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Wasting very little time, Gigabyte today announced what it claims is the first AMD 6-core CPU-ready motherboard, the socket AM3 GA-890GPA-UD3H.
This is the first board to feature AMD’s 890GX chipset paried with the new SB850 southbridge, resulting in native support for SATA 6Gbps, up to six devices in all. The southbridge also allows for SATA 6Gbps RAID support, another industry first according to Gigabyte.
"Giving users power over their high definition content is really at the heart of what the GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H is all about," commented Tim Handley, Deputy Director of Motherboard Marketing at GIGABYTE Technology Co. Ltd. "Not only does the GA-890GPA-UD3H deliver the industry’s highest performing integrated graphics solution with flawless HD video playback, but enabling SATA 6 Gbps with RAID functionality, USB 3.0 support and GIGABYTE 3x Power Boost means that users are able to spend less time waiting for their content to transfer, and more time to actually enjoy it."
Other features include USB 3.0 support, integrated ATI Radeon HD 4290 graphics with 128MB DDR3 sideport memory, two PCI-E 2.0 x16 graphics slots, dual-channel DDR3-1866+ support, 3X USB power delivery, HDMI, and a few other odds and ends.
No word yet on price or availability.
Image Credit: Gigabyte
Some attentive Web surfers yesterday managed to dig up information about Lenovo’s upcoming X-series refresh, details of which were found inside the OEM’s official maintenance manual for the ThinkPad X201. Lenovo probably would have preferred to wait a little bit before letting the cat out of the bag, but given the circumstance, the company has now confirmed it will launch the ThinkPads next Tuesday on February 23.
"While most mobile workstations only go to 10… ours go to 11 – http://twitpic.com/13snrn," Lenovo Press wrote on its Twitter feed.
That’s all the details Lenovo’s willing to cough up at this point, but given what the maintenance manual revealed, it’s believed the refreshed lineup will tap into Intel’s 2010 mobile chips, including the Core i3, i5, and i7. If so, look for more than just an external makeover on the revitalized laptops.
Image Credit: Lenovo
Intel isn’t the only one planning on beefing up its more budget-friendly lineup in Q2. Around the same time frame as Intel comes out with its third Core i3 chip (550), AMD will add another Propus-based processor to its family, the Athlon II X4 640.
This will be the first Propus-based CPU to reach 3GHz, while all other specs remain unchanged. In other words, 2MB of total cache, no L3 cache, DDR3 1333 memory support, and AM3 socket support.
Sometime around the middle of Q3, AMD will release yet another Propus-based chip, the Athlon II X4 645. This one will ship at 3.1GHz and will stay as the fastest-clocked Propus processor throughout the rest of 2010.
No word yet on price for either chip.
Image Credit: AMD via arxvaldex.com
Intel’s Core i3 family looks a little thin at the moment, but come Q2, the No. 1 chip maker will add a third member, the Core i3 550, news and rumor site Fudzilla reports.
As it currently stands, the Core i3 530 cruises along at 2.93GHz, while the 540 breaks the 3GHz barrier with a 3.06GHz clockspeed. The Core i3 550 will kick things up a notch to 3.2GHz, leaving everything else the same. That means 4MB of cache, DDR3 1333 memory support, a 73W TDP, two cores with four threads, and no Turbo overclocking. In other words, it will be the same chip as the Core i5 650, just without Turbo.
Fudzilla says the Wolfdale-based Core i3 550 might end up pushing the E7600 from the marketplace, though the majority of the Wolfdale Core 2 Duo product line will remain available as lower end options throughout most of 2010.
No word yet on price, though we suspect it will check in somewhere around the $170 mark.
Image Credit: Intel
With all the talk of Core i7, Core i5, Intel’s upcoming six-core Gulftown, and a plethora of swank X58- and P55-based mobos bombarding the market place, are you starting to feel left out puttering along on your LGA775 build? Well, you should be — this is Maximum PC, after all. But outside of our niche of power users, LGA775 still reigns supreme, and by no small margin.
