Nvidia GK106 Kepler GPU

The new GK106 graphics chip from Nvidia seems to be ready for primetime, as many samples have already left the TSMC gate and ended up getting photographed on the internet. This graphics processing unit will enable Nvidia to make more money, as the GK104 on the GTX 660 Ti takes up quite a large chunk on a 28nm wafer. Nvidia’s GK106 was rumored to have 768 CUDA processing units, but we have a feeling there will be more than double the units on the GK107 GPU used on the GT 640 video cards. We believe there will be 1152 CUDA cores present inside the new Kepler GPU from Nvidia, but not all of them will be activated. The hardware experts from videocardz.com have managed to get their hands on some clear pictures of the new GPU,...

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ASUS Transformer Book

ASUS seems to be on a launch spree at this year’s IFA event in Berlin, Germany. The company is again presenting the Transformer Book that will be available once Microsoft launches the highly anticipated Windows 8 operating system with native touch interface support. Many may be confused, as the company launched numerous “Transformer” devices during the past few months and a lot of other UltraBooks and various devices also. Basically, the Transformer Book is a powerful x86 tablet that won’t be powered by low-performing CPUs like Intel’s Atom, but rather by the company’s best mobile processors. The Transformer Book is just like an ASUS ZenBook U500VZ that we presented here, but with a detachable screen. The only display...

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Toshiba Satellite U925t Convertible Tablet with 12.5” Gorilla Glass Display

Japanese company Toshiba has just revealed its innovative Windows 8 convertible tablet during this year’s IFA event in Berlin, Germany. The new mobile device comes with a rather big 12.5” display that slides above the keyboard. We’re quite pleased that Toshiba has decided to use the high-quality Gorilla Glass for its display and we’re also happy to see manufacturers making bigger screens. The processors powering the U925t models will be Intel’s Core i5 chips. These are not as powerful as SONY’s VAIO Duo 11 or Samsung’s Series7 Slate, but they are completely superior to any Atom or ARM CPU. The iGPU will luckily be Intel’s HD4000 and storage will be handled by a 128 GB SSD. We would prefer some Trinity implementations...

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ASUS ZenBook Prime UX21A with Touchscreen and Windows 8

ASUS knows when something is coveted by the potential buyers and clearly knows how to make it even more desirable. The famous UX21A UltraBook, also known as the Zenbook Prime UX21A, gets a capacitive touch matrix and the promise of a new Windows 8 operating system. Touch-enabled devices are getting extremely popular this year and ASUS clearly doesn’t want to see its already popular ZenBooks left behind. Therefore, the company is upgrading and re-announcing some improved products like today’s hero. The new Zenbook Prime UX21A now is officially called “Zenbook Prime UX21A Touch” and the company promises it will sport Microsoft’s famous Windows 8 operating system when this is released by the Redmond-based software giant. ASUS...

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AMD GPU Die Shots of Southern Islands Series

The famous fabless CPU and GPU designer, American company Advanced Micro Devices has succeeded in launching the powerful GCN graphics architecture more than half a year ahead of its main competitor in this field. AMD was not keen on showing Nvidia how it’s done so, at first, the traditional microchip semiconductor die shots were not available and what was released during the past months were very low-quality pictures. The Texan company has decided that the time has come to show off the Southern Islands family in “full monty.”, Anandtech reports. Check out the gallery below to see how each 3D and GPU computing powerhouse looks on the inside. The head picture depicts the full 4.3 billion transistors inside AMD famous...

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ASUS Powerful ZenBook U500VZ

World’s greatest mainboard manufacturer, Taiwanese company ASUS has just launched its new 15” UltraBook during this year’s IFA event in Berlin, Germany. The quality mobile system is not quite as slim as its “Prime” brothers, but it comes with much more performance and a bigger screen. The company has updated the screen to a high-quality FullHD IPS panel and the keyboard is just like the one used on the famous ZenBook Prime. Intel’s Ivy Bridge-based Core i7 CPUs will power the new model, but we don’t have the specific information on what version will be integrated. What we do know is that there will be an optional Nvidia GeForce GTX 650M GPU available and there will be two 2.5” storage bays, which we think is absolutely...

