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The Tech Report has chimed in with its own review, which contains a unique look at gaming performance with the integrated graphics and discrete GPUs. There's also a dedicated overclocking article that looks at the experience on four different motherboards.

but it lags in performance by an order of magnitude.

This is just not true. A single channel of Thunderbolt does 10Gbps bi-directional. A single channel of USB 3 does 4.0 Gbps bi-directional. That's a factor of 2.5x, not 10x.

And yes, thanks to the new bi-directional bus (USB 2 was shared) USB 3 can already reach 2.5 Gbps in real-world tests. Also being introduced right now are improved UASP (SCSI scheduling) protocols to utilize the same percentage of the bus as Firewire did. Support for UASP is already shipping in products like Asmedia controllers and Intel's 70-series chpsets.

If Intel is going to push it, it'll catch on. So far they haven't, but looks like that may change.

I can't see them pushing it with any zeal now that the 70-series chipsets feature native USB 3. It doesn't help that Intel has also shipped the best USB 3 controller in existence. When USB 3 satisfies your average user's high-speed expansion needs, there's not much reason for Thunderbolt on mainstream platforms.

Thunderbolt silicon probably won't be integrated anytime soon (adding cost), and the $50 active cables aren't helping things (you can get 6-foot USB 3 cables for around 10 bucks). Given that USB 3 is now universal on all mainstream PCs sold, it's going to be hell justifying the extra cost of Thunderbolt.

Also, disk drives *have* gotten measurably faster in both sequential transfer rate and random access time due to increased areal density. The platters are still 3.5" but the area of the platter needed to store, say, 1GB has decreased. Therefore there is less physical distance to spin or seek to read the same amount of data. That's why your average 3TB drive will beat your average 1TB drive on performance tests. See this recent review of the 3TB Hitachi 7K3000.

But on the PC? Especially with all the good press from the Sony software installed on PCs in the past... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal http://techreport.com/discussions/13096

I don't think many consumers are aware of the rootkit fiasco. Some time ago, I spoke to someone who worked for Sony, selling professional TV studio equipment -- he had not heard of the rootkit fiasco. If the employees haven't heard of the issue, why would the general population?

On the other hand, Sony used to build premium products and charge premium prices for them. I recall reading (during the late '80s I think) that Sony was the most valuable brand name in the world. Now they build cr*p and still charge premium prices. They also make those devices even more expensive for consumers by using proprietary add-ons such as Sony memory sticks. Consumers have started to notice those things. Sony was living off its valuable brand name for years, but now that train has hit the buffers.

On the PlayStation, yes. There you have no choice. But on the PC? Especially with all the good press from the Sony software installed on PCs in the past... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal http://techreport.com/discussions/13096 They will have a hard time overcoming this with a lot of users. It is actually a factor in the hardware losses they have had.

4) Bing and Yahoo gave the same exact search results.

And they have since 2009. Yahoo uses Bing for its search result.

Bingo. But there's an ugly side to trying to force migration -- you can't always control to what product businesses will migrate.

If these businesses didn't have something that required them running windows they would've already done so, no? For many businesses it comes down to a money thing. What else are they going to do? Linux on the desktop? You said yourself about switching "...from something that works to something else that we're not sure works" so that rules out Linux and Apple. Apple is not cheaper. So what options do you have?

Does Microsoft truly think that trying to FORCE the remaining employees off XP will somehow magically make them all move to Windows 7? Is it something in the Redmond water system that causes such questionable judgement?

Apple seems to do pretty well doing just that. You get about 2-3 years out of a platform before having to upgrade to run the newest stuff on average. From the article:

"it is true that Apple continues to support the previous version of Mac OS X (though not iOS) with security updates. So, during the reign of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple will release security updates for 10.6 Snow Leopard, though not for 10.5 Leopard or anything earlier."

10.5 was released in October 2007 and is now unsupported, unlike Windows XP which was released in 2001.

Apple also changed hardware platforms, what about all those people on PowerPC G3 and G4s and new software developed for Intel only? Remind me who has the more questionable judgement? What about browser standards? Less IE6 (and IE7, IE8...) the better for everyone.

What Microsoft really needs is something else to sell. Something that people actually want to buy. Instead of trying to force us away from something that works to something else that we're not sure works. In what universe is that considered a winning move?

