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Introducing the 2012 Mobile Benchmark Matrixby Jarred Walton on 1/6/2012 8:02 PM EST
48 Comments
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codedivine - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkCan you include the Chromium compilation test that you to do for CPU tests?
And I would very much like to see Blender too if possible. Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkI need to see if I can get Anand (or someone else) to walk me through the entire Chromium compilation process. I tried to get that working at one point and after wasting several days with nothing to show for it I gave up. LOL. (Yes, I followed a guide, but even then it didn't work for me.) If someone has a step-by-step guide that they: A) know works, and B) is free (open source) for all needed tools, and C) works with Windows 7 64-bit... post a link. Remember, not only do I need to figure out how to run the compile test, but so does Dustin and anyone else we have doing laptop reviews. :-) Reply
Conficio - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkI'd second that. A compilation test would be great.
I'd even love to see some sort of Java test, may be an Eclipse Import a large project from zip and wait until it has finished updating the workspace. Reply
coolhardware - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkI realize it is not as demanding as many of the other games, but so many people play it (and will play it for years to come) that is sure seems like it deserves a spot.
Still, thanks for keeping your benchmark suites fresh and relevant!
PS if anybody has tips/suggestions on the best <a href="http://www.jdhodges.com/2011/06/best-starcraft-2-g... for SC2 please let me know, thanks! [not talking about bells and whistles...but rather comfort, performance and reliability] Reply
coolhardware - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkSorry about that malformed URL. Here's the correct one: http://www.jdhodges.com/2011/06/best-starcraft-2-g...
PS any other games people are missing or games that you are excited to see WERE added? Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkUltimately, Dustin and I decided to drop SC2 from the list because it:
1) doesn't scale at all with more than 2 CPU cores
2) is rather a pain to benchmark
3) is DX9 only
4) runs more than fast enough at all but the most demanding settings
Basically, it's more of a CPU benchmark in most cases, as even with lots of stuff happening on screen the two-core nature of the engine doesn't allow it to scale that well. Sure, at Ultra quality with 4xAA forced on in your drivers (another pain to deal with), it drops FPS down to around 23 on the G74SX, but that still doesn't address the other items I'm concerned with. I figure if Civ5 and TWS2 run on a laptop, SC2 will run fine as well. Reply
coolhardware - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkCool, thanks for listing those factors.
It makes a lot more sense to me now to drop it, since it sounds like a real PITA to benchmark :-) Also, you raise a good point that if higher end games play okay on a particular laptop then SC2 should be good to go...
Appreciate all the hard work you guys do! Reply
zebrax2 - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkMaybe you could include at least rage? Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkWe had intended to include Rage, right up to the point where it was released and we discovered that it is largely useless as a benchmark:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4970/rage-against-th... Reply
ltcommanderdata - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkCould you consider including Brink? Admittedly it's id Tech 4, but heavily modified to make use of OpenGL 3.1. It also uses virtual texturing like RAGE. The upcoming Prey 2 also uses id Tech 4 so performance in Brink does have forward looking relevance. Reply
Ryan Smith - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkBrink's really not any better. It's a multiplayer game that no one plays (and I say that as an owner), and because it's a MP game there's no practical way to structure a repeatable benchmark.
We would have definitely liked to include an OpenGL game, but even I have to admit that OpenGL just isn't very important right now. Maybe Doom 4 or Prey 2 will change that, but with id not licensing Tech 5, OpenGL is quickly becoming an API that's only applicable to id games. Reply
jjj - Friday, January 06, 2012 - link"as where many wouldn't notice the difference between a web page loading in two seconds and a web page loading in one second"
That's not all that true,there are some actual numbers from Google and Amazon about how page loading time relates to sales/searches:
-Amazon : every 100 ms increase in load time of Amazon.com decreased sales by 1%
-Google: a change in a 10-result page loading in 0.4 seconds to a 30-result page loading in 0.9 seconds decreased traffic and ad revenues by 20%.
In the end it might be a more usefull test than some synthetic tests already on the list.
Intel low power CPUs choke when both GPU and CPU are active and maybe the 17W Trinity SKUs will too.Maybe there should be a test that reflects that,besides the gaming ones since it's a rather important piece of info.
Finally,the most important test that is missing is WIFI perf,it is a mobile device after all. Reply
Conficio - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkIt's so funny that Google knows about the numbers and does even provide tools to measure the load times and make suggestions how to improve. However when I run the performance analysis against one of my websites, some of the suggestions to improve are for the Google Analytics, and Google Adsense scripts (like not allowing caching of the script, or only allowing for less than a week, or scripts loaded from redirections, etc.).
I also see many web pages waiting for serves that load google AdSense or analytics.
Is it just me, or should Google start to eat it's own dog food? Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkWhat would you like us to test with WiFi? Maximum throughput? Part of that will be determined by the chipset, a larger part more than likely will come from the choice of router, and the rest is noise and interference between runs. I do make a point of listing the WiFi chipset, which tells you about 90% of what you need to know.
(Hint: 1x1:1 MIMO solutions are the bottom of the barrel and come in most laptops; the 2x2:2 solutions are okay, and if you have a 5GHz router that can really help remove interference. I've only tested about three laptops with 3x3:3 MIMO over the years, and sadly my current router can't even support the maximum throughput.) Reply
jjj - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkYou guys are already testing WIFI for phones and tablets,it's easy to just apply the same methodology.I do have a hard time understanding why do it there and not here and this internet thing is something that tends to be used a lot.
I guess testing notebooks started by doing the same thing as on desktops and it didn't seemed obvious that this should be tested. Listing the part used helps only folks that know what it means and you get what you expect only if the OEM does things right. I don't have a laptop example but look at Asus Transformer Prime and it's WIFI and GPS problems, can you be sure that there aren't a bunch of laptops that offer a lot less than they should? Poor WIFI perf could also be a deal breaker for many,if they knew about it and maybe,just maybe,some manufacturers would pay more attention to it. Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkFor smartphones, you're looking at 1x1:1 2.4GHz solutions with a very small device that can easily run into connectivity problems if, for instance, the casing is all aluminum. For laptops, it's usually not much of a concern (e.g. they're plenty large to route wires in a sensible fashion for the antennae). WiFi speeds usually aren't a concern unless you're transferring large files. If you're doing that, then you're going to typically be at the limits of the chipset, not the laptop, and you'd be far better off with Ethernet regardless.
Anyway, there are other problems with trying to test laptop wireless speeds. One is that we have at least two different test locations, so that necessitates getting identical hardware on both sides -- router for sure, and testing location won't be identical. Even with the right hardware, outside interference (from neighboring networks) is a potential problem.
The better solution IMO is a separate review of wireless chipsets. I tried to do that with the Killer Wireless-N review a while back, and Brian is working on a more complete roundup of wireless chipsets. Outside of that review, I'll see what Anand thinks about getting us equipped with the necessary hardware to test wireless. Reply
jjj - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkmaybe this helps http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-f...
Anyway design matters here too and ofc it impacts range too not only throughput.For using Ethernet,you don't always have it,maybe you use your laptop mostly as a desktop replacement but in the end that's not it's main purose for many.
The differences are there and i don't know how many folks wouldn't care at least about range. Reply
jalexoid - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkPlease, please, please add OpenGL benchmarks for professional users. OpenCL would be quite good also, specifically data transfer between the main mem to graphics memory. Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkWe generally run SpecViewPerf on workstation GPUs (Quadro FX), but is there really a desire to see those tests run on consumer graphics as well? Even a basic Quadro FX will generally outperform the fastest consumer cards in professional OpenGL testing, simply because of the drivers/firmware.
For OpenCL, Ryan tests that on GPUs to some extent, but I'm not sure how many people are seriously looking at OpenCL performance on laptops. Would you suggest using the same tests as Ryan is using, or do you have some specific OpenCL benchmark you'd like us to run? Reply
ltcommanderdata - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkPowerDirector 10 uses OpenCL to render it's video effects. Video editing seems like a good use case that most users can relate to rather than say fluid simulation or Monte Carlo calculations.
PowerDirector 10 also supports AMD APP Acceleration (which is OpenCL I suppose), nVidia CUDA, and Intel QuickSync for final encoding so could be useful to compare each platform's ideal accelerated encoding method.
