Thread: Anandtech News

Last year we ran a little series called Ask the Experts where you all wrote in your virtualization related questions and we got them answered by experts at Intel, VMWare as well as our own head of IT/Datacenter - Johan de Gelas.

Given the growing importance of IT/Datacenter technology we wanted to run another round, this time handled exclusively by Johan. The topics are a little broader this time. If you have any virtualization or cloud computing related questions that you'd like to see Johan answer directly just leave them in a comment here. We'll be picking a couple and will answer them next week in a follow up post.

So have at it! Make the questions good - Johan is always up for a challenge :)



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When Eurocom offered to send us their latest Racer notebook, we were mildly intrigued. Then they upped the ante by giving us the chance to put AMD’s latest and greatest HD 6970M to the test and we jumped at the opportunity. The Racer is the “little brother” of the Clevo P170HM we reviewed a few weeks ago, sporting many similarities all wrapped up in a smaller package. This puppy doesn’t come cheap, but with a matte 1080p LCD sporting a good contrast ratio, awesome performance, and a better build quality than the previous Clevo models we’re quite happy with the result.

So, just what does an HD 6790M do for performance, and how much will it set you back? What else might Eurocom have to offer to sweeten the deal? Eurocom also likes to label their notebooks as mobile workstations, and while the system we have doesn’t necessarily cater to that audience, we’ll have some thoughts on that segment as well. Read on for our full analysis.



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I don't exactly remember when I stopped using the iPad, but it wasn't without me trying to use it. We reviewed the WiFi version on AnandTech last year but it was the AT&T 3G version that I ended up using most of the time. For short trips around NC I'd carry it with me. It was the perfect car companion. Smaller and lighter than a notebook but functional enough to get me through any short trip. I tried carrying it to lunch and meetings around town but for the most part it wasn't portable enough for that to make sense. A smartphone was a far better companion.

For several trips around the country I remember trying to take just the iPad, but I always needed to work on an article or publish something extensive while I was gone. For months I boarded every plane with the intention of bringing only the iPad but I always ended up bringing a notebook as well. Even when I went on vacation last year I had to finish a review and ended up bringing a notebook just for three days of use. Eventually I just gave up completely and left the iPad at home. As I mentioned in our review of the first iPad last year, this is a device that augments your existing setup - it replaces nothing. You'll still need a computer of some sort and you'll still need a phone, you just get to have another device that's more convenient than both of those occasionally.

These days my iPad sits docked at my desk doing nothing more than charging and receiving updates. Yet every time I'm at an airport I look around and see tons of passengers with their iPads. It's the new ThinkPad. I see it everywhere and people seem to be happy with it. In fact, last quarter 17% of Apple's total revenue came from iPad sales.

Will a new iPad be enough to make me a tablet convert? Read on for our full review of the iPad 2.



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When 3DMark11 launched earlier this year, it seemed like the time was right for an update to PCMark Vantage as well. While we don't have an exact release date or pricing, Futuremark has now confirmed their intention to update the product, but instead of PCMark11 we're getting PCMark 7. The release does say "coming soon", which usually means Futuremark is less than a month or two away from the official launch (but don't hold us to that).

Over the years, we've complained more than a few times about Futuremark's 3DMark scores; PCMark on the other hand has been more useful at giving us an easy to run application suite. (If you haven't tried it, SYSmark requires some serious voodoo to get it to run on most modern systems—many of the patches for Vista will break the benchmark, and let's not even get into Windows 7.) The new version looks to provide an updated performance analysis for modern Windows 7 PCs, which may mean Vista is no longer supported.

We've been a bit critical of PCMark Vantage with regards to inflated SSD results, so it will be interesting to see if PCMark 7 provides a more realistic picture of what an SSD can do for the overall system performance. Yes, we know they're faster, but the problem with Vantage is that even relatively mediocre SSDs did an excellent job at inflating benchmark scores. The PCMark 7 press release states, "Hardware innovations like solid state drives (SSDs), and new form factors such as netbooks and tablets are greatly increasing the range of PC performance available to businesses and home users," so we should see some new metrics addressing such changes at the very least.

System requirements list a DX9 video card as the minimum, but DX10 and DX11 are necessary for some additional tests (i.e. tests that aren't part of the main PCMark score). There are seven test suites with 20 different workloads designed to give various views of system performance. The seven test suites are PCMark, Lightweight, Entertainment, Creativity, Productivity, Computation, and Storage. The Lightweight suite is the one truly new entrant, and Computation could be interesting if there's any support for GPGPU type workloads; the other suites tend to correlate with one or more of the suites in Vantage (Memories, TV and Movies, Music, Communications, Productivity, and HDD—thankfully, the Gaming Suite that tended to be more of a storage benchmark is now MIA).

The full (and somewhat short) press release is below.

