0 Start Button to Stay Dead in Windows Blue

Beloved icon of Windows history appears to be in the rear view for good
For those upset about the lack of a start button in Windows 8, prepare yourself for another disappointment -- "Windows Blue", an upcoming short-cycle successor to Windows 8, is not expected to bring the feature back.
The source of this supposed leak is CN Beta, a site with close insider ties at Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), which gained respect by accurately leaking a number of early Windows 8 details.

Other info from the site includes suggests that Microsoft will further flatten the UI on the desktop (think the Metro/Windows 8 UI style), the taskbar/desktop will get tweaks, the price will be low (or free), and the new kernel version number will be v6.3 (corroborated by other independent reports).  The final remnants of the Aero UI, which was a staple of Windows Vista and Windows 7 is also being bid adieu, like the Start button before it.
The start button went the way of the Dodo with Windows 8. [Image Source: Jason Mick/DailyTech]
Neowin reports that a summer launch of Windows Blue is expected.  And its contacts close to Microsoft hint that the name will be some sort of riff on Windows 8, not Windows 9, as some suspected.
(For the record you can get a Start Menu-like menu by moving your mouse to the lower left corner of the screen and right-clicking.  Voilà, magic!)


View the original article here

Read More...

0 AMD to Kill Off VISION APU Branding

Marketing move would simplify brand names, but not everyone is happy
For two generations of accelerated processing units (APUs) -- Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.'s (AMD) CPU+GPU single die affordability/mobility-focused solution -- the word "VISION" has been tacked on to indicate that the chip is an APU.  The branding first popped up in the Llano/Zacate/Ontario/Desna and continued with the second-gen Trinity/Brazos 2.0/Hondo designs.

SemiAccurate reports, though, that the VISION brand is about to be killed off (for now AMD's VISION brand homepage appears alive, but that could soon change).
The APUs will simply snip the designation -- for example "AMD VISION A10" will become "AMD A10".  The site doesn't appear entirely happy with this change -- Leo Yim complains:
At the end, the move to the new branding doesn’t benefit the customers much, or help to make better purchase decisions. Besides the respective price points for different APU platforms, nothing substantial is achieved with this purely marketing decision.

But he acknowledges that the move does simplify things and doesn't have that big an impact ultimately.

AMD is rumored to be clipping the "VISION" brand name.
AMD recently rolled out its Piledriver-core based FX series chips (code-name: Vishera).  A mid-range Piledriver-based APU dubbed Richland is also expected to be incoming, based on roadmap leaks.
A new 28 nm low-power APU core (for the A6/A4/E2/E1 models) will land in mid-2013. Code-named Kabini, AMD has said that the power-efficient chip will pack a more-powerful DirectX 11.1-compatible GPU core.  AMD is rumored to be relying primarily on ball-grid-array (BGA) designs for Kabini, nixing upgrade routes.



View the original article here

Read More...

0 FAA Electronics Ban on Planes Causes More Harm Than Good

Passengers are acting out against the rules and even hurting one another The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) worries that electronic device use on planes places passengers in harm's way, but the real issue is that the FAA is spreading fear about an issue that hasn't been proven yet.

The FAA has set rules that make it so passengers cannot use electronic devices like smartphones, tablets and e-readers during takeoff and landing on a flight. However, there is no solid proof that electronics affect the way a plane performs. This has been in question for some time, but the FAA continues to impose these rules on passengers, and it has caused panic and even injuries among those who travel by plane.
For instance, a 68-year-old man punched a 15-year-old on a plane when the teenager refused to turn off his smartphone during a flight. According to the man, he was doing it to save the entire plane from any harmful consequences.

Just a couple of months ago, a passenger was arrested in El Paso when he decided not to turn off his cell phone during landing. Last month, another passenger did the same when landing in New York and a swarm of cop cars were waiting for him once he exited the plane.
Of course, many also remember the incident where Alec Baldwin was kicked off a plane in 2011 for playing Words With Friends.

This goes to show that the FAA is causing more trouble by making people believe that electronics are an issue when they may very well not be.

Back in March, the FAA said it would review the effects of tablet/e-reader use during takeoff and landing.
 Pilots can already use iPads during the entire flight [Image Soure: The AirplaneNut]
The FAA likely put this testing off due to costs and the amount of testing required for these devices to pass. In order for the FAA to approve the use of e-readers and tablets during takeoff and landing, each kind of device needs to be tested. For example, an iPad cannot be tested alone; the iPad 2 and the new iPad must be tested as well. There are already several versions of the Kindle available as well, such as the Kindle Fire tablet, and many other Android-powered tablets on the market. There are now Windows 8 tablets on the market too.

In early December 2011, the FAA raised a few eyebrows when allowing American Airlines pilots to use iPads in the cockpit. The FAA allowed iPads to replace paper manuals and charts, and they could be used during takeoff and landing. The FAA argued that allowing two iPads in the cockpit was a significantly different scenario than several passengers using several devices for longer periods of time.
Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) pressured the FAA to allow greater use of electronic devices during takeoff and landing because "they empower people to stay informed and connected with friends and family, and they enable both large and small businesses to be more productive and efficient, helping drive economic growth and boost U.S. competitiveness."


View the original article here

Read More...

0 LG To Unveil New Refined Smart TV Lineup at CES 2013

LG is on the verge of unveiling a new line of smart TVs at CES 2013. The company is prepared to unveil its CINEMA 3-D Smart TV line at the show. The TV series will offer easier content access and sharing along with an updated Magic Remote and simplified user interface.

Highlights of the new TV series will include an 84” Ultra HD TV and a 55” OLED TV.

One of the key features of the redesigned user interface from LG are My Interest Cards. These are folders were users can place apps and other content they enjoy to help organize their favorite things. LG has also redesigned and fine-tuned the Magic Remote. The remote has a pointer function, navigation wheel supports gestures, and supports voice-recognition. The Voice Mate software used for voice-recognition has been updated and is able to recognize the natural flow of speech.

The TVs will also support new connectivity options including WiDi and Miracast. The TVs will also support Tag On that immediately connects two devices for fast media sharing. That means users with smartphones supporting the technology will be able to hold the device against the NFC sticker on the Smart TV to transfer content.

“LG always strives to provide the most engaging, most convenient user experience to consumers all over the globe,” said Havis Kwon, President and CEO of the LG Home Entertainment Company. “We have been singularly uncompromising, both in developing and improving the LG Smart TV platform. As a result, we are confident the UX our 2013 models will shatter all expectations and demonstrate that LG has moved the medium of Smart TV forward.”

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Foxconn Getting Its Act Together on Employee Working Conditions

Its starting with more comfortable seating and new classes .It's been a pretty tough road for Foxconn, but it looks like conditions are getting better.
According to a new report from The New York Times
Foxconn is making crucial changes around its factories in China in an effort to improve working conditions for employees.

