Today’s business jargon gem: TAM, Total Addressable Market. AMD feels that Windows 8 comes with plenty of the stuff, so it sees no commercial need to make its forthcoming tablet chip — codenamed Hondo — play nice Android as well. Speaking to The Inquirer, corporate VP Steve Belt said it was a “conscious decision” not to go after compatibility with Google’s OS, because AMD doesn’t want to spread itself into “other markets.” What could this mean for us tablet-buyers? No dual-booting Windows / Android magic on AMD devices, for one thing, which is perhaps a shame now that ASUS has shown off the combo’s potential. On the other hand, Belt made it clear that Honda will support Linux, which — for now, at least — is more than can be said of Intel’s rival low-power silicon, Clover Trail.
AMD has just announced that it has become an investor in CiiNOW, a cloud gaming company that streams PC games to any client devices like computers, smartphones, tablets or set top boxes. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is very similar to OnLive and Gaikai. CiiNOW is a bit different in the sense that instead of providing a service directly to end-users, it offers a white-label platform for others to use. (more…)
If you want to get in on the Windows 8 universe with one of the first touchscreen PCs in the world to feature said software out of the box but don’t want to spend a pretty penny to get it, the HP Pavilion 20 All-in-One PC might be just the ticket for you. This machine includes a wireless keyboard and mouse in the box and will be appearing on the 23rd of October for just $499. And while that price shocks your mind, making you think that no high-class AIO could possible be that cheap, have a peek at its features here and now, starting with a choice of Intel or AMD processor right out of the box!
You’ll be working with HP Connected Remote and Photo for your perfectly tuned control of videos, music, and photo slideshows. You’ll do this from the PC itself or from a connected smartphone or tablet – wirelessly, of course. This machine has a slim design not unlike what we’ve seen from HP earlier this year in their all-in-one lineup across the board. HP has taken a lovely minimalistic approach to their all-in-one designs this season, and it’s continuing on to Windows 8!
This HP Pavilion 20 all-in-one machine will be bringing you a simple set of components that do not sacrifice in overall performance. That is to say, do not sacrifice if you’re looking for an average everyday experience with your PC. If you want to do some hardcore video processing and next-level gaming all day and night long, you might want to ramp up a bit. For those of you that want an all-in-one experience that’s ready for media consuming and light workloads, this model may be your most awesome choice at the price it’s being offered.
This machine will be coming with options in many components, including – as mentioned – Intel Core or AMD processors as well as up to 2 terabytes of storage inside. You’ll be rolling out along with many other HP computers on the 23rd of October with Windows 8, and you’ll be doing it for right around $500 USD – that wont break the bank! Hit up our HP tag portal for more HP releases this week – Windows 8 ahoy!
You can’t get a Core i3 on Newegg right now for much less than $130 — a sum that’ll put you almost at the bottom of the Ivy Bridge league with a dual-core processor, 3MB cache and HD 2500 (i.e. not HD 4000) integrated graphics. That’s why it’s interesting to see these leaked AMD Trinity prices over at retailer BLT. If they’re accurate, they indicate that the same amount of cash might afford a top-end Trinity A10 processor with overclockable 3.8GHz quad-cores, 4MB cache and vastly superior Radeon HD 7660D graphics. At the other end of AMD’s range, a dual-core A4-5300 APU could cost as little as $60. The only catch we can see — aside from the issue of accuracy — is that by the time these processors actually become available rival Intel may well have seen fit to adjust its own prices. In fact, Chipzilla just launched some new Ivy Bridge processors over the weekend that brought the cost of entry down to $117 — which goes to show that nothing stands still for long. Head past the break for some official gaming benchmark claims about the A10, or see More Coverage for extras.
Here you are another Ultrabook from Toshiba, the S955. This new little Satellite will either be powered by an Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 ULV CPU or an AMD A8 APU and will come with up to 8GB of RAM and up to 750GB of HDD with a lameass 15.6″ (1366×768) display, Hey Toshiba! Never heard of 1920×1080 or 1200? Other specs includes Windows 8 (Obviously), USB 3.0 and 2.0, HDMI, WiFi, DVD… Finally this new Satellite S955 is schedule to hit US shores early October.
Heterogeneous System Architecture might not be a phrase that trips off your tongue right now, but if AMD, TI and – in a quiet addition – Samsung have their way, you could be taking advantage of it to interact with the computers of tomorrow. AMD VP Phil Rogers, president of the HSA Foundation, filled his IFA keynote with futurology and waxing lyrical about how PCs, tablets and other gadgets will react to not only touch and gestures, but body language and eye contact, among other things. Check out the concept demo after the cut.
Heterogeneous System Architecture is a catch-all for scalar CPU processing and parallel GPU processing, along with high-bandwidth memory access for boosting app performance while minimizing power consumption. In short, it’s what AMD has been pushing for with its APUs (and, elsewhere – though not involved with HSA – NVIDIA has with its CUDA cores), with the HSA seeing smartphones, desktops, laptops, consumer entertainment, cloud computing, and enterprise hardware all taking advantage of such a system.
