CPU power management done right

Power management while overclocking has always been a miss among most motherboards(if not all). ASRock delivered a new X58 motherboard closer to power saving perfection.

A common fallacy of overclocking current processors is the loss of power management of the CPU. In the days of the Pentium 3 and Athlon XP it wasn't a big deal, as the feature wasn't available either way. Nowadays all CPUs support active power management and the power savings are usually very rewarding, with graphics cards following the same path, although not in a widespread way.

Taking example from AMD unlocked Black edition CPUs, if one had a motherboard that provided the proper choice of lower multiplier and voltage and higher multiplier and voltage, using a CPU at 800MHz and 1v - or less - and having it running full steam at 3.6GHz and 1.5v, the power savings would be very relevant for the machine. When it works, the most common is having the CPU overclocked by FSB and, while the voltage usually stays the same, the multiplier is manipulated up and down. This ensures that the CPU goes to about half the load power consumption.
That is the simpler way, since your lower multiplier will also result in an increased clock, one avoids problems of instability at the lower clock. A simpler situation would be to have the idle voltage be incremented by whatever we added to the load voltage, which would still ensure stability at idle clocks. Full control on the VID and FID tables, I still haven't seen, but I dream off.

ASRock has delivered close to these features by providing two voltage steps and multiplier adjustment, although you'll have to guarantee that the CPU is also stable at idle clocks:

As a result, Intel processor power-saving technologies did lower the CPU Vcore and multiplier in idle mode:


When the processor workload increased the clock frequency multiplier increased to 21 due to Intel Turbo Boost technology. In this case the CPU frequency rose to 3.8 GHz and the memory always remained at 1810 MHz with 9-9-9-24-1T timings. As you can see from the CPU-Z screenshot, under load processor Vcore is increased to 1.248 V (1.225 V being the nominal) because of the enabled “ASRock VDrop Control” function.

The motherboard is the ASRock X58 Extreme which, as you can see in the screenshot, is an LGA 1366 motherboard. It would be nice to have this kind of features in all overclocking motherboards that are called as such, and not just in $200 motherboards for $250 processors.

I hated every ASRock motherboard I had - five, if I remember well. Either the BIOS wasn't any good or it had compatibility problems, design problems, just plain stopped working after a few months, bad capacitors, the list goes on. Lately they have been receiving some good reviews and this motherboard has impressed me - they are certainly shaking away the bad brand image they had not so long ago. Kudos!

AMD releases ATI Radeon HD 4860

A new performance-mainstream card based on the RV790GT chip.

The new AMD Radeon HD 4860 uses a cut down RV790 with just 640 stream processors but retains the full 256bit memory interface common to the other cards in the 4800 series. The core is clocked at 700 MHz, and the memory at 750 MHz GDDR5, or 3000 MHz effective, in 512MB quantity - possibly with tons of space to overclock, as was the case with the Radeon HD 4770.
With good clocks and excellent bandwidth, performance is expected to be considerably higher than the MIA Radeon HD 4770, which has been troubled by the problems with the 40nm process node at TSMC. If the memory overclocks accordingly, expect this card to be an excellent alternative to the Radeon HD 4870.
The PCB seems well built although it should have some problems providing a high core overclocking. I'm also expecting this card to run on a slightly lower voltage than the HD 4890, as is hinted by the single PCIe power connector.
I'd like to see a 1GB Radeon HD 4770 card because of the lower power consumption and consequently lower noise but this new HD 4860 seems an excellent proposal for higher performance systems.
Pricing is expected to be around $130.

Source: IT68

Removing the IHS from Core i7 processors

It's possible, you just have to do it carefully. Very carefully.

Similar to my experience with an AMD CPU, some enthusiasts have been trying to remove the IHS from Core i7 CPUs. Wisely enough, the biggest disaster occurred on an already dead processor - the one you see above.

Another XS user has been more successful and has managed to remove the IHS without damaging the processor:


The whole process is documented in a forum thread and involves using some razer blades and a lighter. It's far more preferable to use an heat gun.
There's also a video of the said process:

The benefits when overclocking may be worth the try but it is a very risky process. Cooling can also improve a few degrees, especially on the CPUs which don't have good contact with the IHS or which don't have a very flat IHS.

