AMD Demonstrates First Graphics Processors to Feature Native DisplayPort 1.1

Sony to Showcase Cell Computing Board Prototype at SIGGRAPH 2007

Supermicro SuperBlade Shipping in Volume Now

Transcend Announces T.sonic 840 MP3 Player, JetFlash V35, 220 USB Drives

New NVIDIA Software Tools Help Developers Create Breakthrough Games in Less Time

Daily Mailbox

AMD Demonstrates First Graphics Processors to Feature Native DisplayPort 1.1

AMD conducted the interoperability testing of a next-generation graphics processor with a native DisplayPort 1.1 transmitter. The testing was completed with a Genesis Microchip DisplayPort receiver. AMD is currently attending the Video and Electronics Standards Association (VESA) PlugTest in Milpitas, California to undergo further interoperability testing.

The DisplayPort technology aims to unify and standardize display across the desktop and notebook computing environments through a common high-bandwidth interconnect. DisplayPort interfaces are expected to be natively supported in ATI Radeon graphics processors in the early 2008 timeframe.

DisplayPort is an interface designed to be scalable and allow for true unification of display interfaces. It supports both external connections, such as a display to a PC or TV, as well as embedded interface applications, such as inside a notebook PC.

Source: AMD

Sony to Showcase Cell Computing Board Prototype at SIGGRAPH 2007

Sony will be exhibiting its newly developed "Cell Computing Board" prototype at SIGGRAPH 2007 (August 7th to 9th at San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, USA).

The "Cell Computing Board" incorporates the high-performance Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) microprocessor and RSX graphics processor to deliver high computational performance capable of handling large amounts of data at high speed while also achieving reductions in size and energy consumption.

This technology represents a new solution for multimedia computing applications such as computer graphics and scientific computations that require massive data quantities to be processed. Cell Computing Board features:

• The incorporation of RSX realizes arithmetic operation speeds beyond the 230 GFLOPS of the Cell/B.E. microprocessor alone.
• "Cell Computing Board" can be embedded in a 1U (unit) sized server and mounted on a 19-inch rack.
• "Cell Computing Board" delivers high computational performance while reducing power consumption to 400W or less.

At SIGGRAPH 2007, Sony will demonstrate the following sample applications using the "Cell Computing Board":

• Demonstration of 4K Applications. Real time image processing of 4K (4096x2160) images taking advantage of the performance of "Cell Computing Board".
• Demonstration of CG Rendering.
• Demonstration of Physics Simulation. Physics simulation taking advantage of the multi-thread processing ability of "Cell Computing Board".

Source: Sony

Supermicro SuperBlade Shipping in Volume Now

Super Micro Computer announced volume shipping of its new SuperBlade product line. With improved power efficiency, the SuperBlade architecture supports current and next generation processors at all speeds. For instance, a fully loaded 10 DP blade system using quad-core Xeon L5310 or L5320 processors consumes less than 2,700 watts at maximum performance and still maintains the flexibility to support 4P blades at maximum frequency. SuperBlade supports the latest dual-processor quad-core and dual-core Intel Xeon processors as well as quad-processor AMD Opteron CPUs.

1400-watt, 2800-watt or up to 7,500-watt redundant power configurations provide high availability and the flexibility for customers to optimize the system power budget for specific applications.

In addition to CPU performance-per-watt benefits, the SuperBlade features multiple integrated switch fabrics to optimize I/O performance and connectivity. High-speed, low-latency infiniband switching (20Gb/s per port) is well-suited for clustering applications while two 10-external-port Gigabit Ethernet switches provide enough network connectivity. Meanwhile, a 10-Gigabit Ethernet switch will be in production soon.

As for the density, the SuperBlade 7U enclosure holds ten 2P or 4P compute blades in any combination and the architecture supports both quad-core and dual-core CPUs across all speed grades. Six SuperBlade enclosures fit into a 42U rack. This allows scaling to 160 processor cores per 7U enclosure or 960 processor cores per rack.

Other important advantages include up to 90% cable reduction and 65% rack-space savings to simplify installation and save on cost while increasing reliability. The integrated chassis management module (CMM) with IPMI 2.0, KVM-over-IP, and Virtual-Media-over-LAN provides remote access to all compute blades, switches, power supplies, and cooling fans.

Source: Super Micro Computer

Transcend Announces T.sonic 840 MP3 Player, JetFlash V35, 220 USB Drives

Transcend Information announced its latest MP3 player T.sonic 840 styled with a mirrored surface and metal body. This new MP3 player is easy to carry because of its compact size (82 x 40.5 x 12.5 mm) and light weight (70g with battery). As the press release states, player's 1.8-inch color 176x220 TFT-LCD screen is especially designed for video and photo playback. The 3-phase wheel is easy to use and the GUI displays clearly through the shiny screen.

