Month: March 2022

Doppelt so schnell wie eine integrierte Iris Xe 96EU: Intels Arc A300 Mobile machen den Anfang, leistungsfähigere Modelle sollen folgen. Ein Bericht von Marc Sauter (IntelArc, Grafikhardware)

Intel has made big strides in bringing better integrated graphics performance to laptops in recent years, but now the company is taking a step into discrete graphics with the launch of its first Intel Arc A-Series mobile GPUs.

The company says its Arc GPUs bring significant boost in gaming, content creation, and media playback over what would be possible with integrated graphics alone, while still fitting in thin and light notebooks. The Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro 15.6 inch laptop which was announced earlier this month, is the first laptop powered by Intel Arc graphics, but Intel says it’s working with every major PC maker to bring additional models to market in the coming months.

Intel is kicking things off with the launch of entry-level Arc 3 graphics featuring 6 to 8 Intel Xe GPU cores, 4GB of GDDR6 memory, and power consumption in the 25 to 35 watt range.

This summer Intel will launch higher-performance Arc 5 and Arc 7 chips with more cores, more memory, higher power consumption, and significantly better all-around performance.

All of the new GPUs are based on Intel’s Xe HPG graphics architecture and include features like support for DirectX 12 Ultimate, hardware-accelerated ray tracing, Intel’s Xe Super Sampling (XeSS) for upscaling 1080p games to higher-res displays (20 games support the feature at launch), and XMX AI-acceleration for upscaling video content when doing things like converting low-res home movies to FHD or higher resolution.

Intel says its Arc A-series GPUs are also the first to feature built-in support for hardware-accelerated decoding and encoding of AV1 content, which allows for up to 50X faster encoding than you’d get using software alone when using tools like FFMPEG, Handbrake, Adobe Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, and XSplit.

The company is also rolling out a new Arc Control software experience for controlling graphics settings on computers with Intel Arc discrete graphics and systems with Iris Xe integrated graphics.

All told, it sounds like the Arc A-Series GPUs should bring a significant performance boost over what you’d get from integrated graphics alone. But it’s probably telling that all of Intel’s comparisons are to integrated graphics rather than to the competition from AMD and NVIDIA.

But for now at least, it seems like Intel is taking aim at laptops with entry-level discrete graphics like NVIDIA’s GeForce MX series rather than high-performance gaming or content creation machines. The company notes that not only will you find thin and light laptops with 9+ hours of battery life and Intel Evo certification featuring Arc graphics, but you’ll also find the discrete GPUs in systems priced as low as $899.

I suspect we’ll see higher prices and bigger, bulkier designs when the Arc 5 and 7 series chips launch this summer.

Here’s a run-down of some key specs for Intel’s first-gen Arc A-Series mobile GPUs:

	Arc 3 A350M	Arc 3 A370M	Arc 5 A550M	Arc 7 A730M	Arc 7 A770M
GPU	DG2-128 (ACM-G11)	DG2-128 (ACM-G11)	DG2-512 (ACM-G10)	DG2-512 (ACM-G10)	DG2-512 (ACM-G10)
Xe Cores	6	8	16	24	32
Ray Tracing Units	6	8	16	24	32
Execution Units	96	128	256	384	512
FP32 Cores	768	1024	2048	3072	4096
GPU Clock	1150 MHz	1550 MHz	900 MHz	1100 MHz	1650 MHz
GDDR6 Memory	4GB	4GB	8GB	12GB	16GB
Memory Bus	64-bit	64-bit	128-bit	192-bit	256-bit
TGP	25-35W	35-50W	60-80W	80-120W	120-150W
Availability	Now	Now	Early Summer 2022	Early Summer 2022	Early Summer 2022

Intel has also teased an upcoming “limited edition” Arc desktop GPU which is set to hit the streets this summer, but the company hasn’t provided any details about specs or performance for that graphics card.

via Intel

The post Intel launches Arc A-Series graphics for laptops, with emphasis on gaming, content creation and media appeared first on Liliputing.

Bisher ist es sehr schwer, Microsoft Edge in Windows 11 loszuwerden. Ein Button soll den Browserwechsel wieder einfacher machen. (Windows 11, Firefox)

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Ein Strafrechtler für Internetkriminalität hat über 1.500 Ordner abrufbar auf Dropbox geteilt. Laut taz vertritt er vor allem Rechtsextreme. (Datenleck, Cloud Computing)

Dataport, Dienstleister der öffentlichen Verwaltungen, erprobt mit Telefónica und Ericsson ein 5G-Campusnetz als Glasfaserersatz. (5G, Glasfaser)

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Was am 30. März 2022 neben den großen Meldungen sonst noch passiert ist, in aller Kürze. (Kurznews, Linux-Kernel)

Hardkernel’s ODROID-M1 is a new single-board computer powered by a Rockchip RK2568B2 quad-core ARM Cortex-A55 processor with Mali-G52 MP2 graphics and a 0.8 TOPS AI accelerator.

The company is selling a model with 8GB of RAM for $90, and plans to offer a 4GB model for $70, although that version is currently out of stock.

The computer measures 122 x 90 x 16mm (4.8″ x 3.5″ x 0.6″) making it significantly larger than a Raspberry Pi or other credit card-sized computers. But it’s still pretty small and cheap by desktop PC standards, and it’s a versatile little system with plenty of I/O features including:

• 1 x PCIe 3.0 x2 M.2 slot for NVMe storage
• 1 x eMMC module socket
• 1 x Gigabit Ethernet port
• 1 x HDMI 2.0 port
• 1 x 3.5mm audio jack
• 1 x mono speaker output
• 2 x USB 3.0 Type-A ports
• 2 x USB 2.0 Type-A ports
• 1 x microSD card reader
• 1 x SATA 3 connector
• 1 x 40-pin GPIO connector
• 1 x MIPI CSI 2-lane connector
• 1 x MIP DSI 4-lane connector
• 1 x IR receiver
• 1 x DC power jack

There’s also a backup battery compartment for a CR2032 coin cell battery, LED indicator lights, reset and power jumpers, and 16 MiB of SSPI flash. The system features LPDDR4 memory, and works with optional add-ons including a heat sink, camera kit, WiFi & Bluetooth module, and a metal case.

Hardkernel says the single-board computer supports Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 22.04 software using Linux kernel 4.19.219 as well as Android 11 with a 4.19.193 kernel.

The RK3568B2 processor at the heard of the system is a slight variation on the RK3568 chip that hit the streets last year. Hardkernel says supply chain issues have made the original RK3568 with metal-can packaging a bit tougher to come by, while the new B2 variant has plastic packaging and shorter lead times. There shouldn’t be much difference in terms of performance, if any at all.

Rockchip is guaranteeing 15 years of availability for both processors, which means that companies like Hardkernel might be able to continue selling and supporting devices like the ODROID-M1 through 2036.

via CNX Software

The post ODROID-M1 is a single-board computer with a RK3568B2 chip for $70 and up appeared first on Liliputing.

Zahlreichen Urlaubern mit Tui Card kündigt die Commerzbank. Über die Gründe herrscht Schweigen. (Kreditkarte, Internet)