NVIDIA 28nm desktop GPU roadmap leaked

Details about NVIDIA's upcoming 28nm desktop GPUs were leaked by Asian tech site 4Gamer. The slide reveals NVIDIA's low-end parts (GK107) will arrive around Q2 2012, with mainstream parts (GK106) to follow by late Q2 2012 and a new high-end part (GK104) by mid-2012. Shortly after that we can expect a new dual-GPU model (GK110), and a new massive die chip (GK112) is anticipated by the end of the year or early 2013.

In 2012, NVIDIA is expected to embrace AMD's sweet-spot strategy, with no massive die. Instead, the top single GPU part will be GK104, featuring 384-bit 1.5 GB GDDR5 memory. GK104 is said to push out 2 TFLOPS, 30% higher than GTX 580. However, despite the smaller die, 4Gamer claims it consumes over 250W power. GK104 will release bang in the middle of 2012, perhaps during Computex time. Following right after GK104 will be GK110 - a dual GK104 flagship, thus completing NVIDIA's line-up for most of 2012 - remarkably similar to AMD's sweet spot strategy.

However, not for long, as late in 2012 / early 2013, NVIDIA plans to return back to a massive die with GK112, featuring 512-bit memory.

Source: VR Zone

NVIDIA 28nm desktop GPU roadmap leaked - More news at DV Hardware

UK desktop market shrunk 38%

KitGuru reports the UK desktop market shrunk 38%:

Although the regular consumer might not be aware of the way that the PC market shifts and changes, data experts IDC are fully aware of all the major movements in the market. So what are their latest findings? KitGuru dons a lab coat, glasses and clipboard to investigate.

UK desktop market shrunk 38% - More news at DV Hardware

Sandy Bridge Desktop CPUs and Motherboards

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Earlier this month, Intel officially announced it's new Sandy Bridge LGA 1155 CPUs and chipsets.  While we've installed and configured Mac OS X Snow Leopard successfully on these components, unfortunately they are not used in any Apple computers yet.  Therefore, they are only in the experimental stages of support, and require a non-vanilla "Legacy Kernel" to boot.

Sandy Bridge LGA 1155 CPUs are Intel's direct successor to the previous LGA 1156 Core i3/i5/i7s.  While all older Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs are able to be overclocked, all but the new K models are locked down.  The 2 unlocked models, the Core i5-2500K and Core i7-2600K show unbelievably high performance when overclocked.

Intel Sandy Bridge Desktop CPUs

• Core i7-2600K - 4 cores/8 threads - 8 MB Cache, 3.40 GHz - Unlocked for Overclocking
• Core i7-2600 - 4 cores/8 threads - 8 MB Cache, 3.40 GHz
• Core i5-2500K - 4 cores/4 threads - 6 MB Cache, 3.30 GHz - Unlocked for Overclocking
• Core i5-2500 - 4 cores/4 threads - 6 MB Cache, 3.30 GHz
• Core i5-2400 - 4 cores/4 threads - 6 MB Cache, 3.10 GHz
• Core i5-2300 - 4 cores/4 threads - 6 MB Cache, 2.80 GHz

One of the improvements that Intel included in Sandy Bridge is the new integrated graphics controller. The new integrated Intel HD 2000 or HD 3000 graphics controller offers much better performance over the previous generation Intel HD.  However, all modern Intel onboard graphics are unsupported, and there are no workarounds.  For now the only option is to use a supported graphics card.

Please note that the P67 chipset does not support the integrated graphics controller.  If you want to utilize it in other OSes, you'll need a motherboard with a H67 chipset.

Also revealed this month were most major motherboard manufacturers' LGA 1155 offerings. Interestingly, ASUS, MSI, and others have chosen to use UEFI instead of BIOS.  This allows for more user-friendly setup and customization of CPU settings, as well as providing a full OS-style graphical user interface.  Gigabyte has instead gone the traditional route, and uses the same Award BIOS most users are accustomed to.  They will however, be transitioning to a new hybrid UEFI setup within the first part of this year.  Luckily, the Chameleon bootloader works as well with UEFI as it does with BIOS.

