors implement the core logic that drives netbooks, set-top boxes and desktop PCs is the product of some seriously advanced electronic engineering.

Although the physical construction of CPUs may be abstruse, it isn’t hard to understand the principles of how modern processors are designed, and how they work. And it’s good to have an insight into what’s happening inside your PC. When you’re buying or upgrading a PC, such knowledge can help you choose the right processor for a given role, or troubleshoot unexpected behaviour. An understanding of how instructions are processed inside the CPU can also help programmers construct their code so it will run as quickly and efficiently as possible – although these days much processor optimisation is handled automatically by the compiler.

Physical construction

When you picture a CPU, you probably think of a small square of circuit board with a metal casing mounted on it. This is the CPU “package”. The casing isn’t removable, but if you were to prise it off you’d find a small square of silicon below it. This is the die, which contains the functional features of the CPU.

These features take the form of millions of transistors, etched into the silicon by a process called photolithography. Simply put, this involves projecting a design onto a sheet of silicon, using light-sensitive chemicals to “paint” this image onto the surface, then using corrosive agents to etch away the uncoated areas. By stacking multiple photolithographed layers together, it’s possible to make working 3D electronic circuits at a minuscule scale.

The precise scale of these transistors is usually expressed in micrometres (µm) or nanometres (nm), reflecting the size of the smallest feature that can be produced by a given fabrication process. Chip manufacturers are constantly shrinking the process size of their chips: the original Intel 80386 processor was manufactured using a 1.5µm process; the first Pentium IV models used a 180nm process; and the latest Core i7 processors are the product of a 32nm process.
Shrinking the process size enables manufacturers to produce ever more complex chips without commensurately increasing the size of the die. For example, the old Intel 80386 comprised 275,000 transistors on a die measuring 104mm2; thanks to process shrinkage, a Core i7-2600 processor crams 995 million transistors into a 216mm2 die.

This is good for several reasons. First, producing high-grade silicon is expensive. A smaller die means lower material costs, so the chips can be sold cheaply and the manufacturer can still make a healthy profit on each one.

Ordinarily, when you shrink a transistor it also requires less power to operate, and burns off less energy as heat. This means smaller transistors can run at higher frequencies without overheating, giving a free performance boost. Since they draw less power, they’re better for the environment – and also, in the case of laptops and mobile devices, for battery life.

Regardless of the process size, all chips generate some heat. This is conducted away by the metal casing, and from there to an external cooler unit. The maximum amount of heat that a chip is expected to dissipate is referred to as its Thermal Design Power (TDP), measured in watts. It doesn’t necessarily indicate how much power a processor will draw in real-world use, but you can expect a chip with a 35W TDP to draw less power than one with a 65W TDP.

The CPU’s surroundings

The CPU fits into a dedicated socket on a compatible motherboard, which connects it to the rest of the system components. Until a few years ago, communication between the CPU and other components was mediated by two chips on the motherboard: the “north bridge” dealt with high-speed connections such as PCI Express and memory buses, and the “south bridge” handled lower-bandwidth components such as sound cards and hard disks. Together, these chips were called the chipset.

In modern designs, the memory controllers – and, sometimes, the PCI Express controllers too – are built directly into the processor, which makes things faster and more efficient. Motherboards still offer a range of chipsets, however, supporting different features. For example, the Intel H67 Express chipset supports the integrated graphics processors that are built into current Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. The P67 Express chipset doesn’t support onboard graphics, but does enable overclocking (on CPU models that support it). On the AMD side, the 870 chipset allows the motherboard to offer a single PCI Express x16 slot, while the 890FX chipset can support up to four such slots. Many AMD chipsets also include a low-power GPU, since AMD’s Athlon and Phenom processors don’t have graphics inside the chips themselves.

What the CPU does

Clearly, the CPU is a highly sophisticated piece of electronic engineering. But in terms of what it actually does, you can think of it as essentially a calculator, whose primary function is to apply simple mathematical operations to the values stored in its internal registers. It can also copy these register contents to and from the computer’s main memory as needed.

