Not so long ago AMD held a private presentation for investors and partners dedicated to the strategic plans for 2013. Its PDF-version has recently appeared online and immediately called attention of all interested parties. The most unexpected news concerned the long-awaited Steamroller micro-architecture. According to AMD, the debut of an advanced architecture will be accomplished in the current year, not in 2014 as it was informed earlier. Steamroller will be incorporated into an updated series of AMD Opteron server processors which are to ensure an improved efficiency level on parallel data processing operations.


The other promising piece of news touches upon the launch of a new APU series already this year: AMD Kabini and AMD Temash. Kabini is going to replace Brazos platform employed in small-sized multimedia systems and other hand portable solutions. In its turn, Temash is going to be implemented into highly-efficient tablet PCs, running under Windows 8 OS platform.
… …

Data interface Thunderbolt from Intel company entered the market in February 2011 in the Apple MacBook Pro laptop. By combining in the one interface PCI Express and DisplayPort, it now offers data rates up to 10 Gbit / s. On the more common personal computers the interface began to be applied recently, as part of the laptop and PC top price category.



Intel plans to introduce a new controller interface Redwood Ridge Thunderbolt for use in personal computers in the second quarter of next year. It is likely that the new controllers will form the platform of the Shark Bay for next generation processors under the name of Haswell.


Controllers Redwood Ridge will support completely the same data rate 10 Gb / s, interface DisplayPort v1.1 and function DisplayPort v1.2 Redriver. At present, even the cheapest chips Thunderbolt, 2-channel Cactus Ridge, cost motherboard manufacturers at about $ 20, and many consumers expect that emergence of new generations of controllers will reduce …

The ID-Cooling manufacturer keeps enriching its liquid cooling systems product range aimed at processing units. This time we are speaking about the closed-type ID-Cooling Auraflow 240 system, which stands out for its RGB LED-lighting, being able to synchronize colour and effects with the Asus Aura solution.



The water block is equipped with a C-shaped light diffuser. The heatsink fans are also illuminated; and the backlighting is powered through a stand-alone 12 V connector on the baseboard.


The 65x36 mm water block is backed by a copper cooler with scaled-down submerged ribs, which enlarges the overall heat transfer area. Ceramic bearings’ projected service life is up to 50,000 hours at the 2,100 rpm rotary velocity. Meanwhile, the noise level doesn’t exceed 25 dBA.


ID-Cooling Auraflow 240 features an aluminium heat dissipator, two 120 mm SF-12025 fans, 315 mm long sleeves, protected by the textile braiding. At the initial 7 V loading fans rotate at the 700–1,800 …