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Samsung Electronics is adopting the Nano processor from Via Technologies for its NC20 Netbook.

The NC20 is set to be Samsung's successor to the NC10, which, like most Netbooks on the market, has an Intel Atom central processing unit.

The new Samsung NC20 Netbook

(Credit: Via Technologies)

Via's Nano chips are its first 64-bit, superscalar processors in its x86 platform portfolio. When coupled with the Via VX800 system media processor, a Nano chip supports full Microsoft DirectX 9.0 3D graphics, high-definition video and audio playback, and up to 4GB of DDR2 system memory.

The Samsung NC20 will feature the 1.3GHz Via Nano CPU and a 12.1-inch display with 1,280x800-pixel resolution. At 3.4 pounds, it will be a tad heavier than its 2.8-pound, 10.2-inch NC10 predecessor.

The Netbook will come equipped with Wi-Fi (802.11g) and Bluetooth wireless connectivity, and a six-cell battery that provides up to 6.5 hours on a full charge. You'll be able to choose between a regular SATA hard drive or a solid-state drive for storage. Other than that, the computer will also have an integrated 1.3-megapixel Webcam, a 3-in-1 memory card reader, and three built-in USB ports.

The Samsung NC20 will be available for purchase soon, with an estimated price of about $650 that will vary with configurations.

Jen-Hsun Huang doesn't pull any punches. And Intel is a favorite punching bag these days.

I had a chance to sit down with the Nvidia CEO as he described his company's philosophy and what sounds like the first volleys of a long battle with Intel.

Nvidia CEO and founder Jen-Hsun Huang

(Credit: Nvidia)

A quick backdrop: Nvidia is the largest graphics chip company in the world, with quarterly revenue in the $1 billion range. Although Intel and Nvidia seem to exist in symbiotic bliss inside many PCs, this doesn't reflect the two companies' business models, which are in many respects far apart.

Intel is a chip manufacturer. Nvidia is not; it's a fabless company. Intel supplies the central-processing unit (CPU), a general-purpose processor. Nvidia supplies the graphics-processing unit (GPU), a special-purpose chip.

Huang is relentless in driving GPU performance--and fearless when challenging Intel. This is admirable, if anything. Even the world's largest PC makers treat Intel with great deference--publicly--because the chipmaker is so instrumental in supplying and defining the core electronics in their PCs (And partly due to the fact that they use Intel advertising dollars).

But Huang will tear into Intel when he thinks it's warranted. And Intel may have reason to be worried about the content of Huang's candor. Despite Intel's colossal size and and clout, Nvidia--not Intel--supplies the defining chip for the most savvy computer users: game enthusiasts. They depend on Nvidia graphics chips to deliver the spectacular visuals of games like Crysis.

And few people will deny that computing is becoming more visual. The GPU is essentially a parallel-computing engine that is extremely efficient at running visual (and scientific) software--that is, many of the popular graphics, video, and photo applications now running on PCs.

Nvidia is set to challenge Intel in the mobile Internet device space. It is getting set to make a big platform play in tiny, fit-in-your-pocket devices with its APX 2500. This "system on a chip" will house everything that comes on a PC circuit board today. Intel is targeting the same market with its Moorestown processor, due in late 2009 or 2010.

One important note: because Huang had made so many references to Intel over the last few months, particularly at the financial-analyst day in April, the interview revolved around this topic. In some cases, I asked pointed questions about Intel and posed hypothetical--i.e. devil's advocate--scenarios. In other cases, Huang volunteered statements about Intel.

Huang has spoken forthrightly in the last few months about Intel. The obvious question is why.

"People thought that I had lost some of my patience with Intel recently. The fact of the matter is that they're out spouting things that are just not true. And I was just correcting that," he said.

"Intel is a big, powerful company," I noted to Huang. "And there aren't many people like you in the industry, who are so blunt about Intel."

His reaction: "Because they are Intel. Because they are a monopoly. Because they are a market-dominant player. They ought to be held to a higher standard. They shouldn't be able to say that other peoples' businesses are going to die."

Huang, here, is referring to a statement by an Intel executive who recently said current graphics technology (sometimes referred to generally as rasterization) will be replaced by another kind of graphics technology (sometimes referred to as ray tracing), on which Intel is working.

