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20XX
Q4 2008
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Q3 2005
07
AMD Sempron 64 (Palermo E6) was released on July 6th. Based on the previous Palermo E core, the E6 adds the AMD64 instruction set to Sempron processors. Sempron 64 is initially available in 2600+, 2800+, 3000+, 3100+ and 3300+ speeds for the Socket 754 platform.
Intel E7230 (Mukilteo) chipset for the Pentium D (Smithfield) - and later Paxville - was released on July 11th. Mukilteo is the successor to Copper River and provides support for a 1066MHz FSB, up to 8GB of DDR2-667, PCI Express x8 (alongside the PCI Express x4 and x1 supported in ICH7R), PCI-X (via the Intel 6702PXH), Serial ATA with Matrix RAID and Intel Active Management Technology.
Matrox G550 PCIe, the first PCI Express x1 graphics card, was released on July 13th. The PCIe version of the G550 is based on the AGP Edition.
Mozilla FireFox 1.0.6 was released on July 19th.
Windows Vista Beta 1 (formally Longhorn) was released on July 27th. Beta 1 is intended to lock down all the fundamentals of Longhorn and provides an early preview of the user interface. Beta 1 includes Virtual Folders - saved searches that instantly run when a user opens the folder - a reorganisation of the Start menu, IE7 Beta 1, built in parental control for games and a number of architectural updates. See the Windows Longhorn Roadmap entry for additional information.
Windows Longhorn Server Beta 1 was released on July 27th.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Beta 1 was released on July 27th on MSDN. Beta 1 of IE7 is intended for developers, with the majority of work being focused on the underlying architecture of IE7 rather than final user interface features. See the release Roadmap entry for additional information.
nVidia Quadro FX 4500 was release on July 28th. The Quadro FX 4800 is based on the G70 architecture, featuring 24 pixel processors, 8 vertex processors, 512MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1050MHz and a currently undisclosed core clock speed. The card uses a dual slot cooling system and offers geometry performance 36% higher than the FX 4400 and a fill rate almost three times that of it's predecessor.
nVidia Quadro FX 3450 was release on July 28th. The Quadro FX 3450 is based on the GeForce 6 architecture (the GeForce 6600 series) and offers performance similar to the previous high end model - the Quadro FX 4400.
AMD Sempron 3400+ (64-bit) was released on July 29th. The 3400+ features AMD64 technology, contains 256KB L2 cache and runs at a clock speed of 2.0Ghz. The 3400+ offers notably better performance than it's Intel rival the Celeron D 345J under the majority of applications, offering performance around 15-20% slower than the Athlon 64 3400+ in gaming applications.
Intel CPU Price cuts for Pentium M and Celeron processors occurred on on July 31st. See the Intel CPU Prices page for additional information.
08
AMD Athlon X2 3800+ (Manchester core) was released on August 1st. The 3800+ X2 features a core clock speed of 2GHz, with each core having 512KB L2. See the Manchester Roadmap entry for additional information.
AMD CPU Price cuts occurred on August 1st for K8 processors. See the AMD CPU Prices page for additional information.
ATI X800GT (R423 core) was released on August 8th. The X800GT features 8 pixel pipelines and runs at a core clock speed of 470Mhz. The memory bus is 256-bit wide with the memory clock dependant upon the quantity of memory installed. The 256MB version uses GDDR3 2ns memory clocked at 980MHz (US$149), whereas the 128MB version uses GDDR1 2.5ns memory clocked at 780MHz (US$130). The X800Gt generally outperforms it's nVidia rival the GeForce 6600GT.
nVidia nForce 4 X16 for Intel and AMD platforms was released on August 8th. The X16 is the Intel desktop equivalent of the nVidia nForce Professional. The Intel version of the chipset comprises of a C19 and CK8 04 chip connected by Hyperthreading. The C19 is a cut down version of the nForce 4 chipset, providing North Bridge functionality (PCI express lanes & memory controller for the Intel Edition) but missing South Bridge features (SATA, USB etc) whilst the CK8 04 (the normal nForce 4 chip) provides the South Bridge functionality (PCI Express, USB, SATA etc). The chipset provides a total of 40 PCI Express lanes in it's Intel implementation and 38 lanes for the AMD platform, allowing 2 x16 PCI Express ports alongside additional PCI Express lanes (4x1 on Intel and 2x1 on AMD).
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity was released
on August 8th for PCI. The successor to the
Audigy series, X-Fi Xtreme
Fidelity will be a
based around a completely redesigned
architecture - the first major architectural overhaul since the EMU10K
introduced with the SBLive!. The X-Fi features EAX Advanced HD 5.0,
support for 128 voices, EAX MacroFX, EAX PurePath and Environment
FlexiFX as well as 24-bit Crystalizer that converts the gaming audio
into 24-bit quality.
