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May 3, 2012

Samsung GALAXY S III Photo Gallery




The “next Galaxy” smartphone has just been officially unveiled and there's already a lot of debate on the phone's design. Samsung Galaxy S III has been “designed for humans” to mimic nature, hence the curved lines and the “pebble” form factor.

Although the device comes with a 4.8-inch capacitive touchscreen display, it fits perfectly in hand. However, there are some who already blame Samsung for adding such a large display, which they fear, makes the phone too big to carry.

All in all, the Galaxy S III super-phone comes in two color schemes, Marble White and Pebble Blue. According to Samsung there will be three models launched on the market, each with a different amount of storage, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB.

The handset has been confirmed for May 30 in the UK, while the rest of the European countries will get it soon after.












Samsung Galaxy S III Outstanding Benchmark Results Unveiled




Samsung officially introduced the Galaxy S III a few hours ago and the smartphone is already controversial among Android enthusiasts.

Most people are currently complaining about the phone's design or hardware performance, though the handset has just been announced. 

Others are calling the Galaxy S III “ecstatic” when it comes with design, but they say it has the same performance as other Android phones already available on the market.

Well, it looks like the folks over at GSMArena have been quick enough to run some tests and the results are impressive, the least to say.

Samsung Galaxy S III was put against HTC One X, HTC One S, Samsung Galaxy S II, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Sony Xperia S, Samsung Galaxy Note, HTC Sensation XE,Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and Apple iPhone 4S.

Before seeing the actual numbers let's recap the Galaxy S III hardware configuration. Samsung's super-phone is powered by Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system and packs an Exynos 4212 Quad chipset that features four processors clocked at 1.4 GHz.

In addition, the smartphone sports a Mali-400MP graphics processing unit and the usual 1GB of RAM. It is also worth mentioning Galaxy S III boasts a stunning 4.8-inch Pentile display that supports HD (720 x 1280 pixels) resolution (306 ppi).

Three apps have been used to benchmark Samsung Galaxy S III performance: Quadrant, SunSpider and BrowserMark. Unsurprisingly, Samsung's super-phone managed to beat all other devices on all three benchmarks. 

For example the Galaxy S III scored 5642 points on Quadrant, while HTC One S came second at 5047 points. HTC One X (4842 points), Samsung Galaxy Note (3531 points), Sony Xperia S (3173 points), Samsung Galaxy S II (3053 points) and Samsung Galaxy Nexus (2316 points) complete the list of tested devices.

The other two benchmarks prove that Samsung Galaxy S III might just be the most powerful Android smartphone available on the market. However, it's a bit too early to give Galaxy S III the crown, so we're waiting for more tests to be run in the following days.




Huawei M660 Android Phone Spotted at Bluetooth SIG




Chinese handset maker Huawei has big plans for the North American smartphone market. Although the company is mostly known for its low-end devices, Huawei promised several top-tier smartphones would make their way onto shelves this year.

Until then, Huawei recently teamed up with T-Mobile USA to offer customers the low-budget Huawei Prism, which can be purchased for as low as $19.99 USD with a new two-year agreement, or $149 USD off-contract.

Huawei plans to launch a second budget-friendly Android phone in the States, the M660. The smartphone has just been spotted at Bluetooth SIG and seems to be aimed at MetroPCS.

The device is powered by Android 2.3 Gingerbread platform and packs an 800 MHz single-core processor, as well as a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen display. In addition, Huawei M660 supports CDMA2000 (800/1700/1900MHz bands) and comes with a full QWERTY keyboard.


Samsung Galaxy S III: Hands-on Video




Samsung has finally taken the wraps off the Galaxy S III Android flagship smartphone. The device is clearly a huge step up in comparison with the Galaxy S II and not just because it comes with improved hardware.

Aside from the beautiful design, Samsung built the Galaxy S III with convergence in mind. The handset has been constructed to make user's life much easier. 

