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AMD Does 5 GHz

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Using eight cores built on AMD’s Piledriver architecture, the FX-9590 is the world’s first processor to reach 5GHz that will be available to consumers from a chipmaker.  The 5GHz barrier has been broken before in labs and basements where extreme cooling techniques were applied to CPUs but not in a boxed chip thats available to the public.

The FX 9590’s frequency will range between 4.7 to 5GHz and will utilize AMD’s AM3+ socket. The processor will be built on a new 32 nanometer die and have 8MB of L2 and L3 cache. The chips power consumption is considerable at 220W but that’s to be expected with a chip like this, especially early on. AMD has always had great pride in producing a lot of bang with a small amount of power and it’s my guess that power consumption will likely get better. It’s also important to note that AMD’s power management will likely keep the CPU “Cool n’ Quiet” when there isn’t a large demand for power from the system.

The new chip isn’t cheap as it will cost you around $900 to pick up and although early benchmarks indicate that the performance is solid, it may not be the ultimate processor we are looking for AMD to release. Still, 5GHz is impressive and well, awesome.

Intel’s Graphics Get Serious With Iris

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Integrated graphics haven’t really been know for their performance, for years they were really just there to give us the most basic video features, but today’s mobile oriented market and demand for rich media has changed the game.

Intel made a solid effort with the HD 4000 series chip which performs surprisingly well under a lot of different conditions. You can actually get a semi-solid frame rate with most games on low to medium settings and performance in most other gpu dependent applications is solid. Now, Intel is getting serious with it’s next generation chip, Iris, which will offer more than 2x the performance of current the GPU.

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Source: Intel

Intel says that their next step in graphics will be a 75x increase in performance over earlier efforts since 2006, which shows off Intel’s ever increasing attention to GPU performance, but without sacrificing efficiency. The 4th generation Haswell (Intel’s Codename) line will be very power efficient and that’s critical now that the focus has shifted to a battery powered and mobile world.

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Source: Intel

Clearly, there’s a lot to look forward to in the next year or so as we continue to see better overall performance numbers from onboard graphics. It is interesting to think about what AMD and Nvidia will do in response to Intel’s recent efforts. At the very least it will force chip makers to continue to be innovative and to rethink and rework non-discrete graphics, something that could help bring down costs as well.

 

Sony Playstation 4 to be Announced Soon?

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Well we are just getting into the second month of the new year and the rumors are pouring in from everywhere in the tech world. There is a lot of buzz going on about the next generation of gaming consoles and to add even more into the mix, sources at the Wall Street Journal have mentioned that they believe Sony is planing on releasing the Playstation 4 before the end of 2013, they have also suggested that Microsoft will be doing the same with the next Xbox. All of this comes after Sony held a press event mentioning something big coming up.

To catch you up, the PS4 project is codenamed Orbis and is slated to utilize a 4x Dual-Core AMD64 “Bulldozer” processor and will also contain a next-gen AMD graphics processor with over 2GB of memory. Rumors have also suggested that both the PS4 and Xbox 720 will still have optical drives despite earlier rumors that mentioned them going to an all digital download system. Blu-Ray will remain the primary media for games on the PS4. The new console is likely to have new controllers and they will likely have a touchpad. Finally, Sony will likely incorporate a rich social experience into it’s next console in order to better compete with it’s competitors.

According to sources, the next Playstation will be unveiled sooner than originally thought in New York City on Feb. 20, 2013.

-Thanks to VG247–