X-bit labs - Print version

The world’s largest trade show is about to end, but it does not mean that X-bit labs has nothing new to tell about. In today’s reporting we explore Blu-ray disc recorders from Hitachi and Panasonic and also glance at BD player from Sony; reveal some details about ServerWorks’ HT2000 chipset for AMD64 server processors; discover some new products from Sapphire Technologies, including an ultra high-performance mainboard and a bunch of TV-tuners; see how OCZ takes DDR1 memory to 667MHz without much problems; and even watch AMD Athlon 64 processor being plugged into a mainboard for Intel Pentium 4 chips.

Blu-Ray: The Time is Now. Hitachi, Panasonic and Sony Show Off the Equipment

While there is hardly a lot of content that takes full advantage of today’s DL DVDs, the HDTV, which is proclaimed to be a quality revolution, is approaching and consumer electronics and technology companies are pushing forward the new standards for storage on optical discs: the Blu-ray discs and HD DVDs. While the HD DVD does not seem to be that close, the Blu-ray disc looks like just around the corner. At least three first-tier consumer electronics makers showcase their Blu-ray players and even burners at CeBIT 2005.

Blu-ray, which is also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD) is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by a group of leading consumer electronics and PC companies to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition television (HDTV). Blu-ray makes it possible to record over 2 hours of HDTV, or more than 13 hours of SDTV on a 27GB disc. There are also plans for higher capacity discs that are expected to hold up to 54GB of data.

Hitachi shows off its first Blu-ray disc recorder at CeBIT 2005. The company provides no specifications of the device and the design of the burner seems to be rather bulky. By demonstrating the Blu-ray product now, the company sends a strong indication that the technology is here and the question is when to launch it: not a lot of customers, especially in Europe, seem to be interested in BD right now due to the fact that HDTV still has not gained enough popularity.

In addition to its burner, Sharp shows off Maxell’s Blu-ray Disc that can be recorded with up to 23GB of data.

Panasonic is also on the forefront of the technology with its commercially available DMR-E700BD recorder that can also record DVD R discs. The company originally did not want to introduce its Blu-ray device outside Japan, but it seems like the firm then decided to tease Europeans at the trade show in Hannover, Germany.

It is still unclear whether Panasonic brings its Blu-ray burner to the

U.S.

market, where HDTV is starting to pick up.

Sony, who seems to be the No. 1 adopter of the Blu-ray this time came to a decision not to show off its BDZ-S77 burner, but to demonstrate a prototype of its BD-ROM player using MPEG-4 AVC content.

It is known that the company’s PlayStation3 console will also use BD-ROM instead of DVD-ROM. With a burner, a player and a console in the lineup Sony seems to be confident about the future of the Blu-ray disc, and it seems that once the next-gen console from the company hits the market, the era of more or mass Blu-ray may begin.

Among leading consumer electronics companies, Sharp also has BD burner in the lineup.

Generally, consumer BD burners cost from $2700 to $4000 and still may be considered as luxurious devices. Bulk BD discs are expected to cost from $30 to $70 depending on the size.

ServerWorks’ HT2000 Chipset Emerges on the Surface

Historically ServerWorks, a subsidiary of Broadcom, developed core-logic components for high-end dual-processor or multi-processor servers and workstations powered by chips from Intel Corp. and did not touch other platforms. Ctarting from mid-2003 rumours started to suggest that the company might have plans to introduce a chipset for AMD Opteron-based computers. Finally, at Computex Taipei 2004 Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices inked a strategic agreement and said that Broadcom would develop a core-logic for AMD Opteron-powered applications. Now, at CeBIT 2005 ServerWorks is quietly showcasing its first AMD64 chipset.

At the show in Hannover Arima is demonstrating is SW500 mainboard based on ServerWorks HT2000 chipset for 4-way AMD Opteron based servers. The mainboard itself is equipped with 16 DIMM slots supporting PC3200 memory as well as PCI Express slots.