Companies who make software are doing that for them, specifically games. Adobe CS5 has two applications which are 64bit only, Adobe Premiere and After Effects. Adobe Photoshop has 32bit and 64bit versions but CS5 users running on 64-bit native should realize noticeably greater gains in performance Besides the fact that XP is hacked to swiss cheese Windows Vista/Windows7 driver security models should be a reason alone. It's pretty nice to be able to install drivers without a reboot or not having say a graphics driver crash and bring your whole system down. You seem to forget that when XP came out it was considered a bloated pig compared to Win98 and Win2k due to most people not having enough RAM (2001 most machines had maybe 128megs, 256 was upper end.) Check out the comments:

I was quite happy with WinXP... fast user switching is way cool, however when working in Excel XP, the thing is dog slow... I have a 400k workbook, and it takes forever to save changes...

I'll put 2k back on, and test the speed increase..

btw, the machine is a 1.4 TBird, gig of CAS 2, 10k quantums on a 29160, GF3... Anything in Office should hardly break a sweat, funny thing too is that the ram usage peaked at like 180 megs... crazy, eh?

I liked the review, lots of pretty graphs ;)

we still run NT4 here at the office... only run office apps, on 550 K7's w/256 megs..

Isn't using Yahoo technically still using Bing? I wonder if the results are counted twice if they come up in Yahoo and Bing over-inflating the result.

> there is no difference in between 25 fps, or 30 fps or 40 fps to the human eye playing a game.

Just because YOU can't see a difference, doesn't imply that everyone else is just as blind. I can CLEARLY tell a difference between 30 Hz and 60 Hz gaming, and so can many gamers.

1. You NEED 60+ Hz framerate so that you can GUARANTEE the _worst_ framerate stays ABOVE 60 Hzm such as when explosions/smoke, etc. is shown.

2. Average FPS is a useless number compared to MININUM framerate as it completely masks problems.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21516/1

Maybe you should try reading up on Micro Stuttering before looking like an idiot.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-stutter-crossfire,2995.html

AMD has no competition in APU arena. It is dominating it.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/21730/8

its actually possible to game with acceptable detail and fps with entry-mid level laptops without paying a fortune now.

Disclosure: I work in backup and recovery for a living. I've been doing TSM professionally for the past six years.

So let's look at this idea that portable HD is cheaper and faster. I've managed backup systems that were backing up tens of terabytes every day. Let's say three 3 TB HDDs for the sake of discussion. Let's say five weeks' worth of data retention. That's 5*7*3 = 105 hard drives that need to be managed - call it 110, to take into account the fact that there are going to be a few going off and onsite at any given point in time.

How reliable are those hard drives? How long until they fail? Bear in mind when considering your answer that hard drives are designed to be stuck inside a chassis that stays put (for the most part) - pulling them out of the system and lugging them halfway across town is not within their design goals. And then you need to worry about the cost of a hot-swap chassis so you can pull the drives out, and shove them back in, every day. Oh, and don't forget that most plugs have a limited life span - probably in the hundreds of swaps, maybe thousands (I don't know, and I'm happy to hear solid data about this.)

And how long does it take to fill up a hard drive, anyway? Take the WD Green 3 TB as an example: 110 MB/s (source), equals about 7.5 hours, best case. Sure, you can throw more hard drives at the problem in parallel, but that just exacerbates the whole question about reliability in transit. The Hitachi 3 TB is faster - 207 MB/s - which takes about four hours to fill up. That's best case scenario, based upon the maximum data transfer rate - guaranteed it's going to slow down as the drive fills.

Now consider tape. Consider wikipedia's information on LTO when reading this. LTO4: 120 MB/s native, up to 300 MB/s compressed (two hours to fill). LTO5: 140 MB/s native, 350 MB/s compressed (three hours to fill). Pretty damn reliable in transit; they're designed to sit happily in their little plastic shells, in a box, and get thrown around (not quite, but they can certainly take more punishment than a hard drive can.) Capacity per cartridge: 800 GB/1.5 TB native (4/5); 1.6 TB/3 TB compressed. If you have money to burn, you could go for Oracle's T10000C drive: 5 TB native capacity, 240 MB/s native throughput (and that's before you get into the whole question of compression.)

Now let's get onto the whole subject of financial data, Sarbanes-Oxley, and WORM media (so you know the data hasn't been altered since it was written out) ...

Sure, tape sucks. It has major issues when data is scattered all over the place; mount time takes a while; and the drives need regular love and attention. But here's the thing - it survives today because it's better than the alternatives in its niches, and trust me, there's plenty of niches where tape fits in far better than the alternatives.

