Imagination Creator CI20 Now Shipping With Spec Bump & Kodi Support
| Imagination Creator CI20 | Raspberry Pi 2 Model B | Raspberry Pi Model B+ | |
| SoC | Ingenic JZ4780 | Broadcom BCM2836 | Broadcom BCM2835 |
| CPU | Dual 1.2GHz XBurst (MIPS32 instruction set) |
4x 900 MHz ARM Cortex-A7 (ARMv7 instruction set) |
700 MHz ARM1176JZF-S (ARM11 family, ARMv6 instruction set) |
| GPU | PowerVR SGX 540 @ Unknown MHz | Broadcom VideoCore IV @ 250 MHz | Broadcom VideoCore IV @ 250 MHz |
| Memory | 1GB DDR3 | 1GB DDR2 | 512MB DDR2 |
| USB | 1x USB OTG (A and Mini connectors) 1x USB Host |
4x USB 2.0 Host | 4 USB 2.0 Host |
| Camera Interface | 24-pin connector (ITU-R BT.645) | 15-pin MIPI (CSI) connector | 15-pin MIPI (CSI) connector |
| Video Output | HDMI 1.4a | HDMI 1.3a Composite video 3.5mm jack |
HDMI 1.3a Composite video 3.5mm jack |
| Audio In | 3.5mm jack shared with output | via I²S interface | via I²S interface |
| Audio Output | HDMI 3.5mm jack shared with input |
HDMI 3.5mm jack I²S interface |
HDMI 3.5mm jack I²S interface |
| Storage | 8GB NAND 1x full SD slot 1x SD slot via expansion header |
via MicroSD | via MicroSD |
| Network | 10/100 Ethernet 2.4GHz WiFi b/g/n + BT 4.0 (BCM4330) |
10/100 Ethernet | 10/100 Ethernet |
| IR | Input (IRM-2638A) | - | - |
| Max Power Consumption | 4 Watts | < 5 Watts | 3 Watts |
| Power Connector | 5V barrel connector | MicroUSB | MicroUSB |
| Size | Approx. 90mm x 95mm (3.54 in x 3.74 in) | 85.60 mm × 56.5 mm (3.37 in × 2.22 in) | 85.60 mm × 56.5 mm (3.37 in × 2.22 in) |
| Price | $65 or £50 | $35 without MPEG2 and VC1 codecs $40.60 with MEPG2 and VC1 codecs |
$35 without MPEG2 and VC1 codecs $40.60 with MEPG2 and VC1 codecs |
The evaluation board provided to me by Imagination is green with 4GB of NAND and I should consider it a collectors' item now. I am working to get some power measurements directly on the VDDCORE line to characterize CPU performance/watt but that requires some delicate PCB modification. Stay tuned.
Also, for the media center users, great news came three days ago with MIPS32 support merged into the master branch of Kodi (XBMC). Therefore, users willing to compile binaries themselves can now run Kodi on the Creator CI20 or any other MIPS32 device. For those willing to wait, the next major release of Kodi should include this support in their provided binaries.
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ARM Announces Cortex-A72, CCI-500, and Mali-T880
Cortex-A72 - a new high end core
At the center of today's announcements a new high-end performance core which succeeds the A57 in flagship devices. ARM was very vague about the architectural characteristics of the new design, disclosing for now only estimates of the chip's performance and power targets. ARM promises a 3.5x sustained performance increase over the A15 generation of SoCs while remaining in the same power budget. One has to note that we're talking about performance targets on TSMC's 16nm FinFET+ node versus previous nodes such as 28 and 20nm, which in itself should bring large clock and power advantages.
The A72 targets roughly 1.9X the sustained performance of current 20nm A57 SoCs, meaning the Exynos 5433 and the Snapdragon 810 can be taken as the base for comparisons. ARM doesn't yet mention peak performance so we may be talking about overall power efficiency gains that enable future SoCs to throttle much less. ARM will be divulging more information on the architecture of the A72 in the coming months, and we're hoping to have a better picture on the actual IPC and efficiency gains of the new flagship core by then.
The Cortex-A72, being a "big" core, can be partnered up with the already existing A53 LITTLE core architectures. ARM has said in the past that the A53 took in-order designs to new heights, and while work on a successor is underway, it seems that for now we'll be sticking with the A53 architecture for a while longer.
HiSilicon, MediaTek and Rockchip are listed among more than then launch partners which have already licensed the Cortex-A72 processor, so expect to see a variety of vendors offering the new ARM IP in 2016.
CoreLink CCI-500 SoC interconnect
It's been over 3 years since ARM initially announced their CCI-400 (Cache Coherent Interconnect), which saw widespread usage as the corner-stone technology enabling big.LITTLE heterogeneous multiprocessing in all consumer SoCs from the Exynos 5410 to the latest Snapdragon 810. While ARM also offered high-end alternatives such as the CCN-5XX (Cache Coherent Network) range of interconnects, these were targeted more at server-applications and not meant for mobile SoCs in smartphones or tablets.