Fundamentally, therefore, computer programming is a process of preparing the appropriate instructions to be performed in the right order on the appropriate data. Originally, this was done in assembly language – a system of codes that directly represent the CPU’s internal instructions. These days it’s more usual to write in languages such as C++, and to use compiler software to translate your program into native machine code. The principle is the same, however.

When the CPU executes a program, each instruction goes through a four-stage cycle. First, the instruction code is fetched from memory. Then it’s decoded to determine the actual instruction required. If the instruction requires a piece of data to be fetched from the main memory, this is done. Finally, the instruction is executed, and any output is written to memory, or to an internal register. Execution then continues with the next instruction code.

If you think of the CPU as a clockwork mechanism, each stage of this process represents a “tick” – more formally known as a clock cycle. The number of ticks the CPU completes per second represents its operating frequency, or clock speed. A typical CPU might have a frequency of around 2GHz – equivalent to two billion cycles per second. (In fact, modern processors can automatically adjust their frequencies to suit the workload – see SpeedStep and Turbo Boost – but for the purposes of this example, let’s assume the frequency is constant.) If each instruction goes through a four-stage process, you’d expect a 2GHz CPU core to complete 500 million instructions per second. In fact, modern CPUs can do rather better than this, thanks to an approach called pipelining.

Pipelining

In the four-stage cycle described above, each stage of the instruction cycle is carried out by a different part of the core; for example, once the instruction fetcher has retrieved an instruction and handed it over to the decoder unit, it has nothing more to do. Pipelining takes advantage of this by immediately putting the fetcher to work on the next instruction, while the decoder unit is doing its job – and so on along the chain. This means all the parts of the CPU can be working at once, and in theory one instruction can be completed in every single clock cycle.

In practice, the system isn’t quite this efficient. We’ve assumed that each stage in the pipeline takes one clock cycle to complete, but in reality the execution stage can often take several cycles, depending on the complexity of the instruction. On an Intel Sandy Bridge processor, for example, multiplying two 32-bit values together takes four cycles, and dividing one value by another takes 26 cycles. While these operations are being processed, the pipeline can’t progress. Depending on the nature of your code, a core could fall far short of executing one instruction per clock cycle.
Pipelining can also fail when a conditional branch instruction is encountered – that is, where the flow of the program is potentially diverted according to a logical test. Such branches are a basic ingredient of programming: even the most casual tinkerer will recognise constructions such as “IF X<5 THEN GOTO 20”. But such constructions are anathema to pipelining. Until the logical test is processed – at the end of the pipeline – the fetcher has no way of knowing whether it should be continuing to fetch the next instruction in sequence, or whether it should be branching to a different point in the program.

So the fetcher makes an educated guess, with the help of a dedicated circuit called a branch predictor. This component tries to predict what the outcome of the logical test will be, based on the outcome of previous similar operations. On this basis, the fetcher continues speculatively loading instructions into the pipeline. But the branch predictor can’t be right all the time, and when it’s wrong the pipelined instructions must be discarded, leading to wasted cycles as the pipeline is refilled.

What’s more, although we’ve characterised the execution cycle as a four-stage process, modern CPU architectures typically break the work down into many smaller stages. Intel’s Core 2 Duo models, for example, use a 14-stage pipeline, and the Pentium D that preceded them had 31 stages. Depending on the processor, a failed branch prediction could mean discarding a dozen pipelined instructions or more – and wasting that many cycles.

Caches & out-of-order execution

There’s a further problem with the pipeline model as we’ve described it above. In our examples, we’ve assumed that fetching instructions and data from the system memory can be done in one clock cycle. In reality, depending on the speed of your DIMMs and CPU, it can easily take 15 cycles or more to load a value from memory into a CPU register.

Obviously, it’s hugely inefficient for the CPU to sit idle for 15 cycles every time it needs to access a value from memory. To work around this, modern processors use two approaches. The first is caching: building small amounts of very fast memory directly onto the CPU, and using this whenever possible, rather than accessing the slower system RAM. A different part of the CPU takes care of synchronising this cached data with main memory, while the execution unit gets on with other tasks.

