Intel Core i3 Ivy Bridge CPU Specs Leaked, Lack PCI Express 3.0

Quite a lot of details about Intel’s Core i5 and Core i7 processors based on the Ivy Bridge architecture have reached the web so far, but until recently the specs of the company’s third generation Core i3 CPUs have pretty much remained a mystery.

However, this changed just a couple of hours ago, when a Chinese website entered into the possession of a list detailing most of Intel’s upcoming Ivy Bridge desktop parts, including the Core i3 series.

According to the info provided by this leak, Intel’s 2012 entry-level processors lineup will include five chips, all featuring a dual-core design and Hyper-Threading support.

Much like their Sandy Bridge counterparts, all the 22nm Core i3 parts lack support for Turbo Boost, as well as for a series of other Intel technologies including AES-NI, VT-d and TXT.

Furthermore, the leaked specs also show that their integrated PCI Express controller won’t support PCIe Gen 3.0 add-on cards.

When such cards will be installed, they will work in PCI Express 2.0 mode, which cuts in half the bandwidth available to them.

Depending on their thermal envelope, Intel will split the five Core i3 CPUs into two different ranges.

The first one includes the Core i3-3420, i3-3225 and i3-3220 processors which have a 55 Watt TDP, while the second group comprises the Core i3-3240T and i3-3220T, both featuring 35W TDPs. The full specs of the chips are available in the tables included in this article.

The release date of any of these Core i3 processors is not yet known. From the leaks that have been circulating around the web so far, we know that Intel’s first batch of Ivy Bridge CPUs will arrive on April 8.

However, this will include only Core i7 and Core i5 desktop CPUs, while the lower-end parts will arrive at a later date, probably in May this year.

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Gigabyte GSmart G1355 Dual-SIM Android Phone Unveiled Ahead of MWC Launch

Gigabyte is about to launch another entry-level Android phone, the GSmart G1355. Although the name of the device is a bit awkward, the device comes with pretty neat features that recommend it as an interesting budget-friendly smartphone.

The selling point of the smartphone is dual-SIM capability. Other than that, this is just a mid-end Android device. The phone is powered by Gingerbread platform and packs 512 MB of RAM and an Adreno 200 graphics processing unit.

There’s also a microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB) and a large 4.3-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen display. 

The folks at GSMArena mention that Gigabyte GSmart G1355 might be officially introduced at the end of the month, at the Mobile World Congress 2012, in Barcelona. 

Obviously, there are no details regarding the phone’s pricing options yet, but Gigabyte might debut this phone only in emerging and developing markets.

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Samsung Readies 10.1 Tablet Version of the Galaxy Note, Tipped for MWC 2012 Debut

Samsung has mistakenly revealed the name of one of its upcoming tablets, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.

This slate has been mentioned on the company's invitation to a Samsung Developer Day at MWC, together with the original Galaxy Note and a couple of Bada smartphones.

Little is known about the tablet at this time, but since this will be released into the Note series, it goes without saying that it will arrive sporting a Samsung-branded inductive stylus (which will actually be manufactured by Wacom).

Digging for further info about the Galaxy Note 10.1, The Verge found further evidence to support the existence of this tablet.

This takes the form of a casting call for a Samsung commercial, inviting a "teen student" to audition for the role of a Galaxy Note 10.1 user.

The commercial listing is no longer active, but it called for an early February shoot, which seems to go pretty well with the idea of a Galaxy Note 10.1 launching at MWC.

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Sapphire Edge-HD3 AMD Brazos-Powered SFF Desktop Visits FCC’s Offices

Sapphire is getting ready to launch a new mini-PC in the company Edge-HD series which will swap the traditional Intel Atom and Nvidia ION graphics combo used in the previous versions of these systems for an AMD Brazos APU.

The new Edge HD model was showcased during the recent CES fair and back then Sapphire promised that the SFF desktop would reach retail this February.

While we have our doubts that Sapphire will actually manage to achieve this, the Edge-HD3 was recently spotted in FCC’s offices by Liliputing, so its US release should get near sporting an E-450 APU.

This is the fastest Brazos chip available so far and it sports dual Bobcat x86 processing cores clocked at 1.65GHz and Radeon HD 6320 integrated graphics, featuring some impressive multimedia capabilities.

What this means is that the little 18W chip installed in the Edge HD3 is fully capable of decoding Blu-ray video, as well as other Full HD movie formats, no matter the bitrate used for their encoding.

These can be stored on the included 500GB hard disk drive, which is housed inside the case together with 4GB of DDR3 system memory.

As far as the available connectors are concerned, the system features two USB 2.0 ports, an audio-in and one line-out jack, an Ethernet port, as well as VGA and HDMI video outputs. 

