CES 2011 – a look at the future – 3D, wireless and tablets
AMD, Nvidia and their partners
AMD
Last year, AMD was all about “Vision”. This year, it is Fusion and it has finally been announced at CES primarily for the mobile market first and it will first be seen as “Brazos”, AMD’s mobile E-Series APU (Zacate – 18W) which deliver DX11 mainstream graphics entertainment and C-Series APU (Ontario – 9W) for HD Internet browsing.
It is difficult to explain exactly how Fusion is implemented by using their internal codenames, so here is AMD’s very latest roadmap:
The new Mobile Radeon HD 6000-series were also announced at the show giving a big boost to performance over the HD 5000 series.
No, the picture below is not out of focus – it is in 3D and it is now available for AMD graphics hardware – single GPU or CrossFire-powered.
The company also had several large triple-monitor EyeFinity setups on display being powered by HD 6000’s notebook graphics.
In contrast to NVIDIA’S 3D Surround which requires SLI, each Eyefinity setup was using only a single Radeon HD 6000 M series GPU to power their LCDs.
NVIDIA
NVIDIA had much more than 3d Surround Vision and automobile computers. They made one of the potentially biggest announcements – ever. They had licensed ARM technology to make a (non-x86) CPU, including a “super ARM” CPU. They also settled their patent dispute with Intel in their favor – Intel is to pay them 1.5 billion dollars over 5 years and they keep their current cross-licensing agreements for another 6 years!
Nvidia already has little netbooks powered by their GeForce and Tegra 2 graphics and they easily stream HD content to large screens; you can even play DX11 games, unlike with Intel’s Sandy Bridge integrated graphics.
Nvidia stresses the pairing of their graphics with any capable CPU for a superior viewing and playing experience; and soon they will have their own Nvidia-designed ARM CPU. Another potentially major announcement is that Microsoft will be supporting ARM processors with its next generation of Windows 8.
Fermi, Nvidia’s new second generation DX11 GeForce GF110 GPU, was at CES and they were demonstrating “meaningful DX11 features done right”. They were proud to announce that the world’s fastest supercomputer in China is powered by Nvidia Tesla GPUs.
Nvidia showcased new products and technologies that demonstrate PCs based on their GeForce GPUs along with the Nvidia 3D Vision hardware and software is an excellent platform well-suited for Blu-ray 3D movies, games, photos, and the Web. And it is for fun also; here is a working beer dispenser that is also a PC. It’s perfect for the next LAN party. And we had some aliens visiting from Avatar.
I think he gets the point about 3D!
On display in the booth, Nvidia demonstrated 3D Vision technology running on desktop and notebook PCs equipped with 120Hz 3D-capable displays. Their 3D Vision Surround spans 3D content across three high definition monitors or projectors. Here is StarCraft 2 running in portrait mode on true cross-platform gaming.
Nvidia’s partners
Zotac
The mood for Nvidia’s partners was much better at CES 2011 than last year when Fermi was delayed. Zotac was represented and proudly displayed the new 500 series cards.
Galaxy
Galaxy is one of Nvidia’s oldest partners – they have been building cards for other vendors and they are moving beyond just video cards. Expect to see this wireless HDMI enabled video card to evolve into a separate HDMI wireless break-out box. Galaxy has moved strongly into retail, besides etail, and you can see their products at most major retailers, including at Best Buy.
Galaxy SSDs? Yes! Expect to see these make it to market pretty soon. And Galaxy will continue their “SOC” – SuperOverclocked – branding with the GTX 500 series. They actually design and build their own non-reference cards in their own manufacturing facilities. They do not just slap a sticker on a reference version. They also have excellent customer service and a toll-free number is available to actually speak with a (human!) CSR if your video card should need warranty service.
ABT will be bringing you a Kingston V-now series 128 GB SSD review next week as we explore SSD vs. HDD from a gamer’s perspective. We certainly hope to be evaluating Galaxy’s wireless HDMI and hopefully that SuperOverclocked lineup will include sending Alien Babel Tech a GTX 580 SOC for us to evaluate for you.
AMD’s Partners
Diamond
ABT got to meet with Diamond, one of AMD’s premier video graphics partners. Here is Diamond’s representative, Marla, proudly displaying new Diamond products for 2011. And there is far more besides video cards to show off.
We see speakers, cables .. and a return of “All-in-Wonder” graphics for multi-media!
Diamond had a new mini-speaker that works off of USB to provide external speakers that are far better than what is included in most notebooks; it’s iPhone compatible also.
They sound great and much better than the sound provided by my Compaq notebook. Now I wish that I got two of them to evaluate for stereo.
Notice how they expand:
Nice, thanks for the hard effort!
Cool! Thanks for sharing!