The upcoming WinZip 16.5 is supposed to be OpenCL accelerated for compression, decompression, and encryption making another benchmark with a use case that is applicable to most users. Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkI don't know anyone that uses PowerDirector 10, so I'd be curious about how it's viewed (note: I'm not a video editor by any stretch). WinZip on the other hand is a far more interesting option; I'll keep an eye out for that one. :-) Reply
Ryan Smith - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkI'd note that we dropped our video encoding benchmark on GPU Bench midway through the year last year, because GPU accelerated video encoding was actually CPU limited. Performance quickly plateaued at GTX 460/Radeon 5750 levels, as at that point the GPUs outran the CPU. Reply
QChronoD - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkWould it be possible to add the screen size to the specs listed for each system in Bench? It's kinda silly to be missing since that's one of the primary criteria people use to narrow down models. Reply
ArKritz - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkWouldn't it make more sense to just use medium presets for the medium benchmark, high for high, ultra (or very high) for ultra and just drop the "low" benchmarks altogether? Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkBasically, we've done what you suggested, only we call the settings Low, Medium, and High rather than Medium, High, and Ultra. It just seems weird to call test settings Medium/High/Ultra--or take it to another level and test at High/Very High/Extreme--when we can call the settings Low/Med/High. It's just semantics. Anyway, the settings were selected for two things:
1) Get reasonable quality for the target res/setting (Min/Low is often insufficient)
2) Make sure there's a difference between the detail settings (this is why we don't test DiRT 3 at Ultra and Ultra + 4xAA for instance).
In several games, the difference between many of the settings is negligible, both in terms of quality and in terms of performance. We don't feel there's much point in testing at settings where games run at 100+ FPS unless there's no other option (e.g. Portal 2), and likewise we didn't want to have results where it was basically same quality, different resolution (unless we couldn't find a better option). Batman is another example of this, as 1366x768 at Low settings is only slightly slower than 1366x768 at Very High settings. Anyway, the main thing was to let people know exactly how we plan to test in one location, so that I can just link it in future reviews. Reply
Gast - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkHave you looked at changing the names to providing some sort of meaning other than just the level of the test? Something along the lines of "Playable, High Quality, Max Quality"
Changing the names from Medium, High, and Ultra will be jarring for me. When skimming I will see "Low" and think the minium settings needed to run the game. Which is different than the "playable" or "medium" settings you are presenting.
While I can learn to adjust to this change, irregular AT readers might not and walk away with the wrong impression of what the test was representing. Reply
PolarisOrbit - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkI agree that when you use the terms "low / medium / high" there is an implication that you may be referring to the in-game settings rather than your interpretation of the different settings that are worth benchmarking. A careless reader may not notice the difference.
To me, it makes sense to compare a cheap laptop to the cheap level and an expensive laptop to the expensive level (obviously I mean expensive gaming laptop since for a gaming benchmark). So I would suggest dividing it by market segment like so:
low -> value settings
medium -> mainstream settings
high -> performance settings Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkOur charts will continue to list the game settings we use for testing, plus I intend to link back to this article on the gaming section so that new readers can understand exactly what we're testing. We could also call the settings "Value/Mainstream/Performance" or something, but all that really says to me is "they are using custom settings so make sure you know what is being tested". Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
I think at some point I need to go through the games and capture screenshots at our Low/Med/High settings as well to give a better indication of what the various settings mean -- and maybe add a "minimum" screenshot as well to show why we're skipping that in most titles. That probably won't happen until post-CES though. Reply
Gast - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - link"they are using custom settings so make sure you know what is being tested"
That's basically what I'm pushing for. If would be ok if your medium test was very similar to the medium setting, but since almost all of your tests have a naming conflict with in game settings (low test = medium settings) I would find it helpful to call them something different. Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkOkay, I've gone ahead and renamed the benchmarks to Value/Mainstream/Enthusiast, as I can see where confusion might otherwise result. Hopefully I caught all the references, but if not I'm sure someone will set me straight. :-) Reply
bennyg - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkWhen I read the headline... nice fancy name there for just a reshuffle of what you already do. And there's enough of that going around already isn't there...
I skim through AT reviews despite superior production quality.
I read notebookcheck reviews in full despite frequent editing and translation errors because (aside from much preferring monolithic-single-page-rendering...) they consider so many more aspects to the product in front of them.
They also take the effort to disassemble and put up a lot more pictures of the unit and thorough screen (incl viewing angle) assessment. If I google a model for reviews, I want to read new stuff (not most of the same stuff as every other review) and NBC gets my browser time most of the time for that reason.
And please please please incorporate some of the methodology from http://techreport.com/articles.x/21516 rather than just simplistic FPS measures, especially for the SLI/Xfire setups... Reply
JarredWalton - Friday, January 06, 2012 - linkFancy headline for a "reshuffle"? How about, I thought it would be useful to open up discussion to see if there's anything we missed that people would like to see us include, along with a detailed list of the benchmark settings we're using for games (so that I don't have to try and put this all into each laptop review)? And you do realize that this is an article specific to laptop testing, so we're not going to go into more detail on gaming performance and we rarely test SLI/CF setups, right? As for the pictures, I'm not sure what more you'd want from us. We do everything you mention -- screen angle shots, pictures from lots of angles, etc.
Anyway, as I note in the article, we're open for suggestions on what you'd like to see added that isn't already there. Notebookcheck has a rundown of each laptop that's pretty much just regurgitating the spec sheet, so I think we're covered there. We run a standardized set of benchmarks that includes more detailed graphs, though perhaps some would prefer the NBC approach (e.g. just show the scores from the laptop being tested with a "heat map" below showing the spread and frequency of other scores)?
Consider the scope of the review and by all means let us know which aspects of laptop reviews you'd like us to cover more. About the only major test that NBC runs that we don't have is CrystalDisk, but I'm not sure how useful that really is. SSDs are much faster than HDDs, and the differences between HDDs are largely meaningless by comparison. I generally figure anyone after fast storage for a laptop will be looking to upgrade to an SSD regardless, and if that's the case they'll be reading our SSD reviews after determing which laptop they want. But let me throw this out there:
Are there others that would like us to run one of these "quick and dirty" storage benchmarks on the laptops we test? Is the PCMark 7 Storage score insufficient in what it reports? I'm not going to add a test because of one request for it, but if a lot of you would like some additional tests let me know. Reply
kedesh83 - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkYou would think most laptop gamers would be either playing World of warcraft, or Starcraft 2. I'm not being a fanboy or anything but why would they not include those in the games list? Most of the kids i see playing games on my campus are playing Blizzard titles. Reply
JarredWalton - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkThey're older games and DX9 titles as well. If the gaming suite we test runs sufficiently fast on a laptop, I can pretty much guarantee SC2 and WoW will run. Reply
ananduser - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkWhen testing the battery please include a moderate amount of FLASH only sites the likes of Tag Heuer or famous car brands flash minisites. Flash is an important part of the web and would make your tests more realistic. Reply
signorRosso - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkIn hardware or software?
10-bit is mentioned at the bottom of this AT article page...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4380/discrete-htpc-g... Reply
signorRosso - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkDisregard the previous comment entirely! Reply
Paedric - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkI don't know if it is possible to do it, or if it is useful, but what about testing the performance of virtual machines?
Also, you said you now use IE9 instead of IE8, is there a significant difference in battery life between Chrome/Firefox/IE9/Opera? Reply
gero9mo - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - link" I'm not sure most users would notice the difference between a 2GHz Core 2 Duo or Athlon X2 laptop and a quad-core i7-2760QM. This is why battery life is such an important element, as where many wouldn't notice the difference between a web page loading in two seconds and a web page loading in one second, they're far more likely to notice two hours of battery life versus four or eight hours. "
I can honestly tell you that one second feels for me like a lifetime in computing. If i where to load 100 pages during a surfing-session, if i can call it that (my English ain't the best), I would most certainly prefer those pages to load in 1 second instead of two. And, in the werry moment you get to a bit more complex page, you are without a doubt gona notice a difference between lets say a Intel Sandy Bridge based CPU versus any AMD CPU. Most users also do other stuff than just surf a web-page. They also extract zip,rar and other files, and even here youre gona notice a difference between Athlon X2 and a i7-2760QM. And if youre seeling computers, be shure to look two to three years forward in time. I would prefer to sit with a i5-2310M versus any Athlon X2 laptop.
So even if most people won't notice a huge difference, a second here and a secongd there still counts. Reply
PreacherEddie - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkOn the third page, third paragraph from the bottom: "We are still early enough in 2011...", I think should be "2012", unless you also have developed that time travel machine. Reply
losonn - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkA few thoughts for someone who went out and bought an XPS 15 L502x immediately after reading your L501x / L502X reviews.
