HP to announce ARM-based servers next month, throw Intel a curveball

Sources close to Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal say that HP is primed to help ARM wrestle its way into the server game next month, citing unannounced plans that may challenge Intel’s corner on the market. HP is said to be working with Calxeda, an outfit with dreams of outclassing today’s servers by selling OEMs an ARM-based system on a chip that can be used to build high performance racks with low energy footprints. ARM, HP and Calxeda all declined to comment, although a spokesperson for Calxeda mentioned that it has a product release event scheduled for November 1st. Intel doesn’t seem too concerned, and told the Wall Street Journal that ARM architecture still had a few hurdles to jump before it was ready for the server game. “We believe the best-performing platform will win.” Spoken like a true sportsman, Intel. Game on.

HP to announce ARM-based servers next month, throw Intel a curveball originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 18:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink linuxfordevices  |  sourceBloomberg, Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

Freescale joins ARM A5 and M4 cores at the hip for performance and power savings

Freescale CPUYou may have noticed a trend recently — pairing slightly less powerful cores that sip power, with more robust ones that can chug through demanding applications. NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 will be packing an underclocked fifth core, while ARM’s big.LITTLE initiative matches a highly efficient 28nm A7 with the beefy A15. Now Freescale is planning to use the same trick, but you won’t find its asymmetrical CPUs in your next tablet or smartphone. Its platform, which marries a Cortex M4 to a Cortex A5, isn’t meant to compete with the latest Snapdragon. These chips will find homes in factories and in-dash infotainment systems which have increasingly sophisticated UIs, but don’t need to push thousands of polygons. Software development tools will land before this quarter is out and the first batch of silicon will be announced in Q1 of 2012. Looks like the era of “dual-core” meaning two identical cores has officially come to an end.

Continue reading Freescale joins ARM A5 and M4 cores at the hip for performance and power savings

Freescale joins ARM A5 and M4 cores at the hip for performance and power savings originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel earnings beat company records: $14.3 billion revenue, $3.7 billion net income

Apple may not have fared as well as expected in its own Q4, but just up the road in Silicon Valley Intel managed to exceed analyst predictions, posting record revenue of $14.3 billion — up $3.2 billion, or 29 percent year-over-year. The company also set new records for microprocessor units shipped, and expects further growth over the next quarter, with notebook computer sales driving $14.7 billion in predicted Q4 revenue. Jump past the break for an in-depth look at the company’s Q3, along with its outlook for the next quarter.

Continue reading Intel earnings beat company records: $14.3 billion revenue, $3.7 billion net income

Intel earnings beat company records: $14.3 billion revenue, $3.7 billion net income originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Four Atom chips sneak out of Intel, soon to appear in netbooks and nettops

Rarely do you hear of new chips sneaking out of Intel, Escape from Alcatraz-style. But that’s (figuratively) happened today, with a quartet of processors appearing with little fanfare from Chipzilla. Two of these you might recognize as members of the delayed Cedar Trail series, the D2500 and D2700. The former clocks at 1.86GHz and 2.13GHz, with the latter upping that to 2.13GHz and 2.4Ghz; both have a thermal design power of less than 10W. The other two chips sip power even more judiciously: the N2600 has a TDP of less than 3.5W at 1.6GHz or 1.86GHz; the N2800 has a 6.5W TDP, running at 1.86GHz or 2.13GHz. All include GPUs, with the N2000 series destined for netbooks, while the D2000 series should end up in nettops. To dig deeper into the specs, see Intel’s datasheet at the source link below.

Four Atom chips sneak out of Intel, soon to appear in netbooks and nettops originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD A4-3300 and A4-3400 APUs ready to ship, take on Intel for your budget PC dollar

AMD Llano APU

That’s right folks, AMD’s A4 APUs are here and ready to take on Intel in a battle for the bottom end of the mainstream desktop market. These dual-core desktop parts pack integrated graphics courtesy of the company’s Radeon line. Both also boast a 65W TDP and 1MB of L2 cache. The only difference here is speed and price: the 3300 clocks in at 2.5GHz with a 440MHz GPU for $70, while the 3400 moves on up to 2.7GHz and a 600MHz GPU for only $5 more. They’re not exactly speed demons, but should be able to hold their own against similarly priced Pentiums — especially if you don’t plan on buying a discrete graphics card. You can pick one up now at Amazon and other select retailers but, before you go, check out the PR after the break.

Continue reading AMD A4-3300 and A4-3400 APUs ready to ship, take on Intel for your budget PC dollar

AMD A4-3300 and A4-3400 APUs ready to ship, take on Intel for your budget PC dollar originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel adds 16 CPUs to Sandy Bridge stable, slashes prices on some older silicon

It’s been a few months since AMD threw down the gauntlet on Intel with its lower-priced Llano lineup, and now Chipzilla’s responded with some new bargain basement Sandy Bridge silicon. The refresh includes 11 new desktop CPUs: a Core i5 chip, three Core i3s, and a handful of dual-core Pentium and Celeron processors as well. There are also five new mobile chips, including three new quad-core Core i7s (2960XM, 2860QM, and 2760QM), and the dual-core Core i7-2640M and Celeron B840. In a separate nod to these tough economic times, Intel cut the prices on a few of its existing models, too. Granted, it’s only a six-percent discount at the most, but we’re sure you can put those dollars to good use elsewhere in your next DIY rig.

Intel adds 16 CPUs to Sandy Bridge stable, slashes prices on some older silicon originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel talks up next-gen Itanium: 32nm, 8-core Poulson

Intel Itanium Poulson

It’s been a long time since Intel tried to tempt the world with a new Itanium chip. The VLIW 64-bit processor last received a serious update in 2008, with the 2-billion transistor Tukwila. Now Chipzilla is upping the ante — moving to 32nm process, adding up to four more cores, and tacking on more than one billion additional transistors. Poulson also adds a new feature called Intel Instruction Replay Technology, which adds a buffer for more quickly recovering from errors, allowing the chip to pick up from the last known good instruction instead of having to completely flush the pipeline. Those looking to upgrade will also be happy to hear that the upcoming IA-64 CPU is pin compatible with Tukwila, so customers can simply drop the new processor in to existing systems. Check out the full PR after the break.

Continue reading Intel talks up next-gen Itanium: 32nm, 8-core Poulson

Intel talks up next-gen Itanium: 32nm, 8-core Poulson originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 20:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cedar Trail may be delayed, new Atoms gone ’til November

Intel AtomIf you’ve been waiting to catch a whiff of some Cedar Trail freshness, looks like you’re just gonna hold your breath a little bit longer. DigiTimes is reporting that the next-gen Atom chip has been pushed back from its anticipated September launch to November. Apparently Chipzilla is having issues with the graphics drivers and has been unable to pass Windows 7 certification. The new low-power CPUs should still be ready in time for the holiday season though, and will likely find their way into plenty of netbooks that almost nobody will buy.

Cedar Trail may be delayed, new Atoms gone ’til November originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 03:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Will Intel’s Core i7 Sandy Bridge E CPUs ship without fans or heatsinks?

Over the past few months, we’ve peeked Intel’s roadmap more than once, but all told we’ve been treated to scant few details about its high-end desktop line, Sandy Bridge E (that’s “E” for enthusiasts). Today, though, VR-Zone is reporting that the next generation of these CPUs will ship without fans or heatsinks — a tacit acknowledgment, perhaps, that Intel’s home-brewed cooling system will be inadequate in the eyes of hobbyists anyway. We reached out to Intel for comment, and while the company stayed mum on the topic of cooling, it did go out of its way to clarify another point the folks at VR-Zone made in their report. The outlet had said that the forthcoming 3820, 3930K and 3960X CPUs will be rated at 130 watts, but will consume closer to 180W and draw up to 23 amps from the 12V2 supply rail — all without overclocking, mind you. An Intel rep writes: “TDP expectations for the 2nd Generation Intel Core i7 processor family for socket LGA-2011 are in line with previous generations of high end desktop products.” In other words, built-in cooling system or no, the TDP should be in line with what we’ve seen from other Extreme-branded processors. As for the cooling, it’s unclear when, exactly, we’ll get the full spill — the CPUs are rumored to launch before the end of the year, with the quad-core 3820 arriving after the six-core 3930K and 3960X.

Will Intel’s Core i7 Sandy Bridge E CPUs ship without fans or heatsinks? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Aug 2011 23:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel Ultrabooks to sell for under $1000, take a page from ASUS’ design book?

Back at Computex, Intel whipped out its magic 8-ball to predict a “you may rely on it” 40 percent share for the upcoming Ultrabooks market. While we can neither confirm, nor deny the company’s powers of retail clairvoyance, we can point you to a purported bill of materials that would usher its line in at a sub-$1000 price. The report from Digitimes doesn’t lay out the specific assembly costs, but pegs the chipmaker’s 18mm and 21mm thick laptops at $493 – $710 and $475 – $650, respectively. Intel is also reportedly meeting with manufacturers in Taipei next week to figure out a way to deliver on the budget-friendly goal, aimed at producing 11 – 13-inch models for the thinner entries and girthier 14 – 17-inch models. If you’re wondering what sort of form factor the company’s after, take a glance at ASUS’ UX21 and UX31 ultrabooks — supposed reference designs for the svelte, Ivy Bridge-powered computers. We hope that’s the only bit of strategy Intel cops, otherwise we’re all in for a disappointingly priced ultraslim future.

Intel Ultrabooks to sell for under $1000, take a page from ASUS’ design book? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Aug 2011 14:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Electronista  |  sourceDigitimes  | Email this | Comments