Intel’s program for processor development is know by the ‘tick-tock’ development. The tick is the first transition into the new process size for example the tick of 32nm was socket 1156 Nehalem. Whilst the tock is the refinement of that particular process often by redesigning the architecture so continuing to use 32nm as the example the tock of that was Sandy Bridge socket 1155. So in continuance with Intel’s tick-tock development model we know that Ivy Bridge will be the tick or Intel’s first venture into 22nm processor development and as most people know this is due some time in March/April this year. Intel’s 22nm Ivy Bridge venture will essentially be Sandy Bridge but with a miniaturization of the manufacturing process allowing for more transistors, less power consumption and greater overclocking headroom. As well as that Intel also plan to drastically redesign the IGP of the Ivy Bridge CPUs to introduce the HD 4000 series graphics which will be Direct X 11 ready and support 4K resolutions.

The tock of Intel’s development process is going to be Haswell. Essentially a refinement of the existing 22nm process introduced in the form of Ivy Bridge but with a radically new processor architecture which in theory should bring a substantial amount of performance gains alongside some efficiency gains in the form of power consumption. Earlier reports have indicated that Haswell Core processors will be based on a newer socket, the LGA1150, and hence it will not be compatible with LGA1155 platforms.

Source: DonanimHaber

HP’s flagship Ultrabook known as the Envy 14 Spectre is finally available. The model was actually launched last month and HP attempted to drum up some PR hype around the product even thought it was not available for shipping.

As announced it is now available via HP’s online store for US $1,399.99 for the base-configuration, and 1,899.99 for HP’s “recommended configuration”, which includes a 256 GB SSD, and a Core i7-2770M processor instead of a 128 GB SSD and Core i5-2467M on the base-configuration, among other HP-exclusives. The 14-incher measures 12.88″ (W) x 8.7″ (D) x 0.79″ (H), weighing 1.8 kg, packs a 1366×768 pixel screen; two of its most notable features, apart from its size, include solid-state storage and near-field communication (NFC).

For the high price tag some might of expected a substantial amount more in terms of the screen, with the relatively low 1366 by 768 resolution seeming quite stingy for such an expensive piece of equipment. HP are offering a limited two year warranty on all the Envy 14 Spectre series Ultrabooks. The graphics side of things is powered by Intel HD 3000 graphics which should be perfectly adequate for the intended uses of such a notebook, although don’t expect to be playing any games on it. There is a 4 cell lithium ION battery but HP haven’t specified the expected battery life.

Source: TPU

We have seen it in the latest AMD roadmap and we have been told about it very recently by Intel. Yes that’s right they are both making huge pushes to develop ultra low power chips for mobile devices like smartphones, tablets and netbooks. However, Intel and AMD are being reported as highly uncompetitive by many across the industry due to the fact ARM can produce chips for a substantially lower cost in larger quantities. The reason for the lower costs in the ARM industry has been put down to the comparatively high number of companies producing ARM processors which is driving costs down as companies fight to undercut each other in price and become more efficient. While as usual Intel and AMD have no competition but each other which has led to them struggling to innovate and push prices down.

Intel’s variant of the ultra low power processors we are referring to here is the 32nm Medfield Atom based processors which feature TDPs of 11W and the ones coming out later this year will feature a TDP of 10W. Intel has said that these chips are aimed at smartphones. Whilst AMD, as we have seen from the 2012-2013 roadmap, will unveil Hondo later on this year which will likely contain 2 x86 cores and Radeon class IGP graphics on a TDP of just 5W. The plan from AMD is to take this even further in 2013 and release the Temash APU which will feature the 28nm manufacturing process and a target of just 2W power consumption. But again as innovative as these designs are, AMD and Intel need to work harder on bringing these prices down if they want smartphone manufacturers to start using their chips.

Source: DigiTimes

G.Skill,has announced the brand new Ares series of low profile performance DDR3 memory. With a low profile heat spreader design (3.2cm in height), G.Skill Ares series DDR3 memory modules are the perfect choices for building high performance PCs with large CPU coolers, small form factor desktop computers or any other systems with more restricted space.

Every Ares memory kit is hand-tested with G.Skill rigorous internal validation process to ensure the maximum stability and compatibility with both Intel and AMD platforms.

