As we mentioned in our previous edition of The Cable Chronicles, Microsoft and CableLabs have come to an agreement to allow the installation and use of CableCARDs on unapproved and non-OEM systems, allowing for the wider proliferation of CableCARD equipped HTPCs beyond the handful of OEM systems that CableLabs had previously approved. With Windows 7 implementing a complete DRM scheme for TV tuners – the Protected Broadcast Driver Architecture – computers running Win7 would be the first to be able to take advantage of these relaxed restrictions.

The limitation at the time was that computers did not come CableCARD-capable out of the box. A Digital Cable Advisor tool was to be released by Microsoft, which would check a computer to make sure it meets all of MS’s and CableLab’s requirements, before going ahead and enabling CableCARD access. That tool was supposed to be released in time for Win7’s launch, but it ended up being AWOL at the time. As Microsoft was not going to publish the complete system requirements for using a CableCARD, this tool was the only way to find out the system requirements.

The tool was finally released this weekend, allowing us to get an idea of what the system requirements are.

The tool comes as a Windows Media Center Extra, and needs to be downloaded, installed, and used from within Windows Media Center. If you don’t regularly run MCE, then it probably won’t show up in the Extras Gallery, as MCE picks up on it when it regularly checks in for updates. To force MCE to check in, go to Settings -> General -> Automatic Download Options -> Download Now.

Once installed. It shows up in your Extras Gallery.

When activated, the tool will analyze the system to determine if it meets MS/CableLab’s requirements, reporting back whether the computer passes or fails the requirements, and if it fails, offers a short explanation why.

Digging through the tool’s support files, for most of the system requirements the tool appears to just be looking at the Windows Experience Index of the computer. The chart below lists the scores we’ve found, and the text attached to them if the computer fails

In spite of the attached text, the tool doesn’t appear to actually be looking for specific pieces of hardware. We ran this test on a single-core computer with 1.5GB of RAM, and it passed anyhow, as it met the WEI scores required. So our best guess is that only WEI scores matter here.

The second test tests the Content Protection (Read: DRM) capabilities of the hardware. It appears to be looking for the various MCE DRM components (PBDA and PlayReady), HDCP support, and DXVA acceleration of MPEG-2. We suspect the DXVA check is just a warning rather than a hard error, but we don’t have any appropriate hardware to test this.

From our testing, we believe the tool will fail if HDCP support is not present in the video card, regardless of if a digital connection is being used. The big question we have, and one we haven’t been able to find an answer to, is whether HDCP is required for digital connections (e.g. an older TV using HDMI), as we don’t have a monitor on-hand that doesn’t support HDCP.

The analog situation looks better. On a PC hooked up to a TV via Component, it passed the check and was allowed to enable CableCARD support.

However once a PC passes the test, the final screen leaves us scratching our heads as to whether the tool actually knows what it’s doing.

The screen is a list of recommended hardware:

• Sufficient disk space on your PC to record TV. For example, you’ll need about 160GB to record 20 hours of TV
• A minimum of 4GB of RAM
• A digital output connected to an HDCP-compliant display to receive HD-quality video.

We’re not sure where the disagreement lies. It could very well be that the tool isn’t checking for an HDCP-attached monitor and is just blindly approving everything so long as there’s HDCP support, or that it’s downscaling content going out an analog output (ala the Image Constraint Token on Blu-Ray), or it could be that this is an empty recommendation. This tool was supposed to clear up confusion about what’s required for CableCARD use, and it hasn’t really achieved that.

Finally, in the strangest occurrence, one of our systems was already authorized according to the tool. The Core i7 rig we use for benchmarking shows up as authorized, even on a fresh install of Windows 7. This is expected behavior for OEM systems (or rather, motherboards) that were previously approved by CableLabs, but we have no idea why this would be showing up on an Asus Rampage II Extreme.

Finally, along with the release of the advisor tool, the updated firmware for the ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner needed to go with these looser restrictions has finally been released. As this was originally intended as an OEM-only product, the only place we’ve seen it thus far is at Dell’s website, where they want $210 for a tuner. Since it’s a single-stream tuner, you’ll want 2 (or more) to watch & record multiple channels. Other vendors will have CableCARD tuners out, including multi-stream tuners, but not until next year. For the time being, CableCARD on Win7 comes with a high early adopter tax.

It’s not often we write about prices going up.

Last week there was a rumor going around that AMD intended to raise prices on the 5800 series. At the time we wrote this off as yet another highly-speculative rumor based on shaky evidence. Official price hikes are virtually unprecedented, after all.

Then things changed.

We’ve talked previously about TSMC – the foundry both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs are manufactured at – having yield issues with their 40nm process. This first surfaced with the Radeon 4770, which at the time of its introduction was being built while TSMC’s yields were below 40%, and this coupled with its popularity made for a significant shortage around its introduction. TSMC continued to improve their yields, and by the time of the Radeon 5000 series launch, AMD told us that they weren’t concerned with yields. As of this summer, TSMC was reporting yields of 60%.

On Friday the 30^th, Digitimes broke the word that TSMC’s yields were back down to 40%. This we believe is due to issues TSMC is having ramping up overall 40nm production, but regardless of the reason it represents a 33% drop in usable chips per 40nm wafer. When you’re AMD and you’re rolling out a top-to-bottom 40nm product line in a 6 month period, this is a problem.

