AMD announced a new operating model that centers the organization on four equally critical functions: products, technology, marketing and customers. The new structure is designed to better optimize AMD's operations to drive industry-leading performance graphics and microprocessors and further integrate the company's x86 processor and graphics technologies.

"We are tightening our focus on delivering the winning products and platforms our customers want based on AMD's industry-leading microprocessor and graphics technologies," said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and CEO. "The next generation of innovation in the computing industry will be grounded in the fusion of microprocessor and graphics technologies. With these changes, we are putting the right organization in place to help enable the future of computing."

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announces the VIA VB8002 Mini-ITX board targeted at media server markets. The VIA VB8002 brings the superior performance efficiency of the VIA Nano processor to consumer-focused server products that require the right blend of power efficiency and raw processing performance.

The VIA VB8002 Mini-ITX board continues VIA's drive into compact, power-efficient multimedia server markets and is designed to meet the needs of consumers who not only want to securely store, manage and share their media libraries, but also stream high quality content in their homes.

Intel's next big thing in the making, the Core i5 series processors are nearing launch, which is reportedly delayed to October. The new processors replace the Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Duo series of processors, while leaving the high-end market for Core i7 to play with. These processors are based on the LGA 1156 socket, and are incompatible with Core i7 motherboards. Recent reports shed light on three models in the making to start the lineup, all of which are quad-core processors based on the Lynnfield core, built on the existing 45 nm process.

The common features of these processors include: four x86 processing cores with support for HyperThreading technology, an integrated dual-channel DDR3 memory controller specified to run DDR3-1066 and DDR3-1333 modules, 8 MB of L3 cache, and support for TurboBoost technology. The three models will come with core clock speeds of 2.66 GHz, 2.80 GHz, and 2.93 GHz. The three will be priced at US $196, $284, and $562 respectively. With the TurboBoost technology enabled, the clock speeds card be stepped up to 3.2, 3.46 and 3.6 GHz respectively, on the fly. Shortly after launching these processors, Intel may introduce the industry's first 32 nm processors. With these prices, the chips clearly intrude the price-domain of Core i7, though perhaps their lower platform costs could serve as deal-makers.

Earlier this week, Intel conducted the Intel Developer Forum (IDF): Spring 2009 event at Beijing, China. Among several presentations on the the architectural advancements of the company's products, that include Nehalem and its scalable platforms, perhaps the most interesting was a brief talk by Pat Gelsinger, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, on Larrabee. The term is Intel's first "many cores" architecture used to work as a graphics processor. The architecture will be thoroughly backed by low-level and high-level programming languages and tools by Intel.

French website Hardware.fr took a timely snap off a webcast of the event, showing Gelsinger holding a 300 mm wafer of Larrabee dice. The theory that Intel has working prototypes of the GPU deep inside its labs gains weight. Making use of current-generation manufacturing technologies, Intel is scaling the performance of x86 processing elements, all 32+ of them. As you can faintly see from the wafer, Larrabee has a large die. It is reported that first generation of Larrabee will be built on the 45 nm manufacturing process. Products based on the architecture may arrive by late 2009, or early 2010. With the company kicking off its 32 nm production later this year, Larrabee may be built on the newer process a little later.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced its entry into the design manufacturing service business to offer provide flexible system hardware solutions, starting with the new VIA NSD7200 home storage and media server.

Building on its success as a pioneer of system level innovation in small form factor and IPC markets, VIA can provide OEM and ODM customers with customized versions of home and SOHO storage platforms targeting specific markets. By combining energy-efficient processor platforms and high quality chassis designs with a full design manufacturing service and comprehensive engineering support, VIA enables customers to more accurately address the needs of system integrators and retailers by speeding up product cycles and reducing production costs.

