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Intel's 710 'Lyndonville' and 720 'Ramsdale' SSDs see full spec leak well ahead of release
You may recall Intel's 710 "Lyndonville" and 720 "Ramsdale" enterprise SSDs outted by a leaked roadmap back in April, but details were as thin as high mountain air. Luckily, German site Computer Base has obtained what appears to be a full spec sheet for the aforementioned drives. Starting with the 710, this 25nm HET MLC -- a more durable variant of MLC -- device will come in 100GB, 200GB, and 300GB flavors, and it claims to have read and write speeds at up to 270 MB/s and 210 MB/s, respectively, along with a 3Gbps SATA connection. Things are a bit wild with the 720: not only does it have 34nm SLC chips making up the 200GB and 400GB versions, but it also boasts some truly insane read and write speeds of up to 2200 MB/s and 1800 MB/s, respectively. Yes, 2200 MB/s and 1800 MB/s, garnished by the fast 4K IOPs as well. We had our doubts initially, but looking at the previously stated 6Gbps PCIe interface and the much higher power draw, we think there's a good chance for this to come into reality. Well, only time will tell if these numbers will stick around for the Q3 launch this year -- not that our wallets will want to know, mind you. Hit the source link for the full lowdown. Update: As pointed out by our readers, it looks like the 720 will need more than 6Gbps at the PCIe bus to accommodate its maximum read and write speeds. At this point, we can only assume that there is indeed a typo somewhere -- either on the roadmap or on this table.
Intel SSD 720, 710 and 520 Series leak out, Larsen Creek and Paint Creek bring up rear guard
Remember Intel's Larsen Creek SSD? It's not alone. By the end of the year, it looks like Intel expects to ship five new solid state storage series in total -- some of them even speedier than its current SSD 510 Series flagship. We managed to obtain this leaked roadmap listing the potential additions, and we're afraid to ask how much the new kings of the hill might cost -- the "Ramsdale" SSD 720 Series uses up to 400GB of SLC NAND in a PCI Express card form factor, and the "Lyndonville" SSD 710 series with a similar quantity of enterprise-grade MLC flash. There's also a direct successor to the current top-of-the-line in the "Cherryville" SSD 520 Series, which will stretch all the way up to 480GB and down to 64GB in Q4 of this year, as well as Paint Creek, which seems destined for boot drives with only 80GB and 40GB capacities to choose from. Still, the most intriguing addition might be Larsen Creek after all, which sounds like it's been purpose-built for caching data from your existing rotational storage. It's slated to come in both 2.5-inch SATA and mSATA configurations in Q3 and uses SLC NAND, which suggests it won't run cheap despite the tiny capacity here. We can't wait to find out for sure.
EA UK puffs chest over ActiBlizz deal
It's time for some posturing as Electronic Arts and Activision Blizzard engage in a third-party publisher arms race, with EA's UK boss Keith Ramsdale firing a warning shot across AB's nose (not up it, mind you). MCV reports in its headline (without mentioning it in the article) that Ramsdale said, "Bring 'em on."The piece itself is far more diplomatic in its use of quotes, with Ramsdale saying things like "good luck" and "look forward to the competition." The gem quote is, "We're always at our best when we have a clearly defined competitor." Has EA really had a clearly defined competitor within reasonable memory? Well, they do now.
