IntegratedGraphics
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Samsung's Ion-infused N510 netbook steeply priced across the pond
€499. $717. Or three easy payments of €171 ($246). That's the price folks in Europe are being asked to pony up for Samsung's admittedly svelte 11.6-inch N510 netbook. As one of the largest netbooks in its class, this machine -- which can purportedly last for around 6.5 hours under ideal circumstances -- also packs NVIDIA's Ion technology, but a sluggish Atom N280 is still manning the ship. If you'll recall, we actually heard that this here rig would surface sometime this summer, but it looks as if those orders may end up pushed to September. Anyone care to place a pre-order? Or are you more interested in those "real laptops" for just north of seven Benjamins?[Via Blogeee]
AMD's integrated 785G graphics platform review roundup
It's mildly hard to believe that AMD's DirectX 10-compatible 780 Series motherboard GPU was introduced well over a year ago now, but the long awaited successor has finally landed. This fine morning, a gaggle of hardware sites around the web have taken a look at a number of AMD 785G-equipped mainboards, all of which boast integrated Radeon HD 4200 GPUs, support for AMD's AM3 processors and a price point that's downright delectable (most boards are sub-$100). Without getting into too much detail here in this space, the general consensus seems to be that the new platform is definitely appreciated, but hardly revolutionary. It fails to destroy marks set by the 780G, and it couldn't easily put NVIDIA's GeForce 9300 to shame. What it can do, however, is provide better-than-average HD playback, making it a prime candidate for basic desktop users and even HTPC builders. For the full gamut of opinions, grab your favorite cup of joe and get to clickin' below.Read - HotHardware reviewRead - The Tech Report reviewRead - Tom's Hardware reviewRead - PC Perpective reviewRead - Hardware Zone reviewRead - Hexus review
AMD's RS880 integrated graphics chip could make netbooks usable
Tired of hearing that your next favorite netbook / nettop is hamstrung with one of those woefully underpowered GMA950 graphics chipsets? Eager to see what all AMD is going to do about it? If The Inquirer is to be believed, an up and coming integrated chipset should elevate the multimedia prowess of low-end machines, as the RS880 would actually be based around the new Radeon HD 4200 core. In theory, at least, this chip would be around 15 percent faster than similar alternatives out there now, giving future netbooks just enough power to churn through 720p video without st, st, stuttering. Needless to say, the suits are refusing to comment on the matter, but we're definitely holding out hope for this one.
AMD's ATI Radeon E4690 brings HD, DirectX 10.1 support to embedded GPU arena
AMD's newfangled ATI Radeon E4690 may not be the next Crysis killer, but it should do just fine in next-gen arcade and slot machines. All kidding aside (sort of...), this new embedded graphics set is said to triple the performance of AMD's prior offerings in the field, bringing with it 512MB of GDDR3 RAM, DirectX 10.1 / OpenGL 3.0 support and hardware acceleration of H.264 and VC-1 high-definition video. The 35mm chip also differentiates itself by integrating directly onto motherboards and taking on many of the tasks that are currently assigned to the CPU, but alas, it doesn't sound as if we'll be seeing this in any nettops / netbooks anytime soon ever. Video after the break.
S3 crams DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI onto $70 Chrome 540 GTX
While the future seems bright for DisplayPort, it's still tough to find a GPU out there with a DisplayPort socket -- and the search becomes increasingly difficult when hunting one down that's affordable. Enter S3, who is expanding its Chrome 500 series with the Chrome 540 GTX. Hailed as the "world's most connected high-def card," this PCI Express card boasts 256MB of GDDR3 memory, compatibility with DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3.0, support for Blu-ray playback and a trifecta of interfaces: DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. The best part? It comes bundled with WinDVD 8 for BD playback and can be procured today for the low, low price of $69.95.
Microsoft disses Hybrid SLI and CrossFire, won't support them in Windows 7
We're expecting a ton of new laptops to support hybrid graphics thanks to chipsets like NVIDIA's soon-to-be-ubiquitous GeForce 9400M, but Microsoft isn't as enamored with hybrid graphics as most everyone else seems to be -- it says it won't be natively supporting them in Windows 7. In a just-released document titled Guidelines for Graphics in Windows 7, the company discourages manufacturers from shipping systems with hybrid graphics like ATI's CrossFire and NVIDIA's Hybrid SLI, claiming they're "unstable and provide a poor user experience." Oh, snap. One less reason to install Windows 7 on your MacBook Pro, eh wot?