As Fudzilla reports it, LGA775 processors are the current king of the sales hill, accounting for a whopping 77 percent of sales. The dated socket won’t be able to hold onto that pace throughout 2010, but by the end of the year, Intel expects LGA775 to still account for half of all processor sales.
So who’s buying into socket 1366 and building high-end Core i7 foundations? Not many. Currently the least popular Intel socket of the bunch, higher end Core i7 chips only account for a measly 1 percent of sales.
Socket LGA1156, on the other hand, claims 18 percent of all Intel shipments and its market share is expect to grow to 44 percent by the end of 2010. And of course there’s the ever-popular Atom series, which surprisingly only makes up for 5 percent of all Intel CPUs so far in this first quarter.
Image Credit: windowsdevcenter.com
There’s a reason why you chose an LGA1366 motherboard over the P55-based LGA1156 options, and that’s because of the 6-core upgrade path. Some of you have been rolling with X58 ever since the chipset came out and have been patiently waiting for Intel’s next-gen chips. Good news — the wait is almost over.
According to PC Adviser, Intel’s 32nm 6-core chips will be launching in the first half of this year. And as you’re probably already aware, these will be based on Intel’s Westmere architecture.
The new parts will also come with an updated instruction set and advanced power management tools that will limit the power consumed by idle cores, so not only should they be faster than anything else currently out there, but power consumption isn’t likely to be a huge worry.
Image Credit: Intel via HotHardware
Here’s hoping AMD stays around for a long, long time. Why? Because even if the No. 2 chip maker can’t seem to compete at the high end, it can at least put pressure on Intel to release high-octane parts at lower price points. Let us explain.
We’ve known for some time that Intel plans to reward X58 owners with a six-core Gulftown upgrade, which is great. But what’s not so groovy is that the upcoming Core i7 980X — planned for a March release — will likely run $1,000 or more, leaving six-core computing to the wealthy and/or seriously committed.
Then last week came the announcement that AMD was readying no less than three six-core chips of its own under its new Phenom II x6 1000T series this May. And maybe this has nothing to do with anything, but it’s at least curious that we’re now learning of a second six-core chip from Intel, the Core i7 970.
According to Fudzilla, the chip is real, and it’s not an extreme version, and so it won’t carry an extreme price tag. The Core i7 970 will come clocked at 3.2GHz with 12 hyperthreading cores, along with a 6.4GB/s QPI. Toss turbo overclocking into the mix, and the 970 will sometimes race along at 3.46MHz.
Look for the Core i7 970 to ship in the third quarter of this year, and while we don’t expect it to be cheap, it should end up running a good chunk less than the 980X.
Image Credit: Intel
Ready or not, six-core computing is coming, and it’s coming from both sides of the tracks. We all know about Intel’s plan to move to six-core chips, which will start with the Core i7 980X, a pricey processor (think at least $1,000) designed for socket 1366 systems. Look for this one to debut around the end of March.
But AMD also has plans to compete in the six-core sector and, according to news and rumor site DigiTimes, will launch three six-core desktop chips under its new Phenom II x6 1000T series in May 2010. These will consist of the Phenom II X6 1075T, 1055T, and 1035T, each of which is being built on a 45nm manufacturing process.
Coinciding with AMD’s six-core parts will be a couple of new chipsets, the 890FX (RD890) and 890GX (RS880D).
No official word on pricing from either side just yet.
Building a PC is a many-step process, but one in particular stands out as being intimidating to first-timers: properly mounting a CPU and cooler. Why? Because, generally speaking, that one little cpu chip is simultaneously the smallest, most delicate, and most expensive part of your system. Mount the cooler wrong, or improperly apply the thermal paste and you’re looking at (at best) a drop in performance and system crashes, or (at worst) a $200 disaster.
But don’t worry! It’s actually not terribly hard to install a new CPU, as long as you know what you’re doing. And so that you do know what you’re doing, we’ve put together a quick primer on installing a new CPU. If you’re a newbie getting ready to build a new system, or an old pro looking to make sure your technique is the best, read on to find out everything you need to know about properly mounting a CPU.
