System Diary Technology News Blog

Seagate was the first major hard disk manufacturers have offered models of hard drives with interface SATA-600. Tests have shown, however, that in terms of speed of the new interface is a classic hard drives nothing, the transition to the use of SATA-600 is more relevant for solid state drives.

In any case, southbridges AMD will offer support SATA-600 in March this year, Intel will catch up early next year, and sell hard disks without SATA-600 interface will soon be bad manners. Well aware of this, the company Western Digital has quietly released on its website description of the Winchester family WD1002FAEX Black Caviar 1 TB capacity, endowed with SATA-600 interface and 64 MB buffer.

Spindle speed for this drive is 7200 rpm, used magnetic plate volume of 500 GB. Last property allows to produce in this series and hard disk capacity of 2 terabytes, but such a model with interface SATA-600 has not yet proposed.

Regular readers will recall that in the platform AMD Leo will not only six-core processor Phenom II X6 (Thuban), but the chipset 890FX and 890GX, complemented by a new south bridge SB850. Until some time in respect of the south bridge, there are many uncertainties – in question remained interfaces support SATA-600 and USB 3.0. We can already say with certainty that support SATA-600 in quantities of six ports of the same name south bridge SB850 will provide, but to implement support for USB 3.0 motherboard manufacturers will have old-fashioned way – at the expense of discrete controllers, third-party developers.

Company Biostar yesterday rather surprisingly published on its website some details about the forthcoming announcement of the motherboard TA890GXE based flagship integrated chipset AMD 890GX. Were are the main differences from the chipset AMD 790GX: added support for DirectX 10.1 and UVD 2.0, six ports SATA-600 with the function of FIS-based switching, the number of USB ports increased from 12 to 14 pieces. The frequency of the integrated graphics core is still equal to 700 MHz, the needs of video core motherboard unsoldered 128 MB memory DDR-3. South bridge SB850 and SB810 will also have a built-in clock oscillator and a Gigabit LAN controller. Biostar mentions support for some “asymmetric CrossFire”. Obviously, we are talking about the possibility to combine in one system, two video cards of different models – to a larger board size micro-ATX can not claim. AMD offers similar combinations for CrossFire in the past.

Motherboard Biostar TA890GXE will be compatible with six-core processor Phenom II X6 performed Socket AM3, but this property is inherent to all other cards with this type of processor socket if updating the BIOS. According to available data, the announcement of the motherboard Biostar TA890GXE held in early March, the recommended retail price in Russia is $ 115. Further details on the motherboard TA890GXE can be found on the manufacturer’s website.

According to many experts, this year will be a turning point for migration from DDR-2 to DDR-3. While the AMD platform retains the backing of both types of memory, Intel memory controllers into its new processors introduces only support DDR-3. The only exceptions are processors Atom, sold millions of copies – they still support only the memory type DDR2-667.

Site System Diary technology news bogreports that in the middle of this year Intel will introduce a new model generation Atom processors Pineview, which will support the memory DDR-3. Model Atom N455 (1.66 GHz) to maintain the level TDP not more than 5.5 watts, for a model Atom N475 (1.83 GHz), this value will be increased to 6.5 Tues Recognize modification Atom processor with support for DDR-3 will be on the figure “5″ on the last position in the model name. Netbooks based on them will be available in the second half of 2010.

Group of Japanese scientists at Keio University (Keyo University) in Tokyo has officially announced that they were able to develop new technology for production of miniature solid state disk (SSD-Solid State Drive). It was developed in close cooperation with Toshiba, and according to scientists, can dramatically reduce the size of SSD drives (90 percent) and significantly improve their energy efficiency (70 percent), newspaper Nikkei Shimbun.

As stated by the developers, the first prototype consists of 128 NAND Flash memory chips c total capacity of 1 terabyte, and that is no less interesting, the size it is not more than a normal postage stamp. Another note that this tiny SSD drive can provide data rates up to 2 Gb / s over a wireless connection, which will significantly reduce the cost of production samples.

As expected, the first solutions based on this technology will become available by 2012.

