TechieGroups

Apple today released the OS X 10.7.3 update for the client and server versions of Lion – unlike 10.7.2, which introduced a major feature in iCloud, the 10.7.3 update consists mostly of smaller feature and security bugfixes. The updates are currently available both from Apple's download site and from Software Update – its build number is 11D50 and it bumps the OS X kernel version to 11.3.0.

On the client side of things, 10.7.3 adds Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukranian language support, and addresses problems logging on using smart cards, with Windows filesharing, and with printing Word documents that use markup. Older iMacs with ATI graphics cards should no longer experience performance issues after waking from sleep, and post-sleep wi-fi connection issues were also addressed. Safari should no longer have trouble opening before the computer has connected to a wireless network. Lastly, Apple has fixed an issue authenticating to distributed SMB shares, and RAW image compatibility with additional cameras has been added.

Enterprise users with Active Directory domains should also note that the 10.7.3 update fixes a number of Directory Services bugs, a full list of which can be found in the client release notes.

OS X Server sees a few more feature updates, both in Server.app and in the services themselves – there are too many of them to list here, but you can check out the server release notes for a full list.

10.7.3 also includes Safari 5.1.3, a minor version bump for which release notes are not currently available (it's also not clear whether 5.1.3 will be released to Snow Leopard users, or whether it addresses issues that are only present in Lion). Snow Leopard users can also grab Security Update 2012-001 to get all of the security fixes present in 10.7.3 that also apply to 10.6.8.

 

CHIP DESIGNER AMD has released the Radeon HD 7970 based on its Tahiti GPU chip.

AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 is the first graphics board design based on its 28nm Southern Islands Tahiti GPU. The chip, which AMD claims has 4.3bn transistors, has been significantly changed from the previous Northern Islands generation Cayman Radeon HD 6970, has more on-chip cache and the firm claims it has greater overclocking headroom.

AMD’s Tahiti architecture has up to 32 compute units with 32 colour render output units. A 384-bit memory interface results in memory bandwidth of over 264GB/s, with the firm spending a great deal of effort telling journalists about the need for 3GB GDDR5 memory by the latest triple-A games titles.

The firm’s Radeon HD 7970 reference graphics board design has 2,048 stream processors, 3GB of GDDR5 memory, one DVI port, an HDMI port and two mini-Displayport outputs supporting a total of six displays. This power hungry graphics card has one six-pin and one eight-pin power connectors.

Listening to AMD’s spiel there’s no doubt that the firm is positioning the Radeon HD 7970 as a significant step beyond Nvidia’s Geforce GTX 580. Internal “reviewer’s documents” circulated to journalists suggest the firm is seeing between 70 to 90 per cent increase in performance over its previous generation Radeon HD 6970 in games running at 2550×1600, though as usual it is best to take such figures with a pinch of salt.

Like all chip vendors, AMD didn’t waste time to extol the virtues of a process node shrink. The firm not only claimed that the 28nm process node allows a 3W idle power draw by its chips, but that through its Powertune software users can automatically receive 33 per cent overclocks.

AMD told journalists it wouldn’t be limiting board vendors by prescribing clock speeds and the ability to slap intricate cooling units onto the boards. While that sounds great, browsing through the current Radeon HD 6970 boards on sale, it looks like few board vendors bothered to do much more than slap a sticker onto AMD”s reference cooler.

TSMC is the wafer baker for AMD’s 28nm chip. Traditionally AMD prefers to release chips made using a new process node on mainstream boards, but the firm wouldn’t explain to journalists why it will have only ultra high-end 28nm parts from the outset. However, with TSMC becoming busier punching out Apple’s A6 chips, perhaps AMD’s relatively low-volume discrete graphics chips had to take a back seat.

