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Unlocking the Phenom II X2 555: 3.2GHz Quad-Core for $99by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/28/2010 12:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
53 Comments
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jive - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - linkalthought this is old thread I felt I needed to post it here. I was astonished to find out the entire iX line of intel desktop cpus lack support for ECC memory. Although it's niche market but when considering workstation or file server build upon pc hardware there is real demand for ECC memory if you run long simulations or other HPC stuff.
It's odd that no-one has noticed this, or if has hasn't bothered to mention it. I chose 555BE for my next workstation CPU just because of this reason. Reply
Snoopykins - Saturday, February 13, 2010 - linkI would LOVE to build a computer with this idea. Does anyone know if the Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 would work with this? It is included in a build on another website. the build is as follows:
A. Rosewill R220 (CASE)
B. Stock AMD CPU Cooler (might upgrade)
C. Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 (GPU)
D. Cooler Master RS-460 (PSU)
E. Seagate 500GB Barracuda 7200.12 (HDD)
F. Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 (Motherboard)
G. Patriot 4GB DDR2/800 (RAM)
H. AMD Athlon II X4 620 (want to swap with phenom II 550 BE)
I. Samsung SH-S223C (Optical Drive)
J. Windows 7 Home Premium OEM (OS)
This came to $647.00 total according to them. Could I swap out the CPU for a Phenom II 550 BE and unlock it? If so is any idea how likely I am to be able to unlock it? A response would be AMAZING as I am not very good at this. Thank you all for your help, Snoopykins Reply
Venatorus - Sunday, November 21, 2010 - linkdude, you got that build from a maximum PC magazine :) Reply
Oceanborn75 - Sunday, January 30, 2011 - linkNO it won't! for the simple reason this motherboard doesn't accept ANY 125w CPUs...the phenoms X2s are 80w CPU's and as soon as you unlock the 4 cores it becomes a 125w one....
Maybe it will work unlocking a third core but I have no idea how on that board Reply
computerfarmer - Saturday, February 06, 2010 - linkI too am waiting for the AMD Phenom II x2 555 to be released. Any news on when? Reply
woobri - Friday, February 05, 2010 - linkWhen's the 555 going to be released? Looking to give this unlocking a try...
[First post!] Reply
bupkus - Tuesday, February 02, 2010 - linkPerhaps because of this article NewEgg has bumped the price of both of their Phenom II X2s. Reply
bupkus - Wednesday, February 03, 2010 - linkOk, back to $90 for the 550. Reply
chromatix - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - linkI wonder if the reason the 910e is so interesting is because, as a high-quality part, it might still overclock well, and the fourth core might also turn out to be available. The low multiplier might be a handicap though.
Even ignoring the overclocking possibilities, though, this would be a good chip for a HTPC, since the low TDP allows for silent cooling, and it has plenty of performance for encoding videos. The fourth core would then be a nice bonus if available.
chromatix - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - linkSelf-reply for a correction: I forgot it was already an X4, not an X3. Sigh. Reply
computerfarmer - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - linkThe last 2 articles on these CPU's were good reading.
I am looking for these to buy and finding them not available. I live in Canada. None of the stores or online places are listing them. Has any one found them for sale? Reply
qwertymac93 - Sunday, January 31, 2010 - linkhttp://www.newegg.ca/">http://www.newegg.ca/ Reply
computerfarmer - Monday, February 01, 2010 - linkNewegg does not have any of these new CPU's.
Does anyone know when they will be available? Reply
computerfarmer - Monday, February 01, 2010 - linkAMD Athlon II x4 635 is now available at newegg.ca for $130.99. Still waiting for others. Reply
computerfarmer - Monday, February 01, 2010 - linkNewegg does not have any of these new CPU's.
Does anyone know when theyt will be available? Reply
qwertymac93 - Sunday, January 31, 2010 - linkcheck Reply
techwriters4breakfast - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkthe reviews deliberately omitted the core unlocking possibility, because there was no mention of this when the 550 debuted this past summer.
i suppose anand wanted to avoid the angry emails from readers demanding to know why their 55x didn't unlock.
btw there may be an option under acc that has values of +/- 1 to 10 that may help for unlock attempts that do not remain after reboot. Reply
AdamB5000 - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkI tried this with my new 550BE. It unlocked but it would crash Photoshop and showed flickering issues with BF2. I tried underclocking the cpu and raising voltages with different combinations and nothing worked.
I'm still happy with the X2 550's performance and stability at stock speeds. Shame it dropped $9 a week after my purchase (as did the memory I purchased). Reply
Pederv - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkAMD makes both?
Well that's confusing. Reply
unclesharkey - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkI got an X3 425 and was able to unlock the extra core and the cache. It seemed to work fine but then when I went to start my system the next day I had to hit the power button a couple times to get it to start up so I set it back to default and my system starts up fine. I have not really played around with it much but you can unlock them. Reply
LucasBR - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkHey, i have an X3 720BE and i works fine at 0.75V idle and 1.15V burn. I think that now it's an 65W part... xD
Unfortunately my chipset is 8200, so i can't unlock 4th core. At least it works fine at 3,6GHz with stock Vcore. Reply
BernardP - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkFor those who don't want to gamble with unlocking, there is a proper Phenom II X4 955 (not BE though) @ 3.2 Ghz and 95 W TDP in the pipeline. The part number is HDZ955FBGIBOX
The performance should be very close to the i5 750 Reply
blowfish - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkThanks Anand for a great follow-up article - exactly what I was waiting for.
Looking at the AMD chips, however, it amazes me how much die area is taken up with the L3 cache - and it makes me wonder if it wouldn't be worth AMD making a 6 core cpu without L3, along the lines of the Athlon II X4. It would surely make a killer video encoding cpu - if you compare the Athlon II X4 with the Phenom II X4, video encoding speed is virtually identical clock-for-clock. Reply
Eeqmcsq - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link"The performance is no different than the regular 125W Phenom II X4 910"
Did you mean to say that the performance is no different than the 95w Phenom II X4 910? Also, I don't think the voltage table should compare the 910e to the 965, but instead, the 910e to the 910, since they are identical CPUs otherwise. Reply
zarkness - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkDoes anyone know the chances of getting Phenom II X 4 unlocking to quad core?? Because i wish to buy one for my new comp build. Reply
zarkness - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkoppss..i mean Phenom II X 2 Reply
Smell This - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkIt would be 'unofficial' but there is a thread at XS about the PhII unlocking that shows a success rate >70%. They keep a list of batch numbers with the success rates.
I got one that unlocked and under-volted -.01v. At 100% my total draw at the wall dropped by 1/3 to 127w. Reply
buzznut - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkI would like that link as well. Reply
Smell This - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - linkHere are 32 pages in the 'X2 550 Unlocking & Overclocking Consolidated' thread.
Includes everything from motherboards with preferable BIOS versions, ACC settings to help pesky unlocks, to NB/IMC overclocking.
zarkness - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkCan u give me the link to the site? thx alot ya Reply
7Enigma - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkI think your best chances for successfully getting an unlockable chip would be to buy from a high-volume but low stock company (ie NOT Newegg and probably not even ZZF). Someone that does a lot of business so the chips aren't from last year, but just as importantly someone that isn't buying 10,000 at a pop and sitting on them. I don't know how Microcenters distribution chain works (do they have a huge warehouse that purchases in bulk, or is it more region-specific ordering), but they would seem to fit the bill if you're near one. Reply
jcgamo88 - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkI did purchase a 620 with intent on unlocking it. Was un able to do so on both a MSI GD70 and DFI 790fxb. :( Reply
Taft12 - Monday, February 08, 2010 - linkIt's like doubling down in blackjack - the payoff can be huge, or you might bust :)
Now the question is can you resist buying another CPU to try again :D Reply
sciwizam - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkPatientiently waiting and a self-initiated reboot later and my CPU was identified as a Phenom II X4 B55 BE. Four cores running at 3.2GHz, just like a Phenom II X4 955 but for $99.
/typo police Reply
MaDS - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkThe Phenom II might prove incredible value for money when unlocked, and you consider it "THE best value for money" if done so, but as far as I'm concerned an L3-cache unlocked Athlon II X4 (if it works, ofcourse) fits the bill just as nicely and you get the added benefit of two extra cores in any case. So for people that can put 4 cores to good use, the Athlon II X4 might be the better buy.
