NVIDIA is hoping to win back mobile processor marketshare with a plan that involves building its own smartphone and tablet hardware designs and offering them white label to OEMs in Russia and China, according to a new report from Unwired View. The idea is that by doing that, NVIDIA gets complete control over hardware performance, while also undercutting the competition on price and hopefully flooding the market with devices based on its platform.
That’s not a new strategy for NVIDIA, which has done essentially the same thing in the graphics card market, Unwired View points out. NVIDIA has some traction in smartphone and tablet processors with its existing Tegra 3 platform, and it announced the Tegra 4 was just announced at CES, with some predicting that it will be a big winner in the mobile market. But Qualcomm is the definite elephant in the room, and its new Snapdragon processors unveiled at CES look to push the envelope and help it maintain its lead among OEM adoption.
Building their own white label designs with producers aiming at the bottom end of the market has a couple of advantages for NVIDIA. First, it gives them an opportunity to control the entire soup-to-nuts product design, meaning they can build hardware that will maximize the performance of the Tegra processor. Second, they can start building their own components at a much higher scale, as their low-cost partners ship more and more cheap, but fairly high-quality units in developing markets. That will help with economies of scale, making it easier to produce chips cheaply and in large batches for other hardware producers.
Devices resulting from this plan will begin to come to market in the May to June timeframe, if the report’s source is correct. Some of these will carry the NVIDIA branding, Unwired View says, and some will not, but all should be relatively high-quality devices at the price points offered. This is still a rumor at this stage, but an intriguing one that if true, could help NVIDIA gain even more ground as a mobile processing powerhouse on the international stage.
NVIDIA wants to take the mystery out of gaming performance through its GeForce Experience. It’s been hard to appreciate that when the app has been in closed testing for well over a month, however — so it’s good news that the company just recently opened the beta program to everyone. Along with bringing faster and better-looking graphics to the PC gaming masses, the public version widens the optimizations to include Core 2 processors, 2,560 x 1,440 displays and games like Far Cry 3 and Mechwarrior Online. There’s no word yet on when the app will reach its finished form, although we hope it’s sooner rather than later when Project Shield’s remote PC game streaming will depend on GeForce Experience to run. For now, players running Windows can grab the beta at the source link.
This week the teams behind the NVIDIA GeForce Experience have unleashed the Open Beta version of the software, available for download by not just the select few (40,000 users, to be fair), but the greater public – you can grab it now! This Open Beta allows you access to the one and only GeForce Experience, a system where the teams of professionals and undeniably powerfully-minded graphics know-it-alls of NVIDIA’s GeForce ranks have for you sets of optimizations for the games you play all the time. In short: your PC games are about to get a whole lot more awesome.
This release has a limited number of games for which you’ll be able to get next-level optimization on your own GeForce-toting gaming PC. This release pumps up the availability of optimization beyond what the closed beta offered, with both Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad CPU support now ready for action. NVIDIA also added 2560 x 1440 display resolution support this time around – that having not been part of the closed beta release either.
With the GeForce Experience Open Beta you’ll see improved game detection logic as well as a collection of 41 games ready to look and work as magnificent as they’ve ever been on your machine. Having added FarCry 3, Mechwarrior Online, and the battle action heavy Hawken for this release, GeForce Experience is now able to work with 41 total titles. The rest are as follows:
Assassin’s Creed 3, Batman: Arkham City, Battlefield 3, Borderlands 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Counter-Strike:GO, CrossFire: Rival Factions, Crysis 2, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Diablo III, Dirt 3, DOTA 2, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, F1 2012, Fable III, Fallout New Vegas, Far Cry 3, FIFA 12, FIFA 13, Football Manager 2013, Hitman Absolution, League of Legends, Left 4 Dead 2, Mass Effect 3, Max Payne 3, Mechwarrior Online, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Planetside 2, Portal 2, Shogun 2: Total War, Star Wars The Old Republic, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Team Fortress 2, The Secret World, The Sims 3, The Sims Medieval, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, World Of Tanks, and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria.
The actual app and usage therein is beyond simple. Once you’ve got it downloaded and open, you hit the scan button to see if there are any games on your machine that are part of the current list the GeForce Experience works with. The machine we’ve used here is an Alienware M17x R4 (see our full review here), and on it we’ve got none other than Batman: Arkham City (see our full review here) which the GeForce Experience software recognizes easily.
