IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 3/26/2012

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Launch Recap
If the numbers are true, then most of you have already read our Kepler review, and you know that the card has made quite a splash - it's the highest-performing single-GPU card you can buy today, and it's got solid power consumption and a lower price than the AMD Radeon HD 7970 to boot. Kepler still needs to trickle down through the rest of NVIDIA's lineup, but for now NVIDIA has the high-end sewn up. Let's look at what its partners have put together.

	ASUS	EVGA	Galaxy	Gigabyte
Part Number	GTX680-2GD5	02G-P4-2680-KR	68NPH6DV5ZGX	GV-N680D5-2GD-B
Core Clock	1006 MHz	1006 MHz	1006 MHz	1006 MHz
Memory Clock (Effective)	1502 MHz (6008 MHz)	1502 MHz (6008 MHz)	1502 MHz (6008 MHz)	1502 MHz (6008 MHz)
Boost Clock	1058 MHz	1058 MHz	1058 MHz	1058 MHz
Dimensions in inches (dimensions in mm)	10.08 x 4.37 x 1.47 (256.03 x 111.00 x 33.34)	10 x 4.38 x ?? (254 x 111.25 x ??)	10 x 4.33 x 1.57 (254 x 109.98 x 39.88)	10.83 x 4.96 x 1.50 (275 x 126 x 38)
Outputs	DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I, DVI-D	DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I, DVI-D	DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I, DVI-D	DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I, DVI-D
Included accessories	4-pin to 6-pin	DVI to VGA, 2x 4-pin to 6-pin	2x DVI to VGA, 2x 4-pin to 6-pin	2x 4-pin to 6-pin
Warranty	3-year	3-year	3-year	3-year
Price (Newegg)	$499.99	$499.99	$499.99	$499.99

	MSI	PNY	Zotac
Part Number	N680GTX-PM2D2GD5	VCGGTX680XPB	ZT-60101-10P
Core Clock	1006 MHz	1006 MHz	1006 MHz
Memory Clock (Effective)	1502 MHz (6008 MHz)	1502 MHz (6008 MHz)	1502 MHz (6008 MHz)
Boost Clock	1058 MHz	1058 MHz	1058 MHz
Dimensions in inches (dimensions in mm)	10.63 x 4.38 x 1.53 (270 x 111.15 x 38.75)	???	11.10 x 4.9 x 2.3 (281.9 x 124.46 x 58.42)
Outputs	DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I, DVI-D	DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I, DVI-D	DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I, DVI-D
Included accessories	DVI to VGA, 4-pin to 6-pin	DVI to VGA, 4-pin to 6-pin, HDMI cable	DVI to VGA, 2x 4-pin to 6-pin
Warranty	3-year parts/2-year labor	1-year (Lifetime with registration)	2-year
Price (Newegg)	$499.99	$529.99	$499.99

As we've noted in past recaps, you should take these card measurements with a grain or two of salt. Manufacturers haven't standardized on a unit of measurement for their cards - some measure in inches and some in metric. I've done the necessary conversions and presented all measurements in both inches and millimeters, but manufacturers play a bit loose with these measurements and the actual physical dimensions may not exactly match the dimensions given on the spec sheet.
Common to all of these cards is 2GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus and all of Kepler's features - in fact, most of these cards have pretty much everything in common with one another, from the across-the-board stock clocks to the display outputs to the single-fan, dual-slot coolers to the lackluster bundles of accessories. This isn't uncommon with high-end launches of all-new architectures - we saw the same thing happen in our Radeon HD 7970 launch recap, another crop of cards that stuck to the reference design.
As such, there's not a ton to say about them, so I'll just make notes below when there's something about the card that makes it different from the stock card that we reviewed a couple of days ago.

ASUS (Product page)

EVGA (Product page)

Galaxy (Product page)

Gigabyte (Product page)

MSI (Product page)

MSI's graphics cards usually have a 3-year parts and 2-year labor warranty, and this card is no exception.

