Following several reports around the internet, we reported yesterday that IBM will be using IBM fabs to help produce their upcoming Trinity APUs. AMD have told xbitlabs that this information is not true, and that in fact IBM have merely given consulting support to Global Foundries. AMD chief executive Rory Read had reported that that IBM are one of AMD's manufacturing partners, helping to solve supply issues with their latest chips. This implied that IBM were helping with the manufacture, and was reported as such.   [Full story]

AMD launched their new entry level workstation graphics card, the FirePro V3900, on February 7. With almost double the performance of it's predecessor, FirePro V3800, the card is available from select resellers for $119, $20 more than the V3800. AMD say "The AMD FirePro(TM) V3900 is the most powerful entry-level professional graphics card on the market today."   [Full story]

With the launch of "Llano" microprocessors in the middle of last year, it seemed like AMD was going to retire their older Athlon II and Sempron brands, that are commonly associated with mid-class and budget K10-based processors. Despite of introduction of new "A-Series" and other "-Series" families, the company continued to use "Athlon II" and "Sempron" names for "Llano" products, that didn't have on-chip GPU. The first Athlon II branded Llano model for socket FM1, quad-core 631 with 2.6 GHz frequency, was launched last summer. It was followed by Athlon II 651 in November. Yesterday AMD added another two Athlon II CPUs to AMD product database.   [Full story]

At last weeks Financial Analyst Day, AMD announced that they will be using IBM as a third foundry, alongside Global Foundries and TSMC, to produce the wafers for it's next generation Trinity APUs. Currently, 40 nm E-Series, W-Series and Z-Series APUs are manufactured at TSMC, and 32 nm Llano APUs are manufactured at Global Foundries. Trinity will be manufactured by both Global Foundries and IBM, using a 32 nm SOI process.   [Full story]

Current Intel Xeon lineup consists of E7 family for multi-processor servers, Xeon 5500/5600 series for two-way systems, and E3-1200 series for single-processor workstations. First generation of Xeon E3-1200 microprocessors was launched a year ago, and it was built on 32nm Sandy Bridge micro-microarchitecture. Second generation of E3-1200 series, dubbed E3-1200 v2, is coming in the second quarter 2012. These chips will be based on unreleased at this time Ivy Bridge micro-architecture, and they expect to improve performance and power consumption over the first generation of E3 CPUs.   [Full story]

Following hot on the heels of the AMD roadmaps revealed at their analyst day last week, Indian website lenzfire.com have published detailed specs for the full range of Kepler GPUs, including prices and projected release dates. As is usual with rumors, the details differ from previous rumors, but they do appear to give a reasonable overview of what to expect.   [Full story]

Last week we published AMD roadmaps for graphics cards, and mobile and server processors. All of these roadmaps were made public last Thursday during Financial Analyst Day event. Additionally, the company published 2012/2013 desktop roadmap, which revealed new features of their upcoming FX CPUs and accelerated processing units, and confirmed previously rumored cancellation of "Komodo" desktop CPUs.   [Full story]

During Thursday's Financial Analyst Day, AMD revealed details of their 2012 and 2013 APUs. There will be 3 models, including Trinity for the performance market, Brazos 2.0 for low power devices, and Hondo for ultra-low power devices. These new products will feature up to 4 cores, with an improved Piledriver CPU core and a superior integrated GPU, compared to the expected competition.   [Full story]

At the AMD 2012 Financial Analyst Day (February 2), AMD revealed details of their 2012-2013 Roadmap, including what they have planned for the graphics market. For 2012, we have Southern Islands, for which the first couple of cards are already shipping. This is the HD 7900 series GPUs, with the GCN core. In 2013, we will see "Sea Islands", which will introduce a new GPU architecture, alongside some new Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA, the new name for Fusion System Architecture) features.   [Full story]

During Financial Analyst Day even yesterday AMD disclosed new server roadmap for 2012 and 2013 years. In a surprise move, the company canceled "Terramar" and "Sepang" processors, and replaced them with less ambitious "Abu Dhabi" and "Seoul" designs, that will preserve compatibility with existing G34 and C32 platforms.   [Full story]