GeForce 9400M to hit notebooks from five major vendors, mock Intel
Now that NVIDIA's GeForce 9400M has made its debut in Apple's new MacBooks, Technical Marketing Director Nick Stam says that five major notebook vendors are planning to ship systems with the chipset -- though we don't know if that includes Apple or not. Stam expects NVIDIA will carve out 30 percent of the integrated graphics market for itself, partly by improving other experiences besides games -- Google Earth, photo editing, day-to-day video encoding, and other activities performed by people who use keys besides W, A, S, and D. Frankly, we're just thankful we've evolved past the days when we needed a 19-inch monster to perform high-impact 3D tasks without sacrificing to the sinister gods of screen tearing.
CE-Oh no he didn't! Part LVIII: NVIDIA CEO doesn't know what Larrabee is, doesn't care
NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang just can't resist throwing more jabs at Intel, distracting the inaugural NVISION crowd from Battlestar Galactica star Tricia Helfer with the claim that "Larrabee hasn't shipped so you don't know what it is and I don't know what it is." The fact that we do know what it is -- a next-gen hybrid CPU / GPU -- shouldn't be a concern according to Huang, because "By the time it does ship, Nvidia's technology will be so far advanced it won't matter." Besides stuffing Usain Bolt-type speed into a GPU the company will keep busy working on its WinMo smartphone hardware, and software for the not-exactly-Atom-killing VIA Nano, but forget about that rumored x86-compatible hardware 'cuz, as Jen-Hsun reminds us, "the Internet doesn't run on x86." For a company that lacks innovation, is "a joke," and at least four years behind, Intel must be doing something right, because the competition can't keep its name out of their mouths.
Intel brings DirectX 10 to integrated graphics, NVIDIA says not so fast
Intel has been boasting of DirectX 10 support for its various integrated graphics options for some time now, but it's only just recently gotten around to actually releasing a Vista driver that brings its GM965 and G35 Express chipsets up to speed. Of course, NVIDIA just couldn't help itself from getting a few (more) digs in at Intel's expense, and it's now kindly provided a few benchmarks to show just how badly Intel's integrated DirectX 10 solution stacks up against the bleeding-edge DirectX 10-ready games it now ostensibly supports. They couldn't find a single game that was able to crank out more than 5 fps, even at a lowly 1280 x 1024 resolution and with the usual graphics intensive settings turned off. Then again, 4.4 fps in Crysis is pretty much par for the course.Read - Crave, "Intel updates graphics with multimedia capabilities"Read - Hardware Secrets, "Are Intel chipsets really capable of running DirectX 10 games?"
NVIDIA continues to hate on Intel, promises sub-$45 integrated chipset
Following up yesterday's trash talk with a little action, NVIDIA has disclosed plans to create a sub-$45 processing platform which the GPU-maker is calling, "The World's Most Affordable Vista Premium PC." The architecture will combine VIA's Isaiah processor with an integrated NVIDIA graphics chipset, which the company claims outperforms Intel's Celeron-based, 945 IGP/ICH4 setup handily. Apparently, the combo is capable of 36 GFLOPS versus Intel's 6.4GFLOPS -- which we shouldn't have to tell you is a ton of GFLOPS. We're excited about the prospect of better performance in an integrated chipset (we've all suffered at the hands of the GMA950), but we don't want to see this end in a back-alley knife fight. Keep your cool, guys.
CE-Oh no he didn't! Part LV: NVIDIA boss says "We're going to open a can of whoop-ass" on Intel
Looks like Intel's plans to enter the graphics space in a big way with its Nehalem and Larrabee lines strike NVIDIA CEO Jen Hsun-Huang as being rather foolish -- in a conference call with analysts today, Huang said Intel's integrated graphics offerings were "a joke," and that even a tenfold increase in performance would put them behind NVIDIA's current products. Huang didn't stop there, saying that NVIDIA was "going to open a can of whoop-ass," and that while Intel's graphics chips were fine for running Office, they would never cut it for gamers and other demanding users. Huang kept going, responding to questions about all those driver-related Vista crashes by saying that NVIDIA had to support new games weekly while Intel's chips aren't ever put to the test. Actually, that's toning it down a bit -- what Huang actually said was "You already have the right machine to run Excel. You bought it four years ago... How much faster can you render the blue screen of death?" Yeah, them's fightin' words -- you going to sit there and take it, Intel? [Thanks, Mike A.]
NVIDIA to announce Intel-compliant integrated graphics chips
The latest development in the soap opera that is the PC components industry sees NVIDIA expanding beyond its usual focus on AMD systems to offer new integrated graphics solutions designed for Intel-based desktops. Reuters reports that the upcoming GeForce 7050, 7100, and 7150 will be compatible with current and upcoming Intel chips, ship in machines priced from $400 to $600, and are said to "give the performance of an entry-level separate graphics processor unit" -- a claim we'll be interested to see tested. Now that NVIDIA is taking direct aim at the world's largest chipmaker, we wouldn't be at all surprised to see Intel strike back in the discrete graphics space -- and then it doesn't take much to imagine NVIDIA retaliating once again by whipping up its own line of CPUs, does it?