PNY (Product page)

This card is the only one in the lineup that costs more than $500, and there are a couple of reasons why: one is the lifetime warranty you can get by registering the card, and the other is the bundled HDMI cable. It's the only card in the lineup with anything more than power cables and DVI to VGA adapters. It's also the only card for which I can't find measurements (Amazon lists the length at eight inches, which I find suspect since the rest of the cards are at least ten). The card's dimensions should be similar to the others.

Zotac (Product page)

Zotac's is the only card in this lineup with a 2-year warranty instead of the 3-year warranty shared by most of the rest of them.

AMD Radeon HD 7870 Launch Recap
It has been a couple of weeks since we reviewed the Radeon HD 7800 series, but as we mentioned earlier this week and in our 7850 recap, that was just a paper launch - the cards hit the street only recently, and as usual we're going to go through all of the stuff from AMD's partners and give you the Facts.

	ASUS	Gigabyte	MSI	PowerColor
Part Number	HD7870-DC2-2GD5	GV-R787OC-2GD	R7870 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC	AX7870 2GBD5-2DH
Core Clock	1010 MHz	1100 MHz	1050 MHz	1000 MHz
Memory Clock (Effective)	1210 MHz (4840 MHz)	1200 MHz (4800 MHz)	1200 MHz (4800 MHz)	1200 MHz (4800 MHz)
Dimensions in inches (dimensions in mm)	10.16 x 5.12 x 1.7 (258.06 x 130.05 x 43.18)	11.02 x 5.28 x 1.67 (280 x 134 x 42.5)	10.63 x 4.65 x 1.65 (270 x 118 x 42)	9.5 x 4.38 x 1.50 (241.3 x 111.2 x 38)
Outputs	2x Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I	2x Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I	2x Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I	2x Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I
Included accessories	DVI to VGA adapter, 6-pin extension cable, Crossfire bridge	2x 4-pin to 6-pin, Crossfire bridge	Mini DP to DP, 2x 4-pin to 6-pin, Crossfire bridge	DVI to VGA, Mini DP to DP, HDMI to DVI
Warranty	3-year	3-year	3-year parts/2-year labor	2-year
Price (Newegg)	$359.99	$359.99	$369.99	$359.99

	PowerColor PCS+	Sapphire	Sapphire OC
Part Number	AX7870 2GBD5-2DHPP	11199-00-20G	11199-03-20G
Core Clock	1100 MHz	1000 MHz	1050 MHz
Memory Clock (Effective)	1225 MHz (4900 MHz)	1200 MHz (4800 MHz)	1250 MHz (5000 MHz)
Dimensions in inches (dimensions in mm)	9.5 x 4.38 x 1.50 (241.3 x 111.2 x 38)	10.24 x 4.45 x 1.38 (260 x 113 x 35)	10.24 x 4.45 x 1.38 (260 x 113 x 35)
Outputs	2x Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, 2x DVI-I	2x Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I	2x Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-I
Included accessories	DVI to VGA, Mini DP to DP, Crossfire bridge	DVI to VGA, Mini DP to DP, 2x 4-pin to 6-pin, Crossfire bridge	DVI to VGA, Mini DP to DP, 2x 4-pin to 6-pin, Crossfire bridge
Warranty	2-year	2-year	2-year
Price (Newegg)	$369.99	$349.99	$359.99

ASUS (Product page)

ASUS again uses its DirectCUII cooler on its 7870 - this cooler has made appearances in many of our other launch recaps, including that for the 7850, where the cooler was actually a good bit longer than the card itself. Since the 7870 is a longer card, that isn't an issue here. As with its 7850, ASUS applies a paltry 10MHz overclock to the core and the memory, but the bundled accessories are nothing to write home about - the biggest reason to choose this card over others is the 3-year warranty.