I've got to agree with an earlier poster that I always skim the mobile reviews here at AnandTech, but frequently find myself referring to laptop reviews elsewhere (including notebookcheck.net) for better formatted specs, more helpful product pics, more dense information, specific noise / heat info, power adapter weight / pics, build quality opinions, etc.. Your current article format is perfect for pro hardware and new tech reviews (7970 review, vertex 3 review, etc.) but your consumer / mobile reviews could be a lot more dense ( http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Samsung-305U1A... ) or at least a little bit less ugly (see http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/4/2677801/hp-envy-1... ).
This may have more to do with your page layout formatting than anything else though, even on my 1080p screen I have to do a -lot- of scrolling on your site and the dropdown navigation for your articles is a bit clunky. This site has a solid reputation and I trust the recommendations of Anand more than any other tech site, but you could really use a facelift that was a little bit less all-business-all-the-time a la the asus transformer prime :)
As for benchmarks a sleep, hibernate, wake from sleep, wake from hibernate could be really helpful. Reply
coolhardware - Sunday, January 08, 2012 - linkNice points here.
+Notebookcheck definitely does a great job. :-)
-To me though, theverge layout doesn't read/flow nearly as nicely as Anandtech does right now... :-( Reply
colonelclaw - Saturday, January 07, 2012 - linkOk, it's very niche, but if you would like to try a real ball-busting CPU test I would recommend a combination of 3DSMax 2012 and VRay. It's the most popular combination in the 3D world at the moment and nothing sucks the life out of a PC better than a VRay render.
Plus these days VRay is available for Max, Maya, Sketchup, Rhino, Softimage and probably more. It also runs on OSX under the apps available for that platform. Something to think about. Reply
RoninX - Sunday, January 08, 2012 - linkI'd like to request a benchmark for battery life when gaming. This wouldn't need to be the full set of gaming tests, but just one or two games run at value, mainstream, and enthusiast settings.
I own a high-end gaming desktop for gaming at home, but I also do a lot of business travel, and I like to having a laptop that can run games during long waits at the airport. Right now, I have a Dell XPS 15, which does pretty well, but in the future, I'd be interested to know the tradeoffs in battery life and performance for dedicated gaming laptops (e.g. Alienware) as well as high-end mainstream laptops (e.g. XPS).
I realize that laptop battery life is pretty poor across the board when running demanding 3D games, but for me, there's a big difference between 90 minutes (which I get from my XPS 15), and say, 20 minutes. With a spare battery, the former gives you 3 hours of gaming time -- more than enough for typical flight delays. Reply
JarredWalton - Sunday, January 08, 2012 - linkBesides tripling the number of battery life tests (ouch!), there are other factors to consider. First, you need a "game test" that's repeatable. If you play Batman for a couple hours on a laptop, and then play it again for a couple hours, I'm not sure the load will be the same. Then again, I doubt that the difference between Value/Mainstream/Enthusiast and even different games will be much -- they all activate the GPU and put a decent load on the CPU, so they're pretty much the worst-case scenario.
How about this one: start battery life timer, open Skyrim save, and let the laptop just sit there until it runs dead. (Note that Skyrim will have the camera start circling the player in third person mode after a minute or two of inactivity.) That's about as consistently repeatable as I can come up with, though not necessarily a realistic test case. I would also be willing to check battery life on one laptop at our three detail settings to verify whether there's a difference in battery life or not. I might also check out some other games to see if they show variance in battery life (and if I can find a good looping test). Let me see if we can come up with something reasonable -- and we'd also want to test performance on battery power, as most higher end GPUs really clamp down on maximum clocks when on DC power. Reply
RoninX - Sunday, January 08, 2012 - linkThat Skyrim test sounds good to me, and testing performance on battery power would also be very useful.
Thanks! Reply
joelypolly - Monday, January 09, 2012 - linkWould be nice to have a web based comparison table so you can compare things like viewing angles, general specs and performance. Reply
JamesAnthony - Thursday, January 12, 2012 - linkI was wondering if you would be able to add to the video tests for games more notebooks with Nvidia Quadro and ATI FireGL video cards, as Dell specifically & several other vendors tend to use those cards as the only option available in business level or professional level laptops & it would be nice to know how well you could expect your $1500 Business laptop $3,000 CAD laptop to play some games when you get home with it.
For Example
AMD FirePro M8900 Mobility Pro
NVIDIA Quadro 3000M
NVIDIA Quadro 4000M
NVIDIA Quadro 5010M
AMD FirePro M5950 Mobility Pro
NVIDIA Quadro 1000M
NVIDIA Quadro 2000M
NVIDIA NVS 4200M Reply


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Spring ME is a version of ME that not only runs on your cell phone, but also on any other Java platform not supporting reflection. It is to Java ME what Spring is to Java SE and Java EE, which is indicated by the name. However, the "ME" (Micro Edition) suffix not only refers to the platform it supports. It also refers to the size of the runtime, which is pretty minimal. In fact, it's pretty much non-existent, and therefore ideal for situations in which you cannot afford the sheer size of the traditional Spring runtime.
The overall objective of the XtreemOS project is the design, implementation, evaluation, and distribution of a grid operating system (called XtreemOS) with native support for virtual organizations (VO). XtreemOS is capable of running on a wide range of underlying platforms, from clusters to mobiles. It is based on Mandriva Linux, with support to come for other distributions later.
SCC is a cross-platform tool that counts the number of lines in source code files. It features a GUI that gives the user complete control over which files are processed. Blank lines are counted separately from lines containing source code statements. Configurable regular expressions can be applied to count parts of source code files separately. Regular expressions are applied according to a file type rather than to all files. It can process any textual source code file, includingJava, C/C++/C#, Perl, Python, PHP, Ruby, and TCL. The line count is split between blank, counted, and remaining lines. Results and summaries can be exported to a CSV file for further processing.
BRAP is a Java remoting protocol that uses native Java object serialization encapsulated in HTTP. It aims to be an alternative to Spring HttpInvoker and Spring Security, especially when you don't need or want the dependencies of Spring in your client, such as when building a rich client application where size might be an issue. The authentication mechanism lets you use your own domain objects as credentials. BRAP gives you "pass by reference" even though the object arguments are serialized and passed to the remote service: changes that happen on the remote side can be applied to the client side automatically. BRAP focuses on being easy to use, small in size, yet powerful and extensible.
Regular Expression Builder for Java (reb4j) is a simple set of classes that encapsulates the regular expressions used by java.util.regex.Pattern and provides facilities for composing larger expressions from sub-expressions. It effectively provides a way to build regular expressions without the risk of encountering PatternSyntaxExceptions at runtime.
jZebra is a Java applet which allows you to print barcodes, receipts, and more from a Web page to your industry printer. It sends raw print commands and basic HTML and PDFs to your raw, PostScript, or LaserJet printer. It has been tested with Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Opera. It supports parallel, serial, USB, and network printers.
With the Cibet framework, it is very easy to add various control mechanisms into a JPA and/or EJB-based Java application. The actual version includes control schemes like Archiving (manipulation of domain objects; data and execution of business processes are archived). From the archived state, domain objects can be reconstructed and business processes can be re-invoked with the same parameters at any time. The archive entries are secured against manipulation to make them audit-proof and revision safe. Four-eyes principle: this scheme is an example of a dual control mechanism: A user wants to perform some critical data manipulation or business process. With an applied dual control mechanism, the action is not executed in the production system directly, but stored and postponed. A second user must check the data and the action and can approve or decline. Only when the second user approves, the data manipulation or business process is executed in the production system; otherwise it is discarded. An even stricter example for a dual control mechanism is the six-eyes principle. In this case, a third user must approve a data manipulation or business process before it will become productive.
Icwri is a lightweight, very simple, service-oriented Java built-in script. It can help Java developers build some application interfaces in a service-oriented style. It can also help non-technical people join the development team to write their own application scripts to enforce business rules and decisions. Icwri service providers and consumers can be either Icwri scripts or Java classes. An Icwri script can run all alone, but the primary purpose of Icwri script is to have an assistant language of Java. It can run on any system with JDK/JRE 1.5 or above installed. It does not support Java SE 6 Script Engine because of the service-oriented design and the requirement to support Java SE 1.5 users.