If you only have a couple of TB of data to backup, the cost of setting up tape infrastructure will probably not be worth it. But when you're talking hundreds of TB - or better, petabytes of data (don't laugh, one client I did work for had over 2 PB of data in their tape library) - the cost equation swings over pretty damn fast. Tape is not dead. Far from it. I can't see the likes of IBM investing in developing LTO6 and LTO7 if there was no use for it. And why would Oracle sell a tape library that scales to 100,000 slots if there's no demand for it? It's not about how to get the most bytes for your dollar - it's also about reliability, and that gets down to the usage. If I suggested portable hard drives to the clients I do work for, I'd be out of a job - because they simply won't cut it for their needs.

Disclosure: I work in backup and recovery for a living. I've been doing TSM professionally for the past six years.

So let's look at this idea that portable HD is cheaper and faster. I've managed backup systems that were backing up tens of terabytes every day. Let's say three 3 TB HDDs for the sake of discussion. Let's say five weeks' worth of data retention. That's 5*7*3 = 105 hard drives that need to be managed - call it 110, to take into account the fact that there are going to be a few going off and onsite at any given point in time.

How reliable are those hard drives? How long until they fail? Bear in mind when considering your answer that hard drives are designed to be stuck inside a chassis that stays put (for the most part) - pulling them out of the system and lugging them halfway across town is not within their design goals. And then you need to worry about the cost of a hot-swap chassis so you can pull the drives out, and shove them back in, every day. Oh, and don't forget that most plugs have a limited life span - probably in the hundreds of swaps, maybe thousands (I don't know, and I'm happy to hear solid data about this.)

And how long does it take to fill up a hard drive, anyway? Take the WD Green 3 TB as an example: 110 MB/s (source), equals about 7.5 hours, best case. Sure, you can throw more hard drives at the problem in parallel, but that just exacerbates the whole question about reliability in transit. The Hitachi 3 TB is faster - 207 MB/s - which takes about four hours to fill up. That's best case scenario, based upon the maximum data transfer rate - guaranteed it's going to slow down as the drive fills.

Now consider tape. Consider wikipedia's information on LTO when reading this. LTO4: 120 MB/s native, up to 300 MB/s compressed (two hours to fill). LTO5: 140 MB/s native, 350 MB/s compressed (three hours to fill). Pretty damn reliable in transit; they're designed to sit happily in their little plastic shells, in a box, and get thrown around (not quite, but they can certainly take more punishment than a hard drive can.) Capacity per cartridge: 800 GB/1.5 TB native (4/5); 1.6 TB/3 TB compressed. If you have money to burn, you could go for Oracle's T10000C drive: 5 TB native capacity, 240 MB/s native throughput (and that's before you get into the whole question of compression.)

Now let's get onto the whole subject of financial data, Sarbanes-Oxley, and WORM media (so you know the data hasn't been altered since it was written out) ...

Sure, tape sucks. It has major issues when data is scattered all over the place; mount time takes a while; and the drives need regular love and attention. But here's the thing - it survives today because it's better than the alternatives in its niches, and trust me, there's plenty of niches where tape fits in far better than the alternatives.

If you only have a couple of TB of data to backup, the cost of setting up tape infrastructure will probably not be worth it. But when you're talking hundreds of TB - or better, petabytes of data (don't laugh, one client I did work for had over 2 PB of data in their tape library) - the cost equation swings over pretty damn fast. Tape is not dead. Far from it. I can't see the likes of IBM investing in developing LTO6 and LTO7 if there was no use for it. And why would Oracle sell a tape library that scales to 100,000 slots if there's no demand for it? It's not about how to get the most bytes for your dollar - it's also about reliability, and that gets down to the usage. If I suggested portable hard drives to the clients I do work for, I'd be out of a job - because they simply won't cut it for their needs.

They (Creative) already did. id Software and Creative Labs made an agreement that id Software could use the algorithm without paying any fees if they included support for Creative's EAX and branded the game with Creative Labs logos. See http://techreport.com/discussions.x/7113

Go bulldozer!

This is the comparison of a8 as a standalone cpu versus 1100T. In this test, the onboard die is not used. this is not how this platform should be run. It should be run as its onboard gpu in hybrid crossfire with a 6670 external gpu :

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/6
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21730/8

- First, there is the huge delay intel caused by engaging in fraud by paying pc makers to not use amd chips, right at the time amd was at an advantage.

