AMD rebrands HD 5000 series for Russian market :: Posted by THRASHER2
Repackaging old cards and Nvidia's ideas
According to CNEWS.ru, AMD has informed Russian system builders that it would start shipping rebranded HD 5000 series cards in the near future.
Acer Russia told reporters that Russian PC integrators will soon start selling PCs with rebranded HD 5000 series cards in retail, but the move appears to be limited only to entry-level HD 6000 brands and only the Russian market. For now at least.
Russian PC maker K-Systems will offer three rehashed HD 5000 cards in its systems starting November. The cards are apparently branded HD 6250, HD 6390 and HD 6510. At this point we don't know which HD 5000 series cards they are based on, but we're probably looking at Cedar and Redwood cores.
Mind you, the Redwood is still a competitive entry-level part, as it is faster than Nvidia's GF108-based GT430, so the move is understandable.
However, in an interesting twist MediaMarkt announced that it would refuse to sell K-System rigs if they are found to contain HD 5000 marketed as HD 6000 series. K-System refused to disclose the specs of the HD 6000 cards, but it announced that they were 15 percent faster than current HD 5000 series.
It's worth noting that K-Systems has a long history with AMD/ATI. We can only speculate on AMD's plans, but we would not be surprised to see OEM-only Redwood and Cedar cards with a fresh BIOS and some new stickers. At this point it is unclear whether the move is limited to Russia, or whether other markets will also see some rebrands.
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Mozilla pays $3,000 to 12 year-old bug hunter :: Posted by THRASHER2
Experts start young these days
The Mozzarella Foundation has given $3,000 to the insecurity expert that found the worst bug in its browser. While this is not news in itself, the bug hunter in question was a 12 year-old called Alex Miller.
According to the Mercury News, Miller found a critical security flaw buried in Firefox after becoming motivated by the news that the Mozzarella Foundation had up the value of its bug bounty from $500. A Firefox loyalist, Miller found something in an initial search and sent in a bug report, but it wasn't the right type of bug to qualify for the big bucks, so he hit the computer again for 90 minutes each day for about 10 days until he found a flaw in the memory of the running program.
The big cheese in the Mozzarella Foundation said that the outfit depends on contributors like these for our very, sort of, survival. According to his mum Elissa, Alex is virtually self-taught and often reads his parents' very technical books. Apparently he has a gift for things geeky.
While some think Alex spends too much time on the computer, Miller is quick to point out that he's not just playing games; what Alex is doing is learning. Until he produced a copy of the cheque from Mozilla, Alex none of his friends believed him when he told them about the money.
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Barnes & Noble leaks color eBook reader :: Posted by THRASHER2
Good bye eInk
Barns & Noble has accidentally leaked details that it is unveiling a Nook Colour eBook reader tomorrow. The online store mentioned a screen protector film for the Nook Color and even showed a picture of the device itself.
It looks like a tablet with a full touchscreen, probably an LED, ditching the split display between e-paper and mini-LCD on the existing Nooks. This is bad news for those who like e-paper, which is a lot easier to read than LCD stuff.
Our guess is that it will be an Android with a 7-inch display. Rumours have claimed that it will ship with a $249 price tag.
There is talk that Barnes & Noble would be releasing a child-oriented book app known as Nook Kids that will provide 12,000 children's books from 15 publishers designed for the Nook Colour, iPad, and other colour touchscreen devices.
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Sapphire on 6850 with 1120 shaders :: Posted by THRASHER2
Officially again
The chap who takes care of Sapphire's PR has contacted us regarding „early HD 6850 samples“. This is Sapphire's official statement to this story, here.
Here is what Sapphire says.“Some of our early HD 6850 samples were built with pre-production ASICs that have the higher number of 1120 Stream Processors enabled, like the HD 6870. These ASICs were supplied by the manufacturer as Pro (HD 6850) parts together with a BIOS for them running at Pro clocks, so it had passed unnoticed until some of them had already been sent out to reviewers. “ claims Sapphire.
They also went on record that the correct number of Shader processors for the HD 6850 is 960, as AMD is telling the world and that all mass production parts that ended up in shops and etail around the world have the corect number of Shader processors, 960. Unfortunately there wonÂ’t be any lucky end users who will end up with Radeon HD 6850 with 1120 shaders and PRO clocks. At least it should not be the Sapphire or XFX card, they are telling.
If you read more carefully it looks like Sapphire is claiming the pre-production ASIC (chips) for the issue, or should we say blame AMD back. Whoever is to blame, it has already happened.