With new apps such as S Beam or Direct call, the Galaxy S III is capable of executing quick operations by simply touching another device or by bringing it up to your ear.

Not to mention that stunning design that mimics “nature” and recreates the lines of curves of pebbles. Though many complain that the display is too big at 4.8-inch, it looks like the device fits perfectly in your hand.

First Samsung Galaxy S III Video Ad Emerges




Today, Samsung made official its newest Android-based flagship handset, the Galaxy S III, during a press event in London, and the first video ad with the device is now available for your viewing pleasure. 

Rocking a 4.8'' Super AMOLED Plus HD screen and a 1.4GHz quad-core application processor, the device features a sleek and thin design, being only 8.6mm thick. 

Samsung will make the smartphone available starting with late May in various markets globally, and will launch it in June in countries where LTE networks are available (such as North America, Japan and Korea). 

Powered by Android 4.0.4 and featuring a new flavor of Samsung's TouchWiz UX on board, the device will also pack features such as S Beam, Buddy photo share, AllShare, Social tag, and more. 

There will be two color flavors of the phone available for users around the world, including a white variant.

Samsung Galaxy S III Goes Official




Galaxy S III, the latest flagship Android device from South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung has just been officially announced in London.

Following months of expectation, in which a wide range of leaks and rumors on have been spotted around the web, the successor of Samsung's best-selling Galaxy S II smartphone has been fully unveiled. 

Just as expected, the device is powered by a fast 1.4GHz quad-core application processor, complemented by 1GB of RAM to aid in delivering high-end performance. 

The smartphone was packed with a large 4.8-inch touchscreen display, a Super AMOLED Plus panel capable of delivering an HD resolution. 

Samsung has announced 16GB and 32GB flavors of the high-end device, which should be followed by a 64GB variant in the not too distant future. The handset also comes with a MicroSD memory card slot.

On the back, Galaxy S III sports an 8-megapixel photo snapper, capable of recording videos in full HD resolution. It also features a 1.9MP camera on the front, to enable video calling. 

Other specifications of this smartphone include 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4, and NFC (Near Field Communications) capabilities.

Its Exynos 4 Quad CPU also offers support for 4G LTE connectivity, but there will also be variants featuring 21Mbps HSPA+. The LTE variant will be released only in June.

Galaxy S III is powered by a 2,100mAh battery and is only 8.6mm thick, while weighing 133g (4.7 ounces). It sports a curved chassis with rounded edges, and resembles the design of Galaxy Nexus. 

Samnsung Galaxy S III is powered by Google's Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system and also features a new version of the company's TouchWiz UX. 

Samsung has announced that the new mobile phone will become available for purchase towards the end of this month, and that it will be released worldwide through a variety of carriers. Galaxy S III was named the official phone of the 2012 Summer Olympics.




Samsung Mandel Windows Phone Poses for the Camera with AT&T Logo




Samsung Mandel, also known as SGH-i667, is no news. The smartphone has been spotted for the first time back in January and we thought it will be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Unfortunately, the only Windows Phone introduced at that time was the Lumia 900, which is now about to make its European debut.

The Mandel appeared one month later at FCC (Federal Communications Commission) where it received approval. Even though it has received all the necessary approvals, Samsung Mandel has yet to go official.

Recently spotted in Asia, Samsung Mandel features a glossy white battery cover and a rounded back. 

Although the smartphone was only pictured from the back, it looks like the source of the leak also took a shot from the Zune Desktop while the phone was connected to the PC.

This picture reveals that the SGH-i667 might be in fact a second-tier Windows Phone device. According to Zune, the smartphone packs 8GB of internal memory, but only 5.41 GB are user available.

Aside from the fact that it supports LTE connectivity, we don’t have any additional information regarding Mandel’s specs sheet, but there’s nothing else that would make us believe this is a high-end smartphone.

Last but not least, AT&T’s logo appears on the front part of the phone, but only in the image pulled from Microsoft’s servers via Zune Desktop software.