GWiki is an embeddable Wiki engine. It allows users to edit rich text fragments in an application you develop. It supports I18N files and mulitimedia content. Gwiki can be extended with macros written in Java or Groovy. It has a powerful right and role system, which can be fed from external sources such as LDAP, and allows access to business entitiels from wiki pages. It comes with Wicket integration out-of-the-box. Wicket-HTML-Fragments can be held within GWiki, so these pages can be managed by the Wiki System, while Wicket handles the application logic. GWiki can be deployed as a servlet on every servlet container. GWiki can use a filesystem, a Zip archive, or a database for its content storage.
A tool that indexes directories and files from your filesystem into Solr.
An event and task manager.

subset: commoncrawl


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AMD Releases Catalyst 12.1 Preview – Custom Application Profiles, HD3D CrossFire, & Moreby Ryan Smith on 12/13/2011 1:00 AM EST
59 Comments
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james.jwb - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkGod dang finally! As a Minecraft player, it's been such a chore to have to turn off various AA settings (MC does not support AA or AF), and then back again for other games. I also play some older games with super-sampling on.
This feature is long overdue. It's so overdue that while i'm thankful it's finally here, it makes AMD look pretty silly to have made us all wait so long... Reply
burner1980 - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkIt is strange that only a few people use the RadeonPro tool. This tool offers app profiles for ages and is the best thing for AMD users.
You are able to tweak the settings in a very detailed way.
For example it manages to disable win7 aero when starting a game or forcing high process priority........ It is really great.
Thus, I couldn`t care less about the new setting.
You really should try RadeonPro tool yourself. (Damn, I sound like a sales person;-) Reply
james.jwb - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkwill have a look, but as the article said, it's nice to be able to have it in the driver. Reply
james.jwb - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - linkI'm converted! RadeonPro is a must-have app. So many options, and it's how profiles really should be handled. I also like being able to put triple buffering on for D3D games.
Excellent stuff, thanks for the recommendation. Reply
IceDread - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkIn the end I always end up tweaking to get the best performance, but I do not want to do that.
Custom profiles, it should not be needed. I do not view it as a treat. I see it like Amd has failed and gives the customer more to manage.
Since they have failed however, it's preferable to have some better tools at hand... Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkThe problem is they have been consistently failing with new releases for years, particularly on high-end systems with CrossFire, and realistically that's not going to get fixed by just "trying to do better with driver updates".
Custom application profiles have been need since the introduction of CrossFire and SLI, but only NVIDIA has done that until now. I suffered through poor CF support with X1900, HD 3870, HD 4870, and HD 5870, so I know what I'm talking about here. Now I run a single high-end GPU (GTX 580) on my gaming rig, and I've been so much happier with new releases. While in theory my CF 5870 solution is faster, the reality is that for most games the 580 wins out in consistency. Reply
Finally - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkIn my opinion, you wanted that bed (i.e. CF or SLI), when you bought it. Now lie in it and don't stress out people with your superficial 1st World problems... Reply
A5 - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkUm OK. Reply
Friendly0Fire - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkWhat's that for a reply exactly? This entire SITE is dedicated to squarely first-world issues and products. If you want to sing this tune, go sing it elsewhere. Reply
SlyNine - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkSounds like someone is insanely jealous lol. Whats a matter, you can't afford 2 5870's? poor you. Reply
james.jwb - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkWow, just wow... Reply
IceDread - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - linkLOL go cry a river somewhere else. Reply
Stuka87 - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkWait.. what?
What you just said does not make any sense. You are saying AMD has failed (at something, which you don't mention) and this is somehow some last straw attempt to fix things?!
The point of being able to make custom profiles is so that we can tweak each game the way we like it. Some game engines do better with some settings than others. There is no such thing as "one setting to rule them all" because each game engine is designed differently, and therefore settings will effect them differently. While nVidia/AMD can have issues with certain games individually, each game engine has more global issues that effect both card makers. Reply
james.jwb - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkOn top of this, some games get old but are still played. Settings that were valid 2 years ago won't be now. Like I said, i now run Super-Sampling on some games and still get 60fps. Do you honestly expect AMD to update old game profiles for me? No, but now i can.
Just because you fail to see the point, does not mean there isn't one, or some. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkBest post. Reply
Samus - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkCrossfire has, and always will be, a trailing rip-off of SLI. There's no room to argue that nVidia ripped-off SLI from 3Dfx because the implementations were completely different (only 3Dfx's last Voodoo5 5000-6000's were actually digital SLI, all early implementations were analoge alternating scan-lines)
Crossfire clearly takes the SLI recipe but doesn't deliver a refined product. Microstutter, driver issues, compatibility, and performance are worse across-the-board on ATI Crossfire products.
-nVidia SLI has virtually no microstutter, where ATI products need a three-way configuration to eliminate it.
-ATI drivers have improved, but still show signs of the Rage-days. Features are missing, game compatibility is always poor at launch (Battlefield 3 is a good example) and I wouldn't consider them UNIFIED like nVidia drivers (you can still install a nVidia driver and it will support a Geforce 2 MX, ATI drivers stop at X1300)
-There is no room to argue that nVidia puts more effort into SLI profiles than ATI. No room. Currently over 400 games are supported by SLI, ~130 games are supported by Crossfire.
-Performance speaks for itself. SLI is faster in every situation comparable cards are teamed when compared to comparable ATI Crossfire cards. Reply
JlHADJOE - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkLast I recall, Nvidia bought 3Dfx. It's a bit hard to "rip-off" a feature you already own. Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - link"-nVidia SLI has virtually no microstutter, where ATI products need a three-way configuration to eliminate it."
Not quite. NVIDIA still suffers, though not as much as AMD (not ATI, AMD) does:
Yes, 3 cards does pretty much pull AMD back to the same level as NVIDIA, however it's not too outlandish to expect NVIDIA cards to suffer more in one or two titles than AMD ones.
"-ATI drivers have improved, but still show signs of the Rage-days. Features are missing, game compatibility is always poor at launch (Battlefield 3 is a good example) and I wouldn't consider them UNIFIED like nVidia drivers (you can still install a nVidia driver and it will support a Geforce 2 MX, ATI drivers stop at X1300)"
if you had a GeForce 2 MX system, I think you'd be a little annoyed downloading 61MB for the last ForceWare drivers made for such cards... in 2006. I will point out that the current GeForce drivers (285.62) support down to the GeForce 5 FX Series and not the GeForce 2 MX. In any case, if you wanted older ATI drivers, you could just locate them online. It's really not an issue.
"-Performance speaks for itself. SLI is faster in every situation comparable cards are teamed when compared to comparable ATI Crossfire cards."
AMD cards scale just as well if not more so with the 6-series cards. The aforementioned link shows SLi and CrossFire scaling in the same article. Reply
SlyNine - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkWow, This comment takes the face palm of the day reward...
Dude, you don't HAVE to tweak for the best performance, but of course you won't get the best performance. Most games all I have to do is set the resolution and in game settings, Or do you expect AMD to somehow do that through the drivers for you ????
This is just an OPTION so that if you do set things for one game (like SSAA) you don't have to go and reset the optimum settings for other games each time you play a different game, This makes things EASIER! If you don't want any hassles then DON'T FREKEN USE THE CCC AT ALL the defaults work fine for pretty much any game out there, with reduced image quality and/or performance. Better yet, go play on a console, but don't bitch because AMD just made it EASIER to tweak per game instead of having to do it on a global level. Reply
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkSo, what you want to do is have the hardware read your mind and set the software preferences for you?
These things are already automated as much as they can be, up until the point where the hardware and software have so much power they can run everything perfectly at max specs. Customizable profiles are a must because people view different aspects of what they see as more important - some might run with a lower frame rate for a higher quality image, for example, while others do it the other way around. Only you can decide what is the best way to tune your game (or other app) for you.
;) Reply
poohbear - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkCustom application profiles is long overdue! i remember when i switched from Nvidia to AMD i was shocked they didnt have something so rudimentary! The last 3 months have been a mess for AMD in the driver department, to the point wherein they're releasing 3-4 driver versions a month from October- December! Their nomenclature for these driver releases are also a mess, 11.11a, 11.11 CAP drivers, 11.11 preview drivers, 11.11 performance drivers, i mean seriously it was getting absurd! If i had just switched to AMD in the fall of 2011 i'd be totally confused! They dropped the ball big time but hopefully they'll recover in winter 2011/12 and regain their reputation. Otherwise there's always Nvidia to go back to. Reply
piroroadkill - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkBasically there's only one thing I want this for, turning on Morphological AA where games don't support AA. I'm looking at you, GTAIV. Reply
Revdarian - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkDon't use MLAA, if you want a good AA for GTAIV use the SMAA 1.2 injector here:
much MUCH better quality, and almost no performance hit to speak of.
