Items tagged with x86
Rumor has it--er, has had it--that the Xbox 720 “Durango”, which is potentially slated to debut in May, would have AMD silicon inside. A Bloomberg report further points to that rumor as being highly likely. Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg says that the Xbox 720 will run on an AMD “Jaguar” SoC, which means that the...
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When the Xbox 360 and PS3 first debuted, one of the major differences between them was how easy it was to access the underlying hardware. Kaz Hirai, then President of Sony Computer Entertainment, confirmed that the PS3 was far more difficult to program -- and that this was intentional. "We don't provide the 'easy to...
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When Microsoft announced that it would build an entirely separate version of Windows for ARM processors in 2011, it galvanized the entire computing industry. For decades, Windows and x86 had been synonymous terms, so this move to support alternative architectures was seen as a fundamental change in how Microsoft would...
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Fitch, the debt rating agency, evidently wasn't pleased with what it heard during AMD's last conference call. The agency has cut AMD's debt rating from a B to a CCC-. That's the last step above default, and it echoes the agency's skepticism over whether or not AMD can continue as a going concern. The agency writes: The ratings reflect Fitch's...
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Nearly two years ago, Facebook launched the Open Compute Project. The initiative was intended to rethink all aspects of data server design, including cooling, racks, and server configuration. The coalition has gathered steam and support from a number of companies; AMD announced its own Open 3.0 Platform at today's OCP...
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It's been more than seven years since Apple began putting Intel inside its systems, and that relationship might be coming to end. Rumors are running rampant on the web this morning that Apple is seriously considering embracing ARM for its Mac lineup, with a version of the chip that it's already using in its iPhone...
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One of the questions that's been kicked around since Microsoft debuted Surface last summer is how much Redmond would charge for the systems. Rumors have ranged from the ridiculously low ($299) to $1200 or more. Microsoft briefly posted prices on its own store, and while the numbers and listings have been pulled, the...
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Today at the Hot Chips Symposium, AMD's CTO Mark Papermaster is taking the wraps off AMD's upcoming CPU core, codenamed Steamroller. Steamroller is the third iteration of Sunnyvale's Bulldozer architecture and an extremely important part. Bulldozer, launched just over a year ago, was a major disappointment. The...
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At the International Supercomputing Conference today, Intel announced that Knights corner, the company's first commercial Many Integrated Core (MIC) product will ship commercially in 2012. The Descendent of the Processor Formerly Known as Larrabee also gets a new brand name -- Xeon Phi. The idea behind Intel's new push is that the highly efficient...
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At the International Supercomputing Conference today, Intel announced that Knights corner, the company's first commercial Many Integrated Core (MIC) product will ship commercially in 2012. The Descendent of the processor formerly known as Larrabee also gets a new brand name -- Xeon Phi. The idea behind Intel's new push is that the highly...
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) managed to lessen the gap between it and Intel in the x86 space, even if just by a smidgen. According to Mercury Research's latest data, AMD's x86 market share jumped nearly a full percentage point from 18.2 percent to 19.1 percent in the first quarter of 2012, compared to Intel, which...
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Intel made headlines last year when it announced that it would fab 22nm products for FPGA designer Achronix. This week, the company has unveiled an additional 22nm partner. Santa Clara will also be building parts for Tabula and will build that company's new Spacetime microprocessors. Tabula claims that its new chip...
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Fresh news out of Taiwan is that Intel and AMD, despite their keen interest in the tablet market, "cannot compete with solutions from ARM in terms of price." The statements, purportedly from various notebook manufacturers, are meant to imply that the two manufacturers (especially Intel) must reduce costs if they ever...
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If there's one fact that's emerged after Steve Jobs' death this fall, it's that the man hated Android. Really hated. As in, declared thermonuclear war on it and dedicated himself (and Apple's bank account) to wiping it from existence. In light of Steve's Khan-like level of loathing for Google's operating system, it's...
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It's been a few years since Microsoft really shot itself in the foot by making itself look really unfriendly, and someone at the company must've been missing the pain. A careful read of the company's "Windows 8 Hardware Certification Requirements" document has revealed draconian policies that require vendors to block the installation of other...
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When AMD announced its first tablet APU earlier this year, codenamed Desna, it was obvious that the chip was more a proof-of-concept than an actual shipping part. Factors outside AMD's control, such as the limitations of Windows 7 when running on a tablet, have kept consumer interest in x86 tablets to a minimum. Nevertheless, MSI's AMD-powered...
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Intel's decision to join Google and become a major Android developer was big news in 2011, but it appears the CPU giant's fondness for x86 support in Android is a wee bit more specific than you might have thought. Intel has made a number of major contributions to Android in the past six months, but the Android-x86 project, which substantially...
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HP and Oracle have been slugging it out in court over the future of Intel's Itanium for months now. HP has just widened the front by asking the EU to investigate whether Oracle acted improperly when it terminated support for Intel's Itanium. HP claims that Oracle is improperly leveraging its software market to compel purchases of its own hardware,...
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Oracle is publicly demonstrating its new T4 processor today and is shipping beta test systems to selected partners. The new T4 chip is a major departure from previous designs. Sun's T1 processor, codenamed Niagara and introduced in 2005, rejected a conventional focus on single-thread performance in favor of an...
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Earlier this year, Intel software VP Renee James caused a kerfluffle between himself and Microsoft when he claimed Microsoft's upcoming OS wouldn't support older x86 applications when running on an ARM processor. Microsoft, in response, called his characterization "factually inaccurate and unfortunately misleading." ...Except, apparently,...
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We've discussed ARM's plans to enter both the netbook and server markets, but a new interview with Tudor Brown, the company's CEO, suggests the CPU designer's plans are more ambitious than some have realized. Speaking to DigiTimes, Brown claims that the company will snatch a huge chunk of the notebook market by 2015, while simultaneously gripping...
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Tilera is a small CPU design firm that first attracted attention back in 2007, when it debuted its TILE64 architecture. The company's tech is designed to offer a grid of CPU tiles. Each tile contains a very simple CPU core, its cache, and a router. All of the processors are attached via mesh networking. Each tile has its own L1 and L2 cache....
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