We doubt that Samsung Mandel will ever make it to United States via AT&T, especially given the fact that the carrier has already launched a much better Windows Phone device, the Nokia Lumia 900.

Nokia’s Windows Phone flagship device is currently one of the most popular smartphones powered by Microsoft’s mobile platform and AT&T confirmed that sales of Lumia 900 exceeded all expectations.

Launching the Samsung Mandel in the following weeks won’t bring the phone the popularity it needs to be a success on the market, unless the South Korean company redesigns the phone completely.



Intel Admits Ivy Bridge CPUs Are Hotter Than Sandy Bridge




Microprocessor designer and manufacturer, the American/Israeli company Intel, has reportedly admitted that they actually did cut costs on the Ivy Bridge products. The smaller process node led to denser CPU and a hotter die.

Intel still maintains the story that the use of lower quality thermal interface between the CPU dies and the integrated heat spreader was intentional and it is exactly what they’ve planned for.

The company claims that the CPUs will actually pass all certification tests, just as the specifications on their box state.

Intel’s Ivy Bridge comes with a small die and the smaller the die size is, the better the thermal interface with the IHS must be.

If you have a smaller contact area between the IHS and the CPU die, you must make sure that there is improved heat transfer so that the CPU won’t overheat.

Intel figured that if Ivy Bridge has a lower power consumption than Sandy Bridge, they’d practically have less heat to dissipate.

The thing is that, because Ivy Bridge is so dense and the heat transfer is done through a smaller contact area, the heat is not dissipating as fast as it is on Sandy Bride. Therefore, users will have to enjoy a hotter CPU.

We wonder how much money did Intel save by being such a cheapskate and disregarding the best interest of its own customers.

Maybe the sum is considerable and the effort was worth it, but the image backlash in the face of consumers’ dissatisfaction with Intel’s practices will probably prove detrimental overall.


Current Blackberry Phones Won't Get OS 10, According to RIM




Research In Motion (RIM) officially launched BlackBerry 10 operating system earlier this week and estimated that the first devices powered by the new platform would hit shelves in October.

The announcement was made at the BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida where RIM confirmed it would offer each developer attending the event a BlackBerry 10 prototype device for free. 

The bad news for BlackBerry fans as RIM has recently announced that existing phones won’t receive an upgrade to BlackBerry 10 OS.

Although the announcement doesn’t come as a surprise, BlackBerry owners will surely be disappointed that RIM forces them to upgrade to a new BlackBerry 10 device, though most of them will do it gladly. 

On the positive side of things, RIM mentioned that all developers would be able to turn in their BlackBerry 10 prototype device for a brand new smartphone when it launches.


iPhone 5 Specs Leak via Trustworthy Source




A source in touch with iLounge, a tech-centric site with a solid track record on Apple reporting, has leaked what seems to be the first real set of technical specifications pertaining to the next-generation iPhone. Buckle up!

The source alleged that “the new iPhone will indeed be longer and thinner than the iPhone 4 and 4S,” iLounge reports.

“Approximate measurements are 125mm by 58.5mm by 7.4mm — a 10mm jump in height, nearly 2mm reduction in thickness, and virtually identical width,” according to this person.

Apple will reportedly make one major change to the back side of the device – its rear casing will be forged from metal, not glass, or ceramics, as recently rumored.

“This panel will be flat,” the report adds, offering an artist’s rendition to provide a rough idea of what the phone will look like (displayed above).

However, a comparison is made with the current-generation iMac design, which means the phone’s back could also be tapered.

The leak continues with the source claiming that Apple will introduce an all-new Dock connector with this next-generation iPhone.

According to the source, “The new port will be a little larger than the bottom speaker or microphone hole on the iPhone 4/4S and It’s believed to have fewer pins than the prior 30-pin Dock Connector,” the report adds.

The shape of the dock connector is said to closely resemble the existing speaker holes on the current iPhone 4S.

