Thread: Anandtech News

Windows 8 will be bringing with it native support for USB 3.0 controllers, writes Microsoft's Dennis Flanagan, Director of Program Management for the Devices and Networking Group. This is in contrast to previous versions of Windows, which continue to require separate drivers for USB 3.0 controllers.
This news shouldn't be surprising - many mid and high-end laptops, desktops, and motherboards support USB 3.0 today, and both AMD and Intel are or will soon be integrating USB 3.0 support into their chipsets (AMD's A75 chipset, used with Socket F1 Llano CPUs, includes it already, and Intel's Ivy Bridge will include it next year). USB 3.0 storage devices in particular are becoming increasingly available and affordable, so it only makes sense that Microsoft would want to make support for USB 3.0 controllers as seamless as support for 1.1 and 2.0 controllers is now.
What's more interesting is how Microsoft is implementing USB 3.0 in Windows 8 - rather than adding the support on top of the current 1.1 and 2.0 software stack (which, as Flanagan notes, has its roots in Windows 95), Microsoft's engineers have chosen to write an entirely new software stack for USB 3.0, retaining the older stack for 1.1 and 2.0 devices separately.
For an in-depth look at some of Microsoft's thought processes and testing procedures, read the full post on the Building Windows 8 blog.


More...

So you read our TouchWiz UX Review and thought, "I'll pass on this one." Well, think it over one more time. When Anand discovered that Sammy's LTE Tab was blessed with updated graphics drivers that brought it much improved performance we wondered whether the WiFi editions would be similarly blessed. We tested our Google I/O Limited Edition Tab first, and came up empty. But our updated review sample actually showed the same performance jump as the LTE edition. Not sure why LE owners are left in the cold, but retail Tab owners should take notice, NVIDIA's Tegra 2 GPU has never looked so good. We're reaching out to Google for comment, in the meanwhile, Tab LE owners, let us know what you're performance has been like.

More...

The past year has seen the vast majority of mainstream notebooks with discrete graphics shift to NVIDIA's Optimus, and with the W150HR Clevo makes the move as well. Equipped with GT 555M DDR3 graphics and sporting an i7-2720QM and Intel 510 SSD, MYTHLOGIC's Pollux 1400 variant packs in a lot of performance. What's more, it has one of the best LCD's we've tested: a matte 1080p LCD with high color gamut and great viewing angles. If you've been looking for a laptop that can handle just about anything, this could be it.

Of course, there's more to a laptop than the raw specs, and build quality and keyboard layout have been issues on Clevo designs for as long as I've been testing them. They're not the worst in the business, but considering the cost and target market there are certainly other alternatives. So how does MYTHLOGIC's offering stack up to the competition? Let's find out.


More...

When AMD introduced its Llano desktop parts it mentioned two different GPU configurations: an on-die Radeon HD 6550D with 400 cores running at 600MHz and a Radeon HD 6530D with 320 cores running at 443MHz. The A8 gets the faster GPU while the A6 gets the slower one. At launch we only had an A8-3850 to test so we could only guess at how fast the 3650's GPU would be. Today we've got more.
In our Sandy Bridge Pentium Review we compared the A8 and A6 Llano APUs. The A8 outpaced the A6-3650 with a Radeon HD 6530D by 18 - 26% percent, on average. The 18% gain was at 1024 x 768 while we saw 24% at 1280 x 1024 and 26% at 1680 x 1050. Given the small price premium for the A8-3850 (~$20) it seems like there's only one good choice for Llano on the desktop today, that is if you care about 3D performance.


More...

Despite abandoning Pentium as a high end brand with the 2006 release of Intel's Core 2 Duo, Intel has kept the label around for use on its value mainstream parts. Last year we saw only two Pentium branded Clarkdale parts: the G6950 and G6960. This year, powered by Sandy Bridge, the Pentium brand is a bit more active.

The new Sandy Bridge based Pentiums fall into two lines at present: the G800 and G600. All SNB Pentiums have two cores (HT disabled) with 256KB L2 per core and a 3MB L3 cache. CPU core turbo is disabled across the entire Pentium line. From a performance standpoint, other than missing hyper threading and lower clocks - the Sandy Bridge Pentiums are very similar to Intel's Core i3.
Read on for our full review of these value Sandy Bridge CPUs.


More...

