Apple Initiates Video Card Replacement Program for Radeon HD 6970M Equipped Mid-2011 27” iMacs
Apple has determined that some AMD Radeon HD 6970M video cards used in 27-inch iMac computers with 3.1GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 or 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processors may fail, causing the computer’s display to appear distorted, white or blue with vertical lines, or to turn black. iMac computers with affected video cards were sold between May 2011 and October 2012.Jumping right into the heart of the matter, what makes this issue so stupefying from a GPU review’s perspective is that this is the first indication we’ve seen of there being an issue with this AMD GPU. The Radeon HD 6970M is of course one of the mobile variants of the Barts GPU, otherwise known in AMD’s mobile lineup as Blackcomb. Barts in turn is part of AMD’s second generation 40nm silicon, released in late 2010 well after TSMC got the kinks out of their 40nm process. As a mature product released on a mature node, at first glance there doesn’t seem to be any reason for the Barts GPU to be having longevity issues.
Meanwhile as far as implementations go, the 2011 iMacs use MXM cards, which means unlike some other Apple products the video card isn’t being soldered on directly or otherwise being assembled by Apple, greatly limiting Apple’s role in the implementation of the product. MXM allows Apple to simply order and install finished video cards from suppliers, and is also why they are able to fix the affected machines so easily, since the video card is directly replaceable. At the same time however Apple is far from the only OEM using 6970M MXM cards, which means that if the root cause of the issue is a bad video card – no matter the specific component – then any other 6970Ms may also be affected.
2011 iMac With MXM Video Card. Image Courtesy iFixit
In any case, for affected iMac owners 9to5Mac has the full details of the replacement program, including the models and serial numbers covered. Apple will be covering the cost of the replacement for 3 years, regardless of warranty, though as is the case with most programs of this nature they are only replacing failed video cards.
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GIGABYTE Announces FM2+ A88X Series Motherboards for Kaveri
These APUs will be using the FM2+ socket, which is backwards compatible with Trinity/Richland FM2 APUs (FM2 based motherboards are not forwards compatible), as well as a new chipset in the form of A88X, which as far as we know is for FM2+ only. These new APUs offer native support for PCIe 3.0 as well as DX11.1 and 4K support – something all AMD partners will be keen to promote.
GIGABYTE’s initial FM2+ lineup will consist of seven models with four ATX and three micro-ATX:
G1.Sniper A88X
F2A88X-UP4
F2A88X-D3H
F2A88X-HD3
F2A88XM-D3H
F2A85XM-DS2
F2A88XM-HD3
Release date for these motherboards is likely to be the same day that AMD release Kaveri, which should be in the hands of system integrators by the end of the year.
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Humble Bundle: Origin Edition
As an added bonus, if you pay more than the current average Humble Bundle price ($4.80 at the time of writing), you get two additional titles. Battlefield 3 ($19.99) hardly needs an introduction, and the same goes for The Sims 3 (Starter Pack – $29.99). The Starter Pack comes with the main game as well as the High-End Loft and Late Night expansion packs. So, less than $5 can currently net you eight games, most of which are worth a look, and all of which are big budget titles.
The hook for the Humble Bundle is that you get to choose how your contribution is distributed. You can given any percentage to one of five charities (Human Rights Campaign, Watsi, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, American Cancer Society, and American Red Cross), or you can give a “Humble Tip” to the Humble Bundle people for their time and bandwidth involved with the promotion. You can also gift the purchase to someone else if you like.
Of course there’s always a catch, right? Sure, and this time it’s pretty simple: some of the games as you might have guessed have to be used through EA’s Origin service. Now, I didn’t much care for the initial launch of the EA Downloader, which later became Origin, but things have at least improved. I don’t know that it’s equal to Steam, as transferring games between computers is a bit more of a pain, but it’s not terrible at least. Of the eight titles, three are only available with Origin (Battlefield 3, Dead Space 3, and The Sims 3 – these things come in threes or something?); the other five games can be used with either Steam or Origin – or even both! How’s that for generous?
Note that you redeem the codes for the Sims 3 through the Sims 3 web page, but the instructions from EA for redeeming the expansion packs are incorrect: you need to redeem those through Origin. At least when I did it, the Sims 3 My Store Account section has “Redeem a Code”, but it only has blocks for four parts of the code, and my codes were five blocks of four characters. Oops. There was also some sluggishness with Origin as I was writing this, perhaps caused by a deluge of Humble Bundle downloads.
However you want to look at it, for practically free you can enjoy some of the past three or four years of gaming action. That’s a price that’s hard to beat, and hey: it’s for charity, so feel free to be generous! There are currently just under 12 days remaining on this offer.