So what is thermal paste anyway?
Thermal paste is a type of heat transferring agent that serves to fill in the microscopic gaps that naturally occur when two flat metal surfaces—such as your CPU and cooler—are pressed against one another. These air-filled gaps hinder the rate at which the cooler is able to absorb heat from the CPU, and filling them with thermal material greatly increases performance.
There are several different types of thermal material, including ceramic- and metal-based pastes and solid, waxy thermal pads. Some coolers come with pre-applied pads, but most don’t, and we recommend using a paste. Our two favorites are Arctic Silver 5 and Arctic Silver Ceramique.
Step 1: Prep the CPU and cooler
If you’re using a CPU, cooler, or both that’s already seen a tour of duty, then they’re likely to have some gunky thermal paste residue. Don’t be tempted to just reuse this old paste, as it dries out over time, and you won’t get a clean connection between your CPU and cooler.
So the first order of business is to clean off the old thermal material. Here in the lab we use a two-stage cleanser called ArctiClean, although high-percentage rubbing alcohol will do the job just fine. Just apply a drop or two to the old material and let it sit for a minute while the cleaner breaks up the grease in the thermal paste. Then, wipe it clean with a lint-free cloth. A coffee filter makes a terrific, cheap lint-free cloth. Repeat the process until both the CPU and cooler are totally clean, and then move on.
Step 2: Apply the thermal paste
Looking around the internet, you’ll find a lot of different philosophies about how to apply thermal paste. Some people say you should apply it in a dot, some a line, some two lines, some an “X,” and so on. Truth is, all you’re trying to do when applying thermal paste is to get a paper-thin layer of the stuff over as much of your CPU as possible. For that, a dot is pretty much perfect, since a dot will squish into a circle, which will hopefully reach to all 4 edges of the CPU.
Here’s what we recommend:
First, insert the CPU into its socket on your motherboard.
Next, squeeze out a dot of thermal paste directly onto the center of your CPU. Your dot should be about the size of a BB (as in, what BB guns shoot), or a little smaller than a pea. Next, take your cooler and press it straight down onto the CPU so that the thermal paste spreads evenly in all directions. If you feel comfortable doing it, you can use a very very slight rubbing motion as you press down on the cooler to help spread the paste better.
Ideally, you’re now finished. You simply lock your cooler down (using whatever mechanism yours comes with) and then move on. However, if you’re afraid the thermal paste didn’t get spread properly, you can give it a quick look by lifting the cooler back up, twisting slightly to break the vacuum seal that may have formed. If you’ve got too much paste on the CPU, you can wipe up the excess from around the edges, and if you’ve got too little, you can add some more. Of course, if you somehow totally screwed it up, you can always clean everything up and try again.
Note that we don’t recommend doing this more than once—every time you lift up the cooler, you risk adding more air bubbles into the thermal paste, which will lower you coolers efficiency. Don’t let yourself get too worried about that, though—unless you’re doing some real overclocking, it isn’t going to make or break your system.
And that’s about it. Good luck with your build!
Attention bargain shoppers, AMD has just released a handful of new CPUs starting at only $74 and finishing at a still budget-friendly $169 price point.
These are all desktop chips aimed at the mainstream market, and it starts with the Phenom II X2 255. This one comes clocked at 3.1GHz with a 65W TDP. Also of note is the sub-$100 (by a buck) Phenom II X2 555. Clocked at 3.2Ghz, this is now AMD’s fastest dual-core chip available.
Upping the core ante, AMD also introduced the tri-core Athlon X3 440. This one comes clocked at 3GHz with a 95W TPD and runs $84.
On the quad-core front, there’s the Athlon II X4 635 clocked at 3GHz with a 95W TDP and $119 price tag. Finally, there’s the quad-core Phenom II X4 910e. This $169 chip scoots along at 2.6GHz and features a reduced TDP of 65W.
According to Fudzilla, AMD will also soon introduce the Phenom II X4 975 Black Edition (3.6GHz) and Phenom II X4 820 (2.8GHz), as well as a new 800 series chipset in a few months.
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