Intel Finally Brings Some Competition for AMD’s Trinity

Seeing that it stands no chance when competing with quad-core models, Intel has finally decided they need to address the 35W and 17W marks when AMD’s Trinity has proven to be tough to beat. When it came to anything that involved the iGPU to be put to work, AMD’s Trinity mopped the floor with current Intel Ivy Bridge in Diablo III and in any battery life testing. With the arrival of Intel’s dual-core 17W TDP CPUs, the situation might change for AMD. Intel has launched today four 17W CPUs. The i5-3317U is the first of them and it’s not yet available, nor is it priced yet. The main frequency will be 1700 MHz, but the cores will Turbo up to 2400 MHz when both are needed, or 2600 MHz if only one thread requires the maximum...

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Sapphire's 860 MHz Radeon HD 7950 Flex Edition

Having covered MSI's rather unimpressively priced GeForce GTX 550 Ti video card, we now get to write of a somewhat more powerful adapter. Sapphire is the company saying its piece this time. It has launched the Radeon HD 7950 Flex Edition. Featuring a dual-slot, dual-fan cooler, it operates at slightly higher clock frequencies than the original. Where the base performance is of 800 MHz for the GPU and 1,250 MHz for the 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, Sapphire's iteration sticks to the latter speed, but drives the GPU at 860 MHz. The only other noteworthy asset is the Sapphire overclocking tool, TriXX, which displays temperatures and lets owners tune voltage and clocks. Sales should start soon. The UK price is said to be of £328.96....

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Tegra May Be Nvidia’s Main Product

Once Microsoft’s Windows 8 ARM Edition hits the streets, Nvidia’s Tegra 3 and the new Tegra 3+ will be free of their power envelope limitations, and we might see the company shell out some 3 GHz Tegra 3+ chips for netbooks and cheap laptops. TSMC already demonstarted the 3.1 GHz ARM Cortex A9 CPUs some time ago and we reported it. Right now, the current Tegra 2 and Tegra 3 are a complete success and Nvidia proved that the trend is only going up. If last year 15 or so smartphones integrated the company’s Tegra 2 chips, this year more than 30 such designs will surface on the market. Forbes thinks that if mobile adoption of Nvidia’s SoCs continues at this rate, Tegra could end up as Nvidia’s main bread bringer in the next...

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Gigabyte’s X11 Unpleasant Details Surface

Gigabyte took us all by surprise this morning when the company revealed its new X11 UltraBook. As we’ve reported, it looks very similar to Apple’s MacBook Air and we were hoping for some competitive price. When news about its thickness and weight broke out, we were impressed with the 3 millimeter thickness on the slim side and the 973 grams lightness. The fact that Gigabyte is planning to price its new baby exactly in the same range as Apple’s MacBook is not the only problem. More pictures and bad news are surfacing now. While we like Gigabyte’s design choice regarding the lid, the rest of the laptop seems rather blend and just like most others. Unpleasant technical details emerged as well, as it seems that the device...

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MSI Presents GeForce GTX 550 Ti Graphics Card

Micro-Star International has completed development of a new video card, or at least a new version of an existing graphics adapter. The board we are talking about is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti. MSI gave its new product the model number N550GTX-Ti-MD1GD5-V2, not exactly the shortest name in the world. Anyway, the product has 192 CUDA cores, a clock speed of 900 MHz for the GPU, 1,800 MHz for the CUDA cores and 3.8 GHz for the 1 GB of GDDR5 VRAM. That's right, since this isn't a Kepler board, the shaders operate at twice the GPU speed. The only other relevant piece of info is the connectivity: D-sub, dual-link DVI and HDMI. Unfortunately, the price of $150 (120 Euro) won't enchant too many people, especially since...

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Get Educated by Sharp's Medfield Tablet for 12 Hours at a Time

We've seen our share of tablets, and we'll keep seeing more, but Sharp is proving to be particularly daring in its development efforts. One Sascha on Google+ has recently posted some photos of a prototype Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich tablet. The important part about this slate is that it uses an Intel Atom Medfield processor rather than an ARM chip. It's also worth noting that the 1,280 x 800 LCD is none too shabby, and neither is the 32 GB SSD or the 8 MP camera on the back. There's a second camera at the front too (VGA). And now we get to the good part, and we mean more than the biometric sensor and the RFID-based alarm system. One special perk is the pressure-sensitive, 6-point multitouch display (256 pressure...

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Windows 8 Release Preview Video Walkthrough Emerges

Microsoft hasn’t made the Release Preview of Windows 8 available for download just yet, but a leaked build did emerge a few days ago, and some enthusiasts rushed to download and install it. There are a lot of changes to take advantage of in the new flavor of the operating system, it seems, and the video embedded below is meant to offer a glimpse at some of them. The video comes from winbeta and shows the appearance of the aforementioned leaked Windows 8 Release Preview SKU, the Chinese flavor of Build 8400, it seems. Many of the applications and menus in this version of Windows 8 are in Chinese, yet some of them were translated in English, so that more users would understand what they are all about. What’s notable...

