Bench, in its current form, is a database of CPU performance data allowing you to compare virtually any modern day desktop CPUs. With the recent launch of the Core i7 975 and the Athlon II X2 processors there are now 78 individual CPUs represented in Bench.

In my introductory post I asked what sort of older CPUs you’d like to see included. The top suggestions were as follows:

Intel’s Pentium 4
AMD’s Athlon XP
VIA’s Nano

You asked, and I delivered. Well...I started to at least.

The first chip I added was the Pentium 4 660. Based on Intel’s Prescott core, the 660 was a single-core Pentium 4 with Hyper Threading enabled. In today’s more threaded world, HT is more useful than when the 660 first came out. The chip runs at 3.6GHz and was built on a 90nm process.

In many tests even a Pentium E2160 (1.6GHz dual-core Conroe derivative) is 15 - 50% faster than the Pentium 4 660. The Pentium E5200 kicks the advantage up to the 50 - 80% range thanks to a much higher clock speed than the E2160 (2.50GHz for the E5200). The main take away point is that you don’t have to spend more than $50 - $70 on a CPU to see a significant performance improvement over the Pentium 4 660.

The Pentium EE 955 (left) and the Pentium 4 660 (right)

The second chip I added was the Pentium Extreme Edition 955. This was one of the fastest processors ever made in the Pentium 4 era, only bested by the Pentium EE 965. Take two 65nm Cedar Mill die put them on the same package and you’ve got a dual-core Presler. With 376 million transistors the Pentium EE 955 ran at 3.46GHz and thanks to its Hyper Threading support, could execute four threads at the same time.

Intel was right about threading being the future. The quad-threaded Pentium EE 955 fared much better today than I expected, partly due to its ability to juggle more threads. The Pentium E5300 is significantly faster in many areas (40%+ in some tests), but surprisingly there are some situations where the golden oldie is close. Fallout 3 has the Pentium EE 955 within 10% of the E5300, as did the multi-threaded PAR2 test. Overall you’d see a significant performance improvement going to a $70 CPU. Although you may never again spend $1000 on a CPU if you decide to pursue that upgrade.

Lynnfield and then SSDs

In my last Lab Update I talked about working on SSDs, unfortunately I had to leave out the part about me working on a preview of Intel's Lynnfield processor. I must say that the Lynnfield testing went much better than I expected. I had the whole thing wrapped up in under a day and didn't have a single crash or performance issue to try and resolve.

Compared to my early Nehalem testing, Lynnfield actually fared even better. While my first Nehalem ran at higher clock speeds, the first Nehalem motherboards had issues with memory performance. Lynnfield worked very well for what I was testing, although I did hear that CrossFire/SLI weren't working very well on those early platforms.

I am curious to see how Intel manages the LGA-1156 vs. LGA-1366 platform split. Intel claims to be committed to LGA-1366 but I do see a lot of potential in LGA-1156; I believe it'll be a difficult job to maintain both platforms without artificially crippling one. We'll see if Intel is up to the task later this year.

My SSD testing is progressing well. There are a couple of items worth reporting on.

1) Windows 7 does currently support TRIM.
2) No SSDs currently enable TRIM support under Windows 7.

OCZ is expected to have TRIM support on its Vertex drives shortly, potentially within the next month from what I've read on their forums. Samsung's latest drive will have TRIM support once Microsoft has released Windows 7; I'm guessing that means September/October.

Intel is remaining curiously quiet on the TRIM issue. I would like to see the existing X25-M drives retrofitted with TRIM as I think that would be a tremendous goodwill gesture on Intel's part; I get that the X25-M is already the fastest thing on the market, but that's no reason to avoid thanking your customers for their support in my mind.

The WePC Update

Last week I talked about two important trends I'm seeing in the CPU industry. Here's a hint: power management is really becoming more important in microprocessor design.

OCZ's Vertex 30GB and 60GB Drives: Slower?

I've been testing the OCZ Vertex 30GB and 60GB drives fairly thoroughly over the past couple of weeks and I've got some early data to report.

1) The 30GB and 60GB drives are about 20 - 35% slower in sequential read and write speed than the 120GB drives.
2) Small file random read/write speed is unaffected. The entire lineup of Vertex drives, regardless of size, performs the same when dealing with small file random access.
3) As a result, real world performance is mostly unaffected by going for a smaller drive. PCMark scores are only around 4 - 5% lower on the smaller drives.

You should have no issues opting for a smaller Vertex drive, but the 120GB drive continues to be a better buy. Not only do you get better performance, but from what I've seen you get a much lower cost per GB than the smaller drives. OCZ's 30GB Vertex actually has a cost per GB greater than Intel's X25-M.

Expect more of this in my upcoming SSD article.

First, battery life:

T-Mobile doesn't have any 3G coverage in NC yet so all of my tests for the G1 were on Edge, thus we get a much longer web browsing battery life. The thing that surprised me the most however was the eerily similar battery life results between the iPhone 3G and the Palm Pre. The Pre didn't do so well in WiFi web browsing but in the other two tests it lasted around as long as the iPhone 3G.

Performance

The Palm Pre uses TI's OMAP 3430 processor, clocked somewhere around 600MHz. The OMAP 3430 uses an ARM Cortex A8 core. The iPhone 3G uses an ARM11 based processor running at somewhere around 400MHz (thank you guys for the correction). The ARM11 in the iPhone 3G is a much older design than the Cortex A8 in the Palm Pre. Both processors are in-order architectures, but while the ARM11 was a single-issue chip the Cortex A8 is dual-issue.

The ARM11 has an 8 stage integer pipeline compared to a 13 stage integer pipeline in the Cortex A8, so the A8 loses some of its advantage there but makes up for it with its superscalar nature. There should be no contest when it comes to performance between these two chips, the Pre's Cortex A8 has the clear advantage. It's why Palm is able to enable pre-emptive multitasking while the iPhone pretty much can't.

