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Submission + - Haswell integrated graphics promise 2-3X performance boost (techreport.com)

Submitted by crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: Intel has revealed fresh details about the integrated graphics in upcoming Haswell processors. The fastest variants of the built-in GPU will be known as Iris and Iris Pro graphics, with the latter boasting embedded DRAM. Unlike Ivy Bridge, which reserves its fastest GPU implementations for mobile parts, the Haswell family will include R-series desktop chips with the full-fat GPU. These processors are likely bound for all-in-one systems, and they'll purportedly offer close to three times the graphics performance of their predecessors. Intel says notebook users can look forward to a smaller 2X boost, while 15-17W ultrabook CPUs benefit from an increase closer to 1.5X. Haswell's integrated graphics has other perks aside from better performance, including faster Quick Sync video transcoding, MJPEG acceleration, and support for 4K resolutions. The new IGP will support DirectX 11.1, OpenGL 4.0, and OpenCL 1.2, as well.

Submission + - AMD details next-gen Kaveri APU's shared memory architecture (techreport.com)

Submitted by crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: AMD has revealed more details about the unified memory architecture of its next-generation Kaveri APU. The chip's CPU and GPU components will have a shared address space and will also share both physical and virtual memory. GPU compute applications should be able to share data between the processor's CPU cores and graphics ALUs, and the caches on those components will be fully coherent. This so-called heterogeneous uniform memory access, or hUMA, supports configurations with either DDR3 or GDDR5 memory. It's also based entirely in hardware and should work with any operating system. Kaveri is due later this year and will also have updated Steamroller CPU cores and a GPU based on the current Graphics Core Next architecture.

Submission + - Microstuttering compromises performance of $1000 Radeon HD 7990 flagship (techreport.com)

Submitted by crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: Slashdot's early coverage of AMD's dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990 relied on data collected with Nvidia's FCAT tools, which capture frames just before they hit the display. FCAT is great for quantifying smooth frame delivery, but it doesn't track interruptions earlier in the pipeline that can produce perceptible jitter in the game animation. Those interruptions can be measured with Fraps, correlated with FCAT data, and complemented with video samples to achieve a much deeper understanding of actual performance. Combining those tools to evaluate the 7990 reveals microstuttering that produces choppier gameplay than a single-GPU Radeon with half the theoretical horsepower (and a much lower price). AMD has prototype frame pacing software that can smooth out the stuttering in some games, but there's no timetable for its release. Right now, you're better with the $400 Radeon HD 7970 than you are with AMD's $1000 flagship.

Submission + - New Seagate hybrid drives hampered by slow mechanical guts (techreport.com)

Submitted by crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: Seagate announced its third-generation hybrid drives last month, revealing a full family of notebook and desktop drives that combine mechanical platters with solid-state storage. These so-called SSHDs are Seagate's first to be capable of caching write requests in addition to reads, and the mobile variants are already selling online. Unfortunately, a closer look at the Laptop Thin SSHD reveals some problems with Seagate's new design. While the integrated flash cache reduces OS and application load times by 30-45%, overall performance appears to be held back by its 5,400-RPM mechanical component. Seagate's last-gen Momentus XT hybrid spins its platters at 7,200-RPM, and it's faster than the new SSHD in a wide range of tests. The upcoming desktop SSHDs will also have 7,200-RPM spindle speeds, so they may prove more appealing than the mobile models.
Games

Submission + - Frame capture tools produce new insight on game benchmarking (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "A revolution is unfolding in the world of game benchmarking. Instead of using FPS averages that obscure brief but perceptible moments of stuttering, reviewers are increasingly moving to more representative metrics based on frame times. Their efforts are being bolstered by Nvidia, which has developed a suite of tools that allows for a deep analysis of the contents of the individual frames sent to the display. These "FCAT" tools will be freely distributable and modifiable, and some portions will be open-source. Examining the data they generate has produced new insight into how modern graphics cards really perform in games. The display output analysis made possible by the FCAT tools exposes "runt frames" that can make up only tiny slivers of the screen, rendering FPS averages especially meaningless. It also suggests that disruptions in smoothness can be measured both early in the pipeline, using Fraps, and later on, where FCAT takes into account frame metering technologies that can massage the flow of frames to the display."
AMD