From there it’s just a button click or two more before we’ve got full NVIDIA-approved optimization of our settings, based entirely on the hardware/software combination we’ve got and ready for the best-case-scenario outcome when we kick out the gaming jams.
And that’s it! The simplicity of this app is part of the experience, the GeForce Experience being one that’s meant to be beyond simple. This environment makes certain everyone takes the time to optimize their machines with as easy a process as possible so that NVIDIA’s GeForce graphics can do their work as well as possible – and everything looks and handles hot!
This release includes upgrades in performance for client startup, game scan, billboard display, and nothing less than straight up communication with NVIDIA as well. If you’re all about getting some fantastic support for your games straight from NIVIDA, it’s time you headed over to the GeForce Experience Beta download page and had at it. This release works with Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, and is just 9.16 MB in file size – make it yours!
Bonus! Have a peek at the two videos below direct from NVIDIA – the first was filmed at the CES 2013 event we attended (see the timeline below for more info) with the bossman talking about the release iteration of GeForce Experience. The other video shows the app again in simple terms with fancy graphics flying everywhere – hot stuff!
There have already been a few 15-inchUltrabooks that have pushed the very limits of the thin-and-light category. Still, LG wants its turn at bending the rules. Its new U560 packs a 15.6-inch display and an optical drive that, together, contribute to the PC’s 4.3-pound weight and 0.82-inch thickness — really, it’s a traditional laptop in a slimmer than usual package. Not that we’ll complain too much when it involves an IPS-based LCD, a 1.8GHz Core i5, dedicated graphics (a support page suggests NVIDIA) and both a spinning hard disk as well as solid-state storage. The U560’s launch is limited to South Korea so far, although we wouldn’t be surprised to see Europe and other territories get their turn.
This week it’s been made clear – or perhaps just clearer than ever before – that a company able to manufacture its own device components is a company that will thrive. According to the readouts from Gartner showing 2012′s top consumers in the semiconductor universe specifically, Samsung and Apple are out in front of the pack – by a significant margin. Semiconductors, mobile processors, and hardware from displays to memory cards are all a part of this puzzle, and as the two next entries on that list show with double-digit percentage drops show, it’s not just Apple and Samsung that are floating upward here coming into 2013, it’s mobile smart devices as a whole (and all their little bits and pieces).
Samsung is a company that has the ability to create each of the most vital bits, (like their Exynos processor for mobile devices), for each smartphone and tablet it puts on the market. They are the company that went through the most semiconductors in the market in the world in 2012, and they’re making these components themselves. While companies like LG and Lenovo create devices and need billions of dollars worth of semiconductors too, they need groups like Qualcomm and NVIDIA to manufacture those pieces of hardware for them.
So while Samsung is indeed made up of several different businesses, one that makes displays, another that makes processors, another that designs smartphones, it’s still the brand Samsung that profits from one part consuming products from another. So when you see Samsung at the top of the global semiconductor customers list in 2012, a big chunk of that change is being kept in the family. Meanwhile even the third place company HP must rely on groups like Intel in a large way for the architecture in their machines.
Groups like Qualcomm and NVIDIA rely on the companies that do not manufacture their own device innards, on the other hand, so it’s not as if there’s only one perfect model here created by these top companies with their own supplies. Qualcomm creates mobile modems that sit in a large cross-section of the smartphones you see on the market today, while NVIDIA’s Tegra line of processors all but dominated the first wave of Android tablets and Super Phones that came out across 2011.
You’ll find the Qualcomm Snapdragon line of processors coming out in some of the most popular smartphones over the past year, too, including none other than Samsung’s Galaxy S III. What we’re going to be seeing here through 2013 – and what we’ve begun to see already – is Samsung sticking with their own Exynos processor lineup as much as they can muster. Meanwhile groups like ViewSonic, Toshiba, and ASUS will continue to work with NVIDIA and HTC, LG, and Nokia will opt for Qualcomm. Of course those partnerships aren’t definitive by any means, and several of the companies have gone between Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Texas Instruments (now out of the mobile processor business), and others in the past.
There’s also a cross-over happening on the part of NVIDIA with their first production device by the name of Project SHIELD. This is a mobile gaming handheld that’s branded by NVIDIA and includes both the Tegra 4 processor and their own Icera modem. we’ll just have to wait and see who they worked with to create the rest of the components in the final build, but for now, the point is clear: it seems clear that creating your own device, top to bottom, is becoming more and more preferable by companies with the ability to work with such a process.