Changes include offering more comfortable seating arrangements for employees that spend long hours on the line. Before, they were given small, wooden stools because it was believed that comfortable seating would lead to laziness. However, many employees started having issues like back pain.
In addition, Foxconn is now offering recreational courses that employees can take in their spare time, such as knitting.

As for the future of Foxconn, it vowed to make sure no employee works over an average of 49 hours per week by July 2013 to address overtime issues.
Apple, which has its gadgets like the iPad manufactured at Foxconn's plants in China, has also stepped up by employing more safety and corporate responsibility staff to keep an eye on the conditions of workers -- both in the U.S. and abroad.

While these changes haven't resulted in perfection quite yet, it's a great start. By agreeing to random audits by the Fair Labor Association (FLA) and others, Foxconn is working on making its factories a safe environment for employees.

There were reports saying that Foxconn wanted to just replace all human employees with robots by 2014. In fact, Hon Hai Chairman Terry Gou said in 2011 that he wanted 300,000 robots installed by the end of 2012 and a total of 1 million by 2014. However, in June of this year, it was apparent that those targets weren't going to happen. Instead, he hopes to have "monotonous" tasks eliminated through automation within a few years and fully automated plants in five to 10 years. As it turns out, robots are expensive (anywhere from $2.1 billion to over $10 billion for fully automated plants, depending on the type of robots used).
Now that the robot plan won't exactly pan out anytime soon, Foxconn is making the workplace a bit more relaxed for the human employees it currently has.

Foxconn has been under the microscope since 2009 for various troubles like worker suicides, explosions in the plants due to aluminum dust build-up and other unsafe working conditions, riots, excessive overtime, low pay, etc.

The company came under fire earlier this year when The New York Times
 published a massive article on the working conditions of Foxconn factories. Apple was also targeted because the report mentioned Apple's lack of action when receiving reports on these poor working environments and overtime/pay issues.

Foxconn gave employees a pay boost earlier this year and is cleaning its act up slowly but surely to comply with audits.

While Foxconn's efforts are a huge part of this, The New York Timesalso noted that Apple must be more open with its most recent practices and results when it comes to cleaning up Foxconn's act. This would allow other companies that use Foxconn, like Nike, to do the same.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 BlackBerry X10 Smartphone Shown in Higher Resolution Images

Just last week, we got a "blurrycam" shot of the QWERTY-keyboard packin' BlackBerry X10 smartphone from RIM. While the shot wasn’t exactly high resolution, it did give us a glimpse of what to expect when the actual headset -- along with its full touchscreen-equipped sibling -- launches next month.

This weekend, however, we've got some more X10 pictures from a person using something more than a 2MP dumbphone camera. The pictures clearly show the X10's relatively tiny (in today's world of 4" and 5" displays) display and QWERTY keyboard that extends from edge-to-edge.

The back of the display also shows the camera lens and flash. Given that this is likely a prototype unit, we can excuse the rather cheap looking finish of this X10 pictured. Hopefully the production models will have better graining than what's currently shown.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Intel to Unveil Streaming TV Service, Settop Box at CES

Chipmaker Intel is reportedly working on a new virtual television service. A few details on Intel's virtual television plan surfaced last summer from five different sources claiming to be familiar with the project reports Reuters. The settop box (using Intel technology inside, of course) would run a slimmed-down cable TV service.

Intel is betting on facial recognition technology for targeted ads and a team of veteran entertainment dealmakers to help win media partners for the service. The settop box can't identify specific people, but is able to provide general data about gender and whether or not viewer is an adult or a child.

According to a source that spoke with TechCrunch,  “Everyone doing a half-assed Google TV so [Intel is] going to do it themselves and do it right.”

Intel apparently hopes that its TV service could help advertisers by offering reliable metrics on viewers. Most studios in advertisers currently can only use Nielsen ratings to determine if their ads in shows are hitting their target markets. The online TV service will be able to provide much better metrics for content makers.
 

The streaming service promises a cloud DVR feature allowing users to watch any past TV show at any time without the need to record the show. It will also allow viewers to pause live TV and rewind shows in-progress. The settop box also promises access to apps available on Intel's app marketplace.

While Intel had initially hoped to launch its settop box and TV service this year, TechCrunch reports that the device won’t be shown until next week at CES.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Acer Intends to Launch a $99 Android Tablet in Emerging Markets

According to reports, Acer is set to launch a $99 tablet next year. Source claims to have direct knowledge of the project and offered up some specifications on the rumored tablet.

The Iconia B1 tablet will reportedly have a seven-inch display with a resolution of 1024x600 and will feature a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor. This would give it similar specs to the Amazon Kindle Fire.

The Kindle Fire is priced at about $139 right now. If Acer launches the tablet with very similar performance at a price of $99, it would likely be very popular. One big caveat, however, is that the device is reportedly aimed at emerging markets. The Wall Street Journal reports that the tablet has been submitted to the FCC for clearance but it remains unclear if Acer will offer the tablet for sale in the U.S.

Other sources are also claiming that Acer plans to launch a cheaper version of its Windows 8 tablets running Intel processors. The source says that the price cut is being made because the tablets are currently "too pricey."

Acer needs a hit product after posting poor earnings in October.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Fujitsu Makes Smartphone for Old Folks

The phone will be sold in the U.S. and Europe. It's very rare that you see someone using a mobile phone that isn't a smartphone, but these high-tech mobile devices aren't for everyone.
That's why Fujitsu Ltd. is looking to sell a smartphone that is easy to use in the United States and Europe, and it's especially made for senior citizens.

The phone, called "Raku-Raku Smartphone," has features such as larger letters, higher volume and display images that are easier to see. These are meant to appeal to elderly U.S. and European citizens.
Why the U.S. and Europe specifically? Fukitsu said Apple and Samsung have already taken over the smartphone market in these areas, and that it doesn't have the money to market a brand the way those two have. However, it did see an opportunity to market a smartphone to the elderly (which Apple and Samsung have not done yet).

Also, Fujitsu is looking to sell devices in areas other than Japan to increase sales.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Hackulous Cracked iPhone App Community Shuts Down

If you're a user of Hackulous, an online community that allows iOS users access to cracked apps, you may have noticed that the community has unceremoniously closed its doors as of yesterday. An affiliated web partner index for cracked iPhone apps called Apptrackr has also been disabled. According the people who were operating the communities, lack of activity is the reason they were shut down.

“We are very sad to announce that Hackulous is shutting down,” the team said in a statement.

“After many years, our community has become stagnant and our forums are a bit of a ghost town. It has become difficult to keep them online and well-moderated, despite the devotion of our staff. We’re incredibly thankful for the support we’ve had over the years and hope that new, greater communities blossom out of our absence.”

TorrentFreak reports that it was able to contact a couple people who claim to be familiar with operations at the site who disagree with the statements offered as a reason for the shutdown. According to those two users, the site was healthy and had plenty of users.