Yes, in the distant past.

- Then there is the fact that these synthetic benchmarks use intel's proprietary libraries, which were proven to work ineffectively when 'non genuine intel' architecture was detected.

Yes, in the past. Is this still the case? Do INTC compilers still fuck over non-'GenuineIntel' silicon? I don't think so.

- Then there is the fact that this is a new platform, and its just out, and the main deal with this is being easily increasable in cores. so amd will just add more cores without any research being needed. expect 32 core cpus in a year or so. 16 cores already out.

with kW powerdraws at the wall? I'm exaggerating, but you get my point. For a 32nm process, the physical size and power-consumption of this chip is excessively high at idle AND load.

- As you can understand these cpus are geared more for server environment, and will take that environment over.

We need to see some benches (realworld AND synthetic) before we can state that for a fact.

- Amd is moving to trinity in one year or so. Trinity is the APU format that all amd cpus will take from then on. Llano apus have been quite successful in gaming fro example 50-80 fps in starcraft 2 (crossfired and not) -> you dont need to buy an external card anymore, and if you do you can crossfire it with the cpu contained one. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/6 http://techreport.com/articles.x/21730/8 intel is worlds behind in this one.

Can't argue there... although INTC is closing the gap.

and then there is the ultimate question of what the fuck i am going to do if i grab a powerful processor. really. i bought an overclockable board, and an unlocked cpu. and when i played games, i found out that it was mostly the video card i added that did most of the thing. the cpu i had was way, way over any potential requirements and needs of these games. i didnt need to buy a powerful one at all.

i went about hardware/software forums asking what i could do with a powerful computer. answers have been 'video encoding', 'benchmark', 'seti'. as it seems, any daily usage for cpus are WAY behind the power of modern cpus. to utilize your cpu power at all, you need to do unorthodox, unnecessary shit, or be in a profession that works on these.

Good points.

so i think all this performance talk is bullshit. there is no way in hell you will use that performance, even in hardcore gaming with an eyefinity 3 monitor setup in 5000x resolution, with 2x antialiasing and full detial. (and i just have 2x 5670 cards).

wat

1. The better the performance, the faster you can do shit (when you are doing it).
2. The better the performance, the longer the life of your box (you can upgrade at a later point in time).

future is in the heterogeneous chips i think. llano already has been a success, and its possible to save 30% on the cost of cpu + mobo + graphics card if you go the llano way over anything intel, and gaming performance is incomparable. when trinity comes, i think there will be a big change in computing. especially when amd puts out a computing platform like cuda.

AMD needs to push OpenCL more, but maybe they'll do that between now and when Trinity comes around. Right now OpenCL sucks ass compared to CUDA.

Thank you for your interesting post.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/A8-3850_Fusion_GPU_Performance/5.html

http://techreport.com/articles.x/21730/8

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/6

- First, there is the huge delay intel caused by engaging in fraud by paying pc makers to not use amd chips, right at the time amd was at an advantage.

- Then there is the fact that these synthetic benchmarks use intel's proprietary libraries, which were proven to work ineffectively when 'non genuine intel' architecture was detected.

- Then there is the fact that this is a new platform, and its just out, and the main deal with this is being easily increasable in cores. so amd will just add more cores without any research being needed. expect 32 core cpus in a year or so. 16 cores already out.

- As you can understand these cpus are geared more for server environment, and will take that environment over.

- Amd is moving to trinity in one year or so. Trinity is the APU format that all amd cpus will take from then on. Llano apus have been quite successful in gaming fro example 50-80 fps in starcraft 2 (crossfired and not) -> you dont need to buy an external card anymore, and if you do you can crossfire it with the cpu contained one. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4476/amd-a83850-review/6 http://techreport.com/articles.x/21730/8 intel is worlds behind in this one.

and then there is the ultimate question of what the fuck i am going to do if i grab a powerful processor. really. i bought an overclockable board, and an unlocked cpu. and when i played games, i found out that it was mostly the video card i added that did most of the thing. the cpu i had was way, way over any potential requirements and needs of these games. i didnt need to buy a powerful one at all.

i went about hardware/software forums asking what i could do with a powerful computer. answers have been 'video encoding', 'benchmark', 'seti'. as it seems, any daily usage for cpus are WAY behind the power of modern cpus. to utilize your cpu power at all, you need to do unorthodox, unnecessary shit, or be in a profession that works on these.

so i think all this performance talk is bullshit. there is no way in hell you will use that performance, even in hardcore gaming with an eyefinity 3 monitor setup in 5000x resolution, with 2x antialiasing and full detial. (and i just have 2x 5670 cards).

future is in the heterogeneous chips i think. llano already has been a success, and its possible to save 30% on the cost of cpu + mobo + graphics card if you go the llano way over anything intel, and gaming performance is incomparable. when trinity comes, i think there will be a big change in computing. especially when amd puts out a computing platform like cuda.