Today we’re going to be taking a look at the new Acer Predator AG3260 gaming PC. While “gaming PC” and “Acer” may not be two terms you immediately associate with one another, Acer has impressed in the past, and is now looking to wow consumers with its Predator G series of computers. In fact, we’ve reviewed a computer that’s quite similar to this one before, only now the Predator is back with Windows 8 and some slightly different hardware. The problem with building a gaming rig is still the same as always, though: PC gamers can be a fickle bunch, with the most hardcore not paying any attention to pre-built machines and instead building their own rigs. That isn’t an option for everyone, so can the Predator AG3620 offer enough to be worthy of those gamers’ dollars? Read on to find out.
Design
Acer has been putting out some good looking PCs lately, and the Predator AG3620 is no different. The black case has a pair of colored stripes running along the front and the top, with the word “Predator” emblazoned on both sides of the PC. The Predator only sports a mid-size case, which isn’t something we’re used to seeing in a gaming rig. Normally, full-size cases are the standard, given the large amount of equipment you need to pack into it.
At any rate, that mid-size case makes the Predator smaller than other gaming rigs, meaning it can fit into tighter spaces. It’s also surprisingly light for a tower PC – I had no problem lifting and carrying it, though admittedly weight isn’t usually an issue for a computer that will spend most of its life in the same place.
On the front is obviously where the DVD drive is, with two more bays for additional expansions in the future. The front-facing ports have all been moved to the top of the tower, with two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, the headphone jack, and the microphone jack all arranged in a neat little line behind the power button. Speaking of the power button, that’s what will draw your attention when you look at the top of the machine, as it’s big, red, and triangular – almost like one of those caution signs that warn you of rough driving ahead or other upcoming hazards.
Around the back, you’ll find more USB ports. There are six additional USB ports, to be exact, with four more USB 2.0 and two more USB 3.0. There’s also VGA and DVI ports, along with two HDMI ports. You’ve got the standard audio jacks underneath the additional USB ports, jacks for a mouse and keyboard, and an RJ-45 port for 10/100/1000 Gigabit LAN.
Essentially, the ports are what you’d expect from any other gaming rig, though the Predator’s case is a bit louder than other PC cases. That isn’t a bad thing, as I have to say I like the overall look of the Predator. It may not be big, but it doesn’t need to be – all of the computer’s hardware fits nicely inside the case, and as I said above, that smaller form factor means it isn’t going to take up a lot of room when you get it home. As far as design goes, the Predator AG3260 is a winner.
Hardware
I need to start this section right off by saying that you’re not getting the best of the best with the AG3260 in terms of hardware. If you want a rig that’s packed with the highest-end equipment, you better start looking elsewhere because the Predator isn’t the machine you want. That being said, the Predator is packed with excellent or otherwise good hardware, as any gaming rig should be.
The third-gen Intel Core i7-3370 CPU is definitely the star of this show. Initially it’s clocked at 3.4GHz, though the computer can turn that clock speed up to 3.9GHz using Intel’s Turbo Boost technology. That may not be necessary when gaming due to the fact that the graphics card will cause a bottleneck, but it’s nice to have the option nonetheless. Of course, we expect an Intel Core i7 in a gaming rig – anything less and it couldn’t really be considered a gaming rig, after all. Still, it’s great to have it along for the ride, and as you’ll see a bit later, the Core i7 has no problem posting excellent scores in benchmark tests.
The Predator AG3620 also comes equipped with an NVIDIA GeForce GT630, which definitely isn’t the best graphics card NVIDIA has on offer. It’s still a relatively powerful GPU, but it would have been nice to see a card that’s even slightly more powerful. Don’t get me wrong, the GeForce GT630 will do its part to keep visuals looking good, but I feel like it’s going to cause some issues with bottlenecking, especially if Turbo Boost cranks the i7 up to 3.9GHz.
You should be set with the 12GB of DDR3 RAM the AG3620 ships with for quite some time, and here’s another area that Acer decided to make a few small cuts to save some money. With a lot of pre-built gaming rigs these days, it isn’t uncommon to see 16GB of RAM. Truth is, when it comes to gaming, we don’t need 16GB of RAM just yet, so 12GB should get the job done. You’ll probably need to add a bit more at some point down the road, but for now, there doesn’t seem to be anything lost with having 12GB of RAM instead of 16.