The CCI-500 is a large upgrade over the CCI-400 as it introduces a variety of new functionality over its predecessor. The largest change in functionality is the addition of a snoop filter on the interconnect itself. Until now snoop control was only possible between CPUs within a single cluster. The addition of a snoop filter on the interconnect allows for power efficiency benefits as the amount of transactions when doing cache lookups is decreased, enabling both reduced overhead on the interconnect and also higher idle residency times on the CPU cores. This reduced overhead also frees up memory bandwidth on the interconnect, and ARM claims this enables for 30% better memory performance on the CPU ports.
The new interconnect also doubles up on its system bandwidth: We now have twice the number of ACE (AXI Coherency Extension) ports, enabling usage of a maximum of four CPU clusters (instead of the two that are possible with the CCI-400). We'll be continuing to see the usage of only two clusters in mobile designs, but the new IP gives licensees the flexibility to deviate according to their needs.
The increased bandwidth and numbers of ports on the interconnect also opens up the possibility of quad-channel memory controllers, resulting in 128-bit memory buses. The Snapdragon 805 was the first mobile product to feature such capability, although Qualcomm used a non-cache-coherent interconnect in their design.
Mali T880 GPU
Lastly, ARM also announced a new member of the T800 series of Mali GPUs. In addition to the T820, T830 and T860 comes the T880. ARM was again light on details of what this new configuration brings, only promising a 1.8x increase performance over 2014 Mali T760 GPUs and a 40% reduction in energy consumption for the same workloads.
With today's announcements, ARM appears to be addressing its weaknesses in mobile SoCs by focusing on sustained performance and efficiency of its big core architecture. We also have the much needed upgrade in the memory/interconnect subsystem and an expansion in its GPU IP offering.
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Intel Launches SSD DC S3610 & S3710 Enterprise SSDs
The S3610 and S3710 are based on Intel's second generation SATA 6Gbps controller, which was first introduced in the high capacity (1.2TB & 1.6TB) and M.2 S3500 models a couple of months ago. Intel is keeping the specifics of the controller close to its chest and the only tidbit of info I was able to get out of Intel is that the new controller runs at a higher frequency, although Intel wouldn't disclose the exact speed (for the record, the first generation controller runs at 400MHz in the S3500/S3700). My guess would be that the second generation controller is merely a die shrink with the architecture being very similar, which would allow a higher frequency without impacting the power consumption. I'm also thinking that the internal caches and the DRAM controller have been upgraded to enable the higher capacities.
| Intel SSD DC S3710 Specifications | |||||
| Capacity | 200GB | 400GB | 800GB | 1.2TB | |
| Controller | Intel 2nd Generation SATA 6Gbps Controller | ||||
| NAND | Intel 128Gbit 20nm High Endurance Technology (HET) MLC | ||||
| Sequential Read | 550MB/s | 550MB/s | 550MB/s | 550MB/s | |
| Sequential Write | 300MB/s | 470MB/s | 460MB/s | 520MB/s | |
| 4KB Random Read | 85K IOPS | 85K IOPS | 85K IOPS | 85K IOPS | |
| 4KB Random Write | 43K IOPS | 43K IOPS | 39K IOPS | 45K IOPS | |
| Read/Write Power Consumption | 2.6W / 4.0W | 2.7W / 5.4W | 3.0W / 5.9W | 3.1W / 6.9W | |
| Endurance | 3.6PB | 8.3PB | 16.9PB | 24.3PB | |
| MSRP | $309 | $619 | $1,249 | $1,909 | |
The S3710 replaces the popular S3700 and in addition to the controller the NAND has been switched from 64Gbit 25nm HET MLC to 128Gbit 20nm HET MLC (HET stands for High Endurance Technology, which is essentially Intel's marketing term for eMLC). Despite the larger die (and hence slightly slower) NAND, the performance sees an upgrade from 76K random read IOPS to 85K and from 36K random write IOPS to up to 45K. The improvement is mostly due to the new controller, although Intel told me that there is also some NAND-level optimizations in the mix. The endurance remains at the same 10 drive writes per day for five years and as usual to enterprise drives there's full power loss protection along with AES-256 encryption. Pricing comes in at ~$1.50 per gigabyte and the drive is already available.
