XDR DRAM is also known as extreme data rate or a dynamic random access memory. It is a high performance RAM interface and is seen as an effective successor to Rambus RDRAM. The specialty of DRAM is that it stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor with an integrated circuit.

XDR was designed to be effective in small, high performance memory application and high end GPUs. XDR is basically used by Sony in play station 3 consoles.

Performance – at present the initial clock rate is at 400 MHz, and 600 MHz, 800 MHz and 1066 MHz models are being planned for the future. Octal data rate is around Eight bits per clock cycle per lane. Each chip provides up to 230.4 Gbit/s and the chip provides 8, 16 or 32 programmable lanes.

Features – There is a Bi-directional differential Rambus Signalling Levels (DRSL) which uses open collector driver and voltage swing 0.2V. There is a programmable on chip termination feature. There is 8 bank memory architecture, Adaptive impedance matching, dynamic request scheduling, and zero overhead refresh, Early-read-after-write support for maximum efficiency, Point-to-point data interconnection feature and Chip scale package packaging.

Power requirements – The system consists of low power PLL/DLL design, 1.8 V VDD, Programmable ultra-low-voltage DRSL 200 mV swing, Power-down self-refresh support, Dynamic data width support with dynamic clock gating, Per-pin I/O power-down and Sub-page activation support.

The system design consists of Per-bit FlexPhase circuits compensate to a 2.5 ps resolution and an XDR Interconnect using minimum pin count.

Protocol – XDR DRAM consists of high speed signals which are differential clock input, a 12 bit single- ended request/command bus. This request bus may be connected to several memory chips in parallel connection, but the data bus is point to point. But it should be ensured that only one ram chip may be connected to it.

Hence XDR DRAM is an effective one which eliminates high latency problems, these lay high emphasis on per pin bandwidth which can further benefit cost control.

We enjoy opening new boxes that come from ASRock. They're one of our fave motherboard providers when it comes to delivering high worth performance solutions.

We were talking with them just two weeks back about their BIOS updates for the X58 Supercomputer X58 motherboard that permits 2000+ memory clocking now with general enhancements when running all 4 x16 (x8 electrical) slots populated with the GTX295 boards. They discussed a new X58 motherboard design and questioned if we would have liked to look at it.

We naturally required and thought nothing else of it till the package arrived 1 or 2 days back.

We ripped the box open, that's till we started spotting a cleaner layout, power / reset / CMOS switches, a new 8-phase power delivery system, and a surplus of fan headers. However, the hackneyed rock that hit us on the head was the tiny note with the suggested MSRP of $169.99. Yes, that is right, we ultimately have a full specification ATX X58 based motherboard below the $170 mark without a discount or reduced feature set. While you might buy a great AMD 780G board and processor in that price range, this a quite reasonable price for an X58 product. We would have liked to supply a full review of the product before it launched, but it turned up for sale sooner than predicted.
This is excellent news for bargain hunters taking a look at upgrading to the X58 / i7 mix, awful news for us. As such, we are providing an especially fast first look (preview) of the ASRock X58 Extraordinary today with further details to follow in the future. Taking a fast look round this board, we find the final layout is glorious. ASRock placed 24-pin and 8-pin ATX power connectors, IDE / Floppy connector, and the SATA ports along the fringe of the motherboard. The board features 2 PCIe x1 slots, 2 PCI slots, and 3 PCIe x16 slots (x16 / x16 / x4). The CPU area is uncluttered and the heatsink design is like the Energy Monsoon III won't meddle with memory in the first dimm slot.

The back of the board is clean and all our varied air / water coolers that needed a back plate worked fine. ASRock comprises the standard array of elements like the Realtek ALC890 HD audio codec, Realtek RTL8111D, Thru VT6330 IEEE 1394a / IDE combo chipset, Intel ICH10R for SATA and RAID support on 6 ports, with full support for the Core i7 processor series. 5 frame fan headers offer speed but not temperature control along with full hardware monitoring and control thru the BIOS or ASRock's software application. Last but not least, ASRock actualized a new 8-phase power delivery system together with having the 1st EuP (Energy using Product, 1W or less power usage when off) compliant motherboard. The rear panel features the standard PS / two mouse and keyboard ports, optical / coaxial SPDIF out ports, 7 USB 2.0 ports, powered eSATA / USB port, Gigabit LAN port, IEEE 1394a port, and a handy Clear CMOS switch. ASRock was generous enough at this price point to incorporate Power and Reset switches together with an LED POST display. They also include an excellent accessories bundle.
You get the standard rear I / O panel cover together with one x IDE / Floppy wire, four x SATA wires, two x SATA power wires, and SLI bridge card. An educational manual and software CD is included that contains their IES, OC Tuner, and Instant Boot applications.

The board also has the new Instant Flash application that permits the user to flash the BIOS from the POST screen or through a BIOS option setup. Talking of the BIOS, the final design is geared for the general fan with many automobile overclocking options and an honest array of manual timings. ASRock includes enough options so we didn't have any issues maximizing our overclocks with air or water cooling options. We continue to think VTT voltage options should include finite (about a .05V difference between settings) settings of 0.01V steps. Overall, the AMI based BIOS design is clean and tidy.