System – Acer Predator G3620
Manufacturer
Acer
Product Type
Desktop
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 8 (64-bit)
Motherboard
Acer Predator G3620
Processor
Intel Core i7-3770
Processor ID
GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
Processor Frequency
3.39 GHz
Processors
1
Threads
8
Cores
4
L1 Instruction Cache
32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache
32.0 KB
L2 Cache
256 KB
L3 Cache
8.00 MB
Memory
12.0 GB DDR3 SDRAM 799MHz
FSB
99.8 MHz
BIOS
American Megatrends Inc. P11-A2
For internal storage, Acer has paired a 128GB SSD with a 2TB 7200RPM SATA HDD. I have to say that I’m a pretty big fan of the SSD/HDD hybrid setup, and with Windows 8 loaded onto the SSD, boot up and shut down times are sometimes surprisingly fast. Of course, you’ll run out of space pretty quickly if you try to pack everything on the SSD, but between that and the HDD, you should have plenty of space for your game library.
Sadly, you’ve only got a 16X DVD+R/RW drive, which means no Blu-Ray. That Blu-Ray functionality is definitely missed, considering the Predator AG3620 would be a computer that has no problem playing back HD video, but again, Acer decided to ditch the Blu-Ray drive to keep the price low. You could always swap the DVD drive out for a Blu-Ray drive, however, and since Blu-Ray aren’t super expensive these days, it might not be a bad idea to order one alongside your computer. As far as wireless connectivity is concerned, you’ll have 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 to look forward to.
While the hardware on the inside generally ranges from good to excellent, the keyboard and mouse don’t fall into that stretch. For PC gamers – this computer’s target audience – the keyboard and mouse are going to disappoint. Packed in with the Predator is a two-button optical mouse with a scroll wheel, so if you play FPS or MMO games, you’ll probably want a mouse with more buttons or adjustable DPI settings.
Just the same, you’ll probably want to swap the keyboard out for one made specifically for gamers. The keyboard again is standard fare, though I will say that the keys do have an interesting look. They also make a nice clicking sound like mechanical keyboards, but the problem here is that the spacing seems just a little bit off. Maybe it’s all in my head, but the keys seem slightly further apart than keys on other keyboards. Whether it’s just a personal hang up or not, I was making all kinds of errors while using the keyboard that comes packed with the computer. Hook up your gaming mouse and keyboard instead, because the equipment included with the Predator isn’t stuff you want to use for competitive gaming.
Software
The Predator comes running Windows 8 64-bit, which is bound to be a sore point with some gamers. While I don’t mind Windows 8, I know there are plenty out there who do. If you don’t have a touch monitor, some of the usefulness of Windows 8 will be lost, but all in all, I don’t see much of a problem with having the OS on the Predator. At the end of the day, it’ll all come down to personal preference.
Of course, with Windows 8 on board, you’ll have plenty of Microsoft’s apps from the start. This line up includes Internet Explorer, which I suggest you skip altogether, along with standard Windows 8 apps like People, Weather, News, Maps, and SkyDrive. All of the pre-installed Windows 8 apps vary in usefulness, but one of the main draws of the OS is that you can use the Store to download new apps for your start screen.
Acer has also included some pre-installed apps of its choosing, with Cut the Rope, Acer Explorer, Evernote, and Kindle present from the start. Both Hulu Plus and Netflix come pre-installed on the Predator, so if you have accounts with either of those streaming services, you can begin using them right away without the need for a download. McAfee is there to annoy you from the very first time you start up your computer, while Amazon and eBay also come pre-installed, giving online shoppers to portals to jump in immediately.
Others, like AcerCloud and Spotify will be appreciated by some users, but most will probably want to do a little bit of clean up once they get their Predator out of the box. Everything on the computer seems to be installed on the SSD, so deleting the apps you don’t want becomes even more important. Keep in mind, though, that you’ll have 1.79TB of free storage on the HDD, so you’ve got plenty of extra space to go a little crazy with your downloads.
Gaming and Benchmarks
After describing the hardware that’s in this rig, most PC enthusiasts already know what the benchmark results are going to say. In Geekbench, the Predator netted a score of 16152 – we’ve seen gaming computers score much higher than that, but the Predator’s score shows that its still a reasonably powerful machine. Similarly, in Cinebench the computer took home an OpenGL framerate of 26.72 fps while the CPU test awarded a score 7.44.