AMD is pricing Radeon HD 7970 boards around £450 at launch, a hefty £200 premium over its current single-GPU range topper. At that price it really has to be trying to embarrass Nvidia’s Geforce GTX 590 rather than show up the significantly less expensive single-GPU boards from either AMD or Nvidia. µ

The launch of Bulldozer in October wasn't exactly a success for AMD. In our review, Anand ended up recommending the Intel i5-2500K over AMD FX-8150. One of the reasons behind the poor performance of Bulldozer is its unique design: each Bulldozer module consists of two integer and one floating point core. Todays operating systems don't know how to optimally schedule threads for this design and as a result, the full potential of Bulldozer has not been achieved. Microsoft has released a hotfix for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 that should increase the performance of Bulldozer.

Let's look at the problem to see what happened and how the hotfix helps address it. Before the update, Windows didn't know how to ideally schedule threads on Bulldozer. Essentially, it didn't know when it was good to place threads on single module versus multiple modules.

The picture above explains this pretty well. Before the update, Windows more or less randomly placed the threads which meant many modules were unnecessarily active at the same time. This capped the maximum Turbo speeds because those can only be achieved when some of the modules are inactive (power gated).

VR-Zone is claiming that Windows sees one Bulldozer module as a single multi-threaded core, similar to an Intel Hyper-Threading core. Basically, your 8-core FX-8150 is seen as a quad-core, 8-thread CPU—just like Intel's i7-2600K for instance. This goes against AMD's design and marketing because Bulldozer is closer to an 8-core CPU.

We have not yet tested Bulldozer with the hotfix, but don't expect miracles as Microsoft is suggesting a 2-7% increase. Better scheduling for the Bulldozer CPUs will improve performance a bit, but not enough to close the gap in many scenarios. Windows 8 already has the new thread scheduler, and according to AMD's own and third party tests the performance increase is up to around 10%, but Bulldozer needs a lot more than 10% to surpass Sandy Bridge.

Update: VR-Zone reports (and we can confirm) that the download link for the hotfix is no longer functional. There were apparently unexpected performance drops in some cases after applying the hotfix and Microsoft is investigating the issues. Modifying the scheduler in Windows is not something to be done lightly, as it changes a core element of the OS, so more testing and validation for such updates is always a good idea.

Update 2: Apparently there is a second part to the hotfix that was not pushed live, and this hotfix was pushed live prematurely.

Later today AMD will be releasing the first preview for their Catalyst 12.1 driver set. AMD has been going through preview/beta drivers at a rapid pace in the last couple of months – we’ve seen 3 different 11.11 preview drivers in as many weeks – and as 11.12 nears, AMD is preparing for what 2012 and the Catalyst 12.x series will bring. It may sound like hyperbole to say that 2012 will be the biggest year yet for AMD’s Catalyst driver team, but it’s the truth. Graphics Core Next will be the biggest GPU architecture change for the company since R600 (2900XT) nearly 5 years ago, bringing with it a great deal of backend driver work that needs to be done, while the frontend team has their own goals and aspirations.

At the same time it’s going to give AMD the chance to close the book on 2011. 2011 brought with it some great developments out of the Catalyst team such as significant performance boosts for both Cayman (6900 series) GPUs and CrossFire across the board, while other groups delivered on more consumer-facing features such as SteadyVideo to go along with the launch of the Llano APU.

But 2011 also brought with it some technical debt and some reputational debt, all of which needs to be paid in 2012. AMD outright blew the launch of Rage by posting a faulty driver, Battlefield 3 in CrossFire mode did not work out of the box (i.e. without microstutter) even with nearly a month-long public beta and AMD’s close relationship with DICE, and CrossFire support for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim took the better part of a month to reach Radeon HD 5000 series owners. Not to kick the Catalyst team while they’re down, but for all that went well for them in 2011 they failed in other areas where they could least afford it. Thus 2012 becomes all the more important for AMD as they need to erase their debts from 2011.

