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Platform Trends: AMD's Entry-Entry-Level Graphics Processor You've heard of sharing the wealth, but AMD is doing it with a vengeance: Even though its ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, 4870, and 4670 graphics processing units now rule the high-end, mainstream, and entry-level segments, the company has added two more members to the HD 4000 family at a lower-than-low $55 and $39. Is there a market for deliberately limited-performance PC graphics? Vince Freeman says yes indeed. Tuesday , October 14, 2008 10:00:00 AM |
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Platform Trends: Nehalem Set to Fly with the X58 After four years of LGA775 processors and motherboards, the socket-shufflers at Intel have struck again. But this time tossing your old platform is worth the cost. The Core i7 "Nehalem" CPU's all-new architecture promises a performance revolution. And the X58 desktop chipset may be even more impressive, combining colossal bandwidth with a three-channel memory controller, the return of Hyper-Threading, and a graphics-card surprise. Sunday , September 28, 2008 06:30:00 PM |
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Platform Trends: AMD's Most Affordable R700s Its ATI Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 are the champs of the mid-priced PC graphics market, and the 4870 X2 wears the single-card crown for high-end systems. Now AMD unveils more bad news for Nvidia by bringing the same R700 graphics processor architecture to the under-$100 segment -- and a mix of price, performance, and power consumption that surpasses anything yet seen. Sunday , September 14, 2008 10:15:00 AM |
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Platform Trends: Budget GPUs Galore We're used to reading about AMD's and Nvidia's fastest, fire-breathing graphics cards, but the rivals are now hunting bargain hunters -- Nvidia putting its GeForce 9 Series technology on a $59 diet, AMD revving up a fast integrated-graphics chipset while preparing new ATI Radeon HD 4400 cards. How do these strategies stack up against each other -- or against simple price cuts on last year's cards? Sunday , August 31, 2008 06:00:00 PM |
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Platform Trends: Intel Gets Up and Atom Suddenly, no small, light, low-priced notebook -- a.k.a. netbook, a.k.a. Asus Eee 901, Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind, or Dell Comingsoon -- is complete without Intel's battery-sipping Atom N270 processor. Actually, that 1.6GHz, Hyper-Threading CPU is just one of seven Atoms, with thermal design power as low as 0.65 watt, and they're destined for more than just netbooks. Here's a look under the hood. Sunday , August 17, 2008 11:15:00 AM |
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Platform Trends: Nvidia Reseeds its Mainstream Line Though its flagship GeForce 200 Series holds the spotlight, Nvidia Corp. has taken the opportunity of a switch to 55-nanometer-process engineering to perk up its formerly-elite-now-everyday GeForce 9 lineup of graphics processing units. You'll see some graphics cards that look awfully familiar, others that will put a grin on the faces of gamers with only $100 to spend, and still others in between. Vince Freeman helps you keep score. Monday , August 04, 2008 11:35:00 AM |
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Platform Trends: The Year of Serious Storage One and one-half terabytes, people! Most of us remember when such storage capacity stretched the limits of a server RAID array, but next month Seagate will ship a 1.5TB desktop hard disk. Meanwhile, both old-fashioned and newfangled storage tech heats up the notebook market -- and PC enthusiasts and upgraders are getting their hands on the speedy solid-state drives once reserved for the most exotic, elite laptops. Saturday , July 19, 2008 04:30:00 PM |
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Montevina Mania: Intel Unveils Centrino 2 Notebook Platform New 45-nanometer CPUs are only part of the story as Intel revamps its dominant laptop processor/chipset/WiFi bundling program. The nearly 250 new notebooks slated to wear the Centrino 2 sticker will flaunt faster, more far-reaching wireless; more game-worthy graphics (plus the option of switching between integrated and discrete graphics), and multimedia enhancements designed to let travelers enjoy a high-definition Blu-ray movie -- on one battery charge. Tuesday , July 15, 2008 02:05:00 PM |
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Platform Trends: AMD's Massive Retaliation: The Radeon HD 4000 Series Just nine days after Nvidia's launch of a new flagship GeForce GTX 200 series, AMD grabs the spotlight with formidable -- and more affordable -- ATI Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 graphics cards, packing a whopping 956 million transistors, 800 stream processors, and (for the 4870) unbelievably fast GDDR5 memory. The company also dusts off the classic All-in-Wonder name for a new DirectX 10.1 graphics/HDTV tuner combo. Monday , July 07, 2008 11:25:00 AM |
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Platform Trends: The GeForce GTX 200 Series: Big, Bad, and Proud of It As the Incredible Hulk rampages across movie screens, Nvidia introduces a giant of a graphics processor -- the GeForce GTX 280 (and only slightly tamer GTX 260), bringing 1.4 billion transistors, 240 stream processors, and over 240GB/sec of bandwidth to smash even current dual-GPU gaming, 3D rendering, and video-encoding graphics cards. But should you wait for a smaller, less power-hungry sequel? Friday , June 20, 2008 03:00:00 PM |
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Platform Trends: Intel Does the New Chipset Thing Monday , June 09, 2008 01:30:00 PM |
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Eee, Atom, Aspire, Wind: It's a Small (Notebook) World at Computex Tuesday , June 03, 2008 04:00:00 PM |
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Platform Trends: AMD/ATI: Slowdown? What Slowdown? Monday , May 26, 2008 10:30:00 AM |
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Platform Trends: DDR-3 Heads for the Mainstream Friday , May 09, 2008 04:00:00 PM |
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Platform Trends: AMD Hits a Triple with the Phenom X3 Monday , April 28, 2008 12:15:00 PM |
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Platform Trends: The Wild World of Graphics Cards Friday , April 11, 2008 04:00:00 PM |
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Platform Trends: X4 Marks the Spot Monday , March 31, 2008 02:15:00 PM |
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Platform Trends: Intel Deploys Its Troops Monday , March 17, 2008 11:50:00 AM |
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Platform Trends: Shifts in the Multicore Landscape Friday , February 29, 2008 04:10:00 PM |
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PCs for Five C's Tuesday , February 26, 2008 03:10:00 PM |