All the recent talk of Haswell-E and high-end refreshes has obscured the more casual computing market. The Bay Trail platform uses Intel’s Atom based Silvermont cores and competes directly against AMD’s Kabini for integrated computing, digital signage and cheap computing models. Today we compare two mini-ITX Celeron J1900 based motherboards: the GIGABYTE J1900N-D3V at $85 and the ASUS J1900I-C at $92, as well as the SoC itself.

This afternoon, AMD released their financial results for the third quarter, which ended September 27, 2014. While revenue was down slightly from Q2, the net income was positive for this first time this fiscal year. non-GAAP Earnings Per Share was $0.03, which missed analysts’ projections of $0.04. Earlier in the quarter projections were as high as $0.07 per share, but the Computing and Graphics segment was mixed this quarter due to “challenging market conditions” according to AMD.

Starting July 1st, 2014, AMD reorganized their reporting structure into two groups. The Computing and Graphics group focuses on desktop and notebook processors, chipsets, discrete desktop GPUs, and workstation GPUs. The Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom group includes server processors, embedded processors, dense servers, semi-custom SoCs, engineering services, and royalties, which is pretty much every market AMD is in other than the traditional desktop/notebook market.

AMD Q3 2014 Financial Results (GAAP)   Q3'2014 Q2'2014 Q3'2013 Revenue (Billions) $1.43 $1.44 $1.46 Operating Income (Millions) $63 $63 $95 Net Income (Millions) $17 -$36 $48 Earnings Per Share $0.02 -$0.05 $0.06

Revenue for Q3 2014 was $1.43 billion, down just under 1% from Q2 2014’s $1.44 billion. As compared to Q3 2013, revenue was down 2%. Operating Income was $63 million (non-GAAP $66M) for the quarter, which is also down from the previous quarter and year-over-year. Net income was $17 million (non-GAAP $20M) for the quarter which is up from the $36 million loss last quarter, but down from $48 million profit in Q3 2013. Gross margin was flat from last quarter at 35%.

AMD Q3 2014 Financial Results (Non-GAAP)   Q3'2014 Q2'2014 Q3'2013 Revenue (Billions) $1.43 $1.44 $1.46 Operating Income (Millions) $66 $67 $78 Net Income (Millions) $20 $17 $31 Earnings Per Share $0.03 $0.02 $0.04

The Computing and Graphics segment revenue decreased 6% from last quarter and 16% year-over-year. AMD states the primary decrease is due to by lower chipset and GPU sales as compared to last quarter, and decreased notebook processor and chipset sales as compared to a year ago. The Operating Loss for the division was $17 million, which is up (or down, depending on how you look at negative numbers) substantially from the $6 million loss last quarter and $9 million loss in Q3 of last year.  The Average Selling Price (ASP) of CPUs/APUs actually increase sequentially and year-over-year. Discrete GPU ASP decreased over last quarter, but increased over the same period last year. The Computing and Graphics segment is a tough market for AMD right now. Intel is moving to 14 nm while AMD has to rely on Global Foundries and other fabs to attempt to catch up. This hampers their ability to match Intel on the performance per watt metric certainly. On the GPU front, NVIDIA just released the Maxwell based GTX 980 and 970, as well as the mobile counterparts which have shown impressive performance, and efficiency. Hopefully AMD can counter with some new products in the near term.

The Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom division fared much better for Q3, with a 6% sequential gain in revenue and 21% year-over-year. Operating income for the quarter was $108 million which was up from the $97 million of Q2, and $92 million of Q3 2013. As with the last couple of quarters, AMD attributes the gains primarily due to increased sales of semi-custom SoCs. Their embedded revenue grew by “double digits” as compared to last quarter. Clearly AMD has found a niche here where they can use their expertise in new markets to shore up the company, and so far, it has been successful. In addition, AMD has closed two new Semi-Custom SoC designs this quarter which should help this division continue its growth.

Results Per Division   Q3'2014 Q2'2014 Q3'2013 Computing and Graphics Revenue (Millions) $781 $828 $925 Computing and Graphics Operating Income (Millions) -$17 -$6 $9 Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom Revenue (Millions) $648 $613 $536 Enterprise, Embedded, and Semi-Custom Operating Income (Millions) $108 $97 $92

In addition, AMD is also trying to cut costs by reducing their workforce by about 7% Currently, they have 10,149 employees as of the end of Q3, which means around 710 people will be cut from the company. Most of these cuts should be done by the end of Q4. AMD will then adjust their real estate footprint to accommodate the smaller workforce, which could mean additional infusions of cash from the sale of buildings. They are hoping to have savings of $9 million for Q4 and $85 million for FY 2015.

Their forecast for Q4 is not rosy either. AMD is expecting revenue to decrease 13% from Q3, plus or minus 3%. However they are also hoping to drop expenses from the current guidance of $420 to $450 million, to $385 million, which means they are hoping for a positive non-GAAP free cash flow.

Although AMD did miss investor earnings, they did not miss by much and the net result was a quarter where the company managed to turn a tiny profit, which is in stark contrast to the first couple of quarters for 2014. Unfortunately, AMD’s losses all stem from the desktop PC industry. Intel just had a record quarter, so there is certainly money to be made in this sector. We will have to see how Dr. Su, the new CEO of AMD, addresses this for the next quarter.

 

The other big announcement for the day is of course Apple’s new iPads, the iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 3. As signaled by their names, neither is intended to be a massive departure from their (still for sale) predecessors. But both of them, the iPad Air 2 in particular, pack a number of improvements over the 2013 models.

In-hand, the iPad Air 2 is not as significant a departure from its predecessor as the original Air was from earlier iPads, but if you are familiar with the original Air then you can appreciate the fact that Apple has taken it down from 7.5mm thick to 6.1mm thick. The weight is roughly the same (437g vs. 469g) so it’s not much lighter in the hand, but handling it makes the change in size more apparent.

