Zii will get accellerated Adobe Flash

While I'm not very fond of all the secrets behind Zii, this time Creative is actually involved in an interesting news post.

Adobe announced that it will offer an optimized version of Flash to run on Zii enabled devices, allowing for full acceleration of H.264 HD video. The effort is part of the Open Screen Project, led by Adobe, which aims to provide rich media content on all portable multimedia enabled devices.
This kind of support by companies like Adobe is what every hardware product needs to succeed, especially one based on a new type of architecture.
Adobe hasn't been so supportive of alternate PC and console architectures like PowerPC and ARM, so it is promising to know that Creative has managed to gather the necessary software base for the product to be successful.

Creative had already shown how the in-house built device with the ZMS-05 will look like and named it the Zii Egg. The device will be bundled with either the custom Plasma OS or a port of Google's Android and is a media player which packs a lot of hardware:

• 1080p HD output to TV/monitor via cable
  
• Composite output
• Ambient light sensor
• 802.11b/g WiFi
  
• GPS receiver
• Two cameras, one at the front and another at the back
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• SDHC slot
• 32GB of internal Flash
• X-Y-Z accelerometer
• 256MB of DDR memory

I find it hard to believe that what seems just one chip of DDR will provide enough bandwidth for 1080p output. 720p is possible and Creative showed 720p output of a downscaled 1080p video.
Architecture details are still to be unveiled but the whole device seems promising, especially given the open nature of the device.

Nvidia LGA 1156 chipsets update

Since the last post I about the lack of Nvidia chipsets for LGA 1156 platforms, I've dug a little deeper into the issue and found that some sites have reported that Nvidia is still planning to release a chipset.

Nvidia has, reportedly, been working on one new chipset for LGA 775 platforms, the MCP89, and also on the MCP99, targeting LGA1156 platforms from Intel. TechPowerUP has reported, some time ago, that the MCP99 chipset will feature an onboard local framebuffer - this is the likely and not cost-effective(512MB of DDR3 @ 64bit?) solution to Nvidia's problems. If Intel would release some LGA1156 35W CPUs for laptops, this would be a "not so bad" solution to have decent graphics capabilities on "Nehalem" based laptops without having to also pay for a P55 chipset besides the discrete GPU from Nvidia. Since Intel seems to be jumping right into "Clarkdale" cores with iGPU and will release just some 45W versions of "Lynnfield", that doesn't leave much market for an expensive solution like that.

The other option I can think of is also not good: it would involve embedding an NF200 based PCIe switch on the chipset and accessing either the RAM through the 16 PCIe lanes (at 8GB/s) or allowing an external graphics card to also use the bus. Failure to do both will not go very well with OEMs.
Had Nvidia not allowed SLI licenses for P55 chipsets, I would've thought they would release a chipset sans iGPU and make some bucks of SLI motherboards, probably even delivering a chipset that could even be more interesting than the P55 in some way other than just adding SLI support.

Source: TechPowerUP

Sega Dreamcast Turns 10 Today

The Dreamcast was launched in North America 10 years ago:

I bought one for myself in the Christmas of 1999 and it was one of the best video gaming experiences I had in my life due to the excellent games and very advanced hardware for it's time.

The Dreamcast used an Hitachi SH-4, an excellent CPU that held it's own against desktop processors of that time and outpaced them in real world situations. Games before 2000 didn't take advantage of 3DNow! or SSE while the SIMD engine inside the SH-4 was used from the start providing up to 900MFLOPS/s, something especially important for 3D calculations. (For a more in-depth article, take a look at the post at Segatech detailing the architecture)
Graphics duties were taken care of by a design from PowerVR, now Imagination Technologies - the firm who has designed the GMA 500 core for Intel Poulsbo and the core inside the iPhone - which was an important company back then, that also delivered subsequent chips for post Dreamcast SEGA Arcade consoles, including the one used for Virtua Fighter 4.
The PowerVR2 chip inside the Dreamcst couldn't really have been a better choice: in a time Transform and Lightning wasn't a part of graphics cards' chips, it had a tile based rendering technology that allowed it to more efficiently render than any graphics card at the time, only drawing the parts of the scene that really were visible. The same architecture was later revised for the PC, which gave birth to the interesting Kyro II.

