AMD demos Cinema 2.0 concept using Radeon HD 4800 cards

Trying to rain on Nvidia's GT200 parade, AMD has yesterday held a press conference in San Francisco to demonstrate "a milestone achievement in ultra-realistic and interactive visual computing." Dubbed the "Cinema 2.0 experience", AMD's latest marketing scheme combines power components like the upcoming TeraFlop offering known as the RV770 cards (Radeon HD 4800 series) in order to deliver a "fusion of dynamic real-time interactivity with convincing cinematic digital effects."

"With Cinema 2.0 you won’t just play movies, you'll play in them. Imagine the ability to look around the environments in a sci-fi movie, put yourself in the driver's seat in a race scene, duck behind things and pop up to see what’s going on in an intense firefight – all of these things are possible with Cinema 2.0," said Charlie Boswell, director, Digital Media & Entertainment, AMD. "The challenge for any director has always been taking a wonderful vision in the canvas of the mind and translating that to film for the audience to see. Cinema 2.0 breaks down the time and cost barriers of getting a scene or shot that’s 'just right', and what’s better, allows audiences to dive deeper into the experience to explore every part of that director's vision."

According to AMD, the secret of Cinema 2.0 is the blending of highly complex and realistic graphics that traditionally are the exclusive domain of blockbuster films, with the dynamic 3D interactivity of popular video games. To show off the tip of the Cinema 2.0 'iceberg' AMD, at its press conference, ran a new Ruby demo which is previewed here. The demo ran 'live' on a system equipped with a Phenom X4 9850 BE CPU, an AMD 790FX motherboard and a couple of RV770 cards in CrossFire. How exciting! (BEd: Sarcasm alert)
source:tcmagazine

AMD announces 1 TeraFlop-breaking stream processor

Thinking it can rain on Nvidia's D10 parade later today, AMD has now introduced a new stream processor, the FireStream 9250. Most likely boasting an RV770 chip, the FireStream 9250 surpasses 1 TeraFlop in single precision performance and is equipped with 1GB of GDDR3 memory.

Featuring a second-generation double-precision floating point hardware implementation, the new FireStream card consumes less than 150W and comes with a single-slot cooling solutions making it fit in everything from workstations, desktop PCs, small 1U servers and larger servers. AMD is planning to start selling the FireStream 9250 in Q3 for about $999.
News source: TechConnect

Intel Tech Chief Reveals Secret Origins of the MacBook Air's Super Small Chip

Here's something you didn't know about the MacBook Air's infamously tiny CPU: The shrinkage tech behind it had been collecting dust on Intel's shelf for a couple years since no PC manufacturer was interested in it. When Apple put in the call for a dwarven chip, Intel originally thought what Apple wanted was years away on their roadmap before re-discovering the concept—a year later they had it refreshed and ready to go. Which is the usual breakneck speed Apple moves, Intel's CTO Justin Rattner told Fortune. He also dished that they're collaborating on more breakthrough stuff that's "equally aggressive."

Besides chatting about how Intel and Apple are now BFF and love working together, delivering super cool crazy tech to the masses, he said something fairly odd about WiMax, considering how much money they've been pumping into it. Basically, he said Intel pushed WiMax hard because at the time it was the best and easiest way to deliver broadband everywhere. Now there are alternatives, and their view is that "if WiMax succeeds, we'll have the bandwidth. If others succeed, we'll have the bandwidth." Does that smell like a vote of confidence to you, or ambivalence, sprinkled with hints of regret? [Fortune gizmodo]

Intel Launching Q8000 Cheap Quad Core Processors

Digitimes is reporting that Intel is about to pop a series of cheap quad core processors (Q8000) to slap back at AMD's budget triple core offerings. The first will be the Core 2 Quad 8200, which'll run at 2.33GHz with a 4MB L2 cache, supporting a front-side bus of up to 1333MHz for around $200. Difference between these and standard Q9000 series is that these don't support Intel's Trusted Execution or Virtualization Technology.

In order to separate the Q8000 series from Intel's Q9000 CPU family, the Q8000 CPU series will not support Intel's VT and TXT technology. These seem kinda redundant, since you can pick up a Core 2 Quad 6600 for that much (or the newer 45nm Q9300 for not a whole lot more), both of which trounced AMD's fastest quad core in benchmarks. And AMD's triple cores ain't exactly anything to sing about to begin with. [DigiTimes via Tech Report -gizmodo]

Intel E5000 series to put an end to E2000s

In addition to introducing the Q8000 family of quads, Intel will, in Q3 bring out a new CPU series, one aimed at the sub-$100 market segment. The E5000s will all be 45nm-built dual-core processors and they will be replacing the E2000s which are based on older 65nm Allendale core.

