Intel High Definition Audio

Intel High Definition Audio will offer users 192-kHz quality, 32-bit, multi-channel audio (multi-streaming) together with multiple array microphones for improved audio quality. The name High Definition Audio is meant to reflect the fusion of advanced audio capabilities in PCs and consumer electronics. Developed by Intel with broad support from PC and CE manufacturers, codec vendors, software providers and other industry players, High Definition Audio is built on a flexible, dynamic, cost-effective and stable architecture with headroom for future expansion.  

For more detailed information see: http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/hdaudio.htm

Comparison of current AC'97 specifications to new Intel High Definition Audio

Intel will also provide the Audio Studio Software to support the full range of functions and features of the HD Audio platform.

The new ICH6R Southbridge will make its appearance with the 925/915 chipsets on the next generation motherboards. The "R" is for RAID and this chipset will support 4 SATA hard drives and it features Intel Matrix Storage Technology.

This feature is able to create multiple "virtual RAID arrays" (RAID 0 and 1) to maximize space, data protection, and performance. Intel Matrix Storage Technology combines the advantages of conventional RAID 0 and RAID 1, composing Matrix RAID with only two hard drives. You can protect your important data with RAID 1 and increase your productivity with the higher performance of RAID 0. This is a great new option for home and business users who are increasingly demanding better storage options and is part of the growing momentum shift of IDE drives to SATA interface.

Another enhanced SATA technology that is part of the ICH6R is called Hardware Accelerated Native Command Queuing (adopted from the SATA 2.0 specifications). This feature makes more efficient use of SATA command protocol and streamlines the data transfer portion of queued commands by allowing the drive itself to reorder commands based on disk organization and angular position (that is to read information in the most efficient way based on where the data is stored on the disk).

The RADEON X800 Pro will be powered by a 12-pipeline pixel processing engine clocked at 475MHz. The RADEON X800 Pro  has been paired with high-speed 900GHz data rate GDDR3 Samsung memory chips, a 256-bit memory interface.

The R420 series is based upon a single chip only. Both the 16 pipeline    version and the 12 pipeline version of the card consist of 160 million transistors. The pipelines operate in quads and ATI hinted at a 8 and 4 pipe version of the R420. The single chip across all lines solution allows for better binning of parts. If one quad fails, the chip does not become useless as it can be relegated to being a lower end card. ATI is also aware of soft mudding and said they have taken steps in hardware to prevent the unlocking of disabled pipelines.

RADEON™ X800 Real-Time Demos link here: http://www.ati.com/developer/demos/rx800.html 

RADEON X800 Pro

475MHz engine
0.13 micron low-k process
900MHz memory data rate
256-bit memory interface
256MB GDDR3 memory
12 pixel pipes
6 vertex pipes

RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition

520MHz engine
0.13 micron low-k process
1.12GHz memory data rate
256-bit memory interface
256MB GDDR3 memory
16 pixel pipes
6 vertex pipes

The following is a list of the significant features that the R420 chip makes available.

RADEON X800 Technology Specifications

1. 160 million transistors on 0.13 micron low-k fabrication process
2. Up to sixteen extreme parallel pixel pipelines
3. Six programmable vertex shader pipelines
4. 256-bit quad-channel GDDR3 memory interface
5. AGP 8X support

SMARTSHADER™ HD

1. Support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware
2. Direct X 9.0 Vertex Shaders

Vertex programs up to 65,280 instructions with flow control
Single cycle trigonometric operations (SIN & COS)

3. Direct X 9.0 Extended Pixel Shaders

Up to 1,536 instructions and 16textures per rendering pass
2nd generation F-buffer technology accelerates multi-pass pixel shaders programs with unlimited instructions
32 temporary and constant registers
Facing register for two-sided lighting
128-bit, 64-bit & 32-bit per pixel floating point color formats
Multiple Render Target (MRT) support

4. Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL® via extensions

SMOOTHVISION™ HD

1. 2x/4x/6x Anti-Aliasing modes

Sparse multi-sample algorithm with gamma correction, programmable sample patterns, and centroid sampling
Lossless Color Compression (up to6:1)at all resolutions, including widescreen HDTV resolutions
Temporal Anti-Aliasing