The key component in the card is Creative's
X-Fi chip, which features 51 million transistors and operates at a clock
speed of 400Mhz with 10,340 MIPS of processing power (compared with the
EMU10K2.5 of the Audigy2 ZS which features 4.6 million transistors
running at 200Mhz and giving around 420 MIPS of processing power). The
chip is divided into five cores, connected together by Creative's Audio
Ring bus, which routes data between the cores and provides access to the
on-board 2-64MB of SDRAM (used for audio file storage, with a 64MB
system able to offer 128 channel sound), the PCI bus and the I/O ports. The Tank core
is a digital delay engine, providing reverb, chorus, inter-aural time
delay and reflections, relinquishing the CPU or DSP from having to
perform these operations. The SRC core is dedicated to Sample Rate
Conversion. The majority of this processing power in X-Fi is dedicated
to this core. The core is designed to reduce the inter modulation
distortion to almost lossless levels when performing SRC (e.g.
converting between 44.1 and 48Khz audio). The X-Fi chip also features
the Filter core, which is an optimized, fixed function filter engine,
providing hundreds of digital filters for environmental modeling,
positional audio, music synthesis, and audio customization. The Mixer
core scales, sums and reroutes the data from the other processing cores,
and the final DSP core (Quartet) is a SIMD programmable processor
providing both time and frequency domain signal processing. Time domain
effects (such as reverb) are regularly used for adding environmental
effects, but few frequency domain effects are currently used due to the
large processing overhead. The DSP is used with Creative's "Active
Premium Audio" system, which can create centre and surround channel
information from a two track recording to provide multi channel sound,
improve the quality of audio given your particular speaker system and
listening environment and even enhance compressed audio content such as
MP3/WMA/AAC to improve it's dynamic range.
The initial members of the X-Fi range are as follows:
Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro - $399.99 - As Fatal1ty plus
116dB SNR DACs and more comprehensive I/O including a built-in pre-amp
for direct recording & high-impedance inputs for electric guitars.
Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS - $279.99 - As Platinum, but
include 64MB of on-board X-RAM, for high performance gaming.
Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum - $199.99 - As Xtreme Music but includes
a front-facing input/output & X-Fi IR remote.
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - $129.99 - Entry level model
with the featureset as described above.
nVidia GeForce 7800 GT was released on August 11th. The GeForce 7800 GT is based on the same G70 core as the GeForce 7800 GTX, but features a reduction in the number of pipelines (20 rather than 24 pixel pipelines and 7 rather than 8 vertex pipelines) and reduced core and memory clocks (with a reference implementation featuring 400Mhz core, compared with 430Mhz in the GTX, and 1Ghz memory compared with 1.2Ghz). GeForce 7800 GT cards are expected to retail for $449.
Intel CPU Price cuts for P4 600 series CPUs occurred on August 14th. See the Intel CPU Prices page for additional information.
nVidia GeForce 6800XT was quietly announced around August 22nd (poss. quietly announced on September 29th). The 6800XT has 8 pixel pipelines and 4 vertex pipelines and runs at clock speeds of 325Mhz core and 700Mhz memory. The GeForce 6800XT is effectively the same as the 6800LE (but uses a slightly different core) and is intended to compete with ATI's Radeon X800GT. The 6800GT is expected to be priced around $5 below ATI's X800GT.
AMD Opteron 165, 170 & 175 dual core processors were released on August 22nd. These dual core Opterons will feature clock speeds of 1.8Ghz (165), 2.0Ghz (170) and 2.2Ghz (175) and will ECC unbuffered memory.
AMD Opteron 254 & 854 were released on August 22nd. Based on Socket 940, these processors operate at 2.8Ghz.
AMD Turion MT-40 & MT-37 were released on August 22nd. Designed for the low power mobile market, these processors operate at a 25W TDP. The MT-40 runs at a clock speed of 2.2Ghz ($359) and the MT-37 at 2.0Ghz ($268).
WinFS Beta 1 was released on August 29.
09
Visual Studio 2005 RC1 was released on September 12th.
Windows 2000 Update Rollup 1 V.2 was released on September 13th. Version 2 of UR1 fixes some issues that were discovered with UR1 version 1.
Windows Longhorn Developer Preview was released on September 13th at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) 2005. This release of Longhorn will lock down the APIs so developers have a platform to test with.