Personally i recommend using the config to start//stop AA use with keycode 145 = scroll-lock. Reply
hechacker1 - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkI'd love to use something like SMAA, but for multiplayer games I wouldn't dare or risk getting banned since this "injects" SMAA into the game code. Though I'm really not sure how this affects the game. Perhaps it only applies a filter above the game layer. Reply
Revdarian - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkYes, for multiplayer your best bet is to try and contact tech support with the proper program and ask if it would trigger it, or if it could be added to a whitelist.
This would be an uphill battle, but with enough people interested it could work.
In any case in the future we will see SMAA directly in games, like FXAA and the improved MLAA can be found already. Reply
MTDEW - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkThe way profiles are implemented is clunky at best.
Like i wanted to just "tweak" the pre-defined Skyrim profile to force 16x aniso,and it doesn't let you do that, you either override the entire default profile or stick with what AMD has for the pre-defined profile.
It would be a lot nicer to be able to load the pre-defined profile first, then just adjust it as needed.
The way it is now, you choose pre-defined or you set everything manually.
I'm not biased to red or green either way, but Nvidia definitely does profiles better.
Just as mentioned above , it seems shoehorned in.
I don't see how it could have possibly have taken them so long to implement a much needed feature and still not get it quite right.
Don't get me wrong, i love my 6950's , but my wife's GTX 470 still makes me jealous sometimes. Reply
MrSpadge - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - link"It would be a lot nicer to be able to load the pre-defined profile first, then just adjust it as needed."
Totally agreed! Like "If I don't change it, continue to use what you think is good."
MrS Reply
chizow - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkAgreed, its not parity with Nvidia's profiling yet but its a big step in the right direction for AMD. Its just unnecessarily redundant to have to re-create the profile blindly from scratch, which will be the case as long as this remains true:
AT - "Note that this is just a listing of custom profiles, so pre-defined profiles continue to remain hidden." Reply
Arbie - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - link
On a WinXP Pro / HD5770 system, it's been 18-24 months since any version of CCC would install and launch. The drivers install OK, but not the interface.
I once stripped every reference to CCC off the machine and out of the registry, reinstalled for the umpteenth time, and it ran... until the next driver update. Then CCC was permanently broken again. It's not worth the trouble to keep it going, so I do without.
From the forums I know that a number of people have this problem, but AMD is either unaware or the affected user base is too small to address it. Reply
erple2 - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkDoes Microsoft even support Windows XP anymore if you're not an enterprise user? Reply
Setmose - Sunday, December 18, 2011 - linkYes. Updates are coming all the time. Reply
xeizo - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkIt never was a problem about 2 years ago, then it started, to the point myself at least hesitate a lot before I upgrade any Catalyst because I know there may be much work involved to get CCC up and running and since my HTPC uses AMD HD4850 I need CCC to tweak compliance with my TV, screen size to remove borders etc.
I also have a laptop with AMD HD5650 which I simply haven't upgraded.
My Nvidia boxes, four of them, haven't had a problem and one of them is even Linux happily running latest drivers with control panel and everything. One doesn't even have to restart Windows when installing Nvidia drives these days, robust they are, to say the least. That's why I prefer Nvidia even if the hardware should be inferior. Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - linkI'm sorry you're getting problems, however my HD4830 driver updates always go without a hitch and without a reboot now I'm using Windows 7. Reply
Finally - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkWhen you said: "With the introduction of driver enhancements [...] and the widespread use of multi-GPU" I spilled my drink. Where exactly do you live, AnandTech? WHO (TF) are you writing for?
Also: How much drugs does it take to get there?
Your focus on the inferiority-com, sry, enthusiast crowd is all nice and well, but did you consider that this automatically means catering only to "the 1%"?
Imagine, I'm interested in hardware as well! Well, I'm part of the crowd that COULD buy your highly praised ridiculous crap, but intentionally does NOT... Just not the kind of Gargantuan shizzle you keep promoting.
I also abhor Multi-GPU setups and overpriced prestige class hardware that bombs in every single aspect except performance but draws too much power, gets too hot, too loud and requires retard-O-class power supplies...
I you took a look at the steam hardware survey, you would have spilt your drink as well.
Maybe in your little enthusiast dream world where each car is either a Ferrari or a Hummer (there is no alternative!), this kind of inefficient crap plays a role...
What I find disgusting is the fact that you actively promote acting like some brain-damaged consumer who wastes like there is no tomorrow.
In case the earth gets inhabitable, we'll just whip out the spare... sooo, about time for my monthly GPU upgrade!
Giving sensible recommendations like that time old adage that buying around the ~150€ price point every two generations will generally set you up with enough performance to easily match any multi gpu setup from that same generation plus side benefits is lame.
Testing middle class hardware that rules @ price/performance or energy/performance is really BORING, isn't it?
And being sensible is bad for sensationalism, isn't it?
So, please keep on writing about 1500W power supplies, quadruple GPU setups and 999€ Octacore CPUs - as general IQ* is falling, interest should be on the rise.
*This also means there will be a huge need for moar! VIDEO reviews among the well-off illiterate few (aka spoilt brats). Keep that in mind. Reply
A5 - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkThey talk about this stuff because high-end hardware drives page views. There is plenty of coverage of "middle-class" hardware when appropriate (I assume you missed the low-end system builder guide a couple weeks ago?), but the high-end, bleeding edge stuff is more interesting to discuss because it shows where the mid-range hardware is going to be in a year or two.
You need to relax - the internet is not "srs business". Reply
Revdarian - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkCool off a bit bro, you are actually coming out looking like the "Militant Black Guy" of the Balls of Steel show. Reply
DParadoxx - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkPerhaps you should not be browsing enthusiest web sites if that is not your cup of tea. Reply
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkThe fact is, multi-card setups are not "just for the rich" these days; there have been viable options for improved performance over single card solutions that end up costing more than the dual card setups, and that has lead to a wider acceptance and use of the technology amongst those that pay attention and aren't prejudiced against it.
If you have an existing card that doesn't quite measure up, it can be a good idea to put a second one in it to get a huge boost in performance at a relatively small cost, certainly cheaper than buying a better card that offers 50-100% more performance, which you can easily get from a dual card rig these days.
I wouldn't exactly call Steam users a definition of who gamers, or PC users, are. Frankly, though I've had a Steam account since their early days (came "free" with a video card purchase, back when their was actually a subscription fee) I considered their service low quality for most of that time. It is now a decent way to buy your games and keep them upgraded, though I still don't use it unless I'm forced to. I'll be honest, I think of most Steam users as low-tech gamers who have no clue what kind of video card they even have in their system, and if they do know, it's because they think that having a high end card gives them a bigger, uh, head, and makes them a superior gamer just because they have the card.
Steam never asked me my opinion about anything. If they have an idea what I'm running on one of my computers, it's because I had to use Steam to install Duke Nukem Forever and the gathered the info in the installation process.
Your post is one of the most narrow-minded pieces of garbage I've ever read on Anandtech. Frankly, I don't know why you ever bother to read anything, judging by this post, your mind is already made up and you severely edit whatever you read to see only what you want to see in order to stay pissed off and feel superior to the rest of us. Your idea of Anand and the site is so far off the mark it lives in loony town. Reply
Death666Angel - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkJust to offer the opposite side of the arguement:
SLI/CF of similar performance still uses more power (my 550W PSU from Silverstone isn't even certified to run anything above 2xHD4850. I have a HD5770 and adding a second one would void my warranty and they do not guarantee functionality, whereas I can use any single-GPU high-end card I like).
CF/SLI only offeres a better package if you don't mind the driver headaches, increased head/noise and micro-stutter.
CF/SLI will depend on the kind of mainboard you have. Only 8x8 oder 16x16 can make the solution really viable. If you drop down to 16x4 you will lose about 10-30% performance last time I checked. Add the cost of the mainboard feature to the cost of SLI/CF cards and you get closer to a real comparison.
"Steam never asked me my opinion about anything. If they have an idea what I'm running on one of my computers, it's because I had to use Steam to install Duke Nukem Forever and the gathered the info in the installation process."
