2011 SHOULD HOPEFULLY prove to be a big year for AMD, as it’s the year when its Fusion platform will launch and it seems like the company is already having high hopes for its new platform, so let’s hope it delivers. We’re not sure that AMD is aiming for the right market though, as it seems like at least some forces within AMD want to stick Fusion in a slate, or rather, tablet device.
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THE SUPER HIGH-END motherboard market doesn’t seem to have an upper limit when it comes to slots, features and gimmicks, and MSI’s latest model, the Big Bang XPower is no exception to that rule. Some of you might be disappointed to know that it doesn’t feature Lucid’s Hydra chip, but on the other hand, it doesn’t have an nForce 200 chip either, yet it has no less than six PCI Express x16 slots.
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IT’S JUST OVER a month until Computex kicks off in Taipei, but we’re already starting to see some early announcements of new products that will be launched at the show. Shuttle is getting ready to launch its second X58 based XPC, although the new model is getting support for Intel’s 6-core Core i7 980X Gulftown CPU, as well as a new chassis. The company is also readying a one litre slim-line Atom system with ION2 graphics.
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MANY WERE DISAPPOINTED by the statement from HTC saying that it had no interest in Palm, but likely just as many were surprised at HP’s announcement that it will purchase Palm. Although HP is one of the longest running Windows Mobile supporters, it now seems like HP has found itself a custom OS to run on its handheld devices in the shape of Palm’s WebOS. The question now is what we can expect to see from HP in terms of devices running Palm’s WebOS.
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THE OFFICIALL WORD has finally made its way out from Nvidia in the shape of an interview with Drew Henry, the general manager for the MCP business unit at Nvidia. There are some very interesting comments in the interview and among other things he claims that Nvidia is happy with the Fermi yields.
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HERE’S A BIZZARE turn of events. HTC has agreed to pay Microsoft royalties to be able to run Android on its devices. Yes, you read that correctly, Microsoft has somehow figured that Android infringes some of its patents, most likely to do with Windows Mobile, and HTC has decided to pay up rather than risk a lengthy lawsuit.
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THE 800-SERIES CHIPSETS from AMD have by now been officially launched and it looks like AMD has managed to drum up some good support from the motherboard manufacturers, at least if the wealth of new boards available is anything to go by. We attended a press conference at Gigabyte earlier today, and although Gigabyte’s line-up isn’t quite as extensive as Asus’, the company still seems to have a pretty solid range of boards.
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THERE WAS A story at Digitimes about a week ago about ASMedia, an Asus subsidiary getting ready to launch its own USB 3.0 host controller, which went on to suggest that Asus was getting ready to move away from NEC/Renesas and go with its controller instead. We can now confirm that Asus is indeed going to start implementing the ASMedia controller on some of its upcoming motherboard models.
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IF YOU’RE a regular SemiAccurate reader, you’ll most likely have read about Gigabyte’s On/Off Charge feature. Well, Asus is readying its own version called Ai Charge, although it seems to have some slight differences from what we understand compared to Gigabyte’s On/Off Charge for Apple devices.
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EARLIER TODAY ASUS revealed its AMD 800-chipset range of motherboards and unleashed no less than 12 different models based on the 880G, 870, 890GX and 890FX chipsets, well, that’s if you don’t count the ROG board. There actually was also a 14th board, but it wasn’t using an AMD chipset, yet we’ll give you what we’ve got on that board, too, towards the end of what is a very picture rich coverage of today’s event.
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AN UNCONFIRMED RUMOUR about Nvidia’s third GF100 based card has appeared on a German website, stating that the new card should launch on the first day of Computex. It’s said to be called the GeForce GTX460, but it looks set to be quite different from the two models that Nvidia has launched so far.
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ONE PROBLEM THAT many owners of Apple’s iPad have found – if they don’t own a recent Apple computer that is – is that it only charges from a USB port when it’s switched off. Even so, it only trickle charges, just like Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. Well, a solution is at hand from Gigabyte, as the company has just announced its new on/off charge feature and we got an early look at it.
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YOU MIGHT NEVER have heard of a company called HuperLab and we’re not going to hold that against you, but HuperLab is one of the biggest OEM/ODM solution providers of PC based DVR solutions and “intelligent video surveillance systems”. The company has now teamed up with ASRock to create a couple of custom DVR motherboards with some unusual features.
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AN INFAMOUS ENTHUSIAST at XtremeSystems called “JCornell” has posted what seems to be the first information about Intel’s next generation processor codenamed Sandy Bridge. Sandy Bridge is Intel’s 32nm tock and is essentially a Clarkdale 32nm CPU with the 45nm GMCH shrunken to 32nm and merged onto the CPU die. Thats right, while AMD has been talking a lot about fusion for half a decade, Intel seems to be getting there first.
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IT’S BEEN NEARLY a year since Asus quickly refuted that it was going to launch a smartbook after it had shown off a product carrying the Eee PC brand at Computex last year, but it seems like HP will be the first company out of the gate with its Compaq AirLife 100 smartbook. It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, so no; this isn’t the first Tegra based smartbook either.
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