The 5870 and 5850: Out Of Stock Everywhere

When the 5800 series launched, we knew supplies would initially be tight, but we had been expecting them to pick up. With these yield problems, that has not happened. Instead 5800 cards continue to be out of stock near-universally, even with the fact that most OEMs have yet to start using these cards. AMD’s current 5800 supplies are being exhausted just by Dell and self-builders.

Meanwhile NVIDIA started the end-of-life process for the GTX 200 series some time ago, with production of the GT200 GPU ramping down. So NVIDIA doesn’t need to play pricing games with AMD, as they’ve already planned on selling out anyhow.

With low supplies, no (single-GPU) performance competition, and no price competition, you have the perfect storm for a price hike.

All of a sudden that rumor about an AMD price hike became far more realistic. Checking around, virtually none of the 5800 series cards are listed at their MSRP. Although they’ve continued to be in low supply since launch, it’s only recently that there’s been a breakaway from the $379 and $259 MSRP of the 5870 and 5850 respectively.

After our latest round of price checks, we talked with AMD about the situation and asked them if there was any truth to the rumor of an official price hike. The news is not good: 5850 prices are officially going up. AMD is citing supply issues of components (including memory) amidst the heavy demand for the 5850, and ultimately deciding to pass the cost on to the consumer. Meanwhile there is no official price hike for the 5870, although it’s going to be affected by any increased component costs just as much as the 5850.

Bear in mind that the 5850 is also a special case. AMD can’t keep the 5870 in stock, never mind the 5850. For every fully-functional Cypress die they get, the only reasonable option is to build a 5870 out of it. The only things that should be going in to the 5850 are dice with a defective functional unit, making them ineligible for use in a 5870. Without an idea of how many harvestable dice TSMC is spitting out, we can’t get any real numbers, but the most reasonable assumption is that most of them are either fully-functional or unsalvageable, so we expect AMD and their vendors to be producing many more 5870s than they will 5850s. In other words, the 5850 shortage is going to be worse than the 5870 shortage.

The result of all of this is, is that regardless of the reason, there’s a price hike across the entire 5800 series – an official hike for the 5850, and an unofficial hike for the 5870. AMD has not established a new MSRP for the 5850, but their best guess is $20; ultimately it’s up to vendors (and retailers) to determine pricing. It’s hard to get an idea of what the price is going to be on a card that’s always out of stock, but an MSRP of $279 is probably too low. $300 (or more) is a more realistic target for the 5850. As for the 5870, it seems to be settling around $400.

Our best guess is that these new prices will continue through the rest of the year, even if supplies pick up as TSMC gets their yields back in order. Without any serious competition from NVIDIA, these cards can be priced anywhere between $300 and $500 based on performance alone, and no one has any incentive to keep prices down so long as 5800 series cards keep flying off of the shelves. It’s Economics 101 in action.

We can’t say we’re happy with any of this, but we can’t accuse AMD and their vendors of acting irrationally here. It’s a lousy situation for consumers, but that’s a shortage for you. When has there ever been a good shortage?

Finally, with these price hikes, our product recommendations are changing some. The 5870 is still the card to get if money is no object, but the 5850 is far more situational since it’s no longer the great bargain it once was. We can get 1GB 4890s for $170 right now, which have become downright cheap compared to our projected $300 for a 5850. Certainly the 5850 whips the 4890 by upwards of 40%, not to mention DX11 and Eyefinity, but at that level it’s commanding a 75% price premium. It’s a $300 card and performs accordingly, but don’t break the bank in order to get a 5850 at these prices.

If you want a cheap 5800 series card, then it looks like you’re out of luck until 2010.

The Biggest 5850/4890 Performance Gap

"Xen 3.2.0 which can be found in the newest Novell SLES 10 SP2, is capable of running Windows 2003 R2 under heavy stress."

For those of you sticking with Vista, Microsoft has finally officially released DirectX 11 for Vista, after having spent the last couple of months in beta. This final release looks to be the same as the last beta released earlier this month.

The update is KB971512, which is being released as part of a larger Platform Update for Vista that includes a few other things that are being backported for Vista. Vista SP2 is the prerequisite, so if you aren’t already on SP2 you’ll need to update.

All of these updates should be available on Windows Update.

We ran a quick sanity check on our Vista install from our Win7 Performance Guide from earlier this week, and there are no surprises. Just like with DX10, DX11 titles (all 2 of them ) perform the same between the two OSes. In this case we’re using BattleForge, along with Unigine’s DX11 Heaven benchmark (it’s synthetic, but pickings are slim for DX11). We’ve also thrown in Crysis for good measure, although it's not a DX11 title.

Acer recently launched some updated laptops with Windows 7. For that matter, just about every laptop manufacturer out there has new laptops sporting Windows 7, but we're going to start our coverage of mobile press releases with Acer since they were kind enough to send us the pertinent details. (Ed: This blog may be a bit long, but we'll try to do them more often going forward so we can keep it short.)

Our intention going forward is to do more blogs on product announcements, letting you know what new items might be worth a look… or perhaps which ones you should skip. These blogs are not reviews, since we don't have hardware, but we'll try to cover the important details and let you know what we think of the various laptops. And if you're a PR representative from a different manufacturer and you have product information, send me an email. We don't have time to cover every laptop/netbook launch, but the more information we have to pass along, the better informed we can keep our readers.

