Computex 2011 Some Time with Promise's Thunderbolt Devices

Yesterday Intel told us that Ivy Bridge would feature both USB 3.0 and  Thunderbolt on its Ivy Bridge platform (USB 3.0 will be integrated into the chipset, Thunderbolt will simply be an optional component), that should help make both standards see more widespread adoption in 2012.

 

Two lines of systems currently support Thunderbolt: the new MacBook Pro and the new iMac, unfortunately there are no Thunderbolt peripherals available. Apparently both Apple and Intel want to approve devices before they go on sale, at least initially to ensure there are no embarrassing problems at launch. Although Promise showed off Thunderbolt enabled external storage devices at the Thunderbolt launch in February, we won't see availability until the end of June at the earliest.

 

 

 

Promise will release two external storage devices that use Thunderbolt as their sole interface: the Pegasus R4 and Pegasus R6. The difference between the two is strictly the number of drive bays; the R4 has 4 bays and the R6 has 6 bays. Both platforms support RAID 0/1/5/6 and 10.

 

The Pegasus enclosure has two Thunderbolt ports, one for input and one for output. Pegasus can pass through video, however the final connection to your display has to be via a DisplayPort cable since there are no Thunderbolt displays today other than what's integrated into the iMac/MBP. The Thunderbolt spec as implemented in the Macs supports up to 6 devices per root connection.

 

The Pegasus' bays support both 3.5" and 2.5" drives. Promise had a setup using Intel X25-Es although I'd expect SSD 510s to be used in any shipping products with SSDs. Pegasus does support 6Gbps drives, although the highest transfer rates I ever saw on the machine maxed out at 850MB/s despite the use of a 6-drive RAID-0. It looks like there may be some internal bottlenecks at work here.

 

 

Here's a shot of what a connected TB device looks like in System Profiler:

 

 

Activity Monitor accurately reports disk activity that happens over the Thunderbolt interface:

 

And of course performance results:

 

Promise also had its SANlink on display at the show:

 

 

The prototype takes a single Thunderbolt connection and allows you to bridge it to up to two 4Gbit Fibre Channel ports for connected a system to a beefier SAN.

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Introducing the Dell Precision T1600: Workstation Class

We've spent a lot of time dissecting boutique gaming desktops, but there are entire other classes of hardware that we only rarely put through their paces. Today that changes with the first in what we hope will be many reviews of workstation-class desktop machines, and we're kicking things off with a mid-range workstation courtesy of Dell: the new Precision T1600. Designed for low power and high performance and equipped with an entry-level workstation graphics card from NVIDIA, we'll run it through our usual desktop gauntlet along with a couple of extra tests and see what Dell brings to the table.

Dell's Precision T1600 is pretty unassuming, but workstation desktops are exactly that: they're work horses, not show ponies. But inside this Micro-ATX mid tower is a decent amount of enterprise-grade hardware. Dell has made big strides with their new Precision T1600 series. There's the usual generational hardware refresh: the T1600 sports Sandy Bridge-based Intel Xeon processors along with a GF106-based NVIDIA Quadro graphics card. But Dell (not at all unlike HP) has also added a smattering of ISV certifications to this tower, including Autodesk's AutoCAD, Maya, and 3Ds Max. Strangely there's no certification from Adobe, whose production suite would likely benefit substantially from a system like this one. In fact, the NVIDIA Quadro 2000 card in our review unit is one of the frustratingly few cards actually certified for Premiere Pro CS5's Mercury Playback Engine (although anyone with an NVIDIA graphics card, 1GB of video memory, and access to Google can get MPE to work).