The dock connector will allegedly spread to all new-generation iDevices, including a new version of the iPod touch, which is likely to have the elongated body and display too, according to the report.

At least as far as the iPhone is concerned, the new version will be announced in fall, not summer as previously speculated.


GeForce GTX 690 Now in Maingear Monster PCs




The dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690 was launched by NVIDIA just a few days ago, but it already has companies calling on its services. 

In a move that isn't all that surprising, Maingear has formally announced that the Kepler-based monster is available as an option on some of its machines

In case you forgot, the card alone costs $999 in the US and around 900 Euro in Europe, which means that there is no way you'll be able to afford one of those PCs without big bank accounts or deep pockets. Such is the price for art. 

"The New Geforce GTX 690 is quite simply a work of art. It reminds us of when NVIDIA introduced the very first GeForce 256, a market dominating product that set the standard time after time," said Wallace Santos, CEO and founder of MAINGEAR. 

"Everything about this card just screams power, performance, and perfection."


ECS Z77-Based X77H2-A3 Motherboard




Elitegroup Computer Systems has a new motherboard on its website, one that has yet to be listed up for sale anywhere, but which shouldn't take too much longer to arrive. 

Then again, it isn't really accurate to say that the mainboard has its own product page, because it does, in fact, not have one that we've been able to find. 

We did manage to spot the BIOS though. In fact, the software has been available since mid-April. 

What's more, the specs have been uncovered, and they are largely similar to those of the Z77H2-A3

That means that the 4+1 phase CPU VRM, the single PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot and the storage options are the same. 

For those who want an elaboration, the product reportedly boasts a pair of SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, four SATA 3.0 Gbps connectors and four USB 3.0 ports, though these last ones qualify as I/O connectors as much as they count as storage plugs. 

Two of the USB 3.0 connectors are on the back panel and the other two are links meant to go into the front panel of cases. 

Moving on, the company settled for the same DVI and D-Sub ports when implementing video outputs. 

And now we reach the assets that put the X77H2-A3 a bit ahead of the Z77H2-A3, and we mean besides the piano-black PCB (not that the color isn't nice). 

The CPU VRM's uses Super Alloy Chokes and heatsinks colored gold. The PCH has a similar cooling implement. 

Couple that with the all solid-state capacitor design of the platform and you have a motherboard just waiting to overclock the living and unliving lights out of whatever Ivy Bridge CPU happens to land in its socket. 

Unfortunately, we don't know what price ECS's X77H2-A3 motherboard will sport. Hopefully online stores will list it soon.


TSMC Shows 3.1 GHz CortexA9 Dual Core CPU and Doubles 28 nm Shipments




Reportedly, TSMC has just announced that it managed to double its 28 nm manufacturing capacity when compared to the previous quarter. This means that a lot more AMD Radeon 7970 and Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 GPUs will be coming our way.

The thing is that TSMC, despite its huge manufacturing capacities, is still not able to fulfill the demands of its high performance customers.

The foundry is manufacturing lots of chips in the 150 nm, 130/110 nm, 90nm and 65/55 nm processes. Actually all these products make out around 63 percent of the foundry’s total output.

There’s also the popular 40 nm process that amounts for 32 percent of the total manufacturing output, and the most demanded 28 nm process is only left with 5 percent.

It’s in those 5 percent of volume where we find that 100 percent improvement.

Late last year, TSMC’s 28 nm manufacturing accounted for just 2 % of the company’s output, so going from 2% to 5% in one quarter is an improvement.

This won’t be enough to satisfy the likes of Qualcomm, AMD and Nvidia. We’ll see the supply of new GPUs and mobile processors improving, but there won’t be a significant improvement when the demand is so high.

TSMC is also delivering a marketing hit today as they’re presenting an ARM CortexA9 Dual Core test chip running at an impressive 3100 MHz clock frequency.

The company claims the CPU reaches the high speed while staying within the power specifications of a 40 nm chip working at 1.5 GHz.