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A Tour of Moto Maker: Customization Meets the Moto X
If you show up at an AT&T store, you'll be able to see examples of color combinations in person, but you can only go home with a woven white or woven black model. This is the composite material, carbon fiber-looking back we've shown photos of already, with a matching black or white front. If you want to customize a Moto X, you can buy a Moto X redemption card - good for one customized Moto X. Take the redemption card home, head to motorola.com/designit, type in your PIN and off you go. The AT&T store visit is purely optional however, you can just go to motomaker.com and buy a fully customized Moto X directly from Motorola.
In both cases, the Moto X receives final customization and assembly in Fort Worth, Texas. The process should take approximately 4 days depending on component availability. If you don't like what you end up with, you're free to exchange/return the device within a 14-day window.
Motorola provided us with PIN codes to try out the nearly-final version of Moto Maker and pick out our own custom Moto X design options. Brian put together an excellent video taking you through the entire process:
At present the options include the different colored backs which are polymer, in addition to the two woven composite materials. Other patterns will gradually be made available, along with the wood back options that we were shown, although Motorola still doesn't have specific timing beyond saying sometime in the Q4 timeframe for those wood options.
It took me much longer than I expected to settle on a color combination. There aren't an overwhelming number of choices, but there are enough options to make you think - and a number of really good looking combinations. I found it very easy to put together a fairly subtle phone with a splash of color thanks to the 7 accent colors, but I ultimately ended up designing something pretty over the top – lemon lime with yellow accents and the white front. Brian settled on olive with silver accents and the white front.
The purchase experience is something that we rarely talk about in our reviews, but it does play a major role in customer satisfaction. I feel like Moto Maker is a successful attempt to improve the smartphone purchasing process. The customization options are easy to get excited about, and the overall experience is without equal in the phone space today. Given how personal these smartphones are, the customization play with Moto Maker is clearly very well thought out. As we've seen in the past though, personalization alone isn't enough to make for a successful product. Stay tuned for our full review of the Moto X.
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Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time on iOS
Thankfully, the answer is a resounding “No!”, and PopCap has given fans of the original what they’ve wanted: more Plants vs. Zombies entertainment, more Crazy Dave, and less social/Facebook shenanigans. You can snag the new Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time on the iTunes App Store, and even better: it’s free. And by “free” we mean it’s free to play, with optional micro transactions, and being an iOS exclusive almost certainly involved some money changing hands somewhere. Still, I’ve played a fair amount now and can confirm that purchases will not be required in order to advance – and there’s no farming/waiting required.
If you want to blast through the entire game in one sitting, you’re welcome to do so – PopCap estimates it will take most people around 15 hours to finish the game, which is probably twice as long as the original (or maybe I just don’t want to recall exactly how much time I’ve spent beating and then rebeating the original). The microtransactions come in several varieties: you can buy useful plants, sometimes earlier than you would otherwise get them (I think); you can buy additional coins, which can be used for Plant Food – a one-time power-up you can use on any plant – and other items; or you can unlock additional features like starting with 25 extra sun, another slot for plants, etc.
Reading the reviews, a ton of people are complaining about the cost of in-app purchases, but so far I haven’t encountered a single level where you’ll need more than what you get for free. If you really want to have Snow Pea, yes, it will set you back $3.99 (hello, extortion!), but with plenty of new plants to keep you busy – not to mention the plant food power ups – you only need to spend money if you want a specific plant/feature or if you just want to support PopCap. Of course, maybe I’ll hit a wall at some point and feel the need to spend money to progress, but so far that hasn’t been the case.
The bad news is that currently the game is only available for iOS devices, but presumably Android and Windows (and Facebook) versions are planned for the future. Hopefully this time we won’t get a version on Android that’s limited to select devices and/or requires that you go through the Amazon Store app to purchase and play it. As for me, I’m playing it on a 4th Gen iPod Touch, since that’s the only Apple device I own. It runs well for the most part, but the initial load time can be a bit painful – around 28 seconds to get to the main menu, and 4-5 second delays between many screens. There are also slowdowns on this aging device when you have most locations filled with plants and dozens of zombies on the screen, but it remains playable. Other than the tiny screen and iOS exclusivity, I have no complaints.
You can find more videos and information on the official Plants vs. Zombies 2 page. Now I just need to put the iPod down so I can finish that Acer V7 review….
