Thread: Anandtech News

OCZ has updated their enterprise Z-Drive lineup with new fourth-generation R4 PCIe SSD. OCZ had a prototype of this SSD on display at Computex (our article). R4 adapts SandForce's SF-2000 series controllers, more specifically it has up to eight SF-2281 controllers in RAID 0 configuration. Due to the exceptional amount of controllers, R4 is good for up to 2.8GB/s reads and writes and up to 500,000 IOPS. The amount of controllers increases the risk of failure though, especially in RAID 0 configuration, so we aren't exactly convinced about the market of this product (OCZ claims enterprise but usually reliability is very important for enterprises).
Other improvements include new OCZ SuperScale storage controller and support for VCA 2.0 technology. SuperScale controller is OCZ's in-house design whereas the R3 used Marvell's storage controller. VCA 2.0 stands for Virtualized Controller Architecture which enables TRIM, SCSI unmap and SMART monitoring for system administrators.
Z-Drive R4 will be available in two different series: C and R series. Evidently, the difference is that R series has more over provisioning and protection against power failure, but unfortunately OCZ has not revealed any details of this. R4 will be available in capacities from 300GB to up to 3.2TB and in half-height and full-height form factors. Z-Drive is a custom order so pricing and availability are not publicly available.
Source: OCZ


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Almost exactly a year ago, AT&T and RIM announced the BlackBerry Torch 9800, which we reviewed and found brought a much-needed new WebKit based browser and OS update, but still wasn't quite the BlackBerry we were looking for. Well, one year is up, and it's time for an update with the BlackBerry Torch 9810 (which really sould be called the Torch 2) to take its place in AT&T's BlackBerry lineup.

The Torch 9810 keeps the same slide-out form factor, but brings a number of hugely-needed improvements. Chief among those is inclusion of a much faster Snapdragon 1.2 GHz SoC (likely an MSM8x55 single core 45nm version) which will no doubt provide a noticeable boost in speed compared to the Torch 9800's underwhelming and outdated 624 MHz Marvell Tavor PXA930 SoC. The 5 MP camera can shoot 720p video this time around, no doubt thanks in part to having an actual modern SoC, and there's HSPA+ 14.4 connectivity. There's also a VGA 3.2" panel now, instead of the Torch's rather anemic 360x480.

But probably the biggest note is that the 9810 (and the other two devices I'll mention in a second) will launch running BlackBerry OS 7, which brings a host of performance improvements and modernizations. We look forward to getting some hands on with the Torch 9810 when it arrives sometime in August.
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The next two devices are the BlackBerry Torch 9850/9860 which seem to resemble something of a storm reboot, with a 3.7" WVGA (800x480) display and also includes a 1.2 GHz (likely MSM8x55) SoC, 5 MP flash, and the usual fixings. Last but not least is the already well-understood and anticipated BlackBerry Bold 9900/9930 refresh, which also gets the same upgrades. That means a 2.8" VGA display, 1.2 GHz SoC, 5 MP camera with 720p video recording, and NFC support. I'm also told that all three devices will get 768 MB of LPDDR2 RAM. Again, we look forward to playing with these when the time comes, AT&T has announced that the Bold 9900 and Torch 9860 will be out by the end of the year.
Source: AT&T, RIM, RIM (specs)


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All microprocessor companies struggle with the same basic marketing problem: how do you explain to the average consumer why one part is faster than another without saying cache, GHz or cores. Intel and AMD have been using model numbers to abstract hardware differences for years. Today Qualcomm is announcing its own attempt at the same.
Snapdragon will continue to refer to Qualcomm’s family of high performance apps processors. Although in the past we’ve known them by relatively obscure seven character model numbers (e.g. MSM8660), going forward these SoCs are going to be grouped into one of four categories: S1, S2, S3 and S4.
The rules are pretty simple. Bigger numbers mean better SoCs, smaller numbers mean cheaper/lower power. The full name will be something like Snapdragon S1 Mobile Processor, although it’s unclear whether or not we’ll see a model number attached to the end of that.
The S stands for System and the breakdown of specs is in the slide below:

The Snapdragon S1 is the mainstream 65nm SoC we’ve been seeing for the past year and a half: single core, Adreno 200 GPU, not a lot of fun but great for free/value phones. The S2 is the 45nm Snapdragon used in modern single-core Android smartphones. The S3 and S4 are the most interesting. The former encompasses Qualcomm’s move to dual-core SoCs, while the latter uses its next-generation Krait microarchitecture.

Although S1 - S3 SoCs are available today, Qualcomm won’t be shipping Snapdragon S4 processors until the end of 2011. Devices built around Snapdragon S4 processors will appear in 2012.
The branding change makes sense for Qualcomm. Prior to the S1 - S4 naming you either had people calling everything a Snapdragon or had to worry about explaining the difference between an APQ8060 and MSM8660. The new branding helps segment things a bit although I do believe Qualcomm will need to follow AMD/Intel’s lead and introduce some sort of a model number to indicate performance differences between parts within a family.