Gigabyte (Product page)

Gigabyte's 7870 employs a massive three-fan cooler, the better to cool its 100MHz (10%) core overclock, which is the highest clock in our recap - it's tied with one of the PowerColor cards, and while that one is $10 more expensive, it also has a slight memory overclock. The Gigabyte card's memory remains at stock clocks - if you've been following these recaps for awhile, you've probably noticed that factory overclocks tend to focus on the core rather than the memory - only three of the seven cards here have memory cards, and none of them are higher than 4%.

MSI (Product page)

Like many of the cards here, MSI's 7870 has a two-fan cooler with a big heatsink, but otherwise it has a hard time distinguishing itself from the crowd - it's tied for the most expensive card, but it has only a modest 50MHz core overclock and a three-year parts and two-year labor warranty that falls in the middle of the rest of the pack.

PowerColor (Product page)

As is often the case in these recaps, both PowerColor and Sapphire are offering two versions of the 7870, one with stock clocks and a slightly more expensive model with a factory overclock. This is the stock clocked version, and it's the only card in this lineup that uses AMD's reference cooler for the 7870 series.

PowerColor PCS+ (Product page)

This PowerColor card is $10 more expensive than its lower-end cousin, but it comes with a 100MHz core overclock and 25MHz memory overclock that should net you an increase in frames per second. Its also the only card here with a second DVI port, which it adds to the 7870's standard complement of Mini DisplayPorts and HDMI. If you value warranty length over factory overclocks, though, this one only has a two-year warranty to its name.

Sapphire (Product page)

This card has the same stock clocks and 2-year warranty as the PowerColor card, but it's $10 cheaper (the cheapest card in the recap), includes a better accessory bundle, and uses a two-fan cooler with a more impressive heatsink.

Sapphire OC (Product page)

This card is identical to the other Sapphire offering in almost every way - the warranty, included accessories, and cooler are all the same. Your extra $10 gets you a 50 MHz overclock on both the core and the memory - if you're not comfortable doing your own overclocks, you can spend the extra $10 and get a few frames per second for it. If you do your own overclocks, save the cash.

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AMD Radeon HD 7850 Launch Recap
It has been weeks since we reviewed AMD's Radeon HD 7870 and 7850 cards, but unlike the 7900 and 7700 series cards, the 7800 series was given the typical middle-child treatment and paper launched. and cards began appearing at retailers just this week.
While Kepler's launch has cast a long shadow over the top end of the graphics market (a GTX 680 recap is coming later today, dont worry), but competition is still fierce, and as we noted in our review the 7850 is a solid performer and the fastest 150 watt card on the market today. Let's look at what AMD's partners have for us.

	ASUS	Gigabyte	HIS	MSI	PowerColor	Sapphire
Part Number	HD7850-DC2-2GD5	GV-R785OC-2GD	H785F2G2M	R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC	AX7850 2GBD5-2DH	11200-01-20G
Core Clock	870 MHz	975 MHz	860 MHz	900 MHz	860 MHz	920 MHz
Memory Clock (Effective)	1210 MHz (4840 MHz)	1200 MHz (4800 MHz)	1200 MHz (4800 MHz)	1200 MHz (4800 MHz)	1200 MHz (4800 MHz)	1250 MHz (5000 MHz)
Dimensions in inches (dimensions in mm)	10.2 x 4.5 x 1.7 (259.08 x 114.3 x 43.18)	9.49 x 5.39 x 1.67 (241 x 137 x 42.5)	???	7.76 x 4.37 x 1.50 (197 x 111 x 38)	7.99 x 4.37 x 1.50 (203 x 111 x 38)	8.27 x 4.13 x 1.38 (210 x 105 x 35)
Included accessories	DVI to VGA, Crossfire bridge	4-pin to 6-pin, Crossfire bridge	DVI to VGA, Crossfire bridge	DVI to VGA, Mini DP to DP, 2x 4-pin to 6-pin, Crossfire bridge	DVI to VGA, Mini DP to DP, HDMI to DVI	DVI to VGA, Mini DP to DP, 4-pin to 6-pin, Crossfire bridge
Warranty	3-year	3-year	2-year	3-year parts/2-year labor	2-year	2-year
Price (Newegg)	$259.99	$259.99	$259.99	$259.99	$259.99	$259.99

