AMD's Shanghai "Phenom II" Server CPUs Put to the Test

As we found out two weeks ago, AMD is doing a great job in boasting what their Phenom II processors are going to be capable of. That was proven when the company revealed a 4.00GHz overclock on air cooling, and if you've been paying attention at all, it's easy to see why that's an impressive improvement over their current-generation offerings.

One important bit of information we've been lacking, though, has been general performance increases. Overall, we knew that Phenom II was going to be faster than the original (sequels are always better than the originals, right?!), but the big question was with regards to how it would compare to Intel's Core 2 line-up, or even Core i7.

Well, our friends at the Tech Report have taken a look at the server version of Phenom II, called Shanghai, and have developed conclusions that we were expecting. AMD made great effort to increase the power efficiency, and these new CPUs are indeed faster, but they're still going to fall behind Core i7 performance. That was highly expected, however.

AMD isn't at a total loss though... far from it. Their new CPUs excel in certain tests, and where they do seem to fall behind the most is with desktop-type applications, not server applications. So hopefully further improvements will be made to the desktop version of Phenom II before release, and if not, we'll still be left with what seems to be a great improvement over the original.

In many cases, Shanghai at 2.7GHz was slightly behind the Xeon L5430 at 2.66GHz. The Opteron does best when it's able to take advantage of its superior system architecture and native quad-core design, and it suffers most by comparison in applications that are more purely compute-bound, where the Xeons generally have both the IPC and clock frequency edge.

Source: Tech Report

Microsoft's "Warp 10" Will Allow CPU-Accelerated DirectX 10

Here's one I didn't quite see coming. Microsoft is working on allowing Direct3D 10 and 10.1 to run off of the processor, rather than require integrated or discrete graphics. The idea is to use the CPU to push out ample graphics performance to allow basic operation of Windows, in addition to light gaming, and I do mean light.

What that means for Microsoft is a potential end to the Vista-capable debacle. If Aero, or whatever the Windows 7 equivalent is called, could run off of the CPU, then the problem simply vanishes. According to them, this "WARP 10" system can run off of a CPU with an 800MHz frequency, which technically shows that the faster the CPU, the better the graphics performance.

According to the article, this technology proved to be even faster than Intel's current integrated offering, but the results are a little hard to settle on. The test machine used was an eight-core Core i7 machine, which is a lot of power. If WARP 10 took full advantage of the spare CPU cycles and still only achieved a 2FPS increase over Intel's integrated solution, then I don't think there's a reason to get excited right now.

The most important thing would be to gain enough graphics power to enable the special OS features. As long as that happens, then we can honestly say Microsoft made a smart development move.

(Picture this, but at -1 FPS)

Of course, software rendering on a single desktop CPU isn’t going to be able to compete with decent dedicated 3D graphics cards when it comes to high-end games, but Microsoft has released some interesting benchmarks that show the system to be quicker than Intel’s current integrated DirectX 10 graphics.

Source: Custom PC

Micron Expects 1GB/s SSDs Within the Year

It's become common knowledge that upgrading your PC to "top-of-the-line" status right now will mean little six months from now. Faster components come out all the time, from CPUs to GPUs and even storage. The latter is one area where things are happening really fast, though, and proof of that is with SSD technology. We are constantly being bombarded with new releases that are not only larger in density, but faster and less expensive.

The fastest "consumer" SSD on the market right now (to my knowledge) is Intel's X25-M, which has a Read speed of 250MB/s and Write speed of 70MB/s. The company's own enterprise SSD, the X25-E, increases the Write to a staggering 170MB/s, which is all fine and good, but Micron believes that we'll be seeing SSDs within the year that will be able to withstand up to 1GB/s performance, four times what Intel's current SSDs are capable of. It's unknown whether that figure is just for Read performance, or both, but it's likely to be the former.

Tests that Micron themselves have been showing off have seen results into the 200,000 IOPS area, which is truly incredible in every regard (Intel's X25-E is 35,000). Using blocks ranging between 2KB and 2MB, the IOPS performance was still impressive, at ~160,000 IOPS. So the problem is, if we are going to be seeing performance like this within the next year, it's going to make purchasing an SSD today a difficult process. It will be nice once things settle down, but it's definitely fun to see the performance of these pushed to incredible heights. The future of storage is looking very good.

Klein added that Micron's SSD uses "multiple channels" and was built interleaving 64 NAND chips to achieve its high throughput. The SSD is also based on several technology advances announced by Micron this year, including its 34 nanometer NAND chip architecture announced in May and the RealSSD P200 series drives announced in August.

Source: Computerworld

Symantec Releases Norton AntiVirus "Gaming Edition"

One common complaint I hear often with regards to anti-virus applications is that they can suck the fun right out of your gaming. The problem could either be simple, such as a pop-up that boots you to your desktop, or a more complicated one where portions of your online game won't function at all (eg: updaters). Sadly, the most common answer to someone's predicament is usually, "Just turn the AV off.", which is clearly the wrong one.

Symantec seems to recognize this fact and have released a "Gaming Edition" of their anti-virus software. Its "Gamer Mode" essentially allows you to halt almost all operation during gameplay, except virus detection. This means that you'll receive no pop-ups during gameplay, nor will the AV even download updates. All it will do is continue to monitor the system in case a virus happens to make it onto your system during use.