Compliant with the latest Intel XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) function, G.Skill Ares series DDR3 memory provides PC enthusiasts and extreme gamers a trouble free overclocking experience on Intel platforms, while enjoying the enhanced memory bandwidth. G.Skill Ares specifications are listed as below. Specifications are subject to change without notice. For further details please check the G.Skill website.

Ultrabooks from brand vendors such as Acer, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard (HP) are all recently seeing price drops in the North America, sources from retail channel believe that the PC vendors are dropping their ultrabook prices to promote new upcoming ultrabook models, that are set to launch soon after Intel releases its new Ivy Bridge processors.

Acer’s S3 ultrabook equipped with a hard disc drive has already seen its price drop to US$799 in North America, while Lenovo and HP’s ultrabook prices also recently dropped 25% and 21%, respectively.

HP is already set to launch its new Ultrabook Envy Spectra 14 in Taiwan this week with Acer and Lenovo’s new ultrabooks are set to release in the second quarter.

Although ultrabooks are unlikely to achieve Intel’s goal of having a share of 40% in total notebook shipments by the end of 2012, as more new ultrabook products will appear in the retail channel, the average price should quickly drop to US$699-799 in the second quarter from the current US$1,000 price, the sources noted.

Source: Digitimes

When we see the name Intel come about, the first thing that rightly comes to mind is their supreme processor department, but what some people may not know is that this is not all they now produce. Along with their many lines of processors, they also produce motherboards and Solid State Drives.

With the technological abilities they have to produce the high end components, it comes as no surprise that our initial expectations of this drive when it came in were very high especially from what we’ve seen of their 320 series SATA II and 510 Series drives in the past.

The 520 series drives are designed to bring a whole new level of performance to the market with drives that can give a random read performance of up to 50,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) and a sequential read of upto 550MB/s. The impressive read speeds are paired with random writes up to 80,000 IOPS and a sequential write of upto 520MB/s. Speed is not the only thing this drive has to offer, data security and integrity is another key feature and with the drive offering a pre-configured 256-bit AES along with End to End Data Protection, you can be rest assured your data is safe and secure.

eTeknix Tech Review Of 2011 – The industry’s most action packed year yet?

2011 was a jam packed year for the tech industry, with exciting developments across the board from Intel’s release of the revolutionary Sandy Bridge architecture at the very start of the year to AMD’s release of the HD 7970 at the very end of the year. Not to mention everything in between including the release of the Windows 8 developer preview, the Thailand floods and AMD’s Bulldozer release. Now a month has passed from 2012 and we have had enough time to reflect on all the major developments of 2011 and would like to bring you our topical review of the year.

We will be taking a look at the year on a month by month basis giving you what we think were the most important developments in each month. As you might expect there is a particular emphasis on Intel, AMD and Nvidia as they tend to be the source of most developments within the hardware market. But we also musn’t forget the contribution given to the excitement of 2011 by the likes of HP with the whole TouchPad saga, the rather messy PR battle undertaken between the giants MSI and Gigabyte as well as the sneak peak at what is to come from Microsoft with the Windows 8 developer preview.

The best all-round Intel CPU yet?

We hope you enjoy our tech review of 2011 and here is what’s on offer:

Quarter 1

January : The Sandy Bridge launch: A revolution in the CPU market?

February: The B2 Revision Sandy Bridge Motherboard saga and the introduction of Thunderbolt to Apple computers.

March: AMD and Nvidia fight it out with the dual GPU giants: The HD 6990 and GTX 590 get launched.

Quarter 2

April: AMD board partners get existing boards ready for AM3+while AMD launches the HD 67X0 cards.

May: AMD partners debut 990FX motherboards whilst Intel hits back with the introduction of Z68.

June: AMD launches desktop APUs under the codename Llano while Nvidia dominate the mobile GPU market with the launch of the GTX 580M.

Quarter 3

July: The Thai floods send hard drive prices on the way to the roof while AMD hit back at Nvidia with the HD 6990M

August: HP announce the TouchPad cancellation whilst ASUS debut the monster MARS II graphics card.

