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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."
Data Storage

Submission + - New Indilinx controller debuts in OCZ Vector SSD (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "The consumer SSD market is dominated by copycat drives based on a small handful of different controller chips. Only a few SSD makers have controller technology all their own, and OCZ is the latest to join that club. Its new Vector SSD features a proprietary Indilinx controller surrounded by a sea of custom-packaged NAND. The drive offers excellent performance regardless of the data type, and it's equally comfortable crunching sequential and random I/O. However, the Vector rings in at over a dollar per gig, which is rather pricey give its lack of full-disk encryption support. Even if you don't consider last week's Black Friday deals, there are plenty of SSDs that are nearly as fast as the Vector but much less expensive. Solid-state drives may be approaching the point where mid-range offerings are more than fast enough for most consumer applications."
Intel

Submission + - Hands-on with Intel's Next Unit of Computing (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Intel's Next Unit of Computing has finally made its way into the hands of reviewers. The final revision is a little different from the demo unit that made the rounds earlier this year, but the concept remains the same. Intel has crammed what are essentially ultrabook internals into a tiny box measuring 4" x 4" x 2". A mobile Core i3 CPU provides the horsepower, and there's a decent array of I/O ports: USB, HDMI, and Thunderbolt. Users can add their own memory, storage, and wireless card to the system, which will be sold without an OS for around $300. Those extras raise the total price, bringing the NUC closer to Mac Mini territory. The Apple system has a bigger footprint, but it also boasts a faster processer and the ability to accommodate notebook hard drives with higher storage capacities than the mSATA SSDs that are compatible with the NUC. If Intel can convince system builders to adopt the NUC, the future of the PC could be a lot smaller."
Data Storage

Submission + - A year after Thailand flooding, hard drive prices remain high (techreport.com) 1

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Last October, Thailand was hit by massive flooding that put much of the world's hard drive industry under water. Production slowed to a crawl as drive makers and their suppliers mopped up the damage, and prices predictably skyrocketed. One year later, production has rebounded, with the industry expected to ship more drives in 2012 than it did in 2011. For the most part, though, hard drive prices haven't returned to pre-flood levels. Although 2.5" notebook drives are a little cheaper now than before the flood, the average price of 3.5" desktop drives is up 35% from a year ago. Prices have certainly fallen dramatically from their post-flood peaks, but the rate of decline has slowed substantially in recent months, suggesting that higher prices are the new norm for desktop drives."
Data Storage

Submission + - Intel DC S3700 server SSD features new, proprietary controller (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "For the first time in more than four years, Intel is rolling out a new SSD controller. The chip is featured in the DC S3700 solid-state drive, an enterprise-oriented offering that's 40% cheaper than the previous generation. The S3700 has 6Gbps SATA connectivity, end-to-end data protection, LBA tag validation, 256-bit AES encryption, and ECC throughout. It also includes onboard capacitors to prevent against data loss due to power failure; if problems with those capacitors are detected by the drive's self-check mechanism, it can disable the write cache. Intel's own high-endurance MLC NAND can be found in the drive, which is rated for 10 full disk writes per day for five years. Prices start at $235 for the 100GB model, and capacities are available up to 800GB. In addition to 2.5" models, there are also a couple of 1.8" ones for blade servers. The DC S3700 is sampling now, with mass production scheduled for the first quarter of 2013."
Data Storage

Submission + - Intel 335 Series SSD equipped with 20-nm NAND (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "The next generation of NAND has arrived. Intel's latest 335 Series SSD sports 20-nm flash chips that are 29% smaller than the previous, 25-nm generation. The NAND features a new planar cell structure with a floating, high-k/metal gate stack, a first for the flash industry. This cell structure purported helps the 20-nm NAND overcome cell-to-cell interference, allowing it to offer the same performance and reliability characteristics of the 25-nm stuff. The performance numbers back up that assertion, with the 335 Series matching other drives based on the same SandForce controller silicon. The 335 Series may end up costing less than the competition, though; Intel has set the suggested retail price at an aggressive $184 for the 240GB drive, which works out to just 77 cents per gigabyte."
AMD

Submission + - Vishera-based AMD FX processors make debut (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "The next generation of AMD FX processors has arrived. Otherwise known as Vishera, this new chip features up to eight cores based on the updated Piledriver microarchitecture. It's a speed demon, with clocks ranging as high as 4.2GHz in Turbo mode, and relatively inexpensive, with prices under $200. For heavily threaded tasks, the top-of-the-line FX-8350 offers largely better performance than competing Intel chips. However, the FX's performance isn't as impressive in single-threaded workloads and in games. The chip is also quite a power hog, pulling over 100W more at the wall socket than an equivalent Intel CPU. All of the FX chips have unlocked multipliers, though, and it looks like they might be decent overclockers."
AMD