The closing of the community also puts into question the viability of Installous, which is software that allowed the installation of cracked apps on Apple devices like the iPhone and iPad.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Samsung Hopes to Sell 390 Million Smartphones Next Year

With the final days of 2012 upon us, many companies are looking forward to “great success” in 2013. Samsung is expecting to sell 510 million mobile phones next year, which would represent a 20 percent rise compared to 2012.

Of the 510 million mobile phones it expects to sell, 390 million will be smartphones with the remainder coming from the sale of feature/budget phones.

"There are some possibilities that smartphone demand will slow in general. But we are seeing new demand for devices using Long Term Evolution (LTE),'' said Kim Hyun-joon, an executive at Samsung's telecommunications division."

Samsung also announced that it intends to build 240 million devices at its Vietnamese factory, 170 million devices in China, 20 million in India, and 40 million devices at its Korean factory. Samsung also plans to spend $2.2 billion upgrading handset factories in Vietnam by 2020 to boost output.

"By offering better pricing to consumers in developing nations, we will find new growth. This will also enable consumers in developed nations like North America and Europe to buy our LTE devices at more affordable prices,'' said a Samsung official.

Analysts are predicting that Samsung will dethrone Nokia to become the top handset shipper in the world for 2012. Nokia has held that title for 14 years.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Samsung Shows off ChatOn 2.0, Teases New Products Ahead of CES 2013

Samsung has been showing off some of the new products that will be on display at CES 2013 early next month. The new products include new Smart TVs and a new version of the ChatOn app. ChatOn is a cross-platform messaging application that has been turned into a social media network with version 2.0.

ChatOn 2.0 is available in over 200 countries and 60 different languages. Samsung describes the service as a micro social networking platform allowing users to create profiles and post status updates that friends can comment on. The new version of the application is easier-to-use with improved ability to leave comments and add content such as photos or video.

Photos or video can be placed in "the trunk" on ChatOn before being shared on other social networks such as Facebook. The app also has a multi-screen feature allowing chatting with up to five connected devices on a single account. Users can invite friends to conversations using the app from different platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Another new product Samsung is showing off is the Smart Hub updated home screen. The new Smart Hub allows users to watch live programming and movies while using apps and looking at personal photos. Samsung is also promising that the Smart Hub will offer a “more intuitive experience with various contents, live TV broadcasts, VOD, apps, Internet and such.”

Samsung is also expected to show off a flexible smartphone screen at CES 2013.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Gun Store Links Removed from EA's "Medal of Honor" Website

Recent shootings were the cause for removing the links Electronic Arts, better known as EA, has pulled the links to real weapon sales sites from its "Medal of Honor" Web page. EA's "Medal of Honor" site has traditionally partnered with weapons companies, since the game features these real weapons available for purchase.

The reason behind this is pretty obvious if you've heard about recent shootings in the U.S. The most recent occurred in a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school where 26 children and school staff were killed by gunfire. Before that, a man shot and killed many people in an Aurora, Colorado theater.
Due to these recent tragedies, the National Rifle Association pointed the finger at movies and video games for adding to the culture of violence in the U.S.

"There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people," said NRA vice president Wayne LaPierre.
"Medal of Honor" was originally published by EA Games in 1999, where much of the series takes place in World War II. The newer versions mainly focus on modern warfare.

Back in 2010, the "Medal of Honor" was banned from the military due to multiplayer Taliban characters featured in the game. Just last month, seven Navy SEALs were charged and punished for releasing confidential information to EA during the making of "Medal of Honor: Warfighter." The seven Navy SEALs consist of two Senior Chief Special Operators and five Chief Special Operators, which all received letters of reprimand and a cut of half their pay for two months.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Motorola Mobility and China Mobile Blow Your Mind with Motorola MT788: Intel Inside® and Speed up to 2GHz

Instant Response to Your Every Command from the First Motorola Mobility Smartphone with an Intel® Atom™ Processor Available in China

BEIJING – November 19, 2012 – The world is running at full speed and you are setting the pace. What could be more helpful than a lightning-fast partner that responds instantly to your every request? Introducing Motorola MT788, the Android™-powered smartphone with Intel Inside®, brought to you by Motorola Mobility and China Mobile. The Motorola MT788's incredibly fast Intel Atom™ processor can achieve speeds of 2GHz, so you can jump from a game to a text message to a playlist to a Web browser without missing a beat.

"Motorola MT788 is the first smartphone in China to feature the Intel's fastest smartphone CPU," said Frank Meng, Senior Vice President and President of Greater China, Motorola Mobility. "The Motorola MT788 combines the expertise and passion of Motorola and Intel in a single device to bring people an amazingly fast and responsive mobile Internet experience."

"The launch of MT788 marks a great step toward forward in bringing the best of Intel computing to the smartphone," said Ian Yang, Intel corporate vice president and president of Intel China. "As the smartphone continues to become a vital part of people's lifestyles, our goal is to provide compelling technology options that translate into great user benefits and experiences. We believe that the new smartphone from Motorola and China Mobile delivers on this promise, and that people across China will enjoy the device."


The Instant Phone

Featuring the Intel's fastest smartphone CPU that can achieve speeds of 2GHz and Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), the Motorola MT788 instantly responds to your touch as you maneuver between apps, content and browsing. Load and view web pages in the blink of an eye and start and enjoy 3D games without any hesitation. With an instant-launch 8-megapixel camera you will never miss a precious moment.

When there's action and movement involved, multi-shot mode lets you snap ten pictures in less than a second and continuous shot allows you to take up to 30 pictures. With up to 12 modes of the camera, including HDR mode and Night Shot mode, you can create pictures that exceed your imagination even in challenging lighting conditions. And with 1080P video capture/playback, you are able to relive your memories in vivid high-definition at any time.

Thin and Fashionable

The Motorola MT788 features a stylish, sophisticated aluminum body created with an advanced manufacturing process that makes the phone surprisingly strong and thin. The expansive 4.3-inch display is protected by the latest Corning® Gorilla® Glass to withstand all kinds of bumps and scratches. Motorola MT788 comes in Licorice and Ultra White, so you can choose the model that reflects your personal style.

 Additional features include: TD-SCDMA 1880/2010, HSDPA; GSM (900/1800/1900), GPRS/EDGE Class 124.3-inch 960x540 qHD display4GB ROM1735 mAh battery for up to 170 hours of standby time*Intelligent shot modes to capture photos automatically when you are readyFront camera for video chatSmartActions™ for extending battery life and automating everyday tasksMotoSwitch user interface for ultimate device personalization

Availability

Starting from mid-December, Motorola MT788 is available through China Mobile stores across China and authorized Motorola resellers.


About Motorola Mobility

Motorola Mobility, owned by Google, fuses innovative technology with human insights to create experiences that simplify, connect and enrich people's lives. Our portfolio includes converged mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets; wireless accessories; end-to-end video and data delivery; and management solutions, including set-tops and data-access devices. For more information, visit motorola.com/mobility.