You can always opt out of steam collecting any info on you. Just FYI. Reply
Setmose - Sunday, December 18, 2011 - linkSpeaking of "retardo-power-supplies", try taking your tongue out of the wall socket. There. Much better. (Admittedly, I was impressed by your ability to continue typing while the high-voltage Tesla arcs were streaming off the ends of your shock-upright hair.) Reply
EnerJi - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkOf why I switched from PC to Console gaming years ago and never looked back. Reply
Stuka87 - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkTrue, consoles are less of a hassle. But then you get stuck with poor graphics, poor controls (For many game types), no customization, no modding, and the annoyance of playing with little kids online. Reply
silverblue - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - linkI had enough of some of those points (the last one especially) with Lineage II on the PC... Reply
A5 - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkThis is all optional unless you're running multiple cards (or are insane about IQ). On a single card system in good running order, nearly every game is just load and run. Reply
Death666Angel - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkGood for you. I like my PC, customization, functionality, versatility, upgradeability, superiority any day of the week. Also, I'm not really stupid, so I can handle it just fine. :P Reply
james.jwb - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - linknoob :) Reply
Samus - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkNobody is going to argue a single GPU is more efficient, for the same reason two of anything in life doesn't more than double efficiency.
But I SLI'd my GTX460 with a used one I purchased off eBay for 90 bucks making my setup on par with a GTX580 in Battlefield 3.
So basically I have a GTX580 for a 90 dollar investment, opposed to $300+. There are various reasons people run SLI, not just to take two ultra-high-end cards to get higher performance than any single GPU can achieve.
If you had a brain, you'd think before you type nonsense, but seeing you can't do simple math and clearly have no SLI/Crossfire experience, either, I won't overwhelm you with more facts. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkHe's kind of right. Waiting six months will usually net you a single card solution similar to the price and perf you find in a dual card setup. I can say this, because I have owned multiple crossfire and SLI boards over the years. I have yet to see the value in purchasing two cards, but then I don't have a need for an e-penis. I stay a bit behind the curve, there's little point in purchasing brand new untested hardware. Reply
arjuna1 - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkThe rest of the paragraph is fine and justified but:
"AMD outright blew the launch of Rage by posting a faulty driver"
Give credit where it's due, ID blew the launch of RAGE, that crapware did not run well on launch on either brand and, who's responsibility was to do proper QA testing before launch??
Certainly not AMD's.
This is just what needed, publishers and developers blaming it on drivers for mediocre and rushed products and review sites just playing along. Reply
Setmose - Sunday, December 18, 2011 - linkUm, it was almost a competitoin to see which community was more "outraged" by faulty AMD drivers at release: RAGE and Battlefield 3. id is not spotless, but the crazed response by AMD -- shooting out bad hotfixes 2 times in a row -- is pretty bad (wrong versions of OpenGL DLL both times). I sat it out until 12.1 Preview, and glad that I did. It meant that RAGE sat installed uselessly on my HD for a month and a half, but I have plenty of games to finish so no biggy for me. Reply
Setmose - Sunday, December 18, 2011 - linkThere was a large update via Steam for RAGE, so as I said, id was also responsible. But the game was not playable until AMD came through. The good news is that the game is now stable, and yes, it's a lot of fun. The smack-talk from the mutants is hilarious. The hype cause by the huge development time for idTech 5 engine *is* overblown. The game is pretty, but it's no quantum leap over various other engines like CryEngine, Frostbite, etc. Where RAGE really shines is in the world the artists have created. A refreshing new world to explore like Bioshock was at release. Let's face it, id is no longer king, but is still a player among the AAA big boys. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - linkAgreed. Although I can say I think I have? LOL I buy and sell them constantly. I find a good deal and buy! Can't help it, I'm an addict. Reply
undercoverdrunk - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - link3rd world success. Got computer... not attached to smart missle warhead. Reply
digitalzombie - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - linkUgh, their new proprietary fglx package sucks, shearing and 3d acceleration is a hit or miss. I hope they address these issues. Reply
Setmose - Sunday, December 18, 2011 - linkInstalled the XP version of 12.1 Preview Drivers. Finally, I have RAGE goodness on my Mac Pro 8-Core 2.93 GHz under Boot Camp. But the Catalyst Control Center is not the version shown in this article. I'm guessing that the version shown was coded for Aero GUI and they haven't done the CCC GUI for XP (if they ever will). No serious complaints here. Also got a 10% FPS boost in Crysis. Reply
Setmose - Sunday, December 18, 2011 - linkNote: I was pretty careful to uninstall everything AMD/ATI including a couple of runs of DriverCleaner, and keeping the system isolated from the Internet during the entire process (auto-updates). Tonight I'll re-launch the installer and see if in "Custom Install" there is an option for CCC, and what version it wants to put up, just to make sure. Reply
Setmose - Sunday, December 25, 2011 - linkNever mind. Found 'em. So, all is good in XP. :-) Reply
aztec123 - Wednesday, December 28, 2011 - linkstill cant play 4k videos with my HD6770, shame on you AMD... Reply
Impaqt - Friday, January 20, 2012 - linkDDO has no profile and I just added a second 4890 to my system. (I know.. Old.. But still providing great framerates so I just added a second because I got a good deal)
anyway, I setup a custom profile in 12.1a and didnt see any difference at all. AMD system monitor only reports 1 card working still.
am I out of luck with the 4 series or am I doing something wrong? I linked the profile to "dndclient.exe" Reply


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Intel's Atom Architecture: The Journey Beginsby Anand Lal Shimpi on 4/2/2008 12:05 AM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
46 Comments
Back to Article
adntaylor - Tuesday, April 08, 2008 - linkOn that chart with price / power, you need to be clearer...
For price, you show the combined price for CPU + Chipset. For power, you say just the CPU... so 0.65W for the CPU... but you're conveniently ignoring the >2W figure for the chipset!!! This absolutely flatters Intel wherever possible.
AMD are just as misleading - they describe the Geode LX as "1W" which excludes the non-CPU core parts of the chip (which is an integrated CPU + GMCH)
Just please be honest - the figures are out there in the Intel datasheets... it takes 10 minutes to check. Reply
Clauzii - Friday, April 04, 2008 - linkI still have a PowerVR 4MB addon card, runnung in tandem with a Rage128Pro. Quite a combination w. 15 FPS in Tombraider. Constant(!) 15FPS, that is..
Amazing what they actually achieved back in 95! Reply
Clauzii - Friday, April 04, 2008 - linkOoops!
Totally misplaced that. Sorry. Reply
wimaxltepro - Friday, April 04, 2008 - linkThe Atom represents a shift in processor architecture that is the most dramatic departure for Intel since introduction of x86 processors... the philosophy of how computing itself occurs from centralized processors to distributed processing based on an extension of the popular x86 instruction set.
The Atom is not about the immediate prospects for the Atom or Nehalem products: we will likely see members of Intel's new product family be used in embedded applications in consumer products and in areas where specialized communications processors are more the rule. While not optimized for use in specific networking applications, the products capitalize on the wide range of support available in IT/Networking to develop common functions that leverage the low cost, low power/processing capability to be used as a common denominator for a wide range of applications.
Intel has been built on the 'Wintel' architecture: massively integrated chips needed to handle the massively integrated operating systems and applications of Windows (and Apple) environments. The Atom allows migration and broadening out from that architectural motif to a very highly distributed architecture. So, the increased parallelism found in the internal chip architecture is enabling of changes in external system architectures and device applications that go well beyond the typical domain of Intel.. and right into the domain of 'personal wireless broadband' and SDWN, Smart Distributed Wireless broadband Network.
The decisions about in-order vs. out of-order instruction streams, memory architecture, I/O architecture have been made in light of the broad vision for how computing, networking and, out of hand, how wireless enabled broadband networking including WiMAX will occur. This should be understood for what it represents as a shift in direction for Intel both in response to broad industry shifts and as a trend setting development. Reply
jtleon - Friday, April 04, 2008 - linkThanks to all the flash player ads, etc., a mobile web device will continuously avoid switching to low power states. Thus one could argue that advertising will be carbon footprint enemy of the internet's future. This is already becoming the case for desktop/laptop machines.
Without such continuous (arguably wasted) consumption of CPU power, then Intel's engineered power management might have a significant impact on the value of the Atom.
jtleon Reply
0WaxMan0 - Friday, April 04, 2008 - linkI am definatly much impressed and enthused by intels work here, the future looks interesting esp for those of us who like low power cross compatible computing products.