Along with the new processors, Intel introduced and three new chipset – more precisely, three separate chips RSN (Platform Controller Hub) with the indices H55, H57 and Q57. We have to study under laboratory conditions, went to the motherboard to the H55 – Intel Desktop Board DH55TC. This RSN is characterized by compatibility with all CPU Intel, designed for socket LGA1156 (from Core i7 to Pentium), provides work for up to six connectors PCI Express x1 (formally of the 2.0 specification, but with the ability to transfer data from the specific to 1.1 speed) and up to four slots PCI. May use up to six Serial ATA II ports and up to 12 – USB 2.0; a built-in controller, Gigabit Ethernet, chip High Definition Audio (standard 7.1) and tying for connecting peripherals obsolete. In fact, N55 – a “Southbridge» ICH10; in the original specification it does not provide even an integrated RAID-controller. Truly – the solution for the lower (and partially secondary) price range. More functionality has RSN H57, it was his, by analogy with the R55, would be worth to call N55 and N55 over the current index went up to N53.

The main difference is palpable RSN N55 from R55, which we have already expounded on earlier – that the first provides additional bus FDI (Flexible Display Interface), is essential to work in an integrated processor graphics card. Thus, one could argue, that henceforth it N55/57 claim to be universal RSN for the middle and lower price segments of the consumer market (for corporate use is laden with some additional features RSN Q57).

For laboratory tests, we have prepared three stands, all running 32-bit operating system Windows 7 “Max”, test results can be found at the magazine. As the most significant indicators of note 3DMark Vantage 1.0.1: integrated rating – P367, P3307 and P14207 points for stands 1, 2 and 3, respectively; CPU Score – 9469, 21 478 and 19 860 points, respectively. Package BAPCo SYSmark 2007 Preview 1.06, 1280 x 1024 demonstrated the integrated rating of 222, 219 and 231 mark for stands 1, 2 and 3, respectively, and in terms of Productivity in the package forward tore it stand 1 – set CPU Intel Core i5 661 and RPM Intel H55: 209, 208 and 208 points for stands 1, 2 and 3. PCMark Vantage Build 1.0.2 (1280 x 960, color depth 32 bit, 4096 MB) shows the integral rating of 8107, 8531 and 8433 points for stands 1, 2 and 3.

Actually, the combination of Intel Core i5 661 and RPM Intel H55 can be considered optimal for the ratio of price and quality for entry-level computer systems. Even, perhaps, some of the excess processing power – for the RSN N55 is not equipped with a RAID-controller, a better fit younger models CPU family Clarkdale. Nevertheless, we can confidently assert: Intel to pay very close attention to affordable and even cheap PCs for the mass market.

The fact that a large amount of rarely combined with high energy efficiency, our regular readers to talk about. All hard drive manufacturers on magnetic platters offer consumers a choice between the quick and efficient models of hard drives. With the advent of large volumes of hard drives, each manufacturer has included in its product range model with reduced spindle speed.

Samsung has not become a stand out from the trend, and yesterday introduced a family of hard drives EcoGreen F3, using a magnetic plate capacity of 500 GB. Winchester volume of 2 terabytes on four plates already offered at a price of $ 179, soon the company will make him hard disk capacity of 1.5 terabytes. Buffer size is 16 or 32 MB, but the spindle speed, it was decided to sacrifice for the sake of reducing energy consumption. Precise information about the characteristics of the manufacturer does not, but the similar products of other companies spindle speed is 5400 or 5900 rpm.

Hard disks are equipped with SATA-300 interface and support the technology NCQ. EcoTriangle concept involves the use in the manufacture of hard disks environmentally friendly materials, as well as low power consumption and noise. Compared with competitors, Winchester F3EG consumes 40% less energy in standby mode, and 10% less energy in the mode of reading or writing data. New Samsung adapted to work in conditions of unstable power supply. Sales have already begun, pricing Samsung is consistent with market offers of competitors.

Low-end videocards manufacturers always give plenty of room for experimenting with design and performance, since the ultimate goal of these experiments is almost always find ways to reduce costs, and only secondarily, they are aimed at improving consumer quality.

EVGA Corporation agreed to widen the range of GeForce 210 through modification of the passive cooling system. Certainly, the existence of such cards is not unusual – the level of energy consumption standard version GeForce 210 does not exceed 30.5 watts, but the configuration of the radiator makes to attract attention.

Sole radiator has stepped form, under the overhang are the elements of the power supply subsystem, which are made to the back of the card. At the very back of the port is located DVI, HDMI and D-Sub.