In those tests, i3 is being tested with external graphics, compared to AMD with the same external graphics. Basically, it's a CPU vs CPU test. Which is pretty ridiculous because they are both targeted to users who will not buy external cards...

The actual i3 vs A8 tests with their associated graphics are tested later in the article here: http://techreport.com/articles.x/21730/8. The results aren't even close - AMD is more than playable, i3 is not.

I am very satisfied with increased performance from the drive

It's just your imagination. Check out these benchmarks, or compare it to even more recent standard hard drives.

It's hard to imagine how bad Seagate must have been with the design of a 3-1/2" drive that includes flash memory cache when it is regularly beaten in benchmarks by standard 2-1/2" drives (e.g., WD Scorpio Black) and trounced by other 3-1/2" drives. Since it costs a lot more (5x as expensive per GB as the WD Caviar Green), it's about the biggest loser ever made.

I am very satisfied with increased performance from the drive

It's just your imagination. Check out these benchmarks, or compare it to even more recent standard hard drives.

It's hard to imagine how bad Seagate must have been with the design of a 3-1/2" drive that includes flash memory cache when it is regularly beaten in benchmarks by standard 2-1/2" drives (e.g., WD Scorpio Black) and trounced by other 3-1/2" drives. Since it costs a lot more (5x as expensive per GB as the WD Caviar Green), it's about the biggest loser ever made.

If you don't mind going really ghetto, you can also mount motherboards in plastic storage crates using zip ties: http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=445461#p445461

The pictured systems were diskless; everything was network based -- PXE boot, with swap partition and home directory mounted via NFS. With more modern hardware (the linked forum thread is from 2005) you might have a harder time getting 2 to a crate since the CPU heatsinks may be too tall; but using heatsinks designed for 1U/2U rackmount would probably solve this.

Stop being so willfully obtuse. Intel sells parts all over the range, competing at nearly every pricepoint, and in general offering a better value proposition to boot (performance/price). For example:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/21208/18

So yeah, cut the fanboy crap, and the FUD about Intel being so expensive. You can get newer Intel parts just a hair above $100, and they're still good in that range. At least as good as, if not better than, similarly prices AMD chips.

This is modded insightful? Sheesh.

A TENTH of the price? Yeah, maybe if you compare the most expensive Intel part to the least expensive AMD part, and completely ignore all those other Intel SKUs. I'm not sure if you're being dishonest, or are just really that obtuse.

I don't see any pricepoint where AMD offers a better value than Intel. They do have parts that are just plain cheaper - a quick search of Newegg indicates that only AMD has a new chip for under $40, an older Sempron. Above that, you can find similarly priced Intel and AMD chips right on up. Have you taken the time to look? Have you taken the time to compare? Or are you just a fanboy spreading FUD, or a non-fanboy who just hasn't changed their song in about 8 years? For reference, look at a chart like this one: http://techreport.com/articles.x/21208/18

A specific example from that chart: Intel's i5-2400, destroying the AMD lineup, yet priced the same as the X6 1075T and X4 980, and less than the X6 1100T, which it soundly trounces.

This is the case right down to the $100 range, too, about the lowest that chart goes.

I just don't understand how people can support AMD, except out of a root-for-the-underdog mentality, ignoring all else. Intel has design superiority, process capability superiority, technology superiority, manufacturing volume superiority. Given those advantages, you really think Intel is going to just leave a whole segment of the market to AMD? Sure, they're going to sell their parts at the highest prices they can first, but not everyone is buying $300 processors.

That sort of sounds like the solution presented on page 11: "More intriguing is another possibility Nalasco mentioned: a 'smarter' version of vsync that presumably controls frame flips with an eye toward ensuring a user perception of fluid motion."

http://www.silentpcreview.com/

Or a complete solution from Zotac for330 USD:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21556

But, do you realize that the Momentus XT is slower, smaller, and more expensive than regular mechanical drives?

