52072559
submission
MojoKid writes:
Day two of NVIDIA’s tech event began with a keynote from CEO Jen-Hsun Huang about NVIDIA’s commitment to gaming and bringing high-quality gaming technology to all platforms, specifically referencing the PC, Android and cloud gaming. Huang then unveiled what he called “one of the most important works NVIDIA has done for computer graphics.” The feature is called G-SYNC. It’s an end-to-end architecture that starts with a Kepler-based GPU and ends with a G-SYNC module within a display. What G-SYNC does is keep the display and GPU in sync, regardless of frame rates or whether or not V-Sync is enabled. Instead of the monitor controlling the timing, and refreshing at say every 60Hz, with G-SYNC the timing control is transferred to the GPU. The monitor shouldn’t update until a frame is done drawing. As soon as a frame is done drawing, the monitor should update as soon as it can. With the technology, lag is reduced to 2-3ms, the screen is only updated when it needs to be and tearing is fundamentally eliminated. Finally, to close the show, NVIDIA announced the new GeForce GTX 780 Ti. It’s due on store shelves in mid-November, no specs were revealed but based on the branding the card should be a clock-boosted version of the standard GeForce GTX 780.
52070679
submission
Deathspawner writes:
At a press event held in Montreal, Canada, NVIDIA announced the latest update to its Surround multi-display technology. While it will require a ridiculous amount of graphics horsepower, the company has touted compatibility with 4K displays, resulting in a resolution of 11520×2160, effctively 1080p x 12. Prepare to open that wallet wide.
51746291
submission
MojoKid writes:
Samsung apparently is intent on beating LG to market with a curved-display smartphone. The company announced that the Samsung Galaxy ROUND smartphone is now available, and the 5.7-inch Full HD Super AMOLED display is indeed delicately concave. Before you get excited, it’s only available in Korea, at least for now. Under the hood there’s a quad-core 2.3GHz MSM 8974 Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of onboard storage, and 13MP autofocus rear and 2MP front-facing cameras. The phone runs Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) and has a USB 3.0 port as well as LTE, WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS+GLONASS, and NFC for connectivity.
51694843
submission
MojoKid writes:
AMD is officially launching their Radeon R7 and R9 series graphics cards today, with three new midrange to high end boards that are optimized for performance, cost and power. The Radeon R9 280X is built around AMD’s Tahiti GPU, which also powers the Radeon HD 7970. The R9 270X features the same GPU core as the Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition and the Radeon R7 260X is powered by AMD’s Bonaire GPU, which first arrived on the Radeon HD 7790. These new cards, however, have been tweaked and enhanced in a number of ways. The Radeon R7 260X sports higher engine and memory clocks than the HD 7790 and 260X’s default memory configuration is 2GB as well. The R9 270X’s clocks have been goosed up as well with a GPU clock that peaks at 1.05GHz and its memory clock has been increased to an effective 5.6Gbps. The Radeon R9 270X offers slightly higher compute performance but much more memory bandwidth--179.2GB/s vs. 153.6GB/s to be exact. Finally, the Radeon R9 280X isn’t clocked higher than AMD’s current flagship Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. In fact, the R9 280X has a slightly lower peak engine clock, though memory bandwidth is similar. All told, AMD's new Radeons offer competitive performance to NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost, GeForce GTX 760 and GeForce GTX 770 cards but at significantly better price points.
51534733
submission
MojoKid writes:
Although Intel is Chipzilla, the company can’t help but extend its reach just a bit into the exciting and growing world of DIY makers and hobbyists. Intel announced its Galileo development board, a microcontroller that’s compatible with Arduino software and uses the new Quark X1000 processor (400MHz, 32-bit, Pentium-class, single- core and thread) that Intel announced at the IDF 2013 keynote. The board makes use of Intel’s architecture to make it easy to develop for Windows, Mac, and Linux, but it’s also completely open hardware. Galileo is just 10cm x 7cm (although ports protrude a bit beyond that), and there are four screw holes for secure mounting. Ports include 10/100 Ethernet, USB client/host ports, RS-232 UART and 3.5mm jack, mini PCIe slot (with USB 2.0 host support); other features include 8MB Legacy SPI Flash for firmware storage, 512KB embedded SRAM, 256MB DRAM, 11KB EEPROM programmed via the EEPROM library, and support for an additional 32GB of storage using a microSD card.