The upper part of the radiator to the form of a box. There, where the GPU and memory chips, fins have a maximum height. Aesthetics in the radiator is not more than brick, but with his work, he must cope successfully. Graphics Card EVGA 512-P3-1213-LR is equipped with 512 MB memory DDR-2 with the access time 2.5 ns, has a 64-bit bus and the nominal frequency 589/1402/800 MHz. In wholesale store EVGA graphics card that costs $ 55.

The ensuing month, promised to please fans of AMD products a significant expansion of the range graphics card that supports DirectX 11. Video card series Radeon HD 5450 (Cedar) should be submitted to the fourth of February, but you can buy them now, according to the website Fudzilla.

First of all, could not resist the temptation to make himself one of the Latvian advertising online stores that offers video card Radeon HD 5450 performed by MSI with passive cooling system. Novelty is equipped with 1 GB of memory DDR-3, has a 64-bit bus running at default frequencies 650/1600 MHz. In this configuration, Radeon HD 5450 costs about 62 euros.

EBay auction, too, does not lag behind Latvian distributors – a similar card from MSI with 512 MB memory DDR-3 is proposed by some U.S. seller for $ 54. From the description of the lot we can learn that the chip Radeon HD 5450 performed on 40 nm and contains 292 million transistors. Purchase of this item Russians lose any economic sense – the cost of delivery will be commensurate with the price of cards. In any case, before the official announcement and the start of sales remains quite a bit, it makes sense to wait to purchase.

This technology news blog have already reported that the company intends to submit Galaxy weird video card based on two-chip GeForce GTS 250. These graphics solutions do not belong to the productive, so the feasibility of issue of such a “tandem” can be challenged. Nevertheless, the model of two-chip video card GeForce GTS 250 was in the test lab site ExpReview.

We begin by examining the exterior of the video card. Aluminum radiators GPUs “flower” arrangement deprived of their own fans, their cooling is engaged in a battery of three fans, enshrined in a special textolite frame. So-called Fan Card is installed in the adjacent expansion slot motherboard, fans do blow is near the video card. Fan speed is automatically adjusted according to the method of pulse-width modulation.

If a single-chip version of the GeForce GTS 250 works at frequencies 738/1836/2200 MHz, dual-chip performance in the frequency reduced to 600/1500/2000 MHz, if you believe the screenshot GPU-Z. Tests, however, were carried out at frequencies 675/1696/2000 MHz. Each of the two GPUs on a 128 stream processors and communicates with 512 MB of memory type GDDR-3 on the 256-bit bus. In the 3DMark Vantage test, the tandem is 5% faster than a single GeForce GTX 280. However, the biggest drawback video Galaxy may become a high price, data on which no.

The first mention of overclocking version of the Radeon HD 5770 performed by MSI “, nicknamed” Hawk was associated with some embarrassment – to the filing of first-hand all the news sites have given a new product of cutting the ear called the English-speaking reader Hawx. In fact, the MSI would give his card “falcon” (born hawk), that was confirmed on Friday published an official press release.

Video originally conceived as a product-oriented overclockers. Manufacturer claims that the power supply subsystem MSI R5770 Hawk was built under the scheme “7 +1″ phases, while the standard Radeon HD 5770 graphics device power supply subsystem is described by the formula “4 + 1″ phase. Already this difference, on assurances of MSI, can expect to improve the overclocking potential of video to 20%.

Looking ahead, it should be noted that colleagues from Guru3D managed to overclock this card with nominal frequencies 875/4800 MHz to 1050/5660 MHz. Core voltage was increased to 1.3, with the same proprietary utility allows you to increase the Vcore to 1.35 V. The reference the same version of Radeon HD 5770 operates at frequencies 850/4800 MHz.

Cooling System Twin Frozr II features three heatpipes and two fans. The cooler can reduce the temperature of the GPU at 13 degrees Celsius compared with the standard version of the Radeon HD 5770 technology. The advantage of the cooler can be attributed, and his exceptionally quiet operation. Special slot in the back of the printed circuit board allows you to measure the voltage on the core and memory using a multimeter. Price should not offend potential customers – MSI R5770 Hawk will be only $ 20-25 more expensive than the standard version of the Radeon HD 5770. This ifnormation provided by System Diary Technology News Blog.