IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 8/13/2013

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Case Review
Work in this industry for long enough, and the word "innovation" will grate like glass in your eardrums. Every so often, though, a case comes along that merits it, and the Phanteks Enthoo Primo is one of them.

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Xeon E5-2600 V2 Price List: Server Ivy Bridge-EP

We have known for a while that the Ivy Bridge-E launch will supposedly take place in a few weeks time, with information about pricing of the consumer components coming to light recently. Despite the high cost of entry for consumers, the business aspect of these processors along the Xeon brand is arguably the more poignant and certainly the more profitable aspect of the business. Recently CPU-World has put many of the pieces of the puzzle together, from a variety of leaks from partners, in terms of which processors are being released, their intimate details, and importantly, pricing.
To follow on the naming scheme of Sandy Bridge -> Ivy Bridge -> Haswell Xeons, these processors, destined for 2P systems, will take on the E5 26xx naming scheme with V2 on the end, with L designating low power versions. We have the following list to browse and prepare servers for:

Model	Cores	Frequency	L3 cache	TDP	Pre-order price
Xeon E5-2603 v2	4	1.8 GHz	10 MB	80 Watt	$231.62
Xeon E5-2609 v2	4	2.5 GHz	10 MB	80 Watt	$337.03
Xeon E5-2620 v2	6	2.1 GHz	15 MB	80 Watt	$464.48
Xeon E5-2630 v2	6	2.6 GHz	15 MB	80 Watt
Xeon E5-2630L v2	6	2.4 GHz	15 MB		$701.01
Xeon E5-2637 v2	4	3.5 GHz	15 MB		$1140.99
Xeon E5-2640 v2	8	2 GHz	20 MB	95 Watt	$1013.54
Xeon E5-2643 v2	6	3.5 GHz	25 MB	130 Watt
Xeon E5-2650 v2	8	2.6 GHz	20 MB	95 Watt	$1335.85
Xeon E5-2650L v2	10	1.7 GHz	25 MB	70 Watt	$1395.91
Xeon E5-2660 v2	10	2.2 GHz	25 MB	95 Watt	$1590.78
Xeon E5-2667 v2	8	3.3 GHz	25 MB	130 Watt	$2320.64
Xeon E5-2670 v2	10	2.5 GHz	25 MB	115 Watt
Xeon E5-2680 v2	10	2.8 GHz	25 MB	115 Watt	$1943.93
Xeon E5-2687W v2	8	3.4 GHz	20 MB	150 Watt	$2414.35
Xeon E5-2690 v2	10	3 GHz	25 MB	130 Watt	$2355.52
Xeon E5-2695 v2	12	2.4 GHz	30 MB	115 Watt	$2675.39
Xeon E5-2697 v2	12	2.7 GHz	30 MB	130 Watt	$2949.69

Most of these cores will feature Hyperthreading, giving between 4 and 24 threads within an 80-150W envelope. These prices are currently listed as consumer based pre-order prices, and equate to ~12-30% more than the current Sandy Bridge-E offerings. We expect none of these parts to be overclockable via the multiplier, following Intel's previous Xeon launches.
With any luck we should be getting a couple of Ivy Bridge-E based server motherboards in to test, along with Xeon processors. Interestingly enough, vague rumours of a 15 core chip have not evolved into anything concrete as of yet, at least not to be released at the same time as the others.
Source: CPU-World

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ASUS Reports Disappointing VivoTab RT Sales, Stops Making RT Tablets

In a move that’s likely to surprise…well, just about no one, the Wall Street Journal reports that ASUS will cease making Windows RT tablets. Windows RT is basically stuck in limbo between full Windows 8 (and 8.1) laptops and hybrid devices on the high-end and Android tablets on the low-end, and the market appears to be giving a clear thumbs down to the platform. Many critics have also noted the lack of compelling applications to compete with Android and iOS platforms, which is something we noted in our review of the VivoTab RT last year.
This morning, ASUS Chief Executive Jerry Shen stated, “It's not only our opinion, the industry sentiment is also that Windows RT has not been successful.” Citing weak sales and the need to take a write-down on its Windows RT tablets in the second quarter, ASUS will be focusing its energies on more productive devices. Specifically, Shen goes on to state that ASUS will only make Windows 8 devices using with Intel processors, thanks to the backwards compatibility that provides—and something Windows RT lacks.
It looks like many feel towards Windows RT similar to how they feel towards Windows Phone 8. As Vivek put it in our recent Nokia Lumia 521 review, “Microsoft cannot expect to gain back market share after this many years unless they’re willing to aggressively ramp their development cycle the way Google did with Android a few years ago—something they have thus far shown no indications of doing. They just haven’t iterated quickly enough, and I can’t think of a single time when I picked up a Windows Phone and thought it was feature competitive with Android and iOS. It’s not even because I use Google services; there are just a number of things that are legitimately missing from the platform.”
The situation with ASUS ditching Windows RT (at least for the near future) reminds me of what we saw with the netbook space several years ago. ASUS had some great initial success with the first Eee PC, and then just about every manufacturer came out with a similar netbook…and most of them failed. Couple that with a stagnating platform (Atom still isn’t much faster now than it was when it first appeared, though the next Silvermont version will likely address this), and most of the netbook manufacturers have moved on to greener pastures. Specifically, we’re talking about Android tablets, and while most companies didn’t stop making Android products to try out Windows RT devices, we will likely see fewer next-gen Windows RT devices and more next-gen Android tablets in the next year or two. With Haswell showing potential to compete head-to-head with tablets for battery life, more lucrative Haswell-based tablets running full copies of Windows 8.1 look far more promising than RT.
Of course, long-term the story for Windows RT is far from over. Microsoft needs Windows RT or they are locked out of a huge market. They can't expect to compete with $300-$400 tablets that use ARM processors ($10-$35 per SoC, give or take) and run an OS that's basically free with tablets that need Core i3 or faster chips ($100+) and a full copy of Windows 8.1. Right now they're losing this battle, with fewer quality applications and far fewer hardware options. ASUS might not be carrying the flag for Windows RT, but if no one else will then Microsoft will have to carry the torch on their own. The next Windows Surfact RT will try to do just that, whenever it turns up, and certainly Silvermont will help provide a better x86 alternative to the current Atom processors.