About Intel

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices. Additional information about Intel is available at newsroom.intel.com and blogs.intel.com.

* All talk and standby times are quoted in Digital Mode, and are approximate. Battery performance depends on network configuration, signal strength, operating temperature, features selected, and voice, data and other application usage patterns. Certain features, services and applications are network dependent and may not be available in all areas; additional terms, conditions and/or charges may apply. Contact your service provider for details. All features, functionality and other product specifications are subject to change without notice or obligation.

MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are registered trademarks of Motorola Trademark Holdings, LLC. Android is trademarks of Google, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2012 Motorola Mobility, Inc. All rights reserved.

Intel, Intel Atom and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.
* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 How a Great Company Approaches Innovation

How does Intel approach innovation?

By ALWAYS inventing something new. Mark Bohr, Senior Intel Fellow & Intel "Rock Star" was just interviewed by Industry Analyst Dan Hutcheson on this topic. The bottom line? We take ‘crazy’ ideas and turn them into reality a couple of decades later. View the video for highlights of how Intel overcame the challenges on the road to developing Intel's Tri-Gate transistors and how Moore's Law drives Intel innovation.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Cyber Monday Lives on with Intel AppUp® center!

 Black Friday and Cyber Monday may have come and gone, but "Cyber Week" continues with the following app deals from Intel AppUp® center. Produce and edit movies with Movie Studio 11, and enhance images and videos via Snagit 11. For both apps, share your creative results instantly on your website or blog. For more productivity, download System Mechanic®, the best-selling computer performance software that offers effective restoration and stability for your PC. Another resourceful tool is PDF Fusion, a solution that allows for easy PDF formatting and reviewing for personal and business use. Download these deals before December 2!

View the original article here

Read More...

0 2013 Technology Predictions for Asia

As this year comes to a close, Intel's executives take a look at 2013, predicting the technology trends that will impact Asia in the Year of the Snake. According to Intel, 2013 will see tightening connections between growing Asian populations. Organizations across Asia will become more nimble as they adopt cloud computing en-mass, sparking innovation that will be showcased throughout the world. Small and medium enterprises will experience explosive growth as governments work to stoke creativity and define goals through the promotion of education and entrepreneurialism.
View the original article here

Read More...

0 GraphBuilder Open Source Code Release

Intel released beta open source software, called GraphBuilder, to help data scientists in industry and academia to rapidly develop new applications that draw insights from Big Data. Developed by Intel Labs, GraphBuilder is the first scalable open source library to take large data sets and construct them into “Graphs,” web-like structures that outline relationships among data.

GraphBuilder is available for download at https://01.org/graphbuilder/under Apache 2 license. For additional details check out the GraphBuilder blog or whitepaper.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Intel Kicks off $1 Million Intel® Perceptual Computing Challenge

Developers can now enter the Intel® Perceptual Computing Challenge, a $1 million developer contest that runs throughout 2013. The Challenge has two phases, both promoting development of gaming, productivity, multi-modal, and creative UI  applications using the Intel Perceptual Computing SDK and Creative* Interactive Gesture Camera. A total of $185,000 in cash prizes are at stake in Phase 1, with $20,000 each going to the top four application prototypes. Winners will be announced in March 2013 and Phase 2 of the Challenge follows with over $800,000 in total prizes. Developers are encouraged to learn more about this exciting technology, download the SDK, and participate in both phases of the Challenge. Enter today!

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Tracking Santa, With a Little Help From That Brand New GPU

Got an NVIDIA GeForce GPU under the tree? You might want to unwrap that present early.
Every Christmas Eve, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) reports on the whereabouts of Santa Claus on “NORAD Tracks Santa,” at www.noradsanta.org, as the jolly elf makes his rounds delivering presents to the world’s children.

 

This year’s NORAD Santa Tracker was put together with some help from Analytical Graphics, Inc. (AGI), a 250-person company that develops analysis and visualization software for the aerospace, intelligence, and defense communities.

Patrick Cozzi, a senior software developer for AGI can’t say much about how NORAD uses his company’s software.

But he can talk about his firm’s role in NORAD’s Santa tracking efforts, which, for the record, rely on the same set of satellites, fighter jets, and powerful radar installations the joint U.S.-Canadian defense organization has used to monitor the airspace over North America since 1958.
That network is supplemented by ‘Santa Cams,’ that allow NORAD to offer an up-to-the- moment report on Santa’s movements to the world’s children.

No plugin required.

This Christmas Eve NORAD will rely on an open-source WebGL globe and map engine Cozzi and his colleagues started called ‘Cesium’ to show Santa’s whereabouts as he makes his rounds.
WebGL taps into GPUs to render images in a web page (for more details, see Cozzi’s detailed explanation, here). That allows NORAD to serve up maps with jaw-dropping realism. No special plugin required.
You won’t need dual GeForce GTX 680 GPUs, either. Even an aging GeForce 8800 GT will allow users to watch Santa’s progress on a 1280 by 1084 display at 55 frames per second, Cozzi says.
But if you want a present, you’ll still need to be nice. No matter what GPU you’re running.


View the original article here

Read More...

0 Assassin's Creed 3 Performance and IQ Review

Ubisoft performed several upgrades to the Anvil game engine, resulting in the AnvilNext engine. Assassin's Creed 3 will be the first game in the series to support DX11. Assassin's Creed 3 also supports NVIDIA's new TXAA technology, but will that be enough to make up for a lack of DX11 features like tessellation and ambient occlusion?

Assassin's Creed 3 is an action-adventure, open world, role playing game. This is the third game in the Assassin's Creed series. While each of the previous titles supported DirectX 9, AC3 is the first game in the series to run DX11. The game launched for Xbox 360 and PS3 on October 30th, 2012, but did not come out for PC until November 20th. This delay was to ensure that the PC version was not a poorly done console port. The extra time that was put in to the PC version improved the graphics of the game and polished it up for enthusiasts with high end hardware. Assassin's Creed 3 was developed and published by Ubisoft.

The main storyline in Assassin's Creed 3 takes place in the United States from 1753 to 1783. This game covers a long timeline which starts in 1753, two years before the American Revolutionary war began, and goes up to 1783 when the war ended. Players travel back in time to explore the early cities of Boston and New York. AC3 also supports multiplayer with over 12 modes available to play, and a new co-operative multiplayer mode where you work with a team to take out enemy NPC's.

Assassin's Creed 3 is the first game in the Assassin's Creed series that supports DirectX 11. This gives us something big to look at. There are two big ways that games can take advantage of DX11. The first way is just running the game with the DX11 API in order to improve the games performance. The second way would be to implement more demanding DX11 features such as advanced ambient occlusion, tessellation, and motion blur. If Assassin's Creed 3 follows the first one we will just see higher framerates on all video cards, without any need to lower or adjust graphics settings. We are hoping for heavy use of the the second option as well.