New Benchmark Includes 7 Suites for Complete PC Performance Analysis

HELSINKI, FINLAND – MARCH 21, 2011 – Futuremark®, the developer of the world's most popular benchmarking software, announced PCMark® 7 today, a new benchmark offering complete PC performance analysis for Windows 7. PCMark 7 includes 7 separate test suites combining more than 20 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. A release date has not been announced though the official website states that PCMark 7 is coming soon.

"Hardware innovations like solid state drives (SSDs), and new form factors such as netbooks and tablets are greatly increasing the range of PC performance available to businesses and home users," said Jani Joki, Director of PC Products and Services at Futuremark. "With so much choice available, PCMark 7 is an essential and easy to use tool to test and compare PC performance accurately and reliably across a wide range of usage scenarios."

PCMark 7 provides a set of 7 suites for measuring different aspects of PC performance with a high degree of accuracy. Overall system performance is measured by the PCMark Suite. The Lightweight Suite measures the capabilities of entry level systems and mobility platforms unable to run the full PCMark suite. Common use performance is measured by the Entertainment, Creativity and Productivity scenario suites. Component performance is measured by the Computation and Storage hardware suites. The Storage suite is ideal for testing SSDs and external hard drives in addition to the system drive.

For more information please visit http://www.pcmark.com/ or follow Futuremark on Facebook.



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Today kicked off the start CTIA 2011, and Anand is already over in Orlando, Florida covering the event. I'm missing out this time, instead working on a couple of important reviews coming up, including the Galaxy S 4G and HTC Thunderbolt which you should stay tuned for.

Nexus S 4G

However, there's been some interesting news out of the conference from Google and Sprint. The first bit of news is the Nexus S 4G for Sprint, which superficially is the same as the Nexus S that we reviewed back in December. What's different is inclusion of support for Sprint WiMAX 4G and CDMA2000-EVDO Rev.A instead of GSM/UMTS like in its younger cousin.

Samsung and Google haven't disclosed what WiMAX baseband is going into the Nexus S 4G, but it seems possible that Samsung would choose its own CMC730 SM single chip solution for WiMAX and likely something from Qualcomm for CDMA2000 support for Sprint voice and data. I hate speculation, but I'd be surprised if Samsung didn't at least go with its own WiMAX chipset. It'll be interesting to see how very similar hardware performs with different baseboards in our battery life tests. For comparison, the HTC EVO 4G and EVO Shift 4G both use use a Sequans SQN1210.

The rest of the specs remain exactly the same between the Nexus S and Sprint-specific Nexus S 4G. Same 5 MP rear camera and VGA front camera, lack of 720P video capture, 1 GHz Hummingbird SoC with PowerVR SGX540, 16 GB iNAND internal flash, 802.11n/b/g, NFC, GPS, and 1500 mAH battery.

It's odd that there are no logos on the back of Sprint's Nexus S 4G press shots

Both retain the same mass - 129 grams, and outline size. The original Nexus S specs give thickness as 10.88 mm, or 0.428 inches. Interestingly enough, the Nexus S 4G specs given by Sprint list thickness as 0.44 inches, or 11.17 mm. Either there's some rounding error going on from the conversion, or the Nexus S 4G is ever so slightly thicker, which seems possible given requisite MIMO for WiMAX and the number of extra antennas that entails. Both of the EVOs and the Thunderbolt are relatively beefy phones thanks in no small part to MIMO.

The software experience on the Nexus S 4G will be pure Google. That means no Sprint NASCAR or Sprint TV applications preloaded. No doubt the marketplace will have a tab where you can grab all of that if you so choose, however.

We'll review the Nexus S 4G in due time when it launches. For now, Sprint has a Nexus S 4G landing page with information at sprint.com/nexus.

Google Voice on Sprint

The other big announcement is that Sprint is partnering up with Google to enable native Google Voice support for all of its customers. The feature isn't live yet, but is coming soon, and you can sign up here to be notified if you're an existing Sprint customer. What's different here is that unlike every other carrier plus Google Voice combo, no number port or call abstraction layer is required.

If you already have a Google Voice number, you can use it natively on your phone for calls and texts. There's no abstraction or forwarding going on like Google Voice normally adds. Likewise, if you don't have a Google Voice number, you can transparently use your existing Sprint number with Google Voice - this isn't a number port at all. Sprint is essentially dynamically routing calls appropriately using some routing table magic. Everything gets routed over - voicemails, texts, and calls. Even better, no application is required to use Google Voice, so even featurephones and dumbphones will work natively, you just won't get access to immediate transcription and other features available only through web or the Google Voice app. Best of all, you can switch back and forth between using your number with Google Voice and normal PSTN routing.

Perhaps best of all is that texts can be sent through Google Voice using the Google Voice for Android application for free, without a messaging plan. That works so long as you don't send any SMSes through the native messaging app, just Google Voice. Sprint has that and a few other interesting tidbits in its FAQs.

It'll be interesting whether the perceptible extra latency that usually accompanies Google Voice calls completely disappears as a result of native carrier routing. This is huge news for Sprint, as it will soon be offering the most native implementation of Google Voice to date.