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Interview with Jackson Hsu, Product Management Director at GIGABYTE

Interview with Jackson Hsu,

Product Management Director at GIGABYTE

As part of our trip to Computex this year, alongside a good look around the GIGABYTE Taipei 101 VIP Suite and the GIGABYTE OC Lab, we were given the opportunity to interview Mr. Jackson Hsu, Deputy Division Director for the Motherboard Business Unit at GIGABYTE – or as Jackson more accurately described in our interview, ‘Product Management Director’. Jackson is the glue that binds the different areas of GIGABYTE together – research/development, sales, marketing, QA and so on, and thus whatever ideas that each department has for new product designs, each element that needs communication between segments goes through Jackson.
I would like to thank Jackson and GIGABYTE for the interview, especially as English is not Jackson's first language.
Ian Cutress: Hi Mr. Hsu, many thanks for agreeing to this interview with AnandTech.
Jackson Hsu: No Problem!
IC: To start, can you tell us a little about yourself?
JH: My name is Jackson Hsu, and my business card tells me I am ‘Deputy Division Director’, but sometimes it is not easy to translate the position from Chinese to English - I am in charge of the Product Management Team (to be simple), and more on the R&D side.
IC: How long have you been in this position?
JH: I joined GIGABYTE in July 1999 (14 years) as an FAE (Field Application Engineer) for six years, where I was handling channel and OEM customers and in charge of the FAE team for 3 or 4 years before transferring to the PM (Product Marketing) team and my current position. So about half and half!
IC: What history (academic and career) has led you to your current position?
JH: I spent a year in Mechanical Engineering at university, before switching to Electrical Engineering in the second year. I then served in the Taiwanese military after university for two years, before joining FIC for another two years in the notebook R&D team – validation of panels, hard drives, batteries etc. And then I joined GIGABYTE.
IC: Can you explain a little about your position at GIGABYTE?
JH: My position involves ensuring good communication between sales, R&D, marketing, customers, media, production and power users.
IC: So you are the head that talks to all these parts?
JH: I am more like a bridge! So when I get Sales feedback such as ‘we want this product’, I make sure that R&D know exactly what sales require, and when. There is a lot of back and forth and I make sure that the communication goes smoothly. I sometimes speak to the factory on the production side, but only if there is a problem or some quality issues or special testing on models.
IC: Can you describe a typical day?
JH: Meetings! Meetings and meetings and meetings.
IC: Is that meetings between departments to make sure everything goes smoothly?
JH: Absolutely - meetings with sales, R&D, or the boss! It is all about products.
IC: Do you have a chance to personally influence new products coming to the market?
JH: I think I do, but I have the chance to explain in detail to both sides (sales/R&D) about how features should benefit. Say for example Sales has a good feature, and if I think it is good, I need to persuade R&D that it is good as well. But when I get feedback from media and power users about certain features, I will talk to all sections if it is possible. Of course I always report back to top management for the final confirmation.
IC: How do you deal with ideas from Sales, Marketing, R&D, etc.?
JH: A lot of ideas come through from sales due to speaking with customers and getting feedback on previous ideas. Also when sales are dealing with customers and the customers note that competitors have beneficial features then it all flows back through the system if we do not have it. Power Users and Media who manage to test a large number of products and features from all companies also come back with what they think are the best features. On the vendor side (Intel, AMD, Component IC manufacturers) also come to us with their roadmaps about upcoming components and new features which we then have to decide whether a user might want them. The R&D guys also have their own ideas which get passed through to marketing and sales to see if they will sell. If you take the OC boards from this year – it is all HiCookie’s ideas! He is experienced, and it helps that both R&D and sales both trust him. I have to double check to make sure this is exactly what he wants!
IC: A lot of sales is getting feedback from system integrators and end-users. How much does end-user feedback get into the development process?
JH: If many users feedback the same issues then it is easy – it is all a question of numbers. If it is feedback of a specific feature then we ask each division to look at it; it is not just one person or one department that makes the decision. We will all meet to see if it is a doable idea or a crazy idea – it might be possible at a later date but generally several departments will offer their feedback. Sometimes sales does have the pressure of the cost even if it is a good feature, so there is always fighting between various departments.
IC: In terms of platform roadmaps, when do you start looking at that next generation of products?
JH: Generally we start looking about a year before. We started working with Haswell over a year ago, and Intel was good to provide plenty of information well before the launch such that we were able to study the materials and the specifications. We were also making CRBs (Customer Reference Boards) for Intel so that helps us experience the new platform a little earlier.
IC: Could you break down those twelve months in terms of product design, planning and production?
