The latest version of Intel's Media SDK open sourced a key component of the QuickSync pipeline that would allow the open source community to begin to integrate QuickSync into their applications (if you're not familiar with QS, it's Intel's hardware accelerated video transcode engine included in most modern Core processors). I mentioned this open source victory back at CES this year, and today the HandBrake team is officially announcing support for QuickSync. The support has been in testing for a while, but the HandBrake folks say that they expect to get comparable speedups to other QuickSync enabled applications. No word on exactly when we'll see an official build of HandBrake with QuickSync support, although I fully expect Intel to want to have something neat to...
Intel's PixelSync & InstantAccess: Two New DirectX Extensions for Haswell
As Intel continues its march towards performance relevancy in the graphics space with Haswell, it should come as no surprise that we're hearing more GPU related announcements from the...
9 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/27/2013
Inside AnandTech 2013: Power Consumption
Two of the previous three posts I've made about our upgraded server infrastructure have focused on performance. In the second post I talked about the performance (and reliability) benefits...
10 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/18/2013
Inside AnandTech 2013: CPU Performance
Last week I kicked off a short series on the hardware behind our current network infrastructure. In the first post I presented a high level overview of the hardware...
21 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/15/2013
Inside AnandTech 2013: The Hardware
By the end of 2010 we realized two things. First, the server infrastructure that powered AnandTech was getting very old and we were seeing an increase in component failures...
15 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/12/2013
AMD Enlists Ben Heck to Build Rocket Launching Desktop PC
In preparation for its presence at SXSW Interactive, AMD enlisted the help of famed modder Benjamin Heckendorn to build a bunch of unique PCs. Traditionally, AMD would just show...
29 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/5/2013
Westmere-EP to Sandy Bridge-EP: The Scientist Potential Upgrade
Earlier this year I wrote a review of a dual processor Sandy Bridge-EP system from the point of view of the non-CS trained coder in a research group, and...
44 by Ian Cutress on 3/4/2013
The AnandTech Podcast: Episode 16
It's the calm before the storm. The coming weeks are full of big announcements from smartphones to PC components, leaving us to talk about everything we can before the...
30 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/17/2013
The AnandTech Podcast: Episode 15
We're back after CES and have a little bit of post-show wrap-up. We kick off this week's podcast with a discussion of Intel's near term challenges in the industry...
32 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/28/2013
AMD Q4’12 and FY 2012 Earnings: Closing Out a Rough Year, Looking Towards the Next
Continuing the spate of earnings announcements this week we have both AMD’s Q4’12 and fiscal year 2012 earnings. The 4th quarter presents something of a culmination of several events...
34 by Ryan Smith on 1/23/2013
Dragging Core2Duo into 2013: Time for an Upgrade?
As any ‘family source of computer information’ will testify, every so often a family member will want an upgrade. Over the final few months of 2012, I did...
132 by Ian Cutress on 1/15/2013
Intel's Quick Sync: Coming Soon to Your Favorite Open Source Transcoding Applications
Intel's hardware accelerated video transcode engine, Quick Sync, was introduced two years ago with Sandy Bridge. When it was introduced, I was immediately sold. With proper software support you...
46 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/14/2013
Intel Brings Core Down to 7W, Introduces a New Power Rating to Get There: Y-Series SKUs Demystified
For all of modern Intel history, it has specified a TDP rating for all of its silicon. The TDP rating is given at a specific max core temperature (Tj_MAX...
55 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/14/2013
Intel Haswell GT3e GPU Performance Compared to NVIDIA's GeForce GT 650M
Haswell isn't expected to launch until the beginning of June in desktops and quad-core notebooks, but Intel is beginning to talk performance. Intel used a mobile customer reference board...
253 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/9/2013
Qualcomm's Next-Gen Krait 400 & Krait 300 Announced in Snapdragon 800 & 600 SoCs
We've been hinting at this for a while, both on the Podcast and in our most recent power analysis piece, but today it's very official: Qualcomm is announcing the...
22 by Anand Lal Shimpi & Brian Klug on 1/7/2013
AMD CES 2013 Press Event Live Blog
We're live at the AMD CES 2013 press event! Keep your browser parked here for live updates!
57 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/7/2013NVIDIA's Pre-CES Press Conference: Live Webcast Starts At 8pm PST
Even though CES doesn't officially start until Tuesday, things are already kicking off in Las Vegas. The Storage Visions 2013 conference runs through Monday, and meanwhile a number of...
1 by Ryan Smith on 1/6/2013
The AnandTech Podcast: Episode 13
We're back! In our first podcast of 2013 we go over some of the best products of 2012 and Haswell/ValleyView launch schedules. Brian talks about Field Test being removed...
15 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/6/2013
Intel Launches “Centerton” Atom S1200 Family, First Atom For Servers
In recent months much has been made over the potential incursion of ARM into Intel’s tightly held server markets, and for good reason. ARM’s general focus on SoCs for...
35 by Ryan Smith on 12/11/2012
The AnandTech Podcast: Episode 12
Today's podcast covers two major topics: the rumored BGA-only version of Intel's Broadwell (2014/2015) CPU and Qualcomm's disclosures at its recent analyst day. The Broadwell BGA topic spawned a...
25 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/3/2012