As for other components, the Dreamcast featured a modified CD-ROM capable of carrying 1.2GB of data, named the GD-ROM. The biggest innovation was the integrated 33.6K modem for internet play(in Europe, 56K in the USA), which SEGA hoped would connect every owner of the Dreamcast online. I gave it some use, although limited due to the high ISP costs around here. I frequently remember that the hardware and software were so optimized that the slower modem was much faster loading pages than the 56K modem in my PC - this reflected itself in online gaming, where lag times were very acceptable.

The failure is now part of history: the Dreamcast was seriously hacked(no chip was required, the CD-Rs just booted), sales weren't as good as SEGA had hoped in 2000 and in January 2001 SEGA decided to stop manufacturing the console. SEGA still sold the remaining units fairly fast when they announced a price drop to clear inventory, ending with 10 million consoles sold. The last game released worldwide was NHL 2K2 in February of 2002 but some games were still released in Japan after that. SEGA then moved multi platform and kept the arcade business.

My Dreamcast still works and I still game on it from time to time. Since Soul Calibur was ported to the Xbox 360 it hasn't been turned on so often but there's still some games I will play through, namely Skies of Arcadia.
Until today, the Dreamcast still has something of a cult following due to the abundance and excellent quality of the games released, despite the short lifespan. May it live forever in re-releases and homebrew emulators.

Intel releases ''Lynnfield'', updates Xeon line

Today, I got this on my mailbox. Today marks the release of "Nehalem" based LGA 1156 processors:

Model	Clock (GHz)	Turbo	Cores/Threads	Cache	1K Price	Intel HT?	TDP
Core™ i7-870	2.93	3.6 GHz	4/8	8 MB	$562	Yes	95W
Core™ i7-860	2.80	3.46 GHz	4/8	8 MB	$284	Yes	95W
Core™ i5-750	2.66	3.2 GHz	4/4	8 MB	$196	No	95W
Xeon® X3470	2.93	3.6 GHz	4/8	8 MB	$589	Yes	95W
Xeon® X3460	2.80	3.46 GHz	4/8	8 MB	$316	Yes	95W
Xeon® X3450	2.66	3.2 GHz	4/8	8 MB	$241	Yes	95W
Xeon® X3440	2.53	2.93 GHz	4/8	8 MB	$215	Yes	95W
Xeon® X3430	2.40	2.8 GHz	4/4	8 MB	$189	No	95W
Xeon® L3426	1.86	3.2 GHz	4/8	8 MB	$284	Yes	45W

Jumping right to the point... forget the HyperThreading disabled Core i5, these are LGA 1156 Xeons for entry level servers. At $215 the Xeon X3440 is an excellent value and the X3450 clocks that same but brings HT to the table for $45 more and $43 less than the Core i7 860. Plus, Xeon processors are usually better binned, so you may find yourself with either better power consumption or more overclocking headroom. They can be found at some retailers, although availability may not be as good as Core processors right now.

The Xeon L3426, albeit high priced, is also an interesting offer. At $284 it delivers HT support, an incredible, high-end laptop typical 45W of TDP and Turbo Mode up to 3.2GHz to make up for the base lower clock. SFF PCs go spectacularly well together with this Xeon flavour, or if you'd just like a PC that saves on the energy bill.

Reviews of both the Core i7 870 and the Core i5 750 are up everywhere, although Intel has left out the most interesting CPU of the new Core i7 lineup, the i7 860. It sums up like this:

Overclocking:

4.2GHz for the 870, around 4GHz for most. Same thing as LGA 1366 processors, give or take some. There's a voltage problem associated with the embedded PCIe controller, so the LGA 1366 platform is a better solution for now. Overclocking with stock voltage stays around 3.3GHz, worse than both the Phenom II and 1366 Core i7 due to this problem.
If you still want to do it, skip the Core i5 750 and go for the Xeon 3440 and you'll get HT and around the same clocks. You'll also want to disable Turbo so you'll be able to get the "same" upper clockspeed in not just one core but in all cores. The difference of higher speed with Turbo or higher speed without is almost always negligeble(~50MHz) but will vary from processor to processor.

From here, performance can loosely be split into two situations: Gaming and all other applications.


Gaming:

The Core i7 870 is very fast but very unattractive due to being priced at $562. If you're buying such an expensive processor, you're looking for something good and you should choose an LGA 1366 based platform with a cheaper Core i7 920 you can overclock easily and you'll get a more mature platform, free of hassles characteristic of new products. BIOS are refined, drivers are tweaked and you can get Multi-GPU via two x16 slots and not via x8 slots, which scales better with clock and is faster. If you don't want to overclock, get the Core i7 860 instead and get a better GPU - spending almost double for not much more is just silly.