JH: Working backwards from the launch and using the 8-series as an example: we need to get the motherboards in the channel for stocking, and a large portion of that is when the component vendors supply the ICs such as chipsets. For example if we get the chipset two or one month early, then we need to get all the materials before that. We will probably get our materials ready by April (two months before launch). That means all the materials will be in the factory by that time (VRMs, PCBs, Heatsinks etc). If we are able to do it by that time this means that all the validation is finished for base production – the lead time for this is 4-5 weeks, and then one week for production. This means that by early March all the design validation has been completed. At that time everything should be closed in terms of hardware/product segmentation and hardware validation – of course the BIOS and software can still be updated. Counting back from March, we go into a normal EVT/DVT cycle – first engineering samples and second engineering samples, so the design cycle should take 4-5 months (starting back in October/November) but sometimes we can be rushed, such as the C1/C2 issue.
IC: Does that mean you have to revalidate everything on C2?
JH: Everything on the chipset has to be revalidated. The discussion the number of SKUs and specifications is then performed earlier, most likely in the September/October timeframe. In order to discuss all that, Intel provides information a lot earlier, so we will study all the documentation during 12-18 months before the launch.
IC: So in terms of Ivy Bridge-E, you will be doing final validation about now?
JH: Ivy Bridge-E has the benefit of being the same socket as Sandy Bridge-E, so we normally revalidate the CPU and BIOS, making sure the drivers work. The new BIOS and material should be going onto the website when we are allowed to. If we have a new SKU it would only be a couple of models, nothing as large as the 8-series.
IC: Say you get a request from a specific market - for example China wants a motherboard for internet cafés and they want 10,000 units. What happens then?
JH: In that situation we will aim to provide. Take for example our 8-series this time around – at the time of launch we have 33 models. You can imagine that not every country is buying every model of motherboard! So each market will pick what they want and what they need, or they will ask for specific features when we are designing our motherboards (for example iCafe). For example some Latin America customers and European customers are getting this treatment.
IC: In terms of goals for GIGABYTE after the launch of 8-series – I hear that sales figures with ASUS are close, and with the motherboard market predicted to shrink in 2013. Where does GIGABYTE want to be in the next 12 months/5 years?
JH: For the next 12 months it is easier to say – we want to get more market share in the mainstream and high end markets. For the 5 year prediction, we need to compete with others in the growing segments such as notebooks and tablets, so we need to make our products more attractive. We need to help people see that PCs are still required – for example, for us the tablets and phones are getting more shares, and users need the PC at home for a data center/ synchronization. We need to make our products more ‘easy to use’, which is a big goal that everyone is trying to figure out how to do it, especially from our background as a motherboard component manufacturer we need to learn how to provide more than just a motherboard.
IC: What recent GIGABYTE innovations have particularly pleased you?
JH: Speaking about the 8-series, we tried mainly to improve the user experience. As an example the OP-AMP technology is not from GIGABYTE – it is already there in the HiFi market. I believe that it has been done before in that market, but we studied it and looked more into a solution that is easier for users as well as more beneficial. Take for example the audio solution we put on the gaming motherboards on Z87 - we will soon provide the same solution on B85, H81 and A85X. We will be pushing such features down from the high-end to the mainstream and even to the entry because we think it is such a good feature that our customers will be able to pick their choices at various price points. The good thing that we do is that we learn from others and change the combination a little bit and then we make it better. Take for example our Gaming Series motherboards – we are using the best Creative Sound Core3D which we have used before. The entire design path to the OP-AMP and audio capacitors and the audio ground protection to the golden plated shield and audio jacks – the whole path is taken care of. So some power users asks ‘Why you don’t put that AMP in the front audio path?”, but we found it is very difficult to control the front audio cable which is bundled in the chassis, and we cannot control the quality of that cable to we cannot guarantee the best experience so we focus on the rear audio. We know it is not the easiest to use but by using it we can guarantee the experience. Perhaps the next step is trying to figure out a way to improve the front panel audio situation! What I mean is that we see every segment along the path and try and find a way to make it better.
The second thing is on the OC boards - all the features are designed to make overclocking easy, and thus making the user experience better. Also our software and BIOS has had a big change – we unified the UI, the color scheme, the layout is very similar and we are making our first GIGABYTE apps so that the customer only has to install one main program and the system will auto update. We know it is not perfect yet but it is all about user experience.
IC: In terms of GIGABYTE’s current product stack, what do you feel you would want promoted more? What needs more of a big push into a product win?
JH: We try and put more effort into gaming platforms, such as the expansion of our G1 series down into the lower price brackets to see if our customers enjoy it. That seems to be a major target for us this year. But the whole 8-series is still our major focus – we like to talk about gaming and the OC series, but we also improve our classic (channel) series in terms of user experience such as fan control, fan headers, power delivery. If we get an idea for a new feature that is not cost-sensitive then we try and apply it across our product line.