| Intel SSD DC S3610 Specifications | |||||||
| Capacity | 200GB | 400GB | 480GB | 800GB | 1.2TB | 1.6TB | |
| Controller | Intel 2nd Generation SATA 6Gbps Controller | ||||||
| NAND | Intel 128Gbit 20nm High Endurance Technology (HET) MLC | ||||||
| Sequential Read | 550MB/s | 550MB/s | 550MB/s | 540MB/s | 500MB/s | 540MB/s | |
| Sequential Write | 230MB/s | 400MB/s | 440MB/s | 520MB/s | 500MB/s | 500MB/s | |
| 4KB Random Read | 84K IOPS | 84K IOPS | 84K IOPS | 84K IOPS | 84K IOPS | 84K IOPS | |
| 4KB Random Write | 12K IOPS | 25K IOPS | 28K IOPS | 28K IOPS | 28K IOPS | 27K IOPS | |
| Read/Write Power Consumption | 2.6W / 3.3W | 2.7W / 4.7W | 2.7W / 5.3W | 2.9W / 6.3W | 3.0W / 6.4W | 3.3W / 6.8W | |
| Endurance | 1.1PB | 3.0PB | 3.7PB | 5.3PB | 8.6PB | 10.7PB | |
| MSRP | $209 | $419 | $509 | $839 | $1,289 | $1,719 | |
The S3610 is a totally new series in between the S35xx and S37xx lineups and its differentiator is the three drive writes per day endurance (whereas the S35xx is rated at 0.35 DWPD and the S37xx at 10 DWPD). Similar to the S3710, the S3610 also uses 128Gbit 20nm HET MLC, but there's a difference in the binning quality of the chips. Basically, the S3710 gets the best of the best dies with the highest endurance, while the S3610 gets the dies that don't make the cut for the S3710 but are still very high quality. There's a difference in over-provisioning levels too as the S3710 features a higher 30-40% over-provisioning with the S3610 having only 10-20% (in both models the exact over-provisioning depends on the capacity). Random write performance is quite a bit lower as well, but the S3610's focus is in mixed rather than very write-intensive workloads where the S3710 is the best fit. Full power loss protection and AES-256 support are also present, similar to the rest of Intel's enterprise SSD lineup.
| Comparison of Intel's Enterprise SATA SSDs | |||
| S3500 | S3610 | S3710 | |
| Form Factors | 2.5", 1.8" & M.2 2280 | 2.5" & 1.8" | 2.5" |
| Capacity | Up to 1.6TB | Up to 1.6TB | Up to 1.2TB |
| NAND | 20nm MLC | 20nm HET MLC | 20nm HET MLC |
| Endurance | 0.35 DWPD | 3 DWPD | 10 DWPD |
| Random Read Performance | Up to 75K IOPS | Up to 84K IOPS | Up to 85K IOPS |
| Random Write Performance | Up to 18.5K IOPS | Up to 28K IOPS | Up to 45K IOPS |
| Approximate Pricing | ~$0.90/GB | ~$1.05/GB | ~$1.55/GB |
I made a quick table comparing Intel's enterprise SATA SSDs after last week's announcement. The S3500 will remain on the market as an entry-level product and it's also the only one that comes in M.2 form factor. As usual, the performance and endurance scale with price, so the S3500 is mainly aimed for read-intensive workloads (e.g. media streaming), whereas the S3610 and S3710 provide the necessary performance and endurance for mixed and write-intensive workloads respectively.
Intel hasn't sampled the S3610 and S3710 yet, but we hope to get samples soon and we'll be able to put the new drives through our own tests.
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Razer Updates The Razer Blade With More RAM and GTX 970M
Razer kept all that was great about last year’s model including the amazing IGZO 3200x1800 display, great aluminum body, and powerful cooling capabilities, and updated the internals to make the system even more powerful. The aforementioned GPU has been updated from the GTX 870M to the GM204 based GTX 970M (with 3GB of VRAM – GTX 970 RAM issues do not affect the mobile part; interestingly, the mobile parts are available with 3GB or 6GB VRAM, but Razer opted for the slightly less expensive option). This should provide quite a bit more punch when gaming, especially with the high resolution display.
They have also bumped the CPU up from the Core i7-4702HQ to the Core i7-4720HQ, which bumps the frequency from 2.2-3.2 GHz up to 2.6-3.6 GHz. The 4720HQ model is new to the Intel Haswell stable this quarter. The move from a 37 watt CPU to a 47 watt CPU is likely possible due to the power efficiency of the GM204 GPU and should give a pretty good boost to performance and allow the CPU to stay at its maximum boost for longer. Finally, to round out the performance updates, Razer is now outfitting the Blade with 16GB of DDR3L 1600 MHz memory, which removes one of my complaints about the 2014 model, since a $2500 laptop should not have 8GB of memory.