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Samsung Powerful Series 5 and 7 Convertible Slate PCs

The Korean giant doesn’t want to be left behind in all the Windows 8 tablet/touch craze and has just announced two new convertible tablets using the highly anticipated Microsoft operating system. Both units use the popular tablet-to-clamshell netbook format. It seems that ASUS should have patented the clamshell netbook/tablet concept introduced with the famous Transformer series, as all big PC makers in the world seem keen on imitating the idea. Some might claim that this is only a tablet with a dock, but ASUS was the first that specifically designed the dock to make the whole assembly look exactly like a whole notebook and not like a docked tablet. Therefore, Samsung’s new Series 5 and 7 Slates look just like HP’s ENVY...

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IBM 5.5 GHz CPU with 48 MB L3 Cache and 20 Billion Transistors

Computing giant IBM once again proved it is the most advanced semiconductor, server and processor manufacturer in the world and launched the fastest and, probably, the most complex CPU in the world today. IBM has just announced the new zEnterprise EC12 server mainframe that took $1 billion to develop. The most interesting aspect about the new servers is the new zEC12 processor. This is actually a multi-chip module (MCM) containing six processing units (PU) that run at an amazing 5500 MHz and two storage controllers, each featuring 3.3 billion transistors. The PUs are designed with single-threaded performance in mind, and thus, we have the amazingly high frequency. There are 6 processing units (PUs) on the z12 along...

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NETGEAR N750 Premium Wi-Fi Router

American networking company Netgear has just officially launched the new N750 Dual Band Gigabit Wi-Fi Router – Premium Edition. This one comes with an impressive features set and a maximum cumulated bandwidth of 750 Mb/s. The new device is designated as model WNDR4300 and can provide dual-band wireless networking by creating a 2.4 GHz network with a maximum transfer speed of 300 Mb/s and a 5 GHz network similar to the WirelessAC standard with a maximum transfer rate of 450 Mb/s. The new device can also act as a print server and has an USB 2.0 port that would make any USB printer available for its clients. Unfortunately, the new router only comes with internal antennas and we really don’t like the fact that the company has not outfitted it with any external antenna connectors. We...

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AMD Vishera and AMD Hondo, Previewed in Next Two Weeks

In traditional manner, AMD is likely to show us sneak previews of its up and coming Vishera and Hondo processors that are going to be launched this autumn. The move will apparently try and divert some attention away from Intel’s Developer Forum event. We reported on AMD’s Vishera desktop processor here and most of you already know that this design will be AMD’s second-generation Bulldozer CPU that will use the already famous Piledriver improvements. The Vishera CPU will feature the same cache sizes as the Bulldozer CPUs that are now available, but it will work at considerably higher clock speeds and likely dissipate less heat. The Hondo low-power CPU is more of a mystery right now as AMD is still having it built at TSMC in the...

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Need for Speed: Most Wanted New All-Gameplay Video

Electronic Arts and Criterion Games have revealed a brand new video from their upcoming Need for Speed: Most Wanted title, this time showing off 5 minutes of pure gameplay footage from the racing game. Need for Speed: Most Wanted reimagines the original title from 2005 with new graphics, improved gameplay and, as always, plenty of high performance sportscars. In order to show off the special Find It, Drive It mechanic, which lets players unlock new vehicles by finding them in the game’s open world, the two companies have posted a new video from Most Wanted. As you can see above, it’s pure unedited footage from the racing title, showing off a couple of stunning supercars, in the form of the Aston Martin V12 Vantage and the Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series. Check...

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Windows 8 Start Menu Revived by Samsung with S Launcher

Gone are the decades-old Microsoft logo and the Windows Start Menu in the upcoming version 8 of the OS, but, in the case of the latter, we may witness a revival. According to Mashable, Samsung won’t let it die just yet, and is bundling a launcher with its future line of Windows 8 machines called “S Launcher,” with a similar functionality. It is a floating widget that includes the functionality of the Start Menu in Windows. You can pin programs, search for items or access various familiar areas, such as the Documents, Pictures and Music folders, Windows Control Panel, Devices and Printers or the Run menu that was part of the Start menu up to Windows XP. Microsoft’s reason to kick the Start menu in Windows stems from the fact...

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China Already Selling iPhone 5 Clone Knock-Offs

From China with love comes the very first iPhone 5 knock-off which not only runs Android, but actually has the Android buzz-bug stamped on its back, where the Apple logo should be. China, the land of some of the most gruesome knock-offs, has done it again. Building on the hype surrounding Apple’s next iPhone refresh, a phone manufacturer has decided to apply all the design elements in the reported leaks, and came up with the device pictured above. The Goophone (yuck!), as it’s called, is the same shape and size as the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, so it’s not an exact replica of the forthcoming iPhone, if the 4-inch display rumors are correct. The enclosure seems to be a cheap plastic with a few flaws here and there, a “Made in...