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We're at the Samsung Experience at the Time Warner Center in New York City for Sammy's big TouchWiz UX reveal. As the first skinned Honeycomb implementation we are curious to see what Samsung's devs have in store for us, and as a preview we have the gallery below. A few things jump out at us, first the new OS X style dock, the revamped Notifications shade and the variable sized widgets, not quite resizable but a great option none the less. Enjoy the preview and we will be back with a full update shortly.
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We've mentioned before that the next-generation of mobile, particularly tablet, SoCs are supposed to give us performance equal to or greater than current generation gaming consoles (e.g. Xbox 360, PlayStation 3). In a presentation today, Qualcomm took that message one step further and proclaimed that as a result of the improvements in mobile SoCs going forward we'll see a move from console and PC gaming to mobile based gaming.
The vision is pretty clear: take a smartphone or tablet based around a high end SoC (think Krait powered Snapdragon S4), plug it into the wall and tether it to a display (either wirelessly or via HDMI) and you've got a portable console. Qualcomm is committed to delivering both the hardware and the software support needed to bring developers to these mobile platforms.
I've heard a similar vision from all of the major players in the SoC space, including those with traditional PC roots. Just like many view mainstream computing as moving into the tethered mobile space, I can see mainstream gaming make a similar move.
It's not going to be a transition overnight. Mobile games still sell for far less than their relatives on PCs and consoles, which is a big barrier to getting AAA titles on these platforms.
PCs and consoles will likely stick around (or merge) for the long term though. High end GPU development isn't stopping anytime soon and we still don't have ultra realistic holodeck-like games, the first generation of which will be powered by high-end, non-mobile GPUs.
Check out the gallery below for the entirety of Qualcomm's presentation.
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Village Instruments CEO Hubert Chen wrote an open letter to Facebook last week, attempting to gague customer interest in an external PCI Express graphics card enclosure for Thunderbolt. He said that the company would begin development on such a device if 50 people left a comment indicating interest - as of right now, the letter has well over 300 comments, and Chen confirmed in a follow-up note that development on the peripheral would begin soon.
Village Instruments currently makes the ViDock, a graphics enclosure that uses the ExpressCard interface - the new Thunderbolt ViDock will probably be similar in construction to the current model. Performance of the new Thunderbolt device should improve considerably, since Thunderbolt gives devices 10 GB/s of bandwidth to work with, while ExpressCard devices can only use about a quarter of that.
The Thunderbolt ViDock, when it's released, will be a boon to thin-and-light laptop owners who want good battery life and weight while they're on the road, but good graphics performance when they're at their desks.
Source: Facebook


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While desktop hard disks are hitting 3TB now and making our antiquated BIOSes cry, mobile hard drives have had a slightly harder time ramping up in capacity. 2.5" terabyte drives have been available for a short while, but at 12.5mm they've been a bit too fat to fit in notebooks. But the terabyte barrier has finally been properly broken, and AVADirect is now offering them both separately and as configuration options in their notebooks.


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Although we're barely into August, both AMD and NVIDIA are already making their first moves for their next generation products due at the end of this year and into next year. AMD has recently told investors that it intends to release products using 28nm GPUs this year, and now NVIDIA is telling developers something similar
At their GTC Workshop Japan event, NVIDIA's Senior VP of Research Chris Malachowsky let developers know that the company is expecting that Kepler "should start shipping by the end of the year." Kepler will be the basis of NVIDIA's next generation of GPUs, and like AMD's forthcoming products is expected to be fabricated on TSMC's 28nm process. Though the focus at an event like GTC is primarily on workstation (Quadro) and server (Tesla) products, historically NVIDIA has shipped consumer (GeForce) products first, so it's likely that we're looking at the first shipping date for NVIDIA's newest GeForce parts.
Of course it goes without saying that shipping a GPU is not the same as a video card being available for sale - NVIDIA has made their sale once they ship a GPU to a partner. So NVIDIA shipping Kepler GPUs this year does not necessarily mean that the resulting video cards will also be available this year.
As for performance, it shouldn't come as any surprise that NVIDIA is offering few details - never mind the fact that GTC isn't the venue for gaming performance. For GTC NVIDIA is talking about double precision performance, which looks like it will become a major race between AMD and NVIDIA for this upcoming generation. For Kepler NVIDIA is expecting "about 3x improvement in [double precision] performance per watt," which would be a combination of the die shrink and architectural changes.

Source: Xbit Labs


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Via its Facebook page today, HTC announced some more details about how it will unlock the bootloaders of devices that are currently selling with them locked. The tool will be web-based, require a valid email address, a device-specific token, require consent to void parts of the warranty, but then give a code which will unlock the phone's bootloader permanently. HTC stated back in July that a bootloader unlocking process was coming soon, and has now given some specifics on the timeline and which devices will see it first.

The first unlocks will start with the global HTC Sensation, followed by the HTC Sensation on T-Mobile which we reviewed recently, and finally the HTC EVO 3D on Sprint. A software update will take place before the web unlock tool goes live to prepare the devices for the unlocking process.
Phones will continue selling with their bootloaders locked for the indefinite future because of security and warranty concerns.

Because unlocking the bootloader provides extensive control over the device and modifications may cause operation, security and experience issues, new devices will continue to ship locked but will support user-initiated unlocking using a new Web-based tool.

Source: HTC Facebook


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Originally Posted by FEED

Via its Facebook page today, HTC announced some more details about how it will unlock the bootloaders of devices that are currently selling with them locked. The tool will be web-based, require a valid email address, a device-specific token, require consent to void parts of the warranty, but then give a code which will unlock the phone's bootloader permanently. HTC stated back in July that a bootloader unlocking process was coming soon, and has now given some specifics on the timeline and which devices will see it first.

The first unlocks will start with the global HTC Sensation, followed by the HTC Sensation on T-Mobile which we reviewed recently, and finally the HTC EVO 3D on Sprint. A software update will take place before the web unlock tool goes live to prepare the devices for the unlocking process.
Phones will continue selling with their bootloaders locked for the indefinite future because of security and warranty concerns.

Because unlocking the bootloader provides extensive control over the device and modifications may cause operation, security and experience issues, new devices will continue to ship locked but will support user-initiated unlocking using a new Web-based tool.

Source: HTC Facebook


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nice, wish motorola would do that...