Modern processors use a multilevel cache system: the smallest and fastest cache is level one (L1), which is used for storing instructions and data, and typically has a capacity of 64KB or 128KB. Then come larger, slower L2 and L3 caches, with sizes measured in megabytes. This very fast, on-chip RAM is expensive to produce, so a common way to reduce the costs is by shrinking or removing caches – but this has a detrimental effect on performance.

In addition to caching, processors can also implement out-of-order execution (OoOE). This means what it says: in an OoOE pipeline, instructions don’t have to be processed in strict sequence, but can overtake one another. If one instruction is held up waiting for data to arrive from the main memory, the CPU can continue to process other instructions that were behind it in the pipeline, and come back to the instruction when it’s ready to be executed.

Clearly, there are limits to OoOE. The CPU can’t just skim back and forth between instructions as it sees fit, or programs wouldn’t work as intended. A buffering system is used to ensure instructions take effect in the right order, even if they were executed out of sequence.

However, OoOE can still save a lot of time – for example, by allowing the execution unit to get started on a slow calculation while another instruction is waiting for its data to arrive from main memory. That sort of optimisation can make a big difference, so almost all modern processors use OoOE. The notable exception is Intel’s Atom range – which is one reason why Atom-powered devices feel sluggish compared to mainstream processors.

Cores & threads

So far we’ve focused on the workings of an individual CPU core; but most current processors combine two or four cores. This allows them to chew through multiple instructions at once, which in turn means you can run more programs smoothly at once. Of course, you can multitask on a single core CPU; but this is achieved by “time-slicing”, rather than true simultaneous processing, and it’s apt to deliver uneven performance.

Having a multicore processor won’t ordinarily make individual programs run any faster. This is because most programs are designed to run in a strict linear fashion – so the second instruction, for example, must be executed after the first has completed, not at the same time. This sequential process – this “thread”, as it’s called – has no way to make use of additional CPU cores.

Some types of task, however, can be divided into multiple threads. For example, imagine a program that’s designed to convert a folder full of audio files into MP3 format. On detecting that it was running on a quad-core processor, such a program might spawn four independent encoding processes, and hand one to each CPU core. In this way, the total encoding time could be quartered. Applications for 3D rendering can typically divide up their workload in a similar way.
Intel processors use a feature called Hyper-Threading to gain additional throughput. Each core in a Hyper-Threading CPU appears to the operating system as two virtual cores. In reality, the core can only process a single instruction at once – but it has two sets of registers, enabling it to switch its attention back and forth between two threads to make the most efficient use of its processing capacity. Predictably, the benefit is less than you’d see from two physical cores. But in our benchmarks we’ve seen Hyper-Threading prove its worth, giving multithreaded tasks a performance boost of around 30%.

Instructions & extensions

Earlier we characterised the CPU as “essentially a calculator”; this isn’t a bad analogy, but the modern CPU boasts several sophistications that your average Casio can only dream of.

For one thing, the conventional pocket calculator can handle up to eight digits only, so the largest number that can be represented is 99,999,999. All modern CPUs can operate on 32-bit binary data, enabling them to work directly with values up to 4,294,967,296. Most also support 64-bit operation (when used with a 64-bit operating system), for values up to 18,446,744,073,709,551,656. This means they can work with huge numbers at full speed with perfect accuracy. It also means a 64-bit operating system can support millions of terabytes of memory, while 32-bit systems are limited to 4GB (of which, in practice, only around 3.5GB is usable in Windows).

In addition to regular calculator operations, CPUs also support “extensions” that accelerate certain types of task. The SSE extensions found in every modern processor are a good example: the acronym stands for Streaming SIMD Extensions, with SIMD in turn standing for Single Instruction, Multiple Data. In practice, one SSE instruction can make the processor tear through a data set applying a single operation – such as addition or subtraction – to every data element in the set in a fraction of the time it would take to process each element individually. Implementing these special instructions involves considerable engineering work at the design stage, but once the feature is there it can give an enormous boost to tasks such as video processing and data compression.

