Sharkoon introduces two all new high-performance, and quiet, Tower-coolers for the AMD- and Intel-processors. The Sharkoon Silent Eagle CPU cooler options are the Model C92 with a 92mm fan and Model C120 with a 120mm fan. Both provide four U-equalizing 8mm cooling heat pipes and premium aluminium fins for efficient heat dissipation. This is further strengthened by the Direct-Touch-Technology: The heat pipes rest directly on the processor, so that the heat is released directly without having to detour through an extra plate to the cooling fans.

Sharkoon's popular Silent Eagle models utilize an innovative Golf ball surface texture application. The round dimples on the rotor blades minimize air turbulence and provides a boost in air output at the same rotational speed and noise emission. The fans are equipped with a 4-pin PMW connector to automatically regulate over the provided mainboard. The 92mm fan of the C92 model rotates between 350 to 1600 r/min, with a maximum sound volume of 24,8 dB(A) and motion air flow up to 72,9 m³/h. The heat sink, including fan, measures 120 x 92 x 77 mm (H x W x D) and weighs 550 g. The 120mm fan of the larger C120 model rotates between 359 to 1200 r/min and conveys a sound volume under full load of 20 dB(A) with a motion air flow of 83 m³/h. The C120 measures 157 x 125 x 86 (H x W x D) and weighs 755 g.

Apart from being the industry's leading 3D graphics benchmark application, 3DMark has had a long history of 3D graphics hardware manufacturers cheating with their hardware using application-specific optimisations against Futuremark's guidelines to boost 3DMark scores. Often, this is done by drivers detecting the 3DMark executable, and downgrading image quality, so the graphics processor has to handle lesser amount of processing load from the application, and end up with a higher performance score. Time and again, similar application-specific optimisations have tarnished 3DMark's credibility as an industry-wide benchmark.

This time around, it's neither of the two graphics giants in the news for the wrong reasons, it's Intel. Although the company has a wide consumer base of integrated graphics, perhaps the discerning media user / very-casual gamer finds it best to opt for integrated graphics (IGP) solutions from NVIDIA or AMD. Such choices rely upon reviews evaluating the IGPs performance at accelerating video (where it's common knowledge that Intel's IGPs rely heavily on the CPU for smooth video playback, while competing IGPs fare better at hardware-acceleration), synthetic and real-world 3D benchmarks, among other application-specific tests.

Traditionally, a specialists in aluminum/copper fin 'ring' type CPU coolers, Zalman maintained a performance leadership till aluminum fin tower type CPU coolers took over as the better performing design. Zalman was forced to keep up with the trend, which it did with the introduction of its CNPS-10X series coolers, namely CNPS-10X Quiet, and CNPS-10X Extreme. The third one in the series, which Zalman recently made available to European stores, is the CNPS-10X Flex. This is basically a tower-type heatsink that uses a block of 56 aluminum fins (some of which are anodized black), to which heat is conveyed by five copper heat-pipes. While it does not include a fan of its own, it gives you the flexibility of using your own 120 mm fan, and allows for two fans in all. The retention module supplied supports all current CPU sockets, including LGA-1366, LGA-1156, LGA-775, and AM3/AM2+/AM2. Priced at €40, it is €10 cheaper than the CNPS-10X Quiet, enough price difference to allow you to buy a decent-quality 120 mm fan of your choice, be it performance-oriented, or quiet.

NVIDIA today announced work with Microsoft to promote NVIDIA Tesla graphics processing units (GPUs) for high performance parallel computing using the Windows HPC Server 2008 operating system.

"The coupling of GPUs and CPUs illustrates the enormous power and opportunity of multicore co-processing," said Dan Reed, corporate vice president of Extreme Computing at Microsoft. "NVIDIA's work with Microsoft and the Windows HPC Server platform, is helping enable scientists and researchers in many fields achieve supercomputer performance on diverse applications."

NVIDIA Research developed several GPU-enabled applications on the Windows HPC Server 2008 platform, such as a ray tracing application that can be used for advanced photo-realistic modeling of automobiles. Related to this, NVIDIA worked with Microsoft Research to install a large Tesla GPU computing cluster and is studying applications that are optimized for the GPU.

Nearly a year since its first release, the creators of FurMark have released a new version of their Physx based FluidMark, which like Furmark can be used as either a stress test or benchmarking tool. FluidMark is designed to run in hardware mode for all CUDA ready NVIDIA cards, which includes the 8, 9 and 200 series of graphics cards. For all others the program runs in software mode, which can be forced even if your system has one of the above mentioned cards. The creators say in software mode, the tool "is an excellent CPU benchmark." The latest graphics drivers and Physx version 9.09.0428 is recommended to be installed prior to running this. For more information and to download go here

FluidMark 1.1.0 changelog:

• New: simple color point rendering mode (press the R key in stability test).
• New: use the code base than FurMark.
• New: command line parameter (/no_sph) to disable SPH fluid simulation method.
• Change: compiled with NVIDIA PhysX SDK 2.8.1.
• Bugfix: minors bugs fixed

Having released the 120 mm copper monstrosity, the CNPS9900, Zalman is looking to give the NVIDIA-branded CNPS9700-NT an update, only this time, there's no NVIDIA branding to be seen. The CNPS9900-NT is decked with nickel-plated copper, which gives it the chrome appearance. Between the two copper-fin blocks, is nested a 120 mm green LED lit fan, which gives the same illumination as the older NT versions of Zalman's coolers. It measures 94 x 131 x 152 mm (LxWxH), and weighs in at 730 g. The fan spins at speeds between 1000 and 2000 rpm. The cooler supports all current CPU socket types, including LGA-1366, LGA-1156, LGA-775, and AM3/AM2(+). It packs a tube of the company's ZM-STG2 thermal compound. When released in Europe, it is expected to sell for 70 EUR.

Thermal Solutions specialist GELID Solutions adds a 28mm high 1U Slim ITX heatpipe CPU Cooler with PWM fan to its popular line of Silent CPU coolers.

With a compact heatsink design for Mini ITX, Micro ATX, ATX, HTPC, Panel PC, Car PC and 1U server the "Slim Silence" is equipped with a high performance heatpipe and a silent fan. The high performance heatpipe ensures a fast and efficient heat transfer from core to aluminium fins. The frameless silent fan includes a ball bearing and a GELID intelligent PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) control which ensures a silent operation at low CPU temperature and accelerates the fan speed when necessary.

Industry observer DigiTimes, citing anonymous sources, today reported that AMD is planning to move production of its desktop processors to 45 nm node process by the third quarter of this year.

AMD plans to move production of its desktop CPUs to its 45nm node process in the third quarter, helping to reduce costs, according to sources at motherboard makers.
Currently, only AMD's quad-core Phenom II X4 800 and 900 series (Deneb) and triple-core Phenom II X3 700 series (Heka) CPUs are manufactured under a 45nm process. The company plans to move its dual-core Phenom II X2 500 series (Callisto) and Athlon II X2 200 series to 45nm in June, and quad-core Athlon II X4 600 series and triple-core Athlon II X3 400 series (Rana) in September, the sources noted.
The chipmaker also plans to launch several CPUs during the period between the end of the second quarter and the third quarter. The dual-core Phenom II X2 550 and 545 will launch at the end of the second quarter, and the quad-core Phenom II X4 945 (95W) and 8xx (95W), triple-core Phenom II X3 7xx (95W), quad-core Athlon II X4 630 and 620, triple-core Athlon II X3 435 and 425, and dual-core Athlon II X2 250, 245 and 240 will launch in the third.
AMD also plans to launch 10 low-power consumption CPUs including the Phenom II X4 905e, Phenom II X3 705e and Athlon II X4 605e.

ASUS, the world's leading producer of motherboards, today put world record-breaking power into the hands of AMD Phenom II users with the launch of the ROG (Republic of Gamers) Crosshair III Formula. Based on the AMD Socket AM3 platform, the Crosshair III Formula harnesses its full complement of ROG-exclusive features and technologies to unleash the full overclocking potential of Phenom II processors-enabling budget-conscious enthusiasts and gamers to enjoy extreme levels of performance at an affordable mid-price point.

10 years after they last held this title, Fujitsu have now snatched the status from previous record holder Intel, by developing a CPU (Central Processing Unit) capable of 128 billion calculations per second. Codenamed Venus, the chip is said to be able to calculate 2.5 times faster than the previous fastest CPU and using miniaturization technology, Fujitsu have managed to double the number of central circuits integrated onto a chip measuring about 2cm from four to eight. Venus is also said to consume only a third of the electricity compared to current levels.
Tens of thousands of these new chips are set to be used in a next-generation supercomputer for an Institute of Physical and Chemical Science which will go into operation at the end of fiscal 2010. It has also been said that should the Venus come to be used in devices such as personal computers and digital electronic appliances, it could lead to the development of equipment such as portable simultaneous interpretation devices and automated driving devices for cars.

AMD kept up with the SIMD processing standards Intel set by licensing its popular CPU instruction sets such as MMX, SSE, SSE2, and SSE3. The three were used as is by AMD, except for that AMD chose not to conform completely with Supplemental SSE3, SSE4 and its revisions (SSE4.1, SSE4.2). The company devised the SSE4A instruction set to feature with its K10 micro-architecture. SSE4A is a lighter version that features LZCNT (Leading Zero Count), POPCNT (bit population count), EXTRQ/INSERTQ and MOVNTSD/MOVNTSS (Scalar streaming store instructions). What's more, the company even decided back in 2007 that it would come up with SSE5, that then Intel sought to leave development with AMD.

In due course of time, Intel started development of AVX (Advanced Vector eXtensions) that enhances processing of FPU-intensive workloads. AMD gained interest in this technology, and is looking to make it compatible with the originally-conceived SSE5. The instructions that remain as part of the superset that doesn't include AVX is now referred to by AMD as XOP (eXtended OPerations). In addition to this, AMD will include FMA4 (Floating point vector Multiply-Accumulate). The new instruction sets make it to AMD's next-generation Bulldozer micro-architecture slated for 2011. Meanwhile, Intel's AVX makes it to the Sandy Bridge micro-architecture slated for 2010~11. AMD published the Programmer's Manual document on 128-Bit and 256-Bit XOP, FMA4 and CVT16 Instructions, which can be read here (PDF).

A new feature of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system that created a stir is its "XP mode" feature, where the operating system provides the user with a sandbox Windows XP desktop environment, complete with all its features, and application support. What makes the feature even more interesting that documents, settings, and XP-affine applications installed in the environment could be seamlessly integrated with the host Windows 7 environment.

It turns out now that the feature explicitly requires hardware-level virtualization support. AMD and Intel, both have their proprietary virtualization features, although the two chose to make it available only to a few CPU models. Generally, entry-level desktop/mobile CPUs don't carry the feature. For consumer client desktop variants of Windows 7, the "XP mode" feature would require AMD-V feature by the processor. Currently all processors by AMD support this, except those from the Sempron series, according to an AMD spokesperson. For enterprise variants of the OS, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) MED-V 2.0 builds on top of Windows Virtual PC and provides centralized management of Windows XP Mode. MED-V is a virtualization management platform. It will be made available within 90 days of the commercial availability of Windows 7.

SiS today announced the SiS672/96/307DV chipset supporting the latest Intel Atom 230 CPU which has been adopted by PEGATRON to develop the Ultra Slim Atom NetTop project. SiS672 of low power consumption and fanless is equipped to bring Ultra Slim Atom NetTop into full play.

The PEGATRON Ultra Slim Atom NetTop platform, demonstrating its unique aesthetics and elaborate design with practical features to enhance the implementation of multimedia and video and to provide high quality of visual entertainment. The space-saving design is only 0.5L of the mini tower chassis with SiS672/968/307DV chipset on motherboard. The frequency of Wi-Fi wireless network options can reach up to 2.4~2.5GHZ for remote access. The ultra slim NetTop system is designed to perfectly link with various LCD monitor models so as to catch on the All-in-One LCD PC market.

3R System, a Korean company that specializes in PC cases, cooling products, and power supplies unveiled a new high-end CPU air cooler, the Boss 2. This cooler uses the most common tower-design coolers in its class use. The unit measures 131(L)x95(W)x152(H) mm, and weights around 730 g (1.61 lbs). The cooler design consists of a CPU block that doubles up as a tiny heatsink. Here, five heatpipes make direct contact with the CPU. The heatpipes propagate through a dense array of aluminum fins. Its air-flow is care of a 120 mm LED-lit fan that rotates at speeds between 1000 and 2000 rpm, 53.5 CFM to 78.5 CFM, with a noise output range of 19 to 32 dBA. Sources indicate that the cooler will be released worldwide very soon, though there is no word on its price.

