Since Computex, there has been a lot of talk around Intel’s Broadwell-Y / Core-M CPU line. In August Intel treated us to a breakdown of the 14nm process and the Broadwell architecture including all the improvements therein, followed by a more succinct breakdown of the CPUs we should expect. These initial CPUs should be properly available to the public in Q4 in devices such as the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro using the Core M-5Y70.

The news this week revolves around more Core M CPUs being pushed through the system. This is most likely as a result of Intel binning the CPUs in sufficient quantities to satisfy customers. The specifications are available at ark.intel.com, but the Core M line now stands at seven different SKUs:

Intel Core M Specifications   5Y71
(New) 5Y70 5Y51
(New) ​5Y31
(New) 5Y10c
(New) 5Y10a 5Y10 Cores / Threads 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 2 / 4 Base Frequency / MHz 1200 1100 1100 900 800 800 800 Turbo Frequency / MHz 2900 2600 2600 2400 2000 2000 2000 Processor Graphics HD 5300 HD 5300 HD 5300 HD 5300 HD
5300 HD
5300 HD 5300 IGP Base Frequency / MHz 300 100 300 300 300 100 100 IGP Turbo Frequency / MHz 900 850 900 850 800 800 800 L3 Cache 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB 4 MB TDP 4.5 W 4.5 W 4.5 W 4.5 W 4.5 W 4.5 W 4.5 W LPDDR3/DDR3L 
Support 1600 MHz 1600 MHz 1600 MHz 1600 MHz 1600 MHz 1600 MHz 1600 MHz Intel vPro Yes Yes No No No No No Intel TXT Yes Yes No No No No No Intel VT-d/VT-x Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Intel AES-NI Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

The new high end model is the 5Y71, offering a 2.9 GHz frequency mode and vPro features. The 5Y51 has slightly better specifications than the higher numbered 5Y70, but loses vPro compatibility. Both the 5Y31 and 5Y51  fill in the large gap between the 5Y10a and 5Y70 in the initial launch. All four new processors all have an improved base GPU frequency, up to 300 MHz, and are slated to work at a cTDP Up of 6W or cTDP Down of 3.5W, depending on the customer’s needs.

All new CPUs are slated for a Q4 launch, which would mean that they might become available for end users in products on the shelf sometime in Q1 2015.

Source: CPU-World

Google's applications like Gmail, Camera, and Chrome are likely applications that came on your Android phone when you first purchased it. But unlike iOS where Apple has to ship an entire operating system update to update an application, Google's apps for Android can be updated right from Google Play. Google has been steadily updating their applications to take advantage of their new "Material Design" design principles that were shown off at Google I/O. With Android 5.0 Lollipop on the horizon, Google has to get the remaining applications up to date, and the latest application to recieve the new visual style is Gmail with its major update to version 5.0.

As you can see above, there's a lot of changes that come with the new Material Design interface. The most striking change is the the removal of the grey that was prevalent throughout the application. In the previous version, the color of an email preview changed to grey to indicate that the email had been read, while unread messages remained white. In the new design, the change between bolded or unbolded preview text indicates whether a message has been read. I personally find this to be much more aesthetically pleasing.

The header and status bar are now a nice moderately saturated red color that doesn't feel gaudy but brings more color into the interface. The circular button for composing a new email at the bottom also uses this red color. On the topic of circles, Google has begun to use circular contact photos throughout their applications, although in my case they just display the sender's first initial. If I had put in the effort to assign contact photos the new circles would display them where the squares previously did. 

Google has also redesigned the navigation drawer that houses your different inbox labels, and settings. The grey has been changed to white, and the top displays your cover photo from Google+ which seems to be a message from Google that you're supposed to change it from the default rainbow thing. 

The sliding drawer is a topic of debate right now because many applications implement it incorrectly, including many that are made by Google like the Hangouts application. Google's official guidelines state that the drawer is to slide in overtop of every other part of the interface except for the status bar. The new Gmail application implements this correctly, and I'm hopeful that every other Google application will be updated to adopt the proper design before Android Lollipop ships. It's very difficult to get developers to follow design guidelines when you don't set a good example with your own first party applications, and the navigation drawer in Hangouts has multiple issues with its design when compared to Google's guidelines. 

The last big change in the application is the support for adding email accounts from other providers like Yahoo, iCloud Mail, Outlook, etc. Any email account that supports IMAP/POP or Exchange can be added. This is a great feature as it eliminates the need to have to add every non-Google email account to the standard Email application which isn't given as much attention as Google's own Gmail app.

Yesterday MSI announced their latest notebook addition, the GT80 Titan. I'm a bit unsure what to think of the notebook, but it's obviously unique in that it offers a SteelSeries keyboard with Cherry MX Brown switches. It also has a tweaked keyboard/palm rest area, somewhat reminiscent of the Acer R7 in that the keyboard is at the front…only now you have to throw in shades of Razer's Switchblade touchpad/UI as there's apparently a configurable touchpad/screen on the right of the keyboard.

I get the idea of doing a notebook with a mechanical keyboard, though obviously that will result in a thicker chassis. I'm not so sure about shifting the keyboard forward and turning the 10-key into a touchpad and getting rid of the palm rest. For actual gaming, most users will still use a dedicated mouse, but I for one like having a place to rest my palms when gaming (or just staring at the screen trying to think of what to type next), and with a notebook that will likely be a couple inches thick that's a bit of a problem.

As far as the remaining specifications go, MSI is not officially announcing the supported CPUs or GPUs, and the GT80 Titan isn't actually available for purchase yet. My bet is the GT80 Titan will support at least the GTX 980M, and given it's an 18-inch chassis it could very well include support for SLI 980M. Given the name, it's also possible the GT80 will support desktop components (e.g. GTX Titan GPUs), but that's less likely; a desktop CPU on the other hand is certainly a possibility. Hopefully the screen and other elements can keep pace with the high-end mechanical keyboard. You can follow MSI from the GT80 Titan's page to receive updates if you're interested in hearing more.

Today Samsung announced two new smartphones that fit into their portfolio of mid-range devices. They are the Galaxy A3 and A5. Normally there's not a lot to get excited about when it comes to the launch of mid-range phones, but there's something very unique about these two new phones from Samsung. Samsung has long been criticized for their primarily plastic construction on their phones and tablets. This was improved with the designs of the Galaxy Alpha and the Note 4 which sported a metal band that went around the edges of the device. The Galaxy A3 and A5 take this even further with full metal unibody designs, much like what HTC has been doing for quite some time now. Before getting into the design, I've laid out the specifications that Samsung has revealed in a chart below. Some of their listed specs like the CPU are unfortunately very vague.

  Galaxy A5 Galaxy A3 SoC 1.2GHz Quad Core 1.2GHz Quad Core RAM/NAND 2 GB RAM, 16GB NAND + MicroSDHC 1GB RAM, 16GB NAND + MicroSDHC Display 5.0" HD Super AMOLED 4.5” qHD Super AMOLED Network 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 4) 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 4) Dimensions 139.3 x 69.7 x 6.7mm, 123g 130.1 x 65.5 x 6.9mm, 110.3g Camera 13MP Rear Camera, 5MP Front Camera 8MP Rear Camera, 5MP Front Camera Battery 2300 mAh 1900 mAh OS Android 4.4 KitKat Android 4.4 KitKat Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, NFC 802.11b/g/n/ac + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, DLNA, NFC SIM Size NanoSIM NanoSIM

As you can see, there's nothing too extraordinary with regards to the specifications. There's really no concrete way to determine if they use something like a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 part, or one of Samsung's own Exynos SoCs. Samsung has also not specified the exact resolution for the Galaxy A5, but based on its position in their lineup, and their past distinction between HD and Full HD Super AMOLED displays, it would make sense that the Galaxy A5 has a resolution of 1280x720. For connectivity both devices omit 802.11ac support, which is not surprising for devices in this segment of the market. Samsung is advertising their support for Cat4 LTE and Bluetooth 4.0.

The appeal of these phones is the design and materials. Both devices look similar to the Galaxy Alpha, with chamfered edges, flat sides, and a textured bezel surrounding the display. They both come in five colors, Champagne Gold, Light Blue, Pearl White, Midnight Black, Platinum Silver, and Soft Pink. Despite being budget devices, both the Galaxy A3 and A5 sport a metal unibody construction which is a major shift in Samsung's design for smartphones, and a shift that I never expected to see first made in Samsung's mid-range smartphones. It will definitely be interesting to see how this is extended to future flagship smartphones from Samsung.

Samsung hasn't stated the expected price for the Galaxy A3 and A5, and have only stated that it will be coming to select markets including China in November of this year. 

Source: Samsung via Android Police

Over the last couple of years, mini-PCs in the ultra-compact form factor (UCFF) have emerged as one of the bright spots in the troubled PC market. Zotac is no stranger to this segment. In fact, their nano xs units came to the market before the Intel NUC, even though the NUC is credited with kickstarting the UCFF trend. Starting with Ivy Bridge, Intel also began to experiment with Y series CPUs to bring the Core family to the fanless tablet market. Unfortunately, the impact of these SKUs in the tablet market has been minimal. However, Zotac has repurposed the Y series CPUs for the 'ZBOX C Passive Cooling Series' of mini-PCs. The ZBOX CI540 nano, equipped with a Core i5-4210Y, is currently the most powerful unit in the lineup. Read on to identify what Intel's Y series brings to the table for the mini-PC market.