2. 2x/4x/8x/16x Anisotropic Filtering modes

Up to 128-tap texture filtering
Adaptive algorithm with bilinear (performance) and trilinear (quality) options

3Dc™

High quality 4:1 Normal Map Compression
Works with any two-channel data format

HYPER Z™ HD

3-level Hierarchical Z-Buffer with Early Z Test
Lossless Z-Buffer Compression (up to 48:1)
Fast Z-Buffer Clear
Z Cache optimized for real-time shadow rendering
Optimized for performance at high display resolutions, including widescreen HDTV resolutions

VIDEOSHADER™ HD

Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time
FULLSTREAM™ video de-blocking technology for Real, DivX, and WMV9 formats
VIDEOSOAP™ noise removal filtering for captured video
MPEG1/2/4 decode and encode acceleration

DXVA Support
Hardware Motion Compensation, iDCT, DCT and color space conversion

All-format DTV/HDTV decoding
YPrPb component output for direct drive of HDTV displays
Adaptive Per-Pixel De-Interlacing and Frame Rate Conversion (temporal filtering)
Dual integrated display controllers
Dual integrated 10 bit per channel 400 MHz DACs Integrated 165 MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI 1.0 / HDMI compliant and HDCP ready)
Integrated TV Output support up to 1024x768 resolution
Windows® Logo Program compliant
CATALYST™ Software Suite

Pioneer was the first to introduce the DVD-R/-RW format technology. Shortly after Pioneer's announcement Philips announced the development of the DVD+R/+RW format. Ever since then, these two format became the dominant in the DVD recordable world and in competition for standardization but it's a drawn battle. Since the (-R/-RW) and (+R/+RW) are different formats,  they are not compatible with one another. Now, thanks to Philips and MKM (Mitsubishi Kagaku Media)/Verbatim engineering, DVD technology is making another amazing breakthrough as the DVD+R/+RW Alliance is adding a new format to the +R family.

Introducing Philips and MKM dual-layer DVD+R technology

The traditional +R/+RW single-sided 12-cm disc have a capacity of 4.7 GB of data storage and 2 hours of DVD quality video.  With the dual-layer technology, it offers 8.5 GB of data storage or 4 hours of DVD quality video or 16 hours of VHS quality video on a single-sided 12-cm disc. To achieve this high capacities, an extra storage layer was added to the same side of the disc. This is different from traditional double-sided DVD+R disc. Double-sided DVD+R disc provides 4.7 GB of data storage on both side, which is equal to a total of 9.4 GB but the disc has to be physically turned over to utilize the other side. Large file or video which exceed 4.7 GB requires to be split and  recorded to the other side.  However, with the single-side dual-layer DVD+R (DVD+R 9) there is no need to split file or video that are beyond 4.7 GB until it reaches it's max, which is 8.5 GB.

Nevertheless, the traditional single layer DVD recordable disc contains one layer of chemical substrate that is hit (burned) by a laser. The laser creates small holes in this chemical substrate. This creates so call pits and lands, better known as 1’s and 0’s (a computer language). A dual layer contains two layers of this chemical substrate known as dye films and by refocusing the laser beam intensity, both layers can be written.  Furthermore, to make it compatible with standard DVD player was another task because they cannot read dual-layer DVD recordable discs but can read pressed (DVD-ROM standard) dual-layer discs.  Therefore, a thin metal reflector was used above the dye films to give of reflectivity from the layer of at least 18% in compliance with the dual-layer DVD-ROM standard.

The dual-layer DVD+R technology develop by Philips and MKM which is a highly new technology and it will be the next milestone for optical storage.  For that reason many DVDs recorder manufacture are producing new DVDs recorder in order to write and read the DVD+R 9 format. The initial write speed for DVD+R 9 format is 2.4X (3.17MB/s = ~43 minutes) and MKM/Verbatim will be the first to manufacture the disc.  This is just the beginning for this new technology to surface and it is already make a hit in the market.