Lacking VT and TXT, the E5000 CPUs will have a FSB of 800 MHz and an L2 cache of 2MB, one third that of the already released Wolfdale dual-core parts. Featuring a 65W TDP and a frequency of 2.5 GHz, the first E5000 CPU will be dubbed E5200. This one will come in Q3 and cost about $84 (in 1000-unit tray quantities).source:tcmagazine

AMD intros a single-slot Radeon HD 3870 for Macs

With everyone waiting on them to give the OK for the RV770 arrival, Advanced Micro Devices or simply AMD for friends and foes has announced a new old card based on the RV670 chip. Said to be optimized exclusively for Macs, the Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC edition features DirectX 10.1 and PCI-Express support, a 256-bit memory interface and comes loaded with 512MB of GDDR4 memory, just like the 'regular' HD 3870. A nice plus for the new card is that it uses a single-slot cooling solution. But that's about it.

"AMD is introducing the ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition to enhance the Mac experience to maximum levels of 3D gaming and HD performance," said Matt Skynner, vice president of marketing, Graphics Products Group, AMD. "Mac users demand the best when it comes to HD graphics performance, and the ATI Radeon 3870 Mac & PC Edition is designed to meet and exceed that need by delivering The Ultimate Visual Experience to our customers’ displays."

Set to start selling in late June, the Radeon HD 3870 Mac & PC Edition has a suggested retail price of $219.

AMD denies Kuma cancellation rumors

Earlier this week the word around Rumorville was that AMD decided to abandon its plans of releasing dual-core K10 (codenamed Kuma) processors. As just stated by AMD spokesman Jake Whitman though, this is just not true as the company is still "on track to launch a dual-core -codenamed Kuma - part in the second half of '08."

Set to utilize the Athlon brand, the Kuma CPUs will be built on 65nm, feature HyperTransport 3.0 and come in an AM2+ package.

AMD preparing energy efficient tri-core Phenoms

Even if it won't deliver any Kuma processor AMD will still have something to release before its 45nm parts come into play. The latest info points out to the introduction of two energy efficient triple-core (codename Toliman) Phenom processors in mid-Q3.

The CPUs in plan are the Phenom X3 8450e and X3 8250e, both build on 65nm and featuring a 65W TDP, 2MB of L3 cache and HyperTransport 3.0. The 8450e is clocked at 2.1 GHz, just like the non-e Phenom 8450 while the 8250e will have to settle for a stock frequency of 1.9 GHz. No word on pricing yet but it we're 'lucky' they'll both be found for under $150.

AMD and NVIDIA Creating Own Spec to Compete Against USB 3.0

The USB 3.0 specification is expected to be out in 2009 and will significantly upgrade the bandwidth of the current USB 2.0 ports and products that all computer users are familiar with. The body responsible for the support and promotion of the USB specifications going back to USB 1.1 is the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF).

AMD and NVIDIA have decided they're done waiting for Intel to give them the data they need to create USB 3.0 compliant products, and plan to launch their own spec to launch against the USB 3.0 data protocol. Intel says they haven't finalized the spec and want to prevent people from developing hardware based on multiple versions. AMD and NVIDIA aren't satisfied with such an answer and feel Intel is trying to gain a sizeable lead on market share. They will apparently have their first clandestine meeting next week.
An AMD source told News.com, “We are starting development on it [open host controller] right now.” An NVIDIA source says the first meeting of the alternate open host controller specification is set for next week and adds, "We fully intend to productize this spec.”
[CNET via Daily Tech]

AMD Imageon chips to get DivX support

DivX Inc. has just signed a licensing agreement with Intel-bullied CPU manufacturer AMD that will see the latter's Imageon media processors offering DivX support.

"Including the DivX codec in the AMD Imageon application processor brings additional value to our OEM customers, helping them to deliver a robust mobile media experience," said Mark Bapst, CTO for AMD's Handheld division. "DivX technology is an attractive ingredient that enhances our offering for handheld devices, providing excellent quality and a high degree of accessibility."

As stipulated in the new deal the two companies will work together to achieve DivX certification for the AMD Imageon A250 application processor. That means the little A250 will undergo a lot of tests in the near future but they're almost harmless and rarely lead to any weird side effects.
source: tcmagazine