The Fusion-powered Edge-HD3 was also designed to provide users with USB 3.0 connectivity. 

Built-in WiFi rounds up the features list, while the power consumption of the Sapphire nettop is estimated at a low 30 Watts.

The current EDGE HD2 nettop is powered by a dual-core Intel Atom D525 processor which runs at 1.8GHz, has 2GB of system memory, a 250GB hard drive and Nvidia second-generation ION graphics.

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PowerColor Delivers Single-Slot Radeon HD 7750 Graphics Card

PowerColor has just announced the expansion of its graphics card line with a new model based on AMD’s recently introduced Radeon HD 7750 design that relies on a single-slot cooler to keep the card’s temperatures in check.

The redesigned PCB appears to be just slightly longer than that of the reference HD 7750 and it uses a single slot cooler which is covered by a long, black plastic shroud with PowerColor's logo on it.

The cooling system comprises a large aluminum heatsink with tightly-packed fins and the heat is drawn from the core via a copper plate.

Air is flown through the aluminum channels by a large diameter blower type fan which sits at the back of the graphics card.

While PowerColor hasn't provided us with any pictures showing the base of the cooling assembly, it is pretty safe to assume that the card sports some kind of VRM and memory chip cooling. 

Despite its thin profile, PowerColor’s single-slot Radeon HD 7750 is equipped with an almost full set of display connectors, which includes a dual-link DVI port, a full-size HDMI 1.4a port and a DisplayPort 1.2 output.

No details regarding the pricing or availability of this graphics card were unveiled by PowerColor, but we do know that AMD’s MSRP for the Radeon HD 7750 is set at $109 US (about 83 EUR).

The Cape Verde Pro GPU utilized for the Radeon HD 7750 includes 512 stream processors and 32 texture units, which are paired together with 16 ROP units and a 128-bit wide memory bus.

The card’s stock operating clocks are set at 800MHz for the GPU, while the 1GB of GDDR5 memory is working at 1,125MHz (4.5GHz data rate).

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Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 Spotted at FCC En-Route to AT&T and/or T-Mobile USA

Samsung Galaxy mini 2 (S6500) leaked several days ago, along with a few specs. Rumor has it that the budget-friendly smartphone will be officially introduced at the Mobile World Congress 2012, which is set to kick off on February 27.

Even though the phone will make its debut in Europe, it appears that Samsung plans to release this one in North America as well. 

The guys over at Engadget have just spotted the smartphone at FCC (Federal Communications Commission), which indicates that Samsung wants to release this one as fast as possible.

The phone has been approved with 850 and 1900 GSM/GPRS/EDGE bands, which makes it perfectly suitable for both AT&T and T-Mobile USA carriers.

Other specs that have been revealed in the FCC documents include Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support, along with NFC (Near Field Communications) functionality, though this has yet to be confirmed by the manufacturer as well.

The first photo of the smartphone clearly shows that this is the Galaxy mini successor, though the improvements are not that impressive as expected.

Instead of the low-performance 600 Mhz processor that powers the original Galaxy mini, the upcoming Galaxy mini 2 is equipped with a slightly better 800 MHz, but that won’t make such a big difference.

As expected, the handset runs Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system and probably an updated version of TouchWiz user interface. Another important improvement is the slightly larger 3.3-inch touchscreen display, which is apparently based on Samsung’s Super AMOLED technology.

Unlike the Galaxy mini which only offers 160MB of internal memory, the Galaxy mini 2 packs 3GB storage, as well as microSD card slot for memory expansion. The same 3-megapixel rear camera has been embedded as well, along with built-in GPS receiver.

Samsung Galaxy mini 2 will be available in two colors: Black and Orange. The smartphone is expected to be priced for under 200 USD (150 EUR) outright.

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Quad-Core HTC Endeavor Coming to MWC as One X

Rumors on the upcoming HTC Endeavor smartphone continue to surface, though nothing has been confirmed for the moment. Initially leaked as HTC Edge, the smartphone was renamed to Endeavor last week.

There was also a leaked RUU for the HTC Endeavor, which confirmed the phone would be delivered with Sense 4.0. Several specs have been spotted as well, but the device may be subject to last minute changes.

Today, the folks over at Pocketnow have come up with new details  regarding the HTC Endeavor. It 

appears that once again, HTC decided to change the name of the smartphone, which is now expected to be launched at MWC 2012 as HTC One X.

Moreover, the “X” letter will be placed as a superscript after the name “One” due to branding purposes. Pocketnow, also says that a Danish HTC subcontractor reserved the htc-one-x.dk domain, possibly in order to use it for the smartphone’s retail.

The information somewhat comes as a confirmation, as HTC already trademarked this One name last year, but no other details regarding this branding emerged afterwards.