The recently announced iPhone 3GS does address the performance issue, presumably by introducing a Cortex A8 based processor to the iPhone 3G. Apple is claiming significant improvements in battery life for everything but 3G talk time with the new iPhone. What this tells me is that Apple did a great job squeezing the most performance per watt out of its ARM11 based processor in the iPhone 3G. The new iPhone 3GS should have performance levels simliar to the Palm Pre, but if Apple's numbers are to be believed it means that battery life will go up significantly.

For Palm this means that there is a lot of room left on the table to improve battery life. In most of my interaction with the Pre I've gotten the impression that if Palm only had a few more months the Pre would be significantly more polished, I suspect that battery life falls under that observation as well.

Other Pre Notes

When I compare the T-Mobile G1 to the iPhone 3G it's no contest, Apple's smartphone takes the cake. The G1 feels more like the smartphones that existed before the iPhone rather than something competitive with it. With the Palm Pre however, it's difficult to make such an apples-to-apples comparison. In many ways the Pre falls short of the iPhone, but in others it's completely untouched by Apple's offering. I'm nowhere near my conclusion but I don't think I'll see a clear victor in this review.

The Palm Pre brings multitasking to the smartphone market better than any of its predecessors. It's almost as if Apple did it. I say almost because the implementation isn't as polished as I'd like. Despite the significant performance advantage of the Pre's CPU, the multitasking just isn't as smooth as I'd want it to be. I'm guessing battery life isn't the only thing Palm could stand to optimize on the Pre.

What the Pre lacks is what the original iPhone had going for it: mastery of key features. The Pre does many things but it does very few things well. The original iPhone on the other hand didn't do a lot, but what it did do, it did better than any other phone on the market. Palm comes very close to achieving that, but I think it needs another 6 months with the Pre to produce the level of polish I feel is necessary to pose a true threat to Apple.

What is truly striking about the Pre is how far Palm was able to take it. Going from Palm's position to truly out-innovating Apple is a serious accomplishment. There are things about the Pre that even Apple's iPhone 3GS can't touch.

More in the review to come...

The press releases for these sorts of systems almost read like another language, and that’s saying something considering we routinely throw around acronyms and buzzwords here at AnandTech. MIL-STD 810F and IP54 standards for ruggedness? I suppose I could look up what those standards mean, but essentially they say these laptops can take a beating and withstand harsh environments without failing. I’m not even sure we’re equipped to test these things properly, at least in terms of ruggedness, as pounding on a laptop until it breaks and doing so in a repeatable manner is beyond the scope of our reviews. (Maybe we could take six months and run around in Iraq or Afghanistan, then report our results?) In that sense, the reviews almost write themselves: list the various standards a laptop meets, give the spec table, and we’re done. We would of course perform some standardized benchmarking, so we could find out what sort of differences there are in terms of display quality, battery life, and performance. So again, we ask: are ruggedized laptop reviews something you would like to see?

To go along with that question, here are some details about a couple recently announced ruggedized notebooks. First up we have the spec sheet from the GammaTech Durabook R13S/RTV7 (the focus is on the R13S, with the RTV7 being a tablet design).

See what we mean about the various standards for ruggedness? Outside of the rugged aspect, however, it should also be readily apparent that these are not high-performance notebooks by any stretch of the imagination. The Core 2 Duo U7500 runs at a paltry 1.06 GHz. That should still outperform the Intel Atom processors (by a pretty wide margin in some cases), and it should help with battery life, but you wouldn’t want to do any CPU intensive work on such a slow system. We should also note that GammaTech appears to be first and foremost a supplier of government notebooks. Let’s take a look at another company that caters more to end-users rather than large businesses/corporations/governments.

Getac specializes in ruggedized notebooks and PDAs. They’ve recently updated their V100, which already included some interesting features. One item that immediately jumps out as being different from any other notebook I’ve ever tested is the LCD, with LED backlighting rated at up to 1200 nits! As a point of reference, that’s over four times brighter than the brightest notebook I’ve ever tested (the Dell Studio XPS 16) and over twice as bright as any desktop LCD I’ve tested. Brighter doesn’t necessarily mean better in terms of color accuracy and contrast ratio, but if you plan on working outside (in a bright desert environment as an example), a 1200 nits LCD would almost be required. Yes, I also have to wonder what that will do to battery life.

Most of the other upgrades correspond to the availability of newer parts -- bigger hard drives, 802.11n wireless, more RAM, and a faster processor. The original V100 supported up to a U7600 (1.2GHz, 2MB shared, 533FSB, 65nm) and the new version now supports the SU9400 (1.4GHz , 3MB shared, 800FSB, 45nm). ExpressCard is also available now. The complete press release for the updated Getac V100 follows. We expect pricing to be in the realm of $3000 or more, depending on options.

GETAC UPGRADES ITS POPULAR V100 NOTEBOOK/TABLET PC WITH SEVEN NEW PERFORMANCE ENHANCING FEATURES

Extra Memory, Storage, and Communications Upgrades Adds Performance to Fully-Rugged Mobile PC with Super Bright 1200 NITS LED Display

LAKE FOREST, CA. June 2, 2009 -- Getac Inc., a leading innovator and manufacturer of rugged computers that meet the demands of field-based applications, is upgrading its popular V100 fully rugged convertible with seven new features. The latest enhancements to Getac’s V100 fully rugged convertible include processor and memory upgrades, greater storage capacities and enhanced bandwidth and wireless capabilities.

“The V100 fully rugged convertible has been very popular because of its advanced feature set and super bright 1200 NITs screen,” said Jim Rimay, president, Getac, Inc. “With better performance, memory, storage and wireless capabilities, the new Getac V100 is more advanced and flexible as ever and even better suited for mobile field workers and users of rugged notebook PCs.”

The new performance enhancing features include a processor upgrade from 1.2 GHz Intel Merom to 1.4 GHz Intel Penryn. The front side bus has been increased from 533 MHz to 800 MHz; and the 2MB L2 cache has been increased to 3MB. Memory on the V100’s RAM has increased from 2GB to 4GB. Storage capacities have been increased from a minimum HDD of 120GB to a minimum of 160GB and a maximum capacity increase from 250GB to 320GB. In addition, the computer’s wireless networking capabilities have been upgraded to include draft 802.11n and the V100 now offers an ExpressCard slot in the standard configuration.

