There has been much speculation on when the upcoming Trinity, Brazos 2.0 and Vishera AMD CPUs for desktops will reach the market. Detailed schedules on the release of these chips were leaked on the internet today.

The 2nd quarter of this year (2012) will be the scheduled release date for Trinity, the successors of the Llano processors. This will feature the release of the new A10 and A8 Fusion CPUs. A10-5800 and A10-5700 will have the built-in AMD Radeon HD 7660D while the A8 counterparts (A8-5500 and A8-5600) will carry a cut-down GPU, HD 7560D. GPU performance for the Trinity CPUs will just be slightly below the HD 7670, which is a known rebrand of the current HD 6670.

Brazos 2.0 will also be released in the second quarter of 2012. This will introduce essential APUs such as the AMD E2-1800 and E1-1200, which also comes with a AMD Radeon HD 7340 and HD 7310 on-board GPUs respectively. These APUs would replace the existing E-450 and E-300. The E2-1800 and E1-1200 will still come in dual-core models 18W TDP, but it would feature Turbo Core technology, USB 3.0 and improvements on the chipset end. Q2 2012 would also be the time for additions of the current FX lineup with FX-6200 and FX-4120.

Q3 2012, however, will be the scheduled release for the FX successor - the Vishera. These would include the 8-core FX-8350 and FX-8320, 6-core FX-6300, and the 4-core FX-4320. Astounding attributes of the Vishera would include 4 Piledriver modules with different core count models. In the meantime, Q3 will also key in the addition of the other Trinity low-end lineup such as the A6-5400 and A4-5300.

More things are coming up for AMD this year. Let's hope that AMD can stick with their schedule and give end-users the needed boost in performance.

Source: DonanimHaber

For most enthusiasts, overclocking capability (pushing a component through its limits, increasing performance and temps at the same time) is one of the deciding factor when purchasing processors. In the recent years, aside from some Intel CPUs, such as the K editions, AMD has been the preferred by most enthusiasts with a wide variety of its unlocked editions and cheaper cost. However, the downside of overclocking is that it will void any warranty in your component. Just recently, Intel announced a protection plan for Overclockers on their CPUs.

Performance Tuning Protection Plan, Intel's new replacement plan, entitles an Intel user with an out-of-warranty service offers in the event of component damage caused by putting too much voltage by the user or simply during overclocking. The plan user is entitled to an immediate single replacement for the damaged CPU, and, in no terms, overrides the standard 3-year warranty offered on most Intel products. The only sad thing about this new feature is that it comes with an extra price tag and is only limited on certain unlocked models.

Unfortunately, I doubt that this will ever be implemented in the Philippines. Do note that this additional price plan models are designed for North American users, as of the moment.

With the holidays still kicking in and a bit of money still hanging on our pockets, let's take a look at the December 2011 rig of the month. This time around, we look at what AMD Bulldozer can offer and how much its going to cost us to build an overclocking rig with this FX chip.

Click the picture to read more on December 2011's Rig of the Month.

Even with the recent announcement of AMD to defer from focusing on high-end desktop CPUs, the long time Intel-rival company has announced its next in line of the Llano processors.

Unlocked versions of the Llano CPU will soon be available in the market - A8-3870K and A6-3670K. There has been information that these CPUs will be placed on higher tiers of the current A8 and A6 Llano regiment. The new A8-3870K and A6-3670K will be marked at 100W and are to have 3.0 GHz and 2.7 GHz of clockspeed. Since it is unlocked versions, overclocking should be a breeze in these new CPUs. 

Sometime soon, this will hit the local stores and probably would make current AMD FM1 socket CPUs to slightly decrease in prices. Though this may not be as powerful as Intel CPUs, let's hope that this will still be an astounding contender as its predecessors have gained.

With all the hyped phenomenon over the past month of Bulldozer release (which was a bit disappointing), Intel finally released their own chip to broaden the leading gap passed its competitor. A few days ago, Intel released the Core i7-3000 series, codename "Sandybridge-E".