IC: What innovation should GIGABYTE is looking for in the future? I know you can’t tell me about anything secret you have down in R&D, but in a market where innovation seems to grab sales, it would be good to hear your thoughts.
JH: I think one of the most important features should be how we connect our products to the high volume selling products in technology, such as smartphones and tablets. That is one direction to look at but it is not easy – how do you figure out how to create a feature that makes a user’s life easier? But then of course we have to focus on performance and user experience. Our goals are always towards both performance and user experience.
IC: In terms of the market, do you think there is a gap that GIGABYTE should be moving into?
JH: I think the market is pretty mature, but it is just a matter of how ‘good’ the product is.
IC: A few of our readers interested in the computer industry are still at school. Say for example you are a high school student, and you wanted to work in the tech industry – what experience should this age group be doing and would it best to study in Taiwan as well as learning Chinese?
JH: It is important to understand there are many different features in the tech industry – such as sales or R&D. At this age it the student might not know exactly what they want. But in the PC industry you need to know about PC technology – you need to know the trends and you need to know how to work with the components. The more knowledge you have, the more beneficial to the industry you are. If you want to hire a freshman out of college, then if he has more knowledge on the technical background it will shorten the training time on the technical side. The personality and the attitude of the individual is also important – they have to be willing to learn rather than focus on earning money. I know for the first few years that ambition is always important. Studying in Taiwan is not necessary – for example I did not study in Taiwan.
IC: If you were not working at GIGABYTE, where would your preferred place of employment be?
JH: Good question, I couldn’t tell you! If I was not in the PC hardware industry, perhaps Google! A company that is always expanding and innovating would be good.
IC: For your position at GIGABYTE, do you work a typical 9-5, or does it involve evenings and weekends?
JH: It can be both. My working day is often full of meetings, so you do not have much time to reply to emails or write reports. So during evenings and weekends I spend some time to catch up on the administration.
IC: How often do you visit Guang Hua (the Taiwan Computer Market)?
JH: I visit regularly, though more often for investigation. I was there last weekend checking to see how GIGABYTE was selling compared to other 8-series motherboard manufacturers. I would ask regarding specific models and how frequently GIGABYTE was chosen for new computers.
IC: To what extent do you take your competitors’ products apart for analysis?
JH: We take their products and pass them through every department, and they will make up their reports. We then have a general meeting with sales and we find the good and the bad from the competition and then we discuss whether to integrate the good features or discuss whether we have the same issues as them. We also do that non-motherboard products as well, such as tablets, smartphones, notebooks, NAS, etc. in order to get a feel or to see if there are any ideas already in the market.
IC: How good or bad is the staff turnover in your division?
JH: One thing we find is that even if someone leaves, eventually they return! People do move internally around the company – we get people from the PM move to sales or vice versa. We do not interview that regularly as the team is currently very stable. We currently have two guys from my team moving into sales, for example. In order to replace them we are interviewing both inside and outside the company, but for product management personnel in my team they have to know a little bit about every part of the design process and the company. Therefore it would be best to hire from within the company means a shorter training time rather than hiring from outside or hiring fresh out of college. It always depends on the person though and what direction the division has to take – if you hire fresh out of college then you attempt to build a long term team. If you have a job that needs to be done quickly then hiring with experience is more beneficial.
IC: What influence do the media have on your position?
JH: It is not so much influence, but we like to discuss what you think we do wrong and what you think we do right. It is all about feedback. It is always a back and forth sometimes discussing with media why we took some decisions over others but also on the feedback of those decisions.
IC: How do you see the different departments in GIGABYTE progressing? Such as VGA, Server and Peripherals?
JH: In terms of our VGA team they are doing quite well, gaining market share in the high-end and mainstream segments. On the server side, we know that they are not big in volumes, but they are very specialized in a lot of different products – for example the BRIXis from the Server team which is a specialized bit of kit. I am not too sure how the peripheral side is doing as they are not on the same floor in the HQ! But I know they are being more aggressive, and it is important to focus on lots of different product lines so that users have choice, and we encourage people to have more choice. For example many Chinese media say that tier-2 and tier-3 motherboard manufacturers are finding it quite hard because there is enough competition. We would like more manufacturers in the motherboard market for example in order to keep the market healthy.
IC: And finally – what has been your best day working at GIGABYTE?
JH: Haha! The recent one for me was when I was told by sales that our first production run of the Z87X-OC all sold out. As a result system integrators and our customers want to order more, so our estimations were too low and it bodes very well for the development of this type of product. It all comes down to HiCookie providing his experience and defining the product.
IC: Many thanks for the opportunity to interview you Jackson!