As we've noted in past recaps, you should take these card measurements with a grain or two of salt. Manufacturers haven't standardized on a unit of measurement for their cards - some measure in inches and some in metric. I've done the necessary conversions and presented all measurements in both inches and millimeters, but manufacturers play a bit loose with these measurements and the actual physical dimensions may not exactly match the dimensions given on the spec sheet.
Common to all of these cards is 2GB of GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus, Eyefinity support, and all of GCN's features. All cards also offer identical outputs: two mini DisplayPorts, one HDMI port, and one DVI-I port. Normally we see a range of prices from different manufacturers due to factory overclocks, longer warranties, or included accessories, but in this case we've got identical prices across the board, making it much easier to make an apples-to-apples comparison among cards. As long as you don't have any particular brand loyalty, just pick the one with the value-added extras that you need the most.

ASUS (Product page)

The ASUS 7850 features a 10MHz overclock on both the GPU and the RAM, but it's so small that it won't increase framerates much at all over stock clocks. Its bundle of accessories is pretty sparse, but its 3-year warranty is tied with the Gigabyte card for the longest of the bunch.

This ASUS card's defining characteristic is the DirectCUII cooler, a huge two-fan cooler that was actually designed for longer cards like the Radeon HD 7950. On the shorter 7850, it hangs over the end of the card by quite a bit, requiring the use of an extension cord to make the 6-pin power connection accessible. This move may make the GPU cooler (and, by extension, get you a better overclock), but it will also require a larger case.

Gigabyte (Product page)

The Gigabyte card has a bit in common with the ASUS card - a big fancy two-fan cooler, a 3-year warranty, a bare accessory bundle - but it's a bit shorter in length, and it features an impressive 115MHz (about 12%) overclock on the core, which should actually net you a measurable increase in game performance. The memory clock , however, is left at stock.

HIS (Product page)

Here's a first in AnandTech Graphics Card Launch Recap History: the dimensions for this HIS card aren't available through Newegg or HIS's product page, or anywhere else that I can find (the product page gives "box dimensions", which is useful if you're shipping the card but not if you're using it). Luckily, its humdrum single-fan cooler means that the card should be unremarkable in this regard - I'd guess it should be close to eight inches long.

Otherwise, HIS doesn't give you much in terms of value-adds - it uses stock clocks, the two-year warranty is the minimum I like to see on components that cost this much, and the DVI to VGA adapter and Crossfire bridge constitute a pretty small accessory bundle.

MSI (Product page)

With the MSI card, we're back to custom two-fan coolers and big heatsinks. A 40MHz (~4.5%) core overclock is respectable but small, and it uses stock memory clocks. A 3-year parts and 2-year labor warranty splits the difference between the longest and shortest warranties on the list.
Where MSI beats the competition is in its accessory bundle, which is actually worthy of the name - in addition to basics like power cable adapters (the Newegg product image appears to include two of these, though it only has the one six pin power plug on the back) and a DVI to VGA adapter, it also includes a Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort adapter.

PowerColor (Product page)

The PowerColor card is a lot like the HIS model in its single-fan cooler, 2-year warranty, and stock clocks, but it adds some useful display adapters to the package. PowerColor's card is the only one here that's using AMD's reference cooler for the 7850 series (visible on this page of our review).

Sapphire (Product page)

Sapphire's take on the 7850, which uses another big two-fan cooler, is the only one in the list with a memory overclock worthy of the name. The 50MHz (4%) RAM overclock along with the 60MHz (6.5%) core overclock should give you a noticeable increase in framerates if you're not comfortable doing your own overclocking. Other benefits include the respectable accessory bundle and other drawbacks include a shorter 2-year warranty.