The game uses the AnvilNext game engine. Anvil was used for the first and second games in the series, but AnvilNext brings DX11 support with a few improvements. One of the most impressive things that AnvilNext can do is render large crowds, up to 2000 different characters, while the previous games can only render a few hundred. This engine also has support for weather cycling and a dynamic game world which changes itself over time. For instance, depending on what events are taking place in game settlements could appear or disappear.

Despite the fact that Assassin's Creed 3 runs on DX11, it does not support any of the extra features such as ambient occlusion and tessellation. In fact, there are only five available graphics settings in this game including resolution. Note that enabling all of the settings on "Normal" will deliver console-like graphics.

Environment Quality : This option can be enabled at normal, high, and very high. Aside from determining the quality of the environment, it also effects how far in the distance the environment and other objects begin to load. The higher the setting the farther off objects will begin to load. This setting has one of the largest performance impacts on gameplay. Users experiencing lots of lag with older graphics cards will want to lower this setting in order to get better performance.

Texture Quality : This setting can be enabled at normal or high. This will determine the overall quality of all textures in game. This will determine the quality of the textures that are rendered to the screen.

Shadow Quality : This setting has can be enabled at normal, high, and very high. This setting has a fair impact on performance. Enabling this graphics option at a lower setting may help gain a few FPS, but will have a noticeable impact on visual quality.

Antialiasing : This setting can be enabled at normal, high, and very high. These settings are the same as 2X, 4X, and 8X MSAA respectively. These settings have one of the largest impacts on performance in the game.

TXAA : In AC3, TXAA may be enabled or disabled. TXAA combines both traditional MSAA with FXAA to create a new level of aliasing. TXAA is supposed to deliver better image quality than 8X MSAA, while only having a performance cost of 4X MSAA and FXAA both enabled. We saw this AA technology in our Call of Duty: Black Ops II Performance and IQ Review.

Vertical Sync : This option is not directly in game. We had it turned off for all testing which allowed our video cards to go past 60 FPS. To turn it off navigate to c:/users/user/My Documents/Assassin's Creed 3/ then open the Assassin3.ini file and set vysnc to 0.

To test Assassin's Creed 3 we first played through the entire game. We looked for scenes, levels, or areas which produced lower framerates than others. Our run-through takes place on the mission "Johnson's Errand" in Sequence 2. The mission starts off outside of a British firing range and we have to infiltrate it to recover a stolen item. What makes this mission good is the plethora of enemies that we encounter during the run-through. The mission also takes place on the outskirts of Boston which has some of the lowest framerate gameplay in the entire game.

There are several houses, objects, and tons of vegetation during this run-through to push the video cards. This level pushes the video cards while throwing combat sequence after combat sequence at us. We stop our testing procedure once the mission ends and we are teleported back to the bar in Boston. The entire run-through takes around 7 minutes to complete. Our ideal framerate that delivers smooth enjoyable gameplay in Assassin's Creed 3 is 40 FPS.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Intel Delivers the World's First 6-Watt Server-Class Processor

Several Equipment Makers Building Microservers, Storage and Networking Systems Based on 64-bit Intel® Atom™ Processor S1200 Product Family
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

Intel® Atom™ processor S1200 server system on-chip hits lower-power levels, and includes key features such as error code correction, 64-bit support, and virtualization technologies required for use inside data centers.More than 20 low-power designs including microservers, storage and networking systems use the Intel Atom processor S1200 family.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 11, 2012 – Intel Corporation introduced the Intel® Atom™ processor S1200 product family today, delivering the world's first low-power, 64-bit server-class system-on-chip (SoC) for high-density microservers, as well as a new class of energy-efficient storage and networking systems. The energy-sipping, industrial-strength microprocessor features essential capabilities to achieve server-class reliability, manageability and cost effectiveness.

"The data center continues to evolve into unique segments and Intel continues to be a leader in these transitions," said Diane Bryant, vice president and general manager of the Datacenter and Connected Systems Group at Intel. "We recognized several years ago the need for a new breed of high-density, energy-efficient servers and other datacenter equipment. Today, we are delivering the industry's only 6-watt1 SoC that has key datacenter features, continuing our commitment to help lead these segments."

Intel's Next Generation of Microservers: The Real Thing

As public clouds continue to grow, the opportunity to transform companies providing dedicated hosting, content delivery or front-end Web servers are also growing. High density servers based on low-power processors are able to deliver the desired performance while at the same time significantly reduce the energy consumption – one of the biggest cost drivers in the data center. However, before deploying new equipment in data centers, companies look for several critical features.

The Intel Atom processor S1200 product family is the first low-power SoC delivering required data center features that ensure server-class levels of reliability and manageability while also enabling significant savings in overall costs. The SoC includes two physical cores and a total of four threads enabled with Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology2 (Intel® HT). The SoC also includes 64-bit support, a memory controller supporting up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, Intel® Virtualization Technologies (Intel® VT), eight lanes of PCI Express 2.0, Error-Correcting Code (ECC) support for higher reliability, and other I/O interfaces integrated from Intel chipsets. The new product family will consist of three processors with frequency ranging from 1.6GHz to 2.0GHz.

The Intel Atom S1200 product family is also compatible with the x86 software that is commonly used in data centers today. This enables easy integration of the new low-powered equipment and avoids additional investments in porting and maintaining new software stacks.

New Milestones in Power Efficiency

Intel continues to drive power consumption down in its products, enabling systems to be as energy efficient as possible. Each year since the 2006 introduction of low-power Intel® Xeon® processors, Intel has delivered a new generation of low-power processors that have decreased the thermal design power (TDP) from 40 watts in 2006 to 17 watts this year due to Intel's advanced 22-nanometer (nm) process technology. The Intel Atom processor S1200 product family is the first low-power SoC with server-class features offering as low as 6 watts1 of TDP.

Broad Industry Support

Today, more than 20 low-power designs including microservers, storage and networking systems use the Intel Atom processor S1200 processor family from companies including Accusys*, CETC*, Dell*, HP*, Huawei*, Inspur*, Microsan*, Qsan*, Quanta*, Supermicro* and Wiwynn*.
"Organizations supporting hyperscale workloads need powerful servers to maximize efficiency and realize radical space, cost and energy savings," said Paul Santeler, vice president and general manager, Hyperscale Business Unit, Industry-standard Servers and Software at HP. "HP servers power many of those organizations, and the Intel Atom processor S1200 will be instrumental as we develop the next wave of application-defined computing to dramatically reduce cost and energy use for our customers."