Dell Precision T1600 Specifications
Chassis	Dell Custom
Processor	Intel Xeon E3-1270 (4x3.4GHz + HTT, 32nm, 8MB L3, 80W)
Motherboard	Dell Proprietary Motherboard with C206 chipset
Memory	2x2GB Hynix DDR3-1333 ECC @ 1333MHz (expandable to 16GB)
Graphics	NVIDIA Quadro 2000 1GB GDDR5 (192 CUDA Cores, 625/1250/2608MHz core/shaders/RAM, 128-bit memory bus)
Hard Drive(s)	2x Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200-RPM SATA 6Gbps in RAID 0
Optical Drive(s)	Optiarc DVD+/-RW Combo Drive
Networking	Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit Ethernet Intel 82579LM Gigabit Ethernet
Audio	Realtek ALC269 HD Audio Speaker, mic/line-in jacks for stereo sound
Front Side	4x USB 2.0 Headphone and mic jacks Optical drive
Top	-
Back Side	2x PS/2 6x USB 2.0 2x Ethernet 3x DisplayPort (one disabled) Serial Speaker, mic/line-in DVI-D
Operating System	Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
Dimensions	6.89" x 16.99" x 14.17" (WxDxH)
Weight	-
Extras	RAID 0 ISV Certification
Warranty	3-year basic hardware service with 3-year limited onsite service Up to 5-year available
Pricing	Starts at $629 Review system configured at $2,255

The review unit Dell shipped us is fairly beefy compared to its base spec, upgrading to the second-fastest processor they have available (the E3-1280 is 100MHz and $600 more) and the absolute best graphics card the tower ships with.

If you haven't ever checked out enterprise-class hardware before, a couple of things here are going to be pretty interesting to you. First is the Sandy Bridge-based Intel Xeon E3-1270. This chip is ostensibly an enterprise version of the desktop Core i7-2600, running at a nominal 3.4GHz and capable of turbo-ing up to 3.8GHz, but in this instance the integrated graphics have been disabled completely: if you take the Quadro out of the tower, there just won't be any video output. The flipside is that losing the GPU knocks the chip's TDP down to just 80 watts. The C206 chipset it's strapped to is also the server/workstation equivalent of the desktop H67.

There's also the NVIDIA Quadro 2000, a single-slot video card based off of NVIDIA's GF106 chip. It sports a full 192 CUDA cores and 1GB of GDDR5 strapped to a 128-bit memory bus, but clocks have been significantly curbed to hit the card's 62-watt TDP. The desktop GeForce GTS 450 (built on the same chip) has a nominal core clock of 783MHz (1566MHz on the shaders), while the Quadro 2000 runs at just 625MHz on the core and 1250MHz on the shaders. The GDDR5's memory speed has taken a massive hit, too, going from 3.6GHz down to just 2.6GHz. That said, there are reasons: the Quadro 2000 can be cooled using a single slot, it runs quietly, and more importantly it's optimized for workstation tasks the GTS 450 isn't designed for.

It's also interesting to see a RAID 0 setup come through here, something that's been a bit rarefied. Some enthusiasts swear by RAID 0 (yours truly, for example) while others don't see the point. While this striped RAID is still running off of mechanical drives, it at least provides a tangible boost over running a single disk. That said, it still can't really replace the performance of an SSD, but at least it can beat the capacity for a lot cheaper.

The rest of the system is going to seem fairly uninspiring, but try to remember: this is Dell's entry-level workstation. It doesn't need the biggest and best, it just needs to provide a sensible balance of price and performance for the intended tasks. I'll go ahead and gripe about the power supply, though: 265 watts isn't an issue for a computer like this, but the stated 65% minimum efficiency is frankly dismal. Even under peak load that wattage isn't liable to be a huge problem, but in a business environment every watt counts and that only becomes more and more important as the number of systems deployed increases. Dell is willing to offer an 85% efficient 320 watt power supply as a $50 upgrade, but frankly that seems miserly, especially when Antec sells a 380 watt, 80 Plus Bronze certified power supply for $45. That may be an off-the-shelf consumer product, but the point stands. Dell should simply eliminate the 265-watt PSU option and use the 320-watt model as the default.

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CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme FTW: Performance at Any Cost

There seems to be an interesting cottage industry between custom desktop boutiques in trying to build the single fastest machine consumers can buy, and it's not at all dissimilar to the kind of competitive thinking that produces utterly impractical video cards like the AMD Radeon HD 6990 or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 that threaten to populate those machines. Somewhere along the line, someone said "screw it" and decided to figure out just how much of a speed demon they could build while still being able to market and sell it to consumers and support it without tarnishing the brand. DigitalStorm has pretty aggressively held on to our "fastest computer we've ever tested" crown for a while, but CyberPowerPC looks to steal it away with their Gamer Xtreme FTW Edition.

