Lenovo's rumored ThinkPad netbook will launch at the start of the next year, a leak today says. It's now purportedly named the ThinkPad X100e and may ship on January 5th, just ahead of CES. System specs are only guessed at but may not necessarily cling to the Atoms found in the IdeaPads; instead, it's speculated that Lenovo may use either Intel's CULV processors or an AMD Athlon Neo.
PC vendors that rely on AMD graphics cards are delaying their shipments scheduled for the first quarter of 2010 by nearly two months, say sources at the manufacturers, DigiTimes claimed on Thursday. Radeon HD 5000-series GPUs and HD 4000-series GPUs are reportedly facing shortages through a combination of factors. The shortage of the 40nm Radeon HD 5000 cards is due to a low yield at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) 40nm factories, while the 4000-series GPUs scarcity is allegedly AMD's own doing as it has scaled back production of older technology after releasing the more advanced 40nm parts.
By May of 2010, chipmaker AMD will officially introduce two new desktop platforms, with the high-end Leo and more mainstream Dorado, says Digitimes. The information comes from motherboard makers, who revealed the Leo will be made up of current 45nm Phenom II or future six-core Thuban CPUs paired with either 890FX or 890GX northbridge and SB850 southbridge chipsets.
New York state's Attorney General Andrew Cuomo today filed a lawsuit against Intel that accuses the company of antitrust abuse. The Delaware-based complaint maintains that Intel violated both state and federal laws by allegedly threatening companies with retaliation if they used AMD processors and in some cases paying out billions of dollars in financial incentives disguised as rebates. Intel engaged in "bribery and coercion" to keep its control of the market, Cuomo says.
On a recent trip to China, Intel's CEO Paul Otellini has been talking about the chipmaker's upcoming high-end Larrabee GPU with China-based graphics card makers, DigiTimes reported on Tuesday, citing sources at the card makers. They claim Intel is planning on offering preferential pricing for the GPU both on its own, as well as bundled with other Intel products. The Larrabee is expected to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce and AMD's Radeon products and is due for a 2010 launch.
While there was no official announcement, MSI will soon offer a new netbook-class Windows 7 portable, according to a product page for the Wind 12 U230. The PC has AMD's new 1.6GHz Athlon Neo X2 dual-core processor, which is paired with ATI's Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics chipset. Other specs are common to the current U210 notebook, including a display that's sized at 12.1 inches and with 1366x768 resolution.
Maingear today tackled the very high end, designer category of gaming PCs with the SHIFT. The system is specially designed by Maingear with an aluminum chassis and a rare, vertically-aligned cooling system; besides using an Asetek system to cool the processor without fans, all other components point upwards and have their heat naturally vent upwards instead of front-to-back like in most PCs. The system is also subtler with an all-black design and a pop-up port array on the top with card readers, FireWire, USB and audio.
Toshiba UK on Friday launched four new business notebooks in its Satellite Pro series, all preloaded with Windows 7 Professional. The additions include the 13.3-inch U500, the 15.6-inch L500, the 17.3-inch L550, 15.6-inch L450 and the same-sized L450D. Each includes Toshiba's LifeSpace application suite just for Windows 7-powered Toshiba notebooks, which helps users to organize their appointments and help them find up to 5,000 recently accessed files visually.
AMD this morning sought to challenge Intel's control of the low-end processor space with eight new Athlon II processors. The new range pushes costs and power use lower, and is headlined by the Athlon II X4 600e and 605e. These clock at just 2.2GHz and 2.3GHz each but have four cores that combined use at most 45W of power and fit in very tight spaces; they also only cost $133 and $143 in bulk.
Fujitsu has opted for an unusual end-of-week introduction for a pair of new notebooks in its LifeBook mix. The P3010 and P3110 are the company's first netbook/notebook crossovers and have 11.6-inch screens as well as a long 6.7-hour battery life that can be pushed to 7.2 with an eco mode toggle. They also borrow a technique from Apple that will share a DVD drive on the local network to read or burn discs instead of having to use a physically attached USB optical drive.