That basically sums up what the "Gaming Edition" is all about. The respective product-page also has a few bits of information that might be of interest to some. Symantec touts that during regular use, the AV will use an average of 5.38MB of RAM, and that its install size is 49.7MB. That's impressive, especially since Norton tends to be known as being one of the more "bloated" AVs out there. I'm not much of a Windows user, and I don't run an AV even when I do use it, but this new version has me tempted.

Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition is the fastest virus protection you can get. It stops spyware, worms, bots, and other threats cold—without slowing down your PC. When you're gaming, your protection should get out of the way. Norton AntiVirus 2009 Gaming Edition does exactly that.

Source: Symantec Norton AntiVirus Gaming Edition

Current Core i7 Processor Pricing

It's been two full weeks since Intel's Core i7 processors have been launched, so I thought I'd take another look at current pricing to see where things stand. At launch, there were only two stores that had the CPUs and other required components in stock, but that has changed for the better. The motherboard and memory selection is great, so regardless of whether you want to upgrade as cheaply as possible, or go all out, there is much choice to be had.

The situation regarding CPU coolers is a little ridiculous though, as both NewEgg and NCIX seem to only stock one particular model each. I've searched other e-tailers as well, and not a single one had any in stock, and if they did, they're making them far too difficult to find. Given that the embargo on these processors was lifted close to a month ago, there's really no excuse to not have a better selection by now.

That rant aside, using our pricing engine, I found a flurry of e-tailers that are now selling the CPUs. I've ranked them from lowest-to-highest price to keep things simple.

• Intel Core i7 920 (2.66GHz) - Mwave ($294.00)
• Intel Core i7 920 (2.66GHz) - ZipZoomFly ($294.90)
• Intel Core i7 920 (2.66GHz) - NewEgg ($294.99)
• Intel Core i7 920 (2.66GHz) - Directron ($299.99)
• Intel Core i7 920 (2.66GHz) - NCIX ($309.09) ($391.04CAN)
• Intel Core i7 920 (2.66GHz) - Tiger Direct ($309.99)
• Intel Core i7 920 (2.66GHz) - NowDirect ($312.88)

• Intel Core i7 940 (2.93GHz) - ZipZoomFly ($567.50)
• Intel Core i7 940 (2.93GHz) - Mwave ($569.00)
• Intel Core i7 940 (2.93GHz) - NewEgg ($569.99)
• Intel Core i7 940 (2.93GHz) - NowDirect ($609.29)
• Intel Core i7 940 (2.93GHz) - Tiger Direct ($609.99)
• Intel Core i7 940 (2.93GHz) - NCIX ($686.04) ($771.66CAN)

• Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 (3.20GHz) - ZipZoomFly ($1,028.80)
• Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 (3.20GHz) - NewEgg ($1,029.99)
• Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 (3.20GHz) - Mwave ($1,039.00)
• Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 (3.20GHz) - Tiger Direct ($1,079.99)
• Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 (3.20GHz) - NowDirect ($1,086.85)
• Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 (3.20GHz) - Directron ($1,134.99)
• Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 (3.20GHz) - NCIX ($1,217.09) ($1,391.39CAN)

For the i7 920, either Mwave, ZZF and NewEgg are going to be a good choice, as the prices hover within the dollar. For the i7 940, things are still tight, so it's hard to go wrong. The i7 Extreme 965 is another story, though, with one e-tailer selling above the $1,200 mark. That's foolish when the same CPU can be had for $1,029 at ZZF or $1,030 at NewEgg. It definitely pays to shop around... something that's tough if you're a Canadian. The prices as seen at NCIX seem to be the cheapest in all of Canada, and by no means are they low when compared to the US equivalents.

I've only tackled CPUs here, but the motherboards is an area where it will pay off even more to shop around. Once you have a board picked out, being lazy will get you nowhere. Shop around! You might only save $20, but that's $20 in your pocket, not someone else's.

Tech Roundup - December 1, 2008

Motherboards & Processors
• Asus P5Q3 - Overclockers Club
• Asus P6T Deluxe OC Edition - ocaholic
• Asus P6T Deluxe OC Edition - Overclockers Club
• ASUS Rampage II Extreme & P6T Deluxe - VR-Zone
• Foxconn A7DA-S - Digit-Life

Displays & Video Cards
• ASUS Radeon HD 4830 - Benchmark Review
• Samsung LN52A850 52" 120Hz LCD TV - Hardware Canucks
• Samsung PN50A650 650 Series 50" 1080P Plasma TV - TweakNews
• Sapphire HD 4830 - Modders-Inc
• Sapphire 770 PURE CrossFireX - t-break

Memory & Storage
• Intel 80GB X25-M SSD - Bjorn3D

Peripherals & Gadgets
• Future Sonics Atrio In-Ear Headphones - techPowerUp
• Nova Slider X600 Mouse - XS Reviews
• Razer Piranha Gaming Communicator - TestFreaks
• Revoltec LightMouse Precision2 - Technic3D
• Samsung SCX-4500 Multi-Function Printer - Accelenation

Cooling
• Thermaltake MaxOrb EX CPU Cooler - Think Computers

Chassis & Power Supplies
• Gigabyte Poseidon 310 Case - TweakPC
• GlacialTech Altair A380 HTPC Case - PC Stats
• Lian Li PC-A7010 - ocaholic
• No-Name vs. Known Brand PSUs - Madshrimps
• NZXT Alpha - Technic3D

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• Nerf N-Strike Vulcan EBF-25 Machine Gun - i4u
• Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray Player - TweakNews
• Top 100 Holiday Tech Gift Guide 2008 - i4u