AMD

Following the recent leak of a 1.9GHz A8-3530MX CPU/GPU combo from chipmaker AMD, the company has now officially announced its new line of processors, the A-series. Though we're likely to still call them CPUs, these chips actually combine a traditional CPU and discrete-level GPU. AMD calls this combination of CPU and GPU an APU, or Accelerated Processing Unit. Formerly, the A-series was known under the code name Llano.

We've previously been impressed with the lower-end E-series CPU/GPU combo, most often seen in the form of the E-350 CPU/Radeon HD 6310 GPU found in 11-inch … Read more

Microsoft is placing "troublesome" restrictions on hardware makers working on Windows 8 tablets, according to both Acer's president and its CEO.

Speaking yesterday at the Computex trade show in Taiwan, Acer President Jim Wong said Microsoft had chosen five chip manufacturers--Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments--to provide processors for the next generation of Windows tablets, according to The Wall Street Journal. Taking it a step further, Microsoft then decided to limit each chipmaker to supplying chips to no more than two hardware makers, a move that Wong sees as restrictive.

"The industry does … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices said this week that it has shipped about 5 million of its power-efficient Fusion processors to date, as it makes inroads thanks to Intel's fading Netbook franchise.

Traditional Netbooks are minimalist, typically sub-$350 laptops that average about 3 pounds and feature Intel's power-frugal Atom processors. But the specially designated category of Netbooks is fading as more companies and consumers gravitate to plain old small laptops, minus the Netbook nomenclature and minus Intel's Atom. And, as many analysts are saying of late, the surge of consumer interest in tablets, like Apple's iPad, is … Read more

According to Turkish Web site Donanimhaber, which has successful track record of finding component leaks, AMD plans to release quad-core laptop CPUs as early as June. The report specifically mentions a 1.9GHz A8-3530MX part.

A Google-translated version of the page (as seen on tech blogs Engadget and Electronista) says the new CPUs will integrate Radeon HD 6620G graphics and DirectX 11 support. AMD calls this combination of CPU and GPU an APU, or Accelerated Processing Unit.

AMD has been on something of a roll lately, with its low-cost Fusion E-350 CPU powering our favorite 11-inch ultraportables, such as the … Read more

Yesterday's formal introduction of Chromebooks marked yet another category of portable computing gadget in a landscape that's starting to feel overrun.

For $499, the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook has its work cut out for it--namely, because tablets and "high-end" 11- and 12-inch laptops and Netbooks (some with faster processors) have already occupied the same landscape.

It's a question we've been pondering for a while now, writ again: what truly constitutes the perfect small-screen portable? Suddenly, instead of one or two OSes to consider, there are four: Windows 7, Apple's iOS, and Google's Android and Chrome.

While the high end of the computer spectrum remains relatively stable (desktops, laptops), the increasingly fertile (or, perhaps, unstable) ground between laptops and smartphones has bred a variety of tech forms that all, in some way, are portable. Options have never been more diverse, or confusing.

Which one would you rather spend about $500 on? Well, let's see what you get.… Read more

The iconic iMac aluminum enclosure houses a bevy of noteworthy upgrades, including Intel's and Advanced Micro Devices' latest silicon and the latest Intel-Apple interface, as iFixit's teardown of the 21.5-inch iMac ably reveals.

Let's look at a below-the-radar item first since there's already been plenty of ink devoted to the marquee features.

Intel Z68 chipset: This is Intel's freshly minted chipset. New enough that you won't find it--at least not prominently--on Intel's Website because it hasn't been officially released. The Z68 supports SSD caching: that is, using a relatively small-capacity, solid-state drive as a "cache" for a larger magnetic hard disk drive (see photo below). Interestingly, this SSD-HDD configuration is widely used in transaction-heavy businesses such as banks, where the top of the storage pyramid is composed of SSDs that act as a cache for the larger-capacity, and slower, magnetic drives.

Intel, in fact, is expected to bring out SSDs targeted specially at this kind of application.

Intel desktop-class Sandy Bridge processors: In the model torn down by iFixit, the processor is a 2.5GHz quad-core Sandy Bridge Intel Core i5-2400S. This is a pure 32-nanometer processor (previous-generation Intel silicon with graphics integrated into the same chip package was a 50-50 split, the processor was 32nm but the graphics was 45nm). … Read more

There's something wonderfully irresponsible about serious tools repurposed into toys.

It's a little bit of a flippant response to the hard-working realities of life--a proud, defiant pronouncement of "Yes, I have work to do. But I'm going to blow it off for a bit here and be a kid again."

Enter iBuyPower and its line of specially constructed gamer PCs. The hardware seller assembles top-of-the-line components into desktops and laptops designed to ship as all-inclusive gaming systems--ready for play out of the box, no add-ons needed. The company publicly prides itself on keeping up with the constantly evolving imaging and processor requirements of the latest PC games to make sure their bundled systems can always handle the load. … Read more

Intel went on the record today saying that its silicon will support USB 3.0 in 2012 and urged developers to target both USB and its new "Thunderbolt" technology.

"Intel is going to support USB 3.0 in the 2012 client platform. We're going to support Thunderbolt capability. We believe they're complementary," said Kirk Skaugen, a vice president at the Intel Architecture Group, speaking at Intel's developer conference in Beijing today. The event was streamed over the Web.

The "2012 client platform" that Skaugen referred to is known more commonly by … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices will support USB 3.0 in its chips, marking the first instance of a major PC processor supplier getting behind the standard. Intel has yet to support the high-speed interface.

The USB Implementers Forum today announced that AMD will deliver the first chipsets to integrate support for USB 3.0, aka SuperSpeed USB. A chipset accompanies the main processor.

"With [today's] announcement AMD is...disclosing our support for SuperSpeed USB 3.0 in upcoming AMD A75 and A70M Fusion [chipsets]. Both chipsets are shipping today," said Phil Hughes, an AMD spokesman, responding to an … Read more