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Jen-Hsun's Email to NVIDIA Employees on a Successful Kepler Launch

The road to any new microprocessor design is by no means simple. Planning for a major GPU like NVIDIA's Kepler starts four years prior to the chip's debut. In a world that's increasingly more focused on fast production and consumption of everything, it's insane to think of any project taking such a long period of time.
Chip planning involves figuring out what you want to do, what features you want, what the architecture should look like at a high level, etc... After several rounds of back and forth in the planning stage, actual architecture work begins. This phase can take a good 1 - 1.5 years depending on the complexity of the design. Add another year for layout and validation work, then a 6 - 9 month race from tape out to products on shelves. The teams that spend years on these designs are made up of hard working, very smart people. They all tend to believe in what they're doing and they all show up trying to do the best job possible.
Unfortunately, picking a target that's 4 years out and trying to hit it better than your competition is extremely difficult. You can put in an amazing amount of work, push through late nights, struggle with issues, be proud of what you've done and still fall short. We've seen this happen to companies on both sides of the fence, whether we're talking CPUs or GPUs, you win some and you lose some.

Today NVIDIA unveiled Kepler, a more efficient 28nm derivative of its Fermi architecture. The GeForce GTX 680 is the first productized Kepler for the desktop and if you read our review, it did very well. As our own Ryan Smith wrote in his conclusion to the GeForce GTX 680 review:

"But in the meantime, in the here and now, this is by far the easiest recommendation we’ve been able to make for an NVIDIA flagship video card. NVIDIA’s drive for efficiency has paid off handsomely, and as a result they have once again captured the performance crown."

We've all heard stories about what happens inside a company when a chip doesn't do well. Today we have an example of what happens after years of work really pay off. A trusted source within NVIDIA forwarded us a copy of Jen-Hsun's (NVIDIA's CEO) email to all employees, congratulating them on Kepler's launch. With NVIDIA in (presumably) good spirits today, I'm sure they won't mind if we share it here.
If you ever wondered what it's like to be on the receiving end of a happy Jen-Hsun email, here's your chance:

-----Original Message-----

From: Jensen H Huang

Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 9:48 AM

To: Employees

Subject: Kepler Rising

Today, the first Kepler - GTX 680 - is on shelves around the world!

Three years in the making. The endeavor of a thousand of the world's best engineers. One vision - build a revolutionary GPU and make a giant leap in efficient-performance.

Achieving efficient-performance, great performance while consuming the least possible energy, required us to change our entire design approach. Close collaboration between architecture-design-VLSI-software-devtech-systems, intense scrutiny on where energy is spent, and inventions at every level were necessary. The results are fantastic as you will see in the reviews.

Kepler also cultivated a passion for craftsmanship - nothing wasted, everything put together with care - with a goal of creating an exquisite product that works wonderfully. Let's continue to raise the bar and establish extraordinary craftsmanship as a hallmark of our company.

Today is just the beginning of Kepler. Because of its super energy-efficient architecture, we will extend GPUs into datacenters, to super thin notebooks, to superphones. Not to mention bring joy and delight to millions of gamers around the world.

I want to thank all that gave your heart and soul to create Kepler. You've created something wonderful.

Congratulations everyone!

Jensen

Microsoft Talks Screen Resolution in Windows 8, Suggests "Retina"-esque Tablets

Microsoft's David Washington has penned another informational tome on the Building Windows 8 blog, this one about Windows 8 and its support for varying screen resolutions. The above chart lists the common (but not the only) resolutions that Microsoft is planning for, and while most of the listed display types won't surprise anyone (wall-to-wall 1366x768 and 1920x1080 for most desktops and laptops), it does appear as though Microsoft is planning for Windows tablets with a DPI that approaches or matches that of the new iPad.
Microsoft is planning for tablets that use both the 1024x768 and 1366x768 resolutions common in earlier and lower-end tablets as well as the high-DPI screens that are being (and will be) ushered in by the new iPad. To scale Windows elements so that they're still comfortable to look at and touch at these resolutions, Microsoft has put together some pre-defined scaling percentages: 100% when no scaling is applied, 140% for 1080p tablets, and 180% for quad-XGA tablets like the new iPad. These percentages were all chosen as "pixel density sweet spots" for 10" and 11" tablets with 1920x1080 or 2560x1440 displays. It should be noted that Washington's blog post focused entirely on Metro scaling - whether the Windows desktop will automatically scale using these percentages is unclear.