In initial testing, it seems as if Gigabyte and ASUS motherboards could be the best bet.  They all include new features like USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 standard.  Most also feature the friendly Realtek 8111E Gigabit Ethernet network controllers, fully supported by Lnx2Mac's RealtekRTL81xx kext.  The good news continues on the audio front, as these motherboards all use Realtek ALC888b, ALC889, or ALC892- all supported codecs using MacMan's ALC8xxHDA.

Gigabyte P67 Motherboards

• GA-P67A-UD3 - ATX 
• GA-P67A-UD3P - ATX
• GA-P67A-UD3R - ATX
• GA-P67A-UD4 - ATX - eSATA
• GA-P67A-UD5 - ATX - eSATA + FW400
• GA-P67A-UD7 - ATX - eSATA + FW400 + 2 PCIEX16

Gigabyte H67 Motherboards

• GA-H67M-D2 - mATX - 2xDIMM
• GA-H67MA-D2H - mATX - 2xDIMM
• GA-H67MA-UD2H - mATX - 4xDIMM + eSATA
• GA-H67A-UD3H - ATX - eSATA + FW400

ASUS P67 Motherboards

• P8P67 - ATX
• P8P67 LE - ATX - eSATA + FW400
• P8P67 EVO - ATX - eSATA + FW400
• P8P67 PRO - ATX - eSATA + FW400 + 2 PCIEX16 
• P8P67 Deluxe - ATX - eSATA + FW400 + 2 PCIEX16
• SABERTOOTH P67 - ATX - eSATA + FW400 + 2 PCIEX16
• P8P67-M - mATX - eSATA + FW400
• P8P67-M LE - mATX - eSATA + FW400
• P8P67-M EVO - mATX - eSATA + FW400
• P8P67-M PRO - mATX - eSATA + FW400 + 2 PCIEX16

ASUS H67 Motherboards

• P8H67-M LE - mATX - 2xDIMM
• P8H67-M LX - mATX - 2xDIMM
• P8H67-M PRO - mATX - 4xDIMM
• P8H67-M EVO - mATX - 4xDIMM + eSATA + FW400

CPUs and Motherboards listed are available at the time of this posting.

All of the new Gigabyte motherboards will be added to the DSDT Database. In addition, we'll be broadening the DSDT Database beyond our current Gigabyte offerings to include a verified library of pre-edited ASUS DSDTs.

PLEASE NOTE:  Sandy Bridge CPUs and chipsets are not currently supported natively by Mac OS X Snow Leopard. We can't recommend Sandy Bridge systems yet, as there is no official support.  Hence, please don't view this as buying advice.  We don't recommend using a patched kernel for the long-term. The vanilla kernel is a much more desirable solution for a stable system.

For those of you buying new systems anyway, we've opened a special section of the forum dedicated to Sandy Bridge.  Good luck!  Let us know how it goes with these new components!

-tonymacx86 & MacMan

Unable to Scan to a Desktop From Konica Minolta

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Konica Minolta scanners allow you to scan 35 mm film strips and projector picture slides onto your computer. Troubleshooting the scanner can fix problems with scanning images to your computer desktop.

Connection

Konica Minolta scanners are connected to your computer by a USB cable. You should first check the USB connection if the scanner does not scan to your computer desktop. Locate the USB port on the back of the scanner and press the cable fully into the port. Then check that the other end of the cable is secured to a USB port on your computer.

Loading Film

Loading the film incorrectly into your Konica Minolta scanner will prevent your images from scanning onto the desktop . To properly load your film, pull open the film loader, lay a 35 mm film strip flat on the bottom part of the loader and press down on the top part of the loader until it clicks in place. Press the film loader gently into the film input slot on the scanner until the scanner grabs hold of it and pulls it fully into the scanner.

Software

The Konica Minolta scanner may not scan to the desktop if you plugged the scanner into the computer prior to installing the supplied software. If you connected the scanner prior to installing the software, uninstall the software through the Windows "Add/Remove" utility. Unplug the scanner and reinstall the software using the supplied installation disc.