The flagship ASUS gaming motherboards are designed to offer the best ASUS’ R&D have to offer and are often the lynchpin in a number of enthusiast builds.  These feature a number of components and software elements that the channel motherboard range does not have, such as GameFirst, SupremeFX or Sonic Radar. ASUS has brought some of these features down their ROG product line to the Maximus VII Gene, Hero and Ranger for more budget oriented builds, however when it comes to pairing a $70 CPU like the overclockable Pentium G3258 with an ROG board, the ROG board might still be 2-2.5x the cost. As a result, ASUS is today announcing a semi-ROG board combining elements from the channel range and the ROG range in order to offer something more cost effective for budget users interested in a bit of overclocking and gaming.  This is the Z97-Pro Gamer.

The Z97-Pro Gamer is almost a cut down version of the Z97-Pro, but with ROG gaming features added. From the channel side of the equation we have M.2 x2 and SATA Express support along with ASMedia controllers for extra USB 3.0 ports and PCIe to PCI connectors. From ROG it borrows some of the aesthetic qualities (red/black heatsinks), SupremeFX audio, ROG oriented DIGI+ control of the power delivery, extended BIOS options and the ROG software package.

The PCIe layout focuses on an x8/x8 split for SLI and Crossfire, with a final PCIe 2.0 x4 from the chipset for additional cards rather than an x8/x4/x4 split overall for tri-AMD gaming which might not scale appropriately with a Pentium CPU. The USB and Ethernet ports are protected individually against electrostatic discharge, with that Ethernet port being an Intel (I218-V I would assume) to be used alongside the GameFirst II packet prioritization software.  The SupremeFX audio hides an ALC1150 codec with PCB separation, EM shields and auto-detecting headphone amplifiers.

As this announcement was made via the ROG website, the North American official announcement might not be far away. At the point in time where the board is officially released, we should learn more about pricing and availability.

Source: ROG

Gallery: ASUS Announces Z97 Pro Gamer: Semi-ROG for Pentium-AE Gaming

Somehow, October has already come and gone. Some of you may be wondering what to wear for All Hallows' Eve, or if you need to run out for some last minute treats. But the folks at Xbox are lining up the free games as part of Xbox Live Gold membership. November does not look to be the strongest lineup ever for the program though, with only a single game (again) on the Xbox One, and two Xbox 360 games that date back to several years ago. The Xbox One in particular needs to raise the bar with the program, especially now that the console has been out for a year and the catalog of games is actually OK. But enough complaining for now – let us see the games.

Xbox One Volgarr the Viking

For several months now, there has only been a single game made available at no cost for the Xbox One. Last month, it was Chariot, and the saving grace for that game was that it was brand new to the store, and this month it is the same. Volgarr the Viking is a 2D side scrolling action game, which harkens back to the days of Contra and the like. Crazy Viking Studios developed this game which was originally launched on the PC just over a year ago. The side scroller is unapologetically difficult, and was brought to life with the help of a kickstarter campaign. This is another of the latest round of retro looking games with an 8-bit graphical feel to it, but it does include a soundtrack from Kochun Hu. The PC version scored a 76 Metascore and 7.7 user score on metacritic, and while Xbox pricing has not been announced, the PC version is currently selling for $12.

“Volgarr the Viking, the newest ID@Xbox game, will debut on Xbox One as a free download. For Xbox One gamers, this is a journey back to the days of yore, when times were tougher, and you really only needed a couple buttons to play a game.”

Xbox 360 Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise

On Saturday, November 1st, Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise will be the first Xbox 360 game available for the month. This is the sequel to the original Viva Piñata, from Microsoft Game Studios and Rare. This life simulation game was originally released in September 2008, so it is far from a new title, but it still has some appeal especially to a younger audience. It scored an 82 Metascore and 7.7 user score on metacritic, and normally sells for $14.99.

“Welcome back to Piñata Island where Prof. Pester's latest scheme has lead to disaster. Visit the scorching desert or icy wastes to trap new species. Train them, dress them, then send them to a party! We’ve new Piñatas, new activities, new features and new secrets, so come visit and find out why people never want to leave. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.”

Red Faction: Guerilla

The final Xbox 360 game for the month is Red Faction: Guerilla, which will become available on November 16th. This open world third-person shooter is from developer Volition, Inc, and was originally launched on the Xbox 360 in June 2009. This is the third installment of the Red Faction series, and was released to positive reviews. Red Faction: Guerilla scored a pretty high 85 Metascore and 8.1 User Score on metacritic, and normally sells for $19.99.

“Lured by the rich veins of Martian ore, miner Alec Mason arrives on Mars hungry for a new life. But the promise of a brighter future for Mason quickly fades. The Earth Defense Force, once protectors of Martian colonists, have adopted heavy-handed checkpoints and omnipresent armed patrols. As violence escalates, an underground resistance known as the Red Faction is swiftly gathering strength to combat the EDF. Mason’s quest for a new life has become a battle for survival, and the fate of the planet now rests with him and the Red Faction. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see”

I can’t say I am particularly thrilled with the November lineup of games. The Xbox One selection is ok as a new release, but we have had a steady stream of indie game titles with GWG on the Xbox One and it is time to see some of the launch titles become available. The Xbox 360 games have historically had the better lineup due to the larger back catalog of games, and that is the case here again, even though they went way back in the catalog. Hopefully December brings a better lineup.

Source: Major Nelson Blog

After a couple of months off due to a very busy fall product season, we’re finally back again with our monthly guide to video cards and video card industry recap. Since our last guide it has been a busy couple of months, so there’s quite a bit to cover.

The big news this fall has of course been the new video card launches from AMD and NVIDIA. While October has been a relatively quiet month, both companies kept September busy by pushing new products out the door and took others off the shelves.

AMD for their part released the first of their GCN 1.2 architecture GPUs: Tonga. Tonga serves as AMD’s replacement for the nearly 3 year old Tahiti GPU, the very first of AMD’s GPUs first launched in 2011. Tonga is an interesting – if still slightly mysterious – GPU, as we suspect we have not seen everything it and GCN 1.2 can offer. From a high level GCN 1.2 is a further refinement on the GCN architecture, bringing with it greatly improved Delta Color Compression for graphics buffers, a faster video decode block (H.264 L5.2 support), and a further optimized geometry frontend that better handles extreme tessellation factors. At the same time we suspect there are some compute/HSA improvements in the design that AMD has not disclosed and are being saved for the rumored Carrizo APU, Kaveri’s successor.

As for AMD’s desktop product stack, Tonga has been used so far in a single product, the Radeon R9 285. Like Tonga to Tahiti, R9 285 is designed to replace the R9 280 and similar second-tier Tahiti designs. Compared to R9 280, R9 285 is an unusual sidegrade that packs the GCN 1.2 features, a narrower 256-bit memory bus, and virtually identical performance to R9 280. Tahiti and R9 280 were in need of an update and R9 285 is a fine replacement, but if it has any weakness it’s that it hasn’t done much to push the overall performance envelope.

Meanwhile not to be left behind, NVIDIA released their own new wave of video cards powered by the Maxwell 2 architecture. The immediate successor to the Maxwell 1 architecture used in the GeForce GTX 750 series, Maxwell 2 brought NVIDIA’s previous power efficiency gains to the high-end with their new GM204 GPU, along with some new architectural features that make Maxwell 2 stand further apart from Maxwell 1. Among these is HDMI 2.0 support, HEVC hardware encoding, NVIDIA’s VXGI voxel rendering technology, and a suite of new graphics features that will be part of the Direct3D 11.3 specification.

GM204 in turn lies at the heart of the GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970, which had a significant impact on the PC video card market almost overnight. GTX 980 took the top spot as the fastest single-GPU video card, pushing aside AMD’s Radeon R9 290X and even NVIDIA’s own GTX 780 Ti while setting new marks for power efficiency (all the more impressive since this is still TSMC’s 28nm process). Meanwhile the more affordable GTX 970 retained much of GTX 980’s performance at a lower price, which had a significant spoiler effect on the market due to its strong performance – second only to GTX 980 and often tied with R9 290X – coupled with a low $330 price tag.

In fact it’s only now, over a month post-launch that NVIDIA and their partners have finally caught up with demand. For the last month GTX 900 cards have been hard (though not impossible) to come by, reflecting the impact they’ve had on the market. The AMD ecosystem for its part has cut prices in response in order to stay competitive, and while AMD is facing a technological gap they can’t completely close with the R9 290 series, they can still put up a good fight with competitive positioning.

Finally, on a software note, we’re seeing the launch of this fall’s major video games, including games that were designed around the current-generation game consoles. Though the era of AAA action games being cross-platform means that PC video cards don’t always get used to their full potential, the flip side of this is that once there’s a console generation jump, we see a significant increase in the GPU requirements as the PC video card advantage gets reset. Of particular note, games like Shadows of Mordor and Assassin’s Creed: Unity are hitting shelves with high performance requirements and VRAM-hungry assets that can eat into 4GB+ of VRAM, as consoles are now using GPUs and graphical effects in from the same generation as current PC GPUs. For gamers this means upgrades may be in order, something AMD and NVIDIA are itching to provide.

Anyhow, market summaries behind us, let’s look at individual recommendations. As always, we’ve laid out our ideas of price/performance bands and recommendations in our table below, with our full explanations and alternative options to follow. As always, in the case of the sub-$200 market it’s worth pointing out that there’s a video card for roughly every $10, so picking a good video card is as much about budgets as it is finding an especially strong card.