Submission + - AMD's new tablet platform combines Radeon graphics, USB 3.0 (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "AMD has released a new APU designed specifically for tablets and hybrid devices. Dubbed the Z-60, this low-power offering uses the same microarchitecture as AMD's existing budget processors but cuts the thermal envelope by almost 25%, allowing the chip to slip into systems just 10 mm thick. In addition to dual CPU cores, the Z-60 features Radeon integrated graphics and a decoding block that's fully supported by Windows 8's video pipeline. The accompanying platform hub supports conventional Serial ATA drives and USB 3.0 devices, perks you won't find in Intel's equivalent Atom processor, and ones that seem particularly applicable to notebook/tablet hybrids."
Data Storage

Submission + - Most SSDs now under a dollar per gigabyte (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "SSD prices continue plummeting. In just the past quarter, street prices have fallen by double-digit percentages for most models, with some slashed by 30% or more. We've reached the point where the majority of drives cost less than a dollar per gigabyte, and that's without the special coupon codes and mail-in rebates usually attached to weekly deals. Lower-capacity drives seem more resistant to deep price cuts, making 120-256GB offerings the best values right now. It's nice to see a new class of devices go from prohibitively expensive to eminently affordable in such a relatively short amount of time."
AMD

Submission + - As AMD stuggles, Intel CPU prices stagnate (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Over the past few years, AMD's desktop processors have struggled to keep up with Intel's. AMD has slashed prices to make its chips more appealing, but Intel has largely held firm. Three years of historical data shows that Intel CPU prices have remained stagnant, especially for models that cost $200 and up. AMD chips, on the other hand, tend to fall in price steadily after they first hit the market. Some drop by up to 43% in the first year. This trend is a byproduct of the unhealthy competitive landscape in the desktop CPU arena, and it's been great for Intel's gross margin. Unfortunately, it's not so good for consumers."
AMD

Submission + - AMD attempts to exert editorial control over tech press (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Today, AMD lifts the embargo on "limited previews" of its new Trinity-based desktop processors. The chip maker has set very specific rules about what can be discussed in these previews. Publications are free to reveal architectural details, specifications, and gaming performance data. They can also provide information on power consumption. However, non-gaming performance data, pricing, and overclocking results are verboten. Those details can't be divulged until a later date, after AMD's carefully orchestrated previews grab all the headlines. AMD's preview rules amount to an attempt to exert editorial control over the sites that cover its products, behavior that could be considered unethical. One thing is certain, though. Today's Trinity previews definitely don't tell the whole story."
Displays

Submission + - Windows 8 has scaling issues on high-PPI displays (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "High-PPI displays are becoming increasingly popular on tablets and notebooks, but Windows 8 may not be ready for them. On a 13" notebook display with a 1080p resolution, the RTM version of Win8 scales up some desktop UI elements nicely. However, there are serious issues with Metro, which produces tiles and text that are either too small or too large depending on the PPI setting used. That setting, by the way, is a simple on/off switch that tells the OS to "make everything bigger." Web browsing is particularly problematic, with Internet Explorer 10 introducing ugly rendering artifacts when scaling pages in both Metro and desktop modes. Clearly, there's work to be done on the OS side to properly support higher pixel densities."
Intel

Submission + - Intel working on Linux-friendly Clover Trail Atom CPU (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "Turns out Intel's Clover Trail Atom CPU will support Linux after all. Slashdot previously reported that Clover Trail is for Windows 8 only. That restriction applies only to Clover Trail models aimed at tablets, though. Intel has confirmed that another version of the chip will support both Android and Linux. The firm isn't providing specifics, but it seems Linux won't be shut out of the next-gen Atom entirely. Instead, Clover Trail looks like the victim of careful product segmentation."
Hardware

Submission + - Nvidia's GeForce GTX 660 brings Kepler to $230 (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "PC gamers have a new mid-range graphics option, the $230 GeForce GTX 660. There are lots of reviews out there today, and all of them will tell you about the Kepler-based GK106 GPU. They'll laud its low power consumption and point to data-filled charts quantifying performance. Most of those charts will rely on old-school FPS averages, but this review also measures individual frame times to provide a more accurate representation of the "smoothnesss" of real-world gameplay. The GTX 660 is tested in the latest games against not only its contemporary competition, but also comparable cards dating back to 2009, giving would-be upgraders a better idea of what they have to gain from the new hotness."
Games

Submission + - CPUs do affect gaming performance, after all (techreport.com)

Submitted by
crookedvulture
crookedvulture writes: "For years, PC hardware sites have maintained that CPUs have little impact on gaming performance; all you need is a decent graphics card. That position is largely supported by FPS averages, but the FPS metric doesn't tell the whole story. Examining individual frame latencies better exposes the brief moments of stuttering that can disrupt otherwise smooth gameplay. Those methods have now been used to quantify the gaming performance of 18 CPUs spanning three generations. The results illustrate a clear advantage for Intel, whose CPUs enjoy lower frame latencies than comparable offerings from AMD. While the newer Intel processors perform better than their predecessors, the opposite tends to be true for the latest AMD chips. Turns out AMD's Phenom II X4 980, which is over a year old, offers lower frame latencies than the most recent FX processors."

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