I unlocked my Athlon II X4 620, the full 6MB L3 cache is functional, rock stable and I can run it at 3.6GHz with a very slight voltage bump (and a not-top-of-the-line Xigmatek HDT-S1283 with silent fan). Reply
Assimilator87 - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkThe problem with the Athlon II X4, is that only a small number of them were Phenoms with disabled cache. Most of them are a different die that doesn't have any L3 cache at all. Reply
MaDS - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkWell, I don't know the passing rates for the Athlon II X4's versus the Phenom II X2's. If the passing rate of the unlocking of the X4's are really that low, the safest bet would indeed be the Phenom II X2.
I'll just consider myself lucky then :) Reply
StevoLincolnite - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkI'm another user who managed to get the cache unlocked on an Athlon 2 X4. :)
Phenom 2 x4 910 performance at a much lower price, can't complain about that! Reply
zarkness - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkMay i know what is the batch of Athlon II x4 are u all using because i plan to buy one too... Reply
Taft12 - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkAlmost surely it was the very first waves of Athlon II X4's could have their L3 cache unlocked. They needed to get a lot of these into the channel when the announcement was made since (unsurprisingly) a $99 quad-core CPU sold like mad out of the gate, and the non-L3 die production was just getting started.
Unfortunately, your chances of buying a new Athlon II X4 that is cache-unlockable today are very low. Reply
AndrejM - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkI think there were very few unlockable Athlon II X4's out there. I ordered one only a week after it was announced, and I couldn't unlock the L3 cache (on a gigabyte mobo with all of those unlocking options available). The performance is still pretty kick-ass for a 100$ chip without L3 Cache, if you ask me. Reply
leexgx - Sunday, January 31, 2010 - linki be very unhappy to get an binned Phenom II with its cache off been sold as an Athlon II X4, as the new Athlons II run so cool where as the Phenoms do not (the stock cooler is no good for the Phenoms it needs to be 2x bigger like the Blue Orb II works very well at keeping it at least warm) Reply
Jovec - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - linkUsing any AMD chipset motherboard with the SB750 South Bridge and proper BIOS support you'll have support for a feature called Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC).
710 sb too, no? Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, January 28, 2010 - linkwoops, you're right :) Fixed.
Take care,
Anand Reply
coolhardware - Sunday, January 31, 2010 - linkThanks for the tip Anand! I enjoyed reading the article so much that I decided to build my own :-). It came out to less than $200 for the entire system, though I used old memory and storage.
CPU: X2 550 $90.99 (+$5 for NewEgg bundled cooler special)
Motherboard: ASRock A785GMH/128M $69.99
Case: ASUS TM-211 $25.00 (used eBay bucks for $20 worth of the total)
Here's more info:
Any comments or build tips are appreciated! Reply
Zebo - Tuesday, February 02, 2010 - linkNice. But....
Fry's regularly has Phenom X2 II 550 + some mobo for less than $100!
Just google "fry's Phenom X2 II 550"... you'll see. Some mobos support unlocking, some don't but many of us in CPU forums have known this is a greatest deal since November at least even without a Frys combo but with it it makes it insanely sweet. Reply
blyndy - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link"Often times it's easier to just disable two cores and sell the chip for cheaper than you'd like"
Wouldn't it be better to lower X4 prices slightly and dropping the X2s altogether? Reply
MonkeyPaw - Friday, January 29, 2010 - linkYes and no. Not all X4s are likely to work, so there's still a reason to disable some cores and sell this product. The problem then is that they get more demand than they have CPU cores that need to be disabled, so they end up using lower quality functional quad cores to make X2s. Also, I think that AMD and Intel have strictest quality control. What they consider to be a bad core, we may never notice.
It is still revenue either way, just not as much as they possibly could. Also, cheaper quads all around would only hurt AMD's total revenue. I'd guess that this X2 BE probably won't be around long as people start snatching them up. I do enjoy the little bones that AMD throws out there for the enthusiasts. Reply
vyseus - Thursday, April 29, 2010 - linkI've got a new System unit, can detect if it can unlock the core?
-AMD Phenom II X2 555 3.2 Ghz BE
-Kingston DDR1333 (CL9.0) 2+2Gb
-Gigabyte Superb 550w
-Sapphire HD5670 1Gb ddr5
If can really wanna try, I'm going to upgrade the heat sink to corsair H50, also adding few fans to the radiator of H50 and the casing..
Can i try to unlock since I'm pretty new on overclocking, or i need a change of motherboard..Thanks in advance Reply
talha - Saturday, May 22, 2010 - linkHey, I've written article about this too: http://www.triple3online.com/?p=155
Check it out and tell me if you like it... Reply
vinxander - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - linkCan I unlock the two cores with this motherboard?
Gigabyte GA-MA785GPMT-UD2H
North Bridge: AMD 785G
South Bridge: AMD SB710 Reply
mavantot - Thursday, May 19, 2011 - linkguys pls help me how to unlock phenom II x2 (3.2ghz) 555 black edition part number hdz555wfk2dgm..its unlockable right??but how will i unlock the hidden cores using msi 880gms-e35 motherboard..pls help..thanks ..my motherboard has a unlock feature but not like ACC advance clock calibration..only "unlock core" setting in the bios,,but then when i started to enable the unlock core setting and save the settings and boot up then after that my cpu cant start booting and turned off by itself., Reply
peroludiarom - Thursday, June 21, 2012 - linkHi to all,
I know that most probably you have already find your solution, but I think that the below article may help others that are interested in Unlocking and Overclocking Phenom II X2 family.
I just wrote my first article about overclocking and unlocking Phenom II X2 555, and I want to share my knowledge with all of you:
I Hope this will helpful for you.
Vladimir Iliev Reply


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The Clover Trail (Atom Z2760) Review: Acer's W510 Testedby Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/20/2012 10:34 AM EST
102 Comments
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jeffkro - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkDidn't we see this atom chip get bested by the arm a15 in the new chromebook? Why would any manufacturer pay more for a lower performing atom chip? Until the latest and greatest atom chip comes out towards the end of 2013 its pretty clear the high end in inexpensive low power chips is going to be held by the a15 architecture. Reply
jeffkro - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkI think phone and tablet devices based on the tegra 4 are going to be the gold standard for 2013. Reply
hrrmph - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkHow about:
- Tegra 4 on the phone; and
- Haswell on tablets? Reply
mrdude - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkHaswell's 10W ULV chips will be priced as much as competitors' tablets. And I don't mean just the SoCs, I mean the entire tablet.
I'm sure Haswell will be great, but unless you're willing to fork over >$900 for a tablet, and very few are, it's not going to fly with the public at large. What Intel needs is Bay Trail, not Haswell. By the looks of it, the A15 will be the king throughout most of 2013 Reply
semiconshawn - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkI will willingly pay a grand or more for a tablet that rans full win8 at intel core speeds that has 256gb,8-9hrs of batt, high qual/dpi screen, and is thinner/lighter the the surface pro. I think by fall of '13 my device will be ready. Probably several to choose from. There may be an SP by then as well. Current crop looks undercooked to me. Reply
HisDivineOrder - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - linkYes, but mrdude said explicitly, "it's not going to fly with the public at large."
You might be willing to put down $1k late next year for the tablet PC of your dreams, but by then we'll likely be in a world of $100 7" tablets by Google.
$100 vs $1k? Even RT devices will probably be $300-700. Meanwhile, Windows RT offers no benefit over Android besides a useless desktop and sync'ing at the cost of sheer multitude of apps available.
I think I agree with mrdude. Not many people will fork over $1k for a tablet that is like their laptop if they can keep using their current laptop PLUS buy a new $100 tablet every year for 10 years for the same cost of that Surface Pro. Reply
nofumble62 - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkTegra4 has a bunch of new graphic cores. Since it uses same 28nm process, I wonder how fast it sucks down the battery. Reply
Lonyo - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkLast I checked, ARM doesn't have any backwards compatibility with almost the entire library of x86 Windows applications. Reply
mayankleoboy1 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkWhich means nothing, as these mobile chips are too underpowered to actually run the desktop x86 applications. It will run, just so slow you will throw the device in frustration. Reply
amdwilliam1985 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkIt means a lot to have x86 compatible.
Not everyone wants or needs to run photoshop or autocad.
But Knowing that your tablet/pc can run stuff like notepad++, chrome, java and flash is A LOT to everyday regular consumer.
