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If you are a normal desktop user or even a power user with plans to run at over 4GHz, the vanilla LGA-1155 Sandy Bridge platform is good enough. You get some of the fastest CPUs on the market today paired with reasonably priced motherboards and the ability to use Quick Sync to transcode video…er…quickly. If that's not enough, Intel launched a higher end platform last month: the LGA-2011 Sandy Bridge E.

Take a regular Sandy Bridge, add PCIe 3.0 support, increase the number of PCIe lanes that branch off of the CPU (from 16 to 40 lanes), double the number of memory channels (4 x 64-bit DDR3 memory controllers) and you've got Sandy Bridge E and its LGA-2011/X79 platform. SNB-E is currently available in two forms: a 9 6-core Extreme Edition part (Core i7 3960X) and a 5 6-core unlocked version (Core i7 3930K). Neither is exactly cheap but if you need the PCIe lanes, core count and memory bandwidth, they are your only ticket.

LGA-2011 SNB-E (left) vs. LGA-1155 SNB (right)

Sandy Bridge E is a fairly niche platform to begin with, but what about the niche within the niche (extremeception?) of users who just need the LGA-2011 platform but not necessarily a 6-core behemoth? For those users, there's the Core i7 3820.

Read on for our review!

At AMD’s Fusion Developer Summit 2011 AMD announced Graphics Core Next, their next-generation GPU architecture. GCN would be AMD’s Fermi moment, where AMD got serious about GPU computing and finally built an architecture that would serve as both a graphics workhorse and a computing workhorse. With the ever increasing costs of high-end GPU development it’s not enough to merely develop graphics GPUs, GPU developers must expand into GPU computing in order to capture the market share they need to live well into the future.

At the same time, by canceling their 32nm process TSMC has directed a lot of hype about future GPU development onto the 28nm process, where the next generation of GPUs would be developed. In an industry accustomed to rapid change and even more rapid improvement never before have GPU developers and their buyers had to wait a full 2 years for a new fabrication process to come online.

All of this has lead to a perfect storm of anticipation for what has become the Radeon HD 7970: not only is it the first video card based on a 28nm GPU, but it’s the first member of the Southern Islands and by extension the first video card to implement GCN. As a result the Radeon HD 7970 has a tough job to fill, as a gaming card it not only needs to deliver the next-generation performance gamers expect, but as the first GCN part it needs to prove that AMD’s GCN architecture is going to make them a competitor in the GPU computing space. Can the 7970 do all of these things and live up to the anticipation? Let’s find out…

Intel has quietly released a new top-of-the-line Sandy Bridge CPU: Core i7-2700K. We reported the i7-2700K "leak" about a month ago, and guessed that i7-2700K will be released around the same time as AMD's Bulldozer CPUs, which ended being quite accurate. In terms of specs, 2700K is very similar to 2600K – the only difference is the extra CPU multiplier and hence the extra 100MHz in 2700K. That means 2700K has default frequency of 3.5GHz and up to 3.9GHz Turbo. Otherwise 2700K is equal to 2600K: Four cores, Hyper-Threading (up to eight threads) and 8MB L3 cache. Like the "K" implies, the CPU multiplier is unlocked, allowing effortless overclocking. Intel hasn't, however, added 2700K to their product database yet (aka ARK), so possible changes in stepping for example are unknown. 2700K is sold for 2 in 1000 unit lots, making it more expensive than 2600K. 

On top of the launch of i7-2700K, Intel has also reduced the prices of three CPUs: i3-2120, Pentium G850 and G630. As the naming suggests, these CPUs are lower-end desktop models. The new prices are 7, and respectively. The price cuts range from 13% to 15%, the biggest cut being i3-2120's . 

We’ve just returned from sunny Bellevue, Washington, where AMD held their first Fusion Developer Summit (AFDS). As with other technical conferences of this nature such as NVIDIA’s GTC and Intel’s IDF, AFDS is a chance for AMD to reach out to developers to prepare them for future products and to receive feedback in turn. While AMD can make powerful hardware it’s ultimately the software that runs on it that drives sales, so it’s important for them to reach out to developers to ensure that such software is being made.

While AFDS serves many purposes, the final purpose – and what is going to be most interesting to most outside observers – was to prepare developers for what’s coming down the pipe. AMD has big plans for the future and it’s important to get developers involved as soon as is reasonably possible so that they’re ready to use AMD’s future technologies when they launch. Over the next few days we’ll talk about a couple of different things AMD is working on, and today we’ll start with the first and most exciting project: AMD Graphics Core Next, AMD's next generation GPU architecture.

KOREAN ELECTRONICS GIANT Samsung will build a smartphone with a 2GHz dual core processor by the end of the year.

