Thread: Anandtech News

Apple today released the final version iOS 5.0.1, its first update to iOS 5, after a brief beta testing test period last week. The patch's main focus is a battery life problem affecting a number of iPhone 4S users, as we reported last week.
The update also adds multitouch gesture support for the original iPad, resolves some unspecified issues with Documents in the Cloud, and improves voice recognition for Australian users. The update also addresses a security hole that was publicized last week, through which an iPad 2 with a Smart Cover could have its passcode lock bypassed, giving nefarious people partial access to the data on the device. Lastly, the baseband firmware in the iPhone 4S was updated from version 1.0.11 to 1.0.12. For a full list of security and feature fixes, Apple has made detailed release notes available.
iOS 5.0.1 is avaiable for all iPhones 3G, 4, and 4S, all iPads, and the third and fourth-gen iPod Touches. It is available through iTunes or as an over-the-air update for all current iOS 5 users.



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Valve head Gabe Newell sent out a message today explaining that the breach of Steam's forums this past Sunday goes beyond the message boards and potentially includes Steam account information.
“We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums,” wrote Newell. “This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked.”
Valve has yet to find evidence of illegal credit card activity, though anyone with a Steam account should keep a close eye on their cards just in case. It would also be a good idea to change your Steam account and forum passwords (they should be different), as well as double-check that you aren’t using those passwords elsewhere on the Internet.
And just to be safe, you may want to reset which computers can authorize your Steam account. Just head to “Settings” (“Preferences” for Mac users). Find the “Accounts” tab and click on “Manage Steam Guard Account Security”. From there you can deauthorize all computers with access to the account and reauthorize them as you see fit.
Steam is up and running, though the forums remain closed after Sunday’s attack.
No word from Valve on any plans for a giveaway-themed apology. The PlayStation Network outage did set a precedent with Sony "making good" by gifting select titles to its users, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find at least a few games up for grabs after Valve sorts this all out.
Source: PC Gamer



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One of the perks of this job is getting to see some up-and-comers get championed by our readership and then turn around and find out what the fuss is all about. Such is the "case" (pun wholly intended) with Fractal Design's Define R3 enclosure. This is a case that has shown up fairly regularly in comments practically since we started doing these reviews again at the beginning of the year, and now we finally have the Define R3 in house for testing. It carries the weight of the community behind it and to its credit, it's certainly an interesting piece of kit at first glance. Does it live up to the word of mouth?

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LIMBO, the haunting indie platformer that netted a slew of awards for its minimalist design, has sold over a million copies, announced the developer Playdead. The success has allowed Playdead to achieve full financial independence from early investors, and it’s also motivated them to bring LIMBO to Mac.
"With the success that LIMBO has achieved, we felt this was the ideal time to fully regain our independence,” said Dino Patti in a statement released yesterday. “We are grateful to everyone who supported us over the past few years, and look forward to forging new partnerships that will both let us reach new heights as a studio and give our director, Arnt Jensen, room to grow creatively.”
LIMBO, originally released on Xbox Live Arcade, has since been released on PlayStation Network and PC via Steam. It is likely that the Mac version will use Steam, as well. There's no release date yet, but Playdead claims it “will be released before the end of the year.”
Despite its brevity, I think LIMBO is a brilliant title that makes excellent use of purposefully limited resources. If you want to see what all the fuss is about, you can download a demo of LIMBO for PC right here or on your console of choice.



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If you've read our Core i7 3960X Review, you'll know that Intel's Sandy Bridge E platform can be incredibly fast. If you want to own a 3960X system without the pesky details of actually paying for the machine, Intel is kicking off a contest today where you can enter to win such a thing (and more).
Every week for the next four weeks Intel will be giving away something SNB-E related. Each giveaway period starts at 9AM PT and ends at 5PM PT, 7 days later. The first giveaway begins today.
This week Intel is giving away a Core i7 3930K with a DX79SI motherboard (the same board we used in our SNB-E CPU review). Next week it'll be a 3960X with the DX79SI. The following week it'll be a 3960X, DX79SI, Intel RTS2011LC cooler and Intel SSD 510. And the grand prize will be a hand selected build around the 3960X from Newegg.
For full contest rules and entry information head on over to Intel's Facebook page. The official messaging from Intel is below. Good luck!
Win an Incredible Intel Unlocked PC & More: 32 in 32 Challenge
Win weekly unlocked prize packages from Intel and Newegg starting November 14. Take home the grand prize and you'll fly to Newegg HQ for a chance to build your own Intel Enthusiast PC valued at over $5,000. Weekly prize bundles include Intel® Core™ i7 Extreme Edition processors, Intel® Desktop Boards, Intel® Solid-State Drives, and other system components.
Each week is a chance to win a different unlocked prize package. To win the grand prize, create and submit a video explaining in about 32 seconds why you deserve to a chance to build your ultimate unlocked PC.
For complete rules and entry details, check out Intel’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/Intel?sk=app_151472421569461