Another sort of extension that’s commonly found in modern processors is hardware virtualisation. Conventionally, virtualisation software acts as a middle man between the virtual environment and the real hardware resources, which can slow things down considerably. Virtualisation extensions allow code running in the virtual machine to execute directly on the processor, at full speed – but instructions that can’t be executed natively are automatically trapped, so they can be handled by the virtualisation host software.

Extensions can also be used to provide security. Intel’s 2010 range of Core i3, i5 and i7 processors brought a new set of extensions called AES-NI, which enable the processor to encrypt and decrypt data using the industry-standard AES encryption algorithm at accelerated speeds. Intel’s TXT (Trusted Execution Technology) prevents programs from carrying out potentially dangerous activities, such as modifying resources that are being used by another process or snooping on the keyboard and mouse. An extension called Data Execution Prevention prevents the processor from running code that wasn’t loaded into memory as such: this makes it harder for viruses and hacker attacks to sneak onto the system.

With all these extensions and features, the modern CPU is far more than a simple calculator. In fact, it’s a miracle of engineering. When you reflect that the microprocessor was invented only a short half-century ago, it’s incredible to think what’s been accomplished… and there’s no sign of that progress slowing down any time soon.

Steppings

There are many different types of processor on the market. Some are designed for servers and workstations; some are designed for netbooks and low-power laptops.

But within a given family, it’s likely that most models will use the same core design. For example, consider AMD’s Athlon II X4 640, Phenom II X4 940 and Phenom II X4 980 processors. They perform quite differently, but that’s thanks to differing amounts of L3 cache and differing clock speeds. The physical arrangement of transistors inside the different models is functionally identical.

This approach makes commercial sense, because setting up a photolithographic process isn’t cheap. But it means that if any bugs sneak into the process, they’ll affect the entire processor family. AMD knows this to its cost: when it launched the first Phenom processors back in 2007, every model suffered from a serious bug that reduced performance by at least 10%.
In such cases, the only thing to do is to revise the design and introduce what’s called a new “stepping”. In this instance, the faulty chips were made from a design that had the stepping code B2; some months later, when AMD started to produce chips from an updated design, this was known as the B3 stepping. (The first testing design of a processor is commonly given the stepping A0, with subsequent major changes represented by a new letter and minor changes by incrementing the number.)

Even when there isn’t a problem with a chip, it’s common for processors to go through a few steppings over their lifetimes. Intel’s first range of Core i7 processors, released in 2008, had the stepping code C0; but if you’d bought one of the same models a year later, it would have been a D0 stepping. No major changes were announced, but overclockers found D0 models more stable at very high speeds. Presumably Intel found a way to simplify the design, making it more stable and increasing the proportion of chips that come out of the manufacturing process in perfect working order – the “yield”, in industry jargon.

SpeedStep and Turbo Boost

We traditionally think of a processor as running at a set frequency, but for more than a decade almost all CPUs have had the ability to dynamically adjust their clock speeds. Intel’s SpeedStep technology, first introduced with the Pentium III processor, detects when the processor isn’t being used to its full capacity and automatically turns the speed down. When the processor is taxed, the speed immediately ramps up again. This lets the computer deliver full performance when the user wants it, while generating less heat and consuming less power when the user is doing something passive, such as reading a web page. AMD processors have had the same ability for just as long, under the name PowerNow! for mobile chips and Cool’n’Quiet for desktop processors.

With the introduction of the Core i7 in 2008, Intel extended the principle to run in the other direction as well, with a new feature called Turbo Boost. It took advantage of the fact that quad-core i7 chips were designed with a TDP to accommodate all four cores being used simultaneously. When only one or two cores were in use, it was possible to automatically increase the speed of those cores while remaining within the overall heat and power budget.

In modern Core i5 and i7 processors, Turbo Boost is more aggressive, and can kick in even when all four cores are active. And AMD has followed suit, with the similarly-named Turbo Core system appearing in the six-core Phenom II X6 range, and more recently on some models of its A-Series processors. So when you next buy, say, a 2GHz processor, it’s likely it will in fact spend most of its time running well below that speed – and a fair proportion running well above it.