Benchmark Score – Acer Predator G3620
Section
Description
Score
Total Score
Windows x86 (64-bit) – Microsoft Windows 8 (64-bit)
Integer
Processor integer performance
13665
16152
Floating Point
Processor floating point performance
24593
Memory
Memory performance
9371
Stream
Memory bandwidth performance
8879
These results say the same thing: while the Predator isn’t the most powerful computer on the block, it still has some solid hardware working under the hood. That will ultimately get gamers who care first and foremost about gorgeous visuals without thinking about cost to turn the other way. However, for gamers who can settle for a decently powerful rig in exchange for a lower price point, the Predator probably isn’t going to disappoint.
Gaming seems to be a matter of compromise sometimes. Do you want games to run at 60 frames per second, or do you want to crank all of the graphics features up as high as they go? On most modern games, you won’t be able to do both, but you will be able to find a happy medium. In Skyrim, for instance, turning all of the graphics settings to ultra (which includes 16x antisotropic filtering and 8x antialiasing) and setting the resolution to 1080p produces a frame rate that rarely leaves the teens. At this point, the game is still playable, but stutters and slowdowns quickly wear on the nerves.
On the other hand, by flipping the switch from ultra to high – which brings antisotropic filtering down to 8 samples – we get better results. At these settings, the game runs right around 30 frames per second, sometimes dropping below that point when you’re in outdoor areas with a lot to see, and other times rising above when you’re indoors. That isn’t bad, considering that most console games run at 30 frames per second. The difference here is that on high settings, Skyrim looks much better than its console counterpart. If you can accept console-quality frame rate, you’ll still get a good looking experience.
The same is true for Batman: Arkham City. Bringing the resolution up to 1080p, turning FXAA to high, switching the detail level to very high, and turning on most of the eye candy features like dynamic shadows and reflection, we get right around 30 frames per second in-game. The frame rate will sometimes fluctuate between 25 and 30 fps, less frequently dropping down below 25, but almost never going below 20. Some may not like hearing that, but for me, the frame rate wasn’t really an issue. It should be noted, however, that DirectX 11 features and tessellation had to be turned off to get that frame rate, so that may be a sacrifice some players aren’t willing to make.
Unfortunately, if we move up to more recent games, the Predator begins struggling a bit. By playing Far Cry 3 with DirectX 9 and medium settings across the board, we get a frame rate that likes to linger in the low teens. There are times when it will jump up into the toward the 20s, but a low frame rate like that might turn some gamers off. Ultimately, the GeForce GT630 had some issues with Far Cry 3, but then again, titles like Ubisoft’s latest demand some serious hardware before you can get excellent visuals at an acceptable frame rate.
Wrap-Up
In many ways, I’m torn when it comes time to decide whether or not the Predator AG3620 deserves a recommendation. It’s true that the computer struggled with Far Cry 3, but with Arkham City and Skyrim, the results were pretty good. The fact that you can find the Predator AG3620 for around $1000 helps sweeten the deal quite a bit, but at that point, you might be better off spending a little bit more in return for a better GPU.
As it is, the Predator is a capable gaming rig, it just isn’t exceptional. It may be worth a purchase for gamers who want a solid gaming PC foundation and won’t mind upgrading their graphics card in a year or so. All the same, if you don’t mind giving the most graphics-intensive games a pass (or, alternatively, are willing to put up with playing them at low or medium settings), then the Predator is a decent, relatively inexpensive choice.
If you’re a PC gamer primarily for the amazing graphics that are achievable, it’s probably best to look elsewhere. Naturally, if it’s top-tier graphics quality you want, you’ll probably be building your own rig, and the Predator was never targeted at you in the first place. In the end, if you’re the type who thinks that graphics aren’t everything, or you’re looking for a somewhat cheap way of giving the PC gaming world a spin, the Predator may be worthy of consideration – but only if you’re willing to make some compromises.
AVADirect, a company that specializes in custom-built computers, laptops, and server systems, has announced a world’s first. Their new 2U four-way server system is the first of its kind to house four NVIDIA Tesla graphics cards. The company says that “never has the industry seen or utilized such a solution,” until now.