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The 2013 MacBook Air Review (11-inch)
Apple launched their new Haswell based MacBook Air laptops last month, and we started our reviews with the MacBook Air 13. Today we have the review of it's smaller sibling, the MacBook Air 11. How does it fare as a laptop, and can you make the case for carrying one of these around in place of a tablet? Read on as we discuss these and other questions in our full review.

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Xbox One: Unboxed

We’ve already discussed the hardware of the Xbox One (or Xbone as Brian likes to call it) and compared it with the PlayStation 4, so all that’s left is the official launch, a bunch of day one unboxing videos from excited early adopters, and then the games (and hopefully no RRoD). Oh, wait—scratch that second one off the list, because Microsoft has beat them all to the punch with their very own unboxing video, three months ahead of the official launch. Xbox’s Major Nelson does the honors, and you get a thorough rundown of the contents. In order of unboxing, we get:

New and improved Kinect sensor, with a wider field-of-view
Mono headset with inline audio controls
Xbox One controller
4K rated HDMI cable
Manual, paperwork, and a sticker (woohoo!)
Power cord and power brick
“Liquid black” (aka glossy) Xbox One console

There’s nothing particularly unexpected in there, other than perhaps getting a headset for both the Day One and standard releases. Major Nelson also goes over the I/O ports. On the left side are a single USB 3.0 port and a binding button (for setting up your controllers). On the rear you get HDMI Out, S/PDIF, HDMI In (for cable/satellite pass-through), two more USB 3.0 ports, the Kinect socket (note that Kinect can function as an IR Blaster), an IR Blaster port, Gigabit Ethernet, and even a Kensington security lock—the power connector is at the left of the rear. There are also some changes to the controller, with Day One 2013 printed on the first controllers.
We’ve covered the other features previously, but just to recap, the Xbox One comes with an 8-core AMD Jaguar CPU, 12CU/768 SP AMD GCN GPU, 8GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB HDD, Blu-ray drive, and dual-band 802.11n WiFi. I’m guessing it’s a 2x2:2 MIMO implementation, but there’s no official word on this yet. Sadly, there won’t be any 802.11ac for the initial models it looks like. All this, for a not insignificant $499 MSRP come November 2013.

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Nokia Lumia 521: Quality Smartphone on an Extreme Budget
The Nokia Lumia 521 is very interesting. It’s the T-Mobile US version of the Lumia 520, and ships with AWS HSPA+ for just $129 sans contract or subsidy. It’s nearly identical to the 520 save for very minor dimensional differences and T-Mobile branding. AT&T gets the 520 in its original form as part of their GoPhone prepaid lineup for $99.99, no contract. The specsheet reads pretty respectably given the budget—Qualcomm’s MSM8227 SoC with dual-core Krait at 1GHz clocks, Adreno 305 graphics, 512MB RAM, 8GB of onboard NAND plus a micro SD slot, a 4” WVGA IPS panel, and a 5MP camera with an f/2.4 lens. And of course, this being Nokia, you’re assured of a pretty decent design and build. Nokia has always excelled at building durable, inexpensive handsets that didn’t feel cheap, which is one of the things that has propelled them to success in developing markets.

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Understanding Panel Self Refresh

Earlier today Brian spent some time with the G2, LG's 5.2-inch flagship smartphone based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) SoC. I'd recommend reading his excellent piece in order to get all of the details on the new phone, but there's one disclosure I'd like to call out here: the G2 supports Panel Self Refresh.
To drive a 60Hz panel, your display controller must present the display with the contents of the frame buffer 60 times per second. Regardless of what's being displayed (static vs. active content), every second there are 60 updates pushed through the display pipeline to the display. When displaying fast moving content (e.g. video playback, games, scrolling), this update frequency is important and appreciated. When displaying static content however (E.g. staring at the home screen, reading a page of an eBook), the display pipeline and associated DRAM are consuming power sending display updates when it doesn't need to. Panel Self Refresh (PSR) is designed to address the latter case.
To be clear, PSR is an optimization to reduce SoC power, not to reduce display power. In the event that display content is static, the contents of the frame buffer (carved out of system RAM in the case of a smartphone) are copied to a small amount of memory tied to the display. In the case of LG's G2 we're likely looking at something around 8MB (1080p @ 32bpp). The refreshes then come from the panel's memory, allowing the display pipeline (and SoC) to drive down to an even lower power state. Chances are the panel's DRAM is also tied to a narrower bus and can be lower power than the system memory used by the SoC, making these refreshes even lower in power cost.
LG claims a 26% reduction in power when displaying a still image with PSR enabled. I'm curious to see the impact on overall battery life. There are elements of our WiFi web browsing test that could benefit from PSR but it's unclear how much of an improvement we'll see. The added cost of introducing additional memory into a device is something that panel vendors have been hesitant to do, but as companies look to continue to reduce platform power it's a vector worth considering. LG's dual-role as a component supplier and device maker likely made the decision to enable PSR a lot easier.