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When we reviewed the LG Optimus 2X a while ago, we weren't quite sure what carrier it would wind up on when it came stateside. T-Mobile seemed the most likely (and heavily rumored) suspect, but the picture wasn't entirely clear at that point. Today T-Mobile officially announced at CTIA 2011 that the LG Optimus 2X is coming to the soon-to-be-acquired carrier as the T-Mobile G2x.

Probably the only non-stock thing about this photo and screenshot is that 4G status indicator up top, which I don't belive is official Android 2.2.x iconography from the AOSP

Superficially it appears there's nothing physically different between the G2x and the Optimus 2X. The front side has the exact same button layout and subtly curved capacitive touchscreen. There's a T-Mobile logo up top instead of LG, but everything else remains the same. The backside appears to be the same earth-tone soft touch material, and likewise the sides retain the silver metallic texture. I didn't think anything needed changing with the Optimus 2X, it's nice to see that nothing is changed with the G2x.

T-Mobile G2x - Network Support GSM/EDGE Support 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA Support 1700 / 2100 (AWS) / 1900 / 850 MHz HSDPA/HSUPA Speeds "HSPA+" 14.4 / 5.6 (?) Baseband Hardware (?) Unsurprisingly, the G2x also trades 900 / 1900 / 2100 MHz UMTS support for some T-Mobile friendly AWS 1700 / 2100 MHz support, but interestingly keeps the 1900 / 850 MHz around. Maybe that isn't so surprising considering the imminent acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T, who will likely repurpose nearly all the carrier's AWS 1700/2100 for its LTE buildout, and transition T-Mobile customers to AT&T's 850/1900 MHz 3G UMTS/HSPA. That's according to the current T-Mobile specs page, at least. HSPA+ support is noted, but no specific HSDPA class or speed is given. I think that's a notable improvement from the HSDPA 7.2 kicking around in the Optimus 2X.

The G2x also differs from the Optimus 2X in that it foregoes the LG skin for a pure Android 2.2.x (Froyo) experience. I didn't find the LG theme nearly as claustrophobia -inducing as say motoblur, but it's definitely nice to see T-Mobile demanding unskinned Android on so many smartphones. The G2x still comes with a number of software preloads, including a trial version of N.O.V.A., full version of NFS Shift HD, T-Mobile TV and Qik video chat, Zinio eReader, and some DTS software audio enhancements. It's still not quite as stock as the Nexus line, but pretty close, and dual-core to boot. The G2x also will be the first smartphone to launch with NVIDIA's Tegra Zone preinstalled.

Along those lines, I guess it's worth noting that all the other hardware choices remain the same: it's still packing a Tegra 2 AP20H 1 GHz dual-core A9 SoC with GeForce GPU, 8 MP rear camera with LED flash and 1080P video capture, 1.3 MP front facing camera, 800x480 4" LCD capacitive touchscreen, 8 GB internal NAND, microSD card slot, and 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1.

The T-Mobile G2x will be available later this spring. Nvidia has a blog post up about the G2x and T-Mobile G-Slate as well.



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As many of you no doubt suspect, NVIDIA is in fact getting ready to launch their next flagship video card. The NDA does not expire for another 48 hours (March 24th at 6am PDT), but in an effort to build up suspense NVIDIA has gone ahead and posted a very brief teaser video about the card and when the NDA expires.

We'll have more in a couple of days, so stay tuned.




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Last month at Mobile World Congress Samsung announced the Galaxy Tab 10.1, a NVIDIA Tegra 2 based Honeycomb tablet. Since then, Apple's iPad 2 raised the bar for ergonomics and performance. Not wanting to be outdone, Samsung just announced a redesigned Galaxy Tab 10.1 that's both thinner and lighter than Apple's iPad 2.

The new Galaxy Tab 10.1 measures only 8.6mm thick and weighs 595 grams. The iPad 2 by comparison is 8.8mm thick and weighs 601 grams by comparison. The display is a Xoom-like 1280 x 800 using Samsung's PLS display technology.

Read on for more information on the new 10.1 as well as the new Galaxy Tab 8.9.



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Some months ago we tested the new "Fanless" series from Seasonic. Today we will take a look at a semi-passively-cooled version with the same design and more power. The Seasonic X-560 ends up as the direct competitor of the Enermax Modu87+ 500W, as well as FSPs Aurum alternative (without modular cables). We purchased this particular PSU from a retailer, so we'll be able to see if they use the same capacitors as in their review samples, and if Seasonic is able to reach the promised 80 Plus Gold efficiency. We'll also look at the sound pressure level at various loads.



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It's been a busy yet incredibly productive second day at CTIA 2011, and we've been getting hands on with all the latest and greatest from LG, HTC, and Samsung. We've seen a few familiar faces since MWC getting more polished and closer to launch, like the LG Optimus 3D and 2X - turned G2x. We've also gotten hands on with a few more devices that we didn't make it to last time at MWC, including the HTC Flyer and some physical prototypes of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9



Read on for our impressions of all these devices.



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