September: Microsoft teased us with the Windows 8 developer preview whilst MSI and Gigabyte get their dirty linen out in public over PCI-E Gen3 motherboards.

Quarter 4

October: AMD launch Bulldozer, Or is that Faildozer?

November: Intel raises the bar once again as Sandy Bridge-E arrives.

December: AMD redeem themselves with launch of the world’s fastest single GPU card: the HD 7970.

AMD's saving grace?

After a significant wait Intel have finally come out with their new 520 series Solid State drives. So without further ado lets take a look at the general specifications Intel have informed us of today:

• SATA III 6Gb/s interface;
• Built from 25nm NAND Flash;
• Sandforce (Sandforce are now LSI owned) controller;
• Up to 80,000 4K random write IOPS;
• Up to 50,000 4K random read IOPS;
• 550MB/s read;
• 520MB/s write;
• 5 year limited warranty;
• 60-480GB Capacity range;
• Up to 78% increase in responsiveness;
• Up t0 88% increase in performance;

And in terms of pricing Intel are listing the following prices per unit in 1000 unit batches:

• 60GB 520 Series SSD costs $149
• 120GB 520 Series SSD costs $229
• 240GB 520 Series SSD costs $509
• 480GB 520 Series SSD costs $999

You can read the full press release from Intel below:

Intel Corporation announced today its fastest, most robust client/consumer solid-state drive (SSD) to date, the Intel Solid-State Drive 520 Series (Intel SSD 520), a 6 gigabit-per-second (gbps) SATA III SSD produced using Intel compute-quality 25-nanometer (nm) NAND memory process technology. Aimed at delivering world-class performance for even the most demanding PC enthusiasts, gamers, professionals or small-medium businesses (SMBs), the Intel SSD 520 has fast throughput performance, new security features and unmatched reliability to meet even the most intensive user requirements.

Any consumer application requiring high throughput and bandwidth, low latencies and accelerated speed will benefit from the Intel SSD 520. Software developers, architects, accountants, engineers, musicians, media creators and artists are just some of the professionals that will find that the Intel SSD 520′s full package of features can make a dramatic impact on their productivity. With faster performance for graphic renderings, compiling, data transfers and system boot-ups, users can speed through multi-tasking or once-cumbersome application wait times with an Intel SSD 520 Series.

“We tapped Intel engineering to create a client SSD that delivers performance on all fronts with obsessively high reliability,” said Rob Crooke, Intel vice president and general manager of the Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. “The Intel SSD 520 once again raises the industry bar on SSD performance, quality and reliability to dramatically improve user experience.”

Unlike a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) with spinning disks and moveable parts, an SSD is based on silicon, NAND flash memory specifically, to create a lower power, more reliable and drastically faster storage solution that can keep up with today’s most demanding applications, Internet streaming and intense multi-tasking. Based on its own industry-leading 25 nm Intel compute-quality NAND flash memory and a 6 gbps SATA III interface, the Intel SSD 520 uses an LSI SandForce Flash Storage Processor with an Intel co-defined and validated firmware release, to create an SSD that sets new industry performance benchmarks. The Intel SSD 520 delivers up to 80,000 maximum 4K random write Input-Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) and up to 50,000 4K random read IOPS to speed through every day operations. High sequential read performance of up to 550 megabytes-per-second (MB/s) and up to 520 MB/s sequential writes also markedly accelerate and improve user productivity. This is backed by thousands of hours of Intel testing and validation, including more than 5,000 individual tests, as well as a 5-year limited warranty.

“We worked closely with Intel to leverage their deep understanding of the NAND flash, ultimately providing a unique and optimized solution for client computing applications with the LSI SandForce Flash Storage Processor,” said Michael Raam, vice president and general manager of LSI’s Flash Components Division, formed by LSI’s acquisition of SandForce. “Working through Intel’s extensive validation process ensures the Intel 520 SSD will raise the bar in delivering top-tier performance and superior quality and reliability over the life of the drive.”