It’s nice to see such progress and we eagerly await the new 3 GHz Qualcomm Krait processor based on the more capable Cortex A15 architecture.


AMD and GlobalFoundries Interested in FD-SOI for the 20 nm Process




As we said before, SOI is a very resourceful concept and can show amazing improvements in the right conditions. Every foundry needs a SHP (Super High Performance) manufacturing line and GlobalFoundries wants this line to be based on SOI.

Compared to the bulk process, enhancing your producing line with SOI technology and using SOI wafers will get you reduced leakage, reduced power consumption and will increase the highest achievable clock frequency of your design.

So why doesn’t everybody use SOI? Well, because it involves some extra money and work when compared to the bulk process.

If an IC designer develops an architecture and tailors the design of the bulk process, it has quite a good number of FABs to choose from. He can take his chip to many FABs using the bulk process and negotiate the best price.

If he wants to use SOI, he must modify his design for the SOI concept. Clearly, he will get all the advantages of a cooler chip and a higher working frequency, but he can only send his design to FABs that have a SOI manufacturing line. And, of course, the IC design company must also pay IBM some money as SOI is now IBM’s child.

Therefore, SOI means extra work, extra money for IBM, other wafers, probably more expensive than a bulk wafer, and less FABs to choose from.

Don’t get the wrong idea and imagine that SOI is a bad thing. If you tailor your design for SOI and need all the extra power reduction and frequency increase to show a product that’s better than the competition, like AMD showing a 4,5 GHz Piledriver demolishing Ivy Bridge, going for SOI would probably be the best move.

Why let your product appear less powerful than the competition when, by using SOI, you can make it faster and cooler?

AMD went for SOI since 2003 and, since they were using their own FAB, they never worried about finding a FAB with an advanced SOI process to make the chips for them.

Now, GlobalFoundries has the FAB and AMD is just an IC design company. There are two points of view here.

From GlobalFoundries’ point of view, having a bulk process is suitable for a foundry manufacturing many different designs for different IC design companies.

This is just like what TSMC does. But this doesn’t mean GlobalFoundries doesn’t want to have something to keep them “on the edge”. 

TSMC never bothered with SOI. The bulk of their business is 65 nm and 40 nm technology and the top-of-the-line “on the edge” technology that they use to impress their clients is their 28 nm process.

This is not a bad approach, but get this, even if TSMC has 28 nm in volume production since last year, their 28 nm quantities only accounted for 2% of the foundry’s entire manufacturing volume.

Things are quite different at GlobalFoundries. They are manufacturing a lot of 32 nm chips and they are using 32 nm with SOI to impress their clients. It’s not just that 32 nm is more advanced than TSMC’s 40 nm, but GlobalFoundries also has SOI that adds lots of advantages.

To better address the many bulk clients out there, GlobalFoundries will go bulk for the 28 nm process. But they’ll put a lot of work into their 20 nm process and imbue it with Fully-Depleted SOI.

FD-SOI does wonders for the 28 nm process already so using it for the 20 nm process with likely put GlobalFoundires in a significant advantage over Intel’s 22 nm FinFETS.

STMicro showed a whitepaper on the FD-SOI experiments with their own bulk 28 nm process and the results were amazing.

Their 28nm FD-SOI technology performance is 61 percent higher than comparable bulk technology when fueled at 1 volt. The advantage increases if you have designs that require a lower power voltage.

If your chip can down-clock towards a 0.6V VDD (Voltage Drain Drain) it will show a 550 percent improvement in leakage current.

Therefore, a chip or physical block not requiring leading-edge performances and (clocked lower when in idle) will save up to 50% power when implemented in 28FD vs. a 28LP implementation.

From AMD’s point of view, they’d like their next step to be 28 nm bulk, as they might need more manufacturing capacity than what GlobalFoundries may have to offer.

If they have a design for the 28 nm bulk process, they can always buy some more capacity from TSMC.

