Tuesday, January 26, 2010

IT News HeadLines (techPowerUp) 26/01/2010


techPowerUp!
Kingston Slips in 512 GB SSDNow V+ SSD
Kingston quietly made an addition to the SSDNow V+ series solid state drives (SSDs), the SSDNow V+ 512 GB (SNVP325-S2B/512GB). The new drive offers 512 GB of storage in its existing 2.5" form-factor. It uses multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash chips, a controller that supports SATA 3 Gb/s and USB 2.0, and offers read/write speeds of 230/180 MB/s. It is available both as packages with just the drive, and in a bundle which includes SATA power and data cables, 3.5" to 2.5" spacers, USB cable, and a 2.5" enclosure which makes it portable. The bare drive is priced at roughly $1598 (US), and the bundle at roughly $1698.



Source: TechConnect Magazine
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(PR) IBM Research Sets New Record in Magnetic Tape Data Density
IBM researchers today announced they have demonstrated a world record in areal data density on linear magnetic tape - a significant update to one of the computer industry's most resilient, reliable and affordable data storage technologies.

This breakthrough proves that tape technology can increase capacity for years to come, which has important implications, as tape storage systems are more energy efficient and cost-effective than hard disk drive storage systems. As the physical world becomes increasingly networked with sensors, vast amounts of data are amassed in various formats from medical images to security camera feeds to supply chain sensors to financial records. All of this data needs to be archived, replicated for disaster recovery, and/or retained or regulatory compliance.
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AMD Plans Successors to Evergreen Series GPUs within 2010
AMD is just about complete with its top-to-bottom lineup of DirectX 11 compliant GPUs, whose series is codenamed Evergreen. Under this, the company has a GPU and its derivative targeted at almost every price point, from the entry-level Radeon HD 5450, to the fastest graphics card - Radeon HD 5970. With the onset of NVIDIA's first current-generation GPU codenamed Fermi, NVIDIA might attempt to reclaim the performance crown, and infuse competition in the higher-end segment. Currently there's no news of lower-end derivatives of Fermi.

Probably in response to Fermi, AMD is readying a new GPU architecture slated for release within this calendar year, in the second half. "We are ramping the ATI Radeon HD 5000 series now and look forward to refreshing the entire lineup in the second half of next year," said Dirk Meyer, chief executive officer of AMD, during quarterly conference call with financial analysts. His reference to "next year" was of next fiscal year (FY 2010), in context of him speaking at a quarterly conference call with financial analysts for FY 2009. The new series of GPUs is codenamed "Northern Islands". At this point in time, nothing much is known about the new GPU series. TSMC, AMD's main foundry partner for GPUs and motherboard chipsets, earlier claimed that it will be ready with a 28 nm production node by the end of this year. Whether the new GPU series makes use of the new fab technology is anybody's guess.

Source: Xbit Labs
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AMD Introduces New Value-Mainstream Processors
AMD introduced as many as five new value-thru-mainstream processors in its Athlon II and Phenom II series. It starts with the energy-efficient Phenom II X4 910e quad-core, which runs at 2.60 GHz, with 65W TDP, and features 8 MB of total chip cache. It is priced at $169. Next up is the Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition dual-core which runs at 3.20 GHz, 7 MB total cache, 80W TDP, and unlocked bus multiplier. This one goes for $99.

Then there's the Athlon II X4 635 quad-core chip which runs at 2.90 GHz, with 2 MB of total cache, and 95W TDP, going for $119. Next, Athlon II X3 440 triple-core processor. This chip runs at 3.00 GHz, with 1.5 MB of total chip cache, and TDP of 95W. It is priced at $84. Lastly, there's the Athlon II X2 255 dual-core chip with clock speed of 3.10 GHz, 2 MB of cache, and 65W TDP. This one goes for $74. All chips come in the socket AM3 package, support DDR2 and DDR3 memory, and are backwards compatible with the AM2+ socket. All prices are in 1000-unit tray quantities.

Source: TechConnect Magazine
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(PR) Active Media Products Launches 128GB 1.8-Inch PATA ZIF SSD
Active Media Products, manufacturer of SSDs and endangered species USB drives, today added a new 128GB capacity drive to their SaberTooth ZX series of 1.8-inch PATA ZIF SSDs. The new 128GB SSD is ideal for upgrading popular laptops and netbooks. With sequential read speeds up to 80MB/sec and sequential write speeds up to 38MB/sec, the new 128GB ZX delivers impressive bootup, shutdown and application load speeds that are dramatically faster than hard drives.

Measuring 70 x 54 x 5 mm, the ZX has the same dimensions as 1.8-inch HDDs. It uses a parallel ATA (PATA / IDE) ZIF interface, and supports PIO mode 6 and Ultra DMA mode 6. SaberTooth ZX is compatible with most netbooks that use 1.8" PATA ZIF hard drives. The ZX is one of the fastest and easiest ways to upgrade a multitude of mobile computers to higher performance and more local storage. The SaberTooth ZX family now includes 32GB, 64GB and 128GB models.


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Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD7 Final Design Candidate Pictured
Gigabyte's top of the line socket LGA-1156 motherboard, GA-P55A-UD7 just got a face-lift before release to the market. The GA-P55A-UD7 was pictured in its production form as early as in November, 2009. The retail model has notable changes from the production version. To begin with, GA-P55A series motherboard are characterized with SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 support. The new GA-P55A-UD7 has four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots instead of three on the production one. The four slots are connected to an NVIDIA nForce 200 PCI-E bridge chip, which is connected to the processor. The two x16 links from this chip can be split into four x8 links for each slot. A PLX-made bridge chip provides additional PCI-Express 2.0 lanes (probably connected to the P55 PCH), to drive the USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers.

The area south of the CPU socket (typically where you expect a northbridge to be located in older generation motherboards), has the nForce 200 and PLX bridge chips. This is cooled by a fusion heatsink which can be connected to a water-cooling loop. It can also offload heat from the CPU VRM and PCH heatsinks. Of the ten internal SATA ports, six are 3 Gb/s ports provided by the P55 PCH, two 3 Gb/s ports from a Gigabyte GSATA2 controller (which also gives out an IDE connector), and two 6 Gb/s ports from a Marvell-made controller. Other features include two color-coded blue USB 3.0 ports, several USB 2.0 ports, Firewire, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, and 8-channel HD Audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs.


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