For the time being, HTC One X aka HTC Endeavor aka HTC Edge will be the company’s first quad-core smartphone. Rumor has it that this one will be equipped with an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core chipset, as well as a large 4.7-inch capacitive touchscreen display with 720p resolution.

LTE-support is another strong point of the smartphone, along with its 8-megapixel rear camera, which features autofocus, LED flash and full HD (1080p) video recording. There’s also a secondary 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for self-portraits and video calls.

Obviously, it will come with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, as well as microSD card slot for memory expansion and built-in GPS receiver.

In the same news, recent speculations point to a possible release in the UK via Orange and Vodafone carriers, but this has yet to be confirmed by HTC.

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Nokia Unveils MWC 2012 Agenda

Nokia is coming to the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, and is expected to bring along a wide range of new devices. 

The company has been long rumored to plan the launch of a new high-end Windows Phone device at the event, and also to aim at releasing a successor for the flagship N8 Symbian device. 

Nothing has been officially confirmed on the matter for the time being, but the Finnish handset vendor has already published on its website the agenda for the upcoming event. 

No hints at what devices the company might be set to bring at the event have been published there. There are only details on the meetings it invites people to participate at. 

The company will be present at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona with info on the development of applications for its devices, among others. 

It will hold three meetings with the MWC attendees, including a Nokia Developer Day on February 27th, followed by two Mobile OS & Applications keynotes, one from Thom Brenner, VP Applications, Nokia, on February 28th, and another one from Stephen Elop, chief executive officer, Nokia, on February 29th. 

“The Nokia Developer Day at MWC 2012 will be bigger than ever! We'll be showing developers how to take the next steps with the Nokia Lumia and Asha device ranges; designing and developing apps for widest reach and monetizing the unique dual opportunity,” the company notes. 

The first of the two keynotes will be focused on social media. Users are increasingly active on social networking sites these days, and many of them use their handsets for that. 

Stephen Elop will keynote on the important role that applications have in today’s mobile world, as well as on the services that these apps are connected to. He and other CEOs from across the mobile ecosystem will discuss the way in which vendors are fighting to meet the changing needs of today’s mobile user base. 

You can have a look at the said web page to learn some more info on the matter. Don’t forget to keep an eye on this space for additional details on Nokia’s presence at the MWC.

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MSI Radeon Outs Custom Built HD 7770 and HD 7750 Graphics Cards

MSI has just announced that it added to its product portfolio two new graphics cards based on the recently announced Radeon HD 7770 and HD 7750 GPUs, both of these solutions featuring support for the company's own Afterburner overclocking software.

Compared to AMD’s reference design, MSI's R7700 graphics cards are equipped with an in-house developed cooling assembly which makes use of two fans to dissipate the heat produced by the card while running.

Spec wise, MSI's Radeon HD 7770 features the same 640 stream processors, 40 texture units, 16 ROPs, and 128-bit memory interface as the rest of the HD 7770 solution available out there, but its core is factory overclocked to reach 1020MHz.

The memory speed was however left unaltered, which means that the 1GB of GDDR5 video buffer installed works at 1,125MHz (4.5GHz data rate).

Moving to the Radeon HD 7750 graphics cards, this also follows AMD's specifications to the letter when it comes to the GDDR5 memory speed, but the Cape Verde Pro core was once again overclocked to reach 830MHz.

Compared to its older brother, this GPU packs 512 stream processors and 32 texture units, but the ROP count and the memory bus width have remained unchanged.

As far as the available video outputs are concerned, MSI’s creations sport dual-link DVI, a DisplayPort connector and an HDMI 1.4a output.

So far, MSI hasn’t made official any information regarding the price of its Radeon HD 7770 and HD 7750 graphics cards, but AMD’s MSRPs are set at $159 (about 121 EUR) and $109 (83 EUR), respectively. 

Both of the Cape Verde GPUs that stand at the heart of these two MSI solutions have been released by AMD earlier today and use the company’s Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture introduced with the Radeon HD 7900-series.

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iPad 3 Weeks Away, Apple Still Selling 1st-Gen Tablets

Less than one month to go until the third generation of iPads is unveiled, and Apple is still selling first-generation tablets on its Special Deals site.

Considering that the latest reports citing inside sources are accurate, Apple is weeks away from unveiling its next-generation of iPads. The third, to be precise, which reportedly features a Retina display, a blazing fast processor and GPU, new cameras, and more.

But that’s not keeping Apple from selling refurbished first-generation versions of the iPad through its Special Deals site.

Those interested in nabbing a $399 iPad with 3G wireless and 16 gigs of storage space can order it here via Apple’s online store.

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