Source:http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Feature/290164,what-goes-on-inside-the-cpu.aspx

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a technique to take advantage of the “fused architecture” emerging on multicore CPUs that puts central processing units and graphics processing units on the same chip. The technology, called CPU-assisted general purpose computation on graphics processor units (CPU-assisted GPGPU) uses software compiled to leverage the architecture to allow the CPU and GPU to collaborate on computing tasks, boosting processor performance on average by more than 20 percent in simulations.

The approach, outlined in a paper by NC State Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Dr. Huiyang Zhou, Ph.D. candidates Yi Yang and Ping Xiang, and AMD GPU Architect Mike Mantor, is designed for fused architecture chipsets with a shared L3 cache and shared off-chip memory for CPUs and GPUs. The approach developed by the team leverages the computing power of the GPU, while taking advantage of the CPU’s more flexible data retrieval and better handling of complex tasks.

The current generation of hybrid CPU/GPU systems, including Intel’s “Sandy Bridge” and AMD’s “Llano” has helped create more energy-efficient systems and reduce manufacturing costs, Zhou said. “However, the CPU cores and GPU cores still work almost exclusively on separate functions. They rarely collaborate to execute any given program, so they aren’t as efficient as they could be. That’s the issue we’re trying to resolve.”

GPUs are obviously designed for handling graphics, but they are also very good at handling large numbers of parallel processes, particularly in applications where the same process needs to be applied to large amounts of data. Traditionally, one of the the biggest problems when using GPUs for general purpose computing has been that they don’t handle complex, branchy, pointer-heavy code very well at all—which is the strength of CPUs. The long pipelines of most GPUs instead favor sequential, streaming reads, and applications where there’s a high ratio of arithmetic operations applied to data relative to the amount of data that has to be moved to and from memory. Hybrid chips like Sandy Bridge have less main memory bandwidth than typical discrete GPUs (albeit with lower latency), so keeping the fast level 3 cache filled with data is essential if developers want to avoid starving the GPU of data.

CPU-assisted GPGPU uses the CPU’s faster L3 cache pre-fetching to feed data to the GPU, cutting out performance drags that come with GPU code accessing memory. A program compiled for CPU-assisted GPGPU launches a “pre-execution” program at startup on the CPU to pre-fetch data to be processed by GPU code and load it into the level 3 cache onboard the chip. That allows process threads running in the GPU to hit the L3 cache directly, rather than fetching from memory, reducing latency and significantly boosting performance. In some cases, the performance of simulated applications improved by up to 113%, the researchers claimed.

Why simulated? AMD’s current hybrid processor, the Llano, lacks a shared L3 cache, so it won’t support the approach. And Intel’s Sandy Bridge offers only limited GPGPU functionality. In a phone interview with Ars, Dr. Zhou explained that in theory the research could be applied to Intel’s current Sandy Bridge architecture, which provides a shared last-level cache for CPUs and GPUs in its architecture. But he said that Sandy Bridge’s GPU “isn’t that powerful” and Intel’s current software support “doesn’t include support for OpenCL and other GPGPL stuff.” However, he said, he expects that the hardware support for CPU-assisted GPGPU applications will be in upcoming generations of hybrid platforms from both Intel and AMD, and software support will follow. And, he added, “it’s already assumed that the GPU (in Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors) will be much more powerful than Sandy Bridge.”

Real World Technologies editor David Kanter said that he expects to see “a lot more work in this area, as engineers and researchers must improve performance significantly, while maintaining or reducing power consumption.” But he noted that there wasn’t information in the research about the power consumption impact of the technology. Zhou said that the research hasn’t yielded any hard numbers on what the power consumption impact would be.

Zhou said that his team’s research had been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and AMD, and was just the latest collaboration with Mantor. But the research up until now has been fundamental scientific research, and he couldn’t say how it might be commercialized by AMD or Intel.