ATI X800GTO was released on September 16th. The X800GTO on either the R420 (AGP) or R423/480 (PCI-E) cores. The architecture is based around 12 pixel pipeline core running at a 400Mhz clock speed and interfacing to either GDDR1 or GDDR3 memory over a 256-bit memory bus. The 256MB part interfaces to 980MHz GDDR3 memory, whereas the 128MB part uses 700MHz GDDR1. The performance of the X800GTO is expected to be between an X800GT and an X800XL.
nVidia nForce 410 MCP for the AMD platform was released on September 20th. The nForce 410 is the south bridge portion of the two chip solution with the GeForce 6100 and GeForce 6150 providing the integrated graphics core. Both IGPs (and MCPs) are interchangeable so the OEM can select the featureset that suits them. nForce 410 is based on a modified nForce 4 platform and features support for 2xSATA II ports with RAID 0&1 support alongside integrated 10/100 Ethernet, 8xUSB2 ports and Azalia HD audio.
nVidia nForce 430 MCP for the AMD platform was released on September 20th. The nForce 430 is an enhanced version of the nForce 410 featuring support for RAID levels 0, 1, 0+1 and 5, 4XSATA II ports and Gigabit Ethernet with nVidia's ActiveArmor technology.
nVidia GeForce 6100 (C51G - Graphics) IGP for the AMD platform was released on September 20th. The GeForce 6100 is part of a two-chip mainstream solution for AMD's Socket 939 and Socket 754 platforms alongside the nForce 410 and nForce 430 south bridges. The GeForce 6100 is based on the GeForce 6200 TurboCache architecture with full DirectX 9 SM3 support. The architecture features two pixel pipelines and a single vertex unit running at a clock speed of 425Mhz. The IGP is a UMA (Unified Memory Architecture) solution, utilising 64-256MB of system memory as the frame buffer. The GeForce 6100 additionally features support for basic 2x2 video scaling and supports 1xPCIe X16 and 1xPCIe X1 slots.
Initial benchmarks show that the GeForce 61x0 is the fastest integrated solution for the AMD platform, beating the previous champion - ATI's RS480 - by a reasonable margin.
nVidia GeForce 6150 (C51PV - Pure Video) IGP for the AMD platform was released on September 20th. The GeForce 6150 is based around the GeForce 6100 design, but with an enhanced clock speed of 475Mhz and integrated TV encoder support, DVI output, High Definition (720p & 1080i) video playback, high quality (5x4) video scaling and support for 2xPCIe X1 slots.
Firefox 1.0.7 was released on September 21st.
Opera 8.5 web browser was released on September 21st in it's advert free form.
AMD Opteron 280 & 880 were released on September 26th. The 280 and 880 processors are Dual Core and run at a clock speed of 2.4Ghz.
Intel Xeon 2.8Ghz & 3.8Ghz were released on September 26th. The last single core Xeon processors to be released, these processors based around the Xeon DP (Irwindale) core feature 2MB L2 cache, EM64T technology and Demand Based Switching technology. The low power Xeon LV 3 GHz (55W processor power envelope) and Xeon MV 3.20 GHz (90W processor power envelope) were also released.
Microsoft Office 2003 SP2 was released on September 27th. In addition bug fixes, security enhancements, stability improvements and performance improvements SP2 also features a new Phishing Protection feature to be used with the Outlook Junk Email Filter.
nVidia GeForce Go 7800 GTX (G70M) was released on September 28th on a 110nm process. G70M is based around the G70 core and features 24 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex pipelines running at a clock speed of 400Mhz and interfacing to 1.1Ghz GDDR3 memory over a 256-bit bus (compared to 430Mhz core and 1.2Ghz memory in the desktop product). The G70 Go features twice the shader power and 1.6x more geometry performance than the GeForce Go 6800 Ultra. G70M is expected to use a maximum of 65W (same TDP as 6800U Go) and utilises nVidia's PowerMizer 6.0 power saving technology. Initial benchmarks show that the GeForce 7800 GTX Go scores almost double the 3DMark05 and 3DMark03 benchmark scores of the 6800 Ultra Go, but is generally between 30% and 80% faster than it's predecessor.
OpenOffice 2.0 RC1 was released on September 29th.
Sun StarOffice 8 was released on September 27th. StarOffice 8 is based around the OpenOffice 2.0 suite, but features value added components for the enterprise market. StarOffice 8 will retail for $99, but customers can download an electronic version for $69
nVidia GeForce 6500 is expected to be released in September. The 6500 series is expected to feature performance between the 6600LE and 6200, but priced closer to the 6200 series.
SQL Server 2005 RC1 (Yukon) is expected to be released in September (perhaps later).
Q3
AMD Opteron 1xx (Denmark) is the single processor, 90nm successor to Venus, expected to be released in Q3 on Socket 940. Denmark will be a dual core CPU, with the initial members of the series being the Opteron 165 (1.8GHz), Opteron 170 (2.0GHz) and Opteron 175 (2.2GHz). See the Egypt Roadmap entry for additional details about this CPU.
ULi M1697 chipset for the AMD platform is expected to be released in Q3. The M1697 is a single-chip solution, like nVidia's nForce 4, supporting dual-core Athlon 64 processors, 20 PCI Express lanes, SATA300 with RAID 0, 1, 0+1, and 5 arrays and High Definition Audio. The chipset can support 16 lanes of PCI Express to a single slot, or 2x8 lanes to two x16 slots for SLI like multi-GPU support. However, it's unclear whether the M1697 will be certified to work with either ATI's CrossFire or NVIDIA's SLI technologies.