The Intel SSD 520 will mark the high end of its client SSD offerings and include these new features: a wide range of user capacities from 60 GB to 480 GB, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256 bit encryption capabilities and stronger password protection for added security in the event of theft or power loss. According to PCMark Vantage benchmarking, users of the Intel SSD 520 may see significant productivity gains through an up to 78 percent boost in overall PC responsiveness, and gamers will see an up to 88 percent jump in performance to enhance their gaming experience. IT professionals will not only provide this additional performance and productivity to their customers/employees, but find that the Intel SSD 520 also delivers on reliability, improved security, smoother operations and lower total operational costs.

“Our game development workflow involves a combination of large batch process and aggressive interactive pre-visualization, all highly parallelized to the point that the storage performance becomes a major bottleneck,” said John Carmack, founder and technical director of id* Software, a gaming software developer and creators of Doom and Quake. “For many of our workloads, Intel SSDs have doubled throughput, and in some cases involving mapping tens of gigabytes of image data, we have seen an honest order of magnitude performance improvement, which is a rare and wonderful thing.”

With a broad range of capacity choices, the Intel SSD 520 Series is priced as follows, based on 1,000-unit quantities: 60 GB for $149, 120 GB at $229, 180 GB at $369, 240 GB at $509 and 480 GB at $999. It comes with a 5-year limited warranty.

Counterfeit products are big problem in general but when it comes to computer hardware not only are they relatively unheard of but they are also sometimes hard to detect. As CPU World explains well:

Sometimes that will mean a large OEM company using fake processors in widely used product ranges, and often nobody will be any wiser. As an example, one user in our forums commented that 2-3% of used Pentium systems he finds in Australia have fake Pentium processors in them. Processors are faked to make them appear to be more expensive (and usually faster) models.

But what has been stumbled upon on the official Intel forum is rather disturbing but also provides a good lesson for buyers. A LGA 775 Pentium processor was somehow disguised as a Core i7 Extreme Edition 990X LGA 1366 processor to an unsuspecting buyer. Obviously not everyone is as knowledgeable as most ‘Tech Enthusiasts’ and so spotting a fake is often hard, but in the case of this example it would of been relatively simple as the LGA 775 processor is substantially smaller than the 990X. So the lesson would be always do your research on the product you are buying, make sure you know what you are supposed to be getting but more importantly always buy on a reputable website or pay using a method where a scam can be refunded for example PayPal.

You can see the forum post that caused a bit of a stir here.

Obvious size differences...

Source: CPU World

AMD has always been known for struggling to create enough supply to meet demand for its products but it looks like things could be changing. According to some sources AMD announced at its 2012 Financial Analyst day that it has already begun mass production of Trinity APU chips at the IBM foundries. This means in addition to the AMD-founded company Global Foundries and the independent TSMC, AMD will now have the production capacity of IBM available to it as well. Currently Global Foundries produces all AMD’s desktop processors and FM1 APUs, while TSMC produces chipsets and BGA (mobile) APUs. Now with IBM taking on the task of producing Trinity APUs AMD should have more than enough capacity to keep on top of demand and drive prices down.

What makes AMD’s partnership with IBM for manufacturing a significant development is the fact that IBM can handle high-volume production, and has a proven track-record with semiconductor manufacturing process R&D, it also holds a wide range of silicon fabrication IP, rivaled only by Intel. Chips manufactured at IBM will only add to the volumes created by Global Foundries, Big Blue won’t completely replace it as AMD’s foundry partner. The ability to ship in greater volumes plays a significant role in scoring design wins, apart from pure performance of the product. For example, Lenovo would want to be absolutely sure you can ship in large quantities before designing a major product around your chip.

Source: Xbit Labs, TPU

AMD as was reported about a month ago is working on its own version of the Ultrabook, but obviously to power this it is going to need ultra low voltage processors to combat those offerings from Intel. AMD thinks it has come up trumps with Trinity. According to initial testing AMD’s 17W A6 Trinity APU scored 2355 3D Mark Vantage points whilst Intel’s Sandy Bridge equivalent scored 1158 3D Mark Vantage points, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that isn’t exactly a ‘Fair Test’. With Ivy Bridge expected to deliver 30% improvement over Sandy Bridge we can expect the same Ivy Bridge part to give about 1500-1700 3D Mark Vantage points. However, even taking those generational increases into consideration Trinity still takes a significant 56% lead.