Source:http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/02/researchers-boost-processor-performance-by-getting-cpu-and-gpu-to-collaborate.ars

After all these years, LaCie’s storage hardware still looks better than storage hardware from pretty much any other vendor. And if you’re starting up a small business, you may be interested in what the company’s got on offer now. This week, LaCie announced the 5big Office Series, its latest five-bay network attached storage solutions. The 5big Office Series, powered by Windows Home Server 2011, packs a 1.6GHz 64-bit Atom CPU, 2GB of RAM and plenty of options. There’s a single-drive edition that allows users to add additional drives, as needed, for up to 10TB of total capacity. It reduces the initial investment and assures a long-term solution. What’s more, its PC backup data deduplication only backs up a single instance of redundant data. This optimizes storage space as well as increases backup speed.

The 5big Office+ offers all the features of the 5big Office, but brings powerful tools – including DFS-R/N – for integration with offsite servers. IT managers can centralize and consolidate data, even when it’s spread across multiple geographic locations. The 5big Office+ also features Windows domain/Active Directory support, a faster dual-core processor, dual Ethernet links, and can back up more PCs. The LaCie 5big Office is available in single-disk 2TB capacity and the 5big Office+ is available in single-disk 2TB or five-disk 10TB capacities through the LaCie Online Store and LaCie Storage Partners starting at $749.00. Eager to learn more? Have a look at the video below.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/LaCie-Announces-5big-Office-Series-Powered-By-Windows-Home-Server-2011/

Sony announced new CPU options for its S Series of laptops. The 13-inch and 15-inch S Series models now offer the newest generation of Intel Core processors with Core i7 options. The S Series features Hybrid Graphics (AMD Radeon HD 6470M or AMD Radeon HD 6630M), optical drives (including Blu-ray Disc options), backlit keyboards, options for solid state drives, and QUAD RAID 0 technology. The 13-inch S Series starts at $799 while the 15-inch models start at $979. Both 13- and 15-inch models will be available in early February.

Sony also refreshed its E Series with the latest 2nd generation Intel Core processors and four color options. The E Series is available in 14- and 15-inch sizes and starts at $499 and $459, respectively. In addition to refreshing the S Series line with new CPU options, Sony also added a Carbon Silver color option for the VAIO Z Series laptop.

Sony today announces the availability of a new Carbon Silver color for the VAIO® Z Series laptop and a variety of updated models with new CPU options and enhancements.

New Color and technology for the Z Series

The updated Z Series with the new option of Carbon Silver is added to the existing choices of Carbon Black, Carbon Gold, and Premium Carbon Black. Also available is optional LTE mobile broadband built-in, supporting 4G data service. With the latest 2nd generation Intel® processors ranging from Intel Core™ i5 and higher and RAID 0 solid state drives, the Z Series continues Sony’s efforts to offer users advanced performance and design that fits their mobile lifestyles. Starting at $1949.99, the Z Series includes the Power Media Dock™ drive, ideal for the business user in need of additional ports or external displays.

New CPU’s for the S Series Laptops

The S Series continues to offer performance mobility and all around excellence since its debut last year. The 13” and 15” inch models feature everything students and performance minded users need including standard voltage processors, Hybrid Graphics, optical drives (Blu-ray Disc™ options as well), backlit keyboards and the VAIO, ASSIT and WEB hardware buttons for launching Media Gallery™ software, VAIO Care™ support software and access to the web without full boot-up Windows®, all with a touch of a button. In addition, options for solid state drives on both the 13” and 15” S Series laptops include 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB and feature QUAD RAID 0 technology for enhanced performance.

With the newest generation of Intel® Core™ processors now available, the S Series features updated CPU’s on the 13” and 15” models both available with up to Core i7, delivering even more performance automatically when users need it most.

Hybrid Graphics and IPS Technology for S Series

The S Series includes Hybrid Graphics with either an AMD Radeon HD 6470M (512MB VRAM) or AMD Radeon HD 6630M (1GB VRAM), providing flexibility between performance and maximum battery life. The 15” will come standard with a 15.5” Full HD display (1920 x 1080) with IPS technology for improved image quality and viewing angles.