My girlfriend uses both ipad and my EeePC from 2 years. Both products has its usage. But with this, she can get rid of those. Reply
BSMonitor - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkExactly
Not everyone runs only prepackaged software from Best Buy.
I can write programs in Visual Studio very easily on the PC. With no recompiles, emulators, etc, I can also run that program on the x86 tablets. Reply
Guspaz - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkThat has nothing to do with x86 compatibility and everything to do with Win32 compatibility, and that's all on Microsoft.
If Microsoft had not prevented third-party apps from using Win32 on RT devices, you'd be able to recompile most apps with no code changes for ARM. Reply
Alexvrb - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkWell that would be nice for us tech heads, but opening up WinRT like Win8 brings all of the negatives too. For most of your average users, WinRT is better. You can't take it online, click some ads, and get a nice trojan or two. It's really a good tablet platform overall.
So now we've got the option of some affordable Atom-based Win8 tablets. So you can pick whatever suits your needs more, WinRT (and its restrictive walls and safety) or Win8 (and all the traditional Windows advantages and disadvantages). Reply
Chamie - Tuesday, March 05, 2013 - link> You can't take it online
You can stop here, lol. (No browsers, only IE) Kidding.
But, actually, you can't get it as easy on x86 Windows too — UAC and other stuff should prevent it. The only thing preventing you from getting the same on RT will be it's lack of popularity for users and, thus, for malware makers. Even WiFi routers suffer from infections (see Psyb0t, Chuck Norris etc.) despite running Linux on MIPS, why would Windows on ARM be any safer? Reply
Guspaz - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkEvery single app you mentioned there runs on ARM (either the full version or a mobile tablet-oriented version) except for notepad++, and the only reason it won't run on ARM is because Microsoft forbids the use of Win32 on RT.
x86 compatibility isn't all its cracked up to be. Most of the software you use on an x86 Linux distribution works just fine on an ARM Linux distribution, including stuff people tend to use on a day to day basis like Chrome or Firefox.
I think you could make a better case for Win32 compatibility, x86 compatibility doesn't mean much for most people. Reply
SM123456 - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - linkBut this netbook costs $600. Ridiculous! Reply
Concillian - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkDepends entirely on what you want to run.
Consider, for example automotive applications that interface with your car. These are very lightweight and old tech. A laptop in the passenger seat with a TN screen is overly bulky and the crappy screen is a liability. A tablet is a huge improvement in ergonomics.
Applications like that are NEVER getting ported to android or iOS, so x86 compatibility is the only answer. I suspect that there are a number of similar industrial applications. At my work, we have some very lightweight applications at work running homemade VB or .Net applicatoins from 1.6GHz P4 machines. With x86, we could run them, but nothing else will. Some of these were developed to run on a 486 and we still use the basic program to run the equipment.
x86 compatibility is meaningful to people who do actual work with these kinds of devices. Those who treat them like toys? Probably not so much. Reply
Slaimus - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkThere are many such apps for iOS and Android. They interface with a bluetooth OBD transmitter and you can wirelessly view real time information. See: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.... Reply
Concillian - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkI know of and have used Torque. It's a toy.
It cannot do the same thing that factory diagnostic tools and open source reverse engineered equivalent tools can do (like re-programming the ECU or TCU for your desires). Those tools are specialized by vehicle brand and are (x86) Windows exclusive.
Industrial applications for these kinds of things move at a GLACIAL pace. Less than a decade ago I was regularly using a program that used a *terminal program* to communicate through a serial cable to program the device... It was straight out of the 80s... iOS and Android apps for the stuff that people make money with are not going to spring up overnight.
x86 compatibility is a must for these kinds of applications. They also happen to be applications that are VERY light on hardware, so these kinds of tablets are a good option. Reply
lmcd - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkI'm sorry, but you attribute "actually doing work" to "requiring junky legacy apps?" Not every workplace is burdened with those. And most that are depend on the mouse+keyboard interface anyway, so the whole "Win 32' compatibility is irrelevant.
Besides, why did you write homemade VB apps anyway? VB is VB... and .Net shouldn't be that hard to port to a new version (which, obviously, would run on RT). Reply
strangis - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link"Which means nothing, as these mobile chips are too underpowered to actually run the desktop x86 applications"
My ATIV 500 painting an 11x17 300dpi multilayer image in Sketchbook Pro with the active digitizer smoothly disagrees with your assumption.
Just saying. Reply
Wolfpup - Thursday, January 03, 2013 - linkOf COURSE they run desktop programs. They run Firefox, OpenOffice (and older versions of MS Office you might already own), media tools, IM clients, all SORTS of things that aren't available or even possible on other platforms.
No, it won't reasonably run Skyrim, but there's a ton that it will run.
Personally I think this is pretty awesome...you get a good for the form factor CPU that oh yeah, happens to actually be compatible with what you have, and the price is the same as ARM stuff.
What's bad is the GPU...seems like they have almost a 2009 smartphone GPU in there rather than something more appropriate for 2013...and then there's the issue that metro is locked down, not a real PC...but then that's why you want an x86 tablet to begin with...at least you get the real desktop and in that mode it's a real PC. Reply
jeffkro - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkBasically for tablets and phones I prefer the android "library" so intel/windows really isn't for me anyways. Reply
SM123456 - Wednesday, February 13, 2013 - linkYes, but Microsoft has to use a x86 CPU if they are to be able run Windows apps.
Basically this device and all other Windows 8 tablets under $600 are grossly overpriced netbooks with touch added and a keyboard taken away.
The $199 Acer C7 Chromebook with its 1.1 GHz dual core Celeron processor is at least twice as fast as this thing. Reply
Dribble - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkSo we have windows RT that is optimised both around the ARM cpu's and tablets. There is no old software - everything that you can get for it should both run fine on tegra 3 and work well with a small touch screen. This means stuff should just work well - this is what apple do so well, and MS are trying to emulate.
On the other hand there is full windows. Now the reason to get this not RT is backwards compatibility. Most *old* windows apps require higher performance cpu's (e.g core i3) a big screen, a mouse and a keyboard. They don't use touch at all.
Taking that into account an atom tablet has a screen that's too small, a cpu that's too slow and a bad mouse/keyboard experience - sure you could plug both in but then it's not really a tablet any longer is it? Also all that backward compatibility support uses effectively a different ui - it's not a clean and polished single interface. Stuff won't just work well - the experience won't be as good.
Hence if you want full windows you'd be much better off with a laptop/ultra book - they are still touch screen so you get any touch benefits but they have much faster cpu's, better keyboard, etc. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkNot sure where you got that idea from. 99% of windows applications dont hardly use any cpu at all. Check task manager sometime. You will notice that most processes only consume a few seconds of cpu time per hour of system idle time. It is extremely rare for a windows application to peg even one cpu core to 100%. Reply
freedom4556 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkYou that that's a percentage and it depends on what CPU you're looking at right? That's like saying, "Yeah, I never need more than 1% of my horsepower even doing 150mph uphill in a headwind." when you drive a Lamborghini. Try it again in a Honda and you'll not even be able to do it, nevermind 100% usage.
Do you have an i7 or an Atom? Reply
B3an - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkOne thing that stood out to me in this article, is the bugs/reboots you encountered. You pretty much blamed them on Win 8, or made it sound that way. Which i thought was unprofessional, especially for you Anand. As theres a very good chance they're to do with a particular app, drivers on this device, or even it's hardware. Win 8 is a very solid stable OS, even more so than Win 7 on release. Reply
ltcommanderdata - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkTrue. But hasn't it always been the case that app and driver instability gets fairly or unfairly associated with Windows? At the same time, when things are working well, Microsoft is happy if you think of yourself as enjoying a "Windows" PC or tablet regardless of what particular software or hardware you are using in/on Windows. I guess we'll have to see how common problems are with other CloverTrail tablets. If they show up in CloverTrail tablets from other manufacturers, then even if the underlying OS is stable it still becomes Microsoft's problem if people are having trouble developing reliable apps/drivers/tablet using it. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkThe issue is these were first party apps developed by MS, and I've seen some evidence of the same on other non-W510 platforms (I just don't remember this being the case with Surface RT but I've been using these x86 platforms longer than I did Surface).
I'm curious to read Vivek's take on the ATIV Smart PC to see if it mirrors my experience.