AMD's 690 chipset put through its paces
AMD has some high hopes for its 690 chipset, the first to bring those in-house ATI graphics to bear on an integrated setup, and supposedly destined to leapfrog Intel in the budget space. After some substantial delays, they've finally got it out the door, and now bit-tech.net has put the chipset through its paces. Perks like HDMI 1.3 with HDCP, integrated TV encoder and dual discrete displays make the chipset plenty lovable off the bat, but unfortunately the graphics aren't going to blow anyone away. The folks at bit-tech found a few high-end games playable at a paltry 640 x 480 resolution -- games that wouldn't even run on the minimal integrated graphics from Intel -- but it's clear that if you want a truly modern gaming experience, you're still going to need to spring for a PCI-Express card. General performance was pretty comparable to Intel offerings, but what has bit-tech especially excited is the prospect of this sort of integrated tech making into ultraportable laptops, and the Intel processor-based chipsets that AMD is promising as well.
Intel's Crestline integrated graphics to run DirectX 10
It's an utterly inevitable upgrade to Intel's ubiquitous integrated graphics mobile chipsets, but we're still pleased to hear that it's coming sooner rather than later. TG Daily has learned that Intel's upcoming GM965 Crestline chipset, the core of the "Santa Rosa" platform, is indeed DirectX 10 compatible. It was already a bit of a surprise that some integrated graphics chips could handle Vista's Aero, but DirectX 10 implies a level of performance that should considerably exceed what we've seen in integrated laptop graphics previously. Naturally, we're not expecting much in the way of Crysis-level accomplishments (pictured), but that game is only the most visible of what are sure to be many more DirectX 10 games and apps in the future. The most recent word is that the chipset should be making its debut in May, with four FSB800 processors in tow: the 1.8GHz T7100, 2.0GHz T7300, 2.2GHz T7500 and 2.4GHz T7600. A couple of low-voltage versions should show up soon after that.
AMD and ATI finally tie the knot, embark on "Fusion" honeymoon
We all knew it was just a matter of time, but AMD has finally completed its $5.4 billion acquisition of ATI, after jumping through all the necessary regulatory and shareholder hoops. They sure aren't wasting any time, either. The newly joined pair is taking this special moment to announce their upcoming -- and totally expected -- integrated platforms, which should debut in 2007 and will present a rough equivalent to Intel's integrated offerings. However, the new AMD also has a new "Fusion" technology in the works which goes quite a bit beyond regular old integrated graphics. The "new class of x86 processor" integrates the CPU and GPU at the silicon level, supposedly allowing for better performance-per-watts and all other kinds of good times. This sort of "modular" processing has a lot of potential, and we should be seeing Fusion-based products in late 2008 or early 2009. The chips are supposed to make it into everything from laptops to desktops to servers, and could provide a delightful twist to the AMD vs. Intel wars everybody is gearing up for.[Via Randomly Accessed]
Intel targeting home media users with Bearlake G+ chipset
It's a little short on exact details, but Intel has released some details of the roadmap of their chipsets and motherboard designs. The line of interest to us at HD Beat is the Bearlake G+, which contains some built-in capabilities for HDTV decoding and display. It contains designs for an integrated video chipset on the motherboard, and should support hardware encryption and decoding of VC-1 and MPEG-4 AVC, as well as Intel's High Definition Audio. So if you get a computer with this chipset on the motherboard, rather than having to buy an nVidia, ATI, or other third-party card to get hardware video playback decoding for your HDTV, you can pick up one of the Media Series from Intel, plug in your DVI or HDMI cable -- with HDCP, of course -- and play back your HD DVD or Blu-ray media. The G+ series should be out in 2007.