Intel has also been dropping more hints about its upcoming high-end graphics chip, called Larrabee, with relatively few specifics. I asked Huang if he thought there was a reason so few details had been given.

"Larabee is a PowerPoint slide," Huang said. "I haven't met a product on my PowerPoint slide that I don't like. You know, they're floating Larrabee out there just to put a shadow over us, cast a cloud over us. They've already slipped it two years from the time they talked about. They would love to slip it another four years and leave a cloud over me."

"Just to play devil's advocate," I said, "Intel sees the success of the GPU. So it has to crank up its skunk works and develop a fast GPU too (Larrabee). Then Intel, being Intel, has to fill its factories and sell these things. Again, I'm playing devil's advocate here."

Huang's immediate reaction: "You and I have a deal. If you're going to write controversial stuff about what I say, can you write what you just said? Here's what I believe: I believe that the entire world believes that what Intel does is build a factory, stuff that people don't want to buy, and then shoves it down its customer's throats. Just like you said."

Huang also spoke about how the PC industry is shifting away from the CPU-centric vision.

"We would love it if people would buy more GPUs, but the fact of the matter is, we don't have Intel's budget to tell you to buy something you don't need. We're going to let the market decide for itself," he said.

"Selecting the right GPU for the right CPU--and having these two processors collaborate. We call it the optimized PC design," he continued. "Notice, we didn't call it 'increase your GPU' design. Notice we didn't go 'buy more quad cores.' It's not a market benefit message. The optimized PC asks what your work flow is. Take the work flow, and benchmark it on the machine. And decide for yourself."

Huang had a few points to make about changes in PC marketing.

"The whole idea that the PC industry is good, better, best, faster microprocessors, more memory--that psychology of the PC industry is so yesterday," he said. "Not a single person believes it. Sony doesn't believe it. Dell doesn't believe it. HP doesn't believe it. God knows Apple doesn't believe it. Nobody believes it anymore."

Huang elaborated, saying that at the other end of the computing spectrum is the minimalist PC, which Nvidia's APX 2500 system-on-a-chip addresses.

"There's a movement toward 'I want the most minimal of PCs': the ThinkPad (X300)," Huang said. "In the future, if it's not thin like a sheet of paper, it's just too much. There should be no electronics. There should be just one tiny chip. And this computer ought to cost nothing. The display should be the most expensive thing. It's not about the CPU. It's not about the GPU. It's about the computer on the chip."

But Intel, and its capacity to integrate more and more of the PC's function into its chipsets, is never far from his mind. Huang gave a number of examples of companies--as smaller and smaller chip geometries have allowed more and more transistors to be packed into a single chip--that disappeared because they were integrated out of existence. (Think sound chip and multimedia chip companies as just a few examples.)

"Make me...list one single example where Moore's Law is not your enemy today," he said. "At this very moment, the only one we know of is the GPU."

Every year, Huang said, "we're making chips that are twice as big as the (year) before that. And every single year, we deliver an experience that is twice as good as the year before. And every single year, people say, 'It's not good enough. I want more. I want more.'"

Throughout it all, Moore's Law is still Huang's friend, he said.

"Notice in the case of CPUs, people are saying, 'I don't need that many gigahertz,' or 'I don't need that many cores,'" Huang noted. "(CPU makers) are going down that path. And that's why it's possible now to build an Atom CPU. At that point, the technology becomes good enough."

Huang said he is not trying to wish Intel away. He is willing to co-exist. But he doesn't believe that Intel is able to do this. This probably is his biggest beef.

"There are going to be two important processors in the system," he said. "A microprocessor that is used for all kinds of complicated, unpredictable sequential code. And a parallel processor, called a GPU, that is really dedicated toward doing very parallel, very heavy-lifting mathematical operations."

Huang refocused his attention on Intel.

"Intel cannot share the world with someone else. They want the world to have one processor. They don't want the world to have two processors, even if it's good for them. (The Nvidia chip) just happens to be so famous, and just happens to be so popular, and happens to be so delightful that it just really makes them upset. That's an anti-innovation feeling. That's a monopolistic feeling, right? You can't share the world with somebody else."