51293293
submission
MojoKid writes:
In addition to unveiling a new family of GPUs this week, AMD has also announced Mantle, a “low-level high-performance console-style” graphics API for the PC. Mantle will ostensibly allow developers to work “closer to the metal”, like they do with console GPUs. As it turns out, it's AMD GPUs that will be powering all next generation consoles, so the whole concept flows out of AMD’s experience with both consoles and PCs. AMD’s angle is that PC graphics present several challenges that hamstring both performance and programmability. For instance, you have to support a huge range of hardware, from the slowest to the fastest platforms out there, and the GPU has to be fed workload by the CPU, limiting the full power of a modern GPU in some cases. Essentially, AMD feels that devs can get more performance out of GPUs and tap into their real capabilities better with Mantle. AMD has already partnered with DICE to co-develop Mantle and EA's Frostbite 3 engine will render natively with Mantle as well as make use of standard DX11 rendering on Radeon GPUs.
51209497
submission
MojoKid writes:
AMD has just announced a full suite of new GPUs based on a new, evolved version of its Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. The Radeon R5, R7, and R9 families are the new product lines aimed at mainstream, performance, and high-end gaming, respectively. Specs on the new cards are still limited, but we know that the highest-end R9 290X is a six-billion transistor GPU with more than 300GB/s of memory bandwidth and prominent support for 4K gaming. The R5 series will start at $89, with 1GB of RAM. The R7 260X will hit $139 with 2GB of RAM, the R9 270X and 280X appear to replace the current Radeon 7950 and 7970 with price points at $199 and $299, and 2GB/3GB of RAM, and then the R9 290X, at an unannounced price point and 4GB of RAM. AMD is also offering a limited preorder pack, that offers Battlefield 4 license combined with the graphics cards, which should go on sale in the very near future. Finally, AMD is also debuting a new positional and 3D spatial audio engine in conjunction with GenAudio dubbed "AstoundSound," but they're only making it available on the R9 290X, R9 280X, and the R9 270X.
50924313
submission
MojoKid writes:
AMD's next-generation Radeon is set to debut later this fall and rumors about the upcoming chip have begun to leak out into the wild. While unconfirmed, AMD's forthcoming Hawaii core won't be a fundamentally new architecture, but a refined approach to the technology already baked into Graphics Core Next (GCN). Specifically, the new chip is supposedly built to GCN 2.0 standards with support for DX 11.2, four raster engines, a maximum of 2,816 shader cores, a 900MHz clock speed, temperature-based Turbo modes rather than a current-based model, and a 430mm sq. die. So what's that mean compared to the Radeon 7970? First, we can assume that whatever tweaks went into GCN 2.0, they should drive performance per watt up by 10-20% over the current generation of hardware. That's a reasonable projection based on what we've seen AMD deliver from previous products and in-line with the kind of optimization you typically find in a second-generation architecture. Also, it is being reported that AMD has stuck with the 64 cores per CU approach. This has implications for Hawaii's compute capability, where keeping a smaller number of cores per Compute Unit allows for more efficient resource utilization. At a theoretical max of 2,816 shader cores, the new chip is 22 percent larger than the Radeon 7970, which, combined with the performance increases baked into the second generation, should allow the new family to hit significantly higher performance rates. Memory controller efficiency is also reportedly improved, but the bus will remain at 384-bits.
50713719
submission
MojoKid writes:
Yep, a USB condom. That term is mostly a dose of marketing brilliance, which is to say that grabs your attention while also serving as an apt description of the product. A little company called int3.cc has developed a product—a USB condom—that blocks the data pins in your USB device while leaving the power pins free. Thus, any time you need to plug a device such as a smartphones into a USB port to charge it—let’s say at a public charging kiosk or a coworker’s computer--you don’t have to worry about compromising any data or contracting some nasty malware. It’s one of those simple solutions that seems so obvious once someone came up with it.
50189729
submission
MojoKid writes:
Low-power parts for hand-held devices may be all the rage right now, but today Intel is taking the wraps off a new high-end desktop processor with the official unveiling of its Ivy Bridge-E microarchitecture. The Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition processor is the flagship product in Intel’s initial line-up of Ivy Bridge-E based CPUs. The chip is manufactured using Intel’s 22nm process node and features roughly 1.86 billion transistors, with a die size of approximately 257mm square. That's about 410 million fewer transistors and a 41 percent smaller die than Intel's previous gen Sandy Bridge-E CPU. The Ivy Bridge-E microarchitecture features up to 6 active execution cores that can each process two threads simultaneously, for support of a total of 12 threads and they're designed for Intel’s LGA 2011 socket. Intel's Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition processor has a base clock frequency of 3.6GHz with a maximum Turbo frequency of 4GHz. It is easily the fastest desktop processor Intel has released to date when tasked with highly-threaded workloads or when its massive amount of cache comes into play in applications like 3D rendering, ray tracing, and gaming. However, assuming similar clock speeds, Intel's newer Haswell microarchitecture employed in the recently released Core i7-4770K (and other 4th Gen Core processors) offer somewhat better single-core performance.
