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World’s Overclocking Record Beaten: 8.20GHz Reached

Posted by Siddanth on January 28th, 2010

Even though performance of contemporary personal computers does not heavily depend on clock-speeds of central processing units, it is still interesting to know the maximum clock-speed that can be achieved by modern microprocessors. Recently a new frequency record was set, when overclockers from XtremeLabs.org pushed Intel Celeron D 347 to nearly 8.20GHz.

Intel Celeron D 347 processor, which is based on the renowned NetBurst micro-architecture, is made using 65nm process technology and officially works at 3.06GHz. However, with the help of modified DFI LanParty UT P35 (Intel P35, revision A2), OCZ Technology memory and a lot of liquid nitrogen overclocker TiN from Xtremelabs.org reached 8199.5MHz clock-speed on the central processing unit.

To date, 8199.5MHz is the highest clock-speed ever reached by overclockers that has been validated by CPU-Z database.

Unfortunately, the overclockers did not run a set of benchmarks to find out actual performance of the extremely overclocked Celeron D 347. As a result, it is not known whether the chip at 8.20GHz can actually outperform modern Intel Core i7 microprocessors at around 3.00GHz.Read more at Xtremelabs

Posted in Hardware

Tags: architecture, benchmarks, Celeron, central processing unit, clock speed, clock speeds, cpu z, dfi lanparty, frequency record, GHz, Intel, intel celeron d, intel p35, liquid nitrogen, memory, microprocessors, overclockers, performance, personal computers, process technology, processing units, Read, tin, UT, XtremeLabs

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DirectX 11 transition to be the fastest

Posted by Siddanth on December 15th, 2009

After ATI released DirectX 11 graphic cards including the fastest graphics card ever i.e 5970, Nvidia seems to be lagging in the competition with its lack of DirectX 11-compatible graphics processing units (GPUs).DirectX 11 provides better performance and higher quality images in next-generation PC video games.Graphics market analyst Dean McCarron says the transition to the new application programming interface (API) will be the fastest in the industry.

Over the last decade, graphics processors supporting each new version of DirectX have achieved high volume shipments earlier in their life cycles than their predecessors. Our forecast is that DirectX 11 capable GPUs will continue this trend with the fastest transition between technologies ever, resulting in shipments surpassing DirectX 10 GPUs in 2010,” said Dean McCarron, the principal of Mercury Research, in a recent report about the state of graphics processors market.

Take the case of ATI, it has shipped over 800 thousand of graphics processing units (GPUs) that support DirectX 11 application programming interface.The company said that so far it has shipped over 500 thousand ATI Radeon HD 5700-series graphics processing units code-named Juniper and over 300 thousand graphics chips known as Cypress that power ATI Radeon HD 5800-/5900-series graphics adapters. Thanks to partly resolved supply issues with 40nm chips, AMD’s graphics business unit seems to have high chances of shipping around a million of DirectX 11-supporting graphics processors this year.

The most affordable DirectX 11 graphics card – ATI Radeon HD 5750 is available for about $140 in the U.S. – whereas the most expensive – ATI Radeon HD 5970 – costs over $600.Good sales of the latest graphics cards will help Advanced Micro Devices to post greater revenue and profits for this quarter.For the regular users, who are not hardcore gamers or gaming at 1680×1050 or below, or 1440×900 or below resolutions 5850 and 5770 are really good options. 5870 is a beast in itself.

At present only ATI, ships ATI Radeon HD 5850/5870/5900-series graphics chips that support DirectX 11 API. While the company has managed to ship over a hundred of thousand of performance-mainstream ATI Radeon HD 5700-series graphics boards so far, the shipments of high-end ATI Radeon HD 5800/5900-series are limited by supply issues caused by low 40nm yields at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

The most affordable DirectX 11 graphics card – ATI Radeon HD 5750 is available for about $140 in the U.S. – whereas the most expensive – ATI Radeon HD 5970 – costs over $600.Good sales of the latest graphics cards will help Advanced Micro Devices to post greater revenue and profits for this quarter.

Early next year ATI is expected to release mainstream and low-end desktop ATI Radeon HD 5000-series graphics solutions in addition to the new generation of ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000-series graphics chips for notebooks, which will allow AMD to offer top-to-bottom DirectX 11 lineup.