In addition, the Getac V100 has been UL 1604 certified by Underwriters Laboratories, an independent lab that tests products to ensure public safety. The optional UL 1604 certification allows safe, spark-free use of the V100 in potentially explosive environments typically found in the oil and gas, petrochemical, aviation and other industries.

The transformable Getac V100 features a swiveling LED screen for the ultimate in portability. It also features a Magnesium Alloy design, shock mounted hard disk drive and sealed I/O caps and doors to prevent damage from solid particles. Although it weighs a mere 4.9 pounds, the V100 is rough-and-tumble enough to withstand even the harshest working environments. It is fully compliant with MIL-STD 810F and IP54 standards for ruggedness including the ability to withstand heavy rain, airborne dust and debris. For further protection, the convertible notebook/tablet PC has a removable hard drive that is shielded by a special mechanism to prevent damage during operation; anti vibration compounds, which serve as a shock absorber during transport; and an anti-shock housing to further protect it if bumped or dropped.

The V100 also offers its Sunlight Readable Technology and can be upgraded to an industry-leading super-bright 1,200 NITs display, which provides unmatched outdoor viewability and screen brightness while decreasing reflectivity thus preserving battery life. Combined with an active anti-reflective process based on circular polarization to absorb reflective light, the V100’s Sunlight Readable Technology enables viewability that is more than six times better* than competing solutions and creates a mercury-free solution. Other features include 10/100/1000 Ethernet, integrated GPS and Bluetooth. It also features a waterproof keyboard and an SD card slot.

Okay, on to the poll that I mentioned earlier. There are two questions I want to ask, and they are not necessarily related. The first deals with ruggedized notebooks and whether you would like to see us review such a system (or systems). The second question deals more with laptops/notebooks in general. I’d just like to know specifically what type of laptops you are most interested in seeing us review, including ruggedized notebooks as an option. As always, feel free to leave a comment explaining your choices, particularly if our options don’t exactly match what you’re thinking.

Gigabyte had a slew of new product introductions at Computex this year. In fact, the sheer number of new or revised products on display was a bit dizzying at times. While we love seeing new product introductions, the most important aspect of Gigabyte's impressive wall of boards is the number of current products being revised or updated. This shows us that not only is Gigabyte serious about continual improvement, but the fact they are confident enough in the market turning around shortly to make the investment in these upgrades. Of course, the downside is that our wallets end up lighter but hey that is what makes the world go around today.

The first platform from Gigabyte to receive a refresh is the X58 series of motherboards. From the Extreme board down to the lower mid-range UD4 series, Gigabyte is planning a complete update to this product line in the coming weeks. The GA-EX58A-Extreme and GA-EX58A-UD5 is sporting Gigabyte's new 24-phase power delivery system. We are still skeptical about the benefits of phase counts over 12 (especially good ones) on this platform, but the engineers made a compelling case for improved overclocking and stability when running high Bclk rates on this platform. Regardless, other features such as the new DES2 technology, four Marvell 6Gb/s SATA ports, dual LAN with auto-switching ports, and improved memory performance is what caught our eye and will be of greater value to the users.

The GA-EX58A-UD4 appears to be a very solid design and is a board we cannot wait to test. It also features the Marvell 6Gb/s SATA controller but with two ports, the new smart dual LAN auto-switching technology, DES2, a robust 12-phase power delivery system, and Gigabyte's new Smart 6 Technology package. The Smart 6 package consists of Smart Recovery (similar to Windows roll-back points but smarter), Smart Recorder (logging security system), Smart Time Lock (set variable PC usage periods for a shared system), Smart QuickBoost (auto overclocking gates), Smart DualBIOS (password and date manager, yes, BIOS wording does not make sense), and Smart QuickBoot.

Out of all of these it was Smart QuickBoot that caught our attention. This program consists of two features, BIOS QuickBoot and OS QuickBoot. BIOS Quick Boot allows your system fast track past the normal BIOS routine if changes to the BIOS have not been made after three successful boots. This will typically save 10 seconds or more off a typical POST process. The OS QuickBoot forces the system to go into a modified S3 routine upon OS shutdown and enables a quick resume feature, similar to ASRock's Instant Boot technology.

Another product line receiving a substantial makeover is the Intel G41/G45 based motherboards. Intel is starting to push the revised G41 products in the lower end uATX market as a viable competitor to AMD's excellent 780G and upcoming 785G product lineups. We think the 785G is going to be the chipset to have in the budget uATX sector and its feature set is significantly more advanced than the G41, especially when it comes to video and storage performance. However, for those users who are loyal to Intel, they finally have a very good alternative in this market sector besides the anemic 945G.

Gigabyte is launching several different G41 product updates with the GA-EG41M-US2H being at top of their G41 product offerings. It features DES power savings technology, Ultra Durable 3 Classic hardware technology, dual channel DDR2-800 memory support, Intel GMA X4500 integrated graphics with HDMI output, Gigabit LAN, and an 8-channel HD audio codec. The only drawback is the ICH7 with four SATA ports, although this should be plenty for the SOHO crowd, we would have preferred the ICH10.

Also launching is the GA-EG45M-UD2H board based on the G45 chipset. The primary difference between this board and the G41 US2H is the GMA X4500HD graphics capability that features full hardware acceleration for H.264 titles and support for 1600FSB and DDR2-1066. We understand that Intel is considering (rumor alert) moving the GMA X4500HD playback capabilities into a revised G41 chipset next year when H55 ships. In the meantime, a decent processor like the E6300 can handle H.264 playback just fine on the G41 chipset.