His attitude borders on paranoid. But in Silicon Valley, the credo "only the paranoid survive," put forth by former Intel CEO Andrew Grove, is followed by many.

"People have been predicting the demise of our company for 10 years now," Huang said. "Intel has been in the graphics business for 10 years. They've been predicting our death for 10 years. They'll be predicting our death 10 years from now."

Nvidia's hostility toward Intel is on a high boil these days. In its latest dig against the central processing unit (CPU) and the company that makes the lion's share of CPUs, an Nvidia VP said in a private missive that the CPU is dead and it has "run out of steam."

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang

(Credit: Rico Shen)

But wait. That's not what Nvidia really thinks. The message cited by the The Inquirer is "not a public statement," said Brian Burke, an Nvidia spokesperson. "The views in (Roy Tayler's) e-mail do not mirror the views of Nvidia." (The author of the message, Roy Tayler, is VP of content relations at Nvidia.)

But is the statement that far apart from Nvidia's public sentiment? "You need nothing beyond the most basic CPU," Burke said. Sounds like Nvidia thinks the CPU is, if not terminal, certainly fading.

(The CPU, or central processing unit, is the main processor in a PC. The GPU, or graphics processing unit, handles much of the visual content on a PC.)

This of course is news to Intel, the largest chip company in the world whose main business is making CPUs. "We believe that both a great CPU and great graphics are important in a PC. Any PC purchase--including the capability level of components inside it--is a decision that each user must make based on what they will be doing with that PC," said Intel spokesperson Dan Snyder.

To be sure, Nvidia and Intel have never gotten along famously. But the acrimony (mostly Nvidia's) started to build at Nvidia's fourth quarter conference call and carried over to the company's financial analyst day earlier this month, when CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang, alluding to comments from game developer Tim Sweeny, said "Intel is incapable of running modern games. Intel's integrated graphics just don't work."

But the crux of Nvidia's marketing message, vis-a-vis Intel, is focused on the graphics chip maker's perceived limitations of the CPU. In short, buy a high-end GPU, not a high-end CPU, and save money. During the earnings conference call, Huang cited the Gateway P series notebook as an example. One model has an Intel 1.6 GHz processor and a GeForce 8800 GPU. He said systems like this with a "higher-end GPU" and "lower-end CPU" are better optimized for today's users. "Relative to a notebook with a higher-end CPU and lower-end GPU, the Gateway FX is twice the performance and yet $200 lower cost."

Atom, Intel's new processor family for small devices, has barely been announced, and yet already one German tech site has posted some benchmark results. ComputerBase is reporting that its 1.6GHz Atom chip fell slightly behind a 900MHz Celeron M chip on the Super PI benchmark.

That may not be enough to run an actual laptop (the 900MHz Celeron is best known as the chip inside the stripped-down Eee PC) but it should be enough for the mobile Internet devices that are destined to incorporate the new platform. Besides, energy efficiency, not performance, is the Atom's main selling point; Intel promises the new chips' Thermal Design Power will range from 0.6 to 2.5 watts.

The Atom chips and platform don't have a ship date--reports vary from "this spring" to "first half of 2008"--so expect to see more unofficial performance and power consumption tests trickling out over the next few weeks.

(Via Laptoping)

The graphics processing unit (GPU) is in, the central processing unit (CPU) is out. That was one of the main themes running through the Nvidia fourth-quarter conference call earlier this week. Nvidia is the largest graphics chip supplier.

Gateway P series FX PC with Geforce 8800 GPU

(Credit: Nvidia, Gateway Computer)

During the call on Wednesday, Jen-Hsun Huang, President and CEO of Nvidia, repeated one thing often: GPUs are playing more of a central role in PCs, CPUs less so. "The CPU has become fast enough for the vast majority of (PC) users," he said. "PC enthusiasts, gamers, and design professionals have know this for some time." The GPU offers more horsepower for parallel processing, essential for today's visually rich environments, he said.

Huang cited the Gateway P series notebooks as an example. One model has an Intel 1.6 GHz processor and a GeForce 8800 GPU. He said systems like this with a "higher-end GPU" and "lower-end CPU" are better optimized for today's users. "Relative to a notebook with a higher-end CPU and lower-end GPU, the Gateway FX is twice the performance and yet $200 lower cost." In short, Huang was saying that users can save $200 by buying a system with a low-performance CPU and high-performance GPU--and get better performance to boot than the other way around.