Take care,
Anand Reply
londiste - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkare the windows x86 drivers for powervr sgx now stable and feature complete? the first batch of reviews for atoms containing these, including the one in anand iirc, complained a lot about the stability of video drivers.
the fact that these crashes are system-wide, would rule out specific applications, but not drivers.
windows 8 by itself, especially on x86 (but maybe even more so for the rt on arm) has been very stable. Reply
MFK - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkCan we get a detailed write up of how eMMC differs from SATA?
I'd be very interested in reading Anandtechs analysis on the differences between them.
It just seems to be the very prevalent now with smartphones and Atom tablets both using it. Reply
DanNeely - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkMMC is a memory card standard similar to the more common SD; eMMC is just an embedded version. Outside of the embedded world MMC is mostly used to increase the number of supported formats claimed by card readers. Reply
tempestglen - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkhttp://www.anandtech.com/show/6330/the-iphone-5-re...
I am very curious about the Z2760 electricity consumption when running kraken. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkWorking on something even cooler, give me a few days... :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
tempestglen - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkGreat! Hope you use a test application which could utilities all of the CPU cores. Kraken is good but not perfect, could Kraken make 100% usage on dual core? Reply
DanNeely - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkCould you add dimensions for the combined tablet + dock? Reply
mayankleoboy1 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkClover Trail is a failure. It is competitive with Tegra3. Great.
But tegra3 itself is outdated now. Anyone notice that no new top-line smartphone has tegra3. All have Krait4. And will soon have Exynos5.
If all Intel has to show for its efforts is competition with tegra3/A9 , its in some deep shit.
The GPU is particulerly shitty. Either Intel need a node shift to 14nm, or a new arch or both. Reply
jhoff80 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkMaybe I'm being naive, but it sounds like Bay Trail will be exactly that new architecture for Atom that Intel needs. Reply
jeffkibuule - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkClover Trail is just a stop gap. It's using a 5 year old architecture with a GPU that even the iPad 2 from 2 years ago could outperform. I think it's purposefully designed to be cheap.
I'd be far more interested to see what Bay Trail (next-generation Atom) and Haswell (next-generation Core) bring to the table, because at least it will look like Intel is trying. Reply
coder543 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkNexus 10 starting price is $399, not $499.
Please fix. Reply
jeffkibuule - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkI think the problem is that Chrome just isn't optimized at all compared to the stock Android browser on non-Google phones. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkFixed, thank you! Reply
coder543 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link"Optimizing around 16:9 delivers a much better video viewing and multitasking experience, at the expense of pretty much ruining portrait mode aspirations and making for a slightly awkward in-hand feel."
I'd also like to point out that this is an opinion and not a fact. I, for one, really enjoy using widescreen devices in portrait mode. Do you know just how much of a website is visible that way? A huge amount. It takes a little getting used to, but it is not by any means awkward. Reply
Poopship - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkI really like the idea of being able to run any old windows program and then switch back and forth from a modern tablet interface. It just adds so much versatility.
Too bad about the gpu though. Reply
nswalls - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkwhat breed of dog is that in the video? Reply
ojingoh - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkLooks like a red heeler, a type of Australian Cattle Dog. Reply
nswalls - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkthanks! Reply
tayb - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkBattery life, performance, price. Pick any two. It's pretty clear that despite the best efforts of Microsoft and Intel that this narrative hasn't changed in the slightest. At $499 this is more expensive than other entry level tablets, the battery life is inferior, and the relative performance is crap.
This device cannot replace my notebook and for a toy device (iPad, Nexus, Tab) I would rather stick with my iPad. I look at this tablet and see the worst of both worlds. Performance is too low to replace my notebook and app selection and battery life are too low to replace my existing tablet. No man's land. What use case would I have to find myself in where this tablet was the solution? I can think of a few fields (medical, dental, outside sales, construction, etc) but most of these are small trades. I see no mass market appeal in this device. Reply
DaveSimmons - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkIf you get a chance could you test the Netflix performance, both on the screen and through the HDMI? Reply
fredbloggs73 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkI would also like to know how this tablet performs with an external monitor in a desktop environment. I get the feeling that the GPU will limit this function. Reply
unrulycow - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkThe table on the first page should be changed to reflect the fact that the Nexus 10 starts at $399, not $499 Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkFixed! Reply
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkYeah, that's about what I was worried about with Haswell -- marginally better CPU performance than the Atom we know and hate, and an utter crap GPU. Thanks but no thanks, Intel. If they stuck Brazos in these devices they'd be way more appealing (assuming a similar power-profile).
I'm very interested in getting one of these devices, but Haswell is a no-go, and I'm not sure about something like the Surface Pro. Its specs are great (asides from Intel's crap GPU, again, but at least the HD4000 is passable), but I'm thinking it's going to be too heavy/bulky, too warm, and too noisy (fans) to be something I'd take over a regular laptop.
Hopefully the 2nd gen devices come sooner rather than later, as these 1st gens just aren't cutting it. Reply
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkOh, and uh... I remember a review of the Lumia 920 being in the works, like, weeks ago. Did that get shelved or what's going on with that? Reply
name99 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkOh don't be an idiot.
The numbers are basically that a high-end Atom is about 1.5x the CPU performance (on multithreaded tasks only? not clear from what Anand has given us here) of a high end ARM.
Meanwhile a high-end IB i7 is 5x the performance of a high-end ARM, and Haswell will improve on that.
Haswell is a high performance followup to IB, it's not a followup to Atom. Reply
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkSorry, I am an idiot: I meant Clover Trail, the SoC in this tablet, not Haswell. That was an utter brain fail on my part. >< Reply
Ytterbium - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkHi Anandtech,
Can you review the Dell Latitude 10 & Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2?
I think each one has some unique features vs the ones you looked at so far. Reply
jeffkibuule - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkI don't think the editors have enough time to review every single laptop/tablet released. Besides, is the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 even out yet? Reply
rburnham - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkOne thing about Windows 8 that continues to bug me is the way that settings are split into two areas. Some settings can be handled from the Start screen, while others take you to the desktop Control Panel. If Microsoft is so keen on this new UI, why not take the entire Control Panel and make it a Modern UI component? I get that they are trying to appeal to touchscreen and desktop users, but merging the settings into one area would help alleviate the schizophrenic feel of the OS a little bit.
This is a great review, especially since I have this exact Acer tablet on the way from Newegg. My hope is that I will spend most of my time in the Modern UI, and occasionally fire up desktop software. I am hoping it will be fast to handle some older games, like Icewind Dale, and some non-CPU intense software, like the Zinio desktop app (where I can access publications that the mobile version cannot access). It's going to be an interesting experiment.
My other concern with this tablet is that it is so new, there is a very limited selection of accessories. Specifically, I am having trouble finding some sort of "gel skin" case for this tablet. There are some generic fold out tablet cases, but those are bulky.
By the way, I had hoped to get an AMD Windows 8 tablet, but where are they? I love AMD, but I have to buy based on my needs and what's available, and right now Intel has the only real x86 solution for Windows 8 tablets. Reply
name99 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - link"The power adapter itself isn't anything remarkable, however Acer did use a nifty removable plug that easily twists on/off. The W510 only ships with the plug for whatever region you purchased it in so I'm not sure how useful this feature is, but it's nice to see design innovation from Acer here."
Just for the record, this is not new. Apple's power supplies for MacBooks have done this for, I don't know, 8 years or so. The power supply has a core that is common, and a regional plug that can be slipped on or off. See here:
iPad power adapters are the same. iPhone/iPod are not, I expect because they are so small that they are basically the size of the dongle that would plugin to the socket, so modularizing them this way would basically double their size.
I've no idea if this is original to Apple or not, but it's certainly not original to Acer. Reply
secretmanofagent - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkI don't think you understand the mechanism. Apple uses a friction fit with a straight downward motion. The connector that Acer uses rotates on, which you can see in the picture the directions to operate. All of the other adapters I've seen (including miscellaneous ones over the years) have been similar to Apple's, usually with a mechanical clip. Acer's method is innovative, but I'm not sure what advantages are offered by it. Reply
lorribot - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkIt's things like that 11GB recovery partition that show how far MS have to go in the light weight sector. The 13 GB for Windows, which will bloat massively with patches and installs is another example of them playing the wrong game.
My windows & folder is a typical 21GB add to that a 11 GB recovery partition and that leaves nothing for user docs or programs on a 32GB model.