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Intel Knights Corner Has More Than 32 MB of Cache

Built in the company’s 22nm manufacturing technology, the novel Many Intel Cores (MIC) architecture is apparently radically different from anything attempted before by the semiconductor giant. The current version of the architecture is called Knights Corner and the industry awaits the famous Xeon Phi cards based on it. We reported on the latest development regarding the Xeon Phi accelerator cards here and we know that the whole processor will likely have 64 cores, while the Xeon Phi adapters will have some of these cores disabled. Having so many computing cores on a chip requires a lot of coherence and synchronization work to be done internally to avoid stalls, collisions and generally high latencies. When all instructions...

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Kingmax PI-01 Compact 7mm USB 2.0 Flash Drive, Amazingly Small Flash Drive

Not often do we get the chance to see a very simple innovation that brings significant advantages for the end-user. Kingmax’s new PI-01 compact flash drive is just 7 millimeters long and, despite the small size, it can handle up to 32 GB of data. Being just 0.27 inches long, the Kingmax PI-01 compact flash drive is safe from accidental hits by the user’s own hands and objects being manipulated around the laptop or the port where the USB stick is connected in. It often happens that when working with a normal sized USB flash drive, the user strikes it by accident resulting in a broken stick or, worse, a broken USB port. We would like all USB sticks with less than 128 GB of capacity to be this small, as we’d better be safe...

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AMD Doubled FPUs on AMD Jaguar Computing Core

Fabless CPU and GPU designer, Texas-based American company Advanced Micro Devices is working very hard to deliver a new low-power successor to the famous Bobcat computing architecture. The new microprocessor design is called Jaguar and, during this year’s Hot Chips conference, interesting architectural developments were revealed, like we reported here. Bobcat was AMD’s first microprocessor architecture specifically designed for low-power usage models, as this is the way the company attempts to improve one of its historical weak points. While the Texan company has managed several times during its existence to release desktop and server processors that manifested supreme performance, AMD was never able to conquer the mobile market. Since...

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Intel Haswell Chipset Z87 Detail

Intel is preparing its socket 1150 platform for an initial Haswell launch in Q2 next year and many details are apparently surfacing on the internet less than two weeks before the company’s IDF event. Haswell’s top S1150 chipset will be the Z87 and this chip will come with the much touted integrated voltage regulators along with USB 3.0, SATA III and PCIe 3.0 compatibility and capability, Fudzilla reports. Mainboards will have triple display support and thus HDMI, DVI, DP, eDP and VGA connectors are to be expected. One nice addition is TRIM support in RAID 0 storage configurations along with Rapid Storage Technology 12 and RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 capabilities. Intel ChipsetsImage credits to Intel ...

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Samsung S-Launcher, Copies the OS X Dock

When they’re not extracting billions from their bank account to pay back Apple for all the damage inflicted by copying its line of iDevices, Samsung enjoys copying other Apple stuff too. Like the OS X Dock. In what can be regarded as a taunt, or a really stupid move (we’d rule in favor of the latter, considering this thing has been in development for a while now), Samsung is showing off the S-Launcher that will be included in all the Windows 8 computers they plan to sell. Gizmodo higlights a description of the S-Launcher, which reads, “And of course, the S Launcher is also a launcher. Simply drag apps or files to it for easy access, tossing them off when you don't want them anymore.” The OS X Dock is patented and owned by...

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The Best Features of Firefox 15 Are Hidden, Here How to Enable Hidden Features

A couple of the best features in Firefox 15 are actually hidden under the hood. Granted, that's for good reason, they're not ready for hundreds of millions of users. But if you want to take a peek at what's coming in Firefox and don't mind the occasional hiccup, you can enable both click-to-play plugins and the native PDF reader. Native PDF viewer PDF.js has been in the works for over a year now. It's an open source project, backed by Mozilla, to implement a full PDF viewer in JavaScript. The advantages of a pure JavaScript reader is that any browser is going to be able to use making PDF files feel more like a part of the web rather than something hosted on the web. The native PDF viewer is mostly ready at this point,...