Perhaps more readily apparent is the anti-reflective coating, a first for an iPad. While Apple’s controlled demo room doesn’t give us the opportunity to introduce too much light, in what testing we could do there’s definitely a difference. Whatever it is that Apple is using, the coating doesn’t seem to have changed the clarity at all; it is seemingly still as clear as the non-coated iPad mini 3.

Meanwhile the A8X inside presents us with a new mystery. This is a new chip, and we know very little about it besides Apple’s claims of 40% better CPU performance and 2.5x better GPU performance. The CPU performance points to a dual core “Enhanced Cyclone” configuration like A8, while the GPU performance number is well in excess of what we saw going from A7 to A8. So comparing A8X to A7, we are most likely (finally) looking at a hex-core Imagination PowerVR GX6650 GPU. However, this alone does not explain where the roughly 1 billion additional transistors compared to A8 have gone. Most likely there are additional surprises to be found.

Gallery: iPad Air 2 Hands On

Moving on, we have the iPad mini 3. Unlike the iPad Air 2, Apple isn’t overhauling the hardware by nearly as much, so the iPad mini 3 is a smaller upgrade over its predecessor than the iPad Air 2 is. Size and weight stay the same, so the new mini feels the same in your hands as the old one. The display is also once more a 2048 x 1536 pixel display, though it did look a bit better than we recall the iPad mini 2’s display being, so it may be a new panel (but this is something we’d need to test).

Apple hasn’t replaced the SoC or WiFi radio – it’s still an A7 and 802.11n respectively – so performance isn’t any different either. What’s left to set apart the new mini from the old then is the inclusion of Apple’s Touch ID sensor along with a larger 128GB storage option. It’s admittedly not much, especially when the iPad mini 2 is now $100 cheaper. On the other hand it is available in Gold, and as we’ve seen with the iPhone that has proven to be a very popular option at launch.

Gallery: iPad mini 3 Hands On

We just got done with our hands-on time with Apple’s new products, and we’ll start with what’s likely the sneakiest of them, the iMac with Retina Display.

Why “sneaky”? The answer is all in the HiDPI display, which Apple calls the “Retina 5K Display”. The retina display is definitely the star of the new iMac, as the rest of the hardware is largely a minor specification bump from last year’s model. In fact turned off you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the 2013 (non-retina) and new retina models, but the screen is immediately evident once on.

At 5120x2880 pixels, the new Retina 5K Display is precisely 4x the pixels of the 2560x1440 panel in last year’s model. What this means is that Apple can tap their standard bag of tricks to handle applications of differing retina capability and get all of it to look reasonably good. This also means that 2560x1440 content – including widgets – will scale up nicely to the new resolution. Apple does not discuss whom they have sourced the panel from, but given the timing it’s likely the same panel that is in Dell’s recently announced 27” 5K monitor.

Much more interesting is how Apple is driving it. Since no one has a 5K timing controller (TCON) yet, Apple went and built their own. This is the first time we’re aware of Apple doing such a thing for a Mac, but it’s likely they just haven’t talked about it before. In any case, Apple was kind enough to confirm that they are driving the new iMac’s display with a single TCON. This is not a multi-tile display, but instead is a single 5120x2880 mode.

This also means that since it isn’t multi-tile, Apple would need to drive it over a single DisplayPort connection, which is actually impossible with conventional DisplayPort HBR2. We’re still getting to the bottom of how Apple is doing this (and hence the sneaky nature of the iMac), but currently our best theory is that Apple is running an overclocked DisplayPort/eDP interface along with some very low overhead timings to get just enough bandwidth for the job. Since the iMac is an all-in-one device, Apple is more or less free to violate specifications and do what they want so long as it isn’t advertised as DisplayPort and doesn’t interact with 3rd party devices.

Update: And for anyone wondering whether you can drive the 5K display as an external display using Target Display Mode, Apple has confirmed that you cannot.

Meanwhile driving the new display are AMD’s Radeon R9 M290X and R9 M295X, which replace the former NVIDIA GTX 700M parts. We don’t have any performance data on the M295X, though our best guess is to expect R9 285-like performance (with a large over/under). If Apple is fudging the DisplayPort specification to get a single DisplayPort stream, then no doubt AMD has been helping on this matter as one of the most prominent DisplayPort supporters.

The rest of the package is very similar to the 2013 iMac. It comes with an Intel Haswell desktop class CPU paired with 8GB or more RAM, 802.11ac support, and Apple’s SSD + HDD Fusion drive setup. Apple now offers a higher speed CPU upgrade option that goes up to 4GHz (4.4GHz Boost) – likely the Core i7-4790K – that should make the high-end iMac decently more performant than last year’s model by about 10%.

Gallery: iMac with Retina Display

The news of Samsung's SSD 840 EVO read performance degradation started circulating around the Internet about a month ago. Shortly after this, Samsung announced that they have found the fix and a firmware update is expected to be released on October 15th. Samsung kept its promise and delivered the update yesterday through its website (download here). 

The fix is actually a bit more than just a firmware update. Because the bug specifically affects the read speed of old data, simply flashing the firmware isn't enough. The data in the drive has to be rewritten for the changes in the new firmware to take place. Thus the fix comes in the form of a separate tool, which Samsung calls Performance Restoration Software. 

For now the tool is limited to the 840 EVO (both 2.5" and mSATA) and will only work under Windows. An OS-independent tool will be available later this month for Mac and Linux users, but currently there is no word on whether the 'vanilla' 840 and the OEM versions will get the update. Samsung told me that they've only seen the issue in the 840 EVO, although user reports suggested that the 'vanilla' 840 is affected as well. I'll provide an update as soon as I hear more from Samsung.