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GALAXY S III Arriving in Canada with 2GB of RAM and 1.5 GHz Dual-Core CPU

Samsung has finally confirmed the upcoming availability of the Galaxy S III super-phone in Canada, along with its full specs. Yesterday we reported that the smartphone would be offered via Best Buy Canada from $150 CAD with a new three-year agreement. Today, Samsung announced that beginning June 20 the Galaxy S III would be available through leading Canadian carriers and authorized national retailers. The SGH-i747 version of the Galaxy S III will be available from Bell Mobility, Virgin Mobile, SaskTel, TELUS and Rogers Wireless, while the SGH-iT999 model will be available from Videotron, WIND Mobile and Mobilicity. However, unlike the European version, the Canadian variations will be shipped with 2GB of RAM and Snapdragon...

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Intel Core i7 3770K Surpasses 7 GHz Clock

Just a few days after we learned about the new world record supposedly set by an AMD FX-8150 CPU, we read about a feat in Intel's side of the camp. Gigabyte Taiwan has actually issued a press release in which it details the feat of a Taiwanese overclocker going by the handle HiCookie. By means of a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H motherboard, Corsair DDR3 RAM (random access memory) and a Corsair AX 1200 power supply, the Intel Core i7-3770K was driven all the way up to 7 GHz and beyond (7,031.71 MHz). Three of the four cores were disabled during the run. The FSB was set at 111.63 MHz and the multiplier at 63x. Finally, the voltage was 1.956V. You can go here for the specs of the CPU and here for details on the previous record and its holder. ...

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"Flame" - The newly found cyber super-weapon, spying and damaging Iranian computers

There is no doubt that cyber spying is the most preferred new age intelligence gathering tactic used by almost all countries, but countries like USA and China have already been exposed for using technology as a weapon. The conclusive proof's fingering all leads to an Isarel, American joint-venture targeting Iranian nuclear facilities using the world's most advanced computer malware Stuxnet are now well known publicly. To make things even more interesting researchers at Kaspersky Labs have now unveiled another extraordinary peace of cyber-weapon, named "Flame" the data-mining malware has already caused substantial damage and massive amounts of data loss as admitted by Iranian officials. Iranian authorities are also claiming that...

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And Here Are Intel's Desktop Ivy Bridge CPUs

Intel may be trying to compensate for how spread out its first Ivy Bridge processors were, launch-wise. With fourteen of them having come out at the same time, we have quite a few desktop units to look over. Computex 2012 will happen in about a week or so, in Taipei, Taiwan. There, many mobile PCs will be launched, as well as desktops. Similarly, desktop vendors will update their existing offers with whatever processors come out. The Core i5 units now out probably won't get so much attention on the part of most custom PC suppliers though. They aren't high-end gaming hardware parts after all. We're sure there will be quite a few people on the DIY market interested in them though, as well as on the business front. We'll...

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Samsung Publishes “GALAXY S III: A Day in the Life” Promo Video

Samsung’s Galaxy S III smartphone debuted two days ago in a series of 28 markets around the world, and made an official appearance in some more of them today, including Australia. The handset should reach even more countries next month, bringing along the power of a quad-core application processor and a large 4.8-inch touchscreen display. In the meantime, Samsung is making sure that users are fully aware of what its new device has to offer to them. Thus, the company published a new video promo to showcase the phone’s capabilities. Dubbed “A Day in the Life,” the clip offers a glimpse at the most appealing features that those who purchase the Galaxy S III will benefit from. “Experience a day in the life of the GALAXY S III, and how it plays an intimate role with you and your...

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Intel Intros Four 35W Dual-Core Ivy Bridge Processors

Intel really dropped a bombshell today, having officially launched no less than fourteen dual-core / quad-core central processing units, all built on the 22nm manufacturing process. Out of the 14 chips, four are the sort that will be utilized in the construction of mid-range notebooks. They are called Core i5-3320M, i5-3360M, i7-3520M and i5-3210M. The first three are priced at $225 (181 Euro), $266 (214 Euro), $346 (279 Euro), but the fourth was not given a tag for some reason, in the Intel slides posted by Engadget. Fortunately, the rest of information is readily available. The Santa Clara, California-based company made a point of publishing it well ahead of Computex, apparently. To start off, the Core i5-3320M...

