SAPPHIRE Technology, the world's largest manufacturer and supplier of graphics systems based on technology from AMD has just announced its first mainboard based on the exciting new APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) architecture from AMD. As a result of close collaboration with AMD, SAPPHIRE will introduce the SAPPHIRE Pure White Fusion E350M1W mainboard through its Global channel - heralding a new generation of low-power, fully featured PC solutions.

The SAPPHIRE Pure White Fusion E350M1W is a mini-ITX mainboard featuring the E350 (Zacate) APU from AMD. Zacate is the first generation of APU - a combination of CPU and GPU computing technologies onto a single die to improve the performance of both visual and data-intensive tasks. For the first time it combines high-performance serial computing and parallel graphics processing cores on a single chip. The SAPPHIRE Pure White Fusion E350M1W also uses the companion Hudson-M1 (A50M) Chip from AMD.

OEM major Foxconn's very own channel brand is ready with its first high-end socket LGA1155 motherboard based on the Intel P67 Express chipset, supporting upcoming "Sandy Bridge" processors. The motherboard falls into Foxconn Channel's gamer and overclocker oriented Quantum Force brand. The Quantum Force P67 from Foxconn uses bleeding-edge components such as digital PWM offering precise voltage control for the processor, multi-phase VRM for the four DDR3 memory slots, and is rich in connectivity options.

The LGA1155 socket is powered by a 14-phase digital PWM circuit using independent single-phase PWM inductors made by CPL, and memory using a 2-phase VRM. Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8 with both populated), three PCI-E x1, and one PCI. Both ATI CrossFireX and NVIDIA SLI are sure to be supported. Storage connectivity includes two internal SATA 6 Gb/s, four internal SATA 3 Gb/s, two eSATA 3 Gb/s, and one ATA connector supporting up to two IDE devices.

Intel Corporation announced today the Intel Solid-State Drive (Intel SSD) 310 Series, an ultra-small solid-state drive (SSD) that delivers Intel X25-class award-winning SSD performance, but in one-eighth the size. Measuring 51mm-by-30mm and only 5mm thick, the Intel SSD 310 is a fast, ultra-compact SSD that brings flexibility, ruggedness and scalability to innovative form factors and devices. It can enable highly responsive dual-drive notebooks, innovative single-drive tablets and low-power, rugged embedded industrial or military applications. When paired with a high-capacity hard disk drive (HDD) in a dual-drive system, the Intel SSD 310 can improve overall PC system performance by up to 60 percent.

A solid-state drive uses no moving parts, and thus is more durable and reliable than a mechanical HDD, while using less power and providing better system responsiveness. The Intel SSD 310 Series contains 34 nanometer (nm) Intel NAND flash memory and is available in an m-SATA form factor in 40 gigabyte (GB) and 80GB capacities.

EVGA released what it claims to be a handy little accessory that can increase PCI-Express slot power, improving overclocking stability of graphics cards installed. Called the EVGA Power Boost, the gadget is a tiny PCB that fits into the power-line notch of any PCI-Express slot (x1 thru x16), and draws in an auxiliary 12V line directly from the power supply unit. The little PCB draws in power from a standard Molex power connector, adding it to the motherboard's 12V line. EVGA also gave out a detailed HD video showing users exactly how to install the device, because inserting it into the wrong part of the PCI-Express slot will fry the motherboard. EVGA is asking $20 for it.

AMD's upcoming "Bulldozer" architecture based processors that use a new socket type, the AM3+, are slated for Q2, 2011. To complement its launch, AMD will be launching the 9-series chipset series, consisting of four kinds of desktop chipset. The lineup starts with the AMD 990FX, the high-end 4-way CrossFireX-ready chipset, geared for high-end motherboards. Next up, is the 990X. This discrete graphics chipset is also ready for CrossFireX, but has just 16 PCI-Express 2.0 lanes to spare for graphics, platforms based on this will feature two PCI-Express x16 slots which reconfigure to electrical x8 slots when both are populated.

The third is an entry-level discrete graphics chipset that doesn't support CrossFire, but can spare one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot for discrete graphics, it's the AMD 970. Lastly, there's the 980G integrated graphics chipset, which features a DirectX 10.1 compliant IGP, which supports UVD 2.0 video acceleration. For some reason, this chipset doesn't support older AM3 processors, but only AM3+. The other chipsets in the series however, do support existing socket AM3 Athlon II and Phenom II series processors. All four northbridge chipsets support HyperTransport 3.0 processor interconnect, supporting data rates of up to 5.2 GT/s.

