ARM: two generations of graphics processors arrive

ARM provides two new chips Mali to address different markets, a pay strategy for British society?

This time, it is the English business ARM which shows the future of mobile processors embedded in our smartphones, tablets and even connected TVs. ARM is here that his new party graphic called Mali that animates its chips. The new generation is called Mali-450 and the successor to Mali-400 that getting into four hearts of treatment with the support of OpenGL ES 2.0 for the first time.

ARM Mali-450, passes to eight graphic hearts and also optimizes the treatment of OpenGL ES 2.0 for even more performance in video games. Chief product of ARM in the process media division, Steve Steele said that Mali-450 is not that double the number of hearts on the chip, but that optimizations were performed on units of graphics for better performance even if they are a little more than place on the chip in the end.

For the moment, this new generation does not yet the latest technologies in terms of graphics as the tesselation example calculation, but Steve Steele indicates that ARM has already in its cartons a new architecture called Midgard for the end of the year and will be fully exploited in the Mali-604 chips. In the meantime, Mali-450 chips are thought to be used in the entry and the means of range and Mali-604 and 658 which will arrive a little later to the high and compete directly with NVIDIA on this segment. We are asking to see...

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Xeon drawn from Sandy Bridge-E arrive

Why are the equivalent of Sandy Bridge Servers-E Xeon slow to get out? Here are some ...

There a few days of this, we offered you the test of Intel Sandy Bridge-E. A total of eight cores "hyperthreading", so 16 rows of parallel processing, coupled with 20 MB of L3 cache, supported by four-channel DDR3 and two QPI channel for communication between processors, managing forty lines PCI Express version 3.0 more DMI2 embedded controller to manage the input / output. Impressive. Some will say that the Westmere-EX are more powerful. Yes, but the TDP emerged and consumption is not the same on this new generation of processors.


By cons, we do not always get these super processors for processing units in the drawers of Rue-Montgallet. The founder says they have some problems, especially on the new chipset Patsburg, the virtualization engine and the management of ports SAS, the world wide standard servers. But if the latter tests are successful, the next batch (C2 Stepping) should be available in February 2012, without elaborating.

Another major issue on which Intel has floored, the consumption of the devices associated with the processor, such as cache controllers or I / O or memory controller is now integrated into the processor. All this requires a lot of juice, for this reason also that the version "Desktop" has only six instead of eight cores, for example. It is therefore understandable that the frequencies of some processors are scaled down to meet the specifications for the TDP announced.

But the technical improvements of these new architectures can improve performance against previous generations. To correct this, it is expected that in the middle of the second quarter of 2012, a new revision (D-Stepping) will be released. When the chipset Patsburg finalized, version 3.0 of the PCI-Express has erased the problem of backward compatibility and then the frequencies of the processors may be revised upwards.

This architecture finally coming of age for PC and for the Pro, Ivy Bridge will arrive shortly after, in 2013, although it is rumored that they could get to the end of 2012 ...

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RED Scarlet Vs Canon C300: the new numeric cameras arrive

The film industry be offered new toys small digital still smaller and lighter, but no less effective ...

RED digital cameras have made ??a place in Hollywood in recent years. The model is one of Epic's favorite directors, which should necessarily be interested in the arrival of her little sister, the Scarlet. A camera that shoots in 5K (5120 x 2700) at 12 frames per second (120 i / s for Epic) or 4K (4096 x 2160) at 25 frames per second. Backward compatible with the accessories of his sister, the Scarlet also comes with a mount that makes it compatible with Canon EF autofocus optics (controlled via the LCD touch screen). And the good news is that RED will continue to be competitive on price by offering the professional camera at list prices of $ 9750. The RED Scarlet have very small size, and just look 10 years back the monsters with which were on the blockbusters to be convinced ...

     

Microsoft laisse un peu plus de marge de manœuvre aux fabricants de Windows Phone.<br /><br />

Equally compact or more, Canon has in turn the C300. After integrating its advanced SLR features popular videos (more and more media reports their work with a Canon SLR and a few accessories for ease of use "camera", while the films shot in 5D Mark II multiply) , the Japanese manufacturer seems to want to engage more seriously in the matter. Thus, beyond its prototype EOS Movies, the C300 is the first camera "film and broadcast" Canon's position would like to deal with the RED Scarlet, or Alexa for Arri. Unveiled at the heart of Hollywood studios Paramount, to many film personalities including Martin Scorsese, the C300 is meant to exploit the many objectives of the brand, including new optical video-oriented future.

 

Fujio Mitarai said at the presentation that the C300 is particularly effective to accurately reproduce colors like skin tones. Equipped with a CMOS sensor "Super 35mm" 4K, the C300 is limited to 1080p. It will be launched simultaneously with two sets of optics. A 14.5 to 60 mm and 30-300 mm, which will cost a whopping $ 45,000 each (no, there is not a zero too!). The C300 will be available in two basic versions, one accompanied by a Canon EF mount and the other with a PL mount, standard of the film industry. Three other optical more accessible are coming in EF (24 mm, 50 mm and 85 mm), with longer races for the development. The first recall notice a picture clarity offered by this unique sensor with that of SLR video of the brand, with a noise management clearly and convincingly climb to 20,000 ISO never seen before.

The only problem is the price of the C300 that Canon plans to launch around $ 20,000 by early next year. It's expensive, price positioning is a little strange even if one understands that we should make a difference on the price-oriented pro SLR with video ... Note also that while on paper the Scarlet is half the cost is not including Policy RED delivers a nearly naked body and offers a myriad of accessories to customize the camera, which is quick to push up the bill.

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Steve Ballmer has the audacity to criticize Android and Apple, while the Windows Phone Nokia arrive

Steve Ballmer comes to afford a small interesting media output, not hesitating to distribute bad points to Android and iOS...

"It is inflated!", think about the criticism that Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, just uttering from Android. Because the mobile operating system of Google reports lots of money to Microsoft, which - claiming some patent - negotiated agreements with giants like Acer, HTC or Samsung providing for a payment of royalties on every Android device sold. What did not stop Ballmer out some small murderous sentences against the free OS from Google, Web 2.0 San Francisco Conference.

Among these, are the most striking: "Is there no need to be computer to use a Windows Phone." "I think that this is unfortunately the case to use an Android phone". And if Steve Ballmer recognize that the Android system has the advantage of the price, explaining that "the Mobile Android are the cheapest market", he announced that Microsoft will make one of its areas of work of the sale price. On the Apple iPhone, it was not spared even though Ballmer admits that he is a "good competitor". However that "Windows Phone tiles are better than the Apple icons", and that if talking about many of the Siri assistant currently, "Microsoft does the same thing for years".

Finally, Steve Ballmer has finished his speech in affirming that the Windows Phone Nokia will be well presented at Nokia World next week. But nobody doubted...

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