PC News Rundown!

 

• Segate announced its 3.5inch body packed 8TB Hard Drive and as per their mention, 10TB models are in the not-too-distant future. 8TB drive is shipping now to select customers and will be more widely available next quarter.
• With the increase in 1.3 percent in desktop PC shipments, interesting news is that Graphics Card shipment in second quarter of 2014 declined by 17.5 percent compared to previous quarter. Reports say that tablets and embedded graphics caused part of such decline. Nvidia is on top with 62 percent slipping from 64.9 percent and AMD has 37.9 percent share, up from 35 percent.
• Gaming PC Razer has announced Razer Cortex which helps to compare prices for video games from digital platforms allowing users to create wish lists. Notification will be sent to such wish wists if price drops or such games are available in the stores.
• Microsoft has dropped the price of Microsft Surface 2 RTby $100 on all the models available meaning you could get one as low as $350 for 32gb model. This almost a year old product has seen such price change may be for stock clearence or for more focus to Surface Pro 3.

 

Rundown of Mobile Device Processors.

Mobile Device Chips also known as Systems on a chip (SoC) are the main component of any smartphone or tablet. These chips are the reason for the realtime performance of any mobile device. Most popular SoC used all around the globe right now are discussed below:

1. Qualcomm Snapdragon: Snapdragon is the widely popular and adopted SoC by Qualcomm. Started in 4th Quarter of 2008, it had a very strange way of naming its processors such as QSD8650, MSM8960. However, on August 2011, it started simplifying by giving names (S1, S2, S3, S4) for better understanding to public. The trend followed and hence newer generation SoC were given higher numbers. On January 2013, new names and models were announced: Snapdragon 200 (play), 400 (plus), 600 (pro), 800 (prime) of S4 generation of SoC’s.
   Snapdragon 800 series are the most poweful SoC’s made by Qualcomm clocked over 2 GHz and they are 800, 801, 805, 808 and 810. Snapdragon 800 are quad-core processors used on high-end devices of 2013 integrating Adreno 330 GPU with frequency of  550 MHz on the latest 800 MSM8974AB chip. Until now, 801 MSM8974AC chips with Adreno 330 (578 MHz), are used by almost every OEMs and limited number of 805 APQ8084 with Adreno 420 (600MHz) featuring smartphones have came to market. 808 is Qualcomm’ s first hexa-core processor with 64-bit support. Snapdragon 810 is an Octa-core 64-bit processor and is the latest chip announced till date. Click here for more info.
   
2. Nvidia Tegra: Tegra is another SoC for mobile devices produced by Nvidia, one of the most popular Graphics Card manufacturer for PCs. These processors were designed for efficient multimedia experience at early stages. Now, it has more focus on Gaming performance without losing power efficiency. Tegra APX 2500 was the first to be announced processor on February 2008. After some struggle and unusual names, Nvidia announced its next-generation dual-core chip named Tegra 2 (Tegra 250) clocked at 1 GHz. On February 2011, it announced its first quad-core SoC named Tegra 3 with clock speed ranging from 1.2 GHz to 1.7 GHz and GPU ranging from 416 MHz to 520 MHz.
   Tegra 4 was announced on January 2013 with quad-core CPU (1.9 GHz) and fifth low-power Cortex-A15 companion core which is invisible to the OS and performs background tasks to save power. It has 72 core GPU (672 MHz) which is said to be about 20 times faster than Tegra 2 and 6 times faster than Tegra 3. Tegra 4i was a mid-range targeted chip with Cortex-A9 rather than A15 used in tegra 4. Recently launched was the Tegra K1 with two different configurations: Quad-core Cortex-A15 32 bit processor and Dual-core Denver 64 bit processor. Both of these uses same Kepler Architecture 950 MHz frequency GPU with a whooping 192-core.
   Click here for more info.
3. Mediatek Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company that provides SoC for mobile devices also. It started producing Smartphone and modem processors since 2009. Till 2013, the SoC produced by Mediatek was not so much efficient and was not adopted widely like Nvidia and Qualcomm. Since 2013, the improvement was seen on the performance of processors from Mediatek. It started producing Dual-core processor MT6572 (1.3 GHz Cortex-A7) with Mali-400 MP1 @ 500 MHz GPU which was quite appreciable but not acceptable among competitiors. Quad-core processors were then introduced MT6589 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 with PowerVR SGX544MP @286MHz. MT6589T with turbo boost and upto 1.5 GHz clock speed was the successor and later on Q3 2013, MT6582 with 1.3 GHz Cortex-A7 with Mali-400 MP2 GPU was launched.
   All these processors were not making much hipe as Cortex-A7 were low powered CPU and thus was never intended to be used on high-end smartphones and tablets and limited to low to mid-range on emerging markets mostly of Asia. Hexa-core and Octa-core processors were also produced and implemented. But it being based on Cortex-A7 were still limited to certain markets. Then MT6595 Octa-core processor with 2.1–2.2 GHz 4-core Cortex-A17 and 1.7 GHz 4-core Cortex-A7 as well as MT6595T with 2.4-2.5 GHz 4-core Cortex-A17 and 1.7 GHz 4-core Cortex-A7 supporting same PowerVR 6200@ 600 MHz GPU were introduced in Q1 2014. They were quite impressive than any chips Mediatek produced before.
   Later this year, MT6752 with 1.7 GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 & MT6795 with 2.2 GHz octa-core Cortex-A53 64-bit processors with PowerVR G6200@700 MHz GPU are going to be launched which may make its way to other competiting LTE markets.

 

Nvidia Tegra K1 Chipset with 64-bit!

The 64-bit Tegra K1 is the world’s first 64-bit ARM processor for Android. Nividia shade some  information on their new “Denver” based 64-bit CPU pairing with their 192-core Kepler architecture-based GPU to create a fully ARMv8 compatible processor that is also pin compatible with the 32-bit Tegra K1 processor.

“Denver” is built to provide the highest single-core CPU throughput available, which results in industry leading dual-core performance. 64-bit Tegra K1 chip will offer PC-class performance now equipped to Smartphones & Tablets providing better performance to apps, best web browsing experience and extended battery life.The new 64-bit Tegra K1 is set with 128K + 64K L1 cache, a good update from the 32K + 32K of the 32-bit Tegra K1. All these are clearly hinting for best gaming performance on mobile devices offering PC class.

Also those news of 64-bit processor and 64-bit technology on Android L can direct all of us to look forward for performance boost. Rumours of Nexus 8 from Google with goodies like 4gb RAM and processor powered by Tegra K1 chip certainly make it to the next level on Mobile Devices.

Via: Nvidia