Hasta La Gadget!

How’s your memory today? Specifically, can you remember the last time AMD had a legitimate claim to the desktop performance crown? Don’t hold your breath, the latest and greatest Phenom II still can’t steal the spotlight from Intel’s spectacular top-of-the-line Core i7-980X, but if prices actually matter to you, you’ll wanna read on. Whereas you’d need to shell out $999 to get six cores from Intel, AMD is offering you its flagship 3.2GHz 1090T model at a reasonable $285, or an even more affordable option with the 2.8GHz 1055T at $199. The T in those names stands for Turbo Core, which automatically downclocks half the cores in order to provide a little extra speed (up to 500MHz more) to the other three. Reviewers agreed that its inclusion helped significantly improve single-threaded performance, to the point where the faster (in default clock speed) 3.4GHz Phenom II X4 965 was falling behind in benchmarks. The general opinion by the typically jaded journalists was that AMD has finally regained some pep in its step and that these new 6-core CPUs are going to give Intel’s upper midrange offerings something to worry about. Lest we forget, the 1090T and 1055T also retain socket compatibility with current AM2+ and AM3 motherboards, making upgrades a cinch too. The full reviews await below.

Read – AnandTech
Read – HotHardware
Read – PC Perspective
Read – Hexus
Read – Legit Reviews
Read – TweakTown
Read – TechSpot

AMD’s 3.2GHz hexacore Phenom II X6 1090T comes out for a review roundup originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 03:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Ah, leaked company presentation slides, they have a clarity only Mr. Blurrycam would despise. EETimes got a batch of them from Samsung dated November 2009 making the rounds, but more important than revealing its equal love for both Roman and Greek mythology, we get a glimpse at its then-planned ARM chip roadmap (yeah, another one) through 2013. In a nutshell, for the Cortex A9 crowd we’ve got the 800MHz dual core “Orion” due for mass production in Q1 2011, a 1GHz single core “Pegasus” for Q4 2011, a 1GHz dual core “Hercules” for Q1 2012, and for sometime in 2012 / 2013, a 1.2GHz dual core “Draco” and quad core “Aquila.” Fear not, Cortex A5 fanatics, you’ve got gifts as well, in the form of 600MHz single core “Mercury” and dual core “Venus” chips, slated for 2010 / 2011 and 2012 / 2013, respectively. We don’t expect the nomenclature to extend beyond internal usage, but frankly, who cares — it’s the devices that count, and unfortunately all we can do is doodle our future gadget hopes and dreams onto scraps of paper while we wait.

Samsung’s ARM roadmap lays coordinates through 2013: Aquila, Venus, and Draco (oh my) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Slashgear  |  EETimes  | Email this | Comments

Mama always said that downpours followed Spring showers, and sure enough, the Apple news has been flowing hot and heavy overnight. For starters, an IEEE Spectrum report has people talking once more about Intrinsity; if you’ll recall, rumors flared up earlier in the month about Apple nabbing said company, similar to the way it acquired P.A. Semi way back in the naughties. Now, it seems that round two of those whispers are gaining steam, with some analysts suggesting that without Intrinsity’s expertise, there was simply no way the silicon within the iPad could’ve been pushed to 1GHz in time for launch. In related news, we’re also hearing that Cupertino is interested in acquiring ARM Holdings, and considering just how much business Apple pushes ARM’s way, it’s not illogical to imagine Apple wanting to just bring ARM in-house. If the deal went down, Apple would obviously hold a huge amount of control over whether or not ARM chips ended up in rival products, and if it yanked those Cortex slabs out from the market place, you can bet there would be a mad scramble to create a competitive portfolio to serve those suddenly chip-less product makers. Finally, a new iPhone OS 4 (beta 2) video has surfaced, giving the world a solid look at a new circular side-swapped animation that occurs when switching apps — head on past the break to check it out, and give those links below a visit for more of that succulent nitty-gritty.

Continue reading Apple rumor roundup: Intrinsity behind the A4, ARM being eyed

Apple rumor roundup: Intrinsity behind the A4, ARM being eyed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 07:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  London Evening Standard, Apple Insider, IEEE Spectrum  | Email this | Comments

Here’s an odd one. Samsung, which has been known to be on better-than-average terms with the South Korean government in the past, is launching independent investigations in response to reports that “toxic materials used in chip making may have caused cancer in some of its employees.” In one of the more bizarre stories of the year, Samsung has recently come under fire from social and civic groups to actually look into the incidents, which were reported over a decade ago but were found to not be Sammy’s fault by the aforesaid government. This week, the company admitted that 22 of its employees (who worked at a chip facility outside of Seoul) had been diagnosed with leukemia or lymphoma, and 10 of them had perished. Cho Soo-in, president of Samsung’s memory division, told the media that the firm is “deeply sorry about the loss of loved ones,” and that it “actively cooperated on epidemiologic investigations, which concluded there were no leaks of radiation.” We’ve got a feeling we know exactly what will be concluded here, but we’ll certainly keep an ear to the ground for anything atypical.

Samsung launches investigation of chip lines following cancer allegations originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Reuters  | Email this | Comments

Stephen Elop, el presidente of Microsoft’s business division has stated that his company has “no current plans” to port its Office productivity suite over to the iPad. Contenting itself with a “wait and see” approach, the Redmond outfit isn’t willing to completely close the door of possibility, but earlier hopes of seeing family favorites like Word and Excel on the iPad might have to be doused for the time being. Should that hamper the enjoyment of your new slate, you might want to console yourself with the extravagantly priced SiteClone Publisher, also available for the iPhone, which converts $900 of your hard-earned cashola into a tool that downloads data off particular sites while online, so that the user may access that content even without a connection. Doesn’t sound worthy of a tenth of its price, but maybe the government and corporate entities it’s aimed at will appreciate it more. Finally, Apple Insider is reporting whispers that Apple retail employees will be getting freebie iPads at some indeterminate point in the future, while NeoSmart has a particularly insightful breakdown of the differences between PowerPC, x86, and ARM CPU instruction sets. Hit up the links below for the full edifying experience.

iPad misses out on Office romance, but gains a $900 app and more originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Apr 2010 19:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Business Week, Wired, Apple Insider, NeoSmart  | Email this | Comments