Erasing those debts starts today for AMD, with the release of the Catalyst 12.1 preview driver. 12.1 won’t be the driver that buys AMD redemption – I think 11.11c is more important in that respect – but it is the driver that sets the pace for the year. And quite frankly it’s the driver that’s going to buy AMD a lot of goodwill, even if it only brings with it a few changes.

Custom Application Profiles As Implemented By NVIDIA

Of those few features I’m going to immediately dive in with what I think is the headline feature: custom application profiles. Ever since NVIDIA introduced custom application profiles so many years ago I have been a firm believer in their importance for GPU enthusiasts. While most games have been good about implementing anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering controls, that’s about as much progress as they’ve made. With the introduction of driver enhancements like Adaptive/Transparancy anti-aliasing, coverage sample/EQ anti-aliasing, tessellation clamping, and the widespread use of multi-GPU, the idea that you can set & forget your drivers on a global level has become antiquated. These features deserve to be used, and custom application profiles are the most efficient way of using them.

For more than 4 years now I’ve asked AMD for this feature – in meetings and in articles – but it hasn’t been something where we’ve seen eye-to-eye. AMD made some progress in 2010 with the introduction of Catalyst Application Profiles (CAP) to distribute out of band profile updates, and while CAP was a big step forward for AMD, the C I was looking for was custom. Tools like Radeon Pro have filled the gap in the meantime, but it’s never the same thing as having such functionality built into the driver itself, especially when 3rd party tools will never have the reach of 1st party tools.

With Catalyst 12.1 AMD is finally taking application profiles to their logical extension by allowing for custom application profiles, and I couldn’t be happier. As is the case with NVIDIA, AMD is allowing users to create new application profiles and to modify the application profiles distributed through drivers and CAP updates. This not only includes settings traditionally available through the driver, but for the first time AMD is opening up CrossFire – you can now force various CrossFire modes by using a custom profile.

Breaking things down a bit, if you have used NVIDIA’s custom profiles in the past then you should find the functionality nearly the same. All of AMD’s control panel settings can be saved to a custom profile which will then be used alongside the game the profile is for. For example this allows for forcing MSAA in Starcraft II or clamping tessellation factors in HAWX 2 without the need to set (and then unset) these features at a global level. If you’re an image quality purist, and particularly if you’ve spent a significant amount of money on GPUs to achieve this, then the value of custom profiles cannot be understated.

As for multi-GPU users, they will be the other significant group to benefit from custom profiles. Previously if you wished to force CrossFire on an unsupported application you needed to rename the executable to match a game AMD had a profile for, and then hope that specific CF mode worked. With custom profiles AMD is enabling several different CF modes: default (which uses whatever CF profile AMD has defined for the game), AFR Friendly (forced AFR), Optimize 1×1, and Use AMD Pre-define Profile, which allows a custom profile to have a CF mode from another game mapped to it (similar to NVIDIA’s SLI compatibility bits). Even disabling CF on a per-profile basis is an option here, though we found that it suffers from the same quirk that NVIDIA’s implementation does: the second GPU is decoupled but CF isn’t actually disabled, so games that can detect CF (such as Crysis) will follow their AFR friendly render paths as they still see CF enabled.

At this point all of the necessary functionality is present and accounted for, and in our tests we’ve found it to work without any hitches. AMD is finally at parity with NVIDIA in providing this small but crucial feature.

With that said, while AMD has done a great job implementing the functionality of custom application profiles the interface could use some further work. The whole implementation still feels like it’s been shoehorned into AMD’s existing 3D Applications Setting panel; AMD doesn’t sufficiently separate the concept of global and custom profile settings, as you use the same control panel to make changes to both types of settings. It’s possible (and likely) that you’ll accidentally set your global settings at least once when trying to save a custom profile.

Furthermore whereas NVIDIA uses application detection to pre-populate a list of profiles, AMD has no such detection. In order to create a profile you need to first select your settings in the 3D Application Settings panel and then save those settings to a new profile, a process that involves hunting down the executable of the game. Of course NVIDIA’s detection system isn’t perfect and you’ll have to follow a similar process at times, but if you have a large Steam library you’ll appreciate not having to drill down through several directories to find the right executable for each game.

