Intel to supply Nokia with mobile chips

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Intel has reportedly struck a deal with Nokia to supply processors for the mobile phone giant. The arrangement would be a major coup for Intel who dominate the computer processor market but who have struggled to make an impact in the mobile phone market.

Intel’s Atom Processor, which is a low powered version of their x86 chip and is currently popular in the netbook market, is rumoured to be the chip that will be used. It will have to be lower powered than it currently is but if it proves successful it will come as a relief to the organisation who, in 2006, scrapped a $5billion investment into mobile chips as they thought they had missed the boat.

Most Nokia releases currently come with chips made by Texas, Qualcomm or Freescale. The single CPU, 434 MHz, ARM11 chip that powers Nokia’s latest flagship smartphone – the N97 – has faced early criticism for being sluggish.

This partnership could prove monumental in terms of the future of mobile phone development. Nokia are the world’s biggest manufacturer of mobile phones and Intel are the clear leaders in terms of CPU production. You do the math…s.

This deal should be confirmed later on today, so be sure to check back later for any updates.

(via Bloomberg)

Atom hits 2GHz with the Intel Z550

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Intel has broken the 2GHz barrier with their Atom Z550 CPU announced earlier today. The chip-type, made famous by the netbook and other UMPCs, will support Intel’s Hyperthreading technology and run up to 2GB of 533MHz DDR2 RAM.

The new hardware was shown off today in a conference in Beijing. It coincides with the first birthday of the Atom and this latest incarnation continues in the same mould by supplying the processing power at just 3W. Obviously a busy day for Intel.

(via Bit-Tech)

Intel shrinking its Atom processor range – 60% smaller "Pineview" model coming soon

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The super-cheap, super-small, super-popular Intel Atom processor that’s in everyone’s new laptop right now, is set for a redesign – with Intel rolling out a smaller version with more built-in functionality during the second half of 2009.

The new chip, codenamed Pineview, includes an “integrated graphics processor” and on-board memory controller, according to a report…

AMD launches 760G integrated graphics chipset

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AMD, fighting a constant battle with Intel over the PC chip market, has announced that it’s releasing a new graphics chipset aimed at low-end PCs, called the 760G. It’ll be replacing the aging 740G chipset. The company is promising an energy efficient design and ‘smooth multitasking’, as well as a “compelling out-of-box visual experience for novice gamers playing some of today’s most popular games”.

It’s the word ‘novice’ that makes me laugh, because it seems to imply that anyone who’s played PC games before will fail to find a “compelling visual experience” using this chip. The 760G supports DirectX 10, and you’ll be able to upgrade easily to a full-on ATI graphics card with the Hybrid CrossFireX technology.

The 760G will begin showing up in motherboards from Asus, ECS, Gigabyte, Asrock, MSI, Foxconn and Biostar as of today, starting with the Asus M3A76-CM, and the Gigabyte GA-MA76GM-US2.

AMD 760G (via Fudzilla)

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Graphics cards are much better than CPUs at cracking Wi-Fi passwords

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There’s a lot of software out there for cracking wireless passwords, and most of it’s legal. Why? Because it’s sold as a way for network administrators to ‘test’ their network’s security. Of course, there’s nothing to stop you ‘testing’ a network that you don’t own, in a coffee shop or airport, for example.

Most cracking programs use your PC’s CPU to do the hardcore number-crunching, but it turns out that the graphics card is actually far better at doing the kinds of calculations necessary. How good? Well, an above average quad-core CPU, the Intel Q6600 can only accomplish 1,100 passwords per second, whereas a similarly above-average ATI HD4870 graphics card can smash through 15,750 passwords per seconds.

Who woulda thunk it? Luckily, we might be seeing some of this power hit regular programs too, with Nvidia’s CUDA, ATI’s Stream, and Apple’s OpenCL frameworks. The graphics card isn’t best at every type of calculation, but if a program can intelligently route calculations to their fastest solver, then we could see blazing program speed increases in the near future.

(via HotHardware)

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