TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

Lenovo has added a new budget workstation PC to its ThinkStation lineup. Donning the same goofy handle as its elder brethren, the ThinkStation E20 starts at $599 and offers a selection of Intel Pentium, Core i3, Core i5 or Xeon 3400-series processors, up to 16GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM spread across four DIMM slots, and Intel Core HD integrated or Nvidia Quadro discrete graphics (up to the FX1800).

There's also a choice of 7,200 RPM, 10,000 RPM, or MLC SSD storage with RAID 0 or 1 configurations, and known connectivity include gigabit Ethernet, eight USB 2.0 ports with optional eSATA and FireWire, and audio in/out. Operating system options include Windows 7 Professional, Windows XP, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.


Lenovo took a moment to mention the environmental bonus of buying the E20, which uses over 50% post-consumer plastics, has earned various Green certifications, and uses an 80 Plus Bronze PSU. The company plans to ship the E20 later this month, but the system doesn't seem to be available for purchase just yet.

Seagate has introduced what it claims is the world's highest-capacity, most reliable small form factor enterprise hard drive, the Savvio 10K.4. The drive is made in 450GB and 600GB capacities (twice as much as its nearest competitor), boasts a spindle speed of 10,000RPM, a MTBF of two million hours, and crams it all into a 2.5-inch form factor.

Aimed at enterprise customers, the Savvio 10K.4 uses a 6Gb/s SAS or 4Gb/s Fiber Channel connection, and features Protection Information for enhanced protection of data in flight. SAS models also have a TCG-compliant SED (self-encrypting drive) option for additional protection of sensitive data at rest. All of the drives have PowerChoice technology and an average idle draw of 4.6W.


Combined, Seagate believes the Savvio 10K.4's features offer a greater overall value and can reduce the total cost of ownership to IT organizations. The company hasn't disclosed pricing or ship dates.

Evidence suggests that Apple is preparing to refresh its MacBook Pro notebook line. It's said that a Best Buy employee uploaded images to a forum that show the current 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with a 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo has been removed from the company's database.

Additionally, GeekBench results have surfaced for what appears to be an Intel Core i7-based MacBook Pro running an unreleased version of Mac OS 10.6.2 (build 10C3067) and BIOS MBP61.88Z.004C.B00.1001251657. Also, Amazon has reduced prices on existing MacBook Pro systems to below minimum advertised prices.

Most expect the refresh to bring new systems based on Intel's Core i5 processor, which agrees with a promotional blunder last month that mistakenly offered such a system as a prize. It seems likely that if a refresh is coming, it'll arrive soon, so stay tuned.

Texas Instruments has unveiled the industry's first single quad-radio package, incorporating WLAN 802.11n, GPS, FM transmit/receive, and Bluetooth technologies in one 65nm chip. The WiLink 7.0 boasts several benefits, including a 30% cost reduction, it requires 50% less space, and superior coexistence performance than existing solutions.

The WiLink offers a few unique benefits, such as hardware mechanisms to cancel out board and chip-level RF interference at the source, and low energy inter-core communication prioritizes packet scheduling and supports more connections in parallel. A full list of features can be read after the break, but something that jumps out is best in class 3GPP and RF performance.


Texas Instruments is shipping samples of the WiLink 7.0 to major OEMs today, and the company expects devices using the part to surface toward the end of 2010.

As previously speculated, Google has introduced a new social feature for Gmail. Called Buzz, the service is a continuation of Google's attempt to "find relevance in the noise" that congests services like Twitter. Not long back, Google introduced real-time search, Social Search, and Wave, and Buzz is the next addition to the search giant's social portfolio.

Put simply, Google says Buzz is a new way to start conversations about things you find interesting. It allows you share status updates, photos, videos, RSS information, and more with existing Gmail contacts, all within Gmail's infrastructure. Naturally, relevant Google services such as Picasa are implemented, but Buzz also connects to sites like Flickr and Twitter.

Buzz also has mobile-specific features that rely on position location. For instance, you can tag your location when adding a new post from your handset. The mobile version can also show you nearby activity of other Buzz users, whether you're following them or not. A feature called "Buzz Layer" reveals a (presumably) user-tagged map and shows you what's happening in a given area.