That article also shows that although they are much smaller for the same price (or much more expensive for the same storage), a real SSD will absolutely destroy the Seagate hybrid drive.

(possibly apple excluded)

Apple has a long history of ridiculously poor input devices. The hockey-puck mouse being the first that comes to mind, though we're talking keyboards here.

I give you these abominations:
Apple Wireless Keyboard
Apple Aluminum Keyboard

I can't answer specifically to a macbook english-french/french-canadian bilingual keyboard -- I couldn't find a picture. Though their English keyboard seems to have an unbelievably tiny left-shift key, if that helps at all.

This sounds a lot like the solar cell that powers the shitty old calculator I got back in the 1980s.

And now you can buy a solar powered netbook, but this time it's not so shitty with a dual core Atom, 802.11n, 14.5 hr battery life and a fairly reasonable $400 price tag.

Solar panel isn't just for show either, they claim for every two hours in the sun the solar panel charges the battery for one hour of use.

According to: http://techreport.com/articles.x/19514 the peak FLOP should be the same between a BD 'module' and a SNB 'core' if the BD is using FMA4/AVX and the SNB is using plain AVX.

To get maximum performance, you're going to have to code in assembly or use a library that's been coded that way. I expect programs like Prime95 will be first adopters of this.

Supposedly, Haswell (the full tick after IVB) will have FMA3/AVX which should double the FLOP rate and surpass BD, but that's some time out, so we'll have to see what BD does in the mean time. By then, we could see a shrink of BD with more 'modules' or clock speed improvements. Best to worry about those eggs at least until they're laid if not hatched.

Don't you mean thrice? ;)

That's certainly possible, but there's real-world data available all over the internet, like here, for example. The short version: the whole system with a 5870 uses 290 Watts under full load, and two of them use 460, meaning that the second card added "just" 170 Watts.

Read this too...

http://techreport.com/articles.x/18866/4

> Having built my last two gaming rigs to utilize SLI, my opinion is that it's more trouble than it's worth.
My current Gaming Rig has a XFire 5770 (XFire = AMD/ATI version of nVidia's SLI). I got it almost a year ago -- I paid ~$125 x 2 and saved at least $50 over the 5870.

I regular play L4D, BFBC2, RB6LV2. I too have mixed opinions on XFire/SLI but for different reasons.

> worth until two years later when
No one says you have to wait 2 years :-) I waited 6 months.

Regardless of when you buy, you ARE saving money. Of course there are trade-offs as your post correctly mentions.

> Then buy a second card, which is now very affordable,
I am surprised you didn't mention the REAL reason why the perceived advantage doesn't pan out in practice... Try _finding_ the second card that is STILL SELLING and that IS _compatible_ with your existing card. (A lot of times it has to be made by the same manufacture of the first one!) You also need to be a little wiser upfront when you buy your initial video card -- which model will still be selling in 2 years? For AMD/ATI, the xx70 cards seem to be the ones that stick around.

> A bug that only affected SLI users.
1) This is shitty programming -- be vocal so that game devs can fix their game AND nVidia / ATI can fix their drivers!
        *glares at EA/Dice for Battlefield Bad Company 2*
2) Again, you missed the "reality" -- until the bug is fixed, you are forced to play the game with only 1 GPU. This sucks. At least ATI has been getting better in their SLI "game profiles" now.

> Having two graphics cards going at full tear will heat up your case extremely quickly.
I have to question your case cooling. My bottom case fan is "pull", my top case fan is "push". I haven't noticed any extreme temps.

Again, the "reality" you missed to mention is noise (dBA) and Load. Running 2 GPUs is a little louder and uses a little more juice.
i.e.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/19404/10

> and this is the last machine I will build with SLI, end of story.
I've been custom building gaming rigs since the '80s. This is my first XfFre rig and I _would_ consider it again. Basically the price points for me are...

~ $150 video card (XFire/SLI)
        OR
~ $350 video card (single card)

I usually wait 1-2 years before buying brand new games, as I'm sick and tired of paying $60, when I could pay ~$20. XFire has let me play all my current and past games with everything cranked and still get 60 Hz.

