Last week, Microsoft showed off some browser technology that could help Internet Explorer leapfrog the competition. But if Mozilla succeeds in its hope, Microsoft could be playing catch-up instead.
The technology in question is hardware-accelerated graphics and text using interfaces called Direct2D and DirectWrite that provide an easy way to use graphics cards' computing power. They're built into Windows 7, and Microsoft is bringing them to Windows Vista but not Windows XP.
The performance boost from Direct2D and DirectWrite was the centerpiece of Microsoft's demonstration of Internet Explorer 9 goodies shown last week. Online maps flashed on the screen quickly and tracked mouse movements responsively; text was clearer and changed sizes more gracefully.
But the day of Microsoft's demo, Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard had this to tweet: "Interesting that we're doing Direct2D support in Firefox as well--I'll bet we'll ship it first."
There's work to back up his rhetoric. On Sunday, Bas Schouten, the programmer who's been leading the work for Mozilla, posted a prototype of Firefox using the Direct2D and DirectWrite.
However, any Firefox fans tempted to crow about a victory should be cautious. Mozilla wouldn't commit to including the technology, much less to a release schedule such as Firefox 3.7 due in the first half of 2010. "We are currently investigating Direct2D for Firefox, but do not have a target for shipping it in Firefox at this time," the organization said in a statement..
Several Web pages arrive significantly faster using Direct2D rendering technology in Firefox.
(Credit: Bas Schouten) The race is on
Microsoft declined to comment for this story, referring readers just to last week's blog post about coming Internet Explorer 9 features. "While we're still early in the product cycle, we wanted to be clear to developers about our approach and the progress so far," the company said while sharing a Direct2D demonstration video.
There's no doubt the race is on, though, given the potential benefits of the new interface and the commercial success of Window 7. Microsoft is lighting a fire under its developers, but the company's browser has lagged Firefox and other rivals in many technological areas for years, and many Web developers loathe earlier versions of IE still widely used. IE's market share has steadily eroded, though it remains dominant overall.
The attention is giving Google ideas, too. In a Chrome issue logged Sunday, Chrome programmer Peter Kasting pointed to Schouten's blog post on the subject as "motivation."
"If we can speed up the rendering time, the most noticeable benefit will probably be smoother-feeling scrolling," Kasting said. He also directed attention in October to DirectWrite support in Chrome, though cautioning that it might not work with the browser's present "sandbox" design to isolate elements of the browser for security reasons.
Mozilla has its own results to show off, too. Schouten offered a graph showing improved performance displaying a variety of Web pages. Facebook, Google, and Twitter rendered on the screen in half the time using the Direct2D; Slashdot and a Wikipedia entry were barely changed. One taxing page using the Scalable Vector Graphics format (SVG) to show movable, resizable graphics showed more than twice as fast, dropping from about 11 milliseconds to less than 4 milliseconds.
Microsoft's DirectWrite permits smoother display of many fonts.
(Credit: Microsoft) What actually changes?
Direct2D replaces an older technology called Graphics Device Interface (GDI) used in Windows XP. Both offer a way for programs to tap into computing hardware without having to worry about the particulars of video card capabilities and settings, but Direct2D taps into hardware acceleration features.
The technology lets programmers control basic elements such as transparent boxes, curved lines, and resizable photos. Out of these, user interface elements are constructed; Direct2D calls upon a computer's graphics processor to speed that up. It's particularly helpful for dynamic situations that change element properties such as color, size, or opacity.
DirectWrite offers a similar graphics chip boost to the task of displaying text. That may not sound computationally intense, but some parts of it are. In particular, DirectWrite offers a more sophisticated mechanism for displaying text to take advantage of something called sub-pixel positioning of letters.
Each pixel on an LCD screen is actually made of three tiny slices--for red, green, and blue components--and sub-pixel technology subtly draws letters using pieces of these pixels to make the overall appearance smoother. The older GDI permitted some sub-pixel positioning, but only smoothed letters in the horizontal direction; DirectWrite smooths curves vertically as well.
Using the graphics chip in Direct2D and DirectWrite operations brings several advantages. Performance is the first: some operations are faster or smoother, and having more power on hand lets programmers tackle more ambitious projects. Second, the general-purpose central processor, relatively inefficient at handling graphics tasks, is unburdened, freeing it up for other tasks and saving battery power.
Firefox already has a graphics system of its own called Cairo. Schouten has been adding a Direct2D and DirectWrite.