The PCI-SIG finalized the specifications of PCI-Express 3.0 bus, the latest version of PCI. Like PCI-Express 1.x and PCI-Express 2.x, PCI-E 3.0 is designed to be backwards-compatible with devices that use older versions of the bus. Keeping up with the major version trend, PCI-E 3.0 doubles the theoretical bandwidth. PCI-Express 3.0 can push 1 GB/s per lane, per direction, double that of PCI-E 2.0. A PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot would hence have its cumulative bandwidth at 32 GB/s.

Apart from pure bandwidth increases, PCI-Express also uses the new 128b/130b data encoding scheme, which reduces protocol overhead significantly, allowing near-100% utilization of available bandwidth. To put this into perspective, PCI-Express 2.0 had a data-rate of 5 GT/s, but with its overhead, could only effectively transfer 4 GT/s. The new scheme allows utilization of all 8 GT/s of the bandwidth PCI-Express 3.0 has, resulting in a data-rate of 1 GB/s per lane, per direction. The PCI-E specification document is available to PCI-SIG members. It is expected that the first PCI-Express 3.0 compliant devices will come to be in 2011.

ASRock unveiled its socket LGA1155 motherboard lineup in grand style, showing off eight models, including four value-thru-enthusiast grade motherboards based on the Intel P67 chipset, and four essential-thru-mainstream motherboards based on the Intel H67 chipset. The series is topped by the P67 Extreme6, which packs no less than six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, four external and two internal USB 3.0 ports, three PCI-Express x16 slots, 18-phase CPU VRM making use of high-grade capacitors, and a huge set of connectivity features. Next up is the P67 Extreme4, which is a notch lower than the Extreme6, but it still gives you four SATA 6 Gb/s and four USB 3.0 ports (two external, two internal via header), the same expansion slot layout as the Extreme6, and a slightly slimmer connectivity feature set.

The two Extreme boards are trailed by mid-range ones, starting with the P67 Pro3. The P67 Pro3 has a simple layout and offers not much more than the chipset's feature-set. There are two SATA 6 Gb/s and two USB 3.0 (rear) ports, expansion slots that include just one PCI-Express 2.0 x16, three PCI-E x1, and three PCI. The CPU is powered by an impressive (for this category) 10-phase VRM. Further down the line is the P67 Pro, which is further slimmed down. It does away with USB 3.0 but retains SATA 6 Gb/s. A simpler 4+1 phase CPU VRM is used. Most other features are the same as the Pro3.

LSI announced a new high-end enterprise solid state drive (SSD) best suited for heavy-duty database operations. The WarpDrive SLP-300 from LSI is a PCI-Express x8 addon card that is driven by LSI's SAS2008 controller. A number of SandForce-driven SSD modules bearing single-level cell 30 nm-class NAND flash chips provide storage of 300 GB, latency of under 50 μs, capability of 240,000 IOPS for 4K reads, and 200,000 IOPS for 4K writes, and data-rates of 1,400 MB/s read and 1,200 MB/s write. The drive has a MTBF of 2 million hours. Backed by a 3-year warranty, the LSI WarpDrive SLP-300 will be priced at US $11,500 when it releases to market on 29th November.

Point of View known for its range of NVIDIA based 3D Graphics cards, Netbooks and other PC products, announces today its launch of the newest flagship enthusiast graphics cards: the Point of View GTX 580.

An intelligent thermal redesign of the cooler - using vapor chambers - have dropped down the operation temps massively. Combine the lower temperatures with a very energy efficient GPU and you have a winner.

MSI seems to be ready with its first wave of motherboards for socket LGA1155 processors, based on the Sandy Bridge architecture. At this point the lineup is quite simply three models - P67A-GD65, the performance segment offering, the P67A-GD55, upper mid-range, and H67MA-ED55, a micro-ATX board ready for integrated graphics. All three motherboards seem to carry high-grade components such as solid chokes (that don't whine), high-C capacitors, and offer a level of overclocking headroom enhanced by OC Genie II.

The P67A-GD65 features two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated), three PCI-E x1, and two PCI slots. Connectivity includes six SATA 3 Gb/s ports from the P67 PCH (of which four are internal, two eSATA), two SATA 6 Gb/s ports provided by a Marvell-made controller, and two additional SATA 3 Gb/s ports by a third-party controller; two USB 3.0 ports, 8-channel HD audio, FireWire, and gigabit Ethernet. There are several overclocker-friendly features such as consolidated voltage measure points with proper sockets to hold multimeter leads, OC Genie controls, and a heat pipe distributing heat evenly between the VRM heatsinks.