And so the arms race continues. I think if you'd told me ten years ago I'd be testing desktops like these for a living I'd've exploded with joy, but it's bittersweet. The CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme FTW is an absolute monster, but it's priced accordingly, and when I look at it I actually feel the same way I do when I discover my old Underground Seas (I've played Magic: the Gathering since '94) are worth at least $80 apiece: it's fun to play with, but essentially too hard to get for everyone to enjoy. How hard to get? Check this out:

CyberPowerPC Gamer Xtreme FTW Specifications
Chassis	Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Processor	Intel Core i7-990X @ 4.5GHz (25x180BClk) (spec: 6x3.46GHz, 32nm, 12MB L3, 130W)
Motherboard	Gigabyte G1.Sniper Motherboard with X58 chipset
Memory	6x2GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 (expandable to 24GB)
Graphics	2x EVGA GeForce GTX 590 3GB GDDR5 (1024 CUDA Cores, 607/1215/853MHz Core/Shaders/RAM, 384-bit memory bus)
Hard Drive(s)	2x Intel 510 120GB SATA 6Gbps SSD in RAID 0 Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB 7200-RPM SATA 6Gbps HDD
Optical Drive(s)	LG WH-10 BD-RE/DVD+-RW Combo Drive Lite-On DVD+-RW Drive
Networking	Bigfoot Networks Killer Gigabit Ethernet
Audio	Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Audio Speaker, mic, line-in, and surround jacks for 7.1 sound Optical/digital out
Front Side	AeroCool Touch-2000 Fan Controller 5x USB 2.0 Card reader Headphone and microphone jacks
Top	Thermaltake Fan Controller 2x USB 3.0 eSATA
Back Side	PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports Digital out 4x USB 2.0 2x eSATA 2x USB 3.0 (routed to top of the case) Gigabit Ethernet Optical out 7.1 surround jacks
Operating System	Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Dimensions	23" x 11.1" x 23.2"
Weight	28 lbs (case only)
Extras	Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 1000W PSU 80 Plus Gold Certified Asetek 570LX 240mm Liquid CPU Cooler AeroCool Touch-2000 Fan Controller Card Reader
Warranty	3-year limited warranty with life-time customer care
Pricing	Starts at $1,565 As configured $5,017

So yeah, I believe that's the first time we've broken five grand on a custom desktop machine. But when your motherboard, CPU, and case retail for nearly two large all by themselves, that's not too surprising.

For starters, there's the Intel Core i7-990X, arguably the fastest processor Intel ships today. While it doesn't quite have Sandy Bridge's raw clock-for-clock performance, it makes up for that shortcoming by sporting six Hyper-Threaded cores. And because it's built on Intel's 32nm process, it runs remarkably cool. Stock clock speed is 3.46GHz with 12MB of L3 cache, and it's able to turbo up to as much as 3.73GHz on two cores.

CyberPowerPC has overclocked the hell out of it, though, but they opt not to make use of the unlocked multiplier on the CPU: they've instead ratcheted up the BClk from 133MHz to 180MHz and actually reduced the multiplier to 25x. The resulting clock speed is a respectable 4.5GHz, fast enough to put it in competition with Sandy Bridge for single-core speed, and with 50% more cores than the current SNB offerings. Strapped to the i7-990X's three memory channels are six 2GB DIMMs of Kingston HyperX DDR3-1600 for a total of 12GB, running at DDR3-1440 due to the change in BClk.

Supporting this demon of a CPU and its copious memory capacity is Gigabyte's G1.Sniper motherboard. Gigabyte recently released their G1 line of motherboards and they're pretty beastly; the Sniper model brings integrated Bigfoot Networks Killer 2100 Gigabit Ethernet along with Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi. There's the usual Marvell SATA 6Gbps controller as well, along with USB 3.0 support. The G1.Sniper is a very fully-featured piece of hardware, but you'd pay dearly for the privilege: the motherboard's retail price of $429 is onerous considering you can buy a Core i7-2600K and a P67-based motherboard to house it in for the same outlay.