However I have to point out that a low power modern x86 cpu has allready been done infact 4 years ago with AMD's Geode. While technically much weaker than the Atom and with out any where near the scalability (single core design etc.) the Geode has been available in the same TDP ranges for a good long while. Take a look here http://www.amdboard.com/geode.html">http://www.amdboard.com/geode.html for some old stuff.
I do hope that the Intel name and hype makes more of an impact than AMD managed. Reply
whycode - Thursday, April 03, 2008 - linkDoes the TDP quoted include the chipset? Or is that CPU only? Reply
IntelUser2000 - Thursday, April 03, 2008 - linkAnand, the Pentium M does not feature Macro Ops Fusion. Its Core 2 Duo that started Macro Ops Fusion. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, April 03, 2008 - linkYou're correct, I was referencing micro-op fusion. I've made the appropriate correction :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
squito - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkAm I the only one shocked to see that Poulsbo is a 130nm part... Reply
AssBall - Thursday, April 03, 2008 - linkI was a little surprised at first but when I got thinking... I don't really know if my P35 northbridge is even a 90nm chip.
- Why would Intel not want to use its old rock solid 130 process that it spent a ton of money on to build simpler parts than it was designed for. As long as their materials and equipment are working fine for a cheap enough 130 part and there is no dire market for lower power chipsets that fit in an ATX standard...
- Intel's most recent strategy has been to design and manufacture their latest designs on solid existing tech before they shrink it.
I'm also fairly certain that if this little CPU takes off they will have the 90-65 version of it with some simple refinements out in two shakes of a lamb's tail. I'm really surprised myself that they set it up with ddr2 support... but again its so cheap now, why not? Reply
rmlarsen - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkIt is articles like this that make me come back to Anandtech. Well written and researched and with the right level of detail. Keep up the good work!
Woodchuck2000 - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkOne of the best I've seen on Anandtech for quite a while. I've been following this one quite closely and it's great to have such a detailed exposition all in one place.
Do we have any news on the availability of this as a desktop part? I've been looking to construct an always-on server sitting in a cupboard somewhere, just to act as a file/print server and to do a little light database/web hosting for testing and developement. A 1.6GHz Atom would easily provide enough horsepower to accomplish that and with a notebook HDD, the whole thing should stay well under 10W load power consumption!
I saw a photo of Silverthorne + Poulsbo on an Intel reference board built to a Mini-ITX form factor but couldn't find any details on whether they were planning to release it to the general public...
Also any news on when we might expect benchmarks?
Keep up the good work! Reply
yyrkoon - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkYou could probably do this now with the VIA pico ITX reference board.
Sorry for the long link . . . but I think power usage is somewhere around ~12W. Reply
AnnonymousCoward - Friday, April 04, 2008 - linkTry tinyurl.com
Thanks for such a high quality article, Anand! Reply
tfranzese - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - link"These days, Intel manufacturers millions of Core 2 Duo processors each made up of 410 million transistors (over 130 times the transistor count of the original Pentium) in an area around 1/3 the size."
...is incorrect. You could nearly fit six Core 2 Duos at 45nm in the same area that the original Pentium occupied or even more impressive, four of them on the die of the original Pentium 4 with room to spare. Reply
tfranzese - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkI'm the one with fuzzy logic today and misinterpreted :) Reply
Magnus Dredd - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkIt is completely true that there are benefits to having a single platform to support. However, the article is completely off the mark about where the benefits are most realized.
It's not the HARDWARE.
It's the API.
It's all about the API. Unless you're writing drivers or an OS you're not writing to the hardware, with VERY few exceptions. The exceptions to this are for optimizations for seriously intense code like Photoshop filters and video game engines, where 90% or more of the code is to the API. So basically one way or another you're writing to an API. That's Application Programming Interface.
Since it was mentioned in the article...
If I'm writing a program that's supposed to run on OSX, the newest version supports TWO hardware platforms (PPC and x86, and not just x86 as the article claimed), and I want to create a "window" using the built in API (named Cocoa) I use the command NSWindow.
It makes no difference when writing the program whether it's a PPC or Intel based machine that it will be running on with the single exception that in a few places you have to use a small bit of code to make sure that the program uses the byte order appropriate to the processor.
While I have yet to read info on it, I'd bet that NSWindow is also used by the iPhone which uses a MIPS cpu (yet a third architecture).
I've written code in ANSI C for Linux that runs without making any changes on PPC, x86(32 bit and 64 bit), and Sparc. If I wanted to go to the trouble I could also compile it on my MIPS based SGI, a Motorola 68000 series Mac, and a HP PA-RISC (if I can ever figure out how to get the damned thing running). That's because nearly all modern applications are compiled.
Now if by PC, Anand meant Windows, we're talking a different story, but one with similar flaws.
So I'm writing an application for Windows and I want to create a "window". I use the win32 command CreateWindow.
So lets just say that I want it to run on an Itanium under Windows... I use the win32 command CreateWindow.
So let's just say that I want to make it run on a WindowsCE based set-top box or internet tablet powered by a MIPS CPU...
I use the win32 command CreateWindow.
Quoting Wikipedia: "It is supported on Intel x86 and compatibles, MIPS, ARM, and Hitachi SuperH processors."
I'm actually somewhat saddened to write this post, mostly due to the the amount of respect I have for Anand and many of the great articles he's written over the years. However, I suppose that it goes that way sometimes.
I just want to make sure that people aren't misled about what makes it hard to port/move a program to another platform like a phone or a BlueRay player. And it's sure as hell not the CPU's instruction set. The CPU may not be fast enough or it's that programs are written for these APIs that may or may not support the hardware. And the fault for this lies with Microsoft, or Apple, or the GTK guys, or Trolltech, or whomever the API belongs to.
Also simply dropping an x86 CPU into a machine does not mean that it can run Windows. With the sales of XP to cease, your only option for the new batch of supercheap x86 laptops like the ASUS EEE, or the cloudbook may be Linux, regardless of the fact that it's x86 based.
The bottom line is, if Microsoft doesn't care about your platform, they won't support it and you won't be able to get it with Windows regardless of what the CPU is.
While I do personally agree that x86 moving "downwards" is a great thing. I just see it taking over for completely different reasons, like Intel's manufacturing prowess. Reply
yyrkoon - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkWindows XP Embedded, and the compact .NET framework while you're talking about 'APIs', and platforms. XPe, and Win2003 Embedded are not going away any time soon, and basically have barely been available on a non beta basis. Although CE Builder could probably do the same thing, and as a matter of a fact I've seen some fairly nifty things done with it(eg: a boot-able image that fits on a floppy with all the functionality of your standard NAS, including User Groups and permission policies).
While sometimes having an OS on an Embedded device may be a hindrance, there are times it can be quite handy. Bank KIOSKs, and Cash registers are only two such examples, and I have worked on/with both that use WinXPe. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkAgreed - the API also plays a large part, but for a company like Apple the pain of maintaining both PPC and x86 codepaths is significant. Perhaps the Firefox reference wasn't the best one, especially as I really see the strengths here for software companies like Apple (not to mention what other conventional hardware companies may start looking more like software companies as their devices get more complex).
I think you've also hit on a major issue going forward: Microsoft is going to have to focus on these not-PCs a lot more seriously in the future. Instead of trying to scale Windows down, it needs a MCE-esque approach to these "fast enough" devices. Apple made the right first step with the iPhone OS, Microsoft can't stand by idle for too long without a good alternative. And MS does love x86... :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
highlandsun - Thursday, April 03, 2008 - linkWith all due respect to Fred Weber, with Atom at 47 million transistors, it's pretty obvious that the 10% figure for X86 ISA compatibility is not negligible, particularly in this performance-at-absolute-minimum-power space. Anybody using X86 in tiny embedded systems is automatically giving up a chunk of their power budget that someone using a cleaner instruction set encoding can apply directly to useful work. And as the previous poster already pointed out - source code portability is the only thing that matters to application developers, and that's a non-problem these days. Using the X86 instruction set encoding is stupid. Using it on a low-power-budget device is suicide. Reply
Jovec - Thursday, April 03, 2008 - linkI don't think the 10% reference meant 10% of all chips, but rather 10% of the current chip at the time the statement was made. In other words, x86 instruction decoding requires (roughly) a fixed amount of transistors for any chip, so the smaller the die size and larger the transistor count, less and less space is devoted to it. Reply
highlandsun - Thursday, April 03, 2008 - linkYes, that's obvious. And it's also obvious that Atom at 47 million transistors is paying a greater proportionate cost than Core2 Duo at 410 million transistors. In 2002 when Fred made that statement, AMD's current chip was the AthlonXP Thoroughbred, with about 37 million transistors. At the same time the Pentium 4 had 55 million. Put in context, I'd guess that the Atom at 47M vs P4 at 55M has more than 10% of its resources devoted to X86 decoding.