Cheers

Intel has just launched Oak Trail, which is the name for the combination of Atom Z600 and SM35 PCH. In particular, the SM35 PCH provides compatibility with the main IBM PC compatible x86 platform with all the legacy, so it can run any standard x86 OS, but it is still low-power ("Put together, Oak Trail's Atom Z620 processor and SM35 Express hub have a thermal envelope of just 3.75W."):
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/20753

Asian manufacturers like Acer and ASUS starting releasing netbooks with versions of Linux on them because it wasn't possible to run Vista effectively on machines with first-generation Atom processors. They couldn't install WinXP on those machines because it had already reached its end-of-life, and MS wanted everyone to move to Vista. MS's partners like Dell and HP wanted nothing to do with netbooks because they feared, rightly I suspect, that these devices would erode the market for their more powerful laptops.

All that changed the day MS decided to extend WinXP licensing solely for netbooks. To protect its partners, MS imposed strict limitations on this license. "Netbooks" were defined by the screen size and limited to 1 GB of memory. Bigger screens or more memory meant no WinXP. Since Microsoft knew it was competing against a product that was free-of-charge, it dropped its OEM price for WinXP on qualifying netbooks to a mere $15 per copy, compared to four or five times that figure for OEM copies of Windows on laptop and desktop machines. Later they developed the crippled "Starter Edition" of Windows 7 to serve the same market and again charged hardly anything for it. It doesn't require a conspiracy theorist to see that these strategies were designed entirely to keep Linux off machines that might end up in the hands of ordinary people.

Well you can imagine what happened after that. The Dells and HPs of the world saw there was a demand for netbooks and began competing with the Acers of the world. People who wandered into Staples or BestBuy suddenly saw small form-factor devices with friendly old XP on them competing with systems offering some flavor of Linux with an unfamiliar UI. Guess which ones sold? Guess which OS comes with netbooks from Acer and ASUS these days?

Nowadays netbooks have 10" and 12" screens and often 2GB of memory. Which operating system are they running? Usually Win7 Home Premium. How much does it cost the OEMs to license that OS? A lot more than $15/copy I'm sure. The higher license fee pushed up the price of netbooks so they're no longer so price-competitive compared to low-end laptops. Dell and HP breathed a sigh of relief.

All this happened years before anyone ever touched an iPad.

John Carmack is quoted as saying almost the exact opposite:
[ http://techreport.com/discussions.x/20580 ]
[ http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/03/11/carmack-directx-better-opengl/1 ]

Eight days ago
[ http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/03/11/1832205/Doom-Creator-Says-Direct3D-Is-Now-Better-Than-OpenGL ]

For the lazy clickers:
Speaking to bit-tech for a forthcoming Custom PC feature about the future of OpenGL in PC gaming, Carmack said 'I actually think that Direct3D is a rather better API today.' He also added that 'Microsoft had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve the API, while OpenGL has been held back by compatibility concerns. Direct3D handles multi-threading better, and newer versions manage state better.'

In case you're unfamiliar with the mighty Carmack, he co-founded id Software in 1990, and had a large part in programming Wolfenstein 3D and the original Doom and Quake games. Since then, id has rigidly stuck by OpenGL for both Doom III and Quake 4, while many other cutting-edge PC game developers have moved entirely over to Direct3D.

Well, I did say, almost.

-AI

Guess you were lucky.

Aside from their shock-resistance, I'm interested in SSD's for their reported energy efficiency compared to traditional platter-based magnetic disks. The power consumption part of the tests has interesting numbers on power usage that show traditional mobile hard drives being competitive to SSD's.

The most energy efficient 128 GB Kingston SSDNow draws a mere 0.2 watt when idle, but not much higher is the 750GB WD Scorpio Blue, which draws 0.4. On load, the numbers go up to 1.1 and 2.0 watts respectively, less than a watt of difference.

Are smaller (-1.8") SSD's more efficient than notebook-sized (2.5") SSD's? Besides the shock resistance, does an SSD offer that much of an advantage over a traditional HD when packed inside a tablet or smaller form factor computing device?

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20486

Very good (and funny) review:

"Well, I told you I was the finest PC processor on the planet, and now I've backed it up through 16 pages and some ridiculous number of benchmarks. I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but I am probably the zenith of human technological achievement to date. Can't really think of anything that compares, off the top of my head.

True, I'm not cheap compared to the glorious Miss Sandy B. and her overmatched competition at a third of my price or less. In the grand scheme of things, though, pretty much all desktop computer hardware is affordable. The question is: do you value your time? I'm gonna save you five minutes every time you encode a video versus some cut-rate dual core, and eventually that's gonna add up to hours of time saved over my lifetime. Even an eco-weenie on a government grant pulls in a pretty good hourly wage. In the right context, my price tag shouldn't be too hard to justify. I've given you numbers that will let you justify it in terms of power savings, too, if you're into that kind of thing."