October 2014 GPU Performance Guide Performance Band Price Range Recommendation 1080p (Low) $99-$149 AMD Radeon R7 260X 1080p (Med) $149-$189 AMD Radeon R7 265 1080p (High) $189-$279 AMD Radeon R9 280 1440p (Med) $279-$349 AMD Radeon R9 290 1440p (High) $349 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 1440p (Max) $579+ NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 4K/Multi-Monitor (High) $560+ 2x AMD Radeon R9 290
AMD Radeon R9 295X2
2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980

As a general recommendation for gaming, we suggest starting at $99. There are cards below this price, but the amount of performance you have to give up below $99 far outweighs the cost. Even then, performance gains will generally exceed the price increases up to $150 or so.

Meanwhile for gamers looking for high quality 1080p gaming or better, that will start at around $199. Going above that will find cards that are good for 1440p, 4K, and multi-monitor, while going below that will find cards that will require some quality sacrifices to stay at 1080p.

Finally, this guide is by its very nature weighted towards price/performance, based on the passionate feedback we've received from our readers. For these purposes we consider AMD and NVIDIA to be equal from a functionality and compatibility perspective, but it should be said that both parties have been building out their ecosystem in the past year, and this will only continue to grow as the two companies try to differentiate themselves. So if you need or want functionality beyond the core functionality a video card offers, it may be worthwhile to familiarize yourself with the NVIDIA and AMD ecosystems, including Gameworks, Eyefinity, G-Sync, Mantle, GeForce Experience, and more.

Budget (<$100): AMD Radeon R7 260X

Though always a bit of a mess due to the sheer number of cards around the $99 price point, for this month the market for budget cards is going to be pretty cut and dry. At under $100 AMD’s Radeon R9 260X is going to be the fastest option available. Based on a full-fledged version of AMD’s Bonaire GPU, the R7 260X offers a good balance between price and performance, delivering the best performance to be found for this price segment.

Now this still isn’t going to quite hit the overall performance sweet spot we outlined earlier, but for those gamers on a strict budget it will get the job done. For current games it will be able to run most of them at 1080p with medium-to-low settings. For newer cross-platform games however, we expect to see it get forced back to low quality. One piece of advice here is that if you can snag one, a 2GB card is going to have longer legs than a 1GB card. Unfortunately most sub-$100 cards are the 1GB variety, but there is usually a 2GB card or two also available at that price.

Runner Up: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750

Our second runner up here is NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 750. Most GTX 750 cards are over $100, but there is a decent selection at $99, enough to make purchasing one at this price an option. Against the R7 260X it’s still going to be several percent slower, but it has an ace up its sleeve in its sub-75W power consumption, making it more favorable in power or cooling constrained systems.

Mainstream Sweet Spot ($149): AMD Radeon R7 265

At this point in time the $149 price point is in an odd spot due to how this price point is bracketed by cards above and below it. The card you’re most likely to find at this price point is AMD’s Radeon R7 265, the company’s lowest-tier Pitcairn card. Essentially a 7850 with a higher GPU clockspeed and a revised memory bus allowing for higher memory clockspeeds, the R7 265 a capable card for the price.

From a performance standpoint the R7 265 not going to be able to play every game at 1080p at high settings, but it will be fast enough for medium-to-high depending on the game, which will be a couple of notches higher than what the $99 cards can do. Meanwhile the 2GB of VRAM will mean that future games shouldn’t bog down the card quite as badly; higher graphical fidelity games will slow it down like any other card, but there’s enough VRAM to keep up with the demands of higher resolution textures and heavier use of intermediate buffers.

Runner Up: AMD Radeon R9 270 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti

While R7 265 is AMD’s official $149 card, the more powerful R9 270 has been flirting with the $149 mark as well. There aren’t really enough cards available at this price to qualify R7 270 as a $149 card, but it can be found at that price by the smart shopper. All things considered the R7 270 is the better card at around 10% faster, and if it can be found at $149 you should take it over an R7 265.

Alternatively, we have NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 750 Ti, a card that offers below the R7 265 but with much lower power consumption. The GTX 750 Ti is a sub-75W card – no external PCIe power connector required – allowing it to work in cases and systems where the near-150W R7 265 cannot, while also offering the improved acoustics that come with lower power consumption. And at around $129 it’s going to be lighter on the wallet than R7 265, but performance standpoint it will trail by about 16%.

1080p Gaming ($189): AMD Radeon R9 280

Once we start approaching $200 we begin reaching some rather powerful cards, and in the process cross a pretty good fight for the $200 spot between AMD and NVIDIA. But at the end of the day AMD has the edge with their Radeon R9 280, the company’s second-tier Tahiti part. Officially this part is in clearance sale mode, but that has been the case for almost 2 months now with the supply still holding strong, so as long as that remains the case this is going to be the strongest card for those looking around the $200 price point.

The R9 280 should breeze through 1080p gaming, and with its 3GB of VRAM it should hold up to newer cross-platform games a bit better than some other cards. This card should even be able to hit 1440p in some scenarios, but I expect the next round of cross-platform games will keep it working hard just to stay at 1080p with high quality settings.

Runner Up: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760

The GeForce GTX 760 falls a bit short of R9 280’s performance, but should R9 280 supplies finally dry up or you’re just looking for a $200 NVIDIA card it’s still a solid choice. As NVIDIA’s second-tier GK104 card it still packs quite a punch.

1440p Power ($279): AMD Radeon R9 290

Past $200, the launch of the GTX 900 series has caused a major disruption of pricing and sweet spots. Between the $189 R9 280 and $279 R9 290 there are some cards such as the R9 285 and GTX 770, but none of them are very interesting nor make all that much sense right now. With the R9 290 at $279, your best bet after the $200 mark is to just keep on going until you reach the first of our high performance cards.

At $300 or less there’s really no choice here. To that end AMD essentially wins by default, but the real winner is gamers who are getting a good card at a great price. Based on the second-tier version of AMD’s flagship Hawaii GPU, the R9 290 packs enough performance to tackle 1440p at medium-to-high settings, and its 4GB of VRAM means that it should have no problem even with demanding cross-platform games. Alternatively, if you want to drive 120Hz without spending a fortune, the R9 290 should get you there.

The Performance Sweet Spot ($349): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970

Above the R9 290 and the biggest factor in reshaping the performance video card landscape in the last month is the cheaper of NVIDIA’s two GTX 900 series cards, the GeForce GTX 970. The GTX 970 is the reason AMD had to cut prices, and along with its sibling is arguably unmatched from a technological perspective. AMD can offer similar performance, but they can’t match NVIDIA’s power efficiency in this segment of the market. Making it possible to have a high performance card without also having the heat and noise that so often comes with it.

From a performance perspective the GTX 970 is a solid step up from the R9 290, and this is coupled with its very significant power advantage. It should have no trouble handling 1440p games on high settings, and between this level of performance, power consumption, and price it’s undoubtedly the sweet spot card for performance gamers. You can get faster cards, but not at this balance between performance and price.

The only downside here is that pricing is currently not holding to the card’s initial $330 MSRP. It’s not completely clear whether this is due to the previously limited availability, retailer’s taking advantage of demand, or board partners pushing their premium customized cards, but you have to be ready to shell out $350 to get a choice of GTX 970 cards. This does hurt GTX 970’s sweet spot designation a bit, though it’s still the strongest contender.

Runner Up: AMD Radeon R9 290X

As an alternative to the GTX 970 we have AMD’s Radeon R9 290X. At sub-4K resolutions it’s basically tied with the GTX 970 on performance, and consumes quite a bit more power in the process. But if you’re after AMD’s best card or just additional options at this price/performance level, it won’t disappoint.

Taking the Single-GPU Crown ($579): NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980

For the fastest single-GPU card on the market for gamers, NVIDIA’s top tier GM204 part, GeForce GTX 980, stands alone. As is often the case for NVIDIA’s flagship cards, NVIDIA is clearly charging a premium for the card, but in return you get performance a step ahead of any other card on the market. And power consumption is second only to the lower performing GTX 970, making it perhaps the most power efficient card of them all.

Overall GTX 980 should be able to handle 1440p with maximum quality settings, including a good amount of anti-aliasing. It’s not quite up to the task of handling 4K on its own (at least not without a compromise in quality settings), but owners of 120Hz 1440p monitors will find that it has enough power to push past 60fps at 1440p in several games.

4K for Me ($560): 2x AMD Radeon R9 290

If anything, the hardest pick is finding the best choice for a true high performance, high quality 4K gaming setup. No one GPU can deliver this, so instead we’re presented with a number of options for multiple GPUs.

Truth be told there are a couple of different ways to do this. Right now the two best options are both AMD, and this is due to the combination of their XDMA engine and their greater scaling at 4K. In the single-GPU race NVIDIA is untouched, but they’re still facing at challenge at 4K.

The cheapest way to get to 4K is with a pair of AMD’s Radeon R9 290 cards. From a pure performance perspective R9 290 in CF delivers a solid 4K experience; most games scale well over a single card, and there’s enough performance on tap that 4K at high quality settings is a practical option. All told this combination runs for $560, which also happens to be around the price of a 4K TN monitor.

The big drawback with this setup is that all of the good 290 cards are open air coolers, which means they require more space and better chassis cooling. A pair of blowers would be easier to work with here, but that would require moving up to a pair of R9 290Xs, and if we wanted a good blower that would require an even bigger step up to the GTX 980.