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Samsung Series 5 and 7 AIO Systems

The Korean giant is getting ready with three new all-in-one (AIO) computer systems for the up-and-coming Windows 8 launch this autumn. The new devices feature FullHD screens with 10-point multi touch support. There are three new systems announced today by Samsung. The first one is a 27” AIO computer powered by Intel’s Core i7-3770T Ivy Bridge processor running at a standard 2500 MHz frequency with the optional capability of reaching an impressive 3700 MHz when Turbo is activated. This is a HT-enabled CPU from Intel that has 4 real cores and is able to handle 8 threads at a time. It comes with a huge 8 MB level 3 cache and a HD4000 iGPU. The maximum TDP is a modest 45 watts, and this leaves room for AMD’s Radeon HD 7850M...

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Intel Haswell Price Starts at $184 (€147), Availability in Q2 2013

Intel is getting ready for the Haswell launch slated for next spring and it seems the company has even decided on the pricing of the future offerings. The most affordable Haswell CPU at launch will be priced at $184 (€147) and will require a new mainboard sporting an LGA socket with 1150 pins. Intel is moving up from dual-cores to quad-cores when it comes to this market sector and the rumored price mark closely corresponds with what AMD is currently charging for its fastest Bulldozer desktop processor, Fudzilla reports. The semiconductor giant is apparently rushing the Haswell launch and this move is likely caused by AMD’s Trinity and its graphics capabilities. Intel HD 4000 iGPUs are quite capable, but they’re still inferior...

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Giada i35V MiniPC with SSD and HDD, mSATA boot drive

The new book-sized PC like Giada likes to call it, is powered by Intel’s Atom D2500 low-power processor and, despite the fact that we would have liked it to come with a Brazos 2.0 inside, the system will apparently be pretty fast. The new device is called i35V and uses a fast combination between an mSATA SSD and a normal HDD as the storage solution. The official page lists a 16GB mSATA SSD drive as a feature, but on the specification sheet a normal 320GB HDD is mentioned. We don’t know if the HDD is included, as the price is really modest, but we’re sure at least the mSATA drive will be present. The dual storage system will make the i35V very fast and the 2GB DDR3-1066 DIMM can be replaced with a 4GB version for even...

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AMD Jaguar Presented Today

The Hot Chips conference is taking place right now; there, AMD is introducing the new Jaguar APU architecture that's going to replace the current Bobcat cores in the company’s low-power APUs. The new design brings considerably increased IPC (instructions per clock) capabilities along with support for new compute instructions. We already know that some of the new instruction sets that will come inside AMD’s new microprocessor design are AVX, BMI, SSE 4.2 and AES. Jaguar will be quite different from Bobcat, as it will likely have a unified 2MB cache and will probably use AMD’s second-generation GCN architecture. The thing is that Jaguar in itself is the x86 processing core design that will be integrated in the upcoming Kabini...

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Here Are the 8 Samsung Devices that Apple Wants to be Banned in the US Market

Apple has released a preliminary list of the Samsung devices it believes are infringing its patents. After being vindicated by Judge Lucy Koh on Friday, Apple has filed a notice with the court identifying which Samsung products it wants banned in the United States. The devices are the Galaxy S 4G, the Galaxy S2 (AT&T), the Galaxy S2 (Skyrocket), the Galaxy S2 (T-Mobile), the Galaxy S2 Epic 4G, the Galaxy S Showcase, the Droid Charge, and the Galaxy Prevail, according to The Verge reports. There's also a preliminary injunction on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 set in place. The Korean electronics vendor has asked the court to clear this device of any charges arguing that the jury didn't believe Samsung tablets infringed Apple's...

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Intel ValleyView with 700% iGPU Performance Ready in Q4 2013

Many SFF and silent computing enthusiasts are eagerly waiting for Intel to upgrade its Atom line of CPUs and the corresponding platforms, but the company doesn’t seem to be ready with the new 22 nm chips. The current Atom processors are manufactured in 32 nm technology and have considerably lower performance than AMD’s Brazos 2.0 APUs. Some of us were wondering why AMD would name Brazos 2.0 a platform upgrade, when it only brings USB 3.0 support in some case and less than 5% faster APUs. The simple reason for this seems to be the fact that the competition isn’t doing any better, so there’s no reason for AMD to dedicate resources towards this sector. The Texan fabless CPU designer already rules 44% of the low- to mid-end desktop...

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