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MSI rolls out its own HD 6800 series cards :: Posted by THRASHER2
Two for now
Following the recent launch of AMD's HD 6800 series cards, MSI has rolled out its own versions. MSI will stick to reference clocked cards for now but we are pretty sure that factory overclocked versions are just around the corner.
The R6870-2PM2D1GD5, as MSI calls it, is a reference clocked and reference cooled HD 6870 card that features 1120 Stream Processors and works at 900MHz for the GPU and 4200MHz for 1GB of GDDR5 memory paired up with a 256-bit memory interface.
The R6850-PM2D1GD5, or simply MSI HD 6850 feature 960 Stream Processors and works at 775MHz for the GPU and 4000MHz for the same 1GB of GDDR5 memory. Unlike the HD 6870, this one features a custom cooler that has a 90mm center placed fan and a two copper heatpipe heatsink.
Both cards should be available in retail/e-tail, while the factory overclocked cards should be ready pretty soon, in next few weeks.
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AMD rolls out Catalyst 10.10a hotfix :: Posted by THRASHER2
Support for Morphological Anti-Aliasing
Following the official Catalyst 10.10 driver release, AMD has also rolled out the Catalyst 10.10a hotfix for Radeon HD 6800 series cards.
The new hotfix brings support for Morphological Anti-Aliasing feature, which is a new post-process filtering technique accelerated with DirectCompute. The new Morphological AA should provide faster full-scene anti-aliasing and is compatible with any DirectX 9, 10 and 11 application.
The 10.10a hotfix also brings some performance improvements in games like Aliens vs Predator, Star Craft 2 as well as some performance enhancements in Open GL games like Prey, Quake Wars and Unigine Heaven 2.1 benchmark.
You can find the new hotfix here.
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Intel opens China chip plant :: Posted by THRASHER2
$2.5 billion
Chipmaker Intel has opened its first chip fab in China on Tuesday. The $2.5 billion fab is located in Dalian it was first announced back in 2007.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini told reporters that Intel has been present in China for the past quarter of a century and that it "has been investing and innovating in China with China and for China." Several weeks ago Otellini warned that the US was at risk of losing its technological edge and called on business leaders to invest in the US tech infrastructure.
The construction of the plant was plagued by delays and rumours that Intel might scale down or even scrap the project. In addition to Intel, some two dozen companies have also made substantial investments in Dalian in an effort to position themselves for cooperation with Intel. Intel has already confirmed that it will work with more than 80 suppliers in Dalian.
So, Otellini was obviously right in saying that investments in new fabs and manufacturing infrastructure generate economic growth and development, it's just that he was talking about the other side of the Pacific.
More here.
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Zotac dual-GTX 460 board spotted :: Posted by THRASHER2
Not bad, but late to the party
Expreview has scooped a series of rather interesting photos which appear to show a dual GF104 board, courtesy of Zotac.
Mind you, there has been plenty of speculation surrounding a possible dual-GPU Nvidia board based on the GF104, but it's still unclear whether this is merely an experiment cooked up in Zotac's labs or something with Nvidia's blessing. We're guessing the former.
The board features two GF104 cores, an NF200 bridge chip and two 8-pin power connectors. Each core is backed by 1GB of GDDR5 memory for a total of 2GB. If the board ever goes into production, we wouldn't be surprised to see a 4GB version, either.
It appears to be a rather sound concept, as the GF104 is the most competitive GPU Nvidia has to offer at the moment. It's a good overclocker and it should scale well in SLI. However, it just seems to be too little too late. If AIBs were really keen on building and marketing such cards, they really should have done so months ago, hence we doubt that we will actually see dual GTX 460 cards on the market in any significant numbers.
You can check out the pics here.
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Patriot shows off Torqx TRB SSD :: Posted by THRASHER2
JMicron based
Patriot Memory has announced its latest addition to its solid state drive lineup, the Torqx TRB SSD. Based on JMicron's JMF616 controller, the new TorqX TRB will be available in 32 and 64GB capacities.
As noted, the new Torqx TRB features JMicron's JMF616 (JMF612 for the 32GB model) controller, MLC NAND Flash chips, 64MB of cache and comes packed in a standard 2.5-inch aluminum case. The new Torqx TRB uses SATA 3.0Gbps interface and will offer read and write speeds of up to 260MB/s and 115MB/s for the 64GB model and up to 245MB/s and 60MB/s for the 32GB one.