Microsoft's attention to these specific resolutions suggests that we will probably see some high-DPI Windows tablets when they launch in the fall, though we still don't know anything about the tablets OEMs are designing for Windows 8 and Windows on ARM. It's also telling that there are no 7" tablets on that chart - we may not see Windows versions of smaller tablets like the Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet.
Washington went on to explain the reasoning behind the minimum resolution requirements for Metro apps that we noticed in our Windows 8 preview review - 1024x768 for Metro apps and 1366x768 for the Metro Snap feature. Both choices were largely developer and data-driven: 1024x768 is a common low-end resolution for web developers and tablet app developers, and Microsoft didn't want to restrict these developers to a lower minimum resolution to account for the small percentage of 800x600 and 1024x600 displays that are currently in use.

As for snapped apps: the size for a "snapped" app is always 320 pixels wide, which was again selected because developers have become used to it in their work with smartphones. A 1366x768 display is the lowest common screen resolution that allows for the 320 pixel width and the 1024 pixel minimum width for regular Metro apps.
Also discussed was the methods by which Metro allows programs to expand to take up all of the pixels in a larger laptop or desktop display: To help dynamically expand content to take up more screen space when the pixels are available, Windows 8 uses the same XAML and CSS3 features that are commonly used to accomplish this on modern web pages - examples of such features include the grid, flexible box, and multi-column CSS3 layouts. App templates provided with Visual Studio 11 all make use of these features automatically. Developers can also scale their apps to fit larger displays, which is useful for games or other apps that don't need to make use of additional pixels.
For more, including Windows 8's support for scalable graphics and the Windows Simulator tool that will provide Visual Studio 11 users the ability to test their apps at multiple screen resolutions, the full post is linked below for your convenience.
Source: Building Windows 8 blog

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown
“How do you follow up on Fermi?” That’s the question we had going into NVIDIA’s press briefing for the GeForce GTX 680 and the Kepler architecture earlier this month. With Fermi NVIDIA not only captured the performance crown for gaming, but they managed to further build on their success in the professional markets with Tesla and Quadro. Though it was a very clearly a rough start for NVIDIA, Fermi ended up doing quite well in the end.
So how do you follow up on Fermi? As it turns out, you follow it up with something that is in many ways more of the same. With a focus on efficiency, NVIDIA has stripped Fermi down to the core and then built it back up again; reducing power consumption and die size alike, all while maintaining most of the aspects we’ve come to know with Fermi. The end result of which is NVIDIA’s next generation GPU architecture: Kepler.
Launching today is the GeForce GTX 680, at the heart of which is NVIDIA’s new GK104 GPU, based on their equally new Kepler architecture. As we’ll see, not only has NVIDIA retaken the performance crown with the GeForce GTX 680, but they have done so in a manner truly befitting of their drive for efficiency.

NVIDIA's GeForce 600M Series: Mobile Kepler and Fermi Die Shrinks
While the desktop-bound GeForce GTX 680 is undoubtedly the most exciting release from NVIDIA today and the true flagbearer for their new Kepler microarchitecture, NVIDIA actually has a whole host of releases ready to go on the notebook front. We've already had a chance to check out the GeForce GT 640M in action, but it's far from the only member of the old/new GeForce 600M series. Today we have details on their complete 600M series from top to bottom; some of it is exciting and new, and some of it is just the GPU industry up to its same old marketing tricks. Read on for the full details.

