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AMD has officially launched its latest generation accelerated processing units (APUs) for desktops, codenamed Kaveri, opening up pre-orders for selected customers ahead of general availability.
The first of AMD’s desktop APU designs to include tweaks defined by the Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) for better interoperability between the CPU and GPU portions, the first to include Graphics Core Next (GCN) technology and promising significant boosts in instructions per cycle (IPC) thanks to the new Steamroller core, it’s fair to say Kaveri is a big deal for AMD.
The flagship of the Kaveri desktop line-up is the A10-7850K, designed to take over from the A10-6800K and compete with Intel’s Core i5-4670K.
The 28nm chip’s 95W thermal design profile (TDP) gives it the headroom required for a base clock of 3.7GHz across all four cores with Turbo Mode reaching 4GHz – both a drop from the last-generation A10-6800K clock speeds, which hit 4.1GHz stock and 4.4GHz Turbo.
Compared to its predecessor, however, the A10-7850K claims a 20 per cent boost in IPC – which should translate to improved performance despite the loss of clock speed.
The GPU portion of the chip, too, has seen a down-clock from 844MHz to 720MHz – but, as with the move to Steamroller on the CPU side, AMD is pointing to the shift to GCN and an increase to 512 shaders as more than making up for that in true performance.
Indeed, figures released by the company show the A10-7850K running the PCMark benchmark some 24 per cent faster than an Intel Core i5-4670K and the 3DMark suite 87 per cent faster, compared to boosts of 15 per cent and 37 per cent for the last-generation A10-6800K.
As before, the chip supports four threads but this time offers improved cache memory: in addition to a boost from two 64KB L1 instruction caches to two 96KB caches, both L1 and L2 caches now benefit from associative sharing – designed to help the CPU and GPU cooperate on tasks, and a major part of the promise of HSA.
The company has confirmed that OEMs are able to pre-order the part now, alongside a lower-end A10-7700K part, with the first products to appear in the coming weeks.
AMD has not, however, provided a date for retail availability.
The standalone version of DayZ was released on Steam Early Access in mid-December.
The standalone version of open-world survival game DayZ is off to a remarkable start, having sold over 800,000 copies in less than three weeks — a figure that far outpaces the amount its developer hoped to sell in the game’s first three months.
In a comment on Reddit, DayZ creator Dean Hall explained what the expectations for the game were and what this outpouring of support means for the game.
“We ([publisher Bohemia Interactive] and I) had very ambitious plans for 2014 already, however this amount of sales was completely unexpected,”
he wrote.
“Honestly, 250k within a quarter was what I would have considered a success. So to move nearly 800,000 in under a month is crazy.
“We’ll be finalizing our roadmap in mid January, but it is safe to say that this kind of result will be having a very positive effect on that roadmap.”
DayZ started out as a mod for PC shooter ArmA II and quickly became incredibly popular. Hall had aspirations of turning the mod into a standalone game from the start, with that project officially being announced in mid-2012. The game has already served as the inspiration for a number of other games — some more so than others — and last month an alpha version was released on Steam as an Early Access game.
In just 12 hours, it had already seen 88,000 downloads and was attracting new player registrations at a rate of 200 per second. Now, less than three weeks later, DayZ is well on its way to one million units sold, and all without the benefit of a Steam sale — the game was routinely among the top sellers on Steam during the Steam Holiday Sale despite not being on sale.
Hall is admirably not shy about cautioning some people away from buying the game at this stage. Games in Early Access can be at many different stages of development, some more complete and playable than others. While DayZ is playable, it’s far from finished. After explaining that buying the alpha now gets you the full version once it’s released, Hall advised one prospective buyer on Reddit,
“I would recommend a very careful and critical review of whether purchasing now is such a good idea. There are many problems which can ruin your gameplay experience. These are being actively fixed – but if you delayed your purchase by a month you would pay the same price but it would be a better experience. Something to consider.”
Yesterday the Playstation Europe blog announced something that I think many fans of Sony’s console have been wanting for a while: that Minecraft was getting a console version for the Playstation 3 within the week.
In the blog ‘Owen from Mojang’ gives a quick overview of the game, introducing its concept for those not aware of it yet and answering the questions that are most likely to be frequently asked. The release will be a download from the Playstation Store with planned versions for the Vita and the next-gen Playstation 4 in the works although these version don’t yet have release dates. Upon download Minecraft: Playstation 3 Edition will be as up-to-date as its Xbox counterpart and both console versions of the game should now be released at the same time.
Skins and other content will also be available to download from the Store soon after the release, although there’s not yet word on if any of it will be Sony-exclusive. There’s also no word on compatibility with the upcoming Vita and PS4 version and as always Herobrine will remain a mere myth within the game (maybe, that question was answered with a ‘probably not’ so…)
Minecraft: Playstation 3 Edition will be available to download from the Playstation Store from the December 18th.
A retailer in the UK has accidentally sent some customers a free PlayStation Vita. And is now resorting to some heavy methods in an attempt to get them back.
According to a report on Eurogamer, “a number” of people who had preordered Vita game Tearaway were instead sent a Tearaway PlayStation Vita bundle, which included the game and the hardware.
Upon realising its error, the retailer – Zavvi – asked for the bundles to be sent back. And that’s where things get messy.
British customer rights website What Consumer says “if you’ve been sent unsolicited goods, you are entitled to treat them as an unconditional gift and do with them as you choose.”
Understandably, some of those affected have done just that, leading Zavvi to send out further letters, including a “final notice” that reads:
This is our final notice to politely remind you that you did not order, or pay for, a PS Vita and if you fail to contact us by 5pm (UK time) on 10th December 2013 to arrange a convenient time for the PS Vita to be collected we reserve the right to enforce any and/or all legal remedies available to us.
Normally in these circumstances, the retailer would admit the mistake and simply take the hit. It’s rare a company would try and engage in a move like this; the PR backlash will probably make them wish they’d never bothered.
As expected, today it’s been confirmed that the PlayStation 4 has become the fastest-selling console in the UK history.
Chart-Track has announced that PS4 surpassed PSP’s sales record of 185,000 units sold at launch, although no concrete figures for the PS4 have been announced.
We expect that we may hear of a few more broken records for PS4 before the day is out.