Gigabyte has been one of the first motherboard manufacturers to show off its LGA1155 motherboard way back in June, even as some of its prime competitors are keeping their products embargoed. The company just let out pictures of its entire 12-strong LGA1155 product lineup with box-art, that targets almost every price point with its discrete graphics requiring P67A lineup, and integrated graphics ready H67A lineup. All it did to make sure it didn't step on Intel's toes is blur out the new Intel logos.

The top-tier P67A-UD7 and P67A-UD5 have been discussed in some detail, in an older article. So were the P67A-UD3R, P67A-UD3, and H67MA-UD2H, in this article. What are new to us, are a number of space-filling models, that fill any gaps in price-points between earlier known models. These include: P67A-UD4, P67A-UD3P, H67A-UD3H, H67MA-D2H, and H67M-D2.

ASUS showed off its high-end socket LGA1155 motherboard lineup in London, including from its two top brands, ROG and Sabertooth TUF. The ROG Maximus IV Extreme, TUF Sabertooth P67, P8P67 Deluxe and P8P67 were on display. All four models are based on the Intel P67 Express chipset, designed to support upcoming Sandy Bridge architecture derived LGA1155 processors, or the 2011 Core processor family. Leading the pack is the Maximum IV Extreme. This board is literally bursting with features and is geared for extreme overclocking. There are no less than four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots, possibly driven by a PCI-E bridge chip, which allows 3-way and 4-way SLI/CrossFireX; four each of USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and ROG-exclusive features such as ROG Connect, and redundant BIOS.

Next in line is the TUF Sabertooth P67. Keeping in tune with the TUF series' main feature of providing very high durability, the Sabertooth P67 uses ceramic heatsinks and high-grade components. For the first time, we're getting to see a protective scaffolding covering most of the board's area on its obverse side (we've seen it on the reverse side on older models). ASUS is calling it "tactical vest". This board only supports two PCI-E x16 devices, 2-way SLI/CrossFireX.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, announces the launch of The RevoDrive X2 PCI-Express SSD, a follow-up to the successful launch of the first RevoDrive, with increased performance and capacity to serve high-performance computing consumers. The RevoDrive X2 upgrades the original architecture to deliver unprecedented speed up to 740 MB/s and up to 120,000 IOPS, nearly triple the throughput of other high-end SATA-based solutions with a substantial reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO) to the consumer. The product is available now through OCZ's global channel.

"The original OCZ RevoDrive SSD was designed to be the first high-performance, bootable PCIe SSD solution and has become a popular choice for demanding computing applications that require faster, more reliable storage," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "Building on the success of the original design, we are excited to introduce the RevoDrive X2, which delivers both increased performance and capacity, making the RevoDrive X2 a viable option for a wide spectrum of applications that include professional graphic design, multimedia rendering, and workstations. With our recently announced new state-of-the-art SSD manufacturing facility in Taiwan, OCZ will continue to be at the forefront of developing and deploying game-changing solid state storage solutions."

ASUS has announced the latest addition to its Fermi series of DirectX 11 graphics cards with ENGT430/DI/1GD3 (LP). Powered by the NVIDIA GeForce GT430 graphics processor, the ASUS-designed PCI-Express 2.0 ENGT430/DI/1GD3 (LP) card is ideal for home theatre enthusiasts and casual gamers. Built using a specially designed low profile PCB (printed circuit board), the ASUS ENGT430 includes NVIDIA PureVideo engine that accelerates even Blu-ray 3D media. Its use of the highest quality components, including ASUS Dust-Proof fan, GPU Guard, and Fuse Protection ensures that the ASUS ENGT430 remains stable and reliable for long-term use.

Following today's launch of the SandForce SF-2000 series SATA/SAS 6 Gb/s SSD processors, Other World Computing (OWC) announced its first enterprise-grade Mercury Extreme PCI-Express SSDs making use of these controllers. The first products in the company's next-generation Mercury Extreme lineup will start shipping early next year. These include a PCI-Express x16 card with eight SF-2000 series-driven SSDs in an internal RAID, totaling 3.2 TB in capacity, 4,000 MB/s sequential read, and up to 480,000 IOPS. A PCI-Express x8 model is also in the works, perhaps with lesser number of internal SSDs. There's scope for enterprise-grade features making use of SF-2000 series feature-set. SF-2000 series controllers enable features such as native 256-bit AES data encryption, and native command queuing with 32 concurrent operations. Applications of OWC's SSDs include I/O intensive enterprise servers, storage arrays, and high-end workstations in the financial, telecom, web/mail, gaming, public security, retail, and professional media creation/editing industries, according to the company.