The service has officially launched but the complete roll out will take a few days. Google says it intends to make Buzz a fully open and distributable platform. The company is working on a suite of open protocols to create a complete read/write developer API, and developers interested in participating should head over to Google Code.

Microsoft has concluded that Windows 7's battery alert feature is functioning properly, despite numerous user claims to the contrary. Redmond performed a series of tests to determine if its latest operating system was erroneously warning users of a battery issue, and in each of those scenarios the notification only showed if the battery was actually performing below certain standards.

The company noted that the message is new to Windows 7, so folks upgrading from XP or Vista may be taken by surprise when they are told their battery is a paperweight. Of the 20 support inquires related to this message, all of them have turned out to be age-degraded batteries.


As for the sudden loss in battery life and wonky performance issues? "We recognize that this has the appearance of Windows 7 'causing' the change in performance, but in reality all Windows 7 did was report what was already the case," said Windows division president Steven Sinofsky in a blog post yesterday.

If you've experienced the alert first hand, did it disappear after replacing your battery?

AMD has been talking up its Fusion microprocessor plans for quite some time, ever since it acquired ATI for $5.4 billion in 2006, but for the most part the company has abstained from discussing its upcoming GPU/CPU hybrid in detail. Having missed its original May 2009 launch timeframe, and with Intel's Westmere CPUs featuring built-in graphics already out, it seems AMD is now ready to share a little more.

Speaking at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco this week, AMD's Sam Naffziger said the upcoming 'Llano' Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) will see the joining of its first 32nm Phenom II quad core CPU with a DirectX 11 capable GPU on the same die. This is a much more sophisticated approach than Intel's at present, which simply adds a separate 45nm GPU to the processor package.


Naffziger didn't reveal specific speeds of the graphics unit, but he said it will be a derivative of the current Radeon HD 5000 series and that it will not link to the cores through a HyperTransport link. Instead, it will use a more direct link on the die. Llano's CPU clock speeds are expected to surpass the 3GHz threshold and AMD is aiming for power consumption in the 2.5W to 25W range per core -- with the ability to shut down unused cores.

The chip will also integrate a DDR3 memory controller, 512KB L1 and 1MB L2 Cache per core. There's no shared L3 cache though. In any case, Llano is looking quite promising for the mobile sector, but with a launch scheduled for 'sometime in 2011' Intel's current platform will have a significant head start. If both companies stay on track, Llano should go up against Intel's next major architecture shift, dubbed Sandy Bridge, which will also have graphics on-die but is only expected to support DirectX 10.

After teasing the technology back in January, Nvidia has finally thrown back the curtain on Optimus and is promising notebook users the full performance benefits of a discrete GPU with the battery life of an integrated graphics solution. In a nutshell, it allows notebooks to dynamically switch between graphics systems without any user interaction.


Notebook manufacturers have been combining discrete and integrated graphics for a while now, but thus far choosing which card should handle graphics at any given time has remained a manual process. Sometimes this involved a software switch and a lot of screen flickering as the discrete graphics chip turns on or off, sometimes an actual physical switch on the laptop and a system restart. However, it always required some form of interaction and prioritizing notebook performance or battery life.

This process is just too cumbersome and confusing for mainstream users, some of which may not even know they have switchable graphics, and will simply leave the discrete GPU permanently off or on. Optimus on the other hand is automatic. It determines the best processor for the workload and routes it accordingly, with the decision being entirely transparent to users as they fire up a game or start writing an email.

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It's self-evident how AMD has kept us busy over the last few months, showing us new generation GPUs aiming at all possible price points. From the performance-oriented HD 5850/5870, to the mainstream HD 5770 and the extreme dual-GPU powered HD 5970. The budget models had to wait a bit longer.

Today AMD is introducing another new member to the Radeon HD 5000 family -- the eighth installment in the series. The ATI Radeon HD 5570 will sit between the aforementioned Radeon HD 5450 and 5670 in terms of pricing and performance, which means it should deliver a similar level of performance to that of the Radeon HD 4670 at the same starting price of ~$79.


The Radeon HD 5570 is a more powerful GPU than the HD 5450, capable of playing games comfortably at 720p, while retaining some of the HTPC-friendly properties that made the latter an attractive buy.