Being on the forefront of technology adoption as far as its graphics products go, AMD will have a notebook platform with DirectX 11 compliant integrated GPUs ready by 2011, reveal company slides sourced by Expreview. The iGPU will be part of the company's "Accelerated Processing Unit" (APU) design approach to the PC's central processing. The APU draws parallels with Intel's upcoming processor designs where the CPU package holds both the CPU and northbridge dice in a multichip-module. One of the first AMD APUs, codenamed "Llano" will be part of the company's "Sabine" mobile platform. Typically consisting of the CPU, a DDR3 memory controller, a northbridge with integrated graphics processor, and the PCI-Express root complex, APU eliminates discrete northbridge from board design.

Slated for 2011, the Llano APU comes out at a time when DirectX 11 is expected to be an established API. The iGPU will also pack UVD 3.0, a next generation hardware-accelerated video decoder by AMD. It will be built on the 32 nm manufacturing process by AMD's foundry partner(s). It features up to 4 x86 processing cores, an iGPU, a memory controller supporting DDR3-1600 memory, 128-bit floating-point execution units (present even with current generation Phenom processors), and a BGA design with a low-TDP package. Llano will be accompanied by the SB9xxM series southbridge. This chip would make for most of the board's nucleated machinery apart from the APU. It will integrate the "DAC" (we interpret audio DAC), USB 3.0 hubs with 16 ports, a 6-port SATA controller, and clock-generator.

Less than a week since they released the 185.66 BETA drivers (which in themselves superceeded the 182.50 WHQL and 185.65 BETA drivers in the space of 24 hours), NVIDIA has released yet another GeForce BETA Driver of version number 185.68. From these latest BETA releases, it seems NVIDIA has dropped support for the 8-Series graphics cards which as of now are only supported using the 182.50 WHQL driver. With the recent release of so many driver revisions from NVIDIA, it could be their answer to what EVGA were trying to do with their SLI Enhancement Patches, to keep up to date with the latest releases. This driver supports GeForce 9-series, 100-series, and 200-series desktop GPUs, the only documented change in this version over the 185.66 BETA drivers is:

• Optimized performance for the PC game The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

DOWNLOAD: GeForce 185.68 BETA for Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista 32-bit | Windows Vista 64-bit

The day after releasing the GeForce 182.50 WHQL drivers, NVIDIA has also released a GeForce BETA driver with version 185.66, for both Windows Vista and XP.

New in Release 185.66:

• Adds support for the new GeForce GTX 275 GPU.
• Adds support for Ambient Occlusion - the newest NVIDIA Control Panel feature to offer enhanced 3D gaming realism exclusively to GeForce GPUs. (Vista Only)
• Adds support for CUDA 2.2 for improved performance in GPU Computing applications. See nvidia.com/cuda for more details.
• Accelerates performance in several 3D applications. The following are examples of improvements measured with Release 185 drivers vs. Release 182 drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):
  - Up to 11% performance increase in Call of Duty: World at War
  - Up to 5% performance increase Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts
  - Up to 22% performance increase Crysis: Warhead with antialiasing enabled
  - Up to 11% performance increase in Fallout 3 with antialiasing enabled
  - Up to 14% performance increase in Far Cry 2
  - Up to 45% performance increase in Mirror's Edge with antialiasing enabled
• Supports GeForce Plus Power Pack #3. Download these FREE PhysX and CUDA applications now!
• Numerous bug fixes. Refer to the release documentation notes.

DOWNLOAD: GeForce 185.66 BETA for Windows XP 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista 32-bit | Windows Vista 64-bit

UPDATE: The day following the release of the 185.65 BETA drivers this article originally covered, NVIDIA removed the driver links and updated the BETA to 185.66, this article has therefore been updated accordingly.

Super Micro Computer, Inc., a leader in application-optimized, high-performance server solutions, today launched a comprehensive new line of server and workstation solutions specially designed to support the Intel Xeon Processor 5500 series (formerly codenamed Nehalem). Supermicro has started shipping its new 2U Twin2 ("Twin Squared" with four hot-pluggable DP nodes), newly invented Twin GPU 1U server/workstation, the award-winning 1U Twin, SuperBlade, flexible Universal I/O (UIO) server, SAS2 storage systems, as well as its strong line of traditional application-optimized server solutions. Featuring the highest efficiency in the industry power supplies (93%+), cooling subsystems and motherboard designs, Supermicro solutions set a new record for the best performance-per-watt (375 GFLOPS/kW) and also deliver the best performance-per-dollar and performance-per-square-foot.