49873107
submission
MojoKid writes:
Beyond the EV market, recently Elon Musk has also announced plans to revolutionize mass transit with his vision of the Hyperloop transportation system. You might say he's on the move. Just a little. As certifiably insane as travel at up to 4000 MPH may sound, the technology is actually feasible and Musk is beginning to inspire outside interest and possible investment in making it a reality. So, what sorts of tools does an almost science-fictional, Tony Stark-like character like Elon Musk use to help design his next generation technological wonders? Why "Hand-Manipulated Hologram" design engines of course. In a series of Tweets, Elon Musk gave hints of a new rocket part design he has in the works that was designed with hand gestures, in the air. You just can't make this stuff up. Well, okay, maybe you can but to get away with it, you have to have the chops and the track record to back you up.
49814993
submission
MojoKid writes:
Nokia's recently launched Lumia 1020 Windows Phone differntiates itself with a high resolution 41 Megapixel camera, floating image stabilization and Carl Zeiss optics. When HotHardware got done putting the new Lumia 1020 through its paces, you might say they "kicked it up a notch" — as in, say about 75 feet straight up, above the tree line. The idea was to strap the Nokia Lumia 1020 on top of a Parrot AR.Drone, hit the record button on the 1020's camera app and point it straight up to the heavens. Why, you ask? Why not. After all, with floating image stabilization on board, things should be able to float, right? There were a number of challenges that needed to be addressed with this recreational experiment of sorts. First, they needed to figure out the most stable positioning for the phone. You see, even at its svelte 157 grams (approx. 5.5 ounces), the Lumia 1020 was a bit of a workout for the AR.Drone to handle. And then of course when you get above the tree line and the wind kicks up, maintaining stability is once again a major challenge to avoid death spirals that can result in, well, death for both drone and phone.
49730773
submission
MojoKid writes:
Historically, All-in-One desktop systems like the iMac, HP's TouchSmart and similar designs that incorporate a full system basically on the backside of a monitor, haven't offered performance that was competitive to their full-sized desktop counterparts. Part of the reason is that many of these systems are comprised of low power notebook platform PC components inside thin chassis designs with minimal airflow. However, as mobile platforms have become more powerful, so has the all-in-one PC. Dell's recently launched XPS 27 Touch, with Intel's Haswell mobile processor and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M on board, is an example of a new breed of AIO hitting the market now. The system is based on a 27-inch panel with 2TB of storage, a 32GB SSD cache drive, 8GB of RAM and performance in the benchmarks that keeps pace with average midrange full-sized desktops. You can even game on the machine with frame rates at the panel's 1080p native resolution with medium to high image quality. It's almost like the all-in-one finally grew up.
49336243
submission
MojoKid writes:
Google's second gen Nexus 7 tablet is a worthy successor to the original, boasting an improved design both internally and externally. It's thinner and lighter, has a faster Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC, 2GB of RAM, a higher resolution 1920X1200 display and it's running the latest Android 4.3 Jelly Bean release. The display alone was a nice upgrade in a 7-inch slate that retails for well under $300. However, it turns out the new Nexus 7 is also one of the fastest tablets out there right now, with benchmark numbers that best some of the top tablets on the market, especially in graphics and gaming. From a price/performance standpoint, Google's second generation Nexus 7 seems to be the tablet to beat right now.
49206847
submission
MojoKid writes:
John Carmack's annual Quakecon keynote is one of the most interesting events of the entire year. The man is incredibly intelligent and understands programming and development to a degree that very few people can match. id may have struggled to replicate the gameplay successes of its early years, but Carmack's understanding and perspective on the technical issues surrounding gaming is second to none. This year, he kicked off by discussing the upcoming consoles and their hardware capabilities. Remarking on how he used to criticize Apple for its one button mouse, Carmack said: "Kinect is like a zero-button mouse with a lot of latency on it." It's not that Carmack thinks Kinect is intrinsically bad, but that the second generation of the technology has all the limitations of the first. Buttons in gaming are useful — Kinect has none. Camera pickup needs to be near-instantaneous to allow for smooth tracking, and Kinect's isn't. Long term, the technology may evolve, but for now, the second generation apparently isn't going to blow anyone away. And honestly? That's not surprising.