Submission + - Affordable Radeon HD 7790 has Trinity-style power management (techreport.com) 1

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Today AMD unveils Bonaire, a new graphics chip that will power the $150 Radeon HD 7790. This GPU is based on the same Graphics Core Next architecture as current-generation Radeons, but it employs more advanced power management tech inherited from AMD's Trinity APUs. An on-chip microcontroller manages power states, enabling quicker transitions between a greater number of frequency and voltage states. Thanks in part to that mojo, the 7790 draws 24% less power under load than the Radeon HD 7850 it replaces. The new model also runs two decibels quieter. In games, it delivers lower frame latencies than the 7850 and competing GeForce cards, which translates to smoother gameplay. The 7850 does have higher FPS averages in some titles, suggesting that AMD's recent latency optimizations may not be applied evenly in the latest drivers."
Input Devices

Submission + - Mechanical keyboard boasts USB 3.0 port (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "For years, high-end keyboards have offered extra USB ports for mice and other peripherals. Gigabyte's Aivia Osmium goes one step further by including a USB 3.0 port for high-speed external storage. It also ticks all the usual boxes for a premium keyboard: Cherry MX mechanical switches, adjustable backlighting, audio jacks, and programmable macro keys. The macro support even extends to mouse input. Unfortunately, the USB 3.0 connectivity appears to be a little flaky; it works flawlessly with some device combinations but inconsistently or not at all with others. That's a shame, because there's real utility to having a SuperSpeed USB port at your fingertips."
Hardware

Submission + - Cherry MX green keyboard switches emulate IBM Model M feel (techreport.com) 1

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Slashdot has already covered the four main flavors of Cherry MX mechanical key switches: red, black, blue, and brown. Now, there's a green MX variant that emulates the feel of the buckling spring switches in old-school IBM Model M keyboards. The green switches combine tactile feedback, an audible click, and a stiff spring that requires 80g of actuation force. They're a stiffer version of the MX blues that more closely matches the characteristics of IBM's buckling spring design. Previously reserved for use with space bars, the green switches have now taken over an entire Cooler Master keyboard. And, unlike the old Model M and contemporary copycats, the new CM Storm Trigger has modern conveniences like an integrated USB hub, LED backlighting, and programmable macros."
Data Storage

Submission + - Seagate new SSHD hybrids have dual-mode flash caches (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Seagate's has revealed its next-generation hybrid drives, and for the first time, there's a 3.5" desktop model in the mix. The new family of so-called SSHDs includes standard and slim notebook variants with 500GB and 1TB capacities, plus 1TB and 2TB desktop versions. All of them combine mechanical platters with 8GB of NAND in a dual-mode SLC/MLC configuration. The SLC component is largely reserved to cache host writes, while the MLC portion is filled with frequently accessed data to speed read performance. Despite MLC NAND's lower write endurance, Seagate claims the SSHDs have more than enough headroom to last at least five years with typical client workloads. More impressively, the mobile SSHDs are supposed to be faster than the old Momentus XT hybrid even though they have slower 5,400-RPM spindle speeds. The mobile models are slated to start selling shortly at $79 for 500GB and $99 for 1TB, while the 1TB and 2TB desktop flavors are due in late April for $99 and $149, respectively. Unlike other NAND caching solutions, Seagate's tech requires no software or drivers, making it compatible with any OS."
Ubuntu

Submission + - Linux-friendly mini PC fast enough for Steam games (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Barebones mini PCs have been around for a while, and the latest one from Zotac is pretty unique. For $270, the Zbox ID42 offers a Sandy Bridge CPU, a discrete GeForce graphics processor, and all the integrated I/O and networking you'd expect from a modern PC. You have to add your own memory, hard drive, and operating system, but the latter shouldn't cost you a dime. The Zbox works well with not only Windows, but also Linux. Ubuntu even recognizes the included remote, which can be used to wake up the system, control XBMC, and navigate Steam's Big Picture interface. Team Fortress 2 for Linux is actually playable, albeit at a relatively low resolution and detail level. The hardware seems better suited to casual games. Zotac also makes a Plus version of the Zbox that comes bundled with RAM and a hard drive, but it costs an extra $130, and you can get much better components if you add them yourself. The user-friendly chassis makes filling out the system a trivial undertaking."
AMD