Firefox is of course a browser that doesn't just work on Windows. The DirectWrite technology helps that operating system catch up to its rivals, said Mozilla's John Daggett in a blog post Sunday. "Platform APIs [application programming interfaces] on Mac OS X and Linux already do a good job rendering Postscript CFF [Compact Font Format] fonts," he said. "This just brings them up to parity under Windows 7."
Direct2D is used elsewhere in the browser. "We've made significant progress and are now able to present a Firefox browser completely rendered using Direct2D, making intensive usage of the GPU," or graphics processing unit, Schouten said. And because Cairo is used by other open-source software, other projects will benefit from the work, he added.
The Direct2D work is Mozilla's second hardware acceleration effort; the company also is working on one using a different hardware acceleration interface called OpenGL for mobile devices using Nvidia's Tegra chips, according to Mozilla.
This Mozilla demonstration of photos and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), with transparency and click-and-drag resizing, works more than twice as fast Direct2D graphics.
(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET) The interactive Web
Microsoft went out of its way to emphasize that the Direct2D and DirectWrite work will help existing Web pages without programmers having to change a line of code. Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Internet Explorer, contrasted that to other hardware acceleration efforts including Native Client and O3D from Google and WebGL from Mozilla and the Khronos Group.
Native Client, O3D, and WebGL are part of a long list of developments designed to transform the Web into a foundation not just for static pages but also for interactive applications. Those technologies, though, require new programming skills and tools.
Mozilla, Google, Apple, and Opera have been pushing this interactive Web agenda, and Microsoft is showing signs of interest, too. However, for now, Microsoft emphasizes that Direct2D support will help the existing Web. But the browser makers have their eyes on interactive technology as well. Direct2D will help with complex sites that use 2D graphics interfaces such as SVG and Canvas, Mozilla said.
Added Schouten, "As Web sites become more graphically intense, dynamic graphics will start playing a larger role, especially in user interfaces."
In a bit of a Thanksgiving appetizer, many companies were beefing up their structures by--as one of my colleagues put it--gobbling up other companies.
The biggest deal was announced by Hewlett-Packard, which plans to acquire 3Com, maker of network switching and routing products. The deal is valued at $2.7 billion, or $7.90 per share. HP says the purchase is intended to boost its networking business, particularly in China, where most of 3Com's business is focused.
The 3Com deal is the most recent in a string of enterprise-related acquisitions HP has made in the past year, including most recently file serving software maker Ibrix. HP wants to be a leader in providing customers with an integrated stack of computing technology ranging from servers and storage at the foundation all the way up to services.
Other deals
EA picks up Playfish for social gaming push
Electronic Arts makes some serious waves in the social gaming by acquiring Playfish for $275 million in cash and $25 million in equity.• A new set of rules for social games
Google to acquire AdMob for $750 million
Mobile advertising is AdMob's specialty, and the deal gives Google a technology inroad into a fast-growing segment of online advertising.• With AdMob, Google seeks mobile-ad advantage
Logitech buys video-conferencing firm LifeSize
Acquisition puts the maker of Webcams and other peripherals into the video-conferencing market.
More headlines
Intel to pay AMD $1.25 billion in antitrust settlement
AMD drops its litigation while Intel agrees to "abide by" a long list of prohibitions. And renewed patent cross-license agreement frees AMD to spin off chip manufacturing.• What Intel just bought for $1.25 billion: Less risk
• AMD-Intel deal: No big change for consumers
• AMD: Our claims about Intel have been 'ratified'
Windows 7 use continues to climb
It now makes up 4 percent of Web-accessing computers, a mark that took Windows Vista nearly seven months to reach.• Microsoft pulls Windows 7 download tool
• Microsoft probing Windows 7 zero-day hole
Microsoft bans 1 million Xbox Live players
Players who were caught modifying their consoles to play pirated games have been booted from the popular service.• Craigslist brimming with banned, 'modded' Xboxes
Google hopes to remake programming with Go
A Unix co-creator is among those behind a language Google hopes will speed computers and programming. Today, Go becomes open-source software.• Google hopes Go will give a browser boost
Research: Twitter has yet to grow into valuation
Company is worth significantly less than $1 billion, one company surmises. That's in part because the effectiveness of its possible business plan is still up in the air.• Judge bans Twitter from court
• Twitter issues mulligan on new 'retweet' feature
• Mint makes Twitter an investor hub
Microsoft denies Windows 7 is based on Mac OS
Following comments from a U.K. Microsoft executive that Windows 7 was designed to create "a Mac Look," a company blog post distances itself from his words.• Microsoft exec: Mac OS inspired Windows 7
Verizon tests sending RIAA copyright notices
The No. 2 phone company, known for its reluctance to intervene in antipiracy cases, has struck an agreement to forward copyright notices on behalf of the music industry.• Even in media mecca, plenty are willing to pirate
• Former RIAA chief tries to save Qtrax image
Expert says Adobe Flash policy is risky
Adobe Flash Player allows arbitrary content to access applications without permission, says researcher at Foreground Security.