PSR potentially has bigger implications for notebook use where it's not uncommon to just stare at a desktop that's not animating at all. I feel like the more common use case in smartphones is to just lock your phone/display when you're not actively using it.

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John Carmack Joins Oculus Rift as CTO

The Oculus Rift Kickstarter page (and various other places) announced today that John Carmack is joining them as their new Chief Technology Officer. John is one of the biggest names in the industry of 3D gaming, having been on the forefront of technology with Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and Rage. The fact that he’s interested in Oculus Rift shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, and in fact everyone I know that has had a chance to see the technology in action has been impressed. I wasn’t able to get there at CES 2013, but I know Brian stopped by—he mentioned that the transition from the Virtual Reality environment back to the real world was disorienting, in a good way (i.e. it was much better VR than we’ve seen in the past).
Of course, this isn’t the first time John has had anything to do with Oculus Rift—he was the first developer to get the Oculus running with a 3D game (Doom 3). In a statement to the community he writes, “I have fond memories of the development work that led to a lot of great things in modern gaming – the intensity of the first person experience, LAN and internet play, game mods, and so on. Duct taping a strap and hot gluing sensors onto Palmer’s early prototype Rift and writing the code to drive it ranks right up there. Now is a special time. I believe that VR will have a huge impact in the coming years, but everyone working today is a pioneer. The paradigms that everyone will take for granted in the future are being figured out today; probably by people reading this message. It’s certainly not there yet. There is a lot more work to do, and there are problems we don’t even know about that will need to be solved, but I am eager to work on them. It’s going to be awesome!”
Just to be clear, John isn’t leaving id Software for this new position; he will continue his work there, as well as with other companies/projects. It’s also interesting to look at the last id Software release, Rage, and think about what John might have to say regarding gaming performance of the Oculus Rift. Rage basically made itself useless as a benchmark by targeting a maximum frame rate of 60FPS, and it would dynamically adjust quality to hit 60FPS as best as it could, generally succeeding even on relatively low-end hardware. For Virtual Reality, I can see having a constant 60FPS stream of content being far more important than getting additional graphics quality, so hopefully John can help other developers realize that goal.
As for the Oculus Rift, with many (over 17000!) development kits having now shipped to the community, as well as showcasing the 1080p HD version at E3 2013, we’re getting ever closer to the final hardware. The 0.2.3 SDK is also available, and besides the $2.5 million from the initial Kickstarter campaign, Oculus Rift has brought in a significant amount of additional funding over the past year. There’s still no official release date, but given the progress from the last year I’d expect to see the first consumer release within the next year, and very like before then. I’m sure they’d love to get on shelves before Christmas this year, but whether or not they can manage that remains to be seen.

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Hands On with the LG G2 - LG's latest flagship

Today LG is announcing the LG G2, there’s no Optimus this time, it’s just the LG G2. The G2 is the successor to the Optimus G, the phone that also became the Nexus 4, and makes a number of improvements above and beyond the Optimus G. The G2 is the flagship product that LG is putting all of its resources behind, and takes the flagship throne from the G Pro.

The G2 makes a number of interesting hardware changes in the shape, size, and button area compared to the competition. Rather than having side-mounted power and volume buttons, to minimize edge bezel, LG has moved them to the back of the device just below the camera module. The volume rocker is one solid piece with a raised power button in the center. The edge around the power button is the notification LED, which glows a white color when powered on or when things roll in.