AMD on Thursday reported its third-quarter financial results, indicating an 18 percent revenue increase from the previous quarter. Although the performance exceeded expectations, the company still reported a net loss of $128 million and a 22 percent revenue drop compared to the same quarter last year.
Toshiba on Wednesday updated its notebooks with Windows 7 and a rare promise among Windows PC makers. The company promises that all of its systems running the new OS, including its touchscreen models, will go without any icons on the desktop except for the default Recycle Bin. System performance should get a boost as the PCs will run as little software in the background as possible, in many cases only running anti-virus tools.
AMD's graphics label ATI today extended its next-wave hardware into the mainstream. The Radeon HD 5770 and Radeon HD 5750 scale back to a 128-bit memory bus and significantly fewer effects cores but still have the full DirectX 11 and OpenGL 3.x feature sets of the 5800 series as well as support for multi-display Eyefinity. They remain dual-slot cards but consume much less power at 108W peak for the 5770 and 86W for the 5750.
HP early today is making an aggressive push into touchscreen PCs with two key updates to its TouchSmart home all-in-ones. The TouchSmart 300 and 600 add true multi-touch input and have significantly expanded use for the technology: they can not only use pinch-to-zoom, flicks and other gestures in the general operating system thanks to Windows 7 but in several new touch apps for the systems' custom front end. They can now navigate Hulu or Netflix streaming video, stream Pandora or Rhapsody music, or update and follow Twitter feeds all primarily using touch.
HP in gearing up for Windows 7 added two newer touchscreen PCs to its mix. The TouchSmart tx2 convertible tablet now makes better use of its multi-touch display both in the OS as well as in the new apps specific to HP's TouchSmart front end; users can watch Hulu or Netflix from the touch interface as well as update Twitter or stream Pandora and Rhapsody music. Unlike most such screens, the tx2's input isn't solely finger-oriented and will work with a stylus as well.
HP's sub-label Compaq tonight received three upgraded systems to ready itself for Windows 7. The Presario CQ61z refreshes the familiar 15.6-inch CQ60 with a more modern 2GHz AMD Sempron whose choice helps put the system at a particularly low $400 price (post-rebate) even while brand-new. The refresh further adds Mobility Radeon HD 4200 video in place of the older NVIDIA hardware but still has 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive.
NVIDIA late Wednesday said it would "postpone" any future nForce mainboard chipsets until an end is reached in the countering lawsuits between itself and Intel. As Intel alleges that NVIDIA's license doesn't cover chipsets for processors with an integrated memory controller, such as all Core i5/i7 and some newer Atom processors, NVIDIA claims that it has no choice but to freeze development of future nForce chipsets until Intel's "unfair business tactics" are either halted or cleared in court.
Some specs and details of the upcoming Dell Zino HD series of nettops were revealed, thanks to a recent DellZinoHD search. Two models in the Zino HD series will be offered, including the Inspiron 300 and Inspiron 400. Both have potentially been readied for Windows XP, Windows Vista or the upcoming Windows 7, with the support page also including a manual for Ubuntu.
The just-unveiled Fermi graphics architecture will find its way into Macs and play an important role in Mac OS X Snow Leopard, NVIDIA chief scientist Bill Dally said today. While it's expected that NVIDIA would continue to play an important part of future Macs, the researcher drew a particular connection between the new GPU design and Apple's new OS, expecting that it would provide a significant boost for those apps that implement OpenCL. Windows 7 will also get support through DirectX 11 and DirectCompute.
AMD's first mainstream graphics chipset in its ATI Radeon HD 5000 series has been leaked with photos, specifications and even performance tests. The reference model seen by Chinese site MyMyPC is a dual-slot card but has a unique teardrop-shaped cooling system. It should be a slightly scaled-back version of the 5800 line with 1,120 effects cores (versus 1,440 for the 5850), a 700MHz core (down from 725MHz) and an unknown amount of 1,150MHz GDDR5 memory.