Nvidia GeForce GTS 240

Meet the G92, the most rebranded chip like... ever.

This new card is nothing more than a slightly revamped 9800GT with a new PCB and G92b chips exclusively:

Based on 55nm G92 chip, the GTS 240 OEM features 112 stream processors, 1GB of GDDR3 memory, and core/shader/memory clock of 675/1620/1100MHz

This "new" Nvidia GeForce GTS 240 card has improved clocks, very similar to the original ones of the 9800GTX. The extra memory is an interesting addition and a similar step taken with the GTS 250, which put more emphasis in the 1GB variants than on previous generations. The extra framebuffer won't deliver higher maximum framerates but will help them not go so low in some heavy load situations, a situation that has started to occur in more demanding games.
The PCB has been revamped and although it is certainly a cheaper design, it does not seem a low quality build. The inductor in the bottom right corner is the only thing that seems cheap but as long as not much power goes through there, there won't be much electrical noise.
The card is OEM only for now and retail availability in the future is still a question. One can always grab the 9800GT, albeit with the slightly lower clocks. 1GB versions of the 9800GT are selling for around $140 or 110eur.

Source: Expreview

STMicro signs deal with Global Foundries

Global Foundries, what was once the manufacturing arm of AMD is now a separate company. Global Foundries will keep manufacturing CPUs for AMD but it also needs other partners to help bear the cost of tooling for new process nodes and building new factories. The first of such partners is ST Microelectronics, once widely known for manufacturing the Kyro graphics chips and the similar chips based on PowerVR technology that were found on the Sega Dreamcast console.

STMicro will be a customer of the low power process nodes, different from the ones AMD will be using for it's CPUs and future GPUs, and aimed mainly at SoCs for ultra low power devices. Global Foundries is hoping other partners will jump in, as it will need a good number of them to recoup the $4 billion it will invest in the New York fab it is building, which is expected to go online by 2012.

Gultown will be the Core i9

Intel will brand the upcoming six-core "Gulftown" processors as the Core i9. This makes some sense in the whole senseless naming. It also clears up the choice of Core i7 name for "Bloomfield".

Intel seems to have come up with the following:

• Core 2 Duo and Quad, the beginning.
  
• What's better than a Core 2 Duo? A dual-core Nehalem, so call it Core i3.
• What's better than the Quad? Five. So call Core i5 for the HT-less quad core "Lynnfield".
• Add two, in a strange way, since HT provides a 30% performance improvement, sometimes less, and you've got the Core i7.

Naturally, the Core i9 would surface when adding another two cores, since there's no prediction of a HT-less hexa-core soon. The way to tell how many cores a CPU has by looking at the name is gone, which is the senseless part of the story.

As for the CPU itself, "Gulftown" will use LGA 1366 and will be compatible with current X58 motherboards - although this pends confirmation from Intel. The CPU will also be used to upgrade the Xeon line, possibly with the introduction of the Xeon 5600 series, which should also be compatible with current server designs based on the 5500 series Xeon.
This core is based on the "Westmere" refresh architecture and will be a tweaked "Nehalem" that will have an increase in L3 cache to 12MiB, contrary to AMD's "Istanbul" cores, which kept the same cache as the quad-core processor.
A 3GHz Core i9 will deliver 144 GFLOPS/s(errata: no AVX) 72GFLOPs/s in 32bit operations versus 48GFLOPS/s in a 3GHz Xeon 5500 and considerably higher than the current 2.6GHz AMD Opteron six-core, which delivers 62.4 GFLOPS/s.
The Core i9 will be released towards the end of the year or around January 2010.

MSI GTX 275 Lightning 1792MB

Overclocking card or CUDA beast on the cheap?