When coupled with the advanced large-capacity optional sheet battery, users can stay mobile and unplugged for up to 12 hours while also offering a thin battery profile. Intelligent charging enables VAIO® S Series users to charge the optional sheet battery separately from the PC and attach it to the system at any time without shutting down for maximum flexibility.

The 13” S Series will start at $799. The 15” S Series will start at $979 and includes the Full HD display and Intel Core i5 processor. Both 13” and 15” models will be available starting early February.

New CPU’s for E Series

Ideal for students and everyday users, the refreshed E Series is now available with the latest 2nd generation Intel Core processors and in four colors including Glacier White, Charcoal Black, Midnight Blue and Blush Pink with a unique textured design. Available in 14” and 15” inch sizes, the E Series also features Intel® Wireless Display for select models, VAIO, ASSIST and WEB hardware buttons, optional keyboard skins and optional dedicated NVIDIA® graphics with up to 1GB VRAM. Pricing starts at $499 for the 14” series and $459 for the 15” series.

Software updates to all Series

In addition to a new Z Series color and refreshed CPUs, the Sony VAIO team also updated some software. With the updated Media Gallery™ 2.0, users will experience a new look and feel including new features for popular social networking services. The S Series will come with the update already installed and is available for users to download for other models. Also included is the Music Unlimited promotion, providing 180 days of Music Unlimited basic service for free for first time users. The F Series laptop and L Series All-in-One come preloaded with Sony Imagination Studio™ Multimedia Edition, a collection of audio and video editing software, including the award winning Sony Vegas® Movie Studio HD.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/Sony-Offers-New-CPU-Options-For-S-Series-And-E-Series-Laptops/

The CPU design firm Venray Technology announced a new product design this week that it claims can deliver enormous performance benefits by combining CPU and DRAM on to a single piece of silicon. We spent some time earlier this fall discussing the new TOMI (Thread Optimized Multiprocessor) with company CTO Russell Fish, but while the idea is interesting; its presentation is marred by crazy conceptualizing and deeply suspect analytics.

The Multicore Problem:

There are three limiting factors, or walls, that limit the scaling of modern microprocessors. First, there’s the memory wall, defined as the gap between the CPU and DRAM clock speed. Second, there’s the ILP (Instruction Level Parallelism) wall, which refers to the difficulty of decoding enough instructions per clock cycle to keep a core completely busy. Finally, there’s the power wall–the faster a CPU is and the more cores it has, the more power it consumes.

Attempting to compensate for one wall often risks running afoul of the other two. Adding more cache to decrease the impact of the CPU/DRAM speed discrepancy adds die complexity and draws more power, as does raising CPU clock speed. Combined, the three walls are a set of fundamental constraints–improving architectural efficiency and moving to a smaller process technology may make the room a bit bigger, but they don’t remove the walls themselves.

TOMI attempts to redefine the problem by building a very different type of microprocessor. The TOMI Borealis is built using the same transistor structures as conventional DRAM; the chip trades clock speed and performance for ultra-low low leakage. Its design is, by necessity, extremely simple. Not counting the cache, TOMI is a 22,000 transistor design, as compared to 30,000 transistors for the original ARM2. The company’s early prototypes, built on legacy DRAM technology, ran at 500MHz on a 110nm process.

Instead of surrounding a CPU core with a substantial amount of L2 and L3 cache, Venray inserted a CPU core directly into a DRAM design. A TOMI Borealis core connects eight TOMI cores to a 1Gbit DRAM with a total of 16 ICs per 2GB DIMM. This works out to a total of 128 processor cores per DIMM. Because they’re built using ultra-low-leakage processes and are so small, such cores cost very little to build and consume vanishingly small amounts of power (Venray claims power consumption is as low as 23mW per core at 500MHz).

It’s an interesting idea.