AVADirect also partnered up with ASUS and used the company’s ESC4000 G2 Black 2U server platform to bring some respectable hardware to these new server units. On the inside, you can store up to 512GB of DDR3 RAM, with room for eight PCI-E 3.0 16x expansion cards (including those four Tesla units).
You’ll also find eight SATA ports with multiple RAID configurations, eight hot-swappable hard drive bays, and a 1+1 Redundant 1,620W 80PLUS Platinum power supply. That’s certainly a lot of firepower that must be treated carefully. AVADirect says that these new units are meant for render farms, imagine generators, rack-mounted graphics workstations, and multi-display workstations.
Of course, AVADirect will let you customize the new server system to fit your needs, and their website offers a ton of different configurations. However, the company’s recommended build costs just shy of $5,250, so if you’re serious about getting some major computing power in your hands, you better be saving up right this instant.
Both Windows 8 and the tablet-based iteration of the OS Windows RT are now able to access the brand new system known as Microsoft PLAY, full of Xbox games for the masses. This system is part of PlayXBLA, aka Xbox Live Arcade, Microsoft’s initiative dedicated to bringing games developed in part (or in whole) by Microsoft itself, often collaborating with independent development studios to bring optimized games to Xbox 360, Windows Phone, and Windows 8/RT. Interestingly enough, you’ll find that this particular project is done in collaboration also with NVIDIA and their Windows 8/RT on Tegra program, too.
This system is similar, though not the same, as the NVIDIA TegraZone for Windows RT. One of the big differences here is that the TegraZone works with games that have been optimized for the Tegra 3 (and Tegra 4) processor, the Microsoft PLAY environment is specified for Windows 8 and Windows RT. So crossover games are possible, but we’re talking about different things entirely as far as how the games are being marketed.
The games you’re going to be able to access today in the Microsoft PLAY environment number to 15, this providing a modest offering for the initial launch, including titles that’ll keep your eyes peeled for more in the future. These titles are all being tagged with Microsoft Studios in this case, this meaning they’re good enough for that seal of approval, likely to be appearing in stores as the demonstration-level quality they want all Windows 8 and Windows RT machines to be up at in the wild.
• Skulls of the Shogun • Gunstringer: Dead Man Running • ilomilo+ • Wordament • Toy Soldiers – Cold War: Touch Edition • Taptiles • Rocket Riot 3D • Reckless Racing • Pinball FX • Microsoft Minesweeper • Microsoft Solitaire Collection • Microsoft Mahjong • Hydro Thunder : Hurricane • Adera • 4 Elements II
You’ll be able to find these games on the Windows Store right this minute, and many more games are on the way. What we’re hoping for in the future is more than these arcade-style games – full-fledged Xbox 360 (or 720 by the time we see them) games ported over or made optimized at the moment they’re ready for the gaming console, available everywhere. Of course that might not be Microsoft’s game, but NVIDIA’s. We shall see!
Advanced Micro Devices, popularly known as AMD, has filed a complaint yesterday saying that four of its previous employees, ex-key officials for that matter, brought along with them sensitive documents or electronic files before joining fierce graphics competitor NVIDIA. The defendants are Robert Feldstein, Manoo Desai, Nicolas Kociuk, and Richard Hagen. (more…)
AMD is suing four ex-employees for allegedly taking thousands of confidential documents with them when they left the company and went to work for NVIDIA. A complaint filed to the District Court of Massachusetts reveals that AMD’s former VP of Strategic Development Robert Feldstein, who was instrumental in designing graphics chips for early Xbox 360 consoles and the Wii, is among the defendants. He’s accused of playing a role in the electronic transfer over 100,000 files containing “trade secret materials relating to developing technology.” AMD claims it has “forensically-recovered data” to show that external storage devices were used in the days prior Feldstein’s departure, and also that he and another senior exec, Richard Hagen, actively recruited the two other defendants to join them at NVIDIA, in violation of agreements they had signed. Of course, this is just AMD’s side of the story. The company told us in a statement that it intends to “aggressively protect” its trade secrets through this litigation, so the rest will just have to play out in court.
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Advanced Micro Devices, popularly known as AMD, has filed a complaint yesterday saying that four of its previous employees, ex-key officials for that matter, brought along with them sensitive documents or electronic files before joining fierce graphics competitor NVIDIA. The defendants are Robert Feldstein, Manoo Desai, Nicolas Kociuk, and Richard Hagen. 