An SOI design wouldn’t get manufactured at TSMC, as TSMC doesn’t have SOI product lines.

AMD needs very high volumes with their APUs, as the company’s APUs now rule 43 % of the PC desktop market.

With their next desktop and server CPUs based on the “Steamroller” architecture, they might want to have SOI available for better power consumption, less leakage and higher frequencies.

These chips will be more expensive and will have a lower volume than AMD’s current APUs that need to be cheap and come in great volumes.

GlobalFoundires will do their best to offer a cheap 28 nm bulk process with high volumes and will also work on FD-SOI for their 20 nm step so that they’ll have something to offer to their demanding clients such as AMD.

Soitec says FD-SOI is so good that it alone could help the 28 nm designs get 30 to 40 percent better results. But the industry is moving forward and it seems that AMD and GlobalFoundries both believe they need smaller transistors and more chips on a wafer.

If they can add the FD-SOI advantages to that 20 nm process in the future, they will most likely go for FD-SOI, but, for now, it seems 28 nm bulk is the way to go for both companies.


Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook Pre-Released




The Samsung Series 9 NP900X4C ultrabook has been added to the website of the company's UK division, so sit back and enjoy the ride as we say what is what.

This item may just be one of the best-looking super-thin mobile PCs yet, but we'll let everyone draw their own conclusions.

So, without any more delay, we may as well list the specs of this thing, starting with the CPU.

A mid-range chip, the Core i5-3317U, is used, with a base clock of 1.7 GHz and a maximum Turbo Boost frequency of 2.6 GHz (2.4 GHz when both cores are in use).

The HM75 chipset makes it work it up, along with up to 8 GB of DDR 3 memory (clock speed of 1,600 MHz).

Meanwhile, storage space is provided by what is most likely an mSATA SSD (128GB Solid State Drive is all that the product page has to say on the matter).

Moving on, Gigabit Ethernet (via dongle), 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (with WiDi support) and Bluetooth 4.0 are present as well.

As for the rest of the I/O, Samsung tossed in an USB 2.0 port, a pair of USB 3.0 connectors, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, an SD/MMC card slot, audio jacks (headphone/microphone) and a custom port for a D-sub dongle.

All the hardware (minus the webcam and whatever else lies behind or around the display) is hidden beneath a backlit keyboard (an ambient light sensor automatically adjusts the intensity) and a nice and large multi-touch clickpad (button-less touchpad).

The only thing left is the screen: a 15-inch LCD with a native resolution of 1,600 x 900 and LED backlighting that varies in intensity depending on information received from the same light sensor that controls the keyboard lighting. The maximum is 400 nits.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been specified how long a charge of the 62Wh 8-cell battery will last, but we suspect the duration to be at least decent. After all, the all-aluminum case makes it fairly clear that the Samsung NP900X4C will be among the more expensive of its kind and a short battery lifespan would be a serious turnoff.






Nokia to Launch a Range of Hybrid Devices, Windows 8 Tablets




Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has lost a lot of ground on the market in the past years, especially since the first quarter of the last year, when it announced plans to shift to Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system on the smartphone segment. 

The company reported €1.3 billion operating loss for the first quarter of this year and is expected to see more harsh quarters moving forth. 

However, it appears that the vendor is confident that it will manage to turn the table in its favor. In fact, it has already made plans to return to profitability. 

Speaking to Financial Times, Nokia's Chairman, Jorma Ollila, has let slip info on some of these plans, including the fact that there would be Windows 8 tablet PCs coming from the vendor. 

Nokia is aware of the fact that its devices will have to impress, and that they will also have to be delivered on time. 

“Tablets are an important one, so that is being looked into, and there will be different hybrids, different form factors [handset designs] in the future,” he said. 

Jorma Ollila’s sayings reflect what the company's Head of Design, Marko Ahtisaari, stated not too long ago regarding Nokia’s plans to release Windows 8 tablets. 