Based on the company's latest application-optimized Server Building Block architectures, Supermicro maximizes the new Nehalem technology, which includes QPI (Intel QuickPath Interconnect) for up to 6.4GT/s, Integrated DDR3 Memory Controller, multiple power envelops, and Intel Turbo Boost Technology, to provide the industry's highest performing and most optimized new generation server solutions.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the first expansion HD module for the VIA EPIA-P710, the VIA P710-HD. Featuring the powerful 4300E embedded graphics processor from S3 Graphics, this first Pico-I/O module for stackable Pico-ITXe boards delivers Hi-Def video playback and advanced graphics in an extremely low power, compact form factor.

With multiple display support including dual DVI and HDMI, the VIA P710-HD module opens up a new realm of possibilities to system integrators of multimedia intensive embedded applications. Sophisticated digital signage, arcade gaming, kiosk and POI applications can now take advantage of multiple digital display configurations and cutting edge Hi-Def playback of resolutions up to and beyond 1080p.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms will showcase the VIA EITX-3000 Em-ITX board at ESC Silicon Valley 2009. Designed for ultra-thin, high-performance, fanless embedded systems at temperatures ranging from -10o to 70o Celsius, the VIA EITX-3000 uses unique processor placement to deliver leading performance in remarkably hot and cold environments.

The VIA EITX-3000 places the energy-efficient VIA Nano processor and VIA VX800 media system processor on the reverse side of the board, making greater real-estate available for passive cooling apparatus and thus negating the need for system fans. This makes the VIA EITX-3000 an exceptional choice for high performance systems in always-on applications such as high-end POS, Kiosk, ATM, HMI, factory automation, POI and digital signage.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today released the VIA IVP-7500 board, the first in a series of dedicated x86 in-vehicle platforms for developers of car PCs and intelligent transportation devices.

The continued evolution of the PC as a multimedia playback device for audio and video entertainment means that car owners are now demanding access to their digital media library whilst on the road. In-vehicle PCs offers access to intelligent global satellite positioning services for accurate location tracking, route planning and navigation.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA Surfboard C855 Reference Design - an ultra-compact mainboard incorporating the VIA C7-M ULV processor, the brand new VIA VX855 unified IGP chipset, and advanced VIA multimedia and connectivity silicon, that has been specifically designed for easy integration into devices targeted at the rapidly growing mini-notebook market.

Unveiled today at the VIA Global Mobility Bazaar (GMB) Tech Forum Spring in Shenzhen, China - an event bringing together a host of PC manufacturing and infrastructure partners focused on delivering affordable, power efficient mini-notebooks to global markets - the VIA Surfboard C855 Reference Design will not only reduce development time and costs for system manufacturers, but offers the latest advancements in ultra-mobile technology including smooth playback of high bit-rate 1080p HD video and outstanding 8-channel HD audio.

Graphics market seems to be already small enough for NVIDIA, so the green corporation looks further ahead into building a x86 processor in the near future. At the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco yesterday, the company revealed that it had plans to enter the x86 processor market by building a x86 compatible system-on-chip in the next two to three years. Michael Hara, NVIDIA's senior vice president of investor relations and communications, commented:

I think some time down the road it makes sense to take the same level of integration that we've done with Tegra ...... Tegra is by any definition a complete computer on a chip, and the requirements of that market are such that you have to be very low power, very small, but highly efficient. So in that particular state it made a lot of sense to take that approach, and someday it's going to make sense to take the same approach in the x86 market as well.

He also said that NVIDIA's future x86 CPU wouldn't be appropriate for every segment of the market, especially the high-end of the PC market which includes gaming systems, graphics engineering stations and many other. The x86 chip will be mainly targeted at smaller system-on-chip platforms. No other details were unveiled at the time of this publication. It's also very early to talk about something that's still on paper.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced that Samsung has adopted the VIA Nano processor in the new Samsung NC20 mini-notebook.