We recently looked at ASUS' latest foray into the mobile world, the "UnLimited" UL80Vt. It uses a Core 2 Duo SU7300 CPU overclocked to 1.73GHz by default, plus giving users the option to switch between discrete and integrated graphics. The design and features of the UL80Vt are very good, but what if you don't want to spend $820, and what if you don't have a need for discrete graphics? If you're interested in some other options, Acer might have what you're after. Let's take a quick look at the latest Acer product launches.

Acer Timeline

The more interesting launches from Acer are going to be the updated Timeline models. Acer has now models ranging from the new 11.6" Timeline up to the larger 15.6" AS5810TZ. All of the models we'll be discussing now include Windows 7, and we see no reason to even consider Windows Vista on a laptop at this point. Windows 7 definitely beats Vista in both performance and battery life. Windows XP battery life is similar to Win7, but that's only if you're willing to live with the old XP UI. Of course, we understand that some people still prefer XP, but we'll focus on the new Win7 models.

The Timeline 1810 is the newest edition of the Timeline series, with a netbook-sized 11.6" chassis. Unlike the typical Atom netbook, however, Acer uses a Core 2 Duo SU7300 -- the same CPU as the ASUS UL80Vt. Or at least the more expensive model uses the SU7300, while the slightly cheaper option uses the Pentium SU4100. The two CPUs have the same 1.30GHz clock speed, but the SU7300 has 3MB shared L2 cache compared to 2MB L2. For $50, the upgrade probably won't make that much of a difference, but the 8638/8679 also include 4GB RAM instead of 3GB. The 1810 comes with a 6-cell battery and weighs just over three pounds. Battery life should exceed 8 hours in light operations, while more intense workloads like x264 or DivX video playback will probably be closer to 5 hours.

Like all of the Timeline series, the LCD is LED backlit and has a resolution of 1366x768. That resolution might be a bit low on the larger models, but it works well on an 11.6" LCD. Unfortunately, we don't have details on what LCD is being used -- we asked, but Acer wasn't able to provide that information. The 1810 is available in either black or blue at present, with what appears to be a brushed aluminum palm rest. If you want an alternative to a netbook that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, the Timeline 1810 will fit the bill. Performance of the SU7300 is going to be at least twice as fast as any Intel Atom netbook, and the GMA 4500MHD is likewise a large step up from the aging GMA 950 (or the GMA 500). H.264 video decode works with the 4500MHD as well, so the only drawback relative to ATI and NVIDIA solutions is gaming/graphics performance. What you're getting is essentially over twice the performance of a netbook for about twice the cost.

The Timeline 3810 is virtually the same specs as the 1810, but with a 13.3" chassis. Models with the SU7300 and SU4100 are available, but memory is DDR3-1066 instead of DDR2-667. Prices are slightly higher for the base model 4078, or $750 at present for the 8737. Both come with 4GB RAM while the retail chain version (the 4925) comes with 3GB. For the extra $100, there doesn't appear to be a good reason to choose the 8737; the SU7300 shouldn't be more than about 5% faster than the SU4100 (thanks to the added L2 cache).

The Timeline 4810 is again virtually the same specs as the other models, only you can find older models with Vista (and even XP), the CPU is always the Pentium SU4100, and it uses DDR3-1066 RAM. Other than the slightly larger 14.0" chassis, the big change relative to the 3810 is that Acer includes an optical drive. That makes the 4810T virtually a direct competitor to the ASUS UL80Vt. You basically lose some of the performance and features of the ASUS UL80Vt but save over $200. The 4810 provides a slightly slower (stock CPU), but no overclocking; it doesn't include discrete graphics; it has a slightly smaller battery (6-cell vs. 8-cell); and it also weighs about half a pound less than the UL80Vt. $600 for a moderate sized laptop that will provide over twice the performance of any Atom-based netbook is a reasonable option. Again, we don't know much about the LCD, but it's likely going to be a low contrast option. The retail-only 4120 includes a 500GB hard drive, but we were unable to determine pricing; it's likely going to be about $50 more.

Finally, the 5810 is the largest version of the Timeline series, although it still targets "8+ hours" of battery life with a 6-cell battery. Remember that battery cell sizes aren't all the same, so it may actually have more battery capacity to keep run times consistent with the other Timeline models. Like the 4810, it includes an optical drive -- no surprise with the 15.6" chassis. The only change worth noting relative to the 4810 (other than size) is that the 5810 includes a full keyboard with 10-key pad. Available in "espresso brown" or aluminum, the 5810 with Windows 7 is priced at $650.

Acer Aspire 5738

The other new product line Acer recently announced uses the basic 15.6" Aspire chassis, but with a few additions. Several models are available, with prices ranging from as little as $480 to as high as $760. The least expensive model 5738Z-4111 uses DDR3-800 RAM and Intel GMA 4500M graphics and targets "up to 3.5 hours" of battery life. The AS5738-6444 and 6969 are the same as the 4111, but they use DDR2-667 and the GMA 4500MHD. There's also a 500GB HDD on the 6969 for about $20 extra. We're not sure why these models are supposed to get "up to 4.5 hours" of battery life, given that DDR2 uses a higher voltage than DDR3. Here are the detailed specs.

