haswell – Tech Today w/ Ken May

MSI GT70 Dragon Edition review: last year’s gaming powerhouse gets Haswell

More Info MSI GT70 review First Haswell gaming laptop revealed: MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2 with GTX780M graphics Intel: Haswell will boost battery life by 50 percent One of the strongest gaming laptops of 2012 had to be the MSI GT70 . Like all machines of its type, it was huge, oversized and ridiculously heavy — but it trumped many of the category’s biggest faults by being superbly crafted, surprisingly long-lasting and by boasting the bleeding edge of tech: an Ivy Bridge CPU. It was a darn good machine, so it’s no surprise that MSI is hoping for a repeat performance. Meet the GT70 Dragon Edition : a Haswell-toting, 17-inch gaming laptop with all the trappings of its predecessor. It’s actually the second GT70 to adopt the Dragon moniker, but the first to pack Intel’s fourth-generation Core processors. NVIDIA’s latest mobile GPU is here too, not to mention notable OS upgrades, port tweaks and a mystical new motif. Let’s dive in and see if MSI’s encore deserves a standing ovation. Gallery: MSI GT70 Dragon Edition review Filed under: Gaming , Laptops Comments

Intel: Haswell will boost laptop battery life by 50 percent

When Intel launched Haswell , it promised a generational leap in battery life, and now the chip giant’s talking numbers to back that up. Architecture Group VP Rani Borkar said that laptops packing the chipset should get 50 percent more battery life than current Ivy Bridge models and go up to 20 times longer in standby or idle mode — without any cost to performance . She said that lower power requirements will be one factor in the drop in consumption, but an all-new architecture including a power management chip will also help reduce the energy draw. We’ll have to see whether that encouraging piece of news will help the moribund PC notebook market pick up lost ground to tablets, or whether companies will just keep blurring the line . Filed under: Laptops , Intel Comments Source: Computerworld

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Intel: Haswell will boost laptop battery life by 50 percent

First Haswell gaming laptop revealed: MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2 with GTX780M graphics

With Computex just around the corner, MSI has taken the wraps off what can truly be described as a next-gen gaming laptop. According to CNET , the 17.3-inch GT70 Dragon Edition 2 will pack a yet-to-be-announced Haswell chip alongside an equally mysterious NVIDIA GTX780M that is claimed to deliver a 3DMark Vantage score of 36,000 — in other words, roughly equivalent to the benchmark stat you’d get from a desktop rig containing an Ivy Bridge Core-i5 and a full-size GTX670, if the boast happens to be true. A SteelSeries -branded keyboard is in attendance, alongside multiple SSDs in Raid 0 config and three video outputs, all contained within a package as thin as 21.8mm-thick and as light as 2.9kg (6.4 pounds) ( Correction: this size and weight applies to the Stealth variant, which has a GTX765M GPU instead of the GTX780M.) Lesser variations will bring the weight down to 2kg (4.4 pounds) by reducing screen size to 14 inches and switching to a less frenetic GTX760M. Expect pricing and availability details once the big Taiwanese expo gets underway. Filed under: Gaming , Laptops , Intel Comments Source: CNET

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First Haswell gaming laptop revealed: MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2 with GTX780M graphics

Intel will discontinue desktop motherboards following Haswell release

The decline in desktop PC sales is beginning to ripple throughout the industry, as Intel has revealed plans to wind down its desktop motherboard division over the next three years. According to AnandTech , the company will release boards that are based on the Haswell architecture before completely suspending development. Moving forward, Intel will instead focus its efforts on creating form factor reference designs for the Ultrabook, tablet and desktop markets. Curiously, one product that’s currently immune from the announcement is the Next Unit of Computing (NUC), a miniature barebones system that will see continual development from Intel. While custom PC builders will likely take a moment to reflect upon the news, it’s said that the transition is unlikely to affect the company’s workforce. Instead, current employees will be absorbed into other divisions within Intel. After all, there’s no point in showing talented engineers to the door, even in an age of market shifts. [Image credit: huangjiahui , Flickr ] Filed under: Desktops , Intel Comments Source: AnandTech

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Intel will discontinue desktop motherboards following Haswell release

Leaked chart appears to spill beans on Intel’s Haswell desktop CPU range

The folks over at VR-Zone have snagged a chart which purports to represent Intel’s plans for the Haswell architecture in 2013. If genuine, then we can expect at least 14 new desktop CPUs to arrive next year, including a range-topping 3.5GHz Core i7 with 400MHz of headroom in boost mode and a TDP of just 84W — i.e. midway between Sandy and Ivy Bridge in terms of power consumption, but not bad when you consider this’ll be a higher performance architecture with no transistor shrinkage . Integrated graphics have also apparently been tweaked, with a reference to HD 4600. Since we can’t expect Intel to confirm the leak, we’ll just have to file this one in the “plausible” cabinet. (What, you didn’t know we had filing cabinets?) Comments Via: Ubergizmo Source: VR-Zone (Translated)

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Leaked chart appears to spill beans on Intel’s Haswell desktop CPU range