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QNAP Partners with ZyXEL for Affordable 10G NAS Solutions
QNAP already has powerful and affordable rackmounts capable of accepting 10G add-on cards such as the TS-EC1279U-RP. The need for their customers was affordable 10G networking equipment. While vendors such as Netgear (and, to some extent, Supermicro) bundle both switches and NAS / storage server units as a package for customers, QNAP doesn't have expertise on the networking side in-house. On the other hand, ZyXEL's NAS ambitions have been restricted to home consumer versions. Therefore, teaming up makes a lot of sense for both QNAP and ZyXEL.
We are very impressed by the price points that QNAP and ZyXEL have achieved with their bundles. There are two packages: The Performance Pack bundles a ZyXEL XGS1910-24 (a 24-port switch with 2x 10Gb SFP ports) and a QNAP TS-870U-RP (a 8-bay rackmount with a 2.4 GHz dual core x86 CPU) for less than $3000. The Premium Pack bundles a ZyXEL XGS1910-48 (a 48-port switch with 4x 10Gb SFP ports) and a QNAP TS-1270U-RP (a 12-bay rackmount with a 2.4 GHz dual core x86 CPU) for less than $4000. These price points are way less than what one would pay separately for the units.
While pricing is definitely important, bundling, long term support and reliability are other factors that SMB customers keep in mind while ordering IT equipment. With this partnership, both QNAP and ZyXEL are moving towards addressing these concerns. Long term support and reliability can only be assessed as the partnership gains more customers.
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Ask the Experts: Intel's Aicha Evans Talks Wireless and Answers Your Questions
We've followed Intel's CPU team's march towards mobile for years now, but we've seen very little from the wireless group. That's all beginning to change. Earlier this year at MWC, Brian and I had one of our first meetings with the wireless group at Intel. In that meeting we met Aicha Evans, Vice President of Intel's Mobile & Communications Group. Every now and then I get to meet someone who is a pretty awesome combination of smart and passionate, and Aicha definitely fit the bill.
That
initial meeting, which unfortunately remains off the record (it was a
pretty awesome one), got me wondering if it would be possible to get
Aicha talking directly to the AnandTech audience. A couple of months
ago, while visiting Intel, Aicha agreed to sit down with me at Intel
Studios and talk a bit about their wireless strategy on camera. She also
agreed to personally answer any questions AT readers might have about
Intel wireless or the industry in general.
In
order to make the interview a bit easier to digest, Intel split it up
into 5 - 7 minute segments. I've embedded them all below, along with a
brief synopsis of each video. After watching the segments, be sure to
leave any questions you have for Aicha in the comments to this article.
Once we get enough, Aicha will look through them and answer them in an
upcoming post.
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Nokia's First Tablet Nears Market, to Boost Struggling Windows RT
Leaked photos show the tablet in the wild
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Audit: NSA Agents Broke the Law Nearly 3,000 Times from 2011 to 2012
NSA lawyers argued in court that sometimes agents had to break the law due to technical limitations
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8/16/2013 Daily Hardware Reviews
DailyTech's roundup of reviews from around the internet for Friday
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U.S. Government Releases Documents, Photos of Area 51
New revelations come from the declassified document, but nothing about aliens (unfortunately)
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Dell Posts Staggering 72% Decline in Quarterly Earnings
The takeover battle continues
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Microsoft: Google Doesn't Want Windows Phone to Have Same YouTube Experience as Android/iOS
Google recently blocked Microsoft's YouTube app for Windows Phone
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Ubi Uses Microsoft Kinect to Turn Any Surface Into a Multi-Touch Screen
It will cost you $370+ to get started between the software and the necessary Kinect for Windows sensor
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Ford Relents, Drops C-Max Hybrid Fuel Economy Ratings from 47 MPG to 43 MPG Combined
Ford will also give cash payments of $550 to buyers of the C-Max
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Google: Yes, we "Read" Your Gmail
Consumer watchdog groups call admission "stunning"
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Smart Windows Get Smarter, Can Now Control Light and Heat Independently
Windows can convert sunlight into IR heating on demand
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Lenovo Ships More Tablets, Smartphones Than PCs in Q1 2013
Lenovo's mobile devices business had a revenue increase of 105 percent year-over-year for the quarter
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Sony Halts PS4 Pre-Orders; Xbox One Coming to 13 Markets in November (Not 21)
Both companies are keeping an eye on console availability
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Apple Could Go to Trial in May 2014 for eBooks Damages
At that time, Cote will decide if Apple has to pay as much as hundreds of millions of dollars in response to the recent ebooks ruling
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Cloud-connected Baby Monitor is Hacked, Perpetrator Swears at Child
The perils of "always on" cameras are on display in this wild story
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