Acer Iconia Tab A510: Tegra 3 Hits $450

Asus's Transformer Prime just got some company. Available for pre-order today, the Acer Iconia Tab A510 brings the price of entry for a 10.1" Tegra 3-powered tablet down to a cool $449.99, $50 less than the similarly equipped Asus offering. Like the Prime the A510 features a 10.1" 1280x800 display, the 1.3 GHz Tegra 3 SoC with 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage expandable by microSD. The base battery life on the A510 is an impressive 36.26Whr, not quite as much as the new iPad, but somewhat higher than its prececessor and the Prime. That big battery does lead to a somewhat portly frame, with a thickness cresting a centimeter and weighing nearly 100g more than the Prime. The frame is similar to the A200 we saw in January, but is actually a little thinner and with a textured back for extra grip.
Android 4.0 is on order for software, complete with Acer's Ring UI, a relatively innocuous skin that mainly seeks to put your most commonly used apps in easy reach. When we took a look at the A500, we were pleased with its display quality, not quite IPS but great for a vanilla LCD; we hope we can expect more of the same from this display. Software pre-load includes the usual branded media players and print software, along with Polaris Office 3.5 for productivity. Gone though, is the full-sized USB port, replaced by microUSB, though it remains compatibile with portable HDD up to 2TB in size.
There's no shortage of options for tablet buyers right now, and everyday another pops up. But if performance, battery life and price are your main criteria, the A510 may just be the tablet for you. Pre-orders start today for $449.99 at your favorite e-tailers; no ship dates are available.

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Quick Look: ASUS 1025C and Cedar Trail
We've known about Cedar Trail for quite a while now, the next iteration of Intel's Atom processor line. As far as the CPU is concerned, not a lot has changed from the previous generation Pine Trail. Cedar Trail is manufactured on Intel's 32nm process technology, but the CPU architecture is still in-order. You can read more of our Cedar Trail coverage in our initial look at the platform. It's taken far longer than expected, but we finally got someone to send us a Cedar Trail netbook for review. That someone is ASUS, and the netbook is their 1025C.

We'll have our full review in the future, but in the meantime we thought we'd give some quick impressions of performance and, more importantly, battery life during video playback. I'll cut straight to the chase with regards to CPU performance: it's largely unchanged from the last version, which means Atom N2600 still feels quite sluggish for many tasks. Atom is faster than ARM A9 CPUs, and you can see a comparison of Sunspider 0.9.1 with various tablets below, but for Windows 7 it's still painfully slow at times.

The bigger change however is in the GPU, where the old GMA 3150 (itself a minor tweak to the even older GMA 950) is finally getting a needed upgrade. This won't turn Atom into a gaming system by any stretch of the imagination, but it does finally bring GPU accelerated H.264 decoding into the Atom ecosystem (without the need for a discrete GPU). What does that mean for performance? It means HD YouTube video can finally run without dropping a ton of frames—at least, the 720p videos that I tested played back without any major issues. 1080p video still experiences quite a few dropped frames, unfortunately, but then you don't need to stream 1080p video if you're using the integrated 600p LCD.
But YouTube HD video has always demanded more than local video playback, and we can now finally get DXVA assisted playback of H.264 video content. I tested both 720p and 1080p H.264 videos without any major issues using MPC-HC. What's more, I ran our standard H.264 battery life test to see how the Atom N2800 fared—and I ran it a second time with a 1080p video stream just for good measure. Check out the results:

