San Francisco (CA) – Hector Ruiz’ time at the AMD as we know it today is coming to an end. Ruiz recently stepped down from his role as CEO, but kept his position as chairman of the board with the purpose of launching AMD’s Asset Light and Asset Smart strategies, which are expected to split AMD into two entities. And this event is only weeks away, industry sources told TG Daily.

It is widely expected that Asset Light will part AMD into two companies – one that is led by newly crowned CEO Dirk Meyer and a focus on the development of chip technologies and a manufacturing arm that will take over AMD’s fabs. Our sources indicated that critical decisions are being made at this time and the official announcement of Asset Light and Asset Smart will be made next month.

Hector Ruiz’ future role remains a mystery, but it is expected that Ruiz will remain with AMD in one capacity or the other, possibly as CEO of the manufacturing company. We previously published an extensive analysis that sheds some light on the company’s future direction. It appears that much of Ruiz’ future has already been ironed out and AMD’s marketing team is now working on a way to preserve Ruiz’ legacy in AMD’s history books to avoid the perception that the executive caused the company’s current critical state. Read the rest of this entry »

Following the official announcement of Nehalem processors’ name, Intel has launched four new 45-nm processors. See them below:

NewsFlash: San Francisco (CA) - Lots of new processors will be announced next week at the Intel Developer Forum. Among them will be two special processors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_processing_unit for enthusiast notebooks.

Intel’s first two quad-core http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-core processors for notebooks will be the Core 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2 Quad Q9100 and Core 2 Extreme QX9300. The 9100’s four cores http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coree will run at 2.26 GHz, while the Extreme Edition will be clocked at 2.53 GHz. Both CPUs integrate FSB1066, but only the QX9300 has an unlocked multiplier.

In terms of price, don’t expect these new flagships to be cheap. Tray-pricing for the Q9100 will be $851; the Extreme QX9300 will go for $1036. Vendors are likely to charge even more for dual-core to quad-core upgrades. For example, Eurocom charges $1220 for an upgrade from a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo P8400 to a Core 2 Extreme QX9300.

Both quad-core CPUs are identical to their desktop counter-parts, albeit with a reduced FSB clock (266 MHz QDR instead of 333 MHz QDR or 400 MHz). The CPUs will also feature 12 MB of L2 cache.

This unlocked multiplier is necessary to allow overclocking or increase the speed or the GHz rating of a CPU. Overclocking a CPU can be beneficial in many ways. For instance users can purchase cheaper components and overclock it to achieve the speed of more expensive ones. This process is not advised for simple tasks like web browsing with broadband Internet connection or whatever type of Internet connection.

Although AMD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices took the hardware community by surprise with the performance of RV770 and the derivative Radeon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon HD 4850/4870, things didn’t go entirely according to plan. The company launched its boards immediately after Nvidia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia , which turned around and slashed the prices on its own models, determined to win this round of the ongoing graphics card http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit war.

And yet, a month and a half after the launch of AMD’s newest round of products, the verdict hasn’t changed. Neither the GeForce GTX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_9_Series 260 nor the GeForce 9800 GTX+ (only recently made available) can take on the Radeon HD 4870 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R700 with regards to price or performance, even in light of heavy cuts from Nvidia.

But AMD’s not out just to make waves with the gamers looking for value. It also wants to reclaim a crown it lost a long time ago to Nvidia’s last two generations of large, monolithic programmable graphics architectures. As a means to that end, the company is putting a pair of its most impressive GPUs on a single PCB and calling it the Radeon HD 4870 X2. Now the question remains: does the new board have the muscle to take on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 280, the single fastest card?
Read the rest of this entry »

Intel has been on a roll these past few weeks with future product announcements ranging from Larrabee to System on Chips. They announced today that desktop processors based on the company’s upcoming new micro-architecture, the processor family formerly known as Nehalem, would carry the “Intel Core Processor” nomenclature. Considering the success of the Core series, this does not come as a surprise to us. However, the i7 designation has us wondering what the next series in the Core family will be called since i8 leads to all sorts of phrase variations. Without further adieu, here is the official press release from Intel.

The first products in this new family of processors, including an “Extreme Edition” version, will carry an “i7” identifier and will be formally branded as “Intel® Core™ i7 processor.” This is the first of several new identifiers to come as different products launch over the next year. Read the rest of this entry »

Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday unveiled its new AMD 790GX core-logic that combines integrated graphics core with rich set of features, overclocking capability and support for multi-GPU technology. The novelty is targeted at a broad range of end-users, however, the question is whether the AMD 790 GX will be perfect for everyone.

“Today’s high definition, multimedia applications demand powerful graphics and multi-core processor performance and only AMD is delivering a truly balanced platform that accelerates these workloads,” said Phil Eisler, corporate vice president and general manager of AMD chipset division.

The AMD 790 GX core-logic supports various AMD processors with HyperTransport bus, contains ATI Radeon HD 3300-series (RV610) DirectX 10-supporting graphics core clocked at 700MHz that has 40 unified shader processors, supports SidePort Memory and also features ATI Avivo HD as well as universal video decoder (UVD) units that decode and post-process high-definition video available on Blu-ray discs and HD DVDs. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite of expectations and promises, the long-awaited phones featuring Google Android operating system (OS) may note emerge on the market until sometime in late Q1 2009 since handset maker High Tech Computer (HTC) has certain software related problems.

According to Trip Chowdhry, an analyst of Global Equities Research, HTC is “having structural problems to incorporate Google’s demanded feature set”. Apparently, HTC is “demanding a guaranteed minimum revenue surety from Google”, from which Mr. Chowdhry concludes that “HTC does not think there will be enough demand for GPhone,” reports Barrons web-site.

The fact that Google demands pre-specified feature-set from the Android-powered phones is definitely positive, as it greatly eases choice for end-users. However, the fact that HTC is unsure about the success of the so-called Gphone is alarming. Read the rest of this entry »

AMD announced two new professional graphics accelerators Thursday, and with them a new brand for the company, the ATI FirePro V5700 and V3700. The new brand name, ATI FirePro, tries to demonstrate AMD’s continuing commitment to the professional graphics market and its development. Read the rest of this entry »

MSI has just increased its gaming notebooks line with the launch of GX620 and GX720. Both are based on Intel Centrino 2 platform and below you can see the main specs for these new MSI products.

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo
• Chipset: Intel PM45
• Memory: 2 GB DDR2 up to 800 MHz (GX720) / 512 MB or 1 GB DDR2 up to 800 MHz (GX620).
• LCS display: 17” (GX720) / 15.4”(GX620)
• Graphics card: nVidia GeForce 9600M GT (512 MB DDR3)
• HDD: 160 GB/250 GB/320 GB SATA (5,400 RPM)
• Optical Drive: DVD/ Blu-ray
• Webcam: 2 Mpixel
• Card Reader: SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro
• Network: Gigabit Ethernet and wireless 802.11b/g/n
• USB ports: three ports (GX720) and two ports (GX620)
• Other features: one eSATA port, one HDMI output, Bluetooth (optional).

AMD has just launched 790 GX chipset equipped with ATI Radeon HD 3300 graphics engine and supporting Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC), a technology that optimizes overclocking potential of Phenom processors. AMD 790 GX also supports Hybrid CrossFireX and CrossFireX, HyperTransport 3.0, Cool’nQuiet 2.0 and Unified Video Decoder (UVD) technologies. Paired with SB750 south bridge, 790 GX chipset supports 12 USB ports and six SATA-300 (RAID 0,1,5 and 10) ports.