The performance restoration process itself is simple and doesn't require any input from the user once started. Basically, the tool will first update the firmware and ask for a shut down after the update has been completed. Upon the next startup the tool will run the actual three-step restoration process, although unfortunately I don't have any further information about what these steps actually do. What I do know is that all data in the drive will be rewritten and thus the process can take a while depending on how much data you have stored in your drive. Note that the process isn't destructive if completed successfully, but since there is always a risk of data loss when updating the firmware, I strongly recommend that you make sure that you have an up-to-date backup of your data before starting the process.

The restoration tool has a few limitations, though. First, it will require at least 10% of free space or the tool won't run at all, and there is no way around the 10% limitation other than deleting or moving files to another drive before running the tool. Secondly, only NTFS file system is supported at this stage, so Mac and Linux users will have to wait for the DOS version of the tool that is scheduled to be available by the end of this month. Thirdly, the tool doesn't support RAID arrays, meaning that if you are running two or more 840 EVOs in a RAID array, you'll need to delete the array and switch back to AHCI mode before the tool can be run. Any hardware encryption (TCG Opal 2.0 & eDrive) must be disabled too.

In regards to driver and platform support, the tool supports both Intel and AMD chipsets and storage drivers as well as the native Microsoft AHCI drivers. The only limitation is with AMD storage drivers where the driver must be the latest version, or alternatively you can temporarily switch to the Microsoft driver by uninstalling the AMD driver. Samsung has a detailed installation guide that goes through the driver switch process along with the rest of the performance restoration process. 

Explaining the Bug

Given the wide spread of the issue, there has been quite a bit of speculation about what is causing the read performance to degrade over time. I didn't officially post my theory here, although I did Tweet about it and also mentioned it in the comments of the original news post. It turns out that my theory ended up being pretty much spot on as Samsung finally disclosed some details of the source of the bug.

As most of you likely know already, the way NAND works is by storing a charge in the floating gate. The amount of charge determines the voltage state of the cell, which in turn translates to the bit output. Reading a cell basically works by sensing the cell voltage, which works by increasing the threshold voltage until the cell responds.

 

However, the cell charge is subject to multiple variables over time. Electron leakage through the tunnel oxide reduces the cell charge over time and may result in a change in the voltage state. The neighboring cells also have an impact through cell-to-cell interference in the form of floating gate coupling, which is at its strongest when programming a neighbor (or just a nearby) cell. That will affect the charge in the cell and the effect becomes stronger over time if the cell isn't erased and reprogrammed for a long time (i.e. more neighbor cell programs = more interference = bigger shift in cell charge). 

Because cell voltage change is a characteristic of NAND, all SSDs and other NAND-based devices utilize NAND management algorithm that takes the changes into account. The algorithm is designed to adjust the voltage states based on the variables (in reality there are far more than the two I mentioned above) so that the cell can be read and programmed efficiently.

In case of the 840 EVO, there was an error in the algorithm that resulted in an aggressive read-retry process when reading old data. With TLC NAND more sophisticated NAND management is needed due to the closer distribution of the voltage states. At the same time the wear-leveling algorithms need to be as efficient as possible (i.e. write as little as possible to save P/E cycles), so that's why the bug only exists on the 840 and 840 EVO. I suspect that the algorithm didn't take the change in cell voltage properly into account, which translated into corrupted read points and thus the read process had to be repeated multiple times before the cell would return the correct value. Obviously it takes more time if the read process has to be performed multiple times, so the user performance suffered as a result.

Unfortunately I don't have an 840 EVO that fits the criterion of the bug (i.e. a drive with several months old data), so I couldn't test more than the restoration process itself (which was smooth, by the way). However, PC Perspective's and The Tech Report's tests confirm that the tool restores the performance back to the original speeds. It's too early to say whether the update fixes long-term performance, but Samsung assured that the update does actually fix the NAND management algorithm and should thus be a permanent fix. 

The EVO has been the most popular retail SSD so far, so it's great to see Samsung providing a fix in such a short time. None of the big SSD manufacturers have been able to avoid widespread bugs (remember the 8MB bug in the Intel SSD 320 and the 5,000-hour bug in the Crucial m4?) and I have to give Samsung credit for handling this well. In the end, this bug never resulted in data loss, so it was more of an annoyance than a real threat.

My take on thin phones is not a positive one. This comes from two main areas. Firstly I like my phone to have some form of bulk – this way I know it is in my pocket and I would notice if it went missing. Secondly, going thin often brings about several compromises, namely performance (due to heat dissipation), camera quality (due to z-height restrictions) and battery life. As a reference point, my daily driver is a 5.9-inch display with a 3300 mAh battery that measures 10.9mm and weighs 217g, so that device probably will not go missing unnoticed and I get a good range in performance and battery life.

At a MediaTek conference this week in London, as part of MediaTek’s strategy to educate the mobile media and analyst community about their strategy and goals, they invited Kazam’s CEO Michael Coombs to show and formally announce the MediaTek powered Tornado 348, the world’s slimmest smartphone. Kazam is a smartphone maker based in Europe formed by a number of former senior sales and marketing executives from bigger mobile companies. The company was founded earlier this year and have several models on the market already. The Tornado 348 is their latest model, with pre-launch stock already sold to distributors.

The phone itself is rather surprising. Despite being as thin as it is, it was relatively sturdy with no obvious issues by opposing pressure on opposite corners despite the metal frame design. The white model I played with felt comfortable in the hand with a rounded edge, using fixed android buttons on the bottom bezel (which I prefer) and a 4.8-inch 1280x720 AMOLED screen that came across as rather vibrant. Under the hood is MediaTek’s ‘True Octa-core’ MT6592, with eight Cortex-A7s at 1.7 GHz and a Mali 450-MP4 for graphics. Normally if you hear ‘eight Cortex A7’ it seems odd to combine eight power efficient cores together for performance, especially in such a thin device. Kazam’s CEO said that they initially wanted to run with one of MediaTek's 4-core, but the 8-core ended up more efficient in tasks as by using MediaTek’s CorePilot they are able to keep control of enabling cores and frequencies but overall performance reasonable. The proof will be in the pudding for sure.