Read the complete review.

Netflix will reportedly add 1080p streaming and 5.1 surround sound to its portfolio later this year -- though the initial audience may be slim. The service currently offers 720p streaming when paired with an HD-friendly system, such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or Roku, which typically requires a connection speed of about 5Mb/s or better. Streaming media in 1080p may require an even faster connection, but Netflix hasn't commented.

It's worth noting that only one in 12 Netflix users subscribe to the Blu-ray service, and a mere 6% of the service's library is currently available in HD -- a selection Netflix has called "underwhelming." It's unknown how much content will be available in 1080p at launch, but the presently limited array of HD videos is bound to increase as the world adopts HDTVs and Blu-ray. An exact release date is also unclear.

Google reportedly plans to add a Twitter-like service to Gmail later this week. Twitter, in case this is your first day on the Web, is a microblogging service that allows users to post messages of up to 140 characters, which are displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to subscribers. Facebook also offers a status update system.

While Gmail users can already set their status, each update overwrites the previous message. Google plans to extend this feature, allowing Gmail users to view a stream of status updates from people they choose to connect with. It will also be tightly integrated with YouTube and Picasa, Google's video and image-sharing services.

Yahoo introduced a similar "status-casting" feature last year, which allows users read their contacts' 140-character updates via Yahoo Mail or Messenger, as well as Flickr, Twitter and others. It's unclear whether Google will link Gmail status updates to rival social-networking services, but it seems like it would be beneficial.

Intel revealed its Itanium 9300 series today, which more than doubles the performance of its predecessor. Codenamed Tukwila, the new four-core design packs two billion transistors and boasts an 800% increase in system interconnect bandwidth, as much as a 500% gain in memory bandwidth, and up to 700% more memory capacity.

The Itanium 9300 and Intel's upcoming "Nehalem EX" Xeon processor share several platform ingredients, including the Intel QuickPath Interconnection, Scalable Memory Interconnect, 7500 Scalable Memory Buffer, and 7500 chipset. Intel says its 9300-series CPUs feature advanced machine-check architecture manages errors through the hardware, firmware and OS, allowing recovery from otherwise fatal errors.


The Itanium 9300 also employs second-gen Intel Virtualization Technology, an enhanced form of Demand-Based Switching for power savings, Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, and are binary-compatible with existing software. Pricing on the 9300 line ranges from $946 to $3,838 and chips are being sold in quantities of 1,000. OEM systems should ship within 90 days.

Sources close to AMD said the company's six-core Thuban processors have some form of dynamic speed boost technology called "C-state performance boost." Intel has incorporated a similar feature into certain Core i5 and i7 processors called Turbo Boost, which allows an operating system to adjust the clock frequencies of a CPU's cores based on performance requirements and the chip's TDP specifications.

Details are scarce, but X-bit Labs reports that "when single-thread performance is needed most, Thuban processors will automatically disable idle cores and overclock the remaining engines to the maximum possible level that is determined by general thermal design power." However, C-state performance boost is said to be hardware-based and will work with any operating system.

Nothing is official, but such a technology would be handy in a six-core desktop processor that supposedly has a TDP on par with quad-core Phenom II CPUs. Thuban is expected to land in May as the Phenom II X6 1035T, 1055T, and 1075T -- all of which are 45nm-based and should work with existing Socket AM2+ and AM3 motherboards.

Sharp and Samsung have called truce after nearly three years of bickering over LCD panel and module patents. The electronic-makers have inked a cross-licensing agreement that ends all ongoing patent infringement suits, and gives each firm access to patents owned by the other. Bound by a confidentiality pact, neither company will disclose details of the terms, but the conditions are in favor of Sharp, according to a company representative.

Sharp began the dispute back in August 2007 by filing a suit in a Texas court, alleging LCD modules manufactured and used by Samsung in its LCD TVs, computer displays and cell phones, infringed on five of its US patents. A few months later, Sharp extended the suit to South Korea, and Samsung responded with charges in Japan and the US. The battle eventually made its way to Europe and before the US International Trade Commission.

The new agreement reportedly terminates all previous rulings made by the ITC, including a US import ban on Samsung's infringing products.