As of now there is no news of Nvidia’s next-generation code-named GF100 (NV60, GT300) chip to be released, may be in Q1 2011.Nvidia’s first quarter of fiscal year 2011 begins on the 26th of January and ends on the 26th of April, 2010. As a result, we do expect Nvidia to release its high-performance flagship GeForce “Fermi” GF100 consumer graphics card sometime between January and March. However, it is unclear when exactly Nvidia is able to release mainstream, entry-level and mobile GPUs based on the Fermi graphics architecture.

The main and obvious advantage of DirectX 11 graphics cards nowadays – whether it is ATI Radeon HD 5000 or Nvidia GeForce “Fermi” – is increased performance compared to previous-generation products.Not much of games are released yet except dirt 2 which utilize DirectX 11 functionality, but 5870 is not powerful enough when it comes to DX11 games as Dirt2 shows.I hope the results in Dirt 2 are really because of immature drivers/bad coding/lack of a patch. As a result, with increased performance for existing titles and additional features of DX11, newer-generation graphics boards will indisputably become very popular in the next couple of quarters.Lets hope Nvidia bucks up fast.

Posted in DirectX News

Tags: 40nm, 5700, 5750, 5800, 5890, 5900, advanced micro devices, application programming interface, ATI, Dean McCarron, DirectX, DirectX 10, DirectX 11, fastest graphics, Fermi, generation pc, GF100, graphic cards, graphics adapters, graphics business, graphics chips, graphics market, graphics processors, GT300, Juniper, last decade, latest graphics, market analyst, mercury research, NV60, Nvidia, pc video games, processing units, Radeon, s graphics, series, support directx, U.S., volume shipments

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Intel Accused of Giving Dell $6 Billion for Exclusivity

Posted by Siddanth on November 6th, 2009

The state of New York has filed a lawsuit against Intel Corp. accusing the chip giant of paying billions of dollars to computer makers in order to discourage them from using microprocessors by Advanced Micro Devices(AMD). Dell alone allegedly received $6 billion dollars between 2002 and 2007 and sometimes those payments exceeded Dell’s profits.

The lawsuit alleges Intel paid computer makers, including IBM and HP, to discourage them from utilizing microprocessors produced by Intel’s arch-rival AMD, reports Dow Jones Newswires. For example, as a part of the agreement, Intel compensated below-cost bids against rivals offering AMD-based desktops, servers or workstations by Dell in order to slowdown the increase of AMD’s market share.

Under a secret pact named the “Mother of all Programs”, Intel paid Dell a rebate based on the total cost of central processing units the computer maker bought, the lawsuit claims. The percentage of the rebate could fluctuate, but reached up to 16% as Dell mulled over using AMD processors. Moreover, in one fiscal quarter Intel’s payments constituted 116% of Dell’s reported net income, according to the lawsuit.

Intel has already faced similar lawsuits in Europe, Japan, South Korea and the U.S., therefore, the current accusations hardly change the situation drastically.Dell, HP and Dell declined to comment, but Intel added that it would defend itself. IBM said it would co-operate with the investigation.I donno if this is true or not but these things could happen.What do you feel ?

dell intel 300x125 Intel Accused of Giving Dell $6 Billion for Exclusivity

The state of New York has filed a lawsuit against Intel Corp. accusing the chip giant of paying billions of dollars to computer makers in order to discourage them from using microprocessors by Advanced Micro Devices(AMD). Dell alone allegedly received $6 billion dollars between 2002 and 2007 and sometimes those payments exceeded Dell’s profits.

The lawsuit alleges Intel paid computer makers, including IBM and HP, to discourage them from utilizing microprocessors produced by Intel’s arch-rival AMD, reports Dow Jones Newswires. For example, as a part of the agreement, Intel compensated below-cost bids against rivals offering AMD-based desktops, servers or workstations by Dell in order to slowdown the increase of AMD’s market share.

Under a secret pact named the “Mother of all Programs”, Intel paid Dell a rebate based on the total cost of central processing units the computer maker bought, the lawsuit claims. The percentage of the rebate could fluctuate, but reached up to 16% as Dell mulled over using AMD processors. Moreover, in one fiscal quarter Intel’s payments constituted 116% of Dell’s reported net income, according to the lawsuit.

Intel has already faced similar lawsuits in Europe, Japan, South Korea and the U.S., therefore, the current accusations hardly change the situation drastically.HP and Dell declined to comment, but Intel added that it would defend itself. IBM said it would co-operate with the investigation.I donno if this is true or not but these things could happen.What do you feel ?