	LG G2
SoC	Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (MSM8974) 4x Krait 400 2.3 GHz, Adreno 330 GPU
Display	5.2-inch IPS-LCD 1920x1080 Full HD
RAM	2GB LPDDR3 800 MHz
WiFi	802.11a/b/g/n/ac, BT 4.0
Storage	32 GB internal
I/O	microUSB 2.0, 3.5mm headphone, NFC, Miracast, IR
OS	Android 4.2.2
Battery	3000 mAh (11.4 Whr) 3.8V stacked battery
Size / Mass	138.5 x 70.9 x 9.14 mm
Camera	13 MP with OIS and Flash (Rear Facing) 2.1 MP Full HD (Front Facing)

LG believes that as devices grow in size, hand positioning has changed and putting the buttons on the side is no longer natural. I’ll admit I was initially confused about how to turn the G2 on, but after a few minutes of playing with the device, turning it on and off via the rear center power button or changing the volume seemed natural. The raised bump makes it easy to locate the buttons, and there’s another lip before your finger hits the camera front glass. Pressing the top button or bottom button for three seconds launches the memo app or camera, respectively. Inside the camera application, volume also doubles as a camera button and triggers image capture. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but putting the buttons on the back actually doesn't feel anywhere near as awkward as I thought it would. I'll have to spend more time with the G2 to really be able to tell how well this works in practice, but my initial subjective impressions are a lot more positive than I thought they would be.

Gallery: LG G2 Hardware Gallery

The G2 eschews hardware buttons for the on-screen Android kind, although LG has made a number of customization options available in another settings menu.

The back of the G2 is a curved, rounded profile. LG has included a stacked battery inside the G2 that maximizes the volume of the internal space. It’s a 3.8V 3000 mAh (11.4 watt-hour) LG Chem battery. If you’ve been paying attention this was also something Motorola talked about for their Moto X (the stacked part), turns out that LG Chem is indeed a supplier for Motorola. Of course the back on the G2 is non removable, and sealed, which isn’t a surprise anymore.

The G2 comes in white and black models which are of polycarbonate construction. The materials choices aren’t anything revolutionary in a world where wood, metal, and composites seem to be the trend, but at least this time there’s no glass on the back that’s going to give people pause.

LG G2 Touch Panel (Left) LG Optimus G Touch Panel (Right)

The highlight of the G2 is of course its 5.2-inch 1920x1080 (Update: I meant 1080p, sorry, I had 1200 before on accident) IPS display, and thin bezel. Getting the bezel to be as thin as possible seems to have been LG’s main design direction for the G2, and again moving the buttons to the back side means less button intrusion into the size and a thinner bezel. The other part is moving to top and bottom fanout for the touch traces – instead of routing everything to the top or bottom, there’s a top connector and bottom connector, that means thinner edge profile.

The G2 display also includes built-in memory to enable panel self refresh. When the display contents aren’t being updated, the display GRAM holds this frame buffer and refreshes itself so the AP and display controller can go into an idle state. LG purports it gets a 26 percent reduction in power consumption from the display size using this GRAM (Graphic RAM) panel self refresh functionality.
Viewing angles on the G2 and brightness seemed great from what time I spent with a prototype model. LG Display always seems to do an awesome job with its panels, and I don’t think the G2 will stray far from that mark.

Camera on the G2 is also a step forwards from Optimus G. There’s a 13 MP rear facing module with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) this time, which means LG joins HTC and Nokia in the OIS party. The module for the G2 is considerably bigger and includes the on-package gyro you’d expect for OIS to work properly. LG tells me that the CMOS still uses the 1.1µm pixels and size shared with the original Optimus G, but is a newer, faster version that supports 1080p60 video capture. That’s right, the G2 can do Full HD at 60 FPS on video. LG also does temporal oversampling (taking multiple frames and combining them into one image) for their digital zoom, instead of just a resampling. OIS definitely works on the G2 to help stabilize videos and take longer exposures in low light for still images.

The G2 also includes a sapphire crystal window on the back side to prevent scratching.
LG has made audio in the line-out sense a priority for the G2. We’ve seen a lot of emphasis from other OEMs on speaker quality and stereo sound, with the G2 LG has put time into rewriting part of the ALSA stack and Android framework to support higher sampling and bit depth. The inability of the Android platform to support different sampling rates for different applications remains a big limitation for OEMs, one LG wrote around, and with the G2 up to 24 bit 192 kHz FLAC/WAV playback is supported in the stock player, and LG says it will make an API available for other apps to take advantage of this higher definition audio support to foster a better 24-bit ecosystem on Android.

I asked about what codec the G2 uses, and it turns out this is the latest Qualcomm WCD part, which I believe is WCD9320 for the MSM8974 platform. LG says that although the previous WCD9310 device had limitations, the WCD9320 platform offers considerably better audio performance and quality that enables them to expose these higher quality modes and get good output. The entire audio chain (software, hardware codec, and headphone amplifier) have been optimized for good quality and support for these higher bit depths, I’m told. I didn’t get a chance to listen to line out audio, but hopefully in testing this emphasis will play itself out in testing.