We covered the 785G specifications in detail here. As an update, we understand that AMD has BD picture in picture working now and it might be a shipping feature, with heavy emphasis on it might be a shipping feature. Gigabyte will also be one of the launch day partners with AMD when the 785G ships in the coming months (hearing September/October). Gigabyte is planning to have several 785G variants ready in both uATX and ATX form factors. The one we are looking forward to is the uATX based GA-MA785GPM-UD2H featuring the HD 4200 IG, dual channel DDR2-1200 support, 128MB DDR3 Side Port memory, ALC 889a 8-channel HD audio with Dolby Home Theater, HDIM output, and the SB710 Southbridge.

Last, but not least, is the upcoming P55 product. Gigabyte plans to be very aggressive in this particular market with several products covering the entry level (GA-EP55-UD3R) and mid-range (GA-EP55-UD4P) user, to the enthusiast (GA-EP55-UD5). They had several boards displayed that met each particular market segment and this time we gravitated to the entry level GA-EP55-UD3R pictured right above. The UD3R features two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots (x8/x8 CF/SLI), three PCIe x1 slots, two PCI slots, dual Gigabit LAN with auto-switching, eSATA, two port Marvell 6Gb/s SATA, and Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 3 technology. We think this board and the GA-EP55-UD3P will hit the sweet spot in the P55 market just as their GA-EP45-UD3P did in the S775 market.

From initial indications, it appears Gigabyte has one of the stronger product lineups scheduled for this summer and fall. While we concentrated on motherboards, Gigabyte also displayed a wide variety of Netbooks, Ultra Thin Notebooks, PC cases, power supplies, input devices, and video cards.

ASRock is formally introducing both new products and product lines at Computex this year. ASRock has always been one of our favorite motherboard companies over the past few years. The reason, they tend to innovate and take chances in what has become a commoditized market while still being a value leader. Now, at times these risks have paid off tremendously with unique products like the 775Dual-VSTA that offered early adopters of the Core 2 processor series a chance to utilize their DDR and AGP video cards from prior generation platforms.

At other times some of their product introductions were a bit quirky even for the alternative market but at least they take chances and if a product does not pan out they move on to something different having learned a lesson. While some of ASRock's more recent Intel or AMD based products are in alignment with other value offerings from the likes of Biostar, Jetway, or ECS, they still focus on ensuring excellent price to performance ratios.  This along with offering solid technical support, great feature sets, and good customer service is something that we highly value in a company. I know, this sounds like another Internet commercial, but if you have tried a recent board like the A780GMH/128M, then I think you will tend to agree with us on this subject.

AMD will be launching the successor to the highly acclaimed 780G chipset in the coming months and ASRock will be one of the first manufacturers out of the gate with the 785G. Originally known as the 880G, AMD decided (wisely) to change the nomenclature after testing revealed that performance was not worthy of a full point revision. This is not to disparage the 780G (HD 3200 GPU) or the clock speed enhanced 790GX (HD 3300 GPU) performance capabilities as overall IG performance is still better than the NVIDIA GF8200/8300 or Intel G4x series, not to mention the value aspect when paired with one of AMD's latest processors.

The new graphics core is called the HD 4200 and features several incremental improvements including the 55nm RV620 core with support for DX10.1 and UVD2.  The 785G also supports AMD OverDrive 3 Fusion, PowerPlay, and HyperTransport 3. It appears core clock speeds will remain at 500MHz so any performance differences will be incremental with estimated (behind closed door testing on early drivers) improvements being in the 6%~10% range on average.

The big news for those in the HTPC arena is that this chipset supports the current UVD 2.0 feature set on the 4000 series discrete GPUs which means 8-channel LPCM audio out finally comes to an integrated AMD/ATI chipset. Granted we do not get native Dolby True HD / DTS-HD MA decoding yet, but at least AMD matches NVIDIA and Intel in offering similar HD video and audio features now. The majority of the boards will feature the SB710 Southbridge that features working Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) for improved overclocking or unlocking that third or fourth core on the Phenom II X2/X3 processor series. We have heard that a couple of manufacturers will probably use the SB750 that provides RAID5 support missing on the SB710.

The ASRock M3A785GXH/128M features the 785G and SB710 chipset combination along with DDR3-1600 support, 128MB DDR3 SidePort memory, CrossFireX capability, Realtek ALC890 HD audio, Gigabit LAN, and IEEE 1394a along with DVI, HDMI, and VGA output.  The one item we do not like is the first PCIe x1 slot being partially blocked by the heatsink, otherwise we look forward to seeing what ASRock can do with the 785G chipset.

Next up is the ASRock P55 Deluxe board based on, you guessed it, the upcoming Intel P55 chipset. ASRock plans on entry level P55 boards but this one is loaded out. It features their new "Advance V16 Power Phase Design", up to DDR3 2000 capability, 3 PCIE 2.0 x 16 slots (8x/8x/4x) for 3-Way SLI or tri-CrossFireX, dual Gigabit LAN with teaming, IEEE 1394a, ALC890 (full DTS support), and powered eSATA/USB connectors. ASRock will also be throwing in a CMOS Switch, Power Switch, POST LED, and Reset Switch for those who like to run the board outside of the case. The board will also ship with an exclusive ASRock USB 3.0 expansion card and an enthusiast oriented BIOS for your overclocking adventures. The color scheme is very similar to their X58 motherboard and is still a little over the top for us, but it does get noticed.

One of the new product lines ASRock announced is the NetTop S330 and ION 330 featuring the Intel 945GC/IC7 and NVIDIA ION chipsets respectively. Both of these systems feature the Intel Atom 330 Dual Core processor, 2.5" Hard Drives, Super Multi Slim DVD drives, DDR2 memory, Gigabit LAN, 5.1 HD audio, and 65W external power bricks. The ION 330 is geared towards the entry level HD user with hardware assisted 1080P playback and just enough muscle to handle older casual gaming titles. Both systems feature ASRock's unique Instant Boot technology, overclocking options (we will try to break current i7 records shortly), dual-channel memory support up to 4GB, and fairly robust board designs.

