Hasta La Gadget!

Another Intel processor platform that sounds like a campground? Of course it is! This one is pretty far out — like 2012 far out — but if Digitimes is to be believed Intel’s actually gearing up to reveal its Chief River laptop platform at CES in January. Said to be based on the 22nm Ivy Bridge processors and have native support for USB 3.0 (finally!), the platform would follow Huron River / Sandy Bridge, which is set to start shipping in laptops in early 2011. (Side note: Digitimes also mentions that we should start seeing Sandy Bridge laptops at this year’s CES, which lines up with what we’ve heard from our own sources.) The word from motherboard manufacturers is that Chief River wouldn’t actually go into mass production until September 2011 and start shipping in systems until January 2012, which makes quite a bit of sense given Intel’s annual timing on these things. Either way, we should be finding out more in a couple months in Vegas — heck, you never know, Intel may even tell us a bit about its 2013 laptop platform. Shall we give them a hand with potential names?

Intel Chief River laptop platform to support USB 3.0, arrive in 2012? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Nov 2010 01:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel providing 22nm fabrication capacity to semiconductor start-up originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 14:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI stops short of calling the graphics switching technology within the FX600MX “Optimus,” but it’s pretty obvious what’s behind the curtain. The outfit’s latest 15.6-incher is equipped with a Core i3 or i5 CPU, Windows 7 Home Premium, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory and a 320/500GB hard drive. There’s also a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 310M GPU, and MSI has thrown in a handy control panel to make switching from discrete to integrated a lesson in simplicity. Moving on, you’ll find a DVD SuperMulti drive, two USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 card reader, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, gigabit Ethernet, an HD webcam and a conventional six-cell battery. You’d be wasting your time hoping for a price and release from these guys, but usually a proper announcement means it’ll be on shelves soon.

MSI brings graphics switching action to 15.6-inch FX600MX laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Oct 2010 06:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There isn’t much to say here, so let’s just get on with the facts: Intel, Samsung, and Toshiba are joining forces and pooling R&D efforts in a consortium funded in part by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (an expected 50 percent, or 5 billion yen / US $62 million) and the rest from the members. The goal? Semiconductor chips nearing 10nm by 2016. Ten more companies are expected to be invited once things get sorted out, so major chip-related corporations, please keep checking your mailboxes daily.

Intel, Samsung, Toshiba form consortium aiming for 10nm chips by 2016 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Oct 2010 09:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Add the ‘made in China’ tag to yet another gadget: the world’s fastest supercomputer. China says it has the most powerful computing system — a machine called Tianhe-1A.

The supercomputer uses 7,168 NVIDIA Tesla M2050 GPUs (graphics processing units) and 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs and is capable of clocking 2.507 petaflops or 2,507 trillion floating point calculations per second.

The Tianhe-1A will take the top spot from the U.S. Cray XT5 aka ‘Jaguar’ that’s at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The Jaguar can clock 1.759 petaflops and is built using 37,376 AMD processors.

The Tianhe-1A is interesting because it combines CPU and GPUs — much like desktop PCs — to create the world’s most powerful machine. In fact, Nvidia, claims if its GPUs weren’t used, then it would have taken 50,000 CPUs and twice as much floor space to create a comparable computer.

The Tianhe-1A was designed by the National University of Defense Technology in China and will be operated as an open access system for large scientific computations.

The use of GPUs in high performance computing is on the rise. Once seen in PCs used largely for multimedia and gaming, GPU-based computing has become more popular among researchers for its ability to offer raw computing power. While CPU are critical to a PC for their ability to interact with the different computing elements such as memory and disk drives, GPUs can perform specialized tasks especially related to graphics and visual computations that working in tandem with CPUs can speed up computing.

The CPU-GPU combination also helps keep up power efficiency. The system consumes 4.04 megawatts, three times less than what it would have if it were built entirely with CPUs, claims Nvidia.

Overall, the Tianhe-1A is a computing monster. It has 262 terabytes of memory and is housed in 140 refrigerator-sized cabinets.

See Also:

• Sony’s PS3 Update Could Affect Supercomputer Users
• Android Phones Can Substitute for Supercomputers
• How to Upgrade a Supercomputer, 37376 Chips at a Time
• Toshiba Crams Supercomputer Guts Into 3-D, Web TV
• Microsoft, Cray Unleash $25K Supercomputer
• Water-Cooled Supercomputer Doubles as Dorm Space Heater

Photo: Nvidia