I guess both. The slides are pretty much self explanatory: the card is very similar to the GTX 260 Lightning.
Besides the obvious gaming applications for such a card, there's hints of a CUDA machine with this one. The big frame buffer of 1792MB will run a good amount of CUDA capable applications without breaking the bank - Tesla cards with 4GB go up to $1300 and the others only have the usual 896MB, not enough for some professional applications.
The high quality components should ensure a long lifespan for this card, even when running full steam 24/7, but it's expected to be priced in the $300 range, possibly a bit more - it's the big downside.

AMD integrated graphics loosing ground to Intel

AMD still has bragging rights, it has had for a long time, but Intel is closing in fast and it's chips are everywhere. AMD marketing team seems to think it's all ok.

AMD is still touting the considerable advantage they have over Intel's integrated graphics, when it has shrunk considerably and the AMD 785G is a disappointing upgrade to the extraordinary performance that the 780G provided.
Moreover, take a look at the above chart. You'll notice that AMD is comparing Intel's offering not to the HD 3200, the 780G, but to the HD 3300 chip, AMD 790GX chipset, which only targets premium motherboards. The article doesn't mention Sideport memory but most 790GX chipsets make use of it, which worsens the situation even more.

As far as roadmaps go, AMD has Fusion with it's APU, the name given to the GPU merged with CPUs - it will have general purpose cores and an APU(Accelerated processing unit) - nothing else on sight.
Looking back to October of 2008, Intel and Nvidia were loosing big time to what AMD had to offer. Company of Heroes performance was about the same, but the 780G wiped the floor with the G45 in the rest.
Nvidia's answer came soon for the Intel camp, in the form of the GF9400M chipset:



The last one is the G45, the top middle one is the 780G - not the faster 790GX.
Intel's hardware has been improving and while AMD's drivers were already good enough, the drivers weren't. Looking at these results, also from October, it sure seems that Intel's driver team sure has been working well and from 100% more performance for AMD, it went to just the 28% that AMD is touting:

AMD needs to release a proper upgrade to the 880G soon or AMD's bragging rights will all turn to dust.
It still has the better IGP, which even overclocks like mad for even more performance, but it needs a revamp soon. The CPUs are competitive but slower and AMD's greatest product is still the whole platform it offers.

AMD integrated graphics vs Intel @ Donanimhaber

OCZ Platinum DDR3-1600 CL7 6GB kit reviewed

An overclocking delight, 2300MHz for a good price.

For gaming - except with UT3 - the most rewarding characteristic of memory is probably the overall latency that can be achieved when pairing both high-speeds and low latency. This memory kit from OCZ has it all:

• OCZ3P1600LV6GK
• 240Pin Unbuffered-DIMM Non ECC
• 6GB Triple Channel Kit (2GB x3)
• DDR3 1600
• 7-7-7-24
• 1.65v

The memory kit is available for around 100eur, at publishing time, making it one of the most economic DDR3-1600 kits around, especially when considering the low CAS 7.

Lab501 tested the said memory and was able to achieve Super Pi benchmarking at DDR3 2300 9-9-9-24 1T @1.90v speeds, while suicide shots could be had at 2400MHz, with the same settings.


OCZ Platinum DDR3 1600 @ Lab501

AMD releases Athlon II X2 240 and 245, updates Phenom II X4 945

AMD Athlon X2 "Brisbane" on it's way out.

AMD announced availability of cheaper Athlon II X2 240 and 245 processors, in all similar to the already well known Athlon II X2 250, except when it comes to clockspeed. The processors feature the same 1MB L2 cache per core but lower clocks of 2.8GHz and 2.9GHz. Prices start at $65.

AMD also updated the AM3 based AMD Phenom II X4 945 with a lower TDP of 95W and it can only be distinguished from it's 125w counterpart by the part number. The new P/N is HDX945WFK4DGI while the 125w part number is HDX945FBK4DGI.

The introduction of new Athlon II X2 models is an important strategic step for AMD, as it not only provides considerable performance improvements from both old Athlon X2 65nm cores and Athlon X2 7xxx series, but they also cost less to manufacture. The new cores take up 117mm² of silicon, against 126mm² of the "Brisbane" cores.

AMD Athlon II X2 240 and 245 @ Hardware Secrets
AMD Phenom II X4 945 95w @ Hardware Secrets