As alternative energy grows, NIMBY turns green
With more renewable energy projects trying to come online, the country grapples with the balance between local land use and a national push for clean energy.• Students pitch green businesses for greenbacks
Also of note
• Bill Gates' home tour on charity auction block
• U.S. Army orders bridges made of recycled plastic
• Facebook status update saves man from jail
It looks as though Microsoft may have a winner in Windows 7, at least in comparison to Vista.
The software giant saw relatively strong early adoption of Windows 7 in the 10 days since its official launch. According to Net Applications, more than 3 percent of PCs accessing the Web in the past two days have been doing so using the new operating system. Usage of the operating system has been growing strong in recent days, though Windows 7 already accounted for 2 percent of global Web traffic in the days ahead of its formal launch.
Judging by its initial sales, Windows 7 is certainly proving more popular than Vista. Microsoft sold 234 percent more boxed editions of Windows 7 than it did Vista in the initial releases of both products, according to research released by NPD Group.
In actual dollars, Windows 7 has also been more successful than Vista. However, early discounts on pre-sales copies and a lack of a promotional boost behind Windows 7 Ultimate led to revenues only 82 percent greater than those of Vista.
• Windows 7 upgrade version: The dos and don'ts
• FAQ: Buying the right Windows 7 upgrade
• Microsoft Windows 7 vs. Apple Snow Leopard
More headlines
New York antitrust suit accuses Intel of bribery
Intel used payments to keep computer makers from selling systems with AMD chips, according to New York's attorney general. It's a new front in an old Intel war.• N.Y. lawsuit details Intel's 'largesse' toward Dell
T-Mobile experiencing widespread outage
The cellular carrier acknowledges problems affecting both its voice and data networks.• T-Mobile users still reeling from outage
• T-Mobile says software error behind outage
AT&T vs. Verizon: There's a lawyer for that
AT&T is suing Verizon Wireless over its "There's a Map for That" ad campaign, stating that it misleads consumers about AT&T's network coverage.
Corporate bank accounts targeted in online fraud
Small and medium-size businesses, governments, and school districts are targets of online bank fraud involving malicious e-mails, key loggers, and money mules, FBI says.• Phishing, worms spike this year, say Microsoft and McAfee
• New Trojan encrypts files but leaves no ransom note
• Hacker breaks into jailbroken iPhones, asks for $7
Barnes & Noble hit with suit over Nook
A Cupertino, Calif.-based start-up claims the bookseller misappropriated its trade secrets in its design of a similar e-reader.• Spring Design seeks injunction barring Nook sales
Microsoft gives the MSN butterfly a makeover
It's given a new look to both its home page and the MSN butterfly logo. The main page now has just half as many links, with more videos and photos.• Microsoft to fix holes in Windows, Office
Mozilla: Firefox 3.6 won't be late
The first beta of Firefox 3.6 may have crossed the finish line weeks late, but Mozilla says the final version should still be done this year.• Firefox gets a quick fix
• Firefox gains Windows 7 features
Lack of global climate deal won't crush green tech
No matter what happens in Copenhagen next month, green-tech companies say industry and national governments will drive investment in the near term, an analysis shows.• Waste Management squeezes fuel from landfills
• LA changing its glow for more efficiency
• PetroAlgae signs deal with Indian Oil
Mac game: Art project or malware?
Is the Lose/Lose game a legitimate art project, or should it be flagged as malware because it deletes files?
Virtual goods: Duping the masses?
When is ad not an ad? When it's an offer for something other than what you think you are signing up for.• After onstage spat, Offerpal replaces CEO
• Offerpal Media mess gets stickier
Beatles copyright case down a legal rabbit hole
BlueBeat is streaming Beatles recordings for free and selling them for 25 cents apiece, claiming that they aren't the original recordings and therefore aren't copyright-protected.• Beatles catalog comes to USB
• No Doubt says 'no' to Band Hero depiction
Also of note
• An unofficial way to 'dislike' things on Facebook
• Best Buy to launch branded movie download service
• Wi-Fi-free iPhone officially lands in China
Judging by its initial sales, Windows 7 is certainly proving more popular than Vista.
Microsoft sold 234 percent more boxed editions of Windows 7 than it did Vista in the initial releases of both products, according to research released Thursday by NPD Group.
In actual dollars, Windows 7 has also been more successful than Vista. However, early discounts on pre-sales copies and a lack of a promotional boost behind Windows 7 Ultimate led to revenues only 82 percent greater than those of Vista.
"Ultimate was a much bigger part of what Microsoft did with Vista, whereas this time I think they not only kept the price very high, but really kept the focus on the Premium product and the Premium three-pack," explained the author of the report, NPD's Stephen Baker, to CNET News. "Most of the promotional fire that they've put out there has been focused on those, for example, 'Buy a computer, get a $50 copy of Home Premium.' The pre-sales were all pretty much focused on Home Premium."
The numbers provided by NPD include both the initial sales of Windows 7 following its release on October 22 and pre-sales data from the discount program that Microsoft launched in July.
NPD declined to release actual sales figures for Windows 7, but the percentages help tell the story.
Web statistics firm Net Applications also found early adoption of Windows 7 to be strong.
(Credit:
NPD Group)
Sales of PC hardware running the new OS didn't fare quite as well. Though growth in PC sales for the Windows 7 launch was at its highest level for the entire third quarter, it wasn't as strong as during the Vista launch, showing a 6 percent decrease from Vista's initial days.
A mixture of different factors affected the sales of Windows 7 PCs, notes Baker. Vista was launched in January, which traditionally offers a better sales environment than October. Also, the new OS was hurt by sales of PCs with older operating systems, which made up 20 percent of all sales during Windows 7 launch week. In contrast, PCs with older operating systems made up just 6 percent of all sales when Vista hit the market.
Baker doesn't think the current recession had a bearing on the lower PC sales for Windows 7's launch. "We've seen pretty strong sales growth on computers all year regardless of the recession," he said. "People have been buying more units of PCs all year than they had in 2008. At least from a unit perspective, we haven't really seen much impact on the consumer PC market from the recession."
Some businesses midway through upgrades to Vista are asking for Windows 7 instead, a Microsoft executive said at Thursday's launch event in London.
"This is the first time that we have had customers talking about slipstreaming the deployment of one OS into another version," said John Curran, who until recently headed the Windows client group in the U.K.
About 15 percent of business computers in the U.K. have Vista installed.
Ten large companies in the U.K. have already begun deploying Windows 7 on a total of 300,000 machines, according to Microsoft.
"In terms of the numbers of seats being deployed at launch, we are well ahead of where we were from a Vista perspective," Curran said.
Read more of "Vista jilted for Windows 7 midway through upgrades" at Silicon.com.
Dell, Acer, Intel, and others together are, in effect, creating a muddle of light laptop categories as part of a not-so-well-orchestrated marketing strategy, according to an analyst. This is expected to become particularly acute when a deluge of new Windows 7 laptops hit the market this week.
Acer 11.6-inch ultrathin looks like a Netbook but it's not.
(Credit: Acer)Acer offered a graphic example of this recently when it introduced a small, inexpensive Windows 7 notebook--the Aspire Timeline AS1810T--that, from all outward appearances, looks like a Netbook. But it isn't--at least as defined by Intel. It's a new category of laptop called an ultrathin.
"There's a lot of confusion that Intel has created and they haven't really segmented the market that well," according to Bob O'Donnell, an IDC Research vice president.
And it gets more complicated. The inexpensive ultrathin is, in turn, competing now with the expensive luxury laptops, like the Dell Adamo, according to O'Donnell. "Ironically, what's actually happening we think is that the (ultrathin) is actually killing the high-end ultraportable," O'Donnell said.
Here's the problem: any given Windows 7 laptop with an 11.6- or 12-inch screen could be a Netbook, an ultrathin, or a high-end ultraportable, each with distinctly different price-performance characteristics not readily apparent to consumers.
"There's too many overlapping products," according to O'Donnell. Intel tried to prevent this from happening by declaring that any laptop with a screen larger than 10 inches diagonally is not a Netbook. That policy is fine in theory but does not carry over to the real world of head-butting competition among PC makers where even the subtlest production differentiation can mean a leg up on the competition.
Intel says look at performance and price. "Which offers the best performance overall? That's important," said Intel spokesman Bill Calder. "Pricing is a factor too. While some ultrathin laptops including 11.6 and higher are very affordable, none are in the $249 to $399 range that typically defines a Netbook," Calder said.