Runner Up: AMD Radeon R9 295X2 & 2x GeForce GTX 980

While at $900 it’s quite a bit more than a pair of R9 290Xs, AMD’s dual-GPU R9 295X2 makes for a very tantalizing alternative. AMD’s dual-GPU flagship card offers all of the performance of the 290X in Crossfire with vastly improved acoustics and in a smaller package, which alleviates the drawback of our 4K budget option.

Finally, the GTX 980 in SLI is also going to be a viable alternative here. From a performance perspective it’s going to trade blows with the R9 295X2 much of the time, so it’s still going to offer best-in-class performance regardless. The catch is that at $1160 for the dual card setup it’s some $260 more expensive than the R9 295X2 for what’s only similar performance. But unlike either AMD option, the GTX 980 is available in a high quality blower configuration, allowing a 3rd option between the widely spaced open air cards of R9 290 and the unconventional CLLC of the R9 295X2.

The newly formed HP Inc took the wraps off a fairly unique PC. The Sprout is a traditional all-in-one computer that has been coupled with a 3D camera system, a 20-point touch mat, and a DLP projector to form a new PC system to “unleash your creativity like never before.” This unique combination allows a person to experience what HP is calling “Blended Reality.” The Sprout is the first product available in HP’s Blended Reality ecosystem, and is also backed up by a new 3D printer from HP Inc.

First off is the all-in-one PC, which features a 23” 1920x1080 display. Behind the screen is the Intel Core i7-4790S CPU, which is a four core, eight thread 65 watt Haswell part, and 8 GB of memory. Graphical duties are handled by the Intel HD 4600 integrated GPU as well as the NVIDIA GeForce GT 745A with 2 GB of DDR3, which is a fairly low end GPU. It almost makes no sense as to why the GPU is even in there, but it is for graphic-intensive tasks like gaming according to HP. It will be better than the integrated GPU but it would be nice to see a more powerful GPU or at least the 745M which has much more memory bandwidth to run games at the native resolution of the panel. Storage for the all-in-one is handled by a 1 TB hybrid drive, which only has 8 GB of flash acceleration. The Sprout features both 1000 Base-T Ethernet and 802.11n 2x2:2 dual band wifi. As just an all-in-one, there would be little to talk about here, but the Sprout is more than that.

HP Blended Reality HP Sprout All-In-One CPU Intel Core i7-4790S (4 core, 8 thread, 3.2 GHz to 4.0 GHz, HD 4600 GPU, 65 W TDP) GPU NVIDIA GeForce GT 745A (GK107 MXM, 384 Stream Processors, 128 bit bus, 2 GB DDR3) RAM 8GB PC3-12800 DDR3-1600 SDRAM memory 2x4GB (expandable to 16GB) Storage 1TB SATA 6G Solid State Hybrid Drive with 8GB SSD cache Display 23" 1920x1080 w/10 point touch Network 10/100/1000 Base-T Network and Integrated Bluetooth® 4.0 and Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/n featuring Dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) 2x2 MIMO technology HP Illuminator HP Illuminator, powered by the HP DLP Projector, the HP High-Resolution Camera with up to 14.6 megapixel resolution and the Intel® RealSense™ 3D Camera for instant capture of 2D and 3D objects, along with an LED desk lamp HP Touch Mat 20" diagonal, 20-point touch-enabled touch mat with an ultra-resistant top coating Web Camera HP High Definition 1MP Webcam Stylus Adonit Jot Pro stylus to write and draw. It can be attached magnetically to the upper-right side of the Sprout display. OS Windows 8.1 Sound DTS Sound

The first part of the Sprout which differentiates it from a normal all-in-one is the camera system, which combines a scanner, a depth sensor, and a 14.6 MP camera, and utilizes Intel RealSense 3D Camera technology to allow the Sprout to capture 3D objects and allow the user to manipulate them after the fact. Once scanned, the Sprout can display the object on the computer display, or it can use the built in DLP projector to display the object on the 20” 20-point touch-enabled mat as seen in this video from HP:

Also included is an Adonit Jot Pro stylus, which can be used to write or draw with on the mat. The stylus can be magnetically attached to the side of the Sprout display when not in use.

While not an ultra-powerful PC, you can certainly see some use cases for a device like this. Many creative professionals already use stylus and touch enabled pads, such as the ones from Wacom. The Sprout adds to this with the DLP projector so that you can directly manipulate the items on the pad, rather than use the pad in an abstract way. HP also adds to the experience with custom software to enable this hybrid approach for object manipulation in the digital space. HP is advocating the Sprout Marketplace, which will allow for easier discovery of applications which are optimized for the platform.

HP is committing to the Blended Reality ecosystem, with the Sprout as only the first device in the line. To further flesh out the ecosystem, they are also announcing the HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer. They are claiming that the output of the new printer has better overall strength, accuracy, resiliency, and finish than that of other 3D printers in the price range, as well as the HP version being up to ten times faster. As well, the Multi Jet Fusion printer will also allow for full-color 3D print solutions.

Is Blended Reality going to be a new buzz word? It is too early to tell, but certainly this is a fairly unique take on a creative focused personal computer.  The combination of the DLP projector, touch pad, and all-in-one computer may be a compelling integrated solution for some. The Sprout is available for pre-order now starting at $1899, with availability scheduled for November 9th. The new 3D printer is not currently listed and no price was given, other than it would be more affordable that similar devices on the market today.

Source: HP Inc

Back towards the start of this year, Lenovo announced that it would be acquiring Motorola Mobility from Google. Motorola Mobility, the phone and gadget arm of Motorola, would be sold to Lenovo for just under $3 billion. Motorola Mobility would come as the latest in a string of acquisitions for Lenovo, who in recent years has picked up IBM’s desktop and x86 server businesses, among other major purchases.

This morning Lenovo sends word that the deal has closed, and the acquisition of Motorola is complete. The final value of the deal has been placed at $2.91 billion, notably just a fraction of the price that Google purchased the complete Motorola for back in 2012.

With the closure of the deal and as part of the announcement, Lenovo has reiterated that they intend to keep the Motorola brand and their Chicago headquarters. The recent launch of the Moto X, Moto 360, and Motorola powered DROID Turbo have kept Motorola in the spotlight, and Lenovo seems eager to continue building off of that.

At the same time however the real challenge has just begun for Lenovo. Motorola Mobility has been a money-losing operation for Google, and while their launches have been high profile they’re still fighting for a spot of stability in a market where it’s Samsung who is the dominant (and most profitable) player. As we noted back when the acquisition was announced, Lenovo has earned a name in being able to turn around low margin device businesses. So if there is any chance of Motorola Mobility being back into the black, Lenovo stands a good chance of finding it.

Synology recently launched the DS415+, their first Intel Rangeley-based NAS. This 4-bay NAS, targeted towards SMBs and SOHOs, finally brings about hardware accelerated encryption capabilities to DSM in the desktop tower form factor. The Rangeley platform also provides a host of other advantages in a storage device. Read on for our review of the DS415+ to identify what Synology's DSM can do in conjunction with one of the latest Atom-based storage platform SoCs from Intel.

Today Microsoft launched a new platform called Microsoft Health, and to accompany this they are officially launching the long rumored health and fitness band, called, well, Microsoft Band. And to satisfy the new cross platform initiatives by the company, Microsoft Health is compatible with several fitness tracking services such as UP by Jawbone, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, and Runkeeper. The Microsoft Band will be compatible with iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, which should satisfy most smartphone owners, and there is a Heath app available for each platform as well.

Microsoft Health is described as a cloud based service which can unite data from different health and fitness devices and services into a single secure location. This will allow a more holistic picture of your health and fitness activities to be monitored. Microsoft Health will track things such as steps, calories, heart rate, and other data, where it can then be analyzed by the Microsoft Intelligence Engine which will let the user know things such as which exercise they performed that burned the most calories during a workout, and how much restful versus restless sleep they are getting. Over time, and if you allow it access to more data, it will be able to extrapolate if eating breakfast helps you run faster, or if the number of meetings during a day impacts how you sleep, as examples. You can also opt in to connect Microsoft Health data with the already existing HealthVault to share your data with a medical provider. It is early days yet, but as a platform this seems to be where the health and fitness industry is heading. If you can get over the big brother aspects of having all of your movements and activities tracked, there may be some real insights gained in how your work, fitness, and leisure activities affect your health and wellbeing.

Microsoft is planning a steady release of information regarding Microsoft Health over the next while, including additional device and service partnerships and SDK availability.

It has long been rumored that Microsoft would re-enter the smart watch game, but over time the rumors morphed into a fitness band. The Microsoft Band is a smart band designed to be worn continuously, 24 hours a day. It includes 10 smart sensors for heart rate monitoring, calorie burn measurement, sleep quality tracking, and more. It will also include guided workouts which are curated by well-known fitness experts. In addition, it will provide some of the smart watch capabilities such as notifications as well as access to Cortana if you are connected to Windows Phone 8.1. The Microsoft Band is available starting October 30th for $199 from the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft Health Microsoft Band Band Material Thermal plastic elastomer with adjustable fit clasp Display 11mm x 33mm 1.4" TFT Capacitive full color display, 320 x 106 resolution Battery Life 48 hours of normal use; advanced functionality like GPS use will impact battery performance Average Charge Time Full chage in less than 1.5 hours Battery Type Dual 100mAh rechargeable lithium-ion polymer batteries Operating temperature ranges -10°C to 40°C (14°F to 104°F) Maximum operating altitude approximately 12,000m Sensors Optical heart rate sensor
3-axis accelerometer/gyro
Gyrometer
GPS
Ambient light sensor
Skin temperature sensor
UV sensor
Capacitive sensor
Galvanic skin response
Microphone Additional technology Haptic vibration motor Connectivity Bluetooth 4.0 LE Operating System Support Windows Phone 8.1
iOS 7.1 and later
Android 4.3-4.4 phones with Bluetooth Water Resistance Dust and Splash resistant Warranty 1 year limited Price $199

The wearables market is certainly in its infancy, so it is exciting to see the different array of devices appearing. Whether the market will tolerate them has yet to be decided, but companies such as Fitbit have proven that there is certainly a market for the health and fitness band. Microsoft has a relatively affordable offering here which is both cross platform, and a capable smart device. Microsoft Health as a platform is the bigger play here. Allowing access from many vendors is a great way to get initial buy-in from users, and once the fitness data is up in the Microsoft Cloud, I am sure Microsoft is hoping to capture some of these users for their other cloud offerings.