The more interesting options for most people are going to be the 5738PG and 5738DG. The PG includes a multi-touch LCD. We asked for details on the manufacturer and LCD specs but did not receive an answer from Acer. Hopefully it's at least not a glossy LCD, given the coating most touch LCDs have that reduces brightness and contrast relative to other LCDs. It's worth noting that the 5738PG is not a tablet, which limits the usefulness of the touch LCD in our book, but others may feel otherwise. It's also the most expensive option, but it includes a discrete HD 4570 GPU.

The specs for the 5738DG are identical to the 5738PG, but it doesn't have a touch-sensitive LCD. Instead, Acer includes a "TriDef 3D screen" with polarized 3D glasses. The 3D mode can be enabled and disabled at the press of a button, and the feature is supposed to work with both 2D and 3D content. How well does it work? Without using one in person, we really have no idea. We asked about the LCD and technology but have not received any answer. We don't know if the basic premise is like older 3D displays that appeared to flicker a lot, or if the DG uses a 120Hz LCD, or if this is something new. We're very hesitant to recommend purchasing any 3D product (outside of a GPU) without testing out the feature in person. In the past, such technology has been prone to cause headaches and discomfort after a few minutes to an hour or more. NVIDIA's 3D Vision is perhaps the best 3D offering we've tested, and even it only delivered lackluster results in most instances. Still, we're intrigued that anyone would even consider making a 3D laptop LCD. Now you can wear your "sporty and stylish 3D polarized glasses" while on the road as well!

If you read our last article, it is clear that when your applications are virtualized, you have a lot more options to choose from in order to build your server infrastructure . Let us know how you would build up your "dynamic datacenter" and why!

Last week NVIDIA released their first set of end-user OpenCL drivers. Previously OpenCL drivers had only been available for developers on the NVIDIA side of things, and this continues to be the case on the AMD side of things. With NVIDIA’s driver release, the launch of AMD’s 5800 series, and some recent developments with OpenCL, this is a good time to recap the current state of OpenCL, and what has changed since our OpenCL introductory article from last year.

A CPU & GPU Framework

Although we commonly talk about OpenCL alongside GPUs, it’s technically a hardware agnostic parallel programming framework. Any device implementing OpenCL should be cable of running any OpenCL kernel, so long as the developers take in to account querying the host device ahead of time as to not spawn too many threads at once. And while GPUs (being the parallel beasts that they are) are the primary focus, OpenCL is also intended for use on CPUs and more exotic processors such as the Cell BE and DSPs.

What this means is that when it comes to discussing the use of OpenCL on computers, we have two things to focus on. Not only is there the use of OpenCL on the GPU, but there’s the use of OpenCL on CPUs. If Khronos has their way, then OpenCL will be a commonly used framework for CPUs both to take better advantage of multi-core CPUs (8 threaded i7 anyone?) and as a fallback mechanism for when OpenCL isn’t available on a GPU.

This also makes things tricky when it comes to who is responsible for what. AMD for example, in making both GPUs and CPUs, is writing drivers for both. They are currently sampling their CPU driver as part of their latest Stream SDK (even if it is a GPU programming SDK), and their entire CPU+GPU driver set has been submitted to the Khronos group for certification.

NVIDIA on the other hand is not a CPU manufacturer (Tegra aside), so they are only responsible for having a GPU OpenCL driver, which is what they have been giving to developers for months. They have submitted it to Khronos and it has been certified, and as we mentioned they have released it to the public as of last week. NVIDIA is not responsible for a CPU driver, and as such they are reliant on AMD and Intel for OpenCL CPU drivers. AMD likes to pick at NVIDIA for this, but ultimately it’s not going to matter once everyone finally gets up to speed.

Intel thus far is the laggard; they do not have an OpenCL implementation in any kind of public testing, for either CPUs or GPUs. For AMD GPU users this won’t be an issue, since AMD’s CPU driver will work on Intel CPUs as well. For NVIDIA GPU users with Intel CPUs, they'll be waiting on Intel for a CPU driver. Do note however that a CPU driver isn't required to use OpenCL on a GPU, and indeed we expect the first significant OpenCL applications to be intended to run solely on GPUs anyhow. So it's not a bad situation for NVIDIA, it's just one that needs to be solved sooner than later.

OpenCL ICD: Coming Soon

Unfortunately matters are made particularly complex by the fact that on Windows and Linux, writing an OpenCL program right now requires linking against a vendor-specific OpenCL driver. The code itself is still cross-platform/cross-device, but in terms of compiling and linking OpenCL has not been fully abstracted. It’s not yet at the point where it’s possible to write and run a single Windows/Linux program that will work with any OpenCL device. It would be the equivalent of requiring an OpenGL game (e.g. Quake) to have a different binary for each GPU vendor’s drivers.

The solution to this problem is that OpenCL needs an Installable Client Driver (ICD), just like OpenGL does. With an ICD developers can link against that, and it will handle the duties of passing things off to vendor-specific drivers. However an ICD isn’t ready yet, and in fact we don’t know when it will be ready. NVIDIA - who chairs the OpenCL working group - tells us that the WG is “driving to get an ICD implementation released as quickly as possible”, but with no timetable attached to that. The effort right now appears to be on getting more OpenCL 1.0 implementations certified (NV is certified, AMD is in progress), with an ICD to follow.