ServerWorks’ HT2000 is the second server-oriented chipset for AMD Opteron processors after NVIDIA’s nForce Professional that features PCI Express bus, but unlike the nForce it does sport PCI-X, but does not provide PCI Express x16 (only x4 and x8 lanes), NVIDIA’s enhancements, such as TCP/IP offload engine and MediaShield RAID capabilities, which implies that it is intended mostly for servers, not workstations. The HT2000 + HT1000 I/O chips sport hot-swappable 4 Serial ATA II ports, Parallel ATA, two port Gigabit Ethernet, PCI, PCI-X, USB 2.0, SMBus, LPC and other input/output capabilities.

Arima’s SW500 (some suggest that the correct name is SW5100) mainboard also integrates Mellanox InfiniHost III Ex, a single chip dual-port 10Gb/s InfiniBand host channel adapter with a PCI Express x8 interface and integrated physical layer serializer/deserializer (SerDes) interfaces. The device features a 3^rd generation HCA core that is capable of full wire speed transmissions over InfiniBand links up to 20 Gb/sec. The chip has its own memory interface for additional performance. InfiniBand may be used for linking an array of servers into clusters.

OCZ Technologies Takes DDR Speed to New Levels

OCZ Technology, who said it considered 650MHz DDR speed-bin earlier at the show, now proves its word with actual demonstration. These days OCZ is showing off a system that runs memory at 667MHz, a speed bin for today’s leading-edge DDR2 SDRAM.

Temperature inside Deutsche Messe halls is about 20 degrees, fairly less than inside most of computer cases, furthermore, the firm uses an additional fan for extra stability. But the fact of running DDR SDRAM at 667MHz with CL3 4-4-8 latency settings itself is an interesting one, especially considering that OCZ is currently working on a rather extreme thermal solution for its memory devices that will definitely allow the company to offer higher and higher speed milestones for any type of memory.

OCZ uses DFI’s NVIDIA nForce4-series mainboard and an AMD Athlon 64 processor produced using 90nm process technology to demonstrate its achievement.

Unfortunately, we did not have opportunity to benchmark the system with DDR running at 667MHz, but OCZ demonstrated Sandra benchmark scores of 8419MB/s and 8322MB/s for Int Buffered and Float Buffered bandwidth respectively and even said it had managed to achieve 9000+ scores, but probably with even higher voltage settings of its Platinum DDR600 modules.

Sapphire Counter Strikes nForce4: Nitro-Accelerated RADEON XPRESS 200

ATI has been making chipsets for about 4 years now, but the company’s core-logic products have virtually always been tuned up for OEMs that required value, low power consumption and also reliability despite of relatively limited feature-set. Thanks to license to make Intel-compatible chipsets and pretty sophisticated chipsets for mobile solutions, ATI was able to secure about 5% market share in the chipset market, but given that the environment becomes more and more competitive, the Markham, Ontario-based company now has to put some efforts into making core-logic design for users seeking for performance.

One of the problems of certain commercially available RADEON XPRESS 200-series mainboard are certain BIOS- and performance-related issues that result, in example, in the lack of any overclockability. At the same time, some of ATI’s RADEON XPRESS 200 reference designs provide extreme stability, performance and overclockability, which really means that there is a difference between products oriented at OEMs and reference designs made to showcase the advantage of ATI’s chipsets for enthusiasts. Unfortunately, few mainboard makers had actually offered any enthusiast-oriented mainboard, but this is going to change, as Sapphire is about to roll-out its platform code-named Grouper.

The Grouper is not only based on RADEON XPRESS 200 with SB450 I/O controller that provides some extras over the SB400, for instance, Serial ATA-300 with RAID support, but also has numerous additional controllers to ensure sophisticated performance and connectivity. The mainboard has built-in graphics core with external memory controller which ensures that the RADEON X300-like core delivers higher performance than that on other mainboards without dedicated frame buffer.

But the main advantage of the Grouper seems to be enhanced CPU and memory power supply circuitries for advanced overclockability. Sapphire claims that its mainboards has even better potential than competitors’ NVIDIA nForce4-based mainboards, but it is unknown whether general performance of the RADEON XPRESS 200-series can match that of NVIDIA’s latest nForce flavour when not overclocked.

Sapphire Goes TV-Tuners, Offers New Overclocking Software

In addition to its Grouper mainboard, Sapphire is showcasing its array of multimedia products at the exhibition: an external DTV-tuner based on DiBcom DIB3000P ASIC and a Panasonic tuner as well as internal TV-tuner based on ATI THEATER 550 PRO.