Our enterprise storage coverage has mainly been focused on individual enterprise SSDs from the likes of Intel and Micron, but there's a lot of interesting action in the storage array space. I met with most of the big names in the array business at Flash Memory Summit this year, so with a better understanding of the market and with the right contacts, I think it's logical that we expand our enterprise storage content to cover arrays as well.

Since we haven't covered storage arrays or the companies involved in the past, I'll start with a brief introduction of Skyera. While Skyera is a relatively new company, the company is filled with experience and knowledge of storage and non-volatile memory industries. The founders of Skyera, Radoslav Danilak and Rod Mullendore, both worked at SandForce before founding Skyera in 2010. Mr. Danilak was actually the co-founder and CTO of SandForce, whereas Mr. Mullendore served as the Chief Hardware Architect. 

While Mr. Danilak and Mr. Mullendore bring a lot of system-level hardware design knowledge to the company, what really separates Skyera from the rest is the NAND expertise. This is especially thanks to the CEO, Frankie Roohparvar, who was one of the founders of Micron Quantum Technologies in the early 90s. Micron Quantum Technologies was a manufacturer of NOR flash that was then acquired by Micron and basically formed the foundation of Micron's NAND business. Before joining Skyera in 2012, Mr. Roohparvar served at Micron for 13 years with his most recent position being the Vice President and General Manager of the OEM Division of Micron's NAND Solutions Group. 

Skyera's approach to flash array design is to start from the lowest level, i.e. the NAND silicon. Obviously the company doesn't manufacture its own NAND but Micron, Toshiba, and SK Hynix are all investors in the company, which ensures a steady supply of NAND and also gives Skyera much deeper access to NAND than what typical customers get. What this means is that Skyera can run its own validation and 'trimming' (optimizing the read/write parameters etc.) process on the NAND to boost the endurance. The benefit is lower cost because Skyera's own process can increase the endurance of normal MLC NAND from ~3,000 P/E cycles to over 30,000 P/E cycles (or so I was told), whereas most companies are limited to buying off-the-shelf NAND, which either means cheap but low endurance cMLC or expensive eMLC. 

With the brief introduction of Skyera out of the way, let's focus on the skyHawk FS. It's offered in raw capacities of 16, 32, 68 and 136TB with all models utilizing the same 1U form factor. The final usable capacity depends on the provisioning of the array as well as the compressibility of the data since the skyHawk FS does compression in hardware (similar to what SandForce does). For comparison, Pure Storage, which is one of the leading all-flash array suppliers, only offers up to 11TB in 2U form factor, so Skyera has an enormous advantage in terms of density.  

EDIT: Skyera doesn't actually do de-duplication like I initially said, so sorry for the mix up. The compression is still there, though.

The density advantage comes from Skyera's NAND expertise because the company builds its own drives (or blades as they are usually called) and can utilize the latest NAND lithographies available. While Skyera didn't specify the exact NAND that is used in the skyHawk FS due to the fact that there are multiple suppliers, I was told that the die capacity is 128Gbit and Micron's 16nm is one of the processes that is used. For the record, Crucial's MX100 and Micron's M600 are the only other products that I know of that use 16nm NAND right now and I know for sure that 16nm isn't available to the public in volume yet, so Skyera has an enormous advantage thanks to the close relations with the NAND manufacturers.

Software wise the skyHawk FS uses Skyera's own SEoS that has been designed solely for NAND. The vertically integrated business model allows Skyera to build the whole software stack around NAND, which enables a more global and adaptive Flash Translation Layer (FTL) for instance (i.e. the FTL can be managed at the system level instead of drive level). The design also allows the load to be split between the master controllers and the individual controllers in the blades for higher and more efficient performance, whereas with third party drives the drives would be doing their own management and the global/host management would be left for the master controller, resulting in a less efficient design. 

In terms of performance, Skyera is rating the skyHawk FS at 2.4GB/s throughput and 400K IOPS with microsecond latencies, but unfortunately the IO sizes and queue depth are unspecified, so it's hard to draw any conclusions or comparisons from the numbers. The skyHawk FS has three 10Gbit Ethernet ports for connectivity and both iSCSI and NFS v3 protocols are supported. The skyHawk FS carries a 3-year warranty with no write endurance limitation, which is yet another advantage of Skyera's NAND knowhow. 

The skyHawk FS is available immediately and is priced at $2.99 per raw gigabyte (i.e. with compression the real cost per gigabyte will come down).

Since this was our first flash array news post, I'd like to hear your feedback in the comments below. Would you like to see more content like this from us in the future? And if so, are there any specific topics or companies that you would like us to cover? The enterprise storage space is rather complex and there are a lot of companies involved, but we want to do our best to cover it (even in a limited matter) in the future, so let us know your thoughts.

We have been doing round-ups of various input devices fit for HTPC purposes. Some of the vendors have started shipping with Bluetooth instead of using a proprietary communication mechanism over 2.4 GHz RF. The advantage of Bluetooth is its versatility and presence in almost all modern mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). These don't support a full-size USB host port for plugging in the USB RF receiver dongles. Utilizing Bluetooth enables these input devices to communicate with the rising crop of mobile devices as well as interface with traditional PCs. Communication with PCs can be enabled by using either an inbuilt card - common in most notebooks which integrate Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities in a single mPCIe card - or, an explicit Bluetooth dongle.

Logitech recently introduced an innovative Bluetooth keyboard, the K480. While traditional Bluetooth keyboards have aimed to differentiate with aesthetics, in-built rechargeable batteries and support for multiple devices at the $100+ price points, Logitech's K480 aims to bring in a set of 'sweet-spot' features for $50.

Gallery: Logitech K480 Multi-Device Bluetooth Keyboard

The salient features of the K480 include:

• Support for up to three different Bluetooth devices, with easy switching between device profiles with a rotary dial on the top left corner
• Recess to allow placement of smartphones / tablets in a position suitable for viewing while typing on the keyboard
• Keyboard support for both Mac and Windows / Android ecosystems
• Explicit power on/off switch for conserving battery life

After extensive use, we found that the keyboard fulfills most of its promises. It is cross-platform and does support pairing to multiple devices. The sequence of steps to get the device paired is outlined pictorially in the top half - This ensures that even the tablet-only non-tech savvy consumers can get up and running quickly with the unit. There is no need for a dongle, and as long as the target device has Bluetooth capabilities, the keyboard is good to go. Range is not an issue due to the use-case (mobile devices in close proximity). The unit feels quite solid, and is heavy (in order to ensure stability when heavy tablets are placed in the recess). The function keys are multiplexed with some multimedia / mobile specific buttons (such as single keypress to home). In addition, on Android devices, an app can be installed to provide additional keyboard layouts.

In terms of key feel and the typing experience, it has to be said that the keyboard is suitable for usage in bursts (again, the typical smartphone / tablet usage), and not prolonged typing. The shape of the keys, as well as the keypress feedback, seem to have been decided more with the looks and aesthetics in mind, rather than the typing experience. Fortunately, there is nothing to complain about the keyboard layout itself (from the viewpoint of Windows and Android systems, at least). Other than that, it would have been nice to have an adjustable tilt option for ergonomic considerations.

