Fanless Core i5 2390T PC
Holy Moly! Nvidia Plays David to Intel’s Goliath and Enters the CPU Arena
Remember the schism between Chipzilla and their former spouse Nvidia that erupted when the Ion Chipset was announced? Nvidia took Intel's crummiest, cheapest processor (the Atom 230) and paired with a decent IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor), the Nvidia 9400 (same as was used in MacBooks). Their argument was that the GPU was the new CPU. You just need something basic for word processing and when you want to watch Flash or videos in 1080p you let the GPU do the heavy lifting.
It sort of works on Windows but Flash 10.1 for Linux is a joke and you still throttle the processor.
Now they are entering the desktop CPU game with an ARM chip (Tegra 2) and Windows support to come.
Superlative Overview and In Depth Analysis of Sandy Bridge on Anandtech.com, including i5 2500K
As usual, Anand Lal Shimpi has offered the most thorough analysis of Intel's new Sandy Bridge lineup with a special focus on the 95W 2500K and i3 2300. The latter is a natural refresh for our i3-540 based line of H3s and D2s PCs but sadly isn't available until February 20th.
Flock of New Mini-ITX 1155 Sandy Bridge Motherboards including Intel DH67CF
Came across ITX Gamer ,a great site focussed on the high end of mini-itx computing. They've been regularly reporting Mini-ITX motherboards ready for Chipzilla's latest CPU line up, the Sandy Bridge i3, i5, and i7 Processors (Socket 1155). These give off less heat, use less power, and are way better value (especially at the top end). Spoke to a few distributors today and seems Intel's DH67CF will be first available in the UK, followed by Gigabyte, Asus, and Foxconn and ECS likely early next month.
Site has a great mini-itx motherboard comparison tool as well:
RAMbo Server: AMD 240e-based Low Power Server with 8-16GB DDR3 RAM
Unlike Intel, AMD still produces 45W Processors. These are much easier to cool (with a huge heatsink you can go passive) and of course use less power than a 65W, 95W, or 125W processor. We've taken their newest Athlon II X2 240e which is 2 x 2.8GHz (2MB L2 cache) and put in a really small mATX case with an energy efficient Gigabyte motherboard and a whopping 8 (or 16 or 4) Gigabytes of super high-speed DDR3 RAM. This memory is clocked at 1300MHz!
Whole idea is a lot of server applications just need a basic processor (ideally dual core) but need lots and lots for RAM. This way we keep the power footprint down (about 50W) and the price is low: £499 ex VAT for the 8GB version.
As it is a server, we've added an extra Gb lan port via a PCI card slot and there's an optional DVD-RW drive (though this adds to the power consumption). Only 3.7" tall so practically fits in a 2U space.
Zii Sets New Standard for Misguided Marketing Budget, Runs Android, Maybe Ubuntu
Creative Labs has appropriated Nintendo's font and launched a subsidiary Zii complete with flash-heavy, text-light website and a high-production 10 minute video? 10 minutes? In this YouTube age? Who has that attention span? Especially since the first two minutes of the video have absurd images of masked doctors measuring out syringes (to explain that this is a "stem cell") whilst a humourless voice even more monotone than mine intones: ""Mother nature has been honing the stem cells for over a billion years of evolution to produce the perfect building block of life."
Baffling advertising aside, The ZMS-05 is a really interesting programmable chip and would make for a great embedded device. Perhaps a cigarette pack-sized nettop able to run Ubuntu (now available on ARM processors) and potentially Boxee as it can play 1080p. Or it could just run Android.