Thread: Anandtech News

In the latest Building Windows 8 blog post, Microsoft's Billie Sue Chafins details some of the improvements and changes made to Windows' boot and diagnostic screens to make them more touch-friendly, and also to take advantage of the UEFI technology supported by an increasing number of new PCs.
Apart from the improvements in speed, which we talked about awhile back, Windows 8 is going to replace the MS-DOS-style pre-boot screens with big clickable buttons and a simple GUI - examples shown included OS dual-booting, Windows troubleshooting, and a boot device selection screen (currently handled in an inconsistent fashion by the BIOS on most PCs). You can also use this simple GUI to choose your default operating system, specify how long the computer will wait before booting the default OS, and some other things previously accessible only to people comfortable editing their Boot.ini file in a text editor.
Microsoft's screenshots also show that the on-screen touch keyboard is available not just in the fully booted OS, but also in these pre-boot screens. To see the interface in action, you can look at Microsoft's video, and you can also check out the full post over at the Building Windows 8 blog.
Source: Building Windows 8 blog


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One of our contacts recently made us aware of a new round of lawsuits, which could apparently apply to every major company in the world of personal computers. The list of defendants at includes the following:

• Alienware Corporation
• Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
• Club 3D B.V.
• Cyclone Microsystems Inc.
• Dell Computer Corp.
• Extreme Engineering Solutions, Inc.
• Freedom USA, including AVADirect.com/AVADirect Custom Computers
• GDA Technologies, Inc.
• General Electric Enterprise Solutions, a division of General Electric Company
• Integrated Device Technology, Inc.
• Inventure, Inc.
• NVIDIA Corporation
• National Instruments Corp.
• PLX Technology Inc.
• Tigerdirect, Inc.
• Vadatech, Inc.
• Vrose Microsystems, Inc.

I’m not familiar with all of those names, but I do recognize many of them. How some other big names apparenlty slipped through the cracks isn't clear (Acer/Gateway, Intel, VIA, HP anyone?), but maybe the above list isn't complete. Regardless, let’s look at the patents for a minute to see what they cover.
The first patent (7454552) covers a “switch with transparent and non-transparent ports” while the second (7421532) refers to “switching with transparent and non-transparent ports”. Neither description really says much, but the text below suggests what they’re covering: communication via a switch between PCI Express devices. What’s really crazy is that this sounds like Internet Machines literally managed to patent a portion of PCI Express spec.
Reading through the actual descriptions and language of the patents is like reading a document full of nonsensical jargon. Specific terms are used, but at the same time the descriptions are very nebulous. Take the final claim: “A method for switching data units, the method comprising providing a PCI Express switch having transparent and non-transparent ports associating the transparent ports with a shared address domain associating the non-transparent ports with non-shared address domains routing data units between the transparent ports, between the transparent and non-transparent ports, and between the non-transparent ports in accordance with a PCI Express interconnect standard.” It’s an example of exactly the sort of thing that shouldn’t be patentable, and yet these two patents were granted—along with thousands of others likely sitting dormant waiting for some company to see if they can get a settlement out of them.
Actually, what’s really crazy is that they’re going after system integrators, along with graphics card companies AMD and NVIDIA, and pretty much anyone else they can think of. Why Intel isn’t on the list is a mystery, or maybe Internet Machines knows it’s a bad idea to poke Intel’s legal team in the eye. Hopefully reason and common sense can win out in the legal system, because this appears to be rampant abuse of the patent system and the penchant for patents to be granted for anything and everything. Several of the companies listed should have the expertise required to kick the case to the curb, but one system integrator states that they already settled with Internet Machines a year ago, and now they’re being taken to court for a similar patent, as though their willingness to settle is an admission of guilt.


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We knew it'd come after Sprint's variant was released, but we didn't know how long we'd have to wait. AT&T saw fit to let us know, in a tweet on their official account today. From our hands-on we noted that AT&T's variant was the closest to the International edition, which one high praise form Brian in his review. The 4.3" WVGA SAMOLED+ display, paired with Samsung's own Exynos processor will be available for $199 on-contract or $549 off, on October 2nd. The price matches Sprint's variant, leaving all to wonder whether T-Mobile will match that pricing with their uniquely equipped variant.
Brian's hard at work on the Sprint Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch review, we'll be eager to set it next to it's AT&T sibling for a family reunion. Link below, along with a shot of the tweet itself.

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Flash Player 11, the next major version of Adobe's near-ubiquitous browser plug-in, is now officially set for release in early October, the company said in a press release today. Adobe AIR (the runtime which allows Flash and other code to be run as desktop apps) will also be updated to version 3.
The press release details a few of Flash 11's new features, but there are two that are of particular interest to you, the discerning AnandTech reader: the first is GPU acceleration for 2D and 3D graphics, which is specifically designed to make Flash games run better (Flash's GPU acceleration was previously limited mostly to video). The second is 64-bit support under Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, long a sticking point for users of 64-bit operating systems. As one of the modern Internet's most-used plug-ins, Flash carries a lot of weight, and I don't think I'm the first to link the absence of 64-bit Flash with the slow pace of 64-bit browser development and adoption.
Flash 11 promises to be an improvement over Flash 10.3 in many ways, but its competition is still stiff: the Unity Web Player is already driving 3D games in browser windows today, while the Silverlight plug-in also enables rich web content. Its most direct competition in the long run remains HTML5, which Apple (and soon, Microsoft) and others are pushing to enable rich content without the use of plug-ins
Source: Adobe


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With every chipset, there's a call to arms in providing the package that everyone needs. Unfortunately there's never one motherboard which can cater for every possibility, but there are some that come quite close. Our review today is on the Zotac Z68ITX-A-E Wifi - a mini-ITX take on the Z68 chipset, which promises to be a winner right from the start, with dual gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, onboard wifi, onboard power/reset buttons, a debug LED, a lot of extras with your motherboard, and all the extras that Z68 offers. For $170, we're looking at a good contender for an award here, as long as the performance and additions compare well to its rivals. Read on for the full review!