Mobility is enhanced by 802.11b/g and Bluetooth wireless connectivity, and a six-cell battery that provides up to 6.5 hours of use independent of any power supply, while storage options include either a solid state disk or a SATA hard disk drive. Other features include an integrated 1.3 mega pixel digital motion camera, 3-in-1 memory card reader and three built-in USB ports.

Standing up against an almost unassailable domination of x86 machine architecture, even in the ULPC segment, ARM showcased netbooks based on processors such as Freescale iMX515 and Qualcomm Snapdragon. The processors, ARM claims, are capable to run 720p HD video, and operate at speeds of up to 1 GHz. The best way ARM sees to compete with x86, is to support operating systems that run on it, such as Linux.

The growth and propagation of Ubuntu seems to be a good opportunity to cash on. ARM is reportedly working with Canonical to devise a full-featured ARM-supportive variant of Ubuntu. Meanwhile, Adobe has announced that it is working on an ARM-supportive Flash 10 plugin. Ubuntu's ARM edition should be out by April, by when we can get realistic figures about ARM netbooks' performance. The netbooks will be priced in the US $250 range and are expected to start selling from June. A video covering the presentation can be viewed here.

Just over a week since we covered the release of the 182.05 BETA driver, NVIDIA have now released a WHQL with version number 182.06. The driver has been released for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista and is for GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, and 200-series desktop GPUs.

New in Release 182.06:

• Recommended for the best experience in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
• Boosts performance in numerous 3D applications. The following are some examples of improvements measured with Release 182.06 WHQL drivers vs. Release 181.22 WHQL drivers (results will vary depending on your GPU, system configuration, and game settings):
• Up to 8% performance increase in Fallout 3 at high resolution and AA.
• Up to 10% performance increase in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
• Up to 9% performance increase in Half-Life 2 at high resolution with AA.
• Up to 11% performance increase in Left 4 Dead at high resolution with AA.
• Up to 10% performance increase in Race Driver: GRID at high resolution and AA.
• Includes full support for OpenGL 3.0 on GeForce 8-series, 9-series, and 200-series GPUs.
• Automatically installs the new PhysX System Software version 9.09.0203.
• Additional information on specific bug fixes can be found in the release documentation notes.

DOWNLOAD NVIDIA Forceware 182.06 WHQL for Windows XP 32-bit | Windows Vista 32-bit | Windows XP 64-bit | Windows Vista 64-bit

Silicon giant Intel flexed its IPR muscle by reportedly calling rival AMD to discussions on possible violations of past license agreements. AMD and Intel share license agreements dating back to 1976, which eventually transformed into the agreement of letting AMD use Intel's x86 micro-architecture in making its own products. Later in 2001, the two companies met again to share x86-related technologies. Such agreements bind licensees of the x86 architecture to confining their technologies to themselves as the license is non-transferable.

The two companies are expected to meet to discuss on how the past two major events in the recent history of AMD: the acquisition of ATI Technologies, and the spin-off of the manufacturing division to The Foundry Company respect the terms of the agreements. Earlier, AMD stated that the ATI acquisition does not violate any of its cross-agreements with Intel, while the company sounds optimistic about getting The Foundry Company to existence smoothly through one of its big hurdles: a clean-chit from Intel, after having crossed bigger hurdles such as government approvals and support from the various countries it holds its facilities in.

VIA, the third active player in the x86 processor market, is known for its low-power processors catering to the ULPC segment of the market. Sources tell HKEPC that the firm is now readying a dual-core variant of its Intel Atom competitor, the Nano 3000. The Nano 3000 series, slated for launches throughout 2009 includes a new architecture by VIA, while bearing the same essential Nano-BGA package.