It would make more sense to stick the recovery partition on a 16GB USB stick or SD Card and use that to recover the system should the need arise and give back some of the expensive internal storage space to the user.
Windows 8, good first attempt but wait for Windows 9 when they fix all the things they didn't have time for and realise two into one doesn't go. Reply
name99 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkYeah, I was amazed by that 11GB figure.
As a point of comparison, the OSX recovery partition is 650MB in size.
Now it it possible that the Win8 recovery partition does more (as opposed to "has more to do [because there are more things that can go wrong]"; I'd be interested in an informed comparison of the two, and a dissection of just what is taking up all that space.
Is it sheer incompetence (for example including 64 bit binaries on a 32bit system)?
Is it including every human language on earth?
Is it because no-one bothered to make an effort to include only the bare minimum OS+support frameworks (as opposed to including the AV subsystem, and .NET, and fifteen ways to talk to a database, and support for MS Office, etc etc etc)? Reply
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkThey do need to do something about the humungous recovery partition, but... you can put the recovery partition on a thumb drive or other removable media and free up that 11GB, if I'm not mistaken. Reply
secretmanofagent - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkIt's an incorrect comparison, as the restore for OS X requires an Internet connection.
"In order to reinstall OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion, you will need to be connected to an Ethernet or Wi-Fi network."
"The OS X download is about 4 GB large;"
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4718 Reply
name99 - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkYes and no for the Apple restore.
The recovery partition has tools that can do a bunch of things, for example run a fsck on the boot drive. If your problem is the sort of thing that can be fixed by fsck, ie some localized damage to the file system, then you will not need the internet connection.
You will need it (sortof) if you want to reinstall the OS.
If MS have the entire OS in their recovery partition, the size makes more sense, but seems more than a little foolish --- wasting so much fast expensive flash when you could ship a cheap USB stick.
In the case of Apple, it is fairly trivial when you first download/install Lion or Mountain Lion to burn a copy to a USB stick, and to use that copy if you don't have an internet connection (or have a slow connection, or pay per MB downloaded, or whatever).
I do think it's less than ideal that they don't include a USB stick of the OS with new machines (they did with the first few iterations of MacBook Air), but it's possible that their numbers tell them that pretty much no-one ever needs to reinstall the OS --- the tools of the recovery partition are acceptable for pretty much all problems. Certainly in my experience that's been true, for both my and friend's machines. I have no comparable experience with Windows. Reply
MonkeyPaw - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkMicrocenter has the 32GB model on sale for $399, so I took a chance. Your review pretty much matches my conclusions as well. It's generally a nice device, CPU performance is good, etc. The major disappointment for me was terrible game performance. I had lag and choppiness playing Solitaire! In late 2012?! I want to like Windows 8, but to have a card game take up almost 100MB of precious eMMC capacity is just sad. Until storage default size balloons significantly, it's hard to get on board with MS right now.
Another thing MS needs to work on is the keyboard auto-correct, or the lack of it. The onscreen keyboard offers no assistance, and text selection is a nightmare. In IE, I could never select text, as double tapping just kept zooming in and out. It was quite frustrating.
I found the camera and its respective app to be horrible. Not just bad, unuseable bad.
I really really wanted to like the W510, but I ended up exchanging it for a Transformer Infinity. I am much happier with it. Reply
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkAs far as the text selection thing goes, if it's anything like Windows Phone, you don't double-tap to select things (as you noticed, that zooms). You long-press instead. It's a little odd if you're in the habit of double-tapping from iOS/Android, but it works just fine for me on my Windows Phone. Reply
popej - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkCould we get some comments how does it work as a tablet?
Does Metro menu work efficient? Is on-screen keyboard usable? Has it sensors like accelerator, compass, GPS? Does it switch to portrait mode automatically? Any peculiarity with Metro in portrait mode? Is it usable outdoor? Is SD memory usable?
Thanks for review and benchmarks but I feel like I got more questions than answers ;) Reply
mrdude - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkhttp://www.extremetech.com/mobile/141317-samsungs-...
Supposedly the WiFi problems aren't restricted to the Acer W510 and Intel admitted there's an issue with the Samsung PC 500T.
Are these the same problems you're encountering? It sounds like some users have had similar issues as well.
That brand new Clover Trail SoC already looks dated :D Matches up nicely with the Tegra 3, but if I can buy a Google Nexus 7 for less than half the price of this Acer, and get better performance at that, it really shows just how out of touch both Intel and MS are in the mobile space where tablets are concerned. Reply
bollux78 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkReally, even if the performance is not very good, you can run anything, ANYTHING!
Forget the tablets, I would not trade a x86 tablet in the present for an Ipad 15 coming from the future in a time traveler's bag with 30x more horsepower, unless you could run some virtual machine able to emulated a complete x86 machine. There is simply nothing to complain about this device. Reply
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkYou do have a point, in that sure, the iPadWhatever has an impressive SoC, particularly the GPU. But... so what? What can you do with it? Play some "meh" mobile games?
Still, I'd like to see an x86 Win8 tablet with something better than a rehashed Atom attached to a dismal GPU. Reply
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkI should add, I'd like to see that in a truly mobile tablet, not a big, battery-chugging monolith as the Surface Pro is likely to be (much as it may be appealing otherwise). Reply
dwade123 - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkMove aside ARM, Intel is coming through. Reply
DaveSimmons - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkJust like the steamroller in Austin Powers: very . . . . verrrry . . . . slowwwwllllyyyy Reply
Donkey2008 - Tuesday, December 25, 2012 - linkLOL. Absolutely perfect analogy. Reply
lopri - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkIf the 64 GB version leaves you with 30 GB.. then how much space is left usable for the 32 GB version?? Reply
kyuu - Thursday, December 20, 2012 - linkNegative 2 GB? o_0 Reply
MonkeyPaw - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkI sampled the 32GB version not long ago.There was no recovery partition (they give you 4 DVDs), but when it's all said and done, about half the space is consumed by the base install. Once you add a modest selection of media and a few MS apps (which can be rather large), you are looking at a few GB of free space remaining. Reply
skiboysteve - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkDo people really need the installed paid for versions of office? The free online web apps are completely amazing. Way way better than google docs... They are just about full versions of office. Only thing I could think of is for airplane trips Reply
zeo - Monday, December 31, 2012 - linkOnly the RT version has Office included by default, and it's the more basic Home and Student 2013 RT version, regular W8 depends on the system maker as to whether a copy of Office will be included or not... Like, I believe, Lenovo offers full Office with the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2 for example.
RT though is a bit stripped down from W8 and so is a bit smaller install than regular W8/Pro, even with Office included.
Regular W8 tablets though are suppose to start with 64GB drives, they just offer 32GB for lower entry price point and it's only the RT tablets that are suppose to start with 32GB.
This is mainly due to the pricing structure used by most tablet makers, most charge for capacity even though the actual capacity doesn't cost the price difference. Like the $249 Nexus 7 doesn't cost $50 more than the $199 Nexus 7 to add that extra capacity, but this is how they improve their profit margins when offering higher specs and can afford to lower profit margins for the lower spec versions.
All Windows tablets though should offer Micro/SD, though for now you can't install apps anywhere but the main drive but you can put just about everything else on the memory card for extra capacity.
While higher end tablets should offer drives up to 128GB and some will offer hard drives in the docks, like the Asus Vivo Book has a 500GB HDD in the keyboard dock. Reply
CaptchaIsEvil - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkSo this is what it's like to depend on far flung "OEMs" to build a product that will attract an audience.
MS is depending on OEMs who use weak drivers resulting in poor user experience and that build substandard hardware.
Just like with Android, Samsung will be the only OEM to step up to the plate and dedicate the resources to compete in the big leagues. It won't be Acer and it won't be the commoditizers at HP or DELL (parts bin assemblers).
MS better hope it happens soon. Reply
zeo - Monday, December 31, 2012 - linkWeak drivers are a issue, but Intel will be moving back to a GMA based on their own technology instead of Imagination's with the 22nm ATOM updates.
There may still be some driver issues but support for their own hardware is much better and we'll see a return of full 64bit and Linux support.
The actual GMA is suppose to be based on the Ivy Bridge HD4000, just scaled down from 16 execution units to 4, and that should mean better developed drivers from the start as well.
It'll just be either late Q3 or around Q4 2013 until we see products based on the update start to come out. Reply
nofumble62 - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkfast, run everything, and have lot of storage.