The Bad:

When your CPU has fewer transistors than an architecture that debuted in 1986, it’s a good chance that you left a few things out–like an FPU, branch prediction, pipelining, or any form of speculative execution. Venray may have created a chip with power consumption an order of magnitude lower than anything ARM builds and more memory bandwidth than Intel’s highest-end Xeons, but it’s an ultra-specialized, ultra-lightweight core that trades 25 years of flexibility and performance for scads of memory bandwidth.

The last few years have seen a dramatic surge in the number of low-power, many-core architectures being floated as the potential future of computing, but Venray’s approach relies on the manufacturing expertise of companies who have no experience in building microprocessors and don’t normally serve as foundries. This imposes fundamental restrictions on the CPU’s ability to scale; DRAM is manufactured using a three layer mask rather than the 10-12 layers Intel and AMD use for their CPUs. Venray already acknowledges that these conditions imposed substantial limitations on the original TOMI design.

Of course, there’s still a chance that the TOMI uarch could be effective in certain bandwidth-hungry scenarios–but that’s where the Venray Crazy Train goes flying off the track.

Let’s start here. In a graph like this, you expect the two bars to represent the same systems being compared across three different characteristics. That’s not the case. When we spoke to Russell Fish in late November, he pointed us to this publicly available document and claimed that the results came from a customer with 384 2.1GHz Xeons. There’s no such thing as an S5620 Xeon and even if we grant that he meant the E5620 CPU, that’s a 2.4GHz chip.

The “Power consumption” graphs show Oracle’s maximum power consumption for a system with 10x Xeon E7-8870s, 168 dedicated SQL processors, 5.3TB (yes, TB) of Flash and 15x 10,000 RPM hard drives. It’s not only a worst-case figure, it’s a figure utterly unrelated to the workload shown in the Performance comparison. Furthermore, given that each Xeon E7-8870 has a 130W TDP, ten of them only come out to 1.3kW–Oracle’s 17.7kW figure means that the overwhelming majority of the cabinet’s power consumption is driven by components other than its CPUs.

From here, things rapidly get worse. Fish makes his points about power walls by referring to unverified claims that prototype 90nm Tejas chips drew 150W at 2.8GHz back in 2004. That’s like arguing that Ford can’t build a decent car because the Edsel sucked.

After reading about the technology, you might think Venray was planning to market a small chip to high-end HPC niche markets… and you’d be wrong. The company expects the following to occur as a result of this revolutionary architecture (organized by least-to-most creepy):

* Computer speech will be so common that devices will talk to other devices in the presence of their users.
* Your cell phone camera will recognize the face of anyone it sees and scan the computer cloud for backround red flags as well as six degrees of separation
* Common commands will be reduced to short verbal cues like clicking your tongue or sucking your lips
* Your personal history will be displayed for one and all to see…women will create search engines to find eligible, prosperous men. Men will create search engines to qualify women. Criminals will find their jobs much more difficult because their history will be immediately known to anyone who encounters them.
* TOMI Technology will be built on flash memories creating the elemental unit of a learning machine… the machines will be able to self organize, build robust communicating structures, and collaborate to perform tasks.
* A disposable diaper company will give away TOMI enabled teddy bears that teach reading and arithmetic. It will be able to identify specific children… and from time to time remind Mom to buy a product. The bear will also diagnose a raspy throat, a cough, or runny nose.

Conclusion:

Fish has spent decades in the microprocessor industry–he invented the first CPU to use a clock multiplier in conjunction with Chuck H. Moore–but his vision of the future is crazy enough to scare mad dogs and Englishmen.

His idea for a CPU architecture is interesting, even underneath the obfuscation and false representation, but too practically limited to ever take off. Google, an enthusiastic and dedicated proponent of energy efficient, multi-core research said it best in a paper titled “Brawny cores still beat wimpy cores, most of the time.”

“Once a chip’s single-core performance lags by more than a factor to two or so behind the higher end of current-generation commodity processors, making a business case for switching to the wimpy system becomes increasingly difficult… So go forth and multiply your cores, but do it in moderation, or the sea of wimpy cores will stick to your programmers’ boots like clay.”

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/CPU-Startup-Combines-CPUDRAMAnd-A-Whole-Bunch-Of-Crazy/