Razer is also adding a new option to the lineup. A less expensive model is now available, which features a 1920x1080 resolution IPS display, and 8 GB of memory. It keeps the same CPU and GPU combo though, but only a 256 GB SSD is available. This model will also lose the touch capability, and instead feature an anti-glare matte finish, which some people prefer.
| Razer Blade 14-Inch Specifications | |||||
| 2014 (Last Model) |
2015 (New Model) |
||||
| Processor | Intel Core i7-4702HQ (4x2.2GHz + HTT, Turbo to 3.2GHz, 22nm, 6MB L3, 37W) |
Intel Core i7-4720HQ (4x2.6GHz + HTT, Turbo to 3.6GHz, 22nm, 6MB L3, 47W) |
|||
| Chipset | Intel HM87 | Intel HM87 | |||
| Memory | 8GB DDR3L-1600 | 16GB DDR3L-1600 | |||
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M 3GB GDDR5 1344 CUDA cores, 941 MHz core 5 GHz memory clocks 192-bit memory bus Intel HD 4600 Graphics (20 EUs, up to 1.15GHz) |
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3GB GDDR5 1280 CUDA cores, 924 MHz + Boost 5 GHz memory clocks 192-bit memory bus Intel HD 4600 Graphics (20 EUs, up to 1.20GHz) |
|||
| Display | 14" Glossy 16:9 3200x1800 Sharp LQ140Z1JW01 IGZO Multitouch with LED Backlight Optional Anti-Glare Matte 16:9 1920x1080 LED Backlight non-touch |
||||
| Hard Drive(s) | 128/256/512GB SATA M.2 256GB Only on 1080p model |
||||
| Optical Drive | N/A | ||||
| Networking | Intel Wireless-AC 7260HMW Dual Band 2x2:2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Bluetooth 4.0 |
||||
| Audio | Realtek ALC269 HD audio Stereo speakers Combination mic/headphone jack |
||||
| Battery | 150 watt power adapter 70Wh Lithium-Ion Polymer |
||||
| Front Side | - | ||||
| Right Side | USB 3.0 HDMI 1.4a Kensington Lock |
||||
| Left Side | AC adapter 2x USB 3.0 Combination mic/headphone jack |
||||
| Back Side | - | ||||
| Operating System | Windows 8.1 64-bit | ||||
| Dimensions | 13.6" x 9.3 " x 0.70" 345mm x 235mm x 17.8mm |
||||
| Weight | QHD+ Model: 4.47 lbs 2.03 kg 1080p Model: 4.19 lbs 1.9 kg |
||||
| Extras | 2.0 MP Webcam Razer Synapse 2.0 Software 10-point Multitouch Display on QHD+ Model Backlit anti-ghosting keyboard |
||||
| Warranty | 1 year limited | ||||
| Pricing | $2199 for 128GB QHD+ Model $1999 for 256 GB 1080p Model |
||||
This is a pretty solid update to one of the best Windows laptops you can buy. The device already had excellent performance, but the high DPI display would often bring the GTX 870M to its limits. The move to GM204 should have a significant performance improvement. The addition of 16GB of RAM will also allow this laptop up to be more than a gaming laptop, with the ability to run multiple virtual machines or demanding software. It keeps it in a package that is the same dimensions and weight as the outgoing model, which at 4.47 lbs / 2.03 kg was already slim for the amount of power onboard.
Razer is shipping us a new model of the Blade for review, which we will have up shortly. Check back to see how the new system compares soon. For those that cannot wait for the review, the new Razer Blade is on sale now, starting at $2199 for the 128GB/QHD+ model, and $1999 for the FHD model at www.razerzone.com/blade.
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Nokia Lumia 735 Review
Back in September, Microsoft launched what would be the last two Nokia branded Lumias. The Lumia 830 was announced as an affordable flagship, and we reviewed the 830 back in November. The Lumia 730 and 735 were launched with a different feature set, a lower price, and a higher resolution front facing camera. Microsoft announced them as “built for Skype calls and selfies” with the inclusion of the five megapixel front facing camera and put the package in a smaller, lighter body. It was launched with four colors, with the 730 being a dual SIM version and the 735 is a single SIM with LTE capabilities.
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MacBook Pro Killer? New Razer Blade Packs an Enviable Spec
The PC gets some firepower in its ultrabook arsenal
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Top Retailers Caught in Herbal Supplements Fraud
DNA testing revealed that the supplements contained no trace of the plants they claimed to include
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Selfies, Texting Likely Caused Last May's Deadly Cessna Crash Near Denver
You thought selfies while driving were bad: well, selfies while flying are even worse
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It's Official, the Tablet Market is Stagnant
Sales grew a miniscule 1 percent on a year to year basis, according to a new study
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Editorial: Cardiologist-Turned-"Holistic Healer" Cheers Measles Outbreak
"[S]ome people get sick and some people die. But the reality is that we can’t inject our children with chemicals."
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Available Tags:Intel , SSD , GTX , Nokia , MacBook , Tablet ,
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