Tablet is a fad, and will fade away. Reply
kyuu - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkHow's the weather over there in Denial Land? Reply
nofumble62 - Friday, December 21, 2012 - linkGreat- warm and toasty over my i7-3770.
In the drawer, there is an iPad3 and a Kindle Fire. They are nice to play with for a short while, but I am now back to my 24" IPS and keyboards. Reply
aliasfox - Sunday, December 23, 2012 - linkAnd here's the alternate scenario: I'm on my iPad1 At my parents' house, and after the second day of regular use I'm still at 42% battery life, and I'm doing the same thing as you, commenting on a forum.
Is it slow as heck? Yes. Is it useful for a whole lot besides for web surfing, videos, and short writing like this? No, not really. Is web surfing, videos, and short writing like this a significant portion of my daily web life? Yes. Do I appreciate the fact that I can get two and a half days of usable battery life in a package about half the weight of an ultrabook? Absolutely. Have regretted I buying and using this for the past two and a half years? Aside from abysmal resale value, not at all.
My Mac Pro doesn't get much use besides for Netflix watching on my TV, so for my usage scenario, I'm cool with a tablet. I'll throw in shipping cost if you want to send me your iPad3 though, I'll give it a good home. Reply
Death666Angel - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - linkHey!
Good article. Just wanted to say that the charger connector is pretty much similar (the same?) my Travelmate 8172 has (just in white whereas mine is in black). On that charger, I can use it to set the orientation of the charger, it helps in crowded sockets. And guess it might save Acer a few cents of cost. Anyway, I like it a lot. :D Reply
Pirks - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - linkI noticed serious differences in user experience between Win8 tablets bought at MS retail store and elsewhere. Anand went for the worst possible scenario and got tablet stuffed with crapware instead of buying a tablet at MS store, online or retail, WITHOUT any crapware. Guys, PLEASE bear this in mind when reading this review. THIS REVIEW IS NOT, I EMPHASIZE THIS AGAIN - _NOT_ REFLECTING REAL END USER EXPERIENCE AS ENVISIONED BY MICROSOFT. In other words, standard stores AT buys its review hardware from and MS stores are DIFFERENT things.
Please, KEEP this in mind when reading this review. It is VERY likely that you will see quite a difference between experiences using two same tablets bought in different stores, MS and non-MS one. I've seen it by own eyes when for example comparing how responsive the OS is, and how stylus works on ATIV Smart PC bought on Amazon versus the one bought in MS online store.
In the end, if you buy hardware not in MS store and see some issues - quite likely it is now YOUR issue, not Microsoft's. MS is offering people retail and online stores to buy clean reliable crapware-free Windows hardware. If you buy elsewhere - you must be dumb. End of story.
Anand, please consider what I said above. I am serious, no trolling or anything here. You are one of the best tech reviewers on the net. You should strive for better, so please think again where are you buying your review units in the future. PLEASE. Thank you. Reply
Death666Angel - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - linkI don't believe I am even dignifying your comment by commenting on my own. Firstly, I didn't find an online MS store that would sell me a W510 in Germany. Amazon.de has that. Secondly, you say it is all worse, yet you only talk about crapware, which Anand mentions in a few paragraphs but has no bearing on his conclusion or any of the real numbers (performance, battery life...). So your post screams either "bought" or "troll" to me. Reply
Ned - Saturday, December 22, 2012 - linkIve just had confirmed that the first batch of Acer W510 optional Keyboard docks have a faulty touchpad which is fixable by any Acer service centre.
All new batches from Acer have this now fixed.
Also, if you have one of the original first production W510, make sure you update the BIOS which is available on the Acer website. Reply
powerarmour - Sunday, December 23, 2012 - linkAnd yet again Intel fail to deliver a quality GPU driver for PowerVR series hardware, how many times will customers be forced to put up with this mess?
The reason why a Tegra 3 is more responsive is that at least Nvidia know how to write a driver that isn't a buggy mess, even the fact that Clover Trail is x86 means little at this level of dire performance, what the hell are you going to run on it that you can't already do on a WinRT platform? Reply
agentsmithitaly - Sunday, December 23, 2012 - linkDear Anand
I know it has been already already debated, but measurement units are quite inconsistent in Anandtech's articles.
Sometimes they report both Celsius and Fahrenheit for temperatures, as well as inches and millimeters for length measurements, in this case we see imperial units for dimensions and weight comparision, dock and tablet weight in grams, millimeters for keyboard keys. Of course it's perfectly fine to express display size, or storage unit size in inches as it is the de-facto standard.
Is it possible to have International system of units on all articles? Not only for the international visitors I'm sure Anandtech has, but also because this is technology website, which I think it could be considered as science. And scientists use metrical units, including NASA ones. You remember what happened to the Mars Climate Orbiter, right?
Apart this, keep up the good work guys! And Merry Christmas to all! Reply
yannigr - Monday, December 24, 2012 - linkWe NEED AMD solutions. Pity AMD is for far behind. A tablet with for balanced hardware would have been great. Reply
zeo - Monday, December 31, 2012 - linkYes, though AMD is releasing the Z-60 Hondo as a stop gap for now. Being a slight update to the previous Z-01 Desna, which itself was just a more power optimized version of the C-50 Ontario.
2013 though will see AMD's 28nm updates, with the newer Jaguar CPU cores.
Specifically, for tablets, the upcoming 2W max TDP SoC AMD Tamesh will be their first serious entry into the tablet market and we'll see then how they compare.
For now, the Hondo is at least a option for those who don't mind limited run time but want 3x better graphics than Clover Trail, which also puts it above Tegra 3 graphical performance, and full 64bit and better Linux support.
At 1GHz though, don't expect better CPU performance... Reply
OBLAMA2009 - Monday, December 24, 2012 - linki think all these windows 8 tablet/notebook thingies will be a huge fail. carrying something with all these parts isnt more convenient that just using different devices or using chromeos and doing things in the cloud. atom is a seriously damaged brand name because of low performance and this new stuff doesnt change that. finally the prices for stuff like this are ridiculous. were used to paying $350 for laptops, we arent going to pay $600 for stuff a tenth as good Reply
zeo - Monday, December 31, 2012 - linkFirst, there aren't that many parts and overall it is more convenient to carry one device than multiple... especially, if your actual usage favors tablet usage most of the time.
Second, people have being paying such prices for iPads for years, a lot more when you consider the cost of peripherals, and ARM has only recently gotten around the performance range of a ATOM!
Tablets are typically higher priced than laptops, though Ultrabooks puts a premium that lessens the difference a bit.
People though have and will pay for the convenience of mobility, which laptops can only be considered to be portable but not truly mobile. While tablets can provide mobile usage, along with hybrids and other solutions retaining most, if not all, of the benefits of laptops as well.
It's just that there's always compromise when going smaller and lighter, and no solution is perfect for everyone! Along with it yet being determined what size the actual market will be, as these are first gen Windows based devices and many are just waiting for the pro and second gen products.
So it's comparing apples to oranges with tablets and laptops, different solution for people with different needs!
Btw, even Chromebooks require a certain level of performance. Cloud doesn't run everything and you can't always have a high speed connection, which is one of the reasons why Chrome OS has a native client and support for hardware acceleration!
The Cloud isn't that reliable yet either and not everything can be replaced by Cloud apps yet. Though such services are getting better and help alleviate the limitations of these mobile devices. Reply
mhaager2 - Monday, December 24, 2012 - linkI don't really understand all the negativity towards Win RT and the Surface RT in particular. We have an iPad3, a nexus 7, and now a surface RT in our house. Hands down I like my Surface RT the best. It is by far the best of all in terms of productivity. I like the OS a lot. Its stable, responsive, and a pleasure to use. I like the touch cover a lot. I can type well enough on it to be useful without being a hassle to lug around. I have never experienced lag with it yet.
