Intel accused of foul play in 3DMark

Futuremark's test suite 3DMark have been the tool for measuring graphical performance for many years. While it gives an interesting guide line for the theoretic performance of a GPU it has become a status symbol among manufacturers to end up high in the ranking, even if it may not reflect the true performance of the chips. AMD has now reported Intel to Futuremark where it claims it has optimized the latest drivers for its integrated graphics circuits in foul ways.

At TechReport they have published an interesting article where they tested Intel's G41 chipset in 3DMark Vantage, which is the test AMD refers to. Using Intel's latest driver, version 15.15.4.1872, the system managed to score 2931 point.

When they changed the name of 3DMarkVantage.exe to 3DMarkVintage.exe performance dove 37%, to 2132 points. This does prove that Intel has changed the chipset behavior in some way to react to the executed file name. Something AMD claims violates Futuremark's rules.

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Intel Reports Strong Third-Quarter Results

• Third-Quarter Revenue $9.4 Billion, Strongest Second-to-Third-Quarter Growth in over 30 years
• Gross Margin 58 Percent, Up 7 Points Sequentially
• Operating Income $2.6 Billion
• Net Income $1.9 Billion
• EPS 33 Cents

SANTA CLARA, Calif., – Intel Corporation today reported third-quarter revenue of $9.4 billion. The company reported operating income of $2.6 billion, net income of $1.9 billion and earnings per share (EPS) of 33 cents.

"Intel's strong third-quarter results underscore that computing is essential to people's lives, proving the importance of technology innovation in leading an economic recovery," said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO. "This momentum in the current economic climate, plus our product leadership, gives us confidence about our business prospects going forward. As we look ahead, Intel's game-changing 32nm process technology will usher in another wave of innovation from new, powerful Intel® Xeon® server platforms to high-performance Intel® Core™ processors to low-power Intel® Atom™ processors."

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AMD promises better supply of Radeon HD 5000 series soon

AMD has launched no less than four graphics cards based on its new DirectX 11 architecture and with praise from reviewers the cards have sold out. Both AMD and consumers are of course disappointed by the insufficient supply and even if semiconductor manufacturer TSMC gets a lot of the blame AMD gets criticized by the buyers. The company has now announced that the Radeon HD 5000 family will be available in larger quantities the coming weeks.

AMD VP Dirk Meyer had the following to say:

“TSMC has made good progress with the 40nm technology. At this point our new ATI Radeon HD 5000 family is pulling on 40nm and as is always the case with the hot new product early in the launch: we are hand and mouth on supply. I expect that situation to improve over the coming weeks and months”

After AMD reported 18 percent increased revenue before Q3 it hopes to reach even better numbers this quarter and the new graphics card is the key.

AMD Radeon HD 5850

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AMD releases 8 new Athlon processors

Say what you want about Microsoft and its Windows operating system but the PC industry is adjusting according to its launch dates and general activity. In two days Microsoft will launch the anticipated Windows 7 operating system and it's up to each hardware manufacturer to ride the waves caused by it. AMD is one of these and today it has launched an armada of budget processors that will lure consumers to upgrade.

With prices ranging from $60 up to $140 AMD has managed to squeeze out no less than eight new models for the Athlon II family. The processors sport two, three or four cores and clock frequencies between 2.2GHz and 2.9GHz. Six of the processors are marked as Energy Efficient with only 45W TDP.

Model	Clock frequency	L2 cache	TDP	Price
Athlon II X4 605e	2,3GHz	2,0MB	45 W	~$140
Athlon II X4 600e	2,2GHz	2,0MB	45 W	~$130
Athlon II X3 405e	2,3GHz	1,5MB	45 W	~$100
Athlon II X3 400e	2,2GHz	1,5MB	45 W	~$95
Athlon II X2 240e	2,8GHz	2,0MB	45 W	~$80
Athlon II X2 235e	2,7GHz	2,0MB	45 W	~$70

AMD has also released the first triple-core Athlon II processors and the new duo consists of Athlon II X3 435 and X3 425. The processors use the core architecture as the Athlon II X4 CPUs but with one core disabled. This results in a total L2 cache of 1.5MB and 95W TDP. Clock frequencies are set to 2.9GHz and 2.7GHz.

Model	Clock frequency	L2 cache	TDP	Price
Athlon II X3 435	2,9GHz	1,5MB	95 W	~$85
Athlon II X3 425	2,7GHz	1,5MB	95 W	~$75

These processor seem to offer a pretty good performance per penny with price tags between $65-80. Several reviews have appeared and they all show that AMD is really in the game if we're talking price/performance, which is important to many today.

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Intel updates X25-M G2 SSD series with TRIM, 100MB/s write speed

Intel took the lead with its second generation SSD, X25-M G2, and it has now raised the bar even higher by adding TRIM support. The technology minimizes performance loss with often used SSDs through smart handling of the flash memory cells. TRIM is only, natively, supported by Windows 7 and beside Intel memory controller maker Indilinx has added support for the technology. Well known SSDs with Indilinx Barefoot controller include OCZ Vertex, SuperTalent UltraDrive GX and Corsair P series.

Intel's new TRIM firmware only works with the latest G2 models, which unfortunately leaves all G1 owners out in the cold. It has also released a manual TRIM application called SSD Toolbox. This is also exclusive for the G2 drives.

Intel X25-M G2

A nice bonus with the new firmware is that the top model, Intel X25-M G2 160GB, also gets a write speed boost from 80MB/s to 100MB/s. Unfortunately the 80GB model remains at 80MB/s write speed and even if 100MB/s would be a pleasant increase Intel's SSDs still have problems keeping up when there are a lot of write actions.

Multiple tests of Intel's new TRIM firmware has appeared and the most interesting, in our opinion, comes from Anandtech where it compares it to Indilinx TRIM support in real life scenarios. Using innovative tests you get a good grip of the actual performance of modern SSDs and it shows that Intel has gained some good competition, much due to its own weak write speeds.

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