I'm sure most readers have come across fake electronic hardware, either personally or through reading/watching news articles. CPUs are no exception, and in the forums here at CPU-World there have been many threads discussing fakes. Some of them are very well made, and sometimes produced in very large quantities. Others are relatively easy to spot. One that is easy to spot is an Intel Core i7-990X discussed on the Intel forums.   [Full story]

Yesterday (January 31), AMD released the next in their new line of graphics cards for general sale. The Radeon HD 7950 uses a cut-down version of the Tahiti core used in the Radeon HD 7970, released on January 10. With what appears to be 2 different reference designs, one designed to offer superior cooling and the other designed to be quieter.   [Full story]

Last Sunday Intel listed three new Core i5 desktop microprocessors in company's official pricelist. Another desktop Core i7 model will be launched in two weeks. It seems that AMD also prepares to refresh their FX line of desktop processors, targeted at computer enthusiasts. We recently spotted available for pre-order unreleased FX-4170 and FX-6200 CPUs. Also, AMD is going to offer in US a variation of FX-8150 model with liquid cooling.   [Full story]

Today, on January 31st, AMD is going to launch HD 7950, the second graphics card from HD 7000 series. This GPU has fewer stream processors, and somewhat lower core and memory clock speeds compared to previously released HD 7970. The HD 7950 should also be cheaper than the 7970. A number of more affordable HD 7xx0 cards will be coming later in the first quarter of this year.   [Full story]

Fabless semiconductor company Tilera Corporation, formed in 2004 to develop many-core processing solutions, have announced immediate availability of TILE-Gx36 and TILE-Gx16, the first members of their new TILE-Gx range of 64-bit processors, and evaluation systems to use with them. In line with the company's commitment to produce high-performance processors with low power consumption, these processors offer greater performance per watt than other comparable systems.   [Full story]

We previously reported on several new Core i5 desktop microprocessors, expected in the second week of February. Core i5-2380P, i5-2450P and unlocked i5-2550K Sandy Bridge CPUs will come with slightly increased core frequency, and with disabled on-chip GPU. A week earlier than anticipated Intel added all three SKUs to official price list. The company also added prices for 4 single- and dual-core Mobile Celeron models, that were launched earlier this month.   [Full story]

AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics cards have shown up for pre-order on a number of websites. In line with our previous article detailing the expected specs, all models have 3 GB GDDR5 running at 5000 MHz, with 384-bit bandwidth, with 1.5 GB models expected later. There are 1792 Stream Processors. The cards require one 150W (8-pin) PCI-E power connection and one 75W (6 pin) connector. All the cards have 1 x DVI-I, HDMI, 2x Mini DisplayPort, and double slot coolers.   [Full story]

In March Intel is expected to launch Romley server platform, which will be comprised of Xeon E5 microprocessors, and "Patsburg-B" C600 series chipset. Later in the first half of this year Intel will introduce another platform, codenamed Crystal Forest-Server. This platform will also work with Xeon E5-2600 processors, but it will utilize Cave Creek chipset. Cave Creek chipset will be also used by embedded platform, codenamed Crystal Forest-Gladden. The platform will be available in the second quarter 2012.   [Full story]

Typically, when you buy electronic parts and equipment they are only guaranteed to work according to published specs. If you overclock a part of your computer (usually the CPU, memory and/or graphics card) and it burns out you are not covered by the standard warranty. Most companies offer a limited warranty, which doesn't cover damage done by overclocking (classed as misuse), although some companies offer more flexible replacement terms as long as a non-working part cannot be seen to have been modified. Intel are now offering an added level of warranty protection, at a price, for those who wish to overclock their recent, high-end unlocked desktop SKUs.   [Full story]

As was originally reported by VR-Zone, three new Core i5 microprocessors are coming in February. In addition to i5 standard features, such as 4 CPU cores with Turbo Boost technology, 6 MB L3 cache and no Hyper-Threading, all three models will also have one thing in common: they will lack on-chip graphics unit. Last week Gigabyte added new SKUs to socket 1155 CPU support lists, confirming previously reported specifications.   [Full story]

Next Intel micro-architecture, codenamed Ivy Bridge, will launch in less than three months. Along with desktop and mobile microprocessors, based on new microarchitecture, Intel will release several embedded models. We previously reported on 5 embedded Core i7s, and now we found details on Core i3-3220ME and i3-3217UE embedded CPUs.   [Full story]