Some consumers might say it's not a big deal. But ... Read More
Free beer (in the Richard Stallman sense) accompanied the free software (not in the Richard Stallman sense). It's a good way to pack a showroom floor.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)ORLANDO, Fla.--Gartner offers a Justification Toolkit to argue the financial merits of attending the Gartner Symposium, but a show perk might carry more personal appeal: each attendee gets a free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, packaged with a slab of chocolate.
Well, maybe not free exactly.
It costs $3,695 to attend the show. And as one wag commented, "The chocolate's the better part. You'll get fewer headaches."
Perhaps stung by the contrast between its Windows Vista's tarnished reputation and its flashy "The Wow Starts Now" promotional campaign, Microsoft is sticking to barer-bones marketing work with Windows 7. Microsoft is one of five premier sponsors of the conference, and giving freebies to a few thousand influential IT folks probably makes sense--especially given how many companies just stuck with Windows XP rather than upgrade to Vista.
Cages at Best Buy are stocked with new models preloaded with Windows 7: behind bars until October 22.
(Credit: Brooke Crothers)Best Buy is locked and loaded for the Windows 7 launch.
And I don't use the phrase "locked and loaded" figuratively. "Locked" in that all the new Windows 7 machines are locked down behind cages. And "loaded" in that all the cages are full. (See photos.)
I visited a Best Buy Friday night in Southern California where the cages were loaded exclusively with new models preloaded with Windows 7. And I learned a few odd tidbits from a stoked salesperson who had definitely been drinking the Windows-7-is-totally-awesome Kool-Aid. Let me add that the information was conveyed to me at one store in Southern California and may not necessarily apply to all stores nationwide.
... Read MoreIt's a question we all face: with chips getting more processing cores instead of more gigahertz, is your next computer going to actually run your software faster?
Microsoft is one of the companies that feels the pressure to most acutely when it comes to putting those cores to work. Though it doesn't pretend to have the problem licked, Microsoft does believe Windows 7 provides a better foundation for using multicore systems than earlier versions of the operating system.
Jon DeVaan, head of Windows Core Operating System Division
(Credit: Microsoft)One key part of solving the PC's multicore problems draws from the world of big iron, and Windows 7 can support much bigger iron--servers with as many as 256 processor cores compared with 64 for its predecessor. Now a few years into the multicore era, even today's laptops are able to juggle as many tasks as reasonably powerful servers from just a few years ago. Intel's new Core i7 "Clarksfield" processor for mobile computers has four cores that manage a total of eight separate "threads" of work.
"One dimension is support for a much larger number of processors and getting good linear scaling on that change from 64 to 256 processors," said Jon DeVaan, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows Core Operating System Division. "There's all kinds of depth in that change."
Linear scaling means that doubling the number of processors means a doubling in performance--something rarely achieved in real-world computing. But what does 256 or even 64 processors have to do with a PC with four or eight cores? In short, updating the Windows plumbing to support bigger servers also helps work run more smoothly on smaller multicore machines, for example by ensuring data cached in memory is close on hand to the processor core that needs it, DeVaan said.
It's crucial that Microsoft help solve multicore issues. The company is responsible not just for the most widely used personal-computer operating system but also for the programming tools many use to create the software that runs on it. That's why another broad attempt to ease multicore pains takes place within Visual Studio 2010, the upcoming version of Microsoft's programming tools.
"People have been working on this for a long time. So far there haven't been any magic bullets," Devaan said. "The commercial reality is creating a lot more urgency now, so I think we'll see a lot more approaches taken."
Unlocking multicore power is a point of competition, too: Apple's newest version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, adds a facility called Grand Central Dispatch to centralize management of all the various threads of programs as they run on a system.
Intel and Advanced Micro Devices bear responsibility, too, since they embraced multicore designs once heat problems put an end to the clock-frequency race, but Microsoft has much more clout in developer relations.
Windows 7 is due to ship October 22.
(Credit: Microsoft)Multicore designs can help easily when people are running many separate programs or when running programs that are "embarrassingly parallel"--in other words, when a task has many naturally independent subtasks, such as rendering each of a video's many frames. But many programs won't easily make the jump to a parallel design when they're set up as a single sequence of steps today.
"An operating system is never going to be able to take an application that isn't already parallel and make it so. Developers still need to multi-thread their apps," said Evans Data analyst Janel Garvin.
Visual Studio 2010
So it's good Microsoft is working on parallel programming aids within Visual Studio.