AMD also claims its 25W A10 Trinity APU can deliver similar performance wins over Intel. This unit boasts 3600 3D Mark Vantage points which for an Ultrabook is a very high total indeed. Although currently there aren’t directly comparable Ivy Bridge 25W parts, AMD cites a 135% lead over Intel’s equivalent which it uses as the 17W Ivy Bridge unit mentioned earlier, so hardly a fair comparison to make. AMD doesn’t expect to win in core-per-core CPU performance but claims that its quad core processors are more than capable of competing with slightly more expensive Intel Hyper Threaded dual core processors when it comes to multi-threaded applications. Trinity should show up in Q2 this year.

Source: VR-Zone

The Wind U180, meticulously crafted by MSI for 2012, marks a new zenith in computer technology, offering both performance and an esthetically pleasing looks. It comes in minimalist black, angel white or lavender, is less than one-inch thin, tips the scales at just 1 kg, and is sheathed in MSI’s own attractive IMR color film print to prevent scratches and smudges. Let this highly mobile piece of computer technology add color to your life.

Eric Kuo, associate vice president for global sales, MSI Notebook, points out that the MSI Wind U180, a new generation netbook characterized by painstaking attention to craftsmanship and innovation, not only packs significantly more power, it is the ideal solution to meet today’s mobile multimedia needs. Its display is some three times more powerful than that of the previous generation, enabling the high resolution LED screen to show much more detail and color. What’s more, the HDMI slot allows you to connect the U180 netbook to a large HDTV to maximize multimedia entertainment.

Intel’s Atom processor: The stylish MSI Wind U180 netbook comes optional with the new generation dual-core Intel Atom N2800 processor with advanced 32 nm-based process which works in conjunction with the Intel NM10 high-speed chip set. It not only effectively enhances processor and overall system performance by more than 20% over previous generation netbooks, it also supports DDR3 system memory, while using much less power than the earlier platform. This new generation netbook brings high performance under the hood of a lean, mean, beautifully constructed machine.

All-new media engine: The MSI Wind U180 utilizes the latest generation display graphics technology, enabling it to play high resolution 1080p movies, and it supports digital display and conferencing capabilities, such as HDMI. The internal Intel Graphics Media Accelerator works in conjunction with the integrated memory control to boost performance and system response. The display graphics performance is double that of the previous generation platform. You can watch movies or hook it up to an HDTV without compromising picture quality.

MSI TDE overclocking technoloy: The MSI Wind U180 comes with MSI’s own epoch making TDE overclocking technology to speed up the processor clock, instantly throttling up performance. It optimizes the hardware which works in coordination with up to 2 GB of DDR3 system memory to provide you a light and fast computing experience.


Chic, slim, light exterior: The Wind U180′s ultra slim, ultra light netbook sports a unique display axle and offers you a choice of minimalist black, angel white or lavender chassis protected from scratching and wear by the attractive IMR color film print. The palm-placement areas are sheathed in an attractive gleaming cover which adds to the overall elegance of the MSI Wind U180.

Unique Chiclet keyboard: The MSI Wind U180 has a stylish Chiclet keyboard with independent key design for quieter, more solid action. With each strike of the keyboard, you will understand that MSI truly does insist on the best in each and every detail.

Swirl design touchpad: The Wind U180 employs MSI’s own swirl design touchpad which gives the keyboard area a stylishly minimalist look and enhances touch detection for smoother cursor movement.

Super thin 10-inch LED screen: The MSI Wind U180 sports a power-saving 10.1″ LED backlit display with a response time of just 8 milliseconds—more than twice as fast as traditional notebooks, to give you a smooth, crisp picture with greater detail and brighter colors when watching movies and animation. This netbook offers the visual quality of a cinema.

MSI’s ECO power saving technology: MSI’s exclusive ECO engine power saving technology allows you to select from among five power management levels—Video Game, Film, Presentation, Word Processing, and Turbo Battery, with the touch of a finger, so you can effectively extend battery power time 33% over the previous generation. Tests show that the 6-cell battery can power the MSI Wind U180 for 8 hours to give you all the power you need for the entire day.

Bluetooth and wireless network support: In addition to providing 8 hours of battery power, the MSI Wind U180 also supports a complete array of wireless connectivity with 802.11 b/g/n wireless and Bluetooth 3.0+HS, making connecting with the world simple. Enjoy advanced future mobile computing technology today.