A seemingly new gun in the PC cooling town is Cogage. The company sources its produce from Thermalright, a company well-known for its CPU coolers. Taking its name from the Thermalright Ultra Edition (popularly abbreviated as TRUE), the company has readied the True Spirit cooler, which even ends up looking like the cooler it's trying to impersonate. This cooler is built exclusively for Intel LGA-1366 socket processors. It measures 133x156x38 mm, and weighs 670 g (1.47 lbs). It packs four copper heatpipes that convey heat to 48 aluminum fins. Active ventilation is care of a 120 mm fan that rotates in speeds between 1000 and 1500 rpm, with rated noise levels of 19.6 to 37.4 dbA.

The other cooler in the works, MST-140, sports a design where the a fan of similar specifications as the one bundled with the True Spirit, blows air perpendicular to the plane of the motherboard, rather than parallel. This cooler supports both LGA-775 and LGA-1366 sockets. It measures 144x147x70.2 mm and weighs 410 g (0.9 lbs). From its base, arise four "U"-shaped heatpipes that convey heat to two dense aluminum fin arrays (40 fins each). The pricing and release dates of these coolers are yet to be known.

GlacialTech Inc., a diverse provider of cooling, power supply, and PC enclosure solutions for consumer and industrial applications, and a world-class provider of cost effective cooling components and chassis launches the latest 5610 Plus PWM CPU cooler and 5610 Plus Silent CPU Cooler. The unique design incorporates a specially aligned sinter heat-pipe combination of two pipes that dissipate the heat from the CPU directly into the heat sink fins. From there, the Silent version's fan quietly and efficiently brings the temperature down.

GlacialTech has implemented a cost effective and useful way to keep your processor cool. When running resource hungry applications and you have the PWM version installed, turn up the RPM to 2700 to manage your heat dissipation more effectively. While the PC is idle or doing non-intensive work, turn the RPM back to 800. This is how you manage your power consumption, your decibels and your overall peace of mind. Alternatively, the users have the option to purchase the Silent version as GlacialTech offers you the variety and options to suit your needs.

Thermaltake has four new CPU coolers in the making, part of the series marked with "ISGC" (abbreviates Inspiration of Silent Gaming Cooling) in the model name. The naming scheme propagates as ISGC 100, 200, 300 and 400. The first two supporting all current AMD sockets and Intel LGA-775, while the last two supporting all those sockets, plus LGA-1366.

ISGE 100 and 200 measure 124 x 96 x 70 mm and 90 x 96 x 140.5 mm respectively, and feature 92 mm fans, while the 300 and 400 measure 126 x 71 x 161 mm and 126 x 71 x 60 mm respectively and use 120 mm fans. Using copper heatpipes as thick at 6 mm, and aluminum fins. Press Release follows:

New information from German tech site Hardware-Infos, has lead to the news that AMD's fastest CPU, the Phenom II X4 955, could be available from April 20th this year. Using the AM3 socket, the CPU is made using AMD's latest 45 nm fabrication process, and is clocked in at 3.2 GHz (16*200 MHz). Sporting 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and a 6 MB L3 cache, AMD have managed to match the 125 W TDP of the recently released Phenom II X4 940.

Graphics market seems to be already small enough for NVIDIA, so the green corporation looks further ahead into building a x86 processor in the near future. At the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco yesterday, the company revealed that it had plans to enter the x86 processor market by building a x86 compatible system-on-chip in the next two to three years. Michael Hara, NVIDIA's senior vice president of investor relations and communications, commented:

I think some time down the road it makes sense to take the same level of integration that we've done with Tegra ...... Tegra is by any definition a complete computer on a chip, and the requirements of that market are such that you have to be very low power, very small, but highly efficient. So in that particular state it made a lot of sense to take that approach, and someday it's going to make sense to take the same approach in the x86 market as well.

He also said that NVIDIA's future x86 CPU wouldn't be appropriate for every segment of the market, especially the high-end of the PC market which includes gaming systems, graphics engineering stations and many other. The x86 chip will be mainly targeted at smaller system-on-chip platforms. No other details were unveiled at the time of this publication. It's also very early to talk about something that's still on paper.

Intel's Pentium Dual-Core E5200 processor is getting on course for a specifications update. The chip will feature in a new, improved Wolfdale-2M core, spec'd out as the R0 stepping, from its current M0 stepping. The new stepping is intended to add new instructions, power-management features, and bring about changes in the chip-package. A short list of known changes is as follows:

• CPUID changed from 10677 to 1067A
• Power State Indicator (PSI) support with Intel 4 series chipsets
• New instructions - XSAVE and XRSTOR
• New S-spec and MM numbers
• New halide-free chip package

Due to the changed CPUID, users may require BIOS updates to detect the CPU. According to the company, E5200 R0 should be out by April 13.

German cooling specialist Alphacool released two new CPU water blocks that boast support for all existing and upcoming Intel sockets, the HF 14 series. Its two members are Livingstone and Yellowstone. While both have an identical retention mechanism design, the block design itself is where the differences lie. The Livingstone uses a bilateral-symmetric design, while for the Yellowstone block, the inlet is positioned in the center, to gush right onto the heat-exchange fins.

The company is yet to publish data-sheets for the water blocks, so we could tell you more, though they have been listed on the company store. The Livingstone block sells for 59.95 €, while the Yellowstone is priced significantly higher at 74.95 €. Both blocks support Intel LGA-775, LGA-1366 and promise support for the upcoming LGA-1160/LGA-1156 socket. Pictured below, in order are Livingstone and Yellowstone (red RM brace).

Cooler Master has gone full cylinders with innovation for the design of the V10 Hybrid TEC, a variant of the V10 cooler that employs a 70W TEC (Thermo-electric couple) element to indirectly cool the processor. The principle on which it works is fairly simple: A set of heatpipes propagate through the CPU contact block. The same heatpipes make contact with the cold-plate of the TEC. The hot-plate of the TEC is cooled by a dedicated aluminum fin array which is subjected to air flow. The heatpipes that cool the CPU propagate into two additional, independent aluminum fin arrays. All this, neatly packed into the shroud. The TEC part of the cooler has its own Molex power input, and is regulated by a temperature control module. The two fans in place to cool the fins use standard 3~4 pin fan connections. TweakTown put this cooler to test against most common high-end air coolers.

In theory, this is a good concept, though the indirect cooling the TEC element provides, isn't going to send temperatures down to sub-zero levels. Instead, the estimates on its spec. sheet shows it to maintain temperatures between 25 and 70 degrees Celsius. The cooler however, is rated for CPUs with TDPs of up to 200W (a figure achieved during overclocking). The findings of the review, however, show the cooler to be not much of an improvement over most high-end air coolers. The review can be read here.

After introducing some of the most efficient CPU coolers, the Japanese cooling specialist, Scythe, is now planning to launch a new cooler named KillerWhale, designed and manufactured originally by DeepCool, distributed by Scythe. This cooler is specifically designed keeping the Intel LGA-1366 socket in mind, where a slightly bigger, rectangular base serves the application better.

The most characteristic feature of this cooler is its large, rather thick fan and sweep area. Its construction seems fairly simple: six heatpipes arise from a rectangular copper CPU contact block, which convey heat to an aluminum fin array that propagates along the plane of the motherboard. The entire cooler measures 54.5 x 143 x 143.5 mm, and weighs 900g (around 2 lbs). The 120mm fan rotates at speeds between 800 and 1800 rpm to dole out up to 78.32 CFM of air. The KillerWhale supports Intel LGA-1366, LGA-775, AMD AM3, AM2+, AM2, 940 and 939 sockets. It will hit stores soon.

More Details Trickle in on Intel's New Atom Platform, the Pine Trail-D Based Nettop

Following the story which we covered just a few days ago, Expreview has got more information on the new Intel Atom platform, codenamed Pine Trail-D. From the new information, we see that the CPU, IGP and MCH will in fact all be integrated into one chip, as opposed to just being moved onto the same die. The CPU has also been listed as at least 1.6Ghz, double that of the current entry level Atom processor. Despite the platform having no need for a northbridge, with it all moved into the CPU, Intel have managed to keep the die size at 484 sq. mm. On that note however, it seems that the IGP is still DirectX 9 based, though further details on the graphical capabilities are still not yet known. We also see, that the new Tigerpoint southbridge, will support 8 USB devices, 4 PCI-E x1 lanes, 2 PCI ports, 2 SATA ports and HD audio.

The guys over at Hexus.net, have got hold of information that shows details of three new quad core processors with a thermal design power (TDP) of only 65W. The interesting thing is that it seems Intel have still not yet given up the LGA775 socket despite it being superceded. These are the lowest TDP quad cores from Intel to date, based on a 45nm manufacturing process, and in theory using up to 30W less power than current quad core processors, it shows a step in the right direction. Unfortunately it cannot be all good news, as it seems that the expected prices for these are approximatly $100 more than the similarly clocked 95W counterparts.