Also, Fred's statement in 2002 didn't take into account the additional complexity introduced by the AMD64 instruction extensions, where now a single instruction may be anywhere from 1 to 16 bytes long. Given that you're doing a completely clean ground-up chip design in the first place, it would have made more sense (from both a power budget and real estate perspective) to design a clean, orthogonal, uniform-length encoding at the same time.
Cross-platform ABI compatibility is stupid in the context they're aiming for; nobody is going to run their PC version of Crysis or MSWord on their cellphone. All that matters is API compatibility. With a consistent API, you can still run a separate binary translator if you really really want to move a desktop app to your mobile device but in most cases it would be a bad idea because a desktop app is unlikely to take advantage of power-saving APIs that would be important on a mobile. I.e., most of the time you're going to want purpose-built mobile apps anyway. Reply
floxem - Tuesday, April 15, 2008 - linkI agree. But it's Intel. What do you expect? Reply
maree - Thursday, April 03, 2008 - linkI dont think MS will be ready before Windows 7 is released, which is another 3-5 years... and might coincide with Moorestown. Microsoft started work on WindowsLite only after releasing Vista. Vista is bloatware as of now. As of now MS has to rely on crippled versions of XP and Vista like starter and home, which is not very ideal.
Apple and Linux are going to have a free run till then... Reply
TA152H - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkBringing up the Pentium is a little strange, because the whole market is completely different.
The Pentium wasn't supposed to be for everyone when it came out. The processor market was different back then where previous generations lasted a long, long time. The Pentium wasn't supposed to replace the 486 right away, or even quickly, and being huge and a terrible power hog was acceptable because the initial iteration was just for a very small group of people who absolutely needed it. The original Pentium had a lot of problems, and struggled badly to reach 66 MHz, so they sold most of their processors at 60 MHz. The second generation was intended more for mainstream.
Nowadays the latest generation replaces the earlier much more quickly, and has to cover more market segments more quickly. I still remember IBM releasing new machines for the 8086 in 1987. That's 9 years after the chip was made. It's just a different market.
The Pentium is nothing like the Silverthorne though, and it's a strange comparison. The Pentium executed x86 instructions, it wasn't decoupled. It also had both pipes, the U and V, lockstepped, which is limitation the Silverthorne doesn't have.
Saying the Pentium Pro was the first processor that allowed out of order processing is strange indeed. The only other processor this would have made sense with was the Pentium, since it was the only previous processor that was superscalar. So, they only made one in order processor, and then went to out of order with the next. It's difficult to see the extrapolation from this that it will be five years or more before Silverthorne goes out of order. It might be that long, but the backwards reference shouldn't be used to back that; it does more to contradict it. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkThe Pentium reference was merely to show that what was once a huge, 300mm^2 design could now be built on a much, much smaller scale. And starting from scratch it's now possible to build something in-order that's significantly faster.
The Pentium was an obvious comparison given that it was Intel's last two-issue in-order design, but I didn't mean to imply anything beyond that.
It won't be too long before we'll be able to have something the speed of a Core 2 in a similarly small/cool running package as well :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
fitten - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkI remember back in the days of the Mac FX we talked about 'what ifs' like making a 6502 with the (then) modern process technologies and how fast would it run. I wonder what about now :) Reply
crimson117 - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - link
It won't be too long before we'll be able to have something the speed of a Core 2 in a similarly small/cool running package as well :)
I am SO going to hold you to that! But I can only hope "won't be long" will mean within 12 months rather than within 12 years :P
Especially after my fiasco mounting a Freezer 7 Pro on an Abit IP35-E, I'd love if a heatsink weren't even necessary. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - link12 months won't be a reality unfortunately :) But look at it this way, the first Pentium M came out in 2003? And 5 years later we're able to have somewhat comparable performance with the Atom processor.
I'm really curious to see what happens with Atom on 32nm... Reply
FlakeCannon - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkThis was an absolutely fantastic article as far as I'm concerned. One of the best I've read from AnandTech. I'm truly impressed with the amount of effort and dedication that the engineers at Intel put into the Atom. Thought the consumer may not see its importance today the Atom will continue to develop one throughout the next 2 years and show why this is such a huge step in the right direction. I really think that this article outlines very well the architecture involved and where it intends to lead Intel and others in the future.
I'm always impressed to see Intel take architecture that was revolutionary in its time 15 years ago in the Pentium and Pentium Pro and resurrect it in modern day fashion with help of the Dothan Pentium M architecture and even things borrowed from the miserable Netburst technology that 15 years later I believe will once again create a product revolutionary in nature. I was never able to appreciate it in the days of the Pentium but certainly can now.
This is one product I think is deserving of being excited about. Reply
fitten - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkWhat does an on-die memory controller have to do with ILP? Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkWoops, I've clarified the statement :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
erwos - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkI was thinking that this would be a fantastic platform for making a small, silent HTPC box for doing streaming media, but the lack of 1080p output kills that to a large extent. I know it's not a big priority for the first revision given the UMPC targeting, but I hope the "Atom 2" does try to squeeze that feature in. Reply
FITCamaro - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkIt could always be paired with a different, more capable graphics core. Reply
ltcommanderdata - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkIt;d be very interesting to see how the 1.86GHz Silverthorne stacks up against a 1.8GHz P4 Northwood, a 1.86GHz Dothan, a 1.8GHz Conroe-L based Celeron, and a 1.8GHz Athlon 64.
I wonder if Apple is going to refresh AppleTV with Silverthorne since it seems ideal with replace the current 1GHz ULV Dothan in there. Reply
yyrkoon - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkWell at least Intel did not name their Atom CPUs the 'Atom Z80' . . . heh.
Anyways, this is good for our future, as the mITX, and pITX 'systems' now days are still kind of large-ish, and cost quite a bit of money for what they are. Though, I think that putting a web browser on just any old appliance in the house would be way overkill, and possibly a very serious mistake. A TV with a web browser ? An Oven ? Please . . . this is why we have PCs, and micro mobile devices.
Recently a friend and myself have been working on an embedded project, and I can see the potential here, but a 'problem' does exist. Some of the things you would want to do with such a processor . . . well lets just say there still would not be enough processing power. That being said, I do not see why these could not help make a TVs/HD-DVD player menu operate faster.
pugster - Thursday, April 03, 2008 - linkIt certainly sounds nice, but the atom processor cost alot because some of the higher end models cost more than $100 each. I find it surprising that their Polosbo chipset is manufactured at 130mm. It probably came from one of their foundries that was due to upgrade to 32mm sometime next year anyways. They could've earily manufactured at 65mm.
Somehow I don't see their product as mature and maybe the next gen product they would have a cpu and the north/south bridge in the same die. Reply
lopri - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkI honestly don't get the excitement. Should I? I mean, I wouldn't feel comfortable with one gigantic company controlling every single electronics in our life. If Intel opens up the X86 and everyone can compete on even end, then maybe. Since that won't happen, the future looks scary enough. Reply
clnee55 - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkNO, how can you get excitement. I am already bored with your conspiracy theory. Let's talk about tecnical issue here. Reply
lopri - Thursday, April 03, 2008 - linkThis article is as much propagana-ish as it is technical. Did you read the last page of the article? Reply
clnee55 - Friday, April 04, 2008 - linkSince Anand wrote this article. I let him answer your accusation
GulWestfale - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linki believe that the graphics core in the chipset is a powerVR gen5 derivative; intel already uses some of their tech in its existing mainboards and wikipedia states that intel has licensed gen5 tech for one of its chipsets, the GMA500 (which is the same as poulsbo?) gen5 is also DX10-capable, which matches the info in your article.
yyrkoon - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkand wikipedia has been known to be wrong . . . a lot lately it seems.
My point here *is*, I would probably trust anandtech more than wikipedia now days, as it seems any Joe can put up a 'reference' without citation. Reply
jones377 - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkFollowing the references link from the Wiki article...
Poulsbo uses a PowerVR 3D core Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - linkYep, you guys are correct, I wasn't aware that it was public yet :) I've updated the article.
Take care,
Anand Reply


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