Intel have Ivy Bridge architecture coming out later this year for both the desktop and server market. The Ivy Bridge-EP architecture will further cement Intel’s position as chief of the server market. They are planning a 10 core 20 threaded processors which can work in a pair, all we know so far is this chip is an Intel Xeon based off 22nm Ivy Bridge technology and that it gave some impressive results.

The 10-core Ivy Bridge-EP/EX chip (LGA2011, 2P-capable) features 10 next-generation cores clocked at 2.80 GHz, with 256 KB L2 cache per core, 30 MB shared L3 cache, and HyperThreading technology that enables 20 logical CPUs. This chip crunched WPrime 1024M in 158.5 seconds, and scores 41.78X relative speed in Fritz chess when just 8 of its 20 threads are put to use. You can also find some pretty screen shots of CPU-Z with its long processor selection list and Windows 8 task manager.

Source: TPU, Coolaler, ComputerBase.de

Not a lot can be revealed at the moment, but a small teaser picture should get your appetite going until the launch.

What we know so far is that the Z77A-GD45 will support the latest Intel 3rd Generation processors, but we will know more as Intel release it in the near future. Other models in the range will include the GD55, and GD65.

MSI feature wise, we will see Military Class III components, OC Genie II with 1 second overclocking, ClickBIOS II and a few more key features, which we will talk about more as things develop.

For now, enjoy the picture and keep looking back as we may leak some more very soon. From a first glance, we can see the heatsink design has changed quite a lot in terms of being longer, yet smaller in height. Not a lot more can be given away at this time, but we will be first as and when it happens.

Shuttle is a well known brand for the sale of small form factor (SFF) barebones which normally consist of PC case, power supply and motherboard combos. Most of their barebones to date have been comprised of the H61, H67 and P67 platforms from Intel. However, as of today they have introduced Intel’s Z68 platform. Probably from recognising the usefulness of SSD caching technology to HTPC and SFF owners. All of Shuttle’s barebones will come with an mSATA port to allow for small SSDs (of 64GB or less capacity) to cache the primary mechanical hard drives.

The first model to be given Z68 at Shuttle is the XPC Barebone SZ68R5. This barebones kit will have a healthy portfolio of PCI-E expansion compared to what you would normally expect to find in a HTPC. There will be a full size PCI-E 2.0 16X slot which will obviously support discrete video cards and anything else that needs more than 4X slot. There will be a PCI-E 2.0 4X slot ideal for wireless cards or rear mounted expansion inputs. Finally there is a PCI-E 2.0 1X slot and the mSATA slot mentioned earlier (mSATA is actually a PCI-E lane not a SATA input despite the naming).

The motherboard will be supporting up to 32GB of memory across the 4 memory slots so that means 8GB DIMMs are supported. Shuttle have also integrated a “Turbo Boost” function into the motherboard BIOS allowing uses to overclock when wanting extra performance and downclock when wanting to save power (similar to ASUS’ EPU and TPU technology). The motherboard will support the full range of Sandy Bridge processors from the Celerons all the way up to the core i7s. The board has display outputs should you want to use the integrated Intel graphics, you get a DVI and HDMI. Although there are two rear PCI brackets worth of space so you could easily run a discrete card to support up to four monitors.

In total, the machine offers the following host of external connectors: 4x USB 3.0, 6x USB 2.0, 1x eSATA/USB Combo, 7.1 Audio, S/PDIF. On the UEFI motherboard, there are 2x SATA 6 Gbit, 2x SATA 3 Gbit, 2x USB 2.0 and 1x RS232 ports. This is all powered by a 500W 80 PLUS power supply.

“The long-awaited XPC Barebone based on Z68 Express has now landed in Europe,” states Tom Seiffert, Head of Marketing & PR at Shuttle Computer Handels GmbH. “Not often in our long history has the sales launch of a new model been so keenly awaited. In fact, there were already requests for this development as soon as the first model with LGA1155 was introduced.”

Shuttle is planning on retailing this product at €300 excluding VAT in Europe so most countries will see it market at around the €350-360 price point. You can get more information at the product page.