Fudzilla have published specs of nVidia's GK104 GPU core, the successor to GF114 (GTX 560/560Ti). The first 28 nm Kepler GPU, that most sources are expecting in April, will most likely be known as the GTX 660, and will contain the GK 104 core. With an estimated 768 CUDA cores, this will have more than 2 TFLOPS raw performance, more than the current single-GPU flagship product, GTX 580.   [Full story]

Following close on the heels of the Radeon HD 7970 GPU, we have now seen detailed specs for the cut-down Radeon HD 7950. Donanimhaber published some initial information, while a reader at TechPowerup provided detailed specs of an overclocked card from Sapphire. Based on the Tahiti core, this is basically the same core with a few parts disabled, and with a default speed of 800 MHz (approx 14% slower than the Radeon HD 7970).   [Full story]

In October, AMD released various processors based on the Bulldozer core. Much hyped as the next best thing, these processors were shown to perform much worse than expected, partly due to the new multi-module architecture, and poor scheduling (ie no support) in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft have now released a pair of hotfixes which aim to improve support and hence improve the performance.   [Full story]

There has been a lot of conflicting information, mostly originating from a small number of leaks, about NVidia Kepler GPUs and their release dates. A source at Chiphell now says the flagship single-GPU cards will be released in February, before AMD can dominate the market with the HD 79x0 series 28nm cards.   [Full story]

As you may already know, in February Intel plans to introduce Core i5-2380P, i5-2450P and i5-2550K microprocessors. All three are quad-core chips, incorporating 6 MB L3 cache and most of the Sandy Bridge features with the exception of Vpro. In addition to 100 Mhz higher core and Turbo Boost frequencies than currently produced Core i5-2320, i5-2400 and i5-2500K SKUs, new CPUs will have on-chip graphics disabled. Specifications of upcoming processors were originally revealed by VR-Zone, although launch prices of these Core i5s are not yet known. All three models can be now pre-ordered in two US online stores, MacMall and eCost.   [Full story]

In the past two months we published several stories, detailing Core i5-2450M, Core i3-2370M and B970 Sandy Bridge CPUs, spotted ahead of launch in specifications of Dell and Hewlett Packard notebooks. We also reported on a few mobile Celerons, that were going to replace older models, released in the middle of last year. Yesterday Intel added specifications of new processors to the ARK product database, and all CPUs now have status as launched in the first quarter 2012. The company also posted details on previously unheard-of Pentium 977.   [Full story]

This quarter Intel will launch the first two Xeon E5 families for socket 2011, followed by E5-2400 series next quarter. E5-2400 processors will work in single- and dual-CPU systems, and they will utilize socket 1356, which supports only 3 memory channels (one fewer than socket 2011) and only one QPI link. We already reported on specifications of Xeons from E5-2400 series, and now we have more details on their pricing.   [Full story]

AMD's flagship new single-GPU graphics cards may not be the best they have to offer. The Radeon HD7970 may be the fastest production graphics card currently, but the high overclocks reported by many reviewers show that the cards can perform better than even AMD claimed. With a stock speed of 925 MHz, several reviewers have reported clock speeds of 1100 MHz and more without increasing the core voltage. According to Fudzilla, AMD are considering releasing a faster single-GPU graphics core.   [Full story]

Computerbase.de have published some slides that AMD revealed at CES, providing an overview of the upcoming Trinity APUs. With a look at some of the features that will be available, and some performance expectations, there are also details of a 17W low power version that targets "ultrathin" notebooks, AMD's answer to Intel's "Ultrabook" devices.   [Full story]

The Intel Medfield platform has now been officially announced by Intel, in the form of the Intel Penwell SoC, otherwise known as the Atom Z2460. Atom Z2460 is a true single-chip SoC solution, which has a 1.6 GHz Atom core with hyper-threading. Graphics will be provided by an Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX 540 GPU running at 400 MHz. It will be shipped in a 12mm square package.   [Full story]

VR-Zone and Fudzilla recently revealed launch dates of several desktop Intel processors, as well as introduction date of "Romley" platform and Sandy Bridge-EP server chips.   [Full story]

Following hot on the heels of the recently released Radeon HD 7970, the next model in the new line-up is the HD 7950. Initially available with 3 GB GDDR5, a cheaper 1.5 GB model is expected in the future. Other models are expected to follow in February.   [Full story]