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If you look carefully enough, you may notice that things are changing. It first became apparent shortly after the release of Nehalem. Intel bifurcated the performance desktop space by embracing a two-socket strategy, something we'd never seen from Intel and only once from AMD in the early Athlon 64 days (Socket-940 and Socket-754).
LGA-1366 came first, but by the time LGA-1156 arrived a year later it no longer made sense to recommend Intel's high-end Nehalem platform. Lynnfield was nearly as fast and the entire platform was more affordable.
When Sandy Bridge launched earlier this year, all we got was the mainstream desktop version. No one complained because it was fast enough, but we all knew an ultra high-end desktop part was in the works. A true successor to Nehalem's LGA-1366 platform for those who waited all this time.

Left to right: Sandy Bridge E, Gulftown, Sandy Bridge

After some delays, Sandy Bridge E is finally here. The platform is actually pretty simple to talk about. There's a new socket: LGA-2011, a new chipset Intel's X79 and of course the Sandy Bridge E CPU itself. Read on for our review!


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In the pursuit of sheer performance, a user should aim to combine the ultimate CPU with the ultimate everything else – motherboard, memory, and so on. The latest enthusiast platform to hit our streets is Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge-E and X79 chipset, released today.
So to start a series of X79 reviews, we are going to have a look at what the X79 chipset brings to the table over other Intel chipsets, and the first motherboard under our microscope is the ASUS P9X79 Pro, coming in at an RRP of $329.99. Needless to say, this is fairly expensive in the land of motherboards, even when pairing it with a $1000 CPU. However, if previous Intel chipsets are anything to go by, ASUS PRO boards get a lot of attention. So the question becomes ‘Is it worth it?’ Read on for the full review.



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Back at SIGGRAPH 2011 NVIDIA announced Project Maximus, an interesting technology initiative to allow customers to combine Tesla and Quadro products together in a single workstation and to use their respective strengths. At the time NVIDIA didn’t have a launch date to announce, but as this is a software technology rather than a hardware product, the assumption has always been that it would be a quick turnaround. And a quick turnaround it has been: just over 3 months later NVIDIA is officially launching Project Maximus as NVIDIA Maximus Technology.

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AMD launched Bulldozer about a month ago, but the initial CPUs were only for desktops. As a follow up, AMD has today released the server variants of Bulldozer. There are a total of 18 CPUs launching today, and they are branded as Opteron 4200 and 6200 series, although some of you may be more familiar with the codenames "Valencia" and "Interlagos". AMD actually begun the shipments of 4200 and 6200 series in September but the lineup was not officially released until today. Below is a specification table.

AMD Opteron 4200 and 6200 Series Specifications
Series	Model number	Core/Thread Count	Frequency	L3 Cache	TDP
4200 series "Valencia"	4226	6/6	2.7GHz	8MB	95W
4228 HE	6/6	2.8GHz	8MB	65W
4234	6/6	3.1GHz	8MB	95W
4238	6/6	3.4GHz	8MB	95W
4256 EE	8/8	1.6GHz	8MB	35W
4274 HE	8/8	2.6GHz	8MB	65W
4280	8/8	2.8GHz	8MB	95W
4284	8/8	3.3GHz	8MB	95W
6200 series "Interlagos"	6204	4/4	3.3GHz	16MB	115W
6212	8/8	2.6GHz	16MB	115W
6220	8/8	3.0GHz	16MB	115W
6234	12/12	2.4GHz	16MB	115W
6238	12/12	2.6GHz	16MB	115W
6262 HE	16/16	1.6GHz	16MB	85W
6272	16/16	2.1GHz	16MB	115W
6274	16/16	2.2GHz	16MB	115W
6276	16/16	2.3GHz	16MB	115W
6282 SE	16/16	2.6GHz	16MB	140W

We did an overview of Bulldozer lineup in our Details on AMD Bulldozer: Opterons to Feature Configurable TDP article. The basics are still the same. 4200 series is compatible with 4100 series' C32 socket; and 6200 series is compatible with 6100 series' G34 socket. That means existing motherboards are compatible with the new CPUs, although a BIOS update may be needed. The main difference between 4200 and 6200 series, on top of the core count, is the CPU configuration support: 4200 is limited to dual CPU configuration whereas 6200 series supports up to four CPUs in one system.
While Bulldozer was a letdown for desktops, it may be more attractive for servers. The biggest shortage of Bulldozer was its poor single-threaded performance, but server software is usually well multithreaded and can hence take advantage of all Bulldozer's cores.
Johan has received Opteron 6276 CPU and is already working on a review, so stay tuned!



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