Intel started off by releasing two new models which follow the LGA 2011 platform. These are the Corei7-3960X Extreme Edition and the Core i7-3960K. Apart from these models, a Corei7-3820 is also for release early next year. The newer chip features the amazing quad-channel memory architecture, which is able to run up to 1,600 MHz of DDR3 memory modules officially. The recent memory controller development is what makes it apart from its predecessor, Sandybridge architecture, which only has a limited triple-channel memory supporting up to 1,066 MHz. Adding to its features, the new Sandybridge-E chip also allows a total of 40 PCI-Express lanes in the video card configuration.

Although it may only be a matter of time before these new technology reaches our shore, this may bring about a whole new gaming and computing experience for the end-users. Hopefully, low-end CPUs based on this new architecture will be introduced the following year.

With a limited budget of only Php 23,000... check out our budget gaming rig based on the Intel's Sandybridge platform. Click the picture for more information.

By now, everyone should be wondering why hard disk prices are packing up as much as 50% in a matter of days. It's been said that majority of the hard disk are made and manufactured in Thailand, and this has caused a domino effect on the hardware market - and pretty strong too!

Most of the major hard disk companies such as Western Digital and Seagate has commented that their factories have been flooded and some equipment may require some drying. Western Digital has announced that it might fall short of its goal of producing the planned 58 million units. Instead, WD projected that it will only reach as much as 22 to 26 million in production counts by the end of the year.

Most of the computer hardware consumers why there are some local distributors (such as Gaisano Interpace) who have halted individual purchases on components and prioritized more on bulk purchasers. The Thai flooding seriously affected the computer hardware industry, and with the last quarter coming up - prices are expected to rise much higher than expected this time around. Let's hope our beloved hard drive companies can recover from this loss soon and the market can enjoy lower prices on components again.

Dear subscribers,

We would like to apologize for our inactivity for the past few weeks. Currently, PinoyPC's developer has engaged in a business trip overseas and finding a good and stable connection is really difficult. Because of this, we were not able to post Rig of the Month for August and July. Good news though, we are now able to setup a stable connection and our operation will follow shortly. Stay tune for more things to come and watch for September's rig of the month. Cheers!


--Ulrikov

Yes, you've heard it right... Samsung has announced that it will release 512GB solid state drives! The featured product is already entering mass production phases as earlier said by the Korean company. It has been said that these magnificent products will enter the mainstream market in notebooks at the end of this year.

The Samsung 512GB SSD will take advantage of the newer multi-level flash technology and even comes with its own controller. Read speeds on this awesome component will be able to reach up to 500 MB/s and write speeds of about 350 MB/s, which are still pretty decent.

Although there has been no word on how much these component will cause, it will probably run for a high pricey edge. Though it may take a while before this product line will reach the Philippines (maybe early 2012), it's still a good point to look forward to the upcoming better components Samsung has to offer.

If one hears AMD or Radeon, one thing pops in our mind. It's simply the hardcore processor or the astounding graphic cards which are very popular throughout gamers and enthusiasts alike. But this time around, we're in for a shocker. One of our favourite processor companies, AMD has established a new line of memory modules. Yup, you heard me right - AMD Memory!

Well, like all other brands, AMD categorized their memory product lines into different segments serving different consumer needs - ultra pro gaming, entertainment, and business enterprise types. These memory lines seem to have found their way in Japan. AMD ultra pro gaming modules clocks at 1600 MHz with a latency of 11-11-11, entertainment memory type seems to be pegged at 1333MHz with a slightly faster latency of 9-9-9 and business enterprise types clocks were not yet posted, even in the AMD website.

So far these memory modules are still out in Japan and basically limited only to 2GB sticks. While it may seem to be a good idea to set up a system purely based in the AMD pyramid, we'll just have to sit back and wait for it to reach our Filipino computer outlets.