AMD to keep ATI brand, may create more integrated chips
After some initial rumblings that indicated otherwise, AMD has reaffirmed their desire to attach the ATI brand to several of their forthcoming product lines. "The ATi name will live on at AMD as our leading consumer brand, and so will the Radeon brand and other ATi product brands," says spokesperson Eric DeRitis. "AMD's executive management knows very well the power and value of branding, and ATi's branding is some of the most valued in the global technology industry. As such, we plan to keep it. Period."The nature of the products to be branded as such have yet to be fully disclosed, but already AMD is hinting at providing more integrated graphics solutions. Indeed, the branding may become especially vital when faced with the widespread (and arguably correct) perception that "integrated graphics" is merely a shorter term for referring to that worthless piece of tech that came with your computer and can barely push two frames per second in the latest Tiger Woods game. According to their marketing manager for Europe, AMD sees integrating graphics acceleration directly into the CPU as the next logical step. "So, in much the same way as a floating point unit is now integrated into the processor, I would expect to see joint single pieces of silicon for certain specialist markets too." Richard Baker restrains the idea a bit, though, and says that AMD won't "integrate some steaming great big quad-core CrossFire engine into a CPU; that would be crazy. But if you're looking at entry level parts for emerging markets, where a very simple GPU could be integrated, then that could be possible."The true fallout of the AMD/ATI deal will likely become most evident once the new product lines show up which, if Baker is to be believed, could happen as early as next year. Read - AMD stays hand over ATI brand axeRead - AMD hints at integrated graphics and physics acceleration in CPUsPreviously: AMD to buy ATI for $5.4 billion Nvidia on ATI: "basically throwing in the towel" ATI responds to Nvidia, clears up post-takeover rumors
Epic's Mark Rein: Intel is killing PC Gaming
A couple of hours ago, Epic Vice President Mark Rein opened the Develop Conference in Brighton with a keynote covering topics ranging from the economics of next-generation games, episodic content and middleware (which, incidentally, Epic makes a lot of its money from). The majority of the second half of his keynote took a critical look at Intel's place within gaming; specifically, Mark thinks "Intel is killing PC gaming".Over several slides on the topic, Mark laid out the reasons he thinks that PC gaming is being harmed by Intel. He pointed the finger at Intel's integrated graphics chips. Integrated chipsets are often incapable of playing the latest (and certainly next-generation) games at any kind of graphics settings. Despite this, they are wildly popular amongst retailers. According to Mark's figures, 80% of laptops and 55% of desktops (note: he failed to cite a source for these figures) feature integrated graphics. That's bad news for companies like Epic, which are investing heavily into extremely demanding next-generation games.If next-generation games don't run on the vast majority of computers, big-name and -money developers will lose (or have already lost) their bottom end. At the same time, the higher end is getting higher. The last year has produced widespread-SLI adoption within the hardcore PC gaming community and new technologies like Quad-SLI, Quad-CPUs, physics processors and $10,000+ PCs.Over the next couple of days we'll be exploring this keynote and other seminars from Develop in more depth, but for now we'll ask you the same questions that Mark asked the audience: Do games like The Sims, World of WarCraft and other low-budget Asian MMOs prove Mark's hypothesis, that PC gaming is going away because of Intel, wrong? Will console MMOs put the nail in the coffin of PC gaming? How come big publishers aren't placing big bets on PC gaming? (Mark says that he knows of at least two "major" developers that are considering moving exclusively to console based development, although he failed to elaborate on which ones). Will the PC market be relegated to only mass-market and casual games?
MiniPC goes Core Duo with the LF800
Japanese consumers looking for yet another Mac mini-style PC will soon be able to pick up the LF800 from miniPC, which won't run as silently as the ED612E we recently saw from this same company, but delivers a much more impressive set of specs. Instead of that pokey 1.2GHz VIA Eden processor powering the last offering, this model throws down a Core Duo T2300, while also doubling the RAM to 512MB and jacking up the hard drive capacity from 40GB to 250GB. If that particular configuration doesn't suit your needs then you're in luck, because you can also pick up a bare bones model that includes integrated Intel graphics, a PCI-Express x16 slot, and CF reader, along with gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, USB 2.0, S/PDIF, and S-Video ports. Both the fully assembled rig as well as the DIY version will be available sometime this month, with the former going for around $1,080 and the latter priced just under $600.[Via Impress]
Toshiba releases business-minded Tecra A8 laptop
Toshiba has gone a bit "lappy happy" this week, announcing yet another 15.4-inch machine to join the two new notebooks and nine new configurations of current models that we spotted earlier. This time around, the company is targeting corporate IT buyers looking for durability on the cheap, playing up the new Tecra A8's suite of EasyGuard technology -- which features the same hard drive and keyboard protection, biometric security, and one-touch presentation button found in the consumer-level LifeSmart package. As far as specs go, you can choose from among a number of setups sporting either Celeron M or Core Duo processors, 512MB or 1GB of RAM, between 60GB and 100GB worth of storage, CD/DVD combo drive or DVD SuperMulti drive, and 802.11b/g WiFi from Atheros or 802.11a/b/g from Intel. Available immediately, these models range from $700 for the Celeron M config to $1,349 for a rig packing a T2400 CPU and that dual-layer burner.[Via Mobile Tech Review]