The processor would use a boarder system interface with the 1333 MHz VIA V4 bus (FSB). It will feature x86-64 extension along with the SSE4 instruction sets to make it standards compliant. It will feature 128KB of L1 and 1MB of L2 caches. VIA is also looking to improve the processor's number-crunching capabilities by working on its integer and floating-point operations efficiency. The processor will be built on the Japanese Fujitsu 65nm manufacturing process which has so far been VIA's foundry partner with processors and S3 Graphics products. The company is also considering a switch to the TSMC 40nm or 45nm node later, sources note. The VIA Nano 3000 Dual-Core variant can be expected in the second-half of 2009, while single core variants of the architecture can be expected earlier.

A computing segment conceived by low-power CPU vendors such as VIA, that only got materialised with the participation of Intel with the Atom processor, the ULPC expects competition provided by the likes of VIA. According to news reports by a Chinese daily citing sources at VIA, the company's ULPC platforms have accounted for anywhere between 10 and 15 percent of ULPC shipments.

VIA, the third most popular x86 CPU producer specialises in low-power, low-cost CPUs to cater to the ULPC and UMPC segments. Its two main processor brands for this segment include C7 and Nano. With "low-power" being the selling point and Intel for a competitor, the major direction for CPU development would be performance per Watt while maintaining low thermal footprints. During its development in 2008, the VIA platform in general was able to reduce CPU size and power consumptions by up to 33 percent, which is further expected to drop by as much as 41% in 2009.

VIA Technologies, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced a powerful new 3-chip silicon platform that brings HD performance to ultra compact systems for a far richer user experience.

While desktop PCs, notebooks and embedded devices are getting smaller and thinner, demands on system resources are growing by the day, with higher definition video content, richer Internet resources and increasingly complex image manipulation requiring more powerful processing, video and graphics capabilities. Codenamed "VIA Trinity", the new platform meets all these performance requirements using much less board real estate than traditional 4-chip platforms, yet still within a comparably low power envelope.

AMD today announced that its Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors are powering "Jaguar," the first ever wholly x86-based supercomputer to achieve the petaflop performance milestone. AMD Opteron processors now help drive seven of the Top 10 supercomputer systems in the world.

The AMD Opteron processor-based and IBM PowerXCell processor-based "Roadrunner" system at Los Alamos National Labs again captures the number 1 spot on the bi-annual TOP500 Supercomputer Sites list, while the "Jaguar" supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory comes in at number 2 and is the highest performing entirely x86-based system ever on the survey. "Jaguar" is based on Cray XT4 and XT5 systems and runs on over 45,000 Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, enabling a balanced system with unrivaled x86 performance.

Following the release of OpenGL 3.0 compliant drivers for Windows back in August, NVIDIA has released drivers for Linux/Free BSD, that provide support for the said graphics API. OpenGL functionality is something driver provider manage. Each compliant display driver carries with it, an ICD (installable client driver) for OpenGL.

The driver, 177.61.02 supports OpenGL 3.0, and OpenGL Shader Language (GL-SL) 1.30, with a broad range of compatible hardware already out by NVIDIA. All GeForce 8 Series or newer, Quadro FX 370/360M or newer graphics accelerators are supported. The release supports x86 and x86-64 variants of most Linux and Free-BSD derived operating systems. The driver can be downloaded from NVIDIA's FTP directory here. Please note, that the driver is in a beta stage as of now.

Intel has ported the Core 2 Quad Q9400 to the embedded platform, where it would be used in industrial PCs. The Q9400 is a 64-bit x86 quad-core processor based on the 45nm Yorkfield core. On the embedded platform, the Q9400 would be supported by the Intel Q45 and 3210 core-logic (chipset).

According to Doug Davis, vice president of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group and general manager of the Embedded and Communications Group, the company assures seven years of support and product lifetime for the new processor. The provision of four advanced execution units would step up parallelism and responsiveness in multi-threaded and multi-tasking environments.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today showed that the cryptographic performance of the VIA Nano processor is the most power efficient on the market, due to its dedicated VIA PadLock Security Engine, a suite of security tools integrated directly into the processor die.

The hardware security implementation within the VIA Nano processor means that user data is handled more efficiently and safely by circuitry deep inside the silicon, rather than by using more vulnerable operating system, memory and software resources.