Could MS improve the Surface? Of course. A higher DPI screen would be nice. A faster CPU is always nice. A lower price would be nice. Still despite all of this I still find this the most useful tablet I have used. As far as the paucity of apps goes, I think having half a million apps in your app store means a LOT of redundancy. MS is missing some key apps for me unfortunately which means I can't go to Win8 phone yet but as long as they keep adding quality apps I think this is the platform for me going forward. Reply
BlueInAtlanta - Sunday, December 30, 2012 - linkWhat a marvelous tablet. I use this device for all of my graphic design endeavors. Sending my sketches to clients is so fast with AT&T's 4G LTE (available here in San Francisco)! Reply
david4656 - Thursday, February 28, 2013 - linkI never used windows 8 tablet,only used android tablet. Reply

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Bisque & Glaze Firing at the Same Time
Posted 01 February 2013 - 01:34 PM
Mossy Rock Creations
High Point, NC
Posted 01 February 2013 - 05:55 PM
Neil Estrick
Kiln Repair Tech
L&L Kilns Distributor
Owner, Neil Estrick Gallery, LLC
Posted 01 February 2013 - 06:01 PM
The most problematic are cadmium/selenium reds. (un-encapsulated)
John Baymore
Adjunct Professor of Ceramics; New Hampshire Insitute of Art
Former Guest Professor, Wuxi Institute of Arts and Science, Yixing, China
Former President and Past President; Potters Council
Posted 01 February 2013 - 07:42 PM
That is why, I try to avoid combining loads of my student works. I swear, every time I try and toss a couple greenware projects in with some glaze, they end up exploding, getting small pieces on some of the glazeware. This is even if, I try to be cautious and put them on different levels. I apparently haven't paid enough tribute to the Kiln Gods.
- dolly likes this
Posted 02 February 2013 - 09:53 AM
Possibly a vent may help avoid this, but I can't say for sure. I never had a vent when I fired the combined bisque and glaze firings.
Posted 02 February 2013 - 07:05 PM
Mossy Rock Creations
High Point, NC
Posted 02 February 2013 - 07:19 PM
The only colours of glaze that I have noticed are affected by being next to greenware are commercial red glazes. They come out a nasty liver coloured brown. When I am firing my class work, I try to separate glaze from bisque, but it's often unavoidable to have two half loads, one of bisque and one of glaze. I now use commercial glazes which mature at cone 06, so I put the greenware in the bottom of the kiln, then the glaze stuff higher up. I have rarely had anything blow up, but when it does, man, those shards go EVERYWHERE! I say, "Go for it!", and I NEVER say that. Good luck.
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text:
CES 2006 - Day 2: Blu-ray/HD-DVD, PureVideo H.264, Viiv, Centrino Duo and a lot moreby Anand Lal Shimpi & Manveer Wasson on 1/7/2006 3:07 AM EST
- Posted in
- Trade Shows
38 Comments
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gibhunter - Monday, January 09, 2006 - linkIs that Serenity that I'm seeing on the Toshiba laptop playing back in high definition? If so, WHERE CAN I BUY IT?!!! and How much? Reply
Troll4Hire - Monday, January 09, 2006 - linkIs it just me, or am I the only one who saw the Motorola Bluetooth headset and laughed because it looks like a penis and testicles?
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/200...">Photo #1 http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/tradeshows/200...">Photo #2
http://anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=266...">http://anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=266... Reply
Jynx980 - Monday, January 09, 2006 - linkThe Vaio on "The Four Viiv PCs Worth Mentioning" looks a lot like a cash register with the keyboard on top. Reply
Doh! - Sunday, January 08, 2006 - linkIt's in Korean but you can see the specs.
http://www.trigem.co.kr/tgproduct/lluon/ProductDet...">http://www.trigem.co.kr/tgproduct/lluon...ctDetail... Reply
longfred - Sunday, January 08, 2006 - linkFor more info on the rollable display shown by Philips look at http://www.polymervision.com">www.polymervision.com. You can find some nice pictures and a video at the website (Technology -> download). Reply
HamburgerBoy - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkThat rollable display is pretty neat, but how does it work? For something that thin, would you have to use some really small batteries or what? Reply
AndrewChang - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkFor those of us unable to attend a show like CES, I appreciate the quality and focus of your coverage. It's a nice reminder that you guys are still as dedicated as ever to Anandtech, as the quality of some recent articles had left me wondering. Thanks. Reply
DanaGoyette - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkMy god, you could heat a house with that quad SLI system! What I want to know is how they plan to cool the inner heatsinks on those cards. This would be a really good use for a modded version of the Zalman TNN case.
Of course, they should ditch the dual Prescott (if that's what it is) and go with a custom Yonah board.
They'd be better off with a much longer heatsink with the fan perhaps sticking out the end, or something like that.
Quantum3D Mercury, anyone?
http://www.thedodgegarage.com/3dfx/q3d_mercury_bri...">http://www.thedodgegarage.com/3dfx/q3d_mercury_bri... Reply
Cygni - Sunday, January 08, 2006 - linkMercury? Puh shaw!
The Independence 2500! http://www.quantum3d.com/products/Independence/Ind...">http://www.quantum3d.com/products/Independence/Ind...
A nice little graph, haha: http://www.quantum3d.com/products/images/independe...">http://www.quantum3d.com/products/images/independe... Reply
ohnnyj - Sunday, January 08, 2006 - linkIt is interesting that the Quad SLI actually is stated to have over 40Gpixels/s output which is about 4 times the power shown in the graph there:
http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6020675.html">http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6020675.html Reply
Cygni - Monday, January 09, 2006 - linkEach 7800GTX 512 has a fillrate of 8.8 gigapixels. Normal 7800GTX has a 6.8 gigapixels. 4 512's, and full 512 clocks (I dont know if they ARE actually clocked that high, but lets assume), would give a fillrate of 35 gigapixels for 4.
Are there many games or displays in the world that can use this power? Hell no! haha Reply
jiulemoigt - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkCould I not simply buy a bluray drive and a hddrive and have both formats in my pc? Also R+ and R- had the same probs but they both sit on drives together, so it is just a matter of time for both to play nice. I like that neither is being forced into a compromise that limits the size or quality of the disks. Reply
nomagic - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkJust wait for 6 months. I am sure there will be bluray + HD-DVD combo drives. Unless one of the format dies, we are just going to repeat the old situation, in which a burner would feature both + and - format. Ah, this sucks. Reply
Cygni - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkIIRC, the HD laser and Blu Ray laser arent backwards compatabile. However, the HD and normal DVD lasers are. Meaning a combo Blu-ray+Normal DVD drive would need 2 lasers... and a Blu-Ray + HD-DVD + Normal DVD drive would also need 2 lasers.
As long as the HD-DVD laser can ramp up fast enough and be cheap enough, HD-DVD could survive by default. Reply
ArneBjarne - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkYou are wrong, both Blu-ray and HD-DVD use the same blue laser. The difference between the two is in disc structure. That is what HD-DVD shares with normal DVD, while BD has a totally new structure.
Both formats need triple lasers to support either CD/DVD/BD or CD/DVD/HD-DVD, and ALL drives that I have seen so far already have triple lasers. Reply
Cygni - Sunday, January 08, 2006 - linkYour right, same 450nm laser. Which brings up the immediate question, why not a Blu Ray + HD-DVD combo drive? It shouldnt physically require another laser, although i doubt either Blu Ray or HD-DVD are super enthused to make products like that. Reply
Pete - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - link"Wide color gamut even lager [...]"
Mmmm, colorful beer. *Drool* Reply
hoppa - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - link1/8" should be thin enough for anyone! Reply
Chadder007 - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkThanks for the great write up. I like the OLED display and the Paper displays. Also on the LCD's with the LED Backlight....couldn't they get some of the LEDs to turn off to give a super high contrast ratio on those? Like instead of the backlight LCDs now which the whole backlight is on and the LCD doesn't represent black that well, wouldn't the LED backlight be able to present a perfect black? Reply
Clauzii - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkBasically that sounds like a good idea to me too.. I think thats one of the Upsides with LED backlight. Reply
highlandsun - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkThese are edge-lit displays, i.e., the LEDs are all along one edge of the screen and lightguides are used to spread their light across the whole display surface. If you decrease the brightness of one or two LEDs that will cause a dark stripe. Probably not useful for most types of images. Reply
Clauzii - Sunday, January 08, 2006 - linkHmm - bummer! Would have been nice though...each backlit.... Reply
Lyman42 - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkI agree, the rollable display is probably one of the most innovative things shown in the article. I also wish that AMD SFF PC would be for sale outside of Asia; it looks very cool. As for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray (BR), anyone notice how ugly the HD-DVD box looks compared to BR's? I like that the Blu-Ray Boxes say 1080p right on the cover, great way to try and differentiate yourself from the competition for J6P. Reply
psychobriggsy - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkI didn't like the design of most of the VIIV devices. Still too 'PC' like.