Intel will more aggressively update the Atom processor than it has in the past, executive VP Sean Maloney said in an interview published today. The company waited roughly a year between the original Atom launch and its Z500 upgrade but now plans to put it more closely on the faster "tick tock" pattern it uses for regular processors, where it first shrinks the manufacturing process for an existing design and later ships a new architecture built on that process. Such upgrades will start in earnest with Pine Trail this fall, which technically achieves both by moving to a smaller 45 nanometer design and moving the graphics core to within the processor.
The ATI Radeon HD 5870 x2 and a new 5850 X2 graphics card have been spotted in photos recently. The former has been leaked earlier, and should be out on the market sometime in October. The photos show the card is ultra-long, raising questions as to whether it will fit into mid-sized or large tower cases. The single-core HD 5870 is 11 inches long, with estimates from the photos putting the dual-core version at perhaps 12 or 12.5 inches.
Three custom-order PC builders today became some of the earliest to pick up AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5800 series as a video option. CyberPower has added the option to three of its systems and will see the Core i5-based Xtreme 4200 and Phenom II-based Gamer Dragon 9500 come with a Radeon HD 5850 as standard while the Core i7-founded will ship with a Radeon HD 5870. Prices start from $927 for the Gamer Dagon and mode up to $999 and $1,393 for the Xtreme 4200 and 5200 respectively.
AMD's graphics label ATI tonight claimed to set a new benchmark for graphics with the Radeon HD 5800 series. The new video hardware is theoretically twice as fast as the 4870 and has an extremely large set of 1,600 stream (visual effect) cores -- enough to calculate 2.72 teraflops per second. Besides handling twice as many rendering tasks at once, the 5800 is also running a sixth-generation engine that shades and tessellates geometry more quickly, more GDDR5 memory bandwidth (150Gbps), and much improved techniques for antialiasing and anisotropic texture filtering.
Alienware announcements slated for Wednesday and teased in recent days should include sweeping updates to three of its core product lines, a last-minute leak today shows. The company plans to unveil a redone m15x gaming notebook and is said by Engadget to be reworking both the Area-51 and Aurora gaming towers as well as their high-end ALX variants. Actual specs are unknown but are likely to involve revamped AMD, Intel and NVIDIA hardware, such as Intel's mobile Core i7 quad-core and new Radeon HD 5800 graphics.
AMD has confirmed that it is readying a six-core processor, codenamed Thuban, that is geared for consumer desktops. The component is based on the company's six-core Opteron series that was recently announced for server configurations.
AMD started the week today with a new whole platform for Opterons targeted at servers and the very high end of the computer market. Previously nicknamed Fiorano, the six-core Opteron with AMD chipset takes the company's existing server and workstation chips but adds a new chipset, the S5650, designed to scale for very heavy workloads. The technology now supports virtualization in hardware down to the very basic I/O interfaces and also brings the much faster PCI Express 2.0 interface and AMD's latest HyperTransport point-to-point interface between the processor and the rest of the system.
MSI on Monday announced the upcoming release of the X-Slim X610 ultrathin notebook, an AMD-powered version of its currently available X600. The same 15.6-inch, 1366x768 resolution screen is used, though the Intel Core 2 CPU and related mainboard are replaced with AMD's Congo platform with an Athlon Neo processor. Other specs are shared, including the 1-inch thickness, 4.6lb weight and standard six-cell battery.
The European Union on Monday shared some e-mail contents that contributed to its decision to fine chipmaker Intel the equivalent of $1.45 billion in May. The e-mails between the chipmaker and its clients allegedly show that Intel pressured buyers into choosing Intel over competitor AMD, via illegal incentives that would delay or keep them from buying AMD products. Intel is still fighting the EU decision, calling the e-mails speculative and originating from lower-level employees that were not involved in the negotiation of the deals in question.
MSI this morning took the X-Slim line into AMD's territory by officially launching the X410. The crossover, 14-inch ultraportable uses the lower end of AMD's Congo ultrathin platform and uses both an Athlon Neo processor and the newer chipset to reportedly get twice as much battery life as a regular 14-inch notebook, although MSI is silent on actual numbers. The system uses the older Radeon X1250 for integrated graphics but claims its power is enough to decode 1080i video smoothly.