The T.sonic 840 supports MTV, JPG, BMP, MP3, WMA, WMA-DRM10, and WAV formats and enables to read e-books. It features a lyrics display, and is equipped with 7 equalizer effects that include a customizable USER EQ mode to create your own music style. With a fully charged battery, the T.sonic 840 supports up to 30 hours of continuous playback.

The T.sonic 840 also provides a digital voice recorder, FM radio, FM recorder, real time clock with world times, and has a 13-language interface. The language-learning feature, with adjustable playing speed and A-B repeat function, helps you learn foreign languages. The built-in Hi-Speed USB 2.0 connector provides quick charging and data transferring. Transcend's T.sonic 840 is now available in two capacities: 2GB (Glacier White) and 4GB (Mystery Black) and is backed by a 2-year warranty.

The company also announced a tiny multicolor JetFlash V35 USB drive. These come in a variety of translucent colors, are compact in size (58.3 x 17.3 x 8.8) and only weigh 8 grams. It is currently available in 8GB(Grape), 4GB(Green Apple), 2GB(Peppermint) and 1GB(Cherry) capacities, and is backed by a lifetime warranty.

The last, but not the least is company's newest biometric USB flash drive JetFlash 220 - a successor of JetFlash 210 that features a rotating cover that will never get lost.

Transcend's JetFlash 220 features a sensor strip which allows users to access protected data by simply scanning their fingerprint. The JetFlash 220's fingerprint scanning technology not only makes it easy to safely store personal files and sensitive office documents, but also allows users to automatically log on to any website for which they have a registered account. It is currently available in 8GB(Ruby Red), 4GB(Royal Blue), and 2GB(Sunburst Orange) capacities and is backed by 2-year warranty.

Source: Transcend Information

New NVIDIA Software Tools Help Developers Create Breakthrough Games in Less Time

NVIDIA has developed a complete suite of applications that helps developers save time and money creating and optimizing their games. Today's release of new versions of NVIDIA FX Composer 2 and NVIDIA PerfKit 5 gives developers new tools to create game content in less time. These two widely used tools permit rapid, low-cost development of visual effects as well as performance tuning for games and other real-time applications.

The first of these new tools, FX Composer 2, is an integrated development environment for shader authoring, enabling fast creation of real-time visual effects. It can be used to create shaders for HLSL, COLLADA FX Cg, and CgFX in DirectX and OpenGL. FX Composer 2 features Shader Library integration, ShaderPerf analysis, animation support, COLLADA support, scripting, effect and project wizards, customizable toolbars and layouts, Microsoft XNA support, and much more. According to the press release, FX Composer 2 has evolved into the de facto industry standard for shader authoring across multiple target platforms, including Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.'s PLAYSTATION3 and Microsoft Windows.

The release also bundles mental mill Artist Edition from mental images, which allows users to create shaders visually by connecting nodes. Users can export shaders from mental mill Artist Edition to FX Composer, where they can be applied to real-world geometry and used for more complex operations.

FX Composer 2 will be demonstrated in booth #315 at the Siggraph 2007 conference, and is available for download at: http://developer.nvidia.com/FXComposer.

The other tool that NVIDIA released today is NVIDIA PerfKit 5, a complete performance toolkit for real-time games and applications that now includes support for Microsoft Windows Vista and DirectX 10.

At the core of PerfKit is NVIDIA PerfHUD 5, a heads-up display for Microsoft DirectX 9 and 10 applications that provides real-time interactive debugging and profiling capabilities, allowing developers to monitor GPU signals, debug frames and analyze frames automatically to find performance bottlenecks.

New features in PerfHUD 5 include:

• Microsoft DirectX 10 and Vista support
• Support for the new GeForce 8 Series GPUs
• Shader edit-and-continue: edit shaders on the fly
• More GPU and driver counters: a greatly expanded set of GPU and driver signals to help pinpoint bottlenecks
• Improved look-and-feel: cleaner layout with user-friendly touches like tooltips; improved texture viewing for 2D, 3D, and cube map textures; and a color picker for texture examination
• More than 20 other features requested by developers

PerfKit 5 will be demonstrated in booth #315 at Siggraph, and is available for download at: http://developer.nvidia.com/PerfKit.

In addition to FX Composer 2 and PerfKit 5, the complete suite of NVIDIA developer tools includes:

• SDK 10: all-new DirectX 10, OpenGL and CUDA code samples for the latest GPUs
• Texture Tools: Powerful libraries and plug-ins for working with textures—now with DirectX 10 support and approximately 10x faster than before
• ShaderPerf 2: detailed shader performance information with support for new drivers
• Shader Library: the world's largest collection of GPU shaders featuring more than 100 different shader effects and support for external submissions

All of these tools are available at the NVIDIA Developer Web Site: http://developer.nvidia.com.

Source: NVIDIA

Daily Mailbox

Write a comment below. No registration needed!