First microprocessors, built on "Ivy Bridge" microarchitecture, will be launched in about three months. The initial lineup will be comprised of desktop products from Core i5 and Core i7 families, mobile Core i7 processors, and, as was disclosed by VR-Zone earlier last month, there will be three OEM-only mobile chips, Core i7-3610QM, i7-3612QM and i7-3615QM. One of these chips, Core i7-3610QM is now available for pre-order as a standalone CPU, and in Samsung NP700G7C-S01US notebook.   [Full story]

ZiiLABS, a subsidiary of Creative Technology Ltd, last week revealed new ZMS-40 StemCell Media processor. The media processor, optimized for use with Android operating system, packs four 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 CPU cores along with 96 ZiiLABS' StemCell media processing cores. Using 96 StemCell processors, double the number in the previous generation ZMS-20, it is possible to achieve double the performance, or to run the processors at lower speeds for the same performance, gaining double the power efficiency. This combination of power saving and performance boost gives a number of benefits for hand-held devices based on the ZMS-40.   [Full story]

A few days ago AMD posted new technical document, titled Software Optimization Guide for AMD Family 15h Processors. Although the guide is intended for developers, it includes some useful information about AMD Family 15h, i.e. Bulldozer. The document not only describes features of current Bulldozer processors, which have model numbers 00h - 0fh (0xh), but also refers to two future generations with model numbers 10h - 1fh (1xh), and 20h - 2fh (2xh). We believe that microprocessors with 10h and higher model numbers will be based on Piledriver cores.   [Full story]

Following the paper launch last month, AMD Radeon HD 7970 single-GPU graphics cards for desktop PCs are officially on sale today (January 10). AMD have also announced the availability of mobile devices using Radeon HD 7000M series mobile graphics this week, raising the bar for immersive video output and image quality. Built using a 28nm process, this card represents the first in a range of new GPUs offering a significantly higher performance for a lower power usage.   [Full story]

On December 20 AMD announced five new socket FM1 desktop Accelerated Processing Units (APUs), including two unlocked A6-3670K and A8-3870K models with 100 Watt Thermal Design Power, and A4-3420, A6-3620 and A8-3820 SKUs with 65 Watt TDP. Unlocked CPUs were released about a week later, while three 65 Watt chips are still not available anywhere, even for pre-order. The processors did emerge in specifications of several Hewlett Packard PCs, which confirms our suspicion that the 3420, 3620 and 3820 APUs may be shipped only as OEM parts.   [Full story]

As well as the high-end HD 7900 series GPUs which have started to roll out, there are 6 other known HD 7000 GPU series that have been reported on recently. The HD 6300/6400/6500 are all budget, entry level products. The HD 7600 series will be mid-range entry level cards, with HD 7700 offering slightly higher performance, and then the mainstream cards that are expected to be the most popular will be the HD7800 series. It is currently believed that only the Tahiti-based cards that will use the new GCN architecture, with other cards believed to be built using VLIW-4 technology.   [Full story]

Forthcoming Intel Xeon E5 family will be separated into 4 subfamilies, based on intended market. Xeon E5-4600 will support up to 4-way servers, E5-2400 and E5-2600 will target 2-way servers and workstations, and E5-1600 series will work in uni-processor systems. In the past months we reported on details of E5-1600, E5-2400 and E5-2400 families, whereas model lineup of E5-4600 family was not known up to this moment. Today Intel added Xeon E5 box part numbers and S-spec numbers to Material Declaration Data Sheets (MDDS) database. This addition confirmed processor numbers of one- and two-way Xeon E5 chips, and revealed E5-4600 processor numbers.   [Full story]

Single-core Celeron 925 and 763 processors have been on a market since January of last year. These two models are from Penryn group of families, which are two generations behind current Sandy Bridge CPUs. Their replacements, mobile Celeron B710 and ultra-low voltage 787, were launched in June - July 2011 time frame, as a result Penryn Celerons are now set to retire.   [Full story]

I added "Threads" field to CPU pages of AMD Athlon/Intel Pentium III and newer processors. The field is located right under the "The number of cores" field. As an example, see how it looks on Core i3-2350M page. Threads information was also added to combined CPU chart, and to CPU charts for individual families.