Intel, of course, has other ideas. "We feel that the CPU is absolutely vital and you need a fast CPU and a fast GPU for the best experience. Take game AI (artificial intelligence) and physics for example, something that is consuming more and more CPU cycles," an Intel spokesperson said. "Also, the CPU is essential for intensive stuff like hi def video encode, 3D rendering," the spokesperson said.

Huang had a lot to say about physics too in the wake of Nvidia's purchase of Ageia Technologies this week (first announced on February 4th). Ageia's PhysX software is used with more than 140 PhysX-based games on the Sony Playstation 3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii, and gaming PCs. (Game physics simulate the laws of physics in games.) "We're going to port the Ageia PhysX engine onto CUDA."

CUDA, a programming interface, has now shipped into 50 million GeForce 8 series processors and over the next several years will ship into a few hundred million more, Huang said. "Our expectation is that this will encourage users to buy a second GPU...and for the highest-end gamers, will encourage them to buy three GPUs." One GPU would be used for physics, while two for graphics (or vice-versa), Huang said. "Every single GPU that is CUDA enabled will be able to run the PhysX engine when it comes. In the end, it's just going to be a software download," Huang added.

But Nvidia's CEO returned to his overarching theme again and again. More Nvidia and less Intel. "Rebalance the system so that more GPU horsepower can be dedicated to the (user) experience." Nvidia even has a name for this strategy. The "optimized PC design approach." And Nvidia believes that more and more consumers are coming to know this, resulting in high growth. "The consumption of GPUs is increasing," Huang said, citing 80 percent year-to-year growth in Nvidia's discrete GPU business in the fourth quarter.

"I think I would say that [Huang's argument] has qualified merit. It's completely true that in some applications graphics, rather than CPU, is the limiting factor, and naturally Nvidia would be concerned with those applications most often," said Dean McCarron, founder and Principal of Mercury Research. But Intel and AMD are not standing still. "As far as rebalancing, it's pretty clear the CPU suppliers are actively re-partitioning their products, and graphics capabilities are perhaps the highest priority here. If you look at AMD and Fusion, or Intel and its Nehalem CPUs, both suppliers clearly see advantages to repartioning the PC around graphics -- in this case, moving graphics onto the CPU."

Nvidia's execution is not flawless. It is not competitive in the business segment and at the lower end of desktop and notebook lineups. Large computer segments unto themselves. Here both AMD-ATI graphics and Intel integrated graphics dominate. AMD-ATI is also competitive in the mid-range to high-end.

In related news, Nvidia's shares fell Thursday due to lower gross margins. On Wednesday, the company said that for the first time in 13 quarters non-GAAP gross margins did not increase quarter to quarter. Gross margin shrank to 45.9 percent in the fourth quarter from 46.4 percent in the previous period. In the fourth quarter, the company posted a 58 percent jump in fiscal fourth-quarter net income.

On another front, Nvidia CFO, Marvin D. Burkett, said no new process technology will be needed for the 8800 processors and they will continue to be made on a 90-nanometer process.

(Credit: Advanced Micro Devices)

Since AMD released its Barcelona server chips last month, PC users have been wondering when that native quad-core goodness might arrive in the form of AMD Phenom desktop CPUs. According to a report on VR-Zone, we'll see the first two quad-core Phenom chips next month. The site reports that the 2.2GHz Phenom X4 9500 and the 2.4GHz Phenom X4 9600 will launch sometime in November. These Phenom 9000-series parts will feature 512KB of L2 cache per core, 2MB of shared L3 cache, a 3.6GHz HyperTransport 3.0 bus, and an 89W power rating. A third chip will join the line in December--the 2.6GHz Phenom X4 9700 that will have a 4GHz bus and a 125W power rating.

The higher-end Phenom FX line is expected to debut in the first quarter of 2008 with the Phenom FX-82, which reportedly will feature a clock speed of 2.6GHz or higher.

For its part, AMD would neither confirm nor deny the Phenom rumors making the rounds this week.