Last, but not least is ASRock's new MultiBook product family featuring the G32 and M15 series. After several critiques of potential notebook products at CeBIT this year, ASRock decided to launch the MultiBook series this month with these two models. The G32 is based on a CULV design with a 12.1" panel featuring a 1366x768 resolution, Intel's Montevina CULV 723 processor, GS40/ICH9M SFF chipset combo, 320GB SATA 2.5" drive, Gigabit LAN, 802.11b/g/n wireless capabilities, bluetooth 2.1+EDR, DVD Super Multi optical drive, HDMI/VGA output, and 1.3 megapixel FF CMOS Webcam. The unit comes in a gloss white or black finish and includes ASRock's Multi-Touch trackpad technology.

The M15 is a standard notebook design with a 15.6" screen featuring 1366x768 resolution, Intel T1400 Dual Core cpu, GL40/ICH9M chipsets, 160GB 2.5" SATA drive, 6 cell battery, DVD optical drive, Gigabit LAN, 802.11b/g/n wireless capabilities, 1.3M Webcam, and comes in any color imaginable as long as it is black.

Intel is introducing new Ultra-Low Voltage (ULV) processors, Core 2 Duo processors, a speed bumped Standard Voltage (SV) processor, and finally a value based chipset (Mobile Intel GS40 Express) not based on the 945 chipset technology. These products join the recently released Intel ULV Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Solo processors based on Centrino 2 processor technology and Centrino processor technology respectively.

The new processors being introduced today are the T9900, P9700, P8800, and SU2700. The SU2700 processor features a 1.3GHz clock speed, 2MB L2 Cache, 800FSB, and a TDP around 10W that should easily enable very thin (0.8”-1”) laptops with substantially longer battery life (around 8 hours with a 57WHr battery) in the sub $1000 market sector. The T9900 is the new dual core performance leader in the ULV market with a clock speed of 3.06GHz, 6MB L2 cache, 1066FSB, and a power TDP around 35W. Intel is also releasing the P9700 at 2.80GHz with the same features as the T9900 but with a 25W TDP rating. The P8800 features a dual core design, 2.66GHz clock speed, 1066FSB, 3MB cache, and a 25W TDP rating.  Pricing for the new processors were not available and instead we received the standard platform cost ranges that these processors will be utilized in.

The new GS40 Express chipset is a cost reduced version of the GS45 and is aimed specifically at the new ultra-thin laptop market with the following features.

• Improved game playability with more execution units (10, as compared to 8 in previous generation) However, gaming performance is still limited to older casual game titles but does fine with Flash based games and similar titles.  The GS40 chipset does support Switchable Graphics technology on the Centrino 2 based platform that allows the system to switch from the integrated GMA 4500M to a discrete solution from AMD or NVIDIA.
  
• Enhanced Intel Clear Video Technology with software features including ProcAmp, high-quality scaling, film-mode detection and correction, MPEG2, and WMV9 hardware acceleration..
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M offers a graphics core frequency of 400MHz (compared to 533MHz on the GS45) and up to 384 MB of video memory.
• Integrated HD playback (Blu-ray) with native hardware-based decoding of HD video streams (AVC, VC1, MPEG). Native support for digital displays with Integrated HDMI with HDCP key.
• FSB support set at 800MHz (compared to 1066MHz on the GS45) and supports both DDR3 and DDR2. 
• Intel's Turbo Memory is also supported on the Centrino 2 units and has been updated to support a high speed 2GB NAND module that can improve battery life, boot times, resume functions, performance in some cases.
  

"Thin is In" was the mantra in Intel's press briefing today.

Intel believes the next big wave in notebook design (with Netbooks leveling off in the near future) will be very thin consumer laptop PC designs with long battery life, well rounded performance, and all of this at mainstream price points. In other words, an Apple MacBook Air persona with prices ranging from $499 to $1299.

Intel's internal focus groups performed several studies over the course of the last year and found in their research that portable devices like UMPCs or Netbooks are twice as likely to be taken outside of the home than standard laptops. Over 55% of the respondents indicated that device size and weight were among the primary reasons for keeping a laptop at home.

Intel also provided outside analysis that indicates the strongest growth in the Consumer laptop market will come from the sub 14-inch and greater than 16-inch panel designs. Intel considers any portable PCs with screen sizes below 10.2" to be a Netbook or possibly a UMPC design at the very low end. They are targeting the 11.6" and 13.3" panel market for their ultra thin notebook technology at this point. In fact, their internal estimates indicate that up to 20% of the portable market will be ultra-thin designs by the end of this year.

The Mobile PC market continues to grow at a steady pace with over 50% of PC shipments being mobile products as of late 2008 with the trend continuing this year and then reaching a 70% peak rate in 2013. Intel truly believes (we have heard the same from AMD) that the PC market will start to take off again by the middle of 2010 with double digit growth returning for the near future.

Of course, besides pushing the Ultra-Thin notebook design today, Intel also discussed performance and battery life with the new ULV processors. Their test system, an Acer Aspire 3810T with the 1.40GHz SU9400, GS45 chipset, 2GB DDR3-800, Seagate 250GB 5400RPM drive, 13.3" panel, 56W Battery, and Vista Home Premium was able to last 485 minutes when running the MobileMark 2007 Office Productivity test suite with a new beta BIOS from Phoenix Technologies that is optimized for the new ULV processors.

Intel is still heavily promoting WiMAX as the future in wireless communication, especially when paired with a mobile device like a Netbook or Ultra-Thin notebook (editor - especially when utilizing their chipsets). Although the WiMAX roll out time line and estimated number of Pops have been hurt by the worldwide recession, Intel still projects significant growth in this market through 2014. It appears at this time that the Russian and Taiwanese markets are experiencing the greatest growth trends in both users and infrastructure build out. Intel commented that 16 OEMs have announced full embedded WiMAX support for their laptop models with promises that over 100 different models should offer WiMAX capabilities by the end of this year.

The WePC Update

I've been working on a side project with ASUS called WePC.com. The idea is pretty cool: ASUS is tapping the community for ideas on what they'd like to see from its users in future notebook designs. I wrote about this at the end of last year but I've done a lot of work on it since then so I thought it'd be worthy of an update.

Last week I wrote about how simple it was to build a HTPC with a nice interface thanks to maturing integrated graphics platforms and good media center plugins. I also talked about the future arrival of Westmere and when the best time would be to buy your next laptop. Around the Athlon X2 7850 launch I talked about replacing aging PCs on a budget and seeing some pretty good performance results.

The netbook market is a very fast growing one so I broke out the crystal ball and tried to figure out where it was all going. I touched on NVIDIA v. Intel, the purported death of the desktop, SSD capacities and styling from a company other than Apple. It turns out I've written quite a bit over there, so check it out and join the discussion.

I’m working on SSDs Again

A couple major things have happened since my last in-depth look at SSDs. For starters, some drives now support the almighty Trim command. Both OCZ’s Vertex (and other Indilinx based drives) as well as the new Samsung drives should support Trim. Obviously you need the right firmware and you need an OS (or a utility) that supports Trim to take advantage of it, but it’s there and admittedly it’s there much earlier than expected.

That’s a good thing for drives like the new Samsung ones (Corsair’s new SSD is based on this drive) because their worst case scenario used performance is just bad. I’ve briefly touched on this in previous articles, but Samsung’s controllers don’t appear to do a good job of managing the used scenario I’ve been testing with. Thankfully, the latest controller’s support for Trim should help alleviate this issue. I’m still working on figuring out how to identify if a drive properly supports Trim or not.

I’ve also received the new OCZ Vertex EX (SLC) drives as well as the 30GB and 60GB variants of the MLC Vertex drives. The former is too expensive for most consumers but I’ll be putting it up against the X25-M to see how it fares in a high end desktop, all while trying to get enough together for Johan to do a proper enterprise level test. The 30/60GB Vertex drives are spec’d for lower write speeds so I’m going to be testing those (finally) to see what the real world impact is.

I can’t help but mention Windows 7 at this point, because I *really* want to switch to it for all of my SSD testing. Windows 7 is far more reliable from a performance standpoint. Although our recent article showed that it’s not really any faster than Vista, my SSD testing has shown that it’s at least more consistent with its performance results. Part of this I attribute to Windows 7 doing more intelligent grouping of its background tasks than Vista ever did, although it is surprising to me that we’re not seeing noticeably better battery life as a result.

How much would you guys hate me if I switched to Windows 7 sooner rather than later?

Nehalem Mac Pro: Upgrading CPUs

I actually finished testing the new Nehalem based Mac Pro several weeks ago, but in keeping up with tradition I had to see if it was possible to upgrade the CPUs on the new Mac Pro.

Indeed it is, but it’s a bit more complicated than you’d think.

Apple makes two models of the Mac Pro, one with two sockets and one with only a single LGA-1366 socket. The two socket model, often referred to as the 8-core Mac Pro, actually uses Nehalem CPUs without any heatspreaders. I suspect this is to enable them to run at their more aggressive turbo modes more frequently (high end Xeons can turbo up to higher frequencies than regular Xeons or the Core i7). The single socket model uses standard Xeons with heatspreaders, so there’s nothing special there.

I actually managed to kill a processor card doing the CPU swap but I’ve taken the hit so you all don’t have to :) It’ll all be included in the article, I’m simply waiting on a replacement heatsink since an integrated thermal sensor got damaged during the initial swap. For now just know that it is possible to upgrade the CPUs in these things and it’s not too difficult to, you just need to know what to expect and to be patient.

If you’re on the fence of buying today, opt for the slower CPUs and upgrade later if you’d like. And if you already have a good Mac Pro and aren’t terribly CPU bound, save the money and buy SSDs instead - in many cases the performance improvement is far greater. Once again, I’ll address all of this in the article itself.

Nehalem-EX: 2.3 billion transistors, eight cores, one die

I spent about 45 minutes on a conference call with Intel yesterday talking about the new Nehalem-EX processor for multi-socket servers. Here’s a crude picture of the die:

That's 2.3 billion transistors thanks to 8 Nehalem cores and a 24MB L3 cache

Nehalem-EX, which I’ve spoken about before, is an 8-core version of Nehalem. It is not socket-compatible with existing Nehalem platforms as it has four QPI links (up from two in the LGA-1366 Xeon versions). The four QPI links enable it to be used in up to 8-socket systems for massive 64-core / 128-thread servers.

Four socket Nehalem-EX platform

Remember that the Nehalem architecture was optimized for four cores, but it was designed to scale up to 8-cores and down to 2. As such, the Nehalem-EX is actually a monolithic 8-core processor with a gigantic 24MB L3 cache shared between all 8 cores. Also remember that Intel wanted a minimum of 2MB of L3 cache per core, so Nehalem-EX actually goes above and beyond that with 3MB per core if all cores are sharing the cache equally.

Hyper Threading is supported, so that’s 16-threads per 8-core chip. I’d also expect some pretty interesting Turbo modes on an 8-core Nehalem.

Eight socket Nehalem-EX platform, note that the CPUs connect through SMBs before getting to main memory. Say goodbye to FB-DIMMs, but hello to on-motherboard buffers.

The memory controllers are a bit different with the Nehalem-EX. Each socket supports up to 16 DIMMs, but instead of supporting FB-DIMMs Intel moved the memory buffer onto the motherboard. The Nehalem-EX memory controllers communicate directly to memory buffers (Intel calls them Scalable Memory Buffers) which in turn communicate directly to standard DDR3 memory. This is a much preferred approach as it keeps expensive, slow and power hungry FB-DIMMs out of the majority of the server market where it doesn’t make sense and enables large memory installation on these gigantic servers with 64 DIMM slots.

Intel expects to be shipping Nehalem-EX by the end of this year, with the first systems shipping at the beginning of 2010.

AnandTech Bench: Thanks for the Feedback

I made a post last week about me adding the Atom 230 and 330 to AnandTech Bench and shortly thereafter received a tremendous amount of very useful feedback.

I agree completely that we need to get rid of the “shorter bars mean better performance” metrics, as well as tidy up the interface a bit. I need to hammer out a list of specs but it does help to have your feedback and you can expect to see much of what you’ve asked for in future versions of the app.

I also asked to see what sorts of older CPUs you’d like to see included, and to my surprise there was a lot of demand for very old CPUs like the Pentium III or Athlon XP. I tallied up all of the responses and by far the single most requested CPU was the Athlon XP (granted if you added up all the different Pentium 4 variants that would easily take the cake).

As a result I’m going to be dusting off an old Athlon XP system, in addition to a single-core Hyper Threaded Pentium 4 as well as VIA’s Nano and will be running benchmarks on all three over the coming weeks.

Many of you also want a mobile CPU version of bench; rest assured, I do too. Let me see about getting these older desktop CPUs in first and then I’ll work on mobile.

That’s all for now. Hopefully I’ve provided a good taste of what’s to come in the not too distant future.

The original article crowned the Zotac Ion as the best Atom based mini-ITX board I’d ever encountered. It wasn’t a hard feat to accomplish, after all, there are only two other Atom based mini-ITX boards on the market and neither one offers a real GPU.

The first follow up addressed questions that readers of the first article had. Looking into things like the overclocking potential of the platform and additional detail on power consumption.

The second follow up addressed the Zotac’s wake-on-USB support, or lack thereof. Today I’m publishing what I hope to be my last update on this hardware until I get a new revision, but as always if there’s something you’d like to know don’t hesitate to ask.

Wake-on-USB Support: The Explanation

Zotac has been very proactive with getting me updates on its motherboard, I have their excellent North American PR rep to thank for that :)

As I mentioned in the last update, the Zotac Ion board won’t wake up from a S3 sleep state after activity on a USB device (e.g. moving your mouse, hitting a button on a media center remote, etc...). Zotac listed the problem as being a hardware issue that won’t get fixed until the next revision of the motherboard; early adopters are out of luck. I now have an explanation as to why.

The USB ports on the current version of the motherboard (PCB version 00) are powered by the 5V rail from the motherboard. When the motherboard goes into a S3 sleep state, 5V power is shut off, so the USB ports are completely off.

In the next revision of the motherboard (PCB version 01) standby power will be connected to the USB ports, allowing the ports to still be alive when the board is in S3. The manual shows you where you can identify what PCB revision you have.

I’m guessing externally powered USB hubs are able to pull the system out of sleep since the USB device is still on, but a USB device connected directly to the motherboard will be completely powerless in S3. The explanation makes sense to me; if you were wondering, now you know.

Flash Video Playback on the Ion: Delving Deeper

I personally get most of my “TV” from Hulu so I completely understand the desire to know how well Intel’s Atom and the Ion platform in general perform when playing back Flash Video.

A few readers requested that I look deeper into the Ion’s FLV performance, especially when the Ion was overclocked. I had some spare time today so I did just that.

In my first follow up article I found that the Ion could play, without a problem, standard sized 360p and 480p Hulu videos. Attempting to increase the video window size to full screen yielded a highly unplayable video. I wanted to investigate further.

I used the latest version of Adobe’s Flash 10 player as well as Internet Explorer 8 under Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit. With a desktop resolution of 1360 x 768 I tried five tests:

1) 360p, video window popped out and maximized to desktop resolution
2) 360p in Hulu’s full screen mode
3) 480p, video window popped out and maximized to desktop resolution
4) 480p in Hulu’s full screen mode
5) 720p playing a Hulu HD video

I ran the five tests in two configurations; first with the Atom 330 at its default 1.60GHz clock speed and second with the Atom overclocked to 1.92GHz (the highest stable frequency I could overclock the Atom to).

My impressions are in the table below:

While hardware acceleration was enabled in the Adobe Flash Player 10 settings, I can’t say that I noticed a performance difference with it enabled or disabled. I’m not really sure what it’s doing but it definitely didn’t help keep my framerate smooth when upscaling video.

CPU utilization was around 64% when watching a 360p stream in a maximized window

The only situation I would consider 360p full screen Hulu to be passable is when the system was overclocked to 1.92GHz. You’re far better off maximizing your browser window and dealing with the application border than running in Hulu’s seamless full screen mode.

Overclocking the Atom dropped it to 61%, a small difference but noticeable

I will note that Hulu has difficulty playing in full screen on much faster systems as well, so I’m not sure we can really blame the Atom or Ion for its performance limitations here. It appears that video scaling under Flash is just not very efficient.

Hulu HD was basically unwatchable thanks to a > 90% CPU utilization

The HD stream is unplayable at stock frequencies but not because of scaling issues, since there's actually much less scaling being done from 720p to 1360 x 768. The HD stream falls victim to the Atom's limited CPU power, which overclocking helps overcome. I do still think that HD Hulu playback is too much for even an Atom 330 unfortunately.

Overclocked, even HD hulu saw a benefit as CPU utilization dropped to below 80%

Overall the overclocking helped, but don’t expect any miracles. Be happy with smaller Hulu window sizes or be doomed to feel unfulfilled it seems. If NVIDIA wants a good case for CUDA, give us smooth FLV playback at any resolution and I'll be happy :)

With that said and done, it’s back to CPUs and SSDs for me.

BFG has a good reputation with the gaming market. What made you decide to branch into systems?

We looked at the current boutique PC market, and noticed that most high-end systems have case designs that are very "gamer-oriented". The majority of them are flashy—with lights, "gamer" case designs, or loud paint schemes that are targeted toward younger gamers. Unless you build it yourself, which many people can't or don't want to do, there didn't seem to be a refined, attractive system that would look great anywhere in your home. We wanted to design a system that would look just as good in your office or den as it would in your living room, next to a high-end audio system and widescreen TV. When we did some casual market research, we found that there seemed to be quite a few "graduated gamers" like us, who are a little bit older, still love to game and play with HD media, but didn't want a giant alien head or flashy paint job on their high-end system. I think a lot of wives and girlfriends out there might agree.

In addition to that, we realized BFG was in an ideal position to provide a high-end system that would compete with the current offerings out there, based on several factors. First, we have access to hundreds of thousands of graphics cards a year that we can cherry pick to put into our system. We are the only system builder who is also a major graphics card supplier. Second, being a graphics card and power supply provider we will quite often, if not always, be able to provide the latest graphics cards and PSUs in Phobos before other system builders. And our years of experience providing pre-overclocked cards fits in nicely with the innovative "one-touch overclocking" we offer with Phobos' touch screen LCD.

The Phobos is targeted towards "graduated gamers" - could you explain what goals you had in mind when designing for these customers?

We think there are a significant number of "graduated gamers" out there who either don't know how, don't have the time, or simply don't want to build their own system. This is supported by the success of the other boutique system builders currently in the same market.

Our "we do everything for you" system combined with our concierge service was a way for us to offer something more than the competition, while at the same time minimizing after sales tech support calls—which is good for both BFG and the customer. We believe the consumers who are interested in pre-built systems also appreciate not having to set everything up themselves, since most of these customers are not "do-it-yourself" people, but they still want all the performance of a powerful gaming/home theater system.

Could you elaborate on the overclocking option offered with the Phobos system? What levels (CPU speed, BCLK, memory) are attained with the air- and water-cooling configurations? Are the BFG GeForce GTX cards also overclocked?

We're very excited about the one-touch CPU/GPU overclocking function we've built into Phobos. We have a Performance Control screen on the touch panel LCD that allows a customer to put Phobos in one of three modes with the touch of a virtual button: Auto, Quiet, and Max. In Auto mode, the CPU and GPU function as they would in most systems—the graphics card fan will kick into higher RPMs when tasked with 3D applications like gaming and will slow down when doing non-taxing functions. In Quiet mode, the system (chassis fans, GPU fans, etc) will run as quietly as possible. This is great for watching movies, for example. Max mode is designed to bump up the clocks of the CPU and GPU to pre-set levels based on tests we've done with particular models of processors and GPUs.

The OC levels of the CPU and graphics cards are tied to each specific model's headroom and "overclockability". We've done extensive testing on each model we offer, so that we can program the custom software to control that particular model's clocks. So these numbers vary across models.

All versions of Phobos (Performance, Advanced, and Elite) come standard with maintenance-free, self-contained, liquid-cooled CPUs. Customers can request this same liquid-cooled solution for their graphics cards as an upgrade option.

Each system's graphics cards, including the GeForce GTX cards, come with standard clocks, which will overclock when Max mode is selected. We also offer Phobos OC versions of some cards, which will come pre-overclocked to what amounts to our OC2 level. If Max mode in the Performance Control screen is selected with a Phobos OC card, it will overclock to what amounts to our OCX level cards.

How does the in-home setup and maintenance program work?

Once a customer's system is built, burned in, and tested, we ship the system to a local technician assigned to the customer's zip code. This technician will deliver and install Phobos in the customer's residence after pre-arranging a date with them. This is included in the cost of the system.

The technician will get Phobos up and running and even start transferring music, photo, or video files from another system for the customer. And within six months, they'll go back out to update drivers and clean their Phobos system—which is also included in the initial purchase price.

One of the primary focuses of the Phobos seems to be customer support. Are technical support personnel for the Phobos trained on the system? Will the in-home authorized service personnel also have training experience on the Phobos prior to installation?

The technicians have been trained on the Phobos system. They know how to set it up, whether as a straightforward gaming system, or as a part of a home theater setup. They are also trained as field repair/replace techs should there ever be any issues or requests for upgraded parts. Our goal with the Concierge Service is to treat customers with "white gloves" and "red carpet". In other words, we want to take care of everything for the customer, so they can start enjoying their new system as fast and as hassle-free as possible.

The warranty policy states, "Any opening of the computer's case will immediately void this warranty". Will BFG provide services to upgrade the Phobos with aftermarket components (e.g. memory, hard drives, optical drives)? If so, is this included in the price of the system?

Within the six months or so between the installation and the follow-up visit, a Phobos customer can call us and request upgrades to key components. If the request is within the six-month window, there would be no charge for the visit, but they would pay for the hardware. After the six-month follow up visit has occurred, we'll charge a nominal fee to have a technician come out to perform the upgrade service.

Can we expect to see other BFG systems in the future?

We are always looking to expand our product line if it makes sense to do so. Our focus at the moment, however, is making Phobos the best system customers can buy with the best customer service and support.

Can BFG compete with existing boutique computer vendors? Given their background and plans for in-home service, coupled with a price that is commensurate with the level of support offered, we think so. As you might guess, these systems won't come cheap, and they aren't for people that just want a basic office PC. They're stylish and utilize some of the fastest components currently available. If you want to find out more or are interested in configuring your own Phobos system, head over to the BFG Systems site, and if you'd like to see AnandTech review one of these systems, please leave a comment.

We visited with Gigabyte last month at their North American Overclocking Championship 2009 event where the winner will proceed to the world championship event during Computex 2009. This event featured hardware from Intel, NVIDIA, Kingston, and Enermax along with some spectacular results.

Gigabyte has been busy on another front as they have been working closely with AMD and OCZ in providing motherboards, processors, memory, and power supplies to some of the top overclockers on the AMD side of the fence. While not a formal event like the Intel sponsored event, the results with AMD hardware have been just as exciting if not more so at times. Gigabyte teamed up with Brian McLachlan (Chew*) to see how far the AMD Phenom II 955 BE processor along with Gigabyte's GA-MA790FXT-UD5P and GA-MA790FX-UD5P Ultra Durable 3 equipped motherboards could be overclocked with a variety of cooling means ranging from air to LN2.

The results were impressive as top scores were obtained in the 3DMark06 benchmark with AMD's HD 4890 and HD 4850 video cards on Gigabyte's 790FX equipped motherboards. A direct link to the video showing the clocking results and some skateboarding skills is located here. We will have our review up on these motherboards in the near future, in the meantime, they make an excellent platform for the Phenom II processors.