While Android 4.4.2 version the device had on the day was the near-final version for the device, and scrolling felt snappy and program selection felt responsive. There was a little stuttering when quickly swiping between screens, and the settings menu was in a different place than what I was used to, but at the end of the day this is not aimed at the high end flagship market. The device comes with 1 GB of DRAM and 16 GB of storage, but due to the stock (or near-stock) Android used in the final version, space should be suitable. Due to the size of the device there is no SD card slot, and the 2050 mAh lithium polymer battery is fixed into the device. Perhaps surprisingly, it requires a micro-SIM rather than a nano-SIM. With the battery, Kazam is quoting 6 hours of talk time.

The main camera is good for 8MP and 1080p30, with the rear camera being a 5MP fixed-focus device. One area Kazam wants to push ahead of their rivals on is the 12-month screen protection service with the Tornado 348, allowing one free screen replacement in those 12-months. Users will have to log in and send their device away for a week or so, but it is reassuring to know that this service comes free with the device.

Overall device dimensions come in at 139.8mm x 67.5mm x 5.15mm and 95g weight (compared to the iPhone’s 138.1 x 67 x 6.9 and 129g), although only GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and 3G 900/2100 are supported – no LTE here due to the mid-range it aims for. Kazam’s CEO told me that due to Mediatek’s structure for customers like Kazam it allowed him to get a handset from idea to market in only a few months, rather than the 9/12/18 month cycle required going through someone else.

The Tornado 348 is due out in November, with pricing in the UK around £250. At that price it pushes against that mid to high barrier albeit without 4G, wireless charging, more storage or a better camera design that has crept down from the high end over the last few quarters. This might limit the device in terms of future-proofing, but in the brief time I held it and used it, I could see it being used as a daily driver for many of my family members. I will look into it further if I get an opportunity to hook one up to the internet and download our testing tools. However, from the few moments I used the device I was suitably impressed.

Gallery: Thin is the New Thin: Hands On with the 5.15mm KAZAM Tornado 348

Today FSP Group is launching their newest and most advanced PSU to date, the Aurum PT 1200W. The 80 Plus Platinum certified unit has been designed to compete with corresponding products from other manufacturers, many of which were a few months ago. Does FSP have what it takes to go head to head with the top-tier designs from companies like Seasonic and Flextronics? We'll find out in our full review.

 

Today Google has officially announced the newest devices in the Nexus line, just one day before Apple's October event. Both devices have been rumored for some time now, and this is the first time in a while that we've seen Google introduce a new smartphone and tablet at the same time. The first device in the announcement is the Nexus 6, made by Motorola. The second is the Nexus 9 tablet made by HTC. To give an overview of how both devices look on paper, I've put together their specifications in a chart below.

  Nexus 6 Nexus 9 SoC 2.7GHz Snapdragon 805 (APQ8084) with 4 x Krait 450 + Adreno 420 at 600MHz 2.3GHz 64-bit dual core Tegra K1 Denver SoC RAM/NAND 3GB LPDDR3 + 32/64GB NAND 2GB LPDDR3 + 16/32GB NAND Display 5.96" 2560x1440 AMOLED 8.9" 2048x1536 IPS LCD Network 2G / 3G / 4G LTE WiFi only or 2G / 3G / 4G LTE SKU Dimensions 82.98 x 159.26 x 10.06mm, 184g 153.68 x 228.25 x 7.95mm, 425g WiFi, 436g LTE Camera 13MP Rear Facing with F/2.0 aperture and OIS, 2MP FFC
4K video recording 8MP Rear Facing with F/2.4 aperture, 1.6MP FFC Battery 3220 mAh (12.236 Whr) 6700 mAh (25.46 Whr) OS Android 5.0 Lollipop Android 5.0 Lollipop Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.1, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.1, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC SIM Size NanoSIM NanoSIM on LTE SKU

The Nexus 6 features a similar appearance to Motorola's other devices like the Moto X and Moto G. The plastic back is surrounded by a contoured aluminum frame that curves downward at the top where the 3.5mm headphone jack is located. On the back is Google's traditional Nexus logo, accompanied by an indented motorola logo and a centered rear-facing camera. The front is dominated by a large 5.96" display with a pixel density of 493ppi, and stereo speakers on the top and bottom bezels.

In terms of its specifications, the Nexus 6 is competitive with all the current Android flagship devices. It packs Qualcomm's latest silicon, a hefty battery, and a high resolution display. However, those premium specs are accompanied by a premium price of $649 outright which is significantly more than the $349 that the Nexus 5 is priced at. The Nexus 5 has been given a new web page along with the other Nexus devices which suggests it isn't going disappear with the launch of this newer, more expensive smartphone.

The next announcement was the Nexus 9 made by HTC. This is the first tablet from HTC since the days of Android Gingerbread and Honeycomb where HTC announced they were exiting the tablet market. With its soft touch back, the Nexus 9 is similar in its design to the Nexus 5. Unlike the Nexus 5 which was an entirely plastic construction, the sides of the Nexus 9 are made of brushed metal.

The front of the device is similar to the Nexus 7 with its asymmetrical bezels. The shape of the device is a departure from any tablet Google has produced before, with a 2048x1536 4:3 display like Apple's iPad. Both the 8.9" display size and 4:3 aspect ratio make the Nexus 9 a significantly larger device than the Nexus 7.

The SoC is the biggest point of interest with the Nexus 9. It will be the first device to ship with Nvidia's Project Denver architecture. This is a custom 64-bit ARMv8 architecture designed by Nvidia, a significant departure from the standard ARM cores used in previous Tegra chips. We covered the details about Tegra K1 Denver previously and you can read that over to get a more in-depth look at NVIDIA's new chip.