We searched all over 2 continents for a motherboard containing AMD's 785G chipset. After we identified our target, we scoped it out, constructed a snatch and grab plan, and then waited till the time was right. We assumed the time was right last week to swoop in and grab the object of our want. Sure enough, the plan went off without a hitch as we brought the Gb. GA-MA785GPMT-UD2H back to the laboratories for integration. Before we could even try our hands at water boarding Gig's latest multimedia wonder, testing came to a grinding halt. It appears that in our rush to secure this motherboard that we overlooked one critical aspect during our inquiry. It seems the driver set we were privy to for testing is an early beta set missing many crucial driver features while AMD is still optimizing performance. We encountered no stability issues running a large number of baselines, but the absence of features and optimizations exclude us from publishing a food first look, particularly for those wanting to use this new platform in an HTPC or SFF gaming system. Naturally, there were talks with AMD explaining some of the early issues we ran into during testing. As such, AMD requested that we wait till the drivers are mature and based totally on early test results we intend to heed their requests. What we are able to do today is debate some early findings and supply 2 results that imply of the board's capacity with an early BIOS and a fast look at Blu-ray playback results. Straight off even with less than stellar drivers, the board's performance was equivalent to or better than the existing 780G / 790GX motherboards and it'll only improve. How much is up for debate as AMD elected the new chipset merely a half point higher for a reason. The graphics core in the 785G is upgraded from the HD3200 / 3300 exploited in the 780G / 790GX to the HD4200. The first difference between the cores is that the HD4200 absolutely supports DX10.1, Unified Video Decoder 2.0 ( UVD ), hardware sped up picture in picture capacities, dynamic contrast, HQ video scaling, hardware speeded up video transcoding, and full Powerplay support.

The graphics core still runs at 500MHz ( in current form ) and at least in our particular sample, we were in a position to reach 1057MHz without too much difficulty. What does all this mean? For one, thanks to the HD4200, AMD ultimately offers multi-channel LPCM audio output and extra hardware video speeded up functions. So far as performance is concerned expect a 5% 15% performance increase in games.
That sounds galvanizing, but playing the Sims3 at 1024x768 with medium quality settings ended in a typical framerate increase from 23.9fps on the 780G to 26.1fps on the 785G with alpha level drivers. The most important difference happened in minimum refresh rates with an increase from 12fps on the 780G to 15fps on the 785G.

Otherwise, the GPU capacities are fine for casual gaming ( Plants vs Undead ) and flash based games. Naturally most users buying this kind of product are not that inquisitive about gaming and if you're, then we highly suggest purchasing a HD 4770 or HD 4850 for 1680x1050 or below resolutions. Anything higher, and we suggest a HD 4890 based totally on current price to performance proportions. The main point of this chipset is to capture the main line desktop market, you know, the market where ninety percent of units sold are with integrated graphic capacities only. When coupled with the Athlon II X2 250 processor we employed in early testing, this platform is an intensely motivating alternative option to the Intel G41 / E6300 mixture.

Considering the amount of features and platform performance that AMD provides with the 785G / SB710 chipset compared to the G41 / ICH7, we have got to ask why one go the Intel route, even this early in the game.
Our original plans requested a direct comparison between the 2 platforms but that will need to wait till the official release this month with production prepared drivers. AMD will have an official release applicant prepared at once and we are expecting the boards to ship with the 9.8 Catalyst driver set. That expounded, early results with HD video playback are extremely promising.

The majority of missing driver features center on the absence of Avivo options. Vector Adaptive de-interlacing was working in our driver set with Aero enabled under Windows seven Final x64 ( build 7600 ), but we spotted some slight edge flickering in titles like Wanted and The Dark Knight. The whole Avivo section in the driver set is missing so we don't know if features like HD Color Vibrance, HD Flesh Tone, HD Pulldown detection, HD edge enhancement, and dynamic contrast will be fully supported or not. We have asked the question and will have an update after we receive an answer. 1080p / twenty-four support is working correctly as is multi-channel LPCM audio output thru many A / V receivers.

When Apple announced about the first ever iMac to offer a quad-core processor, the new high-end 27-inch iMacs were the first to use Intel’s Core i5 and Core i7 quad-core processors, but unfortunately they weren’t available during time of the announcement. But finally, the wait was over, and the Core i5 and Core i7 27-inch iMacs have arrived by letting us worth for the waiting.

There consist four standard iMac configurations, three of which have 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo processors and were reviewed recently. The fourth standard configuration was a $1999 model that has the same 27-inch screen, 1TB hard drive, and 4GB of RAM as the $1699 27-inch 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo iMac but features a more powerful ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and Intel’s Core i5 quad-core processor running at 2.66GHz. The Core i5 has 8MB of L3 which holds share among the processing cores. The Core i5 features deals with a technology Intel calls Turbo Boost. If application isn’t using every available core, then the cores idly shut off, and the active cores speed up. According to the Apple Company, this allows the processor to run up to 20 percent faster under heavy workloads; that translates to 3.2GHz in this iMac.An upgrade option to the Core i5 iMac, which swaps in a 2.8GHz .Core i7 quad-core processor for $200 more. The Core i7 also features Turbo Boost (for speeds of up to 3.46GHz), and it also has Hyper-Threading technology that can present itself to highly threaded applications as having eight virtual cores.

Tests regarding the built-to-order Core i7 iMac (which, other than the processor, has identical specifications as the stock Core i5 iMac) showed even greater performance prowess. With a Speed marking of 6 score of 225, the $2199 Core i7 iMac was nearly 8 percent faster than the Core i5 iMac. The Core i7 was nearly 11 percent faster than the $2499 2.66GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro and 9 percent faster than the 2.26GHz 8-Core Mac Pro, which sellsfor $1100 more. In tests conducted, there were a few tasks which where having eight physical processing cores was beneficial, like our Mathematical Mark and Cinebench CPU tests. Though these are just a few specific tests and users’ real-world mileage will vary.

Fortunately it does show that the fastest iMac can hang around with the Mac Pros. In fact, only if  you need to add internal RAID hard drives and/or extra PCI cards (or hate the hi-shine™ display).It is hard to imagine  about many cases where the Mac Pro workstation makes more sense than the cheaper, faster iMac Core i7 that also includes the best display that Apple produces. By the time we buy a led screen for the Mac pro our children could have 2 imacs of the same price.