CyberPowerPC didn't skimp on the storage subsystem either: while the 2TB Hitachi storage drive is an amusing divergence from the usual 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black, the pair of 120GB Intel 510 SSDs configured in RAID 0 produces a remarkably fast system drive that sports enough capacity for a healthy selection of games.

Of course, the big ticket items are the pair of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590s configured in Quad-SLI. Each of these cards has two GF110 chips on it, complete with a 384-bit memory bus with access to 1.5GB of GDDR5 per chip. The GPUs themselves sport the full 512 CUDA cores, but they've had their clocks reduced to fit into the GTX 590's 300W thermal envelope. I'll admit I've been a bit snarky with this review unit: whenever I've had people come over, I've opened the side of the case, shown them to the two GTX 590s, and announced "get a good look; almost nobody else will ever see one of these, let alone a pair."
Finally, they house all of this incredibly powerful hardware in Thermaltake's new Level 10 GT enclosure. I hesitate to spend too much time talking about this case because I actually have one in house that I'll be reviewing soon. Oh, and the processor is liquid cooled with a 240mm radiator and four 120mm fans. And there's a kilowatt 80 Plus Gold certified power supply from a reliable vendor. And a fan controller in the front by NZXT. I think that covers everything. Suffice it to say, this is an awful lot of hardware.

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Hands on Benchmarks MSM8x60 Phones - HTC Sensation 4G and HTC EVO 3D

Yesterday evening I met up with HTC, who let me take a quick look at a number of their upcoming unreleased phones, including the HTC Sensation 4G and HTC EVO 3D. Naturally, the first thing I did was sit down and run a couple of benchmarks during our limited time with the phones, and get an overall feel for the devices. I also spent some time with the HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa - the two Facebook phones - though my focus was more look and feel for the form factor of the ChaCha given the fact that both are just MSM7x30.

The two phones I played around with the most are both based on Qualcomm's MSM8x60 SoC. For a quick refresher, the MSM8x60 consists of two 1.2 GHz scorpion cores (though MSM8x60 can clock all the way up to 1.5 GHz), and Adreno 220 graphics. As a reminder, the x in MSM8x60 tells us what air interfaces the cellular baseband supports - 2 for GSM/UMTS, 6 for GSM/UMTS + EVDO/CDMA2000. Thus, the MSM8260 is in the Sensation, MSM8660 for the EVO 3D.
 
HTC EVO 3D

First up is the HTC EVO 3D, which is the as of yet unreleased 3D phone with WiMAX support destined for Sprint. WiMAX is provided by the same SQN1210 we've seen used in other HTC WiMAX phones. On the back are two immediately apparent 5 MP cameras for stereoscopic capture, and two LEDs for illumination. I didn't measure exactly how far apart the cameras are, but it appears comparable to the separation I saw with the LG Optimus 3D back at MWC.

Unlike the Sensation, the back of the EVO 3D is a plastic material that's lightly soft touch. It actually feels good in the hand thanks to the ridges that run diagonally across the lower four-thirds of the device. HTC's industrial design for the back of the EVO 3D also continues the blood-red theme that started back with the original EVO and Incredible. Underneath the battery cover however it's black however, no more bright red. The EVO 3D has a very large 6.57 Whr battery, one of the largest (if not the largest) I've seen in a smartphone to date.

On the side of the EVO 3D is the 2D/3D toggle switch and shutter button, which is the largest and most pronounced I've seen so far. It's readily locatable and has great click. Like most other phones with camera buttons, the EVO 3D's is a two-step button.