Rumor has it that Nokia is working on a 10-inch Windows 8 slate packing a dual-core Qualcomm SoC, but no official confirmation on the matter has been provided so far.

Nokia has yet to detail any upcoming devices, and is expected to launch a wide range of products based on Microsoft’s software. 

Last year, the company announced a strategic partnership with the Redmond-based software giant, which resulted in the adoption of Windows Phone as its primary smartphone OS. 

The partnership was suggested to have been extended to other products as well, including the yet unannounced tablet PCs, which should run under the forthcoming Windows 8 platform.


AMD Demos GPU Compute at GDC 2012




Passionate people seem to be at the right place and at the right time. So was Semiaccurate’s Charlie Demerjian who was reportedly able to catch a glimpse of AMD’s new Leo Demo.

The demo is used to show how a developer can use the GPU compute power of AMD’s APUs and GPUs.

We’re talking about rendering a 3D scene that has many lights coming from everywhere. The lights, if rendered in the traditional way, would make the demo move very slow; completely different from real-time.

As AMD’s PR put it: “you’d have a non-working demo.”

AMD’s software cuts every scene in tiles that are 32 by 32 pixels in size and then calculates and renders only the lights that are visible.

We underline the fact that this can be done in the normal CPU/GPU way, but by using GPU compute, the scene can be rendered in real-time, no matter how many hundreds of lights you add to it.

You can watch the initial demo with us, but you can also head to Charlie’s short interview and a technically detailed demo over at Semiaccurate."

Strange Radeon 7850 Surfaces [Pictures]




A prototype of AFOX Radeon HD 7850 has reportedly landed in a test lab. As the benchmark results were much lower than the experts expected, they’ve decided to check it with GPU-Z. A check was truly in order since the 256 Bit Radeon HD 7850 was delivering results closer to the 128 Bit Radeon HD 7770.

Using the famous GPU monitoring program, it was found that the GPU had only 768 active Stream Processing Units (SPU). 

It is well known that the Radeon HD 7850 will come with 1024 SPUs and a 256-Bit memory interface.

AFOX’s version, although just a prototype, not a retail version of the card, came with only 75% of the expected SPUs.

This looks more like a Radeon HD 7830 than a HD 7850.

AMD didn’t provide any details on this issue and changing the BIOS did not yield any different results.





Official Windows Phone 8 Details Could Arrive in June




Redmond-based software giant Microsoft is gearing up for the release of a new major update for its Windows Phone platform, one that might get detailed as soon as next month, if the latest reports out there are to be believed. 

The behemoth will be holding a Windows Phone Developer Summit in San Francisco, CA on June 20-21, and Pocketnow claims that the next-gen mobile OS (supposedly called Windows Phone 8) might be unveiled there. 

The invitation sent to announce the event features a mockup of a generic Windows Phone, yet the fonts appear to be changed from what the platform features at the moment. 

Of course, this is only speculation right now, but there is a strong possibility that Microsoft will indeed provide a glimpse at Windows Phone 8 at that time, and that it will also detail API's that devs can leverage to release apps for the OS.



Colorful GTX 670 Pictured




Colorful’s version of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 video card has reportedly made a public appearance on the net. Although it might seem – by looking at the front – that it’s just a reference design just like the others, Colorful’s version seems to have been thoroughly redesigned.

Considering that the cooling system has the same dimensions and characteristics as the one included with the reference design, we can safely conclude that any customization that has been done, was done with something else in mind, other than overclocking.

The front of the card doesn’t give away much, but the back side shows us that the PCB is quite shorter than we were expecting.

The VRM area seems to have been relocated closer the output bracket, similar to the Radeon HD 7800 series. 

Half of the card’s GDDR5 memory is located on the back of the card, although it could have easily been fitted all on the front side. The 6-pin PCIe power connectors are closer to the middle of the card rather than the end, but that’s only an impression, since the PCB is shorter than the visual length of the card.

There is no word on official pricing yet.




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