Saturday, March 6, 2010

IT News HeadLines (techPowerUp) 06/03/2010


techPowerUp!
NVIDIA Blames OEMs for GeForce 300 Rebranding
NVIDIA is weeks away from unveiling its GeForce GTX 400 series, which until a few weeks ago, was expected to be the GeForce GTX 300, by the media. Expecting that nomenclature didn't need rocket science. However, NVIDIA changed it with releasing as many as a dozen and a half SKUs in the so-called GeForce 300 series based on existing GT21x GPUs, with not much fanfare. The company got a little candid with Bit-Tech.net in an interview, in admitting that pressure from OEMs forced NVIDIA to 'create' GeForce 300 series, because OEMs wanted "something new" on their specs sheets, if they were to opt for NVIDIA's mGPUs over those from AMD, which already support DirectX 11, under the Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series. Most of these rebrands, according to the company, are specific to the OEMs, and will not be released by board partners to the retail market.

Source: Bit-Tech.net
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(PR) HDMI Licensing, LLC Releases HDMI Specification Version 1.4a
HDMI Licensing, LLC, the agent responsible for licensing the High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) specification, today announced, on behalf of the HDMI Founders, the release of HDMI Specification Version 1.4a featuring key enhancements for 3D applications including the addition of mandatory 3D formats for broadcast content as well as the addition of the 3D format referred to as Top-and-Bottom. The complete HDMI Specification Version 1.4a, along with the 1.4a version of the Compliance Test Specification (CTS), is available to Adopters on the HDMI Adopter Extranet.

An extraction of the 3D portion of Specification Version 1.4a is available for public download on the HDMI Website. The purpose of the extraction document is to provide public access to the 3D portion of the HDMI Specification for those companies and organizations that are not HDMI Adopters but require access to this portion of the Specification.
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Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 Pictured
At the ongoing CeBIT event, gigabyte showed off its latest offer of motherboards including an interesting one based on AMD's upcoming 890FX chipset. Made for socket AM3 processors from AMD, the GA-890FXA-UD5 is based on the AMD 890FX chipset with SB850 southbridge. It expands a little on the chipset's features. The CPU is powered by a 10-phase VRM. It is wired to two DDR3 memory slots that are powered by a 2-phase VRM. The AMD 890FX drives four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (electrical x8 when all are populated, x16 on alternate slots otherwise). There are two PCI-E x1 and one PCI. All six of the SATA 6 Gb/s ports from the southbridge are internal, while an additional GSATA2 controller gives out two SATA 3 Gb/s ports, and drives the IDE connector. Connectivity options include 8+2 channel audio with Dolby Home Theater, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, FireWire, and two USB 3.0 ports, apart from a number of USB 2.0 ports. The board is expected to release later next month.



Source: PC Watch
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ASUS ROG Matrix HD 5870 Further Detailed
ASUS has been readying its Republic of Gamers (ROG) Matrix HD 5870 graphics card. Earlier, the card was pictured fully assembled. Sources shared pictures of the card taken apart, showing its PCB and cooling assembly from the inside, which tells us a lot about this card. To begin with, ASUS engineered this card from scratch, with its own PCB and cooler designs, and choice of components. The card comes overclocked out of the box, and also promises overclocking headroom higher than the reference design. It features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory. The PCB reveals a strengthened VRM. There is a 10-phase vGPU and 2-phase vMem, with independent voltage controllers. Power is drawn in from two 8-pin power inputs.


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GeForce 196.75 Drivers Overheat GPUs on Some Applications
NVIDIA's recently released GeForce 196.75 WHQL drivers are causing problems with some users reporting "intermittent low FPS", in the words of Blizzard's technical staff. It notes that the drivers have a bug in its fan-speed control that causes graphics cards to overheat when running applications such as Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 Beta. Not only does bad fan control result in bad application performance, but can also damage the graphics accelerator. Blizzard on its part advised users to revert to older versions of the GeForce driver. Version 196.21 (older WHQL-signed driver) can be downloaded from here.

Update (3/5): NVIDIA has withdrawn the 196.75 WHQL drivers from its website. The company is working to resolve this issue.

Source: inc gamers
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New Cases, Coolers and 3D Displays From Zalman
Zalman is actually in a local hotel suite, showing off some very interesting products. They are showcasing their 3D monitor in the 21.5 inch variant with FullHD resolution. A 24 inch version can also be had, while a 27 inch LCD and a 32 inch 3D TV LCD are also in planning. We also got a good look at their upcoming VGA coolers for ATI and NVIDIA cards. Due to the different placement of GPU cores, there are now two different coolers with the same general structure. We were told, that the final NVIDIA version will be green, while the red variant is final and will be intended for ATI products.