Along with the new device announcements comes the official name for the next version of Android. Android L is now Android 5.0 Lollipop, and it will ship on the new Nexus 6 and Nexus 9. Lollipop comes with Google's new Material Design and Google's new ART runtime, and will be rolling out to existing compatible Nexus and Google Play Edition devices in the coming weeks.

The Nexus 9 will be available for pre-order on October 17th starting at $399 for 16GB, while the Nexus 6 will be available sometime in late October at $649 for 32GB.

At this point, the Galaxy Note line needs little introduction. After all, the Galaxy Note is Samsung’s biggest success in mobile. While Apple redefined the smartphone and tablet segment, Samsung defined the phablet segment. Despite widespread skepticism, the original Galaxy Note was a massive success. Combined with the Galaxy S2, 2011 was a watershed year for Samsung as they leapfrogged other Android OEMs. Since then, we’ve seen continuous improvement from year to year with each Galaxy Note. While there were competitors, Samsung managed to hold on to their first-mover advantage for multiple generations. However, with the release of Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus we see one of the first significant threats to Samsung’s dominance of this segment.

This is our review of the Galaxy Note 4.

Following up on last week’s Radeon pricing observations, it looks like there has been one final shift in Radeon R9 290 series pricing. While R9 290 has held steady around $299 with the occasional small rebate, we’ve seen R9 290X continue to fall and drop below the roughly $400 price they were going for last week. Finally stabilizing, the R9 290X has leveled out at around $370, with a handful of cards going for even a bit less than that. At $370, the R9 290X is now $30 less than the week before and this puts it just $40 over the MSRP of the GeForce GTX 970.

Though I had been expecting prices to fall further, I am a bit surprised to see R9 290X prices drop below $400 so soon. With GTX 900 series availability still being outstripped by demand, Radeon prices needed to come down from their initial MSRPs in reaction to the NVIDIA launch, though not necessarily this quickly. Regardless, this does mean that the R9 290X is in a better position than it was last week; AMD can’t completely close NVIDIA’s technology advantage gap, but from a price/performance ratio anything that brings R9 290X closer to the similarly performing GTX 970 will help AMD’s partners move cards. In the meantime it’s worth noting that AMD appears to be sticking to their guns on influencing product value through game bundles rather than engaging in a pure price war, as the $370 R9 290X goes hand-in-hand with the continued inclusion of AMD’s Never Settle Forever bundle.

Speaking of game bundles, NVIDIA sends word this afternoon that Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is now shipping for customers who received vouchers as part of NVIDIA’s recent game bundle. This bundle was never extended to the GTX 900 series – NVIDIA is clearly having no trouble selling those cards right now – but this offer is still active on the higher-end GTX 700 series cards as part of the company’s efforts to sell off the remaining GTX 770/780 inventory.

Fall 2014 GPU Pricing Comparison AMD Price NVIDIA Radeon R9 295X2 $1000     $550 GeForce GTX 980 Radeon R9 290X $370     $330 GeForce GTX 970 Radeon R9 290 $300   Radeon R9 280X
Radeon R9 285 $250   Radeon R9 280 $200 GeForce GTX 760

Today Intel released their financial results for the third quarter of their 2014 fiscal year, which ended September 27, 2014. Q3 was a record quarter for Intel, with the highest revenue in the company’s history. Their major markets of the PC Client Group was up 9% year-over-year and the Data Center Group was up 16% year-over-year.

Earnings per share was up 14% compared to Q3 2013 at $0.66, beating analysts’ expectations of $0.65. Year-over-year, revenue was up 8% at $14.6 billion, Gross Margin was up 2.6% at 65.0%, Operating Income was up 30% at $4.5 billion, and net income was up 12% at $3.3 billion.

The PC Client Group, which includes all business related to desktops, notebooks, two-in-one systems, wired and wireless Ethernet (for the PC), home gateway, and set-top-box components, continues to be the largest division for Intel with $9.190 billion in revenue this quarter. For the first three quarters, the PC Client group has contributed $25.789 billion in revenue, up $1.1 billion over the same period a year ago. This group had an operating income for Q3 2014 of $4.120 billion, up from $3.243 billion last year. Q2 seemed to indicate that the PC market has bounced back, and these revenues and income from the PC division for Q3 indicate that the trend will continue. The volume of sales for the quarter were up 7% over last quarter, and up 15% year-over-year. At the same time, the Average Selling Price (ASP) was down 2% from last quarter and down 5% year-over-year. Notebook volumes were up 21% year-over-year with the ASP down 10%, and desktop volumes were up 6% with the ASP down 2%. Intel is forecasting Q4 revenue at $14.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million, so their expectations are that the PC industry will continue its rebound. For Q3, Intel continued to sell the 22 nm range of processors, but has started production of 14 nm Broadwell parts, with a modest increase in inventory which they will likely utilize to keep up with demand for the new parts. Clearly the 14 nm node was a challenge, with the 22 nm node now being the primary process for the last ten quarters, with the average length of time between nodes being 8.5 quarters, starting with the 130 nm process. Q4 looks to be exciting with a whole new type of device able to be created from the Broadwell processors. We should start to see actual devices for sale within the next couple of weeks.

The Data Center Group, which is platforms for server, workstation, networking, and storage computing segments, was also up for Q3, with revenue up to $3.7 billion from $3.178 billion a year ago. Operating Income rose $395 million over Q3 last year to $1.915 billion. Unit volumes were up 6% year-over-year and sequentially, and the ASP was down 1% sequentially and up 9% over Q3 2013.

The Internet of Things group, which is a relatively new division focused on embedded platforms for retail, automotive, home, and transportation, had revenues for the quarter of $530 million, up 12% year-over-year. Revenues were only up $1 million over last year, with $153 million in revenue for this quarter.