Having been a somewhat early adopter of SSDs, I got bitten a couple of time by the JMicron bug

Everything I've read so far suggests that if you are buying SSDs you want to go with Intel.

Note that this new Intel SSD is the first Intel-branded SSD that uses a non-Intel controller. It uses the same Marvell controller used in the well-regarded Crucial RealSSD C300.

I've also read about Intel's great combo of performance and robustness, but that reputation is mostly a result of Intel's controllers. JMicron, a manufacturer of SSD controllers, got its buggy reputation from early JMicron-based SSDs. Marvell's controller performance has been proven in many reviews, but Intel's "endorsement" gives me more confidence in Marvell's reliability and robustness.

What AMD offers is good bus and memory architectures

Check more recent benchmarks. Intel's Core-i3/5/7 designs kill.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20188/5

They won't own any manufacturing facilities (I'm assuming you're talking about owning CPU FAB's). AMD spun off all their foundries into another company: Global Foundries. While they do maintain a 34% share of the newly formed company, it's not the same as Intel "owning" their own fabs.

By "over time" they mean that every time a set of circumstances crop up for the bug to manifest, roll some dice. Eventually you'll get snake eyes and the bug will bite you. From this article:

"On its conference call to discuss the issue, Intel told me that it hasn’t been made aware of a single failure seen by end users. Intel expects that over 3 years of use it would see a failure rate of approximately 5 - 15% depending on usage model. Remember this problem isn’t a functional issue but rather one of those nasty statistical issues, so by nature it should take time to show up in large numbers (at the same time there should still be some very isolated incidents of failure early on)."

So it's not like the chip is dissolving or some such.

On the good news front, from this article:

"If you've already built a Sandy Bridge system, fortunately, there are some obvious workarounds available. Most enthusiast-class motherboards these days ship with extra SATA ports driven by auxiliary SATA controller chips from third-party suppliers like Marvell, and those ports aren't at risk for this problem. As we've noted, the two 6Gbps SATA ports on the 6-series chipset aren't, either. For a great many users, sidestepping this problem should be as simple as moving their storage device connections to the other ports. Given the relatively strong performance that we've seen out of Intel's SATA 6Gbps controller, we'd recommending attaching any fast, primary storage devices like SSDs or 7,200-RPM drives to the 6Gbps SATA ports if possible. Other drives, like large and slow-rotating HDDs, should be fine on the third-party controllers. Just be careful to ensure that you have all the right drivers installed and the boot order in the BIOS set correctly before making the move, so you don't cause yourself the headache of an unbootable system."

So it's not the huge deal that it seemed to be at first. Your 6Gbps ports are fine. It's your 3Gbps ports that are pooched. But if your board has a secondary controller like the Marvell controller - just move your drives to those ports (or plunk down $20 bucks and get an ePCI SATA board) and Bob's your uncle.

That being said though - dammit. I JUST ordered one of these boards last night from Newegg. I've always been an AMD fan, but I figured just this once I'd try Intel since they've been making some really great cpus lately. Haven't upgraded in five years and BANG - this hits.

If you'd like to make some quick cash, go to Vegas and place a few bets. Then have me root for the team you'd like to lose.

Not sayin this guy used Ubuntu, but still....

HotHardware Mobile: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Intel-Core-i72820QM-Mobile-Sandy-Bridge-Processor-Review/
HH Desktop: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Intel-Core-i72600K-and-i52500K-Processors-Debut/

Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i5-2600k-i5-2500k-and-core-i3-2100-tested
Tech Report: http://techreport.com/articles.x/20188

Legit Reviews: http://legitreviews.com/article/1506/1/ (mobile)
Legit: http://legitreviews.com/article/1501/1/ (desktop)

No SATA SSD pushes even 250MB/sec for continuous reads in the real world, even when connected to a 6Gbps SATA controller. See the latest comparison benchmarks.

This is because the entire SATA controller typically gets a single PCI Express lane, which is a 500MB/s max. The OCZ cards use 4 lanes, so 550MB/sec or so (which are the actual benchmarks) is pretty poor use of a 2GB/sec max bandwidth.

For example:
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/17915

But it's even with the nVidia 570, and costs $20 more...