Once a custom profile has been set however, AMD actually has a second panel that lists all of the custom profiles and their settings, and allows you to delete them. Note that this is just a listing of custom profiles, so pre-defined profiles continue to remain hidden. Custom and pre-defined profiles play well together for the most part, although if you create a custom profile for a game that already has a pre-defined profile AMD will warn you that the custom profile will override the pre-defined profile.

Gallery: AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview

Overall if you’re a previous NVIDIA user who has missed custom application profiles you should be quite content with AMD’s latest addition. Otherwise if you’ve never had the opportunity to use custom application profiles before then you’re in for a treat.

Rounding out the changes to the Catalyst Control Center, along with the addition of custom application profiles AMD has also made some minor tweaks to the Video Color and Video Quality control panels. There’s no new functionality to speak of, but they have been tweaked to simplify their use.

Finally, outside of the CCC AMD has also added a couple new features to their driver, along with some specific performance enhancements. 3D users will find that quad-buffer (gaming) 3D finally works in conjunction with CrossFire, while TV users will find that AMD now supports frame-packed 3D over HDMI at 1080p30, on top of their existing support for 1080p24 and 720p60. A quick check of the HDMI specification lists frame-packed 1080p30 as an optional (secondary) resolution, but it’s there for the TVs that support it. Meanwhile for performance AMD is still hard at work on Skyrim; 6900 series users can look forward to up to 10% better performance in Skyrim when using MSAA alongside CrossFire.

AMD is refreshing its mobile CPU lineup with seven new A4, A6, and A8 Llano processors for socket FS1. With one exception, these dual- and quad-core processors give a mild speed bump to existing processors using the same GPUs, L2 cache amount, TDP, and core stepping – see the table below for specifications.

AMD Llano mobile CPU refresh

Name

Cores

CPU Clock
(Max Turbo)

L2 Cache

GPU

GPU Cores

GPU Clock

TDP

A4-3305M

2

1.9GHz (2.5GHz)

1MB

HD 6480G

160

593MHz

35W

A4-3320M

2

2.0GHz (2.6GHz)

2MB

HD 6480G

240

444MHz

35W

A4-3330MX

2

2.2GHz (2.6GHz)

2MB

HD 6480G

240

444MHz

45W

A6-3420M

4

1.5GHz (2.4GHz)

4MB

HD 6520G

320

400MHz

35W

A6-3430MX

4

1.7GHz (2.4GHz)

4MB

HD 6520G

320

400MHz

45W

A8-3520M

4

1.6GHz (2.5GHz)

4MB

HD 6620G

400

444MHz

35W

A8-3550MX

4

2.0GHz (2.7GHz)

4MB

HD 6620G

400

444MHz

45W

The refresh features four processors with the -M suffix, denoting slightly lower clock speeds and TDPs than the -MX processors (in this case, 35W). Three of these, the A4-3320M, the A6-3420M, and the A8-3520M, are 100MHz bumps in base and turbo CPU clock speed over their predecessors, the A4-3300M, the A6-3400M, and the A8-3500M (GPU clocks and core counts are unchanged). The -MX processors are the same story – newer versions of the A4-3310MX, A6-3410MX, and A8-3530MX with 100MHz more clock speed with the same GPUs and 45W TDPs. 

The outlier is the A4-3305M, a new low-end processor with the same CPU clocks as the A4-3300M but with half the L2 cache and 33% fewer GPU cores, though the GPU clock has been increased to compensate. In spite of these changes, the GPU is still called the HD 6480G.

Expect to see these APUs trickle into laptops in the coming months.

Source: CPU World

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 . 

Ubuntu One, the cloud storage service available for Ubuntu versions 9.04 and higher, now has an official Windows client. Previously available as a beta, Ubuntu One for Windows gives XP, Vista, and 7 users a free 5GB of cloud storage space in which to keep their files.