While there were six new public additions to the Foundation, Samsung Electronics’ presence came as a surprise. The HSA was initially formed by AMD, ARM, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek, and Texas Instruments, but today’s presentation saw Samsung added to the slides and referred to as a founding member.
Samsung is no stranger to heterogeneous computing tech. Back in October 2011, the company created the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (along with Micron) to push a new, ultra-dense memory system that – running at 15x the speed of DDR3 and requiring 70-percent less energy per bit – would be capable of keeping up with multicore technologies. The Cubes would be formed of a 3D stack of silicon layers, formed on the logic layer and then with memory layers densely stacked on top.
As for the concept, Rogers described a system which could not only learn from a user’s routine, but react to whether they were smiling or not, whereabouts at the display they were looking, and to more mundane cues such as voice and gesture. Such a system could offer up a search result and then, if the user was seen to be smiling at it, learn from that reaction to better shape future suggestions.
Exactly when we can expect such technology to show up on our desktop (or, indeed, in laptops, phones and tablets) isn’t clear. However, Samsung has already been experimenting with devices that react to the user in basic ways; the Galaxy S III, for instance, uses eye-recognition to keep the screen active even if it’s not being touched, while its camera app includes face- and smile-recognition.
Trust us, this should ultimately make a lot of sense. As we already know, AMD recently set up the HSA Foundation to promote its vision for better parallel processing — and especially GPU compute — in mobiles and PCs. Its semi-rival ARM was one of the first big players to join up, and now Samsung has decided to hop onboard too. Why would it do that? For the simple reason that the Korean company still makes its own chips, based on ARM designs, and we’ve seen that GPU compute is going to be a big feature in its coming Exynos 5 processor with Mali T604 graphics.
Now, anything else at this point is pure speculation, since we only know about Samsung’s HSA membership from the appearance of its logo on a relevant slide at AMD’s keynote speech at IFA, and there’s no official word on Samsung’s intentions. At a bare minimum, the company could simply be firming up friendships and hedging its bets on the future of computing. We wouldn’t be surprised, however, if Sammy is looking to work with ARM and AMD to implement further aspects of the HSA philosophy into even more advanced Exynos chips down the line — chips that are able to use both GPU compute andsmaller transistors to achieve leaps in performance while also gobbling fewer volts.
AMD’s been showing off its forthcoming wares at Hot Chips, and has taken the rare step of releasing detailed die shots for its Southern Islands GPUs. According to AnandTech, the company’s shy about releasing such details, since it’s aiming to beat rival NVIDIA to the punch by several months. Still, it’s letting us humble members of the public peer inside the gallery we’ve got for you below, just as long as you pinkie-swear that you won’t be selling the secrets to the boys in Santa Clara, okay?
AMD’s Bulldozer CPUs remind us of Betamax (or MiniDisc), in that its superlativedesign hasn’t been embraced thanks to one or two humblinglimitations. However, Mark Papermaster, Sunnyvale’s new CTO, took to the stage at Hot Chips to show how he’s changing the situation with the third-generation Steamroller architecture. It’s rowing back on the more experimental elements of the design, scrapping the single shared fetch-and-decode hardware in favor of dual-cores that should double the amount of instructions it can handle. It’s hoping to make performance gains of 15 percent, clawing back some of Intel’s lead, and is considering roping in the GPU to help with the heavy-hitting in future versions. The chips will be built at Globalfoundries 28-nanometer line and are hoped to be out at some point next year.
If you’re looking for a budget-friendly quad-core processor, you need look no further than the AMD FX 4130. This new AMD processor is a small step up from the AMD FX 4100, offering clock speeds at 3.8/3.9GHz to the FX 4100′s 3.6/3.8GHz. Not too bad, especially considering that you’ll only be paying $11 more for the FX 4130, which sports a price tag of $112.
That’s definitely a budget processor, but as you’ve probably assumed already, don’t expect to be burning through the benchmarks with this guy under the hood. You’re not going to be getting a lot of processing power for that $112, but it should offer more than enough to secure a place in budget-friendly builds. If you’re planning on just doing every day tasks with your computer instead of gaming with all of the bells and whistles maxed, this processor will probably meet your needs.
Alternatively, you may want to take a look at the AMD’s A-Series if you’re trying to snag a budget-friendly processor. AMD just dropped the prices on A-Series processors across the board, bringing the price of the quad-core 2.9Ghz A8-3850 down to $91, with other quad-cores like the 2.7Ghz A6-3670K and the 3.0Ghz A8-3870K settling at $80 and $101 respectively. If you can live with giving away even more power, the dual-core 2.7Ghz A4-3400 can be had for just 48 smackers.
As stated above, these processors don’t have much hope of capturing the performance crowd’s attention, but they should be suitable for a budget, everyday computer. If you’re looking to build a computer and don’t want to break the bank in the process (or don’t need to), these CPUs might be worth a look. Check out our story timeline below for more on AMD!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
