Hasta La Gadget!

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 folks at Qualcomm have announced that they’ll be collaborating with LG to release their Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor to the market quite soon. This “global device” as they’re calling it at the moment will bring a Adreno 320 GPU as well as support for “higher HD resolution displays”. This bit of architecture will work with 4G LTE connectivity and will be popping up in September in Korea first and globally soon thereafter.

This isn’t one whole heck of a lot more information coming with this release of information from Qualcomm and LG, but there’s certainly a lot to look forward to. With the Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor we’ve seen in a variety of devices here in the United States thus far, we’re definitely pumped up. With the Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core benchmarks we’ve seen thus far, there’s no knowing how powerful these LG devices are going to be – big time!

The quad-core CPU Snapdragon S4 Pro processor will be able to work with 4G LTE as well as 3G and of course, global connections galore. As it was with the dual-core version of the S4, so too is it with the Pro, not just multi-core processing power, but imaging powers as well – take photos like a madman! You’ll be able to play games that are more amazing than ever before! You’ll be able to open up so many web browser windows that you’ll be visiting every portal on SlashGear at once – just like you’ve always wanted!

Have a peek at our S4 Pro timeline below to get more details on this quad-core monster coming out soon, very soon!

Qualcomm teams with LG for S4 Pro quad-core processor action is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Samsung has revealed details of the new Exynos 5 Dual, the company’s latest chipset for smartphones and tablets, packing a pair of Cortex-A15 cores for superlative mobile power. The new 32nm SoC packs twin 1.7GHz cores and supports up to 2560 x 1600 WQXGA resolution – interesting, given the persistent rumors that Samsung is readying an 11.8-inch tablet at just that resolution – along with 1080p 60fps hardware deceleration and 3D graphics.

There’s also USB 3.0 and SATA3 support, OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenCL support, and the ability to drive wireless displays. For the first time, Samsung has implemented a separate display subsystem, which the company says makes for a cheaper overall device and better performance.

Samsung is pretty vocal about the Exynos 5 Dual’s performance, comparing it to a desktop processor in terms of capabilities, and suggesting that it will offer twice the performance of an Exynos 4 Dual 1.4GHz. Its individual cores at between 1.5x and 2x faster than Cortex-A9 cores – as used by NVIDIA in the Tegra 3, though in NVIDIA’s chip you do get four of them not two – while memory bandwidth is similarly speedy.

Samsung claims to have planned for a “worst case” scenario in driving graphics, with the Exynos 5 Dual capable of handling a full 2560 x 1600 display overlaying a UI onto 1080p video, keeping a camera preview running, encoding video, and simultaneously using HDMI-out to an HDTV. Overall bandwidth is double that of the previous Exynos 4 Dual.

Meanwhile, power consumption is down – 30-percent lower than 45nm chips – and with specific power-saving routines for energy-hungry displays. Samsung isn’t saying what products we can expect to see the Exynos 5 Dual show up in, but we’re hoping that changes soon.

Samsung Exynos 5 Dual detailed: You want this in your next tablet is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The international versions of the Galaxy S II, Galaxy Note, and Galaxy S III all make use of an Exynos processor paired with a Mali-400 GPU, which has proven to be quite a champ in the performance department. Now ARM has unveiled its second-generation of graphics, the Mali-T600 GPU. ARM says that the T600 series has been fine tuned for smartphones, tablet, and smart TVs, with variants ranging from quad- to octo-core.

The Mali-T624 starts with a single core but scale up to four cores, while the more powerful T-628 can go all the way up to eight cores for twice the graphics performance. Both chips are aimed at smart TVs and smartphones, while the T678 is designed for tablets. That chip is four times more powerful than the T624 thanks to increased ALU support, and is meant to be used for computational photography as well as augmented reality.

On top of the boost in performance, ARM is keen to point out the investments it has made in the GPU compute department too. By tapping into the GPU, a wider range of smartphones will be able to leverage real-time photo editing, plus others functions like improved video stabilization. That ties in with partnerships with MediaTek and Rockchip, with both companies working with ARM in order to utilize the new T600 GPUs across a large range of devices.

Naturally, Samsung is along for the ride as well, saying that it will be working closely with ARM in order to bring the improved GPUs to future Exynos chipsets. Currently the Galaxy S III uses an improved Mali-400 GPU, but it’s not hard to imagine that future smartphones and tablets from the company will make use of the new T600 series.

ARM Mali-T600 GPU series promises up to eight cores is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Qualcomm has snatched up a formerly key Intel exec, Anand Chandrasekher, who will now run marketing and external comms for the company as CMO. Chandrasekher was until recently senior VP and general manager for Intel’s Ultra Mobility Group and responsible for the Atom processor that forms the company’s mobile strategy. However, it’s the possibility of ARM chips in laptops, desktops and servers that looks to be whetting Qualcomm’s appetite.

“[Chandrasekher’s] extensive experience in marketing and management makes Anand well-suited to help grow Qualcomm’s communications and marketing efforts across the world and to amplify our consumer offerings to new audiences” Qualcomm president and COO Steve Mollenkopf said in a statement today. Those “new audiences” are likely to include non-smartphone and tablet implementations of Qualcomm chips, a segment which the company currently dominates.

Qualcomm isn’t the only ARM-based chipset firm to target what would traditionally be systems powered by x86 processors. ARM itself has been building links with production partners to create chips that support the same functionality as x86 server cores, only with reduced power consumption and at a far cheaper price.

Chandrasekher’s new role is just the latest in a series of chip company shuffles that have seen high-profile processor experts jump ship between key players in the industry. Earlier this month AMD announced it was hiring a former Apple processor expert, only weeks after Apple hired an ex-AMD Trinity architect.

Qualcomm grabs Intel Atom chief for Snapdragon drive is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.