"Microsoft has done surprisingly little until recently to help developers write parallel applications, except for their alliance with Intel to promote Parallel Studio," an Intel collection of programming tools for parallel programming, Garvin said. "However, in the last year they've made some announcements and promises for Visual Studio 2010 about enhanced tools for parallel programming. It's likely that the success of Parallel Studio has impressed upon them the importance of providing Windows developers with the tools they need to remain competitive going into the future when manycore will be the standard."
Eventually, programmers will have to embrace parallel programming to be competitive, Garvin said. Parallel Studio helped bring the concepts to a much more mainstream audience, she said, and Evans Data's spring 2009 global developer survey found 40 percent of programmers are working on multithreaded applications today and another 15 percent plan to in the next year.
"Parallel programming is complex, difficult and labor-intensive, for even the most skilled developers, which has led developers to avoid writing parallel programs, leaving many CPU cycles unused," according to Steve Teixeira, Microsoft's principal product unit manager of parallel computing. The company's attempt to improve the situation comes not just in Visual Studio 2010 but also in another future product, version 4 of the company's .Net Development Framework.
Parallel programming tools
Among those features:
• The Task Parallel Library, which lets .Net programmers write more parallel code in familiar terms. For example, programmers are used to "for loops" that repeat a particular task a specific number of times; library lets each step of the loop happen simultaneously instead of sequentially.
The new Intel Core i7 processor for mobile computers has four cores and can run eight threads.
(Credit: Intel)• The Microsoft Concurrency Runtime can provides a shared resource for scheduling tasks and allocating resources--and which works better on Windows 7.
• The Asynchronous Agents Library can permit separate threads of execution to pass messages among each other. That's useful in cases where separate threads need to head off no-no conditions such as when
• Parallel Language Integrated Query (PLINQ) technology lets programmers perform some operations with data in parallel rather than sequentially.
• The Parallel Pattern Library is designed to make parallel programming easier for those using the C++ language.
Microsoft knows none of this is truly easy, though. DeVaan wonders about cases when existing software is being parallelized--is each step in a parallel for loop really independent of the others? He sees "a lot of hand-waving" around the computing industry that glosses over the true difficulties.
"As an industry, we're going to be working hard to make it work better and working with broad set of developers to target (multicore programming) without undue work," DeVaan said. "Will these approaches really accomplish it? That's an open question."
Advanced Micro Devices will try to inject new life into the lackluster desktop PC market with the first sub-$100 quad-core processor aimed at Windows 7--and Intel.
It's all about mobile computing today. But AMD's Athlon II X4 quad-core processor will give consumers something to consider on the desktop when Windows 7 ships in October. The chip is priced at $99 for "system builders," according to AMD.
"The introduction of the new AMD mainstream desktop platform coupled with Windows 7, allows...a faster, higher performing experience at an attractive price point," said Mike Ybarra, general manager of Windows Product Management at Microsoft, in a statement.
Some reviewers were quick to praise the chip. "It's often hard to get excited about low-end and mainstream hardware," wrote technology Web site Hot Hardware on Wednesday. "However, AMD's new quad-core Athlon II X4 processors are something we can definitely get excited about."
AMD is trying to create some buzz for Windows 7 desktop PCs
(Credit: AMD)"AMD didn't just deliver on price, they also managed to produce quite a competitive product that was able to keep up with more expensive processors like Intel's Q8200 and AMD's own Phenom IIs," the review said. The closest competing quad-processor from Intel is the Core 2 Quad Q8200, priced at around $150 at resellers.
Other reviews, however, were more Tepid. "The Athlon II X4 620 is just $20 cheaper than the Phenom II X3 (triple core)...in terms of performance the triple-core chip will likely be faster than the Athlon II X4 620 in most cases, as it is also clocked 200MHz higher," TechSpot wrote.
Beyond price, AMD is also claiming energy efficiency, saying that the use of the latest 45-nanometer manufacturing process allows it to draw less power than a standard 75-watt light bulb. Until this year, AMD had been building its processor on a 65-nanometer process. Typically, the smaller the geometries of a chip, the faster and more power efficient it is.
The quad-core processor is used in combination with the 785G chipset, which integrates ATI Radeon HD 4200 graphics silicon. The pricing of the chipset is separate from the processor.
Pricing for consumer-ready systems based on the Athlon II X4 processor were not immediately available.
ZT Systems will be selling systems later this month through Sears.com and Buy.com that are expected to be priced around $500, according to AMD spokesman Matt Davis. Other resellers, such as iBuypower and CyberPower, are also expected to bring out systems.