Submission + - Driver update addresses Radeon frame latency issues (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "AMD has begun addressing the Radeon frame latency spikes covered previously on Slashdot. A new beta driver is due out next week, and it dramatically smooths the uneven frame times exhibited by certain Radeon graphics processors. The driver only tackles performance issues in a few games, but more fixes are on the way. In the games that have been addressed, the new driver delivers more consistent frame times and smoother gameplay without having much of an impact on the minimum or average FPS numbers. Those traditional FPS metrics clearly do a poor job of quantifying the fluidity of in-game action. Surprisingly, it seems AMD was largely relying on those metrics when testing drivers internally. The company has now pledged to pay more attention to frame latencies to ensure that these kinds of issues don't crop up again."
Data Storage

Submission + - SSD prices fall dramatically in 2012 but increase in Q4 (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Solid-state drives became much more affordable in 2012. The median price for 240-256GB models fell by about 44% over the course of the year and now sits around 83 cents per gigabyte. Lower-capacity drives also got cheaper, albeit by smaller margins that kept median prices from dipping below the $1/GB threshold. Surprisingly, most drives actually got more expensive over the fourth quarter, despite Black Friday and other holiday sales. This upswing was driven largely by OCZ's decision to back off its strategy of aggressively discounting drives to gain market share, allowing its rivals to raise prices, as well. Although some new models arrived with next-generation 19- and 20-nm NAND that should be cheaper to produce, those drives didn't debut at lower prices. We may have to wait a while before SSD makers pass the savings along to consumers."
Data Storage

Submission + - Crucial M500 SSD promises 960GB for $600 (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "SSD prices are falling as drive makers start using next-generation NAND built on smaller fabrication processes. Micron and Crucial have announced a new M500 drive that's particularly aggressive on that front, promising 960GB for just $600, or about $0.63 per gigabyte. SSDs in the terabyte range currently cost $1,000 and up, so the new model represents substantial savings; you can thank to move to 20-nm MLC NAND for the price reduction. Although the 960GB version will be limited to a 2.5" form factor, there will be mSATA and NGFF-based variants with 120-480GB of storage. The M500 is rated for peak read and write speeds of 500 and 400MB/s, respectively, and it can crunch 80k random 4KB IOps. Crucial covers the drive with a three-year warranty and rates it for 72TB of total bytes written. Expect the M500 to be available this quarter as both a standalone drive and inside pre-built systems."
AMD

Submission + - AMD tweaking Radeon drivers to reduce frame latency spikes (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Slashdot has previously covered The Tech Report's exposure of frame latency issues with recent AMD graphics processors. Both desktop and notebook Radeons exhibit frame latency spikes that interrupt the smoothness of in-game animation but don't show up in the FPS averages typically used to benchmark performance. AMD has been looking into the problem and may have discovered the culprit. The Graphics Core Next architecture underpinning recent Radeons is quite different from previous designs, and AMD has been rewriting the memory management portion of its driver to properly take advantage. This new code improves frame latencies, according to AMD's David Baumann, and the firm has accelerated the process of rolling it into the official Catalyst drivers available to end users. Radeon owners can take some comfort in the fact that a driver update may soon alleviate the frame latency problems associated with AMD's latest GPUs. However, they might also be disappointed that it's taken AMD this long to optimize its drivers for the now year-old GCN architecture."
Games

Submission + - Frame latency spikes plague Radeon graphics cards (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "AMD is bundling a stack of the latest games with graphics cards like its Radeon HD 7950. One might expect the Radeon to perform well in those games, and it does. Sort of. The Radeon posts high FPS numbers, the metric commonly used to measure graphics performance. However, it doesn't feel quite as smooth as the competing Nvidia solution, which actually scores lower on the FPS scale. This comparison of the Radeon HD 7950 and GeForce 660 Ti takes a closer look at individual frame latencies to explain why. Turns out the Radeon suffers from frequent, measurable latency spikes that noticeably disrupt the smoothness of animation without lowering the FPS average substantially. This trait spans multiple games, cards, and operating systems, and it's "raised some alarms" internally at AMD. Looks like Radeons may have problems with smooth frame delivery in new games despite boasting competitive FPS averages."

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