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ZOTAC has today released A75-ITX WiFi motherboard. Like the name suggests, this motherboard is based on AMD's A75 chipset and comes in Mini-ITX form factor. Don't let the size fool you though, A75-ITX has an impressive list of features when compared to its size.

ZOTAC A75-ITX WiFi
Chipset	AMD A75
Socket	FM1
Memory Slots	2x DDR3 DIMM
Max Memory	8GB
Memory Speed	Up to 1866MHz
PCIe	One x16 slot
SATA	4x SATA 6Gb/s
USB	8x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0
Networking	Dual Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0
Video Outputs	DVI, HDMI, VGA

When you look at the specs, it doesn't lose much to its bigger brothers. The best CPU you can install at the moment is A8-3850 (our review), which is definitely not bad. There is also a full speed PCIe x16 slot (most likely PCIe 2.0), meaning that a high-speed GPU isn't an issue. On top of that, there are eight USB 3.0 ports. The A75 chipset provides only four USB 3.0 ports, which suggests that there is a discrete USB 3.0 controller providing the extra four.
ZOTAC isn't alone in the A75 mini-ITX market though, at least AsRock has a similar motherboard as well. We reviewed ZOTAC's Z68ITX-A-E WiFi very recently, so that might offer some early thoughts on what to expect from A75-ITX. Unfortunately pricing and availability are unknown as of now.
Source: ZOTAC


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HP announced today that Meg Whitman would be taking over as CEO, replacing outgoing CEO Leo Apotheker after less than a year on the job. According to the New York Times, Whitman is not expected to reverse course on several of her predecessor's most contentious decisions, including the unceremonious dumping of WebOS hardware last month and its willingness to sell or spin off its PC business.
Whitman, who served as CEO of eBay from 1998 to 2008, also ran for governor of California in the state's last election.
Source: New York Times


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For the first time in years AMD is set to really start executing on the CPU side. Although Bulldozer has faced significant delays, Brazos and Llano were both warmly received and all indications point to Trinity showing up in early 2012 with even more competitive performance than Llano. AMD has also committed to a 12-month cadence for all of its major product lines, meaning we'll see significant updates to APUs and GPUs yearly.
In the midst of what could very well be AMD's turnaround on the CPU side, its current Products Group General Manager, Rick Bergman, has announced that he is leaving the company. As always no real details are provided but Rick was instrumental in helping stage ATI's comeback as a player in the GPU space if you recall from The RV770 Story.
Bergman will be sorely missed at AMD. Hopefully he won't stray too far from this industry though.
Source: AMD, eWeek, Tech Report


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For the past three years AMD has held an annual Financial Analyst Day at its HQ in Sunnyvale, CA in November. That was the case for 2008, 2009 and 2010. There hasn't been a Financial Analyst Day in 2011 and based on AMD's most recent announcement, it looks like there won't be one until February 2, 2012.
AMD's Financial Analyst Days are usually where AMD discloses its long term roadmaps for future products. It's where we first heard about Phenom II, Llano and Trinity. AMD just recently got a new CEO, which helps explain the delay to February. With a new CEO potentially comes new corporate direction and perhaps a new roadmap.
That being said, I wouldn't be too surprised to see a CPU core roadmap update before the end of the year.


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Ever since I moved to a notebook as my main work computer I've become increasingly annoyed with the process of actually moving my notebook-as-a-desktop around. When at my desk I've got DisplayPort, Ethernet, two USB, FireWire 800, speakers and power all plugged into my 15-inch MacBook Pro. What makes it frustrating isn't the first-world-problem of having to unplug seven cables, rather that it doesn't need to be seven cables - Apple could make the whole thing happen with just two.
Every Mac released in 2011 has at least one Thunderbolt port (the iMac has two), and Thunderbolt can deliver exactly what I'm looking for. Thunderbolt can carry two things: PCI Express and DisplayPort, the former for data and the latter obviously for video. Why would you want to carry PCIe and DP over a single cable? To address problems like the one above.

Pretty much all device expansion on modern day PCs happens via PCI Express. Several years ago it was hard to find PCIe sound cards or Ethernet controllers, but these days vanilla PCI slots are nearing extinction and PCIe is the de facto standard. Ethernet, USB and FireWire controllers all exist as single-lane PCIe devices. Put a bunch of them at the other end of a Thunderbolt cable and you no longer need to plug in a bunch of individual cables into your notebook when at your desk. Send DisplayPort over the same cable and you can actually move all of those ports onto your monitor, thereby using a single cable to carry everything but power to your display. And this is exactly what Apple has done with its new Thunderbolt Display. By mating its 27-inch LED Cinema Display with a bunch of integrated IO controllers, Apple is hoping to deliver a display that's more of a mobile docking station than just a passive way to display video.

Read on for our full review of the Apple Thunderbolt Display.

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