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 460 graphics processor (GPU) can be crammed into some very short GPUs, as has been implemented in various designs. Galaxy has taken advantage of this, and designed a GeForce GTX 460 2 GB (256-bit GDDR5) graphics card with nearly the same length as other high-end GeForce 400 series SKUs (ballpark 10-inches), with room towards its connectors for an additional PCI-Express device. Just near PCI-Express x16 interface, there is a mini PCI-Express x1 slot, that technically can take a mini-PCIe SSD or any other PCI-E device. While Galaxy is notorious for coming up with the most wacky yet intriguing designs the most plausible utility we see of this mini-PCIe slot is perhaps an optional addon board with a smaller GPU for processing PhysX, or a mini-PCIe TV tuner (notebook grade). Aside from this, connectors include a DVI, a DisplayPort, a mini-USB (female), a switch, and a 10-pin header right behind it. Galaxy will detail this mysterious card further soon, the company told press that when released, it will be an "unprecedented design".

PhotoFast is working on yet another monster SSD, this time one that uses the PCI-Express x8 interface (fits inside x16 slots), the GMonster PowerDrive-LSI. As the name suggests, some of the drive's chippery (such as storage controller) is made by LSI, which runs an internal (abstract to OS) RAID a number of SSD modules. If 2 GT/s interface was any indication of the drive's speeds, then here goes: 1,400 MB/s read; 1,500 MB/s write. The controller has its own 512 MB of dedicated DDR2 memory. The GMonster PowerDrive-LSI comes in capacities of 240 GB, 480 GB, and 960 GB. It has a rated MTBF of 1.5 million hours. It is slated for next month. Once again, PhotoFast did not give out pricing.

At the ongoing Intel Developer Forum event, OCZ Technology showed off its upcoming RevoDrive X2 PCI-Express SSD. For those unfamiliar with RevoDrive, it is a PCI-Express addon card that holds a couple of SandForce-drive SSDs in an internal (abstract to OS) RAID 0. The SATA bandwidth bottleneck is eliminated, as the drive connects to the system bus over PCI-Express x4. The RevoDrive X2, uses no less than four SandForce-driven SSDs in an internal RAID. The drive connects to the system over PCI-E x4, and is bootable. According to OCZ's internal testing, the drive offers read speeds of up to 740 MB/s, writes of up to 730 MB/s, and 4K random write performance of up to 120,000 IOPS. An IOMeter session running on the demo rig measured 107,124 IOPS live.

Leadtek has decided to make its SpursEngine video processor more palatable to production houses and studios, by multiplying its performance by four. SpursEngine accelerates video encoding/decoding performance of full HD MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 videos many times over compared to the CPU, it uses the CELL Broadband Engine architecture, the same which is used in supercomputers, PlayStation 3, and HDTVs in various forms. The WinFast HPCC1111 from Leadtek uses four SpursEngine chips on a single board, that connects to the system over a PCIe bridge chip, through PCI-Express x4. With the new HPCC1111, one can encode full HD MPEG-2, or MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 in real time, or even faster than real time, if the rest of the hardware permits. SpursEngine has already made its way to single-chip cards and mobile workstations. Scheduled to release in Japan this September, the HPCC1111 is expected to cost JP ¥99,000 (US $1,175).

The first official die-shots of the first Bulldozer architecture derivative, the eight-core "Orochi" Opteron die was displayed at Global Technology Conference, by GlobalFoundries, AMD's principal foundry-partner. While AMD did not give out a die-map to go with it, the structures we can make out are four Bulldozer modules holding two cores and a shared L2 cache each, a L3 cache spread across four blocks that's shared between all cores, the northbridge-portion cutting across the die at the center, and the integrated memory controller along its far-right side. Various I/O portions are located along the other three sides.

Next up is the Llano die. This is AMD's very first Fusion APU (accelerated processing unit) die. It is based on the K10 architecture and integrates a graphics processor and northbridge completely into one die. It precedes APUs based on the Bobcat architecture. Fortunately, there is a die-map at hand, which shows four K10 cores with dedicated 1 MB L2 caches per core, no L3 cache, an integrated SIMD array that holds 480 stream processors. The GPU component is DirectX 11 compliant. Other components include an integrated northbridge, integrated memory controller, integrated PCI-Express root complex, and HyperTransport interface to the chipset.