The Mobile and Communications Group, which is the division responsible for platforms for tablet and smartphones, as well as mobile communications with baseband processors, RF transceivers, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and power management chips continued its slide for Q3. Revenues were down around 100% year-over-year, at a meager $1 million. This division is also responsible for the majority of Intel’s losses, with a Q3 operating loss of $1.043 billion. For the nine months ended September 27th, this unit has lost $3.096 billion. Intel is pushing hard to drive adoption of its mobile processors, and they seem to be OK with losing money on them in the short term to gain the foothold for the future. We have seen a slew of low priced tablets packing Intel Bay Trail processors, including the HP Stream tablets and just recently a $65 tablet from Emdoor out of Hong Kong. It seems hard to believe that you can buy a Windows tablet for less than the cost to fill your tank with gas, but with both Intel and Microsoft dropping fees, you have to wonder how low things will go before they stop. Luckily for Intel, their strong performances in other segments allows them to be a loss leader in this category, and they must see the long term gain here by not just allowing ARM SoCs to rule the space.

The final division for Intel is the Software and Services segment, which includes McAfee which they acquired a few years ago, and the Software and Services Group which delivers products and services that promote Intel architecture as a platform for development. This unit had a slight bump in revenues, up $13 million over last quarter to $558 million, and operating income was up 97% at $29 million.

Intel Q2 2014 Financial Results (GAAP)   Q3'2014 Q2'2014 Q3'2013 Revenue $14.554B $13.831B $13.483B Operating Income $4.918B $3.844B $4.910B Net Income $3.317B $2.796B $2.950B Gross Margin 65.0% 64.5% 58.3% PC Group Revenue $9.2B +6% +9% Data Center Group Revenue $3.7B +5% +16% Internet of Things Revenue $530M -2% +14% Mobile Group Revenue $1M -98% -99.7% Software and Services Revenue $558M +2% +2% All Other Revenue $558M +2% +2%

Q4 expectations are for revenue to increase slightly to $14.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million and Gross Margin will be 64%, plus or minus a couple of points. With Broadwell soon to be shipping to consumers, Intel is clearly expecting another record quarter. It is great to see the PC market recovering, and one has to wonder to what level it will continue. The expectations of the tablet replacing the PC seem to have subsided for the moment, due to a slump in overall tablet sales. With Broadwell now shipping, we will of course anxiously await Skylake, which will be the new Core architecture available on 14 nm, and the Cherry Trail Atom chips which will also use the new node.

This was a pretty bullish quarter for Intel, which is generally a good indicator of the overall PC market. They still have their work cut out for them in the mobile segment, but with the other divisions pulling in great revenue and margins, they seem to be content to play the long game on what is certainly a very important segment for the future.

Today we're looking at the Nixeus MODA, a tenkeyless mechanical keyboard designed for applications where a compact quality keyboard at the lowest possible cost is the main goal. It lacks backlighting and advanced features but comes with a three-year warranty and has a competitive price tag. If you are interested in a "no frills, no thrills" kind of product, then the Nixeus MODA may be just right for you.

During September we managed to get hold of some Haswell-EP samples for a quick run through our testing suite. The Xeon E5 v3 range extends beyond that of the E5 v2 with the new architecture, support for DDR4 and more SKUs with more cores. These are generally split into several markets including workstation, server, low power and high performance, with a few SKUs dedicated for communications or off-map SKUs with different levels of support. Today we are testing two 10 core models, the Xeon E5-2687W v3 and the Xeon E5-2650 v3.

In early 2014 the Razer Blade got a refresh. The significant updates over the 2013 model are the display, moving from a (rather poor) 1600x900 panel to a 3200x1800 QHD+ IGZO display and an upgraded GPU to push all of the extra pixels they just added. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M replaces the GTX 765M from the 2013 model. Read on for our full review.

Today in London, Lenovo took the wraps off of a refresh of the entire Yoga series, starting with the new Yoga 3 Pro, then moving to the new Yoga Tablet 2, and finally, the release of a new member to the Yoga line – the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro. The key feature of the Yoga series is flexibility, hence the name, and for the Yoga products it comes down to the hinge. The Lenovo Yoga line were the first laptops to feature the fold around hinge, and then later they brought a shorter version of that hinge to their Yoga tablet lines in order to allow for multiple usage modes as well.

The Yoga 2 Pro, which we reviewed earlier this year, is a 13.3 inch convertible notebook which has a hinge that can be opened 180° to let the laptop be used in the stand mode, tablet mode, and tent mode, as well as the traditional notebook mode. It is a very well implemented feature with the Yoga 2 Pro, but Lenovo thought they could do better, and with today’s announcement of the Yoga 3 Pro, Lenovo has revealed a new “Watchband Hinge” which allows the laptop to be even thinner and lighter than the Yoga 2 Pro. The new model is 17% thinner at 12.8 mm thick, and 14% lighter than the outgoing model at 1.19 kg. The hinge now has six focus points, up from two on the Yoga 2 Pro, and the watchband hinge is constructed of more than 800 pieces of steel and aluminum. The 13.3 inch 3200x1800 QHD+ display is back, but we do not know yet if it still has a RGBW matrix or not. The display is now covered in Corning Gorilla Glass. One weak spot of the Yoga 2 Pro is the audio quality, especially when using the device in multiple modes which can have the speakers pointed away from the listener. Lenovo hopes to address this shortcoming with JBL speakers with Waves Audio which adjusts the audio depending on which mode the device is in. The Yoga 3 Pro is powered by the Intel Core-M processor, which should mean an increase in battery life (Lenovo claims 9 hours) and the possibility of it being fanless. Storage options are up to 512 GB of SSD, and Wi-Fi is now 802.11ac. There are three colors available, with Clementine Orange, Platinum Silver, and Champagne Gold. Prices start at €1,599 and the new device will be available at the end of October.