An Even Brighter Future

Intel is working on the next generation of Intel Atom processors for extreme energy efficiency codenamed "Avoton." Available in 2013, Avoton will further extend Intel's SoC capabilities and use the company's leading 3-D Tri-gate 22 nm transistors, delivering world-class power consumption and performance levels.
For customers interested in low-voltage Intel® Xeon® processor models for low-power servers, storage and networking, Intel will introduce the new Intel Xeon processor E3 v3 product family based on the "Haswell" microarchitecture next year. These new processors will take advantage of new energy-saving features in Haswell and provide balanced performance-per-watt, giving customers even more options.
 
Pricing and Availability

The Intel Atom processor S1200 is shipping today to customers with recommended customer price starting at $54 in quantities of 1,000 units.
More information on the announcement including Diane Bryant's presentation, additional documents and pictures are available at http://newsroom.intel.com/docs/DOC-3172.

About Intel

Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices. Additional information about Intel is available at newsroom.intel.com and blogs.intel.com.
Intel, Intel Xeon, Intel Atom and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.



View the original article here

Read More...

0 MSI Z77A-GD55 LGA 1155 Motherboard Review

This motherboard might be a bit off-the-radar for most enthusiasts since it is a bit "down the scale." However, if you want a lot of bang for your buck, then look no further than MSI's Z77A-GD55. While it's somewhat basic in features it's overclocking performance is stellar for the price, which is very value oriented.

MSI is a well known name and staple of the computer enthusiast motherboard market. MSI offers a wide range of products including, tablets, notebook computers cases, servers, graphics cards, and wireless networking hardware. Despite having such a wide range of products, MSI is best known for its motherboards. It has built a solid reputation over the years and it is among the go-to brands of choice for many enthusiasts. MSI tends to price its offerings more aggressively than some of its competitors while offering comparable feature sets. This is part of what attracts many people to MSI motherboards.

The MSI Z77A-GD55 is a Z77 Express chipset based motherboard designed for socket LGA1155 processors. The feature set for the motherboard as well as its model number places it in the low to midrange motherboard market. Despite being basic, it still has many features to offer. The motherboard has several MSI specific features to offer such as MSI's Military Class III design specifications, Click BIOS II, and OC Genie. Naturally a lot of that is marketing speak for features others have as well, such as UEFI and automatic overclocking, but MSI does have unique implementations of these features.
Among the more technical features of the motherboard are DrMOS II MOSFETs, Hi-c Caps, solid ferrite core chokes, solid electrolytic capacitors, and active phase switching. Additional features provided by the chipset are 4 SATA II 3Gb/s ports, 2 SATA III 6Gb/s ports, PCI-Express 3.0 and 2.0 support, SLI / CrossFireX support, and support for USB 3.0 devices.
Main Specifications Overview:

Detailed Specifications Overview:

The MSI Z77A-GD55 ships in the usual cardboard shipping container with decent box art. Our sample arrived damage free with all accessories accounted for. Inside the box is enough paper to tell you that at least one tree was harmed in the making of this motherboard. You get a software manual, user guide, certificate of MIL-STD-810G qualification, quick installation guide, Windows XP installation guide note, and a paper sleeve for the driver disc. There are also more stickers stuck to the motherboard when you first open the box than there are under the hood of your average Fast & Furious fan's Honda. Beyond that you get the driver disc, M-connector, SLI bridge, SATA cables, and an I/O shield.

The layout of the Z77A-GD55 is good. The only thing I question here is the extremely poor placement of the CMOS battery, which will most likely end up tucked underneath your video card once installed. Also I just realized that the bottom PCI-Express x16 slot card retention tab doesn't match the others, which is likely nitpicking, but I do find it bothersome.
The CPU socket is clear of any major obstructions and though the MOSFET coolers are fairly beefy these shouldn't pose a problem. The DIMM slots are too close but that's nothing new. Everyone has the same issue but that comes with the territory on LGA1155 boards or any board which is compatible with CPUs that use an integrated memory controller.

There are four DDR3 DIMM slots which are correctly color coded to indicate proper dual channel mode operation. Furthermore these are free and clear of the primary PCI-Express x16 slot so installation of memory modules won't require removing the video card. This simple thing is often taken for granted but trust me it will upset you off if it's done wrong.
The Z77 Express chipset is a unified chipset and as a result the north bridge is actually located in the area where the south bridge used to be located and still is on some boards. It is cooled by a flat, passive heat sink which has a low enough profile to avoid expansion card clearance issues. It is also directly behind the board's 6 SATA ports, which are all properly right angled for your convenience and eliminate further clearance issues.

The expansion slot area is done well aside from the ridiculous location of the CMOS battery. This requires you to remove the primary graphics card to remove the battery, if you happen to have a dual slot video card installed, which is spreading to lower and lower price brackets every generation. Many people won't keep their board's long enough to ever replace these batteries so this is most likely not a deal breaker for a lot of enthusiasts, but the problem comes when you have to pull it to reset the CMOS, which is a problem that we did not run into.

The rear I/O panel area is packed with about as many ports as it can be. It contains the following ports: 1 PS/2 keyboard or mouse port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 1 clear CMOS button, 1 S/PDIF out, 1 optical out, 1 RJ-45 port, 1 HDMI port, 1 DSUB port, 1 DVI-D port and finally 6 mini-stereo jacks.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Samsung 840 Series TLC 250GB SSD Review

Samsung leads the way by introducing the world's first SSD equipped with TLC NAND into the market. The Samsung 250GB 840 Series SSD looks to shake up the market by providing an excellent dollar-to-performance ratio by leveraging low cost NAND and the high-powered MDX controller. Does its performance equal the value expectation?

Samsung's release of the 840 Series takes the innovative approach of releasing the world's first TLC Triple Level Cell) NAND-equipped SSD. TLC brings with it many advantages, but a few notable disadvantages as well.

TLC stores three bits per cell, giving it higher density than MLC (two bits per cell) and SLC (one bit per cell), but also suffers lower write speeds and endurance as a direct result of the increased three bits per cell.
One of the primary reasons for the development and integration of TLC NAND into the market is the huge price decreases that it is expected to bring along with it. NAND is the most expensive component on SSDs, even though the price of NAND has been falling exponentially.

In 2010, customers were paying $3 a GB for capacity on SSDs, but today this has stabilized to $1 per GB on average, with sales and good deals netting prices of 80-90 cents per GB after mail in rebates and other incentives. There have even been several instances where customers have been able to pick up previous generation SSDs for under 60 cents per GB.

The price of NAND has been falling for several reasons; one of these being the process shrinks as the technology matures and simply requires less silicon. Each process shrink brings about an incremental drop in prices as the density increases.

Even with these decreases in cost, the average large capacity SSD still costs up to nine times more than a comparable capacity HDD. It will surely be some time before we will witness commoditization of SSDs, but assuredly, it will happen. The day will come when a user will walk into a big box store such as Fry's Electronics or Best Buy and every pre-built computer will be sporting a Solid State Drive.