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(PR) ASUS Unveils a Host of New Products for the Gaming Community
Gaming has evolved into a leading growth industry and dynamic motivator for the technology sector, as CeBIT 2010 further illustrates. It's a massively popular pastime drawing people, all united through thrilling entertainment. ASUS shares the passion, maintaining a tradition of ingenuity aimed at meeting the needs of gamers both with the hardcore Republic of Gamers brand (ROG) and powerful mainstream solutions. It seeks to innovate and introduce new exciting ways to enjoy gaming, believing it should be natural to take up rather than complicated.


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GeForce GTX 470 PCB and Cooler Pictured, Too
A couple of days after pictures of the PCB and cooling assembly of the GeForce GTX 480 made it to the internet, fresh pictures emerged, this time of the GeForce GTX 470, the slightly toned-down part in the GeForce 400 series. The GTX 470, like the GTX 480, is based on NVIDIA's GF100 core. The reference design PCB is certainly shorter than that of the GTX 480, and compacts its resources. Since the GTX 470 has a 320-bit wide memory interface, it makes do with 10 memory chips, seen surrounding the GPU from three sides. A simpler VRM is used: 4-phase vGPU and 1-phase vMem. Power is drawn in from two 6-pin power connectors.

The fan connects over its usual 4-pin PWM-controlled line. Some smart compacting of components made space for two intakes to be cut out, which help the blower draw in some fresh air. The cooling assembly, again is compacted accordingly. Since these new pictures are more clear, we can see that the area over the GPU isn't devoid of a copper surface as earlier thought. In fact, as some community members observed, it is a base with copper heatpipes making direct contact with the GPU. The cooler has protrusions at the right spots to make contact with memory chips and MOSFETs. The GTX 470 is slated to be the more affordable of the GTX 400 series, which will be unveiled on March 26. Follow the source link for equally good quality photography of the GTX 480's PCB.



Source: ComputerBase.de
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EVGA Names and Details its Dual-LGA1366 Enthusiast Motherboard
EVGA today named its dual-LGA1366 enthusiast-grade motherboard, so far known by the codename W555. After a short contest on the company's forums, the company came up with "EVGA Classified SR-2" for its name. SR stands for "super record" and 2 denoting the dual-socket design. The Classified SR-2 is a an entusiast-grade (read: overclocker friendly) implementation of the Tylersburg platform, supporting Intel socket LGA1366 processors with two QPI links (2P Xeon, etc.) As an addition, the board allows you to do something that's difficult on typical 2P server motherboards: it allows you to mix different models of Xeon processors, provided they're based on the same architecture, and series. For example, you can mix a Xeon 5520 with Xeon 5540. You can also mix a quad-core processor with a six-core processor, provided the quad-core part is based on the Westmere architecture (32 nm), not Nehalem (45 nm).

The board will also let you run a single 2P-capable processor in either sockets. DDR3 memory modules can be non-ECC or even ECC. 2P Xeon DRAM Multipliers / Uncore Multipliers are locked so you will only be able to use maximum 2:8 or 2:10 depending on segment of CPU. EVGA tells that the board supports 4-way SLI on its GTX 285 Classified VGA, but adds that a "future flagship GPU" also supports it. Could this be GeForce GTX 400 series having it as a standard feature? We have to wait and see. 4-way CrossFireX is supported.


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Scythe Readies Susano and Yasya Cu CPU Coolers
Scythe showed off prototypes of two of its creations for the season, the Scythe Susano and Yasya Cu CPU coolers. The Susano is one of Scythe's biggest CPU coolers. Its vast aluminum fin array covers the entire upper half of the average ATX motherboard. Its design involves a heatsink-turned CPU block, from which six copper heat pipes pass. These heat pipes convey heat to a large, roughly-square aluiminum fin array on which are latched four 120 mm fans. These blow air through the aluminum fin block, and onto several parts of the motherboard, including memory, northbridge and CPU VRM. The Yasya Cu is a slightly more in tune with the times. It is a copper-based variant of the Yasya CPU cooler. It uses the tried and tested tower design, and makes use of copper fins with a turbulent shape. Heat is conveyed to these fins using six copper heat pipes. Scythe did not give out a release date for these coolers.



Source: XTReview
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