Lenovo Yoga Laptop Yoga 3 Pro CPU/GPU Intel Core M-70 (2 core, 4 thread, 1100 MHz to 2600 MHz, HD 5300 GPU, 4.5 W TDP) RAM Up to 8 GB LPDDR3L Storage Up to 512 GB SSD Display 13.3" 3200x1800 QHD+ IPS touchscreen Network 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 Dimensions 330 x 228 x 12.8 (mm) Weight 1.19 kg Camera 720p Webcam Battery up to 9 hours OS Windows 8.1 Speakers JBL Stereo speakers with Waves Audio certification

Next up on the docket was the Yoga Tablet refresh. The Yoga Tablet was available in both 10 inch and 8 inch screen sizes, with Android as the operating system. The new Yoga Tablet 2 models will also come in both 10 inch and 8 inch versions, but now the Tablet 2 is available with either Android 4.4 or Windows 8.1. The original Yoga Tablet had a barrel hinge on one side, which allowed the user to use the tablet in a stand mode, tilt mode, or the hold mode, and the Tablet 2 line will feature the new “Hang Mode” which is simple a slot cut in the stand to allow it to be hung from something. The hinge barrel allowed the Yoga Tablet a larger battery than other similar sized devices, and the Tablet 2 promises the same 18 hours of battery life. The screen resolution is now 1920x1200, with dual front speakers and LTE is available on both 8 inch and 10 inch Android versions, and the 10 inch Windows version. The CPU of choice for all of the Yoga Tablet 2 models is now the Intel Atom processor, which Lenovo is claiming gives them three times the CPU performance and twice the GPU performance of the outgoing models. The 8 and 10 inch Android models will be on sale starting today at a starting price of €229 and €299, respectively. The 10 inch Windows version will be available in late October for €399, and the 8 inch Windows model will come in November starting at €249.

Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2   Yoga Tablet 2 8" Yoga Tablet 2 8" with Windows Yoga Tablet 2 10" Yoga Tablet 2 10" with Windows Yoga Tablet 2 Pro CPU Intel Atom Processor Z3745 (2M cache, 4 cores, up to 1.86 GHz) Display 8" 1920x1200 IPS Touchscreen 10" 1920x1200 IPS Touchscreen 13.3" 2560x1440 IPS Touchscreen Memory 2GB LP-DDR3 memory Graphics Intel HD Integrated Graphics (311 MHz Base, 778 MHz Burst) Storage 16 GB eMMC plus Micro SD up to 64 GB 32 GB eMMC plus Micro SD up to 64 GB 16 GB eMMC plus Micro SD up to 64 GB 32 GB eMMC plus Micro SD up to 64 GB Connectivity Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Dual-Band; BT 4.0; Optional 4G in some markets Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Dual-Band; BT 4.0 Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Dual-Band; BT 4.0; Optional 4G in some markets Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Dual-Band; BT 4.0; Optional 4G in some markets; Micro HDMI Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n Dual-Band; BT 4.0; Optional 4G in some markets Speakers 2x front large-chamber speakers, Dolby Audio, Wolfson Master Hi-Fi 2x front large-chamber 1.5w speakers
5W rear JBL subwoofer
Dolby Audio, Wolfson Master Hi-Fi Dimensions 210 x 149 x 2.7-7.0 mm
8.3 x 5.9 x 0.1-0.3 inches 210 x 149 x 2.7-7.0 mm
8.3 x 5.9 x 0.1-0.3 inches 255 x 183 x 3.0-7.2 mm
10.0 x 7.2 x 0.1-0.3 inches 255 x 183 x 3.0-7.2 mm
10.0 x 7.2 x 0.1-0.3 inches 333 x 223 x 3.7-12.6 mm
13.1 x 8.8 x 0.1-0.5 inches Weight 419 g
0.92 lbs 426 g
0.94 lbs 619 g
1.36 lbs 629 g
1.39 lbs 950 g
2.09 lbs Battery Life (estimated) 18 hours 15 hours 18 hours 15 hours 15 hours

 

The final product announcement is the bigger Yoga Tablet 2 Pro. Lenovo conducted focus groups to get a better feel for what people actually do with their tablets, and they found 80% of users never take their tablet out of the home. They also found that 52% of users use the tablet to watch long form video such as television and movies, and 56% of users share the tablet with multiple users. In an effort to be “the world’s best home entertainment tablet” Lenovo has added some interesting features that have never before been seen on a tablet. As with the standard Yoga Tablet 2, the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro features a barrel hinge for the stand. Lenovo has placed a micro-projector inside of the barrel, in order to allow people to share content by projecting it. Coupled with that is a new 8 watt JBL 2.1 speaker system, which includes a 5 watt subwoofer on the back of the tablet. The final piece of the Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is to address users who never take the tablet out of the home. The Pro version has a 13.3” 2560x1440 QHD IPS display. With the additional battery space allowed by the barrel hinge, Lenovo is claiming 15 hours of battery life for the Intel Atom powered tablet. Unlike the smaller tablets, Android is the only offered operating system for this model. Pricing starts at €499 with availability the end of October.

The Yoga 2 Pro is an excellent device, and it should only get better with Core M inside. The tablets offer unique features over other models, especially the hinge which houses a larger battery. We should be able to dig deeper into all of these products if we get review units.

Learning about semiconductor physics and technology can be a daunting task. While it’s easy enough to understand what a transistor does and some of the terminology thrown around, getting into the deeper aspects of how things work is tough. A great deal of the information on the internet is simply too cryptic to understand, even for those that want to learn. If you've wanted a primer to help bridge the gap, read on as we explore the lower level details of semiconductor physics and technology.

