Thread: Anandtech News

For the past six months I've been working on research and testing for the next major AnandTech SSD article. I figured I had enough time to line up its release with the first samples of the next-generation of high end SSDs. After all, it seems like everyone was taking longer than expected to bring out their next-generation controllers. I should've known better.

At CES this year we had functional next-generation SSDs based on Marvell and SandForce controllers. The latter was actually performing pretty close to expectations from final hardware. Although I was told that drives wouldn't be shipping until mid-Q2, it was clear that preview hardware was imminent. It was the timing that I couldn't predict.

A week ago, two days before I hopped on a flight to Barcelona for MWC, a package arrived at my door. OCZ had sent me a preproduction version of their first SF-2500 based SSD: the Vertex 3 Pro. The sample was so early that it didn't even have a housing, all I got was a PCB and a note:

Read on for our full, in-depth preview of OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro.

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Dell is one of the leading vendors in the PC market to have a play in the SFF HTPC (small form factor home theater PC) space. In 2009, they introduced the first Zino HD HTPC, the Zino 400. It used the AMD's Athlon 64 2650e/2850e / Athlon 64 X2 3250e/6850e on the AMDRS780G chipset with the option of the integrated 3200 GPU or a discrete 4330 mGPU. It received a decent enough response to warrant a refresh of the lineup after a year.

In Q4 2010, the Zino 410 HD HTPC was launched. It made use of the same formula from the previous generation product (usage of CPUs meant for the laptop market, and pairing it with either the integrated GPU or a discrete mGPU). However, Dell learnt some important lessons from the first generation launch, which they have put to good use in the design of the Zino 410 HD HTPC.

We have had the highest end Zino 410 HD HTPC configuration in our labs since October 2010. Read on for our take on the second generation Zino HD HTPC, and also why it took us so long to publish the review.



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The tablet market today is a far more interesting place than it was just over a year ago. Since the launch of the iPad, there hasn’t been a real competitor to iOS in the tablet space. We’ve seen customized versions of Android for larger devices like the Galaxy Tab, but they’ve all had their fair share of limitations. In fact, Android releases up to Gingerbread were never really designed to be used on larger screens. But Honeycomb has the potential to change all that and it could be just the catalyst manufacturers need to come up with the next iPad-killer.

It’s been public knowledge that Honeycomb (v3.0) was going to be the next major release of Android after Gingerbread (v2.3). It all started when Andy Rubin showed up at the D: Dive Into Mobile event with a mysterious looking tablet that was later revealed to be the Motorola Xoom running Honeycomb. CES gave us a sneak peek at Xoom and a host of other tablets that would run Honeycomb. At the Honeycomb launch event a few weeks back, Google gave us a full-blown preview of the OS. Now, with the Xoom releasing this month, the time has come for Google's official answer to the iPad.

Honeycomb has been designed ground-up for use on tablets. Google also confirmed that Honeycomb is a tablet-only OS for the time being and that some of the new features would eventually transition over to phone versions of the OS. That’s where the next release of Android codenamed Ice Cream comes into picture; more on that later. Honeycomb represents Google’s first effort to be a serious contender in the tablet market. Make no mistake here, Honeycomb is an absolutely massive release, replete with a smorgasbord of new user and developer features; some of which are so well implemented that they could give iOS a run for it’s money. Without further ado, let us dive into the juicy bits.



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HP's been on board AMD's ultraportable bandwagon since the chipmaker first shipped the underwhelming Congo platform, and HP continued to produce reasonably compelling not-quite-netbooks with the Athlon/Turion II Neo-equipped Nile platform. But now that AMD has made a concerted effort to dethrone Intel's Atom with Brazos, HP has been able to produce a true netbook competitor. We have the shiny new dm1z equipped with the AMD E-350 in our hands: is this the netbook we've been waiting for?

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You can't buy it from Sony's website. If you blinked you might have missed the news popping up on a couple of different sites about its existence. If you were on the phone with me when I called Jarred about it, you might even have shared his reaction: "Sony makes a budget AMD laptop?" But sure enough they do, and we have a budget Sony EE34 notebook on hand that's liable to raise more than a few eyebrows. Around $600 for a Sony Vaio AMD-based notebook with a Blu-ray drive standard? They make those?

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It's fair to say the refreshes HP announced for their consumer computers earlier this month seemed fairly lackluster. While nobody can complain about improved notebook speakers and the triumphant return of dedicated mouse buttons, there wasn't anything else remarkably fresh or exciting about their spring line. When we got a chance to meet with HP representatives in San Francisco to see their new business lineup, however, we saw very nearly the complete opposite.

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A year has passed without a significant Android competitor to Apple's iPad. Today that all changes as Google and Motorola unveil the world's first Honeycomb tablet: the Xoom. With better hardware than the original iPad, read on as we find out just how well the software stacks up.

Can Google build a tablet OS that's as appliance-like as iOS but without compromising on its Android roots?

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Last week OCZ pulled the trigger and introduced the world’s first SF-2000 based SSD: the Vertex 3 Pro. Not only was it the world’s first drive to use SandForce’s 2nd generation SSD controller, the Vertex 3 Pro was also the first SATA drive we’ve tested to be able to break 500MB/s on both reads and writes. Granted that’s with highly compressible data but the figures are impressive nonetheless. What wasn’t impressive however was the price. The Vertex 3 Pro is an enterprise class drive, complete with features that aren’t exactly in high demand on a desktop. As a result the V3P commands a premium - the drive starts at $525 for a 100GB capacity.

Just as we saw last round however, if there’s a Vertex 3 Pro, there’s bound to be a more reasonably priced non-Pro version without some of the enterprisey features. Indeed there is. Contained within this nondescript housing is the first beta of OCZ’s Vertex 3 based on a SandForce SF-2200 series controller. The price point? Less than half of that of the V3P:

Pricing Comparison 128GB 256GB 512GB OCZ Vertex 3 Pro $525 (100GB) $775 (200GB) $1350 (400GB) OCZ Vertex 3 $249.99 $499.99 N/A At an estimated $250 for a 120GB drive the Vertex 3 is more expensive than today’s Vertex 2, but not by too much nor do I expect that price premium to last for long. The Vertex 2 is on its way out and will ultimately be replaced by the V3. And SSD prices will continue to fall.

Read on for our full preview of the Vertex 3.



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As expected, Apple today unveiled a range of speed and functionality improvements for its MacBook Pro lineup. The update was unusually quiet for Apple. There was no scheduled press event and nothing more than a press release announcing the specs and availability. Apple retail stores received stock prior to today and began selling product immediately. The Apple online store also has immediate availability.



No mere speed bump, these new MacBooks bring Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors chipsets to the entire line, replacing the previous Arrandale processors and finally retiring the aging Core 2 Duo from service in the 13-inch model.

Contrary to earlier reports, there are no default SSD configurations although the solid state offerings are still optional. The big new feature (outside of Sandy Bridge) is support for the first incarnation of Intel’s Light Peak interface technology, now called Thunderbolt.



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Back at IDF 2010, we wrote about Intel Lightpeak nearing its eventual launch in 2011. Back then, the story was a 10 Gbps or faster physical link tunneling virtually every protocol under the sun over optical fiber. Though an optical physical layer provided the speed, in reality the connector and physical layer itself wasn’t as important as the tunneling and signaling going on beneath it. Daisy chain devices together, and connect everything with one unified connector and port.

That dream lives on today, but sans optical fiber and under a different name. Intel’s codename “Light Peak” is now named Thunderbolt.



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