IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 13/09/2011

Samsung Brings Mango To AT&T This Fall

Not content to flood the market in Android variants, Samsung is starting their roll out of Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) devices. The release we received this morning was scant on details or images [Ed. note: The image above is from our Samsung Focus review], but a look at the specifications tells us to expect a significant performance upgrade from Windows Phone's first generation hardware. The new models being premiered share similar internals, including a 1.4 GHz single core SoC, most likely an MSM8255 variant, as found in the HTC Flyer and HP TouchPad. But where the Focus S stands a full head over its sister, the Focus Flash, is in display. The 4.3" Super AMOLED Plus display in the Focus S is wrapped in an 8.55 millimeter that challenges the Galaxy S II for thinness. The Focus Flash provides a smaller frame with its 3.7" Super AMOLED screen, but no details on its thickness. Having split the difference on size around the original 4" Samsung Focus, early adopters need not worry that they are going to be left behind, as Samsung has promised to bring Mango to their first generation hardware.
AT&T was a strong proponent of Windows Phone during its roll out, and it seems they're going to double down with the first major update to the platform. Release and pricing, though, remain unannounced. We'll update with pictures when we've got them.

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Motorola Droid Bionic - A Quick Preview
Hot off the heels of finishing our Samsung Galaxy S 2 review, I'm off to Microsoft's BUILD conference with Ryan while Anand covers IDF. Before we get knee deep in all of that conference excitement however, I wanted to give a quick preview of the Motorola Droid Bionic which I've had for close to a week now.

For Verizon subscribers, the Bionic has easily been the most anticipated device of the summer, as it's the first 4G LTE enabled smartphone with a dual core SoC. Read on for some quick thoughts on the device, and stay tuned for the full review.

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Ivy Bridge Configurable TDP Detailed
At Computex Intel announced that Ivy Bridge would be its first processor to support a configurable TDP. Today all CPUs are rated at a single maximum TDP. Mainstream notebook processors fall in the 35 - 45W range, while mainstream desktops are around 65W. As the world embraces mobility and interfaces like Thunderbolt enable new usage models for notebook users (e.g. docking station with a beefy external GPU), Intel had to rethink its power strategy.
Today with a 35W CPU, Intel guarantees the OEM that if it implements a chassis and cooling system capable of dissipating that much heat the chip will operate as intended. If the OEM offers an optional dock or high-performance cooling mode that could cool a higher wattage chip, the CPU can't take advantage of it. Ivy Bridge changes this.
Ultra low volt (ULV) and extreme edition IVB parts will carry three TDP ratings: nominal, a lower configurable TDP (cTDP down) and an upper configurable TDP (cTDP up). Let's talk about cTDP up first.
ULV Ivy Bridge parts will be rated at 17W, similar to the ULV SNB CPUs that are used in Ultrabooks and the new MacBook Air. Intel will also guarantee these chips at a higher frequency with a TDP of 33W. If the Ivy Bridge MacBook Air could dissipate 17W of heat normally but when placed on a docking station with additional cooling capabilities could remove 33W of heat, the CPU would simply run at a much higher frequency when docked. This goes beyond simple turbo as it exceeds the CPU's nominal TDP, whereas turbo mode is mostly bound by TDP.
The same applies in reverse. If you want the chip to behave as if it were a 13W part instead of a 17W part, that will be possible as well. It's configurable performance based on the current conditions. If you have tons of cooling ability, you get more performance. If you need battery life, you get a chip that makes your system behave like an ultraportable.
The extreme edition IVB parts will also support configurable TDP. 55W parts will be able to go up to 65W or go down to 45W.
You can expect that Intel will use configurable TDP as a reason for customers to buy the more expensive versions of Ivy Bridge. Ivy Bridge is expected to arrive on notebooks and desktops in April - May 2012.

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Ivy Bridge GPU Performance: Up to 60% Faster than SNB & Better QuickSync
This week Intel will begin sharing some of the first details of its Ivy Bridge processor (2012 Core i-series CPU) at the annual Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. While the show officially starts on Tuesday, we have some early details about the chip.
Sandy Bridge was Intel's first high-end architecture to integrate a GPU on-die. The SNB GPU is available in two configurations: GT1 with 6 EUs (processors/execution units/cores) and GT2 with 12 EUs. All mobile versions ship with GT2 while most desktop parts ship with GT1. Intel calls GT2 its HD Graphics 3000 while GT1 chips come with HD Graphics 2000. There's a less featured version of GT1 that's simply called Intel HD Graphics as well and it's found in Sandy Bridge Pentium & Celeron CPUs.
Ivy Bridge's GT2 configuration has 16 EUs, no word on how many the GT1 configuration will have. As a result Intel is expecting a 60% increase in 3DMark Vantage scores (Performance Preset) and a 30% increase in 3DMark '06 scores. IVB GT1 on the other hand will only see performance increase by 10 - 20%. If we look at the 3DMark Vantage data from our Llano notebook review, a 60% increase in performance over SNB would put Ivy Bridge's GPU performance around that of AMD's A8. It remains to be seen how well this translates into actual gaming performance though.
The other information about Ivy Bridge's GPU has been known for a while: DX11, OpenCL 1.1 and OpenGL 3.1 will all be supported. The last tidbit we have is that Quick Sync performance is apparently much improved. Intel is privately claiming up to 2x better performance than Sandy Bridge in accelerated video transcoding or lesser gains but improved image quality. The performance improvements only apply to GT2 IVB configurations.

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Samsung's Galaxy S 2: The Smoothest Scrolling Android Device Around
One aspect of differentiation between Android smartphones has always been how smoothly they scroll both in the OS and in the browser. Later versions of Android have addressed the issue by adding varying degrees of GPU acceleration to the OS, but there's still the need of raw memory bandwidth and the GPU horsepower to back it up. It turns out that Samsung's Galaxy S 2 delivers both.
The Vellamo data above measures scrolling performance, higher numbers being better of course. Compared to all high end GPUs available in Android smartphones today, the Galaxy S 2 is significantly faster. The Exynos 4210 features a dual-channel LPDDR2 memory interface along with a very powerful Mali-400 MP4 GPU. Combined with Samsung's GPU accelerated browser the SGS2 is able to deliver a huge leap in scrolling performance.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 13/09/2011

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