The G2 is based on Qualcomm’s latest and greatest Snapdragon 800 SoC, MSM8974 at 2.3 GHz (the higher bin - Qualcomm is launching MSM8974 in two binned flavors at different costs, 2.2 and 2.3 GHz). This is of course the latest SoC built on TSMC’s 28nm HPm process with 4 Krait 400 CPUs inside, and Adreno 330 GPU. Alongside that the G2 includes 2 GB of LPDDR3 RAM. LG wasn’t ready for us to run benchmarks yet, as the prototypes we played with were not running stable release software with final tuning yet, but UI performance felt very speedy just in playing around on the device. Of course along with Snapdragon 800 comes LTE-A with carrier aggregation support – the banding for this international version I played with included LTE on bands 1, 3, 7, 8, and 20, and HSPA+ on 1, 2, 5, and 8, alongside Quad band EDGE.

The software platform is Android 4.2.2, and atop that is LG’s skin. LG has added a bunch of new features to its skinned Android experience, although its visual themeing remains essentially unchanged. Double tap to turn on and off uses the built in accelerometer to wake the phone up or turn it off – you just double tap quickly on the device when it’s in an off state to turn it on, and double tap quickly on a blank part of the display or status bar to turn it off. I don’t have a problem getting my index finger to the raised power button, but this is obviously an accommodation just in case that’s difficult.

LG also is including 8 different colors of Quick Window cases with the G2, which offer a small window for getting glanceable information like the time or notifications. LG was quick to point out that it debuted this feature with the LG Spectrum 2.
The LG G2 looks like a big step forwards from the original Optimus G and includes an impressive list of new features, and may just be the place we see Snapdragon 800 first. The LG G2 will arrive internationally and on the four major carriers in the USA with the appropriate network band support. More on availability is coming soon, but I would suspect mid September for at least the international model.

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AMD's Radeon HD 7990 Gets an Official Price Cut: $799 and Below

We don’t typically run pipeline stories on video card price cuts, but then again most price cuts are gradual affairs that even the manufacturers themselves rarely draw attention to. However today we have a case where we’re looking at a far more substantial price cut on a far more substantial product: AMD's Radeon HD 7990.
For the launch of AMD’s frame pacing enhanced Catalyst 13.8 drivers earlier this month, AMD’s partners were able to get reference 7990 cards down to as low as $799. That was $200 below the 7990’s official list price and still $100 cheaper than it was earlier in July. That alone is a fairly stiff price cut for a product that only launched less than 3 months prior.
However after doing our weekly price checks and noticing that prices were lower still, after poking some contacts we’ve been told that AMD has since then enacted a further official price cut, which in turn has already pushed down prices even further. Officially the price on the 7990 is being reduced to $799, which is the price we already saw it at last week. But as is usually the case, AMD is quoting the MSRP rather than the price their partners are actually paying for 7990. By taking a hit on their own margins AMD’s partners could hit $799 before this week’s price cut, and now with this new price cut in effect those same partners have room to lower prices once again.
The end result is that while the official MSRP on the 7990 is $799, street prices are consistently lower; much lower in fact. PowerColor and XFX have their respective reference models down to $669 and $699 after rebates respectively, while HIS, Gigabyte, and VisionTek are all $749 and lower without rebates. This gives the 7990 an effective price cut of somewhere between $250 and $330 since its launch 3 months ago, and around $100 cheaper than it was just last week. $799 was already a good deal 7990 for the product, so it goes without saying that this puts the card in an even better position.
AMD for their part isn’t in the business of giving away hardware, so significant price cuts like this are both a boon for buyers and a concern for the company. The timing of the 7990 launch – a product that should have ideally been released months earlier as opposed to coming after the release of FCAT – was undeniably poor. Consequently when we see this large of a price cut this quickly it hints to AMD sitting on a lot of unsold inventory, possibly a consequence of that weak launch, but in the end that’s a matter for AMD and their partners.
Ultimately $669 is by no means cheap for a video card – we are after all still talking about a luxury class dual-GPU card – but it does represent a not so subtle shift in the market. At these prices 7990 is no longer directly competing with NVIDIA’s GTX Titan and GTX 690, but rather we’re now seeing the 7990 priced a stone’s throw away from NVIDIA's lower end GK110 based card, the GTX 780. The GTX 780 was itself something of a spoiler for the $1000 GTX Titan, so at these prices the 7990 serves much the same role.
More importantly however is that AMD now has a direct counter for what’s technically NVIDIA’s fastest consumer card, no longer leaving NVIDIA unchallenged there. We won’t wax on about the performance of the two cards, but with AMD’s frame pacing improvements in play the 7990 is very strong contender for this segment. The wildcard, as always, is going to be faith in whether AMD will be able to continue quickly delivering performance-consistent Crossfire profiles for new games, a never-ending challenge for dual-GPU products.

Summer 2013 GPU Pricing Comparison
AMD	Price	NVIDIA
	$1000	GeForce GTX Titan/GTX 690
AMD Radeon HD 7990	$700
	$650	GeForce GTX 780
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition	$400	GeForce GTX 770

Monday, August 12, 2013

IT News Head Lines (AnandTech) 8/13/2013

Interview with Jackson Hsu, Product Management Director at GIGABYTE

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Interview with Jackson Hsu,

Product Management Director at GIGABYTE