Hasta La Gadget!

Intel has been staggering the rollout of its Ivy Bridge processors over the space of nearly half a year, starting with its higher-end quad-core chips; it’s finally time for the company to complete the story and ship some budget Core i3 desktop parts. The semiconductor giant is coy about the new roster at this stage, but it does promise both regular (s-series) and low-power (t-series) Core i3 chips at clock speeds between 2.8GHz and 3.4GHz. If the past is an indicator, the new components will be mostly or exclusively dual-core and lack extras like Hyperthreading — they will get Intel’s newer integrated graphics and other perks through the upgrade, however. Bulk pricing and other details haven’t yet been aggregated in one place, although we’re seeing that even the faster 3.3GHz Core i3-3220 is selling at retail for $130. We wouldn’t expect anything from Intel’s new offerings to break the bank.

Filed under: Desktops

Intel finishes crossing the Ivy Bridge with new desktop Core i3 models originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re building a starter desktop to get ready for school, you’ll be glad to know that AMD is squeaking just a little more value for the dollar out of its processors. The new quad-core FX-4130 takes a 200MHz hop forward from its predecessor to a 3.8GHz base speed, and ramps up to 3.9GHz if it’s feeling frisky. While it’s thirstier than the earlier FX-4100 at 125W of maximum power draw, the unlocked chip’s $112 retail cost is a potential sweet spot for those tailoring a system to a strict price. Anyone willing to trade overclocking support for yet more of a savings will be glad to know that AMD has been slashing the prices of its Fusion-based A-Series chips at the same time: the across-the-board cuts bring even the 2.9GHz A8-3850 down to $91. No breaks exist here for the performance crowd, alas, but AMD’s new proposition might be just the excuse needed to build that budget Windows 8 PC.

Filed under: Desktops

AMD FX-4130 delivers 3.8GHz quad-core on a budget, A-Series chips get even cheaper originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The current flagship for ARM’s mobile graphics technology is undoubtedly the Galaxy S III, which contains a quad-core Mali 400 GPU and delivers some wild benchmark scores. By the end of this year though, we should see a whole new generation of Malis — not just a Mali 450 for mid-range handsets, but also the quad-core T604 and the eight-core T658, which are based on ARM’s Midgard architecture and are taking forever to come to market. Now, to whet our appetites even further, ARM has just added three more variants of the chip to its roster, which can almost be considered the next-next-generation: the quad-core T624, and the T628 and T678, which are both scalable up to eight cores.

The trio’s headline feature is that they promise to deliver at least 50 percent more performance with the same silicon area and power draw, with the explicit aim of delivering “console-class gaming,” 4K and even 8K video workloads, as well as buttery 60fps user interfaces in phones, tablets and smart TVs. The premium T678 is aimed at tablets specifically, and in addition to allowing up to eight cores also doubles the number of math-crunching ALUs per core, which means that its compute performance (measured in gigaflops) is actually quadrupled compared to the T624. However, there’s one other, subtler change which could turn out to be equally important — read on for more.

Continue reading ARM’s eight-core Mali GPUs promise ‘dramatic’ boost to mobile graphics

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Tablet PCs

ARM’s eight-core Mali GPUs promise ‘dramatic’ boost to mobile graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ten-core, 2.4GHz Xeons? Pshaw. IBM is used to the kind of clock speeds and brute force power that lead to Europe-dominating supercomputers. Big Blue has no intentions of letting its guard down when it unveils its next generation processors at the upcoming Hot Chips conference: the company is teasing that the “zNext” chip at the heart of a future System z mainframe will ramp up to 5.5GHz — that’s faster than the still-speedy 5.2GHz z196 that has led IBM’s pack since 2010. For those who don’t need quite that big a sledgehammer, the technology veteran is hinting that its upcoming Power7+ processors will be up to 20 percent faster than the long-serving Power7, whose current 4.14GHz peak clock rate may seem quaint. We’ll know just how much those extra cycles mean when IBM takes to the conference podium on August 29th, but it’s safe to say that our databases and large-scale simulations won’t know what hit them.

Filed under: Desktops

IBM pushing System z, Power7+ chips as high as 5.5GHz, mainframes get mightier originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Aug 2012 02:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel has revealed that it’s working on bringing Jelly Bean to its low-power Atom architecture. In an email to PC World, company rep Suzy Greenberg confirmed the project was ongoing, but didn’t offer a timeline as to when the latest flavor of Google’s mobile OS would arrive on a device. It’s the same story regarding when Ice Cream Sandwich would turn up on Medfield-powered devices like the San Diego and its brethren. The report also pours cold water on hopes for Clover Trail powered Android gear — saying that it’s pencilled in as a Windows 8-only platform.

Filed under: Cellphones

Intel porting Jelly Bean to its Atom architecture, is in no hurry to tell you when it’s done originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 12:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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