Atom and netbooks in general still aren't going to set the world on fire with performance, but if there's one thing Atom can do well it's long battery life. Cedar Trail takes the previous Atom results and improves on them by over 50% in video playback tests. Tablets still generally do better here, but gIven that Cedar Trail now supports HDMI output, you could conceivably use an Atom netbook as a portable media player in addition to standard laptop tasks.
I tested Hulu and Netflix on the 1025C as well and both worked reasonably well, but only with SD content. That's not an issue for Hulu, but Netflix HD content completely lost A/V sync. It may be that Hulu and Netflix are not currenlty recognizing the GMA 3600, but until this is addressed it's worth noting.
There's still a question of whether a $300 netbook has a place in the market when we've got tablets to play with, but it's really a matter of intended use as well as price. ASUS' own Eee Prime Transformer offers a better display and a nifty touch interface that easily surpasses the Windows 7 Starter experience, but if you're looking to do mundane tasks like basic word processing you'll need the keyboard attachment, which takes the final price up to ~$550—nearly twice that of the Eee PC 1025C. For basic typing, then, the price of the 1025C makes it a better choice, and you get excellent battery life that will easily carry you through a day of use and then some.
Atom still isn't going to surpass AMD's Brazos for performance or GPU driver quality, but pricing and battery life still appear to be in favor of Intel's Atom, and 10.1" Brazos netbooks are pretty rarefied. We'll have our full review as soon as we can finish running the remaining benchmarks and doing additional testing, which might be a while. Hopefully we'll see equally impressive improvements for Internet and Idle battery life, but it took over ten hours to recharge the battery on the 1025C and eight hours plus for our video playback test, so basically I'm look at a full day for each battery test cycle to complete.

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Intel Engineer Confirms 22 nm Atom Will be Named "Valley View"
New silicon is expected to land in 2013

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Oracle's Anti-Android Java Lawsuit Likely to be Settled For Under $100M USD
Google may pay a bit in ongoing licensing fees, but the settlement for past damages will be small

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T-Mobile Lays Off 1,900 Workers, AT&T Tells FCC "Told ya so"
AT&T still isn't done badmouthing the FCC

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3/23/2012 Daily Hardware Reviews
DailyTech's roundup of hardware reviews from around the web for Friday

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RIM Loses No. 1 Canadian Smartphone Shipments Spot to Apple for 2011
This is a particularly hard blow to RIM, which is based in Canada and had the No. 1 spot until last year

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Google Patent Outlines Weather Sensing Advertisements
One more way to spy on you or nice new feature?

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Update: Rovio Execs Give Conflicting Statements on Angry Birds Space for Windows Phone
The mobile game developer says it's too much work to technically support it

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Windows 8 Bests Windows 7 in Most Performance Benchmarks
Metro fan or not, Windows 8 is a performer

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Worth the Wait: NVIDIA's Kepler GTX Geforce 680 is New Graphics Market King
New GPU is more powerful, but also quieter, cooler; beats AMD's similar offering in price

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Alternative GOP Budget Would Chop Auto Loans and High-Speed Railway Funding
Budget proposal would kill Obama's green plans

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3/22/2012 Daily Hardware Reviews -- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Edition
DailyTech's roundup of hardware reviews from around the web for Thursday

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Adobe Releases Photoshop CS6 Beta for Free Download
CS6 will launch in H1 2012, price undetermined

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Acer Unveils Iconia Tab A510 Tablet with Quad Core Performance
Tablet is up for pre-order today

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Commodore Releases Amiga Mini, Updates Other Models
Amiga is officially making its comeback in the form of a high-end gaming PC in a small package called the Amiga Mini

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Crash Victim Opts Amputation, Robotic Replacement Hand
Elective amputation is very groundbreaking, controversial

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Baffling Illness Strikes Africa, Turns Children Into Mindless "Zombies"
World Health Organization is on high alert about new Ugandan outbreak, cause is not fully known

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Available Tags:NVIDIA , GeForce , GTX , AMD , Radeon , Windows 8 , Microsoft , Windows , Acer , ASUS , Intel , Java , Hardware , Smartphone , Apple , Google , Windows Phone , Windows 7 , Windows 8 , Adobe , Download , Tablet , Other ,

Monday, March 26, 2012

IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 3/26/2012

ASUS (Product page)

EVGA (Product page)

Galaxy (Product page)

Gigabyte (Product page)

MSI (Product page)

PNY (Product page)

Zotac (Product page)

ASUS (Product page)

Gigabyte (Product page)

MSI (Product page)

PowerColor (Product page)

PowerColor PCS+ (Product page)

Sapphire (Product page)

Sapphire OC (Product page)

ASUS (Product page)

Gigabyte (Product page)

HIS (Product page)

MSI (Product page)

PowerColor (Product page)

Sapphire (Product page)

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