AMD is finally going to embrace a truly next generation x86 processor architecture that is built from ground up. AMD's current architecture, the K10(.5) "Stars" is an evolution of the more market-successful K8 architecture, but it didn't face the kind of market success as it was overshadowed by competing Intel architectures. AMD codenamed its latest design "Bulldozer", and it features an x86 core design that is radically different from anything we've seen from either processor giants. With this design, AMD thinks it can outdo both HyperThreading and Multi-Core approaches to parallelism, in one shot, as well as "bulldoze" through serial workloads with a broad 8 integer pipeline per core, (compared to 3 on K10, and 4 on Westmere). Two almost-individual blocks of integer processing units share a common floating point unit with two 128-bit FMACs.

AMD is also working on a multi-threading technology of its own to rival Intel's HyperThreading, that exploits Bulldozer's branched integer processing backed by shared floating point design, which AMD believes to be so efficient, that each SMT worker thread can be deemed a core in its own merit, and further be backed by competing threads per "core". AMD is working on another micro-architecture codenamed "Bobcat", which is a downscale implementation of Bulldozer, with which it will take on low-power and high performance per Watt segments that extend from all-in-One PCs all the way down to hand-held devices and 8-inch tablets. We will explore the Bulldozer architecture in some detail.

Over half an year after its introduction, Zotac's feature-rich H55-ITX WiFi motherboard got a minor (or major, depending on your application) specification update, with the company dropping in USB 3.0 support. Making use of the common NEC controller, the board features two USB 3.0 ports on its rear-panel. The new model is thus named H55U3 WiFi. Sticking strictly to the mini-ITX specs, the H55U3 is a socket LGA1156 motherboard supporting processors with TDP of up to 95W, which translates to all dual-core Core i3, i5 processors with room for light overclocking, and quad-core Core i5, i7 with no overclocking.

Being based on the Intel H55 chipset, it supports Intel FDI, connecting processors with Intel HD graphics to display connectors that include DVI and HDMI. The socket is wired to two DDR3 DIMM slots for dual-channel memory, and one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot. Connectivity includes six SATA 3 Gb/s from the H55 PCH, 8-channel HD audio with optical SPDIF, WiFi b/g/n, gigabit Ethernet, eSATA, USB 2.0, and USB 3.0. The board uses ATX 24+4 pin power input. Zotac's H55U3 WiFi has started selling in China for US $118.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, will showcase the Company's leading-edge SSD solutions at the 2010 Flash Memory Summit in booth #415 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA August 17-19. OCZ's commitment to advancing flash technology for enterprise and commercial applications makes the Flash Summit is the ideal space to demonstrate cutting edge technology and solutions.

OCZ will demonstrate the breakthrough HSDL (High Speed Data Link) interface and accompanying IBIS 3.5" HSDL SSD, which was developed to revolutionize data transfer rates and bandwidth and take SSD storage technology to the next level. HSDL eliminates the SATA bottleneck and is ideal for a wide range of enterprise applications including high performance computing, servers and cloud computing solutions. Likewise, the RevoDrive PCI-Express SSD will be entered in the "Best of Show" awards as the highest performing bootable PCI-E drive at its price point on the market.

OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) and memory modules for computing devices and systems, releases the RevoDrive PCI-Express SSD, an innovative storage solution that focuses on both performance and affordability for consumers. The new RevoDrive was developed to push the limits of economical SSD technology to deliver a revolutionary product with a remarkable price point.

Moving beyond the bottleneck of SATA 3 Gb/s, the OCZ RevoDrive features a PCIe interface to deliver superior speeds over 500 MB/s reads and random small file writes up to 80,000 IOPS, nearly twice the speed of other consumer SSDs. Thanks to a proprietary RAID 0 design, the RevoDrive maximizes data access and bandwidth to promote a faster, more responsive PC experience compared to not only hard drives, but other SSDs on the market.

HighPoint Technologies, announces shipment of the RocketRAID 2722. The RocketRAID 2722 delivers the next generation of SAS 6Gb/s performance with 8 channels of external point-to-point direct connectivity. The newest member broadens the HighPoint SAS 6Gb/s RAID product portfolio which now includes all generations of SATA (6Gb/s, 3Gb/s & 1.5Gb/s) and SAS 6Gb/s storage interface.

HighPoint RocketRAID 2722 is first 8 channel external member of the SAS/SATA 6Gb/s RAID host adapter family series. There two SFF-8088 connectors to support up to 8 external SAS/SATA devices. A PCI-Express 2.0 x8 bus interface is backward compatible to PCI-Express 1.0. HighPoint hardware assisted RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, 50 and JBOD offers a balance of storage performance with protection.