Intel on Thursday, 26 May. 2005, formally introduced two new chipsets designed for home and office PCs:-

1. Intel’s Professional Business Platform, or the 945G Express Chipset, bundles networking and advanced management technology.
2. The 945P Chipset includes consumer-oriented features such as advanced audio and video capabilities.

Intel has now turned their focus to the combination of chipsets and processors, instead of processor speed as a marketing tool.

Quoted:
With processor speed becoming less of a marketing tool, Intel has turned its focus toward selling “platforms” that combine a processor, chipset and peripherals such as networking or audio capabilities.

The Professional Business Platform (945G) is aimed at IT administrators and introduces Intel’s Active Management Technology (AMT) that aids in monitoring, installation of security patches and remotely diagnosing hardware problems. The 945G chipset also enhances power management, reduces noise and packs in new networking features.

Whereas for the consumer platform, the 945P boasts 7.1-channel surround sound and multiple output jacks for sending audio to numerous devices around the home simultaneously.

Anyway, both 945 chipsets will feature Intel’s Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950, which doubles 3-D performance and supports the latest high-definition displays. Intel says the technology was developed with Longhorn, the next release of Windows, in mind.

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Intel Corp. introducing three models the Pentium D at a price that’s less than half of AMD’s own dual-core chip on Thursday, May 24, 2005.

The three chips are priced in lots of 1,000 units as the followings:-

• 2.8-GHz Pentium D 820 – USD$241
• 3.0-GHz Pentium D 830 – USD$316
• 3.2-GHz Pentium D 840 – USD$530

Intel also introduced the Pentium 4 670, a 3.8-GHz 64-bit chip that will round out the top end of its single-core platform, at USD$851.

Continue Reading »
Intel Launched Cheaper Dual Core Chips

As we have probably known, Microsoft officially unveiled its next generation Xbox “game and entertainment system” two weeks ago. Given the Xbox 360’s all-new PowerPC-based embedded architecture, the question arises: What operating system is embedded inside the Xbox 360?

The earlier Xbox (shown on the right) is based on a Pentium-family processor and is rumored to run a variant of Windows 2000. But the Xbox 360 has a completely different architecture, based on a custom triple-core IBM PowerPC processor along with other specialty silicon including a custom graphics processor made by ATI, plus 512MB of system DRAM. So, since Windows hasn’t supported the PowerPC architecture since Windows NT 4.0 SP3, and Windows CE also doesn’t support PowerPC, below are some questions to ponder:-

• Has Microsoft ported Windows XP to the PowerPC for the Xbox 360? Or, Windows CE?
• Does the Xbox 360 run a version of some off-the-shelf embedded OS, perhaps a variant of BSD UNIX?
• Does the Xbox 360 run a completely new embedded software platform developed specifically for Xbox use?

Continue Reading »
What OS Runs Inside The Xbox 360?

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is going into the consumer electronics market with a new line of Geode chips for gadgets.

Quoted:
The new Geode LX800 is an energy-efficient processor for small computers, set-top boxes, TVs and handhelds, according to Chief Technical Officer Fred Weber. The chip runs at 533MHz and is said to provide the equivalent performance of an 800MHz processor from Via Technologies.

Geode chips only consumes about 0.9 watts and does not require heat sinks or fans !! As a result, it drives down the cost and the weight of the devices. Furthermore, it’s an x86 chip, so all the conventional software produced for desktops will run on it, unlike many CE chips. In other words, almost all the software we are using in our desktop computer is able to run on Geode chip.

Well, this is no doubt another good news from AMD. :)

Intel is expected to officially release its Intel 945X Express chip set and dual-core Pentium D chips on Thursday, May 26, 2005.

Intel, which often uses its annual desktop chip set launches to add new features to desktop PCs. This time they have added to the 945X a higher-performance built-in graphics processor, along with support for faster memory and a higher-bandwidth Serial ATA hookup for hard drives.

Quoted:
The chip set, which follows 2004’s Intel 915 Express—a product the company said was one of its most important in years—will become the backbone for a new generation of midrange and high-end PCs for corporations as well as consumers.

All 945X chip sets will offer dual-channel support for DDR2-667, a newer version of the DDR2 RAM and a 3G bit-per-second Serial ATA connection for up to four hard drives. Today’s 915 Express chip-set PCs offer DDR2-533 RAM and use a 1.5G bit Serial ATA connection.

The 945X chip set also adds support for up to six PCI-Express slots for add-in cards, a 1,066MHz front side bus, and two additional versions of the RAID standard. The addition of RAID 5 and RAID 10 will allow desktops to use as many four hard drives, versus the two-drive setups offered now.

I suppose the launch of this new chip set will certainly help Intel to capture more market share. :)

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Well, I need to clarify again because this post is quite serious: I AM NOT AGAINST INTEL !!

I swear to GOD, I DID NOT purposely dig out bad news about Intel !! News happens by itself, I can’t create it.

Ok, here is the detail:-

Colin Percival, from FreeBSD Organization, revealed that Hyper-Threading (HT) is suffering from a serious security flaw. This flaw permits local information disclosure, including allowing an unprivileged user to steal an RSA private key being used on the same machine. In other words, Intel Pentium 4, Mobile Pentium 4, Pentium Extreme Edition and Xeon processors are all victims to this flaw.

However he stated single-user systems (i.e., desktop computers) are not affected. Besides, he strongly advised administrators of multi-user systems to take action to disable Hyper-Threading immediately.

He even wrote a 12-page long article, discussing this flaw and related problems.

In fact, he discovered this flaw back in October 2004. Then tested the suspected flaw and got notified by FreeBSD Security Officer Team in December 2004. In February 2005, vendors including Intel and other security teams contacted him. Finally, he made an official public disclosure that a security flaw exists in Hyper-Threading on May 13, 2005.

Quoted:
I don’t hate Intel — in fact, I think Intel makes great CPUs, and I have an Intel processor in every computer I own. (Not that I have anything against AMD; it just happened to work out this way.) But as someone who works in the field of computer security, I don’t play political games: If I find a vulnerability, I’m going to report it and work with vendors to fix it, regardless of what the problem is or who it affects.

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Same here, I do not hate Intel, Intel helps the economy of Penang and Malaysia to prosper, and I thank them truly. I just came across this article and thought it would be an interesting topic to publish.

Anyone with a solid explanation to this issue please leave your comment(s) here. Feel free to drop an email to Colin Percival too.
I would rather think this breaking news is false at the moment until further confirmation.