E-Z Life

AMD’s ATI XGP external laptop graphics platform goes legit

Paul Miller — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:58:00 +0000

We've been hearing about ATI's external graphics schemes for years, but apparently XGP is finally ready to go. The platform houses an external graphics card -- ATI-branded, of course -- which connects to your laptop via a proprietary 4.0Gbps PCIe 2.0 connector. The new tech is being initially launched with AMD's new ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800, which can work in a multi-GPU CrossFireX configuration with your laptop's internal graphics card. The first out of the gate with the tech is Fujitsu's AMILO Sa 3650, which packages a Mobility Radeon HD 3870 cardbut there's still no word pricing or exactly when or where this all is shipping. XGP also supports some extra USB 2.0 ports, Blu-ray decoding, and outputs over HDMI with integrated audio and DVI, powering up to four displays.

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AMD gets official with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 and PowerXpress

Darren Murph — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:43:00 +0000

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

AMD's on a roll at Computex, and it's keeping the stream alive with two more decently important announcements. First off, the company is making the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 official, which is said to "triple top-of-the-line graphics performance in comparison to the previous generation ATI Mobility Radeon GPUs." The unit also enables laptop makers to include CrossFireX technology for the first time, so yeah, there's that. Moving on, we've got the low down on its PowerXpress technology, which enables users to "double or triple the performance of the integrated graphics processor when plugged into a wall socket or extend their battery life by over an hour while on the go." In actuality, it's a variant of ATI Hybrid Graphics Technology for lappies, giving folks the option to switch between a Mobility Radeon HD 3400 series GPU and an integrated AMD M780G without the need for a reboot. If your eyebrows just perked up, you can snag said tech on select Fujitsu-Siemens machines right now. All the gory details are linked below -- enjoy!

Read - ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 gets official
Read - ATI PowerXpress shipping on select Fujitsu-Siemens laptops

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Hynix develops triple-level-cell NAND flash: 30 percent cheaper than MLC

Nilay Patel — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:25:00 +0000

Filed under: Storage

The more cells you can pack onto a NAND chip, the cheaper the storage, so we're excited about Hynix's recent annoucement of triple-level-cell NAND flash. You might have noticed that MLC-based SSDs are cheaper than SLC units, and TLC keeps the trend alive -- Hynix says the cost of TLC production is some 30 percent lower than than current chips. On top of that, the 32GB chips themselves are 30 percent smaller than current NAND chips, meaning device manufacturers will be able to cram more storage into our PMPs and phones. We'll have to wait a little while though: production is going to ramp up in October, and Hynix hasn't committed to using the new chips in SSDs quite yet.

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AMD LIVE! Home Cinema platform debuts for a second time

Darren Murph — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:10:00 +0000

Filed under: Desktops

Aside from the obvious PR blitz, we can’t really figure out what AMD is doing here. You see, its AMD LIVE! Home Cinema platform was actually introduced way back in January of 2007, yet it seems pretty confident that this stuff is brand new at Computex. Whatever the case, we can now assume that a new aspect has been added in to “enable solution providers to address the growing home entertainment arena through a consistent, highly-capable design.” The package also supports Phenom X4 9000 / X3 8000 CPUs and ATI Radeon HD graphics, and it’s obviously designed to be used on HTPCs, mini-towers and otherwise vanilla desktops. If you’re interested in wading through the mess that is the press release about this “new” technology, be our guest via the read link below.

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Security Now 146: Listener Feedback 42 - Sponsored by Astaro Corp.

Leo Laporte — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:50:58 +0000

Hosts: Steve Gibson with Leo Laporte

Our regular mailbag episode with questions and comments from our listeners.

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