Posted in General Tech News

Tags: accusations, advanced micro devices, AMD, amd processors, billions of dollars, chip giant, Computer, computer maker, computer makers, Dell, dow jones, dow jones newswires, Europe, Hp, Intel, intel corp, Japan, lawsuit, microprocessors, net income, New, order, processing units, secret pact, slowdown, South Korea, U.S., York

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ATI Unveils World’s First DirectX 11 GPU

Posted by Siddanth on September 25th, 2009

ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices(AMD),officially released the industry’s first family of graphics processing units (GPUs) that supports DirectX 11 application programming interface. The new graphics boards – originally code-named Evergreen – not only boast with exclusive features, but also offer incredible performance in today’s hi end games.I had posted about the pics of Saphhire 5850 and 5870 in my previous post along with the games which use DirectX 11 support. ATI Radeon HD 5870 is currently the fastest single-chip graphics solutions on the planet.

With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cars driven by the most powerful processor on the planet, AMD is changing the game, both in terms of performance and the experience,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager of products group at AMD.

ATI Radeon HD 5870 – the world’s most powerful GPU to date that was previously known as ATI RV870 or ATI Cypress – features 1600 stream processing units, 80 texture units, 32 render back ends and 256-bit memory bus. The chip incorporates unprecedented number of transistors – 2.15 billion and has maximum compute performance of 2.72TFLOP/s. Another version of the chip – ATI Radeon HD 5850 – sports 1440 stream processors, 72 texture units, 32 render back ends, 256-bit memory bus and peak performance of 2.09TFLOP/s.

Despite of massive computing performance and transistor count, ATI/AMD managed to keep power consumption of its new ATI Radeon HD 5800 graphics cards low enough thanks to 40nm fabrication process and ATI PowerPlay power management technologies. In fact, in idle mode the new graphics cards consume just about 27W, which is almost impossible figure for a high-end desktop graphics adapter today.

ATI Radeon HD 5800 not only support DirectX 11 application programming interface, but also feature six integrated TMDS transmitters and can output image to up to three monitors at once thanks to ATI Eyefinity technology, for the first time in the history of consumer-oriented high-performance graphics cards. Besides, thanks to support for DirectCompute 11 and OpenCL, the new high-end graphics chips from AMD can also boast with advanced GPGPU (general purpose computing on graphics processing units) capabilities.

“As the first to market with full DirectX 11 support, an unmatched experience made possible with ATI Eyefinity technology, and ATI Stream technology harnessing open standards designed to help make Windows 7 that much better, I can say with confidence that AMD is the undisputed leader in graphics once more,” added Mr. Bergman.
For several years ATI had to lower pricing of its graphics solutions to remain competitive with its arch-rival Nvidia Corp. Thanks to unprecedented performance and DirectX 11 support, this will not be the case with the Radeon HD 5850 and 5870, which are available for $299 and $399, respectively. Performance and 3D graphics enthusiasts are more than likely to welcome the new graphics processors and enjoy improved effects in new and forthcoming video games – Battleforge, Dirt 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat – as well as increased performance.

The ATI Radeon HD 5800-series of graphics cards is supported by a dozen add-in-board companies, including Asustek Computer, Club 3D, Diamond Multimedia, Force3D, Gigabyte Technology, HIS (Hightech Information Systems), MSI, Multimedia, PowerColor, Sapphire Technology, VisionTek and XFX.

Nvidia have to release their Gt300 series in competition for the ATi’s 58XX series ones.The more faster the better for them to catch up.Reviews have already been showing up.Some of them are mentioned below.Here is one of them.

The 5870 is the single fastest single-GPU card we have tested, by a wide margin. Looking at its performance in today’s games, as a $379 card it makes the GTX 285 at its current prices ($300+) completely irrelevant. The price difference isn’t enough to make up for the performance difference, and NVIDIA also has to contend with the 5850, which should perform near the GTX 285 but at a price of $259. As is often the case with a new generation of cards, we’re going to see a shakeup here in the market as NVIDIA in particular needs to adjust to these new cards.

The catch however is that what we don’t have is a level of clear domination when it comes to single-card solutions. AMD was shooting to beat the GTX 295 with the 5870, but in our benchmarks that’s not happening. The 295 and the 5870 are close, perhaps close enough that NVIDIA will need to reconsider things, but it’s not enough to completely dethrone the GTX 295. NVIDIA still has the faster single-card solution. Meanwhile AMD is retiring the 4870 X2, which ended up beating the 5870 enough that we would consider it a competitor to the 5870.