The front capacitive buttons are relatively standard fare and match what we've seen on the previous EVO brand smartphones. The EVO 3D and Sensation are both topped with a brilliant Super LCD (IPS) qHD 960x540 LCD display. While I didn't have any of my display analysis tools with me, at first glance viewing angles seemed very good, as did overall contrast. I'm still a fan of the good 'ol RGB stripe present in LCDs, and unlike other qHD LCD displays (like in the Atrix and Droid X2), the Sensation and EVO 3D both are free of Pentile. I think they look brilliant, and even though I'm still skeptical about qHD until it's officially added to the Android supported resolution table, I was pleased with the increased resolution available when browsing web pages.

The EVO 3D also includes an autostereoscopic display (glasses-free 3D) achieved through the use of a parallax barrier. There was Green Hornet preloaded in 3D, along with a few games that I didn't get a chance to launch, and the camera application. Inside the camera, it's essentially the same fare as what I saw with the LG Optimus 3D - you get a live 3D preview when you're shooting stills or video in 3D. You can shoot 2D video in 720P H.264, or 3D video which squeezes the left and right frame into one 1280x720 frame, effectively giving you 720P 3D video with half the horizontal resolution. You lose half the horizontal resolution using the parallax barrier anyhow, so what you see is truly what you get.

 

I found the EVO 3D's display a bit more challenging to align my head with and keep in an optimal location for viewing 3D than I remember the LG Optimus 3D being. In addition, I did notice a bit of ghosting. That said the underlying technology is the same as what virtually all the commercially available "glasses-free" 3D implementations are presently. 

 
HTC Sensation

The EVO's obvious sibling is the HTC Sensation, which trades the 3D display and dual camera setup for some truly awesome industrial design. I've been salivating over the Sensation for a while now after first seeing pictures and renders of it, and in person it doesn't disappoint one bit, this is the clear new flagship device for HTC.

The Sensation is a unibody design, meaning the entire case of the phone is one solid piece. The top and bottom (silver and black in the photo) regions are plastic, but serve as RF windows for the antennas that are printed on the inside. One continuous metal structure runs around the entire edge, and onto the front of the display as well, and necessitates a rather unique strategy to hold the phone together. Press on a tab at the bottom of the phone, and the whole back case slides upwards off of the phone. As a result of the unibody construction, the Sensation has an awesome in-hand feel that's notably solid.

The front is again the same 4.3" Super LCD in the EVO 3D, just minus the parallax barrier that sits atop it. There's a slightly convex shape to the display, with a gentle curvature at the edges on all four sides. HTC has also slightly changed the Android button logos - they're more modern and minimalist now. Button order seems to have settled down, and remains the same as the Desire HD/Inspire 4G.

The Sensation also trades the dual 5 MP camera system for one 8 MP camera. Rumor has it that image quality on the Sensation is another step better than the 8 MP camera systems from the Inspire 4G/Desire HD due to both improvements in Qualcomm's ISP from MSM8x55 to MSM8x60, and some more software enhancements in the camera application and drivers by HTC. I didn't get to transfer any photos or videos off the device, but we'll find out soon enough. The Sensation's battery is 5.62 Whr which is notably smaller than the EVO 3D's. I was told by LG back at MWC that their own parallax barrier consumes on the order of single digit mA of current, and that in general at this size all do, so we'll see if the reason for the EVO 3D's larger battery is WiMAX soon enough.

The Sensation looks like a serious contender and will do some serious dual-core battle with the G2x when it arrives on T-Mobile stateside. 

Both the EVO 3D and Sensation also have the new HTC Sense, including glanceable lock screen, new animations, and a number of other enhancements. I have to say that it's nice to see HTC finally building information into the lock screens, and it looks good.

Last but not least are the HTC ChaCha and Salsa, the two Facebook phones. I didn't spend as much time with these two other than to quickly take some pictures and play with the ChaCha's keyboard, which makes it the more interesting of the two. The keys on the ChaCha are super clicky and have excellent communication. I'm intrigued by this form factor and wonder if HTC will try and make a more flagship Android device with keys on the front, sort of like their own attempt at BlackBerry form factor, similar to the Droid Pro. In my limited time with the ChaCha, I was impressed by the bend separating the keyboard region from the display, and the display dot pitch.

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