AMD has introduced several new processors, the Athlon II X4 620 and 630, that have been added to the company's 'mainstream' desktop platform. The 620 component represents AMD's first quad-core processor to ship for less than $100, while still integrating the latest 45nm process architecture.
Intel in European Union court files today fought against the recently imposed $1.45 billion fine for its alleged antitrust violations. The American processor designer believed the European Commission didn't provide enough evidence that Intel practices hurt AMD's European PC business in an "immediate, substantial" way. It instead claimed that AMD was actually gaining share for some of the five-year period covered by the fine and that AMD's struggles were linked more to specific PC builders and regions.
As part of a shift to ultra-thin notebooks, HP tonight launched two crossover 13.3-inch notebooks that it hopes are both fast and portable. The ProBook 5310m is unofficially the most portable full-performance notebook ever with an 0.93-inch thick body (versus Apple's 0.94 inches) and a 3.8-pound weight; it accomplishes the feat through an aluminum shell without an optical drive and, unusually, by giving the option of a full-speed 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo as well as a CULV-based 1.2GHz Celeron dual-core. Using the Celeron gives the system as much as 7 hours of battery life using the stock 4-cell battery.
HP's launches today have included the company's first Pavilion All-in-One PC, the MS200. The system borrows the same core design principle as the iMac and balances the entire computer on an angled stand; compared to Apple's full speed computer, though, the MS200 is consciously treated as a step above nettops and is meant as a dorm room or kitchen PC. The new offering is based on a 1.5GHz Athlon X2 and brings Radeon HD 3200 integrated video that can offload much of the 3D acceleration and movie decoding work.
HP on Tuesday announced the release of its new family of desktop PCs aimed at businesses, in the form of the Compaq 6000 Pro and HP Compaq 6005 Pro. The main difference involves the choice of CPUs, with the Compaq 6000 Pro available with a number of Intel chips, including various Core 2 quads, Core 2 Duos, dual core Pentiums and Celerons, while the Compaq 9005 Pro can be had with chips from AMD's Sempron, Athlon II, and dual-core, triple-core or quad-core Phenom II processors.
AMD will launch its ATI Radeon HD 5700-series GPUs, including the Radeon HD 5770 and 5750, in October, according to sources at graphics card makers. A Monday DigiTimes report maintains that ATI will also release Radeon 5800-series graphics chips on September 22nd, while the 5870 X2 (R800) has been slated for November.
Intel has clawed back market share to where it makes more than four fifths of the revenue from processors in PCs today, iSuppli said today in a new study. The company now has 80.6 of the revenue from all processors in the computer business; it represents just a slight increase from the winter (79.6 percent) and from the same period a year earlier (79.1 percent) but is the highest level seen since 2005, when Intel reached an all-time high of 82.4 percent.
AMD at a press conference today demonstrated one of the core features of its upcoming Radeon HD 5800 series graphics chipset. Nicknamed Eyefinity, the ATI-branded technology gives a single video card up to six DisplayPort outputs running at their full resolution. It can also merge these into a single picture and create a live image as large as 8192x8192 once technology allows this; current technology would still allow six 2560x1600 displays that could produce a typical resolution of 7680x3200.
A Chinese leak today has slipped many core details of AMD's next ATI notebook graphics platform. The Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series is expected to be a direct translation of the desktop models and should have similar lines. At the top, the 5870, 5850 and 5830 will all have a very large 1,600 shader units (effects processors) and should support CrossFire on gaming-oriented desktop replacements. The top two will support fast GDDR5 memory while the 5830 will need GDDR3.
AMD this morning kicked off the launch of an updated notebook offering and headlined it with Congo, the nickname for its next-generation Ultrathin Platform. The new architecture includes AMD's faster 1.6GHz Turion Neo X2, found in the HP dv2z, but focuses on graphics performance and battery life. It uses a Radeon HD 3200 much like AMD's fuller-size notebooks and as a result can decode 1080p video smoothly in hardware; at the same time, AMD estimates about an hour more of battery life than its earlier platform.
AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5800 line will have five models by the time it's complete, a detailed leak of data shows. The 5870 and 5850 known to be launching first are now believed by Xbit to be just upper mid-range parts that would replace the 4870 and 4850 sold today. Falling under the codename Juniper, they would use the same processor as higher-end chips but would be eclipsed by two higher-end models, Cypress and Hemlock.
Chipmaker AMD on Monday announced it has released the six-core AMD Opteron EE processor with increased performance, but the same 40W ACP power band as the existing quad-core models. The 1.8GHz launch model is designed for 2U servers and supports all the hardware features of full-power Opterons, such as AMD-V virtualization of other operating systems in hardware as well as newer power management features. AMD estimates that a full server rack of the new part would use 18 percent less power than the earlier six-core Opteron 2425HE.
MSI today added a larger, faster version of its WindTop all-in-one desktop to its American lineup. In addition to a larger 20-inch touchscreen with a higher 1600x900 resolution, the easel-like PC is also the first for the US to use a processor faster than an Atom and uses a low-power, 1.5GHz AMD Athlon X2 that gives it enough power to run Windows Vista and eventually Windows 7. Switching to the new platform also gives MSI a much faster Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics chipset for better 3D and HD processing.
AMD's major video chipset update this fall has had its feature set and release date uncovered thanks to a slip of information Monday. The ATI Radeon HD 5800 series should be fronted by the 5850 and 5870, both high-end cards that could be the first to support Eyefinity, a technology that not unlike Matrox cards will support three displays on a single card. They are also to be AMD's first graphics cores to support DirectX 11 and OpenGL 3.1 visual effects in hardware.
Taiwanese PC maker Shuttle has been rumored on Monday morning to be looking at recruiting a team of 40 employees from notebook maker ECS. Industry contacts for DigiTimes claimed that the small form factor desktop and nettop specialist not only plans to add staff but also plans on raising funds by issuing 150,000 new shares meant for private placement, with Inventec's chairman Kou-I Yeh named as one such potential investor.
Taiwan-based MSI may launch ultra-thin notebooks with AMD's Yukon platform for Athlon Neo processors as early as October, say industry sources. Digitimes reported on Friday that the PC maker has finished its testing of the notebooks but has not yet decided on a launch date as other PCs equipped with the Yukon platform, possibly including the HP Pavilion dv2, are not selling so well. The AMD processor is meant to compete with Intel's CULV range of CPUs and results in ultraportables that are costlier than netbooks but much less expensive than traditional systems.
AMD on Thursday released its newest 45nm quad-core processor for desktop PCs, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition processor. The device, codenamed Dragon, features a stock frequency of 3.4 GHz, 8GB cache, plenty of headroom, and high-speed DDR3 memory support. The processor also supports AMD OverDrive 3.0 technology for enhanced performance.
iBuyPower wound down its afternoon with a new Chimera Killer Special Edition PC. The new model is tailored just to the hardcore gaming market with a Killer Xeno Pro standard in every model to hopefully lower latency by reducing the overhead of Ethernet traffic. Every system also has a special flame art case with an illuminated side window and a small display to show the heat levels inside the case.
HP has released a pair of business notebooks, with the 14.0-inch Compaq 515 and 15.6-inch Compaq 610. Either sports an LED-backlit display with 1366x768 resolution, and the 515's processing power coming from a choice of AMD Athlon X2 or Turion X2 processors paired with as much as 8GB of RAM. Graphics processing is handled by the integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 GPU. Otherwise, users can opt for a 250GB hard drive, and there is a standard-issue DVD burner and optional 2-megapixel webcam. Wi-Fi is integrated, and the systems start at 5lbs with a standard 6-cell battery.
At the SIGGRAPH show that kicked off on Tuesday in New Orleans, the Khronos Group announced the release of its latest OpenGL graphics standard, OpenGL 3.2 (PDF). This update, the third major one in the last year, improves performance, quality, accelerated geometry processing and greater flexibility in dealing with 3D applications. Open GL 3.1 was released in March.