This is the central motivation for the impending explosion of TLC NAND into the SSD market. Once TLC NAND is implemented in mass production the prices should drop tremendously for the value segment, while MLC will continue to dominate the performance-driven upper end.
As the larger OEMs transition to mass TLC production, with the NAND foundries chugging away, the price of NAND should fall further. 

TLC NAND brings with it lower write speed and lower endurance. This brings about the need to combat these eventualities with more refined firmwares, error correction, and enhanced NAND management techniques. Low write speeds for an SSD still enjoy a tremendous latency advantage over HDDs, and with low percentages of write activity in mixed read/write workloads the NAND can still produce enough speed to provide the large majority of users with more than enough speed.

The most concern comes from the reduced endurance of TLC. A few short years ago NAND management techniques simply were not sophisticated enough to squeeze enough endurance out of the product to create a viable solution. The typical expected life span of a consumer SSD is 5 years, and meeting that goal has always been the real hurdle that TLC needed to overcome to begin its widespread use.

Samsung pairs own TLC NAND with its powerful triple core MDX controller, which provides enough processing power to extract the desired performance characteristics from the NAND in both performance and endurance. After our review of the Samsung 840 Pro it is hard not to be impressed with the overall performance of the MDX controller. With the MDX controller and Samsung's firmware implementation producing enough horsepower to dominate the steady state testing in a large field of competitors, it will be interesting to test the performance of the new Samsung 840 Series featuring its TLC NAND and see if Samsung has delivered another winner.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 Hitman Absolution Performance and IQ Review

Hitman: Absolution is one of a few games this winter to support completely implemented DX11 features. Tessellation, global illumination, and ambient occlusion are all utilized using the new Glacier 2 game engine. We see how a variety of video cards perform in Hitman: Absolution, and what is needed to get the most out of the game.

Hitman: Absolution is the fifth game in the Hitman series. It is a third person, action-adventure and stealth game that follows the story of Agent 47, and continues his story where the previous game left off. We follow him across the United States and England as he carries out his most dangerous contract yet. Players will have the freedom of choice to decide whether to creep through the shadows or rush shooting everything up. The games AI will react accordingly. Players will also have a huge variety of disguises that can be used to impersonate others or blend in with your surroundings. Hitman: Absolution has both single player and multiplayer gameplay.

The Glacier 2 game engine was designed from the ground up in Hitman: Absolution, and allows players to enable DX11 graphics options like ambient occlusion, tessellation, and global illumination. We are hoping to see that this game will push our hardware, perhaps even harder than we think. The video card industry needs a reason to advance and improve it's hardware, and this may be the game that delivers that reason. Hitman: Absolution is developed by IO Interactive and Nixxes Software and published by Square-Enix. The game was released on November 20th, 2012.

MSAA : This setting can be enabled at 2X, 4X, and 8X MSAA. The higher the level that anti-aliasing is set to, the less aliasing will be noticeable on objects. This setting has the single largest performance cost, especially when going from 4X MSAA to 8X MSAA.

SSAO : This setting can be enabled at high, normal, or it can be disabled. This will determine the quality of ambient occlusion lighting shadows on all objects in game. The higher the level of SSAO, the darker and more realistic shadows you will have in game. This setting has a large impact on performance.
Bloom : This setting can be enabled at normal and low, or it can be disabled. This setting determines the amount of light that is reflected off of objects. Higher levels will produce more light reflection, while lower settings remove the "glowing" effect.

Depth of Field : This setting can be enabled at low, medium, high, or it can be disabled. This setting determines how far in to the distance we are able to see. The setting is misleading in the menu however, which is why we are mentioning it here. Selecting "off" provides the best image with the farthest view possible. Both low and medium add a slight blur to the background, while the blur from high makes objects unrecognizable.




Hitman: Absolution also features several DX11 graphics options, with more information below coming from the "AMD Hitman: Absolution Benchmark Guide." These are the graphics settings we will be focusing on, which have the greatest impact on image quality and performance.

MSAA and FXAA support

Most games that use a deferred rendering engine only support shader based antialiasing techniques like FXAA. While screen space techniques are fast and do a good job when it comes to smoothing the edges of large objects a lot of information about the scene geometry is already lost at that point of the render pipeline. The advantage of MSAA is that it generates sub pixel information, and enables better even anti-aliasing of artifacts caused by small, thin or distant objects.

Real-time Global Illumination

In addition to the complex lighting already implemented in the Console versions, IO Interactive and Nixxes have gone one step further and added support for Real-time Global Illumination in the PC version. To achieve this, the engine renders a Reflective Shadow Map (RSM) of the scene, taken from the point of view of the Sun containing Position, Normal and Diffuse Color. The engine then injects this data into a volume texture where the lighting information is being propagated to simulate the light being bounced from between the objects in the scene. Finally this volume is used in a separate lighting pass to illuminate the scene with indirect lighting. The result of this is much smoother and more realistic lighting and a stunning improvement in visual quality.

Direct Compute accelerated Bokeh Depth of Field

On top of Hitman Absolution implementing depth of field, the PC version features a much more realistic and visually interesting depth of field by using direct compute to simulate the effect caused by inter-lens reflection of very bright out-of focus objects.

Direct Compute Accelerated Ambient Occlusion

When objects are located close to each other, the amount of light that can reach the surface of an object is reduced. While many games have been simulating this effect by applying algorithms like AMDs HDAO, Nixxes decided to take it a step further and create a proprietary direct compute based algorithm which combines the ideas behind the most widely used ambient occlusion algorithms to one proprietary high quality, high performance technique.

Tessellation for smooth character silhouettes

Hitman Absolution uses hardware tessellation on Characters to generate a perfectly smooth silhouette and achieve a much more natural and realistic look.

To test Hitman: Absolution we first played through the entire game. We looked for scenes, levels, or areas which produced lower framerates than others. Our run-through takes place on the mission "Run for Your Life." The main reason we chose this level is because it incorporates all DX11 features, as well as demanding environment features like fire, rain, and wind. The mission starts off inside of a burning hotel. We have to get out of the room and shimmy along the side of a skyscraper in the rain with helicopters chasing us.

We then scale our way to the top of the building while debris from the buildings large sign is falling to pieces. At the top of the building we take out a few guards and proceed through the library on the top floor. After taking out several police we continue to the exit. When we leave the building a helicopter shows up that we have to avoid by using cover to hide from it. When we escape the helicopter we stop our testing procedure. The entire run through takes between 5 and 6 minutes to complete. Our ideal framerate that delivers smooth and enjoyable gameplay in Hitman: Absolution is 40 FPS.

View the original article here

Read More...

0 PowerColor DEVIL13 HD7990 Video Card Review

PowerColor has beaten AMD to the punch with its own creation of a dual-GPU Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX solution in a single video card package. We evaluate this awe inspiring video card and of course overclock it to its highest potential. We put it up against the best GTX 680 SLI solution also overclocked, all with the latest drivers.