Consumers in the United States have typically been unable to purchase Sony smartphones if their carrier is Verizon. The carrier's lineup has been devoid of any Xperia offerings for quite some time. One exception was the Xperia Play which launched exclusively on Verizon in the United States 3 years ago. Since then we haven't seen much in the way of collaboration between the two companies beyond a few tablet launches. That ends today with the launch of the Sony Xperia Z3v on Verizon.

At its core, the Z3v is the same as the Xperia Z3 that Sony unveiled earlier this year at IFA. It's Sony's flagship smartphone, with a 5.2" 1920x1080 IPS display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of NAND with 128GB MicroSDXC expansion, a 20.7MP camera, and Qualcomm's MSM8974AC with 4 Krait 400 cores at 2.5GHz.

There are a few changes with the Verizon exclusive Z3v. The design of the chassis has some alterations. The sides of the phone in particular are flatter than the international Z3, and because of this the Z3v looks more visually similar to the Xperia Z2 than the Z3. The phone also has a couple of improvements over the Z3. The first is the addition of Qi inductive charging, and the other is a small boost in battery capacity from 11.78Whr to 12.16Whr. 

The Z3v will be launching on October 23 for $199 on a 2 year term. Users who are interested in more information can check out Verizon's sign up page for the new device.

At HTC's Double Exposure event in New York we saw the launch of the Desire EYE, a smartphone with a serious focus on the camera. HTC has silently put a listing for the HTC One (M8 EYE) on their chinese web store. The HTC One (M8 EYE) is essentially the same as the HTC One (M8) that launched earlier this year, but with one major hardware difference. HTC's 4MP UltraPixel sensor has been replaced by Sony's 13MP IMX214, the same sensor used on the HTC Butterfly 2 and the HTC Desire EYE. Unlike the Desire EYE, the front-facing camera is still a 5MP sensor.

Based on the photos on the website, the HTC One (M8 EYE) also has the new HTC EYE Experience features like Face Fusion, HTC Split Capture, and advanced face tracking features for conferencing.

The fact that this is a fairly silent launch from HTC seems to suggest that this may be a device destined only for the Chinese market. 

We reviewed the X79 Extreme11 back in September 2012. The concept was simple: divert eight PCIe lanes into an LSI SAS chip for eight more SATA ports with SAS compatibility. Then ASRock released the Z87 Extreme11 which combined the LSI chip with a port multiplier, upping the total from 8+6 to 16+6. The X79 required two PLX8747 chips to also enable x16/x16/x16/x16 + LSI, whereas the Z87 only used one PLX8747 for x8/x8/x8/x8 + LSI.

Now insert the X99 version of the Extreme11. It gets a bit tricky here, because SATA is not the only storage around. Add into the mix that the chipset supports 10 SATA ports on its own then there is the potential for something silly, or awesome, or perhaps a little of both. The X99 Extreme11 uses the same LSI SAS 3008 without the port multiplier, but add in the 10 chipset ports X99 already provides and it gives a total of 18. This LSI chip uses eight PCIe 3.0 lanes and supports RAID 0/1 only, but still allows ASRock to publish 6.1 GBps peak read/write when top end SATA drives are connected to each port.

The X99 Extreme11, similar to the Z87, uses two PLX chips to achieve x16/x16/x16/x16 support along with the LSI chip. To throw some more into the mix, the motherboard also has two Ultra M.2 slots, with both supporting PCIe 3.0 x4 connectivity and 22x110 sized drives. These M.2 x4 slots are still good for 2.8 GBps according to ASRock, and while they won’t be RAID capable in hardware, a software layer might provide an interesting project.

The motherboard will support Xeons with either UDIMMs or RDIMMs, along with ECC support. Networking is provided by two Intel NICs, the I218-V and I211-AT, with support for Teaming. The PCIe slots will support x16/x16/x16/x16 even with the 28-lane i7-5820K, although using that CPU will disable the second M.2 x4 due to the lack of bandwidth.

ASRock is keen to promote their 12-phase power design, which we see paired with large heatsinks. A heatpipe connects all three heatsinks, with the heatsink on the left there only to provide extra surface area. The chipset heatsink is also dealing with the LSI controller, hence the size and the active cooling. Users in the past often express concern about small fans like this, although it can be disconnected if the user has their own sufficient cooling.

The board has eight USB 3.0 ports, six from the chipset and two from an ASMedia controller powering two of the rear IO ports. Also onboard is a COM header, seven fan headers (only two are 4-pin), Realtek ALC1150 audio in Purity Sound 2 and a dual BIOS topology. Because of the use of 4-way PCIe, there are two connectors on board for additional VGA power, although these are molex connectors which I disapprove of. One of them is to the left of the middle of the board, making cable management a nightmare.

The Rear IO has two eSATA ports, both of which are shared with specific SATA ports on the motherboard, meaning only one can work at one time. The back panel also has a PS/2 combination connector, four USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, the two Intel network ports and audio.

In ASRock’s YouTube video promoting the motherboard, they paired the system with an 18-core E5-2699 v3, 128GB of DRAM, four GTX 780 Ti cards, two M.2 x4 drives and 18 SSDs. See you later, I need to sell a kidney and perhaps a lung as well.

I would not be surprised if the X99 Extreme11 ends up being the most expensive X99 motherboard on the market. The two PLX 8747 chips, as well as the LSI 3008, are not cheap for the end-user. Though if a user wants to wire up a large Xeon, a ton of memory, four GPUs, a dozen or more storage devices or any combination therein, then the price of the motherboard might be quite low down on the list. The X79 Extreme11 retailed for $600, so I suspect that this motherboard will be in the same ballpark.

I have requested a review sample, and hopefully we can delve into the interesting PCIe arrangement under the hood. It will be interesting to see how everything is wired up. A full specification list can be found on ASRock's X99 Extreme11 page.

Gallery: ASRock Releases X99 Extreme11: So I Heard You Like Storage