Speaking to the Korean website daum.net, a spokesperson for Samsung said, “We are planning to release a 2GHz dual core CPU-equipped smartphone by next year.” This is an improvement of 800MHz on the 1.2GHz dual core processor that’s found in the Galaxy S II smartphone, which is currently the fastest chip in a phone.

Maybe the handset to feature this processor will be the Galaxy S III. The INQUIRER has contacted Samsung for comment but we’re still waiting for its reply.

Apparently it’s likely that the chip will be launched under the Exynos brand that Samsung launched in February. At 2GHz the chip will rival or even surpass some PC and laptop processor speeds, and we think it’s likely that we’ll see more products like the Motorola Atrix Lapdock, which uses the phone to power a netbook.

Samsung is also said to be putting this fast chip up for sale as an individual component, under the Exynos brand, for other manufacturers to use for their own smartphones or other devices.

Perhaps if Samsung does sell its hard drive business it will be able to put more investment into developing faster processors for smartphones, tablets, netbooks and hybrid devices. µ

At both CES and MWC, Qualcomm teased us with their dual core Snapdragon SoC, the MSM8x60. First we saw it from afar, then they let us run tests on it, finally they let us take one with us to benchmark thoroughly. We've got the first Adreno 220 GPU benchmarks from the MSM8660 in a Qualcomm Mobile Development Platform already taken care of and are ready to share.

Read on for all the results!

Late last week we pulled back the covers on Intel's next-generation Core architecture update: Sandy Bridge. Due out in Q1 2011, we learned a lot about Sandy Bridge's performance in our preview. Sandy Bridge will be the first high performance monolithic CPU/GPU from Intel. Its performance was generally noticeably better than the present generation of processors, both on the CPU and GPU side. If you haven't read the preview by now, I'd encourage you to do so.

One of the questions we got in response to the article was: what about Sandy Bridge for notebooks? While Sandy Bridge is pretty significant for mainstream quad-core desktops, it's even more tailored to the notebook space. I've put together some spec and roadmap information for those of you who might be looking for a new notebook early next year.

In our smartphone and tablet reviews we make sure to spend a good amount of time talking about the silicon powering these devices. There’s no reason that handset and tablet manufacturers shouldn’t be held to the same standards as the PC vendors we’ve worked with for years. 

Today the fastest phones are either based on ARM’s Cortex A8 core or a similar architecture as in the case of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon. Starting either late this year or more likely sometime next year we’ll see the first SoCs based on ARM’s first out of order core, the Cortex A9, shipping in phones. The roadmap doesn’t end there though.

Later this year ARM will officially announce the successor to the Cortex A9, codenamed Eagle. Today, Texas Instruments is announcing that it is the first company to license the ARM Eagle core.

The announcement goes further. Not only is TI licensing the core, but it also helped define the specifications for the core. TI has been working on the design with ARM since  June 2009. As a result, TI expects to be the first to market with SoCs based on ARM’s Eagle core.

Unfortunately there’s not much to say about Eagle itself until ARM makes its announcement later this year. TI’s Cortex A9 based SoCs (OMAP 4) will be shipping in Q4, showing up in devices in early 2011. Based on that schedule I wouldn’t expect to see Eagle anytime sooner than 2012. 

Eagle’s performance is slated to be much more competitive with future derivatives of Intel’s Moorestown SoC, while power consumption should be similar to existing designs thanks to the 2x-nm manufacturing process it will most likely be built on.

We’re still waiting to hear more details about the Eagle architecture but with today’s announcement, something from ARM can't be too far away.

Take the fastest desktop microprocessor in the world, lock its multiplier, shave off 133MHz and drop its price by 0. That's basically what you get with the Core i7 970. Despite the name this is the second 6-core 32nm Gulftown processor from Intel. 

If you're tempted by the 980X but wanted something slightly more affordable, read on to get introduced to the new Core i7 970.

Anandtech has evaluated many systems in search of the utopian HTPC. However, every one of them has ended up with some issue or the other. When ASRock offered to send us their flagship HTPC introduced at the 2010 CeBIT show, we jumped at the opportunity to evaluate it and determine whether it was the HTPC of our dreams.
 

Instead of going with a second generation ION chipset that many had expected them to (after the ION 330-HT from last year), they sprang a surprise by opting for an Arrandale based platform. Having realized that the Atom in the nettop was the main reason for enthusiasts to avoid using them as full-fledged HTPCs, they have corrected their approach now. We had earlier mentioned that Clarkdale / Arrandale was quite up to the task as a HTPC platform. In the last few months, we have seen the introduction of many H55 / H57 based mini-ITX motherboards supporting the Clarkdales. The strong demand for such motherboards indicates that there is a definite market for pre-built HTPCs based on the Clarkdales and Arrandales in that form factor. The Core 100 series from ASRock seems to fit that bill.

How does ASRock's flagship product fare? Is it the destination in our search for the utopian HTPC? Read on for Anandtech's review of the ASRock Core 100HT-BD.