eVGA Announces Liquid-Cooled GeForce 7950 GX2

Sony Launches 8-Slot AIT-2 Turbo Desktop Autoloader

Heterogeneous Multi-core Architecture Of Intel CPUs

Gecube Ships X1300 and X1600 Cards With Native HDCP Support

eVGA Announces Liquid-Cooled GeForce 7950 GX2

We usually think of liquid cooling as of something meant exclusively for enthusiasts. eVGA is one of the few companies that established volume production of liquid-cooled graphics cards. Its previous product, eVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX KO, entered the "elite" Black Pearl series. In that case liquid cooling allowed to increase clock rates to 490/1300 MHz.

And now eVGA decided to cool down today's most powerful NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2. As you remember, it bases on a pair of G71 GPUs - 48 pixel and 16 vertex pipelines, 76.8 GB/s bandwidth, 24 billion texture elements per second fill rate. The card has 1GB GDDR3.

The vendor doesn't shed light on technical details of eVGA e-GeForce 7950 GX2 Black Pearl, but clock rates will obviously be higher. The previous Black Pearl debuted at $1000, and we believe this time it won't change much. The difference between a "usual" eVGA e-GeForce 7950 GX2 ($600) is more than considerable, but for some people it's easier to spend another $400 then mess with liquid cooling themselves.

We'll provide technical details as soon as we have them.

Source: eVGA

Sony Launches 8-Slot AIT-2 Turbo Desktop Autoloader

Sony Europe's IT Peripherals division today announced the launch of its new 8-slot desktop AIT-2 Turbo Autoloader, the Sony StorStation LIB-D81. The compact unit houses one of the latest AIT (Advanced Intelligent Tape) drives based on the AIT-2 Turbo format and has a simple mechanism for reliable tape rotation. The device features 640GB native capacity, 12MB/s native data transfer and a drive reliability of 300,000 hours MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure).

The new StorStation LIB-D81 AIT-2 Turbo Autoloader provides a cost-effective automated solution for small business back-up. It is an ideal upgrade for customers outgrowing DAT technology; and is also perfect for current AIT users who are looking for an autoloader that provides backward compatibility with lower capacity AIT tape media.

The design of the StorStation LIB-D81 is user friendly, making back-up a straightforward process. The 8 cartridge slots allow daily back-ups all week without manual tape changes - taking the hassle out of managing potential restores. The tape cartridges can be loaded and unloaded through a large, lockable front door; and all main operations are controlled and monitored by buttons on the front panel with an LED display to enable status checks of the autoloader and internal drive. The autoloader is equipped with an Ultra 160 SCSI LVD/SE interface, which facilitates the high data transfer and enables the back-up of a full tape in less than two hours.

The AIT-2 Turbo drives are the most reliable tape products in their class with 300,000 hours MTBF. In addition, binder free AME (Advanced Metal Evaporated) AIT media contribute to higher reliability of the AIT product as a result of its cleaner read/write heads. The StorStation LIB-D81 AIT-2 Turbo Autoloader stores up to eight data cartridges in a compact configuration (17cm wide, 22.4cm high, 35cm deep) with a small footprint suitable for desktop use, made possible by the compact AIT drive and media form-factor.

The Sony StorStation LIB-D81 AIT-2 Turbo Autoloader (model number LIBD81A2TEU) will be available in the channel for about $2100 from July 2006.

Heterogeneous Multi-core Architecture Of Intel CPUs

It seems that increasing performance with cores becomes more popular than gigahertz pumping. The new era of processor industry implies multi-way operation and higher efficiency architecture (higher performance per watt). At that, clock rates still play the important role, of course.

Our colleagues from HKEPC obtained some details of Intel's multi-core processor architecture from Bob Crepps, Intel.

According to these images, multi-core processors are very efficient. Dual-core products feature higher performance per watt than single-core ones. And as price is dropping, their attractiveness increases even for home PCs.

Similar energy consumption at different performance

The expected desktop Kentsfield and sever Clovertown will represent pairs of Conroe and WoodCrest crystals (respectively) packed into a single processor body. Next architectures will feature shared cache reducing the system bus load. At the same time, each core will feature its own clock rate and voltage automatically adjusted depending on load. In addition, a multi-core CPU will have a better power management system with a faster response to operation mode changes.

Heterogeneous Multi-Core processors will have a rather original design featuring two types of computing cores: general and special purpose. The latter will be actively used in complex computing like data compression, voice recognition, physics calculations. The result will be returned to a special matrix. Intel is already co-operating with software developers on the matter of application optimization for such architecture.

But while the company understands the benefits of integrated memory controller, the first multi-core solutions will have to do without it. Source: HKEPC

Gecube Ships X1300 and X1600 Cards With Native HDCP Support

Gecube today announced shipping its latest new series of HV series of ATI Radeon X1300 and X1600 cards with native HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection) implementation as a requirement for Blu-ray and HD DVD applications along with its patent pending HDTV dongle via DVI port for video connection to a 1080p HDMI TVs.

GECUBE HV X1300 and X1600 series are constructed with 90nm technology and support Shader Model 3.0, Avivo, HDR technologies, the Crossfire platform, and Catalyst drivers. These products are designed with on-board 128-bit of 256MB GDDR2.

Source: Gecube

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