DDR3 made its debut in mid-2007 when Intel released P35 chipset with support for DDR3. Since that, DDR3's market share has been growing massively and iSuppli estimated that DDR3 will account for roughly 90% of DRAM sales this year. However, the next generation DRAM technology is already just around the corner and JEDEC is scheduled to release the full DDR4 specification next year. Yesterday, JEDEC published some of the specifications of the upcoming DDR4 technology.
First and foremost, DDR4 will concentrate on performance and power consumption. The latter is achieved by lowering the voltage to 1.2V, compared to DDR3's 1.5V (although there are DDR3 modules with lower or higher voltage but 1.5V is the standard). The performance gain is achieved by increasing the frequency and DDR4 will start from 1600MHz. It's likely that we will see 1866MHz or 2133MHz modules as the standard though, considering that DDR3 went straight for 1066MHz as well, even though 800MHz specification existed too. The projected maximum speed for DDR4 is 3200MHz but then again, DDR3's maximum is 1600MHz, yet 2133MHz DDR3 modules are available. One estimation is that we will see speeds of up to 4266MHz (twice as fast as the fastest DDR3 but the other speeds of DDR4 are twice as fast too).
What's interesting in DDR4 is that it will drop support for dual, triple and quad-channeling. From now on, each module gets its own channel to the memory controller. This means a loss in memory bandwidth as well as in capacity. As of today, most memory controllers support only two channels which means you would have only two slots with DDR4. Intel and AMD can, however, increase the amount of memory channels to neutralize the change (e.g. four channels would give you the same amount of slots as LGA 1155 socketed Sandy Bridge). Memory switch is also an option and would allow more than one DIMM per channel.
Source: JEDEC


More...

The webcomic mavens over at Penny Arcade are teaming up with EEDAR, a games industry consultancy created by former game designer Geoff Zatkin, to create the Decide-o-tron app for iPhone and iPad.
“The Decide-O-Tron is essentially Pandora for games,” wrote Jerry Holkins, aka “Tycho”, on the Penny Arcade website yesterday. “ It can very quickly build a library of the games you like and own, and then - just as quickly - tell you what you should play next.”
The Decide-o-tron will leverage EEDAR’s massive games database (which dates back to the GameBoy Advance) to makes its recommendations. You’ll also be able to browse other users’ libraries and create wishlists that you can forward to your friends around the holidays.
The free app should be available “in the next week or two” says Holkins, but attendees of this weekend’s Penny Arcade Expo can check it out in person. There's no word on whether versions for Android or other platforms will follow.
Source: Penny Arcade



More...

The App Store installer for OS X 10.7 Lion was updated to version 10.7.1 today, confirming that Apple will be keeping this installer up to date as new point releases for Lion are rolled out.
This is minor news, so we won't dwell on it for long: it's mostly interesting because it shows Apple taking advantage of its new digital distribution system to do things it wasn't doing with its physical media. Past versions of OS X have only had their install media updated once or twice throughout their lives, ensuring that users would always have one or two rounds of sometimes-large updates to pull down after the install was complete.
OS X 10.7.1, which was released last week, includes a handful of minor fixes to the operating system. 10.7.2, the next update, is currently being tested by developers and will introduce iCloud features to Lion when it is released this fall.


More...

From Dust, the much-hyped “God game” from Out of this World developer Eric Chahi, hasn’t had the smoothest launch on PC. It currently lacks graphics options, has an arbitrary performance cap of 30 frames per second, and many bugs. From Dust also comes with always-online DRM, despite Ubisoft telling their forumgoers earlier that From Dust would only require a one-time authentication.
Ubisoft recanted on the DRM issue earlier this week. “We recognize that one of our posts in the From Dust forum regarding the need for authentication in the game was not clear,” said the publisher in another forum post Monday. “We sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding. Our tech teams are working on a patch that should release in approximately two weeks that will eliminate the need for any online authentication.”
The post goes on to explain that the patch won't go live until Ubisoft is sure that removing the DRM will not ruin erase or contaminate save data for those who’ve already begun playing.
No word yet on whether or not the patch will fix the other issues plaguing From Dust on PC, but the full removal of DRM shows that Ubisoft is at least aware that their game isn’t working properly.
Source: Ubisoft, Rock Paper Shotgun


More...

Most enthusiasts are familiar with Rosewill as a brand of inexpensive parts of decent quality. They've had enclosures on the market for ages, but those cases are almost always for budget builds. But today we have something that you may not be prepared for: an enthusiast-class full tower enclosure, competitively priced but clearly not for just any build. Rosewill's beast is able to support the largest of ATX motherboards and can handle quad-SLI and quad-Crossfire rigs with room to spare. In a market of SilverStones, Antecs, Corsairs, and Lian Lis, should you be giving Rosewill another look?

More...