Quake 4 image in Ray Tracing Demo

(Credit: Wired)

For those who play PC games (and please count me in), the most expensive and necessary investment has always been the graphics card (also known as the GPU, graphics processing unit). High-end cards, from either ATI or nVidia, can cost $500 and up. That's not even factoring in the case, cooling system, power supply, etc., which also have to be equally high-end to support the increasingly large and power-hungry graphics cards. And there seems to be no end to all this. Or is there?

At IDF 2007, there was a demo running Quake 4. There wasn't much to talk about the demonstration itself (the game has been out for a while). As a matter of fact, there was no real game action on the screen--just a character walking around in a smooth 3D environment with excellent-looking lighting and shadow effects. What was impressive was the fact that the computer didn't have a graphics card in it, such as the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX, as one would have expected. Instead, the graphics were powered by an Intel multicore CPU that incorporates ray tracing display technology.

Unlike conventional GPUs that use raster graphics techniques to display graphics content, ray tracing models the behavior of light to create shadows and reflections for a more photorealistic presentation of 3D and 2D content. The concept of ray tracing is not new and rather simple: simulating the path that light rays take as they bounce around within the environment, while determining the color of each light ray that strikes the display before reaching the eyes. However, the sheer number of light rays needed to be traced requires a huge amount of computation. That is why this concept had to wait until now to come closer to reality (and indeed very close, judging by the demo), with multicore CPUs. It's predicted that in about three years, there will be computers that use processor-based ray tracing display technology. This means a gaming computer can have less components, be more energy efficient, quieter, and probably cheaper too.

As the ray tracing technique is completely different from the current raster technique, current games will not work with this technique and will need to be re-engineered (or ported) in order to take advantage of the new display platform. This is similar to how an Xbox 360 game will not run on a PS3 and vice versa. However, change takes time, and this is to be expected. And it's not like I am in a rush to discard my recent hefty investment in my SLI system. I will, though, try not to think about how many light rays there are that come out of my screen while flying over Outland.

Mobile gaming just got sweeter: today, Intel announced the Core 2 Extreme X7800, its first laptop CPU under the Extreme Edition brand. The 2.6GHz dual-core processor features 4MB of L2 cache and an 800MHz front-side bus, making it the highest-end chip in Intel's mobile lineup. Of greater interest to gamers, though, is the fact that the chip's overspeed protection has been removed, meaning laptop manufacturers and users will be able to overclock the X7800 for even more performance (Intel, of course, denies any responsibility for the consequences of overclocking).

Now available to go

Like Intel's other mobile product offerings, the Core 2 Extreme X7800 includes such power-saving features as a dynamic front-side bus, which lets the system drop into a Low-Frequency mode to conserve energy, and Enhanced Deep Sleep, which uses less power when the system is idle. Another feature, Advanced Media Boost, is designed to provide better performance for video editing, music, and photography, signaling Intel's intention to market this chip for mobile workstations and multimedia laptops in addition to gaming rigs.

Intel claims the Core 2 Extreme X7800 realizes a 28 percent performance increase over the previous generation of dual-core processors--though that's in comparison to the Core Duo T2600, one of the first mobile dual-core processors, released in January 2006. We suspect that the X7800's performance gains will be more modest when compared to the current crop of Core 2 Duo processors on the market. Nevertheless, we're excited to see a gaming-oriented processor for laptops, and we hope that pairing it with dual SLI graphics (like those found on the Alienware Area 51 m9750) will bring true desktop-level gaming performance to the mobile space. Laptops built around the X7800 processor will appear on the market in two weeks, and you'd better start saving your pennies: the processor alone costs $851 ($300 more than the current top-of-the-line Core 2 Duo CPU).

(Credit: Kotaku)

No, those new Xbox 360 Elites that were released last weekend do not contain the new 65nm chips that Microsoft promised us. Production on those new silicon wafers is only starting this month, so they won't be finding their way into consoles you can actually buy until the fall.

For those keeping score, that means the new 65nm technology will be incorporated into both the game machine's CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (the dedicated graphics chip). The new smaller chips reportedly run a lot more efficiently than those found in current Xbox 360s. That should mean less power consumption, a cooler running temperature, and--since cooling fans won't have to work overtime--the possibility of a quieter overall system.

[Source: Commercial Times (China) via Kotaku.]