Once in a while a video card comes along, that despite its price, makes you want to have it your system as a hardware or gaming enthusiast. The new PowerColor DEVIL13 HD7990 (part number: AX7990 6GBD5-A2DHJ) is one of those video cards.

Despite the "HD7990" in the product name, this is not what people would assume would be AMD's official dual-GPU 7970 on a single printed circuit board (PCB) video card called the HD 7990. The DEVIL13 is a custom built video card designed and manufactured by PowerColor that brings a unique product to the market place that did not exist before. While AMD has not provided any official information or even a hint of a dual-GPU video card to combat the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690, PowerColor has come along and filled this gap and beat AMD to the punch.

The PowerColor DEVIL13 HD7990 is a single video card, one printed circuit board containing two Radeon HD 7970 GPUs on board along with 3GB of memory per GPU. This is essentially Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX in a single video card package, instead of two separate video cards. If AMD were to come along with a solution such as this, as it has done in the past, it makes sense it would be called the Radeon HD 7990, based on past product names. However, PowerColor has built its own "HD7990" and branded it the "DEVIL13."

What makes this video card very special is that nothing on it is gimped. You are getting two fully specified Radeon HD 7970 GPUs with the same shader count, the same clock speed, the same memory bandwidth, and the same memory capacity. Now, these are not "Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition" GPUs, but that can easily be overcome by overclocking as we will explain. Still, this is essentially two very real Radeon HD 7970 video cards combined into one package.

This is not going to come cheap; the one downside to this video card is the high $999 MSRP asking price. Yes, the DEVIL13 is a $1000 dollar video card. We can argue if it really is worth $999 considering you can buy two separate Radeon HD 7970 video cards for less. It is a very important point, and we will discuss that in the conclusion after our testing.

Let's talk about the specific clock frequencies. This video card, similar to the entire Radeon HD 7000 lineup, supports AMD's dual-BIOS feature. PowerColor has utilized this BIOS switching feature to provide two different operating clock frequencies for this video card. Instead of using the default switch atop the video card, as other Radeon HD 7000 series based video cards, PowerColor has invented a special "Turbo" button on the backside of the video card that is easily accessible with the video card installed in the system. You will easily be able to reach around to the back of your computer and switch between the two clock frequency modes without having to take a panel off your case.


The default mode of this video card runs with the button in the "out" position (not lit up). In this mode, the frequency of both GPUs runs at 925MHz, this is the default frequency of regular Radeon HD 7970 video cards of the non-GHz Edition variety. With one press of this button in the "in" position (with the button lit up) the frequency of each GPU is increased to 1000MHz (1GHz). Along with the frequency boost also comes a voltage boost to keep everything stable.




With both GPUs operating at 1GHz with the Turbo button enabled, these are now operating at the core clock frequency of "GHz Edition" Radeon HD 7970 GPUs. However, these aren't running at the 1050MHz of the boost clock of that series. At only 50MHz shy, you can easily manually overclock to 1050MHz with both GPUs and maintain the exact same performance as Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition CrossFireX on a single video card. We tested this, and it was stable.

All of the other specifications remain exactly the same as the Radeon HD 7970 or 7970 GHz Edition. The memory all run at 1375MHz (5.5GHz) on a 384-bit memory bus, and there is 3GB of RAM available to each GPU. That means in total there is a whopping 6GB of memory installed on this one video card. Though as we know CrossFireX cannot utilize all of this memory in one pool, it operates as if there were 3GB available, specific to each GPU. On board this video card is also a PLX chip that bridges the gap, literally, between the GPUs and provides the necessary PCI-Express lanes. The video card itself supports PCIe 3.0 when you plug it in. CrossFireX is hardwired between the GPUs, and is enabled by default when you install the drivers.

The PowerColor DEVIL13 HD7990 comes in a big black box, well secured and layered in goodies inside. The box is sealed by wax which has the DEVIL13 logo imprinted into the wax. When the two inner flaps are opened there are two chambers in the first layer. There is a "recovery chamber" and an "equipment chamber" on the first layer.

Opening the recovery chamber reveals a full Wiha Interchangeable System 6 toolset. It certainly will make building computers easier with the interchangeable tools. Also in the recovery chamber is PowerColor's Power Jack system, which allows you to prop up heavy video cards on the back end in your case. Important here because this video card is quite hefty.

Finally, in the equipment chamber we find the drivers and accessories. PowerColor is including three 6-pin to 8-pin power connectors, since this video card requires three 8-pin connectors. You will also find a mini-Display Port to Display Port cable. There is also a mini-Display Port to single-link DVI adapter. A DVI dongle and CrossFireX cable are also included. This video card does support Quad-GPU CrossFireX with a second DEVIL13.

When you take out the first layer of the box, the second layer reveals the awe inspiring video card. The video card itself measures a full 12 inches in length. The PCB however is a bit shorter, at eleven and a half inches, the heatsink sticks out another half an inch to make it exactly 12 inches total. The video card will take up three full slots in your computer. The video card has a height of 4.5 inches, so make sure there is room from where you screw it down on the connector panel to the panel of your case.

There are three large fans that exhaust the air out the back. Two copper plates sit atop each GPU, and there are a total of 5 heatpipes per heatsink, for a total of 10 heatpipes in the design overall. The entire video card is covered in a shroud and feels solid in your hands. The back is completely covered with a heat plate that also makes contact using pads to memory and components. The MOSFETs also have heatsinks to help keep them cool and this video card uses a 12+2+2 Power phase with digital PWM.

On the display side of things this video card has two mini-Display Ports, one HDMI 1.4 port, one dual-link DVI-I port and one single-link DVI-D port. The single-link DVI-D port can only support up to 1920x1200 DVI or 2048x1536 VGA. The dual-link DVI-I connector supports 2560x1600. Both Display Port and HDMI connectors support 4096x2160. The DEVIL13 can output to all five connectors at once, for a 5 display setup. In fact, this video card supports 3-way and 5-way Eyefinity.

Three 8-pin power connectors are required, and the recommended power supply is no less than 850W.
Installed in the system, it takes up quite a lot of space and extends well past our motherboard. The video card is sitting right on top of the SATA connector ports on this motherboard. While it is sitting on these, it didn't impede us from making full contact in the PCI-Express slot, so it wasn't an issue.

When the button on the back is pressed in, it lights up red and this indicates the Turbo clock speeds are enabled. Also on the back of the video card are LEDs which indicate the power phases being uses. In full gaming, you'll see all of these lit up most of the time.

As you can see, we have enabled Eyefinity with one DVI connector and two Display Port connectors without any issue. If anyone is wondering if moving Windows between the displays with the DVI and Display Port still causes tearing, yes it does. Moving windows between the two Display Port displays doesn't have this tearing. However, while it is something noticeable in Windows, on the desktop, we never noticed any tearing between the displays while gaming.

View the original article here

Read More...