Meanwhile Apple, in the traditional Apple manner, has simply done a runaround on the whole issue. When it comes to drivers they shipped Snow Leopard with their own OpenCL CPU driver, and they have GPU drivers for both AMD and NVIDIA cards. Their OpenCL framework doesn’t have an ICD per-say, but it has features that allow developers to query for devices and use any they like. It effectively accomplishes the same thing, but it’s only of use when writing programs against Apple’s framework. But to Apple’s credit, as of this moment they currently have the only complete OpenCL platform, offering CPU+GPU development and execution with a full degree of abstraction.

What GPUs Will Support OpenCL

One final matter is what GPUs will support OpenCL. While OpenCL is based around the hardware aspects of DirectX10-class hardware, being DX10 compliant isn’t enough. Even among NVIDIA and AMD, there will be some DX10 hardware that won’t support OpenCL.

NVIDIA: Anything that runs CUDA will run OpenCL. In practice, this means anything in the 8-series or later that has 256MB or more of VRAM. NVIDIA has a full list here.

AMD: AMD will only be supporting OpenCL on the 4000 series and later. Presumably there was some feature in the OpenCL 1.0 specification that AMD didn’t implement until the 4000 series, which NVIDIA had since the launch of the 8-series. Given that AMD is giving Brook+ the heave-ho in favor of OpenCL, this will mean that there’s going to continue to be a limited selection of GPGPU applications that work on these cards as compared to the 4000 series and later.

End-User Drivers

Finally to wrap this up, we have the catalyst of this story: drivers. As we previously mentioned, NVIDIA released their OpenCL-enabled 190.89 drivers to the public last week, which we’re happy to see even if the applications themselves aren’t quite ready. This driver release was a special release outside of NVIDIA’s mainline driver releases however, and as such they’re already out of date. NVIDIA released their 191.07 WHQL-certified driver set yesterday, and these drivers don’t include OpenCL support. So while NVIDIA is shipping an OpenCL driver for both developers and end-users, it’s going to be a bit longer until it shows up in a regular release.

AMD meanwhile is still in a developer-only beta, which makes sense given that they’re still waiting on certification. The estimates we’ve heard is that the process takes a month, so with AMD having submitted their drivers early last month, they should be certified soon if everything went well.

Our good friends over at GSkill passed along this press release about their 4GB DDR3 kits being used in the winning P55 system in the F1OC overclocking competition.  We have had great success utilizing their Ripjaws and Perfect Storm kits in our P55 testing.

"G.Skill wins the F1OC SuperPi 32M on Intel P55 contest.

Taipei, Taiwan?2nd October, 2009?G.Skill International Co. Ltd., manufacturer of extreme performance memory with solid quality, wins the ultimate overclocking contest, F1 OC, in the second stage competition.

G.SKILL wins the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 7th places in F1OC competition, which is held by two of the most famous overclocking communities, xtremesystem.org and Hwbot.org. All the participants in the F1OC contest are the world’s top overclockers and they have the world’s best hardware to compete with each other. In the second stage of this competition, the rule is to make the fastest super pi 32M on P55 platform and G.Skill has won the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 7th place among the top ten places.

This result once again proves G.Skill’s leading technology on developing extreme performance computer memory and G.Skill’s memory is the best choice for top overclockers to break OC world record."

We had a significant amount of requests for Flight Simulator X results in our Core i5/i7 and P55 coverage. I was able to run some quick comparison results between the Bloomfield and Lynnfield platforms last night to answer most of the email and comments requests. However, I am still running the Phenom II and Core 2 Quad benches. I do not know if we will be able to have those results in our P55 roundups that start in a couple of days. If not, I will follow up with these particular performance updates in another blog.

Test Setup-

We are utilizing our standard P55/X58 setups for this test. The 920/860/870 platforms are using 7-7-7-20 1T DDR3-1600 memory configurations. The 750 platform is running at DDR3-1333 with 6-6-6-18 1T timings since the 12x multiplier is not available on the i5/750. The X58 platform is equipped with 6GB of memory and the P55 with 8GB. Turbo mode and Hyper-Threading is enabled as designed and shipped from Intel. All other BIOS settings are at stock ratios.

We enabled DX10, AA/AF, set the Aircraft, Scenery, Weather, and Traffic sliders to Ultra High, and then measured a pre-recorded six minute flight around Honolulu with FRAPS at 1920x1080. Our variability with this benchmark averages around 0.5%. The benchmark is run five times with the median score reported for our results. FSX responds well to both increases in GPU and CPU improvements, but especially differences in CPU clock speeds.

When overclocked to 4.2GHz, the 920 and 860 are basically even in this title. The big differences though are the improvements in frame rates, especially the minimum frame rate with a 36% increase compared to the stock 860/870 results. The average frame rates increase 14~21% over the 860/870 stock results.

Due to very aggressive turbo modes, the 860/870 offer the best performance at stock clock settings. No real surprise there, but the improved turbo mode on the i5/750 does allow it to stay even with the i7/920 in this title. All of the processors offered a very enjoyable gaming experience as minimum frame rates were excellent, especially when the processors were overclocked. For those originally wondering, the i5/750-P55 combination will not have any problems running this title at 1920x1080 resolutions with Ultra High quality settings.

OCZ Technology

OCZ recently sent us their upcoming DDR3-2400 C9 4GB Blade series kit. The official specifications call for 9-10-9-24 1T timings at 1.65V VDimm on the P55 platform. We tossed it in our Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 motherboard with an i7-870 overclocked to 4.2GHz (21x200), set the memory multiplier to 12x for 2400MHz on the memory, and manually set timings to 9-10-9-24 1T, VDimm to 1.65V, VCore to 1.375V, and VTT to 1.370V.