As for cheaper builds, the Core i5 750 is a good processor but it doesn't come with HyperThreading enabled, which isn't a problem for now. It may be soon, if you want a long lasting platform. If so, get the Xeon 3440 instead, as the HT will make up for the slight lower clockspeed(133MHz). If you want to overclock, consider an LGA 1366 platform instead if you can. Look for prices below to help you make up your mind.

General performance:

It comes down to price but the Xeon 3440 seems a better option than the slower Core i5 750 due to the disabled HT on the i5. The Core i7 920 is also much faster and the motherboard can support the upcoming Core i9. I would just like to see the Xeon 3440 put against it to see what would be the better option, although platform costs would be something to take into consideration in that case. The i7 860 may also be a good option, the better one if also consider gaming once in a while.
Bottomline: Hyper Threading is your friend, you need it here.

Price considerations:

Xeon X3440 - $215
GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 - $109.99
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 - $82
Total: $407

Core i7 920 - $290
JetWay JBI-600-LF - $160
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 - $82
Total: $532

Prices were taken from an online retailer and products not just chosen on the cheaper ones but taking into consideration the user ratings, so you may find cheaper parts.
Take this only as a consideration for a multipurpose platform, not gaming, that was done before. The difference here is $125 between both systems, with the LGA1366 platform being somewhat cheaper than it should because of the choice of only 2x2GB DIMMs. The price difference will yield you:

• Better performance, although not by much and mostly on multithreaded scenarios.
• Upgrade possibility to Core i9 hexa-core processors
• Two PCIe x16 slots for SLI/CrossFire, CUDA multi-GPU will benefit considerably.
  
• Possibility to upgrade to tripple channel for bandwidth intensive applications, 12GB of RAM with mostly no problems.
  
• DDR3-1600 will work flawlessly on stock(on "Lynnfield" it's still too early to be sure, Intel may have locked lower CPUs at 1333MHz)
• Mature platform

If you don't care about overclocking or any of the above, go for the Xeon 3440. If you do care, especially for the upgrade possibilities, consider your financial options, it may be worth to pay the higher fee.

My personal opinion stands that AMD offers are still great on lower price points(not on $200 anymore, in any way) and I still don't trust my money on any Intel based platform since the very bad experiences I had with Core 2 for over a year.
As such, my platform of choice right now would consist of an AM2 Gigabyte or Jetway board, an unlocked Phenom II X3 720 overclocked to ~3.6GHz and 4GB of DDR2-800 - cheaper, stable and provides easy overclocks. No "Lynnfield" can be a choice when integrated graphics is an option, since Intel hasn't got one until "Clarkdale" based Core i3 and Core i5 processors are released towards the end of the year.

Until I received the e-mail from Intel this morning with the prices for Xeon processors, I wasn't to write this and say that the Core i7 920 wouldn't be the better choice, as it has been for a good while. The new Xeon X3440 changed my stance - it is an excellent option for a cheaper computer. The X3450 and the Core i7 860 also good choices, but the Core i7 860 mitigates the price difference for the LGA 1366 build and I consider that a better option for everything but the best price/performance non multi-GPU gaming platform. Hopefully, these LGA 1156 Xeon processors will be available shortly for purchase, as was the case with Core 2 based Xeons.

Asus adds triple core unlock option to BIOS

Asus unveiled a new BIOS setting that enables choosing between which will be the third core to unlock with the new Phenom II X2 processors. Users who can't unlock all four cores using ACC will be able to settle for a Phenom II X3 processor, something to which wasn't given much attention in the early days of ACC.

This new BIOS setting is available in the following 790FX motherboards from ASUS and the corresponding BIOS version:

• M4A79T-Deluxe from BIOS 1604
• M4A79-Deluxe from BIOS 2101
• Crosshair III Formula from BIOS 0805
  

Unlocking attempts have been very successful until now, as shows the data collected at XtremeSystems Forums:

• Total of 94 X4 Successful Unlocks
• Total of 29 Failed Unlocks
• Total of 2 X3 Core Success Unlocks

While most people can unlock all four cores, some are not so lucky and this option might also allow you to enable just 3 of the better cores when one has problems when overlocking or running at near the stock speed.