var kblist_devtype = new Array("Keyboard Only","Keyboard + 2-button Touchpad","Keyboard + 2-button Touchpad","Keyboard + Trackball (with 2 buttons and a scrollwheel / middle button)","Keyboard + Trackball (with 2 buttons and a scrollwheel / middle button)","Keyboard + 2-button Touchpad","Keyboard + Trackball (with 2 buttons and a scrollwheel / middle button)","Keyboard + 2-button Touchpad","Keyboard + 2-button Touchpad","Keyboard + Optical Mouse (2-button with scrollwheel / middle button)"); var kblist_dim = new Array("11.77\" x 7.68\" x 0.79\"","11.75\" x 8.25\" x 0.8\"","13.94\" x 5.35\" x 0.94\"","14.125\" x 6.5\" x 1.5\"","13.6\" x 6.3\" x 1.8\"","12.125\" x 8.75\" x 0.625\"","15\" x 6.1\" x 1.6\"","18\" x 6.5\" x 0.9\"","11.75\" x 8.25\" x 0.8\"","14\" x 4.3\" x 0.2\" (K) ; 3\" x 4.6\" x 1.5\" (M)"); var kblist_wt = new Array("1.81 lbs / 820 g","1.25 lbs / 550 g","0.79 lbs / 360 g","1.26 lbs / 572 g","1.20 lbs / 544 g","1.4 lbs / 646 g","1.5 lbs / 680 g","1.875 lbs / 851 g","1.25 lbs / 550 g","0.77 lbs / 350 g (K) ; 0.18 lbs / 82 g (M)"); var kblist_power = new Array("2x AAA","2x AAA","2x AA","2x AA","2x AA","2x AAA","2x AAA","2x AAA","2x AAA","2x AAA (K) ; 2x AAA (M)"); var kblist_comm = new Array("Bluetooth","2.4 GHz RF","2.4 GHz RF","2.4 GHz RF","2.4 GHz RF","2.4 GHz RF","2.4 GHz RF","2.4 GHz RF","Bluetooth","2.4 GHz RF"); var kblist_psaver = new Array("Explicit On/Off Switch","Explicit On/Off Switch + Auto Sleep","Explicit On/Off Switch","Explicit On/Off Switch","Auto Sleep","Auto Sleep","Explicit On/Off Switch","Explicit On/Off Switch + Auto Sleep","Explicit On/Off Switch + Auto Sleep","Explicit On/Off Switches on both Keyboard and Mouse"); var kblist_keyscount = new Array("79 (with multiplexed multimedia and mobile-specific keys)","87","79 + 4 media hot keys","78 + 8 media hot keys","81 + 14 media hot keys","88 + 8 media / Internet hot keys","87 + 7 Internet hot keys + 7 multimedia hot keys","104 (with multiplexed multimedia keys)","87","103 (with multiplexed Internet and multimedia hot keys)"); var kblist_tpaddim = new Array("N/A","3.5\"","3.5\"","N/A","N/A","3\"","N/A","2.7\"","3.5\"","N/A"); var kblist_usbstor = new Array("N/A","Yes","Yes","No","No","Yes","Yes","Yes","Yes","No"); var kblist_bklight = new Array("No","No","No","No","No","No","No","No","No","No"); var kblist_keylayoutscore = new Array("8/10","7/10","8/10","6/10","5/10","6/10","7/10","9/10","7/10","7/10"); var kblist_ergonomicscore = new Array("8/10","8/10","6/10","7/10","7/10","7/10","7/10","8/10","8/10","7/10"); var kblist_bqualityscore = new Array("9/10","8/10","7/10","9/10","7/10","7/10","8/10","8/10","8/10","8/10 (K) ; 6/10 (M)"); var kblist_price = new Array("$49.99","$89.99","$39.99","$49.95","$59.99","$69.99","$69.99","$79.99","$89.99","$39.99"); var kblist_warranty = new Array("1 year","1 year","3 years","3 years","3 years","3 years","1 year","1 year","1 year","1 year"); HTPC & Mobile Keyboards Bench Aspect Logitech K480 Logitech K480Adesso WKB-4000UBLogitech K400IOGEAR GKM561RSIIG JK-WR0412-S1SIIG JK-WR0312-S1Adesso WKB-3000UAdesso WKB-4400UBAdesso WKB-4000BBAdesso WKB-1200 Device Type Keyboard Only Keyboard Only Dimensions 11.77" x 7.68" x 0.79" 11.77" x 7.68" x 0.79" Weight 1.81 lbs / 820 g 1.81 lbs / 820 g Power Source 2x AAA 2x AAA Communication Bluetooth Bluetooth Power Saver Explicit On/Off Switch Explicit On/Off Switch Keys Count 79 (with multiplexed multimedia and mobile-specific keys) 79 (with multiplexed multimedia and mobile-specific keys) Touchpad Dimensions (Diagonal) N/A N/A USB Receiver Storage Compartment N/A N/A Backlight No No Keyboard Layout 8/10 8/10 Ergonomics 8/10 8/10 Build Quality 9/10 9/10 MSRP (USD) $49.99 $49.99 Warranty 1 year 1 year

In terms of future improvements at this price point, it would be nice to have a trackball (in case of an unchanged form factor) or a trackpad. This would enable standalone usage with a PC (similar to the Adesso Bluetooth Keyboard WKB-4000BB). The Bluetooth keyboard market for mobile devices is heavily commoditized. So, it is refreshing to see Logitech integrating some nifty and interesting features in the K480 to make it stand out in the crowd.

Verizon and Motorola have always had a close relationship. The smartphones in Motorola's Droid line are typically exclusive to the carrier, and they helped make Verizon a heavy supporter of Android devices during a time where AT&T was the exclusive US carrier for the iPhone. Today's announcement is no exception. The Droid Turbo is a Verizon exclusive smartphone made by Motorola, and seemingly their most powerful. Its biggest selling point is its battery life, but before getting into specifics I've given an overview by laying out all the specifications in the chart below. 

  Motorola Droid Turbo Motorola Moto X (2014) SoC APQ8084 2.7GHz Snapdragon 805 with 4 x Krait 450 + Adreno 420 MSM8974 2.5 GHz Snapdragon 801 with 4 x Krait 400 + Adreno 330 RAM/NAND 3 GB LPDDR3, 32/64GB NAND 2GB LPDDR3, 16/32GB NAND Display 5.2” 2560x1440 AMOLED at 565ppi 5.2” 1080p Super AMOLED Network 2G / 3G / 4G LTE Listed as Category 4 2G / 3G / 4G LTE Listed as Category 4 Dimensions 143.5 x 73.3 x 11.2 mm, 176 grams (Black Nylon)
143.5 x 73.3 x 10.6mm, 169g (Metallic Red/Black) 140.8 x 72.4 x 3.8-9.9 mm, 144 grams Camera 21MP (5248x3936) Rear Camera with F/2.0 aperture, 2MP Front Camera 13MP Rear Facing, 1/3.06" CMOS size (Sony IMX135), 2.1MP FFC Battery 3900 mAh 2300 mAh, 3.8V, 8.74 Whr OS Android 4.4.4 KitKat Android 4.4.4 KitKat Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, DLNA, NFC 802.11a/b/g/n/ac + BT 4.0, USB2.0, GPS/GNSS, DLNA, NFC SIM Size NanoSIM NanoSIM

It's interesting that this is a Verizon exclusive device, as it has significantly better specifications than the Moto X which is Motorola's current widely available flagship. Like many of the other recently released flagship phones, the Droid Turbo uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon 805 with four Krait 450 cores at 2.7GHz and 3GB of LPDDR3 memory. The front of the device sports a 2560x1440 AMOLED display, which is also quickly becoming the norm for Android flagship smartphones. Above it is a 2MP front-facing camera capable of recording 1080p video, and below it lies three capacitive navigation buttons which is a departure from the on-screen buttons that Motorola has been using on their other devices for some time now.

The back of the device is home to the 21MP rear-facing camera which Motorola states is capable of recording 4K video at 24fps, with 1080p recording still topping out at 30fps. The design of the back is somewhat similar to the Moto X and Moto G, but it appears to be far less curvy. There's a great deal of branding, with a logo for Verizon, the Droid brand, and Motorola's. Even without those, it's would still be clear to anyone familiar with Motorola's style of hardware design that this is a Motorola device. The curved back, centered camera, and crosshatch pattern on the back are all reminiscent of past and current Motorola phones. However, there is no lip at the top for the 3.5mm headphone jack like on Motorola's other current devices.

The big point of differentiation is the battery capacity. Motorola has not stated the voltage of the battery, but states that it has a 3900mAh capacity and claims it will last up to 48 hours of usage. While there is always some degree of variance from a manufacturer's claims based on how a user uses their device, if the Droid Turbo approaches anywhere close to that claim in battery testing it will be very far ahead of competing smartphones with regards to battery life. 

One possible issue I noticed with Motorola's listed specifications is in the network section which classifies the device as supporting category 4 LTE. This may be referring to Verizon's network certification, but the Droid Turbo should be rated for category 6 LTE.

The Droid Turbo will come with two choices of materials. There is a metallic finish which comes in black or red, and is the lighter and thinner of the two variants. These will all have a 32GB capacity. The 64GB version will only be available in the Nylon Ballistic Black finish which is slightly thicker and heavier. It will be launching this Thursday for $199 and $249 for the 32GB and 64GB variants respectively on a two year term. 

Razer has traditionally been a gaming peripheral company, which started with the Boomslang mouse in 1998. Over the years, they have expanded their portfolio to cover more of a gamer’s needs, adding keyboards, keypads, mouse mats, and headphones as well as complete systems. Today, Razer has expanded their product family again with the launch of the Razer Leviathan sound bar.

The Leviathan is able to produce 5.1 virtual surround sound using Dolby Virtual Speakers and accepts Dolby Digital and Pro Logic II multichannel audio. The bar itself contains four tuned drivers, with two 2.5” full range and two 0.74” tweeters, which are powered by a 30 watt RMS amplifier. Frequency response is quoted as 180 Hz to 20 KHz on the sound bar itself. Complementing the bar and filling in the remainder of the audio range is a 5.25” 30 watt RMS subwoofer with a downward firing driver, which has a quoted response of 20 Hz to 180 Hz.

The sound bar supports analog, optical, or Bluetooth inputs, with the Leviathan supporting any Bluetooth 4.0 device streaming over A2DP, and Razer has also made sure to include aptX audio codec support for higher quality A2DP streaming. To make the connection to the sound bar as easy as possible the Leviathan also includes NFC to configure the Bluetooth pairing. The bar also supports several tilt angles (0°, 15°, and 18°) to ensure it works well in a variety of situations.

If the idea of virtual surround sound through the use of a sound bar seems like something you might be interested in, the Razer Leviathan will be available for pre-order on razerzone.com with worldwide availability starting in November. Prices are USA: $199/EUR: €199.