Both drives feature TRIM support and will be backed by a 3-year warranty. The price stands at around €80 for the 32GB model and €120 for the 64GB one.
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Razer rolls out its MMO gaming keyboard :: Posted by THRASHER2
Meet the Anansi keyboard
Following the quite interesting design of the Naga MMO gaming mouse, Razer has now announced its newest gaming peripheral, the Anansi gaming MMO keyboard. The new Anansi keyboard should be available in December and brings some quite unique features that should appeal to the wide MMO community.
Spec wise, the Anansi keyboard uses Razer's Hyperesponse keys, has on-the-fly macro recording, one-button profile switching, optimized key matrix for minimized ghosting, gaming mode for Windows key deactivation, easy access media keys, five additiona gaming keys, 16 million colour backlight illumination and uses USB connectivity. The feature that makes this keyboard stand out from the competition are the seven thumb modifier keys located just below the space key.
Robert "RazerGuy" Krakoff, president of the Razer USA, has added that the regular keyboards were designed and built for typing, and not for MMMO gaming, while Anansi brings a revolutionary seven thumb modifier keys where every key combination can now be multipled by seven times.
As noted, the Razer Anansi will be available sometimes in December, probably once World of Warcraft: Cataclysm finally shows up. The price is set at US $100 in the USA and €100 in Europe.
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Nvidia rolls out its 260.99 WHQL driver :: Posted by THRASHER2
For Fallout 3: New Vegas
Nvidia has released the newest version of its Geforce driver, the Geforce 260.99 WHQL. Although it doesn't bring any new features, the new driver does fix some issues and brings performance improvements for a couple of new games.
The driver features PhysX 9.10.0514 driver and supports Geforce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300 and 400 series cards as well as Nvidia's ION GPUs. As far as fixes go, the new driver comes with improved compatibility for Fallout 3: New Vegas with anti-aliasing enabled, and improves Alt-Tab compatibility in several PC games.
The performance improvements, compared to the 260.89 drivers, can be seen in Civilization V, Fallout 3: New Vegas, Final Fantasy XIV and F1 2010 under DirectX 11. The new driver also includes new SLI profiles for Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, as well as the 3D Vision game profiles for the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops and Tom Clancy's HawX 2.
You can find the driver here.
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Playstation phone pics tip up :: Posted by THRASHER2
Xperia meets PSP Go
The good people of Engadget have scored the first supposedly legit pictures of Sony's upcoming PlayStation phone, or PSP Phone or whatever you like to call it.
The PlayPhone is reportedly based on a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor with 512MB of RAM and 1GB of ROM. It should ship with Android 3.0 and judging by the pictures it sports a 3.7- or 4.1-inch screen.
Sony was somewhat conservative in the design department and the phone looks like an Xperia/PSP Go lovechild.
It's unclear when Sony plans to introduce this rather interesting and unique toy, but the holiday season seems like a logical choice.
You can check out the pics on Engadget.
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Cayman is sampled :: Posted by THRASHER2
Hot and fast
AMD has already sent Cayman XT sample cards to its partners. The most likely to be called Radeon HD 6970 cards are reported to be dual-slot and quite hot, which comes at no surprise.
Cayman is not simply an improved Radeon HD 5000 architecture. It looks like AMD has invested some time and effort to tweak up the architecture and gain some more performance. They got us all here, as they were always saying that 6800 is an upgrade to 5800 architecutre, not telling us that there is 5900 series with much more power, just around the corner.
This chip looks like AMDÂ’s Fermi but at the same time, we hope that it wonÂ’t go trough the same destiny and that it can stay on time for November 20ish launch.
The card is naturally faster than Radeon HD 5870, still the fastest single core part that AMD sells, and it should end up to a similar performance like current single GPU king GT100 based Geforce GTX 480. We expect that Cayman can end up slightly faster at least.
But can it beat soon to come Geforce GTX 580? That will be the real question as it looks like GTX 580 comes this year.
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Radeon HD 6870 widely available :: Posted by THRASHER2
For some €198+ EU, $249 US
Many times over the last few years a company would launch a new chip and would sell it out in a matter of hours. Sometimes they would blame the huge demand but most time the real reason would be a small amount of chips.
This time around, several days after the official launch Radeon HD 6870 is widely available and you can get them at many places for around €200 + shipping costs.
You can find them listed over here and we are quite sure that your local etailer should have some in stock, if not, we are quite sure that big companies listed below wonÂ’t mind shipping the cards to you, at long as you are in Europe.
The cards are also available in the US at the usual suspect places.
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