The OCZ DDR3-2400 Blade kit worked perfectly at its rated specifications on one of the least expensive P55 boards you can purchase. We will have further results shortly.

TankGuys

I normally do not do this, but we were needing a couple i7/860 processors plus a few additional Intel G2 80GB SSD drives quickly for the 860 review and for the expanded motherboard test suite. Normally, we would go to the larger e-tailers like Newegg or others for these items. Well, I was not satisfied with the pricing or availability on either item, so I hit up Ben at TankGuys to see what he could do for us.

Let's just that TankGuys came through with flying colors. Not only did they ship the items before Newegg had them in stock, but their prices were extremely competitive. We spent $269.99 for our i7/860 compared to $299.99 ($289.99 today) at Newegg. Also,the Intel X25-M G2 80GB SSD was $349.99 at Newegg ($309.99 today) compared to $269.99 at TankGuys when we placed our orders. So, it does pay to shop around and sometimes the smaller guys might just be able to offer better prices than the large resellers.

A couple weeks ago, we posted our review of the Acer 751h. The claim to fame of the 751h is that it uses the Poulsbo chipset (US15W) with integrated GMA 500 graphics. We definitely experienced some growing pains with the 751h, in particular trying to get the integrated graphics to properly support HD video decoding required some effort. Once configured properly, however, we felt that the 751h was a viable alternative to other netbooks.

Unfortunately, we experienced some instability and we have heard complaints from a few users stating that stability on the 751h is, in a word, horrible -- that quality control at Acer must be practically nonexistent. Obviously, frustrated users are more likely to post complaints, but there are definitely people out there looking for an alternative. One alternative would be the ASUS 1101HA, which offers the same basic components but allows overclocking up to 1.73 GHz on the Z520 processor. Today, MSI has announced the Wind U110 Eco with immediate availability.

The U110 Eco has a lot in common with the Acer 751h and ASUS 1101HA. It uses a Z-series Atom processor, this time going with the faster Z530 (1.60GHz compared to 1.33GHz on the Z520). It still uses the US15W chipset, which means with the appropriate video codec you can get accelerated H.264 decoding. One notable difference is that it uses a 10.1" 1024x600 LCD instead of an 11.6" 1366x768 display. MSI also ships the U110 with a large 9-cell battery, stating that you can get up to 15+ hours (!) of battery life. The weight remains acceptable at 3.2 pounds, so the only question is whether you're okay with netbook performance. Overall, this should certainly be a better multimedia netbook than other GMA 950 10.1" designs, though it sticks with the smaller LCD and its lower resolution.

You can currently buy the MSI Wind U110 Eco direct from MSI for $430, or ExcaliberPC has it starting at $400. Below are the detailed specifications as well as the text and images from the press release.

MSI US Announces New Netbook - Wind U110 ECO
The U110 features best in class battery Life - up to 15 + hours of untethered computing

CITY OF INDUSTRY, CA - September 21, 2009 - MSI Computer, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, is excited to announce the new netbook -Wind U110 ECO. The Wind U110 weighs just 3.2 pounds, features the Intel Atom Processor Z530 (1.60GHz), a 160GB HDD and an ultra efficient best in class 15+ hours battery life (9-cells).

Despite being just 1.24 inches thick at its widest point, the U110 is a multimedia powerhouse. The ultra mobile U110 features a 10" backlit LCD with a crystal clear 1024x600 resolution, high definition web cam, 2 speakers, built-in mic, a reliable 802.11 b/g/n LAN, and is Bluetooth ready for constant connectivity.

MSI offers a 1-year limited warranty with the U110 and extended customer service hours at 1-888-447-6564.

Seagate is launching the industry's first 6Gb/s7200rpm 2TB hard drive today. The 2TB Barracuda XT contains a four platter design sporting 500GB each and rotating at 7,200 RPM. Seagate is including a new 64MB cache scheme, five-year warranty, maximum sustained transfer rate of ~140MB/s, and an estimated street price of $299. The drives should be available later this week in the retail channel.

The big news is full support for the SATA 6G interface along with auto-configure support for the older SATA 1.5 or 3Gb/s interfaces. Seagate is also launching a new version of their SeaTools software that will allow users to short stroke the drives for increased performance, at the cost of capacity.

Of course, one might be wondering where the SATA 6G controllers are right now. It turns out that Marvell is finally ready to start shipping their 88SE9123 controllers after several delays due to a variety of problems, most centering on dual controller designs planned for several motherboard updates in the next 60 days. We expect to see the first native SATA 6G implementation on a Southbridge from AMD early next year.

In the meantime, ASUS will be shipping their P7P55D Premium shortly with the Marvell 9123 chipset. This board features a PEX PLX8613 PCIe bridge chip that will convert four of the PCIe x1 lanes (250MB/s each) into two 500MB/s lanes. While still short of the maximum theoretical 600MB/s transfer speed of the SATA 6G specification, it will provide enough burst bandwidth for these first generation 6G hard drives. Expect to see Marvell 9123 equipped boards from Gigabyte in the near future.

We will be comparing the Barracuda XT 2TB drive to the latest WD Caviar Black 2TB shortly.