Source: Razer

The idea of an external PCI-Express chassis for video cards is practically as old as PCI-Express itself. However over the years the idea has failed to reach the consumer market as a complete product, even with the introduction of standardized external PCIe interfaces such as Thunderbolt. Various prototypes have been shown, but in practice the only way to acquire such a rig has been to build it yourself, combining an ExpressCard slot and its pokey PCIe 2.0 x1 link with an external PCIe chassis.

Thankfully it looks like the PC industry is finally going to turn the corner on the concept thanks to Alienware. Today Alienware is introducing their own PCIe video card chassis, the Alienware Graphics Amplifier.

Alienware’s amplifier is a fairly typical take on the concept – there are only so many ways to build an external PCIe chassis – however Alienware has been able to put together something that is clearly tuned for video cards. The chassis itself houses a PSU and a single x16 PCIe slot for a video card, along with a quartet of USB 3.0 ports for any other I/O needs. Notably, Alienware has designed the amplifier to be able to handle double-wide video cards up to 375W, which is quite a bit more power than professional grade external PCIe chassis, and this means it can conceivably run just about any self-contained video card on the market. That said, like many small form factor computers the amplifier is also clearly designed for video cards with fully exhausting blowers, so it’s going to be best paired with reference model video cards since blowers are nearly non-existent in custom cards these days.

Alienware's Graphics Amplifier Opened (Image Courtesy Gizmodo)

More interesting perhaps is the PCIe interface, which up until now has always been the sticking point in getting a video card chassis to market. The good news is that Alienware has more or less solved the problem, but the bad news is that the interface is a proprietary Alienware/Dell design that is only available on their laptops. Alienware notes that the interface is actually a PCIe + USB interface – apparently carrying USB over from the host rather than using PCIe to power a separate controller – and in the meantime we’re still working to determine just how many PCIe lanes the interface is carrying. Even if it’s not a full 8 lanes (the Haswell U series CPUs don’t support 16 lanes), given the severe bandwidth limitations of ExpressCard and Thunderbolt, even a 4 lane setup would represent a significant improvement in bandwidth. Like Thunderbolt however this interface does appear to use active cabling (it would be very difficult to carry that much bandwidth externally without it), in which case the cable is going to be an expensive part of the entire setup.

On the host side, the amplifier is being launched alongside the Alienware 13, which will be the first of what will presumably be a series of Alienware laptops to support the amplifier’s interface. Rather than hanging off of spare PCIe lanes, we suspect some kind of MUX is in play here, as Alienware has noted that the 13’s internal dGPU (a GeForce 860M) has to be shut off to use the amplifier interface. Most likely Alienware is rerouting the GPU’s lanes to the interface when it’s in use. Activating or deactivating the interface does require a reboot, which although not especially convenient bypasses some very messy issues that could occur when hot-plugging an active GPU, and we suspect would otherwise be a show-stopper.

Alienware's Graphics Amplifier Up Close (Image Courtesy Gizmodo)

Meanwhile it’s interesting to note that in their development process Alienware has been able to solve some of the technical issues around an external video card in the process to better integrate it with the host. The video card in an amplifier can be used to drive both external and internal displays, meaning that it’s possible to use the amplifier to drive the 13’s built-in display and still reap the benefits, even without an external monitor. The overall non-portability of the 7lb+ amplifier and the USB ports strongly drives the amplifier towards being used as a docking station with an external monitor, but if you want to use it to drive the internal display that is going to be a viable option.

Moving on, Alienware is taking a vendor agnostic approach with the amplifier and will be supporting NVIDIA as well as AMD GPUs. There are still some additional technical details we’re chasing down on how this will work with the internal display capabilities, but ultimately it means the amplifier can be used with a wide range of cards from both vendors. That said, since the amplifier is going to be best paired with a blower type video card, NVIDIA’s cards are going to be the more natural fit at this time. Alienware has been showing the amplifier off with the GTX 980, and next to being the most powerful single-GPU video card on the market it also has a reference blower that is an excellent match for the amplifier’s cooling capabilities.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, Alienware has made it clear that the amplifier isn’t a prototype and won’t be vaporware, and that we’re looking at an external video card chassis that is actually going to ship. Alienware will begin taking orders for the amplifier today alongside the Alienware 13 laptop, with the hardware shipping in November. Even the price is decent (especially compared to DIY attempts), with the amplifier set to cost $299. This is on top of the price of the Alienware 13 laptop and the video card to fill the amplifier with, so the total cost of a setup is still going to be significant, but despite being the first shipping consumer solution it’s not priced through the roof.

Alienware teased the new, smaller version of their gaming laptop in August. Available today, the Alienware 13 is the 4.5 pound little brother to the Alienware 14, but this gaming laptop has a twist. Alienware is offering an add-on Alienware Graphics Amplifier, which lets you plug a desktop GPU into this portable machine to dramatically increase performance.

Let us take a quick look at the new Alienware 13 though. While not as small as an ultrabook, it is significantly thinner than the 14 inch model, coming in at just under 1 inch thick. This, coupled with the two pounds less weight than the larger model, should make it a lot more portable.

The CPU will be Intel i5 and i7 Haswell U series parts, and the GPU offerings will be up to the NVIDIA GTX 860M. This will power a display, which at the default configuration is a lowly 1366x768 IPS panel, but luckily the display can be upgraded significantly with 1920x1080, and 2560x1440 options, as well as optional touch.

The base $999 model also comes with a 5400 rpm 1 TB hard drive as the base option, however the laptop can be outfitted with SSDs as well. In late 2014, it seems hard to believe that a $999 computer can still come with a slow mechanical hard drive, so hopefully the upgrade to SSD storage does not break the bank.

The star or the show though is the Alienware Graphics Amplifier, which is a first for this segment. Ryan will be covering this in full, but this $300 add-on is certainly a unique offering from Dell. With a dedicated 460 watt power supply just for the GPU, the amplifier should help the Alienware 13 with thermals when gaming on the discrete GPU. However, you can fall back to the GPU built into the laptop when you are on the go. Hopefully this adapter gets added to the entire Dell laptop line.

Unfortunately, details are light on this launch, with Alienware not releasing any press releases at the time of this writing. Check in to www.alienware.com starting today to check out all of the available pricing and options for the Alienware 13.

Sources: Gizmodo Hexus

Due to a lack of total vertical integration and heavy focus on IP licensing, one of the more interesting aspects of the SoC development pipeline is that we get to see the architectures and chips developed and announced in a very decoupled fashion. As opposed to the PC industry where there is heavy vertical integration and architectures are usually announced close to (if not at the same time as) the first silicon and even the first finished products, in the SoC space we will frequently see the complete development cadence in public – architectures, chips, and finally finished products. This has its own ups and downs, and while it means we’ll potentially hear about a new architecture long before it’s available in a product, on the other hand we get a lot more visibility into what’s coming down the development pipeline, at least for companies that develop IP for licensing or purchase it for use in their SoCs.

This brings us to the matter of ARM and today’s announcements. As a massive ISA, CPU, and GPU licenser, ARM’s product lineup is the textbook case for early visibility. At a time when the first high-end 20nm SoCs are just now hitting consumer devices in products such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 International and Apple iPhone 6, ARM’s development pipeline and product marketing teams are already looking at next year’s products and what processor designs to prepare for them. For ARM’s GPU group in particular, whom now functionally operates on a yearly release cadence, the roll-out of Mali 700 equipped devices means that it’s time to announce the designs for next year’s GPUs.

To that end, today ARM is announcing the Mali 800 series. Designed for inclusion in 2015+ SoCs, the Mali 800 series is the immediate successor to the current Mali 700 series. From an architectural standpoint Mali 800 is still based on the same common Midgard architecture that the Mali 600 and Mali 700 series are based on, and as a result from an architectural standpoint there isn’t much to discuss. Midgard and its unusual all-ILP/no-TLP architecture is still a modern GPU architecture that supports up to OpenGL ES 3.1, the Android Extension Pack, and Direct3D 11.1, so from that standpoint ARM has little reason to change.

Consequently while still based on Midgard, the 800 series is a successive round of optimization for the Midgard designs. For this generation ARM has focused on further improving Midgard’s area and power efficiency while adding a handful of new features not found in the existing Mali 700 series. This refresh spans from ARM’s highest-end designs to lowest-end designs, and coupled with Mali’s multi-core scalability spans the SoC GPU market from top to bottom.

The Midgard Shader Core

ARM Mali 800 Series   T860 T830 T820 Core Configurations 1-16 1-4 1-4 ALU Pipes Per Core 2 2 1 Texture Units Per Core 1 1 1 FLOPs (FP32 MAD) 20 - 320 FLOPs 20 - 80 FLOPs 10 - 40 FLOPs OpenGL ES ES 3.1 + AEP ES 3.1 + AEP ES 3.1 + AEP Direct3D FL 11_1 FL 9_3 FL 9_3 10-Bit YUV Yes Optional Optional

 

Mali-T860

We’ll start off with ARM’s new high-end Mali design, the Mali-T860. With ARM reforming their product naming with the Mali 700 series ARM’s lineup is now much easier to follow, and as given away by the T860’s design it’s the immediate successor to the T760.

Like T760 before it, T860 is ARM’s most feature packed and most powerful Mali design. The underlying design uses the more common Midgard 2 arithmetic pipelines per core configuration, with the overall design being scalable to up to 16 cores. Coupled with the single texture unit per core, the throughput of a T860 design can scale from 20 FLOPs (10 MADs) and 1 texel per clock up to 320 FLOPs and 16 texels per clock. As a result this design can also be scaled up and down as needed to cover both phones and tablets just by varying the number of cores.