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Intel-Based Orange Santa Clara Goes Official in the UK as San Diego

As expected, Orange and Intel have just announced the upcoming availability of UK’s first smartphone to be powered by Intel technology, the San Diego. Formerly known as Santa Clara, the smartphone will be exclusive to Orange and is expected to hit shelves on June 6. Customers will be able to purchase the Android phone for only 200 GBP (310 USD or 250 EUR) on PAYG (pay as you go), beginning next week. In addition, the carrier offers customers the option to grab the Orange San Diego for free on a 24-month price plan from 15.50 GBP a month. The package includes 50 any network call minutes, 50 texts, as well as 100MB of mobile data a month. Keep in mind that Orange UK will offer each customer who purchases the San Diego on...

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Google’s ChromeBox Challenged by AMD and Linux

Embedded computing specialist, Israeli company Compulab, together with the Linux experts from Linux Mint, is preparing to launch the FitPC3 minicomputer to take on the newly-announced Google ChromeBox. Unlike Google’s new SFF, the FitPC3 is built around AMD’s Brazos platform, with the embedded T40N and T56N APUs providing the computing power. Software-wise, Compulab’s FitPC3 is coming with a Debian-derivative operating system. It is called Linux Mint, and it will be a highly-optimized version 13 called “Maya,” featuring MATE 1.2 desktop environment and the popular XBMC media center. The Compulab’s FitPC3 connectivity is well-endowed with six USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 connectors and two eSATA ports. There’s also a...

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ASUS Preps Two Versions of Maximus V Formula ROG Motherboard

ASUS is just about ready to release another product bearing the Republic of Gamers brand (ROG), one that hadn't been fully detailed until now. Fortunately, leaks happen all the time and ASUS, in this case, was unable to prevent a special tidbit of information from coming forth (assuming it even tried to). There will be two versions of the Maximus V Formula ROG motherboard up for sale starting next week. The launch will happen during a special press event at Computex Taipei. One will be bundled with the ThunderFX USB sound card and amplifier, while the other will be sold only with the dual-band mini PCI Express 802.1a/b/g/n Wi-Fi/Bluetooth 4.0 card. That said, there is one other new detail that VR-Zone found: ASUS included...

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Corsair Launches 3GHz DDR3 Dominator Platinum Memory

A couple of weeks back, we spoke about Team Group and how it had become the first company to launch a 3 GHz DDR3 memory product. Corsair is now doing something similar. The company has introduced the Dominator Platinum, featuring a new PCB (printed circuit board), internal cooling layers and external copper thermal pads meant to hold aluminum fins with DHX (dual-path heat exchange). Corsair couldn't exactly afford not to optimize heat dissipation, since the 3 GHz speed, achieved through use of new 4 Gb chips, generates a lot of heat. There will be both dual-channel and quad-channel kits whenever the company finally starts shipping them. Overclockers will have a filled day with them. And here is where the catch comes...

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VIA Launches the ARTiGO A1200 SlimPC featuring Eden X2 Dual Core CPU

Famous CPU and chip designer, Taiwanese company VIA is launching today its ARTiGO A1200 SlimPC small form factor (SFF) computer system, on its official website. VIA’s Eden X2 dual core processor was quite some time ago. It’s an out-of-order 64 Bit architecture so it should be able to surpass any Intel Atom CPU running at the same frequency. The out-of-order architecture is also advantageous in many in-optimized scenarios where in-order architectures such as Atom usually can’t display satisfactory performance. These processors are built in TSMC’s 40nm manufacturing technology and are fully pin-to-pin compatible with VIA Eden, VIA C7, and VIA Nano E-Series processors. The company is marketing a 7 year longevity guarantee. We’re...

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Buffalo TeraStation 5200 NAS Debuts

Buffalo is somewhat periodic in its release of network-attached storage devices, just like it is in most other fields it dabbles in (drive enclosures, optical drives, SSDs, even wireless routers). The product coming out this time is the TeraStation 5200 NAS, which has four drive bays and the Intel Atom D2550 dual-core CPU. Buffalo didn't exactly try to put all its NAS rivals to shame with this, unlike its recent achievement on the wireless router front. Although it did include a variety of features, it also kept in mind that small and medium businesses can't afford to pay a fortune for storage. As such, only two of the four HDD bays are pre-populated, for up to 6 TB (combined). RAID 0/1/JBOD modes are all supported. iSCSI,...

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Supermicro Launches NVIDIA Maximus SuperWorkstation

Supermicro has proudly introduced the X9 SuperWorkstation 7047GR-TRF, a high-performance server equipped with four NVIDIA Tesla C2075 GPU compute accelerators and a Quadro GPU. What is even more important is that the system supports NVIDIA Maximus, a technology whereby a single system can, at the same time, carry out both interactive graphics tasks and heavy computations. To elaborate, the X9 SuperWorkstation uses the Quadro for displaying visuals and the Tesla for simulations. The other important components involved in the making of this machine are an Intel Xeon E5-2600 processor, a massive capacity of random access memory (512GB DDR3 1600MHz ECC), an 80 PLUS, Platinum Level (94%) PSU and the Super X9DRG-QF motherboard. "Supermicro's...

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