If you're a regular reader of AnandTech -- and my articles in particular -- you may already know that I use speech recognition for writing the vast majority of my content. About five years ago, after a wonderful spree of typing like a madman on an article, my hands and fingers started going numb. Yes, I have the dreaded carpal tunnel syndrome. I tried to type less, and that helped a little, but what I really needed to do was cut out typing as much as possible. After reading about some options, I decided to try Dragon NaturallySpeaking. That was version 8, and I've never looked back.

A couple years later, version 9 was released and I began using that. I didn't notice any major improvements in accuracy or speed, but it did seem like it was a little better. I believe version 9 also added support for Office 2007's ribbon interface, but since I still have no problem using a mouse I haven't bothered with using Dragon to send commands much. Version 10 came out last year and I've been meaning to write a review for a while now. That keeps getting pushed aside, so rather than a full review I'm going to do a quick update on Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.

Unlike version 9, version 10 definitely has some noticeable improvements. For one, it simply seems to be faster at recognizing speech -- Nuance said that the latest version is optimized for dual-core processors, which would certainly account for the difference. Accuracy is still a very nebulous concept, and I'm not sure if Dragon has gotten better with the latest version or if I just adapted to using Dragon over the years. Whatever the case, I'm quite happy with the level of accuracy NaturallySpeaking provides, and version 10 is the best so far.

The other major change with version 10 -- not initially, but as of March this year -- is that we finally have a version of NaturallySpeaking that works with 64-bit Windows. It was a long time in coming, and I'm not sure what the holdup was, but with the latest patch you can now use Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 with Windows Vista 64-bit. Hooray for progress! Windows XP support is limited to 32-bit versions, however, and I haven't taken the time to test naturally speaking with Windows 7.

Some of you are probably wondering how Dragon NaturallySpeaking compares to the built-in speech recognition in Windows Vista. I discussed that in my speech recognition article several years ago, and frankly I still haven't been able to invest a significant amount of time in using Microsoft's "free" speech recognition. It looks like Microsoft may actually do a little better for sending certain commands to your computer, but in general the speech recognition interface they provide just isn't nearly as seamless as NaturallySpeaking. I haven't looked at Windows 7 to see if anything has changed, but I somehow doubt that I would actually make a switch at this point. It's a lot like using Windows and Microsoft Office; you can get open-source alternatives for free and run Linux and OpenOffice, but ultimately you find yourself wanting to go back to Microsoft.

So why this blog post now? I just received an email from TigerDirect with a link to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard, which allows you to purchase the application for $50 instead of $100. 50% off a great application is certainly a worthwhile investment, and for those that are willing to jump through the hoops you get a $20 mail-in rebate. That brings the total cost down to $30. $30 for what is arguably the most important tool I use? Sign me up! (Incidentally, Nuance sent me the Professional version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10, but I pretty much limit myself to use of the Preferred feature set. You might want to check out the datasheet for specific details on what features may not work with the Standard version. Note that Microsoft Office is listed as a feature of Professional; you can still use Standard to dictate in Word, but you can't issue specific Word/Excel commands.) Note: The link above is a direct add to your cart, and TigerDirect says it's a "limited time offer", so I don't know how long the link will remain active. If you have an alternative deal for Dragon NaturallySpeaking, please post it in the comments!

The only thing you need beyond the software is a microphone, and my experience is that you don't even need a great microphone. However, there's more to it than just getting a microphone that works; if you plan to use speech recognition on a regular basis like me, you'll also want a microphone that's comfortable… and I prefer something that doesn't go over the top of my head, since I don't want to mess up my hairdo. ;-) I got the Sennheiser ME3 with Andrea USB Pod from emicrophones.com back in 2006, and it was definitely a nice upgrade to the Logitech headset I was using. You can find less expensive microphones with a similar style, but I would suggest getting some sort of USB sound pod and bypassing your soundcard; I don't know if it works that much better, but it's great if you ever have to use your microphone on a different PC. Since I routinely switch between my desktop and a laptop, the USB adapter is a godsend; integrated audio on some laptops can be particularly bad, and don't even think about using the built-in microphone on your LCD!

If you've never tried Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you really ought to. With a modern PC, it's really quite awesome being able to dictate to a computer and have everything come out accurately… well, at least with around 98% accuracy, give or take. My only real problem with NaturallySpeaking is that there are a few quirks I still encounter. It's nothing drastic, but sometimes the program crashes and any updates to my dictionary that I've created are lost and need to be reentered. I use a lot of custom phrases for computer products; for example the Gateway NV52 required that I put "envy fifty two = NV52" into my phrase list. I also have just about every AMD and Intel processor number in my list, so when I add 10 processors and forget to save my user files and Dragon crashes a few hours later, it can be annoying. My other gripe is with the "we need more hard drive space" dialog routinely appearing. Regardless of what I do, that dialogue seems to stick around and pop up every few weeks.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is that Dragon NaturallySpeaking is so accurate that you start to get lazy; homonyms can still throw the program for a loop, so if you don't read what it transcribes carefully, you're likely to come up with some grammatical/spelling errors from time to time. That's actually high praise for the program: it's so accurate that you come to expect everything to work out properly and stop paying attention. Just try not to do that when you're writing an important female, or the results might be a little embarrassing! (Ironically, Dragon just screwed up that sentence. I truly did say "email" and Dragon thought I said "female" -- see what I mean about embarrassing?)