From a functionality standpoint, T860 will be the only Mali 800 part to support the 800 series’ fullest feature set. Specifically, support for Direct3D feature level 11_1 is limited to T860. Otherwise common to the entire 800 series, T860 also supports OpenGL ES 3.1, the Android Extension Pack, and OpenCL 1.2.

Meanwhile one notable feature addition for the Mali 800 family is support for native (and full speed) 10-bit YUV input and output. At the moment this feature addition is going to be of limited value, but HEVC is expected to make significant use of 10-bit YUV, so adding support here is laying the groundwork for HEVC in future products, and for that matter will go hand-in-hand with ARM’s new video processing block and display controller block, which are also being announced today.

Elsewhere from a performance standpoint ARM is offering the usual high level performance estimates. However it should be noted that these are compared to the two-generation old T628, and there aren’t similar numbers to work from for T760. In any case, compared to T628 ARM expects an equal configuration T860 to be some 45% more energy efficient on the same process node. And seeing as how mobile performance gains are almost entirely an exercise in energy efficiency, this would represent a very significant increase in energy efficiency (and ultimately sustainable performance) for their designs.

ARM Frame Buffer Compression - From Our Look at Midgard Earlier This Year

That said, by making a two-generation old comparison ARM also gets to roll up the benefits of their AFBC frame buffer compression technology, which was first introduced on the Mali 700 series. AFBC is something the company is significantly banking on due to the high bandwidth savings, and ARM considers one of their greatest feature advantages for the 800 series as well as the 700 series.

Finally, something to also keep in mind though is that while ARM’s same-node comparison is the fairest way to look at architectural efficiency, you’re highly unlikely to see T628 manufactured on 20nm+ processes. So on top of the architectural gains over the years, the real world performance gains for T860 should be better still due to the newer process node.

Mali-T830 & Mali-T820

Also being announced today alongside the T860 and rounding out the new Mali 800 family are the T830 and T820. These parts are best described as ARM’s low-end and mainstream designs, and are the successors to the T720. With Mali T860 essentially scaling down to cover most of the mid-range, the T820 and T830 are intended to be lower performance, lower power consuming parts that are optimized around power and die size needs.

For the Mali 800 series ARM is bifurcating the T720’s market a bit to offer different blends of die size and performance. The T720’s immediate successor is the T820, and like its predecessor is a one arithmetic pipeline design that is focused first and foremost on die size. Meanwhile new to the 800 series, though still a successor of sorts to the T720, is the Mali-T830. This is a more powerful design that while still focused on die size efficiency brings the number of pipelines to two per core (like T860), offering better performance in exchange for a slightly larger die size.

Other than the difference in the number of pipelines, the T820 and T830 designs are extremely similar. Both of them can be scaled up to 4 cores, allowing for some performance scaling. This puts the throughput of T820 designs at a range of 10 FLOPs and 1 texel per clock to 40 FLOPs and 4 texels per clock, while T830 will scale from 20/1 to 80/4 respectively.

From a feature standpoint, as previously mentioned only T860 gets the fullest Mali feature set while the other Mali 800 parts will be a bit more modest. T830 and T820 only support Direct3D up to feature level 9_3, while for the more mobile-centric world they will be on par with the T860 and support OpenGL ES 3.1 and the Android Extension Pack. Meanwhile 10-bit YUV support is present here, however for T820 and T830 it is an optional feature that will depend on which specific version of the core is licensed, so we will likely see a mix of retail products that do and do not include it.

Finally from a performance standpoint ARM is once again offering some high level guidance compared to the Mali 600 series, specifically the Mali-T622 in this case. Depending on the 800 design used, ARM tells us that performance should be up to 55% better or area efficiency will be 50% better. Presumably the area efficiency comparison is for T820 while the performance comparison is for T830.

Closing Thoughts

Launching alongside the new Mali GPUs today are a series of updates for the rest of ARM’s graphics stack, which will see the Mali-V video block and Mali-DP display controllers updated respectively. Along with the general strength of the Mali GPUs, expect to see ARM focus heavy on the synergy between these parts, including their common support for AFBC and of course the benefits of having all graphics components developed together. We’re covering these in another article, but we wanted to quickly point out where the Mali GPUs fit in the bigger picture of ARM’s announcements today.

Finally, while ARM doesn't have complete control over consumer devices (since they only sell designs to chipmakers) they are providing a rough estimate of when to expect Mali 800 GPUs to begin appearing in devices. According to ARM we should expect to start seeing Mali 800 devices starting in late 2015, or roughly a year from now. This is consistent with the Mali 700 series, which having been announced almost a year ago to this day has started to show up in consumer devices very recently. To that end we would expect to start seeing Mali 800 SoC designs announced in the first half of next year, with consumer designs to follow as per ARM's timetable.

As part of ARM’s fall refresh of their Mali graphics product lineup, today ARM is announcing refreshes and new products in a number of product segments. All told ARM is releasing new GPUs, a new video process, and a new display processor. Having already taken a look at the new Mali 800 series GPUs separately, let’s dive into the other part of today’s announcements from ARM, focusing on the video processor and the display processor.

As ARM seeks to be a nearly top-to-bottom processor IP vendor, alongside their well-known Cortex CPU designs and Mali-T GPU designs the company also offers the other processors needed to complete the graphics stack. Alongside the GPU designs these are the Mali-V video processors for real-time video encode and decode, and the Mali-DP display processors. In the scope of today’s announcements both parts are receiving feature updates to add new functionality and to keep them up to par with the capabilities of the new Mali GPUs. Overall ARM is making a significant emphasis on 4K this year, lining up the hardware necessary to decode and render to 4K, and to do so within the bandwidth constrains of an SoC.

Mali-V550

Starting things off we have ARM’s new video processor, the Mali-V550. With the V550 ARM is introducing full HEVC support into their video processor, building off of the H.264 support present in the earlier V500. Like the V500 the V550 is a video decode and encode processor, so with today’s update ARM’s product stack gains the ability to do both HEVC decoding and encoding.

Overall V550 retains V500’s basic architectural design, which not unlike ARM’s GPUs is based around the concept of cores. In this case the number of cores can be scaled up to support additional streams or higher resolutions/framerates, with ARM supporting 1080p60 on a single core and scaling up to 2160p120 on the largest 8 core configuration. This of course goes for both encode and decode performance.

Along with the addition of HEVC support, V550 also introduces a couple of other new features to the Mali video processor. ARM can now process 10-bit YUV video, which is expected to see significant usage with HEVC and goes hand-in-hand with the 10-bit YUV support added to the Mali 800 GPUs.

Meanwhile ARM is introducing a new video encoding feature for V550 dubbed Motion Search Elimination, which is intended to reduce video latency and power requirements. MSE borrows heavily from ARM’s transaction elimination technology, which was introduced on the Mali 700 series and reduced memory bandwidth by using CRCs to identify unchanged screen tiles and to avoid writing those redundant tiles out to the frame buffer. In the case of MSE the idea is quite similar, only this time ARM applies the tile principle to video encoding instead of rendering. By identifying unchanged tiles, ARM can then skip the motion estimation step of H.264 video encoding for those tiles, which saves on time and power doing what would otherwise be a redundant encoding step.

Eliminating motion estimation should have an immediate impact on power consumption, as it’s generally considered the most time consuming step of the encoding process. However along with the power savings from skipping motion estimation, ARM is also touting this as a means of reducing encoding latency, something which would be very important for wireless display technologies such as Miracast. The benefits would be variable at best, but for transmitting desktops and other semi-static content it should have an impact on encode latency and therefore overall input lag on such setups.

One thing to note though is that like 10-bit YUV, MSE will require the rest of the processing pipeline to support this feature. In this case the display processor (which is piping the display output back to the video processor) needs to support the technology.

Mali-DP550

And speaking of the display processor, we have ARM’s final announcement of the day, which is the Mali-DP550 display controller. Like the V550 video processor, the DP550 is an ecosystem play that sees some general feature enhancements along with reciprocal support for other new features introduced on ARM’s latest GPUs and video processors.

From a high level overview, ARM’s display processors serve as both a display controller and a sort of simple GPU of their own, handling basic operations such as scaling and layer composition along with interfacing with the display itself. By doing this in fixed function hardware as opposed to the more flexible but power hungry GPU, ARM is able to save some power by avoiding sending off this simple work to the GPU.

For DP550, ARM has scaled up its performance to handle 4K resolutions along with more complex composition tasks. Whereas DP500 could only composite up to 3 layers and work with sub-4K panels, DP550 can drive 4K panels while compositing up to 7 layers. From a phone and tablet perspective it seems questionable if we’re going to see 4K in those devices any time soon, but for ARM’s secondary TV market, being 4K capable on DP550 will be a big deal.

Meanwhile DP550 adds reciprocal support for other features added to the Mali 800 GPUs and Mali-V550 video processor, including motion search elimination and 10-bit YUV for video. Also of note, ARM has added a co-processor interface to DP550 to allow it to directly interface with 3rd party processor blocks, though ARM hasn’t gone into detail on what they expect those 3rd party blocks to be.

Finally, like the Mali 800 GPUs, ARM is releasing these designs to SoC integrators today. Which means we should start seeing the V550 and DP550 appear in retail products by the end of next year.