Ubuntu One works a bit differently than, say, Dropbox, a competing cloud storage service: for example, if you'd like to sync your My Documents and My Pictures folders, Dropbox would require you to store them within your Dropbox folder, while the Ubuntu One client allows you to select folders anywhere on your hard drive for syncing. Once synced, your files can be accessed from Ubuntu, Windows, and Android devices, as well as through the Ubuntu One web site.

For users with more storage needs, Canonical will bump your space up to 20GB for .99 a month or .99 a year. You can also add an Android and iOS-compatible MP3 streaming service (which also includes the 20GB storage upgrade) for .99 a month or .99 a year.

Source: Canonical

With today's launch of the Battlefield 3 early beta, AMD has released a preview build of their Catalyst 11.10 drivers specifically for Battlefield 3. The Catalyst 11.10 Preview driver improves BF3 performance on the Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series for both single-GPU and CrossFire configurations, and adds support for 5×1 Eyefinity. The full release notes are below:

Improves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing, and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series for single GPU configurations

Improves performance in Battlefield 3 Open Beta release for both non-Anti-Aliasing, and application enabled Anti-Aliasing cases on CrossFire configurations using the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series

Enables support for Eyefinity 5×1 display (portrait and landscape) configurations  using the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 and AMD Radeon™ HD 5000 Series

Vision Engine Control Center:    User Interface enhancements have been implemented for the CrossfireX, GPU Overdrive, and Information Center pages.

Source: AMD

JAPANESE MOBILE OPERATOR KDDI has unveiled Fujitsu’s upcoming Arrows Z ISW11F Android smartphone.

The handset will be made by Fujitsu and Toshiba under the recently announced Arrows brand. It will run Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread and tip up in Japan in November.

When Fujitsu announced the Arrows branding strategy it confirmed that it will release the devices globally rather than just in Japan. So, the Arrows Z could be a smartphone that makes the long journey from the land of the rising sun to Blighty, perhaps.

The Arrows Z will come equipped with a 4.3in HD 720p 1280×720 touchscreen, a dual-core processor, WiMax, microUSB and microHDMI ports and a whopping 13.1MP camera. It will come in black, blue, white and pink, with a waterproof design.

KDDI also announced it will be selling the HTC Evo 3D smartphone from late October.

Fujitsu had said that the first Arrows device would be the “Docomo Tablet ARROWS Tab LTE F-01D”, but there are no signs of this yet. µ

STORAGE VENDOR Promise has released a fibre channel to Thunderbolt adaptor.

Promise’s SANLink allows machines that have Thunderbolt sockets to connect to storage area network (SAN) servers that have fibre channel connectivity. Intel’s Thunderbolt bus made its debut with Apple’s Macbook Pro and offers bandwidth that can surpass fibre channel.

Promise is pitching the SANLink at media types who have to transfer gigabytes of raw video data. The SANLink supports 1, 2 or 4Gbits/s, with two Thunderbolt links provided and the ability to daisy chain six Thunderbolt peripherals.

Alice Chang, CMO of Promise Technology said, “Now portables and desktops with Thunderbolt Technology will be able to connect to the SAN at native Fibre Chanel speeds simplifying creative professionals’ workflows.”

Promise’s SANLink works with Apple’s Mac OS X and it means users don’t have to use a desktop in order to access a fibre channel SAN.

Apple and Intel worked on the design of Thunderbolt to make it a general purpose high bandwidth interface. The interface can in theory scale up to 100Gbits/s however at present it tops out at 20Mbits/s.

At present devices that use the Thunderbolt bus are relatively scarce, however with Apple pushing the standard on its devices and Intel’s backing for the rest of the PC market, it’s likely that Thunderbolt will do what USB started, finish off Firewire for good.

Promise said its SANLink adaptor will be available through Apple’s online store and will cost about £500. µ