Final tally: Over 1200 words and I only had to correct around ten actual mistakes (i.e. not counting mumbled words). Yes, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 truly can achieve 99% accuracy.

From: An End To Unencrypted Digital Cable TV and the HTPC?

On a final note, the loss of ClearQAM access is likely going to be followed by the loss of some fraction of the HTPC market, where users will not find as much value in a device that can no longer watch or record live TV from their cable company. Because of this potential nosedive in the HTPC market, I would be very surprised if Microsoft stayed entirely mum on the issue. They've put a lot of effort into Windows Media Center as a TV viewing platform and HTPC suite over the years, and this drives a stake right through that given the low adoption of CableCARD systems.

This has been an interesting week to say the least for those of us stuck in the labs and not at AMD's DX11 GPU press briefings. Based on feedback from the Lynnfield launch article we have spent the last couple of days running additional benchmarks to address overclocking and clock for clock requests. Yes, we do listen and respond to the comments no matter how outlandish (you know who you are) some may be at times.

I will interject a personal note here, the emails/private messages that outlined a strong case for additional research and testing certainly held a lot more weight than comments like "You are on Intel's payroll...", "Worst review ever...", and the moonshot , "Illegal benchmarking methods..". First off, if we were on Intel's payroll we would not be working here (a logical conclusion, right? ;) ) As for the other comments, everyone is entitled to their opinions. We do our best to keep an open forum and let the comments fall where they may, but offering constructive criticism and facts to back up those comments is what actually causes change, not endless shock posts or attention grabbing statements. I still have hope in people abiding by the rules of Internet Etiquette, but apparently we are still a long ways off from that happening. I will step off the soap box, well, until the next article....

Just to set this up now, our overclock comparisons will be at 3.8GHz for the Core i5/i7 and Phenom II x4 965BE processors. Why 3.8GHz, well it is an easy number for all of our processors to hit on fairly low voltages with retail or mid-range air coolers. It is also an ideal clock range for the "set it and forget crowd" interested in 24/7 overclocking. Certainly we could go higher on air or water cooling and actually ran most of our Core i5/i7 numbers at 4.2GHz for the motherboard roundups. Our Phenom II x4 965BE is the hold up for higher numbers in our clock for clock comparisons.

AMD continues to have serious problems with their Phenom II processor range clocking above 3.8~4GHz on air with a 64-bit operating system. Unfortunately, there is nothing AMD can do to correct this in the current stepping, but they are actively working on improvements with each processor release. In fact, the latest Athlon II x2 processors are the first products we have that allow for 24/7 stable operation at 4GHz under Windows 7 x64. The quad cores are still lagging although our latest retail 965BE is showing promise around 3.92GHz in early testing. I state this now so it does not come as surprise later.

I will post several benchmark results later today based on our motherboard test suite. Anand will provide a more in-depth analysis next week along with an updated look at the Core i7/860. He might even have a surprise announcement from AMD. In the meantime, I have just about completed this additional testing and will return my focus on completing the first (of many) P55 motherboard article(s) that will be up in a couple of days. Our first review will cover the Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 among others. We recently received several other micro-ATX P55 motherboards and will look at those shortly. For now, this board is a perfect match for the Core i5/750 for our mainstream audience looking to upgrade an older platform.

Our graph below is an example of the information we will provide late today. Hopefully, this type of information will be useful for your purchasing decision along with our commentary about the results. I know there is not a Core 2 product listed, that will be forthcoming in the near future.

9/11 Update - I am still working on the FarCry 2 and H.A.W.X. benchmarks so the short update will be delayed until tomorrow morning.

It Slices, It Dices. But Wait, There’s More!

Actually, there is not more. A couple of years ago rumors were floating around that Intel’s first Platform Controller Hub (PCH) would contain the latest in features like 6Gb/s SATA ports, USB 3.0, and full PCI Express 2.0 capabilities all at a price that even McDonald’s would be envious of when launched. Of course, you know rumors are usually just that, silly rumors.

Instead, we end up with what I would conveniently call ICH10.1. Even Windows 7 agrees with us when loading drivers. Except that PCH is the new ICH, otherwise we are talking the same part, almost. There are a few minor differences between the P55 and ICH10R as we see below.

The P55 gives you six 3 Gb/s SATA ports, 14 USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet MAC , HD Audio, and eight lanes of PCI Express 2.0 goodness all for $40. That price tag buys you two additional USB ports and two additional PCIe lanes over the $3 ICH10R. The PCI Express lanes are version 2.0 but Intel decided to limit their speed to PCIe 1.x specs at 2.5GT/s. Why? We think it is because the DMI link continues at 1GB/s in each direction, which means a decent 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID card and a few upcoming 6Gb/s drives (SSDs anyone) could easily saturate the link. The P55 and ICH10R both consume a little over 4.5W during normal operation. Considering the specifications on AMD’s new SB8xxx chipsets, it appears we have a PCH Gap brewing.

How is performance? We are still trying to reach a conclusion and asked Intel for additional information. Overall, the two chipsets are about even in actual usage that includes file transfers and application benchmarks. The synthetic programs like HDTach and HDTune tell another story but one that we do not trust. Iometer shows both controllers neck and neck with our WD VelociRaptors in RAID testing, but a slight nod to the ICH10R in single disk testing with our OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD. We will have results in the upcoming P55 motherboard roundups (three total) starting later this week.