Both tuners are expected to be commercially available shortly and expand Sapphire’s business beyond gaming PCs towards media center computers with rich multimedia features.

But being successful developer of mainboards and TV-tuners, Sapphire does not forget that its main business is still graphics cards and at CeBIT 2005 we had a great opportunity to make sure it is. The company is displaying numerous graphics cards at the show, among those the headline makers are RADEON X800 XL for PCI Express with Zalman’s cooler, RADEON X800 XL for AGP 8x, RADEON X850 PRO and RADEON X300 SE HyperMemory.

Sapphire’s RADEON X800 XL for PCI Express x16 does not feature passive cooling, like similar graphics cards from some other companies, but a new cooler for graphics cards from Zalman. Such cooling should be not only extremely efficient, but also very quiet, thus, we can theoretically expect good overclockability of such products (you should keep in mind that ATI’s RADEON X800 XL is produced using 0.11 micron process technology and graphics cards X-bit labs has tested did not allow overclocking beyond 440 – 450MHz for the core).

The print circuit board (PCB) design of AGP version of the RADEON X800 XL is enlarged compared to the typical PCI Express flavour of the product: it is much longer and has different type of connector compared to the PCI E version. On the backside of the board there is ATI’s Rialto bridge that converts the chip’s signaling into AGP 8x.

Sapphire’s RADEON X300 SE HyperMemory 128MB looks very simplistic in terms of PCB design, but despite of that the company doubts it can sell it at $49 in retail while sustaining high margins because of relatively high BGA memory pricing, the only memory packaging type supported by the X300 SE HyperMemory graphics chip. $59 seems to be a more realistic price just now and unless ATI reduces the pricing of its graphics chip, makers of graphics cards are unlikely to offer $49 products while maintaining the level of profitability they would like to see.

For gamers and enthusiast who buy Sapphire’s graphics cards the company is preparing two rather interesting surprises.

The first one is Sapphire Select program that allows gamers to choose any game out of 8 supplied on a DVD with Sapphire’s graphics cards, which ensures the company’s customers have ability to choose the game they want and do not yet own or try all of them and then convert to full version the most adored one. Initially Sapphire will offer its clients to choose between Brother in Arms, Codename Panzers, FarCry, Ground Control 2, Tribes Vengenace, The Incredibles, Richard Burns Rally and Prince of Persia 2.

Another advantage customers will have with Sapphire is a new overclocking tool called Trixx. The software will allow Sapphire graphics cards’ – both old-generation and new-generation products – owners to overclock their graphics cards, create preferences for their operation, for instance, performance with fans rotating at full speeds or quiet operation with fans spinning at their minimum. Trixx will also have special built-in test that will allow users to determine whether their level of overclocking is safe. Trixx will be able to update both ATI’s CATALYST driver and itself.

ECS: Enabling Athlon 64 on a Socket 775 Mainboard

Ever wanted to have a single PC with processors from both AMD and Intel, but could not fulfill your dream? It seems like Elitegroup Computer Systems company has a solution just for you.

ECS’ PF88 mainboard designed for Intel Pentium 4 processors with up to 1066MHz processor system bus and based on SiS656FX + SiS965 chipset supporting dual-channel DDR2 667MHz memory, PCI Express x16, x1 in addition to Serial ATA-II with RAID capabilities and Gigabit Ethernet has a special slot can be upgraded with a special module designed to support AMD Athlon 64 processors in PGA939 form-factor. After the upgrade, the owner will still have a mainboard supporting Serial ATA II, Parallel ATA, PCI Express, USB 2.0, FireWire and Gigabit Ethernet.

The idea to have special riser cards that contain North Bridge, processor socket as well as whatever else is needed to support different types of central processing units than the mainboard is originally intended for is not new. Last year ASRock already rolled out a mainboard that sported both AMD Athlon XP and AMD Athlon 64 processors and utilized the same concept as ECS PF88 does. Still, ECS is the first to unveil a product that can install both Intel Pentium 4 and AMD Athlon 64 CPUs.