That Dell VIIV device only had VGA output. Welcome to VGA resolution DRM video on your HDTV. Come on, a VIIV PC should have DVI with HDCP at least, and HDMI would be nice too.
The Intel VIIV machine looked awful. What is it with PC manufacturers and the desire for ugly buttons and nasty smokey-black plastic panels?
OTOH the OLED display looked great, amazingly thin. And the rollable display has a lot of promise for the future. Reply
lexmark - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkgreat article. looks like intel is really pushing forward on its viiv platform. i really liked alot of the case designs on display.
on the rollable paper idea, won't durability become a problem? something so thin and delicate looks easy to damage.
oh yea AT, stumbled upon a typo while reading:
The display was barely over an eighth of an inch "think" Reply
Iv3RSoN - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkThat AMD media center was sexii indeed. Reply
skunkbuster - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkthat rollable display looks really cool Reply
KashGarinn - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkIf anyone can find a link to a video of the thing, that'd be awesome.
K. Reply
longfred - Sunday, January 08, 2006 - linkhttp://www.polymervision.com">www.polymervision.com technology -> download gives you pictures and a video. Reply
xsilver - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkI think the idea of it keeping for months without power is pretty awesome, no cumbersome battery pack! Reply
DeathByDuke - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkdamn right,
electronic paper!
itd be cool to open a book of encyclopedia britannica and have each page display scrolling text from each article, and videos for each article too, all stored on some multi Gb flash storage in the book covers Reply
highlandsun - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkAll of the new display technologies look really intriguing. And I think it's about time someone got Uhura's earpiece done right. Reply
ComatoseDelirium - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - link
NVIDIA promised that both of these items would be available to end users in the next 2 - 3 months. While they are definitely lagging behind ATI in H.264 decode acceleration, at least NVIDIA has finally provided us with a working demo of the technology and they have also committed to us that it will work on all GeForce 6 and 7 GPUs (AGP and PCIe).
-Great News For AGP Users, I heard many claims that H.264 decoding wouldn't be possible, and is "broken" on the GeForce 6 series AGP cards. Good to hear from the horses mouth (owner of a 6600GT).
BTW The article index is messed up, the correct pages do not appear, can someone confirm this? Reply
s2kpacifist - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkNeed...OLED display...now... I hope they fix the problem with the life of the blue soon. Reply
shabby - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkDefinetly good to hear, but its wierd that the broken cards can decode h.264 but cant accelerate wmv9.
I really hope this hddvd/bluray shit gets worked out, i have no intention of buying players from both camps. Could of swore i saw a company come out with a player that read both formats some time ago. Reply
Cygni - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkh.264 is accelerated by simply "reprograming", if you will, the standard APU's and hardware on the card. No special stuff is needed. Theoretically, its possible with ANY modern GPU. Just gotta have the drivers to do it, assuming the cards got the juice to do it. The dead video decode engine on the early 6800 AGP cards was on the other hand a specially designed piece of hardware only for decode. Reply
Nobody Else - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkI believe that was Samsung that intends to come out eith a dual player.
http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?se...">Samsung Player
Aquila76 - Saturday, January 07, 2006 - linkThe index seems to be a page ahead (clicking on Page 16 brings up Page 17) Reply


text:
FHP: Beware of fake emails
Published: Friday, February 8, 2013 at 8:26 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, February 8, 2013 at 8:26 a.m.
The Florida Highway Patrol is warning residents that the agency is appearing in fake emails that could lead to a site with malware if links in the email are clicked.
In a press release, FHP states the emails will have the email address of "firstname.lastname@example.com" -- an indication that the email is fake.
"If you receive one of these emails and did not make a recent transaction, we recommend that you delete the message. If you have already opened the message, do not click any of the links within it," the release states, adding the emails are "a type of spam where an email is made to look like it is from a trusted source and aims to trick the recipient into following a link that will lead to a website with malware."
- Cindy Swirko
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


text:
American Jobs Act
In his address to Congress, the President laid out his plan to create jobs and grow the economy through the American Jobs Act. He reminded us that everyone should have the chance to 'make it in America' through hard work, and how many fear those days are gone.
That's why House Democrats developed the Make It In America plan: to restore the manufacturing engine that made our country great, and to renew the faith that working Americans can succeed. This plan includes several proposals the President discussed tonight, such as the creation of an infrastructure bank to facilitate investments in the roads and bridges that businesses need to thrive, and worker training to give Americans the skills they need to fill jobs that are available now, as well as those of tomorrow.
The American Jobs Act will be paid for. Reducing the deficit is one of the most important things we can do to strengthen our economy, but we must create jobs for our people. If we don't, we will not be able to balance our budget. The President laid out a path tonight for doing both.
Many of the ideas in the Make It In America plan and that the President discussed are supported by both parties, business and labor. The American Jobs Act can and should be passed swiftly through Congress. Americans cannot wait any longer for us to take action.
Learn more about the American Jobs Act:
Short Version Summary of the American Jobs Act
Long Version Summary of the American Jobs Act
The American Jobs Act: State by State
Impact for Hispanic Families and the Economy
Impact for African-American Families and the Economy
Impact for Native Americans and the Economy
Impact for Low-Income Families and the Economy
Impact for Women and the Economy
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text:
List of best Cardiac Electrophysiologist Doctors from trusted hospitals in Nahar Pur Rupa, Gurgaon. Get detailed info on educational qualification, experience and other credentials of Cardiac Electrophysiologist Doctors in Nahar Pur Rupa, Gurgaon. Check OPD schedule and book appointment online with best Cardiac Electrophysiologist from top hospitals in Nahar Pur Rupa, Gurgaon. Call 8010- 994- 994 to talk to in-house Credihealth experts for FREE medical assistance to choose the right Cardiac Electrophysiologist, get options for Second Opinion or other other medical assistance.
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text: You are looking through Zazzle.ca's aprons area, in which you can find many styles, colours, and sizes of aprons available for customisation or ready to buy as is. Most apron orders are made in 24 hours. The three popular styles that zazzle offers are the long apron, the kids apron, and the standard apron sizes. There is no minimum order size and most aprons can be customised with your pictures and text. To see some of the other products available on Zazzle.ca, check out our main area.


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A woman from (Utica, NY). Loves fake tans and she thinks striped nails with gem studs look "classy". Thinks all children are on WIC and the HEAP program is a family tradition. Collects some sort of public assistance yet still buys cigarettes and goes to club Lava. Typically has at least one child from her high school boyfriend and always has some sort of trouble with their ex. Thinks she really hit it big when she gets a guy that runs a forklift, not just working in a warehouse. Has no problem if he has only been to jail once...or twice.
Utica Girl-After I get my nails done we'll meet yous guys at Lava, but first I gotta go by my ex's house and drop off the kids. That mother fucker needs to give me more child support.
by Johnnyroc December 17, 2012
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Makers' Lab: Science & Technology Workshops: Robot Design Lab
This event has already taken place. Click here for the latest events.16-04-2014 12:00:00 16-04-2014 12:00:00 America/New_York Makers' Lab: Science & Technology Workshops: Robot Design Lab | 10am-4:45pm Robots are everywhere in our world and are used for different purposes. Design a robot using recycled materials and a windup mechanism. What will your robot do? http://www.nymetroparents.com/2015neweventinfo.cfm?id=160053 Children's Museum of Manhattan Children's Museum of Manhattan
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Venue Description: Hoping to motivate children and families to learn about themselves and the various cultures of the world, the Children's Museum of Manhattan (CMOM) houses a variety of interactive exhibitions and programs. Over 80 workshops, classes, and performances are offered FREE with admission to the museum each week. The museum boasts four priority areas: its early childhood education program, which prepares children for kindergarten; creativity in the arts and sciences to encourage creative and analytical thinking; healthy lifestyles programs that address the physical and emotional feelings within a family; and the exploration of world cultures, which provides children with an awareness of our diverse society. Additional programs and exhibits include the celebrated PlayWorks? floor for preschoolers; Gods, Myth and Mortals: Discover Ancient Greece, which is designed to introduce art, science, and literature to children; and the Healthy Living programming, created with healthcare providers to encourage good nutrition and daily exercise. Current limited-time programs include Amusement Park Science and American Dreamland: Artwork by Philomena Maran.
Upcoming Events at Children's Museum of Manhattan: